The Whole Foods Alternative to Obamacare: A Guest Blogpost

[With credit to the Wall Street Journal....you'll notice Mr Mackey is echoing some of the proposals we've suggested in this blog before]

By JOHN MACKEY
“The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out
of other people’s money.”

—Margaret Thatcher


With a projected $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009, several trillions more in deficits projected over the next decade, and with both Medicare and Social Security entitlement spending about to ratchet up several notches over the next 15 years as Baby Boomers become eligible for both, we are rapidly running out of other people’s money. These deficits are simply not sustainable. They are either going to result in unprecedented new taxes and inflation, or they will bankrupt us.

While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system. Instead, we should be trying to achieve reforms by moving in the opposite direction—toward less government control and more individual empowerment. Here are eight reforms that would greatly lower the cost of health care for everyone:

• Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs). The combination of high-deductible health insurance and HSAs is one solution that could solve many of our health-care problems. For example, Whole Foods Market pays 100% of the premiums for all our team members who work 30 hours or more per week (about 89% of all team members) for our high-deductible health-insurance plan. We also provide up to $1,800 per year in additional health-care dollars through deposits into employees’ Personal Wellness Accounts to spend as they choose on their own health and wellness.

Money not spent in one year rolls over to the next and grows over time. Our team members therefore spend their own health-care dollars until the annual deductible is covered (about $2,500) and the insurance plan kicks in. This creates incentives to spend the first $2,500 more carefully. Our plan’s costs are much lower than typical health insurance, while providing a very high degree of worker satisfaction.

• Equalize the tax laws so that that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not. This is unfair.

• Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.

• Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.

• Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.

• Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total cost of their last doctor’s visit and how that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without knowing how much they will cost us?

• Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and responsibility.

• Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren’t covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?

Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That’s because there isn’t any. This “right” has never existed in America

Even in countries like Canada and the U.K., there is no intrinsic right to health care. Rather, citizens in these countries are told by government bureaucrats what health-care treatments they are eligible to receive and when they can receive them. All countries with socialized medicine ration health care by forcing their citizens to wait in lines to receive scarce treatments.

Although Canada has a population smaller than California, 830,000 Canadians are currently waiting to be admitted to a hospital or to get treatment, according to a report last month in Investor’s Business Daily. In England, the waiting list is 1.8 million.

At Whole Foods we allow our team members to vote on what benefits they most want the company to fund. Our Canadian and British employees express their benefit preferences very clearly—they want supplemental health-care dollars that they can control and spend themselves without permission from their governments. Why would they want such additional health-care benefit dollars if they already have an “intrinsic right to health care”? The answer is clear—no such right truly exists in either Canada or the U.K.—or in any other country.

Rather than increase government spending and control, we need to address the root causes of poor health. This begins with the realization that every American adult is responsible for his or her own health.

Unfortunately many of our health-care problems are self-inflicted: two-thirds of Americans are now overweight and one-third are obese. Most of the diseases that kill us and account for about 70% of all health-care spending—heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and obesity—are mostly preventable through proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices.


Recent scientific and medical evidence shows that a diet consisting of foods that are plant-based, nutrient dense and low-fat will help prevent and often reverse most degenerative diseases that kill us and are expensive to treat. We should be able to live largely disease-free lives until we are well into our 90s and even past 100 years of age.

Health-care reform is very important. Whatever reforms are enacted it is essential that they be financially responsible, and that we have the freedom to choose doctors and the health-care services that best suit our own unique set of lifestyle choices. We are all responsible for our own lives and our own health. We should take that responsibility very seriously and use our freedom to make wise lifestyle choices that will protect our health. Doing so will enrich our lives and will help create a vibrant and sustainable American society.

—Mr. Mackey is co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc.

Obama Health Care: Watching Democrats Implode

God Knows, we *do* need health care reform in this country. Access to insurance, coverage of pre-existing conditions in financially sustainable insurance pools, a re-direction towards doctor-patient decision making, and tort reform should all be on the table.

Quite frankly, it's hard to tell what is on the table right now. The 1,000+ page bill is full of contradictions and embarassing terms, and President Obama seems hell-bent on pushing it through (whatever "it" is) come hell or high water.

I used to post on a popular progressive website (www.bluehampshire.com) devoted to New Hampshire happenings. It claims not to be a Democratic Party site, but, given the characters, it's darn close. In numerous posts I have asked that Obama deal directly and definitively with the provisions of his bill. I have asked him to address concerns that Americans will end up with a Netherlands-like approach to health care which rations treatment based on a cost-benefit analysis of the patient. I never called for defeat of his program: just a direct explanation of various provisions.

I explained my own medical issues, in intimate and heart-on-sleeve details, and wanted assurance that my health care would not suffer.

The response?

I have been called a "Troll." "Privileged." "Blind." It has been inferred that I am a racist (odd, as my family is racially mixed. But then, they did not know that, so they assumed I am a neonazi of some sort). They denied I had health issues. They ripped me up one side and down the other, in non-stop ad hominem arguments.

The Left's devotion to HealthCare Reform (even if they dont know what's in the bill, and especially if they are economically ignorant), surpasses the frenzy and delusion of the God-Hates-Fags Phelps Theocrats.

In fact, that is an apt comparison: the devotion of Obama's apostles on the left to his incoherent Health Care bill approaches religious fanaticism. Zealous devotion regardless of facts. Those who question the doctrine are immediately purged as "impure." When the citizens organize to protest at these Town-Meetings-cum-Theater events the President is hosting, they are derided as nazis, mobs, angry-white-males, neanderthals, Fox-News Idiots, etc.

The apparent formula that the left perceives is this:

Crowds + Organization + passion + grassroots + Obama = Good! Hope! Change!

But,

Crowds + Organization + passion + grassroots + Questioning Obama = EVIL!

The stridency of the left will prove to be its own worst enemy. I asked objective, honest questions, and was ripped to shreds. If this is how the Democrats are going to treat the average American with questions, they deserve the same drubbing that the theocrats on the right have taken.

Unemployment Figures: The Economy has NOT turned around

Some have heralded the "good news" that the Unemployment rate has dropped from a horrific 9.5% all the way down to 9.4% (tongue planted firmly in cheek). This, according to the Obamanauts, shows us that things are turning around.

Bullshit. All those loveley orange signs heralding the "American Reinvestment and Recovery Act" Projects seem to be posted over strangely silent activities.

In fact, the economy *LOST* an additional 247,000 jobs. So why has the Unemployment rate has dropped?

Two reasons:


1) The Unemployment rate is the percent of Americans who are out of work AND ACTIVELY SEEKING work. After 18 months of recession, many Americans have given up for the time being. They have adjusted to life at home, or life off the books, or a single-income in a formerly two-wage earner home. Accordingly, they are no longer considered in the work force, and no longer counted in the Unemployment figures. So, if there are 100 people in the 'labor force,' and 10 are out of work, that's a 10% Unemployment rate. If 5 of those people out of work give up looking, the Unemployment rate is calculated to be 5 unemployed out of 95 in the labor force, which is only a 5.2% rate. Voila! A lowered rate - even though the same number of people are out of work. Similarly, the homeless - which have grown under the foreclosure spate in the last 18 months - are *NOT* considered "Unemployed" because they are no longer considered in the Labor Force. When they lost their job, they were unemployed. When they lost their home and began life in their cars or on the street, they were magically removed from the Unemployment figures.

2) In order to be counted as "Unemployed," an individual must have *no job at all.* That means that when a middle-aged, middle-level manager making $50,000/year loses his job, he is unemployed. 8 months later, when the bank is threatening foreclosure, and the credit card companies are hounding him with dinnertime phone calls, and the kids' tuition is due, and the electric company is threatening to turn off the lights, he takes *anything* he can get...so he takes a part-time job, 20 hours a week at $8.50/hour, cleaning fast food restaurants after they close at night.

Guess what? According to Unemployment calculations, he is no longer Unemployed! He has a Job, even if its part-time! Voila! The rate goes down.

In other words, the longer the recession, the worse things get, the more desperate people become...the better the rate will look.

And that is what is happening under Obama's "Recovery."

5 Steps to Better Health Care

President Obama has launched his Class Warfare Health Policy Initiative. Economists, many Caregivers, and non-Socialists are understandably aghast at the proposal to spend over a trillion dollars, tax the "rich" at 45%, and let loose a system of bureaucracy-controlled health care services. But we need to do more than yell "NO!" We need to acknowledge the problems that do exist; propose solutions that address the problem; and do so within a context that has broad political support from the ideological 'middle' of the country.

With that in mind, I suggest the following parameters:

1) First, we must acknowledge that there *is* a problem in terms of affordable access to health care for many Americans. With 10% of the Labor Force out of work (and youth, stay-at-home parents, part-time workers, the disabled, many immigrants and the homeless are NOT included in the figure), estimates range from 30 to 50 million Americans living without health insurance. That means somewhere between 10% and 15% of Americans.

2) It has been demonstrated that those with a lack of access to health care delay treatment until their conditions require critical (and far more costly) attention. This adds to the expenses Providers incur (and often absorb) and the strain on existing government programs (and thus, increase cost to taxpayers).

3) We must agree that compassion and the political climate both dictate that a, "hell, tough on them!" approach is not an acceptable response.

4) Having said that, the solutions must address the problem. At my office (an Academic institution), one often hears people singing the praises of a Single Payer System. They frame the problem as the 'lack of a single payer system.' However, this response falls apart when weighed rationally. If 85% of Americans had affordable access to supermarket food, and 15% were lacking basic nutrition, we would never suggest that all 100% of the country have access to free food at the supermarket, with the bill sent to The Government. We all know intuitively that the result would be a run on food, a shortage of goods in the supermarket, wasted resources, and a broke country. And yet, that is precisely what the Single Payer Cheerleaders want for health care. If the problem is access for 15% of Americans, than the solution is a way to find access for 15% of Americans.

5) Insurance is both a blessing and a curse: it allows people to access health care (the blessing), but also permits non-emergency situations to crowd hospitals and ER rooms with unncessary service, as consumers receive thousands of dollars worth of treatment for a small copay of $10, $25, or $50. True Health Care Reform must acknowledge objective, observable economic realities and not be bases on some hand-holding kumbaya approach to human nature.

6) The provision of care must be centered on the Doctor-Patient relationship, NOT on insurers' profits or government bureaucracies "one-sized-fits-all" approach of form and process and procedure and approval.

7) We must acknowldge that the American health care system is the best in the world, bar none. Those who point to Canada forget that there is not a single modern machine in Canada capable of removing kidney stones. Those who trumpet Britain forget that Britain has closed 40% of her hospital beds since the 1940 NHS was enacted. Those who point to Scandinavia forget that it is the American doctors who win the Noebel prizes, the American researchers who have made all the modern major medical breakthroughs in the last century, and it is America that attracts doctors from all over the world.

So..in a nutshell: we need a system that helps those without affordable access to gain that access, in a way that protects and enhances the doctor-patient relationship, lowers costs to consumers and providers, and continues to support a profitable - and successful - health industry.

With all of those as 'context,' here are my 5 Proposals:

1) Permit community groups to form for the purpose of buying health insurance. Sounds simple, isn't it? But it's illegal. Individuals can *not,* under existing law, form 'groups' whose primary purpose is purchasing insurance. (Groups may form for business or fraternalh purposes, and then choose to buy insurance as an incidental benefit, but they can not form for no other reason than to buy insurance). End this prohibition, let the market dictate rates, let competition ensue, and there will be no need for a Federal Government-related Insurance Bureaucracy. Take it one step further: end State Monopolies on insurers. The Federal Government (not States) has the authority to regulate Interstate Commerce, and since people may have an accident *anywhere* and request their insurer to cover it, this is clearly federal jurisdiction. Blow open the lid on Insurer Competition.

2) Enact Tort and Medical Malpractice Reform NOW. It was reported 5 years ago that an OB-GYN doctor in Massachusetts has to deliver EIGHTY-FIVE babies just to cover his malpractice insurance premiums for a year. Worse, 5% of doctors are responsible for 95% of malpractice claims, raising all doctor's and hopistal's premiums. Limit Malpractice Awards, raise the negligence standards (so hospitals dont need to run unnecessary tests), and relieve the 95% of decent doctors from paying the premiums of the 5% convicted of malpractice.

3) Eliminate the FDA's requirements that drugs be safe AND EFFICACIOUS. Currently, the FDA requires that pharmaceutical companies prove that their drugs meet two tests: they must prove safe, and they must be 'efficacious,' that is, they must be proven to cure the condition they claim to address in virtually 100% of patients. This is a costly and unnecessary test: Many people react differntly to different substances. The Peanut Butter that fed me through high school will kill someone with an allergy. Let *Doctors* decide what to prescribe, with the understanding that the idiosyncracies of individuals means that results WILL be different with different drugs. A drug that doesnt work, will not be prescribed. On the other hand, if a doctor determines that medical marajuana is more efficacious and cost-effective than morphine, so be it. Eliminate tiered coverage that allows Insurers to cease to cover necessary, but expensive, pharmaceuticals.

4) Engage in Multi-national agreements with other nations to accept their pharmaceuticals. The refusal of the US FDA to permit the importation of Canadian pharmaceuticals is insane. An individual can come to the US from France, or Britain, or Mali, or India, and providing only a driver's license from their own nation, get behind the wheel of a 6,000 pound rental car and take off minutes after landing - even if they don't speak English or have never driven on the right side of the road. And yet, if a pharmaceutical company goes through hundreds of thousands of tests in Germany, or Britain, or Canada, the results are not considered 'valid' in the US. Now, realistically, which is more dangerous: the driver, or a drug produced in Canada?

5) Permit every American to have a Medical Savings Account. Currently, Government workers and some self-employed people can utilize a Medical Savings Account which permits them to cover medical costs using a credit-card-like card. These citizens have a certain amount of money deducted from their paychecks, and go into an account for medical expenses: prescription drugs, eyeglasses, dental work, and even over the counter remedies. These deductions are pre-tax, meaning it lowers the person's gross income, lowering their tax and even possibly dropping them into a lower tax bracket. Better yet, these workers can 'borrow' against future deductions if they incur expenses early in the year at no interest expense. If government workers are allowed these accounts, why not ALL Americans?

These proposals will not solve all of our problems, but they will go a long way to providing access for those who do not have it, lowering costs for everybody, and enhancing the doctor-patient relationship.

Medical Marijuana: Gov. Lynch continues his shuffle of cowardice and shame

I'm sorry, but it's a sad day when a life-long Republican such as myself continues to be more Progressive than the Democratic Governor.

That we should be discussing decriminalization or legalization of ALL marajuana use is a given: the cost of incarceration to taxpayers; the repurcussions to kids smoking a substance that has clearly been established to be less dangerous than either alchohol or tobacco; the irrefutable evidence of the failure of Prohibition and the hardened crime it causes; and the personal experience of the majority of citizens and voters born after 1950, all suggest this is a no-brainer.

But to veto a compassionate bill (and yes, my father experienced the pain of esophagal cancer as he died, and the only relief was morphine, which took his lucidity away far more than marajuana would have), that the Governor himself helped craft (pulling the same psycho-drama as he did during the Marriage Equality process) is absolutely intolerable, inexplicable, and inexcusable.

Shame on you, Lynch!

New Hampshire approves Marriage Equality, 198-176

What a LOOOONG day! Rally at the Capital Building Plaza at 9 am, and then a LOOONG wait all day in the visitors gallery in 90 degree-plus heat,until the House took up HB 73....after 3:45 pm!

The victory of 22 votes was larger than any of the previous margins. Steve Vaillancourt, a Republican who opposed the current version because of Gov. Lynch's needless dramatics, came around and supported it, as did Rep. Tony DiFruscia (Republican) from Windham. Several other Dems (including a clearly choked-up Rep. Roberts, from Keene) who previously opposed the bill changed their minds. Our Bishop, the Rev. V. Gene Robinson, was also in the gallery. Loud Cheers went up from the gallery when the vote was posted, in spite of the Speaker's efforts to tell us to keep quiet.

Immediately after the vote, supporters moved to Reconsider the bill, which they then defeated: a parliamentary tactic to avoid having the bill reconsidered 'by surprise' later this session.

Outside, on the Capitol Building steps, on this historic day for New Hampshire, I proposed to my partner Scott. And (after saying, "Are you serious?!"), he said yes :-)

Upholding Prop 8 in California: a proper decision

The California Court upheld Prop 8 today. While I don't have to like the result, I have to say that from a Legal perspective, it was proper.

This same Court once ruled that gays and lesbians could not be discriminated against in the criteria for issuing marriage licenses. They held that the California State Constitution prohibited unequal protection.

When the citizens dont like laws resulting from Constitutional interpretation, their recourse is to amend the Constitution. That is what California citizens did when they passed Proposition 8.

Opponents of Prop 8 took that vote to court. One must be clear here that the issue was NOT should gays have the right to marry: the issue was, narrowly defined, whether or not the process used in amending the California Constitution was appropriate. The Court that initally granted Marriage Equality was forced - by a 6-1 vote - to also rule that the Citizens of California were within their legal right to overturn that decision, and that they did so according to California Law.

Of course, this battle is not over..

.

New Hampshire House defeats Marriage Equality 188-186

It ain't over...but here's what's happened:

The Senate approved HB 73, which were a series of Amendments proposed by Governor Lynch. The House voted AGAINST concurring by a vote of 188-186. (This, after having approved the original marriage equality bill that was sent to the Governor two weeks ago)

They THEN approved a motion 207-168 to go to a Conference Committee withthe senate to try and work out common ground.

The strongest arguement *against* concurring with HB 73 was offerred by Rep. Steve Vaillancourt, a Republican and strong supporter of Marriage Equality. As much as I want to see Marriage Equality, Steve was 100% on target.

Under the Federal & State Constitutions, and included in most of the Goevrnor's amendments, it is/was clear that religious institutions were free to marry whomever they found qualified under their own rules. And under these laws, religious groups can legally 'discriminate' against other religions when it comes to membership and services in their own operations - as it should be. However, under state law, if a religious body holds themselves out as a Business to the public, then they must serve the entire public, and not pick and choose, say, to serve whites but not blacks, or to serve Baptists and Methodists but not Pentecostals. That law prohibits organizations from discriminating based on sexual orientation when they hold out business services to the public.

Governor Lynch threw down a gauntlet: in effect, he said he'd approve a Marriage Equality bill, but he wanted an 'exception' so that businesses with a religious foundation could legally discriminate against same-sex couples engaging in marriage and 'related' services, such as receptions. In other words, if the business was held out to the PUBLIC, they could still discriminate against couples based on orientation.

This was a CLEAR STEP BACKWARDS.

Let's hope that the House and Senate can recraft the bill in a way that grants Marriage Equality WITHOUT going backwards on discrimination, and let's hope that hte Governbor actually signs the bill and stops playing both sides against the middle with his usual infuriating cowardice.

November: Equality March on DC

From DavidMixner.Com
As this Administration sits in offices plotting timeline charts on what rights they feel comfortable granting us this year, clearly it is time for us to gin up our efforts and stop waiting for them to hand us our God given entitlements. Enough. I really can't stomach any more being told 'not now'. As nice as it would be, no one is going to give us our freedom; we are going to have to continue to fight like hell for it. It is demeaning to us to be moved around on a political chess board like freedom is a move in some game.

We have to stop it.

Let's never forget that we are not talking about just another piece of legislation nor just an executive order. What is at stake is over 1,000 rights, benefits, privileges and protections granted to all other Americans and denied to the LGBT community. It is about the ability of those who choose to serve their country can do so in total honesty and freedom. That the vision of America is for our young as well as other young Americans. Finally as we work toward full equality we must halt in its tracks the efforts of a number of our fellow citizens to put in place a system of Apartheid for LGBT citizens. The stakes are way too high for them to tell us to wait until next year, or even until the next term.

Our freedom can't be negotiated in the political offices of the White House and in the halls of Congress. Our goal is not to make their path easier but to ensure that young LGBT citizens will not be beaten, denied the right to serve, have their love demeaned in some sort of separate but equal system or excluded from giving their gifts and talents freely to this nation. At this moment, there is very little movement on any of these issues in the White House and it appears that some even believe we should be happy with just hate crimes legislation being passed this year.

I adore President Obama but not enough to allow his team to delay my freedom for political convenience or comfort. It is unacceptable.

My plea is for our LGBT leaders to call a March on Washington for Marriage Equality this November and if they won't do it, I appeal to our young to come together and provide the leadership.

We need to come together in a display of powerful community unity to empower our young and to show the nation that anything less than full freedom is unacceptable. Clearly there are other issues that should be on the agenda for the march but marriage equality is the lynchpin that deals with so many of those issues. The most striking outside that institution would be the freedom to serve in our nation's military - and that weekend I think we could have a separate powerful event to highlight that.

Having organized a number of major marches in my near 50 years of activism, I don't take this call lightly. Trust me, I know that there are times when such marches are ineffective and poorly timed. Yet, I have also seen them be extremely effective both in message and building momentum within the movement. For the first time, we have the opportunity to have tens of thousands of our straight allies and straight students join us and we should organize the march to make it easy for them to be by our sides.

My experience has taught me the secret to any march is to keep the message simple and to make it easy for others to join. Of course, our best organizers must be enlisted in order to ensure that hundreds of thousands attend in an orderly and safe fashion.

Tapping into my previous work, I would suggest the following for consideration: On the Friday before the march 12,000 (approximately the number of our service people that have been dismissed under DADT) led by our veterans walk single file from the Pentagon to the White House until all 12,000 are across from the White House. Let the nation see visibly how many of our citizens have had their careers destroyed while the military allows convicted felons to serve. I would love to see 12,000 across from the White House chanting "Let US Serve."

One of the lessons from previous marches is that everyone should be on the Mall by no later than 3PM. We should not let logistics prevent people from getting to the Mall or otherwise they won't be counted. Everyone must be present before the evening news has to develop their stories. Each marcher and organizer should be told that every single person has to be on the Mall from 2PM to 3PM in order for us to have a success. How they choose to do that I will leave to the organizers.

Watching press secretary Robert Gibbs dodge and duck answers on LGBT issues while it seems almost every other group and issue is being discussed is so depressing to me. The promise of the Democrats being in control was great. They still can rise to greatness. It is not too late but they need our help in lifting them out of their own fears and into the light.

President Kennedy had to deal with a recession, the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis and so much more. However, when Dr. King and others filled the streets of cities around America and yes, Washington, DC, the president found the resources and time to stay by their sides. The time has come for us to remove the current administration's option of shrinking from leadership on this issue and to insist they rise to a new level of greatness along side us as we all fight together for freedom. It is the only way.

DADT, Lt. Col. Fehrenbach, and Obama's deplorable inaction

Gov. Lynch is a Coward

I'm rarely that dramatic in my headlines, but the label fits.

Two weeks ago, the N.H. legislature adopted a Marriage Equality Bill. The Speakers of the House and Senate delayed delivering the bill to the Governor, because once delivered, state law only gives him 5 days to make a decision, and he wanted more time. During that time, the state was baraged with hateful ads from out-of-state groups proclaiming the virtual end of western civilization if he signed. Two days ago, the Governor met with opposition leaders. And yesterday, he announced his decision.

He stated that he would veto the bill in its current form, but sign it if certain amendments were added. Most of these amendments are meaningless: they insure the right of religious institutions to refrain from conducting same-sex ceremonies. This is meaningless because churches already have this right under both the US and State Constitutions; For years Roman Catholic Churches refused to marry non-Catholics, and there was -and is - no legal repurcussion for this. The Constitutions guarentee them their right to conduct their ecclesiastical rites their own way. From this perspective, Lynch's amendments are simply political posturing.

However, one of his 'required' amendments is a clear step backwards.

"a religious organization, association, or society, or any individual who is managed, directed, or supervised by or in conjunction with a religious organization, association or society, or any nonprofit institution or organization operated, supervised or controlled by or in conjunction with a religious organization, association or society, shall not be required to provide services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods or privileges to an individual if such request for such services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods or privileges is related to the solemnization of a marriage, the celebration of a marriage, or the promotion of marriage through religious counseling, programs, courses, retreats, or housing designated for married individuals..."

On its face, this sounds like a statement in support of religious liberty. In reality, it is a step backwards for equality.

The proposed amendments enable organizations that own businesses (such as lakeside retreats, function facilities, etc.) AND WHO HOLD THESE FACILITIES OUT TO THE PUBLIC, to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.

All agree that religious institutions must be permitted to do as they wish in the conduct of their own religious life. HOWEVER, once they begin engaging in business with the public, a different set of laws apply. Under current law, businesses may NOT discriminate in the provision of services or housing based on sexual orientation. Under Lynch's proposed amendments, this discrimination would now be legal.

Lynch, once again, can claim to be all things to all people:

He will tell gays and liberals that he supports Marriage Equality.

He will tell theocrats that he supported rolling back the anti-dsicrimination laws to give them an exception.

If it passes, the Conservatives have won a right to discriminate in the conduct of Public Business.

If it fails, Lynch can blame the Legislature for "not doing a good enough job."

Governor, you are pandering the right and avoiding leadership. Whereas you could have had my unending support, you now have my unending scorn, regardless of the outcome of your political games.

NH State Senate votes to Allow Gay Marriage

By NORMA LOVE | Associated Press Writer
1:41 PM CDT, April 29, 2009
CONCORD, N.H. - The state Senate has voted to make New Hampshire the fifth state to allow gay marriage.

The 13-11 vote came after a 45 minute debate over an emotional issue that drew 500 people to the Statehouse for a hearing earlier this month.

The vote establishes a two-tier system with a civil marriage and a religious marriage license. The House now must consider the proposal, which is similar to one it rejected earlier this year.

Gov. John Lynch has said marriage is a word that should be reserved for the union of a man and a woman, but he has not said specifically that he would veto the bill.

Arlen Specter: the Real Lesson

Yesterday, Penn. Senator Arlen Specter annouced that he was switching from the Republican to the Democratic Party, and the political spin-doctors have been working overtime on what this means.

Michael Steele, Chair of the GOP, wrote in an email, "I hope Arlen Specter's party change outrages you. …He told us all to go jump in the lake today." He further referred to Specters "left-wing voting record" and alluded to Benedict Arnold.

Actually, the allusion to Benedict Arnold may be apt. Arnold was a patriot who fought for the colonies in a number of campaigns, and who switched sides only after coming to believe that the Colonies cause was doomed. In Specter's case, he has seen that the GOP has already lost. Or, to use McCain strategist Steven Schmidt's words, "The Republican Party is virtually extinct in the Northeast."

Specter was no liberal. He was a center-right moderate, who rarely received an extreme 0% or 100% voting record from any interest group. But those who do not toe the Theocratic Party line in the GOP are regularly rounded up as heretics, and Specter was simply going to be their latest victim.

Those who criticize him point to the fact that this was based on political expediency, since there has been a sfift of 200,000 voters from Republican to Democrat in Pennsylvania.

But apparently, they miss the point in revealing that very statistic.

One Republican who understands the current crisis in the GOP is Maine Senator Olympia Snowe, one of the last remaining Republican office-holders in New England. In today's New York Times, she writes,

"In my view, the political environment that has made it inhospitable for a moderate Republican in Pennsylvania is a microcosm of a deeper, more pervasive problem that places our party in jeopardy nationwide.

There is no plausible scenario under which Republicans can grow into a majority while shrinking our ideological confines and continuing to retract into a regional party. Ideological purity is not the ticket back to the promised land of governing majorities — indeed, it was when we began to emphasize social issues to the detriment of some of our basic tenets as a party that we encountered an electoral backlash.

It is for this reason that we should heed the words of President Ronald Reagan, who urged, “We should emphasize the things that unite us and make these the only ‘litmus test’ of what constitutes a Republican: our belief in restraining government spending, pro-growth policies, tax reduction, sound national defense, and maximum individual liberty.” He continued, “As to the other issues that draw on the deep springs of morality and emotion, let us decide that we can disagree among ourselves as Republicans and tolerate the disagreement.”

Oh, that the GOP in New Hampshire and Maine - and nationally - would listen to those words.

Open Letter to the New Hampshire GOP re: Gay Marriage.

My name is Thom Simmons, and I urgently want to address the imminent vote on gay marriage.

I am 49 years old and a lifelong Republican. I was raised in an ardently Republican household, and have served on multiple Republican committees in a number of states, including the Advance Team for the Reagan Presidential campaign in 1980. In addition, I have always been an active church member.

And yet, in spite of all that, I am one of those who have almost given up on our party as I see us pandering relentlessly to an extreme and shrinking(though vocal) Theocratic base. The hopelessness I feel about our party’s direction is one of the reasons we see New Hampshire lurching from “Red” to “Blue....” and why, in Steve Schmidt's words, "the Republican Party is virtually extinct in the Northeast."

I am also a gay man, and chair of the New Hampshire Bears, the largest gay men’s organization in New Hampshire. One little-known fact about our 200+ members is that of those I have personally met, the majority were once married, heterosexually, some for many years. (Myself, I was married to my wife for almost 23 years, and we have a number of adopted children)

How could a man “turn gay?’’ How could a man live all those years and decide he was “gay” after all that time?

Well, he doesn’t.

Instead, he is barraged from the time he is a child with the message that to be gay is to be abnormal, evil, sinful, wrong, weird, disgusting, and shameful. And so, many, many of us try beyond reason to be what we are not, to fit into a box that someone else built and shoe-horned us into. And after years of exhausting fights with ourselves, we finally accept who we are.

We heard the taunts in grade school, we heard the snide remarks in the locker room, we hear our ‘friends’ tell jokes at the expense of gays, and we see TV parody us as limp-wristed feather-boa-wearing caricatures.

And now, more than ever before, we see our own government telling us, “you’re equal, but not ‘the same.’ You can have water and drink from a fountain, but you can’t drink from our fountain, because you are just Different.” The same arguments that justified segregation when I was a child are now being used to suggest that “civil unions” are somehow “good enough.”
They are not.

They send a strong message that while we will be ‘tolerated’ because it is the politically correct thing to do, we will not be accepted as fellow Americans with equal rights to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.

Please end the enforced inferiority. Gay men deal with many issues as they struggle with their sexuality, and to be set aside as “not good enough” or “not the same” by government is unacceptable. Mr. Sununu's comments about this bill being "garbage," and making snide references to San Francisco, is precisely the nasty politics that Democrats, Republicans, and Independents have all rejected here in the Granite State.

As a traditional Republican, I know that it is not the job of government to impose a culture, or a theology, or a ‘blueprint for life’ on its citizens. It is the job of government to preserve liberty and establish a level playing field.

New Hampshire has always been in vanguard of freedom and liberty. Please, I beg you, take a stand that puts what is right above what may be expedient.

Thank you
Thom Simmons
11 Richmond Rd
Fitzwilliam, NH 03447

Civil War in the Republican Party: Liberty vs Theocracy....Restoring the Party of Goldwater and Reagan

Finally, after the worst electoral drubbing in 34 years, the GOP is re-examining its strategy of pandering to Dixiecrats and Theocrats. Basic civil rights - and the right of people to live their own lives - is finally finding its voice within the Republican Party.

From Christine Todd Whitman, former GOP Governor of New Jersey:

"The government should have no say about marriage, and the plank in the Republican Party platform that calls for preserving marriage between a man and a woman should be scrapped...Furthermore, the U.S. military should not differentiate between homosexuals and heterosexuals...I am somebody who believes in the separation of church and state and that the government, frankly, ought to be out of the business of marriage entirely...I just think it would make the issue easier if it was civil marriage for everybody...[Bloggers note: apparently Whitman reads this blog]...it’s [same-sex marriage] not going to threaten my marriage. I mean my 35th anniversary is on Monday. It’s not going to threaten my marriage to have a gay couple married....We can't succeed nationally as a party that only has 31 percent of the American people behind it.”

And concerning the military: “I don't care if he is straight, I care if he can shoot straight.”

And, from Meghan McCain (John McCain's daughter):

"Tonight I am proud to join you in challenging the mold and the notion of what being a Republican means...I am concerned about the environment. I love to wear black. I think government is best when it stays out of people's lives and business as much as possible. I love punk rock. I believe in a strong national defense. I have a tattoo. I believe government should always be efficient and accountable. I have lots of gay friends, and yes, I am a Republican....Most of the old school Republicans are scared shitless of that future...There are those who think we can win the White House and Congress back by being “more” conservative..."

Have YOU contacted YOUR State Senator yet?

http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/senate/senatemembers.asp

AIG Bonus payouts was NO loophole and NO mistake...

According to an article in this morning's New York Times,

"...Democrats are mostly responsible for the A.I.G. bonus debacle, since Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, inserted language in President Obama’s economic stimulus package to exempt bonuses granted by contract before Feb. 11 from general restrictions on bonus payments."

Of course, this has nothing to do with the fact that Christopher Dodd represents Connecticut, the Insurance Industry Capital of the United States.

Schmuck.

UPDATE: (From the NY Daily News)

Gov. Paterson stuck to his guns Saturday, insisting he knew nothing about a $100,000 donation from AIG to the state Democratic Party days before his office helped save the insurance giant.

State Republicans charged the Democrats with stonewalling an investigation into the Aug. 29 donation, uncovered last week by The Associated Press.

In the first week of September, Paterson launched negotiations to save the financially strapped company.