Your Random Saturday

Hey, look! Death panels!

The nation's organ-transplant network may give younger, healthier people preference over older, sicker patients for the best kidneys, the Washington Post reported on Thursday...

Andreoni chairs the committee that is reviewing possible changes for the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), a private nonprofit group contracted by the federal government to coordinate organ allocation. "It's an effort to get the most out of a scarce resource."...

According to one bioethicist, if the changes are adopted, they could have implications for other decisions about how to allocate scarce medical resources...

David Limbaugh:

Attorney General Eric Holder announced that President Obama had concluded that the administration would no longer defend Section 3 of DOMA...

To understand the magnitude of Obama's action, we must again consider the above-cited fact that both chambers of Congress passed DOMA by overwhelming majorities reflecting the will of the people that marriage be defined, for legal and policy purposes, as it always had been. Also, no federal appellate court has ruled the statute unconstitutional.

As he has in so many other areas (EPA, the offshore drilling ban, IMF), Obama has usurped the authority of the other two coequal branches of government to make himself, in effect, not just chief executive but super-legislator and a supreme judicial authority...

So now we have an imperial president who is refusing to enforce a law passed by powerful congressional majorities while persisting in enforcing a law (Obamacare) that two federal courts have already invalidated.

Seems Holder's Dept could use a little more budget cutting if they've got less work to do.

Howard Rich:

Unfortunately, Obama has proposed trimming just $30 billion from a $3.66 trillion budget, while Boehner’s cuts total a mere $61 billion...

Equally troubling are the unrealistic revenue assumptions contained in Obama’s budget — forecasts which form the basis for future deficit projections. According to Obama’s numbers, total gross receipts will climb from $2.17 trillion this year to $3.58 trillion by 2015 — a 65% increase. Does anyone expect our economy to support such a dramatic expansion of federal tax receipts so soon?

Double-digit annual revenue growth has occurred just three times over the last two decades. And yet Obama is counting on this rate of growth to take place in five consecutive budget years?

No wonder one economist recently referred to his revenue estimates as “something approaching the realm of Greek myth.”

I linked to a source for that quote - in case the link dies, the guy is "Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at BNY ConvergEx Group"

Oh, by the way, rumors from the media of the economy's life have been greatly exaggerated:

The willingness to return to riskier trades has come in the face of a significant downward revision to fourth quarter GDP. Fourth quarter GDP had been expected to show a 3.3% increase after the advance reading showed 3.2% growth, but instead it showed growth of just 2.8%.

The final Consumer Sentiment Survey for February from the University of Michigan proved stronger than expected, though. It came in at 77.5, which is the best reading since January 2008.

(briefing.com) Gee, maybe the consumer sentiment was higher than expected because the administration and it's communications wing (the media) have been falsely claiming the economy is recovering...ya think?

Changing lanes - in the most recent reported year, 2008, taxpayers gave Planned Parenthood over $1 million for every abortion they performed.

In its most recent annual report, Planned Parenthood said it took in $349.6 million in government funds in fiscal 2008. That same year, Planned Parenthood says it performed 324,008 abortions.

And to think, people have the nerve to be outraged about a billboard that claims black babies are endangered by abortion. By my estimates, they're outraged by the wrong things. I can't seem to quickly nail down the % of abortions of black children, but it looks like it's in the 30-40% range (incidentally, I was shocked to see them breaking out abortions on "women aged 14 and younger"). I'll be conservative and say 30%, that means that PP alone, not counting other abortionists, would have aborted almost 100,000 blacks in a year. Meanwhile, deaths by guns is, what, in the hundreds per year? Somehow I doubt that even figuring in the less-violent age groups and murders by less-lethal methods, I don't think we're talking about 100,000 a year. Misplace your outrage much?