Even with his own Party, it is all about Obama. He will throw Democrats under the bus in order to enact his legislation and ideologies.
Obama is a clear and present danger to most!
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For those who voted for Obama ... well you screwed all of us! We don't thing the "changes" that Obama has made were what you were expecting.
Now you have the opportunity to facilitate a change - in November. Vote out the arrogant, elitist, freedom and rights robbing Democrats in the upcoming elections.
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And Mexico is joining in the lawsuit against Arizona - thanks to the encouragement from Obama and Congressional Democrats!
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Arizona’s new immigration law S.B. 1070, which has been relentlessly attacked by many liberals and the news media yet is overwhelmingly supported by Americans, is also serving as the prototype for immigration legislation in several other states as discussed below. Americans are sick and tired of the problems associated with illegal immigration: increased crime and violence, massive unreimbursed costs such as for healthcare, education, welfare, and the judicial system which are presently being paid by us through our tax dollars, burdens on our schools and even what is becoming a ubiquitous finding: bilingual signs and communications.
Despite this, the Obama Administration is fighting this law under the pretense that it necessarily requires “profiling”. This is not the true reason, however, as the legislation is essentially a replica of the federal law that adds controls to mitigate the “risk” of profiling. (Of course, liberals want to label “profiling” a racist action when in fact profiling represents the most logical, efficient and prudent way to detect what one is looking for which in this situation, are illegal aliens.)
Among the real reasons that Obama is against the law is for political purposes. He wants more of the Hispanic vote. As we have noted in previous posts, the fact that he would intentionally keep the border unsecured which also affords terrorists the ability to sneak into this country, is inexcusable, irresponsible, contemptuous and actions of what could be termed an anti-President.
Let’s reiterate. Obama resolutely refuses to secure our borders for personal political reasons which consequently places America in much greater jeopardy for future terrorism by allowing terrorist to infiltrate undetected into our country. This also financially burdens all 50 states (or in his mind, 57 states) and their citizens who have to bear all the attendant costs associated with these illegals which is estimated to be around $113 billion per year.
And one more thing. Ideology and narcissism aside, the Obama Administration and some liberal groups state that the cost of deporting the entire illegal alien population would be prohibitively expensive – estimated to be $285 billion over 5 years. The cost for them staying here during these 5 years is $565 billion ($113 billion per year times 5 years).
Interesting! We could actually save $280 billion over these five years if these illegal immigrants were sent back where they came from. That is $56 billion per year in net savings which would then jump to more than $113 billion per year after these first 5 years.
No wonder the federal government is against this: it would save us money instead of being a money losing proposition which the Democrats feel more comfortable with!
Arizona Immigration Law Emerges as Model for Other States
July 7, 2010
Arizona’s immigration law, considered controversial by some and under legal assault by the Obama administration, is fast emerging as a popular model in other states where illegal immigration is a hot-button issue.
And while protests against the law have drawn thousands to marches across the country, polls have consistently showed a majority of Americans favor the get-tough approach against illegal immigration.
At least three other states could pass similar legislation next year, and in many others, like Florida, GOP candidates are filming campaign ads and pushing debates favoring the law.
Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah have each taken steps against illegal immigration, and politicians in the three states are advocating further measures when their legislatures reconvene early next year, according to The Washington Post.
Meanwhile, lawmakers in at least 14 other states drew up bills that permit police officers to question anyone they suspect of being in the county illegally – the core issue of the Arizona law.
But it’s an open question in many of those states whether these bills would make it past sitting governors, many of whom are Democrats. In Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah, however, political factors improve the chances that state legislatures could follow Arizona's lead when they convene in 2011, according to the Post.
Oklahoma was actually the first state, not Arizona, to adopt legislation that was the toughest ever against undocumented immigrants. That happened in 2007. The measure made it a felony to knowingly provide transport or shelter to an illegal immigrant, and blocked illegal immigrants from obtaining driver's licenses and tuition.
The lawmaker responsible for the measure, Republican state Rep. Randy Terrill, has said he wants to go even further with another bill next year that would seize property from businesses that knowingly employ undocumented immigrants.
Terrill cited the arrest of an alleged Mexican drug cartel member last week as evidence that an "Arizona-plus" measure is needed urgently. He said the effect of Arizona's law had been to push illegal immigrants "straight down Interstate 40" toward Oklahoma, according to the Post.
In South Carolina, GOP Gov. Mark Sanford touted a comprehensive set of new measures against illegal immigration as the strictest yet when he signed it into law in 2008. The measure forced businesses to check the immigration status of their workers.
Harboring and transporting illegal immigrants also became a state crime. State lawmakers want to build on it and were quick this year to draw up an Arizona-style bill, introducing it less than a week after the Arizona measure had been signed.
"We had a bill that was introduced this year that was very similar to the final version of the Arizona legislation. It was too late for us to move on it, but I have every expectation a new bill will be introduced in January," Republican state Sen. Larry Martin told the Post.
"As long as an officer has a lawful reason to question someone, and then a suspicion develops [that] they are an undocumented person, then I think our law enforcement folks ought to be able to pursue that," he said.
In Utah, pro-immigrant advocates fear that new legislation clamping down on illegal immigration is inevitable next year. Several lawmakers there are advocating a crackdown, according to the Post.
On paper, Arizona's controversial new immigration law is not that different from the federal version. But the key difference is this: Arizona wants every illegal immigrant caught and deported. The federal government says treating all 11 million of the nation's illegal immigrants as criminals would overwhelm the system.
In its lawsuit challenging the Arizona law, the Justice Department says its policy is to focus on dangerous immigrants: gang members, drug traffickers, threats to national security. Law-abiding immigrants without documentation would largely be left alone.
Homeland Security officials say the government cannot possibly find, arrest and deport everyone who is here illegally. And trying to do so would also upset a balance crafted by Congress that takes into account humanitarian interests and foreign relations.
But proponents of the Arizona solution insist that's no reason not to try. And they say the state's toughest-in-the-nation law is a reasonable way to start.
"If it's really the case that they don't have enough resources to enforce the laws that Congress has passed, it would seem it's incumbent on them to go back to Congress and ask for more resources," said Steven Camarota, research director at the center for Immigration Studies, a group that favors stricter enforcement of immigration laws. "But since they don't do that, it sort of undermines the argument."
Arizona's new law is nearly identical to federal immigration law. At issue is how it is enforced. The federal government says the state law is unconstitutional because it usurps federal authority to protect U.S. borders and American citizens. Arizona counters that the federal government is not doing its job, which forces state officials to step in.
State lawmakers argue that the federal government already enlists local authorities to identify illegal immigrants who have been arrested for other crimes. The new law, they say, just extends that to police patrols.
The federal government says the law goes too far by making it a state crime to be in Arizona illegally and requiring police to question the immigration status of anyone they encounter who is believed to be undocumented.
The furor over the Arizona law is overblown, Camarota said Wednesday. It does not envision mass deportations or roundups, just a slow but steady pressure on illegal immigrants to leave Arizona — either for their home countries or for another state.
The number of illegal immigrants in the country fell for the first time this decade in 2007, and dropped another 800,000 between 2008 and 2009, primarily due to the recession and increased enforcement efforts.
As of January 2009, an estimated 10.8 million people were in the country illegally, 1 million less than the 2007 peak, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Deportations have been increasing, climbing from 185,944 in 2007 to 387,790 last year.
Many critics argue the federal government cannot selectively enforce immigration law, but it's common for law enforcement at all levels to prioritize. Small-time pot dealers do not receive the same level of investigation or prosecution as big-time heroin traffickers. The government has also tolerated medical marijuana in 14 states.
But Arizona's law has brought selective enforcement — and the differences that exist even among police agencies — into clearer focus.
Those differences are stark, even in the Phoenix metro area. Phoenix Police Chief Jack Harris says in an affidavit supporting the federal suit that he will probably have to move detectives focused on violent crime to street patrol because regular officers will be busy enforcing Arizona's new law.
But Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has been at the forefront of the effort to empower local authorities to enforce immigration laws, routinely assigns deputies to crime sweeps where they target illegal immigrants.
The federal government is worried that other states will follow Arizona's lead, overwhelming federal agencies with non-criminal illegal immigrants who will cost the government millions to deport.
A March study by the liberal Center for American Progress estimated that deporting the entire illegal immigration population and securing the borders would cost $285 billion over five years.
In the government lawsuit, officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection declared they will be forced to shift resources from major cases to minor ones if the law goes into effect as scheduled on July 29.
Five other lawsuits, filed by immigrant-rights groups, the American Civil Liberties Union and individuals, are already before a federal judge in Phoenix. The federal challenge filed Tuesday is expected to be transferred to the same judge, who has hearings set for next week on requests to block the law from taking effect.
The federal lawsuit focuses on a core constitutional concern — balancing power between the states and the federal government. More specifically, the issue centers on the long-running "pre-emption" legal argument that says federal law trumps state law.
The government sidestepped concerns about the potential for racial profiling and civil rights violations most often raised by immigration advocates. Experts said those are weaker arguments that do not belong in a federal legal challenge.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this story.
http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/US-Immigration-Enforcement-Lawsuit/2010/07/07/id/364048
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The estimated costs of illegal immigration to the American people annually is $113 billion per year - not chump change. This burden is borne unwillingly by the taxpayer and by definition could be considered to be indentured servitude or slavery. Simply put, we are forced to work to benefit the welfare of someone else, without choice.
Why should we be mandated to pay the costs of individuals who are not citizens here, have broken the law, increased the crime rate, have a deleterious effect on the education of our citizens and then have the audacity to call us racist and intolerant?
In many states, the cost of services for them exceeds the budget shortfall. That is, get rid of these costs and these states will be able close their budget deficits, be more fiscally sound and maybe even reduce the tax rate.
Obama and Congressional Democrats have abdicated their responsibility to resolve this problem in order to gain maximal political benefit (from voters of the Hispanic community). They need to be voted out of office this coming November.
Illegal Immigration Costs U.S. $113 Billion a Year, Study Finds
Ed Barnes FoxNews.com July 06, 2010
The cost of harboring illegal immigrants in the United States is a staggering $113 billion a year -- an average of $1,117 for every “native-headed” household in America -- according to a study conducted by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).
The study, a copy of which was provided to FoxNews.com, “is the first and most detailed look at the costs of illegal immigration ever done,” says Bob Dane, director of communications at FAIR, a conservative organization that seeks to end almost all immigration to the U.S.
FAIR's opponents in the bitter immigration debate describe the organization as "extremist," though it is regularly called upon to testify before Congress.
Groups that support immigration reform immediately attacked FAIR's report and pointed out that it is the polar opposite of the Perryman Report, a 2008 study that found illegal immigration was actually a boon to the American economy. It estimated that illegal immigrants add $245 billion in Gross Domestic Product to the economy and account for 2.8 million jobs.
The FAIR report comes as President Obama moves immigration reform to the top of his agenda, and it is likely to be a rallying point for those who oppose the president. At a speech Thursday at American University in Washington, D.C., Obama argued that the entire immigration system is broken and needs sweeping reforms. Among the changes he said are needed is "a path for [farm] workers to earn legal status," which the president's critics called an opening for a new amnesty program.
FAIR's report argues that there are two choices in the immigration debate: “One choice is pursuing a strategy that discourages future illegal migration and increasingly diminishes the current illegal alien population through denial of job opportunities and deportations. The other choice,” it says, “would repeat the unfortunate decision made in 1986 to adopt an amnesty that invited continued illegal migration.”
The report states that an amnesty program wouldn’t appreciably increase tax revenue and would cost massive amounts in Social Security and public assistance expenses. An amnesty “would therefore be an accentuation of the already enormous fiscal burden,” the report concludes.
The single largest cost to the government of illegal immigration, according to the report, is an estimated $52 billion spent on schooling the children of illegals. “Nearly all those costs are absorbed by state and local governments,’ the report states.
Moreover, the study’s breakdown of costs on a state-by-state basis shows that in states with the largest number of illegals, the costs of illegal immigration are often greater than current, crippling budget deficits. In Texas, for example, the additional cost of immigration, $16.4 billion, is equal to the state’s current budget deficit; in California the additional cost of illegal immigration, $21.8 billion, is $8 billion more than the state’s current budget deficit of $13.8 billion; and in New York, the $6.8 billion deficit is roughly two-thirds the $9.5 billion yearly cost of its illegal population, according to Jack Martin, the researcher who completed the study.
"The most important finding of the study is the enormous cost to state and local governments due to lack of enforcement of our immigration laws,” Martin wrote.
The report found that the federal government paid $28.6 billion in illegal related costs, and state and local governments paid $84.2 billion on an estimated 13 million undocumented residents. In his speech, Obama estimated that there are 11 million.
But FAIR's critics said the report wrongly included American-born children of undocumented workers in its study.
“The single biggest 'expense' it attributes to unauthorized immigrants is the education of their children, yet most of these children are native-born, U.S. citizens who will grow up to be taxpaying adults," said Walter Ewing, a senior researcher at the American Immigration Council. "It is disingenuous to count the cost of investing in the education of these children, so that they will earn higher incomes and pay more in taxes when they are adults, as if it were nothing more than a cost incurred by their parents."
He added that “the report fails to account for the purchasing power of unauthorized consumers, which supports U.S. businesses and U.S. jobs” and that it “ignores the value added to the U.S. economy by unauthorized workers, particularly in the service sector.”
Martin said FAIR expected that criticism, but that because the children are a direct result of illegal immigration, their inclusion was both fair and reasonable.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/07/02/immigration-costs-fair-amnesty-educations-costs-reform/
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This is an incisive political parody using the Dire Straits song “Money for Nothing”. It correctly notes that we are too busy with mindless superficialities of life and hedonism to notice or even attempt to protest or oppose the government's increasing control and restrictions over our lives regarding freedoms, rights and choices and confiscation of our wealth.
Ironically and appropriately, the group’s name is descriptive of the present conditions in our country.
Money for Nothing
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Oblivious to historical equivalents, benighted and belligerent, Obama and Congressional Democrats fervently continue to pursue and implement disastrous policies on the American public which will have apocalyptic effects on our country.
It seems to be an unimaginable possibility to have so many incompetent, arrogant and uninformed people in one place. Unfortunately, they are the ones passing and imposing irresponsible and reckless legislation.
The Last Refuge Of The Incompetent
Investors Business Daily 07/01/2010
Unemployment checks, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday with a straight face, create jobs "faster than almost any other initiative you can name." AP
Leadership: With their own economic policies in complete disarray, Democrats have turned to a tried-and-true tactic: Blame the opposition for your failure. It may be too late — their incompetence is starting to show.
Recent events, along with the continued bleeding of the U.S. economy and Wall Street, underscore the desperation of the party in power to escape responsibility for its failures.
Case in point: The president, speaking in Wisconsin on Wednesday, lashed out at Republicans: "We already tried the other side's ideas. We already know where their theories led us. And now we have a choice as a nation."
We must have missed the Democrats' attempt to enact broad-based tax cuts, for instance, to boost the economy like they did each time they've been tried in the past. Truth is, "the other side's ideas" have been studiously ignored in our financial crisis and recession.
Unemployment remains close to 9.7% and, based on even White House estimates, is unlikely to improve much. Vice President Joe Biden himself has noted that, under current Democratic policies, "there's no possibility to restore 8 million jobs lost in the Great Recession."
Of course, he too blames the GOP, though his party has controlled Congress since 2006 and its earlier policies, such as the Community Reinvestment Act and the creation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, were responsible for the 2007-08 financial meltdown.
Democrats like to style themselves as the party of the little guy. But small businesses are going bankrupt in droves while unemployment among black males is averaging 16.3% — well above last year's 14.8%. In March, 1.8 million African-American men were without work — the most on record.
Now we see signs the economy's improvement may soon stall — and perhaps even slide backwards. On Thursday, we learned that June auto sales dropped 4.3% while May pending home sales plunged 30%. Consumer confidence has fallen sharply, and financial markets are in a tailspin.
Also this week, the Congressional Budget Office reported that federal debt by year-end will soar to 62% of GDP — highest since World War II, when the U.S. went deeply into the red and killed off the private economy in order to beat the Nazis.
Worse, the CBO said debt will hit 87% of GDP by 2020, rise above its record peak of 109% by 2025 and hit a stunning — and financially ruinous — 185% by 2035.
CBO chief Doug Elmendorf told the White House's deficit commission this week that those rising levels of debt, fueled by uncontrolled federal spending, might lead to "higher interest rates, more foreign borrowing, less private investment and lower income growth, if not a full-blown fiscal crisis."
While there's been modest job growth this year, business groups such as the Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable warn that government policies of higher taxes and big spending will squeeze future private-business sales.
Without private-sector growth, there will be no recovery and no sustained rebound in job creation. Compassion for the little guy comes from understanding this very simple point — not from pointing fingers and mouthing vacuous economic platitudes.
The fact is, $700 billion in TARP bailouts, $862 billion in economic "stimulus," $70 billion in auto industry aid, $1.2 trillion in Fed money-printing and $146 billion spent on bailing out insolvent government mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have done nothing to restore our economy's vigor.
This is among the most incompetent series of economic policy moves in U.S. history — all the more unforgivable because similar Keynesian pump-priming was tried during the Great Depression and in the 1970s, failing miserably each time.
On Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said unemployment checks create "jobs faster than almost any other initiative you can name."
We are not making this up. This is what passes for economic wisdom in the Democratic Party.
The current mess is a result of policies in place now — not those put in place years ago. Watching this nightmare unfold, and then listening to our leaders blame the opposition, is getting more grotesque by the day.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/539183/201007011901/The-Last-Refuge-Of-The-Incompetent.aspx
http://www.investors.com/image/Web_IssuesPelosi0702.jpg.cms
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Andrew Klavan discusses DE or Democrat Embarrassment, a malady that affected around 70 million voters during the Presidential election.
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"Remember in November"
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This is Democratic Congressman Pete Stark of California
He is just one more example of the arrogance, condescension and disdain that the Democrats have for the American people. They comport themselves as royalty and treat the public as guttersnipes.
This must not be tolerated by us. We need to clean house of these cancers - starting in November.
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The above image, posted on www.imaksim.com, captures the essence of the depravity and arrogance (with humor), that suffuses our government under total Democrat control.
For the large interactive image with descriptions, click here
URL http://www.imaksim.com/large/128-party.html
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See also Reagan's Brandenburg Speech in post from June 13th for a true comparison (Reminiscing About The Greatness and Leadership of Reagan and Saddened By Our Present Predicament).
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In another example of unprecedented government intrusion and control in our life, Congressional Democrats have allowed the EPA to have unprecedented powers that would, in essence, regulate and control our lives and habits employing their specious claim that CO2 is a pollutant. This is a disingenuous, surreptitious and depraved means to enact Cap and Trade without the necessary votes and without the detrimental appellation.
This is a direct attack on our freedoms, wealth, and livelihoods and could cost the United States trillions of dollars.
It is just another example of why it is extremely imperative that Republicans take control of the House and Senate in November – to revoke the EPA’s unfettered powers.
Cap-And-Traitors
Investors Business Daily 06/11/2010
Politics: The Senate just claimed the title of the world's most delusional body by refusing to strip unelected EPA bureaucrats of the power to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant. This was the day freedom died.
One wonders why we have a Congress at all. The 53 profiles in cowardice that could not get a cap-and-tax bill through the U.S. Senate voted Thursday to let the Environmental Protection Agency keep the unprecedented power Congress did not expressly give it. It is power that the EPA arrogated to itself through regulation to control every aspect of the American economy and our very lives.
This country was born over anger at taxation without representation. Regulation without representation may spark another revolt come November. The Tea Party movement began precisely because of such arrogant disregard for the wishes of the American people. Unlike health care reform, this time the cowardly lions of the Senate couldn't even do it themselves and ceded their authority to the EPA.
It was only a motion to proceed to consideration of Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski's resolution (S.J. Res. 26) which, under a forgotten provision of the Contract With America, lets legislators veto a "major rule" by any regulatory agency within 60 days of publication. It needed just 51 votes; it got 47.
All 41 Republicans, including newbie Scott Brown of Massachusetts, voted not to shred the Constitution. The motion attracted, for various reasons, the votes of six Democrats — Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson, Mark Pryor, the departing Evan Bayh and even Jay Rockefeller, who for once chose jobs over ideology.
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin accused the Republicans of choosing "political science over the real science," even after the EPA's junk science based on the manipulation of data by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been exposed as a manufactured fraud.
The case for climate change has collapsed — a fact recognized, finally, by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who, with Democrat John Kerry and independent Joseph Lieberman, once hoped to work out some kind of compromise legislation with a token nod to domestic energy production.
Last week, Graham told reporters he would vote against the climate bill he helped author. "The science about global warming has changed," Graham told reporters Wednesday on why he was backing an energy bill by Sen. Dick Lugar. "I think they've oversold this stuff, quite frankly. I think they've been alarmist and the science is in question."
Hardly a profile in courage, since the legislation wasn't going anywhere, but welcome aboard nonetheless. The science behind cap-and-trade is not only in question, it's nonexistent. The Earth is demonstrably cooling, and the trend will likely continue for decades, according to scientists who don't tamper with the data.
So delusional are Senate Democrats that California's Barbara Boxer, in trying to advance her own failed cap-and-tax bill, said on the Senate floor: "I'm going to put in the record ... a host of quotes from our national security experts who tell us that carbon pollution leading to climate change will be over the next 20 years the leading cause of conflict, putting our troops in harm's way." So, forget that Iranian nuke.
This is a Congress full of hypocrites who complain about executive branch power under Republicans but are willing to give the EPA unprecedented power because they don't have the votes for cap-and-trade. "Who elected the Environmental Protection Agency?" asked Wyoming Republican John Barrasso. It is a question we, and the voters, ask too.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/537154/201006111858/Cap-And-Traitors.aspx
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As Investors Business Daily stated the case:
“A Mexican cartel plots to blow up a dam — in Texas! Another pack of Mexican terrorists takes cash from Hugo Chavez. And what is Washington wringing its hands about? Why, racism in Arizona.”
We suspect that a more immigration reform would be addressed quite expeditiously, responsibly and respectfully if the object of Mexican cartel’s terrorism acts were instead the White House and Congress. Instead, Obama and the Democrats are using the issue to divide the nation and corruptly obtain votes from the Hispanic community.
Bordering Disaster
Investors Business Daily Posted 06/04/2010
National Security: A Mexican cartel plots to blow up a dam — in Texas! Another pack of Mexican terrorists takes cash from Hugo Chavez. And what is Washington wringing its hands about? Why, racism in Arizona.
If still more proof is needed that the border needs to be secured, the latest threats emerging from Mexico should do the trick. Together, they signal that the country's war could advance to a more savage stage.
Last month, the Los Zetas paramilitary drug cartel tried to blow up the Falcon Dam near Zapata, Texas, on the Rio Grande River. The motive was to destroy a smuggling route controlled by the rival Gulf Cartel. Had it succeeded, 534 billion gallons of water could have been unleashed onto a region of 4 million people.
The plot was primitive, and U.S. lawmen took preemptive steps to foil it. But it showed motive, and the threat remains.
On Friday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry called it a reminder that more federal resources are needed to secure the border. Perry said he hoped he never had to tell U.S. officials "we told you so" after a major attack.
Moreover, the threat is no longer just over smuggling routes. Last Tuesday, the Washington Examiner quoted Mexican and U.S. intelligence sources as saying Mexico's Ejercito Popular Revolucionario (EPR), a Marxist terror organization aligned with drug cartels, is secretly receiving funds from Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez.
The group seeks to overthrow the Mexican government while engaging in drug trafficking, much as the FARC guerrillas do in Colombia. What's disturbing here is not just EPR's growing ties to the drug trade — which in time could lead to an alliance with the Zetas. It's the threat to Mexico's democracy, as well as the group's expertise in destroying infrastructure like gas lines, which EPR did in 2007.
FARC itself has also begun operating in Mexico, cutting out drug trafficking middlemen to forge closer ties with Mexico's cartels. StrategyPage, an intelligence forecaster, warned that FARC could begin launching attacks against the U.S. from Mexico in an effort to stop the U.S. from helping Colombia in its war on drugs back home.
These blood-chilling scenarios aren't fantasies. They are signs of an emerging threat that gets little attention from U.S. lawmakers. Instead of focusing on making the border secure, they play partisan political games, pandering to potential voting blocs by dangling amnesty in front of illegal immigrants, grandstanding against Arizona's effort to enforce federal law and coming up with one excuse after another for not erecting a border fence.
As illegal armed groups plot to blow up infrastructure even in this country, Democrats in Congress are more concerned about an illegal immigrant getting his feelings hurt if a police officer in Arizona asks him to show some ID.
Such distractions create opportunities for Mexico's already-odious drug traffickers to be even more ambitious.
The developments from Mexico parallel what happened in Colombia in the 1980s and 1990s, before that country got a grip on how to defeat drug lords.
As drug lords such as Medellin cartel kingpin Pablo Escobar became rich and powerful, their depredations became increasingly callous and casual. Trying to murder a politician, Escobar blew an Avianca 727 out of the sky in 1989, killing 110 people.
To destroy court records that could have meant extradition to the U.S., he teamed up with the Marxist terrorist group M-19 to blow up Colombia's supreme court building, killing 11 justices in 1985 to make sure the papers burned.
He also played politics, aligning with left-wing lawyers and human rights activists, claiming fealty to the poor and victimhood for himself on the human rights front. After Escobar's demise in 1993, political terrorist groups such as FARC took his place.
Now we have Mexican cartels and terrorists emerging in the same pattern. The plot on the border dam and Chavez's funding of Marxist narcoterrorists are an emerging menace that demands immediate attention. Mexican groups like EPR and the drug cartels find only advantage in Congress' indifference to security and laugh at its political priorities.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/536460/201006041853/Bordering-Disaster.aspx
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The following opinion piece can be found on myriad websites with some variations. It was written by Robert A. Hall, who has served as a marine in Vietnam, a State Senator from Massachusetts and is a freelance writer.
This was written just a few weeks after Obama took office yet it sounds even more penetrating, insightful and fresh today.
I'm Tired
Robert A. Hall February 19, 2009
I’ll be 63 soon. Except for one semester in college when jobs were scarce, and a six-month period when I was between jobs, but job-hunting every day, I’ve worked, hard, since I was 18. Despite some health challenges, I still put in 50-hour weeks, and haven’t called in sick in seven or eight years. I make a good salary, but I didn’t inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am. Given the economy, there’s no retirement in sight, and I’m tired. Very tired.
I’m tired of being told that I have to “spread the wealth around” to people who don’t have my work ethic. I’m tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy or stupid to earn it.
I’m tired of being told that I have to pay more taxes to “keep people in their homes.” Sure, if they lost their jobs or got sick, I’m willing to help. But if they bought McMansions at three times the price of our paid-off, $250,000 condo, on one-third of my salary, then let the leftwing Congresscritters who passed Fannie and Freddie and the Community Reinvestment Act that created the bubble help them—with their own money.
I’m tired of being told how bad America is by leftwing millionaires like Michael Moore, George Soros and Hollywood entertainers who live in luxury because of the opportunities America offers. In thirty years, if they get their way, the United States will have the religious freedom and women’s rights of Saudi Arabia, the economy of Zimbabwe, the freedom of the press of China, the crime and violence of Mexico, the tolerance for Gay people of Iran, and the freedom of speech of Venezuela. Won’t multiculturalism be beautiful?
I’m tired of being told that Islam is a “Religion of Peace,” when every day I can read dozens of stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives and daughters for their family “honor;” of Muslims rioting over some slight offense; of Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because they aren’t “believers;” of Muslims burning schools for girls; of Muslims stoning teenage rape victims to death for “adultery;” of Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur’an and Shari’a law tells them to.
I believe “a man should be judged by the content of his character, not by the color of his skin.” I’m tired of being told that “race doesn’t matter” in the post-racial world of President Obama, when it’s all that matters in affirmative action jobs, lower college admission and graduation standards for minorities (harming them the most), government contract set-asides, tolerance for the ghetto culture of violence and fatherless children that hurts minorities more than anyone, and in the appointment of US Senators from Illinois. I think it’s very cool that we have a black president and that a black child is doing her homework at the desk where Lincoln wrote the emancipation proclamation. I just wish the black president was Condi Rice, or someone who believes more in freedom and the individual and less in an all-knowing government.
I’m tired of a news media that thinks Bush’s fundraising and inaugural expenses were obscene, but that think Obama’s, at triple the cost, were wonderful. That thinks Bush exercising daily was a waste of presidential time, but Obama exercising is a great example for the public to control weight and stress, that picked over every line of Bush’s military records, but never demanded that Kerry release his, that slammed Palin with two years as governor for being too inexperienced for VP, but touted Obama with three years as senator as potentially the best president ever.
Wonder why people are dropping their subscriptions or switching to Fox News? Get a clue. I didn’t vote for Bush in 2000, but the media and Kerry drove me to his camp in 2004.
I’m tired of being told that out of “tolerance for other cultures” we must let Saudi Arabia use our oil money to fund mosques and madrassa Islamic schools to preach hate in America, while no American group is allowed to fund a church, synagogue or religious school in Saudi Arabia to teach love and tolerance.
I’m tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which no one is allowed to debate. My wife and I live in a two-bedroom apartment and carpool together five miles to our jobs. We also own a three-bedroom condo where our daughter and granddaughter live. Our carbon footprint is about 5% of Al Gore’s, and if you’re greener than Gore, you’re green enough.
I’m tired of being told that drug addicts have a disease, and I must help support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do. Did a giant germ rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white powder up their noses while they tried to fight it off? I don’t think Gay people choose to be Gay, but I damn sure think druggies chose to take drugs. And I’m tired of harassment from cool people treating me like a freak when I tell them I never tried marijuana. Update: People have written to tell me I'd have more sympathy if this was close to me. It is exactly having seen the destruction of alcoholism and herion addiction in my own family that makes me pretty itolerate of people who are willing to destroy the people around them to indulge themselves.
I’m tired of illegal aliens being called “undocumented workers,” especially the ones who aren’t working, but are living on welfare or crime. What’s next? Calling drug dealers, “Undocumented Pharmacists”? And, no, I’m not against Hispanics. Most of them are Catholic and it’s been a few hundred years since Catholics wanted to kill me for my religion. I’m willing to fast track for citizenship any Hispanic person who can speak English, doesn’t have a criminal record and who is self-supporting without family on welfare, or who serves honorably for three years in our military. Those are the citizens we need. Update: A few people have taken this to indicate some bias against Catholics, bbased on events 400 years ago. While I think they are either too touchy or fail to understand, I was onlly trying to say that Ihave zero problem with Catholics wanting to come to the US, but that I hav great concerns about Muslims, as a good % of them do want to kill me, or force their religion and moral code on me.
I’m tired of latte liberals and journalists, who would never wear the uniform of the Republic themselves, or let their entitlement-handicapped kids near a recruiting station, trashing our military. They and their kids can sit at home, never having to make split-second decisions under life and death circumstances, and bad mouth better people then themselves. Do bad things happen in war? You bet. Do our troops sometimes misbehave? Sure. Does this compare with the atrocities that were the policy of our enemies for the last fifty years—and still are? Not even close. So here’s the deal. I’ll let myself be subjected to all the humiliation and abuse that was heaped on terrorists at Abu Ghraib or Gitmo, and the critics can let themselves be subject to captivity by the Muslims who tortured and beheaded Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, or the Muslims who tortured and murdered Marine Lt. Col. William Higgins in Lebanon, or the Muslims who ran the blood-spattered Al Qaeda torture rooms our troops found in Iraq, or the Muslims who cut off the heads of schoolgirls in Indonesia, because the girls were Christian. Then we’ll compare notes. British and American soldiers are the only troops in history that civilians came to for help and handouts, instead of hiding from in fear. UPDATE: It has rightly been pointed out to me, several times, that I should have included Canadian, Australian and New Zealand troops here. My apologies for slighting these gallant allies of freedom.
I’m tired of people telling me that their party has a corner on virtue and the other party has a corner on corruption. Read the papers—bums are bi-partisan. And I’m tired of people telling me we need bi-partisanship. I live in Illinois, where the “Illinois Combine” of Democrats and Republicans has worked together harmoniously to loot the public for years. And I notice that the tax cheats in Obama’s cabinet are bi-partisan as well.
I’m tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of both parties talking about innocent mistakes, stupid mistakes or youthful mistakes, when we all know they think their only mistake was getting caught. I’m tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor.
Speaking of poor, I’m tired of hearing people with air-conditioned homes, color TVs and two cars called poor. The majority of Americans didn’t have that in 1970, but we didn’t know we were “poor.” The poverty pimps have to keep changing the definition of poor to keep the dollars flowing.
I’m real tired of people who don’t take responsibility for their lives and actions. I’m tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination, or big-whatever for their problems.
Yes, I’m damn tired. But I’m also glad to be 63. Because, mostly, I’m not going to get to see the world these people are making. I’m just sorry for my granddaughter.
http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2009/02/robert.html
Robert A. Hall is a Marine Vietnam veteran who served five terms in the Massachusetts state senate. He blogs at www.tartanmarine.blogspot.com
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The magnitude of corruption in the Obama Administration seems to be limitless yet nary a word has been written on it by the general news media. However, others largely outside of the “mainstream” have ferreted out these scandals, providing many of the American public with important information.
The following expose reveals additional “convenient” relationships between ostensible opposing parties in the Gulf oil spill, BP and the Obama Administration.
The ties that bind. Remember Rahm Emanuel's rent-free D.C. apartment? The owner: A BP adviser
June 7, 2010
In case you were tempted to buy the faux Washington outrage at BP and its gulf oil spill in recent days, here's a story that reveals a little-known corporate political connection and the quiet way the inner political circles intersect, protect and care for one another in the nation's capital. And Chicago.
We already knew that BP and its folks were significant contributors to the record $750-million war chest of Barack Obama's 2007-08 campaign.
Now, we learn the details of a connection of Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago mayoral wannabe, current Obama chief of staff, ex-representative, ex-Clinton money man and ex-Windy City political machine go-fer.
Shortly after Obama's happy inaugural, eyebrows rose slightly upon word that, as a House member, Emanuel had lived the last five years rent-free in a D.C. apartment of Democratic colleague Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and her husband, Stanley Greenberg.
For an ordinary American, that would likely raise some obvious tax liability questions. But like Emanuel, the guy overseeing the Internal Revenue Service now is another Obama insider, Tim Geithner, who had his own outstanding tax problems but skated through confirmation anyway by the Democratic-controlled Congress.
Remember this was all before the letters BP stood for Huge Mess. Even before the Obama administration gave BP a safety award.
Now follow these standard Washington links if you can:
Greenberg's consulting firm was a prime architect of BP's recent rebranding drive as a green petroleum company, down to green signs and the slogan "Beyond Petroleum."
Greenberg's company is also closely tied to a sister Democratic outfit -- GCS, named for the last initials of Greenberg, James Carville, another Clinton advisor, and Bob Shrum, John Kerry's 2004 campaign manager.
According to published reports, GCS received hundreds of thousands of dollars in political polling contracts in recent years from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Probably just a crazy coincidence. But you'll never guess who was the chairman of that Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee dispensing those huge polling contracts to his kindly rent-free landlord.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/.a/6a00d8341c630a53ef0134836b574d970c-popup
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In a very cogent way, Peter Ferrara analyzes “everything Obama” and predicts with greater certainty that without a drastic change in his general course, Obama not only will be just a one term President, but will be forced to resign short of the quadrennial term. This would bring great jubilation to all of us who feel somewhat helpless watching him and his cronies corruptly deconstruct and destroy our country from within.
The flip side of this is that there will be more (expected) damage to come prior to this occurring.
The Coming Resignation of Barack Obama
By Peter Ferrara on 6.2.10
Months ago, I predicted in this column that President Obama would so discredit himself in office that he wouldn't even be on the ballot in 2012, let alone have a prayer of being reelected. Like President Johnson in 1968, who had won a much bigger victory four years previously than Obama did in 2008, President Obama will be so politically defunct by 2012 that he won't even try to run for reelection.
I am now ready to predict that President Obama will not even make it that far. I predict that he will resign in discredited disgrace before the fall of 2012. Like my previous prediction, that is based not just on where we are now, but where we are going under his misleadership.
Is the President Above the Law?
Watergate was supposed to have established that Presidents are not above the law. If that is so, President Obama may have to resign for breaking the law in the Sestak affair.
Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) is now the Democrat nominee for the Senate seat held far too long by Arlen Specter. President Obama induced Specter to switch parties and give the Democrats their very temporary, 60 vote, filibuster-proof majority, in return for endorsing him for reelection and promising him no opposition in the Democrat primary. But Sestak had already announced that he was running for the seat, and he refused to get out. Two week ago, Sestak defeated the unprincipled, opportunistic Specter for the Democrat nomination, continuing the perfect string of everyone who Obama endorses and campaigns for going down to defeat.
For months now, Sestak has publicly claimed that President Obama tried to keep his promise to Specter by offering him a high-ranking administration appointment if he would get out of the race. The rumor is that Sestak, formerly an Admiral, was offered appointment as Secretary of the Navy. The problem is that a federal statute explicitly provides that it is a federal felony, punishable by up to one year in prison, to attempt to bribe a candidate with a federal job, or anything of value, to influence an election.
As Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) has indicated, the White House is now engaged in a coverup that is only making matters worse. Former President Bill Clinton is now claiming that he carried the offer to Sestak of an appointment to an unpaid position on a Presidential Advisory Board in return for dropping out of the race. But that story is not plausible because as a sitting member of Congress he could not have legally served on such a Presidential Board. So is the White House now lying to the American people about the matter?
Moreover, indirectly offering the job through former President Clinton still violates the statute, as does the offer of an unpaid position. That is why Issa, Mark Levin, and others are saying that what the White House is publicly admitting still amounts to a federal crime, which is an impeachable offense. Democrats are going to have to decide if they really believe that presidents are not above the law. Presently, one reason to vote Republican for president is that Republican presidents are subject to the rule of law, but Democrat presidents are not.
Misfeasance or Malfeasance?
But the Sestak affair is just the early breeze of the gathering political storm that threatens to envelop President Obama. A mysterious explosion over six weeks ago in a deep sea oil well a mile below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico continues to gush oil to this day, heading for Gulf beaches and fisheries. The White House says the President held a meeting on it in the Oval Office on Day One. But we have not heard a word on what was done in that meeting 44 days ago, other than develop political talking points.
Democrat talking head Kirsten Powers, writing in the New York Post on May 27, explained what should have been done: "Turns out the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration back in 1994 drafted plans for responding to a major Gulf oil spill, a response called 'In Situ Burn.'…The idea was to use barriers called 'fire booms' to collect and contain the spill at sea -- and then burn it off." Powers cites former federal oil spill response coordinator Ron Gourget as believing "this could have captured 95 percent of the oil from the spill." But, Powers writes, "the Administration's chief response so far was to send out Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to do his best impersonation of a totalitarian thug, proclaiming that the government would 'have its boot on the throat of BP.'"
It is too late for the fire boom plan now, with the oil spreading across the Gulf. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal quickly developed another plan to build temporary sand barrier islands off the coasts to absorb the oil and protect fragile wetlands and fisheries. The law requires federal approval for such activity. But perhaps because Jindal is a Republican, the hyperpartisan Obama Administration has failed to even respond to his proposal first made a month ago, except to say that it is studying the idea, while the oil starts to wash ashore.
What President Obama has done instead is to suspend all offshore drilling in the Arctic, at least until the causes and solutions to the Gulf spill are discovered. No applications for drilling permits in the Arctic will even be considered now until 2011. Drilling scheduled to begin this summer under already issued Alaskan leases has also been halted.
Investor’s Business Daily explains how this punishes the American people, saying on May 28, "Alaska's Chukchi Sea holds more oil and gas than anyone thought – 1,600 trillion cubic feet of undeveloped natural gas, or 30% of the world's supply, and 83 billion barrels of undeveloped oil, 4% of estimated global resources. You can be sure the Russians won't be as reluctant." Nor will the Cubans and their Chinese partners expected to drill in the Gulf of Mexico off of Florida's coasts as well, just as the Brits and others have not been reluctant to drill in the stormy North Sea.
Moreover, President Obama has already begun to use the crisis to renew his political push for federal cap and tax legislation that will cripple the economy with arbitrary, unnecessary, soaring, energy cost increases. Does he plan to hold any future drilling hostage to passage of this legislation?
In the response to Hurricane Katrina, federal law specifically provided that the then Democrat Governor of Louisiana and Mayor of New Orleans were in charge. The federal and FEMA role was to "support…state and local assistance efforts" with the necessary, primarily financial resources. Nevertheless, in the days after the hurricane, President Bush's federal government was the only functioning authority, as the Coast Guard rescued 30,000 people off of rooftops. Hundreds of school buses that could have been used to whisk those people out of harm's way were left ruined under water due to Mayor Nagin's inaction in response to federal hurricane warnings. The partisan Governor acted only to deny and delay President Bush's control over the state's national guard for political reasons.
But the Gulf oil spill emanates from federal waters, which means President Obama is directly in charge, not state and local officials. And his derelictions are losing his own supporters. Democrat Powers writes, "If he promised us anything, Obama promised us competence. Instead, we've gotten the Keystone Cops." As Peggy Noonan said of the Democrats in last weekend's Wall Street Journal, "In time -- after the 2010 elections go badly -- they are going to start to peel off. The political operative James Carville, the most vocal and influential of the President's Gulf critics, signaled to Democrats this week that they can start to peel off. He did it through the passion of his denunciations." Therein lies the beginning of the end.
That end will be greatly accelerated if any email, document, or other serious evidence turns up indicating that President Obama or his cronies delayed the federal response in any way because they thought the spreading spill would advance their political agenda. Or if any evidence arises that Obama failed to respond to Jindal for partisan political reasons.
Geometric Downward Spiral
Moreover, all of this is just what's happening now. What leads me to predict President Obama's early political demise are his numerous, enormous vulnerabilities to further adverse developments, threatening a geometrically accelerating downward spiral, for him politically, and for America substantively.
Now and for the next six months, we will be enjoying the high point of the Obama economy, the tippy top of the Obamanomics, Keynesian, roller coaster. If Art Laffer's Coming Crash of 2011 arrives next year, or if the economy just dips into another downturn, President Obama no longer enjoys the political base to survive it. With African Americans suffering Depression-level unemployment for over a year now, even that most solid of all political bases will weaken and waver in the face of a renewed downturn.
Under the President's leadership, Congressional Democrats continue to pile more and more taxes on the investment necessary to create jobs and prosperity, "the most punitive tax rates on investment income since the late 1970s," as The Wall Street Journal reported on May 27. Even before Obama and the New Left takeover of Washington, the top 1% of taxpayers were already paying more in income taxes than the bottom 95% combined, as the Tax Foundation has accurately reported based on official IRS data. But this is not enough for the Obamunistas, who are justifying still higher taxes saying the rich must pay their "fair share," sort of like the last of the Romanov family had to pay their fair share.
This punitive tax piracy is already starting to cause capital flight from the U.S., which will accelerate into an outright capital jail break from America next year. That will only hasten a renewed downturn, cripple job creation, and restore rising unemployment. The American people will not endure mismanagement of the now two-year-old financial crisis into an extended depression.
Moreover, with the federal deficit already at a record smashing $1.6 trillion this year, a renewed recession next year will only cause it to soar further. How long can that go on before we arrive at Greece, where the markets refuse to buy the bonds necessary to finance the deficit, at least without soaring interest rates, which would only cause further economic decline.
Meanwhile, the Fed has long been busily creating new economic bubbles with its overly extended easy money and zero interest rate policies. Monetary policies so loose that they should be considered pornographic are creating new vulnerabilities for the President, which will arise as sudden surprises involving new dollar, interest rate or inflation scares. When the Fed finally decides it must pull back, it has laid the foundation for the bubbles to burst again, further inspiring economic downturn. Gold is already higher than the S&P 500. That is a blaring warning sign of trouble ahead.
Another blind spot for the President is energy policy itself. Those opposed to further offshore drilling need to end their hypocrisy and stop using the remaining oil and gas still available to the rest of us. Cap and tax is one of the biggest economic and political blunders in history just waiting to happen, a greater potential party builder for the Republicans than Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt combined. The American people for once will be unified in coming together to get Democrats out of office so that the obvious, huge, fat, unnecessary, cap and tax cost sitting on top of the American economy can be removed. As the price of gas climbs over $4 a gallon due to that and to President Obama's anti-production policies, the public riot demanding immediate change in leadership will surprise establishment Washington.
Adding to all of this are the grave vulnerabilities posed by Iran successfully developing nuclear weapons, and President Obama's foreign policy weaknesses generally, which just invite war. Devilishly pursuing the opposite of every one of Reagan's policies, instead of Peace Through Strength, Obama is inviting War Through Weakness. If Iran launches a bloody attack on Israel, open calls for his resignation will be widespread. If Iran uses a nuclear weapon in that attack, or in any other attack against American interests, the Obama Administration will be over politically.
The President himself has laid the foundation for his biggest political vulnerability of all. He won our votes and the election in 2008 with "the firm pledge" not to raise taxes "in any form" on anyone making less than $250,000 a year. Now he has already backed away from that pledge to the American people by creating a Presidential Deficit Commission, with "everything on the table," including tax increases on working people in direct violation of the pledge. The much discussed Value Added Tax (VAT) could not be a more direct violation of the no tax increase pledge, increasing the prices of everything working families buy.
When the President directly violates the pledge that got him elected by openly endorsing such a tax increase, his resignation will immediately become a central political issue. The above problems and vulnerabilities will come together to increase the pressure for resignation to unbearable levels.
As Peggy Noonan suggested, the key will be the Democrats themselves (though she has never said a word about possible resignation). After suffering grievous losses in this year's elections, they will have limited tolerance for the above described political pressures and chaos. With the very survival of their party at stake, the Democrats will buckle and desert President Obama, joining the calls for his resignation. At that point, with zero prospects for reelection, and unable to govern effectively, he will resign.
Peter Ferrara is director of entitlement and budget policy at the Institute for Policy Innovation, a policy advisor to the Heartland Institute, and general counsel of the American Civil Rights Union. He served in the White House Office of Policy Development under President Reagan, and as Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States under the first President Bush. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School.
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/06/02/the-coming-resignation-of-bara
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To no one’s surprise, the total theorized costs of Obamacare are continuing to increase years before the first patient is planned to be seen under the system. That is, if the nationalized healthcare fraud doesn’t die a quick death beforehand from strangulation by defunding or repealing. The whole process was interminably corrupt and opaque in order to be able to pass it against the vociferous opposition of a large majority of Americans.
Just to implement one of their ideological linchpins.
Fiscal Fraud of Obamacare Snowballing Already
Terence P. Jeffrey 6/02/2010
Remember the health care issue? Well, the fiscal consequences of the socialized medicine scheme enacted by President Barack Obama and Congress just two months ago are already beginning to snowball.
Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman of California, the chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, was one of the key architects and advocates of Obamacare. He was back on the House floor on Friday delivering an urgent plea to fellow Democrats that inadvertently -- or, perhaps, unavoidably -- revealed the fraudulent nature of our new national health care regime.
It was supposed to save the taxpayers money, remember?
"This legislation will lower costs for families and for businesses and for the federal government, reducing our deficit by over $1 trillion in the next two decades," Obama said when he signed the bill.
On Friday, Waxman declared that the sky is about to fall on the Medicare system. He went to the House floor to "urge" his colleagues to vote for a bill that includes $102 billion in new federal spending and would add $54 billion to the national debt over the next 10 years -- $25 billion of it in the few months remaining in this fiscal year.
Why did Waxman believe this new borrowing-and-spending was necessary?
"It's absolutely critical to do this if we are going to keep doctors in Medicare and keep the promise to Medicare beneficiaries that they will have access to physicians' services," said Waxman. "This provision will provide a moderate increase in physicians' fees, 2.2 percent for the rest of the year. If we don't act, doctors' fees will be cut by 21 percent from where they are today. This would be unconscionable."
It would not merely be unconscionable. If the 21-percent cut in Medicare fees for doctors -- that, in fact, legally took effect on June 1 -- is allowed to stand, many doctors in this country will simply stop seeing Medicare patients. They will not be able to afford it. The cost to them of serving their patients will exceed what they are paid. Their profit margin will be swept away.
To make precisely this point, 12 national surgeons' associations -- including the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, the American Association of Orthopedic Surgeons and the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery -- sent House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a letter last Wednesday warning her what would happen if Medicare doctors' fees are slashed as they are scheduled to be under current law.
"These continued payment cuts, rising practice costs and a lack of certainty going forward, make it difficult, if not impossible, for already financially challenged surgical practices to continue to treat Medicare patients," the surgeons' associations told Pelosi.
The letter pointed the speaker toward the results of a survey of more than 13,000 physicians done in February by the Surgical Coalition, a group of more than 20 medical associations. The survey asked these doctors what they would do if Medicare fees were slashed by the scheduled 21.2 percent.
Twenty-nine percent said they would opt out of the Medicare system entirely. Almost 69 percent said they would limit the number of appointments they would take from Medicare patients, 45.8 percent said they would start referring complex Medicare patients to other physicians, 45.3 percent said they would stop providing certain services, 43.8 percent said they would defer purchasing new medical equipment and 42.7 percent said they would cut their staff.
Almost 4 percent of the doctors said they would close or sell their practices.
Why did Congress plan to slash the doctors' Medicare fees in the first place? It didn't. In the past, the majority in Congress has routinely enacted budget bills that fraudulently assumed that on some future date the federal government would dramatically slash the Medicare fees paid to doctors, knowing that before that date arrived the majority would pass "emergency" legislation postponing the cuts to some still-future date. The majority in Congress does this so the long-term deficits caused by their spending bills appear to be smaller than they actually are.
As originally proposed, Obamacare would have ended this practice, permanently setting Medicare reimbursement rates for doctors at the true anticipated level. But the Congressional Budget Office determined that doing so would have added $208 billion to the cost of Obamacare over 10 years, forcing the CBO to declare that Obamacare added to the deficit rather than reduced it. That would have cost Obamacare votes on the House floor and quite possibly defeated the legislation.
So the congressional leadership stripped the "doc fix" out of Obamacare and left it to another day.
Waxman went down to the floor last Friday to declare that day had come. Unfortunately, for him, the Senate had already left town for its Memorial Day vacation. So, the current fix will have to wait until it returns.
Even then, the fix only accounts for $22.9 billion of the $102 billion cost of the bill the House did pass on Friday. Most of the rest of the money is for extending unemployment benefits and special targeted tax breaks.
The $22.9 billion fix for the doctors' fees -- if passed by the Senate -- would only last through September 2011. Then Congress will presumably do it all again -- or let the Medicare system collapse.
In the meantime, Obamacare is supposed to cut half a trillion in spending from elsewhere in Medicare, while Obama's budget -- not counting the $54 billion in new debt included in this bill -- is expected to add $9.8 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?print=yes&id=37301
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Earlier this year while jogging on a trail, Texas Governor Rick Perry shot and killed a coyote that was threatening his dog. Not unexpectedly, this served as fodder to illustrate how far our country has devolved from its founding which was exemplified by a strong work ethic, common sense, responsibility and practicality compared to where we are right now. The quintessential examples of this and polar opposites on myriad issues are Texas and California.
The Governors of California and Texas are jogging with their dogs along different trails at different times each is faced with a coyote that jumps out and starts to attack their dog. Their responses mirror the attitudes and politics of their respective states:
California Governor:
1. Governor starts to intervene and then realizes he should stop; the coyote is doing what is natural.
2. Call animal control. Animal control captures coyote and spends $200 testing it for diseases and $500 relocating it.
3. Call Vet. Veterinarian collects dead dog and spends $200 testing it for diseases.
4. Governor goes to hospital and spends $3500 getting checked for diseases from the coyote and getting bite wound bandaged.
5. Running trail gets shut down for 6 months while wildlife services conduct a $100,000 survey to make sure the area is clear of dangerous animals.
6. Governor spends $50,000 and starts a coyote awareness program for people who live in the area.
7. State legislature spends $2 million investigating how to better handle rabies and how to possibly eradicate it.
8. Governor’s security agent fired for not stopping the attack and letting the Governor try to intervene.
9. Cost $75,000 to train new security agent.
10. PETA protests the relocation of the coyote.
Texas Governor:
1. Governor pops a $1.23 .380 ACP Gold Dot Hollow Point and drops the coyote.
2. (Not complicated enough to need a #2.)
He and the dog keep jogging.
And people still wonder why California is BROKE… as are many other liberal/Democrat run states, counties and cities.
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The following is an incisive assessment of the scandalous and reprehensible attitudes and of Obama and the Democrats. In fact, Obama’s inept, corrosive and seditious body of work of should earn him consideration for impeachment after the November elections.
Obama Administration and Democrats Kowtow to Other Countries While Scorning Those Who Have Died For Ours
Posted by Lori Ziganto 5/26/2010 from RedState
In the past week, the Obama administration and fellow Democrats have let their true feelings for America known more than ever before. Well, at least more blatantly. They aren’t even bothering to hide it now and have lost all shame. No longer content with merely worshipping at the altar of multiculturalism, they are now going out of their way to boast that they believe that practically any other country is actually superior to America, and that the men and women who have died fighting for our country aren’t worthy of honor and respect.
This has been clear for many years, to those who were paying attention, evidenced by the ever growing cries for some ill-conceived, thinly veiled diversity and tolerance objective, as well as the constant touting of the concept of “citizens of the world”. Our own Supreme Court started using European laws on which to base their decisions on American law, for goodness sake. Any complaints were met with “You just don’t understand, being philistines and all. Also, shut up.
Racists.”
But the current crop of Democrats have taken it to new lows; they are past rock bottom and are now frantically burrowing through the Earth’s crust. Since attaining power, everything they’ve done has been an attempt to fundamentally change our “defective” Constitution and country. They are trying to create a federal government involved in and in control of every aspect of our lives, even the foods we eat. They have attempted and continue to attempt to morally equate America with those who wish to kill us . They have actively tried to weaken our military and are attempting to further their belief that America is not special. We don’t need no stinkin’ Exceptionalism! Only, we do. And we are.
Obama took to it right away, and started it off with his incessant and seemingly involuntary reactive bowing, done whilst jetting off on his “Apologizing for America” tour. Then, this week, Democrats showed their true colors, in a way that can no longer be ignored, even by the most stubborn. Congressional Democrats cheered - and gave standing ovations - to Mexican President Calderon, as he demonized Arizona and its citizens and denigrated this country as a whole. As I said then, not only do the Democrats fail to figuratively stand up for America, but they literally stand up for and applaud those who seek to condemn it. Worse, they were wearing bracelets, protesting and bashing American citizens, while cheering a foreign leader who was doing the same. From our House floor.
Earlier this month, Joe Biden, always the last to know things, took the diminishing of America on tour. No one bothered to inform him that was no longer necessary. We now invite foreign leaders here to do the bashing for us. Poor Joe. Always in the dark. Biden spoke before the European Union and informed everyone that he believes that Brussels, not Washington, DC, is the “capital of the free world.” What’s wrong with all you patriots? America being the shining city on the hill and the beacon of freedom for the rest of the world is so old school!
Worse, not only does the Obama administration believe that America is passe, they scorn the very men and women who have been, and still are, the greatest force for good in the World - Our military. Our President will not be honoring the fallen, nor those currently serving, at Arlington cemetery on Memorial Day. In wartime no less. The for real kind, not the Dick Blumenthal kind. He needs a vacation, you see. He needs some rest after all that complex thinking and nuanced insight that resulted in his deep analysis of “just plug the damn hole” as a fix for the BP oil spill. Over a month later.
That’s the spin, at least. But, it’s not even the point. It’s his pattern of behavior and the reasons for it. He first showed his disdain for the military when he decided to jet off to Copenhagen to try to score the Olympics while troops were dying in Afghanistan. And he had talked to the Commander once. In two months. He cared more about serving the Olympics up to Chicago than he did about our soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.
He continued dithering over that same troop increase decision while he instead chose to focus on his whiny pants “war” on Fox News. At war with the Fourth Estate, he abandoned the 4th Infantry Division. As Commander in Chief, he chose to worry more about Fox News than foxholes. While our men and women died. While still in the midst of his raging indecision, he further showed what little respect he has for those who serve with this flippant remark at, yes, a photo op.
Obama arrived on the base 3:19 p.m. local time (1 a.m. Eastern Standard Time), and received a rousing welcome from 1,500 troops in camouflage uniforms, many holding cameras or pointing cell phones to snap pictures.
“You guys make a pretty good photo op,” the president said.
Do you know what you make, Obama? A pretty awful example of a leader and, frankly, a man. In your defense, at least you are succeeding at being a pretty good example of a Worst President Ever. I suggest you stay far away from Jimmy Carter; he’s going to be ticked that you stole that crown from him. Although, at least even Carter could pronounce the word Corpsman, I suspect.
There is a pattern. A pattern of pandering to other nations and attempting to apologize for America’s greatness. Now, they are also unforgivably scorning those who bravely help to make the entire world a better place. Who, at the bare minimum, give up their young adulthoods and the innocence of that age to protect and defend their Country, their Countrymen and to aid countless others around the World in their struggles against tyranny, genocide and other atrocities.
The greatest force for good that the World has ever known is powered by those men and women. Those who lost their lives, cut short in their prime, while in the line of duty deserve honor and respect.
Our President is not doing so; he can’t even be bothered to lay a wreath at Arlington cemetery. Perhaps it would help if he had a protest bracelet to wear, proclaiming America is meany pants? Maybe he could force himself to care then.
http://www.redstate.com/snarkandboobs/2010/05/26/obama-administration-and-democrats-kowtow-to-other-countries-while-scorning-those-who-have-died-for-ours/
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Could the winds be shifting in favor of the American people?
Maybe.
The alleged bribe/enticement of Rep. Joe Sestak so he would not challenge Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter for his seat by someone in the Obama Administration is a serious crime and impeachable offense. Someone in the Administration may ultimately take the fall and be the sacrificial lamb for the individual from which this illegality probably originated - Obama.
We would all prefer that Obama be prosecuted directly and be impeached.
October Surprise: Rahm Emanuel Goes to Jail for Obama
Michelle Oddis 05/26/2010
After months of staying mum, according to Fox News the White House is reportedly going address Joe Sestak’s claims that the Obama administration offered him a high-profile position if he would end his candidacy for the Senate seat held by Arlen Specter.
If these allegations prove true, it is a felony to bribe or entice a candidate to withdraw from a race and or interfere with an election process for federal office and someone is going to have to fall on the sword for Obama.
So who made the offer? Obama’s list of thugs and cronies is endless. Strategically the White House should address the issue as soon as possible, as we approach midterms the White House already has a plethora of situations working against them and faces another summer of discontent.
*an oil spill that has been handled poorly by the administration “since day one,” and continues to worsen each day.
*yesterdays’s proposed $200 billion more in tax payer dollars to promote job creation while voters, by a 50-44 margin, still disapprove of Obama’s handling of the economy according to a poll released today.
*North Korea likely preparing to lob missiles at South Korea once again. (Obama has even directed military commanders "to ensure readiness and to deter future aggression.")
*Obama's indignation toward Arizona for the new illegal immigration law that nationally 61% of the population backs.
Now let’s potentially add a jail sentence for his chief of staff. This years "October surprise" looks more and more each day to be one that will favor Republicans.
The following is a video from “Hannity” on 5/25/201 which involves conservative attorneys, Victoria Toensing and Jay Sekulow who took a look at the law and charges that White House officials could face:
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=37191&s=rcmc
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Arizona Governor Jan Brewer distills the incompetence, arrogance and abdication or the Obama Administration’s responsibilities regarding the immigration problem with a video message that even a child can understand. This can be found on the site www.securetheborder.org which we suggest that you visit.
The following is associated with this site:
Arizona Sing-A-Long: Reading Helps You Know What You’re Talking About
While broken borders are not a laughing matter, Washington’s
failure to read Arizona’s immigration law is laughable
PHOENIX –– Two weeks ago, Governor Jan Brewer took President Obama to task for making Arizona’s unsecured borders and illegal immigration crisis a laughing matter. However, since then, Washington’s comedy of errors has grown far worse, with top cabinet officials admitting that they haven’t even read Arizona’s new immigration law. Broken borders are not a laughing matter, but the failure by Obama’s trusted officials to read Arizona’s law before commenting and condemning it is laughable. As a result, SecuretheBorder.org is using a little bit of humor to remind everyone in Washington of the importance of reading. Watch the latest video below:
“Our message is simple: reading helps you know what you’re talking about. That’s why we put Arizona’s immigration law up on www.SecuretheBorder.org,” said campaign spokesman Doug Cole. “Arizona is trying to do the job that the federal government has failed to do, and members of the president’s cabinet condemn it without even reading it. They have time to apologize to China and give President Calderon a standing ovation, but they don’t have the time to read Arizona’s law. Just more examples of how Washington is broken.”
The video features Attorney General Eric Holder, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Assistant Secretary of State PJ Crowley admitting that they have not read Arizona’s immigration law.
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In response to the reprehensible behavior of Obama, Congressional Democrats and Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s speech to Congress criticizing our immigrations policies, Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) delivered a well deserved scathing attack on their outrageous behavior as seen in the following video:
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In the 1950’s, Ronald Reagan warned us that health care could be used as a means to introduce and implement socialism. His words were quite prescient.
Though the public was and is vehemently against government run health care, the Obama Administration, Pelosi and Reid used bribery of corrupt politicians, and threats, lies or disingenuous arguments with feckless other in order to acquire enough votes to pass the legislation.
Again this was done in spite of overwhelming sentiment by the public against socialized medicine. It was a coup by a power hungry and ideologically driven government that disdains its citizens.
Now it is our turn …!
Obamacare Equals Socialism on Steroids
David Limbaugh May 13, 2010
We knew Obama was prevaricating when he told us his purpose to cram through Obamacare was to provide universal access to coverage and reduce costs, but how many people did he manage to fool? How many are still fooled?
He repeatedly complained that America spent more on healthcare than other nations "but wasn't any healthier." He grossly distorted the numbers of chronically uninsured. He lied about his support for a single-payer plan and in denying that the "public option" was a Trojan horse for such a plan. He misled us concerning his intention to federally fund abortions and the coverage of illegals.
He deceitfully insisted that he wouldn't interfere with the patient-doctor relationship, that patients could choose to keep their own plans, that his plan wouldn't lead to rationing and that it would increase the quality of care.
Perhaps his most cynical fraud was his line that he would not sign a bill that would add one single dime to the federal deficit. Along with the uninsured canard, this was his biggest selling point for Obamacare: Healthcare costs were skyrocketing, and he had the magic bullet to remedy that.
Well, we already have objective proof (courtesy of a delinquent Congressional Budget Office pronouncement) that this, too, was a lie.
Obama and congressional Democrats moved budgetary mountains (in the way David Copperfield moves mountains onstage) to create the CBO-supported illusion that his bill wouldn't increase federal budget deficits.
By asking the CBO to make absurd assumptions and by borrowing from other mythical funds (Medicare), Obamacrats were finally able to make the numbers balance, just long enough to give Obama cover to sign the bill.
But less than two months after he signed the bill into law, the CBO, in response to Rep. Jerry Lewis' request for a rescoring based on realistic assumptions instead of the bogus ones Democrats submitted, has already admitted its estimate didn't take into account "discretionary" expenditures that will add some $115 billion worth of costs.
With the publication of this news, the administration is now making noise, threatening not to fund the bill unless Congress finds sufficient savings elsewhere to nullify that "unexpected" cost increase.
Give me a break. Just how stupid can these people think we are? They knew about these false assumptions before Obama signed the bill, and they're not about to withdraw their wholesale endorsement for Obama's crowning legislative "achievement."
But as bad as Obama's lies were about the costs of his plan, many of us warned that a greater evil in Obamacare was its guaranteed path to reducing our freedoms.
Ronald Reagan was not just issuing platitudes when he said, "One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It's very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project . . . From here, it's a short step to all the rest of socialism."
No truer words were ever spoken, and you can be sure that Obama believes it, too, which is exactly why he misrepresented almost every aspect of his plan in order to get it passed — and even then, just barely.
His real purpose, as many of us have been telling you ad nauseam, is to greatly increase the size and scope of government and government control and, in the process, further radically redistribute wealth. He's a socialist. These aren't just words. He really is.
As it turns out, we don't have to wait any longer to prove we were correct about this, too. Obama has nominated Donald Berwick to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
I discovered in research on my upcoming book that experts believe that under Obamacare, the role of the CMS will be greatly expanded to define the quality of healthcare for every insurance plan, set reimbursement rates for physicians in Medicare and Medicaid, and decide how valuable certain treatments are.
According to Robert M. Goldberg of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, Berwick essentially "will get control of the practice of medicine."
It would be scary enough for a bureaucrat of normal sensibilities and saner politics to have such control, but RedState has uncovered the extent of Berwick's radicalism — like so many of Obama's other appointees.
Berwick is an Ivy League academic who loves wealth redistribution and believes that healthcare is an ideal vehicle to achieve it.
Berwick said: "Any healthcare funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized, and humane must . . . redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate. Excellent healthcare is by definition redistributional."
Berwick also lusts after the British system of socialized medicine, saying that America's healthcare system runs in the "darkness of private enterprise."
How much more proof do people need about Obama?
http://www.newsmax.com/Limbaugh/Obama-Obamacare-healthcare-public/2010/05/13/id/358958
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Negligent. Dismissive. Incompetent. Not fit to serve.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is yet another member of the Obama Administration (see Attorney General Eric Holder) who should be at the forefront of the immigration debate but could not find the time to read the 10 page Arizona immigration law yet did find the time to make derogatory and inflammatory comments regarding it for media reports. Even more ironic, absurd, unbelievable and evidence of the influence of political considerations, is that she was the Governor of Arizona prior to being selected by Obama to her present position. She was eminently aware of the uncontrolled illegal immigration problem at that time and had even requested federal government help.
So, two of the most important and relevant individuals in the federal government who should be responsible for constructively addressing the immigration problem have not been responsible or relevant. They have negligently abdicated their responsibilities to protect Americans and uphold the law.
Both Janet Napolitano and Eric Holder must be removed from office.
See video:
Napolitano Admits She Hasn't Read Arizona Law But Says She Wouldn't Sign It
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Pelosi to Aspiring Musicians: Quit Your Job, Taxpayers Will Cover Your Health Care
Sounds like socialism … er, communism as in communist Russia of the 1970’s.
We need to stop this transfer of wealth and killer of motivation and productivity which enslaves working individuals and forces them to pay for those who are not contributing.
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California is a paradigm of where Obama and Congressional Democrats are hijacking the rest of the country to. Massive unsustainable spending, oppressive but still rising taxes, gargantuan debt, bloated but ever enlarging government, strangulating regulations and red tape, business and employment unfriendly environment and intrusive government.
All of these are manifestations of years subjected to the unfettered and irresponsible actions of Progressives/Liberals. It now seems, California is at the edge of the abyss … and looking back at the rapidly approaching country as a whole.
We must not go there!
Sunset In Taxifornia?
Investors Business Daily 05/12/2010
Deficits: We've been hard on Arnold Schwarzenegger in recent months, but we're foursquare behind the California governor in his effort to balance the state's budget without raising taxes.
The Golden State's $18.6 billion budget deficit, the nation's largest, is the result of uncontrolled spending by the state's Democrat-controlled legislature — nothing else. Yet the very same Democratic legislators are pushing for tax increases in the middle of the state's worst downturn since World War II — and only a year after passing a $12.5 billion tax hike to boost revenue.
To call this foolish would be the understatement of the year. So we were glad to hear that Schwarzenegger will include steep spending cuts in the budget plan he'll release this week.
"We don't believe that raising taxes right now is the right thing to do," said the governator's spokesman Aaron McLear.
He's right. California's deficit is not only gargantuan, it's getting worse. In April, the state income tax month, revenue came in 26% below expectations at $3.6 billion — despite last year's tax hikes.
Democrats' answer to this isn't cutting back after years of profligacy. They want a new 10% severance tax on oil production, higher taxes on commercial property and a repeal of corporate tax breaks passed last year to help create jobs.
These are the kinds of policies that have driven California's economy into a ditch. Its jobless rate of 12.6% is among the nation's highest, and it has the lowest credit rating of any state.
Companies are fleeing a business-unfriendly environment created by years of leftist legislation that has taken the state from first to worst in terms of job creation. Recent studies call California's tax policies the worst in the nation. The Pacific Research Institute, a think tank, not-so-tongue-in-cheek calls the state "Taxi-fornia."
Job relocation specialist Joe Vranich counts 112 major companies since June 2009 that have either moved or opened new facilities in other states — costing California thousands of jobs. The most recent emigrant was none other than Northrop Grumman, which is moving its global headquarters to Northern Virginia.
"It's no mystery what causes companies to leave California," said Vranich. "High taxes, undue regulation, workers' comp costs, a legal environment stacked against businesses, and lengthy and costly construction-permitting requirements."
Each week, some 3,000 middle-class workers and entrepreneurs move elsewhere, recent estimates show. Some 1.4 million have left already.
If Schwarzenegger wins this fight, it could mark a defining shift toward fiscal sanity. If not, and taxes and regulations surge anew, California's darkest days will still lie ahead.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=533862
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Instead of reporting all relevant stories in order to inform the public, the media have become fervent supporters and cheerleaders for Obama and the Democratic Party. Instead of their role as anticipated by the Founding Fathers to protect the people from the government and expose malfeasance, they countenance nearly all behavior by liberal politicians and function as a de facto wing of the Democratic Party – a P.R. one.
This collusion with and protection of the favored Obama and Democrats is corrupt, pernicious and threatens the survival of capitalism and democracy in this country. Unless more Americans wake up to this reality and strongly react, our future looks abysmal.
One-Sidedness Now Epidemic In Newsrooms
By Larry Elder 05/04/2010
Obama Double Standard Disease: an affliction that causes the media to ignore, rationalize or trivialize to defend, support and advance the tax-the-rich, spread-the-wealth, expand-the-government agenda of the president and his party.
This stands in stark contrast with media treatment of those who refuse to embrace the left-wing, America-bullies-world, dissenters-are-racist, pro-amnesty, gay-marriage-is-a-right, pro-Roe worldview.
ODSD is pandemic. Here are just a few cases.
When the economy recovered under President George W. Bush, the major media pronounced it a "jobless recovery." Now, despite unemployment stalled at 9.7% for several months, the same media call it a "surprising" or "unexpected" recovery.
Obama urged passage of an $800 billion "stimulus" package to prevent unemployment from reaching 8%. Post-stimulus passage, unemployment reached 10%. Consider how the media would have treated Bush had he given varying predictions about, and then varying accounts of, the number of jobs supposedly "created or saved" — a laughably unprovable yardstick.
Obama brazenly claims that under his policies, 95% of "working Americans" received a "tax cut." But nearly half of American workers pay absolutely nothing in income taxes. And after exemptions, tax credits and other deductions, the Obama tax cut even exceeded many workers' payroll taxes. How does a check, given to someone who pays little or no taxes, become a "tax cut"?
The National Rifle Association backed the 2000 presidential candidacy of George W. Bush. Describing the organization's relationship with Bush as "unbelievably friendly," an NRA official said a Bush victory would mean "a president where we work out of their office." The media pounced.
Typical of the coverage was a Washington Post article with this headline: "The NRA Brags That They'll Work Out Of President GW Bush's Oval Office." The Post pointed out that the NRA gave more than $500,000 in 1999 and 2000 to the GOP and expected to spend between $12 million and $15 million more on the 2000 election.
The Service Employees International Union, to elect Obama and other Democrats in 2008, spent $85 million. And in support of corporate bailouts, ObamaCare and higher taxes to "spread the wealth differently," SEIU President Andy Stern said, "Western Europe, as much as we used to make fun of it, has made different trade-offs which may have ended with a little more unemployment but a lot more equality."
NBC's Matt Lauer did not ask Obama about the incredible willingness of the SEIU — his biggest financial supporter — to accept fewer jobs for "a lot more equality." CBS' Katie Couric did no story on the union's admission that higher taxes mean fewer jobs. No Washington Post editorial page asked how Stern's "trade-off" of fewer jobs squares with what Obama said about the importance of creating jobs: "That's the single most important thing we can do."
Acorn strongly endorsed Obama. The group's CEO, Bertha Lewis, gave a speech at the winter conference of the Young Democratic Socialists. She said: "Any group that says, 'I'm young, I'm Democratic and I'm a socialist,' is all right with me.
"You know, that's no light thing to do, to actually say, 'I'm a socialist.' ... Right now, we are living in a time which is going to dwarf the McCarthy era. It's going to dwarf the internments during World War II. We are right now in a time that is going to dwarf the era of Jim Crow and segregation.
Did the media ask Obama about Lewis' lunatic attack on those who disagree or about her open embrace of socialism? Did the media ask if Obama cared to comment on his promise, made during the campaign, to allow Acorn to "shape the agenda" of his presidency? Did they ask why Obama dismisses critics who call his agenda "socialism" — even as one of his biggest backers uses that very word?
ODSD ravages the country. It guarantees a pass is given to an administration that refuses to use the term "Islamofascism"; that offends traditional allies like Israel and new ones like Poland and the Czech Republic; that apparently accepts a nuclear Iran; that ignores government's role in the housing meltdown while blaming Wall Street "greed"; and that makes appeals to voters along racial lines.
It means the harmful consequences of the exploding welfare state get ignored, trivialized or disputed. It means "experts" hand-picked by the media overwhelmingly support the administration's income-equality agenda. It means that inconvenient news stories questioning "bigger and better" government or showing another side are downplayed, underreported or dismissed.
The Obama Double Standard Disease is a pre-existing illness — not covered, even under ObamaCare.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=532253
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In a similar underhanded way as in the healthcare reform legislation, Congressional Democrats are inserting regulations into the proposed financial reform bill that have absolutely no relevance to it. This is just another depraved and clandestine power grab by the federal government to abrogate more of our rights because if they were proposed in an open and honest manner tremendous public outrage would result.
In this case, it involves granting the FTC powerful control over the internet and beyond what the FCC could regulate. Such added control must be stopped and stripped from the contemplated legislation.
Why does the Wall Street regulation overhaul give FTC authority over the Internet?
Ed Morrissey May 1, 2010
Earlier this week, the Washington Post reported on another little Easter egg in a bill cruising through Congress that would normally have followed Nancy Pelosi’s policy of discovery ex post facto. Democrats have pushed hard to get the financial-regulation reform bill unstuck in the Senate, mainly playing on class-warfare themes in painting the GOP as the party of eeeeeeevil Wall Street robber barons. However, the House version of the bill contains provisions that would put the Federal Trade Commission in position to start issuing rules on Internet transactions that would not only slow down business growth but also have no relevance at all to the financial collapse that prompted the bill:
The Federal Trade Commission could become a more powerful watchdog for Internet users under a little-known provision in financial overhaul legislation that would expand the agency’s ability to create rules.
An emboldened FTC would stand in stark contrast to a besieged Federal Communications Commission, whose ability to oversee broadband providers has been cast into doubt after a federal court ruled last month that the agency lacked the ability to punish Comcast for violating open-Internet guidelines.
The version of regulatory overhaul legislation passed by the House would allow the FTC to issue rules on a fast track and permit the agency to impose civil penalties on companies that hurt consumers. FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz has argued in favor of bolstering his agency’s enforcement ability. …
Major media, telecom and cable companies stand to win or lose greatly from changes at the FTC and FCC. For example, a proposed rule at the FCC would force carriers to treat all Web traffic equally on their networks. That has drawn sharp opposition from broadband service providers, who would prefer that Congress mandate such a change. Comcast has complained that some traffic is so heavy that it slows the entire system.
The proposal to expand the FTC’s authority has sparked a flurry of lobbying by advertisers, industry groups and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which are seeking to block it citing concerns about possible overreach by the agency.
This has become a pattern with this Congress and administration. Despite having large majorities in both chambers, Democrats refuse to use the legislative path to pass regulation — mainly because the regulations they want are too radical to pass. Instead, they shift the creation of regulation to agencies like the EPA and its “endangerment” finding for CO2, which would then require Congress and the President to undo rather than vote to impose in the first place.
Even considering that pattern, this is something out of the ordinary. Neither the FTC nor the Internet had anything to do with the Wall Street meltdown in 2008. If this financial-regulation bill is so desperately needed, why did House Democrats lard it up with this power grab at the FTC? Why does the FTC need any further authority over the Internet, where fraud and abuse regulations apply already? The Internet economy has been one of the bright spots throughout a dismal period of recent history. Do we need to attack the one area that shows growth and promise?
Nancy Pelosi knows that her Democratic majorities won’t last much longer. She wants to leave behind a Byzantine structure of unaccountable bureaucrats and embedded power to accomplish what she can’t get through the legitimate processes of lawmaking, and she’s hiding those efforts in so-called emergency legislation. Keep an eye on this during the conference committee on the financial-regulation bill; it’s not in the Senate version, but will almost certainly reappear in the conference report.
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/05/01/why-does-the-wall-street-regulation-overhaul-give-ftc-authority-over-the-internet/
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The incessant left wing attacks on Arizona’s new immigration law are ideologically based emotional rants void of substantive facts. If these demagogues and uninformed parroting protestors availed themselves to examine the law they would note that it is essentially identical to the federal law which the federal government has chosen to largely ignore – for political reasons.
Meanwhile, Arizonans are under assault from these illegals and the Mexican drug and smuggling trade and must protect themselves since the federal government has abdicated its Constitutional responsibility.
Cafferty Blasts Obama and the Dems For the Arizona Law
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The Veterans Administration Hospitals, run by the Federal government, are notoriously horrific on myriad accounts and has been so for years. Negligence, poor patient care, disarray, confusion, bureaucracy are just a few adjectives that can begin to describe the “quality” or lack thereof associated with the VA. And this is just a fraction of the size that Obamacare will be.
So Obama and Congressional Democrats really believe that they can used this along with what has been learned from the Medicare program and the Post Office to provide outstanding care that exceeds what we have now, to more individuals and for less?
Wrong!!
As we have reiterated numerous times, Obamacare is not about healthcare. It is all about government control, power and spreading the wealth around.
Obamacare must rescinded or rendered impotent!
VA Claims Office Takes SNAFU to a New Level
Jana Winter FOXNews.com April 19, 2010
Last month, a decorated Gulf War hero received a letter from the Veterans Affairs Administration that said: We are working on your claim for menstrual disorder. He was surprised -- but not as much as one might think.
Last month, a decorated Gulf War hero received a letter from the Veterans Affairs Administration that said: We are working on your claim for menstrual disorder.
There was just one problem: The claim was submitted for fibromyalgia.
Make that two problems: The claim was submitted by Glenn McBride, a 40-year-old man from Roanoke, Va., who most definitely does not get menstrual cramps.
It's a bad sign when your health insurance provider can’t figure out which gender reaches for the Midol. (Hint: it's the one without the prostate.)
The Department of Veterans Affairs is notorious for bungling health care benefits, and its Roanoke regional office, which handled McBride's claim, has long been considered among the worst.
In September 2009 a surprise inspection found the office was collapsing under the weight of its own bureaucratic incompetence. Literally.
Its filing system — floor-to-ceiling stacks of overfilled file cabinets and loose claims folders — weighed twice as much as the building's structure allowed, threatening the lives of everyone inside. Inspectors also found missing and improperly filed, stored and processed claims, among other problems. The regional office was ordered to overhaul the health care processing center completely.
By last month, six months later, there should have been some improvement. Instead, McBride received a letter that included this perplexing request for additional information:
"On the VA Form 21-4138, Statement in Support of Claim you sent on October 8, 2009, you included menstrual disorder. Please specify what you intended to claim for this condition."
McBride, whose 14 years of Army service included a combat tour with one of the most highly decorated units during Desert Storm -- and did not include any complaints about menstrual cramps, so far as he can recall -- insists this was not just a clerical error. He says it's one more example of the VA ignoring or messing up claims in order to avoid paying benefits.
"If the VA does not actually recognize the request, they do not have to give the award," he said. "Sort of like a perverted form of 'See no evil, Hear no evil, Speak no evil.' Most people just throw up their hands in frustration and walk away at this point. That is the VA's plan."
The VA, asked to comment about McBride's complaint, issued a statement in which it said:
"The Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) mission is to be an advocate for Veterans. VA has a responsibility to assist Veterans during the claims process. Part of that duty is to include all possible issues that a Veteran references in his or her initial claim package. VA regrets any confusion that Mr. McBride's claim may have caused. VA Regional Office employees have reached out to Mr. McBride to clarify the confusion, determine the types of issues he wants to claim, and identify any outstanding concerns that he may have."
Jim Strickland, a veterans advocate who writes a regular health care benefits column on VAWatchdog.org and has his own benefits-related Web site, said he wasn't at all surprised to learn of McBride's "menstrual" letter. "There are 57 regional offices and every one is operating in total chaos and in crisis," he said. "Full frontal mass chaos. Every day."
Contacted in the middle of the week, Strickland said he'd already received two e-mails from veterans who were mailed the records of other veterans. And he provided his most ridiculous example of a nonsensical claims letter, one that managed to try to collect debt and to discuss overpaying the same debt -- at the same time.
For Gulf War veterans who fought during a certain time period, certain health conditions are considered presumptive, meaning that such a high percentage of that group has been diagnosed with the condition it's presumed that it was caused by military service, and coverage is automatically granted. Fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition, is a presumptive one for McBride.
Because of his years of experience dealing with the VA, McBride likes to provide as much information as possible when he submits claim forms. (He also gets a signed and time-stamped receipt upon delivery.) When he sent in his claim for fibromyalgia, he typed clearly at the top of the form: "This form is an official request for SERVICE-CONNECTION for FIBROMYALGIA." He included an extract of a VA "fast letter" regarding presumptive conditions — basically providing the VA with its own policy on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia and Irritable Bowel Syndrome. "Menstrual disorder" is included in the VA's list of symptoms.
"The VA just breezed right through the facts and settled on the obscure," McBride said. "The Roanoke office clearly hasn't changed."
Strickland says the problem at the root of letters like McBride's is a bonus structure paid out to VA claims employees.
"The more work, the better the bonus is," he said. "It's strictly volume, not quality driven. There is no accountability whatsoever.
"The art of the Teflon Jacket has been perfected at our VA. They are really totally invulnerable to your criticism."
When the editor of VAWatchdog.org posted an April Fools Day joke -- "VA DOCTOR TRIES TO GIVE PROSTATE EXAM TO WOMAN
VETERAN (April Fool); VA physician: 'Nobody told me the patient was a female. How the hell was I supposed to know that?'" -- McBride sent in his "menstrual" letter.
It was posted on the same site under the heading, "Today's Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? award goes to the VA's Roanoke, Virginia Regional Office."
The site's editor describes the award:
"Every now and then we get a story about the VA that just can't be. But, it is! Because, remember, we're not dealing with regular people ... we're dealing with the VA. That's when we throw up our hands and scream at the sky:
"'Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?'"
Which is longhand for: WTF.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/04/19/veterans-health-claims-menstrual-disorder/
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The Federal government has shown itself to be inept or at least politically corrupt and publicly insincere in addressing the chronic and dangerous problem of illegal immigration. The border states of Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas have been particularly hard hit with the noxious impact of widespread and overwhelming costs and spiraling out of control crime. Arizona, in fact, has the second highest kidnapping rate in the world which directly stems from the Mexican drug gangs and cartel.
Fed up (no pun intended) with years of inaction, unfulfilled promises and excuses, Arizona’s Republican Governor Jan Brewer and the Republican dominated state legislature have decided that it’s imperative that this issue be seriously addressed to protect the security, safety, financial resources and quality of life of its citizens. The state has recently passed several bills designed to better control illegal immigration but this new law, which has not yet been signed by the Governor, goes much further in aggressively addressing this problem. Arizona residents overwhelmingly support this law.
Arizona’s previous Governor, the incompetent Democrat Janet Napolitano, did little to address the issue and actively thwarted attempts by others to do so. Ironically and not suprisingly, because of her early vocal support for Obama, he selected her to be the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. We have since seen enough of her inaction (pun here)!
Arizona Immigration Law Sparks National Uproar
Paul Davenport Phoenix, Arizona April 22, 2010
Lawmakers approved a sweeping immigration bill Monday intended to ramp up law enforcement efforts even as critics complained it could lead to racial profiling and other abuse.
The state Senate voted 17-11 nearly along party lines to send the bill to Gov. Jan Brewer, who has not taken a position on the measure championed by fellow Republicans. The House approved the bill April 13.
"This bill goes a long way to bringing law and order to the state," said Sen. Al Melvin, R-Tucson, who cited costly services provided to illegal immigrants and the recent slaying of a southeastern Arizona rancher near the U.S.-Mexico border as reasons for the move.
The new measure would be the latest crackdown in Arizona, which has an estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants and is the nation's busiest border crossing point.
Arizona enacted a law in 2005 making human smuggling a state crime and prohibited employers from knowingly hiring illegal immigrants with a law in 2007.
The latest bill would make it a state crime for illegal immigrants to not have an alien registration document. It also would require police to question people about their immigration status if there's reason to suspect they're in the country illegally.
Other provisions allow citizen lawsuits against government agencies that hinder enforcement of immigration laws, and make it illegal for people to hire illegal immigrants for day labor or knowingly transport them.
Republican Sen. Russell Pearce of Mesa, who sponsored the bill, said it will take handcuffs off police and put them on violent criminals. "Enough is enough," Pearce said.
U.S. Sen. John McCain on Monday called the bill a "tool that I think needs to be used." His office later said that wasn't an endorsement.
It's also a commentary on the frustration that our state Legislature has that the federal government has not fulfilled its constitutional responsibilities to secure our borders," the Arizona Republican said.
Sen. Leah Landrum Taylor, D-Phoenix, predicted the legislation would cause chaos by spawning suspicion among neighbors, friends and relatives about who might be in the country illegally.
"Our state will be going completely backward," she said.
The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund has all but promised a legal challenge if the legislation becomes law.
The organization claims the measure is unconstitutional because the federal government is responsible for immigration enforcement.
"The bill is so vague that it encourages investigation and arrest of people ... who essentially have done nothing wrong but because of their racial profile," said Gladys Limon, an attorney for the Los Angeles-based group.
Mexico's embassy also has voiced concerns about racial profiling.
Arizona law enforcement groups are split on the bill, with a union for Phoenix Police Department officers supporting it and a statewide association of police chiefs opposed.
Calls, e-mails and letters on the bill were running 3-1 in favor, Brewer spokesman Paul Senseman said.
Brewer's predecessor, Janet Napolitano, a Democrat who is now President Barack Obama's Homeland Security secretary, vetoed similar proposals.
Current law in Arizona and most states doesn't require police to ask about the immigration status of those they encounter, and some police officials say allowing such questions would deter immigrants from cooperating in other investigations.
The bill is regarded as carrying political high stakes for Brewer, who faces challenges from fellow conservatives in the Aug. 24 Republican primary.
If she vetoes it, "she would be crushed in the primary," said Mike Gardner, a business lobbyist and former legislator.
Vincent Picard, a federal Immigration and Customs enforcement spokesman in Phoenix, declined comment on the Arizona legislation and referred a reporter to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Washington headquarters.
Agency officials gave only a written statement about Homeland Security immigration policy and refused to speak on the record about the Arizona legislation.
Arizona police use the human smuggling law from time to time to charge suspects.
In Maricopa County, however, more than 1,500 people were convicted under that law, with 85 percent immigrants, not smugglers.
To reduce the economic incentive for immigrants to sneak into the country, Arizona lawmakers also approved a civil law in 2007 that prohibits employers from knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.
Authorities across Arizona have examined several dozen complaints of employer sanction violations. But in the more than two years since that law took effect, only two cases have been settled with employers admitting to violating the law.
Associated Press Writers Jacques Billeaud and Jonathan J. Cooper contributed to this report.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/20/arizona-immigration-law-s_n_544864.html
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Arizona Voters Support Controversial Immigration Bill, Poll Finds
- FOXNews.com April 21, 2010
An overwhelming majority of Arizona voters support a controversial bill that would give state officials broad new powers to arrest people suspected of being illegal immigrants, a new poll finds.
An overwhelming majority of Arizona voters support a controversial bill that would give state officials broad new powers to arrest people suspected of being illegal immigrants, a new poll finds.
The Rasmussen Reports poll found 70 percent of likely voters in Arizona back the bill, which cleared the state Legislature this week and awaits the governor's signature, despite concerns about potential civil rights violations.
The survey found 53 percent of voters are worried that immigrants' civil rights could be infringed in the effort to find and deport illegal immigrants. Forty-six percent were not concerned about that possibility.
But for immigrant-rights activists in Washington and elsewhere, the state bill has become a flashpoint in the national debate.
Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., who has led the charge against the bill on Capitol Hill, said Wednesday that he wants the Department of Justice to be prepared to "go immediately to court" to stop Arizona officials from enforcing the law if it is signed.
"There will be many, many people, American citizens, whose rights will be violated when the police come to them for no other reason than to check their immigration status," he told Fox News.
The Arizona bill would create a new misdemeanor crime for failing to have an alien registration document; allow officers to arrest anyone unable to show documents proving their legal residence in the country; and allow people to sue over claims that a government agency is hindering immigration enforcement.
The Rasmussen poll reflected bipartisan support for the bill in Arizona. Eighty-four percent of Republicans support it -- but so do 51 percent of Democrats. Forty-three percent of Democrats oppose it.
The poll of 500 likely voters was conducted last Wednesday. It had a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/21/arizona-voters-support-controversial-immigration-poll-finds/?test=latestnews
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Obama and Congress are seriously considering imposing a value added tax or VAT on us and that should be a severe cause for alarm. The last thing we need is to be burdened with another tax. Or, more to the point, the government has taken enough of our money and it is time to say:
NO MORE!
VAT is an oppressive and to some extent hidden tax which makes it easier for the government to levy it and then relentlessly raise it. And when the government has more of our money they find that it’s never enough – so they spend even more than they collect. Ad infinitum.
This VAT has helped create the stagnation and miasma of indolence in Europe and we must make sure that it is never implemented here.
VAT Will Spell Anything But Relief
Investors Business Daily 04/08/2010
Taxes: Asked why he robbed banks, thief Willie Sutton famously replied: "That's where the money is." The same logic is now being used by the White House as it floats the idea of a broad new tax on all consumption.
White House adviser and former Fed chief Paul Volcker, one of the most respected men on Wall Street, broached the delicate topic of taxes Tuesday.
In his remarks, he said a value-added tax "was not as toxic an idea" as it had been in the past, and suggested it might be a way for the U.S. to escape its growing budget crisis.
"If at the end of the day we need to raise taxes, we should raise taxes," he said.
No doubt this is a trial balloon. Based on the $10 trillion in budget deficits expected over the next 10 years, this is one crisis the White House won't want to waste, as Rahm Emanuel would say.
Already, it's waged open war on the rich — vowing to take as much from those having $200,000 in income as it can. The 10-year budget plan submitted by President Obama in fact hits that group with $636 billion in new taxes.
But that's not even close to being enough to pay for the Democrats' reckless expansion of government.
As we've noted here before, Obama's new budget spends $45 trillion from 2011 to 2020. That's a 70% rise in spending from the previous decade. The only problem is, we're expected to collect only $35 trillion in taxes — and even that might be an overestimate, based on recent dismal economic growth.
So just going after the rich can't close that gap. The wealthy literally don't have the money. And even if we raised income taxes on everyone, which is highly unlikely, we would have to double current income tax rates to balance the budget, according to a recent Tax Foundation study.
So with deficits averaging $1 trillion a year through 2020 and spending soaring, where will the money come from?
Answer: A VAT. Only a VAT will give the government enough money to let it continue its out-of-control spending — which now seems to be the Democrats' main political goal.
Right now, the poor and the middle class pay virtually no taxes at all. In 2008, 49% of all households paid no taxes, new data show.
Those who had no tax liability at all receive about $70 billion in benefits and cash a year. In effect, for many, tax day has become an opportunity to collect a giant welfare check.
Yet, despite Obama's pledge that those with incomes below $200,000 wouldn't see their taxes raised "one dime," the fact is, they're the ultimate target of a VAT.
Yes, Obama is giving them lots of goodies. But he and the Democrats in charge of Congress know they'll have to tax the poor and the middle class to create the cradle-to-grave welfare state they so desperately want. It's the dream of all so-called progressives.
And it's already happening. In the health care takeover just signed into law, there are 13 new taxes — many of which will hit the poor and the middle class.
Still, that's penny-ante stuff. A VAT, as used in 150 countries around the world, would be a real money gusher — a Trojan horse for tax hikes on all Americans, especially the poor and middle class.
A VAT, remember, is really a tax on consumption. And since the poor and middle class spend a much greater ratio of their incomes on consumption than the wealthy, they'll bear the brunt.
A recent report from the liberal Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center said: "A major concern with a VAT is that it could be regressive, raising tax burdens proportionately more on lower income than on higher income taxpayers."
Even so, many Democrats point favorably to the European Union's welfare states, where VATs as high as 20% have long been a staple of public finance. The U.S., these critics suggest, would do well to imitate our EU friends.
Or not.
As the Cato Institute's Daniel Mitchell recently noted, "real-world evidence shows that VATs are strongly linked with both higher overall tax burdens and more government spending."
Indeed, in 1965, just before the EU adopted the VAT broadly, the average EU tax burden was about 28%, vs. 25% in the U.S.
By 2006, the EU tax burden was 40% — compared with 28% in the U.S.
The VAT tax grew and grew and grew. But Europe's economies didn't. Now, thanks to too much government and excessive taxation, the EU is almost hopelessly behind the U.S. in terms of both innovation and productivity. Is that the future we want?
No. The VAT's a terrible idea. It would bring higher taxes, slower growth, fewer jobs and lower standards of living. But it would do one thing well: give bureaucrats a lot more of your money to spend.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=529800
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Fresh and ongoing from it initiating, feeding and perpetuating the housing debacle and collapse, the Federal government with its pernicious Obamacare is poised to destroy medicine and medical care as we know it here in the United States. If allowed to take root, gone will be the world’s best and most sophisticated healthcare system, home of most of the most important innovations and discoveries in medical care. In its place will be a near 3rd world level of “quality” of care encumbered by an oppressive and arcane government controlled system. At least in third world countries they don’t have swarms of attorneys pullulating like flies looking for their next jackpot.
It is commonly known that there will be a significant shortage of primary care physicians in the future which Obamacare will tremendously exacerbate for myriad reasons. Of course, neither Obama or Congressional Democrats considered this in their reckless haste to ram the healthcare reform legislation into effect. What a surprise – politicians didn’t anticipate something inherently important?
The end result? You will have the “right” of healthcare but you may not have a doctor to provide it to you. If you are ultimately able to schedule an appointment to see a doctor, you may have to wait an excessively long period of time to finally be seen, or be seen by a physician located far from where you live or work, or be herded through like cattle spending little time with the doctor who is massively overworked and overloaded with patients (and over-regulated).
Does the word “rationing” ring a bell? Or decreased quality of care? These were all important issues that were raised by those who opposed the Democrats’ plans but were ignored or denigrated by them and the press.
What is a “brilliant” solution for this problem that is being considered by the government? Have nurses act like doctors. Add a little more training, change some statutes and voila! Doctorlight. Easy! Just don’t be very sick or you might not make it to a real doctor.
And if the nurse gets a PhD, they can officially be addressed as Dr., adding to confusion but subtracting from quality. This proposal would place millions of Americans at unnecessary risk due to inferior training and as a consequence, inferior care.
Furthermore, given the government’s plan to reimburse these nurses the same or marginally less than real doctors, why would any sane person want to become a doctor? After all, for maybe $5 to $10 more per patient that a doctor would be reimbursed versus a nurse, that person would also have to go to medical school and residency for up to 11 or more years, assume debt to pay for school of $250,000 or more and then pay malpractice rates in practice that can exceed $100,000/ year.
This will surely dissuade many including the best and brightest from seeking a career in medicine and don’t we want our doctors to be smart and competent?
Sounds like another government plan causing unintended consequences.
Doctor shortage? 28 states may expand nurses' role
By Carla K. Johnson (AP) – 4/15/2010
CHICAGO — A nurse may soon be your doctor. With a looming shortage of primary care doctors, 28 states are considering expanding the authority of nurse practitioners. These nurses with advanced degrees want the right to practice without a doctor's watchful eye and to prescribe narcotics. And if they hold a doctorate, they want to be called "Doctor."
For years, nurse practitioners have been playing a bigger role in the nation's health care, especially in regions with few doctors. With 32 million more Americans gaining health insurance within a few years, the health care overhaul is putting more money into nurse-managed clinics.
Those newly insured patients will be looking for doctors and may find nurses instead.
The medical establishment is fighting to protect turf. In some statehouses, doctors have shown up in white coats to testify against nurse practitioner bills. The American Medical Association, which supported the national health care overhaul, says a doctor shortage is no reason to put nurses in charge and endanger patients.
Nurse practitioners argue there's no danger. They say they're highly trained and as skilled as doctors at diagnosing illness during office visits. They know when to refer the sickest patients to doctor specialists. Plus, they spend more time with patients and charge less.
"We're constantly having to prove ourselves," said Chicago nurse practitioner Amanda Cockrell, 32, who tells patients she's just like a doctor "except for the pay."
On top of four years in nursing school, Cockrell spent another three years in a nurse practitioner program, much of it working with patients. Doctors generally spend four years in undergraduate school, four years in medical school and an additional three in primary care residency training.
Medicare, which sets the pace for payments by private insurance, pays nurse practitioners 85 percent of what it pays doctors. An office visit for a Medicare patient in Chicago, for example, pays a doctor about $70 and a nurse practitioner about $60.
The health care overhaul law gave nurse midwives, a type of advanced practice nurse, a Medicare raise to 100 percent of what obstetrician-gynecologists make — and that may be just the beginning.
States regulate nurse practitioners and laws vary on what they are permitted to do:
_ In Florida and Alabama, for instance, nurse practitioners are barred from prescribing controlled substances.
_ In Washington, nurse practitioners can recommend medical marijuana to their patients when a new law takes effect in June.
_ In Montana, nurse practitioners don't need a doctor involved with their practice in any way.
_ Many other states put doctors in charge of nurse practitioners or require collaborative agreements signed by a doctor.
_ In some states, nurse practitioners with a doctorate in nursing practice can't use the title "Dr." Most states allow it.
The AMA argues the title "Dr." creates confusion. Nurse practitioners say patients aren't confused by veterinarians calling themselves "Dr." Or chiropractors. Or dentists. So why, they ask, would patients be confused by a nurse using the title?
The feud over "Dr." is no joke. By 2015, most new nurse practitioners will hold doctorates, or a DNP, in nursing practice, according to a goal set by nursing educators. By then, the doctorate will be the standard for all graduating nurse practitioners, said Polly Bednash, executive director of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.
Many with the title use it with pride.
"I don't think patients are ever confused. People are not stupid," said Linda Roemer, a nurse practitioner in Sedona, Ariz., who uses "Dr. Roemer" as part of her e-mail address.
What's the evidence on the quality of care given by nurse practitioners?
The best U.S. study comparing nurse practitioners and doctors randomly assigned more than 1,300 patients to either a nurse practitioner or a doctor. After six months, overall health, diabetes tests, asthma tests and use of medical services like specialists were essentially the same in the two groups.
"The argument that patients' health is put in jeopardy by nurse practitioners? There's no evidence to support that," said Jack Needleman, a health policy expert at the University of California Los Angeles School of Public Health.
Other studies have shown that nurse practitioners are better at listening to patients, Needleman said. And they make good decisions about when to refer patients to doctors for more specialized care.
The nonpartisan Macy Foundation, a New York-based charity that focuses on the education of health professionals, recently called for nurse practitioners to be among the leaders of primary care teams. The foundation also urged the removal of state and federal barriers preventing nurse practitioners from providing primary care.
The American Medical Association is fighting proposals in about 28 states that are considering steps to expand what nurse practitioners can do.
"A shortage of one type of professional is not a reason to change the standards of medical care," said AMA president-elect Dr. Cecil Wilson. "We need to train more physicians."
In Florida, a bill to allow nurse practitioners to prescribe controlled substances is stalled in committee.
One patient, Karen Reid of Balrico, Fla., said she was left in pain over a holiday weekend because her nurse practitioner couldn't prescribe a powerful enough medication and the doctor couldn't be found. Dying hospice patients have been denied morphine in their final hours because a doctor couldn't be reached in the middle of the night, nurses told The Associated Press.
Massachusetts, the model for the federal health care overhaul, passed its law in 2006 expanding health insurance to nearly all residents and creating long waits for primary care. In 2008, the state passed a law requiring health plans to recognize and reimburse nurse practitioners as primary care providers.
That means insurers now list nurse practitioners along with doctors as primary care choices, said Mary Ann Hart, a nurse and public policy expert at Regis College in Weston, Mass. "That greatly opens up the supply of primary care providers," Hart said.
But it hasn't helped much so far. A study last year by the Massachusetts Medical Society found the percentage of primary care practices closed to new patients was higher than ever. And despite the swelling demand, the medical society still believes nurse practitioners should be under doctor supervision.
The group supports more training and incentives for primary care doctors and a team approach to medicine that includes nurse practitioners and physician assistants, whose training is comparable.
"We do not believe, however, that nurse practitioners have the qualifications to be independent primary care practitioners," said Dr. Mario Motta, president of the state medical society.
The new U.S. health care law expands the role of nurses with:
_ $50 million to nurse-managed health clinics that offer primary care to low-income patients.
_ $50 million annually from 2012-15 for hospitals to train nurses with advanced degrees to care for Medicare patients.
_ 10 percent bonuses from Medicare from 2011-16 to primary care providers, including nurse practitioners, who work in areas where doctors are scarce.
_ A boost in the Medicare reimbursement rate for certified nurse midwives to bring their pay to the same level as a doctor's.
The American Nurses Association hopes the 100 percent Medicare parity for nurse midwives will be extended to other nurses with advanced degrees.
"We know we need to get to 100 percent for everybody. This is a crack in the door," said Michelle Artz of ANA. "We're hopeful this sets the tone."
In Chicago, only a few patients balk at seeing a nurse practitioner instead of a doctor, Cockrell said. She gladly sends those patients to her doctor partners.
She believes patients get real advantages by letting her manage their care. Nurse practitioners' uphill battle for respect makes them precise, accurate and careful, she said. She schedules 40 minutes for a physical exam; the doctors in her office book 30 minutes for same appointment.
Joseline Nunez, 26, is a patient of Cockrell's and happy with her care.
"I feel that we get more time with the nurse practitioner," Nunez said. "The doctor always seems to be rushing off somewhere."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jCB6VTbMN12zQSwafnZfBJovMseAD9F2CK880
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The following hilarious, creative and hard edge and incisive video is a must see if you are disgusted with what Obama and Congressional Democrats have done to healthcare specifically and to our country in general. It is wholely therapeutic – and is performed to classic Stones.
Take It Back
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Unfortunately though not unexpected given Obama’s past, his Presidency has increased rather than decreased racial discord. He was anointed as the racial healer by the media and many politicians and even voted for by millions of credulous voters who were deceived by his rhetoric on the issue rather than scrutinizing his unalloyed history of racism.
His twenty year close association with the vitriolic, racist, anti-white Reverend Jeremiah Wright and membership in a church that preached black nationalism philosophy, anti-Semitism, anti-Americanism (“Goddamn America”) as well as revered and formally honored Louis Farrakhan, should have served as more than fair warning of his sentiments.
Obama’s verbatim assessment of his church which was that “"I don't think my church is actually particularly controversial", should have further substantiated his racist philosophy. Of course, there are numerous other examples which came to light both before and after he was elected President.
After becoming President, he has continued to engender racial polarity such as by imprudently insinuating himself in the Henry Jones (Professor of Black Studies) and Cambridge, Mass. police incident in July of last year (About Obama’s Racially Inflammatory and Irresponsible Comments and More Unfortunate Consequences of Obama’s Racially Charged Statement). He also has appointed several radical and racist blacks to his Administration such as Eric Holder and Van Jones whose actions, history and rhetoric exude these sentiments.
By “promoting” racism in his discourse and overtly inappropriate selections, Obama is feeding black racism against whites (and others) and even against other blacks – those that don’t toe the black victimization and dependency agenda. If an Afro-American speaks out for conservative issues or is against demagogue preached policies (such as Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, etc.) then they are labeled “Uncle Toms” or “traitors”. This is abhorrent. No ethnic or racial group is or should be considered to be monolithic in its beliefs, morals, likes, etc. By demanding this of all blacks, they are being intra-racially racist and intolerant.
Exacerbating the problem, Obama could rein in this destructive behavior from his bully pulpit as the President but he won’t (because he clearly agrees). This is recklessly irresponsible and contributes to the political racist slandering by Democrats, especially by the politicians, news media and black demagogues against "non-compliant" blacks, conservatives and the Tea Parties.
Black Tea Party Activists Called 'Traitors'
Black conservatives are really taking heat for their involvement in the mostly white tea party movement — and for having the audacity to oppose the policies of the nation's first black president.
Feb. 10: Angela McGlowan announces at the Tupelo, Miss., City Hall, that she is running for the 1st Congressional District as a Republican.
ALBANY, N.Y. – They've been called Oreos, traitors and Uncle Toms, and are used to having to defend their values. Now black conservatives are really taking heat for their involvement in the mostly white tea party movement — and for having the audacity to oppose the policies of the nation's first black president.
"I've been told I hate myself. I've been called an Uncle Tom. I've been told I'm a spook at the door," said Timothy F. Johnson, chairman of the Frederick Douglass Foundation, a group of black conservatives who support free market principles and limited government.
"Black Republicans find themselves always having to prove who they are. Because the assumption is the Republican Party is for whites and the Democratic Party is for blacks," he said.
Johnson and other black conservatives say they were drawn to the tea party movement because of what they consider its commonsense fiscal values of controlled spending, less taxes and smaller government. The fact that they're black — or that most tea partyers are white — should have nothing to do with it, they say.
"You have to be honest and true to yourself. What am I supposed to do, vote Democratic just to be popular? Just to fit in?" asked Clifton Bazar, a 45-year-old New Jersey freelance photographer and conservative blogger.
Opponents have branded the tea party as a group of racists hiding behind economic concerns — and reports that some tea partyers were lobbing racist slurs at black congressmen during last month's heated health care vote give them ammunition.
But these black conservatives don't consider racism representative of the movement as a whole — or race a reason to support it.
Angela McGlowan, a black congressional candidate from Mississippi, said her tea party involvement is "not about a black or white issue."
"It's not even about Republican or Democrat, from my standpoint," she told The Associated Press. "All of us are taxed too much."
Still, she's in the minority. As a nascent grassroots movement with no registration or formal structure, there are no racial demographics available for the tea party movement; it's believed to include only a small number of blacks and Hispanics.
Some black conservatives credit President Barack Obama's election — and their distaste for his policies — with inspiring them and motivating dozens of black Republicans to plan political runs in November.
For black candidates like McGlowan, tea party events are a way to reach out to voters of all races with her conservative message.
"I'm so proud to be a part of this movement! I want to tell you that a lot of people underestimate you guys," the former national political commentator for Fox News told the cheering crowd at a tea party rally in Nashville, Tenn., in February.
Tea party voters represent a new model for these black conservatives — away from the black, liberal Democratic base located primarily in cities, and toward a black and white conservative base that extends into the suburbs.
Black voters have overwhelmingly backed Democratic candidates, support that has only grown in recent years. In 2004, presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry won 88 percent of the black vote; four years later, 95 percent of black voters cast ballots for Obama.
Black conservatives don't want to have to apologize for their divergent views.
"I've gotten the statement, 'How can you not support the brother?'" said David Webb, an organizer of New York City's Tea Party 365, Inc. movement and a conservative radio personality.
Since Obama's election, Webb said some black conservatives have even resorted to hiding their political views.
"I know of people who would play the (liberal) role publicly, but have their private opinions," he said. "They don't agree with the policy but they have to work, live and exist in the community ... Why can't we speak openly and honestly if we disagree?"
Among the 37 black Republicans running for U.S. House and Senate seats in November is Charles Lollar of Maryland's 5th District.
A tea party supporter running against House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., Lollar says he's finding support in unexpected places.
The 38-year-old U.S. Marine Corps reservist recently walked into a bar in southern Maryland decorated with a Confederate flag. It gave his wife Rosha pause.
"I said, 'You know what, honey? Many, many of our Southern citizens came together under that flag for the purpose of keeping their family and their state together,'" Lollar recalled. "The flag is not what you're to fear. It's the stupidity behind the flag that is a problem. I don't think we'll find that in here. Let's go ahead in."
Once inside, they were treated to a pig roast, a motorcycle rally — and presented with $5,000 in contributions for his campaign.
McGlowan, one of three GOP candidates in north Mississippi's 1st District primary, seeks a seat held since 2008 by The National Republican Congressional Committee has supported Alan Nunnelee, chairman of the state Senate Appropriations Committee, who is also pursuing tea party voters.
McGlowan believes the tea party movement has been unfairly portrayed as monolithically white, male and middle-aged, though she acknowledged blacks and Hispanics are a minority at most events.
Racist protest signs at some tea party rallies and recent reports by U.S. Reps. John Lewis, D-Ga., and Barney Frank, D-Mass., that tea partyers shouted racial and anti-gay slurs at them have raised allegations of racism in the tea party movement.
Black members of the movement say it is not inherently racist, and some question the reported slurs. "You would think — something that offensive — you would think someone got video of it," Bazar, the conservative blogger, said.
"Just because you have one nut case, it doesn't automatically equate that you've got an organization that espouses (racism) as a sane belief," Johnson said.
Hilary Shelton, director of the Washington bureau of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, suggested a bit of caution.
"I'm sure the reason that (black conservatives) are involved is that from an ideological perspective, they agree," said Shelton. "But when those kinds of things happen, it is very important to be careful of the company that you keep."
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/06/black-tea-party-activists-called-traitors/?test=latestnews
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An ideological war has been fought out in this country over the last century between the Founders and the Progressives. There have been ebbs and flows but recently the level of conflict has reached a painful, impressive and vitriolic high.
The magnitude of importance of the ensuing outcome can’t be overstated as regards our future as a “free” country. American citizens are now fighting to preserve and regain their rights, freedoms and hard earned money from a rapidly expanding, over-reaching and oppressive government (to its productive citizens) that sees itself as the wise, privileged ruling class.
Not unlike pre-Revolutionary war times …
Tea Party Finds Its Motivation In Constitution
By Michael Barone 03/31/2010
Over the past 14 months, our political debate has been transformed into an argument between the heirs of two fundamental schools of political thought, the Founders and the Progressives. The Founders stood for the expansion of liberty and the Progressives for the expansion of government.
It's an argument that's been going on for a century but was largely dormant over the quarter-century of low-inflation economic growth after the Ronald Reagan tax cuts. It's been raised again by the expand-government policies of the Obama administration and Democratic congressional leaders.
Those policies, thoroughly in line with the Progressive tradition, have been advanced by liberal elites in government, media, think tanks and academia.
The opposition, roughly in line with the Founders tradition, has been led by the non-elites who spontaneously flocked to Tea Parties and town halls. Republican politicians have been scrambling to lead these protesters.
The conservative rebellions of the late 1970s and middle 1990s were focused on taxes. The Tea Partyers are focusing on the expansion of government — and its threat to the independence of citizens.
The first mention of tea parties came in February 2009 from CNBC's Rick Santelli on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, when he asked "if we really want to subsidize the losers' mortgages. How many of you people want to pay your neighbor's mortgage, that has an extra bathroom and can't pay their bills?"
Then he called for a Chicago tea party.
This struck a chord. Tea Partyers began to dress in 18th-century costumes — political re-enactors — and brandished the "Don't tread on me" flag. They declared their independence by opposing Progressive policies that encourage dependence on government.
The Progressives have always assumed that people needed safety nets and would welcome dependence on government. The public's clear rejection of the Democratic health care bills has shown that this assumption was unwarranted.
Americans today prefer independence to dependence on government, just as they did 200 years ago.
All this was supposed to have been consigned to the past long ago.
The Progressives of the early 1900s — Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, New Republic founder Herbert Croly — argued that in an industrial era of mass production and giant businesses, ordinary people were helpless and needed government's guiding hand.
It would be more efficient, they argued, for centralized, disinterested experts to administer national institutions than to let chaotic markets operate freely and to observe the Constitution's horse-and-buggy limits on government power.
The Founders were out of date.
The Progressives had their way for much of the 20th century.
But it became apparent that centralized experts weren't disinterested, but always sought to expand their power. And it became clear that central planners can never have the kind of information that is transmitted instantly, as Friedrich von Hayek observed, by price signals in free markets.
It turned out that centralized experts are not as wise and ordinary Americans are not as helpless as the Progressives thought.
By passing the stimulus package and the health care bills, the Democrats produced expansion of government. But voters seem to prefer expansion of liberty.
The Progressives' scorn for the Founders has not been shared by the people. First-rate books about the Founders have been best-sellers. And efforts to dismiss the Founders as slaveholders, misogynists or homophobes have been outweighed by the resonance of their words and deeds.
The Declaration of Independence's proclamation that "all men are created equal" with "unalienable rights" to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" has proved to be happily elastic.
It still sings to us today, thanks to the struggles and sacrifices of many Americans who gave blacks and women the equality denied to them in 1776.
In contrast, the early Progressives' talk of an "industrial age" and an outmoded Constitution sounds like the language of an age now long past. Their faith in centralized planning seems naive in a time when one unpredicted innovation after another has changed lives for the better.
Polls and recent election results tell us that racial minorities and the so-called "educated class" — the people who expect their kind will administer centralized institutions — still take the side of the Progressives.
Most Americans, however, are rejecting the path of dependence and are intent on declaring their independence once again.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=529000
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Once again firebrand Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) is spewing irresponsible, incendiary and groundless charges against the Orlando, Fla. Area urologist who posted a sign on the door of his office recommending that those who voted for Obama seek care elsewhere. In fact like many other uber partisan Democrats of his ilk, he has now transformed this freedom of speech issue into a racist one.
Despicable!
The level of hatred and intolerance which Grayson exhibits regarding this situation (as well as many others in the past) shows him to be emotionally and rationally challenged and not fit for his job as Representative. He should be investigated and censured as well as removed from office by those in his district.
As we unequivocally stated on April 3rd in Orlando Physician Expresses Sentiments Regarding Obama and Obamacare, this urologist was entirely within his legal, ethical and moral rights in our Democracy to post that comment.
Any attempt to silence this free speech is an attack on us all. Furthermore, we must prevent the government from using bullying, heavy handed or legal tactics to challenge our rights of expression and freedoms in general. By the way, where are all those demagogue Democrats who speciously claim that there is unwarranted vitriol in American discourse yet won't rein in one of their own? (They won't because they would level the same charges!)
As for you, Alan Grayson, we have an open question indirectly related to this case:
How can you reconcile the fact that 95% of all blacks voted for Obama and yet not charge that this constitutes racism?
There can be no other rational explanation for this yet we have not heard one word about this from any Democrat regarding this racist vote.
What if 95% of whites had voted for McCain? We are sure that you would vehemently consider that to be egregious racism!
Grayson: Doctor shooing away Obama backers will deny treatment to blacks
By Jordan Fabian - 04/03/10 11:28 AM ET
A doctor who posted a sign at his practice asking Obama supporters to seek care "elsewhere" will end up denying service to many African Americans, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) said Friday.
Dr. Jack Cassell, an opponent of the healthcare law President Barack Obama signed last month, put up the sign at his office in Grayson's district.
"Well, in fact, where he lives, in Mount Dora, which is in my district, many, many of the Democrats who live in Mount Dora happen to be African-Americans," Grayson said on CNN. "So, by saying that he will not treat somebody who supported Obama, he's saying that he's not going to treat a large number of African-Americans in the community."
Grayson, a freshman who represents a Republican-leaning district, gained national attention during the healthcare debate last year when he said the GOP's healthcare plan was for seniors to "die quickly."
Cassell has said that he is not violating medical ethics rules.
"I'm not turning anybody away — that would be unethical," Cassell, 56, told the Orlando Sentinel on Thursday. "But if they read the sign and turn the other way, so be it."
But Grayson said that he was violating the rules and that he will probably be disciplined by medical licensing authorities.
"How many people walked in -- walked up to his front door, saw the sign, and turned away?" he asked. "How many people referred from other physicians in the community, including primary care physicians, how many patients saw that sign and walked away?"
Asked what kind of punishment Cassell should receive, Grayson said "Well, whatever the medical authorities think he should get. But it is a clear violation of ethics, and it's a particularly ugly one. Why is it that the right wing is so preoccupied with denying people health? Why is that?"
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/90467-rep-grayson-anti-obama-doctor-will-deny-treatment-to-blacks
The CNN Interview Video:
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Probably by now, many people are aware of the exclusion from Obamcare that Congress granted itself, staff members, the President and Vice President. As has been stated myriad times, if the legislation was so utterly fantastic for the American people, why is it not good enough for Congress and the President?
We all know that the political rhetoric which was employed for the bill’s passage was not merely disingenuous but overtly and despicably dishonest and criminal. As stated in a previous post, these politicians see themselves as elitists, members of a privileged class much as was extant in Russia in the 1970’s and early 1980’s – the nomeklatura.
As their employers (at least on paper), we must now revoke their privileges, limit their unrestrained actions, mandate that they abide by the same laws as the rest of us, and vote the offenders out of office.
No Obamacare for Obama
THE WASHINGTON TIMES March 23, 2010
President Obama declared that the new health care law "is going to be affecting every American family." Except his own, of course.
The new health care law exempts the president from having to participate in it. Leadership and committee staffers in the House and Senate who wrote the bill are exempted as well. A weasel-worded definition of "staff" includes only the members' personal staff in the new system; the committee staff that drafted the legislation opted themselves out. Because they were more familiar with the contents of the law than anyone in the country, it says a lot that they carved out their own special loophole. Anyway, the law is intended to affect "ordinary Americans," according to Vice President Joe Biden (who - being a heartbeat away from the presidency - also is not covered), not Washington insiders.
Mr. Obama frequently tossed around the talking point that the new law gave people the same type of coverage as Congress enjoyed. In his March 20 health care pep talk to wavering Democrats on Capitol Hill, the president said one of the advantages of the health care legislation was that "people will have choice and competition just like members of Congress have choice and competition." At yesterday's signing ceremony, Mr. Obama said Americans will be "part of a big pool, just like federal employees are part of a big pool. They'll have the same choice of private health insurance that members of Congress get for themselves." But the American people will have a public pool; the executive branch and congressional staffers kept their country-club pool private.
Last year, Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, spearheaded efforts to have all Americans included in the plan, but he ran into heavy opposition from unions representing federal workers - the same unions that were pro-Obamacare stalwarts. In September, the Senate approved a scaled-down amendment that covered members of Congress and their staff. When this provision later emerged from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's office, the leadership and committee staff loophole had appeared. A move in December by Mr. Grassley and Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, to close this loophole and to extend the law to senior members of the executive branch - including the president, vice president and Cabinet members - was blocked by Senate Democratic leaders.
Mr. Grassley has introduced an amendment to the Senate health care reconciliation bill that also will apply the law to the upper tier of the executive branch and all Capitol Hill staffers, but it remains to be seen whether Democrats will let this measure move forward.
The special exemptions slipped into the health care law are another example of how those statists who rule consider themselves a privileged class, imposing burdens on the country that they will not accept themselves. Candidates for office in 2010 should pledge to close these and other loopholes in the law that impose unequal burdens and create exclusive privileged classes in America. Meanwhile, we await Mr. Obama's explanation why if his "historic" health care law is so great for America, it's not good enough for him and his family.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/23/obamacare-for-everyone-but-obama/
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The following unbelievable video or Rep. Hank Johnson (D. – Ga 4th District) is excerpted from a House Armed Services Committee hearing in March. To place the absurdity of his statements and questioning in perspective, Johnson is a member of the House Democratic leadership and was elected by the Democratic caucus to serve as whip for Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida and serves on the House Armed Services and Judiciary committees.
3-25-2010 Representative Hank Johnson (Democrat - Georgia 4th District)
The outrageousness of Johnsons’ inability to concatenate more than a few comprehensible words together is only superseded by the inanity of his absolutely serious concern that an increased population on Guam would place it at great risk to tip over. Shocking, indeed!
Is it possible that any person be such an imbecile? A child of five would never consider entertaining such a thought! His defenders claim his medical condition caused him to act in this fashion but this is unequivocally false. His Hepatitis C (which is in remission) has no bearing on his intellectual void.
To think that he had been a practicing lawyer for 25 years and even more egregiously, was elected to Congress, is incomprehensible. Incredibly, he is an improvement over the previous representative, the racist, criminal and vile psycho Cynthia McKinney (of race-bating Capitol Hill Police Congress confrontation fame, a 9/11 Truther and sponsor of impeachment charges against President Bush, VP Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice).
Is it any wonder now that bills like Obamacare are passed in Congress?
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