The author, Lou Pritchett, is a well-known public speaker
who retired after a successful 36-year career
as the VP World Sales for Proctor and Gamble.
Foremost Leader in Change Management
Lou Pritchett is one of corporate America's true living legends- an acclaimed author, dynamic teacher and one of the world's highest rated speakers. Successful corporate executives everywhere recognize him as the foremost leader in change management. Lou changed the way America does business by creating an audacious concept that came to be known as "partnering." Pritchett rose from soap salesman to Vice-President, Sales and Customer Development for Procter and Gamble and over the course of 36 years, made corporate history.
AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA
Dear President Obama:
You are the thirteenth President under whom I have lived
and unlike any of the others, you truly scare me.
You scare me because after months of exposure,
I know nothing about you.
You scare me because I do not know how you paid for your expensive Ivy League education
and your upscale lifestyle
and housing with no visible signs of support.
You scare me because you did not spend the formative years of youth growing up in America
and culturally you are not an American.
You scare me because you have never run a company or met a payroll.
You scare me because you have never had military experience, thus don't understand it at its core.
You scare me because you lack humility and 'class', and are always blaming others.
You scare me because for over half your life you have aligned yourself with radical extremists who hate America
and you refuse to publicly denounce these radicals who wish to see America fail.
You scare me because you are a cheerleader for the 'blame America ' crowd and deliver this message abroad.
You scare me because you want to change America to a European style country
where the government sector dominates instead of the private sector.
You scare me because you want to replace our health care system with a government controlled one.
You scare me because you prefer 'wind mills' to responsibly capitalizing on our own vast oil, coal and shale reserves.
You scare me because you want to kill the American capitalist goose that lays the golden egg
which provides the highest standard of living in the world.
You scare me because you have begun to use 'extortion' tactics against certain banks and corporations.
You scare me because your own political party shrinks from challenging you on your wild and irresponsible spending proposals.
You scare me because you will not openly listen to or even consider opposing points of view from intelligent people.
You scare me because you falsely believe that you are both omnipotent and omniscient.
You scare me because the media gives you a free pass on everything you do.
You scare me because you demonize and try to silence
the Limbaughs, Hannitys, O'Relllys and Becks who offer opposing, conservative points of view.
You scare me because you prefer controlling over governing.
Finally, you scare me because, if you serve a second term,
I will probably not feel safe in writing a similar letter in 8 years in the totally
Un-American Government that you would have created with your outrageous changes.
Lou Pritchett
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
This sums up exactly why I dont want anything to do with Cap and Trade
Carbongate
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, June 26, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Climate Change: A suppressed EPA study says old U.N. data ignore the decline in global temperatures and other inconvenient truths. Was the report kept under wraps to influence the vote on the cap-and-trade bill?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Read More: Global Warming
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This was supposed to be the most transparent administration ever. Yet as the House of Representatives prepared to vote on the Waxman-Markey bill, the largest tax increase in U.S. history on 100% of Americans, an attempt was made to suppress a study shredding supporters' arguments.
On Friday, the day of the vote, the Competitive Enterprise Institute said it was releasing "an internal study on climate science which was suppressed by the Environmental Protection Agency."
In the release, the institute's Richard Morrison said "internal EPA e-mail messages, released by CEI earlier in the week, indicate that the report was kept under wraps and its author silenced because of pressure to support the administration's agenda of regulating carbon dioxide."
Reading the report, available on the CEI Web site, we find this "endangerment analysis" contains such interesting items as: "Given the downward trend in temperatures since 1998 (which some think will continue until at least 2030), there is no particular reason to rush into decisions based on a scientific hypothesis that does not appear to explain most of the available data."
What the report says is that the EPA, by adopting the United Nations' 2007 "Fourth Assessment" report, is relying on outdated research by its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The research, it says, is "at best three years out of date in a rapidly changing field" and ignores the latest scientific findings.
Besides noting the decline in temperatures as CO2 levels have increased, the draft report says the "consensus" on storm frequency and intensity is now "much more neutral."
Then there's one of Al Gore's grim fairy tales — the melting of the Greenland ice sheet and glaciers the size of Tennessee roaming the North Atlantic. "The idea that warming temperatures will cause Greenland to rapidly shed its ice has been greatly diminished by new results indicating little evidence for operations of such processes," the report says.
Little evidence? Outdated U.N. research? No reason to rush? This is not what the Obama administration and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were telling us when they were rushing to force a Friday vote on Waxman-Markey. We were given the impression that unless we passed this cap-and-tax fiasco, polar bears would be extinct by the Fourth of July.
We have noted frequently the significance of solar activity on earth's climate and history. This EPA draft report not only confirms our reporting but the brazen incompetence of those "experts" that have been prophesying planetary apocalypse.
"A new 2009 paper by Scafetta and West," the report says, "suggests that the IPCC used faulty solar data in dismissing the direct effect of solar variability on global temperatures. Their report suggests that solar variability could account for up to 68% of the increase in Earth's global temperatures."
The report was the product of Alan Carlin, senior operations research analyst at the EPA's National Center for Environmental Economics (NCEE). He's been with the EPA for 38 years but now has been taken off all climate-related work. He is convinced that actual climate observations do not match climate change theories and that only the politics, not the science, has been settled.
Thomas Fuller, environmental policy blogger with the San Francisco Examiner, wrote Thursday in a story developed in conjunction with Anthony Watts' Web site wattsupwiththat.com: "A source inside the Environmental Protection Agency confirmed many of the claims made by analyst Alan Carlin, the economist/physicist who yesterday went public with accusations that science was being ignored in evaluating the danger of CO2."
All this is particularly interesting because of the charges by Al Gore, NASA's James Hansen and others that the Bush administration and energy companies actively suppressed the truth about climate change.
One of the e-mails unearthed by CEI was dated March 12, from Al McGartland, office director at NCEE, forbidding Carlin from speaking to anyone outside NCEE on endangerment issues such as those in his suppressed report.
Carlin replied on March 16, requesting that his study be forwarded to EPA's Office of Air and Radiation, which directs EPA's climate change program. Carlin points out the peer-reviewed references in his study and points out that the new studies "explain much of the observational data that have been collected which cannot be explained by the IPCC models."
For saying the climate change emperors had no clothes, Carlin was told March 17: "The administrator and the administration have decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision. . . . I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office."
In other words, the administration and Congress had their collective minds made up and didn't want to be confused with the facts. They certainly didn't want any inconvenient truths coming out of their own Environmental Protection Agency, the one that wants to regulate everything from your lawn mower to bovine emissions and which says the product of your respiration and ours, carbon dioxide, is a dangerous pollutant and not the basis for all life on earth.
The problem the warm-mongers have is they now are in a position of telling the American people, who are you going to believe — us or your own lying eyes? Forget the snow in Malibu, the record cold winters. Forget that temperatures have dropped for a decade.
In April, President Obama declared that "the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over." Apparently not, for as he spoke those very words his administration was suppressing science to advance a very pernicious ideology.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Exactly and this cap and trade will be a disaster on our already fragile economy. You think you have jobs moving overseas and being lost now? You think you energy bills and the gas you pay at the pump is high now? Just wait because you have'nt seen nothing yet if this passes the senate.
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, June 26, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Climate Change: A suppressed EPA study says old U.N. data ignore the decline in global temperatures and other inconvenient truths. Was the report kept under wraps to influence the vote on the cap-and-trade bill?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Read More: Global Warming
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This was supposed to be the most transparent administration ever. Yet as the House of Representatives prepared to vote on the Waxman-Markey bill, the largest tax increase in U.S. history on 100% of Americans, an attempt was made to suppress a study shredding supporters' arguments.
On Friday, the day of the vote, the Competitive Enterprise Institute said it was releasing "an internal study on climate science which was suppressed by the Environmental Protection Agency."
In the release, the institute's Richard Morrison said "internal EPA e-mail messages, released by CEI earlier in the week, indicate that the report was kept under wraps and its author silenced because of pressure to support the administration's agenda of regulating carbon dioxide."
Reading the report, available on the CEI Web site, we find this "endangerment analysis" contains such interesting items as: "Given the downward trend in temperatures since 1998 (which some think will continue until at least 2030), there is no particular reason to rush into decisions based on a scientific hypothesis that does not appear to explain most of the available data."
What the report says is that the EPA, by adopting the United Nations' 2007 "Fourth Assessment" report, is relying on outdated research by its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The research, it says, is "at best three years out of date in a rapidly changing field" and ignores the latest scientific findings.
Besides noting the decline in temperatures as CO2 levels have increased, the draft report says the "consensus" on storm frequency and intensity is now "much more neutral."
Then there's one of Al Gore's grim fairy tales — the melting of the Greenland ice sheet and glaciers the size of Tennessee roaming the North Atlantic. "The idea that warming temperatures will cause Greenland to rapidly shed its ice has been greatly diminished by new results indicating little evidence for operations of such processes," the report says.
Little evidence? Outdated U.N. research? No reason to rush? This is not what the Obama administration and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were telling us when they were rushing to force a Friday vote on Waxman-Markey. We were given the impression that unless we passed this cap-and-tax fiasco, polar bears would be extinct by the Fourth of July.
We have noted frequently the significance of solar activity on earth's climate and history. This EPA draft report not only confirms our reporting but the brazen incompetence of those "experts" that have been prophesying planetary apocalypse.
"A new 2009 paper by Scafetta and West," the report says, "suggests that the IPCC used faulty solar data in dismissing the direct effect of solar variability on global temperatures. Their report suggests that solar variability could account for up to 68% of the increase in Earth's global temperatures."
The report was the product of Alan Carlin, senior operations research analyst at the EPA's National Center for Environmental Economics (NCEE). He's been with the EPA for 38 years but now has been taken off all climate-related work. He is convinced that actual climate observations do not match climate change theories and that only the politics, not the science, has been settled.
Thomas Fuller, environmental policy blogger with the San Francisco Examiner, wrote Thursday in a story developed in conjunction with Anthony Watts' Web site wattsupwiththat.com: "A source inside the Environmental Protection Agency confirmed many of the claims made by analyst Alan Carlin, the economist/physicist who yesterday went public with accusations that science was being ignored in evaluating the danger of CO2."
All this is particularly interesting because of the charges by Al Gore, NASA's James Hansen and others that the Bush administration and energy companies actively suppressed the truth about climate change.
One of the e-mails unearthed by CEI was dated March 12, from Al McGartland, office director at NCEE, forbidding Carlin from speaking to anyone outside NCEE on endangerment issues such as those in his suppressed report.
Carlin replied on March 16, requesting that his study be forwarded to EPA's Office of Air and Radiation, which directs EPA's climate change program. Carlin points out the peer-reviewed references in his study and points out that the new studies "explain much of the observational data that have been collected which cannot be explained by the IPCC models."
For saying the climate change emperors had no clothes, Carlin was told March 17: "The administrator and the administration have decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision. . . . I can only see one impact of your comments given where we are in the process, and that would be a very negative impact on our office."
In other words, the administration and Congress had their collective minds made up and didn't want to be confused with the facts. They certainly didn't want any inconvenient truths coming out of their own Environmental Protection Agency, the one that wants to regulate everything from your lawn mower to bovine emissions and which says the product of your respiration and ours, carbon dioxide, is a dangerous pollutant and not the basis for all life on earth.
The problem the warm-mongers have is they now are in a position of telling the American people, who are you going to believe — us or your own lying eyes? Forget the snow in Malibu, the record cold winters. Forget that temperatures have dropped for a decade.
In April, President Obama declared that "the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over." Apparently not, for as he spoke those very words his administration was suppressing science to advance a very pernicious ideology.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Exactly and this cap and trade will be a disaster on our already fragile economy. You think you have jobs moving overseas and being lost now? You think you energy bills and the gas you pay at the pump is high now? Just wait because you have'nt seen nothing yet if this passes the senate.
Americans Want Health Reform But Not Government-Run Care
By RAGHAVAN MAYUR | Posted Friday, June 26, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Although sharply divided along party lines, most Americans favor an overhaul of the health care system, but they are concerned that the quality of care will decrease significantly if government is allowed to run it.
While 73% of respondents believe the health care system needs a "complete overhaul" or "major changes," nearly one-half (47%) say they fear a government-run program would lead to deterioration in quality.
The IBD/TIPP Poll of 922 Americans in the first week of June points to a sharp divide along party lines: Eight of 10 Democrats believe the government should guarantee health insurance for all, while almost as many Republicans (72%) believe health care is not government's responsibility.
If the government were to run health care, 33% of Democrats believe the quality of care would improve significantly and another 34% believe it would not be affected one way or the other. On the other hand, 77% of Republicans anticipate a decline in quality.
Eighty-one percent of Democrats express confidence in President Obama's ability to reform the health care system in a way that will satisfy most Americans, while only 26% of Republicans believe so.
(Independents are almost equally divided on the issue, with 56% expressing confidence in the president's ability to do so, compared with 43% who do not.)
View larger image
The near-consensus for overhaul appears to stem from soaring costs and estimates that as many as 47 million people in America are going without health coverage.
Perhaps most troubling to advocates of a "single payer" or "public option" to compete with traditional market-based private insurance is an emerging suspicion among Americans of government intervention in the private sector.
A majority (53%) of Americans do not support government control or ownership of key industries such as health care or energy. Thirty-four percent of Democrats, 79% of Republicans and 53% of independents say they want the government to stay out of key industries.
Americans see the recent aggressive government control of financial institutions and the automotive industry in a negative light. For example, 68% of Americans are skeptical of the government's recent decision to take a partial stake in the domestic automobile industry, with 49% of Democrats, 87% of Republicans and 74% of independents believing it will not solve the industry's problems.
Some pundits see President Obama's proposal to create a public plan as a way station to full-blown government-run health care in the future.
An increasing number of Americans see the country drifting toward socialism. Last August, only 25% of Americans surveyed in our IBD/TIPP Poll agreed with the statement, "The U.S. is evolving into a socialist state." When asked the same question this month, the number jumped to 35%.
The skepticism about government control may be rooted in the performance of other government-run programs.
Medicare is in dire straits, spending so much more than it takes in that, at the present rate, the system will operate in the red as early as 2017, according to the Medicare trustees' report. The Social Security trustees recently announced that the Social Security trust fund will run out of money by 2037, four years earlier than previous estimates.
Lack of success in government-run health care systems overseas may also contribute to Americans' quality concerns.
In Sweden, where the government pays almost all health care costs, budgetary concerns are forcing rationing, leading to waiting lists for medical appointments and surgery. Health care systems in Great Britain and Canada have also been beset with problems, with the waiting time to see a specialist in Canada running as long as 18 weeks.
In summary, Americans want an overhaul but do not see their government as the locus of control.
Mayur is president of TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence, which directs the IBD/TIPP Poll that was the most accurate in the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I could'nt agree more. The healthcare system does need overhauling, but the government does'nt need to be running it. They can't manage anything successfully, what the devil makes me believe they could run this right? I think not.
By RAGHAVAN MAYUR | Posted Friday, June 26, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Although sharply divided along party lines, most Americans favor an overhaul of the health care system, but they are concerned that the quality of care will decrease significantly if government is allowed to run it.
While 73% of respondents believe the health care system needs a "complete overhaul" or "major changes," nearly one-half (47%) say they fear a government-run program would lead to deterioration in quality.
The IBD/TIPP Poll of 922 Americans in the first week of June points to a sharp divide along party lines: Eight of 10 Democrats believe the government should guarantee health insurance for all, while almost as many Republicans (72%) believe health care is not government's responsibility.
If the government were to run health care, 33% of Democrats believe the quality of care would improve significantly and another 34% believe it would not be affected one way or the other. On the other hand, 77% of Republicans anticipate a decline in quality.
Eighty-one percent of Democrats express confidence in President Obama's ability to reform the health care system in a way that will satisfy most Americans, while only 26% of Republicans believe so.
(Independents are almost equally divided on the issue, with 56% expressing confidence in the president's ability to do so, compared with 43% who do not.)
View larger image
The near-consensus for overhaul appears to stem from soaring costs and estimates that as many as 47 million people in America are going without health coverage.
Perhaps most troubling to advocates of a "single payer" or "public option" to compete with traditional market-based private insurance is an emerging suspicion among Americans of government intervention in the private sector.
A majority (53%) of Americans do not support government control or ownership of key industries such as health care or energy. Thirty-four percent of Democrats, 79% of Republicans and 53% of independents say they want the government to stay out of key industries.
Americans see the recent aggressive government control of financial institutions and the automotive industry in a negative light. For example, 68% of Americans are skeptical of the government's recent decision to take a partial stake in the domestic automobile industry, with 49% of Democrats, 87% of Republicans and 74% of independents believing it will not solve the industry's problems.
Some pundits see President Obama's proposal to create a public plan as a way station to full-blown government-run health care in the future.
An increasing number of Americans see the country drifting toward socialism. Last August, only 25% of Americans surveyed in our IBD/TIPP Poll agreed with the statement, "The U.S. is evolving into a socialist state." When asked the same question this month, the number jumped to 35%.
The skepticism about government control may be rooted in the performance of other government-run programs.
Medicare is in dire straits, spending so much more than it takes in that, at the present rate, the system will operate in the red as early as 2017, according to the Medicare trustees' report. The Social Security trustees recently announced that the Social Security trust fund will run out of money by 2037, four years earlier than previous estimates.
Lack of success in government-run health care systems overseas may also contribute to Americans' quality concerns.
In Sweden, where the government pays almost all health care costs, budgetary concerns are forcing rationing, leading to waiting lists for medical appointments and surgery. Health care systems in Great Britain and Canada have also been beset with problems, with the waiting time to see a specialist in Canada running as long as 18 weeks.
In summary, Americans want an overhaul but do not see their government as the locus of control.
Mayur is president of TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence, which directs the IBD/TIPP Poll that was the most accurate in the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I could'nt agree more. The healthcare system does need overhauling, but the government does'nt need to be running it. They can't manage anything successfully, what the devil makes me believe they could run this right? I think not.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Something to really think about-read carefully
Health Reform Divide Deepens As Price Climbs
By DAVID HOGBERG
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Any lingering hope that health care reform would be bipartisan in the House seemed dashed at a Ways and Means Committee hearing on Wednesday.
Democrats stood firm supporting their plan, while Republicans went on the attack.
"We sincerely wish that health reform could be a bipartisan effort," said Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y.
But the bill House Democrats released last Friday displayed no hint of compromise. It not only includes a public plan — which Republicans and insurers say would unfairly crowd out private care — but also a Medicaid expansion, subsidies for those up to 400% of the federal poverty level, and individual and employer mandates. It also gave little guidance on how the proposal might be paid for.
Recent cost estimates of similar, smaller Senate bills have put Democrats on the back foot. A new eye-popping cost estimate of the House bill by HSI Networks emboldened committee Republicans.
"This report makes it clear that this bill will cost $3.5 trillion," said ranking Ways and Means member Dave Camp, R-Mich. He also complained that Congress didn't know how it would be paid for.
Democrats criticized the HSI report for leaving out assumptions about cost savings and stressed that the firm did work for John McCain's campaign last year.
The Congressional Budget Office is expected to release its official cost estimate of the House Democrats' bill within a few days.
Blame Canada
Republicans were aided by witness Dr. David Gratzer, a physician who practiced in Canada and is now a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute. He warned that a public plan would move the U.S. toward a Canadian-style single-payer system.
"I too believed in some level of socialized medicine," he said. "But I was mugged by reality. I've seen the waiting lists and the queues for care and how unsatisfying it is."
Gratzer's testimony raised the ire of Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich.
"It's a straw man," he said. "We're not proposing a Canadian system. And there is no way we are going to allow the opponents of reform to mischaracterize what we're proposing."
Levin added, "It is true at this point that we do not indicate how we'll pay for it. But I don't think (the HSI) study should scare us into inaction."
Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite, R-Fla., walked through the door Levin opened: "I just wanted to list some of the suggestions thus far."
She then ran down a list of proposed taxes, including taxing health benefits, penalties for not complying with employer and individual mandates, and taxes on soft drinks. Ways and Means also has mulled the idea of a value-added tax.
This May Hurt A Bit
Over in the Senate, Kent Conrad, D-N.D., conceded that reform may require taxing employer-based health benefits. "It's hard to see how you have a package paid for" without it, he said.
He also said limiting high earners' deductions on mortgage interest, charitable gifts and other items may be back on the table despite lawmakers' dismissal of the idea this spring.
Talk of tax hikes is straining bipartisan efforts in the more collegial Senate. Republicans inclined to work with Democrats are already wary of the proposals' costs.
"I think that is so," said Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. "There is outrage across the country about spending, borrowing and debt, and then you are talking about trillions more for health care . . . I think people are rebelling."
DeMint unveiled his own health care plan Wednesday that focuses on vouchers for those without employer-based coverage and letting people buy insurance across state lines. It may cost less than the Democrats' plans, but he did say it would cost $700 billion over 10 years.
Public Divide
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has worked with Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., on a bipartisan plan. He said Wednesday that a broad outline should be out by the end of the week. Yet Grassley also said that a public plan would still be a deal breaker for the GOP.
But without a public plan, many Democrats may not go along.
"Polls indicate that the American people overwhelmingly believe that a competitive public option is essential so that people can go to the exchange and pick and choose with a variety of private options to get the care that meets their needs," Rangel said.
Other surveys, which Republicans prefer to cite, show Americans unwilling to pay much more in taxes for health care reform and increasingly worried about budget deficits.
Democrats on the Senate Finance panel expressed frustration.
"We're just continuing to talk, not getting anywhere," said Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., according to press reports.
Yet DeMint conceded that Democrats are still in the driver's seat:
"It all depends on the American people. Republicans don't have enough votes to stop anything. But if the American people are strong enough, a few Senate Democrats will start to think they can't go along with this kind of spending."
By DAVID HOGBERG
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Any lingering hope that health care reform would be bipartisan in the House seemed dashed at a Ways and Means Committee hearing on Wednesday.
Democrats stood firm supporting their plan, while Republicans went on the attack.
"We sincerely wish that health reform could be a bipartisan effort," said Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y.
But the bill House Democrats released last Friday displayed no hint of compromise. It not only includes a public plan — which Republicans and insurers say would unfairly crowd out private care — but also a Medicaid expansion, subsidies for those up to 400% of the federal poverty level, and individual and employer mandates. It also gave little guidance on how the proposal might be paid for.
Recent cost estimates of similar, smaller Senate bills have put Democrats on the back foot. A new eye-popping cost estimate of the House bill by HSI Networks emboldened committee Republicans.
"This report makes it clear that this bill will cost $3.5 trillion," said ranking Ways and Means member Dave Camp, R-Mich. He also complained that Congress didn't know how it would be paid for.
Democrats criticized the HSI report for leaving out assumptions about cost savings and stressed that the firm did work for John McCain's campaign last year.
The Congressional Budget Office is expected to release its official cost estimate of the House Democrats' bill within a few days.
Blame Canada
Republicans were aided by witness Dr. David Gratzer, a physician who practiced in Canada and is now a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute. He warned that a public plan would move the U.S. toward a Canadian-style single-payer system.
"I too believed in some level of socialized medicine," he said. "But I was mugged by reality. I've seen the waiting lists and the queues for care and how unsatisfying it is."
Gratzer's testimony raised the ire of Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich.
"It's a straw man," he said. "We're not proposing a Canadian system. And there is no way we are going to allow the opponents of reform to mischaracterize what we're proposing."
Levin added, "It is true at this point that we do not indicate how we'll pay for it. But I don't think (the HSI) study should scare us into inaction."
Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite, R-Fla., walked through the door Levin opened: "I just wanted to list some of the suggestions thus far."
She then ran down a list of proposed taxes, including taxing health benefits, penalties for not complying with employer and individual mandates, and taxes on soft drinks. Ways and Means also has mulled the idea of a value-added tax.
This May Hurt A Bit
Over in the Senate, Kent Conrad, D-N.D., conceded that reform may require taxing employer-based health benefits. "It's hard to see how you have a package paid for" without it, he said.
He also said limiting high earners' deductions on mortgage interest, charitable gifts and other items may be back on the table despite lawmakers' dismissal of the idea this spring.
Talk of tax hikes is straining bipartisan efforts in the more collegial Senate. Republicans inclined to work with Democrats are already wary of the proposals' costs.
"I think that is so," said Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. "There is outrage across the country about spending, borrowing and debt, and then you are talking about trillions more for health care . . . I think people are rebelling."
DeMint unveiled his own health care plan Wednesday that focuses on vouchers for those without employer-based coverage and letting people buy insurance across state lines. It may cost less than the Democrats' plans, but he did say it would cost $700 billion over 10 years.
Public Divide
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has worked with Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., on a bipartisan plan. He said Wednesday that a broad outline should be out by the end of the week. Yet Grassley also said that a public plan would still be a deal breaker for the GOP.
But without a public plan, many Democrats may not go along.
"Polls indicate that the American people overwhelmingly believe that a competitive public option is essential so that people can go to the exchange and pick and choose with a variety of private options to get the care that meets their needs," Rangel said.
Other surveys, which Republicans prefer to cite, show Americans unwilling to pay much more in taxes for health care reform and increasingly worried about budget deficits.
Democrats on the Senate Finance panel expressed frustration.
"We're just continuing to talk, not getting anywhere," said Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., according to press reports.
Yet DeMint conceded that Democrats are still in the driver's seat:
"It all depends on the American people. Republicans don't have enough votes to stop anything. But if the American people are strong enough, a few Senate Democrats will start to think they can't go along with this kind of spending."
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
An Article worth noting regarding Obamacare
Public Option Is A 'Trojan Horse' For Slow-Motion Socialized Care
By DAVID GRATZER | Posted Monday, June 22, 2009 4:20 PM PT
In his speech last week to the American Medical Association, President Obama told members that critics had unfairly painted his proposal for a government health insurance plan as "a Trojan horse" for socialized medicine.
"When you hear the naysayers claim that I'm trying to bring about government-run health care," he said, "know this — they are not telling the truth."
Mr. Obama's personal goals are beside the point. The problem is that a giant public insurance plan — a public plan option that would be the core of his health reform and included in the Democratic House bill — will be a Trojan horse whether the President wants one or not.
Once a new federal program is introduced, it will act as a toxin inside the health care system, crushing much of the good in a rash, ideological effort to fix the bad.
Administration officials complain that private insurers spend too much on paperwork and overhead. Fair enough, and efforts to contain those costs through innovation and industry-led cooperation are helpful.
But if there is a public plan, it will be a variation of Medicare, which single-payer advocates praise as an example of administrative efficiency. A dirty secret goes unmentioned in that tale: Medicare is a federal program, not an insurance plan. It's an apples-to-oranges comparison.
A public plan option can overwhelm even the best private insurers, partly thanks to the unfair advantage of federal status. How? Let me count the ways.
Private insurers must comply with state regulations, where Medicare coverage doesn't.
Medicare is a "pay as you go" entitlement, not an insurance plan.
Properly funded insurance plans must anticipate future costs; in contrast, a public plan option backed by the federal government can simply tax or borrow enough to cover costs from one year to the next to survive.
A Medicare-style plan will set prices with providers, not negotiate them, creating not simply a further competitive advantage, but burdening private plans with cost shifting (as Medicare presently does).
That's why entitlement programs around the world usually start with low fees and great benefits — and a public plan is almost certain to do exactly that — "to be competitive," of course.
Fast forward 10 years and the "affordable" public plan will have captured a huge market share. Obama will be in Illinois drafting his memoirs, but Congress will face stark choices as the plan's costs inevitably spike. The challenges will be eerily similar to the decisions made every day by legislators in countries with government-run health care systems.
When entitlement programs become too expensive, governments ration care, raise taxes, or both. Citizens seeking to leave the less attractive public system will face few alternatives, as private plans will have been blown out of the marketplace by Washington's taxpayer-financed, price-controlled head start.
We also know a public plan will be a Trojan horse because of the sheer size of the insurance pool it can create. A plan that can ignore state boundaries and laws can do what many small-market plans cannot: spread risks on a national scale.
The president rightly notes that this should suppress the cost of premiums in the public plan. But if that's the case, then why not let private plans achieve the same result? If the president and his advisers seriously believe their proposed "health exchange" with a hundred insurance options will create competition, then why do we need a public plan to make it a hundred and one?
How then to create a competitive marketplace?
Start by leveling the tax playing field so that the self-employed and the unemployed aren't penalized by the tax code; that would make buying an individual policy an option for millions of Americans. Standardize state coding and forms, so insurers can compete consistently on price and service.
Finally, free the market, allowing people to purchase health insurance across state lines.
The public option is a Trojan horse, creating single-payer health care in slow motion. While the president might not see it that way, many advocates of Canadian-style health care certainly do.
If the administration truly believes competition can produce good results, then it should fast-track measures to promote a more competitive insurance market instead of fast-tracking plans for a more competitive government program.
Gratzer, a physician who has practiced in both the U.S. and Canada, is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
By DAVID GRATZER | Posted Monday, June 22, 2009 4:20 PM PT
In his speech last week to the American Medical Association, President Obama told members that critics had unfairly painted his proposal for a government health insurance plan as "a Trojan horse" for socialized medicine.
"When you hear the naysayers claim that I'm trying to bring about government-run health care," he said, "know this — they are not telling the truth."
Mr. Obama's personal goals are beside the point. The problem is that a giant public insurance plan — a public plan option that would be the core of his health reform and included in the Democratic House bill — will be a Trojan horse whether the President wants one or not.
Once a new federal program is introduced, it will act as a toxin inside the health care system, crushing much of the good in a rash, ideological effort to fix the bad.
Administration officials complain that private insurers spend too much on paperwork and overhead. Fair enough, and efforts to contain those costs through innovation and industry-led cooperation are helpful.
But if there is a public plan, it will be a variation of Medicare, which single-payer advocates praise as an example of administrative efficiency. A dirty secret goes unmentioned in that tale: Medicare is a federal program, not an insurance plan. It's an apples-to-oranges comparison.
A public plan option can overwhelm even the best private insurers, partly thanks to the unfair advantage of federal status. How? Let me count the ways.
Private insurers must comply with state regulations, where Medicare coverage doesn't.
Medicare is a "pay as you go" entitlement, not an insurance plan.
Properly funded insurance plans must anticipate future costs; in contrast, a public plan option backed by the federal government can simply tax or borrow enough to cover costs from one year to the next to survive.
A Medicare-style plan will set prices with providers, not negotiate them, creating not simply a further competitive advantage, but burdening private plans with cost shifting (as Medicare presently does).
That's why entitlement programs around the world usually start with low fees and great benefits — and a public plan is almost certain to do exactly that — "to be competitive," of course.
Fast forward 10 years and the "affordable" public plan will have captured a huge market share. Obama will be in Illinois drafting his memoirs, but Congress will face stark choices as the plan's costs inevitably spike. The challenges will be eerily similar to the decisions made every day by legislators in countries with government-run health care systems.
When entitlement programs become too expensive, governments ration care, raise taxes, or both. Citizens seeking to leave the less attractive public system will face few alternatives, as private plans will have been blown out of the marketplace by Washington's taxpayer-financed, price-controlled head start.
We also know a public plan will be a Trojan horse because of the sheer size of the insurance pool it can create. A plan that can ignore state boundaries and laws can do what many small-market plans cannot: spread risks on a national scale.
The president rightly notes that this should suppress the cost of premiums in the public plan. But if that's the case, then why not let private plans achieve the same result? If the president and his advisers seriously believe their proposed "health exchange" with a hundred insurance options will create competition, then why do we need a public plan to make it a hundred and one?
How then to create a competitive marketplace?
Start by leveling the tax playing field so that the self-employed and the unemployed aren't penalized by the tax code; that would make buying an individual policy an option for millions of Americans. Standardize state coding and forms, so insurers can compete consistently on price and service.
Finally, free the market, allowing people to purchase health insurance across state lines.
The public option is a Trojan horse, creating single-payer health care in slow motion. While the president might not see it that way, many advocates of Canadian-style health care certainly do.
If the administration truly believes competition can produce good results, then it should fast-track measures to promote a more competitive insurance market instead of fast-tracking plans for a more competitive government program.
Gratzer, a physician who has practiced in both the U.S. and Canada, is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Monday, June 22, 2009
This sums it up as to exactly why I despise Obama so much. He said it better than I ever could.
Israel Psychologists' view on Obama
(Be sure to read all the way to the end. I googgled this man and did some reading about him. He is for real.
Dr. Sam Vaknin is an Israeli psychologist. Interesting view on our new president.)
Dr Vaknin has written extensively about narcissism. 'Narcissism' noun. exaggerated self-admiration; exaggerated self-love.
Dr. Vaknin States "I must confess I was impressed by Sen.Barack Obama from the first time I saw him. At first I was excited to see a black candidate. He looked youthful, spoke well, appeared to be confident - a wholesome presidential package. I was put off soon, not just because of his shallowness but also because there was an air of haughtiness in his demeanor that was unsettling. His posture and his body language were louder than his empty words.. Obama's speeches are unlike any political speech we have heard in American history. Never a politician in this land had such quasi "religious" impact on so many people. The fact that Obama is a total incognito with zero accomplishment, makes this inexplicable infatuation alarming. Obama is not an ordinary man. He is not a genius. In fact he is quite ignorant on most important subjects." Barack Obama is a narcissist.
Dr. Sam Vaknin, the author of the Malignant Self Love believes "Barack Obama appears to be a narcissist." Vaknin is a world authority on narcissism. He understands narcissism and describes the inner mind of a narcissist like no other person. When he talks about narcissism everyone listens. Vaknin says that Obama's language, posture and demeanor, and the testimonies of his closest, dearest and nearest suggest that the Senator is either a narcissist or he may have narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). Narcissists project a grandiose but false image of themselves. Jim Jones, the charismatic leader of People's Temple, the man who led over 900 of his followers to cheerfully commit mass suicide and even murder their own children was also a narcissist. David Koresh, Charles Manson, Joseph Koni, Shoko Asahara, Stalin, Saddam, Mao,Kim Jong Ill and Adolph Hitler are a few examples of narcissists of our time. All these men had a tremendous influence over their fanciers. They created a personality cult around themselves and with their blazing speeches elevated their admirers, filled their hearts with enthusiasm and instilled in their minds a new zest for life. They gave them hope! They promised them the moon, but alas, invariably they brought them to their doom. When you are a victim of a cult of personality, you don't know it until it is too late. One determining factor in the development of NPD is childhood abuse.
His parents went through a divorce when he was an infant (two years old). Obama saw his father only once again, before he died in a car accident. Then his mother re-married and Obama had to relocate to Indonesia , a foreign land with a radically foreign culture, to be raised by a step-father. At the age of ten, he was whisked off to live with his maternal (white)grandparents. He saw his mother only intermittently in the following few years and then she vanished from his life in 1979. She died of cancer in 1995".
One must never underestimate the manipulative genius of pathological narcissists. They project such an imposing personality that it overwhelms those around them. Charmed by the charisma of the narcissist, people become like clay in his hands. They cheerfully do his bidding and delight to be at his service. The narcissist shapes the world around himself and reduces others in his own inverted image. He creates a cult of personality. His admirers become his co-dependents Narcissists have no interest in things that do not help them to reach their personal objective. They are focused on one thing alone and that is power. All other issues are meaningless to them and they do not want to waste their precious time on trivialities. Anything that does not help them is beneath them and do not deserve their attention.
If an issue raised in the Senate does not help Obama in one way or another, he has no interest in it. The "present" vote is a safe vote. No one can criticize him if things go wrong. Those issues are unworthy by their very nature because they are not about him. Obama's election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review led to a contract and advance to write a book about race relations.
The University of Chicago Law School provided him a lot longer than expected and at the end it evolved into, guess what? His own autobiography! Instead of writing a scholarly paper focusing on race relations, for which he had been paid, Obama could not resist writing about his most sublime self.. He entitled the book Dreams from My Father.
Not surprisingly, Adolph Hitler also wrote his own autobiography when he was still nobody. So did Stalin. For a narcissist no subject is as important as his own self. Why would he waste his precious time and genius writing about insignificant things when he can write about such an august being as himself? Narcissists are often callous and even
ruthless As the norm, they lack conscience. This is evident from Obama's lack of interest in his own brother who lives on only one dollar per month.
A man who lives in luxury, who takes a private jet to vacation in Hawaii, and who has raised nearly half a billion dollars for his campaign (something unprecedented in history) has no interest in the plight of his own brother. Why? Because, his brother cannot be used for his ascent to power.
A narcissist cares for no one but himself. This election is like no other in the history of America . The issues are insignificant compared to what is at stake. What can be more dangerous than having a man bereft of conscience, a serial liar, and one who cannot distinguish his fantasies from reality as the leader of the free world? I hate to sound alarmist, but one is a fool if one is not alarmed. Many politicians are narcissists. They pose no threat to others...They are simply self serving and selfish.
Obama evidences symptoms of pathological narcissism, which is different from the run-of-the-mill narcissism of a Richard Nixon or a Bill Clinton for example. To him reality and fantasy are intertwined. This is a mental health issue, not just a character flaw. Pathological narcissists are dangerous because they look normal and even intelligent.
It is this disguise that makes them treacherous.
Today the Democrats have placed all their hopes in Obama. But this man could put an end to their party.. The great majority of blacks have also decided to vote for Obama. Only a fool does not know that their support for him is racially driven. This is racism, pure and simple. The downside of this is that if Obama turns out to be the disaster I predict, he will cause widespread resentment among the whites.
The blacks are unlikely to give up their support of their man. Cultic mentality is pernicious and unrelenting. They will dig their heads deeper in the sand and blame Obama's detractors of racism. This will cause a backlash among the whites.
The white supremacists will take advantage of the discontent and they will receive widespread support. I predict that in less than four years, racial tensions will increase to levels never seen since the turbulent 1960's.
Obama will set the clock back decades... America is the bastion of freedom. The peace of the world depends on the strength of America , and its weakness translates into the triumph of terrorism and victory of rogue nations.
It is no wonder that Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez, the Castroists, the Hezbollah, the Hamas, the lawyers of the Guantanamo terrorists and virtually all sworn enemies of America are so thrilled by the prospect of their man in the White House. America is on the verge of destruction.
There is no insanity greater than electing a pathological narcissist as president
(Be sure to read all the way to the end. I googgled this man and did some reading about him. He is for real.
Dr. Sam Vaknin is an Israeli psychologist. Interesting view on our new president.)
Dr Vaknin has written extensively about narcissism. 'Narcissism' noun. exaggerated self-admiration; exaggerated self-love.
Dr. Vaknin States "I must confess I was impressed by Sen.Barack Obama from the first time I saw him. At first I was excited to see a black candidate. He looked youthful, spoke well, appeared to be confident - a wholesome presidential package. I was put off soon, not just because of his shallowness but also because there was an air of haughtiness in his demeanor that was unsettling. His posture and his body language were louder than his empty words.. Obama's speeches are unlike any political speech we have heard in American history. Never a politician in this land had such quasi "religious" impact on so many people. The fact that Obama is a total incognito with zero accomplishment, makes this inexplicable infatuation alarming. Obama is not an ordinary man. He is not a genius. In fact he is quite ignorant on most important subjects." Barack Obama is a narcissist.
Dr. Sam Vaknin, the author of the Malignant Self Love believes "Barack Obama appears to be a narcissist." Vaknin is a world authority on narcissism. He understands narcissism and describes the inner mind of a narcissist like no other person. When he talks about narcissism everyone listens. Vaknin says that Obama's language, posture and demeanor, and the testimonies of his closest, dearest and nearest suggest that the Senator is either a narcissist or he may have narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). Narcissists project a grandiose but false image of themselves. Jim Jones, the charismatic leader of People's Temple, the man who led over 900 of his followers to cheerfully commit mass suicide and even murder their own children was also a narcissist. David Koresh, Charles Manson, Joseph Koni, Shoko Asahara, Stalin, Saddam, Mao,Kim Jong Ill and Adolph Hitler are a few examples of narcissists of our time. All these men had a tremendous influence over their fanciers. They created a personality cult around themselves and with their blazing speeches elevated their admirers, filled their hearts with enthusiasm and instilled in their minds a new zest for life. They gave them hope! They promised them the moon, but alas, invariably they brought them to their doom. When you are a victim of a cult of personality, you don't know it until it is too late. One determining factor in the development of NPD is childhood abuse.
His parents went through a divorce when he was an infant (two years old). Obama saw his father only once again, before he died in a car accident. Then his mother re-married and Obama had to relocate to Indonesia , a foreign land with a radically foreign culture, to be raised by a step-father. At the age of ten, he was whisked off to live with his maternal (white)grandparents. He saw his mother only intermittently in the following few years and then she vanished from his life in 1979. She died of cancer in 1995".
One must never underestimate the manipulative genius of pathological narcissists. They project such an imposing personality that it overwhelms those around them. Charmed by the charisma of the narcissist, people become like clay in his hands. They cheerfully do his bidding and delight to be at his service. The narcissist shapes the world around himself and reduces others in his own inverted image. He creates a cult of personality. His admirers become his co-dependents Narcissists have no interest in things that do not help them to reach their personal objective. They are focused on one thing alone and that is power. All other issues are meaningless to them and they do not want to waste their precious time on trivialities. Anything that does not help them is beneath them and do not deserve their attention.
If an issue raised in the Senate does not help Obama in one way or another, he has no interest in it. The "present" vote is a safe vote. No one can criticize him if things go wrong. Those issues are unworthy by their very nature because they are not about him. Obama's election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review led to a contract and advance to write a book about race relations.
The University of Chicago Law School provided him a lot longer than expected and at the end it evolved into, guess what? His own autobiography! Instead of writing a scholarly paper focusing on race relations, for which he had been paid, Obama could not resist writing about his most sublime self.. He entitled the book Dreams from My Father.
Not surprisingly, Adolph Hitler also wrote his own autobiography when he was still nobody. So did Stalin. For a narcissist no subject is as important as his own self. Why would he waste his precious time and genius writing about insignificant things when he can write about such an august being as himself? Narcissists are often callous and even
ruthless As the norm, they lack conscience. This is evident from Obama's lack of interest in his own brother who lives on only one dollar per month.
A man who lives in luxury, who takes a private jet to vacation in Hawaii, and who has raised nearly half a billion dollars for his campaign (something unprecedented in history) has no interest in the plight of his own brother. Why? Because, his brother cannot be used for his ascent to power.
A narcissist cares for no one but himself. This election is like no other in the history of America . The issues are insignificant compared to what is at stake. What can be more dangerous than having a man bereft of conscience, a serial liar, and one who cannot distinguish his fantasies from reality as the leader of the free world? I hate to sound alarmist, but one is a fool if one is not alarmed. Many politicians are narcissists. They pose no threat to others...They are simply self serving and selfish.
Obama evidences symptoms of pathological narcissism, which is different from the run-of-the-mill narcissism of a Richard Nixon or a Bill Clinton for example. To him reality and fantasy are intertwined. This is a mental health issue, not just a character flaw. Pathological narcissists are dangerous because they look normal and even intelligent.
It is this disguise that makes them treacherous.
Today the Democrats have placed all their hopes in Obama. But this man could put an end to their party.. The great majority of blacks have also decided to vote for Obama. Only a fool does not know that their support for him is racially driven. This is racism, pure and simple. The downside of this is that if Obama turns out to be the disaster I predict, he will cause widespread resentment among the whites.
The blacks are unlikely to give up their support of their man. Cultic mentality is pernicious and unrelenting. They will dig their heads deeper in the sand and blame Obama's detractors of racism. This will cause a backlash among the whites.
The white supremacists will take advantage of the discontent and they will receive widespread support. I predict that in less than four years, racial tensions will increase to levels never seen since the turbulent 1960's.
Obama will set the clock back decades... America is the bastion of freedom. The peace of the world depends on the strength of America , and its weakness translates into the triumph of terrorism and victory of rogue nations.
It is no wonder that Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez, the Castroists, the Hezbollah, the Hamas, the lawyers of the Guantanamo terrorists and virtually all sworn enemies of America are so thrilled by the prospect of their man in the White House. America is on the verge of destruction.
There is no insanity greater than electing a pathological narcissist as president
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Thursday, June 11, 2009
OBAMA CARE
With 250,000 members, the American Medical Association has some heavy political clout and deep resources. It will need to use everything it has if it is to help shield the nation from a health care disaster being engineered by Democrats and their constituents.
Washington's latest fevered dream for health care is a mutation called the "public option," which is just another way of saying "government-run" without having to actually do so.
We know there's a loud faction that envies the salaries doctors earn. Its members would be pleased to see the government slash reimbursements for wealthy physicians.
We also know something else that they apparently don't: Without the profit motive, doctors will leave their practices, potential medical school students will choose another field, and insurance providers will stop offering coverage. Is that in anyone's interest
While these same folks would be thrilled to put an end to private health care insurance, which they believe is run by greedy businessmen, they'd not be so happy with a health care landscape in which there are fewer doctors, fewer hospitals and fewer choices.
A nation with fewer physicians and little or no private health insurance market is a nation that will find itself in health care hell.
Doctors' offices will be overrun with patients demanding "free" treatment, and taxpayers will be broke from continually paying the bills. Its promises notwithstanding, a government that long ago lost all control of Medicare spending won't be able to handle what is essentially Medicare for all.
_____________________________________________________________________________
These are exerpts from an article I read online. I thought it quite on the money. Doubt those dumb***** in Washington will listen to them or us for that matter, when we try to tell them what a BIG BIG mistake this is. The system is broke true, but this will only make things worse. Why in the world would you want to model your healthcare system after countries like Canada and England, when you can obviously see what an abject failure they have been there. AND YOU WANT TO COPY THAT???? REALLY MR. PRESIDENT???????
You know part of the reason for healthcare insurance costs being so high isnt necessarily those "greedy" insurance people. Some of it is the state manadate that you gotta cover this and cover that. Stuff invetro for example. ARE YOU SERIOUS?? That kinda of crap is what has driven up the prices. I wish people would knock it off with the class envy already. I know its hard because the obama fawning media has spoon fed it to you on a never ending basis. BUT TRY PLEASE before we all LOSE BIGTIME.
Washington's latest fevered dream for health care is a mutation called the "public option," which is just another way of saying "government-run" without having to actually do so.
We know there's a loud faction that envies the salaries doctors earn. Its members would be pleased to see the government slash reimbursements for wealthy physicians.
We also know something else that they apparently don't: Without the profit motive, doctors will leave their practices, potential medical school students will choose another field, and insurance providers will stop offering coverage. Is that in anyone's interest
While these same folks would be thrilled to put an end to private health care insurance, which they believe is run by greedy businessmen, they'd not be so happy with a health care landscape in which there are fewer doctors, fewer hospitals and fewer choices.
A nation with fewer physicians and little or no private health insurance market is a nation that will find itself in health care hell.
Doctors' offices will be overrun with patients demanding "free" treatment, and taxpayers will be broke from continually paying the bills. Its promises notwithstanding, a government that long ago lost all control of Medicare spending won't be able to handle what is essentially Medicare for all.
_____________________________________________________________________________
These are exerpts from an article I read online. I thought it quite on the money. Doubt those dumb***** in Washington will listen to them or us for that matter, when we try to tell them what a BIG BIG mistake this is. The system is broke true, but this will only make things worse. Why in the world would you want to model your healthcare system after countries like Canada and England, when you can obviously see what an abject failure they have been there. AND YOU WANT TO COPY THAT???? REALLY MR. PRESIDENT???????
You know part of the reason for healthcare insurance costs being so high isnt necessarily those "greedy" insurance people. Some of it is the state manadate that you gotta cover this and cover that. Stuff invetro for example. ARE YOU SERIOUS?? That kinda of crap is what has driven up the prices. I wish people would knock it off with the class envy already. I know its hard because the obama fawning media has spoon fed it to you on a never ending basis. BUT TRY PLEASE before we all LOSE BIGTIME.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Sotomayor, to appoint or not appoint?
Sotomayor Vs. The Death PenaltyBy INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, June 08, 2009 4:20 PM PT Justice: Sonia Sotomayor says the death penalty disproportionately impacts minorities. A question for her: Death sentences are meted out most often to (a) blacks, (b) whites, (c) Hispanics or (d) the guil
A recently unearthed memo not disclosed on the questionnaire filed with the Senate Judiciary Committee shows that the empathy that the Supreme Court nominee feels is more for the predators among us than their victims. It also shows that some of the reasons this self-proclaimed "wise Latina" has for opposing capital punishment are bogus and flawed.
In her Senate questionnaire, Sotomayor accurately reported that from 1980 to 1982 she worked for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund. She also truthfully included an April 19, 1981, letter from the PRLDEF to then-New York Gov. Hugh Carey opposing the reinstatement of the death penalty in that state. That letter was not signed by Sotomayor.
What Sotomayor did sign was a March 24, 1981, memo she and two other members of a PRLDEF task force sent to the PRLDEF board listing reasons for opposing the death penalty. Wendy Long, counsel for the Judicial Confirmation Network, sent a letter Friday to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., noting it was missing from Sotomayor's document dump.
"There are many legitimate arguments against the death penalty, but her memo acts like there's not even a single argument for it," Log observed. Our reading shows that her opposition appears to be, well, just plain goofy.
One of the eight reasons Sotomayor et al. give for opposing capital punishment is that it "creates inhuman psychological burdens for the offender and his/her family." So what about the trauma inflicted on the families of his/her victims? What about the children orphaned, the wives widowed? This is empathy gone terribly wrong.
The Sotomayor memo also says: "The problem of crime and society is so complex, it is unreasonable to think that capital punishment will result in preventing it or diminishing it." If Sotomayor doesn't think the death penalty is a deterrent, just ask the family of a prison guard murdered in a state without it. Without the death penalty, such a crime is possible.
Without the death penalty, the clerk of a convenience store being robbed is likelier to be murdered, eliminating the only witness to a crime. In many crimes, if the predator faced the ultimate penalty, the victim might not.
As researcher John Lott Jr. reports: "Generally, the studies over the last decade that examined how the murder rates in each state changed as they changed their execution rate found that each execution saved the lives of roughly 15 to 18 potential murder victims."
Then there's the Sotomayor kicker: "Capital punishment is associated with evident racism in our society. The number of minorities and the poor executed or awaiting execution is out of proportion to their numbers in the population."
Fact is, murders and victims don't fall in neat demographic columns. Black people represented an estimated 13% of the U.S. population in 2005 but were the victims of 49% of all murders. According to the FBI Uniform Crime Report, 2007, 90.2% of black murder victims were murdered by other blacks. Do we care more about black murderers or black victims?
Empathy for predators is not new. Cop killers like Mumia Abu-Jamal, despite his obvious and proven guilt in the murder of Philadelphia police officer Danny Faulkner, and the recently executed Hollywood favorite, Tookie Williams, have became poster children for the left as symbols of racial bias in the justice system.
To us, they are symptoms of well-executed justice. They are also symbols from which the Supreme Court and Sonia Sotomayor should help to protect all of us — black, white or whatever.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have a real problem with her appointment. Its not that she is Hispanic, its that I don't think she will be fair and impartial. Also that she will try as most activist judges from the liberal side of aisle, try to legislate from the bench to achieve their ends. It is very troublesome to me some of the statement she has made in the past and then tried to cover up as "misspeak". Bush nominated at least one VERY WORTHY Hispanic and had him shot down, not because he was unqualified, but simply because they wanted to be the first to have a Hispanic on the bench and because he dared to be both a "minority" and a conservative.
I have serious doubts as to whether she will be impartial and anyone that can think clearly and with a reasoned heart should too.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Another great article from the Investors Business Daily
Two Standards In The Media's World Of Hate
By MICHELLE MALKIN | Posted Wednesday, June 03, 2009 4:20 PM PT
When a right-wing Christian vigilante kills, millions of fingers pull the trigger. When a left-wing Muslim vigilante kills, he kills alone.
These are the instantly ossifying narratives in the Sunday shooting death of late-term abortion provider George Tiller of Kansas vs. the Monday shootings of two Arkansas military recruiters.
Tiller's suspected murderer, Scott Roeder, is white, Christian, anti-government and anti-abortion. The gunman in the military recruitment center attack, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, is black, a Muslim convert, anti-military and anti-American.
Both crimes are despicable, cowardly acts of domestic terrorism. But the disparate treatment of the two brutal cases by both the White House and the media is striking.
President Obama issued a statement condemning "heinous acts of violence" within hours of Tiller's death. The Justice Department issued its own statement and sent federal marshals to protect abortion clinics.
News anchors and headline writers abandoned all qualms about labeling the gunman a terrorist. An almost gleeful excess of mainstream commentary poured forth on the climate of hate and fear created by conservative talk radio, blogs and Fox News in reporting Tiller's activities.
By contrast, Obama was silent about the military recruiter attacks that left 24-year-old Pvt. William Long dead and 18-year-old Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula gravely wounded.
On Tuesday afternoon — more than 24 hours after the attack on the military recruitment center in Little Rock, Ark. — Obama held a press conference to announce his pick for Army secretary. It would have been exactly the right moment to express condolences for the families of the targeted Army recruiters and to condemn heinous acts of violence against our troops.
But Obama said nothing. The Justice Department was mum. And so were the legions of finger-pointing pundits happily convicting the pro-life movement and every right-leaning writer on the planet of contributing to the murder of Tiller.
Obama's omission, it should be noted, comes just a few weeks after he failed to mention the Bronx jihadi plot to bomb synagogues and a National Guard air base during his speech on homeland security.
Why the silence? Politically and religiously motivated violence, it seems, is only worth lamenting when it demonizes opponents. Which also helps explain why the phrase "lone shooter" is ubiquitous in media coverage of jihadi shooters gone wild — think convicted "Jeep Jihadist" Mohammed Taheri-Azar at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill or Israel-bashing gunman Naveed Haq, who targeted a Seattle Jewish charity, or LAX shooter Hesham Hedayet, who opened fire at the El Al Israeli airline ticket counter — but not in cases involving rare acts of anti-abortion violence.
Even Jeffrey Goldberg of the left-leaning Atlantic magazine noticed the double standards. He called attention to a National Public Radio report on the military recruiter attack that failed to mention the religion and anti-military animus of the suspect.
Wrote Goldberg: "Why not tell people what is actually happening in the world? We saw this a couple of weeks ago, when the press only gingerly acknowledged that the malevolent though incompetent suspects in the synagogue bombing-conspiracy case in New York were converts to Islam.
"How is the public served by this kind of silence? The extremist Christian beliefs of Tiller's alleged murderer are relevant to that case, and no one in my profession is hesitant to discuss them. Why the hesitancy to talk about the motivations of the man who allegedly killed Pvt. William Long?"
The truth is that the "climate of hate" doesn't have just one hemisphere. But you won't hear the Council on American-Islamic Relations acknowledging the national security risks of jihadi infiltrators who despise our military and have plotted against our troops from within the ranks — including convicted fragging killer Hasan Akbar and terror plotters Ali Mohamed, Jeffrey Battle and Semi Osman.
You won't hear about the escalating war on military recruitment centers on the op-ed pages of the New York Times — from vandalism to obstruction to Molotov cocktail attacks on campus stations; to the shutdown of a Pittsburgh military recruitment office by zealots holding signs that read "Recruiters are Child Predators"; to the prolonged harassment campaign against the Marine recruiting center in Berkeley, where Code Pink protesters called American soldiers assassins; to the bomb blast at the Times Square recruiting center last March.
And you'll hear little about the most recent left-wing calls to violence by a Playboy magazine writer who published a vulgar list of conservative female writers and commentators he said he'd like to rape. The list was hyped by the magazine's publicity team and lightheartedly promoted by mainstream publications such as Politico.com (founded by Washington Post reporters).
Is it too much to ask the media cartographers in charge of mapping the "climate of hate" to do their jobs with both eyes open?
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Sadly enough, I think it is. The left is on seek and destroy mission and they will not stop nor rest until every conservative voice is silenced.
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