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18401
Politics & Religion / Is Dick Morris right?
« on: April 08, 2010, 02:14:44 PM »
« 2010: TAKE BACK AMERICA — A BATTLE PLANDEM STRATEGISTS HAVE IT WRONG
By Dick Morris 04.7.2010 Stanley Greenberg and James Carville claim that the Republican Party has peaked too soon. Incredibly, Greenberg says “when we look back on this, we’re going to say Massachusetts is when 1994 happened.” Stan’s only claim to expertise in the 1994 elections, of course, is that he’s the guy who blew it for the Democrats. Right after that, President Clinton fired both of the flawed consultants and never brought them back again.

Now,their latest pitch is that the highpoint of the GOP advance was the Scott Brown election and that, from here on, things will “improve slightly” for the Democrats.

Once again, Carville and Greenberg are totally misreading the public mood. Each time the Republican activists battle, they become stronger. Their cyber and grass roots grow deeper. The negatives that attach to so-called “moderate” Democratic incumbents increase. And each time Obama, Reid and Pelosi defy public opinion and use their majorities to ram through unpopular legislation, frustration and anger rises.

Were Obama’s ambitions to slacken, perhaps a cooling off might eventuate. But soon the socialist financial takeover bill will come on the agenda, followed by amnesty for illegal immigrants, cap and trade, and card check unionization. Each bill will trigger its own mobilization of public opposition and add to the swelling coalition of opposition to Obama and his radical agenda.

And, all the while, the deficit will increase, interest rates will rise, and unemployment will remain high.

Meanwhile, the political process will generate more and more strong Republican challengers. We have yet to see if former Governor Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin or Dino Rossi of Washington State will emerge to challenge Senators Feingold and Murray. Better House candidates will decide to capitalize on the momentum and will jump into the race and Republican donors will come out of hiding, their efforts catalyzed by the growing optimism about GOP chances.

Presaging the Republican sweep that looms ahead, is the shift in the party ratings on various issues. Rasmussen has the Republicans ahead by 49-37 on the economy and 53-37 on health care. His likely voter poll shows GOP leads on every major issue area: national security (49-37), Iraq (47-39), Education (43-30), Immigration (47-34), Social Security (48-36), and Taxes (52-34).

When Republicans are winning issues like education, healthy care, and social security – normally solidly Democratic issues – a sweep of unimaginable proportions is in the offing.

Will the rise in economic growth and job creation – if they continue — offset the Republican gains? Not very likely. Remember Bill Clinton’s 1994 experience. Even though the recession had officially ended in the quarter before he took office and he proudly pointed to five million new jobs that had been created during the first two years of his presidency, Clinton got no bounce from the jobs issue or the economy. Even in the election of 1996, the economy was only marginally a source of strength for the Democratic president. It wasn’t until impeachment that the job growth that had been ongoing since he took office began to work heavily in his favor with the public. The hangover from a recession, certainly from one a violent as this, lasts a long time. A very long time.

And all this assumes that things will, indeed, improve. Worries about inflation loom large and concerns that higher taxes and interest rates will trigger a new downturn also abound. As long as the deficit is as high as it is, there is no solid foundation for a sustained period of economic growth.

Finally, Obama is now responsible for health care in America. When premiums rise, it will be his fault. When coverage is denied, it will be on his watch. When Medicare cuts kick in, it will be Obama who gets the blame.

Carville’s last book touted “forty more years of Democrats.” Now he dreams of a loss of “only” 25 seats in the House and “six or seven” Senators. But these are pipe dreams. Republicans will gain more than fifty House seats and at least ten in the Senate, enough to take control in both Houses. That’s reality.




18402
Politics & Religion / "The War Isn’t Over"
« on: April 08, 2010, 11:40:15 AM »
From the New England Journal of liberalism, woops I mean Medicine.  Notice PhDs are getting this political piece published in the NEJM that purports to be non partisan.
Look at this line carefully:

***On the political front, Republicans unanimously opposed the final bill in both the House and the Senate. They have expressed outrage at the Democratic leadership’s decision to “ram through” reform using budget reconciliation to modify the Senate-passed bill sufficiently to make it acceptable to the House. The outrage is baseless***

Oh really,  the outrage is "baseless".  Says who?  These policy liberals are the ones who are going to decide all health care in this nation.  Make no mistake about it.  They are drooling at the prospect of getting the power to say yes or no to our health care.  I wonder what they make.  FOX news should do some research on these people and their financial interests.  Notice they all seem to fall behind the scenes.  Yet they are making policy the Dems are shoving down our throats - I know this claim is "baseless".  Where is the journalism that should be looking into these progressives?

****from the publishers of
the New England
Journal of Medicine
The War Isn’t Over
Posted by NEJM • March 24th, 2010 • Printer-friendly
Henry J. Aaron, Ph.D., and Robert D. Reischauer, Ph.D.

Health care reform advocates will and should celebrate their history-making legislative success. For many, the past year has been all health care all the time. Celebration should be limited, however. Major challenges lie ahead, and hard work remains to be done. Opponents will continue, and probably intensify, their opposition. They have promised legal challenges and are likely to seek repeal of all or part of the legislation. Moreover, formidable implementation hurdles must be surmounted if health care reform is to achieve its goals.

On the political front, Republicans unanimously opposed the final bill in both the House and the Senate. They have expressed outrage at the Democratic leadership’s decision to “ram through” reform using budget reconciliation to modify the Senate-passed bill sufficiently to make it acceptable to the House. The outrage is baseless, but the fury is real and will poison future debate.

The first political testing ground will be the November 2010 midterm elections. Republicans have pledged to make the substance of the reform and the procedures used to enact it central to these elections. The Democratic majorities in both chambers of Congress are likely to be reduced, probably by even more than is usual for an off-year election. With 2010 gains under their belts, opponents will almost certainly continue and intensify attacks on the reform legislation during the 2012 presidential and congressional campaigns; they may well regain control of the Senate — 21 Democrats and 2 independents who vote with them, but only 10 Republicans, will be up for reelection — and could win the White House.

The reform legislation’s implementation schedule gives these political possibilities particular salience. Although many provisions of the bill will take effect immediately or soon after enactment, implementation of the big-ticket items is deferred. The individual and employer mandates, the subsidies to make insurance affordable, the Medicaid expansion, and major insurance-market reforms will all start in 2014. And the tax on high-cost insurance plans goes into effect in 2018. Given the intensity of Republicans’ opposition to the substance and manner of passage of this reform, if the GOP regains the presidency and control of Congress in 2012, implementation could be substantially delayed or the law could be significantly modified or even repealed before its major elements have been implemented.

Making the legislation a success requires not only that it survive but also that it be effectively implemented. Although the bill runs to more than 2000 pages, much remains to be decided. The legislation tasks federal or state officials with writing regulations, making appointments, and giving precise meaning to many terms. Many of these actions will provoke controversy. Performing them will take staff, money, and time. Given the current federal deficit and beleaguered state treasuries, needed staff and funding will be hard to come by.

Even with adequate resources, implementing health care reform will be complex and difficult. Much of this challenge is inherent in the complicated and diverse ways in which health care is delivered and paid for in the United States. Part of the challenge arises from the likelihood that as implementation proceeds, unforeseen challenges will emerge.

To get some flavor of what lies ahead, consider the following. The law provides for income-based credits payable by the federal Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to insurers on behalf of households that apply for coverage through state-managed health insurance exchanges. IRS filing units (whether individuals, couples, or families) are not always the same as the units covered by a health insurance policy. Eligibility for health insurance subsidies should be based on current income, but the IRS has income information only for past years. Mechanisms for exchanging income information between the IRS and the state insurance exchanges will need to be developed, as will ways of handling subsidies when definitions of a family unit vary and when family composition or income changes significantly between the time that taxes are filed and the time when insurance subsidies are to be delivered.

Other issues arise because the legislation asks state officials, some of whom oppose the reform, to play a large part in its implementation. The bill calls on each state to set up its own health insurance exchange and permits the exchanges to operate under widely varying rules. For example, states may establish separate exchanges for individuals and for small groups and may create a basic plan for individuals and families with incomes between 133 and 200% of the federal poverty level. Insurers need not offer the same plans in the exchanges as they do outside them. Averting insurance-company competition that is based on risk selection will require aggressive state oversight, which some states may be unwilling or unable to provide.

These responsibilities will be terra incognita for many state administrators. Even when goodwill prevails, administrators will find implementation very difficult. However, the experience of the Commonwealth Connector, the exchange though which Massachusetts residents without employer-provided insurance obtain affordable coverage, offers encouragement that these difficulties can be overcome.

Furthermore, parts of the reform are bound not to work as expected. For example, the legislation calls for extending Medicaid to everyone with an income below 133% of the federal poverty level. Medicaid rolls in some states will expand by 50% or more. It is unclear whether these states will be able to find enough providers who are willing to accept the anticipated payment rates to serve this expanded population, even as the demand from better-paying patients for services is growing. If they don’t, will they raise provider payment rates, curtail Medicaid benefits (as states are legally authorized to do), or simply let patients fail to find doctors who are willing to provide them with care?

To further complicate matters, some families may be able to buy insurance in several distinct ways, depending on their income, family composition, and state policy. Different family members may be eligible under Medicaid, under the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), through the exchanges with subsidies, through the exchanges without subsidies, or through a yet-to-be-created state basic health insurance plan. If employers offer plans that meet federal standards and cost households no more than stipulated fractions of the worker’s income, employees will not be eligible for insurance through exchanges, but if employment-based insurance does not meet federal standards or is too costly, employees will have the option of buying insurance through the exchanges — with or without subsidies, depending on income. Small changes in income can push some, but not all, family members from one form of coverage to another — for example, from Medicaid or CHIP to the basic plan to the exchanges. Negotiating this maze will be a challenge for many health care seekers, particularly low- and moderate-income families. Providing ample counseling will be essential. These and myriad other implementation difficulties will fuel continued political controversy.

Passage of health care reform legislation is a cause for celebration. But supporters must not relax. They should prepare to meet the serious challenges that remain. If those challenges are not recognized and surmounted, health care reform could go the way of the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act of 1988. That bill, enacted with almost self-congratulatory enthusiasm, provoked vociferous resistance from some observers and was repealed 16 months later. If supporters of the current reform meet the remaining challenges, its course could instead resemble that of the Medicare drug bill, which was widely regarded as a case study in efficient and effective implementation.

Far from having ended, the war to make health care reform an enduring success has just begun. Winning that war will require administrative determination and imagination and as much political resolve as was needed to pass the legislation.

Disclosure forms provided by the authors are available with the full text of this article at NEJM.org.

Source Information

From the Brookings Institution (H.J.A.) and the Urban Institute (R.D.R.) — both in Washington, DC.

This article (10.1056/NEJMp1003394) was published on March 24, 2010, at NEJM.org.

Download a PDF of this article
Read this article at NEJM.org
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 © 2010 Massachusetts Medical Society  Entries (RSS)  Comments (RSS) ****

18403
Science, Culture, & Humanities / Re: Pathological Science
« on: April 07, 2010, 12:55:01 PM »
I don't know.  It is 93 degrees in NJ in early April.  This has never happened that I know of.

18404
Politics & Religion / My take
« on: April 07, 2010, 08:43:19 AM »
Rarick,
I agree with you.
But doctors are far from organized and a large heterogenous group of different specialties, ages, men vs women, ethinic groups, foreign born vs American born, and philosophies.

There are many articles in the med journals making "calls to action".   Like, "we doctors must take action now or we never will, etc, etc, yadda, yadda, etc".
"We are the buyers in health care not the patients(since we are the ones ordering tests, etc)".  Blah blah blah blah blah.

I can go on ad nauseum.   Usually a few people will write letters to the editor in response to these articles some agreeing some the other way.  The medical organizations have different stances too.  The American College of Physicians has already accepted for *many* years now the fait accompli (sp?) of government takeover of health care and sucks up to the government agreeing to nearly every concept they come up with in hopes we can salvage at least a minimal say in what happens.  For example if we can at least get some tort reform.  Or some payment reform to salvage primary care from the ruins it is in.  Of course the Feds take payments away from specialists to give us a few bones fragmenting the medical community more.  The Cardiologists who for all intents and purposes have done everything they can to soak the  system for every dime have attempted to sue the Feds for payment cuts.  Of course that didn't work.  I have no sympathy for what one primary doc rightly called the "priviledged class" when referring to cardiologists.

Of course the dishonest Phoney One  goes around claiming that illegals are not covered now suggesting no one need worry about that.  Of course he fails to say that all their American born children are.  And what a joke this will turn out to be the true minute they grant amnesty cloaked as some sort of program that requires them to pay fines, learn some English, pay back taxes etc.

There is NO escaping the conclusion that any rational person can come to that the policy makers that come up with these gov. health care plans and the politicians that push for them including the great liar in chief, do not know the sytem WILL go broke when millions more are added onto the rolls requiring the government to step in and save it from itself with single payer.  (Keeping these people out of ERs won't do it.  In fact I predict it will just make costs go up even more.)

THE REAL TRUTH IS THAT THIS IS THE STRATEGY.

Pelosi/Bela Lugosi has already basically said as much when she claims this bill is just the start.  "Kicking in the door" and more bills to fix the system towards their ultimate goal.  Bama has said as much too.

I am sure that Bama told this to Kusinich on that air force one plane ride.  He must have told him not to worry.  That the present bill is the only one politically viable enough to get passed, but not to worry as it is only the start of a process to get "our" ultimate goal passed which is single payer government run rationed care where everyone is treated exactly like everyone else. 

I am sure he told him he agrees with Kusinich in principle and probably promised him that they will together succeed but it takes time.  "Pretend to be one of them if you want to change them".

There is no question we will have debt skyrocket as a result.  Don't think for even a second, or a pause that all this talk of bundling payments, research into cost effective care, getting rid of the middle men insurers, single payer, preventative care, etc, will be enough.  It problably will help but as soon as millions more are on the rolls for free to them - the game is up.  Look at Massachussets. Romney is the poster boy for this.

 

18405
Politics & Religion / Re: The Politics of Health Care
« on: April 06, 2010, 10:28:24 AM »
"or is there a principled reason which reaches the same conclusion?"

I just did a search on this and cannot find much though it may be the search words I use.

I guess some would claim Medicare is not an entitlement per se since we pay into it.

We will eventually wind up with rationing of some sort.  Look at all the other countries that have gone this path and they all ration.
And they are going broke anyway.

The wheels are in motion.  As this bill leads us to have gigantic cost overuns (and it certainly will) the powers to be will continue to implement fixes that eventually will lead to rationing.  I have not heard anything that convinces me there is any other alternative.  Certainly not from the repubs.




18406
Politics & Religion / Re: The Politics of Health Care
« on: April 06, 2010, 07:46:27 AM »
Can we do without Medicare?
I don't know.
Is there any realistic chance this can be abolished.
I really don't see how.

The most important thing to a senior is their medical care. I remember when I lived in Florida and every single time I sat somewhere, say a restaurant  (including toojays) and I was near a table of seniors 100% of the time the topic of their conversation would turn to medical issues.  Whose your doctor, their medicines, their insurance, their HMO, their medical problems.  Every single time.  NO exceptions.

Some seniors seem happy with their care.  Others complain about the costs of their meds, they say the "donut" hole helps but some still complain about having to pay almost anything for medicines.

I guess my point is it is political suicide to even suggest eliminating Medicare.   IMHO forget about it.  Your like tearing their hearts out.  In their minds it IS a fight to the death.

As for cigarettes I agree.  I used to be against the cigarette tax as I am with most taxes.  Yet when I watch people continue to smoke despite their knowing better, despite for some of them incurring huge life and limb threatening medical problems as a result I find it hard to have sympathy.  I had a patient recently tell me she did not want to quit now.  Her father was sick.  I asked if she wanted to quit.  She said yes.  So I asked what was the reason you didn't quit before he was sick.  I got no answer.  I pointed out there is always some excuse in the "rat race" of life to have a reason not to quit.

Therefore I urged he to stop making excused and to please get serious about thinking about a strategy that will work for her.

Frankly it is exasperating.  While I hate to see people suffer, see people get medical problems I find it hard to feel sorry for people who won't quit.  They are doing it to themselves.  I am glad they are paying tax.  They who smoke are costing this country a gigantic bundle in medical care.

18407
Politics & Religion / No kidding. Silence from the MSM as usual
« on: April 04, 2010, 11:16:31 AM »
"Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has threatened to wipe Israel off the map. Most analysts believe that for all their extremism, the Iranian rulers are rational actors and would not actually use nuclear weapons"

Oh really?  And which analysts might this be - would Fareed Zakaria be one?

Do they mean the same Iran who sent literally tens (or was it hundreds) of thousands of its OWN children to their deaths when they  marched them across a no - man's land towards Saddam's troops in the early 1980's.  Saddam's soldiers who themselves were horrified as they had to mow them down in a senseless slaughter except for the purpose of clearing a minefield.

So the analysts can tell Israel not to worry when Ahmadinejad says the Zionists time is coming, they are going to be driven into the sea and has his military clearly on a course for developing nuclear missles.  They spent decades building gigantic hardened underground bunkers and obtaining nuclear materials and know how while their citizens are in economic turmoil and "most analysts" think they are NOT serious about what they say?

It ain't the phoney one's skinny little ass on the line.




18408
Politics & Religion / Get rid of the RNC. Clean them all out.
« on: April 03, 2010, 08:17:48 AM »
After giving it a lot of thought over the last week or so I am coming to the conclusion that Michael should resign.

Not that I don't like him or generally agree with him. Not that it isn't great to have a minority face on the party of Lincoln.

Not that necessarily the ridiculous spending of RNC donated money on lavish stuff is all his fault.

I don't know how to fundraise.  Perhaps the RNC HAS to spend lavishisly to get big donors to contribute.  I don't know.

Yet the idea that the RNC donations are down in a political climate like this,  the idea that the RNC cannot seem to gt serious about an ideology alone that should be able to attract donors without the birbes just goes along to further the impression that this organization is as corrupt and money hungry as the rest of Washington DC.

If the Republican party cannot send a real message about principles, then they are no better than the crats.

The law should be laid down hard by Steele.  We don't want shmoozers.  We don't want people dining at fancy restaurants, flying in private jets to Hawaii.

We want an organization that will take this country back and give it to the people who work hard to make it great.

He must go as well as the obvious political culture at the RNC.  I wouldn't send them one cent as it stands now.

Nothing appears to have changed.


18409
Politics & Religion / The real American story
« on: April 01, 2010, 08:59:53 AM »
Well now Toby Keith's pulbicist is claiming they have no idea about the Palin thing and Palin used all old clips of him.

The song "Courtesy of the Red White and Blue" was stolen right off our laptop when we lived in Florida.

Katherine had 30 songs she wanted me to type into the laptop.  I got most of them in.  I clearly remember saying the line with the image of the statue of liberty shaking her fist was a great line (this was afte 911) and we need to be careful because it would easliy be used.  After I typed most of the songs onto the laptop all of a sudden they disappeared.  Someone, probably either one of our neighbors or John Joseph Leeson networked into our laptop and took all the folders with the lyrics off the computer.  I immediately told Katherine and we made the mistake of turning off the computer as fast as possible.  I should have immediately gone somewhere else and retyped it write back in and make copies. 

They would never have done the song. Keith would have never bought it and claim he wrote it, and he would never have been where he is today.
WE didn't know at the time they will never do any songs if we have evidence.  They are very careful that way.  We wondered the opposite at the time.  Fewer copies were better because if they get one copy they will do it and use the song.  It is just the opposite.  We just didn't know how to protect ourselves.  They had some sort of networking device outside our house.  Probably some sort of relay device.  The gardner who did the lawns of 3 out of 4 of the lawns around us was seen by me going over to that side of the house multiple times for no other reason.  He had no business walking in between our house and the one neighbor who didn't use him.  Additinally that neighhbor one day had a guy and some girl doing some sort of work on their porch and fence and yard area one day. I drove home and saw this ver straight stick in the very center of my driveway pointing paralell to our property.  It was obvious it was placed there as some sorto fo marker.  I pull into the driveway and this guy is pretending to do something with the swing on my neighbors porch.  I knew right away some sort of scam was on but I didn't know what.  Nothing happened after I got into the house.  But I then went out back and up to an efficiency we had over the garage and could not see that side of the house.

I heard Katherine ringing an alarm after she heard the girl telling the guy to "get it, get it", "hurry up".  Within a minute I came out and saw them pretending to paint areas on our neighbors fence.  I believe they were getting data of some sort of networking device.  Katherine was reduced to doing computer work in our main bedroom closet because we didn't know how to stop them from knowing and thus networking into the computer.   Yes we turned off the internet and networking access.  It would always pop back on or there was always some way of hacking in with it off.  It became clear it is impossible to stop someone from hacking into a laptop and probably now any computer that has networking or wireless capacity which all of them made today have.  I can tell of probably a hundred more scams about how we keep getting ripped off.  Like we were warned by one guy who admitted, "I am the most honest guy you will ever meet in the music business" and "there are 50 ways to steal songs and if someone want them they WILL get them".

This is the power of money in the world today.  There is no doubt to this truth.

That said I am sure the hardrive has since been switched, destroyed or wiped so there would be virtually no chance we have any evidence on Keith.  The thieves who rob us know this.  That is why Keith and friends can mock us.  We yelled and screamed in our house and over the years callled him white trash and as one can imigane worse.  Of course just to mock and anger us and rub it in our faces he titles one of his albums white trash - as though he is proud of it.  This guy Keith is not doing the stealing.  His friends are.  That is why fans can laugh when someone calls these guys on it.  They say Keith is nowhere near you , doesn't need you and is rich (now) that it is the accuser not him who is making this up. It is like the mafia boss who has his goons kill off someone and then claims he was in Barbados at the time of the murder and laughs all the way to the bank.

To think Palin was going to use him as a great American story.  To think he can now get free publicity out of this fiasco.

The true American story is he is a thief, a slob, and a pig behind the facade and yet he is a star, filthy rich, connected, and loved by fans who believe in and love his music and thus couldn't care less about the real guy behind the image.

Unfortunately, this is the *real* America.

And since the media including dupes like Hannity make money off these celebrities they are all on board in a big way.

18410
Politics & Religion / More liberal hypocracy
« on: April 01, 2010, 08:24:33 AM »
MSNBC adjective use on the Bama drilling flip flop.

He "evolved" his thinking.  Talk about a double standard. 

Additionally MSNBC also was raving about talk radio being dominated by "fringe right" and going off with guests including Bill Press giving all sorts of reasons and strategies how the FCC should put a stop to talk radio because it is mostly conservative.

With regards to the bama flip flop Morris wonders on O'Reilly if this is the start of a Clintonesque triangulation strategy.

My suspician is this is more of a set up to get cap and trade passed. 
Pretend he is being bipartisan and meeting half way the conservatives before the liberals try to shove cap and trade down our throats.  Also it could get swing Dems on board with the cap and trade.  Bonus to the bama:  they can tax the crap out of this.   

And of course he can also reverse this once cap and trade passes through reconciliation.  Even if it is a few years from now.  The offshore oil wouldn't be available for years thanks to the left's past actions.

18411
Politics & Religion / Re: Political Rants
« on: March 31, 2010, 02:20:36 PM »
Palin's show about overcoming adversity?  This is particularly painful to me.  I see the first guy on her list is Toby Keith. 
People who have read my music posts for ten years know that I claim this guy is a total liar and a thief.  Virtually all of every single one of his hits are composed of lyrics that were stolen from my legally blind wife.  I couldn't stop it, I couldn't prevent it.  The people doing the stealing are professionals whose craft has been honed for decades.  They will bribe anyone close to us, surveillance us, hack into any device, bribe people at Copyright, police officers, a friend of mine going back almost 40 years, my wife's uncle, her mother and everyone else who would like to make a fast buck.  There is no clear service man we can have come in more than once before he appears to have been approached and willing to screw us over.  I remember having a lock smith do some work for us.  In the kitchen he blurts out of nowhere while he was tinkering with a lock and day dreaming, "I could sure use ten thousand dollars". 

Toby Keith is the biggest farce of all.  Not only does he sing songs that were stolen, he claims he wrote all of them and then sits there and makes up these phoney stories about how he comes up with the lyrics.  And of course there is no shortage of hangers-ons whose jobs or cash payouts will keep them happy while they act as witnesses happy to back up his storey.
Rich guys have lots of friends.  I guarantee you this guy could not write a song to save his life.  Watch him *make up* stories and try to sound like just a humble all around good guy.  The truth is he is like most in the music business: total liars, selfish, bullshit artists, back stabbers and often narcissistic.  I don't think for one second any of these people give a hoot about their "fans".  It is all sales folks.  Troops included.  So his old man was in the service.  So was mine.  That doesn't mean his going to Iraq ain't about selling records.

Matt Lauer in an interview with Sheryl Crow asked her why she refused to give credit for a song (she claimed) to a guy who claimed he wrote it - even after he committed suicide.  She sat there *stoned* faced and finally when pressed by Lauer she said, "well he really didn't do that much".
Afterwards he said these people are "not nice" people in this business.  They are not the kind of people everyone thinks.

Imagine.  The guy killed himself over one song.  Can you imagine a thousand?  Most of the cowards robbing us would also have killed themselves if they went through what we have/are. 

Katherine sits in our house trying to protect what has not yet been stolen.  Our lives in shambles.  People who moved in to a number of houses to keep an eye on us.  And this God forsaken piece of f..  garbage Toby Keith is going to get up there and give some sort of story about his talents and hard work and all the rest.  I hope there is a God.  I hope there is justice.

Because there isn't any here on Earth. 

As for Sarah Palin I wish her luck with her show otherwise.  But can't she find a real hero to interview instead of this true white trash.   



****Here's a chapter in the culture wars that no one saw coming: Sarah Palin and Fox News facing off against '80s rap star and actor LL Cool J.

Palin makes her hosting debut Thursday night on Fox, as captain of an interview special in Greta Von Susteren's 10 p.m. slot. The show is called "Real American Stories," and the New York Daily News explains that it chronicles "people who have overcome adversity and more."

Among the success stories Palin plans to highlight are those of country music star Toby Keith, former GE Chairman Jack Welch, and a recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor. LL Cool J (birth name James Todd Smith) was also included in the roster — which prompted some conservative commenters to gloat a bit.

Watch the promo for the show here:

 

Popular conservative blogger Allahpundit tweaked liberals who accuse Tea Party supporters of racist sympathies, saying they'll be "shocked to find the alleged Grand Dragon of the tea-party movement making chitchat with a hip-hop legend."

The problem is that no such chitchat was produced for the Palin show. LL Cool J, star of "NCIS: Los Angeles," tweeted Tuesday night: "Fox lifted an old interview I gave in 2008 to someone else & are misrepresenting to the public in order to promote Sarah Palins Show. WOW."

When contacted by Yahoo! News for comment, a Fox News spokesperson explained that LL Cool J had been informed in 2008 that the interview was planned as a segment for "Real American Stories"--though of course the network couldn't have known at the time that Palin would be hosting. The Fox spokesperson also provided us with a statement:

"Real American Stories features uplifting tales about overcoming adversity and we believe Mr. Smith's interview fit that criteria. However, as it appears that Mr. Smith does not want to be associated with a program that could serve as an inspiration to others, we are cutting his interview from the special and wish him the best with his fledgling acting career."

Attempts to reach LL Cool J for comment proved unsuccessful. Perhaps he intends a more recent Twitter entry to serve as his rejoinder to the Fox statement: "Nobody can bring you peace but yourself."****


18412
Politics & Religion / Re: The Way Forward for the American Creed
« on: March 31, 2010, 01:40:56 PM »
Doug and Crafty and all,

There is hope. If it isn't too late before the Phoney One ruins the country.

http://www.nbra.info/

Do you think any of these men and women would ask what I recall seeing a Black talk show host ask RNC man Michael Steele, "so what are Republicans going to do for Blacks?"

I can picture him but can't recall his name. However, I'm sorry to say that Mr. Steele's answer was less than inspiring.  I like the "page" he is on but he isn't inspirational as a spokesperson.

Certainly this is one question he SHOULD have an answer to if he is to be a leader attracting minorities back to the party of Lincoln.  How he could go on a Black hosted talk show and not be prepared to knock a question like that out of the park I don't know?

18413
Politics & Religion / education
« on: March 30, 2010, 10:10:58 AM »
The new student loan thing makes sense on the face of it. Why not cut out the middleman if it costs more.  Of course the timing couldn't be more perfect for the One when we started witnessing students demonstrating in Kaliforna.

My question is this.  Why is the fed government using taxpayer money to *guarnatee* student loans?
It is bad enough if the student defaults that the taxpayer eats the cost.  I agree it was worse that the gov. would pay the bank for it's loss.  So 75% of the population who does not have a college degree is helping pay for college ed for others?

These loans cannot be good risks or else why couldn't the student get it from the private sector?  I would like to see a better analysis of this but I haven't found one on searching this AM.

***Obama promotes 'overlooked' changes to student loan program
Under the new rules, the government will lend money directly to college students, without the involvement of banks as the "unnecessary middlemen" in what Obama called a "sweetheart deal" that provided them with billions in interest payments.

"Those were billions of dollars that could have been spent helping more of our students attend and complete college," Obama said to an appreciative audience at a community college in Alexandria, Va., just across the river from Washington, D.C.

Critics said in some cases these are the same banks that Obama is pressuring to provide more loans to business people, yet now the government has wiped out part of their operations.

"Americans are looking for jobs and economic growth, not for the government to expand its tentacles even further into their lives and the economy," said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. His office also provided examples of private lenders who will have to cut jobs in light of the new student loan system.

Direct student lending by the government will save the program about $68 billion "in the coming years," Obama said, money that can be put back into higher education.

The new law also caps the repayment of loans at 10 percent of the borrower's discretionary income.

Here's an explanation of the new rules from USA TODAY personal finance columnist Sandra Block.

Obama also planned to sign an updated version of the law, after revisions approved by Senate Democrats last week under the legislative process known as reconciliation.

As he has since passage of the core health care bill on March 21, Obama said the measure will allow millions more Americans obtain insurance and lower costs.

The bill "won't fix every problem in our health care system in one fell swoop," Obama said, "but it does represent some of the toughest insurance reforms in history."

McConnell, who like all Senate Republicans voted against the health care package, said most Americans oppose "this partisan reconciliation bill which hikes taxes even higher in the middle of a recession, and cuts Medicare even deeper for our seniors."

(Posted by David Jackson)***


18414
Politics & Religion / Re: Media Issues
« on: March 30, 2010, 08:52:14 AM »
Isn't it amazing how the MSM adores this President?

Here is a guy who *despite" huge majorities in both houses and high approval ratings at the start still could barely muster the votes to get health care passed and could not get Americans to like his plans, could not convince the majority it is a good idea, alienated massive numbers of voters, has succeeded in dividing this country even further, infuriated his political adversaries, had to bribe, and threaten to get just barely enough votes to get this passed, basically only passed because of Pelosi not because of the phoney one and indeed could reasonably argued it passed in spite of him and the fellow radicals - and yet - the msm trumps this up as some sort of major victory, the second coming of the One, a renewed political momentum. 

The truth is the phoney one could not have messed up health care any more than he did, the American public sees through his lies and distortions.  The majority of the public wants health care change, including me, yet this guy the purported great one had to do what he did to get a still very unpopular bill passed.

This is not much of a victory for the one by any stretch of ones imagination.  Yet if one listens to the media one would come away with the impression this guy is so great.  What a joke.

18415
Politics & Religion / Re: Immigration issues
« on: March 30, 2010, 07:40:58 AM »
I think Jews in Israel are faced with the same demographics issues.  Do not the Palestinians have one of the highest if not the highest birth rate in the world?

18416
Politics & Religion / Progressivism: the real enemy - and it is us.
« on: March 29, 2010, 09:44:25 AM »
I thought this belongs in the Progressive thread but I cannot open that thread to post this as it is locked.

Progressives see us as the enemy and our enemies as noble not the other way around:
 
****Obama Slights Our Friends, Kowtows to Our Enemies
By Michael Barone (Archive) · Monday, March 29, 2010

Barack Obama's decision to postpone his trip to Indonesia and Australia -- to a democracy with the world's largest Muslim population and to the only nation that has fought alongside us in all the wars of the last century -- is of a piece with his foreign policy generally: attack America's friends and kowtow to our enemies.

Examples run from Britain to Israel. Early in his administration, Obama returned a bust of Churchill that the British government had loaned the White House after 9/11. Then Obama gave Prime Minister Gordon Brown a set of DVDs that don't work on British machines and that Brown, who has impaired vision, would have trouble watching anyway.

More recently, Obama summoned Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House, permitted no photographs, laid down non-negotiable demands and went off to dinner.

Some may attribute these slights to biases inherited from the men who supplied the titles of Obama's two books. Perhaps like Barack Obama Sr., he regards the British as evil colonialists. Or perhaps like his preacher for 20 years, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, he regards Israel as an evil oppressor.

But the list of American friends Obama has slighted is long. It includes Poland and the Czech Republic (anti-missile program cancelled), Honduras (backing the constitutionally ousted president), Georgia (no support against Russia), and Colombia and South Korea (no action on pending free trade agreements).

In the meantime, Obama sends yearly greetings to (as he puts it) the Islamic Republic of Iran, exchanges friendly greetings with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, caves to Russian demands on arms control and sends a new ambassador to Syria.

What we're seeing, I think, is a president who shares a view, long held by some on the American left, that the real danger to America often comes from America's allies.

This attitude goes back to Gen. Joseph Stilwell's feud against China's Chiang Kai-shek in World War II. As Barbara Tuchman writes in her definitive biography, Stilwell thought Chiang was undercutting the U.S. by not fighting hard enough against the Japanese. He may have shared the view common among some "old China hands" -- diplomats and journalists like Edgar Snow -- that the Chinese communists were preferable.

After China fell to the communists, the old China hands got a fair share of the blame, and liberals who opposed military support of Chiang were vilified. This lesson was not forgotten.

In his first book on Vietnam, David Halberstam argued that the Diem brothers were not fighting hard enough against the communists. I remember him telling a group at the Harvard Crimson at the time how the U.S. needed to replace the Diems in order for liberals to avoid a political backlash like that against the old China hands.

The idea that allies can cause you trouble is not totally without merit. The Cold War caused us to embrace some unsavory folks. Democratic administrations supported military takeovers in Brazil in 1964 and Greece in 1967, just as a Republican administration supported one in Chile in 1973.

But liberals tend to forget the first two examples and remain fixated on the third. They see history as moving inevitably and beneficially to the left and bemoan American alliances with what they see as retrograde right-wing regimes.

They want us to look more favorably on those like Chavez and Fidel Castro, who claim they are helping the poor. Somehow it is seen as progressive to cuddle up to those who attack America and to scorn those who have shown their friendship and common values over many years.

And so Obama, the object of so much adulation in Western Europe, seems to have had only the coolest of relations with its leaders. The candidate who spoke in Berlin is now the president with no sympathy for the leaders of peoples freed when the wall fell. They are seen as impediments to his goal of propitiating Vladimir Putin's Russia, where Joseph Stalin is now an honored hero.

Obama's concessions to Russia have not prevented Russia from watering down sanctions against Iran. And Obama's display of scorning Netanyahu has not gotten the Palestinians to sit down face-to-face with the Israelis, as Netanyahu has promised to do.

Obama proclaims that through persistence he can make the leaders of Iran, North Korea, Russia, China and the Palestinians see things our way. The evidence so far is that they are making him do things their way -- and that our friends are wondering whether it pays to be on America's side.

COPYRIGHT 2010 THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER****

18417
Politics & Religion / Re: Immigration issues
« on: March 29, 2010, 08:29:14 AM »
So what do we do?

Entitlements are bankrupting all but the very wealthy including those that are rightfully/lawfully in the US.

Do Republicans simply try to compete with the Dems for Latin votes?

That doesn't didn't work.

All these people who want the gov to take care of all their needs are destroying the country.  It is armeggedon despite what the phoney one says. 

Even Buffet the political liberal slipped when he said we will be a "banana republic".

18418
Politics & Religion / Yes!
« on: March 28, 2010, 10:22:19 AM »
Doug,

THANK YOU!!!!!!
FINALLY!!!!!!

I have been ranting about this ad nauseum and not one peep from anyone whose voice is heard.  GW is at least a start.  I guess one could say Buchanan has been saying this stuff too.

We have to stop this abuse of all Americans by illegals who come here and abuse our system get free care at our hospitals to have babies who are thus automatic citizens and then do anchor illegals here.  Try throwing out illegals whose children go to our public schools for free, apply and get medicaid, food stamps, and I don't know what else.

No politician has the guts to say or do anything about this.

"Congress has heard testimony estimating that more than two-thirds of all births in Los Angeles public hospitals, and more than half of all births in that city, and nearly 10 percent of all births in the nation in recent years, have been to illegal immigrant mothers."

Oh really.  I didn't know this.  And not ONE PEEP from Congress not one word from MSM.

This must not be turned into an Anglo Latino issue because it is not though obviously most illegals are Latino - not just Mexicans but millions from the Caribbean, Central and South America and I think less from Europe, and Asia.

This is about the rights of legal citizens are being usurped by foreigners who come here and make a mockery of our laws and our system and then have the damn nerve to stick back in our faces that we are abusing and discriminating against them.

I know most Americans agree with me.

The birthright thing and the allowing Americans to knowingly employ illegals are the two ways to put a stop to this.

Democrats will NOT do this.  It is up to the  Republicans to protect the rest of us from having our coutnry given away byt the radicals.

18419
Politics & Religion / Re: The Way Forward for the American Creed
« on: March 27, 2010, 09:12:14 AM »
Doug thanks for your thoughts.

"I don't believe their vote can't be won.  The question needs to be, what kind of future do they want.  Is it a dependency-based society?"

I wish you are right.  But I don't think this is the case.  I don't think minority votes can be had with ideology.  If that were the case why do 90-98%% of Blacks vote for dependency aka Democratic.  At least not anytime soon.

They don't seem to mind the dole and big government.  They obviously see this as some sort of justice against white oppression.

As for Latinos they are obivously less of one block per see.

Except for the Cubans who came over here in the 60's they are in large majorities Democrats.

They are in higher proportions unemployed, uneducated, single parent, and thus far more likely to love the idea of someone else paying for higher education, medical care, and to need and willing to take medicaid, food stamps and the rest.

Do you really think 20 something unwed mothers give a hoot about concepts of "freedom" or founding fathers who are all white English guys who lived 200 years ago?  And to many of them stole California, and the rest of the Southwest?

Yes Bush made some inroads with the Latino vote.  But it wasn't with ideology.  It was with cold cash.  It was the trial of "compassionate conservatism".  It was I am sad to say by being more like the crats - not ideology.

I wish and hope I am wrong.  But the immigrants legal or illegal are not the same as those of our ancestors.

Why the other day CNN was interviewing some Indian guy asking about the health care bill.  He was all for it and saying Bama is "his" president.  This guy was not born here.  He said the bill would bring the US back "into civilized world".  Can you believe this statement?

This guy has some nerve.  Why they are starving if in F.. India and hundreds of millions cannot pay for care.  Indian doctors tell me patients line up for care there and a doctor could see hundreds of people a day. I say how is this possible.  They tell me the doctor will ask the patient a question, the patient will answer and the doctor will treat based on that one minute evaluation in a shotgun approach and then on to the next pt. and hope they are right.  The poor Indians are happy to even have that.

And this guy  on CNN has the damn nerve to come here and criticize this country as needing to be brought into the civilized world? :x

This guy isn't interested in some ideology about freedom.  He likes ideology about socialism.

I guess this is more of an ideological choice for this immigrant.  Whereas many other it is about the bills, cold cash, and probably for some - let the white/anglo people pay up for a change. 

I have said before I think Blacks shoot themselves in the foot by agreeing in almost total mass to government control.  Perhaps with time, and more Black Republicans, this will change.  But by then it will already be worse.

Just my rather pessismistic beliefs about what I see/read. 


18420
Politics & Religion / Re: The Way Forward for the American Creed
« on: March 25, 2010, 12:23:54 PM »
"goodly % of whom will wind up on Medicaid"

I believe many already are on medicaid.  I think it is because their children are born here and are thus automatic US citizens and for that simple reason - qualify.  Not to mention food stamps, and public schools.

And when anyone uses the term "anchor" babies the reaction is one of fury and indignation and of course cries of racism.

This is the last stand.  We are on the brink of watching the Dems give our country away.

And yet, through it all, we have the MSM calling anyone who thinks this extremist and casting them as nuts.

Rove tried to reach the Latino voters as a way stemming the tide.  Obviously it all failed.

The phoney one struts and and beams more then ever.




18421
Politics & Religion / Re: The Politics of Health Care
« on: March 24, 2010, 08:31:10 AM »
Interesting article.  The British doctors are the second highest paid in the world?  I didn't know that.  Well like I have said money can buy anyone.

I can tell you that the model, getting doctors to do what the gov. tells them to do is EXACTLY what is going to happen here.
There is no question those who are driving the changes (the IVY leaGUE phDs and other statisticians) are going to pay physicians and hospital based on their "performance" and not fee for service.  Performance is going to be based on "cost effective" outcomes and will include rationing.  Everyone of any means will get the same (not initially) but ultimately because of the liberal notion it is NOT FAIR that some can pay for better and more care than others.

Bama IS not telling the truth when he says we are not transforming 1/6th of the economy.  Yes the present bill only does this to a degree but there is no doubt the ultimate goal is more like Britain.  He know this you know this and I know this.  The MSM of course lets him off the hook and smirk at those who point this out and help to marginalize them as "far" right.  MSNBC of course throws in the adjective "loons".

Unfortunately the truth is also that a large proportion of the population do want government sponsered care.




18422
Politics & Religion / Re: The War on Drugs
« on: March 23, 2010, 08:09:19 AM »
"They also want to use the drug wars in Mexico to justify enabling more immigration and work visas for Mexicans; the better to have more amnesty to create tens of millions of new voters for the Progressive agenda."

Crafty,

This is my biggest fear.  The liberals have already worked out the details to sell the immigration "reform" to the public.  The libs will go to great lengths to point out this is NOT "amnesty".
The immigrants will have to pay fines, pay back taxes, say they are sorry, and go on some sort of path to citizenship yadda yadda yadda.

This is coming soon and will also go through the reconciliation business.  ASAP.

All the Dem voters will want it - not just Latinos but all of them because they know it strengthens their voting base.

I do not think the Republicans are able to persuade Blacks that this is NOT in their long term interests though it clearly isn't.  The interests of Blacks are not the *same* as illega immigrants.  But for expediency of short term common voting interests - the liberal agenda - they and most of their leaders will go for it.

Blacks apparently don't want to see they too are giving away their country.  All they see is that this is some sort of social justice - transfer of wealth - reparations etc...  In the long run they are shooting themselves in the foot in my opinion.  I really feel Blacks have the same interests as Whites (and all legal citizens - Latinos/Asians etc.) on this issue.

If this goes through before November - and I would be shocked if the libs don't shove this through the same way - our country could well be gone forever.

Again the immigrants of today are NOT the same as our forefathers.

They come here and many immediately game the system.  The rest of us who know this appear to be unable to do anything about it.   

Has any one else noticed that the pundits in the MSM consistently sit with *smirks* on their faces whenever the topic of Obama's agenda being "socialist/communist" comes up?  Again if not for Fox, talk radio their is no truth out there.

I just don"t get how som mnny in our country are for this.  What a nightmare.  Our own media has drank the cool aid and covers for the Phoney One.

18423
Hi Doug,
Good to see you back on the board.
Great synopsis of what lies ahead from the Judicial side.
Thanks,ccp

18424
Politics & Religion / Re: Political Rants
« on: March 22, 2010, 07:45:49 AM »
"6) The Race/Class/Gender Cult: This federal caring creed trumps all religion. We will hear thousands of homophobic, racist, sexist anecdotes (but not those from a Ruth Ginsberg, or Harry Reid, or Joe Biden) that remind us why the government must enforce diversity set-asides and affirmative actions, and fund new sociological studies proving why group X hates group Y, and why government bureau Z is fighting X on behalf of Y for all our benefit. We are in perpetual war with perpetual ologies and –isms and we need far more Van Joneses to win them!"

Yes.  We all heard over the msm how one or two "Tea Party" people called some minorities a bad name.  The "N" word.  The "F" word.
And of course this is really what they want us to think it is about.  Those opposed are just a bunch of racists afterall.

There is no question if there were a thousand protesters the media would interview the ONE or TWO that used the N word (I am even afraid to use it in this context on this board lest my life be ruined) and that would make the news.

I've seen first hand how the MSM do this all the time.  Particularly when it fits a left wing agenda.

18425
Politics & Religion / Re: Political Rants
« on: March 22, 2010, 07:19:23 AM »
Couldn't have said it better.
Except Mr Hanson leaves out the coming immigration amnesty which will bring us 20 million new voters the vast majority are going to vote for, let me see, I couldn't imagine.

Could it be they will vote for the res of us to pay for their benefits -excuse me - entitlements?

I really do believe this is our last stand.

18426
Politics & Religion / next
« on: March 22, 2010, 04:08:06 AM »
Are we now going to see:
immigration amnesty (camouflagued (sp?) as reform).
college "entitlement" reform
and of course cap and trade?

Some say we won't see any of this this year.

I predict they are all on the table and ASAP.  In fact these items will be addressed immediately before there is a chance the Dems lose a house in Nov. in my opinion.

My prediction for the present health care policies.  They will only increase costs necessitating progressively more government "fixes" till eventually we are where the radicals want to be - a totally government controlled system with rationed care. 

It is obvious isn't it?



18427
Politics & Religion / Re: Israel, and its neighbors
« on: March 21, 2010, 12:00:55 PM »
THE US was angry. Israel gets it. Netanyahu didn’t want to freeze building in Jerusalem last year, and he doesn’t want to this year, and Washington saw an opportunity to now force him to do so."

This is what I think.  This was an opportunity for Bama to stick it to Israel.  Someone was on Zakaria today opposing Mort Zuckerman and complaining that Netanyahu is not serious about peace with the Palestinians and is putting the Iranian threat ahead of peace.   Really?  Well I can't think of a single reason why he might do that if true?  Can anyone think of why he might consider Iran a bigger threat at this time? 

And like he does every week Zakaria thanks everyone for coming on his show and essentially, as always comes down as supporting the Bama'a decidedly biased anti-Israel's slant.

18428
OPINION: DECLARATIONS MARCH 18, 2010, 6:58 P.M. ET Now for the Slaughter On the road to Demon Pass, our leader encounters a Baier.By PEGGY NOONAN

Excuse me, but it is embarrassing—really, embarrassing to our country—that the president of the United States has again put off a state visit to Australia and Indonesia because he's having trouble passing a piece of domestic legislation he's been promising for a year will be passed next week. What an air of chaos this signals to the world. And to do this to Australia of all countries, a nation that has always had America's back and been America's friend.

How bush league, how undisciplined, how kid's stuff.

You could see the startled looks on the faces of reporters as Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, who had the grace to look embarrassed, made the announcement on Thursday afternoon. The president "regrets the delay"—the trip is rescheduled for June—but "passage of the health insurance reform is of paramount importance." Indonesia must be glad to know it's not.

View Full Image

Fox News Channel
 The reporters didn't even provoke or needle in their questions. They seemed hushed. They looked like people who were absorbing the information that we all seem to be absorbing, which is that the wheels seem to be coming off this thing, the administration is wobbling—so early, so painfully and dangerously soon.

Thursday's decision followed the most revealing and important broadcast interview of Barack Obama ever. It revealed his primary weakness in speaking of health care, which is a tendency to dodge, obfuscate and mislead. He grows testy when challenged. It revealed what the president doesn't want revealed, which is that he doesn't want to reveal much about his plan. This furtiveness is not helpful in a time of high public anxiety. At any rate, the interview was what such interviews rarely are, a public service. That it occurred at a high-stakes time, with so much on the line, only made it more electric.

More Peggy Noonan
Read Peggy Noonan's previous columns

click here to order her new book, Patriotic Grace
I'm speaking of the interview Wednesday on Fox News Channel's "Special Report With Bret Baier." Fox is owned by News Corp., which also owns this newspaper, so one should probably take pains to demonstrate that one is attempting to speak with disinterest and impartiality, in pursuit of which let me note that Glenn Beck has long appeared to be insane.

That having been said, the Baier interview was something, and right from the beginning. Mr. Baier's first question was whether the president supports the so-called Slaughter rule, alternatively known as "deem and pass," which would avoid a straight up-or-down House vote on the Senate bill. (Tunku Varadarajan in the Daily Beast cleverly notes that it sounds like "demon pass," which it does. Maybe that's the juncture we're at.) Mr. Obama, in his response, made the usual case for ObamaCare. Mr. Baier pressed him. The president said, "The vote that's taken in the House will be a vote for health-care reform." We shouldn't, he added, concern ourselves with "the procedural issues."

Further in, Mr. Baier: "So you support the deem-and-pass rule?" From the president, obfuscation. But he did mention something new: "They may have to sequence the votes." The bill's opponents would be well advised to look into that one.

Mr. Baier again: So you'll go deem-and-pass and you don't know exactly what will be in the bill?

Mr. Obama's response: "By the time the vote has taken place, not only will I know what's in it, you'll know what's in it, because it's going to be posted and everybody's going to be able to evaluate it on the merits."

View Full Image

Fox News Channel
 That's news in two ways. That it will be posted—one assumes the president means on the Internet and not nailed to a telephone pole—should suggest it will be posted for a while, more than a few hours or days. So American will finally get a look at it. And the president was conceding that no, he doesn't know what's in the bill right now. It is still amazing that one year into the debate this could be true.

Mr. Baier pressed on the public's right to know what is in the bill. We have been debating the bill for a year, the president responded: "The notion that this has been not transparent, that people don't know what's in the bill, everybody knows what's in the bill. I sat for seven hours with—."

Mr. Baier interrupts: "Mr. President, you couldn't tell me what the special deals are that are in or not today."

Mr. Obama: "I just told you what was in and what was not in."

Mr. Baier: "Is Connecticut in?" He was referring to the blandishments—polite word—meant to buy the votes of particular senators.

Mr. Obama: "Connecticut—what are you specifically referring to?"

Mr. Baier: "The $100 million for the hospital? Is Montana in for the asbestos program? Is—you know, listen, there are people—this is real money, people are worried about this stuff."

Mr. Obama: "And as I said before, this—the final provisions are going to be posted for many days before this thing passes."

Mr. Baier pressed the president on his statement as a candidate for the presidency that a 50-plus-one governing mentality is inherently divisive. "You can't govern" that way, Sen. Obama had said. Is the president governing that way now? Mr. Obama did not really answer.

Throughout, Mr. Baier pressed the president. Some thought this bordered on impertinence. I did not. Mr. Obama now routinely filibusters in interviews. He has his message, and he presses it forward smoothly, adroitly. He buries you in words. Are you worried what failure of the bill will do to you? I'm worried about what the status quo will do to the families that are uninsured . . .

Mr. Baier forced him off his well-worn grooves. He did it by stopping long answers with short questions, by cutting off and redirecting. In this he was like a low-speed bumper car. In the end the interview seemed to me a public service because everyone in America right now wants to see the president forced off his grooves and into candor on an issue that involves 17% of the economy. Again, the stakes are high. So Mr. Baier's style seemed—this is admittedly subjective—not rude but within the bounds, and not driven by the antic spirit that sometimes overtakes reporters. He seemed to be trying to get new information. He seemed to be attempting to better inform the public.

Presidents have a right to certain prerogatives, including the expectation of a certain deference. He's the president, this is history. But we seem to have come a long way since Ronald Reagan was regularly barked at by Sam Donaldson, almost literally, and the president shrugged it off. The president—every president—works for us. We don't work for him. We sometimes lose track of this, or rather get the balance wrong. Respect is due and must be palpable, but now and then you have to press, to either force them to be forthcoming or force them to reveal that they won't be. Either way it's revealing.

And so it ends, with a health-care vote expected this weekend. I wonder at what point the administration will realize it wasn't worth it—worth the discord, worth the diminution in popularity and prestige, worth the deepening of the great divide. What has been lost is so vivid, what has been gained so amorphous, blurry and likely illusory. Memo to future presidents: Never stake your entire survival on the painful passing of a bad bill. Never take the country down the road to Demon Pass.

Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

18429
Politics & Religion / Re: Israel, and its neighbors
« on: March 17, 2010, 08:25:21 AM »
"The US sees an opportunity in the Ramat Shlomo crisis to convey to the unloved Netanyahu the fateful, urgent choice he faces."

This echoes my thought:

"The settlement thing is now being exaggerated into a "crises" and I believe it is an excuse to start Bama's real plan to withdraw support for Israel."

The WH is jumping all over this building of 1200 homes as an excuse to stick it to Netanyahu.

It is clear the US will not be there militarily for Israel when push comes to shove.  It is decided that miliatry force will not be used under any circumstances.  If Israel is going to attack Iran they will have to do it alone.

As an American I am not sure I could argue that it is really in the interests of the US to start a war with Iran to a degree worth the risks and consequences.  The benefits are far more for Israel then to us.  Even with claims of a nuclear Iran is a menace to the world acknowledged and agreed to by me.

As a Jew it is also clear Iran means what it says when the Mullahs have plans to murder all the Jews into the ocean.

And therefore as a Jew it is a fight for our lives.

Shame on American Jews who have turned their backs on their bretheren for political idealogy - and support of a person who has an obvious agenda that is NOT in Israel's best interests.  I don't know if the liberal Jews who STILL support the phoney one are in denial, or are still duped, or simply prefer to put American interests including their radical liberal agenda ahead of Israel.  I guess it is a combination.  How can they believe the Phoney One is really commited to protecting Israel?  Or are they duped into thinking a policy of containment  can work here?

I have not heard any credible threats on our part pointed directly to the Mullahs that if they use nucs on Israel We will respond in kind but 100 fold.  THAT is the concept of "mutually assured destruction" that worked in the US-Soviet cold war.

Vague mentions that "no opiton(s)" are taken off the table are not clear and definitive as a threat to Iran.

If the phone ONE was clear about his intention of protecting Israel, that is the least he could do.  Send a clear message to the Persians that if you use any weapons of mass destruction on Israel they will pay dearly with many lives.

But alas he is only playing the American Jews for their votes.

18430
Crafty,

Thanks for your opinion.  I have respect for some attornies.  The medical profession is hardly filled with a total bunch of saints so I don't mean to come off as simply going after attornies.

I don't think we exemplify a system that is a model of a totally fair and great justice process as much as simply *stupid* and laughable to anyone with a brain when we send armies of attornies to defend enemies that even the vast majority of our own citizens could not even AFFORD.

Again, the sheer stupidity of it all...  So let's give our enemies who want to kill us better legal counsel than 95% of our own people could not even afford!?!?

Palin said it right during her RNC speech for VP.  We don't need to defend our nation with legal suits (more or less).

18431
Politics & Religion / Re: Israel, and its neighbors
« on: March 16, 2010, 07:54:42 AM »
I remember the uproar from the American Jewish "community when James Baker came out with some remarks that hinted at subtle anti-semitic tone.  Now the phoney one is doing it many Jews are silent.  Indeed we have Time Magazine's Tom Friedman on cable criticizing Israel.  As I've said many liberal Jews are more interested in the Dem party.  The settlement thing is now being exaggerated into a "crises" and I believe it is an excuse to start Bama's real plan to withdraw support for Israel.  I recall the picture of him at the Western Wall, yamukah on.  It appeared he was not comfortable playing Jew.  And of course the Americal lib Jews were so fast to point to this as evidence of his commitment to Israel.  What a joke.  This guy sat in an anti semite's church for a quarter of a century and to no one's knowledge ever spoke up about it.

He uses Jews to further his political career. And we have Farrakan claiming it is the White Right and the Jews who are going to try to make him a one term Pres.  Why, without a doubt, if it where not for the support and help ful strategizing by Jews who supported the phoney one - he would never have ever become President.  How ironic.  He treats Israel (do as I say or else) like he treats Americans.

****Obama runs out of patience with Israel

Settlement issue provokes 'biggest crisis in relations for 35 years'

By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem and Hugh MacLeod in Doha


Tuesday, 16 March 2010
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REUTERS

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, addresses the Knesset in Jerusalem yesterday. He rejected a total freeze on the building of Israeli settlements

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The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday strongly defended Jewish settlement construction in East Jerusalem in the face of US pressure and what one of his own top diplomats described as the worst crisis in relations with Washington for more than three decades.


A defiant Mr Netanyahu appeared to be digging in despite clear indications that the Obama administration is now demanding the scrapping of plans for 1,600 new Jewish homes, whose announcement overshadowed last week's visit to Israel by the US Vice-President Joe Biden. Mr Netanyahu's stance appeared to guarantee, after a highly charged week, the protraction of a stand-off in which a full-scale diplomatic row blew up at the start of Mr Biden's visit and appeared to abate at the end of it. But it was then reignited by demands from Hillary Clinton and an angry White House that Israel make amends for the "insulting" announcement just as indirect negotiations with the Palestinians had finally been arranged.

The US is now said to be demanding substantive concessions from Israel after a warning by the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that he would not take part in talks if the plan to expand the mainly ultra-orthodox Ramat Shlomo settlement went ahead. The row has appeared finally to bring to a head the year-long tensions between the two governments since Barack Obama tried in vain to persuade the Israeli Prime Minister to agree to a total settlement freeze. He was thwarted by Mr Netanyahu who agreed only to a partial 10-month freeze, which did not include East Jerusalem.

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The Israeli Prime Minister insisted yesterday that construction would continue "in the same way as has been customary over the last 42 years". He added: "The building of those Jewish neighbourhoods in no way hurt the Arabs of East Jerusalem and did not come at their expense."

But a prominent Fatah figure and former Palestinian foreign minister, Nabil Shaath, told The Independent that the prospect of talks resuming had been sabotaged by Israel's action. Speaking in Qatar yesterday ahead of reconciliation talks with Hamas, which governs Gaza, he added: "The speed at which Jerusalem is being Judaised and de-Arabised has surpassed any period in the history of the peace process and is so alarming that we cannot possibly continue giving cover to Mr Netanyahu that we are still negotiating while he is doing this."

Mr Netanyahu avoided direct reference to the plans at the heart of the row for expanding the Ramat Shlomo settlement. But the Prime Minister, who has apologised for the timing of last week's announcement, showed no sign of abandoning it altogether.

There was no official confirmation of reports in the Israeli press that the US was also demanding other measures, including an early release of Palestinian prisoners and a clear Israeli promise that talks, if and when they begin, would genuinely deal with the core issues between the two sides: borders, Palestinian refugees, and the future of Jerusalem. Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz and Israeli Army Radio reported meanwhile that in a conference call with Israeli consuls across the US on Saturday night, Michael Oren, Israel's Ambassador to Washington, said that the crisis was one of "historic proportions". Summoned to the State Department on Friday, he reportedly urged the consuls, on instructions "from the highest level", to lobby Congress, Jewish community groups and the media to make Israel's case. Mr Oren, a historian, apparently recalled a previous stand-off in 1975 between Henry Kissinger and the then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin over US demands in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur war for a partial withdrawal from the Sinai.

One explanation canvassed in Israel for Washington's tough stance is that pressure is being exerted by the US military for early progress in solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as means of reducing Muslim hostility to the US. During the height of the row last week, Mr Biden was reported by Yedhiot Ahronot to have told Mr Netanyahu: "What you're doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and it endangers regional peace."

Asked on Sunday whether Israeli "intransigence" was putting US "troops' lives at risk", David Axelrod, a senior adviser to Mr Obama, said "that region and that issue is a flare point throughout the region so I'm not going to put it in those terms". But he then added that it "was absolutely imperative" not only for "the security of Israel and the Palestinian people2 but "for our own security that ... we resolve this very difficult issue".

Mr Netanyahu can at least expect a warm reception in Washington when next week he addresses the annual conference of AIPAC, the staunchly right-of-centre pro-Israel lobby group which is trying to mobilise opposition to the stance taken by Mrs Clinton and Mr Obama.

Jerusalem remained tense yesterday, with hundreds of police deployed around the Old City for a fourth day in case of Palestinian unrest, including a possible protest against the rededication of a synagogue in the Jewish Quarter destroyed in the 1948 war. A closure of the West Bank to prevent most Palestinians reaching the city was also still in force.

Dozens of young men burned tyres and threw stones at Israeli forces at the Qalandiya checkpoint north of Jerusalem. Palestinian medics said one Palestinian youth was shot in the jaw and another in the chest as troops dispersed protesters.*****

18432
Politics & Religion / correction
« on: March 15, 2010, 09:59:31 AM »
high priced and high "powered"

Yes I get that much of the work was done - what is the phrase - bono?

Although it is hared to beleive that some of this what not done for some sort of networking advantage either with the gov. or amongst law firms or something else I don't know about such as political gain.


18433
***The public has a right to know, for instance, that one of Mr. Holder's early political hires in the department's national security division was Jennifer Daskal, a former attorney for Human Rights Watch. Her work there centered on efforts to close Guantanamo Bay, shut down military commissions—which she calls "kangaroo courts"—and set detainees who cannot be tried in civilian courts free. She has written that freeing dangerous terrorists is an "assumption of risk" that we must take in order to cleanse the nation of Guantanamo's moral stain. This suggests that Ms. Daskal, who serves on the Justice Department's Detainee Policy Task Force, is entirely in sync with Mr. Holder and a White House whose chief counterterrorism official (John Brennan) considers a 20% detainee recidivism rate "not that bad."***

I hear the legal arguments on cable back and forth concerning Liz Cheney's views etc.
I don't think one needs to be an attorney to understand the reasoning of the arguments one way or the other.
That said I don't think "justice" is served with having endless streams of high priced and high priced attorneys argue ad nauseum every conceivable position as some sort of defense.
I cannot believe most Americans would not agree that the legal strategy can be reduced to a form of bullying adverseries for money or political or other form of idealogy.

I also beleive that most Americans would agree this legaleeze stuff is a form of weakness on our battle against our enemies - not a strenght as the left wants us to beleive.

Crafty, as an attorney where do you  come down on this issue?

18434
Politics & Religion / Re: Israel, and its neighbors
« on: March 14, 2010, 01:30:58 PM »
   
While stuck in NE traffic today Aaron Klein (sp?) had on his radio show Mr Yousef.  He worked as a spy for Israel because he wanted to save not just Jewish lives but Palestinian lives.  This is the key for him:

 “The problem is not Hamas, the problem is not people. The root of the problem is Islam itself as an idea,” he added. He said he saw no chance for Israel and the PA to make peace."

He converted to Christianity because he feels the God of Islam is the root cause of the problems with the Muslims.  He quotes from the Koran how it is a command from their God that all infidels, Jews, Christains, and others should be sought out and killed.  He states this is a false God.  Those that have this in their heart can never make peace, they will never let go with their hatred, and will end up killing themselves as well as others.  He also could not accept how Hamas would torture and murder anyone it suspected of "collaborating" with Israel.  He came to the conclusion that torture at the hands of Hamas is as bad as torture at the hands of Israeli soldiers or anyone else for that matter.  He also agrees his father would have to wnat him killed in order to restore his honor.
It was an amazing interview.

Are you listening Barack Hussain Obama?

 **** Published: 02/24/10, 5:33 PM / Last Update: 02/24/10, 6:06 PM
Son of Hamas Leader was Top Spy for Israel
 
by Gil Ronen
Follow Israel news on  and .


(IsraelNN.com) Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of jailed Hamas terrorist leader Sheikh Hassan Yousef, operated undercover in the service of Israel's intelligence agency for a decade. Yousef reveals this information in an upcoming book, and in an interview with Israeli newspaper Haaretz to be published this weekend.

According to the newspaper, the intelligence Yousef supplied led to the arrests of several high-ranking terrorists including Ibrahim Hamid, a Hamas terror commander in Judea and Samaria, as well as Fatah strongman Marwan Barghouti and Hamas bomb-maker Abdullah Barghouti.

Mosab Hassan Yousef converted to Christianity and moved to the U.S. in 2007, where the book he co-wrote, Son of Hamas, is due to be published shortly. He said that after he converted to Christianity, he decided he had to escape and "live my life away from violence, because I couldn't coexist with that situation as a Christian."

"He provided very important information [as did] hundreds of others fighting against terror," MK Gideon Ezra (Kadima), formerly deputy chief of the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), told BBC World Service.

Haaretz said that Yousef “was considered Shin Bet's most reliable source in the Hamas leadership.”

"The amazing thing is that none of his actions were done for money," said his ISA handler, who is named in the book as "Captain Loai.”

Yousef's father, who has great influence within Hamas, was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council in January 2006 from his prison cell.

Appalled by Torture
Yousef has said that from an early age he was appalled by the brutality of the Hamas movement. "Hamas, they are using civilians' lives, they are using children, they are using the suffering of people every day to achieve their goals. And this is what I hate," he said.

In an interview with Fox News in 2008, Yousef said that when he was 18 years old, he was arrested and placed in an Israeli jail. “Hamas had control of its members inside the jail and I saw their torture; [they were] torturing people in a very, very bad way... Hamas leaders that we see on TV now, and big leaders, [were] responsible for torturing their own members. They didn't torture me, but that was a shock for me, to see them torturing people: putting needles under their nails, burning their bodies. And they killed lots of them... I was a witness for about a year for this torture. So that was a huge change in my life.”

"Islam is the Problem"
“The problem is not Hamas, the problem is not people. The root of the problem is Islam itself as an idea,” he added. He said he saw no chance for Israel and the PA to make peace.****



18435
Politics & Religion / Re: The Politics of Health Care
« on: March 14, 2010, 01:21:07 PM »
I agree.  Good argument.  It sums up the idea of taxation to pay for "entitlement" programs to a tee.
Of course the counter argument would be that all of us could some day be in a position of "needing" some form of assistance.
Or that we are only forced to pay what we "can".
The final fall back position of course the moral arugment that we need to help those in "need".
But as you point out WW turns the moral argument (and in my opinion rightly so) inside out by concluding it is immoral to force many to work as virtual slaves for the rest.

18436
Politics & Religion / Re: U.S. Census 2010
« on: March 12, 2010, 02:37:18 PM »
'In response, some plan to answer the race question with "American."'

Maybe *legal United States* American is more appropriate. (vs. illegal, vs. North American, vs Central or S. American.)

18437
Politics & Religion / Re: Glen Beck
« on: March 11, 2010, 12:12:29 PM »
Time magazine aleady had a hit piece on GB saying this interview with Massa is the beginning of the end for Beck - wishful thinking in my opinion.  There are two books coming out - most likely left wing zealot hit pieces.  I am not sure the MSM in its efforts to destroy Beck understand the phenomenon surrouding him is not about him - it is what he represents.

IMO they will not take him down so easily. 

Thank God for courageous fellows like him.

There are a lot of Americans behind him.  And we are not going away.

18438
Politics & Religion / Re: The Politics of Health Care
« on: March 08, 2010, 12:15:47 PM »
"Dr. Donaldson is a Pediatric Otolaryngologist in Fort Myers, Florida. He is the immediate past Chairman of the Board of Directors of Lee Memorial Health System"

Interesting.  I may have met this guy.  Years back I interviewed for a position with the Lee Mem. system in Ft. Myers.
I can't recall for sure the name but I remember some administrator there who interviewed me and he was a pediatrician.  If you like hot weather and to fish, the Ft. Myers area is nice.

"The next step will be complete absorption of the providers into global budgeting, mandated participation, and salaried positions. With this will come rationing and waiting lists. Even Obama cannot break the symbolic medical bread and wine to save the health care system on his current course."

Well yes, THIS IS the goal of the academic elites with the Phoney One leading the charge.  The present bill is just the next of many steps towards that end.




18439
I wonder to what extent this is true.   Certainly there are people who are on unemployment because it is easier and more convenient then other alternatives.  To deny human nature is a big lie.  I had at lease one patient tell me he had a job offer but it was far from home and therefore by the time he accounted for the extra cost of travel he may as well stay home and collect.

Of course. If I could make just as much sitting at home collecting a check as I could get *working*, which do you think I would choose to do?

Why is it we can't just state the obvious?

Doles are cancers that just keep spreading.

Of course the phoney outrage from the left including this Huffington post. 

****Tom Delay: People Are Unemployed Because They Want To Be
          Former House Majority Leader Tom Delay called Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) "brave" on Sunday for launching a one-man filibuster of unemployment benefits, arguing that they dissuaded people from going out and finding work.

Appearing on CNN's "State of the Union," the Texas Republican said that Bunning's fiscal responsibility was commendable, even if his shenanigans (refusing to allow unemployment benefits to be considered by unanimous consent) nearly brought the Senate to a halt.

"Nothing would have happened if the Democrats had just paid for [the benefits]," Delay said. "People would have gotten their unemployment compensation. I think Bunning was brave in standing up there and taking it on by himself."

Asked whether it was bad strategy to make a budget stand on a $10 billion extension of unemployment (as opposed to, say, the Bush's $720 billion prescription drug package), Delay insisted that if the PR had been done right, Bunning would have been applauded. Helping the unemployed with federal assistance, he said, was unsound policy.

"You know," Delay said, "there is an argument to be made that these extensions, the unemployment benefits keeps people from going and finding jobs. In fact there are some studies that have been done that show people stay on unemployment compensation and they don't look for a job until two or three weeks before they know the benefits are going to run out.

Host Candy Crowley: Congressman, that's a hard sell, isn't it?

Delay: it's the truth.

Crowley: People are unemployed because they want to be?

Delay: well, it is the truth. and people in the real world know it. And they have friends and they know it. Sure, we ought to be helping people that are unemployed find a job, but we also have budget considerations that are incredibly important, especially now that Obama is spending monies that we don't have.****

18440
Politics & Religion / Re: Iran
« on: March 08, 2010, 07:39:27 AM »
"That Bill Clinton?"

Your riight.  I guess it is natural that I used to think every time it can't get worse then the Clintons we now have the "Phoney ONE".

As much as Clinton was/is a total dishonest liberal I still never thought he was some sort of manifestion of an American hating Communist.


18441
Politics & Religion / Re: Iran
« on: March 07, 2010, 12:35:28 PM »
Agreed.  Now on Drudge Iran is reporting they have cruise missles now.

In my living room and in my amatuer opinion the only way Israel can stop them is to use nuclear weapons.

There is no reason not to take the Mullahs at their word that they mean what they say about wiping the Jews out of Israel.

Thinking it through the potential consequences are horrendous, and yes will lead to another 1000 years of Muslim revenge.  That said the only other option is for the Jews in Israel to await their own deaths.

Because of inaction over the years the only way to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons by rogues is to use nuclear weapons.

And as noted before my impression, is that the US has already decided against such a move and is now thinking some sort of containment.  But containment can't work.  Isn't that obvious?

If I wasn't born a Jew would I actually think the US should bomb Iran with nucs or otherwise to save Israel?

Could I expect the goyam to do that for us? 

I don't know.

I wonder what Clinton would have done.  Hillary talks a bit tougher than the phoney One.  Yet clearly she works for him and has to be constrained by his policies.  Just wondering out loud.  As much as I dislike Hill/Bill I don't beleive that either could have been nearly as bad as this guy.

The billboard sign out West that portrayed W with the words, "miss me yet" could (bite my tongue) even be applied by me for Bill.


18442
Politics & Religion / Romney on Health Care
« on: March 07, 2010, 12:20:08 PM »
Romney interview by Chris Wallace this AM.  In general, I like his message about promoting the greatness of America not talking it down like the present guy at the top. 

With regard to the topic of health care,

His responses to the charge that the health plan he signed in Mass makes him the wrong guy to be a spokesperson for the Repubs on the issue were totally unconvincing.  He danced around the charge that Mass health premiums are 27% higher than anywhere else in the nation.  He claimed that the cahrge there is a multimillion dollar cost *overshoot* in the allowed annual budget for health care was wrong and it was the opposite.

He keeps saying that 98% of the people in Mass are insured and he brings up again the person with brain cancer who, if resided in another state would have died for lack of insurance.  Here in NJ there are poeple without insurance who undoubtedly cannot get decent routine care for chronic conditions but I know of no person with cancer that cannot somehow get coverage, charity care, medicaid, or help from the community, churches, Jewish charity organizations, etc.

He also claims that there is no free lunch.  Everyone pays into the system.  Yet he failed to explain that or go into any detail.

In conclusion - I agree with critics on the health care debate - he is absolutely the wrong guy to be a spokesperson for it on a national level.


18443
Politics & Religion / just a matter of time
« on: March 06, 2010, 12:12:33 PM »
Till we start to see the same here.  I have a feeling the guy at the Pentagon is only just for starters.

***Violent protests hit Greece as German backing sought
Mar 5 10:03 AM US/Eastern

Greek police clashed with demonstrators protesting sweeping budget cuts Friday as the government sought support from Germany to help it avoid default, only to be told not to expect a single cent.
Police fired tear gas after a union leader was struck and hurt by youths, an AFP reporter on the scene said, during protests against sweeping new budget and spending cuts announced Wednesday.

The violence erupted as Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou was to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel later Friday, with Germany critical to any eurozone effort to help Greece restore its market credibility and already signalling it was not prepared to offer financial assistance.

Parliament meanwhile approved the budget and spending cuts worth 4.8 billion euros (6.5 billion dollars) announced by Papandreou on Wednesday as he sought to secure EU backing.

Papandreou told Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper he was "not asking for money" but other forms of support.

Greek aid "unnecessary"

"We need support from the European Union and our partners to obtain credit on the markets at better conditions. If we do not receive this aid, we will not be able to enact the changes we foresee."

But speaking ahead of the Merkel-Papandreou talks, Germany's Economy Minister Rainer Bruederle said Berlin would not provide Greece with "one cent."

"Papandreou said that he didn't want one cent -- in any case the German government will not give one cent," Bruederle told reporters.

Luxembourg's Jean-Claude Juncker, who acts as the formal head in finance matters for the 16 nations that share euro, said he believed the Greek measures meant that Athens would not now need EU aid.

Greeks, Germans meet over finanical crisis

"The commitments taken by the Greek government are clearly paving the way towards an exit" from its debt and deficit crisis, Juncker said.

Juncker reiterated the agreed line among European Union leaders that they "stand ready to take coordinated and determined action if necessary (but) ... I don't think this action will be needed."

Europe's biggest economy, Germany is widely seen as the most likely candidate to help prevent a Greek default, which would be disastrous for the 16-nation eurozone.

But there is huge opposition in Germany against such a move, with angry editorials slamming alleged Greek corruption and wasteful spending and Merkel allies even suggesting Greece should sell some of its islands to free up cash.

There was also anger aplenty on the streets of Athens Friday.

Several thousand Communist protesters demonstrated in front of parliament as it voted on the latest austerity package.

"We say no to anti-popular measures, to taxes and allowance cuts," a Communist banner said.

Greece's two main unions brought traffic to a standstill with a public sector strike. No public transport ran in Athens in the morning, all Greek airports were to close for a four-hour period and giant traffic jams clogged the centre of the capital.

State hospitals ran on skeleton staff, while teachers, state and private media groups were also hit by the strike. Even the police union called on its members to join protests organised for the day.

Addressing parliament, Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou said the state was paying 26 billion euros in civil servant salaries, up 50 percent in the last five years.

"Where did this money go? Each and every minister would give benefits to whomever they wanted," Papaconstantinou said.

The government on Wednesday increased sales, tobacco and alcohol taxes and cut public sector holiday allowances. Pensions were also frozen in a package worth the equivalent of around two percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

Athens has promised the European Union that it will reduce its public deficit this year by four percentage points from 12.7 percent.

Merkel has welcomed the Greek package as "an important step" towards cutting its budget deficit and restoring trust in Athens and the euro.

Needing to borrow money urgently to pay its bills, Greece successfully raised an urgently needed 5.0 billion euros (6.8 billion dollars) via a bond issue on Thursday.

But it had to pay an interest rate of some 6.3 percent or about twice the rate at which Germany can borrow.

Greece's borrowing costs shot up late last year when it was hit with a triple downgrade by credit agencies after revealing that its official budget deficit figures had been grossly under-reported.

Copyright AFP 2008, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium***

18444
Politics & Religion / Re: The Politics of Health Care
« on: March 05, 2010, 09:57:54 AM »
Entitlement state

I psoek with one of my patients who lived through the 30's.  I said I thought times must have been terrible with bread lines etc.
I asked him though if times were in some ways worse now or worse then.
Many people now really question the future viability of the US.  Did people think that then?

He thought about it while answering.  He didn't say yes or no.  Just that it was really a "different" world back then.
People didn't expect what they expect now.  They were [hardier].  they learned to go through garbage dumps.  They grew their own food in gardens.

No one expected unemployment, pensions, free health care, medicare, social security.

So I guess they didn't look at the future of the US as being in jeopardy as we do today. 

I guess we didn't have the foreign threats we have now as well.

I asked him which is worse:

People on bread lines or a government that keeps expanding doles?

He didn't answer.  I think he just didn't have a chance to think it over.

To me this is the prime question facing us today (at least on the domestic front).
I

18445
Politics & Religion / gerrymandering 2000 sytle - no more.
« on: March 04, 2010, 01:01:18 PM »
Interesting take by DM.  Gerrymandering was for incubent, not party advantage in 2000.

By Dick Morris 03.3.2010 Published on TheHill.com on March 2, 2010

In U.S. politics, all elections are not created equal. It’s OK to lose the state legislative and gubernatorial elections held on years ending in 2, 4, 6 or 8. But you can’t afford to lose those held in years that end in 0. Those are the reapportionment elections.


With the governorships evenly divided and almost all of the state legislatures, the party that loses the decadal election stands to lose control over congressional reapportionment. And, therefore, to lose control of the House of Representatives for a decade.

When Obama persists with his unpopular healthcare proposals, he is dooming his party not just to defeat in 2010, but to losses throughout the coming decade.

The reapportionment of 2000 was a kinder, gentler reapportionment. Except in Texas, where former Rep. Tom DeLay (R) took no prisoners, the two parties concluded sweetheart deals to draw lines that favored the incumbents on both sides of the aisle. In California, for example, the lines so protected Democratic and Republican opponents that there is only one vulnerable Democrat (Jerry McNerney) out of 54 congressmen from that state.

In Iowa and Arizona, reapportionment was handled, as it should be everywhere, by a nonpartisan commission that is prohibited from considering party preferences or incumbency in drawing the lines. But in the other 48, don’t count on the kinder and gentler reapportionment rules of 2000 to apply.

The partisan divide, fostered by Obama’s ruthless use of his majorities, has become so wide and embittered that Republican legislative leaders and governors will press every advantage they can to gain ascendancy. And they should!

Tip O’Neill said that all politics is local. Not anymore. In 2010, all politics is national. The merits or demerits of each individual candidate count for little. Party counts for all.

Voters have come to understand and debunk the Myth of the Moderate Democrat. The fiscal-conservative-sounding, pro-life Democrat who campaigns for office promising to balance the budget, hold down taxes and fight for our values is the same one who marches right into the halls of the House on the first day of the session and votes for Nancy Pelosi for Speaker, Charlie Rangel for chairman of Ways and Means and Henry Waxman for Energy and Commerce. It is that one vote that permits Obama’s radical agenda to pass.

Voters realize that it does not matter if their local moderate Democrat breaks ranks on this bill or that one. That first vote to let the Democrats organize the House is the crucial one. From then on, Pelosi doesn’t really need him and will let him vote no to assuage his district and get reelected.

Presidents only lose when they get stuck in scandal or in their own misguided convictions. So it was with Johnson and Vietnam, Nixon and Watergate, Ford and the pardon, Reagan and Iran-Contra, Bush and the recession, Clinton and Lewinsky and Bush-43 and Iraq. Now Obama is repeating the lamentable history of his predecessors by getting stuck in the mire of his own ideology over healthcare.

So in the elections of 2010, Republicans, independents and even some Democrats (Obama’s rating is now down to 43 percent in Rasmussen) will vote a straight Republican ticket. Gone is the chic notion that party doesn’t matter and one should vote for the individual. Obama has ended those days. Now Democrats can expect the same kind of swath of destruction that will obliterate their congressional and Senate majorities to destroy their hold on statehouses and legislatures. And on the 2011 reapportionment.

18446
Science, Culture, & Humanities / Claims made for "natural" products
« on: March 04, 2010, 12:53:07 PM »
This is what I am talking about.  Quacks making a buck suckering people into buying natural substances with false claims.
These substances alone or in combination are supposed to suppress appetite?  Or cause weight loss by some other magic?
FYI, caffeine is actually considered an appetite stimulant:

"citrus aurantium, the pills contain guarana and coffee bean extract".

I am glad she is being sued.  I am saddened to see her say something like I standby my products etc.

What is the logic to make pharmaceutical companies spend a billion dollars to show a drug works and go after them for millions when a rare problem shows up but otherwise ok for quacks to sell snake oil by making up nonsense claims of efficacy just because it is "natural"?   Wasn't a cereal maker just slapped by the FDA for making some sort of heart claims on one of it's products?

 'Biggest Loser' trainer Jillian Michaels hit with third lawsuit over weight loss supplement pills
BY Rosemary Black
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Thursday, February 18th 2010, 2:25 PM
 
Haaseth/NBC/© NBC Universal, Inc.Jillian Michaels, who whips contestants into shape on NBC's 'The Biggest Loser,' is facing a series of lawsuits over her brand of weight loss supplements. Related NewsArticles'Biggest Loser' trainer Jillian Michaels sued over weight loss supplement pillsJillian Michaels weight loss pills won't help shed long term pounds: experts“Biggest Loser” celeb trainer Jillian Michaels isn’t winning any support from dieters frustrated with her weight-loss supplements.

A third lawsuit against the Jillian Michaels Maximum Strength Calorie Control pills was filed Tuesday in Los Angeles County Court, according to Us Weekly.

Kathy Hensley charges that the supplements are made with a “potentially lethal” ingredient, citrus aurantium, which can in rare cases cause heart problems and high blood pressure, according to Us Weekly. Hensley, who’s suing for less than $5,000, also names the supplements’ maker Thin Care, Basic Research and Walgreens.

Michaels, 36, who calls herself “America’s Toughest Trainer,” told Us Weekly in a statement after the first lawsuit was filed that the claims against her supplements are “entirely without merit.” Besides citrus aurantium, the pills contain guarana and coffee bean extract.

“I stand behind all my products,” Michaels’ statement said.

ThinCare also responded to Us Weekly: “We are confident we will prevail.”

18447
Politics & Religion / Re: The Politics of Health Care
« on: March 04, 2010, 12:24:16 PM »
"And so it was resolved before they left that day when Sen. Jon Kyl read from the CBO report saying that premiums would indeed rise under Obamacare, and Rep. Eric Cantor tried to explain to President Obama, "We just can't afford this. This government can't afford it, businesses can't afford it." Obama then retreated to saying, well, the premiums would be higher because his plan mandated richer benefits."

That's interesting!  Not one peep of this in the main stream propaganda machine.
Their pundits, and "news" anchors all came out in a chorus and said Obama stood his ground.  One even said something to the effect that the chosen one shot down all of the Republican attempts to "rattle him".

From now on when anyone disagrees with the One they need to tell *him* he needs to get the facts right.

18448
Politics & Religion / Re: The Way Forward for the American Creed
« on: March 04, 2010, 07:31:02 AM »
Crafty,
You may want to tune into Levin.  6 to 9 EST on 77 Am radio.  I agree with Levin on most things, but I am still not sure of his prescriptions for this country's ills.

Actually I meant Sir Reagan - not the (conservative) son who I also like - unlike the son he had with Nancy who is a quack hell bent on proving he disagrees with his father on probably every political issue.

18449
I didn't get to hear the whole interview but Marc Levin had a professor from the Univ of Chicago on last PM.
He knew "Barack".
This professor is of gun ownership.  He pointed out that Bama was clearly *to the left* of a "left" academic culture.
He said he had no illusions that other professors were against his stand on guns but Bama was clearly the ONLY one who would come out clear as day and state he was against anyone owning guns.

Indeed he said his impression was that Bama shunned him as he shunned anyone he did not agree with.

He was NOT a conciliator like he was falsely portrayed in his campaign and as the lefist supporters make him out to be now.

He was/is a strict ideologue.  This professor made it clear that his experience with Bama was that he was very rigid, uncompromising, set in his beliefs, and would surround himself only with those he agreed with.

He saw no evidence that the Bama would like to surround himself with those he disagreed with like has been stated and advertised.

Additionally he only came to Univ. of Chicago as a stepping stone for politics.  He was not an academic, he was not interested in research and he only was hired as a selling point for running for the Senate.

To me this just corraborates the obvious - this guy, because of his gift of the gab, is chosen to lead the far left radical agenda.

There is NO doubt in my mind the people have somehow been hoodwinked into thinking this guy is a conciliator, compromiser, just left of center, patriot.  All the circumstantial evidence all but proves that this guy is exactly what Beck, and others warn.

He is some sort of socialist, communist or whatever.  He is radical to everything this country was founded on, was built on, was meant to be and it is a total CON game to say otherwise.

Very interesting radio program on Levin's show last night.  I am sorry I missed some of it.  Usually he gets the usual average call in but this one was quite interesting.

I don't know if it is possible to somehow get this into the msm which continues to protect and cover the true nature of their ideologue.  WE always hear from the MSM that anyone who says anything akin to this is some sort of way out there loon when the only way out loon is Bama.

Also one defense is "well his policies are not radical", or some mirror Bush etc.

My response is that is only a cover.  His real agenda, his real dream is clearly some sort of communism or some iteration or manifastation of a socialist country and eventually the entire world.

I don't know how we can get the mainstream America to wake up.  It appears some independents have but the polls are incredibly stable.  I guess even worse is that apparantly many people in America (not real Americans) seem to be happy to have socialism of some sort.   

18450
Politics & Religion / Re: The Way Forward for the American Creed
« on: March 02, 2010, 02:12:00 PM »
Crafty
I agree.  I thought some years ago the "compassionate conservative" idea was sound to soften the stereotype of Republicans as cold harded for those who are of the lower socioeconomic ladder.  Now I have come to believe this was a mistake.
But I am still not personally sure we should be.  I still am not sure I believe in Levin/Reagan/Hannity/Limbaugh style conservative as being the best alternative.
I just don't know, am not smart enough, and/or just can't get my mind to get a good handle on what is the best way to make this country sound and keep it on top.

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