Posts
http://tinyurl.com/magao9
Was Russia's 'Arctic Sea' Carrying Missiles to Iran? By SIMON SHUSTER / MOSCOW Aug 31...
Monday, August 31, 2009
The realization is dawning that Obama didn't mean his oath of office.
http://tinyurl.com/lqtxtz
What Is President Obama Really Trying To Do? by Austin Hill
... what is the purpose of Obama’s “change,” where is it leading, and what is all this “change” supposed to produce for the United States?...most U.S. Presidents ...have...an agenda of keeping America safe and prosperous...Seven days after his inauguration – and before making any sort of televised address to the American people – President Obama made a regionally televised address to the “Muslim World” in the Middle East, to “reassure” Muslims that “Americans are not your enemy.”
...carefully analyzed the President’s own remarks about economics, and his behavior in office, and have concluded that Obama doesn’t know how the economy works.
****The question is whether he knows not and knows not that he knows not or does he have another agenda. It could be both since he'll say anything, however, counterfactual or illogical, so long as it momentarily "sounds right" in pursuit of an agenda of transforming American exceptionalism into mediocrity. Think of how the speeches of this "great orator" read in print. We have not heard Washington's Farewell Address or any of the speeches of Lincoln or even Roosevelt and Churchill but their words resonate down through the years. How do "Yes we can" and "We are the people we have been waiting for" look in print? Acclaimed as the "greatest orator of his generation" the words have a sonorous vacuity that leaves little behind.****
... It’s becoming increasingly difficult to argue that President Obama is seeking to advance American peace and prosperity –...And how might his agenda of “transformation” entail something entirely different from anything America has known before?//
From the Desk of David Horowitz
... Barack Obama and the socialist leadership in Congress are working furiously to change America! They want to transform our nation and they're spending trillions of tax dollars to do it.
I am not talking about the type of misery Jimmy Carter inflicted on our nation. Conservatives were able to reverse the course Carter had put us on. But what we're seeing today isn't like anything you and I have ever seen! I'm talking about a whole scale, radical transformation of our nation. From our national defense to our foreign policy to our free market economic system - Obama and company have implemented and have plans to further implement massive government control over each of us.
Americans - your friends and neighbors - do not fully realize the radical changes Barack Obama and the socialists in Congress are foisting upon our way of life!
Today the Obamaites, George Soros, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Rahm Emanuel, Harry Reid - the small but powerful group of left-wing radicals who are at the controls of this transformation are all disciples of the 1960s radical Saul Alinsky. Alinsky's book, Rules for Radicals, was the Little Red Book for the college radicals of the 1960s. I know, I was one of them.
I understand better than most Alinsky's deep, deep hatred of America. A hate that ran so deep he wrote a blueprint for tearing our nation down. And while I outgrew and repented my anti Americanism and came to see how great and generous our country is, many agents of the radical left never grew up. In fact, today many of them are leaders in Congress and in our White House, all embracing Alinsky's Rules for Radicals - the road map for turning our nation upside down.
With every passing day we see what lays behind the Administration's piecemeal efforts to take over the car makers, the banks and the health care system: creating a new America that will bear little resemblance to the country in which we grew up.
What Is President Obama Really Trying To Do? by Austin Hill
... what is the purpose of Obama’s “change,” where is it leading, and what is all this “change” supposed to produce for the United States?...most U.S. Presidents ...have...an agenda of keeping America safe and prosperous...Seven days after his inauguration – and before making any sort of televised address to the American people – President Obama made a regionally televised address to the “Muslim World” in the Middle East, to “reassure” Muslims that “Americans are not your enemy.”
...carefully analyzed the President’s own remarks about economics, and his behavior in office, and have concluded that Obama doesn’t know how the economy works.
****The question is whether he knows not and knows not that he knows not or does he have another agenda. It could be both since he'll say anything, however, counterfactual or illogical, so long as it momentarily "sounds right" in pursuit of an agenda of transforming American exceptionalism into mediocrity. Think of how the speeches of this "great orator" read in print. We have not heard Washington's Farewell Address or any of the speeches of Lincoln or even Roosevelt and Churchill but their words resonate down through the years. How do "Yes we can" and "We are the people we have been waiting for" look in print? Acclaimed as the "greatest orator of his generation" the words have a sonorous vacuity that leaves little behind.****
... It’s becoming increasingly difficult to argue that President Obama is seeking to advance American peace and prosperity –...And how might his agenda of “transformation” entail something entirely different from anything America has known before?//
From the Desk of David Horowitz
... Barack Obama and the socialist leadership in Congress are working furiously to change America! They want to transform our nation and they're spending trillions of tax dollars to do it.
I am not talking about the type of misery Jimmy Carter inflicted on our nation. Conservatives were able to reverse the course Carter had put us on. But what we're seeing today isn't like anything you and I have ever seen! I'm talking about a whole scale, radical transformation of our nation. From our national defense to our foreign policy to our free market economic system - Obama and company have implemented and have plans to further implement massive government control over each of us.
Americans - your friends and neighbors - do not fully realize the radical changes Barack Obama and the socialists in Congress are foisting upon our way of life!
Today the Obamaites, George Soros, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Rahm Emanuel, Harry Reid - the small but powerful group of left-wing radicals who are at the controls of this transformation are all disciples of the 1960s radical Saul Alinsky. Alinsky's book, Rules for Radicals, was the Little Red Book for the college radicals of the 1960s. I know, I was one of them.
I understand better than most Alinsky's deep, deep hatred of America. A hate that ran so deep he wrote a blueprint for tearing our nation down. And while I outgrew and repented my anti Americanism and came to see how great and generous our country is, many agents of the radical left never grew up. In fact, today many of them are leaders in Congress and in our White House, all embracing Alinsky's Rules for Radicals - the road map for turning our nation upside down.
With every passing day we see what lays behind the Administration's piecemeal efforts to take over the car makers, the banks and the health care system: creating a new America that will bear little resemblance to the country in which we grew up.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Brit government found to have plotted Lockerbie release for oil.
http://tinyurl.com/njsgh4
Link to BP oil deal in Libya was part of negotiation for years. The "compassionate" release was opportunistic and now the Libyans publish pictures of the terrorist in a hospital bed but he looked a helluva lot better when he got off the plane and before the whatsit hit the fan.
Link to BP oil deal in Libya was part of negotiation for years. The "compassionate" release was opportunistic and now the Libyans publish pictures of the terrorist in a hospital bed but he looked a helluva lot better when he got off the plane and before the whatsit hit the fan.
Some of what's wrong with Obamacare underpinnings
http://tinyurl.com/nzbauf
Obama's Health Rationer-in-Chief White House health-care adviser Ezekiel Emanuel blames the Hippocratic Oath for the 'overuse' of medical care. By BETSY MCCAUGHEY
***
There are logical, consistency, and philosophical objections to Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel's arguments, however plausible they might sound to some./
Logically, his argument that ageist discrimination, according to his "complete lives system", "...is not invidious" has a simple consequence that would put his scheme far into the future. Even accepting his premise, it is a change of the rules midstream and unfair to invoke this for less than a complete life cycle. That is, logic would require that, to be non-invidious, such a system would have to start only with those being born tomorrow. Dr. Emanuel's argument in favor of teenagers over babies even falls into the "sunk cost" fallacy. He'd do better to argue against the costs (and poor life-cycle results) of extravagant neo-natalist medicine and the fact that it skews our seemingly poor comparative statistics on infant mortality./
Dr. Emanuel might argue that the state comes before the individual and that the utilitarian "good of the greatest number" should prevail. While he can only speak for (a small subset of) the medical profession, his principles if valid should also apply to the many lawyers in this administration and Congress. If he claims doctors sometimes lie to insurance companies on behalf of their patients, what about lawyers who are legally entitled to lie on behalf of their clients to the public ( and even, in making their own attestations, to courts )? Changing the Hippocratic Oath would be profound but not as profound as changing the Code of Professional Conduct for lawyers.The supposed societal merit of tort lawyers pushing for extravagant punitive damages is gainsaid by the result not going to society but, rather, to individual plaintiffs with 30-40% going to the lawyers themselves./
The whole idea of communitarian principles requiring that resources go to the benefit of the state as a whole ( and its perpetuation ) at the expense of the individual is very unAmerican. As Prof. Peter Singer, another "ethicist" along the lines of Dr.Emanuel, admitted ( indeed, declaimed ) in a NY Times Magazine piece, their views are at odds with Judeo-Christian morality. According to their principles, we would hardly countenance expensive searches for missing skiers, crashed airplane passengers, etc, often where the statistical probability indicates loss of life in the effort. We should require our military to leave fallen comrades on the battlefield and add cost-effectiveness to triage of the wounded.. At least Dr. Emanuel seems concerned for the polity of people over the individual; other ethicists seem to elevate animals and the inanimate planet over people.
Obama's Health Rationer-in-Chief White House health-care adviser Ezekiel Emanuel blames the Hippocratic Oath for the 'overuse' of medical care. By BETSY MCCAUGHEY
***
There are logical, consistency, and philosophical objections to Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel's arguments, however plausible they might sound to some./
Logically, his argument that ageist discrimination, according to his "complete lives system", "...is not invidious" has a simple consequence that would put his scheme far into the future. Even accepting his premise, it is a change of the rules midstream and unfair to invoke this for less than a complete life cycle. That is, logic would require that, to be non-invidious, such a system would have to start only with those being born tomorrow. Dr. Emanuel's argument in favor of teenagers over babies even falls into the "sunk cost" fallacy. He'd do better to argue against the costs (and poor life-cycle results) of extravagant neo-natalist medicine and the fact that it skews our seemingly poor comparative statistics on infant mortality./
Dr. Emanuel might argue that the state comes before the individual and that the utilitarian "good of the greatest number" should prevail. While he can only speak for (a small subset of) the medical profession, his principles if valid should also apply to the many lawyers in this administration and Congress. If he claims doctors sometimes lie to insurance companies on behalf of their patients, what about lawyers who are legally entitled to lie on behalf of their clients to the public ( and even, in making their own attestations, to courts )? Changing the Hippocratic Oath would be profound but not as profound as changing the Code of Professional Conduct for lawyers.The supposed societal merit of tort lawyers pushing for extravagant punitive damages is gainsaid by the result not going to society but, rather, to individual plaintiffs with 30-40% going to the lawyers themselves./
The whole idea of communitarian principles requiring that resources go to the benefit of the state as a whole ( and its perpetuation ) at the expense of the individual is very unAmerican. As Prof. Peter Singer, another "ethicist" along the lines of Dr.Emanuel, admitted ( indeed, declaimed ) in a NY Times Magazine piece, their views are at odds with Judeo-Christian morality. According to their principles, we would hardly countenance expensive searches for missing skiers, crashed airplane passengers, etc, often where the statistical probability indicates loss of life in the effort. We should require our military to leave fallen comrades on the battlefield and add cost-effectiveness to triage of the wounded.. At least Dr. Emanuel seems concerned for the polity of people over the individual; other ethicists seem to elevate animals and the inanimate planet over people.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Did Teddy violate the Logan Act and against U.S. interests?
http://tinyurl.com/mqpnzp
What was the totality of the quid pro quo for Teddy's help? Like Blago, he was open to bribery but had too much money to want cash.
What was the totality of the quid pro quo for Teddy's help? Like Blago, he was open to bribery but had too much money to want cash.
Perhaps Israel should tell Obama and Europe to bugger off.
http://tinyurl.com/mol2fn
2500 years ago, Sun Tzu recommended that you not put a foe into a box with no way out because they will feel forced to inflict enormous damage on you. If Israel is to face an existential threat it should feel free to not go gently into that good night. She might even feel an obligation to protect Western Civilization from its greatest threat ( assuming Western Civ deserves to be saved.)
2500 years ago, Sun Tzu recommended that you not put a foe into a box with no way out because they will feel forced to inflict enormous damage on you. If Israel is to face an existential threat it should feel free to not go gently into that good night. She might even feel an obligation to protect Western Civilization from its greatest threat ( assuming Western Civ deserves to be saved.)
Poll: 4 percent of Jewish Israelis see Obama as pro-Israel
Note that on the Wechsler intelligence scale those between "borderline" and "defective" represent about 4% of the population.
Sitting President most hostile to Israel
http://tinyurl.com/neaoyh
Will Obama "merely" underwrite the destruction of Israel and global Islamization or will he trigger the Samson Option that might devastate much of the world?
Will Obama "merely" underwrite the destruction of Israel and global Islamization or will he trigger the Samson Option that might devastate much of the world?
Friday, August 28, 2009
If you say it was worth it....
From Best of the Web, WSJ by James Taranto
...Meanwhile, Melissa Lafsky, "ex-lawyer, blogger, writer," has a much-discussed Puffington Host post titled "The Footnote Speaks: What Would Mary Jo Kopechne Have Thought of Ted's Career?" The headline is misleading; Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment. But Lafsky offers the following speculation:
We don't know how much Kennedy was affected by her death, or what she'd have thought about arguably being a catalyst for the most successful Senate career in history. What we don't know, as always, could fill a Metrodome.
Still, ignorance doesn't preclude a right to wonder. So it doesn't automatically make someone (aka, me) a Limbaugh-loving, aerial-wolf-hunting NRA troll for asking what Mary Jo Kopechne would have had to say about Ted's death, and what she'd have thought of the life and career that are being (rightfully) heralded.
Who knows--maybe she'd feel it was worth it.
One does get the sense that a certain type of liberal regards women as expendable.
http://tinyurl.com/n7lk5v
...Meanwhile, Melissa Lafsky, "ex-lawyer, blogger, writer," has a much-discussed Puffington Host post titled "The Footnote Speaks: What Would Mary Jo Kopechne Have Thought of Ted's Career?" The headline is misleading; Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment. But Lafsky offers the following speculation:
We don't know how much Kennedy was affected by her death, or what she'd have thought about arguably being a catalyst for the most successful Senate career in history. What we don't know, as always, could fill a Metrodome.
Still, ignorance doesn't preclude a right to wonder. So it doesn't automatically make someone (aka, me) a Limbaugh-loving, aerial-wolf-hunting NRA troll for asking what Mary Jo Kopechne would have had to say about Ted's death, and what she'd have thought of the life and career that are being (rightfully) heralded.
Who knows--maybe she'd feel it was worth it.
One does get the sense that a certain type of liberal regards women as expendable.
http://tinyurl.com/n7lk5v
Dutch repudiate Tariq Ramadan while US backs off barring him as terrorist supporter.
http://tinyurl.com/nce4e8
The US has banned TR since 2004 on the grounds of his contributing to terrorist organizations although not for his blatant anti-Western diatribes in print and on TV, including support for the violent suppression of the Iranian protests.The Dutch acted on the basis of the last but the US, in the new climate of Muslim appeasement, has just rescinded the ban on his visa. Promulgation of Shariah law and other incitements got his partner, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, with whom he collaborates in the so-called European Council for Fatwas and Research [ECFR], a Muslim-Brotherhood-oriented body, banned from Britain but in 2005 allowed Ramadan to take up a position at Oxford University.
The US has banned TR since 2004 on the grounds of his contributing to terrorist organizations although not for his blatant anti-Western diatribes in print and on TV, including support for the violent suppression of the Iranian protests.The Dutch acted on the basis of the last but the US, in the new climate of Muslim appeasement, has just rescinded the ban on his visa. Promulgation of Shariah law and other incitements got his partner, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, with whom he collaborates in the so-called European Council for Fatwas and Research [ECFR], a Muslim-Brotherhood-oriented body, banned from Britain but in 2005 allowed Ramadan to take up a position at Oxford University.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Hamas kills Palestinians, rockets mosque and no-one cares.
http://tinyurl.com/na4j7c
No one seems to give a damn about Hamas killing Palestinians (armed conflict, collateral damage to civilians, and deliberate executions) unless Israelis are somehow involved.
No one seems to give a damn about Hamas killing Palestinians (armed conflict, collateral damage to civilians, and deliberate executions) unless Israelis are somehow involved.
Palestinians delusional, but can still indoctrinate future generations
http://tinyurl.com/kktkxz
The Palestinian Authority's chief Islamic judge, Sheikh Tayseer Rajab Tamimi, said on Wednesday that there was no evidence to back up claims that Jews had ever lived in Jerusalem or that the Temple ever existed...
The Palestinian Authority's chief Islamic judge, Sheikh Tayseer Rajab Tamimi, said on Wednesday that there was no evidence to back up claims that Jews had ever lived in Jerusalem or that the Temple ever existed...
Cash for Convicts-stimulus money probably bought cigarettes
You'd think the Federal government would be especially careful at a time when it tries to take over a fifth of the economy and the personal lives of all Americans, but the nature of bureaucracy is not to think. 4000 "stimulus" checks went to incarcerated felons. Texas caught the errors; Massachusetts and others did not. Have faith in government to steward your money!
Brazil wants residents to pee in the shower.
http://tinyurl.com/mgv2cq
In the balance between concern for people and concern for the planet, this is probably in the middle.That is, environmentalists have come up with more extreme proposals. Examples are: limiting the number of children by government fiat ( as John Holdren has proposed); getting out of the way by foregoing surgery in favor of pain medication (as Obama suggested doing)when seniors reach what might plausibly be called their "end of life": actions such as depriving farmers of San Joaquin Valley of water in favor of a small fish.
In the balance between concern for people and concern for the planet, this is probably in the middle.That is, environmentalists have come up with more extreme proposals. Examples are: limiting the number of children by government fiat ( as John Holdren has proposed); getting out of the way by foregoing surgery in favor of pain medication (as Obama suggested doing)when seniors reach what might plausibly be called their "end of life": actions such as depriving farmers of San Joaquin Valley of water in favor of a small fish.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Go to the National Health Service webpage in the UK and weep.
http://www.nhs.uk/Pages/HomePage.aspx
They're trying to make it better:
"...The NHS is making sure that you are seen as soon as possible, at a time that is convenient for you. To do this, the NHS Constitution states that no one should wait more than 18 weeks for consultant-led NHS treatment. This means that your treatment should start no more than 18 weeks from the day that your GP refers you, unless you choose to wait longer or there's a good medical reason for delay.
As a result, hospital waiting times are now the shortest since NHS records began. Being treated within 18 weeks of GP referral is a significant achievement considering that people often waited 18 months or more for an operation during the 1990s..."
They're trying to make it better:
"...The NHS is making sure that you are seen as soon as possible, at a time that is convenient for you. To do this, the NHS Constitution states that no one should wait more than 18 weeks for consultant-led NHS treatment. This means that your treatment should start no more than 18 weeks from the day that your GP refers you, unless you choose to wait longer or there's a good medical reason for delay.
As a result, hospital waiting times are now the shortest since NHS records began. Being treated within 18 weeks of GP referral is a significant achievement considering that people often waited 18 months or more for an operation during the 1990s..."
Unpleasant consequences of HR3200
http://tinyurl.com/m88vpl
An Anesthesiologist's Take on Health-Care Reform Expect a two-tier medical system and needless ER deaths if Congress and the White House have their way. By RONALD DWORKIN...an old adage: You can skimp on some medicine, but you can't skimp on obstetrics or anesthesiology.... "In surgery, people die in days and weeks—a doctor has time to fix a mistake. But in obstetrics and anesthesiology, they die in minutes and seconds."...Incredibly, Congress's proposed health-care reform plan risks skimping on anesthesia. According to one of the health-care bills in Congress, H.R. 3200, the public option would reduce reimbursement for anesthesia by over 50%.****Dworkin discusses..the incorrect assumptions progressive politicians have made about the mindset of today's doctors and how the health-care system operates...the mistaken (indeed, crazy) idea that changing compensation won't affect behavior.****... Most doctors no longer think of their job as a calling.... Many doctors work part-time; others want flexible shifts....today's upper-middle class professionals are very sensitive to marginal tax rates. To preserve "lifestyle" and "quality time," they will work less. ...A second thing progressives fail to grasp is the genius of the American health-care system: It unites rich and poor in a common private insurance system...through a common private insurance system, poor people go to the same hospitals and doctors as rich people and thus enjoy the benefit of rich people's power.The public option severs this link. Dissatisfied with government-run health care, the rich will exit the system. ...Government-run health care will become like the public schools.****That's why both the U.K. and Canada try to ban private healthcare (except for things not covered by the public system, like cosmetic surgery.) The penalty seems to be denial of participation in the public plan if one tries to supplement it. It is doubtful that any attempt to simulate this in the U.S. would be Constitutional.*(***
The progressives' third mistake is to skimp on anesthesiology. In no medical specialty is the spread between the Medicare rates and private insurance rates greater. Progressives expect to pay anesthesiologists Medicare rates, which are 65% less than private insurance rates, without any change in the system. But there will be changes.Some anesthesiologists will leave the field. ...Quality of care will inevitably decline. That decline will come first in obstetrics....Other hospitals are less fortunate, and have on staff at most one anesthesiologist in obstetrics....eventually force these hospitals to cover obstetrics "when anesthesiology is available," meaning in between regular operating room cases. ...Don't forget, a baby has only nine minutes of oxygen when the umbilical cord prolapses, so time is of the essence.... If hospitals delay the administration of anesthesia because Congress skimped, needless deaths will certainly result.///
Health Plan Will Affect Anesthesiologists, Everyone Else
...I can state unequivocally that my anesthesiologist colleagues are primarily concerned with advancing patient safety and providing quality care.Physician-provided anesthesia has long focused on the heath and well-being of the patient. Moreover, over the past two decades we have made anesthesia even safer than ever.Any health-care reform proposal must support our continued efforts to make patient safety and quality care a central concern. The use of unreasonably low Medicare payment levels for anesthesia services in any new plan, public or private, does not provide that support.Roger A. Moore, M.D.,President
American Society of Anesthesiologists Park Ridge, Ill.//
Dr. Dworkin asserts that fewer students will train in anesthesiology—a medical specialty that has led the nation in patient safety by reducing morbidity and mortality rates during surgery to essentially zero—a great contrast to the performance of 40 years ago.Students are already abandoning other surgical specialties. Cardiovascular surgical programs are only half-full. General surgery residencies are even worse off. The practice of medicine has always attracted hard-working people dedicated to the relief of human suffering. That devotion, however, comes at a price: four years of college, four years of medical school, and four to six years of post-graduate training. That adds up; many trainees are in their early thirties when they finish. Mountains of debt and severely diminished reimbursements will discourage students from entering the practice of medicine in the first place. And as the current generation of physicians retire, fewer and fewer will be replaced."Keeping your own doctor" and "timely access to high-quality care" make great sound bites, but the reality might be quite different. Patients will wait for care longer, and more of them will die sooner. Thomas W. Andrews, M.D. Longwood, Fla.//
Downgrading use of professionals
ObamaCare will encourage empty M.D. anesthesiologist slots to be filled by Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs). It's no accident that the American Society of Nurse Anesthetists vigorously supports H.R. 3200.
An unintended consequence? Perhaps. But this conspiracy theorist believes it is quite deliberate. In fact, I think anesthesiologists are merely the canaries in the mine, soon to be followed by other physicians driven out and replaced by Advance Practice Nurses and Physician Assistants whose salary expectations will be lower than those of doctors.
H.R. 3200 would create a health benefits advisory committee to determine appropriate medical policies, and also a national computerized health-care records. In combination, these two elements will allow medical care —from diagnosis to treatment—to be performed by computer-savvy nonphysicians using government-approved algorithms. The oft-repeated statement that no bureaucrat will come between a patient and his doctor is patently false.
I am proud to work with many excellent CRNAs, but I believe the loss of physicians will result in a bump in morbidity and mortality, which will be rationalized by the same government which encourages us to swap our SUVs for miniature cars, explaining that the increase in highway death and crippling injury is a small price to pay for decreased carbon emissions.
Steven S. Kron, M.D. New Britain, Conn. ****This homogenization of healthcare flies in the face of modern advances which enables and shows the merits of customizing healthcare to the individual patient. Everyone is different and similar drugs and procedures are effective for some and ineffective for others who superficially would seem to be in the same category.Clearly Obama's "blue pill / red pill" analogy shows he doesn't understand this (or is disingenuous.)****
An Anesthesiologist's Take on Health-Care Reform Expect a two-tier medical system and needless ER deaths if Congress and the White House have their way. By RONALD DWORKIN...an old adage: You can skimp on some medicine, but you can't skimp on obstetrics or anesthesiology.... "In surgery, people die in days and weeks—a doctor has time to fix a mistake. But in obstetrics and anesthesiology, they die in minutes and seconds."...Incredibly, Congress's proposed health-care reform plan risks skimping on anesthesia. According to one of the health-care bills in Congress, H.R. 3200, the public option would reduce reimbursement for anesthesia by over 50%.****Dworkin discusses..the incorrect assumptions progressive politicians have made about the mindset of today's doctors and how the health-care system operates...the mistaken (indeed, crazy) idea that changing compensation won't affect behavior.****... Most doctors no longer think of their job as a calling.... Many doctors work part-time; others want flexible shifts....today's upper-middle class professionals are very sensitive to marginal tax rates. To preserve "lifestyle" and "quality time," they will work less. ...A second thing progressives fail to grasp is the genius of the American health-care system: It unites rich and poor in a common private insurance system...through a common private insurance system, poor people go to the same hospitals and doctors as rich people and thus enjoy the benefit of rich people's power.The public option severs this link. Dissatisfied with government-run health care, the rich will exit the system. ...Government-run health care will become like the public schools.****That's why both the U.K. and Canada try to ban private healthcare (except for things not covered by the public system, like cosmetic surgery.) The penalty seems to be denial of participation in the public plan if one tries to supplement it. It is doubtful that any attempt to simulate this in the U.S. would be Constitutional.*(***
The progressives' third mistake is to skimp on anesthesiology. In no medical specialty is the spread between the Medicare rates and private insurance rates greater. Progressives expect to pay anesthesiologists Medicare rates, which are 65% less than private insurance rates, without any change in the system. But there will be changes.Some anesthesiologists will leave the field. ...Quality of care will inevitably decline. That decline will come first in obstetrics....Other hospitals are less fortunate, and have on staff at most one anesthesiologist in obstetrics....eventually force these hospitals to cover obstetrics "when anesthesiology is available," meaning in between regular operating room cases. ...Don't forget, a baby has only nine minutes of oxygen when the umbilical cord prolapses, so time is of the essence.... If hospitals delay the administration of anesthesia because Congress skimped, needless deaths will certainly result.///
Health Plan Will Affect Anesthesiologists, Everyone Else
...I can state unequivocally that my anesthesiologist colleagues are primarily concerned with advancing patient safety and providing quality care.Physician-provided anesthesia has long focused on the heath and well-being of the patient. Moreover, over the past two decades we have made anesthesia even safer than ever.Any health-care reform proposal must support our continued efforts to make patient safety and quality care a central concern. The use of unreasonably low Medicare payment levels for anesthesia services in any new plan, public or private, does not provide that support.Roger A. Moore, M.D.,President
American Society of Anesthesiologists Park Ridge, Ill.//
Dr. Dworkin asserts that fewer students will train in anesthesiology—a medical specialty that has led the nation in patient safety by reducing morbidity and mortality rates during surgery to essentially zero—a great contrast to the performance of 40 years ago.Students are already abandoning other surgical specialties. Cardiovascular surgical programs are only half-full. General surgery residencies are even worse off. The practice of medicine has always attracted hard-working people dedicated to the relief of human suffering. That devotion, however, comes at a price: four years of college, four years of medical school, and four to six years of post-graduate training. That adds up; many trainees are in their early thirties when they finish. Mountains of debt and severely diminished reimbursements will discourage students from entering the practice of medicine in the first place. And as the current generation of physicians retire, fewer and fewer will be replaced."Keeping your own doctor" and "timely access to high-quality care" make great sound bites, but the reality might be quite different. Patients will wait for care longer, and more of them will die sooner. Thomas W. Andrews, M.D. Longwood, Fla.//
Downgrading use of professionals
ObamaCare will encourage empty M.D. anesthesiologist slots to be filled by Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs). It's no accident that the American Society of Nurse Anesthetists vigorously supports H.R. 3200.
An unintended consequence? Perhaps. But this conspiracy theorist believes it is quite deliberate. In fact, I think anesthesiologists are merely the canaries in the mine, soon to be followed by other physicians driven out and replaced by Advance Practice Nurses and Physician Assistants whose salary expectations will be lower than those of doctors.
H.R. 3200 would create a health benefits advisory committee to determine appropriate medical policies, and also a national computerized health-care records. In combination, these two elements will allow medical care —from diagnosis to treatment—to be performed by computer-savvy nonphysicians using government-approved algorithms. The oft-repeated statement that no bureaucrat will come between a patient and his doctor is patently false.
I am proud to work with many excellent CRNAs, but I believe the loss of physicians will result in a bump in morbidity and mortality, which will be rationalized by the same government which encourages us to swap our SUVs for miniature cars, explaining that the increase in highway death and crippling injury is a small price to pay for decreased carbon emissions.
Steven S. Kron, M.D. New Britain, Conn. ****This homogenization of healthcare flies in the face of modern advances which enables and shows the merits of customizing healthcare to the individual patient. Everyone is different and similar drugs and procedures are effective for some and ineffective for others who superficially would seem to be in the same category.Clearly Obama's "blue pill / red pill" analogy shows he doesn't understand this (or is disingenuous.)****
Add this to Classics of Chutzpah
Iran working to prevent Israeli strike August 26, 2009 -- Iran is exerting diplomatic pressure at the International Atomic Energy Agency to try and avoid an Israeli military strike on its nuclear facilities.
The Islamic Republic, with the backing of the 118 countries of the Non-Aligned Movement, has moved to introduce a resolution at next month's meeting of the IAEA banning military strikes on nuclear facilities, according to reports.
Though the language of the resolution is general, the move is seen as an effort to ramp up pressure on Israel, which has not ruled out a strike on Iranian nuclear sites. Israel has a history of pre-emptively striking nuclear facilities in hostile countries, taking out the Iraqi reactor at Osirak in 1981 and raiding a suspected nuclear facility in Syria in 2007.
The Islamic Republic, with the backing of the 118 countries of the Non-Aligned Movement, has moved to introduce a resolution at next month's meeting of the IAEA banning military strikes on nuclear facilities, according to reports.
Though the language of the resolution is general, the move is seen as an effort to ramp up pressure on Israel, which has not ruled out a strike on Iranian nuclear sites. Israel has a history of pre-emptively striking nuclear facilities in hostile countries, taking out the Iraqi reactor at Osirak in 1981 and raiding a suspected nuclear facility in Syria in 2007.
The Kennedy legacy, legislative and personal
Demography is destinyFrom Wikipedia, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (Hart-Celler Act, INS, Act of 1965, Pub.L. 89-236) abolished the national-origin quotas that had been in place in the United States since the Immigration Act of 1924. It was proposed by Emanuel Celler, co-sponsored by Philip Hart and heavily supported by United States Senator Ted Kennedy.[1]
An annual limitation of 170,000 visas was established for immigrants from Eastern Hemisphere countries with no more than 20,000 per country. By 1968, the annual limitation from the Western Hemisphere was set at 120,000 immigrants, with visas available on a first-come, first-served basis. However, the number of family reunification visas was unlimited,...The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 became law on July 1, 1968... During debate on the Senate floor, Kennedy, speaking of the effects of the act, said, "First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same.... Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset.... Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia.... In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think.... The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs."[2] The act's supporters not only claimed the law would not change America's ethnic makeup, but that such a change was not desirable.[1] ****Almost every one of Kennedy's (completely unsubstantiated) claims turned out to be untrue.**** By equalizing immigration policies, the Act resulted in a flood of new immigration from non-European nations that changed the ethnic make-up of the United States.[3] Immigration doubled between 1965 and 1970 and doubled again between 1970 and 1990.[1]
Results
A Boston Globe article attributed Barack Obama’s win in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election to a marked reduction over the preceding decades in the percentage of whites in the American electorate, attributing this demographic change to the Act.[3] The article quoted Simon Rosenberg, president and founder of the New Democrat Network, as having said that the Act is "the most important piece of legislation that no one’s ever heard of," and that it "set America on a very different demographic course than the previous 300 years."//
****Kennedy opposed the FIRST Gulf War ( after Saddam had invaded and raped Kuwait.) He also supported nuclear disarmament without provisions for checking on the (then) Soviets.****
The Cost of Doing 'Justice' Ted Kennedy was sometimes willing to sacrifice procedural fairness--and even common decency. By JAMES TARANTO
Last week it emerged that Ted Kennedy had undertaken a bit of end-of-life planning. As The Wall Street Journal noted in an editorial, Massachusetts' terminally ill senior senator had written to state lawmakers in Boston urging them to change state law so that upon Kennedy's death Gov. Deval Patrick, a fellow Democrat, would be able to appoint a successor immediately. ...Kennedy's efforts to ensure a quick succession are emblematic of why liberals loved him and conservatives found him maddening. As the Journal editorial pointed out, the special-election law is only five years old and was "orchestrated" by none other than Ted Kennedy:... "Prodded by a personal appeal from Senator Edward M. Kennedy," reported the Boston Globe in 2004, "Democratic legislative leaders have agreed to take up a stalled bill creating a special election process to replace U.S. Senator John F. Kerry if he wins the presidency."... Kennedy's shamelessness in urging repeal of a law he himself pushed for was either appalling or admirable, depending on your point of view. To conservatives, it was a pure partisan power play: Kennedy favored whatever gave Democrats a tactical advantage, procedural fairness be damned. To liberals, however, it was an act of idealism: Kennedy had spent a career trying to advance "universal health care"--which to him and them is a matter of basic justice--and the Bay State vacancy could make the difference between ObamaCare's passing or failing. To our mind, the conservatives have the better of the argument, though... we must concede that Kennedy's motives likely did have an ideological component as well as a partisan one....democracy depends on procedural fairness and the appearance of procedural fairness, even if all political players have ulterior motives whenever they promote such fairness. By this standard, Kennedy's effort to change the Massachusetts law without even a pretense of concern for fairness was objectionable, and that is true even if we are objecting insincerely. Of all Kennedy's official acts, perhaps the one that most rankles conservatives and cheers liberals was his successful effort to prevent the confirmation of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court in 1987. Kennedy took to the Senate floor and declared: Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back alley abortions, blacks would sit in segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of million of citizens. This was a slanderous attack on a good man. But it was effective, both tactically and strategically. The Senate voted down Bork's nomination, and the justice confirmed in his stead, Anthony Kennedy (no relation), has tipped the balance in more than a few cases toward the side Sen. Kennedy favored.... But even those who accept that concept of justice ought to regret Kennedy's demagoguery. Common decency ought to count for something too.//
The personal Kennedy family legacy
In 1994, during Ted's Senate run against Mitt Romney, his mother Rose passed away. Despite the fact that Rose had never left the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis, MA in the 10 years prior to her death, the Kennedy family had her state residency moved from MA that had an estate tax to FL which did not. Despite building a career of demanding that the rich pay their fair share, Mr. Kennedy and his family, chose not to pay theirs when it was their turn.
The Kennedy family's wealth, investment decisions, and lifelong efforts to shelter their inheritances from the Internal Revenue Service are not as well known as their public pronouncements on behalf of the "downtrodden" and the average person.
The Kennedy clan has never paid the confiscatory federal tax rates often advocated by Senator Kennedy and his liberal allies. Indeed, Senator Kennedy's empathy for the "average citizen" is a faux pose intended for maximum public effect while he and his family's private investment decisions are about maximizing personal wealth and protecting that wealth. Peter Schweizer, author of Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy, devoted an entire chapter to the shenanigans of the Kennedy clan...it is difficult to choose the most galling case of Kennedy-esque arrogance. However, among the more egregious is the Kennedy clan's successful evasion of inheritance taxes, an evasion that contradicts the Senator's political posturing and rhetoric.
The Senior Senator from Massachusetts belongs to a family clan blessed with a net worth of nearly $500 million. Back in 1935, Joseph Patrick Kennedy, Sr., purchased Merchandise Mart, a Chicago real estate company, and according to Schweizer: "...in 1947, he divided its ownership among family members and put it in the form of a trust.... [it] was not set up in their home state of Massachusetts, New York, Florida, or even California. This trust wasn't even domiciled in the United States. Instead the Kennedy trust was set up in ... Fiji." Now why establish a trust on an island best known for headhunters? The Fiji-based trust allowed the Kennedy's to avoid "...the possibility of scrutiny by the IRS and federal authorities," according to Schweizer. Worse, the sanctimonious Kennedy clan that demands the rich pay their fair share has "an intricate web of trusts and private foundations" that helps the family avoid the IRS.
For example, the family paid only $134,330.90 in estate taxes despite a family fortune thought to be between $300 and $500 million at the time of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.'s death in 1969. That was a tax bill of .04 percent, and Schweizer informs us that the figure is based on the lower end of the estimated family fortune.
...Senator Kennedy and his family have adopted other means besides trusts to avoid paying higher taxes. In one particularly sordid case in 1980, Senator Kennedy benefited from a political connection to Cook County, Chicago's Democratic tax assessor, Thomas Tully. Mr. Tully had assessed the Kennedy-owned Merchandise Mart's property value at $22.8 million when in fact its true value was $35 million. The discrepancy meant the Kennedys saved an estimated $8 million over a two year period. It also meant that Cook County's public schools were short-changed a few million dollars in property tax revenues.///
What the best speech writers and drama coaches can buy (but still a story full of more holes than Swiss cheese.)
http://tinyurl.com/lrfd2t
Stimulus Money Used to Memorialize the Kennedy FamilyMarch 13, 2009
There was a time in America when wealthy families donated their own money for these sorts of things. Libraries, universities, hospitals and parks all over New England were often built by philanthropists. Not so the Kennedies...Why are the Kennedys so popular in Massachusetts? One reason is government-funded advertising for their family. More than one in five dollars directed toward Massachusetts from the just-passed federal spending package is in someway connected to promoting the Kennedys. After Patrick Kennedy's discombobulated car crash, the late Michael Kennedy's affair with a fourteen-year-old babysitter, and Caroline Kennedy's disastrous introduction to politics, the family could use some good publicity. The bill includes $6 million for an Edward M. Kennedy Institute, $22 million for the seashore eyesore JFK Library, and $5 million for the Rose Kennedy Greenway.
An annual limitation of 170,000 visas was established for immigrants from Eastern Hemisphere countries with no more than 20,000 per country. By 1968, the annual limitation from the Western Hemisphere was set at 120,000 immigrants, with visas available on a first-come, first-served basis. However, the number of family reunification visas was unlimited,...The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 became law on July 1, 1968... During debate on the Senate floor, Kennedy, speaking of the effects of the act, said, "First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same.... Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset.... Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia.... In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think.... The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs."[2] The act's supporters not only claimed the law would not change America's ethnic makeup, but that such a change was not desirable.[1] ****Almost every one of Kennedy's (completely unsubstantiated) claims turned out to be untrue.**** By equalizing immigration policies, the Act resulted in a flood of new immigration from non-European nations that changed the ethnic make-up of the United States.[3] Immigration doubled between 1965 and 1970 and doubled again between 1970 and 1990.[1]
Results
A Boston Globe article attributed Barack Obama’s win in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election to a marked reduction over the preceding decades in the percentage of whites in the American electorate, attributing this demographic change to the Act.[3] The article quoted Simon Rosenberg, president and founder of the New Democrat Network, as having said that the Act is "the most important piece of legislation that no one’s ever heard of," and that it "set America on a very different demographic course than the previous 300 years."//
****Kennedy opposed the FIRST Gulf War ( after Saddam had invaded and raped Kuwait.) He also supported nuclear disarmament without provisions for checking on the (then) Soviets.****
The Cost of Doing 'Justice' Ted Kennedy was sometimes willing to sacrifice procedural fairness--and even common decency. By JAMES TARANTO
Last week it emerged that Ted Kennedy had undertaken a bit of end-of-life planning. As The Wall Street Journal noted in an editorial, Massachusetts' terminally ill senior senator had written to state lawmakers in Boston urging them to change state law so that upon Kennedy's death Gov. Deval Patrick, a fellow Democrat, would be able to appoint a successor immediately. ...Kennedy's efforts to ensure a quick succession are emblematic of why liberals loved him and conservatives found him maddening. As the Journal editorial pointed out, the special-election law is only five years old and was "orchestrated" by none other than Ted Kennedy:... "Prodded by a personal appeal from Senator Edward M. Kennedy," reported the Boston Globe in 2004, "Democratic legislative leaders have agreed to take up a stalled bill creating a special election process to replace U.S. Senator John F. Kerry if he wins the presidency."... Kennedy's shamelessness in urging repeal of a law he himself pushed for was either appalling or admirable, depending on your point of view. To conservatives, it was a pure partisan power play: Kennedy favored whatever gave Democrats a tactical advantage, procedural fairness be damned. To liberals, however, it was an act of idealism: Kennedy had spent a career trying to advance "universal health care"--which to him and them is a matter of basic justice--and the Bay State vacancy could make the difference between ObamaCare's passing or failing. To our mind, the conservatives have the better of the argument, though... we must concede that Kennedy's motives likely did have an ideological component as well as a partisan one....democracy depends on procedural fairness and the appearance of procedural fairness, even if all political players have ulterior motives whenever they promote such fairness. By this standard, Kennedy's effort to change the Massachusetts law without even a pretense of concern for fairness was objectionable, and that is true even if we are objecting insincerely. Of all Kennedy's official acts, perhaps the one that most rankles conservatives and cheers liberals was his successful effort to prevent the confirmation of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court in 1987. Kennedy took to the Senate floor and declared: Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back alley abortions, blacks would sit in segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of million of citizens. This was a slanderous attack on a good man. But it was effective, both tactically and strategically. The Senate voted down Bork's nomination, and the justice confirmed in his stead, Anthony Kennedy (no relation), has tipped the balance in more than a few cases toward the side Sen. Kennedy favored.... But even those who accept that concept of justice ought to regret Kennedy's demagoguery. Common decency ought to count for something too.//
The personal Kennedy family legacy
In 1994, during Ted's Senate run against Mitt Romney, his mother Rose passed away. Despite the fact that Rose had never left the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis, MA in the 10 years prior to her death, the Kennedy family had her state residency moved from MA that had an estate tax to FL which did not. Despite building a career of demanding that the rich pay their fair share, Mr. Kennedy and his family, chose not to pay theirs when it was their turn.
The Kennedy family's wealth, investment decisions, and lifelong efforts to shelter their inheritances from the Internal Revenue Service are not as well known as their public pronouncements on behalf of the "downtrodden" and the average person.
The Kennedy clan has never paid the confiscatory federal tax rates often advocated by Senator Kennedy and his liberal allies. Indeed, Senator Kennedy's empathy for the "average citizen" is a faux pose intended for maximum public effect while he and his family's private investment decisions are about maximizing personal wealth and protecting that wealth. Peter Schweizer, author of Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy, devoted an entire chapter to the shenanigans of the Kennedy clan...it is difficult to choose the most galling case of Kennedy-esque arrogance. However, among the more egregious is the Kennedy clan's successful evasion of inheritance taxes, an evasion that contradicts the Senator's political posturing and rhetoric.
The Senior Senator from Massachusetts belongs to a family clan blessed with a net worth of nearly $500 million. Back in 1935, Joseph Patrick Kennedy, Sr., purchased Merchandise Mart, a Chicago real estate company, and according to Schweizer: "...in 1947, he divided its ownership among family members and put it in the form of a trust.... [it] was not set up in their home state of Massachusetts, New York, Florida, or even California. This trust wasn't even domiciled in the United States. Instead the Kennedy trust was set up in ... Fiji." Now why establish a trust on an island best known for headhunters? The Fiji-based trust allowed the Kennedy's to avoid "...the possibility of scrutiny by the IRS and federal authorities," according to Schweizer. Worse, the sanctimonious Kennedy clan that demands the rich pay their fair share has "an intricate web of trusts and private foundations" that helps the family avoid the IRS.
For example, the family paid only $134,330.90 in estate taxes despite a family fortune thought to be between $300 and $500 million at the time of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.'s death in 1969. That was a tax bill of .04 percent, and Schweizer informs us that the figure is based on the lower end of the estimated family fortune.
...Senator Kennedy and his family have adopted other means besides trusts to avoid paying higher taxes. In one particularly sordid case in 1980, Senator Kennedy benefited from a political connection to Cook County, Chicago's Democratic tax assessor, Thomas Tully. Mr. Tully had assessed the Kennedy-owned Merchandise Mart's property value at $22.8 million when in fact its true value was $35 million. The discrepancy meant the Kennedys saved an estimated $8 million over a two year period. It also meant that Cook County's public schools were short-changed a few million dollars in property tax revenues.///
What the best speech writers and drama coaches can buy (but still a story full of more holes than Swiss cheese.)
http://tinyurl.com/lrfd2t
Stimulus Money Used to Memorialize the Kennedy FamilyMarch 13, 2009
There was a time in America when wealthy families donated their own money for these sorts of things. Libraries, universities, hospitals and parks all over New England were often built by philanthropists. Not so the Kennedies...Why are the Kennedys so popular in Massachusetts? One reason is government-funded advertising for their family. More than one in five dollars directed toward Massachusetts from the just-passed federal spending package is in someway connected to promoting the Kennedys. After Patrick Kennedy's discombobulated car crash, the late Michael Kennedy's affair with a fourteen-year-old babysitter, and Caroline Kennedy's disastrous introduction to politics, the family could use some good publicity. The bill includes $6 million for an Edward M. Kennedy Institute, $22 million for the seashore eyesore JFK Library, and $5 million for the Rose Kennedy Greenway.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Obama admits to $2TRILLION greater debt than May estimate
http://tinyurl.com/kmbvad
Not a confidence-builder, the announcement was drowned in the public media by announcing Bernanke's reappointment. The projected debt for ten years went from $7T to $9T and who knows how much more except that one can be confident that the administration both doesn't know and wouldn't tell if it did. The innumerate philosophy is to kick the can down the road ( past the next election, anyway ) and blame the previous administration for all things bad.
Not a confidence-builder, the announcement was drowned in the public media by announcing Bernanke's reappointment. The projected debt for ten years went from $7T to $9T and who knows how much more except that one can be confident that the administration both doesn't know and wouldn't tell if it did. The innumerate philosophy is to kick the can down the road ( past the next election, anyway ) and blame the previous administration for all things bad.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Abusive interrogations?
http://tinyurl.com/lwxu3t
CIA report: 'Inhumane' tactics used on detainees By STEVEN R. HURST and DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writers WASHINGTON – CIA interrogators threatened to kill the children of one detainee at the height of the Bush administration's war on terror and implied that another's mother would be sexually assaulted, newly declassified documents revealed Monday as the government launched a criminal investigation into the spy agency's "unauthorized, improvised, inhumane" practices...****One has to wonder about the abusiveness of "threats" that had no chance of being carried out. The only ones for whom the threats might have had any credibility were those from Saddam's Iraq or present Iran where such things were/are actually done. Anyone knowledgeable about Western societies would have accorded scant credence to such.Then they cite another example:the report describes at least one mock execution, which would violate U.S. anti-torture laws. To terrify one detainee, interrogators pretended to execute a prisoner in a nearby room. A senior officer said it was a transparent ruse that yielded no benefit to interrogators.****It wasn't a mock execution of the prisoner and it is acknowledged that the ruse was "transparent." This is in the category of CIA jokes: Two men and a woman are up for a CIA field job. The first is told that his spouse is tied to a chair in the neighboring room. He is given a gun and told to execute her to prove that he can follow orders. He immediately says that he cannot and is disqualified. The second guy takes the gun, goes into the room and nothing happens. Finally, he emerges teary-eyed and says that he couldn't do it and he is also disqualified. The third applicant, a woman, takes the gun and goes into the room. The examiners hear repeated shots and finally a tremendous hullabaloo. The woman emerges sweaty and disheveled and says "the damn gun had blanks so I had to beat him to death with the chair."****
Investigators credited the detention-and-interrogation program for developing key intelligence. One CIA operative interviewed for the report said the program thwarted al-Qaida plots to attack the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan, derail trains, blow up gas stations and cut the suspension line of a bridge. "In this regard, there is no doubt that the program has been effective," investigators wrote, bolstering an argument by former Vice President Dick Cheney and others that the program saved lives.
But it's unclear whether so-called "enhanced interrogation" tactics contributed to that success, according to the report...Measuring the success of such interrogation is "a more subjective process and not without some concern," the report said.
****No, it's completely likely that saying "Please. Pretty please, Pretty please with sugar on top." would have sufficed.****
CIA report: 'Inhumane' tactics used on detainees By STEVEN R. HURST and DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writers WASHINGTON – CIA interrogators threatened to kill the children of one detainee at the height of the Bush administration's war on terror and implied that another's mother would be sexually assaulted, newly declassified documents revealed Monday as the government launched a criminal investigation into the spy agency's "unauthorized, improvised, inhumane" practices...****One has to wonder about the abusiveness of "threats" that had no chance of being carried out. The only ones for whom the threats might have had any credibility were those from Saddam's Iraq or present Iran where such things were/are actually done. Anyone knowledgeable about Western societies would have accorded scant credence to such.Then they cite another example:the report describes at least one mock execution, which would violate U.S. anti-torture laws. To terrify one detainee, interrogators pretended to execute a prisoner in a nearby room. A senior officer said it was a transparent ruse that yielded no benefit to interrogators.****It wasn't a mock execution of the prisoner and it is acknowledged that the ruse was "transparent." This is in the category of CIA jokes: Two men and a woman are up for a CIA field job. The first is told that his spouse is tied to a chair in the neighboring room. He is given a gun and told to execute her to prove that he can follow orders. He immediately says that he cannot and is disqualified. The second guy takes the gun, goes into the room and nothing happens. Finally, he emerges teary-eyed and says that he couldn't do it and he is also disqualified. The third applicant, a woman, takes the gun and goes into the room. The examiners hear repeated shots and finally a tremendous hullabaloo. The woman emerges sweaty and disheveled and says "the damn gun had blanks so I had to beat him to death with the chair."****
Investigators credited the detention-and-interrogation program for developing key intelligence. One CIA operative interviewed for the report said the program thwarted al-Qaida plots to attack the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan, derail trains, blow up gas stations and cut the suspension line of a bridge. "In this regard, there is no doubt that the program has been effective," investigators wrote, bolstering an argument by former Vice President Dick Cheney and others that the program saved lives.
But it's unclear whether so-called "enhanced interrogation" tactics contributed to that success, according to the report...Measuring the success of such interrogation is "a more subjective process and not without some concern," the report said.
****No, it's completely likely that saying "Please. Pretty please, Pretty please with sugar on top." would have sufficed.****
Listen when doctors (not the AMA --only 17%)speak about Obamacare
http://tinyurl.com/kw3bde
An opinion of one of Atlanta's most recognized physicians, Dr. Zane F. Pollard, who works in pediatric ophthalmology for Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite, Atlanta, GA. Consequences will be profound and negative if anything like HR3200 passes.
An opinion of one of Atlanta's most recognized physicians, Dr. Zane F. Pollard, who works in pediatric ophthalmology for Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite, Atlanta, GA. Consequences will be profound and negative if anything like HR3200 passes.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Lockerbie bomber's release, British oil and healthcare.
Mr Salmond told the BBC the release decision was made because "it was the right thing to do in terms of the Scottish justice system".****So much for respect for the Scottish justice system. Heretofore, Yoda always considered the Scottish system enlightened for the verdict of "Not proven" rather than "Not guilty" since the onus is on the prosecution in criminal case and failure to prove someone guilty beyond a reasonable doubt hardly rises to the level of exoneration. Nevertheless, if this exemplifies the Scottish system, it stinks! However, it probably doesn't. It's probably just feckless pandering to the needs of British oil companies to negotiate with Libya. Gadhafi's son claimed that Mesrahi's release was always on the table of oil negotiations.
Perhaps the judgment that Mesrahi only has "three months to live" reflects more on the quality of the National Health Service than on the actual dire nature of the prostate cancer that Mesrahi is supposed to suffer from.
We'll see if Gadhafi ( who embraced Mesrahi after his son had done so at the airport and, indeed, had accompanied Mesrahi on the plane ) imports specialists from a better place than Britain to treat Mesrahi.
In about three months time, either Mesrahi or Kenny MacCaskill had better be dead.****
Perhaps the judgment that Mesrahi only has "three months to live" reflects more on the quality of the National Health Service than on the actual dire nature of the prostate cancer that Mesrahi is supposed to suffer from.
We'll see if Gadhafi ( who embraced Mesrahi after his son had done so at the airport and, indeed, had accompanied Mesrahi on the plane ) imports specialists from a better place than Britain to treat Mesrahi.
In about three months time, either Mesrahi or Kenny MacCaskill had better be dead.****
When is a deal not a deal?
The simple answer is when one party cannot be trusted. The rule of law ( and the sanctity of contracts)is generally held to be a sine qua non of successful economic activity, indeed all societal activity. It is also generally considered to be unacceptable to change the rules in midgame. How does this apply to present times and the present government of the U.S?
We see that Obamacare seems to have been endorsed by health insurance companies, by the American Medical Association, by the pharmaceutical companies and by the AARP (or Obama claimed it so they are fudging since they just lost 60,000 members and a competitive organization for seniors is being formed.) How did this happen? The answer is that the White House struck "deals" with each of these and they have participated in an ad campaign supporting Obamacare. A typical deal: the drug companies would "give up" $80B over ten years ( N.B. ten years is the maximum time period that the Congressional Budget Office is allowed to make projections so, when one hears that the "cost" is X, it's only X for the first ten years and likely to be much more than X for the decades beyond that.) and would be "guaranteed" not to have Medicare and other national health plans put drug supply out for bid ( as the VA evidently does.)What happened to this deal? Congress immediately denied responsibility for it or any willingness to honor it. Next is the deal supposedly struck by Karen Ignagni, head lobbyist for the health insurance companies
http://tinyurl.com/lrtomz
but Obama has turned on them as the evil villains in the situation.
Any deal with the AMA is nugatory because it only represents a sliver of the doctor population in the U.S.,any publicity is to the benefit of its "leadership", and any organization might wish to be at the table even when it itself is being served up. AARP? It has become an insurance company selling things to seniors rather than a representative of senior interests. Even so, the leadership is taking flak for going against the obvious wishes of members ( and commonsense would dictate that seniors, above all, would resist Obamacare tooth and nail.)
The Israelis could have told these folks that Obama can't be trusted to honor agreements (either made by past administrations or by campaign promises by Obama himself before actually becoming President.)Of course, Israelis are used to being lied to since the Palestinians have honored none of the agreements including Oslo and even Egypt has gotten the Sinai and Israeli-discovered-and-developed oil without going past the coldest possible "peace" deal and without interdicting the flow of rockets and other arms to Gaza. Lyndon Johnson guaranteed free passage through the Gulf of Aqaba in 1957 when Nasser initiated a blockade and then reneged on that deal.
Actually, having thrown Jeremiah Wright and his own grandmother "under the bus", Obama might be queried about other things in his personal history: how he turned on the sponsor who first put him up for the Illinois Senate and got her disqualified from the ballot ( along with everyone else! ) or how he got elected "President of the Harvard Law Review" with the support of the conservatives among the editors.
When he tells the American public that his healthcare plan can't be attacked because it isn't specific yet but still whatever it is should be passed by Congress, he is saying "Trust me." Only the Far Left and such enthusiastic supporters as Fidel Castro, Chavez et al got what they expected from Obama. Others might be well-advised not trust him either before or after he makes a deal.
We see that Obamacare seems to have been endorsed by health insurance companies, by the American Medical Association, by the pharmaceutical companies and by the AARP (or Obama claimed it so they are fudging since they just lost 60,000 members and a competitive organization for seniors is being formed.) How did this happen? The answer is that the White House struck "deals" with each of these and they have participated in an ad campaign supporting Obamacare. A typical deal: the drug companies would "give up" $80B over ten years ( N.B. ten years is the maximum time period that the Congressional Budget Office is allowed to make projections so, when one hears that the "cost" is X, it's only X for the first ten years and likely to be much more than X for the decades beyond that.) and would be "guaranteed" not to have Medicare and other national health plans put drug supply out for bid ( as the VA evidently does.)What happened to this deal? Congress immediately denied responsibility for it or any willingness to honor it. Next is the deal supposedly struck by Karen Ignagni, head lobbyist for the health insurance companies
http://tinyurl.com/lrtomz
but Obama has turned on them as the evil villains in the situation.
Any deal with the AMA is nugatory because it only represents a sliver of the doctor population in the U.S.,any publicity is to the benefit of its "leadership", and any organization might wish to be at the table even when it itself is being served up. AARP? It has become an insurance company selling things to seniors rather than a representative of senior interests. Even so, the leadership is taking flak for going against the obvious wishes of members ( and commonsense would dictate that seniors, above all, would resist Obamacare tooth and nail.)
The Israelis could have told these folks that Obama can't be trusted to honor agreements (either made by past administrations or by campaign promises by Obama himself before actually becoming President.)Of course, Israelis are used to being lied to since the Palestinians have honored none of the agreements including Oslo and even Egypt has gotten the Sinai and Israeli-discovered-and-developed oil without going past the coldest possible "peace" deal and without interdicting the flow of rockets and other arms to Gaza. Lyndon Johnson guaranteed free passage through the Gulf of Aqaba in 1957 when Nasser initiated a blockade and then reneged on that deal.
Actually, having thrown Jeremiah Wright and his own grandmother "under the bus", Obama might be queried about other things in his personal history: how he turned on the sponsor who first put him up for the Illinois Senate and got her disqualified from the ballot ( along with everyone else! ) or how he got elected "President of the Harvard Law Review" with the support of the conservatives among the editors.
When he tells the American public that his healthcare plan can't be attacked because it isn't specific yet but still whatever it is should be passed by Congress, he is saying "Trust me." Only the Far Left and such enthusiastic supporters as Fidel Castro, Chavez et al got what they expected from Obama. Others might be well-advised not trust him either before or after he makes a deal.
Death Panels (or their precursors) are not far-fetched.
http://tinyurl.com/of6b56
The Death Book for Veterans Ex-soldiers don't need to be told they're a burden to society.By JIM TOWEY
... America's discomfort with end-of-life discussions threatens to derail his health-care reform, he might begin with his own Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). He will quickly discover how government bureaucrats are greasing the slippery slope that can start with cost containment but quickly become a systematic denial of care.
Last year, bureaucrats at the VA's National Center for Ethics in Health Care advocated a 52-page end-of-life planning document, "Your Life, Your Choices." It was first published in 1997 and later promoted as the VA's preferred living will throughout its vast network of hospitals and nursing homes. After the Bush White House took a look at how this document was treating complex health and moral issues, the VA suspended its use. Unfortunately, under President Obama, the VA has now resuscitated "Your Life, Your Choices."... primary author of this workbook? Dr. Robert Pearlman, ...who in 1996 advocated for physician-assisted suicid...and is known for his support of health-care rationing... presents end-of-life choices in a way aimed at steering users toward predetermined conclusions,... a worksheet on page 21 lists various scenarios and asks users to then decide whether their own life would be "not worth living."...a section which provocatively asks, "Have you ever heard anyone say, 'If I'm a vegetable, pull the plug'?" There also are guilt-inducing scenarios such as "I can no longer contribute to my family's well being," "I am a severe financial burden on my family" and that the vet's situation "causes severe emotional burden for my family."When the government can steer vulnerable individuals to conclude for themselves that life is not worth living, who needs a death panel?...only one organization was listed in the new version as a resource on advance directives: the Hemlock Society (now euphemistically known as "Compassion and Choices").
This hurry-up-and-die message is clear and unconscionable. ...a July 2009 VA directive instructs its primary care physicians to raise advance care planning with all VA patients and to refer them to "Your Life, Your Choices."...If President Obama is sincere in stating that he is not trying to cut costs by pressuring the disabled to forgo critical care, one good way to show that commitment is to walk two blocks from the Oval Office and pull the plug on "Your Life, Your Choices." He should make sure in the future that VA decisions are guided by values that treat the lives of our veterans as gifts, not burdens.//
Secretary of Veterans' Affairs Duckworth appeared on Sunday talk shows and made a pitiful defense saying that they NOW recommend that the pamphlet (still on the VA website) not be referred to. Until attention was drawn to this blatant effort to convince veterans to "end it all", the VA was still recommending this. When asked why she doesn't just remove reference to "Your Life, Your Choices" from the website, the answer was that it had to stay until revised but that a disclaimer to say that it was under revision was sufficient. //
Sarah and the Death Panels by Patrick J. Buchanan
“The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”Of Sarah Palin it may be said: The lady knows how to frame an issue. And while she has been fairly criticized for hyperbole about the end-of-life counselors in the House bill, she drew such attention to the provision that Democrats chose to dump it rather than debate it...we are undeniably headed for a medical system of rationed care that must inevitably deny care to some terminally ill and elderly, which will shorten their lives, perhaps by years.... Medicare is a system whereby 140 million working Americans pay 2.9 percent of all wages and salaries into a fund to pay for health care for 42 million mostly older Americans. And Medicare is already going bust.If Obamacare is passed, the cost of health care for today’s 47 million uninsured will also land on those 140 million. And if Obama puts 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens on a “path to citizenship,” as he promises, they, too, will have their health care provided by taxpayers....Now if a primary purpose of Obamacare is to “bend the curve” of soaring health care costs, and half of those costs are incurred in the last six months of life, and the number of seniors will grow by scores of millions, how do you cut costs without rationing care? And how do you ration care without denying millions of elderly and aged the prescriptions, procedures and operations they need to stay alive? ***Think how much you will save by killing people six months earlier than normally.****...Since he was diagnosed with brain cancer more than a year ago, Sen. Kennedy has had excellent care, including surgery and chemotherapy, which have kept him alive and, until very recently, active...In the future, will a man of Kennedy’s age, with brain cancer but without the means of offsetting his own health care costs, be kept alive, operated on, given chemotherapy — by a government obsessed with cutting health care costs?...Will there not be voices softly suggesting a quiet and merciful end? In Oregon, the law permits doctors to assist in the suicide of terminal patients who wish to end their lives. Let us assume numerous patients have Alzheimer’s and, so, cannot be part of the decision to end their lives. Who then makes the decision to continue or end life? Would it be unfair to call the decision-makers in those cases a death panel? ...Rationed care is coming, and the death panels will not be far behind.// http://tinyurl.com/m75vfj
The Death Book for Veterans Ex-soldiers don't need to be told they're a burden to society.By JIM TOWEY
... America's discomfort with end-of-life discussions threatens to derail his health-care reform, he might begin with his own Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). He will quickly discover how government bureaucrats are greasing the slippery slope that can start with cost containment but quickly become a systematic denial of care.
Last year, bureaucrats at the VA's National Center for Ethics in Health Care advocated a 52-page end-of-life planning document, "Your Life, Your Choices." It was first published in 1997 and later promoted as the VA's preferred living will throughout its vast network of hospitals and nursing homes. After the Bush White House took a look at how this document was treating complex health and moral issues, the VA suspended its use. Unfortunately, under President Obama, the VA has now resuscitated "Your Life, Your Choices."... primary author of this workbook? Dr. Robert Pearlman, ...who in 1996 advocated for physician-assisted suicid...and is known for his support of health-care rationing... presents end-of-life choices in a way aimed at steering users toward predetermined conclusions,... a worksheet on page 21 lists various scenarios and asks users to then decide whether their own life would be "not worth living."...a section which provocatively asks, "Have you ever heard anyone say, 'If I'm a vegetable, pull the plug'?" There also are guilt-inducing scenarios such as "I can no longer contribute to my family's well being," "I am a severe financial burden on my family" and that the vet's situation "causes severe emotional burden for my family."When the government can steer vulnerable individuals to conclude for themselves that life is not worth living, who needs a death panel?...only one organization was listed in the new version as a resource on advance directives: the Hemlock Society (now euphemistically known as "Compassion and Choices").
This hurry-up-and-die message is clear and unconscionable. ...a July 2009 VA directive instructs its primary care physicians to raise advance care planning with all VA patients and to refer them to "Your Life, Your Choices."...If President Obama is sincere in stating that he is not trying to cut costs by pressuring the disabled to forgo critical care, one good way to show that commitment is to walk two blocks from the Oval Office and pull the plug on "Your Life, Your Choices." He should make sure in the future that VA decisions are guided by values that treat the lives of our veterans as gifts, not burdens.//
Secretary of Veterans' Affairs Duckworth appeared on Sunday talk shows and made a pitiful defense saying that they NOW recommend that the pamphlet (still on the VA website) not be referred to. Until attention was drawn to this blatant effort to convince veterans to "end it all", the VA was still recommending this. When asked why she doesn't just remove reference to "Your Life, Your Choices" from the website, the answer was that it had to stay until revised but that a disclaimer to say that it was under revision was sufficient. //
Sarah and the Death Panels by Patrick J. Buchanan
“The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”Of Sarah Palin it may be said: The lady knows how to frame an issue. And while she has been fairly criticized for hyperbole about the end-of-life counselors in the House bill, she drew such attention to the provision that Democrats chose to dump it rather than debate it...we are undeniably headed for a medical system of rationed care that must inevitably deny care to some terminally ill and elderly, which will shorten their lives, perhaps by years.... Medicare is a system whereby 140 million working Americans pay 2.9 percent of all wages and salaries into a fund to pay for health care for 42 million mostly older Americans. And Medicare is already going bust.If Obamacare is passed, the cost of health care for today’s 47 million uninsured will also land on those 140 million. And if Obama puts 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens on a “path to citizenship,” as he promises, they, too, will have their health care provided by taxpayers....Now if a primary purpose of Obamacare is to “bend the curve” of soaring health care costs, and half of those costs are incurred in the last six months of life, and the number of seniors will grow by scores of millions, how do you cut costs without rationing care? And how do you ration care without denying millions of elderly and aged the prescriptions, procedures and operations they need to stay alive? ***Think how much you will save by killing people six months earlier than normally.****...Since he was diagnosed with brain cancer more than a year ago, Sen. Kennedy has had excellent care, including surgery and chemotherapy, which have kept him alive and, until very recently, active...In the future, will a man of Kennedy’s age, with brain cancer but without the means of offsetting his own health care costs, be kept alive, operated on, given chemotherapy — by a government obsessed with cutting health care costs?...Will there not be voices softly suggesting a quiet and merciful end? In Oregon, the law permits doctors to assist in the suicide of terminal patients who wish to end their lives. Let us assume numerous patients have Alzheimer’s and, so, cannot be part of the decision to end their lives. Who then makes the decision to continue or end life? Would it be unfair to call the decision-makers in those cases a death panel? ...Rationed care is coming, and the death panels will not be far behind.// http://tinyurl.com/m75vfj
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Is Obama's "Ramadan message" from or to?
http://tinyurl.com/l7tqez
****Except for one tiny reference to "my own Christian faith" it sounds like an ad for Islam, hardly necessary if directed only "to" the world Muslim community. Also, how does he get to speak on behalf of the "Muslim communities in all 50 states"?****
****Except for one tiny reference to "my own Christian faith" it sounds like an ad for Islam, hardly necessary if directed only "to" the world Muslim community. Also, how does he get to speak on behalf of the "Muslim communities in all 50 states"?****
Friday, August 21, 2009
The people's choice ( some people, that is.)
The scoop from Montana
This is from a woman who lives in Bozeman, Montana. Thought you would be interested in the truth about how his visits are orchestrated. Her husband is a former Navy pilot and Delta Airlines captain.
Hello All,
By now you have probably heard that President Obama came to Montana last Friday. However, there are many things that the major news has not covered. I feel that since Bill and I live here and we were at the airport on Friday I should share some facts with you. Whatever you decide to do with the information is up to you. If you chose to share this email with others I do ask that you DELETE my email address before you forward this on.
On Wednesday, August 5th it was announced locally that the President would be coming here. There are many groups here that are against his healthcare and huge spending so those groups began talking and deciding on what they were going to do. The White House would not release ANY details other than the date.
On about Tuesday Bill found out that they would be holding the "Town Hall" at the airport. (This is only because Bill knows EVERYONE at the airport) Our airport is actually located outside of Belgrade (tiny town) in a very remote location. Nothing is around there. They chose to use a hangar that is the most remotely located hangar. You could not pick a more remote location, and you can not get to it easily. It is totally secluded from the public.
FYI: We have many areas in Belgrade and Bozeman which could have held a large amount of folks with sufficient parking. (gymnasiums/auditoriums). All of which have chairs and tables, and would not have to be SHIPPED IN!!
During the week, cargo by the TONS was being shipped in constantly. Airport employees could not believe how it just kept coming. Though it was our President coming several expressed how excessive it was, especially during a recession.
Late Tuesday/early Wednesday the 12th, they said that tickets would be handed out on Thursday 9am at two locations and the president would be arriving around 12:30 Friday.
Thursday morning about 600 tickets were passed out. However, 1500 were printed at a Local printing shop per White House request. Hmmmm......900 tickets just DISAPPEARED.
This same morning someone called into the radio from the local UPS branch and said that THOUSANDS of Dollars of Lobster were shipped in for Obama. Montana has some of the best beef in the nation!!! And it would have been really wonderful to help out the local economy. Anyone heard of the Recession?? Just think...with all of the traveling the White House is doing.One can only imagine what else we are paying for.
On Friday Bill and I got out to the airport about 10:45am. The groups that wanted to protest Obama's spending and healthcare had gotten a permit to protest and that area was roped off. But that was not to be. A large bus carrying SEIU (Service Employees International Union) members drove up onto the area (illegal)and unloaded right there. It was quite a commotion and there were specifically 2 SEIU men trying to make trouble and start a fight. Police did get involved and arrested the one man but they said they did not have the manpower to remove the SEIU crowd.
The SEIU crowd was very organized and young. About 99% were under the age of 30 and they were not locals! They had bullhorns and PROFESSIONALLY made signs. Some even wore preprinted T-shirts. Oh, and Planned Parenthood folks were with them...
professing abortion rights with their T-shirts and preprinted signs. (BTW, all these folks did have a permit to protest in ANOTHER area)
Those against healthcare/spending moved away from the SEIU crowd to avoid confrontation. They were orderly and respectful. Even though SEIU kept coming over and walking through, continuing to be very intimidating and aggressive at the direction of the one SEIU man.
So we had Montana folks from ALL OVER the state with their homemade signs and their DOGS with homemade signs. We had cowboys, nurses, doctors you name it. There was even a guy from Texas who had been driving through. He found out about the occasion, went to the store, made a sign, and came to protest.
If you are wondering about the press.....Well, all of the major networks were over by that remote hangar I mentioned. They were conveniently parked on the other side of the buildings FAR away. None of these crowds were even visible to them. I have my doubts that they knew anything about the crowds.
We did have some local news media around us from this state and Idaho. Speaking of the local media..they were invited. However, all questions were to be turned into the White House in advance of the event. Wouldn't want anyone to have to think off the top of their head.
It was very obvious that it was meant to be totally controlled by the White House. Everything was orchestrated down to the last detail to make it appear that Montana is just crazy for Obama and government healthcare. Even those people that talked about their insurance woes........the White House called our local HRDC (Human Resource and Development Committee) and asked for names. Then the White House asked those folks to come. Smoke and mirrors...EVERYTHING was staged!!!!!!!!!!!
I am very dismayed about what I learned about our current White House. The amount of control and manipulation was unbelievable. I felt I was not living in the United States of America, more like the USSR!! I was physically nauseous. Bill and I have been around when Presidents or Heads of State visit. It has NEVER been like this. I am truly very frightened for our country. America needs your prayers and your voices. If you care about our country please get involved. Know the issues. And let Congress hear your voices again and again!! If they are willing to put forth so much effort to BULLY a small town one can only imagine what is going on in Washington DC. Scary!!
Kathy
Bozeman, Montana
This is from a woman who lives in Bozeman, Montana. Thought you would be interested in the truth about how his visits are orchestrated. Her husband is a former Navy pilot and Delta Airlines captain.
Hello All,
By now you have probably heard that President Obama came to Montana last Friday. However, there are many things that the major news has not covered. I feel that since Bill and I live here and we were at the airport on Friday I should share some facts with you. Whatever you decide to do with the information is up to you. If you chose to share this email with others I do ask that you DELETE my email address before you forward this on.
On Wednesday, August 5th it was announced locally that the President would be coming here. There are many groups here that are against his healthcare and huge spending so those groups began talking and deciding on what they were going to do. The White House would not release ANY details other than the date.
On about Tuesday Bill found out that they would be holding the "Town Hall" at the airport. (This is only because Bill knows EVERYONE at the airport) Our airport is actually located outside of Belgrade (tiny town) in a very remote location. Nothing is around there. They chose to use a hangar that is the most remotely located hangar. You could not pick a more remote location, and you can not get to it easily. It is totally secluded from the public.
FYI: We have many areas in Belgrade and Bozeman which could have held a large amount of folks with sufficient parking. (gymnasiums/auditoriums). All of which have chairs and tables, and would not have to be SHIPPED IN!!
During the week, cargo by the TONS was being shipped in constantly. Airport employees could not believe how it just kept coming. Though it was our President coming several expressed how excessive it was, especially during a recession.
Late Tuesday/early Wednesday the 12th, they said that tickets would be handed out on Thursday 9am at two locations and the president would be arriving around 12:30 Friday.
Thursday morning about 600 tickets were passed out. However, 1500 were printed at a Local printing shop per White House request. Hmmmm......900 tickets just DISAPPEARED.
This same morning someone called into the radio from the local UPS branch and said that THOUSANDS of Dollars of Lobster were shipped in for Obama. Montana has some of the best beef in the nation!!! And it would have been really wonderful to help out the local economy. Anyone heard of the Recession?? Just think...with all of the traveling the White House is doing.One can only imagine what else we are paying for.
On Friday Bill and I got out to the airport about 10:45am. The groups that wanted to protest Obama's spending and healthcare had gotten a permit to protest and that area was roped off. But that was not to be. A large bus carrying SEIU (Service Employees International Union) members drove up onto the area (illegal)and unloaded right there. It was quite a commotion and there were specifically 2 SEIU men trying to make trouble and start a fight. Police did get involved and arrested the one man but they said they did not have the manpower to remove the SEIU crowd.
The SEIU crowd was very organized and young. About 99% were under the age of 30 and they were not locals! They had bullhorns and PROFESSIONALLY made signs. Some even wore preprinted T-shirts. Oh, and Planned Parenthood folks were with them...
professing abortion rights with their T-shirts and preprinted signs. (BTW, all these folks did have a permit to protest in ANOTHER area)
Those against healthcare/spending moved away from the SEIU crowd to avoid confrontation. They were orderly and respectful. Even though SEIU kept coming over and walking through, continuing to be very intimidating and aggressive at the direction of the one SEIU man.
So we had Montana folks from ALL OVER the state with their homemade signs and their DOGS with homemade signs. We had cowboys, nurses, doctors you name it. There was even a guy from Texas who had been driving through. He found out about the occasion, went to the store, made a sign, and came to protest.
If you are wondering about the press.....Well, all of the major networks were over by that remote hangar I mentioned. They were conveniently parked on the other side of the buildings FAR away. None of these crowds were even visible to them. I have my doubts that they knew anything about the crowds.
We did have some local news media around us from this state and Idaho. Speaking of the local media..they were invited. However, all questions were to be turned into the White House in advance of the event. Wouldn't want anyone to have to think off the top of their head.
It was very obvious that it was meant to be totally controlled by the White House. Everything was orchestrated down to the last detail to make it appear that Montana is just crazy for Obama and government healthcare. Even those people that talked about their insurance woes........the White House called our local HRDC (Human Resource and Development Committee) and asked for names. Then the White House asked those folks to come. Smoke and mirrors...EVERYTHING was staged!!!!!!!!!!!
I am very dismayed about what I learned about our current White House. The amount of control and manipulation was unbelievable. I felt I was not living in the United States of America, more like the USSR!! I was physically nauseous. Bill and I have been around when Presidents or Heads of State visit. It has NEVER been like this. I am truly very frightened for our country. America needs your prayers and your voices. If you care about our country please get involved. Know the issues. And let Congress hear your voices again and again!! If they are willing to put forth so much effort to BULLY a small town one can only imagine what is going on in Washington DC. Scary!!
Kathy
Bozeman, Montana
About being soft on terrorists, we couldn't help notice...
Lockerbie Bomber Gets Hero's Welcome In Libya By JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press...the cheering crowd at a Tripoli airport... considered canceling a royal visit to Libya as a sign of displeasure****By Prince ANDREW! Big f...ing deal**** unlikely to damage steadily warming relations between the West and Libya...Thousands of young men greeted al-Megrahi's plane at a Tripoli airport after he was released from a Scottish prison Thursday on compassionate grounds. Some threw flower petals as the 57-year-old former Libyan intelligence agent stepped from the jet (he was hugged by Gaddaffi's son at the airport and by Gaddaffi himself later.). British Foreign Secretary David Miliband condemned the scenes as "deeply distressing," ...Gibbs said the White House had been in contact with Libyan authorities. "We've registered our outrage. We have discussed with the Libyans about what we think is appropriate....****One can only wonder what the WH thinks "appropriate" short of locking the guy up in Libyan prison.****...Announcing it Thursday, Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill ...stressed that he had made the decision only on narrow legal grounds. Cancer specialists have given al-Megrahi less than three months to live,...****Either he or Kenny MacAskill damn well better die within three months.****Al-Megrahi also was released just in time to arrive home for the start of the Muslim holiday of Ramadan.****Compassion or appeasement?****
...British officials also refuted claims the release was made to improve relations and bolster commercial ties...****They can hardly "refute" them although they denied them.****
Miliband said any suggestion that the release was spurred by commercial interests was "a slur both on myself and on the government."****A truthful slur, to be sure.**** While Britain does have oil interests in Libya — notably a $900 million exploration deal between BP PLC and Libya's National Oil Co. — they are small compared to investments by Italy's Eni SpA.****What does this have to do with anything? It just means the Brits can be bought off with a smaller bribe or threat.The fact has been reported that BPs and another Brit firm have been having troubles negotiating with Libyan authorities; it will be interesting to see if these troubles abate.****...The Libyan's lawyers have argued the attack was the result of an Iranian-financed Palestinian plot, and a 2007 Scottish judicial review of al-Megrahi's case found grounds for an appeal of his conviction.... They had hoped new details about the bombing would come out at a future trial...Al-Megrahi is free after serving just eight years....Over the next few years, Gadhafi renounced terrorism, dismantled Libya's secret nuclear program, accepted his government's responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and paid compensation to the victims' families. Western energy companies — including Britain's BP — then moved into Libya in an effort to tap the country's vast oil and gas wealth.
...British officials also refuted claims the release was made to improve relations and bolster commercial ties...****They can hardly "refute" them although they denied them.****
Miliband said any suggestion that the release was spurred by commercial interests was "a slur both on myself and on the government."****A truthful slur, to be sure.**** While Britain does have oil interests in Libya — notably a $900 million exploration deal between BP PLC and Libya's National Oil Co. — they are small compared to investments by Italy's Eni SpA.****What does this have to do with anything? It just means the Brits can be bought off with a smaller bribe or threat.The fact has been reported that BPs and another Brit firm have been having troubles negotiating with Libyan authorities; it will be interesting to see if these troubles abate.****...The Libyan's lawyers have argued the attack was the result of an Iranian-financed Palestinian plot, and a 2007 Scottish judicial review of al-Megrahi's case found grounds for an appeal of his conviction.... They had hoped new details about the bombing would come out at a future trial...Al-Megrahi is free after serving just eight years....Over the next few years, Gadhafi renounced terrorism, dismantled Libya's secret nuclear program, accepted his government's responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and paid compensation to the victims' families. Western energy companies — including Britain's BP — then moved into Libya in an effort to tap the country's vast oil and gas wealth.
Milk is "Yale Ale" for the pussies in New Haven.
****Remember Yale has such appreciation for Western Civilization that they had to return $20Million to the Bass Family because the faculty didn't want courses on Western Civ for which the money was donated.****
http://www.slate.com/id/2225504/
http://www.slate.com/id/2225504/
Wait 'til people consider national security, foreign policy and love of country.
Poll: Americans losing confidence in Obama
WASHINGTON – A new poll says that Americans, concerned over the future of health care reform and anxious about the growing federal budget deficit, are losing faith in President Barack Obama.
The Washington Post-ABC News survey found that less that half of Americans — 49 percent — say they believe the president will make the right decisions for the country. That's down from 60 percent at the 100-day mark of the Obama presidency.
The poll published Friday says Obama's overall approval is 57 percent, 12 points lower than it was at its peak in April. Fifty-three percent disapprove of the way he's handling the budget deficit and his approval on health care continues to deteriorate.
The national survey was conducted Aug. 13-17 and has a sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.
WASHINGTON – A new poll says that Americans, concerned over the future of health care reform and anxious about the growing federal budget deficit, are losing faith in President Barack Obama.
The Washington Post-ABC News survey found that less that half of Americans — 49 percent — say they believe the president will make the right decisions for the country. That's down from 60 percent at the 100-day mark of the Obama presidency.
The poll published Friday says Obama's overall approval is 57 percent, 12 points lower than it was at its peak in April. Fifty-three percent disapprove of the way he's handling the budget deficit and his approval on health care continues to deteriorate.
The national survey was conducted Aug. 13-17 and has a sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.
Capitulating to Obama would be disastrous.
Et tu, Netanyahu? By Caroline B. Glick
This week we discovered that we have been deceived. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's principled rejection of US President Barack Obama's bigoted demand that Israel bar Jews from building new homes and expanding existing ones in Judea and Samaria does not reflect his actual policy.
Housing and Construction Minister Ariel Attias let the cat out of the bag. Attias said that the government has been barring Jews from building in the areas since it took office four months ago in the hopes that by preemptively capitulating to US demands, the US will treat Israel better.
And that's not all. Today Netanyahu is reportedly working in earnest to reach a deal with the Obama administration that would formalize the government's effective construction ban through 2010. Netanyahu is set to finalize such a deal at his meeting with Obama's Middle East envoy George Mitchell in London next Wednesday.
Unfortunately, far from treating Israel better as a result of Netanyahu's willingness to capitulate on the fundamental right of Jews to live and build homes in the land of Israel, the Obama administration is planning to pocket Israel's concession and then up the ante. Administration officials have stated that their next move will be to set a date for a new international Middle East peace conference that Obama will chair. There, Israel will be isolated and relentlessly attacked as the US, the Arabs, the Europeans, the UN and the Russians all gang up on our representatives and demand that Israel accept the so-called "Arab peace plan."
That deceptively named plan, which Obama has all but adopted as his own, involves Israel committing national suicide in exchange for nothing. The Arab plan -- formerly the "Saudi Plan," and before that, the Tom Friedman "stick it to Israel 'peace' plan" -- calls for Israel to retreat to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines and expel hundreds of thousands of Jews from their homes in Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. It also involves Israel agreeing to cease being a Jewish state by accepting millions of foreign, hostile Arabs as citizens within its truncated borders. The day an Israeli government accepts the plan - which again will form the basis of the Obama "peace" conference" -- is the day that the State of Israel signs its own death warrant.
Then there is the other Obama plan in the works. Obama also intends to host an international summit on nuclear security for March 2010. Arab states are already pushing for Israel's nuclear program to be placed on the agenda. Together with Obama administration officials' calls for Israel to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty -- which would compel Israel to relinquish its purported nuclear arsenal -- and their stated interest in having Israel sign the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty -- which would arguably force Israel to allow international inspections of its nuclear facility in Dimona -- Obama's planned nuclear conclave will place Israel in an untenable position.
Recognizing the Obama administration's inherent and unprecedented hostility to Israel, Netanyahu sought to deflect its pressure by giving his speech at Bar Ilan University in June. There he gave his conditional acceptance of Obama's most cherished foreign policy goal -- the establishment of a Palestinian state in Israel's heartland.
Netanyahu's conditions -- that the Arabs generally and the Palestinians specifically recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state; that they relinquish their demand that Israel accept millions of hostile Arabs as citizens under the so-called "right of return;" that the Palestinian state be a "demilitarized" state, and that Arab states normalize their relations with Israel were supposed to put a monkey wrench in Obama's policy of pressuring Israel.
Since it is obvious that the Arabs do not accept these eminently reasonable conditions, Netanyahu presumed that Obama would be forced to stand down. What Netanyahu failed to take into consideration was the notion that Obama and the Arabs would not act in good faith -- that they would pretend to accept at least some of his demands in order to force him to accept all of their demands, and so keep US pressure relentlessly focused on Israel. Unfortunately, this is precisely what has happened.
Ahead of Obama's meeting Tuesday with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Al Quds al Arabi, reported that Obama has accepted Netanyahu's call for a demilitarized Palestinian state. Although Netanyahu is touting Obama's new position as evidence of his own diplomatic prowess, the fact is that Obama's new position is both disingenuous and meaningless.
Obama's supposed support for a demilitarized Palestinian state is mendacious on two counts. First, Palestinian society is already one of the most militarized societies in the world. According to the World Bank, 43 percent of wages paid by the Palestinian Authority go to Palestinian militias. Since Obama has never called for any fundamental reordering of Palestinian society or for a reform of the PA's budgetary priorities, it is obvious that he doesn't have a problem with a militarized Palestinian state.
The second reason his statements in support for a demilitarized Palestinian state are not credible is because one of the central pillars of the Obama administration's Palestinian policy is its involvement in training of the Fatah-led Palestinian army. US Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton is overseeing the training of this army in Jordan and pressuring Israel to expand its deployment in Judea and Samaria.
The US claims that the forces it is training will be responsible for counter-terror operations and regular police work, and therefore, it is wrong to say that Dayton is raising a Palestinian army. But even if this is true today, there is no reason not to assume that these forces will form the backbone of a future Palestinian army. After all, the Palestinian militias trained by the CIA in the 1990s were trained in counter-terror tactics. This then enabled them to serve as the commanders of the Palestinian terror apparatus from 2000 until 2004 when Israel finally defeated them. It is the uncertainty about these forces that renders Obama's statement meaningless.
And that gets to the heart of the problem with Netanyahu's conditional support for Palestinian statehood. Far from deflecting pressure on Israel to make further concessions, it trapped Israel into a position that serves none of its vital interests.
For Israel to secure its long-term vital national interests vis-a-vis the Palestinians, it doesn't need for the US and the Palestinians to declare they agree to a demilitarized state or for a Palestinian leader to announce that he recognizes Israel's right to exist or even agrees that Israel doesn't have to commit national suicide by accepting millions of Arab immigrants. For Israel to secure its national interests, Palestinian society needs to be fundamentally reorganized.
As we saw at the Fatah conclave in Bethlehem last week, even if Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas were to accept Netanyahu's conditions, he wouldn't be speaking for anyone but himself. Fatah's conclave -like Hamas's terror state in Gaza - gave Israel every reason to believe that the Palestinians will continue their war against Israel after pocketing their state in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. There is no Palestinian leader with any following that accepts Israel. Consequently, negotiating the establishment of a Palestinian state before Palestinian society is fundamentally changed is a recipe for disaster.
Furthermore, even if Netanyahu is right to seek an agreement with Mitchell next week, he showed poor negotiating skill by preemptively freezing Jewish construction. Domestically, Netanyahu has lost credibility now that the public knows that he misled it. And by preemptively capitulating, Netanyahu showed Obama that he is not a serious opponent. Why should Obama take Netanyahu's positions seriously if Netanyahu abandons them before Obama even begins to seriously challenge him?
Beyond the damage Netanyahu's actions have inflicted on his domestic and international credibility is the damage they have caused to Netanyahu's ability to refocus US attention and resolve where it belongs.
As Netanyahu has repeatedly stated, the Palestinian issue is a side issue. The greatest impediment to Middle East peace and the greatest threat to international security today is Iran's nuclear weapons program. A nuclear armed Iran will all but guarantee that the region will at best be plagued by continuous war, and at worst be destroyed in a nuclear conflagration.
Netanyahu had hoped that his conditional support for Palestinian statehood, and his current willingness to bar Jews from building homes in Judea and Samaria would neutralize US pressure on Israel and facilitate his efforts to convince Obama to recognize and deal rationally with the issue of Iran's nuclear weapons program. But as Ambassador Michael Oren made clear on Sunday, the opposite has occurred.
In an interview with CNN, Oren said that Israel is "far from even contemplating" a military strike against Iran's nuclear installations." He also said, "The government of Israel has supported President Obama in his approach to Iran, initially the engagement, the outreach to Iran."
From this it appears that Israel has not only made no headway in convincing the administration to take Iran seriously. It appears that Jerusalem has joined the administration in accepting a nuclear armed Iran.
It is possible that Oren purposely misrepresented Israel's position. But this too would be a disturbing turn of events. Israel gains nothing from lying. Oren's statement neutralizes domestic pressure on the administration to get serious about Iran. And if Israel attacks Iran's nuclear installations in the coming months, Oren's statement will undoubtedly be used by Israel's detractors to attack the government.
Some critics of Netanyahu from the Right like Ariel Mayor Ron Nachman claim that it may well be time to begin bringing down Netanyahu's government. They are wrong. We have been down this road before. In 1992 the Right brought down Yitzhak Shamir's government and brought the Rabin-Peres government to power and Yassir Arafat to the gates of Jerusalem. In 1999 the Right brought down the first Netanyahu government and gave Israel Camp David and the Palestinian terror war.
There is another way. It is being forged by the likes of Vice Premier Moshe Ya'alon on the one hand and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee on the other.
Ya'alon argues that not capitulating to American pressure is a viable policy option forIsrael. There is no reason to reach an agreement with Mitchell on the administration's bigoted demand that Jews not build in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. If the US wants to have a fight with Israel, a fight against American anti-Jewish discrimination is not a bad one for Israel to have.
Ya'alon's argument was borne out by Huckabee's visit this week to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. Huckabee's trip showed that the administration is not operating in a policy vacuum. There is plenty of strong American support for an Israeli government that would stand up to the administration on the Palestinian issue and Iran alike.
Netanyahu's policies have taken a wrong turn. But Netanyahu is not Tzipi Livni or Ehud Olmert. He is neither an ideologue nor an opportunist. He understands why what he is doing is wrong. He just needs to be convinced that he has another option.//
Huckabee on evangelicals, Palestinian state By Ben Harris · August 21, 2009 Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee gave an interview to CBN where he talks about a Palestinian state "not necessarily" in the same geographic region as Israel, and says evangelicals are better friends of Israel than American Jews. American Jews are divided over Israel, Huckabee says -- not over support for it per se, but about what is in Israel's best interests, what it ought to do to achieve peace and security.****Ain't that a bitch? But it's true. The best friends of Israel are those who value the defense of Western Civilization and Judeo-Christian principles. American Jews still cling to Obama, the Left, Democrats showing that they're the least parochial of identifiable groups ( i.e. not constituting an identity group ) but showing they're devoid of common sense and the instinct for survival that served the community well for three millennia. Actually, not quite: the European community never awakened to the threat of Hitler until the Holocaust was upon them. ****
"I don't find that kind of dichotomy generally within the Evangelical community," Huckabee said.
This week we discovered that we have been deceived. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's principled rejection of US President Barack Obama's bigoted demand that Israel bar Jews from building new homes and expanding existing ones in Judea and Samaria does not reflect his actual policy.
Housing and Construction Minister Ariel Attias let the cat out of the bag. Attias said that the government has been barring Jews from building in the areas since it took office four months ago in the hopes that by preemptively capitulating to US demands, the US will treat Israel better.
And that's not all. Today Netanyahu is reportedly working in earnest to reach a deal with the Obama administration that would formalize the government's effective construction ban through 2010. Netanyahu is set to finalize such a deal at his meeting with Obama's Middle East envoy George Mitchell in London next Wednesday.
Unfortunately, far from treating Israel better as a result of Netanyahu's willingness to capitulate on the fundamental right of Jews to live and build homes in the land of Israel, the Obama administration is planning to pocket Israel's concession and then up the ante. Administration officials have stated that their next move will be to set a date for a new international Middle East peace conference that Obama will chair. There, Israel will be isolated and relentlessly attacked as the US, the Arabs, the Europeans, the UN and the Russians all gang up on our representatives and demand that Israel accept the so-called "Arab peace plan."
That deceptively named plan, which Obama has all but adopted as his own, involves Israel committing national suicide in exchange for nothing. The Arab plan -- formerly the "Saudi Plan," and before that, the Tom Friedman "stick it to Israel 'peace' plan" -- calls for Israel to retreat to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines and expel hundreds of thousands of Jews from their homes in Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. It also involves Israel agreeing to cease being a Jewish state by accepting millions of foreign, hostile Arabs as citizens within its truncated borders. The day an Israeli government accepts the plan - which again will form the basis of the Obama "peace" conference" -- is the day that the State of Israel signs its own death warrant.
Then there is the other Obama plan in the works. Obama also intends to host an international summit on nuclear security for March 2010. Arab states are already pushing for Israel's nuclear program to be placed on the agenda. Together with Obama administration officials' calls for Israel to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty -- which would compel Israel to relinquish its purported nuclear arsenal -- and their stated interest in having Israel sign the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty -- which would arguably force Israel to allow international inspections of its nuclear facility in Dimona -- Obama's planned nuclear conclave will place Israel in an untenable position.
Recognizing the Obama administration's inherent and unprecedented hostility to Israel, Netanyahu sought to deflect its pressure by giving his speech at Bar Ilan University in June. There he gave his conditional acceptance of Obama's most cherished foreign policy goal -- the establishment of a Palestinian state in Israel's heartland.
Netanyahu's conditions -- that the Arabs generally and the Palestinians specifically recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state; that they relinquish their demand that Israel accept millions of hostile Arabs as citizens under the so-called "right of return;" that the Palestinian state be a "demilitarized" state, and that Arab states normalize their relations with Israel were supposed to put a monkey wrench in Obama's policy of pressuring Israel.
Since it is obvious that the Arabs do not accept these eminently reasonable conditions, Netanyahu presumed that Obama would be forced to stand down. What Netanyahu failed to take into consideration was the notion that Obama and the Arabs would not act in good faith -- that they would pretend to accept at least some of his demands in order to force him to accept all of their demands, and so keep US pressure relentlessly focused on Israel. Unfortunately, this is precisely what has happened.
Ahead of Obama's meeting Tuesday with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Al Quds al Arabi, reported that Obama has accepted Netanyahu's call for a demilitarized Palestinian state. Although Netanyahu is touting Obama's new position as evidence of his own diplomatic prowess, the fact is that Obama's new position is both disingenuous and meaningless.
Obama's supposed support for a demilitarized Palestinian state is mendacious on two counts. First, Palestinian society is already one of the most militarized societies in the world. According to the World Bank, 43 percent of wages paid by the Palestinian Authority go to Palestinian militias. Since Obama has never called for any fundamental reordering of Palestinian society or for a reform of the PA's budgetary priorities, it is obvious that he doesn't have a problem with a militarized Palestinian state.
The second reason his statements in support for a demilitarized Palestinian state are not credible is because one of the central pillars of the Obama administration's Palestinian policy is its involvement in training of the Fatah-led Palestinian army. US Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton is overseeing the training of this army in Jordan and pressuring Israel to expand its deployment in Judea and Samaria.
The US claims that the forces it is training will be responsible for counter-terror operations and regular police work, and therefore, it is wrong to say that Dayton is raising a Palestinian army. But even if this is true today, there is no reason not to assume that these forces will form the backbone of a future Palestinian army. After all, the Palestinian militias trained by the CIA in the 1990s were trained in counter-terror tactics. This then enabled them to serve as the commanders of the Palestinian terror apparatus from 2000 until 2004 when Israel finally defeated them. It is the uncertainty about these forces that renders Obama's statement meaningless.
And that gets to the heart of the problem with Netanyahu's conditional support for Palestinian statehood. Far from deflecting pressure on Israel to make further concessions, it trapped Israel into a position that serves none of its vital interests.
For Israel to secure its long-term vital national interests vis-a-vis the Palestinians, it doesn't need for the US and the Palestinians to declare they agree to a demilitarized state or for a Palestinian leader to announce that he recognizes Israel's right to exist or even agrees that Israel doesn't have to commit national suicide by accepting millions of Arab immigrants. For Israel to secure its national interests, Palestinian society needs to be fundamentally reorganized.
As we saw at the Fatah conclave in Bethlehem last week, even if Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas were to accept Netanyahu's conditions, he wouldn't be speaking for anyone but himself. Fatah's conclave -like Hamas's terror state in Gaza - gave Israel every reason to believe that the Palestinians will continue their war against Israel after pocketing their state in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. There is no Palestinian leader with any following that accepts Israel. Consequently, negotiating the establishment of a Palestinian state before Palestinian society is fundamentally changed is a recipe for disaster.
Furthermore, even if Netanyahu is right to seek an agreement with Mitchell next week, he showed poor negotiating skill by preemptively freezing Jewish construction. Domestically, Netanyahu has lost credibility now that the public knows that he misled it. And by preemptively capitulating, Netanyahu showed Obama that he is not a serious opponent. Why should Obama take Netanyahu's positions seriously if Netanyahu abandons them before Obama even begins to seriously challenge him?
Beyond the damage Netanyahu's actions have inflicted on his domestic and international credibility is the damage they have caused to Netanyahu's ability to refocus US attention and resolve where it belongs.
As Netanyahu has repeatedly stated, the Palestinian issue is a side issue. The greatest impediment to Middle East peace and the greatest threat to international security today is Iran's nuclear weapons program. A nuclear armed Iran will all but guarantee that the region will at best be plagued by continuous war, and at worst be destroyed in a nuclear conflagration.
Netanyahu had hoped that his conditional support for Palestinian statehood, and his current willingness to bar Jews from building homes in Judea and Samaria would neutralize US pressure on Israel and facilitate his efforts to convince Obama to recognize and deal rationally with the issue of Iran's nuclear weapons program. But as Ambassador Michael Oren made clear on Sunday, the opposite has occurred.
In an interview with CNN, Oren said that Israel is "far from even contemplating" a military strike against Iran's nuclear installations." He also said, "The government of Israel has supported President Obama in his approach to Iran, initially the engagement, the outreach to Iran."
From this it appears that Israel has not only made no headway in convincing the administration to take Iran seriously. It appears that Jerusalem has joined the administration in accepting a nuclear armed Iran.
It is possible that Oren purposely misrepresented Israel's position. But this too would be a disturbing turn of events. Israel gains nothing from lying. Oren's statement neutralizes domestic pressure on the administration to get serious about Iran. And if Israel attacks Iran's nuclear installations in the coming months, Oren's statement will undoubtedly be used by Israel's detractors to attack the government.
Some critics of Netanyahu from the Right like Ariel Mayor Ron Nachman claim that it may well be time to begin bringing down Netanyahu's government. They are wrong. We have been down this road before. In 1992 the Right brought down Yitzhak Shamir's government and brought the Rabin-Peres government to power and Yassir Arafat to the gates of Jerusalem. In 1999 the Right brought down the first Netanyahu government and gave Israel Camp David and the Palestinian terror war.
There is another way. It is being forged by the likes of Vice Premier Moshe Ya'alon on the one hand and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee on the other.
Ya'alon argues that not capitulating to American pressure is a viable policy option forIsrael. There is no reason to reach an agreement with Mitchell on the administration's bigoted demand that Jews not build in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. If the US wants to have a fight with Israel, a fight against American anti-Jewish discrimination is not a bad one for Israel to have.
Ya'alon's argument was borne out by Huckabee's visit this week to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. Huckabee's trip showed that the administration is not operating in a policy vacuum. There is plenty of strong American support for an Israeli government that would stand up to the administration on the Palestinian issue and Iran alike.
Netanyahu's policies have taken a wrong turn. But Netanyahu is not Tzipi Livni or Ehud Olmert. He is neither an ideologue nor an opportunist. He understands why what he is doing is wrong. He just needs to be convinced that he has another option.//
Huckabee on evangelicals, Palestinian state By Ben Harris · August 21, 2009 Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee gave an interview to CBN where he talks about a Palestinian state "not necessarily" in the same geographic region as Israel, and says evangelicals are better friends of Israel than American Jews. American Jews are divided over Israel, Huckabee says -- not over support for it per se, but about what is in Israel's best interests, what it ought to do to achieve peace and security.****Ain't that a bitch? But it's true. The best friends of Israel are those who value the defense of Western Civilization and Judeo-Christian principles. American Jews still cling to Obama, the Left, Democrats showing that they're the least parochial of identifiable groups ( i.e. not constituting an identity group ) but showing they're devoid of common sense and the instinct for survival that served the community well for three millennia. Actually, not quite: the European community never awakened to the threat of Hitler until the Holocaust was upon them. ****
"I don't find that kind of dichotomy generally within the Evangelical community," Huckabee said.
Chinese interest in Judaism and Jewish culture.
Professor Xu Xin is in the midst of writing a book on Judaism and Jewish culture for
Chinese readers as part of a large project on religions and culture. The Chinese government granted 8 million yuan to promote the project, which will cover 50 proposed books. Normally, this would not include Judaism as the Chinese government approves only five religions. However, in recognition of Xu's work in teaching and research on Judaism, it will be officially included in the series in addition to the five accepted,
recognized faiths. Xu Xin founded the China Judaic Studies Association and is at the
School of Religious Studies
Nanjing University
Nanjing 210093 China
Chinese readers as part of a large project on religions and culture. The Chinese government granted 8 million yuan to promote the project, which will cover 50 proposed books. Normally, this would not include Judaism as the Chinese government approves only five religions. However, in recognition of Xu's work in teaching and research on Judaism, it will be officially included in the series in addition to the five accepted,
recognized faiths. Xu Xin founded the China Judaic Studies Association and is at the
School of Religious Studies
Nanjing University
Nanjing 210093 China
The "moderate" Fatah
Fatah's Message - Caroline Glick
A central pillar of the Obama administration's Middle East policy paradigm was shattered at the Fatah conference in Bethlehem. At the conference, Fatah's supposedly feuding old guard and young guard were united in their refusal to reach an accommodation with Israel. Both old and young endorsed the use of terrorism against Israel. Both embraced the Aksa Martyrs Brigades terror group as a full-fledged Fatah organization. Both approved building a strategic alliance with Iran. The U.S. argues that by barring Jewish building, Israel will encourage the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority to moderate its policies and so engender an atmosphere conducive to a peaceful settlement of the Palestinian conflict with Israel. The Fatah conference put paid to that fiction. (Jerusalem Post)//
****How long before Obama-Clinton "urge" release of another terrorist and negotiating with him?****
Barghouti Mania - Editorial
Convicted murderer Marwan Barghouti was elected last week to the Fatah Central Committee. On May 20, 2004, Barghouti, commander of Fatah's Tanzim militia, was convicted by an Israeli civilian court on five counts of murder, including commissioning and organizing the attack on Tel Aviv's Seafood Market restaurant where three guests partaking in a bachelorette party were shot to death in 2002. Faith in Barghouti as peacemaker persists despite his self-acknowledged orchestration of the Second Intifada terror war and even recent inflammatory statements to the Fatah convention.
In this context it is instructive to listen to Kadima's Avi Dichter, a former Israel Security Agency head and ex-minister of public security. Barghouti "earned his status in PA society with the blood of murdered and wounded Israelis," said Dichter, a proven advocate of compromise with the Palestinians. "This man has amply proved his unreliability." (Jerusalem Post)
A central pillar of the Obama administration's Middle East policy paradigm was shattered at the Fatah conference in Bethlehem. At the conference, Fatah's supposedly feuding old guard and young guard were united in their refusal to reach an accommodation with Israel. Both old and young endorsed the use of terrorism against Israel. Both embraced the Aksa Martyrs Brigades terror group as a full-fledged Fatah organization. Both approved building a strategic alliance with Iran. The U.S. argues that by barring Jewish building, Israel will encourage the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority to moderate its policies and so engender an atmosphere conducive to a peaceful settlement of the Palestinian conflict with Israel. The Fatah conference put paid to that fiction. (Jerusalem Post)//
****How long before Obama-Clinton "urge" release of another terrorist and negotiating with him?****
Barghouti Mania - Editorial
Convicted murderer Marwan Barghouti was elected last week to the Fatah Central Committee. On May 20, 2004, Barghouti, commander of Fatah's Tanzim militia, was convicted by an Israeli civilian court on five counts of murder, including commissioning and organizing the attack on Tel Aviv's Seafood Market restaurant where three guests partaking in a bachelorette party were shot to death in 2002. Faith in Barghouti as peacemaker persists despite his self-acknowledged orchestration of the Second Intifada terror war and even recent inflammatory statements to the Fatah convention.
In this context it is instructive to listen to Kadima's Avi Dichter, a former Israel Security Agency head and ex-minister of public security. Barghouti "earned his status in PA society with the blood of murdered and wounded Israelis," said Dichter, a proven advocate of compromise with the Palestinians. "This man has amply proved his unreliability." (Jerusalem Post)
Iran Defense Minister wanted by Interpol. Is he engageable?
New Iran Defense Minister Wanted in '94 Attack on Argentina Jewish Center - Eli Lake Ahmad Vahidi, nominated Thursday by President Ahmadinejad to serve as Iran's defense minister, is a suspected international terrorist sought by Interpol in connection with a deadly 1994 attack on a Jewish community center in Argentina. Vahidi, a former commander of the elite unit of the Revolutionary Guard known as the Quds Force, was listed with four other Iranian officials on Interpol's most-wanted list in 2007 at the request of Argentine prosecutors.
Kenneth Katzman, a senior analyst at the Congressional Research Service, said Vahidi is also suspected of having played a role in a 1996 attack on the Khobar Towers U.S. Air Force barracks in Saudi Arabia. "Vahidi was commander of the Quds Force during the late 1980s to early 1990s, and his choice certainly sends a very strong signal that Ahmadinejad plans to continue, and maybe even accelerate, Iran's material support for pro-Iranian parties and militias in the region," Katzman said.
Vahidi's "reputed intimate involvement in various acts of terrorism, particularly against Argentina and the United States, makes his selection especially flagrant," said Kenneth Piernick, a former chief of the FBI's Iran-Hizbullah unit. "This does not look like an unclenched fist." Malcolm Hoenlein, vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said the elevation of Vahidi "is reflective of the hard-line nature of the new Cabinet." "This should heighten concerns about Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons," he added. (Washington Times)
Kenneth Katzman, a senior analyst at the Congressional Research Service, said Vahidi is also suspected of having played a role in a 1996 attack on the Khobar Towers U.S. Air Force barracks in Saudi Arabia. "Vahidi was commander of the Quds Force during the late 1980s to early 1990s, and his choice certainly sends a very strong signal that Ahmadinejad plans to continue, and maybe even accelerate, Iran's material support for pro-Iranian parties and militias in the region," Katzman said.
Vahidi's "reputed intimate involvement in various acts of terrorism, particularly against Argentina and the United States, makes his selection especially flagrant," said Kenneth Piernick, a former chief of the FBI's Iran-Hizbullah unit. "This does not look like an unclenched fist." Malcolm Hoenlein, vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said the elevation of Vahidi "is reflective of the hard-line nature of the new Cabinet." "This should heighten concerns about Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons," he added. (Washington Times)
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Barack-Hillary endorse tyrants,terrorist regimes in Honduras, the Holy Land and Iran but can get stiffed.
****The US State Department seems to have set up an embassy to the Palestine Authority, effectively recognizing a capital in East Jerusalem without honoring a Congressional directive to put the U.S. Embassy in West Jerusalem and recognize it as the capital of Israel.
It is clear that Obama-Clinton have turned a deaf ear to the rebels in Iran and have engaged again with the tyrannical regime of Ahmadinejad.
When Zelaya, the wannabe Chavez in Honduras, was thrown out by the their Supreme Court and Congress, Obama-Clinton took... his side. Now the Honduran government seems to have successfully thumbed their nose at Obama-Clinton and upheld their own democracy and right to determine their own affairs. It should serve as a model for both Israel and the Iranian rebels that they can do the right thing without, and even despite, the weirdos from Obamaland.****
http://tinyurl.com/mywh4n
http://tinyurl.com/nctu3z
It is clear that Obama-Clinton have turned a deaf ear to the rebels in Iran and have engaged again with the tyrannical regime of Ahmadinejad.
When Zelaya, the wannabe Chavez in Honduras, was thrown out by the their Supreme Court and Congress, Obama-Clinton took... his side. Now the Honduran government seems to have successfully thumbed their nose at Obama-Clinton and upheld their own democracy and right to determine their own affairs. It should serve as a model for both Israel and the Iranian rebels that they can do the right thing without, and even despite, the weirdos from Obamaland.****
http://tinyurl.com/mywh4n
http://tinyurl.com/nctu3z
MSNBC News lies to foment racial tensions.
http://tinyurl.com/lf699n
Check out the videos where Contessa Brewer of MSNBC tries to imply, a black man (whom they purposefully crop out) is really a white person.
“A man at a pro-health care reform rally…wore a semiautomatic assault rifle on his shoulder and a pistol on his hip….there are questions about whether this has racial overtones….white people showing up with guns.”
The ABC news clip of the same event shows the (unique) gun-toting attendee ( at Phoenix ) to be a black man!! Now there isn't the slightest implication that this person was dangerous ( he was making a statement about Second Amendment Rights and the "carry laws" in Arizona ) but to imply he was white and go on to make racial inferences about the danger to Obama from white people goes beyond dishonesty and unprofessionalism. Anyone at MSNBC aware of this fraud should be fired and, if MSNBC won't, FoxNews should reduce their ratings to zero.
Check out the videos where Contessa Brewer of MSNBC tries to imply, a black man (whom they purposefully crop out) is really a white person.
“A man at a pro-health care reform rally…wore a semiautomatic assault rifle on his shoulder and a pistol on his hip….there are questions about whether this has racial overtones….white people showing up with guns.”
The ABC news clip of the same event shows the (unique) gun-toting attendee ( at Phoenix ) to be a black man!! Now there isn't the slightest implication that this person was dangerous ( he was making a statement about Second Amendment Rights and the "carry laws" in Arizona ) but to imply he was white and go on to make racial inferences about the danger to Obama from white people goes beyond dishonesty and unprofessionalism. Anyone at MSNBC aware of this fraud should be fired and, if MSNBC won't, FoxNews should reduce their ratings to zero.
Lockerbie bomber released and gets hero's welcome in Libya.
http://tinyurl.com/nulmqp
Terrorism is alive, well and celebrated in Libya but Gaddafi did pay $3Billion and (ostensibly) gave up his nukes. (Oh, well; OJ's acquittal was greeted with similar celebration in some quarters.) Why, oh why, did Scotland let this guy go? Or was it Gordon Brown using the "devolved" Scottish government to deflect his own feckless seeking after Libyan oil concessions for Brit companies? Perhaps he is kowtowing to the growing terrorist constituency in the U.K.
Terrorism is alive, well and celebrated in Libya but Gaddafi did pay $3Billion and (ostensibly) gave up his nukes. (Oh, well; OJ's acquittal was greeted with similar celebration in some quarters.) Why, oh why, did Scotland let this guy go? Or was it Gordon Brown using the "devolved" Scottish government to deflect his own feckless seeking after Libyan oil concessions for Brit companies? Perhaps he is kowtowing to the growing terrorist constituency in the U.K.
A useful reminder about AGW (anthropic global warming)
Global Warming Joseph L. Shaefer
Dr. Michael Crichton ...was a scientist by training, by which I mean he was both curious about the world around him and empirical in his observations about it...I submit that curiosity and empiricism are under-rated; loudness and loutishness are over-rated.
The Wall Street Journal reprinted parts of a lecture Dr. Crichton gave in 2003. I have excerpted a couple paragraphs of that Journal article below. It’s important to note that Dr. Crichton never claimed that global warming is not an issue -- merely that more research is needed before we draw definitive and arrogant conclusions that we can control the variables contributing to climate change.
I share Dr. Crichton’s skepticism. Skepticism is a necessary precursor to empiricism. Dr. Crichton: I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had... Let's be clear: The work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world… To an outsider, the most significant innovation in the global warming controversy is the overt reliance that is being placed on models… As if they were themselves a reality. And indeed they are, when we are projecting forward. There can be no observational data about the year 2100. There are only model runs...
Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future? ...Has everybody lost their minds?”
Clearly, a lot of people have. I was on the ground in the midst of Saddam Hussein’s temper tantrum at the conclusion of the First Gulf War, when he set ablaze all of Kuwait’s oil fields he could get a torch to. (“If I can’t have them, no one can.”) At the time, Eco-fringies declared this the last nail in the world’s coffin; that the carbon released from such a massive catastrophe would throw us all into (choose one) a global icebox or a global inferno. Media personality Carl Sagan predicted those oil fires would produce a nuclear winter, a "year without a summer," and would whither crops around the world. It didn’t happen. Man’s puny efforts to match the earthquake every 20 seconds, the hurricane every few days, or the billowing sulfurous gases of a major volcanic eruption that Nature produces on this active and capricious planet of ours were as flimsy as gossamer.
To people who say they “know” that climate change will be catastrophic and who “know” that reducing one variable, man’s output of carbon, is primarily responsible for this upcoming catastrophe, and say they “know” what the world will look like in 50 years if we don’t spend all our resources to change this horrid and fearsome outcome, I say: they’re full of hooey.
They can’t even predict what their teenager will look like in 12 months...a single teenager is a complex organism. Sort of like an entire planet’s ecosystem we don’t have the faintest beginnings of understanding…
Dr. Michael Crichton ...was a scientist by training, by which I mean he was both curious about the world around him and empirical in his observations about it...I submit that curiosity and empiricism are under-rated; loudness and loutishness are over-rated.
The Wall Street Journal reprinted parts of a lecture Dr. Crichton gave in 2003. I have excerpted a couple paragraphs of that Journal article below. It’s important to note that Dr. Crichton never claimed that global warming is not an issue -- merely that more research is needed before we draw definitive and arrogant conclusions that we can control the variables contributing to climate change.
I share Dr. Crichton’s skepticism. Skepticism is a necessary precursor to empiricism. Dr. Crichton: I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had... Let's be clear: The work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world… To an outsider, the most significant innovation in the global warming controversy is the overt reliance that is being placed on models… As if they were themselves a reality. And indeed they are, when we are projecting forward. There can be no observational data about the year 2100. There are only model runs...
Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future? ...Has everybody lost their minds?”
Clearly, a lot of people have. I was on the ground in the midst of Saddam Hussein’s temper tantrum at the conclusion of the First Gulf War, when he set ablaze all of Kuwait’s oil fields he could get a torch to. (“If I can’t have them, no one can.”) At the time, Eco-fringies declared this the last nail in the world’s coffin; that the carbon released from such a massive catastrophe would throw us all into (choose one) a global icebox or a global inferno. Media personality Carl Sagan predicted those oil fires would produce a nuclear winter, a "year without a summer," and would whither crops around the world. It didn’t happen. Man’s puny efforts to match the earthquake every 20 seconds, the hurricane every few days, or the billowing sulfurous gases of a major volcanic eruption that Nature produces on this active and capricious planet of ours were as flimsy as gossamer.
To people who say they “know” that climate change will be catastrophic and who “know” that reducing one variable, man’s output of carbon, is primarily responsible for this upcoming catastrophe, and say they “know” what the world will look like in 50 years if we don’t spend all our resources to change this horrid and fearsome outcome, I say: they’re full of hooey.
They can’t even predict what their teenager will look like in 12 months...a single teenager is a complex organism. Sort of like an entire planet’s ecosystem we don’t have the faintest beginnings of understanding…
Obamacare IS rationing and worse than even the status quo.
****Doing sensible things is thwarted by Obama's constituencies of tort lawyers and unions. Rationing is what's left and will fall primarily on the backs of seniors so they must be lied to.****
http://tinyurl.com/n7nztf
ObamaCare Is All About Rationing Overspending is far preferable to artificially limiting the availability of new procedures and technologies. By MARTIN FELDSTEIN
...rationing health care is central to President Barack Obama's health plan. The Obama strategy is to reduce health costs by rationing the services that we and future generations of patients will receive....The president has emphasized the importance of limiting services to "health care that works."...Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) and to finance a federal CER advisory council to implement that idea. That could morph over time into a cost-control mechanism...In the British national health service, a government agency approves only those expensive treatments that add at least one Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY) per £30,000 (about $49,685) of additional health-care spending. If a treatment costs more per QALY, the health service will not pay for it....not only deny lifesaving care but would also cast a pall over medical researchers who would fear that government experts might reject their discoveries as "too expensive."...use rationing to limit health care is to rein in the government's exploding health-care budget. Government now pays for nearly half of all health care in the U.S., primarily through the Medicare and Medicaid programs...government outlays for Medicare and Medicaid to rise to 15% of GDP by 2040 from 6% now...The rising cost of medical treatments would not be such a large burden on future budgets if the government reduced its share in the financing of health services....no reason why limiting outlays on Medicare and Medicaid requires cutting health services for the rest of the population...misplaced medical egalitarianism.
...our tax rules lead to the wrong kind of insurance...not surprising that employers and employees have opted for very generous health insurance with very low copayment rates...evidence on health-care demand implies that the current tax rules raise private health-care spending by as much as 35%....eliminate the tax rule that is causing the excessive insurance...more cost-conscious behavior that would lower health-care spending...there are substantial differences in the priority that different people attach to health....The unions are particularly vehement in their opposition to any reduction in the tax subsidy for health insurance...political choice is between government rationing and continued high levels of health-care spending....rationing would be much worse than excessive care.
...Like virtually every economist I know, I believe the right approach to limiting health spending is by reforming the tax rules. But if that is not going to happen, let's not destroy the high quality of the best of American health care by government rationing and misplaced egalitarianism.
http://tinyurl.com/n7nztf
ObamaCare Is All About Rationing Overspending is far preferable to artificially limiting the availability of new procedures and technologies. By MARTIN FELDSTEIN
...rationing health care is central to President Barack Obama's health plan. The Obama strategy is to reduce health costs by rationing the services that we and future generations of patients will receive....The president has emphasized the importance of limiting services to "health care that works."...Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) and to finance a federal CER advisory council to implement that idea. That could morph over time into a cost-control mechanism...In the British national health service, a government agency approves only those expensive treatments that add at least one Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY) per £30,000 (about $49,685) of additional health-care spending. If a treatment costs more per QALY, the health service will not pay for it....not only deny lifesaving care but would also cast a pall over medical researchers who would fear that government experts might reject their discoveries as "too expensive."...use rationing to limit health care is to rein in the government's exploding health-care budget. Government now pays for nearly half of all health care in the U.S., primarily through the Medicare and Medicaid programs...government outlays for Medicare and Medicaid to rise to 15% of GDP by 2040 from 6% now...The rising cost of medical treatments would not be such a large burden on future budgets if the government reduced its share in the financing of health services....no reason why limiting outlays on Medicare and Medicaid requires cutting health services for the rest of the population...misplaced medical egalitarianism.
...our tax rules lead to the wrong kind of insurance...not surprising that employers and employees have opted for very generous health insurance with very low copayment rates...evidence on health-care demand implies that the current tax rules raise private health-care spending by as much as 35%....eliminate the tax rule that is causing the excessive insurance...more cost-conscious behavior that would lower health-care spending...there are substantial differences in the priority that different people attach to health....The unions are particularly vehement in their opposition to any reduction in the tax subsidy for health insurance...political choice is between government rationing and continued high levels of health-care spending....rationing would be much worse than excessive care.
...Like virtually every economist I know, I believe the right approach to limiting health spending is by reforming the tax rules. But if that is not going to happen, let's not destroy the high quality of the best of American health care by government rationing and misplaced egalitarianism.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Some sensible and doable alternatives to Obamacare.
The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare Eight things we can do to improve health care without adding to the deficit. By JOHN MACKEY
"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money." —Margaret Thatcher// With a projected $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009, several trillions more in deficits projected over the next decade, and with both Medicare and Social Security entitlement spending about to ratchet up several notches over the next 15 years as Baby Boomers become eligible for both, we are rapidly running out of other people's money. These deficits are simply not sustainable. They are either going to result in unprecedented new taxes and inflation, or they will bankrupt us.
While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system. Instead, we should be trying to achieve reforms by moving in the opposite direction—toward less government control and more individual empowerment. Here are eight reforms that would greatly lower the cost of health care for everyone:
• Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs). The combination of high-deductible health insurance and HSAs is one solution that could solve many of our health-care problems. For example, Whole Foods Market pays 100% of the premiums for all our team members who work 30 hours or more per week (about 89% of all team members) for our high-deductible health-insurance plan. We also provide up to $1,800 per year in additional health-care dollars through deposits into employees' Personal Wellness Accounts to spend as they choose on their own health and wellness.Money not spent in one year rolls over to the next and grows over time. Our team members therefore spend their own health-care dollars until the annual deductible is covered (about $2,500) and the insurance plan kicks in. This creates incentives to spend the first $2,500 more carefully. Our plan's costs are much lower than typical health insurance, while providing a very high degree of worker satisfaction.
• Equalize the tax laws so that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not. This is unfair.
• Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.****There is a nuance in that healthcare costs vary geographically but premium adjustments could account for that.****
• Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.
• Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.****And through the need for "defensive" medicine. There should be "safe harbor" protections for practitioners who follow protocols. Not everything bad that happens is someone's fault. This simple fact flies in the face of the American tort lawyer system and appeals to the emotions of juries who are heedless of facts and the law.****
• Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total cost of their last doctor's visit and how that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without knowing how much they will cost us? ****The system is complicated by healthcare providers using "retail" prices that almost no-one pays except the poor sucker who attempts to pay cash without an insurance-company-negotiated price schedule ( usually a multiple of Medicare reimbursement rates ). American healthcare might be the only circumstance where a cash payer gets a discount of (not more than) 30% (from the "retail price") and effectively pays an enormous premium over paying through insurance.****
• Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and responsibility.****Medicare was intended to provide INSURANCE against catastrophic costs of major medical incidents attendant to growing old. It should not emphasize expected "maintenance" procedures and meds. The supposed PR about "preventive medicine" goes against this and is more fluff than reality. Screening procedures, for example, are not cost-effective for the aggregate population but are useful for the individual, not as money-saving but as life-preserving.****
• Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren't covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?
Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That's because there isn't any. This "right" has never existed in America
Even in countries like Canada and the U.K., there is no intrinsic right to health care. Rather, citizens in these countries are told by government bureaucrats what health-care treatments they are eligible to receive and when they can receive them. All countries with socialized medicine ration health care by forcing their citizens to wait in lines to receive scarce treatments.
Although Canada has a population smaller than California, 830,000 Canadians are currently waiting to be admitted to a hospital or to get treatment, according to a report last month in Investor's Business Daily. In England, the waiting list is 1.8 million.
At Whole Foods we allow our team members to vote on what benefits they most want the company to fund. Our Canadian and British employees express their benefit preferences very clearly—they want supplemental health-care dollars that they can control and spend themselves without permission from their governments. Why would they want such additional health-care benefit dollars if they already have an "intrinsic right to health care"? The answer is clear—no such right truly exists in either Canada or the U.K.—or in any other country.
Rather than increase government spending and control, we need to address the root causes of poor health. This begins with the realization that every American adult is responsible for his or her own health.
Unfortunately many of our health-care problems are self-inflicted: two-thirds of Americans are now overweight and one-third are obese. Most of the diseases that kill us and account for about 70% of all health-care spending—heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and obesity—are mostly preventable through proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices.
Recent scientific and medical evidence shows that a diet consisting of foods that are plant-based, nutrient dense and low-fat will help prevent and often reverse most degenerative diseases that kill us and are expensive to treat. We should be able to live largely disease-free lives until we are well into our 90s and even past 100 years of age.
Health-care reform is very important. Whatever reforms are enacted it is essential that they be financially responsible, and that we have the freedom to choose doctors and the health-care services that best suit our own unique set of lifestyle choices. We are all responsible for our own lives and our own health. We should take that responsibility very seriously and use our freedom to make wise lifestyle choices that will protect our health. Doing so will enrich our lives and will help create a vibrant and sustainable American society.//Mr. Mackey is co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc.
Copyrig
"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money." —Margaret Thatcher// With a projected $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009, several trillions more in deficits projected over the next decade, and with both Medicare and Social Security entitlement spending about to ratchet up several notches over the next 15 years as Baby Boomers become eligible for both, we are rapidly running out of other people's money. These deficits are simply not sustainable. They are either going to result in unprecedented new taxes and inflation, or they will bankrupt us.
While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system. Instead, we should be trying to achieve reforms by moving in the opposite direction—toward less government control and more individual empowerment. Here are eight reforms that would greatly lower the cost of health care for everyone:
• Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs). The combination of high-deductible health insurance and HSAs is one solution that could solve many of our health-care problems. For example, Whole Foods Market pays 100% of the premiums for all our team members who work 30 hours or more per week (about 89% of all team members) for our high-deductible health-insurance plan. We also provide up to $1,800 per year in additional health-care dollars through deposits into employees' Personal Wellness Accounts to spend as they choose on their own health and wellness.Money not spent in one year rolls over to the next and grows over time. Our team members therefore spend their own health-care dollars until the annual deductible is covered (about $2,500) and the insurance plan kicks in. This creates incentives to spend the first $2,500 more carefully. Our plan's costs are much lower than typical health insurance, while providing a very high degree of worker satisfaction.
• Equalize the tax laws so that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not. This is unfair.
• Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.****There is a nuance in that healthcare costs vary geographically but premium adjustments could account for that.****
• Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.
• Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.****And through the need for "defensive" medicine. There should be "safe harbor" protections for practitioners who follow protocols. Not everything bad that happens is someone's fault. This simple fact flies in the face of the American tort lawyer system and appeals to the emotions of juries who are heedless of facts and the law.****
• Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total cost of their last doctor's visit and how that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without knowing how much they will cost us? ****The system is complicated by healthcare providers using "retail" prices that almost no-one pays except the poor sucker who attempts to pay cash without an insurance-company-negotiated price schedule ( usually a multiple of Medicare reimbursement rates ). American healthcare might be the only circumstance where a cash payer gets a discount of (not more than) 30% (from the "retail price") and effectively pays an enormous premium over paying through insurance.****
• Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and responsibility.****Medicare was intended to provide INSURANCE against catastrophic costs of major medical incidents attendant to growing old. It should not emphasize expected "maintenance" procedures and meds. The supposed PR about "preventive medicine" goes against this and is more fluff than reality. Screening procedures, for example, are not cost-effective for the aggregate population but are useful for the individual, not as money-saving but as life-preserving.****
• Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren't covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?
Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That's because there isn't any. This "right" has never existed in America
Even in countries like Canada and the U.K., there is no intrinsic right to health care. Rather, citizens in these countries are told by government bureaucrats what health-care treatments they are eligible to receive and when they can receive them. All countries with socialized medicine ration health care by forcing their citizens to wait in lines to receive scarce treatments.
Although Canada has a population smaller than California, 830,000 Canadians are currently waiting to be admitted to a hospital or to get treatment, according to a report last month in Investor's Business Daily. In England, the waiting list is 1.8 million.
At Whole Foods we allow our team members to vote on what benefits they most want the company to fund. Our Canadian and British employees express their benefit preferences very clearly—they want supplemental health-care dollars that they can control and spend themselves without permission from their governments. Why would they want such additional health-care benefit dollars if they already have an "intrinsic right to health care"? The answer is clear—no such right truly exists in either Canada or the U.K.—or in any other country.
Rather than increase government spending and control, we need to address the root causes of poor health. This begins with the realization that every American adult is responsible for his or her own health.
Unfortunately many of our health-care problems are self-inflicted: two-thirds of Americans are now overweight and one-third are obese. Most of the diseases that kill us and account for about 70% of all health-care spending—heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and obesity—are mostly preventable through proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices.
Recent scientific and medical evidence shows that a diet consisting of foods that are plant-based, nutrient dense and low-fat will help prevent and often reverse most degenerative diseases that kill us and are expensive to treat. We should be able to live largely disease-free lives until we are well into our 90s and even past 100 years of age.
Health-care reform is very important. Whatever reforms are enacted it is essential that they be financially responsible, and that we have the freedom to choose doctors and the health-care services that best suit our own unique set of lifestyle choices. We are all responsible for our own lives and our own health. We should take that responsibility very seriously and use our freedom to make wise lifestyle choices that will protect our health. Doing so will enrich our lives and will help create a vibrant and sustainable American society.//Mr. Mackey is co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc.
Copyrig
There is no program so bad that government implementation can't make it worse.
http://tinyurl.com/nq2gbl
The stupid Cash for Clunkers program can't get out of its own way.
http://tinyurl.com/lcuv32
The ever-popular government monopoly on first-class mail
The stupid Cash for Clunkers program can't get out of its own way.
http://tinyurl.com/lcuv32
The ever-popular government monopoly on first-class mail
Obama told us who his "advisers" were but does he listen?
****Obama specified that Warren Buffett and Paul Volcker were his financial advisers which seemed a good thing because he was remarkably ignorant about economic matters. The question now is whether he listens carefully and with some sophistication, or, does he use advisers like a Chinese menu, taking one bit from Column A and another from Column B without understanding the whole picture? He certainly seems not to have understood that the excuse of a down economy doesn't justify spending on the wrong things ( e.g. the Democratic wish list accumulated over decades )and, above all, even though he got used to using the word "trillion" cavalierly, it doesn't mean that the debt doesn't have enormous consequences.****
Buffett: We're Going to Be Crushed Under Mountain of Debt Aug 19, 2009 by Henry Blodget
A highly influential American has finally hit the panic button about the tremendous mountain of debt the country is piling up.
Last year, Warren Buffett says, we were justified in using any means necessary to stave off another Great Depression. Now that the economy is beginning to recover, however, we need to curtail our out-of-control spending, or we'll destroy the value of the dollar and many Americans' life savings. Some not-so-fun facts from Buffett's editorial today in the New York Times:
Congress is now spending 185% of what it takes in
Our deficit is a post WWII record of 13% of GDP
Our debt is growing by 1% a month
We are borrowing $1.8 trillion a year
$1.8 trillion is a lot of money. Even if the Chinese lend us $400 billion a year and Americans save a remarkable $500 billion and lend it to the government, we'll still need another $900 billion.
So, where's it going to come from? Most likely the printing press. And, ultimately, Buffett says, that will destroy the value of the dollar.
Buffett: We're Going to Be Crushed Under Mountain of Debt Aug 19, 2009 by Henry Blodget
A highly influential American has finally hit the panic button about the tremendous mountain of debt the country is piling up.
Last year, Warren Buffett says, we were justified in using any means necessary to stave off another Great Depression. Now that the economy is beginning to recover, however, we need to curtail our out-of-control spending, or we'll destroy the value of the dollar and many Americans' life savings. Some not-so-fun facts from Buffett's editorial today in the New York Times:
Congress is now spending 185% of what it takes in
Our deficit is a post WWII record of 13% of GDP
Our debt is growing by 1% a month
We are borrowing $1.8 trillion a year
$1.8 trillion is a lot of money. Even if the Chinese lend us $400 billion a year and Americans save a remarkable $500 billion and lend it to the government, we'll still need another $900 billion.
So, where's it going to come from? Most likely the printing press. And, ultimately, Buffett says, that will destroy the value of the dollar.
One small caveat on the redistribution of wealth.
From Today's email, a golden suggestion.
THE JOB - URINE TEST
Like most folks in this country, I have a job. I work, they pay me. I
pay my taxes and the government distributes my taxes as it sees fit.
In order to get that paycheck in my case, I am required to pass a
random urine test (with which I have no problem). What I do have a
problem with is the distribution of my taxes to people who don't have
to pass a urine test.
So, here is my Question: Shouldn't one have to pass a urine test to
get a welfare check because I have to pass one to earn it for them?
Please understand, I have no problem with helping people get back on
their feet. I do, on the other hand, have a problem with helping
someone sitting on their ass - doing drugs, while I work . . . Can you
imagine how much money each state would save if people had to pass a
urine test to get a public assistance check?
I guess we could title that program, 'Urine or You're Out'
THE JOB - URINE TEST
Like most folks in this country, I have a job. I work, they pay me. I
pay my taxes and the government distributes my taxes as it sees fit.
In order to get that paycheck in my case, I am required to pass a
random urine test (with which I have no problem). What I do have a
problem with is the distribution of my taxes to people who don't have
to pass a urine test.
So, here is my Question: Shouldn't one have to pass a urine test to
get a welfare check because I have to pass one to earn it for them?
Please understand, I have no problem with helping people get back on
their feet. I do, on the other hand, have a problem with helping
someone sitting on their ass - doing drugs, while I work . . . Can you
imagine how much money each state would save if people had to pass a
urine test to get a public assistance check?
I guess we could title that program, 'Urine or You're Out'
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
More awakening to the real Obama.
Just as one might recall after the election of the disastrous Jimmy Carter: "How DID that guy get elected President?"
We've Figured Him Out By Ben Stein
Why is President Barack Obama in such a hurry to get his socialized medicine bill passed? Because he and his cunning circle realize some basic truths:
The American people in their unimaginable kindness and trust voted for a pig in a poke in 2008.. They wanted so much to believe Barack Obama was somehow better and different from other ultra-leftists that they simply took him on faith.
They ignored his anti-white writings in his books. They ignored his quiet acceptance of hysterical anti-American diatribes by his minister, Jeremiah Wright.
They ignored his refusal to explain years at a time of his life as a student. They ignored his ultra-left record as a "community organizer," Illinois state legislator, and Senator.
The American people ignored his total zero of an academic record as a student and teacher, his complete lack of scholarship when he was being touted as a scholar.
Now, the American people are starting to wake up to the truth. Barack Obama is a super likeable super leftist, not a fan of this country, way, way too cozy with the terrorist leaders in the Middle East , way beyond naïveté, all the way into active destruction of our interests and our allies and our future.
The American people have already awakened to the truth that the stimulus bill -- a great idea in theory -- was really an immense bribe to Democrat interest groups, and in no way an effort to help all Americans.
Now, Americans are waking up to the truth that ObamaCare basically means that every time you are sick or injured, you will have a clerk from the Department of Motor Vehicles telling your doctor what he can and cannot do.
The American people already know that Mr. Obama's plan to lower health costs while expanding coverage and bureaucracy is a myth, a promise of something that never was and never will be -- a bureaucracy lowering costs in a free society. Either the costs go up or the free society goes away.
These are perilous times. Mrs. Hillary Clinton, our Secretary of State, has given Iran the go-ahead to have nuclear weapons, an unqualified betrayal of the nation. Now, we face a devastating loss of freedom at home in health care. It will be joined by controls on our lives to "protect us" from global warming, itself largely a fraud if believed to be caused by man.
Mr. Obama knows Americans are getting wise and will stop him if he delays at all in taking away our freedoms.
There is his urgency and our opportunity. Once freedom is lost, America is lost. Wake up, beloved America . Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu . He writes "Ben Stein's Diary" for every issue of The American Spectator.
We've Figured Him Out By Ben Stein
Why is President Barack Obama in such a hurry to get his socialized medicine bill passed? Because he and his cunning circle realize some basic truths:
The American people in their unimaginable kindness and trust voted for a pig in a poke in 2008.. They wanted so much to believe Barack Obama was somehow better and different from other ultra-leftists that they simply took him on faith.
They ignored his anti-white writings in his books. They ignored his quiet acceptance of hysterical anti-American diatribes by his minister, Jeremiah Wright.
They ignored his refusal to explain years at a time of his life as a student. They ignored his ultra-left record as a "community organizer," Illinois state legislator, and Senator.
The American people ignored his total zero of an academic record as a student and teacher, his complete lack of scholarship when he was being touted as a scholar.
Now, the American people are starting to wake up to the truth. Barack Obama is a super likeable super leftist, not a fan of this country, way, way too cozy with the terrorist leaders in the Middle East , way beyond naïveté, all the way into active destruction of our interests and our allies and our future.
The American people have already awakened to the truth that the stimulus bill -- a great idea in theory -- was really an immense bribe to Democrat interest groups, and in no way an effort to help all Americans.
Now, Americans are waking up to the truth that ObamaCare basically means that every time you are sick or injured, you will have a clerk from the Department of Motor Vehicles telling your doctor what he can and cannot do.
The American people already know that Mr. Obama's plan to lower health costs while expanding coverage and bureaucracy is a myth, a promise of something that never was and never will be -- a bureaucracy lowering costs in a free society. Either the costs go up or the free society goes away.
These are perilous times. Mrs. Hillary Clinton, our Secretary of State, has given Iran the go-ahead to have nuclear weapons, an unqualified betrayal of the nation. Now, we face a devastating loss of freedom at home in health care. It will be joined by controls on our lives to "protect us" from global warming, itself largely a fraud if believed to be caused by man.
Mr. Obama knows Americans are getting wise and will stop him if he delays at all in taking away our freedoms.
There is his urgency and our opportunity. Once freedom is lost, America is lost. Wake up, beloved America . Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu . He writes "Ben Stein's Diary" for every issue of The American Spectator.
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