Friday, August 21, 2009
Obama Bears False Witness, Saying Abortion Coverage in Health Bill is a "Fabrication"
While the White House "reality check" website was silent on the issue of abortion in Obamacare, his campaign website quotes a false factcheck statement that "In fact, none of the health care overhaul measures that have made it through the committee level in Congress say that abortion will be covered".
In fact, the Capps Amendment passed by the House Energy and Commerce committee would require the establishment of at least one plan covering elective abortions in every federally-subsidized exchange, and it gives the HHS Secretary the authority to include abortion coverage in the public plan and requires that the public plan cover abortion if the Hyde amendment (which bans funding of abortions through Medicaid) is repealed.
Can any intellectually honest person call it something else?
As Reason's Jacob Sullum wrote, "The Democrats might as well tell the anti-abortion taxpayer that they won't use his money to kill fetuses, which will be done only with money from taxpayers who have no compunctions about the procedure."
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Reprisal for Opposing Part of Obama's Plan
In a move some fear is a reprisal for opposing President Obama's health care plan, Democrats sent 52 letters to health insurers requesting financial records for a House committee's investigation. Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Bart Stupak, D-Mich., sent a letter warning health insurers that the House Energy and Commerce Committee is
"examining executive compensation and other business practices of the health industry."
[They haven't received any tax dollars. And they're private businesses. Is this still America?]
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MORE CAPITALISM THE CURE FOR HEALTH CARE
Many Americans that think capitalism has failed to provide the country adequate health care are unaware that there hasn't been a free market approach in the U.S. for nearly 50 years due to Medicare.
Consider the fact that Medicare faces $34 trillion in unfunded liabilities and President Obama wants to add 45 million people to the bankrupt system:
- President Obama's health care model is the Canadian system; yet, Canada's mortality rate for colon cancer is higher than the United States because the Canadian government refuses to purchase the two most effective drugs to treat the disease.
- The proportion of middle-aged Canadian women who have never had a mammogram is twice that of the United States, and three times as many Canadian women have never had a Pap smear.
- This lack of screening is partly responsible for the fact that the mortality rate in Canada is 25 percent higher for breast cancer.
While we might debate its affordability, there's no debating the fact that U.S. medicine is the best in the world.
When American billionaires become seriously ill, they seek treatment at home. And while much is made of the fact that U.S. life expectancy is a bit shorter than that of other countries, if you adjust for violent crime and automobile accidents, Americans have the longest life expectancy in the world...
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Learning From Canada's Mistakes
Before Americans adopt Canadian-style health care regulations, we might want to ask Canadian doctors what they think of their system.
The Canadian Medical Association gathered for its annual meeting on Sunday.
Warnings from doctors to our north are important to dispel the Obama administration's claim that its government takeover is a way to get costs under control...
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Arab League welcomes bomber's release
Cairo - The Arab League has welcomed the release of a terminally ill Libyan convicted over the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, it was reported today. '
'The Arab League welcomes the Scottish court decision to release Megrahi, taking into consideration his serious health condition,'' [but healthy enough to walk up and down airline ladder-stairs]
Assistant secretary-general Ahdmed Bin Hilli said that
"Libya would receive compensation for its suffering during the years of ongoing sanctions''
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Panetta Revealed
Joseph Finder at the Daily Beast has the scoop on Leon Panetta: CIA Director Leon Panetta’s emergency testimony to Congress about an illegal assassination program has set off a crisis at the spy agency. The Daily Beast’s Joseph Finder exclusively reports that: • The secret assassination “program” wasn’t much more than a PowerPoint presentation, a task force and a collection of schemes—it never got off the ground.
[Expect front page corrects in the NYT... "soon" ...]
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Flashback: When Gibson was Enthralled by Cindy Sheehan
Washington Examiner's Byron York how ABC World News anchor Charles Gibson declared “enough already” when asked on Chicago's WLS Radio (audio) about Cindy Sheehan's plan to travel to President Barack Obama's Martha's Vineyard vacation spot next week to protest the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. York observed how “that's a remarkably different stance from the one Gibson took four years ago” when he was co-host of Good Morning America: [Gibson on multiple multiple dates]
“We're going to turn next to the standoff that is playing out near President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas. Cindy Sheehan, you know, the mother who lost a son in Iraq, is now on the move, but she's still standing her ground."
[snip]
“All across the country protests against the war in Iraq, inspired by the mother standing her ground at President Bush's ranch.”
[snip]
"This morning a war of words. All across the country protests against the war in Iraq, inspired by the mother standing her ground at President Bush's ranch."
With "CAN ANTI-WAR MOMS STOP BUSH?" on screen throughout the interview session, Charles Gibson gave her a lot of credit, asking in the midst of giving her publicity:
“You are but a small group there that is perched on the approach to the President's ranch. One hundred, two hundred people. Do you really think you've got people talking about the war?"
Now that it's a Democrat President she's protesting?
"Enough already".
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Row over Afghan wife-starving law
Afghan legislation allowing a husband to starve his wife if she refuses to have sex has been published in the official gazette and become law.
[It's just a 'different' culture and we should all be tolerant.]
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Yale Surrenders
The capitulation of Yale University Press to threats that hadn't even been made yet is the latest and perhaps the worst episode in the steady surrender to religious extremism—particularly Muslim religious extremism—that is spreading across our culture.
A book called The Cartoons That Shook the World, by Danish-born Jytte Klausen, who is a professor of politics at Brandeis University, tells the story of the lurid and preplanned campaign of "protest" and boycott that was orchestrated in late 2005 after the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten ran a competition for cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
Yale University Press announced last week that it would go ahead with the publication of the book, but it would remove from it the 12 caricatures that originated the controversy. Not content with this, it is also removing those by Dante, William Blake, Sandro Botticelli, Salvador Dalí, and Auguste Rodin - so there's a lot of artistic censorship in our future if this sort of thing is allowed to set a precedent.
According to Yale logic, violence could result from the showing of the images—and not only that, but it would be those who displayed the images who were directly responsible for that violence.
Let me illustrate: The Aug. 13 New York Times carried a report of the university press' surrender, which quoted its director, John Donatich, as saying that in general he has "never blinked" in the face of controversy, but "when it came between that and blood on my hands, there was no question." [snip]
Last time this happened, I linked to the Danish cartoons so that you could make up your own minds about them, and I do the same today.
Should some homicidal theocrat decide to take offense, I reject absolutely that I will have instigated him to do so, and I state in advance that he is directly and solely responsible for any blood that is on any hands.
He becomes the responsibility of our police and security agencies, who operate in defense of a Constitution that we would not possess if we had not been willing to spill blood—our own and that of others—to attain it.
The First Amendment to that Constitution prohibits any prior restraint on the freedom of the press. What a cause of shame that the campus of Nathan Hale should have pre-emptively run up the white flag and then cringingly taken the blood guilt of potential assassins and tyrants upon itself.
[Just what are our young being taught from such stalwarts of American 'higher learning'.]
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[BTW:
Click each image to enlarge. [when you get to the site.]
.
THE COST OF RAILROADING AMERICA
[HT:PW]
Congress approved $8 billion for President Obama's high-speed rail program without ever asking what the total cost would be, how to pay for it, or who would ride the trains.
The dismal answers to these questions reveal much about American politics:
- State estimates indicate Obama's plan will cost around $90 billion, or about $1,000 for every federal income taxpayer.
- Since 17 states, including Arizona, aren't even in the plan, a truly national network would cost far more.
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POLL:54% Fear Government Will Do Too Much To Fix Economy
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 37% are more worried that the federal government will not do enough in reacting to the nation’s current economic problems.
Among the nation’s Political Class, (70%) worry that the government will not do enough. As for those who hold populist or Mainstream views, an identical percentage (70%) fear the government will do too much. (See more on the Political Class/Mainstream divide).
Seventy-seven percent (77%) of Republicans and 66% of voters not affiliated with either major party worry the government will take too much action, but 60% of Democrats worry it won’t do enough.
Most voters (53%) believe increases in government spending hurt the economy and there is strong opposition to a second economic stimulus package.
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40% Say Cutting Deficit Is Top Priority
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that, of the four priorities outlined by the President earlier this year, 21% rate health care reform as the most important. Eighteen percent (18%) say ensuring that every child has access to a complete and competitive education should be the priority, and 15% put the emphasis on development of new sources of energy.
Although deficit reduction is the top priority for voters, it’s also seen as the least likely to be achieved. Two-out-of-three voters (67%) rate it as least likely while just seven percent (7%) say it’s the goal most likely to be achieved.
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YOU WANT A CRISIS?
Americans have been debating about the proposed universal health care bill. During this time, President Obama has stated over and over that it will be revenue neutral and that it will not increase the deficit.
While it's true that we have some obvious problems in our medical system, most Americans are satisfied with their health care. A majority sees no crisis to warrant a government takeover:
- The new polling shows that 80 percent of those with insurance rate their own coverage as good or excellent.
The first of the Baby Boomers started signing up for early retirement under Social Security last year and in two years they will start signing up for Medicare.
All told, 78 million people are going to stop working, stop paying taxes and start drawing benefits.
The problem is that neither Social Security, nor Medicare is ready for them.
And the federal government has made explicit and implicit promises to millions of people, but has put no money aside in order to keep those promises...
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THE THINGS BEING DONE TO BRING BACK HIGH GAS PRICES
A return to $4 a gallon gas -- or higher -- will be made even more certain if Congress and the President succeed in enacting a host of proposals to crack down on domestic energy supplies.
Instead, the federal government should support several pending pro-domestic energy measures that would help meet the nation's growing demand in the years ahead:
- Expand offshore and onshore oil production into previously restricted areas, including Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, where an estimated 10 billion barrels of oil lie beneath a few thousand acres that can be accessed with minimal environmental impact.
- Reduce the regulatory and legal delays that can slow and sometimes stop production.
- Allow further progress on oil shale.
- Prevent costly new anti-energy regulations from being imposed in the name of addressing global warming.
It should be obvious, but in Washington it is often not: discouraging domestic oil supplies with access restrictions, regulations, fees and taxes will add to the future price at the pump, while streamlining these impediments to increased production will do the opposite.
Congress and the President should be enacting measures that allow oil and gasoline to be as plentiful and affordable as possible to meet the nation's energy needs.
Instead, they are doing the opposite...
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AN INSIDE/OUTSIDE VIEW OF U.S. SCIENCE
This spring, Pew Research Center surveyed two groups of adults and members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
The online survey sampled 10,000 AAAS members, excluding schoolteachers. According to the results, the public imagines scientists to be less politically partisan than they actually are, and scientists are decidedly more liberal than the general population:
- When how they seem themselves politically, 56 percent of scientists said they are liberal, two percent said conservative, while 42 percent didn't not classify with either ideology.
- When asked what party affiliation they subscribe to, most scientists answered Democrat (55 percent), 32 percent are Independents, six percent Republicans, four percent other and three percent declined to answer.
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Science Czar:Born Baby 'Will Ultimately Develop Into a Human Being'
President Obama’s top science adviser said in a book he co-authored in 1973 that a newborn child “will ultimately develop into a human being” if he or she is properly fed and socialized.
“The fetus, given the opportunity to develop properly before birth, and given the essential early socializing experiences and sufficient nourishing food during the crucial early years after birth, will ultimately develop into a human being,”READ MOREJohn P. Holdren
Gun Rights Group Calls Out MSNBC for Claiming Gun-Carrying Protesters ‘Racist’
Following MSNBC coverage of ObamaCare protesters legally carrying guns, on Thursday, the Second Amendment Foundation condemned the liberal network for
"using deceptively-edited video from a Phoenix, Arizona anti-tax rally on Monday to invent a racial stereotype in its on-going effort to demonize and marginalize American firearms owners as ‘racists.’"
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FLASHBACK >
MSNBC: ObamaCare Protesters ‘Racist,’ Including Black Gun-Owner
Bush Quietly Saved a Million African Lives
What if a president, on his own initiative, under no demands from staff or from supporters or opponents, set out to spend an unprecedented amount of money on AIDS in Africa, literally billions of dollars, at a time when the nation could not afford it, citing his faith as a primary motivation and, ultimately, saved more than a million lives?
[A: It would be ignored by the MSM, because he was of the 'wrong' party.]
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Bush Quietly Saved a Million African Lives
What if a president, on his own initiative, under no demands from staff or from supporters or opponents, set out to spend an unprecedented amount of money on AIDS in Africa, literally billions of dollars, at a time when the nation could not afford it, citing his faith as a primary motivation and, ultimately, saved more than a million lives?
[A: It would be ignored by the MSM, because he was of the 'wrong' party.]
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Sharpton Alarmed by Potential Reconciliation Between Gates and Crowley
That Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Cambridge, Mass., police sergeant James Crowley may attend a baseball game together has the Rev. Al Sharpton concerned.
SHARPTON: Let me start out by asking you, where, what is the status with Dr. Gates? You're his lawyer. Some people feel like we've made enough conciliations. I'm reading now he's talking about going to the ballgame with Sgt. Crowley. I need not tell you, some of us are saying that, wait a minute, enough is enough. What's going on here?
This from a man of the cloth, no less.
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Congressman Tells O'Donnell 'You're Illustrating Why MSNBC's Viewership Is In the Tank'
MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell for the second time in eight days bullied a guest he was interviewing, but this time the person on the receiving end really let him have it.
As previously reported, O'Donnell last Thursday, while subbing for Ed Schultz on that evening's "The Ed Show," continually talked over his guest Peter Schiff and basically never let him answer any questions.
On Friday, O'Donnell, who was sitting in for Chris Matthews on "Hardball," tried the same tactic with Rep. John Culberson (R-Tex.), but this time his guest struck back:
"You know, Lawrence, for your listeners, you're illustrating why MSNBC's viewership is in the tank because you don't allow your people you're interviewing to answer questions. And, you know Lawrence, this is why Katie and everybody else is going to the Internet because why listen to MSNBC when you won't even let the people you're interviewing answer the question?"
Bravo, Congressman.
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