Wednesday, September 23, 2009
FACT CHECK: Coverage requirement enforced with tax
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WASHINGTON – Memo to President Barack Obama: It's a tax. Obama insisted this weekend on national television that requiring people to carry health insurance — and fining them if they don't — isn't the same thing as a tax increase.
But the language of Democratic bills to revamp the nation's health care system doesn't quibble. Both the House bill and the Senate Finance Committee proposal clearly state that the fines would be a tax.
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Up to $3,800 fine for failure get health insurance
A top senator is calling for fines of up to $3,800 on families who fail to get medical insurance after a health care overhaul goes into effect. The plan from Democratic Sen. Max Baucus of Montana would make health insurance mandatory.
It would provide tax credits to help cover the cost for people making up to three times the federal 'poverty level'...
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Mythbuster: Health Insurance One of Most Profitable Industries
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So said President Obama during his healthcare address Wednesday echoing a common Democrat and media meme that insurance companies are evil entities always looking to take advantage of the public for the sake of the mighty dollar.
The truth is that health insurance is one of the least profitable industries in America. In fact, according to Fortune magazine, such companies only make 2.2 cents for every dollar of gross sales...
[Again; it's all a play having nothing to do with improving health care...]
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Health Reform Is Just Subterfuge;
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By now the realization should be taking hold that the Democrats' health care plan has been exposed as a scam. And it was the Democrats themselves who discredited and exposed it, but in a very ironic way... [snip]
Remember the Democrats' original rationales for their national health care takeover scheme?
First: they wanted all uninsured Americans to be covered. But now they concede that their mega-upheaval of a plan would still leave about 15 million without medical insurance.
Yet they still advocate the plan. Why?
Second: cost control. But the Congressional Budget Office has reported that the Obama-Democrat scheme would add $1 trillion to the national health tab over the next decade.
Yet the Dems still want their plan. Why?
Third: IMMEDIATELY - before August break (had they had their way). But all of the 'plans' in congress take effect in 2013 - after the next presidential election.
Yet Obama's never voiced concern over that part of the plan. Why?
Why, indeed? It must be something else, therefore;
If their own action undermines their stated aims, and still they desperately favor the action, then the Democrats' real purpose must be something different, something they will not reveal.
But what? Simple:
When American business, American jobs and the American people become totally dependent on Obama and the Democrats for money and credit, including all student loans for good measure [read that one yet folks?], how much power will that give the Obama Democrats over our country? [snip]
This isn't really about a health policy issue [could not have said it better ,^) ]; it is about the survival, or takeover, of our nation.
If the Dems succeed in cramming their ambitions down our throats, the country as we've known it is, eventually, finished. It is the town hall protestors who seem to sense this most clearly.
I hope the preceding diagnosis and prognosis [Recommended] help bring more Americans to this realization before it's too late.
[Gaski, an associate professor at the University of Notre Dame, has been a registered Democrat for more than 20 years.]
[I no longer consider this to be an exaggeration - the number of those dependent on the government or employed by it is literally at the cusp of exceeding those who pay for them all {recall: 48% of Americans currently pay no federal income taxes}. Once that happens in a democracy, 'the will of the people' will be synonymous with that of government. ]
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Biden on 2010: 'If GOP Succeeds, It’s ‘The End of the Road for What Barack and I Are Trying to Do’
[The man possesses a truly insightful grasp of the obvious.]
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Terror probe widens in U.S.
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Reporting from Washington and New York - Federal authorities have tied as many as a dozen people to a suspected Al Qaeda-linked bomb plot on U.S. soil as they continue to gather evidence to indict on terrorism charges the young Afghan immigrant at the center of the case, law enforcement officials said Monday.
Authorities said that they did not know the exact number of potential suspects or many of their identities, but that they had been connected through electronic intercepts, surveillance, seized evidence and interviews.
Several of the officials said it was likely that Najibullah Zazi will be charged with providing material support to a known terrorist organization based on his admission that he trained in weapons and explosives at an Al Qaeda camp in Pakistan last year. That admission was cited in an FBI affidavit unsealed over the weekend.
One federal law enforcement official said more serious charges were being considered for Zazi as leverage to get him to cooperate in the investigation and provide information on others who may be involved...
[GWOT]
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Muslims in Colorado Uneasy Over Terror Inquiry
[Meanwhile in our professional media...]
AURORA, Colo. — Djilali Kacem tugged at his beard and surveyed the warehouse of Islamic books he helps oversee near Denver International Airport.
“The government should know better by now. It has been eight years since Sept. 11 and our government still overacts sometimes when it comes to Muslims.”
said Mr. Kacem, an imam at a local mosque.
[The NYT, natch.]
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Escalate or scale back in Afghanistan?
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The blunt conclusion laid out by the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan —
"The status quo will lead to failure"— poses a stark and urgent choice for President Barack Obama: intensify the foundering conflict with more troops or narrow the mission to targeting terrorists instead of protecting Afghans.
"Insufficiently addressing either principal threat will result in failure,"the general concludes.
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Obama 'skeptical' about more troops
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President Barack Obama is warning U.S. commanders that he’s ''skeptical'' about whether more troops will make a difference in Afghanistan, saying he’ll approve an upcoming request only if the forces fit into a strategy to 'beat back al-Qaida'
''Until I'm satisfied that we've got the right strategy I'm not gonna be sending some young man or woman over there — beyond what we already have"
[While those already there are put at greater risk as a consequence, and the enemy is emboldened to think they can actually win. Eight months into his presidency, and the man hasn't had time to develop a strategy to an ongoing shooting war in which American are dying? ]
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Don't eat near Ramadan fasters, Home Office staff told
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Home Office staff were officially warned not to eat in front of their fasting Muslim colleagues during Ramadan – in case it made them feel hungry.
The 'advice' came in a taxpayer-funded internal document listing do’s and don’ts during the Muslim holy month...
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WHY CHILE IS MORE ECONOMICALLY FREE THAN THE UNITED STATES
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In the 2009 Economic Freedom of the World Report, Chile is now number 5, one place ahead of the United States. In 1975, of 72 countries, Chile was No 71. How did this happen?
From 1975 to 1989 a true revolution took place in Chile, involving a radical, comprehensive, and sustained move toward economic and political freedom. This revolution not only doubled Chile's historic rate of economic growth (to an average of 7 percent a year, 84-98), drastically reduced poverty (from 45 percent to 15 percent), and introduced several radical libertarian reforms that set the country on a path toward rapid development.
- Chile was one of the first economies in the developing world to test such concepts as deregulation of industries, privatization of state companies, freeing of prices from government control, and opening of the home market to imports.
- In 1981, Chile privatized its social-security system; many of those ideas ultimately spread throughout Latin America and to the rest of the world.
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CREATING AMERICAN JOBS THROUGH GLOBAL TRADE
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The best way to protect American jobs and create new ones is to see the economic opportunities that exist in selling to 95 percent of the world's customers who live outside of our borders, says Tom Donohue, president and CEO of the United States Chamber of Commerce.
The overwhelming majority of Americans derive great benefits from trade:
- An astonishing 57 million Americans work for companies that benefit from exports..
- One in five factory jobs depends on exports, and one in three acres on America's farms are planted for consumers overseas.
We should set a national goal of doubling U.S. exports in five years.
To achieve this goal, we must do the following:
- Enact the pending free trade agreements -- if we dawdle while Canada and the European Union move ahead with their own trade accords with Colombia, Panama, and Korea, American workers will be put at a disadvantage,
- Lend a hand to small businesses looking to sell their goods overseas; while a quarter million small and mid-size companies currently export, many more should be looking for customers overseas.
- Go on the offensive -- this administration will be stuck playing defense against isolationist initiatives until it devises a forward-leaning trade agenda of its own; strong leadership is needed now to expand trade, backed by actions as well as words.
Imagine how many additional jobs could be created by pursuing expanded trade...
[Sitting down? From the Huffington Post... ]
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US mortgage delinquencies set record
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High US unemployment keeps pushing up the rate of mortgage delinquencies, which could in turn drive personal bankruptcies and home foreclosures, monthly data from the Equifax credit bureau shows. Among US homeowners with mortgages, a record 7.6 per cent were at least 30 days late on payments in August, up from 7.3 per cent in July, according to the data obtained exclusively by Reuters.
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POLL: Economy Still Tops List of Voter Concerns
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No matter how we ask the question, voters continue to put economic issues such as jobs and economic growth highest on their list of concerns.
On Election Day, National Security was second, but it has slipped behind fiscal policy concerns and domestic issues in recent weeks.
These figures highlight a huge change over the past five years. On Election Day 2004, 41% of voters named national security as the top issue and just 26% named the economy.
["It is the bane of men that they forget."]
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U.S. Media Ignoring About Face by Leading Global Warming Proponent
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Imagine if the Pope suddenly announced that the Catholic Church had been wrong for centuries about prohibiting priests from marrying. Would that be considered big news?
And yet something like that has happened in the field of global warming in which a major scientist has announced that the world, in contrast to his previous belief, is actually cooling.
This was the analogy made by columnist Lorne Gunter in the Calgary Herald:
...When a leading proponent for one point of view suddenly starts batting for the other side, it's usually newsworthy.
So why was a speech last week by Prof. Mojib Latif of Germany's Leibniz Institute not given more prominence?
Latif is one of the leading climate modellers in the world. He is the recipient of several international climate-study prizes and a lead author for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He has contributed significantly to the IPCC's last two five-year reports that have stated unequivocally that man-made greenhouse emissions are causing the planet to warm dangerously.
Yet last week in Geneva, at the UN's World Climate Conference--an annual gathering of the so-called "scientific consensus" on man-made climate change -- Latif conceded that the global warming theory has been based all along on the idea that the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans would absorb much of the greenhouse warming caused by a rise in man-made carbon dioxide, then they would let off that heat and warm the atmosphere and the land.
But as Latif pointed out, the Atlantic, and particularly the North Atlantic, has been cooling instead. And it looks set to continue cooling ... "How much?" he wondered before the assembled delegates. "The jury is still out."
So are these the isolated opinions of a Canadian columnist? Nope. A BBC blogger, Tom Feilden, also made similar observations:
Far from suggesting the planet will get warmer, one of the world's leading climate modellers says the latest data indicates we could be in for a significant period of steady temperatures and possibly even global cooling. [which is much more dangerous to man]
With apologies to Al Gore, professor Latif's finding is something of an "inconvenient truth" for the global warming debate.
The global warming narrative - that mankind's addiction to burning fossil fuels is rapidly changing the climate - may be about to go seriously off message.
Feilden provides a reason why Latif's finding is currently being ignored by most of the media:
But the complex message professor Latif's research confronts us with, points up another issue debated on the programme this morning: The thorny issue of the media's handling of science...
And most members of the MSM in the United States are interested only in viewpoints that conform with the global warming dogma that they have been strongly promoting for the past few years. No inconvenient truths allowed that would saw off the limb they went out on.
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Who taught you to lie, call people names, and accuse people of racism?
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Where did the Democratic Congress, the Obama administration, and the main stream media learn to act so rudely, obnoxiously, and disingenuously; to call people names, treat others without any common courtesy or manners, and above all else to be deceptive and lie to citizens of the United States?
What explains a systemic failure of this magnitude in so many politicians and main stream media types?
An article by syndicated columnist and political commentator Charles Krauthammer in Washington Post provides the perfect example of the chimerical lie. This is just one of three examples Mr. Krauthammer provides in his article.
(1) "I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits - either now or in the future" he solemnly pledged. I will not sign it if it adds one dime to our deficit, now or in the future. Period"
Wonderful. The president seems serious, veto-ready, determined to hold the line. Until, notes Harvard economist Greg Mankiw, you get to Obama's very next sentence:
"And to prove that I'm serious, there will be a provision in this plan that requires us to come forward with more spending cuts if the savings we promised don't materialize."
This apparent strengthening of the pledge brilliantly and deceptively undermines it... [snip]
Nancy Pelosi is the undisputed leader of the pack when it comes to name calling. She, along with House majority leader Steny Hoyer, called people opposing health care reform un-American in their op-ed piece published in USA Today. Pelosi continued her name calling campaign by referring to health care protestors as astroturfers.
Pelosi didn't stop until she insinuated health care protestors were Nazi's because she saw someone with a swastika at a health care town hall meeting. Anyone with any common sense understands the protestors are not Nazi's, rather they were comparing out-of-control government spending and government takeover of private industry to nationalized socialism, which is where the term Nazi is derived... [snip]
Worst of all, the Democrats and main-stream media have sunk to a new low by now castigating anyone that opposes Oama administration policies as guilty of racism.
Those Americans protesting President Obama's policies are judging Obama by the content of his character, not the color of his skin. Those Americans protesting the size of the national debt, excessive spending and taxation, excessive waste and fraud are judging all officials in Washington that support those policies, past and present... [snip]
Is it too much for the hard-working American to expect our elected officials to conduct themselves as adults, to not lie and deceive us, to be respectful? Is it too difficult to understand that Americans have discourse and grievances with our elected leaders and the federal government? Really, is it too much to expect of you?
If so, perhaps you are unfit to govern.
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Who Killed California?
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Under Ronald Reagan, it offered a model of conservative governance that would go on to transform American politics. Hollywood has made California a crucial part of America's cultural identity, and Silicon Valley has put it at the heart of our vision of the future. For many decades now, Americans have seen California as a harbinger of promising things to come.
Today, however, California has become a warning sign... [snip] The State:
...is simply broke: issuing IOUs, begging the federal government to back state debt, and watching its credit rating plummet...
... the highest sales and personal income-tax rates in the country...
...short-term financial difficulties pale in comparison to its long-term obligations, with 300 billion owed to taxpayer-guaranteed state workers...
... percentage of adults without at least a high-school education is the second-highest in the nation (72% of those 'immigrants')...
... has the highest rate of criminal recidivism in the country...
...the most congested roads in the nation, which costs the state's employers billions in lost productivity each year...
...seriously discussing mandatory water rationing...
...experiencing severe disruptions of its electricity supply...
...unemployment is over 12%...
...CEOs rank California the worst state in the country in which to do business...
...is losing native-born citizens faster than any other state... [snip]
To put the effects of these trends in perspective, from 2004 to 2007 more people left California for Texas and Oklahoma than came west from those states to escape the Dust Bowl in the 1930s.
California is in the midst of a man-made disaster.
How could things get so bad? The story of California's decline is a tragedy of political dysfunction, misguided ideology, interest-group politics, and willful blindness...
[Long but very enlightening in its specificity - and you have and you will pay for it all - MUST READ > ]
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