Wednesday, October 21, 2009
POLL: Health Care Reform Support Continues to Diminish
Subject: txt 1st hcare -
Now that the Senate Finance Committee has passed its version of health care reform, 42% of voters nationwide favor the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That’s down two points from a week ago and down four from the week before.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that those oppossed has risen to fifty-four percent (54%), an all time high.
Fifty-six percent (56%) of voters say passage of the plan will make the cost of health care go up while 18% say it will make costs go down.
Just 36% of the nation’s senior citizens favor the current legislative effort while 59% are opposed. Support is highest among voters under 30, the age group least likely to use the nation’s health care system.
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Public-Option 'Polling' Deceptive
[HT:SC]Subject: txt 1st hcare msm =
The Washington Post poll is the latest example of a "public poll" in the past 2–3 weeks that curiously shows a growing number of Americans supportive of the "public option." AP and Gallup were others.
This is agenda-driven polling.
The fact is: Asking an ignorant public about the "public option" is incomplete polling. It calls for a response to feel-good phraseology rather than a probing of underlying ideology...
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POLL: 32% Favor Single-Payer Health Care, 57% Oppose
Subject: txt hcare
Thirty-two percent (32%) of voters nationwide favor a single-payer health care system where the federal government provides coverage for everyone.
A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 57% are opposed to a single-payer plan. Fifty-two percent (52%) believe such a system would lead to a lower quality of care while 13% believe care would improve.READ MORE
OBAMACARE'S TAX ON WORK
Subject: txt 1st hcare -
- CBO says a mid-level "silver" plan will cost about $14,700 in premiums, of which the family will pay $2,600 -- since the government would pay the other $12,100. If the family breadwinner (or breadwinners, because the subsidies are based on combined gross income) then gets a raise or works overtime and wages rise to $54,000, the subsidy drops to $9,900.
- That amounts to an implicit 34 percent tax on each additional dollar of income.
Or consider a single worker earning $20,600 and buying an individual "silver" policy with a premium at $5,000:
- Again according to CBO, if his income rises to $26,500, his subsidy plummets to $2,700 from $4,400 (including a cost-sharing subsidy that goes away).
- This is a 29 percent marginal tax; moving to other income levels yields increases in the neighborhood of 20 percent to 23 percent for both individuals and families.
- Jim Capretta, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, calculates that when combined with other policies like the Earned Income Tax Credit that also phase out, the effective marginal rate would rise to nearly 70 percent at twice the poverty level.
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JUST SAY NO: HEALTH CARE NULLIFICATION
Subject: txt 1st hcare -
No matter what the federal government winds up doing about health care, the people of Arizona will be able to vote in 2010 to retain their right to the health plan of their choice.
- In June the Arizona legislature voted to place the Arizona Health Freedom Act on the ballot for voter consideration.
- If the measure passes, a new constitutional amendment will protect Arizonans' right to spend their own money on any legal health care service and to opt out of any health care system imposed upon them.
Whether they would in practice have the right of exit from federal health care programs is a question that would be settled by the courts.
- State nullification of federal law has an awkward and difficult history, dating back to attempts by Kentucky and Virginia to ignore the Alien and Sedition Acts in the 1790s and South Carolina's unsuccessful efforts to ignore two federal tariffs in the 1830s.
- Still, the recent history of the Real ID Act, a homeland security measure that was scuttled by state resistance, suggests that if other states follow Arizona's lead, their coordinated action could prove fatal to national health mandates.
Christine Herrera, who tracks health care issues for the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, says similar bills are being considered in at least five more states...
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On Health Care...
Subject: txt 1st hcare - Sarah Palin on health care
Sarah Palin posted on Facebook her thoughts on health care. She called Obamacare good intentions.
We know what is paved by good intentions - and Americans better take charge of the scharade taking place in Washington or we'll be where it leads sooner than we think... [snip]
She pointed out how the bill will raise premiums, making health care less affordable. Here is another way. She also pointed out President Obama’s track record on legislation, as in the $787 billion stimulus.
I like her idea of actually working with the insurers on a solution instead of ordering them about.
Here’s a novel idea. Instead of working contrary to the free market, let’s embrace the free market. Instead of going to war with certain private sector companies, let’s embrace real private-sector competition and allow consumers to purchase plans across state lines. Instead of taxing the so-called “Cadillac” plans that people get through their employers, let’s give individuals who purchase their own health care the same tax benefits we currently give employer-provided health care recipients. Instead of crippling Medicare, let’s reform it by providing recipients with vouchers so that they can purchase their own coverage.
These ideas have real support from a full spectrum of industry and consumer experts:
- [1] See http://tinyurl.com/yjs3mgf
- [2] See http://tinyurl.com/yfuw3k3
- [3] See http://tinyurl.com/yfxq8ca
- [4] See http://tinyurl.com/ykefsk6
- [5] See http://tinyurl.com/ygf42fj
- [6] See http://tinyurl.com/ykefsk6
- [7] See http://tinyurl.com/lkvgsp
- [8] See http://tinyurl.com/nx4nh6
- [9] See ibid.
- [10] See http://tinyurl.com/yhhr56v
- [11] See ibid.
- [12] See http://tinyurl.com/yhzhkvg and http://tinyurl.com/lhyr9o
- [13] See http://tinyurl.com/yksd6h3
- [14] See http://tinyurl.com/yl9gg27
- [15] See http://tinyurl.com/yknpxd6
- [16] See http://tinyurl.com/d2k5hb
- [17] See http://tinyurl.com/yf8qmfh
Now is the time to make your voices heard before it’s too late. If we don’t fight for the market-oriented, patient-centered, and result-driven reform plan that we deserve, we’ll be left with the disastrous unintended consequences of the plans currently being cooked up in Washington.
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Afghan Delay Emboldens Our Enemies
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Washington - Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn told CBS News that President Obama should move forward on U.S. military strategy in Afghanistan without waiting to see if Hamid Karzai wins another term as that country's president.
The senator even went as far to say that Mr. Obama's deliberations might have the effect of ''emboldening our enemies.'...
[May?]
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As the Commander in Chief Deliberates, Frustration Builds Within the Ranks
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... But now, after nearly a month of 'deliberations' by Mr. Obama over whether to send more American troops to Afghanistan, frustrations and anxiety are on the rise within the military.
A number of active duty and retired senior officers say there is concern that the president is moving too slowly, is revisiting a war strategy he announced in March and is unduly influenced by political advisers in the Situation Room.
Last week the national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Thomas J. Tradewell Sr., gave voice to the concerns of those in the military when he issued a terse statement criticizing Mr. Obama’s review of Afghan war strategy.
“The extremists are sensing weakness and indecision within the U.S. government, which plays into their hands,”
Another source of tension within the military is the view that a delay is endangering the 68,000 American troops now in Afghanistan.
“McChrystal has troops out there who are risking their lives more than they need to, partly because we have not filled in the gaps and we have not created a safe zone in southern and eastern Afghanistan,”
said Michael O’Hanlon, a national security expert at the Brookings Institution.
[Yes that {ultra-liberal} Brookings Institution.]
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76 days since request for more troops, Obama accused of stalling
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[HT:Ldot:
Five war councils so far and nothing expected until November. That's stalling.
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Female suicide bomber launches deadly attack in Chechnya
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A female suicide bomber blew herself up on Wednesday in an attack on a police car in the main street of Chechnya's capital Grozny. News agencies reported that six people were wounded. '
'The woman went up to a traffic police car in which there were several people and detonated her explosives,'' Chechnya's deputy health minister Rukman Bartiyev told the ITAR-TASS news agency...
[GWOT]
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Republicans Call for CAIR Investigations
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The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a U.S. non-profit Muslim activist group associated with Islamist terrorist groups such as Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, is reeling under new allegations of highly suspect activity.
In a big presser Reps. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.), John Shadegg (R-Ariz.), Paul Broun (R-Ga.) and Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) yesterday asked federal officials to investigate the actions and non-profit status of the controversial group. The allegations are based on work done by veteran federal investigator and counter-terrorism specialist Paul David Gaubatz. The information was obtained during a six-month undercover sting investigation and 12,000 pages of documentation including CAIR internal memos and emails.
“It’s frightening to think that an organization with clear-cut ties to terrorism could have a hand in influencing policy -- especially national security policy -- within our government,” ... “The investigations that we’re asking for are simple, and I’m hopeful that they will bring to light any and all information regarding the goals of CAIR.”
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Who is Keith Ellison and why should we CAIR?
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On September 18, Rep. Keith Ellison spoke at the annual fundraising dinner for the Arizona chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR).
He did so even though, as the American Islamic Forum for Democracy notes, the FBI has broken all formal relations with CAIR because it is listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror financing trial.
The Holy Land Foundation and five of its board members were found guilty on November 24, 2008 of illegally funneling more than $12 million to terrorist organizations.
The trial raised significant concerns for the FBI about CAIR's connections to Hamas, which is a designated terrorist organization by the United States Department of State.
In short, Keith Ellison is helping to raise money for an Islamist organization with ties to terrorist organization.
Three members of Congress from Arizona -- Sen. John Kyl, Rep. Trent Franks, and Rep. John Shedegg -- wrote a letter to Ellison urging him to reconsider his decision to speak to the Arizona chapter of CAIR.
Ellison went ahead with the speech anyway...
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Europe's angst over Afghanistan
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As the president and his National Security Council privately debate whether to send tens of thousands of troops to war, America's European allies watch with a mixture of anxiety and anguish. They know that if the deployment goes forward, they will be asked to make their own difficult and politically costly contributions of soldiers or other personnel. But they are, if anything, even more worried that the American president will choose a feckless strategy for what they consider a critical mission. And they are frustrated that they must watch and wait -- and wait and wait -- for the president to make up his mind.
"Everyone is waiting for what is going to be decided in the Oval Office, without having any chance to have our say," moans a senior commander in one European army.
No, Norwegian Nobel Committee, this is not George W. Bush but Barack Obama, the president lionized for favoring harmonious collaboration with the rest of the world. It's fair to say that Obama has tried harder than Bush to coordinate policy with U.S. allies. But his deliberations on Afghanistan are demonstrating how some fundamentals of being a superpower never really change.
For example, when you're supplying 70 percent [+] of the troops for a war and doing 90 percent [++] of the fighting, your 'allies' may just have to cool their heels while you decide whether to escalate, hold steady or blow up your strategy...
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New FCC Chairman Targets internet
Subject: txt bbro sclm lbrty bdd action -
Instead of managing traffic in response to market forces, ISPs would be forced to cede such decisions to the FCC, which would decide which practices are "fair" and "reasonable" on a "case-by-case basis." [snip]
The FCC has proven either unwilling or unable to competently regulate its current spheres of influence. The United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit provided Exhibit A in an August decision that can be described only as a public embarrassment.
The court vacated the FCC's longstanding rule limiting a single cable company to no more than 30 percent of the market's overall premium television service. The judges -- who recognized the rise of satellite and fiber-optic TV delivery into the market, even if the commission remained willingly blind -- called the rule "arbitrary and capricious."
It takes quite a dose of hubris to propose micromanaging an even more vibrant Internet industry in the wake of that humiliation, and profoundly foolish to replace the swift judgment of millions of consumers with the dictates of a handful of slow-footed, uninformed, unaccountable bureaucrats.
Undeterred, however, Genachowski said Monday the FCC intends to do just that...
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EU ministers agree to wind down stimulus spending
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European Union governments have agreed to begin winding down their extra programs to boost the economy in 2011. The agreement, announced during a meeting of EU finance ministers in Luxembourg on Tuesday, comes after EU governments have spent billions of euros on public spending to no tangible benefit...
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TIME FOR A TARP EXIT STRATEGY
[HT:MG]
Shutting down the Troubled Asset Relief Program would ensure that we don't risk losing more taxpayer dollars
Our financial markets are no longer in free fall and the crisis has receded, so it is time to bring an end to the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) emergency measures and come up with an exit strategy to get government out of the business of running businesses.
The Treasury secretary has the authority to either allow the program to expire at the end of this year or extend it into next fall. Ending TARP this year is a vital first step to getting the federal government out of these expensive and risky entanglements in private industry:
- The latest report by the TARP Congressional Oversight Panel found that approximately $330 billion of the $700 billion limit is currently untapped.
- Allowing TARP to end this year and cancelling that remaining $330 billion would remove the inevitable temptation to spend it.
- With a budget shortfall expected to hit a record $1.6 trillion this year and a staggering $9 trillion over the next 10 years, we should be looking for every possible way to reduce the risk we are taking on behalf of taxpayers.
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Sir Christopher Monckton: Copenhagen treaty eviscerates U.S. sovereignty
Subject: txt grn intl owg -
Sir Christopher Monckton is a global warming skeptic. Former Vice President and Nobel Prize winner Al Gore has for years refused to accept Monckton's repeated challenge to a public debate on global warming.
He's also a very close reader of the proposed UN Climate Change Treaty President Obama is expected to sign along with other world leaders in Copenhagen in a few weeks. Monckton says that 200-page treaty cedes U.S. sovereignity to the UN, mandates a massive transfer of wealth from the U.S. and Europe to pay our "Climate Debt" to the Third World, and creates a new enforcement mechanism to make it all happen.
Is Monckton right? I don't know because I haven't yet read the treaty (But I soon will be). Here's his warning about the Copenhagen Treaty, and here's the draft text of the treaty. Judge for yourself.
[Recommended > ]
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Junk climate science a cover for fanatics
THE world has only five years to implement a destructive low-carbon economy or the planet will hit a “point of no return”, we were warned yesterday.
But the report, by Climate Risk, for the World Wildlife Foundation, did not admit that even if we start destroying our economies, the nations of the world will continue to develop, the poor will become richer, and there’s every chance that the world will continue to cool as it has for the past 11 years.
Another day, another doom-laden forecast about the future of the planet. Prepared, as always, by an organisation locked into the theoretical human-induced global climate change business.
The targets of this latest panic remain those who are easily scared and who don’t want to do any reading of the science for themselves....
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TIME FOR INACTION ON GLOBAL WARMING
Subject: txt grn -
The new Boxer-Kerry Senate bill would require a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions - by 2020 [we're at 2010]. According to Steven Hayward of the American Enterprise Institute:
- A 20 percent reduction would mean cutting America's greenhouse gas emissions to our 1977 levels, and that would radically change both the U.S. economy and our personal lives.
- We had 220 million people in America then; today we have 305 million.
- In 1977 our economy produced $7.2 trillion (in 2008 dollars); today it is twice as large, at $14.2 trillion.
- Back then we had 145 million vehicles on the road; today we have 251 million.
America has substantially grown, and our energy needs have grown as well. So what would we have to do get back to 1977 emission levels and meet the Boxer-Kerry requirement?
First, car and truck miles traveled would have to be reduced by one-third, which would seriously reduce travel and transportation, and likely force changes in automobile design that consumers would not like.
Next, the amount of coal burned to generate electricity would have to be cut in half:
- So we would close more than 200 of our coal-fired power plants, and as Hayward says that would reduce our electricity supply by some 800 million megawatts.
- To replace those millions of megawatts with non-hydro renewable power sources like wind, solar and geothermal power would be virtually impossible.
- We have about 130,000 megawatts generated by them now, and the growth rate of these power sources over the last five years suggests it would take 97 years to make up for the shutdown of 200 coal-fired plants.
Boxer-Kerry would have no impact on reducing global warming but would significantly depress our economy. It would, however, succeed in expanding the control government has over the American economy, businesses and individuals...
[Which was its true intent all along.]
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White House Crosses the Line
Subject: txt msm bias crpt lbrty reps libs -
Every White House complains about its press coverage. A contentious relationship between the Executive Branch and a free and independent media is part of America's DNA. Always has been.
But this White House seems to feel they're different.
It's not just that the current occupant of the Oval Office has a particularly thin skin when it comes to criticism - which is especially ironic given that he's been the recipient of more glowing press coverage than possibly any candidate or president in modern American history. But not since Nixon conjured up an "enemies list" have we seen the full weight of the Office of the Presidency brought to bear in such a targeted and deliberate effort to delegitimize a media organization critical of the President.
It's actually quite brazen when you think about it.
The two most senior members of the Obama White House - men who control all the information and access to the Executive Branch, the lifeblood of most news organizations - went on national television and suggested that ABC, CNN and other networks follow the White House's lead and join in its war to marginalize a competitor because it takes a "perspective" that displeases the President.
Most Americans of all political stripes don't want to see the President using the majesty and power of his office for heavy handed attacks on any organization simply because it has been critical of the President.
This White House's strategy may be the Chicago way, but it isn't the American way.
[Despite many pundits saying how foolish such a feud is, I wonder. The real message they're sending isn't to Fox - but all the other nets that, eventually, will have to come clean for business reasons and largely emulate Fox by default.
And that's what this administration can't afford - so they're sending the signal: dissenters will be punished, it's in your interest not to become one.
Scary, insulting stuff - but likely to work on the other outlets.]
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White House Cites Opinion Shows as Basis for FOX News Complaints
Subject: txt msm bias crpt reps libs lbrty -
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Tuesday pointed to two top-rated opinion shows on Fox News as the reason why the Obama administration has castigated the network as an illegitimate news organization
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Jake Tapper takes on the White House
Subject: txt msm bias gdd crpt reps libs -
Jake Tapper — like Brit Hume and Sam Donaldson before him as ABC News White House correspondents — is holding the administration’s little feet to the big fire.
Today’s exchange with Robert Gibbs, presidential spokesman:
Tapper: It’s escaped none of our notice that the White House has decided in the last few weeks to declare one of our sister organizations “not a news organization” and to tell the rest of us not to treat them like a news organization. Can you explain why it’s appropriate for the White House to decide that a news organization is not one –
(Crosstalk)
Gibbs: Jake, we render, we render an opinion based on some of their coverage and the fairness that, the fairness of that coverage.
Tapper: But that’s a pretty sweeping declaration that they are “not a news organization.” How are they any different from, say –
Gibbs: ABC -
Tapper: ABC. MSNBC. Univision. I mean how are they any different?
Gibbs: You and I should watch sometime around 9 o’clock [O'Reilly Report] tonight. Or 5 o’clock [Glenn Beck] this afternoon. [Both opinion shows, airing across MSNBCs Olberman and Maddow - not mentioned]
Tapper: I’m not talking about their opinion programming or issues you have with certain reports. I’m talking about saying thousands of individuals who work for a media organization, do not work for a “news organization” — why is that appropriate for the White House to say?
Gibbs: That’s our opinion.
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Unlike Nixon, Obama's Media Attacks Generate Little Press Anger
Subject: txt msm bias lbrty - 
Is Barack Obama turning into Spiro Agnew? The White House's attacks on the Fox News smack of the distaste for media opposition espoused by Nixon's vice president almost 40 years ago but are being met with a decidedly different reaction today by the elite media.
Pundits have wondered aloud since last week why the White House would pursue a strategy that seems to be boosting the ratings of a purported 'opposition' news network. MSNBC's Joe Scarborough posited today that the White House's attacks on Fox News are designed to prevent the mainstream media from picking up on stories damaging to the administration (video embedded below the fold, h/t to NB reader Kirk W.).
Every time Fox breaks a story on the radical connections of a White House advisor or appointee, the news is potentially damaging to the administration. But damage is only really done if the rest of the media picks up on the story, reports it, and turns it into a national news sensation, a la Van Jones...
[Exactly.]
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MoveOn.org Asks Democrats To Stay Off Fox News
Subject: txt bdd vals libs msm bias crpt -
"Democrats should support President Obama's effort to boycott FOX. Please stay off FOX for as long as he does."So reads a petition created and disseminated by MoveOn.org Tuesday.
I kid you not. Full text of this abomination is below...
[The new definition of 'discourse' in the age of Obama.]
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-end 091021 post-
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