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Pelosi on health care: 'We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it...'

Subject: txt 1st hcare crpt libs -
This comes from Speaker Pelosi's speech today before the Legislative Conference for National Association of Counties:

“You’ve heard about the controversies within the bill, the process about the bill, one or the other. But I don’t know if you have heard that it is legislation for the future, not just about health care for America, but about a healthier America, where preventive care is not something that you have to pay a deductible for or out of pocket. Prevention, prevention, prevention—it’s about diet, not diabetes. It’s going to be very, very exciting.

“But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy."

Americans are precisely worried they will find out, the hard way, "what is in it," after it's been passed. Whence "the controversy."

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Liberals Say: America Has Too Much Democracy

Subject: txt 1st lbrty libs - 2010 -
The Washington Post’s Richard Cohen explains why President Obama hasn’t been able to ram his health care overhaul through Congress: democracy.

The baleful fact is that the country suffers from a surfeit of democracy — a gazillion interest groups, a gazillion blogs, a gazillion talk shows and all of them insisting on transparency so a gazillion eyes peer over the shoulders of politicians. The black but necessary art of politics shies from the sun. Little gets done. Backrooms have been turned into rec rooms and meetings are seminars. We are doomed. Worse, we are bored.

Why, the nerve of all those Americans! Actually demanding to know the details of a process that is creating a bill that will radically impact their lives.

Cohen isn’t an isolated example. Thomas Friedman has repeatedly gushed about China’s “reasonably enlightened” authoritarian rulers and how they are so much more effective than America’s democracy.

If conservatives disparaged democracy like Cohen and Friedman, they’d be raked over the coals, and rightly so.

But liberals against democracy have a long history. Hmm. Maybe someone should write a book about that.

Update: Noted philosopher Sean Penn says journalists who call Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez a dictator should be jailed.

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Ungovernable Savages

.Subject: txt 1st hcare 2010 -
Saying that Washington is broken is so yesterday.

Like denim, this sentiment will never go all the way out of style, and periodically it will rise to the height of fashion, but those on the cutting edge have moved on for now. It's not Washington that's broken -- it's the American people!

Bill Maher has been calling Americans stupid since last summer. Evan Thomas writes in Newsweek that Americans are typically irresponsible, fat, over-sexed, and think they are smarter than they really are. Thomas Friedman continuously laments in the New York Times that the American people are neither as enlightened nor as disciplined as the Chinese.

All of which becomes most clear on the topic of health care reform: the average American clearly does not understand the magnitude of the crisis. In the most recent Rasmussen poll, 76% rate their own health coverage as good or excellent. A vast majority of Americans fail to appreciate what their wise leaders are trying to do for them... [snip]

With the chains of tyranny fresh and heavy on their minds, the founding fathers designed a system that makes it hard for our elected officials to make sweeping intrusions into our lives. Sometimes -- especially when times are tough and passions are inflamed -- this style of government gets noisy, messy, and frustratingly ponderous, just as the founding fathers intended it to be.

We are not ungovernable savages, and we don't have weak stomachs.

It's the sausage, stupid.

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Tom Brokaw Sniffs: Public is 'Very Confused' About Obamacare

[Meanwhile, in the professional media...]

NBC's Tom Brokaw, in searching for a reason as to why Obamacare faced so much opposition, on Thursday's Today show, determined it was because the people can't quite grasp it, as he sniffed: "The public is very confused." The former NBC Nightly News anchor, on to promote his CNBC documentary about the Baby Boom generation, also told Today co-anchor Matt Lauer that the GOP was fighting the current version of the health care bill for merely "political" and not principled reasons and depicted the uninsured as victims to the now powerful tea party... [audio available here]

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NY Times Accuses Israelis Of Anti-Obama 'Racism' And 'Prejudice'

Subject: txt israel msm -

Are Israeli Jews much more bigoted than their American co-religionists? An astounding 77% of American Jews voted for Barack Obama. But according to Ethan Bronner [with a little "help" from Chris Matthews], anti-black "racism" and anti-Arab "prejudice" are significant factors accounting for PBO's unpopularity in Israel.

Bronner, Jersusalem Bureau Chief of the New York Times, floated his theory to Matthews [in Israel this week] on this afternoon's Hardball. Asked by Matthews to rate American politicians from most to least popular in Israel, Bronner ranked them: Bill Clinton, Hillary clinton, Joe Biden, with PBO bringing up the rear. There's no disputing that the president is wildly unpopular in Israel: recent polls there have him down in single digits.

But Israeli "prejudice" and "racism" as significant explanatory factors? Here was the exchange:

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General Eisenhower Warned Us

[HT:MH]
It is a matter of history that when the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, General Dwight Eisenhower,found the victims of the death camps he ordered all possible photographs to be taken, and for the German people from surrounding villages to be ushered through the camps and even made to bury the dead.

He did this because he said in words to this effect:

'Get it all on record now - get the films - get the witnesses -because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened'

This week, the UK debated whether to remove The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it 'offends' the Muslim population which claims it never occurred.

It is not removed as yet.. However, this is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving into it. Now, more than ever, with Iran , among others, claiming the Holocaust to be 'a myth',it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets.

How many years will it be before the attack on the World Trade Center 'NEVER HAPPENED'...

Never Forget.
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Iran's Ahmadinejad calls Sept 11 'big fabrication'

['Asked and answered']

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday called the September 11 attacks on the United States a "big fabrication" that was used to justify the US war on terrorism, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Ahmadinejad, who often rails against the West and Israel, made the comment in a meeting with Intelligence Ministry personnel.

It came amid escalating tension in the long-running dispute between Iran and the West over Tehran's nuclear program, with the United States pushing for new UN sanctions against the major oil producer.

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Green Zone: Latest 'Anti-American' Movie

Subject: txt gwot nsec herose msm -

... a war film in which American troops are the bad guys. There are moments that we're supposed to cheer because our soldiers are getting shot down -- but it's okay because they're evildoers at worst or stooges at best who are trying to kill the one guy in the country who can prevent an insurgency from taking root...

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Venezuela linked to terror groups

Subject: txt gwot intl hugo -
Accusations by Spanish authorities that Venezuela aided an alliance between Basque and Colombian terror groups that plotted joint attacks in Colombia and Spain have revived a debate over Venezuela's possible role as a state sponsor of terrorism. A Feb. 24 indictment issued by Judge Eloy Velasco of Spain's anti-terrorism court specifically cites "Venezuelan governmental cooperation" with 12 members of the Basque separatist group ETA and guerrillas of the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)...

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Snow hits Mediterranean Coast

Subject: txt grn -
Blizzards have hit the French Mediterranean coast amid warnings of up to 20 inches of snow in Northern Spain on Tuesday. Nimes and Perpignan were among the cities hit by the bad weather near the coast in France...

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Methane Madness

Subject: txt grn -
For decades now, alarmists have claimed that CO2 emissions are warming the earth past the "tipping point" and that only extreme reductions in the use of fossil fuels can avert catastrophe. Yet the earth today is less warm than it was in the middle ages, a period in which it cannot be claimed that human activity was contributing to global warming.

Global temperatures in 2010 are colder than they were in 2000, despite a tripling in the annual growth rate of CO2 emissions in the last decade largely attributable to the mushrooming economies of developing nations such as China and India.

Alarmists have been predicting catastrophe for over thirty years, yet the earth continues in natural cycles of warming and cooling, just as it has for eons...

[I.e., having failed to convince the public that the weak greenhouse gas of CO2 is dooming the planet, they're switching gears to methane - using the same caliber of science as they did previously to 'prove' alarm is justified...

There's too much money on the line to simply admit defeat and quit.]

Recommended > ]

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IMF Suggests How to Raise Climate Change Funds

Subject: txt owg grn -
The head of the International Monetary Fund on Monday proposed a plan for the world's governments to pool together to raise money needed to adapt to climate change, a rare step for an organization that normally does not develop environmental policies.

IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said the Fund is concerned about the huge amount of funding needed and the effect that will have on the global economy. He added that the proposal may help efforts to reach a binding agreement on climate change later this year.

Strauss-Kahn proposed that countries adopt a quota system similar to the one the Fund uses to raise its own money, which could bring in money faster than proposals to increase carbon taxes or other fundraising methods... [snip]

He said a climate change accord reached last December estimated $100 billion a year will be needed by 2020 to fund the program...

The more than 190 nations will reconvene in Cancun, Mexico, later this year for attempt to reach a anotherbinding agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which sets emissions targets for industrial countries and expires in 2012...

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Obama's student loan monopoly

Subject: txt sclm bbro edu -
Students have been voting with their feet and choosing private loan sources rather than government ones...

[A free market solution? Can't have that...]

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The other reconciliation outrage

Subject: txt sclm bbro edu -
As long as they are jamming healthcare through via reconciliation, the Democrats are about the use the same parliamentary dodge to pass another takeover that could never attract 60 votes in the Senate. They want to nationalize another sector of the economy, taking over student loans. Review and Outlook of the Wall Street Journal reports:

One of these controversial measures rewrites the Higher Education Act to ban private companies from offering federally guaranteed student loans as of this July. Congress has already passed laws in recent years discouraging private lenders from making loans without a federal guarantee. But most college financial-aid departments still want private companies to originate and service the guaranteed loans. That's because the alternative-a public option run by the Department of Education-has been distinguished by its Soviet-style customer service.

The Democratic plan is to make this public option the only option mere days before colleges send out their financial aid packages to incoming students. The House and Senate budget committees issued instructions last year to look for savings in the student-lending program, so the Democrats have prepared in advance their excuse to jam these changes through the reconciliation process.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan portrays the changes as eliminating subsidies to private companies...

So in the future, the government will become the sole source of education loans...

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Hollywood Values in the Classroom

Subject: txt bdd vals ;obs edu cali mny -
Suzy Amis Cameron, spouse of Avatar director James Cameron, has co-founded a new school, Muse Elementary, in greater Los Angeles. Maureen Harrington of the Los Angeles Times interviewed Ms. Cameron for details concerning the school.

We learn that for students at the pre-K through fourth-grade school,

every class begins with "an intention," which can be anything from finishing writing their journal entry to being kind to others or walking with quiet feet inside. Even the littlest kids pick up the intention stone, say their desire for that class and put the stone into a jar of water.

Thus, we begin to see the precepts of a 1960s hippie commune foisted upon innocent 21st-century children... [snip]

Even though Avatar has grossed more than 2.5 billion dollars since its release, the school must look beyond the founder's means to assist needy toddlers in need of educational salvation. Hence, "the staff does a lot of grant writing."

Are these grants solicited from the bankrupt state of California, or the bankrupt U.S. government?

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CBO Sees Obama Budget Bringing Debt to $20 Trillion By 2020

Subject: txt mny -
The Congressional Budget Office has released its assessment of President Obama's budget, and the results aren't pretty. According the analysis, deficits in the next decade will be worse than what the White House has projected, much higher than they would be if we were to follow current law, and even higher than what CBO had forecast last year.

Between 2011 and 2020, the nation will accumulate $9.8 trillion in deficits as a under the Obama budget, according to the CBO, ending the decade with $20.3 trillion in public debt...

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What Bias? Re: Washington Post Uses CBO to Criticize Obama Tax Cuts, Rather than Spending

Subject: txt msm mny =
The Washington Post must dislike tax cuts even more than it likes President Barack Obama. On March 6, staff writer Lori Montgomery warned that the national debt would climb by $9.7 trillion under Obama’s budget.

Relying on the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) for data, Montgomery reported that the debt would be "higher than White House forecast" but not because of spending increases by Obama.

Instead, she used the CBO to attack Obama's "tax-cutting agenda" continuing a media theme of portraying him as fiscally conservative despite the largest budget ever...

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Police chief says repeat offenders committing bulk of crimes

Subject: txt bdd othr bbro immig - Wilmington
Last year North Carolina announced prison closings and staff reductions in the N.C. Department of Correction. The changes came during a year when the City of Wilmington saw a 19 percent increase in theft. So on Monday, WPD Chief Ralph Evangelous told City Council members that North Carolina's judicial system isn't tough enough to deter burglars and thieves and that continued cuts in the prison system will only make property crime worse.

"We're arresting and re-arresting these people over and over,"

Evangelous said of offenders who repeatedly break into homes and cars.

"The rest of the system is failing us."

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California has a 70 percent criminal recidivism rate - the highest in the nation

Subject: txt mny cali crpt sclm bdd -
San Francisco Chronicle
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More inmates to be released early

Sacramento Bee
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POLL: 67% Say Illegal Immigrants Are Major Strain on U.S. Budget

Subject: txt immig -
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 23% disagree and do not believe illegal immigration is a strain on the budget.

Two-out-of-three (66%) voters say the availability of government money and services draw illegal immigrants to the United States. Nineteen percent (19%) think otherwise and do not believe government money and services are a magnet for illegal immigration. Another 15% are not sure.

These findings help to explain why 68% say gaining control of the border is more important than legalizing the status of undocumented workers already living in the United States. Twenty-six percent (26%) think legalizing illegal immigrants is more important.

The majority support for controlling the borders has been consistent through several years of surveying....

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Activists tell Obama to protect illegals

Subject: txt immig -
Immigrant rights groups on Monday demanded that President Obama impose a full moratorium on deportations of illegal immigrants, arguing that his policies have been worse for their cause than those of his Republican predecessor. Saying they've been "betrayed" by and lost patience with Mr. Obama, the advocates suggested that the president could regain their support by leading a fight on Capitol Hill for a bill to legalize illegal immigrants.

Mr. Obama took the first step toward legalization during a meeting Monday at the White House...

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Obama Begins on Immigration 'Reform'

Subject: txt immig -
The Obama administration is moving on crafting a law that would eventually legalize some 10 [to 20] million undocumented foreign workers living in the United States.

President Obama met with the two senators — Democrat Charles E. Schumer and Republican Lindsey Graham — to plot a course for introducing bipartisan immigration legislation this spring.

"The basis of a bill would include a path toward citizenship for the 10 [to 20] million people living in the U.S. illegally,”

the Los Angeles Times reported Friday...

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Judge tosses sanctuary suit in S.F. killings

Subject: txt immig cali bbro - J
SAN FRANCISCO -- The family of a father and two sons who were shot dead on a San Francisco street in 2008 can't hold the city responsible for failing to turn their alleged killer over to immigration authorities after earlier arrests, a judge has ruled.

The city isn't legally to blame for any crimes Edwin Ramos, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, committed after his release for the offenses he committed as a juvenile, Judge Charlotte Woolard of San Francisco Superior Court said Monday...

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U.S. Census Has ‘Policy of Self-Identification’ for Same-Sex Couples

What kind of questions are going to be on the U.S. Census form? Just ten “basic” questions, says the U.S. Census Bureau. And on a question about relationships, same-sex couples may go with personal preference rather than truth.

According to the New Jersey Star-Ledger, the 2010 Census form will allow same-sex couples to labels themselves as “husband or wife,” even if the relationships are not recognized by law...

[Well, how important is the rule of law, really?]

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What Bias? Re: CNN airs Four Pro-Homosexual 'Marriage' Clips, No Opponents

[Well, how important is balanced coverage, really?]

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Poll: Republican resurgence among young adults

Republicans are enjoying new popularity among 18- to 29-year-olds, which may signal the first step in a Republican resurgence among young adults, a new poll suggests. The poll finds young Republicans are more politically energized than young Democrats, and they’re more likely to say they will “definitely be voting” in this November’s midterm elections.

[Not sure they deserve it - but better than the socialist wave.]

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