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Obama promises $2,500 health care savings; CBO says plan is $2,300 price increase

Subject: txt 1st hcare -
From a fact sheet on Obama's website (PDF link):

Obama’s plan will save a typical family up to $2,500 on premiums by bringing the health care system into the 21st century: cutting waste, improving technology, expanding coverage to all Americans, and paying for some high-cost cases.

However, the CBO just produced this analysis of the senate health care bill (another PDF link) which concludes that the Senate health care bill will raise the average family's health care premiums by $2,300.

Even Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., is admitting that health care premiums aren't about to go down just because health care reform is passed:

“Anyone who would stand before you and say ‘well, if you pass health care reform next year’s health care premiums are going down,’
I don’t think is telling the truth.
I think it is likely they would go up.”

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We're not buying it, O

Subject: txt 1st hcare -
Once again, Barack Obama is a pitch man. He's on stage with a microphone, jacket off, sleeves rolled up, his voice rising and falling as he tries to whip the big crowds into revival-tent fervor. He's still peddling Hope & Change, although now he calls it health-care reform. He swears his miracle elixir will save your life, your money and your country. It will do anything you could possibly want -- unless you want the truth. Then you're squat out of luck.

We used to arrest people for selling snake oil. Now we elect them.

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Gibbs: If Senate Bill Passes House It Will Go to the President’s Desk

Subject: txt 1st hcare -
The other day I exposed the fact that Harry Reid switched the language in the House-passed H.R. 3590 Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009 and inserted the Senate version of the healthcare bill via a manager’s amendment in order to meet the requirement that all legislation raising taxes must originate in the House.

For further confirmation, here is the audio of that exchange.

Listen from about 4:20 to 5.00 and you will hear Gibbs confirm that once the House passes the Senate’s version of the healthcare bill, it’s a done deal.

No talk of reconciliation here, because reconciliation is not needed at all.


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Pelosi: Dems close on health care agreement

Subject: txt 1st hcare -
Democrats claimed momentum Wednesday in their drive to enact the sweeping health care legislation sought by President Barack Obama, citing near agreement on crucial issues.

At the Capitol, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that after days of secretive talks, key Democrats were "pretty close" to accord on additional subsidies [bribes] to help lower-income families purchase insurance, and more aid for states... [more bribes]

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Final 'reform' push: twisting arms

Subject: txt 1st hcare -
President Obama's attempts to ram health- care reform through are starting to resemble a really eventful episode of "The Sopranos." Whether or not you believe former Rep. Eric Massa's bizarre accusations of locker-room confrontations and conspiracies to drive him from office, there is no doubt that the Obama administration and its congressional allies are willing to use every trick in the book to get this bill passed...

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They're still trying...

[and they've the memory of gerbils...]


"OPPOSE OBAMACARE"



YOUR Congressman: https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml

or: Speed Message them with your personal distribution list...

and as always, pass it on...

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What Bias? Re: MSNBC: Stupak Abortion Stance a Plea for '15 Minutes of Fame'

Subject: txt hcare msm =
Hayes, filling in for Rachel Maddow on MSNBC's March 9 broadcast of "The Rachel Maddow Show," didn't seem impressed with Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich. Stupak, who has a documented history of having a pro-life position on abortion long before so-called health care reform was even a possibility, has been taking heat from left-wingers in this political battle. But according to MSNBC, it's just for "15 minutes of fame" ...

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Pennsylvania Woman Charged With Recruiting Violent Jihadist Fighters

Subject: txt gwot islm -
A Pennsylvania woman known to authorities as "JihadJane" has been charged in federal court with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, conspiracy to kill in a foreign country, making false statements to a government official and attempted identity theft.

The indictment, unsealed Monday, charges that Colleen R. LaRose and five unindicted co-conspirators recruited men on the Internet to wage violent jihad in South Asia and Europe, and recruited women on the Internet who had passports and the ability to travel to and around Europe in support of violent jihad.

[GW OF T]

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'Jihad Jane' indictment shows terror's evolution

Subject: txt gwot islm -
PHILADELPHIA - The self-described "Jihad Jane" who thought her blond hair and blue eyes would let her blend in as she sought to kill an artist in Sweden is a case of an American woman aiding terrorism and shows the evolution of the global threat, authorities say.

The suburban Philadelphia woman, Colleen R. LaRose, is accused of agreeing to murder the artist, marry a terrorism suspect so he could move to Europe and martyr herself if necessary...

[GWOfT: "Gwroft", Global War OF Terror, being waged against us.]

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Seven Muslims arrested over plot to kill Swedish cartoonist

Subject: txt islm -
Seven Muslims were arrested in the Irish Republic today over an alleged plot to assassinate a Swedish cartoonist who depicted the Prophet Mohammed with the body of a dog, police said. Al Qaida put a 100,000-dollar bounty on the head of cartoonist Lars Vilks after a newspaper published his cartoon. The four men and three women were detained after an investigation involving European security agencies and the United States' CIA and FBI...

[GWOfT is a battle of information, with it we'll win - without...]

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Muhammad cartoon republished

Stockholm - At least three Swedish newspapers on Wednesday published a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog after an alleged plot to murder the artist who created it was uncovered in Ireland.

The controversial drawing by Swedish artist Lars Vilks was printed in Stockholm papers Dagens Nyheter and Expressen and the Malmo daily Sydsvenska Dagbladet...

[Past time: sounds like a distasteful comic, but had our spineless press done this the first time around this issue would have been nipped in the bud.]

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Ballots beat bombs Iraqis Vote for Democracy

Threats, bombs and at least 36 dead didn't stop Iraqis from voting on Sunday. Formal results won't come for a few days. We'll learn how many votes, authentic and fraudulent, went to each of the big five parties and fringe elements. But the news looks good, so far.

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[I went to Pleasanton's Iraq polling place (Fairgrounds) where I picked up these flyers -

... the place had several hundred folks there when I was with a constant stream in and out. It was also a much more social affair than I suspect most of us are used to with several large groups around talking politics.

It was frankly gratifying to see a tangible benefit to the great cost our nation has paid to go beyond removing Sadam and toward establishing a seed of democracy in the region...]
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War in Iraq Low on Obama’s Agenda; Compliant Media Move On, Too

Subject: txt gwot - msm -
“President Obama hardly ever mentions the war in Iraq,” Joseph Curl reports in the Washington Times, and the news media are largely aiding in this neglect. Curl discloses that

“the last time a White House reporter asked about the Iraq war was June 26,” while ABC, CBS and NBC aired just 80 minutes of coverage in all of 2009."

The near-media blackout means that the success of President Bush’s “surge” policy in 2007 — a policy opposed by President Obama and Vice President Biden when both were presidential candidates and ridiculed by the networks as a "Lost Cause" — has gone virtually unreported in the past year.

This week’s Newsweek [yes, Newsweek] is an exception, with a big Iraq War cover story declaring “Victory at Last”...

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Free trade vital to our economy

Subject: txt crpt trade -
For two decades, the word “trade” has been a dividing force in Congress. Its supporters, like me, see trade as a boon to our economy. As the free leader of the world, the U.S. is also one of the largest trading nations, supporting millions of American workers and millions of American jobs.

Increased trade is good for America. In the past decade, U.S. exports have nearly doubled to $2 trillion a year...

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They Call It 'Trade'

Subject: txt trade crpt - -
Commerce: For an administration that touts "export-led growth," it's a bad sign to see huge markets in Europe and Brazil pulling up the drawbridges over the one-sided U.S. policy.

"Trade" means imports, too. Brazil announced Tuesday that it would slap $830 million in tariffs on 102 U.S. products, ranging from cars to potatoes to medical gear. The deal was based on a 2005 World Trade Organization ruling against U.S. cotton subsidies. The U.S. had five years to get rid of them.

Fact is, open markets mean buying and selling — exports and imports alike. Far from being a curse, as special interests like Big Labor claim, imports help the economy by reducing raw material costs for U.S. manufacturers so they can hire more, cut costs and raise consumer purchasing power.

It's ridiculous to expect other nations to open their markets if the U.S. keeps finding creative new ways to shut its own. It takes two to trade, and the Obama administration must learn this or forget about its export-led strategy for growth...

[Again and again, the welfare of our country suborned to the selfish agendas of organized labor.]

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Guess Who's Coming to Your House

Subject: txt hcare lbrty sclm bbro -
It's all supposed to be voluntary, those "home visits" that are tucked into the mammoth Obamacare bill. All voluntary, they say, but once you "volunteer" to have the oh-so-helpful folks from Social Services come in to help with your newborns, or with a number of other specified issues, will you ever be able to get rid of them?

The bill provides for federal funding and supervision for this vast expansion of government intrusion into family life. This is the Nanny State on steroids. Is your family being "targeted" for such home visitations? Let's see if you fit into one of these very broad categories:

• Families where Mom is not yet 21. (No mention here whether she is married or not.)
• Families where someone is a tobacco user. [?] (Does this include the White House? Watch out, Sasha and Malia! Does Grandpa, whom you love and have taken in, enjoy his after-dinner pipe?)
• Families where children have low student achievement, developmental delays, or disabilities.

As if that list were not wide-ranging enough, here's the net that can encompass tens of millions:

• Families with individuals who are serving or formerly served in the armed forces, including such families that have members of the armed forces who have had multiple deployments outside the United States.

So while Johnny gets his gun, the government steps in to "help" his family at home.

Do you spank your children? You should know that HHS bureaucrats think you are an abuser.

Ronald Reagan used to say the most frightening words in the English language were these: I'm from the government, and I'm here to help... [snip]

One thing is clear: For life and liberty, we must defeat ObamaCare. Call your U.S. senators and representatives now (202.224.3121). Tell them to vote NO on Obamacare.

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Census PSA PROMOTES more government as a reason to participate

Subject: txt crpt lbrty bdd fnn bbro sclm - msm -
Can the advertising gurus and the census bureau really be so detached that they think we want more government regulation?

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The Keynesian Stimulus Dogma

Subject: txt mny -
Blindness to history.

The Keynesians' faith in deficit spending as the key to economic recovery represents a triumph of hope over experience.

Exhibit A: The massive deficit spending of Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s didn't stop the Great Depression. In fact, despite FDR spending more money in his first five years in office than all 31 prior presidents combined, his Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau stated in 1939 that "[w]e are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. ... I say after eight [sic] years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started ... And an enormous debt to boot!"

Exhibit B: The massive deficit spending of Japan's government over the past two decades has led to protracted economic sluggishness. Japan still limps along, but now the nation suffers from the largest debt-to-GDP ratio of the developed world at almost 200%.

Exhibit C: Last year's so-called stimulus plan has produced the same results as FDR's stimulus-stagnant employment and mushrooming debt.

The Keynesian economists have a huge blind spot when it comes to history. That is because they tend to view economic history as divided into two eras: the years since the Keynesian revelation (Dec., 1935, when the master, John Maynard Keynes, enlightened the world with his General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, and pre-1935 when all was supposedly darkness. They seem oblivious to the historical fact that, before Hoover and Roosevelt, Uncle Sam didn't ramp up spending during recessions /depressions, and those downturns were of shorter duration.

The most instructive example is the Depression of 1920-21, which featured the most rapid fall in production, employment and GDP in our history. Rather than trying to stimulate the economy, Presidents Harding and Coolidge slashed government spending in half. Markets made the necessary adjustments, the depression lasted for approximately a year, and employment and production made rapid, robust recoveries.

[More, Recommended > ]

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O'Krugman's Keynesian Blarney

Subject: txt mny msm libs -
Economics: The columnist who worries about Washington not spending enough also blames the financial crisis on "free-market fundamentalism" and "letting bankers do what they want."

When did Uncle Sam do that?

In his new book "The Great Money Binge," legendary newspaper editor George Melloan calls attention to New York Times writer Paul Krugman's "novel theory that the New Deal had failed to pull the country out of the Depression during the 1930s because government had not spent enough!"

Melloan calls Krugman "even more Keynesian than Keynes himself"

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What Ideology? Re: Reaganomics Didn't Work, His 'Personality' Saved Economy

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The economics of personality? The concept defies logic not to mention the laws of finance and accounting, but according to Newsweek's Eleanor Clift it wasn't the combination of President Ronald Reagan's attack on inflation and his low tax rates on individuals and businesses - but his personality that rescued the economy from the malaise of the early 1980s.

On the "The McLaughlin Group" March 7, Clift declared that Reaganomics was a failure...

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After Climate-Gate, U.N. Submits to Independent Review

Subject: txt owg grn -
In an apparent slap at the embattled chief of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has ordered a newly formed outside scientific panel to review its "procedures and practices" -- and more significantly, its management...

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Report Says California Global Warming Law Will Cause Job Losses

Subject: txt grn cali engry -
A report released Monday says that California's new global warming law will increase unemployment in the Golden State.

The announcement was in stark contrast to continual claims by the Left and their media minions that proposed cap and trade legislation at the federal level will result in an explosion in green jobs.

As reported by the Los Angeles Times Wednesday, the nation's most populated state, which is the first to impose laws concerning carbon dioxide emissions, would see a net reduction in employment as a result:

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Climate-What? As UN Climate Chief Quits, AP Throws Pity Party; PJM's Rosett Applies Reality Check

[Meanwhile, in our professional media...]

Yvo de Boer resigned yesterday as Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Here are three key passages from the official announcement at the UN's web site:

The top United Nations climate change official said today that he has made the “difficult decision” to step down from his position, citing his desire to pursue new opportunities to advance progress on the issue in both the private sector and academia.

.... Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement that he was informed by Mr. de Boer of his decision two days ago and respected his decision, but “with regret.”

“Developing countries need to move as quickly as possible toward a future of low-emissions growth and prosperity,” he stressed, noting that millions of people in Africa and around the world are suffering from climate change’s effects.

These people are still living in the fantasy world they have constructed over the past two decades.

Sadly, so is the Associated Press.

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Thomas Sowell: Artificial stupidity

Subject: txt bdd vals grn libs edu -
A woman with a petition went among the crowds attending a state fair, asking people to sign her petition demanding the banning of dihydroxymonoxide. She said it was in our lakes and streams, and now it was in our sweat and urine and tears.

She collected hundreds of signatures to ban dihydroxymonoxide — a fancy chemical name for water.

A couple of comedians were behind this ploy. But there is nothing funny about its implications. It is one of the grim and dangerous signs of our times.

This little episode revealed how conditioned we have become, responding like Pavlov's dog when we hear a certain sound— in this case, the sound of some politically correct crusade.

People are all born ignorant but they are not born stupid. Much of the stupidity we see today is induced by our educational system, from the elementary schools to the universities.

In a high-tech age that has seen the creation of artificial intelligence by computers, we are also seeing the creation of artificial stupidity by people who call themselves educators... [snip]

Will Rogers once said that it was not ignorance that was so bad but "all the things we know that ain't so."

But our classroom indoctrinators are getting students to think that they know after hearing only one side of an issue.

That's artificial stupidity.

[Recommended > ]

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Texas-Sized Lesson: The New Tone Era Is Over

Subject: txt 2010 gdd -
The bottom line is that the new tone [of 'reaching across isles' and 'big tent party'] was never called for by Americans.

To think so was to be rather tone-deaf. Any strategy based on the assumption that people just could not get along -- and ignores the possibility of legitimate and deep ideological divides -- misses the point.

By definition, the new tone more or less meant not debating your opponents very vigorously before compromising with them on almost everything.

It's the message of Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. It is a conservative message of less government, less taxation, less regulation, and more freedom. It is a message about soundly defeating anyone who would stand in the way of that message, and not of "working with them."

... it is deliciously ironic that her own beloved Texans, along with Palin, were the ones to deliver that message. The new tone, which came home to roost with Obama's election in November of 2008, is now officially dead. KBH had better heed the message, as should any Republican who wants to be on the right side of history in 2010...

[2nd point: according to the MSM, Palin's death to anyone she touches - but she's 3-1 re: major endorsements...

Highly Recommended > ]

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Drudge By Numbers: Gov't Spends $71,433 Surfing Drudge Reports in First 9 Days

• 149,967 Hits to Drudge from senate.gov since March 1 = 16,663 hits per day
• 244,347 Hits to Drudge from house.gov = 27,150 hits per day

At that pace, the Congress and White House will spend roughly $2.8 Million in tax payer dollars to surf The Drudge Report in all of 2010...


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