REPUBLICAN HEALTH CARE IDEAS

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Two interesting GOP proposals have been offered from opposite ends of the Republican ideological spectrum -- conservative and moderate.

They differ in one major way. Conservatives would end employer-based health care, while moderates would keep it. But both are aimed at using free-market competition to lower costs and make private insurance more affordable to businesses and individuals.

The conservative health care proposal has been offered in the House by Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.) and in the Senate by Richard Burr (N.C.) and Tom Coburn (Okla.).

The moderate plan has been proposed by Reps. Mark Kirk (Ill.) and Charlie Dent (Pa.) and reportedly will form the basis of a full-blown GOP alternative developed by the GOP Health Care Solutions Group headed by Rep. Roy Blunt (Mo.), but not yet unveiled.

• The Ryan-Burr proposal would allow employees to opt out of their employer-based insurance plan and get a $5,000-per-family tax credit to buy health insurance or pay medical bills.
• It would also allow individuals and businesses to form pools and buy insurance anywhere in the country, not just in the state where they live.
• This will greatly expand the choices of coverage available to consumers and will also encourage broader competition and diversity among insurers.
• Along with practically every other plan, Democratic and Republican, the conservative plan would require insurance companies to offer insurance regardless of a person's pre-existing medical condition.

Meanwhile:

• Kirk and Dent's Medical Rights and Reform Act is designed to lower the cost of insurance policies through legal reform -- which will reduce the expensive practice of "defensive medicine" -- and also create interstate pools.

Both the conservative and moderate plans would allow low-income Medicaid patients to get vouchers to buy private insurance and encourage states to experiment with insurance market reforms.

Source: Mort Kondracke, "GOP has health care ideas. Why not fight for them?"

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"SUPPORT RYAN-BURR, KIRK-DENT PROPOSALS "


Senate-Reid: http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
House-Pelosi: http://speaker.house.gov/contact/
YOUR Senator: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
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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image toon - hcare = patient v doctors broken legs over healthcare law suits

US Pentagon thinks small for forces overhaul

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THE Pentagon yesterday unveiled a sweeping overhaul of its weapons priorities to prepare the US military to fight unconventional conflicts such as those in Afghanistan rather than against China, Russia or other major powers.

[Exactly what China, Russia or other major powers don't need to hear.]

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"China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese."

Former French President Charles De Gaulle.

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With Obama In Office Kossacks Not So Worried About War

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When George W. Bush was in the White House, one of the leading anti-war voices in the nation was the ultra-liberal website Daily Kos.

Now that Barack Obama is President, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are mysteriously no longer of such great concern to the Nutroots.

I guess the anti-war movement was much more about getting Bush out of office than getting our troops out of harm's way.

Such was reported by the Washington Examiner's Byron York Tuesday (h/t Paul Chesser):

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image toon gwot nsec msm reps = Oby against detention - except when he wants it

Lieberman: Fatah 'burying' any chance of peace in coming years

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The political platform formulated at the Fatah General Assembly in Bethlehem, combined with unrest in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, ''has buried any chance of coming to an agreement with the Palestinians in the next few years,'' Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Monday.

''the Palestinians' uncompromising, extremist positions on Jerusalem, right of return, and settlements are making a gap between us that can't be bridged.''

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With whom is Israel supposed to cut a two state deal?

[HT:NW].
According to President Obama's vision of a two-state solution, Israel must conclude a peace agreement with Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas.

But Fatah, at this week's party convention, took a leaf from Arafat's playbook and decided that it wouldn't even start negotiations until Israel completely withdraws to the pre-1967 lines, releases all Palestinian terrorist prisoners, and imposes an absolute construction freeze not only in West Bank settlements, but in Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. And Fatah went on to give its full support to its terrorist wing, Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, launched close relations with Iran, and demanded an absolute "right of return" to Israel for millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants.

As if this weren't enough of an obstacle in the peace process, Hamas -- dedicated to Israel's total elimination -- has been ruling Gaza for the last two years and is not about to change its spots or its grip on half of what is supposed to become the state of Palestine.

And to complicate things even further, a Qaeda-offshoot group, known as the "Warriors of God," has emerged in recent weeks in Gaza, intent on folding all Palestinian areas into an Islamist Caliphate across the entire Middle East. At week's end, this group fought a pitched battle with Hamas from a mosque in Rafah, Gaza, which according to latest dispatches left two dozen people dead and 100 injured.

So, President Obama, with whom exactly is Israel supposed to reach a two-state agreement?

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"The quickest way to end a war is to lose it".

- George Orwell

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image toon gwot israel - Hamas truce = reload

THE NEW FEDERAL TOBACCO TAX

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Congress increased the federal tax on cigarettes by 61 cents per pack and raised the tax on other tobacco products.

According to the U.S. Department of Treasury, the resulting tax increase was much higher on some forms of tobacco:

• For large cigars, the federal tax increased 725 percent per cigar, from about a nickel to 40 cents.
• For loose tobacco, the tax increased 2,160 percent.
• For small cigars, it increased 2,653 percent

S-CHIP will now cover up to four million additional children in families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid. Unfortunately, there is plenty of evidence that not only will these tax hikes harm poor consumers and small businesses, they will fail to deliver the promised government revenues or public health benefits.

Using excise taxes to fund S-CHIP is especially problematic, since the percentage of the population using tobacco products is shrinking, while the number of children eligible for S-CHIP coverage is growing.

According to Heritage Foundation projections, the federal government will need 22.4 million new smokers by 2017 to pay for the S-CHIP expansion.

This means that Congress will likely have to raise other taxes to cover the $33 billion estimated annual cost of the S-CHIP expansion...

[It's call 'hook-&-reel'; Start a program on the backs of a demonized minority, and when that funding dries up you're now in a much better position to get general funding to foot the bill to avoid 'loosing' what's in hand.

Duped again.]

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THE PRICE WE ALL PAY FOR HIGH TAX RATES

[HT:MG].
According to a Tax Foundation study on the economic cost of high tax rates:

• Consider the combined effect of Obama's proposal to raise the top tax rate from 35 percent to 39.6 percent and the new surtax; this means high-income households will receive 54 cents rather than 65 cents from every dollar they earn.
• That is, the after-tax reward from earning income falls by 17 percent.
• Based on the research mentioned above, with such large increases in tax rates, we can expect taxpayers facing the top tax rates to reduce their reported incomes by nearly 7 percent.

Moreover, this is a cautious estimate; thus, we might expect an even faster shrinkage of the federal tax base from these tax increases, says the Tax Foundation.

President Barack Obama wants Americans to believe that they can enjoy all of his proposed programs without paying for them because "the rich" will cover the cost.

But taxing "the rich" will only be the start. To get real money, the big spenders are going to have to tax the middle class as well...

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image toon - 1st hcare mny = USam = rich to pay - & you're rich

ASK NOT IF THE SCIENCE OF GLOBAL WARMING IS TRUE…

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Many people will buy "Why We Disagree About Climate Change," the new book by British socialist Mike Hulme, based on the promise that it examines the ideas and motives of both sides in the global warming debate.

But that's not what this book is about, says Joseph Bast, President of the Heartland Institute.

In fact, the real purpose isn't revealed until far into it.

"The idea of climate change," Hulme writes, "should be seen as an intellectual resource around which our collective and personal identities and projects can form and take shape. We need to ask not what we can do for climate change, but to ask what climate change can do for us."

In other words, socialists like Hulme can frame the global warming issue to achieve unrelated goals such as sustainable development, income redistribution, population control, social justice and many other items on the liberal/socialist wish list.

But this notion is jarring for an American reader:

• Opinion polls show two-thirds of us do not believe global warming is manmade.
• More than 30,000 [31,478 and counting] American scientists have signed a petition saying there is no convincing scientific evidence that human activity will cause catastrophic global warming.
• The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) has produced an 880-page rebuttal of the latest IPCC report containing more than 4,000 references to peer-reviewed science.

The debate taking place about global warming in America is not the one described by Hulme as being between those who favor "cap and trade" and those who favor even more radical changes; it's about how much of the warming of the late 20th century was natural and how much was manmade.

This -- the real public policy debate -- is entirely missing from Hulme's book.

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image toon - grn = Alarmists finding it harder to frighten citizens

Obama's "science adviser"

Compulsory abortion and sterilization aren't youthful indiscretions

Earlier this month Obama's "chief science adviser," John P. Holdren, served as co-chairman when the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology met for the first time. It's a disgrace that Mr. Holdren is even on the council. In "Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment," a book he co-authored in 1977 with noted doomsayers Paul R. and Anne H. Erlich, Mr. Holdren wrote:

"Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society."

It gets worse.:

"A program of sterilizing women after their second or third child, despite the relatively greater difficulty of the operation than vasectomy, might be easier to implement than trying to sterilize men. The development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired opens additional possibilities for coercive fertility control." [snip]

The question naturally arises why President Obama chooses to surround himself with extremists like Mr. Holdren.

No matter how much they claim their views have "evolved," health and science under Obamacare would be a frightening prospect with people like this 'advising' the president.

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Hey, unions, leave those kids alone

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As we learned from Arthur Conan Doyle’s story, Hound of the Baskervilles, sometimes the most revealing piece of information is the dog that didn’t bark.

And so it was with an unheralded little piece by Ewin Hannan which appeared on page 7 of The Australian newspaper last Friday.

Hannan’s news report described a new initiative called Unionstart run by Unions NSW where unionists will go into NSW schools to 'educate' 14 to 18-year-olds about unions...

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HIDDEN 'REFORM' COSTS: THE HEALTH COPS

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EAT your vegetables. Avoid sweets and fats. Never smoke. And do your calis thenics. Or be ready to pay a hefty tax.

Ridiculous? Sure. But under ObamaCare, Americans may well find themselves moving quickly toward a world of just those kind of mandates. Here's why.

As taxpayers start paying an ever-larger share of the nation's health bill (as they clearly will under the Dems' health reforms), pressure will mount for Uncle Sam to see that folks live healthy lives. There'll be two key rationales for broader sin taxes and other ways to control lifestyles:

• * They promote "wellness."
• * They make those living "unhealthy lives" bear the medical costs of their "reckless" behavior.

[snip]

If the goal is to make each of us pay the health costs linked to our own indulgences, there's a more efficient way to do it: Simply make everyone pay his own medical bills -- and scrap nationalized health care altogether.

Lifestyle dictators will have none of that, of course. They'd rather end personal financial responsibility for health-care costs and then claim government has a right to mandate how we live -- since it pays the bills.

Which is why a vote for government health care is a vote for government-run life. Let's hope Americans understand that be fore ObamaCare goes to the floor.

[Recommended > ]

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image toon - lbrty libs bdd fnn - Legalizing dope while taxing soda

POLL: 56% Favor Regulation of Campaign Contributions, But 88% Say Special Interests Likely To Get Around It

.[HT:DA]
The Supreme Court is expected to hand down a ruling this fall that could loosen restrictions on contributions to political campaigns in a major way, but 56% of U.S. voters believe the federal government should regulate how much money [very wealthy] individuals can give to political campaigns.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 25% don’t believe the government should regulate campaign contributions. Nineteen percent (19%) are not sure.

But 88% say it’s at least somewhat likely that special interest groups will find ways to get money to politicians and influence their votes even if the government places limits on how much individuals can give to campaigns.

There is very little partisan disagreement on the need for campaign finance regulation or over the ability of special interests to get around that regulation.

However, an unusually high number of voters (40%) don’t know enough about the subject to have an opinion one way or the other.

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Bob Dylan Detained By Cops Week After Gates, Story Buried Until Now

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Exactly one week after the highly-publicized arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates stirred a national discussion on race relations, legendary singer-songwriter Bob Dylan was detained by police officers in a "low-income, predominantly minority neighborhood" in Long Branch, New Jersey.

Makes one wonder why it took so long for this to get reported, and if news outlets that were convinced Gates's arrest was racially motivated will see the delicious irony in a white rock star being questioned by police just because he was "wandering around the neighborhood."

The Associated Press sure didn't - Here's the money quote:

The officers thanked him for his cooperation.

"He couldn't have been any nicer to them," Woolley added.

In fact, according to ABCNews.com, Dylan was quite gracious:

"He was really nice, though, and he said he understood why I had to verify his identity and why I couldn't let him go," Buble said.

Hmmm. So, Dylan was detained a week after Gates, was cooperative, and the issue was quickly resolved.

And we're hearing about this NOW?

How might this have impacted the Gates-Sgt. James Crowley affair if it had been reported at the time it happened rather than over three weeks after the fact?

I guess when a white rock legend is detained by police for having the nerve to walk around a minority neighborhood, and cooperates fully with the authorities to quickly resolve the misunderstanding, it's not a teachable moment.


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image toon 1st fnn vals - Gates stopped after WH beers..

CBS Buries Democrat Label in Chris Dodd/Kent Conrad Countrywide Scandal Story

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The two most prominent figures currently still in government who are implicated in the scandal are Democratic Senators Christopher Dodd and Kent Conrad, neither Senator was identified by Attkisson as a Democrat. Even while soundbites of the two Senators were shown, there was not even an on-screen label showing the party of either Senator.

But later, the CBS correspondent did more directly link one other figure to Republican members of Congress as she read documentation citing Countrywide’s interest in a former House committee counsel, Clinton Jones. Quoting an "internal Countrywide email," Attkisson described him as "‘an advisor to ranking Republican members of Congress responsible for legislation of interest [to Countrywide].’"

It was not until the end of the report, after a soundbite of Republican Congressman Darrell Issa – whose party was labeled on screen – complaining about Countrywide’s actions, that Attkisson finally hinted that Democrats may have more to fear from the scandal as she relayed that "Democrats are blocking a Republican effort to subpoena Countrywide documents."

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Actor's US 'detention' prompts outrage in India

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Angry fans burned a U.S. flag in protest Sunday, a Cabinet minister suggested searching visiting Americans and an actress tweeted her outrage after Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan said he was detained for questioning at a U.S. airport.

While U.S. immigration officials noted he wasn't formally held, fellow Indian film stars and political leaders condemned what they called "humiliating" treatment given to Khan, a Muslim who is well-loved in a largely Hindu country. One Cabinet minister suggested a "tit-for-tat" policy toward Americans traveling to India.

Khan said he was detained Friday by U.S. immigration officials at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey because his name came up on a computer alert list. In India the ability to avoid being frisked at airports is seen as a status symbol. Politicians, sports celebrities and film stars often claim VIP status to avoid security checks.

The actor is in the U.S. to promote a new film, "My Name is Khan," which is about racial profiling of Muslims after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

[Just an ironic coincidence I'm sure.]

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image toon - 1st hcare = Death Panel claim absurd so removed

No more letting the angry opposition control the agenda

On CBS’s Sunday Morning correspondent Martha Teichner touted President Obama’s latest PR blitz to promote health care reform:

"For the third time in five days, Barack Obama used the presidential bully pulpit on behalf of what he’s now calling health insurance reform. No more letting the angry opposition control the agenda."

[That 'opposition' is American citizens - you know, government's employers...]

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Don't Fact Check Obama

NBC on Tuesday night tried to turn public opposition to ObamaCare into a “split” in public opinion discovered in a new NBC News poll as Chuck Todd assessed Obama's health effort is “still in serious condition politically, but it is stable,” and he listed four charges against the Democratic bills which he asserted have “been checked independently and proven to be false,” yet NBC didn't inquire about any claims from Obama and other liberals that those same groups have discredited.

Todd also tried to minimize the impact -- of what he derided as the “town hall madness” -- by attributing the view of them to partisan positions without mentioning how independents consider them beneficial: “And those town halls -- the country is evenly divided -- and by overwhelming majority, Democrats believe they're harmful. Republicans believe they're good.” On MSNBC.com, however, NBC News deputy political director Mark Murray pointed out: “Independents believe, by a 50-34 percent margin, that the protests have done more good.”

[Re: the illegal immigrant aspect of the poll, FactCheck.org claims this to be a false argument because ‘the House bill specifically says that no federal money would be spent on giving illegal immigrants health coverage'. But while the bill specifically states illegal immigrants are to be excluded, it also offers zero provisions to enforce such an exclusion, which in the real world means illegals will line up for the free services. The proof of this fact lies in the amendment to rectify have required immigration verification screening - but was shot down by Democrats in the House Ways and Means Committee in July. Why?]

Again, these bills have nothing to do with health care - they're about planting the seeds for governments eventual control of health care and by extension the populace.]

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image toon - 1st msm reps llibs hcare crpt = Oby's truth scar

Reality Check: Media Double-Standard on Anti-ObamaCare 'Mobs'

With President Obama and congressional liberals facing loud protests over their big government health care plan, journalists are casting the anti-ObamaCare forces as “ugly,” “unruly,” “nasty” mobs, with reporters presenting the most odious images (like pictures of Obama drawn as Hitler) as somehow representative.

But when President George W. Bush faced left-wing protests, the media scrubbed their stories of radical voices and depicted demonstrators as mainstream, and even “prescient.”

In January 2003, all of the broadcast networks touted an anti-war march organized by the radical International ANSWER, an outgrowth of the communist Workers World Party. Signs at the rally read: “USA Is #1 Terrorist,” “Bush Is a Terrorist,” and “The NYPD Are Terrorists Too.” National Review Online quoted several protesters who claimed 9/11 was a Bush plot, “like when Hitler burned down the Reichstag,” and argued Bush would “build a worldwide planetary death machine.”

But reporters then bypassed all that hate and showcased the protesters as everyday Americans.

On ABC, Bill Blakemore stressed how the protest attracted “Democrats and Republicans, many middle-aged, from all walks of life,” while CBS’s Joie Chen saw “young, old, veterans and veteran activists — all united in the effort to stop the war before it starts.”

In Feburary 2003, CNN donated two hours of programming, “Voices of Dissent,” to another International ANSWER event. Correspondent Maria Hinojosa enthused: “It’s an extraordinarily diverse crowd." ['extraordinary' for a crowd to be diverse - in America?]

On March 22, 2003, CNN offered 38 separate reports on a demonstration that day, but managed to never show any of the radical rhetoric from the podium.

Over on ABC, Chris Cuomo saluted the leftists converging in New York City:

“While protesters like today are a statistical minority, in American history protests like this have been prescient indicators of the national mood. So the government may do well to listen to what’s said today.”

[ditto that last, but...]

In contrast, today’s protesters are being portrayed as crazy and even dangerous.

Ex-CNN reporter Bob Franken called the anti-Obama protesters “a crazed group” engaged in “organized intimidation.”

An August 10 graphic on MSNBC wondered: “Conservatives Coming Unhinged?”

Chris Matthews saw racism: “I think some of the people are upset because we have a black President.”

And ABC’s Bill Weir on Friday warned “the rising anger is now ramping up concerns over the President’s personal safety.”

The double-standard is obvious. How can professional journalists possibly justify it?

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MSNBC: ObamaCare Protesters ‘Racist,’ Including Black Gun-Owner

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On Tuesday, MSNBC’s Contessa Brewer fretted over health care reform protesters legally carrying guns: "A man at a pro-health care reform rally...wore a semiautomatic assault rifle on his shoulder and a pistol on his hip....there are questions about whether this has racial overtones....white people showing up with guns."

Brewer failed to mention the man she described was black.

MSNBC pop culture analyst [?] Toure discussed the supposed racism involved in the protests. Toure argued:

"...there is tremendous anger in this country about government, the way government seems to be taking over the country, anger about a black person being president [?!?] ....we see these hate groups rising up and this is definitely part of that."

Not only did Brewer, Ratigan, and Toure fail to point out the fact that the gun-toting protester that sparked the discussion was black, but the video footage shown of that protester was so edited, that it was impossible to see that he was black.

[Making the deceit intentional. To review: one (1) black man showed up with legal side arms and our professional journalists reported it as 'white people {plural} showing up with guns {plural}. Watch the video, these folks are drumming up racism.]

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Media upset by pistols, ignores AK-47s

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According to the mainstream media, carrying a gun to a protest is just plain crazy, even if perfectly legal. What’s more, it’s indicative of the toxic, hate-filled atmosphere filling conservative protests of President Obama and his plans for health care reform.

“Hardball” host Chris Matthews and his daytime colleagues at MSNBC, for example, have their used air time to marvel at what would possess an average American citizen to go to a rally near where President Obama is speaking with a gun.

But the media reaction was markedly different nine years ago when a group of Black Panthers marched on the Texas Republican Party’s state convention on June 2000 brandishing AK-47s.

A search of Nexis and the Media Research Center’s News Tracking System found no stories on that evening’s broadcast network newscasts about the Black Panthers brandishing “assault weapons” to protest then-presumptive GOP presidential nominee – and Secret Service protectee – Gov. George W. Bush’s refusal to intervene in the pending execution of convicted murderer Gary Graham.

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CO-OPS: A "PUBLIC OPTION" BY ANOTHER NAME

Establishing health insurance co-operatives is a poor alternative to the public option plan. Opponents of a government takeover of the health care system should not be fooled, says Michael D. Tanner, a senior fellow with the Cato Institute.

Government-run health care is government-run health care no matter what you call it:

• The health care "co-op" approach now embraced by the Obama administration will still give the federal government control over one-sixth of the U.S. economy, with a government-appointed board, taxpayer funding, and with bureaucrats setting premiums, benefits, and operating rules.
• Plus, it won't be a true co-op, like rural electrical co-ops or your local health-food store -- owned and controlled by its workers and the people who use its services.
• Under the government plan, the members wouldn't choose its officers -- the president would.

The real issue has never been the "public option" on its own.

The [REAL] issue is whether the government will take over the U.S. health care system, controlling many of our most important, personal, and private decisions.

Even without a public option, the bills in Congress would make Americans pay higher taxes and higher premiums, while government bureaucrats determine what insurance benefits they must have and, ultimately, what care they'll be allowed to receive.

ObamaCare was a bad idea with an explicit "public option." It is still a bad idea without one.

[We're being fooled again by 'debating' what the government should do - vs. if it should be doing it. ANY 'health care 'reform'' bill that passes will only set a path to an eventual single payer, 100% government controlled system. Starting down such a path is the real agenda here - the rest is smoke, and we'll regret it if we're foolish enough to fall for it.]

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image toon - sclm bbro hcare grn engry = Feds taxing soda and burps

Taliban burns down schools

Taliban militants burnt down seven primary schools in northwest Pakistan, where children recently resumed their studies after the area was declared safe by the army, officials said on Tuesday. ''Three boys' and four girls' primary schools were set on fire by militants late Monday in Buner district,'' district police chief Abdul Rasheed told AFP.

[GWOT]

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Kuwait nabs al-Qaida cell over bomb plot

Kuwait City - Kuwaiti authorities said Tuesday they have arrested an al-Qaida-linked group allegedly planning to attack a US military base in the small oil-rich state.

The Interior Ministry said in a brief statement that State Security has detained a ''terrorist network'' of six Kuwaitis who gave ''detailed confessions'' about plans to attack Camp Arifjan, the main US base in the country, as well as the headquarters of the country's security agency...

[GWOT]

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Hamas asserts power in Gaza after Qaeda clash

Hamas militiamen were out in strength in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, asserting their authority over the Palestinian enclave after a bloody showdown with a rival Islamist splinter group aligned with al Qaeda.

In the southern town of Rafah, by the border with Egypt, residents sifted through the rubble of apartment buildings blown up during hours of fighting on Friday and Saturday that left up to 28 dead and a mosque ravaged by bullets and grenades.

Many bemoaned the bloodiest violence among Palestinians since 2007. Some forecast reprisals by more young men, some of them former Hamas fighters now disillusioned by its attempts to reach out to the West and negotiate an end to Gaza's isolation.

In a statement on a Web site used by al Qaeda-allied groups from Gaza, a shadowy figure using the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Maqdessi made clear there was anger against Hamas: "The slaughterer in Gaza is Hamas. It is the one holding the knife."

[First we were forced to actually look upon Fatah as something less than a terrorist organization {which it is} so to serve as the lesser evil vs. Hamas. Now Hamas is the comparatively moderate faction? Terrific.]

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image toon - 1st islm gwot israel - HAMAS = Hide Among Mosques and Schools

Obama's State Department Submits to Islam

Here is the latest act of submission to Islam by your State Department.

A State Department cable has just been sent out with this announcement:

The Bureau of International Information Programs (IIP) has assembled a range of innovative and traditional tools to support Posts' outreach activities during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

The State Department's Ramadan programs are wide-ranging. "On August 10," the cable continues, "America.gov will publish a ‘Multicultural Ramadan' feature. American Muslims trace their ancestry to more than 80 countries and the feature will highlight the richness of these various cultural traditions through the lens of Ramadan and Eid. Content will include essays by young Muslims who are part of Eboo Patel's Interfaith Youth Core (IYC). Contact: Alexandra Abboud (AbboudAM@state.gov)."

There's more. The Bureau of International Information Programs "will publish three articles for Ramadan 2009 addressing the concept of an Islam in America 'brand'; advocacy (civic and political) of the Muslim American community; and community innovation/community building. The writer will contact Muslim American experts in each of these fields. These articles will be available on America.gov in English, Arabic, and Persian." [snip]

Can you imagine every Embassy and consulate putting up a Menorah and having some Rabbis as speakers via a webcast?

Can you imagine if we had the Stations of the Cross put on the walls of all of our embassies, consulates, and other posts, as well as the many Department of State buildings across the country, including C Street?

Why aren't priests, pastors, etc. invited during Christmas to give blessings or talk about Christianity in the United States?

I mean, put it in reverse and see how crazy it is. Absolutely nuts.

Perhaps this is an initiative of President Barack Obama's newly created Office for Outreach to the Ummah at State. In June Obama had the Secretary-General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, at the White House. Ihsanoglu urged Obama to appoint a U.S. ambassador to the Islamic world - and Obama immediately created a new State Department Office for Muslim Outreach.

Why is this immense effort necessary?

We act as if we were a slave of the Muslim world. This sickness of licking the boots of an ideology that wants to destroy us is incomprehensible.

Burt Prelutsky said it best:

"What is wrong with our leaders? Are they worried that they won't be invited to those cool Ramadan parties? The Islamists have been actively at war with us for 30 years and generally at war with western civilization for well over a thousand years, and still we pay lip service to these people in a way we never did with Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan or the Soviet Union.

Is it because the Muslims commit sadism and murder in the name of religion and not country? If anything, I would think that would make their evil acts all the more contemptible."

It does.

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A BETTER MODEL FOR MALPRACTICE SYSTEM

Health care reform is bogged down because none of the bills before Congress deals with the staggering waste of the current system, estimated to be $700 billion to $1 trillion annually.

The waste flows from a culture of health care in which every incentive is to do more; yet, congressional leadership has slammed the door on solutions to the one driver of waste that is relatively easy to fix: expensive and time-consuming malpractice system.

The answer is inescapable -- such expert courts might succeed and undercut the special interest of an influential lobby, the trial lawyers.

An expeditious and reliable new system would compensate patients more quickly and at a fraction of the overhead of the current medical justice system, which spends nearly 60 cents of every dollar on lawyers' fees and administrative costs.

Even more compelling, expert health courts would eliminate the need for "defensive medicine," thereby helping save enough money for America to afford universal health coverage:

• A 2005 survey in the Journal of the American Medical Association related that 93 percent of high-risk specialists in Pennsylvania admitted to the practice, and 83 percent of Massachusetts physicians did the same in a 2008.
• Defensive medicine is notoriously hard to quantify, but some estimates place the annual cost at $100 billion to $200 billion or more.
• But containing costs requires overhauling the culture of health care delivery; therefore, incentives need to be realigned and a legal framework that encourages doctors to focus on is needed.

Furthermore, traditional tort reform is not sufficient to end defensive medicine. The key is reliability. Reliable justice would protect doctors against unreasonable claims and would expeditiously compensate injured patients.

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The Next Fannie Mae

If there was ever any proof needed that government is run by a bunch of idiots, this is it.

After bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to the tune of almost a trillion dollars, one might think that government had learned its lesson about loaning money to people for houses who either can't afford it or have proven to be bad risks in the past.

Enter Ginnie Mae - the Government National Mortgage Association - whose parent, the FHA, has quadrupled its loan portfolios since 2006. Ginnie has mostly been issuing the same kind of mortgage backed securities to guarantee loans made to bad risks that were made by Fannie Mae.

Very good explanation of this in a Wall Street Journal editorial:

On June 18, HUD's Inspector General issued a scathing report on the FHA's lax insurance practices. It found that the FHA's default rate has grown to 7%, which is about double the level considered safe and sound for lenders, and that 13% of these loans are delinquent by more than 30 days. The FHA's reserve fund was found to have fallen in half, to 3% from 6.4% in 2007-meaning it now has a 33 to 1 leverage ratio, which is into Bear Stearns territory. The IG says the FHA may need a "Congressional appropriation intervention to make up the shortfall."

Don't you just love government nomenclature? "Congressional appropriation intervention" - sounds almost harmless, eh? Except it's a bailout by any other name using our tax dollars to pull bureaucratic chestnuts out of the fire because they were too stupid to learn the lessons from Fannie Mae's downfall.

[Government: when no one pays a price for failure, you guarantee it. Health Care anyone?]

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image toon - mny = housing slide stopped by commercial on the edge

AARP-- Where The Customer is Always Wrong

Last week, many of you saw the video of a Dallas AARP town hall meeting on health care that AARP officials ended early after the audience raised too many objections. The woman leading the meeting, for instance, tried to shut up audience members who said they disagreed with her when she made assumptions about what she thought they would agree with her on. At one point, a man summed it up by asking,

“Do you guys work for us, or do we work for you?”

As bad as the video made AARP look, on some level, you could write it off as an instance of a local AARP representative getting frustrated and simply not having the experience or temperament to deal with an audience that was pushing back against her talking points. That's why I found it much more damning when I saw AARP vice president and spokesman Drew Nannis appearing on Fox (clip below).

Not only does he refuse to apologize for the woman's behavior, but he dismisses those dues-paying AARP members as "a bunch of people yelling..." [snip]

AARP is not an organization that represents its members, but a group that treats its members as dupes so it can suck up their money and use it to advocate a liberal policy agenda supported by its Washington leadership...

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AARP Members Defecting to Conservative ASA

On Monday's CBS Evening News, correspondent Sharyl Attkisson filed a report highlighting the recent defections of thousands of AARP members to the more conservative American Seniors Association (ASA), because of AARP support for ObamaCare.

The report recounted that Obama recently had to correct a claim that the AARP supports his plan, while some are suspicious that the group may support the President privately, but are unwilling to admit to doing so publicly.

[UPDATE: Heard on ABC radio last night that AARP itself reports that they've had >sixty-thousand members terminate their membership in the last two months.

Contrary to liberal dogma, most folks get wiser with age.]

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Shhh! Gallup Reports That Conservatives Outnumber Libs in All 50 States; Media Plays Dumb

You know this is important polling news, because the establishment media is pretending it doesn't exist.

You can't find a relevant reference to it in searches on "Gallup" at the New York Times, AP.org, the Washington Post, or the LA Times. A Google News search on "Gallup conservatives outnumber liberals" (not in quotes) comes up with all of eight results.

The news isn't just that self-identified conservatives outnumber self-identified liberals nationwide. That's old hat. The big news from Gallup is that conservatives outnumber liberals in every state in the union, including supposedly uberliberal Vermont and Massachusetts.

It's hard not to wonder if someone at Gallup did what they did with the headline and subheadline to help ensure that establishment media outlets ignored this stunning news. I would suggest that they didn't have to work that hard; the media would have ignored it anyway.

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FLASHBACK:

Still the Biggest Missing Story in Politics
The answer is the same - just the same - America is still, in every way and from every vantage, a conservative nation.
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A Fundamental Disconnect

Hollywood and the media routinely offer up two standard portrayals of government officials -- inept and comical idiots or sinister characters: bureaucrats are either hilarious nincompoops or dangerous evil-doers, and amazingly enough, sometimes both at once.

However, the people who hold these convictions are the exact same people who want to turn over the operation of all the key components of the country to the government to manage. Health care, energy, education, the economy itself -- these and dozens of other critical features of American society should be directed, according to the Left, from the hallowed halls in which the bumblers and betrayers work.

Is there not a fundamental disconnect here? What could possibly explain this self-contradictory faith in the power of the government to successfully solve the nation's problems?

I will offer three explanations and then speculate as to which applies to the celebrity who now occupies the White House.

The first explanation is ignorance.

The people of our nation have been subjected to an intense liberal indoctrination for so long that there are a huge number of them for whom the tenets of liberalism are so deeply ingrained that they accept without question the proposition that the government must address any problem that arises anywhere in America.

Under a relentless assault from the liberal dominated media, educational establishment, legal profession, arts community, foundations, and even segments of the business and religious communities, many have succumbed to the brainwashing.

Consequently, they believe:

• FDR's New Deal saved us from the Depression rather than prolonged it;
• the Great Society helped to lift minorities out of poverty, rather than institutionalizing it;
• capitalism creates unjust, inequitable outcomes in the US, ignoring the fact that it has powered our economy to unimagined and unequaled heights of prosperity;
• government creates jobs by spending the tax payer's money, rather than preventing their creation because of the tax dollars pilfered from entrepreneurs;
• government regulations improve the functioning of our economy, revealing obliviousness to the enormous drag they impose;
• the rich don't pay their fair share, whereas in fact the "rich" pay the overwhelming majority of the income tax that Uncle Sam extracts, while the lowest 40% of income earners pay virtually nothing;
• the Constitution is a malleable document that serves as a guide to the making of law -- in fact, it is a binding document that can be changed only by a demanding Amendment process and the American republic has survived and prospered precisely because continuing generations have agreed to abide by the deal struck by our founders with the people;
• radical change not adherence to tradition, is the American way.

I venture that a large proportion, perhaps a substantial majority of the folks who voted for Obama fit into this category -- especially young people... [snip]

It is legitimate to ask how such people can accept the portrayal of the government as bumbling or sinister or both, while somehow avoiding the inescapable conclusion, if their first premise is true, that it is lunacy to entrust our welfare to these same bumblers and evil-doers?

[Why I frequently use the word 'delusion' when attempting to describe 'liberal logic'. The first of 3 reasons explored/explained - Highly Recommended > ]

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WaPo Slams Obama/Joker as ’ ‘Racially Charged’

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An article in Thursday’s Washington Post lashed out at the viral Obama-as-the-Joker posters, attacking them as promoting "coded," "racially charged" images. Art critic Philip Kennicott smeared the images, which have been showing up in Los Angeles, as flat-out bigoted:

"The charge of socialism is secondary to the basic message that Obama can't be trusted, not because he is a politician, but because he's black."

[Right: and that big word across the bottom of the poster, that couldn't have been the 'basic' message.

No, it's obvious it was used to suggest race due to precedence - when used on this guy:

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Obama Joker artist unmasked as Liberal-Leaning Palestinian and fellow Chicagoan

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Since NewsBusters and the Drudge Report first introduced America to the Obama Joker poster -- with help from talk radio host Tammy Bruce, of course -- most media outlets have speculated the artist was likely white, conservative and of course, racist.


Not exactly.


As reported by the Los Angeles Times moments ago, the up-until-now anonymous creator of the poster sweeping the nation is a 20-year-old college student of Palestinian descent with largely liberal political leanings.

Honestly, you can't make this stuff up:

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Right must learn to tell great stories

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“Give me the making of the songs of a nation and I care not who makes its laws.”

- Andrew Fletcher, 1703.

Communicators on the Left have mastered and now continually deploy narrative - a strategic weapon far more potent than the World Wide Web (which, however, is proving an extremely efficient delivery vehicle).

Wikipedia describes narrative as, "along with exposition, argumentation and description, narration, broadly defined,...one of four rhetorical modes of discourse.”

Typically, conservatives present our case in exposition, argumentation and description. By empirical observation, these are much less potent persuaders than narrative. Consider, for example, “global warming” (note, though, that, since it has become clear that global warming is unsubstantiated by the data, proponents now call it the vaguer “climate change.”)

The global warming narrative is based entirely on junk science, with the phenomenon, its cause (if it exists) and the corrective steps unsubstantiated by data. And yet we recently saw Secretary of State Hillary Clinton apologizing to the government of India for America being the bad guy in this drama.

This apology came even though the government of India – and China - refuses to adopt the anti-growth and prosperity-throttling policies called for by proponents of this (ultimately preposterous) story.

Why is this happening? The power of narrative. A compelling narrative, artfully deployed, captures the imagination of the people...

[Recommended > ]

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Expelled From the New York Times

Then, two things happened to change and end my career at the Times. Well, maybe three.

But the two main things, as I see them, were that I started criticizing Mr. Obama quite sharply over his policies and practices. I had tried to do this before over the firing of Rick Wagoner from the Chairmanship of GM. My column had questioned whether there was a legal basis for the firing by the government, what law allowed or authorized the federal government to fire the head of what was then a private company, and just where the Obama administration thought their limits were, if anywhere.

This column was flat out nixed by my editors at the Times because in their opinion Mr. Obama inherently had such powers...

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Strong Grassroots Support For Palin’s SarahPAC

The political action committee associated with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin , SarahPAC, reported strong support from small donors in its mid-year report. SarahPAC reported $733,000 in total receipts through June 30, of which $420,000 was “unitemized” or from donors who contributed $200 or less...

[As predicted, the MSM's orchestrated opinion that Sarah's resignation was political suicide isn't selling with those who put their money where their mouths are.

Et Tu?]

http://www.sarahpac.com/

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Tipping Smart cars the latest prank trend

Edmonton - Owners of pint-sized Smart cars aren't laughing about reports that vandals may be targeting the tiny vehicles in a 21st-century take on tipping cows over.

The Internet and blogosphere are abuzz with media reports that pranksters may have pushed several of the tiny vehicles into canals in Amsterdam...

[Stop laughing, it's not funny. Ok a little funny. Actually, go ahead - ]

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[I've no idea.]

image toon - 1st hcare = Government hcare = DMV

I Don't Accept the Premise

I haven't read the health care bill, HR 3200. It's not because I don't care what's in it; rather, I oppose the bill because I don't accept the premise that it's needed or even constitutional. This debate is not about health care; it's about control. To let progressives frame the debate around a specific bill allows them to bypass the exposure and probable defeat of their larger agenda: government centralization and control. It's time we stop permitting progressive Trojan Horses through our nation's gates and start looking these gift horses in the mouth.

Our Constitution is very clear on a limited federal government. Providing health care and other social services on a federal level are not what our founders intended. In fact, they all spoke at great length about avoiding the tyranny of oppressively large government, emphasizing individual freedom & limitations on federal government.

This health care debate is the perfect place to make an ideological stand. We shouldn't invest ourselves entirely in a debate over the legislation, but should direct our efforts more broadly to question its intent. The health care bill must be defeated and not negotiated. Congress will offer us everything we want and more, so long as a bill for socialized health care gets signed into law. There are no sacred cows in HR 3200; the only thing that matters to progressive elites is the precedent of its passage. They will eventually, patronizingly capitulate to our demands to change the bill.

We will have been taken as fools who bought the snake oil because we won the haggle over price...

[Highly Recommended > ]

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image toon = hcare =Huge Oby care pill for taxpayers

GREAT BRITAIN: NHS IS PUTTING THE PATIENT LAST

While British health ministers have been quick to applaud the advantages of a "national" health system to fight the swine flu outbreak, the very centralized nature of the service cuts two ways, say researchers from Civitas, a British think tank.

They argue that the "customer" of the National Health Service (NHS) -- Great Britain's government-run health care model -- is the health secretary rather than the patient.

The report sees much in favor of attempting to introduce private provision within the state system and competition between NHS trusts to attract patients.

But this has been stymied by incessant interference from the Department of Health, says researchers:

• According to health service managers, a staggering total of 69 public bodies -- excluding the Department of Health and 10 regional strategic authorities -- currently regulate, inspect or demand information from NHS organizations.
• The nature of Great Britain's centrally funded system inevitably means that ministers are constantly intervening and setting targets because they see themselves as the taxpayers' guardian; thus, undermining the market mechanism.

Researchers conclude that the NHS has put into practice the 10 Commandments of Business Failure as drawn up by Donald Keough, past president and former CEO of Coca-Cola:

• Among these commandments are "assume infallibility;" however its outcomes are worse than other universal health care systems and the NHS ranks low in international surveys.
• Another commandment is "isolate yourself" -- healthcare is conducted in separate "silos," particularly regarding communication between GPs and hospitals.
• A further commandment, "be inflexible," is met by hamstringing units with state control: staff pay is set centrally, capital expenditure is constrained, IT is a top-down program and availability of drugs, such as expensive cancer treatments, is centrally determined.

Source: "Putting Patients Last: How the NHS Keeps the Ten Commandments of Business Failure," Institute for the Study of Civil Society, August 10, 2009.

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Canada Considering Healthcare Overhaul With Private Insurance

[HT:SE]

As President Obama and his Democrat-controlled Congress try to force healthcare reform on an American population largely pleased with the current system, our neighbors to the north are actually considering improving their structure by -- wait for it!!! -- welcoming additional competition from private insurers.

Within hours of the Obama administration saying that it might consider a reform package without a government option, the Canadian Press inconveniently reported the following...

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image toon - 1st hcare = Oby's Co-Ops- Public Options steps toward single payer

Elite Meltdown

The face-off between the ruling party and the people continues to unfold...

The politicians continue to manufacture faux outrage at the American people for failing to 'understand' the nuances, the broad outline, of a 1,000 page plus bill that the politicians haven't even read.

The American people understand all too well, and the politicians false acting has been replaced by real outrage... [snip]

Peons from fly-over country are daring to challenge the carefully scripted and (deliberately?) misleading talking points. Talking points which, by the way, have been endorsed by the media. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are using the standard liberal tactic of diverting attention from the issue by demonizing the dissenter, in this case, the American people.

According to Pelosi and Reid, voicing objections to the federal government's take over of 17% of the formerly free market economy is 'un-American.' Harry Reid has gone a step further, tarring dissenter's as 'evil mongers'. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs has blithely dismissed the burgeoning dissent by informing one and all that these 'townhalls are not representative of America.' Obama, meanwhile, is trying to divert the issue by blaming the 'headline hungry television networks', accusing them of 'enflaming an ugly backlash.', and have launched a new $12 million ad campaign [taxpayer paid] designed to soothe Americans into relying on the government instead of common sense... [snip]

The only problem is, Americans aren't buying it.

Americans have been deceived and beaten up by the government so many times lately, that, even thought they still love Obama, they're taking steps to distance themselves from what has become an increasingly dangerous relationship. Flowers, new cars, and soothing words are no longer effective. Even the race card isn't ringing their bells.

Liberals have finally succeeded in persuading Americans to look at the broad picture instead of inconvenient details.

The kicker is, as more Americans see the broad picture, they see the unprecedented devolution of power to the federal government. They see the loss of America's traditional reliance on individuals instead of government. They see the loss of personal liberty and freedom of choice.

And they don't like it...

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image toon - 1st hcare = Town Hallers have questions for witch doctors

POLL:54% Say Passing No Healthcare Reform Better Than Passing Congressional Plan

Thirty-five percent (35%) of American voters say passage of the bill currently working its way through Congress would be better than not passing any health care reform legislation this year.

However, a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that most voters (54%) say no health care reform passed by Congress this year would be the better option.

Not surprisingly, there is a huge partisan divide on this issue. Sixty percent (60%) of Democrats say passing the legislation in Congress would be the best course of action. However, 80% of Republicans take the opposite view.

Among those not affiliated with either major party, 23% would like the Congressional reform to pass while 66% would rather the legislators take no action.

Voters who earn less than $20,000 a year are evenly divided but a majority of all other voters would prefer no action. Middle income voters, those who earn from $40,000 to $75,000 a year, are most strongly in favor of taking no action.

A plurality of voters under 30 say passage of the Congressional legislation is better. A majority of adults take the opposite view.

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