Enduring bumper sticker sermons

Subject: txt libs othr vals bdd -
Preaching once was an art largely confined to the pulpits in the churches of this country. Now, some sermons have been reduced to sound-bite size and mounted on the rear bumpers and hatches of automobiles....

...I was first lectured with soaring statements of principle. "Peace" has apparently returned "by popular demand," and this odd assertion was emphasized by several prominent peace symbols. I learned that dissent is the highest form of patriotism... I was ordered "to think globally and act locally." I must "work for peace." And, of course, I really must learn to "COEXIST," the letters of which being composed of various political and religious symbols...

Any preacher must know his audience and the sermon must fit that audience. Thus, the message in the sermon can tell us much about how the preacher perceives or evaluates his audience. ... The audience for the sermons of this driver, and for so many who carry the same messages, is Middle America. It is America that needs to be preached to and changed. It is America that fosters strife in the world. It is America that stifles expression and must be reminded of dissent's connection to patriotism. It is America that that must be urgently advised to 'coexist'...

Those reading these exhortations for peace will not be those who are actually instigating war in the world.

It will not be the Islamic extremists in various places around the world who will ponder these messages of peace. It won't be the Chavez-supported narco-terrorists in Latin America, or the perpetrators of genocide in Darfur, or Russian troops occupying parts of Georgia, or the Chinese colonialists in Tibet.

The people who actually wage wars would be surprised, and possibly amused, by the idea that peace is back 'by popular demand'...

John Lennon's popular song "Imagine" is an anthem to the inane, where merely wishing can make it so, and where in an especially strange version of utopia. The mind that listens reverentially to Lennon's song is the same sort of mind that finds these bumper sticker platitudes compelling. Such drivers share Lennon's indulgent and fashionable alienation against this country and all that made Lennon's life so comfortable.

His is a mind that excuses the grim realities that burden so much of the rest of the world, while unfairly projecting those grim realities onto his middle American audience.

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image reps libs fnn - How much to remove Oby sticker

Fair and Decent?

Subject: txt bdd vals msm bias othr -
Scott Rasmussen periodically polls Americans on whether their country is "generally fair and decent," as opposed to "basically unfair and discriminatory." The former view, of course, tends to predominant, but the latest results are rather sad: Just 60% of U.S. voters now say that American society is generally fair and decent, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

[The pervasive liberal bias of our 'education' and major media institutions matter.]

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The No-Longer-Silent Majority

Subject: txt gdd vals othr extra lbrty -
..Another Beck show guest was a black man, Charles V. Payne, founder, CEO and Chief Analyst of Wall Street Strategies. Payne shared his moving tale of growing up in a poor inner city neighborhood. He said his fellow black students beat him up daily for "speaking too white", getting good grades and daring to have a dream of becoming a businessman.

"The kids were not simply jealous of me, they were extremely hostile"

said Payne. He attributes the black students' negative attitudes to a victim and entitlement mindset instilled in them by liberals.

I thought to myself, "Wow!" Black people do not come on TV and tell the truth about the negative effects liberalism has had on the black community. Nor, does anyone hold blacks accountable. Blacks are victims. Every and any problem they could possibly have is the fault of rich, racist, conservative, white Republicans. I mean, everybody knows that!

And then there is the hyphenated American thing. This hyphenated American thing is like the fairy tale, The Emperor's New Clothes. Con artists convinced the Emperor that the invisible fabric they used for his new attire was so special only the most enlightened could see it. At the public unveiling, the Emperor proudly paraded down the streets in his new outfit while supplicants applauded it's great beauty. Then a little boy yelled, “Mom look, the Emperor is NAKED!” Suddenly everyone, including the Emperor, was forced to acknowledge the truth.

Like the little boy in the story who spoke the truth, my public rejection of hyphenating is liberating Americans across America. I am inundated with letters of thanks and support... [snip]

Something unexpected and wonderful is happening across America folks. The Tea Party Movement has awakened a powerful sleeping giant silent majority. Americans are starting to say, "no" to political correctness; "no" to banning God from the public square, "no" to politicians who ignore the Will of the people, "no" to secular progressives and "no" to dead beats who think they are entitled due to their skin color, sex, economic status or whatever. "Enough!" is the battle cry of millions of Tea Party protesters.

While the main focus of the Tea Party Movement is a rebuke of outrageous government overreaching and out of control spending, the movement has embolden patriots to stand up for the traditions, institutions and values which have made America great. Thus, their slogan, "Take Back America!" It is truly amazing to witness.

With kids having to walk through metal detectors to enter their schools, fatherless black male students dropping out at epidemic rates, kids brutally physically assaulted by other kids on schools buses, and middle schools having to install Day Care centers to accommodate the large numbers of children having children, perhaps the libs will allow prayer back in schools.

Nah... that will never happen. According to the Left, letting God back in schools would really screw up our kids...

Lloyd Marcus, Black Unhyphenated American

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The Making of a Right-Winger

Thank-you, President Obama. I think of my favorite hymn, Amazing Grace -

"I once was blind and now I see"

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[HT:GK]

There once was a guy named Randy in Waco who bought a horse from a farmer for $100. The farmer agreed to deliver the horse the next day. The next day the farmer drove up and said, "Sorry son, but I have some bad news ... the horse died."

Randy replied, "Well, then just give me my money back." The farmer said, "Can't do that. I went and spent it already." Randy said, "OK, then, just bring me the dead horse." The farmer asked, "What ya gonna do with him?" Randy said, "I'm going to raffle him off." The farmer said, "You can't raffle off a dead horse!" Randy said, "Sure I can, watch me. I just won't tell anybody he's dead."

A month later, the farmer met up with Randy and asked, "What happened with that dead horse?" Randy said, "I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two dollars apiece and made a profit of $998." The farmer said, "Didn't anyone complain?" Randy said, "Just the guy who won. So, I gave him his two dollars back."

Randy grew up and has worked for the government in Waco for more than 20 years now. He's the one who figured out how this "bailout" is going to work.

-end of 091009 post-

image toon - 1st fnn bdd vals libs reps = Pelosi concerned until holocaust guy

Pelosi: No Grayson apology needed

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Opting Out of Medicare

Subject: txt 1st hcare -
A centerpiece of the debate over ObamaCare is government coercion and the right to choose a health-care plan. So it's worth watching a lawsuit now making its way through the federal courts that seeks to let seniors keep their Social Security benefits even if they reject Medicare.

Last week, Washington D.C. District Judge Rosemary Collyer handed a victory to three plaintiffs seeking that right.

This could be a big deal...

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Consumer Reports Tosses Political Neutrality Away

Subject: txt 1st hcare -
So much for any claim of political neutrality on the part of Consumer Reports.

They have now come out in support of ObamaCare which you can see on their website along with their TV ad. Here is the message from the president of Consumers Union, Jim Guest, publisher of Consumer Reports:

"today we are doing something that we've never done before. For the first time ever, Consumers Union is weighing in with a TV ad that calls on lawmakers to find a solution for health reform..."

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image toon - 1st hcare = Patient sich & tired of hcare debate

Pimping For Al

Subject: txt crpt reps bdd - acorn -
EVEN the Democrats in Minnesota now realize their new US Sen. Al Franken was elected with the help of ACORN chicanery. The disgraced, pimp-friendly community organizing group claims it registered 43,000 new Minnesota voters.

If just 1 percent were fraudulent but survived the recount process, that's 430 votes, almost all cast for Franken, who won by just 312 votes.

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ACORN's Man in the White House

Subject: txt crpt -
Newly discovered evidence shows the radical advocacy group ACORN has a man in the Obama White House.

This power behind the throne is longtime ACORN operative Patrick Gaspard. He holds the title of White House political affairs director, the same title Karl Rove held in President Bush's White House.

Evidence shows that years before he joined the Obama administration, Gaspard was ACORN boss Bertha Lewis's political mentor...

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Investigate Jerry Brown

Subject: txt 1st crpt cali -
California’s Attorney General Jerry Brown is going to investigate

"both ACORN and the circumstances under which ACORN employees were videotaped."

That’s right. He’s going after the filmmakers rather than the corruption exposed by their works.

He’d just assume rough up the young folks who caught ACORN committing unlawful acts while Gerry Brown and his staff weren’t catching ACORN committing unlawful acts.

Gerry Brown is one of ACORN’s A-rated attorneys general. In other words, all the while ACORN was engaged in its apparently many unlawful activities in his state, Gerry Brown was helping ACORN on the taxpayer dime.

It’s a bad sign, to say the least, when the chief law enforcement officer of a state is actually helping an entity that is running afoul of multiple laws. In fact, that should be career ending, which may explain his motives for going after the two young filmmakers in his investigation.

Factor in, if you will, the continuously emerging evidence that ACORN is an entity that has been actively engaging in partisan political activity favorable to Gerry Brown-types.

Brown’s office released a letter stating in part, "The Attorney General shares your concerns and he takes seriously his obligation to see that the laws of California are uniformly and adequately enforced."

Uh-huh.

Did I mention Gerry Brown wants to be governor of California?

Thoroughly and professionally investigating ACORN could hurt his get-out-the-vote efforts, and certainly might affect its vast network’s endorsement of him...

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image toon - crpt msm libs = ACORN counciling bank robbers gangsters

Nation of Men, Not of Laws

Subject: txt 1st bbro crpt bdd vals lbrty -
Roman Polanski and his allies seek to rape the United States and her Constitution.

While this metaphor may seem repugnantly acerbic, it rings true...

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Repulsion: Polanski's horror story

Subject: txt bdd vals 1st -
How sickening is the chorus of sycophants and enablers defending Roman Polanski, the 76-year-old Polish director arrested at a Zurich film festival over a three decade-old statutory rape case.

Now that justice has, belatedly, come calling, we are treated to all manner of sophistry employed by politicians, commentators and celebrities and France's ''cultural elite'' to justify Polanski's crime.

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image toon - bdd vals = Hollywood-Media = free polansk

POLL: 78% of Those Following Polanski Story Say He Should Go To Prison

Subject: txt bdd vals msm bias -
Polanski, best known for the film "Chinatown," was recently arrested in Switzerland on an outstanding warrant from Los Angeles and is now the subject of extradition proceedings to bring him back to the United States.

He pleaded guilty to the 1977 rape but fled the United States out of fear that the judge in the case would send him to prison.

Since then, he has continued to make films overseas and been a high-profile international celebrity. Polanski’s surprise arrest prompted an outpouring of support from the Hollywood and international artistic community, but that has been muted in recent days with the retelling of the facts in the case.

The failure to arrest Polanski despite his high international visibility helps explain why 72% of Americans think celebrities get special treatment from the U.S. justice system. Only 15% think that system treats everybody about the same, while 13% are not sure.

Younger adults are even more skeptical of the U.S. justice system than their elders.

[Me, I'm a moderate on this issue: drag his ass back here to stand trial - then send him up the creek...]

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Hollywood demands Polanski's release

Subject: txt bdd vals msm fnn -
Woody Allen, Pedro Almodovar and Martin Scorsese have "demanded the immediate release" of fellow filmmaker Roman Polanski, who was arrested in Switzerland on a U.S. arrest warrant related to a child rape charge.

They were among 138 people in the film industry who signed a petition against the arrest.

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image toon = bdd vals 1st Holywood activism = save the pedophil

Obama seeks Afghanistan non-victory options

Subject: txt gwot -
Now, as a condition for approving his request for additional troops in Afghanistan, General McChrystal is launching a study creating various options for Obama, including some that reflect us being in this to win, others, not so much.

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Obama can't downsize to success in Afghanistan

Subject: txt gwot -
During last year's campaign, Barack Obama stressed that while he wanted to withdraw from Iraq, he was no pacifist. "As president," he said on July 15, 2008,

"I will make the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban THE top priority that it should be. This is a war that we have to win."

[Name one instance in the world's long history of warfare where 'moderation' every won a war. One. You either fight to win, or lose by default.

Worse, this particular situation is likely to prove {again} Jefferson's maxim that all wars must be won at all costs, as that is always less costly than losing.]

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FLASHBACK >

Lose Afghanistan, Lose Pakistan, Lose Iran, Lose It All
The gangster regimes of the world are on the march, and they've got our number...
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Delay on Troop Request for Afghanistan

Subject: txt gwot -
Is this any way to run a war?

Critics are lambasting President Obama for hitting the pause button on the war in Afghanistan, making U.S. commanders seeking thousands more troops there wait for a decision as he tries to get the "strategy right first."

"You can't fight a war from Washington D.C. There's only one way this works: You have trust and confidence in the leaders on the ground, or you don't."

Some critics are going so far as to ask whether Obama is more concerned with finding a political strategy to ensure his re-election than he is in finding a military strategy to win the eight-year war...

[Asked and answered on both points.]

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Afghan War Hypocrites

Subject: txt gwot -
We are experiencing a festival of liberal hypocrisy on the Afghan war, as all the left-wing doves who touted the war as absolutely essential for years back off now that it's no longer a politically convenient war...

[Meanwhile, American servicemen die...]

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image toon - gwot nsec = Afghanistan troops need help = Oby talking abou ti

HOW URBAN PLANNERS CAUSED THE HOUSING BUBBLE

Subject: txt housing bbro sclm - othr -
Some people blame the Federal Reserve for keeping interest rates low; some blame the Community Reinvestment Act for encouraging lenders to offer loans to marginal homebuyers; others blame Wall Street for failing to properly assess the risks of subprime mortgages.

But all of these explanations apply equally nationwide, while a close look reveals that only some communities suffered from housing bubbles:

• Between 2000 and the bubble's peak, inflation- adjusted housing prices in California and Florida more than doubled, and since the peak they have fallen by 20 to 30 percent.
• In contrast, housing prices in Georgia and Texas grew by only about 20 to 25 percent, and they haven't significantly declined.
• In other words, California and Florida housing bubbled, but Georgia and Texas housing did not; this is hardly because people don't want to live in Georgia and Texas: since 2000, Atlanta, Dallas-Ft. Worth, and Houston have been the nation's fastest-growing urban areas, each growing by more than 120,000 people per year.

This suggests that local factors, not national policies, were a necessary condition for the housing bubbles where they took place.

The most important factor that distinguishes states like California and Florida from states like Georgia and Texas is the amount of regulation imposed on landowners and developers, and in particular a regulatory system known as growth management.

In short, restrictive growth management was a necessary condition for housing bubbles, all of which were regional.

States that use some form of growth management should repeal laws that mandate or allow such planning, and other states and urban areas should avoid passing such laws or implementing such plans; otherwise, the next housing bubble could be even more devastating than this one...

Source: Randal O'Toole, "How Urban Planners Caused the Housing Bubble," Cato Institute, October 2, 2009.

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[Thomas Sowell's been warning us for years >

THE IMPACT OF 'SMART' GROWTH ON HOUSING AFFORDABILITY
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image toon mny bbro sclm = Oby = need more rules for over regulated intersection

Identical Unemployment Numbers 'Good ' News for Obama, But 'All' Bad for Reagan

Subject: txt mny msm -
Unemployment is currently at a 26-year-high of 9.7 percent and expected to continue rising. The last president to govern with such high unemployment was President Ronald Reagan.

But in 1982, when unemployment was rising similarly to the way it has in 2009 the network news media were merciless quoting attacks from Democrats, union leaders and the unemployed to attack Reagan's "sadistic" fiscal policies.

2009 was a different story, for a different president. Even though unemployment has shot up from 8.1 percent since February, network reporters looked for "hopeful signs" of an economic turnaround in their jobs report.

The Business & Media Institute just released a Special Report: Networks Flip Flop on Jobs that exposes that double-standard of unemployment coverage from 1982 and 2009 (See video below). The full report is available here, but here are some of our major findings:

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Jobless Numbers Jump; Watch ABC's Bias Spin of 1982 vs 2009

Subject: txt msm mny -

Unemployment rose again in September, to 9.8 percent, with 263,000 jobs lost according to Bureau of Labor Statistics release. That followed months of positive economic coverage from the networks and begs the question: how with the network news spin that tonight?

The network news media have been manipulating bad jobs reports in Obama's favor since March as the unemployment rate rose from 8.1 percent in February to 9.7 percent in August. Reporters have found rehired people "doing backflips," in 2009, but the last time unemployment was that high network journalists found people living under bridges and plenty of "hopelessness." That was under President Ronald Reagan in 1982. But when Reagan was facing a similar rising unemployment rate the networks attacked him with it, month after month.

ABC anchor Charles Gibson illustrated how dramatically different the network coverage of Reagan and Obama really were by covering the exact same numbers in totally opposite fashion.(Watch video)

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Networks Coverage of Unemployment ‘13 Times More Negative to President Reagan than to Obama’

Subject: txt msm bias mny -

BMI's Julia A. Seymour appeared on today's Fox Business Live with Stuart Varney to discuss the discrepancy in media coverage of unemployment under Presidents Reagan and Obama.

Author of BMI's latest study, "Networks Flip-Flop on Jobs," Seymour explained her findings:

"We looked specifically at seven months of coverage in 1982 and again in 2009 that had very similar periods of unemployment where it was going up between 8 - between 8 and the high 9 percent range. And what we found was that the network reporting on ABC, NBC and CBS was overwhelmingly negative to Reagan but positive toward Obama. They were actually 13 times more negative to President Reagan than they were to Obama..."

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Name That Party: Broward County and Jersey City Episodes

Subject: txt msm fnn othr which party =
Okay ladies and gentlemen, it's time to once again play America's favorite political parlor game---Name That Party! And today we have a special two-part episode: Broward County and Jersey City. First up Broward County but I warn you, it won't be easy to figure out the political party to which the protagonists belong.

The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel has certainly played along in keeping the party label under wraps as you can see in this story...

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MSNBC Drags Out Scarborough to Argue it's Not a 'One-Party' Network

Subject: txt msm bias fnn -
Political consultant Mike Murphy is a veteran defender of Old Media (he once praised Dan Rather to his face as unbiased on CNN), so it wasn’t surprising on Sunday’s Meet the Press when he accused Fox News and MSNBC of being dueling "freak shows...amplifying the shrillest voices" as "one-party cable networks."

What was amusing was Rachel Maddow pushing around Joe Scarborough as proof of MSNBC’s bipartisanship.

MADDOW: Wait, is, is Joe Scarborough, which network is he on? Which one-party network?

MURPHY: He's on your liberal network.

MADDOW: So he's the--how is that a one-party network?

This is where Murphy should have pulled out Scarborough’s Washington Monthly piece rooting for the Republicans to get "their brains beaten in" in 2006...

[I.e., it's called a token - but some folks fall for it again and again. Scarborough is conservative like Specter was Republican.]

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'Red Eye' Gets More 'Demo' Viewers at 3AM Than CNN Does at 8PM

CNN and Campbell Brown must be awfully proud of themselves.


After all, Brown's prime time television program which airs at 8PM ET is getting fewer viewers between the ages of 25 and 54 than Fox New's "Red Eye."


Here's the punch line: "Red Eye" is on at 3AM when most people in the country are asleep.

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-end 091008 post-
[way late, gotta go sorry]

image toon 1st fnn mny - Worried about economy - no email from Nigeria

CNN Fact Checks Last Saturday's SNL Obama-Razzing Skit

Subject: txt 1st fnn sclm bbro bdd vals sclm libs -

Can one even imagine CNN fact checking any of the skits SNL on President Bush or Sarah Palin?? Heaven forbid SNL finally make fun of President Obama. CNN couldn't help themselves.

They actually fact checked - the jokes.

The transcript of CNN’s “fact-checking” report, which aired 28 minutes into the 6 pm Eastern hour of Monday's Situation Room:

WOLF BLITZER: It seems no politician is safe from Saturday Night Live. While many people think SNL has mostly spared President Obama, what they’re doing now is not necessarily all that kind. They essentially cast the leader of the free world as a do-nothing president, at least so far. Even though SNL deals in comedy, what they said about the President rings true for a lot of you, apparently. So, did the show accurately capture a mood, or did it go off track for comedic effect?

Let’s bring in CNN's Kareen Wynter. She’s checking the facts for us...

[Still think this cult of personalty harmless? We've major news organizations fact-checking Saturday-Night-Live...]

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OPTING OUT OF MEDICARE

Subject: txt 1st hcare -
Last week, Washington D.C. District Judge Rosemary Collyer handed a victory to three plaintiffs seeking that right. President Obama's Department of Health and Human Services had sought to dismiss the suit challenging so-called POMS rules that say seniors who withdraw from Medicare Part A must also 'surrender' their Social Security benefits (Part A covers hospital and outpatient services). The judge ruled the plaintiffs have standing to contest their claim on the merits.

The Obama Administration argued that the case should be dismissed because the plaintiffs had not exhausted the available administrative remedies for challenging POMS.

Judge Collyer rejected that notion, noting that one plaintiff had sought an administrative hearing but "received no response from the SSA for approximately three years."

Keep in mind that the plaintiffs are merely asking for the freedom to spend their own money for their own health insurance. With Medicare careening toward bankruptcy, letting seniors opt out could help save the taxpayers money.

The plaintiffs argue that they have paid a lifetime of taxes into Social Security and shouldn't have those benefits denied merely because they are willing to pay for their own medical care.

This is a case where federal bureaucrats are using their power to force Medicare on seniors. Let's hope the courts restore a genuine right to choose.

[Let's call it what it is: blackmail. It's not about 'care' or 'security' of any kind, it's about government power.]

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Who needs death panels?

Subject: txt 1st hcare -
The WSJ today succinctly illustrates the morass of government healthcare in a Review & Outlook column titled The War On Specialists. In an effort to both reduce costs and increase the number of General Practitioners, the Administration is making some changes to Medicare.

"The 2010 rules, which will be finalized next month, visit an 11% overall cut on cardiology and 19% on radiation oncology. They're targets only because of cost: Two-thirds of morbidity or mortality among Medicare patients owes to cancer or heart disease."

Think about that concept for a minute. What chronic diseases do you think affect Medicare recipients the most? Why would one de-fund the very specialties that are needed the most by recipients?

The reason for these cuts offered by Administration is "cost savings" but one could reasonably ask if Alan Grayson's attack wasn't directed at the wrong party.

There is no free lunch, no matter what the politicians say. Albeit imperfect, our current system is vastly superior to a single payer system because quality care is still rewarded and the medical consumer has a choice.

The citizens of this country wouldn't accept a one party political system, why would they consider the equivalent for their healthcare? A single payer system is tyranny with a fancy name.

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The Conservative Case for Reform

Subject: txt 1st hcare -
A majority of so-called Republican strategists believe that health care is a Democratic issue. They are wrong; health care is an American issue, and the Republican Party has an opportunity to demonstrate that conservative principles work when applied to real-world problems.

But memo to Washington: The debate on health care has moved on. Democratic plans for a government takeover are passé.

The people don't want it.

Believe the polls, the town halls, the voters. Only Democrats in Washington would propose new taxes on businesses and families in the middle of a recession, $900 billion in new spending at a time of record deficits, and increased taxes on health insurance and products to reduce health-care costs.

Washington is the only place in the country that doesn't realize that this...

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LAWSUIT ABUSE REFORM IS WORKING FOR FLORIDA

Subject: txt 1st hcare crpt - -
In 2003, Florida passed lawsuit abuse reforms to tackle the issue of excessive litigation. The new law required attorneys in most workers' comp cases to base their fees on the value of benefits they secured for their clients -- measured by the amount ultimately awarded to the claimant above the initial offer by the employer or insurer to settle the claim. As a result:

• The workers' compensation rates and costs declined 60.5 percent, at a time when costs increased in the neighboring Gulf States.
• This gave employers and insurers an incentive to make their best settlement offers at the start.
• It discouraged attorneys from representing claimants when it was unlikely their work would add significantly to the final award.

As a result of the changes, over the 2003 to 2008 period, the rate of increase in medical costs in Florida's workers' comp system was about a third less than in other neighboring states:

• By 2009, Florida workers' comp rates were among the lowest in the country for similar occupations.
• The time required to resolve claims fell significantly, whether or not attorneys were involved.
• This reduced overall costs and it also reduced the average time before workers returned to gainful employment.

Florida's experience shows the ability of lawsuit abuse reform to reduce litigation costs without harm to the injured. Applied nationwide, such reforms would save billions of dollars off the nation's health care bills while improving the quality of patient care through faster action.

[Yet none of the health 'care' proposals currently being considered by congress address the issue at all...]

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image toon - 1st hcare bbro legal - Oby = stop lawsuit bleading by removing victims wallet

White Coats in the Rose Garden

Subject: txt 1st hcare crpt - ,
As noted before, the group that supplied many of the doctors for the Rose Garden event, Doctors for America, is a nonprofit organization that grew out of Doctors for Obama, which worked to help elect the president. But it also appears to be working closely with Organizing for America, Mr. Obama’s political organization.

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Rx for Bias: Networks' Top Docs Are Heavy Dem Donors

Subject: txt hcare msm bias bdd -
The Media Research Center (MRC) has revealed that ABC News is not the only network guilty of giving Democratic-donating medical doctors a microphone to "report" on President Barack Obama's government health care proposal.

CBS and NBC medical physician correspondents have also chipped in their own cash to Democratic - but never Republican - candidates.

"ABC, CBS and NBC have no excuse for the applause these doctors have given to promote the largest expansion of government-run healthcare our country has ever seen,"

MRC President Brent Bozell said in a statement.

"There's nothing benign about giving a megaphone to doctors who have a financial stake in the success of liberals' most aggressive platform in decades,"

A search of OpenSecrets.org showed that:

• Prior to joining CBS, Dr. Jon LaPook gave $4,000 to Democratic presidential candidates Al Gore, John Kerry and Wesley Clark, plus a hefty $20,000 donation to the DNC.
• NBC's Nancy Snyderman gave two contributions totaling $800 to Democratic congressional candidates when she worked at the health care giant Johnson & Johnson. This was after her stint at ABC News and before joining NBC.
• ABC's Dr. David Besser gave a $400 donation to Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, a contribution made before ABC hired him and announced he would begin reporting this September.

The full analysis is available at www.MRC.org
[ALSO] Visit www.BusinessAndMedia.org to access the comprehensive report “Uncritical Care” that shows 70% of network coverage has promoted the ObamaCare health takeover.

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Doctors' boos show Obama's tough road

Subject: txt hcare - Analysis:
WASHINGTON – Barack Obama isn't used to hearing boos.

For all the young president's popularity, the response he got Monday from doctors at an American Medical Association meeting was a sign his road is only going to get rockier as he tries to sell his plan to overhaul the nation's health care system.

The boos erupted when Obama told the doctors in Chicago he wouldn't try to help them win their top legislative priority — limits on jury damages in medical malpractice cases.

But what could they expect? If Obama announced support for malpractice limits, that would set trial lawyers and unions — who own the Democratic party — on the attack...

[Liability insurance is the single largest cost to doctors trying to practice - anywhere from hundreds of thousands to multiple millions of dollars - per year - just to cover the no-limit law suits they're inundated with. Until we fix that, we can forget about ever reducing health care costs.]

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How Will Doctors Handle Uncle Sam Health Care?

Subject: txt hcare -
We can criticize socialized health care, citing statistics and chronicling the historical record of runaway costs and deterioration of quality. But you have to deal directly with Medicare and Medicaid (or perhaps be a former Soviet citizen) to really appreciate the Twilight Zone nature of government-run programs.

Among federal Medicare regulations -- which are over 130,000 pages long -- there is more than ample room for confusion and some [gallows] humor. After a long search for traction weights (those five pound blocks of metal used to pull fractures out to length) I found them propping open doors to patient rooms in the ER.

It is a punishable offense under Medicare regs if the hospital is caught propping open these doors because they are fire doors.

In 30 years, I have never seen nor heard of a significant hospital fire. However, patients suffer every day by being inadequately monitored. Keeping these “fire” doors closed means the nurse sitting at her desk outside the rooms cannot visually monitor the patients. But, to comply with regulations, all those little rubber doorstops were thrown out.

Fortunately, given a choice between poor patient care and ignoring a government mandate, most nurses care more about the patient than about the wishes of a bureaucrat in Washington. Ergo, the nurses commandeered the orthopaedic traction weights. In case of a pop inspection, traction weights at least provide plausible deniability... [snip]

These are not isolated incidents, but emblematic of a daily clinic in Medicare Absurdistan.

A psychiatrist once told me that we need three things to remain sane -- the ability to deflect criticism, the ability to laugh at oneself, and the ability to accept the absurd.

Until it kills us, government run medicine should provide no end of practice...

[We've been warned.]

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image toon = 1st hcare = 2 of 3 doctors don't wan't Obycare

Lose Afghanistan, Lose Pakistan, Lose Iran, Lose It All

The gangster regimes of the world are on the march, and they've got our number.

They know how to squeeze more civilized nations. Our weakness is cowardice, and that goes double or triple in the face of nuclear weapons. That's why all the rogues are trying to get nukes as fast as they can. They know it's the perfect blackmail weapon, and it makes them invulnerable to attack.

That is also why President Obama's public rejection of General McChrystal's advice on Afghanistan affects your personal safety and mine. Gen. McChrystal wants more troops. Obama doesn't want to send them because he needs the money to promote his socialist take-over of America.

You can't have both. Look at Europe, where the military have become pathetic social welfare programs. All the air is sucked out by bigger and bigger victim programs.

Obama must be realizing by now that the chance of a major war in the Gulf next year is rising to 100 percent: If Israel attacks Tehran, the Iranians will try to retaliate, either by a missile strike or by local attacks using Hezbollah and Hamas.

If Israel does not attack Tehran, the Iranians will still attack Tel Aviv, because it is the key plank in their ideological doctrine, the one they have been chanting about for thirty years. For Israel it's just in the difference in the timing of an inevitable war.

But it is far, far better to do that before the Iranians get actual nukes.

As soon as rogue nations get their nukes we are in completely unknown territory. Nothing in the US-Soviet balance of power over the last sixty years is guaranteed to work anymore. The nuclear balance will not have two sides, but half a dozen.

Tehran preaches suicide warfare, the first regime to do so since Tojo's Japan sixty years ago. Pakistan does not, but if Pakistan is taken over by the Taliban, you can't trust that any more. India certainly will not trust Islamic radicals with nuclear weapons next door.

So everything depends upon vigorous American action.

Israel is bound and determined to defend herself. If the United States fails to back an Israeli attack on Tehran they will do it anyway. The US will then be caught in the middle, along with Saudi Arabia and all the rest.

There is no substitute for successful preemption. Bush and Cheney tried to point out those harsh realities, but they were shut out by our fantasy-driven media. The Left chose to close its eyes and ears to the plain facts.

Now Obama is in charge.

We're waiting for the answer. So are the gangster regimes.

[More, Highly Recommended > ]

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'We must do what it takes' in Afghanistan

Subject: txt gwot nsec - gdd - palin -
Sarah Palin hardened her stance as an Afghanistan hawk this afternoon, calling on Obama to "devote the resources necessary in Afghanistan."

"Now is not the time for cold feet, second thoughts, or indecision -- it is the time to act as commander-in-chief and approve the troops so clearly needed in Afghanistan,"

Palin's words underscore her recent signature on a Foreign Policy Initiative letter backing military calls for more troops in Afghanistan, position her clearly on the victory side of a policy debate now playing out inside the White House, and set up a line of attack on Obama if he steers a middle course or moves to withdraw troops.

Her statement:
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image toon = gwot = Drones over Afghanistan -

A virus called ‘Shariah’

Subject: txt islm - gwot -
A Denver airport shuttle driver from Afghanistan who plotted to blow up subway trains in New York City. A Jordanian who tried to destroy one of Dallas' tallest skyscrapers. An American who thought he was detonating a truck bomb aimed at a federal courthouse in Springfield, Illinois.

Law enforcement authorities who successfully stymied these alleged attacks have been at pains to emphasize that there are no connections between the three.

Of course there are.

Maybe it will prove to be the case that the three men at the heart of these interrupted plots - Najibullah Zazi, Hosam Maher Husein Smadi and Michael Finton (also known as Talib Islam) - had no connection in a tactical or operational sense.

Still, it is absurd, and extremely dangerous, to insist that they are not connected in at least one way: What apparently animated all three of these suspects (and perhaps a number of others believed to have been involved in the New York plot who are still at large) is the seditious, supremacist theo-political-legal program authoritative Islam calls "Shariah." ... [snip]

What happens as tolerant democratic societies try to accommodate themselves to the stealthy form of jihad, backed by the persistent threat of the violent form - if not its actual occurrence, can be seen in much of Western Europe. For example, France now has 751 zones urbaines sensibles - Muslim-only areas that amount to "no-go" zones for French authorities. In these zones, Shariah rules instead of the laws of the host government, at the expense most notably of women's rights, due process and public order (especially for Jews, Christians and other non-Muslims). [snip]

The failure by U.S. and other governments' officials to recognize the connection between Shariah and jihad (of either the violent or stealthy kind) is like refusing to acknowledge that there is a common virus causing an outbreak of swine flu. How could the medical community hope to identify appropriate prophylactic measures (for instance: Keep kids in school or shut the schools down? Take antibiotics or not?) if it were not permitted to understand the nature of the virus. There would certainly be little chance of developing effective vaccines under those circumstances.

Our natural allies in taking such a stance against Shariah are the many millions of Muslims around the world whose practice of their faith does not involve adherence to this medieval, barbaric and totalitarian program. Indeed, most Muslim immigrants in America came here to get away from Shariah in their native lands. Only by differentiating such Muslims from the carriers of this lethal virus can we hope to inoculate them against the spread of the disease - and enlist their help in protecting the rest of us...

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Former Muslims Address Islam on Capitol Hill

Subject: txt islm -
The Muslim call to prayer was heard on Capitol Hill Friday, Sept. 25 at the “Day of Islamic Unity” in Washington, D.C., but the day before, former Muslims announced that they do not feel safe announcing they have left the faith, even in the United States.

According to Nonie Darwish, author of “Now They Call Me Infidel” and one of the founding members of new organization Former Muslims United, there are thousands of apostate Muslims “in hiding” across the U.S. Darwish also said that the number of Muslims leaving Islam is increasing because there is a new generation of Muslim Americans “who are revolting against their parents’ radical Islamist views.”

Darwish’s appearance came the day before the “Islam on Capitol Hill” event which – though touted as expecting a crowd of 50,000 or more – was only attended by about 3,000. Darwish said that the launch of Former Muslims United was not planned to coincide with the event. “They have the right to gather and express their views, and we have the right to gather and express our views,” she said.

Darwish called it “a little outrageous” for Muslims to claim victim-hood. “I lived as a Muslim in America for a very long time and I was never afraid; I don’t know what [Abdellah] is talking about,” Darwish told HUMAN EVENTS on Tuesday. “Nobody discriminates against Muslims. They are free to build mosques as much as they want, they are walking on the streets and nobody bothers them. … I don’t see anybody that’s running away from America and going back home. They have more rights in America to practice Islam than many other countries.”

[snip]

“This is a national threat, but it affects us personally. People like me, and others, who left the Middle East, came to America, running away from the oppression of Sharia, only to find people calling it a religious right in America,” she told HUMAN EVENTS. She suggested that adding a statement specifically about Sharia law to the immigration application would be a good place to start addressing the problem. Even something as simple as declaring “if you believe in Sharia Islamic law, please state if you want to live under it” would help, she said.

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POLL: 48% Say American Muslims Should Speak Out Against Terrorist Attacks

Subject: txt islm -
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 27% do not think American Muslims have that responsibility. Twenty-six percent (26%) of adults are not sure.

[I.e., the incompetent and insane outnumber the sane. Marvelous.]

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image toon - gwot nsec islm = Holder releasing terrorists and prosecuting CIA

Europe’s plot to take over the world

Subject: txt intl owg -

The realisation that the G20 is Europe’s Trojan horse struck me at the G20’s last summit in Pittsburgh a couple of weeks ago. The surroundings and atmosphere were strangely familiar. And then I understood; I was back in Brussels, and this was just a global version of a European Union summit.

The Europeans did not just set the tone at the G20 – they also dominate proceedings, since they are grossly over-represented.

While huge countries such as Brazil, China, India and the US are represented by one leader each, the Europeans managed to secure eight slots around the conference table for Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, the president of the European Commission and the president of the European Council.

Most of the key international civil servants present were also Europeans: Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund; Pascal Lamy of the World Trade Organisation; Mario Draghi of the Financial Stability Board... [snip]

And it was at the same G20 'summit' in Pittsburgh that any claims of paranoria were clearly countered, with Europe's IMF successfully acquiring new powers to 'monitor' national economic policies around the world...

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FLASHBACK >

Surrendering U.S. Sovereignty at G-20 Summit

We are to subject our most basic national economic policies to the review of a group of nations that includes autocratic Russia, China and Saudi Arabia. Even though our gross domestic product is three times bigger than the second-largest economy (Japan) and equal to that of 13 of the G-20 nations combined, we are to sit politely by with our one vote and submit to the global consensus....

Thus, the world's most successful economy, ours — which is the only one that has produced reliable economic growth for three decades and has lifted real personal incomes almost every year — is going to subject itself to the burden of justifying its own economic policies in front of a global community of 20 nations, some of which do not even embrace free-market economies in the first place...

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Administration Defiantly Defends Another Radical Appointee

Subject: txt lbrty sclm bbro bdd - edu -
I continue to be amazed at the naiveté of people who keep giving President Barack Obama the benefit of the doubt concerning his radical appointments, saying his administration isn't doing its job in vetting the appointees.

When will they wake up to the reality that Obama is deliberately picking people, such as Kevin Jennings, who share his radical values?

"Had they vetted Obama, they would have realized that he is Van Jones.''

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ALMOST HALF OF AMERICANS WILL PAY NO FEDERAL INCOME TAX

Subject: txt sclm bbro mny -
Most people think they pay too much to Uncle Sam, but for some people it simply is not true, says CNNMoney.com:

In 2009, roughly 47 percent of households, or 71 million, will not owe any federal income tax, according to estimates by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

And the ranks of those whose major federal tax burdens net out at zero -- or less [get money back vis-a-vis the 'earned income tax credti' on taxes they never paid] -- is on the rise... [snip]

A key reason why there is a zero-liability group at all is because the U.S. tax system is progressive. Those who bring in more money pay more than those lower down the income scale to support government functions. President Obama thinks the tax system is not progressive enough:

• He has proposed increasing the income tax burden on families making more than $250,000 and individuals making more than $200,000, while offering new measures to reduce the tax bite for most Americans making less.
• One of Obama's proposals is to extend the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts for everyone except high-income tax filers, which was the group that derived the most benefit from those cuts.
• As a result, under Obama's budget, he would expand the ranks of the non-payers even higher than they already are.

Experts say that to pay for all the things on the country's growing tab, the money can't just come from a shrunken pool of taxpayers...

[But class warfare gets people elected and subsequent government dependency keeps 'em elected - look at FDR's electoral 'success' while the country was imploding...]

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Only WSJ Looks at Minimum-Wage as cause of Record Teen Unemployment

Subject: txt mny msm -
Based on the data, the current job situation for teenagers in America is the worst on record.

According to Uncle Sam's Bureau of Labor Statistics:

• Seasonally adjusted teenage unemployment hit 25.9%. That is the highest rate in the nearly 62 years BLS has been reporting this number. The previous record was last month's 25.5%. The record before that was 24.1% in November and December of 1982. A graphic of the complete history of the teenage unemployment rate that will open in a new window is here.
• Unemployment among black teens not enrolled in school is over 50%.
• The rate among 20-24 year-olds is also alarmingly high at 15.1%.

Almost alone among establishment media publications -- and even then in an editorial, not a regular news report -- the Wall Street Journal commented on this distressing set of circumstances, identified the most likely cause of the problem, and worried about its longer-term consequences:

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image toon - mny - Oby's HOPE punctured by unemployment

The New Scientist?

Subject: txt grn -
I enjoy my subscription to The New Scientist in large part for seeing to what lengths they are willing to go to support global warming orthodoxy. Just last week we read the following:

Global population growth has slowed significantly, but it hasn't stopped. By 2050 there may be about 35 per cent more people on Earth than there are today. We are already seeing increasing shortages of food, water and other resources and growing numbers of hungry people.... Nowadays it is understood [?] that the key population-related issue is the destructive pressure human activity is exerting on our life-support systems, posing a growing threat to the sustainability of civilisation... Yet many people still assume that humanity will easily manage to support more than 9 billion people in 2050 and beyond. Such confidence ignores some grim possibilities...

The really surprising thing about this tirade is the name of the authors: Paul and Anne Ehrlich... you know, the guy who wrote The Population Bomb in 1968, which begins:

The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines -- hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death...

and goes on to state

... nothing can be done to avoid mass famine greater than any in history, and radical action is needed to limit the overpopulation.

a prediction that, in the event, fell rather wide of the mark. Who would believe that he's still at it? He sorta reminds me of Monty Python's Black Knight...I'll never give up!

Anyway, the article that inspired me to respond with this essay is a review by Michael Brooks, also in this week's issue, of Don't Be Such a Scientist by Randy Olson. Mr. Brooks makes the following astounding statements:

If you want to get a message across to the public, don't obsess about facts. Just look at Al Gore's climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth, Olson says. The film contained more than a few factual errors, but it also had a profound influence on the world's attitude to climate change. Perhaps compromising on accuracy is a necessary evil. With climate change, perhaps the end justifies the means... given Gore's success and the prevalence of scientific illiteracy, it remains an interesting path to consider.

Let me get this straight: It's OK to lie.

[Let's not forget profitable - to the tune of over 25 billion in US (alone) 'study grants' to support (only!) AWG theory since 1990...]

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FLASHBACKs >

The Law of Doomsaying

An expert Ehrlich consulted in picking the five was John Holdren, who today is President Obama's science adviser...

[Recommended > for the multiple specifics re: the chronic wrongness to these folks' records - yet chronically ignored by the MSM]

The Real Population Bomb

Given how Ehrlich’s predictions turned out, you might think that he vanished into the dustbin of Chicken Little history or at least revised his ideas, right?

.

How Our Politicized Tax Code Rewards the Inefficient

Subject: txt engry CALI - Politicized
...
For wind farms, the current code allows the write-offs over 3.5 years, a real boon for investors in wind mill projects. In fact, many such projects depend on this tax advantage to secure financing, especially since the right to take these deductions can be allocated with some freedom amongst the project's investors and the developers.

Alas, for nuclear power plants, the tax picture is not so rosy. They have to take their write-offs over 20.5 years, a significant disadvantage over a comparable investment in a wind project. Taking a hypothetical $5 billion in generation investment in each technology, here's a chart showing when those deductions could be taken and for how much:

From this chart, it is easy to see that the investors in a wind project get to write-off a LOT more money a LOT sooner than the investors in a nuclear plant. This is greatly to the advantage of the wind developers. At a 35% corporate tax rate, the difference in Year 2 alone is over $650 million in bottom line after-tax profits to the wind investors - that's cash money that can cut dividend checks.

Maybe now you can see why T. Boone Pickens is pushing wind farms.

Let's take the figures from Department of Energy's Energy Information Agency for capital costs and productive experience ("capacity factor") to see exactly what this means in terms of electrical production.

So that $5 billion will produce over TWICE the annual electrical output for American consumers if invested in nuclear power plants than if in wind farms.

One has to ask, do these provisions in the tax code really serve Americans' interests or are they written with someone else in mind?

So, in comparing the tax treatment of wind against that of nuclear power, one could get the idea that Congress is rewarding the inefficient while hobbling the productive.

I'd call that perversion and poor public policy.

[Only for us consumers - everyone else makes out like bandits. Again: nothing to do with the environment or energy 'independence'.

BTW:

The California legislature, to prove its green bona fides, recently passed a law to make California electric consumers buy 33% of their electricity from 'renewables'.

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image toon - cali grn engry = CA child instructer = hard left off of cliff re CAFE standards

The $5 million ACORN embezzlement figure is not new — and the NYT knows it

Subject: txt msm bias crpt acorn -
The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports tonight that the ACORN/Rathke embezzlement sum was $5 million, not the widely cited $1 million figure admitted publicly to date by the left-wing racketeering group.

But guess what? The figure is not new — and it is not news to the whitewashers at the New York Times.

Former ACORN/Project Vote worker Anita MonCrief — the independent whistleblower who worked closely with NYTimes reporter Stephanie Strom on exposing ACORN financial shenanigans last year before Times editors “cut bait” just weeks before Election Day — informed Strom that the true figure was $5 million.

MonCrief also reported the $5 million figure to Warner Todd Huston in April 2009.

Hey, New York Times conservative media monitor: Why don’t you ask Strom about this? Why don’t you ask MonCrief?

[Hint:

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Feinstein tries to hide her ACORN votes

[HT:RMH]
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) was one of 11 Democrats who voted against an amendment to prohibit ACORN funding in the 2010 Interior Appropriations bill (you can see the roll call vote here). But now Feinstein is working overtime to convince her constituents that she never cast such a vote.

Click here to read the letter she is sending out to her constituents, which omits her Sept. 17 vote. Even worse, the letter says she had no role in allowing stimulus money to go to ACORN even though she voted against an amendment that would have prevented stimulus funds from going to the criminal enterprise.

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National "Read the Bill" Petition

[HT:RMH {two in one day}]

The town hall meetings in August uncovered a nasty little secret in Washington: Members of Congress don't actually read their bills!!

Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) is preparing legislation that will require bills to be scored by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and posted online at least 72 hours before they can be considered by the Senate or any Senate committee. This will leave Members of Congress with no excuse for failing to read their bills and it will give the public time to express their views before legislation is passed.

If you're tired of politicians sticking you with the consequences of bills they haven't read, sign our

National Read the Bill Petition.

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Bill Ayers claims he wrote Obama's "Dreams From My Father"

[HT:LDot]

Seems a blogger walked up to him in the airport and asked.

Maybe the Times should have thought of that.

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