Archive for May, 2010
Obama’s New World Order
Posted by marionvalentine66 in Uncategorized on May 31, 2010
United States must submit its sovereignty to an ultimate power
greater than our own
By Henry Lamb Saturday, May 29, 2010
It should come as no surprise. During the campaign, he told us he was
a “citizen of the
world.” Last week, he told the cadets at West Point, and the rest
of the world, just what his vision of a new
world order is.
Obama
wants a new international order that can “resolve the challenges of our
times.” That’s what Woodrow Wilson wanted when he and his cronies
created the League of Nations. That’s what Franklin Roosevelt wanted
when he and his cronies created the United Nations. Fortunately,
conservative Senators prevented the United States
from surrendering its sovereignty to Wilson’s vision of a New World
Order. Roosevelt steamrolled what few conservatives there were in 1945,
and the United Nations was created to “resolve the challenges” of his
time.
One of the fundamental flaws in the vision of these three globalists –
and the New World Order crowd – is the idea that the United States must
submit its sovereignty to an ultimate power greater than
our own.
Absolutely not, and never!
Veto power for the U.S. in the United Nations Security Council, and
to prohibit the U.N. having the authority to levy taxes
In 1945, there was enough conservative influence to retain veto power
for the U.S. in the United Nations Security Council, and to prohibit
the U.N. having the authority to levy taxes. Both of these provisions
have been targeted by the New World Order crowd ever since. The
U.N.-funded Commission on Global Governance recommends that the veto be
removed from all five permanent members, and that the U.N. be given
extensive taxing powers.
These two barriers, and the absence of authority to raise its own
army, are what prevent the current United Nations from becoming the
unchallenged government of the world.
If Obama’s “new international order” is to have the authority and
resources it needs to “resolve the challenges of our time,” then it will
have to have taxing authority to fund the army that will be required to
enforce its mandates, which can be enacted at will without fear of veto
from the U.S. or the other permanent members.
The United States must never be subservient to any governmental
power on earth, other than the government elected by the citizens of the
United States. The United States must never depend upon any other
government on earth for its defense, or its welfare. The United States
must be responsible for “resolving the challenges of our time.”
The United States should seek and welcome cooperation from all
nations in all efforts to resolve challenges of mutual concern, but
never in a structure where decisions that may control the behavior of
U.S. citizens are made by people who are not elected by U.S. citizens.
The United States could find itself in just this situation, should the
new global financial regulatory
scheme now under development become a reality.
The United States has shown that free people who are allowed to
invest time, energy, resources, and ideas into a free market can lift
the world to unimagined heights of prosperity and well being. This is
the example that the United States should offer the world.
Those nations who wish to follow this example and benefit from its
rewards will be excellent trading partners, worthy of support,
assistance and cultivation. Those who curse capitalism and seek
socialism should be free to follow their own course – so long as
their course respects our right to ignore them.
Al Sharpton inadvertently revealed another fundamental flaw in the
philosophy of the Wilson-Roosevelt-Obama New World Order Crowd. He said
Martin Luther King’s dream was not getting one black family into the
white house; his
dream was to “…make everything equal in everybody’s house.”
The United Nations reflects this dream in its Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights (Article 11(1)) which claims that all
people have a right to “…an adequate standard of living…adequate food,
clothing, and housing”
Think about it: a government that can declare these rights must have
the authority and resources to grant these rights. Neither the United
States government, nor the United Nations has any resources that have
not first been taken from some of the people. It is the direct,
expressed objective of the Wilson-Roosevelt-Obama One World Government
crowd to take resources away from the people who have earned them in
order to redistribute the resources to those who have not earned them.
Only in this way can government “…make everything equal in everybody’s
house.”
Voters whose net worth will be improved by wealth redistribution far
outnumber voters whose wealth will be taken. The Obama-led Democratic
majority in Washington has the votes necessary to take the wealth from
those who have earned it in order to “…make everything equal in
everybody’s house” and they are doing it as rapidly as possible.
Obama’s “New International Order” goes beyond the United States
Obama’s “New International Order” goes beyond the United States, and
seeks to take the wealth of the United States and redistribute it to the
rest of the world. He seems perfectly willing to make everything equal
in every nation – until your wealth is gone.
The United States should show the rest of the world how to earn
prosperity through free-market capitalism, and thereby help the other
nations of the world elevate their wealth to equal ours. Obama and his
crowd choose instead, to equalize the wealth of nations by draining
America’s wealth, and reducing Americans’ wealth to the lowest possible
common denominator.
The Wilson-Roosevelt , and now Obama’s vision of a New World Order must
be rejected, along with all those politicians who share it.
Sestak Affair is an Impeachable Offense
Posted by marionvalentine66 in Uncategorized on May 31, 2010
The Obama administration’s offer of a job to Rep. Joe
Sestak in exchange for his quitting a Senate bid is a crime and an
impeachable offense, a leading Republican told Fox
News Sunday.
Rep. Darrell Issa of California also said that, as with most crimes, the
cover-up may actually be worse.
The explanation for the Sestak affair — that former President Bill
Clinton offered the Democratic congressman an unpaid position on an
advisory board if he would drop his challenge against party-switching
Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter — is simply not plausible, Issa added.
As a sitting congressman Sestak couldn’t have served on a presidential
commission, Issa sad.
"It’s a crime because they’ve admitted that they offered this position
… So that begs the real question. Do we believe this is a further
cover-up because he’s — they’re now talking about a job that President
Clinton himself should have known Sestak couldn’t take? " he said.
"They’re now coming up with a nonplausible answer," Issa told Fox News.
On Friday, the White House revealed that Obama Chief of Staff Rahm
Emanuel had asked Clinton to talk to Sestak about a presidential
appointment if Sestak would suspend his bid for the Democratic Senate
nomination.
Read the entire story at Fox
News.
China’s secret message to their investors: “dump your dollars as fast possible
Posted by marionvalentine66 in Uncategorized on May 31, 2010
"Hyperinflation Nightmare
Dead Ahead!"
In this
Urgent, Eye-Opening Report you’ll learn:
- Why China is jumping ship…
- Why world confidence in the U.S. dollar is evaporating…
- PLUS, how the Fat Cats in Washington are lying through
their teeth about the Federal Deficit…
All while international investors watch mountains of toxic debt pile up
faster than at any point in American history!
Read below to find out why you are now faced with the single
most menacing economic crisis of your lifetime…
Dear
Fellow American,
Ignore this sober warning and you may as well take your
savings… your retirement—and your very financial security—and KISS
THEM GOODBYE.
On the other hand, if you HEED the warning on this page—and
ACT on the advice I send you in my newest FREE guide—not only will you
have plenty of time to insulate your wealth…
…you’ll have the opportunity to ensure your family’s
welfare and prosperity for life!
Look, it’s no secret that our government is bleeding the
single greatest gushing of red ink in history.
And no institution on earth—not the White House, not
Congress… and certainly not the abomination we so politely refer to as
the ‘Federal Reserve’—has the faintest hope of slowing it—let alone
STOPPING it.
Despite what the Fat Cats and Bureaucrats try to tell you,
the undeniable truth is that Washington has completely LOST CONTROL of
the federal budget.
And far worse than that, they’re oblivious to what this means
for you and me—namely, that a nightmarish wave of hyperinflation is set
to demolish everything we’ve EVER worked for.
Hyperinflation is Coming—And There’s
Absolutely No Time to Waste!
The definition
of hyperinflation is "inflation that is very high or ‘out of
control’, a condition in which prices increase rapidly as a currency
loses its value."
This happened in Germany after World War I… when
hyperinflation caused the inflation rate to swell from 300 to 800
billion percent, or 300,000,000,000% to 800,000,000,000% over a
six-month period.
The value of German mortgages in 1913 was roughly $10 billion
US dollars. At the height of hyperinflation in late 1923, these
mortgages were only worth one US penny!
Trust me, this was NOT a pretty picture…
In fact, hyperinflation was so bad that workers demanded to be
paid daily, or even multiple times per day, so that their wages would
not be worthless at the end of the day.
When they received their pay, workers literally RAN from their
jobs to the store in the hopes that their paychecks would still be
enough to purchase a meal or some goods.
Prices often changed hourly.
There are stories of people using wheelbarrows to haul enough
money to buy a loaf of bread. Money was sold or traded by weight and
creative minds found other uses for the money, including making clothing
with it, using it for wallpaper, and stuffing it in clothing and walls
for insulation.
Some citizens actually BURNED their money just to keep
warm!
This period of hyperinflation literally destroyed most of the
middle and upper classes in Germany.
Why Hyperinflation Is Now Dangerously Looming
Before I tell
you why China’s elite and middle classes are preparing for a
hyperinflation collapse—let’s look at the "other side of the story"
that no one is talking about…
First off, we know that the dollar IS falling.
For example, according to shadowstats.com—a leading producer of
real and UNBIASED government statistics—the dollar has lost almost 20%
of its international value just in the last 30 months or so.
In other words… it’s falling steeply in terms of how much
corn, wheat, soybeans, beef, copper, silver and gold it can buy. And
it’s also falling against the euro, the yen, the pound and the Swiss
franc.
It’s even going down against many third-world currencies!
Think about that: For generations now, the United States has
been the primary source of capital throughout the world. It was the U.S.
that owned big stakes in foreign economies. So we certainly didn’t need
their capital to sustain us.
Yet today, like a third-world country, we depend far too
heavily on foreign capital.
Every time we run a deficit in our federal budget, our
government officials must go, hat in hand, asking for money from central
banks and investors in Europe… Asia… and even Latin America.
Now, after thousands of such trips, and trillions of such
transactions, a significant chunk of America’s wealth has literally been
sold off or thrown away.
And Up Until Now—Because America Was
the Only Game in Town—He Had No Choice!
This could NOT
be said for smaller economic powers, like Brazil for instance.
With a country like Brazil, the foreign investor DID have a
choice. Whenever he lost faith in Brazil, for whatever reason, he pulled
out in a big hurry, along with countless others, sending Brazil’s
financial market into periodic crashes.
This was the biggest difference that separated the U.S. from a
country like Brazil—whenever Brazil slacked off or did the wrong thing,
it got slapped down, hard!
But when the U.S. made similar mistakes, it usually got away
with it.
And so it was that we merrily ran huge deficits and borrowed to
the hilt, as if nothing was wrong. And despite it all, foreign
investors continued to pour more and more money into America.
In the 1980s it was primarily the cash-rich Japanese who led
the way, investing billions into U.S. stocks and bonds, helping to lift
the Dow and the Treasury bond market out of their worst slumps of the
postwar era.
In the 1990s it was mostly Germans who played that role,
helping to drive the big tech boom.
And for much of this decade it has been India and China, with
their exploding industries which thrived on U.S. consumption.
But now, after nearly three decades of massive, virtually
non-stop capital flows into the U.S. from abroad… some countries are
beginning to realize it was NOT such a good idea after all.
And in case you hadn’t guessed…
China Is One of Those Countries!
When Treasury
Secretary Tim Geithner recently visited China in a rah-rah session for
the dollar—their reaction was almost appalling.
In fact, while speaking to Chinese university students… he
promised them that the dollars owned by their government were "very
safe."
And their reaction?
Simple: They nearly laughed him off the stage!
Think about that for a second… in an Asian country—where
politeness, inscrutability and "saving face" are paramount—this is
shocking, indeed.
Then there’s the experience of Richard Fisher, president of the
Dallas Federal Reserve Bank. He recently visited China and met with
government officials.
In an interview afterward, he said he was grilled about the
Fed’s purchases of Treasury debt. "I must have been asked about that a
hundred times in China. I was asked at every single meeting about our
purchases of Treasury Notes. That seemed to be the principal
preoccupation of those that were invested with their surpluses mostly in
the United States."
As the British Telegraph noted, this is "a stark
reminder that Asia’s ‘Confucius’ culture of right action does not look
kindly on the insouciant policy of printing money by Anglo-Saxons."
It’s clear that the Chinese, along with other foreign dollar
holders, are scared about what the U.S. might do to the dollar.
Unfortunately, U.S. officials don’t seem to be concerned.
After all, as the Financial Times explained, China is "caught
in a ‘dollar trap’ and has little choice but to keep pouring the bulk
of its growing reserves into the U.S. Treasury, which remains the only
market big enough and liquid enough to support its huge purchases."
Well…
That USED to Be True.
But NOT NOW—Not Any More!
The People’s
Bank of China just issued a report that should have sent shock waves
through our financial markets. Part of it said: "To avoid the
shortcomings of sovereign credit currencies acting as reserve
currencies, we need to create an… international reserve currency that
can maintain the long-term stability of its value."
Which "sovereign credit currencies" was the Bank talking about?
The primary one in the world today is the U.S. dollar.
In other words, China does NOT want to own dollars anymore!
Instead, it wants a new international currency—it’s OWN.
In fact, the Chinese are proposing that the International
Monetary Fund’s unit of accounting (the Special Drawing Right, or SDR)
replace the dollar as the dominant global reserve currency.
And as if to demonstrate its commitment to the idea, China just
bought $50 billion of bonds denominated in SDRs.
Not only that, China is proposing that the SDR itself be
changed. Currently, SDRs are made up of dollars (44%), euros (34%), yen
(11%), and sterling (11%).
The Chinese want the SDR to be 20% each of dollars, euros, yen,
sterling… and yuan.
This is the real shocker: China wants the yuan to be a global
reserve currency.
And that would put it in direct competition with the
dollar!
On the surface, China is only proposing the yuan as a component
of the SDR. Yet the truth is, everybody knows that few SDRs are used as
international reserves.
The scary part is… if the yuan becomes part of the SDR, it
gets instant legitimacy as a global reserve currency… and then it goes
head-to-head with the dollar on international markets.
Obviously, why all the effort? With so much invested in the
U.S. dollar—why go through all this?
Question: What Do THEY See that We Don’t?
Answer: Runaway Out-of-Control Deficits
With No End In Sight!
I honestly wish
I could do something to stop hyperinflation, but at this point in time,
I can’t, nor can you. The forces aligned against us are simply too
massive, too powerful and coming on too soon:
Against what had been the recently publicized, cash-based
"official" fiscal 2008 (year-ended Sept. 30) federal deficit of $454.8
billion, and parallel $161.8 billion deficit in 2007…
…The U.S. Treasury reported that the 2008 deficit [change in
net position] was $1,009.1 billion, versus $275.5 billion in 2007, using
GAAP.
However, since 2002 the Treasury has been reporting the
government’s finances using annual statements prepared using accounting
standards similar to those used in corporate America.
Those numbers, however, did NOT account for the annual change
in the net present value of unfunded Social Security and Medicare
liabilities, except in discussions and footnotes. Not once in the
"official" reporting!
Counting those changes, as a corporation would for its pension
and healthcare liabilities for retirees, the 2008 annual deficit was
$5.1 trillion, versus $1.2 trillion in 2007.
Which means that total U.S. obligations—gross federal debt
outstanding plus the net present value of unfunded liabilities—is at $66
TRILLION: Roughly 4.6 times the level of reported U.S. gross domestic
product (GDP), and GREATER THAN THE TOTAL ESTIMATED GDP!
These numbers are truly beyond our conception… spinning out
of control… and show that the government is clearly lying about what’s
really happening. Not to mention that they have been deteriorating
severely for fiscal 2009.
Still, perhaps you’re wondering, "Okay but how do they doom
the U.S. dollar to hyperinflation?"
Simple: With this level of liability… if anything
occurs to reduce demand for U.S. debt (which we see happening with
China’s actions), it’s doomsday for the dollar.
Because their solution is always the same: If Washington can’t
borrow the money it ‘needs’, it will just print it instead.
That’s the classic recipe for massive hyperinflation, plunging
currency values and a crisis of epic proportions.
Any ‘market share’ the yuan receives will come mostly from the
dollar—which will reduce demand for the greenback, and the house of
cards will begin its collapse.
As China begins to pull away and its currency competes with
ours… other foreign investors will also jump as well.
And That Means We are Literally a "Sneeze" Away from a
Hyperinflation Crisis Beyond What Anyone Has Ever Seen!
As the saying
goes, "The bigger they are… the harder they fall." Such is the case
with the U.S. economy.
In other words, our hyperinflation crisis has taken longer to
come about—but when it happens, it’s almost certain to be many times
uglier.
No, I can’t tell you the exact day it will happen… no one
can.
But it’s obvious that the Bureaucrats and Fat Cats in
Washington care too little about the repercussions of their actions—and
how their spending spree is risking our savings… our retirement…
everything you and I hold dear.
Now, when things really get bad—do you think the Bureaucrats in
Washington are going to be there for you? Do you think they will make
personal sacrifices so that we can live happily ever after?
Unfortunately, the answer is no. They WON’T!
Bus-bound PR Press Poolies Miss the Boat in Chicago
Posted by marionvalentine66 in Uncategorized on May 31, 2010
and Climate Change; NASA’s Disgrace
By Dr. Tim Ball
Christopher Horner
requested information from National Aeronautical and Space
Administration (NASA) through Freedom of Information (FOI) and now reports, “We have asked the court to order NASA –
which has evaded our Freedom of Information Act requests for three
years – to turn over documents related to global warming activities
undertaken by federal employees.”
It’s the pattern of blocking seen throughout the official climate
science community.
Bus-bound PR
Press Poolies Miss the Boat in Chicago
By Judi McLeod
Question to the Press
Poolies holed up in a bus in front of Marty Nesbitt’s mansion yesterday:
Where was the big welcome to the returning Son-of-Chicago President
Barack Obama?
Co-poolies: Did you see one Welcome Home banner, any balloons, a
marching band with fifes and drums? Anything to indicate that Chicagoans
were happy to have the Obamas back?
Strange homecoming indeed for the Obama family in Chicago together
for the first time in the last year and a half and a far cry from
Election Night at Grant Park.
The Liberal
Betrayal of Israel
By Daniel Greenfield
Over the last two weeks, a liberal scholar and pundit named Peter Beinart got a lot of attention by
arguing that liberals could no longer be pro-Israel because the country
and its people had moved too far to the right. The reality however is
just the opposite. In every way, from national defense to the role of
religion in public life, Israel has actually watered down its principles
and liberalized. But it could not and cannot keep up with the pace at
which liberals have slid far to the left.
Obama’s War(s)
By Dr. Robert R.
Owens
A war here, a war there, everywhere it’s war, war, war. General
Douglas MacArthur wanted
to invade China because they offered a safe haven for our enemies
during the Korean War. In testimony before the Senate the first Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Omar Bradley said, “It
would be the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Just What Did
You Expect?
By Philip V. Brennan
Like a weed caught in a swirling eddy and drawn into the vortex of a
powerful whirlpool, Barack Obama is being sucked into the depths of
political inconsequence, joining such other notable presidents as James
Earl Carter.
Obamacare taking on water
Posted by marionvalentine66 in Uncategorized on May 31, 2010
By: Jeffrey H.
Anderson
Special to the Examiner
05/28/10 9:34 AM EDT
As they followed one another off the political cliff in
voting for the health-care overhaul, Democratic senators and
representatives comforted themselves with their own self-created myth
that, although ObamaCare was horribly unpopular as a bill, it would
prove to be quite fetching as a law. Furthermore, this
transformation, this change they could believe in, would take place
sooner rather than later — as voters would reward rather than punish
them for passing ObamaCare in clear and open defiance of popular will.
In the two months since, President Obama has pulled out all the
stops, aggressively trying to sell the overhaul while also rolling out
ostensibly popular provisions ahead of schedule. These provisions
include a federal mandate that insurers cover all “children” up to the
age of 26 on their mom’s and dad’s policies, with costs being borne
through somewhat higher premiums for all families; and a tax credit for
small businesses, but only — or at least mostly — for very small
businesses (those with nine or fewer workers) with very low-paid
full-time employees (those averaging less than $25,000 in annual
income).
Unfortunately (from the perspective of ObamaCare supporters), a
steady stream of revelations of previously undiscovered horrors buried
in the bowels of ObamaCare appears to have more than negated any
gains that the administration might otherwise have made.
Since passage, reports have revealed that ObamaCare would cost over $1
trillion by any standard, according to the Congressional Budget
Office (CBO), not “merely” $940 billion as previously reported (while
its total costs in its real first decade, 2014 to 2023, would continue
to be well over $2
trillion); that ObamaCare has prompted major corporations to
discuss dropping
their employer-provided health-care plans; that businesses would
have to file
1099s not only for every person to whom they pay $600 in wages
but for every vendor with whom they do $600 in business, thereby
imposing a paperwork nightmare and incentivizing companies to avoid
doing business with a myriad of small firms rather than a handful of
big ones; that ObamaCare would create 159
new federal agencies, offices, or programs; that the Obama
administration’s Medicare Chief Actuary says ObamaCare would raise
U.S. health costs by $311 billion in relation to current law and
would shift about 14 million people off of employer-provided insurance
— and some of them onto Medicaid; that ObamaCare’s would discourage employment, as —
for example — hiring a 25th worker would cost a business $5,600 in
addition to wages and benefits; that ObamaCare would impose a severe
marriage penalty, offering additional subsidies as high as
$10,425 a year if couples merely avoid marriage; that a lone provision
in ObamaCare, which would penalize employers if their employees spend
more than 9.5 percent of their household income on insurance
premiums, would cut
the net income of businesses like White Castle by more than half;
that even though ObamaCare was supposed to get people out of
emergency rooms and into doctors’ offices, those who build
emergency rooms say the effect will be just the opposite and that
they are gearing up for increased business; that doctors shortages
are looming and would be accentuated by ObamaCare, both because more
people would seek care (otherwise, what would the $2 trillion be
buying?) and because fewer people would likely enter a demanding
profession that would now promise greater restrictions and lower pay;
and that President Obama’s nominee to head Medicare and Medicaid under
ObamaCare is an open advocate of the British National Health
Services’ NICE (National Institute of Clinical Excellence) and its
methods of rationing
care.
These revelations appear to have taken a toll. Together, they seem
to have made a notoriously unpopular law significantly less popular.
In its May poll (conducted from May 11-16), Kaiser Health detected a
noticeable decline in ObamaCare’s popularity. Almost alone among the
polls, the monthly Kaiser poll had never showed ObamaCare facing a
public-opinion deficit at any time this year. This is partly because
Kaiser polls all Americans — not merely registered or likely voters —
and ObamaCare polls better among the politically disengaged.
In April, Kaiser showed that the gap between ObamaCare’s supporters
and its opponents was 3 percentage points — in ObamaCare’s favor.
Now, in May, it shows that gap to be 6 percentage points in the other
direction — a 9-point swing in just one month. (In a poll of likely
voters, released in May but not in April, Kaiser shows ObamaCare to be
facing a 10-point deficit.) Movement from last month has been even
greater among those with strong sentiments, as the gap between those
who strongly support the overhaul and those who strongly oppose it has
widened from 7 points (30 to 23 percent) to 18 points (32 to 14
percent). Furthermore, only 44 percent now say they are “confused” by
the law, compared to 55 percent last month. To know ObamaCare is
apparently not to love ObamaCare.
Condemningly, Politico writes that the Kaiser poll “suggests the
accelerated implementation schedule has failed to sway a skeptical
public — or even keep health reform’s most ardent supporters on
board.” Supporting Politico’s statement, the percentage of Americans
who strongly support the law has dropped from 23 to 14 percent in just
one month.
Rasmussen, whose poll includes only likely voters, has recently
registered a similarly dramatic shift against ObamaCare. In the first
eight weeks following the overhaul’s passage, Rasmussen showed strong
and consistent support for repeal. The average gap between those who
supported repeal and those who opposed it was 16 points, and it was
never lower than 12 points or higher than 20. This week, the gap has
ballooned to 31 points. Americans now favor repeal by a margin of
almost 2-to-1, with 63 percent favoring repeal and just 32 percent
opposing it.
A more detailed look at the numbers provides even more encouragement
for those who are actively pushing for ObamaCare’s repeal.
Independents support repeal by a full 50 percentage points: 72 to 22
percent. The number of voters who “strongly” favor repeal (46 percent)
dwarfs the number who oppose it even “somewhat” (32 percent). Fewer
than half of the President’s own party is against repeal (49
percent). And, per capita, it’s easier to find a Democrat who
supports repeal (36 percent of them do) than any voter — regardless of
party — who opposes it (only 32 percent do). By a margin of at least
15 points, every income group except for those making less than
$20,000 a year (who oppose repeal by 8 points) supports repeal, with
those making between $20,000 and $40,000 supporting it by the widest
margin: 49 points.
Perhaps the most ominous sign for President Obama and the Democratic
Congress is evidence that younger voters are jumping ship. In the
first eight weeks after passage, an average of 58 percent of likely
voters under age-30 supported repeal — 2 points higher than voters as a
whole. This week, 70 percent of them support repeal — compared to 27
percent opposed, for a margin of 43 points. The only group that’s
even more supportive of repeal, at 72 percent, is those in their 30s.
But, in truth, every age-group is overwhelmingly supportive of
repeal; it’s just a question of degree. The smallest margin in
support of repeal, logged by those between the ages of 50 and 64, is 19
points.
President Obama talked a lot about the need to pass ObamaCare and
put it in the history books. Americans are now making it clear that
they want to relegate ObamaCare to the history books.
And once it is gone, there will be no shortage of ideas that can
replace it — ideas that will actually lower health costs, make health
care more accessible for all, and not compromise quality. A fine
example was presented in these
pages two weeks ago by Peter Hansen, who wrote that the truly
effective way to lower health-care costs is to give people the
opportunity and incentive to shop for value — for the highest-quality
care, at the lowest-possible prices.
To do so, and to increase fairness, Hansen argued that we should
allow all Americans to deduct their full health-care costs (not just
their insurance premiums) from their taxes — and not just from their
income taxes but also from their payroll taxes (a more important
deduction for lower-income workers). This would level the tax
playing-field between those with employer-provided insurance — whose
taxes wouldn’t change (except that they could now also deduct
out-of-pocket expenses) — and those who purchase insurance on the open
market and would no longer have to do so with after-tax dollars.
Hansen’s proposal could be paid for in part by taking a page out of
my small-bill proposal (www.smallbill.org) and gradually
rerouting and putting to better use some of the funds that provide
federal assistance for emergency rooms. It could also be paired with a
couple of other small-bill proposals, like allowing the purchase of
insurance across state lines and providing some federal funding for
state-run high-risk pools to help give access to insurance for those
with prohibitively expensive preexisting conditions. In addition, his
proposed $1,000 tax deduction for buying insurance could be changed to
a $1,000 tax credit, which would more profoundly reduce the number of
uninsured. And I would cap the health-care deduction at some defined
level of annual health-care spending, perhaps at $50,000 or so, to
try to prevent taxpayers from having to subsidize cutting-edge,
unusual, or perhaps even unnecessary procedures purchased out of pocket
by the truly rich.
With or without the incorporation of these suggestions, Hansen’s
proposal is refreshingly simple and keen-sighted, and it rightly
focuses on the one thing that ObamaCare doesn’t really focus on much at
all: lowering health costs. In truth, the Obama administration’s
obsession with insurance (and with government control) has kept it from
focusing on making health care more affordable — which is what
Americans really want.
A huge part of the problem with our health-care system today is that
far too much money is funneled through insurers, which keeps patients
from controlling and allocating their own health-care dollars more
efficiently and which also adds an unnecessary layer of costs. Dr.
Marcy Zwelling, a Southern California private physician, says that the
same MRI for which insurers are billed $2,000 to $3,000 — and for
which they might actually agree to pay something like $1,000
(depending on their negotiated rates) — costs only $300 to $400 for
patients who pay cash. Two weeks ago in these pages, Tony Mecia
cited Dr. Brian Forrest, a North Carolina doctor who says that the
prostate-cancer screening test for which a lab bills insurers $184 can
be purchased by his patients for $30 in cash. It makes no sense to be
funneling so much money through an unnecessary middle-man.
Yet, according to the CBO, in ObamaCare’s real first dozen years
(2014 to 2025), it would funnel $1 trillion from American taxpayers,
through Washington, to private insurers — in exchange for insurers’
largely giving up their autonomy to the government. Thus, ObamaCare
would further entrench insurers’ position as an inefficient middle-man
— that’s a key reason why insurers largely supported the overhaul —
while simultaneously entrenching an even more problematic and
inflexible middle-man in the form of the federal government.
Conversely, Hansen’s plan would empower patients, make prices more
transparent, give patients more opportunity and incentive to shop
around, and thereby lower health costs — all without reducing liberty
or lowering the quality of care.
Hansen’s plan, or one like it, would be like a breath of fresh air.
But first we have to get rid of ObamaCare.
Barack Obama’s credibility hits rock bottom after oil spill and Sestak scandal
Posted by marionvalentine66 in Uncategorized on May 31, 2010
The combination of Obama’s passivity over the Gulf oil spill
catastrophe and his cynical political manoeuvrings could spell disaster
for him, argues Toby Harnden
beaches
Photo: GETTY
The first thing Barack Obama probably should have done was to order the
livestreaming Oil Spill Cam to be turned off. As the President
insisted to
Americans that he was "singularly focused" on staunching the flow,
there was that mesmerising image on their television screens of plumes
of
hydrocarbons gushing relentlessly into the Gulf of Mexico.
When any political leader feels they have to declare that they are
"fully
engaged" in an issue, it is clear that they are in trouble. Talking
about it undermines the very point you are trying to make – not to
mention
that pesky Oil Spill Cam showing that, 38 days into the Deepwater
Horizon
disaster, not a whole lot had been achieved.
Related Articles
Even judging Obama by his words, he has fallen woefully short over what
has
now eclipsed the 1989 Exxon Valdez wreck as biggest oil spill
catastrophe in
American history. He may have described it as an "unprecedented
disaster"
in last Thursday’s press conference but a week into the crisis he was
blithely stating that "this incident is of national significance"
and rest assured he was receiving "frequent briefings" about it.
George W Bush’s unpopularity and perceived incompetence was encapsulated
by
the way he dealt with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Candidate
Obama
branded it "unconscionable incompetence".
Central to Obama’s appeal was his promise to be truly different. His
failure
to achieve that is now at the core of the deep disappointment
Americans feel
about him. At the press conference – the first full-scale affair he
had
deigned to give for 309 days – he appeared uncomfortable and petulant.
His approach to the issue was that of the law student suddenly
fascinated by a
science project. He displayed none of the visceral indignation
Americans
feel about pretty much everything these days – two-thirds now say they
are "angry"
about the way things are going – resorting instead to Spock-like
technocratic language and legalese. "I’m not contradicting my prior
point," he stated at one juncture. During those 63 minutes of
soporific
verbosity, about 800 barrels of oil poured into the Gulf.
Obama engaged in the obligatory populist bashing of Big Oil and, of
course,
demonstrated the Obama administration’s version of Tourette’s
Syndrome,
blaming the previous administration for the situation when, by my
reckoning,
it’s a full 16 months since Bush left office.
By Friday, he was sticking his finger in the sand at Grand Isle,
Louisiana as
part of a photo op self-consciously designed to contrast with Bush’s
famous
looking down on the Katrina devastation from Air Force One. It was
Obama’s
second visit to Louisiana in the 39 days since disaster struck.
According to
C’BS’s Mark Knoller, in the same period Bush visited the post-Katrina
region
seven times.
But perhaps the most dangerous sign during the press conference for
Democrats
fearful of an unprecedented electoral disaster in November’s mid-term
elections was the evasion and opacity of the man who promised a new
era of
transparency and a different kind of politics.
When asked about the resignation of the director of the Minerals
Management
Service – an agency he had excoriated – he professed that "I don’t
know
the circumstances in which this occurred". She had, of course, been
fired.
Even worse was Obama’s refusal to say anything about the growing furore
over
White House attempts to persuade Congressman Joe Sestak to pull out of
the
Democratic Senate primary contest in Pennsylvania. Obama’s advisers
had
preferred the Republican turncoat Senator Arlen Specter – and Sestak
inconveniently let slip that he’d been offered a government job to
step
aside.
That was potentially illegal and for weeks the White House stonewalled.
When,
even more inconveniently, Sestak beat Specter, the
trust-us-nothing-untoward-happened approach would no longer wash. But
still
Obama declined to answer the question on Thursday, fobbing the
reporter –
and America – off with the promise that "there will be an
official response shortly on the Sestak issue".
This did indeed come the following day – conveniently timed for that
Friday
afternoon news void before the Memorial Day holiday weekend. Lo and
behold,
it turns out that none other than former President Bill Clinton was
asked by
Obama’s chief of staff and Chicago enforcer Rahm Emanuel to offer
Sestak a
place on a presidential board.
Whether or not the law was broken, the cynicism of this is breathtaking.
Obama
offered a break from the Clinton-Bush past and an end to the shoddy
backroom
deals of Washington. So what does he do? He tries to deny Pennsylvania
voters a chance to decide for themselves by using his former foe
Clinton to
offer a grubby inducement.
It was perhaps a fitting end to one of the worst weeks of Obama
presidency, in
which a Rasmussen one poll pegged his popularity at a new low of 42
percent.
In an environment in which Americans are disillusioned and cynical
about
Washington and all it stands for, the Clinton-Sestak manoeuvre could
be a
political calamity for Obama.
Perhaps he should be grateful after all that the Oil Spill Cam was still
beaming up footage from the sea bed.
“To Live In Daily Fear of Death” – A Memorial Day Tribute
Posted by marionvalentine66 in Uncategorized on May 30, 2010
President
Rural
Landowners
nationally recognized author on freedom and property rights
issues.
around the globe.
Rights Reserved
stark contrast. The difference between night and day, the feeling of
hot
and cold, the gap between love and hate, or the horror of war and the
serenity and security of peace, all manifest themselves in our
consciousness by their stark contrast.
road on a summer day, in a convertible, with your hair blowing in the
wind and
free as a bird, with a loved one sitting next to you, just a kiss
away. Death and injury are far from your mind. In contrast, imagine
yourself as a marine or soldier, driving down the road in a hostile
land, in a
humvee with a 50-caliber machine gun, looking for the enemy, knowing
full
well that in the next split second, your humvee could be disassembled by
an IED
(improvised explosive device),
along with parts of
your flesh and bone and maybe even your soul. You live in daily fear of
death.
Christmas with
your family. All the fathers and mothers, babies, sons and
daughters, grandmothers and grandfathers, maybe a few aunts and uncles
and
some nephews, nieces and cousins thrown in for good measure, are
gathered
around the Christmas tree
to celebrate this American religious holiday, in a
spirit of faith and giving. Lots of food on the table, some good cheer,
and maybe even an argument or two, punctuate the day or the evening.
When
the celebrating ends, you all get in your cars and head for the safety
of your
home, on a quiet street, in a small or large town ….. in the land of
the
free. Loneliness and the fear
of death or injury are nowhere to be found
in your thoughts.
alone in a strange land, with the thought of death lingering in the
forefront of
your fears. But on Christmas day the lines are open
and
you are able to call your mother, father, wife, or children. For a few
minutes you are in touch with the unshakable bond of family, that
biological,
unseen umbilical that ties us all together. You feel tears well up
when you hear your new baby cry, or say a few of its first words. Or
you
tell your daughter who is about to get married, how much you love her
and wish
her well in her new life. Or you tell a loved one that you can’t wait
to
hold her in your arms and the aching of the gap between you wells up in
your
heart and you almost can’t bear it. You hang up the phone, trying to
hold
back the urge to weep openly.
buddies, but your family and loved ones are thousands of miles away.
Sure
you are young, tough and immortal and you tell yourself that injury or
death won’t happen to you. Still, there is that unsettling doubt that
it
might, because some of your buddies have already fallen to enemy
gunfire, or the
insidious IED.
own personal thoughts of home and family, ever present in your
minds. Now imagine that the day after Christmas your platoon is
to go out on patrol in search of the enemy, or the enemy’s cache of
weapons. You know there is the possibility you could come back severely
injured, or you won’t come back alive at all. Nevertheless, tens of
thousands of brave soldiers, marines and airmen do go home without a
scratch. Once again, you tell yourself that surely that will be your
fate as well, but you don’t sound convincing because you live in daily
fear of
death.
Imagine that you have already served your country, let’s say in the
great
war. You are now 90 years old and you were on one of the battleships in
Pearl Harbor
that was hit by the Japanese torpedo and
dive bomber
attack. Somehow you survived and made it through
the war with either minor, or even major injuries. You get together
with
those of you who are still alive and experienced the horrors of World War
II. Not many of you left now. You start remembering your
buddies
that didn’t come home, or the ones that did come home but were never the
same. Some of the horrific events have been erased from your memory,
but
others lurk in the shadows of your mind, suddenly erupting without
warning. Tears well up in your eyes. Your lips tremble.
Your voice quivers in uncontrollable sadness and heartache. Although
the
end of the war occurred 65 years ago, you still live with the pain it
inflicted upon your body and your soul. You are a prisoner of those
memories and they will not go away, no matter how hard you try, or how
many
sessions with a therapist. Because during those days that haunt your
memory, you lived in daily fear of death.
or are now serving, the experiences of military service come in all
shapes and
sizes. Some experiences are good ones, as new friends are forged and
non-threatening experiences are endured and survived. Other experiences
leave permanent scars, either physical or mental.
today, virtually all serve voluntarily. Nevertheless, draftee or
volunteer, you put your life and well being on the line for your
country.
For that, whether in theater or out, you are to be regarded with the
highest
respect and honor. We fully acknowledge the contrast between our life
of
peace and your life at war. On this Memorial Day and every day, this
writer and most Americans salute your sacrifice and the sacrifice of
those who
came before you. We stand with you in spirit and in honor.
emotion we felt when listening to the song "I’m Already
There" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jm5gfuT9Z4,
by "Lonestar". We encourage everyone to take another listen, so
that they too can feel what we did in honor of those who have given
and are now giving their all in the defense of freedom, for one of the
greatest countries that ever arose out of the cry: "Give Me
Liberty, Or Give Me
Death". In their honor, we so dedicate
these words so that those of us at home do not have to "live
in
daily fear of death", as do those on the battlefield of
war.
Ewart,
President
LANDOWNERS
Box 1031, Issaquah, WA 98027
222-4742 or 1 800
682-7848
425 222-4743)
Soon!
Obama Hears Karl Marx in His Seashell
Posted by marionvalentine66 in Uncategorized on May 30, 2010
Eleven More
Mental Mistakes of Obamatons
By Kelly O’Connell
As a study of
political fallacies, part two, this article continues an examination of
defective examples of speech and debate, employed here by leftist
supporters of the current Obama administration. Now are added eleven
more fallacies to the ten previously outlined.
A fallacy is a badly structured argument, a faux point. Fallacies are
common and recognizable errors of logic which regularly pop up in human
interactions. Some use fallacies by accident, whereas others do so in
an effort to take advantage of simple minded folks. Politicians, being
veteran communicators, tend to use fallacies on purpose, tricking
listeners into agreeing with them on false grounds.
An Open
Marketplace of Ideas?
By Daniel Greenfield
Last week, just in
time for Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, Apple
decided to ban iSlam Muhammad, an app that featured some rather
revealing passages in the Koran. Meanwhile Apple chose to leave in place
BibleThumper,
an app that attacked the bible. Of course those very same Koranic
quotes can be found in the numerous
Koran apps created by Muslims. But the double standard doesn’t stop
there. Before that Apple had decided to ban a campaign App
by California congressional candidate Ari David, which criticized
his opponent, Congressman Henry Waxman, for being
“defamatory”. But naturally you can find Robert Gibbs’ latest
“defamatory” statements
on the White House App.
Obama Hears
Karl Marx in His Seashell
By Warner Todd
Huston
Government-Funded Jihad ???
Posted by marionvalentine66 in Uncategorized on May 30, 2010
IPT Report on Census
Lease Prompts Inquiries
by IPT News • May 20, 2010 at 3:11 pm
http://www.investigativeproject.org/blog/2010/05/ipt-report-on-cens…
Two members of Congress want the General Services Administration (GSA)
to explain what research, if any, was done before signing a $582,000
lease with a Virginia mosque that law enforcement officials say has been
the subject of numerous terror-financing investigations.
The letters to GSA Administrator Martha
Johnson from U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa and Senator Susan Collins follow an Investigative Project on
Terrorism (IPT) story disclosing the 2008 lease for a Census Bureau
office, and the law enforcement assessments of the Dar Al-Hijrah
Islamic Center.
Records from the Department of Homeland Security obtained by the
IPT indicate the mosque was "operating as a front for Hamas operatives in U.S.," and "has been
linked to numerous individuals linked to terrorism financing."
Issa, the ranking Republican on the House Committee on Oversight
and Government Reform, wrote that he was concerned "there are insufficient
procedures in place to vet potential contract partners." It would be
"evidence of an alarming inter-agency communication failure" if the law
enforcement reports about Dar Al-Hijrah were not available to GSA
officials. If it is available, and GSA simply didn’t check, "there may
be an even more problematic systemic issue."
Collins, the ranking Republican on the Senate Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs Committee, asked whether GSA checks out prospective landlords
to determine whether they have "engaged in prohibited conduct related to
terrorism or other unlawful activities."
The Washington Post reported on the letters Thursday. The story cited
the initial IPT report as an impetus for the Issa and Collins inquiries.
"The web site’s report was based on brief, intragovernmental messages
about the mosque," the story said, omitting details about the law
enforcement assessments.
The story did quote two sources disparaging the IPT report.
Census spokesman Steven Jost told the newspaper "We’re not happy with
the optics being portrayed by this web site." Imam Johari Abdul-Malik,
Dar Al-Hijrah outreach director, said it was wrong "that certain
individuals who are against Muslims would impugn the character of the
mosque when we haven’t been found guilty of any crime."
The IPT was not asked to respond and the Post chose not to
tell readers what the TECS reports said. Editor Linda Robinson
explained that the records, obtained through a Freedom of Information
Act request, were "not terribly useful, frankly," because they were
brief summaries and the author’s identity was not known.
"I don’t know who wrote them," she said. "I don’t know anything
about them."
Issa included details about the records in his letter to the GSA
administrator:
"The DHS maintains the Traveler Enforcement
Compliance System (TECS), a database and case management application
populated by reports from border and law enforcement agencies. The
searchable TECS database allows investigators to quickly identify
individuals and entities with derogatory background information.The Dar Al-Hijrah Center is described in one TECS report as
having been ‘under numerous investigations for financing and [providing]
aid and comfort to bad [organizations] and members.’ In another TECS
report, Dar Al-Hijrah is described as ‘a mosque operating as a front for
Hamas operatives in [the] U.S.’Even the most cursory review using publicly available research
tools would have raised red flags when GSA considered entering into a
lease with Dar Al-Hijrah."The TECS reports Issa references can be seen here, here and here.
And, HERE- http://frontpagemag.com/2010/05/28/government-funded-jihad/
Related Topics: IPT News
Welcome to Venezuela: FTC Proposes Federalizing Newspapers, and Killing off Blogs
Posted by marionvalentine66 in Uncategorized on May 30, 2010
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Writing at Business Insider, Jeff Jarvis describes thenext stage of the administration’s systematic obliteration of the Constitution: federalizing newspapers and
killing blogs. The Federal Trade Commission has posted its "potential policy recommendations
to support the reinvention of journalism", which is
not only an unprecedented federal overreach, but truly a repudiation of
the First Amendment
itself.
Consider what Jarvis calls ‘the iPad tax’ — a 5% fee on
all consumer electronics — which is intended to raise $4 billion a
year. That money would be spent on government-funded news.
The Implications of Government-Funded News…
…are well nigh
horrifying. Not only does the FTC propose "circling the wagons" around
old media — The New
York Times, The
Washington Post and the like — the financial lifeline
supplied by the federal government would also serve as a leash. If you
thought old media was aligned with the mission of the Democrat Party
before, just wait until it’s dependent upon the feds for salaries and
benefits.
The FTC Suggests Killing Blogs to Bolster Newspapers…
…through
a series of bizarre policy recommendations that are predicated upon the
following conclusion:
[N]ewspapers have not yet found a new, sustainable
business model, and there is reason for concern that such a business model may not
emerge. Therefore, it is not too soon to start considering policies that
might encourage innovations to help support journalism into the future..
By
"journalism", the FTC means "newspapers" and by "encourage
innovations" the FTC means stifle competition. Among the FTC’s
suggestions:
• Tightly limit what search engines and news
aggregators (like Drudge Report) are allowed to report;
•
Potentially define certain kinds of news reports as "proprietary facts"
rather than events in the public domain;
• Rather than protect
consumers against price-fixing (one of its missions), the FTC rallies
around antitrust exemptions for newspapers that could help them
monopolize news distribution;
• Redistributing wealth from
individual taxpayers to old media, which would serve to bolster the
coffers of newspapers while simultaneously reducing journalistic
independence and truly creating a "state-run media".
Sinister
Jarvis concludes that the real problem with the FTC’s
position "is the alignment of the legacy institutions of media and
government. Here, the internet is not the salvation of news, journalism,
and democracy. It’s the other side."
I think Jarvis is naive:
this is nothing less than a sinister, diabolical effort to shred the
First Amendment and create a state-run media complex designed to report only
what the government wants reported.
This is an utterly
ominous development and one that
should remind readers why this President embraces dictators like Hugo Chavez. He seems to
envy the control that dictators exercise over their subjects.
And
he seeks to emulate them.
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