Despite deploying up to 120,000 soldiers, supported by 300,000 Afghan government forces, the Soviets failed to crush the insurgency by Afghan mujahideen fighters who were backed by U.S. guns and money and had bases inside neighboring Pakistan. Some 15,000 Soviet troops were killed before Moscow decided the war could not be won and pulled out its forces in 1989. By that time, 1 million Afghans had lost their lives and another 5 million become refugees in neighboring Pakistan and Iran.

The tables are now turned and the United States is considering whether to send another 25,000 troops to add to the nearly 70,000 Western forces locked in a bitter stalemate with Taliban-led insurgents in south and eastern Afghanistan. "I tell you this for sure, that if NATO and America put all their attention on fighting, and invest only in the military, they will not win," former mujahideen leader and ex-President Burhanuddin Rabbani told Reuters.

And the Soviets also tried to bring progress to deeply conservative and traditional Afghanistan and in many ways their record was more impressive than that of the West so far. Most of Afghanistan's roads, ministries, major schools and hospitals were Soviet-built. Even now, many of the upper echelons of the civil service, army and police are Soviet trained.


But any gains the Soviets made through development and building the Afghan government's capacity were scuppered by the resentment and anger their devastating bombing raids caused. That is a lesson U.S. and NATO forces should learn from the experience of their former Cold War adversary. "I don't think NATO has fully understood just how serious this issue is," said a Kabul-based Western analyst. "They certainly have done what they can to try to avoid civilian casualties from air strikes, but I just don't think they have grasped how central it is to informing the views of the nation." Source:CNSNEWS.com

My question is are those who are sent to fight in Afghanistan being sent to die for a commander in chief who does not believe in victory? He has cut the defense budget,as this report indicates.
The Obama administration has asked the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff to cut the Pentagon's budget request for the fiscal year 2010 by more than 10 percent -- about $55 billion.
A senior U.S. defense official tells FOX News President Obama has put securing Afghanistan near the top of his foreign policy agenda, but "victory" in the war-torn country isn't necessarily the United States' goal, he said in a TV interview.

"I'm always worried about using the word 'victory,' because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur," Obama told ABC News.First of all Hirohito never left his palace in Tokyo. A senior general of the Japanese arm signed the surrender. Strange such a supposedly smart man does not know this!

This statement from the Commander in Chief of the armed forces is troubling to me. The troops are sent 10,000 miles to potential death or crippling wounds and their CIC does not want victory. Sounds strangely similar to the attitude of McNamara during the Vietnam debacle!!

Obama, apparently is preoccupied with the quest to socialize our health care industry to pay attention to the fact that last month we had 4 killed in Afghanistan, and this month is is worse, casualties in the eight years the USA has been fighting there. More warriors were killed last month(44), and although August is not over it is the worst month (45) than any month in the last 8 years!

We have presently 64,000 troops in Afghanistan in harms way for a commander in chief who apparently does not think victory is the Object of their sacrifice!

THIS BLOG IS ABOUT THE AMBIVALENCE OF SENATOR TED KENNEDY WHEN IT COMES TO GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE IN OUR HEALTH CARE.

Before I explain why I believe Kennedy was bi-polar on the role of government in our health care. I must take exception to the statement uttered by Obama and repeated in the media, that Senator Kennedy was the greatest Senator.

Kennedy personally began the politics of HATE during the Senate hearings of the proposed nomination by president Reagan of Judge Bork. The words Kennedy used to demonize Bork where nothing short of calling him a member of the Ku Klux Klann who was a threat to our way of life. I could quote what he said, but I remain repulsed even when I read the hateful words that sunk any chance of Judge Bork being confirmed by the Senate. Thus a man who was devoted to the Constitution as it was written, not as interpreted by Liberals like Sotomayor was not allowed to sit on the Supreme Court.
And during the Senate hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Kennedy tried the same character assassination, but failed to stop his confirmation.

The following is an excerpt from a speech that he gave in the Senate to support his opposition to the bill that banned partial birth abortion during the Bush administration.

Sen. Ted Kennedy’s March 12, 2003 Senate floor speech in opposition to a ban on partial-birth abortion as it appeared in the Congressional Record:
"The Republican leadership has chosen to make as its top priority a flatly unconstitutional piece of legislation at a time when so many families across the country are facing economic hardship, when communities are struggling to deal with homeland security needs, and being forced by State budget crises to cut back on education and health care.

The role of the Senate is to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Each of us in this body has taken that oath of office, and that oath of office and the Constitution require me to oppose this legislation. This bill unconstitutionally seeks to restrict abortion in cases before viability. It does not provide an exception to protect the mother's health after viability. It also impermissibly attempts to interfere with the doctor-patient relationship. For all these reasons, I oppose this bill.

As all politicians do the quotes I have inserted in this post were preceded and followed by a lot of verbosity defending his position for the Roe vs Wade abortion "right". But he was not consistent in 2008 when he supported "Obama Care"
which is the ultimate case of the government interjecting itself between the decisions made between the patient and doctor.

And instead of allowing over tens of millions of babies being killed in the womb by abortion, the Government Health plan he supports will ration care and limit services to the elderly and infirmed that will eventually cause many thousands to die because of economics while running our country further into bankruptcy!

"The role of the Senate is to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Each of us in this body has taken that oath of office, and that oath of office and the Constitution require me to oppose this legislation. This bill unconstitutionally seeks to restrict abortion in cases before viability. It does not provide an exception to protect the mother's health after viability. It also impermissibly attempts to interfere with the doctor-patient relationship. For all these reasons, I oppose this bill".

Now it appears that the Democrats will name this heinous intrusion upon the personal rights of U.S. citizens, The Kennedy health care Bill or some variation of this name!
The only two things that will not be rationed by the Health Care Administrator, soon to be named a Czar I believe, will be abortion and Euthanasia! Kennedy opposed the bill to outlaw partial birth abortions on the premise that government had no right to interfere with the doctor/patient relationship.
The five versions of the government option being considered by the House of Representatives and the Senate all have all or some of the following provisions that show the government is "in your face" and personal finances is we pass any bill being backed by the Democrats!
Pg 16: SEC. 102. PROTECTING THE CHOICE TO KEEP CURRENT COVERAGE. lines 3-26 of the HC Bill – OUTLAWS PRIVATE INSURANCE by forbidding enrollment after HR 3022 is passed into law.

Pg 21-22: SEC. 113. INSURANCE RATING RULES of the HC Bill MANDATES the Government will audit books of ALL EMPLOYERS that self insure!!

Pg 29: SEC. 122. ESSENTIAL BENEFITS PACKAGE DEFINED: lines 4-16 in the HC bill – YOUR HEALTHCARE IS RATIONED!!!

Pg 30: SEC. 123. HEALTH BENEFITS ADVISORY COMMITTEE of HC bill – THERE WILL BE A GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE that decides what treatments/benefits you get.

Pg 42: SEC. 142. DUTIES AND AUTHORITY OF COMMISSIONER of HC Bill – The Health Choices Commissioner will choose your HC Benefits for you. You have no choice!

PG 50-51: SEC. 152. PROHIBITING DISCRIMINATION IN HEALTH CARE in HC bill – HC will be provided to ALL non US citizens, ILLEGAL or otherwise.

Pg 59: SEC. 163. ADMINISTRATIVE SIMPLIFICATIONHC Bill lines 21-24 Government will have DIRECT access to your BANK ACCOUNTS for electronic funds transfer. This means the government can go in and take your money right out of your bank account.

Page 280: SEC. 1151. REDUCING POTENTIALLY PREVENTABLE HOSPITAL READMISSIONS The Government will penalize hospitals for what Government deems preventable readmissions.

PG 425: SEC. 1233. ADVANCE CARE PLANNING CONSULTATION Lines 4-12 Government mandates Advance Care Planning Consult. Think Senior Citizens end of life

Pg 425: SEC. 1233. ADVANCE CARE PLANNING CONSULTATION Lines 17-19 Government will instruct and consult regarding living wills, durable powers of attorney. Mandatory!

PG 425: SEC. 1233. ADVANCE CARE PLANNING CONSULTATION Lines 22-25, 426 Lines 1-3 Government provides approved list of end of life resources, guiding you in death!

PG 427: SEC. 1233. ADVANCE CARE PLANNING CONSULTATION Lines 15-24 Government mandates program for orders for end of life. The Government has a say in how your life ends!

Pg 429: SEC. 1233. ADVANCE CARE PLANNING CONSULTATION Lines 1-9 An “advance care planning consultant” will be used frequently as patients health deteriorates.

PG 429: SEC. 1233. ADVANCE CARE PLANNING CONSULTATION Lines 10-12 “advance care consultation” may include an ORDER 4 end of life plans. AN ORDER from GOV

Pg 429: SEC. 1233. ADVANCE CARE PLANNING CONSULTATION Lines 13-25 – The Government will specify which Doctors can write an end of life order.

There are many more provisions that show Kennedy was at the very least equivocal and at worst hypocritical in his objection to government interference in the case of partial birth abortion, but for "Obamacare"!

"With respect to future debt; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age..." --Thomas Jefferson

WHEN PEOPLE TALK ABOUT THE THREE SEPARATE PARTS OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT.they list the Executive, Legislative and the Judicial.
But I believe there are three other levels of power and influence that make things happen or conversely stop things and ideas from occurring. I will explain this theory,that you will not find in any civics or government studies books, but I believe they exist.
With more than 1.8 million civilian employees, the Federal Government, excluding the Postal Service is the Nation’s largest employer.

First you have the Executive branch and all the people who support and advise the president, This group even includes 44 Czars that are not confirmed by the Senate, are accountable to no one except the president!The President also makes around 2,000 executive appointments, including members of the Cabinet and ambassadors, which must be approved by the Senate!

Today, the executive branch consists of well over 3 million people who work in one of three general areas: the Executive Office of the President (EOP); the cabinet and 15 executive departments; and an extensive collection of federal agencies and corporations responsible for specific areas of the government, such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Postal Service.

The second level of government is the Legislative and Judicial, and I deliberately lumped them together because since FDR packed the Supreme Court with Progressives, the Supreme Court has acted in the capacity of making Law! Roe vs Wade being a perfect example.
Each Member of the House of Representatives and the Senate have employees that comprise their administrative staff. These are the bureaucrats that are part of the 150,000 Federal Employees that comprise 30 agencies.
It is a fact that their are presently 74 Congressional Staff employees who are relatives of Congressmen/women and Senators.This is the third level of government I believe.

Each member of Congress has a office budget allotment which provides enough money to hire a sizable staff both in Washington, D.C. and back home in their states or districts. These staffers assist members in their efforts to be effective, well-liked representatives. In addition to money for staff, members of Congress also have travel allowances for trips between Washington and their constituencies as well as for trips inside their states or districts. One of the most widely recognized "perks" of House members and Senators is the ability to send postage-free informational letters or announcements to their constituents on a regular basis.

The Congressman and Senators are so busy attending Cocktail Party's given by foreign embassies and high roller Lobbyists, campaigning for re-election and attending Committee meetings. They hardly have time to take the hundreds of "junkets" that Congressional elected officials take each year to foreign and exotic places.
They hardly have time to read, much less write the Bills that are presented for votes in the Chambers of the House and Senate.
That is where the invisible part of our Federal government operates. The "staff" put together the thousand page Bills that are presented to their "bosses, the elected Congressman and Senators to vote up or down.

The power that these apparatchiks comes into play at this point. The staff know what they put into the proposed legislation and they make their recommendations to vote either for or against based upon their own biases and philosophies, not whether the proposed bill is good for the Republic and the economy. Many of the executive departments and independent agencies employ legislative counsels who are charged with the drafting of bills. These legislative proposals are forwarded to Congress with a request for their enactment.

The drafting of statutes is an art that requires great skill, knowledge, and experience. In some instances, a draft is the result of a study covering a period of a year or more by a commission or committee designated by the President or a member of the Cabinet. The Administrative Procedure Act and the Uniform Code of Military Justice are two examples of enactments resulting from such studies. In addition, congressional committees sometimes draft bills after studies and hearings covering periods of a year or more.Source:Library of Congress, Thomas

In the United States, the civil service was established in 1872. The Federal Civil Service is defined as "all appointive positions in the executive, judicial, and legislative branches of the Government of the United States, except positions in the uniformed services." (5 U.S.C. § 2101). In the early 19th century, government jobs were held at the pleasure of the president — a person could be fired at any time. The spoils system meant that jobs were used to support the political parties. This was changed in slow stages by the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883 and subsequent laws. By 1909, almost 2/3 of the U.S. federal work force was appointed based on merit, that is, qualifications measured by tests. Certain senior civil service positions, including some heads of diplomatic missions and executive agencies are filled by political appointees. Under the Hatch Act of 1939, civil servants are not allowed to engage in political activities while performing their duties.

The U.S. civil service includes the Competitive service and the Excepted service. The majority of civil service appointments in the U.S. are made under the Competitive Service, but certain categories in the Diplomatic Service, the FBI, and other National Security positions are made under the Excepted Service. (U.S. Code Title V)

U.S. state and local government entities often have competitive civil service systems that are modeled on the national system, in varying degrees.

As of January 2007, the Federal Government, excluding the Postal Service, employed about 1.8 million civilian workers. The Federal Government is the Nation’s single largest employer. Although most federal agencies are based in the Washington D.C. region, only about 16% (or about 288,000) of the federal government workforce is employed in this region.

There are over 1,300 federal government agencies. Source: Wikapedia

FRIDAY'S HEADLINES IN THE NEW YORK TIMES Included A CHARGE BY GOVERNOR PATTERSON THAT HE IS THE VICTIM OF RACISM IN HIS QUEST FOR ELECTION TO A FULL TERM.
And he follows this outrageous charge with a statement that President Obama is next.
This is nothing more than a desperate attempt to play the race card when there is no argument that as governor , he has done nothing to want the voters of New York state to re-elect him!
Thus he joins the ilk of many notorious race baiters like Obama's pastor for twenty years. The Reverend Wright!
But clouded by the propaganda of this type tripe and the health care smears going out of the White House and Congress about anyone who dares oppose Obamacare. Is the fact that our justice department has been taken over by reverse racists who refuse to obey the Rule of Law.
The following is an excerpt from Saturdays Patriot Post that explains the preferential treatment the radical group Black Panthers is being afforded.


The outstanding example of this cynical manipulation of justice is how a case against the New Black Panthers, which the Department of Justice described as a "black super-racist organization," has been quickly and quietly shelved with minimal attention to the law and the Constitution.

The evidence is right there on the videos recorded Election Day, 2008, when uniformed members of the Black Panthers showed up at a Philadelphia polling station, one of them wielding a billy club. They shouted insults and made threats: "Cracker, you about to be ruled by a black man," one of the Panthers informed a voter. Two Republican poll watchers, a black couple, were called traitors to their race -- an accusation that will be familiar to any white Southerner who stood up for simple decency back in the bad old days.

Thank goodness for modern technology, which can make any citizen with an iPhone and its camera a crusading reporter. When all this made the Internet, not even the Obama administration's Justice Department could ignore what had happened on Philadelphia's streets. Particularly after the department's own investigation revealed that the New Black Panthers had called for "300 members to be deployed" at various polling places across the country.

So early this year, the Department of Justice proceeded to file a complaint against the Black Panthers, and specifically against the stormtroopers who were captured on video. So far, so fair.

A lawyer and survivor of many a legal battle for civil rights, Bartle Bull, filed an affidavit in support of the Justice Department's complaint. He characterized the incident in Philadelphia as "the most blatant form of intimidation I have encountered in my life in political campaigns in many states, even going back to the work I did in Mississippi in the 1960s."

But the Black Panthers didn't even bother to respond to the charges -- as if they were above the law. And maybe they are. Because after a court had ordered a default judgment against them, including one of their national leaders, the Justice Department caved. It dropped all charges against the Panthers except one, and that one was settled with a light tap on the wrist. The department got an injunction forbidding a member of the Panthers, identified as one Samir Shabazz, from brandishing a weapon at a polling place through November 15, 2012. How's that for a tough defense of Americans' right to vote without risking intimidation?

There doesn't seem to be any explanation for this perversion of justice except the Panthers' political pull with this new administration. This case is no longer about the Black Panthers so much as it is about a newly politicized Justice Department. At some point the career lawyers in the Justice Department's civil rights division changed their minds about pressing charges -- or had their minds changed for them. By whom? Why? Those questions need answering. Under oath.

Why hasn't there been a greater sense outrage, betrayal or just disgust at the administration's handling of this case? My theory: Because none of this comes as a surprise. What else could be expected when The People in their wisdom elect a president of the United States who's a product of Chicago's machine politics?

H. L. Mencken said it: "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard."
SOURCE:PAUL GREENBERG

The leftist leaning Media tells the people that the TARP plan and Cash for Clunkers have been the impetus for the beginning of the economic recovery.
Conservatives like myself believe that the recovery is artificial, and we are in for a back slide in the stock market and the economy in particular.

If you analyse the effect that the TARP program has had, you will find that less than 15% of the hundreds of billions that were appropriated have actually been spent, and very little has gone to "shovel ready" plans!
The Clunker program is a temporary stimulus that is fast on car sales, but slow on payment to the auto dealers. Some dealers have as much as 45 million dollars outstanding.
Some well known economic experts, people who have analysed the clunker program, believe that once the program ceases there will be a dearth of sales as car buyers have tripled the pace of car purchases during the CFC program.

While Obama and his cohorts in Congress are "crowing" about the recovery they are responsible for. Many, including I say it is just the natural progression of past recessions taking place.All the depressions in the past have an inverse Bell curve pattern if you chart them. I believe we are still at the bottom and will remain there for another six months as there is very little encouraging news from the labor market.

We have a president who readily brags that he grew up and gravitated to radicals during his formative years, and it is possible that Obama is a Marxist/Leninist! After all he has so far appointed 44 Czars who are not responsible to anyone but him! Sounds tyrannical to me! And one is a Communist, The Green Czar!

Leninism holds that capitalism can only be overthrown by revolutionary means; that is, any attempts to reform capitalism from within, such as Fabianism and non-revolutionary forms of democratic socialism, are doomed to fail. I do not believe Obama is an advocate for revolution, but he apparently believes in redistribution of wealth and changing our free enterprise system to one where the government runs our lives from cradle to grave!

The first goal of a Leninist party is to educate the proletariat, so as to remove the various modes of false consciousness the bourgeois have instilled in them, instilled in order to make them more docile and easier to exploit economically, such as religion and nationalism. This going full force by Obama and his willing propagandists, the Media!
Once the proletariat has gained class consciousness the party will coordinate the proletariat's total might to overthrow the existing government, thus the proletariat will seize all political and economic power. Sounds like what happened to General Motors and the auto workers union!

Lastly the proletariat (thanks to their education by the party) will implement a dictatorship of the proletariat which would bring upon them socialism, the lower phase of communism. After this, the party would essentially dissolve as the entire proletariat is elevated to the level of revolutionaries.Source:Encyclopedia Britannica

Don't laugh! This is not as far fetched as you might think. If they get Obamacare and Cap and Tax passed, they will control most of our lives at home and in the work place! I believe that is the place where socialism resides!

It is my belief that what Obama wants to do to this country is based upon the "father" of Community Organizing, Saul Alinsky)1902-72), as this is where Obama spent his years before he entered politics. Community Organizing in Chicago, the birthplace of Alinsky.
Alinsky wrote a book called: "RULES FOR RADICALS"

In the first chapter, opening paragraph of the book Alinsky writes, "What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away."

In Rules for Radicals, Alinsky outlines his strategy in organizing, writing in the prologue,

"There's another reason for working inside the system. Dostoevski said that taking a new step is what people fear most. Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future.
Does this not sound like "a crisis should never be wasted", as uttered by Rahm Emanuel!!

This acceptance is the reformation essential to any revolution. To bring on this reformation requires that the organizer work inside the system, among not only the middle class but the 40 per cent of American families – more than seventy million people – whose income range from $5,000 to $10,000 a year [in 1971]. They cannot be dismissed by labeling them blue collar or hard hat. They will not continue to be relatively passive and slightly challenging. If we fail to communicate with them, if we don't encourage them to form alliances with us, they will move to the right. Maybe they will anyway, but let's not let it happen by default." Source:Wikapedia

This is why Obama and his associates are so attached with such organisations as SEIU, ACORN, and the Auto Workers Union to name just a few "at the ready" activists and enforcers!

Maybe I am just way off base, but something does not pass my smell test. Obama is cozy with Socialist like Chavez, and sends two billion dollars during the middle of a recession to Brazil for off shore drilling! But will not allow off shore drilling off our shores to help US get independence from oil producers that hate us and our economic system!

Americans better wake up to what the Obama administration is doing to our once strong and proud country. Uncle Sam can't run Medicaid/ Medicare/ Prescription Drug Benefit now, they are insolvent by 2017 according to a recent GAO report. I can't trust them in small things, how can I trust them in really big things?
Or maybe that is the plan? instead of reducing taxes and stopping spending, they will increase taxes, and keep spending until massive inflation occurs, and our dollar is worthless! Then we have the emergency they need to "CHANGE and SAVE" the USA with Socialism and total government control!!

Yesterday the president said it is the moral obligation of Congress to pass his Health Care Bill.
In my opinion, it is immoral to attack those who realize the intrinsic evil that Obamacare presents to the people of the USA, and oppose it for a myriad of reasons. Not the least of which is it will give control over 1/6th of our economy to the Federal Government that has traditionally been in the private sector, and 81% of the people are satisfied with!.
The main reason I oppose the bill is that it is immoral to rob from those who by the sweat of their brow or the work of their God given brain have earned it, and give it to illegals and people who choose to spend their money on wants not needs!

But there is another issue that all Christians, Jews and Muslims should be concerned about that is reason enough to scrap this Bill and start over!
It is the provision in Section 1233 of HR 3200 that speaks of the ability of the Secretary of Health and Human Services to affect support for abortion. The killing of an innocent life that is in the most protected place in the world. A mothers womb!!

Obama says that claims that abortion funding is included in the Bill are fabrications, but what he doesn't tell you is that there is a provision that allow SHHR to fund abortions as this copy of CardinalRigali illustrates.
Obama is apparently either unaware of this provision or chooses to lie again to accomplish his goal of socializing our medical care!

August 11, 2009
Dear Representative:
As you continue deliberations on the “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act” (H.R.
3200), I urge you to consider the overall priorities and concerns presented by the U.S.
Conference of Catholic Bishops in Bishop William Murphy’s July 17 letter to Congress
(www.usccb.org/sdwp/national/2009-07-17-murphy-letter-congress.pdf). The bishops’
conference views health care as a basic right belonging to all human beings. We therefore have long supported health care reform that respects human life and dignity from conception to natural death; provides access to quality health care for all, with a special concern for immigrants and the poor; preserves pluralism, with respect for rights of conscience; and restrains costs while sharing them equitably.

As this debate continues we will share our perspectives on positive and negative features in this and other health care reform legislation. In this letter I am writing specifically about our fundamental requirement that such legislation respect human life and rights of conscience in the context of abortion. Much-needed reform must not become a vehicle for promoting an “abortion rights” agenda or reversing longstanding policies against federal funding and mandated coverage of abortion.

In this sense we urge you to make this legislation “abortion neutral,” by preserving
longstanding federal policies that prevent government promotion of abortion and respect conscience rights.
As amended by the House Energy and Commerce Committee on July 31, H.R. 3200
addresses two aspects of the abortion issue: The Act will not preempt certain state laws regulating abortion, and will have no effect on existing federal conscience rights on abortion.

These changes are helpful improvements. Especially welcome is the committee’s approval of the Stupak/Pitts amendment, prohibiting governmental bodies that receive federal funds under this Act from discriminating against providers and insurers who decline involvement in abortion.

The bishops’ conference had urged approval of this amendment, which applies the policy of the Weldon amendment (approved by Congress every year since 2004 as part of the Labor/HHS appropriations bill) to the health care reform bill.
On two other fundamental issues, however, the Act remains seriously deficient:

1. The legislation delegates to the Secretary of Health and Human Services the power to make unlimited abortion a mandated benefit in the “public health insurance plan” the government will manage nationwide. This would be a radical change: Federal law has long excluded most abortions from federal employees’ health benefits packages, and no federal health program mandates coverage of elective abortions.

2. Because some federal funds are authorized and appropriated by this legislation without passing through the Labor/HHS appropriations bill, they are not covered by the Hyde amendment and other federal provisions that have long prevented federal funding of abortion and of health benefits packages that include abortion.

The committee rejected an amendment to extend this longstanding policy to the use of federal subsidies for health care premiums under this Act. Instead the committee created a legal fiction, a paper separation between federal funding and abortion: Federal funds will subsidize the public plan, as well as private health plans
that include abortion on demand; but anyone who purchases these plans is required to pay a premium out of his or her own pocket (specified in the Act to be at least $1.00a month) to cover all abortions beyond those eligible for federal funds under the current Hyde amendment.
Thus some will claim that federal taxpayer funds do not support abortion under the Act.

But this is an illusion. Funds paid into these plans are fungible, and federal taxpayer funds will subsidize the operating budget and provider networks that expand access to abortions.
Furthermore, those constrained by economic necessity or other factors to purchase the “public plan” will be forced by the federal government to pay directly and specifically for abortion coverage. This is the opposite of the policy in every other federal health program.

Government will force low-income Americans to subsidize abortions for others (and abortion coverage for themselves) even if they find abortion morally abhorrent.
Please consider the broader context. No federal program mandates coverage for elective abortions, or subsidizes health plans that include such abortions. Most Americans do not want abortion in their health coverage, and most consider themselves “pro-life,” with a stronger majority among low-income Americans. About 80 percent of all hospitals do not generally provide abortions, and 85 percent of U.S. counties have no abortion provider.

By what right,then, and by what precedent, would Congress make abortion coverage into a nationwide norm, or force Americans to subsidize it as a condition for participating in a public health program?
As long-time supporters of genuine health care reform, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is working to ensure that needed health reform is not undermined by abandoning longstanding and widely supported policies against abortion funding and mandates and in favor of conscience protection.

I urge you to help ensure that any legislation that comes up for a vote in the full House does not include these unacceptable features. Please support amendments to correct them, and oppose any rule for consideration of H.R. 3200 that would block such amendments.

By your actions on these issues, you can advance urgently needed health care reform that will truly serve the poor and needy and uphold the dignity of all.
Sincerely,
Cardinal Justin Rigali
Archbishop of Philadelphia
Chairman
USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities

You be the Judge who is telling the truth!! Remember Mr. President there are 60 million Catholics and hundreds of millions of other denominations that believe the Ten Commandments were not the Ten Suggestions!

Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them...Ronald REAGAN

One of the yet to be answered questions is just how an administration that is lead by a president who never ran a business, much less a candy store, can run USA's Health Care. Our nations health care industry comprises 16% of the USA total economy, and involves thousands of hospitals, hundreds of thousands of doctors and nurses and many billions of contacts with the system by patients.

If the Cash for Clunkers is an example that the government can run a large program well. It is proving to be a disaster and an example of exacerbation of a problem that plagues providers of health care services today. Late payment for services rendered!

I know as I was a provider or over thirty years, and many of those involved payments for my services by medicaid, medicare and private insurance. All were guilty of delayed payment, but medicaid was the worst!

Now we have learned that many car dealers are refusing to participate in the CFC program because the government has not paid the $4500 dollars it promised for clunkers, and the customer has his new car in his garage!

Despite this display of federal government inept administration of a plan that involves just 3 billion dollars, Obama wants to get the lawful authority to control 1/6th of our GDP! He even has the perverse guts to quote the Jewish prayer to show he is in unison with religious beliefs in his quest for socialised medicine. This despite the fact that he has consistentantly violated the Fifth Commandment of Gods Ten Commandments by being a vocal advocate of taking the innocent life of the unborn, abortion and partial birth abortion!

He said this after meeting with a group of Liberal Church leaders on Thursday.
"We are God's partners in matters of life and death," Obama said, quoting from the Rosh Hashanah prayer that says that in the holiday period, it is GOD who decides "who shall live and who shall die."

The president ended the call by wishing the rabbis "shanah tovah," or happy new year — in reference to the High Holidays a month from now. This from a man who has not chosen a church to attend on Sundays as yet! That is chutzpah!

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - Some New Mexico auto dealers have backed out of the cash-for-clunkers program and more may do so as the federal government takes its time providing cash reimbursements.

Dealers across the state are owed more than $3.6 million, according to a dealers' group which says that so far Uncle Sam has only written three checks totaling about $14,000.

Cash for clunkers--officially its the Car Allowance Rebate System--allows consumers to trade their gas guzzlers for a more fuel-efficient rides while earning up to $4,500 toward the purchase price.

Dealerships put up the cash for the rebates after being told by the Obama administration they would be paid back within 10 days of the sale.

With that much cash in limbo they've called in reinforcements.

"You simply can't ask businesses to front $200,000, $300,000 for any period of time," Rep. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., told KRQE News 13. "These applications are simply not being processed fast enough".

I can only imagine how long it will take to distribute payments for services rendered under a government option plan! And do not delude yourself. As I have said before, if we get a government option it will eventually price out of existence the private health insurance industry. They have to make a profit, but the government has the tax payer well to return to time and time again if they run low on money. Or they can just print it as they are doing now, and run the national debt up even further!

"Health services should not be guaranteed to] individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia."
EZEKIEL EMANUEL

One of the many lies that Obama and his sycophants are telling the uniformed public, is that we need a Government health insurance option, because there is no competition to the health insurance industry.
There are presently 30 different Health Insurance Plans offered through independent insurance agents in the State of Florida.
Among the many are some of the readily identifiable names like Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna, Humana, United Health Care, Pacific Care,
and Assurant. All competing for Floridians health care dollars.

Many States have laws restricting companies domiciled outside that particular state from becoming licensed in the State, or variations of that restricting customer choice.
It would be a simple matter of passing a Bill that would break down any restrictions that inhibit major, licensed Health Insurance companies from competing in all 50 states. We do not need a government option that does not need to make a profit, because it is backed by tax payer funds, as an option to reduce costs! This is just a canard!!

The other lie swirling around Washington DC and the government leaning main stream media is that if the Democrats cannot get enough votes to prevent a Conservative filibuster to block ramming Obamcare down our throats. Is the invoking of the "Reconciliation" option to allow passage of Obamcare with just a simple majority of 51 votes in the Senate.

The Congressional Budget Act of 1974, Titles I through IX, includes Title III that allows a budget resolution before the Senate that is being filibustered, to allow invoking what is called the Byrd Rule!

The Byrd Rule was an amendment to the the budget reconciliation acts of 1985,86, and 1990. This allows Senators who object to the use of "reconciliation" to raise points of order that cannot be waved unless there are three-fifth of the Senators who vote to over rule the "point of order".

This is important because the White House has indicated that as they are used to doing in Chicago, they intend to get what they want despite the people's protests, and will "RAM" it through no matter what!!

The Byrd Rule requires any reconciliation that involve "extraneous"
provisions to a budet bill br subject to deffinite requirements.
There are six provision that forbid "reconciliation". If the bill or amendment-----
1.do not produce a change in outlays or revenues
2.produce changes in outlays or revenues which are merely incidental
to the non=budgetary components of the provisions
3.are outside the jurisdiction of the committee that submitted the title or provision for inclusion in the reconciliation measure
4.increase outlays or decrease revenue if the provisions title, as a whole, fails to achieve the Senate reporting committee's reconciliation instructions
5.increase net outlays or decrease revenue during a fiscal year after the years covered by the reconciliation bill unless the provision's title, as a whole, remains budget neutral( no way Obamacare qualifies in this way!)
6.contain recommendations regarding the OASDI(social security) trust funds( what trust funds, there are none!!)

Since reconciliation of the bill for Obamacare will cover as many as ten years and probably more, the fifth provision can have the effect of requiring that any tax spending increase, as incumbent in Obamacare, must be approved by three-fifth(3/5) of the Senate!
You can see that unless they want to violate their own rules, the Democrats cannot invoke reconciliation!

Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” —Ronald Reagan

WIKAPEDIA DEFINES CHROMYISM AS; "Cronyism is partiality to long-standing friends, especially by appointing them to positions of authority, regardless of their qualifications. Hence, cronyism is contrary in practice and principle to meritocracy. Cronyism exists when the appointer and the beneficiary are in social contact; often, the appointer is inadequate to hold his or her own job or position of authority, and for this reason the appointer appoints individuals who will not try to weaken him or her, or express views contrary to those of the appointer. Politically, "cronyism" is derogatorily used. The word "crony" first appeared in 18th century London, believed by many to be derived from the Greek word χρ?νιος (chronios), meaning "long-term", however, crony appears in the 1811 edition of Grose's Vulgar Tongue with a decidedly non-collegiate definition, placing it firmly in the cant of the underworld.[1] A less likely source is the Irish Language term Comh-Roghna (pron. ko-ron?), which translates to "close pals", or mutual friends".

Governments are particularly susceptible to accusations of cronyism, as they spend public money. Many democratic governments are encouraged to practice administrative transparency in accounting and contracting, however, there often is no clear delineation of when an appointment to government office is "cronyism". It is not unusual for a politician to surround him- or herself with highly-qualified subordinates, and to develop social, business, or political friendships leading to the appointment to office of friends, likewise in granting government contracts. In fact, the counsel of such friends is why the officeholder successfully obtained his or her powerful position — therefore, cronyism usually is easier to perceive than to demonstrate and prove.

The Obama administration is a present day example of the resources of our society(tax dollars) being used to promote cronyism. A look at the cabinet appointments and the Czars appointed by Obama shows cronyism at it's worst. As do the way Obama and his past car czar handled the General Motors and Chrysler bankruptcy debacles. There you have a definite bias toward one of the strongest supporters of Obama and the Democrats, the auto workers union!

Another prime example is the Bail Out money and to whom it has been distributed.
The scandal some are calling “Bonusgate” has extended beyond AIG and Bank of America into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bringing to light the relationship between Wall Street contributions and their connection to Democratic negligence in the handling of Wall Street excesses. Two key figures top the list in campaign contributions from the entities involved as they did for AIG, Senator Chris Dodd (D-RI) and President Barack Obama. Many Americans are now learning that for some time the Democratic leadership in return for heavy campaign contributions has show undo favoritism to Wall Street resulting in the wasting of billions of taxpayer dollars.

According to the non-partisan research organization, employees of security and investment firms donated nearly $10 million to Barack Obama in 2008. And during the presidential election campaign, Barack Obama, strongly benefited from employees of Lehman Brothers.The Illinois senator raised approximately $370,000 from Lehman employees that year, more than three times what McCain raised from employees of the failing firm! source:CNNPolitical Ticker

In March of 2008 Politico.com revealed the following amounts of contributions that were given to Obama during his presidential campaign.
- Obama has taken $1,180,103 from the top issuers of subprime loans. [cq.com]
- Obama received $266,907 from Lehman. [cq.com]
- Obama received $5395 from GMAC. [cq.com]
- Obama received $150,850 from Credit Suisse First Boston. [cq.com]
- Obama received $11,250 from Countrywide. [cq.com]
- Obama received $9052 from Washington Mutual. [cq.com]
- Obama received $161,850 from Citigroup. [cq.com]
- Obama received $4600 from CBASS. [cq.com]
- Obama received $170,050 from Morgan Stanley. [cq.com]
- Obama received $1150 from Centex. [cq.com]
- Obama received $351,900 from Goldman Sachs. [cq.com]
None of these gifts were even close to the near 50 million dollars that labor unions contributed to elect Obama!

And Open Secrets.com lists the following Obama contributors:
University of California $1,591,395
Goldman Sachs $994,795
Harvard University $854,747
Microsoft Corp $833,617
Google Inc $803,436
Citigroup Inc $701,290
JPMorgan Chase & Co $695,132
Time Warner $590,084
Sidley Austin LLP $588,598
Stanford University $586,557
National Amusements Inc $551,683
UBS AG $543,219
Wilmerhale Llp $542,618
Skadden, Arps et al $530,839
IBM Corp $528,822
Columbia University $528,302
Morgan Stanley $514,881
General Electric $499,130
US Government $494,820 ?????
Latham & Watkins $493,835

And the SEIU, whose officers now meet with Obama every week, endorsed Obama, that union has 1.9 million members and has a rank-and-file that is far more politically active than most other unions’. Its political action committee spent more than $75 million for Obama's campaign. They expect and are receiving special attention from the Obama administration. And to show their appreciation they are some of the "thugs" who attack and intimidate anti-Obmacare attendees at Town Hall meetings!
Ms. Burger of SEIU said the service employees would make a big push to press the president and Congress to enact universal health coverage and the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that would make it easier for workers to join unions.

She said the S.E.I.U.’s members would make 10 million phone calls to members of Congress as part of that legislative effort!

And although this issue was dropped there is the issue of illegal foreign contributions that the Federal Elections Commission was contemplating investigation, that could be connected to the fact that some of the TARP funds have found their way to foreign divisions of American banks and investment corporations.

The FEC analyst says that Obama’s filings indicate he received large, bundled sums of donations from overseas, sometimes exceeding a quarter millions dollars. “It’s suspicious, but it’s the small donations made by credit card that need to be examined. We’ve raised red flags on many of these and the Obama campaign just ignored them.

Then there is the issue that Secretary of Treasury Geithner had a hand in the $30 billion Bear Stearns bailout and the multilevel AIG bailouts ($85 billion and $38 billion under President Bush and another $30 billion in March 2009 under Obama). Massive sums of that taxpayer money went to major financial institutions that had employed Obama's money men and their closest confidants. Goldman Sachs, for example, raked in nearly $13 billion in December 2009 from AIG in federal TARP funds -- and reported record profits this quarter with a bonus pool of more than $11 billion.

President Obama’s optimism that big government will help the economy is unwarranted and dangerous. The American taxpayer has seen billions of dollars wasted in the TARP program which has to date been of no real significance in benefit. Despite good intentions government is never efficient at replacing private commercial enterprise with public ones. Thousands of pages of law have been written of which apparently not a single member of Congress has read according to statements made by California Congressional Representative Maxine Waters on MSNBC. She admitted they rely on unelected staff to write and read the law the affect the pocket book of everyday Americans.
They are too busy campaigning for re-election and attending parties and taking "junkets" to be bothered with reading a bill before voting on it!

First IT WAS THE NEWS THAT THE WHITE HOUSE WAS SOLICITING NEGATIVE EMAILS ABOUT OBAMACARE BE SENT TO THEM,at the electronic "tip" box labeled flag@whitehouse.gov, and now we have the news that an organization founded by the self proclaimed Communist Czar of Green Jobs is putting pressure on sponsors of the Glenn Beck TV show to withdraw their sponsorship.

Barack Obama's "Green Jobs" czar (one of 42 extra-legal czars), and the leader of the attempted boycott against Glenn Beck, is a self-described "black nationalist" and "Communist", who has ties to a former terrorist. Van Jones, founder of "Color of Change", a black militant political activist group, worked as a co-founder and director of the Apollo Alliance, which Glenn Beck recently exposed for its subversive ties with radical left-wing groups. Van Jones worked at Apollo with Jeff Jones. Jeff Jones was a leading co-founder (along with Bill Ayers) of the terrorist group Weather Underground , who spent time on the run from law enforcement agencies while his group carried out a series of bombings of U.S. government buildings. Van Jones' group "Color of Change" began the boycott against Glenn Beck after Beck exposed Apollo Group and Van Jones' militant past.

For over 49 years Jesse Jackson was the model of how to bring pressure to industries for profit and purpose.
Jackson's is an all-American success story, of the robber-baron type. In his book,Timmerman demonstrates that Jackson has always been a self-promoting egotist with boundless chutzpah, little regard for the rules, and an uncanny ability to manipulate the market -- in his case, the market in white guilt -- for immense personal gain. The only thing that's changed for him in four decades are the stakes. The difference between Jackson and the robber barons is that the latter left behind museums, libraries, and other facilities to enhance the commonweal. Jackson's legacy to anyone outside his family and inner circle of friends and supporters is nil.

The Jackson myth apparently begins with a lie conjured and perpetuated by Jackson himself: that he consoled the dying Martin Luther King Jr., holding King's head as he lay stricken by an assassin's bullet. It is generally well known that King's associates, including the late Ralph Abernathy, have bitterly denounced Jackson for trying to steal the martyred King's mantle with a blatant falsehood. But that didn't stop Jackson, nor did it much matter to his legions of admirers. After King's death, Jackson returned to Chicago, where he resumed work with Operation Breadbasket (later renamed PUSH), an organization set up by King to encourage businesses in the black community to hire more blacks.

Jackson used the organization to threaten businesses with boycotts unless owners met his demands. Law-enforcement officials and press accounts quoted by Timmerman reveal that Jackson's enforcers were sometimes members of a notorious black street gang, El Rukn, whose leaders would eventually be jailed for murder, narcotics dealing, extortion, and other offenses. Jackson's half-brother, Noah Robinson Jr., was thick with the thugs. A black Chicago minister tells Timmerman: "There was one very powerful reason why none of us spoke out more loudly against Jesse for all those years. It was fear of the long arm of the black mafia that Jesse's half-brother controlled."

And now it appears that within the "inner circle" of the Obama "mafia" is another activist trying to intimidate sponsors of a Conservative cable TV show. Glenn Beck is an author who currently has a best selling book in print and at the last survey, has 2.4 million viewers of his TV show. That makes him number three in audience behind Bill O'Reilly and Shaun Hannity. No Liberal TV show comes even close to that large an audience, so it is only good business practice to advertise products on his show unless you are intimidated by the power of Black activists or the power of a person who has direct access to the presidents ear!
It doesn't matter if they told bald-faced lies, or if their actions harm black businesses and cost jobs to black workers. They are playing race politics and are out to get what the white TV personality who exposed the truth about Van Jones, co-founder of ColorofChange.org.
ColorChange.org is an activist organization that has led a furious campaign against Beck culminating in major companies such as Geico and Lawyers.com pulling their spots from the Fox News star's daily show.

Just like Jessie Jackson, "Czar" Van Jones apparently It doesn't care if Beck told the facts about ColorChange, they call him a racist!
This from a man who was the subject of multiple segments that were based in part on WND's(World News Daily) reporting that Jones was as an admitted radical communist and black nationalist leader.

It apparently has nothing to do with racism. In fact the only purpose of their campaign is to silence a voice of truth with their intimidation and political influence. There is no respect for first amendment rights here, just the attempt to shut off the light of truth and return to the darkness of lies and deceit!

QUESTION: As the "Green Jobs Czar" and thus a government employee, would Van Jones be violating any laws or ethics regulations if he were encouraging and/or coercing corporate entities that he may be in a position to help or punish through his government office?

If they can do this to Glenn Beck, the author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers "The Christmas Sweater" and "An Inconvenient Book". He is also the author of "The Real America" and publisher of "Fusion" magazine. He is the host of a tv show on FoxNews and also the nationally syndicated radio show The Glenn Beck Program, which is the third most listened to talk show in America.Who will they go after they destoy Beck!

There are signed that the president would settle for a health care bill that does not

include the government option , but would accept a co-operative type plan.

despite this apparent sudden shift to a plan that will not be unacceptable to those who do not want a socialization of our medical care system. Was it what Obama and his ilk wanted in the first place, but pushed  socialised medicine  to deflect attention to the real socialization of America, Cap and Trade.

 
I like any other amateur political analyst. have allowed the media fight over Obamacare to occlude my view of what is the big picture of what I think is the plan that the Obama administration has to tax and spend our once strong country into bankruptcy. This while impeding any attempt to make our country independent from OPEC countries who supply the major portion of our present source of energy. Thus slowing if not stopping our country's military ability to defend us, and the ability of the manufacturing industry, that we still have, to provide work for our labor force and keep the USA as the best country to live in.

The Waxman/Markey Cap and Trade bill that is pending in congress could be just the burden that breaks our economic back!

The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (H.R. 2454, commonly known as Waxman-Markey after its two main sponsors) seeks to limit how much gasoline and other fossil fuels Americans can use. The aim is to cut America's emissions of carbon dioxide from energy use, which proponents of the bill claim is warming the planet to dangerous levels. As with electricity rates, gasoline prices would have to rise high enough so the public would be forced to use less and meet the bill's ever-tightening energy rationing targets. It is literally a deliberate effort by the U.S. government to make gasoline less affordable.

According to a Heritage Foundation analysis,[1] the bill would boost the price at the pump by 20 cents per gallon when the provisions first take effect in 2012. The targets get tougher each year, and by 2035 the increase would be an inflation-adjusted $1.38 per gallon--and that is on top of any other price increases that might occur.

2. Regulation of hydraulic fracturing. Bills have been introduced authorizing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate hydraulic fracturing under the Safe Drinking Water Act.[2] This could greatly reduce future onshore drilling for oil (and even more so for natural gas), thus lowering domestic supplies and adversely impacting gasoline prices.[3]

Hydraulic fracturing is a process by which pressurized water and other substances are injected into wells to facilitate the flow of oil and natural gas. It has been widely used for decades and is necessary for the majority of new wells in the U.S. It is currently regulated at the state level, and its environmental and public safety track record is nearly spotless.[4]

Nonetheless, proposed legislation seeks new federal regulation by the EPA based on concerns about contamination of drinking water supplies, even though such water contamination has never occurred and is highly unlikely.

3. Increased red tape and costs on domestic drilling. A draft bill from the House Natural Resources Committee seeks to discourage domestic oil production by adding a host of new regulatory requirements on top of those already in place.[5] The result would be more paperwork, delays, and litigation, but lower domestic supplies of oil.

The bill also creates new regional councils (above and beyond the many existing opportunities for state and local participation) with control over offshore oil and gas leasing. Though couched in terms of allowing public input, these councils would be susceptible to dominance by anti-energy activists not in step with the pro-domestic energy sentiment of the American people.

The proposal would restore unnecessary and redundant environmental reviews that had been eliminated by the Energy Policy Act of 2005. This policy change has proven very helpful for new domestic energy production since 2005, and its reversal would be a serious blow to future oil and natural gas drilling.

The bill also raises many fees on oil production in areas with existing leases. These increases would be particularly burdensome for the smaller energy companies that account for most of the domestic oil and gas activity. In some cases, these provisions would be enough to make oil leases too costly to pursue. While discouraging existing oil activities, the bill does nothing to open up currently off-limits areas to new production.

4. Raising energy taxes. Although President Obama has spoken frequently about the need to reduce imports of oil, his first budget proposed a host of punitive taxes aimed at domestic oil and natural gas production. For example, the budget eliminates several deductions against income for energy producers, most notably the manufacturer's deduction under the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004. Under the budget proposal, this deduction, which applies to all domestic industries, would specifically exclude domestic exploration and production of oil and natural gas.

Overall, the budget uses the domestic oil and natural gas industry as a source of $31 billion over 10 years in additional revenues. It should be noted that this industry already faces effective tax rates that are higher than the manufacturing sector as a whole.[6]

These energy tax hikes, which of course do not apply to foreign sources of oil, also put domestic production at a comparative disadvantage. For example, the 1980 windfall profits tax on oil companies (an excise tax that kicks in when the price of oil exceeds a certain amount) was found by the Congressional Research Service to have "reduced domestic oil production from between 3 and 6 percent, and increased oil imports from between 8 and 16 percent."[7] The newly proposed tax changes would have the same effect.

5. Administrative delays on drilling. Last year, in the wake of public outrage over $4 gas, President Bush and Congress repealed the restrictions on leasing in 85 percent of America's territorial waters. However, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has already reversed the pro-energy momentum from last year, stalling on opening any new areas to leasing and even cancelling some existing leases. He has also blocked the leasing program for oil shale, a promising source of oil trapped in massive deposits of rock under parts of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. If progress can be made on technologies to efficiently extract the oil from the rock, oil shale could single-handedly supply America's oil needs for many decades and possibly a century or more.[8]

What to Do Instead

Instead of clamping down on domestic energy supplies, American energy policy should embrace these ideas:

Expand offshore and onshore oil production into previously restricted areas, including Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, where an estimated 10 billion barrels of oil--16 years of current imports from Saudi Arabia--lie beneath a few thousand acres that can be accessed with minimal environmental impact;
Reduce the regulatory and legal delays that can slow and sometimes stop production;
Allow further progress on oil shale; and
Prevent costly new anti-energy regulations from being imposed in the name of addressing global warming.
These principles are contained in bills such as the American Energy Innovation Act (H.R. 2828), the No Cost Stimulus Act (S. 570 and H.R. 1431), and the American Energy Act (H.R. 2846).

Meanwhile,China, India, and other developing countries have sidestepped demands to limit their own emissions by arguing for years that the U.S. was still on the sidelines. Obviously that’s not the case anymore. In that sense, any U.S. domestic agreement on climate change should improve the chances of getting the world’s fastest-growing emitters to cooperate later this year at the big climate-change confabs.

And It is one of the paradoxes of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change that companies in Russia and other Eastern European countries, which are among the world's largest producers of greenhouse gases, are poised to earn hundreds of millions of dollars through trading their rights to release carbon dioxide into the air.

The Kyoto treaty, negotiated in 1997 and adopted by 36 industrial nations, established a mechanism aimed at finding the cheapest way to curb emissions of gases that contribute to global warming. The idea was that countries that produced more than their treaty-imposed limits could reach their goals by buying rights from producers in other countries where controlling output is easier and less expensive.

It is not clear how successful that approach will turn out to be. But because Russia's companies operate such outdated and inefficient equipment, they can easily and cheaply upgrade. As a result, the Kyoto process has already emerged as a potential source of earnings for the country's big energy and manufacturing companies, according to company executives and analysts. They have hired consultants, inventoried pollution sources to earn credits, and opened carbon-trading divisions.

In my belated opinion this could do more harm to our National defense and our way of life than any legislation proposed or passed by Congress since we became a Republic!
And I still believe we should oppose Obamacare!!
Source: The Heritage Foundation, Andrew E.Kramer of New York Times

In 2006 when Obama was still in the Senate he made a trip to Africa, and had these words to say: “When the heavy hand of the state is imposed on the press, all of us lose,” He told a group of Kenyan journalists during an August 2006 trip to Africa. “The media does not have a formal role in the government, but it serves a critical function in providing information to the public so that they can hold the government accountable,” he said.Somebody should point out to the main stream media that Obama does not want them to be a propaganda arm of his government, or do his words only apply to foreign countries?

Mr. Obama’s remarks implied he supports the First Amendment. His comment that “Democracy can’t function properly without a free press,” suggested he understood the importance of robust scrutiny of elected officials. Yet, when given the opportunity, Mr. Obama’s recent actions have contradicted his own statements.

The Obama campaign launched a multipronged assault on the First Amendment when it threatened television and radio stations airing content critical of Mr. Obama. The first targets were TV stations running an advertisement that has proven embarrassing to the presidential candidate. The ad focuses on Mr. Obama’s 13-year relationship with Bill Ayers, a key member of the 1970s domestic terrorist group, the Weather Underground. The Weathermen bombed at least 12 locations, including the U.S. Capitol in 1971, the Pentagon in 1972 and the State Department in 1975. A 1970 San Francisco bombing killed one police officer and blinded another. The same year, three Weathermen perished in a Greenwich Village townhouse explosion. Unrepentant, Mr. Ayers told a New York Times reporter in remarks published on Sept. 11, 2001: “I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.”

And when people opposed his health care proposal, he called them a "mob" controlled by the Insurance Industry. President Obama took direct aim at the vocal opponents who’ve been filling congressional town halls on health care last Tuesday, saying despite all the “yelling and the shouting and the noise,” health reform will improve the lives of Americans with and without insurance now.Never mentioned the cost in increased taxes did he!

Obama said special interests who oppose health reform always “try to scare the heck out of folks, and they’ll create boogeymen out there that just aren’t real” to prevent change. He even sought to rebut directly one of the most widespread rumors — that the bills in Congress include so-called death panels to decide how much coverage people can receive. It is rather strange that the Senate has said they will remove that provision from their proposed bill! Who is lying here, you be the judge!!

And even if there is not a provision in the over 1000 page bill the house passed that refers to a government panel that will decide when end of life occurs. Where in the Constitution is the federal government granted the authority to implement a national public health care system? Where, in our founding document that all other freedoms, restraints, and rights are written out, does it give Washington the power to steal from me to fund health care for you? If you can just tell me that, then we can start to discuss the specifics of the actual bill.

Obama said “Where we disagree, let’s disagree over things that are real, not these wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to what’s been proposed.” Maybe somebody should remind Obama that it is not the Conservative"mob" that is running adds on the Internet to solicit people who can disrupt town hall meetings.

So who are the contrived activists showing up at town hall meetings looking for confrontations? Is it the "whacked out" conservatives who want congress and President Obama to legislate according to the U.S. Constitution or is it the union thugs(SEIU) and community organizers(ACORN) with pre-printed signs. We've not heard of any conservative groups running ads for "rent-a-mobs", but not so with the Obama leftists. Apparently they are running ads at craigslist thus, " Wanted: Obama health care reform volunteers willing to be paid $15 an hour".

And to add insult to the injurious statements Obama has made to citizens who fear for their lives and freedoms if Obamacare is passed. Our president at a joint press conference with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Guadalajara, Mexico on Monday, President Barack Obama referred to American opponents of amnesty for illegal aliens as
“demagogues.”
There are going to be demagogues out there who try to suggest that any form of pathway for legalization for those who are already in the United States is unacceptable. And those are fights that I'd have to have if my poll numbers are at 70 or if my poll numbers are at 40. That's just the nature of the U.S. immigration debate.

Why doesn't somebody remind the president that rewarding people who entered the USA illegally are felons and do not deserve to be rewarded with amnesty!? But then there has never ben a president that appointed a Communist to a cbinet level position as Obama has with his appointment to the position of Czar!

The media gave virtually no attention to the political beliefs of Van Jones, the man President Obama has named “Green Jobs Czar”?

Jones is William Ayers without the bombs. Here’s how the East Bay Express described the “Green Jobs Czar’s” background:

Jones had planned to move to Washington, DC, and had already landed a job and an apartment there. But in jail, he said, “I met all these young radical people of color — I mean really radical, communists and anarchists. And it was, like, ‘This is what I need to be a part of.’” Although he already had a plane ticket, he decided to stay in San Francisco. “I spent the next ten years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary.” In the months that followed, he let go of any lingering thoughts that he might fit in with the status quo. “I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th, and then the verdicts came down on April 29th,” he said. “By August, I was a communist.”

Network television news? Hello? Hello? Hello? Anybody out there?

Obama misleads us by denying that bureaucrats would "meddle" in our health care decisions or with the doctor-patient relationship. Yet in almost the same breath, he boasts that he would bundle payments to doctors based on the quality, not the quantity, of the services they provide -- such quality to be determined by his bureaucratic boards. The House bill is replete with provisions conferring such decisions on government bureaucrats.

Obama misleads us when he and his minions cavalierly dismiss the public's genuine concern about the government, under his plan, insinuating itself into end-of-life decisions. Instead of responding to provisions of the bill legitimately generating such concerns, he puts words into our mouths, saying we claim that the bill would require "euthanasia." Even some of Obama's state-run media fact checkers suggested that Reps. Thaddeus McCotter and John Boehner made that claim. In fact, they said provisions of the bill "could create ... a more permissive environment for euthanasia ... and physician-assisted suicide." Someone needs to check the fact checkers.

Of course there are legitimate concerns here, and it insults our intelligence to suggest otherwise. The bill would immediately impose a monumental conflict of interest on government bureaucrats by tasking them to cut costs drastically while simultaneously empowering them to "counsel" people about their end-of-life (and other) medical care. Such a conflict of interest -- over life and death itself -- is unconscionable and unthinkable in the United States of America.

According to a recent analysis by the Lewin Group, the nation's most prominent health policy econometrics firm, assuming full implementation of the House bill, 103.9 million Americans would be covered under the public plan, and 83.4 million people would no longer be covered by private health insurance.Moreover, a federally designed health insurance exchange would consolidate federal control over the financing and delivery of Americans' medical services.

Initially, Americans may respond positively to the idea of a national health insurance exchange, but they are almost certainly unclear about its functions, how it would affect them, or which health policy problems it would solve. The legalese double talk language used in the health care debate can conceal as much as convey the true meaning of proposals embodied in the complex provisions of the mammoth House and Senate health care bills.

And it is obvious to anyone who watches closely the reaction of the media and the Obamanites, to the conservative protests to Obamacare at the Town Hall meetings. That what those who want to push the socialisation of our national health care system is to confuse the issue by calling those who are afraid of Obamacare, Nazis,unamerican and mobs paid by the Insurance industry. Thus attempting to deflect attention of a uninformed public from the myriad of problems with Obamacare, that they refuse to answer, to issues of peoples actions not the facts!

A perfect example of the double talk that Obama is using in his scripted Town Hall meetings is his statement in New Hampshire that the health insurance we now have is broken, immoral and must be fixed. Then he said if you have health insurance and are happy with it you will be able to keep it! Why would he allow people to keep a plan that he says is immoral?

And if that isn't bad enough it was learned that the young girl(11 years old) who asked a question of Obama at his last Town Hall meeting was not just an inquisitive young lady. She was the daughter of a women who has been a big supporter and contributor of Obama. In fact she ran an Obama for president office in Mass. And the really dishonest part of an Obama session was the woman who misrepresented herself as a pediatrician who was not even a doctor!
Is this the Change we can believe in?

A panicked President Obama has resorted to Chicago-style politics of intimidation by essentially declaring war on those who refuse to go along with his "plan". First, he publicly smeared and insulted them like he did Sergeant Crowley on TV when the police man arrested a surly Harvard professor. He called them “angry mobs” and their protests “manufactured.” At a political rally in Virginia last Friday, he referred to those who opposed his plans as the “folks who created the mess” and said that they shouldn’t “do a lot of talking.”

Then, in an act of blatant hypocrisy, he ordered up his own organized army of union members and Democrats to combat those citizens who were doing nothing more than legally expressing their views about the health care bills. Obama gave his troops their marching orders: “punch back twice as hard” at their opponents. Presumably that language was meant to be metaphorical, but it is indicative of a hostility on the part of the White House toward fellow Americans that is wholly unacceptable and unbecoming in their chief executive.

It seems, though, that some of Obama’s supporters in Service Employees International Union (SEIU) took that order literally when they physically assaulted a peaceful Black protester in St. Louis and put him in the hospital. What is especially disturbing is that the day after the attack, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius held a conference call with members of SEIU. She called them her “brothers and sisters,” praised their actions, and told them to “keep doing what you’re doing.” But perhaps Obama’s greatest indignity is his insidious snitch program that encourages his supporters to report their neighbors, family members, and friends when they publicly, whether through blog posts, emails, or in casual conversation, dare to dissent from the Obama party line on health care.And they call the people who are opposed to Obamacre, Nazis!!

Sources: The Heritage Foundation and Pajamas Media.com

There are too many reasons why I think Obamacare is a bad deal for Americans, but there is one thing hidden in the House bill that we refer to as Obamacare that really should scare anyone who is over 55 years of age.
The language in the House bill establishes a panel that has the authority to decide what treatments will be included in The Government "option" health plan.And there is the implication that they can forbid certain expensive treatments to senior citizens.
Every country that has National health care has rationing of care for seniors and the "infirmed" people who are not considered "productive" citizems!

It is a fact of basic economics that you cannot increase the number of people covered by health care without increasing the cost of operating the program.
The present medicare and medicaid programs are in effect bankrupt. So how can we add more people to the government health care programs without limiting access to care or raising taxes prohibitively.

An example of what rationing might do is seen in the case of one of President Obama's Medal of Freedom recipients.
If Stephen Hawking, an Honorary fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, had been treated in a country that rationed care to the infirmed, he would not have survived to be awarded his Presidential Medal of Freedom yesterday.
They would have said in his youth that the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, was essentially worthless!. That was the thundering verdict of the Investor's Business Daily on our National Health Service and Mr Obama's plans to introduce what Republicans term "socialised" medicine.

Professor Hawking, who is completely paralysed by motor neurone disease, has been treated by the NHS throughout his 67 years, and points out indignantly that he would not have lived without its care.Stephen Hawking,is a astro-physicist and professor at the University of Cambridge.

In England, government health officials have decided that "$22,750 is how much six months of life is worth. Under their socialised system, if a medical treatment costs more, you're out of luck. That's wrong for America."Apparently they have excepts for outstanding academics and politicians much like our U.S> Congress that has thei own health plan and refuses to give it up and participate in the plan they propose for US!

The figure comes from Britain's National Institute for Clinical Evidence, which evaluates treatments in terms of the average increase in life expectancy. If the cost of prolonging someone's life for a year exceeds more than £30,000, then the NHS will not pay for that treatment. In other words, although there are no "death panels", the fundamental point is correct. The NHS does decide that some treatments are too expensive. And if that means you die? Our condolences, says the Government. Dr.Hawkins apparently was a special case!

Despite the myths from the Left, and Obama, about the American system,that you have to take your credit card to the emergency room, and if you can't pay you won't be treated. This is a blatant lie and he knows it because federal law forbids emergency rooms from denying treatment!

It is beyond dispute that treatment in the US is better than in any country that has socialised medicine. Diagnosed with prostate cancer and want to survive for the next five years? In Britain you have a 74 per cent chance. In the US, it is 98 per cent. For leukaemia, the American survival rate is close to half, while in Europe it is a third.

Ability to pay, of course, is central to the American system. If you have good insurance, you will get the very best treatment in the world – and the money spent by Americans ensures that the boundaries of medicine are constantly being expanded.This country developed statins, most high blood pressure medicines and the twentieth century saw a remarkable upsurge of research on drugs, with major advances in the treatment of bacterial and viral infections, heart disease, stomach ulcers, cancer, and mental illnesses. These, along with the introduction of the oral contraceptive, have altered all of our lives.

On Monday, Mr Obama promised: "You will not be waiting in any lines." That statement will prompt a wry smile for anyone who has used the NHS. He also said that his proposals had the support of the American Association for Retired People, and that he had never been a supporter of the British-style "single payers" system – both things demonstrably not true. His campaign vow not to raise middle-class taxes to pay for health care reform is already being quietly put to one side.SOURCE:TELEGTAPH.CO.UK

And that is why I oppose the passage of Obamacare!