President Obama has announced that he will give a major speech on Health Care next Wednesday. With his approval ratings plummeting and the wreckage of the Health Care Town Hall meeting ringing in his mind. Obama realizes that his grasp on the ability to socialize 1/6 the of the gross national product is slipping away.
Thus, he will address the nation and the Congress next Wednesday evening at prime time to try and salvage his "prize" piece of legislation that he promised the Left wing of the Democrat party during his campaign for the Oval Office.

I expect as usual he will try to confuse and confound the public about what he is trying to do. He will once again demonize the industry and say it is time to have real competition in the Health Insurance Industry, This is a canard that any one who looks at what he is saying is the exact opposite of the facts. There are 1300 Health Insurance Companies that sell Health Insurance in this country.
The problem is not that there are not enough companies offering health insurance, but some State laws prohibit Insurance companies domiciled in another state from selling in their state. This is part protectionism for the Insurance companies in their state and part because they want the license fee to allow a company to sell in their state. This is a simple matter that can be resolved by passing a Federal law to allow all Health Insurance Companies to sell in all states provided they are properly capitalized.

The President will probably throw a bone to the people and Congress by saying he will abandon the Federal government option in favor of the scheme that includes Co-operatives.

This word co-operative is a semantic example of slipping in a word that appears to abandon the govt. option, but in fact does not!
In the first place the legislation that includes co-operatives also includes "seed money" of five billion dollars from the Federal government. And lest you forget, he who pays the piper calls the tune!

The following excerpt from CSNNews.com shows just how involved the Federal government will be involved in any co-operative scheme for health care reform, so do not be fooled by the man behind the curtain!
"The health care bill under consideration in the House of Representatives would give President Obama the authority to name a new federal “Health Choices Commissioner” who would have sweeping power to govern the health insurance plans offered in a so-called "exchange" where millions of Americans would get their health insurance if the bill is enacted.

These powers would include deciding which treatments are covered, which companies can participate, which states can run their own exchange, and enrolling individuals into the public exchange.

Though the bill, House Resolution 3200, faces many political hurdles, it has passed three House committees and could be ready for a floor vote after Congress returns from recess. The overhaul package calls for establishing a health insurance exchange where people earning up to 400 percent of the poverty level will be able to purchase health insurance with the help of federal subsidies. This exchange would include a "public option" government-run health care plan as well as private plans that provide a minimum benefits package dictated by the government.

The Health Choices Commissioner would establish “the benefits to be made available under Exchange-participating health benefit plans during each plan year,” according to page 84 of the 1,018-page bill. That means the commissioner would determine what benefits the participating insurance companies must offer participating customers in the exchange.

The commissioner would also set rules for insurance companies to participate in the health insurance exchange, and establish criteria for individuals to receive federal subsidies to purchase insurance in the exchange, according to section 142 on page 42 of the legislation.

Further, the commissioner would have the authority to establish “automatic enrollment” of individuals who qualify for the health insurance exchange.

“The Commissioner shall provide a process under which individuals who are Exchange-eligible individuals described in subparagraph (B) are automatically enrolled under an appropriate Exchange participating health benefits plan,” the legislation says, beginning on page 97. “Such process may involve a random assignment or some other form of assignment that takes into account the health care providers used by the individual involved or such other relevant factors as the Commissioner may specify.”

The exchange eligible individuals [determined by subparagraph (B)] include someone who “has not opted out from receiving such affordability credit,” someone who “does not otherwise enroll in another exchange participating health benefits plan,” and someone “enrolled in an Exchange-participating plan that is terminated (during or at the end of the plan year) and who does not otherwise enroll in another Exchange participating health benefits plan.”

The next thing he will do is try to scare the public by saying that if they do not pass the government option, the Heath Insurance Industry will continue to raise their premiums and more people will go bankrupt. The fact is that if we get the govt. option they will force the private health insurers out of business by offering such low premiums to begin with that private insurers cannot compete. But once they have control of the health care market the taxes and fees will cost taxpayers billions of dollars, and will bring senior citizens and the infirmed rationing, as every other nation has experienced who have government controlled health care!

Leopard does not change it's spots, and a radical community organizer will not abandon his determination to change our country from a free enterprise system that is the American dream, to a Marxist socialist country where the government tells you how to live and regulates every portion of our Industry and commerce. He has a good start by taking over the General Motors company and essentially dictating how bankers and investment houses can pay their executives.

Please do not allow smooth talk and promises of reducing the debt by nationalising our health care system. No major government program has ever reduced costs to taxpayers. Good examples are social security, medicare and the rail and postal service. All of these plans started small with little impact on taxpayers.
The best example is Medicare which now takes 7.65 cents out of every dollar that taxpayers make up to $107,000. This amounts to $8,185/year!

In 2008, we had 45 million people on Medicare. It cost $11,000 per year per person. In 2018, the Medicare trustees project that number to rise to 59 million as the baby-boomers retire. An average cost per person at $17,000 a year. Are we looking at higher taxes, co-pays, deductibles? Is health care for seniors going to cost a lot more than what it’s costing right now?

Therefore, if we continue to tax an average 18 percent or 19 percent of GDP--as we have since World War II--almost all of that federal revenue would have to go to funding Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Put another way, we would have to eliminate the rest of the federal government as we know it, including the Defense Department.Source:The Heritage Foundation.com

Of course, we could try to borrow our way out of this shortfall, but it would mean essentially trying to borrow the equivalent of $1 trillion per year in current dollars. That amount would grow dramatically simply because of interest costs and would quickly outpace savings here and abroad.And Obama is going to lie to the American public when he talks to a joint session of Congress by saying we must have the Government controlling health care costs in one form or another. This will be getting the socialist "camels nose under the tent", and expect amendments to follow.

No matter what he proposes, to accomplish his radical objectives--Socialism!!
It might be $13 trillion in promised, but unfunded, benefits over the long term. Whatever the total might be, it is an unlimited amount because this is an entitlement.

Do not be confused by semantics and smooth talk!!

Harold D. Laswell, one of the outstanding political theorists of the last century said: "The sine qua non of Chicago politics is power, getting it and keeping it. Everything else is incidental. Even corruption is a byproduct of power and is functional only if it enables you to stay in power. In Chicago politics, you don't make waves, you don't back losers, and you 'don't talk to nobody nobody sent.' Chicago politics is always about hierarchy and centralization".

The most famous and in some circles, notorious politician to occupy a position of power in Washington is President Obama. He came into the Oval Office on a wave of promises to run an honest and open government that would reduce the profligate spending that the incumbent Republicans were doing. He also said he would get us out of Iraq and win the war on terrorism in Afghanistan, and many more unfulfilled promises.
So now his approval rating according to the Rasmussen poll is in the vicinity of 46%.Much lower than Clinton or Bush had at this time in office!

As a result there is a lot of talk about the resurgence of the Republican party in 2010. This is because of the dissatisfaction of not only Republicans, but Independents and many Democrats. There is great discontent in our nation, and many say the next election could be a "house cleaning" of Democrats who presently control both Houses of Congress.
I say it will be very difficult if not impossible for the following reasons.

The United States Congress particularly the House of Representatives and its members appointed in proportion to state population was designed as the branch of government that answered directly to the people. The federal judiciary, appointed for life to positions of great power, are largely beyond reach of the electorate, barring misconduct or malfeasance; similarly, the executive branch the President was created to wield executive authority, to be a leader and a figurehead, less influenced by changes in popular opinion. But the Congress was supposed to be different: the House of Representatives and eventually the Senate, after 1913 ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution is elected directly by the popular vote of the people, and was designed as a check on both judicial and executive power (Mayhew, 1974).

Unfortunately, one simple electoral reality has significantly limited the U.S. Congress as a true "voice of the people": specifically, the fact that incumbents are almost universally re-elected. The factual truth is that once an individual is elected to Congress especially to the U.S. Senate he or she will generally retain that seat as long as they wish to continue occupying the office.
Going back at least a century, the single greatest advantage in any Congressional election was being an incumbent; that is, having already been elected once previously. In the 2004 election cycle, for example, the re-election rate for sitting members of Congress was a stunning 98.8%; as one writer noted, such an undemocratic, iron-fisted hold on the power of the status quo might have "made even Soviet politicians blush"
In fact, ironically enough even though the British House of Lords one of the Houses of Parliament consists entirely of members appointed for life, it nevertheless "has more turnover than the U.S. Congress" (Gear, 2000). In short, the power of Congressional incumbency functions to undermine the American system of democracy; it is simple common sense to point out that, if the sitting legislator is almost guaranteed to be re-elected, the election is de facto invalid.

A Congressman can gerrymander his district to make it even more likely that he'll win the election in the next cycle. In other words, "the parties get to draw the districts, which lets them choose precisely which voters will be allowed to choose candidates in November" (Gear, 2000). This "nearly universal gerrymandering of congressional districts to provide safe seats for members of both parties" is a particularly pernicious practice, because once the district is gerrymandered, it becomes politically meaningless; unless there are major shifts in demographics, the electoral outcome is virtually certain for that district.

These are the realities of the current electoral situation in American Congressional elections: because of financial issues, media saturation, and rampant gerrymandering of districts, incumbents almost always win re-election, with the elections themselves thus rendered almost meaningless. Solving the problem will not be easy, since any attempt at reform can potentially run into Constitutional protections of free speech.

It is,(OR SHOULD BE) for example, impossible to bar local media from extensively covering local politicians; for that reason, eliminating the incumbency advantage will never occur. However, reforms could be instituted, particularly in terms of campaign financing laws and fairness in media coverage, that could make some headway into returning Congressional elections to what they were designed to be the voice of the people as they chose their representative leaders.But there is little chance of this happening wuth the Democrats in power.

With the vast majority of races either non-competitive or barely competitive with so many races barely even being contested by the opposition party a significant number of the House elections simply don't matter in terms of which side controls the legislature. "The struggle for control of the House centers on 20 to 30 competitive districts such as Lansing, Mich.; Montgomery County, Pa.; suburban Chicago; and a district around Muskogee, Oklahoma. The 200 million Americans who live outside the battleground districts are just spectators" (Weiser, 2000).

The attitude of both major parties the willingness to abandon most districts and states as non-competitive raises an immediate question: is their basic premise supported by factual data? The unfortunate answer is clearly yes. Since at least the 1970s, re-election rates for members of the House of Representatives has never fallen below 90%; the figure has been the same for the Senate since the early 1980s (Merriner & Senter, 1999, p. xxi). The more recent statistics can only be described as stunning: in the 2004 elections, 401 incumbent members of the House of Representatives ran for re-election; of those 401 that sought to return to office for another term, 396 were successful. A mere five failed to win re-election. The picture is even bleaker in the Senate: in 2004, of 26 Senators up for re-election, 25were successful!Source: Nico Macase of Helium.com

Despite the lengthy explanation of how members of Congress have the power to be re-elected. I hope and pray that despite their power and influence.And they are very powerful with unions like SEIU and ACORN able and ready to do their intimidation at the polls. Despite this with the polls showing a less than 30% favorable rating of Congress, it is possible the electorate will throw many Congressman and Senators out at the nwxt election.
This is because the majority of Americans velieve they have betrayed the trust of those who elected them! The "nanny state" is not what America needs or wants!
The projected deficit of $13 trillion and the slush fund of taxpayers money that has gone to Obamas friends, is enough reason to "throw the bums out"!

While the Secretary of Defense Gates, said when asked if the U.S. would send more troops to Afghanistan, He would have to evaluate the COST! A Cato report exposes the fact that the bureaucracy that Obama is rapidly expanding within the Federal government has received continuous raises to the point where the pay exceeds the Private sector.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis has released its annual data on compensation levels by industry. The data show that the pay advantage enjoyed by federal civilian workers over private-sector workers continues to expand.

The George W. Bush years were very lucrative for federal workers. In 2000, the average compensation (wages and benefits) of federal workers was 66 percent higher than the average compensation in the U.S. private sector. The new data show that average federal compensation is now more than double the average in the private sector.

In 2008, the average wage for 1.9 million federal civilian workers was $79,197, which compared to an average $49,935 for the nation’s 108 million private sector workers (measured in full-time equivalents). The federal pay advantage (the gap between the lines) is steadily increasing.

The federal advantage is even more pronounced when worker benefits are included. In 2008, federal worker compensation averaged a remarkable $119,982, which was more than double the private sector average of $59,909.

What is going on here? Members of Congress who have large numbers of federal workers in their districts relentlessly push for expanding federal worker compensation. Also, the Bush administration had little interest in fiscal restraint, and it usually got rolled by the federal unions. The result has been an increasingly overpaid elite of government workers, who are insulated from the economic reality of recessions and from the tough competitive climate of the private sector.

It’s time to put a stop to this. Federal wages should be frozen for a period of years, at least until the private-sector economy has recovered and average workers start seeing some wage gains of their own. At the same time, gold-plated federal benefit packages should be scaled back as unaffordable given today’s massive budget deficits. There are many qualitative benefits of government work—such as extremely high job security—so taxpayers should not have to pay for such lavish government pay packages.Source: Cato Institute

So it is more important to our Congressman and Senators to pay their bureaucracy then to provide the troops and weapons to fight in Afghanistan it appears to me!
Gates was quoted as follows in the Atlantic Council web site:

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, "any recommendation for more forces would have to address his concerns that the foreign military presence in Afghanistan could become too large and be seen by Afghans as a hostile occupying force.

"Clearly, I want to address those issues and we will have to look at the availability of forces, we'll have to look at costs. There are a lot of different things that we'll have to look at," he told reporters.

"While there's a lot of gloom and doom going around ... I think we have some assets in place and some developments that hold promise," Gates said on a visit to a Lockheed Martin factory building F-35 fighter jets in Fort Worth, Texas.

Many people who are daily contributed to blogs are young people who have no knowledge or recollection of the disaster that occurred in the Philippines during the first months of World War II.
On Corregior and Bataan the Army defenders ran out of ammunition and were forced to surrender to the attacking Japanese, who took their prisoners on the Bataan Death March!
The Bataan Death March (also known as The Death March of Bataan) took place in the Philippines in 1942 and was later accounted as a Japanese war crime. The 60-mile (97 km) march occurred after the three-month Battle of Bataan, part of the Battle of the Philippines (1941–42), during World War II.

The march, involving the forcible transfer of 75,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war[1] captured by the Japanese in the Philippines from the Bataan peninsula to prison camps, was characterized by wide-ranging physical abuse and murder, and resulted in very high fatalities inflicted upon the prisoners and civilians along the route by the armed forces of the Empire of Japan. Beheadings, cut throats and casual shootings were the more common actions — compared to bayonet stabbings, rapes, disembowelments, numerous rifle butt beatings and a deliberate refusal to allow the prisoners food or water while keeping them continually marching for nearly a week in tropical heat. Falling down or inability to continue moving was tantamount to a death sentence, as was any degree of protest or expression of displeasure.20,000people died during the march! Source:Wikapedia

My purpose of including the preceding narrative of what occurred over 60 years ago, is that if Obama and Congress continue on their path to establish the welfare State of America and ignoring the brave troops who are in Afghanistan, We,in my opinion will have the equivalent of the death march by attrition.Our troops are dying because they are charged with such obtuse orders as giving captured Taliban forces their Amanda rights on the field of battle, and the objective of the Commander of Chief and the Generals in the field are directed to wage a counterinsurgency that protects the population in Afghanistan! Politically correct pieties instead of the command to kill or be killed,and given the troops and munitions are necessary to accomplish the mission in Afghanistan. Or as George Will said in his Post today:"we should withdraw"!
will result in a modern day equivalent of Corregidor and Bataan.

"To say that the United States should be answerable for twenty-five millions of dollars without knowing whether the ways and means can be provided, and without knowing whether those who are to succeed us will think with us on the subject, would be rash and unjustifiable. Sir, in my opinion, it would be hazarding the public faith in a manner contrary to every idea of prudence." --James Madison

The corner stone of our Republic is the Bill of Rights. The first ten amendments to our Constitution includes the right that most of us have taken for granted for the last two hundred years. But now the Freedom of Speech is endangered by the radicals who have taken over the reigns of power in Washington D.C.

The Congress and the FCC led by a radical Black activist want to change the way we can speak and the way our medium of communication via radio and TV are controlled. They want to let diversity put its grasp on the free enterprise way of communicating news and ideas to satisfy what they believe is unfair to minorities because of Republican regulations that they claim inhibit minority ownership or radio and television stations.

A 2007 report commissioned by the FCC and conducted by researchers from Duke University found that while minority ownership had increased slightly, the reasons for the disparity between minority and white ownership remained.

“Since the observed ownership asymmetries are economy-wide, they are undoubtedly linked to broad systemic factors,” the report said. “The most direct explanation lies in unequal access to capital. Many businesses require individuals to sink substantial financial investments upon entry. This is likely to be especially true in media enterprises.”

The only way to change this, the 2007 report said, was to redistribute wealth or increase minorities’ access to capital markets. The report did not mention license terms, renewal procedures, or ascertainment.

“In order to change ownership patterns we need to either change the aggregate distribution of wealth or otherwise increase access to capital markets,” said the report.(sounds socialistic to me, and right in line with what Obama and his czars are fomenting)
Mark Lloyd, chief diversity officer at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), claimed that communications policies enacted by Republicans negatively impacted the civil rights of minorities.Chief Diversity Officer Lloyd is virulently anti-capitalist, almost myopically racially fixated and exuberantly pro-regulation. He is a frightening guy to have having any power at the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC). And yet that is exactly where he currently stands, astride
the private radio industry he loathes like a Socialist Colossus.

It does not bode well for free speech on the radio airwaves, but as Seton Motley, the Media Research Center's Director of Communications, says to Glenn during his TV appearance, "That's irrelevent to these people."

And he is not alone in the drive for government intrusion in the airways. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told CNSNews.com on Thursday that she supports an amendment to a Senate bill that would force the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to “take actions to encourage and promote diversity in communication media ownership and to ensure that broadcast station licenses are used in the public interest.” source:CNSNEWS.com
This despite the fact that all who have attempted to do a Left Wing talk radio or TV show have failed miserably. This is because the nation is with the exception of the East and West Coast predominantly Conservative!

Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this past spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet. (what happened to the right of privacy in your own home?)

They're not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.

The new version would allow the president to "declare a cybersecurity emergency" relating to "non-governmental" computer networks and do what's necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for "cybersecurity professionals," and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the private sector be managed by people who have been awarded that license. SOURCE:DRUDGE REPORT

And Mark Lloyd, newly appointed Chief Diversity Officer of the Federal Communications Commission, has called for making private broadcasting companies pay licensing fees equal to their total operating costs to allow public broadcasting outlets to spend the same on their operations as the private companies do.

Lloyd presented the idea in his 2006 book, Prologue to a Farce: Communications and Democracy in America, published by the University of Illinois Press.

Lloyd’s hope is to dramatically upgrade and revamp the Corporation for Public Broadcasting through new funding drawn from private broadcasters.(this would bankrupt the private sector broadcasters)

Not only does he want to redistribute private profits, he wants to regulate much of the programming on these stations to make sure they focus on “diverse views” (Progressive Views) and government activities. I am all for that when I see on PBS a conservative voice next to Bill Moyers. And when I hear a conservative voice on NPR!!

And across the Atlantic in England where they have had Socialism since Clement Attlee replaced Winston Churchill as Prime Minister.
Mr Murdoch, chief executive of the European and Asian operations of News Corporation, parent company of The Times, said: “In the regulated world of public service broadcasting, the customer does not exist: he or she is a passive creature — a viewer in need of protection".
He said that the “chilling” expansionism of the BBC meant that commercial rivals and consumer choice were struggling. In particular the “expansion of state-sponsored journalism” in the form of BBC News online was “a threat to plurality and the independence of news provision, which are so important to our democracy”.

Mr Murdoch criticised Radio 2’s effort to woo younger listeners by hiring presenters such as Jonathan Ross on “salaries no commercial competitor could afford”. Sound familiar?

“No doubt the BBC celebrates the fact that it now has well over half of all radio listening. But the consequent impoverishment of the once-successful commercial sector is testament to the corporation’s inability to distinguish between what is good for it and what is good for the country.”

“The consensus appears to be that creationism — the belief in a managed process with an omniscient authority — is the only way to achieve successful outcomes. There is general agreement that the natural operation of the market is inadequate, and that a better outcome can be achieved through the wisdom and activity of governments and regulators. This creationist approach is similar to the industrial planning which went out of fashion in other sectors in the 1970s. It failed then. It’s failing now.” source:London Daily Mail.com

To my knowledge there is no Law or FCC regulation that denies a person of color access to the radio or television. If there were there would have been no Bill Cosby, Oprah, and the myriad of Black Judges on TV shows.
The problem is the Left is the purveyor of hate and dissension, that spent the last eight years comparing President Bush to Hitler, and people are tired of hearing the character assassination and lies from the Leftist.
And if you doubt my charge of hate just ask the Black man, Kenneth Gladney,who was passing out flags outside the St. Louis, Missouri Townhall meeting that was beaten and kicked by union thugs of the Left!

If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace." —Thomas Paine · "If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!" —Samuel Adams

I only spent four years in the regular Navy, so my interaction with Admirals was limited to a brief visit to 50 Fell Street in San Francisco to submit my resignation to the Admiral Ryan, the chief of the division of the 7th Fleet that I was a part of, at his office in the heart of the San Francisco Civic Center.
Since I was a lowly lieutenant, I entered his office with great trepidation, but after I told him my "sad" personal story, he allowed me to resign with a stern lecture about what I was giving up and what the Navy had invested in me!
What has this got to do with anything that would interest some one who bothers to read this post, you say?

Well, even though it was not a pleasant experience for me. I noticed the zeal and dedication to the service that this Admiral had for the Naval service and the men whom he commanded that he felt I was letting down because of my resignation. WE did not have women in the Navy Fleet in those long gone days!

Fast forward to today, and I find a difference in attitude that Admiral Mullen, the 17th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has than the Flag officers of the "old" Navy
Admiral Mullen serves as the principal military advisor to the president, the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council.A military bureaucrat! A product of the new military high command who seem to me to be more politically correct than Flag Rank officers were in the days of my service and both of my brothers who served in the Army and Marines.

Why, You ask do you feel this way. Well,not only the CJCS but the General in Charge of "winning"( that's a dirty word to our president) the war in Afghanistan seem to be preoccupied with winning the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. A people who hate us because we invaded their country! They hated and defated a Russian force of over 100,000 troops, and are dedicated to drive us out!Yet our Flag leaders appear to be more interested in their attitude towardus than winning the war!

To back up my charge that Admiral Mullen is politically correct. I include an excerpt from a speech he gave to the media today. A speech he gave regarding our mission in Afghanistan.
"No amount of public relations will establish credibility of the United States if American behaviour overseas is perceived as arrogant, uncaring or insulting, the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff has said in a critique of the government’s efforts at ‘strategic communication with the Muslim world’.

‘To put it simply, we need to worry a lot less about how to communicate our actions and much more about what our actions communicate,’ Admiral Mullen wrote in an essay published on Friday by the Joint Force Quarterly, a military journal.

According to the New York Times, the admiral’s views were significant as they coincided with the Obama administration’s fresh efforts to counter militant propaganda as part of its strategy to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
How about winning the war and then worrying about rebuilding the Country. Or are were just there to destroy the military by attrition?

Fortunately we have not heard that our men lack clothing and "KIT" as some British mothers have told the London Times as recently as yesterday. One poor women said she had spent over a thousand pounds( their version of dollars) during the past year buying boots, socks,a thermal sleeping bag and t-shirts for her son who is serving in the British Army in Afghanistan. She had to buy these items from a military surplus store, because the Army only issued one pair of boots,a non-thermal sleeping bag and two t-shirts, and had no replacements!

Yet, as Oliver North reports in today's Patriot Post that "On Capitol Hill, members of Congress have threatened to cut the budgets of federal agencies that use security contractors instead of government employees to protect key personnel and sensitive installations.

At the Pentagon -- which uses more civilian contractors in the war effort than any other U.S. government entity -- the response to the criticism was capitulation.

In April, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced plans to hire 30,000 additional DoD employees to cut the percentage of work being done by contractors. The fiscal year 2010 defense budget request replaces nearly 14,000 contractor personnel with government employees -- even though the "lifetime cost," counting government benefits and retirement, will more than double the expense to American taxpayers.

The numbers don't mesh, but when it comes to getting the press and politicians off the backs of Pentagon poo-bahs, cutting contractors loose is apparently a small price to pay".
Maybe this is how Obama plans to get more people off unemployment by enlarging the Federal government workforce!

Across the Atlantic,the British politicians are ignoring the fact that they are in a war more than our politicians and media are here at home. This story from London should remind us where we are leading our troops if our politicians don't start concentrating on the war we are involved in, and give less attention to socializing our health care industry!

In a column in The London Times newspaper, Lord Guthrie wrote: "And muddle is the word, as was manifest in a scathing report into defence procurement leaked this week.

General Lord Charles Guthrie,"Its author, the former Labour adviser Bernard Gray, an experienced observer of the defence scene, blamed incompetence and "political fudge" for £35 billion of defence project overspending.

"Moreover, The Times revealed that poor decisions about software have kept eight Chinook helicopters, costing a total of £259 million, in climate-controlled hangars during the Iraq and Afghan conflicts.

"Such an error would never happen in the private sector without dismissals and a plain identification of where the buck stopped. (Socialism raises it's ugly head)

"The revelation is all the more appalling because Chinooks are lifesavers. They are the safest way to evacuate injured soldiers from the battlefield - and a brilliant tactical device to get behind Taliban lines to confuse and mystify the enemy.

"Chinooks also help resupply and reinforcement where land movement is dangerous.

The Afghanistan dilemma is best explained by the size and structure of the Ministry of Defence. The department employs 87,000 civilian staff for 175,000 servicemen and women.

"At the head of this unwieldy edifice are six ministers, each enjoying a private office and their own staff - six private empires, with their own turf to be jealously guarded. Sadly, bigger does not mean more efficient; usually quite the opposite.

"Ministers change, but permanent staff ought to be there to provide continuity and experience. Unfortunately, too many senior civil servants in today's MoD lack a defence background.

"Instead, they are parachuted in to lead this complex department with little idea of how it works."

Meanwhile figures showed the Armed Forces are thousands of personnel short of requirements. (maybe it is because little old ladies have to buy "KIT" for their sons and grandsons who are fighting a war that no one wants to recognize), and to top it off their government officials made a deal apparently, to release the plotter of the Lockerbie airplane disaster so he can be back in Lybia with his fellow Britt and American haters!

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!