Here is the website with the new proposed Massachusettes bill.
http://www.mass.gov/legis/bills/senate/186/st02pdf/st02028.pdf
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Monday, August 3, 2009
MEDICINE AND HEALTH: Here's a second opinion
By Scott W. Atlas
Ten reasons why America’s health care system is in better condition than you might suppose. By Scott W. Atlas.
Medical care in the United States is derided as miserable compared to health care systems in the rest of the developed world. Economists, government officials, insurers, and academics beat the drum for a far larger government role in health care. Much of the public assumes that their arguments are sound because the calls for change are so ubiquitous and the topic so complex. Before we turn to government as the solution, however, we should consider some unheralded facts about America’s health care system.
1. Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers. Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom. Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the United Kingdom and 457 percent higher in Norway. The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British men and women is about 40 percent higher.
2. Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians. Breast cancer mortality in Canada is 9 percent higher than in the United States, prostate cancer is 184 percent higher, and colon cancer among men is about 10 percent higher.
3. Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries. Some 56 percent of Americans who could benefit from statin drugs, which reduce cholesterol and protect against heart disease, are taking them. By comparison, of those patients who could benefit from these drugs, only 36 percent of the Dutch, 29 percent of the Swiss, 26 percent of Germans, 23 percent of Britons, and 17 percent of Italians receive them.
4. Americans have better access to preventive cancer screening than Canadians. Take the proportion of the appropriate-age population groups who have received recommended tests for breast, cervical, prostate, and colon cancer:
Nine out of ten middle-aged American women (89 percent) have had a mammogram, compared to fewer than three-fourths of Canadians (72 percent).
Nearly all American women (96 percent) have had a Pap smear, compared to fewer than 90 percent of Canadians.
More than half of American men (54 percent) have had a prostatespecific antigen (PSA) test, compared to fewer than one in six Canadians (16 percent).
Nearly one-third of Americans (30 percent) have had a colonoscopy, compared with fewer than one in twenty Canadians (5 percent).
5. Lower-income Americans are in better health than comparable Canadians. Twice as many American seniors with below-median incomes self-report “excellent” health (11.7 percent) compared to Canadian seniors (5.8 percent). Conversely, white, young Canadian adults with below-median incomes are 20 percent more likely than lower-income Americans to describe their health as “fair or poor.”
6. Americans spend less time waiting for care than patients in Canada and the United Kingdom. Canadian and British patients wait about twice as long—sometimes more than a year—to see a specialist, have elective surgery such as hip replacements, or get radiation treatment for cancer. All told, 827,429 people are waiting for some type of procedure in Canada. In Britain, nearly 1.8 million people are waiting for a hospital admission or outpatient treatment.
7. People in countries with more government control of health care are highly dissatisfied and believe reform is needed. More than 70 percent of German, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, and British adults say their health system needs either “fundamental change” or “complete rebuilding.”
8. Americans are more satisfied with the care they receive than Canadians. When asked about their own health care instead of the “health care system,” more than half of Americans (51.3 percent) are very satisfied with their health care services, compared with only 41.5 percent of Canadians; a lower proportion of Americans are dissatisfied (6.8 percent) than Canadians (8.5 percent).
9. Americans have better access to important new technologies such as medical imaging than do patients in Canada or Britain. An overwhelming majority of leading American physicians identify computerized tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as the most important medical innovations for improving patient care during the previous decade—even as economists and policy makers unfamiliar with actual medical practice decry these techniques as wasteful. The United States has thirty-four CT scanners per million Americans, compared to twelve in Canada and eight in Britain. The United States has almost twenty-seven MRI machines per million people compared to about six per million in Canada and Britain.
10. Americans are responsible for the vast majority of all health care innovations. The top five U.S. hospitals conduct more clinical trials than all the hospitals in any other developed country. Since the mid- 1970s, the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology has gone to U.S. residents more often than recipients from all other countries combined. In only five of the past thirty-four years did a scientist living in the United States not win or share in the prize. Most important recent medical innovations were developed in the United States.
Despite serious challenges, such as escalating costs and care for the uninsured, the U.S. health care system compares favorably to those in other developed countries.
This essay appeared on the website of the National Center for Policy Analysis on March 24, 2009. An earlier version was published in the Washington Times.
Available from the Hoover Press is Power to the Patient: Selected Health Care Issues and Policy Solutions, edited by Scott W. Atlas. To order, call 800.935.2882 or visit www.hooverpress.org.
Scott W. Atlas is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor of radiology and chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical School.
Ten reasons why America’s health care system is in better condition than you might suppose. By Scott W. Atlas.
Medical care in the United States is derided as miserable compared to health care systems in the rest of the developed world. Economists, government officials, insurers, and academics beat the drum for a far larger government role in health care. Much of the public assumes that their arguments are sound because the calls for change are so ubiquitous and the topic so complex. Before we turn to government as the solution, however, we should consider some unheralded facts about America’s health care system.
1. Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers. Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom. Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the United Kingdom and 457 percent higher in Norway. The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British men and women is about 40 percent higher.
2. Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians. Breast cancer mortality in Canada is 9 percent higher than in the United States, prostate cancer is 184 percent higher, and colon cancer among men is about 10 percent higher.
3. Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries. Some 56 percent of Americans who could benefit from statin drugs, which reduce cholesterol and protect against heart disease, are taking them. By comparison, of those patients who could benefit from these drugs, only 36 percent of the Dutch, 29 percent of the Swiss, 26 percent of Germans, 23 percent of Britons, and 17 percent of Italians receive them.
4. Americans have better access to preventive cancer screening than Canadians. Take the proportion of the appropriate-age population groups who have received recommended tests for breast, cervical, prostate, and colon cancer:
Nine out of ten middle-aged American women (89 percent) have had a mammogram, compared to fewer than three-fourths of Canadians (72 percent).
Nearly all American women (96 percent) have had a Pap smear, compared to fewer than 90 percent of Canadians.
More than half of American men (54 percent) have had a prostatespecific antigen (PSA) test, compared to fewer than one in six Canadians (16 percent).
Nearly one-third of Americans (30 percent) have had a colonoscopy, compared with fewer than one in twenty Canadians (5 percent).
5. Lower-income Americans are in better health than comparable Canadians. Twice as many American seniors with below-median incomes self-report “excellent” health (11.7 percent) compared to Canadian seniors (5.8 percent). Conversely, white, young Canadian adults with below-median incomes are 20 percent more likely than lower-income Americans to describe their health as “fair or poor.”
6. Americans spend less time waiting for care than patients in Canada and the United Kingdom. Canadian and British patients wait about twice as long—sometimes more than a year—to see a specialist, have elective surgery such as hip replacements, or get radiation treatment for cancer. All told, 827,429 people are waiting for some type of procedure in Canada. In Britain, nearly 1.8 million people are waiting for a hospital admission or outpatient treatment.
7. People in countries with more government control of health care are highly dissatisfied and believe reform is needed. More than 70 percent of German, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, and British adults say their health system needs either “fundamental change” or “complete rebuilding.”
8. Americans are more satisfied with the care they receive than Canadians. When asked about their own health care instead of the “health care system,” more than half of Americans (51.3 percent) are very satisfied with their health care services, compared with only 41.5 percent of Canadians; a lower proportion of Americans are dissatisfied (6.8 percent) than Canadians (8.5 percent).
9. Americans have better access to important new technologies such as medical imaging than do patients in Canada or Britain. An overwhelming majority of leading American physicians identify computerized tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as the most important medical innovations for improving patient care during the previous decade—even as economists and policy makers unfamiliar with actual medical practice decry these techniques as wasteful. The United States has thirty-four CT scanners per million Americans, compared to twelve in Canada and eight in Britain. The United States has almost twenty-seven MRI machines per million people compared to about six per million in Canada and Britain.
10. Americans are responsible for the vast majority of all health care innovations. The top five U.S. hospitals conduct more clinical trials than all the hospitals in any other developed country. Since the mid- 1970s, the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology has gone to U.S. residents more often than recipients from all other countries combined. In only five of the past thirty-four years did a scientist living in the United States not win or share in the prize. Most important recent medical innovations were developed in the United States.
Despite serious challenges, such as escalating costs and care for the uninsured, the U.S. health care system compares favorably to those in other developed countries.
This essay appeared on the website of the National Center for Policy Analysis on March 24, 2009. An earlier version was published in the Washington Times.
Available from the Hoover Press is Power to the Patient: Selected Health Care Issues and Policy Solutions, edited by Scott W. Atlas. To order, call 800.935.2882 or visit www.hooverpress.org.
Scott W. Atlas is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor of radiology and chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical School.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Revenge of the ‘Shoe Bomber’
The terrorist sues to resume his jihad from prison. The Obama administration caves in.
By DEBRA BURLINGAME
Last May at the National Archives, President Barack Obama warned that “more mistakes would occur” if Congress continued to politicize terrorist detention policy and the closure of Guantanamo Bay. “[I]f we refuse to deal with those issues today,” he predicted, “then I guarantee you, they will be an albatross around our efforts to combat terrorism in the future.”
On June 17, at the Administrative Maximum (ADX) penitentiary in Florence, Colo., one of those albatrosses, inmate number 24079-038, began his day with a whole new range of possibilities. Eight days earlier, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Denver filed notice in federal court that the Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) which applied to that prisoner—Richard C. Reid, a.k.a. the “Shoe Bomber”—were being allowed to expire. SAMs are security directives, renewable yearly, issued by the attorney general when “there is a substantial risk that a prisoner’s communications, correspondence or contacts with persons could result in death or serious bodily injury” to others.
Reid was arrested in 2001 for attempting to blow up American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami with 197 passengers and crew on board. Why had Attorney General Eric Holder decided not to renew his security measures, kept in place since 2002?
According to court documents filed in a 2007 civil lawsuit against the government, Reid claimed that SAMs violated his First Amendment right of free speech and free exercise of religion. In a hand-written complaint, he asserted that he was being illegally prevented from performing daily “group prayers in a manner prescribed by my religion.” Yet the list of Reid’s potential fellow congregants at ADX Florence reads like a Who’s Who of al Qaeda’s most dangerous members: Ramzi Yousef and his three co-conspirators in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui; “Millennium bomber” Ahmed Ressam; “Dirty bomber” Jose Padilla; Wadih el-Hage, Osama Bin Laden’s personal secretary, convicted in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombing that killed 247 people.
In December 2008, the Department of Justice filed a motion to dismiss Reid’s lawsuit. It cited the example of ADX inmate Ahmed Ajaj as an illustration of “the dangers inherent in permitting a group of inmates, of like mind in their opposition to the United States, to congregate for a prayer service conducted in a language not understood by most correctional officers.”
While imprisoned for passport fraud in 1992, Ajaj assisted in the plans to destroy the World Trade Center on Feb. 26, 1993, making phone calls to Ramzi Yousef and speaking in code to elude law enforcement monitoring. Ajaj tried to get his “training kit” to Yousef, which included videotapes and notes he had taken on bomb-making while attending a terrorist camp on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
Reid’s own SAMs on correspondence had been tightened in 2006 after the shocking discovery that three of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers at ADX, not subject to security directives, had sent 90 letters to overseas terrorist networks, including those associated with the Madrid train bombing. The letters, exhorting jihad and praising Osama bin Laden as “my hero of this generation,” were printed in Arabic newspapers and brandished like trophies to recruit new members.
When setting restrictions on inmate religious practice, the Bureau of Prisons need only meet a reasonableness standard, a very low bar in the case of Muslim terrorists. Justice would easily have prevailed against Reid’s lawsuit; nevertheless it dropped the security measures on Reid after he missed 58 meals in a hunger strike that required medical intervention and forced feeding in April.
On July 6, Justice Department lawyers informed the court that Reid will be given a “new placement” in a “post-SAMs setting.” Whether that entails stepped down security in a different unit or transfer to a less secure facility, the Bureau of Prisons won’t say, and Justice refuses to comment.
Mr. Obama likes to observe that “no one has escaped from supermax,” but if Reid is moved from ADX Florence, he will be the first convicted terrorist to use the First Amendment to sue his way out.
What drove the Obama administration’s decision to cave in to Reid’s demands? The president after all has repeatedly pitched supermax and the federal prison system as a secure alternative to Guantanamo, citing the fact that it handles “all manner of violent and dangerous criminals.” Yet the last thing he needs, as his administration engages in its hasty effort to shut Gitmo down by a fast-approaching deadline, is for lawyers and human-rights activists to use a hunger-striking, near-death prisoner to launch a propaganda campaign fashioned right out of the Gitmo detainees’ playbook. Lawyers who shamelessly compared Gitmo to Nazi concentration camps would think nothing of casting supermax as the next “symbol of America’s shame” and a “rallying cry for our enemies.”
From the outset of his administration, Mr. Obama has been trying to thread the needle between national security policy and his ideological affinity with civil liberties lawyers and human-rights activists, meeting with and consulting them prior to making detainee-related decisions. Though his executive order shutting Guantanamo closely followed the blueprint provided by Human Rights First, leaders of key organizations were stunned when he revealed in an awkward, off-the-record meeting the day before his public announcement at the National Archives that he planned to continue President George W. Bush’s policy of preventive detention.
Michael Ratner, whose human rights organization, the Center for Constitutional Rights, filed the first successful detainee lawsuit in 2002, called Mr. Obama’s proposed U.S. detention scheme a “road to perdition” and nothing more than a plan to “repackage Guantanamo.” Leaders of the so-called Gitmo bar appear poised to launch a flurry of legal challenges the moment the last departing detainee’s feet touch U.S. soil.
In January, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Colorado issued a statement saying that conditions at supermax are “simply another form of torture” worse than Gitmo which “make a mockery of ‘innocent until proven guilty.’” Last month, the ACLU filed a civil lawsuit mirroring Reid’s religious rights claim on behalf of two terrorism inmates held at the Communications Management Unit inside a medium security prison in Terre Haute, Ind.
One of those inmates is Enaam Arnaout, a Syrian-born U.S. citizen serving a 10-year sentence for diverting Muslim charity money to militant Islamic groups in Bosnia and Chechnya. The other, Randall Royer, is serving 20 years for his role recruiting young Muslims in the “Virginia Jihad Network,” a group that used paintball games in 2000-2001 to train for holy war.
Mr. Obama has repeatedly suggested that the security challenge of bringing more than 100 trained and dangerous terrorists onto U.S. soil can be solved by simply installing them in an impenetrable fortress. This view is either disingenuous or naïve. The militant Islamists at Guantanamo too dangerous to release believe that their resistance behind the wire is a continuation of holy war. There is every reason to believe they will continue their jihad once they have been transported to U.S. soil where certain federal judges have signaled a willingness to confer upon them even more rights.
The position of civil rights activists with regard to these prisoners is plain. “If they cannot be convicted,” says ACLU lawyer Jameel Jaffer, “then you release them.”
Meanwhile, in order to appease political constituencies both here and abroad, the Obama administration is moving full steam ahead, operating on the false premise that giving more civil liberties to religious fanatics bent on destroying Western civilization will make a difference in the Muslim world. In a letter sent to his father as he began his hunger strike, Reid provided a preview of how he will exercise his newly enlarged free speech rights, calling Mr. Obama a “hypocrite” who is “no better than George Bush.” His lawsuit remains active while the Department of Justice works out a settlement that satisfies the man who declared, “I am at war with America.”
Ms. Burlingame, a former attorney and a director of the National September 11 Memorial Foundation, is the sister of Charles F. “Chic” Burlingame III, the pilot of American Airlines Flight 77, which was crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.
By DEBRA BURLINGAME
Last May at the National Archives, President Barack Obama warned that “more mistakes would occur” if Congress continued to politicize terrorist detention policy and the closure of Guantanamo Bay. “[I]f we refuse to deal with those issues today,” he predicted, “then I guarantee you, they will be an albatross around our efforts to combat terrorism in the future.”
On June 17, at the Administrative Maximum (ADX) penitentiary in Florence, Colo., one of those albatrosses, inmate number 24079-038, began his day with a whole new range of possibilities. Eight days earlier, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Denver filed notice in federal court that the Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) which applied to that prisoner—Richard C. Reid, a.k.a. the “Shoe Bomber”—were being allowed to expire. SAMs are security directives, renewable yearly, issued by the attorney general when “there is a substantial risk that a prisoner’s communications, correspondence or contacts with persons could result in death or serious bodily injury” to others.
Reid was arrested in 2001 for attempting to blow up American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami with 197 passengers and crew on board. Why had Attorney General Eric Holder decided not to renew his security measures, kept in place since 2002?
According to court documents filed in a 2007 civil lawsuit against the government, Reid claimed that SAMs violated his First Amendment right of free speech and free exercise of religion. In a hand-written complaint, he asserted that he was being illegally prevented from performing daily “group prayers in a manner prescribed by my religion.” Yet the list of Reid’s potential fellow congregants at ADX Florence reads like a Who’s Who of al Qaeda’s most dangerous members: Ramzi Yousef and his three co-conspirators in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui; “Millennium bomber” Ahmed Ressam; “Dirty bomber” Jose Padilla; Wadih el-Hage, Osama Bin Laden’s personal secretary, convicted in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombing that killed 247 people.
In December 2008, the Department of Justice filed a motion to dismiss Reid’s lawsuit. It cited the example of ADX inmate Ahmed Ajaj as an illustration of “the dangers inherent in permitting a group of inmates, of like mind in their opposition to the United States, to congregate for a prayer service conducted in a language not understood by most correctional officers.”
While imprisoned for passport fraud in 1992, Ajaj assisted in the plans to destroy the World Trade Center on Feb. 26, 1993, making phone calls to Ramzi Yousef and speaking in code to elude law enforcement monitoring. Ajaj tried to get his “training kit” to Yousef, which included videotapes and notes he had taken on bomb-making while attending a terrorist camp on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
Reid’s own SAMs on correspondence had been tightened in 2006 after the shocking discovery that three of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers at ADX, not subject to security directives, had sent 90 letters to overseas terrorist networks, including those associated with the Madrid train bombing. The letters, exhorting jihad and praising Osama bin Laden as “my hero of this generation,” were printed in Arabic newspapers and brandished like trophies to recruit new members.
When setting restrictions on inmate religious practice, the Bureau of Prisons need only meet a reasonableness standard, a very low bar in the case of Muslim terrorists. Justice would easily have prevailed against Reid’s lawsuit; nevertheless it dropped the security measures on Reid after he missed 58 meals in a hunger strike that required medical intervention and forced feeding in April.
On July 6, Justice Department lawyers informed the court that Reid will be given a “new placement” in a “post-SAMs setting.” Whether that entails stepped down security in a different unit or transfer to a less secure facility, the Bureau of Prisons won’t say, and Justice refuses to comment.
Mr. Obama likes to observe that “no one has escaped from supermax,” but if Reid is moved from ADX Florence, he will be the first convicted terrorist to use the First Amendment to sue his way out.
What drove the Obama administration’s decision to cave in to Reid’s demands? The president after all has repeatedly pitched supermax and the federal prison system as a secure alternative to Guantanamo, citing the fact that it handles “all manner of violent and dangerous criminals.” Yet the last thing he needs, as his administration engages in its hasty effort to shut Gitmo down by a fast-approaching deadline, is for lawyers and human-rights activists to use a hunger-striking, near-death prisoner to launch a propaganda campaign fashioned right out of the Gitmo detainees’ playbook. Lawyers who shamelessly compared Gitmo to Nazi concentration camps would think nothing of casting supermax as the next “symbol of America’s shame” and a “rallying cry for our enemies.”
From the outset of his administration, Mr. Obama has been trying to thread the needle between national security policy and his ideological affinity with civil liberties lawyers and human-rights activists, meeting with and consulting them prior to making detainee-related decisions. Though his executive order shutting Guantanamo closely followed the blueprint provided by Human Rights First, leaders of key organizations were stunned when he revealed in an awkward, off-the-record meeting the day before his public announcement at the National Archives that he planned to continue President George W. Bush’s policy of preventive detention.
Michael Ratner, whose human rights organization, the Center for Constitutional Rights, filed the first successful detainee lawsuit in 2002, called Mr. Obama’s proposed U.S. detention scheme a “road to perdition” and nothing more than a plan to “repackage Guantanamo.” Leaders of the so-called Gitmo bar appear poised to launch a flurry of legal challenges the moment the last departing detainee’s feet touch U.S. soil.
In January, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Colorado issued a statement saying that conditions at supermax are “simply another form of torture” worse than Gitmo which “make a mockery of ‘innocent until proven guilty.’” Last month, the ACLU filed a civil lawsuit mirroring Reid’s religious rights claim on behalf of two terrorism inmates held at the Communications Management Unit inside a medium security prison in Terre Haute, Ind.
One of those inmates is Enaam Arnaout, a Syrian-born U.S. citizen serving a 10-year sentence for diverting Muslim charity money to militant Islamic groups in Bosnia and Chechnya. The other, Randall Royer, is serving 20 years for his role recruiting young Muslims in the “Virginia Jihad Network,” a group that used paintball games in 2000-2001 to train for holy war.
Mr. Obama has repeatedly suggested that the security challenge of bringing more than 100 trained and dangerous terrorists onto U.S. soil can be solved by simply installing them in an impenetrable fortress. This view is either disingenuous or naïve. The militant Islamists at Guantanamo too dangerous to release believe that their resistance behind the wire is a continuation of holy war. There is every reason to believe they will continue their jihad once they have been transported to U.S. soil where certain federal judges have signaled a willingness to confer upon them even more rights.
The position of civil rights activists with regard to these prisoners is plain. “If they cannot be convicted,” says ACLU lawyer Jameel Jaffer, “then you release them.”
Meanwhile, in order to appease political constituencies both here and abroad, the Obama administration is moving full steam ahead, operating on the false premise that giving more civil liberties to religious fanatics bent on destroying Western civilization will make a difference in the Muslim world. In a letter sent to his father as he began his hunger strike, Reid provided a preview of how he will exercise his newly enlarged free speech rights, calling Mr. Obama a “hypocrite” who is “no better than George Bush.” His lawsuit remains active while the Department of Justice works out a settlement that satisfies the man who declared, “I am at war with America.”
Ms. Burlingame, a former attorney and a director of the National September 11 Memorial Foundation, is the sister of Charles F. “Chic” Burlingame III, the pilot of American Airlines Flight 77, which was crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Obama's '47 Million Uninsured' Claim Is False
President Barack Obama claimed during his Wednesday night press conference that there are 47 million Americans without health insurance.
A simple check with the U.S. Census Bureau would have told him otherwise.
Obama said: "This is not just about the 47 million Americans who have no health insurance."
That assertion conflicts with data in the Census Bureau report "Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2007." The report was issued in August 2008 and contains the most up-to-date official data on the number of uninsured in the U.S.
The report discloses that there were 45.65 million people in the U.S. who did not have health insurance in 2007.
However, it also reveals that there were 9.73 million foreigners — foreign-born non-citizens who were in the country in 2007 — included in that number. So the number of uninsured Americans was actually 35.92 million.
And of those, "there were also 9.1 million people making more than $75,000 per year who did not choose to purchase health insurance," CNSNews stated in a report based on the Census Bureau data.
That brings the number of Americans who lack health insurance presumably for financial reasons down less than 27 million.
The Census Bureau report also shows that the number of people without insurance actually went down in 2007 compared to the previous year — from 47 million to 45.65 million — while the number with insurance rose from 249.8 million to 253.4 million.
The next Census Bureau report disclosing health insurance data, with 2008 numbers, is scheduled to be released in August, and could figure in the healthcare reform debate.
A simple check with the U.S. Census Bureau would have told him otherwise.
Obama said: "This is not just about the 47 million Americans who have no health insurance."
That assertion conflicts with data in the Census Bureau report "Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2007." The report was issued in August 2008 and contains the most up-to-date official data on the number of uninsured in the U.S.
The report discloses that there were 45.65 million people in the U.S. who did not have health insurance in 2007.
However, it also reveals that there were 9.73 million foreigners — foreign-born non-citizens who were in the country in 2007 — included in that number. So the number of uninsured Americans was actually 35.92 million.
And of those, "there were also 9.1 million people making more than $75,000 per year who did not choose to purchase health insurance," CNSNews stated in a report based on the Census Bureau data.
That brings the number of Americans who lack health insurance presumably for financial reasons down less than 27 million.
The Census Bureau report also shows that the number of people without insurance actually went down in 2007 compared to the previous year — from 47 million to 45.65 million — while the number with insurance rose from 249.8 million to 253.4 million.
The next Census Bureau report disclosing health insurance data, with 2008 numbers, is scheduled to be released in August, and could figure in the healthcare reform debate.
Still No Apology, Obama Offers a Beer
Posted By Bobby Eberle On July 27, 2009 at 7:06 am
Barack Obama may have tried to divert attention from his falling popularity or his troubled health care bill by commenting on the arrest of his friend Henry Louis Gates, but I don't think this is the attention he had in mind. By saying the police acted "stupidly," without even knowing the facts in the case, Obama showed that he is never too shy to get involved in questions of race, especially if it allows him to rant about how bad some people in this country still have it.
Except for groups such as the Congressional Black Caucus, Obama's comments have been soundly criticized. Yet, he has still not apologized publicly to Police Sgt. James Crowley, who, by all accounts, acted professionally and "by the book" in responding to a call by a neighbor regarding a possible break-in at Gates' home. Instead, Obama has invited Gates and Crowley to share a beer with him at the White House. How lovely... Throw out a comment about how racist America still is and then make light about it by inviting folks over for a beer.
For a review of the incident involving Gates and Crowley, please see my previous posting in The Loft.
As FOXNews.com reports, "President Obama's highly anticipated sit-down with Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley and Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. over some brews is expected to take place early this week, administration officials said Sunday."
The blowup has dominated national attention just as Obama tries to marshal public pressure to get Congress to push through health care overhaul legislation ... and as polls show growing doubts about his performance.
Obama walked back his comments Friday at a surprise appearance at a White House daily briefing and announced he had spoken with Crowley on the phone and invited him to the White House for a beer with Gates. Gates accepted the invitation later that day.
"This has been ratcheting up, and I obviously helped to contribute ratcheting it up," Obama said of the racial controversy on Friday. "I want to make clear that in my choice of words, I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department and Sgt. Crowley specifically. And I could've calibrated those words differently."
Calibrated those words differently??? How about using the bully pulpit to apologize to Sgt. Crowley for your ridiculous comments? Obama's statement at last Wednesday's press conference was so far off base, it really makes you wonder what's going on. The Crowley-Gates incident had nothing to do with the police using racial profiling. In this case, the officer was responding to a call by a neighbor. However, in his comments, Obama brought up how Blacks and Hispanics have traditionally been profiled. This has nothing to do with the case!
As CNSNews.com reports, members of the Congressional Black Caucus have stepped in and are saying that "the recent arrest of a black professor for disorderly conduct was a case of 'racial profiling' and that President Barack Obama's remarks at his Wednesday night press conference saying the police had acted 'stupidly' was an apt description."
Give me a break! These are the types of comments, both by Obama and the caucus that do more to hurt race relations than ANYTHING Sgt. Crowley did.
And just who is Professor Henry Louis Gates? Here's an example of what he had to say back in 1996 regarding "white, racist institutions." Note his comments about then Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
If a police officer is investigating a call about a possible break-in, then how about letting the police officer do his job rather than calling him a racist. Are the police only allowed to arrest white people?
What is so frustrating is that Obama was said by the media to be the first "post racial" president. Yet, he does more to divide America based on race than any I've witnessed. His comments keep us looking backward rather than to a better future. And now he wants folks over for a beer? What happens when he makes his next stupid comment or blasts another person for doing his or her job? Have a pizza party?
Barack Obama may have tried to divert attention from his falling popularity or his troubled health care bill by commenting on the arrest of his friend Henry Louis Gates, but I don't think this is the attention he had in mind. By saying the police acted "stupidly," without even knowing the facts in the case, Obama showed that he is never too shy to get involved in questions of race, especially if it allows him to rant about how bad some people in this country still have it.
Except for groups such as the Congressional Black Caucus, Obama's comments have been soundly criticized. Yet, he has still not apologized publicly to Police Sgt. James Crowley, who, by all accounts, acted professionally and "by the book" in responding to a call by a neighbor regarding a possible break-in at Gates' home. Instead, Obama has invited Gates and Crowley to share a beer with him at the White House. How lovely... Throw out a comment about how racist America still is and then make light about it by inviting folks over for a beer.
For a review of the incident involving Gates and Crowley, please see my previous posting in The Loft.
As FOXNews.com reports, "President Obama's highly anticipated sit-down with Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley and Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. over some brews is expected to take place early this week, administration officials said Sunday."
The blowup has dominated national attention just as Obama tries to marshal public pressure to get Congress to push through health care overhaul legislation ... and as polls show growing doubts about his performance.
Obama walked back his comments Friday at a surprise appearance at a White House daily briefing and announced he had spoken with Crowley on the phone and invited him to the White House for a beer with Gates. Gates accepted the invitation later that day.
"This has been ratcheting up, and I obviously helped to contribute ratcheting it up," Obama said of the racial controversy on Friday. "I want to make clear that in my choice of words, I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department and Sgt. Crowley specifically. And I could've calibrated those words differently."
Calibrated those words differently??? How about using the bully pulpit to apologize to Sgt. Crowley for your ridiculous comments? Obama's statement at last Wednesday's press conference was so far off base, it really makes you wonder what's going on. The Crowley-Gates incident had nothing to do with the police using racial profiling. In this case, the officer was responding to a call by a neighbor. However, in his comments, Obama brought up how Blacks and Hispanics have traditionally been profiled. This has nothing to do with the case!
As CNSNews.com reports, members of the Congressional Black Caucus have stepped in and are saying that "the recent arrest of a black professor for disorderly conduct was a case of 'racial profiling' and that President Barack Obama's remarks at his Wednesday night press conference saying the police had acted 'stupidly' was an apt description."
Give me a break! These are the types of comments, both by Obama and the caucus that do more to hurt race relations than ANYTHING Sgt. Crowley did.
And just who is Professor Henry Louis Gates? Here's an example of what he had to say back in 1996 regarding "white, racist institutions." Note his comments about then Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
If a police officer is investigating a call about a possible break-in, then how about letting the police officer do his job rather than calling him a racist. Are the police only allowed to arrest white people?
What is so frustrating is that Obama was said by the media to be the first "post racial" president. Yet, he does more to divide America based on race than any I've witnessed. His comments keep us looking backward rather than to a better future. And now he wants folks over for a beer? What happens when he makes his next stupid comment or blasts another person for doing his or her job? Have a pizza party?
Barack Obama Insults Innocent Police Officer
Picture this: Your neighbor's house has been broken into in the past. Today, you look out your window, and you see someone breaking into it again. You call 911. The police arrive, go into the house, and confront the man who was breaking and entering. The man claims he lives there and his front door was "jammed"; when the officer asks for his identification, the man (who is African-American) begins screaming at the officer (who is White) and accusing him of being a "racist" for questioning him. The officer tells him to calm down, and when the man doesn't, the officer arrests him -- not for breaking and entering, but for disorderly conduct.
Sounds pretty straightforward, right? Case closed...
...Unless the man is a friend of President Barack Obama.
This incident, as you've probably heard, actually happened. The place was Cambridge, MA. The man was Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., a prominent scholar at Harvard University known for past radical and racially-charged speeches -- and a long-time friend of President Obama. And the arresting officer was Sgt. James Crowley, a decorated police officer who has even taught other policemen how to avoid any sort of racial profiling.
Obama could have stayed completely out of this incident... but instead, he chose to INSULT this police officer and inject accusations of RACISM into what should have been a local matter -- just because Gates was his friend. And now, Obama refuses to apologize!
This is OUTRAGEOUS!
Here are the facts: Prof. Gates had returned from China on Thursday to the Cambridge home that Gates rents from Harvard, and discovered his front door jammed. He opened his back door with his key and tried unsuccessfully from inside his home to open the front door. Eventually, Gates and his driver forced the door open from the outside.
A neighbor called 911 and reported seeing two black men trying to force open the front door. Sgt. Crowley was first to respond to the home, and asked Gates to step outside. Gates refused to step outside to speak with the officer, and when Sgt. Crowley told Gates that he was investigating a possible break-in, Gates opened the front door and exclaimed, "Why, because I"m a black man in America?" Sgt. Crowley, understandably, was quite surprised and confused with the behavior Gates exhibited toward him.
Gates eventually produced a Harvard identification card, prompting Crowley to radio for Harvard University Police. Gates followed the officer outside and continued to accuse him of racial bias. Amongst other egregious acts, Prof. Gates told Sgt. Crowley "I'll speak with your mama outside;" after Crowley warned the professor twice that he was becoming disorderly, the officer finally arrested Gates for "loud and tumultuous behavior in a public space." He was released from police custody Thursday evening after spending four hours at the police station, and the charges were dropped.
So what happened next? President Obama decided to "come to the rescue" of his old friend, at a prime-time press conference on Wednesday evening. After stating that, "Skip Gates is a friend, so I may be a little biased here -- I don't know all of the facts involved in this local police response incident," he went on to say that "the Cambridge Police acted stupidly" when they arrested Gates. Then, he linked the arrest to racial profiling, saying that "there is a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately… race remains a factor in this society."
WHAT??? This incident had NOTHING to do with race or racial profiling -- it had EVERYTHING to do with a cop doing his duty, and a liberal professor with a racial chip on his shoulder disrespecting the very people he ought to be thanking for stepping up to protect his property!
This shouldn't be a surprise, though -- this is the same Prof. Gates who once gave a speech in which he used the N-word, railed against "racist historically white institutions in America" and accused Newt Gingrich of attempting to block blacks from entering the middle class.
And Barack Obama had the audacity to defend Gates, and attack Sgt. Crowley!
Barack Obama has had a chance to apologize; but instead, he gave one of his typical weasel-word statements: "in my choice of words I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sgt. Crowley specifically and I could have calibrated those words differently." Then his White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, announced that "the president regrets that the media have gotten all worked up over the controversy and been distracted from other more substantive issues such as health care."
What? "I could have calibrated those words differently"? It's somehow everyone else's fault, and not Obama's? How "calibrating" words like these: "I acted stupidly when I insulted the Cambridge Police Department and Sgt. Crowley, and I apologize for doing so."
Is that so hard?
It's not like Barack Obama doesn't know HOW to apologize -- he recently spent quite a who lot of time apologizing for the United States itself, all over the world! Niles Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation, even put together a "Top 10 Obama Apologies" list recently:
Apology to Europe: Speech in Strasbourg, France, April 3
Apology to the Muslim world: Interview with Al Arabiya, January 27.
Apology to the Summit of the Americas: Address to the Summit of the Americas, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, April 17.
Apology at the G-20 Summit of World Leaders: News conference in London, April 2.
Apology for the War on Terror: Speech in Washington, D.C., May 21.
Apology for Guantanamo in France: Speech in Strasbourg, France, April 3.
Apology for America before the Turkish Parliament: Speech to the Turkish Parliament, Ankara, Turkey, April 6.
Apology for U.S. Policy toward the Americas: Editorial "Choosing a Better Future in the Americas," April 16.
Apology for the Mistakes of the CIA: Remarks to CIA employees at Langley, Va., April 29.
Apology for Guantanamo: Speech in Washington, D.C., May 21.
Apparently, Barack Obama can apologize to everyone in the world... except the decorated police sergeant he deliberately insulted last week.
Barack Obama obviously needs a little "help" in being reminded how to apologize -- and we've got a GREAT way to get that "help" going!
Barack Obama should not be given some sort of "free pass" for his outrageous remarks against a decorated police officer, just because it was his friend who was arrested for his own stupid remarks and behavior. Thankfully, there are Members of Congress who agree.
Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) has introduced a House resolution demanding Obama retract and apologize for the remarks he made about Cambridge Police Sergeant James Crowley. The draft of the resolution reads:
Whereas on July 16, 2009, Cambridge, Massachusetts Police Sergeant James M. Crowley responded to a 911 call from a neighbor of Harvard University Professor Henry Louis ("Skip") Gates, Jr. about a suspected break-in in progress at his residence, which had been broken into on a prior occasion;
Whereas on July 22, 2009, in responding to a question during a White House press conference President Barack Obama stated: "Skip Gates is a friend, so I may be a little biased here. I don't know all of the facts involved in this local police response incident";
Whereas President Obama proceeded to state Sergeant Crowley "acted stupidly" for arresting Professor Gates on charges of disorderly conduct;
Whereas, as a former Constitutional Law Professor, President Obama well understands that all Americans are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, and their actions should not be prejudged prior to being fully and fairly judged by an appropriate and objective authority after due process;
Whereas, President Obama's nationally televised remarks may likely detrimentally influence the full and fair judgment by an appropriate and objective authority after due process regarding this local police response incident and, thereby, impair Sergeant Crowley's legal and professional standing in relation to said incident; and
Whereas, President Obama appeared at a daily White House Press briefing on July 24, 2009 to address his denouncement of Sergeant Crowley and stated: "I could have calibrated those words differently" but "I continue to believe, based on what I have heard, that there was an overreaction in pulling Professor Gates out of his home to the station."
Whereas, President Obama's refusal to retract his initial public remarks and apologize to Sergeant Crowley and, instead, reiterate his accusation impugning Sergeant Crowley's professional conduct in the performance of his duties; Now therefore be it Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
Calls upon President Obama to retract his initial public remarks and apologize to Cambridge, Massachusetts Police Sergeant James M. Crowley for having unfairly impugned and prejudged his professional conduct in this local police response incident.
This is exactly the "kick in the pants" that Barack Obama needs right now to show him that the American people are watching him, and that he can't get away with these kinds of lies and racially-charged insults.
This whole incident isn't about "racial profiling." This is about working Americans versus Harvard educated elites; post racial Americans versus race baiters; and law abiding citizens and law enforcement officials versus those who think they are above the law.
Comedian Bill Cosby, asked about President Obama"s statement on a Boston radio interview, summed up the situation succinctly, saying, "If I'm the president of the United States, I don't care how much pressure people want to put on it about race, I'm keeping my mouth shut."
President Obama needs to apologize for impugning the professional conduct of Cambridge, Massachusetts Police Sergeant James M. Crowley.
Sounds pretty straightforward, right? Case closed...
...Unless the man is a friend of President Barack Obama.
This incident, as you've probably heard, actually happened. The place was Cambridge, MA. The man was Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., a prominent scholar at Harvard University known for past radical and racially-charged speeches -- and a long-time friend of President Obama. And the arresting officer was Sgt. James Crowley, a decorated police officer who has even taught other policemen how to avoid any sort of racial profiling.
Obama could have stayed completely out of this incident... but instead, he chose to INSULT this police officer and inject accusations of RACISM into what should have been a local matter -- just because Gates was his friend. And now, Obama refuses to apologize!
This is OUTRAGEOUS!
Here are the facts: Prof. Gates had returned from China on Thursday to the Cambridge home that Gates rents from Harvard, and discovered his front door jammed. He opened his back door with his key and tried unsuccessfully from inside his home to open the front door. Eventually, Gates and his driver forced the door open from the outside.
A neighbor called 911 and reported seeing two black men trying to force open the front door. Sgt. Crowley was first to respond to the home, and asked Gates to step outside. Gates refused to step outside to speak with the officer, and when Sgt. Crowley told Gates that he was investigating a possible break-in, Gates opened the front door and exclaimed, "Why, because I"m a black man in America?" Sgt. Crowley, understandably, was quite surprised and confused with the behavior Gates exhibited toward him.
Gates eventually produced a Harvard identification card, prompting Crowley to radio for Harvard University Police. Gates followed the officer outside and continued to accuse him of racial bias. Amongst other egregious acts, Prof. Gates told Sgt. Crowley "I'll speak with your mama outside;" after Crowley warned the professor twice that he was becoming disorderly, the officer finally arrested Gates for "loud and tumultuous behavior in a public space." He was released from police custody Thursday evening after spending four hours at the police station, and the charges were dropped.
So what happened next? President Obama decided to "come to the rescue" of his old friend, at a prime-time press conference on Wednesday evening. After stating that, "Skip Gates is a friend, so I may be a little biased here -- I don't know all of the facts involved in this local police response incident," he went on to say that "the Cambridge Police acted stupidly" when they arrested Gates. Then, he linked the arrest to racial profiling, saying that "there is a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately… race remains a factor in this society."
WHAT??? This incident had NOTHING to do with race or racial profiling -- it had EVERYTHING to do with a cop doing his duty, and a liberal professor with a racial chip on his shoulder disrespecting the very people he ought to be thanking for stepping up to protect his property!
This shouldn't be a surprise, though -- this is the same Prof. Gates who once gave a speech in which he used the N-word, railed against "racist historically white institutions in America" and accused Newt Gingrich of attempting to block blacks from entering the middle class.
And Barack Obama had the audacity to defend Gates, and attack Sgt. Crowley!
Barack Obama has had a chance to apologize; but instead, he gave one of his typical weasel-word statements: "in my choice of words I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sgt. Crowley specifically and I could have calibrated those words differently." Then his White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, announced that "the president regrets that the media have gotten all worked up over the controversy and been distracted from other more substantive issues such as health care."
What? "I could have calibrated those words differently"? It's somehow everyone else's fault, and not Obama's? How "calibrating" words like these: "I acted stupidly when I insulted the Cambridge Police Department and Sgt. Crowley, and I apologize for doing so."
Is that so hard?
It's not like Barack Obama doesn't know HOW to apologize -- he recently spent quite a who lot of time apologizing for the United States itself, all over the world! Niles Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation, even put together a "Top 10 Obama Apologies" list recently:
Apology to Europe: Speech in Strasbourg, France, April 3
Apology to the Muslim world: Interview with Al Arabiya, January 27.
Apology to the Summit of the Americas: Address to the Summit of the Americas, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, April 17.
Apology at the G-20 Summit of World Leaders: News conference in London, April 2.
Apology for the War on Terror: Speech in Washington, D.C., May 21.
Apology for Guantanamo in France: Speech in Strasbourg, France, April 3.
Apology for America before the Turkish Parliament: Speech to the Turkish Parliament, Ankara, Turkey, April 6.
Apology for U.S. Policy toward the Americas: Editorial "Choosing a Better Future in the Americas," April 16.
Apology for the Mistakes of the CIA: Remarks to CIA employees at Langley, Va., April 29.
Apology for Guantanamo: Speech in Washington, D.C., May 21.
Apparently, Barack Obama can apologize to everyone in the world... except the decorated police sergeant he deliberately insulted last week.
Barack Obama obviously needs a little "help" in being reminded how to apologize -- and we've got a GREAT way to get that "help" going!
Barack Obama should not be given some sort of "free pass" for his outrageous remarks against a decorated police officer, just because it was his friend who was arrested for his own stupid remarks and behavior. Thankfully, there are Members of Congress who agree.
Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) has introduced a House resolution demanding Obama retract and apologize for the remarks he made about Cambridge Police Sergeant James Crowley. The draft of the resolution reads:
Whereas on July 16, 2009, Cambridge, Massachusetts Police Sergeant James M. Crowley responded to a 911 call from a neighbor of Harvard University Professor Henry Louis ("Skip") Gates, Jr. about a suspected break-in in progress at his residence, which had been broken into on a prior occasion;
Whereas on July 22, 2009, in responding to a question during a White House press conference President Barack Obama stated: "Skip Gates is a friend, so I may be a little biased here. I don't know all of the facts involved in this local police response incident";
Whereas President Obama proceeded to state Sergeant Crowley "acted stupidly" for arresting Professor Gates on charges of disorderly conduct;
Whereas, as a former Constitutional Law Professor, President Obama well understands that all Americans are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, and their actions should not be prejudged prior to being fully and fairly judged by an appropriate and objective authority after due process;
Whereas, President Obama's nationally televised remarks may likely detrimentally influence the full and fair judgment by an appropriate and objective authority after due process regarding this local police response incident and, thereby, impair Sergeant Crowley's legal and professional standing in relation to said incident; and
Whereas, President Obama appeared at a daily White House Press briefing on July 24, 2009 to address his denouncement of Sergeant Crowley and stated: "I could have calibrated those words differently" but "I continue to believe, based on what I have heard, that there was an overreaction in pulling Professor Gates out of his home to the station."
Whereas, President Obama's refusal to retract his initial public remarks and apologize to Sergeant Crowley and, instead, reiterate his accusation impugning Sergeant Crowley's professional conduct in the performance of his duties; Now therefore be it Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
Calls upon President Obama to retract his initial public remarks and apologize to Cambridge, Massachusetts Police Sergeant James M. Crowley for having unfairly impugned and prejudged his professional conduct in this local police response incident.
This is exactly the "kick in the pants" that Barack Obama needs right now to show him that the American people are watching him, and that he can't get away with these kinds of lies and racially-charged insults.
This whole incident isn't about "racial profiling." This is about working Americans versus Harvard educated elites; post racial Americans versus race baiters; and law abiding citizens and law enforcement officials versus those who think they are above the law.
Comedian Bill Cosby, asked about President Obama"s statement on a Boston radio interview, summed up the situation succinctly, saying, "If I'm the president of the United States, I don't care how much pressure people want to put on it about race, I'm keeping my mouth shut."
President Obama needs to apologize for impugning the professional conduct of Cambridge, Massachusetts Police Sergeant James M. Crowley.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Chris Matthews Wrong on Obama Birth Certificate
Wednesday, July 22, 2009 6:33 PM
By: Jim Meyers
MSNBC's Chris Matthews got into a heated exchange with a congressman on his show Tuesday as he revisited the question of President Barack Obama's birth certificate — or lack of one.
Rep. John Campbell, R-Calif., is a co-sponsor of the so-called "birther bill," which would require future presidential candidates to provide a copy of their original birth certificates.
“Birthers” are those who believe Obama is not qualified to be president, based on a belief that he was not born in the United States.
Campbell is not a “birther” and never has claimed that Obama was born outside the United States or should be disqualified from being president.
On the show, Matthews seemingly undermined claims by some that Obama never has released his birth certificate, producing what Matthews said was a true copy of it.
But Matthews made a false claim. Obama never has released his actual birth certificate. He has released another document, which state authorities often provide in lieu of a birth certificate, called a certification of live birth.
Matthews on Tuesday said Campbell was "playing to the crazies" by supporting the "crazy" bill, and the congressman shot back that it was all about "putting the matter to rest."
Matthews also accused Campbell of "feeding the wacko wing of your party," and held up what he called a copy of the supposed Obama birth certificate.
Case closed?
The indisputable fact is that Obama has not released his birth certificate, which the state of Hawaii issues for all citizens born there.
Instead, his campaign has released only his certification of live birth from the state of Hawaii, which is a document that offers a summarized version of the birth certificate.
During the 2008 presidential campaign, GOP nominee Sen. John McCain quickly released his birth certificate when liberal bloggers raised questions about his eligibility to be president. McCain was born at a military hospital in Panama.
Obama likewise could put the matter to rest by releasing his actual birth certificate, which would show, among other things, the place of his birth and the doctor who performed the birth procedure. This information is not provided on the certification of live birth.
As it stands, Obama is the only president in history whose birthplace is unknown to the public – a fact that would be stated on the actual birth certificate. Interestingly, his family has mentioned two different hospitals in Hawaii as the place of birth.
The fact that Obama has refused to release his actual birth certificate does not mean conspiracy theorists are right when they claim he was born in Kenya and therefore not eligible to be president. Investigators who have reviewed the claims have found no evidence Obama was born outside of Hawaii.
But Obama’s refusal to release his birth certificate does mean that Obama remains one of America’s most mysterious and opaque presidents ever.
Obama, for example, has not released many other documents regarding his public and private life.
Many of these documents were sought by reporters, who easily acquiesced when Obama said he would not release them – though most presidential candidates release them as a perfunctory matter.
Among the key documents that Obama continues to shield from the public:
Obama released just one brief document detailing his personal health. McCain, on the other hand, released what he said was his complete medical file, totaling more than 1,500 pages.
Obama refused to offer his official papers as a state legislator in Illinois. Nor did he produce correspondence, such as his schedules of appointments or letters from lobbyists, from his days in the Illinois state Senate.
Obama did not release his client list as an attorney or his billing records. He maintained that he performed only a few hours of legal work for a nonprofit organization with ties to Tony Rezko, the Chicago businessman convicted of fraud in June 2008 but did not release billing records that would prove this assertion.
Obama ignored requests for his records from Occidental College, where he studied for two years before transferring to Columbia University.
Obama’s campaign refused to give Columbia, where he earned an undergraduate degree in political science, permission to release his transcripts. Former President George W. Bush and presidential contenders Al Gore and John Kerry all released their college transcripts.
Obama did not agree to the release of his application to the Illinois State Bar, which would have cleared up intermittent allegations that his application may have been inaccurate.
Obama did not release records from his time at Harvard Law School.
During the presidential campaign, McCain’s campaign released a full list of all online donors. Obama’s campaign still has not released the names of those who donated at least one-third of the $750 million he raised.
Ironically, Obama accused the Bush White House of being "one of the most secretive administrations in our history," and chided then-Sen. Hillary Clinton for not releasing her White House schedules.
Chris Matthews, get your facts straight and demand full disclosure — that’s the best way to keep an honest government.
By: Jim Meyers
MSNBC's Chris Matthews got into a heated exchange with a congressman on his show Tuesday as he revisited the question of President Barack Obama's birth certificate — or lack of one.
Rep. John Campbell, R-Calif., is a co-sponsor of the so-called "birther bill," which would require future presidential candidates to provide a copy of their original birth certificates.
“Birthers” are those who believe Obama is not qualified to be president, based on a belief that he was not born in the United States.
Campbell is not a “birther” and never has claimed that Obama was born outside the United States or should be disqualified from being president.
On the show, Matthews seemingly undermined claims by some that Obama never has released his birth certificate, producing what Matthews said was a true copy of it.
But Matthews made a false claim. Obama never has released his actual birth certificate. He has released another document, which state authorities often provide in lieu of a birth certificate, called a certification of live birth.
Matthews on Tuesday said Campbell was "playing to the crazies" by supporting the "crazy" bill, and the congressman shot back that it was all about "putting the matter to rest."
Matthews also accused Campbell of "feeding the wacko wing of your party," and held up what he called a copy of the supposed Obama birth certificate.
Case closed?
The indisputable fact is that Obama has not released his birth certificate, which the state of Hawaii issues for all citizens born there.
Instead, his campaign has released only his certification of live birth from the state of Hawaii, which is a document that offers a summarized version of the birth certificate.
During the 2008 presidential campaign, GOP nominee Sen. John McCain quickly released his birth certificate when liberal bloggers raised questions about his eligibility to be president. McCain was born at a military hospital in Panama.
Obama likewise could put the matter to rest by releasing his actual birth certificate, which would show, among other things, the place of his birth and the doctor who performed the birth procedure. This information is not provided on the certification of live birth.
As it stands, Obama is the only president in history whose birthplace is unknown to the public – a fact that would be stated on the actual birth certificate. Interestingly, his family has mentioned two different hospitals in Hawaii as the place of birth.
The fact that Obama has refused to release his actual birth certificate does not mean conspiracy theorists are right when they claim he was born in Kenya and therefore not eligible to be president. Investigators who have reviewed the claims have found no evidence Obama was born outside of Hawaii.
But Obama’s refusal to release his birth certificate does mean that Obama remains one of America’s most mysterious and opaque presidents ever.
Obama, for example, has not released many other documents regarding his public and private life.
Many of these documents were sought by reporters, who easily acquiesced when Obama said he would not release them – though most presidential candidates release them as a perfunctory matter.
Among the key documents that Obama continues to shield from the public:
Obama released just one brief document detailing his personal health. McCain, on the other hand, released what he said was his complete medical file, totaling more than 1,500 pages.
Obama refused to offer his official papers as a state legislator in Illinois. Nor did he produce correspondence, such as his schedules of appointments or letters from lobbyists, from his days in the Illinois state Senate.
Obama did not release his client list as an attorney or his billing records. He maintained that he performed only a few hours of legal work for a nonprofit organization with ties to Tony Rezko, the Chicago businessman convicted of fraud in June 2008 but did not release billing records that would prove this assertion.
Obama ignored requests for his records from Occidental College, where he studied for two years before transferring to Columbia University.
Obama’s campaign refused to give Columbia, where he earned an undergraduate degree in political science, permission to release his transcripts. Former President George W. Bush and presidential contenders Al Gore and John Kerry all released their college transcripts.
Obama did not agree to the release of his application to the Illinois State Bar, which would have cleared up intermittent allegations that his application may have been inaccurate.
Obama did not release records from his time at Harvard Law School.
During the presidential campaign, McCain’s campaign released a full list of all online donors. Obama’s campaign still has not released the names of those who donated at least one-third of the $750 million he raised.
Ironically, Obama accused the Bush White House of being "one of the most secretive administrations in our history," and chided then-Sen. Hillary Clinton for not releasing her White House schedules.
Chris Matthews, get your facts straight and demand full disclosure — that’s the best way to keep an honest government.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Rationing for dummies
Robert Knight - Guest Columnist - 7/21/2009 9:30:00 AM
It's beginning to sink in that Obama's nationalized healthcare will lead directly to rationing, which Americans desire about as much as a case of salmonella.
The president told five governors last month to avoid the term "rationing," since it might give away the game. But the word keeps popping up, so it was time for a more aggressive approach -- embracing it!
Out came one of the Left's big guns, Princeton ethicist Peter Singer, to fire away in the July 19 New York Times Magazine with a long article, "Why We Must Ration Health Care."
Singer -- known for such gems as, "The notion that human life is sacred just because it is human life is medieval," and "An animal experiment cannot be justifiable unless the experiment is so important that the use of a brain-damaged human would be justifiable" -- says rationing is already here in different forms. Hence, we have nothing to fear from men in white coats directed by government bureaucrats.
Written to allay our fears, the article instead provides plenty of insight into the rationality of rationing and why Americans might want to drop what they're doing, grab pitchforks and torches, and descend upon Washington to slay this Frankenstein monster.
Singer, who advocates the right of parents to kill their newborns even several days later if the babies disappoint them, poses a series of ethical dilemmas that resemble the lifeboat analogy. The boat is sinking and holds only so many. Who stays aboard and who's thrown to the sharks? Here's one of his scenarios, which should give cold comfort to senior citizens and those who love them:
"As a first take, we might say that the good achieved by health care is the number of lives saved. But that is too crude. The death of a teenager is a greater tragedy than the death of an 85-year-old, and this should be reflected in our priorities. We can accommodate that difference by calculating the number of life-years saved, rather than simply the number of lives saved. If a teenager can be expected to live another 70 years, saving her life counts as a gain of 70 life-years, whereas if a person of 85 can be expected to live another 5 years, then saving the 85-year-old will count as a gain of only 5 life-years."
He allows that some teens might be vicious felons and some 85-year-olds productive citizens, but you get the idea. To sort all this out, Singer says bureaucrats could employ the quality-adjusted life-year, or QALY, a unit of measurement used for 30 years by health planners. How else can you make Solomon-like decisions between disabled newborns, injured 20-somethings, and cancer-stricken seniors?
But Singer admits that QALY has drawbacks, such as being too ham-handed (my word). He raises the question of whether to spend thousands on a rare drug for Jack Rosser, a real-life British terminal cancer patient and the father of a young child: "Whether decisions about allocating health care resources should take such personal circumstances into account isn't easy to decide. Not to do so makes the standard inflexible, but taking personal factors into account increases the scope for subjective -- and prejudiced -- judgments."
This is precisely why we don't want bureaucratic bean-counters calling all the shots. Or someone like Singer, who sees people as talking animals, not precious, unique beings created in the image of God. Singer explores more ethical dilemmas, such as whether quadriplegics would choose to give up a year or two of life in exchange for a cured, shorter existence. He uses this to question whether all human lives are sacred.
"This method of preserving our belief that everyone has an equal right to life is, however, a double-edged sword. If life with quadriplegia is as good as life without it, there is no health benefit to be gained by curing it."
Huh? Singer seems to be confusing the value of life with quality of life, which can take us down the slippery path toward purification of the race and other horrors.
He follows with another false dilemma: "Disability advocates, it seems, are forced to choose between insisting that extending their lives is just as important as extending the lives of people without disabilities, and seeking public support for research into a cure for their condition."
Can't they do both? Why are they forced to choose?
In the movie The Princess Bride, the hero listens to a villain's bizarre, irrational rambling and generously says, "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
You need one of those to explain why Americans should give up a first-class health system and adopt one resembling the warm, inviting embrace of an IRS auditor's office -- complete with needles.
It's beginning to sink in that Obama's nationalized healthcare will lead directly to rationing, which Americans desire about as much as a case of salmonella.
The president told five governors last month to avoid the term "rationing," since it might give away the game. But the word keeps popping up, so it was time for a more aggressive approach -- embracing it!
Out came one of the Left's big guns, Princeton ethicist Peter Singer, to fire away in the July 19 New York Times Magazine with a long article, "Why We Must Ration Health Care."
Singer -- known for such gems as, "The notion that human life is sacred just because it is human life is medieval," and "An animal experiment cannot be justifiable unless the experiment is so important that the use of a brain-damaged human would be justifiable" -- says rationing is already here in different forms. Hence, we have nothing to fear from men in white coats directed by government bureaucrats.
Written to allay our fears, the article instead provides plenty of insight into the rationality of rationing and why Americans might want to drop what they're doing, grab pitchforks and torches, and descend upon Washington to slay this Frankenstein monster.
Singer, who advocates the right of parents to kill their newborns even several days later if the babies disappoint them, poses a series of ethical dilemmas that resemble the lifeboat analogy. The boat is sinking and holds only so many. Who stays aboard and who's thrown to the sharks? Here's one of his scenarios, which should give cold comfort to senior citizens and those who love them:
"As a first take, we might say that the good achieved by health care is the number of lives saved. But that is too crude. The death of a teenager is a greater tragedy than the death of an 85-year-old, and this should be reflected in our priorities. We can accommodate that difference by calculating the number of life-years saved, rather than simply the number of lives saved. If a teenager can be expected to live another 70 years, saving her life counts as a gain of 70 life-years, whereas if a person of 85 can be expected to live another 5 years, then saving the 85-year-old will count as a gain of only 5 life-years."
He allows that some teens might be vicious felons and some 85-year-olds productive citizens, but you get the idea. To sort all this out, Singer says bureaucrats could employ the quality-adjusted life-year, or QALY, a unit of measurement used for 30 years by health planners. How else can you make Solomon-like decisions between disabled newborns, injured 20-somethings, and cancer-stricken seniors?
But Singer admits that QALY has drawbacks, such as being too ham-handed (my word). He raises the question of whether to spend thousands on a rare drug for Jack Rosser, a real-life British terminal cancer patient and the father of a young child: "Whether decisions about allocating health care resources should take such personal circumstances into account isn't easy to decide. Not to do so makes the standard inflexible, but taking personal factors into account increases the scope for subjective -- and prejudiced -- judgments."
This is precisely why we don't want bureaucratic bean-counters calling all the shots. Or someone like Singer, who sees people as talking animals, not precious, unique beings created in the image of God. Singer explores more ethical dilemmas, such as whether quadriplegics would choose to give up a year or two of life in exchange for a cured, shorter existence. He uses this to question whether all human lives are sacred.
"This method of preserving our belief that everyone has an equal right to life is, however, a double-edged sword. If life with quadriplegia is as good as life without it, there is no health benefit to be gained by curing it."
Huh? Singer seems to be confusing the value of life with quality of life, which can take us down the slippery path toward purification of the race and other horrors.
He follows with another false dilemma: "Disability advocates, it seems, are forced to choose between insisting that extending their lives is just as important as extending the lives of people without disabilities, and seeking public support for research into a cure for their condition."
Can't they do both? Why are they forced to choose?
In the movie The Princess Bride, the hero listens to a villain's bizarre, irrational rambling and generously says, "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
You need one of those to explain why Americans should give up a first-class health system and adopt one resembling the warm, inviting embrace of an IRS auditor's office -- complete with needles.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Facts You Need to Know about the Health Care Bill
Posted By Bobby Eberle On July 17, 2009 at 7:25 am
As you can see from today's array of columns from writers across the country, the big concern is what is happening with the health care bill moving its way through Congress.
The bill is wrong on so many levels, and conservative writers and pundits are doing an excellent job in letting Americans know the endless array of big-government, freedom-grabbing, soak-the-rich provisions that Obama and company want to impose on the American people. Here are some of the facts you should know:
Fact: The Obama plan will lead to higher costs.
As noted by the Associated Press, "Democrats' health care bills won't meet President Barack Obama's goal of slowing the ruinous rise of medical costs, Congress' budget umpire warned on Thursday, giving weight to critics who say the legislation could break the bank."
Explained Elmendorf: "In the legislation that has been reported, we do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount. And on the contrary, the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health care costs."
Even if the legislation doesn't add to the federal deficit over the next years, Elmendorf said costs over the long run would keep rising at an unsustainable pace.
Fact: The Health Care bill sets up a host of new bureaucracies in typical big-government fashion.
Just click on this link for a larger view of the image above. This is what Barack Obama and the Democrats want to impose on America. New agencies, new divisions, new "czars," new administrators, new rules, new regulations, new costs. Does anyone out there really think this will be more efficient?
Fact: The "Public Option" for health insurance is the first step in a complete government take-over of health care.
For those who haven't been following this issue, the "public option" is the term being used for government-run health insurance. The Democrats want to get the government involved in the insurance business by setting up an agency to compete with private insurance companies. Their claim is that the government-run insurance agency will promote competition and lower costs.
In the short term, could it promote competition and lower costs? Absolutely. It is run by the federal government. They can determine whatever prices they want for a policy. Since it is driven by taxpayer funding, it is not subject to market rules of supply and demand. Thus, the government could come in with lower prices and force private insurers to compete. The results could mean short term lower rates, but what happens next?
As CNSNews.com reports, "Obama’s federal plan would essentially operate like a massive version of Medicare, the government-run plan for seniors which cost 3.2 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2008 and which will become insolvent for the first time this year."
Essentially, the government will say how much insurance will cost for a particular type of person dependent upon whom that person is, how old they are, and how healthy they are. Further, the public plan would not have to be solvent. This means that unlike every other private plan, the federal plan could operate at a loss and still remain in business.
Please read the above paragraph again carefully. What it means is that Obama and company could set insurance prices so low that private insurers couldn't compete at all... thus being driven out of business. The government-run insurance doesn't have to turn a profit. They can run in the red and still keep going. Once the private insurers have folded, the only thing left is government-run insurance. With premiums that are unsustainably low (unfunded), this means the burden will fall on taxpayers to make up the deficit. So, less freedom AND more taxes.... that is the result.
There are so many "facts" about this bill that are bad for the American people. I encourage you to leave a comment with more of the facts that you find. All Americans need to be made aware of what is possibly coming and doing everything we can to stop it.
Action Alert: Hands Off My Health Care Decisions!
Please click the link above to contact Congress and tell them to vote NO on the health care bill.
Government Health-Care Plantation Looms
By Star Parker
July 20, 2009
What is now being billed as health care reform is but the latest chapter in a process I described in an earlier column as "Back on Uncle Sam's Plantation."
Rather than moving dysfunctional America off the welfare state, as we did with welfare reform in 1996, we are now moving the free, functioning, and once prosperous part of our nation onto the welfare state.
Bills out of committees in both the House and the Senate contain all the elements of President Obama's dream to get as many Americans onto the government health care plantation as possible.
We've got creation of the new government run insurance plan that supposedly will create new competition. We've got fines on employers who don't provide insurance and fines on individuals who don't buy it.
And we've got the trillions of dollars in new spending to subsidize insurance purchases for low to middle income Americans and expand Medicaid to get more low income Americans into it.
And, of course, we've got the massive new government bureaucracy to oversee it all.
Obama continues to tell the many millions of Americans currently insured through their employer not to worry, that "If you like your health care plan you can keep that..."
But we know this is a slight of hand. Many employers will gladly pay the fine and purge their employees into the government plan. And how will private plans possibly compete with the government plan when politicians can reach into taxpayer pockets anytime they want to keep on subsidizing it?
The Lewin Group estimates that a hundred twenty million Americans may be driven into the government plan.
And the idea that a government plan will keep, in the words of our president, "insurance companies honest"?
We've already got half the country on government health care through Medicare and Medicaid.
Harvard's Malcom Sparrow, a specialist in health-care fraud, estimates annual Medicare fraud at $85 billion.
The Government Accountability Office estimates Medicaid fraud at around $33 billion annually.
So that's $120 billion a year in government health care fraud! This is who will keep private companies ''honest?''
It defies logic and experience that we will save money and deliver better health care by expanding government control and spending.
Congressional Budget Office head Douglas Elmendorf confirms as such. CBO now estimates this proposed reform will require a trillion dollars in new expenditures and that rather than lowering the "cost curve", "the curve is being raised."
Despite all this, this horrible legislation may pass. Why?
We now have the political reality of decisive Democrat majorities in both houses of Congress and a Democrat president that wants this.
And whereas business fought Hillary care, they are now cooperating. With Democrats decisively running the show, they can buy political support with bribes and threats.
Pharmaceutical firms and insurance firms like the idea of new expanded taxpayer subsidized markets.
And doctors? The American Medical Association initially refused to endorse health care reform that included a government plan.
Now suddenly they are on board. The AMA has come out in support of the House bill with a government plan. What happened? The House agreed to get rid of planned cuts in doctor's Medicare reimbursements.
Halfway into 2009, Americans have turned more control of their lives over to government and politicians than ever before in history.
This proposed health care reform, through subsidies and expansion of Medicaid, would put tens of millions of new Americans on welfare. The result is predictable. Many more citizens with incentives to stay poor and dependent.
The rest of us will transfer a major part of our freedom to manage our own private lives over to bureaucrats.
I'm praying for a miracle that will wake up a slumbering nation.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Obama Health Plan to Cover 12 Million Illegals
Sunday, July 19, 2009 6:32 PM
By: David A. Patten
On Friday, Democrats moved one step closer to giving free health insurance to the nation’s estimated 12 million illegal aliens when they successfully defeated a Republican-backed amendment, offered by Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev., that would have prevented illegal aliens from receiving government-subsidized health care under the proposed plan backed by House Democrats and President Barack Obama.
The House Ways and Means Committee nixed the Heller amendment by a 26-to-15 vote along straight party lines, and followed this action by passing the 1,018-page bill early Friday morning by a 23-to-18 margin, with three Democrats voting against the plan.
The Democratic plan will embrace Obama’s vision of bringing free government medical care to more than 45 million uninsured people in America – a significant portion of whom are illegal aliens.
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, costs under the Obama plan being proposed by the House will saddle citizens with $1.04 trillion in new federal outlays over the next decade.
Congressional Democrats and Obama have argued that their health plan is necessary to contain rising health care costs.
But, last Thursday, CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf testified before the Senate Budget Committee and warned lawmakers that the proposed “legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health care costs."
A key factor increasing costs is that Democratic plan provides for blanket coverage to as much as 15 percent of the U.S. population not currently insured, including illegals.
Democrats had insisted throughout the health-care reform debate that illegals would be ineligible for the so-called public option plan that is to be subsidized by taxpayers.
"We're not going to cover undocumented aliens, undocumented workers," Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, told reporters in May. "That's too politically explosive."
Republicans, however, point out that the Democrats, by refusing to accept the Heller amendment, would deny health agencies from conducting simple database checks to verify citizenship. Many states give illegals driver licenses, which will be sufficient to get free health care under the plan.
Critics also contend that millions of illegals who already have counterfeit Social Security cards or other fraudulent documents. There is no enforcement mechanism in the legislation, experts say, to prevent illegals who use fake IDs to obtain jobs from also obtaining taxpayer-subsidized health insurance.
GOP representatives introduced the amendment to provide a way to weed out non-citizens from the program.
A description of the amendment on Heller's Web site state it would "better screen applicants for subsidized health care to ensure they are actually citizens or otherwise entitled to it."
The Web post added, "The underlying bill is insufficient for the purpose of preventing illegal aliens from accessing the bill’s proposed benefits, as it does not provide mechanisms allowing those administering the program to ensure illegal aliens cannot access taxpayer-funded subsidies and benefits."
The Heller amendment would have required that individuals applying for the public health care option would be subject to two systems used to verify immigration status already in use by the government: The Income and Eligibility Verification System (IEVS) and the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program.
The two systems cross-reference Social Security numbers and employment information to establish whether an individual is a U.S. citizen.
Critics: Free Health Care Means More Illegals
A recent Rasmussen Reports poll found that an overwhelming 80 percent of Americans oppose covering illegals in any public health care bill.
Anti-immigration activists say the availability of low-cost benefits, including health insurance and in-state tuition, will only lure more immigrants to come to the United States.
Political analyst Dick Morris, in his recently released best-selling book “Catastrophe”, warns that giving illegal free health care will lead to a flood of new illegals who can take advantage of such a benefit not offered in their home countries.
William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration, agrees with that sentiment, writing, "Each state and federal elected official must know that illegal aliens should not be given licenses, in-state tuition, mortgages, bank accounts, welfare, or any other benefit short of emergency medical care and law enforcement accommodations before they are deported."
But a small fraction of illegals end up deported, as many make widespread use of fake IDs to easily gain access to government benefits programs.
"Experts suggest that approximately 75 percent of working-age illegal aliens use fraudulent Social Security cards to obtain employment," wrote Ronald W. Mortensen in a recent Center for Immigration Studies research paper. Mortensen says one of the big misconceptions about illegals is that they are undocumented.
James R. Edwards Jr., co-author of The Congressional Politics of Immigration Reform, recently wrote on National Review Online that "it's hard to envision how health reform can avoid tripping the immigration booby trap."
Edwards says none of the legislation under consideration actually requires any state, federal, or local agency to check the immigration status of those who apply for the program.
The assumption is that companies have vetted their employees to ensure they are eligibility for legal employment – a difficult task for employers given the active market in fraudulent documents. Thus Edwards maintains "some of the money distributed … inevitably would go to illegal aliens."
The estimates of illegal aliens in the United States without health insurance vary. The most commonly cited statistic, attributed to the Center for Immigration Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau, holds that 15 percent to 22 percent of the nation's 46 million uninsured are illegal aliens. That would be between 6.9 million and 10.1 million people. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama claimed the nation United States has 12 million or more undocumented aliens.
John Sheils of the Lewin Group, a health care consulting firm owned by UnitedHealth Group, recently told National Public Radio that about 6.1 million illegals – about half of all illegals in the United States – lack documentation and therefore would not be legally eligible for benefits under the current health care reforms.
Sheils says the other half of the nation's illegals – 5 million to 6 million – use false documents to obtain on-the-books employment. Many of them are already insured under their employers' plans, he added.
"A lot of those people are getting employer health benefits as part of their compensation," Sheils told NPR.
Certainly, some contend that undocumented workers who are gainfully employed and receiving benefits such as health insurance are contributing to society. But the fact remains that, once equipped with a fake ID, a person in the United States illegally can obtain both a job and the benefits that go with it.
Estimates of the cost of providing illegals with medical care vary. Most uninsured illegals who need medical attention obtain it from hospital emergency rooms. And several states are already straining under the huge burden of paying for the health costs of illegal aliens.
According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), in 2004 California's estimated cost of unreimbursed medical care was $1.4 billion. Texas estimated its cost at $850 million annually, and Arizona at $400 million.
Non-border states shoulder heavy burdens as well. Virginia's annual cost of providing health care for undocumented workers is approximately $100 million per year, FAIR reports, while Florida's health care cost is about $300 million annually.
One of the ironies of the proposed legislation is that it would fine American citizens who opt not to purchase insurance coverage, but would exempt illegals from such fines. This is presumably due to the fact that they are not supposed to participate in the program anyway.
Even if no illegals were likely to benefit from health care reform, Democrats have made it clear that amnesty is the next item on their ambitious legislative agenda.
"I've got to do health care, I've got to do energy, and then I'm looking very closely at doing immigration," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., declared in June.
Reid explained the urgent need for amnesty in terms very similar to those that Democrats have used to press for health care reform. "We have an immigration system that's broken and needs repair," Reid said.
Immigration expert Edwards, for one, says health-care reform may itself need serious medical attention before it is healthy enough pass through Congress.
"The American people may soon realize how much health reform will benefit immigrants and cost the native-born," he writes. "When that happens, the volatile politics of immigration could derail universal health care."
By: David A. Patten
On Friday, Democrats moved one step closer to giving free health insurance to the nation’s estimated 12 million illegal aliens when they successfully defeated a Republican-backed amendment, offered by Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev., that would have prevented illegal aliens from receiving government-subsidized health care under the proposed plan backed by House Democrats and President Barack Obama.
The House Ways and Means Committee nixed the Heller amendment by a 26-to-15 vote along straight party lines, and followed this action by passing the 1,018-page bill early Friday morning by a 23-to-18 margin, with three Democrats voting against the plan.
The Democratic plan will embrace Obama’s vision of bringing free government medical care to more than 45 million uninsured people in America – a significant portion of whom are illegal aliens.
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, costs under the Obama plan being proposed by the House will saddle citizens with $1.04 trillion in new federal outlays over the next decade.
Congressional Democrats and Obama have argued that their health plan is necessary to contain rising health care costs.
But, last Thursday, CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf testified before the Senate Budget Committee and warned lawmakers that the proposed “legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health care costs."
A key factor increasing costs is that Democratic plan provides for blanket coverage to as much as 15 percent of the U.S. population not currently insured, including illegals.
Democrats had insisted throughout the health-care reform debate that illegals would be ineligible for the so-called public option plan that is to be subsidized by taxpayers.
"We're not going to cover undocumented aliens, undocumented workers," Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, told reporters in May. "That's too politically explosive."
Republicans, however, point out that the Democrats, by refusing to accept the Heller amendment, would deny health agencies from conducting simple database checks to verify citizenship. Many states give illegals driver licenses, which will be sufficient to get free health care under the plan.
Critics also contend that millions of illegals who already have counterfeit Social Security cards or other fraudulent documents. There is no enforcement mechanism in the legislation, experts say, to prevent illegals who use fake IDs to obtain jobs from also obtaining taxpayer-subsidized health insurance.
GOP representatives introduced the amendment to provide a way to weed out non-citizens from the program.
A description of the amendment on Heller's Web site state it would "better screen applicants for subsidized health care to ensure they are actually citizens or otherwise entitled to it."
The Web post added, "The underlying bill is insufficient for the purpose of preventing illegal aliens from accessing the bill’s proposed benefits, as it does not provide mechanisms allowing those administering the program to ensure illegal aliens cannot access taxpayer-funded subsidies and benefits."
The Heller amendment would have required that individuals applying for the public health care option would be subject to two systems used to verify immigration status already in use by the government: The Income and Eligibility Verification System (IEVS) and the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program.
The two systems cross-reference Social Security numbers and employment information to establish whether an individual is a U.S. citizen.
Critics: Free Health Care Means More Illegals
A recent Rasmussen Reports poll found that an overwhelming 80 percent of Americans oppose covering illegals in any public health care bill.
Anti-immigration activists say the availability of low-cost benefits, including health insurance and in-state tuition, will only lure more immigrants to come to the United States.
Political analyst Dick Morris, in his recently released best-selling book “Catastrophe”, warns that giving illegal free health care will lead to a flood of new illegals who can take advantage of such a benefit not offered in their home countries.
William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration, agrees with that sentiment, writing, "Each state and federal elected official must know that illegal aliens should not be given licenses, in-state tuition, mortgages, bank accounts, welfare, or any other benefit short of emergency medical care and law enforcement accommodations before they are deported."
But a small fraction of illegals end up deported, as many make widespread use of fake IDs to easily gain access to government benefits programs.
"Experts suggest that approximately 75 percent of working-age illegal aliens use fraudulent Social Security cards to obtain employment," wrote Ronald W. Mortensen in a recent Center for Immigration Studies research paper. Mortensen says one of the big misconceptions about illegals is that they are undocumented.
James R. Edwards Jr., co-author of The Congressional Politics of Immigration Reform, recently wrote on National Review Online that "it's hard to envision how health reform can avoid tripping the immigration booby trap."
Edwards says none of the legislation under consideration actually requires any state, federal, or local agency to check the immigration status of those who apply for the program.
The assumption is that companies have vetted their employees to ensure they are eligibility for legal employment – a difficult task for employers given the active market in fraudulent documents. Thus Edwards maintains "some of the money distributed … inevitably would go to illegal aliens."
The estimates of illegal aliens in the United States without health insurance vary. The most commonly cited statistic, attributed to the Center for Immigration Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau, holds that 15 percent to 22 percent of the nation's 46 million uninsured are illegal aliens. That would be between 6.9 million and 10.1 million people. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama claimed the nation United States has 12 million or more undocumented aliens.
John Sheils of the Lewin Group, a health care consulting firm owned by UnitedHealth Group, recently told National Public Radio that about 6.1 million illegals – about half of all illegals in the United States – lack documentation and therefore would not be legally eligible for benefits under the current health care reforms.
Sheils says the other half of the nation's illegals – 5 million to 6 million – use false documents to obtain on-the-books employment. Many of them are already insured under their employers' plans, he added.
"A lot of those people are getting employer health benefits as part of their compensation," Sheils told NPR.
Certainly, some contend that undocumented workers who are gainfully employed and receiving benefits such as health insurance are contributing to society. But the fact remains that, once equipped with a fake ID, a person in the United States illegally can obtain both a job and the benefits that go with it.
Estimates of the cost of providing illegals with medical care vary. Most uninsured illegals who need medical attention obtain it from hospital emergency rooms. And several states are already straining under the huge burden of paying for the health costs of illegal aliens.
According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), in 2004 California's estimated cost of unreimbursed medical care was $1.4 billion. Texas estimated its cost at $850 million annually, and Arizona at $400 million.
Non-border states shoulder heavy burdens as well. Virginia's annual cost of providing health care for undocumented workers is approximately $100 million per year, FAIR reports, while Florida's health care cost is about $300 million annually.
One of the ironies of the proposed legislation is that it would fine American citizens who opt not to purchase insurance coverage, but would exempt illegals from such fines. This is presumably due to the fact that they are not supposed to participate in the program anyway.
Even if no illegals were likely to benefit from health care reform, Democrats have made it clear that amnesty is the next item on their ambitious legislative agenda.
"I've got to do health care, I've got to do energy, and then I'm looking very closely at doing immigration," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., declared in June.
Reid explained the urgent need for amnesty in terms very similar to those that Democrats have used to press for health care reform. "We have an immigration system that's broken and needs repair," Reid said.
Immigration expert Edwards, for one, says health-care reform may itself need serious medical attention before it is healthy enough pass through Congress.
"The American people may soon realize how much health reform will benefit immigrants and cost the native-born," he writes. "When that happens, the volatile politics of immigration could derail universal health care."
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Government-Run Health Care? You First!
Posted by Bobby Eberle
July 9, 2009 at 7:10 am
The health care debate rages on, with Barack Obama and Democrats continuing to push for a government-run health care plan. Forget the good, old days when you could say, "It's a free country, isn't it?" Now, if the Democrats have their way, not only will the government be more involved in our private health decisions, but Americans will be FORCED to purchase health insurance.
What was apparent, however, from Obama's response during his health care presentation was that if his family needed urgent medical care, he would do everything he could even if it meant using health care resources not available in the plans that he wants to push on American families. Apparently, what's good for the goose is not good for the gander, and one congressman wants to see that changed...
As reported at CNSNews.com, Rep. John Fleming (R-LA) has introduced a resolution that "urges members of Congress who vote to create a government-run health insurance agency to give up their own comprehensive health insurance plans to join the new the public option they advocate for others."
What a novel idea! Politicians being forced to follow the same rules that the "common folk" have to follow.
According to the resolution which is available at Fleming's web site, the "resolved" section would read: That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that Members who vote in favor of the establishment of a public, federal government run health insurance option are urged to forgo their right to participate in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) and agree to enroll under that public option.
On his web site, Fleming (who is a physician) states:
Over the past few weeks, members of Congress and the American people have come to know the details of the Administration's proposed health care plan. Call it whatever you like, this proposal is nothing more than government-run health care. As a physician, I am amazed at the number of bureaucrats in this House who are quick to claim a government-run health care plan is the reform this country needs. In response to this, I have offered a resolution that will offer members of Congress an opportunity to put their money where their mouth is, and urge their colleagues who vote for legislation creating a government-run health care plan to lead by example and enroll themselves in the same public plan.
Under the current draft of the Democrat healthcare legislation, members of Congress are curiously exempt from the government-run health care option, keeping their existing health plans and services on Capitol Hill. If Members of Congress believe so strongly that government-run health care is the best solution for hard working American families, I think it only fitting that Americans see them lead the way. Public servants should always be accountable and responsible for what they are advocating, and I challenge the American people to demand this from their representatives.
So... the Democrats are pushing hard to force Americans into a left-wing form of socialized medicine, yet they are exempt from the plan. Does that seem fair? If this plan is so important, if the health care system is in such a crisis, why aren't these politicians rushing to sign up for it? Why are they exempt?
The left-wing elite love to propose grand government solutions. The government is the key to everything, right? Apparently not. When it comes to health care, the Democrats know that there are better options, and they want to keep those for themselves.
July 9, 2009 at 7:10 am
The health care debate rages on, with Barack Obama and Democrats continuing to push for a government-run health care plan. Forget the good, old days when you could say, "It's a free country, isn't it?" Now, if the Democrats have their way, not only will the government be more involved in our private health decisions, but Americans will be FORCED to purchase health insurance.
What was apparent, however, from Obama's response during his health care presentation was that if his family needed urgent medical care, he would do everything he could even if it meant using health care resources not available in the plans that he wants to push on American families. Apparently, what's good for the goose is not good for the gander, and one congressman wants to see that changed...
As reported at CNSNews.com, Rep. John Fleming (R-LA) has introduced a resolution that "urges members of Congress who vote to create a government-run health insurance agency to give up their own comprehensive health insurance plans to join the new the public option they advocate for others."
What a novel idea! Politicians being forced to follow the same rules that the "common folk" have to follow.
According to the resolution which is available at Fleming's web site, the "resolved" section would read: That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that Members who vote in favor of the establishment of a public, federal government run health insurance option are urged to forgo their right to participate in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) and agree to enroll under that public option.
On his web site, Fleming (who is a physician) states:
Over the past few weeks, members of Congress and the American people have come to know the details of the Administration's proposed health care plan. Call it whatever you like, this proposal is nothing more than government-run health care. As a physician, I am amazed at the number of bureaucrats in this House who are quick to claim a government-run health care plan is the reform this country needs. In response to this, I have offered a resolution that will offer members of Congress an opportunity to put their money where their mouth is, and urge their colleagues who vote for legislation creating a government-run health care plan to lead by example and enroll themselves in the same public plan.
Under the current draft of the Democrat healthcare legislation, members of Congress are curiously exempt from the government-run health care option, keeping their existing health plans and services on Capitol Hill. If Members of Congress believe so strongly that government-run health care is the best solution for hard working American families, I think it only fitting that Americans see them lead the way. Public servants should always be accountable and responsible for what they are advocating, and I challenge the American people to demand this from their representatives.
So... the Democrats are pushing hard to force Americans into a left-wing form of socialized medicine, yet they are exempt from the plan. Does that seem fair? If this plan is so important, if the health care system is in such a crisis, why aren't these politicians rushing to sign up for it? Why are they exempt?
The left-wing elite love to propose grand government solutions. The government is the key to everything, right? Apparently not. When it comes to health care, the Democrats know that there are better options, and they want to keep those for themselves.
FAIR: Obama Betrays Security for Illegal Amnesty
Tuesday, July 14, 2009 7:15 PM
By: Rick Pedraza
The country’s largest immigration reform group called the Obama administration’s massive illegal alien amnesty program a low priority that should take a back seat to security concerns.
"The American people have some very clear ideas about the priorities President Obama and Congress need to address, and a massive illegal alien amnesty isn’t one of them," Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) told Personal Liberty Digest.
"The public wants our immigration system fixed, but they expect their interests, not the interests of the people who broke our laws, to be paramount."
Stern, in an op-ed piece in the Buffalo News, wrote that international terrorist organizations have not given up their quest to attack this country. He said enacting a massive amnesty for nearly 13 million illegal aliens before securing the nation’s borders will exploit our vulnerability and could destroy infrastructure.
Stern called out Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., for stating in late June that securing America’s borders would have to wait until after enactment of a massive amnesty for illegal aliens. Schumer, who chairs the powerful Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Refugees, is predicting that sweeping immigration reform, including amnesty, will become law before the year is over.
“Unfortunately, Schumer and many in Washington seem prepared to use homeland security as a bargaining chip to leverage another massive amnesty for illegal aliens that the American public does not want and cannot afford,” Stern wrote. “In doing so, he and others are gambling with the security of the nation and the lives of innocent people.”
FAIR points out that since taking office, the Obama administration has abandoned enforcement of U.S. immigration laws.
In April, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano during an appearance on CNN asserted that illegal immigration is really not a crime.
In late June, Obama told a group of bipartisan lawmakers that Congress should get a plan together by year’s end.
During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama promised to address immigration reform and make amnesty a top priority during his first year in office.
Last month, Obama said that America can't continue with a broken immigration system.
Obama said the current system is not good for American workers or U.S. wages; puts Mexicans who cross the border in danger; keeps undocumented workers exploited and in the shadows; and strains border communities.
Stern said Schumer and others want to legalize millions of illegal aliens for political reasons and reasons of personal conviction.
“Why, eight years after 9/11, do we not have operational control of our borders? And why should reasserting control have to wait for anything? Congress and the president have a moral and constitutional obligation to use all resources already available to protect the security of the nation,” Stern wrote in The News.
“As chairman of the relevant subcommittee, and as an elected representative of the people who would most likely suffer in the event of another terrorist attack, Schumer has an obligation to put other considerations [such as amnesty] aside,” he added.
“As a member of the House in 1986, Schumer was instrumental in passing similar legislation that granted amnesty to illegal aliens in exchange for government commitments to control future illegal immigration. Some 3 million illegal aliens got amnesty while the American people got fooled. This time, the security and interests of law-abiding Americans must come first.”
By: Rick Pedraza
The country’s largest immigration reform group called the Obama administration’s massive illegal alien amnesty program a low priority that should take a back seat to security concerns.
"The American people have some very clear ideas about the priorities President Obama and Congress need to address, and a massive illegal alien amnesty isn’t one of them," Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) told Personal Liberty Digest.
"The public wants our immigration system fixed, but they expect their interests, not the interests of the people who broke our laws, to be paramount."
Stern, in an op-ed piece in the Buffalo News, wrote that international terrorist organizations have not given up their quest to attack this country. He said enacting a massive amnesty for nearly 13 million illegal aliens before securing the nation’s borders will exploit our vulnerability and could destroy infrastructure.
Stern called out Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., for stating in late June that securing America’s borders would have to wait until after enactment of a massive amnesty for illegal aliens. Schumer, who chairs the powerful Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Refugees, is predicting that sweeping immigration reform, including amnesty, will become law before the year is over.
“Unfortunately, Schumer and many in Washington seem prepared to use homeland security as a bargaining chip to leverage another massive amnesty for illegal aliens that the American public does not want and cannot afford,” Stern wrote. “In doing so, he and others are gambling with the security of the nation and the lives of innocent people.”
FAIR points out that since taking office, the Obama administration has abandoned enforcement of U.S. immigration laws.
In April, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano during an appearance on CNN asserted that illegal immigration is really not a crime.
In late June, Obama told a group of bipartisan lawmakers that Congress should get a plan together by year’s end.
During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama promised to address immigration reform and make amnesty a top priority during his first year in office.
Last month, Obama said that America can't continue with a broken immigration system.
Obama said the current system is not good for American workers or U.S. wages; puts Mexicans who cross the border in danger; keeps undocumented workers exploited and in the shadows; and strains border communities.
Stern said Schumer and others want to legalize millions of illegal aliens for political reasons and reasons of personal conviction.
“Why, eight years after 9/11, do we not have operational control of our borders? And why should reasserting control have to wait for anything? Congress and the president have a moral and constitutional obligation to use all resources already available to protect the security of the nation,” Stern wrote in The News.
“As chairman of the relevant subcommittee, and as an elected representative of the people who would most likely suffer in the event of another terrorist attack, Schumer has an obligation to put other considerations [such as amnesty] aside,” he added.
“As a member of the House in 1986, Schumer was instrumental in passing similar legislation that granted amnesty to illegal aliens in exchange for government commitments to control future illegal immigration. Some 3 million illegal aliens got amnesty while the American people got fooled. This time, the security and interests of law-abiding Americans must come first.”
Fetuses Found to Have Memories, Say Researchers
Thursday, July 16, 2009 8:30 AM
By: Jennifer Harper, The Washington Times
They weigh less than 3 pounds, usually, and are perhaps 15 inches long. But they can remember.
The unborn have memories, according to medical researchers who used sound and vibration stimulation, combined with sonography, to reveal that the human fetus displays short-term memory from at least 30 weeks gestation - or about two months before they are born.
"In addition, results indicated that 34-week-old fetuses are able to store information and retrieve it four weeks later," said the research, which was released Wednesday.
Scientists from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Maastricht University Medical Centre and the University Medical Centre St. Radboud, both in the Netherlands, based their findings on a study of 100 healthy pregnant women and their fetuses with the help of some gentle but precise sensory stimulation.
On five occasions during the last eight weeks of their pregnancies, the women received a series of one-second buzzes on their bellies with a "fetal vibroacoustic stimulator," a hand-held diagnostic device used to gauge an unborn baby's heart rate and general well-being.
The baby's responses - primarily eye, mouth and body movements - were closely monitored over the weeks with ultrasound imaging to gauge "fetal learning" patterns. The researchers found that the babies acclimated themselves to the sounds and vibrations to the point that they no longer bothered to respond - a process known as "habituation."
"The stimulus is then accepted as 'safe' " by the babies, the study said.
The team also found that the tiny test subjects actually improved these skills as they grew older, with those who were 34- or 36-weeks old clearly showing that they had become familiar with the hum outside the womb.
"The fetus 'remembers' the stimulus and the number of stimuli needed for the fetus to habituate is then much smaller," the study said.
"It seems like every day we find out marvelous new things about the development of unborn children. We hope that this latest information helps people realize more clearly that the unborn are members of the human family with amazing capabilities and capacities like these built in from the moment of conception," said Randall K. O'Bannon, director of education and research for the National Right to Life Educational Trust Fund.
A call to NARAL Pro-Choice America for comment on the implications of the research were not returned.
The Dutch medical team, meanwhile, said its findings could help obstetricians track the healthy development of unborn babies during pregnancy. The research was published in Child Development, a medical journal.
Scientists have been curious about fetal responses to sound for decades.
The first real study of "habituation" occurred in 1925 when researchers discovered that fetuses moved less when exposed to a beeping car horn. Since then, door buzzers and even electric toothbrushes have been used to help researchers understand the fetal environment - and the response of the unborn to such influences.
Beeps and buzzes were not always the tools of choice.
In 2003, psychologists and obstetricians at Queen's University in Canada found a profound mother-baby link. In a study of 60 pregnant women, they found that the unborn babies preferred the voices of their own mothers - both before and after birth.
The heart rates of fetuses sped up when they heard their mother reading a poem, and slowed down when they heard a stranger's voice - evidence of "sustained attention, memory and learning by the fetus," said Barbara Kisilevsky, a professor of nursing who led the research.
The Queen's group has also investigated fetal response to the father's voice, concluding that if men try a little pre-natal vocalizing to their offspring, the newborn will later recognize the father's voice.
© 2009
Copyright 2009 All Rights Reserved
By: Jennifer Harper, The Washington Times
They weigh less than 3 pounds, usually, and are perhaps 15 inches long. But they can remember.
The unborn have memories, according to medical researchers who used sound and vibration stimulation, combined with sonography, to reveal that the human fetus displays short-term memory from at least 30 weeks gestation - or about two months before they are born.
"In addition, results indicated that 34-week-old fetuses are able to store information and retrieve it four weeks later," said the research, which was released Wednesday.
Scientists from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Maastricht University Medical Centre and the University Medical Centre St. Radboud, both in the Netherlands, based their findings on a study of 100 healthy pregnant women and their fetuses with the help of some gentle but precise sensory stimulation.
On five occasions during the last eight weeks of their pregnancies, the women received a series of one-second buzzes on their bellies with a "fetal vibroacoustic stimulator," a hand-held diagnostic device used to gauge an unborn baby's heart rate and general well-being.
The baby's responses - primarily eye, mouth and body movements - were closely monitored over the weeks with ultrasound imaging to gauge "fetal learning" patterns. The researchers found that the babies acclimated themselves to the sounds and vibrations to the point that they no longer bothered to respond - a process known as "habituation."
"The stimulus is then accepted as 'safe' " by the babies, the study said.
The team also found that the tiny test subjects actually improved these skills as they grew older, with those who were 34- or 36-weeks old clearly showing that they had become familiar with the hum outside the womb.
"The fetus 'remembers' the stimulus and the number of stimuli needed for the fetus to habituate is then much smaller," the study said.
"It seems like every day we find out marvelous new things about the development of unborn children. We hope that this latest information helps people realize more clearly that the unborn are members of the human family with amazing capabilities and capacities like these built in from the moment of conception," said Randall K. O'Bannon, director of education and research for the National Right to Life Educational Trust Fund.
A call to NARAL Pro-Choice America for comment on the implications of the research were not returned.
The Dutch medical team, meanwhile, said its findings could help obstetricians track the healthy development of unborn babies during pregnancy. The research was published in Child Development, a medical journal.
Scientists have been curious about fetal responses to sound for decades.
The first real study of "habituation" occurred in 1925 when researchers discovered that fetuses moved less when exposed to a beeping car horn. Since then, door buzzers and even electric toothbrushes have been used to help researchers understand the fetal environment - and the response of the unborn to such influences.
Beeps and buzzes were not always the tools of choice.
In 2003, psychologists and obstetricians at Queen's University in Canada found a profound mother-baby link. In a study of 60 pregnant women, they found that the unborn babies preferred the voices of their own mothers - both before and after birth.
The heart rates of fetuses sped up when they heard their mother reading a poem, and slowed down when they heard a stranger's voice - evidence of "sustained attention, memory and learning by the fetus," said Barbara Kisilevsky, a professor of nursing who led the research.
The Queen's group has also investigated fetal response to the father's voice, concluding that if men try a little pre-natal vocalizing to their offspring, the newborn will later recognize the father's voice.
© 2009
Copyright 2009 All Rights Reserved
Obama science czar Holdren called for forced abortions
'Comprehensive Planetary Regime could control development, distribution of all natural resources'
Posted: July 11, 2009
8:20 pm Eastern
By Drew Zahn
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
John Holdren
The man President Obama has chosen to be his science czar once advocated a shocking approach to the "population crisis" feared by scientists at the time: namely, compulsory abortions in the U.S. and a "Planetary Regime" with the power to enforce human reproduction restrictions.
"There exists ample authority under which population growth could be regulated," wrote Obama appointee John Holdren, as reported by FrontPage Magazine. "It has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society."
Holdren's comments, made in 1977, mirror the astonishing admission this week of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who said she was under the impression that legalizing abortion with the 1973 Roe. v. Wade case would eliminate undesirable members of the populace, or as she put it "populations that we don't want to have too many of."
In 1977, when many scientists were alarmed by predictions of harmful environmental effects of human population growth, Holdren teamed with Paul R. Ehrlich, author of "The Population Bomb," and his wife, Anne, to pen "Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment."
Holdren's book proposed multiple strategies to curb population growth, and, according to the quotes excerpted by FrontPage Magazine, advocated an international police force to ensure the strategies were carried out.
"Such a comprehensive Planetary Regime could control the development, administration, conservation, and distribution of all natural resources, renewable or nonrenewable," Holdren and the Ehrlichs reportedly wrote. "The Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various countries' shares within their regional limits. ... The Regime would have some power to enforce the agreed limits."
The website Zombietime has posted photos of text excerpts from "Ecoscience," referencing even further strategies from Holdren and the Ehrlichs, including compulsory adoption of children born to teenage mothers, forced sterilization and other government-mandated population control measures.
A former Teresa and John Heinz professor of environmental policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Holdren was appointed as the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and confirmed on March 20 to assume the position informally known as Obama's "science czar."
Holdren's track record shows a trend of alarmist viewpoints on scientific issues, including a statement made in 1973 that the U.S. population of 210 million at the time was "too many, and 280 million in 2040 is likely to be much too many." In response, Holdren recommended "a continued decline in fertility to well below replacement should be encouraged, with the aim of achieving [zero population growth] before the year 2000."
The current U.S. population is approximately 304 million.
After the perceived "crisis" of population growth faded, however, Holdren began sounding the alarm over global climate change. In the 1980s Holdren warned of human-caused ecological disasters resulting in the deaths of a billion people before 2020, and as recently as 2006, Holdren warned that sea levels could rise as much as 13 feet by the year 2010.
WND reported Holdren's participation in a panel predicting a dire future caused by global warming and calling for a global tax on greenhouse gas emissions in a report to the U.N.
Holdren's activism for greater government involvement drew a negative reaction from other scientists in the form of an open letter to Congress, WND reported.
"This is the same science adviser who has given us predictions of 'almost certain' thermonuclear war or eco-catastrophe by the year 2000, and many other forecasts of doom that somehow never seem to arrive on time.
"The sky is not falling; the Earth has been cooling for 10 years, without help. The present cooling was NOT predicted by the alarmists' computer models, and has come as an embarrassment to them.
"The finest meteorologists in the world cannot predict the weather two weeks in advance, let alone the climate for the rest of the century. Can Al Gore? Can John Holdren? We are flooded with claims that the evidence is clear, that the debate is closed, that we must act immediately, etc, but in fact THERE IS NO SUCH EVIDENCE; IT DOESN'T EXIST."
During his confirmation, at a hearing before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, Holdren was grilled about his history of predicting calamity and advocating radical measures in response.
Sen. David Vitter, R-La., expressed concern at the hearing that Holdren's alarmist positions violated a statement made by President Obama when he nominated the Harvard professor:
"The truth is that promoting science isn't just about providing resources – it's about protecting free and open inquiry," Obama said. "It's about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology."
In response, Holdren sought to differentiate between alarmist "predictions" and simply "descriptions" of where America could wind up if it continues on its current path:
"The motivation for looking at the downside possibilities, the possibilities that can go wrong if things continue in a bad direction, is to motivate people to change direction. That was my intention at the time." Holdren explained. "I think it is responsible to call attention to the dangers that society faces so we will make the investments and make the changes needed to reduce those dangers."
Regarding his more recent forecasts of environmental doom, Holdren affirmed, "We continue to be on a perilous path with respect to climate change, and I think we need to do more work to get that reversed."
Nonetheless, Vitter persisted in questioning Holdren's potential political ideology behind advocating government-mandated population control:
"I'm scared to death that you think this is a proper function of government," Vitter said. "Do you think that determining optimal population is a proper role of government?"
"No, Senator, I do not," Holdren answered.
Holdren then explained that current policies, including those that promote health care and opportunities for women, as well as education, naturally create families more likely to have fewer children, thus solving the potential problems of population growth.
Posted: July 11, 2009
8:20 pm Eastern
By Drew Zahn
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
John Holdren
The man President Obama has chosen to be his science czar once advocated a shocking approach to the "population crisis" feared by scientists at the time: namely, compulsory abortions in the U.S. and a "Planetary Regime" with the power to enforce human reproduction restrictions.
"There exists ample authority under which population growth could be regulated," wrote Obama appointee John Holdren, as reported by FrontPage Magazine. "It has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society."
Holdren's comments, made in 1977, mirror the astonishing admission this week of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who said she was under the impression that legalizing abortion with the 1973 Roe. v. Wade case would eliminate undesirable members of the populace, or as she put it "populations that we don't want to have too many of."
In 1977, when many scientists were alarmed by predictions of harmful environmental effects of human population growth, Holdren teamed with Paul R. Ehrlich, author of "The Population Bomb," and his wife, Anne, to pen "Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment."
Holdren's book proposed multiple strategies to curb population growth, and, according to the quotes excerpted by FrontPage Magazine, advocated an international police force to ensure the strategies were carried out.
"Such a comprehensive Planetary Regime could control the development, administration, conservation, and distribution of all natural resources, renewable or nonrenewable," Holdren and the Ehrlichs reportedly wrote. "The Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various countries' shares within their regional limits. ... The Regime would have some power to enforce the agreed limits."
The website Zombietime has posted photos of text excerpts from "Ecoscience," referencing even further strategies from Holdren and the Ehrlichs, including compulsory adoption of children born to teenage mothers, forced sterilization and other government-mandated population control measures.
A former Teresa and John Heinz professor of environmental policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Holdren was appointed as the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and confirmed on March 20 to assume the position informally known as Obama's "science czar."
Holdren's track record shows a trend of alarmist viewpoints on scientific issues, including a statement made in 1973 that the U.S. population of 210 million at the time was "too many, and 280 million in 2040 is likely to be much too many." In response, Holdren recommended "a continued decline in fertility to well below replacement should be encouraged, with the aim of achieving [zero population growth] before the year 2000."
The current U.S. population is approximately 304 million.
After the perceived "crisis" of population growth faded, however, Holdren began sounding the alarm over global climate change. In the 1980s Holdren warned of human-caused ecological disasters resulting in the deaths of a billion people before 2020, and as recently as 2006, Holdren warned that sea levels could rise as much as 13 feet by the year 2010.
WND reported Holdren's participation in a panel predicting a dire future caused by global warming and calling for a global tax on greenhouse gas emissions in a report to the U.N.
Holdren's activism for greater government involvement drew a negative reaction from other scientists in the form of an open letter to Congress, WND reported.
"This is the same science adviser who has given us predictions of 'almost certain' thermonuclear war or eco-catastrophe by the year 2000, and many other forecasts of doom that somehow never seem to arrive on time.
"The sky is not falling; the Earth has been cooling for 10 years, without help. The present cooling was NOT predicted by the alarmists' computer models, and has come as an embarrassment to them.
"The finest meteorologists in the world cannot predict the weather two weeks in advance, let alone the climate for the rest of the century. Can Al Gore? Can John Holdren? We are flooded with claims that the evidence is clear, that the debate is closed, that we must act immediately, etc, but in fact THERE IS NO SUCH EVIDENCE; IT DOESN'T EXIST."
During his confirmation, at a hearing before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, Holdren was grilled about his history of predicting calamity and advocating radical measures in response.
Sen. David Vitter, R-La., expressed concern at the hearing that Holdren's alarmist positions violated a statement made by President Obama when he nominated the Harvard professor:
"The truth is that promoting science isn't just about providing resources – it's about protecting free and open inquiry," Obama said. "It's about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology."
In response, Holdren sought to differentiate between alarmist "predictions" and simply "descriptions" of where America could wind up if it continues on its current path:
"The motivation for looking at the downside possibilities, the possibilities that can go wrong if things continue in a bad direction, is to motivate people to change direction. That was my intention at the time." Holdren explained. "I think it is responsible to call attention to the dangers that society faces so we will make the investments and make the changes needed to reduce those dangers."
Regarding his more recent forecasts of environmental doom, Holdren affirmed, "We continue to be on a perilous path with respect to climate change, and I think we need to do more work to get that reversed."
Nonetheless, Vitter persisted in questioning Holdren's potential political ideology behind advocating government-mandated population control:
"I'm scared to death that you think this is a proper function of government," Vitter said. "Do you think that determining optimal population is a proper role of government?"
"No, Senator, I do not," Holdren answered.
Holdren then explained that current policies, including those that promote health care and opportunities for women, as well as education, naturally create families more likely to have fewer children, thus solving the potential problems of population growth.
Two Scientists, Two Standards
By Michelle Malkin
July 15, 2009
The New York Times recently warned its readers about a wacky scientist in the Obama administration. But the fish wrap of record let the real nut job off the hook.
Reporting last week on the president's choice to head the National Institutes of Health, Times writer Gardiner Harris noted that praise for Dr. Francis S. Collins "was not universal or entirely enthusiastic." The geneticist is causing "unease," according to the Times, because of "his very public embrace of religion." Stomachs are apparently churning over a book Collins wrote describing his conversion to Christianity.
It's called -- gasp! -- "The Language of God." Harris intoned: "Religion and genetic research have long had a fraught relationship, and some in the field complain about what they see as Dr. Collins' evangelism."
And ... that's it. Yes, the mere profession of Collins' faith is enough to warrant red flags and ominous declamations. A quarter of all Americans identify themselves as evangelical Christians and "publicly embrace their religion." But to the Times, Collins' open affiliation with 60 million American believers in Christ is headline news.
The rationality police in the newsroom have not, however, seen fit to print the rantings of a radical secular evangelist now serving as the White House "science czar." John Holdren, Obama's director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and co-chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, co-authored the innocuously titled "Ecoscience" in the 1970s with population control extremists Paul and Anne Ehrlich.
Earlier this year, Ben Johnson at the online publication FrontPage Magazine provided quotes shedding light on Holdren's embrace of "compulsory abortion" for American women "if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society." In "Ecoscience," Holdren and the Ehrlichs also outlined their desire for "a comprehensive Planetary Regime (that) could control the development, administration, conservation and distribution of all natural resources."
Johnson outlined the book's ugly eugenics plan and neo-Malthusian vision of enviro-crats engineering the population. Yet, there was scant mention of Holdren's stomach-churning proposals during his confirmation hearings in February. Holdren's defenders might have comforted themselves by claiming that the quotes were taken out of context. But last week, another online investigative journalist scanned copious pages from the book to show that his words had been unedited and accurately transcribed. The disturbing documents can be found at http://zombietime.com/john_holdren/.
There, you'll find Holdren musing about how to infect the nation's water supply to make women infertile for the benefit of Mother Earth:
"Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. ... No such sterilant exists today, nor does one appear to be under development. To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements: It must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets or livestock."
Holdren's planetary regime would also breed out undesirables "who contribute to social deterioration" and "insist that all illegitimate babies be put up for adoption -- especially those born to minors, who generally are not capable of caring properly for a child alone."
Single mothers who wanted to keep their children would be "obliged to go through adoption proceedings and demonstrate her ability to support and care for it."
If a conservative blogger or Republican political candidate had published such lunatic claptrap, the Department of Homeland Security would have him on a watch list. Instead, Holdren is Overlord of Science Policy. "Ecoscience" remains on his curriculum vitae. Obama is still perceived as the champion of reason. And the national media, so concerned about the dangers posed by a born-again Christian scientist, have responded to a secular extremist's wild blueprints for forced abortions and mass sterilizations with a collective shrug. Scary.
---
Michelle Malkin is the author of the forthcoming "Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies" (Regnery 2009).
July 15, 2009
The New York Times recently warned its readers about a wacky scientist in the Obama administration. But the fish wrap of record let the real nut job off the hook.
Reporting last week on the president's choice to head the National Institutes of Health, Times writer Gardiner Harris noted that praise for Dr. Francis S. Collins "was not universal or entirely enthusiastic." The geneticist is causing "unease," according to the Times, because of "his very public embrace of religion." Stomachs are apparently churning over a book Collins wrote describing his conversion to Christianity.
It's called -- gasp! -- "The Language of God." Harris intoned: "Religion and genetic research have long had a fraught relationship, and some in the field complain about what they see as Dr. Collins' evangelism."
And ... that's it. Yes, the mere profession of Collins' faith is enough to warrant red flags and ominous declamations. A quarter of all Americans identify themselves as evangelical Christians and "publicly embrace their religion." But to the Times, Collins' open affiliation with 60 million American believers in Christ is headline news.
The rationality police in the newsroom have not, however, seen fit to print the rantings of a radical secular evangelist now serving as the White House "science czar." John Holdren, Obama's director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and co-chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, co-authored the innocuously titled "Ecoscience" in the 1970s with population control extremists Paul and Anne Ehrlich.
Earlier this year, Ben Johnson at the online publication FrontPage Magazine provided quotes shedding light on Holdren's embrace of "compulsory abortion" for American women "if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society." In "Ecoscience," Holdren and the Ehrlichs also outlined their desire for "a comprehensive Planetary Regime (that) could control the development, administration, conservation and distribution of all natural resources."
Johnson outlined the book's ugly eugenics plan and neo-Malthusian vision of enviro-crats engineering the population. Yet, there was scant mention of Holdren's stomach-churning proposals during his confirmation hearings in February. Holdren's defenders might have comforted themselves by claiming that the quotes were taken out of context. But last week, another online investigative journalist scanned copious pages from the book to show that his words had been unedited and accurately transcribed. The disturbing documents can be found at http://zombietime.com/john_holdren/.
There, you'll find Holdren musing about how to infect the nation's water supply to make women infertile for the benefit of Mother Earth:
"Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. ... No such sterilant exists today, nor does one appear to be under development. To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements: It must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets or livestock."
Holdren's planetary regime would also breed out undesirables "who contribute to social deterioration" and "insist that all illegitimate babies be put up for adoption -- especially those born to minors, who generally are not capable of caring properly for a child alone."
Single mothers who wanted to keep their children would be "obliged to go through adoption proceedings and demonstrate her ability to support and care for it."
If a conservative blogger or Republican political candidate had published such lunatic claptrap, the Department of Homeland Security would have him on a watch list. Instead, Holdren is Overlord of Science Policy. "Ecoscience" remains on his curriculum vitae. Obama is still perceived as the champion of reason. And the national media, so concerned about the dangers posed by a born-again Christian scientist, have responded to a secular extremist's wild blueprints for forced abortions and mass sterilizations with a collective shrug. Scary.
---
Michelle Malkin is the author of the forthcoming "Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies" (Regnery 2009).
Smuggling abortion agenda into healthcare reform
Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow - 7/16/2009 6:00:00 AM
If passed, two healthcare reform bills could mean more abortions at taxpayers' expense.
The two primary measures -- the Kennedy bill and the House Democratic leadership bill -- contain provisions that would represent the greatest expansion of abortion since the Supreme Court legalized it in 1973, according to Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee.
"These two bills contain multiple provisions that would result in federally mandated insurance coverage of abortion on demand, result in massive federal subsidies for abortion, result even in mandated creation of many new abortion clinics across the country," he explains.
Johnson adds the bills would nullify at least some state limitations on abortion. He concludes passage would result in an increase in abortions, but recalls the Obama administration promised to take steps to reduce them.
"And it's quite true that the majority of Americans do not want the government to be promoting abortion as a method of birth control -- but that is what is imbedded in these bills," Johnson notes.
According to Johnson, the pro-abortion movement hopes to smuggle the policies into law by using healthcare as a vehicle -- and there is a grave danger they will succeed, he laments, unless the public urges their elected representatives to vote against the measures.
On a party-line vote Wednesday, the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee passed the $600 billion Kennedy bill. Democratic lawmakers in both houses of Congress are pushing for debate and passage of the bills before the August recess.
If passed, two healthcare reform bills could mean more abortions at taxpayers' expense.
The two primary measures -- the Kennedy bill and the House Democratic leadership bill -- contain provisions that would represent the greatest expansion of abortion since the Supreme Court legalized it in 1973, according to Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee.
"These two bills contain multiple provisions that would result in federally mandated insurance coverage of abortion on demand, result in massive federal subsidies for abortion, result even in mandated creation of many new abortion clinics across the country," he explains.
Johnson adds the bills would nullify at least some state limitations on abortion. He concludes passage would result in an increase in abortions, but recalls the Obama administration promised to take steps to reduce them.
"And it's quite true that the majority of Americans do not want the government to be promoting abortion as a method of birth control -- but that is what is imbedded in these bills," Johnson notes.
According to Johnson, the pro-abortion movement hopes to smuggle the policies into law by using healthcare as a vehicle -- and there is a grave danger they will succeed, he laments, unless the public urges their elected representatives to vote against the measures.
On a party-line vote Wednesday, the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee passed the $600 billion Kennedy bill. Democratic lawmakers in both houses of Congress are pushing for debate and passage of the bills before the August recess.
Aren't They All 'Hate' Crimes?
- The Loft - http://www.gopusa.com/theloft -
Posted By Bobby Eberle On July 16, 2009 at 6:57 am
As the Senate debates the final provisions of a $680 billion defense bill, Democrats are trying to poison the water by adding a hate crimes bill to the package. It's quite obvious that hate crimes legislation and a defense authorization bill have nothing in common and should not be voted on together.
In addition, where is it written that one group, one gender, one class of people are more special and worthy of more protection than another group? Only in left-wing America. Equal protection under the law? Not any more.
The federal hate crimes bill which is sponsored by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) has been attached as an amendment by Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) to the defense appropriations bill. As noted in The Boston Globe, "Most Republicans oppose the legislation, saying it infringes on states' rights or could lead to the criminalization of religious expressions of opposition to homosexuality."
Senate majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada, has called for a vote, requiring 60 supporters, to move forward on the hate crimes measure. That vote could come as early as today, but timing for a final vote on the amendment was uncertain.
Current hate crimes law applies to acts of violence motivated by prejudice against a person's race, color, national origin, or religion. That would expand under the legislation to include crimes targeting people because of gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.
Sen. John McCain spoke out against the move on Wednesday, saying, "Those of us who oppose this legislation -- and it is important legislation -- will be faced with a dilemma of choosing between a bill which can harm, in my view, the United States of America and its judicial system and a bill defending the nation. I don't think that's fair to any member of this body."
One of the main controversies (outside of the fact that the entire premise of "hate" crimes is wrong) is that the new legislation would cover sexual orientation. Religious groups, which teach that homosexuality is wrong, are obviously concerned on what this bill would do to their ability to promote their teachings.
According to a story in the Associated Press:
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and other supporters also stressed that religious leaders or others who voice objections to homosexuality could not be held liable. The bill "does not criminalize speech or hateful thoughts," he said. "It seeks only to punish action, violent action, that undermines the core values of our nation."
So, what happens if some nut-job sits in a church sermon and then goes out and kills someone based on what he heard in church? Without ANY form of hate crimes legislation, that person would be tried for murder. But now, since those on the left feel that a murder charge doesn't send the right message, the criminal would be charged with a hate crime. But then the guy states that he did it because of what he learned in church.... that he was following God's will. Now what?
The bill is bad, and it has no place being attached to the defense bill. If you'd like to contact your senators, just use the link below. No one deserves special treatment or favored treatment. This is America where we should all be treated equally.
++ Click here to contact Congress. Stop Hate Crime Legislation!
Posted By Bobby Eberle On July 16, 2009 at 6:57 am
As the Senate debates the final provisions of a $680 billion defense bill, Democrats are trying to poison the water by adding a hate crimes bill to the package. It's quite obvious that hate crimes legislation and a defense authorization bill have nothing in common and should not be voted on together.
In addition, where is it written that one group, one gender, one class of people are more special and worthy of more protection than another group? Only in left-wing America. Equal protection under the law? Not any more.
The federal hate crimes bill which is sponsored by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) has been attached as an amendment by Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) to the defense appropriations bill. As noted in The Boston Globe, "Most Republicans oppose the legislation, saying it infringes on states' rights or could lead to the criminalization of religious expressions of opposition to homosexuality."
Senate majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada, has called for a vote, requiring 60 supporters, to move forward on the hate crimes measure. That vote could come as early as today, but timing for a final vote on the amendment was uncertain.
Current hate crimes law applies to acts of violence motivated by prejudice against a person's race, color, national origin, or religion. That would expand under the legislation to include crimes targeting people because of gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.
Sen. John McCain spoke out against the move on Wednesday, saying, "Those of us who oppose this legislation -- and it is important legislation -- will be faced with a dilemma of choosing between a bill which can harm, in my view, the United States of America and its judicial system and a bill defending the nation. I don't think that's fair to any member of this body."
One of the main controversies (outside of the fact that the entire premise of "hate" crimes is wrong) is that the new legislation would cover sexual orientation. Religious groups, which teach that homosexuality is wrong, are obviously concerned on what this bill would do to their ability to promote their teachings.
According to a story in the Associated Press:
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and other supporters also stressed that religious leaders or others who voice objections to homosexuality could not be held liable. The bill "does not criminalize speech or hateful thoughts," he said. "It seeks only to punish action, violent action, that undermines the core values of our nation."
So, what happens if some nut-job sits in a church sermon and then goes out and kills someone based on what he heard in church? Without ANY form of hate crimes legislation, that person would be tried for murder. But now, since those on the left feel that a murder charge doesn't send the right message, the criminal would be charged with a hate crime. But then the guy states that he did it because of what he learned in church.... that he was following God's will. Now what?
The bill is bad, and it has no place being attached to the defense bill. If you'd like to contact your senators, just use the link below. No one deserves special treatment or favored treatment. This is America where we should all be treated equally.
++ Click here to contact Congress. Stop Hate Crime Legislation!
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Obama's 'Pay Czar' -- Welcome to the Twilight Zone
Posted By Bobby Eberle On June 10, 2009 at 7:15 am
We sure have seen a lot in the nearly five months that Barack Obama has been president. Who could have imagined that the government would be controlling certain financial institutions? Who would have thought that General Motors would be under the control of Obama? Who knew that it was possible to create more debt in five months than all previous presidents combined? Welcome to the new America.
But, it doesn't stop there. We've heard so much weirdness coming from Obama like the jobs that have been "created or saved," when job losses continue and the unemployment rate keeps going up, but it doesn't stop there. Today we see yet another step down the path to government control, and another effort by Obama to take freedom away from the American people. In particular, I'm talking about Obama's new plan to appoint a "Pay Czar" to monitor what people are getting paid. We have now entered the Twilight Zone...
As noted in an Associated Press story, "the Obama administration is ready to issue new regulations limiting the compensation of top executives at financial institutions that have received government rescue funds." FOXNews.com reports that the position will be a "pay czar" formally known as a "special master for compensation." Special master for compensation? Are they serious?
As noted in the stories, the position focuses on those financial institutions that received funds from the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP). Now, perhaps there are those who believe that if a troubled business accepts government (tax payer relief) then it should come with strings attached. In some ways that makes sense. I, as an investor, would like to see a return on this investment (bailout), but I also realize that the companies are in the best position to manage things... not me or the government.
Now people are probably jumping up and down saying, "If the companies were so good at running things, they wouldn't be in this mess." Well, that's partly true. We all have to keep in mind that this "mess" was created by forcing lending institutions to loan money to people who would normally be considered "bad risks."
Ok, back to the main point... regardless of whether a financial institution received government funds, the government has no business telling the institution how to run itself. Wages, regulations, policies, etc. are established by the company or institution. They form contracts between management and employees. That is how companies are run. For Obama to now say that he wants to control what they get paid shows two things: 1) it further reveals his desire to move America toward more and more government control. 2) It shows that Obama has no understanding of business.
If Obama limits the salaries of top executives at companies A, B, and C, don't you think those executives are more likely to go work for companies D, E, and F? What does that do for companies A, B, and C which are already "troubled?" I guess we already know the answer to that one when we look at General Motors: government "ownership" of production.
But, of course, Obama is not stopping there. Just check out the news story:
The government, however, is not stopping at federally assisted institutions. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke want to give the Fed, which regulates banks, and the Securities and Exchange Commission, which oversees the financial markets, greater powers to set compensation guidelines across the financial sector.
Can you believe this? Now, we are not just talking about institutions that accepted TARP funds. We are talking about an entire sector of the economy. Just look at what Obama's treasury secretary had to say:
"I think boards of directors did not do a good job," [Treasury Secretary Timothy] Geithner said Tuesday. "I think shareholders did not do a good job in terms of discipline and compensation practices."
So, Geithner blasts boards of directors (the managers) and the shareholders (the people). If the managers and regular folks are to blame, what's left to save the day? That's right... the government. Can we please wake up from this bad dream?
We sure have seen a lot in the nearly five months that Barack Obama has been president. Who could have imagined that the government would be controlling certain financial institutions? Who would have thought that General Motors would be under the control of Obama? Who knew that it was possible to create more debt in five months than all previous presidents combined? Welcome to the new America.
But, it doesn't stop there. We've heard so much weirdness coming from Obama like the jobs that have been "created or saved," when job losses continue and the unemployment rate keeps going up, but it doesn't stop there. Today we see yet another step down the path to government control, and another effort by Obama to take freedom away from the American people. In particular, I'm talking about Obama's new plan to appoint a "Pay Czar" to monitor what people are getting paid. We have now entered the Twilight Zone...
As noted in an Associated Press story, "the Obama administration is ready to issue new regulations limiting the compensation of top executives at financial institutions that have received government rescue funds." FOXNews.com reports that the position will be a "pay czar" formally known as a "special master for compensation." Special master for compensation? Are they serious?
As noted in the stories, the position focuses on those financial institutions that received funds from the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP). Now, perhaps there are those who believe that if a troubled business accepts government (tax payer relief) then it should come with strings attached. In some ways that makes sense. I, as an investor, would like to see a return on this investment (bailout), but I also realize that the companies are in the best position to manage things... not me or the government.
Now people are probably jumping up and down saying, "If the companies were so good at running things, they wouldn't be in this mess." Well, that's partly true. We all have to keep in mind that this "mess" was created by forcing lending institutions to loan money to people who would normally be considered "bad risks."
Ok, back to the main point... regardless of whether a financial institution received government funds, the government has no business telling the institution how to run itself. Wages, regulations, policies, etc. are established by the company or institution. They form contracts between management and employees. That is how companies are run. For Obama to now say that he wants to control what they get paid shows two things: 1) it further reveals his desire to move America toward more and more government control. 2) It shows that Obama has no understanding of business.
If Obama limits the salaries of top executives at companies A, B, and C, don't you think those executives are more likely to go work for companies D, E, and F? What does that do for companies A, B, and C which are already "troubled?" I guess we already know the answer to that one when we look at General Motors: government "ownership" of production.
But, of course, Obama is not stopping there. Just check out the news story:
The government, however, is not stopping at federally assisted institutions. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke want to give the Fed, which regulates banks, and the Securities and Exchange Commission, which oversees the financial markets, greater powers to set compensation guidelines across the financial sector.
Can you believe this? Now, we are not just talking about institutions that accepted TARP funds. We are talking about an entire sector of the economy. Just look at what Obama's treasury secretary had to say:
"I think boards of directors did not do a good job," [Treasury Secretary Timothy] Geithner said Tuesday. "I think shareholders did not do a good job in terms of discipline and compensation practices."
So, Geithner blasts boards of directors (the managers) and the shareholders (the people). If the managers and regular folks are to blame, what's left to save the day? That's right... the government. Can we please wake up from this bad dream?
Panetta Comment Telegraphs America's Present Weakness
By Christopher G. Adamo
June 18, 2009
Once again, a prominent liberal Democrat is projecting his sordid political tactics and those of his party on the opposition. In an interview for next month's issue of The New Yorker magazine, CIA Director Leon Panetta asserted that former Vice-President Dick Cheney might welcome another major terrorist attack on America, as a means of validating his criticism of misguided Obama Administration "security" policies.
Cheney has had the entire liberal cabal up in arms, ever since his May 21 speech to the American Enterprise Institute in which he bluntly warned of the dangers posed by Obama's naive and ideologically driven decisions relating to the terror war. Cheney flatly explained how those policies are putting America at risk. Worse yet, at least from the liberal perspective, ever since his commentary, Cheney's popularity among the American people has risen dramatically. Consequently, the Democrats view him as a bigger danger than Al Qaeda or a nuclear Iran.
One might expect that, in response to Cheney, Panetta might have simply expounded on the new and improved safeguards implemented by Obama and his cronies since inauguration day. Instead, he sought to vilify Cheney's very motive for speaking out, despite the irrelevancy of that motive as a factor in accurately assessing the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of Obama's "security" program. But Panetta and his puppet masters clearly revealed their highest priority as the need to undermine Cheney's personal credibility in the process.
Worse yet, such extreme defensiveness, and the scenario to which it alludes, likely reveals a prevailing nervousness within the Obama Administration to the effect that, in the event of a terror strike, Cheney's warnings might stick. This is a political liability that Obama knows he and his cabinet could not afford. And the magnitude of the response, indicating that they are already in "damage control" mode, is proof that the Obama facade is indeed in the initial stages of collapse.
Recalling events throughout the past sixteen years that led up to the current state of affairs, it is obvious that liberals view any and every situation primarily, perhaps exclusively, from the standpoint of its potential for political gain or loss. Bill Clinton, throughout the 1990s, was wholly indifferent to the burgeoning Islamist threat, only addressing them, on those occasions when he did so, from a perspective of their usefulness to distract America from his other personal problems.
Thus, "retaliatory" cruise missile strikes were ordered against empty terrorist camps on the same day Monica Lewinsky testified before Ken Starr, captured terror "suspects" were dealt with in the judicial swamplands of American courts, and no coherent plan was ever devised to neutralize the emerging danger. Even more deplorable were the actions of Clinton Administration officials such as Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, who did not merely ignore the problem but, at the behest of Clinton, erected barriers to any effective analysis of intelligence information that might have alerted the right people to the imminence of the attacks that did indeed result.
In a similar manner, Obama's first five months have been an unqualified disaster, not just on the security front, but in every aspect of his governing. Once an observer gets past the "hope and change" platitudes, and weighs real outcomes against the empty promises that were offered in such profusion on the campaign trail and during the transition period, it is impossible to assess Obama's tenure as anything else.
The entire "bailout" ruse of last October, for which Obama and his party eagerly took credit at the time, has completely failed to produce any of its promised results while costing current and future taxpayers dearly. The bailout sequel, fraudulently presented as an "economic stimulus," has likewise proven to be every bit as much of a pork-laden sham, and an abomination to every citizen who ever held the Constitution in high regard.
Administration ventures into the auto industry, replete with the predictable squandering of billions of taxpayer dollars, are proving to be just as dismal of a failure. Car companies that had been hit hard by high gasoline prices and the recession are now being completely strangled by meddling bureaucrats who know nothing about building automobiles, but are fanatically devoted to a leftist political agenda.
Gasoline supplies for those cars remain precarious, owing to the fact that Congressional Democrats and Obama refuse to open American territories to oil exploration and drilling. So despite the government's subsidization and takeover of the formerly private auto industry, its prospects for future prosperity are slim to none.
At the onset of a summer that, in many regions of the country, has been one of the coldest on record, the American worker and businessman is being strangled and starved as his livelihood is being subordinated to phony allegations of "global warming."
The hideous face behind the mask of socialized medicine, that "unholy grail" of the liberal agenda, is beginning to be revealed to the public. Massive costs, restricted coverage, and ultimately, rationing of services that will seriously degrade the quality of care received by Americans, ultimately degrading their health and even their lives. As a result, it is no longer resonating with the public as it did when presented in flowery campaign speeches, adorned in those banalities of "hope and change."
Despite Leon Panetta's shameless finger pointing, it must be remembered that the Democrats, his party, were the ones who sought to brazenly exploit catastrophe, whether natural or man-made, as political ammunition. From the Oklahoma City bombing to the Mississippi River floods to Hurricane Katrina, liberals can be counted upon to infuse their political message into any occasion of human suffering.
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel characterizes this as good strategy and the proper exploitation of an opportunity. Despite having been appointed as the nation's intelligence chief, as a liberal Panetta's first devotion will be to the political apparatus of his party. So it should come as no surprise that Panetta would expect similar behavior from a political rival.
Many on the right are waiting for the American public to find their way past the fraud of the liberal press, and awaken to the abysmal realities of the Obama/Democrat agenda. No single event would do so more quickly than another major terrorist attack. And the Obama White House is sensitive to the dire significance of such a possibility, if only for fear of its political fallout.
What if national security has been as thoroughly compromised by this Administration as the free market? Leon Panetta, by his excessive and inflamatory words, has shown his awareness of the dangerous game that is being played with the country's security by blinded liberal ideologues. Americans should read between the lines and be very afraid.
---
Christopher G. Adamo is a freelance writer and staff writer for the New Media Alliance. He lives in southeastern Wyoming. He has been active in local and state politics for many years and is a managing partner in Best American Buy (www.bestamericanbuy.com), an e-commerce business that markets products exclusively made in America. His contact information and archives can be found at www.chrisadamo.com
June 18, 2009
Once again, a prominent liberal Democrat is projecting his sordid political tactics and those of his party on the opposition. In an interview for next month's issue of The New Yorker magazine, CIA Director Leon Panetta asserted that former Vice-President Dick Cheney might welcome another major terrorist attack on America, as a means of validating his criticism of misguided Obama Administration "security" policies.
Cheney has had the entire liberal cabal up in arms, ever since his May 21 speech to the American Enterprise Institute in which he bluntly warned of the dangers posed by Obama's naive and ideologically driven decisions relating to the terror war. Cheney flatly explained how those policies are putting America at risk. Worse yet, at least from the liberal perspective, ever since his commentary, Cheney's popularity among the American people has risen dramatically. Consequently, the Democrats view him as a bigger danger than Al Qaeda or a nuclear Iran.
One might expect that, in response to Cheney, Panetta might have simply expounded on the new and improved safeguards implemented by Obama and his cronies since inauguration day. Instead, he sought to vilify Cheney's very motive for speaking out, despite the irrelevancy of that motive as a factor in accurately assessing the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of Obama's "security" program. But Panetta and his puppet masters clearly revealed their highest priority as the need to undermine Cheney's personal credibility in the process.
Worse yet, such extreme defensiveness, and the scenario to which it alludes, likely reveals a prevailing nervousness within the Obama Administration to the effect that, in the event of a terror strike, Cheney's warnings might stick. This is a political liability that Obama knows he and his cabinet could not afford. And the magnitude of the response, indicating that they are already in "damage control" mode, is proof that the Obama facade is indeed in the initial stages of collapse.
Recalling events throughout the past sixteen years that led up to the current state of affairs, it is obvious that liberals view any and every situation primarily, perhaps exclusively, from the standpoint of its potential for political gain or loss. Bill Clinton, throughout the 1990s, was wholly indifferent to the burgeoning Islamist threat, only addressing them, on those occasions when he did so, from a perspective of their usefulness to distract America from his other personal problems.
Thus, "retaliatory" cruise missile strikes were ordered against empty terrorist camps on the same day Monica Lewinsky testified before Ken Starr, captured terror "suspects" were dealt with in the judicial swamplands of American courts, and no coherent plan was ever devised to neutralize the emerging danger. Even more deplorable were the actions of Clinton Administration officials such as Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, who did not merely ignore the problem but, at the behest of Clinton, erected barriers to any effective analysis of intelligence information that might have alerted the right people to the imminence of the attacks that did indeed result.
In a similar manner, Obama's first five months have been an unqualified disaster, not just on the security front, but in every aspect of his governing. Once an observer gets past the "hope and change" platitudes, and weighs real outcomes against the empty promises that were offered in such profusion on the campaign trail and during the transition period, it is impossible to assess Obama's tenure as anything else.
The entire "bailout" ruse of last October, for which Obama and his party eagerly took credit at the time, has completely failed to produce any of its promised results while costing current and future taxpayers dearly. The bailout sequel, fraudulently presented as an "economic stimulus," has likewise proven to be every bit as much of a pork-laden sham, and an abomination to every citizen who ever held the Constitution in high regard.
Administration ventures into the auto industry, replete with the predictable squandering of billions of taxpayer dollars, are proving to be just as dismal of a failure. Car companies that had been hit hard by high gasoline prices and the recession are now being completely strangled by meddling bureaucrats who know nothing about building automobiles, but are fanatically devoted to a leftist political agenda.
Gasoline supplies for those cars remain precarious, owing to the fact that Congressional Democrats and Obama refuse to open American territories to oil exploration and drilling. So despite the government's subsidization and takeover of the formerly private auto industry, its prospects for future prosperity are slim to none.
At the onset of a summer that, in many regions of the country, has been one of the coldest on record, the American worker and businessman is being strangled and starved as his livelihood is being subordinated to phony allegations of "global warming."
The hideous face behind the mask of socialized medicine, that "unholy grail" of the liberal agenda, is beginning to be revealed to the public. Massive costs, restricted coverage, and ultimately, rationing of services that will seriously degrade the quality of care received by Americans, ultimately degrading their health and even their lives. As a result, it is no longer resonating with the public as it did when presented in flowery campaign speeches, adorned in those banalities of "hope and change."
Despite Leon Panetta's shameless finger pointing, it must be remembered that the Democrats, his party, were the ones who sought to brazenly exploit catastrophe, whether natural or man-made, as political ammunition. From the Oklahoma City bombing to the Mississippi River floods to Hurricane Katrina, liberals can be counted upon to infuse their political message into any occasion of human suffering.
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel characterizes this as good strategy and the proper exploitation of an opportunity. Despite having been appointed as the nation's intelligence chief, as a liberal Panetta's first devotion will be to the political apparatus of his party. So it should come as no surprise that Panetta would expect similar behavior from a political rival.
Many on the right are waiting for the American public to find their way past the fraud of the liberal press, and awaken to the abysmal realities of the Obama/Democrat agenda. No single event would do so more quickly than another major terrorist attack. And the Obama White House is sensitive to the dire significance of such a possibility, if only for fear of its political fallout.
What if national security has been as thoroughly compromised by this Administration as the free market? Leon Panetta, by his excessive and inflamatory words, has shown his awareness of the dangerous game that is being played with the country's security by blinded liberal ideologues. Americans should read between the lines and be very afraid.
---
Christopher G. Adamo is a freelance writer and staff writer for the New Media Alliance. He lives in southeastern Wyoming. He has been active in local and state politics for many years and is a managing partner in Best American Buy (www.bestamericanbuy.com), an e-commerce business that markets products exclusively made in America. His contact information and archives can be found at www.chrisadamo.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
