The contents of these articles are based on Fact and Truth. Challenges are invited.
The day’s top political news:
Obama said poised to offer more healthcare changes
Obama will offer changes to his healthcare scheme sometime this week, according tothe White House and leading Democrats. They claim the president will retreat with a smaller version of his original ploy for government takeover of the $2.5 trillion industry.
After his healthcare "summit" failed last week and won no new converts, Obama and his fellow Democrats are expected to try slipping through a final push using a process known as reconciliation which would impose the Democrat plan despite public rejection and Republican opposition.
Senate Democrats and a Pelosi-led House approved extremist Democrat schemes they claim would cut costs, regulate insurers and expand coverage – however, it also threatens to offer a pathway to socialized medicine through what are called “public options” Their efforts collapsed and their concepts have been rejected by grass root America.
More details @ http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE61O4NV20100301?type=politicsNews
Texans face their primary choices today.
Both Republican Gov. Rick Perry and rival Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison planned a last round of public appearances in Dallas, with Hutchison stopping at a polling place and Perry, in his official role as governor, participating in a military-related Texas Independence Day celebration.
The two are vying for the GOP gubernatorial nomination along with party activist Debra Medina. Medina is a favorite of many tea party voters and could pull in enough support to force a runoff. Incumbent Rick Perry boasts a double digit lead.
If no one wins a majority of Tuesday's vote, the top two finishers will face off April 13.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100302/D9E6F2UG0.html
Head of 'Climategate' research unit admits sending 'pretty awful emails' to hide data
Scientists at the heart of the Climategate row are accused by a leading academic body of undermining science's credibility. Another scandal for Al Gore’s Global Warming myths.
The Institute of Physics said 'worrying implications' had been raised after it was revealed the University of East Anglia had manipulated data on global warming. The rebuke - the strongest yet from the scientific community - came as Professor Phil Jones, the researcher at the heart of the scandal, told MPs he had written 'some pretty awful emails' - but denied trying to suppress data.
The Climategate row, which was first revealed by the Daily Mail in November, was triggered when a hacker stole hundreds of emails sent from East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit.
Opinion:
Democrats and their Health Care Death Wish
“Instead of listening to Americans, Democrats have indicated that they plan to ram a government takeover of health care through Congress with an iron fist. This abuse of power puts Democrats’ ideological goals ahead of the wishes of the American people who reject the plan’s higher taxes, massive Medicare cuts, and huge government expansion into personal health care decisions. Republicans, meanwhile, are focused on common sense reforms and bringing down costs rather than handing the entire system over to Washington.”
This statement accurately provides the reality regarding schemes from the Obama White House and far left members of Congress such as Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Some of those far left Democrats in the House, remain very unhappy their coveted “public options” are not likely to make it to whatever scheme Obama tries now. This divide may be harder for Obama to overcome than opposition by Republicans. The Democrat public option lobby is not just radical, it’s floor stomping, arm waving, vitriol spouting extremists. The sortsof liberal politicians adored by such conspiratorial groups as Moveon.org. The sorts of extremist groups George Soros would finance with his billions.
In a rare moment of candor and honesty, Congressman Barney Frank admitted public options are just a vanguard of efforts to impose Canadian style socialized medicine.
Expect Obama and Democrats to slip in some cosmetic items in their new health care scam, they will claim reflect GOP input and suggestions. DON’T BE DECIEVED. The bill remains forever toxic and alien to the needs of proving quality health care and keeping it available.
So far the American public rejects this health care scheme – no wonder. Disenchantment with Obama and his administration, along with the Democrat majorities in both houses of Congress, is growing. That can also be said for their “cap and trade” tax scam. Hopefully, cap and trade will remain dormant – but as a monster from the Terminator series, it can rise up and regain life at almost any time. The monster sleeps, but is not dead.
As I noted yesterday:
“The American public rejects the Democrat health care plan. In fact, 67% of the American public say they are fed up with the debate. Health care reform is not all that high on the list of issue concerns, but Obama and Pelosi hard-headedly continue pushing it along, in the process, dooming Democrat majorities – maybe the party itself.”
It gets even worse for Democrat partisans. In a report this morning from “The Hill”. Steney Hoyer, (D-Md) says “taz iincreases may be necessary to rein in $12 trillion in federal debt.
“Hoyer emphasizes the need to reform Social Security and Medicare, but he also made it clear that raising taxes will have to be on the table.”
No doubt. After all, Democrats love taxes and they have majorities of such magnitude they can pass anything they wish – no matter how far left and extremist – without any Republican or grass root American insight, input, or support. It’s a clear case of legislative despotism.
Obama has attempted to provide cover with yet another “commission” – the perpetual shield for leading politicians unwilling to take the heat. Having captured Republican Alan Simpson to make it all look genuine, Obama has also managed to include Andy Stern who heads the infamous SEIU labor union that gained notoriety by generating violence seen during the summer’s town hall meetings.
Stern is another far left extremist, but one who is positioned to spit in the face of any real Americans who don’t like being bullied and exploited.
As normal Americans who want the best for our country and a sincere hope for its future, we all have an obligation to remain close to what is going on – what is really going on – in our government in Washington.
Buddy
Top Blogs:
1.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/03/how_many_doj_lawyers_represent.html
How many DOJ lawyers represented Gitmo prisoners?
Phil Boehmke
Last week, after months of stonewalling, Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder finally gave a partial answer to the Senate Republican's request that he identify the DOJ political appointees who have given legal counsel to the terrorists being held at Guantanamo Bay.
Holder said that although he had not as yet made a complete study of the DOJ appointees there were at least nine lawyers in the department who had worked on behalf of the terrorists. The estimate given by Holder does not include lawyers who (like himself) had worked for law firms which were engaged in providing pro bono legal services for the Guantanamo Bay terrorists. According to the National Review.
Holder was a senior partner at a Washington firm (Covington & Burling) that proudly boasts of having represented 18 enemy combatants. Working for America's enemies was its most heavily resourced "pro bono" (no fee) project, to which it donated thousands of hours of work (3,022 hours in 2007 alone). Holder did not directly handle the cases. Yet, while his firm banged away on them, he made public statements accusing the United States of having "denied the writ of habeas corpus to hundreds of accused enemy combatants and authorized the use of procedures that violate both international law and the United States Constitution."
This certainly helps us to understand the highly questionable decisions made at Holder's DOJ regarding the treatment of terrorists and enemy combatants. Is it any wonder that AG Holder wanted 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed given a civilian trial in New York City. Was the handling of Umar Farouk Abdulmatallab (the underwear bomber) tainted by the seemingly pervasive pro civilian justice agenda at Holder's DOJ?
Western nations under their liberal governments have been so consumed with the destructive policy of political correctness that they have allowed themselves to be infiltrated by Islamic sympathizers at the highest level. How many Fort Hood terror attacks will we have to endure before real action is taken to check the threat of home grown terrorism?
The Sunday UK Telegraph tells a frightening story of the Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE) and it's infiltration of the Labour Party.
In a six-month investigation by this paper and Channel 4's Dispatches, involving weeks of covert filming by the programme's reporters:
. IFE activists boasted to the undercover reporters that they had already "consolidated...a lot of influence and power" over Tower Hamlets, a London borough council with a 1 billion budget.
. We have established that the group and its allies were awarded more than 10 million of taxpayer's money, much of it from government funds designed to "prevent violent extremism".
. IFE leaders were recorded expressing opposition to democracy, support for sharia law or mocking black people. The IFE organised meetings with extremists, including Taliban allied, a man named by the US government as an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and a man under investigation by the FBI for his links to the September 11 attacks.
. Moderate Muslims in London told how the IFE and its allies were enforcing their hardline views on the rest of the local community, curbing behavior they deemed "un-Islamic". The owner of a dating agency received a threatening email from an IFE activist, warning her to close it.
. George Galloway, a London MP, admitted in recordings obtained by this newspaper that his surprise victory in the 2005 election owed more to the IFE "than it would be wise-for them-for me to say," adding that they played a "decisive role" in his triumph at the polls.
From Washington to London and around the free world the threat of radical Islam is growing at a frightening pace. As the UK Telegraph pointed out, even the moderate Muslim community has been targeted by these radicals. When we here in America wonder why the Muslim community remains strangely silent in the face of radical Islamic attacks, we should put ourselves in their place. They have much to fear from the radical Islamic underground, as do well all.
2.
Dems' Health Strategy Doesn't Add Up to a Win
A Commentary By Michael Barone
"More talk, no deal" was The Wall Street Journal's headline on Thursday's Blair House health care summit. "After summit flop, Democrats prepare to go it alone on Obamacare," proclaimed the headline here at The Washington Examiner. These were appropriate verdicts if you viewed the summit as an attempt to reach bipartisan agreement or even a limited consensus.
But that of course was not why Barack Obama convened this unique colloquy. He did so as part of an attempt to pass some Democratic health care bill, somehow, through both houses of Congress -- and to discredit the Republicans who opposed the bills passed by the House in November and the Senate in December.
In that he seems to have failed. The Atlantic's Clive Crook, who supports the Democratic bills, concluded that "the Republicans did not come across as the party of no. They looked well-informed, pragmatic and engaged in the discussion. It was the Democrats who leaned more heavily on talking points, and seemed evasive and unspecific."
Kevin Drum, blogging for the left-wing Mother Jones, agreed. "My take is that the summit was basically a draw, but with a slight edge to the Republicans. They didn't have to win, after all. They just had to seem non-insane, and for the most part they did. What's more, Obama missed a chance to provide a punchy 60-second sales pitch for the Democratic plan."
Obama and the Democrats face problems with both public opinion -- their bills are hugely unpopular -- and with legislative procedure. The problem with public opinion has been undeniable since Republican Sen. Scott Brown's victory five weeks ago in Massachusetts. The problem with legislative procedure is more complex.
Democrats could theoretically solve that problem by having the House pass the Senate bill in toto, ready for Obama's signature. But Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has proved herself a fine vote-counter, doesn't have the votes. Last month, she said "unease would be the gentlest word" to describe House Democrats' resistance. They understandably don't want to cast votes for the Senate's Cornhusker Kickback and Louisiana Purchase.
In November, Pelosi had 220 votes for the House bill. The one Republican is now a no, one Democrat has died, one resigned last month, and another turned in his resignation Friday. That leaves her with 216, one less than the 217 she needs.
There is another problem. The Senate bill lacks the amendment sponsored by House Democrat Bart Stupak banning abortion coverage, and Stupak says that he and about 10 other Democrats will accordingly vote no. That leaves Pelosi around 205. She may have commitments from former no voters to switch to yes (especially from three who've announced they're retiring), but she doesn't have more than 10 other votes in her pocket -- or she wouldn't have accepted the Stupak amendment.
So the House wants the Senate to go first and pass changes to its bill through the reconciliation process that requires 51 rather than 60 votes. But Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad says that you can't use reconciliation on a bill that hasn't already become law. And reconciliation is probably not available on abortion issues.
All of which reminds me of Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens' attempt to allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reservation in 2005. Stevens got it in the reconciliation process in the Senate, where it had 51 but not 60 votes. But House Republicans couldn't get it into reconciliation, even though a majority of House members were for it. The Senate could pass it by reconciliation but not regular order; the House could pass it by regular order but not reconciliation. Result: It never passed.
There are two differences here. ANWR drilling would have little effect on most Americans. The health care bill would affect almost everybody -- by raising taxes, cutting Medicare spending, abolishing current insurance -- as Republicans pointed out in Blair House.
The second difference is that ANWR drilling was reasonably popular with the public, and there were majorities in both houses for it. Neither is true of the Democrats' health care bills today.
Last month, we were told that Obama would switch his focus from health care to jobs. But Democrats have spent February and seem about to spend March focusing on health care. It's hard to see how they can navigate the legislative process successfully -- and even harder to see how they turn around public opinion. Summit flop indeed.
Michael Barone is senior political analyst for The Washington Examiner.
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3.
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/02/26/summit-strategems/1
Streetcar Line
Summit Stratagems
Quin Hillyer
Forgive me this stream of consciousness. I had another topic in mind entirely for this column, but the live coverage of this health care "summit" has distracted me all day. President Obama's superciliousness infuriates me; his insistence on speaking each time between each speaker is outrageous; his Democratic colleagues are not much help to him (although, much as Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois is smarm personified, his misleading riff in defense of jackpot justice trial lawyering was, unfortunately, very effective); yet I can't help thinking that the president is winning among his intended audience, which are the Democrats in Congress. By going on for six full hours about his plans, all in a reasonable tone of voice, he makes those plans somehow less scary, no matter how many good licks the Republicans get in. All he needs to do is to lower the volume, provide enough reassurance to congressional Democrats that there is a defensible set of talking points in favor of his plans (even if it isn't logically defensib
le, he makes it sound politically defensible merely by defending it for so long without cracking), and keep from making any major gaffes, and... presto!… Obama convinces wavering Democrats in Congress that they already have taken all the body blows that can possibly come, and that they can't get hurt any worse than they already have been, so they might as well roll the dice and vote his way.
Since this is stream of consciousness, I'm not sure I explained that as well as I could or should, but the point is this: As long as Obama keeps this alive, he, yes, keeps it alive. In that tautology lies his continuing chance to get a bill passed.
It's like this. I once sat in a meeting of the board of an organization on which there was a bitter division. I was the vice-chair; the chairman was on the other side. There were, I think, nine people on the board, with four (including me) on my side, three (including the chair) on the other, and two swinging back and forth with each argument. At one point the chairman said each side had clearly made its points and that he would call a vote after he wrapped up his last points. But as he wrapped up, he could tell that one of the two "swing votes" he thought he was swaying had, instead, become puzzled, and he wasn't sure he had her vote after all. So when he wrapped up, despite my objections, he decided not to take the vote after all. Instead, he called on the swing voter to ask what was puzzling her. Well, that re-opened the whole shebang again. The debate went back and forth, and then he again promised to finally hold the vote. This time, because of who had spoken when, I had what should have been the last wo
rd. When I finished, the body language in the room made it clear I had won the day: Both swing members were about to vote my way.
So the chairman didn't take the vote. He started making his arguments again, and threw in a new wrinkle. And the swing members started swinging back his way.
Well, this process repeated itself about six more times. No matter what happened, the chairman would not, absolutely would not, actually allow the vote to take place until he felt sure beyond a doubt that he had the majority. It didn't matter how many times he promised a vote after "just five more minutes."
Unless he could win, he wouldn't hold the vote, and unless he held the vote, he couldn't lose. This went on for something like two hours overtime, late into the night. And when I objected to his tactics, he said, in effect, "Tough: I'm chairing this meeting. I decide when we vote." It sounded an awful lot like Obama saying "I won."
Finally, having worn down everybody, the chairman saw that just in order to get out of there, both of the swing members would give in. Reading their expressions correctly, he suddenly called for a vote, and he won, 5-4.
That's what Obama is doing. But refusing to admit defeat, by keeping the subject open, he is hoping to find the one window of opportunity when the stars and votes line up, and then have Congress pass this health care monstrosity.
What Thursday's summit did was buy time. It kept everybody at the table. It kept the issue open. And the whammy vote is still waiting to be sprung on us.
That said, Obama is so wrong on all this that it is outrageous. He made a terribly false analogy. He spoke about the advantages of purchasing power, saying that with greater purchasing power that supposedly comes from consolidating into a large purchasing pool, costs will go down. He used Wal-Mart as an example. But it's a bad example. What happens with Wal-Mart is that, once Wal-Mart has driven all of its nearby competition out of business with low prices, then it slowly hikes its prices -- because it can afford to do so, because it has no competition. At least to an extent. The other thing Wal-Mart does is it starts buying more and more from small-shop suppliers, until it becomes a majority of the suppliers' business. It then pressures the suppliers for "exclusive" deals, so that because it purchases in bulk, it corners the market for that particular supplier. Then, and only then, once the supplier is hooked, it unleashes the whammy: It dictates to the supplier the prices at which it, Wal-Mart, will buy the
suppliers' goods. So while consumers of Wal-Mart benefit in the short term, the suppliers all get squeezed. In the long run, the suppliers, the wholesalers, get squeezed almost out of business -- and the repercussions can spread, so that sometimes a whole community gets pinched.
This isn't to knock Wal-Mart. Thank goodness Wal-Mart is there to provide goods at low prices. And thank goodness that no community acts entirely in isolation, and that cars exist, because market forces still apply from community to community and state to state so that Wal-Mart itself answers to market forces too. The market is mostly self-correcting. If Wal-Mart squeezes too much, its supplier runs out of business. That hurts Wal-Mart. So Wal-Mart answers the market forces. And we all benefit.
But health care cannot work that way, or at least not with government in the role of Wal-Mart -- because the government does not answer to market forces. We saw that with Fannie and Freddie. When they "failed," they didn't go out of business: Government just bailed them out. By borrowing from our children, and by raising taxes or fees. Meanwhile, thousands of banks were forced to adopt new lending standards that are too strict, even though their old lending practices were fine under normal circumstances -- and the economy slowed down even more without enough credit acting as necessary grease for the works. In short, the downstream consequences were horrible, while Fannie and Freddie skated.
So too, in health care, will the downstream consequences be horrible. Once government takes over the huge role of "bulk purchasing agent," it faces no real pressure -- but the doctors face pressures, and the remaining insurance companies face pressures until they go out of business, and the patients face rationing, and.... and so on.
In short, Obama's argument is nonsense. Yet even nonsensical arguments sometimes can start sounding reasonable when you are tired of a subject -- and even if there is only a small window when the argument is taking hold, the "chairman" or president can call for a vote right at that moment -- especially in a closed universe such as Congress -- and pull out a "win" on the issue at hand.
The Democrats tried the bulk purchasing argument, by the way, with the Medicare prescription drug program. In what was otherwise an execrable new program, Republicans insisted on one market-based provision: namely, that drug prices be determined by the market rather than by having government do the negotiating. Democrats desperately wanted government to negotiate the prices, through bulk purchasing power. When they couldn't get their way, they did some math and tried to insert a provision saying that government would at least set the premium prices that the private companies would charge. The premium they wanted to set to start at $35; they thought that without such price controls, the premiums would rise astronomically, well above that.
With G.W. Bush in the White House, that premium price control also was blocked. So, to the dismay of the Dems, the market was allowed to set premium prices.
Well, lo and behold, what happened? After the first two years, the average premiums were $24. In other words, the market worked better by $11 per month – right around a 30 percent savings for the average participant. What the Democrats thought would be a great price, $35, and wanted to write into law, turned out to be an absolutely awful deal -- or at least it would have been awful if it actually had been written into the law.
Obamacare would follow the same model. The bulk purchasing of government would destroy competition, not add to it. And costs would go up, not down.
But Obama will keep trying to argue otherwise. And when he thinks that, by hook or by crook, he finally, at least temporarily, has the votes in hand, he will try to shove it right down our throats. Conservatives who want to block it will need never to let down their guards.
4.
Will House Dems Swallow the Senate’s Poison Pills?
Washington, DC – Aside from the problems with using budget reconciliation for their government takeover of health care, Democrat leaders still have to convince enough House Democrats to vote for the Senate bill without any changes. That’s no easy task considering the Senate version contains a number of provisions which many House members have indicated they simply can’t stomach. In order to pass the Senate bill, House Democrats will have to vote in favor of:
• Federal Funding of Abortion – Accounting gimmicks aside, the Senate bill clearly allows for taxpayer funding of abortion. The Senate language is very different from the Stupak language continuing the ban on federal funding of abortion, which was included in the House bill with the support of 64 House Democrats.
• A Tax on Union Cadillac Plans – The Senate bill imposes a $148.9 billion tax on so-called “Cadillac” health insurance plans. This tax is vehemently opposed by Big Labor and its Democrat allies in the House.
• The Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase, etc. – The Senate bill still contains all the unsavory deals Senate Democrats made behind closed doors in order to get their bill passed.
• A Ban on Participation of Illegal Immigrants – Even though the Senate bill has the same insufficient and ineffective verification methods as the House version, it does bar illegal immigrants from purchasing coverage through the Exchange with their own dollars.
• The PhRMA Deal – Many House Democrats decried the deal the White House brokered with PhRMA last year to cap the pharmaceutical industry’s cost concessions at $80 billion. The Senate bill kept that deal intact.
• A Watered-Down Public Option – It’s not just moderate Democrats who have problems with the Senate bill. While it still contains a form of the government-run plan via an exchange and co-ops, that hasn’t satisfied liberals who are still pushing for a “robust” public option.
Are wavering House Democrats really going to swallow all these poison pills and then just hope they’ll find the antidotes via the very uncertain process of budget reconciliation? Talk about a leap of faith…
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