The Democrats sure know how to pick them huh? A few months back it was the “poor” family who couldn’t afford health insurance as the poster family for SCHIP. They turned out to be a middle class family that was doing quite well with a new SUV and a remodeled kitchen.
Now to prove that forcing someone to show ID to vote is a hardship they trot out a elderly lady named Faye Buis-Ewing:
When poll workers wouldn’t accept her Florida license as a valid ID for voting, she was told she could cast a provisional vote, but she declined. Her birth certificate wasn’t acceptable because it didn¹t have her married – and therefore identifying – name on it, according to a brief filed with the Supreme Court by the Brennan Center.
Oh, the hardship. Nevermind the fact that you need to show ID to use a credit card, or buy a beer, or cigarettes. Now its a hardship for this lady.
Problem is she is a tax evading grandma who resides in two states:
According to Ewing and Ann Nucatola, public information director for the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, Ewing surrendered her Indiana driver¹s license in 2000, when she moved to Florida and obtained her Florida license. Nucatola said that a driver must have a Florida address to obtain a Florida driver¹s license.
“And if they own property in two states they have to get a license that says ‘valid in Florida only,’” Nucatola said.
Ewing said Monday that her license is a “regular” one that she uses in both states. She renewed it in 2007 on a Punta Gorda, Fla. address.
At the Charlotte County, Fla. voter registration office, Sandy Wharton, vote qualifying office manager, said Ewing registered to vote in Charlotte County on Sept. 18, 2002, and signed an oath that she was a Florida resident and understood that falsifying the voter application was a third-degree felony punishable by prison and a fine up to $5,000. Wharton said her office checked Ewing’s Florida residency and qualified her on Oct. 2, 2002. On Oct. 4, 2002, they mailed her Florida voter card to her, to the West Lafayette, Ind. address that Ewing gave as a mailing address.
However, Ewing didn’t vote in Florida that year, nor has she ever voted in Charlotte County, Wharton said. But, just a month after receiving her Florida voter card, she did vote in the November 2002 elections in Tippecanoe County, Ind., according to Heather Maddox, co-director of elections and registration in Tippecanoe.
Ewing confirmed that she is registered in both states to vote, but at first said the Florida registration came automatically with her driver’s license. She repeatedly denied signing the oath on the Florida application. She also said Indiana mailed her an absentee ballot, but she didn’t use it or vote that year.
However, Heather Maddox, co-director of election registration in Tippecanoe County, said Ewing voted in Indiana in 2002, 2003 and 2004, before the Indiana ID law took effect in 2005.
When informed that the Florida voter office said she’d registered personally in 2002 for a Florida voter card, and that this newspaper had a copy of her application, Ewing said, “Well, why did I do that? I¹m confused. I can’t recall.” She reiterated that, even though she’s registered in two states, she only votes in Indiana, adding that she does have a car plated in Florida.
That doesn’t satisfy Florida officials.
“She can only be registered to vote in the place where she claims residency,² Wharton said. “You can’t be registered in two states. She has to claim one place or the other.”
Ordinarily when someone registers to vote in Florida, the state informs the election board where the applicant was previously registered. But according to Wharton, Ewing did not inform Florida that she was ever registered to vote anywhere else.
“She signed an oath saying she was a qualified elector and a legal resident of Florida,” Wharton said. “And the space where she was supposed to tell us where she was previously registered, she left blank.”
The Democrats are giving the excuse that she didn’t do this to impersonate someone and vote, which does not matter one iota. What matters is how easy it WOULD of been for someone who did want to do that if this voter ID law was not in effect.
And tell me how this law is that bad?
It makes provisions for people who are too indigent to pay for a photo ID, and allows people to file a religious objection to it. It gives people who don’t have an ID a chance to file a provisional vote, and essentially doesn’t deny anyone who really wants to vote the right to vote, as opponents claim, Rokita said.
But the Democrats think they’re gonna get some votes out of it, thats all that matters apparently. How dare we stop Mickey Mouse and Cinderella from voting!
I think this may be a good time to bring up this article which shows how easy it is for voter fraud to take place:
Maybe Joe Moschella thought he was playing it safe. The 59-year-old retired transit employee had mailed his absentee ballot too late, he thought, so on Election Day 2000, he trotted down to the polls and voted in person. The only problem was that his polling place is in Staten Island, where he lives, while the absentee ballot went to Florida, where he winters.
This August, Moschella’s name came up in a sweep of voter registration records by the New York Daily News, which found that he and 46,000 other New Yorkers were registered to vote in both Florida and New York. Moschella also had the bad luck to answer the phone when the News reporter, Russ Buettner, called. So, his name appeared in the paper’s Aug. 21 story revealing that in the 2000 election between 400 and 1,000 of these double-registrants voted in both states.
And how easy it is to fix it. Have them show ID!
UPDATE
Now this is sweet!
There are many ways to lose a Supreme Court case, and by the end of an argument that was before the court on Wednesday, the Democrats who were challenging Indiana’s voter-identification law appeared poised to lose theirs in a potentially sweeping way, with implications for many future election cases.
The justices’ questioning indicated that a majority did not accept the challengers’ basic argument — that voter-impersonation fraud is not a problem, so requiring voters to produce government-issued photo identification at the polls is an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote.
The tenor of the argument suggested, however, that rather than simply decide the case in favor of the state, a majority of five justices would go further and rule that the challenge to the statute, the strictest voter-identification law in the country, was improperly brought in the first place. Such a ruling could make it much more difficult to challenge any new state election regulations before they go into effect.
See author page
46,000 registered to vote in Fl and NY, all democrats. If the democrats vet their leaders the way the do their voters I expect to see the real Osama BL as Sec of Defense in the next democrat administration.
The shame is that voter fraud is prevalent where ever a Democrap is in charge of voter records. Motor voter was instituted for just this purpose. Absentee ballots ditto. Voting should be in person, with ID to prove who you are or don’t vote. This is no imposition its a duty.
And how easy it is to fix it. Have them show ID!
This fixes only a part of the problem so long as absentee or mail-in ballots are permitted.
Re: “The Democrats sure know how to pick them huh? A few months back it was the “poor” family who couldn’t afford health insurance as the poster family for SCHIP. They turned out to be a middle class family that was doing quite well with a new SUV and a remodeled kitchen.”
That was the point. They were middle class, yet STILL could not get health insurance. It is not just “those” people who are being left out.
Re: “The shame is that voter fraud is prevalent where ever a Democrap is in charge of voter records. ”
I’ll have to check this when I have some time, but if I recall correctly, the Bush Admininstration has only prosecuted about forty or so cases of voter fraud over the last four years.
And we are talking about the Gonzalez Justice Department, full of Loyal Bushies.
If that is all the “crime” they can come up with, then this “voter fraud” canard is nothing more than a cover for voter intimidation laws, similar to the “patrols” that Republicans sent out to minority districts in Florida in past presidential elections.
Nice try though.
Of course, here we have the real motive behind such Republican “concerns”
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/06/13/us.attorneys/index.html
WASHINGTON (CNN) — A Justice Department official has “clarified” Senate testimony regarding a Missouri voter-fraud case, saying the decision to seek voter registration fraud indictments shortly before an election was his and not that of career staff.
Bradley Schlozman sought indictments against members of the Democratic-leaning advocacy group ACORN while serving as the interim U.S. attorney in Kansas City, Missouri, in 2006. Under questioning from Democratic senators last week, Schlozman said he was “directed” to bring the cases by career officials in the Justice Department’s public corruption section in the weeks before last November’s elections.
But Schlozman, a Republican political appointee still working at the Justice Department, has sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee revising that testimony. Schlozman now says he consulted the department’s Public Integrity Section but was not directly advised to proceed.
Some facts (the actual number of vote-buying cases was thrity):
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/washington/12fraud.html?ei=5088&en=277feccfa099c7d0&ex=1334030400&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1195092107-9OBYHQX8xamUS4a5r/3huw
More on the real agenda here:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-rich29mar29,0,3371050.story?coll=la-opinion-center
Slate is an admitted Liberal source, but their links are not:
http://www.slate.com/id/2166287/entry/2166282
That was the point. They were middle class, yet STILL could not get health insurance
No, they chose not to obtain health insurance. This is why the SUV, kitchen remodel and so on bear mentioning – they show that the family simply chose other uses for their money. Which would be fine if they didn’t then come crying to me (a taxpayer) expecting me to foot their kids’ health insurance bill. My kitchen could also use remodeling and I take a bus to work most days to save money (family gets by on one car), and in part because my wife and I made those choices we can afford to take better care of our three kids. Priorities…
The attempt to portray middle-class families as ‘needy’ is a naked attempt to extend welfare dependency to an ever-larger segment of society, probably in an attempt to extend the Dem voter base.
“This fixes only a part of the problem so long as absentee or mail-in ballots are permitted”
Easy enough to fix. You need to send in for an absentee ballot. You send it in and they mark you as having voted by absentee before the election, and you can’t vote the normal way now, unless you bring your absentee ballot with you to the elections. Just require the absentee application to include you licence number so they can verify that you do exist, and your name really is Michael Mouse. 😛
Like BB said, they chose NOT to get the insurance which would of cost them 700 bucks a month. They owned their own business, had a nice house, newly remodeled kitchen, brand new SUV, but chose not to get the insurance.
Shame on them.
http://www.votelaw.com/blog/archives/005377.html
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20051101/ai_n15824808
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041019/NEWS09/410190343
http://www.command-post.org/2004/2_archives/016485.html
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/783963/posts
http://www.knbc.com/print/10190012/detail.html
http://www.nashvillepost.com/news?id=25679
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9402E5D91038F93AA15756C0A96E958260
http://www.myfoxmemphis.com/myfox/pages/News/Politics/Detail;jsessionid=53B73621F05BDD7EA4B7EF151212CA63?contentId=4843400&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=3.14.1&sflg=1
http://www.ago.state.ms.us/index.php/press/releases/attorney_general_makes_fourteenth_arrest_in_benton_county_voter_fraud_inves/
Thats 39 voter fraud arrests on the first two pages of google. If your trying to push that this is not prevalent then your being dishonest.
Showing a friggin ID is somehow intimidation! Give me a break.
Check out the update to the post all….sweet!
Re: “Which would be fine if they didn’t then come crying to me (a taxpayer) expecting me to foot their kids’ health insurance bill.”
The government (at all levels) already pays for more than 50% of all health care costs in the United States.
And we devote more than twice as much of our GDP to health care than the next nearest countries.
And the United States does not even rank in the top ten in terms of life expectancy or infant mortality.
The United States has managed to find the worst way to fund its health care system.
While the methods used in other industrialized coun tries are not perfect 9as FoxNews loves to showcase every chance they get), Just about every other industrialized country has managed to get it better than us.
And, please, don’t toss out the only Conservative “why don’t you move there” line to me. I shold not be forced out of my own country simply because I observe that our policies are not as perfect as NewsMax would want us to believe.
And don’t toss out the Malpractice excuse. Malpractice costs are about 3% of health care costs. A problem true, but even if you eliminated all Malpractice costs, you would not solve the problem.
We do devote about 30% of our medical costs to “Administration” in the private sector, as opposed to less than 1% when measuring Medicare. But pointing out that as a problem will get me labeled by Conservatives as “hating capitalism”.
So go ahead Conservatives, spread more of your (abundant) hate around to include those Middle Class who are being forced out of medical coverage. Wagging fingers at others is, after all, what Conservatives love to do best.
But the problem will get worse. And Conservatives have no suggestions that actually address the problem. Only hate for those who suffer or try to offer solutions.
Comparative malpractice:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8551575/
WASHINGTON – Higher prices and not lawsuits or other factors have driven up health care costs in the United States, according to a study published Tuesday.
Malpractice awards in the United States amounted to only $16 per capita in 2001, compared with $12 in Britain and $10 in Australia, the team at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore found.
The same team found in 2002 that Americans pay more for prescription drugs, hospital stays and doctor visits than citizens of other industrialized countries.
Life expectance and infant mortality
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004393.html
Country Infant Mortality Life Expectancy
Japan 3.3 81.2
Sweden 2.8 80.4
Switzerlnd 4.4 80.4
Australia 4.7 80.4
Canada 4.8 80.1
Italy 5.9 79.7
France 4.3 79.6
Spain 4.4 79.5
Norway 3.7 79.4
Israel 7 79.3
Greece 5.5 79.1
Austria 4.7 78.9
Germany 4.2 78.7
New Zeal 5.8 78.7
U K 5.2 78.4
Finland 3.6 78.3
U S A 6.5 77.7
Cyprus 7.2 77.7
Denmark 4.6 77.6
Ireland 5.4 77.6
Portugal 5 77.5
Albania 21.5 77.2
CostaRica 9.9 76.8
Chile 8.8 76.6
Ecuador 23.7 76.2
Czech Rep 3.9 76
Korea, S 7 75.8
Mexico 20.9 75.2
Slovakia 7.4 74.5
Poland 8.5 74.4
Venezuela 22.2 74.3
Sri Lanka 14.3 73.2
Hungary 8.6 72.4
China 24.2 72.3
Panama 20.5 71.9
Brazil 29.6 71.7
Egypt 32.6 71
Syria 29.5 70
Iran 41.6 70
Peru 31.9 69.5
Russia 15.4 67.1
Guatemal 35.9 65.1
India 56.3 64.3
Pakistan 72.4 63
Bangladsh 62.6 62.1
Kenya 61.5 48
Nigeria 98.8 46.7
South Af 61.8 43.3
Mozambiq 130.8 40.3
Zimbabwe 67.7 36.7
Angola 191.2 36.6
Sorry about the lineups. It looked OK when I pasted it in.
Infant mortality is a bullshit statistic. Not surprising you don’t know that though Steve. I doubt you know that the US is a lot more strict on what we consider to be a live birth than the rest of the world. See we have this nasty habit of considering a baby that is born alive as an actual live, birth reguardless of weight and potential survivability after the birth.
And it really is great how you talk about how the government is paying for so much healthcare, and then proceed to say that we pay too much. So yeah let’s put the government in charge so they can spend even more money. Or do you actually believe that the government efficiently spends its money?
Administrative costs:
http://www.egyptianaaa.org/SocialSecurityLinks.htm
It’s about 0.7%.
Of course I’m sure Conservatives will be amply supplied with “independet” studies from the Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation indicating astronomical costs. And required to believe them as well.
Cost of Priave sector administrative costs for health care: 31%.
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/349/8/768
From the New England Journal of Medicine. Not as trustworthy, I’m sure, as Rush Limbaugh. But it will have to do.
How many of those who rail about “socialized medicine” are themselves eligible for governmental health care, such as from the VA ?
Re: “Infant mortality is a bullshit statistic.”
Of course it is. Especially when Conservatives do not like the numbers.
Conservatives approach science, from evolution to medicine, with the same method: Listen to the Republican Party line first, then cherrypick the numbers that “make” it true.
The facts are the facts. An infant born in the US has a lower chance of surviving to see his/her first birthday that almost any other industrialized country on the planet.
And, apparently from your post, Conservatives are just fine with that.
Re: “And it really is great how you talk about how the government is paying for so much healthcare, and then proceed to say that we pay too much. So yeah let’s put the government in charge so they can spend even more money. Or do you actually believe that the government efficiently spends its money?”
Again, Conservative, check the numbers I posted. The government does do a better job of administering health care dollars than the private insurance carriers, no matter what The Washington Times tell you to think. Look at the numbers in the links I posted.
I know that Sean Hannity does not want you to see those numbers, but check anyway.
And I said the government pays for more than half the health care already, not that it “spends too much” (such a statement was nowhere in my psots, to say otherwise is to lie).
The facts are the facts, even if your hero, Ann Coulter, says it is treasonous to know them.
Re: “How many of those who rail about “socialized medicine” are themselves eligible for governmental health care, such as from the VA ?”
Or medicare.
Or Medicaid
Or at Walter Read (George W. Bush and Dick Cheney: The biggest promoters of “privatizing” medicare of all,e ven though they presided over the greatest expansion of governmental spending in a generation: The Prescription Drug Entitlement for Seniors.)
The facts are the facts. The world health organization recommends that infants born below a particular weight not be counted as a infant death in case they die. The united states includes these low weight births in its numbers.
So this helps to keep other nations infant mortality lower than what it truly is, and inflates the US’s number compared to the rest of the world.
When you attempt to use this as an indicator you demonstrate your lack of knowledge on the subject. But you lack knowledge on all subjects anyways.
And the life expantancy numbers? Or did the Ayn Rand Foundation provide an “out” for that one as well?
Do you have “corrected” infant mortality number then?
Conservatives have no suggestions that actually address the problem
Ron Paul has, among other things
– introduced the Health Freedom Act, which would improve the availability of information on herbs and supplements
– introduced the Access to Medical Treatment Act, which would improve access to alternative medicine and reduce the pricing power of the AMA cartel
– advocated the abolition of the FDA, which would speed the availability of new drugs and treatments
– supported the legal reimportation of FDA-approved drugs from other countries
You may not *like* some of those proposals, but you can’t pretend there is no attempt to improve the situation.
As for the infant mortality and life expectancy – they are interesting stats, but I don’t see why the government should be greatly concerned with them. Given a choice between a free society with 77yr average life expectancy and a more socialist one (let’s say 15% higher overall tax burden) with 80yr average life expectancy, I would choose the former.
Re: “You may not *like* some of those proposals, but you can’t pretend there is no attempt to improve the situation.”
You are correct. I do not like those proposals because I believe they will do nthing to reduce costs increases, nor will they break the strangelhold our Insurance companies have over who can and who cannot have health care: Both for those they cover and for those they influence the government to cover ornot cover.
Re: “As for the infant mortality and life expectancy – they are interesting stats, but I don’t see why the government should be greatly concerned with them. Given a choice between a free society with 77yr average life expectancy and a more socialist one (let’s say 15% higher overall tax burden) with 80yr average life expectancy, I would choose the former.”
You would sacrifice American lives to serve your ideology. I would not. I would opt for a system that serves the American people best. I do not believe in sacrificing others lives for my personal fanaticism.
Newsflash: The Government already sets the prices of medical procedures, albeit indirectly. How, you ask? Medicare.
Medicare has standard payouts for any given procedure, and hospitals bill procedures at those prices, no matter how much the procedure actually costs. This remove any incentive to try to do things at a cheaper cost, since the bill will always be paid at a certain level. Why not always charge that amount regardless of actual cost? This applies not for just the actual procedures themselves, but the supplies that are used to perform the procedures.
So, Philly Steve, you don’t like numbers issued by this admin, but you trust stuff issued by other countries?! They all play games with numbers/statistics, all to try to look good to the world, and to fool their own people. If you look at the issued numbers only, you are comparing apples to oranges. You have to look at the actual data, to get real numbers to compare, and even then, there is always a chance that bogus info was input be accident or purpose.
Remember: there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. Just because you like the numbers because they fit your political view doesn’t make them accurate. People who use false numbers, whether through ignorance or duplicity, are fools. If it only affects your own life, so what. But, when it affects others in important ways, with various types of costs incurred by lots and lots of people, perhaps generations worth, that’s when some of us get a wee bit hot. So try not to be a fool.
True.
However it does not negate the 30% administrative burden that American insurance companies add to the cost of medical care (see above links).
It also does not negate the fact that some radicals in the US are perfectly willing to watch American life expectandcy go down and infant mortality rise, as long as it serves their ideology. (see above posts).
I, on the other hand, set my ideology to what serves the best interest of the american people, whether or not political extremists call me “Conservative”, “Liberal”, or even “Communist”. I do not care what labels are applied to me and will not set my opinions based on what political group I need to placate.
Others have much less of a concern for the American people. The proper term for them is “fanatics”. And we should ask ourselves if those are the ones we want to run our country.
Re: “So, Philly Steve, you don’t like numbers issued by this admin, but you trust stuff issued by other countries?! They all play games with numbers/statistics, all to try to look good to the world, and to fool their own people. If you look at the issued numbers only, you are comparing apples to oranges. You have to look at the actual data, to get real numbers to compare, and even then, there is always a chance that bogus info was input be accident or purpose.”
I asked this before. So where are the REAL numbers?
I do not like those proposals because I believe they will do nthing to reduce costs increases
Increasing supply (by expanding available options) will reduce costs. But it’s true that there are other systemic problems which neither these proposals nor the universal health care proposals of the Democrats will solve.
strangelhold our Insurance companies have over who can and who cannot have health care
What ‘strangelhold’? Pay the money and buy your health insurance; there are many providers. Oh, I forgot – this is lefty rhetoric, where someone who refuses to offer a service for free is exercising a stranglehold. I hate it when I don’t have any spare change in my pocket and can’t release the candy bars at the convenience store from the awesome ‘strangelhold’ the clerk is holding them in! Damn him!
And yes, I know that preexisting conditions may make it impossible to get insurance. That’s why they’re called ‘insurance companies’, not ‘charities’. But you can still buy the health care.
You would sacrifice American lives to serve your ideology
All public policy choices involve costs, and in some cases those costs are lives. But as always, you portray a refusal to help someone who has made bad choices as an act of aggression (I’m trying to sacrifice their life!).
I would not.
You would; you merely refuse to acknowledge the human costs associated with things like FDA delays in drug approval. Of course these would be different lives than would be lost under the policies I would support.
I would opt for a system that serves the American people best.
So you claim, but obviously the heart of our disagreement is that we don’t see eye to eye on what ‘serving the American people best’ even means.
I do not believe in sacrificing others lives for my personal fanaticism.
Yes, you do (at least by the loose definition you employ for ‘sacrifice other’s lives’); you just aren’t honest enough to admit it.
[bbartlog]
Your post: “As for the infant mortality and life expectancy – they are interesting stats, but I don’t see why the government should be greatly concerned with them. Given a choice between a free society with 77yr average life expectancy and a more socialist one (let’s say 15% higher overall tax burden) with 80yr average life expectancy, I would choose the former.”
You would feel right at home in this country:
[O’Brien]: ‘Nonsense. You are under the impression that hatred is more exhausting than love. Why should it be? And if it were, what difference would that make? Suppose that we choose to wear ourselves out faster. Suppose that we quicken the tempo of human life till men are senile at thirty. Still what difference would it make? Can you not understand that the death of the individual is not death? The party [state] is immortal.’
1984
George Orwell
Part 3, Chapter 3. (Winston Smith is insider the Ministry of Love, being tortured by The Party, O’Brien, his torturer, is explaining the purpose of The Party and its goals)
Re;read the book. You will feel right at home with Big Brother and the state he has built in this story. It sounds exactly like the kind of America you would build for the rest of u.
Hey, is there a section just for latest news