First, let’s get the skinny on the *real* agenda… straight from the donkey’s mouth in 2003 as an IL junior Senator, running for the US Senate.

I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its Gross National Product on health care cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that’s what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.

Now that we know just what is this President’s ideal, we need only examine the steps he, with the help of Pelosi, Reid, and the Democrats in Congress, intend to take in order to achieve his quest.

In this post I will connect the puzzle pieces of O’health care that will demonstrate that the proposals on the table are constructed to eliminate private care from the free market; slash Medicare (and any new public option) health care coverage and payout; wrest control from Congress of these government run program decision and put them in the hands of the White House; how Obama Medicare will no longer be the “treasured” and “beloved” Medicare of our parents and grandparents; … and finally, put forth some alternative solutions to this whole mess.

And to accomplish this, I’m breaking down this post into several subsections:

Introduction
The Cost Problem
Obama’s Health Czars, the IMAC
Obama’s Medicare is not your parents’ Medicare
Solutions

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Who says President Bush didn’t have an exit strategy planned out? It’s been there all along, since day one: 8 years to man the helm and steer this great country.

And now the man who is said to have ceased unprecedented presidential power, would declare marshal law, would repeal the 22nd Amendment, exits the stage exemplifying the workings of our system of government through the peaceful transition of power.
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One thing can be said… all of us – on both sides of the aisles – live in the dark on most actions our govt is doing on our “behalf”. So those with particular specialties, and an eye on relative legislation, are often very helpful in drawing attention to issues that arise we would otherwise miss.

Such is the case when Larry Weisenthal, one of our left leaning FA commenters, requested an authored post on a new regulation to be implemented prior to Obama’s inauguration, the “conscience rule”.

First off, what is the Conscience Rule? I didn’t know either. So I started with Larry’s link to the USA article today – Medical ‘Conscience Rule’ may be ethical hot potato”.

Step aside, inaugural prayer furor, a new controversy is burning — the Bush administration’s newly approved “conscience rule” for health care workers.

Under the rule, which takes effect mid-January, anyone from the brain surgeon to the pharmacy cashier can opt out of participating in care to which they have a moral or religious objection. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt described it as a rule to protect “the right of medical providers to care for their patients in accord with their conscience.”

~~~

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“And so John likes — John, you like to pretend like the war started in 2007. You talk about the surge. The war started in 2003, and at the time when the war started, you said it was going to be quick and easy. You said we knew where the weapons of mass destruction were. You were wrong.

You said that we were going to be greeted as liberators. You were wrong.”-Barry, Presidential debate September 26, 2008, on the campus of the University of Mississippi.

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Quite interesting that in this article from the NYT’s about black radio talk show hosts being the answer to Limbaugh, they never mention black talk show hosts like Larry Elder. Shocker! But the article is something that should be read for no other reason to see how much race is a factor in this election. If you are black and NOT behind Obama then something just has to be wrong with you….right?

Warren Ballentine, one of black talk radio’s new stars, was on a tear against Senator John McCain as he broadcast from the Greenbriar Mall here last week, blithely dismissing Mr. McCain’s kind words about Senator Barack Obama at the recent N.A.A.C.P. national convention.

“He came out talking about how good of a race Barack Obama was running, and how proud he was of Barack,” Mr. Ballentine said. “You know he went back home and said, ‘I can’t believe I spoke in front of all those Negroes today!’ ”

Yeah, thats what McCain did. How insulting and ignorant. Read the rest of this entry »

Much has been made for the past six years of President Bush and his administration’s efforts to convince the American people and the world of the necessity to invade Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein. It is an issue that has left few stones unturned, and as such, the time has come for history to examine the role that President Clinton and officials from his administration and the era of his reign had in marketing the idea that Saddam Hussein was a WMD threat.

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Here is John Gibson today with his new segment The Barack Obama Watch, followed by Larry Elder on the race baiting going on with Obama and the Democrats: (Audio lasts 20 minutes)

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A crisis in waiting, reported on by Iowahawk:

A Denver newspaper columnist is arrested for stalking a story subject. In Cincinnati, a television reporter is arrested on charges of child molestation. A North Carolina newspaper reporter is arrested for harassing a local woman. A drunken Chicago Sun-Times columnist and editorial board member is arrested for wife beating. A Baltimore newspaper editor is arrested for threatening neighbors with a shotgun. In Florida, one TV reporter is arrested for DUI, while another is charged with carrying a gun into a high school. A Philadelphia news anchorwoman goes on a violent drunken rampage, assaulting a police officer. In England, a newspaper columnist is arrested for killing her elderly aunt.

Unrelated incidents, or mounting evidence of that America’s newsrooms have become a breeding ground for murderous, drunk, gun-wielding child molesters? Answers are elusive, but the ever-increasing toll of violent crimes committed by journalists has led some experts to warn that without programs for intensive mental health care, the nation faces a potential bloodbath at the hands of psychopathic media vets.

“These people could snap at any minute,” says James Treacher of the Treacher Institute for Journalist Studies. “We need to get them the help and medication they need before it’s too late.”

I’m sure you’ figured out by paragraph two that this is an attempt by Iowahawk to show how inept and idiotic the MSM, specifically the New York Times, was in their reporting of our “berserk” Veterans.

Bob Owens did his own excellent reporting on it here:

Of those 121 summaries, 40 do not show direct ties between the stresses of deploying to combat zones and the homicides for which these veterans were charged, and of those, 14 were of highly dubious nature.

• The appropriately named Travis D. Beer, an Army reservist deployed to Iraq, pleaded no contest to motor vehicle homicide, and had two prior arrests for driving under the influence. The Times does not note if those prior arrests occurred before he deployed to Iraq.
• Jonathan Braham, a Marine veteran of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, shot a man whom he thought had sexually abused his stepson. According to the Times’ own reporting, he was adamant that his service in Iraq did not play a role in his decision to shoot the alleged abuser.
• Brian Epting was sentenced to six years for vehicular homicide when he lost control of his car while drag racing in 2005 and killed Robert Duffy, a World War II veteran. Is the Times seriously implying that his deployment to Iraq in 2003 is to blame for a drag racing death?
• Michael Gwinn Jr. has a history of domestic violence.
• Robert G. Jackson was diagnosed as a schizophrenic, as was Johnny Williams Jr., which cannot readily be tied to military deployments. Likewise, James Pitts has psychiatric problems predating his deployment to Iraq.
• Michael Antonio Jordan had a juvenile criminal record and was involved in gang activity.
• Christian Mariano was acquitted for acting in self-defense, and yet the Times still included him on this list.
• Jason R. Smith, a National Guard veteran and Atlanta narcotics officer, shot elderly Kathryn Johnston in an infamous no-knock raid, and is currently being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder, but his attorney cannot say what the proximate cause of his PTSD may have been.
• Aaron Stanley’s sideline occupation as an alleged methamphetamine and marijuana dealer may have had more to do with his homicides than his deployment to Iraq. Vernon Walker killed two fellow soldiers while dealing drugs.
• Larry Jaimall West was a member of the Crips street gang.
• Jared Terrasas had a conviction for misdemeanor spousal abuse prior to his deployment to Iraq
• Jessie L. Ullom had already been charged with abusing his infant son before he saw combat.

Veterans, especially wartime veterans, face significant stresses that should not be minimized and are only just being widely recognized, much less treated.

That understood, it is irresponsible of the New York Times to write an extensive post in effect indicting all veterans, while refusing to even attempt to provide context for their story, and while unfairly including every possible connection of veterans to homicides in such a cavalier manner — even those deaths that were justified, unrelated, unsupported, or had more proximate causes than being a war veteran.

The Times article was nothing more then an attempt by the paper to belittle the war. “See what war does to our young men!” which of course would be followed with cries of “no war for oil!” and other absurdity.

Whether if its leaking our classified information to the general public about programs in place to keep our country safe or whether its writing biased and intentionally misreported screeds on our returning veterans, we can always count on them doing their best to harm our country and those that serve our country.

I was driving in my car earlier today listening to Sirius radio and Larry Elder when at the 4 o’clock hour (PST) ABC News came on with their hourly update.  They led it with the host saying things like "Bush dodged going to Vietnam but today he compared Iraq to that war" and I had to smile.  This is our "unbiased" MSM.  So I went online when I got home to see if I could find a copy of their updates but found nothing.  But I did find this post by Ace at Ace of Spades HQ:

The newsroom is a sacred, magical place where unhinged partisanship never intrudes into actual reportage.

Except when it does.

MSM Suddenly Convinced Iraq NOT Like Vietnam, Now That Bush Has Suggested Comparison To Mass Slaughter and Displaced Boat People: Apparently Iraq is only like Vietnam in ways that benefit the Democratic party.

Who knew?

Of course ABC has since changed that headline to "New Bush Talking Point: Iraq Like Vietnam" but as usually is the case with our extremely biased MSM they even got his message wrong.  His exact quote: (From Mike’s post below)

Three decades later, there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam War and how we left. There’s no debate in my mind that the veterans from Vietnam deserve the high praise of the United States of America. (Applause.) Whatever your position is on that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America’s withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like "boat people," "re-education camps," and "killing fields."

There was another price to our withdrawal from Vietnam, and we can hear it in the words of the enemy we face in today’s struggle — those who came to our soil and killed thousands of citizens on September the 11th, 2001. In an interview with a Pakistani newspaper after the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden declared that "the American people had risen against their government’s war in Vietnam. And they must do the same today."

His number two man, Zawahiri, has also invoked Vietnam. In a letter to al Qaeda’s chief of operations in Iraq, Zawahiri pointed to "the aftermath of the collapse of the American power in Vietnam and how they ran and left their agents."

Zawahiri later returned to this theme, declaring that the Americans "know better than others that there is no hope in victory. The Vietnam specter is closing every outlet." Here at home, some can argue our withdrawal from Vietnam carried no price to American credibility — but the terrorists see it differently.

We must remember the words of the enemy. We must listen to what they say. Bin Laden has declared that "the war [in Iraq] is for you or us to win. If we win it, it means your disgrace and defeat forever." Iraq is one of several fronts in the war on terror — but it’s the central front — it’s the central front for the enemy that attacked us and wants to attack us again. And it’s the central front for the United States and to withdraw without getting the job done would be devastating. (Applause.)

If we were to abandon the Iraqi people, the terrorists would be emboldened, and use their victory to gain new recruits. As we saw on September the 11th, a terrorist safe haven on the other side of the world can bring death and destruction to the streets of our own cities. Unlike in Vietnam, if we withdraw before the job is done, this enemy will follow us home. And that is why, for the security of the United States of America, we must defeat them overseas so we do not face them in the United States of America. (Applause.)

And to think the liberal reporters came away from that speech with a headline like Iraq Like Vietnam when in fact he is saying it WILL be like Vietnam if we run from this fight.

Not to tough to figure that one out, but we all know they did.  They just enjoy twisting the message of the President to fit the agenda they want to push.  Par for the course for todays media. 

You can bet this guy:

Is having a huge conniption fit right about now with this news:

Former CIA operative Valerie Plame lost a lawsuit Thursday that demanded money from Bush administration officials whom she blamed for leaking her agency identity.

Plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had accused Vice President Dick Cheney and others of conspiring to disclose her identity in 2003. Plame said that violated her privacy rights and was illegal retribution for her husband’s criticism of the administration.

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds and said he would not express an opinion on the constitutional arguments.

Poor Chrissy, he’s going to blow a gasket after the news his good pals lost another round.  First they fail to bring down the 2004 election, then they fail to get Rove or Cheney indicted, and now they lose their silly ignorant lawsuit.  Not a good run for these treasonous rats huh?

Oh, and take a look at that bolded part in the AP’s article.  They are alleging that the Judge threw it out on jurisdictional grounds which is quite plainly disputed in the actual opinion on page 41: (h/t Hot Air)

For the reasons given above, plaintiffs have failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted with respect to their four causes of action asserted directly under the Constitution. Furthermore, this Court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction over plaintiffs’ claim for public disclosure of private facts.

Mighty slimy of the AP to get the story wrong huh?  I’m sure it was just an accident….

My favorite part of the opinion is the one with the most common sense explanation:

[D]efendants chose to rebut Mr. Wilson’s comments and attack his credibility may have been highly unsavory. But there can be no serious dispute that the act of rebutting public criticism, such as that levied by Mr. Wilson against the Bush Administration’s handling of prewar foreign intelligence, by speaking with members of the press is within the scope of defendants’ duties as high-level Executive Branch officials.

Your damn right it’s within their duties, hell….it’s something that MUST be done when a man with a anti-war, anti-Bush agenda is sent to Niger by his rabid anti-Bush wife to investigate that "crazy report" about Saddam trying to acquire Uranium and then comes back and lies about what he discovers to bring down a President.

Valerie Plame recommended him for the job (and then lied about doing it), Joe Wilson comes back and tells the CIA something completely different then what he writes about in Vanity Fair, then he lies about who really sent him and then when caught in all his lies he and his desk-jockey wife become victims.

Sound like the typical Democrat family to you?  A Victocrat as Larry Elder likes to call them.

No, what this Judge did today is what all judges should do.  Namely rule with some common sense.

Of course we all know the KOSKiddies and DummiesU alumni will go batty over the fact that the Judge is a Bush appointee….they have yet to find a conspiracy they don’t love.

Other’s Blogging:

• Macsmind
• Gateway Pundit
• Newsbusters
• JustOneMinute
• Protein Wisdom
• Wizbang
• The Strata-Sphere
• A Blog For All
• California Yankee
• Rathergate
• Ace of Spades HQ
• Joust The Facts
• Decision ‘08
• Big Lizards
• Lifelike Pundits

Another fat cat liberal decries the fact that he is allowed to make so much money and pay his secretary only 60 thousand dollars a year.

Woops, guess this article didn’t say that.  Silly me.  What it does say is that Warren Buffet, the 3rd richest man in the world is hopping mad that he is only taxed at a 17% rate while his 60 grand a year secretary is taxed at 30%.

Speaking at a $4,600-a-seat fundraiser in New York for Senator Hillary Clinton, Mr Buffett, who is worth an estimated $52 billion (£26 billion), said: “The 400 of us [here] pay a lower part of our income in taxes than our receptionists do, or our cleaning ladies, for that matter. If you’re in the luckiest 1 per cent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 per cent.”

Mr Buffett said that he was taxed at 17.7 per cent on the $46 million he made last year, without trying to avoid paying higher taxes, while his secretary, who earned $60,000, was taxed at 30 per cent.

I don’t hear the rich socialist liberals like Hillary Clinton getting upset about a man who is worth 52 billion only paying his secretary 60 grand, but that’s beside the point.  This is a free society and he has every right to pay what he chooses.  What I question is this figure of 30%. 

Well, I don’t question it as much as think it’s pure lunacy.  There is no way a person making 60 grand a year can be paying at a 30% rate.  Investors Business Daily agrees:

Sounds unjust, if true. But we don’t know what tax system Buffett is looking at. It certainly isn’t the one we use here in the U.S. We went to the IRS’ Web site and used its tax calculator. We put in various incomes, from $50,000 to $350,000 a year — the latter being quite a bit for a secretary to make in Omaha.

So there’s no funny business, we gave this fictional person no deductions other than the personal one. That is, no IRAs, no 401(k)s, no children, no mortgage, no nothing. Virtually no one fits that profile, but at least we can’t be accused of skewing the data.

Here’s what we found: At $50,000, the IRS asks for 13.5% of your income. At $75,000, it’s 17.3%. You can keep going all the way to about $350,000 before you’re in spitting distance (28.4%) of what Buffett’s secretary supposedly pays.

Only if you add in the 6.2% that employees pay for Social Security — which would be cheating, since if she started working before 2000 she’ll get that money back — can you reasonably come close to 30%. And that kicks in at an income of just over $190,000.

Going farther then the Investor Business Daily, Larry Elder had some tax professionals on his radio show today and went through a bunch of different scenarios. 

• A single women with no kids, with no IRA contributions, and takes a standard deduction, her rate would be 15.7%. 
• A single women with one kid, a 4 grand IRA deduction, and takes the standard deduction, rate is 8%. 
• A single homeowner with two kids, a 4 grand IRA deduction, and this time she itemizes 10 grand, her rate is 4.8%.
•  A married homeowner with two kids and a unemployed spouse, itemizes with a IRA deduction, her rate would be 2.4%.

Add in state income taxes you would still not get anywhere near 30%.  Now the only way it could be close is if her spouse made 120 grand and they just claimed a standard deduction.  Combined they make 180 grand.  But nowhere in his speech does he allude to that, in fact he makes it perfectly clear she only makes 60 grand.

This is just a typical liberal tactic of using class envy to generate support among the poor.  Why lower taxes to put more money into the pockets of the poor when you can raise taxes and give out more welfare.  Get them on the rolls and they are Democrats forever.

All about power.

My earlier post on John Kerry pandering to the twoofers is just the start.  Now Hillary is up to her usual pandering by putting that bad grammar and twangs into her speech for the National Action Network, a civil rights group founded by Rev. Al Sharpton:

"The abuses that have gone on in the last six years, I don’t think we know the half of it," Clinton said, her voice inflected with a singsong Southern twang that she often uses in front of black audiences.

So I suppose a black audience is just too ignorant to understand proper grammar?

What would be her excuse for this behavior I wonder?  Is it because she wants to be understood so she uses bad grammar for those who understand bad grammar?  Wouldn’t that be considered racist behavior?  As Larry Elder stated in his first book The Ten Things You Can’t Say In America:

"Good motives aside, white condescension does more damage than good. White condescension says to a black child, "The rules used by other ethnic groups don’t apply to you. Forget about "work hard, get an education, posses good values. No, for you, we’ll alter the rules by lowering the standards and expecting less.’" Expect less, get less." –P.68

But what do we hear during Hillary’s speech?  Applause.  The black audience was applauding her condescension towards them.  Amazing.

Finally you have to listen to this from the Larry Elder show today.  Gone With The Wind starring Hillary Clinton:

Larry Elder gave an excellent interview with Diane Sawyer this morning on Good Morning America in which he uttered the words "scotty beam me up" to describe this whole Imus situation.  Three of the biggest racists in this country (Sharpton, Spike Lee, & Jackson) call for the head of a man who uttered a stupid remark, one in which he apologized over and over again for making, and succeed in getting him fired.

All the while you can tune into your local hip hop radio station and hear much much worse then what is uttered by Imus about oh, every 15 seconds or so.

Scotty beam me up:

Newsbusters took issue with the fact that Diane accused Larry of attacking her at the end but if you watch the video it really seems to be a joke.   Can’t believe I am defending Diane Sawyer but there you have it, pigs are flying.

Sometimes the LATimes can surprise you. I posted last month on Lt. Mark Daily, a UCLA alumni killed in Iraq.

 Today, his story draws more attention.

I’ll reprint the LA Times piece in the extended section, in case it is inaccessible after 7 days.

Related LATimes pieces:
Mark Daily’s MySpace essay, "Why I joined" reprinted.
E-mails to friends and family
Recent California military deaths

Also blogged:
Further Adventures of Indigo Red

Hat tip: Hugh Hewitt

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