If it’s the right thing to do why do you need a $100 million payoff?
The $100 Million Health Care Vote?
By Jonathon Karl ABC News
November 19, 2009 3:03 PM
What does it take to get a wavering senator to vote for health care reform?
Here’s a case study.
On page 432 of the Reid bill, there is a section increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for “certain states recovering from a major disaster.”
The section spends two pages defining which “states” would qualify, saying, among other things, that it would be states that “during the preceding 7 fiscal years” have been declared a “major disaster area.”
I am told the section applies to exactly one state: Louisiana, the home of moderate Democrat Mary Landrieu, who has been playing hard to get on the health care bill.
In other words, the bill spends two pages describing would could be written with a single world: Louisiana. (This may also help explain why the bill is long.)
Senator Harry Reid, who drafted the bill, cannot pass it without the support of Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu.
How much does it cost? According to the Congressional Budget Office: $100 million.
Did Obama lie in his joint address to Congress when he said “no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions?”
cue to 1:28 for “YOU LIE”
Last summer and earlier this fall Obama repeatedly claimed that those on our side who expressed concerns about many aspects of the health bills working their way through Congress were lying about certain provisions. One of those “lies” was the GOP claim that money from the government run plans would be used to fund abortions.
When Joe Wilson shouted “YOU LIE” during Obama’s speech to Congress, Joe wasn’t just talking about illegal immigrants getting benefits under these plans (they do). Despite the vote taken in the House to strike abortion funding from their version of the bill, Harry Reid put it back in the Senate bill.
Just like the original 2,032-page, government-run health care plan from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) massive, 2,074-page bill would levy a new “abortion premium” fee on Americans in the government-run plan.
Beginning on line 7, p. 118, section 1303 under “Voluntary Choice of Coverage of Abortion Services” the Health and Human Services Secretary is given the authority to determine when abortion is allowed under the government-run health plan. Leader Reid’s plan also requires that at least one insurance plan offered in the Exchange covers abortions (line 13, p. 120).
What is even more alarming is that a monthly abortion premium will be charged of all enrollees in the government-run health plan. It’s right there beginning on line 11, page 122, section 1303, under “Actuarial Value of Optional Service Coverage.” The premium will be paid into a U.S. Treasury account – and these federal funds will be used to pay for the abortion services. Read the rest of this entry »
After the huge election wins for the GOP in Virginia and New Jersey the “news” media did it’s best to deny that the GOP surge had anything to do with Obama. I guess they are going to have to learn the hard way.
Not only did Independent voters desert the candidates in those races who were vigorously supported by Obama, but independents continue to flee from Obama nationwide.
Only on international affairs does Obama get majority support with 57 percent of independents offering approval for the job he is doing.
The rest of Obama’s approval scores among independents on the seven issues tested in the poll range from fair to borderline poor. Forty six percent approve of his handling of “the threat of terrorism” while 45 percent said he has done a good job on the economy.
Obama’s job approval ratings are weaker among independents when it comes to health care (41 percent), Afghanistan (39 percent) and the budget deficit (37 percent).
While Obama maintains a positive job approval among independents (50 percent approve/47 percent disapprove) the broad skepticism toward how he is handling some of the country’s critical priorities could spell trouble down the road for the president.
How Obama’s “jobs saved and created” scam has introduced a new level of dishonesty to government statistics!
It’s no secret that Obama’s claim of saving or creating 650,000 jobs is an utter fantasy. But now, the sheer dishonesty and bungling incompetence of the effort to hoodwink Americans into believing the $trillion stimulus bill is saving jobs is becoming more clear:
Exclusive: Jobs ‘Saved or Created’ in Congressional Districts That Don’t Exist Human Error Blamed for Crediting New Stimulus Jobs to Nonexistent Places By JONATHAN KARL ABC News
Nov. 16, 2009
Discrepancies on government web site call into question stimulus spending.
There’s one problem, though: There is no 15th congressional district in Arizona; the state has only eight districts.
And ABC News has found many more entries for projects like this in places that are incorrectly identified.
We’re also reminded of the Obama bow to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Later the White House denied that Obama had bowed even though it was obvious they were lying.
What you are looking at above is a monument to government folly.
It is the vacant lot where the home of Susette Kelo once stood.
A decade ago, the town of New London, Connecticut claimed Kelo’s house by right of eminent domain. The plan was to demolish the residential neighborhood so that Pfizer could built a massive research and development plant on the adjacent land. Pfizer got the land for next to nothing. Five Supreme Court justices upheld the taking, ruling that although the primary beneficiary was a corporation, it met the constitutional requirement of “public use.”
Now Pfizer has announced that it is shutting down the plant.
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed always wanted a show trial in New York!
When the CIA captured arch terrorist KSM in Pakistan in 2003 he refused to talk when questioned. “I’ll talk to you guys after I get to New York and see my lawyer,” he said, according to former CIA Director George Tenet. He must have been really shocked when instead he was stripped naked in a secret CIA prison and waterboarded before ultimately being bundled off to Guantanamo Bay.
But it looks like now he will get his fondest wish for a big propaganda show in New York. Unlike the Bush Administration which determined to keep these monsters isolated at Gitmo, the Obama Administration is bending over backwards to grant KSM the rights he never extended to any of his victims.
This is the man who beheaded Daniel Pearl with a dull knife as he screamed. This is the man who masterminded the September 11th attacks and who was in the process of planning additional attacks. This is the man who the Obama Administration is now conferring with the Constitutional rights of a U.S. citizen by putting him on trial in a civilian court in New York!
The Obama’s Administration has now placed an even larger target on the back of New York City. It threw away years of patient legal foundations for military tribunals laid by the Bush Administration in concert with the U.S. Congress and Supreme Court. It has undertaken a process in which the CIA will be on trial, not KSM.
In short, it will be a farce, but a dangerous and expensive one.
Former Attorney General Mukasey addressed the Federalist Society on Friday:
Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who as a judge presided over a trial stemming from the first attack on the World Trade Center, on Friday warned that the Obama administration’s decision to bring Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to New York, along with three other terrorist detainees, to stand trial in a civilian court, reflected a pre-9/11 mindset that viewed terrorism as a simple criminal matter. Read the rest of this entry »
Was it to shield Obama or because they preferred to use the incident to bash the military? Or both?
Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter made no secret of his radical Islamic views. He passed out business cards with the acronomyn SOA indicating he was a “soldier of Allah.” Hasan gave a bizzare PowerPoint presentation in which he quoted the Koran (slide 43): “I have been commanded to fight the people until they testify that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah and that Mohammed is the Messenger.”
As Hasan began to fire on the unarmed soldiers at Fort Hood he shouted the Jihadi war cry: “Allahu Akbar.”
So why has it been so difficult for the “news” media to call this a terrorist act?
PC News: Networks Downplay Terrorism, Muslim Connection in Ft. Hood Attack All three networks mention ‘terror’ only after Obama hints at ideology during funeral ceremony.
By Carolyn Plocher and Dan Gainor Culture and Media Institute
November 11, 2009
That headline may be premature, but it was even MORE premature to swear in Owens last Friday before all the votes were counted!
Democrats didn’t waste any time swearing in Bill Owens to take a seat in Congress representing the 23rd Congressional District of New York. While the Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman had conceded the race on election night when it looked like he was down by over 5,000 votes, all the ballots had yet to be counted and a string of reporting errors underreported Hoffman’s totals by thousands of votes.
The official vote count is now so close that the actual winner will be decided by the 10,200 absentee ballots which were distributed. With ACORN and SEIU paid agents working on behalf of Owens that means it’s likely the absentee ballots will favor Owens as fraud with these ballots is a specialty of Democrats.
But what would happen if it were determined that Hoffman actually won? Would Owens be removed from office and the deciding vote he cast in favor of Obama Care on Saturday be overturned? All unlikely, but you can just hear Democrats screaming at even the suggestion.
Meanwhile, Hoffman, who wasn’t a particularly charismatic candidate is considering running again in 2010. Plus, for those interested in a poll taken after the election, here’s some interesting background on the race.
The 2009 hurricane season is another in a line of record low hurricane years!
What’s left of Tropical Depression Ida is passing overhead as I write. With barely a breeze but some much needed rain she is a welcome end to the 2009 hurricane season. A year which set a record as the quietest season since 1997. Not one hurricane made landfall in the United States and very few storms even reached hurricane strength. The total accumulated energy of all tropical storms remains near historic lows despite a modest warming trend in ocean waters which is now declining.
And yet the scaremongers continue to warn of more and bigger storms. Al Gore even uses another hurricane graphic , as he did in his propaganda film, An Inconvenient Truth, to sell yet another book on the subject (see right). Read the rest of this entry »
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and German President Horst Koehler walk through the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin November 9, 2009, during celebrations to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Read the rest of this entry »
Why is the Obama Administration so reluctant to call Islamist terror by it’s name?
Obama can’t be bothered by Islamic terrorism By Ralph Peters New York Post
Nov. 8, 2009
…A Muslim fanatic, known to the FBI as a fan of suicide bombers and to colleagues as an opponent of our government, coolly buys weapons, heads to a military facility he knows will be packed with unsuspecting soldiers, waits for the crowd to thicken, then shouts, “Allah is great!” and guns down 51 patriots, calmly reloading among the dead and dying.
But don’t rush to judgment.
Imagine if, instead of Fort Hood, the massacre had gone down at a mosque in Detroit — carried out by a maddened Christian or Jew. Obama would’ve been aboard Air Force One before the pilots had time to file a flight plan and he would’ve been on site before the gun smoke cleared, hugging and boo-hooing and dispensing stirring rhetoric for the evening news.
But go out of his way to rally our butchered troops? Not a chance. It’s not like they’re real human beings with Ivy League degrees. When Obama got word of the attack, he didn’t even lose his fabled cool.
… Of course, this act of Islamist terrorism has been an inconvenience to a president whose administration insists there’s no such thing. Those dead and wounded soldiers are such an embarrassment. If only a Baptist or Lutheran had been the shooter, things would’ve been so much tidier.
What’s next? The White House is going to bring heavy pressure on the FBI, through Attorney General Eric Holder, to play down investigative results confirming that Maj. Nidal Hasan was motivated by his Muslim beliefs. Read the rest of this entry »
Velez, 21, of Chicago, was pregnant and preparing to return home. A friend of Velez’s, Sasha Ramos, described her as a fun-loving person who wrote poetry and loved dancing. Read the rest of this entry »
Contrast that with Obama’s photo-op in Delaware. Plus: Consider Obama’s “My Pet Goat” moment in his first public response to the tragedy!
Friday night former U.S. President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush made a private visit to the victims of the massacre at Fort Hood:
The Bushes entered and departed the sprawling military facility in secret, having told the base commander they did not want press coverage of their visit, a source told Fox News.
Former President George W. Bush and his wife Laura secretly visited Fort Hood last night and spent “considerable time” consoling those who were wounded in Thursday’s shooting spree, Fox News has learned.
The Bushes entered and departed the sprawling military facility in secret, having told the base commander they did not want press coverage of their visit, a source told Fox News.
The couple was described as “deeply concerned” about military families on Fort Hood after Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly opened fire on soldiers and civilians, killing 13 and wounding 38.
The Bushes, who have a 1,600-acre property known as Prairie Chapel Ranch less than 30 miles from Fort Hood in central Texas, spent between one and two hours visiting the wounded and their families.
Contrast the Bush’s behavior with that of Obama who flew to Dover, Delaware to pay his respects to the returning remains of fallen American soldiers making sure he had a full press contingent in tow.
And while we are talking about contrasts, how about Obama’s first public words as this tragedy unfolded? Yes, he did have a statement to make, but he prefaced it with friendly banter and standard boilerplate that was totally inappropriate. As millions of Americans watched and waited for their President to help them deal with this news, this is what they saw and heard: Read the rest of this entry »
Remember that Obama claimed the stimulus bill would save or create millions of jobs. It didn’t. Remember that the Obama Administration said that the stimulus bill would keep unemployment from rising above 8% and that the bill was too important to take the time to read it? Remember that after a slight dip in unemployment in August Obama claimed that he had “rescued our economy from catastrophe?”
Well now reality is starting to set in. As Obama’s chief White House economist testified before Congress last month the stimulus that was to be the cornerstone of Obama’s economic recovery and jobs plan is a bust. A $trillion in new spending that will take a lifetime to pay off and nothing to show for it. It really is, as the Congressional Budget Office warned before the stimulus bill was signed, “worse than doing nothing!”
Opinion polls suggest that more and more voters are blaming Obama, not Bush, for the bad economy. That message was confirmed on Tuesday with voters in New Jersey and Virginia putting the economy and jobs at the top of their list of concerns while voting overwhelmingly for Republican candidates in the big races.
With unemployment expected to remain high, directly due to Obama’s policies which DISCOURAGE job growth, it’s likely that voters will be looking for a different kind of hope and change a year from now and also in 2012!
