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September 12, 2009

Remember this next time you send in your IRS tax forms


Global Tax Thuggery

From the desk of Richard Rahn at the Brussels Journal
According to the OECD, the U.S. should be sharing tax information with all cooperating countries on its list - including those who are nondemocratic and/or corrupt. Worse yet, the Obama administration is supporting the OECD in this wholesale violation of basic rights.
Do you think the Internal Revenue Service should have the right to share your tax information with foreign governments -- even ones run by thugs and those that engage in human rights abuses and/or suppress freedom in their countries?

A meeting was held in Mexico City last week under the auspices of the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), whose implicit goal is to create a global high-tax cartel.

It claims to be in favor of "transparency" and "global economic growth." However, as with many domestic and international government organizations, the OECD's actions are often contrary to its words.

In order to create a global tax cartel, the OECD needs to have tax information shared among nations -- which means that the citizen of any country that signs on to this scheme may have his or her tax information shared with other member jurisdictions.

The Center for Freedom and Prosperity sent a delegation to the Mexico City meeting. It included my colleague Daniel J. Mitchell, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. Mr. Mitchell has written extensively on the importance of global tax competition, which is needed for economic growth, the preservation of human rights and civil societies.

Mr. Mitchell was there to provide intellectual support to smaller, low-tax jurisdictions, which were trying to protect their tax sovereignty, and also to report on the meeting.

The international bureaucrats who run the OECD's Fiscal Affairs Committee managed to persuade a hotel to cancel Mr. Mitchell's reservations and then tried to get him thrown out of the public lobby of the hotel where the meeting was held -- as he was quietly talking with delegations from lower-tax jurisdictions and the press. Fortunately, when Mr. Mitchell and members of the press objected to the bullying tactics of the OECD officials, he finally was allowed to stay.

The OECD has managed to get 87 jurisdictions to sign on to its global "tax standard." The high-tax countries are using the OECD to threaten low-tax jurisdictions to sign this agreement.

It is worth noting that the tax bullies at the OECD and at other international organizations, such as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund and World Bank, who demand that others pay higher taxes, enjoy tax-free personal income courtesy of the world's taxpayers.

(More...)

Breaking News

It looks as if the Silent Majority is tired of being silenced

National 9/12 March: Police estimate 1.2 million in attendance. ABC News reporting crowd at 2 million.


Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

Hat Tip to RightKlik

A Familiar Problem. I blame Bush & Cheney.

THE VOICE, a weekly newspaper published in Botswana, reports on the problem of foreigners doing business and skewering the local economy.
Foreign competition bites on local vendors
By Dubani-wa-Dubani

Vegetable vendors in Mochudi say they are on the brink of ruin unless authorities do something about took save them from bigger businesses and foreign investors.

Speaking to Your Money last week Baleseng Anna Mataboge who started selling vegetables on the streets in 2003 after she was forced out of clothing business by tough competition from Chinese owned shops said.

“When the Chinese came they brought with them products that are very cheap and this killed small time clothing producers. I know others in my former trade who have had to take up others venture because their businesses like mine could not compete with the cheap Chinese clothes.”

DISGRUNTLED: Maggie Gouwe

“I went into the vegetable business and again I have to compete with big businesses which are mostly run by Indians. Looks like I may have to start something else soon. The way things are going most of us will be out of business soon unless the government does something to protect us. Do not get me wrong I have nothing against Chinese and Indians. I am not a racist. I just think the government must make laws that protect citizens from unfair competition,” the 45-year old continued.

When quizzed on what she thought the solution could be she said: “Government should have quota for big business so that the small person can have a fair share of the market too. We need to pay school fees for our kids and also have daily financial needs like anybody else. When we have laws that will protect the small business person then we will prove wrong those who say Batswana are good for nothing.”

For Maggie Gouwe who says she has, together with fellow vendors, have had to throw away spoilt veggies because of stifling competition from bigger establishment sees no reason why people should come from other countries just to sell vegetables.

“I have nothing against anybody. I have never had apartheid in my head, but I think our government should protect us as citizens. I am for foreign investors as long as it does not ruin the livelihood of citizens. To me coming to Botswana just to sell vegetables is not foreign investment because it robs a lot of citizens of a way of making a living. We need laws to protect us from such and the government must make such laws to protect the likes of us from ruin”, the 53-year-old told Your Money.

“We have mouths to feed and bills to pay like everybody else. Now that we have to pay school fees things are hard. Unless the government makes laws that will give small business people a fair deal a lot of people face ruin”, she said.

A snap survey amongst the vegetable sellers in Mochudi revealed that most are worried about going out of business soon and feel that authorities should do more to help their kind survive the combined impact of the global economic slowdown and being swallowed by bigger establishments.

Obama's Tort Reform

September 11, 2009

It's Miller Time



"Ted Nugent's Rec Room" I love it.

9-11

I'll never have the words to accurately describe my feelings. I post these images to remind us all of the murder of innocents.

And the murder of innocence.










Eight years ago, I remember opening my eyes at 8:46 a.m. in my downtown Manhattan apartment because...

...I thought a truck had crashed in the street outside

I remember pacing my apartment for the next 15 minutes thinking, stupidly, that a gas line might have been hit in the North Tower...

...and then I heard another explosion. I hope no one ever hears anything like it.

All I can say to describe it is: Imagine the sound of thousands of Americans screaming on a city street

It was unbelievable, almost literally



I remember being on the sidewalk and there was an FBI agent saying he was cordoning off the street...

...and then, the next day, when I went back for my cats, they told me I might see bodies lying in front of my apartment building (I didn't)

We held a memorial service in October for my cousin's husband, who was "missing" but not really...

He worked for Cantor Fitzgerald. They found a piece of his ribcage in the rubble not too long afterwards.

This is the guy who conspired to murder him: http://is.gd/38h7y

Had a friend from the high school speech and debate team who disappeared from the 105th floor

Had another friend of a friend who worked on the 80th floor or so, married six weeks before the attack...

Speculation is that he was right in the plane's path, and was killed instantly when it plowed through the building

Did a bit of legal work for a couple whose son worked in the upper floors. Was dating someone else up there at the time...

I was told that she managed to call her parents while they were trapped up there and that the call "was not good"

Never found out if it was cut off by the building collapsing or not

I remember opening my eyes at 8:46 a.m. thinking "I hope that was just a pothole." Then I heard a guy outside my window say, "Oh shit"

Opened the window, looked to my left, saw huge smoke coming out of the WTC

Left at around 9:30, decided to walk uptown thinking that the buildings would never collapse and that...

...I'd be back in my apartment by the next night. I never went back. It was closed off until December.

I remember thinking when I was a few blocks away that the towers might collapse, and so I walked faster...

...although I sneered at myself later for thinking that might be true and for being a coward. Although not for long.

To this day, you can find photos of thousands of people congregated in the blocks surrounding the Towers, seemingly...

...waiting for them to fall that day

When I got to midtown, rumors were that Camp David and the Sears Tower had also been destroyed. I remember looking around...

...and thinking that we had to get out of Manhattan, as this might be some pretext to get us into the street and hit us with some germ

I callled my dad -- and somehow miraculously got through -- and told him I was alive, then headed for the 59th street bridge

To this day, the scariest memory is being on that bridge, looking at the Towers smoking in the distance,

and thinking maybe the plotters had wired the bridge too to explode beneath us while we were crossing it.

I remember talking to some guy on the bridge that we'd get revenge, but...

...you had to see the smoke coming from the Towers in the distance. It was like a volcano

I remember being down there two months later. There was a single piece of structure...

...maybe five stories tall of the lattice-work still standing. It looked like a limb of a corpse sticking up out of the ground.

They knocked it down soon after

At my office, which I had just joined, I was told that...

...some people had seen the jumpers diving out the windows to escape the flames that morning

There was a video online, posted maybe two years ago, shot from the hotel across the street,,,

...and it showed roughly 10-12 bodies flattened into panackes lying in the central plaza

Maybe it's still online somewhere

You have to see it to understand, though. You get a sense of it from the Naudet brothers documentary hearing...



...the explosions as the bodies land in the plaza, but seeing it and hearing it are two different things

I remember after I got over the bridge into Queens, I heard a noise overheard...

...that I'd never heard before. It was an F-15, on patrol over New York. Very odd sound. A high-pitched wheeze.

I remember on Sept. 12, when I got on the train to go downtown and try to get my cats out of the apartment...

...the Village was utterly deserted. No one on the streets. Like "28 Days Later" if you've seen that

We made it to a checkpoint and the cop said go no further, until my mom intervened. Then he took pity...

...and agreed to let me downtown IF I agreed that any exposure to bodies lying in the streets was my own fault.

Didn't see any bodies, but I did see soldiers, ATF, FBI, and so on. The ground was totally covered by white clay...

...which I knew was formed by WTC dust plus water from the FDNY. It look like a moonscape.

There was a firefighter at the intersection and I flagged him down and asked if I could borrow his flashlight, since...

...all buildings downtown had no power. He gave me a pen flashlight.

The doors to my building at Park Place were glass but had kicked in, presumably by the FDNY, to see if there were...

...survivors inside. When I got in there, all power was out. No elevators, no hall lights...

...I had to feel my way to the hall and make my way up to my apartment on the third floor by feeling my way there...

...When I got there, the cats were alive. There was WTC dust inside the apartment, but...

...for whatever reason, I had closed the windows before I left to walk uptown that day, so dust was minimal. I loaded them...

...into the carrier and took them back to Queens. That was the last I could get into the apartment until December 2001,...

...and then it was only to get in, take whatever belongings were salvageable (i.e. not computer), and get out. I lived...

in that apartment from 7/2001 to 9/2001, but given the diseases longtime residents have had...

...I'm lucky I decided to move

My only other significant memory is being in the lobby of the apartment building on 9/11...

...and trying to console some woman who lived there who said her father worked on the lower floors of the WTC. I assume...

...he made it out alive, but she was hysterical as of 9:30 that a.m. Who could blame her?

I do remember feeling embarrassed afterwards that...

...I initially thought the smoke coming out of the North Tower was due to a fire or something, but...

...it's hard to explain the shock of realizing you're living through a historical event while you're living through it.

For months afterwards, I tried to tell people how I thought maybe the Towers...

...were going to be hit by six or seven or eight planes in succession. Which sounds nuts, but once you're in the moment...

...and crazy shit is happening, you don't know how crazy that script is about to get.

When I left at 9:30, I thought more planes were coming.

I left because I thought, "Well, if these planes hit the building the right way, it could fall and land on mine."\

I remember getting to 57th Street and asking some dude, "What happened?"

And he said, "They collapsed" and I couldn't believe both of them had gone down. Even after the planes hit...

...I remembered that the Empire State Building had taken a hit from a military plane during WWII and still stood tall

So it was never a serious possibility that the WTC would collapse. I assumed...

...that the FDNY would get up there, put out the fire, and the WTC would be upright but with gigantic holes in it

It took an hour for the first tower to go down, 90 minutes for the second.

Even now, despite the smoke, I'm convinced most of the people trapped at the top were alive...

...and waiting, somehow, for a rescue. The couple whose legal case I worked for told me that...

...their son and his GF contacted her father very shortly before the collapse. Which makes sense. As much smoke as there was...

...if you have a five-story hole in the wall to let air in to breathe, you're going to linger on.

So for many people, the choice probably quickly became: Hang on, endure the smoke, or jump

If you listen to the 911 calls, which I advise you not to do, some of the chose "hang on"

Although needless to say, if you ever saw the Towers...

...you know how dire things must have been up there to make anyone think the better solution was "jump"

They were ENORMOUS.

Another weird memory: Shortly after I got my apartment in lower Manhattan, on Park Place...

...I remember taking my brother to see "The Others," which had just opened.

And afterwards I remember taking him up to the rooftop of my building to admire the Towers. According to Wikipedia...

"The Others" opened on August 10, 2001, so this must have been within 10 days or so afterwards. Very eerie.

And I remember we also went to Morton's and Borders right inside the WTC complex to celebrate my new job

That Borders was gutted, needless to say, on 9/11. You could see the frame of the building in the WTC lobby after the attack

I was reading magazines in there the week or two before

One of the weirdest feelings, which I'm sure everyone can share, is that I remember distinctly feeling...

...in the month or two before the attack that "important" news no longer existed. It was all inane bullshit about...

...shark attacks and Gary Condit and overaged pitchers in the Little League World Series. To this day...

...I try never to grumble about a slow news day because the alternative is horrifyingly worse

After the attack, maybe a month after, I remember going to see "Zoolander" in Times Square and...

...coming up out of the subway tunnel having the distinct fear that...

...the sky would light up and a mushroom cloud would appear instantly above my head in my lost moment of consciousness. No joke. In fact...

...I ended up going to bed around 6:30 p.m. for maybe three months after 9/11.

Even when I ended up working downtown for years after that, with a luxurious view of upper Manhattan from the top floors...

...I always feared looking out the window because I was paranoid that at that precise moment, the flash would go off...

...and that'd be the last thing I see. And in fact, for a moment in 2003 when the power went out city-wide,

...I did think that was what was happening. The wages of 9/11.

I leave you with this, my very favorite film about the WTC. If you're a New Yorker, have a hanky handy. No. 3 is golden http://is.gd/38qsT

One more note: If you've never seen a photo of the smoke coming from the Trade Center after the collapse, find one.

Watching it from the 59th bridge, it looked like a volcano. There was so much smoke, it was indescribable. Just *erupting* from the wreckage

Remember

Hat Tip to Mike at Exblogitate

September 10, 2009

Paul Krugman explains the Socialist plan to achieve what they want.



Hat tip to Mike at Exblogitate

"I will not cease from mental fight, Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, Till we have built Jerusalem In England's green and pleasant land" - Blake

The Brussels Journal documents the latest British adventure with the Religion of Peace.

A Protest Attacked; A Blogger Threatened With Execution

Emotions are running high in parts of Britain. Only a couple of weeks ago, rumors that a “Right wing” group was planning to march through the Bury Park region of Luton were spreading through the Muslim communities of the city. This turned out to be false. When no one turned up, the Muslim youths that had congregated attacked the police, throwing missiles and hurling abuse [video]. 50 extra police had to be drafted to contain the situation.

Last week, as it became known that the so-called English Defense League (EDL) was planning to protest in Birmingham, Mohammad Naseem, chairman of the Birmingham Central Mosque, told Muslims to “vent their feelings” at the EDL march, though he apparently believed that the police would separate the protestors and counter-protestors.

Dr. Naseem had also told his followers to form alliances with other counter-protestors, including with members of other religions and socialists. Such advice was ill advised, and probably unnecessary. Socialist – and especially Trotskyite – organizations have formed alliances with Islamist groups over the last few years, and have amassed tens of thousands of demonstrators across the country, in support of the terrorist organization Hamas. Even when they face no opposition, socialist leaders stoke the passions, and their protests almost invariably end in chaos. The police are often violently confronted. Retail property is smashed up. And Jews have been threatened and even assaulted.

The main socialist street protesting organization is Unite Against Fascism (UAF). Its supporters include Labour MPs, the head of the Conservative Party David Cameron, but its tactics and alliances (for example with extremist Muslims) have been questioned, even by those on the Left. David Toube lamented in the Leftwing Guardian not so long ago, that, “[…] with its sectarianism, silence on antisemitism and blindness to Islamist Jew-hatred, Unite Against Fascism just isn't up to the job.”

Writing about the UAF’s recent demonstration outside of the “Whites only” British National Party’s annual festival, Lucy James, a research fellow at the Muslim-run Quilliam foundation, criticized the UAF’s tactics, saying that the “protesters soon became violent,” and that “[…] protests become ineffective when they descend into thuggery and hooliganism.”

The English Defence League is composed of working class football fans. They are mostly – or perhaps they are all – White. They are roudy, wave flags and placards, and chant “England, England, England.” By most accounts, however, they are not violent. They also claim to oppose Islamic “extremists,” rather than all Muslims. At their recent Birmingham demonstration – held in the first week of September – one man was photographed holding a sign reading “No More Mosques,” which would seem less discriminating. However, others held signs reading “Say No To London Mega Mosque,” “Islamic Extremists Out: Make Britain Safe,” and “Jihadist Choudry! Leave OUR Children Alone.”

The “Jihadist Choudry” is Anjem Choudary, a prominent extremist Islamist, and head of Islam4UK – a reincarnation of the organization al-Muhajiroun, which was disbanded after British authorities threatened to ban it, following a number of high profile terrorist attacks and attempted attacks by its followers, including the so-called “shoe bomber” Richard Reid (who attempted to blow up an American Airlines jet) and Asif Hani, who blew up a café in Tel Aviv.

(More...)

Where's the Plan?

John Hinderaker at PowerLine does a formidable job of dissecting the latest Obama Great Speech.

Obama's Speech: Did It Help Him?

From a policy standpoint, there was nothing new in President Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress tonight. It can only be assessed, therefore, in political terms. I read the transcript rather than watching it, but the speech struck me as reasonably effective. I assume the delivery was standard Obama--smooth, generally flat, occasionally a bit whiny.

One striking aspect of the speech was that Obama kept talking about the "plan" that he "announced" tonight--but there is no plan; not in writing, anyway. Not unless Obama meant Nancy Pelosi's House bill, but he didn't seem to, since he made a point of saying that details remain to be filled in, referred to work still going on in committee, and said that "his plan" is open to alternatives to the public option. This vagueness gives him a sort of deniability: what he was describing was more his concept of the qualities health care legislation should have, rather than a specific bill. Whether that was politically smart remains to be seen. So far, vagueness hasn't seemed to be the President's friend on this issue.

Here are some excerpts from the speech that I thought were noteworthy:
Instead of honest debate, we have seen scare tactics.
Then, a few minutes later:
Everyone in this room knows what will happen if we do nothing. Our deficit will grow. More families will go bankrupt. More businesses will close. More Americans will lose their coverage when they are sick and need it most. And more will die as a result.
By far the biggest scaremonger on this issue has been Obama himself.
Well the time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed.
I'm not sure whether Obama and his handlers understand how this sort of talk grates on those of us who are not liberal Democrats (a large majority of the country). Debating public policy issues is not "bickering." Disagreeing with a proposal to radically change one of the largest sectors of our economy is not a "game." This kind of gratuitous insult--something we never heard from President Bush, for example--is one of the reasons why many consider Obama to be mean-spirited.

I assume most people noticed how, in tonight's speech, Obama's assurance that we will not lose our present insurance coverage has been scaled back. This was after thousands of critics pointed out that under the Democrats' proposals, many people (more than 100 million according to some estimates) will in fact lose the insurance coverage they now have:
[I]f you are among the hundreds of millions of Americans who already have health insurance through your job, Medicare, Medicaid, or the VA, nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have. Let me repeat this: nothing in our plan requires you to change what you have.
That's true, of course. No one ever said it did. What the Democrats' plan does do, however, is give employers the opportunity and, depending on pricing, the incentive to terminate their employees' plans and dump them into the public system. And whether private insurance companies can compete with the public "option" depends on whether Obama keeps his pledge that the public program won't be subsidized.
[I]nsurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies - because there's no reason we shouldn't be catching diseases like breast cancer and colon cancer before they get worse.
How does that work? Better coverage for more people at less cost. Does anyone actually believe that is possible? I don't think so.

Obama described his plan for an insurance exchange where those who are not part of a larger plan will be able to buy coverage. He then added:
This exchange will take effect in four years, which will give us time to do it right.
But wait! Aren't people dying? The Democrats tried to ram their bill through Congress before the August recess, with essentially no debate and with virtually no one having read it. Their theory was that we are facing such a dire emergency that there is not a moment to lose. If, in fact, we have four years to spare, could we maybe stop trying to cram the bill down Americans' throats?

(More...)

September 9, 2009

The Brave New Obama World

Click image below to view...

























Big Furry Hat Tip to BigFurHat
Obama and the Bureaucratization of Health Care
The president's proposals would give unelected officials life-and-death rationing powers.

By SARAH PALIN

Writing in the New York Times last month, President Barack Obama asked that Americans "talk with one another, and not over one another" as our health-care debate moves forward.

I couldn't agree more. Let's engage the other side's arguments, and let's allow Americans to decide for themselves whether the Democrats' health-care proposals should become governing law.

Some 45 years ago Ronald Reagan said that "no one in this country should be denied medical care because of a lack of funds." Each of us knows that we have an obligation to care for the old, the young and the sick. We stand strongest when we stand with the weakest among us.

We also know that our current health-care system too often burdens individuals and businesses—particularly small businesses—with crippling expenses. And we know that allowing government health-care spending to continue at current rates will only add to our ever-expanding deficit.

How can we ensure that those who need medical care receive it while also reducing health-care costs? The answers offered by Democrats in Washington all rest on one principle: that increased government involvement can solve the problem. I fundamentally disagree.

Common sense tells us that the government's attempts to solve large problems more often create new ones. Common sense also tells us that a top-down, one-size-fits-all plan will not improve the workings of a nationwide health-care system that accounts for one-sixth of our economy. And common sense tells us to be skeptical when President Obama promises that the Democrats' proposals "will provide more stability and security to every American."

With all due respect, Americans are used to this kind of sweeping promise from Washington. And we know from long experience that it's a promise Washington can't keep.

(More...)

Don't try to watch the Obama speech to Congress without assistance!




Nickie Goomba's Official ObamaKennedyCare Decoder...



$400 billion in cuts from Medicare =
OLD PEOPLE ARE SCREWED

No tort reform =
LAWYERS GET TO SUE THE GOVERNMENT INSTEAD OF JUST PHYSICIANS

No competition between national health insurance providers =
PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE GETS MORE EXPENSIVE

New taxes on employers to provide for the government subsidies for employees who are covered by a government-run insurance exchange =
GOVERNMENT HEALTH CARE

$6 billion a year in new taxes on the health insurance industry =
PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE GETS MORE EXPENSIVE

Billions of dollars in fees (taxes) on pharmaceutical manufacturers =
PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE GETS MORE EXPENSIVE

Billions of dollars in fees (taxes) on laboratory testing providers =
PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE GETS MORE EXPENSIVE

New excise taxes on health insurance companies that provide high-end insurance plans =
PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE GETS MORE EXPENSIVE

Would bar insurance companies from dropping a policyholder in the event of illness as long as that person has paid his or her premium in full =
PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE GETS MORE EXPENSIVE

Creates government-run health care cooperatives =
GOVERNMENT HEALTH CARE

Expands Medicaid, starting in 2014, to cover millions of lower-income people =
GOVERNMENT HEALTH CARE

Creates health insurance exchanges for small businesses and individuals =
GOVERNMENT HEALTH CARE

Creates catastrophic insurance as an option for people 25 and younger =
GOVERNMENT HEALTH CARE

$900 billion in new spending =
TAXES WILL GET EVEN HIGHER

Presumably forces everyone to be on health insurance or face some kind of financial penalty =
GOVERNMENT HEALTH CARE
Keep in mind that the Obama, Olympia Snowe, and the Democrats are going to attempt the biggest smokescreen in American history. Whatever bill they offer will be full of legal traps and 'concessions' to Conservatives certain to overturned by Liberal judges.

Nickie Goomba sez: JUST SAY NO

Let there be no misunderstanding!

September 8, 2009

Buddy, can you spare a Pfennig?


The dollar should be replaced with a global currency, the United Nations has said, proposing the biggest overhaul of the world's monetary system since the Second World War.

And for a global currency, you need global governance – in exactly the same way that for a single European currency you need a single European government. And who will run that "government"? Why, the UN of course.

We have been here before, except that the World Government advocates are coming out of the closet and getting more daring. First it was global warming – where "pollution" knows no boundaries.

A "global" problem requires a global solution, etc, etc ... And now a global currency as the answer to a global financial crisis.

Be it the EU or the UN, the rhetoric is always the same – like peas in a pod, they look the same and think the same, and have the same solution to every problem: more and bigger government.

Hat tip: EU Referendum

Will Obama try a slick trick to sneak in a Public Option?

White House officials said Sunday that President Obama is not going to put the government-run health insurance program at the heart of the overhaul plan he wants Congress to pass, though two liberal House members hinted that they would rather have no bill than a bill that doesn't have the provision.

White House adviser David Axelrod said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" that the president believes in the value of the public insurance option, but "it shouldn't define the whole health care debate, however."

The plan was designed to compete with private insurers and is a necessity to liberal members of his party, but has since threatened the viability of health care reform amid concerns over cost and the government's role in health care.

Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, reiterated their interest in the public plan, threatening to vote down any bill without it.

"I'm hoping that he understands the essentiality of the public option," said Rep. Keith Ellison, Minnesota Democrat and vice chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, on CNN's "State of the Union." The president "said he preferred a public option. So we're trying to give him the political backing he needs to get what he prefers, which I think is the right thing."

When asked by host John King whether liberal Democrats should vote for a bill that has no public option "or should progressives say, 'No, that's not real reform' and walk away?" Mr. Ellison responded that "progressives should say it's not real reform" and added that a refusal to support a bill would not be their fault. (Continued...)

Obama's stand on public option draws fire - Washington Times
Shared via AddThis

September 7, 2009

You're probably asking yourself why I called you here today!

Hi, We're from the 'Youth for Social Equality Collective' and we're here to help you

Useful Idiots no longer Useful

Joe at No Pasaran describes how the Swedes are handling the issue of Social Injustice.

The “Reclaim RosengÃ¥rd” street festival, which was conceived as a protest against the social conditions in RosengÃ¥rd, didn’t exactly go according to organizers’ plans. The event was supposed to get underway at 8pm on Saturday, but after about 15 minutes the activists who had gathered to participate were pushed out by RosengÃ¥rd residents.

The activists' floats with music were also barred from entering the predominantly immigrant neighbourhood.

Wouldn’t it be nice if meddling lefty social pyromaths who were “acting in the interest of the downtrodden”, actually listened to the “downtrodden”?

Instead, the activists gathered in front of a nearby petrol station where they threw stones, bottles, and burning objects at police cars.
The activists' stated goal was to force a reduction in a police presence in the are. But Abu Hadis, one of the men involved in pushing back the activists, said Rosengård residents were of a different view.

The grownups’ response? Thanks but no, thanks.

"We who live in Rosengård want the police out here; their presence has had a calming effect for us and improved the area's reputation," he told newspaper Aftonbladet.

"We don't need drunken upper class kids to come here and speak on our behalf against our will," he added.

That’s funny, because neither do we, especially the unthinking promoters of fascism that call themselves “anti-fascist protesters” who are so deluded that they think that even the Swedish Police are agents of Fascism.

H/T to No Pasaran

September 6, 2009

Universal Healthcare is "Reverse Classicism"

Here's a wonderful guest post from an energetic and exciting blog: Conservative Black Woman



Bishop Harry Jackson Tells The Truth About Healthcare Reform, but Liberal Bloggers Are Truth-Resistant


Liberal bloggers at Huffpo and blackpoliticalthought (because we are all supposed to think the same thoughts, you see) are busy disparaging Bishop Jackson and accusing him of perpetuating "misinformation".

Matthew Palevsky (Huffington Post) writes "Bishop Jackson continued by picking up on a common misnomer that the right invented and then railed against, spending tax dollars to pay for abortions." Good grief...I guess Mr. Palevsky and "DAD" (Dumb-AZZ-Donna, the condescending elitist reader), typical Obama drones, have fallen for the semantic tricks of President Obama and the leftist demon-crats.

Yes, it is factual that the Senate's healthcare proposal does not specifically mandate abortion but what these deceptive azz-wipes fail to mention is that anytime Congress fails to exclude funding for abortion it is always included. Case and point, for the last 13 years no federal dollars were have been used to fund abortions in the District of Columbia because pro-life lawmakers specifically excluded abortion funding in the DC spending bill -- that is until this year. The demon-crats successfully removed the exclusion so now your tax dollars are being used to kill off black babies otherwise known as genocide. Yes, I'm aware that I'm not suppose to follow the ramifications of that through to the logical conclusion because that makes me a "right wing loon" or worse. It fascinates me how this is lost on the "fight the power" "power to the people" types. I guess they trust the government now....because we have a black(ish) president and all.

I wonder how many religious leaders fell for President Obama's "ethical and moral obligation" crap as he urged them to get behind this abominable plan? Too many, I fear. But Obama is right. It is a moral obligation. We are our brother's keeper -- so the government should leave it to us.

President Obama and his leftist posse should also tell the truth about the 47 million uninsured....

47 Million Uninsured: Truth or Propaganda?

President Barack Obama claims there are 47 million Americans without health insurance. A simple check with the U.S. Census Bureau would have told him otherwise.

The President said: “This is not just about the 47 million Americans who have no health insurance.” That assertion conflicts with data in the Census Bureau report “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2007.” The report was issued in August 2008 and contains the most up-to-date official data on the number of uninsured in the U.S. The report discloses that there were 45.65 million people in the U.S. who did not have health insurance in 2007.

However, it also reveals that there were 9.73 million foreigners — foreign-born non-citizens who were in the country in 2007 — included in that number. So the number of uninsured Americans was actually 35.92 million. And of those, 9.1 million people making more than $75,000 per year did not choose to purchase health insurance. That brings the number of Americans who lack health insurance presumably for financial reasons down to less than 27 million.

The Census Bureau report also shows that the number of people without insurance actually went down in 2007 compared to the previous year — from 47 million to 45.65 million — while the number with insurance rose from 249.8 million to 253.4 million. The next Census Bureau report disclosing health insurance data, with 2008 numbers, is scheduled to be released in August, and could figure in the healthcare reform debate.

Part of the apparent over-counting of the uninsured in the Census data is likely due to a serious undercounting of Medicaid enrollees. While the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) reported Medicaid enrollment of 51 million in 2002, the Census reported only 33 million, a difference of 18 million people. This trend continues in 2003 with a .7 percentage point increase in Medicaid enrollment by the Census Bureau, putting that number at 35 million, but CMS reports 53 million enrollees. This discrepancy is, to say the least, problematic.

So what can we say about this number, that seems to have been accepted on face value without any critical analysis?

The Census Bureau data is misleading. The Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS) is a misleading measure of those who lack health insurance in America and an imprecise tool for analyzing the dimensions of the problem. Analysis of data from earlier Census Bureau and other government reports shows that roughly 7 million are illegal immigrants; roughly 9 million are persons on Medicaid; 3.5 million are persons already eligible for government health programs; and approximately 20 million have, or live, in families with incomes greater than twice the federal poverty level, or $41,300 for a family of four.

Most of the uninsured are in and out of health coverage. The professional literature also shows that, overwhelmingly, the vast majority of the uninsured are persons who are in and out of coverage, largely as a result of job changes. Only a small number of the uninsured are chronically uninsured. For most of the uninsured, the problem is fixable if policymakers simply take steps to make health insurance portable, so the insurance policy sticks to the person, not the job.

Current Federal Tax Policy Fuels Uninsurance. A substantial portion of uninsured Americans are not poor but rather middle-class working Americans who are forced to face a major tax penalty, resulting in premium increases of 40 to 50 percent, if they do not obtain health insurance through the place of work. For millions of Americans without job based health insurance, both the tax policy, and the excessive regulatory burden on health insurance in the states, prices families out of coverage. Current federal tax policy then unnecessarily drives millions into the ranks of the uninsured.

(Source)

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