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Edit: People shouldn't be supporting the health bill. It's blocking cheaper drugs from Canada, forcing people to spend their money at private insurance companies, doesn't do anything to open up competition amongst insurance companies, has policy in that punishes employers for hiring people who need jobs etc......
How is that a worthy bill?
Edit: For starters, he shouldn't be continuing the the policies that got us into this mess.
Obama has been prez for around a yr now. Lets look at what he's done on the big issues.
1) He's furthering global occupation and war.
2) Big biz with ties in Washington are getting favorable help. IE- the banks that were supportive of Obama got more stimulus money.
3) Obama is spent AT LEAST $4 to save $1 via cash for clunkers program.
4) Obama is pushing things through with extensive pork (he has to otherwise the dirt bags in washington won't vote for bills that are obviously designed to spend tax money so extensively).
5) Obama seeks policy that takes from the people in exchange for gov power over the people.
6) Jobs are going away fast and NO signs of them being restored.
7) Obama has flat out lied about things like putting bills online for the people to review, gov transparency, bipartisan inclusion etc... It's a fact he's intimidated and bribed politicians to get their votes.
8) Obama is set on passing a health care bill but is extremely vague on what he wants in it. Could it be that more gov power is what he's after and the details matter little?
*It's amazing the economists saying we are out of the mess and things are still over valued and jobs are going away so rapidly.
*Keep in mind that many unemployed aren't reported as such due to the fact that their elgibility for unemployment has run out.
I understand where you are coming from with being unhappy with Bush. His presidency set up this mess.
The fact is that Obama has been in office and is doing nothing to reverse the situation. Spending more only will place heavier tax burdens on lower/middle class.
What's odd is that many libs who actually believe in the people are outraged but the Obama crowd on this board tend to be blind/thick headed.
I don't agree with the liberal approach but do realize that many are filled with good intentions.
The lib crowd here are determined to support the moron they elected regardless of what's best for the people of America.
Obama Makes First Move To Undermine 2010 Elections
The Post & Email is reporting that earlier this month, Barack Obama made his first official move to corrupt and undermine the 2010 elections. The move consisted in the little noticed appointment of a technical adviser to the Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC) of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC).
Ed Smith has now been appointed by Obama to the disastrous U.S. Election Assistance Commission's (EAC's) Technical Guidelines Development Committee as one of their new "Technical and Scientific Experts" -- this is the equivalent of appointing the sitting Vice President of Exxon Mobil to an EPA advisory committee.
The Official Press Release of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission read as follows:
Edwin B. Smith, III, vice president of compliance and certification at Dominion Voting Systems. Before joining Dominion Voting Systems, Mr. Smith was vice president of manufacturing, compliance, quality and certification at Sequoia Voting Systems. He also served as the operations manager at Hart InterCivic and the senior director of operations at K*TEC Electronics. He holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Phoenix and a Bachelor of Science in engineering technology from Texas A&M.
Both Sequoia Voting Systems and Dominion Voting Systems have been at the center of infamous voting irregularities in different elections across the country, according to Brad Friedman’s article on the subject, which appeared in the Gouverneur Times at the end of November.
At his blog, Brad Friedman explains who Edwin B. Smith is:
Smith is the guy who, after years of paying a crackpot contractor named Mike Gibbons to do this and that for Sequoia with loads of federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) tax-payer cash, assigned him to do an "independent" analysis of Sequoia’s touch-screen machines after they failed in NJ’s 2008 Super Tuesday election. That was just after Smith had sent a letter threatening two Princeton computer scientists with legal action "to stop any infringement of our intellectual properties, including any non-compliant analysis," if they performed the actually independent analysis of the machines as they were tasked by NJ election officials to do. (Additional outrage/irony shortly thereafter uncovered by The BRAD BLOG: Sequoia didn’t even own the Intellectual Property rights to the machines in question. Rather, the IP rights were, and are still to our knowledge, owned by Smartmatic, a Venezuelan firm tied to Hugo Chavez. Sequoia lied to both federal investigators and state election officials about that relationship.)
Continue reading here . . .
http://www.thepostemail.com/2009/12/21/obama-makes-first-move-to-undermine-2010-elections/
Bet you Obama trumps em all and is recognized (historically) as one of the worst world leaders of all time.
Reagan campaigned on a issue I liked but he moved away from it once elected- once he knew who was really running the show.
Reagan did do some good things. Obommers list of significant accomplishments will be short unless you liked the Bush accomplishments.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 25% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-six percent (46%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -21 That’s the lowest Approval Index rating yet recorded for this President (see trends).
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll
You are defending a globalist big biz gov puppet. Much like the staunch Bush supporters were, you are wrong in doing so.
Your man is a fraud and is destroying our country faster than ever before.
He is particularly robbing from the elderly and the poor via dollar devaluation and/or inflation.
Are you going to be one of the blind sheep? Can you address the sorry globalist we have in office and realize Bush is no longer in office?
Obama is a continuation of the Bush agenda is serving the same puppet masters. He is a continuation in that he's wrecking our currency, strapping us with debt and continuing a globalist conquest.
Open your eyes and you will see that the gov is enslaving the people.
*You know it's a bad agenda when the gov is talking about policies that force care vs empowering the people. The gov is taking from the people and you are backing it. For that- your position is shameful and pathetic.
You should quit making false accusations towards lumping me into being happy with Bush and his 8 yrs.
Bush was no where close to being a supporter of Founding American principles.
You also need to grow up a bit as Obama justification is poorly rationalized by defending him simply because Bush was a big gov globalist.
That's what'll happen. Temps and part time with no benefits!
We'll continue on towards the European model and work only a few days a week lol.
Out for the night and most likely tomorrow. Good time for you, steph and the others to pile on a bunch of self validation via talking points, romantic ideology etc.. all the while promoting the stripping of wealth from middle/lower class (via dollar devaluation combined with inflation, higher taxes etc....)
Good for you!
What is less well-known is that the provision would also tax companies even if they do offer insurance -- but only if they hire people from low- and moderate-income families who qualify for, and elect to accept, premium subsidies. And the tax penalty for hiring those employees -- arguably the people who need jobs the most -- would be a whopping $3,000 per employee per year.
The combination of this tax penalty and the rules for determining who qualifies for premium subsidies would encourage companies to engage in some new and repulsive forms of employment discrimination.
cont...
http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/wm2737.cfm
The Bottom Line: Taking Jobs from People Who Need Them the Most
In each case, the bottom line is that the Senate health care bill punishes employers who hire people who need jobs the most -- and by doing so makes it harder for people who need jobs the most to find employment. Because of the way the employer mandate for health insurance is structured, employers in effect face a $3,000-per-year incentive to hire people from higher-income families and smaller families over those from poorer and larger families.
The result would be a particularly insidious and repulsive -- but legally encouraged -- form of job discrimination against applicants who need the jobs the most. Congressional leaders may call this "health care reform" but for many poor families, it would be a one-way ticket to unemployment.
That's what you call a "bill" for the people?
Fact is that the entire bs bill is about money. Taking more from middle/lower class and funneling to insurance companies/big gov/big pharmacy etc... That makes your position fraudulent.
Also consider that NO ONE that shows up to an emergency room needing treatment is turned away (legally can't be).
Actually it's part of the proven failure of gov involvement. Gov welfare dependents wait until after 5 to use the emergency room so they don't pay a dime- they have it figured out.
*Just in case you don't understand that insurance companies are based on profit.
Would it be better to be a "pauliesparrot" or a blind Obama supporter backing the destruction of middle/lower class America while big gov/big is the beneficiary? (as you are doing by your constant promotion/defense of Obama simply over bullheaded party politics)
labels, labels but stay away from specific details and facts in your role as being part of the machine.
Would it be better to be a "pauliesparrot" or a blind Obama supporter backing the destruction of middle/lower class America while big gov/big is the beneficiary? (as you are doing by your constant promotion/defense of Obama simply over bullheaded party politics)
BS steph. You are backing Obama. Obama's actions are supportive of big biz, globalization and destruction of our dollar. There is only right and wrong, at this point (on those big issues).
Standing in the middle is what has allowed this mess.
You rationalize your disregard for responsibility in exchange for party politics which ultimately serve the same agendas. For that- you are wrong and not standing for the middle/lower class people.
You consistently avoid specifics and attack the source (regardless of accuracy or inaccuracy)- for that you are wrong. No grey area about it.
Ultimately you are part of the selling out of middle/lower class America- AKA, America's heart and soul- in exchange for a gov that serves the elite/powerful. Wrong on your end again.
Change Nobody Believes In
A bill so reckless that it has to be rammed through on a partisan vote on Christmas eve.
And tidings of comfort and joy from Harry Reid too. The Senate Majority Leader has decided that the last few days before Christmas are the opportune moment for a narrow majority of Democrats to stuff ObamaCare through the Senate to meet an arbitrary White House deadline. Barring some extraordinary reversal, it now seems as if they have the 60 votes they need to jump off this cliff, with one-seventh of the economy in tow.
Mr. Obama promised a new era of transparent good government, yet on Saturday morning Mr. Reid threw out the 2,100-page bill that the world's greatest deliberative body spent just 17 days debating and replaced it with a new "manager's amendment" that was stapled together in covert partisan negotiations. Democrats are barely even bothering to pretend to care what's in it, cont....
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704398304574598130440164954.html
Did you miss this one?
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=44746923
Banks with political ties got bailouts, study shows
* Banks with influence got access to bailouts, more money
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2124009320091221?type=marketsNews
Looks like the Obama/Steph agenda comes through for big business.
The info is there and you do not consider it, do not refute it on the specifics and overall you avoid specifics that are not part of your big biz/big gov power grab.
I did get the point. Costs can go down with increased productivity. That is common sense.
The REAL POINT is that doesn't happen (increased productivity) when the gov gets involved- undisputed, time proven FACT.
Now we have D politician with the same agenda. Sad isn't it?
Why don't you open up that tunnel vision mind and look at the FACTS that are verifiable and accurate?
Never mind- you are a big biz promoter and love gov power over people.
Obama Year One: Betrayal and Failure (Part I)
Stephen Lendman
Originally posted by Ace; link at bottom
December 21, 2009
Promising change after eight George Bush and Republican dominated years, Barack Obama won the most sweeping non-incumbent victory in over 50 years along with congressional Democrats gaining large House and Senate majorities. In addition, at 56.8%, voter turnout was the highest since Richard Nixon's "secret plan" to end the Vietnam war and his "Southern" and "law and order" strategies beat Hubert Humphrey and independent George Wallace in 1968.
On election night, the mood celebrated hope for progressive change, an end to imperial wars, and a new day for America. When word came around 10PM, expectant thousands in Chicago's Grant Park erupted with chants of "yes we can," hoping Obama would make a difference at a time of deepening economic duress.
In its November 4, 2008 editorial titled, "The Next President," The New York Times called it "one of those moments in history when it is worth pausing to reflect on the basic facts," then listed some:
-- for the first time, Americans elected a black president;
-- his triumph was "decisive and sweeping, because he saw what is wrong with this country, (and will change direction) to regulate the economy fairly, keep the air clean and the food safe, ensure that the sick have access to health care, and educate children to compete in a globalized world;"
-- he "committed to ending a bloody and pointless (Afghan) war (and) restore Americans' civil liberties and (the nation's) reputation around the world;"
-- he must now "prevent an economic collapse fed by greed and an orgy of speculation (by) impos(ing) control, coherence, transparency and fairness," in contrast to George Bush; and
-- he "now needs the support of all Americans (to help him deal with the) many other urgent problems that must be addressed."
Endorsing his candidacy early on for a socially liberal new beginning, Nation magazine editor, Katrina vanden Heuvel, looked for a "transformational presidency, (a) new era of possibility, a historic opportunity for a progressive governing agenda and a mandate for bold action....Tonight we celebrate," she said.
Campaigning, he offered change, a new course, sweeping government reforms, addressing people needs, and "ensur(ing) that the hopes and concerns of average Americans speak louder in Washington than the hallway whispers of high-priced lobbyists," the same ones he said wouldn't run his administration, but would "have a seat at the table," and why not given their large contributions to him and other Democrats.
Little wonder that a year later hope is now disillusion, frustration, and anger over promises made, then broken with an awakening knowledge that change won't come unless growing millions demand it.
A Man of the People or Machine Politics
Obama rose through the system, a man James Petras calls "the greatest con man in recent history" in comparing him to Melville's Confidence Man: "He catches your eye while he picks your pocket." He talks change but delivers continuity.
He's a highly skilled demagogue doing Lincoln one better through his campaign and early months in office by fooling enough of the people to matter.
Connected to the fringes of Chicago politics, he served three terms in the Illinois Senate from 1997 - 2004. After a failed 2000 congressional race, he became a US senator in 2004, then used his position for a successful presidential bid. While "cordial, (but) not close" to Richard Daley, he endorsed his reelection, and called his connection to former fundraiser, Antoin "Tony" Rezko, "a bone-headed mistake," after he was indicted and convicted on federal corruption charges. Also troubling was his "political godfather," Emil Jones, Jr., former Illinois Senate president, who was tainted by an "ethical cloud."
His chief fundraiser is Penny Pritzker, some describe as America's most powerful woman and one of the richest as heiress to part of the Pritzker fortune. Believed over $40 billion, most of it is grandfathered in tax-free offshore trusts. Only the little people pay taxes as a prominent scafflaw once said.
An October 2008 Bloomberg "Power of Penny Pritzker" article stressed the enormous influence she wields in Democrat party circles as a fundraiser extraordinaire, and, according to Warren Buffet, she's the person to call when you want to "get the job done."
Bloomberg largely credited her with getting Obama elected and mentioned her connection to the subprime meltdown. Called by some the "subprime queen," she was one of its originators when she ran the failed suburban Chicago Hinsdale-based Superior Bank. With $2.3 billion in assets, it was from predatory lending, sloppy bookkeeping, overstating securitized assets, and suspected fraud kept hidden until regulators closed it in July 2001. Behind the scenes, Pritzker has clout in the administration without headlines because of her connection to Wall Street and other powerful interests.
The Illusion of "Yes We Can"
As a senator, Obama's voting record told all, that he supports power, not progressive change, but few took the trouble to check it:
-- he backed Homeland Security funding that, like the Patriot Act, violates constitutional rights by centralizing militarized law enforcement under the executive;
-- he voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act in July 2005 and did again recently as president; more on that below;
In her book "The Twilight of Democracy," Jennifer Van Bergen said the 2001 act (still the law) gives:
"tremendous powers to central authorities, undermine(s) civil liberties, and enable(s) suppression of opposition. (It's the) mainstay of government oppressive power (as it) authorizes and codifies a near-absolute and permanent invasion of (our) private lives, sets vast precedents in immigration law....dissolves....human rights (civil liberties, and erects) a massive law enforcement apparatus (targeting) immigrant(s) and citizen(s worldwide)." This act alone gives the executive unchecked power, erodes due process, free association, and the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.
It eviscerates fundamental Bill of Rights freedoms, ones Obama voted to sacrifice and does as president by agreeing with Congress to extend three Patriot Act provisions set to expire at year end - to let government operate roving wire taps, search any person's business, personal, and library records by authorization of a national security letter, and spy on foreign nationals with no known links to terrorist designated groups.
-- in 2006, he campaigned for extremist Joe Lieberman over anti-war candidate Ned Lamont;
-- despite earlier and current rhetoric, he supports permanent wars and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan with no withdrawal timetables;
-- he advocated adding 100,000 combat troops to the military at a time America has no enemies;
-- he's unreservedly pro-Israel (a leader James Petras calls "America's first Jewish president"), including continuing the annually supplied billions and latest weapons and technology for its imperial agenda and occupation of Palestine;
-- he stayed silent during Operation Cast Lead; pays disingenuous lip service to the peace process he renounces; and favors destabilizing Iran, perhaps attacking its nuclear sites, and deposing its leadership in support of the Israeli Lobby and imperial American interests;
-- he opposed an amendment capping credit card interest rates at 30% and still does; and
-- he backed George Bush's "No Child Left Behind" scheme to destroy public education and now has his own.
He supported:
-- medical providers in wrongful injury cases;
-- the right of mining companies to strip mine everywhere, including on government lands;
-- the Bush administration's 2005 Energy Policy Act in spite of critical campaign rhetoric; it was secretly drafted and provides billions in industry subsidies;
-- vastly expanded nuclear power; lax industry regulation; billions in subsidies, and numerous other benefits to promote a dangerous technology;
-- harmful biofuels production and other agribusiness interests, including global GMO food proliferation, known to harm human health and should be banned;
-- privatized healthcare despite the benefits of universal single-payer he rejects as well as real reform;
-- free, not fair, trade deals like NAFTA and the WTO;
-- the death penalty and America's prison-industrial complex; and
-- repressive immigration legislation targeting Latinos, including militarized borders, police state raids, roundups, imprisonments, and deportations.
He opposed the 2006 Military Commissions Act but supports military tribunals and preventive detentions for torture prison detainees.
He waffled on CIA interrogation practices and won't prosecute offenders.
He voted to expand NSA eavesdropping powers while rhetorically opposing "excessive secrecy, indefinite detention, warrantless wiretapping, and enhanced interrogation techniques like simulated drowning that qualify as torture through any careful measure of the law or appeal to human decency." More below that as president he authorized these and other abhorrent practices he disingenuously condemned as a candidate.
He voted to approve rogue Bush administration appointments, including Robert Gates as Defense Secretary, John Negroponte as Director of National Intelligence, and Michael Chertoff as Secretary of Homeland Security.
He backed the 2007 Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act (S. 1959), called the "thought crimes" act. It passed the House but not the Senate.
He opposes impeaching Bush and Cheney or prosecuting all high-level torturers, and overall had a more Republican than Democrat voting record. It's unsurprising as on war and peace, Israel/Palestine, Wall Street, and most things business, it's hard telling the difference.
In the Senate, he earned his bona fides, showed he was "safe," and once elected hasn't disappointed - the powerful, that is, not the people growing increasingly discontented for being betrayed by a leader no different from the rest.
Pre and Post-Inaugural Appointees
From transition to his economic, national security, and other high-level team, most are former administration officials - from Wall Street, the military, and other key power centers for continuity, not progressive change he disdains. The result has been the worst of all possible worlds, including permanent wars, eroded civil liberties and social services, and plundering the nation's Treasury for Wall Street while ignoring the public interest.
Wall Street's Financial Coup d'Etat
Like his predecessor and previous ones since Ronald Reagan, Obama put a criminal cabal in charge of furthering the greatest wealth transfer in history - from the public to the top 1%, unfettered by rules, regulations, the law, or onerous taxes. It's designed to keep offshoring high-paying jobs, wipe out the middle class, hollow out America, turn it into Guatemala, centralize power, end social services, destroy communities and local infrastructure, and leave poverty, unemployment, homelessness, hunger, a permanent underclass, and despair in its wake under militarized tyranny for enforcement.
From her experience as a high-level Washington/Wall Street insider, Catherine Austin Fitts describes the process that:
-- "Engineered a (1990s) fraudulent housing and debt bubble," continued under Obama with a planned larger than ever one planned; more on that below;
-- "Illegally shifted vast amounts of capital out of the US," a process still ongoing; and
-- "Used 'privatization' as a form of piracy - a pretext to move government assets to private investors at below-market prices and then shift private liabilities back to government at no cost to the private liability holder."
Engineered globally, it's a government-business cabal to create housing, debt, and other bubbles, substitute new ones for old, and manipulate markets up or down for enormous profits. It involves pump and dump schemes, naked short selling, and various other ways to suck wealth from the many to the few so cleverly that few know what's happening, or when they do it's too late.
From the wreckage comes proposed financial reform, but watch out. It's for a new global monetary control scheme under a Financial Stability Board (FSB), working cooperatively with the secretive Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the Basel, Switzerland-based central bank for central bankers run by the monetary authorities of six dominant nations - America, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Japan, and Britain. If established, it's the next, perhaps final, step toward ruling elite control of the world's money - their long sought holy grail to complete their coup d'etat triumph over all humanity, with Obama facilitating the process in defiance of the public interest he abandoned on day one as president.
Democracy for the Few, not the Many
More than ever, American democracy is bogus under a police state apparatus sacrificing civil liberties in the name of national security. Included are:
-- an array of pre and post-9/11 anti-terrorist measures;
-- decades of illegal surveillance of individuals and activist groups, more virulent and sophisticated than ever under Obama;
-- a war on free expression, dissent, and constitutional freedoms, using the courts to enforce repression, especially since the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Penalty Act with its eased surveillance restrictions and draconian death penalty and habeas-stripping provisions; it smoothed passage of the 2001 Patriot Act and other repressive measures that followed;
-- alone, the Patriot Act erodes Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments due process rights by permitting indefinite detentions; the First Amendment's freedom of association, Fourth Amendment's right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, and more.
Secret Surveillance and Threatened Cybersecurity Tyranny
Obama usurped unchecked surveillance powers, including warrantless wiretapping, accessing personal records, monitoring financial transactions, and tracking emails, Internet and cell phone use to gather secret evidence for prosecutions. In addition, his Justice Department claims the federal government can't be sued for illegal spying, an interpretation no member of Congress or administration ever made, not even George Bush or his Republican allies.
In March, Obama's DHS cybersecurity head, Rod Beckstrom, resigned over NSA's greater role in guarding government computer systems, its concentrated power with no checks or balances, and the continuation of Bush's illegal warrantless wiretapping called secret and not reviewable by courts for reasons of national security.
Under Obama, NSA partnered with the Justice Department, DHS, FBI, CIA, and the nation's other spy agencies as a collective big brother targeting political dissidents using police state authority against anti-war protestors, environmental and other activists, Muslims, Latino immigrants, and lawyers who defend them.
Privacy is no longer possible as potentially everyone and everything is surveilled, including:
-- all financial transactions and records;
-- every check written;
-- every credit card or other electronic purchase;
-- all publications subscribed to;
-- our complete medical history;
-- every plane, train, bus or ship itinerary, especially in or out of the country;
-- our phone records and conversations; and
-- every computer key stroke.
Our entire private space is now public if spy snoops decide to invade it.
Cybersecurity Legislation that Threatens a Free and Open Internet
In April, the 2009 Cybersecutity Act (S 773) and companion legislation (S 778) to establish a cybersecurity czar were introduced in the Senate, purportedly to protect against cyber espionage or attacks that might cripple critical infrastructure and comprise national security. Don't believe it.
If enacted in original or redrafted form, they'll give Washington unprecedented power over the Internet by:
-- federalizing critical infrastructure security, including banks, telecommunications and energy, then shifting power from providers to Washington;
-- giving the president carte blanche authority to shut down Internet traffic in an emergency for reasons of national security; and
-- potentially crippling privacy as well as security by order of the executive alone, regardless of constitutional protections.
Political Persecution Under Obama
He declared war on Islam, Latino immigrations, animal and environmental rights activists, anyone challenging state power, and civil rights lawyers who defend them too vigorously.
Using familiar police state tactics, Muslims especially have been persecuted for their faith, ethnicity, prominence, activism, and charity. They've been singled out, rounded up, held in detention, kept in isolation, denied bail, restricted in their right to counsel, entrapped by paid informants, tried on secret evidence, convicted on bogus changes, given long sentences, then incarcerated for extra harsh treatment as political prisoners in segregated Communication Management Units (CMUs). They violate US Prison Bureau regulations stating:
-- "staff shall not discriminate against inmates on the basis of race, religion, national origin, sex, disability, or political belief (including) administrative decisions (involving) access to work, housing and program."
Also, the Supreme Court's February 2005 Johnson v. California decision, ruling that segregating prisoners by race, ethnicity or language is illegal. The practice began under George Bush and continues unchanged under Obama.
So does the war on Latino immigrants, undocumented ones here because NAFTA and WTO rules destroyed their livelihoods at home, forcing them North for jobs to support their families.
As a sweeping anti-terrorism bill, the November 2002 Homeland Security Act (HSA) created the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), giving Washington repressive police state powers used vigorously thereafter. In March 2003, its largest investigative and enforcement arm was established - the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). Along with Muslims, Latinos are its prime targets, using militarized unconstitutional tactics against vulnerable, defenseless people who've been persecuted ever since.
Like his predecessor, Obama's shock troops target them at the border, at work sites, and in their homes. Using goon-squad tactics, they're illegally confronted with shotguns, automatic weapons, and seized without warrants or explanation, then held for prosecution, imprisonment or deportation with no acknowledgement of their rights. Innocent as well as undocumented Latinos are arrested, including their families, often by pre-dawn swat-like private home intrusions.
In August, Obama announced stepped up immigration enforcement through more centralized control for better ways to track, process, incarcerate, and/or deport growing numbers of undocumented immigrants - not treat them humanely as international law and DHS/ICE regulations stipulate.
In this and numerous other ways, Obama is doing Bush one better by exceeding his harshness, lawlessness, and betrayal of the public trust. Against Latinos, it's through aggressive immigration enforcement with planned legislation coming to include a temporary guest worker program so employers can exploit them as serfs, much like the 1942 - 1964 Bracero Program under which millions of Mexican migrant farm workers had no rights, were harassed and oppressed, then deported when no longer needed.
In Obama's America, only the privileged have rights, not people of color, the poor, and growing numbers going hungry, without jobs, and other life's essentials his budget allocations won't fund.
Part II will conclude Obama Year One: Betrayal and Failure.
Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to the Lendman News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday - Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national issues. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=44745538
Obama Year One: Betrayal and Failure (Part I)
Stephen Lendman
Originally posted by Ace; link at bottom
December 21, 2009
Promising change after eight George Bush and Republican dominated years, Barack Obama won the most sweeping non-incumbent victory in over 50 years along with congressional Democrats gaining large House and Senate majorities. In addition, at 56.8%, voter turnout was the highest since Richard Nixon's "secret plan" to end the Vietnam war and his "Southern" and "law and order" strategies beat Hubert Humphrey and independent George Wallace in 1968.
On election night, the mood celebrated hope for progressive change, an end to imperial wars, and a new day for America. When word came around 10PM, expectant thousands in Chicago's Grant Park erupted with chants of "yes we can," hoping Obama would make a difference at a time of deepening economic duress.
In its November 4, 2008 editorial titled, "The Next President," The New York Times called it "one of those moments in history when it is worth pausing to reflect on the basic facts," then listed some:
-- for the first time, Americans elected a black president;
-- his triumph was "decisive and sweeping, because he saw what is wrong with this country, (and will change direction) to regulate the economy fairly, keep the air clean and the food safe, ensure that the sick have access to health care, and educate children to compete in a globalized world;"
-- he "committed to ending a bloody and pointless (Afghan) war (and) restore Americans' civil liberties and (the nation's) reputation around the world;"
-- he must now "prevent an economic collapse fed by greed and an orgy of speculation (by) impos(ing) control, coherence, transparency and fairness," in contrast to George Bush; and
-- he "now needs the support of all Americans (to help him deal with the) many other urgent problems that must be addressed."
Endorsing his candidacy early on for a socially liberal new beginning, Nation magazine editor, Katrina vanden Heuvel, looked for a "transformational presidency, (a) new era of possibility, a historic opportunity for a progressive governing agenda and a mandate for bold action....Tonight we celebrate," she said.
Campaigning, he offered change, a new course, sweeping government reforms, addressing people needs, and "ensur(ing) that the hopes and concerns of average Americans speak louder in Washington than the hallway whispers of high-priced lobbyists," the same ones he said wouldn't run his administration, but would "have a seat at the table," and why not given their large contributions to him and other Democrats.
Little wonder that a year later hope is now disillusion, frustration, and anger over promises made, then broken with an awakening knowledge that change won't come unless growing millions demand it.
A Man of the People or Machine Politics
Obama rose through the system, a man James Petras calls "the greatest con man in recent history" in comparing him to Melville's Confidence Man: "He catches your eye while he picks your pocket." He talks change but delivers continuity.
He's a highly skilled demagogue doing Lincoln one better through his campaign and early months in office by fooling enough of the people to matter.
Connected to the fringes of Chicago politics, he served three terms in the Illinois Senate from 1997 - 2004. After a failed 2000 congressional race, he became a US senator in 2004, then used his position for a successful presidential bid. While "cordial, (but) not close" to Richard Daley, he endorsed his reelection, and called his connection to former fundraiser, Antoin "Tony" Rezko, "a bone-headed mistake," after he was indicted and convicted on federal corruption charges. Also troubling was his "political godfather," Emil Jones, Jr., former Illinois Senate president, who was tainted by an "ethical cloud."
His chief fundraiser is Penny Pritzker, some describe as America's most powerful woman and one of the richest as heiress to part of the Pritzker fortune. Believed over $40 billion, most of it is grandfathered in tax-free offshore trusts. Only the little people pay taxes as a prominent scafflaw once said.
An October 2008 Bloomberg "Power of Penny Pritzker" article stressed the enormous influence she wields in Democrat party circles as a fundraiser extraordinaire, and, according to Warren Buffet, she's the person to call when you want to "get the job done."
Bloomberg largely credited her with getting Obama elected and mentioned her connection to the subprime meltdown. Called by some the "subprime queen," she was one of its originators when she ran the failed suburban Chicago Hinsdale-based Superior Bank. With $2.3 billion in assets, it was from predatory lending, sloppy bookkeeping, overstating securitized assets, and suspected fraud kept hidden until regulators closed it in July 2001. Behind the scenes, Pritzker has clout in the administration without headlines because of her connection to Wall Street and other powerful interests.
The Illusion of "Yes We Can"
As a senator, Obama's voting record told all, that he supports power, not progressive change, but few took the trouble to check it:
-- he backed Homeland Security funding that, like the Patriot Act, violates constitutional rights by centralizing militarized law enforcement under the executive;
-- he voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act in July 2005 and did again recently as president; more on that below;
In her book "The Twilight of Democracy," Jennifer Van Bergen said the 2001 act (still the law) gives:
"tremendous powers to central authorities, undermine(s) civil liberties, and enable(s) suppression of opposition. (It's the) mainstay of government oppressive power (as it) authorizes and codifies a near-absolute and permanent invasion of (our) private lives, sets vast precedents in immigration law....dissolves....human rights (civil liberties, and erects) a massive law enforcement apparatus (targeting) immigrant(s) and citizen(s worldwide)." This act alone gives the executive unchecked power, erodes due process, free association, and the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.
It eviscerates fundamental Bill of Rights freedoms, ones Obama voted to sacrifice and does as president by agreeing with Congress to extend three Patriot Act provisions set to expire at year end - to let government operate roving wire taps, search any person's business, personal, and library records by authorization of a national security letter, and spy on foreign nationals with no known links to terrorist designated groups.
-- in 2006, he campaigned for extremist Joe Lieberman over anti-war candidate Ned Lamont;
-- despite earlier and current rhetoric, he supports permanent wars and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan with no withdrawal timetables;
-- he advocated adding 100,000 combat troops to the military at a time America has no enemies;
-- he's unreservedly pro-Israel (a leader James Petras calls "America's first Jewish president"), including continuing the annually supplied billions and latest weapons and technology for its imperial agenda and occupation of Palestine;
-- he stayed silent during Operation Cast Lead; pays disingenuous lip service to the peace process he renounces; and favors destabilizing Iran, perhaps attacking its nuclear sites, and deposing its leadership in support of the Israeli Lobby and imperial American interests;
-- he opposed an amendment capping credit card interest rates at 30% and still does; and
-- he backed George Bush's "No Child Left Behind" scheme to destroy public education and now has his own.
He supported:
-- medical providers in wrongful injury cases;
-- the right of mining companies to strip mine everywhere, including on government lands;
-- the Bush administration's 2005 Energy Policy Act in spite of critical campaign rhetoric; it was secretly drafted and provides billions in industry subsidies;
-- vastly expanded nuclear power; lax industry regulation; billions in subsidies, and numerous other benefits to promote a dangerous technology;
-- harmful biofuels production and other agribusiness interests, including global GMO food proliferation, known to harm human health and should be banned;
-- privatized healthcare despite the benefits of universal single-payer he rejects as well as real reform;
-- free, not fair, trade deals like NAFTA and the WTO;
-- the death penalty and America's prison-industrial complex; and
-- repressive immigration legislation targeting Latinos, including militarized borders, police state raids, roundups, imprisonments, and deportations.
He opposed the 2006 Military Commissions Act but supports military tribunals and preventive detentions for torture prison detainees.
He waffled on CIA interrogation practices and won't prosecute offenders.
He voted to expand NSA eavesdropping powers while rhetorically opposing "excessive secrecy, indefinite detention, warrantless wiretapping, and enhanced interrogation techniques like simulated drowning that qualify as torture through any careful measure of the law or appeal to human decency." More below that as president he authorized these and other abhorrent practices he disingenuously condemned as a candidate.
He voted to approve rogue Bush administration appointments, including Robert Gates as Defense Secretary, John Negroponte as Director of National Intelligence, and Michael Chertoff as Secretary of Homeland Security.
He backed the 2007 Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act (S. 1959), called the "thought crimes" act. It passed the House but not the Senate.
He opposes impeaching Bush and Cheney or prosecuting all high-level torturers, and overall had a more Republican than Democrat voting record. It's unsurprising as on war and peace, Israel/Palestine, Wall Street, and most things business, it's hard telling the difference.
In the Senate, he earned his bona fides, showed he was "safe," and once elected hasn't disappointed - the powerful, that is, not the people growing increasingly discontented for being betrayed by a leader no different from the rest.
Pre and Post-Inaugural Appointees
From transition to his economic, national security, and other high-level team, most are former administration officials - from Wall Street, the military, and other key power centers for continuity, not progressive change he disdains. The result has been the worst of all possible worlds, including permanent wars, eroded civil liberties and social services, and plundering the nation's Treasury for Wall Street while ignoring the public interest.
Wall Street's Financial Coup d'Etat
Like his predecessor and previous ones since Ronald Reagan, Obama put a criminal cabal in charge of furthering the greatest wealth transfer in history - from the public to the top 1%, unfettered by rules, regulations, the law, or onerous taxes. It's designed to keep offshoring high-paying jobs, wipe out the middle class, hollow out America, turn it into Guatemala, centralize power, end social services, destroy communities and local infrastructure, and leave poverty, unemployment, homelessness, hunger, a permanent underclass, and despair in its wake under militarized tyranny for enforcement.
From her experience as a high-level Washington/Wall Street insider, Catherine Austin Fitts describes the process that:
-- "Engineered a (1990s) fraudulent housing and debt bubble," continued under Obama with a planned larger than ever one planned; more on that below;
-- "Illegally shifted vast amounts of capital out of the US," a process still ongoing; and
-- "Used 'privatization' as a form of piracy - a pretext to move government assets to private investors at below-market prices and then shift private liabilities back to government at no cost to the private liability holder."
Engineered globally, it's a government-business cabal to create housing, debt, and other bubbles, substitute new ones for old, and manipulate markets up or down for enormous profits. It involves pump and dump schemes, naked short selling, and various other ways to suck wealth from the many to the few so cleverly that few know what's happening, or when they do it's too late.
From the wreckage comes proposed financial reform, but watch out. It's for a new global monetary control scheme under a Financial Stability Board (FSB), working cooperatively with the secretive Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the Basel, Switzerland-based central bank for central bankers run by the monetary authorities of six dominant nations - America, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Japan, and Britain. If established, it's the next, perhaps final, step toward ruling elite control of the world's money - their long sought holy grail to complete their coup d'etat triumph over all humanity, with Obama facilitating the process in defiance of the public interest he abandoned on day one as president.
Democracy for the Few, not the Many
More than ever, American democracy is bogus under a police state apparatus sacrificing civil liberties in the name of national security. Included are:
-- an array of pre and post-9/11 anti-terrorist measures;
-- decades of illegal surveillance of individuals and activist groups, more virulent and sophisticated than ever under Obama;
-- a war on free expression, dissent, and constitutional freedoms, using the courts to enforce repression, especially since the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Penalty Act with its eased surveillance restrictions and draconian death penalty and habeas-stripping provisions; it smoothed passage of the 2001 Patriot Act and other repressive measures that followed;
-- alone, the Patriot Act erodes Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments due process rights by permitting indefinite detentions; the First Amendment's freedom of association, Fourth Amendment's right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, and more.
Secret Surveillance and Threatened Cybersecurity Tyranny
Obama usurped unchecked surveillance powers, including warrantless wiretapping, accessing personal records, monitoring financial transactions, and tracking emails, Internet and cell phone use to gather secret evidence for prosecutions. In addition, his Justice Department claims the federal government can't be sued for illegal spying, an interpretation no member of Congress or administration ever made, not even George Bush or his Republican allies.
In March, Obama's DHS cybersecurity head, Rod Beckstrom, resigned over NSA's greater role in guarding government computer systems, its concentrated power with no checks or balances, and the continuation of Bush's illegal warrantless wiretapping called secret and not reviewable by courts for reasons of national security.
Under Obama, NSA partnered with the Justice Department, DHS, FBI, CIA, and the nation's other spy agencies as a collective big brother targeting political dissidents using police state authority against anti-war protestors, environmental and other activists, Muslims, Latino immigrants, and lawyers who defend them.
Privacy is no longer possible as potentially everyone and everything is surveilled, including:
-- all financial transactions and records;
-- every check written;
-- every credit card or other electronic purchase;
-- all publications subscribed to;
-- our complete medical history;
-- every plane, train, bus or ship itinerary, especially in or out of the country;
-- our phone records and conversations; and
-- every computer key stroke.
Our entire private space is now public if spy snoops decide to invade it.
Cybersecurity Legislation that Threatens a Free and Open Internet
In April, the 2009 Cybersecutity Act (S 773) and companion legislation (S 778) to establish a cybersecurity czar were introduced in the Senate, purportedly to protect against cyber espionage or attacks that might cripple critical infrastructure and comprise national security. Don't believe it.
If enacted in original or redrafted form, they'll give Washington unprecedented power over the Internet by:
-- federalizing critical infrastructure security, including banks, telecommunications and energy, then shifting power from providers to Washington;
-- giving the president carte blanche authority to shut down Internet traffic in an emergency for reasons of national security; and
-- potentially crippling privacy as well as security by order of the executive alone, regardless of constitutional protections.
Political Persecution Under Obama
He declared war on Islam, Latino immigrations, animal and environmental rights activists, anyone challenging state power, and civil rights lawyers who defend them too vigorously.
Using familiar police state tactics, Muslims especially have been persecuted for their faith, ethnicity, prominence, activism, and charity. They've been singled out, rounded up, held in detention, kept in isolation, denied bail, restricted in their right to counsel, entrapped by paid informants, tried on secret evidence, convicted on bogus changes, given long sentences, then incarcerated for extra harsh treatment as political prisoners in segregated Communication Management Units (CMUs). They violate US Prison Bureau regulations stating:
-- "staff shall not discriminate against inmates on the basis of race, religion, national origin, sex, disability, or political belief (including) administrative decisions (involving) access to work, housing and program."
Also, the Supreme Court's February 2005 Johnson v. California decision, ruling that segregating prisoners by race, ethnicity or language is illegal. The practice began under George Bush and continues unchanged under Obama.
So does the war on Latino immigrants, undocumented ones here because NAFTA and WTO rules destroyed their livelihoods at home, forcing them North for jobs to support their families.
As a sweeping anti-terrorism bill, the November 2002 Homeland Security Act (HSA) created the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), giving Washington repressive police state powers used vigorously thereafter. In March 2003, its largest investigative and enforcement arm was established - the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). Along with Muslims, Latinos are its prime targets, using militarized unconstitutional tactics against vulnerable, defenseless people who've been persecuted ever since.
Like his predecessor, Obama's shock troops target them at the border, at work sites, and in their homes. Using goon-squad tactics, they're illegally confronted with shotguns, automatic weapons, and seized without warrants or explanation, then held for prosecution, imprisonment or deportation with no acknowledgement of their rights. Innocent as well as undocumented Latinos are arrested, including their families, often by pre-dawn swat-like private home intrusions.
In August, Obama announced stepped up immigration enforcement through more centralized control for better ways to track, process, incarcerate, and/or deport growing numbers of undocumented immigrants - not treat them humanely as international law and DHS/ICE regulations stipulate.
In this and numerous other ways, Obama is doing Bush one better by exceeding his harshness, lawlessness, and betrayal of the public trust. Against Latinos, it's through aggressive immigration enforcement with planned legislation coming to include a temporary guest worker program so employers can exploit them as serfs, much like the 1942 - 1964 Bracero Program under which millions of Mexican migrant farm workers had no rights, were harassed and oppressed, then deported when no longer needed.
In Obama's America, only the privileged have rights, not people of color, the poor, and growing numbers going hungry, without jobs, and other life's essentials his budget allocations won't fund.
Part II will conclude Obama Year One: Betrayal and Failure.
Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to the Lendman News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday - Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national issues. All programs are archived for easy listening.
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The Senate health care bill includes a well-known "employer mandate" provision that would require employers to either offer a "qualified" health plan and pay 60 percent of the premium or pay an annual tax penalty of $750 per full-time employee.
What is less well-known is that the provision would also tax companies even if they do offer insurance -- but only if they hire people from low- and moderate-income families who qualify for, and elect to accept, premium subsidies. And the tax penalty for hiring those employees -- arguably the people who need jobs the most -- would be a whopping $3,000 per employee per year.
The combination of this tax penalty and the rules for determining who qualifies for premium subsidies would encourage companies to engage in some new and repulsive forms of employment discrimination.
cont...
http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/wm2737.cfm
The Bottom Line: Taking Jobs from People Who Need Them the Most
In each case, the bottom line is that the Senate health care bill punishes employers who hire people who need jobs the most -- and by doing so makes it harder for people who need jobs the most to find employment. Because of the way the employer mandate for health insurance is structured, employers in effect face a $3,000-per-year incentive to hire people from higher-income families and smaller families over those from poorer and larger families.
The result would be a particularly insidious and repulsive -- but legally encouraged -- form of job discrimination against applicants who need the jobs the most. Congressional leaders may call this "health care reform" but for many poor families, it would be a one-way ticket to unemployment.
The Senate health care bill includes a well-known "employer mandate" provision that would require employers to either offer a "qualified" health plan and pay 60 percent of the premium or pay an annual tax penalty of $750 per full-time employee.
What is less well-known is that the provision would also tax companies even if they do offer insurance -- but only if they hire people from low- and moderate-income families who qualify for, and elect to accept, premium subsidies. And the tax penalty for hiring those employees -- arguably the people who need jobs the most -- would be a whopping $3,000 per employee per year.
The combination of this tax penalty and the rules for determining who qualifies for premium subsidies would encourage companies to engage in some new and repulsive forms of employment discrimination.
cont...
http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/wm2737.cfm
The Bottom Line: Taking Jobs from People Who Need Them the Most
In each case, the bottom line is that the Senate health care bill punishes employers who hire people who need jobs the most -- and by doing so makes it harder for people who need jobs the most to find employment. Because of the way the employer mandate for health insurance is structured, employers in effect face a $3,000-per-year incentive to hire people from higher-income families and smaller families over those from poorer and larger families.
The result would be a particularly insidious and repulsive -- but legally encouraged -- form of job discrimination against applicants who need the jobs the most. Congressional leaders may call this "health care reform" but for many poor families, it would be a one-way ticket to unemployment.
An Analysis of the Senate Democrats' Health Care Bill
by the Staff of the Center for Health Policy and the Staff of the Center for Data Analysis
Backgrounder #2353
Abstract: The Senate health care bill would overhaul the entire health care sector of the U.S. economy by erecting massive federal controls over private health insurance, dictating the content of insurance benefit packages and the use of medical treatments, procedures, and medical devices. It would alter the relationship between the federal government and the states, transferring massive regulatory power to the federal government. The bill would also restrict the personal and economic freedom of American citizens by imposing controversial and unprecedented mandates on businesses and individuals, including an individual mandate to buy insurance.
The U.S. Senate is locked in an intense floor debate over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R. 3590), a massive 2,074-page health care bill that would directly affect every man, woman, and child in the United States. Its enactment would shape the character and quality of life in America for generations to come.
The Senate bill's complex and sweeping provisions would affect virtually every aspect of the huge health care sector of the U.S. economy.
* Like the House bill,[1] it would transfer massive regulatory authority from the states to the federal government and make enormous changes in the nation's health insurance markets;
* It would dramatically alter the financing and content of employer-provided and individual health insurance and significantly change Medicare and Medicaid;
* It would change how hospitals, doctors, and other medical professionals are paid and how physicians and other medical professionals deliver care; and
* It would impose controversial and unprecedented mandates on businesses and individuals, including an individual mandate to buy insurance,[2] thus restricting the personal and economic freedom of American citizens.
In effect, the Senate bill would produce the greatest concentration of political and economic power over one major sector of the U.S. economy in the nation's history.
It is not surprising that the Senate bill is highly unpopular.[3] For ordinary Americans, the legislative process has definitely not been a demonstration of the way a law is made as portrayed in civics textbooks or the kind of rational deliberation envisioned by the Founding Fathers. Surprising provisions, unintended consequences, and unreliable assumptions characterize this proposal. Key provisions, such as the provision of a "public plan" to compete against private health plans, are particularly controversial, and the Senate leadership is rapidly floating and rejecting new schemes to secure the 60 votes necessary to end the debate and quickly pass the bill.
Without the benefit of legislative language, hearings, expert testimony, or committee deliberation and debate, various untested proposals have been floated for press and popular consumption. Writing of the latest scheme to secure a compromise, the editors of The Washington Post noted, "The only thing more unsettling than watching legislative sausage being made is watching it being made on the fly."[4]
Regardless of one's views of the Senate bill, it does not comport with the broad popular themes articulated by President Barack Obama and the many congressional leaders who have championed these policies. Contrary to the President's repeated promises to the American people,[5] the Senate bill, like its House counterpart, would:
* Cause many Americans to lose their current health insurance. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that up to 10 million Americans would no longer be covered by their employers.[6] Given the bill's incentives for employers to discontinue job-based coverage, independent analysts expect the loss of employer-based coverage to be much higher.
* Bend the cost curve up. According to independent analysts and government actuaries, the bill would substantially increase total health care spending instead of reducing it as promised. Richard Foster, Chief Actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), recently judged the projected savings from the Medicare updates as "doubtful" and estimated that the total national spending on health care would increase.[7]
* Impose many new taxes on middle-class Americans. The Senate bill contains over a dozen new taxes, including a 40 percent excise tax on high-priced health plans and special fees and taxes on insurance, drugs, medical devices, and anyone who violates the new mandates.[8]
* Reduce many seniors' access to Medicare benefits and services. The bill would reduce Medicare payments by an estimated $493 billion over 10 years,[9] including payment reductions for Medicare Advantage, hospital care, home health care, and nursing homes.
* Provide federal funding for abortion. Contrary to the President's clear statement to Congress and the nation on health care reform,[10] the Senate bill would provide funding for abortion. The House would prohibit using taxpayers' dollars to finance abortion, but a similar amendment to the Senate bill was tabled without even a floor vote.[11]
Surveys consistently show that the American people clearly want health care reform but do not support the bills sponsored by the House and Senate leadership. While they want Congress to enact policies that would increase choice and competition, and thereby help to control costs and rectify inequities in the health insurance markets, they do not favor a federal takeover of the health care system. Nor do they want the power to make key health care decisions transferred from individuals, families, and medical professionals to government agencies, departments, commissions, and advisory boards.
Much better options are available. Reform of the tax treatment of health insurance is a top priority. Eliminating the federal tax code's discrimination against workers who do not or cannot obtain health insurance through the workplace would expand health insurance coverage; today these persons get no tax relief for the purchase of health insurance coverage. Removing the legal barriers to individuals and families who wish to buy health insurance in a state other than their state of residence would also open health insurance markets to real free-market competition. Promoting state-based health insurance market reforms, designed by state and not federal officials, could dramatically expand coverage, cope with adverse selection in the markets, and secure affordable health insurance under the varying conditions that prevail within the states for the poorest and most vulnerable members of society.
Beyond these options, if Congress were truly serious about "bending the cost curve down," it should focus on the huge and growing programs under its direct jurisdiction: Medicare and Medicaid. This means initiating serious entitlement reform that goes well beyond modifying administrative payment systems and cutting physician and hospital reimbursements.
Hiding the True Cost to the Taxpayers
When Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) unveiled his bill, he claimed that the massive reform package would fall under the $900 billion cost threshold promised by President Obama. But Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) recently conceded that the real cost of the bill was much higher: "Just for a second-- health care reform, whether you use a ten year number or when you start in 2010 or start in 2014, wherever you start at, so it is still either $1 trillion or it's $2.5 trillion, depending on where you start."[12]
There is a simple reason for this public confusion over cost. The bill uses budget gimmicks, unrealistic assumptions, and highly unreliable projected savings to stay under the stated threshold. Among these are four egregious "budget tricks."
The Costly "Doctor Fix." Every year, because of congressionally created formulas in Medicare physician payment, Congress must vote to suspend these pre-ordained payment systems that would automatically cut Medicare payments to physicians. If enacted this year, these cuts would reduce physician payment rates by 21 percent.
Physicians believe, correctly, that unless there is a fundamental reform of Medicare payment, many physicians will reduce their Medicare practice or stop seeing new Medicare patients, thereby reducing the accessibility of Medicare beneficiaries to physician care. Both the House and the Senate have acknowledged this as part of their agendas for health care reform.
However, to make their bills appear less costly, the leadership of both houses has removed the doctor fix and its more than $200 billion price tag from their health care bills and presented it as a separate bill. This enables Senator Reid to claim that his bill will reduce the deficit, but the CBO estimates that the House bill (H.R. 3961), combined with the "doctor fix" bill (H.R. 3962), would "add $89 billion to budget deficits over the 2010-2019 period."[13] The Senate bill plays the same shell game, creating the appearance of deficit reduction by ignoring the inevitable cost of the doctor fix.
The True Costs of the CLASS Act. The Senate bill, like the House bill, includes the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act, which would create a new government health care program for long-term health insurance. This provision creates a national insurance trust that would provide benefits for seniors and the disabled by creating a payment update in Medicare for skilled nursing facilities and home health care providers.
The CLASS Act is intended to pay for itself with collected premiums. The premiums would produce positive revenues for the government for the first 10 years, appearing to reduce the federal deficit during this time. However, as the CBO points out, while "the program's cash flows would show net receipts for a number of years, [this would be] followed by net outlays in subsequent decades."[14] Thus, the CLASS Act appears self-sufficient for the first 10 years but starts running a deficit soon thereafter.
Delays of Costly Benefits. The Senate health care bill is paid for by newly enacted taxes and spending cuts. However, to meet President Obama's $900 billion maximum over the first 10 years, new spending does not begin until years after new taxes and spending cuts are enacted.
This clever design allows Congress to collect revenues (higher taxes, fees, and other offsets) for the full 10-year window but pay out the major benefits over only the last six years. This spending cushion makes the bill appear much less costly than it would if 10 years of spending were included. The true costs of the bill would quickly become apparent in the second 10 years of enactment. Moreover, as with most government programs, it will almost certainly cost more than originally promised.
Unreliable Medicare Cuts. The Senate bill depends on cutting Medicare to pay for its $1.2 trillion coverage expansion. Concerning the impact on Medicare enrollees, as CBO Director Doug Elemendorf explained, the bill would require a substantial reduction in the future growth of per capita beneficiary spending over the next 20 years compared to the previous 20 years. [15]
Proponents of the Senate legislation claim that Medicare spending reductions would result in higher efficiencies. But as James C. Capretta, a Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, argues, "despite all of the talk of 'delivery system reform,' the Senate Democratic plan would not transform American medicine to make it more efficient."[16] The dramatic savings depend on conventional Medicare provider cuts, not on meaningful Medicare reform. Furthermore, as demonstrated by the ongoing effort to correct the Medicare physician payment formula, it is unlikely that Congress would allow such deep cuts to occur in Medicare.
Moreover, these Medicare cuts include more than $100 billion in "savings" from changes in Medicare Advantage plans, a move that would directly affect the benefits of millions of seniors. In his analysis of the Senate bill, Foster confirmed that these changes would result in "less generous packages" and that enrollment "would decrease by about 33 percent."[17]
Bending the Cost Curve Up. According the Office of the Actuary, the Senate bill would increase, not decrease, health care spending by $234 billion between 2010 and 2019.[18] The Senate bill, like its House counterpart, would cost far more than the President's $900 billion limit, likely running up a tab in the trillions of dollars. Assuming both full funding and spending over the first 10 years and that both are combined, as Senator Baucus conceded, the bill would cost $2.5 trillion. Capretta estimates the true cost of the bill at $4.9 trillion over 20 years.[19]
The devil, as always, is in the details.
First, Senator Reid's bill relies on "bracket creep" to raise taxes to pay for its costs. The new 40 percent excise tax on high-cost insurance plans is indexed to general inflation plus 1 percent, which is lower than health care cost inflation.[20] This means that as health care costs grow, more Americans will pay the tax.
Second, the bill increases the Medicare payroll tax for individuals making $200,000 and families making $250,000 per year. This tax hike is not indexed to inflation, which means that inflation will steadily push more middle-class Americans into that tax bracket. Thus, Senator Reid plans to finance $2.2 trillion of his health care bill by continuously raising taxes on more and more Americans.
In the second 10 years of enactment, the bill's coverage provisions would cost $3.1 trillion.[21] When the additional Medicare spending for the so-called doctor fix is included in the calculation, the cost over 20 years would total $4.9 trillion.
Clearly, raising taxes alone will not cover this, so the remainder is expected to be funded by big cuts in Medicare (assuming they actually occur). The Senate bill would require raising taxes on middle-class Americans and cutting senior citizens' health benefits by nearly $5 trillion. As often happens in Washington, D.C., a bill touted for saving money will end up costing the taxpayers a fortune.
Reducing Personal Freedom and Imposing Mandates
In a remarkable twist in public policy, the Senate bill would use taxes and penalties to punish uninsured Americans cont.....
http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/bg2353.cfm
*Steph & Soul- pay attention to the highlights
An Analysis of the Senate Democrats' Health Care Bill
by the Staff of the Center for Health Policy and the Staff of the Center for Data Analysis
Backgrounder #2353
Abstract: The Senate health care bill would overhaul the entire health care sector of the U.S. economy by erecting massive federal controls over private health insurance, dictating the content of insurance benefit packages and the use of medical treatments, procedures, and medical devices. It would alter the relationship between the federal government and the states, transferring massive regulatory power to the federal government. The bill would also restrict the personal and economic freedom of American citizens by imposing controversial and unprecedented mandates on businesses and individuals, including an individual mandate to buy insurance.
The U.S. Senate is locked in an intense floor debate over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R. 3590), a massive 2,074-page health care bill that would directly affect every man, woman, and child in the United States. Its enactment would shape the character and quality of life in America for generations to come.
The Senate bill's complex and sweeping provisions would affect virtually every aspect of the huge health care sector of the U.S. economy.
* Like the House bill,[1] it would transfer massive regulatory authority from the states to the federal government and make enormous changes in the nation's health insurance markets;
* It would dramatically alter the financing and content of employer-provided and individual health insurance and significantly change Medicare and Medicaid;
* It would change how hospitals, doctors, and other medical professionals are paid and how physicians and other medical professionals deliver care; and
* It would impose controversial and unprecedented mandates on businesses and individuals, including an individual mandate to buy insurance,[2] thus restricting the personal and economic freedom of American citizens.
In effect, the Senate bill would produce the greatest concentration of political and economic power over one major sector of the U.S. economy in the nation's history.
It is not surprising that the Senate bill is highly unpopular.[3] For ordinary Americans, the legislative process has definitely not been a demonstration of the way a law is made as portrayed in civics textbooks or the kind of rational deliberation envisioned by the Founding Fathers. Surprising provisions, unintended consequences, and unreliable assumptions characterize this proposal. Key provisions, such as the provision of a "public plan" to compete against private health plans, are particularly controversial, and the Senate leadership is rapidly floating and rejecting new schemes to secure the 60 votes necessary to end the debate and quickly pass the bill.
Without the benefit of legislative language, hearings, expert testimony, or committee deliberation and debate, various untested proposals have been floated for press and popular consumption. Writing of the latest scheme to secure a compromise, the editors of The Washington Post noted, "The only thing more unsettling than watching legislative sausage being made is watching it being made on the fly."[4]
Regardless of one's views of the Senate bill, it does not comport with the broad popular themes articulated by President Barack Obama and the many congressional leaders who have championed these policies. Contrary to the President's repeated promises to the American people,[5] the Senate bill, like its House counterpart, would:
* Cause many Americans to lose their current health insurance. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that up to 10 million Americans would no longer be covered by their employers.[6] Given the bill's incentives for employers to discontinue job-based coverage, independent analysts expect the loss of employer-based coverage to be much higher.
* Bend the cost curve up. According to independent analysts and government actuaries, the bill would substantially increase total health care spending instead of reducing it as promised. Richard Foster, Chief Actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), recently judged the projected savings from the Medicare updates as "doubtful" and estimated that the total national spending on health care would increase.[7]
* Impose many new taxes on middle-class Americans. The Senate bill contains over a dozen new taxes, including a 40 percent excise tax on high-priced health plans and special fees and taxes on insurance, drugs, medical devices, and anyone who violates the new mandates.[8]
* Reduce many seniors' access to Medicare benefits and services. The bill would reduce Medicare payments by an estimated $493 billion over 10 years,[9] including payment reductions for Medicare Advantage, hospital care, home health care, and nursing homes.
* Provide federal funding for abortion. Contrary to the President's clear statement to Congress and the nation on health care reform,[10] the Senate bill would provide funding for abortion. The House would prohibit using taxpayers' dollars to finance abortion, but a similar amendment to the Senate bill was tabled without even a floor vote.[11]
Surveys consistently show that the American people clearly want health care reform but do not support the bills sponsored by the House and Senate leadership. While they want Congress to enact policies that would increase choice and competition, and thereby help to control costs and rectify inequities in the health insurance markets, they do not favor a federal takeover of the health care system. Nor do they want the power to make key health care decisions transferred from individuals, families, and medical professionals to government agencies, departments, commissions, and advisory boards.
Much better options are available. Reform of the tax treatment of health insurance is a top priority. Eliminating the federal tax code's discrimination against workers who do not or cannot obtain health insurance through the workplace would expand health insurance coverage; today these persons get no tax relief for the purchase of health insurance coverage. Removing the legal barriers to individuals and families who wish to buy health insurance in a state other than their state of residence would also open health insurance markets to real free-market competition. Promoting state-based health insurance market reforms, designed by state and not federal officials, could dramatically expand coverage, cope with adverse selection in the markets, and secure affordable health insurance under the varying conditions that prevail within the states for the poorest and most vulnerable members of society.
Beyond these options, if Congress were truly serious about "bending the cost curve down," it should focus on the huge and growing programs under its direct jurisdiction: Medicare and Medicaid. This means initiating serious entitlement reform that goes well beyond modifying administrative payment systems and cutting physician and hospital reimbursements.
Hiding the True Cost to the Taxpayers
When Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) unveiled his bill, he claimed that the massive reform package would fall under the $900 billion cost threshold promised by President Obama. But Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) recently conceded that the real cost of the bill was much higher: "Just for a second-- health care reform, whether you use a ten year number or when you start in 2010 or start in 2014, wherever you start at, so it is still either $1 trillion or it's $2.5 trillion, depending on where you start."[12]
There is a simple reason for this public confusion over cost. The bill uses budget gimmicks, unrealistic assumptions, and highly unreliable projected savings to stay under the stated threshold. Among these are four egregious "budget tricks."
The Costly "Doctor Fix." Every year, because of congressionally created formulas in Medicare physician payment, Congress must vote to suspend these pre-ordained payment systems that would automatically cut Medicare payments to physicians. If enacted this year, these cuts would reduce physician payment rates by 21 percent.
Physicians believe, correctly, that unless there is a fundamental reform of Medicare payment, many physicians will reduce their Medicare practice or stop seeing new Medicare patients, thereby reducing the accessibility of Medicare beneficiaries to physician care. Both the House and the Senate have acknowledged this as part of their agendas for health care reform.
However, to make their bills appear less costly, the leadership of both houses has removed the doctor fix and its more than $200 billion price tag from their health care bills and presented it as a separate bill. This enables Senator Reid to claim that his bill will reduce the deficit, but the CBO estimates that the House bill (H.R. 3961), combined with the "doctor fix" bill (H.R. 3962), would "add $89 billion to budget deficits over the 2010-2019 period."[13] The Senate bill plays the same shell game, creating the appearance of deficit reduction by ignoring the inevitable cost of the doctor fix.
The True Costs of the CLASS Act. The Senate bill, like the House bill, includes the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act, which would create a new government health care program for long-term health insurance. This provision creates a national insurance trust that would provide benefits for seniors and the disabled by creating a payment update in Medicare for skilled nursing facilities and home health care providers.
The CLASS Act is intended to pay for itself with collected premiums. The premiums would produce positive revenues for the government for the first 10 years, appearing to reduce the federal deficit during this time. However, as the CBO points out, while "the program's cash flows would show net receipts for a number of years, [this would be] followed by net outlays in subsequent decades."[14] Thus, the CLASS Act appears self-sufficient for the first 10 years but starts running a deficit soon thereafter.
Delays of Costly Benefits. The Senate health care bill is paid for by newly enacted taxes and spending cuts. However, to meet President Obama's $900 billion maximum over the first 10 years, new spending does not begin until years after new taxes and spending cuts are enacted.
This clever design allows Congress to collect revenues (higher taxes, fees, and other offsets) for the full 10-year window but pay out the major benefits over only the last six years. This spending cushion makes the bill appear much less costly than it would if 10 years of spending were included. The true costs of the bill would quickly become apparent in the second 10 years of enactment. Moreover, as with most government programs, it will almost certainly cost more than originally promised.
Unreliable Medicare Cuts. The Senate bill depends on cutting Medicare to pay for its $1.2 trillion coverage expansion. Concerning the impact on Medicare enrollees, as CBO Director Doug Elemendorf explained, the bill would require a substantial reduction in the future growth of per capita beneficiary spending over the next 20 years compared to the previous 20 years. [15]
Proponents of the Senate legislation claim that Medicare spending reductions would result in higher efficiencies. But as James C. Capretta, a Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, argues, "despite all of the talk of 'delivery system reform,' the Senate Democratic plan would not transform American medicine to make it more efficient."[16] The dramatic savings depend on conventional Medicare provider cuts, not on meaningful Medicare reform. Furthermore, as demonstrated by the ongoing effort to correct the Medicare physician payment formula, it is unlikely that Congress would allow such deep cuts to occur in Medicare.
Moreover, these Medicare cuts include more than $100 billion in "savings" from changes in Medicare Advantage plans, a move that would directly affect the benefits of millions of seniors. In his analysis of the Senate bill, Foster confirmed that these changes would result in "less generous packages" and that enrollment "would decrease by about 33 percent."[17]
Bending the Cost Curve Up. According the Office of the Actuary, the Senate bill would increase, not decrease, health care spending by $234 billion between 2010 and 2019.[18] The Senate bill, like its House counterpart, would cost far more than the President's $900 billion limit, likely running up a tab in the trillions of dollars. Assuming both full funding and spending over the first 10 years and that both are combined, as Senator Baucus conceded, the bill would cost $2.5 trillion. Capretta estimates the true cost of the bill at $4.9 trillion over 20 years.[19]
The devil, as always, is in the details.
First, Senator Reid's bill relies on "bracket creep" to raise taxes to pay for its costs. The new 40 percent excise tax on high-cost insurance plans is indexed to general inflation plus 1 percent, which is lower than health care cost inflation.[20] This means that as health care costs grow, more Americans will pay the tax.
Second, the bill increases the Medicare payroll tax for individuals making $200,000 and families making $250,000 per year. This tax hike is not indexed to inflation, which means that inflation will steadily push more middle-class Americans into that tax bracket. Thus, Senator Reid plans to finance $2.2 trillion of his health care bill by continuously raising taxes on more and more Americans.
In the second 10 years of enactment, the bill's coverage provisions would cost $3.1 trillion.[21] When the additional Medicare spending for the so-called doctor fix is included in the calculation, the cost over 20 years would total $4.9 trillion.
Clearly, raising taxes alone will not cover this, so the remainder is expected to be funded by big cuts in Medicare (assuming they actually occur). The Senate bill would require raising taxes on middle-class Americans and cutting senior citizens' health benefits by nearly $5 trillion. As often happens in Washington, D.C., a bill touted for saving money will end up costing the taxpayers a fortune.
Reducing Personal Freedom and Imposing Mandates
In a remarkable twist in public policy, the Senate bill would use taxes and penalties to punish uninsured Americans cont.....
http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/bg2353.cfm
Why the Health Care Reform Bill Won't Control Costs
For the first time, all but the smallest employers will be required to provide health insurance coverage to the workers, thanks to a bill passed in the House of Representatives ("House Democrats promise health-care victory as Republicans remain opposed to bill," Washington Post, Nov. 8, 2009).
The requirement is new, but the bill perpetuates the status quo because it continues the preferential treatment for employer-sponsored health coverage.
The amount of employer health care is not income. If an employer pays for $5,000 of my health care and I treat that as income, I will only pay as much as 35 percent of that health care bill (assuming 35 percent is still the highest tax bracket). I continue to have a subsidy and the health care financing system continues to confer advantages for those who have employer-sponsored health care.
In their reform efforts, Congress is not proposing changes that make us consumers who have a chance to buy health care as individuals. Instead, the same segments that make up the health care industry will continue to negotiate with each other.
Should You Know the Price of Your Health Care?
One result of these peculiar negotiations is to eliminate price as part of health care transactions. Normally a price is something we know, or find out, before we buy.
In health care, there are only billed charges for lists of services, drugs and supplies; clients and patients don't know the charges before services are billed to a health plan.
If employer health coverage has any patient charges, they are co-pays or deductibles, not prices. Consumers have little incentive to learn a price they will never pay, but few health care venders will quote prices anyway. Instead, it is common practice to wait to send a post service explanation of benefits that lists charges.
I have seen dozens of these forms for family members and others over a long period of time. For a hospital stay of a day or two and a routine surgical procedure, there can be pages of listings and charges, and the grand total will be something fantastic, like $67,362.34.
The True Price of Health Care Costs
The explanation is an amount no one pays. Our employer's insurance carrier has negotiated something lower. The explanation appears designed to frighten us and make us think we are getting great savings we can't get any other way.
Since gift coverage is so much better than any other choice we have, our lack of choices gives the health care industry the power to send us cost saving illusions.
The benefits reported to patients are not only different from the charges actually paid, but benefits and charges to one patient will be irrelevant for benefits and charges to other patients under other health plans, or for those uncovered by any health plan.
In effect, the health care industry has so much control they avoid using prices. Without prices, costs become charges and charges become costs and there is little or no incentive for any segment of the health care industry to control their cost.
Health care will need to have prices as a precursor to cost control. A system without prices where someone else buys us something and gives it to us as a gift has no resemblance to free enterprise or private markets, but I am hardly the first or only person to notice that.
Nor am I the first person to understand that incentives to control costs in free enterprise result from the decentralized decisions of many consumers who have choices.
How to Achieve Real Health Care Reform
Successful reforms in a free enterprise system will maximize our choices to be consumers who buy health care like we buy cars, clothes and cornflakes. That means ending the rules and arrangements that coerce everyone age 22 to 65 to get their health coverage from an employer.
Congress could convert our health care gift to a portable tax credit on our personal income taxes. That would be a start, but there are other debatable options, except that Congress ignores them all to wrangle over more rules and rigmarole to add to the old ones that have failed to control costs for 50 years.
According to the Washington Post article mentioned above, "… Republicans warned that the legislation would rob Americans of their right to make choices about their health care." Dribble like that makes me think the health care debate is like the fable of the king without his clothes.
It looks like Congress will extend health coverage to almost all of us, but they are doing nothing to control costs. When they talk they look and sound sincere. They want to believe what they say, but they are really the king without his clothes.
http://www.automaticfinances.com/health-care-bill-costs/
Edit: Increased productivity and gov run don't go together.
Hospitals with gov involvement aren't very inefficient when compared to those run by private interests.
*Private run clinics also have higher quality of care when compared to gov influenced hospitals.
Keep on promoting big brother and big biz!
How did you like the Obama agenda stopping cheaper drugs from coming in via Canada? Does that represent the people or big biz?
Howard Dean gets it. Don't you?
*First thing to remember about stats and surveys is that they are easily manipulated.
Of course you know this but you enjoy promoting them when it furthers your big biz motives.
“Any measure that expands private insurers’ monopoly over health care and transfers millions of taxpayer dollars to private corporations is not real health-care reform,” he writes, “Real reform would insert competition into insurance markets, force insurers to cut unnecessary administrative expenses and spend health-care dollars caring for people. Real reform would significantly lower costs, improve the delivery of health care and give all Americans a meaningful choice of coverage. The current Senate bill accomplishes none of these.”- Howard Dean D
“Yet Washington has decided, once again, that the American people cannot be trusted to choose for themselves. Your money goes to insurers, whether or not you want it to,” Dean writes.
In Washington, when major bills near final passage, an inside-the-Beltway mentality takes hold. Any bill becomes a victory. Clear thinking is thrown out the window for political calculus. In the heat of battle, decisions are being made that set an irreversible course for how future health reform is done. The result is legislation that has been crafted to get votes, not to reform health care. - Howard Dean
Why are you pushing the power grab when the ultimate agenda is clear to dems who desire health care reform?
LOOKS LIKE THE BILL YOU ARE BACKING IS MORE BIG GOV HELPING BIG BUSINESS AT THE EXPENSE OF THE MIDDLE/LOWER CLASS PEOPLE!!
The biggest obstacle you have is that you have to spin and manipulate for an adminstration that is corrupt, has a leader says one thing and does another and is in bed with big business.
Keep on........
EDIT: “Any measure that expands private insurers’ monopoly over health care and transfers millions of taxpayer dollars to private corporations is not real health-care reform,” he writes, “Real reform would insert competition into insurance markets, force insurers to cut unnecessary administrative expenses and spend health-care dollars caring for people. Real reform would significantly lower costs, improve the delivery of health care and give all Americans a meaningful choice of coverage. The current Senate bill accomplishes none of these.”- Howard Dean D
“Yet Washington has decided, once again, that the American people cannot be trusted to choose for themselves. Your money goes to insurers, whether or not you want it to,” Dean writes.
In Washington, when major bills near final passage, an inside-the-Beltway mentality takes hold. Any bill becomes a victory. Clear thinking is thrown out the window for political calculus. In the heat of battle, decisions are being made that set an irreversible course for how future health reform is done. The result is legislation that has been crafted to get votes, not to reform health care. - Howard Dean
Why are you pushing the power grab when the ultimate agenda is clear to dems who desire health care reform?
LOOKS LIKE THE BILL YOU ARE BACKING IS MORE BIG GOV HELPING BIG BUSINESS AT THE EXPENSE OF THE MIDDLE/LOWER CLASS PEOPLE!!
The biggest obstacle you have is that you have to spin and manipulate for an adminstration that is corrupt, has a leader says one thing and does another and is in bed with big business.
Keep on........
steph doesn't acknowledge that you can't get more healthcare for less $. The libs spin it that Obama is against the rich and will take money from them to redistribute to the poor.
False premise based on the rich being dumb enough to circulate their money in a system that will take it from them.
Edit: blah blah blah- specifics are troublesome to the Obama crowd.
continue on with labels and validation between your closed minded, agenda driven comrades in arms.
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=44741028
speaking of lies- did Obama lie about lobbyists when looking at his results vs campaign?
What about promising to get rid of pork and now dems are being bought with bribe money if they vote for the health bill?
Ohh I get "it". I just don't understand why you are standing behind a leader who continues a war with no line of victory/defeat, lied about doing away with lobbyists, is serving the wealthy, is stealing from the people via devaluation of the $, lied about gov bills being available to the people before signing, a leader who is in pursuit of globalization, serving big biz, has no plans of restoring our industries that have been exported, continues bills with excessive "pork" etc....
Do you realize that our gov is stealing from the middle/lower class via inflation? Particularly the elderly whose fixed income gets worth less everyday.
Understandable- when dealing with the specific issues in the list it becomes apparent that Obama is much like Bush.
Still waiting for you to "show me the light" regarding how Obama is "changing" the issues and handling them for the betterment of the middle/lower class Americans. (the list of 10)
I know you like him but I'd like some specific reasons to appreciate his divine leadership so lets not jump ahead of ourselves with another topic between you and I.
You need to do some research and get to know some indians. Granted they didn't define ownership as we do but they sure enough understood regions. They fought each other, had alliances and enemy tribes. They fought to defend territory, goods etc..
Alex- some of us have jobs that aren't the typical 9-5. The results can be some long days which don't allow much time for the internet.
The overall result of Obama is the rich getting richer, gov getting more powerful, middle/lower class paying the price, global occupation etc... The overall direction is crystal clear and I post info that attempts to convey that direction.
I do believe Obama is furthering agendas that can fit under the Marxist definitions. I also believe Bush furthered some of the same agendas as he empowered gov.
As far as Obama and the middle/lower class- it's a fact that we are suffering under Obama. Look at the unemployment and tax burden to come. Look at our jobs that have been exported and show no signs of returning etc...
I wouldn't vote for McCain either.
As far as PBS- no media source appears to be unbiased anymore.
No doubt about that! I personally enjoy the indians, their culture, stories, heritage. It's sad that our gov has stripped their pride via gov dependency.
One thing I found interesting from an old Crow med. man is that many believe the Indians may have been much more significant if they had reorganized after the Little Big Horn victory vs the lengthy celebration that took place.