Why can’t we get Al Gore to just shut up? Please allow me this bit of entertainment, because it sure as hell ain’t Science. From what we know now, it never was. My edits are in Red.
Gio-
We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change
By AL GORE
Published: February 27, 2010
These two people just completed reading what Al Gore put together for the un-educated and brain-dead followers of Global Warming!
It would be an enormous relief if the recent attacks* on the science of global warming actually indicated that we do not face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it. *Attacks on science? If you tell the truth about those that tell lies about Science, you can count on Al Gore accusing you of attacking Science. What an asshole!
Of course, we would still need to deal with the national security risks of our growing dependence on a global oil market dominated by dwindling reserves in the most unstable region of the world, and the economic risks of sending hundreds of billions of dollars a year overseas in return for that oil. That’s an easy fix… we simply allow for exploration and drilling of new oil finds onshore and offshore, right here in the good old USof A! And we would still trail China in the race to develop smart grids, fast trains, solar power, wind, geothermal and other renewable sources of energy — the most important sources of new jobs in the 21st century. Wrong! Spain is one of the few European countries that went all out on creating a “Green economy”. What they did had disastrous effects. For every Green Job created, 2.2 jobs in the old marketplace were lost. Spain now has an un-employment rate of over 19%. Al Gore can’t explain that away.
But what a burden would be lifted! We would no longer have to worry that our grandchildren would one day look back on us as a criminal generation that had selfishly and blithely ignored clear warnings that their fate was in our hands. We could instead celebrate the naysayers who had doggedly persisted in proving that every major National Academy of Sciences report on climate change had simply made a huge mistake. Dear Mr. Albert Gore, you sir are a piece of garbage, overflowing with a replacement of horse-shit for brains. If I ever meet you in person I will demand an apology from you for slandering me and a few million others just like me. I hope and pray that your energy credit business comes crashing down around you and you get sued by every single person you lied to so they would invest in your bullshit company. I also want to see your dumbass in jail, and soon!
Instead of looking to a greedy progressive liar for the truth about Human Caused Global Warming, I would like to strongly suggest 2 sites that can give you the facts without all the lies and made-up numbers.
A big h/t goes out to long-time GiovanniWorld member Will, for being the first to warn me know about this new Progressive organization. They call themselves The Coffee Party.
What a laugh. Progressives don’t like the idea that most of America is rejecting the spiked Kool-Aid the progressives are drinking. They didn’t especially like the idea of Tea-Parties organizing and becoming a force for good Conservative, Constitution based ideals. So what’s a lefty Progressive to do? Well, first they try to laugh at and demean the people who call themselves Tea-Partiers. When that doesn’t work they try to sell the idea that Tea-Partiers are Green colored Aliens from another planet, and we do not come in peace. That didn’t work either because people now know there’s nothing to fear from Tea-Partiers, or the values they represent. Almost forgot… progressives also use the words “bigot” and “racist” and connecting them to Tea-Partiers, but like everything else they tried, it didn’t work. Are there racists in this country? Sure there are, but they DO NOT represent the Tea-Parties in any way, and Tea-Partiers do everything they can to distance themselves from the few idiots still left in this country that promote hatred.
With all that failing to minimize the Tea-Party movement, that left the progressives with not much else to do. Until… some mis-guided youngster thought it would be a good idea to fight fire with fire by starting their own ‘movement’ organization. They call themselves the “Coffee Party”. C’mon people can’t you do any better than that? At least we chose a real American historical event with real meaning to it, to name ourselves after. Progressives should have tried to tie the name of their group to some event that would relate to their purpose. Hell, it’s their little group, I guess they can call it what they want… morons.
I went to their website last night and poked around for a few minutes. It didn’t take long for me to realize that the Coffee Party is a joke. They may take themselves very serious, but there is no way that I can.
Below is a tweet I copied from their site. They evidently tried to have meetings around the country last night to get their organization off the ground. If Lee’s tweet is any indication, we have nothing to fear…
leejunhurr Got back from a #coffeeparty meeting. Just a bunch of hippie bullshit. America, I am disappoint. #coffeepartyfail about 1 hour ago reply
Now check out a poll they had on their site. Job creation was only 16%, un-freakin-believable. Enjoy…
Everything Obama did and said during a sham of the Health Care Summit, only served to weaken his position as the President of the United States of America. I definitely got the feeling that Obama wanted to use this little show and tell to ONLY ADVANCE HIS POSITIONS, not to actually find common ground, as he kept suggesting. To get a real sense of what I’m talking about you would have to watch almost all 7.5 hours of the summit. And then you would have to ignore about 85% of whatever the media writes about the outcome. Even the piece below can’t help but defend the President as if he’s on their payroll. Newsflash people, you may not know it, but you have been on his payroll for about 2 years now.
Gio-
Obama the petulant leader
AP- Of all the hats President Obama tried on at Thursday’s seven-and-a-half-hour health care summit, it appeared the one he was most comfortable wearing was that of the prickly professor.
In between playing the roles of moderator and deal-maker, the president took several opportunities to dress down his classroom of Republican critics. Through a series of awkward clashes between him and the Republicans, the summit may have served more to portray Republicans as intransigents intent on stonewalling a bill no matter what, than it served to pave the way for a compromise.
Democrats hit that message in the aftermath.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday that the summit made clear Republicans “were accepting of the status quo.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called Obama “the most patient man in the world” for putting up with the day-long session.
While Democrats said the White House and Congress may incorporate GOP ideas in their health care package in light of the summit, there were few signs that any Republican minds were changed. Hours of debate with the president appeared to leave GOP participants embittered.
Most memorable was a brief argument between Obama and Sen. John McCain, his Republican rival in the 2008 presidential campaign. Obama scolded McCain after the Arizona senator spent several minutes complaining that the health reform process has not been transparent and suggesting that the “change” they both campaigned on has not been realized in Washington.
“Let me just make this point, John, because we’re not campaigning anymore,” Obama said. “The election’s over.”
McCain said he was well aware of that fact.
Asked about the exchange Friday, McCain told Fox News he doesn’t think the president meant any disrespect, but he suggested Obama was intentionally trying to avoid the issue of transparency.
“I think the president of the United States was probably trying to in a way not directly respond to what clearly was a campaign promise,” McCain said. “But I wasn’t talking about the campaign — what I was talking about is the sleazy deals … that went on in this process.”
Obama also gave House Minority Whip Eric Cantor a stern talking-to when he noticed that the Virginia Republican had stacked the more than 2,000-page bill in front of him while he griped that patients would not be able to maintain the same level of coverage under the Democrats’ plan.
Obama briefly addressed the coverage point and then turned to the stacked health care bill.
“You know, when we do props like this, you stack it up and you repeat 2,400 pages, et cetera — the truth of the matter is that health care is very complicated. And we can try to pretend that it’s not, but it is,” Obama said. “These are the kind of political things we do that prevent us from actually having a conversation.”
The president again had choice words for Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., after the senator said individual premiums will rise if the Senate bill passes.
Alexander was correct insofar as the Congressional Budget Office estimates individual policy premiums would be 10 to 13 percent higher by 2016 than premiums under current policy. But his comments ignored the fact that subsidies would be available to defray the increases.
The president, however, told Alexander he was flat-out wrong — that his claim was “not factually accurate.” WRONG!
One of the testier moments of the health care summit was revealing in several ways, but mostly because it helped make clear why the public is so turned off to the whole health care reform debate. Even simple things get extraordinarily complicated.Congressional Budget Office report everyone is citing can clear things up.
The moment in question involved what should be a seemingly straightforward point of fact. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., at one point said that the Senate reform plan would raise premiums for people buying insurance in the individual market.
Not so, said President Obama: “It’s estimated by the Congressional Budget Office that the plan we put forward would lower costs in the individual market for the average person … by between 14 and 20 percent.”
To which Alexander said: “The Congressional Budget Office report says that premiums will rise in the individual market as a result of the Senate bill.”
To which Obama then responded: “Let me respond to what you just said Lamar, because it’s not factually accurate. Here’s what the Congressional Budget Office says. The costs for families for the same type of coverage as they’re currently receiving would go down 14 to 20 percent. What the Congressional Budget Office says is that because now they’ve got a better deal, because policies are cheaper, they may choose to buy better coverage than they have right now, and that might be 10 to 13 percent more expensive than the bad insurance that they had previously.”
How’s that again? Because insurance is now cheaper, families who can barely afford coverage at today’s rates will respond by buying more expensive policies?
Well, maybe the
Here’s what that report actually says (on page 6): some changes in the law would cut premiums by a combined amount of 14 to 20 percent. So Obama is right there.
But the report also found that those savings would be more than offset, mainly by requirements in the Senate bill that force insurers to provide more generous, and more expensive, benefits.
The net effect of all these changes is that “the average premium per person” in the individual market “would be about 10 to 13 percent higher in 2016 than the average premium … in that same year under current law.”
In other words, premiums would go up, just like Alexander said.
Now it may be the case that these people are grateful for the extra insurance benefits and don’t mind forking over the extra premiums. But that’s different from saying that the higher costs result from people choosing to spend more on insurance, as Obama suggested.
To submit an to AOL News, write to opinion@aolnews.com.
He noted that family coverage would go down in price. For those premiums that rise, Obama clarified, they would be for “better coverage” than the “bad insurance” people currently have.
The president also laid down the law when he explained that he spoke longer than everyone else “because I’m the president,” and when he concluded that if Republicans won’t join him, then “we’ve got to go ahead.”
While Republicans walked out saying they had not been won over, Obama’s Democratic colleagues praised him for holding the summit — and for enduring it.
“The most patient man in the world is Barack Obama,” Reid said. “He sat through that and listened to everything and was so patient and responsive. It was a issue-oriented meeting. The president let everybody talk and talk and talk.”
Imagine, if you will, that you are living in a changed America, or in President Obama’s words, an America that begged “re-making.” In this now-changed America, hope is in big government and her closest ally, big science.
Now imagine that you and your spouse give birth to a child in this brave, new America, in a hospital linked by law to the federal citizens database. Immediately upon your child’s birth, a hospital clerk assigns your newborn with a “Unique Health Identifier” (UHI), a specially coded number, which is then put into a national electronic database, along with your newborn’s fingerprints and any other identifiers the bureaucrats in D.C. have demanded.
Sex. Weight. Length. Race. APGAR score. Health appraisal at birth, including any disfigurements or handicaps, identifying traits or birthmarks, and DNA markers. Information about the child’s parents, such as names, age, race, number of prior pregnancies, number of prior births, number of prior abortions, education attained, occupations, finger prints and criminal records, if any, are also stored. Almost anything can be included in the database for future government needs, whatever those might be.
Imagine that all constitutional safeguards for an individual’s privacy are deemed to have been complied with, when compiling this database, because healthcare is an interstate activity that the Feds can regulate and government access to the information improves the “general welfare.” Imagine that it is even required that your newborn, before leaving the hospital, be fitted with a surgically implanted microchip, the way babies are now, in many states, required to be vaccinated and blood-typed. The implanted microchip can then be accessed with a scanner by anyone who has a scanning device, with or without parental consent.
Imagine an America where your Unique Health Identifier (UHI) is required for every access to a nationally controlled healthcare system. Imagine an America, where you must give your UHI, via a scan of your surgically implanted biochip, to pick up your prescription at the pharmacy and even when you buy over the counter medications. The number could eventually be required to purchase alcohol and tobacco products, perhaps even to track quantities of bakery goods, chocolates, trans-fats, beef, and even birth control products — or anything else the nanny bureaucrats decide to monitor.
Sound farfetched? Like a plot from a conspiracy-theory movie? Like something from a sci-fi novel?
Think again.
The plans to make these very things a reality right here in America are being made in this administration, under the leadership of the president’s science guru, John Holdren.
For the past several months, I have been working with an appointed member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), the sub-committee on health and technology. My contact on the health and technology sub-committee was privy to conversations, which when related to me, literally caused shivers down my spine.
Every single detail in my opening paragraphs of this article were actually discussed in this committee and seen as a good for the future of American society. Only a scientifically controlled populace, according to these gurus of population and health control, can survive. These scientists see their mission as one of absolute control over even the most private aspects of human life.
Not since the aftermath of WWII — when the ends of the scientific-progressive state were revealed to the world in vivid pictures of the Nazi death camps — have progressives dared to raise their heads in America to such a degree as they are now, under the leadership of Obama’s science guru, John Holdren. Holdren, early in his career, declared himself a Malthusian scientist and has, regretfully, never recanted, nor substantially altered his worldview. In Holdren’s mind, as revealed in confirmation testimony, only his numbers have been off in the past, not his conclusions on the necessity of scientific control as a societal good.
Unfortunately, some of the groundwork for Holdren’s scientist-controlled America was lain in the 1996 passage of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Part of HIPAA legislation was the requirement for the development of the Unique Health Identifier (UHI) for individuals. As detailed by this White Paper by Department of Health and Human Services:
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) outlines a process to achieve uniform national health data standards and health information privacy in the United States. Enacted with the widespread support of the industry and bipartisan support in the Congress, the law requires that the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) adopt standards to support the electronic exchange of a variety of administrative and financial health care transactions.
In 2003, privacy rules were enacted that purportedly protect the individual’s right to healthcare confidentiality. However, a provision of these privacy rules includes a powerful, blanket waiver, which can be used at the discrimination of a “Privacy Board,” acting under HHS. All privacy rules can be disregarded for research or other “necessary” purpose:
If the covered entity receives appropriate documentation that an IRB or Privacy Board has granted a waiver or an alteration of the Authorization requirement
In other words, American citizens will continue to have the right to privacy and confidentiality between themselves and their healthcare providers, if and only if, the Department of Health and Human Services deems that right justified. If, on the other hand, the HHS deems the open availability of an individual’s or groups of individuals’ healthcare information to be necessary to the “general welfare,” then a waiver will be granted without the citizen’s consent or even his knowledge. And this is perfectly legal.
Making something legal, of course, does not make that thing moral or ethical.
A scientist, like John Holdren, along with the support of PCAST and its sub-committee on health and technology, would seem to be nudging Americans towards sublimating their individual needs to the collective, especially in terms of population control and the various side issues, like preventing the births of those they deem unsuitable for their brave new America.
According to my source on the health and technology sub-committee, ultimate biological control of the population is the end goal of the federal healthcare initiative, now being force-fed by the president and the Democratic Party congressional leaders.
Members of this sub-committee were even heard discussing how women’s menstrual periods could be state monitored. How people’s defecation might be monitored and used to detect broad health concerns through electronic toilet management systems. How sexual habits could be state-monitored by managing the sale of all birth-control technology through the use of the UHI.
Insanity seems too mild a word to describe the kind of mind that would want to create this sort of world. These people make Dr. Frankenstein seem like a child playing tiddlywinks in his backyard playpen.
Yet, without passage of one of the current healthcare bills, which provide for the creation of the federal bureaucracies that will be tasked with numbering the whole populace, controlling which medical therapies are given to chosen citizens, and the completion of the electronic medical records system, all of these brave-new-America visions for control will be stymied and postponed indefinitely.
Perhaps this explains why President Obama and his Party are willing to commit political suicide for the passage of this particular healthcare overhaul. Without it, they may fail in their grand plan to “re-make” America according to their scientific-state, progressive delusions.
With it, nothing else may matter.
Knowledge is power, said Frances Bacon.
And the knowledge of every detail of an individual’s health and lifestyle would be a powerful weapon in the hands of bureaucrats and their political masters.
America, the land of the free and home of the brave? Perhaps, not for much longer, if the president and his scientific-progressives have their way. For in their “utopian” world, you and I are nothing much but a number, a stock item, to be controlled for their purposes.
For as Frances Bacon also said, “The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall.”
It doesn’t take much more than a casual glance at the downfall of the others who’ve tried this mad-science controlled government scheme to see that it isn’t a winner. Both the Nazis and the Soviets, who built their own totalitarian regimes on Malthusian scientific themes did fall – albeit only after killing untold millions of their own citizens.
The scientifically controlled state as a vehicle for advancing human progress? Hardly. As human beings have tragically learned, over and over again, science without morality can indeed be the most efficient killer.
It’s not hard to believe that big government would want this kind of power over the lives of individual citizens. What is indeed difficult to believe is that this is happening in America.
This Democrat is running for a US Senate seat representing the state of Colorado. My impression of this guy…. “W-h-a-c-k-o”. He is the poster boy for all the politicians that I consider full of sh*t. However, if they give out awards for “Spin”, this guy would win it hands down.
Here’s what I want you to do… Watch the first 50 seconds of the youtube video below. What he says at the 48 second mark will make you giggle like a school-girl. You can watch the other 9 minutes if you want, but it’s really not worth it. Then you can move on to an interview he did earlier today on FoxNews (SEE LINK). It takes a minute or two before the actual interview starts, but once it does your head will start spinning like a Top. Be careful to wrap your head first, cause this guy is so good at spin that your head may unscrew and fall off!
A very thankful h/t goes out to FS for sending me this great photo. I wish I knew what state this was in!
Be sure to click on image to enlarge.
Gio-
The attached photo is of a billboard recently established on I-75 just south of Lake City. A group gathered there today to celebrate its unveiling. The cost of 10 months rental of the billboard and doing the artwork was
$6500. We feel that is a reasonable cost to reach out to 1,000,000 vehicles per month and perhaps motivate their participation in the electoral process to get our country on a sound footing.
To be fair about what happened today, the GOP did NOT slam Obama. They did however may very good arguments with “We Just Can’t Afford This” being the laser point on which Obama wants to ignore. Instead of listening to the citizens of the USA and helping to fertilize the jobs market, all he wants to do is bankrupt us. Even with more bad jobless numbers coming out today, why did the president think that this was the right course to take? This is a question that needs to be answered. If he can answer this question honestly, which we know he can’t do, everyone will have to assume that maybe Glenn Beck is right after all. This is NOT about insuring those that are un-insurable, this is a POWER GRAB!
Gio-
GOP Slams Obama at Healthcare Summit: ‘We Just Can’t Afford This’
Thursday, 25 Feb 2010 11:24 AM
Article Font Size
WASHINGTON – With tempers flaring, President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans clashed in an extraordinary live-on-TV summit Thursday over the right prescription for the nation’s broken health care system, talking of agreement but holding to long-entrenched positions that leave them far apart.
“We have a very difficult gap to bridge here,” said Rep. Eric Cantor, the No. 2 House Republican. “We just can’t afford this. That’s the ultimate problem.”
With Cantor sitting in front of a giant stack of nearly 2,400 pages representing the Democrats’ Senate-passed bill, Obama said cost is a legitimate question, but he took Cantor and other Republicans to task for using political shorthand and props “that prevent us from having a conversation.”
And so it went, hour after hour at Blair House, just across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House.
Obama and his Democratic allies argued that a sweeping health overhaul is imperative for the nation’s future economic vitality. With the marathon policy debate available from start to finish to a divided public, Obama cast the health care crisis as “one of the biggest drags on our economy,” tying his top domestic priority to the issue that’s even more pressing to many Americans.
“This is the last chance, as far as I’m concerned,” Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y.
Obama lamented partisan bickering that has resulted in a stalemate over legislation to extend coverage to more than 30 million people who are now uninsured. “Politics I think ended up trumping practical common sense,” he said.
And yet, even as he pleaded for cooperation — “actually a discussion, and not just us trading talking points” — he insisted on a number of Democratic points and acknowledged agreement may not be possible. “I don’t know that those gaps can be bridged,” Obama said. “If not, at least we will have better clarified for the American people what the debate is all about.”
With hardened positions well staked out before the meeting, the president and his Democratic allies prepared to move on alone. Politically, it would be an all-or-nothing gamble in a midterm election year for Democrats bent on achieving a goal that has eluded lawmakers for a half-century.
One option is to try to pass a comprehensive plan without GOP support, by using controversial Senate budget reconciliation rules that would disallow filibusters. Alexander asked Democrats to swear off a jam-it-through approach, while Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., defended it. Obama weighed in with gentle chiding, asking both sides to focus on substance and worry about process later — a plea he made repeatedly throughout the day with little success.
A USA Today/Gallup survey released Thursday found Americans tilt 49-42 against Democrats forging ahead by themselves without any GOP support. Opposition was even stronger to the idea of Senate Democrats using the special budget rules, with 52 percent opposed and 39 percent in favor.
Obama’s skepticism about reaching consensus was vindicated as soon as the first Republican spoke — in opposition to the mammoth bills that have passed the House and Senate and in favor of a much more modest approach. Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee said Congress and the administration should start over and take small steps, including medical malpractice reform, high-risk insurance pools, a way to allow Americans to shop out of state for lower-cost plans and an expansion of health savings accounts.
“We believe we have a better idea,” Alexander said. “Our views represent the views of a great many American people.”
Disagreements were not always expressed diplomatically.
Alexander challenged Obama’s claim that insurance premiums would fall under the Democratic legislation. “You’re wrong,” he said. Responded Obama: “I’m pretty certain I’m not wrong.”
As with much in the complicated health care debate, both sides had a point. The Congressional Budget Office says average premiums for people buying insurance individually would be 10 to 13 percent higher in 2016 under the Senate legislation, as Alexander said. But the policies would cover more medical services, and around half of people could get government subsidies to defray the extra costs.
Obama and his 2008 GOP opponent for the presidency, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, had a barbed exchange. McCain complained at length about what he said was a back-door process to produce the original bills that resulted in favors for special interests and carve-outs for certain states.
“We’re not campaigning anymore. The election’s over,” responded a clearly irritated Obama.
“I’m reminded of that every day,” McCain shot back, adding that “the American people care about what we did and how we did it.”
Said Obama: “We can have a debate about process or we can have a debate about how we’re actually going to help the American people at this point. And I think that’s — the latter debate is the one that they care about a little bit more.”
Generally, polls show Americans want solutions to the problems of high medical costs, eroding access to coverage and uneven quality. But they are split over the Democrats’ sweeping legislation, with its $1 trillion, 10-year price tag and many complex provisions, including some that wouldn’t take effect for eight years.
The Democratic bills would require most Americans to get health insurance, while providing subsidies for many in the form of a new tax credit. The Democrats would set up a competitive insurance market for small businesses and people buying coverage on their own. Democrats also would make a host of other changes, which include addressing a coverage gap in the Medicare prescription benefit and setting up a new long-term-care insurance program. Their plan would be paid for through a mix of Medicare cuts and tax increases.
Another alternative if bipartisan agreement eludes Obama on Thursday is going smaller, with a modest bill that would merely smooth some of the rough edges from the current system. The Republican approaches, for instance, would help people now struggling with costs and coverage but probably not put the nation on a path toward coverage for all.
A month after the Massachusetts election that cost Democrats their Senate supermajority and threw the health legislation in doubt, the White House has developed its own slimmed-down health care proposal so the president will know what the impact would be if he chooses that route, according to a Democratic official familiar with the discussions. That official could not provide details, but Democrats have looked at approaches including expanding Medicaid and allowing children to stay on their parents’ health plans until around age 26.
Obama himself hinted at a Democrats-only strategy. When asked by reporters as he walked to the summit site if he had a Plan B, he responded: “I’ve always got plans.”
“Not only are lawmakers polarized, the parties’ constituencies are far apart,” said Robert Blendon, a Harvard University professor who follows public opinion trends on health care. “The president is going to use it as a launching pad for what will be the last effort to get a big bill passed. He will say that he tried to get a bipartisan compromise and it wasn’t possible.”
The summit was held at Blair House, the elegant presidential guest quarters across the street from the White House. Leaders of both parties spoke, with Obama steering the debate as moderator.
It wasn’t a grand, or even particularly comfortable, setting. About 40 senators, representatives and administration officials were crowded shoulder-to-shoulder around a hollow square table, perched for the six-hour marathon on wooden chairs with thin cushions. Coffee breaks had been ruled out, so the only pause in the action came during lunch.
C-SPAN carried complete coverage, while news operations from cable networks to public broadcasting were making it the focus of their day.
How can anyone in their right mind consider Climate Change legislation when the science no longer backs up the assertion that we humans are causing Climate Change? Seriously, I fully understand that Reid is a politician, but he can’t be that stupid, can he? Oh never mind, I just realized he’s working with John Kerry on this. This should be cause for a re-make of the movie called “Dumb and Dumber”.
Does John Kerry have good reason to be so optimistic about a climate bill? The Washington Post reports that he’s getting strong signals that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wants a bill ASAP, indicating that senators might be closer to a deal on climate and energy than many people around Washington have assumed.
Kerry indicated to reporters Tuesday that an energy package is still atop Reid’s agenda for the year. And in a statement to the Post, Kerry said that Reid is “deadly serious about making progress this year on climate and energy reform.” Reid met with Kerry on Tuesday after a he huddled with Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) to discuss the anticipated measure.
“Senator Reid made it clear to me the other day that he wants a bill and he wants it soon,” Kerry said. “I can’t give you an exact timeline, but we are working very very diligently with our colleagues and all of the stakeholders to think this through carefully and get this done right, and get it done in a way that can pass the Senate.”
Finance Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has been less enthusiastic about moving on a bill this year, saying earlier this week that he doesn’t think it stands much of a chance of going anywhere. His committee has jurisdiction over some key elements of the bill, like permit allocation and any revenues it may bring in.
Sources close to the climate debate at environmental and energy industry lobbying groups indicate that they, too, are getting positive signals that the Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman are getting close to a deal. Kerry indicated that they’ve close to agreement on key elements like a nuclear energy title, but the outstanding issue remains what kind of mechanism they will use to price carbon.
Barack Obama’s appeal to industry leaders to support a cap also seems to have revived hopes that something will move forward soon. So we might well see the fruits of Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman’s efforts some time soon.
Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin made a very good showing today. Two thumbs up to him for being able to articulate what the media refuses to explain.
Make darn sure that your state teaches US History from it's beginnings. Also make sure the Constitution is taught in High School.
Well – well – well, it looks like all the emailing and phone calling has paid off. Many of you know that I have been trying to get in to see the Curriculum Director for the County that I live in. To be honest, that has not gone well. In my first phone conversation the Director seemed very eager to help and answer questions. For some reason, all that eagerness seemed to have changed prior to me calling him at his office for an appointment. Just because he wouldn’t talk to me didn’t mean nobody else would, so I talked to two different people at the state level in Raleigh NC. They in turn also gave me the email addresses of a few others that would be involved in the final Curriculum decision process. Although NOBODY would return my phone calls, especially the guy in my own county, I hope in some small way that we helped to get the message across.
Below is some great news, but we still have to see what they come up with in April. Thanks everyone.
Gio-
State changes mind about history curriculum
Published Tue, Feb 16, 2010 06:33 PM
Modified Tue, Feb 16, 2010 06:35 PM
State education officials yielded to critics of a proposal that would have limited the required high school U.S. history course to events of the last 132 years.
The proposal to concentrate early U.S. history in the elementary and middle school grades drew criticism from teachers, parents and politicians, who said such a plan would dumb-down or eliminate important events from classroom instruction.
Rebecca Garland, the chief academic officer at the state Department of Public Instruction, told legislators Tuesday the agency used the feedback from 7,000 e-mails on the proposed social studies curriculum to come up with two new options.
Both options involve expanding U.S. history to two courses. The new draft social studies curriculum will be ready in April, Garland said.
Todays the big day. With something like 6 million people out of work, Obama decides to have a healthcare summit because he thinks he can finally get his Obamacare passed. Moron!
This tells me very clearly that he could care less how many of you are looking for work. What do you think (about anything)?
Even Ax murderers are finding it hard to land that perfect job. Oh wait, I have some great news... At least he's got great Government Health Insurance.
Tomorrows little meeting with the Prez should be interesting, if not entertaining. But I do have a question… “Where Are The Jobs”? No matter what you guys get out of your “Healthcare Summit”, make it the last discussion you have on the subject until you fix THE JOBS PROBLEM! The president, along with Congress, should have been knee-deep in the “Where Are The Jobs” issue until the problem was solved. However… If you idiots in DC won’t let go of Obamacare, then adopt the proposals below, make them law and be done with it. You should be working on “J-O-B-S”.
The Wall Street Journal has some of the best opinion pieces in the World, and this one is no exception.
Today, President Obama will host members of Congress from both political parties at the White House to discuss health reform. He has already put on the table an ambitious plan that takes elements from the bills already passed by the House and Senate and adds others, such as an agency to control health-insurance premiums.
The fundamental question participants must address is whether to use the president’s plan as a starting point for negotiations, or to scrap it and start over.
Our recommendation: scrap it and start over. Its key elements—mandates, heavy-handed insurance regulation, and entitlement-based, middle-income subsidies—must go. None of them address health care’s fundamental problem: high and rising costs. Instead, the various versions of health reform put forth by the president and his party are based on expanding health-insurance coverage. The inevitable consequence will be to exacerbate the cost problem. And the American public knows it.
To bring down costs, we need to change the incentives that govern spending. Right now, $5 out of every $6 of health-care spending is paid for by someone other than the person receiving care—insurance companies, employers, or the government. Individuals are insulated from the reality of what their decisions cost. This breeds overutilization of low-value health care and runaway spending.
To reduce the growth of costs, individuals must take greater responsibility for their health care, and health insurers and health-care providers must face the competitive forces of the market. Three policy changes will go a long way to achieving these objectives: (1) eliminate the tax code’s bias that favors health insurance over out-of-pocket spending; (2) remove state-government barriers to purchasing and providing health services; and (3) reform medical malpractice laws.
We estimate these three changes will reduce health-care costs by over $100 billion per year and permanently reduce the number of uninsured by up to 13 million.
The tax code’s favorable treatment of employer-sponsored health insurance over out-of-pocket health-care payments means that, for most families, buying health care through an employer is 30%-40% cheaper than buying it directly. The best way to address this clear bias is by making all health spending—including out-of-pocket payments, purchases of individual insurance, and purchases of COBRA coverage—tax-deductible.
Such a policy would be especially helpful to individuals facing the high cost of chronic illness and the unemployed who have lost their employer coverage. It could be accomplished with a single, sweeping policy change. It could also be achieved by expanding Health Savings Accounts and Flexible Spending Accounts, which also level the tax playing field between insured and out-of-pocket spending. That is, they make the tax treatment of insured and out-of-pocket spending more similar.
Many health-policy analysts have argued that counting employer-sponsored insurance premiums as taxable income would be a more effective way to undo the current tax code’s bias toward employer-sponsored health insurance. In theory, we agree.
But the fate of the so-called tax on Cadillac insurance plans only serves to underscore the wisdom of leveling the playing field by making all health-care spending tax deductible. The beneficiaries of these high-priced plans, such as labor unions and public-sector employees, lobbied intensely and largely against the tax, and the president’s plan defers the tax until 2018. The end result is the essential elimination of the plan’s only tangible improvement to incentives.
There are two additional steps to reforming private insurance markets. First, individuals must be allowed to buy health insurance offered in states other than those in which they live. The current approach of state-by-state regulation has raised costs by reducing competition among insurance companies. It has also allowed state legislatures to impose insurance mandates that raise prices, while preventing residents from getting policies more suitable for their needs.
Second, reasonable caps on damages for pain and suffering need to be established in medical malpractice cases. Caps on these kind of damages reduce costs and decrease unnecessary, defensive medicine.
These three policies offer advantages over the president’s plan. Instead of raising health-care costs, they fundamentally change incentives among individuals, insurers, and providers to gradually slow the growth in costs by reducing inefficient demand without sacrificing quality and innovation. Instead of radically changing health care overnight, they take an incremental approach, respecting the tremendous uncertainty surrounding the effectiveness of different approaches to rein in costs.
And instead of massively increasing government spending, our policies have only a negligible federal budget impact. We estimate that the three policies will reduce federal revenues by approximately $3 billion per year; a small amount of the government’s $2.2 trillion revenue intake.
Why is the budget impact so small? Taken together, the policy changes outlined here will produce a substantial decline in health-insurance premiums. Premiums will fall as workers opt for health plans with higher copayments. Insurance companies will lower premiums in the face of stiffer competition. And doctors will practice less defensive medicine.
As tax-deductible, employer-sponsored health-insurance costs decline, workers’ taxable wages will rise so as to leave total labor compensation unchanged. The increased tax revenue collected on higher wages nearly offsets the revenue loss from the new health care tax deduction.
It is also important to increase access to health care—but this should not be confused with increasing access to health insurance, and it cannot be achieved without getting costs under control. There are several ideas for improving access worth considering: removing artificial barriers to entry for physicians and within specialty groups, allowing states greater flexibility with Medicaid, providing tax credits for health spending, and expanding programs that provide services directly, such as Community Health Centers. The city of San Francisco has a promising alternative along these lines called Healthy San Francisco. It restructures the existing health-care safety net system (both public and nonprofit) into a coordinated, integrated system.
Despite the claims of some partisans to the contrary, the president’s plan is failing because it does not speak to the concerns of the majority of Americans. Instead of addressing the high and rising costs of care, it proposes mandates, invasive regulation, and unaffordable new entitlements. This will not bring health-care costs down—it will only make this problem worse.
Mr. Cogan, a senior fellow at Sanford University’s Hoover Institution, was deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan. Mr. Hubbard, dean of Columbia Business School, was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush. Mr. Kessler is a professor of business and law at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
Obama flunks and we can prove it. The poll results below were from CBSNews.com. You too can take part in grading Obama’s first year in office. If you would like to participate, simply go here. The results you see below were copied by me immediately after I voted. This poll has been up since January 19th, 2010 so you know there have been many that participated that feel exactly like you. FYI… Each category is listed first in bold, then the results are below it. I can’t get rid of the line that seperates the two so it does get a bit confusing. Check out how badly Obama has done, it’s very worrisome if you ask me!
Gio-
The Economy
A: 1.93%
B: 3.12%
C: 5.07%
D: 19.15%
F: 70.73%
Foreign Policy
A: 3.61%
B: 3.20%
C: 7.81%
D: 23.15%
F: 62.23%
Health Care
A: 2.07%
B: 2.28%
C: 3.47%
D: 9.87%
F: 82.31%
Afghanistan
A: 3.36%
B: 13.61%
C: 27.97%
D: 24.12%
F: 30.95%
Iraq
A: 3.46%
B: 9.62%
C: 26.49%
D: 24.74%
F: 35.69%
Threat of Terrorism
A: 3.15%
B: 3.74%
C: 8.09%
D: 20.86%
F: 64.17%
Energy and the Environment
A: 2.71%
B: 4.15%
C: 11.99%
D: 21.54%
F: 59.61%
Social Issues
A: 3.19%
B: 4.14%
C: 12.84%
D: 21.24%
F: 58.59%
Bipartisanship
A: 3.04%
B: 2.49%
C: 4.18%
D: 9.43%
F: 80.86%
Obama’s Overall Job as President
A: 2.48%
B: 3.22%
C: 4.19%
D: 26.16%
F: 63.95%
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Total votes: 221229
–>
NOTE: This is not a scientific poll. The results above are for information purposes only, and should not be confused with the results of the scientific polls conducted by CBS News.
Everytime I see the pics below I suddenly become mute because I am awed by the handi-work of our Creator. I think you will see what I mean when you see the pics of Selenite. Don’t forget the short video.
One of my serious hobbies is being a Rock Hound, and if I want to sound important, I call myself an Amateur Mineral Collector. Fortunately for me, I live in an area that has many minerals still to be found in crystal form. But nothing like you see in these pics. Enjoy and relax while viewing these amazing gifts from God. Hopefully, this will allow you to forget Obama for at least a few minutes. Enjoy…
This is the nightmare that most Real Estate developers have each night.
Below I copied 3 headlines of Real Estate news just from today. The first one talks about how home prices are rising in their area, while the second one warns of record low home sales. Then to distract you from those two related headlines, someone throws in an article about Real Estate psychology. If I were investing in Real Estate today, I would probably read the last article first, then go get my head examined by a really good Therapist.
I hardly know where to start with my opinion this week, sometimes I feel like I’m walking a tightrope between my feelings and my opinions, between what’s legal and what’s pushing the limits and what’s the proper course of action in dealing with a government that is ignoring the will of the people. We still have nine months until the 2010 elections and nothing we are doing is deterring democrats from pushing an agenda that the overwhelming majority of the American people do not want. They are willing to commit political suicide in order to pass socialized healthcare, they are really no different than the kamikaze pilots in WWII or the modern suicide bombers in the middle east, they are sacrificing themselves in order to do the maximum amount of damage to this country. To any rational person this would be considered treason.
A representative government is just that, a government that represents the people. Abraham Lincoln said it best in the Gettysburg Address “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” However it seems that the present government is in a full court press to flush our Constitution, our principles and 200+ years of history and sacrifice right down the toilet. I sit here and ponder what our options are, do we depend on our representatives to do the right thing hoping against hope they will have a change of heart and start listening to us. Do we wait until November when we can vote them out of office, but as I said before that is not deterring them, they are doubling down and are going shove this down our throats no matter what. No I think what is needed is a show of outrage so massive that Obama, Reid and Pelosi and their suck-ups in the MSM couldn’t possibly ignore or downplay it. Such an overwhelming display that it scares the crap out of the socialist sycophants. A massive march on Washington on a scale never before seen in history a march that stops all traffic and paralyzes DC. This will take 5-10 million people and my idea is to gather outside of Washington and March into the city in numbers never before seen, a nonstoppable mass of humanity surrounding the Capital and White House and in one voice shake and rattle the walls of Congress and the West Wing.
I know the logistics of a gathering on this scale would be as massive as the march itself, but something on this scale has to be done. I have other Ideas but at this time I choose to still keep it peaceful, let’s just say that so far we have chosen to not use force but that option needs to be on the table for the future. A massive show of discontent such as this may very well be the last step the American people take prior to revolution if our government continues to think that they can continue to walk over us without consequence. They will not realize the folly of their actions unless there is ramifications for them or a price to be paid on their part.
There is a lot of anger in the country right now at a government that simply does not care what the people of this country do, say or want. How much longer that anger continues to boil before the top blows is anyone’s guess, but when it does, nobody in our government will want to be anywhere near ground zero!
Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives.
John Adams, Letter to Benjamin Rush, 18 April 1808 US diplomat & politician (1735 – 1826)
H/t to DW for passing this on to me. This post is not exactly good news, but it does help knowing how the Marxist Left looks at us real Americans!
It’s official, we Americans are idiots.
Gio-
Valerie Jarrett is senior adviser and assistant to the President for Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs. Ms. Jarrett, is one of the President and First Lady’s closest and longest held friends.
President Obama has said “Well, Valerie is one of my oldest friends,” Obama is quoted as saying. “Over time I think our relationship evolved to the point where she’s like a sibling to me… I trust her completely.She’s family,” he has said, “she combines the closeness of a family member with the savvy and objectivity of a professional businesswoman and public policy expert” and he “absolutely” runs every decision by her.”
President Obama’s “family member”does not have a very high opinion of the American people. A new video released by Naked Emperor News (embedded below)shows Ms Jarrett taking audience questions at a forum given by the Kennedy School of Govt:
Americans are Idiots: She agrees with one questioner that maybe the administration should create “the dummies guides to the issues Obama is talking about. Because the people only understand simple things like “Hope and Change” but could never understand complicated issues like “cloture.” Sorry Valerie, but even “us common folk” can count to 60.
Tea Parties are Anti Government Activists Who Are Trying to Scare People. No Valerie, Anarchists are anti government. Tea Party activists are very pro-government, the constitutional government formed by our founders. By the way, Boris Karloff tried to scare people, Tea Parties try to tell people the truth, its only scary to the people who want to hide the truth.
President Obama’s Intelligence is a Burden Because it Enables Him to See His Mistakes Right Away. Man, sometimes this stuff writes itself, but I will try and take the high road. Ms Jarret, if the POTUS was able to see his mistakes right away, his skin wouldn’t be so dammed thin and he would have recognized by now that the surge worked.
The arrogance of this administration is simply incredible. Never before has there been a White House with such a low opinion of the American people and such a high opinion of themselves. They should remember Pride Go-ith before the Mid Term Elections.
Yeah, it’s a bit of a stretch to think Mr. Look-Down-His-Nose-At-Citizens, would ever be a gun lover, but I thought it would make for a good header.
The latest design in personal protection. Very handy in shootouts with Marxist Liberals.
The NYT’s wrote this article trying to show people how easy Obama is to get along with, but they forget a very important piece of information. The one to keep an eye on is Eric Holder our Attorney General for the United States. No matter what the left says, or their mouthpieces like the NYT’s, do not for one second believe the BS. In fact, considering that they felt it necessary to print this story may portend a move to be taken by the Obama administration in the very near future. Just keep in mind that it won’t be Obama at the tip of the spear on this issue, look to Holder as the champion for gun control.
My suggestion: Buy more ammo!
Gio-
Fearing Obama Agenda, States Push to Loosen Gun Laws
When President Obama took office, gun rights advocates sounded the alarm, warning that he intended to strip them of their arms and ammunition.
And yet the opposite is happening. Mr. Obama has been largely silent on the issue while states are engaged in a new and largely successful push for expanded gun rights, even passing measures that have been rejected in the past.
In Virginia, the General Assembly approved a bill last week that allows people to carry concealed weapons in bars and restaurants that serve alcohol, and the House of Delegates voted to repeal a 17-year-old ban on buying more than one handgun a month. The actions came less than three years after the shootings at Virginia Tech that claimed 33 lives and prompted a major national push for increased gun control.
Arizona and Wyoming lawmakers are considering nearly a half dozen pro-gun measures, including one that would allow residents to carry concealed weapons without a permit. And lawmakers in Montana and Tennessee passed measures last year — the first of their kind — to exempt their states from federal regulation of firearms and ammunition that are made, sold and used in state. Similar bills have been proposed in at least three other states.
In the meantime, gun control advocates say, Mr. Obama has failed to deliver on campaign promises to close a loophole that allows unlicensed dealers at gun shows to sell firearms without background checks; to revive the assault weapons ban; and to push states to release data about guns used in crimes.
He also signed bills last year allowing guns to be carried in national parks and in luggage on Amtrak trains.
“We expected a very different picture at this stage,” said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a gun control group that last month issued a report card failing the administration in all seven of the group’s major indicators.
Gun control advocates have had some successes recently, Mr. Helmke said. Proposed bills to allow students to carry guns on college campuses have been blocked in the 20 or so states where they have been proposed. Last year, New Jersey limited gun purchases to one a month, a law similar to the one Virginia may revoke.
But recent setbacks to gun control have been many.
Last month, the Indiana legislature passed bills that block private employers from forbidding workers to keep firearms in their vehicles on company property.
Gun rights supporters also flexed their muscles last year by blocking legislation to give District of Columbia residents a full vote in Congress by attaching an amendment to repeal Washington’s ban on handguns.
Asked by reporters about the Brady group’s critical report on the Obama administration, a White House spokesman, Ben LaBolt, said the latest F.B.I. statistics showed that violent crime dropped in the first half of 2009 to its lowest levels since the 1960s.
“The president supports and respects the Second Amendment,” Mr. LaBolt said, “and he believes we can take common-sense steps to keep our streets safe and to stem the flow of illegal guns to criminals.”
Still, gun rights groups remain skeptical of the administration.
“The watchword for gun owners is stay ready,” said Wayne LaPierre, chief executive of the National Rifle Association. “We have had some successes, but we know that the first chance Obama gets, he will pounce on us.”
That Mr. Obama signed legislation allowing guns in national parks and on Amtrak trains should not be seen as respect for the Second Amendment, Mr. LaPierre said. The two measures had been attached as amendments to larger pieces of legislation — a bill cracking down on credit card companies and a transportation appropriations bill, respectively — that the president wanted passed, Mr. LaPierre said.
Regardless of Mr. Obama’s agenda, gun dealers seem to be reaping the benefits of fears surrounding it.
Federal background checks for gun purchases rose to 14 million in 2009, up from 12.7 million in 2008 and 11.2 million in 2007. But from November 2009 to January 2010, the number of background checks fell 12 percent, compared with the same months a year earlier.
In Virginia, the success of new pro-gun laws is partly a result of the Republican Party’s taking the governor’s office after eight years of Democratic control.
A major setback for state gun control advocates was this week’s House vote repealing the one-gun-per-month law, which was passed in 1993 under Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, a Democrat, and has long been upheld as the state’s signature gun control restriction.
Supporters of limiting gun purchases to one a month said the law was important to avoid Virginia’s becoming the East Coast’s top gun-running hub. Opponents dismissed the concern.
“We shouldn’t get rid of our Second Amendment rights because some people in New York City want to abuse theirs,” said Robert G. Marshall, a Republican delegate from Manassas who supported repeal of the one-gun-a-month limit.
Gun control advocates hoped to win new restrictions after the Virginia Tech massacre on April 16, 2007, in which a student, Seung-Hui Cho, shot and killed 32 people before turning a gun on himself.
After the shooting, Gov. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, pushed for stronger gun control measures. But last year the legislature rejected a bill requiring background checks for private sales at gun shows and repealed a law that Mr. Kaine had supported to prohibit anyone from carrying concealed weapons into a club or restaurant where alcohol is served.
In previous years, the guns-in-bars bill cleared both chambers but was vetoed by Mr. Kaine. But the new governor, Robert F. McDonnell, has said he supports the measure.
Virginia is also considering a measure adopted in Montana and Tennessee that declares that firearms made and retained in-state are beyond the authority of Congress. The measure is primarily a challenge to the Tenth Amendment’s “commerce clause,” which gives Congress the power to regulate commerce among the states, with firearms as the object.
The Montana law is being challenged in federal court, and the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has sent a letter to Tennessee and Montana gun dealers stating that federal law supersedes the state measure.
Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s longtime business partner in Berkshire Hathaway, warns in a new column that the U.S. economic empire is crumbling before our eyes, thanks to federal debt and poor planning.
In an article penned for Slate.com, Munger uses the form of a parable to explain how Wall Street’s love affair with gambling has destroyed America’s Main Street.
The article leads with this headline: “Basically, It’s Over.”
The Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman describes the economic history of Basicland, which happens to match U.S. history.
Early in its history, debt is unknown except for home mortgages and some consumer loans, and people live within their means. Speculation is discouraged, and commodities markets are small and tightly regulated.
Under this rational system, economic growth skips merrily along at a steady 3 percent, Munger explains.
Taxes are limited and pay for only “essential services” like fire protection, courts, and defense. Most taxes are collected on imports, and government spending matches that tax income. Debt via government bonds is limited.
Then things take a turn for the worse.
“The extreme prosperity of Basicland had created a peculiar outcome: As their affluence and leisure time grew, Basicland’s citizens more and more whiled away their time in the excitement of casino gambling,” Munger writes.
Financial services soon grow to account for too big a portion of the economy, Munger says.
“The winnings of the casinos eventually amounted to 25 percent of Basicland’s GDP, while 22 percent of all employee earnings in Basicland were paid to persons employed by the casinos, many of whom were engineers needed elsewhere.”
Then, a shock: Imported energy costs rise, and low-cost labor competition from abroad appears, Munger writes.
“Suddenly Basicland had to come up with 30 percent of its GDP every year, in foreign currency, to pay its creditors,” Munger writes.
The U.S. deficit — just the gap between spending and income in one year — is projected to hit $1.6 trillion in 2010. Total debt is project to exceed 100 percent of GDP starting in 2011.
In the parable, Munger strongly suggests that the United States take seriously the campaign of Reagan-era Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, who wants the big banks to cease pretending to be banks if they expect the freedom to trade securities on the side.
“He suggested that Basicland should strongly discourage casino gambling, partly through a complete ban on the trading in financial derivatives, and it should encourage former casino employees — and former casino patrons — to produce and sell items that foreigners were willing to buy,” Munger writes.
As the parable ends, none of the politicians listen, and Basicland turned into “Sorrowland,” Munger concludes.
1.93%
Giovanni's World 
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