As a health care system that has been suggested the United States should follow, Steven Crowder made an undercover video showing what a Canadian citizen must do in order to obtain his/her “free” health care.

Please click here to watch the video.  You’ll have to sit through a 30 second ad to get you to register to PJTV, but it is worth it!  And if you haven’t regisered there yet, do!  They have great videos!

An alternative to popular faith

*Faith is belief without evidence. Science is belief from evidence.

Here’s my question to you: Has your support for health care reform increased or decreased in the past 6 months?

Tune in to the Situation Room at 6pm to see if Jack reads your answer on air.

And, we love to know where you’re writing from, so please include your city and state with your comment.

Why is the ACLU promoting North Carolina citzens to put pressure on Sen Burr.  This is the email ACLU is posting to the public and why should my tax dollers pay for someone else’s abortions, this is where the ACLU has over stepped their boundaries with our tax money. Dear ACLU Supporter,I’m here in Washington, D.C., after a long bus ride from Maine that took me nearly nine hours — and more than 500 miles. But nothing could have stopped me from getting here because the fight to protect reproductive rights is too important, and it’s personal.   My own commitment to reproductive freedom is rooted in my grandmother’s story about her difficult decision to have an abortion when it wasn’t even legal. I’m sure that the hundreds of other women and men who have joined me in Washington today to take part in this lobby day have their own reasons for caring so deeply.But we’re all here to send a powerful message to our senators: we want health care reform that will protect reproductive freedom — not put it in peril as the House did with their Stupak-Pitts Amendment, banning abortion coverage. We’re going to be heading to senators’ offices to deliver this message in just a few moments, but it would be great if they could hear from all of you, too! Email Sen. Richard M. Burr and Sen. Kay R. Hagan now. Let them know you want health care that will improve women’s lives — not interfere with them. Just off the bus, my fellow bus-mates and I are ready to fight for women’s reproductive freedom. Tell your senators that you want health care that will improve women’s lives not interfere with them.  Many people have come to D.C. today because they’re alarmed by a recent rise of extremism that is influencing decisions on Capitol Hill. When the Stupak-Pitts Amendment was added to the House bill, it drastically altered and interfered with a woman’s ability to get the health care she needs. But what’s possibly even more alarming is that a reinvigorated extremist movement is determined to advance their own personal ideology and use the power of our government to force their own narrow view of morality on the rest of us.   So now we all need to join together and let our senators know that this kind of thinking has no place in our government — and it doesn’t belong in our health care reform.   We need to come together — whether it’s riding a bus to D.C. or clicking a button to email your senators and make sure they know we won’t let the same thing happen in the Senate. Email Sen. Richard M. Burr and Sen. Kay R. Hagan right now. Whatever your reason for getting involved in this critical fight today, I hope you’ll join with me and let your senator know how strongly you feel about this. Together, we can make a real difference in the lives of millions of women. Thanks for standing with us, Alysia Melnick Public Policy Counsel Maine Civil Liberties Union © ACLU, 125 Broad Street, 18th Floor, New York, NY 10004

 

http://www.aclu.org/

Everybody has heard stories of companies and bookkeepers with two sets of books. Our Congress has put totally new meaning to the words prevarication and fraud. The House and Senate, controlled by hardcore leftist ideologues, have lost all connection with the American people.

We keep telling them WE DON’T WANT THIS..the polls keep telling them. Our visits to their offices keep telling them. Our emails, letters and phone calls keep telling them. And so far, with the exception of a few Democrats and all but one Republican, they have not listened. Or they pretend to listen, babble some garbage about Americans “WANTING” health care, and go right on with stealing our freedoms, enslaving our children and condemning us all to horribly substandard care such as KILLS THOUSANDS of people every year in the UK and Canada.
What we don’t WANT is THEIR health care. We don’t want their socialist mandated tyranny. It’s that simple.

When time allows I listen to Mark Levin in the afternoons here. Mark is a constitutional scholar and an unabashed Patriot. If you don’t have his book, “LIBERTY and TYRANNY”, get it. It is simply THE blueprint for the Conservative revolution. Once again, no, I’m not being paid for the endorsement.
I learn by hanging around with, and listening to, people who know more than I do. Mark was referring to a CATO Institute report by Senior Fellow Michael D. Tanner on the true cost of the health care fiasco in the Senate now. It’s IMMENSE!! You can link to it on Mark’s web site or Google it. But long story short, they’re not just cooking the books in Washville…they are cooking, baking and barbecuing them.

We are TWELVE TRILLION Dollars in the hole right now..and the debt goes up by FOUR BILLION dollars every day! To this staggering debt, the DeMarxists want us to think the proposed Unhealthy for America bill will ‘ONLY’ cost 849 BILLION dollars. The Heritage Foundation figured it at TWO POINT FOUR PLUS TRILLION DOLLARS. Now the CATO Institute’s studies, investigating much farther into the smoke and mirrors and creative bookkeeping practices employed by Congress and their cabal of criminal cronies, puts the tab at much closer to SIX POINT FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS!!

Meanwhile, the Obama administration and the Congress continue to spend like alcoholics on a binge.
Any Republican who says he wants to reach ‘accommodation’ on this bill or ‘FIX’ it, or any part of it, should be run out of office. And we need to tell them just that.
It’s time to take off the gloves and go bare knuckles on this Congress and this Administration.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2009

I keep coming back to using the military as an analogy. Usually, when I try to express it that way, people react (rather than reply) “Good gosh, man! [or a less polite equivalent] You want health care in the US to be just like being in the Army!”

No, I don’t. Just that. If there is any value to be found by comparison with existing systems, that value must be protected by naysayers whose knee-jerk response says nothing about the merits of the comparison points.

So, once again, I make the attempt: The lessons we can learn from our military structures, methods, philosophies and attitudes.

As a merit-based system that weeds out the unqualified and objectively ranks the rest as less or more so, our education system offers us an effective means of producing caregivers. It has one important flaw: It costs so much, in the form of post-graduation debt, that caregivers expend a significant portion of their life efforts worrying about it, paying it off, and begrudging the sacrifices those efforts require of them. An alternative exists, exemplified by military recruitment: When you enlist, we promise to train you (house you, feed you, pay for your living expenses like health care and pay you a salary) at no expense to you in return for your promise to serve for at least a certain amount of time. As an analogy, it doesn’t take much thought to translate that into a civilian lifestyle for medical caregivers: You get a living wage commensurate with the value (high) of your service; you carry no debts for the cost of your training/education; you serve in your specialty (whatever it might be, from nurse to specialized surgeon) for at least five (maybe ten) years; you will reimburse us (the govt., AMA, whatever) for the proportionate expense we bear if you quit.

The (new) powers that be, those not only paying for but implementing the education and training of caregivers, have to ante up big time to make that work. The merit determinations must be completely transparent, of practical value to all concerned (GPA alone is not enough, for example), and they must have strong standards rather than standardizations. If you don’t know by now, you should: Medicine, as strong a science as it is and should be, remains an art as well, where innovation, intuition (strongly founded in science) and passion are valuable components. Art, as it were, bridges the gap between the impersonal statistics of science and that a physician is there, in the room, with the patient. To bring the analogy full-circle: The effective soldier doesn’t just march, aim, fire and march. He or she must also think, from a foundation of accurate knowledge and solid rational skills, because always just following an order to the letter has been proven to be the wrong thing over and over again.

Doing just that would put intense pressure on the lions of industry to stop their predatory approach to health care, and refocus on the primary mission of keeping well people well, mending well people who have been injured, providing compassionate, quality care to all and making the advances of medical science available to all who suffer from any given disease, not just those who can afford it, have a handy charity paying for it, or have an insurance carrier that can’t weasel out of paying for it. At some point, sooner rather than later I would hope, they will realize that profit is just not a morally justifiable approach to or result from effective health care delivery. If we replace profit with sane, sensible and fair financial support for delivering health care and paying the caregivers what they are worth, then we won’t have a ubiquitous reality of people who go without. We’d have, instead, the rare report of someone not getting served as the exception that proves the efficacy of the rule.

There is a widespread gap in health insurance costs for men and women. Insurers on average can charge women up to 140% more than men for the same health plans. It’s not enough that women have to spend money on makeup, hair products (though some men use those products) birth control, and tampons- but we have to pay more to even stay alive!

Some insurers charge women as much as 50% more, while employers pay more per individual in their group health plans if their workforce is predominately women. This is a system known as “gender rating”, and it is one of the main reasons why health care reform is so important.

Women are charged for child-bearing costs in their individual insurance policies even though most policies have maternity costs added on as an extra expense already. Only 13% of health plans in the United States give maternity coverage to a 30 year-old woman. Women are literally charged for having female sexual organs. Women are also rejected if they have been a victim of domestic violence, are pregnant, or who have previously had a Cesarean section. The National Women’s Law Center’s 2009 study “Still Nowhere to Turn” even found that non-smoking women pay more for health insurance coverage than male smokers!

Among the insurers that use “gender rating” the majority of them charge women more until they reach the age of 55, and some (like Aetna) charge men more after that. But since men have shorter lives than women, it’s unfair that they should start to pay more at the age of 55 when they’re nearing the end of their lives. Women have to pay more than men for 55 years and then they have to pay the normal price for 20 years or more.

There have been some efforts to change this thankfully- but there hasn’t been nearly enough. In April 2009, Arkansas passed a law expressly prohibiting health insurance companies from using a woman’s status as a domestic violence survivor to deny coverage. In October 2009, California became the eleventh state to ban gender rating in the individual health insurance market. It’s a nice start but there’s still a lot of work to be done.

The only way to fix these problems is to make insurance available to all and to reform health insurance. Hopefully, Congress won’t pass up the chance to reform health care so it can be available to all people- regardless of gender.

My Sources:

Bust Magazine Feb\March 2009

Ms. Magazine Fall 2009

The National Women’s Law Center “Still Nowhere to Turn” http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/stillnowheretoturn.pdf

Aetna http://www.aetna.com/about/aoti/aetna_perspective/roleofgender.html

From:  BigGovernment.com

by Morgen Richmond

Both the House and Senate versions of the healthcare reform bill would require employers above a certain size to provide health insurance for their workers or face some sort of penalty. The House bill that passed last month would require employers to pay an 8% additional payroll tax for not insuring their workers. The Senate bill now under consideration is much less punitive, requiring employers who do not provide insurance to pay a $750 annual fee per full-time worker, but only if one or more of their employees receive a government subsidy in the insurance exchange.

Quite a difference between the two bills. By way of example, take an employee earning $50,000 per year. Under the House bill, an employer who did not provide insurance would be required to pay an additional tax of $4,000 to the federal government. Compared to only $750 under the Senate bill – a difference of more than 500%.

Now consider whether it would make more sense financially for the employer to provide insurance or pay the penalty. In our example above, under the House bill it would probably be close to a break-even if the employer is providing coverage only for the employee. According to the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the average monthly insurance premium for private industry employers across all worker categories was $317.63. Or just over $3800 annualized (compared to the $4,000 penalty). However, it would be quite a bit more expensive if the employer was providing family coverage (BLS data: $737.68/mo – $8850/yr).

Obviously under the Senate bill it would be far less expensive for the employer to just pay the $750 penalty rather than provide the insurance.

This is just one example, but importantly, note that under the House bill, the lower the average wage base of the employer, the more cost effective it would be for the employer to pay the 8% penalty rather than offer insurance coverage. In fact, an average wage base of $50K is probably close to the tipping point. An employer with average wages much lower than this would likely find it less expensive to not provide insurance for their employees. And correspondingly, any employer with an average wage higher than $50K would likely find it more cost effective to provide insurance.

Of course under the Senate bill, practically speaking there is no tipping point. Given the cost of health insurance, it would make far more financial sense for every employer to ante up the $750 per worker rather than provide health insurance.

So with the Senate bill especially, wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume that a large number of employers would elect to not provide insurance coverage once the bill goes into effect?

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) doesn’t seem to think so. Based on their analysis of the Senate bill, by 2019 only 5 million fewer individuals will receive insurance coverage through an employer compared to current law. (Note that this total also includes family members who would otherwise receive coverage through an employer policy). With the CBO’s estimated total of 162 million people receiving employer-based coverage in 2019, that’s a reduction of only about 3%.

I’m going to give some examples to demonstrate why this defies common sense, but here’s why this is so critically important. The more people who do not receive coverage through an employer, the more who will wind up in the federal insurance exchange. And the more people in the insurance exchange, the more subsidies the government will be required to pay under the terms of the bill. Under the Senate bill, individuals and/or families earning up to 400% of the poverty level will receive some level of federal subsidy. With the CBO’s estimate of an average annual subsidy in excess of $5K per subsidized enrollee, the incremental cost could add up pretty quickly if their estimates turn out to be inaccurate.

Let’s assume under the Senate bill that 5% of individuals lose their employment based coverage rather than the 3% estimated by the CBO. (Still a very conservative estimate in my opinion). This would result in an additional 3 million individuals in the exchange, and an incremental annual subsidy cost of up to $15 billion. Even under the accounting method that the Democrats are using (accelerating revenues, and deferring costs), this would increase the initial 10 year cost of the bill by another $50-75 billion. Not an insignificant amount. And this total would be dramatically higher if a greater number of employers elect to dump their coverage. (A 10% drop in employer coverage would result in an additional cost in excess of $50 billion per year).

So why is the CBO estimate so low? I’m not exactly sure – hopefully a Senate Republican will press the CBO for a more detailed explanation of the data and assumptions that went into this calculation. My best guess based on the CBO analysis of an earlier House committee bill is that they are assuming that the competitive dynamic within the labor market will largely dissuade employers from dropping their insurance coverage. Because current and prospective employees will continue to demand this benefit as a condition of employment, and because any employer who does not offer insurance would have their talent raided by an employer who does.

While I think this will likely be an important factor in the higher end of the labor market, I don’t think this will be a compelling factor for many industries and professions farther down the wage scale. The reason is really quite simple: federal subsidies will be available for individuals to obtain insurance in the exchange.

Let’s take the example of a single large employer – like Wal-Mart – which currently offers health insurance for the majority of its employees (including many part-time employees). The average hourly wage of a full-time store worker at Walmart is just over $11/hr (source). Given that this wage level is very close to the federal poverty level, under the Senate bill most employees of Wal-Mart would be eligible for either Medicaid coverage at zero cost or a federal subsidy in the insurance exchange which would limit their annual cost to no more than 2-3% of their income.

Since most Wal-Mart employees who participate in the company-provided insurance plan contribute more than 3% of their income now (source: Wal-Mart Watch), they would actually be better off under the new government plan. And at a cost of only $750 per full-time worker, so would Wal-Mart. In the business world, this is what’s called a “win-win”.

Wal-Mart has over 2 million employees.

Granted they are probably the largest company which falls into this category, but how many other large retailers will be looking at this same calculus? Costco, Home Depot, McDonald’s, Starbucks…just to name a few. And how many other industries are there which consists primarily of people making less than $30K per year? More than a few, I’m sure. Considering the substantial savings for these employers, and considering that the majority of their workers will pay no more – and possibly less – in the insurance exchange than they do for their current coverage, the Senate bill is virtually rigged to lead low-wage employers to drop their coverage.

And if the prospect of spending only $750 per employee for health insurance costs is not enticing enough, there is one more big incentive for large employers with predominantly low-wage employees to ditch their coverage and send their workers to the federal exchange. Most very large employers (including Wal-Mart) self-insure, meaning they typically carry a large reserve on their books to cover the expected costs of the healthcare services its employees and their eligible family members will use in the future. (Wal-Mart, for example, reported an accrued liability of $3.1B for their self-insurance reserve as of 1/31/2009.)

Guess what happens to these reserves once the company passes off responsibility for their employees’ coverage to the feds? No more long-term liability, no more need for a reserve. Cha-ching, straight to the profit line.

Considering the clear incentives, along with a little common sense, the CBO’s estimate seems highly questionable at best. In fact, as implausible as it sounds, the CBO is actually forecasting that employer-based coverage will continue to grow over this timeframe. Based on the growth in the overall workforce. The 5 million figure really just represents a reduction in the growth rate of employer-based coverage, compared to what it would be under current law. (With the House bill, the CBO has gone even farther, estimating a net increase of 7 million people with employer-based coverage compared to current law.)

If nothing more than the accuracy of the number (and the credibility of the CBO) was at stake, it would be enough to just predict that they are wrong and see what happens down the road if the bill passes. However, given the importance of this estimate on the total cost of the bill, and the massive increase in federal spending which will result if the CBO is wrong, I think it’s deserving of a lot more scrutiny. Hopefully the Republican leadership will press the CBO for a more detailed analysis of this calculation.

Patriot's Dream

ABSTRACT

15 Signs American Society Is Coming Apart at the Seams By David DeGraw, Amped Status,  edited excerpt from the Amped Status report, “The Critical Unraveling of U.S. Society.”  LINKto full report at END of ABSTRACT.

Are we nearing a tipping point as rapacious elites push a heavily armed populace too far?

The economic elite have launched an attack on the U.S. public and society is unraveling at an increased rate. You may have missed it in the mainstream news media, but statistical societal indicators are reading red across the board. Let’s look at the top 15 statistics that prove we are under attack.

1) The inequality of wealth in the United States is soaring to an unprecedented level. The U.S. already had the highest inequality of wealth in the industrialized world. Since the crisis, the gap between the top 1 percent and the remaining 99 percent of the U.S. population has grown to a record high.

2) As the stock market went over the 10,000 mark and surged to a 13-month high, the three big banks that took taxpayer money and benefited the most from the bailout have just set a new global economic record by issuing $30 billion in annual bonuses this year, “up 60 percent from last year.” Goldman Sachs is on pace for the best year in the firm’s history, and it is also benefiting by only paying 1 percent in taxes.

3) The profits of the economic elite are “now underwritten by taxpayers with $23.7 trillion worth of national wealth.”

As the looting is occurring at the top, the U.S. middle class is just beginning to collapse.

4) Workers between the ages of 55 to 60, who have worked for 20 to 29 years, have lost an average of 25 percent off their 401k. During the same time period, the wealth of the 400 richest Americans went up by $30 billion, bringing their total combined wealth to $1.57 trillion.

5) Home foreclosure filings “hit a record high in the third quarter (of 2009)… They were the worst three months of all time… some experts estimate that next year will be even worse.”

President Obama has enacted a $75 billion taxpayer funded program that has been a spectacular failure in stemming the foreclosure crisis and another massive waste of billions of taxpayer dollars.

6) 25 million people are unemployed or underemployed.

We have 25 million people who urgently need to increase their income, and they’re quickly running out of options. “The president’s chief economic adviser warned that the nation’s unemployment rate could stay ‘unacceptably high’ for years to come.”

The New York Times reports: “Americans now confront a job market that is bleaker than ever in the current recession, and employment prospects are still getting worse.

Economist Nouriel Roubini, just reported on unemployment stating: “Think the worst is over? Wrong. Conditions in the U.S. labor markets are awful and worsening…. So we can expect that job losses will continue until the end of 2010 at the earliest. The jobs just are not coming back.”

7) As the few elite banks thrive, there have been 123 U.S. bank failures this year. The troubles put taxpayers at risk of losing as much as $5.1 billion invested in the banks since TARP was launched in October 2008.”

As bankruptcies surge across the board, 10 U.S. states are on the verge of bankruptcy, with several ready to declare a financial state of emergency. California, Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin, raising the likelihood of higher taxes, more government layoffs and deep cuts in services.”

9) This is occurring at a time when the “federal budget deficit for the fiscal year that just ended was $1.4 trillion, nearly a trillion dollars greater than the year before.”  In total, “U.S. public debt topped $12 trillion for the first time in history, meaning Congress would have to raise the debt ceiling to prevent a shutdown of government operations.”

Economist Dean Baker explains the risk “If the debt limit is not passed, then at some point the government will not be able to pay workers and contractors. It won’t be able to send out Social Security checks or make payments for Medicaid and unemployment insurance to state governments. And, it will not be able to make interest payments on government bonds, effectively defaulting on the national debt.”

10) Although the government’s official figure tries to low-ball the number, 47.4 million U.S. citizens live in poverty, and the U.S. poverty rate is the highest in the industrialized world.

Predictably, homelessness is rising at an increased rate as well. “The fastest growing segment of the homeless population is families with children.”

Children have been hit especially hard by the economic crisis:

11) One out of every two children in the United States of America will need to use a food stamp… to EAT!

Washington Post report: “The nation’s economic crisis has catapulted the number of Americans who lack enough food to the highest level since the government has been keeping track, according to a new federal report, which shows that nearly 50 million people — including almost one child in four — struggled last year to get enough to eat… ‘This is unthinkable. It’s like we are living in a Third World country,’ said Vicki Escarra, president of Feeding America.”

These numbers don’t take into account the millions more unemployed throughout 2009.

This a national tragedy. But it gets much worse.

12) In 2008, according to the Census Bureau, the number of U.S. citizens without health care grew to a record 46.3 million.

13) Lack of health insurance has caused 45,000 preventable U.S. citizen deaths in the past year. The American Journal of Medicine recently released a study that stated, “Nearly two out of three bankruptcies stem from medical bills, and even people with health insurance face financial disaster if they experience a serious illness.”

Studies report that: 17,000 children have died due to lack of health care; 2,266 U.S. veterans have died in 2008 due to lack of insurance.

The Senate continues to strip meaningful amendments from a health care bill that wouldn’t even take effect until 2013; the health care bill is going to fall far short of meaningful reform and continue to rig the game in favor of large insurance company profits at the expense of the U.S. population. Change is not on the horizon.

The economic hit men have now hit the United States and millions of American citizens are now effectively sentenced to a slow death.

And the clock is ticking…

14) The gun and ammunition manufacturing industry in the United States has over 200 companies producing billions of dollars in annual revenues. This huge manufacturing base cannot fulfill demand quickly enough.

Americans are arming themselves to the teeth!

15) In the past year, 100 new armed militia groups have been formed, as militia members have doubled in numbers. One federal authority recently said, “All it’s lacking is a spark. I think it’s only a matter of time before you see threats and violence.”

So let’s break down these numbers.

You have 50 million people in desperate need of money, have no health insurance and can’t afford to get health care of any kind. They are running out of options fast, and time delayed is time closer to death.

The richest 1 percent have never had it so good.

We are sitting on a powder keg.

Read the rest of the report here.

Denial isn't a river in Africa.

Severe Shortage of Heart Surgeons Predicted

(“Circulation”, July, 2009)

A severe shortage of heart surgeons is likely in the next 10 years according to a study in “Circulation”. Researchers project demand for cardiothoracic surgeons could increase by 46% by 2025.  Even if cardiac bypass surgery is eliminated, it is predicted that the shortfall will exist because the supply of active surgeons is expected to fall 21% during the same time as a result of retirement and fewer entrants.  According to the study, the shortage could lead to lower quality of care and delays for patients needing heart surgery.

Additional information at:

http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/circulation-aha.108.77627vl

According to National Underwriter, Insurance Agents are voicing dismay over health care reform legislation passed by the House of Representatives on November 7, 2009. Many hope a more acceptable product would be produced by the Senate. Robert Rusbuldt, president and chief executive officer of the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America, states, “As the Senate and House move to a conference, the IIABA urges Congress to reconsider what this bill will do to consumers and small businesses”.

Among the provisions in the House bill that concern the industry is one that would create a public option for government provided insurance which IIABA officials say, “Would unfairly compete with the private insurance marketplace, limit consumer choice and increase the taxpayer burden. “This bill picks winners and losers, and small businesses and health care consumers are the biggest losers today”, said Charles Symington, IIABA’s senior vice president of government affairs. “The Bill also risks completely derailing employer provided benefits. Other concerns include a provision that imposes a 5.4 percent surtax on small businesses that file income tax returns as individuals, and another that creates a new Small Business Administration grant program that would award federal money to nonprofits for the purpose of providing small businesses.”

A Likely senario is that the Senate will pass a bill by the end of the year, and the final bill enacted next year before the State of the Union, which usually occurs in Late January. To view the entire National Underwriter article click here. Visit our website at www.kimberleyvassal.com

So this guy…. Barack Obama… chosen… elected by the majority of the people has finally… finally made his first official decision as our President.

Some may have caught my tweet a couple days back loathing the 30,000 troop surge in Afghanistan.  Well… I think I still feel that way as this has the potential to turn into another Iraq for the United States of which… I’m sure I speak for most people… we don’t want to see happen.

Almost a decade ago… on 9/11 we were faced with the greatest, most horrific attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor.  Putting aside the politics of the day, the posturing and the typical statements… this changed our course as a country forever.

Mr. Obama however… as much as I hate sending more of our men and women over there… has done the right thing.  At what political cost and of what political sacrifice?

Here are some facts:

1.) We are just now starting to see economic signs of recovery in most sectors in the US economy.  Does this mean everyone can go back to driving Mercedes, Bimmers and Audi’s while living in a 5000 sq ft house?  No.  But this means that people are managing to pay their mortgages, pay their bills and somehow manage their own health care just fine.

2.) Our Nation’s debt is held by China.  Imagine… the United States going out shopping and putting our entire economy on the credit card to pay off at 18% interest over 50 years.  That sound like a solid plan to you?  Didn’t think so.  So when we announce plans of sending more troops, more armor, more supplies… more of EVERYTHING… how do you think that makes China feel that we’re spending MORE money?  (leads me to my next point…)

3.) Government run health care as of yesterday is dead.  Done.  Finished.  Democrats or Republicans alike cannot… CANNOT justify spending nearly $3 Trillion dollars over the next 10 years to somehow save you and me money.  They can’t do it.  Why?  Because China (again…) would be footing this bill for us spending money we don’t have and I doubt they will authorize or buy $3 Trillion more from us in US secured bonds.

So who exactly wins in all of this mess?  What else is happening behind the scenes that we’re not seeing as well– and what can be done to finally bring our troops home?

Me as a simple American look at this as a win for the American people.  Maybe… just maybe our government has figured out that they have to put aside their politics and actually get things done.  While the decision to stay in Afghanistan pains me… especially for the families that have their loved ones in harms way, I’m hopeful that this might be the straw that broke Washington D.C.’s back and brings them back to reality.

-A

-Politico is reporting this morning on the potential fallout of President Obama’s Afghan plan, including a split party, second guessing and several brutal months ahead.

-Obama made his plan for Afghanistan clear Tuesday night. What is not clear is how to pay for his troop increases, writes the Washington Post.

-Have we seen the end of TARP? The Wall Street Journal reports that the Troubled Assets Relief Fund is winding down though no date has been set for completion.

-According to Talking Points Memo, the two Republican Maine Senators may be back at the negotiating table for health care reform as, which could move senate Democrats to a filibuster proof 60 votes. -CPP

My intent is to provide projects of “armchair activism” that can be done from home yet still send the message to our Representatives that we will not give up until the ObamaCare Bill is killed. This abomination of government control is a nail in the coffin of our Constitutional personal liberties and in fact our very Republic.

…Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty towards the majesty of heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings…. Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death! Patrick Henry – March 23, 1775

“Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.” Thomas Jefferson

Send a Christmas Greeting to our “dear leaders”!

Front and back of postcards (& list of Senators) can be printed off from this site OR you can download both

Directions:

Click print, you MUST USE LANDSCAPE setting in your printer when you print both the front and back

I also used the “Fast” color setting in my printer to save on colored ink and the front graphic turned out fine
After printing out front of postcard, place GRAPHIC SIDE UP back in paper tray and print out the back of card DON’T FORGET TO CHOOSE LANDSCAPE OPTION in your printer settings

Cut on lines for 4 postcards, address to our “dear leaders (printable addresses for President Obama & senators by state below) sign your name, if you do not wish to use your Street address, please consider your state and zip code to legitimatize your postcard as from a private citizen instead of a Astroturf-type organization

Slap a stamp on ( this is an oversize postcard and only needs postcard postage) and your ready to mail your Christmas “greeting” to our “dear leaders!” Merry Christmas!

Text on postcard back: “I already have a Savior and its not the government. And I do not want “ObamaCare” under my Christmas tree!

Senators by State

Three not to miss!

President Barack H. Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylviania Ave NW
Washington D.C. 20500

Speaker Nancy Pelosi
235 Cannon HOB
Washington D.C. 20515

Sen. Harry Reid
522 Hart Senate Office Building
Washinton D.C. 20510

The Lasik example is a great area to point to as an example of worthwhile health care reform.  It is not covered by insurance and competition has made the drop for the surgery plummet.

Watch and learn…competition and free market is the answer.

“There is only one reason for the forcible transference of decision-making authority over important areas of our private lives to elite decision-makers in Congress and government bureaucracies. Doing so confers control, power, wealth and revenue to society’s elite.”
-Walter Williams

I hate to bury the more important Afghanistan posts, but I’ve been working hard to avoid my work this morning and I wanted to memorialize my efforts with a linkdump.

* Via The Rushmore Academy, Richard Brody says The Darjeeling Limited is the second-best film of the decade. Coming as this does just one day after a lunchtime argument with Ryan over whether Wes Anderson is a “serious” filmmaker, I think my affirmative case has now been definitively proved.

* Matt Yglesias had a good post this morning on the way institutional pressures in the military-industrial complex drag America’s foreign policy to the right no matter who is president.

* Bad behavior from conservative Democrats in the Senate has put Snowe and Collins’s votes back in play on health care.

* UC-San Diego’s Gordon H. Hansen: Despite all this, illegal immigration’s overall impact on the US economy is small. Low-skilled native workers who compete with unauthorized immigrants are the clearest losers. US employers, on the other hand, gain from lower labor costs and the ability to use their land, capital, and technology more productively. The stakes are highest for the unauthorized immigrants themselves, who see very substantial income gains after migrating. If we exclude these immigrants from the calculus, however (as domestic policymakers are naturally inclined to do), the small net gain that remains after subtracting US workers’ losses from US employers’ gains is tiny. And if we account for the small fiscal burden that unauthorized immigrants impose, the overall economic benefit is close enough to zero to be essentially a wash. The bolded phrase represents the reason why, despite ongoing shrieking nativism from the Republican party base, immigration reform never actually occurs. (via @mattoyeah)

* Kottke: Photos of Dubai in decline are the new photos of Detroit in decline. Have to admit I laughed at Stewart’s sad “It’s now Du-sell” pun last night.

* And Scott Lemieux has today’s deep thought.

I am absolutely shocked that, despite a near-total lack of precedent, a wealthy professional athlete has engaged in sexual relations with persons to whom he is not married, and I hope that cable news will devote more time to these remarkably surprising and important revelations.

For years, a mantra of medicine has been that you can’t do much about your genetic makeup.

A new study has found, however, that strenuous, long-term exercise may have anti-aging properties by virtue of its effect on chromosomes.

“People automatically assume there’s not anything you can do about your genetics,” said Patrick McBride, a professor of cardiovascular medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. “We can exercise our chromosomes.”

McBride, who was not a part of the study, said the new research helps explain on a cellular level many of the known benefits of exercise.

“Regular exercise is an anti-aging activity,” he said.

While the study did not show that exercise can change genes, it suggests that exercise may have beneficial properties at a chromosomal level, specifically on telomeres, the ends of chromosomes that are believed to have an impact on aging.

“I think this is a blockbuster study,” said Barry Franklin, a physiologist at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Mich.

Telomeres are like the biological clocks of cells, said Franklin, who was not a part of the study.

He said the study may help explain why exercise reduces the risk of so many diseases.

To read the rest of this very interesting article please visit:

http://www.jsonline.com/features/health/78162577.html

Hour Two: “Health Care or Gun Rights?” Thom debates Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America www.gunowners.org

Hour Three: “Is belief in God hurting America?” Thom challenges Dan Gainor of the Business and Media Institute www.businessandmedia.org

After many years of eating unhealthy foods, the colon is already clogged and it has a large amount of impacted fecal matter and toxin buildups. This article looks at the reasons why people should start using herbal cleansers.

Many parents know the basics of keeping children healthy, like offering them healthy foods, making sure they get sufficient sleep and exercise and insuring the safety. It is also significant for children to get regular checkups with the health care provider. These visits are a chance to check the child’s development.

Most of them are a good time to catch or prevent problems. Meet the six Mongolian brothers in scrabble of knowledge, the gray peacemaker cat that does something most strange to the other cats ears, or a version of the Three undersized Pigs that individuals surely have never heard before.

Junk vs Healthy Food is filed under healthy food.