Seit dieser Woche finden Sie nun auch Wempe Uhren in unserem neuem Online- Shop.
Die Senator- Serie gehört hierbei zu den Klassikern unter den mechanischen Glasenuhren. Neben einer mechanischen Glasenuhr mit römischen Ziffern, gibt es  in der Senator- Serie, in der die Uhren aus auf Hochglanz poliertem Chrom gefertigt sind, einen Präzisions-Barometer und ein Hygrometer mit integriertem Thermometer.
Ebenfalls neu im Sortiment sind die Uhren der Serie Bremen II. Dieses, aus Messing gefertigete Sortiment, bietet eine noch größere Auswahl als die Senator- Serie. Dieser Klassiker, wurde nach 20 Jahren komplett überarbeitet. Nun kann man dank eines neuen Glasrandes die Instrumente bequem von vorne öffnen. So wird der Batteriewechsel oder die Justierung des Baro- oder Comfortmeter zu einem Kinderspiel. Neben einer mechanischen Glasenuhr mit arabischen oder römischen Ziffern gibt es hier auch ein Baro- und ein Comfortmeter und Quarzwerkuhren mit arabischen oder römischen Ziffern, sowie Quarzwerkuhren mit Tidenanzeige und eine Quarzwerkuhr auf der die Funksektoren sichtbar sind.
Wie schon bei anderen Produken in unserem Sortiment, ist es bei allen vorgestellten Uhren möglich sich auf der Produktseite ein hochauflösendes Bild der jeweiligen Uhr anzusehen.

Von Kevin Schröder

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MoveOn members just pledged over $3.5 million to help a primary challenger take on any Democrat who helps Republicans block a vote on health care reform.

Now, we’re joining members of Democracy for America to up the pressure. There’s an open letter to the Democratic Caucus asking them to strip any Democrat who filibusters health care reform of his or her committee chairmanship.

I just added my name to the open letter. Will you join me?

http://pol.moveon.org/norewards/?r_by=-17429344-DpkVukx&rc=paste

Thanks!

A Milestone in the Health Care Journey

by Ronald Brownstein

When I reached Jonathan Gruber on Thursday, he was working his way, page by laborious page, through the mammoth health care bill Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had unveiled just a few hours earlier. Gruber is a leading health economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is consulted by politicians in both parties. He was one of almost two dozen top economists who sent President Obama a letter earlier this month insisting that reform won’t succeed unless it “bends the curve” in the long-term growth of health care costs. And, on that front, Gruber likes what he sees in the Reid proposal. Actually he likes it a lot.

“I’m sort of a known skeptic on this stuff,” Gruber told me. “My summary is it’s really hard to figure out how to bend the cost curve, but I can’t think of a thing to try that they didn’t try. They really make the best effort anyone has ever made. Everything is in here….I can’t think of anything I’d do that they are not doing in the bill. You couldn’t have done better than they are doing.”

Gruber may be especially effusive. But the Senate blueprint, which faces its first votes tonight, also is winning praise from other leading health reformers like Mark McClellan, the former director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services under George W. Bush and Len Nichols, health policy director at the centrist New America Foundation. “The bottom line,” Nichols says, “is the legislation is sending a signal that business as usual [in the medical system] is going to end.”

Both the Senate bill’s priority on controlling long-term health care costs, and its strategy for doing so, represents a validation for Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus (D-MT). When Baucus released his health reform proposal last September, after finally terminating months of fruitless negotiations with committee Republicans, Democratic liberals excoriated his plan as a dead end. And on several important fronts–such as subsidies for the uninsured, the role of a public competitor to private insurance companies, and the contribution required from employers who don’t insure their workers–Reid moved his product away from Baucus toward approaches preferred by liberals.

But the Reid bill’s fiscal strategy, and its vision of how to “bend the curve,” almost completely follows Baucus’ path from September. Baucus’ bill was the first to establish the principle that Congress could expand coverage while reducing the federal deficit; now that’s the standard not only for the Senate but also the House reform legislation. And, perhaps even more importantly, the Reid bill maintains virtually all of Baucus ideas’ for shifting the medical payment system away from today’s fee-for-service model toward an approach that more closely links compensation for providers to results for patients. In the Reid bill, there is some backtracking from Baucus’ most aggressive reform proposals, but not much.

Almost everything Baucus proposed to control long-term costs have survived into the final bill. And, with only a few exceptions, that’s just about all the systemic reforms analysts from the center to the left have identified as the most promising strategies for changing the economic incentives in the medical system. (The public competitor to private insurance companies championed by the Left would affect who writes the checks in the medical system, but not what the checks are written to pay for.) Most of the other big ideas for controlling costs (such as medical malpractice reform) tend to draw support primarily among Republicans. And since virtually, if not literally, none of them plan to support the final health care bill under any circumstances, the package isn’t likely to reflect much of their thinking.

In their November 17 letter to Obama, the group of economists led by Dr. Alan Garber of Stanford University, identified four pillars of fiscally-responsible health care reform. They maintained that the bill needed to include a tax on high-end “Cadillac” insurance plans; to pursue “aggressive” tests of payment reforms that will “provide incentives for physicians and hospitals to focus on quality” and provide “care that is better coordinated”; and establish an independent Medicare commission that can continuously develop and implement “new efforts to improve quality and contain costs.” Finally, they said the Congressional Budget Office “must project the bill to be at least deficit neutral over the 10-year budget window and deficit reducing thereafter.”

As OMB Director Peter Orszag noted in an interview, the Reid bill met all those tests. The CBO projected that the bill would reduce the federal deficit by $130 billion over its first decade and by as much as $650 billion in its second. (Conservatives, of course, consider those projections unrealistic, but CBO is the only umpire in the game, and Republicans have been happy to trumpet its analyses critical of the Democratic plans.)  “Let’s use the metric of that letter,” said Orszag, who helped shape the health reform debate for years from his earlier posts at CBO and the Brookings Institution. “Deficit neutral; got that. Deficit-reducing second decade, got that. Excise tax: That was retained. Third is the Medicare commission: has that. Fourth is delivery system reforms, bundling payments, hospital acquired infections, readmission rates. It has that. If you go down the checklist of what they said was necessary for a fiscally responsible bill that will move us towards the health care system of the future, this passes the bar.”

McClellan, the former Bush official and current director of the Engleberg Center for Health Care Reform at the Brookings Institution, was one of the economists who signed the November letter. McClellan has some very practical ideas for improving the Reid bill (more on those below), but generally he echoes Orszag’s assessment of it. “It has got all four of those elements in it,” McClellan said in an interview. “They kept a lot of the key elements of the Finance bill that I like. It would be good if more could be done, but this is the right direction to go.”

Reid gave ground on one Baucus proposal that the economists identified as a priority-taxing high-end insurance plans. Like many health reformers, the economists who wrote Obama argue that such a tax “will help curtail the growth of private health insurance premiums by creating incentives to limit the costs of plans to a tax-free amount.” Amid intense opposition from unions, Reid raised the thresholds at which family plans would face that excise tax from $21,000 to $23,000. But given all the pressure from labor, the more striking thing may have been that Reid didn’t increase the thresholds even more; the CBO calculated the proposal, which the House excluded from its bill, would still raise $35 billion annually by 2019. “They held pretty strong,” said one administration health care expert. “It’s not like unions haven’t been making the case that it shouldn’t have been a much higher number.”

On delivery reform, Reid stayed even closer to the Baucus blueprint. The Finance bill laid out a series of measures to change the way providers are paid for delivering care to Medicare recipients; the hope was that once Medicare instituted these reforms, private insurers would also adopt many of them. “The goal here is that the things we do in Medicare will translate over into the private sector, and there is quite a bit of historical precedence for that,” said one Democratic aide involved in drafting the package.

The Baucus delivery reform ideas revolved around two central aims. One was to reward Medicare providers who deliver care more efficiently and penalize those that don’t. The Reid bill upholds the major proposals Baucus offered to advance that goal. For instance, hospitals under current law must report on their performance in treating patients for common conditions like heart problems and pneumonia; under the bill, their Medicare payments, for the first time, would be affected by their ranking on those reports. Hospitals would also be penalized if they readmit too many patients after surgery or allow too many to acquire infections while in the hospital itself. Another provision would begin the process of applying such “value-based purchasing” toward other providers like hospice providers and inpatient rehabilitation facilities.

With physicians, the Reid plan takes a step back from the Finance Committee bill but still a long step beyond current law. The Finance Bill proposed automatic reimbursement reductions for doctors who order up the most care for Medicare recipients with similar medical and demographic characteristics. That was meant to respond to the research showing big disparities in spending on medical services for similarly-situated patients in different communities. But, Democratic sources say, that proposal ran into charges that it would promote rationing-and even function as “a death panel by proxy”-by compelling doctors to arbitrarily reduce care. So the final bill takes a less direct route toward a similar end. It requires Medicare to begin studying the utilization patterns of doctors participating in the program. And then it establishes a “values based payment modifier” that would, in a budget-neutral manner, increase reimbursements for physicians found to deliver high-quality care at lower cost, and reduce them for physicians at the other end of that spectrum. “It will, we believe, have the same net effect [as the original proposal],” said the Democratic aide. “It should change behavior around that threshold.”

The other set of Baucus proposals were intended to promote more coordination among providers. These have survived almost verbatim into the final bill. The bill encourages groups of providers to establish doctor-led “accountable care organizations” to more comprehensively manage patients’ care by allowing them to share in any savings for Medicare they produce. It also establishes a voluntary national pilot of “bundled” payments that would encourage hospitals, doctors and other providers to work more closely together. Another pilot program would test coordinated home-based care for chronically ill seniors.

Finally, the Reid bill maintains the two powerful institutions the Finance legislation proposed to promote these reforms and develop new ones. The one that’s attracted the most attention is an independent “Medicare Advisory Board.” Under the Senate bill, that board would be required to offer cost-saving proposals when Medicare spending rises too fast; Congress could not reject its proposals without substituting equivalent savings. Since the board would be prohibited from offering changes that raise taxes or “ration care,” and since the legislation initially exempts hospitals from its recommendations, it could choose to promote the sort of payment reforms the bill establishes. (More prosaically it might also clear away some of the expensive coverage mandates that Congress imposes on Medicare under pressure from different elements of the medical industry). Given the limitations imposed on the commission, an equally important means to expand these reforms might be a second institution the legislation creates: a Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation in the Health and Human Services Department. Though this center has received much less attention than the Medicare Commission, it could have a comparable effect. It would receive $1 billion annually to test payment reforms; in a little known provision, the bill authorizes the HHS Secretary to implement nationwide, without any congressional action, any reform that department actuaries certify will reduce long-term spending. While the House bill omitted the Medicare Commission (a top priority for Obama) it included the innovation center.

No one can say for certain that these initiatives will improve efficiency enough to slow the growth in health care spending. Some are only pilots; others would affect only a small portion of providers’ revenue from Medicare. CBO typically evaluates them skeptically: it generally scores little or no savings from most of them. Former CBO director Robert Reischauer, who signed the November 17 letter, says that’s not surprising. “CBO is there to score savings for which we have a high degree of confidence that they will materialize,” says Reischauer, now president of the Urban Institute. “There are many promising approaches [in these reform ideas] but you…can’t deposit them in the bank.” In the long run, Reischauer says, it’s likely “that maybe half of them, or a third of them, will prove to be successful. But that would be very important.”

While generally supportive of Reid’s approach, McClellan, the former Medicare administrator under Bush, offered several specific ideas for strengthening it. He says the Senate should improve the capacity of HHS to more quickly evaluate whether the payment reforms are working, and also to provide data and technical assistance to new physician groups like the accountable care organizations that will be attempting to better coordinate care. “Ideally you’d both be able to tell the organizations involved and Congress what is working or not, and give the organizations the feedback and data they need to know whether they are doing a good job,” he says. McClellan also believes that the plan needs sharper sticks-tougher penalties on providers who don’t provide efficient and effective care. “There are a lot of carrots and not so many sticks,” he maintains. Of course, tougher penalties might provoke more opposition from provider groups like hospitals and physicians now tenuously supporting the legislation.
[[McClellan stands at the forefront of centrist Republican thinking on health. Even the more ideologically conservative health care thinkers to his right generally don’t oppose long-term reform ideas like bundling payments (John McCain promoted that during his presidential campaign). But they tend to view them as insufficient or tangential to the real problem. Their view highlights a fundamental difference between the parties’ on health care. To save costs, Democrats mostly want to change the incentives for providers. Republicans mostly want to change the incentives for patients by shifting toward a model where insurance covers only catastrophic expenses and people pay for more routine care from tax-favored health savings accounts. In essence, the Republican view is that the best way to hold down long-term costs is to directly expose patients to more of them. Few Democrats accept that logic though and it has little influence on either chamber’s legislation.

Another Republican cost-containment priority missing from the bill is meaningful medical malpractice reform. (The bill only encourages states to think about it.) Nichols, of the centrist New America Foundation, would like to see that included as well. Its omission is one reason he says he gives the plan a “b” rather than an “a”; the other is he’d like to see mechanisms to more quickly diffuse into the private insurance system reforms that show promise in Medicare. Democratic sources say a group of centrist Democrats led by Virginia Senator Mark Warner is trying to devise a package designed to do just that, perhaps by expanding the role of the independent Medicare advisory commission.

The attempt in all these ideas to nudge the medical system away from fee-for-service medicine toward an approach that ties compensation more closely to results captures how much the health care debate has shifted toward cost-control. So far, the rise in health care spending has proven almost invulnerable to every previous attempt to tame it, like the managed care revolution in the 1990s. Even if Obama signs into law a final bill embodying all these reform proposals, many skeptics wonder if they can bend, much less break, the seemingly inexorable increase in health care spending. Reischauer understands that skepticism, but isn’t able to entirely suppress a kernel of optimism that this latest reform agenda may prove more effective than its predecessors. “One never knows whether we’re turning the corner or if this is just playing the same old game for another inning,” he says. “But I sense there’s something different out there. I think the medical profession and its leaders have read the handwriting on the wall and are trying to evolve.” If so, the ideas the Senate will begin voting on tonight could mark a milestone in that journey.

That’s right, this is your chance to weigh in on the BDC’s RFP Proposals and possibly see it in print!

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/2009/11/tomorrows_editorials_the_senat.html

We recommend you read our RFP Proposals Info Page first.

And please, folks, keep it civil!
The Sun has approval over the web comments. Comments that are accepted may be put in print (without your email address). Read their Terms of Service as well.

Our stand?
Without reading the actual proposals submitted to the BDC we’re left with what we’ve read (again compiled here). Based on that limited information:

• It appears that the WTMD/Towson University plan comes closest to the community-based multipurpose arts, entertainment & educational vision we’ve advocated from the start.
• We cannot support a plan in which the historic theatre’s auditorium is altered, such as the Cusack’s plan suggests.
• We do not believe that the addition of 24 apartments to the rear of the theatre, by JR Owens,  will fix the current financial realities associated with first run films in a single screen environment.
• While we applaud the educational and all-inclusive aspects of the PUPKIDS proposal, it appears to be one based on renting, not buying The Senator. This suggests that Baltimore City is expected to pay for the repairs and restoration of the theatre. Something to which, we believe, the city will not agree to do.

Whatever your opinion, make it known!

As the city is now considered the current owner The Senator is now truly The People’s Theatre. Therefore, Baltimore citizens especially have a right to have their thoughts on the future of our historic landmark theatre be heard.

friendsofthesenator@live.com

http://friendsofthesenatortheatre.org

http://facebook.com/FoTStheatre

http://twitter.com/FoTStheatre

I just sat in amazement over two things a minute ago.  After I read this on Sarah Palin’s Facebook page:

Really? A tax on national defense? I hear liberal Congressional proposals and I, like most Americans, wonder if they’re serious. We’re going to put a price tag on security?

With Congress and President Obama spending money on everything at breakneck speed, it’s interesting that they are only now getting nervous about spending – but only when it comes to providing the necessary funds to complete our mission in Afghanistan. They don’t need a new “war tax” to fund a strategy for victory in the war zone. They simply need to prioritize our money appropriately.

I find it telling that the Pelosi-Reid Congress is only cost-conscious when it comes to our national defense. Scary. Nonsensical. Unacceptable.

- Sarah Palin

The things that gave me a moment’s pause and amazement:

• Sarah will tell it like she sees it, that is awesome in light of the sugar coated crap we are fed nearly daily from the current administration and congress.  The fact that she will do this is awesome.  I am proud that we are still people who refuse to pander to the politicians and will be a voice of the people.
• That the congress would actually consider this in light of what has been going on in our country.  Read this National Review article for more information on it.  This reaaaalyyyy discourages folks from making more money, what happened to the American dream?  Work hard, make money and take care of yourself and your family?  The land of Milk and Honey and Golden Opportunity seem to have been forgotten in the current administration!    It’s more of lets break you, tax you, make you dependent on us (so we can determine what is best)… If you are doing well we will tax you more so perhaps you’ll eventually fall in line.

People need incentives to make more money, not fear of taxes.  We need defense, just look at 9/11 and the state of the current affairs.  The Fort Hood massacre for example.  The most amazing thing is that our current leader is presenting America as a weak state in addition to his weakening of our economy and attempting to break the American Dream to promote socialism.

He thinks he may be winning, but he is fortunately wrong.  He is making choices that leaves appearing more vulnerable and weak.   The power of America did not come from a just a great president.  The power of America comes from the people and America is much stronger when the people are behind their president.  I believed that previous presidents, even flawed ones, did not attempt the kind of “fundamental change” that Obama is trying to impose.  Regardless of party, I have stood by either Democratic or Republic presidents, even if I did not vote for them.

However, I can’t in good conscience stand by the President.  I am sure I am not the only American who thinks this way.  A great president can bring together the people, instead ours is dividing them.  America needs to wake up, stand up and verbalize loudly, do not back down from your politicians. Write them all, call their offices, arrive at their legislative offices and if they are not present, ask to speak to an aide.  Keep them so overwhelmed with voices of displeasure that eventually, some of the brighter politicians will take note.  Fortunately, they appear to have the herd mentality, and if a few of them start swinging over to actually listening to their constituents, who knows, we might just have a stampede.  Demand to be heard.  Explain how their current direction and votes are NOT what you agree to.

The power still lies within the people, providing they are not lying down on the job themselves.

Until Next Time!

Y

P.S. Write Mark Begich, maybe he will respond eventually.  I still have not received my reply.  I think I will call next and ask for an appointment with him at legislative office here in town.  Think that will happen?  Haaa I doubt it.  But I sure would love to publish the rejection.  I think I will ask for their denial of an appointment in writing should they not listen to me and at least answer, in real answers, not vague misdirection.  Good thing I have skills in that I can use with the politicians, I work with criminal offenders.  There are some similarities between the two.  Entitlement and thinking errors are two things I can name of right off the bat.  Give me more time, I’ll come up with some more.

For your consideration: The following information from yesterday’s MD Daily Record article.

The owners of the five-screen Charles Theatre would keep the Senator a movie theater… and potentially add a smaller auditorium.

“When you have another screen, you have more flexibility,” Kathleen Cusack said. “If you have a second screen and you have a movie that isn’t making a lot of money, you can move it there and put something else on the main screen.”

If the Cusacks add a 120-seat theater to the Senator, the main auditorium would shrink from 940 seats to 760. Cusack said the smaller theater could be used as an arts education area.

It was our understanding that the interior spaces, including The Senator auditorium, were now under the ‘protection’ of Baltimore City’s Commisson for Historical & Architectural Preservation (CHAP) Landmark and Special Designation Lists.

So, we have to wonder how could the BDC reconcile James “Buzz” Cusack’s plan with CHAP’s intent to protect the interior beyond “normal maintenance”?

For that matter, given Mr. Cusack himself is a CHAP member, why would he even suggest such a move?

From a historical standpoint (one which we share), subdividing the auditorium is unthinkable and therefore a plan we could not support.

This poll (Rasmussen) is the best reporting poll on the Net. I don’t always like the numbers (:-)) but I feel they are honest. Take a quick read on what they have to say belwo about Barack Hussein Obama and how he and his policies are currently perceived by the voting public:

Daily Presidential Tracking Poll
Tuesday, November 24, 2009

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 27% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-two percent (42%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -15. This is the lowest Approval Index rating yet measured for President Obama.
Fifty-two percent (52%) of Democrats Strongly Approve while 68% of Republicans Strongly Disapprove. Among those not affiliated with either major political party, just 16% Strongly Approve and 51% Strongly Disapprove (
Forty-five percent (45%) want U.S. troops home from Afghanistan either right away or within a year.Forty-three percent (43%) are opposed to such a firm timetable.
Fifty-three percent (53%) of voters worry that the federal government will do too much when it comes to reacting to the nation’s financial problems. That’s up seven points since President Obama took office.
The Presidential Approval Index is calculated by subtracting the number who Strongly Disapprove from the number who Strongly Approve. It is updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update). Updates are also available on Twitter and Facebook.
Overall, 45% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President’s performance. That matches the lowest level of total approval yet measured for this president. Eighty-one percent (81%) of Democrats approve as do 33% of unaffiliated voters. Eighty-three percent (83%) of Republicans disapprove.
Among all voters, 54% now disapprove. (of Obama that is)
Support for the health care plan proposed by the President and Congressional Democrats has fallen to a new low of 38%. Sixty percent (60%) of voters believe passage of the bill will lead to higher health care costs.

All in all, it appears that Barack Hussein Obama is failing/falling in the eyes of the voters. It also appears that like the mid-term elections in 1994 when the Republicans took back both houses of Congress, it may happen again in 2010. Holy Moley, I hope so! I have to ask, as I often do, why is it that NONE of this is reported in the mainstream media?

RWD

(my comments appear in italics)

Nov. 19, 2009-Maine Senator Olympia Snowe is mobbed by reporters after announcing she would not support the Senate's version of the health care bill. Last Saturday, the Senate voted to bring the bill to the floor and to bar filibusters.

I’ve been trying to get photos of Olympia Snowe since I got my press pass in September. It’s been months. Her phone line is always busy. I stake out one doorway and she sneaks out another. In the labyrinthine Capitol complex, Senators have tons of ways to evade the press, if they want. Last Thursday I was on the Hill, desperate for lunch after a day of shooting, and there she was—Olympia Snowe. Except I didn’t even know it was her at first. All I could see was a huddle of reporters outside the door to the Senate floor. I peeked through the tangle of arms and voice recorders, and couldn’t believe it—the coveted Snowe! I grabbed my camera and started snapping away. Here’s what I got.

Nov. 19, 2009-Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) is mobbed by reporters outside the Senate floor after she announced she would not support the Senate's version of the health care bill.

Nov. 19, 2009-Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) is mobbed by reporters outside the Senate floor after she announced she would not support the Senate's version of the health care bill.

Nov. 19, 2009-Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-MA) is mobbed by reporters outside the Senate floor after announcing she would not support the Senate's version of the healthcare bill.

Nov. 19, 2009- Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) is mobbed by reporters after announcing she will not support the Senate's version of the healthcare bill. This Saturday, the Senate will vote on bringing the bill to the floor.

Nov. 19, 2009- Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) is mobbed by reporters after announcing she will not support the Senate's version of the healthcare bill. This Saturday, the Senate will vote on bringing the bill to the floor.

UPDATE: See our new The Senator Theatre RFP Proposals Info Page for updated details on each proposal, collected from various news media.

The Baltimore Development Corporation (BDC) revealed the four contenders for ownership of The Senator and their planned uses today:

• The Lofts at The Senator Theatre - JR Owens Corporation (JR Owens)
  A mixed-use development that includes the renovation of the existing movie theatre along with new construction of 24 two bedroom/two bath rental apartments on three floors, 27 secure parking spaces in the basement of the new construction and existing retail space.
• The Senator Theatre, LLC – James “Buzz” Cusack, Jr. and Kathleen C. Cusack (owners of The Charles Theatre)
  proposes to maintain the building as a single screen movie theatre, restaurant &
  crepe shop with alternates
  1) that would provide for a second screen & an arts education area in the approximate 2,000 square foot triangle to the south of the theatre, &
  2) a sliding glass door system in the front of the restaurant.
• The Theatre Project PUPKIDS, Inc. – Noch-Noch, Productions (Enoch Cook III)
  The proposal suggests the mixture of live performances & cinemaplex attractions simulating a staged Vaudeville Revue to attract interest in puppetry & puppeteers.
• WTMD… At The Senator – Senator Theatre Redevelopment, LLC (Towson University, Robert L. Caret, President)
  WTMD-FM, Towson University’s public radio station proposes to relocate to the Senator Theatre through a historically sensitive renovation of the interior, a new addition to the south side of the building as well as an expansion of existing space on the north side of the theatre. The Senator will be home to WTMD’s daily operations, as well as a schedule of films, educational activities, concerts and community events designed to reach people from all over the region. The station will connect and promote the events taking place in the theatre.

Apparently the previous information that David Cordish has submitted a proposal was erroneous. Our apologies for whatever confusion they may have caused.

During the debate over the vote on cloture for the health care legislation pending before the US Senate this weekend, Harry Reid said the following (emphasis mine):

Today we vote whether to even discuss one of the greatest issues of our generation – indeed, one of the greatest issues this body has ever face: whether this nation will finally guarantee its people the right to live free from the fear of illness and death, which can be prevented by decent health care for all.

Say what?

I’m not sure how else you can read this. So, Harry Reid is saying that if Obamacare legislation passes, no one will ever again get sick. That’s a pretty impressive health care bill especially for Washington.

It is quite interesting when you see how other people think, especially those people whose opinion differs from yours. I am writing this based on a conversation that I had on Facebook chat with someone.

I see America as divided into 3 categories. On one end of the spectrum are people who oppose Obamacare. The other side are those who want Obamacare. The middle, let’s say the undecided, apathetic or ignorant have yet to put in their voice. This is not to say that there are no ignorant folk on at least one end of the spectrum.

The chat I had, well it clearly showed that the person who was vociferously arguing for Obamacare had chosen to listen to the mainstream media, had never read the proposed legislation, either the house or senate version and honestly believes that if this bill does not pass, there will NEVER be healthcare reform. This person believed that the Republican party never submitted any legislation that offered a solution. (What about the one proposed by Republican House Minority Leader, John Boehner, that clearly addressed changes to insurance regulations, tort reform etc. that the Democrats did not even allow to be debated?)

The people who are pissed, on either side are getting more angry as opposition on either side grows. The middle, some are being swayed one way or another–some are just shirking their duty as a citizen to have a say in what the government does. They have the mentality that “the government will decide what’s best, I am not a politician so how could I know?”  This kind of ignorance just irks me.

This one issue is just one of many that is dividing the country.  Other points that are causing just as much concern and down right anger… Hmmm what could they be?

• How about allowing radical Muslims in our armed forces?
• How about treating the terrorists that killed so many Americans with the same rights as an American!
• Let’s see, how about gun control on our bases? How absolutely ridiculous is that?
• How about letting a radical Muslim work on a base with gun control and our soldiers die, unarmed?
• The economy, national debt, continuing increase in unemployment (but wait, some might say that is just an inherited problem–Obama put money into our states to create jobs.)
• Well what about those states, that received money for fictitious districts?
• How about the surveys that the federal government sent out, that asked employers to check a box, no other options, that there was a job saved or created. If there was no change, employers had to check “saved” since it wasn’t created.   How skewed is that?

United States of America has been reduced to a very divided country. Where politicians ignore constituents, and vote on party lines. I had to laugh when Rush Limbaugh stated that these politicians who were doing so, they were the equivalent of political suicide bombers. Nothing could be closer to the truth. I can assure you that I will not only be voting against some of my current legislators next election but also actively campaigning for someone else and actively disparaging and educating any voter I can speak to, to do the same. (Mark Begich take note! Oh wait you don’t even bother to respond to a constituent who asks for REAL clarification–hmm how’s that mission you are on treating you? You think your superman cape you wear, puts you above any naysayer? Loss of votes next election will surely have an impact, not on just Mark Begich but on so many that refused to listen to their constituents, especially the ones that are looking at pork and drooling).

And I guess I didn’t touch on the health care rationing which is finally waking up some of the downright strongest voices in America, women. This health care (cough cough errr Death Panel) is clearly biased against women. I hear people say, “Oh well that’s just a panel. The panel has no effect.” This PANEL decides which care you get under the government plan. How powerful is that? I wonder how much opposition our legislators would have to this bill if they too were subject to the same stipulations, same unemployment rate etc? How many of them have to work with radical Muslims and not be able to have a gun? Makes you think huh?

Well, some could say that they do have to work with radical Muslims/Communists or dictators who want to destroy everything in the United States, hurt the American people and everything our soldiers have died for.

Let’s just look at the frequent flyer club at the White House.  Let’s look at all the money funneled into ACORN?  Look up CARE.  I have to LAUGH OUT LOUD when someone talks of Republicans and how they are corrupt.  But, according to certain people in high places, corruption is only okay if you are trying to fundamentally change the nation.  The end justifies the means.  I think that philosophy runs rampant in our current administration and sadly to a great deal, the American people.

Machiavelli stated that “absolute power corrupts absolutely.”  This is indeed true.  That’s why checks and balances were built into our government.  But lets not forget that Obama has these great Czars that are not part of the check and balance system.  Who are these Czars?  What is their political history and what they are fighting for?  What are their tactics? Why is it that his associations are not widely disputed as being associations of ill repute?

The end for some is being taken care of, instead of hard work.  Get off your asses and get to work, take the lower paying job.  Take two.  I have had to.  I haven’t lived off the government teat, in fact I have been paying into it since I got my work permit at age 14, roughly a quarter of a century.  I am tired of the “gimme gimme” mentality.  I am tired of the “I deserve it but am not willing to put in some elbow grease to get it.”  Go to school, keep your kids in school, attend parent teacher conferences, be involved in your community.  Get a job–keep it.  I have had health insurance since I was in my early twenties.  I have been a single mother, receiving WAY less than the required amount in child support, working a entry to mid level jobs and managed to make it work without being a leech on society.  It’s called hard work.  It’s called perseverance.  It’s called living within my means.  If I did not have a big screen TV, or an XBox 360 well that was just the way it was.  We had food, a warm shelter and some wants.  I am tired of the “Whats in it for me attitude” that so many Americans have been lured with.  You break people, make them dependent on you and you have got them by the balls. Who is holding yours?

The biggest CHECK is the American people and it’s time we let them know we have had enough.  Tell them you have had enough of the “fundamental change” and speak out loudly! It is clearly evident why Sarah Palin is so popular.  She is a leader of the people, real people–not the sly, devious fundamentally change driven, let me smile at you while you die of a preventable illness with early detection and tell you how good this change is!

Until next time!

Y

Senator Obama was doing press interviews by telephone in a holding room between events. Sometime later as he was getting ready to begin his event, he asked me if I was photographing his shoes. When I said yes, he told me that he had already had them resoled once since he entered the race a year earlier. Providence, R.I., 3/1/2008. Callie Shell.

Senator John McCain’s future in the U.S. Senate may be a little less assured than previously thought.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely 2010 Republican Primary voters in Arizona finds the longtime incumbent in a virtual tie with potential challenger J.D. Hayworth. McCain earns 45% of the vote, while Hayworth picks up 43%.

Former Minuteman leader Chris Simcox gets four percent (4%) support, while two percent (2%) prefer some other candidate and seven percent (7%) are undecided.

Ah, he punted…first when asked about the issue back in end of October….Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter avoided the question…then in a follow up by staff…he affirms that judges should follow the law….hum???

After weeks of coyly saying, “no, no, no,” Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana finally succumbed to the advances of an amorous Harry Reid yesterday.  In the end, it seems, Ms. Landrieu wasn’t exactly the shrinking violet she wanted us to believe she was:

On the eve of Saturday’s showdown in the Senate over health-care reform, Democratic leaders still hadn’t secured the support of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), one of the 60 votes needed to keep the legislation alive. The wavering lawmaker was offered a sweetener: at least $100 million in extra federal money for her home state.

And so it came to pass that Landrieu walked onto the Senate floor mid-afternoon Saturday to announce her aye vote — and to trumpet the financial “fix” she had arranged for Louisiana. “I am not going to be defensive,” she declared. “And it’s not a $100 million fix. It’s a $300 million fix.“

It was an awkward moment (not least because her figure is 20 times the original Louisiana Purchase price). But it was fairly representative of a Senate debate that seems to be scripted in the Southern Gothic style. The plot was gripping — the bill survived Saturday’s procedural test without a single vote to spare — and it brought out the rank partisanship, the self-absorption and all the other pathologies of modern politics. If that wasn’t enough of a Tennessee Williams story line, the debate even had, playing the lead role, a Southerner named Blanche with a flair for the dramatic.  [Emphasis added.]

Keep reading the article and you’ll discover that Landrieu wasn’t the only Southern belle who betrayed her convictions, if not her morals, for a price yesterday.  There’s a certain Blanche Dubois Lincoln of Arkansas who sold out, too.

At first blush, this series of events is comical.  But it’s really not funny when you consider that the $300 million price tag for Landrieu’s soul will be paid for with taxpayer money.

There’s a word that aptly describes disreputable behavior of the sort practiced by Landrieu yesterday, but….

Mary Landrieu and Blanche Lincoln could have put this health care reform nightmare to bed for good with “nay” votes yesterday.  Instead they chose to enrich themselves.  Their treacherous actions will be long remembered—in their own states and in the nation as a whole.

Landrieu and Lincoln would be quick to remind us that yesterday’s vote was merely for cloture–that the Senate must now move on to actually debating the bill itself.  But that only makes me wonder how much money Harry Reid will have to pay for their services when it comes to the vote that really counts?

Honest mass email from Blanche Lincoln, soon to be former Senator in 2010.

Well Blanche Lincoln not only failed all of her Arkansas constituents, she failed all American citizens. Good Job, Blanche! You know that your vote has guaranteed that you won’t be wasting taxpayers’ time or money anymore, with the election in 2010. You don’t have a wing or a prayer of a chance of re-election.

By the way ignoring the calls, faxes, and emails to you, have been noted on the Arkansas statewide conference call of Tea Party members last week. FYI-Tea Party Members are Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Doctors, Lawyers, Window Washers, Postal Employees, House Wives, Day Care Workers, Retirees, 912ers, DARs, UDCs, AMAs, etc. Bye Blanche, now let’s see if we can get a bill passed in Washington to retroactively attack retirements of Congressmen and Congresswomen.

***Also forwarded to The 912 Project Fan Site for use.

An organization of concerned physicians committed to the establishment of a health care system that preserves the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship, promotes quality of care, supports affordable access to all Americans, and protects patients’ freedom of choice.
We urge patients and physicians to get involved in order to preserve the good qualities of our healthcare system, address the problems, while preventing it’s bureaucratic destruction:

Docs4PatientCare.org

Here is the text I sent to them:

I’ll let you know if they even respond and whether or not they address the issues of tort reform, inter-state insurance choice and transparency. My guess is they will ignore those issues and go off on some socialist tangent.