It looks like the president’s plan to socialize the health-care industry will have a major opponent— the American Medical Association.
Here is what the A.M.A. had to say about a government run health-care plan:
The A.M.A. does not believe that creating a public health insurance option for non-disabled individuals under age 65 is the best way to expand health insurance coverage and lower costs. The introduction of a new public plan threatens to restrict patient choice by driving out private insurers, which currently provide coverage for nearly 70 percent of Americans.
The A.M.A. sees this plan as increasing the cost of health-care with the burden falling once again on you and I — the taxpayer.
the corresponding surge in public plan participation would likely lead to an explosion of costs that would need to be absorbed by taxpayers
This is a major organization and could be a major obstacle for the president to overcome if he is to take over the health-care industry. The government already runs Medicare and Medicaid and we see how well those programs are doing, they will soon run out of money. And we are now supposed to trust the government to run health-care?
This is a disaster waiting to happen and we just learned today that the plan that the house is drafting will cost over $1 trillion and will include $600 billion in new taxes.
Who the hell do you think is going to pay for this free health-care? It is pretty obvious to me that in addition to providing health-care coverage to my family I will also be providing it to families that I don’t know who will not go out and provide for their own families. It is not my responsibility to provide health-care coverage to others, and it is not your responsibility either. It is the responsibility of the individuals and the families to insure that they are provided for.
The more money that the government takes away from me in taxes, the less money that I have to provide for my family; perhaps that is the true goal here. The president likes to talk about what is fair, but I would ask him, “how is it fair to me to take money away from my family?”
Hopefully the A.M.A. still holds some sway and is able to help us derail this horrible idea before it is too late. We need to hold off this legislation until 2010 and then hopefully we will be able to kill it for good. That is why the president is in such a rush to push this entitlement through, he knows that he is on borrowed time.
UN To Ban Plastic Bags Worldwide?
This is a mobile post, please excuse any formatting which may be missing, and please excuse the lack of block quotes for the quoted material. I will fix it when I get home.
According to this article the United Nations is considering ordering a ban on plastic bags worldwide.
Here is a quote from the executive director of the UN’s environmental department:
“Single use plastic bags which choke marine life, should be banned or phased out rapidly everywhere. There is simply zero justification for manufacturing them anymore, anywhere,” said Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme.
It seems to me that the United Nations should have more important things to worry about than plastic bags. Like, I don’t know, maybe the president of the United States possibly be willing to give Iran nuclear technology. Or maybe North Korea continuing to launch nuclear capable missiles.
But that is just me, I guess I am just a heartless bastard because I am more concerned with world affairs than whether a duck gets its head stuck in a six pack ring.
Supreme Court Stops the Sale of Chrysler
This is an attempt at a mobile post, please excuse any lack of formatting, such as the possibility that this post may appear as one giant paragraph.
Today the Supreme Court put a temporary halt on the government ordered sale of Chrysler to Fiat.
Indiana is questioning the constitutionality of the president using TARP funds for bailing out the auto makers. And they have a legitimate gripe, the money was supposed to be used for the bailout of financial institutions.
Evidently the Supreme Court feels there could be an issue with how the TARP funds were allocated or they wouldn’t have agreed to hear the case.
This could get interesting.
Last week the third annual Conference on Climate Change took place and you probably didn’t even know that it was happening because it go not media attention. If the issue of man-made global warming is such a hot topic (pun intended) how come the media didn’t find it an essential conference to cover? The answer is simple, it didn’t meet the template. There were skeptics present and as such the media didn’t seem the conference fit to cover.
Among the skeptics was Rep. Dana Rohrabacher who had the following to say:
Al Gore has been wrong all along! This is outrageous! All of this is wrong! The people who have stifled this debate have an agenda that is just frightening!”
Al Gore has made millions off of this scam already and seeing how he owns the company that sells the carbon offsets that other companies will be forced to buy he stands to make millions more. That is Al Gore’s agenda and Rep. Rohrabacher is right, this is frightening.
The president of the Heartland Institute called global warming alarmism “popular delusion” and also said the following:
We are seldom heard in the policy debate. If you open your newspaper, turn on your TV set, you’re likely to see global warming alarmism, and nothing else.
The reason that we are not heard in this debate is because top politicians and global warming alarmists have been telling us that the debate is over. There is no debate because they will not allow debate. Sothe voice of the skeptic has been silenced, as is evident by the non-coverage of this conference. This non-coverage leads people to believe that the debate must truly be over when in fact there has never even been a debate.
Sen. James Inhofe questioned what has happened to the sovereignty of the United States and the statement that I loved most came from Bob Carter of James Cook University who wanted to know how humans can control the weather when the can’t even properly predict it.
How do you control the weather? For us to assume we can somehow control nature and regulate weather patterns, when we cannot even predict them correctly, is patently absurd.
That is the burning question in my mind. Here in New England the meteorologists cannot accurately predict the weather two days from now, often they get the next day’s weather wrong. But the global warming alarmists are predicting what will happen 10, 20, 30, even 100 years from now. How can they possibly know what will happen that far in advance? How can computer models accurately give them that information when computer models are so often wrong in the short term forecasts?
Global Warming skeptics are re-branding themselves as “realists” and I think that is a great term. This is going to be a long, hard battle but it is a battle that we must wage. It is made all the harder by the media who refuses to cover events that showcase the global warming realists.
Maybe we still have a chance to stop the global warming alarmists from implementing their true goal of global socialization if there are enough realists still left in the government, I am not sure there are. Perhaps the realists are greater in numbers than we think and it just seems that we are outnumbered because of the lack of media attention.
Events like this give me hope that there is still a chance to stem the rising tide (another pun fully intended) of global warming alarmism, but we have to remain vigilant. We cannot let this administration pass it’s climate change policy.
America’s Watchtower Will be MIA Next Week
Just a heads up, I will probably not be posting next week. I have to go on a road trip for work and will be gone until Friday, hopefully I will be back sooner.
If something comes up that I feel compelled to blog about I will do a little mobile blogging. That is if the opportunity arises to blog without giving away my secret identity. This post will be stickied until I return, scroll down to see if there are any updates.
I’ll be back.
Late last week I wrote a post about the state of Indiana challenging the automaker bailout’s constitutionality in appeals court. The bailout was upheld by the court. Now Indiana is asking the Supreme court to delay the sale of Chrysler to examine the case.
The problem Indiana has is that they hold over $40 million in secured Chrysler loans, and they are contending that the TARP money was supposed to be used for financial institutions not car makers. They are correct, the current president as well as the former president took money from TARP against the will of congress, that is illegal and unconstitutional.
There is no word yet as to whether the Supreme Court is going to hear this case, if not the sale will go through at 4:00 on Monday. The Supreme Court needs to hear this case, this is an important case. Ruth Ginsburg is in charge of emergency cases and she can decide by herself if the Supreme Court will hear this case. I would feel better about the chances of the Supreme Court hearing the case if the decision would be made by a vote of all justices, that is an option that Ginsburg can use.
This case needs to be heard, we have a president that is taking over a private industry and we cannot let that happen if there is a way to stop it. This is the only chance that we have.
The Supreme Court must stop this power grabbing president.
D-Day Veteran Dies in Normandy 65 Years Later
I watched most of the D-Day ceremony yesterday and I was struck by one story in particular during the president’s speech. Jim Norene, a veteran of D-Day made the trip to Normandy to watch the D-Day ceremonies. He was one of the president’s guests. He never came home. After visiting the beach that he fought on 65 years ago he went to his hotel room and passed away, almost like he was holding on to see his fallen brethren one more time in this life.
Here is what the president said about Jim Norene during his speech, “Last night, after visiting this cemetery for one last time, he passed away in his sleep, Jim was gravely ill when he left his home, and he knew that he might not return. But just as he did sixty-five years ago, he came anyway. May he now rest in peace with the boys he once bled with, and may his family always find solace in the heroism he showed here.”
Amen.
D-Day: June 6th 1944, Sixty Five Years Ago Today
“I am quite positive that the order must be given.”
With those words the plan to liberate Europe was put into motion. On June 4th allied ships set out across the English channel to begin the much waited for offensive scheduled to begin on June 5th. Torrential downpours forced the delay of the mission but the ships could not be turned around unless the invasion was rescheduled. Running the risk of being spotted by the Germans the ships were to sit there and wait for another opportunity.
June 5th, the allied commanders met to discuss the weather and the future of the invasion while troops were floating in the channel with no place to go and nothing to do but wait for the decision whether the order was a go or whether the invasion would be postponed. The seas were rough and the waves were high, crashing down over the landing crafts, many soldiers were sick and all of them were tired. Physically tired, and mentally tired. They were also tired of waiting, if there was to be an invasion they wanted to get it over with. To the troops waiting was worse than fighting.
The weather reports looked bad and most likely another postponement would be necessary but Dwight D. Eisenhower was waiting for the final weather report of the day before making his decision. A postponement now would mean calling off the plans altogether at this point and beginning again at a much later date. With the final weather report came some good news, it looked like there might be a break in the weather at just the right time and just long enough to begin the invasion.
Ike began to survey the other generals in the room for their opinions. Opinions were split, it appeared to some that it was too risky and that the weather report wasn’t good enough, or certain enough, to carry out the invasion. It still looked too risky.
Ironically it was a general who was known for his deliberate and careful pace on the battlefield, a general who many thought (including Ike himself and General Patton) moved too slow and was too cautious who may have swayed Dwight D Eisenhower; when asked, General Montgomery said, “I would say. GO!”
The fate of Europe hung in the balance.
Ike paced back and forth, the fate of the free world and Nazi Germany weighed on his shoulders. All eyes were upon him as he finally turned to the generals in the room and said, “I am quite positive that the order must be given.” That was his order to go and the largest amphibious landing in history was about to get underway; the first attempt at a cross channel invasion since the 1600’s was put in motion.
Knowing that the weather conditions were not ideal there was the very real possibility that the invasion could fail. Ike, realizing this, sat down and penned the following statement just in case:
“Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.”
He would never have to release that statement.
On the ships the soldiers listened to Dwight D. Eisenhower’s June 6th Order of the Day:
“We will accept nothing less than full victory!”
June 6th, D-Day. The most important day of the twentieth century. Landing crafts followed the paratroopers of the 82nd and 101st Airborne who were deployed during the night behind enemy lines. The casualties were high, especially on Omaha Beach, as the Germans were dug in with fortifications that the slave labor they had captured during the war were forced to build.
But through persistence, drive, faith, courage, and determination the soldiers of the United States, Great Britain, and Canada kept moving forward, buoyed in the belief that the cause was just and noble. The Germans defended the beaches viciously but in the end the invasion succeeded, the beaches were taken, and the liberation of a continent had begun.
The Germans knew that the invasion was coming but they did not know where and they did not know when. Field General Rommel, figuring that the invasion would happen at high tide and confident that the weather would not allow an invasion, left the battlefield to enjoy a little time off.
Hitler was asleep and as the invasion began nobody dared to wake him. The Fuhrer had taken over command of the Panzer tank division and nobody could order the tanks to the invasion site but he. As he slept the Germans lost valuable time. By the time the order came from the Fuhrer for the Panzers to get to the scene for backup it was too late. If Rommel was on the scene during the invasion and if the Panzers were ordered to the scene in time perhaps Ike would have had to release the statement that he had written in case the invasion failed.
Hitler was now thankfully in the last year of his life, as was Field General Rommel; both by their own hand. Rommel after being implicated in an assassination plot against Hitler.
June 6th, 1944, the longest day, and the most important day of the twentieth century, the day that the liberation of a continent began. The day that the destruction and downfall of Hitler began. A day that must never be forgotten for these men proved that they were indeed from the greatest generation.
I have included some D-Day tribute videos. In the first one you have the pleasure of listening to Iron Maiden playing “The Longest Day,” set to the opening scene from “Saving Private Ryan.”
I have also included a video (the third video) that was made by an eighth grader for a school project, he said it a hell of allot better than I did.
And lastly there is Ronald Reagan’s speech from Normandy on the 40th anniversary in 1984.
Thank you to not only those who fought and lived and those who fought and died on D-Day, but thank you also to all of those who have ever fought in the name of freedom throughout history. It is because of them that I am able to write this today. I will never forget them and I hope that you do not ever forget them either.
EduClaytion has a great post on D-day that should be checked out.
Sotomayor Failed to Disclose Her Opinion to the Judicial Committee That She Feels the Death Penalty is “Racist”
When the president’s Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, filled out her required questionnaire for the Senate Judiciary Committee she conveniently forgot to disclose a memo that she wrote in which she called the death penalty “racist.”
The question here is not whether or not you agree or disagree with the death penalty. The question here is not even whether you agree or disagree with the her statement that the death penalty is racist. The question is, did she violate her obligation of full disclosure to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The answer seems obvious to me. Yes.
Question 12(b) requires a nominee to “(s)upply four (4) copies of any reports, memoranda, or policy statements you prepared or contributed to the preparation of on behalf of any bar association, committee, conference, or organization of which you were or are a member or in which you have participated.”
Question 12(b) requires the nominee to release all memos that were written about policy. She has clearly violated question 12(b) in the questionnaire.
It is . . . clear that (Sotomayor) has omitted controversial material from her past in which she asserts that ‘[c]apital punishment is associated with evident racism in our society’ and advocated public opposition to restoring the death penalty in New York state,
The next question is why did she find it necessary to try to hide her position on the death penalty?
Already facing charges that she is a racist and is a proponent of racial preferances racial quotas, and identity politics it seems that she was unwilling to throw gas on the fire. Rather than disclosing further evidence that she may be a racist and giving Republicans another issue that can be used against her, she decided that she would take her chances and hope that this memo would not be discovered.
Having answered those questions the last question should be, does her dishonest dealing with the Senate Judiciary Committee disqualify her for the Supreme Court? I suppose that that is a question that the Senate Judiciary Committee will ultimately have to answer.
My answer to that question is probably. At best this indiscretion and attempt to sidetrack the committee should bring her under more scrutiny at her confirmation hearing than we originally thought she would be.
When she was first nominated for the Supreme Court it seemed as though she would breeze through her hearing. Now we have a few examples of her opinions and they should be enough to have the senate take a hard look at her positions.
Republican can not just roll over on this nominee. In the end she will be confirmed but Republicans have a responsibility to make sure the American people learn all of Sonia Sotomayor’s opinions on America’s policies.
We deserve that much at least. If we can not trust her to disclose her opinions honestly before she is confirmed we can not trust her to uphold the constitution after she is confirmed.
John Boehner Challenges Nancy Pelosi to Provide the Evidence That the CIA Lied to Her About Waterboarding
John Boehner has challenged Nancy Pelosi to present the evidence that the CIA lied to her when she was briefed about waterboarding. This is a fair and completely legitimate request.
I think she needs to bring forward evidence to back up her claim, and turn that over to the Justice Department, as I said when this issue first came up some three weeks ago.
If the CIA lied to congress than a crime was committed. If a crime was committed than the CIA should be investigated and put on trial. When Nancy Pelosi’s staff was asked whether she would ask the Justice Department to investigate her allegations they responded by saying that the question was not legitimate. There is no more legitimate question to be asked if in fact the CIA lied to congress.
It would seem to me that if the CIA did lie to congress about waterboarding that Nancy Pelosi would have jumped at the opportunity to have them investigated by the Justice Department. She would in effect be putting the Bush administration on trial.
She has claimed to be outraged over the use of waterboarding but she knew about it and approved of it. When it became general knowledge that she condoned waterboarding she made the false accusation that the CIA was lying to her.
The fact that she seems unwilling to have the CIA investigated for the crime that she accused them of, and can provide no evidence to back up her claim, shows us that she is the one who is lying. John Boehner has called Nancy Pelosi’s bluff and her silence shows us her guilt, not the guilt of the CIA.
Nancy Pelosi should resign as speaker, and from congress, for her false indictment of the CIA but that is not going to happen. I would settle for an admission that she condoned waterboarding and an apology to the CIA.
The voters will be left to decide her fate, hopefully they do the right thing.
