Edwards’ scam: Make the rich pay for health care
From the New Hampshire Union Leader 02/06/07:
“Yes, we will have to raise taxes,” Presidential hopeful John Edwards said Sunday on “Meet the Press.” Well, at least he was honest about it.
Edwards was speaking of his plan for Washington to force everyone in the United States to carry health insurance, and to have Washington shoulder much of the burden. Edwards estimated it would cost taxpayers as much as $120 billion — a year. Which means it would cost billions more.
Edwards’ plan would cost more than a third of what Medicare costs — and more than what Washington currently spends on education, training, employment and social services combined (Excluding the big entitlement programs), according to the Office of Management and Budget.
Edwards says America’s health care system is “dysfunctional” and cites recently rising costs. But his plan would not control costs, it would shift them to taxpayers. It’s the standard New Deal bait and switch. The new taxes would be paid only by those evil rich people. Just like the income tax. You don’t pay any of that, now, do you?
Washington Ballot Initiative=Attack On Traditional Marriage
Below is an article about a Washington ballot initiative that is another attack on traditional marraige. If the proponents of gay marraige cannot get what they want, they will try and take away what we have.
This is the dictionary.com definition of marraige:
the social institution under which a man and woman establish their decision to live as husband and wife by legal commitments, religious ceremonies, etc.
Now if marraige is a religious ceremony and religion deems homosexuality wrong, who has the right to say it has to be accepted? Are they not trying to dictate what religions should recognize. Isn’t this an attack on religious freedom?
Here is the article that appeared on nwcn.com:
Wash. initiative would require married couples to have kids
12:59 PM PST on Tuesday, February 6, 2007
OLYMPIA, Wash. – An initiative filed by proponents of same-sex marriage would require heterosexual couples to have kids within three years or else have their marriage annulled.Initiative 957 was filed by the Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance. That group was formed last summer after the state Supreme Court upheld Washington’s ban on same-sex marriage.
Under the initiative, marriage would be limited to men and women who are able to have children. Couples would be required to prove they can have children in order to get a marriage license, and if they did not have children within three years, their marriage would be subject to annulment.
All other marriages would be defined as “unrecognized” and people in those marriages would be ineligible to receive any marriage benefits.
“For many years, social conservatives have claimed that marriage exists solely for the purpose of procreation … The time has come for these conservatives to be dosed with their own medicine,” said WA-DOMA organizer Gregory Gadow in a printed statement. “If same-sex couples should be barred from marriage because they can not have children together, it follows that all couples who cannot or will not have children together should equally be barred from marriage.”
Supporters must gather more than 224,000 valid signatures by July 6 to put the initiative on the November ballot.
Opponents say the measure is another attack on traditional marriage, but supporters say the move is needed to have a discussion on the high court ruling.
The Truth About The “Blocked” Iraq War Resotution
The Democrats and the mainstream media are attempting to portray the Republicans as denying a debate on the Iraq War. The truth is it is just the opposite. It is the Democrats who are stiffling debate.
The Republicans have two different resolutions on the floor in addition to the Warner resolution. The Republicans said they would vote on the Warner resolution as long as the Democrats would allow debate on the other two resolutions. Well guess what, the Democrats don’t want to go on record voting on the Gregg resolution. They said they would allow the other Republican resolution to go to a vote.
The Democrats are afraid to vote on the Gregg resolution, so the Republicans stopped the vote on the Warner resolution. If the Democrats agree to vote on the Gregg resolution, the Warner resolution will also go to the floor for a vote.
So despite what you see on the mainstream news, it is actually the Democrats who don’t want debate on this issue. They only want to vote on a resolution they believe they will win.
Finally, The Republicans Show Some Balls
Republicans Block Debate On Iraq
By DAVID ESPO
WASHINGTON (AP) – Republicans blocked a full-fledged Senate debate over Iraq on Monday, but Democrats vowed they still would find a way to force President Bush to change course in a war that has claimed the lives of more than 3,000 U.S. troops. “We must heed the results of the November elections and the wishes of the American people,” said Majority Leader Harry Reid.Reid, D-Nev., spoke moments before a vote that sidetracked a nonbinding measure expressing disagreement with Bush’s plan to deploy an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq.
The vote was 49-47, or 11 short of the 60 needed to go ahead with debate, and left the fate of the measure uncertain.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky described the test vote as merely a “bump in the road” and added that GOP lawmakers “welcome the debate and are happy to have it.”
The political jockeying unfolded as Democrats sought passage of a measure, supported by Sen. John Warner, R-Va., that is critical of the administration’s new Iraq policy. It was the first time Democrats had scheduled a sustained debate on the war since they won control over Congress in last fall’s midterm elections.
McConnell called for equal treatment for an alternative measure, backed by Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., saying Congress should neither cut nor eliminate funding for troops in the field. That measure takes no position on the war or the president’s decision to deploy additional forces.
Democrats launched a withering attack on Bush’s war policy in the run-up to the vote.
“The American people do not support escalation. Last November, voters made it clear they want a change of course, not more of the same,” said Reid. “The president must hear from Congress, so he knows he stands in the wrong place, alone.”
Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the second-ranking Democrat, echoed Reid. “If the Republicans want to stand by their president and his policy, they shouldn’t run from this debate. If they believe we should send thousands of our young soldiers into the maws of this wretched civil war, they should at least have the courage to stand and defend their position,” he said.
The war has claimed the lives of more than 3,000 U.S. military personnel so far, and costs are counted in the hundreds of billions of dollars. The administration in recent days asked Congress for $245 billion more to cover the costs of the conflict through 2008.
Before the test vote, McConnell sought to deflect charges that Republicans were hoping to block a debate. He said the roll call was meaningless, a “bump in the road” required to settle a procedural problem.
But behind the procedural quarrel lay uncertainty about the verdict the Senate would ultimately reach on Bush’s decision to send 21,500 additional troops.
Democrats hoped to gain enough Republican votes to pass the measure expressing disagreement with Bush’s decision, and to send the commander in chief an extraordinary wartime rebuke on a bipartisan vote.
It was an outcome that the White House and Senate Republican leadership hoped to avoid. They concentrated on a relatively small number of swing votes, many of them belonging to GOP senators expected to be on the ballot in 2008.
Gregg’s alternative said Congress should not take “any action that will endanger United States military forces in the field, including the elimination or reduction of funds for troops in the field, as such an action with respect to funding would undermine their safety or harm their effectiveness in pursuing their assigned missions.”
The measure advanced by Democrats and Warner said the same thing, but it also says the Senate “disagrees with the ‘plan’ to augment our forces by 21,500 and urges the president instead to consider all options and alternatives.”
Republicans and Democrats carried out their clash as 10 members of “Code Pink, “an anti-war group, were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct during a protest in front of Sen. John McCain’s office in a building across the street from the Capitol. “They were absolutely compliant, peaceful,” Sgt. Kimberly Schneider said of the protesters.
McCain, a likely Republican presidential candidate, opposes the measure expressing disagreement with the increase in troops.
Global Warming, The Great Myth
Monday, February 5, 2007
Global Warming, as we think we know it, doesn’t exist. And I am not the only one trying to make people open up their eyes and see the truth. But few listen, despite the fact that I was the first Canadian Ph.D. in Climatology and I have an extensive background in climatology, especially the reconstruction of past climates and the impact of climate change on human history and the human condition.“Few listen, even though I have a Ph.D, (Doctor of Science) from the University of London, England and was a climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg.” . For some reason (actually for many), the World is not listening. Here is why.
What would happen if tomorrow we were told that, after all, the Earth is flat? It would probably be the most important piece of news in the media and would generate a lot of debate. So why is it that when scientists who have studied the Global Warming phenomenon for years say that humans are not the cause nobody listens? Why does no one acknowledge that the Emperor has no clothes on?
Believe it or not, Global Warming is not due to human contribution of Carbon Dioxide (CO2). This in fact is the greatest deception in the history of science. We are wasting time, energy and trillions of dollars while creating unnecessary fear and consternation over an issue with no scientific justification. For example, Environment Canada brags about spending $3.7 billion in the last five years dealing with climate change almost all on propaganda trying to defend an indefensible scientific position while at the same time closing weather stations and failing to meet legislated pollution targets.
No sensible person seeks conflict, especially with governments, but if we don’t pursue the truth, we are lost as individuals and as a society. That is why I insist on saying that there is no evidence that we are, or could ever cause global climate change. And, recently, Yuri A. Izrael, Vice President of the United Nations sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirmed this statement. So how has the world come to believe that something is wrong?
Maybe for the same reason we believed, 30 years ago, that global cooling was the biggest threat: a matter of faith. “It is a cold fact: the Global Cooling presents humankind with the most important social, political, and adaptive challenge we have had to deal with for ten thousand years. Your stake in the decisions we make concerning it is of ultimate importance; the survival of ourselves, our children, our species,” wrote Lowell Ponte in 1976.
I was as opposed to the threats of impending doom global cooling engendered as I am to the threats made about Global Warming. Let me stress I am not denying the phenomenon has occurred. The world has warmed since 1680, the nadir of a cool period called the Little Ice Age (LIA) that has generally continued to the present. These climate changes are well within natural variability and explained quite easily by changes in the sun. But there is nothing unusual going on.
Since I obtained my doctorate in climatology from the University of London, Queen Mary College, England my career has spanned two climate cycles. Temperatures declined from 1940 to 1980 and in the early 1970’s global cooling became the consensus. This proves that consensus is not a scientific fact. By the 1990’s temperatures appeared to have reversed and Global Warming became the consensus. It appears I’ll witness another cycle before retiring, as the major mechanisms and the global temperature trends now indicate a cooling.
No doubt passive acceptance yields less stress, fewer personal attacks and makes career progress easier. What I have experienced in my personal life during the last years makes me understand why most people choose not to speak out; job security and fear of reprisals. Even in University, where free speech and challenge to prevailing wisdoms are supposedly encouraged, academics remain silent.
I once received a three page letter that my lawyer defined as libellous, from an academic colleague, saying I had no right to say what I was saying, especially in public lectures. Sadly, my experience is that universities are the most dogmatic and oppressive places in our society. This becomes progressively worse as they receive more and more funding from governments that demand a particular viewpoint.
In another instance, I was accused by Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki of being paid by oil companies. That is a lie. Apparently he thinks if the fossil fuel companies pay you have an agenda. So if Greenpeace, Sierra Club or governments pay there is no agenda and only truth and enlightenment?
Personal attacks are difficult and shouldn’t occur in a debate in a civilized society. I can only consider them from what they imply. They usually indicate a person or group is losing the debate. In this case, they also indicate how political the entire Global Warming debate has become. Both underline the lack of or even contradictory nature of the evidence.
I am not alone in this journey against the prevalent myth. Several well-known names have also raised their voices. Michael Crichton, the scientist, writer and filmmaker is one of them. In his latest book, “State of Fear” he takes time to explain, often in surprising detail, the flawed science behind Global Warming and other imagined environmental crises.
Another cry in the wildenerness is Richard Lindzen’s. He is an atmospheric physicist and a professor of meteorology at MIT, renowned for his research in dynamic meteorology – especially atmospheric waves. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and has held positions at the University of Chicago, Harvard University and MIT. Linzen frequently speaks out against the notion that significant Global Warming is caused by humans. Yet nobody seems to listen.
I think it may be because most people don’t understand the scientific method which Thomas Kuhn so skilfully and briefly set out in his book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.” A scientist makes certain assumptions and then produces a theory which is only as valid as the assumptions. The theory of Global Warming assumes that CO2 is an atmospheric greenhouse gas and as it increases temperatures rise. It was then theorized that since humans were producing more CO2 than before, the temperature would inevitably rise. The theory was accepted before testing had started, and effectively became a law.
As Lindzen said many years ago: “the consensus was reached before the research had even begun.” Now, any scientist who dares to question the prevailing wisdom is marginalized and called a sceptic, when in fact they are simply being good scientists. This has reached frightening levels with these scientists now being called climate change denier with all the holocaust connotations of that word. The normal scientific method is effectively being thwarted.
Meanwhile, politicians are being listened to, even though most of them have no knowledge or understanding of science, especially the science of climate and climate change. Hence, they are in no position to question a policy on climate change when it threatens the entire planet. Moreover, using fear and creating hysteria makes it very difficult to make calm rational decisions about issues needing attention.
Until you have challenged the prevailing wisdom you have no idea how nasty people can be. Until you have re-examined any issue in an attempt to find out all the information, you cannot know how much misinformation exists in the supposed age of information.
I was greatly influenced several years ago by Aaron Wildavsky’s book “Yes, but is it true?” The author taught political science at a New York University and realized how science was being influenced by and apparently misused by politics. He gave his graduate students an assignment to pursue the science behind a policy generated by a highly publicised environmental concern. To his and their surprise they found there was little scientific evidence, consensus and justification for the policy. You only realize the extent to which Wildavsky’s findings occur when you ask the question he posed. Wildavsky’s students did it in the safety of academia and with the excuse that it was an assignment. I have learned it is a difficult question to ask in the real world, however I firmly believe it is the most important question to ask if we are to advance in the right direction.
Dr. Tim Ball, Chairman of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project (www.nrsp.com), is a Victoria-based environmental consultant and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg. He can be reached at letters@canadafreepress.com
Climate Change Or Global Warming?
The following article appeared on suntimes.com
What’s so hot about fickle science?
By Mark Steyn
February 4, 2007
From the “Environmental News Network”: “Science Is Solid on Climate Change, Congress Told.” “The science is solid,” says Louise Frechette, deputy secretary-general of the United Nations.“The science is solid,” says Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
“The science is really solid,” says TV meteorologist Heidi Cullen. “The science is very solid.”
And at that point, on “Larry King Live” last week, Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric science at MIT, remarked: “Heidi says the science is solid and I can’t criticize her because she never says what science she’s talking about.”
Indeed. If the science is so solid, maybe they could drag it out to the Arctic for the poor polar bears to live on now that the ice is melting faster than a coed’s heart at an Al Gore lecture.
Alas, the science isn’t so solid. In the ’70s, it was predicting a new ice age. Then it switched to global warming. Now it prefers “climate change.” If it’s hot, that’s a sign of “climate change.” If it’s cold, that’s a sign of “climate change.” If it’s 53 with sunny periods and light showers, you need to grab an overnight bag and get outta there right now because “climate change” is accelerating out of control.
The silliest argument is the anecdotal one: “You only have to look outside your window to see that climate change is happening.” Outside my window in northern New England last week, it was minus 20 Fahrenheit. Very cold. Must be the old climate change kicking in, right? After all, December was very mild. Which was itself a sign of climate change. A few years ago, the little old lady who served as my town’s historian for many decades combed over the farmers’ diaries from two centuries ago that various neighbors had donated to her: From the daily records of 15 Januarys, she concluded that three were what we’d now regard as classic New Hampshire winters, ideal for lumbering or winter sports; eight had January thaws, and four had no snow at all. This was in the pre-industrial 18th century.
Today, faced with eight thaws and four entirely snowless Januarys, we’d all be running around shrieking that the great Gaia is displeased. Wake up and smell the CO2, people! We need to toss another virgin into the volcano. A virgin SUV, that is. Brand-new model, straight off the assembly line, cupholders never been used. And as the upholstery howls in agony, we natives will stand around chanting along with High Priestess Natalie Cole’s classic recording: ”Unsustainable, that’s what you are.”
As we say in the north country, if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes. And if you don’t like the global weather, wait three decades. For the last century or so, the planet has gone through very teensy-weensy warming trends followed by very teensy-weensy cooling trends followed by very teensy-weensy warming trends, every 30 years or so. And, even when we’re in a pattern of “global warming” or “global cooling,” the phenomenon is not universally observed — i.e., it’s not “global,” or even very local. In the Antarctic, the small Palmer peninsula has got a little warmer but the main continent is colder. Up north, the western Arctic’s a little warmer but the eastern Arctic’s colder. So, if you’re an eastern polar bear, you’re in clover — metaphorically, I hasten to add. If you’re a western polar bear, you’ll be in clover literally in a year or two, according to Al Gore.
And, if you really don’t like the global weather, wait half-a-millennium. A thousand years ago, the Arctic was warmer than it is now. Circa 982, Erik the Red and a bunch of other Vikings landed in Greenland and thought, “Wow! This land really is green! Who knew?” So they started farming it, and were living it up for a couple of centuries. Then the Little Ice Age showed up, and they all died. A terrible warning to us all about “unsustainable development”: If a few hundred Vikings doing a little light hunter-gathering can totally unbalance the environment, imagine the havoc John Edwards’ new house must be wreaking.
The question is whether what’s happening now is just the natural give and take of the planet, as Erik the Red and my town’s early settlers understood it. Or whether it’s something so unprecedented that we need to divert vast resources to a transnational elite bureaucracy so that they can do their best to cripple the global economy and deny much of the developing world access to the healthier and longer lives that capitalism brings. To the eco-chondriacs that’s a no-brainer. As Mark Fenn of the Worldwide Fund for Nature says in the new documentary ”Mine Your Own Business”:
”In Madagascar, the indicators of quality of life are not housing. They’re not nutrition, specifically. They’re not health in a lot of cases. It’s not education. A lot of children in Fort Dauphin do not go to school because the parents don’t consider that to be important. . . . People have no jobs, but if I could put you with a family and you could count how many times in a day that that family smiles. Then I put you with a family well off, in New York or London, and you count how many times people smile. . . . You tell me who is rich and who is poor.”
Well, if smiles are the measure of quality of life, I’m Bill Gates; I’m laughing my head off. Male life expectancy in Madagascar is 52.5 years. But Mark Fenn is right: Those l’il malnourished villagers sure look awful cute dancing up and down when the big environmentalist activist flies in to shoot the fund-raising video.
If “global warming” is real and if man is responsible, why then do so many “experts” need to rely on obviously fraudulent data? The famous “hockey stick” graph showed the planet’s climate history as basically one long bungalow with the Empire State Building tacked on the end. Completely false. In evaluating industrial impact, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change used GDP estimates based on exchange rates rather than purchasing power: As a result, they assume by the year 2100 that not only South Africans but also North Koreans will have a higher per capita income than Americans. That’s why the climate-change computer models look scary. That’s how “solid” the science is: It’s predicated on the North Korean economy overtaking the United States.
Could happen. Who knows?
But that’s the point: Who knows? You could take every dime spent by every government and NGO and eco-group to investigate “climate change” and spend it on Internet porn instead, and it wouldn’t make the slightest difference to what the climate will be in 2050.
However, it would make a dramatic difference to the lifestyle of the “climate change” jet set. Which is why, even before latest new IPCC doomsday scenario was released, the Associated Press was running stories like: “New Climate Report Too Rosy, Experts Say.” The AP’s “science writer” warns that even this “dire report” is the “sugarcoated version.” It’s insufficiently hysterical, in every sense.
The One Issue John McCain Has Right
Let me make this clear, I don’t support John McCain on most issues. He is a RINO in my opinion. But I believe this is the one issue he has right.
THe following appeared on apnews.myway.com:
McCain Blasts ‘Vote of No Confidence’
By HOPE YEN
WASHINGTON (AP) – The top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee sought to weaken support for a resolution opposing President Bush’s Iraq war strategy, saying Sunday that proponents are intellectually dishonest.On the eve before a possible congressional showdown on Iraq strategy, Arizona Sen. John McCain contended the bipartisan proposal amounted to a demoralizing “vote of no confidence” in the U.S. military. The measure, he said, criticizes Bush’s plan to add 21,500 troops in Iraq yet offers no concrete alternatives.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate to say that you disapprove of a mission and you don’t want to fund it and you don’t want it to go, but yet you don’t take the action necessary to prevent it,” said McCain, a 2008 presidential candidate.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., called GOP efforts to block a vote on the resolution “obstructionism.” Neither a Senate majority nor voters, she said, will tolerate such a delaying tactic.
If we can’t get this done, you can be sure a month or so down the pike, there’s going to be much stronger legislation,” she said.
The Senate, where Democrats hold a 51-49 working majority, has tentatively set an early test vote for Monday on the nonbinding resolution by Sen. John Warner, R-Va.
In a bid to attract more GOP support, Warner added a provision pledging to protect money for troops in combat.
That compromise drew the ire of some Democrats who said it leaned too far in endorsing the status quo. They want to see binding legislation to cap troop levels, force a new vote to authorize the war or begin bringing troops home.
McCain is sponsoring a resolution expressing support for a troop increase and setting benchmark goals for the Iraqi government. He sought to capitalize on some of the Democratic division.
“I do believe that if you really believe that this is doomed to failure and is going to cost American lives, then you should do what’s necessary to prevent it from happening rather than a vote of ‘disapproval,'” McCain said.
“This is a vote of no confidence in both the mission and the troops who are going over there,” he said, noting the proposal does not seek to cut off money for troops.
A fellow Vietnam veteran, GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, disagreed with McCain’s assessment. Hagel said the resolution would make clear the Senate’s belief that Bush’s policy is misguided.
Hagel said the proposal also lays out alternatives such as moving troops away from the sectarian violence and closer to the Iraq border to provide “territorial integrity.”
“We can’t change the outcome of Iraq by putting American troops in the middle of a civil war,” said Hagel, who is considering a run for the White House in 2008.
Republican leaders are working to block a vote on Warner’s resolution. They insisted that at least two other GOP proposals also be considered – McCain’s and one focused on maintaining money for troops in the field. Such a strategy could dilute support for Warner’s measure and make it tougher for any measure to pass.
Democrats want to limit debate to just the Warner and McCain proposals.
Two Republicans who oppose Warner’s proposal, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Richard Lugar of Indiana, said Sunday they were uncertain the Warner resolution would get the support of 60 senators.
“Even if there is, it’s nonbinding, and has in my judgment no consequence,” Lugar said.
Hagel said Warner’s resolution strikes a careful balance for a majority of senators who oppose a troop buildup but differ on the appropriate response.
He called McCain’s proposal meaningless because it offers benchmarks but does not spell out what the U.S. government will do if the Iraqi officials fail to meet them.
“What are the consequences? Are we then going to pull out?” Hagel asked. “Are we going to cut funding? Now, that falls more in the intellectually dishonest category.”
The resolution debate comes as the White House and congressional Democrats prepared to square off over war spending.
Bush’s new budget on Monday will ask for $100 billion more for military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan this year – on top of $70 billion already approved by Congress for the current year. The budget will call for $145 billion in war spending for 2008.
The spending request covers Bush’s new war strategy, including the increase in troops, White House budget director Rob Portman said Sunday.
“It’s extremely important that we support our troops,” Portman said. He described the requested money as the amount needed “to be sure our troops have the equipment they need, that they are taken care of well.”
Hagel and McCain appeared on ABC’s “This Week,” Graham was on “Fox News Sunday,” and Feinstein, Lugar and Portman spoke on “Late Edition” on CNN.
John Edwards Will Raise Taxes
As you will see in the article below John Edwards has already declared he will raise taxes if he is elected. He says it will only be on the wealthy but you know how that goes. Do you know who the Democrat party considers wealthy? Anyone who has a job, that’s who. They are always playing class envy to the middle class to make them believe they will help the middle class. Their true goal is to keep the poor down. They keep promising them welfare. ” Don’t worry we will take care of you, just keep us in office.” ” You can’t take care of yourself, we will help you.” Why has the war on poverty not yet been won? The Democrats don’t want to win it.
A perfect example of the problems of the welfare state was New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina. Those people were living off the government so long, that when they had to take care of themselves, they didn’t even know how to evacuate, nevermind fend for themselves afterwards.
So keep in mind when you read this article, you are probably “wealthy” enough to have your taxes raised.
The following appeared on reuters.com:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democratic U.S. presidential candidate John Edwards on Sunday said that he would raise taxes, chiefly on the wealthy, to pay for expanded healthcare coverage under a plan costing $90 billion to $120 billion a year to be unveiled on Monday.
“We’ll have to raise taxes. The only way you can pay for a healthcare plan that cost anywhere from $90 to $120 billion is there has to be a revenue source,” Edwards said on NBC’s Meet the Press news program.
The 2004 vice presidential nominee and former North Carolina senator said his plan would “get rid of George Bush’s tax cuts for people who make over $200,000 a year.”
He said the plan would also reduce healthcare costs. if(!CMSB_ID){var CMSB_ID=””} CMSB_ID+=”020307_MIDART_editorschoice,”;document.write(”);
“Finally we need to do a much better job of collecting the taxes that are already owed,” he said, specifically targeting what he said are large amounts of unpaid capital gains taxes.
“We should have brokerage houses report the capital gains that people are incurring because we’re losing billions and billions of dollars in tax revenue,” Edwards said.
Offering a preview of his plan, Edwards said it aims to bring healthcare coverage to 47 million uninsured Americans, lower costs for the middle class and foster competition.
It would expand Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance plan for the needy, and offer subsidies for the uninsured. He said, “We ask employers to play a bigger role, which means they either have to have coverage or they have to buy into what we’re calling health markets.”
Without providing details, Edwards said his plan would create “health markets” nationwide. One choice available in the markets would be “the government plan, so people who like the idea of a single-payer health insurance plan, that is actually one of the alternatives,” he said.
Edwards declared his candidacy in December calling for fewer U.S. troops in Iraq, a restoration of U.S. world leadership and an end to poverty.
The War On Terror Needs America’s Support
In a time where America needs to band together against a Hitler type enemy, all we hear about from the left is we can’t win militarily. I find this comment discusting,and totally wrong. We can’t win militarily if we continue to fight a Politically Correct war. There is no enemy we can’ t defeat if we use all our might. Unfortunatly, there are to many weak-minded people on the left who will not tolerate an American victory.
The following appeared on townhall.com:
Don’t Underestimate Antiwar Forces
By David Limbaugh
With the growing influence of the antiwar left in this country, particularly emboldened by the November congressional elections, I fear for our nation as I consider the strong possibility it could elect a liberal, antiwar commander in chief during wartime.
“Chill out,” you say. “These people have been protesting for years. They’re just fringe extremists and no one listens to them.”
Really? It would be nice if they could be so easily dismissed. But these so-called extremists — many of them Sixties radicals — just happen to dominate our universities, and their sympathizers “own” the mainstream media. There are far more of them in government and politics than you think, and their impact is significant.
One of them would be commander in chief today but for some 120,000 votes in Ohio, or the noble efforts of certain Swift Boat patriots to highlight the other side of his military record.
People are way too casual about all of this. Surely someone as distinguished and powerful as John Kerry couldn’t conceivably be contemptuous of this country. Indeed, every time Kerry uttered an America-bashing remark or expressed his willingness to compromise American sovereignty during the 2004 campaign, his weary defenders adamantly denied his words should be understood by their plain meaning.
But no matter what new excuses they’d come up with, they couldn’t alter the fact that Kerry’s expressions had been consistent since he came home from the Vietnam War and falsely accused his fellow soldiers — en masse — of unspeakable war atrocities. And though he indignantly denied the unmistakable intent of his words derogating today’s soldiers and tried to pass them off as a bad joke, most people knew better.
Any remaining doubt as to his jaundiced predisposition against many things great and good in this country should be removed by his most recent performance at a world economic forum in Davos, Switzerland.
As all but those locked in closets know, Kerry said Bush administration foreign policy had caused the United States to become “a sort of international pariah for a number of reasons.” And, no. Kerry wasn’t just talking about what foreigners think of us. He was telling us what he thinks.
The almost 44th president of the United States amplified on the point. “When we walk away from global warming, Kyoto, when we are irresponsibly slow in moving toward AIDS in Africa, when we didn’t advance and live up to our own rhetoric and standards, we [send] a terrible message of duplicity and hypocrisy.”
But wait, there’s more. And even considering the liberal bias of the media, it’s amazing these additional statements didn’t get more press than they did. Kerry announced his support for Iran’s right to use civilian nuclear technology and said the West should withdraw its prerequisites for the resumption of nuclear talks with Iran.
He then said that Americans have an “unfortunate habit” of seeing the world “exclusively through an American lens.” They only find out how different (read: more reasonable) the world is when they travel outside the United States.
As if all this weren’t enough, Kerry voiced his agreement with Iran’s former president Seyed Mohammad Khatami that violence in the Middle East “increased after the occupation of Afghanistan, Iraq and Bin Ladenism.”
“Fine,” you say, “but so what? Kerry’s irrelevant now, so you should focus your energies elsewhere.”
Don’t fool yourself. Kerry is still a U.S. senator. His party chose him to be its standard bearer in 2004. Four years earlier it chose the increasingly hysterical Al Gore. Now it appears ready to nominate Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, both of whom are decidedly liberal, and both of whom are just as decidedly deceptive about it.
Though the adoring media feign obliviousness, Hillary is busy tying herself in knots avoiding, explaining and denying her previous statements and actions in support of the war in Iraq and Obama is proposing unspeakably reckless legislation to withdraw our troops on a not-too-distant date certain.
In the meantime, while Hillary and Obama are pandering to their base, and Kerry is slobbering all over foreign tyrants and excoriating his own country, Congress, including many Republicans, is threatening to oppose President Bush’s troop surge in Iraq.
With one party having its head firmly planted in the sand concerning the war on terror and the other having far too many imitators who seem hell-bent on proving the United States doesn’t have the stomach for this war, we can only hope those with a more sober and realistic perspective will persevere in their support for American policy and American troops.
David Limbaugh, brother of radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, is an expert in law and politics and author of Bankrupt: The Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Today’s Democratic Party.
Defund Or Shut Up
The following appeared on nationalreview.com:
Hedging on Iraq
The Democrats prepare for anything, and advocate nothing.By Victor Davis Hanson
For all the talk of cutting off funds, redeployment, and pulling out, the new Democratic Congress will, at least for now, probably do nothing except speak impassioned words and make implicit threats. Here’s why.
First, they have to digest what they have swallowed. Democratic critics had previously framed their opposition to the war in terms of a disastrous tenure of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld; a culpable indifference to the status quo in Baghdad and at Centcom; a failure to listen to the more intellectual generals such as David Petraeus; the “too few troops” mantra; and the lionization of Gens. Shinseki, Zinni, and other shunned military critics.
But now Abizaid, Casey, Khalilzad, and Rumsfeld are all absent — or about to be — from direct involvement in the war. The supposed villain cast of Cobra II and Fiasco has exited, and the purported good guys have entered. David Petraeus will, de facto, be in charge, not just in the strictly military sense, but, given the press and politics of the war, spiritually as well — in the manner that Grant by late summer 1864 had become symbolic of the entire Union military effort that was his to win or lose. Many of those officers involved in the “revolt of the generals” have now largely supported the surge — something Democrats themselves had inadvertently apparently called for when they serially lamented there were too few troops to win in Iraq.
All the old targets of the Democrats are no more, and it will take time for them to re-adjust the crosshairs to aim at men and policies that they have heretofore viewed sympathetically.
Second, there is also a new twist to the Democratic criticism, evident in their increasing attacks on the Iraqi government in general and on Prime Minister Maliki in particular. The Michael Moore/Cindy Sheehan/Code Pink rants are no longer to be echoed by bellowing Sens. Durbin, Kennedy, or Kerry, saying in effect that American troops at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, or on patrol in Iraq are somehow akin to Hitler, Pol Pot, terrorists, or Saddam Hussein. Instead, in the new liberal brief, we are dying for incompetent Iraqi sectarians who can’t even conduct a decent execution.
That is, we are getting the Sen. Webb brand of critique of Iraq, given in terms of the national interest. Democrats seem to be saying that the Iraqis aren’t worth another American life, and that the hope of democracy over there was misplaced, making futile the rare opportunity offered by American blood and treasure.
It matters little whether this is factually correct; their only concern is the immediate political ramifications of such a “blame ’em” stance. In terms of the effect on military operations, Bush is, in a weird way, sometimes being attacked from his right by the Left — that the Iraqis are tying our hands, or not doing their own part, or incapable of enlightened government.
Not only will the administration bring pressure on Maliki by playing the sympathetic good cop to the Democrats’ bad, but also in the process it will ironically be given, for a time, more leeway to inflict damage on the jihadists. If the old liberal mantra was Abu Ghraib ad nauseam, the new one is that the treacherous Iraqis are releasing those killers that our brave soldiers arrest. While the Democrats may have meant to attack our present tactics in terms of naiveté and incompetence, the charge often translates as insufficient force applied — giving Bush a window to do more, not less.
Third, for all the gloom about Iraq, it remains volatile. We have gone from wild exultation in April 2003 when Saddam’s statue fell, to depression in 2004 during the pullback from Fallujah, to optimism at the elections and the Cedar Revolution in the spring of 2005, to gloom over the sectarian killing. Of course, the politics and punditry have adjusted accordingly.
Now all agree that the surge is not merely an increase of a few thousand troops, but a last effort to bring in new tactics and personnel to win or lose the war in 2007. Given the 2008 election to come, Democrats are crafting the necessary holding position for the next few months, which will allow them to readjust their past records either to defeat or to victory — something difficult to achieve should they now vote to cut off funds before the verdict is in.
Fourth, there is the “what next?” dilemma. It is fine for Democrats to talk of “redeployment” out of Iraq, “engagement” with Syria and Iran, more soft power, Europeans and the United Nations, organizing “regional interests,” etc. — until one realizes that we did mostly just that for most of the 1990s.
And? We got Syrian absorption of Lebanon, Afghanistan as an al Qaeda base, a Libyan WMD program, worldwide serial terrorist attacks, Oslo, a Pakistani bomb, a full-bore Iranian nuclear program, Oil-for-Food — and 9/11. If one doubts any of this, just reflect on why the Democrats have not offered any specific alternative plans. And when pressed, they usually talk only of “talking” and thereby bring embarrassment to even their liberal questioners.
So, privately, some sober Democrats realize that the use of force in the present was a reaction to the frustrations of the past. For all the slurs against the neocons, it could be wise to stay mum, and see whether the stabilization of Afghanistan and Iraq might well, in fact, still provide the United States with options unavailable in the past. It could be even wiser to let Bush take the heat for the ordeal in Iraq, and the slanders against democratization, and then, if it all finally succeeds, to huff, snort, nit-pick about the messy details — and then take advantage of the favorable outcome.
In contrast to the complex daily Democratic triangulation, the Republican position has solidified and can’t really be further nuanced. More troops, Secretary Rumsfeld, new tactics — these are no longer issues between a Sen. McCain and the administration. And the other front-runners likewise support the current effort, and its success or failure will help determine their own particular fates.
We are in a rare period in American political history, in which the battlefield alone will determine the next election, perhaps not seen since 1864. The economy, scandal, social issues, domestic spending, jobs, all these usual criteria and more pale in comparison to what happens in Iraq, where a few thousand brave American soldiers will determine our collective future.
