Government logic.This image tells a lot about out nation's future if current spending continues and I suspect it will because the Democrat agenda is to wrestle control of the public sector, locate its control in D.C. so we can benefit from government efficiency.
You have two minutes to read this and vote! This is American Democracy at work. No wonder Iraqis have doubts.
And we have decided to take a back seat. This is only the beginning. The nation's debt will restrain its ability to lead in the future. Our nation lacks fiscal discipline, visionary leadership. But we have plenty of Liberals who love to cripple Capitalism because it is so evil.(See 1 and 1a below.)
Turkey throws its lot in with Iran? (See 2 below.)
The egalitarian syndrome cripples the mind. Former Mayor Koch still believes logic should dictate decisions - how un-PC. (See 3 and 3a below.)
Netanyahu goes from country to country telling all he is willing to talk to anyone without pre-conditions. Of course without pre-condition is the killer because Arabs only negotiate after they have gotten all they want before they negotiate. Then when they negotiate they seek more than what they have already gotten. (See 4 below.)
Dick
1)ALL EXCERPTS FROM THE CURRENT HOUSE BILL ARE IMPORTANT, NOT JUST THE HIGHLIGHTED ONES.
HOW DO YOU LIKE THE ONE FROM PAGE 59? Little gems from the Health Care Bill:
• Page 16: States that if you have insurance at the time of the bill becoming law and change, you will be required to take a similar plan. If that is not available, you will be required to take the gov option!
• Page 22: Mandates audits of all employers that self-insure!
• Page 29: Admission: your health care will be rationed!
• Page 30: A government committee will decide what treatments and benefits you get (and, unlike an insurer, there will be no appeals process)
• Page 42: The "Health Choices Commissioner" will decide health benefits for you. You will have no choice. None.
• Page 50: All non-US citizens, illegal or not, will be provided with free healthcare services.
• Page 58: Every person will be issued a National ID Healthcard.
• Page 59: The federal government will have direct, real-time access to all individual bank accounts for electronic funds transfer.
• Page 65: Taxpayers will subsidize all union retiree and community organizer health plans (example: SEIU, UAW and ACORN)
• Page 72: All private healthcare plans must conform to government rules to participate in a Healthcare Exchange.
• Page 84: All private healthcare plans must participate in the Healthcare Exchange (i.e., total government control of private plans)
• Page 91: Government mandates linguistic infrastructure for services; translation: illegal aliens
• Page 95: The Government will pay ACORN and Americorps to sign up individuals for Government-run Health Care plan.
• Page 102: Those eligible for Medicaid will be automatically enrolled: you have no choice in the matter.
• Page 124: No company can sue the government for price-fixing. No "judicial review" is permitted against the government monopoly. Put simply, private insurers will be crushed.
• Page 127: The AMA sold doctors out: the government will set wages.
• Page 145: An employer MUST auto-enroll employees into the government-run public plan. No alternatives.
• Page 126: Employers MUST pay healthcare bills for part-time employees AND their families.
• Page 149: Any employer with a payroll of $400K or more, who does not offer the public option, pays an 8% tax on payroll
• Page 150: Any employer with a payroll of $250K-400K or more, who does not offer the public option, pays a 2 to 6% tax on payroll
• Page 167: Any individual who doesnt' have acceptable healthcare (according to the government) will be taxed 2.5% of income.
• Page 170: Any NON-RESIDENT alien is exempt from individual taxes (Americans will pay for them).
• Page 195: Officers and employees of Government Healthcare Bureaucracy will have access to ALL American financial and personal records.
• Page 203: "The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax." Yes, it really says that. • Page 239: Bill will reduce physician services for Medicaid. Seniors and the poor most affected."
• Page 241: Doctors: no matter what speciality you have, you'll all be paid the same (thanks, AMA!)
• Page 253: Government sets value of doctors' time, their professional judgment, etc. • Page 265: Government mandates and controls productivity for private healthcare industries.
• Page 268: Government regulates rental and purchase of power-driven wheelchairs.
• Page 272: Cancer patients: welcome to the wonderful world of rationing!
• Page 280: Hospitals will be penalized for what the government deems preventable re-admissions.
• Page 298: Doctors: if you treat a patient during an initial admission that results in a readmission, you will be penalized by the government.
• Page 317: Doctors: you are now prohibited for owning and investing in healthcare companies!
• Page 318: Prohibition on hospital expansion. Hospitals cannot expand without government approval.
• Page 321: Hospital expansion hinges on "community" input: in other words, yet another payoff for ACORN.
• Page 335: Government mandates establishment of outcome-based measures: i.e., rationing.
• Page 341: Government has authority to disqualify Medicare Advantage Plans, HMOs, etc.
• Page 354: Government will restrict enrollment of SPECIAL NEEDS individuals. • Page 379: More bureaucracy: Telehealth Advisory Committee (healthcare by phone).
• Page 425: More bureaucracy: Advance Care Planning Consult: Senior Citizens, assisted suicide, euthanasia?
• Page 425: Government will instruct and consult regarding living wills, durable powers of attorney, etc. Mandatory. Appears to lock in estate taxes ahead of time.
• Page 425: Goverment provides approved list of end-of-life resources, guiding you in death.
• Page 427: Government mandates program that orders end-of-life treatment; government dictates how your life ends.
• Page 429: Advance Care Planning Consult will be used to dictate treatment as patient's health deteriorates. This can include an ORDER for end-of-life plans. An ORDER from the GOVERNMENT.
• Page 430: Government will decide what level of treatments you may have at end-of-life.
• Page 469: Community-based Home Medical Services: more payoffs for ACORN.
• Page 472: Payments to Community-based organizations: more payoffs for ACORN.
• Page 489: Government will cover marriage and family therapy. Government intervenes in your marriage.
• Page 494: Government will cover mental health services: defining, creating and rationing those services. This is a frightening piece of legislation. If this passes the U.S. officially enters into an "Orwellian" state.
What if I don’t want a National Health ID card? And this is why Obama, Pelosi, Waxman, et al wanted to rush Obamacare through congress before anybody had a chance to read it.
1a)America Leaves Itself Behind: A world of trade deals without the U.S.
President Obama heads for Asia this week to talk about U.S. economic recovery and reform, and one theme that we expect he'll hear from Asian leaders is this: America is leaving itself behind as the rest of the world tries to liberalize trade.
The numbers tell the story. At least 266 bilateral or regional trade deals are in force, according to the World Trade Organization, and there are roughly 100 more of which the WTO has not yet been formally informed. The U.S. is a party to only five of the 64 trade pacts that have taken effect since 2005—with Australia, Morocco, Bahrain, Oman and Peru.
.In contrast, eight of those 64 deals involve the European Union (plus a round of EU expansion) and Japan has signed nine. Overall the U.S. has trade deals with only 17 countries including Canada and Mexico under Nafta. The EU has struck 29 deals on trade ranging from customs unions to larger free-trade agreements with 40 economies.
Of the deals the WTO knows about, an average of seven took effect each year in the five years after the WTO's founding in 1995. For 2004-2008, the annual average rose to 15. Another 12 have kicked in this year. New Zealand and Malaysia signed a pact last week, for instance, and China and India are in talks. Oh, and there's also the newly signed EU-Korea trade deal, and the one signed last year between Canada and Colombia.
These deals are proliferating for many reasons. Some countries are losing patience with the Doha round of global trade talks that has dragged on for eight years. Others view bilateral deals as a way of liberalizing beyond what Doha would accomplish—including areas like intellectual-property protection. These deals can also firm up alliances or build political influence, which is one reason China is aggressively pursuing trade deals with its neighbors.
The danger is that U.S. companies could find themselves on the wrong side of deals negotiated among other countries. The EU-South Korea pact, for example, will tear down almost all remaining tariff barriers between the two sides. It will also address such technical barriers as the excessive safety standards that Seoul has long used to block imports, and it will open Korea to European services. The U.S. has long tried to address these hurdles so American companies could gain better access to the world's 13th-largest economy. The EU is now beating Washington to the punch—largely by copying the trade deal the Bush Administration negotiated with Seoul but that Congress refuses to ratify.
The same holds for Canada's deal with Colombia. That deal eliminates Colombia's average 12% tariffs on nonagricultural goods from Canada; U.S. exporters will still have to pay those tariffs even as Colombians keep tariff-free access to the U.S. under an earlier agreement. Over time Canadian farmers will gain tariff-free access to Colombia for most of their agricultural exports while farmers in Iowa or Nebraska will be stuck with tariffs of between 5% and 80%.
Bilateral trade deals are far from ideal as a way to promote global growth. Far better for governments to lower their own trade barriers unilaterally to all comers, or for all governments to sign a multilateral deal like the Doha round. A complex web of bilateral and regional trade deals can saddle businesses with the costs of complying with multiple sets of rules. This "spaghetti bowl" approach also distorts economies to the extent that businesses make trade and investment decisions based more on where they can get trade preferences than on the highest return on capital.
But when the U.S. sits on the sidelines, the rest of the world is going to find its own trading way, however imperfect. The nearby table shows some of the benefits U.S. companies will be missing.
A start to getting the U.S. back in the game would be for Congress to ratify the pending deals with South Korea, Colombia and Panama. Mr. Obama and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk need to rethink their emphasis on trade "enforcement," which is code for introducing higher barriers, and instead renew the push for more deals. Mr. Obama could also become a leading voice pushing for progress on Doha. Especially as other countries expand their own trading opportunities, the costs of Washington dithering are growing every day.
2)Erdogan promises Iran Turkish intelligence aid against Israel
In the secret part of their talks in Tehran on Oct. 28, military sources reveal Turkish prime minister Tayyep Recep Erdogan and Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad struck military cooperation deals which promised Iran Turkish military intelligence and air force assistance against a possible Israeli attack on its nuclear sites.
Their understandings have bound Turkish to pass intelligence data to Tehran on potential Israeli preparations for a strike and on US military movements in the Middle East for providing backup. Sources report that the details finalized in meetings between the Turkish and Iranian military specialists in Istanbul Monday, Nov. 9, were due to be sealed by presidents Abdullah Gul and Ahmadinejad Tuesday. The Iranian president is to be in Turkey as guest of the Islamic Conference.
The Turkish prime minister has not only buried his country's longstanding military and intelligence ties with Israel but climbed aboard the adversarial axis confronting the Jewish state. Turkey has agreed to round out the forward surveillance outposts encircling Israel's borders: Hamas from the southwest in Gaza, Syria in the east, Lebanon in the north and now Turkey from the northwest. Tehran is banking on this encirclement for early warning of an approaching Israeli strike and any supportive American movements.
According to Western intelligence sources in Ankara, heads of the Turkish army objected to their government's strategic turn to Iran and the cutoff of its ties with Israel. However its pro-Islamic leaders, which have gradually eased the army out of policymaking, have forced them to accept operational ties with the military of an anti-Western Middle Eastern nation as being in the nation's best interests.
Erdogan's most compelling argument is that President Barack Obama's secret proposal for Iran to deposit 400 kilos of its enriched Iran in Turkey for safekeeping in charge of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, had elevated Turkey to an enhanced role as a broker between the US and Iran, sanctioned by Agency director Mohamed ElBaradei. If Turkey, a member of NATO, was able to gain the Iranian regime's trust, the Turkish prime minister maintained, it was only thanks to the military understandings he reached in Tehran.
Military sources report that word of the Turkish-Iranian military collaboration deal landed with shocking effect in Washington and Jerusalem. They had not forewarned by their intelligence services that Erdogan was willing to go as far as this to ally
3)Egalitarian Syndrome
By Professor Paul Eidelberg
A propos of the Muslim massacre at Fort Hood and the media’s failure to fault Islam for this massacre, I am updating an 1999 article of mine. I invite readers to think about the educators
We boast of these universities, even though they produce so many moral idiots. I mean men and women stultified by the academic doctrine of moral or cultural relativism. Because it is this doctrine that prompts “politically correct” fools to hire Muslims to serve on US military bases and even head the US Department of Homeland Security. I am speaking of a doctrine that has corrupted even the President of the United States, a doctine that prompts him to turn a blind eye toward Muslims or Arabs who call “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”
What is even more fundamental, I invite readers to think about the normless democracy now prevalent in the United States, a democracy whose cardinal principles, equality and freedom, no longer have rational and ethical constraints. America is so proud of this democracy, not knowing it is self-destructing vis-à-vis a religion whose deity exalts death.
This said, I turn to the article I wrote in 1999, whose philosophical source is my critique of the American education which appeared in the Congressional Record, Senate July 31, 1968.
Some 1.25 million Arabs are citizens of Israel. Most deny Israel’s right to exist as a sovereign Jewish state. These Arabs do not suffer from the egalitarian syndrome that dominates Israel’s Jewish elites.
The egalitarian syndrome – I have elsewhere called it “demophrenia” – has not been studied by modern psychology. This democratic syndrome impairs the ability to make moral judgments and to use political authority with a good conscience. It makes the use of might in defense of right suspect in the minds of egalitarians. Those infected by this mental deficiency are prone to political paralysis when confronted by threats requiring them to assert themselves or to use power over others. Recall how the Shamir Government was incapable of using adequate force to suppress the intifada. The egalitarian syndrome led to Oslo.
Some will object by saying the Government of Israel is afraid of adverse world opinion. But fear of world opinion is itself symptom of the egalitarian syndrome. When Arabs screamed “Slaughter the Jews!” they didn’t give a hoot for world opinion, and precisely because their immunity system has not been impaired by the egalitarian syndrome.
The egalitarian syndrome stupefies the mind; it destroys moral outrage and honor. This is why Israeli prime ministers released and armed Arab terrorists, i.e., experienced Jew-killers, to provide for Israel’s security! We have here a profound mental disorder. One wonders why psychiatrists haven’t flocked to Israel to study this unique phenomenon.
Those afflicted by the egalitarian syndrome tend to disregard the implacable hostility of Muslims toward Israel. This has inhibited Israeli governments from exercising Jewish sovereignty over Judea and Samaria. Such is the influence of the egalitarian syndrome that even the Likud has accommodated itself to “Post-Zionism”! One may even say that the Right has ceased to exist in Israel as a political force.
To be sure, the most intractable strain of the egalitarian syndrome will be among left-wingers, Israel’s blind-deaf-mutes par excellence. Their thoughts and attitude toward the Arab-Jewish conflict are colored by the Marxist notion that human conflict is rooted not in some defect of human nature, such as the lust for wealth or power, but rather in the penury of nature at large. Nature is miserly: it does not provide enough for human needs.
Hence, to overcome human conflict, it is not necessary to perfect human nature, but to conquer external nature, that is, to overcome the economic scarcity and inequality that drives men and nations to war. [Enter Barack Obama and Binyamin Netanyahu.] and of course modern science and technology now make the idyllic state of universal peace possible, beginning, of all places, in the Middle East!
In other words, if all Arabs had indoor toilets and washing machines, VCRs and Volvos, PCs and Internet, that would mark the end of the Arab-Jewish conflict. Or so many leftists suggest. [I have personally heard the equivalent even from the lips of Netanyahu!]
Despite their “sophistication,” these egalitarians do not and cannot take Islam seriously. Like Marxists, they regard ideologies as the “superstructure” of material forces. Change the economic or technological infrastructure of the Arabs and their thoughts and attitudes about war and Israel will change correspondingly. In other words, Mus=ims can be bought.
The egalitarian syndrome—a c=nsequence of moral relativism—closes the mind to the malevolence and violence permeating the ethos of Islam. This syndrome cannot be overcome by logic=or even by empirical evidence. The West needs to overcome its relativism; i= must drastically reform non-judgmental social sciences and humanities. This requires nothing less than a political revolution: a transformation from a normless to a normative democracy, one whose government is not silent about evil and ready to act vigorously against it.
3a)Common Sense Says Major Hasan Was a Terrorist
By Ed Koch
The U.S. Army and President Barack Obama are understandably seeking desperately to prevent U.S. public opinion from reaching any conclusion with respect to the motive of Major Nidal Malik Hasan who killed 12 soldiers and one civilian, and wounded 28 soldiers and one civilian last week at Fort Hood in Texas. In the court of public opinion, subject to change based on hearings to be conducted on the subject by U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman, Major Hasan has been found guilty of engaging in a terrorist act. Many factors have brought the public to that conclusion.
According to The Wall Street Journal of November 9: "Maj. Hasan, a U.S.-born Muslim of Jordanian and Palestinian ancestry, was slated to deploy to Afghanistan in November. Some witnesses told investigators that he shouted 'Allahu Akbar,' Arabic for 'God is great,' before he opened fire on the unarmed soldiers waiting for medical treatment Thursday." That is often the cry of Muslim suicide bombers.
The New York Times of November 9, in examining the actions of Major Hasan, provided the following description regarding what took place after he entered the hall where he began shooting.
"He bowed his head for several seconds, as if praying, stood up and drew a high-powered pistol. 'Allahu akbar,' he said - 'God is great.' And he opened fire. Within minutes he had killed 13 people."
"Major Hasan bought the gun used in the massacre last summer, days after arriving at Fort Hood."
"In recent years, he had grown more and more vocal about his opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and tortured over reconciling his military duties with his religion."
"He complained bitterly to people at his mosque about the oppression of Muslims in the Army."
"Around 2004, Major Hasan started feeling disgruntled about the Army, relatives said. He described anti-Muslim harassment and sought legal advice, possibly from an Army lawyer, abut getting a discharge."
"Federal authorities were looking into whether there was any interaction between Mr. Hasan and an American-born imam known for giving fiery speeches at a mosque in Northern Virginia that Mr. Hasan attended in 2001. Mr. Hasan attended the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va., when Anwar Al-Awlaki was the imam there, but it is not clear what influence Mr. Awlaki's rhetoric may have had on Mr. Hasan. "
"During his time at Walter Reed and the uniformed Services University, Major Hasan also became increasingly vocal in his opposition to the wars. He knew much about the harsh realities of combat from having counseled returning soldiers, and he was deeply concerned about having to deploy. But over the past five years, he also began openly opposing the wars on religious grounds."
"A former classmate in the master's degree program said Major Hasan gave a PowerPoint presentation about a year ago in an environmental health seminar titled, 'Why the War on Terror Is a War on Islam.'"
"But he was still wrestling with the quandary of being a Muslim officer in an Army fighting other Muslims. He invited Osman Danquah, the co-founder of the mosque, to dinner at Ryan's restaurant and asked him how he should counsel young Muslim soldiers who might have objections to the war."
"The night before the shooting, he had dinner with Mr. Reasoner and said he felt that he should not go to Afghanistan. 'He felt he was supposed to quit,' Mr. Reasoner said. 'In the Koran, it says you are not supposed to have alliances with Jews or Christians, and if you are killed in the military fighting against Muslims, you will go to hell.'"
I believe the burden of proof has shifted to those in and out of government who believe the public should withhold its opinion on whether Hasan was a terrorist or simply deranged. I have concluded that he was a terrorist.
I also believe that the U.S. Army should allow Muslims, who consider fighting other Muslims a violation of their religious beliefs, to opt out and be sent to other regions and combat zones. In Word War II, I believe Japanese American soldiers were sent to the European Theater of Operations. It is noteworthy that Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran have no religious problem in killing each other. They do it every day, sadly in large numbers. Muslim women and children are also injured and killed by Muslim suicide bombers entering local markets before blowing up themselves to wreak the most havoc.
The eight-year war between Iraq and Iran left an estimated million deaths and serious injuries. Sunni killed Shiites and Shiites killed Sunnis. They also killed one another on holy Muslim holidays like Ramadan while western countries like the U.S. and Great Britain were importuned to delay their attacks out of respect for Ramadan.
The Times of November 10 pointed out:
"The imam whom Major Hasan made contact with is an American citizen born in New Mexico to Yemeni parents. He wrote on Monday on his English-language Web site that Major Hasan was 'a hero.' The cleric said, 'He is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people'"
Finally, the same Times article made the point that the radical imam lied with his comments on prior terrorist acts:
"After the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Awlaki was quoted as disapproving of such violence and was portrayed as a moderate figure who might provide a bridge between Islam and Western democracies. But since leaving the United States in 2002 for London and later Yemen, Mr. Awlaki has become, through his Web site, www.anwar-alawlaki.com, a prominent proponent of militant Islam."
He surely is not the only terrorist to similarly so lie.
U.S. public opinion is far too intelligent to jump to a conclusion, but it is also intelligent enough to understand when it is being conned by our own government.
It seems to me that political correctness has reached the point where the FBI and the U.S. Army have allowed it to influence their investigations in life and death situations.
Ed Koch is the former Mayor of New York City.
4)Netanyahu to Sarkozy: Immediate talks with Syria
After Paris meeting, Israeli, French leaders say they agreed to 'deploy all efforts' toward 'immediately reviving the peace process'; also discuss Iranian nuclear program.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have tried to find ways to revive Mideast peace efforts but announced no progress on their differences over Jewish settlements.
During the meeting Netanyahu reportedly told Sarkozy that Israel was willing to launch immediate peace negotiations with Syria with no preconditions.
The two leaders met for more than an hour and a half in Paris on Wednesday. When they emerged, they shook hands but did not speak to reporters.
In a joint statement, they said they "agreed to deploy all efforts" toward "immediately reviving the peace process."
They also discussed international efforts to stop Iran's nuclear program, and Netanyahu lauded France's firm position on Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
A member of Netanyahu's entourage called the meeting "warm and cordial," adding that the Israeli PM briefed Sarkozy on his recent meeting with US President Barack Obama and the efforts to jumpstart the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.
Earlier Wednesday, Netanyahu met with French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde and suggested that Israel and France cooperate on two main issues: Solar energy and water desalination.
The PM is not scheduled to meet with Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, but members of his entourage stressed that this is not indicative of strained relations between the two, adding that they are expected to meet during Kouchner's trip to Israel next week.
On Tuesday Kouchner said France fears that Israel no longer desires a Middle East peace deal, adding that Paris remained deeply opposed to Jewish settlement building in the West Bank.
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