Life of the party!Also seems like Tiger Woods has been defanged. Yes, sports figures are human, some more than others but it is a shame for young people who idolize them to see them fall. All idols have clay feet and lately we have had our share of those who have fallen off their pedestals the world of from sports, moviedom, finance and politics. If the transgressions of those who have strayed reflect our sinking culture and our declining values then very little is believable and we can start with our 'green' giant scientists who no longer appear very jolly.
The president of the United States is a father figure, as it were, and of late we have had a bunch of liars occupying the office so I guess what goes around comes around.
I have always considered my word is my bond and I have always tried to live up to that concept. Pressures are great the higher up you rise on the ladder. So I guess, covering your a-- becomes almost an absolute act of necessity but is seldom works and then you have to live with yourself if you have a conscience.
I wrote previously that we would get to this point and that a health care bill would find its way to Obama's desk. It is critical for Democrats to show something for all their efforts and spending so bend over America. (See 1 below.)
If Cpl. Shalit and a prisoner swap takes place will there be a subsequent blow-up? (See 2 below.)
Has Lebanon become a terrorist state? Most likely the answer is yes. (See 3 below.)
Not wishing to beat a dead horse but just a few more diverse comments regarding Obama and Afghanistan. (See 4 below.)
Dick
1).ObamaCare at Any Cost:A bill that raises prices but lowers costs, and other miracles.
We have now reached the stage of the health-care debate when all that matters is getting a bill passed, so all news is good news, more subsidies mean lower deficits, and more expensive insurance is really cheaper insurance. The nonpolitical mind reels.
Consider how Washington received the Congressional Budget Office's study Monday of how Harry Reid's Senate bill will affect insurance costs, which by any rational measure ought to have been a disaster for the bill. CBO found that premiums in the individual market will rise by 10% to 13% more than if Congress did nothing. Family policies under the status quo are projected to cost $13,100 on average, but under ObamaCare will jump to $15,200.
Fabulous news!
"No Big Cost Rise in U.S. Premiums Is Seen in Study," said the New York Times, while the Washington Post declared, "Senate Health Bill Gets a Boost." The White House crowed that the CBO report was "more good news about what reform will mean for families struggling to keep up with skyrocketing premiums under the broken status quo."
Finance Chairman Max Baucus chimed in from the Senate floor that "Health-care reform is fundamentally about lowering health-care costs. Lowering costs is what health-care reform is designed to do, lowering costs; and it will achieve this objective."
Except it won't. CBO says it expects employer-sponsored insurance costs to remain roughly in line with the status quo, yet even this is a failure by Mr. Baucus's and the White House's own standards. Meanwhile, fixing the individual market—which is expensive and unstable largely because it does not enjoy the favorable tax treatment given to job-based coverage—was supposed to be the whole purpose of "reform."
Instead, CBO is confirming that new coverage mandates will drive premiums higher. But Democrats are declaring victory, claiming that these higher insurance prices don't count because they will be offset by new government subsidies. About 57% of the people who buy insurance through the bill's new "exchanges" that will supplant today's individual market will qualify for subsidies that cover about two-thirds of the total premium.
So the bill will increase costs but it will then disguise those costs by transferring them to taxpayers from individuals. Higher costs can be conjured away because they're suddenly on the government balance sheet. The Reid bill's $371.9 billion in new health taxes are also apparently not a new cost because they can be passed along to consumers, or perhaps will be hidden in lost wages.
This is the paleoliberal school of brute-force wealth redistribution, and a very long way from the repeated White House claims that reform is all about "bending the cost curve." The only thing being bent here is the budget truth.
Moreover, CBO is almost certainly underestimating the cost increases. Based on its county-by-county actuarial data, the insurer WellPoint has calculated that Mr. Baucus's bill would cause some premiums to triple in the individual market. The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association came to similar conclusions.
One reason is community rating, which forces insurers to charge nearly uniform rates regardless of customer health status or habits. CBO doesn't think this will have much of an effect, but costs inevitably rise when insurers aren't allowed to price based on risk. This is why today some 35 states impose no limits on premium variation and six allow wide differences among consumers.
The White House decided to shoot messengers like WellPoint to avoid rebutting their message. But Amanda Kowalski of MIT, William Congdon of the Brookings Institution and Mark Showalter of Brigham Young have found similar results. In a 2008 paper in the peer-reviewed Forum for Health Economics and Policy, these economists found that state community rating laws raise premiums in the individual market by 20.9% to 33.1% for families and 10.2% to 17.1% for singles. In New Jersey, which also requires insurers to accept all comers (so-called guaranteed issue), premiums increased by as much as 227%.
The political tragedy is that there are plenty of reform alternatives that really would reduce the cost of insurance. According to CBO, the relatively modest House GOP bill would actually reduce premiums by 5% to 8% in the individual market in 2016, and by 7% to 10% for small businesses. The GOP reforms would also do so without imposing huge new taxes.
But Democrats don't care because their bill isn't really about "lowering costs." It's about putting Washington in charge of health insurance, at any cost.
2) Hamas readies anti-Israel suicide terror to follow prisoner swap
Information has reached counter-terror sources Wednesday, Dec. 2, of the discovery by Egyptian intelligence and security units of a large cache of bomb vests and 15-kilo explosive devices - some with built-in detonators, others attached to timers - in the Gaza-Egyptian border town of Rafah. They were smuggled out of the Gaza Strip to be carried through Sinai and across the Egyptian border into Israel, for suicide bombers to pick up and launch attacks directly after the prisoner swap was completed.
3)Washington Watch: Is Lebanon becoming a terrorist state?
BY Douglas Bloomfield
When Lebanon's President Michel Suleiman comes to Washington next week, he plans to ask for increased military aid for a government that just gave a terrorist group responsible for killing hundreds of Americans free rein to wage war on Israel.
His government last week granted Hizbullah, the Shi'ite group that the US and most Western nations consider a terrorist organization, the right to "liberate occupied territories" - read Israel - as it wishes.
The Lebanese Forces and the Phalange Party say this is tantamount to granting the Iranian ally separate and independent status from the state in violation of the Lebanese constitution and the Taif Accords which ended the Lebanese civil war. Some Christian ministers expressed fear that giving such authority to Hizbullah could reignite civil conflict.
The move effectively hands over to a terrorist organization what should be any legitimate government's monopoly on deciding when and whether to wage war.
In actuality, Hizbullah's military forces are stronger than the Lebanese army and reportedly claim the loyalty of many in the army itself.
Any hope that US help in arming the Lebanese army would enable it to stand up to Hizbullah went out the window with this latest action, and virtually assures Hizbullah access to any American weapons and training provided the army.
This summer, the US sold Lebanon eight rubber Zodiac boats. That may sound insignificant, but that's the boat favored by Palestinian terrorists who have made commando raids on Israeli shores, by the Mumbai attackers last year, by Iranians to attack tankers in the Gulf and by Somali pirates. In today's Lebanon, there would be no way to keep them out of Hizbullah's "navy." It not as though Hizbullah needs American arms.
Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah announced Monday that not only isn't his group disarming but it intends to improve and expand its arsenal, which he boasted has tens of thousands of rockets. The IDF estimates the group has more than 40,000, triple its prewar inventory, many now capable of hitting Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and beyond. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said that "dwarfs the inventory of many nation-states." Most are coming from Iran, Syria and North Korea, in violation of UN resolutions. Israel recently intercepted a ship, the Francop, with some 500 tons of weapons and ammunition bound from Iran via Syria for Hizbullah.
This surrender of power to Hizbullah brought renewed Israeli warnings that it will hold the Lebanese government directly responsible for any attack by Hizbullah from Lebanese soil. Defense Minister Ehud Barak said last week that if Hizbullah attacks Israel, "our target will be the state of Lebanon." "We will not hold back." warned Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
Western-backed Prime Minister Saad Hariri, presiding over a weak coalition in which the Hizbullah-led minority has a virtual veto, knew that if he didn't give in to the militants' demands it probably could take over by force.
His government's surrender violates two UN Security Council resolutions, one that led to the ouster of Syrian forces following Damascus' implication in the 2005 assassination of his father, former prime minister Rafik Hariri, and the other ending the 2006 war with Israel.
Under those measures, all militias were to be disbanded and disarmed - a clearly intended reference to Hizbullah. Hariri's surrender to Hizbullah could potentially land Lebanon on the State Department's terrorism list, according to an expert who had a hand in drafting that law.
Until now "Lebanon has gotten a pass" because various Palestinian groups controlled areas beyond the government's reach, but since "Hizbullah became part of the government" things have changed and "one could make a good argument for the designation," said this source.
Criteria for being listed include providing terrorists and terror groups sanctuary from extradition or prosecution, headquarters and diplomatic cover. Lebanon appears to qualify.
It won't happen now, but President Barack
Obama and Congress should put the Lebanese leader on notice that the option is open if his government fails to control Hizbullah, whose leader this week called the US "the source of every terrorism in the world." Hizbullah has made no secret of its goal to establish Islamic law in Lebanon, the most Western and secular of Arab states, preferably through democratic means but by force if necessary.
The threat of cutting off aid and winding up on the terror list may be just the kind of pressure needed to strengthen those forces inside the country who want to break away from the terrorists and their sponsors and return Lebanon to the Lebanese people.
For now, Nasrallah, who has the power to take Lebanon to war, is the de facto leader of Lebanon, not the elected government, and he is calling on all countries to join with him to "liberate Jerusalem."
4) This Will Not End Well - George Will, Washington Post
Obama Offers Right Choice in Difficult Situation - Steve Coll, New Yorker
The President's Afghan Strategy Isn't Logical - Bob Schieffer, CBS News
How Dare Obama Ask Men to Die for a Half Measure - Charles Hurt, NYP
Cheney's Sniping Only Masks Bush Failures - Celestine Bohlen, Bloomberg
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