Perhaps the job of president is beyond the scope of any mortal but at least we should learn from this tragedy that experience does count for something and stylized campaign rhetoric should be taken with a grain of salt and viewed through a prism of cynicism.
It is one thing to be another "faded European power." It is another to be the leader of the world. The two demand totally different qualities of leadership.
Merkel and Germany are slowly slipping into Russia's orbit.
Spain, Portugal, The Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Norway and Finland have no more clout than bankrupt California and are about as Socialistic.
France is a shadow of its former glory.
Britain at least adheres to its traditional values but lacks size and economic clout.
Poland and the other former European Russian satellites understand what it means to lose freedom but cannot do more than stand as a mirror.
That leaves The United States which, without competent leadership, reveals itself both rudderless and exhausted.
We are witnessing a confused president who spent his first two years being critical of his predecessor yet followed virtually every one of his policies after being rebuffed doing it his way - from Guantanamo to interceding in Palestinian-Israeli negotiations to fighting Middle East wars of his own choosing, ie. Afghanistan.
If I have overstated the case please guide me through the Obama swamp in which I find myself. Obama has proven once again POGO was right - the enemy is us because we fell for another 'slick talker.' Given the choice we had perhaps it was inevitable.
About a year ago Sam Nunn responded to a letter I wrote him inquiring whether he was contemplating running and he said he had not taken the idea off the table which I interpreted to mean he would not. He then discussed the nominating insanity of allowing small populated states to determine our primary candidates, ie. Iowa, New Hampshire etc.. Sam is on to something.
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Bernanke remains in charge and is now presiding over what he wanted - apparently rising rates, more inflation and driving those dependent upon income into more risky investments. No Fed Chairman has actually been able to bring about a soft landing. Will Bernanke be the first to beat the odds?(See 1 below.)
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Muslim Brotherhood - the peaceful organization that simply wants to deliver food to the needy and eliminate Israel in their spare time.
Today, relative to the rioting in Egypt, we are hearing a lot about the Muslim Brotherhood.
A number of Middle East experts, government officials, media figures and ex-diplomats reassure us that the Brotherhood is not to be feared as it has renounced the use of terror to re-establish the Caliphate and impose Shariah law.
Read this report and you will see while they have renounced terror...at least here in North America... they have certainly not given up on their goal of conquering the U.S. Below is only a partial list of groups they control. Reportedly, they have spawned, control and/or influence over 70 front groups in the U.S.
I have mentioned, on many occasions, the warning Dr. Ellen Cannon gave over seven years ago when we attended a group meeting at which she spoke. Her message was simple and direct: ' radicals within the Muslim community would use our freedoms to destroy our freedoms.'
I submit the Muslim Brotherhood has become the new Fifth Column in our nation.(See 2 and 2a below.)
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Alabama boy, Jim Rogers, now living in Asia and educating his children there, sees surge in commodity prices. (See 3 below.)
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Disconnecting Israel from the problems Arabs/Muslims have with other Arabs/Muslims. (See 4 below.)
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Obama failed to correctly read the mood of American voters yet he seems to know more about Egyptians than Mubarak. (See 5 below.)
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Daniel Pipes on Egypt. (See 6 below.)
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After you read sections of 'Obamascare" maybe Mubarak doesn't look so bad after all. (See 7 below.)
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Dick
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1)We're Inching Closer to the Breaking Point
By Jeff Clark
Interest rates rallied to a new 10-month high yesterday. The yield on the 30-year Treasury bond surged to 4.64% – breaking above its December high and beginning a new move higher. Here's an updated look at the chart…
Remember, as interest rates move higher, bond prices move lower. So, just about everyone who bought long-term bonds in the past two years is now underwater on the trade. This includes mom and pop investors who piled into the long bond at record-low interest rates last August; foreign countries like China and Japan, which need to do something with their trade surplus dollars; and our own Federal Reserve.
Think about this… not only is our government running trillion-dollar deficits because the fools in Washington can't stop spending, but the Fed – through its quantitative easing program – is investing the borrowed money in our very own Treasury bonds, which are losing value almost daily.
Borrowing money to buy bad investments is not the path to prosperity.
Yet the stock market doesn't care. The S&P 500 closed at a new 52-week high on Tuesday. It's up 3% so far in 2011, and up 15% since long-term interest rates started to rise last September.
"You have to be bullish," argues the ever-growing chorus of cheerleaders on the financial networks. "The Fed is on our side," they shout, "and it's the third year of the presidential cycle."
I can't really argue with that last point. Stocks do have an uncanny knack for moving higher during the third year of a president's term. In fact, as my colleague Steve Sjuggerud recently pointed out, stocks have gone up every third year of a presidential election cycle by an average of 22% since 1940.
So, I have to concede stocks will likely close December 31, 2011 higher than where they opened on January 1. It's the time in between that worries me.
You see, there were two other times in my career when long-term interest rates rose dramatically. Both occurred during the third year of a presidential election cycle. One was in 1999, when the yield on the 20-year Treasury bond rose 21% between April and December. Stocks peaked three months later.
The other time was in 1987. The 30-year yield rose 21% between April and August. The stock market crashed two months later.
A similar rise this time would put the 30-year yield somewhere around 4.90%. That's the breaking point in my book. And we're slowly inching closer toward it.
Go ahead and play in the stock market if you must. It has defied gravity and a host of technical indicators that have kept me cautious. But keep an eye on the 30-year Treasury yield. If it pops above 4.90%, it will equal the moves we saw in interest rates back in 1999 and 1987. Both periods were followed by sharply lower stock prices.
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2)THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD'S "GENERAL STRATEGIC GOAL" FOR NORTH AMERICA
In July 2007, seven key leaders of an Islamic charity known as the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) went on trial for (and were found guilty of) charges that they had: (a) provided "material support and resources" to a foreign terrorist organization...namely Hamas, (b) engaged in money laundering; and (c) breached the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which prohibits transactions that threaten American national security.
Along with the seven named defendants, the U.S. government released a list of approximately 300 "unindicted co-conspirators" and "joint venturers." During the course of the HLF trial, many incriminating documents were entered into evidence. Perhaps the most significant of these was " An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America" by the Muslim Brotherhood operative Mohamed Akram.
Written sometime in 1987 but not formally published until May 22, 1991, this 18-page document listed the Brotherhood’s 29 like-minded "organizations of our friends" that shared the common goal of dismantling American institutions and turning the U.S. into a Muslim nation. These "friends" were identified by Akram and the Brotherhood as groups that could help convince Muslims "that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands ... so that ... "God's religion [Islam] is made victorious over all other religions."
Akram was well aware that in the U.S., it would be extremely difficult to promote Islam by means of terror attacks. Thus the “grand jihad” that he and his Brotherhood comrades envisioned was not a violent one involving bombings and shootings, but rather a stealth (or "soft") jihad aimed at imposing Islamic Law (Sharia) over every region of the earth by incremental, non-confrontational means, such as working to “expand the observant Muslim base”; to “unif[y] and direc[t] Muslims' efforts”; and to “present Islam as a civilization alternative.” At its heart, Akram's document details a plan to conquer and Islamize the United States – not as an ultimate objective, but merely as a stepping stone toward the larger goal of one day creating “the global Islamic state."
In line with this objective, Akram and the Brotherhood resolved to "settle" Islam and the Islamic movement within the United States, so that the Muslim religion could be "enabled within the souls, minds and the lives of the people of the country.” Akram explained that this could be accomplished “through the establishment of firmly-rooted organizations on whose bases civilization, structure and testimony are built.” He urged Muslim leaders to make “a shift from the collision mentality to the absorption mentality,” meaning that they should abandon any tactics involving defiance or confrontation, and seek instead to implant into the larger society a host of seemingly benign Islamic groups with ostensibly unobjectionable motives; once those groups had gained a measure of public acceptance, they would be in a position to more effectively promote societal transformation by the old Communist technique of “boring from within.”
“The heart and the core” of this strategy, said Akram, was contingent upon these groups' ability to develop “a mastery of the art of 'coalitions.'” That is, by working synergistically they could complement, augment, and amplify one another's efforts. Added Akram: “The big challenge that is ahead of us is how to turn these seeds or 'scattered' elements into comprehensive, stable, 'settled' organizations that are connected with our Movement and which fly in our orbit and take orders from our guidance.” The ultimate objective was not only an enlarged Muslim presence, but also implementation of the Brotherhood objectives of transforming pluralistic societies, particularly America, into Islamic states, and sweeping away Western notions of legal equality, freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, and freedom of speech.
Akram and the Brotherhood understood that in order to succeed in this endeavor, they needed to appeal to different strata of the American population in different ways; that whereas some people could be influenced by messages delivered from a religious perspective, others would be more responsive to messages delivered by educators, or bankers, or political figures, or journalists, etc. Thus, Akram's blueprint for the advancement of the Islamic movement stressed the need to form a coalition of groups coming from the worlds of education; religious proselytization; political activism; audio and video production; print media; banking and finance; the physical sciences; the social sciences; professional and business networking; cultural affairs; the publishing and distribution of books; children and teenagers; women's rights; vocational concerns; and jurisprudence.
By promoting the Islamic movement on such a wide variety of fronts, the Brotherhood and its allies could multiply exponentially their influence. Toward that end, the Akram/Brotherhood “Explanatory Memorandum " named the following 29 groups as the organizations they believed could collaborate effectively to destroy America from within – “if they all march according to one plan”:
Islamic Society of North America (ISNA)
ISNA Fiqh Committee (now known as the Fiqh Council of North America)
ISNA Political Awareness Committee
Muslim Youth of North America
Muslim Students Association of the U.S. and Canada
Association of Muslim Scientists and Engineers
Islamic Medical Association (of North America)
Islamic Teaching Center
Malaysian Islamic Study Group
Foundation for International Development
North American Islamic Trust
Islamic Centers Division
American Trust Publications
Audio-Visual Center
Islamic Book Service
Islamic Circle of North America
Muslim Arab Youth Association
Islamic Association for Palestine
United Association for Studies and Research
International Institute of Islamic Thought
Muslim Communities Association
Association of Muslim Social Scientists (of North America)
Islamic Housing Cooperative
Muslim Businessmen Association
Islamic Education Department
Occupied Land Fund (later known as the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development)
Mercy International Association
Baitul Mal Inc.
Islamic Information Center (of America)
2a)Islam on Its Own Terms
By Jack Kerwick
Philosopher and historian of science Thomas Kuhn is among the more notable proponents of the view that "facts" are always laden with theoretical presuppositions. This may be an exaggeration, but there is nothing like commentary on Middle Eastern affairs to show that it is not devoid of truth.
Almost everyone on the left, and some on the right, insist that Islamic hostilities toward America stem from America's support of the state of Israel. That is, ultimately, it is the existence of Israel that accounts for why Muslims throughout the Middle East (and elsewhere) hate us. For the leftist, however, Israel is just the latest chapter in a long history of "oppression" that Muslims -- "people of color" -- have experienced for over a millennium.
The conventional wisdom among establishment Republicans is that Islamic aggression toward America is due solely to "the radical Islamists'" contempt for "our freedoms," a disdain born of an ignorance to which "the democratization" of the Islamic world would be an antidote. Within recent days, much of the Republican commentary on Egypt has reflected this bias.
These competing positions on the question of the West's relationship to Islam are as long on ideology as they are short on reality, for they each fail to take seriously the elephant in the room: Islam.
It isn't that they are wrong, necessarily. There can be no question that legions of Muslims resent the existence of Israel -- and the support that the latter receives from the United States. It is also doubtless correct that similar numbers of Muslims despise the cultural and political arrangements of America and the West. But because neither view recognizes the other, what truth each possesses is obscured.
It doesn't require much familiarity with the Islamic tradition, and the Quran in particular, to discover that Islam is an intrinsically militant religion. It demands even less familiarity with the contemporary experience of Muslims throughout the world to realize that true Islam calls on its adherents to conquer, or destroy, all non-Muslims.
I will not embark upon the enterprise -- well-accomplished by now, thanks to such brave souls as Robert Spencer, Brigitte Gabriel, and others -- of quoting the many passages from the Quran that substantiate this point. But however unpleasant a thought this may be, it is a reality.
Anyone seriously concerned with coming to terms with "the nature of our enemy" must give up all of this silly talk of "Islamofascists," "Islamonazis," "Islamists," "radical Muslims," and "Islamic extremists." The "enemy" -- and anyone who looks upon me as an "infidel" to be converted or killed I do indeed consider my enemy -- is the orthodox Muslim. America and the West are in conflict with "Quranic literalists" -- or "Islamic fundamentalists," if you will -- and no one else.
Interestingly, in refusing to take the Islamic fundamentalist at his word, the leftist betrays his own "Eurocentrism" -- those parochial proclivities that he deplores in others -- for he judges Muslims not by their own standards, by his own.
Self-avowed "conservatives," on the other hand, are no less guilty of contradicting themselves. In staunch contrast to their leftist counterparts, conservatives have always been keenly aware of the fact that culture is fundamentally, ultimately more important to human life than politics. To borrow the Marxist's idiom, culture is "the substructure," politics "the superstructure." Yet in ignoring the "second nature" with which the religion of Islam has clothed the inhabitants of the Islamic world, in treating the problems of the Middle East as if they were primarily a matter of political arrangements, "the conservative" has betrayed his own position.
If we really want to take our situation seriously, it is high time that we left ideology behind.
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3)Jim Rogers: Commodities to Surge as Unrest Spreads
By Forrest Jones
More social unrest in Egypt and elsewhere is on the way, which is bullish for commodities, says investor guru Jim Rogers.
Currencies, meanwhile, will stay in turmoil, which should also bring out the commodities bulls, Rogers tells CNBC.
"I don't own very many equities," says Rogers, who co-founded the Quantum Fund with billionaire George Soros in the 1970s.
"I don't know what's going to happen but I expect more currencies turmoil, more social unrest, more governments collapsing so I invest more in currencies and commodities than stock," he said.
Food shortages meanwhile will make agricultural commodities rise even more.
"You don't just snap your fingers and have palm oil, all this takes time."
Popular uprisings have toppled governments in Tunisia and Egypt in part due to high food prices.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has said he will not seek reelection later this year in wake of the massive protests, yet unrest continues there.
Investors often buy commodities such as oil, metals or agricultural products amid such uncertainty.
Global economic recovery is also helping, pushing commodities up for a fifth straight month in January, the longest rally since March 2000, Bloomberg reports.
Wheat, cotton, copper, oil and hogs have all seen price hikes recently.
"You got things really accelerating on the demand side of the equation, and there continues to be some supply constraints," James Dailey, who manages $185 million at TEAM Financial Asset Management in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, tells Bloomberg.
"The monetary backdrop is like adding lighter fluid to the fire.
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4)Arab Protests and Israel
By Yoel Meltzer
With the recent dramatic events in Tunisia triggering public demonstrations in several countries throughout the Arab world, there is anticipation that perhaps a real change is finally coming to this troubled region. In an area of the world known for brutal and repressive leaders, minimal freedom of expression, extreme poverty, and state corruption, any change for the good would certainly be welcomed.
However, before all the area analysts and political pundits rush to declare that a new epoch is upon us, a word of caution is due. Although the current demonstrations are unique in that they are occurring concomitantly in several Arab countries, the fact is that the region has a history of events that started positively only to end disappointingly. A few examples should suffice.
For starters, there were the massive strikes and demonstrations throughout Iran in the late 1970s against the leader of the Iranian monarchy, the western-backed shah. Although viewed abroad in a favorable light for promoting secularization and modernization, internally, the shah and his regime was considered corrupt and oppressive. The protests succeeded in ousting the despised shah, something truly positive for the citizens of Iran. However, the joy proved to be short-lived as the Ayatollah Khomeini came to power in place of the deposed shah. Thirty years later, the country, the region, and the world are still being negatively influenced by these turn of events.
Farther west, there was the case of Algeria, where economic woes and years of little or no political freedom led to protests throughout the country in the late 1980s and early 1990s. These in turn forced the ruling regime to permit the formation of new political parties and the holding of real democratic elections. Although such elections were exactly what the Western world wanted, the results were not. After easily sweeping the local elections and then the first round of the parliamentary elections, the main Islamic party, the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), was poised to win the final round and take control of the government. However, being fearful of the intentions of the FIS, the military stepped in, seized power, and promptly canceled the election process. This was followed by arrests and crackdowns against the Islamists, which in turn led to a brutal and grotesque ten-year civil war.
Closer to home, most of the world felt a deep sense of satisfaction when roughly five years ago the Arabs agreed to hold real democratic elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council, or Parliament, of the Palestinian National Authority. However, the smiles quickly faded as the voters of Gaza provided Hamas with a decisive victory in the January 2006 elections.
Finally, the toppling of the brutal dictator Saddam Hussein in Iraq, certainly a good thing for humanity, has nonetheless failed to solve the problems of that country and has in fact ushered in more bloodshed and destruction.
The point is that seemingly positive changes in the Arab or Islamic world frequently lead to unforeseen situations that prove to be as bad as or even worse than the original situation.
How then does all this connect to Israel? It's quite simple. For years, many supposed "right-wing" and "nationalist" leaders have been saying that Israel cannot trade land for peace until real democratization takes place in the region. Thus, rather than fostering public opinion by unequivocally stating what many of them certainly believe to be true -- namely, that the land of Israel from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River belongs to the Jewish people -- they've merely created a further stipulation for giving away more land.
In light of the current events in the region, this reluctance to clearly state the truth may come back to haunt us. As the events unravel, there's a good chance that there might be some real free democratic elections and perhaps even some regime changes. Never mind the fact that based upon the history of the region, it's doubtful that these changes will lead to real democratization. Just the changes and the events themselves, together with universal short-term memory, will cause some to argue that things are headed in a positive direction and hence that the time is right for Israel to relinquish more land. Should this happen, the same "right-wing" and "nationalist" leaders that made Arab democratization a precondition for relinquishing more land will have a hard time countering such claims.
Thus, before it's too late, all right-wing and nationalist leaders should publicly declare that regardless of any changes in the Arab world, the land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people. One has absolutely no bearing on the other.
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5)Mubarak: If I resign, Egypt will descend into chaos
By ASSOCIATED PRESS AND JPOST.COM STAFF
In ABC interview, Egyptian president says he's "fed up" and wants to go but can't because he cares about his country; claims Obama doesn't "understand the Egyptian culture and what would happen if I step down now."
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Thursday said that he wants to resign but feels he has a responsibility from letting his country "slide into chaos." Mubarak's comments came in an interview with ABC's Christiane Amanpour.
"I am fed up. After 62 years in public service I have had enough. I want to go," Mubarak told Amanpour.
On calls for him to resign, Mubarak said "I don't care what people say about me. Right now I care about my country."
The Egyptian president responded to calls from his US counterpart Barack Obama that he step down saying, "you don't understand the Egyptian culture and what would happen if I step down now."
He warned that the Muslim Brotherhood would take power in Egypt if he were to resign now.
On violence that erupted between pro and anti-Mubarak protesters on Wednesday, the Egyptian president said, "“I was very unhappy about yesterday. I do not want to see Egyptians fighting each other.”
Earlier on Thursday, Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman said that the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s most organized opposition movement, has been invited to meet with the new government as part of a national dialogue with all parties.
Suleiman said the "conspiracy" behind the assault of the protesters will be investigated. He expressed his surprise that the protests have not stopped.
He said he will release non-violent youths detained during protests, Reuters reported.
Suleiman added that violent protesters in Tahrir Square will be punished.
Also Thursday, Egyptian state television quoted Suleiman as saying that Mubarak's son will not seek to succeed his father in elections later this year, in the the latest concession to anti-government protesters.
It was widely believed that Mubarak was grooming his son Gamal, 46, to succeed him despite significant public opposition.
In related news, the Egyptian attorney-general on Thursday issued a travel ban and froze the bank accounts of several former ministers that are being investigated, Egyptian state television reported.
One of the ministers is reportedly former interior minister Habib el-Adly who is being investigated for pulling police out of Tahrir Square last week. With police absent from the area, there was looting in Cairo.
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6) Turmoil in Egypt
By Daniel Pipes
As Egypt's much-anticipated moment of crisis arrived and popular rebellions shook governments across the Middle East, Iran stands as never before at the center of the region. Its Islamist rulers are within sight of dominating the region. But revolutions are hard to pull off and I predict that Islamists will not achieve a Middle East-wide breakthrough and Tehran will not emerge as the key powerbroker. Some thoughts behind this conclusion:
An echo of the Iranian revolution: On reaching power in 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini sought to spread Islamist insurrection to other countries but failed almost everywhere. Three decades had to go by, it appears, before the self-immolation of a vendor in an obscure Tunisia town could light the conflagration that Khomeini aspired to and Iranian authorities still seek.
Part of a Middle Eastern cold war: The Middle East has for years been divided into two large blocs engaged in a regional cold war for influence. The Iranian-led resistance bloc includes Turkey, Syria, Gaza, and Qatar. The Saudi-led status quo bloc includes Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, the West Bank, Jordan, Yemen, and the Persian Gulf emirates. Note that Lebanon these very days is moving to resistance from status quo and that unrest is taking place only in status quo places.
Israel's peculiar situation: Israeli leaders are staying mum and its near-irrelevance underlines Iranian centrality. While Israel has much to fear from Iranian gains, these simultaneously highlight the Jewish state as an island of stability and the West's only reliable ally in the Middle East.
Lack of ideology: The sloganeering and conspiracy theories that dominate Middle Eastern discourse are largely absent from crowds gathered outside of government installations demanding an end to stagnation, arbitrariness, corruption, tyranny, and torture.
Military vs. mosque: Recent events confirm that the same two powers, the armed forces and the Islamists, dominate some 20 Middle Eastern countries: the military deploys raw power and Islamists offer a vision. Exceptions exist – a vibrant Left in Turkey, ethnic factions in Lebanon and Iraq, democracy in Israel, Islamist control in Iran – but this pattern widely holds.
Iraq: The most volatile country of the region, Iraq, has been conspicuously absent from the demonstrations because its population is not facing a decades-old autocracy.
A military putsch? Islamists wish to repeat their success in Iran by exploiting popular unrest to take power. Tunisia's experience bears close examination for a pattern that may be repeated elsewhere. The military leadership there apparently concluded that its strongman, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, had become too high maintenance – especially with his wife's family's flamboyant corruption – to maintain in power, so it ousted him and, for good measure, put out an international arrest warrant for his and his family's arrest.
Gen. Omar Suleiman – Egypt's fourth military ruler since 1952?
That done, nearly the entire remaining old guard remains in power, with the top military man, Chief of Staff Rachid Ammar, apparently having replaced Ben Ali as the country's powerbroker. The old guard hopes that tweaking the system, granting more civil and political rights, will suffice for it to hold on to power. If this gambit succeeds, the seeming revolution of mid-January will end up as a mere coup d'état.
This scenario could be repeated elsewhere, especially in Egypt, where soldiers have dominated the government since 1952 and intend to maintain their power against the Muslim Brethren they have suppressed since 1954. Strongman Hosni Mubarak's appointment of Omar Suleiman terminates the Mubarak family's dynastic pretensions and raises the prospect of Mr. Mubarak resigning in favor of direct military rule.
More broadly, I bet on the more-continuity-than-change model that has emerged so far in Tunisia. Heavy-handed rule will lighten somewhat in Egypt and elsewhere but the militaries will remain the ultimate powerbrokers.
U.S. policy: The U.S. government has a vital role helping Middle Eastern states transit from tyranny to political participation without Islamists hijacking the process. George W. Bush had the right idea in 2003 in calling for democracy but he ruined this effort by demanding instant results. Barack Obama initially reverted to the failed old policy of making nice with tyrants; now he is myopically siding with the Islamists against Mr. Mubarak. He should emulate Bush but do a better job, understanding that democratization is a decades-long process that requires the inculcation of counter-intuitive ideas about elections, freedom of speech, and the rule of law.
Mr. Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, lived in Egypt for three years.
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7) Judge David Kithil of Marble Falls , TX - HR3200 highlighted pages most egregious.
Please read this........ especially the reference to pages 58 & 59
JUDGE KITHIL wrote:
** Page 50/section 152: The bill will provide insurance to all non-U.S. residents, even if they are here illegally.
** Page 58 and 59: The government will have real-time access to an individual's bank account and will have the authority to make electronic fund transfers from those accounts.
** Page 65/section 164: The plan will be subsidized (by the government) for all union members, union retirees and for community organizations (such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now - ACORN).
** Page 203/line 14-15: The tax imposed under this section will not be treated as a tax. (How could anybody in their right mind come up with that?)
** Page 241 and 253: Doctors will all be paid the same regardless of specialty, and the government will set all doctors' fees.
** Page 272. section 1145: Cancer hospital will ration care according to the patient's age.
** Page 317 and 321: The government will impose a prohibition on hospital expansion; however, communities may petition for an exception.
** Page 425, line 4-12: The government mandates
advance-care planning consultations. Those on Social Security will be required to attend an "end-of-life planning" seminar every five years (Death counseling.)
** Page 429, line 13-25: The government will specify which doctors can write an end-of-life order.
HAD ENOUGH???? Judge Kithil then goes on:
"Finally, it is specifically stated that this bill will not apply to members of Congress. Members of Congress are already exempt from the Social Security system , and have a well-funded private plan that covers their retirement needs. If they were on our Social Security plan, I believe they would find a very quick 'fix' to make the plan financially sound for their future."
Honorable David Kithil
Marble Falls, Texas
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