Random Charts, Graphics, Facts and Observations

Thank you for thanking me. I think we still have a chance at comprehensive universal health care, but in our system, it'll be a long hard fight. My hopes are that we're taking a step in the right direction and once the positives and negatives are apparent, we'll improve on the system more and more. It shouldn't have to be this hard, but when you have people poisoning the discussion with fabrications about "death panels" and "taxpayer funded abortions", it really slows down the progress. I haven't lost faith yet.

Of course, I'm wildly disappointed in how this reform is turning out, but that's the cost of being bipartisan when most of one side of the aisle and part of the other side of the aisle both represent the corporate status quo of those who fund them rather than the people who elect them. That's my opinion, anyway.

That's a big bunch of information there TJ. Mind of I slightly hijack your blog with a rather lengthy post that pretty mucg summerizes all that information into one story?

http://www.juancole.com/2009/12/top-ten-...

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Top Ten Worst Things about the Bush Decade;

Or, the Rise of the New Oligarchs

By spring of 2000, Texas governor George W. Bush was wrapping up the Republican nomination for president, and he went on to dominate the rest of the decade. If Dickens proclaimed of the 1790s revolutionary era in France that it was the best of times and the worst of times, the reactionary Bush era was just the worst of times. I declare it the decade of the American oligarchs. Just as the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union allowed the emergence of a class of lawless 'Oligarchs' in Russia, so Neoliberal tax policies and deregulation produced American equivalents. (For more on the analogy, see Michael Hudson.) We have always had robber barons in American politics, but the Neoliberal moment created a new social class. At about 1.3 million adults, it is not too large to have some cohesive interests, and its corporations, lobbyists, and other institutions allow it to intervene systematically in politics. It owns 45 percent of the privately held wealth and is heading toward 50, i.e. toward a Banana Republic. Thus, we have a gutted fairness doctrine and the end of anti-trust concerns in ownership of mass media, allowing a multi-billionaire like Rupert Murdoch to buy up major media properties and to establish a cable television channel which is nothing but oligarch propaganda. They established 'think tanks' like the American Enterprise Institute, which hires only staff that are useful agents of the interests of the very wealthy, and which produce studies denying global climate change or lying about the situation in Iraq. Bush-Cheney were not simply purveyors of wrong-headed ideas. They were the agents of the one percent, and their policies make perfect sense if seen as attempts to advance the interests of this narrow class of persons. It is the class that owns our mass media, that pays for the political campaigns of 'our' (their) representatives, that gives us the Bushes and Cheneys and Palins because they are useful to them, and that blocks progressive reform and legislation with the vast war chest funneled to them by deep tax cuts that allow them to use essential public resources, infrastructure and facilities gratis while making the middle class pay for them.

Here are my picks for the top ten worst things about the wretched period, which, however, will continue to follow us until the economy is re-regulated, anti-trust concerns again pursued, a new, tweaked fairness doctrine is implemented, and we return to a more normal distribution of wealth (surely a quarter of the privately held wealth is enough for the one percent?) It isn't about which party is in power; parties can always be bought. It is about how broadly shared resources are in a society. Egalitarianism is unworkable, but over-concentration of wealth is also impractical. The latter produced a lot of our problems in the past decade, and as long as such massive inequality persists, our politics will be lopsided.

10. Stagnating worker wages and the emergence of a new monied aristocracy. Of all the income growth of the entire country of the United States in the Bush years, the richest 1 percent of the working population, about 1.3 million persons, grabbed up over two-thirds of it. The Reagan and Bush cuts in tax rates on the wealthy have created a dangerous little alien inside our supposedly democratic society, of the super-rich, with their legions of camp followers (sometimes referred to as 'analysts' or 'economists' or 'journalists'). The new lords and ladies are the Dick and Liz Cheneys and the people for whom they shill. They are the Rupert Murdochs and the Richard Mellon Scaifes, and they are guaranteed to own more and more of the country as long as more progressive taxation (i.e. pre-Reagan, not pre-Bush) is not restored. They are the ones who didn't want a public universal health option, did not want the wars abroad to end abruptly, did not want the Copenhagen Climate convention to succeed. They are driven by pure greed and narrow profit-seeking for themselves. They always get their way, and they always will as long as you poor stupid bastards buy the line that when the government raises their taxes, it is taking something away from you. It is the alliance of the Neoliberal super-rich with the new lower middle class populists led by W. and now by Sarah Palin that produces clown politics in the US unmatched in most advanced industrial countries with the possible exception of Italy.

9. Health and food insecurity increased for ordinary Americans. Health care costs skyrocketed. Most Americans in the work force who have health care are covered via their employers. 'From 1999 to 2009 health insurance premiums increased 132%" for the companies paying most of the costs of coverage to their employees. Euromonitor adds, "Average private health insurance premiums for a family of four in 1999 were US$5,485 per annum or 7.2% of household disposable income. 2008 premiums were estimated at US$12,973 per annum or 14.8% of average household disposable income." By Bush's last year in office, food insecurity among American families was at a 14-year high. About 49 million Americans, one in six of us, worried about having enough food to eat at some points in that year, and resorted to soup lines, food stamps, or dietary shortcuts. Some 16 million, according to the NYT, suffered from '"very low food security," meaning lack of money forced members to skip meals, cut portions or otherwise forgo food at some point in the year.' Hundreds of thousands of children are going hungry in the richest country in the world. From being a proud, wealthy people, our social superiors reduced us to the estate of third-world peasants, so as to make sure their bonuses were bigger.

8. The environment became more polluted. The Bush administration was the worst on record on environmental issues. Carbon emissions grew unchecked, and the threat of climate change accelerated. In fact, Bush muzzled government climate scientists and had their reports rewritten by lawyers from Big Oil.

7. The imperial presidency was ensconced in ways it will be difficult to pare back. But note that its powers were never used against the oligarchs (unlike the case in Putin's Russia), but rather deployed to ensure the continued destruction of the labor movement and the political bargaining power of workers and the middle class, and to harass and disrupt peace, rights and environmental movements. A part of this process was the abrogation of fourth amendment protections against arbitrary search, seizure and snooping into people's mail and effects, and of other key constitutional rights under vague and unconstitutional rubrics such as 'providing material aid to terrorists,'(rights which seem unlikely ever to be restored).

6. The Katrina flood and the destruction of much of historic African-American New Orleans, and the massive failure of the Bush administration to come to the aid of one of America's great cities. The administration's unconcern about the unsound dam infrastructure, about climate change, and about the fate of the victims are all a wake-up call for what all of us have in store from the small social class that Bush served.

5. The Bush administration's post-2002 mishandling of Afghanistan, where the Taliban had been overthrown successfully in 2001 and were universally despised. The Bush administration's attempt to assert itself with a big troop presence in the Pashtun provinces, its use of search and destroy tactics and missile strikes, its neglect of civilian reconstruction, and its failure to finish off al-Qaeda, allowed an insurgency gradually to grow. It should have been nipped in the bud, but was not. Once an insurgency becomes well established, it is defeated militarily only about 20 percent of the time. Eight years later, the Neoconservative thrust into Central Asia (in search of hydrocarbon leverage, or in a geopolitical pissing match with Russia and China?) of the early years of this decade has bequeathed us yet another war, this time one that could destabilize neighboring Pakistan-- the world's sole Muslim nuclear power.

4. The Iraq War, which the US illegally launched a war of aggression that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, displaced 4 million (over as million abroad), destroyed entire cities such as Fallujah, set off a Sunni-Shiite civil war, allowed Baghdad to be ethnically cleansed of its Sunnis, practiced systematic and widespread torture before the eyes of the Muslim Middle East and the world, and immeasurably strengthened Iran's hand in the Middle East. All this on false pretexts such as 'weapons of mass destruction' or 'democratization,' for the sake of opening the Iraqi oil markets to US hydrocarbon firms-- a significant faction of the oligarchic class. Cost to the US in American military life: 4,373 dead as of Dec 15 and 31,603 wounded in combat. The true totals of war-related dead and injured are higher, since 30,000 troops who were only diagnosed with brain injuries on their return to the US are not counted in the statistics, according to Michael Munk. The cost of the Iraq War when everything is taken into account will likely be $3 trillion.

3. The great $12 trillion Bank Robberry, in which unscrupulous bankers and financiers were deregulated and given free rein to create worthless derivatives, sell impossible mortgages to uninformed marks who could not understand their complicated terms, and then to roll this garbage up into securities re-sold like the

Cheshire cat, with a big visible smile of asserted value hanging in the air even as their actual worth disappeared into thin air. Having allowed the one-percent oligarchs to capture most of the increase of the country's wealth in recent decades, Bush and Paulsen now initiated the surrender to them of nearly a further entire year's gross domestic product of the US, stealing it from the rest of us by deficit budget financing that will have the effect of deflating our savings and property values and relative value of our currency against other world currencies. That is, we are to be further beggared for sake of the super-rich. And while the banks and bankers are held harmless, the hardworking Americans who have lost and will lose their homes are extended virtually no help. While 500,000 American children will go hungry at least some of the time this year, the Oligarchs at Goldman, Sachs, will get millions in bonuses, on the backs of the ordinary taxpayers. It seems likely to me that the creation of a pool of vast excess liquidity for the super-rich by the Reagan-Cheney tax cuts was what impelled them to develop the derivatives, since they had too much capital for ordinary investment purposes and were restlessly seeking new gaming tables. The conclusion is that until we get our gini coefficient back into some sort of synch, we are likely at risk for further such meltdowns.

2. The September 11 attacks on New York and Washington by al-Qaeda, an organization that stemmed from the Reagan administration's anti-Soviet jihad in the 1980s and which decided that, having defeated one superpower, it could take down the other. Al-Qaeda's largely Arab volunteer fighters had confronted the Soviets over their occupation of a major Muslimm country, Afghanistan. Bin Laden was himself a Neoliberal Oligarch, but he broke with the Gulf consensus of seeking a US security umbrella, thus creating a fissure within his powerful social class. Al-Qaeda viewed the US as only a slightly less objectionable occupier, though they were willing to make an atliance of convenience in the 1980s. But they were increasingly enraged and galvanized to strike, they said, by the post-Gulf-War sanctions on Iraq that killed 500,000 children, the debilitating Israeli occupation of the Palestinians, and the establishment of US bases in the holy Arabian Peninsula (with its oil riches that Bin Laden believed were being looted for pennies by the West, aided by a supine and corrupt Saudi dynasty). Al-Qaeda was a small fringe crackpot group of murderous conspiracy theorists, since most of what they considered an American 'occupation' of Muslims was no such thing. The leasing of Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia was comparable to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan? They intended to make themselves look like a world-historical force, and the US new Oligarchs, who no longer had the international Communist conspiracy with which to scare the American public into letting them have their way, were happy to buy in to the hyping of al-Qaeda, as well. But the catastrophe was not only the attacks, deadly and horrific though they were, but the alacrity with which Americans rsurrendered their birthright of yeoman liberties to a Bonapartist regime that ran roughshod over law, the constitution, the Congress, and anyone, such as Ambassador Joe Wilson, who dared oppose it.

1. The constitutional coup of 2000, in which Bush was declared the winner of an election he had lost, with the deployment of the most ugly racial and other low tricks in the ballot counting and the intervention of a partisan and far right-wing Supreme Court (itself drawn from or serving the oligarchs), and which gave us the worst president in the history of the union, who proceeded to drive the country off a cliff for the succeeding 8 years. And that is because he was not our president, but theirs.

If you go to the original story, you can follow the very informative links that are imbedded with-in the story

@ A777Pilot.

Concerning this health care bill that is not yet finished....

1. Extends coverage to 31 million.

2. Ensures choice.

3. Stops insurance companies from denying care based on pre-existing conditions.

4. Prevents discrimination based on gender, age, health.

5. Gurarantees you will never lose your coverage.

6. Prevents lifetime and annual limits.

7. Creates insurance exchanges to force competition.

8. Lower premiums for families, especially those that will receive subsidies.

9. Helps small businesses with tax credits and through the exchanges.

10. Eliminates some waste and fraud in Medicare.

11. Eliminates half of the Medicare Part D donut hole.

12. Extends the life of the Medicare trust fund.

13. Rewards doctors for quality of care rather than quantity of care.

14. CUTS THE DEFICIT BY $30 BILLION OVER 10 YEARS.

I lie? That's a bold statement considering you didn't even bother to explain how you came to that conclusion.

So far I haven't seen you post one substantive comment. I guess being an airline pilot isn't what it used to be eh?

Leslie C, telling 14 more lies, does not negate the fact that your first post was lie filled.

But you are funny.

First off, Leslie, I do mind if you hijack my blog with a rather lengthy post. If you have something to offer to the mix, please post a link rather than an article.

a777pilot, I have no aversion to profits. As the owner of two businesses, I'm actually quite fond of them. Very fond, actually. However, I do think there is a need for regulation in a system that has a profit incentive to deny sick people health care.

Whether or not access to health care is a basic human right is a matter of debate. I feel that it is. You feel differently.

I don't know why you would take issue with my use of quotes in FOX"news". You seem to agree with me that they are biased. My problem with FOX isn't the bias as much as it is actually a persuasive media outlet masquerading as news. As far as the reliability of FOX information goes, they have single-handedly created a cottage industry of fact checkers and myth-debunkers. So no, I don't watch FOX "news".

I actually got a 90% (or better) in all of my economics and logic college courses. =-) I'm not sure that we have proof that healthcare reform will actually reduce the number of doctors and increasing the number of patients. However, I would think that would result in creating well-paying jobs in medicine.

And thanks for your tone in this discussion. So many people come in here just wanting to disagree with me for no reason other than the fact that I'm "liberal/progressive".

If you take issue with any of the material I've presented, I highly encourage you to fact-check me. I make a serious effort to use solid sources, but I do make mistakes and appreciate being corrected.

a777pilot, thanks for your kind words. As long as we communicate, learning something is inevitable for both of us. And I like you, too. It's rare to find folks that can disagree and discuss issues respectfully. It's becoming a lost art. So I really appreciate this conversation.

I think I understand your perspective and I know that I have a great deal of respect for it.

As far as turning over my health care decisions to you... I'd prefer not. I'd rather you piloting the plane I'm in. But if I had the choice between some insurance underwriter whose only accountability is to their stockholders profit margin, and YOU. I'd pick you. Or better yet, some entity whose accountability is to "we the people" and has expertise in the field.

I'm curious about what you said regarding being better off without Medicare. How so?

Take your time responding. I'm following your suggestion and shoveling snow. I'll be gone for quite a while.

TJ. Objection noted. Please Accept my apology.

@ SocalledPilot,

You still have not explain how I have supposedly lied. You asked, I posted a reply. And frankly I guess I enjoy your amusement. I mean maybe it's good that somebody doesn't take the issue too seriously. (strange that you might complain about your own anger)

You are not all that Old socalledpilot. You might even be old enough to recall the 50's just fine and in your memory, that's what America should be, again.

So much for the black president eh?

Actually, The President's mother was Caucasian (white) and his father was Kenyan. Kenya is not part of the Arab region. It is in East Africa. His family are members of the Luo ethnic group. That's African, not Arab. So the President is (quite literally) first generation African-American. (Black)

I think we, I, have strayed way of course.

I am still totally opposed to THIS so called Health Care Reform Bill. It ought to be killed and the whole process started over again. This time with the goal of actually increasing health care for all Americans and increasing the quality of that care while at the same time reducing the cost to the average American of that care.

The current bill does none of that. The current bill is all about money and control, i.e., power. Who has it and who wants it.

No one and I mean absolutely no one has ever been able to show me or the American voter where this current stupidity of a bill increases the quantity and/or quality of American health care.

If this bill is passed there will be more people thinking they will get health care. Fewer total doctors to provide that health care. While costing America more money.

economics101 has hit on the basic question of all of this debate....Where is it, in the Constitution, that health care is any business of the Federal government as the primary care giver?

Rules and regulations to ensure fairness and a level "playing field" I can understand but the Federal Government taking over the health care business? Give me a break. That's just stupid.

Besides being stupid it is going to be way more costly than if the private sector was doing it. The private sector is almost always cheaper and better at giving quality service than the government.

"P.S. Why the negative ad blog?"

What? Please explain.

Thanks.

a777pilot, First off, thanks for your service to our country.

The snow was just over a foot, maybe a foot and a half here. The best part is the wall of icicles that are transforming my covered porch into an enclosed porch. Where are you at and what did you get?

First, Obama's ethnicity: Your belief about Obama being "Arab" comes from a misinformation piece that was first sent off by Kenneth Lamb in a viral email and picked up by Rush Limbaugh and FOX"news". Lamb has never provided any evidence to back up his claims. It's completely baseless. I'd hope that, considering our previous discussion regarding credibility, that you'll disregard that rumor until evidence is provided.

I really want to get back to the health care issue, but I want to touch on the definition of "Black" and African-American real quick. I think you have a misunderstanding. The Sunday before Christmas, I turned in my final thesis for my Cultural Diversity class. I got a 94.67% in the class and 100% on my thesis, so I hope you can respect what I have to say on this issue over Rush Limbaugh and a viral email. Chapter 7 of "Racial and Ethnic Groups, Tenth Edition", by Richard T. Schaefer, published by Prentice-Hall, deals specifically with "The Making of African Americans in a White America". My week four studies were "Modern African American Dynamics" and my week five studies were "Muslim and Arab Americans". I can tell you, as a person who has recently studied the subject, that President Obama is Black by any commonly accepted forms of description and not in any way Arab-American.

Now back to the point of health care: Both you and Economics101 raise very good points. These points bring me to the question: Why is our health care system and so many other programs struggling when other countries seem to achieve these things just fine? Why are we so behind the curve and unable to manage domestic programs?

There are several reasons for this, but I think the big one is that we have a large body of politicians that run on the idea that government doesn't work, and then prove it when they get elected. They actively work to undermine domestic programs. We have a segment of the population that believes our government, the only entity that "we the people" have for protection against abuse and exploitation, as a negative entity. We then elect people to break it.

If you google "starve the beast" you'll see what I mean. It's the idea that we should run up huge deficits to cripple the government's ability to provide for the public.

Another reason we are in the pickle we are in is a result of the K-street Project. This program was specifically put together by Tom Delay and Grover Norquist to merge lobbyists for special interests with the Republican party. The end result was a massive increase in lobbyists writing their own legislation and their republican representatives sponsoring and passing that legislation. Hence, the health care industry (among others) has the American taxpayer over a barrel.

Of course, there are Democrats just as guilty of this, but it was never part of the official party strategy.

The long and short of it is... If you want to stop seeing a dysfunctional government, stop electing people who campaign on the idea that government is dysfunctional by nature. It doesn't have to be. But to fix this, we have to stop looking at politics as lib vs. con or Dem vs. Republican, and actually look at each individual and do the research. Corporate media isn't going to do that for us.

You've also raised a lot of good ideas regarding credible media that I think will serve well for my next blog entry. If you don't mind me finishing here, I'd like to get started on that now.

localyocal,

"P.S. Why the negative ad blog?"

What? Please explain.

Thanks.

a777pilot, I didn't assume that your ideas came from Rush. I pointed out where your misinformation originated and who repeated it. The exact formula you gave: "50% white, 43.75% Arab, and 6.25% black African" is a verbatim quote from Kenneth Lamb's blog and viral email. No matter how much you wish it were the product of your own research, it isn't. Unless you are implying that the President's father personally told you that he was Arab and you did a DNA test. Which I doubt.

I made no assertion that one drop = Black. Nor did "some college professor" determine the definition. Under the accepted standards of sociologists, anthropologists, social scientists, and others; a consensus has been reached for defining African-American and Black. The fact that a retired pilot somewhere rejects the accepted consensus does not dismiss it. It just means he disagrees. I find it interesting that you'll allow yourself to be considered African-American. Isn't that the old southern racist idea of "one drop" and one is black? I thought you rejected that. Would you consider yourself more, equally, or less African American than the President?

I've already produced an answer to your final question. Acting as though I haven't doesn't change that. Scroll up if you've forgotten.

a777pilot, I've lost the ability to take you seriously. But thank you for the discussion.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/29/opinio...

Quote:

Proponents say the tax will raise nearly $150 billion over 10 years, but there's a catch. It's not expected to raise this money directly. The dirty little secret behind this onerous tax is that no one expects very many people to pay it. The idea is that rather than fork over 40 percent in taxes on the amount by which policies exceed the threshold, employers (and individuals who purchase health insurance on their own) will have little choice but to ratchet down the quality of their health plans.

These lower-value plans would have higher out-of-pocket costs, thus increasing the very things that are so maddening to so many policyholders right now: higher and higher co-payments, soaring deductibles and so forth. Some of the benefits of higher-end policies can be expected in many cases to go by the boards: dental and vision care, for example, and expensive mental health coverage.

Unquote.

It's been said before but it needs to be said over and over....

The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other peoples money.

"But once I pointed out that something he believed was a baseless rumor, his courtesy ended and the name calling and insults began."

That is an outright LIE!

This is your statement that changed my attitude:

"a777pilot, I've lost the ability to take you seriously."

My attitude had everything to do with your insult to me. In the parlance of any third grader...You started it!

If you wish to have a fight and exchange insults, is OK with me.

I have replies to your other comments, but I shall await your reply to this post to see how I shall word them.

The "ball" sort of speak is in your court.

The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.

In 8 years of Bush(43) the Nation's debt raised $4 trillion. That should have been reason enough to throw Bush out of office. Granted there was a war going on but it was the policy of "guns and butter" that defeated LBJ. So too Bush(43).

Now we have Bobo the Post Turtle and in just one year (well, not quite) he has increased this nation's debt by a whooping $3.2 Trillion and he's just getting started.

Obama said he intended to fundamentally change America. I believe him. Destruction of our economy is a fundamental change.

Just today the socialist policy of Bobo the Post Turtle has taken over another company, GMAC. What's next? Oil? The air lines? The insurance industry? Drug companies? What?

a777pilot, you make a good point about debt. I have a graphic about that that I'll add to this blog entry at the very end.

I always thought a post turtle was called so because it was ineffectual like a ship without sails.

Anyway, I owe you an apology. You were right. You didn't become hostile until I dismissed you and I dismissed you without explaining why. That was terribly rude of me and I am sorry for that. I'll explain my inappropriately abrupt dismissal either here, in the comments section, or in my next blog entry. Again, I am very sorry for that display of disrespect.

OK, good morning. This is going to be short and to the point because I have a big list of client needs today.

The reason I dismissed you, a777pilot, is because you falsely claimed that you dreamed up the baseless rumor that Obama was an Arab. Your false assertion directly quoted a chain email that was circulated during the 2008 election to convince voters that Obama was not black, but rather a scary Arab posing as Black. Considering your exact copy of the figures; either you have repeated it so many times that you have it memorized or you copied & pasted it directly from another source. You then claimed "If others are saying the same things then they got them from me. Not the other way around."

If I were you, I wouldn't feel bad about believing some false chain email. It happens all the time and your demographic is the target audience for the organizations that create those. However, your claim that you somehow started the lie yourself, well... that damages your credibility.

And then your self-styled definitions in regards to race and ethnicity. That was just... bizarre. You appear to be doing backflips to deny we have a Black President. Your inconsistency: 1 drop equals African American is fine by you, yet one drop equals Black is southern and racist further eats away at your credibility.

Also, you seem to be working under the premise that not only are we entitled to our own opinions, but we are entitled to our own facts. You dismissed everything Leslie posted as a lie without evidence and repeatedly claimed that I've produced no evidence of any benefits of the health care bill. I've produced several, but you continue on as if I haven't. This further takes away from my ability to take you seriously.

And finally, as further evidence that you feel that we are entitled to our own facts, you took offense that I don't regard FOX as real news, then stated that you "believe there are NO, not one, unbiased new organization. There are no reliable sources. NONE!".

This is not correct and does not justify making up your own facts to suit your agenda. You've made numerous assertions with specific numbers, yet the only citation you've made was to an op-ed piece based on speculation.

There are credible sources in the world and credibility is established through the citation of reliable sources. Not chain emails.

So that is why I'm having trouble with allowing myself to continue engaging you. It's nothing personal against you. I'm sure you are a fine man with a good heart. But for the purposes of this conversation, I'm done here. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to work on my "service business that makes nothing". (Funny how the guys who always say they champion small businesses attack me and my businesses for being too small, once they realize I'm actually a small business owner.)

"The reason I dismissed you, a777pilot, is because you falsely claimed that you dreamed up the baseless rumor that Obama was an Arab. Your false assertion directly quoted a chain email that was circulated during the 2008 election to convince voters that Obama was not black, but rather a scary Arab posing as Black. Considering your exact copy of the figures; either you have repeated it so many times that you have it memorized or you copied & pasted it directly from another source. You then claimed "If others are saying the same things then they got them from me. Not the other way around." "

I guess I should not except anything more than confused thinking from you....because what you are saying is confused and incorrect.

....and you think you are qualified to be in government?

I think the excessive global warming up there in NW Iowas has effected your brain housing group.

Hey look, I can copy paste too.....

I guess I should not except anything more than confused thinking from you....because what you are saying is confused and incorrect.

....and you think you are qualified to be in government?

I think the excessive global warming up there in NW Iowas has effected your brain housing group.

You do a lot of accusing without backing up a thing you say. You my friend, are emotional! Ever consider being Glenn Becks back up?

I don't think TJ ever did say he was qualified to be in government. However, if GW was qualified, then so are you and I!

Ya know, you climate change deniers just love winter.

"....and you think you are qualified to be in government?"

"I don't think TJ ever did say he was qualified to be in government."

Ah, but he ran for elective office. Which is a good thing for anyone to do. If a person runs for elective office they think they are qualified.

"However, if GW was qualified, then so are you and I!"

...and the proof of that is an obviously inexperienced liar from south Chicago, Bobo, the Post Turtle.

"Ya know, you climate change deniers just love winter.'

I have NEVER said anything about denying that there is climate change. Which is in and of itself interesting, because you anti-west types where calling it Global Warming, but now it is Climate Change.

Climate is ALWAYS changing. Always has. Always will. Now try to prove that man's activities have a greater effect on the earth's climate than say, oh, the sun or the oceans.

Nimrod!

a777pilot, you shouldn't just go around touching other people's never regions. Now good day, sir!

No. And that's an unfair characterization.

Thanks. I've also had a good chuckle over that.

The authors make the case that the Generational Theft Act is unconstitutional. Not sure that the courts will agree on all points, but there are indeed legit issues to be decided:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...

..................................................

"One thing I've noticed is that people start name calling and personal attacks when defending view points and have little further backing for substantiation. This is how I determine the depth of understanding the individual has on the subject."

Yes, and as I said before, (In the hurt voice of a third grader) "He started it".

"Seems they were in the forefront of several items factcheck.org and Politifact have debunked in the past year."

Who says what those two so called web fact checkers are correct? Who checks the checkers?

You? I don't think so.

Yes, I knew exactly what I was posting. It was an opinion piece. It's an opinion which needs to be brought to the attention of the people. The government is getting way too big and intrusive. Who says that government knows what is best for my family or your family or anyone's family?

KILL this bill and start over. Remember the first requirement of medicine....First do no harm. Well, this bill will do great harm and does nothing to improve the quality nor quantity of this nation's health care.

KILL the BILL!

"Speculation by parties who have a history of distorting facts and misleading their audience to support their agenda."

Sounds very much like Bobo, the Post turtle and his Administration, now doesn't it.

You are entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts.

The post you started this blog with was nothing but an opinion piece. There were no facts in it. Just opinion(opinions from the Obama Administration, like those are based in fact......not). So if you are to berate me for opinions may I suggest.....get a mirror.

OK, tell me, us, just one item you had in that original list of "facts" that is true and not just an opinion/fabrication/lie/distortion.

Your blog is by definition, an exercise in opinion. There is nothing wrong with that but believing that your opinion is fact and presenting it as if it were fact is just wrong. I so get why you are a liberal.

Why are you so scared of Sarah Palin?

Don't answer that.... ...off topic.

Just tell me where in these 2500+ pages of stupidity there is anything that actually increases the quality and/or quantity of health care in the United States.

I double dog dare ya!

"I double dog dare ya!"

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Columns/...

I coulda told you he would refuse to accept it. No matter what you pose as evidence. He asked for something, anything that would show an advantage. It was provided as requested even though as I said, it's not yet law, and he rejects it.

Intellectual dishonesty and straw horse in the extreme.

I wanted to know if there was anything, any where, in those 2500+ pages of this stupidity that actually increased the quantity and/or quality of health care for Americans.

I'm still waiting.

Someone's guess at what it might or might not cost is not an example of improvements in the quantity or quality of health care.

What TJ posted is a flat out guess at what costs might be. That has nothing what so ever to do with the quality and/or quantity of health care in this nation.

This is a power bill. Who has it and who wants it.

The real shame of all of this is that there is not one person that has knowledge of what's in the real bill. No one! The real bill has never been released. It is a State secret. Why?

We are asked to just go alone with it and pay for it with no idea of what we being are asked to pay for. Now that's real stupid government at its "best".

The two of you are all in favor of this health care stupidity and you don't know why. You may think you know because you parrot back the "spin" of the current Congress and administration, but none of you have read the bill. The bill has not been written yet, so how could you? If this is your idea of a transparent and open government, well, I feel sorry for you. This is nothing more than lemmings following the piper over the cliff.

Sad.....

Unseasonably warm and wet here in my part of the woods. Must be global climate change eh?

"Unseasonably warm and wet here in my part of the woods. Must be global climate change eh?"

Could be. Climate change is an on going process. It's been happening for the age of this old piece of rock.

Climate change is what we the people that live on this rock adapt to, not what we arrogantly think we can change and control.

We are a bit off topic but, what hole?

Is there a real hole? Has that hole always been there? Is there a cycle to that hole? Is this hole, if it does exist, just a natural happening? Does that hole have any effect on the weather or human activity?

The sky is falling. Run away. Run away!

I have a better question:

Is there any example in the 2500+ pages of this health care stupidity that actually will increase the quality and/or quantity of health care for Americans?

No one, and I do mean no one, on the many sites that I post, have ever been able to show even one example in these 2500+ pages where there is an actual portion where by the activities of this bill the quality and/or quantity of health care will be increased for the American people. NOT ONE!

I'm sorry but you have shown me and all the readers pricisely....nothing. Just a bunch of agenda based propaganda that has no basis in fact.

I've asked you repeatedly to give me just one fact that you have posted. You give me spin. you give me someone's ideas. You give me guesses. You give me nothing. Opinion is NOT fact. I don't care how much you would like it to be. Opinion is NOT fact.

I'll give you a fact that is undisputable....If the Federal Government say a program will cost "X", you can bet the rent money that it will cost substantially more than "X".

Please, tell me and the rest of the readers, a program by this or any other US Administration that has come in under budget?

...yet I have insulted no one with the possible exception of TJ.....but he started it.

The national programs of Social Security and Medicare are bankrupting this nation and your answer is to add more debt. That is not a formula for success.

As to your point of conviction....

People believe what they want to believe. Always have. Always will.

To "We the People": KILL this Bill and start over. Then vote every incumbent out of office and start over.

Hope.

NOV 2010.

Yes we can!

All true there TJ, but I have more time living in LeMars than you.

The MIT thing was not fact. It is opinion. A guess if you will.

I served in the military, much like millions of others have. You?

I bet I've spent more time working for the Democrat Party than you. That was in my youth. I finally departed the pattern in my late 20's. I thought I was a Republican but I didn't like them that much either.

Of course I will keep the conversation going. That is why there are blogs....to get your opinion out to others and to get their feedback. Or am I wrong?

I use the exact same talking points because I have seen nothing to dissuade me of them. You do the same. I ask for proof over and over , and you give me opinion, over and over.

The "fact" that the two versions of the Bill are on the Congressional web sites does nothing to alter the fact that both of these Bills are about to be changed and changed in secret meetings.

I'm not a professional troll (may look like one) but I am retired (from the Marine Corps and from American Airlines) and I can think for myself. I don't need Chris Matthews or Rush Limbaugh to do my thinking for me. (Two idiots, I might add.)

You started this blog. It's a great topic and well worth the debate. You think this so called health care bill is a God sent. I, on the other hand, think it worse than doing nothing. (First do no harm.) You say pass it, not knowing what's in it but you don't seem to care. I say, I don't know what's in it and that, in and of itself is sufficient to kill it. Why does the Democrat Party, that is running the 111th Congress, so secretive about this bill? Makes one wonder what is going on. What are they, TPTB, have hidden from us.....US, you know, the ones that are going to have to pay for this stupidity?

....and so it continues.

When did I lie about your stance on the bill?

You are for the bill, are you not? You have no idea what's in it, because it is going to change. You want it passed anyway.

Now tell me where I'm wrong and where I have lied.

I agree that this conversation has just about run it's course. Maybe you could start another one.

All true there TJ, but I have more time living in LeMars than you.

Give it up TJ, he's got you there. Locals are always smarter than the "outsiders".

"So desperate, that 7d7d7 posted 3 times in row over 2 days."

About as bad as twice in two minutes....

No just retired and there not much to do that is as interesting as posting with you two.

"Give it up TJ, he's got you there. Locals are always smarter than the 'outsiders'."

Word!

I don't understand why I have to pay for health insurance for those who can't afford it. I worked hard to get where I'm at to afford my own health insurance. These people aren't even tackling the root cause of skyrocketing health care costs. Malpractice insurance is where most of the costs are. You make it harder to sue the doctors and you'll see the costs come down real quick. Eliminate some of these trial lawyers! But you can't do that because the majority of the liberal senators/congressmen are on their payrolls.

I sure do like your style River

Recent study on Malpractice Caps

"a study released by the Iowa Association for Justice and conducted by the American Association for Justice -- a state and national organization of trial lawyers who work to strengthen the justice system -- that shows malpractice insurer profits are 24 percent higher in states with caps on malpractice damages than in states without the caps.

The study, using data from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners and company annual statements, found that, in 2008, the average profit of the 10 largest medical malpractice insurers was higher than 99 percent of Fortune 500 companies.

In states with caps, the study found, insurance companies took in 3.5 times more in premiums than they paid out in 2008. In contrast, insurers in states without caps took in just over twice what they paid in claims, the study found."

http://gazetteonline.com/local-news/2010...