Try a panel. Or a group. Or a workshop. Or a commission. Or a forum. Or a summit. Or another summit. Or another panel, another group, another forum, another workshop, another commission.
Tomorrow we get “Yea!” Another summit. (Right after the U. S. Senate passed another “Jobs Bill” ie: another stimulus that stimulates nothing). But back to another summit: the much ballyhooed six-hour health care summit hosted by President Barack Obama in which he decides to have a huge, media blather, blather, blather photo-op fourteen months after his election which is apparently his idea of “transparency”. And we, we silly Americans thought the President’s campaign promise of a new era of hope and change and transparency really meant Congress would have to open some of those still closed-door negotiations on something as critical as your and my health and life and independence and happiness. Did that happen? We all know the answer. But now, at last we get the oft promised transparency–when the bill is seriously ill and therefore may be subjected to death. (Anyone have an aspirin out there?!) We finally get transparency and boy is it easy see through, or what?
President Obama meets with Republicans on February 25th to try to put his legislation on life support (but it’s ailing badly which begs the question: Should it really be allowed to live?) And actually it’s reported the President will only have eleven pages of legislative negotiating points (compared to the 4500 pages of the actual bills). Those eleven pages are evidently all the White House has ever come up with or is willing to talk about. The President himself never proposed a health care bill at all; he left it completely up to the wildly partisan Pelosi/Reid conjoined Democrats who originally wanted to unravel the health industry in a mere six weeks. But the people said, “No, no, no! (like you say to a two-year-old except you have to raise your voice a bit or write a lot of letters). Ah, the people: those stubborn Americans who get in Congress’s way and gunk up the smoothly oiled political machine. The people (those silly, silly Americans who rather like their doctors and the overall excellent quality of U.S. health care) have already spoken: chuck it and start over. Does that “sum-mit” up?
Filed under: News Views | Tags: Canadian Premier Danny Williams, Clinton hospitalized, heart surgery in U.S., stents
As the nation wishes President Clinton a speedy recovery following his February 11th heart procedure, one can’t help but be glad he doesn’t live in Canada. The former President started having problems earlier in the week. He called his doctor. His doctor said come on in. Clinton checked into the hospital Thursday, had a procedure (which is probably still considered miraculous in much of the world but commonplace in the U.S.) to place two stents in one of his coronary arteries. He went home the very next day.
Let’s contrast this with the medical situation of Danny Williams. Williams is the premier of Canada’s east coast province of Labrador and Newfoundland. Canada as we all know has a universal health care system. Williams just underwent heart surgery in the United States because the treatment he needed is not available in his home province, or possibly in all of Canada? (I mean, he talked this over with his doctors who evidently didn’t dissuade him from leaving Canada because he’s here, not there, having it done).
Meanwhile, back in Newfoundland the opposition Liberal Leader offered Williams her wishes for his full recovery. But she also says he owes the public (doesn’t that strike you as a bit odd when it comes to a person’s private medical decisions?) more of an explanation about exactly what procedure he needed and why he felt it necessary to go to the U.S.
Let’s see? Could it be the reason most people from other countries come to the U.S. for serious surgery? Maybe because it’s the best in the WORLD? Maybe because you don’t have to wait weeks or months and risk dying in the process.
A warm “Get well soon!” to both men recovering in the good ol’ U.S. of A. Oh! I just had a thought. Before subjecting Americans to Canadian style medical treatments (or lack thereof) let’s let House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, study the Canadian system the Democrats fawn over. She can even use her taxpayer-funded jet to fly to Canada for any and all medical procedures she needs. This would be an excellent way for her to experience, first hand, the benefits of the marvelous Canadian system. Canada is, after all, a lot closer to D.C. than her home state of California. Just think of the money it would save taxpayers. Pelosi would miss a lot of closed-door health care negotiations back in Washington while she sits in Canadian waiting rooms like the rest of the folks up there, but hey, that’s what Blackberries are for.
Filed under: News Views
California, with the 8th largest economy IN THE WORLD, is bankrupt. Its budget is larger than Italy’s! So is California’s budget too big to fail? Are the American people going to be called on to cough up more money to bail out a state that has spent wildly and recklessly? It’s possible. California hosts three million illegal immigrants costing California taxpayers ten billion a year. Worse: its business climate. As Californian Claude Sandroff writes in American Thinker, “ California is in an exciting race to the bottom with other liberal bastions like New York and New Jersey to see who can best tax its citizens and businesses into oblivion.” But count on Californians to come up with a way around a serious solution to the state’s financial problems. A California Assemblyman has lots of support for legalizing, then taxing marijuana for anyone over 21. Are they stoned?
Filed under: News Views
Aside from believing that labor unions have outlived their purpose in most companies and driven others into bankruptcy, living in a right-to-work state I never paid much attention to labor unions. But I am stunned that there is a bill in Congress, supported by the Democratic majority, to require card checks when workers vote on whether to unionize. What happened to the sacred private ballot? The evasively named “Free Choice Act” would be better characterized as the “No Choice Act”.
Heritage. org sums up just part of the extremely complicated, bureaucratic nightmare (yet another one) bill:
In America, it’s just hard to get your head around the fact that any citizen would not have the right to a secret, private ballot. And the people who control whether you work or not know are watching and know how you voted. Am I having an outer body experience? Is this Cuba?
Filed under: News Views
Update! Washington, DC has had 55 inches of snow so far this winter, the most since the winter of 1888-89!
11/21/09
Can you hear them? It’s the caterwauling of the environmental leftists now that word is out their president isn’t going to sign global climate change legislation in Copenhagen (please note the politically correct terminology.) It’s not global warming anymore since there hasn’t been any manmade global warming in ten years (if ever), the polar bear population is way up, no land masses are being flooded by melting glaciers and it was warmer in medieval times than it is now. Where were all those nasty factories back then? Any global warming (oops!) “climate change” treaty would create untold burdens on American businesses, which are infinitely less polluting than those of most other counties, and as President Obama himself asserted would result in skyrocketing energy bills for Americans.
I live in the South. We’ve known about global warming forever; we just call it summer.
Filed under: News Views
Thousands of American troops are saving lives and keeping order in earthquake ravaged Haiti. President Obama announced 100 million American tax dollars will go to help the people in Haiti and that doesn’t include millions more Americans will donate with heartfelt generosity. Many countries are responding generously; tiny Israel immediately dispatched planeloads of aid, hundreds of search and rescue personnel and dozens of doctors. Israeli physicians are currently operating what is now the most modern medical field hospital in Haiti capable of treating 500 people a day; it even has an MRI machine. And Israeli volunteers have poured in from nearby countries. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu describes the response as that of a “small country with a big heart.”
And what’s the response from the most oil rich Arab countries? Kuwait, swimming in oil money sent a measly million. Qatar with some of the largest gas reserves in the world scraped together a 50 ton aid package. Most responses from the Arab have been similarly meager and pathetic. But wait! Blow your mind rich Saudi Arabia was different: it sent (this will also blow your mind) a letter of condolences.
Filed under: News Views
OMG! I love saying so OMG; I’m still trying to digest the fact that the Massachusetts Senate race may go to Republican Scott Brown. OMG! Okay, okay, I’ll stop with the OMG stuff. But it fits, doesn’t it? Who would have thought after Ted Kennedy died having served as a U.S. Senator since 1962! 1962! that a seat held by one of the Kennedy dynasty for decade after decade after decade after decade might go to a Republican? Why in the world do voters allow anyone to stay in office that long only to become a political parasite feeding off the taxpayers? But I digress.
If Scott Brown wins on January 19th in the Massachusetts Senate race it will be the biggest sign of hope yet that Americans are seeing the light and hopefully the downsizing of big government. President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid may have done more to turn the tide toward a more fiscally conservative government than Republicans have, no matter how hard the GOP tried to push back against the Democratic red tape and red ink. Newly energized, fed up Americans are getting it done. Will wonders never cease? Not if common sense Americans have anything to say about it.
Filed under: News Views
The latest, latest, latest, really, really, really confusing Senate legislation on health care reform is out. And there’s a big debate over whether you should foot the bill for abortions. Now I know an abortion is a “right” under American law. But is there some new, great demand we don’t know about for more abortions than the million-plus already taking place every year? No matter where you stand do you really want your health care premiums go to up to pay for abortions?
Filed under: News Views
President Obama will speak at West Point and, almost nine months after announcing his strategy for Afghanistan, will announce his strategy for Afghanistan. One would hope this would involve winning the war. I’m not holding my breath. The President has spent his entire time in office openly ingratiating himself to the bullies, dictators and thugs who run some of the most repressive countries on the planet. They see him as a wishy-washy weakling who is unprepared to make the tough decisions that may mean people won’t like him. On this point I agree.
During his talk at West Point he’ll say he’s sending more troops, but what will they be doing? Advising? Being under Nato’s thumb? Reading Miranda rights to Taliban or Al Qaeda terrorists? Obama can deliver a good speech (when the teleprompter works). Will he have the guts to show he’s a real Commander-in-Chief? We’ll know the answer if he starts talking about exit strategies: music to the ears of the terrorists.
Oh, and let’s see if the President even mentions the mean, ol’ nasty “T” word (that would be “terrorism” for those used to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s “nuanced”, preferred description of “man-caused” disasters).
Filed under: News Views
Retailers are adding up their money and counting it twice to see if consumers were willing to open their wallets and shell out a lot more the day after Thanksgiving, commonly known “black Friday”. Black Friday is the day retailers finally learn whether their sales made it into the profit category(black margin) or whether they’re still in the red. With out of control government spending and unemployment the worst in 25 years, consumers should do what the government won’t: stop spending!
And since we’re talking “black Friday”, here’s a sad commentary on Americans’ lack of basic economic literacy combined with racial sensitivities run amuck: A man called a local talk radio station the other day to voice his objection to the term “black Friday” considering it a racial slur. He had no clue it was a purely black ink/ red ink accounting term for money made or lost. In the black= good. In the red= bad. Are we all clear now? Evidently…sigh… not. On the talk show “The View” (which I have never seen and don’t care to) comedian Joy Behar seriously, no joke, asked ” Isn’t it a little racist to call it black?” In the clips I saw even Whoopi looked incredulous explaining to the clueless Behar that, “It’s like when you make all the money.”
