Thomas Paine comes back to “today” to discuss some of the crap that is going on in this once-great country.
Many conservatives are convinced President Obama’s secret agenda now that he’s in office is to suck every last cent out of hard-working Americans through tax increases. The anti-tax tea parties on April 15 vividly displayed this widely held belief.
What is real: Obama will raise taxes — just not on most of the people who are worried about it. For those who make under $250,000 a year (the vast majority of Americans), Obama’s tax plan will either lower income taxes or leave those taxes unchanged.
Reality … there are many ways to raise taxes. Obama’s wonderful plan is to raise taxes on the evil satan’s who earn more than $250,000 a year. This means raising taxes on America’s small businesses. These small businesses account for about 70% of all existing jobs, and about 80% of all new jobs. Here’s the dirty little secret. The owners of these small businesses report their business income on their personal tax returns. These small businesses represent a huge percentage of the people who report those earnings over $250,000 a year. Obama wants you to believe that his tax increases will simply be taxing people who make over $250K a year. The reality is that he will be taxing these small business owners.
And how will small-business owners respond? RAISE PRICES! That’s how the oil companies handle it. Pass those tax increases off to the consumers. Government public-school educated myrmidons don’t really see price increases as tax increases by Congress and the President – just blame the business owners for raising prices, but that’s the reality of ignorance.
Tax increases will also be passed on in wage limitations for employees of small businesses, or even layoffs.
Are you starting to see how useful government public school education is to the looters? Obama can repeat his “no tax increases on those making less than $250,000″ a year line, and the government public educated dupes will buy it.
Isn’t it time for you to look beyond the headlines a bit and try to figure out what is really going on?
Neal Boortz
Filed under: Conservative Perspective, Terrorism, The Islamic Conspiracy, The Left
The Honorable Eric H. Holder, Jr.
Attorney General of the United States
United States Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20530-0001
Dear Attorney General Holder:
This letter is respectfully submitted to inform you that I must decline the invitation to participate in the May 4 roundtable meeting the President’s Task Force on Detention Policy is convening with current and former prosecutors involved in international terrorism cases. An invitation was extended to me by trial lawyers from the Counterterrorism Section, who are members of the Task Force, which you are leading.
The invitation email (of April 14) indicates that the meeting is part of an ongoing effort to identify lawful policies on the detention and disposition of alien enemy combatants—or what the Department now calls “individuals captured or apprehended in connection with armed conflicts and counterterrorism operations.” I admire the lawyers of the Counterterrorism Division, and I do not question their good faith. Nevertheless, it is quite clear—most recently, from your provocative remarks on Wednesday in Germany—that the Obama administration has already settled on a policy of releasing trained jihadists (including releasing some of them into the United States). Whatever the good intentions of the organizers, the meeting will obviously be used by the administration to claim that its policy was arrived at in consultation with current and former government officials experienced in terrorism cases and national security issues. I deeply disagree with this policy, which I believe is a violation of federal law and a betrayal of the president’s first obligation to protect the American people. Under the circumstances, I think the better course is to register my dissent, rather than be used as a prop.
Moreover, in light of public statements by both you and the President, it is dismayingly clear that, under your leadership, the Justice Department takes the position that a lawyer who in good faith offers legal advice to government policy makers—like the government lawyers who offered good faith advice on interrogation policy—may be subject to investigation and prosecution for the content of that advice, in addition to empty but professionally damaging accusations of ethical misconduct. Given that stance, any prudent lawyer would have to hesitate before offering advice to the government.
Beyond that, as elucidated in my writing (including my proposal for a new national security court, which I understand the Task Force has perused), I believe alien enemy combatants should be detained at Guantanamo Bay (or a facility like it) until the conclusion of hostilities. This national defense measure is deeply rooted in the venerable laws of war and was reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in the 2004 Hamdi case. Yet, as recently as Wednesday, you asserted that, in your considered judgment, such notions violate America’s “commitment to the rule of law.” Indeed, you elaborated, “Nothing symbolizes our [adminstration’s] new course more than our decision to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay…. President Obama believes, and I strongly agree, that Guantanamo has come to represent a time and an approach that we want to put behind us: a disregard for our centuries-long respect for the rule of law[.]” (Emphasis added.)
Given your policy of conducting ruinous criminal and ethics investigations of lawyers over the advice they offer the government, and your specific position that the wartime detention I would endorse is tantamount to a violation of law, it makes little sense for me to attend the Task Force meeting. After all, my choice would be to remain silent or risk jeopardizing myself. For what it may be worth, I will say this much. For eight years, we have had a robust debate in the United States about how to handle alien terrorists captured during a defensive war authorized by Congress after nearly 3000 of our fellow Americans were annihilated. Essentially, there have been two camps. One calls for prosecution in the civilian criminal justice system, the strategy used throughout the 1990s. The other calls for a military justice approach of combatant detention and war-crimes prosecutions by military commission. Because each theory has its downsides, many commentators, myself included, have proposed a third way: a hybrid system, designed for the realities of modern international terrorism—a new system that would address the needs to protect our classified defense secrets and to assure Americans, as well as our allies, that we are detaining the right people.
There are differences in these various proposals. But their proponents, and adherents to both the military and civilian justice approaches, have all agreed on at least one thing: Foreign terrorists trained to execute mass-murder attacks cannot simply be released while the war ensues and Americans are still being targeted. We have already released too many jihadists who, as night follows day, have resumed plotting to kill Americans. Indeed, according to recent reports, a released Guantanamo detainee is now leading Taliban combat operations in Afghanistan, where President Obama has just sent additional American forces. The Obama campaign smeared Guantanamo Bay as a human rights blight. Consistent with that hyperbolic rhetoric, the President began his administration by promising to close the detention camp within a year. The President did this even though he and you (a) agree Gitmo is a top-flight prison facility, (b) acknowledge that our nation is still at war, and (c) concede that many Gitmo detainees are extremely dangerous terrorists who cannot be tried under civilian court rules. Patently, the commitment to close Guantanamo Bay within a year was made without a plan for what to do with these detainees who cannot be tried. Consequently, the Detention Policy Task Force is not an effort to arrive at the best policy. It is an effort to justify a bad policy that has already been adopted: to wit, the Obama administration policy to release trained terrorists outright if that’s what it takes to close Gitmo by January.
Obviously, I am powerless to stop the administration from releasing top al Qaeda operatives who planned mass-murder attacks against American cities—like Binyam Mohammed (the accomplice of “Dirty Bomber” Jose Padilla) whom the administration recently transferred to Britain, where he is now at liberty and living on public assistance. I am similarly powerless to stop the administration from admitting into the United States such alien jihadists as the 17 remaining Uighur detainees. According to National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair, the Uighurs will apparently live freely, on American taxpayer assistance, despite the facts that they are affiliated with a terrorist organization and have received terrorist paramilitary training. Under federal immigration law (the 2005 REAL ID Act), those facts render them excludable from the United States. The Uighurs’ impending release is thus a remarkable development given the Obama administration’s propensity to deride its predecessor’s purported insensitivity to the rule of law.
I am, in addition, powerless to stop the President, as he takes these reckless steps, from touting his Detention Policy Task Force as a demonstration of his national security seriousness. But I can decline to participate in the charade.
Finally, let me repeat that I respect and admire the dedication of Justice Department lawyers, whom I have tirelessly defended since I retired in 2003 as a chief assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York. It was a unique honor to serve for nearly twenty years as a federal prosecutor, under administrations of both parties. It was as proud a day as I have ever had when the trial team I led was awarded the Attorney General’s Exceptional Service Award in 1996, after we secured the convictions of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and his underlings for waging a terrorist war against the United States. I particularly appreciated receiving the award from Attorney General Reno—as I recounted in Willful Blindness, my book about the case, without her steadfastness against opposition from short-sighted government officials who wanted to release him, the “blind sheikh” would never have been indicted, much less convicted and so deservedly sentenced to life-imprisonment. In any event, I’ve always believed defending our nation is a duty of citizenship, not ideology. Thus, my conservative political views aside, I’ve made myself available to liberal and conservative groups, to Democrats and Republicans, who’ve thought tapping my experience would be beneficial. It pains me to decline your invitation, but the attendant circumstances leave no other option.
Very truly yours,
/S/
Andrew C. McCarthy
cc: Sylvia T. Kaser and John DePue National Security Division, Counterterrorism Section
Filed under: Humor (If one can laugh at such a serious situation), Obama Stuff
Are you aware that a dog ‘knows’ when an earthquake is about to hit? Have you heard that a dog can ’sense’ when a tornado is stirring up even 20 miles away? Do you remember hearing that before the December tsunami struck in Southeast Asia, dogs started running frantically away from the seashore at breakneck speed? Do you know that trained dogs can detect cancer and other serious illnesses, and danger of fire?
Somehow dogs always know when they can ‘go for a ride’ before you even ask. Isn’t is puzzling how dogs and cats get home from hundreds of miles away?
I’m a firm believer that animals, especially dogs, have keen insights into Truth and Expectations. There is an abundance of evidence that dogs can sense potentially terrible disasters well in advance. Simply said, a dog simple KNOWS when something just isn’t right. When impending doom is upon us, you can count on dogs to warn us!
Filed under: Humor (If one can laugh at such a serious situation)
Pinocchio, Snow White, and Superman are out for a stroll in town one day. As they walked, they come across a sign: “Beauty contest for the most beautiful woman in the world.”
“I am entering!” said Snow White. After half an hour she comes out and they ask her, “Well, how’d ya do?”
” First Place !” said Snow White.
They continue walking and they see a sign: “Contest for the strongest m an in the world.”
“I’m entering,” says Superman. After half an hour, he returns and they ask him, “How did you make out?”
” First Place ,” answers Superman. “Did you ever doubt?”
They continue walking when they see a sign: “Contest! Who is the greatest liar in the world?” Pinocchio enters.
After half an hour he returns with tears in his eyes.
“What happened?” they asked.
“Who the hell is this Nancy Pelosi?” asked Pinocchio.
Leading the fight is Gunnery Sgt Michael Burghardt, known as ‘Iron Mike’ or just ‘Gunny’. He is on his third tour in Iraq .. He had become a legend in the bomb disposal world after winning the Bronze Star for disabling 64 IEDs and destroying 1,548 pieces of ordnance during his second tour.
Then, on September 19, he got blown up. He had arrived at a chaotic scene after a bomb had killed four US soldiers. He chose not to wear the bulky bomb protection suit. ‘You can’t react to any sniper fire and you get tunnel-vision,’ he explains. So, protected by just a helmet and standard-issue flak jacket, he began what bomb disposal officers term ‘the longest walk’, stepping gingerly into a 5 foot deep and 8 foot wide crater.
The earth shifted slightly and he saw a Senao base station with a wire leading from it. He cut the wire and used his 7 inch knife to probe the ground. ‘I found a piece of red detonating cord between my legs,’ he says. ‘That’s when I knew I was screwed.’ Realizing he had been sucked into a trap, Sgt Burghardt, 35, yelled at everyone to stay back. At that moment, an insurgent, probably watching through binoculars, pressed a button on his mobile phone to detonate the secondary device below the sergeant’s feet ‘A chill went up the back of my neck and then the bomb exploded,’ he recalls. ‘As I was in the air I remember thinking, ‘I don’t believe they got me.’ I was just ticked off they were able to do it. Then I was lying on the road, not able to feel anything from the waist down’
His colleagues cut off his trousers to see how badly he was hurt. None could believe his legs were still there ‘My dad’s a Vietnam vet who’s paralyzed from the waist down,’ says Sgt Burghardt. ‘I was lying there thinking I didn’t want to be in a wheelchair next to my dad and for him to see me like that. They started to cut away my pants and I felt a real sharp pain and blood trickling down. Then I wiggled my toes and I thought, ‘Good, I’m in business.’ As a stretcher was brought over, adrenaline and anger kicked in. ‘I decided to walk to the helicopter. I wasn’t going to let my team-mates see me being carried away on a stretcher.’ He stood and gave the insurgents who had blown him up a one-fingered salute. ‘I flipped them one. It was like, ‘OK, I lost that round but I’ll be back next week’.’
Copies of a photograph depicting his defiance, taken by Jeff Bundy for the Omaha World-Herald, adorn the walls of homes across America and that of Col John Gronski, the brigade commander in Ramadi, who has hailed the image as an exemplar of the warrior spirit.
Sgt Burghardt’s injuries – burns and wounds to his legs and buttocks – kept him off duty for nearly a month and could have earned him a ticket home. But, like his father – who was awarded a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts for being wounded in action in Vietnam – he stayed in Ramadi to engage in the battle against insurgents who are forever coming up with more ingenious ways of killing Americans.
Since first taking office, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has warned an imminent apocalypse awaits mankind — for which Iran will be the catalyst. With his impending re-election, Ahmadinejad’s threats need be taken seriously.
Ahmadinejad believes this apocalypse has been in the making for eleven centuries. He — and his bosses, the ayatollahs — believe divine destiny has set events in motion — and their mission is to precipitate their evolution. Ahmadinejad believes next week’s presidential election is an important step in this evolution.
Ahmadinejad is, by our standards, a madman. But in his culture — among the Iranian Shia who believe that the return of the “twelfth imam” can be precipitated by a man-created apocalypse – he is entirely sane. Ahmadinejad’s re-election is one he believes he must win for the final phase of this divine plan to evolve. And, because theocratic Iran “elects” presidents under a sham democratic process controlled by its religious leaders, it is an election he already has won.
It is important to understand the driving force behind Ahmadinejad and how it will dictate his actions following his re-election. Such an understanding explains why there can be no peaceful resolution to stop Iran’s quest to develop a nuclear weapon — i.e., because everything Ahmadinejad does is preparation for the inevitable apocalypse.
The apocalypse Ahmadinejad sees looming on the horizon will usher in the return of the “Hidden Imam” — an event into which he has injected a role for himself. Shia Islamic belief is the last direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammad, also known as the “Mahdi,” was but nine years old when he disappeared eleven centuries ago — destined to remain hidden from mankind until his pre-ordained return by Allah. For Muslims, the good news is his return will restore Islam to greatness and to a world ruled by=2 0a Sharia dictatorship. For both Muslims and non-Muslims, the bad news is the Mahdi’s return only occurs after the world experiences extreme chaos. The Shia “twelvers” believe Jesus will accompany the Mahdi and, in submission to Islam, acknowledge the supremacy of the Koran to the Gospel.
In 2005, one of Ahmadinejad’s first acts as president demonstrated his determination to build a nuclear weapon. Tehran had halted its uranium enrichment program in 2003, allowing international inspectors to seal its equipment. Immediately after taking office, he re-started the program, also acquiring 18 North Korean BM-25 long range, land-mobile missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
Unbelievably, a 2007 US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), using intelligence provided by a questionable defector suspected of being a double agent, asserted the Iranians had halted work on their nuclear weapons program in 2003 and had not yet restarted it. Critics pointed out the NIE’s conclusion was reached without even reporting on the activities of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps — the group actually holding the keys to the country’s nuclear weapons program.
The 2007 NIE has since been discredited. As reported by the Los Angeles Times, even President Obama acknowledged Iran’s “pursuit” of a nuclear weapons capability in a news conference and CIA Director Leon Panetta admitted in his confirmation hearing, “From all the information I’ve seen, I think there is no question that they (the Iranians) are seeking that capability.”
Needing to buy time for Iran’s nuclear weapons program, Ahmadinejad undoubtedly viewed the NIE report — as well as the international community’s continuing inability to agree on a unified approach to stop Tehran — as yet another sign of Allah’s divine intervention to ensure the program remains on track.
Ahmadinejad has repeatedly made clear his intention to destroy Israel and the US. As the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini asserted and Ahmadinejad has agreed, “Islam makes it incumbent [for believers] to prepare for the conquest of countries so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country of the world … [by fulfilling Islam's mandate to] kill all unbelievers.” Those believing nuclear retaliation deters Ahmadinejad from launching a first strike against the US or Israel should know he also supports Khomeini’s 1981 position: “I say let Iran go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world.”
Ahmadinejad’s true intentions, revealed by his actio ns as researched by author Ron Cantrell, are also most telling.
- While mayor of Tehran in 2004, Ahmadinejad mapped a parade route for the Mahdi to follow through the city. One of the outgoing mayor’s last orders to city officials was to widen a major boulevard to prepare for Mahdi’s return.
- Upon becoming president, Ahmadinejad declared his mandate was “to pave the way for the coming of this Islamic messiah.”
- The site of the Mahdi’s return is the site of his disappearance — a well behind a mosque in the village of Jamkaran in the holy city of Qom. As president, Ahmadinejad has funded millions of dollars in improvements for the mosque and well.
- To prepare for the eventual pilgrimage from Tehran to Jamkaran following the Mahdi’s return, Ahmadinejad has ordered construction of a railroad line connecting the two locations.
- In speeches caught on camera, Ahmadinejad repeatedly prays to Allah to expedite the Mahdi’s return.
- After returning to Iran after a UN speech, Ahmadinejad informed religious leaders he felt a halo of light engulfing him as he spoke. A video reveals Ahmadinejad telling them, for the duration20of his speech world leaders were mesmerized, not moving “an eyelid…as if a hand was holding them there, and had just opened their eyes to the message of the Islamic Republic.”
- In conversations with some world leaders, Ahmadinejad confides the Mahdi’s return is imminent.
The Christian Science Monitor’s Scott Peterson reports Ahmadinejad’s “presidential obsession” with the Mahdi’s return has brought him to “a certitude that leaves little room for compromise…every issue is designed to lay the foundation for the Mahdi’s return.”
The light from Ahmadinejad’s halo appears to have blinded him from reality and the world community from taking meaningful action. No nation — save Israel — seems intent on really stopping Iran’s nuclear pursuit.
For Iran’s theocratic leadership — and especially Ahmadinejad — it is truly “Apocalypse Now.”
by James Zumwalt, retired Marine who served in the Vietnam and Gulf wars. He has written opinion pieces on foreign policy, defense and security issues for dozens of newspapers. He is president of his own security consulting company.
06/23/2009
One of the most hideous ways the Internal Revenue Service usurps power and control over Americans is through its oppression over nonprofits, especially religious groups. Threatening to withdraw tax-exempt status and to levy penalties are just a couple of ways it exercises its tyranny.
For example, April 3, Catholic Answers, one of the nation’s largest lay-run apologetic (or defense) ministries for the Catholic movement, filed suit in federal court against the IRS for violating its right to free speech.
What spurred on the lawsuit is that the IRS imposed fines on Catholic Answers because Catholic Answers’ president, Karl Keating, wrote in one of his “E-letters” that 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry shouldn’t be allowed to receive the Holy Eucharist (Holy Communion) because of his pro-abortion stance, advocacy and voting record. Whether you agree or not, Keating was voicing his conviction and opinion, which he has a First Amendment right to do. At no point did Catholic Answers even tell people for whom to vote or not to vote.
Does that letter-writing act sound like something that deserves IRS fines and further taxes?
You can imagine the long uphill battle that will ensue for Catholic Answers as it attempts to sue the IRS. Catholic Answers confesses that it is doing so “not just for (itself), but on behalf of non-profit organizations and churches all across the country that are constantly harassed, threatened, intimidated, and persecuted by the IRS.” That is the reason it also is appealing to the public for donations.
Everything is wrong and ludicrous about this type of governmental action, from the dictatorial power of the IRS to the violations against American rights and freedoms. And two major historical inconsistencies emerge from these situations, as well. First, early in our country’s formation, the pulpits were the conscience of this nation. Preachers never were restricted in their political voices in any way, per the First Amendment. In fact, clergy and politicians used the pulpits to rally support without threat of governmental intrusion or penalty.
Second, the IRS wasn’t started until nearly 100 years after the Revolutionary War, in 1862 as the Bureau of Internal Revenue. Its creation coincided with the creation of the income tax, which it was designed to collect, though income tax later would be ruled unconstitutional. In 1913, income tax was established via the 16th Amendment. Both were the initial work of President Abraham Lincoln and Congress. They saw them as necessary to pay for Civil War expenses.
But could Lincoln even have imagined how the IRS would become the most bloated federal bureaucracy on the planet?
Today the IRS is the No. 1 enemy of your pocketbook. It is the government’s financial mafia, the thug collection agency for government’s intimidation, control, extravagant spending, corporate bailouts and national debt. It can’t be overhauled or even reformed. (Congress’ attempts have failed.) Who doesn’t fear an IRS audit? It’s the only federal agency before which you are considered guilty until proven innocent. I have a better definition for the abbreviation “IRS”: Internal Rip-off Service.
Of all the present fallacies in the American system, the IRS must be the one that causes America’s Founding Fathers to roll in their graves the most. Not only are its control and power unconstitutional but also its outrageous taxations strike at the core of the very reason for America’s secession from Great Britain. The Founders would be horrified by the power of the IRS and its plethora of taxes we now have to pay: income taxes, employment taxes, capital gains taxes, estate taxes, corporate taxes, property taxes, Social Security taxes, gas taxes, etc.
The Founders were opposed to domestic taxes. They regarded high taxes and aggressive tax collectors as tyrannical and always to be guarded against. Patrick Henry warned: “Excisemen may come in multitudes, for the limitation of their numbers no man knows. They may, unless the general government be restrained by a bill of rights or some similar restriction, go into your cellars and rooms and search, ransack and measure everything you eat, drink and wear.”
That is one of many reasons I encourage everyone this Independence Day to join a “tea party” and let it be known that we’re “taxed enough already.” You may not think your participation contributes much, but it was dozens and then hundreds of small resistances that eventually led a revolution in the beginning.
You might not agree with everything Catholic Answers believes, but you must commend its courage to stand up and fight the goliath of government agencies. We already know its odds of losing. Yet we also must remember how the biblical story ends: It just took the right person with the right stone to bring Goliath down.
Chuck Norris
By DAVID GRATZER
Congressional Democrats will soon put forward their legislative proposals for reforming health care. Should they succeed, tens of millions of Americans will potentially be joining a new public insurance program and the federal government will increasingly be involved in treatment decisions.
Not long ago, I would have applauded this type of government expansion. Born and raised in Canada, I once believed that government health care is compassionate and equitable. It is neither.
My views changed in medical school. Yes, everyone in Canada is covered by a “single payer” — the government. But Canadians wait for practically any procedure or diagnostic test or specialist consultation in the public system.
he problems were brought home when a relative had difficulty walking. He was in chronic pain. His doctor suggested a referral to a neurologist; an MRI would need to be done, then possibly a referral to another specialist. The wait would have stretched to roughly a year. If surgery was needed, the wait would be months more. Not wanting to stay confined to his house, he had the surgery done in the U.S., at the Mayo Clinic, and paid for it himself.
Such stories are common. For example, Sylvia de Vries, an Ontario woman, had a 40-pound fluid-filled tumor removed from her abdomen by an American surgeon in 2006. Her Michigan doctor estimated that she was within weeks of dying, but she was still on a wait list for a Canadian specialist.
Indeed, Canada’s provincial governments themselves rely on American medicine. Between 2006 and 2008, Ontario sent more than 160 patients to New York and Michigan for emergency neurosurgery — described by the Globe and Mail newspaper as “broken necks, burst aneurysms and other types of bleeding in or around the brain.”
Only half of ER patients are treated in a timely manner by national and international standards, according to a government study. The physician shortage is so severe that some towns hold lotteries, with the winners gaining access to the local doc.
Overall, according to a study published in Lancet Oncology last year, five-year cancer survival rates are higher in the U.S. than those in Canada. Based on data from the Joint Canada/U.S. Survey of Health (done by Statistics Canada and the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics), Americans have greater access to preventive screening tests and have higher treatment rates for chronic illnesses. No wonder: To limit the growth in health spending, governments restrict the supply of health care by rationing it through waiting. The same survey data show, as June and Paul O’Neill note in a paper published in 2007 in the Forum for Health Economics & Policy, that the poor under socialized medicine seem to be less healthy relative to the nonpoor than their American counterparts.
Ironically, as the U.S. is on the verge of rushing toward government health care, Canada is reforming its system in the opposite direction. In 2005, Canada’s supreme court struck down key laws in Quebec that established a government monopoly of health services. Claude Castonguay, who headed the Quebec government commission that recommended the creation of its public health-care system in the 1960s, also has second thoughts. Last year, after completing another review, he declared the system in “crisis” and suggested a massive expansion of private services — even advocating that public hospitals rent facilities to physicians in off-hours.
And the medical establishment? Dr. Brian Day, an orthopedic surgeon, grew increasingly frustrated by government cutbacks that reduced his access to an operating room and increased the number of patients on his hospital waiting list. He built a private hospital in Vancouver in the 1990s. Last year, he completed a term as the president of the Canadian Medical Association and was succeeded by a Quebec radiologist who owns several private clinics.
In Canada, private-sector health care is growing. Dr. Day estimates that 50,000 people are seen at private clinics every year in British Columbia. According to the New York Times, a private clinic opens at a rate of about one a week across the country. Public-private partnerships, once a taboo topic, are embraced by provincial governments.
In the United Kingdom, where socialized medicine was established after World War II through the National Health Service, the present Labour government has introduced a choice in surgeries by allowing patients to choose among facilities, often including private ones. Even in Sweden, the government has turned over services to the private sector.
Americans need to ask a basic question: Why are they rushing into a system of government-dominated health care when the very countries that have experienced it for so long are backing away?
Dr. Gratzer, a physician, is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Filed under: Humor (If one can laugh at such a serious situation)
A man is sitting in a bar far from home when Barack Obama comes on TV.
The man looks at the TV and says, “Obama is a horse’s ass.”
Out of nowhere, a local jumps up and punches him in the face, knocking the first guy off his bar stool, then stomps out. He gets up, rubbing his cheek and orders another beer.
Shortly after, Michelle Obama appears on the TV. He looks at the TV and says, “She is a horse’s ass, too!”
Out of nowhere, another local punches him on the other side of the face, knocking him off his bar stool again. He gets back up and looks at the bartender, “I take it this is Obama country?”
“Nope.” replies the bartender. “Horse country.”
Filed under: Humor (If one can laugh at such a serious situation)
The phone rings and the lady of the house answers, “Hello.”
”Mrs. Sanders, please.”
”Speaking.”
”Mrs. Sanders, this is Doctor Jones at Saint Agnes Laboratory. When your husband’s doctor sent his biopsy to the lab last week, a biopsy from another Mr. Sanders arrived as well. We are now uncertain which one belongs to your husband. Frankly, either way the results are not too good.”
”What do you mean?” Mrs. Sanders asks nervously.
“Well, one of the specimens tested positive for Alzheimer’s and the other one tested positive for HIV. We can’t tell which is which.”
”That’s dreadful! Can you do the test again?” questioned Mrs. Sanders.
“Normally we can, but Medicare will only pay for these expensive tests one time.”
”Well, what am I supposed to do now?”
“The folks at Medicare recommend that you drop your husband off somewhere in the middle of town. If he finds his way home, don’t sleep with him.”
Filed under: Humor (If one can laugh at such a serious situation)
I do believe that Junior Samples had total understanding of the difference between the two parties. Check it out…
Filed under: Humor (If one can laugh at such a serious situation), US Economics
It is the month of April, on the shores of the Black Sea. It is raining, and the little town looks totally deserted. It is tough times, everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on credit.
Suddenly, a rich tourist comes to town.
He enters the only hotel, lays a 100 Euro note on the reception counter, and goes to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one.
The hotel proprietor takes the 100 Euro note and runs to pay his debt to the butcher.
The Butcher takes the 100 Euro note, and runs to pay his debt to the pig grower.
The pig grower takes the 100 Euro note, and runs to pay his debt to the supplier of his feed and fuel.
The supplier of feed and fuel takes the 100 Euro note and runs to pay his debt to the town’s prostitute that in these hard times, gave her “services” on credit.
The hooker runs to the hotel, and pays off her debt with the 100 Euro note to the hotel proprietor to pay for the rooms that she rented when she brought her clients there.
The hotel proprietor then lays the 100 Euro note back on the counter.
At that moment, the rich tourist comes down after inspecting the rooms, and takes his 100 Euro note, after saying that he did not like any of the rooms, and leaves town.
No one earned anything. However, the whole town is now without debt, and looks to the future with a lot of optimism..
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the United States Government under President BHO is doing business today.
At least the hooker and the hogs made out okay.
Even those who aren’t particularly sympathetic to Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, could get a good measure of satisfaction from this interview with British Television during the retaliation against Hamas’ shelling of Israel.
The interviewer asked him: “How come so many more Palestinians have been killed in this conflict than Israelis?” (A nasty question if there ever was one!)
Netanyahu: “Are you sure that you want to start asking in that direction?”
Interviewer: (Falling into the trap) Why not?
Netanyahu: “Because in World War II more Germans were killed than British and Americans combined, but there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that the war was caused by Germany’s aggression. And in response to the German blitz on London, the British wiped out the entire city of Dresden, burning to death more German civilians than the number of people killed in Hiroshima. Moreover, I could remind you that in 1944, when the R.A.F. tried to bomb the Gestapo Headquarters in Copenhagen, some of the bombs missed their target and fell on a Danish children’s hospital, killing 83 little children. Perhaps you have another question?”
Apparently, Benjamin Netanyahu gave an interview and was asked about Israel’s occupation of Arab lands. His response was, “It’s our land.” The reporter (CNN or the like) was stunned – read below “It’s our land…” It’s important information since we don’t get fair and accurate reporting from the media and facts tend to get lost in the jumble of daily events.
“Crash Course on the Arab Israeli Conflict.”
Here are overlooked facts in the current & past Middle East situation. These were compiled by a Christian university professor: BRIEF FACTS ON THE ISRAELI CONFLICT TODAY…(It takes just 1.5 minutes to read!)
It makes sense and it’s not slanted. Jew and non-Jew — it doesn’t matter.
1. Nationhood and Jerusalem. Israel became a nation in 1312 BCE, Two thousand years before the rise of Islam.
2. Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as part of a Palestinian people in 1967, two decades after the establishment of the modern State of Israel.
3. Since the Jewish conquest in 1272 BCE, the Jews have had dominion over the land for one thousand years with a continuous presence in the land for the past
3,300 years.
4. The only Arab dominion since the conquest in 635 CE lasted no more than 22 years.
5. For over 3,300 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital. Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. Even when the Jordanians occupied Jerusalem, they never sought to make it their capital, and Arab leaders did not come to visit.
6. Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in Tanach, the Jewish Holy Scriptures. Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Koran.
7. King David founded the city of Jerusalem. Mohammed never came to Jerusalem.
8. Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Muslims pray with their backs toward Jerusalem.
9. Arab and Jewish Refugees: in 1948 the Arab refugees were encouraged to leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews. Sixty-eight percent left without ever seeing an Israeli soldier.
10 The Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab lands due to Arab brutality, persecution and pogroms.
11. The number of Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948 is estimated to be around 630,000. The number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands is estimated to be the same.
12. Arab refugees were INTENTIONALLY not absorbed or integrated into the Arab lands to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory. Out of the 100,000,000 refugees since World WarII, theirs is the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own people’s lands. Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel, a country no larger than the state of New Jersey ..
13. The Arab-Israeli Conflict: the Arabs are represented by eight separate nations, not including the Palestinians. There is only one Jewish nation. The Arab nations initiated all five wars and lost. Israel defended itself each time and won.
14. The PLO’s Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. Israel has given the Palestinians most of the West Bank land, autonomy under the Palestinian Authority, and has supplied them.
15. Under Jordanian rule, Jewish holy sites were desecrated and the Jews were denied access to places of worship. Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all faiths.
16. The UN Record on Israel and the Arabs: of the 175 Security Council resolutions passed before 1990, 97 were directed against Israel.
17. Of the 690 General Assembly resolutions voted on before 1990, 429 were directed against Israel.
18. The UN was silent while 58 Jerusalem Synagogues were destroyed by the Jordanians.
19. The UN was silent while the Jordanians systematically desecrated the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives.
20. The UN was silent while the Jordanians enforced an apartheid-like a policy of preventing Jews from visiting the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.
Filed under: Humor (If one can laugh at such a serious situation)
Hell, back in 1990, the Government seized the Mustang Ranch brothel in Nevada for tax evasion and, as required by law, tried to run it. They failed and it closed. Now we are trusting the economy of our country and our banking system to the same nit-wits who couldn’t make money running a whore house and selling whiskey!
