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Bright side of the health plan…
Hehe. Dennis has a way with reducing the process to its basic truths. Click the link.
US flag defaced with image of Obama. AND on sale. This IS illegal.
This is disgusting.
And it is illegal in that state… and most states for that matter.
IC 35-45-1-4
Flag desecration
Sec. 4. (a) A person who knowingly or intentionally mutilates, defaces, burns, or tramples any United States flag, standard, or ensign commits flag desecration, a Class A misdemeanor.
Kokomo Perspective via the Free Republic (hat tip Fred)
This is a local UAW based rag, but they tend to have better local news coverage than the longtime Tribune.
This Obamanation was spotted on a street in Kokomo, IN
Isn’t it a crime to deface the American flag? No, seriously.
DeMint goes to Honduras and learns an interesting fact. Only one official in Honduras wants Zelaya back, the US ambassador.
As Hot Air notes, the Obama administration refuses to explain WHY they are against this democracy.
I have tons of other posts about Honduras and the Obama regime’s hatred of democracy in this country. Take a look.
While the White House and the State Department continue to insist that Honduras removed its president Manuel Zelaya in a coup, Senator Jim DeMint decided to do something rather basic — ask the Hondurans what happened. John Kerry attempted to stop DeMint from traveling to Honduras in a bald extortion attempt to get DeMint to lift holds on two Obama administration diplomatic nominees, which DeMint ignored. DeMint writes in today’s Wall Street Journal that Zelaya needed to go, and that the US has backed a megalomaniac intent on seizing complete power:
While in Honduras, I spoke to dozens of Hondurans, from nonpartisan members of civil society to former Zelaya political allies, from Supreme Court judges to presidential candidates and even personal friends of Mr. Zelaya. Each relayed stories of a man changed and corrupted by power. The evidence of Mr. Zelaya’s abuses of presidential power—and his illegal attempts to rewrite the Honduran Constitution, a la Hugo Chávez—is not only overwhelming but uncontroverted.
As all strong democracies do after cleansing themselves of usurpers, Honduras has moved on.
The presidential election is on schedule for Nov. 29. Under Honduras’s one-term-limit, Mr. Zelaya could not have sought re-election anyway. Current President Roberto Micheletti—who was installed after Mr. Zelaya’s removal, per the Honduran Constitution—is not on the ballot either. The presidential candidates were nominated in primary elections almost a year ago, and all of them—including Mr. Zelaya’s former vice president—expect the elections to be free, fair and transparent, as has every Honduran election for a generation.
Indeed, the desire to move beyond the Zelaya era was almost universal in our meetings. Almost.
In a day packed with meetings, we met only one person in Honduras who opposed Mr. Zelaya’s ouster, who wishes his return, and who mystifyingly rejects the legitimacy of the November elections: U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens.
Tort reform would reduce deficit by $54 billion. Now, how about this idea…
So, here we are. Tort reform. I have been saying we need tort reform from the very beginning, but the Dems are dead set against it. Well, look at this. It would actually REDUCE the deficit by $54 billion. And reduce costs by over double that. Instead, the Dems want to introduce an experiment that will cost us almost $900,000,000,000
Tort reform: SAVES us $110 billion over 10 years
Dem plan: COSTS us $890 billion over 10 years (yeah, I’m sure that’s accurate)
My plan: SAVES us $2 billion over 10 years and covers everyone who needs it. What is my plan? Just buy these people a minimum health care plan for about $41 per month (I can get a plan like that from Aetna) $41 per month for 10.6 million people who can’t get any other coverage and can’t afford it. Over 10 years, that costs us $52 billion. Add tort reform and BAM, everyone is covered, deficit negative, and no new taxes.
Lost in the shuffle of the CBO scoring of Max Baucus’ non-existent bill on the health
care overhaul system this week is another analysis by the CBO on tort reform. According to CBO director Douglas Elmendorf on his blog, the CBO studied the impact of both the reduced cost of litigation and the elimination of defensive medicine that would result with tort reform. Elmendorf says that tort reform would reduce the federal deficit $54 billion over the next ten years, more than the fee Baucus plans to charge insurers for the privilege of existence (via MarySue at Ruby Slippers):
CBO now estimates that implementing a typical package of tort reform proposals nationwide would reduce total U.S. health care spending by about 0.5 percent (about $11 billion in 2009). That figure is the sum of a direct reduction in spending of 0.2 percent from lower medical liability premiums and an additional indirect reduction of 0.3 percent from slightly less utilization of health care services. (Those estimates take into account the fact that because many states have already implemented some of the changes in the package, a significant fraction of the potential cost savings has already been realized.)
Enacting a typical set of proposals would reduce federal budget deficits by roughly $54 billion over the next 10 years, according to estimates by CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee of Taxation. That figure includes savings of roughly $41 billion from Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and the Federal Employees Health Benefits program, as well as an increase in tax revenues of roughly $13 billion from a reduction in private health care costs that would lead to higher taxable wages.
But that’s not the end of the savings, either. A 0.5% reduction in health-care costs would mean $11 billion in savings per year overall, with roughly 40% of that benefiting the federal government in Medicare and other federal program costs. That amounts to a whopping $110 billion in cost savings over ten years to the entire medical industry, which would help keep premiums in check for consumers.
Hot Air » Blog Archive » CBO: Tort reform would reduce deficit by $54 billion
More on the “Global Warming” myth… Antarctic Ice Melt at Lowest Level in Recorded History
Once again, more evidence that “Global Warming” is nothing other than something liberals are trying to use to build power. Like the “Cap and Trade” bill. The largest tax increase in US history that will have no effect on the environment, but is being sold as something to help fight non-existent global warming.
As Obama and democrats continue to push their massive cap-and-tax monstrosity that will cost American households around $1,761 a year a new report revealed that ice melt in Antarctica was at the lowest level in recorded history this past year.
World Climate Report revealed this week that the ice melt during the Antarctic summer of 2008-2009 was the lowest ever recorded in the satellite history.
A 30-year minimum Antarctic snowmelt record occurred during austral summer 2008–2009 according to spaceborne microwave observations for 1980–2009. Strong positive phases of both the El-Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Southern Hemisphere Annular Mode (SAM) were recorded during the months leading up to and including the 2008–2009 melt season.
Gateway Pundit: Brrrr… Antarctic Ice Melt at Lowest Level in Recorded History
Joke of the day
A cowboy named Mark was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in California when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced toward him out of a cloud of dust.
The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leaned out the window and asked the cowboy , "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, Will you give me a calf?"
Mark looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, Why not?"
The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Iphone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location, which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.
The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg , Germany. Within seconds, he receives an email on his Iphone that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses an MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Iphone and, after a few minutes, receives a response.
Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer, turns to the cowboy and says, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves."
"That’s right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says Mark.
He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on with amusement as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.
Then Mark says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?"
The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?"
"You’re a Congressman for the U.S. Government", says Mark.
"Wow! That’s correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"
"No guessing required." answered the cowboy . "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You used millions of dollars worth of equipment trying to show me how much smarter you are than I am; and you don’t know a thing about how working people make a living – or about cows, for that matter. This is a herd of sheep. ….
Now give me back my dog.
