Clermont police have interviewed one suspect who is admitting to putting up the dozens of posters pasted around the city depicting President Obama as the Joker character from the Batman film The Dark Knight, city officials confirmed. He/she/it has a right to free speech, so why bother trying to chase him/her/it down?
Assistant City Manager Darren Gray said city officials have an individual "admitting to putting up 500" of the posters. Busy boy/girl/thingy...
Clermont Police Capt. Eric Jensen said the male individual has admitted to putting up some signs, but investigators suspect others were involved and their investigation is continuing. "We have talked to an individual," Jensen said. "He only admitted to some of it...We're still tracking down leads and talking to folks. We have not arrested anybody." Protected speech, Bubbie...
At this point officials are not sure how much damage was caused by the signs or the dollar amount associated with the clean-up. Ohoh. Damage, is it? You can post anything you want as long as you don't do any damage. At all. No matter how minuscule.
Dozens of the posters were pasted around the city earlier this week. A pair of the posters were pasted to a Clermont Post Office collection box. I see. That'd make it a federal crime, probably good for twenty in solitary...
They prompted the postmaster to contact the Postal Inspector's office, which is looking at potential federal crimes for defacing federal property. Prob'ly carries the death penalty...
City officials, meanwhile, are trying to determine what local crimes might be associated with the posting of the images on public and private properties. "Jones! There's gotta be a crime in there someplace! Find out what it was!"
They've also been busy ripping down the sticky signs because they're a violation of city ordinance regarding illegal signs. "You in a heap o' trouble, boy/girl/thingy!"
Jensen said he doesn't have a good count on the number of posters put up because, he said, "People are going out and tearing them down." "Them's the public-spirited citizens doin' that!"
In a press release put out late today, Jensen said the suspect "also asked if he could video tape the encounter with the officers." Clermont Police declined that request. "Awwww, c'mon! Lemme put you on YouTube!"
Ladies and gentlemen, this is what clueless looks like.
"Currently we are still conducting interviews of victims, witnesses, and other suspects who were placing the Obama Joker Poster throughout our city," Jensen said in the statement. "We believe that the postings are the result of multiple suspects. We are hopeful that we can develop enough information to present charges of vandalism to the State Attorney's Office for review." "Yeah. We got nuttin' against the speech, natcherly. That'd be un-Constitutional. We're gonna toss them fellers in the slammer fer unauthorized use of glue."
He did not have a specific reason why the individual who admitted to putting up the posters spent so much time sticking them to surfaces around the city, but Jensen suspects it may have something to do with a contest linked to the image of the President in white face and smeared lipstick, like the Joker. Or maybe they're political opponents of B.O. & Joe, Inc.
Or working to smear said opponents, like the lovely people carrying the be-Hitlerized Obama posters at several town meetings. Some of those far lefties can be what they think is deviously clever, not realizing how useful the internet is in the right hands.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2009 12:41 ||
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I don't recall reading about police going after anti-Bush poster-putter-uppers.
#2
We need to start sweating the bombers we do catch , make them reveal their Teachers (Holy Men I'll bet) location, name facial features etc,
and go after them It seems this is NOT being done.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/14/2009 11:21 Comments ||
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Leave a 'Franklin' (or sixteen) on a Chicago Ethics Board panel and see how quickly they'd disappear.
Like magic!
Heard at one of these 'board reviews' - "Yeah, I got yer ethics right here, champ!"
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
08/14/2009 12:06 Comments ||
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The world's source for global temperature record admits it's lost or destroyed all the original data that would allow a third party to construct a global temperature record. The destruction (or loss) of the data comes at a convenient time for the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in East Anglia - permitting it to snub FoIA requests to see the data.
The CRU has refused to release the raw weather station data and its processing methods for inspection - except to hand-picked academics - for several years. Instead, it releases a processed version, in gridded form. NASA maintains its own (GISSTEMP), but the CRU Global Climate Dataset, is the most cited surface temperature record by the UN IPCC. So any errors in CRU cascade around the world, and become part of "the science".
Professor Phil Jones, the activist-scientist who maintains the data set, has cited various reasons for refusing to release the raw data. Most famously, Jones told an Australian climate scientist in 2004:
Even if WMO agrees, I will still not pass on the data. We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.
In 2007, in response to Freedom of Information Act requests, CRU initially said it didn't have to fulfil the requests because "Information accessible to applicant via other means Some information is publicly available on external websites".
Now it's citing confidentiality agreements with Denmark, Spain, Bahrain and our own Mystic Met Office. Others may exist, CRU says in a statement, but it might have lost them because it moved offices. Or they were made verbally, and nobody at CRU wrote them down.
As for the raw station data,
"We are not in a position to supply data for a particular country not covered by the example agreements referred to earlier, as we have never had sufficient resources to keep track of the exact source of each individual monthly value. Since the 1980s, we have merged the data we have received into existing series or begun new ones, so it is impossible to say if all stations within a particular country or if all of an individual record should be freely available. Data storage availability in the 1980s meant that we were not able to keep the multiple sources for some sites, only the station series after adjustment for homogeneity issues. We, therefore, do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (i.e. quality controlled and homogenized) data."
Canadian statistician and blogger Steve McIntyre, who has been asking for the data set for years, says he isn't impressed by the excuses. McIntyre obtained raw data when it was accidentally left on an FTP server last month. Since then, CRU has battened down the hatches, and purged its FTP directories lest any more raw data escapes and falls into the wrong hands.
McIntyre says he doesn't expect any significant surprises after analysing the raw data, but believes that reproducibility is a cornerstone of the scientific principle, and so raw data and methods should be disclosed.
#1
"reproducibility is a cornerstone of the scientific principle"
True, but since Gerbil Wormening is in no way scientific....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/14/2009 18:51 Comments ||
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I think falsifiability is a more important part of science, but conjectures about global warming can only be falsified by the passage of a lot of time, while what really needs to be done now is to waste trillions of dollars and cripple the world economy even more than it already is.
#1
From what I've read of the history of the NHS, it was regarded by many British for many years as patriotic to support that system and unpatriotic to seek care outside of the system. This solidarity has diminished somewhat in recent years. See this article:Iraq war vet pulls out 13 of his own teeth with pliers 'because he couldn't find an NHS dentist'
Rep. Leonard Boswell (D-IA) told a local town hall meeting that President Obama told him he would deal with health care -- even if it cost Obama re-election. Said Boswell: "And he said, 'No, if it makes me a one-term president, I'm going to, we're going to take it on because the country is in need of us taking this on.' I respected that very much." Obama a one-term wonder? Now that's something I think we can all get behind.
Posted by: Mike ||
08/14/2009 13:42 ||
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Sounds like more BS from the BS-master, but I'm certainly willing to let him fall on his sword.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
08/14/2009 13:47 Comments ||
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If Bambi's really serious, he'll resign in protest after ReCongress doesn't pass this travesty bill.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/14/2009 14:28 Comments ||
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#3
He's just preparing the groundwork and butt covering for Democrat losses in 2010.
#6
Well if he (or rather Ralm) can invent the approprate 'crisis' he probably can _try_ to have a term lasting a long, long, time as elections are 'delayed because of '....
#7
The Donks and their sock puppets of the MSM are getting the public prepared with their Hate Groups(tm) media blitz to engineer their own Reichstag fire to take 'appropriate' action.
You know the provision that wasn't in the bill
Senators are excluding a provision on end-of-life care from health overhaul legislation after language in a House bill caused a furor. Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement Thursday that the provision had been dropped from consideration because it could be misinterpreted or implemented incorrectly.
A health care bill passed by three House committees allows Medicare to reimburse doctors for voluntary counseling sessions about end-of-life decisions. But critics have claimed the provision could lead to death panels and euthanasia for seniors.
The Senate Finance Committee is still working to complete a bill. Original story before the update:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- For more than a decade in Congress, Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer has been known for his ever-present bow-tie and tireless advocacy of bikes. So it is something of a surprise to the Portland Democrat that he has earned a new measure of fame in recent days -- as author of a health-care provision that some critics say would set up a "death panel."
In a widely quoted Facebook posting, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin charged that federal bureaucrats would play God, ruling on whether ailing seniors or children with Down syndrome -- such as Palin's son Trig -- are worthy of health care. Palin called the proposal "downright evil."
Many news organizations -- including The Associated Press -- debunked Palin's claim. The provision that caused the uproar would authorize Medicare to pay doctors for voluntary counseling about end-of-life care.
But Blumenauer says he is astounded that Palin and other critics have not tempered their bleak descriptions of the health care bill. "It's deliberate at this point," Blumenauer said of Palin's failure to correct her Aug. 7 Facebook posting. "If she wasn't deliberately lying at the beginning, she is deliberately allowing a terrible falsehood to be spread with her name."
Blumenauer singled out another prominent Republican, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, saying he has "linked arms with Sarah Palin and death panels." While Gingrich has not used the term death panel, he has declined several opportunities to denounce Palin's claim. "You are asking us to trust turning power over to the government, when there are clearly people in America who believe in establishing euthanasia, including selective standards," Gingrich said Sunday on the ABC's "This Week."
Blumenauer called the comments despicable and part of an orchestrated effort by Republicans to discredit the health care overhaul and scare seniors.
In nearly four decades of public life, "this is the starkest example I've ever seen of how, if we're not careful, political discourse dissolves into some type of partisan cage-fighting, where there are no rules and anything goes," said Blumenauer, 60.
Palin did not respond to requests for comment. But in a Facebook posting late Wednesday night, Palin defended her original claim, which President Barack Obama and other Democrats have criticized. "With all due respect, it's misleading for the president to describe this section as an entirely voluntary provision that simply increases the information offered to Medicare recipients," she said, noting that the provision authorizes consultations whenever a Medicare recipient's health changes significantly or when they enter a nursing home.
Since the bill's intent is to reduce overall health care costs, it's logical to assume that care for seniors may be curtailed, Palin said. "It's all just more evidence that the Democratic legislative proposals will lead to health care rationing, and more evidence that the top-down plans of government bureaucrats will never result in real health care reform," she wrote.
Rick Tyler, a spokesman for Gingrich, said Blumenauer was following a Democratic tactic of linking all Republicans to Palin. "Obviously Newt didn't embrace her euphemism of death panels. But he said to the larger point, there is a concern that people have about allowing government to be involved in these decisions," Tyler said. "She's raising a point we should discuss."
Blumenauer said the measure he supports would merely allow Medicare to pay doctors for voluntary counseling sessions that address end-of-life issues. Topics include living wills, designating a close relative or a trusted friend as a health care proxy and information about pain medications for chronic discomfort.
The measure would block funds for counseling that presents suicide or assisted suicide as an option, Blumenauer said, calling references to death panels or euthanasia "mind-numbing."
"It's a blatant lie, and everybody who has checked it agrees," he said.
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said this week that Palin and other critics were not helping the GOP by throwing out false claims. "Quite honestly, I'm so offended at that terminology, because it absolutely isn't" in the bill, Murkowski said. "There is no reason to gin up fear in the American public by saying things that are not included in the bill."
Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson, a Republican who co-sponsored a similar measure in the Senate, said it was "nuts" to claim the bill encourages euthanasia. "You're putting the authority in the individual rather than the government," Isakson said. "I don't know how that got so mixed up."
Blumenauer said the controversy was helping Democrats in a "perverse way."
By continuing to spread a widely refuted claim, Republican critics are undercutting their own credibility, he said. The controversy has drawn more attention to the original proposal, which passed largely unnoticed when a health overhaul was approved by three House committees.
"This has taken on an outsized significance and so more people are paying attention to it than ever before," Blumenauer said. "I think you will see more people use this to say, 'What will happen to me if I am in an accident? Here's what I want.' More people are going to take matters into their own hands."
#7
Sarah's aim is still good. She doesn't have the fire power to kill this beast but she can wound it.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
08/14/2009 15:52 Comments ||
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Just to remind all that Indian Health Service facilities have their own ad-hoc end of life provisions:One of the main problems is that many clinics must "buy" health care from larger medical facilities outside the health service because the clinics are not equipped to handle more serious medical conditions. The money that Congress provides for those contract health care services is rarely sufficient, forcing many clinics to make "life or limb" decisions that leave lower-priority patients out in the cold.
"The picture is much bigger than what the Indian Health Service can do," says Doni Wilder, an official at the agency's headquarters in Rockville, Md., and the former director of the agency's Northwestern region.
Rather than deal with this long-standing issue our esteemed representatives are off tilting at windmills.
Patterico and Lone Star Times capture yet another banner moment from a town-hall forum hosted by Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX). In this clip, Roxana Mayer introduces herself as a doctor (a general practitioner for four years) in order to support ObamaCare and Jackson-Lee in a fairly hostile crowd. For her efforts, she gets a big hug from the Congresswoman, an image which the Houston Chronicle featured prominently on their website coverage of the event....
Not only was Mayernot a doctor, Roxana Mayer was an Obama delegate, as Patterico discovered with some digging. What's more, the Houston Chronicle apparently knew this and failed to include it in its glowing coverage of Mayer's appearance....
...At the moment, no one has any evidence that Jackson-Lee, the White House, or Organizing for America had anything to do with getting this impostor the microphone to ask a sympathetic question and make sympathetic declarations at the town-hall forum. However, the odds of that happening as a coincidence with an Obama delegate seem a little long.
Update: Those odds just got a little longer. Guess who was a lead organizer for OfA back in March 2008?...
Posted by: Mike ||
08/14/2009 08:47 ||
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Shocked, I tell you. I'm shocked!!!
...At the moment, no one has any evidence that Jackson-Lee, the White House, or Organizing for America had anything to do with getting this impostor the microphone...
#2
Forgive me, but the woman introduced herself as a GP with only four years experience? That's about long enough to figure out the business of doctoring, but not nearly long enough to have perspective on the faults and benefits of the current system vs. any other.
Rep. Gene Green has voted against bills that require people to present a photo ID before they vote. But don't show up at one of his public gatherings without a driver's license. You won't get in.
On his Web site, Green, a Democrat who represents working-class Houstonians, says that "due to a coordinated effort to disrupt our town hall meetings, we will be restricting further attendance to residents of the 29th congressional district and verifying residency by requiring photo identification."
Green's position isn't wholly unreasonable, particularly when crowds are too big for the venues in which meetings are held. In that case, constituents should be given priority. But by requiring attendees to produce a photo ID, he has exposed himself as inconsistent at best and hypocritical at worst....
Green isn't the only lawmaker trying to duck the hard questions about health care revision bills from voters fed up with an imperial federal government. Some congressmen are holding telephone town halls, while others have canceled public meetings altogether. And at least one, Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-Mo., has been charged with packing a town hall meeting with union members his real constituency? and locking out more than 1,000 voters.
Perhaps the most creative dodge was the one by Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who, like Green, represents Houston. While Tracy Miller was voicing her concern at a town hall meeting Tuesday that government-run health care "cannot happen without encroaching on someone else's civil liberty," Jackson Lee decided to take a call on her cell phone. Miller said Jackson Lee also answered her phone while two others were asking questions....
Posted by: Mike ||
08/14/2009 08:27 ||
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This is an opportunity. Don't waste it. The Donks are rattled. Time for the cross aisle Trunks to take this and explain to their 'brothers' that to protect their own interests in 2010, they need to extend the practice to the polling stations. They don't want mobs of old people who could be from another district coming into theirs and stealing the election from them. Act. Act now. Heh.
Town hall protesters are "evil-mongers," says Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.)
Reid coined the term in a speech to an energy conference in Las Vegas this week, and repeated it in an interview with Politics Daily.
Such "evil-mongers" are using "lies, innuendo and rumor," to drown out rational debate, Reid said.
"It was an original with me," Reid said of the term. "I maybe could have been less descriptive," he said, adding that "I doubt you'll hear it from me again."
In other words, "Whoops! Way to go to insult your own voters, Reid!" I wonder how many of the Olde Guard, overgrown with moss and mushrooms as they are, truly do believe that no community organizer-style action could possibly anything other than viciously artificial?
#1
"Evil"? harry, don't you know that such simplistic black-and-white moralizing has no place in today's complex, nuanced, shades-of-gray world? What an unsophisticated rube you are.
[/sarcasam]
Posted by: Mike ||
08/14/2009 8:55 Comments ||
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Who wants a "Monger" Hat and Tshirt set? I bet they will be on cafepress before too long.
#6
but I don't use that term for him in public....
Maybe I should?
No, no, 3dc, that wouldn't be polite. You must refer to him as the honourable Senator MoFo Mob Cas ino Lawyer from the great state of Nevada. Nobody can fault you for that formulation. ;-)
...The president seemed like a man long celebrated as being very good at politicsthe swift rise, the astute reading of a varied electoratewho is finding out day by day that he isn't actually all that good at it. In this sense he does seem reminiscent of Jimmy Carter, who was brilliant at becoming president but not being president. (Actually a lot of them are like that these days.)
Also, something odd. When Mr. Obama stays above the fray, above the nitty-gritty of specifics, when he confines his comments on health care to broad terms, he more and more seems . . . pretty slippery. In the town hall he seemed aware of this, and he tried to be very specific about the need for this aspect of a plan, and the history behind that proposal. And yet he seemed even more slippery. When he took refuge in the small pieces of his argument, he lost the major threads; when he addressed the major threads, he seemed almost to be conceding that the specifics don't hold.
When you seem slippery both in the abstract and the particular, you are in trouble....
Posted by: Mike ||
08/14/2009 05:57 ||
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Rats edging toward the mooring lines.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
08/14/2009 13:50 Comments ||
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Sen. Arlen Specter deployed a novel countermeasure at his raucous health care town halls on Wednesday: humor.
"I consider it a compliment that you want to come back," Specter (D-Pa.) cracked during a round of boos, a reference to the hecklers who derailed his health care forums Tuesday.
Heck, Specter even booed himself at one point. Not that it did him much good.
He told CBS News the rage and venom constituents have displayed at town hall summits go beyond health care.
"There is a mood in America of anger with so many people unemployed," he said. Specter speculated the anger "all boils over" when voters have the opportunity to vent at a lawmaker.
And around the country, lawmaker after lawmaker continued to get hammered Wednesday by constituents angry about the health reform proposals winding through Congress. In North Carolina, Democratic Rep. G.K. Butterfield lost his cool during a contentious meeting when one protester shouted "Read it!" - a reference to the legislation.
"How do you know I haven't read it?" he snapped, according to Raleigh newspaper the News & Observer.
In Iowa, a self-described "dumb southern Iowa redneck" told GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley, "I see nowhere in the Constitution where health care is a right. I want to hear it from [President] Obama, I want to hear it from [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi, about how this is about 'We the people,'" the man added, according to Politico.com.
Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin was shouted down at a meeting in his home state of Maryland. "With all due respect, you're not listening, senator!" one man screamed at Cardin, Politico reported. "You're not listening to us!" And many in the audience chanted "Just Say No!" to overhauling the nation's health insurance system.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2009 00:00 ||
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"Booed himself at one point" > Uh, uh, Okay-y-y...
#3
You know what was funny? The 29th guy Specter allowed to ask a question started out by verrry slllooowly prooommmissssiing tooo beee brrrieeef... and proceeded to tell a preposterous, long-winded shaggy-dog story about being a Pentagon legislative liaison for the next ten minutes or so. I have no idea whether he ever got to a point, or was just pulling Specter's chain in a really annoying fashion - I ran out of time & had to go back to work.
The guys Specter were mocking had apparently followed him over from the next county over, it's not as if it was all that far of a jog. Maybe forty-five minutes drive. It's not as if we all aren't constituents of his - he's a senator, not a representative. The whole state's his district.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
08/14/2009 10:57 Comments ||
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Arlen Specter has all the humor of an impacted wisdom tooth.
On Thursday's Newsroom, CNN's Rick Sanchez couldn't get a straight answer out of Democratic Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee about her cell phone use during a recent health care town hall, and after he repeatedly asked why she did it and if it was disrespectful, the Texas Democrat bizarrely raised the possibility that the YouTube video of her on the phone was "doctored" [the entire interview can be viewed here; audio clips from the segment are available here].
Sanchez brought on the Jackson-Lee to ask her about the viral video of her phone use as a woman tried to ask her a question at the town hall. He first asked, "How do you explain what you were doing there? What were you thinking, Congresswoman?" For about a minute and a half, the Democrat filibustered by talking about her town hall appearances and the health care issue. The CNN anchor repeatedly tried to get her to answer his question. He asked again: "Why were you talking on the phone?" She continued by avoiding the issue, talking about the "congressional hotline" her office had set up on the health care proposal. Sanchez interrupted, "Congresswoman, you're not being fair. I asked you a very specific question....The question is, why were you on the phone and was it disrespectful?"
Jackson-Lee plowed ahead about how she didn't have the bill memorized, but Sanchez wasn't having it: "Congresswoman, you're absolutely ignoring my question. I don't think that's very nice." The Democrat denied that she was, and so the anchor rephrased his question in a very parental fashion: "I say to my children it's impolite to text- it's wrong to be on the phone when you're talking to people, and it's rude to do that especially when you're dealing with adults. Here you have people who have come to hear you speak. They are asking you a question, and it appears on the video like you're not giving them their due. How do you explain that?"
The Representative replied, "I'm so glad you said that. It appears on the video. Maybe it's a doctored video." After going into another protracted explanation, Jackson-Lee hinted that the video was just a distraction from the health care issue: "My question to those who have YouTube- and I love YouTube- who've made an issue- are they concerned about health care reform? Are they concerned about a robust public option? Are they concerned about eliminating pre-existing diseases? All of that I talked about."
After asking if the Democrat had apologized to the woman who was trying to ask her a question as she used her cell phone (and another extended "answer"), Sanchez followed up on her "doctored video" accusation: "Do you think the video was doctored? Do you think the video may have been doctored?" Jackson-Lee answered by specifically calling the cell phone issue a "distraction" from her priorities.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2009 00:00 ||
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She's a lying loon. The vid makes apparent she couldn't be bothered. An elitist who doesn't deserve the title by intellect, achievement, nor stature. As stoopid tool
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/14/2009 0:10 Comments ||
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FrankG: It's not healthy to hold your feelings in.
You should have a healthier lifestyle. Go to Burger King for a healthy meal, such as our new Surgeon General would recommend!
#4
Lee was On The Record with Greta last night, filibustering her and refusing short answers. She finally got around to explaining it shouldn't be considered rude because she didn't have the bill memorized and was on the line being coached on answers by a hotline advisor. Hope she gets canned by the voters next time arouind.
#5
LE5091, it all depends on how many welfare drones and dead people the local Demofaction can scrounge up. Remember, this is "LBJ late ballot box country."
Or as I call it, home.
#6
..was on the line being coached on answers by a hotline advisor.
Gee, can our kids get to do this in school when its test time too? If it's so dense that you need someone else cripping it for you, maybe its too big to vote on. Remember representative government for a Donk is to represent special interest not the people in their districts. Why not listen them. The people may have actually read the bill you haven't.
Out on the health care firing line, senators and members of Congress continued to get battered by constituents angry over President Barack Obama's reform plan Wednesday -- with voters raising questions about everything from assisted suicide to coverage for illegal immigrants.
Lawmakers insisted over and over that the bills in Congress would cover neither -- but their answers did nothing to tamp down the anger from Afton, Iowa, to Hagerstown, Md., to Rocky Mount, N.C.
In Iowa, a self-described "dumb southern Iowa redneck" told Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, "I see nowhere in the Constitution where health care is a right. ... I want to hear it from Obama, I want to hear it from Pelosi, about how this is about 'We the people.'"
In Maryland, a town hall by Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin quickly devolved into shouting after one questioner ordered Cardin to "cease and desist" from considering health care legislation. Cardin's insistence that he was being fiscally responsible -- "I'm not going to vote for any bill that adds to the national debt," Cardin said -- did nothing to quiet the crowd.
"That's your answer?" one man shouted.
"You already did!" said another.
On the outside, opponents of the legislation outnumbered supporters by about a 10-1 ratio. "Obama energized the youth just like Hitler did," said Barbara Kelly, a substance abuse counselor from Hagerstown. "He's given the country away to the elitist Obama supporters. They don't have to answer to anyone!"
In North Carolina, Democratic Rep. G.K. Butterfield seemed to get a little tired of the frequent interruptions and shouting during a two-hour town hall Wednesday, snapping back at some in the crowd.
"Read it!" one protester shouted. "How do you know I haven't read it?" the North Carolina Democrat fired back, according to the News & Observer.
Butterfield also tried to correct numerous attendees who insisted that illegal immigrants would be covered under the Democratic plan. "They are not counted in this bill," Butterfield said. "I am telling you they are not in the bill."
The events Wednesday seemed to continue what was seen in televised glimpses of town halls Tuesday -- constituents screaming at Specter, a fight breaking out at an event by Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) -- that have left the impression of a popular uprising against the plan. The outbursts have clearly rattled the White House into taking a much sharper tack in Obama's own pitch for the idea.
But advocates on both sides of the issues are trying to assess just how deep the anger truly runs -- whether 24-hour cable cameras are capturing a small but extremely vocal minority or something much bigger.
And perhaps most important, all sides are trying to figure out whether Democrats -- even the ones who didn't get screamed at during their town halls, many of which were peaceable -- will have the political will to vote yes on bills in the House and Senate come fall.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2009 00:00 ||
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"Read it!" one protester shouted. "How do you know I haven't read it?"
Maybe because it's 1018 pages long? I doubt The One himself has read it, too.
#3
with voters raising questions about everything from assisted suicide to coverage for illegal immigrants.
Its all fine and dandy that folks are concerned about the cultural implications regarding Health care legislation. However, when it comes to motivating elected officials, it would be wise to remember Follow the Money! President Obama has repeatedly said that any bill he signs into law must be deficit neutral. Yet the congressional Budget Office (CBO) has determined that the House bill would add $239 billion to the deficit in the next 10 years. And analysis of the Senate draft also suggests the spending curve bends upwards. Another recent CBO analysis also suggests Obamas Preventive approach not only doesnt reduce cost it increases cost. So the ultimate question is will Obmacare use the CBO for its baseline? Until they answer that question the rest is simply chatter.
#4
I have not read the bill. Does it say anywhere in there that hospitals will be able to refuse ER access to anyone? If not, it means that illegals will continue to get gold-plated free health care "paid for" by Medicare cuts -- or rationing.
Rationing is the human version of the cash for clunkers program: remove nanna from this Vale of Tears to free up cash to "pay for" "expanded access." Let's call it Soylent Green for Grannies.
If you don't like it you are a 2X racist.
Posted by: regular joe ||
08/14/2009 10:09 Comments ||
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Yet the congressional Budget Office (CBO) has determined that the House bill would add $239 billion to the deficit in the next 10 years
It'll be more than that.
My guess is that out of the gate universal health care will cost $2 trillion the first year
How will it make people take responsibility for their own costs?
Anybody who's read it, feel free to answer.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/14/2009 18:05 Comments ||
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#9
Even if you read the bill, you won't be able to understand it. Many provisions insert specific words into specific sentences of other bills, and so you need to figure out what the provision does to the other bill. It's like the typical earmark that hides the company or entity being benefited: "... the company applying for a permit to build on the Blah-Blah-Blih National Park during the month of April 2008...." Read it? FInd the guy who wrote it and administer truth serum.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
08/14/2009 18:28 Comments ||
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BOMBSHELL WORLD EXCLUSIVE! John Edwards has secretly undergone a DNA test - and it proves he's the father of his mistress' love child, The ENQUIRER has learned exclusively.
Best damn reporting on the planet ...
Multiple sources confirm the bombshell development, and reveal lawyers for the disgraced presidential candidate are privately hammering out child support payments with his former lover Rielle Hunter.
Edwards - who hotly denied he was the child's father when he publicly confessed his affair with Rielle on ABC's Nightline a year ago - has broken the news to his cancer-stricken wife Elizabeth, sources say.
But The ENQUIRER has also learned that Rielle testified against Edwards before a federal grand jury that's probing whether he broke campaign finance laws by secretly funneling money to her - and her testimony could send the former North Carolina senator to jail!
Light dawns ...
The positive DNA test finally ends the elaborate cover-up that Edwards engineered to hide the fact that he fathered Rielle's 18-month-old daughter Frances.
As The ENQUIRER previously reported in a series of explosive investigative reports, the cover-up involved "hush money" paid to Rielle and Andrew Young, a once-loyal Edwards aide who claimed he'd fathered her child. The secret payments were made by the late Fred Baron, who was Edwards' national finance chairman.
Shouldn't Young go to jail as well?
And a big "thanks for nothing" to the MSM who had dozens of reporters in Wasilla but couldn't be bothered to run this story down.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
a Pulitzer for the Enquirer for Investigative Journo? They did all the scutwork the MSM wouldn't do, and bear in mind they all knew and were covering for the excellently-coiffed piece of shit. By the way, St. Elizabeth knew as well, and still lied for him in his campaign. Whole lotta POS's here. Wish they'd all go away
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/14/2009 0:20 Comments ||
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#2
YOOOKAY, I'LL BITE, ME + MADONNA wanna know whether the CRUZ's gave thier approval!
Former Alaska GOP Gov. Sarah Palin defended her claim that the Democratic health care proposal would create "death panels" in a statement Wednesday night slamming President Barack Obama.
"Yesterday President Obama responded to my statement that Democratic health care proposals would lead to rationed care; that the sick, the elderly and the disabled would suffer the most under such rationing; and that under such a system, these 'unproductive' members of society could face the prospect of government bureaucrats determining whether they deserve health care," Palin wrote in a note on her Facebook page.
"The provision that President Obama refers to is Section 1233 of HR 3200, entitled 'Advance Care Planning Consultation.' With all due respect, it's misleading for the president to describe this section as an entirely voluntary provision that simply increases the information offered to Medicare recipients," she continued.
"Section 1233 authorizes advanced care planning consultations for senior citizens on Medicare every five years, and more often 'if there is a significant change in the health condition of the individual ... or upon admission to a skilled nursing facility, a long-term care facility... or a hospice program.'"
The White House and Democratic lawmakers have blasted Palin in recent days for suggesting that her own son, Trig, would have had to face a bureaucratic panel to get access to health care under the provision in the House health care proposal because he was born with Down syndrome.
"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil," Palin wrote last week.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs identified Palin on Wednesday as one of the GOP leaders he says is spreading "wrong" information about the health care debate.
Additionally, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is using Palin's "death panels" claim in a fundraising plea to supporters, calling the former governor's statement "disgusting" and "outrageous."
But Palin seemed undeterred in her latest statement, pointing to columns by The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson and others to support her suggestion last week that the Democratic proposal is "Orwellian."
"President Obama can try to gloss over the effects of government-authorized end-of-life consultations, but the views of one of his top health care advisers are clear enough," Palin wrote. "It's all just more evidence that the Democratic legislative proposals will lead to health care rationing and more evidence that the top-down plans of government bureaucrats will never result in real health care reform."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
As has been said many times before, the litmus test for this Health Care Reform debacle should be ... are ANY members of Congress and this administration willing to subject themselves and their families to this program, or is it just for us peons???
#3
This version of her statement includes footnotes with links to other documents that show she's really done her research. Look out, Barry. She's smarter than you are and she's coming after you.
H/T to Drudge.
For those of you who don't check Drudge every day there is also this little nugget from 1961 in which none other than Ronald Reagan warns of the perils of socialized medicine.
#6
You have to wonder if she designed the exchange to play out just this way. She lured him in with what looked like an egregious bit of "death panel" hyperbole, waited for him to take the bait and then clobbered him with this latest statement which is well researched and very detailed. You just have to wonder if she had this statement waiting for him the whole time. Is she really that subtle? I hope so.
Joshua has been taking the bus to his local Whole Foods in New York City every five days for the past two years. This week, he said he'll go elsewhere to fulfill his fresh vegetable and organic produce needs.
"I will never shop there again," vowed Joshua, a 45-year-old blogger, who asked that his last name not be published.
Like many of his fellow health food fanatics, Joshua said he will no longer patronize the store after learning about Whole Foods Market Inc.'s CEO John Mackey's views on health care reform, which were made public this week in an op-ed piece he wrote for The Wall Street Journal.
Michael Lent, another Whole Foods enthusiast in Long Beach, Calif., told ABCNews.com that he, too, will turn to other organic groceries for his weekly shopping list. "I'm boycotting [Whole Foods] because all Americans need health care," said Lent, 33, who used to visit his local Whole Foods "several times a week." "Whole Foods is the fascist tool of KKKorporate racism! Death to your organic vegetables! A plague on your wheat germ! May your brown rice burn in Hell!!"
Posted by: Mike ||
08/14/2009 14:55 ||
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Kind of interesting and sad - really. I like Whole Foods, although I can't really afford to shop there regularly. It's a treat that I save for special occasions. There is a reason the chain is referred to as "Whole Paycheck"! Their bulk foods are definitely a bargain - their bulk olive oil was very good, and quite competitive. I rather favor their San Antonio competition, as regards the soy-milk, and honey and olive oil... Sun Harvest Farms. Organic, a good price overall, and not half the attitude.
#2
"He added that many of the country's health care problems are "self-inflicted" and are preventable through "proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices."
-100% right - I like this guy, I'll shop there if Joshy prissy-pants wants to boycott.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Clermont police have interviewed one suspect who is admitting to putting up the dozens of posters pasted around the city depicting President Obama as the Joker character from the Batman film The Dark Knight, city officials confirmed.
On Thursday's Newsroom, CNN's Rick Sanchez couldn't get a straight answer out of Democratic Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee about her cell phone use during a recent health care town hall, and after he repeatedly asked why she did it and if it was disrespectful, the Texas Democrat bizarrely raised the possibility that the YouTube video of her on the phone was "doctored" [the entire interview can be viewed here; audio clips from the segment are available here].
BOMBSHELL WORLD EXCLUSIVE! John Edwards has secretly undergone a DNA test - and it proves he's the father of his mistress' love child, The ENQUIRER has learned exclusively.
