Posts Tagged ‘Obama’
2009
“There are two basic points about health-care reform that President Obama wants to convey. The first is that, as he put it in an ABC special in June, ‘the status quo is untenable.” Our health-care system is rife with ’skewed incentives.’ It gives us ‘a whole bunch of care’ that ‘may not be making us healthier.’ It generates too many specialists and not enough primary-care physicians. It is ‘bankrupting families,’ ‘bankrupting businesses’ and “bankrupting our government at the state and federal level. So we know things are going to have to change.’
Obama’s second major point is that–to quote from the same broadcast–’if you are happy with your plan and you are happy with your doctor, then we don’t want you to have to change … So what we’re saying is, If you are happy with your plan and your doctor, you stick with it.’So the system is an unsustainable disaster, but you can keep your piece of it if you want. And the Democrats wonder why selling health-care reform to the public has been so hard?
Again and again, their effort has brought us into a land of paradoxes. Public skepticism is warranted when the President promises to cut costs while simultaneously providing coverage to nearly 50 million uninsured people. It is even more warranted when his congressional allies seek to raise taxes to pay for all the new spending that this cost-cutting entails. We aren’t talking about short-term spending either; this isn’t a trillion-dollar investment in a new system that will ultimately save money. The Congressional Budget Office says the leading health-care-reform proposals will increase health-care spending and make the budget harder to balance in the long run. Yet saving money is the President’s principal stated rationale for reform…”
source: time.com
“The media created myth that the town hall protests raging across the country are artificially manufactured is starting to crack, as the public takes the press to task for parroting the erroneous talking point that the demonstrations are the work of lobbyists and Republican organizations, and that they are fostered by underlying racism.
A caller to C-Span’s Washington Journal show perfectly clarified the issues we have been highlighting all along, that the protesters are not just Republican ‘right-wingers,’ they aren’t being prodded into action by lobbyists, and the anger is not just directed against Obamacare, but against the entire agenda, and especially against Congress passing legislation thousands of pages long without even reading it.
As we highlighted last week, ABC News reported that there was no evidence of lobbyists at the protests. Shortly after this, Obamanoids simply switched their talking point and started to claim that the demonstrations were all being organized by Republican organizations.
The C-Span caller who labeled herself an Independent stated that she only started going to protests as recently as July 4th and before that she wasn’t even political. The caller points out that the protests are growing because, ‘All these massive bills, thousands of pages long that are passed with almost no debate, no time for us to see what’s in it,’ and in complete contrast to promised of transparency on behalf of the new administration…”
source: infowars.com
“California attorney Orly Taitz, who has filed a number of lawsuits demanding proof of Barack Obama’s eligibility to serve as president, has released a copy of what purports to be a Kenyan certification of birth and has filed a new motion in U.S. District Court for its authentication. The document lists Obama’s parents as Barack Hussein Obama and Stanley Ann Obama, formerly Stanley Ann Dunham, the birth date as Aug. 4, 1961, and the hospital of birth as Coast General Hospital in Mombasa, Kenya. No doctor is listed. But the alleged certificate bears the signature of the deputy registrar of Coast Province, Joshua Simon Oduya. It was allegedly issued as a certified copy of the original in February 1964. WND was able to obtain other birth certificates from Kenya for purposes of comparison, and the form of the documents appear to be identical.
Last week, a counterfeit document purporting to be Obama’s Kenyan birth certificate made the rounds of the Internet, but was quickly determined to be fraudulent. The new document released by Taitz bears none of the obvious traits of a hoax. Taitz told WND that the document came from an anonymous source who doesn’t want his name known because ‘he’s afraid for his life.’
Taitz’s motion, filed yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, requests the purported evidence of Obama’s birth – both the alleged birth certificate and foreign records not yet obtained – be preserved from destruction, asks for permission to legally request documents from Kenya and seeks a subpoena for deposition from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.’I filed the motion with the court asking for expedited discovery, which would allow me to start subpoenas and depositions even before Obama and the government responds,’ Taitz told WND. ‘I am asking the judge to give me the power to subpoena the documents from the Kenyan embassy and to require a deposition from Hillary Clinton so they will be forced to authenticate [the birth certificate].
‘I’m forcing the issue, where Obama will have to respond,’ she said. ‘Before, they said, ‘You don’t have anything backing your claims,” Taitz explained. ‘Now I have something. In fact, I have posted on the Internet more than Obama has. My birth certificate actually has signatures.’
Taitz’s most celebrated case involved a military officer, Maj. Stefan Cook, whose order to deploy to Afghanistan was revoked when he challenged Obama’s eligibility to hold office. That case has now been refiled in federal court in Florida, raising the specter of a class-action claim among members of the military that their orders aren’t valid because of questions surrounding Obama’s constitutional eligibility. Taitz told WND she plans to file additional paperwork with the Florida court tomorrow, adding the alleged Kenyan birth certificate to Maj. Cook’s case…”
source: worldnetdaily.com
“There’s a McDonald’s on the high street, suburban houses, rats the size of dogs and 229 of the world’s most high-profile prisoners. Six months after President Obama declared that he would close it down, Naomi Wolf heads to Guantánamo Bay to see whether anything has changed.
Six months ago this week President Obama, on his second day in office, promised to close the Guantánamo detention camp within a year, and to undo the secretive and coercive detention and interrogation policies of George W. Bush. But has Obama been as good as his word…”
source: truthout.org
“The US president has extended sanctions against certain Syrian and pro-Syrian individuals due what he has called their continued interference in neighbouring Lebanon. The move by Barack Obama to keep the sanctions in place for another year comes in spite of some encouraging steps by Syria in recent months, the White House said on Friday. ‘In the past six months, the United States has used dialogue with the Syrian government to address concerns and identify areas of mutual interest, including support for Lebanese sovereignty,’ Obama said in a statement.
He said there have been ’some positive developments in the past year, including the establishment of diplomatic relations and an exchange of ambassadors between Lebanon and Syria.’ But “the actions of certain persons continue to contribute to political and economic instability in Lebanon and the region and constitute a continuing unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States,” he said.”
source: aljazeera.net
“The Obama administration says it will release Mohammed Jawad, who has been held at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp since 2002. Earlier this month officials admitted that there was no military case for Mr Jawad’s continued detention. But government lawyers had said they wished to keep him in detention pending a possible criminal prosecution…
Mr Jawad was arrested in Afghanistan in December 2002, after being accused of throwing a grenade at a jeep and injuring two US soldiers and their interpreter. His lawyers say he was 12 years old at the time of his arrest, although Pentagon officials say a bone scan indicates that he was actually 17. Shortly after his arrest, he was transported to the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, where he is still being held.
His lawyers campaigned for his release, arguing that his confession had been obtained by Afghan officials using torture. In October 2008, a military judge ruled the confession inadmissible and on 16 July, Judge Huvelle described the US government’s case against Mr Jawad as ‘an outrage’ that was “riddled with holes”. On Friday US authorities said they no longer considered him to be a military prisoner. But they also said that they intended to construct a criminal case against Mr Jawad, and that he should remain in detention while they did so…”
“Genetically modified foods are not safe. The only reason they’re in our food supply is because government bureaucrats with ties to industry suppressed or manipulated scientific research and deprived consumers of the information they need to make informed choices about whether or not to eat genetically modified foods.
Now, the Obama Administration is putting two notorious biotech bullies in charge of food safety! Former Monsanto lobbyist Michael Taylor has been appointed as a senior adviser to the Food and Drug Administration Commissioner on food safety. And, rBGH-using dairy farmer and Pennsylvania Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff is rumored to be President Obama’s choice for Under-Secretary of Agriculture for Food Safety. Wolfe spearheaded anti-consumer legislation in Pennsylvania that would have taken away the rights of consumers to know whether their milk and dairy products were contaminated with Monsanto’s (now Eli Lilly’s) genetically engineered Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH)…”
“Probably like most of you, I am engaged in a daily attempt to make up my mind about President Obama. I was an early supporter.
And as a former Washington ‘player,’ I am aware how difficult is his position. I began to worry when he failed to grasp what I have seen to be the early window of opportunity for a new administration — the first three months — when the government is relatively fluid. As the months have flown by, I have seen that there are many positive things, mainly in his eloquent addresses on world problems, notably his speech at the University of Cairo on world pluralism, but also quite a few negative things. With sadness and alarm I find that my list of the negatives keeps on growing.”
source: counterpunch.org
“The several states are lining up to reclaim their sovereignty and telling the federal government to butt out. This is being done in myriad ways but all are related in that most claim that the Tenth Amendment protects the states from federal tyranny. States are passing resolutions, memorials and two states have passed laws and they intend to apply those laws for their citizens. The two states are Montana and Tennessee.
It was expected that at some point these laws would be challenged and it appears actions to do such has begun. The Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has published open letters to federal firearms license holders in Montana and Tennessee explaining that federal law trumps state law when it comes to gun laws…”
via black bear blog
“To conceal the industry executives who will influence the nation’s massive healthcare overhaul, President Obama is utilizing a Bush Administration secrecy shield he has repeatedly chastised.
More than a dozen influential players representing physicians, health insurance companies and pharmaceuticals have visited the White House to discuss Obama’s coveted healthcare plan and he doesn’t want Americans to know who they are, even though the outcome will greatly affect them.
To keep the information from the public, the president who promised to have the most open and transparent administration in history is invoking a controversial and highly criticized argument coined by George W. Bush; that the information is considered presidential records exempt from public disclosure laws.”
via judicialwatch.org
“The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a presidential spending bill that overturns a longtime ban on taxpayer-financed abortions in the nation’s capital.
For decades the District of Columbia has prohibited using public dollars for abortions, but President Barack Obama inserted a measure to reverse the ban in his new federal budget request and Congress has obliged…
Since 1976, the U.S. government has banned (Hyde Amendment) the use of federal money to pay for abortions but some states use local dollars to fund the procedures. Because the Constitution gives Congress legislative authority over the District of Columbia, Congress also determines whether local tax money can be used to pay for abortions.”
via judicialwatch.org
“Defense and intelligence contractor Raytheon is moving into the lucrative realm of cyber warfare, and wants to hire hundreds of ‘cyber warriors’ to ‘play offense and defense,’ according to an advertisement on the company’s web site.
‘President Obama recently announced that cyber security is one of our country’s most urgent national security priorities,’ reads the ad. ‘Raytheon is answering that call by hiring more cyber warriors this year to help fight the digital cyber war.’
The ad says the company has 250 positions available in its Intelligence and Information Systems (IIS) division. The jobs are for, among others, reverse engineers, kernel developers, and vulnerability and intrusion detection engineers. Raytheon also has positions available for something called “media sanitation specialists.””
via wired.com
“BERLIN – A court has ordered psychiatric care for a man who staged a short-lived protest before Barack Obama’s speech in Berlin during his campaign for the U.S. presidency. The 41-year-old German man drove through barricades around Berlin’s Victory Column the day before Obama was to speak in July 2008 and poured red paint from his car.
The Berlin state court says the man was protesting “injustice and poverty in the world” and is not guilty of any offenses for the reason of mental illness. The court says its ruling Tuesday that the man suffers from manic depression. He was remanded to a psychiatric institute for care.”
via yahoo.com