Does brainwashing include telling students that, "every single one of you has something you're good at?" If it does, then every child in this world has been brainwashed by their parents and will continue to be for the rest of their lives.
His speech talks to the students on a personal basis, and the country should be proud that we have a competent President who can talk to students without making mistakes and sounding like an idiot.
Do people who think that the President is corrupting students' minds think that living in Indonesia is the end of the world? If they do, then I guess they do have a reason to complain. Should our country never grow and evolve and learn to adapt to different colored presidents and new ideas? Our country wouldn't be where it is today if that had never happened in our history. People would still be riding in horse drawn carriages, owning slaves, and dying from every disease that enters the country including smallpox. People need to get over their dumb nonsense and realize yes, we do have a black president, yes, he is going to be in office for three and a half more years, and yes, he is smart, nice, handsome, and will help our country recover.
To read some more here's the LINK
The fact is, such a change may end up benefiting only those who are young, fit, and healthy - people who are low-risk in the eyes of insurers, and who can have their pick of policies. Anyone who is moderate or high risk will eventually find that getting affordable insurance, or perhaps even any insurance at all, becomes much harder.
This may seem counter-intuitive. After all, surely opening up the market will mean everyone has a better shot at getting affordable insurance. The problem is, however, to an insurance company risk is still risk. The perceived risk of an individual who is fifty years old, overweight, and a smoker won't decrease just because that individual can buy insurance anywhere in the country.
And if an insurance company can offer cheap premiums to entice low-risk people from all over the country, they're that much less likely to continue offering any type of insurance to higher-risk individuals.
3) Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. Seriously?To my thinking this will only increase insurance company cherry picking and throwing more people into financial trouble.
Hailed by President Barack Obama, a multi-billion-dollar promise by drug companies to narrow a Medicare drug coverage gap for seniors is valid only if Congress succeeds in passing a comprehensive health care bill encountering strong opposition from Republicans, an industry spokesman said Monday.
The commitment was "made in the context of comprehensive health care reform being enacted," said Ken Johnson, senior vice president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. "We recognize that there has to be a shared commitment if this is going to happen and this is our part of it."
The industry sealed a weekend deal with the White House and Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Finance Committee, to spend $80 billion over the next decade defraying the cost of drugs for seniors and paying a portion of the cost of Obama's legislation. The president, in an appearance Monday at the White House, said the agreement was "a significant breakthrough on the road to health care reform, one that will make a difference in the lives of many older Americans."
I'm just a little curious, is it because the NYTimes worded it in such a way as to sound like it was some nefarious secret deal? Obviously it wasn't.
]]>I know I have forgotten a number of things, but we'll add to the list as they present themselves.
I'll give you a call in six months jut to see how it's going. This assumes you haven't been tarred, feathered and run out of your country on a rail.
Cheers and Good luck!
Steve
WHY DOES GM'S CEO GET THE BOOT WHILE WALL STREET'S FIRMS FLY FREE?
Have we already forgotten that AIG's head had to go as part of the bailout deal?
Willumstad will lose his job at the helm of AIG, according to a person briefed on the matter, in connection with the U.S. government's $85 billion rescue package for the giant insurer.He will be replaced by Edward Liddy, a former chief executive of the insurer Allstate Corp, said another person briefed on the matter.
Have we forgotten that the heads of both Freddie and Fannie had to go as part of helping them out.
Should more heads have rolled?
Possibly, but to claim The Street has gotten off scott- free is a conflation of facts.
]]>Good afternoon. Let begin by saying that although this has been billed as an anti-war rally, I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances.
The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union, and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil.
I don't oppose all wars.
My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton's army. He saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; he heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil, and he did not fight in vain.
I don't oppose all wars.
After September 11th, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this Administrations pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again.
I don't oppose all wars.
And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism.
What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perles and Paul Wolfowitz and other arm-chair, weekend warriors in this Administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.
What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Roves to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone thru the worst month since the Great Depression.
That's what Im opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.
Now let me be clear: I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity. He's a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.
But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.
I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.
I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the middle east, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Queda.
I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars.
So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the president today.
You want a fight, President Bush? Let's finish the fight with Bin Laden and Al Queda, thru effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings.
You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to make sure that the UN inspectors can do their work, and that we vigorously enforce a non-proliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons in already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe.
You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells.
You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, through an energy policy that doesn't simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil.
Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair.
The consequences of war are dire, the sacrifices immeasurable. We may have occasion in our lifetime to once again rise up in defense of our freedom, and pay the wages of war. But we ought not we will not travel down that hellish path blindly. Nor should we allow those who would march off and pay the ultimate sacrifice, who would prove the full measure of devotion with their blood, to make such an awful sacrifice in vain.
So in brief, he promised to be the anti-Iraq war President not the anti-war President. So before we get all jumpy and knee jerky let's remember what he did and did not promise.]]>This is pretty much the read I get when I hear reasons for using the disable comments function. They are tired of hearing some say fuck- off or the like to their post. Well I get that, but so what. Some people are rude. Some people use profanity because that's all they have - the attempt of a weak mind to express itself forcefully. However getting all in a lather about it just adds fuel to the fire you think they are trying start. By disabling you are actually validating rude behavior - They have shut you up. How? Disabling comments, in my opinion, is a sure way over time to be ignored and marginalized.
The other excuse seems to be - I am tired of nobody agreeing with anything I say. I am tired of people attacking my opinion. I am tired of people being so blind that they cannot see that I am right. So, I not going to allow it to happnen. To these folks I say, maybe it's because your arguments are lacking to the TPM readers. And if you are so sensitive maybe you should be writing an old school diary that gets locked and hidden away in your underwear drawer for only you to read. So either have the courage of your convictions or stop taking up space.
You are now free to tell me fuck off or I am full of it.
]]>It's an interesting article some of which, especially on Obama's policies and positions I think he is reading wrong, but so be it.
The money quote comes in the first three paragraphs.
I'm a lifelong Republican - a supply-side conservative. I worked in the Reagan White House. I was the chief economist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for five years. In 1994, I helped write the Republican Contract with America. I served on Bob Dole's presidential campaign team and was chief economist for Jack Kemp's Empower America.
This November, I'm voting for Barack Obama.
When I first made this decision, many colleagues were shocked. How could I support a candidate with a domestic policy platform that's antithetical to almost everything I believe in?
The answer is simple: Unjustified war and unconstitutional abridgment of individual rights vs. ill-conceived tax and economic policies - this is the difference between venial and mortal sins.
Whether Larry has truly seen the light and left the dark side I couldn't say. The news here - another nail in the Republican Party coffin just got hammered home.
Cross posted at DKos/MyDD
]]>You wrote in “The Audacity of Hope” about the role that faith and faith-based programs could play in confronting social ills. Isn’t your view on that similar to George W. Bush’s?
No, I don’t think so, because I am much more concerned with maintaining the line between church and state. And I believe that, for the most part, we can facilitate the excellent work that’s done by faith-based institutions when it comes to substance abuse treatment or prison ministries…. I think much of this work can be done in a way that doesn’t conflict with church and state. I think George Bush is less concerned about that.
My general criteria is that if a congregation or a church or synagogue or a mosque or a temple wants to provide social services and use government funds, then they should be able to structure it in a way that all people are able to access those services and that we’re not seeing government dollars used to proselytize.
That, by the way, is a view based not just on my concern about the state or the apparatus of the state being captured by a particular religious faith, but it’s also because I want the church protected from the state. And I don’t think that we promote the incredible richness of our religious life and our religious institutions when the government starts getting too deeply entangled in their business. That’s part of the reason why you don’t have as rich a set of religious institutions and faith life in Europe. Part of that has to do with the fact that, traditionally, it was an extension of the state. And so there is less experimentation, less vitality, less responsiveness to the yearnings of people. It became a rigid institution that no longer served people’s needs. Religious freedom in this country, I think, is precisely what makes religion so vital.
The new partnership will not endanger the separation of church and state, so long as a few basic principles are followed. First, if an organization gets a federal grant, it will not be permitted to use that grant money to proselytize to the people it serves, and the group will forbidden to discriminate against them on the basis of their religion. And groups will be required to comply with federal anti-discrimination laws in their hiring practices—including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
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2004: .... $4 million from the offshore partnership with Burkle, the billionaire founder of the Los Angeles-based Yucaipa Companies LLC.
2005: .... $5 million from the Yucaipa partnership.
2006: .... He also received $2.6 million, some of it in ``guaranteed payments,'' from the Cayman Islands-based Yucaipa partnership, which invested in Xinhua Finance Media Ltd., China's leading, government-controlled financial and entertainment media company.For complete article please go here
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