Well... even though it's now Sunday... stickin' with the "weekend" format.
(*GRIN*)
Mary's at the Yankee game with Uncle Carl and Tom and Gretchen's boys.
Kim's hoping to hang with Amy in a bit...
(*SHRUG*)
Me...?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
14 comments:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/axelrod-weiner-its-time-him-go-away_741117.html
David Axelrod, a former top political adviser to Barack Obama, says it's "time for" Anthony Weiner "to go away."
* NOW...? TODAY...? JULY 28, 2013...? WOW...
"I haven't really commented on this because Huma is a friend of mine, his wife, and I deeply respect her," said Axelrod, of Anthony Weiner's wife, a top political adviser to Hillary Clinton.
* YEP. AND NO DOUBT YOU WOULDN'T BE COMMENTING TODAY (YOU PIECE OF SHIT) HAD NOT "THE DECISION BEEN MADE" TO F*I*N*A*L*L*Y CUT WEINER LOOSE.
* FOLKS... UNDERSTAND THE OLIGARCHS... THEY CARE NOTHING FOR MORALS, ETHICS, RIGHT OR WRONG... IT'S ALL ABOUT HOW FAR CAN THEY GO... HOW MUCH CAN THEY GET AWAY WITH TILL IT BEGINS TO BECOME COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE.
* ARE THE REPUBLICANS DIFFERENT... BETTER? WELL... YEAH... IN THE SENSE OF THEY'RE NOT QUITE AS BAD... THEY'LL TAKE ACTION SOONER... THEY WON'T LET THINGS GO SO FAR... HUGE SEGMENTS OF THEIR BASE (PEOPLE LIKE ME) WILL REBEL LONG BEFORE PARTY LEADERSHIP GETS THE MESSAGE...
(*SIGH*)
* FOLKS... THE MESSAGE OF WEINER... THE MESSAGE OF SPITZER... THE MESSAGE OF CHARLIE RANGLE AND MARIAN BARRY AND JON CORZINE...
(*TEARS*)
* FOLKS... THESE PEOPLE REPRESENT THE DEMOCRAT PARTY. THEN AND OBAMA. AND THE CLINTONS. HOW CAN DECENT PEOPLE SUPPORT SUCH A PARTY? THE ANSWER: THEY DON'T; THEY CAN'T. THE ANSWER: IN AMERIKA 2013 MOST PEOPLE AREN'T DECENT.
http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/budget/313903-lew-warns-gop-to-avoid-false-crises-over-spending-debt-limit
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew warned Republicans to avoid "false crises" over a government shutdown and the debt limit in the coming months.
* TREASURY SECRETARY JACK LEW IS A POLITICAL APPOINTEE OF PRESIDENT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA. WHAT ELSE IS HE SUPPOSED TO SAY? (THIS IS NEWS...???)
Appearing on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," Lew continued to hammer the message President Obama has been touting this week, about renewing a focus on boosting the middle class and avoiding self-inflicted wounds on the economy.
* OBAMA AND HIS POLICIES HAVE BEEN NOTHING MORE THAN ONE HUGE SELF-INFLICTED WOUND ON THE ECONOMY - PARTICULARLY AS THE MIDDLE CLASS IS CONCERNED.
Obviously, we need to have our fiscal house in order," he said.
* FOLKS... (*SIGH*)... NOW EVEN YOU LIBS READING THIS KNOW THAT LEW DOESN'T BELIEVE THIS... THAT OBAMA DOESN'T BELIEVE THIS... THAT THE DEMOCRATS - AND RINO REPUBLICANS - DON'T BELIEVE THIS. AGAIN... THIS IS NOT "NEWS"... THIS IS PROPAGANDA.
He added that there is a "majority in Congress" that wants to do away with indiscriminate sequester cuts, replacing them with "more sensible policies."
* FOLKS... (*SIGH*)... REMEMBER WHEN BOEHNER, MCCONNELL, AND THE CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS TRIED TO GIVE OBAMA AUTHORITY TO WORK WITHIN THE BROAD CUTS SO AS TO BETTER TARGET WHERE THE CUTS WOULD STRIKE? REMEMBER HOW OBAMA AND THE DEMS REFUSED SUCH POWER BECAUSE THEY WOULD THUS BE STUCK WITH THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR TARGETING THE CUTS?
* FOLKS... EVERY DAY THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE LIED TO AND PROPAGANDIZED BY THE MSM - USUALLY ON BEHALF OF THE DEMS... SOMETIMES ON BEHALF OF THE RINOs. THIS "NEW" ARTICLE IS A PERFECT EXAMPLE.
(*SHRUG*)
Lew also echoed the White House message when he said the president would not be willing to negotiate over the debt limit, which will need to be raised this fall to avoid a default.
* THAT'S A BALD-FACED LIE ALSO... AND THE REPORTER/EDITOR/THE HILL MANAGEMENT KNOW IT. YET THEY ALLOW IT TO SIT THERE AS IF IT WERE TRUE. THERE'S MORE THAN ENOUGH... FAR MORE THAN ENOUGH... FEDERAL REVENUE TO KEEP PAYING FEDERAL DEBTS. WHAT WOULD HAVE TO BE CUT IS EXPENDITURES - WHICH IS WHAT NEED TO BE CUT!
Lew also indicated that the White House would not be providing any sort of financial rescue to Detroit, which declared bankruptcy earlier this month.
* IF... IF... IF THIS IS TRUE... (*PAUSE*)... THEN THREE CHEERS TO OBAMA. (I DOUBT IT'S TRUE, THOUGH.)
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/pic_fire_fight_Bl5WA1MEU7AaQeabPas4uK
This iconic picture of firefighters raising the stars and stripes in the rubble of Ground Zero was nearly excluded from the 9/11 Memorial Museum because it was “rah-rah” American, a new book says.
Michael Shulan, the museum’s creative director, was among staffers who considered the Tom Franklin photograph too kitschy and “rah-rah America,” according to “Battle for Ground Zero” (St. Martin’s Press) by Elizabeth Greenspan, out next month.
* IF THIS IS TRUE...
(*SHRUG*)
* AGAIN, PEOPLE... UNDERSTAND... THE PEOPLE RUNNING THE COUNTRY AREN'T LIKE YOU AND ME.
“I really believe that the way America will look best, the way we can really do best, is to not be Americans so vigilantly and so vehemently,” Shulan said.
* SO THIS ASS SHULAN ISN'T DENYING IT?!
Shulan had worked on a popular post-9/11 photography exhibit called “Here is New York” in Soho when he was hired by Alice Greenwald, director of the museum, for his “unique approach.” Eventually, chief curator Jan Ramirez proposed a compromise, Greenspan writes. The Franklin shot was minimized in favor of three different photos via three different angles of the flag-raising scene.
* "COMPROMISED."
“Several images undercut the myth of ‘one iconic moment,’ Ramirez said, and suggest instead an event from multiple points of view, like the attacks more broadly,” the book says.
“Shulan didn’t like three photographs more than he liked one, but he went along with it.” (Shulan told The Post he didn’t know that the way Greenspan described the discussion about the photographs “is the way that I would have.”)
* WHY IS SHULAN STILL CONNECTED TO THE PROJECT...??? (RHETORICAL QUESTION, FOLKS; THE ANSWER: SHULAN IS "ONE OF THEM.")
The photograph wasn’t the only item officials and family members argued over. Early on, it was decided that no human remains or photos of body parts be included in the museum.
* WHAT A COWARDLY DECISION. IMAGINE REMOVING THE CORPSES AND THE VICTIMS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE HOLOCAUST... OR ANY OTHER TRAGEDY WHERE LIVES WERE TAKEN/LOST...
Dust from the collapse of the Towers will be on display, “but only dust which has been tested and determined not to contain remains,” Greenspan writes.
(*ROLLING MY EYES*)
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/07/glenn-greenwald-low-level-nsa-analysts-have-powerful-and-invasive-search-tool/
Today on “This Week,” Glenn Greenwald – the reporter who broke the story about the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs – claimed that those NSA programs allowed even low-level analysts to search the private emails and phone calls of Americans.
* DOES ANYONE DISBELIEVE GREENWALD? I DON'T. (*SHRUG*)
“The NSA has trillions of telephone calls and emails in their databases that they’ve collected over the last several years,” Greenwald told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. “And what these programs are, are very simple screens, like the ones that supermarket clerks or shipping and receiving clerks use, where all an analyst has to do is enter an email address or an IP address, and it does two things. It searches that database and lets them listen to the calls or read the emails of everything that the NSA has stored, or look at the browsing histories or Google search terms that you’ve entered, and it also alerts them to any further activity that people connected to that email address or that IP address do in the future.”
* YOU THOUGHT BUSH'S AMERIKA WAS BAD...? AGAIN... NOTE... IN PRETTY MUCH EACH AND EVERY AREA WHERE BUSH FUCKED UP... OBAMA AND HIS CRONIES HAVE DOUBLED DOWN ON BUSH'S FUCK-UPS.
* OK, FOLKS... READ - AND THEN RE-READ - THE FOLLOWING NEXT THREE PARAGRAPHS:
Greenwald explained that while there are “legal constraints” on surveillance that require approval by the FISA court, these programs still allow analysts to search through data with little court approval or supervision.
“There are legal constraints for how you can spy on Americans,” Greenwald said. “You can’t target them without going to the FISA court. But these systems allow analysts to listen to whatever emails they want, whatever telephone calls, browsing histories, Microsoft Word documents.”
“And it’s all done with no need to go to a court, with no need to even get supervisor approval on the part of the analyst,” he added.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
But the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee [Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Georgia] told Stephanopoulos he would be shocked if such programs existed.
* "SHOCKED," HUH? (ANYONE SEEN CASABLACA...???)
* AGAIN... FOLKS... IS THERE ONE PERSON READING THIS WHO DOUBTS THAT GREENWALD'S REPORTING IS EITHER RIGHT ON TARGET - OR AT LEAST FAR CLOSER TO THE TRUTH - THAN CHAMBLISS' "UNDERSTANDING?"
Greenwald is set to testify before a Congressional committee on Wednesday, along with NSA officials. He said the existence of these analyst search programs are in line with the claims of Edward Snowden, who first leaked details of the NSA’s surveillance programs to Greenwald. ... “NSA officials are going to be testifying before the Senate on Wednesday, and I defy them to deny that these programs work exactly as I just said,” Greenwald said.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/07/25/how_nancy_pelosi_saved_the_nsa_surveillance_program
The obituary of Republican Rep. Justin Amash's amendment to claw back the sweeping powers of the National Security Agency has largely been written as a victory for the White House ... but Hill sources say most of the credit for the amendment's defeat goes to someone else: Nancy Pelosi.
* FOLKS... THIS IS FP... THE LEFT'S MAINSTREAM ORGAN FOR FOREIGN POLICY.
It's an odd turn, considering that Pelosi has been, on many occasions, a vocal surveillance critic.
* ONLY "ODD" IF ONE WERE EXPECTING "CHARACTER" FROM THE FORMER-SPEAKER!
But ahead of the razor-thin 205-217 vote, which would have severely limited the NSA's ability to collect data on Americans' telephone records if passed, Pelosi privately and aggressively lobbied wayward Democrats to torpedo the amendment, a Democratic committee aid with knowledge of the deliberations tells The Cable.
* "PRIVATELY..." WHAT A GAL, HUH?!
"Pelosi had meetings and made a plea to vote against the amendment..." said the source... "Had Pelosi not been as forceful as she had been, it's unlikely there would've been more Democrats for the amendment."
* LIKE I SAY, FOLKS... CHARACTER. (OR RATHER "LACK THEREOF.")
With 111 liberal-to-moderate Democrats voting for the amendment alongside 94 Republicans, the vote in no way fell along predictable ideological fault lines. And for a particular breed of Democrat, Pelosi's overtures proved decisive, multiple sources said.
* THANKS TO THE 111 DEMS! (AND THE 94 REPUBLICANS...)
[D]espite the minority leader's instrumental role in swaying the vote, you won't find her taking credit - she's busy protecting her Left flank from liberal supporters of Amash's amendment; some of whom openly booed her at last month's Netroots Nation conference where she defended President Obama's NSA surveillance program.
* AGAIN, FOLKS... FORGET LIBERAL vs. CONSERVATIVE; THIS IS PROGRESSIVE ANTI-CONSTITUTIONALISTS vs. LIBERTARIAN-LEANING CONSTITUTIONISTS!
When contacted, a Pelosi aide did not dispute the minority leader's assertive role in influencing Democrats, but passed along a letter Pelosi sent to the president today raising skepticism about the NSA's surveillance powers.
* TWO... FACED... BITCH...
"Well, I didn't vote for the PATRIOT Act the last time it was up," Pelosi said Friday, at her weekly press briefing. "I don't want anybody to misunderstand a vote against the Amash resolution yesterday."
* HOW COULD ONE MISUNDERSTAND? WHEN PELOSI COULD HAVE ACTUALLY PUT HER SUPPOSED BELIEFS INTO EFFECT... SHE BACKPEDDLED AND DID JUST THE OPPOSITE.
* Update: Following the article's publication, Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill e-mailed The Cable with the following message. "Leader Pelosi made clear that a vote against the amendment was not a vote for the surveillance activities in question and there were other more appropriate legislative vehicles to seek the changes many Democrats are seeking to make, like the bills introduced by Congressmen Conyers and Schiff."
(*SMIRK*)
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://blog.heritage.org/2013/07/25/morning-bell-3-whoppers-from-obamas-big-economic-speech/?roi=echo3-16363132217-13853011-3b0fa326add3c7122c0a9cd386b63ce2&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell
President Obama sure was excited about his speech Wednesday.
He talked for more than an hour in sweeping, grandiose terms about everything that’s happened since he became President, and everything that’s still going to happen.
If only more of it were true.
Here are three major whoppers Obama tried to sell yesterday:
1. ObamaCare is going great.
He’s said this before, and each time, it’s actually less true. To hear the President tell it, ObamaCare is all about security, free things, and discounts. But the daily march of ObamaCare is bringing higher premiums, new taxes, and fewer choices. The Obama Administration has already delayed the employer mandate — only the latest in a string of delays and failures to implement the law.
* AND HERE'S WHY I'M LESS THAN PLEASED WITH HERITAGE LATELY... NOTE... "ALREADY DELAYED." NO! HOW'BOUT "ALREADY ILLEGALLY DELAYED." HOW'BOUT "DELAYED, ABSENT CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY." FOLKS... UNDERSTAND... OBAMA CLAIMS AUTHORITY TO NO ENFORCE LAWS AT HIS DISCRETION. DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS USED TO BE CALLED IN POLITICAL SCIENCE CIRCLES? A DICTATORSHIP! OR PERHAPS ABSOLUTE MONARCHY!
In his speech yesterday, Obama said, “There are folks out there who are actively working to make this law fail.”
Nope, the law is failing just fine on its own. And that’s why Congress should not fund it with taxpayer dollars.
2. I cut the deficit in half.
This was one of Obama’s big first-term promises, so he would like to show that he’s delivered on it. But this claim ignores the huge deficit he ran up during his first few years in office.
* OOPS...
(Congress had to pass ObamaCare before we could see what was in it. Maybe Obama had to run up the deficit before he could cut it?)
“Public debt doubled under his watch,” says Romina Boccia, Heritage’s Grover M. Hermann Fellow in Federal Budgetary Affairs. “Deficits projected at $642 billion by the Congressional Budget Office for this year are ‘low’ only when compared to their trillion-dollar-plus levels over the past four years. The U.S. deficit and debt situation actually worsened since before the recession.”
* DUH!
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
3. Middle-class income is stuck in the ’70s.
The President paints himself as the savior of the middle class — and it’s the nefarious 1 percent he’s going to save us from, so he has to drive a wedge between the classes. His claim: “The income of the top 1% nearly quadrupled from 1979 to 2007, while the typical family’s barely budged.”
But in fact, incomes across the board have been rising. Heritage’s David Azerrad dispatches Obama’s falsehood: According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, after-tax income has risen for all Americans, albeit by very different margins, during this timeframe. For those in the middle three quintiles — i.e. the “typical families” — income has increased by almost 40%.
* OK! TIME OUT! MORE GOBBLYGOOK! MORE BULLSHIT! ON THIS LAST ONE OBAMA IS MORE RIGHT THAN WRONG.
* A COUPLE POINTS: 1) IF YOU "PROFIT" DOUBLE ON $1 THAN YOU'VE GOT $2; IF YOU "PROFIT" DOUBLE ON $1,000,000 THAN YOU END UP WITH $2,000,000. BIG FRIGGIN' DIFFERENCE IN THE "MEANING" OF THE DOUBLING OF THE "PROFIT." 2) THE NON-PARTISAN CBO IS A GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT AGENCY. THEY WORK WITH WHATEVER FIGURES AND ASSUMPTIONS THEY'RE GIVEN - PERIOD. NO... THEY SHOULDN'T BE IGNORED... BUT ANY AND ALL CONCLUSIONS THEY COME UP WITH MUST BE TAKEN WITH A GRAIN OF SALT AND THE UNDERLYING DATE EXAMINED.
* THE MIDDLE CLASS IS BY AND LARGE WORKING MORE AND REALIZING LESS - ESPECIALLY WHEN ONE FACTORS REAL INFLATION INTO THE EQUATION. ANYWAY... JUST LOOK AROUND YOU, FOLKS. HERITAGE IS FULL OF SHIT.
As Ron Haskins and Scott Winship of the Brookings Institution conclude: “There is no disappearing middle class in these data; nor can household income, even at the bottom, be characterized as stagnant, let alone declining.”
* HASKINS AND WINSHIP ARE NO DOUBT PICKING AND CHOOSING THE DATE THEY USE SO THAT IT FITS IN WITH PRE-DETERMINED OUTCOMES. (*SHRUG*) AT LEAST THAT'S MY GUESS.
American workers today are more productive and better compensated.
* MORE PRODUCTIVE? YES. BETTER COMPENSATED...? NO. ONLY AT THE HIGH END. PLUS... FEDERAL GOVERNMENT WAGES AND BENEFITS SKEW THE NUMBER UPWARD.
Their problem is a lack of jobs. And for that, we have President Obama’s policies to thank.
* THIS PART IS TRUE. (BUT DON'T CUT THE REPUBLICANS A BREAK. THE OLIGARCHY IS TO BLAME AND BOTH DEMS AND RINOs BELONG TO THE OLIGARCHY.
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.the-free-foundation.org/tst7-22-2013.html
* BY THE RT. HON. RON PAUL, MD
Last week Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke delivered what may well be his last Congressional testimony before leaving the Federal Reserve in 2014.
* PLEASE, GOD...! PLEASE...!!!
Quantitative easing (QE) and effectively zero interest rates have created paper prosperity...
* FOR SOME...
...but now the Fed must continuously assure Wall Street that the QE spigot will not be turned off.
* BECAUSE... (KEEP READING!)
Otherwise even the illusion of recovery will disappear.
(*SAD NOD WHILE BITING MY LOWER LIP*)
So Bernanke made every effort to emphasize that the economy was not doing well enough to end QE, while lauding the success of Fed policies in improving the economy.
(*ROLLING MY EYES*)
Bernanke was also intent on denying that Fed policies directly boost financial markets.
* WHAT A PIECE OF SHIT...
However, the money the Fed creates out of nothing in order to buy mortgage-backed securities and government debt for the QE3 program benefits first and foremost the big banks and the financial class — those people who are invited to the Fed auctions.
* YEP! THERE ARE THE INSIDERS... AND THEN THE REST OF US.
This new money then fuels stock bubbles, bond bubbles, agricultural land bubbles, and others. The consequences of this are felt by ordinary savers, investors, and retirees whose savings lose value because of the Fed’s zero interest rate policy.
As if Wall Street favoritism and zero returns for savers isn’t bad enough, the Fed wants the rest of America to bear a greater inflation burden.
* YEP!
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
The Fed thinks you should lose two percent of the value of your dollar this year. But Bernanke is not satisfied with having reduced purchasing power by ten percent since the 2008 recession. The inflation picture is actually much worse if we look at the old consumer price index — the one that did not assume that ground beef is a perfect substitute for steak.
(*RUEFUL SMILE*)
* ALL MY REGULARS KNOW THAT INFLATION IS DELIBERATELY DOWNPLAYED BY THE GOVERNMENT. (BUT WHAT PERCENTAGE OF THE NATION'S CITIZENS DO YOU SUPPOSE KNOW THIS... UNDERSTAND THIS...?)
* FOLKS... UNDERSTAND... THE UNHOLY ALLIANCE BETWEEN GOVERNMENT, ACADEMIA, WALL STREET, AND THE MEDIA IS ALL ABOUT HIDING THE TRUTH AND ADVANCING FALSEHOODS SO AS TO BEST SERVE THE INTERESTS OF THE OLIGARCHY AND THEIR "UPPER CLASS" TOOLS.
Using the old CPI metric, as calculated by John Williams at Shadow Government Statistics, we’ve lost close to 50% of the purchasing power of our money in just the last five years. So what you were able to buy with the $20 in your pocket before the financial crisis costs more than $30 today.
* SOUNDS ABOUT RIGHT. THINK ABOUT BEER. THINK ABOUT ROAST BEEF. THINK ABOUT YEARLY GAS BILLS.
That might be peanuts to Wall Street, but that’s real money for working Americans. And it’s theft by the Fed. It is a direct consequence of the trillions of new dollars the Fed has “not literally” printed — as Bernanke put it.
* FRANKLY... AND I HATE TO ADMIT IGNORANCE... BUT EVEN I DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW THEY'VE BEEN SO SUCCESSFUL IN LIMITING THE DAMAGE TO 50% INFLATION OVER FIVE YEARS vs. HYPERINFLATION.
Bernanke’s final testimony before Congress confirms that the Fed has blatant disregard for the extra costs and the new bubbles it is creating. The Fed only understands paper prosperity, not how middle class Americans and the poor suffer the consequences of higher prices, resources misallocations, and distortionary bubbles as well as insidious unemployment.
The only way out of this tailspin of monetary favoritism is to restore sound money - which would end the Fed’s ability to manipulate currency and put Wall Street first. The Fed has proven over and over again that it has no respect for the real money that preserves the value of people’s labor, their wealth, and their ability to live free and prosperous lives.
It is beyond time for the Fed, Wall Street, and the federal government to stop manipulating money and stealing from the American people under the false guise of paper prosperity.
* AGREED, DR. PAUL... AGREED!
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.the-free-foundation.org/tst7-15-2013.html
* BY THE RT. HON. RON PAUL, MD
Ten-year old cystic fibrosis patient Sarah Murnaghan captured the nation’s attention when federal bureaucrats imposed a de facto death sentence on her by refusing to modify the rules governing organ transplants.
* AND THEN TURNED AROUND AND GAVE IN TO PUBLIC PRESSURE... FUCK THE RULES... FUCK THE REGULATIONS... FUCK WHETHER THE SYSTEM WORKS OR NOT...
The rules in question forbid children under 12 from receiving transplants of adult organs. Even though Sarah’s own physician said she was an excellent candidate to receive an adult organ transplant, government officials refused to even consider modifying their rules.
* THAT'S BECAUSE THE RULES ARE BASED UPON THE BEST SCIENCE AVAILABLE AND BOTTOM LINE... THERE AREN'T ENOUGH TRANSPLANT ORGANS AVAILABLE FOR EVERYONE WHO NEEDS ONE.
Fortunately, a federal judge intervened so Sarah received the lung transplant.
* I DISAGREE WITH THE USE OF THE WORD "FORTUNATELY." BECAUSE SARAH "JUMPED THE LINE" SOMEONE ELSE DIED.
But the welcome decision in this case does not change the need to end government control of organ donations and repeal the federal ban on compensating organ donors.
* AND HERE'S WHERE DR. PAUL AND I ARE SIMPATICO! YEP... LET PEOPLE SELL ORGANS!
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
Supporters of the current system claim that organ donation is too important to be left to the marketplace. But this is nonsensical: if we trust the market to deliver food, shelter, and all other necessities, why should we not trust it to deliver healthcare — including organs?
* AND WORSE, WHEN WE DON'T TRUST THE MARKET - AS OFTEN WE DON'T - ALL WE GET ARE ABUSES AND IDIOTIC DECISIONS... AND WASTE AND FRAUD.
It is also argued that it is “uncompassionate” or “immoral” to allow patients or insurance companies to provide compensation to donors. But one of the reasons the waiting lists for transplants is so long, with many Americans dying before receiving a transplant, is because of a shortage of organs. If organ donors, or their heirs, were compensated for donating, more people would have an incentive to become organ donors.
(*THUMBS UP*)
Those who oppose allowing patients to purchase organs should ask themselves how compassionate is it to allow those people to die on the transplant waiting list who might otherwise have lived if they were able to obtain organs though private contracts.
(*NOD*)
Some are concerned that if organ donations were supplied via the market instead of through government regulation, those with lower incomes would be effectively denied access to donated organs.
* FOLLOWING SAID LOGIC CHARITY DOESN'T EXIST! PLENTY OF FOLKS WOULD DONATE ORGANS AND ESPECIALLY "WILL" ORGANS, BUT EVEN IF THIS WEREN'T TRUE, CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS WOULD POP UP TO FINANCE "ORGAN TRANSPLANTS FOR THE POOR."
The costs of obtaining organs would likely be covered by most health insurance plans, thus reducing the costs directly borne by individual patients.
* HMM... I DON'T KNOW ABOUT THAT... BUT MAYBE!
Furthermore, if current federal laws distorting the health care market are repealed, procedures such as transplants would be much more affordable. Expanded access to health savings accounts and flexible savings accounts, combined with generous individual tax deductions and credits, would also make it easier for people to afford health care procedures such as transplants.
* YEP!
There is also some hypocrisy in the argument against allowing market forces in organ transplants. Everyone else involved in organ transplantation procedures, including doctors, nurses, and even the hospital janitor, receives compensation. Not even the most extreme proponent of government-provided health care advocates forcing medical professionals to provide care without compensation. Hospitals and other private institutions provide compensation for blood and plasma donations, and men and women are compensated for donations to fertility clinics - so why not allow compensation for organ donation?
* THREE-PARTER... (Part 1 of 3)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324110404578625581152645480.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
On an August evening in 1976, several hundred gang members descended on a concert in Detroit's Cobo Hall and rampaged through the crowd.
* A RAINBOW COALITION...??? LOTS OF WHITES AND ASIANS...??? (JUST CURIOUS...)
The Detroit Police Department, whose ranks had been cut by 20% or nearly 1,000 officers by Mayor Coleman Young, took more than an hour to respond to the mini-riot while teens snatched purses and attacked concertgoers. The melee made headlines and provided stark evidence that in the nine years since the city's 1967 riots, which lasted five days and claimed 43 lives, Detroit's decline had continued.
* 1976... I WAS IN MIDDLE SCHOOL...
Today, Detroit sits in bankruptcy court as the largest municipal Chapter 9 case in American history. Much of the commentary about the city's decline has focused on global economic forces that displaced auto manufacturing jobs and public unions whose demands emptied the till as Detroit foundered. The truth is that Detroit was a failed city long before it became insolvent, thanks to a virtual collapse of its municipal government during Young's 1974-1994 reign as mayor.
* BUT THE SEEDS HAD BEEN PLANTED BY DEMOCRATS LONG BEFORE YOUNG... WHITE DEMOCRATS AS WELL AS BLACK, BROWN, AND YELLOW DEMOCRATS.
* STILL... YOUNG'S "REIGN" SET THE STAGE FOR TODAY'S ULTIMATE - "OFFICIAL" - COLLAPSE.
A radical trade unionist who ran as an anti-establishment candidate reaching out to disenfranchised black voters, Young lacked a plan except to go to war with the city's major institutions and demand that the federal government save it with subsidies. Critics called it "tin-cup urbanism."
* FUNNY THAT AS A POLITICAL SCIENCE MAJOR IN THE 80's I WAS TAUGHT LITTLE OF THE TRUE-LIFE ONGOING EXPERIMENT THAT WAS DETROIT.
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 4)
"[Young] left the city a fiscal and social wreck," the eminent political scientist James Q. Wilson wrote in a 1998 article in The New Republic, "The Closing of the American City." As the city's government became increasingly less effective, whites and then middle-class blacks fled.
Young was right that Detroit needed reform to deal with problems sparked by the migration of poor Southern blacks into the city in the 1950s. He and others, white and black, criticized the political power structure in Detroit, and especially its police department, as racially insensitive.
* HAVE YOU EVER HEARD THE OL' SAYING, "DON'T THROW THE BABY OUT WITH THE BATHWATER?"
The 1967 riots, sparked by a police raid on an after-hours club in a black neighborhood, generated legitimate calls for change.
* SEE "WALTER SCOTT III."
* I'M NOT AN EXPERT ON THE HISTORY OF DETROIT... I'LL ACCEPT AT FACE VALUE THE IDEA THAT "LEGITIMATE CALLS FOR CHANGE" EXISTED... BUT MY QUICK REFRESHER COURSE ON THE 1967 DETROIT RIOTS DOESN'T INDICATE THAT "THE WHITE ELITE" - NOR THE POLICE - WERE TO BLAME.
* I'M OPEN TO FURTHER "EDUCATION" ON THE MATTER. POST OR EMAIL!
(*SHRUG*)
Elected ostensibly as a reform mayor in 1973, however, Young made things worse. He divided the police department along racial lines, creating separate layoff lists of white and black officers.
* YEP. YOU JUST READ THAT!
He and his handpicked police chief, William Hart, made clear that policing that resulted in too many arrests or citations in the black community would not be tolerated.
* YEP... YOU READ THAT TOO...
"I wouldn't write tickets for black kids," one black officer told journalist Tamar Jacoby in her 1998 book "Someone Else's House: America's Unfinished Struggle for Integration."
When residents complained about a lack of law enforcement, Chief Hart called the protests "racism and sour grapes." Mayor Young declared that "law and order was code for 'Keep the n-----s in their place.'" Detroit became one of America's most violent cities.
* WELL, "HE WHOSE NAME DARE NOT BE MENTIONED," ANY COMMENTS? THOUGHS? COM'ON... YOU CAN POST ANONYMOUSLY!
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)
Young's divisive brand of governing extended to economic policy - such as it was.
When General Motors agreed to build a new plant in the 1980s to help the city's revival, Young and GM targeted the still vibrant, largely white ethnic neighborhood of Poletown to locate the facility. In one of the nation's most infamous cases of eminent domain, the city sued in 1981 to raze some 1,500 homes and 144 businesses and displace 3,500 people. As some Poletown residents hung on, hoping that court challenges would overturn the takings, Young withdrew services.
Residents lived among demolition crews by day and looters by night.
Documentary filmmaker George Corsetti described the chaotic last days of Poletown in a 2004 article in CounterPunch: "The night air was always smoke-filled and people slept with guns nearby."
* IN ALL SERIOUSNESS... YO... BUDDY... MY BUDDY "HE WHOSE NAME DARE NOT BE MENTIONED"... WERE YOU EVER TAUGHT THIS...???
Young benefitted politically from his very ineffectiveness. ... [A]s whites fled Detroit, Young's margin of electoral victory grew because his electoral base of poor blacks became a larger share of the city's population.
* GEEZUS...
Meanwhile, the increasingly distressed city became a fiscal ward of the state and federal governments. As Ms. Jacoby wrote, by the late 1970s federal grants paid the salaries of up to one-third of Detroit's workforce.
* GEEZUS... (AGAIN... POLI-SCI. MAJOR... GRADUATED CUM LAUDE... MAJOR PRIVATE UNIVERSITY... AND I WAS NEVER TAUGHT THIS.)
Young's legacy haunted Detroit long after he retired (he died in 1997). He opposed the election of his successor, well-regarded black State Supreme Court Justice Dennis Archer, who won in 1993 without a majority of the black vote. Young allies blocked Mr. Archer's agenda, including efforts to reduce patronage in city government, and they even tried to recall him.
Mr. Archer was followed by Kwame Kilpatrick, dubbed by admirers the "hip-hop mayor," a supposedly authentic black voice in the mold of Young.
(*ROLLING MY EYES*)
Elected in 2001, Kilpatrick served until he was indicted for obstruction of justice and resigned under pressure in 2008. This year he was convicted on 24 federal counts committed during his mayoralty, including mail fraud and racketeering.
* GOOGLE MR. KILPATRICK, FOLKS... JUST... GOOGLE HIM...
When former NBA star David Bing succeeded Kilpatrick in 2009, he called the city "near bankrupt financially, ethically, and operationally." While Young was not directly responsible for the public-pension obligations that led to the city's bankruptcy, his poor governance and hostility toward the middle class drove the tax base away.
* GREAT...
Today, Detroit is an estimated $18 billion in debt including a $3.5 billion pension shortfall. Its population has shrunk to under 700,000 from 1.84 million in 1950. Unemployment is at 16.3 %, and the number of jobs in Detroit has declined by more than half since Young became mayor in 1974. The city's auto manufacturing base has shrunk despite the bailouts of GM and Chrysler as those jobs moved to the likes of Kentucky and Alabama.
Texas Sen. John Cornyn recently introduced legislation that would bar the feds from bailing out Detroit or any other municipality.
* GOOD FOR HIM!
* BOTTOM LINE, THOUGH... DEMOCRATS DESTROYED DETROIT. OVER A PERIOD OF MANY DECADES. FROM THE YEAR OF MY BIRTH IN FACT!
Post a Comment