The American people may not get a chance to review the final Healthcare Bill put forth by the Senate.
On Thursday, September 22, 2009 during mark-up of the Senate version of the House Healthcare Bill HR 3200, the GOP requested an amendment be added that guarantees Americans and Senators will get 72 hours to review the bill.
The vote on the measure was 11 for / 12 against. All DEMS except Blanche Lincoln (D-Arkansas) voted against the amendment.
There are nearly 500 amendments the committee is going through. On this one amendment, they debated about two hours.
The amendment, sponsored by Sen. Jim Bunning (R- Kentucky) would have required that the entire bill and Congressional Budget Office (CBO) final cost analysis be posted on the Senate Finance Committee's Web site for 72 hours before the committee votes on the final bill.
John Kerry (D-Mass) said “Let’s be honest about it, most people don’t read the legislative language.”
Well let me be honest about it. Many Americans DO read the bills and it is our duty to do so. I read HR 3200. It’s our Senators and Congressmen who don’t read the bills as John Conyers (D-Michigan) so clearly stated, “What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACbwND52rrw
Kerry also added that the move to "score" the bill (get a price tag) and post it on the internet for 72 hours for the American people to read was a GOP "delay tactic" to avoid passing any "real reform."
Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) said "Reading this bill will only confuse people."
Or will it only confuse our Senators? I still have faith that the American people can read just fine.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus said it would take at least two weeks for staff to write the bill that way (a way that is understandable and readable). If it’s too hard to read and understand, how easy will it be to implement?
So what if it takes two weeks to get an accurate assessment of the bill? This will be the largest tax burden ever added onto the shoulders of the American people. Is two weeks really to long to wait? Healthcare reform as proposed will not be implemented until July, 2013. That’s FOUR years! What is the rush? I believe We the People deserve two weeks to see the entire bill before the Senate Committee votes on it.
This is the transparency we were promised? Rushing makes me suspicious. These days I feel like Oliver Douglas in Green Acres. Our government has become Mr. Haney peddling Healthcare Reform in a nice shiny bottle with an inflated expensive price tag attached. We unfortunately we won’t know if it’s only cheap toilet water until we go to use it four years from now. By then, it may really stink.
Call all your Senators and demand WE get to see this bill before it is voted on.
US Senators Phone numbers:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
References:
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/09/23/2078308.aspx
http://finance.senate.gov/sitepages/legislation.htm
http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/9039/
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Maybe the Left is not Ready for a Black President
In the NYDailyNews.com this past week, Juan Williams wrote an article called “Critics' Attacks of President Obama are Scarier than Bias”.
Juan contends “there are people who don't accept the idea that this man, the first black man to win the highest office in the land, is really the President.”
Juan’s contention centers on the following:
• Claims Obama is not our president legally by citizenship status
• Claims he is Muslim
• Claims he is a socialist
• Joe Wilson shouted “you lie”
Juan says “At some point, it is hard to ignore the common thread in this criticism: It is an effort to say that Obama is not one of us, not like us. And at that point, it is not crazy to ask the critics if they mean he is not one of them because of the color of his skin.” Juan concludes that these people want to prove Obama is not our President legitimately.
I for one can’t follow Juan’s logic. Does questioning President Obama’s birth certificate, citizen status in Indonesia or religion make anyone a racist? What does Joe Wilson saying “you lie” have anything to do with race? Joe Wilson was referring to a bill – not the color of Obama’s skin. Juan gives supporting evidence that Joe belongs to the “Sons of the Confederate” inferring members are racists.
Then there’s the socialism charge. If anyone looks closely at Obama’s policy proposals, reviews his speeches and opinions, he is clearly in favor of socialism and, in his own words, wants to “spread the wealth around”. We have a President that campaigned as someone who would bring people together for positive change, but all of his previous background and voting records indicate he is a far left social progressive liberal. Polls indicate that the majority of America is a center right country believing in capitalism and our 10th amendment. With Obama as President showing his true colors, Americans are opposing this direction, philosophy, and ideology.
Americans voted for a black president. A racist nation would not have been able to make that leap. There will always be a few racists on all sides in this country. That will never change. Some people just don’t like others because of the color of their skin, religion, job status, wealth, clothes they wear, food they eat, party affiliation, or schools they attend.
The left would have us believe that anyone questioning Obama’s policies is a racist and the right claims the left is encouraging this scary bias to erode these Americans’ credibility. This is the left’s tactic. If those who question Obama are portrayed as having a flawed, biased character – then opposition will be silenced. Play the race card, and demonize those who oppose.
If the left screams “racist” every time there is opposition, how can Americans fulfill their obligation to question the manner in which they are governed? As Hillary Clinton shouted “I'm sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration (Bush), somehow you're not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we're Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration.” If George Bush were black, would that have made Hillary a racist? If she disagrees with Obama, does that now make her a racist?
The left just won’t let the race issue die because this is how they really feel. Raina Kelley in her Newsweek article “Play the Race Card” said “I had actually been looking forward to the aftershocks of an Obama victory”.
Maybe it’s the liberal left who are not ready to accept a black president.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/09/17/2009-09-17_critics_attacks_of_president_obama_are_scarier_than_bias.html
http://www.newsweek.com/id/215742
Juan contends “there are people who don't accept the idea that this man, the first black man to win the highest office in the land, is really the President.”
Juan’s contention centers on the following:
• Claims Obama is not our president legally by citizenship status
• Claims he is Muslim
• Claims he is a socialist
• Joe Wilson shouted “you lie”
Juan says “At some point, it is hard to ignore the common thread in this criticism: It is an effort to say that Obama is not one of us, not like us. And at that point, it is not crazy to ask the critics if they mean he is not one of them because of the color of his skin.” Juan concludes that these people want to prove Obama is not our President legitimately.
I for one can’t follow Juan’s logic. Does questioning President Obama’s birth certificate, citizen status in Indonesia or religion make anyone a racist? What does Joe Wilson saying “you lie” have anything to do with race? Joe Wilson was referring to a bill – not the color of Obama’s skin. Juan gives supporting evidence that Joe belongs to the “Sons of the Confederate” inferring members are racists.
Then there’s the socialism charge. If anyone looks closely at Obama’s policy proposals, reviews his speeches and opinions, he is clearly in favor of socialism and, in his own words, wants to “spread the wealth around”. We have a President that campaigned as someone who would bring people together for positive change, but all of his previous background and voting records indicate he is a far left social progressive liberal. Polls indicate that the majority of America is a center right country believing in capitalism and our 10th amendment. With Obama as President showing his true colors, Americans are opposing this direction, philosophy, and ideology.
Americans voted for a black president. A racist nation would not have been able to make that leap. There will always be a few racists on all sides in this country. That will never change. Some people just don’t like others because of the color of their skin, religion, job status, wealth, clothes they wear, food they eat, party affiliation, or schools they attend.
The left would have us believe that anyone questioning Obama’s policies is a racist and the right claims the left is encouraging this scary bias to erode these Americans’ credibility. This is the left’s tactic. If those who question Obama are portrayed as having a flawed, biased character – then opposition will be silenced. Play the race card, and demonize those who oppose.
If the left screams “racist” every time there is opposition, how can Americans fulfill their obligation to question the manner in which they are governed? As Hillary Clinton shouted “I'm sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration (Bush), somehow you're not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we're Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration.” If George Bush were black, would that have made Hillary a racist? If she disagrees with Obama, does that now make her a racist?
The left just won’t let the race issue die because this is how they really feel. Raina Kelley in her Newsweek article “Play the Race Card” said “I had actually been looking forward to the aftershocks of an Obama victory”.
Maybe it’s the liberal left who are not ready to accept a black president.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/09/17/2009-09-17_critics_attacks_of_president_obama_are_scarier_than_bias.html
http://www.newsweek.com/id/215742
Thursday, September 17, 2009
President Obama's Sept 8 Speech Just Doesn't Add Up
When I heard that President Obama was going to give a “students only” webinar on September 8th my first reaction was foreboding. Was this a normal reaction? Why did I feel this way?
I immediately remembered the Obama campaign “Change” and”Rearrange” video with children singing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtGrp5MbzAI
I don’t know why that video concerns me so much. Is it because I feel the little girl at the beginning is being exploited to send a message she can’t possibly comprehend? Betraying a child’s innocent by having them display allegiance to something that is beyond their understanding is too physiologically engineered and contrived for me. It’s one thing to persuade adults with clever words but to manipulate children to blindly follow keeps me envisioning a movie of children being brainwashed simultaneously while sheep are being herded and rearranged with a broken record stuck on the word change.
And why did I remember that video when our President is to speak to school children. Am I making too much of this?
Was my foreboding because of the passage of HR 1388 Serve America Act in March? HR 1388 was well supported by both parties and it was passed as an extension of the adult community service AmeriCorps program tripling its size over 8 years, allowing for up to 250,000 AmeriCorps volunteers by fiscal year 2017. What was not well published were these parts of the bill:
Section 1201 - Authorizes funding for service-learning programs in elementary and secondary schools
Section 1202 - Allows the Secretary of Education to designate up to 25 Campuses of Service, for community service at the college level.
Section 1203 - Integrates community service programs into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) curricula.
Section 1204 – Establishes programs for middle and high school students in community service, including Summer of Service programs for grades 6 through 12.
How does community service of K-12 students get tied to an AmeriCorps adult program and how does having young impressionable children involved in this service add to their education? Why was the bill hardly mentioned by the media and these portions virtually not at all. Where is the transparency we were promised? I can not see the value in coming up with ways to tie community service into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) curricula. Touchy feely community service does not relate to any equation, fact, logic or data driven science or math class. They just don’t belong together. In our constitution there is no federal government authority to dictate volunteering - especially to our children. Giving guidance and a sense of responsibly is not the federal government’s role. Clearly that role belongs in the family at a local level.
Was the foreboding because of the “secret” meeting on August 10 with the Whitehouse and artists? Film producer, Patrick Courrielche, said he was one of 75 artists, musicians, writers, poets and others invited to attend a conference call hosted by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) along with the White House Office of Public Engagement and United We Serve in attendance. Courrielche said officials on the hour-long call -- including NEA Director of Communications Yosi Sergant suggested the artists develop and create works of art in their respective fields related to health care, energy and the environment. They would use NEA money (i.e. our tax dollars) to channel these art forms (Obama’s agenda) throughout America. They also addressed language they should use when discussing this in future meetings and the legal implications.
http://www.sodahead.com/blog/145555/national-endowment-of-the-arts-learns-the-obama-language/
This meetings purpose was to manipulate art to project a political view. Some of this art with be directed at children like the “Change” and “Rearrange” video above. The White House is funneling our taxpayer dollars into the NEA to promote its agenda. I can see why they need to look into the legalities of that.
So we come to the Sept 8th speech.
http://www.c-span.org/Watch/Media/2009/09/08/HP/R/22833/Pres+Obama+challenges+US+Students+to+do+their+Best.aspx
Obama gave his speech to our nation’s most valuable resource and was it was well received. No one can deny telling children to find what they do best and go after it is a bad thing. Or to say that not everyone can be a rock star or a basketball player and that you have to work hard to achieve. Obama said “The story of America isn't about people who quit when things got tough. It's about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.”
I liked this part he sounds like a conservative– he’s talking about me, my friends, co-workers, tea party goers. To this I can relate.
Overall it had positive content. There were a few places that set off red flags for me.
“It's (America) the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon.”
This is a nice history lesson but it gave me a mixed message. If it’s OK and even honorable to revolt for a cause, then why are those who oppose his views or express concerns at town hall meetings and tea parties being tagged as Nazis, terrorists,racists, gun loving angry right wingers? I just don’t understand the point of bringing up wage a revolution in this speech.
Then he said “I'm working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn.”
The federal government provides very little money to education. Education is paid for with state taxes - in fact nearly 50%-60% of everyone’s state taxes general fund go directly to education. You and I pay for education. WE pay for the books, equipment and computers for our children to learn with our STATE taxes. Less than 10% comes from the federal government. The money for education and the control of education policy is not supposed to nor does it flow from the President.
But the thing that stuck a nerve in me about his speech also resonated with students. And that was Obama’s personal narrative of rising from underprivileged roots raised by a single mother to the White House.
It’s quite a stretch for me to comprehend how having a father with an advanced degree from Harvard and a PhD mother with an impressive career that included jobs with the USA Government and the Ford Foundation counts as underprivileged roots. He also said when in Indonesia there wasn’t enough money for him to go to an expensive American school so his mother had to teach him at home. Obama moved to Indonesia after his mother married Lolo Soetoro who worked as an oil executive at Mobil. In Indonesia he attended school in Jakarta for 4 years. Not exactly home schooled, a single mother struggling or the log cabin Abe Lincoln was born in.
In Utah a group of Advanced Placement students with mostly conservative views rated the speech as generally positive. "I didn't know his Dad died," said 16-year-old Joseph Gibbons.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2334852/posts
"My Dad died when I was young, too. It made him seem more real."
"There was no hidden agenda," said 15-year-old Nicole Moody of Draper.
Travis Skene disagreed, suggesting the speech was a political stunt meant to improve Obama's popularity. "People will forever remember this day and look back and say, 'Wow what a great guy he was,'" said the 16-year-old.”
I agree with all of them. There were very good messages. It had a real personal touch. Find what you do best and go after it. Work hard, not everyone can be a basketball star. But something just keeps rubbing me the wrong way about this speech.
I should feel positive that our President takes the time to encourage our children. But when I look at everything combined I get uneasy. I’m left with the song I cannot erase of “Change” and “Rearrange” America, children K-12 community organizing America, American art specially designed for political agenda, recreated “underprivileged” background and a very nice warm touching speech. Call me a right wing nut. Say I’m crazy. But this nut thinks something is not adding up and before community service was added to my public math education, I was an A student in Advanced Placement math.
.
I immediately remembered the Obama campaign “Change” and”Rearrange” video with children singing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtGrp5MbzAI
I don’t know why that video concerns me so much. Is it because I feel the little girl at the beginning is being exploited to send a message she can’t possibly comprehend? Betraying a child’s innocent by having them display allegiance to something that is beyond their understanding is too physiologically engineered and contrived for me. It’s one thing to persuade adults with clever words but to manipulate children to blindly follow keeps me envisioning a movie of children being brainwashed simultaneously while sheep are being herded and rearranged with a broken record stuck on the word change.
And why did I remember that video when our President is to speak to school children. Am I making too much of this?
Was my foreboding because of the passage of HR 1388 Serve America Act in March? HR 1388 was well supported by both parties and it was passed as an extension of the adult community service AmeriCorps program tripling its size over 8 years, allowing for up to 250,000 AmeriCorps volunteers by fiscal year 2017. What was not well published were these parts of the bill:
Section 1201 - Authorizes funding for service-learning programs in elementary and secondary schools
Section 1202 - Allows the Secretary of Education to designate up to 25 Campuses of Service, for community service at the college level.
Section 1203 - Integrates community service programs into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) curricula.
Section 1204 – Establishes programs for middle and high school students in community service, including Summer of Service programs for grades 6 through 12.
How does community service of K-12 students get tied to an AmeriCorps adult program and how does having young impressionable children involved in this service add to their education? Why was the bill hardly mentioned by the media and these portions virtually not at all. Where is the transparency we were promised? I can not see the value in coming up with ways to tie community service into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) curricula. Touchy feely community service does not relate to any equation, fact, logic or data driven science or math class. They just don’t belong together. In our constitution there is no federal government authority to dictate volunteering - especially to our children. Giving guidance and a sense of responsibly is not the federal government’s role. Clearly that role belongs in the family at a local level.
Was the foreboding because of the “secret” meeting on August 10 with the Whitehouse and artists? Film producer, Patrick Courrielche, said he was one of 75 artists, musicians, writers, poets and others invited to attend a conference call hosted by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) along with the White House Office of Public Engagement and United We Serve in attendance. Courrielche said officials on the hour-long call -- including NEA Director of Communications Yosi Sergant suggested the artists develop and create works of art in their respective fields related to health care, energy and the environment. They would use NEA money (i.e. our tax dollars) to channel these art forms (Obama’s agenda) throughout America. They also addressed language they should use when discussing this in future meetings and the legal implications.
http://www.sodahead.com/blog/145555/national-endowment-of-the-arts-learns-the-obama-language/
This meetings purpose was to manipulate art to project a political view. Some of this art with be directed at children like the “Change” and “Rearrange” video above. The White House is funneling our taxpayer dollars into the NEA to promote its agenda. I can see why they need to look into the legalities of that.
So we come to the Sept 8th speech.
http://www.c-span.org/Watch/Media/2009/09/08/HP/R/22833/Pres+Obama+challenges+US+Students+to+do+their+Best.aspx
Obama gave his speech to our nation’s most valuable resource and was it was well received. No one can deny telling children to find what they do best and go after it is a bad thing. Or to say that not everyone can be a rock star or a basketball player and that you have to work hard to achieve. Obama said “The story of America isn't about people who quit when things got tough. It's about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.”
I liked this part he sounds like a conservative– he’s talking about me, my friends, co-workers, tea party goers. To this I can relate.
Overall it had positive content. There were a few places that set off red flags for me.
“It's (America) the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon.”
This is a nice history lesson but it gave me a mixed message. If it’s OK and even honorable to revolt for a cause, then why are those who oppose his views or express concerns at town hall meetings and tea parties being tagged as Nazis, terrorists,racists, gun loving angry right wingers? I just don’t understand the point of bringing up wage a revolution in this speech.
Then he said “I'm working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn.”
The federal government provides very little money to education. Education is paid for with state taxes - in fact nearly 50%-60% of everyone’s state taxes general fund go directly to education. You and I pay for education. WE pay for the books, equipment and computers for our children to learn with our STATE taxes. Less than 10% comes from the federal government. The money for education and the control of education policy is not supposed to nor does it flow from the President.
But the thing that stuck a nerve in me about his speech also resonated with students. And that was Obama’s personal narrative of rising from underprivileged roots raised by a single mother to the White House.
It’s quite a stretch for me to comprehend how having a father with an advanced degree from Harvard and a PhD mother with an impressive career that included jobs with the USA Government and the Ford Foundation counts as underprivileged roots. He also said when in Indonesia there wasn’t enough money for him to go to an expensive American school so his mother had to teach him at home. Obama moved to Indonesia after his mother married Lolo Soetoro who worked as an oil executive at Mobil. In Indonesia he attended school in Jakarta for 4 years. Not exactly home schooled, a single mother struggling or the log cabin Abe Lincoln was born in.
In Utah a group of Advanced Placement students with mostly conservative views rated the speech as generally positive. "I didn't know his Dad died," said 16-year-old Joseph Gibbons.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2334852/posts
"My Dad died when I was young, too. It made him seem more real."
"There was no hidden agenda," said 15-year-old Nicole Moody of Draper.
Travis Skene disagreed, suggesting the speech was a political stunt meant to improve Obama's popularity. "People will forever remember this day and look back and say, 'Wow what a great guy he was,'" said the 16-year-old.”
I agree with all of them. There were very good messages. It had a real personal touch. Find what you do best and go after it. Work hard, not everyone can be a basketball star. But something just keeps rubbing me the wrong way about this speech.
I should feel positive that our President takes the time to encourage our children. But when I look at everything combined I get uneasy. I’m left with the song I cannot erase of “Change” and “Rearrange” America, children K-12 community organizing America, American art specially designed for political agenda, recreated “underprivileged” background and a very nice warm touching speech. Call me a right wing nut. Say I’m crazy. But this nut thinks something is not adding up and before community service was added to my public math education, I was an A student in Advanced Placement math.
.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Random Act of Patriotism
I found this story inspiring. Hope it does the same for you. Full Story and pictures can be found at:
http://www.alpost400.org/alr/temp_files/random_acts_of_patriotism.pdf
By Deb Lucia on September 11, 2009
By Deb Lucia on September 11, 2009
Today I was given a gift; a random act of patriotism. In remembrance of Sept 11, three Kansas American Legion Riders Posts, ALR 400, Rossville 31 and Nortonville 242 met over Interstate 70 and for 3 hours proudly lined both sides of an overpass with American flags.
Horns honked, drivers and passengers waved. A police car briefly sounded its siren. People pulled over and took pictures. I imagine they were as moved as I was. It’s an unexpected sight to see a bridge completely draped in American flags.
I’m not sure why the simple act of holding our flag on a bridge under blinding sun made me feel so good. On September 11 we must never forget that there are those who do not share our patriotism, our caring or the greatness of being an American. We are being driven by our leaders in one direction and holding tea parties and rallies as an expression of dissenting opinion. Many of us believe America is changing, freedom is waning, and our liberties challenged.
We need patriots in our country with as much emotion and passion as we had eight years ago.
Mark Twain once wrote: “In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.” I’m proud to say I’m a Patriot and was honored to stand side by side others today. Thank you American Legion Riders for this gift. I hope other timid Americans join in and let’s make
Random Acts of Patriotism the next American rage.
I hope all of us can feel like Deb Lucia did not only on September 11, but on each and every day.
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