The report confirms what thinking people already know. Medicare benefits would be slashed and access would be in jeopardy under PelosiCare.
A plan to slash more than $500 billion from future Medicare spending — one of the biggest sources of funding for President Obama’s proposed overhaul of the nation’s health-care system — would sharply reduce benefits for some senior citizens and could jeopardize access to care for millions of others, according to a government evaluation released Saturday.
The report, requested by House Republicans, found that Medicare cuts contained in the health package approved by the House on Nov. 7 are likely to prove so costly to hospitals and nursing homes that they could stop taking Medicare altogether.
Congress could intervene to avoid such an outcome, but “so doing would likely result in significantly smaller actual savings” than is currently projected, according to the analysis by the chief actuary for the agency that administers Medicare and Medicaid. That would wipe out a big chunk of the financing for the health-care reform package, which is projected to cost $1.05 trillion over the next decade.
In case you’re wondering how the bill would be paid for if Congress were to restore those benefits, take a look in the mirror.
Jeff Jacoby – the lone voice of sanity at the Boston Globe – writes about Obama’s love affair with himself.
PRESIDENT OBAMA was too busy to attend the celebrations in Germany thisweek marking the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago. But he did appear by video, delivering a few brief and bloodless remarks about how the wall was “a painful barrier between family and friends’’ that symbolized “a system that denied people the freedoms that should be the right of every human being.’’ He referred to “tyranny,’’ but never identified the tyrants – he never uttered the words “Soviet Union’’ or “communism,’’ for example. He said nothing about the men and women who died trying to cross the wall. Nor did he mention Harry Truman or Ronald Reagan – or even Mikhail Gorbachev.
He did, however, talk about Barack Obama.
“Few would have foreseen,’’ declared the president, “that a united Germany would be led by a woman from [the former East German state of] Brandenburg or that their American ally would be led by a man of African descent. But human destiny is what human beings make of it.’’
I guess this is what happens when your serial polygamist father and your Communist loving mother ditch you for bigger and better things during your formative years.
This is wrong on so many levels. Not only will Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the others be afforded all of the rights of a U.S. citizen facing trial, but their defense teams will have all discoverable evidence handed over to them which will surely include sensitive intelligence information. And if that isn’t bad enough, Mohammed and the others’ public trial (and repeated focus on “torture”) will surely be used as a recruiting tool for the Jihad. The trial of a terrorist who has admitted he was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks which took the lives of 3000 innocent human beings will likely take on a circus-like atmosphere. What a slap in the face to the families of the victims.
WASHINGTON — Self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees will be sent to New York to face trial in a civilian federal court, an Obama administration official said Friday.
The official said Attorney General Eric Holder plans to announce the decision later in the morning.
The official is not authorized to discuss the decision before the announcement, so spoke on condition of anonymity.
Bringing such notorious suspects to U.S. soil to face trial is a key step in President Barack Obama’s plan to close the terror suspect detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Obama initially planned to close the detention center by Jan. 22, but the administration is no longer expected to meet that deadline.
Another Friday news dump. Barry was conveniently on the other side of the world making excuses about his indecision on Afghanistan and blathering about climate change when this news hit.
Elections have consequences. This is by far – in my opinion – the most appalling decision to come out of the Obama administration. Yet.
CHELMSFORD — ‘Twas the month before Christmas and all through the class, controversy was stirring about Christmas present and past.
The rhyme may sound trite, but the complaint is real from two Chelmsford mothers who say the Byam Elementary School has banned Christmas from its annual holiday gift shop.
A flier sent home with students for the gift shop, which will run from Dec. 1 to Dec. 4 and benefits the school’s PTO, states no Santa, candy canes, stockings, Christmas, Hanukkah or other “religious items” are welcome.
Kathryn McMillan and Kathleen Cullen, who both have children at Byam, are asking school officials to allow all holiday items or move the gift shop to another time of year.
“It’s sending the wrong message to our kids,” said McMillan. “The school is doing this in the name of diversity. But diversity means accepting all views, not suppressing some views.”
But school officials argue that the tradition to keep the gifts “neutral” is one that’s been in place for several years. Superintendent Donald Yeoman said shopping guidelines are under the purview of Byam Principal Jane Gilmore, and he stands by her position.
No mention of the Abominable Snowman, Burgermeister Meisterburger or the Heat Miser on the list of the banned. Yet.
WASHINGTON – Authorities have been examining whether Fort Hood massacre suspect Nidal Malik Hasan wired money to Pakistan in recent months, an action that one senior lawmaker said would raise serious questions about Hasan’s possible connections to militant Islamic groups.
Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., said sources “outside of the [intelligence] community” learned about Hasan’s possible connections to the Asian country, which faces a massive Islamist insurgency and is widely believed to be Osama bin Laden’s hiding place.
Hoekstra, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, would not identify the sources. But he said “they are trying to follow up on it because they recognize that if there are communications – phone or money transfers with somebody in Pakistan – it just raises a whole other level of questions.”
Was it our hapless governor who barred United Freedom Front leader, Luc Levasseur, from speaking? Of course not. His parole officer put the kibosh on it.
Domestic terrorist Raymond Luc Levasseur won’t speak at University of Massachusetts-Amherst tomorrow night because his federal parole officer in Maine won’t let him travel out of that state for the controversial event, the ex-con told the Herald.
Gov. Deval Patrick and UMass officials had tried unsuccessfully to block Levasseur’s speech but the event was going forward – sponsored by a program at the publicly funded school – until Levasseur’s parole officer pulled the plug. UMass officials and Levasseur’s parole officer did not return calls seeking comment.
Levasseur’s wife may take his place at the forum, Levasseur told the Herald. The event will also include defense lawyers and jurors who served on Levasseur’s conspiracy case.
I still say not a single penny of taxpayer funds should be allocated towards this event.
To those who have served, are currently serving and to those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our way of life, we thank you. May God bless each and every one of you today and always.
University officials cite “academic freedom” as their reason to allow United Freedom Front leader Raymond Luc Levasseur to speak on campus. The group is responsible for the murder of a New Jersey State Trooper, attempted assassinations of Massachusetts troopers and the bombing of the Suffolk County Courthouse. That is just one of twenty bombings the group is linked to.
Because the group’s rage resulted in the slaying of a New Jersey state trooper and attempted assassination of two Bay State troopers, cops strongly protested and the speech at UMass-Amherst was called off last week – until news yesterday that it was still being planned for Thursday night on the publicly funded campus.
“It’s truly unbelievable,” said Rick Brown, president of the State Police Association of Massachusetts, who added that cops from around the nation are prepared to protest the event. “If the governor told UMass not to bring this terrorist to a taxpayer-funded campus, it should not be happening.”
Sit down for this shocka.
But several free-speech groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, have asked UMass officials to reconsider.
Naturally, a progressive group is hosting the event.
Law enforcement sources said the event will take place in a campus building. Separate sources said the event is being sponsored by the Department of Social Thought and Political Economy, a progressive campus group, and that a UMass professor extended the invitation to Levasseur. Attempts to reach that group last night were unsuccessful.
The article states that Levasseur is on parole and living in a halfway house in Maine. I want to know who approved this on the law enforcement side as well as who is paying for his travel expenses and whether he will be accompanied by law enforcement on his little trip from Maine to Western Mass. Not one penny of taxpayer money should be allocated towards giving this excuse for a human being a platform to speak.
More disturbing details emerge about Ft. Hood shooter, Nadil Malik Hasan, and what our intelligence agencies knew about him.
WASHINGTON — Intelligence agencies intercepted communications last year and this year between the military psychiatrist accused of shooting to death 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex., and a radical cleric in Yemen known for his incendiary anti-American teachings.
But the federal authorities dropped an inquiry into the matter after deciding that the messages from the psychiatrist, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, did not suggest any threat of violence and concluding that no further action was warranted, government officials said Monday.
Major Hasan’s 10 to 20 messages to Anwar al-Awlaki, once a spiritual leader at a mosque in suburban Virginia where Major Hasan worshiped, indicate that the troubled military psychiatrist came to the attention of the authorities long before last Thursday’s shooting rampage at Fort Hood, but that the authorities left him in his post.
This was before the blog entries comparing U.S. Soldiers to suicide bombers.
Meanwhile, more revelations emerge about the red flags raised by Hasan’s actions in the Army.
The Army psychiatrist believed to have killed 13 people at Fort Hood warned a roomful of senior Army physicians a year and a half ago that to avoid “adverse events,” the military should allow Muslim soldiers to be released as conscientious objectors instead of fighting in wars against other Muslims.
As a senior-year psychiatric resident at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Maj. Nidal M. Hasan was supposed to make a presentation on a medical topic of his choosing as a culminating exercise of the residency program.
Instead, in late June 2007, he stood before his supervisors and about 25 other mental health staff members and lectured on Islam, suicide bombers and threats the military could encounter from Muslims conflicted about fighting in the Muslim countries of Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a copy of the presentation obtained by The Washington Post.
“It’s getting harder and harder for Muslims in the service to morally justify being in a military that seems constantly engaged against fellow Muslims,” he said in the presentation.
More political correctness run amok?
An Army spokesman said Monday night he was unaware of the presentation, and a Walter Reed spokesman declined to comment. It is unclear whether anyone in attendance reported the briefing to counterintelligence or law enforcement authorities whose job it is to identify threats from within the military ranks.
Did officials at Walter Reed decide to wash their hands of Hasan and ship him down to Ft. Hood? It sure sounds like it.
2. Bush was often considered to be in the grip of Big Oil. In contrast, Obama is a Harvard-educated lawyer. Which industry contributed more than five times as much as the other to politicians: the oil & gas industry, or lawyers/law firms?
3. Bush’s Christian faith was at the core of his political identity, and he was considered to be in the grip of the “religious right,” while Obama is considered more open-minded. In fact, Obama has said, “my faith is one that admits some doubt.” Which one refers to Jesus more in public speeches?
4. Bush was criticized for excessive federal spending and running up huge deficits. Bush’s deficit in 2008 was the largest in history. In fact, President Obama said,
It’s a little hard for me to take criticism from folks about this recovery package after they’ve presided over a doubling of the national debt … What I won’t do is return to the failed theories of the last eight years that got us into this fix in the first place.
Whose deficit was more than triple the size of the other’s: Bush’s in 2008 or Obama’s in 2009?
5. While Obama criticized Bush for “a doubling of the national debt,” the federal debt held by the public went from 35.1% of GDP in 2000 to 40.8% of GDP in 2008 — an increase of 16% as of fraction of GDP. What is it expected to be in 2016 under Obama’s budget plan?
6. Obama criticized Bush for Guantanamo, military tribunals, wiretaps, troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and “signing statements.” Which one of these Bush practices has Obama ended?
the right of every human being.’’ He referred to “tyranny,’’ but never identified the tyrants – he never uttered the words “Soviet Union’’ or “communism,’’ for example. He said nothing about the men and women who died trying to cross the wall. Nor did he mention Harry Truman or Ronald Reagan – or even Mikhail Gorbachev.
