A police officer and mother of one was hailed a heroine yesterday after it emerged that she almost single handedly ended the massacre at America’s biggest military base.
Kimberly Munley does not look as if she would be much of a match for a heavily armed US soldier on a murderous rampage. But the slightly built 34-year-old civilian officer was first on the scene after Major Nidal Malik Hasan began firing on comrades at Ford Hood in Texas as they prepared to deploy to Afghanistan and Iraq. The 39-year-old psychologist killed 13 and left 31 others with serious injuries.
The Tea Party holds no seat in Congress, but at least 10,000 of the party’s members descended on Capitol Hill Thursday to rally against a Democratic-written health care overhaul.
A plan first hatched and heralded on FOX by iconic conservative Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) grew over the weekend as she e-mailed with a handful of colleagues. By the time activists started arriving at the foot of the Capitol around 8:30 a.m., it was clear no Republican leader could stay away.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29183.html
Today, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI) released a letter from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) confirming that the failure to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance contained in the Pelosi health care bill (H.R. 3962, as amended) could land people in jail. The JCT letter makes clear that Americans who do not maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage” and who choose not to pay the bill’s new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000 and imprisonment of up to five years.
In response to the JCT letter, Camp said: “This is the ultimate example of the Democrats’ command-and-control style of governing – buy what we tell you or go to jail. It is outrageous and it should be stopped immediately.”
http://republicans.waysandmeans.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=153583
There is a fundamental difference between reducing costs and simply shifting costs around, like a pea in a shell game at a carnival. Costs are not reduced simply because you pay less at a doctor's office and more in taxes-- or more in insurance premiums, or more in higher prices for other goods and services that you buy, because the government has put the costs on businesses that pass those costs on to you.
Costs are not reduced simply because you don't pay them. It would undoubtedly be cheaper for me to do without the medications that keep me alive and more vigorous in my old age than people of a similar age were in generations past.
http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2009/11/03/the_costs_of_medical_care
Part 2:
There is no question that you can reduce the payments for medical care by having either a lower quantity or a lower quality of medical care. That has already been done in countries with government-run medical systems.
In the United States, the government has already reduced payments for patients on Medicare and Medicaid, with the result that some doctors no longer accept new patients with Medicare or Medicaid. That has not reduced the cost of medical care. It has reduced the availability of medical care, just as buying a pint of milk reduces the payment below what a quart of milk would cost.
First of all, what we can afford has absolutely nothing to do with the cost of producing anything. We will either pay those costs or not get the benefits. Moreover, if we cannot afford the quantity and quality of medical care that we want now, the government has no miraculous way of enabling us to afford it in the future.
If you think the government can lower medical costs by eliminating "waste, fraud and abuse," as some Washington politicians claim, the logical question is: Why haven't they done that already?
Over the years, scandal after scandal has shown waste, fraud and abuse to be rampant in Medicare and Medicaid. Why would anyone imagine that a new government medical program will do what existing government medical programs have clearly failed to do?
Among the things that people complain about under the present medical care system are the costs, insurance company bureaucrats' denials of reimbursements for some treatments and the free loaders at hospital emergency rooms whose costs have to be paid by others.
Will a government-run medical system make these things better or worse? This very basic question seldom seems to get asked, much less answered.
If the government has some magic way of reducing costs-- rather than shifting them around, including shifting them to the next generation-- they have certainly not revealed that secret. The actual track record of government when it comes to costs-- of anything-- is more alarming than reassuring.
http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2009/11/06/the_costs_of_medical_care_part_iv
November 6, 1860
Abraham Lincoln is elected the 16th president of the United States over a deeply divided Democratic Party, becoming the first Republican to win the presidency. Lincoln received only 40 percent of the popular vote but handily defeated the three other candidates: Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge, Constitutional Union candidate John Bell, and Northern Democrat Stephen Douglas, a U.S. senator for Illinois.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=5500
Jefferson Davis is elected president of the Confederate States of America. He ran without opposition, and the election simply confirmed the decision that had been made by the Confederate Congress earlier in the year.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=2378
IPT News November 6, 2009
Born in Virginia, sent to medical school by the U.S. Army, the psychiatrist was chastised for proselytizing to his patients about Islam. Asked his nationality, he didn't identify himself as an American but as a Palestinian. He appeared pleased by the shooting death of a Little Rock Army recruiter in June and reportedly was heard saying "maybe people should strap bombs on themselves and go to Times Square."
by Peter Nicholas
At least one Democratic political strategist has gotten a blunt warning from the White House to never appear on Fox News Channel, an outlet that presidential aides have depicted as not so much a news-gathering operation as a political opponent bent on damaging the Obama administration.
Political consultants are a staple of cable television talk shows, analyzing current events based on their own experiences working on campaigns or in government.
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., told reporters in a conference call Friday that the make-or-break vote on President Barack Obama's push to make health coverage part of the social safety net could face delay. Democrats were originally hoping to pass the bill on Saturday.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33717968/ns/politics-health_care_reform
Investigators seize computers, hard drives from activist group connected to embezzlement, fraud allegations
URGENT: Nearly 16 million people can't find jobs, pushing unemployment over 10 percent for first time since 1983 The Labor Department said the economy shed a net total of 190,000 jobs in October