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I mean why would you actually test to see just who REALLY has the H1N1. I liked this
The rationale given for the CDC guidance to forego testing and tracking individual cases was: why waste resources testing for H1N1 flu when the government has already confirmed there’s an epidemic?
I mean really, how ridiculous is this.
Is it possible to lay the global financial meltdown, the radicalizing of the Democratic Party, and America’s moral decline, at the feet of one man? It is indeed possible.
The article referenced above provides an interesting look into some very scary aspects of this man George Soros.
Over the last week or so my wife and I had been discussing taking the drive down to Washington DC and taking part in the march on the capitol taking place Saturday September 12, 2009. I knew that my older brother (I am one of 8) was attending and several other friends would be there but it had been raining and I was having yet another long week at work with more things to do then time to do them. Pretty normal all things considered. By Thursday we had pretty much decided we would attend and it was just a matter of working out some details. We decided we would drive down Saturday morning and hang out for a while and then spend the night somewhere semi-locally just to get away for a bit. I chose not to make a sign as our main goal in going was to show support for the effort. Outside of attending a small (maybe 200 people) Tea Party on April 15th neither my wife or I have ever protested for or against anything and so we really were not sure what to expect. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
On the morning of September 12, 2009 we left our house at @ 8am. We live just outside of Philadelphia and without traffic it is about a 2.5 hour drive to DC. We made good time heading down and when we stopped in Maryland at a rest stop the place was packed! Many of the people at the rest stop were heading to DC to the protest! just after we left the rest stop, I got a call from my brother who had spent the night in DC and had gotten to Freedom Park early and the news was all good. He said that there was a steady stream of people carrying signs heading to the protest and that he was in the middle of a huge crowd! He began mailing to myself and others the signs he saw:
This is a list put together from several emails that kept arriving as we were driving down. We had planned to drive to the greenbelt metro station just off the beltway and take the train in from there. I have never been on the metro in DC, but I had heard good things about the system and had no desire to try to find parking in downtown during a large event like this. We arrived at the greenbelt station and there was plenty of parking. We headed in to get our tickets and get onboard the train. As we entered the station this is the scene we saw.
It took us 25 minutes to get through the lines! Everyone was heading to the protest and the crowd was friendly and talkative! We began to meet other people from all over and before the day was done we personally had met people from Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Massachusetts, Georgia, Florida and Texas! My friends that we met there met additional people from Utah, Kentucky and California as well as others that I just don’t recall! Truly amazing when you think about the distance people travelled to make it to this event. We talked with people at the station and on the train about the schedule and the best place to get off the trains. We got off at the national archives expecting to exit the station and walk down Pennsylvania Ave to Freedom park as the march was not scheduled to begin for another 30-45 minutes. (it was about 11:00) As we approached the escalators and started up we could already hear the roar of the crowd! As we exited the station we saw that Pennsylvania ave was FILLED with people already marching toward the capitol!
As you can see from the pictures above there were a lot of people already there. As we looked toward the White House and Freedom park it was a solid sea of people and as we looked the other direction the people filled the streets and open space as far as I could see all the way to the Capitol dome!
At this point I tried my phone to see where our friends were and where my brother was. After 10-20 attempts I finally got through to my friends and they were already down near the capitol building and the place was packed! My wife and I joined in the march and began to work our way down the road. The atmosphere was a festive one and everyone was having a good time. The people were friendly and the weather was still cooperating. We had some heavy clouds overhead but no rain the entire day while we were there. Various people within the crowd started different chats from ‘CNN Sucks’ to ‘Can you Hear Us NOW’. As we approached the capitol and the reflecting pool we had to turn left and enter into the ‘protest area’. This was fun as the crowd began chanting ‘It is hard to turn left!’.
There was a long line of porta-potties down the one side and by this time we were in need so we stood in line and again the crowd was very friendly and everyone was having a good time. I was continuing to try to call my brother but the cell towers were just completely overwhelmed by this time. I could only get texts now and the occasional phone call. We worked our way up so that we were between the reflecting pool and the Capitol building just behind the statue of Ulysses Grant facing toward the capitol. Here is a picture from where we stood
Feel free to check out all my pictures at Facebook or FLICKr
As I stood here at this location I could see solid people in every direction with the statue behind me. As we stood here talking to people and listening to the speeches my Friend AJ was working his way around with three others and had promised to try to find me. He did locate me and we all walked around to the other side of the Grant Memorial and stood by the reflecting pool and talked with each other and to many others from the crowd. As I stood here I could see that with the exception of the pool the rest of as far as I could see was solid people. Behind the pool all the way back past Third street SW. The crowd overflowed Pennsylvania ave on the one side and Maryland ave on the other. Our other friends had brought signs and I wanted to be sure to include a picture of that one here as well.
We hung out here for an hour or so and eventually my brother, his wife and two kids joined us as well. We had all found each other in this huge crowd! I also saw here several new czars. A Green Czar, a Transparency Czar and a Boob Czar! :-)
Eventually My wife and I headed off with my Brother and family go get a bite to eat. We had not had a chance to eat since the previous day!
When we made it back to our car I plugged in the iPhone to the stereo and using AOL Radio I tuned in 1060. I was very disappointed in the coverage offered where the claim was that only ‘”10s of Thousands” had attended. My estimation is that it was easily over 1 million people there at the peak. Over the next few days I have heard many reports about the event including some claiming it was rooted in racism. Having been there myself I can tell you that I saw Latino’s, Blacks, Whites, and Orientals there. I saw NO indication of any racist behavior at all. I did hear that not a single arrest was made at the protest either! The one thing I DID hear at the rally and I heard it over and over and over again from people from all over. I heard conservative American’s that are fed up with the out of control size of government and the poor level of reporting from the MSM saying how good it was to know that they were not alone. They were so glad and energized by the size and energy of the turnout for this event. I believe that the current administration and anyone siding with them should be very concerned and should be ready to be booted from power next November. The American people are awake and paying attention and we are FED UP! You can listen to the reports but know in your hearts that Obama, Pelosi and Reid all know how many people were in attendance and what was said. I believe they are worried an they should be!
Two more signs I saw to leave you with…
According to the following documents, ACORN, Inc.–the parent organization of all things ACORN–forfeited its corporate charter in Maryland in 2006. ACORN Housing forfeited its corporate charter in 2008. Any ACORN office in the state of Maryland is potentially operating illegally.
via Big Government » Blog Archive » Exclusive: ACORN Illegally Operating in Maryland.
Don’t back down now! You, the American people have put a lot of pressure on your senators and representatives. You have let them know that you do NOT want socialist medicine to be implemented here in the USA and do not want any steps taken in that direction. They have heard you and even the President has already made concessions that would slow the march toward socialist health care but do NOT mistake this as them having given up. If we let the pressure off of them now we will lose the battle. We cannot be satisfied with slowing things down. We need to STOP this measure now. Call for less government involvement not more. Call for reduction in state and federal mandates. Call for TORT reform now! call for improved health care portability where we get the control back in the hands of the people!
(Another gem forwarded by my father for publication!)
Senator Kent Conrad, D ND, clarified for all of us the health care reform problem, with his appearance on Fox News Sunday, August 15th. He stated clearly and without any limiters that Obama does not have a plan for Health Care Reform. He has left that up to Congress!
Just think about that! He does not have a plan, or if he does, he has not shared it with the Democrat leaders in Congress, but, instead has left it up to them to create a reform bill. According to Politico.com:
Linda Douglass, communications director of the White House Office of Health Reform, e-mailed: “Nothing has changed. The president has always said that what is essential is that health insurance reform must lower costs, ensure that there are affordable options for all Americans and it must increase choice and competition in the health insurance market. He believes the public option is the best way to achieve those goals.” (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0809/26180.html#ixzz0OSpxwOZe)
The obvious problem is the fact, reaffirmed by Senator Conrad, that The President does not have a Health Care Reform Plan. Therefore any plan will achieve his objective and you can bet he will sign it! This seems to result in his ability to promise that almost anything that the polls say is important, is in his plan. If he hasn’t got a plan, then anything can be promised as in it or not in it. Instead of the details required in a plan we hear of his essential ingredients which vary based on the audience. In his initial speech to Congress on the State of the Union he promised to reduce the cost of health care while covering every American.
The biggest problem in The President’s ‘essentials’ is basic arithmetic! Including all Americans currently uninsured, which has been defined in various circles as between 20 and 47 million people, will add a major stress on the current system. If they must be assigned to the existing doctors and if they are able to go in for wellness checks and minor problems at no cost to the patient, government cost and provider stresses will be increased dramatically. The President has promised to keep costs down and even to turn the rising cost curve to a negative curve. At the same time he has assured us that there will not be rationing for older Americans who need medical care the most. This defies all logic and cannot be calculated using basic arithmetic or even new math!
There have been numerous attempts to do this through nationalized medicine such as is the case in most of Europe and Canada and so far there is not a single example of success. In the US it has been attempted in Massachusetts and Oregon. In every case cited, the programs are under fierce financial strains and coverage is rationed in one way or another. The newly elected head of the Canadian Healthcare System has declared this month that their system is about to implode and Vancouver is closing emergency care facilities due to lack of funds.
But none of the cases of failure seem to matter to our legislators and our President. The President sets lofty, mutually contradictory goals and the legislators rush to create plans tailored to give them full power over our lives without any concern for our feelings. They have forgotten or ignored the line from our Declaration of Independence that reads: “Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
It is time for the governed to make it clear to the government that they are not given the power to do as they please for their own aggrandizement, but, they are to use their powers to meet the wishes of “We the People” within the strict framework of the US Constitution. If they do not understand this basic principle, then they should be replaced by those who do.
Man, and my dogs will take treats from ANYBODY!…
As Victor puts it, “If a few thousand well-meaning dupes plug a few thousand new Chevy Volts into electrical outlets (especially in urban centers), you could actually add millions of pounds of dangerous, dirty unregulated pollution and carbon into the air we breathe — possibly more pollution than would be offset by putting the Volts on the road.”
Since most U.S. electricity generation is not carbon-free, the Congressional Research Service agrees. The “widespread adoption of plug-in hybrid vehicles through 2030 may have only a small effect on, and might actually increase, carbon emissions,” it observes.
Seems a lot like some more ‘unintended consequences to me! Once again the left hand is not talking to the right hand…
(Another post of the wisdom of my father.)
The Law of Unintended Consequences is one law that Congress cannot change or ignore, they are forced to accept its effects. My question is simple, ‘Do they understand the ramifications and accept them when they pass legislation or are they oblivious to it?’
In the Cash for Clunkers bill they have created a number of consequences. Which ones were planned or anticipated?
Did they truly want to eliminate 750,000 serviceable cars from the used car market? Don’t they care about people who cannot afford to buy a new car and who would be proud to buy a newer or their first used car for less than $3,500? Many people who are seeking their first or next job at or near minimum wage could use one of these cars to get to work and to get to the grocery store.
Did they think of the car mechanics who service these cars and who will no longer have adequate employment opportunities?
Did they consider the impact on used car dealers when they remove 750,000 useable/drivable cars from their potential inventory?
Did they think about the effect of announcing to the world of less than honorable people the cheapest and best way to destroy an engine?
Was the motivation to build the business of GM artificially to make it easy for the government to sell its shares to the public before the real world of sales begins again? Since some portion of the buyers have simply accelerated their purchases, what will happen to new car sales over the year following the program?
I want to believe that these consequences were not planned for, but, if the people we trust to legislate did not think of them, are they competent to be in that position? If they did think of these things and still wanted to spend $3 billion of our money on this program, what does this tell us?
If this is the effect of The Law of Unintended Consequences on a simple program involving trading in old cars for new, what will the effect be on a complete overhaul of 20-25% of our economy by the healthcare bill now in Congress (HR3200)? Without a full public debate and lengthy hearings and careful reading of the final bill can anyone truly support it?
There is a great debate going on currently on HR3200 because the House and Senate did not meet the president’s deadline to pass it before they went on recess. But we should not get mired down and forget the need to look forward!
In September, when the Congress returns from their recess, The Senate will be completing their own bill and The House will finalize their bill. At that time there will be a series of conferences between the two houses and a compromise will emerge. If the Stimulus bill is any example, and especially based on the comments of the Speaker of The House and the leader of The Senate, there is likely to be a rush to vote within hours of the agreement, even potentially before the bill is complete, as was done with the Cap and Trade bill in The House.
We need to make our voices heard now, loud and clear, that we expect the final compromise bill to be fully written and distributed on the Internet at least 15 days before they vote, to allow the public to read it and respond to our elected representatives. Even more importantly we need to know that our representatives have had the time to read it and to communicate their feelings on it to us before they vote.
We should also let them know that we expect a list of basic principles, in clear language that a 5th grader can understand, that form the basis of the bill and are incorporated in it to provide guidance and control to the regulators who will be charged with writing all of the ancillary regulations that are required to implement the bill. These should certainly include some of the promises that we have been given such as, “There will not be any rationing of care for Senior Citizens,” and “Final decisions of care and treatment will be left to the doctor and the patient and their family and will not be subject to limitations by any government agency.” It should also state clearly that only US Citizens will be eligible for these services.
Having read large portions of the bill, I am convinced that much of it is unintelligible due to its many references to changes to be made to other bills including the original Medicare bill and subsequent related bills. There is a clear need to have the basic principles spelled out clearly and completely within the bill.
The funding should also be clearly spelled out in the bill in clear language for all to understand and verified by the Congressional Budget Office prior to any vote.
The limitations on existing providers of services that will be changed or eliminated should be summarized as well.
Throughout our history the documents that have had the most positive impact on our nation, from the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to the Gettysburg Address and The Emancipation Proclamation, all written in clear language that citizens can clearly understand. When Congress is attempting to change something that involves 16% of our economy, they owe it to us, to our future generations and to themselves to make their actions clear and readily understandable.
More importantly, they owe us and themselves a clear and open debate on the final bill before it is approved.
