President Obama

[P562045]

Well around this time last year it was around the time President Obama finally defeated Mrs. Clinton for the democrat nomination I started a thread about President Obama.

President Obama was talking to a group of health care providers at the American Medical Association and threatened them with this little quote.

"A big part of what led General Motors and Chrysler into trouble in recent decades were the huge costs they racked up providing health care for their workers -- costs that made them less profitable and less competitive with automakers around the world. If we do not fix our health care system, America may go the way of GM -- paying more, getting less, and going broke."

President Obama I am sure absentmindedly forgot to mention that various governments own a majority of General Motors.

This quote also give a the reason why we should support President Obama's and congressional democrats little scheme.

If we do not implement this plan health care costs are going to keep going up.

Now I have asked the question before does a person remember the last time the cost of health care went down. And the conditions for this have been in recent years and even over a decade a democrat president with a democrat congress, a democrat president with a republican congress, a republican president with a republican congress, and last but not least a republican president with a democrat congress. I am just describing the last sixteen years. Under these four different conditions why has the cost of health care increased each and every year?

But the more important question is not how much we are going to be saving in the area of health care costs but how much are we going to be spending in order for the actual cost of health care to go down.

We have had some stories about one of the more famous veterans hospitals in the country being in such sad shape which was Walter Reed and it was not pretty picture to say the least. It was so bad the conditions at Walter Reed almost prompted democrats in congress to do something about it. These are good examples of the government running just a very small part of health care and democrats want to greatly expand the number of people getting health care from the feds and so that the feds can make the same kinds of decisions on health care that they do when it comes to a veterans hospital.

Then we have the relics of the Great Society with us even today. This would be Medicare and Medicaid. I am quite sure these two programs alone have all kinds of fraud and waste associated with them. This is another example of the feds running health care for older Americans.

Come to think of it if we really wanted to "reform" health care, and I put it in quotes because we are not really reforming anything with this plan we are just pretending to do so, we should start by really changing how these two government programs of the 1960's really work but I will not hold my breath on this one especially with the current makeup of Washington D.C.. health care "reform" sort of reminds me of campaign finance reform which one of its stated purposes was to get the money out of politics so that money would be less of an influence on politicians. I have not checked the actual dollar amount but I would not be the slightest bit surprised if we just spent around $1,000,000,000 on the two presidential campaign last year alone.

I will leave a person with a question actually. Would you want to have your own health care be run like the several examples I have given of veterans hospitals, Medicare, and Medicaid or not?

Full speech by President Obama at the American Medical Association.

[P562045]

I want to mention another thing that President Obama said at the American Medical Association annual meeting.

"If we fail to act, one out of every five dollars we earn will be spent on health care within a decade. And in 30 years, it will be about one out of every three -- a trend that will mean lost jobs, lower take-home pay, shuttered businesses, and a lower standard of living for all Americans."

Didn't President Obama as he was discussing his and congressional democrats stimulus bill earlier this year say something along the lines that if the stimulus bill does not pass through the congress unemployment would be over nine percent. Well I seem to remember that President Obama signed the stimulus package on February 17 of this year and despite that unemployment is over nine percent. It appears to me that President Obama needs to start to create more jobs with the stimulus money. President Obama mentioned just recently said some number I forget how many jobs it was; and it was rather convenient for President Obama failure to mention how many people have lost their jobs since January 20th of this year. Speaking of failure to mention something it is so former President George W. Bush fault that we have so many people losing their jobs the first half of this year for sure and not President Obama of course.

This quote also points out something else important as well. Just last decade and century health care was about 1/6 of the economy. Now it is 1/5 of the economy apparently.

I will use some number to try to illustrate the difference so it is easier to understand.

1/6 of $1,000,000,000 is $166,666,667.
1/5 of $1,000,000,000 is $200,000,000.

Well it is actually not a very good illustration except for the fact that the second number is larger.

It truly amazes me sometimes that I believe President Obama and what he says even less than what former President Clinton said while he was president. It would be almost impossible for me to even think of an example when it comes to former President Clinton with regards to doing something right for the country as a whole. Back to my mantra of Washington D.C. doing things that benefit themselves and not the country as a whole. And yes I could even say the exact same thing about former President George W. Bush as well. Iraq and tax cuts come to mind immediately and of course there are other examples as well such as taking a person's civil liberties away in certain cases as well. Plus people must remember that I have a perspective that is not exactly positive when it comes to the leaders in Washington and that is just me and millions of other people in the country as well.

Speech by President Obama

[P562045]

President Obama is just trying to make sure that stories like this one when it comes to individual care never happen under his and congressional democrats plan for health care.

Just remember that even President Obama in his speech at the annual American Medical Association meeting mentions what is at stake here and that is one out of every five dollars spent in the United States goes towards health care costs.

A real horror story about an individual eventually getting a very necessary surgery eventually for breast cancer.

Breast cancer story here

I must ask again will things like in this story not happen when the feds want to take over even more aspects of health care than they already have. I am sure that the health care industry as a whole is very heavily regulated which is necessary at times actually. A good example of this is that many drugs go through various tests to make sure they are safe before they go on the market. And that is just one aspect of the health care industry as whole tries to regulate. I am sure the people in Washington would of course say yes under their particular plan absolutely nothing will go wrong. But I have a real suspicion that things will of course go wrong it is just human nature really. But the real danger in this to me is that people will not be informed about these bad situations in order to protect President Obama and congressional democrats.

[rich76]

The drug testing and "release" program in this country is an absolute joke. The biggest companies with the most money get the favorable treatment. We are so far behind Europe and elsewhere it is not even funny.
The absurdity of our drug program is evidenced regularly by all th e recalls and class action law suits against drug manufacturers.

[P562045]

I am sure companies that make drugs also have a large lobbyist component in Washington. That is a big part of their influence of them getting their drugs approved.

Come to think of it so does the health care industry as a whole has a gargantuan lobby in Washington as well.

It will be interesting to see who blinks first President Obama or the health care industry.

I will go with the gargantuan health care industry will be the ones blinking. Let's see so far we have a part of the automobile industry and several of the largest banks in the country and the largest insurer on the planet A.I.G. blink as well. But in my examples except for the health care industry they have all received at least some money from the feds in terms of bailouts and tarp money etc.. I have to take that back doctors and hospitals receive money from what I discussed earlier which is Medicare and Medicaid which are federal programs.

No wonder President Obama thinks he has the right to take over as much as the health care industry as possible just as President Obama has already done with several other important industries I just mentioned. The health care industry does receive a lot of money from the feds as well. I could say the same thing about education as well but that is a topic for another day.

[rich76]

ZICAM is the most recent addition to the recall list.

[hork]

Originally Posted by rich76

The drug testing and "release" program in this country is an absolute joke. The biggest companies with the most money get the favorable treatment.

so very true, and to boot, the rate at which they are granted patents for "me-too" drugs amounts to nothing less than a monopoly and absolutely destroys any sense of free-market competition (hence the astronomical cost of drugs).

[P562045]

I would like to discuss Iran and President Obama's foreign policy and foreign policy of past presidents as well.

Who are the protesters in Tehran really protesting against?
Why are there even protests in Tehran in the first place?

Rhetorical statement by President Obama #1

Rhetoric Statement #2 by President Obama about Iran

I think that it is very important that President Obama repeat two days in a row that he really is watching the situation in Iran very closely.

I guess I should ask the question why we all should be watching this situation very closely?

I am having flashbacks to the Clinton Administration where our foreign policy involved not rocking the boat no matter what the situation was. We even had former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright go to North Korea in 2000. And now nine years latter with a bunch of empty rhetoric in between Mrs. Albright's trip to North Korea they have been showing their technical prowess lately.

What was the most famous rhetoric about North Korea since 2000. It was when former President Bush talked about North Korea being a part of the "Axis of Evil" in his State of the Union address in 2002. I truly wonder if we will still be talking about North Korea and Iran for that matter nine years from now. There is little doubt in my mind we will be. You would think we would learn from the past but I think that any president thinks that they can change things but in reality little has changed at all.

Come to think of empty rhetoric very much reminds me of the very reasons that the people were given when it came to going into Iraq in the first place. But there is one fundamental difference with regards to Iraq the rhetoric were just a bunch of lies.

What a wonderfully short trip down memory lane I have had when it comes to President Obama and his foreign policy. The foreign policy of President Obama reminds me of past presidents for some reason.

I must mention something else about this as well. We have had two very different approaches to foreign policy that I have described in this post over the last sixteen years and I very much think that neither one of these approaches have been very effective at all because we keep talking about the same regions of the world decades latter after first discussing them.

[P562045]

Well back to the discussion of health care "reform".

This article in typical fashion praises and gives several reasons why this so called "reform" is so necessary in the first place.

The only real reform would be if as this article suggests cutting out all of the unnecessary medical tests and I will add surgeries as well.

So I remember recently President Obama throwing the number of $1,000,000,000,000 that the saving I just mentioned over a decade or so which is about $100,000,000,000. So does anyone want to take a guess if I think that the rise in costs that the feds will be paying for is more or less than $100,000,000,000 a year. Don't think to hard the answer is simply more.

So we are going to be spending a ton of money to pretend we are "reforming" something when in reality the cost of health care will keep going up no matter what we do.

Why does this so remind me of Iraq for some reason.

And don't forget there are other areas that need "reform" as well such as the environment, financial institutions, and immigration as well. I am quite sure that I am only scratching the surface when it comes to the "reforms" the democrats will make it sound like we so desperately need and the part of the reason for doing these "reforms" in the first place will be to move the country forward in the right direction.

Article about some of the reasons why health care "reform" is so necessary in the first place. NOT! I have already discussed what should be done when it comes to real reform already

[-mmm-]

Originally Posted by P562045

Who are the protesters in Tehran really protesting against?
Why are there even protests in Tehran in the first place?

From what I've grasped of the situation, many of the people in Iran called on the election results. However with the strict crackdown against those demonstrations, its now morphed into an anti-regime rally. How it'll turn out Im not sure (Ayatollah and President Im-a-d1ck-ja-know prevail and bring in a theocracy that may or may not be overtly fascist, Mousavi somehow prevails but retains the Islamic republic, true democracy is ushered in, or some other option)

Originally Posted by P562045

I guess I should ask the question why we all should be watching this situation very closely?

Not sure about you guys but Ive been. Best places I found are Nico at the HuffPo (probably the first time ever Ive given accolades to that site) and Andrew Sullivan.

Originally Posted by P562045

I am having flashbacks to the Clinton Administration where our foreign policy involved not rocking the boat no matter what the situation was.

So is Chaney-esque saber rattling your answer? What about shifting troops from Iraq and/or Afghanistan? That's the problem I see when people attack Obama on his approach to Iran right now. And thats without even going into the tenuous Iranian-American history. Its probably the best path to go down, argue for fair elections and justice, but let the Iranian people sort it out themselves (what a concept, letting the people's groundswelling bring about possible democracy instead of forcing it on them!)

Originally Posted by P562045

We have had two very different approaches to foreign policy that I have described in this post over the last sixteen years and I very much think that neither one of these approaches have been very effective at all because we keep talking about the same regions of the world decades latter after first discussing them.

How can you say Obama's approach in regards to Iran has been ineffective? That Im curious about since its only been a little over a week in regards to the situation there.

North Korea is a difference can of worms, with far different consequences. But I havent followed that situation enough to know what exactly is going on.

[P562045]

I do not think that anyone knows really what to do with Iran to be quite honest about it.

Well at least President Obama has acknowledged what is going on in Tehran.

Link here

In our past we have tried to stay out of other countries affairs. This would be former President Clinton approach to foreign policy. When a person thinks of the Middle East during the former President Clinton years I have even shown the picture before of Yassar Arafat and the Israeli leader shaking hands on the lawn of the White House before. And we have also tried to actually change the country of Iraq to make them look more like ourselves. Which of course was the foreign policy approach of former President George W. Bush and that approach did not exactly work out very well now did it.

So sorry for my somewhat frustration about this. But we have been down this road before many times and as I have just tried to describe both types of these approaches have led us to where we are even today. It would be very easy to just ignore the Middle East but that would not be a very good idea because of several reasons. Iran's nuclear ambitions and does anyone really believe them when they say they are going to be using these facilities for peaceful purposes only; and a person must not forget the oil in the region as well.

[P562045]

This is what President Obama said about the situation in Iran yesterday.

Remarks here

A person may be asking themselves the question why is President Obama being very careful about how he handles the situation in Iran. This is from President Obama's remarks yesterday.

"The Iranian people are trying to have a debate about their future. Some in Iran -- some in the Iranian government, in particular, are trying to avoid that debate by accusing the United States and others in the West of instigating protests over the election. These accusations are patently false. They're an obvious attempt to distract people from what is truly taking place within Iran's borders. This tired strategy of using old tensions to scapegoat other countries won't work anymore in Iran. This is not about the United States or the West; this is about the people of Iran, and the future that they -- and only they -- will choose."

Well I feel like such a butt. But part of this particular situation when it comes to President Obama I feel he needed to say why we are staying out of this situation a little earlier. I say this because I was asking myself this very question. Why is it so important for us to stay out of this situation in the first place. This very clearly explains the reasons why.

And lets not forget a few other things about this situation as well. The situation is ever changing in this type of situation. As President Obama said we just need to keep our noses out of the situation as much as possible but we also must recognize what is happening in Iran before our very eyes in some cases. But the most important aspect to this story is let the people in Iran decide their own future.

[P562045]

Why is it that I even feel the need to tell the whole story of the court case Ricci v. DeStefano.

Well part of the reason is that a certain media outlet said that five evil conservative judges just made this decision in order to make Judge Sotomayor look bad. Well in my humble little opinion how Judge Sotomayor decided the case I just mentioned shows that she herself has made a very poor choice in this particular case.

This court case should actually be quite simple for several reasons but Judge Sotomayor fails to even realize what part of the first section of the 14th amendment to the Constitution really is intended to do.

So some firefighters took a test in New Haven Connecticut to see which of them would get promotions within the fire department.

Well some white firefighters scored higher on the test but the City of New Haven promoted some minority fire fighters instead of the white firefighters.

This is what the last section of section one of the14th amendment of the constitution says, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Well the firefighters were allowed to have the due process by going to court but the second circuit court which Judge Sotomayor was a part a three judge panel that made the decision that was eventually decided in the Supreme Court of the United State just yesterday. The question becomes did the white firefighters get equal protection when it comes to the promotions of firefighters in New Haven Connecticut? I would say the answer is clearly no. We can not be excluding some people from these protections just because of their race. And I don't really care if the firefighters in question were brown, green, purple, or even white for that matter they are all supposed to be protected equally under the law.

Well it is quite clear to me that Judge Sotomayor does not see this matter the same way that I do. Which is her choice but she clearly sided with the minority firefighters because she basically said that the City of New Haven did absolutely nothing wrong when it comes to promoting minority firefighters even though some white firefighters scored higher on the test. This just stinks to high heaven to me because Judge Sotomayor puts her own selfish little biases ahead of what even an amendment to the Constitution even says. And what is a U.S. supreme court justice supposed to be doing in the first place. It is none other than interpreting what the constitution itself says. As I just mentioned earlier we can not be excluding people from promotion just because of their race no matter what that person's race is.

I mentioned the part of the first section in the 14th amendment of the constitution so people would know why this case was even being argued in the Supreme Court of the United States.

Why does this not surprise me. Well we have a president in President Obama who has been naming advisers and he may have other names for them as well that have not been confirmed by congress which I must say has to be a clear violation of the constitution. So when I really think about it President Obama selecting Judge Sotomayor who in this particular case did not side with what the 14th amendment pretty clearly says does not really surprise me.

So what would the consequences be if the first section of the 14th amendment was not in the constitution. Well I guess not everyone would have equal protections under the constitution.

So a very important question a person may want to ask themselves is why are these protections in the 14th amendment so important in the first place.

This court case irritates me for another reason. With such an important job as firefighter wouldn't the City of New Haven want to promote the most qualified people that all took the same test. Well the answer to this at least from the cities perspective is clearly no. And part of the reason is they were so fearful of a lawsuit against the city by the minority firefighters that the city decided to promote them in some cases instead of the people that had scored higher on the test.

Story Here

[hork]

peter,

while i agree with the SCOTUS decision in this case, i have to ask why you would choose to invoke the 14th amendment? especially given your past posts regarding same-sex marriages. or does equal protection not count for gays?

[rich76]

Hey Ken...could we stick to the topic? I'm curious as hell as to why you agree with the decision to promote the fellas that scored lower on the test? Now, you've made it clear that many of us here are not quite as intelligent as you are, so please keep your answer as "simple" for me as is humanly possible for you. I, like Peter, am struggling with this decision and would like to hear oppostie positions. I've been a victim of decisions like this on 2 seperate occasions back in the 70's and it has gnawed at me for that long....never got a reason form anyone. So, please, educate me on this.