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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: koan who wrote (62551)	9/17/2009 10:38:53 PM
From: shakes	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

Mr. K, you know the problem. hey? Reminds me of good ol' boy George Wallace. George lost his first race for public office because he seemed moderate compared to his opponent who was essentially in favor of re-instituting slavery. After his loss, George declared to his supporter that he "would never be out-niggered again". Clearly, Mitt R. appeared "soft" to the hard-line right in the Republican primaries. Never again, huh, Mitt, no matter how absurd the content? A true Man of God. Shakes

To: koan who wrote (62551)	9/18/2009 11:15:14 AM
From: ChinuSFO	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 149317

For now, it would be wise for Obama to take the Baccus bill and run with it. This bill has the support of the 4 senators who belong to the respective groups. As I had posted earlier that in football you normally get to a touchdown by moving 10 yards at a time. The fight with the insurance industry will be long. At least Obama can begin with a choke hold on them by barring dropping of patients and requiring them to accept pre-existing. At the same time he can lay the groundwork for public option by instituting "insurance co-operatives" and maybe provide them with seed funding of 30 billion dollars (the profits the Govt. would make from bailing out banks such as Citibank) ==================================================== Baucus’ health bill flawed, but it gets the ball rolling U.S. Sen. Max Baucus’ long-awaited health care reform bill is far from ideal. But it appears to be the best vehicle yet for moving the contentious debate forward. Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill on Thursday joined three other key senators in expressing general support for the Finance Committee chairman’s efforts. “While we each have outstanding concerns we wish to see addressed, Senator Baucus has taken an important and critical step forward with this legislation, which is budget neutral and reduces future health care costs,” says the statement, also signed by Republican Olympia Snowe of Maine, Independent Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and conservative Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska. Both the Congressional Budget Office and the nonprofit Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said the plan drafted by Baucus, a Montana Democrat, will pay for itself. The CBO’s analysis projects that the plan would actually reduce the federal deficit in the long term. The new bill proposes a Medicaid expansion and more subsidies to help low-income people purchase insurance. But it offsets those expenses with a tax on high-cost insurance plans, savings in the Medicare program and other measures. Baucus’ plan also would expand coverage to 94 percent of legal U.S. residents, partly by requiring everyone to subscribe to an insurance plan, beginning in 2013. And it makes it easier for individuals and small businesses to band together to compare prices and purchase insurance. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the new bill fails to create meaningful competition in the insurance industry. Baucus’ plan to set up nonprofit, member-run cooperatives in every state is a weak and flawed alternative to a government-run insurance option. Health insurance co-ops have a high failure rate, and they would likely be too small to negotiate deals with pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and physician groups that would drive down costs. Baucus’ bill prohibits insurance companies from hiking premiums or denying policies based on someone’s health history. But without a government plan to provide real competition, private insurers are more likely to find other ways to maximize profits at the expense of consumers. Another serious problem is Baucus’ provision requiring employers who opt not to provide health insurance to employees to pay a fee only for low-wage workers who would then need government subsidies to afford health care. That provision, if it stands, would create a jobs barrier for low-income citizens. A married woman insured under her husband’s policy would be much more attractive to hire than a single mother, for instance. Employers should be required to insure their workers or pay a small fee. Period. The Baucus bill needs work. But it is encouraging to see the beginnings of a coalition forming to move it along. Too many families are paying too much for health care or lacking it altogether. Reform of America’s costly, inefficient system is needed now. Politicians from both parties must seize the momentum and work in good faith toward getting the job done. kansascity.com

To: koan who wrote (62551)	9/18/2009 5:43:55 PM
From: Skywatcher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

he's a LDS member... Joseph Smith of The Church of Latter-Day Saints: Money Digger? May 18, 2007 by Allen Butler On March 20, 1826, Joseph Smith, Jr. was brought before the justice of the peace in Bainbridge, New York. On court records he is referred to as "Joseph Smith the Glass looker." The charge: disturbing the peace. Glass lookers were not uncommon in New York farm country in the 1820's. They were shysters and con men who claimed that by looking into a piece of glass (or sometimes a special stone) they could see things others could not, including the locations of buried treasure. They would then charge poor farmers for this service to aid them in finding these great treasures supposedly buried beneath the ground. Of course none of these "treasures" were ever found. By 1826 Joseph Smith had developed a reputation as a glass looker (also known as a money digger). Smith used a seer stone rather than a piece of glass. He would place the seer stone into a stovepipe hat which he would then cover with his face. By peering at the stone while in the hat he could see things which were far removed from him, even buried under the ground. Early in 1826 a man by the name of Josiah Stowell had come to Smith to hire him for his money digging abilities. Stowell believed that there was a treasure buried on his land, left by Spaniards long ago. With Smith's great powers Stowell would be able to find the great Spanish treasure. For a month Smith worked on the Stowell farm, but nothing was ever found. Stowell himself never doubted Smith's abilities, but many of those close to Stowell felt the old man was being taken for a ride by Smith and brought him up on charges. Arad Stowell, Josiah's son, testified that he had personally tested Joseph Smith's abilities and saw clearly that it was nothing but a con job. With his testimony and that of two other men involved with Josiah Stowell, Joseph Smith was found guilty of disturbing the peace. To those who belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints this episode in the life of their founder and first Prophet has been a very embarrassing one that they have fought very hard to deny. The danger lies not just in the fact that Smith was a convicted con man prior to his creation of the Church, but that the details of his confidence trickery are so similar to those of the story of Joseph Smith finding and translating the golden plates which would become the Book of Mormon. Sometime between 1823 and 1827 Joseph Smith claimed to have received a vision that there were ancient golden plates buried somewhere on his land. He used the same money digging techniques he had used for Stowell to attempt to find the plates, without success. Other money diggers in the area began to pick up on the story and started coming and looking for the golden plates themselves. Finally, on September 22, 1827, Smith announced that the angel Moroni had given him a vision which lead him directly to the plates. According to Emma Smith, Joseph's wife, David Whitmer (one of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon) and many others, the process used by Joseph Smith in translating the Book of Mormon was the exact same as that which he used in money digging. While translating Smith did not even have the golden plates in front of him. He used the seer stone, once again placed in his stovepipe hat. He would gaze into the hat, wherein he would see the plates in their hidden location now translated from the "Reformed Egyptian" in which they were originally written. Because of this similarity between the finding and translation of the golden plates and Joseph Smith's money digging ventures, Mormons have tried to deny the truth of his 1826 trial. Documents found in the archives of the court in Bainbridge in 1971, however, verified that Smith indeed was brought to trial as a glass looker and was convicted for his crime.