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POPSSEIU Needs Socialized Medicine To Stoke Its Underfunded Pensions 
and union employees at the expense of the rank-and-file. To regain some semblance of fiscal stability, the SEIU has wagered heavily on forcing other employees to help fund its drying pension reserves. That was the motivation behind the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) ("Card Check"), a major Democrat initiative for 2009, and one on which the SEIU spent tens of millions of its members' money. Since Card Check is in serious trouble with lawmakers, state-run health care would be a suitable alternative. • The public option could force hospital and other health care workers into underfunded pensions, putting their retirements at risk • The average union pension has resources to cover only 62% of what is owed to participants • Less than one in every 160 union-represented workers is covered by a union pension with required assets • The PBGC already supports upwards of 30,000 pension plans • Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC), the governmental pension insurer,
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POPSDick Cheney Takes It To Obama on National Security It appears that Obama’s dissenters are piling on his back. As a result, the foreign policy hawks and neocons are making a successful comeback. We all witnessed how capable and successful Cheney was when he took his case to the airwaves, TV shows, and editorials in defending the Bush administration’s legacy. It is beyond dispute that Cheney can make a convincing case and draw a sharp contrast between the Obama administration on what it takes to secure America and defends its interests. As more and more Americans see President Obama as indecisive in making his decision in Afghanistan, even as his commanders on the ground request direct action and troop increases, the more this type of onslaught will sink him further in the polls and erode what little is left of his political capital and public confidence. October 22, 2009 by Jason
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POPSAFSCME, one of America's largest unions, takes on Obama McEntee led workers in chanting a barnyard epithet to describe Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus’s health care bill, which would levy a new tax on expensive health care plans. He published an op-ed in U.S.A. Today warning, in terms that could be used against Democrats in the midterms, that the plan could tax the middle class and cost workers their health care. And he blew off a plea from White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and published an open letter promising to “oppose” legislation that contained the tax – published over the objections, several labor officials said, of other union presidents whose names appeared on the letter.
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POPSCanadian Doctor Shares True Pros & Cons of Canadian Health Care
Canadian doctor Michael M. Rachlis shares the truth about the Canadian Health Care system in hopes of dissolving propaganda and confusion. The Los Angeles Times posted and Op-Ed article by Canadian doctor Michael M. Rachlis. The whole thing is well worth a read and will provide a much better understanding of not only the Canadian health care system, but that of the U.S. as well. There's been a vast debate regarding a public option in the U.S. and most of it seems to be based on misinformation and fear tactics. Unfortunately, there's been a shortage of informed opinions and solid facts. I think it would be a good idea of many people who enjoy the benefit of universal health care in other countries would come forth and share their experiences. With the vast number of uninsured Americans, and the fact that insurance companies can and do deny coverage on a very arbitrary basis, there seems to be a need of some kind of major overhaul to the American health care system.
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POPSRA's Daily Russian News Blast US to modify or jettison missile defense plans? NATO chief to meet with Russian envoy; Lukaschenko sends out mixed messages. South Ossetia denies book burning; think tank leader says Putin could be heading for Brehznev-style decades in power; Medvedev finds inspiration on blogosphere. Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko has suggested the traditional ally of Russia must 'move away from dependence on just one country, even one that is near and dear to us'. The Moscow Times reports that the authoritarian leader has emphasized ties with Russia, whilst on a rare visit to EU-member state Lithuania. The Russian Foreign Minstry has said that the criminal investigation into charges of forgery against RIA Novosti's Tbilisi bureau chief is politically motivated. South Ossetia has denied bonfire-style burning of Georgian books and other classic works at the state university. An op-ed contributor in the Moscow Times is disturbed by what makes it onto Russian bookshelves.
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POPSEthics, language and health-care reform: rationing and rights
GetReligion's MZ Hemingway on a recent NYT editorial in the Times by Peter Singer. In the op-ed, Singer discusses the idea of "rationing" health care, saying that it is basically inevitable, whether the rationing is done by the government or by insurance companies. Hemingway identifies this, somewhat bizarrely in my view, with a new vogue for "eugenics." I find the post (like all Hemingway's posts) to be little more than a conservative opinion piece, and I don't get how it jibes with GetReligion's mission. But it's worth thinking about. I think that what Hemingway (and many other critics of the current health-care reform discussions) finds objectionable is the idea that the rationing process will be made visible and intentional, instead of being left to impersonal (and basically invisible) market forces -- or, more to the point, instead of being left to the fictional "individual" who supposedly is now in charge of his or her own care....
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POPSCatalogue of Liberal Lies About National Healthcare Part IV while mandating a list of services -- i.e. every "medical" service with a powerful lobby -- which is why Joe and Ruth Zelinsky, both 88, of Paterson, N.J., are both covered in case either one of them ever needs a boob job. The "public option" trigger is something other than a national takeover of health care. Why does the government get to decide when the "trigger" has been met, allowing it to do something terrible to us? Either the government is better at providing goods and services or the free market is -- and I believe the historical record is clear on that. Thinking more broadly, how about triggers for paying taxes? Under my "public option" plan, citizens would not have to pay taxes until a trigger kicks in. National health care will not cover abortions or illegal immigrants. This appeared in an earlier installment of "Liberal Lies About Health Care," but I keep seeing Democrats like Howard Dean and Rep. Jan Schakowsky on TV angrily shouting
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POPSRecycling Greenpeace Lies Senator John F Kerry (who served in Vietnam) can't even get the lie right. Greenpeace said 2030 and then was called on that lie and their head admitted it on the BBC.
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POPSUPDATE: Whole Foods "Buycott" One of Several Nationwide His column prompted a backlash among unions and liberal shoppers. The United Food and Commercial Workers Union and CtW Investment Group, an arm of several unions including the Service Employees International Union, are part of a boycott effort and say Mackey should be ousted as CEO. They also are pushing for the Bravo cable network, owned by NBC Universal-General Electric, to drop Whole Foods as the sponsor of its popular “Top Chef” show. “This is a very highly emotional issue, and we have heard both sides,” said Kate Klotz, regional spokeswoman for Whole Foods. “We appreciate the support of anyone who walks into the stores.” The grocery store chain instructed the “buycott” organizers to stick to shopping and refrain from passing out fliers, she said. “Mackey is being unfairly targeted for attack by unions and far left radical organizations because he offered a free-market solution to the health-care problems in America,” he said.
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POPSBritish Patients Sue Over 33% Failure Rate for Operations Government health care is not moral Greg Knapp OpEd Contributor August 27, 2009 If you are against the government taking an even greater role in our health care system, you are immoral. At least that's what President Barack Obama is trying to tell us. During a teleconference with liberal religious leaders Obama said, "You know this debate over health care goes to the heart of who we are in America. ... It is a core ethical and moral obligation that we look after each other. In the wealthiest nation on earth, we are neglecting to live up to that call." The president went on to say, "We are God's partners in matters of life and death," and the people saying the plan will eventually lead to a single payer system and rationed care are "bearing false witness." It's a good thing George W. Bush never said something like that. Nancy Pelosi's head would have exploded.
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POPSIsraeli professor may be fired for opposing apartheid Certainly would make "academic freedom" farcical in Israel. Prof. Gordon wrote in LA Times that he did not want his children or the children of his Palestinian neighbors growing up in an apartheid regime; for this, he may lose his job. Is this the USSR? Click thru to add your name to emails to Israeli Ministry of Education.
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POPSCEO John Mackey's Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare & The Lefty Bloggers' Backlash Brian Beutler of TPM noted the inclusion of a diet endorsement in the op-ed, and offered a translation of Mackey's manifesto: ""Whole Foods is the solution to all of America's health care woes." Other attackers had less time for mockery, and demanded a boycott: I Will Never, Ever Shop at Your Stores Again Users at the Daily Kos screamed their outrage, other bloggers linking to their hot-blooded denunciations. "Mr. Mackey," wrote one user named DarkSyde, "your extremist views on employee benefits and unionization have Mackey's Response: The WSJ Put Words in My Mouth Three days after the initial op-ed, John Mackey stated on the Whole Foods CEO's Blog that "Whole Foods Market as a company has no official position on the issue." Saying that he had written the editorial under the simple title of "Health Care Reform," Not Off the Hook , declared The Reality-Based Community's Mark Kleiman, referring to Mackey's response: "The title is the least . . .
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POPSLiberals Use The Free Market to Boycott...The Free Market Figures....libs moan about the same corporations in which they own shares and throw garbage cans through the windows at Starbucks after sucking down a grande mocha frappuccino..... WAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH capitalism........... I bet ratilfarts or the bartender bear are sucking the foam off of a Starbucks coffee right now.
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POPSRobert Novak, Giant of Journalism RIP Kenneth Tomlinson at Human Events, which ran the Evans-Novak Report until it was ended last year, confirms that the conservative reporter Robert Novak has died after a year-long battle with cancer. Tim Carney, Novak’s last collaborator on the report, has a remembrance up. Novak would often tell aspiring journalists to pick a different field if their goal was to change the world. But, by simply aiming to inform and to do his job as well he could, Novak changed the lives of his readers and those of us blessed to work with him. Update: Lynn Sweet confirms it: “He was someone who loved being a journalist, love journalism and loved his country and loved his family,” Novak’s wife, Geraldine, told the Sun-Times on Tuesday.
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POPSKissinger Admits Iran Attack Is About Oil As blogger Robert Weissman points out, the "legitimate aspirations" that Kissinger affords Iran later in the piece "do not include control over the oil that the United States and other industrial countries need." According to the CIA's world factbook, Iran has the world's second largest reserves of conventional crude oil at 133 gigabarrels. Adding non-conventional oil, Iran holds 10% of the global oil supply. Kissinger's admission that U.S. control of Iranian oil supplies is the real agenda behind hostility towards Iran would raise eyebrows and bring condemnation from many, but there are a hard core of Neo-Con cheerleaders who would support such an agenda even if it is openly accepted that nuclear proliferation is just a smokescreen for looting more middle east oil.
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POPSPelosi proudly un-American
"Yesterday morning USA Today ran an Op-Ed by Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, which for ease of discussion I will attribute to Pelosi. The title is ‘Un-American’ attacks can’t derail health care debate, which frankly I find amusing since I don’t recall a debate on that or any other subject this year, actually happening on Capitol Hill. She bounces back and forth between oooohing and aaaahing about how awesome (butterflies, rainbows, unicorns, fairy dust) government takeover of your personal health care decisions would be, and berating freedom-loving Americans (bad conservatives! Flyover country! Hitler! Astroturf! Limbaugh! Goblins!) for strongly expressing their opinions to their elected representatives, and oppressively running into union thug fists with their faces. She’s right about one thing: Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American. As it happens, “drowning out opposing views” is an area of expertise for Speaker Pelosi. Special Orders after the last recorded vote of t
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POPSGo PVC-Free for Back-to-School Parents across the country are stocking up on the latest binders and lunchboxes over the next few weeks. But while it’s easy to know the healthiest foods to pack in those lunchboxes, many parents are not aware of the toxic plastic used to make them. In fact, the average child’s character-themed backpack is filled with supplies and materials made from one of the most toxic plastics, polyvinyl chloride (PVC or vinyl). That’s why we at the Center for Health, Environment and Justice (CHEJ) have released our 2nd annual Back-to-School Guide to PVC-Free School Supplies to help you make healthy shopping choices that are safer for your kids, your community and the environment. The guide features a listing of safer PVC-free school supplies in over 20 product categories - from lunchboxes and backpacks to raingear. We even put together a handy wallet-sized version of the guide for your shopping needs on the go.
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POPSObama's "Read my lips. No more taxes." Then Obama's National Economic Council director Lawrence Summers likewise said when asked about the middle-class tax hike on "Meet the Press" that it was "never a good idea to absolutely rule things out, no matter what." That's because Geithner and Summers both know that Obama's health care proposal is not a stand-alone item. In addition to unfunded Social Security and Medicare entitlements, bailouts and stimulus spending have already pushed the national debt to $37,813 for every man, woman and child in America. According to the IRS, the top 5 percent - which includes households earning more than $160,041 - already pays 60 percent of all federal income taxes. Even former Clinton Treasury official Leonard Burman admitted in a New York Times oped that "this idea that everything new that government provides ought to be paid for by the top 5 percent, that's a basically unstable way of governing." White House spokesman Robert Gibbs furiously backpedaled Monday . . . . .
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POPSThe destruction of the black middle class More: Yet in the depths of this African American depression, some commentators, black as well as white, are still obsessing about the supposed cultural deficiencies of the black community. In a December op-ed in the Washington Post, Kay Hymowitz blamed black economic woes on the fact that 70 percent of black children are born to single mothers, not noticing that the white two-parent family has actually declined at a faster rate than the black two-parent family. The share of black children living in a single parent home increased by 155 percent between 1960 to 2006, while the share of white children living in single parent homes increased by a staggering 229 percent. Just last month on NPR, commentator Juan Williams dismissed the NAACP…The fact that there is an ongoing recession disproportionately affecting the African American middle class – and brought on by Wall Street greed rather than "ghetto" values – seems to have eluded him.
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POPSPalin Vs. Kerry.. So much energy resources for Alaska and the US, but the current governmental climate will not allow for such things, True of our state also. America is being ham strung. Our government is willfully undermining our productivity for the purpose of The Lie and their own agenda. America has all the resources to be nationally independent but the politics of Washington have bound us for geo-political purposes.
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POPSThe 'Cap And Tax' Dead End By Sarah Palin July 14, 2009 Particularly in Alaska, we understand the inherent link between energy and prosperity, energy and opportunity, and energy and security. Consequently, many of us in this huge, energy-rich state recognize that the president's cap-and-trade energy tax would adversely affect every aspect of the U.S. economy. There is no denying that as the world becomes more industrialized, we need to reform our energy policy and become less dependent on foreign energy sources. But the answer doesn't lie in making energy scarcer and more expensive! Those who understand the issue know we can meet our energy needs and environmental challenges without destroying America's economy. Job losses are so certain under this new cap-and-tax plan that it includes a provision accommodating newly unemployed workers from the resulting dried-up energy sector, to the tune of $4.2 billion over eight years. So much for creating jobs. In addition to immediately increasing unemployment in the energy sector, . . .
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POPSReducing How Much We Drive Should be a National Transportation Goal
Roth’s claim of coercion is absurd. Americans have already chosen to drive less. VMT per person leveled off some time around 2001 and began dropping around 2005. At the same time, public transit ridership has increased dramatically as cities build or expand rail systems and build higher-density, mixed-use developments. Other claims, such as the assertion that reducing VMT will drive down economic growth, are equally absurd. Just look at driving trends. The reduction in VMT per capita began when the country was experiencing quite rapid economic growth. On the other hand, there are many good reasons why we should, as a nation, be driving fewer trips over shorter distances. The first, as stated by Senator Lautenberg, is safety. Improved automobile safety has led to a steady decline in the number of auto-related fatalities per 1000 VMT. However, because we continued to drive more, the total number of fatalities stayed stubbornly constant from 1992-2005. They began to drop in 2005 whe
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POPSReading ObamaCare Bill Endangers Human Health Betsy McCaughey reads massive healthcare bills so you don’t have to. New York’s former lieutenant governor, now chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths, fired the torpedo that ultimately sank HillaryCare. While the sheer girth of that 1,431-page legislative juggernaut intimidated nearly everyone, McCaughey devoured it. Her resulting January 1994 New Republic article, “No Exit,” unmasked HillaryCare’s previously overlooked warts and sores. The horror that McCaughey revealed eventually spelled that initiative’s doom. McCaughey has done it again. In a June 19 Wall Street Journal op-ed, she dissected the 615-page draft of Ted Kennedy’s Affordable Health Choices Act. The Massachusetts Democrat’s bill is, essentially, the Senate’s version of ObamaCare. McCaughey’s “light reading” is scarier than Stephen King. While touting health-care reform as a vital measure to which every American has a God-given right, Kennedy’s elaborate new medical scheme includes a trap door
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