Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab??? Is There Still A War Being Waged Against Us???

"We must also engage, however, in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity and suffering of others. Such a failure of empathy, such numbness to the pain of a child or the desperation of a parent, is not innate; nor, history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion, or ethnicity. It may find expression in a particular brand of violence, and may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics. Most often, though, it grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair." Obama's response to 9/11 in September 19th 2001 issue of  The New Yorker

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was overpowered by passengers and crew as he allegedly tried to detonate explosives on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 traveling from Amsterdam as it approached Detroit carrying 290 people on Christmas Day. 

The Nigerian man charged with trying to blow up a US airliner was "a well mannered, quietly spoken, polite and able young man," when he was a student in London, a University College of London spokesman said.

Abdulmutallab studied at UCL's campus for an undergraduate degree in engineering with business finance between 2005 and 2008. He was also president of the university's Islamic Society between 2006 and 2007 a university spokesman explained. "During his time on the course, Mr Abdulmutallab never gave his tutors any cause for concern and was a well mannered, quietly spoken, polite and able young man," said UCL president and provost Malcolm Grant. "We are deeply shocked by the recent news concerning Mr Abdulmutallab."

"The department's association with him ended in June 2008 after he successfully graduated," Grant said in a statement.

Unfortunately, our leadership which we have trusted with our safety does not seem to be prepared for 'unseen combatants'. Take for example the President's appointee, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano. Beginning with her embrace of the impotent euphemism “man-caused disasters”, to the hit job on conservatives and veterans that she was forced to apologize for, to her assertion that crossing the border illegally“isn’t a crime per se”, to her boneheaded claim that 9/11 terrorists came in through the Canadian border, Ja-No has confirmed time and again that she’s not ready for prime time. 

Why President Obama has not responded to Napolitano's job performance with a request for resignation can not be comprehended. To further illustrate this frightening situation, she also claimed that "the system worked. Everyone played an important roll" and yet the botched bombing was foiled by a faulty detonator and brave passengers, not by politically driven bureaucrats. Janet Napolitano's claims only show that the Department of Homeland Security is far from proficient under her policies and leadership.

Now we should hope that our President, Barack Obama would have more clarity on the topic. Unfortunately  in his first public comments on the attempted bombing, the President described the suspect as “an isolated extremist,” despite reports that the 23-year-old Nigerian had been trained in Yemen, a country he visited twice. The Associated Press, quoting a Yemeni government official, said "Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab lived in Yemen for two extended periods of time; for a year from 2004-2005 and again from August to December this year."

Monkey P.C. policies have terribly confused and befuddled what defines a terrorist. Evil words like 'profiling' and 'terrorist' have been shuffled under the rug with this administration in the hope of reaching out and being friends with these poor and misunderstood jihadis. The 23-year-old son of a wealthy Nigerian banker, Abdulmutallab's own father called the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria to share suspisions of his sons activities in Yemen, and yet this information did not put him on a NO/FLY list. 

When asked about possible terrorist connections, Napolitano said "Right now, that is part of the criminal justice investigation that is ongoing, and I think it would be inappropriate to speculate as to whether or not he has such ties."

I feel my friend Joe Armendariz put it best when he wrote "There is nothing 'alleged' about what Abdulmutallab tried to do on Flight 253. And the punk isn't an 'isolated extremist', he is a terrorist who needs to be interrogated and even waterboarded, if necessary, so we can learn everything he knows about future planned terrorist acts on Americans."

Notice that Abdulmutallab (Like most of the terrorists we have seen) is not an ignorant, impoverished, uneducated simpleton as Obama would have us assume. The is not an act birthed from the manipulation of uninformed and desperate Muslim youth. If finding ways to reach out to the impoverished, uneducated youth of Islam is Obama's best solution, why doesn't he personally give up some of his abundant expense account (Rented Estate in Hawaii ) to reach out to these desperate youth.

Death Panels? Was Sarah Palin Right????

PolitiFact.com gave Sarah Palin their “Lie of the Year” award for warning on August 7 that the Democrat’s idea of “cost containment” implied rationing by “death panels.”

The self-described fact-checking web site of the St. Petersburg Times claimed Palin was criticizing a provision in the House bill under which “Medicare would pay for doctors’ appointments for patients to discuss living wills, health care directives and other end-of-life issues.”

The claim that Governor Palin confused one-on-one counseling between doctors and patients with any sort of “panel” was always ridiculous on its face. Indeed, that claim should itself have been a leading candidate for “Lie of the Year.” Yet Palin’s critics kept on equating death panels with counseling throughout the year, as though they could not even begin to understand plain English.

In a column called “Reporting the Lies,” Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein wrote, “Before Sarah Palin talked about death panels, no one knew about Sen. Johnny Isakson’s quiet crusade to persuade Medicare beneficiaries to adopt living wills.”

Adopting a living will requires a lawyer, not a doctor, so there must have been more to the crusade than just that. There is some reason to wonder if the crusaders intended to promote penny-pinching advice like President Obama’s famous suggestion that perhaps grandma should skip the expensive operation and take a cheap pain pill instead (generic, of course).

In any case, no single physician’s advice involves any panel, deathly or otherwise. Palin was clearly worried about rationing by some government-appointed group, panel or board of experts — such the (currently) powerless panel that recently suggested fewer and later breast exams, or the Senate bill’s potentially more lethal Independent Payment Advisory Board

The shameless hoax that Palin had confused individual consulting with rationing by a panel was repeated endlessly. By November, the Washington Post was treating this obvious canard as a established fact: “Proposed health-care reform legislation includes a provision that allows Medicare to pay for “end-of-life” counseling for seniors and their families who request it. The provision — which Sarah Palin erroneously described as “death panels” for seniors — nearly derailed President Obama’s health-care initiative.”

What Palin wrote about death panels clearly had nothing to do with counseling or with any other specifics in seminal House bill. What she wrote was: “Government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course.”

How could anyone believe Palin’s sensible comment about rationing was, in reality, a senseless fear of counseling? To say so was no mistake; it was an oft-repeated big lie.

Rather than even mentioning the House bill, Palin linked to an interesting speech by “Rep. Michele Bachmann [which] highlighted the Orwellian thinking of the president’s health care advisor, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of the White House chief of staff.”

Dr. Emmanuel’s varied and murky remarks about using panels of experts (like himself) to ration health care are less clear or less candid than those of another bioethicist, Peter Singer of Princeton. Singer’s article, “Why We Must Ration Health Care,” was a cover feature in The New York Times Magazine on July 15 — shortly before Palin took the opposing side of this issue.

Singer’s argument (about an expensive anti-cancer drug) is that, “If there is any point at which you say, ‘No, an extra six months [of life] isn’t worth that much,’ then you think that health care should be rationed.” But the question itself is rhetorical trickery, sophistry. Even if there was certain knowledge about life expectancy with or without some treatment (which is never true), Singer has no right to any opinion about how much an extra six months of my life is worth (and vice-versa) unless he’s paying the bills.

But that, of course, is what makes the proposed expansion of insurance subsidies and Medicaid so ominous. Just as federal politicians imagine that a small minority stake in some bank entitles them to override all other stockholders when it comes to executive pay, federal politicians would surely claim that even small subsidies for anyone’s health insurance entitle them to, as Singer put it, set “limits on which treatments should be paid for.” And those politicians would surely appoint panels of experts as cover when some life-saving procedure, device or drug was ruled-out for those with insufficient quality-adjusted years left to live.

Singer wrote, quite correctly, that in “Medicare, Medicaid and hospital emergency rooms, health care is rationed by long waits. . . [and] low payments to doctors that discourage some from serving public patients.” [emphasis added]

Pending health care bills would make such government-mandated scarcity of health care much worse. There would be massive shifting of money away from Medicare toward Medicaid. But the extra Medicaid money would be spread around more thinly. States would cut benefits to the poor in order to accommodate millions of new, less-poor people lured into Medicaid, at least half of whom (7 or 8 million by my estimate) currently have employer-provided health insurance.

The Senate health bill supposedly intends to slash Medicare payment rates for physicians by 21% next year and more in future years, with permanent reductions in payments to other medical services too. It would also establish an Independent Payment Advisory Board which would be empowered to make deeper cuts which Congress could reject only with considerable difficulty. If that’s not quite a “death panel” it would surely not be pro-life in its impact.

The Congressional Budget Office says, “It is unclear whether such a reduction in the growth rate could be achieved, and if so, whether it would . . . reduce access to care or diminish the quality of care.”

Actually, it’s clear enough that the proposed Medicare cuts won’t be achieved, but that efforts in that direction will nonetheless reduce access to care and diminish its quality. The government can’t boost demand and cut prices without creating excess demand. And that, in turn, means rationing by longer waiting lines and by panels (rationing boards) making life-or death decisions for other people.

As Sarah Palin predicted, “Government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course.”

Alan Reynolds • December 22, 2009 @ 4:56 pm

Latest Scientific Study Finds Santa’s a Public Health Menace

Giving the Christmas kill-joys a taste of their own medicine. 

By Carolyn Plocher and Matt Philbin
Culture & Media Institute
December 17, 2009 

The war on Christmas rages on, and nowhere more intensely than on the “kill-joy front.” You know it: the predictable but still brutal attacks from those who say your eggnog and candy canes, the tree near your fireplace and even your favorite myths, stories and carols hide secret dangers to emotional and physical wellbeing.

But at least one public health expert is striking a blow for traditionalists by roundly mocking kill-joy tactics by aiming right at the personification of the season.

On Dec 16, an Associated Press article reported a “light-hearted” study conducted by Australian Nathan Grills of Monash University, which was published in the online Christmas edition of the British Medical Journal. Grills’ conclusion: Santa Claus is a public health menace.

Grills’ characterized the jolly old elf as a “reckless role model” for children, citing his “frequent cookie snacks, occasional cigars and refusal to don a helmet during ‘extreme sports such as roof surfing and chimney jumping,’” according to the AP.

Grills also claimed to have found a correlation between Santa-loving countries and large numbers of fat children. "Santa promotes a message that obesity is synonymous with cheerfulness and joviality," Grills wrote. 

So Grills prescribed jolly old Saint Nicholas a new diet and health regime: 1) No more milk and cookies. Share a carrot with Rudolph instead. 2) Ditch the sleigh. Start biking. 3) No more snotty-nosed, sniffling, coughing kids sitting on his lap. That’s a “one-man outbreak waiting to happen.”

In related news, health officials are urging the Canadian government to ban traditional nativity scenes on the grounds that they give the false impression that stables are sanitarily acceptable locations for child birth. Their cause has gained some support from members of Parliament, and a bill has been introduced that would impose stiff fines for publicly displaying the beloved crèche.

Dr. Angus McAllen of the North Eastern Saskatchewan University School of Clinical Medicine explained, “The amount of bacteria present in a mixed-occupancy animal domicile is nearly incalculable. Dung, urine, fleas.” he said, “and the idea of placing a newborn in a manger – this repository of concentrated mammalian saliva?”

McAllen and others fear that, given the long waiting lists for obstetric care under Canada’s National Health system, young mothers may see barns or stables as viable alternatives to hospital care. “While it’s true that many shepherds have rudimentary OBGYN training and stable boys may be caring nurturers,” said McAllen, “there’s just no substitute for professional care and antiseptic conditions for the health of both the mother and the baby.”

The Parliament in Ottawa is set to take up debate on the “Responsible Nativity Childbirth Display Act.”

Not really. Merry Christmas!

Analyzing the Senate Health Bill

The U.S. Senate is locked in an intense floor debate over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R. 3590), a massive 2,074-page health care bill that would directly affect every man, woman, and child in the United States. Its enactment would shape the character and quality of life in America for generations to come.

Read our complete analysis

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The Senate bill's complex and sweeping provisions would affect virtually every aspect of the huge health care sector of the U.S. economy.

• Like the House bill, it would transfer massive regulatory authority from the states to the federal government and make enormous changes in the nation's health insurance markets;

• It would dramatically alter the financing and content of employer-provided and individual health insurance and significantly change Medicare and Medicaid;

• It would change how hospitals, doctors, and other medical professionals are paid and how physicians and other medical professionals deliver care; and

• It would impose controversial and unprecedented mandates on businesses and individuals, including an individual mandate to buy insurance, thus restricting the personal and economic freedom of American citizens.

In effect, the Senate bill would produce the greatest concentration of political and economic power over one major sector of the U.S. economy in the nation's history.

It is not surprising that the Senate bill is highly unpopular. For ordinary Americans, the legislative process has definitely not been a demonstration of the way a law is made as portrayed in civics textbooks or the kind of rational deliberation envisioned by the Founding Fathers. Surprising provisions, unintended consequences, and unreliable assumptions characterize this proposal. Key provisions, such as the provision of a "public plan" to compete against private health plans, are particularly controversial, and the Senate leadership is rapidly floating and rejecting new schemes to secure the 60 votes necessary to end the debate and quickly pass the bill.

Without the benefit of legislative language, hearings, expert testimony, or committee deliberation and debate, various untested proposals have been floated for press and popular consumption. Writing of the latest scheme to secure a compromise, the editors of The Washington Post noted, "The only thing more unsettling than watching legislative sausage being made is watching it being made on the fly."

Regardless of one's views of the Senate bill, it does not comport with the broad popular themes articulated by President Barack Obama and the many congressional leaders who have championed these policies. Contrary to the President's repeated promises to the American people, the Senate bill, like its House counterpart, would:

• Cause many Americans to lose their current health insurance. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that up to 10 million Americans would no longer be covered by their employers. Given the bill's incentives for employers to discontinue job-based coverage, independent analysts expect the loss of employer-based coverage to be much higher.

• Bend the cost curve up. According to independent analysts and government actuaries, the bill would substantially increase total health care spending instead of reducing it as promised. Richard Foster, Chief Actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), recently judged the projected savings from the Medicare updates as "doubtful" and estimated that the total national spending on health care would increase.

• Impose many new taxes on middle-class Americans. The Senate bill contains over a dozen new taxes, including a 40 percent excise tax on high-priced health plans and special fees and taxes on insurance, drugs, medical devices, and anyone who violates the new mandates.

• Reduce many seniors' access to Medicare benefits and services. The bill would reduce Medicare payments by an estimated $493 billion over 10 years, including payment reductions for Medicare Advantage, hospital care, home health care, and nursing homes.

• Provide federal funding for abortion. Contrary to the President's clear statement to Congress and the nation on health care reform, the Senate bill would provide funding for abortion. The House would prohibit using taxpayers' dollars to finance abortion, but a similar amendment to the Senate bill was tabled without even a floor vote.

Surveys consistently show that the American people clearly want health care reform but do not support the bills sponsored by the House and Senate leadership. While they want Congress to enact policies that would increase choice and competition, and thereby help to control costs and rectify inequities in the health insurance markets, they do not favor a federal takeover of the health care system. Nor do they want the power to make key health care decisions transferred from individuals, families, and medical professionals to government agencies, departments, commissions, and advisory boards.

Composed by The Heritage Foundation ~ www.Heritage.org

Why do we allow our taxes to fund this organization?

D.C. ACORN Chair Says Corruption Streams from Top Down 
Friday, December 18, 2009
By Fred Lucas, Staff Writer

Steve Kest, executive director of ACORN, right, and ACORN member Hugh Alleyne. (AP photo)

(CNSNews.com) - The chairwoman of the Washington, D.C.-Northern Virginia chapter of ACORN said corruption in the organization stems from a top-down approach, as decisions for more than 300 affiliate organizations are made by about 30 or 40 individuals.

Marcel Reid, who headed the board of the D.C. chapter of the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN), explained how she and other board members are now in "exile" for asking too many questions about the finances of the national organization in 2007 and 2008.

Further, she said the organization was so cleverly set up that it would be difficult to investigate it, even if federal prosecutors or state prosecutors take the initiative.

“It was a number of non-profit and a number of for-profits, and there is nothing to ACORN itself but paper,” Reid told a forum at the National Press Club Thursday sponsored by Judicial Watch.  She added that “ACORN invites lawsuits” because its myriad affiliates make it difficult to pin any responsibility on the central organization.

In the ACORN structure, a chapter is locally run portion of the national group, while an affiliate is technically a separate corporate organization that falls under the ACORN umbrella.

For example, she said, in the case of the two amateur video journalists posing as a pimp and a prostitute, they entered the premises of ACORN Housing, an ACORN affiliate. Reid predicted that ACORN will claim exoneration on technical grounds.

“ACORN Housing on paper is not ACORN. They can use that fine point. They have been so very effective at never being caught,” Reid said. “Before a real prosecution of what ACORN has done and the people they have hurt, they first need to understand what ACORN is. The people who built this organization are brilliant.”

ACORN has been a focal point of controversy since the last presidential election cycle, when questions of voter registration fraud erupted.

Reid was never formally removed as chairwoman of the ACORN's D.C. local board, because the board denied requests from the national group to oust her, D.C. ACORN board member Charles Turner told CNSNews.com. The board is made up of voluntary members.

The national organization disassociated itself from the D.C. board, Turner said.

Turner said the D.C. chapter has had one of the highest dues collections of any chapter in the country, but when the local board sought funds for a tutoring program, the national organization continually told them there was no funding available.

“They are choking out or getting rid of everybody who speaks up or is asking too many questions,” Turner told CNSNews.com.

CNSNews.com could not reach ACORN’s national headquarters after a phone call and e-mail message Thursday.

But a Dec. 7 internal investigation released by the organization found that ACORN employees in the undercover video were not engaged in any criminal conduct.

The internal ACORN report was done by former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshberger, who called for the organization to take nine steps to strengthen its management and oversight structures. The recommendation included a simplified organizational structure, a return of focus to its "core competency community organizing and citizen engagement empowerment, with related services" and recruitment of additional management and legal staff.
 
"The following nine (9) recommendations are neither an epitaph nor an absolution for ACORN, but are a roadmap to reform and renewal, if implemented in their entirety in concert with other measures to regain the public's trust," Harshbarger's report states.

Reid called the report “Harshbarger Hogwash.”

Though ACORN was already under scrutiny by state prosecutors and some media organizations, it was the hidden camera probe that prompted the internal investigation.

A hidden-camera video showed ACORN workers apparently giving tax advice to a purported pimp and prostitute who said they planned to open a business involving underage girls.

These incidents, repeated at several ACORN offices, drew rebuke from Republicans and from the White House.

Because of those hidden-camera reports, the U.S. Census Bureau terminated its partnership with ACORN for the 2010 census. Also, the Internal Revenue Service removed ACORN from its Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program.

The Harshbarger's report states: "While some of the advice and counsel given by ACORN employees and volunteers was clearly inappropriate and unprofessional, we did not find a pattern of intentional, illegal conduct by ACORN staff; in fact, there is no evidence that action, illegal or otherwise, was taken by any ACORN employee on behalf of the videographers (pg 2 -3)."


Congress included in the Continuing Appropriations Resolution for 2010 a provision that bars federal funds to ACORN and its “affiliates, subsidiaries or allied organizations.”

President Obama signed the resolution, but a Justice Department opinion cleared the way for funds from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to continue going to the organization.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon of the Eastern District of New York, granted a preliminary injunction to stop Congress from singling out ACORN for punishment without proper investigation or due process.
 
The federal government has awarded at least $53 million to ACORN and its affiliates since 1994, according to an analysis by the House Republican staff. 

"The Poor dying priest"

In Washington , D.C. an old priest lay dying in the hospital. For years he had faithfully served the people of the nation's capital and was well known among the elected officials. He motioned for his nurse to come near.

"Yes, Father?" said the nurse.

"I would really like to see President Obama and Speaker Pelosi before I die", whispered the priest.

"I'll see what I can do, Father", replied the nurse.

The nurse sent the request to The President and Congress and waited for a response. Soon the word arrived; President Obama and Nancy Pelosi would be delighted to visit the priest.

As they went to the hospital, Obama commented to Pelosi, "I don't know why the old priest wants to see us, but it will certainly help our images and might even get me re-elected."

Pelosi agreed that it was a good thing.

When they arrived at the priest's room, the priest took Obama's hand in his right hand and Pelosi's hand in his left hand. There was silence and a look of serenity on the old priest's face.

Finally President Obama spoke.. "Father, of all the people you could have chosen, why did you choose us to be with you as you near the end?"

The old priest slowly replied, "I have always tried to pattern my life after our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."

"Amen", said Obama. "

"Amen", said Pelosi.

The old priest continued, "Jesus died between two lying thieves; I would like to do the same."


~ Anonymous ~

To my friend (who wishes to remain anonymous on my wall)

To my friend (who wishes to remain anonymous on my Facebook wall),

You are one of the most out spoken individuals on my FB wall so please excuse me if I felt I could write to you in that format....  

You have also frequently responded to my Obama Watchdog posts with rapid yet not necessarily relevant criticism of G.W. Bush as some sort of defense for Obama's actions rather than attempting to defend them on their possible merits. I post information and critical discussion regarding our current president which we would never see in NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, or as much as 85% of print media. This protective favoritism is a luxury the likes of which no sitting president has ever enjoyed to such an extent.

What you seem to miss is that I have never tried to 'Herald the wonders of Bush's greatness', but he has always been under intense scrutiny and undue ridicule by mainstream media. Now no one could argue that he didn't make mistakes and some poor judgment calls, but at least he didn't have the soft spine to blame problems ( like 9/11, education, lacking disaster relief protocols, and shady 9 year old 'Home lending' congressional measures) on previous administrations time and time again. He continued to stand by his decisions right or wrong without shifting responsibility to subordinates, a practice which occurs regularly in this current administration.

I love you buddy, but sometimes you go on and on and on with the most nonsensical dribble. If any of my assertions or information is incorrect, then please provide contrary evidence to help enlighten a broader audience. For once, stop going on and on and on and on with the typifying average left wing(nut) arguments against conservative values......

*Unfortunately, this friend chose to remove himself from the discussion by unfriending me….

"I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend." 

~Thomas Jefferson~

Health Care Reform: What Reid is and is not saying....

A few reminders about the current Healthcare bill as it has been proposed by the House and Senate versions:

1. This bill does not represent free health care. Individuals that do not meet the health insurance requirement during any art of the year will be imposed a tax of 2.5% of their yearly income. As with any other tax, if you don't pay it you can go to jail or be fined. The bill states this plainly in the "TAX ON INDIVIDUALS WITHOUT ACCEPTABLE HEALTH CARE COVERAGE" section on page 297... you can read it here: http://docs.house.gov/rules/health/111_a…
2. There are still 3 million Americans who will not be covered  The Washington Post - ”…The cost of the incomplete plan drafted by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee was pegged at about $1 trillion over 10 years, but the CBO said that would still leave 30 million (rather than the current 46 million) people without coverage.” Yet all 8.7 million illegal immigrants will be with out obligation to contribute for their coverage.health-care-reform-cheat-sheet
3. Unelected government comities such as U.S.P.S.T.F. and H.H.S.will determine and mandate which treatments and procedures are covered. These comities are beholden to government policy and budgets rather than the needs of the people they affect. Recently they produced a guideline which conveniently reduces proposed costs to GOV healthcare plans even though there supposed findings are contrary to current positive practices in preventative medicine. http://www.ahrq.gov

Meanwhile Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) upped the rhetorical ante this morning 

by comparing opponents of health care reform to conservatives who tried to block emancipation 

and equal rights -- prompting the Republican national chairman to question his sanity. 

GOP erupts over Reid slavery, segregation remarks

Speaking on the floor of the Senate, Reid blasted GOP leaders who have urged Democrats opt 

for a slower, incremental approach to reform instead of the mega-bill the majority hopes to 

push through the Senate by Christmas.

Reid started by mimicking Republicans whom he claims have said: "'Slow down, stop everything, let's start over."

"You think you've heard these same excuses before? You're right," he continued. "In this country...there were those who dug in their heels and said, 'Slow down, it's too early. Let's wait. Things aren't bad enough' " - about slavery.

When women wanted to vote, he went on, opponents said, " 'Slow down, there will be a better day to do that -- the day isn't quite right.' "

He finished with: "When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone, regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today."

Reaction was swift. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, who is black,


questioned Reid's state of mind -- and demanded an apology.

“Harry Reid is under immense pressure to pass this 2,000 page experiment on our nation’s health – an experiment that creates a new $1 trillion dollar federal entitlement program by cutting $500 billion from Medicare, all at a time when our country is in miserable debt and facing an extreme job crisis. The pressure has apparently led Senator Reid not only to make offensive and absurd statements, but also to lose his ability to reason... Having made this disgraceful statement on the floor of the United States Senate, Mr. Reid should immediately apologize on the Senate floor to his colleagues, to his constituents, and to the American people. If he is going to stand by these statements, the Democrats must immediately reconsider his fitness to lead them.”

Senate Republicans were also furious, reported POLITICO's Meredith Shiner, who went to their Q-and-A Monday.

"They are so desperate that it is unbelievable. And for Senator Reid to go out this morning and make such an outlandish statement like he made, just is another indication of the desperation that the Democrats are showing and the pressure that they're feeling," said Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.).


Said Sen. Tom Coburn (Okla.), "I think it's beneath the dignity of the majority leader, for one. I think it's beneath the dignity of the Senate...to make any kind of outlandish claim similar to what was made on the Senate floor this morning, and I personally am insulted by the Majority Leader."

Reid's aides weren't apologizing -- referring to the GOP's "feigned outrage" and a "ploy" to distract voters from the lack of Republican alternative.

"It is hard to believe Senate Republicans are making these charges with a straight face," said Reid spokesman Jim Manley. "For the past eight days they¹ve done nothing but obstruct health care on the Senate floor and throughout this year have played politics with this and virtually every other issue of importance to the American people.

Did Reid go too far? Reid, of course, he doesn't have a monopoly on harsh pronouncements.

On Sunday, NRSC Chairman John Cornyn (R-Texas) invoked Stalin-era Soviet prison to describe Reid's reform plan on Fox News. "It will limit people's choices to, in many cases, to a government-run program like Medicaid which is essentially a health care gulag, because people will not have any choices but to take that poorly performing government plan," he said.

Senator Harry Reids remarks on the senate floor...

If new Healthcare Bill is so great, why doesn't leadership want it for themselves?

Look who gets exempted!!

Why is Senator Reid trying to exempt Congressional staffers? Read below the email from my FNC colleague Trish Turner:

From: Turner, Trish

To:

Sent: Tue Dec 01 17:16:35 2009

Subject: URGENT: SenReid tries to exempt Congressional staffers from new healthcare reform

Members would get their insurance thru the new exchanges, but according to a new carve-out found by CRS (exposed by Grassley staff here), congressional staffers would be EXEMPT.

Note --- Grassley plans an amendment to reverse this to the original intent of the Senate Finance Cmte bill…..ALL members AND their staff get healthcare from the new exchanges.

From: Office, Press (Finance-Rep) [mailto:Press_Office@finance-rep.senate.gov]

Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 5:05 PM

Subject: more: Senate leadership staff carved out of health care exchanges, Grassley finds

As an addendum to the news release, here’s more on the language change:

“Official office” in the Reid bill refers to members’ personal offices, not any office associated with a committee or leadership position.

THE FINANCE COMMITTEE BILL (based on Grassley Amendment):

On page 81 "an employee whose pay is disbursed by the Secretary of the Senate or the Clerk of the House of Representatives."

THE REID BILL:

On page 157 "employees employed by the official office of a Member of Congress, whether in Washington, D.C., or outside of Washington D.C."

For Immediate Release

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Grassley exposes carve-out in Reid health care bill

Iowa senator prepares amendment to reverse carve-out, also include White House in new health care exchanges

WASHINGTON – Senator Chuck Grassley said it is unacceptable that staff of Senate leadership and committees is now exempted from the requirement that members of Congress and congressional staff get their employer-based health insurance through the same exchanges that would be created for the rest of the country under the Senate Majority Leader’s health care legislation.

A Grassley amendment adopted by the Finance Committee in September established this requirement for all congressional staff, along with members of Congress.

“Careful examination by the Congressional Research Service of the bill that Senator Reid brought to the floor revealed that one of the things that happened behind closed doors was that leadership and committee staff ended up being carved out from having to live under the new health care exchanges that this legislation would create and impose on the rest of the country,” Grassley said. “This creates a double standard. It’s inexcusable.”

Grassley said he’ll offer an amendment to restore his amendment, which the Finance Committee accepted without objection, and which the Congressional Research Service said made clear that leadership and committee staff would be required to access the new exchange.

Grassley said his floor amendment also will expand the requirement to include the President, the Vice President and all political appointees in the executive branch. “The President, the White House staff and cabinet secretaries are working very hard for this massive overhaul of America’s health care system. It’s only fair and logical that if this bill becomes law, these leaders should themselves be subject to the reforms,” he said.

Currently, members of Congress, congressional staff, the President, Vice President, cabinet secretaries, and political appointees participate in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. The exchange that would be established by the legislation pending in the Senate is modeled after this federal employees’ program and is supposed to give participants the same kind of choices and options for health care coverage as federal employees.

Grassley’s interest in having policy makers participate in the exchange is consistent with his long-held view that Congress should live under the same laws it passes for the rest of the country. In 1995, President Clinton signed into law the Congressional Accountability Act, which Grassley authored and fought to advance for six years before it was enacted. Grassley’s Congressional Accountability Act gives employees of the legislative branch protections under 12 civil rights, labor and workplace safety laws by making those laws apply to Congress.

Before enactment of the Congressional Accountability Act, Congress had exempted itself from these laws:

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

The Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988

The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938

The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993

The Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute

Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970

The Rehabilitation Act of 1973

Veterans’ employment and reemployment rights at Chapter 43 of Title 38 of the U.S. Code

The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1989.

The Congressional Accountability Act was amended in 1998 to include certain provisions of the Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998.