Coalition

Since February of 2008, Kenya has been led by a coalition government with power shared by two rulers brokered in a United Nations settlement. The country is in desperate need of change and the people need hope.

Given that Barack Obama is recognized as a citizen of Kenya as he is the son a Kenyan citizen, he is eligible to run for office. He would easily win an election, as he is very popular.

Do you think Barack Obama should suspend his US presidential election bid, return to the land of his father and run for president?
Who qualifies to apply for Kenyan citizenship?
1. Commonwealth citizens who have been lawfully and legally resident in Kenya for a minimum period (and continuous) of five years preceding their date of application.
2. Citizens from non- commonwealth countries who have been lawfully and legally resident in the country for a continuous period of seven years preceding the date of application.
3. Wives and children of Kenyan citizens.

http://www.immigration.go.ke/faqs.php

Yes cause we don’t need him here.

Individual Freedom vs. Government Control

Congress faces a critical question this week: Will U.S. health care be government-run, or will Americans be given the freedom to obtain their insurance plans and medical care from private firms? The next U.S. president will likely answer this question, but the resolution to the current debate about SCHIP — the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, a state and federal government partnership for insuring poor children — that is roiling Washington, D.C., will preview the answer.

Although health care is a crucial issue for the electorate; traditionally, presidential candidates have avoided any but the blandest generalities. Health care is the third rail of politics. Its complexity, size, and multiple, committed stakeholders scare away most would-be saviors.

Yet, the underlying debate is simple: It is all about who will manage and control the health-care sector that comprises one-seventh of our economy. Will individual Americans have the freedom to make their own choices? Or, will we trust government bureaucrats, lawyers, and politicians to make those decisions for them? Our future health-care system will be shaped by how we answer these simple questions.

Let’s be clear: The SCHIP battle is not about whether to insure poor children. The debate is about how to insure them: Via the government or private insurers? This debate has not only pitted Democrats against Republicans but has also sundered the Republican coalition. Some Democrats wanted SCHIP expanded by $50 billion dollars so that even families earning about $81,000 a year who have eligible children were included. (The 2005 U.S. median household income was $46,000.) A resolution with the Republicans who hold minority leadership roles led to a compromise, costing only $35 billion, which allowed coverage for those earning up to $60,000.

A fundamental problem with this compromise is that the same amount of coverage for children within SCHIP costs $1,000 more per child than under private insurance. A group of forward-thinking Republicans led by U.S. Senator Richard Burr (R., N.C.) and others has an entirely different idea of how to provide insurance: they want to cash out eligible people and enable them to use this money to buy health insurance from private insurers in a tax-protected way. Count the president in too. He has pledged to veto legislation that permits expansion of the present program.

None of the combatants’ are supported by an unblemished array of evidence. The Democrats support the expansion of SCHIP by lauding the universal coverage and substantially lower costs of single-payer, government-run systems, like the U.K.’s and Canada’s. Yes; but costs are controlled by rationing health care to the sick. More than 20,000 Brits would not have died from cancer in the U.S. Onerous waiting lists have caused illegal, for-profit health-service centers to proliferate in Canada. These rogue establishments are so well-accepted that the head of one became the president of the Canadian Medical Association. Nor do single-payer systems achieve equality of access or health status — the powerful, assertive, litigious, and connected go to the head of the line.

In the U.S., the government-controlled Medicaid program has achieved its low costs per person by stringent limits on provider prices. As many as 40 percent of doctors refuse to see Medicaid enrollees, leading to reduced health care quality. Physicians who accept Medicaid often shift their un-reimbursed costs to the privately insured. A system totally paid by the government would shut down this escape hatch, exacerbating the current shortage of primary care doctors.

But the group of Republicans who support private insurance acknowledge that they cannot laud health insurance as a model industry. The massive bureaucracies patients all-too-often encounter when they attempt to obtain the medical services they paid for are not merely frustrating, they sometimes kill. Free-market Republicans claim that the problem with the U.S. insurance firms arises from their lack of accountability. Agents, such as governments and employers, use our money to buy health plans. The agents’ incentives — simplicity and cost control — are not well aligned with our needs for responsiveness.

Senators Richard Burr (R., N.C.), Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) and others want to refigure the tax code so that we could buy health insurance with tax-sheltered money, a right currently reserved solely for our employers. If we purchased our own health insurance with tax-protected funds, we could keep these arrogant behemoths in check, just as we do in the other sectors of the American economy. The Swiss universal-coverage, consumer-driven system requires people, not employers or governments, to buy health insurance. (The poor primarily receive funds to purchase insurance just like everybody else.) This consumer control enables the Swiss to enjoy an excellent quality of care without the social inequality of single-payer countries at costs that are a third lower than ours.

SCHIP is not merely a debate about yet another mystifying government program. It is all about free-market principles versus government mandates. Giving taxpayers the freedom to choose and buy their own health care would unleash powerful market forces that have been subdued by third-party bureaucracies for the last 60 years. In every area of our economy, market forces have transformed rare, costly products and services like cars and computers into common products and services. We can make health care cheaper, better, and more widely available, if Congress can muster the vision and courage to act.

The current system is ridicules….as insurance companies cut back what they are willing to pay for, they raise their rates. People die waiting to see if they qualify for a procedure they thought they paid for. How can this work if the point is profit…it’s ridicules. You want to take care of the people or you want to make money, choose one. It use to be in this country you could pay for things on your own. Now they want to force everybody to pay the blood sucking insurers…that’s not freedom, that the rich fat cats getting richer. I don’t like the idea of insurance…I like the idea of taking care of my self, but with our great current system, I would have to shell out two years salary for an operation. This is wrong….

This is English-speaking gun men randomly firing at Iraqi drivers. At the end of the video you can clearly hear them speak clear English with no Middle Eastern accent. Listen to it carefully. Most of the carnage in Iraq ARE NOT caused by Iraqis. But the so called Coalition.

See video

http://youtube.com/watch?v=oSneIXeb7tU&mode=related&search=

all you can hear is the music !!

you can not even hear the car engine!!

you believe that crap?

—

Centrist Democrats are questioning the cost savings and deficit assumptions that Speaker Pelosi touted in the House healthcare bill.

Centrist House Democrats are questioning the cost savings and deficit assumptions that Speaker Nancy Pelosi touted in introducing a healthcare bill designed specifically to win their support.

The four leaders of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition have drafted a letter to Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director Douglas Elmendorf – which the Blue Dogs plan to send Thursday night. In the letter, they ask for additional calculations and explanations about whether the $1.055 billion House bill would reduce federal spending on healthcare and would reduce the deficit, as Pelosi has promised.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/65497-blue-dogs-seek-answers-on-health-bill-cost-savings

It is sickening. And Obama and Hillary ought to be ashamed of themselves. Can Congress to anything? Even if foreign policy under the rules is the domain of the Executive? I hope the American electorate pays attention: through their actions in the W. Hemisphere, Obama and Hillary show what they actually stand for. Let us hope for a resounding defeat of the Dems come 2010 and a change in some of these awful and dangerous policies.

Real health care reform cannot happen without a public option, and we need a constant reminder of exactly what we are fighting for. Here are the top 10 reasons why there must be a public insurance option:

1. Passing health care reform with a public option means millions of currently uninsured people will get access to comprehensive coverage at an affordable rate.

2. A public option will force private insurance companies to compete with the power of the government. Prices will come down, and they will no longer be able to charge insane premiums or deny coverage.

3. A public option gives power to consumers who can walk away from insurance companies that do not pay out, deny coverage, or excessively increase their premiums.

4. It will give Americans a sense of ownership of health care. It will no longer be a privilege of the rich, but an affordable part of everyone’s life and a comfort in times of crisis.

5. With a public option, drug prices will come down due to the government’s ability to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies.

6. It will prevent people from going bankrupt because of excessive medical bills. According to the National Coalition on Health Care, "62 percent of all bankruptcies filed in 2007 were linked to medical expenses. Of those who filed for bankruptcy, nearly 80 percent had health insurance."

7. A public plan will have significantly lower overheads than a private plan. The government won’t need to market their plan, and they don’t need to make a profit from it. Therefore, the the consumer reaps the savings.

8. It will save small businesses huge amounts of money and allow them to raise wages, increase vacation time and take better care of their employees.

9. After a few years, it will prove Republicans totally and utterly wrong about socialized medical care.

10. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Sarah Palin will have very visible and hilarious meltdowns.

To Lurch:

How do private universities compete with public, state-funded universities that don’t have to worry about making a profit?

By your logic, why do private schools still exist?

EDIT, still to Lurch: If you didn’t believe that private insurance companies would provide better health care, you would helplessly support the public option. People who do not support the public option argue that the government-funded care would be of a lower quality. And how am I comparing apples to oranges? Just because you say I am doesn’t mean you’re correct.

Junior
"And this is a coalition to ban coalitions the views of a musician yeah I’ve got some

Some folks want to ban cars some want to get rid of electricguitars

Why can’t everybody else leave everybody else alone"

The strategy would have to be beneficial to the Iraqis as well as to the coalition, and ease the tension with neighboring Islamic countries.

I am a military veteran from the Vietnam era, and I have followed this rather closely. Let me preface my remarks by saying this was an illegal war for which the Bush administration should be put on trial as war criminals responsible for every single death that has occurred (to our troops, to Iraqi citizens and patriots, and to coalition forces). This being said, I would add to Mr. Murtha’s remarks by saying we should redeploy our troops to the borders of Iraq (although this administration has already shown itself to be inept at border control) and close off the borders to incoming migrants and/or militants. Let those who are currently within the borders of Iraq fight things out amongst themselves, much like you let multiple siblings establish their own pecking order as long as there is no major abuses. Meanwhile, exchange all American greedy-gut (illegal?) contractors for Iraqi-based corporations and get these money-grubbing no-bid-contracting criminals out of the way (true for New Orleans as well) so that the Iraqi people can earn their own money in their own land rebuilding and strengthening their own country that we, as a terrorist nation under Bush, have destroyed.

the mother of all coalitions

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www.foundingbloggers.com

At least one of your Founding Bloggers attended the Show Me Institute’s Blogging Conference in St. Louis this last weekend.

We did a little bit of filming there, and below are three clips from a panel made up of a few prominent St. Louis bloggers.

The first clip is of Jim Hoft from Gateway Pundit. He compares failing liberal media outlets to Alcoholics:

The second clip is of Dana Losche from The Dana Show. She comments on hidden bias vs. open bias.

The third clip is of John Loudon from St. Louis Tea Party Coalition

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President Bush announces the start of the ground war in Kuwait, and why it was necessary. This video comes from one of my VHS tapes of the 1991 gulf war.

Desert Storm: The Land War

By 24 February 1991, airpower had weakened Iraq’s land forces in Kuwait to the point where the UN commander, General Schwarzkopf, felt ready to launch a land offensive. Early that morning, UN land forces attacked along a broad front from the Persian Gulf to Rafha on the Iraqi‐Saudi border. This attack had two principal thrusts: a massive, highly mobile “left hook” around and through Iraqi positions to the west of Kuwait to envelop the elite Republican Guard; and a thrust straight through Iraq’s defenses along the Kuwaiti border designed to fix the forward Iraqi divisions.

The “left hook” was carried out by a mix of U.S., British, and French armored and airborne forces. The armored VII Corps deployed four armored divisions, one of them British, for the main thrust. Its western flank was protected by the U.S. XVIII Airborne Corps, composed of three U.S. divisions—the 82nd Airborne, the 101st Air Mobile, and the 24th Infantry (Mechanized)—and the French 6th Light Armored Division. They advanced toward the Iraqi cities of Salman, west of Kuwait, and Nasiriya on the Euphrates River, and attacked in an arc to the northeast toward the main routes of communication leading north from Kuwait toward Basra in Iraq. French forces led the attack toward the Iraqi lines of communication along the Euphrates. U.S. armored, mechanized, and attack helicopter forces advanced rapidly toward Basra in the leading edge of the “left hook.” British forces guarded the U.S. flank and attacked to the northeast across the gorge of al‐Batin along the Iraqi‐Kuwaiti border.

The other thrust—directly north through the Iraqi positions along the Kuwaiti border—was carried out by the I Marine Expeditionary Force, and an all‐Arab corps composed primarily of the Saudi Army and Egyptian units. These forces rapidly penetrated Iraq’s forward defenses and advanced so swiftly that Iraq’s shattered ground forces in Kuwait could only launch scattered counterattacks. As a result, the allies rushed toward Kuwait City, Wafrah, and Jahrah.

Though some Iraqi Republican Guard units fought well, the bulk of Iraq’s army consisted of poorly trained conscripts with low morale and little motivation. Many Iraqi troops fled after putting up only brief resistance and others were taken prisoner. As a result, UN forces reached their major objectives in Kuwait in half the time originally planned. At the same time, the Coalition continued its air attacks, dropping a total of 88,500 tons of ordnance. U.S. and British air units used 6,520 tons of precision‐guided weapons and destroyed or damaged 54 bridges. These attacks helped to end the war by cutting off Iraqi land forces from the roads along the Tigris River north of Basra, although UN forces did not have time to encircle fully or cut off all Iraqi forces, or to use airpower to destroy the retreating Iraqi forces around Basra.

By 26 February, Coalition land forces were in Kuwait City, and U.S. forces had advanced to positions in Iraq to the south of Nasiriya. Many of these advances had taken place at night and all occurred in spite of major rainfalls, substantial amounts of mud, and weather problems hampering the ability to provide air support. These advances effectively ended the war.

Baghdad radio announced on 26 February that all Iraqi forces would withdraw from Kuwait in compliance with UN Resolution 660. A day later, President Bush declared that the United States would halt military operations early in the morning of 28 February, a week after the land offensive had begun. A cease‐fire was negotiated on 3 March and formally signed on 6 April. IRAQ AGREED TO ABIDE BY ALL THE U.N. RESOLUTIONS.

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