DiscussMormonism.com

by the way, that Sarah Palin is one crazy bitch.

This young man named Barack Obama got one of those tickets and came over to this country. He met this woman whose great great-great-great-grandfather had owned slaves; but she had a good idea there was some craziness going on because they looked at each other and they decided that we know that the world as it has been it might not be possible for us to get together and have a child. There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama, because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born. So don't tell me I don't have a claim on Selma, Alabama. Don't tell me I'm not coming home to Selma, Alabama.

CNS News: Rep. Bart Stupak (D.-Mich.) told CNSNews.com that President Barack Obama told him in a telephone conversation that when he said in his Sept. 9 speech to a joint session of Congress that “under our plan no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions” he was not talking about the actual bill drafted in the House but about the president’s own health care plan—which has never been written.

Most of the people yapping about Obama never voted for him to begin with. It is just an impression of majority opinion because FOX and Limbaugh help create that impression. The majority who voted for him are probably still behind him. In my case, I flipped sides well after his election. I can't think of a single Obama supporter before the election who is now against him.

Latest Gallup poll: Barack Obama will need a miracle to avoid Jimmy Carter's fate

By Nile Gardiner World Last updated: September 4th, 2010

Obama: latest poll spells mid-term disaster (Photo: AP)

This week’s historic Gallup poll will have sent a shiver through the White House at the end of a summer of discontent, and is yet another key indicator that President Obama is likely to end up a lame duck president following the mid-term elections in November. The latest Gallup poll shows the Republicans in pole position to retake the House of Representatives, with other surveys suggesting the GOP will make big gains in the Senate as well, a scenario which would have been unthinkable at the start of the year.

The USA Today/Gallup survey shows Republicans leading the Democrats among registered voters by 51 percent to 41 percent, the largest lead for the GOP “in Gallup’s history of tracking the midterm generic ballot in Congress”, which dates back all the way to 1942, when FDR was president. According to Gallup, Republicans are now twice as likely as Democrats to be “very” enthusiastic about voting. While cautioning that “change is possible between now and election day”, Gallup sees strong potential for sweeping Republican gains and the retaking of the House:

The last Gallup weekly generic ballot average before Labor Day underscores the fast-evolving conventional wisdom that the GOP is poised to make significant gains in this fall’s midterm congressional elections. Gallup’s generic ballot has historically proven an excellent predictor of the national vote for Congress, and the national vote in turn is an excellent predictor of House seats won and lost. Republicans’ presumed turnout advantage, combined with their current 10-point registered-voter lead, suggests the potential for a major “wave” election in which the Republicans gain a large number of seats from the Democrats and in the process take back control of the House.

Another poll by Gallup this week shows Republicans leading the Democrats in Congress on the handling of nine key election issues, including terrorism (a 24 point lead), immigration (15 points), federal spending (15 points), and the economy (11 points). In only one area do the Democrats hold a significant advantage – the environment, which is low down the list of voter priorities. On key economic issues, likely to dominate in November, the Republicans have a seemingly unassailable advantage – the four most important voter issues according to Gallup are the economy, jobs, corruption in government and federal spending.

...

Brackite wrote:Well, neither former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin and President Barack Obama have proven themselves to be really that honest.

Palin vs. Obama: Death Panels:
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/08/palin- ... th-panels/

Supporters of health reform said it would never happen. Maybe they got caught up in their own rhetoric. Maybe they just didn't want to believe it was possible. But rationing in America has started.

This week, the Food and Drug Administration is expected to revoke approval of the drug Avastin for the treatment of advanced breast cancer. Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter has described the anticipated move as "the beginning of a slippery slope leading to more and more rationing under the government takeover of health care."

It seems that even loyal Democrats have noticed the Obama administration's not-so-subtle policy shift toward rationing. According to Politico, many of the 34 House Democrats who voted against the health reform bill are aggressively touting their "no" votes in campaign ads.

The FDA claims its decision won't be based on cost, but Avastin isn't cheap — a full regimen costs about $100,000 a year.

Jean Grem of the FDA's Oncology Drug Advisory Committee was cited in the Wall Street Journal explaining why she voted to deprive breast-cancer patients of Avastin: "We aren't supposed to talk about cost, but that's another issue."

Two years ago, the FDA approved Avastin for breast cancer on the condition that further research would show the drug extended life expectancy. Everyone expected the drug to maintain its approval. Avastin has proven to be a wonder drug for countless women with stage IV breast cancer, slowing the disease's progression and dramatically extending life.

But when no significant increase in "overall survivability" was reported this summer, an FDA advisory panel recommended that Avastin's approval be withdrawn. Top FDA officials must decide by Friday whether they will accept or reject the panel's counsel.

No cancer drug has ever been taken off the market based solely on "overall survivability." Traditionally, calculations of a drug's effectiveness have been based on tumor response and progression-free survival rates.

Here, Avastin is a miracle drug. In the manufacturer's critical phase III study, tumors shrank in nearly 50% of patients receiving the medicine. Patients who received Avastin in conjunction with chemotherapy lived nearly twice as long as would otherwise be expected without their disease worsening.

For some patients — known as "super-responders" — an Avastin regime translates into years of additional life.

If the FDA strips Avastin of its approval, it's likely that private insurers and Medicare would stop covering the medicine, effectively removing Avastin from the anti-breast cancer arsenal.

Government rationing doesn't stop at Avastin.

Medicare coverage for Provenge, a drug for advanced prostate cancer, is also in jeopardy. Like Avastin, Provenge is expensive. Created using a patient's own white blood cells, the drug costs $93,000. The FDA has already approved Provenge as safe and effective, yet Medicare officials are currently deciding whether it will pay for the medicine.

If officials decide Provenge isn't worth covering, it will mark the first time Medicare has refused to pay for an FDA-approved anti-cancer drug.

The outrage over the administration's campaign against expensive but effective drugs has not been muted. Major cancer advocacy groups like Susan G. Komen for the Cure and the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance have come out in strong support of both Avastin and Provenge.

It's terrifying to think that distant, faceless bureaucrats are now making Americans' health care decisions. Welcome to Obama-Care.

When a proposal to encourage end-of-life planning touched off a political storm over “death panels,” Democrats dropped it from legislation to overhaul the health care system. But the Obama administration will achieve the same goal by regulation, starting Jan. 1.

Under the new policy, outlined in a Medicare regulation, the government will pay doctors who advise patients on options for end-of-life care, which may include advance directives to forgo aggressive life-sustaining treatment.

Congressional supporters of the new policy, though pleased, have kept quiet. They fear provoking another furor like the one in 2009 when Republicans seized on the idea of end-of-life counseling to argue that the Democrats’ bill would allow the government to cut off care for the critically ill.

Kevin Graham wrote:Not sure how I missed this thread.

I'm utterly shocked that someone of Richard's intelligence would imply that this NYT article in any way supports Sarah "liar" Palin's numerous false claims about "Death Panels."

Maybe Richard should read the entire two page article instead of the first three paragraphs.

(CNSNews.com) - Rep. Bart Stupak (D.-Mich.) told CNSNews.com that President Barack Obama told him in a telephone conversation that when he said in his Sept. 9 speech to a joint session of Congress that “under our plan no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions” he was not talking about the actual bill drafted in the House but about the president’s own health care plan—which has never been written.

At a town-hall meeting in Portsmouth, N.H., last month, our uninformed lawyer in chief suggested that we physicians would rather chop off a foot than manage diabetes since we would make more money doing surgery. Then President Obama compounded his attack by claiming a doctor's reimbursement is between "$30,000" and "$50,000" for such amputations! (Actually, such surgery costs only about $1,500.)

President Obamaa managed to offend two very powerful interest groups during his press conference on Wednesday night: the National Fraternal Order of Police, who did not take well to the suggestion that the Cambridge Police Department had acted "stupidly" in arresting a Harvard professor for disorderly conduct; and, even worse, otolaryngologists whom he falsely suggested enjoy frivolously removing young people's precious tonsils.

It is one thing to be accused of poor police procedure or even racism, but to be labeled a reckless tonsil-harvester is a smear from which few recover. Here is the vicious speculative falsehood that President Obama uttered during his rather long and lecturey talk with the press:

Right now, doctors, a lot of times, are forced to make decisions based on the fee payment schedule that's out there. So if ... your child has a bad sore throat, or has repeated sore throats, the doctor may look at the reimbursement system and say to himself, "You know what? I make a lot more money if I take this kid's tonsils out."

Now, that may be the right thing to do. But I'd rather have that doctor making those decisions just based on whether you really need your kid's tonsils out or whether it might make more sense just to change -- maybe they have allergies. Maybe they have something else that would make a difference.

The American Academy of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery (AAO-HNS) hastened to release a statement expressing its grave disappointment that the president would speak so capriciously of tonsillectomy, which, as a point of fact, may be a lot cheaper than treating allergies or whatever.

But there is also a substantive reason why the administration and its allies wanted to keep this quiet: It reminds people that ObamaCare's promise to deliver "universal health care" while saving money can be kept only if the government assumes the power to deny medical treatment in the name of controlling costs. Death panels are intrinsic to the ObamaCare scheme, as Shikha Dalmia of the Daily Beast explains:
The administration is defining Medicare fraud down to include "unnecessary" and "ineffective" care. And to root this out, it plans to make expanded use of private mercenaries--officially called Recovery Audit Contracts--who will be authorized to go to doctors' offices and rummage through patients' records, matching them with billing claims to uncover illicit charges. What's more, Obamacare increases the fine for billing errors from $11,000 per item to $50,000 without the government even having to prove intent to defraud.