Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise

Rappel du premier message :

U.S. clamps down on banking transactions; terror group finds new funding

By Robert Windrem and Garrett Haake
NBC News
updated 7:56 a.m. ET Nov. 14, 2008
Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. intelligence officials believe they've won many small victories against al-Qaida's ability to finance its operations, but they remain unable to put a concrete dollar figure on their impact.

That's because they have no reliable estimate of al-Qaida's overall budget, according to current and former U.S. counterterrorism officials, which means the only measures of the organization's economic health are sporadic, anecdotal and fragmentary.

"When you see a cell complaining that it hasn't received its monthly or biannual stipend and it's unable to pay the salaries of the people in the cell, unable to make the support payments to the families of terrorists living or dead, that's a tremendous indicator we have pressured the financial channel," said Adam Szubin, the director of the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control and the man in charge of tracking terrorist finance.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27644191

“Nope,” the boy said, “no, no, no. Uh uh. Nope.”
“Calm down, you precocious thing,” I said. “It’s just a fairy tale.”


“Slow down for a second, daddy, this is… there’s a lot, here. So, no one would be held accountable?”
“According to Uncle Dicky’s plan.”
“How would Uncle Dicky know to do that in advance? How
would Uncle Dicky know to make a list with so much built-in wiggle
room? And how would he know that Bybee Bradbury would see things his
way? It all seems so convoluted. It just requires such tremendous
foresight.” Look at that vocabulary. Six-years-old. No way this kid’s
mine.
“Well, son, in the way that a talented engineer can look at a broken
computer and know exactly what to do to make it work, or in the way
that Michelangelo can look at a slab of marble and in it see the
magnificent Statue of David, Uncle Dicky can look at a terrorist, some
crooked lawyers and a poorly-written international law regarding
torture and see in it an airtight, effective plan for covering the
collective ass of his administration.”
The boy scratched his head. “Did… did you just compare Dick Cheney to Michelangelo?”
“In the field of heartless manipulation and ass-covery, yes, yes I did. Would you like me to keep reading?”
“I guess. I just feel sort of sick, now, and dirty. Like, everywhere.”
“So precocious. I’m gonna keep reading.”


“The end,” I said, shutting the book.
“Hold on, did it work? The waterboarding, I mean, was it worth it?
What kind of information did we get out of Zubayah?” I mussed the boy’s
hair and laughed heartily.
“Well someone’s about to OD on precociousness, am I right?
But, no, we don’t know if it was worth it. The investigation as to
whether or not we learned anything from Zubayah, as well as the
usefulness of said knowledge, is ongoing. Some think the interrogation
yielded some useful info that was integral in preventing several
potentially dangerous terrorist attacks, but some high-ranking members
of the intelligence community genuinely believe that Zubayah was
certifiably insane and his involvement in al-Qaida didn’t extend beyond
making bombs and organizing transportation, and therefore couldn’t
possibly have any useful information to begin with.”
“What?!”
“Oh yeah. I’ll read you The One Percent Doctrine before you go to sleep tomorrow night, it’ll blow your mind.”

“Wait,” the little boy said, “wait just one goddamned fingerblasting second. THAT’S how the story ends? A ton of pages that’s nothing but a bunch of language-manipulating, bureaucratic horseshit and we still don’t even know if we learned anything? And the guy we tortured might even just be a delusional lunatic?”
I mussed the boy’s face and chuckled grandly. “Allegedly tortured,”
I corrected. “Also the lunacy was alleged, too, so, really, watch your
word choice.”
The boy stared off, looking at nothing in particular. Tears were
developing in his eyes and his lower lip started quivering. I could
tell he was choking back sobs, trying to look like a big man in front
of me. I poked his nose and made an accompanying “boop” sound before
unplugging his nightlight.
“Anyway, sweet dreams, Kid!”

Ces enluminures façon médiévale rendent les légendes encore plus belles et merveilleuses ; on y croirait presque !

À recommander aux enfants de 7 à 77 ans.

Democrats Plan to Block Gitmo Closing

By NAFTALI BENDAVID
WASHINGTON -- Bowing to political pressure, Senate Democrats said Tuesday that they planned to withhold funding to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, until President Barack Obama comes up with a detailed plan for handling its 241 detainees.

Democrats also plan to prevent the administration from spending any money to transfer Guantanamo detainees to the U.S. during the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. Both restrictions are contained in an amendment to a $91.3 billion measure funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; the amendment is expected to be approved in the Senate as early as Wednesday.

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Associated Press



Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he would withhold judgment on the transfer of inmates until the White House came up with a plan.




The issue of Guantanamo's closure has been a distraction for the Democrats since Mr. Obama several weeks ago requested $80 million to wind down operations at the prison for terrorism suspects by next January. Republicans have seized on the issue, conjuring images of terrorists being released onto America's streets, something the administration says it will never do.

A White House task force is scheduled to report by July on how to close Guantanamo and what to do with the detainees. Some could be tried by military commissions, others could be sent to civilian U.S. courts, and still others could be transferred to foreign countries.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday that he agrees Congress should receive a more-detailed plan and that the president will provide more specifics in a speech Thursday. Among other matters, he said, Mr. Obama will address the concerns about transferring prisoners to the U.S.

"The president still believes it's in our national interest to close Guantanamo Bay," Mr. Gibbs said, adding that he is sticking by his plan to shutter the prison by January.

Senate Democrats had planned to approve Mr. Obama's request for $80 million to close Guantanamo with the stipulation that it could not be spent until 30 days after the administration came up with a detailed proposal. But as Republicans hammered away at the idea that closing the facility endangered Americans, Senate Democrats concluded it was better to withhold the money for now.

"The feeling was that at this point we were defending the unknown," Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin, the Senate's second-ranking Democrat, told reporters. "We were being asked to defend a plan that hadn't been announced."
In an indication of Democrats' disarray, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) initially said Tuesday that he opposed ever transferring Guantanamo inmates to this country. "We will never allow terrorists to be released in the United States," he said.

Mr. Reid's office later backtracked a bit, saying that, like other Democrats, he would withhold judgment on the transfer issue until he sees the White House plan.

Republicans voiced support for the Democrats' amendment, but did not let up in their criticism of closing the facility. "The detainee complex at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is the only complex in the world that can safely and humanely hold enemy combatants that pose the highest level of threat to the U.S.," said Sen. James Inhofe (R., Okla.).

The issue's political challenges are illustrated by the fact that some lawmakers who support shutting Guantanamo do not want detainees transferred to their home states. Sen. Jim Webb (D., Va.) was asked on ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos" if he supported releasing a group of Chinese detainees into his state. "The answer is no," he replied.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) also supports closing the prison but says he does not want detainees moved to the military brig in South Carolina because it's in a populated area.

Guantanamo's closure has joined other national-security issues that pose difficulties for Democrats. During the campaign, Mr. Obama was sharply critical of former President George W. Bush's war and antiterrorism policies, and Mr. Obama's pledge to close Guantanamo was a major way he differentiated himself from his predecessor.

Now that he is in charge, Mr. Obama has struggled to reconcile campaign pledges with the complexities of making national-security policy. He has taken various positions that have angered political allies, including reviving Mr. Bush's military commissions and opposing a "truth commission" to investigate alleged Bush-era abuses.

—Laura Meckler and Jonathan Weisman contributed to this article.

Merci a ceux qui ont combattu et a ceux qui continuent de se battre pour defendre nos libertes et celles de tant d'autres.


Beaucoup de "gadgets" aujourd'hui: les drapeaux, les pins, les hymnes, les sonneries aux morts...

Bonjour Shansaa !

Je ne veux pas vous embêter, je vous suggère même de rire un bon coup ensemble, mais... mais le montage photo plus haut me fait irrésistiblement penser à un dépliant pour un institut de beauté... ou station thermale...

Vous pas ?

Iran Sends 6 Warships to International Waters in 'Saber Rattling' Move

Monday, May 25, 2009

FNC

May 25: Iran has sent six warships into international waters and the Gulf of Aden Monday in a 'historically unprecedented move by the Iranian Navy.'

Iran has sent six warships into international waters in a move security experts are calling a "muscle flexing" show of defiance following missile tests last week.

"Iran has dispatched six ... warships to international waters and the Gulf of Aden region in a historically unprecedented move by the Iranian Navy," Iranian Adm. Habibollah Sayyari told a gathering of armed forces officials, Reuters reported.

Sayyari said the ships were moved to preserve Iran's territorial integrity in its southern waters, but foreign policy experts are calling it an aggressive move targeted at a Western audience as much as for regional powers like rival Saudi Arabia.

The deployment is "a signal of military strength, resolve and continued defiance to U.S. and U.N. Security Council efforts to end the impasse over Iran's nuclear program," said Jim Phillips, senior fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Heritage Institute.

...

Noooon!

Date....... Presidential Approval Index - Strongly Approve - Strongly Disapprove - Total Approve - Total Disapprove

05/26/2009	1	31%	30%	55%	44%
05/25/2009	3	33%	30%	56%	43%
05/24/2009	5	34%	29%	57%	42%
05/23/2009	6	36%	30%	57%	41%
05/22/2009	6	35%	29%	57%	41%
05/21/2009	7	36%	29%	56%	42%
05/20/2009	7	36%	29%	58%	41%
05/19/2009	8	36%	28%	58%	41%
05/18/2009	5	35%	30%	57%	42%
05/17/2009	4	34%	30%	56%	43%
05/16/2009	4	34%	30%	55%	44%
05/15/2009	7	36%	29%	57%	43%
05/14/2009	8	37%	29%	57%	42%
05/13/2009	7	36%	29%	57%	42%
05/12/2009	5	35%	30%	56%	43%
05/11/2009	No Polling--Mother's Day
05/10/2009	7	34%	27%	58%	41%
05/09/2009	7	34%	27%	58%	41%
05/08/2009	9	36%	27%	58%	41%
05/07/2009	8	38%	30%	57%	43%
05/06/2009	7	37%	30%	57%	43%
05/05/2009	6	36%	30%	56%	43%
05/04/2009	5	35%	30%	57%	43%
05/03/2009	3	35%	32%	56%	43%
05/02/2009	1	33%	32%	54%	45%
05/01/2009	2	34%	32%	54%	45%

===============================================================================

01/21/2009

28

44%

16%

65%

30%

L'index est passe de 28 a 1

Pentagon Prepared to Keep U.S. Forces in Iraq for a Decade

Gen. George Casey, Army chief of staff, says the Pentagon must plan for extended U.S. combat and stability operations in two wars.



AP

Tuesday, May 26, 2009


WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon is prepared to leave fighting forces in Iraq for as long as a decade despite an agreement between the United States and Iraq that would bring all American troops home by 2012, the top U.S. Army officer said Tuesday.

Gen. George Casey, the Army chief of staff, said the world remains dangerous and unpredictable, and the Pentagon must plan for extended U.S. combat and stability operations in two wars. "Global trends are pushing in the wrong direction," Casey said. "They fundamentally will change how the Army works."

He spoke at an invitation-only briefing to a dozen journalists and policy analysts from Washington-based think-tanks. He said his planning envisions combat troops in Iraq and Afghanistan for a decade as part of a sustained U.S. commitment to fighting extremism and terrorism in the Middle East.

Casey's calculations about force levels are related to his attempt to ease the brutal deployment calendar that he said would "bring the Army to its knees."

Casey would not specify how many combat units would be split between Iraq and Afghanistan. He said U.S. ground commander Gen. Ray Odierno is leading a study to determine how far U.S. forces could be cut back in Iraq and still be effective.

President Barack Obama plans to bring U.S. combat forces home from Iraq in 2010, and the United States and Iraq have agreed that all American forces would leave by 2012. Although several senior U.S. officials have suggested Iraq could request an extension, the legal agreement the two countries signed last year would have to be amended for any significant U.S. presence to remain.

As recently as February, Defense Secretary Robert Gates reiterated the U.S. commitment to the agreement worked out with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

"Under the Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government, I intend to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2011," Gates said during an address at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. "We will complete this transition to Iraqi responsibility, and we will bring our troops home with the honor that they have earned."
The United States currently has about 139,000 troops in Iraq and 52,000 in Afghanistan.

Obama campaigned on ending the Iraq war as quickly as possible and refocusing U.S. resources on what he called the more important fight in Afghanistan.

That will not mean a major influx of U.S. fighting forces on the model of the Iraq "surge," however. Obama has agreed to send about 21,000 combat forces and trainers to Afghanistan this year. Combined with additional forces approved before former President George W. Bush left office, the United States is expected to have about 68,000 troops in Afghanistan by the end of this year. That's about double the total at the end of 2008, but Obama's top military and civilian advisers have indicated the number is unlikely to grow much beyond that.

Casey said several times that he wasn't the person making policy, but the military was preparing to have a fighting force deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan for years to come. Casey said his planning envisions 10 combat brigades plus command and support forces committed to the two wars.

When asked whether the Army had any measurement for knowing how big it should be, Casey responded, "How about the reality scenario?"

This scenario, he said, must take into account that "we're going to have 10 Army and Marine units deployed for a decade in Iraq and Afghanistan."
...

Toujours , Lawrence?

Une fois de plus NP change d'avis. S'il s'agissait de n'importe qui d'autre que lui mais surtout de Pres. Bush, la meute des media n'en finirait pas parlant entre autre de "flip-flopping" mais bon...

Loin d'etre le seul endroit ou NP a change d'avis par rapport a ses promesses electorales; alors s'agissait-il de mensonge electoral ou tout simplement d'une incomprehension totale de ce que le bureau oval, et par la le bien du pays, impose?

Congress Moves to Withhold Photos of Alleged Detainee Abuse

Congress is moving to stop a federal court order that would disclose the photos of alleged detainee abuse that President Obama no longer wants to release.
AP

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

WASHINGTON -- Congress is moving to stop a federal court order that would disclose government information to the public -- this time the photos of the alleged abuse of terrorist detainees that President Obama no longer wants to release.

Just days after Obama reversed his position on the photos, Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., backed him up by adding a rider late Thursday to the Senate's version of a $91.3 billion supplemental appropriation covering the costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

In a 5-year-old lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union, a physicians organization and two veterans groups, a U.S. District Court in New York and the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals have ruled that 21 of the photos should be released under the Freedom of Information Act.

Earlier this month, Obama said he had reversed his position and would continue to fight the release in court after military commanders persuaded him that the graphic images could stoke anti-American sentiment and endanger U.S. soldiers.

The Lieberman-Graham provision would allow the defense secretary to certify to the president that release of photos or video taken between Sept. 11, 2001, and Jan. 22, 2009, of people captured by U.S. forces outside the United States would endanger lives. In such cases, the release could be prohibited for at least three years.

S'il n'est pas reelu, la gauche pourra remettre ca?

The House version of the supplemental appropriation bill has no such provision, and the two chambers must still agree on whether to include it in the final bill before it becomes law. Democratic aides say the White House backs the provision.

Freedom of Information groups were not vocally condemning the measure, however, because it also contains another provision, sponsored by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., which they have long sought: Requiring that bills that exempt government data from the Freedom of Information Act explicitly say so in the future. FOIA advocates have complained that such exemptions have been slipped into bills and have been hard for them and the public to track.
This is at least the third time Congress has moved to overturn specific FOIA court rulings involving a limited set of government records.

In 1981, after losing in the district and appeals courts repeatedly, the government was ordered to turn over to tax researcher Sue Long the results of the Internal Revenue Service's taxpayer compliance measurement program audits. These are the most intense audits the government conducts of taxpayers and are used to set numerical standards for selecting which tax returns to audit.

Late at night, Reagan administration Deputy Attorney General Ed Schmults persuaded Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., to include a provision in the Economic Tax Recovery Act of 1981 to prevent release of any information related to audit standards that the Treasury secretary concludes could impair tax enforcement.

Long, now co-director of the Transactional Records Access Center at Syracuse University, said in an interview the provision was submitted under a closed rule that required members to vote against the entire bill if they opposed that provision.

"It's sad to say but that's how the game is played," Long said. "It would be better to have it done more democratically, rather than in a hushed way without debate."
More recently, Congress inserted into an appropriations bill a provision overturning a 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that would have disclosed information from the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco and Explosives database on firearm traces.

Also, in a more widely applicable 1974 amendment to FOIA itself, Congress overturned a 1973 Supreme Court ruling that said federal judges couldn't review executive branch classification decisions.

...

OP: Our President

Bonjour Sylvette !

Ma leçon quotidienne d'anglais est d'autant plus efficace que le sujet est intéressant.

(Aujourd'hui, par exemple, j'ai appris que OP se taduit par NP. )

C'est une peste ce O'Reilly, hein ?

vous avez su extraire l'importance de ces messages! J'espere que nos petits camarades de passage sur ce fil auront aussi bien reussi!

C'est sympa de pouvoir revenir un peu plus souvent sur LP!

Sylvette en 798 a écrit:

[...]
C'est sympa de pouvoir revenir un peu plus souvent sur LP!

Je trouve aussi !

Biloulou votre 798) je trouve aussi!!! Mais une peste qui, je l'espere, resistera longtemps aux attaques mediatiques.

========

Alors encore un "flip-flop" (s'il continue, NP va etre plus expert en la matiere que Kerry!

Apres avoir critique les societes qui acceptaient l'argent de la relance mais continuaient a tenir leurs conferences a Las Vegas (du coup, nombres de societes avaient annule leurs reservations et avaient change leur destination pour.... San Francisco, fief de Nancy The WWW - ben tiens donc... ) et avoir ete dernierement l'objet de paroles pas tres agreables de la part du gouvernement de l'etat, NP.... changerait d'avis!

On croit rever!

Obama Changes His Mind About Las Vegas

President says "it's good to be back in Vegas" three months after he made a different remark about the city which angered local government officials.



FOXNews.com

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

LAS VEGAS -- President Obama seems to have changed his mind about Las Vegas.

"It is good to be back in Vegas," he told democratic supporters Tuesday night at a fundraiser for Nevada Senator Harry Reid. "Everyone should have a piece of the Las Vegas dream and the American dream," he continued.

Aie aie aie aie aie!!!

His comments come three months after he made a different remark about the city which angered local government officials even hours before Obama was due to land in their home state.

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman and Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons were insulted by Obama's remarks in February in which he criticized companies receiving government bail out money who continued to hold big corporate events. "You can't get corporate jets, you can't go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer's dime," Obama had said.

Gibbons and Goodman both took the President's comments, "as a message to companies across the Nation to stay away from Las Vegas for corporate meetings and conventions," Gibbons' office said in a statement.

During an appearance on FOX News Tuesday, Gibbons said he had hoped to discuss the matter with Obama, but that the White House only offered him the chance to greet the president at the airport -- an offer the governor declined.
"I've been at these arrivals of the President. You get about three seconds," said Gibbons on FOX.
...

Une jurisprudence qui aspire a "comprendre" le criminel et a "oublier" la victime, interpretant les lois au lieu de les appliquer

The "empathy" Nominee

Is Sonia Sotomayor judically superior to 'a white male'?

In making Sonia Sotomayor his first nominee for the Supreme Court yesterday, President Obama appears to have found the ideal match for his view that personal experience and cultural identity are the better part of judicial wisdom. AP




This isn't a jurisprudence that the Founders would recognize, but it is the creative view that has dominated the law schools since the 1970s and from which both the President and Judge Sotomayor emerged. In the President's now-famous word, judging should be shaped by "empathy" as much or more than by reason. In this sense, Judge Sotomayor would be a thoroughly modern Justice, one for whom the law is a voyage of personal identity.

"Experience being tested by obstacles and barriers, by hardship and misfortune; experience insisting, persisting, and ultimately overcoming those barriers," Mr. Obama said yesterday in introducing Ms. Sotomayor. "It is experience that can give a person a common touch of compassion; an understanding of how the world works and how ordinary people live. And that is why it is a necessary ingredient in the kind of Justice we need on the Supreme Court."

In a speech published in the Berkeley La Raza Law Journal in 2002, Judge Sotomayor offered her own interpretation of this jurisprudence. "Justice [Sandra Day] O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases," she declared. "I am . . . not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, . . . there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."



We quote at such length because, even more than her opinions, these words are a guide to Ms. Sotomayor's likely behavior on the High Court. She is a judge steeped in the legal school of identity politics. This is not the same as taking justifiable pride in being the first Puerto Rican-American nominated to the Court, as both she and the President did yesterday. Her personal and family stories are admirable. Italian-Americans also swelled at the achievement of Justice Antonin Scalia, as Jewish-Americans did at the nomination of Benjamin Cardozo.

But these men saw themselves as judges first and ethnic representatives second. Judge Sotomayor's belief is that a "Latina woman" is by definition a superior judge to a "white male" because she has had more "richness" in her struggle. The danger inherent in this judicial view is that the law isn't what the Constitution says but whatever the judge in the "richness" of her experience comes to believe it should be.

There are signs of what this means in practice in her lower court decisions. One of them is Ricci v. DeStefano, involving the promotion of white firefighters in New Haven and now pending before the Supreme Court. In the case, heard by a three-judge panel including Judge Sotomayor, the city refused to certify promotion exams when the results of the exam would have elevated 18 white firefighters and one Hispanic -- an outcome that would have underrepresented minorities. The firefighters sued, charging discrimination.

...

Je trouve que ce scientologue est vraiment magnifique ... surtout dans son maillot "moule-bite" ...

Sylvette en 793 a écrit:

Une jurisprudence qui aspire a "comprendre" le criminel et a "oublier" la victime, interpretant les lois au lieu de les appliquer

The "empathy" Nominee

Is Sonia Sotomayor judically superior to 'a white male'?

In making Sonia Sotomayor his first nominee for the Supreme Court yesterday, President Obama appears to have found the ideal match for his view that personal experience and cultural identity are the better part of judicial wisdom.AP

Je comprends que les gens sensés soient plus que perplexes : inquiets.

(Dans ma petite mesure, de ce côté-ci de l'Atlantique, je le suis aussi...)

En d'autres mots, la nouvelle philosophie serait que ce soient les états d'âme des criminels qui servent de critères pour définir ce qui est bien et ce qui est mal pour la justice du futur...

Étrange, très étrange... (et c'est un euphémisme)

A savoir: depuis que la vacance du siege de la Cour Supreme a ete annoncee, on nous a explique:

- que le remplacement du premier juge serait une femme, c'en est une
- qu'elle appartiendrait a une minorite, hispanique tres certainement *, c'est le cas
- qu'elle ne serait pas aussi liberale (ici on dit progressiste, ca donne une idee de choses qui vont de l'avant, qui sont pro-actives, intelligentes, energiques en opposition aux idees dinosaures, refractaires et retrogrades republicaines - tout est dans le packaging une fois de plus), que NP l'aimerait et qu'il garderait son (sa) candidate ideale pour le deuxieme remplacement... ca promet donc!

Si vous vous en souvenez, le remplacement des Juges (il y en aura au moins 2 pendant ces 4 ans!) etait une des grandes inquietudes des electeurs qui ne souhaitaient pas voter pour ce genre de CHANGEment.....

* CHANGEment!

Une fois n'etant pas coutume.. :

Pas particulierement bien ecrite, cette blague vient de m'etre envoyee par une personne qui ne fait jamais connaitre ses opinions politiques. Je me dis que le vent commence peut-etre a tourner; Mais bon sans doute de faux espoirs.

A teacher asked her 6th grade class how many of them were Obama fans.

Wanting to be liked by the teacher , all the kids raised their hands except for little Johnny.The teacher asked Little Johnny why he has decided to be different.He answered, 'Because I'm not an Obama fan.'The teacher asked, 'Why aren't you an Obama fan?'Johnny said, 'Because I'm a Republican.'The teacher asked him why he's a Republican.Little Johnny answered, 'Well, my Mom's a Republican and my Dad's a Republican, so I'm a Republican.'Annoyed by this answer, the teacher asked, 'If your mom was a moron and your dad was an idiot, what would that make you? With a big smile, Little Johnny replied, 'That would make me an Obama fan."

Study: Average Family Pays $1G a Year to Cover the Uninsured

Thursday, May 28, 2009

WASHINGTON — The average family with health insurance shells out an extra $1,000 a year in premiums to pay for health care for the uninsured, a new report finds.

And the average individual with private coverage pays an extra $370 a year because of the cost-shifting, which happens when someone without medical insurance gets care at an emergency room or elsewhere and then doesn't pay.

The report was being released Thursday by advocacy group Families USA, which said the findings — which it calls a "hidden tax" — support its goal of extending coverage to all the 50 million Americans who are now uninsured.

Congress and the Obama administration are working on a plan to do that.

Families USA contracted with independent actuarial consulting firm Milliman Inc. to analyze federal data to produce the findings.

"As more people join the ranks of the uninsured, the hidden health tax is growing," said Ron Pollack, Families USA executive director. "That tax hits America's businesses and insured families hard in the pocketbook, and they therefore have a clear financial stake in expanding health care coverage."

...

Sans doute parce qu'une fois mise en place la couverture sociale sera GRATUITE! ben oui, tout le monde en profitera et personne n'aura a payer! (bon, ne demandez pas comment elle sera financee mais il me semble, il me semble seulement que ce sera bien plus que $ 1000.00 par famille par an - la logique dit que les frais etant payes maintenant, a ce niveau la, pas de difference EN REVANCHE, EN PLUS, il faudra payer l'administration qui regira les paiements.... comme en Europe) SUPER!
Ah oui, comme disait Lawrence : (c'est tres gentil, le souci qu'ont tant de non-Americains de partager leurs opinions en soutenant un candidat americain a la presidence, mais on aurait pu faire sans)

-----

Le mois dernier a Houston, ma coiffeuse, qui a quitte le New Brunswick, il y a une vingtaine d'annees, d'abord pour Boston puis pour Houston, m'expliquait que les rares fois ou elle remontait dans sa province natale, son entourage continuait a lui expliquer l'excellence du systeme sante et sa gratuite! (le qualificatif utilise pour ponctuer etait un des deux de la blague precedente)

Battle Over Sotomayor Heats Up

As White House Gathers Backers, Conservatives Heighten Attacks on Judge's Record

The Wall Street Journal

FOXNews.com

Thursday, May 28, 2009


Both parties braced for a summertime confirmation battle over Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, with the White House gathering a team to push her through, and conservative critics sharpening attacks on her past speeches and writings.

In the first wave of TV ads about the nomination, one paid for by a liberal group called Judge Sotomayor, nominated for a Supreme Court seat by President Barack Obama on Tuesday, a "tough prosecutor" and faithful to the Constitution, while a conservative spot on the Internet questioned whether she would deliver equal justice.

Conservatives are focusing on a speech Ms. Sotomayor delivered at the University of California at Berkeley law school, where she said, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

"Imagine a judicial nominee said 'my experience as a white man makes me better than a Latina woman.' Wouldn't they have to withdraw?" asked former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on his Web site. "New racism is no better than old racism."

White House aides said the comment was being taken out of context, and predicted it wouldn't put the nomination off course. Indeed, the White House believes the president is operating from a position of strength, and officials emphasized that a pitched confirmation fight isn't inevitable.

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