.gif) Les Cohortes Célestes ont le devoir et le regret de vous informer que Libres Propos est entré en sommeil. Ce forum convivial et sympathique reste uniquement accessible en lecture seule. Prenez plaisir à le consulter.
Merci de votre compréhension. |
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| | Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise |  |
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+10Shansaa jam Ungern Laogorus EddieCochran OmbreBlanche Le chanoine quantat Zed Biloulou 14 participants | |
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| | Sujet: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 8/11/2008, 13:47 | |
| Rappel du premier message :Browse Newspapers by country
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| | Sujet: 2111 - 27/3/2010, 22:46 | |
| Tea Party Targets Reid, Health Care Law in 'Showdown in Searchlight'FOXNews.com Thousands of conservative tea party activists streamed into Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's hometown in Nevada Saturday morning, bringing American flags, "Don't Tread on Me" signs and outspoken anger toward President Obama and his health care overhaul. William Temple attends a Tea Party rally in the desert outside Searchlight, Nev. Saturday, March 27, 2010. (AP)LAS VEGAS -- Fewer taxes, less government and no "Obamacare."That's the message thousands of conservative Tea Party activists were hoping to send to Washington as they streamed into Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's hometown in Nevada Saturday morning.- Spoiler:
"Harry Reid is symbolic of the problems in Washington in the sense that he's been the leader in the Senate of all the things we've been against -- expanding the government, increasing the deficit, and raising taxes," Sal Russo, chief strategist of the Tea Party Express, told FoxNews.com.
"He campaigned as a moderate but has moved so far to the left," Russo said of Reid. "Voters are tolerate of different views, but what they don't like is when someone campaigns one way and then governs by another."
The Tea Party Express, one of the most visible factions of the national Tea Party Movement, officially kicked off its cross-country, 42-city bus tour with Saturday's rally.
Activists brought American flags, "Don't Tread on Me" signs and outspoken anger toward President Obama and his health care overhaul.
The activists' star, Sarah Palin, spoke to the rally Saturday from a makeshift stage in a patch of dusty desert about 60 miles north of Las Vegas.
Organizers predict as many as 10,000 people could come to tiny Searchlight, the hardscrabble former mining town where the Senate Democratic leader grew up and owns a home. By midmorning, cars and recreational vehicles filled the area as people set up lawn chairs and braced against a stiff wind whipping up dust clouds and blowing dozens of flags straight out.
The rally takes place just days after Obama signed into law the historic health care reform bill approved by Congress last weekend that ushered in near-universal medical coverage and left the nation deeply divided. The vote was followed by reports of threats and vandalism aimed at some Washington lawmakers, mostly Democrats who supported the new law.
Police don't expect problems at Saturday's rally, but the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department is sending dozens of uniformed and plainclothes officers to patrol the crowd.
The Tea Party Movement is a far-flung coalition of conservative groups angered by Washington spending, rising taxes and the growth and reach of government. It takes its name from the Boston Tea Party in 1773, when colonists dumped tea off English ships to protest what they considered unfair taxation by the British crown.
Now Tea Partiers are protesting Obama's health care overhaul.
"There's great frustration with that policies within the health care reform bill run counter to our view as to the proper role between government and the individual," Joe Wierzbicki, coordinator for the Tea Party Express, told FoxNews.com.
Ketha Verzani, 60, said she's a Republican, and came to the rally from her home in Las Vegas "to stand with those who want to clean house."
She opposes the health care bill and worries Americans are losing their rights, including parental rights and gun rights.
"It seems like every day more and more of our rights are being taken away," Verzani said, sporting a Palin 2012 button to show support for the former Alaska governor who "doesn't beat around the bush."
Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, is scheduled to appear after spending Friday and Saturday morning campaigning for Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican who led the 2008 ticket.
McCain is seeking re-election but faces a Republican primary challenge from the right by former congressman and radio talk show host JD Hayworth.
Now a Fox News analyst and potential 2012 presidential candidate, Palin faced criticism after posting a map on her Facebook page that had circles and cross hairs over 20 Democratic districts. She also sent a tweet saying, "Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!"
She said Friday she was alluding to votes, not guns.
A string of polls has shown Reid is vulnerable in politically moderate Nevada after pushing Obama's agenda in Congress. His standing has also been hurt by Nevada's double-digit unemployment and record foreclosure and bankruptcy rates.
Saturday's rally kicks off a 42-city bus tour that ends in Washington on April 15, the deadline for filing federal income tax returns.
Reid supporters planned their own rally Saturday about a mile (1.6 kilometers) from the Tea Party event.
Luis Salvador, 55, an unemployed fire sprinkler fitter, drove up from Las Vegas to support Reid, who he said has done a lot for the state and doesn't deserve the protest brought to his hometown.
"You don't come to a man's house and start creating a ruckus," said Salvador, a registered independent. He and several others taped signs saying "Nevada Needs Harry Reid" to the side of a truck near the highway that runs through town.
Another Reid supporter, Judy Hill, 62, said she doesn't understand the hatred of Reid. The longtime Democrat from Searchlight, a town of about 1,000, said she thinks people just don't know the man she calls a friend.
"They listen to the rhetoric. I think he's very misunderstood and under-appreciated," she said
FoxNews.com's Cristina Corbin and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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| | Sujet: 2112 - 27/3/2010, 22:57 | |
| 49% des electeurs americains souhaitent voir l'etat dans lequel il reside deposer plainte contre le gouvernement federal au sujet d'Obamacare alors que 37% sont contre. 14% d'indecis.
Rasmussen |
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| | Sujet: 1113 - Les consequences d'Obamacare telles que prevues par ceux qui l'opposent 27/3/2010, 23:14 | |
| The ObamaCare Writedowns It's been a banner week for Democrats: ObamaCare passed Congress in its final form on Thursday night, and the returns are already rolling in. Yesterday AT&T announced that it will be forced to make a $1 billion writedown due solely to the health bill, in what has become a wave of such corporate losses.This wholesale destruction of wealth and capital came with more than ample warning. Turning over every couch cushion to make their new entitlement look affordable under Beltway accounting rules, Democrats decided to raise taxes on companies that do the public service of offering prescription drug benefits to their retirees instead of dumping them into Medicare. We and others warned this would lead to AT&T-like results, but like so many other ObamaCare objections Democrats waved them off as self-serving or "political."  Getty Images |
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| | Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 28/3/2010, 11:44 | |
| Le POTUS, lui aussi, continue a sur sa lancee et met de cote toutes les promesses de sa campagne electorale et meme celles du jour de son inauguration en profitant du fait que nos elus federaux soient rentres dans leur district pour les vacances de printemps pour user de son pouvoir executif et "asseoir" 15 candidats sans obtenir l'aval du Senat (au moins 1 des candidats etait bloque par les Senateurs Republicains).
Ce genre de choses etaient fortement et largement decrie par les Democrates du temps de Bush 43 et le candidat "Obama" avait promis le CHANGEment. Mais bon...
(en anglais:
.....
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) criticized Becker’s appointment in a statement, calling it “yet another episode of choosing a partisan path despite bipartisan opposition. . . Additionally stunning is the Administration’s decision to recess appoint two Democrat nominees to the NLRB and leave the Republican behind. This is a purely partisan move that will make a traditionally bipartisan labor board an unbalanced agenda-driven panel.”
Obama did not install Republican Brian Hayes, the other pending nominee to the five-member labor board, which some thought he might do to take the partisan edge off the Democratic appointments.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/35111.html#ixzz0jSlOC6l7) |
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| | Sujet: 2115 - 28/3/2010, 14:58 | |
| Why I Joined the Tea Party
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| | Sujet: 2116 - 29/3/2010, 08:07 | |
| Video Radio Mobile U-Report iMag Log InRegister orts: Moscow Subway Blasts Kill at Least 41 NewsCore At least 41 people were killed in two explosions that hit the Moscow Reports: Moscow Subway Blasts Kill at Least 41The first hit the Lubyanka Metro Station in central Moscow about 7:56am local time (3:56am GMT), Russian news agency ITAR-TASS reported. Twenty-six were killed and 15 people were injured.- Spoiler:
Sky News reported that a second explosion hit the Park Kultury station, three stations away on the same line, about 30 minutes later. AFP reported at least 15 people were killed.
RIA Novosti reported that a security source told the agency the Lubyanka station was hit by a bomb.
Interfax, quoting a Russian security source, reported the first blast may have been caused by a suicide bomber.
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| | Sujet: 2117 - South Africa 29/3/2010, 10:27 | |
| Hardship deepens for South Africa’s Poor WhitesMar 26, 2010 09:18 EDT
Reuters
Sitting in a deck chair at a white South African squatter camp, Ann le Roux, 60, holds a yellowing photo from her daughter’s wedding day.- Spoiler:
 Children walk through a squatter camp for poor white South Africans at Coronation Park in Krugersdorp, March 6, 2010. REUTERS/Finbarr O’Reilly
Taken not long after Nelson Mandela became the country’s first black president in 1994, it shows Le Roux standing with her Afrikaans husband and their daughter outside their home in Melville, an upmarket Johannesburg neighborhood.
Sixteen years later, she lives in a caravan and a tent shared with seven other people, including her daughter and four grandchildren, at a squatter camp for poor white South Africans.
She is one of a growing number of whites living below the poverty line in South Africa who blame affirmative action and the ANC-led elected government for their plight.
Le Roux had to sell her house after her husband died and she lost her job as a secretary at the city planning council — where she had worked for 26 years — after she took time off work to recover from the loss of her husband.
“They wouldn’t take me back because of the political situation,” she says, looking down at the fading photo.
“Our color here is not the right color now in South Africa,” Le Roux says, echoing the complaint of many impoverished whites, mostly Afrikaners who are descendants of early Dutch and French settlers.
While most white South Africans still enjoy lives of privilege and relative wealth, the number of poor whites has risen steadily over the past 15 years. White unemployment nearly doubled between 1995 and 2005, according to the country’s Institute for Security Studies.
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| | Sujet: 2118 - 30/3/2010, 08:27 | |
| Ed Koch est un ancien maire de New York. Il a un franc parler et, bien que Democrate, il a toujours defendu la politique exterieure de Bush 43. Je ne peux m'empecher de penser que l'invitation de Nicolas et Carla a un diner a quatre dans les appartements prives (et pourtant, le courant passe tres peu entre les deux hommes) etaient pour confirmer la difference faite avec Benjamin Natanyahy quelques jours plus tot, lorsque notre POTUS (qui nous n'a de cesse de nous rappeler l'importance de garder de bonnes relations avec tous) avait abandonne le Premier Ministre Israelien dans les bureaux de la Maison Blanche lancant avant de monter diner: "si vous avez quelque chose d'important a me faire savoir, je serai dans le coin"...  (et oui, je suis convaincue que le president francais a ete utilise, mais bon... ca l'aide aussi en France, des lors, pour lui, c'est moindre mal.) Obama's Treatment of Israel is ShockingBy Ed KochPresident Obama's abysmal attitude toward the State of Israel and his humiliating treatment of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is shocking. In the Washington Post on March 24th, Jackson Diehl wrote, "Obama has added more poison to a U.S.-Israeli relationship that already was at its lowest point in two decades. Tuesday night the White House refused to allow non-official photographers record the president's meeting with Netanyahu; no statement was issued afterward. Netanyahu is being treated as if he were an unsavory Third World dictator, needed for strategic reasons but conspicuously held at arms length. That is something the rest of the world will be quick to notice and respond to."- Spoiler:
I have not heard or read statements criticizing the president by New York Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand or many other supporters of Israel for his blatantly hostile attitude toward Israel and his discourtesy displayed at the White House. President Obama orchestrated the hostile statements of Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, voiced by Biden in Israel and by Clinton in a 43-minute telephone call to Bibi Netanyahu, and then invited the latter to the White House to further berate him. He then left Prime Minister Netanyahu to have dinner at the White House with his family, conveying he would only be available to meet again if Netanyahu had further information - read concessions - to impart.It is unimaginable that the President would treat any of our NATO allies, large or small, in such a degrading fashion. That there are policy differences between the U.S. and the Netanyahu government is no excuse. Allies often disagree, but remain respectful.
In portraying Israel as the cause of the lack of progress in the peace process, President Obama ignores the numerous offers and concessions that Israel has made over the years for the sake of peace, and the Palestinians' repeated rejections of those offers. Not only have Israel's peace proposals, which include ceding virtually the entire West Bank and parts of Jerusalem to the Palestinians, been rejected, but each Israeli concession has been met with even greater demands, no reciprocity, and frequently horrific violence directed at Israeli civilians.
Thus, Prime Minister Netanyahu's agreement to suspend construction on the West Bank - a move heralded by Secretary of State Clinton as unprecedented by an Israeli government - has now led to a demand that Israel also halt all construction in East Jerusalem, which is part of Israel's capital. Meanwhile, Palestinians are upping the ante, with violent protests in Jerusalem and elsewhere. And the Obama administration's request that our Arab allies make some conciliatory gesture towards Israel has fallen on deaf ears.
Prior American presidents, beginning with Truman who recognized the State of Israel in 1948, have valued Israel as a close ally and have often come to its rescue. For example, it was Richard Nixon during the 1973 war, who resupplied Israel with arms, making it possible for it to snatch victory from a potentially devastating defeat at the hands of a coalition of Arab countries including Egypt and Syria.
President George W. Bush made it a point of protecting Israel at the United Nations and the Security Council wielding the U.S. veto against the unfair actions and sanctions that Arab countries sought to impose to cripple and, if possible, destroy, the one Jewish nation in the world.
Now, in my opinion, based on the actions and statements by President Obama and members of his administration, there is grave doubt among supporters of Israel that President Obama can be counted on to do what presidents before him did - protect our ally, Israel. The Arabs can lose countless wars and still come back because of their numbers. If Israel were to lose one, it would cease to exist.
To its credit, Congress, according to the Daily News, has acted differently towards Prime Minister Netanyahu than President Obama. Reporter Richard Sisk wrote on March 24th, "Congress put on a rare
show of bipartisanship for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday - a sharp contrast to his chilly reception at the White House. ‘We in Congress stand by Israel,' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told a beaming Netanyahu, who has refused to budge on White House and State Department demands to freeze settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank."
But Congress does not make foreign policy. It can prevent military arms from going to Israel, but cannot send them. Congress has no role in determining U.S. policy at the U.N. Security Council. The President of the United States determines our foreign policy - nearly unilaterally - under our Constitution. So those Congressional bipartisan wishes of support, while welcome, will not protect Israel in these areas, only the President can do that. Based on his actions to date, I have serious doubts.
In the 1930s, the Jewish community and its leadership, with few exceptions, were silent when their coreligionists were being attacked, hunted down, incarcerated and slaughtered. Ultimately 6 million Jews were exterminated in the Holocaust. The feeling in the U.S. apparently was that Jews who criticized our country's actions and inactions that endangered the lives of other Jews would be considered disloyal, unpatriotic and displaying dual loyalty, so many Jews stayed mute.
Never again should we allow that to occur. We have every right to be concerned about the fate of the only Jewish nation in the world, which if it had existed during the 1930s and thereafter, would have given sanctuary to any Jew escaping the Nazi holocaust and taken whatever military action it could to save Jews not yet in the clutches of the Nazis. We who have learned the lessons of silence, Jews and Christians alike, must speak up now before it is too late.
So I ask again, where are our Senators, Schumer and Gillibrand? And, where are the voices, not only of the 31 members of the House and 14 Senators who are Jewish, but the Christian members of the House and Senate who support the State of Israel? Where are the peoples' voices? Remember the words of Pastor Niemoller, so familiar that I will not recite them, except for the last line, "Then they came for me, and by that time, there was no one left to speak up."
Supporters of Israel who gave their votes to candidate Obama - 78 percent of the Jewish community did - believing he would provide the same support as John McCain, this is the time to speak out and tell the President of your disappointment in him. It seems to me particularly appropriate to do so on the eve of the Passover. It is one thing to disagree with certain policies of the Israeli government. It is quite another to treat Israel and its prime minister as pariahs, which only emboldens Israel's enemies and makes the prospect of peace even more remote.
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Ed Koch is the former Mayor of New York City.
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| | Sujet: 2119 - 30/3/2010, 12:04 | |
| Apres le passage d'Obamacare, une bonne partie des media, heureuse de voir leur programme politique ( agenda?) avancer et ne s'etre apres tout pas trompee en choisissant et soutenant le POTUS, a tente de nous faire croire a un revirement presque immediat des resultats de sondages concernant notre president. En realite? Pas vraiment... Barack Obama struggles to capitalize in pollsBy JOSH GERSTEIN | 3/29/10 8:29 PM EDT
 'Obama’s approval seems to have moved up a few points during and slightly after passage. Then it fell back down again.' Reuters- Spoiler:
Democrats who held out hopes that President Barack Obama’s health reform win would mean a quick boost to the party’s political fortunes are getting a reality check – a reminder that it takes more than one good week to shake up a year of sliding polls.
Obama and his health reform plan did get a bump in several surveys immediately after the House vote eight days ago – but the numbers in some of those polls flattened out, showing how difficult it will be for Obama to capitalize on reform, even after his top legislative goal cleared Congress.
“It helped a little bit, but I think it’s within the margin of error,” said Peter Brown of the Quinnipiac Poll, which recorded a slight drop in disapproval of Obama after the bill passed. “The Democrats said the American people will grow to love this. We’ll find out. At this point, they’re not exactly jumping up and down.”
The most prominent political prognosticator who predicted a post-reform bump for Obama was President Bill Clinton – who told reporters last year that Obama would add 10 points to his approval rating “the minute health reform passed.”
But Obama’s approval in the Gallup daily tracking poll stands at 48 percent – near his all-time low of 46 percent in the three-day rolling average. Near the time of passage, Obama ticked up to 50 percent in the poll.
“People thought Obama might get a significant uptick,” said Frank Newport of the Gallup Poll. “Obama’s approval seems to have moved up a few points during and slightly after passage. Then it fell back down again.”
At least one survey showed hints that Obama is still enjoying a bit of a boost from the passage of the landmark health legislation. The CNN-Opinion Research Corporation poll showed Obama’s approval rating up to 51 percent from 46 percent before the health bill passed. There were also signs of increased support for Obama from lower-income households and union members – key Democratic voting groups.
Tracking such point-by-point fluctuations in the polls only tells so much. The real test for Obama and the Democrats is whether they can build momentum on the health care win to repair Obama’s damaged approval rating and Congress’s even more lackluster standings in time for the November midterms, when the ratings really matter.
And for all their hopes for a shot of political adrenaline, Democrats believe the real value of the health care win is to fortify the president for battles still to come, to give Obama a stronger hand on Wall Street reform, a new education bill and a campaign finance overhaul.
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===== RasmussenTaux d'Approbation de Performance de Barack Obama  et pourtant et pourtant... on ne peut pas dire que qu'il n'a pas un soutien considerable de la part des media. Rasmussen a decide cette semaine de commencer a suivre l'impartialite (ou son manque) dans les reportages, nouvelles etc... lorsque cela concerne le POTUS or, suprise, surprise... Roll your mouse over the Rasmussen Reports Media Meterto see what share of media mentions about the President were positive or negative over the past seven days. This feature is updated daily. Hier 59.6% lui etaient favorables contre 40.4% Check out our review of last week’s key polls to see “What They Told Us.” Also, take a moment to check out our new state home pages for Texas, New York, Florida and California. Other states will be coming soon. The latest polling data can always be found on the Rasmussen Reports home page,updated with new data at least six times daily. Je me demande si Nicolas ne subit pas "un peu" l'effet oppose.  |
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| | Sujet: 2120 - 30/3/2010, 19:05 | |
| et la c'est passe sans presque qui que ce soit en parle!!! Obama Breaks Down Student Loan Overhaul When President Obama puts pen to paper today on the final version of a health care overhaul bill, he'll also be changing the course of the nation's student loan program.- Spoiler:
Along with the adjustments Congress made to the health care aspects of the bill was a revamping of the way student loans are administered. The President will be breaking down exactly just what that will mean for college students when he speaks at Northern Virginia Community College's Alexandria campus at 11:05am Watch it LIVE now!.
Starting July 1st, when the government issues student loans, it will bypass the banks who have traditionally provided them, and directly target borrowers.
A White House press release spells it out this way, "[A]ll new federal student loans will be direct loans, delivered and collected by private companies under performance-based contracts with the Department of Education. According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, ending these wasteful subsidies will free up nearly $68 billion for college affordability and deficit reduction over the next 11 years."
But some in the President's own party say eliminating the middle man also equals eliminating jobs.
But the President's focus today will be more about what the bill does than what it does not.
He will also talk about the provision's less controversial expansion of Pell Grants, as well as supporting historically black and minority institutions and caps on student loan repayments.
According to the White House, "New borrowers who assume loans after July 1, 2014, will be able to cap their student loan repayments at 10 percent of their discretionary income and, if they keep up with their payments over time, will have the balance forgiven after 20 years."
Vice President Biden's wife, Dr. Jill Biden, is a teacher at NOVA and will introduce the President.
Mr. Obama will announce that he has asked Dr. Biden to host a White House summit on community colleges this fall, with the purpose of "educating our way to a better economy," says a senior administration official.
A senior administration official says today's remarks are targeted to people around the country who don't know what the plan is all about.
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| | Sujet: 2121 - 31/3/2010, 15:38 | |
| Au sujet de la violence politique aux Etats Unis O'Reilly |
| | | | Zed
 Nombre de messages : 16907
Age : 59
Localisation : Longueuil, Québec, Canada, Amérique du nord, planète Terre, du système solaire Galarneau de la voie lactée
Date d'inscription : 13/11/2008
| | Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 31/3/2010, 17:04 | |
| - Sylvette a écrit:
- et la c'est passe sans presque qui que ce soit en parle!!!
Obama Breaks Down Student Loan Overhaul
When President Obama puts pen to paper today on the final version of a health care overhaul bill, he'll also be changing the course of the nation's student loan program.
- Spoiler:
Along with the adjustments Congress made to the health care aspects of the bill was a revamping of the way student loans are administered. The President will be breaking down exactly just what that will mean for college students when he speaks at Northern Virginia Community College's Alexandria campus at 11:05am Watch it LIVE now!.
Starting July 1st, when the government issues student loans, it will bypass the banks who have traditionally provided them, and directly target borrowers.
A White House press release spells it out this way, "[A]ll new federal student loans will be direct loans, delivered and collected by private companies under performance-based contracts with the Department of Education. According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, ending these wasteful subsidies will free up nearly $68 billion for college affordability and deficit reduction over the next 11 years."
But some in the President's own party say eliminating the middle man also equals eliminating jobs.
But the President's focus today will be more about what the bill does than what it does not.
He will also talk about the provision's less controversial expansion of Pell Grants, as well as supporting historically black and minority institutions and caps on student loan repayments.
According to the White House, "New borrowers who assume loans after July 1, 2014, will be able to cap their student loan repayments at 10 percent of their discretionary income and, if they keep up with their payments over time, will have the balance forgiven after 20 years."
Vice President Biden's wife, Dr. Jill Biden, is a teacher at NOVA and will introduce the President.
Mr. Obama will announce that he has asked Dr. Biden to host a White House summit on community colleges this fall, with the purpose of "educating our way to a better economy," says a senior administration official.
A senior administration official says today's remarks are targeted to people around the country who don't know what the plan is all about.
L'ONU est financée par des contributions volontaires et par les États membres, et a six langues officielles : l'arabe, le mandarin, l'anglais, le français, le russe et l'espagnol.
Si Obama, nous parlaient dans une de ces langues officielles, au lieu d'en américain  Peut-être bien, et je dis peut-être bien, nous aurions compris quelque chose | |
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| | Sujet: 2123 - 1/4/2010, 14:10 | |
| Laptop Killer? Apple iPad Comes Close, Says MossbergThe Wall Street Journal Apple's iPad has the potential to change portable computing profoundly and to challenge the primacy of the laptop, says the Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg.- Spoiler:
For the past week or so, I have been testing a sleek, light, silver-and-black tablet computer called an iPad. After spending hours and hours with it, I believe this beautiful new touch-screen device from Apple has the potential to change portable computing profoundly, and to challenge the primacy of the laptop. It could even help, eventually, to propel the finger-driven, multitouch user interface ahead of the mouse-driven interface that has prevailed for decades.But first, it will have to prove that it really can replace the laptop or netbook for enough common tasks, enough of the time, to make it a viable alternative. And that may not be easy, because previous tablet computers have failed to catch on in the mass market, and the iPad lacks some of the features—such as a physical keyboard, a Webcam, USB ports and multitasking—that most laptop or netbook users have come to expect.If people see the iPad mainly as an extra device to carry around, it will likely have limited appeal. If, however, they see it as a way to replace heavier, bulkier computers much of the time—for Web surfing, email, social-networking, video- and photo-viewing, gaming, music and even some light content creation—it could be a game changer the way Apple's iPhone has been.The iPad is much more than an e-book or digital periodical reader, though it does those tasks brilliantly, better in my view than the Amazon Kindle. And it's far more than just a big iPhone, even though it uses the same easy-to-master interface, and Apple says it runs nearly all of the 150,000 apps that work on the iPhone.It's qualitatively different, a whole new type of computer that, through a simple interface, can run more-sophisticated, PC-like software than a phone does, and whose large screen allows much more functionality when compared with a phone's. But, because the iPad is a new type of computer, you have to feel it, to use it, to fully understand it and decide if it is for you, or whether, say, a netbook might do better.So I've been using my test iPad heavily day and night, instead of my trusty laptops most of the time. As I got deeper into it, I found the iPad a pleasure to use, and had less and less interest in cracking open my heavier ThinkPad or MacBook. I probably used the laptops about 20 percent as often as normal, reserving them mainly for writing or editing longer documents, or viewing Web videos in Adobe's Flash technology, which the iPad doesn't support, despite its wide popularity online.My verdict is that, while it has compromises and drawbacks, the iPad can indeed replace a laptop for most data communication, content consumption and even limited content creation, a lot of the time. But it all depends on how you use your computer.Continue reading at The Wall Street Journal
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| | Sujet: 2124 - 2/4/2010, 09:24 | |
| Obama Set to Reject 'Nuclear Posture'Times of LondonPresident Obama will rewrite America’s policy on nuclear weapons next week, heralding further reductions in the U.S. stockpile and giving a pledge not to develop new systems.- Spoiler:
President Obama will rewrite America’s policy on nuclear weapons next week, heralding further reductions in the U.S. stockpile and giving a pledge not to develop new systems.
After a review of the nation’s nuclear weapons arsenal that has involved, among others, the Pentagon, the Department of Energy and the intelligence services, as well as the White House, Obama is expected to reject the doctrine on nuclear weapons — the “nuclear posture” — adopted by George W. Bush, which included the possibility of the United States launching an attack on a non-nuclear state.
The Obama Administration has come under pressure from arms control analysts to redefine the circumstances in which the U.S. might consider using nuclear weapons, and to state beyond doubt that the justification for keeping them is purely as a deterrent.
After the President’s speech in Prague last April, when he laid out his personal vision of a world without nuclear weapons, the U..S has been carrying out a review of its nuclear posture and the conclusions are due to be published in a declassified version early next week — before Obama flies back to Prague to sign the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with President Medvedev of Russia on April 8.
President Bush tried but failed to persuade Congress to finance a new programme to develop more advanced “bunker-busting” nuclear bombs, as well as to design new atomic warheads. Now Obama is expected to rule out the development of new weapons systems — despite reservations from the military, which is mindful that Russia and China are modernising and expanding their nuclear forces respectively. He will also drop the notion, espoused by his predecessor, that nuclear warheads can be deployed in certain circumstances; for example, if another country resorts to attacking US forces with chemical or biological weapons.
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association in Washington, said that if Mr Obama redefined nuclear arms as purely weapons of deterrence, it would “eliminate the number of potential targets the US military think they need to hit”. It would also reduce the number of nuclear weapons the US believes it needs, he said, which could bring the total well below the 1,550 strategic warheads agreed under the new Start treaty announced last week.
Continue reading at The Times of London
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| | Sujet: 2124 - 2/4/2010, 09:31 | |
| Absolument incroyable! O'Reilly Video |
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| | Sujet: 2125 - 2/4/2010, 09:46 | |
| Sarah Palin blasts President Obama's oil drilling decisionBy FRED BARBASH | 4/1/10 7:23 AM EDT Sarah Palin is blasting President Barack Obama’s oil drilling decision as a “stall, baby, stall” plan that is little more than a cover for enactment of climate legislation now pending in the Senate. She urged Republican members of Congress to “not take the bait.” - Spoiler:
Writing in National Review Online, she said that “behind the rhetoric lie new drilling bans and leasing delays; soon to follow are burdensome new environmental regulations. Instead of ‘drill, baby, drill,’ the more you look into this, the more you realize it’s ‘stall, baby, stall,’” Palin wrote.
“The president said he’ll ‘consider potential areas for development in the mid- and south Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, while studying and protecting sensitive areas in the Arctic.’” Palin wrote.
“As the former governor of one of America’s largest energy-producing states, a state oil and gas commissioner and chair of the nation’s Interstate Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, I’ve seen plenty of such studies. What we need is action — action that results in the job growth and revenue that a robust drilling policy could provide. And let’s not forget that while Interior Department bureaucrats continue to hold up actual offshore drilling from taking place, Russia is moving full steam ahead on Arctic drilling, and China, Russia and Venezuela are buying leases off the coast of Cuba. ...
“I’ve got to call it like I see it,” she wrote. “The administration’s sudden interest in offshore drilling is little more than political posturing designed to gain support for job-killing energy legislation soon to come down the pike. I’m confident that GOP senators will not take the bait.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/35284.html#ixzz0jvVjx410
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| | | | Biloulou
Nombre de messages : 54566
Localisation : Jardins suspendus sur la Woluwe - Belgique
Date d'inscription : 27/10/2008
| | Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 2/4/2010, 16:23 | |
| - Sylvette a écrit:
- Absolument incroyable!
O'Reilly Video Comme quoi il n'y a pas qu'en matière de santé qui se passent des choses à donner la nausée...  | |
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| | Sujet: 2127 - 2/4/2010, 16:39 | |
| Rasmussen  ==== Obamacare est passe avec 55% de desaccord populaire contre 42%, la nouvelle loi sur les prets pour etudiants est passee avec 49% d'opposition et 35% de soutien. Le POTUS a precise la semaine derniere qu'il ferait passer tout son programme avec ou sans les Republicains. Il semble que ce soit egalement avec ou sans le soutien de la majorite des Americains... Il n'a plus qu'a transformer le systeme de college electoral americain en un de simple majorite et remplacer la limite de quatre annees et une seule reelection en un mandat a vie, et nous aurons enormement en commun avec les Venezueliens. |
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| | Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 2/4/2010, 16:40 | |
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| | Sujet: 2130 - 2/4/2010, 16:56 | |
| Le denigrement de la droite par... la gauche  Sean Hannity - Video |
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| | Sujet: 2131 - 2/4/2010, 17:15 | |
| Perry: Obama's health care plan is a disasterRick Perry, GOVERNOR OF TEXAS
President Barack Obama's signature on Congress's disastrous health care plan was a disappointment to everyone who values limited government, bipartisanship and quality and affordable health care.- Spoiler:
In forcing the bill through, congressional leaders from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on down substituted their own desires and political goals for the good judgment and common sense of the people they represent. Indeed, the more the American people learned about the socialist proposals, the more they rejected them.
We've known for a while that the Obama administration and congressional leaders might eventually twist enough arms, broker enough backroom deals and bend enough procedural rules to pass the bill. Still, it's surprising that it's come to this, with the federal government unconstitutionally mandating the purchase of a specific product, and threatening those who don't abide with government fines.
The bill represents a federal overreach unprecedented in scope, reaching into the lives of each and every person in America, with the staggering costs handed down to generations yet unborn.
The fight, however, is far from over.
We can't afford to accept this situation, and I mean that literally. As Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, House Speaker Joe Straus and I wrote in a letter to the Texas delegation last week, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission estimates that the bill will double the number of Medicaid recipients in the Lone Star state. The burden that would place on Texas taxpayers could be as much as $26 billion over the next 10 years. Despite that increased cost to our taxpayers, there will be no improvement to either the cost of health care or its quality.
So I am working with other state officials — including Dewhurst, Straus and Attorney General Greg Abbott — as we explore our options to protect Texans from that disastrous bill. Abbott's lawsuit, joining with numerous other states, is the next logical step in the battle. Beyond that, I am working with other governors and leaders in various states to explore all of our options to defend taxpayers from an aggressive federal overreach. I will also work with members of the Texas Senate and House to see what can be done legislatively.
It's vital we fight this on every front available to us, because mandates are painful to rank-and-file Texans and extremely ineffective. Look at Massachusetts. In the Bay State, where a mandate is already a fact of life, premiums are 40 percent more expensive than elsewhere in the country, and it's becoming harder and harder to find a doctor to see even if you are covered. By the way, the number of uninsured people in Massachusetts is about the same as it was when the mandates were passed in 2006.
We must send the message that opposition to the bill is not generated by angry mobs, as media portrayals might suggest, but by everyday people legitimately concerned to see the federal government so quickly expanding its control over all of our lives. More than 1,000 e-mails flooded my office the weekend before the bill's passage, almost exclusively against it.
Here in Texas, we also face the specter of cap-and-trade legislation and EPA regulation that will cripple our state's energy sector and cause the price of most goods and services to skyrocket for no environmental benefit. Texas had led the charge against that federal overreach, and 16 other states have joined us in that effort. We've also refused to be bribed into joining ongoing efforts to establish a federal educational standard that will let Washington decide what your children learn rather than leaving those decisions up to our state and communities.
It's getting harder to find areas of life the Obama administration doesn't want to place under federal control as a mountain of escalating debt grows to blot out our future.
Texas will continue to push back against Washington's big government intrusion into individual liberty, and continue to champion the rights of states to enact measures that best protect citizens, employers and communities.
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| | Sujet: Re: Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise 2/4/2010, 19:17 | |
| Campagne electorale pour le poste de gouverneur du Texas. Gouverneur actuel Rick Perry (R), son opposan Bill White (D) ancien maire de Houston.
Texas Media Coverage Favors White Over Perry
The Rasmussen Reports Media Meter shows that media coverage in Texas is far more favorable for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White than for incumbent Republican Governor Rick Perry.
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| | Sujet: 2133 - 3/4/2010, 00:24 | |
| Quelle difference 1 annee peut faire! Certains candidats bien qu'en difficulte preferent ne pas obtenir le soutien officiel et mediatique du POTUS. L'effet obtenu pourrait comme dans le Massachussetts etre l'oppose de celui desire. Democrats map out midterm campaign strategy for Obama By Anne E. KornblutWashington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 2, 2010Facing a tough midterm election in which they could potentially lose their majorities in Congress, Democrats are privately debating where and how President Obama can help -- or hurt.- Spoiler:
The president is unlikely to campaign in Arkansas and hasn't been to Illinois since last summer, even though both states have important Senate races.
Although many states won't hold primaries until next month, Obama has appeared at only one campaign rally this year -- for Martha Coakley, who lost a special Senate election in Massachusetts. He has held no big events in any number of states -- including Pennsylvania, Louisiana and Ohio -- with competitive races.
The political calculations are driven in part by Obama's overall approval rating, which has stayed at 53 percent in Washington Post-ABC News polls for several months. And the nation remains divided over his signature domestic accomplishment, the new health-care law.
Obama made a campaign-style swing to Maine on Thursday to talk about health care and raised money for the Democratic National Committee in Boston on his way home. But he did not use the trip to campaign for any of the dozens of Democrats nationwide who are in trouble because of their health-care votes. White House officials scoffed at the notion that the president should actively campaign with midterms seven months away, saying that they are mapping out his campaign schedule over the next few weeks.
In the anti-establishment climate, some Democrats are saying that it's smart for Obama to keep his distance from candidates in difficult races, allowing them to run against Washington and avoid the downward pull of his approval ratings. Others say he should heed the lessons of last year's Democratic losses and begin campaigning early enough to make a difference with the Democratic base.
Even while that debate begins, there is a clear no-fly zone for Obama, said senior administration officials, who discussed internal White House strategy on the condition of anonymity. "There are some cases, like Blanche Lincoln, where it's not helpful" for the president to travel, one senior administration official said, referring to the two-term senator from Arkansas who is facing challenges in the primary.
Also on the list are states in which candidates would welcome Obama's help but have not gotten it. Despite promising to return to Chicago every six to eight weeks after he was inaugurated, Obama has not been to Illinois in months, although a contentious race for his former Senate seat is underway. The Democratic candidate, Alexi Giannoulias, has received verbal support from the White House, especially from senior adviser David Axelrod, who publicly criticized his opponent, Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill). But although Kirk has had visits from Republican figures such as Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) and former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, Giannoulias has not seen Obama himself.
"He hasn't campaigned for anyone," a senior administration official said. The plan, the official said, is to accelerate Obama's fundraising over the summer and send him to campaign events after Labor Day.
Obama has appeared at eight fundraisers this year, half of them for Democratic candidates: two for Sen. Claire McCaskill (Mo.), who is not up for reelection until 2012, and two for Sen. Michael Bennet (Colo.), who was appointed to his seat last year and is running for a full term. The other four were for the Democratic Party, according to the tally kept by CBS News presidential chronicler Mark Knoller.
The only officially announced campaign event on Obama's schedule is in California, where he will attend a fundraiser for Sen. Barbara Boxer this month. He also plans to raise money for the DNC this month.
Advisers said they expect him to return to Colorado and perhaps Missouri.
But when Obama was recently in Missouri for McCaskill, Robin Carnahan, the Democratic Senate candidate who has a race this year, left the state. Officials said it was because of previously arranged business but privately said that there will be Democratic candidates who do not want their photograph taken with the president.
Still, one senior administration official said: "This is not Bush in 2006 or Clinton in '94, when the party tried to run away from incumbents. That's how you get beat. We don't see people running away from him."
Arkansas is the most obvious place for Obama to avoid, several Democrats said. He has endorsed Lincoln but has no plans to help her on the ground there. Asked whether Lincoln would like a presidential visit, Katie Laning Niebaum, a campaign spokeswoman, said: "President Obama hasn't appeared in Arkansas since 2006, but Senator Lincoln has let him know that he is always welcome."
"It is much more important for him to talk about his economic policies and what he's trying to get accomplished -- and to solicit support from the electorate nationwide-- than it is for him to campaign for congressional and senatorial candidates at this point," said Democratic consultant Steve Murphy, who is working on several races, including Lincoln's. "Of course, we wouldn't mind him showing up at a fundraiser now and then."
Other Democratic consultants working on races in swing states lauded the White House for using Obama judiciously, saying that they would prefer for him to achieve solid results than tour the nation on a permanent campaign.
But several strategists, speaking on the condition of anonymity to be critical of a White House whose help they need, said they wished Obama would take a stronger role in defining the advantages of the new health-care law and bringing that message to toss-up states and districts.
In Florida, Democratic candidates could use White House help in selling the health-care program to senior citizens, who are wary of purported Medicare cuts and are also the most important voting bloc, one consultant said.
Asked why the president chose to head to Maine -- a state with two Republican senators, neither of whom has an election on the horizon -- senior administration officials said it was in part because Obama had not been to the swing state as president.
And, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said, "because the elections aren't in March or April."
"There's a thousand years before the next elections. You guys will have plenty of time to go cover them," Gibbs told a reporter. "The president is not focused on what happens the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. We're focused on this Monday and this Tuesday."
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| | Sujet: 2134 - 3/4/2010, 00:39 | |
| Should America Bid Farewell to Exceptional Freedom?By Rep. Paul RyanLast week, on March 21st, Congress enacted a new Intolerable Act. Congress passed the Health Care bill - or I should say, one political party passed it - over a swelling revolt by the American people. The reform is an atrocity. It mandates that every American must buy health insurance, under IRS scrutiny. It sets up an army of federal bureaucrats who ultimately decide for you how you should receive Health Care, what kind, and how much...or whether you don't qualify at all. Never has our government claimed the power to decide when each of us has lived well enough or long enough to be refused life-saving medical assistance.- Spoiler:
This presumptuous reform has put this nation ... once dedicated to the life and freedom of every person ... on a long decline toward the same mediocrity that the social welfare states of Europe have become.
Americans are preparing to fight another American Revolution, this time, a peaceful one with election ballots...but the "causes" of both are the same:
Should unchecked centralized government be allowed to grow and grow in power ... or should its powers be limited and returned to the people?
Should irresponsible leaders in a distant capital be encouraged to run up scandalous debts without limit that crush jobs and stall prosperity ... or should the reckless be turned out of office and a new government elected to live within its means?
Should America bid farewell to exceptional freedom and follow the retreat to European social welfare paternalism ... or should we make a new start, in the faith that boundless opportunities belong to the workers, the builders, the industrious, and the free?
We are at the beginning of an election campaign like you've never seen before!
We are challenged to answer again the momentous questions our Founders raised when they launched mankind's noblest experiment in human freedom. They made a fundamental choice and changed history for the better. Now it's our high calling to make that choice: between managed scarcity, or solid growth ... between living in dependency on government handouts, or taking responsibility for our lives ... between confiscating the earnings of some and spreading them around, or securing everyone's right to the rewards of their work ... between bureaucratic central government, or self-government ... between the European social welfare state or the American idea of free market democracy.
What kind of nation do we wish to be? What kind of society will we hand down to our children and future generations? In the coming watershed election, the nature of this unique and exceptional land is at stake. We will choose one of two different paths. And once we make that choice, there's no going back.
This is not the kind of election I would prefer. But it was forced on us by the leaders of our government.
These leaders are walking America down a new path ... creating entitlements and promising benefits that model the United States after the European Union: a welfare state society where most people pay little or no taxes but become dependent on government benefits ... where tax reduction is impossible because more people have a stake in the welfare state than in free enterprise ... where high unemployment is accepted as a way of life, and the spirit of risk-taking is smothered by a tangle of red tape from an all-providing centralized government.
True, the United States has been moving slowly toward this path a long time. And Democrats and Republicans share the blame. Now we are approaching a "tipping point." Once we pass it, we will become a different people. Before the "tipping point," Americans remain independent and take responsibility for their own well-being. Once we have gone beyond the "tipping point," that self-sufficient outlook will be gradually transformed into a soft despotism a lot like Europe's social welfare states. Soft despotism isn't cruel or mean, it's kindly and sympathetic. It doesn't help anyone take charge of life, but it does keep everyone in a happy state of childhood. A growing centralized bureaucracy will provide for everyone's needs, care for everyone's heath, direct everyone's career, arrange everyone's important private affairs, and work for everyone's pleasure.
The only hitch is, government must be the sole supplier of everyone's happiness ... the shepherd over this flock of sheep.
Am I exaggerating? Are we really reaching this "tipping point"? Exact and precise measures cannot be made, but an eye-opening study by the Tax Foundation, a reliable and non-partisan research group, tells us that in 2004, 20 percent of US households were getting about 75 percent of their income from the federal government. In other words, one out of five families in America is already government dependent.
Another 20 percent were receiving almost 40 percent of their income from federal programs, so another one in five has become government reliant for their livelihood.
All told, 60 percent - three out of five households in America - were receiving more government benefits and services (in dollar value) than they were paying back in taxes. The Tax Foundation estimates that President Obama's budget last year will raise this "net government inflow" from 60 to 70 percent. Look at it this way: three out of ten American families are supporting themselves plus - through government - supplying or supplementing the incomes of seven other households. As a permanent arrangement, this is individually unfair, politically inequitable, and economically dangerous.
It raises a subtle but real threat to self-government when the few are paying more and more of the bill for government services and subsidies to the majority: "He who pays the piper calls the tune." The next chapter is the rule of "crony capitalism," where those who pay most taxes get the privileges, and government by and for the people is replaced by government by and for the few. The end of this story is soft despotism.
We already see enough of "crony capitalism." When government sends bailout money to Wall Street firms they label "too big to fail," that's "crony capitalism." When government buys shares in General Motors, names their management, and dictates their salaries, that's "crony capitalism." When big health insurance companies, instead of competing for market, team up with Congressional Health Care writers to order every individual to buy their products, that's "crony capitalism." When thousands of small businesses have to meet bottom lines with no government bailout, well, you're too small to succeed...good luck!
The Democratic leaders of Congress and in the White House hold a view they call "Progressivism." Progressivism began in Wisconsin, where I come from. It came into our schools from European universities under the spell of intellectuals such as Hegel and Weber, and the German leader Bismarck. The best known Wisconsin Progressive was actually a Republican, Robert LaFollette.
Progressivism was a powerful strain in both political parties for many years. Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, and Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, both brought the Progressive movement to Washington.
Early Progressives wanted to empower and engage the people. They fought for populist reforms like initiative and referendum, recalls, judicial elections, the breakup of monopoly corporations, and the elimination of vote buying and urban patronage. But Progressivism turned away from popular control toward central government planning. It lost most Americans and consumed itself in paternalism, arrogance, and snobbish condescension. "Fighting Bob" LaFollette, Teddy Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson would have scorned the self-proclaimed "Progressives" of our day for handing out bailout checks to giant corporations, corrupting the Congress to purchase votes for government controlled health care, and funneling billions in Jobs Stimulus money to local politicians to pay for make-work patronage. That's not "Progressivism," that's what real Progressives fought against!
Since America began, the timid have feared the Founding Fathers' ideas of individual freedom, so they yearn for Old World class models. Our Progressivists are the latest iteration of that same fear of the people. In unprecedented numbers, Americans are speaking out against the intolerable Health Care bill and irresponsible debt-ridden spending.
Does anyone recall Norman Rockwell's famous "Freedom of Speech" painting of an average working Joe standing and speaking his mind at a town hall meeting? Today's Progressivists ridicule average Americans speaking out at tea parties across the nation and denounce their criticisms as "un-American." Millions of average Americans reject their big government solutions, and that scares them.
Last January President Obama said: "There are simply philosophical differences that will always cause us to part ways. These disagreements, about the role of government in our lives, about our national priorities and our national security, have been taking place for over two hundred years."
He was right. So let's examine these "philosophical differences" of government. Progressivists say there are no enduring ideas of right or wrong. Everything is "relative" to history, so our ideas need to change. Progressivists say the Founders' Constitution including its amendments, with its principles of equal natural rights, limited government, and popular consent is outdated. We should have a "living constitution" that keeps up with the times. Progressivists invent new rights and enforce them with a more powerful central government and more federal agencies to direct society through the changes of history. And don't worry, they say. Bureaucrats can be controlled by Congressional oversight.
Would you like an example of how successful Congressional oversight is? Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Government-Sponsored Enterprises (or GSEs), underwrote trillions of dollars in junk mortgages. Year after year their officials and others from HUD, Treasury, and other agencies who supervise them marched up to Congress for hearings. Red flags were raised. The oversight committees had other priorities and dismissed them out of hand. With the housing market already tanking, Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank said: "This ability to provide stability to the market is what, in my mind, makes the GSEs a congressional success story." Less than 18 months later, the ‘market-stabilizing' GSEs went belly-up due to their shoddy business practices, collapsing the mortgage credit industry and sparking the worldwide financial meltdown. No one knows the ultimate cost to the taxpayers but it will be gigantic.
If Congress can't control what a few mortgage finance bureaucrats do with your dollars, why would anyone trust Congress to control what tens of thousands of bureaucrats will do with your health?
The Progressivist ideology embraced by today's leaders is very different from everything rank-and-file Democrats, independents, and Republicans stand for. America stands for nothing if not for the fixed truth that unalienable rights were granted to every human being not by government but by "nature and nature's God." The truths of the American founding can't become obsolete because they are not timebound. They are eternal. The practical consequence of these truths is free market democracy, the American idea of free labor and free enterprise under government by popular consent. The deepest case for free market democracy is moral, rooted in human equality and the natural right to be free.
A government that expands beyond its high but limited mission of securing our natural rights is not progressive, it's regressive. It privileges the powerful at the expense of the people. It establishes the rule of class over class. The American Revolution and the Constitution replaced class rule with a better idea: equal opportunity for all. The promise of keeping the earnings of your work is central to justice, freedom, and the hope to improve your life.
In their hearts Americans know this, but people were alarmed in 2008 by rising unemployment, falling home values, a credit crunch, and a financial meltdown.
They voted for a change of parties in the White House, and elected the largest Democratic Congressional majority in more than three decades. So overwhelming was their majority that the opposition is unable to do anything to stop them from running roughshod over our foundations. Harry Reid had a supermajority in the Senate that could not be filibustered. Still, the people's mandate for Congress and the new President was clear, simple, and unmistakable: get employment back on track ... get our economy growing again.
Americans have lost jobs nearly every month since these leaders took over the federal government in January 2009, more than 4 million at last count. The official unemployment rate hovers near 10 percent, but if we add in folks who have stopped looking for work due to lack of job prospects, the rate is a lot higher.
They began by passing the first Stimulus, a taxpayer giveaway to their favorite special interests. The price tag was $862 billion. They pushed through a second stimulus bill that cost you another $18 billion. Let's see: since 4 million Americans have been unemployed since they passed these "stimuli," that averages $220,000 per job lost. Think about that. Democrats can't even put people out of work without spending near a trillion dollars!
Just to return to where we were at the end of 2007, 8.4 million jobs have to be created. To reduce unemployment to its pre-crisis level of 5 per cent by the end of President Obama's term, our economy needs to create 247,000 new jobs per month. But we are headed in the wrong direction ... except in one field: the government is growing at breakneck pace in expanding federal payrolls.
Although millions of private sector jobs have been lost since the recession began, Washington is on track to add about 275,000 more people to the public payrolls - a whopping 15 percent increase. And we aren't talking minimum wages here. More federal workers make over $100,000 than those earning $40,000 or less. The average government worker's salary in 2009 was 21 percent higher than private sector salaries. The average federal worker's compensation package, including benefits, was nearly $120,000 in 2008, twice the private sector at $60,000. One study shows the private sector benefit package averages $9,900 while the federal package averages almost $41,000. Now the Administration wants Congress to privilege federal workers by writing off their unpaid student loans after ten years. People in productive private sector jobs would keep paying for twenty years. Progressivists would really like everyone to work for the government.
Has any Congress in history enacted, or tried to enact, so many foolish, squalid, and counterproductive programs?
It isn't good news when anyone losses his job. But I'll make an exception when the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader lose theirs in November!
As their first major item of business last year, these leaders pushed through a budget so bloated that it will double the federal debt in five years, and triple it in ten.
Now the Administration has sent Congress a budget that's far worse. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office [CBO] reports that 10 years from now, this budget will drive the federal debt burden up to 90 percent of the nation's entire economic production. It propels spending to a new record of $3.8 trillion next year [FY 2011]. It widens the annual deficit to a new record of $1.5 trillion this year [FY 2010], and raises $1.8 trillion in new taxes through 2020.
Two and a half years after this recession started, and no new private jobs? Think what these mind-boggling tax increases and mountain of debt are signaling to people who want to open or expand job-creating businesses. Congress keeps raising the barriers against work and production - that's your answer.
At a time when economic and job expansion should be Washington's highest priority ... and as if the multi-trillion dollar Health Care debacle were not enough, the Progressivist leadership in Congress are adding insult to injury by promoting their energy and climate agenda through their Cap and Trade plan. Put aside the fact that there is growing disagreement among scientists about climate change and its causes. This bill is a big mistake for other reasons.
CBO estimates that Cap and Trade's total cost is another near-trillion dollars. By one CBO estimate, the tax and energy cost bills for the average American household may grow by $1,600 a year. Other studies put this cost a lot higher.
If you don't believe me, let me quote a key Democratic Senator:
Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Coal-powered plants...natural gas...whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was...would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers...So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted.
That was Senator Barack Obama in January 2008, talking about what he would do as President. Don't say the man doesn't work to keep his promises!
Economists across the spectrum tell us that Cap and Trade would make our long-term national economic production fall below potential, causing higher unemployment. Federal spending is on an unsustainable path that can only get worse if this happens. There is general agreement that the environmental improvements from Cap and Trade are either nonexistent or too small to measure.
Congressional leaders are also pushing an unprecedented expansion of the Federal Reserve Board's regulatory powers over financial institutions under the belief that government must protect the people from themselves. This measure will direct federal agents to inspect, and at their pleasure object to, the wages and compensation which businesses on Main Street as well as Wall Street wish to pay employees. It puts bureaucracies in charge of deciding the type and line of credit which consumers and businesses will have access to when they shop for cars, homes, education, and expansion of facilities. The Fed has already failed the twofold assignment it has - keeping the economy and jobs growing, and keeping prices stable. It should return to its original mission of guaranteeing the long-term value of our dollar. Instead the same leaders who never knew the government mortgage giants were supplying credit for worthless mortgages now want Fed bureaucrats to regulate the businesses that supply personal and commercial credit? If that happens, economic recovery will be a longer time coming.
And now I want to return to the Health Care Frankenstein. Most Americans understand that government-run Health Care is not free, not cheap, and not compassionate. I think most Americans believe Congress has no idea of what the public demand will be for subsidized Health Care. They are correct. When Medicare was enacted, Congress guessed it would cost about 10 percent of what it turned out to be after 25 years. Heck, Congress couldn't even figure the cost of the 3-month long Cash for Clunkers subsidy last year, underestimating it on the order of 1 to 9. Most Americans know the Congressional majority are clueless about what their government-run Health Care system is going to cost.
The drama that brought this creature to life was unedifying ... part tragedy and part farce. Ethical categories went out the window. Never in history have the deliberations of Congress been subverted on this scale. The secrecy, the lack of transparency, the half-truths were stunning. The votes called at midnight ... the 2 and 3 thousand page bills members of Congress had no time to read before the votes ... the sordid backroom deals, the Cornhusker Kickback that shamed Nebraska, the Louisiana Purchase, the "Gator Aid" Medicare privilege for Florida, the additional Medicare dollars for states whose wavering representatives only yesterday were ferociously denouncing earmarks ... the federal judgeship dangled for one lawmaker's brother ... the raid on the Medicare piggy bank ... the lie that $250 billion for "doc fix" shouldn't count as a Health Care cost ... the double-counted deficit estimate scam that would land any accountant in jail ... the proposed Slaughter rule that Congressmen not record a vote on a bill their constituents hate, just "deem" it passed and vote on the amendments...and to complete the farce, the phony Executive Order pretending not to fund abortions when the Health Care bill, as "the supreme law of the land," does fund abortions. The level of political corruption to buy the votes for this debacle makes all past examples look penny ante by comparison.
Self-government stands or falls on integrity, not only in those who represent you but in the enactment of law. This indecency soiled our freedom and embarrassed the democracy we promote in other nations. And this may not be the last of it. To enact its transformative agenda, this leadership employs the Machiavellian saying that the end justifies the means. America was born in a revolution against that whole idea. Soon it will be the norm.
The Constitution and the consent of the people are all that stand between limited and unlimited government power. Zealous ideologues with the best of intentions brush aside the limits on power in order to get whatever they believe is good for the people ... no matter what the people believe. Our system of freedom can survive an assault, but it won't survive if the people are frightened, or angry, or asleep at the switch. A great Democrat, President Andrew Jackson, once said: "eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty." We can thank our current leaders at least for this: they have awakened the nation to the danger of taking self-government for granted.
Congress is not only enacting a social welfare state agenda over the objections of the people. It is failing to address the problems that threaten to engulf our country, principally economic decline and entitlement-driven debt crisis. The coming election will be a referendum on the agenda of our current leadership. Either it will give them a mandate that says "more of the same," or it will end the abuse of power and put America back on the path of growth and freedom.
Supposing the American people use their referendum in November to elect a new majority, what would the next Congress do?
The first order of business will be "repeal and replace." We will work to repeal federalized Health Care and replace it with a robust, competitive open market in health care that puts patients and their doctors at the center - not employers, not insurers, and not government agents. This takes at least two elections, and we must show our perseverance.
A new Congress will then turn to the great problem of our stagnant economy and the debt tsunami bearing down on us. The days of pretending not to notice are over. The next Congress will understand this threat and act after transparent deliberation and real debate.
I have put forward my specific solution, called "A Roadmap for America's Future," to meet this challenge. The CBO confirms that this plan achieves the goal of paying off government debt in the long run - while securing the social safety net and starting up future economic growth.
The problem in a nutshell is this: Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, three giant entitlements, are out of control. Exploding costs will drive our federal government and national economy to collapse. And the recession plus this Congress' spending spree have accelerated the day of reckoning.
Today, Medicare is $38 trillion short of its promised benefits. In five years, the hole will grow to $52 trillion. Your family's share of this gap is $458,000. Medicaid will add trillions more in state and federal debt.
Social Security's surplus is already gone, and its debt is mounting. Unless its finances are strengthened, the government will be forced to cut benefits nearly 25 percent or raise payroll taxes more than 30 percent.
Both Republicans and Democrats have failed to be candid about this. And we have only postponed the crisis by shaking a tin cup at China and Japan.
A new Congress could start by making you the owner of your health plan. Under my Roadmap reform, a tax break that now benefits only those with job-based health insurance will be replaced by tax credits that benefit every American. And it secures universal access to quality, affordable health coverage with incentives that hold down health-care cost increases.
Everyone 55 and over will remain in the current Medicare program. For those now under 55, Medicare will be like the health-care program we in Congress enjoy.
Future seniors will receive a payment and pick an insurance plan from a diverse list of Medicare-certified plans - with more support for those with low incomes and higher health costs. To reform Medicaid, low income people will receive the means to buy private health insurance like everyone else.
Under the Roadmap's Social Security proposal, everyone 55 and older will remain in the existing program with no change. Those under 55 will choose either to stay with traditional Social Security, or to join a retirement system like Congress's own plan. They will be able to invest more than a third of their payroll taxes in their own savings account, guaranteed and managed by the federal government. For both Social Security and Medicare, eligibility ages will gradually increase, and the wealthy will receive smaller benefit increases.
And we need to get this economy moving again, so the Roadmap offers taxpayers an option: either use the tax code we have today, or use a simple, low-rate, two-tier personal income tax that gets rid of loopholes and the double taxation of savings and investment. And let's replace corporate income taxes with a simple, competitive 8.5 percent business consumption tax. These low-rate and simple tax reforms would provide the certainty and the incentives for investors to open new enterprises and for workers to find a marketplace expanding in new jobs.
The Roadmap plan shifts power to individuals at the expense of government control. It rejects cradle-to-grave welfare state ideas because they drain individuals of their self-reliance. And it still honors our historic commitment to strengthening the social safety net for those who need it most.
I would welcome honest debate in the next Congress on how to tackle our fiscal crisis - and the larger debate on the proper role of government. It's time politicians in Washington stopped patronizing the American people as if they were children - deferring tough decisions and promising fiscal fantasies. Tell Americans the truth, offer them a choice, and count on them to do what's right.
A political realignment is on the way. Democratic leaders are staking their party's future on their ideological agenda. Financial Services Committee Chairman Frank candidly admits that his party "are trying on every front to increase the role of government." Former President Clinton told a Netroots convention last year that "We have entered a new era of progressive politics, which if we do it right could last 30 or 40 years."
The question is, do we realign with the vision of a European-style social welfare state, or do we realign with the American idea?
My party challenges the whole basis of the Progressivist vision of this country's future. We challenge their attack on American exceptionalism. We challenge their claim that bureaucratic centralization is the only way the US can meet the economic and social challenges of our time.
Those leaders have underestimated the good sense of the American people. They broke faith with independents, Republicans, and their own rank-and-file. They walked away from the foundational truths that made America the wonder and the envy of the world. The price of their infidelity will be high.
I hope you won't mind an aside. I absolutely love Oklahoma! As you may know, I married Janna Little, daughter of Dan and Prudence Little, from Madill. Well, Janna and I are planning on spending half of our year here in retirement. And I can tell you it won't be Summer...it's just gets too hot here for a Wisconsinite. We will be spending the Fall and Winter here. You see, I love to hunt and fish. Each year we come for deer, duck, and turkey season. Janna refers to these times as Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. There's something about Oklahoma that is truly captivating. It's a beautiful, big, unconstrained country with great-hearted people who know what it is to live like free men and women.
Some of my friends in Marshall County have on occasion called me "yankee," which I find particularly disturbing. I have always thought a yankee is someone from the Northeast, not the upper Midwest.
Needless to say, I am told this can be fixed if I include among my life's achievements the high and noble accomplishment of noodling a giant catfish from the banks of Lake Texoma. And so, I will be returning in early June, otherwise known as noodling season, to gain this rite of passage so that I may never be called yankee again, and also hoping I keep my ten fingers intact.
Knowing America, and Oklahoma as I have come to know it, I am confident that the American character is up to every challenge. America is not over. This exceptional nation will not go down the way of mediocrity. Ronald Reagan used to say: "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction ... It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for [our children] to do the same." We are that generation. The fight is our fight, and it begins now! The time is at hand to reclaim America for freedom.
Thank you very much.
Note: Congressman Paul Ryan delivered this speech to the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs in Oklahoma City on March 31, 2010.
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Paul Ryan represents Wisconsin's First Congressional District. He serves as ranking member of the House Budget Committee and senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee.
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| | Sujet: 2135- 3/4/2010, 09:09 | |
| ... et c'est CBS! Poll: Most Americans Remain Against Health Care Overhaul Posted by Stephanie CondonCBS News Poll analysis by the CBS News Polling Unit: Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Fred Backus and Anthony Salvanto.The public is increasingly skeptical of the health care reform bill signed into law last week, a new CBS News poll shows. - Spoiler:
More Americans now disapprove of the legislation, and many expect their costs to rise and the quality of their care to worsen; few expect the reforms to help them. President Obama has continued to tour the country to stump for his new set of reforms. This week he went to Portland, Maine, where he told people it will take more than a week for the benefits of reform to become apparent. The poll, conducted March 29 through April 1, found that so far the president's efforts to build up support for the bill appear to be ineffective. Fifty-three percent of Americans say they disapprove of the new reforms, including 39 percent who say they disapprove strongly. In the days before the bill passed the House, 37 percent said they approved and 48 percent disapproved. Republicans and independents remain opposed to the reforms, and support has dropped some among Democrats. Now 52 percent of Democrats approve of the new reforms, a drop from 60 percent just before the bill was passed by Congress. And less than one in five Americans thinks the new health care reforms will help them personally - unchanged since before the vote in Congress. Thirty-six percent think the new reforms will hurt them, while 39 percent think they will have little effect. There are also some doubts about the specific ways in which Americans expect the reforms will affect them. Just over half think the new health care reforms will increase their health care costs, and 39 percent think the quality of their health care will get worse. Even though the president and Democratic leaders have repeatedly pointed out that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office called the reform package a deficit-reducer, six in 10 Americans still think the new health care reforms will increase the budget deficit. Just 13 percent think the reforms will decrease the deficit and another 15 percent expect no effect. But Americans are relatively more positive about one outcome of the legislation -- the effect the new reforms will have on consumers and the health insurance industry. Thirty-five percent think the reforms will increase consumer protection against health insurance companies, and just 20 percent expect that to decrease. Still, as was the case before the bill was passed, about half of Americans say they don't have a good understanding of how the new reforms will affect them and their family. Fifty-three percent find the reforms confusing, and just 41 percent understand their impact.Only 34 percent of Americans approved of the president's handling of health care -- an all-time low. Mr. Obama's overall approval rating also hit an all-time low in this poll at 44 percent, as Americans continue to worry about the economy. The public's approval of Congress also remains low at 16 percent. The lead-up to the House vote on health care reform was contentious, and 56 percent of Americans believe Congress' behavior is less civil now than it was 10 years ago. Democrats, Republicans and independents all share that view. On a completely different note, the poll also asked respondents about their opinions of people using swear words -- which has been in the news recently. When it comes to cursing, a third says they are bothered a lot by people using swear words in conversations -- but 38 percent aren't bothered much at all. Women dislike it more than men. Quand on voit le peu de respect dans lequel le Congres est tenu (16% d'approbation) et que sommes toutes, les Democrates de cette branche n'ont fait QUE ce que le POTUS voulait d'eux, on peut se demander pourquoi, ses resultats a lui sont sommes toutes tres respectables. Ca ne peut etre du a ce que: 1) dans l'ensemble, les Americains l'aiment bien 2) De nombreux leaders Democrates ayant explique de long en large (dirait Eddie) que si vous etes Republicain vous etes forcement raciste, beaucoup de personnes qui repondent aux question des sondages ont peut-etre peur d'etre marques.
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| | Sujet: 2136 - Bonjour Cher Saint Pierre 3/4/2010, 09:13 | |
| Je ne pense pas utiliser " spoiler" differemment ces derniers jours qu'avant et pourtant les resultats obtenus ne sont pas les memes. Faut-il continuer ainsi jusqu'a ce que peut-etre la correction soit faite d'"encore plus haut" ou souhaitez-vous recommander une parade? Merci d'avance. Tres Devouee Participante. |
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