Nouvelles en Langue Anglaise

Rappel du premier message :

Bonjour Biloulou

Il me semblait que cette nouvelle plairait!

Il serait temps que les Tours Eiffel de Las Vegas, ToKyo, Orlando soit egalement descendues avec pertes et fracas!

In a Mermaid Statue, Danes Find Something Rotten in State of Michigan

Small Town's Ode to Ethnic Culture Draws Call From 'the Art Police' Over Licensing
By TIMOTHY AEPPEL

GREENVILLE, Mich. -- This town's statue of Hans Christian Andersen's "Little Mermaid" is a symbol of its proud Danish heritage. Now some are saying she doesn't have permission to be in the country.
Nobody disputes the sculpture -- installed in 1994 as part of Greenville's annual Danish Festival -- was inspired by the famous one in Copenhagen.
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

The original in Copenhagen's harbor draws about 1.5 million visitors a year.



The problem is that this ode to the old country allegedly infringes the copyright of Danish artist Edvard Eriksen. In May, just as preparations for this year's Danish-themed festivities were getting under way, the town got a letter from the Artists Rights Society -- a New York-based organization that enforces copyrights on behalf of artists, including Andy Warhol and Picasso. The letter said that the statue is an "unauthorized reproduction" and had to come down. If not, the town would have to pay a licensing fee.
...

Les Democrates moderes et les Republicains moderes commencent a trouver la base d'un plan d'assurance social commun. Pas celui voulu par les Democrates du Congres et NP, mais bon..

Key Democratic provisions fading fast
By CARRIE BUDOFF BROWN | 7/27/09 11:31 PM EDT



Eliminating an insurance mandate could bring even greater pressure on Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who has been challenged by more liberal senators who say he is sacrificing key Democratic priorities on health care reform to win the votes of a few Republicans. Photo: AP

Bipartisan negotiations on the Senate Finance Committee are moving closer to eliminating two health care provisions favored by many Democrats – a mandate on employers to provide insurance or pay a penalty, and a government insurance option, a senator and health care insiders said Monday.

That could bring even greater pressure on Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who has been challenged by more liberal senators who say he is sacrificing key Democratic priorities on health care reform to win the votes of a few Republicans.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) confirmed that the three Republicans and three Democrats negotiating the Senate Finance bill are moving away from a broad-based mandate that would force employers to offer insurance. The senators instead are leaning toward a “free rider” provision that requires employers to pay for employees who receive coverage through Medicaid or who receive new government subsidies to purchase insurance through an exchange.

Snowe stressed the committee hasn’t reached a final agreement on any of the key provisions but said, “There is not a broad-based employer mandate. … There are approximately 170 million Americans that receive coverage through employers. That is a significant percentage of the population. We don’t want to undermine that or create a perverse incentive where employers drop the coverage because their employees could potentially get subsidies through the exchange.”

On the nonprofit insurance cooperative, Snowe also said no final decisions have been reached, but “it is safe to say it is probably one that will remain in the final document.”

Both the “free rider” proposal and the co-op plan were included in an outline of the Finance Committee bill that leaked out last month.

“If it is to be a bipartisan package, it’s going to be co-ops, not public plan and some middle ground on employer mandates,” said a health care insider, noting that many of the details still need to be sorted out.

...

Ahhh eh bien voila, l'injection fatale pour les patients du troisieme age n'est peut-etre pas si loin!

Critics of Health Reform Concerned Over Government's Role in End of Life Issues

A quarter of all Medicare spending is made in a patients final year of life, and that's when the biggest potential savings could be made.

Wendell Goler

AP

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

The White House says opponents of the president's health care reform effort are misrepresenting parts of the House and Senate legislation.

At a town hall meeting at the AARP headquarters in Washington, President Obama answered a woman in North Carolina, who asked if it was true "that everyone that's Medicare age will be visited and told they have to decide how they wish to die."

The president at first joked the government doesn't have enough workers to ask everyone how they want to die, then more seriously suggested the idea is to expand the use of living wills. His aides suggested the misunderstanding was part of a calculated attempt by health reform opponents to undercut support for the effort by misrepresenting parts of the bills.

Critics have concerns the Medicare reimbursement could involve the government in end of life issues. A quarter of all Medicare spending is made in a patients final year of life, and that's when the biggest potential savings could be made.

Iowa Republican Senator Charles Grassley says end of life decisions should be strictly between patients, families and doctor -- and that many fear some ideas in these bills can lead to the government influencing that decision making.

"That's unethical as far as I'm concerned," said Grassley.

But Obama affirms that nobody will be forced to make a set of decisions on end-of-life care based on "some bureaucratic law in Washington."

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs says decisions will be made by doctors and patients and that the provision in the House bill would allow Medicare to pay for counseling sessions on end of life issues, but it doesn't require them. Gibbs believes the misunderstanding is a result of intentionally spread misinformation.

"I think there are people that have knowingly spread inaccurate information to hold up progress on health reform," said Gibbs.

Still, end of life counseling is sometimes conducted by people with an interest in steering patients away from hospital care and toward less expensive hospice care. And while studies show people actually prefer hospice care, it's important they receive the most informed decision on when to end curative care, and that should come from their doctor.

The White House says the president encourages the creation of living wills, but aides won't say if he specifically supports Medicare reimbursement for end of life counseling sessions.

Officials do say the president doesn't share concerns by Sen. Grassley and others, that such reimbursement might lead to the government making life or death decisions about health care.

.....

La politique d'imposition massive de NP et ses consequences:

Les societes petrolieres basees aux Etats Unis, pour ne parler que d'elles, vont chercher asile ailleurs.

Speakers see changed, maybe relocated, US industry
Published: Jul 28, 2009
Bob Tippee
OGJ Editor

HOUSTON, July 28 -- The US oil and gas industry will emerge from its doldrums structurally changed and perhaps relocated, according to a scenario that took shape at the RMI Oilfield Breakfast Forum in Houston July 28.

“This isn’t an exploration and production industry any more,” declared Jim Wicklund, principal and energy portfolio manager of Carlson Capital LLC, Dallas.

With natural gas abundant and prices low in comparison with oil, publicly owned independent producers have shifted from drilling mainly for gas toward a new emphasis on oil.

Furthermore, Wicklund said, “Gas exploration in the US has ceased” because of the growing domination of shale plays and the consequent reorientation to development and related technologies.

Wicklund called on oil and gas company executives to focus on long-term objectives, saying they “must not let short-term investors dictate strategic direction.”

During questions, Wicklund agreed with a fear expressed in a presentation by Larry Dickerson, president and chief executive officer of Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc., of a migration of operating and service companies away from the US.

Dickerson said drilling rigs generally are leaving the Gulf of Mexico because of hurricanes, aging infrastructure, and the availability of more-appealing contracts elsewhere.

“We’re losing the base of operations that runs this industry,” he said.

And tax proposals of the administration of President Barack Obama and others under consideration by Congress threaten to impose burdens that would push companies—or at least their headquarters—away from the US and possibly diminish Houston’s role as a global center of industry technical innovation.

“Why drive that out of the country?” Dickerson asked. “I don’t know.”

Wicklund agreed that the industry is “poised to leave the US if it [the tax regime] gets too onerous.”

Wicklund, Dickerson, and Joseph Ash, Devon Energy Corp. vice-president of offshore exploration, all cited politics as the industry’s biggest challenge of the next 12 months.

Ash said uncertainty about future taxation represents a stronger impediment now than it usually does to planning.

A fourth speaker, Munawar Hidayatallah, chief executive of Allis-Chalmers Energy Inc., pointed to a different challenge: the continuing banking and liquidity crisis.

Comme d'habitude, excellente analyse!

Why Obamacare Is Sinking
By Charles Krauthammer

Friday, July 24, 2009

What happened to Obamacare? Rhetoric met reality. As both candidate and president, the master rhetorician could conjure a world in which he bestows upon you health-care nirvana: more coverage, less cost.

But you can't fake it in legislation. Once you commit your fantasies to words and numbers, the Congressional Budget Office comes along and declares that the emperor has no clothes.

President Obama premised the need for reform on the claim that medical costs are destroying the economy. True.* But now we learn -- surprise! -- that universal coverage increases costs. The congressional Democrats' health-care plans, says the CBO, increase costs on the order of $1 trillion plus.

In response, the president retreated to a demand that any bill he sign be revenue-neutral. But that's classic misdirection: If the fierce urgency of health-care reform is to radically reduce costs that are producing budget-destroying deficits, revenue neutrality (by definition) leaves us on precisely the same path to insolvency that Obama himself declares unsustainable.

The Democratic proposals are worse still. Because they do increase costs, revenue neutrality means countervailing tax increases. It's not just that it is crazily anti-stimulatory to saddle a deeply depressed economy with an income tax surcharge that falls squarely on small business and the investor class. It's that health-care reform ends up diverting for its own purposes a source of revenue that might otherwise be used to close the yawning structural budget deficit that is such a threat to the economy and to the dollar.

These blindingly obvious contradictions are why the Democratic health plans are collapsing under their own weight -- at the hands of Democrats. It's Max Baucus, Democratic chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, who called Obama unhelpful for ruling out taxing employer-provided health insurance as a way to pay for expanded coverage. It's the Blue Dog Democrats in the House who wince at skyrocketing health-reform costs just weeks after having swallowed hemlock for Obama on a ruinous cap-and-trade carbon tax.

The president is therefore understandably eager to make this a contest between progressive Democrats and reactionary Republicans. He seized on Republican Sen. Jim DeMint's comment that stopping Obama on health care would break his presidency to protest, with perfect disingenuousness, that "this isn't about me. This isn't about politics."

It's all about him. Health care is his signature reform. And he knows that if he produces nothing, he forfeits the mystique that both propelled him to the presidency and has sustained him through a difficult first six months. Which is why Obama's red lines are constantly shifting. Universal coverage? Maybe not. No middle-class tax hit? Well, perhaps, but only if they don't "primarily" bear the burden. Because it's about him, Obama is quite prepared to sign anything as long as it is titled "health-care reform."

This is not about politics? Then why is it, to take but the most egregious example, that in this grand health-care debate we hear not a word about one of the worst sources of waste in American medicine: the insane cost and arbitrary rewards of our malpractice system?

When a neurosurgeon pays $200,000 a year for malpractice insurance before he even turns on the light in his office or hires his first nurse, who do you think pays? Patients, in higher doctor fees to cover the insurance.

And with jackpot justice that awards one claimant zillions while others get nothing -- and one-third of everything goes to the lawyers -- where do you think that money comes from? The insurance companies, which then pass it on to you in higher premiums.

But the greatest waste is the hidden cost of defensive medicine: tests and procedures that doctors order for no good reason other than to protect themselves from lawsuits. Every doctor knows, as I did when I practiced years ago, how much unnecessary medical cost is incurred with an eye not on medicine but on the law.

Tort reform would yield tens of billions in savings. Yet you cannot find it in the Democratic bills. And Obama breathed not a word about it in the full hour of his health-care news conference. Why? No mystery. The Democrats are parasitically dependent on huge donations from trial lawyers.

Didn't Obama promise a new politics that puts people over special interests? Sure. And now he promises expanded, portable, secure, higher-quality medical care -- at lower cost! The only thing he hasn't promised is to extirpate evil from the human heart. That legislation will be introduced next week.

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* La raison: c'est que contrairement a ce que l'on peut faire croire en Europe concernant les Etats Unis, pas assure ne signifie pas: pas soigne!

Toute personne non-assure et ayant besoin de soins se rend directement aux urgences de l'hopital. Les frais sont payes par les contribuables. D'ou le fameux "cout" dont NP veut se defaire avec un systeme administratif si lourd, qu'il coutera 1 trillion de plus aux Americains!

Traduction: pour un pied gangrene, il insiste pour que bras et jambes soient amputes!

Cet article retrouve a l'instant, vaut son pesant d'or dans la conjecture obamique actuelle.

En 2008, Pres. Bush 43 avait appose son veto a cette loi proposee par le Congres Democrate protegeant ainsi les patients du 3eme age (medicare), les handicapes (Medicaid), et les veterans blesses - Veterans Health Administration). La loi imposait 10% de reduction sur les honoraires des medecins, la diminution imposee par NP?: 20%.

Alors pour qui cette assurance medicale federale obamique qui va couter a tous plus cher contrairement a ce qu'on nous claironne, pas pour tous et certainement pas pour les trois categories mentionnees, les medecins refuseront de les traiter.

House overrides Bush veto of Medicare bill

The measure would block a cut in pay to doctors that proponents say would push many out of the Medicare system. A close Senate vote is expected.

By Nicole Gaouette, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 16, 2008

WASHINGTON -- In a swift rebuke to President Bush, the House voted overwhelmingly today to override his veto of a Medicare bill that would forestall pay cuts to doctors who treat seniors, the disabled and military personnel.

The House voted 383 to 41 to block the president's veto. A Senate vote to override the veto is scheduled for later today and is expected to be close.

The pay cut to doctors would take effect today and many have said it would force them to stop treating Medicare patients.

The bill, called the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008, would halt a scheduled 10.6% cut in payments to physicians and instead institute a 1.1% payment increase in 2009.

The bill would improve preventive and mental health benefits, increase access to physical, occupational and speech and language therapy, and increase help for low-income Medicare recipients with their out-of-pocket and prescription drug costs.

Bush and many Republicans oppose the bill because funds to prevent the cut in doctor payments would come from more than $12 billion in cuts to private insurance companies that offer coverage under the private Medicare Advantage program, including Blue Cross and Blue Shield. They oppose overriding the veto to restore fees to doctors by cutting payments to private insurers.

"This is a horrible way to do what we're doing today," said Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.).

But Democrats depicted Bush as siding with private companies over seniors in his drive to privatize the federal program for seniors and the disabled.

"Imagine vetoing a bill that allows seniors to have doctors take care of them," said Rep. Anna Eschoo (D-Menlo Park). "It's one heck of a way to gut Medicare."

The bill originally passed the House by 355 to 59 and then passed the Senate this month in a dramatic 69-30 vote that followed the unexpected appearance of Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), who took a break from cancer treatment to return to the Senate to support the bill.

Bush vetoed the bill this morning, declaring it "objectionable" because it would take funds from private health insurers, would "undermine the Medicare prescription drug program," and is fiscally irresponsible.

Without the veto override, 60% of doctors would be forced to limit the number of new Medicare patients they treat, according to the American Medical Assn., which supports the bill.

"We urge all members of Congress to stand firmly on the side of seniors, the disabled and military families and vote to override the veto," said AMA President Nancy Nielsen.

The bill also affects the 9.2 million active and retired personnel and their family members who use the military's Tricare system, because it uses payment rates set by Medicare.

If the president's veto is not overturned, "it would be nothing less than a disaster for the military community," said Sgt. Mark Seavey of the National Guard.

Seavey said one of the greatest healthcare challenges facing military families now is finding doctors who will treat them under the Tricare system. The reimbursement rate cut could make the problem much worse, Seavey said.

The annual cuts in physicians' Medicare reimbursement rates stem from 1990s legislation that instituted small annual payment cuts as part of an effort to lower the deficit. Congress has usually canceled those annual cuts and as a result they have become cumulative - totaling 10.6% this year.

Congress has not rewritten or repealed the requirement for the cuts, largely because it has been unable to agree on exactly how to do so.

Liberals gag over health deal

By GLENN THRUSH | 7/29/09 8:21 PM EDT


House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spent half of Wednesday finalizing a deal with the Blue Dogs — and the other half quelling a brewing rebellion among progressives who think conservatives have hijacked health care reform.

Liberals, Hispanics and African-American members — Pelosi’s most loyal base of support — are feeling betrayed after House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) reached an agreement with four of seven Blue Dogs on his committee who had been bottling up the bill over concerns about cost.

The compromise, which still must be reconciled with competing House and Senate versions, would significantly weaken the public option favored by liberals by delinking reimbursement rates to Medicare.

“Waxman made a deal that is unacceptable,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), one of about 10 progressives who met repeatedly with Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Wednesday.

“We signed a pledge to reject any plan that doesn’t include a robust public option, and this plan doesn’t have a robust public option,” he added.

By sundown Wednesday, the outcry from the left had become so loud that Waxman was forced to scrap a scheduled markup of the compromise measure. He rescheduled the meeting for Thursday morning and convened a mass question-and-answer session for a deeply divided Democratic Caucus — a meeting that is expected to be extremely contentious.

Two months ago, most of the 80-plus members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus signed a pledge that they would oppose any health care bill that didn’t contain a bona fide public option that would compete with private insurers. *

On Wednesday, they seemed willing to stick to their promise.

CPC Chairwoman Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) emerged from her meeting with Pelosi to tell reporters that the Blue Dog deal needed to be “much stronger to get our support.”

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) predicted that House liberals, who believe they have compromised away several core issues to further President Barack Obama’s agenda, might finally buck leadership if they are force-fed a weakened public option.

“I don’t think it would pass the House — I wouldn’t vote for it,” Frank, a CPC member, told POLITICO.

He answered “yes” emphatically when asked if progressives were willing to delay the entire process as the Blue Dogs have done.

Frank said liberals are becoming increasingly leery of the clout wielded by Blue Dogs and are learning from the success they have had in leveraging their numbers — a fraction of the liberals’ — into real power.

“If you allow one wing of the House to exercise all this influence, you have to do something or you lose all of your influence,” he said.

Pelosi, recognizing the threat, huddled with 10 liberal members an hour after the Blue Dog deal was announced. The meeting, which included Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) — her emissary to progressives — became heated at times, according to an individual who was present.

At one point, Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-Mich.), a former Congressional Black Caucus chairwoman, expressed outrage that conservatives would insist on significant cuts and a weakening of the public option, arguing that many of the Blue Dogs were letting down their black constituents, who make up 25 percent to 40 percent of their voters, in some instances.

The group was scheduled to meet with the speaker again Thursday afternoon, followed by members-only meetings of the CPC, the CBC and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

The CPC has been circulating a strongly worded protest letter for members’ signatures, similar to one sent to Pelosi by the Black Caucus last week, according to Democratic aides.

“In recent days, some within the Democratic Caucus have raised spurious claims that the cost of reforming health care in America is something our nation cannot afford,” CBC Chairwoman Barbara Lee wrote in her letter to Pelosi and Obama — a swipe that sources said was directed at the Blue Dogs.

“I think there’s a lot of resentment at the role [Blue Dogs] have played — that’s where a lot of this anger is coming from,” one CBC member said on condition of anonymity.

During her afternoon meeting with the liberals, Pelosi and her team downplayed the importance of the Blue Dog deal, a sharp contrast to how Democratic leaders were playing it in the media — as “a big breakthrough,” according to Pelosi lieutenant Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).

“Miller told them that the Energy and Commerce bill was only one of three health care bills passed by the House — and that it was the only one that has a public option plan we don’t like,” said a person who was at the meeting.

“He said they would have plenty of opportunities to change it back,” said the source, who added that members left the meeting still agitated but “somewhat reassured.”

CPC member Sam Farr (D-Calif.) emerged from the meeting a little confused and a tad annoyed but believing that his fellow liberals were not yet in open revolt.

“The progressives are in the room now,” he said. “I think that’s important.”

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* En fait le systeme publique en place, les societes d'assurances ne pourraient en aucun cas resister au depart de 3/4 de ses clients impose par le gouvenement. Pas question donc de competition mais bien de la destruction pure et simple des assurances privees et une augmentation des primes directement ou indirectement par l'intermediaire d'augmentation d'impots.

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

07/30/2009	-12	28%	40%	48%	51%
07/29/2009	-10	29%	39%	49%	50%
07/28/2009	-8	32%	40%	49%	49%
07/27/2009	-10	30%	40%	49%	50%
07/26/2009	-11	29%	40%	49%	50%
07/25/2009	-9	30%	39%	49%	51%

----

01/22/2009	+30	44%	14%	64%	29%
01/21/2009	+28	44%	16%	65%	30%

THIS IS A TEST: Robert Gibbs told reporters this morning that President Obama would be participating in the National Level Exercise 2009 Thursday, a planning exercise dealing with communications in response to a terrorist attack.

The exercise was scheduled to take place at 11 a.m. in the Situation Room, a White House aide said. -- Amie Parnes (10:46 a.m.)

Aout 2009: un mois tres chaud pour les elus Democrates de retour dans leur circonscription.

Town halls gone wild

Screaming constituents, protesters dragged out by the cops, congressmen fearful for their safety — welcome to the new town-hall-style meeting, the once-staid forum that is rapidly turning into a house of horrors for members of Congress.

On the eve of the August recess, members are reporting meetings that have gone terribly awry, marked by angry, sign-carrying mobs and disruptive behavior. In at least one case, a congressman has stopped holding town hall events because the situation has spiraled so far out of control.

“I had felt they would be pointless,” Rep. Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.) told POLITICO, referring to his recent decision to suspend the events in his Long Island district. “There is no point in meeting with my constituents and [to] listen to them and have them listen to you if what is basically an unruly mob prevents you from having an intelligent conversation.”

In Bishop’s case, his decision came on the heels of a June 22 event he held in Setauket, N.Y., in which protesters dominated the meeting by shouting criticisms at the congressman for his positions on energy policy, health care and the bailout of the auto industry.

Within an hour of the disruption, police were called in to escort the 59-year-old Democrat — who has held more than 100 town hall meetings since he was elected in 2002 — to his car safely.

“I have no problem with someone disagreeing with positions I hold,” Bishop said, noting that, for the time being, he was using other platforms to communicate with his constituents. “But I also believe no one is served if you can’t talk through differences.”

Bishop isn’t the only one confronted by boiling anger and rising incivility. At a health care town hall event in Syracuse, N.Y., earlier this month, police were called in to restore order, and at least one heckler was taken away by local police. Close to 100 sign-carrying protesters greeted Rep. Allen Boyd (D-Fla.) at a late June community college small-business development forum in Panama City, Fla. Last week, Danville, Va., anti-tax tea party activists claimed they were “refused an opportunity” to ask Rep. Thomas Perriello (D-Va.) a question at a town hall event and instructed by a plainclothes police officer to leave the property after they attempted to hold up protest signs.

The targets in most cases are House Democrats, who over the past few months have tackled controversial legislation including a $787 billion economic stimulus package, a landmark energy proposal and an overhaul of the nation’s health care system.

...

MONSIEUR LAWRENCE !!!

(Roooohh... )

Friday, July 31, 2009

Yesterday, Barack Obama was God. Today, he's fallen from grace, the magic gone, his health-care reform dead. If you believed the first idiocy -- and half the mainstream media did -- you'll believe the second. Don't believe either.

Conventional wisdom always makes straight-line projections. They are always wrong. Yes, Obama's aura has diminished, in part because of overweening overexposure. But by year's end he will emerge with something he can call health-care reform. The Democrats in Congress will pass it because they must. Otherwise, they'll have slain their own savior in his first year in office.

But that bill will look nothing like the massive reform Obama originally intended. The beginning of the retreat was signaled by Obama's curious reference -- made five times -- to "health-insurance reform" during his July 22 news conference.

Reforming the health-care [i]system is dead. Cause of death? Blunt trauma administered not by Republicans, not even by Blue Dog Democrats, but by the green eyeshades at the Congressional Budget Office.

Three blows:

-- On June 16, the CBO determined that the Senate Finance Committee bill would cost $1.6 trillion over 10 years, delivering a sticker shock that was near fatal.

-- Five weeks later, the CBO gave its verdict on the Independent Medicare Advisory Council, Dr. Obama's latest miracle cure, conjured up at the last minute to save Obamacare from fiscal ruin, and consisting of a committee of medical experts highly empowered to make Medicare cuts.

The CBO said that IMAC would do nothing, trimming costs by perhaps 0.2 percent. A 0.2 percent cut is not a solution; it's a punch line.

-- The final blow came last Sunday when the CBO euthanized the Obama "out years" myth. The administration's argument had been: Sure, Obamacare will initially increase costs and deficits. But it pays for itself in the long run because it bends the curve downward in coming decades.

The CBO put in writing the obvious: In its second decade, Obamacare significantly bends the curve upward -- increasing deficits even more than in the first decade.

This is obvious because Obama's own first-decade numbers were built on arithmetic trickery. New taxes to support the health-care plan begin in 2011, but the benefits part of the program doesn't fully kick in until 2015. That excess revenue is, of course, one time only. It makes the first decade numbers look artificially low, but once you pass 2015, the yearly deficits become larger and eternal.

Three CBO strikes and you're out cold. Though it must be admitted that the White House itself added to the farcical nature of its frantic and futile cost-cutting when budget director Peter Orszag held a three-hour brainstorming session with Senate Finance Committee aides trying to find ways to save. "At one point," reports the Wall Street Journal, "they flipped through the tax code, looking for ideas." Looking for ideas? Months into the president's health-care drive and just days before his deadline for Congress to pass real legislation? You gonna give this gang the power to remake one-sixth of the U.S. economy?

Hardly. Whatever structural reforms dribble out of Congress before the August recess will likely not survive the year. In the end, Obama will have to settle for something very modest. And indeed it will be health-insurance reform.

To win back the vast constituency that has insurance, is happy with it, and is mightily resisting the fatal lures of Obamacare, the president will in the end simply impose heavy regulations on the insurance companies that will make what you already have secure, portable and imperishable: no policy cancellations, no preexisting condition requirements, perhaps even a cap on out-of-pocket expenses.

Nirvana. But wouldn't this bankrupt the insurance companies? Of course it would. There will be only one way to make this work: Impose an individual mandate. Force the 18 million Americans between 18 and 34 who (often quite rationally) forgo health insurance to buy it. This will create a huge new pool of customers who rarely get sick but will be paying premiums every month. And those premiums will subsidize nirvana health insurance for older folks.

Net result? Another huge transfer of wealth from the young to the old, the now-routine specialty of the baby boomers; an end to the dream of imposing European-style health care on the United States; and a president who before Christmas will wave his pen, proclaim victory and watch as the newest conventional wisdom reaffirms his divinity.

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Il nous expliquera egalement qu'il a tenu sa promesse de cooperation et d'ouverture entre les deux partis (bi-partisanship ?). Ceux qui auront suivi les evenements sauront ce qu'il en a reellement ete.

Biloulou a écrit:

MONSIEUR LAWRENCE !!!

(Roooohh... )

No man is allowed to make love to his wife with the smell of garlic, onions, or sardines on his breath in Alexandria, Minnesota. If his wife so requests, law mandates that he must brush his teeth.

Warn your hubby that after lovemaking in Ames, Iowa, he isn't allowed to take more than three gulps of beer while lying in bed with you-or holding you in his arms.

Bozeman, Montana, has a law that bans all sexual activity between members of the opposite sex in the front yard of a home after sundown-if they're nude.(Apparently, if you wear socks, you're safe from the law!)

During lunch breaks in Carlsbad, New Mexico no couple should engage in a sexual act while parked in their vehicle, unless their car has curtains.

In Cleveland, Ohio women are not allowed to wear patent-leather shoes.

Clinton, Oklahoma has a law against masturbating while watching two people having sex in a car.

It's safe to make love while parked in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Police officers aren't allowed to walk up and knock on the window. Any suspicious officer who thinks that sex is taking place must drive up from behind, honk his horn three times and wait approximately two minutes before getting out of his car to investigate. [Hmmm... okay, there's one place with a law that makes sense... ]

In Connorsville, Wisconsin no man shall shoot off a gun while his female partner is having a sexual orgasm.

In Detroit, couples are not allowed to make love in an automobile unless the act takes place while the vehicle is parked on the couple's own property.

A law in Fairbanks, Alaska does not allow moose to have sex on city streets.
(ça m'étonne pas!)

In Florida it is illegal for single, divorced, or widowed women to parachute on Sunday afternoons.

In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania it is illegal to have sex with a truck driver inside a toll booth.

The owner of every hotel in Hastings, Nebraska, is required to provide each guest with a clean and pressed nightshirt. No couple, even if they are married, may sleep together in the nude. Nor may they have sex unless they are wearing one of these clean, white cotton nightshirts.

Another law in Helena, Montana, mandates that a woman can't dance on a table in a saloon or bar unless she has on at least three pounds, two ounces of clothing.
(avec un grand chapeau, ça compte?)

A state law in Illinois mandates that all bachelors should be called master, not mister, when addressed by their female counterparts.

An excerpt from brilliant Kentucky state legislation. "No female shall appear in a bathing suit on any highway within this state unless she be escorted by at least two officers or unless she be armed with a club". The following important ammendment however is to be considered here: "The provisions of this statuate shall not apply to females weighing less than 90 pounds nor exceeding 200 pounds, nor shall it apply to male horses."
(aux usa, les femelles ce sont aussi les femmes ... tout le monde avait compris? sauf les chevaux mâles, évidemment !)

In Kingsville, Texas there is a law against two pigs having sex on the city's airport property.

Any couple making out inside a vehicle, and accidentally sounding the horn during their lustful act, may be taken to jail according to a Liberty Corner, New Jersey law.

In Los Angeles, California, a man is legally entitled to beat his wife with a leather belt or strap, but the belt can't be wider than 2 inches, unless he has his wife's consent to beat her with a wider strap. Consent should be given prior to the event, as is carefully stipulated.
(un consentement "oral", ça marche?)

In Merryville, Missouri, women are prohibited from wearing corsets because "The privilege of admiring the curvaceous, unencumbered body of a young woman should not be denied to the normal, red-blooded American male."
(celle là j'ai pas compris, si sylvette veut aider à traduire...)

In Michigan, a woman isn't allowed to cut her own hair without her husband's permission.

In Nevada sex without a condom is considered illegal.

An ordinance in Newcastle, Wyoming, specifically bans couples from having sex while standing inside a store's walk-in meat freezer!
(et pourtant c'est tellement meilleur)

In Norfolk, Virginia, a woman can't go out without wearing a corset. (There was a civil-service job-for men only-called a corset inspector.)

In Oblong, Illinois, it's punishable by law to make love while hunting or fishing on your wedding day.
(mais ça n'est pas interdit en alaska, si vous remarquez bien)

In Oxford, Ohio, it's illegal for a woman to strip off her clothing while standing in front of a man's picture.
(je l'ai déjà vue celle là)

In hotels in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, every room is required to have twin beds. And the beds must always be a minimum of two feet apart when a couple rents a room for only one night. And it's illegal to make love on the floor between the beds!
(celle là aussi)

A Tremonton, Utah law states that no woman is allowed to have sex with a man while riding in an ambulance. In addition to normal charges, the woman's name will be published in the local newspaper. The man does not receive any punishment.
(elles ont le droit de vote les femelles en utah?)

Utah state legislation outlaws all sex with anyone but your spouse. Next to that adultery, oral and anal sex, masturbation are considered sodomy and can lead to imprisonment. Sex with an animal - unless performed for profit - however is NOT considered sodomy. Polygamy - provided only the missionary position has been applied - is only a misdemeanor.

In Ventura County, California cats and dogs are not allowed to have sex without a permit.
(on devrait faire la même en france !!)

The only acceptable sexual position in Washington D.C. is the missionary-style position. Any other sexual position is considered illegal.
(et il y a des types payés pour vérifier?)

In Willowdale, Oregon no man may curse while having sex with his wife.
(avec sa femme ok, mais avec une autre?)

In the state of Washington there is a law against having sex with a virgin under any circumstances. (Including the wedding night).
(ils sont très chrétiens, ils croient à la viginité de marie)


*Heterosexual oral sex is illegal in Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, Virginia, and Washington D.C.

*Men whos erections show through their clothes face the law's might in Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Washington D.C., and Wisconsin
(j'y crois pas !!)

*Cohabitation is illegal in Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Mississippi, New Mexico, and North Carolina.

*In Idaho the punishment for anal sex can be life imprisonment.

*In Bozeman, Montana, a law prohibits couples, if nude, from engaging in any sexual activity in their front yards after sundown.
(déjà vu ça?)

*In Kentucky, it is against the law for a woman to wear a bathing suit on a highway unless she is accompanied by two police officers.
(évidemment sinon ils pourraient pas l'arrêter!)

*In Alexandria, Minnesota, it's against the law for a man to make love to his wife if his breath reeks of garlic, onions, or sardines.
(encore une déjà vue)

*In Hastings, Nebraska, couples cannot sleep together naked in hotel rooms.
(une qui ressemble)

*In Maryville, Missouri, it's against the law for women to wear corsets because "the privilege of admiring the curvaceous, unencumbered body of a young woman should not be denied to the normal, red-blooded American male".
(celle là, j'ai toujours pas compris)

*In Tremonton, Utah, a woman can be charged with a misdemeanor if she has sex with a man in an ambulance. Her male lover, on the other hand, won't be charged.
(et celle là c'est le pays que les femelles votent pas)


jam et les électeurs américains,

Ca ressort regulierement, ce truc-la!

Bon allez je reponds quand meme....

1) ce sont de vieilles lois qui ne sont bien evidemment pas appliquees. Personne n'a pris le temps de les abroger; en revanche, de toute evidence, quelqu'un a perdu le sien a les repertorier.

Certains Americains seraient peut-etre tenter d'affirmer que si l'existence de ces lois est la consequence negative du fait qu'un Napoleon n'ait pas dirige les Etats Unis, ce n'est pas si terible. Toutes mes excuses Henri !)

2) Quant aux electeurs americains... Je me demande si les electeurs francais ont vraiment grand chose a leur envier, mais bon. Vous votez bien Jam , n'est-ce pas?

C'est tres "liberal" et tres "in" de ridiculiser la population americaine, je pourrais ressortir moi aussi quelques micro-trottoirs filmes en France par la television francaise, mais bon... je ne vois pas l'interet de me moquer a ce point.

Comme il etait previsible: le gouvernement de Washington augmenterait et/ou instituerait de nouveaux impots.

Timothy Geithne won't rule out new taxes
By POLITICO STAFF | 8/2/09 6:43 PM EDT



Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in an interview aired Sunday that the administration will do "what's necessary" to revive the economy, and didn't rule out new taxes as a means to do so.

...

Ils le re-aiment! (Charles Krauthammer a raison...)

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

08/03/2009	-6	30%	36%	51%	48%
08/02/2009	-6	31%	37%	50%	49%
08/01/2009	-8	30%	38%	50%	49%
07/31/2009	-11	28%	39%	48%	51%
07/30/2009	-12	28%	40%	48%	51%
07/29/2009	-10	29%	39%	49%	50%
07/28/2009	-8	32%	40%	49%	49%
07/27/2009	-10	30%	40%	49%	50%
07/26/2009	-11	29%	40%	49%	50%

..

01/22/2009	+30	44%	14%	64%	29%
01/21/2009	+28	44%	16%	65%	30%

Il arrivera peut-etre a faire passer son programme mais ca ne sera pas faute de l'opposition de tant d'Americains.

Je me marre (jaune, mais bon...), lorsque la gauche expliquait qu'a partir du moment ou l'opinion publique etait majoritairement contre la guerre en Iraq, Pres. Bush 43 se devait d'interrompre les hostilites et de "ramener nos boys". L'opinion publique est majoritairement contre ce projet de loi et pourtant, il insiste NP, il insiste lourdement!

J'avoue ne pas avoir visionner la video, le telechargement est tres tres tres lent.

Audience Shouts Down Sebelius, Specter at Health Care Town Hall in Philadelphia

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Sen. Arlen Specter got a preview Sunday of the tough sell lawmakers will face over health care reforms.

FOXNews.com

Monday, August 03, 2009

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Sen. Arlen Specter got a preview Sunday of the tough sell lawmakers will face over health care as audience members booed and jeered them during a town hall meeting in Philadelphia.

Among those at odds with the officials touting the $1 trillion, 10-year plan was a woman who earned loud applause when she said she doesn't want Washington interfering with her health care choices.

"I look at this health care plan and I see nothing that is about health or about care. What I see is a bureaucratic nightmare, senator. Medicaid is broke, Medicare is broke, Social Security is broke and you want us to believe that a government that can't even run a cash for clunkers program is going to run one-seventh of our U.S. economy? No sir, no," she said.

Click here to see the video of the town hall meeting.

While supporters offered courteous applause to the officials, Sebelius didn't earn any fans when she said that if lawmakers say they don't understand the legislation voters should urge them to go back and read it.

Specter was shouted down when he said that lawmakers divide up the bills into sections and have their staffs read portions because, "We have to make judgments very fast."

He then said he will have read the Senate bill before he votes on it, which Sebelius pointed out hasn't been written yet.

"The Senate bill isn't written so don't boo the senator for not reading a bill that isn't written," she said.

That explanation, which undermined an earlier failed argument that the legislation should be passed quickly, didn't satisfy many of the more than 400 people estimated in attendance.

Dozens in the back shouted at Sebelius when she said the bill would stop the system of rationing that insurance companies use. Sebelius then scolded the audience who jeered her, saying she would take questions if people could stop shouting at each other.

The anger is just a sample of the reaction lawmakers are bracing for as they try to sell the massive plan wending its way through Congress. The House Energy and Commerce Committee passed its version -- one of five in Congress - late Friday before the House broke for the August recess.

They are using that month's time to sell the plan to voters. For those Democrats who haven't read the 1,000 pages of legislation, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has handed out cards with talking points to address constituents' concerns.*

.....

* De toute evidence, ils ne connaissent meme pas le produit qu'ils essayent de vendre! NP etant si presse de faire voter ce projet de loi que les Elus n'ont pas le temps ni de lire ni de comprendre ce qu'ils vont voter, alors notre W.W.W. , Nancy Pelosi, leur a prepare des anti-seches, c'est pas beau ca?

AUGUST 4, 2009

White House Counsel's Job at Stake
By BY EVAN PEREZ

WASHINGTON -- Obama administration officials are holding discussions that could result in White House counsel Gregory Craig leaving his post, following a rocky tenure, people familiar with the matter said.Mr. Craig, the top lawyer at the White House and a close aide to President Barack Obama, has helped lead the administration's efforts on several national-security issues that once enjoyed popularity but have since become become political liabilities for Mr. Obama.

President Barack Obama meets with White House counsel Gregory Craig, right, in the Oval Office in June. Getty Images



These include the closure of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the release of Bush administration-era national-security documents, and efforts to find legal ways to indefinitely hold some detainees who can't be put on trial.

The decision to close the Guantanamo facility became a political problem for Mr. Obama when concerns arose that some of the detainees would be released into the U.S. and the public soured on the move.

Mr. Craig didn't respond to questions about his job as White House counsel for this article.
The people familiar with the matter said a final decision hasn't been made.

In a statement, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina said: "We've addressed these rumors before. They are nothing more than typical Washington parlor games. It's disappointing that while we are focused on reviving the economy and fighting two wars, others spend their time pointing fingers in an attempt to promote their own status."

.....

Ce n'est pas Pres. Bush 43 qui dirait le contraire.

AUGUST 3, 2009

U.K. to Review and Tighten Requirements for Citizenship
By ALISTAIR MACDONALD

LONDON -- The U.K. government is planning to review its immigration policies, in a move likely to make it more difficult for foreigners to become British citizens.
Bloomberg News

U.K. Home Secretary Alan Johnson plans to announce proposals for immigration requirements as early as Monday.



Home Secretary Alan Johnson plans to announce as early as Monday new proposals under which foreigners would have to score a certain number of points to become British citizens -- a requirement already in place for people entering the country to work or study.

This would extend a system, modeled after one in use in Australia and introduced last year, that grades workers and students hoping to enter the U.K. on criteria including education, age and need for their skills. The changes were aimed at making it easier to slow the flow of foreigners looking for work in the U.K. when the economy weakens.

Further details of the new proposals weren't immediately available, but a Home Office spokeswoman said their aim would be to "provide flexibility for the government to respond to the changing economic needs of the country."

The move comes as unemployment is now at a 12-year high and as concerns about terrorism have fueled a surge in protectionist sentiment in the U.K., long one of the world's most open countries. Earlier this year, workers at a number of refineries staged large-scale strikes to protest the use of foreign workers. Meanwhile, once-marginal anti-immigration politicians have been gaining ground.
...

NP et les Democrates en general font face a un grand probleme avec leur tentative de faire passer leur vision de reforme d'assurance medicale: instaurant une assurance gouvernementale et detruisant dans un futur assez proche (10 a 20 ans grand maximum) toute assurance privee: Une majorite d'Americains y est opposee et manque de chance, cette fois-ci les Americains sont tres interesses par ce qui se passe.

les filles de obama pourraient aller à une école publique mais c'est probablement pas assez sécurisé
(allez savoir pourquoi?)
pour ce qui est des repas de cantines scolaires, dans la mesure où l'éducation utilise des sponsors pour se financer, on s'étonne plus que macdonalds fournit des fiches éducatives sur la nutrition
c'est ça le libéralisme finalement
bon, ils en sont pas encore aux fiches éducatives sur la sexualité financées par durex

des barres de mars et du cola au distributeur du le hall de l'école
franchement, est-ce que ça répond à un besoin réel?
je sais, on en a en france aussi de ces distributeurs de junk food, même dans les entreprises
et pourtant, qu'est-ce qui empêche le gamin de mettre son 4 heures dans son cartable puisque c'est ce qui se faisait avant que les distributeurs existent

ah oui, sans doute une carence éducative du côté des parents (c'est le sujet du jour)
en gros, les "mauvais" parents préfèrent donner quelques pièces de monnaie pour que leur gamin devienne obèse et/ou diabétique,
plutôt que de se faire chier à lui préparer un gouter équilibré

tout s'explique