According to press reports, last week about 130 “reform” advocates and leaders were asked to come over to the White House and pow-pow on the way forward on immigration reform. “Today’s meeting on comprehensive immigration reform was an important opportunity to hear from stakeholders…” [Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano] said. “I look forward to working with President Obama, my colleagues in Congress and representatives from law enforcement, business, labor organizations, the interfaith community, advocacy groups and others as we work on this important issue.” So in case you were wondering…no one …
Last week NBC News released a poll showing that while 36% of Americans believed President Barack Obama’s health care plan was a “good idea,” 42% of Americans believed it was a “bad idea.” NBC’s explanation for this inconvenient truth? “[M]isperceptions about the president’s plans for reform … that nonpartisan fact-checkers say are untrue.” Specifically NBC found that 55% of Americans believed Obamacare “will give health insurance coverage to illegal immigrants,” 54% believed it “will lead to a government takeover of the health care system,” 50% believed it “will use taxpayer …
Millions of Afghans yesterday risked their lives to vote in a presidential election despite blood-curdling Taliban threats to kill or chop off the ears, noses, or fingers of anyone that dared to vote. Despite at least 135 attacks that killed 26 people, the elections proceeded as scheduled, in defiance of Taliban threats. Voter turnout was dampened in areas where Taliban forces were strong enough to make good on their threats, primarily in southern areas that voted heavily in favor of Afghan President Hamid Karzai in 2004. This could prevent Karzai …
Relying heavily on the slots and roulette tables to bring in revenue, it’s no surprise this recession hit Nevada’s economy especially hard: The Silver State’s unemployment rose to 12.5 percent in July, while joblessness in especially hard-hit Las Vegas surged to 13.1 percent. It’s the highest jobless rate both statewide and locally since the state Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation began tracking data in 1976. Bill Anderson, chief economist with the employment department, said Nevada remains mired in the longest, deepest recession since World War II, and recent labor-market …
The Oregon Health Plan is a government run health insurance option that, like some current health plans being pushed in Washington, is designed to increase access to health care and contain health care costs. The cost of the OHP far outstripped original estimates so new enrollment in the program was closed from mid-2004 until early 2008, when a lottery-based system was introduced to limit new enrollments. As this June 2008 local news story from KATU in Portland shows, the Oregon Health Plan also found other ways to limit costs as …
When health policy experts, journalists and those in the health care system gathered at the National Press Club this week to discuss the facts and fiction behind health care reform, they glossed over one key issue, and dismissed three others that people at town halls across the country keep bringing up. First the issue the Press Club event deemphasized: cost. Many voters (55 percent) say they’re more worried Congress will spend too much money and add to the federal deficit with health reform than they are that Congress won’t pass …
Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) likes to refer to healthcare as “a fundamental right and not just a privilege.” But what exactly does he mean? Is there really a ‘right’ to healthcare? Debate over the purported ‘right to healthcare’ has quieted recently. Or rather, with concrete proposals under consideration, ‘rights questions’ have been drowned out by other concerns—things like cost, taxes, the deficit, a “public option,” end-of-life decisions, and so on. But the rights debate is well worth having because the stakes are so high. If Ted Kennedy is correct—if every …
From Bloomberg: “The U.S. “cash for clunkers” vehicle trade-in program, credited with reviving auto sales and criticized by dealers for slow reimbursements, will close on Aug. 24, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said.” The government extended the $1 billion program into a $3 billion program and although the program is now set to end Monday, the chairman of the National Automobile Dealers Association has reservations the $3 billion will even last through the weekend. It remains to be seen what will happen to auto sales post cash for clunkers. Union leaders …
The State Department is establishing a new unit for countering militant propaganda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in an effort to win the war of ideas against Islamist extremists – in other words engaging in strategic communication, reports the New York Times. Special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard C. Holbrooke will direct the effort within the State Department, which will focus on the use of cell phones, FM radio and video. Local journalists are to be trained at State Department expense (with a proposed budget of $150 million) to attack …
This morning we mentioned how leftist activists (like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), HumanRights Watch (HRW), Amnesty International (AI), Equal Justice Initiative, and NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund) are spreading false information as part of their campaign to ban life without parole sentences for violent juvenile offenders. One particularly jarring misrepresentation of fact came from an Equal Justice Institute report that recounted: “At 14, Ashley tried to escape the violence and abuse by running away with an older boyfriend who shot and killed her grandfather and aunt. Her …
