Nature is so beautiful…
Daily Archives: May 10, 2011
Facts from the American Health Security Act of 2011 Reply
The Affordable Care Act provides Americans economic and health security with protections against exorbitant premium hikes, better health benefits, and slower growth in health care costs. Conservatives in the Congress are intent on taking these benefits away
(1) While the United States of America spends on average nearly twice as much per capita on health care services as the next most costly nation, the United States ranks 32nd among all nations on life expectancy, and 41st on infant mortality.
(2) The number of uninsured Americans rose by more than 4,000,000 between 2008 and 2009 to a total of 51,000,000, or more than 1 of every 6 Americans.
(3) This rise in the number of uninsured Americans was the largest single-year increase since 1987 and was the result of a continued decline in private health coverage, primarily in employer-sponsored insurance.
(4) Small businesses around the country cannot afford to reinvest in their companies and create new jobs because their health care bills are going up 10 or 15 percent every year.
(5) American businesses are at an economic disadvantage, because their health care costs are so much higher than in other countries. Notably, auto- mobile manufacturers spend more on health care per automobile than on steel.
Though Republicans control the U.S. House and Democrats’ hold on the Senate took a hit in the 2010 election, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is trying once more to pass a Medicare-for-all single payer health care bill — something he tried to do in 2009 as an amendment to his party’s health care overhaul before Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) used a procedural move to force the progressive senator to withdraw his proposal.
The bill proposed by Sanders and McDermott is unlikely to pass; House Republicans have offered a spate of bills aimed at repealing parts of health reform that were viewed as mostly symbolic votes, since Democrats control the Senate and Oval Office.
Click here to view the full bill “American Health Security Act of 2011″
Newt Gingrich running for president??? Reply
Newt Gingrich is running for president.
So far, the possible GOP candidates are Donald Trump, Michele Bachmann, and Sarah Palin. And now, Newt. The GOP is making it much easier for Obama to be re-elected in 2012.
The former House speaker disclosed his bid on Twitter and Facebook on Monday and urged followers to tune into Fox News on Wednesday.
Gingrich, 67, enters a Republican field that’s far from fully formed; no less than a dozen Republicans are weighing bids and only a few have taken steps toward candidacies. It’s a crop of candidates that has many in the Republican Party yearning for more options as they seek the strongest candidate to take on President Barack Obama in 2012.
His entry into the race marks a comeback attempt more than a decade after leaving political office.
Once at the top of the House, he challenged the first-term Democratic president, Bill Clinton, at every turn. A spending fight between Gingrich and Clinton led to federal government shutdowns in 1995 and 1996, and Gingrich watched his popularity fall.
He faced charges of hypocrisy after revelations that he was carrying on an affair with a congressional aide at the same time he was criticizing Clinton’s relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. He divorced his second wife and married the aide, Callista Bisek; she now goes by her husband’s surname.
Ethics questions also dogged him as speaker.
Gingrich faced some 84 ethics complaints; they were leveled mostly by House Democrats who were in the minority and focused on what critics called his blurring of the lines between politics and his personal life. All but one of those complaints was dismissed with no penalty.
He paid $300,000 for the cost of investigating the final complaint – whether Gingrich’s college course had violated federal tax law – as part of an agreement with House ethics investigators. Led by Republicans, the ethics committee never reached a conclusion about that allegation. And the IRS cleared the organizations connected with the course of any tax violations.
He stepped down from the House in 1999.
Dramatic photos of the Mississippi River flooding in Midwest, TN, MO… Reply
The Mississippi River and tributaries continue to rise, reaching record crests, and the worst may still be to come. Portions of Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Arkansas are under water, with more to come. Pressure on levees led the Army Corps of Engineers to blow up a section below Cairo, Ill, inundating 130,000 acres of farmland while saving the town. As a bulge of river water makes its way downstream, levees are stressed and rivers that empty into the Mississippi have no outlet, backing up and flooding even more land. The bulge will reach the Delta later this month, and millions of acres are threatened.
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See my other posting: Flood waters near record levels in Memphis TN (Video footage / pictures) - click here to view
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Floodwater engulfs a home after engineers blew a hole in a levee to divert water from the town of Cairo, Ill. May 3 near Wyatt, Mo. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
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The Quad Cities River Bandits and the Peoria Chiefs play a baseball game April 20 inside Modern Woodmen Park in Davenport, Iowa. The rising flood waters of the Mississippi River surround the stadium which is protected by a flood wall. (Paul Colletti/The Dispatch/AP)
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Floodwaters from the Mississippi River on May 3 swamp the area north of New Madrid, Mo. (Jeff Roberson/AP)
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Water flows through an intentional breech in the Birds Point levee May 3 in Mississippi County, Mo. after engineers blew the levee up in an effort to protect nearby Cairo, Ill. from rising floodwaters. (Jeff Roberson/AP)
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Roy Presson embraces his daughters Catherine (left) and Amanda as they stand on the edge of State Highway HH looking out at their family farm on May 3 in Wyatt, Mo. The Presson home and 2,400 acres of land that they farmed was flooded when engineers blew a hole in a levee to save the town of Cairo, Ill. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
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With Green River floodwater over his calves, Daniel Davis stands in the kitchen with personal belongings on sawhorses May 3 in Livermore, Ky. (John Dunham/Messenger-Inquirer/AP)
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Workers use a boat to recover supplies from a flooded grain elevator May 4 in Caruthersville, Mo. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
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Houses are surrounded by floodwater May 3 in Pinhook, Mo. (Jeff Roberson/AP)
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Linley Dennis plays in a boat while her parents and grandfather work the motor in their flooded front yard in Big Boy Junction May 6 near Finley, Tenn. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
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Property owners and hired workers erect temporary flood walls along the Mississippi River in Natchez, Miss. May 7. (Gerald Herbert/AP)
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Lesli Lambert (left) and Tammi St. John row through their neighborhood as floodwaters slowly rise in Finley, Mo. May 7. (Eric Thayer/Reuters)
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Residents look at houses being engulfed by floodwater May 8 in Memphis. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
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Cyril Forck, 90, catches a small perch fish from his backyard deck, which is usually 50 feet away from the edge of the Mississippi River, on Mud Island in Memphis, Tenn. May 4. (Lance Murphey/AP)
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See my other posting: Flood waters near record levels in Memphis TN (Video footage / pictures) - click here to view
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