Net the Truth Online

CATO Just the Facts on Health Care Insurance Mandate

2009-12-26T06:01:00.000-08:00

Five Health Reform Whoppers
by Michael D. Tanner

Michael D. Tanner is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and co-author of Healthy Competition: What's Holding Back Health Care and How to Free It.

Added to cato.org on December 15, 2009

This article appeared on Sphere.com (AOL) on December 14, 2009.
When it comes to health care reform, the White House and its allies on Capitol Hill seem to live in an alternate universe.

The White House Council of Economic Advisers just released a report arguing that the reforms before Congress would reduce the growth in health costs, cut the federal budget deficits and produce thousands of dollars in benefits for the average family. The problem is that just a few days earlier a report from the president's own chief health care actuary concluded that the bill the Senate is considering would actually increase U.S. health spending by $234 billion over the next 10 years and hurt seniors' access to care.

But then, reformers have generally had trouble telling fact from fiction. Among the biggest whoppers:

"Facts," John Adams said, "are stubborn things."
Health care reform will reduce your insurance premiums. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Senate bill does little or nothing to reduce insurance premiums. Even if the bill passes, premiums will roughly double by 2016, and keep rising after that. But for millions of Americans, the Senate bill will actually make things worse. According to the CBO, the bill would actually increase insurance premiums by 10 to 13 percent for Americans who don't receive insurance from their employers and buy their own insurance. These increases are over and above any increases that would occur if we did nothing.

Middle-class taxes won't be raised. The Senate bill raises at least 15 new or increased taxes totaling more than $493 billion. While some, like the increase in the payroll tax, would primarily hit the wealthy, many would fall solidly on the middle class. For example, the bill includes a 40 percent excise tax on so-called "Cadillac" insurance plans, that is, insurance that is more generous than the government thinks it should be. According to the CBO, roughly 19 percent of workers would initially find their plans subject to the tax. However, because the tax threshold is set to increase at a rate slower than medical inflation, as time goes by more and more middle-class workers will be hit by it.

Middle-class taxpayers would be taxed in other ways as well. The Senate bill would require everyone to buy a government-designed insurance plan, even if it were more expensive than their current policy. Failure to comply brings a penalty of up to $6,750 for a family of four. If the government took money directly from you, then turned around and gave it to an insurance company, everyone would agree that you've been taxed. How is that any different from the government mandating that you pay the insurer directly?

Michael D. Tanner is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and co-author of Healthy Competition: What's Holding Back Health Care and How to Free It.

More by Michael D. TannerYou can keep your current insurance. The Senate bill contains an individual mandate, that is, a requirement that every American must purchase health insurance. But not just any health insurance will satisfy that mandate. To qualify, a plan would have to meet certain government-defined standards. Those standards may be more expensive than your current plan, may include benefits you don't want and may even have benefits you are morally opposed to. As noted above, failure to comply brings a penalty of up to $6,750 for a family of four.

It will only cost $848 billion. It is true that the CBO officially scored the bill as costing $848 billion. But much of the spending is back-loaded. The bill doesn't start spending until 2014, and only costs $9 billion that year. By 2019, the annual cost hits $196 billion. The minority staff of the Senate Budget Committee reports the cost is closer to $2.5 trillion over 10 years once all budget gimmicks are factored out. If you include costs shifted to individuals, businesses and state governments, the price tag could top $6 trillion.

It will reduce the budget deficit. The CBO does say that the bill would reduce the deficit by $130 billion over the next 10 years (which is less than the deficit the government ran last month alone). However, even that tiny savings depends on budget gimmicks and the willingness of future Congresses to make huge cuts in Medicare spending. In fact, the CBO makes it clear that it will be "difficult" to achieve the predicted savings.

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11054

Individual Mandates for Health Insurance: Slippery Slope to National Health Care
by Michael D. Tanner
April 5, 2006
Policy Analysis no. 565

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6243

Private insurance companies push for 'individual mandate'
Healthcare: Road to ReformsAs momentum gains for reforms, insurers hope to turn it to their advantage by supporting a proposal that everyone buy coverage. It would be a boost for the industry, which has seen enrollment decline.
June 07, 2009|Lisa Girion
Some may find it hard to believe that the U.S. health insurance industry supports making major changes to the nation's healthcare system.

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jun/07/business/fi-healthcare7

Why We Need an Individual Mandate for Health Insurance
By Mark Thoma | Nov 13, 2009

http://moneywatch.bnet.com/economic-news/blog/maximum-utility/why-we-need-an-individual-mandate-for-health-insurance/177/

Individual mandate insurance is unconstitutional
By KEN KLUKOWSKI | 10/20/09
The Senate Finance Committee-passed health care bill includes an “individual mandate” that Americans must buy an insurance policy or pay a fine, an approach that tracks President Barack Obama’s health care proposals. But if enacted into law, this mandate would be glaringly unconstitutional.

That’s because those refusing to get insurance would be subject to a fine, and refusing to pay would be a misdemeanor crime, punishable by another fine or even jail time.

States wield what is called police power: the authority to make laws for the health, safety and morality of their people. The federal government, on the other hand, has limited jurisdiction. If the Constitution does not grant a specific power to the federal government, then the 10th Amendment reserves it to the states or the people.

Plenty of constitutional provisions grant powers to the federal government. For example, most that involve conditions on persons receiving federal money come from the Tax and Spending Clause. Many of the rest come from the Commerce Clause, which empowers Congress to regulate interstate commerce.

But, as other lawyers have correctly noted, there is no constitutional basis for the individual mandate. People who decline coverage are not receiving federal money, so that mandate can’t fall under the spending part of the Tax and Spending Clause.

It also cannot be a tax. The federal government can levy only certain kinds of taxes. Article I of the Constitution authorizes excise and capitation taxes, and the 16th Amendment created the income tax.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28463.html

September 25, 2009
Is an Individual Health Insurance Mandate Constitutional?
David Rivkin and Lee Casey this week argued in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that the mandatory insurance provision in Senator Baucus's health reform bill is unconstitutional.

The argument goes like this:

1. Congress lacks authority under the Commerce Clause to require individuals to purchase insurance, because a "health-care mandate would not regulate any 'activity.'" The authors reference United States v. Lopez and Gonzales v. Raich.

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/conlaw/2009/09/is-an-individual-health-insurance-mandate-constitutional.html

Cato Policy Report, September/October 2007

Hazards of the Individual Health Care Mandate
By Glen Whitman

Glen Whitman is associate professor of economics at California State University, Northridge.

The latest fad in health care reform is the "individual mandate" — a law that requires individuals to purchase health insurance and threatens punishment for those who don't. Massachusetts, under the governorship of presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, has already created a health care policy with an individual mandate as its centerpiece. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed a similar plan for California. And politicians are not alone, as analysts from across the political spectrum have jumped on board. Even analysts who usually favor markets over regulation — like economist Gary Becker, legal scholar Richard Posner, Ron Bailey of Reason magazine, and Robert Moffit of the Heritage Foundation — have voiced support for the individual mandate.

Their support, however, is unjustified. The individual mandate will do little, if anything, to solve the problem of "free riders" whose health expenses are paid for by the rest of us. The mandate will do nothing to decrease the actual cost of health services. Worst of all, the mandate will create a set of political incentives that will likely drive up the cost of health insurance while impeding the adoption of more effective reforms.

Is Free Riding Really the Problem?

https://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/v29n5/cpr29n5-1.html

Why The Supreme Court Should Strike Down Health Care Reform’s Individual Mandate
John Carney | Dec. 21, 2009,

http://www.businessinsider.com/why-the-supreme-court-should-strike-down-health-care-reforms-individual-mandate-2009-12

Medicare and Medicaid

http://www.cato.org/medicare-medicaid

Will Rep. DeWeese Face Newspaper Questions?

2009-12-17T07:33:00.000-08:00

A local (Dec. 2009) news report Charges against lawmaker detailed (Jennifer Harr Herald-Standard) concerning the state filing of charges against Pennsylvania state Rep. H. William DeWeese appears to convey the overall details pertaining to Attorney General Tom Corbett's filing of charges against H. William DeWeese but is missing the localized angle one would expect of the Herald-Standard's coverage of the state legislator.

http://www.heraldstandard.com/news_detail/article/1631/2009/december/17/charges-against-lawmaker-detailed.html

While there's nothing wrong with focusing on Corbett's press release of information, other articles via the AP would have been adequate and the local reporting could have provided potentially an interview with H. William DeWeese since the newspaper endorsed the legislator in his last re-election bid.

Once Rep. DeWeese announced he was a changed man and on board with legislation pertaining to Pennsylvania's Right to Know otherwise known as open records law, the Herald-Standard seemed to find every which way to support Rep. DeWeese in his re-election bid.

The problem with that situation is the Herald-Standard never asked DeWeese about his support of the House version of open records contents/exemptions and a particularly worrisome clause which gutted the legislation's application to past records, nor did the Herald-Standard request explanation of DeWeese's no vote on an Amendment (Babette Josephs) which would have reversed a House Committee's action that made the General Assembly electronic communications inaccessible to anyone.

Vote Listing

http://www.legis.state.pa.us/CFDOCS/Legis/RC/Public/rc_view_action2.cfm?sess_yr=2007&sess_ind=0&rc_body=H&rc_nbr=1098

It's telling that the passopenrecords site in fact bashed House Bill 443 for the House Committee's acceptance of "blanket email exemptions.

What’s the matter with HB 443 (part 2)?
Nov 7th, 2007 by JamieB

Obviously, if it takes two days to outline a partial list of problems, there is a lot wrong with House Bill 443.

Yesterday, we wrote about the exemption of all – yes, all – emails from the open records law, as well as about blanket exemptions that create exceptions so large that they effectively neutralize the much touted – and critically important – “flipping” of the presumption of access. And we noted that the bill also exempts performance audits, those pesky investigations that use public funds to see how agencies are using other public funds.

Speaking of the “presumption of access,” in the current version of HB 443, it would not apply to most records created prior to the new law. In what Tim Potts of DemocracyRisingPa calls the “cover-up provision,” pre-existing records, with very limited exceptions, would continue to be governed by the old, restrictive standard. Not only would this create a complicated, two-tiered system for evaluating open records requests, it would effectively make them unavailable to the public. If the point of the new law is to “open Pennsylvania government” – and it is, isn’t it? – this doesn’t do that.

http://passopenrecords.org/page/13/?s

Yet the site did not acknowledge when the opportunity arose for House members to gut the Amendment (with Babette Josephs Amendment) Rep. Bill DeWeese voted No on the Josephs' Amendment!

No!

http://www.legis.state.pa.us/CFDOCS/Legis/RC/Public/rc_view_action2.cfm?sess_yr=2007&sess_ind=0&rc_body=H&rc_nbr=1098

The site does provide this material

Rep. Babette Josephs (D-Philadelphia) introduced an amendment to remove the e-mail exemptions. It lost 127 to 69. That is almost 2-1...

so it's not as if the local newspaper did not have access to the material on the passopenrecords.org site at this time since the Herald-Standard had linked to the site from its homepage.

Subsequently, when the House version of open records passed with these measures retained, and with other exemptions, the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association pulled its support from the House Bill Open Records legislation (Rep. Mahoney's HB 443) and turned to the Senate version which needed tweeked in the area of its application to the General Assembly.

Meanwhile, around that time, Rep. DeWeese made the plug for the House Bill to the Herald-Standard Editorial Board. An interview wherein Rep. DeWeese was never asked why he continued to support the 'blanket exemption for legislative emails.'

Sen. Pileggi complied with the PNA demand for the so-called "flip of presumption", in other words, all records were open unless exempted, and further action in the Senate removed the language from the Democrats' House version pertaining to keeping past public records and those legislative emails out of the public's sight. Thus, the Senate version retained a major feature in the relevant Open Records House Bill, its application to the state General Assembly, but it rejected non-application to past records and off-the-table legislative emails.

The Herald-Standard and its reportage lacked such inquiry and no commentary appeared in the local newspaper regarding DeWeese's NO vote on Babette Josephs' Amendment and support of denying the public access to past public records.

Now it appears the local newspaper has distanced itself from inquiring directly from the legislator to explain or answer a few questions.

The least that could be asked of DeWeese directly by the Herald-Standard is whether DeWeese is aware (or ever had been) of any websites created by any of his staff members (or others) which were related to his own political campaign or the campaign of any district area Democrat candidates during pertinent election and re-election efforts.

We've asked these questions for many months. Check out material we compiled on the situation available in our archives.

Among them our comprehensive

Tuesday, August 19, 2008
DeWeese Not Asked to Open Closed Bonusgate Blast Email Website Contracts

http://netthetruthonline.blogspot.com/2008/08/deweese-not-asked-to-open-closed.html

Tuesday, August 12, 2008
PA Bonusgate Lists Helped 2006 Winners

http://netthetruthonline.blogspot.com/2008/08/pa-bonusgate-lists-helped-2006-winners.html

Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Bonusgate PA Spam Scam

http://netthetruthonline.blogspot.com/2008/08/bonusgate-pa-spam-scam.html

Also see grassrootspa commentary by PA Citizen Investigator Anonymous

Local Reps Reps. Daley, Kula and Mahoney voice support for DeWeese…

http://grassrootspa.com/2008/08/19/local-reps-reps-daley-kula-and-mahoney-voice-support-for-deweese/

See casablancapa for this material showing the Herald-Standard endorsed DeWeese in 2008

Sunyak's role as DeWeese's most pointed and vociferous critic seemed to shift a few months ago from this:

"Democratic state Rep. H. William "Bill" DeWeese has evolved into an arrogant, self-serving political insider after a mostly unchallenged reign of 30 years. It's way beyond time for him to go." ("Vote Hopkins for much needed change" Herald Standard, 11/1/06)

To this:

"In one of the most closely watched races in Pennsylvania, the Herald-Standard editorial board endorses Democratic state Rep. H. William "Bill" DeWeese for re-election over his Republican opponent Greg Hopkins - by a narrow margin." ("DeWeese over Hopkins in 50th district" Herald Standard, 10/28/08)

http://casablancapa.blogspot.com/2009/04/paul-sunyak-hypocritical-h.html

And Rep. DeWeese's clip

Herald Standard: DeWeese over Hopkins in 50th District
In one of the most closely watched races in Pennsylvania, the Herald-Standard editorial board endorses Democratic state Rep. H. William "Bill" DeWeese for re-election over his Republican opponent Greg Hopkins - by a narrow margin.

We believe DeWeese has responded appropriately to the loud wake-up call he got in 2006, when as an out-of-touch incumbent, he lost in his native Greene County and beat the upstart Hopkins by only 1,000 votes in the 50th District.

As House majority leader since 2007, DeWeese has used his clout to shepherd a new open records law to fruition - an unthinkable role for him just a few years ago

http://www.billdeweese.com/page/herald-standard-deweese-over-hopkins-in-50th-district

What we're asking in light of the charges brought against Rep. DeWeese in December 2009: Were any state staffers employed by Rep. DeWeese working on DeWeese's political campaign website wherein the endorsement was clipped and presented? Working on the political campaign website at any time? Assigned to work on any other local area political candidates' campaign websites? Will the Herald-Standard ask any of those or other similar questions of the legislator they formerly endorsed?

Net the Truth Online

Charges against lawmaker detailed
December 17, 2009 02:51 AM By: JENNIFER HARR
Herald Standard
State Rep. Bill DeWeese required legislative staffers to perform campaign work while taxpayers were footing the bill, and hired someone whose sole function was to perform campaign-related tasks, according to grand jury findings.

The presentment was made public Tuesday when state Attorney General Tom Corbett filed charges against DeWeese; his legislative assistant, Sharon Rodavich; and former York County Rep. Steve Stetler.

The gist of the allegations are that DeWeese and Stetler used government employees and resources to run campaigns on work time. Rodavich allegedly ran DeWeese's campaign out of his Waynesburg office.

Each is charged with conflict of interest, theft and conspiracy.

All three were arraigned Wednesday morning, and released on $50,000 unsecured bonds. The district judge ordered them to surrender their passports and refrain from contact with potential witnesses in the case.

The presentment found that DeWeese conducted fundraising from 2001-2007 "primarily at the expense of Pennsylvania's taxpayers."

To do so, he employed Kevin Sidella on his legislative staff. DeWeese's former chief aide, Michael Manzo, testified that it was clear from the get-go that Sidella's real job was work on campaign fundraising and other election-related issues.

Manzo was indicted in the first round of "Bonusgate" arrests, but testified before the grand jury in accordance with a plea deal.

Under a grant of immunity, Sidella told the grand jury the same thing - and said his campaign work was done with DeWeese's knowledge.

During the six years he was employed, Sidella told the grand jury that he raised "millions of dollars" for DeWeese's campaign.

As part of his job, Sidella told the grand jury that he created donor lists, which including tracking what donations were given to other political candidates. Armed with that list, Sidella testified that DeWeese would leverage those donors for equal or greater donations.

When Sidella raised concerns about his political duties, he indicated DeWeese replied that "our saving grace is that everyone does it."

A policy analyst testified that he never saw Sidella do anything other than campaign work. Between 2001 and 2006, Sidella was paid in excess of $275,000.

The grand jury was privy to thousands of pages of documents that dealt with campaign fundraising, the presentment indicated.

"These documents were all recovered from the publically funded computers and computer network of the House Democratic Caucus," the findings indicated.

Also included in what the grand jury received during their session were e-mails about fundraising that Manzo sent to DeWeese and Sidella, praising the amount raised...

http://www.heraldstandard.com/news_detail/article/1631/2009/december/17/charges-against-lawmaker-detailed.html

December 15, 2009

Attorney General Corbett announces additional charges in ongoing public corruption investigation

DeWeese Fundraising Activities
The grand jury found that from 2001 until 2007, political fundraising work for DeWeese was conducted from within the Capitol, primarily at taxpayer expense.

According to the grand jury, DeWeese hired Kevin Sidella onto his Capitol legislative staff in 2001. It was clear, even from his job interview that his primary function was to be DeWeese's campaign fundraiser.

DeWeese's former Chief of Staff, Michael Manzo, testified that Sidella, "handled every aspect of Bill's fundraising," and stated that Sidella did the work during the legislative work day and with DeWeese's knowledge

Sidella testified before the grand jury and provided details that he raised millions of dollars for DeWeese's political campaigns while being paid by the taxpayers as a member of DeWeese's Capitol staff.

Sidella said his work included identifying, tracking and targeting significant campaign contributors, as well as scheduling DeWeese fundraisers. Sidella used a specialized fundraising database on the state computer system which tracked donors, contribution amounts and campaign expenses.

In addition to hearing testimony from witnesses, the grand jury also obtained documents from the publicly funded House Democratic Caucus computer network, which contained thousands of pages of lists of DeWeese campaign donors, potential donors and campaign expenditures.

The grand jury also obtained e-mails sent from the publicly owned House Democratic Caucus e-mail system that reveal the fundraising efforts and participation of DeWeese, as well as employees and leaders of the House Democratic Caucus.

One email exchange from Thursday, November 4, 2004, at approximately 3:00 p.m. is particularly telling. Then Chief of Staff Manzo sent the following e-mail to DeWeese and Sidella:

Now that the dust has settled, I want to up date you on your efforts this year. At $460k to candidates in HDC this year, you broke your personally record by over a $100k. You were the HDCC's single largest contributor, beating Nundell by a good $400k. Veon likely comes in at about $350k. And now for the good news.you have $95k on hand right now. And some in the pipe line. It is a very real possibility that you are sitting on over $300k by June 2005, in an off year!!!!!!!!! You have separated yourself from the field on that front. You are now nearing Fumo-status. You and Kevin have done an incredible job.
Michael Manzo.

Several minutes later DeWeese responded to Manzo and Sidella, as follows: Could not do without Kevin and CHIEF...Our Chief!!!!!!!!!

To which, Manzo immediately responded: The sky is the limit with this team. I really believe that.

Corbett said the grand jury found that from 2001 to 2006, Sidella was paid more than $275,000 in salary by the taxpayers as a legislative employee of DeWeese, but in reality he spent the majority of his time raising millions of dollars for DeWeese's political campaigns.

DeWeese's Use of Legislative Staff for Campaign Work
The grand jury heard testimony from numerous past and present members of DeWeese's legislative staff from his district offices. Each testified that campaign work for DeWeese was expected and detailed years of political and campaign work performed at the direction of DeWeese. They testified that they were directed to do campaign work as part of their jobs, often during the work day, in the legislative office.

The grand jury found that DeWeese's legislative staff and campaign staff were virtually one and the same. DeWeese's former Chief of Staff Manzo testified that DeWeese had no campaign apparatus beyond his legislative staff. The core group of legislative staffers DeWeese used for campaign work was from his legislative district offices in Greene County.

The campaign work included obtaining signatures for DeWeese's nominating petitions; preparing, printing, copying and sending political and campaign letters to voters; reviewing and copying street lists of voters; helping to arrange campaign meetings and campaign events; helping to arrange and staff fundraising and campaign events; and conducting door to door campaigning for DeWeese.

http://www.attorneygeneral.gov/press.aspx?id=4919

...And Counting.(media coverage of H. William DeWeese)(Brief Article)
By Shekhtman, Lonnie
Publication: American Journalism Review
Date: Monday, October 1 2001

Readers picking up the August 30 issue of the Uniontown Herald-Standard were surely not surprised by the cute little caricature of H. William DeWeese, Pennsylvania's Democratic House leader, on the editorial page. DeWeese, after all, was leaning on a scroll with the number 88 written on it, the number of days the paper had published the likeness with an accompanying critical editorial.

Why feature the lawmaker day after day after day? The Herald-Standard says it is pressuring DeWeese to keep his promise to make public the expense records of a $10.83 million state fund.

http://www.allbusiness.com/government/elections-politics-campaigns-elections/8026816-1.html

from posting at grassrootspa

PA Citizen Investiga · 69 weeks ago

DeWeese and Mahoney got Open Records passed. It would never have happened had Perzel been Speaker or Rs in the majority. bob guzzardi

The original Mahoney HB 443 open records bill and the subsequent HB 443 the House passed and sent on over to the Senate did not apply to past records.

Pennsylvania pushes to open records By Brad Bumsted Tribune Review Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Lawmakers said they are working on the exemptions to records that would be publicly released, such as those containing trade secrets, Social Security numbers, credit reports and details of ongoing police investigations.

Advocates are concerned about a provision in Mahoney's bill that would limit release to future records, Wilson said.

Any records from the past would be covered by existing law, Mahoney said. "Why do we want to go backward when we should go forward?" he said.

Pennsylvania pushes to open records By Brad Bums...

Also see:

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

PA Open Records Re...

And, the House version offered by Mahoney originally contained approximately two-dozen exemptions. In October, 2007, Tim Potts, Democracy Rising PA, tagged HB 443, The "Corruption Protection Act." It's unclear whether he made the statement just prior to the House State Government Committee action, or shortly after action. The action expanded the e-mail exemption clause to "blanket exemptions for electronic communication."

Brad Bumstead's Shh! More State Secrets published November 11, 2007 points out a little known amendment to HB 443 presented by Rep. Babette Josephs. Had the measure passed, it would have removed the language from the bill regarding "blanket exemptions for electronic communication."

Bumsted:

Rep. Babette Josephs, chairwoman of the House S...

Here's the punch-line: Fayette representatives who voted yes on the amendment included Kula, Daley, and Mahoney. So Mahoney voted yes on the amendment because a yes vote would have removed the blanket exemptions for e-mail language.

The lone "No" vote from the Fayette contingency: Rep. H. William DeWeese.

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

PA House Leader DeWe...

Bumstead's Shh! More State Secrets November...

Meanwhile back in 2006 Absence of re-elected DeWeese's name from a...

Now take a look at 2006 close election results.

Around October, 2007 the PA Newpaper Association pulled its support from 443 and cast its attention to Pileggi's efforts in the Senate per Senate Bill 1. Per that pressure, changes were made to SB 1 - Pileggi too saw the value of the "flip of presumption..."

Key Pa. Senate leader backs wider state open-rec...

The PA Newpaper Association and its project Brighter Pennsylvania was satisfied and Pileggi's bill went forward to passage. Importantly, SB 1 reversed the House's presentation and its non-application to past records, and removed the blanket exemptions for electronic communication.

Meanwhile, in the House, there were still grumblings, but House members had no recourse but to sign on to the Senate bill.

last time I checked, Senator Pileggi is a Republican.

Senator Pileggi's Open Records Bill Unanimo...

Senator Pileggi's Open Records Bill Approve...

http://grassrootspa.com/2008/08/19/local-reps-reps-daley-kula-and-mahoney-voice-support-for-deweese/

2009-12-16T18:52:00.000-08:00

Jaw-dropping info, thanks to Mr. Bumsted's report

Rep. John Maher, R-Upper St. Clair, told Santoni he should be getting a "thank-you note" from the casinos because expanding the number of venues would trigger a $50 million refund to each existing casino, as required under the 2004 slots law.

Unfortunately, this tidbit will fly over the heads of most Pennsylvanians. Carry on, nothing to protest in PA..

Net the Truth Online

House approves state-related university aid, table games
By Brad Bumsted
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, December 15, 2009

HARRISBURG — The House last night approved hundreds of millions of dollars in aid for state-related universities, which had been caught in a political crossfire over the legalization of table games at casinos.

The funding bills for Pitt, Penn State, Lincoln and Temple universities go to Gov. Ed Rendell for his signature. The package of appropriations totals about $730 million and includes private universities, cancer centers and museums.

The House Democrats' plan on table games won approval in a preliminary vote, 98-94. A final House vote is expected today. House leaders used a parliamentary maneuver to shut down debate and further amendments.

Several Republican lawmakers said the university funding was held as a political "hostage" by Democratic leaders to help win passage of table games.

House Democratic leaders said the approval of table games was needed before the funding could be released. Table games will raise $200 million the first year, and that money was needed to close a hole in the state budget approved 101 days late in October, said House Majority Leader Todd Eachus, D-Luzerne County.

Further delay in approving state appropriations "will do irreparable harm to Pennsylvania students, their families and our universities," top officials at the universities had warned yesterday. The letter was signed by Graham Spanier, president of Penn State; Mark Nordenberg, chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh; Ivory Nelson, president of Lincoln; and Ann Hart, Temple president.

The key amendment approved last night sets license fees of $16.5 million for table games, levies a 16 percent tax on daily gross revenue, bans political contributions by casino operators and imposes a two-year prohibition on former state regulators working for the industry.

It also expands gambling venues by allowing a third resort casino in Pennsylvania. The resort casinos are smaller versions of the 11 casino licenses awarded in December, 2006. Resorts would pay a $7.5 million licensing fee.

Table games include poker, blackjack, dice and roulette. One benefit of table games is adding 6,000 to 8,000 jobs statewide, said Rep. Dante Santoni, D-Berks County, sponsor of the amendment.

If the bill wins final House approval, an eleventh-hour change expanding the resort casino licenses from two to three will likely "meet resistance in the Senate," said Erik Arneson, a Senate Republican spokesman.

The last-minute changes are reminiscent of the "backroom deal" that put together the state's casino law in 2004, said House Minority Whip Mike Turzai, R-Bradford Woods.

The 132-page amendment included a proposed extension for opening the Foxwoods casino in Philadelphia.

"It smells because it looks like it's done for particular favors," Turzai told colleagues.

Rep. John Maher, R-Upper St. Clair, told Santoni he should be getting a "thank-you note" from the casinos because expanding the number of venues would trigger a $50 million refund to each existing casino, as required under the 2004 slots law.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/regional/s_657783.html

PA Senate Hearing Single Payer Health Insurance Be Wary

2009-12-16T18:39:00.001-08:00

Single-payer health insurance hearing set
By Deb Erdley
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Buzz up!

While Congress haggles over the fine points of a national health-care bill, a Pennsylvania coalition of single-payer insurance advocates will air arguments today for a sweeping state bill they say could trump Washington's efforts.

The state Senate Banking and Insurance Committee will hear testimony in Harrisburg on a bill that would finance a single-payer health insurance for all Pennsylvanians through a 3 percent income tax.

Joe Pittman, an aide to Republican Sen. Don White of Indiana, who chairs the committee, said opponents and advocates will offer testimony at the hearing.

Although congressional debate over health care has grabbed headlines for a year, lawmakers in several states, including Pennsylvania, California, Maryland and Maine, have introduced state-based single-payer health-care bills.

Mary Pat Donegan, a spokeswoman for Pennsylvanians United for Single Payer Health Care, a group that began promoting such programs in Pittsburgh four years ago, said today's Senate hearing is a milestone.

"This is the first state Senate hearing in the nation on single-payer health insurance," she said, adding that conservative Republicans including a family practice and small business owner from central Pennsylvania are among those who will testify in support of the bill.

Kevin Shivers, Pennsylvania director of the National Federation of Independent Business Owners, a coalition of 13,000 small business owners in Pennsylvania, said his members consider health insurance costs a priority.

"Some of my members are paying $1,500 a month to cover an employee and family. As one member told me, 'Kevin, that's a mortgage payment,' " Shivers said.

Even so, Shivers planned to testify in opposition to the bill.

"Our members are concerned about two issues -- will it increase the cost for business, and will it decrease the cost of insurance? And in both cases, for small business, it fails to deliver," Shivers said.

He said his members believe reform efforts must hinge on tort reform to throw out "junk" malpractice lawsuits, provide a mandate-free low-cost insurance option, and allow small businesses to band together across state lines to bargain for reduced-cost coverage.

"This legislation just doesn't get it," Shivers said.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/regional/s_657892.html

PA New Leaf DeWeese Charged Using Staffers Campaign Work

2009-12-16T17:46:00.000-08:00

Pa. House whip, official who resigned are charged
By MARC LEVY and MARK SCOLFORO (AP) – 1 hour ago

HARRISBURG, Pa. — State prosecutors added more defendants Tuesday to their expanding legislative corruption case, accusing a longtime House Democratic leader and former legislator serving in the governor's cabinet of illegally using taxpayer-paid employees to perform campaign work.

State Rep. Bill DeWeese, the former House speaker and now majority whip, and former Rep. Stephen Stetler, who resigned as Pennsylvania's secretary of revenue hours before the charges were announced, face four counts of theft and one count each of conspiracy and conflict of interest. A district office aide to DeWeese, Sharon Rodavich, also was charged.

DeWeese is the second former House speaker ensnared in the probe; former speaker John M. Perzel of Philadelphia is among 10 people with ties to House Republicans who have been charged. Attorney General Tom Corbett has also charged 12 other people associated with the Democratic caucus in the three-year-long investigation. With the latest filings, 25 people connected to the House of Representatives have been charged so far.

Stetler is a former campaign strategist for the House Democrats who left the Legislature in 2006.

Lawyers for Stetler and DeWeese did not return telephone messages Tuesday. It was unclear whether Rodavich had a lawyer, and a phone message left at her Carmichaels home was not immediately returned.

According to Corbett, DeWeese allegedly employed a legislative staff member in the Capitol from 2001 to 2007 primarily to raise campaign money. Kevin Sidella testified under a grant of immunity that he raised millions of dollars for DeWeese's political campaigns while being paid by taxpayers, Corbett said.

The grand jury report said DeWeese's former chief of staff, Mike Manzo, testified that DeWeese had no campaign apparatus outside his state-paid staff, and that his employees circulated nominating petitions, sent out campaign mailings, organized campaign events and canvassed door to door.

Corbett's investigation has focused on the blurring of the lines between political work and legislative jobs in the Capitol, and he said Tuesday that some state lawmakers have been slow to get the message.

"The evidence here is clear that they were using public resources for political purposes. That's illegal. It's a conflict of interest, common sense will tell you," he said.

DeWeese, 59, of Waynesburg in southwestern Pennsylvania, has served in the House since 1976, including a lengthy term as Democratic floor leader and a stint as speaker in the 1990s. His florid speech and keen legislative instincts have made him a powerful if divisive figure in the Capitol.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jSW954oeyIXen-eJkIBoMc0v2LkgD9CJV05G0

Lebder says scandal will hurt 50th District residents
December 16, 2009 03:02 AM TEXT SIZE By: REBEKAH SUNGALA
Herald Standard

Fred Lebder, longtime head of the Fayette County Democratic Party, said the charges brought against state Rep. Bill DeWeese will hurt the people who reside in the 50th District.

"(DeWeese) being in trouble is a blow to the municipalities and service organizations in his district. He's been very helpful to them," Lebder said. "He was in a position to help municipalities, fire companies and different agencies. Overall, it's a blow to Fayette County."

Lebder said he wasn't aware of all the specifics of the charges and that he would wait to learn more before commenting further. "It's one of those things. We'll see how it's going to play out now," he said.

In Fayette County, the 50th district covers part of German Township and all of Luzerne Township, Brownsville, Masontown and Point Marion. The district also covers East Bethlehem Township and Centerville in Washington County and all of Greene County.

DeWeese

was charged Tuedsay with one count each of conflict of interest, theft by unlawful taking or disposition, theft of services, theft by deception, theft by failure to make required disposition of funds received and criminal conspiracy.

The indictment filed by state Attorney General Tom Corbett said DeWeese paid workers to do campaign work at taxpayer expense from 2001-2007. Corbett said the charges were part of an ongoing grand jury investigation into the misuse of public resources and employees for campaign purposes in the Legislature.

Also indicted on similar charges were DeWeese's district aide Sharon Rodavich and former state representative and state Department of Revenue Secretary Stephen Stetler of York County.

Greg Leathers, head of the Greene County Democratic Party, said he would withhold comment until speaking with DeWeese and Rodavich.

"It's surprising," Leathers said, noting DeWeese's longtime career.

A native of Greene County, DeWeese has served in the 50th District in the state House of Representatives since 1976, when he won a special election to fill the seat.

DeWeese, 59, was elected House Majority Leader in January 1990, serving in that position until he was elected Speaker of the House for the 1993-94 term. In 1994, he lost the Speakership when Democrat Rep. Stish switched parties, giving the GOP the majority. He went on to serve as Minority Leader

Advertisement from 1994 until 2006.

Following the November 2006 elections when Democrats took control of the state House of Representatives, DeWeese became Democratic speaker-designate. But after it was clear the votes weren't for him to be the Speaker, he nominated Philadelphia

County Republican Rep. Dennis O'Brien for the office of Speaker and became the House Majority Leader.

Following the 2008 elections, DeWeese was elected to serve as the Majority Whip for the Democrats.

DeWeese took much criticism for being a key backer of a controversial pay raise in 2005. After much public outcry, the measure was rescinded. DeWeese said the controversy made him realize that changes were needed to make the state legislature more open, and he strongly supported a new open records law, touting himself as a reformer.

DeWeese played a central role in Corbett's investigation into whether the House Democratic caucus made illegal payments to staffers, including bonuses for campaign work. He was forced to fire several Democratic caucus staffers, including his chief of staff, after it was revealed that they improperly destroyed documents related to the attorney general's investigation.

DeWeese denied that he was aware of the payments and claimed that he was cooperating fully with Corbett's probe.

In 2002, DeWeese sued the Herald-Standard, claiming that a nearly yearlong series of caricatures and the brief accompanying editorial commentaries defamed him. The commentaries, along with editorials, discussed an alleged promise DeWeese made to release records of the $12 million special leadership account under his control.

DeWeese maintained in his lawsuit that he never promised to release the caucus records, and the brief editorial commentaries maintained that he did. By running the commentaries the paper insinuated that DeWeese lied about a promise to release the records, and cast aspersions on his character, he claimed.

In 2008, DeWeese dropped the libel lawsuit he filed against the Herald-Standard. The settlement agreement leading to the case being dropped gave DeWeese space in the newspaper to write a column about the purpose of the lawsuit and his legislative and reform efforts, both in general and specifically relating to open records laws.

http://www.heraldstandard.com/news_detail/article/1631/2009/december/16/lebder-says-scandal-will-hurt-50th-district-residents.html

Handful Ballots Determine Winners in Paper & DRE county

2009-12-11T06:50:00.000-08:00

What a poster child for paper ballots with optical scanner when a recount is necessitated, right?

Notice the finals in the Uniontown City Council race are very close as well.

We can only wonder what might have been shown if a recount of all ballots, including the paper ballots, rather than a mere recreation of the unofficial tally for the official count purpose, would have revealed even closer wins and losses?

Net the Truth Online

Official election results show several close races
December 11, 2009 02:50 AM TEXT SIZE By: AMY REVAK
Herald Standard
After it was all said and done, Fayette County's Democratic District Attorney Nancy D. Vernon defeated Republican attorney Ernest P. DeHaas 13,037 votes to 10,809 votes to become the next common pleas court judge for the county, according to official election results.

The results, which were official earlier this week, showed no changes in winners, but did reveal some races were decided by only a few votes. Throughout the county, voters selected positions such as mayor, city council member, school director and township supervisor.

Although the municipal election was held more than a month ago, the official results were delayed after a statewide recount of the Superior Court race was ordered. Judge was the only contested countywide race.

The common pleas judge race occurred because President Judge Conrad B. Capuzzi is stepping down at the end of the year upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 70. There are five common pleas judges in the county and the last time a new one was selected was eight years ago.

During the Nov. 3 municipal election, Vernon received 55 percent of the vote, compared to 45 percent for DeHaas, winning by 2,228 votes. However, the percentage of votes DeHaas received was much closer than the registration figures for the county.

There is nearly a 3 to 1 registration advantage of Democrats over Republicans, with 62,640 registered Democrats and 22,069 registered Republicans.

In a hotly contested mayor's race in Brownsville, political newcomer Lester Ward defeated incumbent Lewis Hosler 353 votes to 340 votes. Before Ward was declared a winner, there was a recount of ballots cast in the borough's three wards...

...In Uniontown, the final election results for the two-year term showed Democrat Philip J. Michael, who was appointed to City Council earlier this year but later stepped down amid accusations that he didn't meet the residency requirement, defeating Republican Gary N. Altman with a tally of 917 to 801 votes.

For the two four-year terms, the two Democrat candidates Francis Joby Palumbo III and Gary Gearing received 937 and 933 votes, respectively, to obtain the two seats.

Final results showed Republicans Russ Rhodes and Curtis R. Sproul received 828 and 498 votes, respectively...

http://www.heraldstandard.com/news_detail/article/1631/2009/december/11/official-election-results-show-several-close-races.html

Recount shows Ward as mayoral race winner
November 26, 2009 02:57 AM TEXT SIZE By: AMY REVAK
Herald Standard

A public recount of the Brownsville mayoral race Wednesday ended with challenger Lester Ward prevailing by 13 votes over incumbent Lewis Hosler Sr.

After about an hour of recounting paper, provisional and electronic ballots, Larry Blosser, acting director of the Fayette County Election Bureau, announced that Ward received 353 votes and Hosler had received 340 votes. Hosler, a Democrat, received votes on both the Democratic and Republican ballots. Ward, who previously registered as a Democrat, ran as an Independent candidate.

http://www.heraldstandard.com/news_detail/article/1220/2009/november/26/recount-shows-ward-as-mayoral-race-winner.html

Double victory requires decision
November 05, 2009 03:15 AM TEXT SIZE By: ANGIE ORAVEC
Herald Standard

Whether a seat on the Uniontown Area School Board will be up for grabs depends on whether Tom McCracken, a challenger in the general election race, chooses to fill the seat or picks the position of Franklin Township supervisor, to which he was also elected.

According to unofficial election totals, McCracken received 2,035 votes and placed third among the four candidates who won a seat on the board.

He garnered 290 votes to defeat incumbent Tim Franks for the Franklin Township supervisor post.

McCracken, a Vanderbilt farmer and a teacher retired from the Uniontown Area School District, said Wednesday he was shocked to learn he was elected to both positions, but is unsure which elected position he will choose. He plans to wait for the final vote count to be completed before choosing a position.

"I'm unsure if they liked my candor or didn't like my opponents," McCracken laughed. "The last thing I want to do is to let any voters down on either side."

An official with the Fayette County Election Bureau said election totals are not complete until write-in votes are counted. The final vote count is set to begin Friday and could be completed within two weeks time.

Michael Brungo, solicitor for the Uniontown Area School District, said according to school code, McCracken cannot hold both positions and must make a determination as to which elected position he will serve.

The board will have 30 days to appoint someone to a vacancy that would result if McCracken declines the board seat, said Brungo.

The board can fill a vacancy in any manner appropriate since school code does not outline a specific procedure to be used, he said.

http://www.heraldstandard.com/news_detail/article/1220/2009/november/05/bdouble-victory-requires-decision-b.html

Election winners look forward to City Council duties
November 05, 2009 03:15 AM TEXT SIZE By: STEVE FERRIS
Herald Standard

The winners in the election for three seats on Uniontown City Council said they are looking forward to working on behalf of residents when they take office in January.

Three Democrats, incumbent Francis "Joby" Palumbo, Gary Gearing and Philip J. Michael, defeated Republican candidates Russ Rhodes, incumbent Curtis R. Sproul and Gary Altman in Tuesday's municipal election.

Palumbo led the candidates with 929 votes, or 29 percent of the total, followed by Gearing who received 923 votes, or 29 percent, for four-year terms on council, according to complete, but unofficial election results. Rhodes received 825 votes, or 26 percent, and Sproul received 495 votes, or 16 percent.

Michael won a two-year term in a special election. He received 909 votes, or 53 percent of the total, and Altman received 797, or 47 percent, according to complete, but unofficial results.

http://www.heraldstandard.com/news_detail/article/1220/2009/november/05/election-winners-look-forward-to-city-council-duties.html

John Stossel: Tonight Global Warming Focus

2009-12-10T14:39:00.000-08:00

Stossel on Glenn Beck... movie shown at Copenhagen Summit equated to fearmongering...

Stossel's program airs tonight 8 PM says he invited Al Gore who couldn't make it, but Stossel will have a green phone available...

President Barack Obama: Afghanistan a Just War

2009-12-10T10:04:00.000-08:00

Chuck Todd of MSNBC says he can't remember a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize accepting the award while making a case for war, a "just" war. President Obama's speech, Todd said, was a philosophical one...

Obama Defends Just War in Afghanistan

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/12/10/2148249.aspx

Obama's Nobel Remarks text speecuh

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/world/europe/11prexy.text.html

Other coverage happy searching

http://blogs.ft.com/rachmanblog/2009/12/obamas-nobel-prize-acceptance-speech-defence-of-the-just-war/

http://modernmedieval.blogspot.com/2009/12/on-just-war-understanding-pres-barack.html

Uhhuh. OK. Then will somebody, anybody, please explain why the United States is engaged in a "just" war - or a war that can be justified on the grounds of "morality" as the President implied - when the Congress of the United States has yet to "declare" war specificially on Afghanistan or even an entity person or persons located in Afghanistan?

We're going to refrain from an attempt to settle concerns and arguments that U.S. involvement in Iraq is an illegal and unconstitutional war, and so too would be Afghanistan.

We're searching for a definitive answer, but have so far had no real success.

But we raise the question for those who slated George W. Bush for impeachment based upon taking the U.S. to war with Iraq and any number of reasons while not making the same effort now that President Barack Obama has committed a surge in U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile among the powers of Congress according to the wording of the United States Constitution:

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

http://www.senate.gov/civics/constitution_item/constitution.htm

which this site further states:

The “war powers” are defined here and in Article 2, Section 2. Congress declares war, while the president wages war. However, presidents have committed U.S. forces leading to conflict without congressional declaration of war in Korea, Vietnam, and other places, provoking national argument over the meaning of these powers. Congress’ control of funding the military provides another check on the executive branch.

http://www.senate.gov/civics/constitution_item/constitution.htm

So whatever the debate about a just war in or on Afghanistan, an argument now presented by President Barack Obama, the Afghanistan war is a just war, how does President Obama repeat the same action as President George W. Bush commit U.S. troops somewhere (Iraq)(Afghanistan) and not get slammed by anybody and everybody who raised any objections to Bush's 'illegal' and 'unconstitutional' war in Iraq?

And, Chuck Todd of MSNBC noted he's not hearing from conservatives or Republicans the Obama philosophical speech was a bunch of well bunk.

related

Caselaw site

THE WAR POWER

Source and Scope

Three Theories

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/article01/41.html#2

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/article01/

War and Treaty Powers
The issue: How have the war and treaty powers in the Constitution been interpreted?

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/warandtreaty.htm

The Power to Declare War — Who Speaks for the Constitution? Part 1
by Doug Bandow, June 1995

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

When presidents lose domestic support, they invariably look overseas for crises to solve. President Clinton is no different. After the Republicans swept Congress, he immediately flew off to the Pacific for a series of meetings with foreign leaders. Aides predict that he will continue to pay greater attention to foreign policy, where he is able to operate with fewer restrictions from a hostile Congress.

But foreign policy means more than just international summits. It also means war, as is evident from the Clinton administration's continuing attempt to push America, through the NATO alliance, into a larger role in the Balkans imbroglio. So far, President Bill Clinton has undertaken or considered military action in Bosnia, Haiti, Korea, and Somalia. At no point has he indicated a willingness to involve Congress in the decision-making process. To the contrary, in late 1993 he stated: "I would strenuously oppose attempts to encroach on the President's foreign policy powers."

In this way, at least, he is acting like many of his predecessors. Bill Clinton emphasizes that he is the commander-in-chief, and, he claims, "The Constitution leaves the President, for good and sufficient reasons, the ultimate decision-making authority." As such, he argues, he is entitled to do whatever he pleases with the military: "The President must make the ultimate decision."

In fact, such an attitude has been broadly held by chief executives around the world.

http://www.fff.org/freedom/0695e.asp

Ventura Conspiracy Theory on 9/11 Inadequate and Unproven

2009-12-10T07:54:00.000-08:00

Of the conspiracy theories noted in Jesse Ventura's Tru TV Conspiracy Theory about September 11, 2001, the internet is filled with the same theories, and for us anyway, the other side, the debunking of these same theories. Our search for truth of an actual 9/11 proven conspiracy continues after Ventura's disappointing commentary and monologues in the series.

video

http://eclipptv.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=8834

Net the Truth Online

Ventura: super thermite in dust at World Trade Center ground zero

excerpt from National Geographic TV Debunks 9/11 Conspiracy Theories

National Geographic TV Debunks 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Monday
By Noel Sheppard (Bio | Archive)
August 30, 2009

Conspiracy: Thermite, which is less traceable, was used in the controlled demolition that brought down the towers.

Science: Some Truthers claim that pulverized dust found by some New Yorkers after the attack contained the checmical signature of thermite. Scientists assert that even if this dust did contain thermite, it would be impossible to determine whether the thermite came from a controlled demolition or simply from the melting of the airplanes. EMRTC designed an experiment to see if thermite was a plausible option in the collapse of the towers. The thermite in the test was not even able to melt a column much smaller than those in the World Trade Center.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/08/30/national-geographic-tv-debunks-9-11-conspiracy-theories-monday

Discusses JV's super thermite demo experiment

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?s=909686312dafbb1bb366a33de826b9c9&t=161681

http://screwloosechange.blogspot.com/

National Geographic TV Debunks 9/11 Conspiracy Theories

http://vodpod.com/watch/2212285-national-geographic-tv-debunks-911-conspiracy-theories

Ventura: no black boxes were found according to 9/11 Commission report interviews

Bennett Report knocks down a Frank Legge paper using information from the person interviewed in Ventura's Conspiracy Theory

James Bennett
Chiefb@gmail.com
Abstract
This is a rebuttal of the paper titled “9/11 Evidence Suggests Complicity: Inferences from Actions” (available at http://www.journalof911studies.com) by Frank Legge (Ph D) of the group Scholars for 9/11 Truth.

http://www.jod911.com/The_PNAC_and_Other_Myths.pdf

Finally, screwloosechange comments on Ventura's guests for the 9/11 episode of Conspiracy Theory. They've a wealth of info so plan to spend time there as well as search further including our This is Not a Conspiracy Theory.

Thursday, December 10, 2009
Jesse Ventura's 9-11 Conspiracy Theory

...ridiculous fraud

http://screwloosechange.blogspot.com/

Comments about screwloosechange

http://911debunkers.blogspot.com/

Ventura World Trade Tower No. 7 controlled demolition

Sites dispute

http://wtc7lies.googlepages.com/home

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=161681&page=2

Related

Above Top Secret Topics

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/book/911

PA: Rep. Bill DeWeese Receives Corbett Interview Request

2009-12-10T06:26:00.000-08:00

OK. So what will Pennsylvania state Rep. Bill DeWeese be asked during the secret interview? Would we even think one of a few current insiders, formerly among the outsiders, who've sought truth no matter Democrat or Republican (alleged) (corrupted) culprit, would have a little naggling bit of conscience and uh find out? And spread the confidentiality under a fake name?

Net the Truth Online

Prosecutors have offered former House Speaker Bill DeWeese, one of Pennsylvania's most influential Democrats, a chance to testify before the so-called Bonusgate grand jury, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

http://www.wopular.com/deweese-invited-talk-bonusgate-grand-jury-4

Only in our fictional minds.

Way back, we posed a series of questions and analyzed the happenings, take a look at our review and wonder what exactly will Rep. DeWeese be asked now?

http://netthetruthonline.blogspot.com/search?q=deweese+bonusgate+emails

Net the Truth Online

House leadership invited to testify to grand jury
Friday, December 04, 2009
By Dennis B. Roddy and Tom Barnes, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
HARRISBURG -- A statewide grand jury has invited the state House majority leader, the man he displaced in that job and the state secretary of revenue to appear before the panel, a move that has presaged charges against others who received such letters in an ongoing corruption probe.

The letters went to State Rep. Todd Eachus, D-Luzerne, the House majority leader; State Rep. H. William DeWeese, D-Greene, who served as majority leader until Mr. Eachus succeeded him in a caucus shakeup; and Revenue Secretary Stephen Stetler, a former eight-term Democratic House member from York.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09338/1018310-454.stm#ixzz0ZIUEFlFw

EyeOpener

EACHUS, DEWEESE, STETLER ASKED TO TESTIFY IN ‘BONUSGATE’ PROBE

According to an article in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette a statewide grand jury has invited the state House majority leader, the man he displaced in that job and the state secretary of revenue to appear before the panel, a move that has presaged charges against others who received such letters in an ongoing corruption probe. The letters went to State Rep. Todd Eachus, D-Luzerne, the House majority leader; State Rep. H. William DeWeese, D-Greene, who served as majority leader until Mr. Eachus succeeded him in a caucus shakeup;

http://blog.lobbytracpa.com/2009/12/07/eye-opener-december-7-2009/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+FyiByPls+%28FYI+by+PLS%29

Legislative corruption inquiry turns to DeWeese
By Brad Bumsted and Mike Wereschagin
TRIBUNE-REVIEW Thursday, December 10, 2009

HARRISBURG -- Investigators from the state Attorney General's Office interviewed House Majority Whip Bill DeWeese this week as the office continues its probe into corruption in the General Assembly.

DeWeese, D-Greene County, recently received a letter inviting him to appear before a grand jury in the corruption investigation. He appeared voluntarily for the interview, but has not yet been before the grand jury, his attorney, Walter Cohen, said Wednesday.

"Bill DeWeese has met this week with Attorney General (Tom) Corbett's investigative team and he will continue to cooperate with them as he has for the past 34 months," Cohen wrote in an e-mail.

"That (grand jury appearance) is still a possibility, but that is something we're not going to talk about," Cohen said in an interview Tuesday. Grand jury proceedings are secret.

Kevin Harley, a spokesman for Corbett, declined comment. DeWeese's spokesman, Tom Andrews, referred all questions to Cohen.

In a wide-ranging investigation, Corbett, a Republican candidate for governor, is investigating the use of taxpayer resources for campaigns, as well as obstruction of justice. He has charged 22 people with ties to the House Democratic and Republican caucuses.

The first trial, for former state Rep. Sean Ramaley, a Beaver County Democrat, could go to a jury as early as today.

The Tribune-Review and other newspapers reported last week that House Majority Leader Todd Eachus, D-Luzerne County, and Secretary of Revenue Stephen Stetler, a former lawmaker who chaired the House Democratic Campaign Committee, received letters to appear before the grand jury.

They have not responded to requests for interviews. Gov. Ed Rendell has said he expects that Stetler would testify before the grand jury.

Legal experts say the letters can be a precursor to facing criminal charges, though that is not always the case. They are a signal that a phase of the investigation is nearing an end.

Corbett began investigating the Legislature in February 2007, prompted by reports that House staffers who worked on political campaigns the previous year received millions of dollars in bonuses.

The investigation has since evolved into a much broader probe of public resources allegedly used for political work. Ten Republicans, including former Speaker John Perzel of Philadelphia, were charged in November with theft, conflict of interest and conspiracy. Corbett said they used millions in tax money for computer programs and equipment for campaigns. Perzel denies any wrongdoing.

Shortly after the probe began, DeWeese, then the majority leader, hired Chadwick Associates, led by former state Inspector General William Chadwick. On Nov. 13, 2007, DeWeese dismissed seven House Democratic staff members. DeWeese said then the dismissals were about trust and accountability. He turned over thousands of e-mails to investigators.

Corbett later charged five of those aides -- DeWeese chief of staff Mike Manzo, staff director Scott Brubaker, political analyst Brett Cott, personnel director Earl Mosely and information technologies director Steve Keefer -- in the bonus scandal.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_657057.html

Andy Stern Quotes Communist Manifesto

2009-12-09T14:21:00.000-08:00

But Stern denies he's anything less than a capitalist...

SEIU's Andy Stern Denies He's A Radical!
2009 November 13
tags: ACORN, Andrew Stern, Andy Stern, Glenn Beck Program, News, NewsRealblog, Politics, SEIUby Matthew Vadum

...In a Washington News Observer video, Andrew (Andy) Stern, boss of the radical union SEIU, denies Glenn Beck’s frequent accusation that Stern is a radical. (see first video below)

Despite what Glenn Beck says, I am a capitalist, not a socialist, communist, or anything else he’s called me in the last two weeks...

http://newsrealblog.com/2009/11/13/seius-andy-stern-denies-hes-a-radical/

A Country That Works
Center for American Progress
October 10, 2006

The Center for American Progress held an event last week to discuss the new book by Andy Stern, A Country That Works. At the event, Stern discussed the central theme of his book, a calls for unions to “recognize competition” and adapt to the “global economy” by dropping demands for “trade barriers.”

Stern urges unions build a “global union movement” that can defend worker’s rights in the new economic environment. He also calls on unions to form “labor-management partnerships” in order to achieve their goals.

Stern used the event to deliver a critique of the ideas and strategies held by many of America’s labor unions. Under Stern’s direction, the SEIU split with the AFL-CIO in July 2005. Labor unions have traditionally called for the rollback of free trade agreements, arguing that they hurt manufacturing jobs. Stern, however, rejected calls for the reinstatement of “trade barriers,” shunning the protectionist and anti-globalization rhetoric usually associated with union leaders.

Stern called for the formation of a “global union movement” that works within the new economic realities. In his opinion, unions must first cooperate at the international level in order to achieve success in their own countries. Quoting The Communist Manifesto, he said that “Workers of the world, unite!” is “more than just a slogan.”

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2006/10/country_that_works.html

Andy Stern: Use Persuasion of Power when Power of Persuasion Doesn't Work

2009-12-09T14:09:00.000-08:00

OPINION: THE WEEKEND INTERVIEW DECEMBER 6, 2008 Andy Stern
Let's 'Share the Wealth' America's most powerful union boss says Europe offers a good economic model.

...His tactics are controversial. The SEIU targets private equity firms, shames business leaders, and competes with other unions to build up its membership. Mr. Stern is unapologetic. "We like to say: We use the power of persuasion first. If it doesn't work, we try the persuasion of power." Inside the SEIU, a traditionally decentralized union, his dominant personality has earned him enemies among dissident local bosses. The biggest SEIU local in California is enmeshed in a corruption scandal. Some people wonder whether he's truly in charge. As an admiring adversary in Washington noted, these days "Andy Stern is surfing a high wave, and hanging on right by the edge."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122852244367484311.html

Mesmerized by Discussion Everything But Mandated Health Insurance

2009-12-09T06:01:00.000-08:00

It's not buried in the health care insurance legislation, not at all. The mandate is the foundation of whatever is determined to be the details in Senate and House versions of a bill.

Ed Shultz on the Ed Show on MSNBC railed against the rumors of the Senate doing just this, creating a private-sector option with public oversight, but his guest, Jonathan Alter, was on board with whatever the Senate did and the House did to get the most "historical" effort ever towards the ultimate goal universal health care...

The transcript ends the segment with Crosstalk, but Alter's point is not to be missed.

Alter wants to see any legislation passed, no matter the details, no matter what is in it. "...don't destroy history..."

Dec. 8, 2009 Transcript Ed Schultz Show

http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/EndUser?Action=UserDisplayFullDocument&orgId=574&topicId=100007220&docId=l:1088765858&start=2

Senate may drop public option
PRIVATE-SECTOR ALTERNATIVE
Reid says he is optimistic about bill after deal

...Under the deal, the government plan preferred by liberals would be replaced with a program that would create several national insurance policies administered by private companies but negotiated by the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees health policies for federal workers. If private firms were unable to deliver acceptable national policies, a government plan would be created.

In addition, people as young as 55 would be permitted to buy into Medicare, the popular federal health program for retirees. And private insurance companies would face stringent new regulations, including a requirement that they spend at least 90 cents of every dollar they collect in premiums on medical services for their customers...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/08/AR2009120804388.html?hpid=topnews

Shultz wants the full public or government-run option and nothing less.

We believe all of the hysterics not only on his part but others is just for show.

Think about it. If congress can mandate individuals purchase health care insurance, no matter what the details, when Congress is not empowered anywhere in the Constitution to do this, there is nothing to stop Congress from returning in a few years and creating exactly what Shultz and others want.

Nothing.

Unfortunately, the people truly have been put in a state of confusion when the arguments focus on those everything else but the foundation of the proposal - and a "mandate" on individuals is the foundation of the so-called health care (insurance) reform effort.

Net the Truth Online

Transcript excerpt

THE ED SHOW for December 8, 2009

...Let me bring in Jonathan Alter, senior editor and columnist at "Newsweek" magazine.

What are we seeing unfolding here, Jonathan, tonight? Are we seeing just total compromise and the White House and the Democrats are going to be the political pragmatists here and take whatever they can get?

JONATHAN ALTER, SR. EDITOR, "NEWSWEEK": Yes, that`s about it. But what they can get ain`t bad, Ed. And I think you`re misrepresenting the totality of the bill.

Look, I am strongly for a public option, but it doesn`t look like it is in the cards. That`s the nature of politics. You have to deal with the world as it is, not as we would like it to be.

This is sausage-making time. That`s what they compare passing legislation to. Nowadays, we get a camera right into the sausage factory. We`re seeing it unfold. It has never been a pretty process.

When Social Security went through, the liberals were so angry at Franklin Roosevelt because less than half of senior citizens were going to be eligible for Social Security. They said Roosevelt`s a sellout. How could he do this?

Roosevelt understood that politics is the art of the possible. The same thing is true on this bill, Ed.

It`s a 2,000-page bill. Republicans have been complaining about that. In that 2,000 pages is a tremendous amount of fantastically important stuff -- ending discrimination against sick people, which has Harry Reid quite rightly says, is a civil rights issue of the first order; insuring more than 30 million additional Americans; adding all kind of preventive care.

We don`t have time on this broadcast to list all of the important things that are in this bill.

SCHULTZ: Well, that`s why I...

ALTER: Because you`re making it sound...

SCHULTZ: Now, now, wait a minute now.

ALTER: You`re making it sound like the whole bill is the public option. That`s preposterous, Ed. Preposterous.

SCHULTZ: No, wait a second here. No, this is why I didn`t interrupt you, because I let you go and tell me what`s so good about it.

Just so I`m not misrepresenting the sausage-making here, this is nothing but a handout to the insurance industry...

ALTER: Oh, please. That`s preposterous.

SCHULTZ: No, it is not preposterous. It is not preposterous.

What you`ve got is tax dollars that are going to be subsidizing lower- income people, they`re going to be mandated to go over to the insurance industry and purchase insurance. If there is going to be 40 million new customers, Jonathan, 40 million new customers to the insurance industry, why the heck wouldn`t they take that on?

They love it. It`s new customers.

ALTER: Well, that`s how they got the buy-in from the...

(CROSSTALK)

SCHULTZ: There is -- my friend, there is no mechanism in place...

ALTER: That`s why at a minimum -- and this is what they`re behind closed doors talking about. They`re talking about -- now, I don`t favor a trigger. I`m for a public option. But just to explain what it is...

SCHULTZ: I know what it is and our audience knows what it is. It`s a watered-down -- there is no mechanism in place.

ALTER: Well, we don`t mow what the trigger is yet.

(CROSSTALK)

SCHULTZ: Jonathan, there is no mechanism in place on the table that is going to give private industry any competition to force down rates. That`s the way it is.

ALTER: Well, that`s not true.

SCHULTZ: It is true!

ALTER: No, there`s a lot of insurance regulation that`s in the bill.

SCHULTZ: Jonathan, don`t tell me I don`t know what I`m talking about. It is true.

ALTER: There`s a lot of insurance regulation in the bill, Ed.

SCHULTZ: OK. Well, we will continue this discussion. I`m up against the clock, as you well know.

I appreciate your opinion, but this sausage-making is not being misrepresented on this program. I can guarantee you that.

ALTER: Got to take the world as it is.

SCHULTZ: No, no, no.

(CROSSTALK)

ALTER: Voting against the bill would be historic...

SCHULTZ: You need to fight politically for what`s right for the people.

ALTER: Yes. Fight for it, but at the end, don`t destroy history...

(CROSSTALK)

http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/EndUser?Action=UserDisplayFullDocument&orgId=574&topicId=100007220&docId=l:1088765858&start=2

Senate defeats Nelson No Fed Funding Abortion

2009-12-08T15:03:00.000-08:00

Senate Defeats Nelson Amendment to Stop Abortion Funding in Health Care Bill
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
December 8, 2009

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The Senate on Tuesday voted 54-45 to defeat the Nelson amendment that would have removed the massive abortion funding from the Senate government-run health care bill. With the defeat, pro-life advocates will unite behind a concerted effort to defeat the entire health care bill.

The legislation currently allows abortion funding under both the public option and the affordability credits to purchase health care insurance.

The bill contains a slightly-reworded version of the much-maligned Capps amendment, which a House committee approved on a partisan vote and which pro-life groups say is an accounting scheme to hide government-funded abortions.

The Nelson amendment, sponsored by Nebraska Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson, Democrat Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Republican Orrin Hatch of Utah, would have restored the Hyde amendment principles to the bill to ensure that abortions can't be funded.

Contrary to the claims of abortion advocates during the debate, women would still be able to pay for abortions with their own money and purchase health care insurance to cover their abortions.

Nelson was unable to get enough Democrats to join him in supporting the amendment while two Republicans, pro-abortion Maine Sens. Olympia Snow and Susan Collins, sided with abortion advocates against the amendment.

Sen. Barbara Boxer moved to table (kill) the Nelson amendment and she was joined by most Democrats and opposed by most Republicans.

Democrats who voted no and opposed Boxer's motion to kill the Nelson amendment included Sens. Casey, David Pryor of Arkansas, Byron Dorgan and Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Edward Kaufman of Delaware and Evan Bayh of Indiana.

With the Nelson amendment defeated, attention now turns to the vote on the bill itself, and Nelson (but not Casey) has said he would filibuster the bill because of the abortion funding it contains...

...Other issues apart from direct abortion funding are causing pro-life advocates to oppose the health care legislation.

The Senate has also added the Mikulski amendment to the bill that could open the door to forcing every health insurance plan in the country to cover abortions.

http://www.lifenews.com/nat5748.html

Posted Tuesday, December 08, 2009 12:15 PM
Why The Senate's Abortion Debate Does Not Matter
Sarah Kliff
The Senate is now debating one of health-care reform's most controversial provisions: Ben Nelson’s abortion amendment. The language of Nelson's amendment, introduced yesterday, mirrors the strong restrictions of the Stupak amendment and bars plans traded on the government exchange from covering elective abortions. Barbara Boxer, the first Senator to speak in opposition to Nelson’s amendment, was quick to term it “the biggest rollback to a woman’s right to choose in decades.” Meanwhile, Nelson has repeatedly threatened to filibuster any bill without his language. Groups that both oppose and support abortion rights have encouraged members to write letters to their senators on the issue, imploring them to vote one way or another.

But no matter how many letters are written or emotional speeches given, this abortion debate does not actually matter

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thegaggle/archive/2009/12/08/why-the-senate-s-abortion-debate-does-not-matter.aspx

Global Warming UNraveling

2009-12-07T14:38:00.001-08:00

Glenn Beck mentioned the error...concerning ice caps melting and destroying the habitat of the polar bear...

Arctic Sea Ice Underestimated for Weeks Due to Faulty Sensor

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=aIe9swvOqwIY

Covered previously at redstate site

http://redstaterusa.blogspot.com/2009/02/global-warming-keeps-cooling-off.html

2009-12-07T13:02:00.000-08:00

EPA given unparalleled power to regulate clean air, says Craig Smith, in 2007...

Interviewed on Fox News Your World, Smith doesn't appear surprised at what might go on in Copenhagen... talks...

Related

EPA Finds Greenhouse Gases Pose Threat to Public Health, Welfare / Proposed Finding Comes in Response to 2007 Supreme Court Ruling

Release date: 04/17/2009

http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/6427a6b7538955c585257359003f0230/0ef7df675805295d8525759b00566924!OpenDocument

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Gold-Stranglehold-Jerome-Corsi/dp/1581824890

http://www.coasttocoastam.com/guest/smith-craig-r/6616

Danger in PA Property Tax Elimination Proposal S.T.O.P.

2009-12-07T04:36:00.000-08:00

We'd like to agree with letter-writer on the sentiments expressed in "Stop tax-relief ruse" but find the wording is unclear and sounds very much like the S.T.O.P plan proposed on the grand old USA site.

http://www.grandoldusa.com/

The letter-writer only mentions residences, and neglects to clarify whether the reference applies to primary residential property, all residential property, and/or business or commercial property.

We can only assume then the letter-writer is actually referencing the S.T.O.P. plan.

(it appears we're right on the connection of the Tribune-Review letter-writer, Bednar to the S.T.O.P. proposal as her name and publication of a short letter to Sen. Logan is mentioned by Bob Logue who started the S.T.O.P. effort:

http://www.spedunkie.com/loganresponse.html

If so, that plan does not apply to all residential property, nor does it apply to business property.

And the PA Constitution would need to be amended in order for the proposal to fly.

On our Vote Fix site, we previously analyzed the S.T.O.P. plan.

STOP tax reform plan Guts PA Constitution

http://dirtline.tripod.com/votefix/id104.html

What's sad is most people will read letters-to-the-editor such as the following and actually agree with the contents, but won't understand fully the proposal - if it indeed is the one proposed by S.T.O.P. coalition - applies only to 'primary' residence.

Beware of any legislative proposal which needs any tinkering with our PA Constitution such as a referendum and/or a state Constitutional Convention.

Period.

Net the Truth Online

Stop tax-relief ruse
Tribune-Review
Saturday, December 5, 2009
To all the voters: When you talk or write to the candidates who are running for governor, ask them how they stand on abolishment of all three property taxes.

These include the school, municipal and county taxes. If only the school tax is abolished, we still will be liable for the assessments/reassessments of our properties, and our county and municipal property taxes will keep going up along with the sheriff sales, etc.

We will still be paying rent to the government and our homes will never be ours.

We don't want to hear the words ''reduction" or "relief.'' Tell your senator and representative that we are tired of the 30-year deceptions about ''reducing'' property taxes on our homes and that you want property taxes totally abolished.

We are tired of all of the deceit we keep getting from our representatives and senators, and we are aware of how costly these sheriff sales and assessments are to the taxpayers. They are all fraudulent promises, and we won't stand for it any more.

Don't let them tell you otherwise.

Alene Bednar Ford City

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/dailycourier/s_656046.html

Senator Logan,

I have been advising quite a few Reps to contact you and Rep. Gergely about the STOP plan. Have you heard from any of them? I haven't heard anything about the total abolishment of our property taxes lately either. Where are we on this? Please reply so I can pass your information on to the other members. Sincerely, Alene Bednar.

Senator Logan's reply:

I have not heard from any of them. The bill is introduced and waiting for Republican Leadership to bring this issue up for discussion. But at this time to my knowledge, there are no plans to bring this issue up for debate. Keep up the fight.

Sean Logan

Bob Logue Comments: First, let me commend Alene Bednar (above) and everyone of you and your families and friends who have been contacting your PA Senators and Representatives, as well as the announced candidates for Governor. Keep it up...and encourage others to do the same.

Senator Sean Logan wrote the STOP legislation to abolish all property taxes on primary residences in 2003...and has continuously supported the STOP Primary Residence Protection Plan. He again reintroduced our legislation in the current legislative session.

You will note in Sean's response to Alene's inquiry--that his bill is waiting for 'Republican Leadership to bring this issue up for discussion (in the Senate).' He is right. Movement on legislation to bring to a public referendum, changing the constitution to permit 100% of all property (real estate taxes) to be abolished on primary residences passed the house 192-0 in the last legislative session which ended in 2008. The legislation then went to the Senate and was sent to the Senate Finance Committee. To their credit, the Republicans and Democrats on the Finance Committee voted 12-0 to bring the legislation to the full Senate for debate and a vote. However, the Republican Senate leadership instead sent the legislation to the Appropriations committee to die...which it did as the session ended.

Some in legislature may believe the current economic situation in Pennsylvania and across the US is the wrong time to be considering such a dramatic change in our method of taxation for our schools, counties and municipalities. The opposite is true...

http://www.spedunkie.com/loganresponse.html

Proper Audit Trail After Demolition Sounds Improper

2009-12-07T04:06:00.000-08:00

Audit trail looks good on paper, right? UHHUH. Does this item Airport authority seeks condemnation of building already razed seem as ludicrous to others as it seems to us? How did relatives of the Arnold Palmer Regional Airport Authority's chairman acquire anything at any time past or present at the public/private regional airport? Since when is vacant space at an airport worth nearly $200,000 of taxpayers' money? What was the original arrangement?

The most obvious concern is this: if a private citizen or business owner created a proper audit trail after the fact of acquiring something, there would be an investigation.

Looks to us like an investigation is needed on this 'proper audit trail' at the Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in Unity, over in Westmoreland County.

The situation also brings up a host of questions about so-called regionalization of so-called public services not only those concerning airports of whatever size.

In Pennsylvania, authorities are autonomous once created they are subject to very little oversight by those who appoint members to the authority's board.

Deals such as this one can be made and who will look into it? Our 'regional' newspapers?

Net the Truth Online

Airport authority seeks condemnation of building already razed

The Westmoreland County Airport Authority is seeking official condemnation of an already demolished aircraft hangar owned by the family of authority Chairman Anthony M. Ferrante.

Authority Solicitor Donald Snyder filed a "declaration of taking" with the county's Court of Common Pleas on Nov. 24 as a means of confirming the taking of the leasehold interest of the building known as Hangar 14 at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in Unity.

The building — torn down in October to improve hangar facilities and airport layout — housed 12 spaces owned and rented out by Ferrante's son, Anthony K. Ferrante, and his sister, Bernice Ferrante Lewis, both of Vandergrift, Snyder said.

Hangar 14 tenants were relocated either to rentable spaces in other buildings owned by Ferrante and Lewis or to facilities being rented out by the authority itself, said authority Executive Director Gabe Monzo.

The authority is required to hire an independent appraiser to determine the value of properties it wishes to acquire based on eminent domain guidelines, Snyder said.

Hayden Appraisal Services of Greensburg determined the property to be worth $185,000. The firm's assessment was independently reviewed by Jack Lizza, owner of Professional Real Estate Appraisal Services, also of Greensburg, Snyder said. That amount already has been paid to Ferrante and Lewis, Snyder said.

This purpose of the legal filing was to "create a proper audit trail" as it relates to the recent negotiation, Monzo said.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/westmoreland/s_656314.html

Health Care Insurance Mandate Most Intrusive to Individual

2009-12-07T03:26:00.000-08:00

Benjamin Franklin said it best.

Should any health care insurance reform measure pass no matter what its contents in addition to the mandate on individuals and a fine for non-compliance, it will be obvious the "little temporary safety" Franklin warned of - is the mindset of the United States of America's public.

There is still hope you can make your voice heard. For us, however, there is no acceptance of any bill put forth by Congress regarding individual choice to purchase or not purchase, anything, including health care insurance from among private, so-called non-profit entities, or a public option, absolutely no acceptance.

Check out a new website referenced by World Net Daily

Want to sound off on health-care debate?
New website offers free online lobby tool – no matter your opinion
Posted: November 23, 2009

A new online lobby tool allows visitors to take a broad-based survey on the health-care issues facing Congress and transmits the results free to their member of the House of Representatives and both of their senators.

The website, HealthCareVote.com, is the work of Brad O'Leary, publisher of the monthly political insider newsletter "The O'Leary Report" and author of "The Audacity of Deceit" and "Shut Up, America."

"This is a great tool to shake up the current health-care debate in Congress – if people use it," said O'Leary.

Visitors to the site can answer 14 critical questions on health-care reform and then click to automatically send their answers to their senators and congressman. The service is completely free for all users...

... O'Leary has also launched a special television program running on 220 cable and network television stations. The program promotes two messages: 1) Why it's important for everyone to improve personal health and wellness to keep health-care costs down, and 2) Why it's important Americans go to HealthCareVote.com to tell their senators and representatives where they stand in the health-care debate.

The TV special is hosted by Bryant Gumbel with a special appearance by actor Dean Cain...

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=116904

See WND's coverage of the O'Leary/Zogby poll and its results...

Poll: Americans agree on health insurance
But Obamacare out of step with Zogby-O'Leary respondents

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: September 14, 2009
11:39 pm Eastern

© 2009 WorldNetDaily

Americans have put aside partisan difference and agree on several significant health care issues, but facets of Obama's health-care plan remain outside of those boundaries, according to a newly released Zogby International/O'Leary Report poll.

"Congress should put forward a health care reform plan that addresses these eight issues on which most Americans agree," Brad O’Leary, publisher of "The O'Leary Report," said today.

"In particular, tort reform and permitting Americans to purchase health insurance across state lines have near universal appeal with voters. New taxes, on the other hand, are almost universally opposed," he said.

O'Leary, besides authoring the report bearing his name, also has written "Shut Up America: The End of Free Speech."

...Regarding support for new taxes on employer-provided health care benefits, only about 12 percent agreed and nearly 78 percent said no.

Likewise, 75 percent said no when asked about raising taxes to fund a government-run health insurance program for the 26 million Americans who can afford insurance but choose not to buy it or the 12 million illegal aliens who lack health insurance. Only 15 percent said that should happen.

A federal proposal that would fine Americans for not purchasing health insurance is a bad idea, according to 70 percent of respondents, and a good idea for 18 percent.

And restrictions for pre-existing conditions should be allowed, according to about 20 percent of the respondents, while 68 percent said no such limits should be permitted.

Regarding the proposed Obamacare "Independent Medicare Advisory Council," which purportedly would make decisions "to deny payment for procedures it deems unnecessary or futile," not even one voter in three supports the idea...

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=109836

Expect Stew Parties should Health Insurance Mandate Pass

2009-12-06T17:57:00.000-08:00

Mandatory Insurance Is Unconstitutional
Why an individual mandate could be struck down by the courts.Article Comments (158) By DAVID B. RIVKIN JR. AND LEE A. CASEY

Federal legislation requiring that every American have health insurance is part of all the major health-care reform plans now being considered in Washington. Such a mandate, however, would expand the federal government’s authority over individual Americans to an unprecedented degree. It is also profoundly unconstitutional.

An individual mandate has been a hardy perennial of health-care reform proposals since HillaryCare in the early 1990s. President Barack Obama defended its merits before Congress last week, claiming that uninsured people still use medical services and impose the costs on everyone else. But the reality is far different. Certainly some uninsured use emergency rooms in lieu of primary care physicians, but the majority are young people who forgo insurance precisely because they do not expect to need much medical care...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204518504574416623109362480.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Discussion site daily paul

http://www.dailypaul.com/node/107710

ebating the Constitutionality of an Individual Mandate
Jonathan H. Adler • November 5, 2009 3:09 pm

The latest installment of the Federalist Society’s “Originally Speaking” debate series features UC Irvine Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and Baker & Hostetler partner David Rivkin sparring over the constitutionality of an individual mandate.

http://volokh.com/2009/11/05/debating-the-constitutionality-of-an-individual-mandate-2/

Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009: Unconstitutional

Michael Connelly
Infowars
September 21, 2009

...However, as scary as all of that it, it just scratches the surface. In fact, I have concluded that this legislation really has no intention of providing affordable health care choices. Instead it is a convenient cover for the most massive transfer of power to the Executive Branch of government that has ever occurred, or even been contemplated. If this law or a similar one is adopted, major portions of the Constitution of the United States will effectively have been destroyed.

The first thing to go will be the masterfully crafted balance of power between the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of the U.S. Government. The Congress will be transferring to the Obama Administration authority in a number of different areas over the lives of the American people and the businesses they own. The irony is that the Congress doesn’t have any authority to legislate in most of those areas to begin with. I defy anyone to read the text of the U.S. Constitution and find any authority granted to the members of Congress to regulate health care.

This legislation also provides for access by the appointees of the Obama administration of all of your personal healthcare information, your personal financial information, and the information of your employer, physician, and hospital. All of this is a direct violation of the specific provisions of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures. You can also forget about the right to privacy. That will have been legislated into oblivion regardless of what the 3rd and 4th Amendments may provide...

http://www.infowars.com/affordable-health-care-choices-act-of-2009-unconstitutional/

Dr. Manny: 25% childhood OCD result of PANDAS

2009-12-06T07:37:00.000-08:00

On Fox News weekend edition, interviewed by Alison Camerota, Dr. Marc Siegel comments on findings related to the case of a girl who suffers uncontrollable fits of sneezing.

He noted the underlying cause being an infection, but offered the medical condidtion can lead to behavioral situations, including A.D.D.

...strep infection... damages brain on neurological side that could also be medical...

He said along with medication, a behavioral approach has to be undertaken as well.

video Dr. Marc Siegel "Medical Rewind"

http://video.foxnews.com/12239060/medical-rewind

http://www.iseenews.com/watch/bless-you-foxnewschannel

Also Dr. Manny Alvarez comments in the following video

video sneezing girl gets diagnosis called PANDAS

http://video.foxnews.com/12213484/bless-you

Thursday, Dec. 3, 2009 report

Girl Who Sneezes 12,000 Times a Day Gets Official Diagnosis

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,579070,00.html

Washington, Dec 4 : An American girl, who sneezes up to 12,000 times a day, has been given an official diagnosis, with doctors saying that she is suffering from PANDAS (Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorder Associated with Streptococcus).

...Symptoms of PANDAS include obsessive or compulsive behaviours, Tourette's syndrome and attention deficit disorder.

http://www.andhranews.net/Health/2009/December/4-Girl-sneezes-43082.asp

Sneezing girl officially diagnosed
Doctors say she has PANDAS
Updated: Wednesday, 02 Dec 2009, 6:32 PM EST
Published : Wednesday, 02 Dec 2009, 5:38 PM EST

Katie Collett
CHESAPEAKE, Va. - For several weeks, WAVY.com has been following Lauren Johnson, the 12 year-old Chesapeake girl who started sneezing in upwards of 12,000 times per day after suffering from a bad cold. Recently, Lauren was officially diagnosed with Paediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorder Associated with Streptococcus, otherwise known as PANDAS.

"Now we can actually treat it as something," says Lauren who is thrilled to finally have a diagnosis.

WAVY.com spoke with Dr. Rosario Trifiletti, a child neurologist treating Lauren. He explained the onset of PANDAS. "Following a common streptococcal infection, the most common of which people are familiar with, the strep throat from a few days to a couple of weeks later, there's a marked change in a child that gets this."

Trifiletti says those changes happen quickly. PANDAS symptoms include:

Cognitive inflexibility, difficult to reason with, as if stuck on an idea
Obsessive/repetitive/compulsive argumentative behaviours
TICS (repetitive vocalisations of body movements)
Tourettes Syndrome
Attention deficits and oppositional/defiant behaviours.
The good news? There is treatment for Lauren and other children who suffer from PANDAS.

"She was placed on antibiotics and has improved considerably," says Dr. Trifiletti.

However, there is some bad news.

"Lauren is at risk of getting this again, so we're probably going to place her on some sort of...a low dose of antibiotics, for a long period of time," says Dr. Trifiletti.

Lauren's family learned the PANDAS diagnosis is relatively unknown. It was discovered only 13 years ago meaning a lot of trial and error.

http://www.wavy.com/dpp/news/local_news/Sneezing-girl-officially-diagnosed

...There are two variants of this disease, one that causes tics and another that causes OCD:

If you are interested in more detail, I highly recommend Moretti's paper "What every psychiatrist should know about PANDAS" http://www.cpementalhealth.com/content/pdf/1745-0...

Another good one that's easier to read is from the school nurse's perspective "PANDAS in the school setting" http://www.schoolnursenews.org/BackIssues/2003/09...

http://www.wavy.com/dpp/news/local_news/Sneezing-girl-officially-diagnosed

Climate Change UNraveling?

2009-12-06T04:57:00.000-08:00

While the AP fact checked every aspect of Sarah Palin's book, Going Rogue, we have yet to see any fact checking of a mere 100-page account supporting man-made global warming.

That's not surprising since it appears the mainstream media has yet to latch onto any full reporting on:

The Canadians who changed the climate debate

Canadians Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick have discovered faulty calculations in some of the key scientific studies behind the reports of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. As Richard Foot reports, that's made them pretty unpopular in some circles.

By Richard Foot, Canwest News ServiceDecember 5, 2009

...The "Climategate" e-mails have sparked a scandal -- just ahead of next week's global warming summit in Copenhagen -- for suggesting climatologists may have manipulated data to exaggerate the threat of global warming and conspired to keep contrary points of view out of the scientific journals. But the e-mails are also conspicuous for their repeated, nasty references to two Canadians -- McIntyre and economist Ross McKitrick -- who have become a serious thorn in the side of climatologists and others who say the planet is under serious threat from man-made global warming.

Although little-known in Canada, McIntyre and McKitrick -- or M and M as they're called in climate change circles -- have since 2003 put forward evidence of faulty calculations in some of the key scientific studies behind the reports of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Their work has drawn attention from the U.S. Congress, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the Wall Street Journal, which last month called them "the climate change gang's most dangerous apostates."

McIntyre, a Toronto mining analyst and speculator, became intrigued by the climate change issue when the Kyoto Protocol was up for debate in 2002.

He was skeptical of a key piece of science in the IPCC reports of the time -- a graph, based on research by U.S. climatologist Michael Mann, that showed Earth's temperatures had remained relatively stable over the past thousand years then began rising suddenly in the 20th century.

The graph, shaped like a sideways hockey stick, became one of the most convincing illustrations in Al Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth, which rallied millions to the cause of global warming. But it reminded McIntyre of the promotional graphs and statistics commonly used by mining promoters in search of investors.

He said he decided -- purely out of curiosity and not because he wanted to shake up the global warming debate -- to carry out some due diligence on the numbers.

Replicating the arcane calculations of climate modelling science would be an impossible task for most people. But McIntyre had been a math prizewinner in high school, had studied pure mathematics at the University of Toronto and had won, but turned down, a mathematics scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, choosing a business career instead.

"I read Mann's paper and thought, 'What this looks to me is like really overblown and high falutin' language for fairly simple linear regressions and matrix algebra. I figured it would be like doing a big crossword puzzle, so I went at it," he said. "I had no particular expectations that it would be wrong, I just thought it would be interesting. It sounds bizarre in retrospect, but I take up odd interests from time to time."

McIntyre contacted Ross Mc-Kitrick, a University of Guelph statistical economist who was also analyzing the science behind the IPCC reports. Together they unearthed evidence that Mann's calculations were predisposed to producing a hockey stick-shaped graph, with sharply rising temperatures in the 20th century.

They also showed that Mann's calculations ignored the data showing a major warming trend in the 15th century, much like the warming of the 20th century.

"That discovery hit me like a bombshell," wrote one scientist in the MIT Technology Review in 2004. "Suddenly the 'hockey stick,' the poster child of the global warming community, turns out to be an artifact of poor mathematics."

M and M's findings sparked hearings on the science of global warming by the U.S. Congress, and an investigation by the National Academy of Sciences. Their report concluded that while the wider science behind 20th century global warming remains valid, the hockey stick graph and other long-term temperature models were fraught with "uncertainties" and that Mann's calculations "tended to bias the shape of (hockey stick) reconstructions."

Mann was required to publish a retraction about some of his statistical methods in the science journal Nature...

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/technology/Canadians+changed+climate+debate/2306516/story.html

Election case interesting but unaccepted as fraud

2009-12-04T04:49:00.000-08:00

Not an unexpected development in a Fayette election case. At least there was some news coverage of the denial.

Pa. top court won't hear failed Fayette County candidate's appeal
By The Tribune-Review
Friday, December 4, 2009

The state Supreme Court will not hear the appeal of a failed candidate who alleges impersonators may have voted in place of deceased voters.

In an opinion posted Thursday, the court denied Robert "Ted" Pritchard Sr.'s petition to appeal a Commonwealth Court ruling that upheld a lower court's dismissal of his lawsuit. In addition, the Supreme Court denied Pritchard's emergency motions to stay the election results of the May primary and November general election.

Pritchard had alleged that Fayette County failed to purge voter registration lists, resulting in impersonators possibly voting in place of deceased voters...

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/fayette/s_656186.html

ABC News Headlines Secret That Isn't but Revealing

2009-12-02T16:22:00.000-08:00

President Obama's Secret: Only 100 al Qaeda Now in Afghanistan
With New Surge, One Thousand U.S. Soldiers and $300 Million for Every One al Qaeda Fighter
By RICHARD ESPOSITO, MATTHEW COLE and BRIAN ROSS
Dec. 2, 2009

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/president-obamas-secret-100-al-qaeda-now-afghanistan/story?id=9227861

Ronald Bailey Remember His Conversion to Global Warming

2009-12-02T14:25:00.000-08:00

Quite a while back, Ronald Bailey at Reason Mag, wrote an article "We're All Global Warmers, Now."

We thought we'd see what Bailey wrote about the Climate-Gate emails, etc...

For comparison, read a selection of analysis and commentary...

ClimateGate III: The Mystery of the Missing Data

http://www.blogrunner.com/snapshot/D/0/6/climategate_iii_the_mystery_of_the_missing_data/

http://www.blogrunner.com/snapshot/D/2/4/climate_data_row_man_steps_down/

Just read Bailey's wording very closely. He's not convinced, even if the emails show what it appears the emails show, he's not convinced otherwise than his conversion article, "We're All Global Warmers, Now."

The Scientific Tragedy of Climategate
Can climate change science recover from the damage done by leaked emails?
Ronald Bailey | December 1, 2009

...It is reassuring to think that even if the CRU data are shown to be distorted (either wittingly or unwittingly) other independent sources of data are at hand. But that belief may not be entirely accurate. Besides the CRU temperature data, there are two other leading sources used by the IPCC, one created by the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), and the other by the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Climatic Data Center (NCDC).

While it is true that the scientific groups are independent, as University of Colorado climatologist Roger Pielke Sr. (father of Pielke Jr.) observes, the temperature data sets are not all that independent. Pielke cites the 2006 U.S. Climate Change Science Program report, which noted, "Since the three chosen data sets utilize many of the same raw observations, there is a degree of interdependence." The report further observed, "While there are fundamental differences in the methodology used to create the surface data sets, the differing techniques with the same data produce almost the same results." In 2007, Pielke and his colleagues reported, "The raw surface temperature data from which all of the different global surface temperature trend analyses are derived are essentially the same. The best estimate that has been reported is that 90–95 percent of the raw data in each of the analyses is the same (P. Jones, personal communication, 2003). That the analyses produce similar trends should therefore come as no surprise."

One of the leaked emails from CRU’s Phil Jones appears to confirm this data interdependence: "Almost all the data we have in the CRU archive is exactly the same as in the Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) archive used by the NOAA National Climatic Data Center." Given this interdependence, Jones’ appeal to correlation with other data sets to support the validity of the CRU data is less convincing than one would hope. To the contrary, the fact that the three data sets correlate so well may instead provoke concerns about the validity of all three.

In an email to University of Alabama climatologist John Christy I asked, "Is there a possibility that the teams that compile temperature data could all be making the same set of errors which would result in them finding similar (and perhaps) spurious trends?" Christy replied that he believed this was possible and cited some recent work he had done on temperature trends in East Africa as evidence. In that article he found that using both the maximum and minimum temperature rather than the mean temperature (TMean) used by the three official data sets gives a better indication of actual temperature trends in the region.

Christy found that the maximum temperature (TMax) trend has been essentially zero since 1900 while the minimum temperature (TMin) trend has been increasing. In his email to me, Christy explained, "As it turns out, TMin warms significantly due to factors other than the greenhouse effect, so TMean, because it is affected by TMin, is a poor proxy for understanding the greenhouse effect of 'global warming'." Or as his journal article puts it, "There appears to be little change in East Africa’s TMax, and if TMax is a suitable proxy for climate changes affecting the deep atmosphere, there has been little impact in the past half-century." So if Christy’s analysis is correct, much of the global warming in East Africa reported by the three official data sets is exaggerated. Christy has found similar effects on temperature trend reporting for other regions of the world.

Roger Pielke Jr. notes, "If it turns out that the choices made by CRU, GISS, NOAA fall on the 'maximize historical trends' end of the scale that will not help their perceived credibility for obvious reasons." On the other hand, Pielke Jr. adds that Climategate could dissipate if probing by outside researchers finds that CRU, GISS, and NOAA researchers made temperature data adjustments "in the middle of the range or even low end, then this will enhance their credibility." The good news is that a truly independent set of temperature data has been produced over the past thirty years by NOAA satellites. In general, the global satellite temperature trends tend to be on the low end of the climate computer model projections.

The more benign interpretation of what has been going on in climate change science is that as the man-made global warming narrative took hold among climatologists, research that confirmed the dominant paradigm had a much easier time getting through the peer review process. Meanwhile research that contradicted the paradigm was subject to much greater scrutiny and thus had a harder time making it through the peer review sieve. Scientists are human too and not free from confirmation bias.

But for now, regardless of the motivations of the researchers, damage has been done. How can the world of climate science recover?...

http://reason.com/archives/2009/12/01/the-scientific-tragedy-of-clim

"Climategate" -- Forget the Emails: What Will the Hacked Documents Tell Us?
Ronald Bailey | November 25, 2009

Last week thousands of emails and documents were hacked from the British Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia. The emails revealed a lot of scientific nastiness and some efforts to suppress climate research with which CRU leaders disagreed.

But I've been wondering what insights about how climate data is put together by CRU researchers the hacked documents and models might hold?

http://reason.com/blog/2009/11/25/climategate-forget-the-emails

It's Not Exactly "Climategate" But ....
Ronald Bailey | November 23, 2009

http://reason.com/blog/2009/11/23/its-not-exactly-climategate-bu

December 1, 2009
‘Reason’ on the Real Tragedy of Climategate
Posted by Lew Rockwell on December 1, 2009 11:30 PM
According to Reason magazine’s head science writer Ronald Bailey, in his December 1 lead story, “the real tragedy of the Climategate scandal is that a lack of confidence in climate data will seriously impair mankind’s ability to assess and react properly to a potentially huge problem.”

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/44111.html

No Hole in the Blogosphere: Tracking Climate-Gate
By Daniel Foster

Update: 12/2 11:18 A.M.: Reason magazine's science correspondent Ronald Bailey provides a sober, even-handed assessment of the facts of the ClimateGate case that is great for anybody just catching up. In the second half of the piece, Bailey suggests steps that must be taken to reform the way climate science is practiced.

http://www.nationalreview.com/onthenews/?q=ZTI3Njg5NTk3MzgwYjI3MWRmMTVmYjFkYWNiYjZhNmU=