Scott Spiegel

“House leaders have concluded they cannot change a divisive abortion provision in President Barack Obama’s health care bill and will try to pass the sweeping legislation without the support of ardent anti-abortion Democrats…

“Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman of California, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, said the leadership will press ahead without reworking the abortion provision, which opponents say falls short in restricting taxpayer dollars for abortion coverage…

“The current plan is for the House to approve the Senate-passed bill from late last year… Both houses then would pass a second bill immediately, making changes in the first measure before both could take effect. The second bill would be debated under rules that bar a filibuster…

“That strategy would leave in place the Senate language on abortion. It would allow health plans receiving federal subsidies in a new insurance marketplace to cover abortion, provided they pay for it only with money collected from policyholders…

“Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., has been pushing for the stricter House provisions, saying that he and a dozen or so abortion opponents would vote against the health care bill if the Senate language is retained.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100311/ap_on_bi_ge/us_health_care_overhaul

“Green Zone comes from the British production company Working Title and English director Paul Greengrass, but it stars American actor Matt Damon and represents the new phenomenon of homegrown Anti-Americanism… Greengrass and Damon concoct a Bush-bashing action movie that (way-late into Obama’s first term and continuance of the war) pretends to rip the lid off the Iraq War’s Weapons of Mass Destruction concept. ‘Shock and Awe’ is mentioned to cue audience skepticism, yet that’s also how Working Title, Greengrass and Damon work: They use mainstream movie industry shock-and-awe to brainwash audience sympathy…

“Damon portrays Sgt. Ray Miller… chosen to find WMDs in the first days of the U.S. invasion of Baghdad. When his first assignment comes up empty, Miller is instantly skeptical—like a reader of The Nation…

“Miller’s a phantom figure with neither personal background nor political motivation. He’s simply correct; the kind of protagonist that could only arise from the Left’s Bush-era sense of resentment and self-righteousness…

“Stuck in Bush-era cynicism, Greengrass and Damon ignore the success of the military surge but question the legitimacy of WMD claims…

“Miller appeals to those hung up on WMDs yet complacent about Saddam Hussein’s treachery and willfully naive about American political interests. The big problem Green Zone… represents is that these filmmakers, like the makers of The Hurt Locker, no longer know how to characterize heroism. The Hurt Locker’s psychotic G.I. now proves his moral superiority in Green Zone by becoming a traitorous/valorous spy.”

http://www.nypress.com/article-20994-bourne-a-spy.html

“Everyone knows Democrats are planning to use the budget reconciliation process to get ObamaCare through the Senate. Less well known is that Democrats are plotting add-ons to that bill to get other liberal priorities enacted—programs that could never attract 60 votes.

“One of these controversial measures rewrites the Higher Education Act to ban private companies from offering federally guaranteed student loans as of this July…

“The Democratic plan is to make this public option the only option mere days before colleges send out their financial aid packages to incoming students…

“Both the House-passed bill and the President’s budget increase Pell Grants and also create automatic future increases, so individual grants will grow faster than inflation every year. Colleges will pocket the money by raising tuition, so we have yet another federal program ensuring that higher education costs continue to rise even faster than health-care spending…

“‘Various changes that the President proposes to the Pell Grant program would add another $0.2 trillion to the deficit between 2011 and 2020,’ CBO said Friday. That could turn out to be a very optimistic estimate if unemployment remains high and more people seize the educational opportunity to which they have just become entitled.”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704187204575101663745849200.html

“‘Rahm Emanuel is son of the devil’s spawn,’ Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) said. ‘He is an individual who would sell his mother to get a vote. He would strap his children to the front end of a steam locomotive.’

“Rep. Massa describes a confrontation with Emanuel in a shower: ‘I am showering, naked as a jaybird, and here comes Rahm Emanuel, not even with a towel wrapped around his tush, poking his finger in my chest, yelling at me.’”

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/03/08/massa_rahm_emanuel_would_sell_his_own_mother_for_votes.html

“A man of 22 died in agony of dehydration after three days in a leading teaching hospital.

“Kane Gorny was so desperate for a drink that he rang police to beg for their help.

“They arrived on the ward only to be told by doctors that everything was under control.

“The next day his mother Rita Cronin found him delirious and he died within hours…

“Sources say they are investigating the possibility of a corporate manslaughter charge against St George’s Hospital in Tooting, South London…

“His mother added: ‘When I went back to the hospital I was told that all the nurses had been offered counselling as they were so traumatised, but nothing was offered to me…’

“The tragedy emerged a week after a report into hundreds of deaths at Stafford Hospital revealed the appalling quality of care given by many of the nurses.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1255858/Neglected-lazy-nurses-Kane-Gorny-22-dying-thirst-rang-police-beg-water.html

“We now have new evidence that the campaign against Toyota is a media-manufactured and U.S. government-led sham. It’s a report from Edmunds.com that shows Toyota is not–not–the subject of soaring owner complaints…

“The only thing escalating here is the media’s anti-Toyota bias, with Congress and transport officials ready to provide the cover…

“[C]omplaints against Toyota [rose] from about 1,200 a year in 1999 to 3,500 in 2008 and then to 4,900 in 2009. But such numbers are useless in themselves if they are not paired with Toyota’s rising sales and its growing share of the market…

“Out of 20 auto makers, Toyota ranked among the lowest –17th, in fact–in complaints as a percentage of market share…  Toyota is easily the best among the mass-market auto firms against which it competes and well ahead of the North American makers (Government Motors #11, Ford #10 and Chrysler #7).

“My bet is that as more and more facts emerge on the Toyota story, the more Toyota may emerge as a victim. And if that proves to be true, Toyota will emerge stronger than ever in the minds of U.S. consumers. And that would mean tougher times for Government Motors and Chrysler.”

http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2010/02/12/toyota-more-evidence-of-media-thuggery.aspx

“The Supreme Court is wrestling with a major case questioning whether Chicago’s handgun ban violates the Second Amendment, but 69% of Americans say city governments do not have the right to prevent citizens from owning such guns…

“These findings are unchanged from June 2008 just before the Supreme Court overturned a Washington, D.C. law banning handguns in that city. That decision also prompted an increase in the high court’s favorability ratings. Sizable majorities of Americans across virtually all demographic lines, including age, income, gender, race and political affiliation, share the belief that cities do not have the right to ban handgun ownership.

“In part, that’s because 70% of all adults believe the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right of an average citizen to own a gun.”

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/gun_control/69_say_cities_don_t_have_right_to_ban_handguns

“Today’s completely uncritical promotion of the Academy Awards in the mainstream media makes it unlikely that moviegoers will ever entertain a skeptical thought. Most media outlets treat the Oscars with nearly patriotic fervor—as the issue most important to all Americans, with Obamacare perhaps coming in second place…

“Old-time cynics used to say that the Oscars were simply Hollywood’s way of congratulating itself, using the awards to gain box-office attention for the industry’s product. Now, no media pundit would dare admit that promoting Oscars proves how journalism has capitulated to the film industry…

“[Kathryn Bigelow] now receives retroactive esteem for The Hurt Locker, the Iraq War action film that critic Gregory Solman nailed as ‘totally unexceptional.’ It is worst than inexact when critics call it ‘One of the best war films ever made.’ Any appreciation of Bigelow’s artistic ambitions and psychosexual, gender-bending sensibility forces one to understand that The Hurt Locker is not a war film but another of her explorations into the masculine thrill complex. It is disingenuous to use The Hurt Locker as an opportunity to comment upon the Iraq War—hijacking its dubious treatment on combat as a mental dysfunction (‘War is a Drug’) beyond Bigelow’s deliberately noncommittal stance.”

http://www.nypress.com/article-20967-wake-up-and-smell-the-oscars-they-stink_.html

“A man freed from Guantanamo more than two years ago after he claimed he only wanted to go home and help his family is now a senior commander running Taliban resistance to the U.S.-led offensive in southern Afghanistan, two senior Afghan intelligence officials say.

“Abdul Qayyum is also seen as a leading candidate to be the next No. 2 in the Afghan Taliban hierarchy, said the officials, interviewed last week by The Associated Press…

“U.S. intelligence asserts that 20 percent of suspects released from the Guantanamo Bay prison have returned to the fight and the number has been steadily increasing.

“Qayyum’s key aide in plotting attacks on Afghan and international forces is another former Guantanamo prisoner, said the Afghan intelligence officials as well as a former Helmand governor, Sher Mohammed Akundzada. Abdul Rauf, who told his U.S. interrogators he had only loose connections to the Taliban, spent time in an Afghan jail before being freed last year.

“He rejoined the Taliban, they said. Akundzada said he warned authorities against releasing both him and Qayyum.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100304/ap_on_re_as/as_from_gitmo_to_battle;_ylt=Arv2oYUCogiHyowjx19z8pZ0fNdF

“Obama and the Democrats face problems with both public opinion — their bills are hugely unpopular — and with legislative procedure. The problem with public opinion has been undeniable since Republican Sen. Scott Brown’s victory five weeks ago in Massachusetts. The problem with legislative procedure is more complex.

“Democrats could theoretically solve that problem by having the House pass the Senate bill in toto, ready for Obama’s signature. But Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has proved herself a fine vote-counter, doesn’t have the votes…

“So the House wants the Senate to go first and pass changes to its bill through the reconciliation process that requires 51 rather than 60 votes. But Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad says that you can’t use reconciliation on a bill that hasn’t already become law. And reconciliation is probably not available on abortion issues…

“Last month, we were told that Obama would switch his focus from health care to jobs. But Democrats have spent February and seem about to spend March focusing on health care. It’s hard to see how they can navigate the legislative process successfully — and even harder to see how they turn around public opinion.”

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/03/01/dems_health_strategy_doesnt_add_up_to_a_win_104584.html