Cleo's Mom

Get a copy of your operative report and discuss this with your surgeon.

After all you went through I don't know how anyone could think it was you. You had a defective port. Now that you have a new port maybe things will improve over time. Sounds like you have a good doctor and it is his job to get the band to work the way it should - that is - the proper restriction that is the sweet spot. When the band works as it should and you do your part then the whole thing works. But the band not working as it should is a bigger problem than most on these boards are willing to admit. Many are very critical of those who struggle.

Just so typical of teabagger endorsed candidates - their hypocrisy is staggering and it appears Rand Paul is one of the biggest hypocrites. Rand Paul: Don't Cut my Government Money Boy, Rand Paul is fitting in very nicely in the hypocritical Republican Party of Kentucky. You know, the Republican Party that is against any government spending unless of course that spending is going to Corporate Welfare for the greediest and least patriotic among us as they outsource our jobs and cut wages. In the case of Rand Paul, he wants to slash government spending except of course the government spending that has made him rich. Yes, Paul is calling for slashing government spending that goes to benefit you, but when someone threatens his own right to slop at the government trough, that is where the mad doctor draws the line. You see as an eye doctor Paul has become quite fat at the expense of government programs. Far from "cutting waste" he even requested more money from the government than was allowed, causing disputed payments: But as a Bowling Green eye surgeon, Paul built his medical practice on payments from Medicare and Medicaid, the massive government health care programs considered to be leading contributors to the national debt. Paul, the Republican nominee, has been paid $130,461 in Medicaid funds since 2006, about one-third of the sum that he billed the program, according to the state Cabinet for Health and Family Services, which administers that program. Doctors' Medicaid billings often are disputed in part, leading to smaller payments than they requested. And while he calls for the abolition of the Education Department to help educate children, wants to cut government programs that help the unemployed, disabled and would allow business owners to discriminate not surprisingly as a true Kentucky Republican hypocrite there is one group he thinks should be subsidized by the government: "Physicians should be allowed to make a comfortable living," Paul told supporters in Louisville in May, according to the Wall Street Journal. Just like the tea-baggers who nominated him and want to "keep government hands off their Medicare" so goes Rand Paul. While he wants to cut any program that helps the poor, unemployed, farmers, the disabled, and practically anyone else, his own funds leeched off the government are just fine and dandy. This was not lost on the campaign of Jack Conway, the only candidate in this race who has actually SAVED the taxpayers money, not hypocritically taken it from them: "Medicare must be preserved and, as attorney general, Jack Conway has built a strong record protecting Medicaid by increasing fraud collections by 600 percent," Conway spokeswoman Allison Haley said. "On the other hand," Haley said, "Rand Paul is once again displaying his hypocrisy by advocating cutting scholarships to our children, aid to farmers and nearly every other government program except the ones that line his own pocket." Be careful what you wish for Kentucky, it might come true. If Rand Paul is elected he will fight against the programs that benefit you and for the money that flows from the government into his own bank account. He will hypocritically dole out Corporate Welfare to those who outsource jobs and slash wages while leaving our poor, disabled, and Kentucky farmers hanging out to dry. In that sense Rand Paul is going to fit in quite nicely with the greediest and least patriotic among us. dailykos

This healthcare bill is not perfect. It would have been so much better if it had contained a public option or just offered a medicare buy in but it didn't do either so the insurance companies still have pretty much carte blanche to raise rates. But the following changes are good changes: 48 million uninsured Americans will have new, affordable insurance options Through the new health insurance exchanges or through employers, Americans will be able to purchase affordable health coverage at lower rates, and many will be eligible for tax credits to help lower costs. Tax credits for up to 29 million individuals to help pay for health insurance Starting in 2014, middle-class families and individuals who don't have insurance through work can get tax credits to help them buy affordable coverage on the new health insurance exchanges. 5.6 million people with pre-existing conditions will no longer be denied insurance Starting this year, children will no longer be denied insurance due to pre-existing conditions, and adults with pre-existing conditions will have access to a temporary high-risk insurance pool. Starting in 2014, discrimination against pre-existing conditions will be banned completely. 500,000 families saved from bankruptcy in just one year In 2007, 62% of all bankruptcies filed in the United States were linked to medical expenses. Health reform will prevent bankruptcies by capping annual out-of-pocket costs for families who receive insurance through the exchanges or a small business. Tax cuts for up to 3.5 million small businesses to help pay for employee coverage Employers who choose to offer employees health insurance can receive tax cuts of up to 35% of premiums this year, and up to 50% in 2014. More than 60% of small employers will be eligible for these tax cuts.

He never said plans wouldn't change. That was the whole point - to end insurance abuses. Duh. But if your employer chooses to continue to offer you the same plan (with the implemented changes) they can - or a different plan -it is up to your employer, like it's always been, even before this healthcare plan. Only an idiot would be opposed to changes in his/her healthcare plan that ends abuses. No, no, give me the same plan that allows them to drop me when I get sick. No, I want the plan that allow them to not cover pre-existing conditions for my cancer stricken son. No, please give me the plan that kicks my children off at age 18. Maybe they should offer a separate plan continuing and containing all the abuses to all those neocons who seem to prefer it.

Obama never promised that the greedy insurance companies wouldn't try to raise rates. The only thing that would have had REAL cost controls in this bill would have been the public option. But you neocons didn't want that and now you are going to complain about the rising costs? What typical neocon hypocrisy. Of course those plans not grandfathered will have to change. That was the whole point of the healthcare. To offer it to the uninsured and to end insurance abuses. If the new plans don't reflect the end of the abuses, then what is the point? If the healthcare plans don't reflect the new rules about covering pre-existing conditions, covering children to age 26 and not dropping you when you get sick, then what would be the point? Seriously, I don't understand what is so hard to get here. Why would anyone think we passed the healthcare with new consumer protection and then the plans would continue to abuse? Very strange logic and thinking among those who don't get it.

Before the healthcare bill passed I did not have the option of changing my plan unless I opted out of the employer sponsored plan and bought my own. That hasn't changed now. And yes, it makes a HUGE difference who provides your plan. If you get your insurance through your employer, then your employer has always decided your plan, unless you negotiate for it. And yes, the employer can keep the current plan that it offers you, like it always has been able to do, and the employer has the right to change that plan, like they have always been able to do. This healthcare plan doesn't change this. I don't know what is so hard to understand. Geez

Caution: Cut & Paste to follow - but from an award winning economist. Pain without a cause: It's not a good time to throw more people out of work Saturday, June 12, 2010 By Paul Krugman What's the greatest threat to our still-fragile economic recovery? Dangers abound, of course. But what I currently find most ominous is the spread of a destructive idea: The view that now, less than a year into a weak recovery from the worst slump since World War II, is the time for policy makers to stop helping the jobless and start inflicting pain. When the financial crisis first struck, most of the world's policy makers responded appropriately, cutting interest rates and allowing deficits to rise. And by doing the right thing, by applying the lessons learned from the 1930s, they managed to limit the damage: It was terrible, but it wasn't a second Great Depression. Now, however, demands that governments switch from supporting their economies to punishing them have been proliferating in op-eds, speeches and reports from international organizations. Indeed, the idea that what depressed economies really need is even more suffering seems to be the new conventional wisdom, not new on these boards, the neocons have been yapping about it since Obama got elected. which John Kenneth Galbraith famously defined as "the ideas which are esteemed at any time for their acceptability." The extent to which inflicting economic pain has become the accepted thing was driven home to me by the latest report on the economic outlook from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an influential Paris-based think tank supported by the governments of the world's advanced economies. The OECD is a deeply cautious organization; what it says at any given time virtually defines that moment's conventional wisdom. And what the OECD is saying right now is that policy makers should stop promoting economic recovery and instead begin raising interest rates and slashing spending. What's particularly remarkable about this recommendation is that it seems disconnected not only from the real needs of the world economy, but from the organization's own economic projections. Thus, the OECD declares that interest rates in the United States and other nations should rise sharply over the next year and a half, so as to head off inflation. Yet inflation is low and declining, and the OECD's own forecasts show no hint of an inflationary threat. So why raise rates? Why indeed? The answer, as best I can make it out, is that the organization believes that we must worry about the chance that markets might start expecting inflation, even though they shouldn't and currently don't: We must guard against "the possibility that longer-term inflation expectations could become unanchored in the OECD economies, contrary to what is assumed in the central projection." A similar argument is used to justify fiscal austerity. Both textbook economics and experience say that slashing spending when you're still suffering from high unemployment is a really bad idea No kidding!!-- not only does it deepen the slump, but it does little to improve the budget outlook, because much of what governments save by spending less they lose as a weaker economy depresses tax receipts. And the OECD predicts that high unemployment will persist for years. Nonetheless, the organization demands both that governments cancel any further plans for economic stimulus and that they begin "fiscal consolidation" next year. Why do this? Again, to give markets something they shouldn't want and currently don't. Right now, investors don't seem at all worried about the solvency of the U.S. government; the interest rates on federal bonds are near historic lows. And even if markets were worried about U.S. fiscal prospects, spending cuts in the face of a depressed economy would do little to improve those prospects. But cut we must, says the OECD, because inadequate consolidation efforts "would risk adverse reactions in financial markets." The best summary I've seen of all this comes from Martin Wolf of The Financial Times, who describes the new conventional wisdom as being that "giving the markets what we think they may want in future -- even though they show little sign of insisting on it now -- should be the ruling idea in policy." Put that way, it sounds crazy. And it is. Yet it's a view that's spreading. And it's already having ugly consequences. Last week conservative members of the U.S. House of Representatives, invoking the new deficit fears, scaled back a bill extending aid to the long-term unemployed -- and the Senate left town without acting on even the inadequate measures that remained. As a result, many American families are about to lose unemployment benefits, health insurance or both -- and as these families are forced to slash spending, they will endanger the jobs of many more. And that's just the beginning. More and more, conventional wisdom says that the responsible thing is to make the unemployed suffer. And while the benefits from inflicting pain are an illusion, the pain itself will be all too real. Paul Krugman is a syndicated columnist for The New York Times.

At least my posts are facts and not some opinion of some bloated windbag on the right predicting gloom and doom around every corner.

Yes, I heard he is putting the country up for sale to the highest bidder. Get ready to learn Chinese. Didn't you hear him run on bankrupting this country when he was a candidate? Oh, wait, that wasn't him. How stupid of me (the sound you hear is me smacking my forehead)!! That was bush who turned a surplus into a deficit and drove this country into bankruptcy, and a near depression with all his unnecessary spending and tax cuts that didn't do one thing for this country. NOT ONE THING. At least Pres. Obama's spending is getting us out of the bush recession. I am so glad he's at the helm. Well, here will follow PG's cut and paste about Obama's spending and then I will follow with how much of it is to pay for bush's programs. etc..etc..etc... Yawn.

The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, which the president created through an executive order in February, is charged with developing a plan by December 1 that would stabilize the budget deficit by 2015 and reduce the federal debt over the long term. The group is widely expected to consider a combination of tax reforms and spending cuts. But despite the weighty demands, the panel has only a fraction of the staff and budget of standing congressional committees. The panel’s own cochairs and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., have criticized the meager resources and called for more support. … According to fiscal commission staffers, there are 10 to 15 people who work for the commission, including two full-time employees, interns, employees “borrowed”from other agencies such as the Office of Management and Budget and the Treasury Department, and special government employees, who are expected to work no more than 130 days in a calendar year. The number of workers will likely grow to around 20 by midsummer. The White House has set aside the resources to provide the equivalent of four full-time salaries and $500,000 in operating costs for the commission, fiscal commission Executive Director Bruce Reed told Tax Analysts.

When you think about ways to tame the nation's long-term deficit, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Slashing benefits for the old and sick? :frown: Or taking a few whacks at the spectacularly bloated defense budget? The former option has, somehow, become the default position for Washington's ruling class, including President Obama's deficit commission. But in April, a bipartisan group of iconoclasts in Congress led by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) formed their own task force to examine the latter possibility. The group of defense experts released their report on Friday, identifying nearly $1 trillion in defense budget cuts over the next 10 years that could contribute to deficit reduction "while not compromising the essential security of the United States." Among the possible reductions cited in the report: • Over $113 billion in savings by reducing the U.S. nuclear arsenal to 1,050 total warheads deployed on 450 land-based missiles and seven Ohio-class submarines; • Over $200 billion in savings by reducing U.S. routine military presence in Europe and Asia to 100,000 while reducing total uniformed military personnel to 1.3 million; • Over $138 billion in savings by replacing costly and unworkable weapons systems with more practical, affordable alternatives. Suggested cuts would include the F-35 combat aircraft, the MV-22 Osprey, and the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. • Over $60 billion in savings by reforming military health care; and • Over $100 billion in savings by cutting unnecessary command, support and infrastructure funding. Deficit hawkery appears to be overwhelming official Washington, despite the fact that the lackluster economy is sending clear signals even to the likes of non-radical Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that the last thing the nation needs right now is government spending cuts. Even so, the defense budget seems off limits. Despite some lip service from the deficit commission, there is no serious indication that the requisite 14 of the group's 18 members will agree on anything that would involve defense cuts. Now, these are budget cuts that I can support, but of course it's a lot easier to pick on the least among us who don't have a voice (lobbyists) while the defense contractors have thousands of lobbyists making sure they continue to get those government contracts.

You'll have to be very specific in explaining how the money that the government spent on the stimulus came from the businesses pockets, unless they mean that it was less direct GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIES for them. That's what they really want - they don't mind government spending as long as it goes directly to them. :frown: They aren't hiring because there is less demand for their products or services and that is because of the unemployment rate and because the middle class has less buying power due to net wage loss.

So, it's still government spending, but the private businesses want it to go directly to them. They want government involvement when they have their hands out, otherwise, they don't.

Good. She might be able to help. She specializes in rescuing kittens and then posting their pictures online for adoption. Good luck.

Well, while you continue to be Debbie Downer :sad: , I will just continue to post the facts. The vast majority of May's new jobs (411,000, or 95%) were temporary Census jobs that will disappear over the summer. Adding a mere 41,000 jobs, the private sector saw slower growth than it had in the prior three months, when the average was 146,000 a month. This May's modest gain in the private sector was a huge improvement over the loss of 334,000 private sector jobs in May 2009, but it is nowhere near a level that will put this country's 15 million unemployed workers back to work anytime soon. 41,000 jobs is 41,000 jobs and it's still in the plus column as opposed to all the job losses that occured before Pres. Obama's economic agenda. And I'm pretty sure those 41,000 are happy to have jobs, not to mention those who didn't lose their jobs.

So what that they're temporary? They still pay taxes and use their paychecks to buy things which is good for the economy. That's what moves the economy - when people buy things. And the jobs that weren't census were permanent private sector jobs - again pointing out that even if it's only 1 job in the plus column it is better than a negative loss, and it was more than one job and it was the 4th straight month of positive job growth. For people who understand the economy, that is a good indicator.

In the top right corner where it says: welcome loserbob, below it click private messages. Then click "unread private messages" or it that doesn't work, after you click private messages, there might just be a list in blue of PM's - click on mine (rescue kittens).

Add to that, this: Economic picture rosiest yet, Fed says All regions improve for first time since 2007 Thursday, June 10, 2010 For the first time since before the onset of the recession in December 2007, economic conditions have improved over the past eight weeks across all 12 regions tracked by the Federal Reserve, according to a report issued Wednesday by the central bank. Although many of the districts described the pace of growth as "modest," it is nonetheless a promising sign that, although the nation's economic recovery is slow, it is still on track. The Fed survey known as the Beige Book is based on information collected from the Fed's 12 regional banks on or before May 28 and is largely an anecdotal compilation of economic data from each district. Nationally, he said, gross domestic product is growing in a moderate or half-speed mode, and he expects that to continue through the remainder of this year. While testifying Wednesday before the House Budget Committee in Washington, D.C., Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress that the European debt crisis is likely to have only a modest impact on the recovery as long as Wall Street stabilizes. "The economy ... appears to be on track to continue to expand through this year and next," Mr. Bernanke said. While it can't be entirely ruled out that the country could slide back into a "double dip" recession, he predicted the "economy will continue to recover at a moderate pace." Auto dealers reported a moderate improvement, but retailers in the Fourth District -- which includes Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, the northern panhandle of West Virginia and eastern Kentucky -- saw their rate of sales growth slow. Although reports indicate a better-than-expected rise in freight transport volume, energy production was mixed. Demand by businesses and consumers for new loans remains weak, the report said, while some bankers commented that the lending environment is starting to grow more competitive. There was a broad-based pickup in employment in the manufacturing sector, where businesses are recalling workers and increasing production hours. Staffing firm representatives had mixed reports on the number of new job openings, with opportunities concentrated in the health care field. But don't expect any credit from the anti-Obama people who will only continue with their gloom & doom.

Mark Kirk might risk discharge and even jailtime Thu Jun 10, 2010 at 05:07:38 AM PDT Look like the gods just don't seem to give GOP Nominee Mark Kirk a break these days. First, the Washington Post broke the story about his false military records weeks ago. Then Rachel Maddow found more lies told by Mark Kirk. In fact, in the latest twist in the Mark Kirk fiasco, the Illinois Senate candidate appears to have violated military regulations by campaigning while on active duty. The The Huffington Post is reporting that Mark Kirk might risk discharge and maybe jailtime because he campaigned while in active duty. If Kirk did indeed campaign while serving, as a newly released Department of Defense memo suggests, the offense would be punishable by up to two years of confinement and dishonorable discharge from the military. The memo was released to the Nitpicker blog. Here the some highlight of the memo from the Pentagon obtained by Nitpicker Blog : As a candidate for the vacant Senate seat in Illinois, Commander Kirk must complete the appropriate acknowledgment of limitations required for all candidates on active duty (DoDD 1344.10, paragraph 4.3.5.). Ordinarily this acknowledgment must be completed within 15 days of entering active duty. Because of the short period of active duty and concerns arising from his partisan political activities during his last two tours of active duty, Commander Kirk must complete this form prior to his entry on active duty. Here more, The Capitol Fax blog's Rich Miller is pointing out that last summer on his twitter page, Mark Kirk tweeted: "Back on duty in the National Military Command Center - lets hope for a calm day for our troops," Since it took days to the MSM to even report on Mark Kirk's lies, I won't hold my breathe on this new scandal Bad news for Mark Kirk ? dailykos

That's right. Those who are smart can see that we've had four months of positive job growth, regardless of how few jobs were added this past month. They were on the plus side, which contrasts sharply with the 700,000 jobs being lost each month under the bush regime. Those who are anti-Obama will just focus on how many jobs created were census jobs. Just another deflection from the fact that Obama's economic stimulus and agenda are working and the republicans have zip to offer.

I have a cat, my son has a cat, my daughter has 3 cats and a dog - all rescues. We are all big animal lovers. My daughter just had her first child, my first grandchild. And I kept telling her how she would love him more than her pets. That her love for her pets would pale in comparison. She didn't think it was possible until she had him and now admits I was right. Now, about the kittens - there is a lady with a group that does rescues. I will PM you with the info. Good for you that you helped with that kitten.

Not possible. Also, when it comes to animal rights and people rights (or their care) I don't believe it has to be an either/or situation. There is room for both. I support the ASPCA, the local food bank, a homeless shelter and a child through Save the Children.