Cleo's Mom

Get a copy of the operative report for when the surgeon removed the band. Make an appt. with this surgeon when he returns and tell him you want the port removed at NO cost to you, including the hosptial and anesthesiologist's fee. And get it in writing. If not, then tell them you want ALL your records from all the procedures and you will be seeking legal advice.

Now that Lieberman is no longer the coveted 60th vote, if I were Harry Reid I would not only strip him of all chairmanships but I would relegate him to a windowless basement office with only a bare lightbulb overhead. Then he could turn republican and see how important he is there. Who cares about him anyway? I always thought he talked like the husband/father on that show "Alf". If the political winds show him losing he will just retire and then he can become a lobbyist for the insurance industry. Oops, he already is :cursing:.

From Cleo's Mom: Sorry, but the hypocrisy is all on the side of the republicans. I don't recall anyone on this thread saying they hated Sarah Palin. From Pattygreen: And I don't recall anyone saying that they hated Obama. Yet that is what you constantly say about those who oppose his policies. Do you really want me to post the pictures of the teabaggers and their signs starting with the one with the N word 38 days after Obama took office - long BEFORE any policies took effect? Plenty of hate in them there signs!!! And you're the one who used the hate word when you started this thread.

Sorry, but the hypocrisy is all on the side of the republicans. I don't recall anyone on this thread saying they hated Sarah Palin. But I have seen plenty of opinions, and facts to back them up, as to why she is unqualified to be president. SHE IS DUMB. We did dumb for 8 years under bush with tragic consequences for which we are still digging out from and which will take many more years. In addition to being dumb, she has a smart mouth and has nothing to offer but sarcasm. That's just what we need - a smart mouthed, sarcastic president. Plus dropping all the ing's on all her words. You betcha! Pleassseee. She asked "how's that hope-y, change-y" thing working for you? Well, my charts on the conservative liberal thread say it all. It's working well for me and for americans. And BTW, haven't heard too much yapping from the right since the unemployment DROPPED in January to 9.7. Sarah Palin is the gift that keeps on giving.:cursing:

I disproved the panic about the deficits with the above post by Paul Krugman. Now, the following (from dailykos) shows with charts and graphs the difference between bush and Pres. Obama. For those who think bush's policies don't matter anymore. Yeah, they do. Every day we're trying to climb out of the hole he put us in. And it's going to take years.

Well, the "experienced" (so you say), but stupid and poorly spoken bush ran this country into the ground and it will take us a long time to dig our way out of it. Those of you on the right can try to re-write history but you can't. And historians will remember bush for being one of the worst presidents of our time. Obama is head and shoulders above any of the republicans currently serving this country in any capacity. He is smart, level-headed, reasonable and keeps his cool. When he gave a major smack down to the republicans at their GOP retreat that was televized, it showed american who really had a grasp of our problems. Now he has challenged the republicans to discuss, ON TV, their healthcare ideas. I sure want to see that (it will probably involve a tax cut, somehow, as that is their only solution.) I say let's televise all the no votes by the republicans and their filibusters - show america how the party of no helps solves the problems. The jobs bill is paid back TARP money that will go to banks for loans to small businesses (which they need) and for tax cuts of $6000 for each new employee they hire.(which they also say they need). Those new buses had to come from somewhere. They didn't hatch out of an egg. The manufacturer of the buses might have hired more workers. So it increased the manufacturer's business. Multiply that by all the stimulus money that is being used across the country. You still don't understand the concept of tax money that goes to DC and then is distributed via your congressman. That is his/her job. To go to DC and bring money back to his/her district. It's federal money. States and local entities get these dollars, in ADDITION to money they raise. But they can't possibly pay for all the things they need with local taxes only. I'm just sitting back, though, and having a good laugh at the "leader" of the tea party - Sarah Palin, who talks to her hand. Or rather, reads from her hand. And this from the woman who has made smart mouthed comments about Pres. Obama reading from the telepromter. What a hypocrite!!! But then, what else do they have other than hypocrisy???

I agree, BJean. There has always been a group of people who have never accepted Obama as president. They were fractuous. But then in August when the healthcare reform wasn't passed (as it should have been except for that dumba$$ Baucus let it linger) and the reps went home to townhall meetings, this fractuous group found their forum and then the big money people got to organizing them. Now the group is a hodgepodge of all kind of people whose common denominator is hatred of Obama. They hide behind deficits, spending and other issues, but that's what it's all about. And the republicans have seized upon this movement and fed off of it, but at the weekend tea party convention, Sarah Palin told them to tone down the rhetoric and they were told not to have all those hateful signs. Because they just look like a lot of angry, hate filled lunatics, which they are. Too late, that ship has already sailed. No putting that toothpaste back in the tube.

So true, BJean, but apparently being the party of no is working for them. They are looking forward to big gains in the 2010 election. Apparently doing nothing and being obstructionists is popular with people. Like Obama said, if all you want it popularity and care about poll numbers, then don't tackle the tough problems, and just do nothing.

Paul Krugman, a noble prize winning economist, writes the following (my emphasis): Paul Krugman: The deficit ploy All the scary noise about deficits is just that: noise Saturday, February 06, 2010 These days it's hard to pick up a newspaper or turn on a news program without encountering stern warnings about the federal budget deficit. The deficit threatens economic recovery, we're told; it puts American economic stability at risk; it will undermine our influence in the world. These claims generally aren't stated as opinions, as views held by some analysts but disputed by others. Instead, they're reported as if they were facts, plain and simple. Yet they aren't facts. Many economists take a much calmer view of budget deficits than anything you'll see on TV. Nor do investors seem unduly concerned: U.S. government bonds continue to find ready buyers, even at historically low interest rates. The long-run budget outlook is problematic, but short-term deficits aren't -- and even the long-term outlook is much less frightening than the public is being led to believe. So why the sudden ubiquity of deficit scare stories? It isn't being driven by actual news. It has been obvious for at least a year that the U.S. government would face an extended period of large deficits and projections of those deficits haven't changed much since last summer. Yet the drumbeat of dire fiscal warnings has grown vastly louder. To me -- and I'm not alone in this -- the sudden outbreak of deficit hysteria brings back memories of the groupthink that took hold during the run-up to the Iraq war. Now, as then, dubious allegations, not backed by hard evidence, are being reported as if they have been established beyond a shadow of a doubt. Now, as then, much of the political and media establishments have bought into the notion that we must take drastic action quickly, even though there hasn't been any new information to justify this sudden urgency. Now, as then, those who challenge the prevailing narrative, no matter how strong their case and no matter how solid their background, are being marginalized. Fear-mongering on the deficit may end up doing as much harm as the fear-mongering on weapons of mass destruction. Let's talk for a moment about budget reality. Contrary to what you often hear, the large deficit that the federal government is running right now isn't the result of runaway spending growth. Instead, well more than half of the deficit was caused by the ongoing economic crisis, which has led to a plunge in tax receipts, required federal bailouts of financial institutions and been met -- appropriately -- with temporary measures to stimulate growth and support employment. The point is that running big deficits in the face of the worst economic slump since the 1930s is actually the right thing to do. If anything, deficits should be bigger than they are because the government should be doing more than it is to create jobs. True, there is a longer-term budget problem. Even a full economic recovery wouldn't balance the budget, and it probably wouldn't even reduce the deficit to a permanently sustainable level. So once the economic crisis is past, the U.S. government will have to increase its revenue and control its costs. And in the long run there's no way to make the budget math work unless something is done about health care costs. But there's no reason to panic about budget prospects for the next few years, or even for the next decade. Consider, for example, what the latest budget proposal from the Obama administration says about interest payments on federal debt; according to the projections, a decade from now they'll have risen to 3.5 percent of GDP. How scary is that? It's about the same as interest costs under the first President George Bush. Why, then, all the hysteria? The answer is politics. The main difference between last summer, when we were mostly (and appropriately) taking deficits in stride, and the current sense of panic is that deficit fear-mongering has become a key part of Republican political strategy, doing double duty: It damages President Barack Obama's image even as it cripples his policy agenda. And if the hypocrisy is breathtaking -- politicians who voted for budget-busting tax cuts posing as apostles of fiscal rectitude, politicians demonizing attempts to rein in Medicare costs one day (death panels!), then denouncing excessive government spending the next -- well, what else is new? The trouble, however, is that it's apparently hard for many people to tell the difference between cynical posturing and serious economic argument. And that is having tragic consequences. Thanks to deficit hysteria, Washington has its priorities all wrong: All the talk is about how to shave a few billion dollars off government spending, while there's hardly any willingness to tackle mass unemployment. Policy is headed in the wrong direction -- and millions of Americans will pay the price. So, you see, all that yapping coming from the right about deficits is just fear-mongering in attempts to win political points, defeat Obama and his agenda and win elections, and not grounded in economic legitimacy.

Here's the video of Sarah Palin "reading to the hand". Can you imagine the outrage if Pres. Obama had done something like that? Daily Kos: HandPrompter Hilarity: Read The Words on Palin's Hand Also, file this under more republican hypocrisy: Palin wants Rahm Emmanuel fired for privately using the word retarded (he has since apologized and it was accepted) while rush and beck have used the word "retard" in a demeanig way and she hasn't asked for them to be fired or for an apology.

Here's Sarah at her "finest" (or worst?). Also, if you saw her at the tea party convention, you would have seen that the only think she has going for her is mockery and sarcasm. That's exactly what this country needs - a brainless, mocking, sarcastic president!! Hey, you don't get through five colleges without picking up some tricks, right? Pics below the fold. Eileen B's diary :: :: The AP snapped this photo, and we can see the hand is clearly written on. From Stefan Sirucek on Huffpost, here's the complex information worthy of a hand cheat sheet: Energy Budget Tax cuts Lift American Spirits So, very Presidential, right? Wouldn't you think it would be easier to memorize six words than try to pull a lame Eddy Haskel stunt on national TV? And here I was bitching about all the coverage of her speech....for a while there, I forgot what a huge gift she is to the Dems. You're welcome, David Letterman! (And every other comedian on earth!) Oh, and hey, if you're registered, go over to Stefan Sirucek on Huffpost and give his blog post some attention. He deserves some kudos! Update [2010-2-7 9:51:43 by Eileen B]: Here's the CNN video of the Q&A where she checks her hand; then obeys her hand. At about 1:23, she checks her telepalmpter, then for the next minute or so....guess what she's rambling about? Energy and spirit, baby! Gimme an "S!" GIMME A "P!" "I!" "R!!!" "I!!!!!" "TEEEEEE!!!!" What does it spell?

I use a shrimp fork and baby spoon and often just use a salad plate.

Well, I think it is an important issue and I am glad that it is finally being addressed.

He is bringing them home from Iraq next year as promised. He never promised to end the war in Afghanistan. But he did promise to end DADT and he is taking the steps to do that.

And when will that be?

I am sure that when the military ended racial segregation after WWII there were those who thought it was a waste of time and money, too, to focus on that problem. I am quite sure that Congress and the military can tackle this problem as well as other pressing problems of our country at the same time. I mean look at the congress under bush. They managed to pass 2 tax cuts for the rich while borrowing money from China to fund 2 wars ( one unnecessary) and pass a trillion dollar (taxpayer) medicare drug plan. So, I think they can handle jobs, financial reform, health care and ending DADT.

Congress and the military get paid whether they investigate anything or not. I asked if you knew of any ADDITIONAL costs associated with this investigation. Apparently not.

Congress will earn their salary whether they tackle this issue or not. Right now they are working on a jobs bill, financial reform and health care. I will be interested to see who votes for and against these bills. I have also seen the needs of returning vets addressed from PTSD to brain injuries. Michelle Obama is very involved with military families and their problems and advocates for them. I agree that there are more important things to deal with in the military than if someone is gay, which is why the law should be repealed. I have not seen any additional costs associated with investigating DADT. If you have that information, please post it.

From the Huffington Post: Dan Choi, a West Point graduate and officer in the Army National Guard who is fluent in Arabic and who returned recently from Iraq, received notice today that the military is about to fire him. Why? Because he came out of the closet as a gay man on national television. I hardly think a West Point graduate is looking for "an easy way out". Why should anyone have to deny who and what they are to be able to honorably serve this country? Since 1994 about 12,500 service men and women have been discharged due to being gay. With our troops spread so thin, we can hardly afford to discharge these men and women The congress and the military are going to investigate this. That's their job. And they can do this while handling other important issues. It's not an either/or situation.

How arrogant of you to decide what God would say about our government deficits. You speak for him now? I recall that he stayed out of local politics and said to give unto Caesar... You post bible quotes all the time when they suit you. While you want the government to be involved in certain parts of what the bible says (like homosexuality and abortion) but you don't want the government to be involved in what it says about helping the poor. When anyone quotes those passages you are quick to point out that it doesn't mean government - oh, no - it means family. Well, where does it say in the bible that our government should be involved in making laws against gays or abortion? It doesn't - you just decide that for these issues it's time for the government to step in. Then you're okay with government. You're also okay with the government giving to corporations. Corporate welfare. Did you read my lengthy post about corporate welfare? Why don't you rail against THAT? At least with welfare to people you are helping the least among us, but with corporate welfare you are just making the rich richer. You like to paint liberals out as sinners who just want to be free to continue to be immoral. I am very insulted by that. I am a very moral person. I have already pointed out the many, many republican/conservative leaders who have engaged in immoral behavior, while preaching the opposite. HYPOCRITES! People have free will and a conscience and will have to live with both regarding their choices in life. You want to legislate what are sins and what is not. That's the job of the religious community, not the government.

Thank you. But I have to say that after reading "Idiot America" I have come to see how we actually give idiots a platform these days when in days of old they would have been laughed at and run out of town on a rail. We legitimize them but allowing them to speak as if they know what they are talking about. Why are we even interviewing the birthers? They are whackos. We've always had whackos in society but they were largely ignored, laughed at or dismissed. We pay Hannity to speak about stem cell research at some gathering of conservatives. What credentials does he have to speak about this? We spend millions of dollars on a court case because some religious right people won a school board majority in Dover, PA and wanted the school to teach creationism and the town got divided and there was a lawsuit. The creationism people got blown away during the trial and they lost the next election. Reasonable people won but it cost the district money it could have used on real educational things. We allow people who reject legitimate science in favor of their religious or political views to control the dialogue. And we listen to them on tv and the radio. Because it moves units and that's what it's about. I would recommend that book for anyone who wants to see how all of this is happening in our world today.

Story Updated. Morning Feature: Tea Party GOP - A Religious Movement by NCrissieB Thu Feb 04, 2010 at 04:12:42 AM PST now almost anyone who watches cable news has heard about this week's Research 2000/Daily Kos poll about the beliefs of the modern Republican Party. Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas said the responses show Republicans are "insane," and variations on that theme seem to dominate the progressive media. On the conservative side, Bill O'Reilly called the poll, and DKos, "a fraud," and Brad Blakeman said R2K/DK haven't "divulged" the questions or sampling data. In fact, both the questions and complete crosstabs are here. I don't think the poll shows the Tea Party GOP are "insane." It shows that what's left of the GOP are more a religious movement than a political party. More below the fold.... NCrissieB's diary :: :: Tea Party GOP - A Religious Movement The results of the R2K/DK poll on Republican beliefs were provocative, if not always surprising. Former Republican Bruce Bartlett compiled this table showing some of the results: In a blog post titled Why I'm Not a Republican, Bartlett added: "I can only conclude from this new poll ... that between 20% and 50% of the party is either insane or mind-numbingly stupid." Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein hints that the results show "a substantial portion of the Republican base is completely divorced from reality." Mother Jones' Kevin Drum offers a "Cliff Notes version: Republicans are nuts." Yesterday's Abbreviated Pundit Round-up offered some other comments as well. As noted above, DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas said the results show Republicans are "insane." But "insane" misses the key to what remains of the Republican Party, and in so doing underestimates the political power of a movement that Gallup polling says represents only 28% of voters. Having purged their moderates, the Tea Party GOP are now as much a religious movement as a political party. Two revealing questions QUESTION: Should public school students be taught that the book of Genesis in the Bible explains how God created the world? YES 77%; NO 15%; NOT SURE 8%. QUESTION: Do you believe that the only way for an individual to go to heaven is though Jesus Christ, or can one make it to heaven through another faith? CHRIST 67%; OTHER 15%; NOT SURE 18%. These questions and their responses explain both the rest of the poll and the surprising power that remains in the Tea Party GOP. With only two exceptions - whether marriage is an equal partnership and whether women should be allowed to work outside the home - the other responses mirror the teachings of contemporary American Christian fundamentalism. Simply, while Democrats worry whether government is doing enough to help Fred, our archetypal average American ... ... the Tea Party GOP worry whether government is doing enough to please God as they imagine Him. I think this last sentence says it all. We see it here on these posts. They want their biblical interpretions to be the driving force behind government policies except when it comes to helping the poor.

This was one of Pres. Obama's campaign promises. He is making good on it. He can actually tackle more than one issue at a time and it's going to be done with input from the military and by congress. It is actually an issue of national security because we have lost some very good men and women in the military because of this. Arabic translators, which are badly needed, and hard to replace, have been discharged. That makes no sense.

I have been on the prescription form of alli, which is xenical, for almost 10 years. It works but you have to be careful about eating food with too much fat or you can have "leaks" - not pleasant. After 10 years I know how and when to use it. I was banded almost 18 months ago.

How about this? Halliburton, Enron, Wal-Mart, AT&T, GE, Microsoft, IBM, Citigroup, et al... Conservatives like giving away government money too, they just do it differently. Whether they are billion dollar sole-source contracts to Halliburton, farm subsidies that benefit California millionaires with a hobby ranch in Wyoming, or the twelve billion dollars squandered monthly in Iraq, conservatives are quite liberal with American tax dollars. Related Conservative Failures Quagmire in Iraq The special government favors that private contractors in Iraq—from Halliburton to Blackwater—enjoy, are like money in the bank to their stockholders—and a drain on the rest of our pocketbooks. read more » Corporate Wilding Corporate Wilding Sometimes it’s hard to figure out where corporate welfare ends and outright corporate malfeasance begins. When California privatized its power grid, it was both a gift to energy companies like Enron, and an open invitation to swindle the public. read more » Failing Hurricane Katrina Victims After the federal government set up special tax-advantaged "Gulf Opportunity Zones" to help Katrina victims who needed housing, is it any surprise that some of the money ended up with developers building luxury condos hundreds of miles from the storm? read more » Abandoning Patients at Walter Reed When conservatives privatize a government function like the management of Walter Reed, they always say it's to make the services better and more efficient. They never call it what it actually is—a giveaway straight from the public purse. read more » More conservative failures In the name of individual responsibility, conservatives proudly deny a helping hand to the poor and powerless. Meanwhile they ladle money into the banks of the rich and powerful in the form of tax subsidies or unquestioned contracts. Free Market Fundamentalism > Corporate Welfare Free Market Fundamentalism often leads to corporate welfare because deregulated markets often allow corporations to become so overgrown, even to the point of monopoly, that their influence over the government balloons and balloons. They can game the system so that government programs end up funneling money straight into their own pockets. The giant retailer Wal-Mart has more workers enrolled in many state Medicaid programs—which are supposed to be reserved for poor people—than any other employer. They even hand out guides to help workers enroll in the programs. When the taxpayers subsidize services that companies should be providing to their employers themselves, that's corporate welfare. Meanwhile, one study found over 240 examples of subsidies from taxpayers to help Wal-Mart build new retail outlets and distribution centers—in fact, 90 percent of these huge warehouses that Wal-Mart claims it needs were subsidized from the public purse. That's corporate welfare, too. How does a company like Wal-Mart get away with it? Partly, by wrapping themselves in a mythology that their history was an entrepreneurial miracle—and that its gobbling up of smaller retailers happened because they did a better job in some kind of open, dog-eat-dog competition. In actual fact, it couldn't have happened without special favors from statehouses and Washington D.C. It takes a lot of ideological mumbo-jumbo to call that a triumph of the free market—but somehow conservatives manage it. Trickle-Down Economics Conservatives’ false belief that anything having to do with business is automatically part of the free market both causes and justifies corporate welfare. Government subsidies—which conservatives teach us rot moral character, but only in the case of vulnerable individuals—get miscast as the operations of this mythical free market. The institutions that end up with the "freedom" always turn out to be big businesses, who throw around their market power to bully everyone else. Ordinary Americans end up less free—and the wealthiest Americans end up cornering the market. Here's how: Tax Subsidies. The federal government gives tax subsidies to business for particular purposes. Often these incentives are created in hope that the free market will find solutions to our nation’s problems. However, the tax subsidies given to huge corporations and dishonest businessmen are often abused, subverting the free market in the guise of unleashing its dynamism. The Oil Industry. With fuel prices soaring, oil companies are reaping record profits. Yet conservatives gave them $30 billion in tax subsidies to offset ordinary business expenses such as exploration. Disdain for Government > Corporate Welfare Ronald Reagan summarized the soul of modern conservatism in his first inaugural address "Government isn't the solution to our problem,” he said. “Government is the problem.” By erasing government's role as referee, regulator and guarantor of the common good, such dogma gives away the store to already-powerful interests, and leaves ordinary Americans unprotected. Here are some examples: Tax Avoidance Big corporations pay staffs of attorneys and consultants to find legal ways to dodge taxes. They incorporate in Bermuda or the Bahamas, or they create fantasy charitable trusts with no tax liability. Meanwhile, as conservatives shrink government, the number of IRS tax auditors has dropped by a third since the 1990’s. From 2001-2003, 275 large corporations on Fortune’s 500 list earned almost $1.1 trillion in pretax profits in the United States. Had all of those profits been reported to the IRS and taxed at the statutory 35 percent corporate tax rate, then those 275 companies would have paid $370 billion in income taxes over the three years. Instead, the companies reported only about half of their profits—$557 billion—to the IRS. Instead of a 35 percent tax rate, the companies as a group paid a three-year effective tax rate of only 18.4 percent. Loopholes and other tax subsidies cut taxes for the 275 companies by $43.4 billion in 2001, $60.8 billion in 2002 and $71.0 billion in 2003—for a total of $175.2 billion in tax breaks over the three years. General Electric tops the list of corporate tax dodgers during the study years. It avoided $9.5 billion in taxes from 2001-2003. Other large scale corporate tax dodgers include: Citigroup at $4.6 billion; IBM at $4.6 billion; Microsoft at $4.6 billion; AT&T at $4.5 billion; and Exxon Mobil at $4.3 billion. Other corporations paid NO taxes during the study years between 2001-2003 while reaping huge profits: Principal Group with $2.1 billion in profits; AT&T with $5.7 billion in profits; and Time Warner with $4.9 billion in profits. Enron Enron took advantage of lax oversight following deregulation and formed a complicated web of more than 2,800 subsidiaries — more than 30 percent (874) of which were located in officially designated offshore tax and bank havens. The federal government gives tax subsidies to favored businesses or to favor certain business behavior. In some cases, it can subsidize important advances. In many cases, it’s just a gift. Pay-to-play politics are another example of the fallout of conservative ideologies in practice. Oil Companies Oil Well During a time of record high oil prices and record profits among oil companies, Congress gave subsidies to oil companies worth $30 billion over five years. They receive $5.4 billion in subsidies for exploration and an additional $4.7 billion for the depletion of discovered wells. Yet the oil companies receiving these subsidies have seen huge profits: Exxon Mobil at $36 billion; Chevron at $189 billion; Conoco Phillips at $166 billion; and Valero Energy at $81 billion. Miscast Morality > Corporate Welfare Conservatives rose to political power on the wings of a critique of welfare—so long as the entities getting the welfare critique were single black mothers. Ronald Reagan used to chase around the campaign trail telling a story—entirely invented—about a Chicago mother supposedly receiving so many welfare checks off various phony social security numbers she was able to buy a Cadillac. Unfortunately, stories of corporate welfare—unlike Reagan's welfare Cadillac—are absolutely true. And yet you'll rarely hear conservatives getting their back up over them, let alone using them to try to win elections. Conservatives are great at moralizing when the target is a vulnerable individual. When it's a big corporation that's exploiting the public purse, they're silent. WOW!! Is this ever true. And those mean spirited conservative beliefs for the least among us while advocating for the big corporations is well represented by you conservatives.