SAY NO to Patriot EXTENSIONS!

 

Sign our petition

 

Protect Civil Liberties:

Let The PATRIOT Act Expire!

BREAKING, February 8th: It’s working! The House vote to extend the PATRIOT Act just failed. But they’re not going to give up — now, more than ever, we need people to keep the pressure on. Sign the petition and tell your friends to sign as well!

UPDATE, February 7th: The House is trying to ram through a sneaky renewal of the PATRIOT Act this week!  They’re doing it without debate, and without including any meaningful reforms.  Please sign the petition below, and use this page to call your lawmaker to urge him or her to vote no.

ORIGINAL: The PATRIOT Act is set to expire in just FOUR WEEKS, but Congress is trying to rush through a last minute extension!

Since it was passed almost a decade ago, some of the most noxious portions of the PATRIOT Act have burrowed their way deep into our legal system.  A year ago, President Obama signed a bill extending three provisions of the original PATRIOT Act; last week Congressman Mike Rogers (R-Michigan) introduced legislation to extend them again.

Together, these provisions make a mockery of our civil liberties: They let government officials spy on whomever they want, for any reason, without ever letting them know or giving them a chance to challenge the order in court.

Enough is enough: Will you join us in demanding that Congress finally let these provisions expire? Just add your name at right, and we’ll automatically send a message to your senator, representative, and President Obama:

TO MY ELECTED OFFICIALS:  After nearly ten years, it’s time to let the PATRIOT Act expire once and for all.  I urge you to oppose its re-authorization.

 

Add your name and we’ll deliver your message to Washington.

 

Here’s a more detailed article from the CATO Institute that explains some of the problems with the PATRIOT Act provisions that are up for extension.  And here’s an overview by the ACLU.

 

 

THE ROAD TO ARMAGEDDON

By Paul Craig Roberts

The Washington Times is a newspaper that looks with favor upon the
Bush/Cheney/Obama/neocon wars of aggression in the Middle East and favors making
terrorists pay for 9/11. Therefore, I was surprised to learn on February 24 that
the most popular story on the paper’s website for the past three days was the
“CLICK HERE: Inside the Beltway” report, “Explosive News,” [By Jennifer Harper, February 22,
2010] about the 31 press conferences in cities in the US and abroad on
February 19 held by Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, an organization of
professionals which now has 1,000 members.
(“We must continue to spread the real news and history of this country in order to
reestablish a Democracy that was once ours”. Dave)

I was even more surprised that the news report treated the press conference seriously. How did three World Trade Center skyscrapers suddenly disintegrate into fine dust? How did massive steel beams in three skyscrapers suddenly fail as a result of short-lived, isolated, and low temperature fires? “A thousand architects and engineers want to know, and are calling on Congress to order a new investigation into the destruction of the Twin Towers and Building 7,” reports the Washington Times.

The paper reports that the architects and engineers have concluded that the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Institute of Standards and Technology provided “insufficient, contradictory and fraudulent accounts of the circumstances of the towers’ destruction” and are “calling for a grand jury investigation of NIST officials.”

The newspaper reports that Richard Gage, the spokesperson for the architects and engineers said: “Government officials will be notified that ‘Misprision of Treason,’ U.S. Code 18 (Sec. 2382) is a serious federal offense, which requires those with evidence of treason to act. The implications are enormous and may have profound impact on the forthcoming Khalid Sheik Mohammed trial.”

There is now an organization, Firefighters for 9/11 Truth. At the main press conference in San Francisco, Erik Lawyer, the head of that organization, announced the firefighters’ support for the architects and engineers’ demands. He reported that no forensic investigation was made of the fires that are alleged to have destroyed the three buildings and that this failure constitutes a crime.

Mandated procedures were not followed, and instead of being preserved and investigated, the crime scene was destroyed. He also reported that there are more than one hundred first responders who heard and experienced explosions and that there is radio, audio and video evidence of explosions.

Also at the press conference, physicist Steven Jones presented the evidence of nano-thermite in the residue of the WTC buildings found by an international panel of scientists led by University of Copenhagen nano-chemist Professor Niels Harrit. Nano-thermite is a high-tech explosive/pyrotechnic capable of instantly melting steel girders.

Before we yell “conspiracy theory,” we should be aware that the architects, engineers, firefighters, and scientists offer no theory. They provide evidence that challenges the official theory. This evidence is not going to go away.

If expressing doubts or reservations about the official story in the 9/11 Commission Report makes a person a conspiracy theory kook, then we have to include both co-chairmen of the 9/11 Commission and the Commission’s legal counsel, all of whom have written books in which they clearly state that they were lied to by government officials when they conducted their investigation, or, rather, when they presided over the investigation conducted by executive director Philip Zelikow, a member of President George W. Bush’s transition team and Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and a co-author of Bush Secretary of State Condi “Mushroom Cloud” Rice.

There will always be Americans who will believe whatever the government tells them no matter how many times they know the government has lied to them. Despite expensive wars that threaten Social Security and Medicare, wars based on non-existent Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, non-existent Saddam Hussein connections to al Qaida, non-existent Afghan participation in the 9/11 attacks, and the non-existent Iranian nukes that are being hyped as the reason for the next American war of aggression in the Middle East, more than half of the U.S. population still believes the fantastic story that the government has told them about 9/11, a Muslim conspiracy that outwitted the entire Western world.

Moreover, it doesn’t matter to these Americans how often the government changes its story. For example, Americans first heard of Osama bin Laden because the Bush regime pinned the 9/11 attacks on him. Over the years video after video was served up to the gullible American public of bin Laden’s pronouncements. Experts dismissed the videos as fakes, but Americans remained their gullible selves. Then suddenly last year a new 9/11 “mastermind” emerged to take bin Laden’s place, the captive Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the detainee waterboarded 183 times until he confessed to masterminding the 9/11 attack.

In the Middle Ages confessions extracted by torture constituted evidence, but self-incrimination has been a no-no in the U.S. legal system since our founding. But with the Bush regime and the Republican federal judges, whom we were assured would defend the U.S. Constitution, the self-incrimination of Sheik Mohammed stands today as the only evidence the U.S. government has that Muslim terrorists pulled off 9/11.

If a person considers the feats attributed to Khalid Sheik Mohammed, they are simply unbelievable. Sheik Mohammed is a more brilliant, capable superhero than V in the fantasy movie, “V for Vendetta.” Sheik Mohammed outwitted all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies along with those of all U.S. allies or puppets, including Israel’s Mossad. No intelligence service on earth or all of them combined was a match for Sheik Mohammed.

Sheik Mohammed outwitted the U.S. National Security Council, Dick Cheney, the Pentagon, the State Department, NORAD, the U.S. Air Force, and Air Traffic Control.

He caused Airport Security to fail four times in one morning. He caused the state-of-the-art air defenses of the Pentagon to fail, allowing a hijacked airliner, which was off course all morning while the U.S. Air Force, for the first time in history, was unable to get aloft interceptor aircraft, to crash into the Pentagon.

Sheik Mohammed was able to perform these feats with unqualified pilots.

Sheik Mohammed, even as a waterboarded detainee, has managed to prevent the FBI from releasing the many confiscated videos that would show, according to the official story, the hijacked airliner hitting the Pentagon.

How naive do you have to be to believe that any human, or for that matter Hollywood fantasy character, is this powerful and capable?

If Sheik Mohammed has these superhuman capabilities, how did the incompetent Americans catch him? This guy is a patsy tortured into confession in order to keep the American naifs believing the government’s conspiracy theory.

What is going on here is that the U.S. government has to bring the 9/11 mystery to an end. The government must put on trial and convict a culprit so that it can close the case before it explodes. Anyone waterboarded 183 times would confess to anything.

The U.S. government has responded to the evidence being arrayed against its outlandish 9/11 conspiracy theory by redefining the war on terror from external to internal enemies. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on February 21 that American extremists are now as big a concern as international terrorists. Extremists, of course, are people who get in the way of the government’s agenda, such as the 1,000 Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. The group used to be 100, now it is 1,000. What if it becomes 10,000?

Cass Sunstein, an Obama regime official, has a solution for the 9/11 skeptics: Infiltrate them and provoke them into statements and actions that can be used to discredit or to arrest them. But get rid of them at all cost.

Why employ such extreme measures against alleged kooks if they only provide entertainment and laughs? Is the government worried that they are on to something?

Instead, why doesn’t the U.S. government simply confront the evidence that is presented and answer it?

If the architects, engineers, firefighters, and scientists are merely kooks, it would be a simple matter to acknowledge their evidence and refute it. Why is it necessary to infiltrate them with police agents and to set them up?

Many Americans would reply that “their” government would never even dream of killing Americans by hijacking airliners and destroying buildings in order to advance a government agenda. But on February 3, National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair told the House Intelligence Committee that the U.S. government can assassinate its own citizens when they are overseas. No arrest, trial, or conviction of a capital crime is necessary. Just straight out murder.

Obviously, if the U.S. government can murder its citizens abroad it can murder them at home, and has done so. For example, 100 Branch Davidians were murdered in Waco, Texas, by the Clinton administration for no legitimate reason. The government just decided to use its power knowing that it could get away with it, which it did.

Americans who think “their” government is some kind of morally pure operation would do well to familiarize themselves with Operation Northwoods. Operation Northwoods was a plot drawn up by the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff for the CIA to commit acts of terrorism in American cities and fabricate evidence blaming Castro so that the U.S. could gain domestic and international support for regime change in Cuba. The secret plan was nixed by President John F. Kennedy and was declassified by the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board. It is available online in the National Security Archive. There are numerous online accounts available, including Wikipedia. James Bamford’s book, Body of Secrets, also summarizes the plot:

“Operation Northwoods, which had the written approval of the Chairman [Gen. Lemnitzer] and every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called for innocent people to be shot on American streets; for boats carrying refugees fleeing Cuba to be sunk on the high seas; for a wave of violent terrorism to be launched in Washington, D.C., Miami, and elsewhere. People would be framed for bombings they did not commit; planes would be hijacked. Using phony evidence, all of it would be blamed on Castro, thus giving Lemnitzer and his cabal the excuse, as well as the public and international backing, they needed to launch their war.”

Prior to 9/11 the American neoconservatives were explicit that the wars of aggression that they intended to launch in the Middle East required “a new Pearl Harbor.”

For their own good and that of the wider world, Americans need to pay attention to the growing body of experts who are telling them that the government’s account of 9/11 fails their investigation. 9/11 launched the neoconservative plan for U.S. world hegemony. As I write the U.S. government is purchasing the agreement of foreign governments that border Russia to accept U.S. missile interceptor bases. The U.S. intends to ring Russia with U.S. missile bases from Poland through central Europe and Kosovo to Georgia, Azerbaijan and central Asia. [See Impending Explosion: U.S. Intensifies Threats To Russia And Iran, by Rick Rozoff, Global Research, February 19, 2010] U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke declared on February 20 that al Qaida is moving into former central Asian constituent parts of the Soviet Union, such as Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan. Holbrooke is soliciting U.S. bases in these former Soviet republics under the guise of the ever-expanding “war on terror.”

The U.S. has already encircled Iran with military bases. The U.S. government intends to neutralize China by seizing control over the Middle East and cutting China off from oil.

This plan assumes that Russia and China, nuclear armed states, will be intimidated by U.S. anti-missile defenses and acquiesce to U.S. hegemony and that China will lack oil for its industries and military.

The U.S. government is delusional. Russian military and political leaders have responded to the obvious threat by declaring NATO a direct threat to the security of Russia and by announcing a change in Russian war doctrine to the pre-emptive launch of nuclear weapons. The Chinese are too confident to be bullied by a washed up American “superpower.”

The morons in Washington are pushing the envelope of nuclear war. The insane drive for American hegemony threatens life on earth. The American people, by accepting the lies and deceptions of “their” government, are facilitating this outcome.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He was awarded the Legion of Honor by French President Francois Mitterrand. He is the author of Supply-Side Revolution : An Insider’s Account of Policymaking in Washington; Alienation and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for Peter Brimelow’s Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct. His latest book, How The Economy Was Lost, has just been published by CounterPunch/AK Press.

Remember?

I’m sure those of you my age, I’m a baby boomer, born in 1950, can remember some of the politics of our youth. The first President I distinctly remember was Dwight Eisenhower; in fact, I remember several, “Weekly Readers” at school, having articles about the President of our Nation. Then, of course, I remember John Kennedy and the bright future that that young man brought to our Nation and how cowardly it was removed from our grasp. I remember the politicians could disagree with each other but still possessed a modicum of respect for their political rival. That has totally disappeared in our society today and there are many reasons that have come together to move our culture and the rest of the world into the Dark Ages of the 21st Century.

As soon as this Great Experiment emerge from the Revolutionary War it was attacked, much like a new born baby that emerges from its mother womb soon to be assaulted from many sides from disease and viruses. This new baby, this Democratic Republic was assailed from the beginning by those seeking to grasp control of the new infant. The baby put up a valiant fight, but in much like the spread of Cancer, its days are numbered. Two hundred thirty three years is a relatively young age for a Nation, but we all know of someone who has died in their youth, never to have realized their full potential, and this would seem to be the course for the United States. So it will not be just the passing of a Nation that never realized its potential but also that of a people, a people that have been blinded by the dreaded disease of Cancer and do not even realize they have it, until ultimately, it will be too late.

But why would this new experiment of granting ordinary men freedom, the rights to choose the way they live their lives, why would this be opposed or at least, blunted to such an extent to ultimately vanquish their freedoms? One reason is that the manipulators, the ultra rich, do not believe that ordinary people can govern themselves, they are not educated enough, they lack the proper grooming; they are just not their equals. Yet even with these beliefs, do they try to do anything that would make them, in their eyes, more acceptable to govern themselves? No, just the opposite is true, which reveals their underlying belief that no one is their equal and their goal is to make the bottom line, their bottom line, in whatever particular corporate enterprise they are concerned with, the most profitable it can possible be, regardless, of safety, health, or even life and deaths concerns. Be damn to you and the earth, our moment is now to enjoy and prosper from, to run amok among the Gods, we are the Gods, just look how we have manipulated world events and people’s minds, certainly they can never be our equal!

The corruption that came about in government was not born of the men who had the high ideals to form and serve this Nation, programs that were passed, to help people, became corrupt when corporations and banks got their hands into it and basically tried to screw the government out of every dime they could get from us (toilet seats $200, hammers $100, etc). Then these same individuals, managed to persuade the masses, the ordinary people that the problem was with government and not them. The masses were duped into taking government out of the equation and letting private enterprise run our business, these same people, the foxes, who had been wining, dining, and corrupting our political leaders in the first place, were then put in charge of the hen house.

The greatest way to achieve total control is by remaining in the background, remaining relatively unseen, but controlling events and media to get the desired effects. They acquired knowledge by trial and error; they experimented and became the wizards of perception manipulation.  They became so good at it, they kill a President in front of thousands, then years later, they brought down the twin towers on TV.

The actual processes are demonstrated through Ivan Pavlov experiments with dogs and with B.F. Skinner experiments with rats in the realm of behavioral modification and his well known, Skinner’s box experiments, it is important to note, that the era I am referring to is the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. The knowledge, although in its infancy, was there for the 3rd successful attempt at gaining control of our government, during the 1913 Christmas holidays, the money trusts from around the world culminated their efforts in forming the FEDERAL RESERVE. Their own Banking Cartel that would control the fundamental policies of the United States, irrespective of which political party that happened to be in power. Although their Skinner’s box of the time was not as powerful as their omnipotent media control of today, it was this Cancer that would take away our Freedoms while laying the blame on the poorer sectors of our Nation. What better way to hide blame than to create scapegoats who could be blamed for all the problems within the Nation while you robbed the country blind.

Divide and conquer a lesson learned from history that has been successfully employed for over 100 years, disintegrating our culture as a whole. It is evident everyday in the newspapers, the TV shows, the movies, and in the displays of acrimony between our political representatives. With all these examples of how society should operate is it any wonder why there is such decadence within?

Because the ultra elite learned the processes of behavioral conditioning or modification so well, which Pavlov and Skinner experiments demonstrate, behavioral modification has occurred to the masses over many, many, years, it is the same conditions that occur in a cult, but on a much smaller scale, there have been rescued cult members who have been deprogrammed and brought back to reality. It is a monumental challenge for deprogramming cult members and it is next to impossible to deprogram the masses that have fallen within Corporate America “Skinner’s Box”, today’s media!

The answer is, of course, to join together, unite to face those who manipulate and control, Remember our forefathers who had it right, get rid of the tyrants of the Federal Reserve and the Reserve itself. If peace would break out around the world these war mongers would lose everything and the billions being spent on warfare could be spent on actually taking care of people. All the terrorists out there, wake up, stop being played by the war machine, let peace break out world-wide. I know the machine will do things to try and prevent this, but the resolve you show in creating carnage needs to be shown with peace, then the people of the world would know who is pulling all the strings. The war machine has sponsored both sides at one time or another throughout modern times, their aim is world conflict. The most harm that could be done them is peace. Peace with your fellow man, doesn’t have to be religiously motivated, just has to be implemented in order to preserve the human race. Because one day, we will have to face a much bigger and more ominous threat, a threat much greater than anything this world can pose.

Failure to prosecute: why Obama is having trouble passing health care reform

By Don Smith

President Obama apparently believes that prosecuting Bush Administration officials for torture and other crimes would be a “distraction” from more important matters, such as health care reform.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The reason President Obama and the Democrats are having so much trouble passing health care reform is that they failed to hold conservatives accountable for their many misdeeds. The Democrats thereby empowered conservatives to continue their ample mischief. (I write “conservatives” rather than “Republicans” because some Democrats are amongst the conservatives who promoted harmful policies.)

Conservative misdeeds range from the unspeakably evil — such as torture, rendition, lying about the reasons for going to war, and the deaths of up to a million or more civilians — to the merely despicable — such as politically motivated prosecutions, reckless deregulation, suppression of evidence, tax cuts for rich folks, stolen elections, inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina, dirty tricks, and rampant corruption.

Had Democrats pursued impeachment early on they would have exposed the many lies, crimes, and dirty tricks of the conservatives to the light of day. Democrats would have even bigger majorities in Congress, and the ability of conservatives to influence public opinion would have been greatly diminished.

Instead, the Democrats, and President Obama in particular, have tried to be “bipartisan”.

What a stupid policy!

Conservatives in Congress have no intention of compromising on health care reform or on any other substantive issue. They continue to defend Bush Administration officials and policies in order to protect themselves and the GOP. This was discussed in Bipartisanship porn and Obama’s Trust Problem, where Paul Krugman writes:

It’s hard to avoid the sense that Mr. Obama has wasted months trying to appease people who can’t be appeased, and who take every concession as a sign that he can be rolled.

Indeed, no sooner were there reports that the administration might accept co-ops as an alternative to the public option than G.O.P. leaders announced that co-ops, too, were unacceptable.

The Democrats will continue to have trouble passing a reform agenda until they decisively confront the misdeeds of the recent past by rejecting bipartisanship and pursuing prosecution of Bush-era officials. This will have the triple effect of (1) bringing criminals to justice, (2) exposing the truth to the public, and (3) weakening the influence of conservative politicians and ideology.

Alas, failure to prosecute may not be the main reason why Obama and the Democrats are having trouble passing health care reform. There is evidence that the Democrat leadership never intended to pass real health care reform. This grim conclusion was sketched in Squandered Opportunity and Follow the Money. The Democrats may be too corrupted by money and power to follow through on their promises.

Progressives’ impatience with Obama is reaching a boiling point, not just over accountability but also over the bailouts, health care reform, militarism, and other issues. As Paul Krugman observes, “A backlash in the progressive base — which pushed President Obama over the top in the Democratic primary and played a major role in his general election victory — has been building for months.”

Indeed, we progressives have power over Obama. We are his base. If we turn against him — or, better yet perhaps, just threaten to turn against him — the news media will pick up on the story and Obama will be in trouble. Let us use that power wisely. If progressives appear too pushy, the effort might backfire. Recall that Congress voted to condemn MoveOn.org in 2007 when the group published their ill-fated New York Times ad questioning whether Gen. David Petraeus would “betray us” (MoveOn.org ad controversy).

For years progressives have been criticizing Democrats for appeasement. Maybe it’s time for progressives to follow our own advice and hold Obama accountable by saying, basically: either you stop protecting these torturers, stop continuing Bush era policies, and stop compromising on health care reform, or we on the left will withdraw our support and condemn you too. Progressives need to tread carefully, lest they be dismissed as radicals, but they need to demand their due.

“I want you to hold our government accountable. I want you to hold me accountable” — Barack Obama (September, 2008). Let us hold him accountable. Let us do our part to get the word out about how America is being screwed. And let us do our utmost to ensure that progressive Democrats such as Dennis Kucinich and brave independents such as Bernie Sanders prevail.

Oil lobby to fund campaign against Obama’s climate change strategy

The US oil and gas lobby are planning to stage public events to give the appearance of a groundswell of public opinion against legislation that is key to Barack Obama’s climate change strategy, according to campaigners.A key lobbying group will bankroll and organise 20 ”energy citizen” rallies in 20 states. In an email obtained by Greenpeace, Jack Gerard, the president of the American Petroleum Institute (API), outlined what he called a “sensitive” plan to stage events during the August congressional recess to put a “human face” on opposition to climate and energy reform.After the clamour over healthcare, the memo raises the possibility of a new round of protests against a key Obama issue.”Our goal is to energise people and show them that they are not alone,” said Cathy Landry, for API, who confirmed that the memo was authentic.The email from Gerard lays out ambitious plans to stage a series of lunchtime rallies to try to shape the climate bill that was passed by the house in June and will come before the Senate in September. “We must move aggressively,” it reads.The API strategy also extends to a PR drive. Gerard cites polls to test the effectiveness of its arguments against climate change legislation. It offers up the “energy citizen” rallies as ready-made events, noting that allies – which include manufacturing and farm alliances as well as 400 oil and gas member organizations – will have to do little more than turn up.”API will provide the up-front resources,” the email said. “This includes contracting with a highly experienced events management company that has produced successful rallies for presidential campaigns.”However, it said member organizations should encourage employees to attend to command the attention of senators. “In the 11 states with an industry core, our member company local leadership – including your facility manager’s commitment to provide significant attendance – is essential,” said the email.Greenpeace described the meetings as “astroturfing” – events intended to exert pressure on legislators by giving the impression of a groundswell of public opinion. Kert Davies, its research director, said: “It is the behind the scenes plan to disrupt the debate and weaken political support for climate regulation.”The rally sites were chosen to exert maximum pressure on Democrats in conservative areas. The API also included talking points for the rallies – including figures on the costs of energy reform that were refuted weeks ago by the congressional budget office.The API drive also points to a possible fracturing of the US Climate Action Partnership (Uscap), a broad coalition of corporations and energy organizations which was instrumental in drafting the Waxman-Markey climate change bill that passed in the House of Representatives in June.Passage of the legislation is seen as crucial to the prospects of getting the world to sign on to a climate change treaty at Copenhagen next December.Five members of Uscap are also in API, including BP which said its employees were aware of the rallies. Conoco Phillips, which was also a member of the climate action partnership, has also turned against climate change, warning on its website that the legislation will put jobs at risk, and compromise America’s energy security. The company is also advertising the energy rallies on its website, urging readers: “Make your voice heard.”However, Shell, also a member of both groups, said it did not support the rallies. Bill Tenner, a spokesman, said: “We are not participating.”

Once again it will remain to be seen how many of the blind followers will jump on Corporate America’s bandwagon? Your interests ARE NOT theirs!

8 FACTS AND 8 MYTHS ABOUT HEALTH CARE REFORM

8 WAYS HEALTH INSURANCE REFORM PROVIDES SECURITY AND STABILITY TO ALL AMERICANS

1. Ends Discrimination for Pre-Existing Conditions: Insurance companies will be prohibited from refusing you coverage because of your medical history.

2. Ends Exorbitant Out-of-Pocket Expenses, Deductibles or Co-Pays: Insurance companies will have to abide by yearly caps on how much they can charge for out-of-pocket expenses.

3. Ends Cost-Sharing for Preventive Care: Insurance companies must fully cover, without charge, regular checkups and tests that help you prevent illness, such as mammograms or eye and foot exams for diabetics.

4. Ends Dropping of Coverage for Seriously Ill: Insurance companies will be prohibited from dropping or watering down insurance coverage for those who become seriously ill.

5. Ends Gender Discrimination: Insurance companies will be prohibited from charging you more because of your gender.

6. Ends Annual or Lifetime Caps on Coverage: Insurance companies will be prevented from placing annual or lifetime caps on the coverage you receive.

7. Extends Coverage for Young Adults: Children would continue to be eligible for family coverage through the age of 26.

8. Guarantees Insurance Renewal: Insurance companies will be required to renew any policy as long as the policyholder pays their premium in full. Insurance companies won’t be allowed to refuse renewal because someone became sick.

Learn more and get details:
http://tinyurl.com/nbn5fg

8 COMMON MYTHS ABOUT HEALTH INSURANCE REFORM

1. It’s a myth that reform will mean a “government takeover” of health care or lead to “rationing.” To the contrary, reform will forbid many forms of rationing that are currently being used by insurance companies.

2. It’s a myth that reform will bust the budget. To the contrary, the President has identified ways to pay for the vast majority of the up-front costs by cutting waste, fraud, and abuse within existing government health programs; ending big subsidies to insurance companies; and increasing efficiency with such steps as coordinating care and streamlining paperwork. In the long term, reform can help bring down costs that will otherwise lead to a fiscal crisis.

3. It’s a malicious myth that reform would encourage or even require euthanasia for seniors. For seniors who want to consult with their family and physicians about end-of life decisions, reform will help to cover these voluntary, private consultations for those who want help with these personal and difficult family decisions.

4. It’s a myth that health insurance reform will affect veterans’ access to the care they get now. To the contrary, the President’s budget significantly expands coverage under the VA, extending care to 500,000 more veterans who were previously excluded. The VA Healthcare system will continue to be available for all eligible veterans.

5. It’s a myth that health insurance reform will hurt small businesses. To the contrary, reform will ease the burdens on small businesses, provide tax credits to help them pay for employee coverage and help level the playing field with big firms who pay much less to cover their employees on average.

6. It’s myth that Health Insurance Reform would be financed by cutting Medicare benefits. To the contrary, reform will improve the long-term financial health of Medicare, ensure better coordination, eliminate waste and unnecessary subsidies to insurance companies, and help to close the Medicare “doughnut” hole to make prescription drugs more affordable for seniors.

7. It’s myth that reform will force you out of your current insurance plan or force you to change doctors. To the contrary, reform will expand your choices, not eliminate them.

8. It is an absurd myth that government will be in charge of your bank accounts. Health insurance reform will simplify administration, making it easier and more convenient for you to pay bills in a method that you choose. Just like paying a phone bill or a utility bill, you can pay by traditional check, or by a direct electronic payment. And forms will be standardized so they will be easier to understand. The choice is up to you – and the same rules of privacy will apply as they do for all other electronic payments that people make.

Learn more and get details:
http://tinyurl.com/lyxel4

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My Marine Grandson got married yesterday!

My grandson, Mark Gregory, got married yesterday to Emily Bare at the Citrus Hills Golf & Country Club. It was a beautiful wedding with the Marines ushers and Best Man, the whole wedding party was spit and polish and I took great pride in it. I would like to thank everyone who helped put it together, of course, the Bride’s father, Greg Bare, did an outstanding job organizing it and covering all the details that made it unique and forever memorable. Our families, the Gregory’s and the Bares, are now joined and offer a bright future to Citrus County and the Nation. I hope to have some pictures soon!