posted by Carl Ray Louk at 12:33 PM
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  Has Nancy Pelosi seen a newspaper lately? (Pro tip, hon: Like the Obamacare monstrosity, you have to read it to find out what's in it.) I'd love to see her face in the wake of the veritable epidemic of Democratic corruption now sweeping the country. Pelosi's blink count must be off the charts. I'm going to make it easy on Pelosi and put all of the latest cases in one handy rogue's gallery reference list. But let's not be naive. It's clear to me that the Barack Obama/Eric Holder DOJ is clearing the decks before the midterms. Prediction: The FBI's GOP corruption shoe will drop right before the elections for maximum distraction and damage. For now, let's take stock of the jackassery: --The Dirty Democratic Mayors' Club: Charlotte, N.C., Mayor Patrick Cannon, who bragged about partying with the Obamas to help grease the wheels for city projects, was arrested this week on federal corruption and influence-peddling charges. He's accused of accepting gobs of cash payoffs and Las Vegas trips. The bust follows former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin's conviction in January on corruption charges; former Trenton Mayor Tony Mack's February conviction on cash bribes for a downtown parking garage; and former San Diego mayor and serial groper Bob Filner's disgraceful resignation after conviction on sexual harassment-related charges; former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's conviction on extortion, bribery and conspiracy charges; and former Birmingham, Ala., Mayor Larry Langford's corruption and bribery conviction. --California state Democratic Sen. Leland Yee, gun grabber by day, alleged arms-trafficking gangsta by night: Yee made a decades-long career out of sanctimoniously demonizing gun owners and railing against the Second Amendment. He was arrested this week on corruption charges after an FBI sting found probable cause to believe Yee had conducted wire fraud and engaged in a conspiracy to deal firearms without a license and illegally import firearms. The Chinatown pol went so far as to discuss "details of the specific types of weapons" with a prospective donor. Yee is currently a candidate for California's secretary of state office. --Pennsylvania state Democratic Sen. LeAnna Washington, party animal: This week, a judge ruled that the Keystone State could proceed with a trial against Washington, who reportedly forced her legislative staff for eight years to use taxpayer time and money for an annual birthday party whose proceeds were diverted to her campaign account. She is charged with felony theft of services and felony conflict of interest. More than a half-dozen former employees blew the whistle. "I am the f---ing senator," she screamed at one staffer who objected. "I do what the f--- I want, and ain't nobody going to change me." --Rhode Island state Democratic House Speaker Gordon Fox, multiple-raid target: The powerful Democrat, beloved by the left for his gay-marriage activism, announced last weekend that he is stepping down from office after FBI raids on his home and work office. Fox is the target of several criminal investigations by the U.S. attorney's office, FBI, IRS and state police. Mum's the word so far on the nature of the alleged criminal activity involved. --California state Democratic Sen. Ronald Calderon, all in the corrupted family: Calderon is on a paid leave of absence after being hit with a 24-count federal indictment for bribery and corruption. His brother also was charged with multiple counts of money laundering and influence peddling. Prosecutors allege the legislator accepted nearly $100,000 in bribes, plane trips, gourmet meals and golf games in exchange for political favors. He also is accused of paying his daughter $39,000 for a phony office job and paying $40,000 in "consulting" fees for a campaign website that didn't exist. --California state Democratic Sen. Roderick Wright, lying liar: Also on paid leave, the entrenched Los Angeles-area politician is now fighting his January conviction on felony perjury, false declaration of candidacy and fraudulent voting charges. Wright claimed to live in a rented room in an Inglewood home within his district, but the jury found his true residence was outside the district in upscale Baldwin Hills. The jury found he lied on candidacy declarations and voter registration documents and fraudulently voted in five elections. --New York state Democratic Assemblyman Bill Scarborough, shady jet-setter: The FBI and state authorities raided his home and offices as part of a probe into his travel voucher practices. He blamed a "tabloid hit job" by the New York Post over questionable per diem claims totaling $60,000. --Illinois state Democratic House Rep. Keith Farnham, child porn probe suspect: After sponsoring two bills to increase penalties for child porn possession, Farnham was the subject of state and federal raids last week on his home ... for possession of child porn. Over the weekend, he resigned his seat citing "serious health issues." There's a euphemism. Remember: Nancy Pelosi famously promised to "drain the moral swamp" and end the "culture of corruption." She cast herself and her minions as America's political clean-up crew. But once again, the culture of corruption boomerang has swung back around to smack Democrats in their smug mugs. The cynical Swamp Drainers just hope you forget it all by election time. Don't. Michelle MalkinMichelle Malkin is the author of "Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies" (Regnery 2010). Carl Ray Louk "FRIENDSHIP NEVER ENDS" SG-1996 "LET LOVE LEAD THE WAY" SG-2000 "THE PHOENIX SHALL RISE" SD "EVEN A MAN WHO IS PURE IN HEART AND SAYS HIS PRAYERS BY NIGHT, MAY BECOME A WOLF WHEN THE WOLFBANE BLOOMS AND THE AUTUMN MOON IS BRIGHT." LT-1941 "FLESH OF MY FLESH; BLOOD OF MY BLOOD; KIN OF MY KIN WHEN SAY COME TO YOU, YOU SHALL CROSS LAND OR SEA TO DO MY BIDDING!" CVTD-1895 "FROM HELL'S HEART I STAB AT THEE, FOR HATE SAKE I SPIT MY LAST BREATH AT THEE" CA-1895 "I HAVE BEEN, AND ALWAYS SHALL BE YOUR FRIEND" Spock "TRICK OR TREAT, TRICK OR TREAT CANDY IS DANDY BUT MURDER, OH MURDER, IS SO SWEET" CRL-2003 "EYE OF NEWT, AND TOE OF FROG, WOOL OF BAT, AND TONGUE OF DOG ADDER'S FORK, BLIND-WORM'S STING, LIZARD'S LEG, AND OWLET'S WING. FOR A CHARM OF POWERFUL TROUBLE, LIKE A HELL-BROTH BOIL AND BABBLE. DOUBLE, DOUBLE, TOIL AND TROUBLE, FIRE BURN, AND CALDRON BUBBLE" WS MySpace.com: www.myspace.com/carlraylouk http://www.myspace.com/carlraylouk Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : LouksHauntedGraveyardhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/LouksHauntedGraveyard/ Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk/ |
posted by Carl Ray Louk at 11:33 PM
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posted by Carl Ray Louk at 12:27 PM
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  Pollster Celinda Lake's advice to fellow Democrats to take a midway position in the 2014 congressional campaigns is flawed because it can't be sold as honest. Reacting to results from her bipartisan Battleground Poll that show Obamacare to be a political loser, Lake said: "Don't defend it. Say it was flawed from the beginning and we're going to fix it." Note that she didn't advise to reject it outright, apparently because she knows that's never going to fly with Obama and the Democratic establishment and probably because it would be tantamount to an admission that the party has failed in its central policy "achievement." But her advice to adopt a middle-of-the-road position is not much different. To say the law was flawed from the beginning is a damning admission, especially considering how inflexible the Democrats were when they crammed this albatross through Congress. I just read a story reminding us that Democrats had a chance to try a more moderate approach in 2009, when then-Sen. Max Baucus warned that Democrats "could ram through a health care overhaul on a partisan vote" but "wouldn't be able to sustain it." But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid ended up scuttling Baucus' attempt to scale back the bill. So Democrats had a chance to moderate it, but they went full-bore defiance and stuffed it down our throats. How is it going to play now if they say the following? "We see now the error of our ways; we shouldn't have been so extreme. Give us another chance, because we only want to help you." The inescapable fact is that Democrats have supported this law the whole way, to the detriment of millions of Americans and to the impending destruction of our health care system. Democratic candidates can opportunistically pretend they'll buck the party to fix this system, but modern history shows they march in lock step with their leftist leadership. Compromise and moderation are not in their vocabulary. Another major problem with Lake's advice is that the law is fundamentally flawed. It is not fixable. By design, it took over the entire health care system. You can't improve it with incremental changes. It has to be eradicated before it does irreversible damage. Notice that Lake, like all good Democrats, will never acknowledge that the concept was ill-conceived, for "good intentions" will always be the Democrats' preferred currency, their last line of defense. Lake insists that it was a good idea in principle because it envisioned that the government would protect people from the evil insurance companies. Those weren't her precise words. What she said was that Democrats should stick to their historical approach of looking out for the little guy when it comes to health care. "We're not going to go back to the days of leaving you on your own with the insurance companies." But didn't the Congressional Budget Office recently estimate that some 31 million little guys will remain uninsured 10 years from now, after Obamacare is fully implemented? Just listen to the patronizing. I'm not sure which is worse, Lake's statement that people need the caretaking federal government to protect them from presumptively evil insurance companies or Reid's statement that Obama's most recent Obamacare extension is only necessary because people don't know how to use the Internet. The irony is that if Democrats stay in effective control of our government much longer, they'll make sure that people are completely dependent on government -- meaning on them. But Reid is lying, too. This is the 28th Obamacare delay, and most of them had nothing even arguably to do with the Internet. Besides, if people want to get their health insurance information filed, they can mail it in. Meanwhile, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is also lying. She lied to Congress that the March 31 deadline would not be extended, and now that it has been, she's denying it's an extension. It's analogous to keeping the polls open for voters who are already in line, she says. Oh, really, for weeks? If that's true, why is she trying to get more people to join the line? The sad fact for these charlatans is that some 50 percent of people say they have no intention of signing up even with the extended deadline. The worst lie of all stems from the fact that all these extensions are a mirage. They are not to help people but to mask just how terrible this law really is and delay the full pain until after the November elections. Obama's disapproval numbers are at an all-time high -- 59 percent -- and Democrats know he's going to drag down their candidates, so they have to mitigate the damage. With all due respect, Ms. Lake, the Democrats are not looking out for the little guy or the middle-class guy or the big evil rich guy. They are looking out for themselves, and unless Republicans shoot themselves in the foot, they are going to be in serious trouble in November. Obamacare is a fitting noose around their necks. David LimbaughDavid Limbaugh, brother of radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, is an expert in law and politics and author of new book Crimes Against Liberty, the definitive chronicle of Barack Obama's devastating term in office so far. Carl Ray Louk "FRIENDSHIP NEVER ENDS" SG-1996 "LET LOVE LEAD THE WAY" SG-2000 "THE PHOENIX SHALL RISE" SD "EVEN A MAN WHO IS PURE IN HEART AND SAYS HIS PRAYERS BY NIGHT, MAY BECOME A WOLF WHEN THE WOLFBANE BLOOMS AND THE AUTUMN MOON IS BRIGHT." LT-1941 "FLESH OF MY FLESH; BLOOD OF MY BLOOD; KIN OF MY KIN WHEN SAY COME TO YOU, YOU SHALL CROSS LAND OR SEA TO DO MY BIDDING!" CVTD-1895 "FROM HELL'S HEART I STAB AT THEE, FOR HATE SAKE I SPIT MY LAST BREATH AT THEE" CA-1895 "I HAVE BEEN, AND ALWAYS SHALL BE YOUR FRIEND" Spock "TRICK OR TREAT, TRICK OR TREAT CANDY IS DANDY BUT MURDER, OH MURDER, IS SO SWEET" CRL-2003 "EYE OF NEWT, AND TOE OF FROG, WOOL OF BAT, AND TONGUE OF DOG ADDER'S FORK, BLIND-WORM'S STING, LIZARD'S LEG, AND OWLET'S WING. FOR A CHARM OF POWERFUL TROUBLE, LIKE A HELL-BROTH BOIL AND BABBLE. DOUBLE, DOUBLE, TOIL AND TROUBLE, FIRE BURN, AND CALDRON BUBBLE" WS MySpace.com: www.myspace.com/carlraylouk http://www.myspace.com/carlraylouk Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : LouksHauntedGraveyardhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/LouksHauntedGraveyard/ Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk/ |
posted by Carl Ray Louk at 8:28 AM
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  Come on guys, let's start focusing on the important stuff like ObamaCare, Ukraine and winning the Senate. All this outrage in the conservative media about how much money it's costing for Barack Obama's trip to Belgium and for Michelle Obama's travels to China is just a waste of time. Yes, the cost of their trips, whether they're measured in millions of dollars or thousands of hotel-room nights, is outrageous. But what POTUS (the president of the United States) and FLOTUS (the first lady of the United States) are doing on their travels is nothing new or abnormal. Obama's official overseas trips and family vacations seem extravagant and more expensive than they should be, but they're not significantly higher in number than George W. Bush's were. According to a National Taxpayer Foundation study reported by Breitbart.com, so far Obama has taken 31 trips and spent 119 days abroad. That compares to George W. Bush's 28 trips and 116 days overseas in his first five years and Bill Clinton's 27 trips and 113 days. Let's get real. Presidents and "protectees" like the first lady and the Obama kids travel differently than any other persons in the human race, except maybe Donald Trump. I know because for the eight years my father was president I was a protectee – and so were each of my two kids. Whether I was alone, with my family or with my father, I had a three-person Secret Service protection detail -- 24/7. So did each of my kids, Cameron and Ashley. In the 1980s the media made a fuss about how much money was being spent on me when I traveled to Europe with my wife and kids. I admit it was embarrassing. But I had no choice when it came to security. I was on the president's protected list and the president gets to decide who's on it. Traveling with all that security was crazy, complicated and costly to taxpayers. Advance teams went ahead of us to Europe to contact local police. We were a 12-car motorcade wherever we went. Along with our traveling Secret Service detail, when we were in Europe we were protected by national and local police forces. In London, Scotland Yard joined our parade. Once when I flew into Genoa, Italy, I noticed the airport was surrounded by soldiers armed with Uzis. I said to my Secret Service agent, "My God, what's happening here?" He said, "You're happening here. They're all here for you." All that protection made sense then and still does: No foreign country wants to risk having a member of the family of the American president – or any visiting G-7 official -- kidnapped or killed. At home in Los Angeles, it was the same deal. There were three agents per shift with me, three with Cameron and three with Ashley – again, 24/7. The Secret Service drove my kids to school every day. You had a car and a driver, plus you had an agent in the right front seat and a backup car with one or two men. We all had codenames. Mine was "Riddler." The kids had codenames. Ashley already had her codename – "Raindrop" – before we knew whether she was a boy or a girl. Since the Secret Service only protects blood relatives, my wife could go off by herself. It didn't make her feel so good, but as long as she had one of the kids in her arms she was protected. (By the way, if your marriage can survive eight years of constant Secret Service protection, it can survive anything.) Yes, the cost of the Obamas' travels is off the charts. Yes, it seems like they are traveling while Washington burns. But should Michelle Obama not be allowed to take her kids and mom to China? Should I have not been allowed to travel because my father was president? So let's get over it. Protecting the president and his family is more expensive than ever, but it's something we have to do. Conservatives need to get out of the weeds, focus on what's important and stop complaining about things they don't know anything about.Michael ReaganMichael Reagan, the eldest son of Ronald Reagan, is heard daily by over 5 million listeners via his nationally syndicated talk radio program, "The Michael Reagan Show."Carl Ray Louk "FRIENDSHIP NEVER ENDS" SG-1996 "LET LOVE LEAD THE WAY" SG-2000 "THE PHOENIX SHALL RISE" SD "EVEN A MAN WHO IS PURE IN HEART AND SAYS HIS PRAYERS BY NIGHT, MAY BECOME A WOLF WHEN THE WOLFBANE BLOOMS AND THE AUTUMN MOON IS BRIGHT." LT-1941 "FLESH OF MY FLESH; BLOOD OF MY BLOOD; KIN OF MY KIN WHEN SAY COME TO YOU, YOU SHALL CROSS LAND OR SEA TO DO MY BIDDING!" CVTD-1895 "FROM HELL'S HEART I STAB AT THEE, FOR HATE SAKE I SPIT MY LAST BREATH AT THEE" CA-1895 "I HAVE BEEN, AND ALWAYS SHALL BE YOUR FRIEND" Spock "TRICK OR TREAT, TRICK OR TREAT CANDY IS DANDY BUT MURDER, OH MURDER, IS SO SWEET" CRL-2003 "EYE OF NEWT, AND TOE OF FROG, WOOL OF BAT, AND TONGUE OF DOG ADDER'S FORK, BLIND-WORM'S STING, LIZARD'S LEG, AND OWLET'S WING. FOR A CHARM OF POWERFUL TROUBLE, LIKE A HELL-BROTH BOIL AND BABBLE. DOUBLE, DOUBLE, TOIL AND TROUBLE, FIRE BURN, AND CALDRON BUBBLE" WS MySpace.com: www.myspace.com/carlraylouk http://www.myspace.com/carlraylouk Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : LouksHauntedGraveyardhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/LouksHauntedGraveyard/ Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk/ |
posted by Carl Ray Louk at 7:12 PM
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  Except for the definition and mechanism of proving treason, no area of the Constitution addressing the rights of all persons when the government is pursuing them is more specific than the Fourth Amendment. The linchpin of that specificity is the requirement that the government demonstrate probable cause to a judge as a precondition to the judge issuing a search warrant. The other specific requirement is identity: The government must identify whose property it wishes to search or whose behavior it wishes to monitor, because the Fourth Amendment requires that all warrants specifically describe the place to be searched or the person or thing to be seized. The principal reason for these requirements is the colonial revulsion over general warrants. A general warrant does not specifically describe the place to be searched or the person or thing to be seized, and it is not based on the probable cause of criminal behavior of the person targeted by the government. With a general warrant, the government simply gets authority from a judge to search a haystack looking for a needle, and in the process, it may disturb and move all the straw it wants. Stated differently, a general warrant permits the government to intrude upon the privacy of persons as to whom it has no probable cause of criminal behavior and without stating what it is looking for. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court has been issuing general warrants to the National Security Agency (NSA) since 1978, but it was not until last June that we learned that these general warrants have been executed upon the telephone calls, text messages, emails, bank records, utility bills and credit card bills of all persons in America since 2009. The constitutional requirement of probable cause is not political fancy; rather, it saves us from tyranny. Probable cause is a quantum of evidence that is sufficient to lead a neutral judge to conclude that the person about whom the evidence has been presented is more likely than not to possess further evidence of criminal behavior, or has more likely than not engaged in criminal behavior that is worthy of the government's use of its investigatory tools such that the government may lawfully and morally invade that person's natural right to privacy. Last week, Robert S. Litt, general counsel for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which runs the NSA, engaged in a curious colloquy with members of the president's Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. Litt complained that presenting probable cause about individuals to judges and then seeking search warrants from those judges to engage in surveillance of each of those individuals is too difficult. This is a remarkable admission from the chief lawyer for the nation's spies. He and the 60,000 NSA employees and vendors who have been spying on us have taken oaths to uphold the Constitution. There are no loopholes in their oaths. Each person's oath is to the entire Constitution -- whether compliance is easy or difficult. Yet the "too difficult" admission has far-reaching implications. This must mean that the NSA itself acknowledges that it is seeking and executing general warrants because the warrants the Constitution requires are too difficult to obtain. Stated differently, the NSA knows it is violating the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, because that amendment expressly forbids general warrants. In my career as a lawyer, judge, law professor, author and television commentator, I have heard many excuses for violating the Constitution. I reject all of them when they come from one who has sworn to uphold the Constitution, yet I understand the intellectually honest excuses -- like exigent circumstances -- when they are based on duty. The NSA's excuses are not intellectually honest, and they are not based on duty. They are based on laziness. But there was more than met the eye in Litt's testimony last week. Two days after Litt admitted to the use of general warrants, and while the president was in Europe, the White House leaked to the press its plans to curtail the massive NSA spying. Those plans, which would change only the appearance of what the NSA does but not its substance, have three parts. The first change relieves the NSA of the need for general warrants to require delivery of massive amounts of data about innocent Americans as to which the NSA has no probable cause, because the second change requires the computer servers and telecoms to preserve their records -- instead of the NSA preserving them -- and make them "immediately" available to the NSA when it comes calling. And the third is the requirement of a warrant from a FISA judge before the NSA may access that stored data. But because that warrant is not based on probable cause but rather on NSA whim, it is a foregone conclusion that the general warrants for examination, as opposed to delivery, will be granted. The FISA court has granted well in excess of 99 percent of the general warrants the NSA has sought. Litt must have known what the White House planned to leak when he made his "too difficult" complaint, as it fits nicely with this new scheme. Yet the scheme itself, because it lacks the requirement of probable cause that the Constitution requires, is equally as unconstitutional and morally repugnant as what the NSA has been doing for five years. Moreover, the NSA will not exactly go hat in hand to the computer servers and telecoms once it wishes to hear telephone calls or read emails or credit card bills. Its agents will simply press a few buttons on their computers when they wish, and the data they seek will be made available to them. These so-called changes should be rejected by Congress, which should overhaul the NSA instead. Hasn't Congress seen enough? The NSA and the CIA spy on the courts, Congress, the military, the police and everyone in America. This keeps none of us safer. But it does lessen our freedom when those in whose hands we repose the Constitution for safekeeping look the other way. What other freedoms are slipping because Congress, too, thinks upholding the Constitution is too difficult? Judge Andrew NapolitanoJudge Andrew P. Napolitano is the youngest life-tenured Superior Court judge in the history of the State of New Jersey. He sat on the bench from 1987 to 1995, during which time he presided over 150 jury trials and thousands of motions, sentencings and hearings. He taught constitutional law at Seton Hall Law School for 11 years, and he returned to private practice in 1995. Judge Napolitano began television work in the same year.Carl Ray Louk "FRIENDSHIP NEVER ENDS" SG-1996 "LET LOVE LEAD THE WAY" SG-2000 "THE PHOENIX SHALL RISE" SD "EVEN A MAN WHO IS PURE IN HEART AND SAYS HIS PRAYERS BY NIGHT, MAY BECOME A WOLF WHEN THE WOLFBANE BLOOMS AND THE AUTUMN MOON IS BRIGHT." LT-1941 "FLESH OF MY FLESH; BLOOD OF MY BLOOD; KIN OF MY KIN WHEN SAY COME TO YOU, YOU SHALL CROSS LAND OR SEA TO DO MY BIDDING!" CVTD-1895 "FROM HELL'S HEART I STAB AT THEE, FOR HATE SAKE I SPIT MY LAST BREATH AT THEE" CA-1895 "I HAVE BEEN, AND ALWAYS SHALL BE YOUR FRIEND" Spock "TRICK OR TREAT, TRICK OR TREAT CANDY IS DANDY BUT MURDER, OH MURDER, IS SO SWEET" CRL-2003 "EYE OF NEWT, AND TOE OF FROG, WOOL OF BAT, AND TONGUE OF DOG ADDER'S FORK, BLIND-WORM'S STING, LIZARD'S LEG, AND OWLET'S WING. FOR A CHARM OF POWERFUL TROUBLE, LIKE A HELL-BROTH BOIL AND BABBLE. DOUBLE, DOUBLE, TOIL AND TROUBLE, FIRE BURN, AND CALDRON BUBBLE" WS MySpace.com: www.myspace.com/carlraylouk http://www.myspace.com/carlraylouk Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : LouksHauntedGraveyardhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/LouksHauntedGraveyard/ Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk/ |
posted by Carl Ray Louk at 7:08 PM
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  I've been thrown off my health insurance -- THANKS, OBAMACARE! -- and have spent hours and hours over the past month trying to figure out my options now that the Democrats have made my old plan, which I liked, "illegal." (I prefer to think of my plan as "undocumented.") Whom do I bill for the hours of work Obamacare forced me to perform? How about you, Mickey? You're the smartest living liberal (faint praise), and you assured us that Obamacare was going to be fantastic. By now, Obama has issued "waivers" from Obamacare to about 99 percent of the country. (Perhaps you've heard, there's a big midterm election this year.) As one of the few Americans not granted a waiver, I'm here to tell you: You have no idea what's coming, America. I thought I had figured out the best plan for me a month ago after having doctors and hospital administrators look at the packets of material I was sent by my old insurance company -- the same mailing that informed me my old plan was "illegal" under Obamacare. But when I checked online recently, I discovered the premier plan -- the "platinum," low-deductible, astronomically expensive plan that might be accepted by an English-speaking doctor who didn't attend medical school in a Hawaiian shirt and board shorts -- does not include treatment at any decent hospitals. That's sort of unfortunate because THAT'S THE ONLY REASON I WANT INSURANCE! That's the only reason any sane homo sapiens wants health insurance: to cover health care costs in the event of some catastrophic illness or accident -- not to pay for Mickey Kaus' allergy appointments. But my only options under the blue-chip plan were hospitals that also do shoe repair. I called Blue Cross directly to ask if its most expensive insurance plan covered the only hospital I'd ever go to in an emergency. Since that's all I wanted to know, that's what I asked. (I like to get to the point that way.) But -- as happens whenever you try to ascertain the most basic information about insurance under Obamacare -- the Blue Cross representative began hammering me with a battery of questions about myself. First my name. (Does that make a difference to what hospitals its plans cover?) Then my phone number. By the time he got to my address, I said, CAN YOU PLEASE JUST TELL ME IF ANY OF YOUR PLANS COVER XYZ HOSPITAL? I DON'T EVEN KNOW IF I WANT TO SIGN UP WITH YOU! Finally, he admitted that Blue Cross' most expensive individual insurance plan does not cover treatment at the hospitals I named. Their doctors are "out of network" (and the person who designed this plan is "out of his mind"). This was the rest of the conversation, verbatim: ME: None of your plans cover out-of-network doctors? BLUE CROSS: No. ME: Why is it called "Premier Guided Access WITH OUT-OF-NETWORK PLAN"? BLUE CROSS: Where did you see that? ME: On Blue Cross' own material describing its plans. BLUE CROSS: Oh. I don't know why it's called that. ME: None of your plans cover (the good hospital)? BLUE CROSS: No. ME: I don't know who you are, but I have a very specific set of skills that will help me find you. And when I find you, I am going to kill you. (Click.) True conversation. Except the last sentence. That was my fantasy. I decided to approach it from the opposite direction and called one of the nation's leading hospitals to ask which plans it accepted. The woman listed a series of plans, but she couldn't tell me if I was eligible for any of them. For that, she said, I'd have to go to the Obamacare website. Does Obamacare cover suicide? I went to "healthcare.gov" and -- I guess I had heard this, but had blocked it from my memory like a rape victim unable to remember her attack -- you can't even peek at the available plans until you've given the government reams of personal information about yourself. How about they let me look at the merchandise first? Inasmuch as the cost of health insurance under Obamacare is so high that it will generally make more sense just to pay for your own catastrophic health emergencies, I was not interested in telling Kathleen Sebelius everything about me in order to have the privilege of glancing at the government's crappy plans. But that's the only choice. As the Obamacare website directs: (1) Create an account. (Name, password.) (2) Tell us about yourself and your family. (Every single thing.) (3) Choose a health insurance plan. (That's where you finally get to see the plans.) I wonder if other consumer-oriented businesses will start demanding names, addresses, passwords and phone numbers before the customer is allowed to browse the merchandise. Maybe Williams-Sonoma could pick up a few sales tricks from Ezekiel Emanuel! Oh, you'd like to see the bronze muffin tin? Sure, but first I'll need your Social Security number, date of birth and mother's maiden name. Sign here, here and here. The main point of the Obamacare website is to encourage people other than me to get a government subsidy. There's also a section helping you register to vote. You just can't see the insurance plans. (Guess which one you need a government ID for?) With zero help from the Obamacare website, I eventually figured out that there was one lone insurance plan that would cover treatment at a reputable hospital. The downside is, no doctors take it. So my only two health insurance options -- and yours, too, as soon as the waivers expire, America! -- are: (1) a plan that no doctors take; or (2) a plan that no hospitals take. You either pay for all your doctor visits and tests yourself, or you pay for your cancer treatment yourself. And you pay through the nose in either case. That's not insurance! It's a huge transfer of wealth from people who work for a living to those who don't, accomplished by forcing the workers to buy insurance that's not insurance. Obamacare has made actual health insurance "illegal." It's not "insurance" when what I want to insure against isn't covered, but paying for other people's health care needs -- defined broadly -- is mandatory. It's as if you wanted to buy a car, so you paid for a Toyota -- but then all you got was a 10-speed bike, with the rest of your purchase price going to buy cars, bikes and helmets for other people. Or, more precisely, it would be like having the option of car insurance that covers either collisions or liability, but not both. Your car insurance premium would be gargantuan, because most of it would go to buy insurance, gas and air fresheners for other people in the plan. If you have employer-provided health care, you may not have to make the 400 phone calls I had to, but the result will be the same: You're not getting what is commonly known as "insurance." You're getting a massive bill to pay for other people's chiropractors, marriage counselors, birth control pills, smoking cessation programs, "preventive care" appointments and pre-existing conditions. Health insurance has been outlawed, replaced with a welfare program that has been renamed "insurance." When Matt Drudge decided he'd rather pay for his own health care, liberals hysterically denounced him for not buying an Obamacare transfer-the-wealth, fake "insurance" plan. It used to be shameful to be a public charge. Now it's shameful to pay for yourself. And it's shameful to work for yourself. The self-employed are currently the only Americans subjected to Obamacare. (In a way, it's lucky for the Democrats that there aren't enough of us to hurt them in this year's midterm elections!) But we're the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. You may have an employer-provided plan now, but the waivers can't go on forever. If you live in America, your health insurance is going to disappear, too. The government simply cannot force all insurance companies to give subsidized health care to a third of the country, to ignore the pre-existing health conditions of its customers, to pay for every little thing tangentially related to health -- like smoking cessation programs, marital counseling and pediatric dental care -- and also expect them to cover your cancer treatment. It doesn't matter if you've been paying for insurance your whole adult life. That policy is now "illegal." Put your hands in the air, nice and easy, and step away from the policy ... You 99-percenters still unaffected by Obamacare will blithely go to the polls this November and vote on some teeny-tiny issue, completely unaware of the total destruction of health insurance in America. The waivers have worked. Now we'll have to wait 40 years for a future Mickey Kaus to come along and expose the disastrous consequences of this horrendous government program, just like the real Mickey Kaus did with welfare. But for now, I say: Screw you, Mickey Kaus. Ann CoulterAnn Coulter is a columnist and author of Guilty: Liberal Victims and Their Assault On America.Carl Ray Louk "FRIENDSHIP NEVER ENDS" SG-1996 "LET LOVE LEAD THE WAY" SG-2000 "THE PHOENIX SHALL RISE" SD "EVEN A MAN WHO IS PURE IN HEART AND SAYS HIS PRAYERS BY NIGHT, MAY BECOME A WOLF WHEN THE WOLFBANE BLOOMS AND THE AUTUMN MOON IS BRIGHT." LT-1941 "FLESH OF MY FLESH; BLOOD OF MY BLOOD; KIN OF MY KIN WHEN SAY COME TO YOU, YOU SHALL CROSS LAND OR SEA TO DO MY BIDDING!" CVTD-1895 "FROM HELL'S HEART I STAB AT THEE, FOR HATE SAKE I SPIT MY LAST BREATH AT THEE" CA-1895 "I HAVE BEEN, AND ALWAYS SHALL BE YOUR FRIEND" Spock "TRICK OR TREAT, TRICK OR TREAT CANDY IS DANDY BUT MURDER, OH MURDER, IS SO SWEET" CRL-2003 "EYE OF NEWT, AND TOE OF FROG, WOOL OF BAT, AND TONGUE OF DOG ADDER'S FORK, BLIND-WORM'S STING, LIZARD'S LEG, AND OWLET'S WING. FOR A CHARM OF POWERFUL TROUBLE, LIKE A HELL-BROTH BOIL AND BABBLE. DOUBLE, DOUBLE, TOIL AND TROUBLE, FIRE BURN, AND CALDRON BUBBLE" WS MySpace.com: www.myspace.com/carlraylouk http://www.myspace.com/carlraylouk Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : LouksHauntedGraveyardhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/LouksHauntedGraveyard/ Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk/ |
posted by Carl Ray Louk at 7:05 PM
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posted by Carl Ray Louk at 12:43 PM
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  Some statements and arguments are so asinine that you'd have to be an academic or a leftist to take them seriously. Take the accusation that Republicans and conservatives are conducting a war on women. Does that mean they're waging war on their daughters, wives, mothers and other female members of their families? If so, do they abide by the Geneva Conventions' bans on torture, or do they engage in enhanced interrogation and intimidation methods, such as waterboarding, with female family members? You might say that leftists don't mean actual war. Then why do they say it? What would you think of a white conservative mayor's trying to defund charter schools where blacks are succeeding? While most of New York's black students could not pass a citywide math proficiency exam, there was a charter school where 82 percent of its students passed. New York's left-wing mayor, Bill de Blasio, is trying to shut it down, and so far, I've heard not one peep from the Big Apple's civil rights hustlers, including Al Sharpton and Charles Rangel. According to columnist Thomas Sowell, the attack on successful charter schools is happening in other cities, too (http://tinyurl.com/nxulxc). U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder recently stated that we must revisit the laws that ban convicted felons from voting. Why? According to a recent study by two professors, Marc Meredith of the University of Pennsylvania and Michael Morse of Stanford, published in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (http://tinyurl.com/pgolu8x), three-fourths of America's convicted murderers, rapists and thieves are Democrats. Many states restrict felons from voting; however, there's a movement afoot to eliminate any restriction on their voting. If successful, we might see Democratic candidates campaigning in prisons, seeking the support of some of America's worst people. Decades ago, I warned my fellow Americans that the tobacco zealots' agenda was not about the supposed health hazards of secondhand smoke. It was really about control. The fact that tobacco smoke is unpleasant gained them the support of most Americans. By the way, to reach its secondhand smoke conclusions, the Environmental Protection Agency employed statistical techniques that were grossly dishonest. Some years ago, I had the opportunity to ask a Food and Drug Administration official whether his agency would accept pharmaceutical companies using similar statistical techniques in their drug approval procedures. He just looked at me. Seeing as Americans are timid and compliant, why not dictate other aspects of our lives -- such as the size of soda we may buy, as former Mayor Michael Bloomberg tried in New York? Former U.S. Department of Agriculture spokesman John Webster said: "Right now, this anti-obesity campaign is in its infancy. ... We want to turn people around and give them assistance in eating nutritious foods." The city of Calabasas, Calif., adopted an ordinance that bans smoking in virtually all outdoor areas. The stated justification is not the desire to fight against secondhand smoke but the desire to protect children from bad influences -- seeing adults smoking. Most Americans don't know that years ago, if someone tried to stop a person from smoking on a beach or sidewalk or buying a 16-ounce cup of soda or tried to throw away his kid's homemade lunch, it might have led to a severe beating. On a very famous radio talk show, I suggested to an anti-obesity busybody who was calling for laws to restrict restaurants' serving sizes that he not be a coward and rely on government. He should just come up, I told him, and take the food he thought I shouldn't have from my plate. The late H.L. Mencken's description of health care professionals in his day is just as appropriate today: "A certain section of medical opinion, in late years, has succumbed to the messianic delusion. Its spokesmen are not content to deal with the patients who come to them for advice; they conceive it to be their duty to force their advice upon everyone, including especially those who don't want it. That duty is purely imaginary. It is born of vanity, not of public spirit. The impulse behind it is not altruism, but a mere yearning to run things." Walter E. WilliamsDr. Williams serves on the faculty of George Mason University as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics and is the author of 'Race and Economics: How Much Can Be Blamed on Discrimination?' and 'Up from the Projects: An Autobiography.' Carl Ray Louk "FRIENDSHIP NEVER ENDS" SG-1996 "LET LOVE LEAD THE WAY" SG-2000 "THE PHOENIX SHALL RISE" SD "EVEN A MAN WHO IS PURE IN HEART AND SAYS HIS PRAYERS BY NIGHT, MAY BECOME A WOLF WHEN THE WOLFBANE BLOOMS AND THE AUTUMN MOON IS BRIGHT." LT-1941 "FLESH OF MY FLESH; BLOOD OF MY BLOOD; KIN OF MY KIN WHEN SAY COME TO YOU, YOU SHALL CROSS LAND OR SEA TO DO MY BIDDING!" CVTD-1895 "FROM HELL'S HEART I STAB AT THEE, FOR HATE SAKE I SPIT MY LAST BREATH AT THEE" CA-1895 "I HAVE BEEN, AND ALWAYS SHALL BE YOUR FRIEND" Spock "TRICK OR TREAT, TRICK OR TREAT CANDY IS DANDY BUT MURDER, OH MURDER, IS SO SWEET" CRL-2003 "EYE OF NEWT, AND TOE OF FROG, WOOL OF BAT, AND TONGUE OF DOG ADDER'S FORK, BLIND-WORM'S STING, LIZARD'S LEG, AND OWLET'S WING. FOR A CHARM OF POWERFUL TROUBLE, LIKE A HELL-BROTH BOIL AND BABBLE. DOUBLE, DOUBLE, TOIL AND TROUBLE, FIRE BURN, AND CALDRON BUBBLE" WS MySpace.com: www.myspace.com/carlraylouk http://www.myspace.com/carlraylouk Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : LouksHauntedGraveyardhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/LouksHauntedGraveyard/ Yahoo Group: Yahoo! Groups : TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheWorldAccordingtoCarlRayLouk/ |
posted by Carl Ray Louk at 8:07 AM
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I am not totally Gothic, but I have Gothic Tendencies I normally dress in Black Jeans or Black Dickey Pants and Black T shirt and Black Tennis shoes. I have Brown hair, Brown eyes, and an Overweight figure, 353.6 lbs., standing 6'0 tall. I don't smoke, and I Drink socially/occasionally. My Religion: Christian, My Denomination: Evangelical Southern Baptist, My Political Party Affiliate: Republican, and My Ideology: Conservative. I love horror movies and stories. Always been into the supernatural, unnatural and occult stuff. I can remember in elementary school going to the school libary and looking up books on Big Foot and the Lockness Monster and Vampires and Werewolves. Vampires have always been my favorite, followed closely by Werewolves. I read Dracula, my all time favorite book, every October since I was a junior in High School back in 1991. My Motto is: You improvise, you adapt, you over come. Surrender is not in my creed. My Louk Family Crest is the Phoenix: A legendary Arabian bird said to periodically burn itself to death and emerge from the ashes as a new phoenix; according to most versions only one phoenix lived at a time and it renewed itself every 500 years.
