Stephen Pruiell of National Review Online reports that the grand total of economy-boosting “stimulus” packages since 2008, now total 1.085 trillion dollars.  That’s more than America has spent on both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.   The economy is still sluggish and stuck in what is now described as “The Great Recession.”   The only good thing about the federal government spreading stimulus money throughout the country is that it has prevented Congress from wasting it in Washington!

There is only one way out.  There is only one principal that will save the future of the country.  It is neither a Republican or Democrat-owned solution.  It’s common sense.  Washington needs to take its hands off the wallets of Americans.  State and local governments need to be able to breathe enough to reduce taxes on entrepreneurs and small businesses which generate the real jobs in this country.  Barack Obama’s fairy tale economy where hard-working middle class people shoulder the burden of every need of every person in our country and other countries too,  is destroying the future of America.  The election of this brand of “hope and change” has taught us one thing.  We need skills, character and courage to run America in this age.  We can no longer settle for electing a personality.  An image.  Simply an orator.  We can’t afford to elect a great guy from a peanut farm in Georgia either.  America’s global economy is so large and so sophisticated that voters need to start searching for tried and tested leaders with giant skills in business.  Men and women who understand the movements of global markets and who know what a billion dollars looks like on paper.

If we didn’t realize it before, we know it now.  We can’t ask someone who has never even run a corner store, to lead a 13-trillion dollar economy.

The L.A. Times is reporting that there has been a long history of competitive conflict between California political headliners Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina. The patchy stories offered up by Times reporters Maeve Reston and Seema Mehta, try to paint a picture of sexist and stereotyped conflicts between the two accomplished former CEO’s, and suggest that Whitman and Fiorina even jockeyed for position at the speaker’s podium, during the 2006 National Republican Convention.

I guess Al Gore and Bill Clinton never gave a thought to choreographing their appearances at big political events? Or Bill Gates of Microsoft and Steve Jobs of Apple? Or how about Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama? This is news?

What is disappointing is that two female reporters from the L.A. Times patched together shaky anecdotes and anonymous say-so’s to create a predictable and outdated story bashing professional women. Of course there are comparisons to be made, and similarities to be drawn about the Whitman and Fiorina candidacies. Not to mention air-time and press appearances up for grabs. The candidates at issue by the way, are also two of the most well-prepared women ever to run for public office in America and former CEO’s who couldn’t be more focused on: results.

So for the record;

1- Carly Fiorina has stated candidly many times to supporters all across the state and the country, that she was diagnosed with breast cancer just hours before traveling to Sacramento in 2006 to address the National Republican Convention. More on her mind that evening than one-upping Meg Whitman, was completing the challenging assignment and returning home as quickly as possible to face serious treatment options.

2-The claims that Fiorina and Whitman were two high-powered women plugged into a poorly-run and personality-charged McCain campaign is true. Fiorina signed on early fully-supporting McCain, and deserved her key role. Meg Whitman became National Finance Chair for John McCain only out of necessity, as part of the transfer of donors and contacts from Mitt Romney to the McCain campaign. Would Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman tag team for McCain sometimes in a complimentary way, and other times almost duplicatively? That would be understandable, and would also be politics as usual on a national presidential campaign.

3-Carly Fiorina was caught in 6 a.m. post-election chatter where she found herself publicly-exposed while privately-questioning Meg Whitman’s media strategy.   It wasn’t an attack on Whitman, as much as an offhand question about her campaign. Even so, Fiorina apologized and Whitman brushed the remark aside.

Isn’t the real story that in 2010, California may be electing two women, both highly-skilled, and both ready to play big roles in trying to halt the runaway train that is our nation’s economy?

Everything else…..seems meaningless.

This is why government health care hurts.

Forty- year old California laws promising everyone equal access to public health care are being stretched to the limit by illegal immigrants and others who are eligible for Medi-Cal benefits, many of which have discovered that they can demand private-level health care benefits for free.   California’s 2010 gubernatorial candidate and state office retread, Jerry Brown, paved the way for this expensive abuse way back in the 1970’s by granting “equal or better healthcare” to all in the state, whether paid for or not.   This sweet promise was difficult to deliver in the 70’s, but 40 years and 20 million people later it is more than breaking the backs of California taxpayers.   The state’s medical system is being  drowned by Medi-Cal users.    Expectant mothers who have had little or no pre-natal care or personal care, often having the sickest babies, require the longest stays and often cost taxpayers the most.   Word is also out that Cedars Sinai and other top drawer hospitals offer private rooms and better circumstances than the aging and crowded wards of County/USC Hospital.   Medi-Cal beneficiaries simply go where it is more comfortable knowing that they can’t be turned away.

The most respected cost analysis studies on subsidized health care in California, by state-directed actuaries, indicate that at least one in five Californians are uninsured, or 5.5 million people.   Simply put, more people are uninsured in California than LIVE in the state of Massachusetts.  The taxpayer bill to provide health care services for the needy and uninsured in California this year?  Over ten billion dollars.

Taxpayers don’t just pay once however, they pay over and over again.   Hospitals are reimbursed by the government for accepting Medi-Cal patients at a rate of 83%.    Who pays for the additional 17% of the bill?  Paying patients do.   When you check into your local hospital as a private insurance patient, hospitals try to make up their losses by charging you and every other private patient 17% more.

USC/County Hospital Los Angeles

California taxpayers are paying inflated insurance premiums for themselves and their families, paying high state taxes  to cover the state’s skyrocketing health and welfare costs,  and then paying inflated hospital charges for their own care to pay the freight for an exploding population of illegal immigrants, unemployed workers, and the poor and needy.

There is no shortage of generosity and compassion among California residents, but the equation is simply unsustainable.  Especially with an  approximate 500,000 of state homeowners now fleeing California each year for less expensive lifestyles in neighboring states, and at best, 400,000 moving in.  These figures holding steady since 2001.

California’s health care headaches are spinning off into other states, changing the health care industry into a health care trap, and taxpayers…..are the catch.

As we push open the door to the future of America, it is time well-spent to examine the courage of the past. On this Independence Day I hope you will read this historical account of the 4th of July, 1776. It is fascinatingly-detailed, and reveals the temperature, the painstaking writing, the urgency and the fearlessness behind the Declaration of Independence.

Researched by: Rush Limbaugh, Jr.!

You won’t be sorry. Happy 4th of July, and thank you to all of you who are today’s Patriots. Endeavoring to change America, giving your grocery money to help this candidate or that, making posters for rallies, getting out the vote, wearing your old uniforms, and most important, flying the flag. We Cherish You.

I’m thinking of two people in particular, Woody and Donna Woodrum, two passionate Americans, parents of military sons, community activists in San Diego, California. We haven’t agreed on everything in this election year, but I would work shoulder to shoulder with them any day. They are the kind of people who are the backbone of America, who don’t hesitate to open their wallets if they think a dollar here or there will change the world. They mix sweat and tears with their beliefs and make no apologies for not just being patriotic, but being faithful as well.

How fortunate we are to have such people…..on our side. They are the patriots of today. Now read about the patriots of 1776:

“OUR LIVES, OUR FORTUNES, OUR SACRED HONOR”

By Rush Limbaugh, Jr.

It was a glorious morning. The sun was shining and the wind was from the southeast. Up especially early, a tall, bony, redheaded young Virginian found time to buy a new thermometer, for which he paid three pounds, fifteen shillings. He also bought gloves for Martha, his wife, who was ill at home.

Thomas Jefferson arrived early at the statehouse. The temperature was 72 and the horseflies weren’t nearly so bad at that hour. It was a lovely room, very large, with gleaming white walls. The chairs were comfortable. Facing the single door were two brass fireplaces, but they would not be used today.

The moment the door was shut, and it was always kept locked, the room became an oven. The tall windows were shut, so that loud quarreling voices could not be heard by passersby. Small openings atop the windows allowed a slight stir of air, and also a large number of horseflies. Jefferson records that “the horseflies were dexterous in finding necks, and the silk of stocking was as nothing to them.” All discussion was punctuated by the slap of hands on necks.

On the wall at the back, facing the President’s desk, was a panoply–consisting of a drum, swords, and banners seized from Fort Ticonderoga the previous year. Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold had captured the place, shouting that they were taking it “in the name if the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!”

Now Congress got to work, promptly taking up an emergency measure about which there was discussion but no dissension. “Resolved: That an application be made to the Committee of Safety of Pennsylvania for a supply of flints for the troops at New York.”

Then Congress transformed itself into a committee of the whole, The Declaration of Independence was read aloud once more, and debate resumed. Though Jefferson was the best writer of all of them, he had been somewhat verbose. Congress hacked the excess away. They did a good job, as a side-by-side comparison of the rough draft and the final text shows. They cut the phrase “by a self-assumed power.” “Climb” was replaced by “must read,” then “must” was eliminated, then the whole sentence, and soon the whole paragraph was cut. Jefferson groaned as they continued what he later called “their depredations.” “Inherent and inalienable rights” came out “certain unalienable rights,” and to this day no one knows who suggested the elegant change.

A total of 86 alterations were made. Almost 500 words were eliminated, leaving 1,337. At last, after three days of wrangling, the document was put to a vote.

Here in this hall Patrick Henry had once thundered: “I am no longer a Virginian, Sir, but an American.” But today the loud, sometimes bitter argument stilled, and without fanfare the vote was taken from north to south by colonies, as was the custom. On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was adopted.

There were no trumpets blown. No one stood on his chair and cheered. The afternoon was waning and Congress had no thought of delaying the full calendar of routine business on its hands. For several hours they worked on many other problems before adjourning for the day.

Much to lose…

What kind of men were the 56 signers who adopted the Declaration of Independence and who, by their signing, committed an act of treason against the Crown? To each of you the names Franklin, Adams, Hancock, and Jefferson are almost as familiar as household words. Most of us, however, know nothing of the other signers. Who were they? What happened to them?

I imagine that many of you are somewhat surprised at the names not there: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Patrick Henry. All were elsewhere.

Ben Franklin was the only really old man. Eighteen were under 40; three were in their 20s. Of the 56, almost half–24–were judges and lawyers. Eleven were merchants, 9 were land-owners and farmers, and the remaining 12 were doctors, ministers, and politicians.

With only a few exceptions, such as Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, these were men of substantial property. All but two had families. The vast majority were men of education and standing in their communities. They had economic security as few men had in the 18th century.

Each had more to lose from revolution than he had to gain by it. John Hancock, one of the richest men in America, already had a price of 500 pounds on his head. He signed in enormous letters so “that his Majesty could now read his name without glasses and could now double the reward.” Ben Franklin wryly noted: “Indeed we must all hang together, otherwise we shall most assuredly hang separately.” Fat Benjamin Harrison of Virginia told tiny Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts: “With me it will all be over in a minute, but you, you will be dancing on air an hour after I am gone.”

These men knew what they risked. The penalty for treason was death by hanging. And remember: a great British fleet was already at anchor in New York Harbor.

They were sober men. There were no dreamy-eyed intellectuals or draft card burners here. They were far from hot-eyed fanatics, yammering for an explosion. They simply asked for the status quo. It was change they resisted. It was equality with the mother country they desired. It was taxation with representation they sought. They were all conservatives, yet they rebelled.

It was principle, not property, that had brought these men to Philadelphia. Two of them became presidents of the United States. Seven of them became state governors. One died in office as vice president of the United States. Several would go on to be U.S. Senators. One, the richest man in America, in 1828 founded the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. One, a delegate from Philadelphia, was the only real poet, musician and philosopher of the signers (it was he, Francis Hopkinson–not Betsy Ross–who designed the United States flag).

Richard Henry Lee, a delegate from Virginia, had introduced the resolution to adopt the Declaration of Independence in June of 1776. He was prophetic is his concluding remarks:

“Why then sir, why do we longer delay? Why still deliberate? Let this happy day give birth to an American Republic. Let her arise not to devastate and to conquer but to reestablish the reign of peace and law. The eyes of Europe are fixed upon us. She demands of us a living example of freedom that may exhibit a contrast in the felicity of the citizen to the ever increasing tyranny which desolates her polluted shores. She invites us to prepare an asylum where the unhappy may find solace, and the persecuted repose. If we are not this day wanting in our duty, the names of the American legislators of 1776 will be placed by posterity at the side of all of those whose memory has been and ever will be dear to virtuous men and good citizens.”

Though the resolution was formally adopted July 4, it was not until July 8 that two of the states authorized their delegates to sign, and it was not until August 2 that the signers met at Philadelphia to actually put their names to the Declaration.

William Ellery, delegate from Rhode Island, was curious to see the signers’ faces as they committed this supreme act of personal courage. He saw some men sign quickly, “but in no face was he able to discern real fear.” Stephen Hopkins, Ellery’s colleague from Rhode Island, was a man past 60. As he signed with a shaking pen, he declared: “My hand trembles, but my heart does not.”

“Most glorious service”…

Even before the list was published, the British marked down every member of Congress suspected of having put his name to treason. All of them became the objects of vicious manhunts. Some were taken. Some, like Jefferson, had narrow escapes. All who had property or families near British strongholds suffered.

Francis Lewis, New York delegate, saw his home plundered and his estates, in what is now Harlem, completely destroyed by British soldiers. Mrs. Lewis was captured and treated with great brutality. Though she was later exchanged for two British prisoners through the efforts of Congress, she died from the effects of her abuse.

William Floyd, another New York delegate, was able to escape with his wife and children across Long Island Sound to Connecticut, where they lived as refugees without income for seven years. When they came home, they found a devastated ruin.

Phillips Livingstone had all his great holdings in New York confiscated and his family driven out of their home. Livingstone died in 1778 still working in Congress for the cause.

Louis Morris, the fourth New York delegate, saw all his timber, crops, and livestock taken. For seven years he was barred from his home and family.

John Hart of Trenton, New Jersey, risked his life to return home to see his dying wife. Hessian soldiers rode after him, and he escaped in the woods. While his wife lay on her deathbed, the soldiers ruined his farm and wrecked his homestead. Hart, 65, slept in caves and woods as he was hunted across the countryside. When at long last, emaciated by hardship, he was able to sneak home, he found his wife had already been buried, and his 13 children taken away. He never saw them again. He died a broken man in 1779, without ever finding his family.

Dr. John Witherspoon, signer, was president of the College of New Jersey, later called Princeton. The British occupied the town of Princeton, and billeted troops in the college. They trampled and burned the finest college library in the country.

Judge Richard Stockton, another New Jersey delegate signer, had rushed back to his estate in an effort to evacuate his wife and children. The family found refuge with friends, but a sympathizer betrayed them. Judge Stockton was pulled from bed in the night and brutally beaten by the arresting soldiers. Thrown into a common jail, he was deliberately starved. Congress finally arranged for Stockton’s parole, but his health was ruined. The judge was released as an invalid, when he could no longer harm the British cause. He returned home to find his estate looted and did not live to see the triumph of the revolution. His family was forced to live off charity.

Robert Morris, merchant prince of Philadelphia, delegate and signer, met Washington’s appeals and pleas for money year after year. He made and raised arms and provisions which made it possible for Washington to cross the Delaware at Trenton. In the process he lost 150 ships at sea, bleeding his own fortune and credit almost dry. George Clymer, Pennsylvania signer, escaped with his family from their home, but their property was completely destroyed by the British in the Germantown and Brandywine campaigns.

Dr. Benjamin Rush, also from Pennsylvania, was forced to flee to Maryland. As a heroic surgeon with the army, Rush had several narrow escapes.

John Morton, a Tory in his views previous to the debate, lived in a strongly loyalist area of Pennsylvania. When he came out for independence, most of his neighbors and even some of his relatives ostracized him. He was a sensitive and troubled man, and many believed this action killed him. When he died in 1777, his last words to his tormentors were: “Tell them that they will live to see the hour when they shall acknowledge it [the signing] to have been the most glorious service that I rendered to my country.”

William Ellery, Rhode Island delegate, saw his property and home burned to the ground.

Thomas Lynch, Jr., South Carolina delegate, had his health broken from privation and exposures while serving as a company commander in the military. His doctors ordered him to seek a cure in the West Indies and on the voyage he and his young bride were drowned at sea.

Edward Rutledge, Arthur Middleton, and Thomas Heyward, Jr., the other three South Carolina signers, were taken by the British in the siege of Charleston. They were carried as prisoners of war to St. Augustine, Florida, where they were singled out for indignities. They were exchanged at the end of the war, the British in the meantime having completely devastated their large land holdings and estates.

Thomas Nelson, signer of Virginia, was at the front in command of the Virginia military forces. With British General Charles Cornwallis in Yorktown, fire from 70 heavy American guns began to destroy Yorktown piece by piece. Lord Cornwallis and his staff moved their headquarters into Nelson’s palatial home. While American cannonballs were making a shambles of the town, the house of Governor Nelson remained untouched. Nelson turned in rage to the American gunners and asked, “Why do you spare my home?” They replied, “Sir, out of respect to you.” Nelson cried, “Give me the cannon!” and fired on his magnificent home himself, smashing it to bits. But Nelson’s sacrifice was not quite over. He had raised $2 million for the Revolutionary cause by pledging his own estates. When the loans came due, a newer peacetime Congress refused to honor them, and Nelson’s property was forfeited. He was never reimbursed. He died, impoverished, a few years later at the age of 50.

Lives, fortunes, honor…

Of those 56 who signed the Declaration of Independence, nine died of wounds or hardships during the war. Five were captured and imprisoned, in each case with brutal treatment. Several lost wives, sons or entire families. One lost his 13 children. Two wives were brutally treated. All were at one time or another the victims of manhunts and driven from their homes. Twelve signers had their homes completely burned. Seventeen lost everything they owned. Yet not one defected or went back on his pledged word. Their honor, and the nation they sacrificed so much to create, is still intact.

And, finally, there is the New Jersey signer, Abraham Clark. He gave two sons to the officer corps in the Revolutionary Army. They were captured and sent to the infamous British prison hulk afloat in New York harbor known as the hell ship “Jersey,” where 11,000 American captives were to die. The younger Clarks were treated with a special brutality because of their father. One was put in solitary and given no food. With the end almost in sight, with the war almost won, no one could have blamed Abraham Clark for acceding to the British request when they offered him his sons’ lives if he would recant and come out for the King and parliament. The utter despair in this man’s heart, the anguish in his very soul, must reach out to each one of us down through 200 years with his answer: “No.”

The 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence proved by their every deed that they made no idle boast when they composed the most magnificent curtain line in history. “And for the support of this Declaration with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”

My husband is one of the leading health care policy makers and legal minds in the country.  Even the two of us cannot always agree on what is “reasonable and expected” care, and what is “extraordinary.”   What we do know is that due to litigation-rich medical settlements, doctors ‘treat” and keeping on treating, rather than work through real prospects for quality of life, or life at all, with sensitive and hurting family members.

Along with the enormous privilege of medical technology which we enjoy in the 21st century,  comes enormous responsibility.  Emergency room docs and surgeons can maintain almost any life.  As Katy Butler shares  in this personal, wrenching and real account of  her parents’ defining decisions about life-prolonging health care, it is a good time to pause and…..to learn.

The New York Times:

“One October afternoon three years ago while I was visiting my parents, my mother made a request I dreaded and longed to fulfill. She had just poured me a cup of Earl Grey from her Japanese iron teapot, shaped like a little pumpkin; outside, two cardinals splashed in the birdbath in the weak Connecticut sunlight. Her white hair was gathered at the nape of her neck, and her voice was low. “Please help me get Jeff’s pacemaker turned off,” she said, using my father’s first name. I nodded, and my heart knocked.

Upstairs, my 85-year-old father, Jeffrey, a retired Wesleyan University professor who suffered from dementia, lay napping in what was once their shared bedroom. Sewn into a hump of skin and muscle below his right clavicle was the pacemaker that helped his heart outlive his brain. The size of a pocket watch, it had kept his heart beating rhythmically for nearly five years. Its battery was expected to last five more.

Please read more here.……

drawing cartoons

Kagan answered over 500 questions in 17 hours of hearings and ranking Republican Jeff Sessions of Alabama said at the conclusion, “he still did not know whether she would be more like John Roberts or Ruth Bader Ginsburg.”

Senator Robert Byrd already missed by Democrats….his death left Harry Reid in the lurch on this week’s jobs bill in the Senate, which came up short by ONE VOTE.  Republicans refused to add to the national debt by rubber-stamping extension of unemployment benefits for 2 million Americans.

Women on the move…..Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife, Ginny Thomas made news earlier this year with her new website,Libert Central, marking the first time that a Justice’s wife has been so publicly political.  This Fall, she will be joined by another judicial wife who feels passionately about the direction of the country.  Mrs. Samuel “Martha Ann Alito will take over as Chairman of the Republican Women’s Federal Forum In Washington.  The group was started by Barbara Bush, and is home to wives of Republican wives of Senators, Congressmen, and other Washington insiders.

False hope……President Obama may have gotten a brief upward bump in the polls following his dismissal of General McChrystal , but it didn’t last long.  New polling today shows the president’s approval rating has dropped back to previous levels.  His approval rating has settled below 50% and is staying there for the first time in his presidency.

McChrystal planned his departure, according to the United Conservatives of Virginia blog, which is saying that General McChrystal’s comments weren’t a  “slip of the lip” http://networkedblogs.com/5hg2Y

“The true meaning of the McChrystal episode is titanic; because it is quite apparent the General was sending a stern message directly to the American people. The reason is as clear as it is frightening: our political leadership in Washington is clueless. And their incompetence is costing us not only resources and money, but most importantly the precious lives of brave American soldiers.”

Rep. Ed Royce (R-Fullerton, CA) says the GOP  IS listening…with ” YouCut” and “America Speaks Out.”

YouCut allows average citizens to vote, both online and via cell phone, on spending cuts that they wish the House of Representatives to enact.  Over 700,000 Americans have already cast their votes.   Every week one at-large suggestion on cost-cutting is selected as a winning idea.  Submissions from YouCut participants will continue to be incorporated into the project and brought to the House floor for an up or down vote.  http://www.republicanwhip.house.gov/YouCut

Another “talk back” opportunity for voters is  “America Speaks Out.” Republican leaders say they also want to let average Americans help set the priorities for the nation by participating in online town hall meetings.  Incumbents are starting to hear the drumbeat of disenchantment across the nation………….

I need you to be excited – as excited as the Tea Party people are,” Boxer implored a morning gathering of 1,000 Democrats

At a Women’s roundtable in Los Angeles Wednesday, U.S. Senate Candidate Carly Fiorina, listened to young professional conservative women talk about how $700 evaporates from their paychecks in taxes every two weeks.  SEVEN HUNDRED DOLLARS.  “How will I ever be able to buy a house?” said one participant.   Fiorina said “That’s why I’ve signed the taxpayer pledge.  The more we give them, the more ways Washington finds to spend it.”

Kitchen Cabinet Coalition Co-Chair Susan Allen is helping a new Young Professional and College Women’s conservative political group ramp up.  NeW is its name, and it is just what the country needs.  Young professionals are already feeling the bite of taxes taken out of their first paychecks, and many are turning into conservatives over NIGHT!

The American Conservative Union will announce in the coming week an ambitious and focused political effort to expose and educate voters in the coming months about one of the Obama administration’s most corrupt supporters.  The ACU is zeroing in on the group and is planning a strategic effort to stop GET OUT THE VOTE  efforts designed to shape the 2010 election the “Chicago Way.”   More details in a few days.

Gallup Polls show that nationally Republican enthusiasm for casting a ballot in November is the highest it has been in the history of the poll. Meanwhile enthusiasm amongst Democrats is low – resulting in a record 15-point advantage for Republicans. Read more about it here: http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2010/06/gop_at_historic.php

GULF STILL GUSHING…..  In another conflict for the Obama administration, one of its Energy Department appointees, Undersecretary of Energy Steven J. Kooinin, left British Petroleum just last year. Energy scientist  Koonin can’t help with the urgent gushing in the Gulf because of conflicts caused by the 1.8 million in BP compensation and bonus money he received during 2008 and the first three months of 2009.  That doesn’t include an additional $244,600 in BP bonuses he listed as a ‘receivable,’ as well as additional BP stock assets worth more than $1 million, U.S. Office of Government Ethics filings show. What’s more, BP is continuing to pay to prepare Mr. Koonin’s tax returns through 2011, and it paid for temporary housing, a per-diem and a rental car when he returned to the  United States before he took the DOE job, according to the records.”  Why would BP  have work so hard to “place” someone in an administration job?

The Wall Street Journal (6/23, Wallsten & Gray) reports, “According to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, 62% percent of adults feel the country is on the wrong track, the highest level since before the 2008 election. Just one-third think the economy will get better over the next year, a 7-point drop from a month ago and the low point of Mr. Obama’s tenure. For the first time, more people disapprove of Mr. Obama’s job performance than approve. And 57% of voters would prefer to elect a new person to Congress than re-elect their local representatives, the highest share in 18 years. Just 40% rate him positively on his ‘ability to handle a crisis,’ an 11-point drop since January. Half disapprove of Mr. Obama’s handling of the oil spill, including one in four Democrats.”

FEELING WORSE FOR AL GORE, whose pals in the media have done their best to tuck away the news of his  reported awkwardness with a masseuse, but it’s not working.  The former presidential candidate and Vice-President of the United States has of course recently broken it off with longtime and much admired wife, Tipper Gore.  Al hasn’t been himself since 2000 and his crushing defeat for president.  Even an Oscar and the Nobel Peace Prize, personally arranged by the Left, haven’t made him feel better.

Is this really happening?

Let’s not reward bad behavior.  It’s time to send a message to men who waste the People’s time after we give them our trust.

TUNE OUT CNN and don’t let your channel changer even dust over that channel when he’s on.  Even their own staffer’s don’t like the choice:

“The appointment of a governor who resigned from office, but was not prosecuted, is likely to raise eyebrows with some of CNN’s viewers and, Mr. Spitzer conceded, some of his new colleagues. When Mr. Spitzer’s name was being floated as a possibility for the job, some CNN staff members quietly expressed unhappiness with the choice, saying it would stain the company’s reputation. Mr. Spitzer said, “People are entitled to their own views. I respect that.”

There’s just something that isn’t right about turning betrayal into a broadcast career.

Who’s next?  John Edwards?  Bill Clinton? John Ensign? Mark Sanford of South Carolina? Larry Craig from Idaho?  There just isn’t enough airtime to go around.

No.  Simply……no.

With so many hopes, so many hearts, and so many families at stake, any breakthrough in breast cancer is welcome. More private and public monies are devoted to breast cancer research in the United States than any other form of cancer. Yet, some medical researchers are sensitive about the attention and the enormous, high-profile fund raising campaigns which continue to fuel breast cancer research and wish the wealth would be spread around a bit.

Why so much support? It’s your mother. Your wife. Your sister. Your daughter. Your next door neighbor. With two million breast cancer survivors today, there are also lot of advocates out there.

There’s a story in just how much money is being raised for breast cancer research. Take a look at this piece by MSNBC on the subject:

“In the world of cancer charities and government funding, breast cancer is queen. The top four breast cancer charities take in a combined annual revenue of roughly $256 million according to their tax returns. The largest breast cancer charity, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, had a total revenue of $161,974,711 for the year ending March 31, 2007 according to its tax return.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) devoted $572.4 million researching breast cancer in 2007. Other National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding for breast cancer boosted the total spent on the disease to $705 million. Plus, the Department of Defense operates its own breast cancer research outfit at a cost of another $138 million in fiscal 2008.”

Much is spent, but because of the complexity of breast cancers, the recent announcement of a possibly vital vaccine is the first hint of a remedy despite decades of committed study. What happens to other cancer research projects when one highly-profiled form of the disease captures the lion’s share of research dollars?

Read on, in this interesting investigative piece offered by MSNBC on “The Politics of Breast Cancer.”

What other form of cancer tops the donation list? Prostate Cancer. While you may not be invited to many galas benefitting Prostate Cancer, that disease follows right behind breast cancer in the number dollars devoted to its cure. Interestingly, treatments for prostate cancer have moved along at light speed.

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27283197/