DebateGate

Inexplicable: I recently won in court to stop my book "America by Heart" from being leaked,but US Govt can't stop Wikileaks' treasonous act?
17 minutes ago via Twitter for BlackBerry?

I didn't support the bailout. But it is nice to see GM back.

General Motors: We all fall down

Bill O'Reilly's Talking Points: Trusting President Obama - 11/22/10

TSA pat-down leaves traveler covered in urine
'I was absolutely humiliated,' said bladder cancer survivor

By Harriet Baskas
Travel writer

A retired special education teacher on his way to a wedding in Orlando, Fla., said he was left humiliated, crying and covered with his own urine after an enhanced pat-down by TSA officers recently at Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

?I was absolutely humiliated, I couldn?t even speak,? said Thomas D. ?Tom? Sawyer, 61, of Lansing, Mich.

Sawyer is a bladder cancer survivor who now wears a urostomy bag, which collects his urine from a stoma, or opening in his stomach.  ?I have to wear special clothes and in order to mount the bag I have to seal a wafer to my stomach and then attach the bag. If the seal is broken, urine can leak all over my body and clothes.?

On Nov. 7, Sawyer said he went through the security scanner at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. ?Evidently the scanner picked up on my urostomy bag, because I was chosen for a pat-down procedure.?

Due to his medical condition, Sawyer asked to be screened in private. ?One officer looked at another, rolled his eyes and said that they really didn?t have any place to take me,? said Sawyer. ?After I said again that I?d like privacy, they took me to an office.?

Sawyer wears pants two sizes too large in order to accommodate the medical equipment he wears. He?d taken off his belt to go through the scanner and once in the office with security personnel, his pants fell down around his ankles. ?I had to ask twice if it was OK to pull up my shorts,? said Sawyer, ?And every time I tried to tell them about my medical condition, they said they didn?t need to know about that.?

Before starting the enhanced pat-down procedure, a security officer did tell him what they were going to do and how they were going to it, but Sawyer said it wasn?t until they asked him to remove his sweatshirt and saw his urostomy bag that they asked any questions about his medical condition.

?One agent watched as the other used his flat hand to go slowly down my chest. I tried to warn him that he would hit the bag and break the seal on my bag, but he ignored me. Sure enough, the seal was broken and urine started dribbling down my shirt and my leg and into my pants.?

The security officer finished the pat-down, tested the gloves for any trace of explosives and then, Sawyer said, ?He told me I could go. They never apologized. They never offered to help. They acted like they hadn?t seen what happened. But I know they saw it because I had a wet mark.?

Humiliated, upset and wet, Sawyer said he had to walk through the airport soaked in urine, board his plane and wait until after takeoff before he could clean up.

?I am totally appalled by the fact that agents that are performing these pat-downs have so little concern for people with medical conditions,? said Sawyer.
 

Sawyer completed his trip and had no problems with the security procedures at the Orlando International Airport on his journey back home. He said he plans to file a formal complaint with the TSA.

When he does, said TSA spokesperson Dwayne Baird, ?We will review the matter and take appropriate action if necessary.? In the meantime, Baird encourages anyone with a medical condition to read the TSA?s website section on assistive devices and mobility aids.

The website says that travelers with disabilities and medical conditions have ?the option of requesting a private screening? and that security officers ?will not ask nor require you to remove your prosthetic device, cast, or support brace.?

Related: TSA forces cancer survivor to show prosthetic breast

Sawyer said he's written to his senators, state representatives and the president of the United States. He?s also shared details of the incident online with members of the nonprofit Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network, many of whom have offered support and shared their travel experiences.

?I am a good American and I want safety for all passengers as much as the next person," Sawyer said. "But if this country is going to sacrifice treating people like human beings in the name of safety, then we have already lost the war.?

Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network executive director Claire Saxton said that there are hundreds of thousands of people living with ostomies in the United States. ?TSA agents need to be trained to listen when someone tells them have a health issue and trained in knowing what an ostomy is. No one living with an ostomy should be afraid of flying because they?re afraid of being humiliated at the checkpoint.?

Eric Lipp, executive director of Open Doors Association, which works with businesses and the disability community, called what happened to Sawyer ?unfortunate.?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40291856/ns/travel-news

I voted early. I took some members of my family with me so XO couldn't cancel out my votes. I prepared cheat sheets for them to bring with them into the booths.

I voted for Marco Rubio for US Senate
Allen West for congress
and Rick Scott for Governor

There was a slight line. Pretty much everybody in line, though, was an older white person. There were no blacks, no minorities of any kind and no college students. It appears that Obama has failed utterly to excite any of his voters. This was a big difference from when I voted early in 2008 and pretty much everybody in line looked like a Democrat voter. Not so this time. I think it is going to be a very, very good night for Republicans on Nov. 2. I think there are going to be seats turning Republican that aren't even on the radar screen yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go8ABAkQcfk

Adam Hasner Takes Aim at Alex Sink Over Felons Selling InsuranceKevin Derby's blog | Posted: October 14, 2010 3:17 PM

Joined by State Attorney Angela Corey, Jacksonville City Councilman Richard Clarke and Rep. Mike Weinstein, R-Orange Park, House Majority Leader Adam Hasner, R-Delray Beach, took aim at state CFO Alex Sink, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, for allowing 11 felons to sell insurance in Florida.

"We?re here this morning to discuss Alex Sink?s role in the licensing of convicted felons to do business in Florida?s insurance industry,? said Hasner. "What we know so far is that she has granted licensure to at least 11 ex-felons convicted of financial crimes and crimes of dishonesty. And more to the point, this is about Alex Sink?s poor judgment as CFO and also an example of her being a typical politician by saying one thing and doing another. And also refusing to be accountable and failing to accept responsibility. Because as you recall, Alex Sink voted to fire former Department of Financial Services Chairman Don Saxon for granting mortgage licenses to convicted criminals. And at the time, Alex Sink was quoted as saying, ?in cases where someone has already been convicted of financial fraud, there are no second chances.? Let?s also recall that Alex Sink expressed her outrage at that time and wanted Saxon?s head on a platter, but now she does not want to be held to the same standards.

?This is an open-and-shut case of hypocrisy and one that has put Floridians at financial risk,? insisted Hasner. ?We believe at this time that Floridians deserve to know more about the facts of this situation, of this story, and are calling for her office to release all documents related to convicted felons who have been granted licensure on her watch."

http://www.sunshinestatenews.com/blog/adam-hasner-takes-aim-alex-sink-over-felons-selling-insurance

Fire and Imagination

By BOB HERBERT

The Obama administration seems to be feeling sorry for itself. Robert Gibbs, the president?s press secretary, is perturbed that Mr. Obama is not getting more hosannas from liberals.

Spare me. The country is a mess. The economy is horrendous, and millions of American families are running out of ammunition in their fight against destitution. Steadily increasing numbers of middle-class families, who never thought they?d be seeking charity, have been showing up at food pantries.

The war in Afghanistan, with its dreadful human toll and debilitating drain on the nation?s financial resources, is proceeding as poorly as ever. As The Times reported on Friday, an ambitious operation that was supposed to showcase the progress of the Afghan Army turned into a tragic, humiliating debacle.

And while schools are hemorrhaging resources because of budget meltdowns, and teachers are losing jobs, and libraries are finding it more and more difficult to remain open, American youngsters are falling further behind their peers in other developed countries in their graduation rates from colleges and universities.

This would be a good time for the Obama crowd to put aside its concern about the absence of giddiness among liberals and re-examine what it might do to improve what is fast becoming a depressing state of affairs.

It?s not just liberals who are gloomy. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll this week found that nearly 6 in 10 Americans believe the country is on the wrong track and a majority disapproves of President Obama?s handling of the economy. Nearly two-thirds expect the economy to get worse still.

Mr. Obama?s problem -- and the nation?s -- is that he did not make full employment, meaning job creation in both the short and the long term, the nation?s absolute highest priority.

Besides responding to the nation?s greatest need, job creation would have been the one issue most likely to bolster Mr. Obama?s efforts to bring people of different political persuasions together. In the early months of 2009, with job losses soaring past a half-million a month and the country desperate for bold, creative leadership, the president had an opportunity to rally the nation behind an enormous ?rebuild America? effort.

Such an effort, properly conceived, would have put millions to work overhauling the nation?s infrastructure, rebuilding our ports and transportation facilities to 21st-century standards, establishing a Manhattan Project-like quest for a brave new world of clean energy, and so on.

We were going to spend staggering amounts of money in any event. There was every reason to use those enormous amounts of public dollars to leverage private capital, as well, for investment in projects and research that the country desperately needs and that would provide enormous benefits for many decades. Think of the returns the nation reaped from its investments in the interstate highway system, the Land Grant colleges, rural electrification, the Erie and Panama canals, the transcontinental railroad, the technology that led to the Internet, the Apollo program, the G.I. bill.

The problem with the U.S. economy today, as it was during the Great Depression, is the absence of sufficient demand for goods and services. Consumers, struggling with sky-high unemployment and staggering debt loads, are tapped out. The economy cannot be made healthy again, and there is no chance of doing anything substantial about budget deficits, as long as so many millions of people are left with essentially no purchasing power. Jobs are the only real answer.

President Obama missed his opportunity early last year to rally the public behind a call for shared sacrifice and a great national mission to rebuild the United States in a way that would create employment for millions and establish a gleaming new industrial platform for the great advances of the 21st century.

It would have taken fire and imagination, but the public was poised to respond to bold leadership. If the Republicans had balked, and they would have, the president had the option of taking his case to the people, as Truman did in his great underdog campaign of 1948.

During the Depression, Franklin Roosevelt explained to the public the difference between wasteful spending and sound government investments. ?You cannot borrow your way out of debt,? he said, ?but you can invest your way into a sounder future.?

Now, with so much money already spent and Republicans expected to gain seats in the Congressional elections, the president finds himself with a much weaker hand, even if he were inclined to play it boldly.

What that will mean in the real world of ordinary Americans is that even if there is a fretful recovery from the Great Recession, millions will be left out of it. Hope has morphed into widespread gloom as widespread economic suffering becomes the new normal in America.


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/14/opinion/14herbert.html?_r=2

Ohio hamburger chain says insurance reform will bite into profits

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The White Castle hamburger chain fears that a health insurance reform law adopted earlier this year will put its profits on a downward slide.

The Columbus-based family owned restaurant chain - known for serving small square hamburgers called "sliders" ? says a single provision in the bill will eat up roughly 55 percent of its yearly net income after 2014.

Starting that year, the bill levies a $3,000-per-employee penalty on companies whose workers pay more than 9.5 percent of household income in premiums for company-provided insurance.

White Castle, which currently provides insurance to all of its full-time workers and picks up 70 to 89 percent of their premium costs, believes it will likely end up paying those penalties. The financial hit will make it hard for the company to maintain its 421 restaurants, let alone create new jobs, says company spokesman Jamie Richardson. White Castle employs more than 10,000 people nationwide, and more than 1,200 in Ohio.

House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio, a vocal foe of the changes, says White Castle's analysis shows how the law's "job-crushing" impact will be most severe in lower-income areas, where jobs like those at White Castle are most needed.

"The irony is that in the name of expanding health care coverage, the administration is making it harder than ever for unskilled workers to get started in the workforce," Boehner said in a missive on White Castle's plight.

National Council of Chain Restaurants vice president Scott Vinson says the entire restaurant industry will have trouble dealing with costs the bill imposes in 2014, including a $2,000-per-worker penalty that companies with more than 50 employees must pay if their workers end up purchasing federally subsidized insurance rather than getting insurance from their employers.

"There is the expense of actually providing the insurance, then the expense of not providing insurance," says Vinson. "It will be expensive either way."

George Ebinger of New Jersey, who owns several International House of Pancakes restaurants, says the penalties for not insuring his 140 workers will cost roughly half as much as insuring them. He figures he will have to raise prices and possibly lay off workers to come up with the $220,000 he anticipates the penalties will cost.

"We are still figuring out how to deal with this," says Ebinger. "Ultimately, either businesses will close or consumers will pay more."

Problems will be felt throughout the retail industry, which employs many entry-level workers, says National Retail Federation vice president Neil Trautwein. He says employers will face tough choices when the mandates become effective in 2014.

http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2010/07/ohio_hamburger_chain_says_insu.html