The healthcare bill is on the verge of passing the Senate, despite the fact that it has received a failing grade from healthcare experts like the Dean of Harvard Medical School, and the fact that it will increase taxes, deficits, and medical costs, while reducing lifesaving medical innovations.
In a 60-to-39 vote, Senators voted to quash a Republican filibuster, moving it closer to a final vote where it will need the votes of only 51 of the Senate’s 60 Democrats to…
With the Detroit auto industry floundering, the United Auto Workers is turning its attention to…day care provider. And to do so, the UAW partnering with the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees, a union that organizes workers in the one sector where unionization is growing: government. That’s because some 40,000 Michigan home day care providers have now found themselves classified as working for the state.
Home care providers are government employees? Defining them as such is a novel strategy…
The row between the UNITE-HERE hospitality and textile union and Workers United — which broke away from UNITE-HERE earlier this year and joined the powerful and growing Service Employees International Union (SEIU) — has taken a bizarre and ugly turn.
According to The New York Times, several UNITE-HERE organizers have complained about a practice known as “pink sheeting,” in which union members are pressured to reveal private and potentially embarrassing personal information about themselves. Union organizers then allegedly use those workers’…
Yesterday, Tower Investments filed a motion to dismiss the Nashville-chartered Metropolitan Housing and Development Agency’s Petition for Condemnation of the company’s 5.6-acre downtown property. MHDA is attempting to clear land for the proposed Music City Convention Center, the construction of which is currently projected to cost nearly $600 million.
What makes this case particularly interesting is that Tower doesn’t oppose the development plan per se; rather, it wants to build a hotel “in such a way that enhances and accommodates the convention center.”…
The health care “reform” bill drafted by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid adds new tax increases, and costs twice as much as its promised $849 billion price tag.
The tax increases (in billions) include:
1. 40% excise tax on health coverage in excess of $8,500 (individuals) / $23,000 (families). . .
2. Additional 0.5% Medicare (Hospital Insurance) tax on wages in excess of $200,000 ($250,000 for joint filers) – begins in 2013 – $54 B tax increase
3. Impose annual fee on manufacturers and importers…
The Dean of Harvard Medical School just gave the Obama health care plan a “failing grade,” saying it will harm America’s health and finances, and hamper the medical innovation needed to save patients’ lives. Dean Jeffrey S. Flier writes,
In discussions with dozens of health-care leaders and economists, I find near unanimity of opinion that, whatever its shape, the final legislation that will emerge from Congress will markedly accelerate national health-care spending rather than restrain it. Likewise, nearly all agree that the…
David Michaels, a left-wing ideologue who supports junk science and seeks to restrict gun possession, has been approved by the Senate Health Committee to head the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Only two committee members, both Republicans, voted against Michaels.
The vote occurred with no discussion, and no hearing was even held on his nomination, although hearings have consistently been held on OSHA nominees in the past, even for far less controversial picks.
Lawyer and Second Amendment expert, David Kopel explains how Michaels…
Remember the raw oyster ban from a recent Regulation of the Day? I am happy to report a partial victory (hat tip to Jacob Grier).
The ban, due to take effect in 2011, has not been repealed outright. But, in response to public outcry, it has been delayed:
The FDA announced it would commission a study to explore alternatives to reducing the illness vibrio vulnificus, and also do an economic analysis of how the ban would impact the oyster industry.
“Before proceeding, we will conduct…
President Obama’s $800 billion stimulus package creates imaginary jobs, while destroying ones in the real world.
Billions from the stimulus are being spent on creating tens of thousands of imaginary jobs in 440 phantom Congressional districts, according to the government’s own web site:
Just how big is the stimulus package? Well for one, it has doubled the size of the House of Representatives, according to recovery.gov, which says that funds were distributed to 440 congressional districts that do not exist. . . . The web site…
ABC News broke the story this week of an executive administration that, ambitious to appear in control of the economy during this steep recession, reported patently false stimulus-related employment information. The Recovery Board, a task force created to track the $787 billion in federal stimulus spending, published on its website data for jobs “created or saved” in congressional districts that don’t even exist!
In one example, the stimulus tracking website reported that 30 jobs have been “created or saved” in Arizona’s…
Federal affordable-housing mandates were a major factor in the mortgage crisis, fueling the housing bubble and the subsequent collapse of the housing and financial markets, which helped bring down the economy. Even the liberal Village Voice has admitted that. Who drafted those awful mandates? ACORN, reports the Washington Examiner, in “How ACORN Destroyed the Housing Market.”
How did ACORN cause the “housing bubble” and “financial collapse”? ACORN lobbyists drafted “affordable-housing” mandates to pressure the mortgage giants to buy up more risky loans and mortgages…
ACORN has just filed a lawsuit in New York challenging as “unconstitutional” its loss of federal funds after its role in a child prostitution scandal was exposed. Earlier, it sued those who exposed its role in that scandal for $2 million, claiming that the exposure violated its privacy rights under state audiotaping laws. ACORN claims that Congress’s vote to cut off federal funds to ACORN is an unconstitutional bill of attainder.
ACORN is a left-wing group that launched President Obama’s career as a community…
The bitter ongoing fight between the national leadership of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the former leadership of a SEIU Oakland, California, health care workers local has taken an even nastier turn.
Early this year, SEIU, under the leadership of Andy Stern, forced a merger between the Oakland health care local, United Healthcare Workers-West (UHW), and a Los Angeles-area local where a major corruption scandal broke last year — leading that local’s chief, Stern ally Tyrone Freeman, to resign.
In response to the Stern-led SEIU bullying,…
Yesterday, Pfizer announced it was closing its research and development facility in New London, Connecticut. This is the same complex that was at the center of the redevelopment plan at issue in Kelo v. New London. From the Castle Coalition:
This was the same bogus development plan that five justices of the U.S. Supreme Court refused to question when the property owners of New London pleaded to have their homes spared from the wrecking ball. Justices mentioned that there was a plan…
Unemployment is now higher in the U.S. than in Europe, reports the Washington Post. “The official U.S. unemployment rate, reported last Friday, now stands at 10.2 percent,” compared to “9.7 percent” in Europe. This is the highest rate in more than 26 years, and marks a huge change from the recent past, in which unemployment was double the American rate in much of Europe, such as in France.
Unemployment is at 10 percent in France, which refused to adopt a U.S.-style stimulus…
Intelligence officials knew that Nidal Hasan, the soldier who killed 13 people at Fort Hood, was trying to contract Al Qaeda. (He once attended the same mosque as 9/11 terrorists.)
Although the killer’s extremist rantings were common knowledge, “a fear of appearing discriminatory . . . kept officers from filing a formal written complaint,” reports the Associated Press. As a result, he escaped any disciplinary action or review of his fitness.
The Fort Hood shooter had previously said that Muslims should rise up against the military,…
Just before midnight on Saturday, the House of Representatives passed a massive, 2000-page health care “reform” bill by a 220 to 215 vote. The bill, backed by the Obama administration, will raise taxes. It will also explode state and federal budget deficits and cost far more than promised. It contains special-interest pork, such as racial preferences that drew criticism from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
The massive health-care bill passed by the House contains provisions sought by trial lawyers that will increase medical costs.…
A Muslim solder, Nidal Hasan, shot dead 13 people at Fort Hood yesterday. Hasan had earlier exhibited extremist, anti-American propensities, including applauding terrorist attacks against U.S. soldiers. There are different theories as to how this could have happened.
One school of thought attributes the tragedy to politically-correct double standards imposed on the military that kept the alarm bells from going off.
Other commentators point to a gun-control policy that disarms soldiers while on military bases to create “gun-free zones,” leaving them defenseless in the face…
Today’s American Spectator Online has a piece by CEI VP Wayne Crews and I on curbing Congressional abuse of unfunded mandates. If the term is new to you, unfunded mandates are basically an accounting gimmick that lets government understate how much it costs taxpayers:
rather than fund a new federal job training program through a Department of Labor appropriation, Congress could mandate that all Fortune 500 firms provide, and pay for, such training. The first appears on the federal budget, the…
It’s been a year since the president was elected, and he’s already piled up an impressive list of lies and broken promises.
The broken promises include his pledge to enact a “net spending cut,” his promise not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year, and his promise not to sign bills without first giving the public five days of notice.
The Congressional Budget Office says that Obama’s proposed budgets will explode the national debt through massive spending increases, increasing the already large deficits…
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