America voted for Socialism and that is what they are getting and will continue to get. The debacle of the auto industry is only the start. I think that even the people who voted for Obama are disappointed and shocked. I know I am and I am leaving the Demsocialcratict party and registering as an independent and I will work hard to see a change in Congress in the 2010 elections.
Socialism is sneaking in the back door and we need to SLAM IT SHUT!

Those darn Democrats with all their socialism. Too bad we don't have Henry Paulson back in charge. He'd just give GM a blank check for $750 Billion with no strings attached. Now that's my kind of socialism. And he worked for the great George W. Bush! ;-)

I wish all you Obama critics would just calm down! I DESPISED George Bush and had to put up with his idiocy, uh, presidency for 8 years! Obama inherited years of problems caused by both sides. It's going to take more than several months in office to straighten it out. Status quo sure ain't gonna cut it.

Congresswoman Bachmann is correct.
Wake up Americans.
Your President has a different idea for America and he's off to the races.
Some of you celebrate this.
Some of you embrace big government.
Some of you covet socialism.
And a few of you visualize the day we join in a Marxist utopia - where a ruling class will tell you what you can do, when you do it and the penalty for non-compliance.
Wake up Americans.
This is not a rehearsal.

This is not an either or situation. This is not “take the Bush plan” verses “take the Obama plan”. There is a third choice and it is neither of the two. I believe the vast majority of Americans reject both options and want something different, something not nearly as radical as either approach we’ve had shoved down our throats. It’s obvious the Republicans failed us, it’s also obvious the Democrats are failing us. There must be a third way.

Very concerned, I believe you are 100% correct I believe you are starting see some of that. People are just sick and tired of being sick and tired. I would not be at all surprised if some significant events took place in the next 12 months which will rattle the world even more than now. I am currently living in Canada but from Pleasanton and have been gone for over 4 years for work and I can tell you that the Canadian's up here are just shaking their heads over what they have seen in the last 6 months. I young guy who works for me and Canadian told me yesterday it is like watching a movie each and every day and watching a great empire collapse before his eyes. The Canadian's cannot believe we are giving up american healthcare for the canadian socialized version. The system here is terrible and a team of doctors decide what your treatment will be if it is considered significant and/or costly. An MRI takes 6 months to get and guy here at work tore his knee up and it took 4 months for him to get surgery! I work in the British Columbia area and the closest american hospital is Bellingham General Hospital and 75% of the patients in there are canadian. Vancouver has a huge Chinese/Canadian population and they want boys as children. They go to Washington to have an ultrasound done to tell the sex and if it is a girl they return to Canada to have it aborted. Watching what is going on in California is just amazing.

"A great empire" that has the highest infant mortality rate of all developed nations. I'm so proud.

I am 37 years old and I am a conservative mother of three small children.

My great grandfather fought and died in WWII.

Both of my grandfather's fought in the Korean war and one of my grandfathers trained pilots and was gone for years at a time in Saudi Arabia missing out on his children's lives - one of which was my mother.

On his deathbed he gave me - his only granddaughter - his most treasured possession, his "dogtag". It is kept in a place of honor in my home.

My dad enlisted in 1963 into the US Marines after telling a lie to a recruiter about his age, just 17, so he could help another country. My father has two purple hearts for his war wounds, but never got an award for spending 2 days and nights in a self-dug fox hole at 17 years of age with his DEAD best friend because he was trained to never leave his buddy behind. After my father was honorably discharged, he was taking my mother, pregnant with my eldest brother, into a Kaiser for a check-up. He had his last military check with him in his breast pocket when another father-to-be noticed the military seal on the document and asked my dad if he was a soldier. My dad at 21 years of age simply nodded "yes" to a man and that man spit on my father in front of his pregnant wife and countless others.

My Uncle just returned from his third tour in Iraq and Afghanistan and will retire after his service of 20 years, but doesn't have a family of his own - just an ex-wife that cheated on him while he was away.

My family doesn't want pity. My family doesn't even remotely discuss what we have endured over the years while serving our country. But do you know what is worse than any of the acts that I have listed here? What is so jacked up is a man who never has known sacrifice for his country is single-handedly ripping apart what generations of my Irish family has fought to keep. I can't believe how many battles and wars my family has fought and sacrificed in and this man dishonors our veterans who have kept us safe on our soil. Dishonors a man that previously led our troops and kept our nation safe.

I weep for our country and I am very thankful that my grandfathers are gone. I don't think they would survive their heartbreak over where this country has been taken by ideological theories and self interest. That was never the U.S. I was taught to be proud to grow up in and I am so sad for my children.

Where are our freedoms going? And for what? I cannot understand.

To Helen who says: "A great empire" that has the highest infant mortality rate of all developed nations. I'm so proud."

You sound like you are repeating some myth you heard.

Perhaps you do not know that DIFFERENT COUNTRIES COUNT DIFFERENTLY

* According to the World Health Organization (WHO) definition, all babies showing any signs of life, such as muscle activity, a gasp for breath or a heartbeat, should be included as a live birth; the United States strictly follows this definition, but many other countries do not.
* Switzerland doesn't count the death of very small babies, less than 30 centimeters, as a live birth, according to Nicholas Eberstadt (American Enterprise Institute), so comparing the 1998 infant mortality rates for Switzerland and the United States, 4.8 and 7.2 respectively, is like comparing apples and oranges.

Other countries, such as Italy, use different definitions in various parts of their own country. Under reporting also seems apparent in the proportion of infant deaths different countries report for the first twenty-four hours after birth:

* In Australia, Canada and the United States, over one-third of all infant deaths are reported to take place in the first day.
* In contrast less than one-sixth of France's infant deaths are reported to occur in the first day of life.
* In Hong Kong, such deaths account for only one-twenty-fifth of all infant deaths.

Since the United States uses the WHO definition of live birth, economist John Goodman (National Center for Policy Analysis) and others in their 2004 book "Lives at Risk" conclude, "Taking into account such data-reporting differences, the rates of low-birth-weight babies born in America are about the same as other developed countries in the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development)." Likewise, infant mortality rates, adjusted for the distribution of newborns by weight, are about the same.

Source: Michael Arnold Glueck and Robert J. Cihak, "The Misty Myths of Infant Mortality Data," World Review, March 11, 2005.

Helen: Here is WHAT IS NOT WRONG WITH U.S. HEALTH CARE and it makes me PROUD

To elaborate more, please know myths are founded on selective data, doubtful sources and faulty science. For anyone with an open mind and a passion for accuracy, they are easily dispelled.

the info below is from Dr. Roger Stark, a health care policy analyst at Washington Policy Center.

We hear a lot about how terrible the infant mortality rate is in the United States, supposedly the worst in the civilized world. Is this true? Not really:

* U.S. health officials count all live births, while many other countries only count full-term births or infants who live at least 28 days.
* Obviously, premature infants, who are counted in the United States but not in other countries, have a much higher risk of mortality.
We are told that each year in the United States there are nearly 100,000 unnecessary hospital deaths:

* A panel of doctors reviewed the hospital data and found the great majority of these deaths occur at the end of the patient's natural life, when the outcome would have been the same regardless of what hospital staff did or did not do.
* In other countries, these older, desperately ill people often are not even sent to a hospital, dying at home instead, and are not included in national medical statistics.
* A comparable, population-adjusted study in Canada found 200,000 "unnecessary" hospital deaths, even though political activists regularly push Canadian-style health care as the model for the United States.

We are told the United States ranks a dismal 37th in health care worldwide. The figure comes from the U.N.'s World Health Organization:

* Three of the five criteria used to rate nations were biased in a favor of nationalized, single-payer systems, and U.N. officials admit they have an 80 percent uncertainty level in their data.
* Amazingly, none of the five criteria included actual health outcomes, such as cancer or heart attack survival rates.
* The United States tops all countries in favorable health outcomes.
* Besides, any health study that ranks Greece (#14) and Morocco (#29) ahead of the United States clearly has methodological problems.

Source: Roger Stark, "What is Not Wrong with U.S. Health Care," Washington Policy Center, February 5, 2009.



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Beth is the person who doesn't accept blankets from women because she says that she is not a charity case....why are you full of hate & class stuff Beth?

Conservative Republicans are responsible for the murder of the guard in Washington DC's Holocaust Museum. Are you the kind of killers that we want in America? NOT!

Most normal American's want PEACE, not guard killers!

Stupid is as Stupid does, thank you for the excellent, footnoted information. We have much to be thankful for here in the United States. Excellent health care is one of them.