Recent Entries
Appropriate response or overreaction?
Backing down on payday loan sharks
Monthly Archives
- June 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
RSS Feeds
Huckabee in the Tri-Cities
Posted On:Feb 04, 2008
Here are some of the details that I found most interesting.
1) Huckabee made a point of noting that the other candidates have ignored this region, but that he would not. “This election will be won or lost in places that others have forgotten,” he said.
2) On the economy, Huckabee struck a populist chord, noting that he wanted to be the candidate not of Wall Street Republicans, but “Wal-Mart Republicans.”
3) On his experience in Arkansas, Huckabee talked about his effort to reform schools. When he took office, the state ranked 49th in education. Now, it ranks 8th. Tennessee (which still remains near the bottom educationally) should take note.
4) On the military, he pledged not to commit troops without a clearly defined mission and the force necessary to do the job. This registered as somewhat of a slap at the management of the Iraq war, although Huckabee does not support the isolationist strategies of some other candidates.
All in all, it was pretty interesting.
Posted by Andrea Hopkins Back to the blog »
Reader Reactions
Posted by ( captainkona ) on February 05, 2008 at 12:54 pm
I suspect my feelings concerning Repiglicans in general are no secret, so I’ll just state that Huckabee is probably the only Repiglican in the race, if not the nation, that actually cares more about people than money and power.
Let’s face it, anyone that hangs out with the Rolling Stones can’t be all bad.
This is actually a sad time in political history. The Democraps had a chance to win the White House with John Edwards. Now, the Democratic Primary is just a circus that will end with an ass-clown like John McCain for a president and another four years of monumental idiocy, dead American soldiers, dead Iraqi citizens, fiscal and moral decay, and lies-lies-lies. (believe me, I hope I’m wrong)
As a blogger and political commentator, I actually feel free for the first time since 2000. I am no longer compelled to remain beholden to any particular political party. The Dems have failed, the Repigs know nothing but failure.
I can hold my nose and vote for Obama fairly easily. But he still can’t win against McCain.
If Nader jumps in I may get to vote Green again.
At this point it doesn’t matter much. The only possible good that can come out of the November election now is that we manage to dismiss both the Bush Regime and the Clinton Cabal.
Get rid of those to disgraces, and America will become better by default.
Posted by ( Lewis Loflin ) on February 07, 2008 at 12:31 am
I find myself in total agreement with Captainkona. I can’t stomach the Clinton or Bush gangs, I have severe disagreement with Obama and McCain on immigration, which is destroying the working poor in this country. I can’t vote for either.
While I tend towards Ron Paul, his ideas on foreign policy is absurd.
I’m very anti-green as far as politics because I think “green” has been hijacked by extremists. But I’ll vote Nader as a protest vote.
I’m still registered Republican, I’ll vote against McCain then change to independent.
Posted by ( Chris ) on February 07, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Lewis,
“immigration, which is destroying the working poor in this country”
That is such an interesting statement. I assume you believe that the immigrants are taking away jobs. If that is your point you should really re-evaluate that line of thinking. They wouldn’t come her if there were no jobs. What does that tell you, well, the poor here don’t want the jobs the immigrants will do. Do you really believe that if all the illegal immigrants left tomorrow then the working poor would then rise out of poverty?
Feasibility, that is what we are working with here. I would be very interested in some feasible solutions to ending the illegal immigration issue.
BTW if one can’t see the difference in Obama and Clinton then some serious cataract surgery is needed. Polling data shows he can pull as much independent vote as McCain thereby splitting the independent vote. He is the only one who can beat him. For those of you who insist on thei Nader vote, I’d just like to thank you folks for giving us Bush in 2000 with your protest votes. Thanks alot.
Posted by ( Lewis Loflin ) on February 19, 2008 at 11:26 pm
Here is the information Chris really isn’t interested in:
I’m was sure someone will come back with some snide remark that illegal aliens don’t hurt working people. Here you go, a victory in Arizona for the common person. From the left-wing News York Times,
“Juan Leon, a construction subcontractor and the husband of Elizabeth Leon, the day care worker, said illegal immigrants had made it harder for legal residents like him to find work. Companies that employ them can bid much lower on projects than he can because they pay workers much less, Mr. Leon said.
“I hate to see families torn apart,� he said of the current flight, �but there is no money to be made sometimes because some contractors who employ illegal workers can do the job dirt cheap.”
The entire article is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/12/us/12arizona.html?_r=1&th;&emc;=th&oref=slogin
Simple law enforcement and they leave in droves and are saving Arizona taxpayers millions in the process.
Remember the former Electrolux that screwed Bristol?
http://www.sullivan-county.com/z/electrolux.htm
http://www.sullivan-county.com/wcva/immigration2.htm
http://www.sullivan-county.com/wcva/immigration.htm
The Mexican solution to illegal aliens:
http://www.sullivan-county.com/immigration/kilgore_cantor.htm
Posted by ( Lewis Loflin ) on February 19, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Chris: While we are on the subject of illegal aliens, they cost a lot more than the wages they depress and jobs they take, in many cases from poor black people, but the other horrible costs:
A Case Study: Illegal Immigration
by Congressman J. Randy Forbes, Virginia’s Fourth Congressional District
In some hospitals, as much as two-thirds of total operating costs are for uncompensated care for illegal aliens. (Read more: The Sinking Lifeboat: Uncontrolled Immigration and the U.S. Healthcare System - Executive Summary FAIR)
- The utilization rate of hospitals and clinics by illegal aliens (29 percent) is more than twice the rate of the overall U.S. population (11 percent). (Read more: Illegal Immigration and Public Health FAIR)
- Uninsured illegal aliens cost $2.2 billion annually to the health care system. (Read More: The High Cost of Cheap Labor Illegal Immigration and the Federal Budget, Center for Immigration Studies CIS)
Plenty more at http://www.house.gov/forbes/immigrationprimer.htm
More Illegal Aliens: The Health Cost Dimension
http://www.vdare.com/guzzardi/health_care.htm
Illegal Aliens Play Big Role In Virginia Gangs
* 25-50% of all gangsters arrested in northern and western Virginia are estimated to be deportable aliens. Gang investigators estimate that 90% of the members of MS-13, the most notorious immigrant gang, are illegal aliens.
* More MS-13 members have been nabbed in Virginia than any other ICE jurisdiction in the country (261 arrests out of an estimated population of 2,000 in the state). Nearly 80% of the 341 ICE gang arrests in Virginia were members of MS-13. The remainder belonged to 28 other gangs.
* Immigrant gangsters are responsible for serious and often violent crimes in Virginia. Nine of those arrested by ICE in the last three years were murderers, and six were sex offenders. Their most common crimes were assault and robbery/larceny.
* Gangsters tend to work by day in construction, landscaping, farming, and day labor, and at night are involved in organized crime including drug dealing, prostitution rings, theft, and extortion.
http://www.cis.org/articles/2008/gangrelease.html
Would you like to see the big writeup I’m planning on illegal aliens in Morristown that are behind the drug running and violent crime? Or the major bust of Garcia Labor Company, a temp agency busted by the Feds bringing in illegals? Or how the local government there is having to deal with illegal alien problems of crime, schools, etc?
Finally, you stated differences between Obama and Clinton. I stand corrected, there are.
While Hillery is a corporate hack like her husband, She doesn’t attend a racist’ church and considers its racist pastor as a mentor. She also doesn’t have direct ties with the Socialist Workers Party of Chicago.
See http://www.newswithviews.com/Kincaid/cliff208.htm
Please don’t tell me it’s another talk-radio conspiracy theory. I checked it and it’s true. But guess that nothing with mentors like Wright and his buddy Farakhan.
Posted by ( Chris ) on February 25, 2008 at 9:51 am
Lewis,
What can I say? It is obvious that you are completly incapable of following a idea to its logical conclusion. You give me a quote from some guy in Arizona as validation for your statement. Are you the same guy who some time ago railed against the poor in this area for being lazy? You must be unless there are two Lewis Loflin’s. Perhaps there are. One of them rails against the poor in Rice Terrace for not working and the other Lewis rails against the immigrants for taking away jobs. You two should really meet.
As for the rest of your rant it is obvious that you are using statistics in a disingenious manner. The real number which counts Lewis, is the percentage of Illegal Immigrants who are criminals. Your argument is fallacious in that you attempt to put forth the supposition that illegal immigrants are nothing more than criminals who feed on our heatlh care system. The reality sir is that only a small percentage of them are criminals. You are trying to use scare tactics to reinforce your position. Noone argues that illegal immigration is not a major issue. I support enforcing the law. But, for you to use information from a completely biased source (FAIR) to make invalid points only reinforces the reality that you are the king of logical fallacies.
Let us look at some scientifically supported studies explained through this:www.workpermit.com/news/2006-12-15/us/illegal_immigrants_not_burden_health_care.htm, and this:www.pnhp.org/news/2005/july/immigrants_health_c.php - 24k
And this:Health Care Expenditures of Immigrants in the United States: A Nationally Representative Analysis
Sarita A. Mohanty, MD, MPH, Steffie Woolhandler, MD, MPH, David U. Himmelstein, MD, Susmita Pati, MD, MPH, Olveen Carrasquillo, MD, MPH and David H. Bor, MD
Sarita A. Mohanty is with the Department of Medicine, Division of Geriatric and General Internal Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Steffie Woolhandler, David U. Himmelstein, and David H. Bor are with the Department of Medicine, Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, Mass. Susmita Pati is with The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Olveen Carrasquillo is with the Division of General Medicine, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, NY.
Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Sarita A. Mohanty, MD, MPH, Department of Medicine, Division of Geriatric and General Internal Medicine, University of Southern California, 2020 Zonal Ave, IRD 627, Los Angeles, CA 90033 (email: ).
Objectives. We compared the health care expenditures of immigrants residing in the United States with health care expenditures of US-born persons.
Methods. We used the 1998 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey linked to the 1996–1997 National Health Interview Survey to analyze data on 18398 US-born persons and 2843 immigrants. Using a 2-part regression model, we estimated total health care expenditures, as well as expenditures for emergency department (ED) visits, office-based visits, hospital-based outpatient visits, inpatient visits, and prescription drugs.
Results. Immigrants accounted for $39.5 billion (SE=$4 billion) in health care expenditures. After multivariate adjustment, per capita total health care expenditures of immigrants were 55% lower than those of US-born persons ($1139 vs $2546). Similarly, expenditures for uninsured and publicly insured immigrants were approximately half those of their US-born counterparts. Immigrant children had 74% lower per capita health care expenditures than US-born children. However, ED expenditures were more than 3 times higher for immigrant children than for US-born children.
Conclusions. Health care expenditures are substantially lower for immigrants than for US-born persons. Our study refutes the assumption that immigrants represent a disproportionate financial burden on the US health care system.
The overall point here Lewis is that your arguments are based on misinformation or at least HALF TRUTHS. As for Obama, I don’t know how to get this through to you. I will in fact call your assertion that due to Obama’s receiving the endorsement of the DSA in 1996 that somehow makes him a bona fide socialist as nothing more than talk radio conspiracy. That is what it is plain and simple.
You seem to be a big fan of “guilt by association”. That is rather sad as it uniquely disqualifies you from being an objectively informed citizen. This ad hominem approach you take with Obama due to his pastor is beyong reproach. You are fallaciously assuming that Obama goes to church to hear racist rhetoric. Did it ever cross your mind that maybe he goes to church to worship God? I guess he could go to church for other reasons like to gossip or for some other self serving reason, but the fact remains that for you to ascribe motive to his spirituality as being void of spirituality is sad. BTW, which is it? does he have personal ties to Farrahkan or is the ties through his pastor? Be consistent Lewis.
His church is not racist, this just shows your ignorance of as it is widely documented that EVEN WHITE PEOPLE attend that specific church as well as the United Church of Christ. Who is the racist here really Lewis? Don’t be afraid to say so.