TEA PARTY EXPRESS MOVES OUT TO WASHINGTON DC FOR 9-12 MARCH ON WASHINGTON,BE THERE !

http://www.foxnews.com/search-results/m/26089597/cross-country-protests.htm

http://www.teapartyexpress.org/tour/index.html

http://www.teapartyexpress.org/index.html

http://www.teapartyexpress.org/about/index.html

THE TRUTH ABOUT TED (EDWARD) KENNEDY'S LIFE~READ IT !

THE TRUTH ABOUT EDWARD KENNEDY. TED KENNEDY'S LIFE AND TIMES.

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=804

Democratic U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, 1962-2009
A key player in the creation of Medicare in 1965
A major driving force behind the passage of the Immigration Reform Act of 1965
Escaped manslaughter charges for 1969 Chappaquiddick incident
In the 1980s, supported the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign, a Soviet-sponsored initiative that would have frozen the USSR's military superiority in place
Secretly contacted the head of the Soviet KGB in 1983, in an effort to undermine the Reagan presidency
Described the 2003 U.S. war in Iraq as "a fraud"
Favored higher taxes for people in upper income brackets, but took many measures to minimize his own tax liability
Died on August 26, 2009


Edward ("Ted") Moore Kennedy was born in Boston in February 1932, the youngest of nine children. His parents, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Rose Fitzgerald, were both members of wealthy Irish American families in Boston. His father was also a leading member of the Democratic Party. Among Ted's older siblings were John F. Kennedy (a future U.S. President) and Robert F. Kennedy (a future U.S. Attorney General and Senator).

As a youth, Ted Kennedy was an average student but was admitted to Harvard University as a "legacy" because his older brothers and his father had previously graduated from the school. In his sophomore year, Kennedy was expelled for paying a friend to take a Spanish exam for him. He joined the Army in 1951 and returned to Harvard two years later. He graduated in 1956 with a bachelor's degree in history and government.

In 1957 Kennedy enrolled at the University of Virginia Law School. By the time he graduated in 1959, he had been cited four times for reckless driving, thereby earning himself the nickname "Cadillac Eddie." One violation was for night-driving at ninety miles-per-hour in a suburban area, with his headlights off.

Kennedy met Virginia Joan Bennett in October 1957 and married her thirteen months later. The couple had three children together: Kara Anne (born 1960), Edward Jr. (born 1961), and Patrick (born July 1967). By the mid-1960s, however, the marriage was troubled as a result of Kennedy's infidelities and growing alcoholism. (They would divorce in 1982.)

Kennedy entered politics in 1958, when he managed his brother John's successful campaign for a second term in the U.S. Senate. John subsequently left the Senate when he won the presidential election of 1960. Joseph Kennedy wanted Ted to fill John's Senate seat, but because the Constitution required that all U.S. senators be at least 30 years of age, Ted would not be eligible to hold that office until February 22, 1962. On Joseph Kennedy's insistence, President-elect John Kennedy asked Massachusetts Governor Foster Furcolo to appoint Benjamin A. Smith II, a Kennedy family friend, to fill John's old Senate seat until 1962, at which time he would be expected to step down and permit Ted Kennedy to run for the office in a special election; Furcolo complied, as did Smith.

In the aforementioned 1962 U.S. Senate special election, Kennedy, who had been working as an assistant district attorney for Suffolk County, Massachusetts, emerged victorious.

On November 22, 1963, Ted Kennedy's brother John was assassinated by a gunman in Dallas, Texas.

In 1964 Kennedy won a landslide re-election to the Senate, and he was re-elected every six years thereafter; his final election was in 2006.

Kennedy was a key player in the creation of Medicare in 1965, and he was a major driving force behind the passage of the Immigration Reform Act that same year. Born of liberal ideology, the 1965 bill abolished the national-origins quota system that theretofore had regulated the ethnic composition of immigration in fair proportion to each group's existing presence in the U.S. population. Kennedy saw these ethnic quotas as an archaic form of chauvinism, thus the 1965 legislation reoriented policy away from European ethnic groups.

On February 10, 1965, Kennedy, as the Senate Immigration Subcommittee Chairman, promised his colleagues and the nation that if the Immigration Reform Act were to be passed:
"First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of [total] immigration remains substantially the same…. Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset…. Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia…. In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think…. The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs."

Kennedy was wrong on every count. The Immigration Reform Act made "family reunification" -- including extended family members -- the key criterion for immigration eligibility. Thus new citizens could, in turn, send for their families, creating an endless cycle known to sociologists as the "immigration chain."

After the passage of immigration reform, the intellectual, educational, and professional qualifications of new immigrants to America fell precipitously over time. Hispanic immigrants, by far the largest contingent, are today eight times more likely than natives to lack a ninth-grade education, and are less than half as likely to have a college degree. Moreover, contrary to Kennedy's confident assurance that "no immigrant visa will be issued to a person who is likely to become a public charge," as of 2009 fully 21 percent of immigrants were receiving public assistance (versus 14 percent of natives).

On June 5, 1968 in Los Angeles, Ted Kennedy's brother Robert, who was running for U.S. President, was killed by an assassin's bullet.

In July 1969 Ted Kennedy became embroiled in what was perhaps the most infamous personal scandal of his life. On the evening of July 18 on the Massachusetts island of Chappaquiddick, the senator hosted a party for volunteers who had worked on his late brother Robert's 1968 presidential campaign. Shortly before midnight, Kennedy, whose wife was not at the event, left the party accompanied by a young woman named Mary Jo Kopechne.

With Miss Kopechne in the passenger's seat of Kennedy's Oldsmobile, the senator accidentally drove off a wooden bridge and into tide-swept Poucha Pond (which was, at that location, a channel); the vehicle came to rest, upside down, under the water. Kennedy managed to escape, but the young woman remained trapped inside the car and died. The senator soon left the scene of the accident and, instead of reporting what had occurred, spent the next ten hours concocting an alibi while the car lay unnoticed beneath the water. Kennedy eventually pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident.

A week after the incident, Kennedy went on national television to deliver a public "explanation" written by JFK speechwriter Ted Sorensen. Among the senator's assertions were the following:

there was "no truth whatever to the widely circulated suspicions of immoral conduct" regarding Kennedy's relationship with Kopechne
he "was not driving under the influence of liquor"
his conduct during the hours immediately following the accident "made no sense to [him] at all"
he "regard[ed] as indefensible that fact that [he] did not report the accident to the police immediately"
"[a]ll kinds of scrambled thoughts" went through his mind after the accident, including "whether the girl might still be alive somewhere out of that immediate area"; "whether some awful curse actually did hang over all the Kennedys"; "whether there was some justifiable reason for [him] to doubt what had happened and to delay [his] report"; and "whether somehow the awful weight of this incredible incident might in some way pass from [his] shoulders."
he was overcome "by a jumble of emotions -- grief, fear, doubt, exhaustion, panic, confusion and shock"
Not long after the Chappaquiddick tragedy, Kennedy announced that he would not be a candidate in the next U.S. presidential election, scheduled for November 1972. In January 1971, Kennedy lost his position as Senate Majority Leader to Robert Byrd of West Virginia.

By the late 1970s, Kennedy was ready to vie with the unpopular incumbent, Jimmy Carter, for the 1980 Democratic presidential nomination. An August 1979 poll showed Kennedy leading Carter by a 2-to-1 margin. By the time the senator formally announced his candidacy on November 7, however, his momentum had begun to wane, largely because of the public's distaste for an unimpressive, rambling response he had given a few days earlier to CBS newsman Roger Mudd's question: "Why do you want to be President?" Kennedy's campaign never regained its original traction, and eventually the senator dropped out of the race.

In the early 1980s Kennedy was a key supporter of Randall Forsberg's Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign, a Soviet-sponsored initiative that would have frozen the USSR's military superiority in place. On March 24, 1983 -- the day after Ronald Reagan's speech about the need for the U.S. to develop a missile-defense system -- Kennedy went to the Senate floor and condemned the President's "misleading Red-Scare tactics and reckless Star Wars schemes."

During that same, tense period of the Cold War, Kennedy made secret overtures to the Soviet intelligence agency, the KGB, in an effort to undermine Reagan's presidency. The evidence for this comes from a highly classified May 14, 1983 letter that KGB head Viktor Chebrikov wrote to the Soviet General Secretary, Yuri Andropov. In the letter, Chebrikov relayed to Andropov an offer from Senator Kennedy, presented by Kennedy's old friend (and former Democratic senator from California) John Tunney, to reach out to the Soviet leadership. According to Chebrikov, Kennedy was deeply troubled by the deteriorating relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union, and he feared that the two nations were coming perilously close to nuclear confrontation. The senator, according to Chebrikov, blamed this situation entirely on Reagan. Moreover, said Chebrikov, Kennedy was "very impressed" with Andropov.

Chebrikov's letter further spoke of Kennedy's desire to stop Reagan's allegedly aggressive defense policies and his 1984 re-election bid. The letter stated that Kennedy had recommended a number of PR moves to help the Soviets counter Reagan's "propaganda" and improve their image with the American public. Specifically, the senator had suggested a plan to put Andropov and other senior apparatchiks in touch with influential members of the American media, through whom they could better present their message and make their case. Specifically, the names of Walter Cronkite and Barbara Walters were mentioned in the letter. Also, said Chebrikov, Kennedy himself had offered to travel to Moscow to meet with Andropov.

In 1987 Kennedy led Senate Democrats in their bitter fight to prevent the confirmation of President Reagan's Supreme Court nominee, Robert Bork, whose originalist judicial philosophy Kennedy rejected. Less than an hour after Bork's nomination, Kennedy, whose staff had thoroghly researched the judge's writings and record, went to the Senate floor to announce his opposition. Among his remarks were the following:

"Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens ..."

Largely as a result of Kennedy's efforts, Bork's nomination was defeated, both in committee and in the full Senate.

In July 1992 Kennedy married his second wife, a Washington attorney named Victoria Anne Reggie, who was 22 years his junior.

Throughout his political career, Kennedy advocated the wholesale redistribution of wealth via steeply progressive tax rates designed to fund an ever-expanding array of entitlement programs and social-welfare benefits as well as the public education system. Opposed to any provisions in the tax laws that might help mid- to high-earners minimize their tax liability, Kennedy once said, on the Senate floor, that he would be glad if "the word 'shelter' disappears from the tax vocabulary."[1] On another occasion he said, "Instead of shutting down classrooms [due to a supposed lack of funding], let us shut off tax shelters."[2] Whenever fellow legislators proposed tax cuts, Kennedy typically framed them as "giveways" and "bonanzas" intended to help only the wealthy.[3] And in the name of social justice, he supported the inheritance tax on assets that are transferred from one generation to the next; a repeal of that tax, he said, would unjustly "benefit millionaires."[4]

But while the multi-millionaire Kennedy stood firmly in favor of raising taxes on high earners across the United States, he showed a pronounced reluctance to pay taxes on his own wealth. For many years, Merchandise Mart, the Chicago-based real estate conglomerate that Joseph Kennedy established in 1935, was the most valuable asset belonging to Ted Kennedy and his family. In 1974 Joseph Kennedy divided Merchandise Mart's ownership among numerous family members, including Ted, in the form of a trust that was domiciled in the Pacific island of Fiji. Because the trust was based in Fiji, it was not subject to the taxes normally imposed on trusts domiciled in the United States.

As of 2005, the tax rate on U.S.-based trusts was 49 percent on everything above the first $2 million. But as of 2005, the Kennedys, who had transferred at least $300 million in trust funds from one generation to another, had paid a mere $132,000 in estate taxes -- a rate of four one-hundredths of one percent.[5] Had they set up those trusts in the United states, they would have owed more than 7,000 times that amount in taxes.

Ted Kennedy also received additional money -- free of inheritance taxes -- from a series of trusts that were established for him in 1926, 1936, 1978, 1987, and 1997.

Kennedy became skilled at avoiding not only inheritance taxes but also property taxes. For example, in 1980 theChicago Tribune conducted an investigation which found that although Merchandise Mart had a market value of $35 million, it had been assessed at only $22.8 million by tax assessor (and Ted Kennedy political ally) Thomas Tully. The low assessment permitted Kennedy and his extended family to decrease their property taxes by some $4 million over the course of two years. Another Kennedy-owned building, Apparel Mart, received similar, preferential consideration from the tax assessor, saving Kennedy and his clan another several million dollars in property taxes.[6]

In yet another maneuver to avoid paying taxes, Senator Kennedy invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax-free Massachusetts bonds.[7]

An additional area where Kennedy's rhetoric is inconsistent with his actions was in the realm of affirmative action. Publicly, Kennedy championed the virtues of race- and gender-preferences (in favor of nonwhite minorities and women) in business and academia. Largely because of his unwavering support of affirmative action programs, the NAACP gave Kennedy a perfect 100 percent rating.

But in his private business dealings, Kennedy preferred not to be bound by the dictates of affirmative action regulations. In 1981, for instance, the senator and his family formed two limited partnerships under whose auspices they purchased an entire city block of prime piece of real estate near the Capitol Building in Washington, DC. Their intent was to build, on that land, an upscale office complex that could generate a fortune in rental income.

The DC Redevelopment Land Agency had previously enacted a set-aside requirement mandating that minority-owned businesses be guaranteed of participating, to some extent, in any new development project like the one planned by the Kennedys. At the senator's request, Kennedy political ally and DC mayor Marion Berry -- an African American who strongly supported affirmative action -- waived the set-aside clause.

By the late 1980s, the newly constructed Kennedy building housed several government agencies as long-term renters. The senator, to avoid the "appearance of a conflict of interest," sold his stake in the property to his father's trust company, Joseph P. Kennedy Enterprises. As of 2005, the building was worth $200 million.[8]

Another hallmark of Senator Kennedy's career was his passionate, outspoken advocacy of leftwing environmentalist crusades. He introduced dozens of bills to encourage the development of solar, hydrogen, and wind energy as alternatives to oil and coal. He once told an audience at the National Press Club that Americans must "start demanding immediate action to reduce global warming and prevent catastrophic climate change that may be on our horizon now." "We should replace our dependence on foreign oil," he added, "not by drilling in the priceless Arctic National wildlife Refuge in Alaska, but by investing in clean energy."[9]

Then, in 2003, a group of investors launched an initiative known as the Cape Wind Project, whose aim was to meet most of Cape Cod's electricity needs with wind power rather than the coal-fired power plants that were then in use. A 3,800-page study released by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers concluded that the project was economically feasible and would provide "compelling environmental and economic benefits" to the area.

But the Kennedys objected. At issue was the fact that the proposed wind turbines, which the senator and his family considered to be unsightly, would be built on Nantucket Sound -- six miles off the coast of the Kennedy compound in Hyannis, and in the immediate vicinity of one of the family's favorite sailing and yachting areas. Shortly after the report was issued, Senator Kennedy got his longtime friend, Sen. John Warner of the Armed Services Committee, to quietly insert into the defense budget an amendment to stop the project. That amendment, however, was later withdrawn when some other senators noticed it and objected to it.[10]

While Senator Kennedy was a relentless critic of the environmental damage allegedly caused by oil drilling, for decades he and his family were actively engaged in the oil industry and profited greatly from it. The Kennedys' oil connections dated back to 1950, when Joseph Kennedy purchased Arctic Oil Company, which drilled mainly in Texas and Oklahoma. Eleven years later he bought two additional oil companies, Kenoil and Mokeen Oil, which eventually struck some massive deposits in Texas and Louisiana, earning millions of dollars for the Kennedys.[11]

The Kennedys also bought the mineral rights to hundreds of properties throughout the southern United States -- in places as far-flung as Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi. They purchased most of these properties for pennies on the dollar, usually from poor farmers and rural families who had no idea that their land was rich in underground oil or natural gas. When securing these mineral rights, the Kennedys negotiated arrangements that would permit them, even if they were someday to sell the land, to continue drilling for oil and gas as long as they wished.[12] To date, Ted Kennedy and his family earned tens of millions of dollars in profits from their oil ventures.[13]

Notwithstanding those profits, Senator Kennedy frequently condemned oil companies for their alleged greed. When oil prices rose dramatically in late 1970s, for instance, he criticized the "excessive profits by oil companies" and he sought to eliminate a number of tax deductions from which those companies had long benefited. In particular, he crafted legislation designed to end the 22 percent depletion allowance for oil companies, characterizing it as "welfare" for the wealthy.

When writing the bill, however, Kennedy distinguished between "small struggling oil producers" (which would be permitted to keep their tax shelters) and "already cash-rich-companies," which would not.[14] Kennedy's companies, by the definitions the senator himself penned, fell into the former category and consequently were allowed to take depletion allowances and other drilling deductions that, over the years, would save the family hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In 1985 Senator Kennedy and his family devised yet another way to avoid paying taxes: They converted their oil companies, Kenoil and Mokeen, from corporate ownership to a royalty limited partnership (i.e., a royalty trust), thereby freeing themselves from having to pay any corporate tax or income tax. Now they pay only a 15 percent capital gains tax.[15]

During the George W. Bush administration, Kennedy was an outspoken critic of the manner in which the President and his advisors conducted the war on terror. He opposed, for instance, the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS), which, after its implementation in 2002, was known to have stopped several hundred foreign criminals and several known terrorists who attempted to enter the United States at certain official ports of entry. In late January 2003, Kennedy slipped a provision into the Senate's omnibus appropriations bill to completely cut off funding for NSEERS.

Kennedy was also one of the Senate's most vocal opponents of the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq in 2003. In late 2002 he voted against authorizing the President to use military force against Saddam Hussein, just as he had done prior to the first Persian Gulf War in 1991. Characterizing the 2003 war as "a fraud" plotted by President Bush, Kennedy accused the administration of manipulating intelligence data in order to justify an invasion of Iraq. "There was no imminent threat," the senator said on September 18, 2003. "This was made up in Texas, announced in January to the Republican leadership that war was going to take place and was going to be good politically. This whole thing was a fraud."

In 2007 Kennedy supported a carbon "cap-and-trade" system -- a massive tax scheme ostensibly designed to reduce "greehouse gas emissions" -- which would impose an estimated $4,500 in additional yearly costs on every family of four.

Over the course of his long legislative career, Kennedy dramatically changed his position on the issue of abortion. In a now-famous 1971 letter to a constituent, the senator wrote that "human life, even at its earliest stages, has a certain right which must be recognized -- the right to be born, the right to love, the right to grow old." But Kennedy thereafter became an unwavering proponent of abortion-on-demand. He voted several times -- in 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2003 -- against a proposal to ban the late-term procedure commonly known as "partial-birth abortion." In 2004 he voted against a proposal to make it an added criminal offense for someone to injure or kill a fetus while carrying out a crime against a pregnant woman. He consistently received ratings of 100 percent from abortion-advocacy groups like NARAL Pro-Choice America and Planned Parenthood.

As the 2008 presidential election season approached, Kennedy initially stated that he would support John Kerry if the latter chose to run. When Kerry opted not to join the race, Kennedy remained neutral while Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama battled in the primaries. Eventually Kennedy opted to support Obama, an endorsement he announced on January 28, 2008.

For an overview of Kennedy's Senate voting record on a number of key issues, click here.

In May 2008 Kennedy was diagnosed with brain cancer. From his sickbed in 2009, he quietly orchestrated meetings with lobbyists and lawmakers to craft legislation for a government-run health-care plan, which he called "the cause of my life." One of the groups with which he collaborated most closely was We Believe Together -- Health Care for All.

Early on the morning of August 26, 2009, Kennedy died at his home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.

REST IN PIECE.


NOTES:

[1] Peter Schweizer, Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy (New York: Doubleday, 2005), p. 79.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid., p. 80.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid., p. 81.
[6] Ibid., p. 82.
[7] Ibid., p. 83.
[8] Ibid., p. 84.
[9] Ibid., p. 85.
[10] Ibid., pp. 87-88.
[11] Ibid., p. 89.
[12] Ibid., p. 90.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid., p. 91.
[15] Ibid., p. 92.

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF TED KENNEDY~ THE TRUTH !

The Life and times of TED KENNEDY. The truth.
Ted Kennedy
AKA Edward Moore Kennedy
Born: 22-Feb-1932
Birthplace: Brookline, MA
Died: 25-Aug-2009 Location of death: Hyannis Port,
MACause of death: Cancer - Brain
Gender: MaleReligion: Roman Catholic
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: PoliticianParty Affiliation: Democratic
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: US Senator from Massachusetts, 1962-2009
Military service: US Army (1951-53)

Ted Kennedy held his Senate seat for more than four decades. He authored or argued for legislation that ensured a variety of civil rights, increased the minimum wage in 1981, made access to health care easier for the indigent, and funded Meals on Wheels for fixed-income seniors. His other successes include reducing the voting age from 21 to 18, and Title IX, which gave women's athletics much better funding. Widely held as the "standard-bearer for liberalism", his legacy is that his era has been dominated by conservatives (Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush) and moderates (Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton).

Kennedy earned C grades at the private Milton Academy, but was admitted to Harvard as a "legacy" -- his father and older brothers had attended there, so the younger and dimmer Kennedy's admission was virtually assured. While attending, he was expelled twice, once for cheating on a test, and once for paying a classmate to cheat for him. While expelled, Kennedy enlisted in the Army, but mistakenly signed up for four years instead of two. His father, Joseph P. Kennedy, former U.S. Ambassador to England, pulled the necessary strings to have his enlistment shortened to two years, and to ensure that he served in Europe, not Korea, where a war was raging. Kennedy was assigned to Paris, never advanced beyond the rank of Private, and returned to Harvard upon being discharged.

While attending law school at the University of Virginia, he was cited for reckless driving four times, including once when he was clocked driving 90 miles per hour in a residential neighborhood with his headlights off after dark. Yet his Virginia driver's license was never revoked. He passed the bar exam in 1959, and two years later was appointed an Assistant to the District Attorney in Massachusetts' Suffolk County.

In 1962, at age 30 (constitutionally, the minimum age to hold a Senate seat) he ran for the Senate. His timing was perfect -- his brother John had given up the seat to become President, and Kennedy easily won the office. He was re-elected eight times to the office.

In 1964, he was seriously injured in a plane crash, and hospitalized for several months. His sister Kathleen and nephew "John John" were killed in separate plane crashes.

On 19 July 1969, Kennedy attended a party on Chappaquiddick Island in Massachusetts. At about 11:00 PM, he borrowed his chauffeur's keys to his Oldsmobile limousine, and offered to give a ride home to Mary Jo Kopechne, a campaign worker. Leaving the island via an unlit bridge with no guard rail, Kennedy steered the car off the bridge, flipped, and into Poucha Pond. He swam to shore and walked back to the party -- passing several houses and a fire station -- and two friends returned with him to the scene of the accident. According to their later testimony, they told him what he already knew, that he was required by law to immediately report the accident to the authorities. Instead Kennedy made his way to his hotel, called his lawyer, and went to sleep.

Kennedy called the police the next morning. By then the wreck had already been discovered. Before dying, Kopechne had scratched at the upholstered floor above her head in the upside-down car. The Kennedy family began pulling strings, ensuring that any inquiry would be contained. Her corpse was whisked out-of-state to her family, before an autopsy could be conducted. Further details are uncertain, but after the accident Kennedy says he repeatedly dove under the water trying to rescue Kopechne, and he didn't call police because he was in a state of shock. In versions not so kind, it is widely assumed Kennedy was drunk, that he was having an affair with Kopechne, and/or that he held off calling police in hopes that his family could fix the problem overnight.

Since the accident, Kennedy's political enemies have referred to him as the distinguished Senator from Chappaquiddick, or worse. He pled guilty to leaving the scene of an accident, and was given a suspended sentence of two months. Kopechne's family received a small payout from the Kennedy's insurance policy, and never sued. There was later an effort to have her body exhumed and autopsied, but her family successfully fought against this in court, and Kennedy's family paid their attorney's bills.

In 1973, at the height of Nixon's Watergate scandal, Kennedy thundered from the Senate floor, "Do we operate under a system of equal justice under law? Or is there one system for the average citizen and another for the high and mighty?"

In 1980, Kennedy challenged Carter, his own party's sitting President, for the Democratic nomination. Kennedy's bid was hampered by questions of Chappaquiddick and by an interview with CBS Newsman Roger Mudd, who asked the straightforward question, "Why do you want to be President?" Kennedy couldn't come up with a straightforward answer. Carter was nominated for re-election, but the party's divisions contributed to the victory won by Reagan.

In a late-1980s media profile, Kennedy was succinctly described as someone who "grew to manhood without learning to be an adult". He is rumored to have had several affairs while married to his first wife, and had often been seen in public while thoroughly tanked and/or behaving obnoxiously. In 1987 he was caught in flagrante delicto with an unidentified woman on the floor of a restaurant. His public image since the early 1990s and during his second marriage has been more conservative and restrained.

In 2001, Kennedy worked with President Bush to enact the No Child Left Behind Act. He later complained publicly that he had been hoodwinked, because the legislation did not include funding to pay for its requirements.
Kennedy voted against the Iraq war, and in 2003, Kennedy said of it: "There was no imminent threat. This was made up in Texas, announced in January to the Republican leadership that war was going to take place and was going to be good politically. This whole thing was a fraud."

In 2004, Tom Ridge's Department of Homeland Security put Kennedy's name on the secret national "no-fly list", and he was barred from a shuttle flight from Washington to Boston. After a flurry of phone calls to Ridge's office, Kennedy's problem was described as "a clerical error", and solved within a few days.
http://www.nndb.com/people/623/000023554/

He is uncle to Maria Shriver and, by marriage, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Father: Joseph P. Kennedy (b. 6-Sep-1888, d. 18-Nov-1969)Mother: Rose Kennedy (b. 22-Jul-1890, d. 22-Jan-1995)Brother: Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. (b. 25-Jul-1915, d. 12-Aug-1944 killed in action)Brother: John F. Kennedy (US. President, b. 29-May-1917, d. 22-Nov-1963 assassination)Sister: Rosemary Kennedy (b. 13-Sep-1918, d. 7-Jan-2005)Sister: Kathleen Kennedy (b. 20-Feb-1920, d. 13-May-1948 airplane crash)Sister: Eunice Kennedy Shriver (b. 10-Jul-1921, d. 11-Aug-2009)Sister: Patricia Kennedy Lawford (b. 5-May-1924, d. 17-Sep-2006)Brother: Robert F. Kennedy (US Attorney General, b. 20-Nov-1925, d. 6-Jun-1968 assassination)Sister: Jean Kennedy Smith (diplomat, b. 20-Feb-1928)Wife: Virginia Joan Bennett (m. 30-Nov-1958, div. 6-Dec-1982, three children)Son: Patrick Joseph Kennedy (U.S. Congressman)Daughter: Kara Kennedy (TV news producer)Son: Edward Kennedy, Jr. (disability rights attorney, right leg amputated in 1973, cancer)Mistress: Suzy Chaffee (rumored affair while Kennedy was married to Bennett)Wife: Victoria Anne Reggie (attorney, m. 3-Jul-1992)Daughter: Curran Kennedy (stepdaughter, through marriage to Reggie)Daughter: Caroline Kennedy (stepdaughter, through marriage to Reggie)
High School: Portsmouth Abbey School (attended) High School: Milton Academy, Milton, MA (1950) University: BA, Harvard University (1956) Law School: Hague Academy of International Law, The Hague, Netherlands (1958) Law School: LLB, University of Virginia (1959)
US Senator, Massachusetts (1962-2009) Close Up Foundation Board of Advisors Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation President Kennedy Center Ex-Officio Member RFK Memorial Board of Directors Four Freedoms Medal 1999 Presidential Medal of Freedom 12-Aug-2009 Plane Crash 1964 Surgery 12-Oct-2007 (repair blocked neck artery) Reckless Driving Leaving the Scene of an Accident 1969 Wedding: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver (1986) Funeral: Katharine Graham (2001) Secret Service Codename Sunburn Dubya Nickname Senator Kennedy Family Risk Factors: Obesity, Alcoholism, Brain Cancer
Official Website:http://kennedy.senate.gov/
Rotten Library Page:Ted Kennedy

Some Surprised By 'Clunker' Tax~Extra taxes are due when you get your tag. LOL

CASH FOR CLUNKERS RECIPIENTS ARE GOPING TO BE QUITE SURPISED WHEN THEY GO TO GET THEIR NEW TAX. And..they thought the government was giving them something for free. LOL

KELOLAND.COM - Some Surprised By 'Clunker' Tax

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HARRY REID REALLY REALLY SUX ! DEFEAT HIM !

VOTE HARRY REID OUT...THROW HIM UNDER THE BUS AND ACCELARATE !
THIS IS THE MOST DIPICAPLE LITTLE WEASAL I HAVE EVER SEEN.
IF I COULD SEE HIM IN PERSON I WOULD THROW UP ALL OVER HIM. He makes me sick !

HE HAS OVERLOADED BIG TIME DRINKING THE KOOL AID. THESE PEOPLE HAVE GONE INSANE.

BILL BURTON IS ANOTHER SCUMBAG PUPPET FOR OBAMA

BILL BURTON IS JUST ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF A BRAINSWASHED FOOL IN THE OBAMA ADMINISTATION. A truly brainwashed SCUMBAG ! LOOK HIM UP ON THE NET. BILL BURTON'S LIES ! YOU WILL FIND MANY MANY OF THEM.
Everytime you turn around he is telling another lie. Today he defends a new position. THIS DAMN ADMINISTRATION JUST KEEPS ADDING TO THE DEBT THIS COUNTRY IS INCURRING DUE TO THE POLICIES OF OBAMA. CZARS OUT THE YING YANG AND NEW DEPARTMENTS OUT THE YING YANG. Spending all this moeny is no problem to him. He is running AMERICA INTO THE GORUND. That has been his intention from the very start. WHAT A SICKO SCUMBAG THEY ALL ARE.
Why don't you ask the 9-11 victims familes how they feel about interrogations. The damn murderers get treated better than the victims. This is administation is made up of a bunch of brainswashed scum. They bow to their New Messiah.


WASHINGTON — Barack Obama has approved creation of a new, special terrorism-era interrogation unit to be supervised by the White House, a top aide said Monday, further distancing his administration from President George W. Bush's detainee policies.

The administration has also decided that all U.S. interrogators will follow the rules for detainees laid out by the Army Field Manual, according to senior administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the decision. That decision aims to end years of fierce debate over how rough U.S. personnel can get with terror suspects in custody.

The new unit does not mean the CIA is now out of the interrogation business, deputy White House press secretary Bill Burton told reporters covering the vacationing Obama at Oak Bluffs, Mass.

Burton said the unit will include "all these different elements under one group," and it said that it will be situated at the FBI headquarters in Washington.

The unit would be led by an FBI official, with a deputy director from somewhere in the government's vast intelligence apparatus, and members from across agencies. It will be directly supervised by the White House, but the senior administration officials insisted the unit's agency bosses will make operational decisions, not the White House.

The officials also said that in cases where terror suspects are transferred to other countries, the U.S. will work harder to ensure the suspect is not tortured.

Separately, Burton said that a recommendation now before Attorney General Eric Holder to reopen and pursue prisoner abuse cases is a decision solely for Holder to make without any intervention from the president.

The structure of the new unit the White House is creating would depart significantly from such work under the previous administration, when the CIA had the lead and sometimes exclusive role in questioning al-Qaida suspects.

Obama campaigned vigorously against Bush's interrogation policies in his successful run for the presidency. He has said more recently he didn't particularly favor prosecuting Bush administration officials in connection with instances of prisoner abuse. Obama still believes "we should be looking forward, not backward," Burton said Monday.

Nonetheless, the spokesman added, Obama believes the attorney general should be fully independent from the White House and he has full faith in Holder to make the decision on whether to reopen several such cases with an eye toward possible criminal prosecution. "He ultimately is going to make the decisions," Burton said of Holder.

CIA Director Leon Panetta said in an e-mail message to agency employees Monday that he intends "to stand up for those officers who did what their country asked and who followed the legal guidance they were given. That is the president's position, too," he said.

Panetta said some CIA officers have been disciplined within the agency for going beyond the methods approved for interrogations by the Bush-era Justice Department. Just one CIA employee— contractor David Passaro— has ever been prosecuted for detainee abuse.

"The CIA has played a vital role in the work of the task force, and its substantive knowledge will be essential to interrogations going forward," agency spokesman George Little said Monday.

Obama campaigned vigorously against President George W. Bush's interrogation policies in his successful run for the presidency. He has said more recently he didn't particularly favor prosecuting Bush administration officials in connection with instances of prisoner abuse. But the issue now before Holder for consideration would have the new administration do precisely that: reopen several such cases with an eye toward possible criminal prosecution.

The new interrogation unit will be known by the acronym HIG.

The administration was publicly confirming the new interrogation unit on the same day that the CIA inspector general was to unveil a report on Bush administration handling of suspects. Details were expected to show that highly questionable tactics were used.

Now, all such questioning will fall under the rules of the Army manual.

The manual, last updated in September 2006, authorizes 19 interrogation methods used to question prisoners, including one allowing a detainee to be isolated from other inmates in some cases.

The manual prohibits forcing detainees to be naked, threatening them with military dogs, exposing them to extreme heat or cold, conducting mock executions, depriving them of food, water, or medical care, and waterboarding.

Subjecting prisoner abuse cases to a new review and possible prosecution could expose CIA employees and agency contractors to criminal prosecution for the alleged mistreatment of terror suspects in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Holder reportedly reacted with disgust when he first read accounts of prisoner abuse earlier this year in a classified version of the IG report. And the Justice report is said to reveal how interrogators conducted mock executions and threatened at least one man with a gun and a power drill. Threatening a prisoner with death violates U.S. anti-torture laws.

A federal judge has ordered the IG report made public Monday, in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The accounts of the White House-supervised interrogation unit and the ethics recommendation to Holder were first reported, respectively, by The Washington Post and The New York Times.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705325517/Official-New-interrogation-unit-set-up.html

A MATTER OF TRUST~YOU CAN'T TRUST THE GOVERNMENT ANYMORE OR ANY COMPANIES !

READ THE ARICLE BELOW..
AND I SAID ....
Thank you for your honesty in writng this article. You are right about all you said in your article. Very seldom do I read anything ABC publishes and I certainly do not watch any ABC news on TV anymore.
As you said trust is an important thing. I understand why newspapers are no longer read anymore.
I do not read them myself nor do I buy them anymore. Only my local neighborhood papers and sometimes you have extrmeist writng in those papers too!
I too have been a victim of Comcast being down while I am in the middle of doing stuff on the net. The TV being out does not bother me half as much as my interent cable being out. LOL I too never gave up my lnad line. I had comcast pitch to me the thing about their phone service. Tried it and gave it back to them before they came out with their new phone serivce. Don't trust any of thier phone services. I told them Thanks, but no thanks !
I always call and make them give me credit for a days service !
Our government now days has been taken over by a bunch of radical sheep.
Yes people have a huge distrust in government and RIGHTLY SO !
I TRUST NO ONE IN OUR GOVERNMENT ! NOT ONE PERSON. They have been glorified mobsters and are not afraid to let you know how they stand. And...if you don't like it that is your problem.
How we are going to get out of this mess I have no clue, but as an American I know we will endure. We always have managed, somehow, someway.
Thanks again for your column today. Keep up the good work.
GOD BLESS AMERICA !

A Matter of Trust
In a Growing Marketplace, Maintaining Customer Trust Is Important
COLUMN By MICHAEL S. MALONE WITH ABC NEWS

I'm writing this column from table No. 3 at Peet's Coffee in Cupertino, Calif.

Why am I here, instead of working from my own home office two miles away? Therein lies a story.

Simply put, my Comcast cable service crashed Wednesday afternoon at 4 p.m. That not only means my Internet access is down on all five of our family computers, but my cable television is down, as well. In fact, the only service still working in our house is the landline phone, and that's only because, when Comcast offered that service, as well, my wife replied, "I don't trust you people not to screw that up, as well. I need something in this house I can depend on to work right."

And, in fact, she used that phone to call Comcast to report the outage. And I took off for Peet's to file this column.

How annoyed I am at this loss of service, a service I depend upon to make my living? A little bit less than load-the-Winchester angry, but a whole lot more than kids-having-a-drunken-party-next-door pissed off. The cable TV I can live without -- although it makes the kids a little more bored and truculent than usual -- but that's because I spend more time these days on the Internet than television.

But the loss of my wireless router and, thus, my Internet connection, has got me wandering about in a Lear-like confused rage. This is my livelihood, my entertainment, my connection to the bigger world. I can't get my e-mail, I can't research my story, I can't find out what's going on out there.

OK, but I'm actually angrier than the loss of those things would predict. After all, I can go into any Starbucks, Peet's, or even Mickey D's these days and find a wireless hot spot. And Comcast promises to come out today -- hey, thanks! -- to find out what's wrong.

No, I think the real source of my anger is what can best be described as a betrayal of trust. There is no greater source of anger in this world than just that sort of violation. Open the newspaper or turn on the news (as if I could right now) on any given day and probably half of the stories involve just such a betrayal: adultery, breaches of contract, anger at politicians, blown drug deals, embezzlement, child molestations, angry consumers, etc., etc. Seen from this perspective, it sometimes seems that almost every form of human friction devolves into some kind of betrayal of perceived trust.

What is surprising about this is that, despite the fact that we live in a largely scientific, empirical world -- one in which natural scientists, sociologists and economists have come up with yardsticks and equations to measure and quantify almost every kind of human behavior -- we really have no common and accepted measure for trust. And, it follows, because we lack that measure, we have no precise way of knowing when that trust changes, when it fails, or what the consequences will be of that failure.

Michael Malone: Don't Know the Value of Anything
Not that there haven't been attempts. A few years back, I wrote a book with the Swedish economist, Leif Edvinsson, entitled "Intellectual Capital." The impetus for the book was the growing realization in the business and financial communities that we really had no idea what anything was worth anymore. That is to say, we had all of the traditional accounting measures: inventories, capital equipment, etc. But the gap between that sum and what the stock market seemed to believe the company was actually worth was growing by the day. For example, how could Intel, which at the time had about $20 billion in revenues, be worth more than the entire U.S. automobile industry?

In fact, the only accounting entry that seemed to be stretching to encompass these changes was that little item called "goodwill," traditionally a kind of mulligan to cover the difference between the book value and sale price of traditional companies. But, nowadays, such goodwill might be three times the book value of the firm, meaning if we were willing to admit it, that we really don't know the value of anything anymore. [That's even more true now than it was then, which helps explain the increasing volatility of the world economy.]

Edvinsson and I (along with a number of other folks working with the same idea at the same time) set out to find real measures and real numbers for these other "intangible" assets, a company's hidden "intellectual" capital.

In the end, we came up with a whole bunch of different measures, from executive turnover to the number of patent filings to customer satisfaction ratings. Other folks came up with other measurement schemes. Some worked pretty well, others less so. A few of the measures have been unofficially adopted by companies and industry analysts, although none yet officially so.

Someday, I suspect that intangible asset measures will be an accepted part of all balance sheets. But it won't happen anytime soon.

Looking back, if there is one part of our research I would have emphasized a whole lot more, and would have tried harder to quantify, it is the matter of Trust. Writing at about the same time, in his book of that name, political scientist Francis Fukuyama got it right: Trust is the single most valuable currency of the modern global economy, the maker and breaker of nations.

Everywhere you look, the question of trust is defining winners and losers in the Internet age. Why are newspapers dying? Not just because technology passed them by, but because they violated readers' trust that they would deliver timely, accurate and unbiased news. Why is Apple Computer so successful? Because it has upheld its customers trust that Steve Jobs will continue to give them interesting, innovative and "cool" products. Why have a handful of bloggers earned huge audiences, while millions of others have not? Because we trust those few to either consistently entertain us, or we trust their judgment in selecting interesting items for us to read, or we trust that their world view is just like our own and their ability to enunciate those views even better. Why is the xBox 360, a superior game player, falling behind Nintendo and Sony? Because gamers don't trust Microsoft to continue delivering the best games.

But it is even more complicated than that because Trust is not just a static characteristic, it also changes. A company that delivers a highly trusted product or service can suddenly find that it is losing that trust because the underlying technology has moved on and left it behind. If your customers expect you to be state-of-the-art in performance, quality or price, anything less is a betrayal of their trust.

Michael Malone: A Matter of Trust
Success, too, can lead to a betrayal of Trust. So can an evolution in customers. In the tech world, the most famous example is that of the scandal that nearly killed Intel Corp.: the software bug in the Pentium microprocessor chip. There had always been bugs in processors, but because most of the people using the early microprocessors were scientists and engineers, they expected them, worked around them, and waited for Intel or Motorola to send them fixes. But with Pentium, and the transformative marketing campaign that surrounded it -- "Intel Inside" -- Intel now found itself with a gigantic customer base of everyday consumers ... people for whom such a bug was a catastrophe, a betrayal of trust by the company, and a source of real fear by unsophisticated users. Intel initially dismissed the growing controversy -- and, then, in a move that may have saved the company, reversed itself and agreed to replace all of the faulty chips.

As the world grows more complex, the marketplace expands to encompass billions, and the stakes go ever higher -- so does the importance of Trust. And nowhere is the burden of trust greater than when we enter into a relationship that requires us to abandon all alternatives. Because Trust can never be perfect, it always helps to know that if that Trust begins to falter, we have someplace else to go, an escape hatch.

This human need, I suspect, is what underlies the angry response right now to the Obama administration's health care plan. Progressives and other social engineers always make the same mistake: They find what they believe is the One Best Way, the empirically most efficient, reasonable and fair process, and then seek to impose it on the entire population as the Right Thing To Do. What they inevitably fail to appreciate (because they are Utopians) is that they are demanding from the populace almost infinite Trust -- in matters of life and death, something most sensible adults will, wisely, never give -- while at the same time stripping away every other alternative. This is guaranteed to create fear, a sense of helplessness ... and ultimately, anger.

In a smaller way, that same impulse helps to explain my anger at Comcast right now. I entered into the agreement trusting that the cable company would provide me with reliable service.

In the meantime, as long as I'm trapped and helpless, I think I'll have a latte.

This is the opinion of the columnist and in no way reflects the opinion of ABC News.

Michael S. Malone is one of the nation's best-known technology writers. He has covered Silicon Valley and high-tech for more than 25 years, beginning with the San Jose Mercury News as the nation's first daily high-tech reporter. His articles and editorials have appeared in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, The Economist and Fortune, and for two years he was a columnist for The New York Times. He was editor of Forbes ASAP, the world's largest-circulation business-tech magazine, at the height of the dot-com boom. Malone is the author or co-author of a dozen books, notably the best-selling "Virtual Corporation." Malone has also hosted three public television interview series, and most recently co-produced the celebrated PBS miniseries on social entrepreneurs, "The New Heroes." He has been the ABCNews.com "Silicon Insider" columnist since 2000.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Technology/customers-lack-trust-companies-michael-malone-writes/Story?id=8376254&page=1

GOP Chief Steele Dares Democrats to Pass Health Overhaul On Their Own - Political News - FOXNews.com

GOP Chief Steele Dares Democrats to Pass Health Overhaul On Their Own - Political News - FOXNews.com

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'Tea Party' Organizers Plan Anti-'Obamacare' Rallies Across the Country - Political News - FOXNews.com

'Tea Party' Organizers Plan Anti-'Obamacare' Rallies Across the Country - Political News - FOXNews.com

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GOP Chief Steele Dares Democrats to Pass Health Overhaul On Their Own - Political News - FOXNews.com

GOP Chief Steele Dares Democrats to Pass Health Overhaul On Their Own - Political News - FOXNews.com

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Army of the Lord? Obama Seeks Health Care Push From Pulpit - Political News - FOXNews.com

Army of the Lord? Obama Seeks Health Care Push From Pulpit - Political News - FOXNews.com

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DAVID ALEXROD JUST ANOTHER CROOK IN THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

Hey Axelrod...Joe the plummer has something for you !


Axelrod's ties targeted in health fight

Critics of President Obama’s health-care overhaul are zeroing in on his senior adviser David Axelrod, whose former partners at a Chicago-based firm are the beneficiaries of huge ad buys — now at $24 million and counting — by White House allies in the reform fight.

The unwelcome scrutiny, largely from Republicans, comes at an inopportune time as Obama seeks to shore up support for health care reform. It revolves around two separate $12 million ad campaigns advocating Obama’s health care plan that were produced and placed partly by AKPD Message and Media, a firm founded by Axelrod that employs his son and still owes Axelrod $2 million.

A separate firm, GMMB, is also handling the campaigns. Both AKPD and GMMB did millions of dollars of work on Obama’s presidential campaign, continue to tout their connections to the campaign and still maintain close ties to his inner circle.

The two firms were hired to make the health-care ads by a pair of linked coalitions supporting Obama’s health-care overhaul proposal — Healthy Economy Now and a newer offshoot unveiled last week called Americans for Stable Quality Care.

The Associated Press reported this month that Healthy Economy Now paid AKPD and GMMB to produce a $12 million national ad campaign echoing White House talking points supporting the health care overhaul.

And a spokesman for Americans for Stable Quality Care, which essentially supplanted the now-defunct Healthy Economy Now, confirmed that it is using the two Obama-linked firms to produce and air a separate $12 million ad campaign launched Thursday designed to shore up support among the conservative House Blue Dog Democrats and to target swing senators. The ad, which is airing in a dozen states, is the opening salvo in a campaign planned for this fall that will cost tens of millions of dollars more.

The coalitions are a strange-bedfellows mix of business, labor and health care groups including the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (better known as PhRMA), the American Medical Association, the Service Employees International Union and the liberal group FamiliesUSA.

Neither coalition would reveal how much AKPD or GMMB was paid for its work on the ads. The firms will likely net only a fraction of the $24 million total campaign price tag, but — unlike with election campaign spending — there are no mandatory reporting requirements for such so-called issue advocacy.

Some of the Healthy Economy Now ads began airing in June, around the time PhRMA was negotiating with the Senate Finance Committee on an eventual agreement to win the drug lobby’s support for a health care overhaul by capping the costs the drug industry would absorb to $80 billion over 10 years.

The deal, which was blessed by the White House, has angered some progressive activists and liberal House Democrats, who until recently counted Big Pharma as both an impediment to health care reform efforts and a Republican-aligned lobby.

Republicans are aggressively seeking to capitalize on the AKPD connection, and the House Republican Conference distributed a one-page talking points memo Tuesday asserting the White House-PhRMA deal raises “serious questions as to whether the drug lobby is helping to bankroll a multimillion dollar severance package for one of the President’s senior advisers.”

The memo points out that the drug industry will profit handsomely from the deal and asks whether Axelrod “recused himself from the PhRMA ‘deal,’ or will he work to defend an agreement with an industry that is directly funding his son’s work, and indirectly funding his own $2 million severance package?”

PhRMA vice president Ken Johnson said his group wasn’t involved in selecting AKPD or GMMB, and that, in fact, he had no idea the coalitions had picked the former Axelrod firm until he was asked about it by a reporter from Bloomberg.

“We’re very involved in reviewing ad copy and determining targeted districts and states, but not in determining which consultants are hired to carry out the campaign. That’s left to the people who you hire to manage it,” he said, adding that PhRMA had not hired either firm for ad buys the group aired on its own, which will likely dwarf the buys it helped fund as part of the coalition.

He declined to comment on the House GOP criticism, except to say, “Unfortunately, we’re a talking point and I’m not going to talk about the talking point.”

Spokesmen for Healthy Economy Now and Americans for Stable Quality Care said their groups paid AKPD and GMMB to produce the ads because they are considered top ad firms, not because of any connection to Axelrod or the White House.

Indeed, AKPD is widely recognized as a talented Democratic consulting firm with significant experience on health care-related issues.

They “are among the best in the business, so it was a no-brainer to hire them to help out this new effort to explain what health care reform means for Americans,” said Phil Singer, a spokesman for Americans for Stable Quality Care.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Tuesday dismissed a reporter’s question about whether Axelrod was profiting from the health care fight.

“That's ridiculous,” Gibbs said during a Tuesday afternoon briefing. “David has left his firm to join public service.”

AKPD’s continued payments to Axelrod are based on “an agreement, I think, that was made because David started and owned the firm. He left the firm, and if I'm not mistaken, is being paid for the fact that he created it and sold it, which, I think, is somewhat based on the free market.”

Financial disclosure records show that Axelrod, while preparing to take a job in the White House at the end of last year, sold AKPD for $2 million. And the records show that he sold a separate corporate public relations firm he founded called ASK Public Strategies for $1 million at the end of 2008.

AKPD is now owned by a group of consultants who helped steer Obama’s campaign, mostly while working at the firm, and ASK is owned Axelrod’s former partners there. Both firms will pay his buyouts in preset annual installments starting at the end of this year, terms that were settled on prior to Axelrod’s White House service.

AKPD officials declined to speak publicly about the arrangement, but a source familiar with the firm’s operations and finances said it is not reliant on the revenue from the Healthy Economy Now and Americans for Stable Quality Care campaigns to fulfill Axelrod’s annual payments, which the source described as “a fraction” of AKPD’s operating costs.

Additionally, the source said David Axelrod never discussed the coalitions’ campaigns with representatives from the firm or the coalitions themselves. The source added that Axelrod’s son Michael is a junior-level AKPD employee who has worked there for fewer than five years and is not involved in the coalitions.

It’s difficult to determine the clientele of ASK or AKPD, since neither are required to report them. But Axelrod’s disclosure statement shows that before he left the firms, both represented clients with business interests that stand to be affected by administration policy.

AKPD, for instance, represented the AFL-CIO, while ASK has worked for power concerns including Exelon and Commonwealth Edison Co. that could be affected by the administration’s push for a cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions. The company also has worked for the nonprofit corporation formed to lure the 2016 Olympics to Chicago, an effort that the Obama administration has thrown its weight behind. White House officials have said Axelrod was not involved in the Olympic push.

On his first day in office, Obama unveiled a strict ethics policy barring officials from working on issues “directly and substantially related” to their former clients or employers for two years.

The White House vigorously denied that Axelrod violated the spirit of that policy. And, in fact, Axelrod's buyout agreements were cleared by the independent Office of Government Ethics, which is headed by a director appointed in 2006 to a five-year term by former President George W. Bush.

“David Axelrod has fully complied with the toughest ever ethics rules for administration officials, including divesting from AKPD before the administration began,” said Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt. “The notion that Mr. Axelrod should decline to participate in all health care policy work because his former firm — from which he has divested himself — has retained a single client which he has had no contact with is absurd.”

Nonetheless, the selection of Axelrod’s former firm to push the president’s top initiative raises appearance questions, particularly since Axelrod’s son Michael still works there, said Bill Allison of the Sunlight Foundation, which advocates for stricter government disclosure and ethics rules.

“The big issue seems to me whether there is a quid pro quo with PhRMA,” said Allison, adding “there’s no evidence that Axelrod steered the business to the firm. But the fact that special interests like PhRMA and the American Medical Association working hand in glove with the White House picked a firm that is so close to the White House shows how incestuous Washington can be.”

WE THE PEOPLE MISS YOU PRESIDENT GEORGE W.BUSH

BREITBART: George W. Bush-by-proxy syndrome - Washington Times
WE THE PEOPLE MISS YOU PRESIDENT GEORGE W.BUSH
BREITBART: George W. Bush-by-proxy syndrome - Washington Times

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SWINE FLU SHOT LINKED TO KILLER NERVE DISEASE. TAKE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Swine flu jab link to killer nerve disease: Leaked letter reveals concern of neurologists over 25 deaths in AmericaRead more:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1206807/Swine-flu-jab-link-killer-nerve-disease-Leaked-letter-reveals-concern-neurologists-25-deaths-America.html

Prevention: Is the swine flu jab safe?

A warning that the new swine flu jab is linked to a deadly nerve disease has been sent by the Government to senior neurologists in a confidential letter.
The letter from the Health Protection Agency, the official body that oversees public health, has been leaked to The Mail on Sunday, leading to demands to know why the information has not been given to the public before the vaccination of millions of people, including children, begins.
It tells the neurologists that they must be alert for an increase in a brain disorder called Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), which could be triggered by the vaccine.
GBS attacks the lining of the nerves, causing paralysis and inability to breathe, and can be fatal.
The letter, sent to about 600 neurologists on July 29, is the first sign that there is concern at the highest levels that the vaccine itself could cause serious complications.
It refers to the use of a similar swine flu vaccine in the United States in 1976 when:
More people died from the vaccination than from swine flu.
500 cases of GBS were detected.
The vaccine may have increased the risk of contracting GBS by eight times.
The vaccine was withdrawn after just ten weeks when the link with GBS became clear.
The US Government was forced to pay out millions of dollars to those affected.
Concerns have already been raised that the new vaccine has not been sufficiently tested and that the effects, especially on children, are unknown.
It is being developed by pharmaceutical companies and will be given to about 13million people during the first wave of immunisation, expected to start in October.
Top priority will be given to everyone aged six months to 65 with an underlying health problem, pregnant women and health professionals.
The British Neurological Surveillance Unit (BNSU), part of the British Association of Neurologists, has been asked to monitor closely any cases of GBS as the vaccine is rolled out.
One senior neurologist said last night: ‘I would not have the swineflu jab because of the GBS risk.’
There are concerns that there could be a repeat of what became known as the ‘1976 debacle’ in the US, where a swine flu vaccine killed 25 people – more than the virus itself.
A mass vaccination was given the go-ahead by President Gerald Ford because scientists believed that the swine flu strain was similar to the one responsible for the 1918-19 pandemic, which killed half a million Americans and 20million people worldwide

The swine flu vaccine being offered to children has not been tested on infants










Within days, symptoms of GBS were reported among those who had been immunised and 25 people died from respiratory failure after severe paralysis. One in 80,000 people came down with the condition. In contrast, just one person died of swine flu.

More than 40million Americans had received the vaccine by the time the programme was stopped after ten weeks. The US Government paid out millions of dollars in compensation to those affected.

The swine flu virus in the new vaccine is a slightly different strain from the 1976 virus, but the possibility of an increased incidence of GBS remains a concern.

Shadow health spokesman Mike Penning said last night: ‘The last thing we want is secret letters handed around experts within the NHS. We need a vaccine but we also need to know about potential risks.

‘Our job is to make sure that the public knows what’s going on. Why
is the Government not being open about this? It’s also very worrying if GPs, who will be administering the vaccine, aren’t being warned.’

Two letters were posted together to neurologists advising them of the concerns. The first, dated July 29, was written by Professor Elizabeth Miller, head of the HPA’s Immunisation Department.
It says: ‘The vaccines used to combat an expected swine influenza pandemic in 1976 were shown to be associated with GBS and were withdrawn from use.

‘GBS has been identified as a condition needing enhanced surveillance when the swine flu vaccines are rolled out.
‘Reporting every case of GBS irrespective of vaccination or disease history is essential for conducting robust epidemiological analyses capable of identifying whether there is an increased risk of GBS in defined time periods after vaccination, or after influenza itself, compared with the background risk.’

The second letter, dated July 27, is from the Association of British Neurologists and is written by Dr Rustam Al-Shahi Salman, chair of its surveillance unit, and Professor Patrick Chinnery, chair of its clinical research committee.











Halted: The 1976 US swine flu campaign

It says: ‘Traditionally, the BNSU has monitored rare diseases for long periods of time. However, the swine influenza (H1N1) pandemic has overtaken us and we need every member’s involvement with a new BNSU survey of Guillain-Barre Syndrome that will start on August 1 and run for approximately nine months.
‘Following the 1976 programme of vaccination against swine influenza in the US, a retrospective study found a possible eight-fold increase in the incidence of GBS.

‘Active prospective ascertainment of every case of GBS in the UK is required. Please tell BNSU about every case.

‘You will have seen Press coverage describing the Government’s concern about releasing a vaccine of unknown safety.’

If there are signs of a rise in GBS after the vaccination programme begins, the Government could decide to halt it.

GBS attacks the lining of the nerves, leaving them unable to transmit signals to muscles effectively.
It can cause partial paralysis and mostly affects the hands and feet. In serious cases, patients need to be kept on a ventilator, but it can be fatal.

Death is caused by paralysis of the respiratory system, causing the victim to suffocate.
It is not known exactly what causes GBS and research on the subject has been inconclusive.
However, it is thought that one in a million people who have a seasonal flu vaccination could be at risk and it has also been linked to people recovering from a bout of flu of any sort.

The HPA said it was part of the Government’s pandemic plan to monitor GBS cases in the event of a mass vaccination campaign, regardless of the strain of flu involved.
But vaccine experts warned that the letters proved the programme was a ‘guinea-pig trial’.

Dr Tom Jefferson, co-ordinator of the vaccines section of the influential Cochrane Collaboration, an independent group that reviews research, said: ‘New vaccines never behave in the way you expect them to. It may be that there is a link to GBS, which is certainly not something I would wish on anybody.

‘But it could end up being anything because one of the additives in one of the vaccines is a substance called squalene, and none of the studies we’ve extracted have any research on it at all.’

He said squalene, a naturally occurring enzyme, could potentially cause so-far-undiscovered side effects.

Jackie Fletcher, founder of vaccine support group Jabs, said: ‘The Government would not be anticipating this if they didn’t think there was a connection. What we’ve got is a massive guinea-pig trial.’

Professor Chinnery said: ‘During the last swine flu pandemic, it was observed that there was an increased frequency of cases of GBS. No one knows whether it was the virus or the vaccine that caused this.

‘The purpose of the survey is for us to assess rapidly whether there is an increase in the frequency of GBS when the vaccine is released in the UK. It also increases consultants’ awareness of the condition.

Panic over? The number of swine flu cases has fallen sharply in the past few weeks











‘This is a belt-and-braces approach to safety and is not something people should be substantially worried about as it’s a rare condition.’

If neurologists do identify a case of GBS, it will be logged on a central database.

Details about patients, including blood samples, will be collected and monitored by the HPA.

It is hoped this will help scientists establish why some people develop the condition and whether it is directly related to the vaccine.

But some question why there needs to be a vaccine, given the risks. Dr Richard Halvorsen, author of The Truth About Vaccines, said: ‘For people with serious underlying health problems, the risk of dying from swine flu is probably greater than the risk of side effects from the vaccine.

‘But it would be tragic if we repeated the US example and ended up with more casualties from the jabs.

‘I applaud the Government for recognising the risk but in most cases this is a mild virus which needs a few days in bed. I’d question why we need a vaccine at all.’

Professor Miller at the HPA said: ‘This monitoring system activates pandemic plans that have been in place for a number of years. We’ll be able to get information on whether a patient has had a prior influenza illness and will look at whether influenza itself is linked to GBS.

‘We are not expecting a link to the vaccine but a link to disease, which would make having the vaccine even more important.’

The UK’s medicines watchdog, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, is already monitoring reported side effects from Tamiflu and Relenza and it is set to extend that surveillance to the vaccine.

A Department of Health spokesperson said: ‘The European Medicines Agency has strict processes in place for licensing pandemic vaccines.

‘In preparing for a pandemic, appropriate trials to assess safety and the immune responses have been carried out on vaccines very similar to the swine flu vaccine. The vaccines have been shown to have a good safety profile.
‘It is extremely irresponsible to suggest that the UK would use a vaccine without careful consideration of safety issues. The UK has one of the most successful immunisation programmes in the world.’

I COULDN''T EAT OR SPEAK... IT WAS HORRENDOUS
Victim: Hilary Wilkinson spent three months in hospital after she was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre Syndrome
When Hilary Wilkinson woke up with muscle weakness in her left arm and difficulty breathing, doctors initially put it down to a stroke.

















But within hours, she was on a ventilator in intensive care after being diagnosed with Guillain-Barre Syndrome.

She spent three months in hospital and had to learn how to talk and walk again. But at times, when she was being fed through a drip and needed a tracheotomy just to breathe, she doubted whether she would survive.
The mother of two, 57, from Maryport, Cumbria, had been in good health until she developed a chest infection in March 2006. She gradually became so weak she could not walk downstairs.
Doctors did not diagnose Guillain-Barre until her condition worsened in hospital and tests showed her reflexes slowing down. It is impossible for doctors to know how she contracted the disorder, although it is thought to be linked to some infections.
Mrs Wilkinson said: ‘It was very scary. I couldn’t eat and I couldn’t speak. My arms and feet had no strength and breathing was hard.
I was treated with immunoglobulin, which are proteins found in blood, to stop damage to my nerves. After ten days, I still couldn’t speak and had to mime to nurses or my family.

‘It was absolutely horrendous and I had no idea whether I would get through it. You reach very dark moments at such times and wonder how long it can last.

But I’m a very determined person and I had lots of support.’

After three weeks, she was transferred to a neurological ward, where she had an MRI scan and nerve tests to assess the extent of the damage.

Still unable to speak and in a wheelchair, Mrs Wilkinson eventually began gruelling physiotherapy to improve her muscle strength and movement but it was exhausting and painful.
Three years later, she is almost fully recovered. She can now walk for several miles at a time, has been abroad and carries out voluntary work for a GBS Support Group helpline.

She said: ‘It makes me feel wary that the Government is rolling out this vaccine without any clear idea of the GBS risk, if any. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone and it certainly changed my life.

‘I’m frightened to have the swine flu vaccine if this might happen again – it’s a frightening illness and I think more research needs to be done on the effect of the vaccine.’

Hotline staff given access to confidential records

Confidential NHS staff records and disciplinary complaints could be accessed by hundreds of workers manning the Government’s special swine flu hotline.

They were able to browse through a database of emails containing doctors’ and nurses’ National Insurance numbers, home addresses, dates of birth, mobile phone numbers and scanned passport pages – all details that could be used fraudulently.

And private and confidential complaints sent by hospitals about temporary medical staff – some of whom were named – were also made available to the call-centre workers, who were given a special password to log in to an internal NHS website.

It could be a breach of the Data Protection Act.
The hotline staff work for NHS Professionals, which was set up using taxpayers’ money to employ temporary medical and administrative staff for the health service.

The not-for-profit company runs two of the Government’s swine flu call centres – with 300 staff in Farnborough, Hampshire, and 900 in Watford, Hertfordshire.
Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley described the revelations as ‘disturbing’.

Anne Mitchell, a spokeswoman for Unison, said: ‘There’s no excuse for such a fundamental breach of personal security. Action needs to be taken as soon as possible to make sure this does not happen again.’

A spokeswoman for NHS Professionals would not confirm whether access to the confidential files had been granted.

AARP LIES LIKE HELL AND SO DOES OBAMA. DECIDE FOR YOUR SELF !

DECIDE FOR YOURSELF. I have ! AND.. THEY REALLY SUX !
http://aarplies.com/

Is AARP's Facts Vs. Myth Website lying?! Read from the bill here and decide for yourself.
And we challenge AARP to put data and links on their website and remove their misinformation.

Updated Saturday 8/15/09, 8:45 pm PDTLatest updates: Medicare Advantage to be eliminated
Extra update: Another GREAT alternative health care plan from Whole Foods' CEO
Sen. Arlen Spector (R, er, D) caught clueless about what's in the Bill
We were shocked when we compared the most recent House bill (H.R.3200 - America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009) with the AARP website.
The AARP website misrepresents what is in the Bill.
All we want is honest information so we as voters can decide. Please read and decide for yourself, and let's have our Representatives and Senators quote from the bill and defend and convince us with FACTS, instead of trying to snow us with "trust us" (watch Sen. Arlen Specter lie and make a fool of himself). NOTE THAT EVERY CLAIM ON THIS WEBSITE HAS LINKS TO THE ACTUAL BILL OR VIDEO OF SPEECHES -- SO YOU CAN DECIDE.
First, we'll summarize the problem and the obvious solutions, and then we'll refute the AARP "Facts vs. Myths" webpage section-by-section. Obviously, we are NOT affiliated with AARP, nor any other group -- we're indepdent thinkers and voters, who can't stand disinformation. We reference sources for all linked information and include excerpts without claiming ownership or authorship. And we DID call AARP and try to get them to change their misleading website but they refused, so we had to make this website.
Also, here's a good summary table of some of the House and Senate Bills from Examiner.com.
And another good summary with even more scary details, here, from The Free Republic
And a doctor's analysis of the bill, here
What should you do if you agree that AARP is being misleading?
Call your local Representative and Senator TODAY and tell them how you feel
Call AARP TODAY at 1-888-687-2277 and CANCEL your AARP membership (so they know you mean it !)
The ways to reduce costs for healthcare are to:
Increase insurance company competition -- allow writing of policies across state lines.
Reduce government regulation and requirements of extra coverages in ALL policies only used by very few customers (they could be required for certain policies just like 'assigned risk' in auto insurance, and yes, those policies would cost more, but also cover more, and people could choose)
Have a considered (= 3-5 months of debate), public discussion of ways to help the 9-12 million US Citizens who can't afford health insurance.This is much cheaper than ANY option in the current bill!
Work on tort reform (to limit legal judgments, so insurance costs don't need to be so high).
Encourage Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) so you can control where you spend your money
Don't put the US Government and your tax dollars into running another bureacracy. A Single-Payer health system will not make money or even cover its costs, but will undercut the free market and subsidize itself off your taxes -- actually increasing the cost to you while reducing care -- it's a death spiral !
NOBODY IS SUGGESTING DOING NOTHING!Here's another great set of alternatives from Whole Foods' CEO
Why we don't trust our Representatives and Senators:
Congress won't be required to enroll. Why isn't it good enough for them but good enough for us? (The current bill exempts Congress -- and Members even refused good faith attempts to fix this: "On July 16, Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev., went further and offered an amendment to the House version during the Ways and Means Committee markup that would require members of Congress to enroll in its own government-run health care program. Democrats defeated the amendment, 23 to 18.)"
Will the government be the only insurance company? (This is called "SINGLE PAYER")Will this force the private insurance companies out of business? President Obama has said that it will and that IS HIS INTENT. He has said it may take 10 or 15 years, but that's his plan. You can debate the result, but not what's on record. Watch the video here and watch another video here.
When the President keeps saying, "If you like your current health plan, you can keep it," that's a lie: No, you can't. And in his videos (paragraph above) he repeatedly gives his "vision."
If you're a Senior Citizen, note that the Bill will penalize hospitals for readmitting you (as often happens when you're being treated for several things when you're older). See Section 1151 REDUCING POTENTIALLY PREVENTABLE HOSPITAL READMISSIONS..
Medicare Advantage Insurance Options will be limited by the whims of one person appointed by the President. From Section 1162 (E): "(iv) AUTHORITY TO DISQUALIFY CERTAIN PLANS- In applying clauses (ii) and (iii), the Secretary may determine not to identify a Medicare Advantage plan if the Secretary has identified deficiencies in the plan's compliance with rules for such plans under this part." And President Obama confirmed his plan to STOP MEDICARE ADVANTAGE AS A "WASTE OF MONEY" DURING HIS TOWNHALL MEETING IN MONTANA: Obama says he can get savings of "about $177 billion over 10 years. That's how much we think we could save by eliminating subsidies to insurance companies that are offering what's called Medicare Advantage. It doesn't help seniors any more than regular Medicare does." (<-- you can click on the link, and the use control-F to search for the phrase 'medicare advantage' to find the quote) If you have a Health Savings Account (HSA), that will be illegal under the new plan. Why? Because they are not included in the definition of a'Qualified Health Plan.' BOTH Democrats and Republicans of good character tried to add that definition. It was denied. Does that seem like sneaky lawerly tricks to you? Yup, to us, too. Again, read the data and be an informed voter:"To protect the existing coverage of Americans who currently have these plans, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT), and Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) offered an amendment that would include health benefits plans with HSAs in the bill's definition of a 'qualified health benefits plan.' The Committee majority defeated this amendment. In other words, Americans who wish to buy HSA plans would be stripped of their freedom to choose them."
Tort reform is not addressed in the current bill, but tax penalties for US citizens and exemptions from penalties for illegal immigrants are included: Sec. 59B, Pg. 170, Line 1 - "Any NONRESIDENT alien is exempt from individual taxes."
Still Reading? GREAT! Now let's look at the misleading AARP site(you can click on any of the images below to enlarge it and see the AARP site)



Myths? Ha! Unlike AARP, we use data to back up our claims. Does AARP refuse to use REAL DATA with citations from the BILL because they are lying, or lazy, or both?! Or do they just think you won't find out?!
The real myth is that we need to do something, anything before we've had time to discuss and debate it, make sure we can pay for it, and not throw away our current health system when it's the envy of the world!

REAL FACT: You'll get to keep your insurance for only 5 years (page 17), OR LESS if *anything* changes in your health plan, INCLUDING if you change jobs. Then, you MUST enroll in the US Gov't Health Plan (page 21+ ). You may get to choose your own doctor, but that is misleading because the doctor may not accept your insurance, or may have US Government guidance on what procedures to perform, etc. Read the bill, please! Do you think that healthcare bills that are 1,018 pages long are designed to make it hard for YOU to read and understand and be informed on what's going on?! Us, too! See what can you do.
REAL FACT: So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised, BUT: Those who currently have private individual coverage won't be able to change it. And once the bill takes effect in about 2 years, insurance companies are prohibited from writing new policies.

REAL FACT: We're only talking about the House Proposal, since the Senate's isn't public and the White House hasn't published anything (so much for leadership, or rather political deniability),or do you have special information, AARP? The Bill won't "stand between individuals and their doctors" but it will define what can be in medical plan (page 16) and while it will allow the "best possible care", it WILL DEFINE "what best care is possible"! (page 16)

REAL FACT: The White House looks like it's cutting temporary side-deal with the drug companies (in typical Chicago-thug fashion), so drug prices might not go up for now, but long term, it's a Faustian deal once the government's the only buyer.
REAL FACT: The Bill doesn't "prevent" hospital readmissions for seniors, it just reduces the payments to hospitals if they do so (See Section 1151 REDUCING POTENTIALLY PREVENTABLE HOSPITAL READMISSIONS). To us, AARP is telling the truth here, but is misleading you!

REAL FACT: The President's "commitments" have quadrupled our national debt in less than 6 months, and the CBO's cost estimate for the current Bill recently jumped from "only" $200 billion to now closer to $1-1.5 TRILLION over just the next 10 years, with deficits never stopping and the debt just increasing!


REAL FACT: No one is suggesting doing nothing, but doing the wrong thing is something we can't afford and may push us into losing our National debt rating resulting in higher interest rates and much worse economic times. Doing the right things (see above), and carefully improving our current system, are the right things to do.

REAL FACT: Again, misleading. The government cannot refuse to treat you, but it defines what care you must "choose" to receive. YOU still "choose" to accept what they offer, OR to die (not something you have much choice in, as we see it).
REAL FACT: The current plan Section 1233 spells out "end of life planning," Obama has suggested people get "a pain pill instead of surgery," and there will be healthcare recommended practices board (a "healthcare benefits advisory board"). But still, it will be your "choice" to live or die. Right.