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Courtesy of Misconceptions
The right is rejoicing because within the policies of Obama-care lies wording which they say, precludes Obama from using his executive order to ban weaponry or ammunition. They are rather ecstatic right now… Harry Reid inserted such language protecting guns and ammo within the gigantic health-care bill, and only now has it been uncovered. The original intent was to get the NRA to back off trying to kill the bill. The NRA did, and the bill passed… and this past summer was validated by Justice Robert’s decision.
The amendment is being touted on Right Wing blogs as Senate amendment 3276, Sec 2716, part c “Protection of Second Amendment Rights” They then admit they were intimidated by the gigantic size of the bill to look at the text directly. They do have a point. Turns out it is hard to find.
For those wishing to see it in person, it is here on page 2037 beginning on line 23.
The first provision is related to the Wellness and Prevention program. Since America leads the world in gun deaths, there was conservative concern that to stem the cost of national insurance, the Wellness and Prevention program would price out a person as a result on whether he had guns or not. This language simply removes that concern from the table. They may ask how many sexual partners you go through in a month, but not how many guns exist in your arsenal.
Basically this limited provision applies to medical personal. Just as under HIPAA they cannot disclose personal matters without a release form, that now applies to lawful weaponry. including guns and ammunition….
This language expressly states that under all auspices of those organizations directly under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of Health, none can report on the possession of legal firearms to anyone.
‘‘(3) LIMITATION ON DATABASES OR DATA
21 BANKS.—None of the authorities provided to the Sec-
22 retary under the Patient Protection and Affordable
23 Care Act or an amendment made by that Act shall
24 be construed to authorize or may be used to maintain
25 HR 3590 EAS/PP records of individual ownership or possession of a
1 firearm or ammunition.
(It does not mean the Justice Department is forbidden from creating a file. Or the FBI. Or the NSA. Those files are still legal under this law. It means that Doctors, Nurses, and other medical officers are not to divulge a patient’s ownership of a legal weapon.)
This law was inserted to combat fears like this: if a legal firearm owner were to show up with powder burns on his skin, the knowledge that he had a firearm, could without this specific clause, be divulged to authorities. It can no longer be so.
A pretty nice nod to the gun community and the NRA.
But, in the Right’s initial exuberance coming no doubt from not investigating the actual text itself, the idea that this protection prevents Biden and Obama from using Executive Orders to ban certain types of guns, is overstated.
This is a medical bill, and the language specifically links this protection to the medical community.
Furthermore, the protection extends by specific wording to “legal” firearms and “legal” ammunition. Once the Executive order is put into effect banning certain types of firearms, those firearms are no longer “legal”, and can, if it is the right thing to do, be reported to “legal” authorities.
The rest of the writing pertains to the prevention of halting a person’s Affordable insurance, simply because they have a legal firearm.
–A premium rate may not be increased, health
5 insurance coverage may not be denied, and a dis-
6 count, rebate, or reward offered for participation in
7 a wellness program may not be reduced or withheld
8 under any health benefit plan issued pursuant to or
9 in accordance with the Patient Protection and Afford-
10 able Care Act or an amendment made by that Act on
11 the basis of, or on reliance upon—
12 ‘‘(A) the lawful ownership or possession of
13 a firearm or ammunition; or
14 ‘‘(B) the lawful use or storage of a firearm
15 or ammunition.
Note again this only applies to “lawful” guns and ammunition. Unlawful ones can and should be impounded.
So although I was semi-deflated when I first heard the news that a law preventing the national registration of any type of assault rifle or mega-clip ammunition clip had been sneaked into the Affordable Care Act, now after seeing the text itself, I am relieved it can still be done. Just not done by any department under the authority of the Secretary who is placed in charge of the Affordable Care’s enactment…..
So yes, the President can still ban guns by an Executive Order, thereby navigating around the irrational objections of 67 out of the 535 people voting in both houses of Congress.
Compiled by the FBI….
Rightwing extremists may be gaining new recruits by playing on their fears about several emergent issues. The economic downturn and the election of the first African American president present unique drivers for rightwing radicalization and recruitment.
The consequences of a prolonged economic downturn—including real estate foreclosures, unemployment, and an inability to obtain credit—could create a fertile recruiting environment for rightwing extremists and even result in confrontations between such groups and government authorities similar to those in the past.
Rightwing extremists have capitalized on the election of the first African American president, and are focusing their efforts to recruit new members, mobilize existing supporters, and broaden their scope and appeal through propaganda
The current economic and political climate has some similarities to the 1990s when rightwing extremism experienced a resurgence fueled largely by an economic recession, criticism about the outsourcing of jobs, and the perceived threat to U.S. power and sovereignty by other foreign powers…. During the 1990s, these issues contributed to the growth in the number of domestic rightwing terrorist and extremist groups and an increase in violent acts targeting government facilities, law enforcement officers, banks, and infrastructure sectors.
Reminds me of another president, who joked with reporters while holding a document plainly titled: Bin Laden Seeks To Attack US… That was August 6, 2001….. 35 days later, the Twin Towers were rubble.
Today the White House issued this Executive Order.
“Should the debt ceiling not be lifted in time by May 16, in order to prevent the Treasury from running out of funds, I am hereby using the emergency powers given to the Chief Executive by the Constitution, to temporarily suspend the Bush Tax Cuts until: 1) either we can legally borrow the funds to continue paying on our commitments, or 2) we bring our debt down to the 2008 level by having much more tax revenue pour in.
This is in effect, immediately, and I have instructed the IRS to recalculate all 2010 tax forms over the level of $2 million dollars, and asses those individuals and companies, for the differences.
We must take this action because Republicans want to pay politics with your lives. As Chief Executive, I am responsible to you, not them. I won’t let that happen.
With these tax cuts out of the way, and with our austerity programs already in effect, that windfall of profit the Treasury will receive, will be entirely funneled towards the paying off our debt.
This policy will continue until Republicans can act reasonably and in a productive fashion.
Barack Obama.
Duffy is God’s answer to a prayer.. I miss the old days of blogging when we were debating principals instead of people… Duffy has stuck to the old line of debating principals with facts, and that is what makes him special in the eyes of bloggers everywhere…
Since the passing of Steve Newton, he has been the only one to challenge me in any argument, and usually some pretty good stuff comes out of both sides during the exchange… I have respected that.. Cause once again, opinions mean dick. Facts are what we steer by.. It is my hope that in responding to his challenge that an answer may make itself apparent.. Who knows? It may not come from me… But if I’m the catalyst for bringing it out in the open, then… none of this was in vain..
Why I like to debate Duffy is simple.. Neither side, he or I, is concretely set in their opinions… We accept it when the other side makes sense… I usually go into such debates having no idea where they’ll end up… I hope the rest of you enjoy the ride as welI….
That said..
kavips rebutt’s:Uh… Mr. President. That’s not entirely accurate.
First off, the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 was developed for, and locked in on, urban developmental areas and had no part of the subprime boom, which primarily occurred out in western desert regions where owning 4 to 5 investment homes was normal… Those homes were overwhelmingly funded by loan originators NOT SUBJECT to the act… We all know the crises was not because people couldn’t afford a payment on their house. It came about, because with no occupants, people could not afford the payments of 4 to 5 houses….. Instead of one loan per borrower turning up in default; four to five were.
Second off, The housing bubble reached its point of maximum inflation in 2005.
Courtesy of NYT
Third off, During those exact same years, Fannie and Freddie were sidelined by Congressional pressure, and saw a sharp drop in their share of loans secured by the Feds… Follow the dotted line on the very bottom of the graph…
Courtesy of NYT
Fourth off; During those exact same years, private secures, like Delaware’s own AIG, grabbed the lions share of the market.
Courtesy of NYT
Remember these graphs for later on when I discuss the results of deregulation, versus regulation… But like it or not, these graphs conclusively show that private insurers, who thanks to Marie Evans, we now know were deregulated by Phil Gramm in the 2000 Omnibus Bill, were the primary cause of the worlds financial collapse.. Probably put best by these words of AIG’s spokesperson, who when asked why they didn’t have sufficient funds to cover losses, said point blank, “We were deregulated. We were no laws requiring us to keep any funds, ..so we spent it…”
kavips rebutt’s:Uh… Mr. President. That’s not entirely accurate. I agree that the hedge funds did survive better than the banks. Not because of bailouts, but because they sold short during the crises and made billions while firms closed and people got thrown out of work. There is nothing wrong with that; I did the same. In fact close readers may remember my warnings that the crises was impending almost a year earlier. Very close readers may remember my telling them exactly when to sell, and at what point the stock market would rebound… I must say: I called it rather well. 🙂
De regulated hedge funds are not the issue… De-regulated, excessively leveraged, mortgage securities, are a different story however… They, not the banks that held them, are the cause of the crises…Years from now, when academics search for causes of the stock market crash of 2008, they will focus on the pivotal role of mortgage-backed securities. These exotic financial instruments allowed a downturn in U.S. home prices to morph into a contagion that brought down Bear Stearns a year ago this month – and more recently have brought the global banking system to its knees.
Where you err is when you state that banks too big to fail, assumed they would be bailed out… By implication, you say imply they failed from squandering money, and wanted the bailouts.. But your tax dollars didn’t flow directly to the bottom line.
So in that sense, the bailout money represents an expense for banks. That’s one reason a number of banks have said they want to give the money back as soon as possible.
You say big banks were counting on a bailout, and they got them? That didn’t happen to these banks. New Mexico, Georgia, and Florida each lost a bank just last Friday. That brings to 8, the number of banks failed in June. Unfortunately if a bank is failing, it can’t bet on itself to fail, as can a hedge fund.
kavips rebutt’s:Uh… Mr. President. That’s not entirely accurate. The idea is that the banks made bad decisions knowing taxpayers would bail them out is the issue that is inaccurate. For the record, I have no qualms that it was the Clinton legacy who tore down the wall between banks and investment banking. Like you, I feel it was a good idea to do so… Again the problem was not primarily with banks making loans to people who could not pay.. Although, it was as late as October 2009, when I was made aware of one private Bank in Denver still exaggerating income to make loans look good enough on paper to get approval of securitization. What caused the collapse was the leveraging of those loans as securities, so that as the housing market became overextended, and the ARM jumped past the low cost opening years, the damage was 100 times worse because of leveraging. What made the collapse criminal, was that the insurance most financial institutions had bought from AIG, to cover such an improbable event, had already spent by that companies executives, out on bonuses to themselves. What made it doubly criminal, was that when they received government dollars through a taxpayer bailout, those same executives assumed it was to first go towards paying their bonuses again. However, very recent events may give some cover to the argument that some collusion was implicit in the bailing out of Goldman Sacs and AIG… Basically, once bailed out, AIG paid Goldman Sacs for shares twice as much as they were worth. The documents also indicate that regulators ignored recommendations from their own advisers to force the banks to accept losses on their A.I.G. deals and instead paid the banks in full for the contracts.
I just passed the WAWA near the Maryland border of Route 40, and found the cheapest gas….ever….. or so it seems…. My local station was stuck at $2.39 which I was grateful to pay…having come down from $2.59 a week ago…. It’s wonderful!
Wait a minute…. It still costs the same to drill, to refine, to store, to transport, to distribute, to dispense, and you know that no one is selling gas and losing money in the process…. They are comfortable with the money they are making now…..
So, in truth, despite all the bullshit, we were being fleeced $2.00 a gallon back when gas climbed over $4.12….It’s so obvious…. Those damn fat cat Republicans were skimming off two dollars for every gallon of gas… Two ‘effin dollars!
All that bullshit about changing environmental laws… about building nuclear power, about drilling off shore, was a smokescreen to cover the fact that huge amounts of oil were being hedged off-shore….
Remember when it cost $100 dollars to fill your tank? $50 of that went to fat cat Republicans…. Remember when you had to pass on the paying of some of your bills last summer, just because you needed $250 dollars more a month than the previous summer, just to go to work? Remember those huge profits comprised by those Republican supporting oil companies…Chevron (Condoleezza Rice) Exxon- Mobile? Halliburton? Cheney’s BBQ with Big Oil in 2000 paid off really big, didn’t it?
Remember McCain wants to give those same oil companies an additional tax break?
So what changed? Those Republican fat cats needed to sell of the oil they were hoarding for liquidity. That’s all. We were being robbed by the off-shore oil hedge funds that were allowed by Phil Gramm’s end run around Congressional oversight….. And he is first in line to become McCain’s Secretary of Treasury..!
$2.00 for every gallon!… for nothing!… DOESN’T THAT JUST REALLY PISS YOU OFF?
Well, guess what… America can return the favor on November 4th……..
Republican fat cats…. Meet Obama-Biden…..
Courtesy of DelawareLiberal.net
The war still goes on.
Revisiting an article from May, I clicked on a link just to see if anything was new.
It was. In the quiet, while we focused on Petraeus’s Report and the other side focused on Move On’s ad, American forces killed a Union worker in an attempt to bust up a strike……
The Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU) has announced that US occupation forces carried out an unprovoked attack against a crew of workers in the Rumaila oilfields in Basra on the morning of Monday 18 September.
Old news, it took place the same time as Blackwater’s massacre in Baghdad. Here is what it said.
Indeed, the latest attack seems to be designed to show that the occupation forces will act with impunity, and that there is going to be little distinction between mercenaries and regular US troops.
Allan Greenspan said the Iraqi War was for oil…Actions on the ground, by our own troops, do little to dispute that notion……..
The attack in the oilfields seems also to be designed to push the Iraqi Government to take further harsh and repressive measures against the oil workers at a time when they are resisting the privatization of the industry. The murder of Chief Engineer Talib Naji Abboud should also be laid at the door of the oil corporations that are trying to force their way into Iraq and to control its resources at any cost.
kavips 