Tim Weber

Obama admits health care is more important than jobs

In this video clip, President Obama admits health care is more important than jobs.

Health Care cost

Submitted by Jester C on Tuesday, 6/22/10 2:32am.

The government must pay attention to this matter. What's more important than health care? While I hope the heath care bill works out, right now it isn't looking so good. Increasing at the same time are both the individuals who do not have health care, and the cost of getting your own personal health care. People aren't even able to take out pay day loans to cover their health care because it is simply too costly. Medical bills are becoming delinquent and hurting peoples credit more and more also. We are all sitting back hoping that this new health care reform ends up working out, but few are noticing any benefits yet.

An important 14 Minutes

This 14-minute presentation delivered by British conservative David Cameron could be the most important 14 minutes that any modern conservative could spend.

Please take the time to watch this video, delivered at this years TED Conference.

 

AUDIO: A must hear, Rush's open letter to the President

Rush Limbaugh reads a seven-minute open-letter to President Barack Obama following the state of the union address.

 

Real People's letter to the President

Submitted by KeithReel on Thursday, 2/4/10 11:38am.

Speaking for a lot of Americans, call us the silent majority of the second decade of the 21st Century, I would like to compliment President Obama.

As recent as 4 years ago I had been blinded by the idea that the banks and corporations should be left alone and they would take care of us by promoting their own self-interest. I had gobbled up the notion that taxes should be cut indiscriminately and everything we ask government to do would get paid for as the economy grew. I, like a lot of Americans, did not question the Bush administrations push into Iraq. But gradually I began to ask questions.

I knew that real estate prices could not keep going up by double digits every year. I knew that the loans that were being made and bundled were bad and the banks were not going to put a stop to it. I began to see that there was no reason to go into Iraq and that the war on Al Qaeda should have been prosecuted and finished in Afghanistan. I could see that by torturing prisoners we were going against the very rights and values that we based our democratic republic on and we were demeaning our legitimacy globally.

Thank you, Mr. President, for standing up to Congress. Thank you for using your power and authority to back legislation that will get us through this economic crash created by the out of control banking and financial sectors and that will bring stability and regulation back to control their risky and unethical activities. Thank you for prosecuting the real war against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Thank you for basing your political agenda on the real reform we need, the foundational principles of the Constitution involving Human Rights.

In a recent speech at Georgetown University, Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton in laying out the administration's Human Rights agenda made these remarks:

 

"This Administration, like others before us, will promote, support, and defend democracy. We will 

relinquish neither the word nor the idea to those who have used it too narrowly, or to justify unwise

 policies. We stand for democracy not because we want other countries to be like us, but because

 we want all people to enjoy the consistent protection of the rights that are naturally theirs, whether

 they were born in Tallahassee or Tehran. Democracy has proven the best political system for

making human rights a human reality over the long term."

 

This is a needed breath of oxygen for all of us who realize the suffocating effect that the previous administration's policies had on our country, on our freedom and rights as citizens, on the true meaning of our Constitution, and for the world at large as we try to promote normative values for democratic governments.

            Thank you President Obama for giving us the hope that we can have the change we need.

Resolutions

Following is a collection of West Newsmagazine's New Year's resolutions:

- We resolve to always give locally-owned companies the opportunity to win our business.

- We resolve to do business with companies who appreciate our business, who respect our business, and who will work in the interest of our business.

- We resolve to make slightly fewer jokes about global warming, Tiger Woods, balloon boy and Dr. Phil. Slightly fewer.

- We resolve to respectfully but forcefully continue to proclaim our disagreement with the current direction of this country.

- We resolve to be exceptional corporate citizens to the people of West St. Louis County and the state of Missouri.

- We resolve to play more golf, spend more time with family, eat more vegetables and give more time and money to charitable organizations.

 

And, if we may be so bold, here are some recommended resolutions for other people, places and companies:

 

- Wildwood, please resolve to continue on with the BBQ Bash. We had a lot of fun there last year.

- Town & Country, please resolve to ... well, just try and ... oh, to heck with it. Just fix your deer problem. Just fix it. Please.

- Blues and Rams, please resolve to transition your youth movements into wins at some point this decade.

- Cardinals, please resolve to make Albert Pujols a Cardinal for life.

- Ballwin, Ellisville, Manchester, Wildwood and Winchester, please resolve to continue cooperating to make the Great Streets Initiative a reality.

- Claire McCaskill, please resolve to care about what the voters think and to act in our best interest.

- Republicans, please resolve to not be the party of "No." Create workable alternative solutions and act on them.

- Democrats, please resolve to respect the ideals that have made this country great. 

- President Barack Obama, please resolve to keep your eye on the ball. It is not about health care or climate change and it's not George W. Bush's fault. The first, second and third issue is the economy.

- Tea Partiers, please resolve to keep fighting the good fight and taking the high road in defense of your beliefs.

- Fox News, please resolve to move Glenn Beck to prime-time, or at least auto-set my TiVO for me.

- Television producers, please resolve to improve your programming. Not everything that little people, obese people, obnoxious people or Steven Seagall do should count as reality television. 

- Bureaucrats who are charged with protecting this country, please resolve to identify our enemies by whatever means necessary, extract intelligence from them by whatever means necessary, and equip our soldiers with whatever tools necessary to destroy our enemies completely.

- Social networking fans, please resolve to embrace the power of actual, face-to-face interaction.

Fox in a hen house

It already is evident that the Obama administration believes it can control private companies, but does it now really believe it can control the media?

Two Thursday's ago, the White House attempted to bar Fox News from an interview with pay czar Kenneth Feinberg. None other than President Barack Obama himself weighed in on the decision, claiming that Fox News operates in a largely "talk radio format." 

Only after the other media companies backed Fox News did the White House retract the ban and allow Fox into the hen house.

It truly is difficult to fathom the logic behind the White House trying to wage a war with a media company. How could they possibly win? This is not a blogger they are attempting to marginalize, this is the most successful cable news outlet in history.

Does Fox News lean to the right? Absolutely. But it does so in the proper places on its network. Fox features largely conservative commentators on opinion segments run separately from their news programming. This is the same formula that newspapers, including this one, have been using for ages.

When you run news, label it as news. When you run opinion, label it as opinion. 

This also is the same formula utilized by the other cable news outlets. CNN features Campbell Brown and Larry King and MSNBC features Keith Olbermann. These are not news programs, these are not without bias. The difference is that President Obama agrees with the bias on these shows, which makes them alright.

This tactic of attempting to discount or marginalize Fox News should be disconcerting even to Obama's liberal supporters. Beyond the simple fact that the argument is tawdry, the fact remains that Fox News has the biggest microphone right now - and an effective communicator like this president should relish the challenge and the rewards of the network with the largest audience, even if their talking heads disagree with him. The president should appear on Bill O'Reilly's show, or Sean Hannity's show, or even Glenn Beck's show. He should prove that his message is powerful enough to withstand attacks from the opposition.

In a few weeks, Oprah Winfrey will be interviewing Sarah Palin. Does anybody believe that Oprah is fair and balanced? Of course not, but by agreeing to appear, Palin is making it clear that she has the courage of her convictions. She also understands that, agree or disagree with her political leanings, this interview will command a massive audience.

The bottom line is that the Obama administration has larger problems than whether or not Fox News is mean to them. Perhaps the White House should hire Palin as a media consultant. Pretty unlikely, we would guess.