Haiku 091809

he yells 'Hey'
at folks fishing --
empty beer cans

***************

Recently, we read the following:

CNN.com: "Joe Wilson says outburst to Obama speech 'spontaneous' "

"The GOP congressman from South Carolina who shouted out during President Obama's health care address to Congress insisted Thursday that his outburst was 'spontaneous…'

"Rep. Joe Wilson shocked many observers Wednesday night when he shouted, 'You lie!' after the president denied that health care legislation would provide free coverage for illegal immigrants…

"Wilson … cited a report by the Congressional Research Service that he said showed the health care proposals would include illegal aliens…

"A CNN review of the Congressional Research Service report found that the health care legislation does address illegal immigrants. It says that noncitizens who can be considered 'resident aliens' under tax law, which doesn't distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants, would be required to buy health insurance.

"Yet the proposal clearly says that federal subsidies would go only to U.S. citizens and immigrants who are in the United States legally…"

***************

And we thought:

…Republican Joe Wilson (S.C.) says his heckling was “spontaneous.” It doesn’t make his behavior less rude though. It just confirms what some have characterized as a lack of good breeding. Or maybe, he was just drunk.

What about Republican Wilson’s claim that Obama lied when the latter denied that health care legislation would provide free coverage for illegal immigrants? In fact, the Congressional Research Service, which Wilson says is his source, refutes Wilson’s claim. The CRS report says: “… [T]he proposal clearly says that federal subsidies would go only to U.S. citizens and immigrants who are in the United States legally.”

Who’s actually lying then? At the least the American people deserve representatives who are intellectually honest. Laws shouldn’t be built on a foundation of lies. Opposition to proposed laws should not be based on distortions of positions and facts. Or outright lies. Or drunken outbursts...

Haiku 083109

two burps
as he nears the dock
a bull frog


***************

Recently, we read the following:

The Daily Telegraph: “Barack Obama critics take aim at carbon reforms after health reform success” by Alex Spillius

“Inspired by the success of protests against health care reform, the critics began their fight against the carbon scheme with a rally in Houston, Texas...

“A coalition of 17 business and conservative groups, backed by dozens of local organisations, will stage further events in 19 other states over the next three weeks and has told its millions of members to bombard their representatives in Washington with calls and emails…

“Like the agitators against the president's plans for health reform, the alliance, known as Energy Citizens, plans to influence congressmen and senators visiting their districts and states during the August break….

“Democratic leaders in the Senate have set a deadline of the end of September to finalise a cap-and-trade bill, after the House of Representatives narrowly passed its own version earlier in the summer…

“Mr Obama claims the bill will slow global warming and reduce dependence on foreign sources of fossil fuels but critics have said it would however raise energy costs and lead to substantial job losses….

“Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, a pressure group involved in opposing Mr Obama on both fronts, said: ‘Cap and trade has just come on top of everything else – the massive stimulus, the $1 trillion budget, health care.’

" ‘We are just people who don't want the government to get bigger, too expensive and too intrusive, a government that will tell you what health care you can have at what price and what energy you can have at what price. It's a standard Left-Right choice.’ "

***************

And we thought:

… Is Big Government really the immediate problem? It appears to us – from stark events over the last two years -- that the immediate problem is really Big Business. These are the big financial services companies like AIG, Citibank, Goldman Sachs, and Merrill Lynch. The big health insurance companies like UnitedHealth Group, Aetna, and Wellpoint. The supermajor oil and energy companies like ExxonMobil, British Petroleum, and Royal Dutch Shell.

Big Business, coddled by the Bush administration during the last 8 years, is the albatross on the necks of the American people. It is behind the economic woes that hit the majority of the American people particularly hard over the waning years of the Bush regime.

Apparently, the new administration is now trying to address these economic hardships by way of its proposed reforms in Congress, designed to benefit the American people in the long term. But, true to form, Big Business is the bull frog precisely trying to scare the American people away from these proposed changes...