although I could spend half a day refuting your “facts,” it happens to be a nice day out and I want to go blade for a while, so I will touch upon just a couple of points.

Regarding your statement:
“We went into Iraq, lost a lot of blood and treasure and liberated its people from Saddam Hussein and took over their oil fields so oil companies could reap record profits, yet the Iraqis never wrote asking for our help.

Facts are facts. ”

Are you really silly enough to think that Iraqi’s – under Saddam’s regime – could have actually “written” to us asking for help if they needed it?

I grew up in Soviet Russia – and I remember moving here in the middle of the Cold War – listening to many people here talking about all Russians as Communists – they did not realize that most Russians were NOT Communists – did not join the Communist party – and wanted more than anything else to be “saved” by someone. It is silly to think that anyone of them would have “written” to ask for help. Russians were scared to tell a JOKE about the Communists or their leaders, never mind, openly come out and profess that they needed to be saved from the Communists. They would be executed in the middle of the night. Period. All letters and correspondence were screened and controlled by the Communists. All borders were closed. People were trapped. My family was lucky and “won the lottery.” I was forever remembered in my school as the girl who was lucky enough to go to America. But that’s another story all together.

So please think when you say “Iraqui’s did not ask us for help.”

They lived under a dictator who buried hundred’s of thousands of people in mass graves – they are AFRAID to speak.

You keep propagating the “progressives” idealisms and YOU will find yourself in the same position one day.

In Socialism, NOT EVERYONE IS EQUAL. There is a ruling class who has everything – and the masses – part of which you will be – who fights for bare survival.

I think we should be using OLD Sal’s tactics to destroy this insanity.

When Medicare was instituted in 1965 two major actions were taken to alter the level and cost of patient care in US hospitals caring for Medicare patients. The ratio of nurses to patients was reduced by at least 33% as an unnecessary waste of money. All Medicare hospitals then were mandated to initiate duplicate accounting systems, the new system was to identify the actual cost to the hospital of all materials and servicew used in the care of each patient. After five years of data was accumulated the payment system was adjusted to pay only part of the actual cost of caring for the patient which resulted in a revenue loss for every Medicare patient that was served. The loss would of courese be expected to be recovered by excess charges to private patients, essentially a government hidden tax on all non-government patients. This method was designed to guarantee the failure of non-government medical care, and when the politicians created an environment that induced for profit organizations such as HCA and Blud Cross Blue Shield to convert failing hospitals into for profit institutions the cost of private, non-government patients continued to exceed all other living costs by the need to pay the government shortfall plus the thin margin of profit left after the government removed its additional tax share plus a less than reasonable payment for managing all the Medicare claims, the politicians have been able to successfully achieve the threat that Mr. Witte so clearly predicted. This is clearly an intentional destruction of the medical profession into an economically failed business that was created by political fraud on the public. Add to this the fact that the Medicare tax is nothing short of a fraudulant Ponzi sheme and there should be little doubt by any citizen that they have been screwed and not kissed.

I believe that if the haves go down, so will the have-nots.