Video: Obama, Democrats Promised "Death Panels" Would Not Exist In Obamacare - Sarah Palin on Hannity - My My My… Seems Sarah was right all along!!
Pirate’s Cove: And then Hollywood and other entertainment will be surprised when their shows tank because people come to be entertained, not bombarded with political propaganda
(CNN) President Barack Obama, hoping to pitch his signature health care law to younger Americans, will get some help from a cadre of Hollywood stars who have volunteered to help promote Obamacare’s insurance exchanges that open on October 1.
One has to wonder why he and others have to “pitch” it at all. Isn’t it “The Law”? The young folks, who mostly voted “Obama”, have no choice but to either enroll or pay a fine/tax.
At a meeting at the White House Monday, a group that included singer Jennifer Hudson and actors Kal Penn and Amy Poehler heard Obama extol the benefits his health care law offers young people, whose participation in the exchanges is seen as essential for their long-term viability.
“The President stopped by the meeting to engage artists who expressed an interest in helping to educate the public about the benefits of the health law,” a White House official said. “The reach of these national stars spreads beyond the beltway to fans of their television shows, movies, and music – and the power of these artists to speak through social media is especially critical.”
The meeting, which was led by Obama’s senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, also included representatives for Oprah Winfrey, Alicia Keys, Bon Jovi, YouTube Comedy, Funny or Die and the organizations that put on the annual Grammy and Latin Grammy awards.
Does anyone think that any of these people will actually sign up in the Exchanges themselves? Or do they have their own Cadillac plans?
And when they start pushing O-care people will tune out. The movies and shows with specific liberal politics tend to bomb. No one wants to be patronized, especially by celebs who’ll never enroll in O-care and will do all they can to avoid that “Cadillac tax” on their own high end health insurance plans. If they push this in TV shows, movies, YouTube, you can bet people will avoid those forms of entertainment, particularly since over 50% of the nation is still dead set against Obamacare.
Same goes for the NFL and NBA, along with any other sports, if they decide to push O-care.
By: Bethany Stotts - Accuracy in Media
Supporters of Obamacare were given reason to celebrate on July 17 when The New York Times announced that health care premiums in the Empire State could “tumble” 50% because of the new health care exchanges. “Obama touted recent news from New York, California, Oregon and other states that have reported that insurance companies will charge lower-than-expected premiums next year,” reported the Los Angeles Times. “And he highlighted a provision of the law that requires insurance companies to provide rebates if they don’t spend at least 80% of the premiums they receive on their customers’ medical care, rather than administrative expenses, such as executive salaries or dividends for shareholders.”
This week, in his prepared remarks for Knox College, President Obama once again touted this 50% decrease in premiums, saying: “Just last week, New York announced that premiums for consumers who buy their insurance in these online marketplaces will be at least 50% less than what they pay today. That’s right—folks’ premiums in the individual market will drop by 50%.”
This feather in President Obama’s cap serves as an example for some liberals of how the Affordable Care Act is just that—an affordable way to purchase health care for your family, coming soon to a state near you.
Except that it isn’t. As Accuracy in Media has repeatedly demonstrated, in reality, Obamacare instead causes health care premiums to skyrocket—even in the much-touted California market. According to Avik Roy of Forbes, however, Obamacare will increase individual health insurance premiums [in California] by 64 to 146% in one year.”
For New York State it is a different story. That’s because a series of “reforms” made there in the 1990s which over-regulated health care, got rid of preexisting conditions, and mandated that insurance companies charge the same regardless of age, according to Roy. “New York premiums have nowhere to go but down,” charges Roy in his latest article for Forbes. As he previously pointed out, when liberals championed the less-than-expected rate increases in California, this was an “apples to oranges” comparison.
“The real news is that New York ruined its individual insurance market two decades ago by imposing the same regulations that ObamaCare is about to impose on every other state,” argued The Wall Street Journal on July 23. “If the Empire State’s premiums do now fall, it will be because the Affordable Care Act partially deregulates New York insurance.” Perhaps someone should have clued President Obama into this simple fact.
“But New York, today, is in worse shape than Washington, and far worse shape than California,” writes Roy in his incisive column. “In 2010, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average premium in the New York individual market was $357 a month.”
The New York Times, in its oft-cited article, said that “State insurance regulators say they have approved rates for 2014 that are at least 50 percent lower on average than those currently available in New York.”
“Beginning in October, individuals in New York City who now pay $1,000 a month or more for coverage will be able to shop for health insurance for as little as $308 monthly.”
At least the Los Angeles Times had the conscience to write that these types of “savings” are an aberration. “New York, for example, announced this week that the average premium will be 50% lower for individuals who buy health coverage on their own, in large part because the state has some of the highest rates now,” they report (emphasis added). “New York may have been more ripe for savings than other states,” notes Bloomberg.
And even The Washington Post, a champion of Obamacare, points out, “But it shouldn’t be shocking: New York has, for two decades now, had the highest individual market premiums in the country.” USA Today led with the title “Most states won’t see N.Y.’s drop in insurance rates.” This The New York Times cleverly left out of its reporting.
While conservatives might be surprised that New York’s rates are, indeed, going down, Roy puts this in perspective: “As a result, Obamacare does have the effect of lowering premiums in New York, to a weighted average of $301 a month: a 39 percent decrease from 2013 rates, and a 16 percent decrease from 2010 rates,” he writes. “According to several studies of the New York market, the biggest driver of the improvement is the fact that the mandate and the subsidies will encourage healthier people into the insurance pool, driving average costs down” (emphasis added).
This assumes that additional healthy people will add themselves to the rolls of the insured, instead of simply enduring the federal penalties. “The younger and healthier crowd is generally the group facing the most significant increases that are more likely to decide to pay the penalty and not buy health insurance next year,” Carl McDonald, a “Citigroup insurance-industry analyst” told Bloomberg.
As for The New York Times, it “inflated the impact of the ACA, implying that average premiums in New York City exceed $1,000 today vs. $308 under Obamacare; by our analysis, using a fairer comparison, the five-borough average for affordable coverage was $695, with a much lower average upstate,” writes Roy.
CBS News, in its report, accepted the $1,000 number and failed to mention that New York had high health insurance rates.
“New York’s rates will still be three times higher than those found in California before Obamacare,” Roy writes.
As a New Yorker myself, I have to say, if this is success, count me out.
Bethany Stotts is a freelance writer, and former staff writer for Accuracy in Academia. She blogs at ttp://bethanystotts.wordpress.com/.
Joshua Pundit: President
Obama does have plans for one kind of job creation - a huge army of 'community organizers' working for the Department of Health and Human Services who will assist people in enrolling in ObamaCare, applying for a myriad of federal benefits, and of course registering these recipients of government largess as Democrats.
And they'll be assisted by something the president and HHS chief Kathleen Sebelius are also creating, a huge consolidation of personal information known as the Federal Data Hub.
The new Federal Data Hub is designed to give these new “patient navigators” access to mountains of of personal information compiled by federal agencies, including the IRS, the Department of Defense, the Veterans Administration, and the Social Security Administration among others.
When you find out more about these "patient navigators" and how they're being hired and trained, it gets even worse.
In May, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee were told by HHS that there will be no criminal background checks required for the these new patient navigators. They won’t even be required to have to have high-school diplomas, and at between $20 and $48 per hour, they're going to be some of the best paid dropouts in America.
The fact that convicted felons could be getting their hands on your tax returns, Social Security numbers and every bit of your personal data doesn't concern them.
According to the HHS, all the new navigators will have to do is to take a 20–30 hour online course about how the 1,200-page law works. If you thought things like fraud and identity theft were a problem before, just wait.
Nine U.S. Senators led by Utah's Orrin Hatch wrote to Sebelius, “The standards proposed by your department could result in a convicted felon receiving federal dollars and gaining access to confidential taxpayer information. The same standards allow any individual who has registered with the exchange and completed two days of training to facilitate enrollment, as if the decision to purchase health insurance is similar to the decision of registering to vote.”
Ah, but that's a part of the goal here, to the point that this could almost be called the ACORN employment Act. Just like ACORN, the idea will be to register low information Democrats while discarding Republican registrations, and a number of politicians in Blue States have already begun working to facilitate it. In California, for instance, California’s Democrat Secretary of State Debra Bowen has already designated Covered California, the ObamaCare health exchange as a voter registration agency under the National Voter Registration Act. So Covered California will be incorporating voter registration into every transaction it has with consumers...assisted of course by those helpful "patient navigators" .
The secondary goal of this monstrosity ought to be self-evident by now. This Federal Data Hub will destroy any vestige of privacy for millions of Americans, putting all of your personal details in one place within easy reach of thousands of anonymous federal apparatchniks.
And as we've seen with IRS-Gate, the implications are fairly staggering. Need that kidney transplant? Oh, your tax returns show you donated to the wrong people, so you go to the back of the line. Registered Republican? Big GOP donor??? Let's cross reference and flag this file for an audit by our co-workers over at the IRS. Ex-military, got some counseling after a rough divorce? Let's flag this file so he's not allowed to own or buy a gun. Oh here's a registered Democrat who's never donated yet? Let's hit him with an e-mail barrage.
This is one of the parts of ObamaCare Nancy Pelosi famously told us that"we'd have to pass the bill to see what's in it."
Americans by and large have no clue about this. Congress needs to make this a lot more public than it is, scream bloody murder and get this repealed.
Video Report: HealthCare Law, ObamaCare, May Leave Americans Vulnerable to Theft and Fraud
Eric Boling and Wayne Rogers (from Mash fame) on the NAVIGATORS who will be taking information. Bob Beckel is a jerk in this segment - says insurance companies are the threat. Jehmu Greene (Fox News Contributor) says these NAVIGATORS will be from non-profit groups and churches. (Therefore they will be trustworthy)
Barack Obama has never been clear on the distinction between sovereign and servant, between the American people and those, including himself, elected to do the people’s business. We saw that yet again this week with the president’s unilateral rewrite of the Bataan Death March known as the Affordable Care Act — Obamacare. For this president, laws are not binding expressions of the popular will, but trifling recommendations to be ignored when expedient.
The collapse of law — not just Obamacare but law in general — is the Obama administration’s most egregious scandal. With the IRS here, Benghazi there, and Eric Holder’s institutionalized malevolence crowding the middle, it gets little direct attention. Perhaps it is so ubiquitous, so quotidian, that we’ve become inured to it.
Above all else, though, the office of the president was created to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. For this president, to the contrary, law is non-existent — and not merely law in the traditional sense of our aspiration to be “a nation of laws, not men.” Obama has contorted the law into a weapon against our constitutional order of divided powers and equal protection for every American.
As with most things Obama, this Olympian outrage springs from a kernel of propriety. We want our laws enforced, particularly when they reflect basic obligations of government in a free, civil society. Nevertheless, we know that the resources of government are finite, that laws are numerous and elastic, and that a federalist system implies a significant enforcement role for states. Thus, our legal system is premised on executive discretion. Not every law can or should be enforced to its fullest extent — nobody would want to live in that sort of society. To execute the laws faithfully is to remain mindful of the federal government’s essential but finite role in our framework and to concentrate its limited resources on enforcement of the most vital laws.
As a practical matter, this necessitates selectivity — some laws will go unenforced, some wrongs unaddressed. With a president who acts in good faith, this is not a problem. For example, simple possession of prohibited narcotics is a federal crime. But it is also a state crime. Given the need to prioritize, it is sensible for the feds to focus their efforts on what the federal government was designed for — international and interstate challenges that the states are not well equipped to address. So the Justice Department targets major drug-importation and distribution networks, leaving less serious drug infractions to the local district attorneys. Notice: This does not mean the executive branch is effectively decriminalizing less serious drug offenses in contravention of Congress’s statutes. It means the public’s federal buck goes to where it gets the best bang.
The separation-of-powers principle also has implications for executive discretion. To promote liberty, the Framers constructed a central government of divided authorities in which each branch was given tools to check inevitable encroachments by the others. Congress has an irresistible propensity to enact laws that usurp the powers of the executive and the states, and that erode the rights of the people. But Congress can only write the laws. It must depend on the president to execute them.
A president who believes in good faith that a congressional act is constitutionally invalid may properly decline to enforce it — in fact, he would in good conscience be bound to decline — at least until the Supreme Court has ruled on its validity. Faithfully executing the laws has never mandated that a president enforce unconstitutional statutes.
But note that this is a matter of legal legitimacy, not policy preference. Faithful execution, abiding by the president’s oath of office, means enforcing even those laws a president disagrees with on policy grounds if the laws are plainly constitutional. The Constitution gives Congress a wide berth to enact unwise laws, to say nothing of perfectly sensible laws that are uncongenial to a hard-left ideologue. There is nothing wrong with a president’s working to change those laws; in the meantime, though, he breaks his solemn pledge by failing to enforce them.
Bona fide concerns over resource allocation and constitutionality are narrow exceptions to the general rule that obliges presidents to execute the laws. In Obama’s hands, however, executive discretion has become an affirmative license for lawbreakers. Worse, it has seamlessly devolved into an invitation — an inducement — to official malfeasance. Again, only the executive branch can enforce the law. When executive-branch officials know that illegal actions on their part will not be pursued, they are encouraged to commit them.
Thus, Obama eschews enforcement of the immigration laws not because they are comparatively trivial or adequately covered by state police — indeed, his most notable enforcement efforts are directed not at illegal aliens but at states who dare attempt to see to the law’s faithful execution. Obama’s discretionary non-enforcement is not a good-faith husbanding of federal resources, but a cynical enterprise in rewarding lawbreakers and cultivating them as a dependable political constituency. His Justice Department practices racial discrimination in the enforcement of the civil-rights laws, a grievous betrayal of the Constitution, in order to appease and empower his political base.
The faithful execution of laws is never partisan; under Obama, the execution of laws is intensely partisan. He purports to make “recess appointments” when Congress is not in recess. He skirts Congress’s constitutional war powers by pretending that attacking another country (Libya) is not making war. If his core supporters are damaged by the suffocating laws he champions — most prominently, Obamacare — he claims the power to “waive” their provisions selectively. Meanwhile, huge bureaucracies are encouraged, expressly or by nod-and-wink, to harass the president’s opponents and push forward his redistributionist, production-strangling, Islamist-empowering agenda. The executive order — formerly an intra-branch efficiency device designed to organize the exercise of the president’s constitutional powers and the enforcement of Congress’s laws — has effectively become legislation, the president substituting his edicts for our laws.
In a vibrant, pluralistic society, law as an expression of the sovereign will is unavoidably a product of compromise. In the contentious process, the competing sides bend; they settle on something that neither, given their druthers, would support; and they honorably agree to abide by the result. Under Obama, however, massive laws are enacted — such that no one can conceivably know what the law is. Then the president enforces the parts he approves of, contemptuously disregards the parts that enticed naysayers into compromising, and presumes to amend or repeal inconvenient provisions at his whim.
That is not the rule of law. It is how a dictatorship works.
This column was published at National Review. It subsequently appeared on AIM.org and Western Journalism
Related:
Video: Defying the King
After all… “Living in the White House is Often Like Living in A Prison”
By Susanne Posel - Occupy Corporatism - July 16, 2013
President Obama signed an executive order entitled, “HIV Care Continuum Initiative” that will create a national movement and federal involvement in the war on HIV/AIDS.
This EO will “coordinate Federal efforts in response to recent advances regarding how to prevent and treat HIV infection. The Initiative will support further integration of HIV prevention and care efforts; promote expansion of successful HIV testing and service delivery models; encourage innovative approaches to addressing barriers to accessing testing and treatment; and ensure that Federal resources are appropriately focused on implementing evidence-based interventions that improve outcomes along the HIV care continuum.”
Enforcement of mandatory HIV testing for “all individuals ages 15 to 65 years” will be overseen by the US Preventative Services Task Force, in coordination with the Department of health and Human Services (DHHS).
Michael Weinstein, president of AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), remarked: “Actions speak louder than words. We have had other grand announcements from the White House on AIDS that turned out to be empty words. If indeed the President has finally understood the importance of this issue and will proactively address our concerns, then we will applaud that effort, but not until then. We have wasted 4 1/2 years trying to educate this president about the tragedy that is AIDS in the world. The war against AIDS has not been won – keep your promise. Mr. President play a real leadership role here and abroad – your legacy depends on it.”
Video: HIV Care Continuum Initiative of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy
In 2010, the National HIV/AIDS Strategy For the United States (NHAS) was released with the goal of:
• Reducing HIV incidence
• Increasing access to care and optimizing health outcomes
• Reducing HIV-related health disparities
The Obama administration has taken pharmaceutical corporations and investors contributions as defining factors to create a “broad range of perspectives” on policy as directed from the Office of National AIDS Policy (ONAP).
ONAP is tasked with creating “a national strategy is a concise plan” that will become “a document that provides a roadmap for policymakers and the general public.”
ONAP has taken steps within the public sector to facilitate “community discussions” in cities across the nation to formulate needs of those afflicted with HIV/AIDS; such as medical care and housing.
Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary for the DHHS, and Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to Obama, have issued a statement claiming that “scientific developments have advanced our understanding of how to best fight HIV” and “recent research also shows that an important benefit of earlier treatment is that it dramatically reduces the risk of HIV transmission to partners. Furthermore, HIV testing technology is faster, and more accurate than ever before, and HIV drug treatment is less toxic, and easier to administer.”
Former Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, announced last year that there was a blueprint to reign in the war against AIDS called President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Clinton explained that “HIV may well be with us into the future, but [AIDS] need not be.”
The US State Department is focused on an “AIDS-free generation” with a strong emphasis on testing and treatment. Clinton would like to see transmission brought to a minimum to ensure that with the proper measures taken, children will no longer be born with AIDS.
Scientists at the Imperial College at London have developed a nanotechnology that can be utilized in an HIV test for “better diagnosis and treatment in the developing world.”
Molly Stevens, lead researcher explains that this type of test analyzes saliva; however the acute sensitivity of this particular test will “be able to detect infection even in those cases where previous methods, such as the saliva test, were rendering a ‘false negative’ because the viral load was too low to be detected.”
This test identifies the HIV biomarker called p24; which if present will cause microscopic gold nanoparticles to clump together and turn a shade of blue. In contrast, a negative result will cause generate a red color.
Back in July, at the International AIDS Conference (IAC), there was a call for a coalition of international scientists working under the direction of UNAIDS to develop preventative measures, identifying human immune-responsive drugs and get them onto the market as quickly as possible.
Dr. Steven Deeks of the AIDS Research Institute, believes “that at best [its] 50-50 that we’re gonna get a cure” so preventative medicine is a better focal point.
By studying the “elite controllers” (people who are carriers, but do not display symptoms of HIV) scientists can decipher how the human immune system works and develop pharmaceuticals to administer to the public.
Trials conducted by Merck in 2007 actually made those who took the vaccine more susceptible to the disease. Then in 2009, human experiments in Thailand pointed to drug corporations toward a powerful vaccine that utilized immune system generated anti-bodies as the answer to their dilemma.
Earlier this year, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Gilead Sciences’ Truvada, the first pharmaceutical drug to prevent the virus that causes AIDS.
Marketed as a preventative for people who at high risk of contracting HIV through sexual activies, Turvada is supported by public health advocates that believe this pill will slow down the spread of HIV. In America it is estimated that 1.2 million people have HIV. With this new antiviral drug, it is proposed that 240,000 HIV carriers will not be able to continue to spread the disease.
Gilead Sciences combined two separate drugs to create Truvada. The genetically engineering of the preventative is praised by the FDA to answer the assumption that condoms are not effective.
New vaccines focus on tricking the human body to reject the HIV/AIDS virus by manipulating the immune system. This mutation is suspected to be able to assist the human body in identifying and neutralizing the virus.
Scientific teams from various institutions like the Scripps Research Institute, the Rockefeller University, NIAID’s Vaccine Research Center and Duke University are closely following how they can use the human body’s immune system against the array of HIV strains that keep popping up.
US government intervention with the National Institutes of Health in 2005 identified the human immunodeficiency virus as the cause of AIDS. Dr. Barton Haynes, of Duke University and director of the Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology (CHAVI) asserted that: “We know the face of the enemy.”
Colonel Nelson Michael, director of the US Military HIV Research Program at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, who led the government experimentation of the RV144 trial, commented that since Merck’s vaccine trials “had chilling effect” that uncircumcised males at increased risk for infection prior to exposure to the vaccine. The WRAIR went into Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania to conduct human experimentation of compromising the human immune system under the cover of HIV/AIDS research for vaccination purposes.
Hayes’ research showed that vaccinated men and women developed antibodies in the region of the virus’s outer coat; which suggests that this element should be further studied.
According to an annual volume of the Special Cancer Virus Program, human experimentation with cancer-causing and immunosuppressive viruses was essential. With the “gay plague” and “gay cancer’, such experiments were no longer necessary. The deaths of thousands of gay men proved with these viruses caused cancer, immunosuppression, and were sexually-transmissible between people.
Somehow, the eugenics aspect of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which directly correlates to its origin and would be useful in finding its cure is completely ignored by mainstream media, medical communities and even some members of the alternative media. In July 2008, the mainstream propaganda released an article admitting that, strangely enough, “people of African descent are much more likely to have a genetic trait that makes them more susceptible to infection with the HIV virus.”
In 1962, the US Senate received a report concerning chemical and biological warfare. This is the government contract where HIV-like and Ebola-like viruses were bio-engineered by the US military and the bioweapons contracting lab Biomedics. They were producing viral cancer in monkeys that could then be used through genetic engineering to infect humans.
Robert Gallo, working with the National Cancer Institute, was part of this project. Millions of people are dying from this US sponsored government project to depopulate certain groups of people because of their ethnic heritage; and the US Congress knew about it, and endorsed its use.
These biological agents are classified as “non-lethal warfare” because the morality is not instantaneous. Rockefeller and Stanford globalist think-tanks came up with the concept of ethnic cleansing by way of prolonged infection so that the target and cause could not be correlated. Biologicals and chemicals provide this covert mass extermination. According to the global Elite, this form of depopulation is economically sound as a stand form of military “soft kill.”
Use of bioweapons and suppressive-immunological viruses like HIV are introduced into the general public, without possibility of traceable detection and effectively reduce the population. Studies into immune suppression, as a treatment for cancer are not only conducted with the expressed purpose of analyzing infectious viruses, but also developing antiviral potentials that can target specific aspects of the human body by genetic amplification.
HIV/AIDS has been developed as a bio-weapon of mass depopulation capabilities, but now the global Elite are stepping up their intention with their research into the abilities of the human immune system. Specifics could result in a “vaccine” that would cause the human immune system to become ineffective. By claiming there is a pandemic, the global Elite could justify the need for mass immunizations. This would leave every person inoculated under threat of becoming deathly ill from even simple exposure to the common cold.
In the executive order, Obama cites Obamacare as being the vehicle for the collection of your blood sample/ DNA (this is what they want).
And look at this section – all these agencies will get in the act!; the DOJ, Dept of Labor, HUD, VA, OMB and others as needed.
-->> Executive Order 13649: HIV Care Continuum Initiative <<--
Excerpt:
Sec. 3. Establishment of the HIV Care Continuum Working Group. There is established the HIV Care Continuum Working Group (Working Group) to support the Initiative. The Working Group shall coordinate Federal efforts to improve outcomes nationally across the HIV care continuum.
(a) Membership. The Working Group shall be co-chaired by the Director of the Office of National AIDS Policy and the Secretary of Health and Human Services or designee (Co-Chairs). In addition to the Co-Chairs, the Working Group shall consist of representatives from:
(i) the Department of Justice;
(ii) the Department of Labor;
(iii) the Department of Health and Human Services;
(iv) the Department of Housing and Urban Development;
(v) the Department of Veterans Affairs;
(vi) the Office of Management and Budget; and
(vii) other agencies and offices, as designated by the Co-Chairs.
(b) Consultation. The Working Group shall consult with the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, as appropriate.
*BTW… the author of this article has had CPS after her kids. Bloggers – beware!
Click here for the full list of President Obama's Executive Orders.
Learn more about how other Presidents have used the Power of the Executive Order by clicking here.
You be the judge…
Related:
Bill Gates Confirms Population Reduction Through Vaccination on CNN
Smart Dust Computers… Vaccination Nanotechnology… NWO Here We Come
NBCLA/JOMP: A 2-year-old pit bull pup who may have been the victim of a cruel Fourth of July prank was rescued July 5th, but it’s just the start of what likely will be a long recovery for the badly burned dog. The young pit bull was found July 5 in the Van Nuys, Calif., area and brought to the East Valley Animal Shelter.
While rescuers are unsure exactly what happened to the dog they named Indy, they suspect he may have been hurt by fireworks the day before.
Shelter Transport Animal Rescue Team (S.T.A.R.T.) took the dog into their care Thursday. The group, which describes its purpose as removing animals from high-kill shelters in Los Angeles, is offering a $1,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of whoever injured Indy.
"We named him Indy because we want Independence Day to mark his freedom from those who hurt him," according to a video posted to S.T.A.R.T.’s Facebook page.
In the video, Indy takes ginger steps around his cage. He is suffering from third-degree burns over half his body, including on his stomach, legs and paws.
Dr. Daniel Slaton, a well-known surgeon who typically operates on humans, was called in after the pit bull was apparently strapped with fireworks and lit ablaze. He believes based on the pattern and location of the burns, the dog was strapped with fireworks on July 4.
“Fire from the fireworks are going down his legs, and as it was being lit, he was walking and burning the bottoms of his feet,” said Slaton, lead surgeon at the Westlake Village Animal Hospital, where Indy has undergone at least 2 surgeries so far.
Called "sweet and gentle" by rescuers, the 2 to 3-year-old pup (pictured above) is being treated by a burn specialist at the private veterinarian hospital, where he’ll have to stay at least another month.
His next surgery is scheduled for Friday morning.
Rescuers are asking for the public’s help to fund Indy’s extensive recovery.
Anyone interested in donating is asked to contact donations@startrescue.org, or mail a check to:
S.T.A.R.T.
PO Box 4792
Valley Village, CA 91617
The organization notes that donations should be sent as "Personal and Gift so no charges are taken out, and kindly write INDY in the memo."
See video HERE
Related:
'Rocket' the dog lucky to be alive after thugs attached an explosive to its neck and blew it up
VOA: July 12, 2013
Fish oil supplements that are high in omega-3 fatty acids have been quite popular among people who take them to help with issues such as heart health.
Past research has indicated that omega-3 fatty acids, which are found in fish, fish oil and other foods such as wild rice and walnuts, can decrease the likelihood of cardiovascular disease.
But now new research released this week indicates that too much omega-3 could put men at a higher risk of developing prostate cancer, especially a deadly form of the disease. The finding confirms similar conclusions made in several earlier studies.
While some experts have expressed skepticism about the study’s findings, men taking the supplement may find themselves weighing the benefits fish oil capsules may provide for their heart health versus the possible harm and increased risk of developing prostate cancer.
The study, conducted by researchers at Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, found that high concentrations of three anti-inflammatory and metabolically related fatty acids called eicosapentaenoic acid - EPA, eocosapentaenoic acid - DPA and docosahexaenoic acid – DHA that are found in fatty fish such as salmon as well as in fish-oil supplements, are linked with a 71 percent increased risk of developing high-grade prostate cancer, the kind that experts say are more likely to be fatal.
The Seattle study also revealed that too much of the fatty acids can also lead to a 44 percent increase in the risk of low-grade prostate cancer – which grows slowly - as well as an overall 43 percent increase in risk for all forms of prostate cancers.
Fish oil capsules are popular for heart health benefits
To reach their findings, the researchers studied a group of about 843 men who had prostate cancer and another group of 1,383 men who didn’t have the cancer. They found that the prostate cancer patients had higher levels of the omega-3 fatty acids in their blood than those in the non-cancer group.
The researchers said that the consistency of their findings suggest that these fatty acids are connected with the development of prostate tumors. They also caution those who want to increase their dosage of omega-3 fatty acids to consider any potential risks.
The researchers said they’re unclear so far about why the high levels of omega-3 fatty acids would increase prostate cancer risk. They do point out that omega-3 fatty acids converting into compounds could damage cells and DNA, and their role in immunosuppression. They said that they don’t know whether or not these effects can actually impact cancer risks and that further research into possible mechanisms will be needed.
These new findings, published July 11 in the online edition of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, confirm those made in 2011 by the same Seattle researchers.
By Marion Algier - Cross-posted at AskMarion
WashingtonTimes: New York's Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake school district has become the latest casualty in first lady Michelle Obama’s preferred lunch plan, dropping the menu after too many students complained of hunger.
“[Food service manager Nicky] Boehm and her staff worked hard to implement the new regulations, but there were just too many problems and too many foods that students did not like and would not purchase,” said Assistant Superintendent Chris Abdoo about the National School Lunch Program in a statement reported by EAGNews.org. “Students complained of being hungry with these lunches and the district lost money.”
More Fruit, Fewer Fries: Michelle Obama Might Have Taken the ‘Happy’ Out of McDonald’s Happy Meals
Side Note: Obama Says Broccoli Is His Favorite Food… Launching Broccoli-Gate
(Reuters) - President Barack Obama likes burgers, hot dogs and such, but when it came time to answer a kid journalist's question about his favorite food, broccoli was the first word that sprang from his lips.
This revelation came on Tuesday at a White House event that recognized children who won a healthy recipe contest, as part of first lady Michelle Obama's anti-obesity campaign.
Having fun with the children, Obama agreed to take two questions from the journalists among them. The first asked what was Obama's favorite food. Broccoli was the presidential reply, according to a White House aide.
This from a politician who has literally eaten his way across the country: Burgers in a Washington suburb with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev; ribs in Asheville, North Carolina; hot dogs at a basketball game in Dayton, Ohio; and a tasty pastry called a kringle in Wisconsin.
Obama's disclosure puts him starkly at odds with the culinary tastes of George H.W. Bush, who as president famously declared his dislike for broccoli.
"And I haven't liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I'm president of the United States, and I'm not going to eat any more broccoli!" Bush said in 1990.
Steamed broccoli growers shipped thousands of pounds of broccoli to the White House in protest, and the vegetable was farmed out to homeless shelters.
Obama was clearly enjoying the spirit of the anti-obesity event, called the "Kids' State Dinner," which recognized winning recipes like "picky eater pita pizza pockets" and "sweet potato turkey sliders."
"Food can be fun. It can be healthy," Obama said. "You are setting up habits that are going to be great your entire life."
He joked that he's not much of a cook. "(In) my family, when they cooked vegetables, they were all boiled." Since then, he said, he has learned that healthy food can also taste good.
(Reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Stacey Joyce)
Related:
A Photographic History of President Obama Eating Junk Food During Photo Ops
