TRUMP & HILLARY LEAD IN NY POLLS (TRUMP WINS UNLESS SABOTAGED)

TRUMP & HILLARY LEADING IN NEW YORK PRIMARY POLLS:

TRUMP WINS NY UNLESS HE IS SABOTAGED BY GOP ESTABLISHMENT.

WHY ISN'T TED CRUZ SUING NATIONAL ENQUIRER IF STORY IS FALSE??

Sources: Wall Street Journal, Fox News, Real Clear Politics, Youtube

****** Poll: Clinton, Trump Lead in N.Y. Primaries

Both Clinton and Sanders would beat any GOP candidate in the state in November, poll shows.

Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump have significant leads ahead of the primaries in their home state of New York next month, a poll released Thursday showed.

Mrs. Clinton, a former U.S. senator from New York, tops her Democratic rival, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, 54% to 42% among likely Democratic primary voters, according to the Quinnipiac University poll.

Mr. Trump, a Manhattan real-estate developer, leads with 56% among likely GOP primary voters, followed by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas with 20% and Gov. John Kasich of Ohio with 19%, the poll showed.

“The home-court advantage helps both party’s front-runners in the presidential primaries in New York,” said Maurice Carroll, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.

New York’s primaries will be held April 19.

Among Democrats, women favored Mrs. Clinton over Mr. Sanders, while white primary voters were divided with 48% for Mrs. Clinton and 47% for Mr. Sanders. Mrs. Clinton continues to dominate Mr. Sanders with black voters, beating him 66% to 31% in the state.

In the GOP, Mr. Trump holds double-digit leads among both genders.

The poll found both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders would beat any of the Republican candidates in the November general election.

Quinnipiac surveyed 693 likely Democratic primary voters and 457 likely GOP primary voters.

The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points on the Democratic side and plus or minus 4.6 percentage points on the Republican side.

JAHI MCMATH: Medical "Guinea Pig" For New Sleep Apnea Device Minus Parental Consent?? (Research Funding For Hospitals)

#JahiMcMath


JAHI MCMATH: MEDICAL "GUINEA PIG" FOR THE GOV'T & HOSPITAL MEDICAL RESEARCH FUNDS??


Was JAHI MCMATH being used by OAKLAND CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL as a Human "Guinea Pig" to test a new SLEEP APNEA Device for the Gov't without Parental Consent???

This new Device must be Surgically-Implanted near the Heart.

It's a well-known fact that Hospitals do receive FEDERAL FUNDS for Medical Research.

So JAHI MCMATH was selected as the perfect "Candidate" aka "Medical Guinea Pig" for this new Surgically-Implanted SLEEP APNEA Device.

However apparently something went terribly WRONG.

Since this is a new Medical Device, it may have been Implanted Incorrectly.

Or......

JAHI MCMATH may have Suffered Adverse Side Effects from the Implanted Device.

Of course my analysis is purely Hypothetical, but as it relates to Medical Research for BIG BUCK$$$, Hospitals have a history of such acts.

Perhaps this explains why OAKLAND CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL Officials were trying to Murder JAHI to hide/ cover-up EVIDENCE.

Thank GOD for Caring, PRAYING People who wanted to see her LIVE & Not Die.

Please continue to PRAY for JAHI.





ARTICLE: "Study Bolsters New Sleep Apnea Device"

A possible alternative for people who can't tolerate the traditional CPAP

A surgical implant to treat obstructive sleep apnea reduced major symptoms of the disorder by nearly 70%, according to a study published online Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The new device stimulates a nerve at the base of the tongue, opening the airway. It is one of several new technologies being developed for sleep apnea, a disorder in which people stop breathing during sleep.

Sleep apnea already has a very effective treatment, CPAP, or continuous positive airway pressure.

But studies show that anywhere from 30% to more than one half of patients can't or won't use CPAP as directed by their doctors.

Some patients complain that CPAP machines, which deliver pressurized air through a face mask, are uncomfortable and unwieldy.

Sleep apnea, which is characterized by loud snoring and daytime sleepiness, is linked to a host of serious health problems, including an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and stroke.

The new implants will "be for a subset of patients, not for all patients," says M. Safwan Badr, president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and chief of the division of pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, who was involved with the study.

Indeed, earlier studies with the implant showed that it didn't work as well in patients who were very obese or who had certain kinds of soft-palate collapse.

The current study excluded people with certain health conditions, a body mass index of more than 32 and particular types of airway collapse.

In the new study, 126 people with moderate to severe sleep apnea who had tried CPAP but couldn't tolerate it had the new device surgically implanted and were followed for 12 months.

The participants underwent overnight sleep studies before implantation and then again at two, six and 12 months.

After treatment, the number of times they stopped breathing, either completely or partially during sleep, was reduced by 68%, to nine times per hour, down from 29.3 times per hour.

Also, the number of times their blood-oxygen levels fell significantly, the so-called oxygen-saturation index, was reduced by 70% to 7.4 times per hour from 25.4 times per hour.

Two patients had to have a repeat procedure because of pain at the implantation site.

Other side effects included muscle soreness, temporary tongue weakness and tongue abrasions.

The study was funded by the device's manufacturer, Inspire Medical Systems Inc. of Maple Grove, Minn. Inspire's device is approved in Europe; the company is applying for U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval.

"Some patients we encounter, despite our best efforts, we cannot get them comfortable with [CPAP] therapy," said Patrick J. Strollo, professor of medicine and clinical and translational science at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and lead author of the study.

The new implantable device "has the promise that we really have another option to treat patients."

About 18 million Americans have sleep apnea, according to the National Sleep Foundation, a nonprofit research and advocacy group.

The new device is placed under the skin of the chest.

One electrical lead extends up the neck and encircles the hypoglossal nerve, which runs beneath the base of the tongue.

The other lead extends to the middle of the chest, where a sensor detects breathing.

The patient turns the device on with a remote control when ready for bed and turns it off upon waking.

During sleep, the device electrically stimulates the hypoglossal nerve with each round of breath.

Sources: AP, KRON, Wall Street Journal, Youtube

Fox News Silent On Murdoch Empire Hacking Scandal (FBI Investigates)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Murdochs to give evidence at phone-hacking hearing

Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch and his son James will attend a hearing over the phone-hacking scandal before British lawmakers next Tuesday, their company, News International, told CNN Thursday.

The House of Commons had issued the pair a summons to appear after the Murdochs initially told the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee they could not attend the July 19 hearing.

News Corp. boss Rupert Murdoch wrote to the committee earlier that he was "not available to attend," although he said he was "fully prepared to give evidence to the forthcoming judge-led public inquiry."

That investigation was launched Wednesday by Prime Minister David Cameron in response to allegations that journalists working for Murdoch's media empire illegally eavesdropped on phone messages of thousands of people and bribed police.

James Murdoch, who heads the News International newspaper group, a News Corp. subsidiary, had said he could not appear before lawmakers before August 10 or 11.

Former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks, who is now chief executive of News International, had already agreed to testify before the committee on July 19.

The Culture, Media and Sport Committee issued a statement saying it wanted all three to appear "to account for the behaviour of News International and for previous statements made to the committee in Parliament, now acknowledged to be false."

Some of the most serious hacking claims relate to the period when Brooks was editor of News of the World, one of News International's papers.

In a letter to the select committee, Brooks said she was available to appear "and welcome the opportunity to do so." However, she said she would not feel able to respond to questions that might prejudice the police investigation into the allegations.

Meanwhile, police announced they arrested a 60-year-old man Thursday morning in London in connection with the phone-hacking probe, the seventh person arrested in the investigation.

The suspect has not been formally named by police but the Press Association news agency reports that he is Neil Wallis, a former executive editor of the News of the World.

Wallis also served on the Press Complaints Commission, the British newspaper industry's self-regulating body, which has been broadly criticized in recent days for failing to act against press misconduct.



A Metropolitan Police spokesman confirmed to CNN Thursday that a media consultancy company owned by Wallis, Chamy Media, had been appointed to provide communications advice to the Metropolitan Police Service from 2009 to 2010.

Britain's Home Secretary Theresa May wrote to London's top police officer, Sir Paul Stephenson, Thursday evening asking for the full picture about his links to Wallis, a Home Office spokesman confirmed to CNN. The spokesman did not give his name, in line with Home Office policy.

The commissioner appeared earlier before the Metropolitan Police Authority Thursday to answer questions about Scotland Yard's investigation into allegations of phone hacking and police bribery by journalists working for News International.

Asked if he regretted his decision in 2006 to have dinner with Wallis, then deputy editor of the News of the World, Stephenson said he was confident he had acted appropriately.

"I do not believe that on any occasion I have acted inappropriately. I am very satisfied with my own integrity," he told the independent regulators' meeting.

But he acknowledged that public perceptions of such meetings between senior police and media figures could be different. At the time of the dinner, police were investigating earlier complaints of misconduct by the News of the World.

The Metropolitan Police Authority meeting followed the announcement of an independent probe into the press, including journalists' relations with police.

A relative of a Brazilian man shot dead by London police weeks after the July 2005 terror attacks is the latest to say his phone number was on a list belonging to a private investigator at the center of the phone-hacking investigation.



The family of Jean Charles de Menezes, whom officers shot dead after mistaking him for a suicide bomber, called for the prime minister to extend the inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal to look at whether police also leaked information on his case to the press.

Cameron launched the wide-ranging investigation into the British press Wednesday shortly before News Corp. withdrew its bid to take over British satellite broadcaster BSkyB.

The moves came in the wake of public and political fury at allegations that journalists working for Murdoch illegally eavesdropped on phone messages of thousands of people and bribed police.

"It has become clear that it is too difficult to progress in this climate," News Corp. Deputy Chairman Chase Carey said in announcing the company would end its attempt to increase its 39.1% share in BSkyB.

Cameron blasted Murdoch's company as he launched the high-powered inquiry, saying News Corp. executives need to focus not on taking over BSkyB, "but on clearing up the mess and getting their house in order."

He welcomed the withdrawal of the bid, which came hours before lawmakers voted across party lines to pass a symbolic measure urging Murdoch to give up his effort to take full ownership of the broadcaster, in which he already owns a controlling stake.

Opposition leader Ed Miliband of the Labour party -- who pushed the vote against the takeover -- welcomed the News Corp. decision and said it would not have happened had lawmakers not pressured Murdoch.

"The will of politicians was clear, the will of the public was clear, and now Britain's most powerful media owner has had to bend to that will," said Miliband, speaking as politicians rowdily debated the measure in the House of Commons.

Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, whose family's private records are alleged to have been obtained by News International newspapers, said it was vital to maintain the right to a free press.

But, he said, staff at News International, a subsidiary of News Corp., "cynically manipulated our support of that vital freedom as their justification and then callously used the defense of a free press as the banner under which they marched in step, I say, with members of the criminal underworld."

The criminality was "not the misconduct of a few rogues or a few freelancers," he said, but was carried out "often on an industrial scale -- at its worst dependent on links with the British criminal underworld."

In announcing the public inquiry into press practices and ethics, Cameron said anyone "found guilty of wrongdoing -- or of allowing it -- must not only be brought to justice, they must also have no future role in the running of a media company in our country."

The judge leading the inquiry will be able to summon witnesses, including newspaper owners, and compel them to testify in public, under oath, Cameron announced.

The investigation will look at whether News International, or other newspaper groups broke the law, their relations with the police and politicians and press ethics and practices.

The aim is to "bring this ugly chapter to a close and ensure that nothing like it ever happens again," the prime minister said.

The inquiries come in the wake of the accusation that victims of phone hacking included a missing 13-year-old girl, Milly Dowler, who was later found to have been murdered.

Cameron met with the girl's family Wednesday. Miliband and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg met with them separately earlier in the week.

The Dowlers are "delighted" by the launch of the judge-led investigation and pleased that politicians across the spectrum are working together on the issue, the family's lawyer, Mark Lewis, said after the meeting with Cameron.

Miliband hammered Cameron for having hired a former top News International journalist to be his communications director after the editor left his newspaper, News of the World, in the wake of one of its journalists going to prison over phone hacking.

The editor, Andy Coulson, insisted he knew nothing about the crime but resigned from News of the World because it happened on his watch. Coulson resigned as Cameron's spokesman this year when the scandal blew up afresh.

Journalists are accused of attempting to bribe police officers for information -- including personal contact details for members of the royal family -- in addition to the violation of privacy allegations.

The News of the World, which was Britain's best-selling newspaper, folded Sunday over other allegations of illegal breach of privacy at the order of James Murdoch.

The police officer leading the investigation said Tuesday they had identified 3,870 potential targets of phone-hacking and had notified 170 of them. The officer, Sue Akers, said a team of 45 police were going through 11,000 pages of documents seized from a private investigator working for News of the World.

The documents contain some 4,000 cell phone numbers and 5,000 land lines, Cameron said.

Murdoch flew Sunday to London, hours after the final edition of News of the World hit the stands. The publication was the first British national paper Murdoch bought, in 1969, as he began to propel himself from Australian newspaper proprietor to international media magnate.

News International owns the Sun, The Times and The Sunday Times in Britain.

Murdoch's News Corp. also encompasses Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and Harper Collins publishers.


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Sources: ABC News, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, Think Progress, Google Maps

Facebook Apps Privacy Breach: Jealous Conspiracy Or Marketing Tool?

Facebook In Privacy Breach

Many of the most popular applications, or "apps," on the social-networking site Facebook Inc. have been transmitting identifying information—in effect, providing access to people's names and, in some cases, their friends' names—to dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found.

The issue affects tens of millions of Facebook app users, including people who set their profiles to Facebook's strictest privacy settings. The practice breaks Facebook's rules, and renews questions about its ability to keep identifiable information about its users' activities secure.

The problem has ties to the growing field of companies that build detailed databases on people in order to track them online—a practice the Journal has been examining in its What They Know series.

It's unclear how long the breach was in place. On Sunday, a Facebook spokesman said it is taking steps to "dramatically limit" the exposure of users' personal information.

"A Facebook user ID may be inadvertently shared by a user's Internet browser or by an application," the spokesman said. Knowledge of an ID "does not permit access to anyone's private information on Facebook," he said, adding that the company would introduce new technology to contain the problem identified by the Journal.

"Our technical systems have always been complemented by strong policy enforcement, and we will continue to rely on both to keep people in control of their information," the Facebook official said.

"Apps" are pieces of software that let Facebook's 500 million users play games or share common interests with one another. The Journal found that all of the 10 most popular apps on Facebook were transmitting users' IDs to outside companies.

The apps, ranked by research company Inside Network Inc. (based on monthly users), include Zynga Game Network Inc.'s FarmVille, with 59 million users, and Texas HoldEm Poker and FrontierVille. Three of the top 10 apps, including FarmVille, also have been transmitting personal information about a user's friends to outside companies.

Most apps aren't made by Facebook, but by independent software developers. Several apps became unavailable to Facebook users after the Journal informed Facebook that the apps were transmitting personal information; the specific reason for their unavailability remains unclear.

The information being transmitted is one of Facebook's basic building blocks: the unique "Facebook ID" number assigned to every user on the site. Since a Facebook user ID is a public part of any Facebook profile, anyone can use an ID number to look up a person's name, using a standard Web browser, even if that person has set all of his or her Facebook information to be private. For other users, the Facebook ID reveals information they have set to share with "everyone," including age, residence, occupation and photos.

The apps reviewed by the Journal were sending Facebook ID numbers to at least 25 advertising and data firms, several of which build profiles of Internet users by tracking their online activities.

Defenders of online tracking argue that this kind of surveillance is benign because it is conducted anonymously. In this case, however, the Journal found that one data-gathering firm, RapLeaf Inc., had linked Facebook user ID information obtained from apps to its own database of Internet users, which it sells. RapLeaf also transmitted the Facebook IDs it obtained to a dozen other firms, the Journal found.

RapLeaf said that transmission was unintentional. "We didn't do it on purpose," said Joel Jewitt, vice president of business development for RapLeaf.

Facebook said it previously has "taken steps ... to significantly limit Rapleaf's ability to use any Facebook-related data."



Facebook prohibits app makers from transferring data about users to outside advertising and data companies, even if a user agrees. The Journal's findings shed light on the challenge of policing those rules for the 550,000 apps on its site.

The Journal's findings are the latest challenge for Facebook, which has been criticized in recent years for modifying its privacy rules to expose more of a user's information. This past spring, the Journal found that Facebook was transmitting the ID numbers to advertising companies, under some circumstances, when a user clicked on an ad. Facebook subsequently discontinued the practice.

"This is an even more complicated technical challenge than a similar issue we successfully addressed last spring on Facebook.com," a Facebook spokesman said, "but one that we are committed to addressing."

The privacy issue follows Facebook's effort just this month to give its users more control over its apps, which privacy activists had cited as a potential hole in users' ability to control who sees their information. On Oct. 6, Facebook created a control panel that lets users see which apps are accessing which categories of information about them. It indicates, for example, when an application accesses a user's "basic information" (including a user ID and name). However, it doesn't detail what information friends' applications have accessed about a user.

Facebook apps transform Facebook into a hub for all kinds of activity, from playing games to setting up a family tree. Apps are considered an important way for Facebook to extend the usefulness of its network. The company says 70% of users use apps each month.

Applications are also a growing source of revenue beyond advertising for Facebook itself, which sells its own virtual currency that can be used to pay for games.

Following an investigation by the Canadian Privacy Commissioner, Facebook in June limited applications to accessing only the public parts of a user's profile, unless the user grants additional permission. (Canadian officials later expressed satisfaction with Facebook's steps.) Previously, applications could tap any data the user had access to, including detailed profiles and information about a user's friends.

It's not clear if developers of many of the apps transmitting Facebook ID numbers even knew that their apps were doing so. The apps were using a common Web standard, known as a "referer," which passes on the address of the last page viewed when a user clicks on a link. On Facebook and other social-networking sites, referers can expose a user's identity.

The company says it has disabled thousands of applications at times for violating its policies. It's unclear how many, if any, of those cases involved passing user information to marketing companies.

Facebook also appeared to have shut down some applications the Journal found to be transmitting user IDs, including several created by LOLapps Media Inc., a San Francisco company backed with $4 million in venture capital. LOLapp's applications include Gift Creator, with 3.5 million monthly active users, Quiz Creator, with 1.4 million monthly active users, Colorful Butterflies and Best Friends Gifts.

Since Friday, users attempting to access those applications received either an error message or were reverted to Facebook's home screen.

"We have taken immediate action to disable all applications that violate our terms," a Facebook spokesman said.

A spokeswoman for LOLapps Media declined to comment.

The applications transmitting Facebook IDs may have breached their own privacy policies, as well as industry standards, which say sites shouldn't share and advertisers shouldn't collect personally identifiable information without users' permission. Zynga, for example, says in its privacy policy that it "does not provide any Personally Identifiable Information to third-party advertising companies."

A Zynga spokeswoman said, "Zynga has a strict policy of not passing personally identifiable information to any third parties. We look forward to working with Facebook to refine how web technologies work to keep people in control of their information."

The most expansive use of Facebook user information uncovered by the Journal involved RapLeaf. The San Francisco company compiles and sells profiles of individuals based in part on their online activities.

The Journal found that some LOLapps applications, as well as the Family Tree application, were transmitting users' Facebook ID numbers to RapLeaf. RapLeaf then linked those ID numbers to dossiers it had previously assembled on those individuals, according to RapLeaf. RapLeaf then embedded that information in an Internet-tracking file known as a "cookie."

RapLeaf says it strips out the user's name when it embeds the information in the cookie and shares that information for ad targeting. However, The Wall Street Journal found that RapLeaf transmitted Facebook user IDs to a dozen other advertising and data firms, including Google Inc.'s Invite Media.

All 12 companies said that they didn't collect, store or use the information.

Ilya Nikolayev, chief executive of Familybuilder, maker of the Family Tree application, said in an email, "It is Familybuilder's corporate policy to keep any actual, potential, current or prior business partnerships, relationships, customer details, and any similar information confidential. As this story relates to a company other than Familybuilder, we have nothing further to contribute."



Sources: Wall Street Journal, CNN, Facebook, MSNBC, Washington Post, Youtube, Google Maps

NRA Vets Elena Kagan, Has Huge Influence In Politics

Scoring Elena: NRA Sizes Up Candidate’s Record On Guns


Roughly 70,000 gun owners are currently gathering at the National Rifle Association meeting in Charlotte, N.C., a city that’s already got a place in gun-rights history.

Charlotte’s where, ten years ago, then-NRA President Charlton Heston raised a replica of a Revolutionary War musket over his head, thundering, “From my cold, dead hands!”

One thing gun owners won’t hear this weekend is whether the NRA is for or against adding Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court.

An NRA spokesman tells us it hasn’t completed its vetting of Kagan yet.

Kagan lacks a written judicial record on the right to bear arms. But the NRA likely is unhappy with her role in the Clinton administration’s gun-control efforts. This record at the William J. Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Ark., shows that Kagan helped draft a presidential directive Clinton signed that suspended imports of semiautomatic assault weapons for 120 days.

Yet, some gun owners are encouraged that, in her written answers to questions by senators during her confirmation as Solicitor General, she didn’t criticize Heller v. D.C., the 2008 Supreme Court decision striking down DC’s gun laws.

To wit:


* When asked her personal opinion of the rights afforded by the Second Amendment, she said: “There is no question, after Heller, that the Second Amendment guarantees Americans ‘the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation.’”

* When asked if she will “commit to protect an individual’s right to possess a firearm,” she said she would commit to “show Heller and the principles articulated in it the full measure of respect that is due to all constitutional decisions of the Court.

* When asked whether Heller was “rightly decided,” she said the case was “now settled law” and “entitled to my respect.”

* When asked whether she would “give weight to other nations’ restrictions on gun rights when interpreting the Second Amendment,” she said that the “grounded historical approach” adopted in Heller grants “no relevance to arguments from comparative law.”

Kagan would be replacing Justice Stevens, who dissented in the Heller opinion, as one pro-gun blogger noted yesterday. Thus “Kagan’s appointment may be one more vote on the Court in favor of the right to bear arms,” he concluded.

In July 2009, the NRA for the first time weighed in against a Supreme Court nominee, urging senators to vote “no” on Sonia Sotomayor. Its opposition was based on the answers she gave during hearings, as well as her rulings as an appellate judge, including one to uphold a New York law that barred a man from carrying a martial-arts weapon.

The NRA “scored” the vote on Sotomayor’s confirmation — meaning it told lawmakers that how they voted would count toward the NRA’s famous letter grades, ranging from A+ to F. But 8 of the 36 senators who won endorsement from the NRA defected by voting to confirm her anyway.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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Sources: CNN, MSNBC, Wall Street Journal, Youtube, Google Maps

"Health Care Bill Toxic With Taxes"...Boehner & McConnell's WSJ Op-Ed

ObamaCare & The "Buzzsaw Of Opposition"


A little over a year ago, when President Obama first took up health-care reform, Republicans reached out to him in the hopes of working together on solutions that would lower health-care costs for families and small businesses. A bipartisan bill focused on lower costs could have been sent to the president's desk last year, and it would have received the support of the American people.

For instance, this month the president announced his support for additional reforms to crack down on waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid. This is something we can and should be doing already. Do we really need to pass a $2.5 trillion spending bill, raise taxes, and slash Medicare to implement it?

In other areas, Democrats have taken solid Republican reforms—such as putting an end to junk lawsuits and allowing patients to purchase insurance across state lines—and watered them down to a point where they cannot be effectively implemented. Still, we could have used this common ground as a foundation for a bipartisan, step-by-step approach to health-care reform.

Unfortunately, the White House and congressional Democrats are still insisting on their massive, 2,700-page bill that includes higher premiums, $500 billion in higher taxes, and $500 billion in cuts to seniors' Medicare. That's not reform.

If there's one thing the American people didn't want, it was for us to make health care more bureaucratic and expensive. The Obama administration's own scorekeeper at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services says overall health spending will go up by more than $200 billion under the Democrats' bill. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) also says federal health spending will rise.

The CBO also says health insurance premiums for millions of families across the country will go up by as much as 13% as a result of all the new government mandates contained in this bill—and continue to rise at the current unsustainable rate for nearly everyone else. And it's all going add to the mountain of debt we are already piling onto our kids and grandkids.

Democrats in Washington are well aware of the mess they've made. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) recently revealed her party's closing argument for health-care reform by stating, "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy"—as if the steadfast public opposition to this bill is one giant misunderstanding. It's not. The American people have been laser-focused on this bill for a year, and have only become more opposed to this job-killing monstrosity.

This bill is so toxic that House Democrats are concocting a scheme by which they would pass it but spare themselves the embarrassment of actually voting for it. Democratic leaders claim they can "fix" the dreaded Senate bill through the reconciliation process, but the American people won't be so easily hustled. No legislative sleight-of-hand can make this bill more palatable: higher premiums, higher taxes, and cutting Medicare is not reform.

Taxpayers can expect Republicans to stand up for them and do whatever is necessary to prevent Democrats from forcing such an unpopular, unaffordable bill through Congress.

After Scott Brown won the Senate race in Massachusetts, the president claimed that his health-care bill ran into a "buzzsaw" of opposition from special interests. But the "buzzsaw" wasn't special interests, it was the American people. They aren't an obstacle to be circumvented. The president and his party should heed the people's message—scrap this bill and start over.

Some Democrats in Washington still don't get it. This is not an argument between Democrats and Republicans, it's a fight between Democrats and their own constituents. And if Democrats still insist on forcing this government takeover of health care through Congress over the objection of the people who sent them here, we know this for a fact: Those constituents won't sit down and shut up. Nor should they.

Our country faces big challenges. Our economy is struggling, the debt is exploding and tens of thousands of Americans are still losing their jobs every month. Health-care costs are skyrocketing. It's time for both parties to come together and solve these problems. That's what the American people want, and that's what they deserve.

Messrs. Boehner and McConnell are, respectively, the House and Senate Republican leaders.

Sources: Wall Street Journal

WSJ Poll Proves Americans Are Warming To Obama's Policies & Agenda

Pres. Obama Slips on Foreign Policy, but Gains on Health-Care and Economic Fronts


(Obama WSJ Polls results available here.)


(An exclusive WSJ/NBC poll finds renewed support for President Barack Obama and his health-care reform effort. But WSJ's Jerry Seib says backing for the war in Afghanistan is fading.)





President Barack Obama faces significant doubts from the American public about the war in Afghanistan and his handling of foreign policy, according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. At the same time, he has shored up support for his top domestic priority following this month's health-care speech to Congress.

The poll of more than 1,000 adults, taken within the past week, shows growing optimism that the economy has begun to turn around. And the president's overall approval rating has held steady at 51% since August, as his message on health care has clearly begun to penetrate.

But the survey also has some strong warnings for Mr. Obama.

For the first time, independent voters -- who delivered Mr. Obama the White House and Democrats control of Congress -- disapprove of the job he is doing, by 46% compared with the 41% who approve. In July, 49% of independents approved of the president, against 38% who disapproved.

New doubts about the president have coincided with new hopes for Republicans, who appeared flattened by the election nearly a year ago.

As the 2010 election cycle heats up, independent voters now favor Republican control of Congress by four percentage points.

"For a party walloped two cycles in a row with independents, I think those are very important stories," said William McInturff, a partner at the Republican polling firm Public Opinion Strategies, who conducts the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll with Democratic pollster Peter Hart.

As Mr. Obama ramps up his focus on diplomacy this week -- at the United Nations General Assembly in New York and then hosting a summit of world leaders in Pittsburgh -- approval of the job he is doing on foreign policy has dropped to 50% from 57% in July.

Americans are pessimistic about the prospects of victory in Afghanistan; 59% say they are feeling less confident that the war will come to a successful conclusion. And 51% say they would oppose sending more troops to the conflict.

"No matter what we do, it's not going to be the right thing," said Rick Culotta, a 46-year-old Republican in Metairie, La., who responded to the poll.

On the economy, Americans aren't euphoric, but the mood is clearly improving. Nearly one-quarter of the poll's respondents said they feel satisfied with the state of the economy, which marks a 10-point jump from July. Thirty-five percent of respondents now believe the economy has pretty much hit bottom, compared with 27% who thought so in July.

Mr. Hart, the Democratic pollster, said Americans don't so much think the economy has turned around as they believe their fortunes "are less bad than they were."

Rising optimism about the economy generally helps a sitting president. But the poll shows some ambivalence about Mr. Obama's economic prescriptions. By a wide margin -- 45% to 34% -- Americans said his economic-stimulus plan was a bad idea, though by 46% to 43%, they said without it, the recession would have been worse.

In February, as the president was pressing for his stimulus plan, 51% of Americans said the government should do more to solve problems and meet the needs of people. Just 40% said the government was doing too many things better left to businesses and individuals.

This month, 49% said government is doing too much, while 45% said government should be doing more.

"The government is just too, too big," said Gene Garcia, 68 years old, a Democrat and Obama voter in Arvada, Colo. "Some things they have to leave to the states."

Meanwhile, the intensifying debate in Washington over how to handle Afghanistan mirrors divisions in the country at large. Almost half the country, 49%, sees the war in Afghanistan as somewhat or very unsuccessful; 46% see success, but only 8% see it as very successful.

Even when reminded of the nation's potential vulnerability to losing the war started to rout al Qaeda, a plurality was unmoved; 45% said they were most concerned that the nation would invest lives and resources into the war with little to show for it; 44% said they were more concerned that the nation wouldn't do enough to confront al Qaeda and the Taliban and would be more vulnerable because of it.

A Taliban victory "means they could set up bases and launch new attacks," said Jay Vosburgh, 53, an independent voter from Plano, Texas, who voted for Republican John McCain and is now favorable to Mr. Obama. But he has still had enough. "They're trying to fight al Qaeda, but it's probably gone on too long."

At the same time, only 38% favor an immediate and orderly withdrawal from Afghanistan, while 55% oppose a pullout. That is reminiscent of the public-opinion stalemate that faced lawmakers on Iraq when that war began going poorly.

On the key issue of health care, a revitalized effort by Mr. Obama to drive home his message appears to be having an impact. As a priority for the federal government, job creation and economic growth are still on top, with 30% saying those should be the primary task of Washington. But that is down from 38% in July. Meanwhile, health care has jumped to the top priority of 21% of Americans, from 14%.

"It's broke. We need to fix it," William B. Cole, a 66-year-old retiree in New Castle, Va., said of the health-care system. He said Mr. Obama's speech reinforced his support.

Last month, 47% disapproved of the president's handling of health care, versus 41% who approved. Now, those numbers are about even, with 45% approving and 46% disapproving. More people still believe the president's health-care plan is a bad idea than believe it is a good one, 41% to 39%. In July and August, 42% said it was a bad idea while 36% thought it was a good idea.

But 45% said it would be better to pass the plan than stick to the status quo; 39% favor keeping the current health system.

The president's effort to reassure Americans that his plan wouldn't harm them appears to be working; 53% say Mr. Obama's health plan will either not affect the quality of their health care or will improve it. Only 36% said quality would get worse. In August, 40% said quality would get worse.

The improvement is relatively modest, Mr. McInturff said, especially given the president's barnstorming the nation, his address to Congress two weeks ago and his media blitz. "A president cannot do much more than that," he said.

Democrats, meanwhile, retain a political advantage over the Republicans. Nearly a year after handing control of Washington to Democrats, Americans still like the majority party better than the opposition: 41% feel positively about Democrats and 28% feel positively toward Republicans, largely unchanged since July.

But the poll has some encouraging results for Republicans a little more than a year before the midterm elections. Republicans have gotten closer to the Democrats as the party that Americans want to see in control of Congress, 40% to 43%. In July, Democrats held a seven-point edge, 46% to 39%.



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Sources: Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Google Maps