Coin Toss's Blog

Delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte today booed, jeered and shook their fists when the chairman at the time, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, declared that an amendment to the party’s platform – adding a mention of God – had been adopted.

It took him calling for the vote three times before he could make the declaration that in his opinion, the ayes made up two-thirds of the vote.

After the first vote, which sounded like a dead heat between the yes and no votes, he said, “In the opinion of the …. Let me do that again.”

The second vote sounded the same, and Villaraigosa looked offstage for help and advice.

A woman is seen coming up behind him, and says, “Let them do what they’re going to do.”

On the third vote, Villaraigosa was prepared and launched into the statement that in his opinion, two-thirds of the voters said “aye,” apparently without considering the volume of the voice vote.

Shaking fists and jeers followed erupted even as he was speaking.

The platform of the party drew nationwide astonishment just a day earlier when it failed to even mention God. It also failed to mention Jerusalem.

http://www.wnd.com/2012/09/democrats-boo-idea-of-mentioning-god/

The amendment, proposed by former Gov. Ted Strickland, chief of the platform committee, added the notation that Americans were encouraged to reach their “God-given potential.”

It also recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Strickland didn’t offer an explanation for why God and Jerusalem were not in the original platform, explaining only that “our belief in God is central to our American story” and “the president recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and our party’s platform should as well.”

Radio host Michael Savage said the scenario could be the turning point in the 2012 presidential campaign.

“This is a big moment,” Savage said. “America is disgusted with this party of atheists and America haters.”

David Brody reported on the Brody File in CBN,“This has become a disaster for the Democrats and a boon to the Romney campaign. The DNC has now added God back into their platform language after originally taking it out. They have also added language back in that says Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. When they tried to change the language on the convention floor, there were boos! Oy-Gevalt.”

He said notwithstanding any corrections the Democrats have tried to make, “The Romney campaign can now argue that the Democrats don’t know what they believe on two very important topics. They can also argue that the Democrats only did this because of the pushback. That’s true.”

Romney told Fox, “It’s a very sad say when we have our best friend in the Middle East …. for us at a stage like this to take an action of that nature, to cease calling Jerusalem the capital of Israel, this is a very troubling development.”

He also said the Democrats’ initial decision to remove “God” from its 2012 platform “suggests a party which is increasingly out of touch with the mainstream of American people. I think this party is veering further and further away to an extreme wing that Americans don’t recognize it.”

The AP described the Democrats as “embarrassed” over the issue, and explained that the language resurrected simply said, “We need a government that stands up for the hopes, values and interests of working people and gives everyone willing to work hard the chance to make the most of their God-given potential.”

Several Democrats said the attempt to fix the platform was a mistake. Noor Ul-Hasan, a Muslim from Salt Lake City, told AP, “There are people who don’t’ believe in God and you have to respect that as well.”

Another delegate from Utah, Angela Urrea, told AP, “The majority spoke last night. We shouldn’t be declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel.”

The Foreign Policy column at The Cable said Obama himself intervened to push the changes.

And CBS New York said of the president before today’s reversal, “Obama handed the Republicans a new avenue of attack on a silver platter when he supported a Democratic Party platform change that does not state that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.”

The platform earlier had been adopted with the statement, “We gather to reclaim the basic bargain that built the largest middle class and the most prosperous nation on Earth – the simple principle that in America, hard work should pay off, responsibility should be rewarded, and each one of us should be able to go as far as our talent and drive take us.”

GOP vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan told Fox, “I guess I would just put the onus and the burden on them to explain why they did all this, the purges of God.”

At U.S. News, Peter Roff accompanied his commentary with a cartoon of a car carrying a “What Would Jesus do?” bumper sticker. Only “Jesus” is crossed out and “Obama” written in.

“There are no doubt other examples but the message is clear,” he wrote. “One candidate, Romney, stands for the proposition that religious freedom is paramount to American liberty. The other, Barack Obama, seems to believe it is subservient to the desires of the state. For most of us, this would seem to be the more important issue upon which to base a vote for president.”

http://www.wnd.com/2012/09/democrats-boo-idea-of-mentioning-god/

Hollywood star John Cusack is raising eyebrows today as he lashes into Barack Obama with the question: “Is the president just another Ivy League A–hole shredding civil liberties and due process and sending people to die in some sh-thole for purely political reasons?”

Cusack, who is well-known for his roles in films including “The Sure Thing,” “Better Off Dead” and “Being John Malkovich,” seriously questions Obama in an article published in Truthout:

“Mr. Obama, the Christian president with the Muslim-sounding name, would heed the admonitions of neither religion’s prophets about making war and do what no empire or leader, including Alexander the Great, could do: he would, he assured us ‘get the job done in Afghanistan.’ And so we have our democratic president receiving the Nobel Peace Prize as he sends 30,000 more troops to a ten-year-old conflict in a country that’s been war-torn for 5,000 years.

“Why? We’ll never fully know. Instead, we got a speech that was stone bullsh– and an insult to the very idea of peace.

“We can’t have it both ways. Hope means endless war? Obama has metaphorically pushed all in with the usual international and institutional killers; and in the case of war and peace, literally.

“To sum it up: more war. So thousands die or are maimed; generations of families and veterans are damaged beyond imagination; sons and daughters come home in rubber bags. But he and his satellites get their four more years.”

Cusack also has some criticism for the national news media for complicity with Obama, saying, “Under Obama do we continue to call the thousands of mercenaries in Afghanistan ‘general contractors’ now that Bush is gone? No, we don’t talk about them … not a story anymore. …

“There will be a historical record. ‘Change we can believe in’ is not using the other guys’ mob to clean up your own tracks while continuing to feed at the trough. Human nature is human nature, and when people find out they’re being hustled, they will seek revenge, sooner or later, and it will be ugly and savage.

In a country with desperation growing everywhere, everyday – despite the ‘Oh, things are getting better’ press releases – how could one think otherwise?”

http://www.wnd.com/2012/09/actor-obama-another-ivy-league-a-hole/

Obama 3:16 calendars.......

This is PATHETIC:

September 4, 2012 by Tim Brown

Obama ‘Cult Of Personality’ Promotes “Obama 3:16″ Calendars

 

The Obama Idolators haven’t been fervent in their veneration of him and lauding him as the Messiah. Now they have gone even further in their blasphemy of attempting to deify Barack Hussein Obama. Hold on to your hats folks, for this is what blasphemy looks like, up close and personal. In Charlotte, North Carolina, just miles from where I live they are actually selling photo calendars that contain a direct parallel to Barack Obama’s birth and John 3:16 which speaks of God sending His only begotten Son into the World. In fact, it cannot be more explicit that this is the parallel being drawn that the picture for August, with the biblical reference has the alleged birth certificate of Barack Obama, indicating that he is God’s Son.

Read more: http://freedomoutpost.com/2012/09/obama-cult-of-personality-promotes-obama-316-calendars/#ixzz25ZBYJN64

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Read more: http://freedomoutpost.com/2012/09/obama-cult-of-personality-promotes-obama-316-calendars/#ixzz25Z9CC9Jy

Police State creep: DHS to run local sobriety checkpoints

They have the power to stop, arrest, and even draw blood from those they suspect of DWI. So much for the “Volunteer State.”

Teri Webster writes for Examiner.com:

The Department of Homeland Security is sending out its state watchdogs to arrest drunk drivers and draw their blood over Labor Day weekend.

It echoes of a national trend of the increasing presence of federal police and military troops on our streets. And the state of Tennessee is a pioneer in the ghastly movement.

In Tennessee, suspected drunk drivers will be subject to forced testing for blood alcohol levels. A new law allows police to get warrants and draw blood samples from people who appear to be driving impaired. Additionally, drivers can expect  to see more sobriety checkpoints over the Labor Day weekend.

Tennessee has touted itself as the first state in the nation to have Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workers conducting random searches on its streets. Echoing DHS’s “See Something, Say Something” program, drivers are also urged to call authorities if they see something suspicious. . . .

No one wants drunk drivers on the road. But whether we need a zealous arm of the federal Department of Homeland Security involved in local police patrols is another issue.

Continue Reading on www.examiner.com

http://americanvisionnews.com/4447/police-state-creep-dhs-to-run-local-sobriety-checkpoints

http://www.examiner.com/article/homeland-security-to-assist-with-dwi-arrests-over-labor-day-weekend

...just to protect obama

Clinton?

The real origin of the birther movement:

....find doctors.

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — Nina Musselman had no trouble finding a family doctor when she retired to rural Oregon nine years ago to be closer to her children. But then that doctor moved away, leaving her to search for another who would take Medicare.

After a year of going from doctor to doctor, she finally found one who stuck.

As record numbers of baby boomers go into retirement, many are thinking about moving from the places they needed to live to make a living, and going someplace warmer, quieter or prettier.

If they choose small towns like Grants Pass, 250 miles south of Portland, they could well have a hard time finding a family doctor willing to take Medicare, even supplemental plans, rather than private insurance.

"It's a sad situation for seniors," she said.

There are several reasons boomers, the 78 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964, could face difficulties finding a doctor if they retire to small towns over the next 20 years.

First, many primary care doctors prefer to live and work in urban areas because of greater cultural opportunities, better schools and job opportunities for spouses.

Also, Medicare pays rural doctors less per procedure than urban physicians because their operating costs are supposedly less. That makes rural doctors less likely to accept Medicare patients.

With cuts to Medicare reimbursement for doctors targeted under the federal health care overhaul, the shortage is likely to get even worse, said Mark Pauly, professor of health care management at the University of Pennsylvania.

That is, unless increasing reimbursements for nurse practitioners and physicians' assistants encourages those providers to take up the slack, Pauly said.

If the Medicare cuts go through, "the doctors are saying: "We're out of here,'" Pauly said. "The least they are saying is: 'We'll treat Medicare patients like we treat Medicaid patients,' which is mostly not."

Still, there is some good news, depending on where you live.

Pauly said the Affordable Care Act "puts a lot of emphasis on wellness programs and primary care. Nurses, especially nurse practitioners, are intended to play a major role there."

In Oregon, Washington and 14 other states, nurses and nurse practioners "can operate independently of doctors, writing prescriptions, ordering tests, and even running clinics," Pauly said.

Nationwide, the 22.5 percent of primary care doctors who practice in rural areas roughly matches the 24 percent of Medicare patients living there, said Dr. Roland Goertz, chairman of the American Academy of Family Physicians board.

A survey of academy members nationwide shows 83 percent take new Medicare patients. But there is an overall shortage of primary care physicians that still makes it hard for retirees to find a family doctor.

The real problem, he said, is that the health care system "has not supported a robust, adequate primary care workforce for over 30 years."

According to the American Association of Medical Colleges, rural areas need about 20,000 primary care doctors to make up for the shortages, but only about 16,500 medical doctors and 3,500 doctors of osteopathy graduate yearly.

"We are always trying to recruit doctors. We are barely keeping even," said Lyle Jackson, the medical director at the Mid-Rogue Independent Physician Association, a cooperative of doctors in Josephine County, where Musselman lives.

Taking part in the Medicare Advantage program, which pays a higher rate to doctors than standard Medicare, helps, but is still not enough, said Jackson, a former family physician.

A 2009 survey of doctors in the Oregon Medical Association showed concern over Medicare reimbursement rates topping the list of 23 issues, with 79 percent rating it as very important, said Joy Conklin, an official at the association.

The survey showed 19.1 percent of Oregon doctors had closed their practices to Medicare, and 28.1 percent had restricted the numbers of Medicare patients.

That really becomes evident in Josephine County, which attracted retirees after the timber industry collapsed.

Low taxes, cheap housing, wineries, a symphony and low traffic put it in top 10 lists for retirement communities. The 2010 census puts the number of people older than 65 at 23 percent, compared to 14 percent for the state.

But the website County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, which gathers a wide range of health care data nationwide, shows 933 patients for every primary care physician in the county, nearly 50 percent higher than the national 631-to-one rate.

At the Grants Pass Clinic, Dr. Bruce Stowell said they are no longer taking new Medicare patients. Medicare pays about 45 percent of what commercial insurance pays.

As it is, their proportion of Medicare patients is double that of a similar Portland practice.

"We used to get a steady stream of high-quality (resumes) from U.S.-trained and U.S.-born physicians," he said. "Over the last year, that stream has declined into a trickle. Very few (doctors) are choosing to go into primary care."

Schools are turning out more nurse practitioners and physician assistants.

How well they fill the doctor gap will depend largely on how much independence states give them to practice, said Tay Kopanos, director of health care policy for state affairs at the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners.

Meanwhile, overall demand for primary care will be increasing as more people can afford it under the Affordable Care Act, said Joanne Spetz, a health care policy professor at the University of California, San Francisco.

Dr. Atul Grover, chief of public policy for the American Association of Medical Colleges, said the nation is facing a tough time recruiting for primary care as well as other specialties that treat Medicare patients, such as oncologists.

When he decided to become a primary care doctor in the 1990s, it was because of a widespread belief that health maintenance organizations were going to be hiring all the doctors.

He said they wanted primary care doctors to emphasize wellness and prevention. Now, many graduates are moving into specialties that do procedures, such as surgery, because Medicare pays more for them than plain-old office visits.

Also, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 capped the number of residencies paid by Medicare, so there is no quick way to increase the numbers of doctors in general, let alone in rural areas, he said.

"An entire year's worth of doctor production is needed to deal with the (rural-area) shortage just today," he said.

http://health.yahoo.net/news/s/ap/boomers-retiring-to-rural-areas-won-t-find-doctors

....cities

If you've ever thought that where you bought a lottery ticket would make a difference in whether you'd win or lose, it's time to rethink your lottery strategy. No matter where you play the lottery, the odds of winning are the same.

It's all random. It's all luck, experts said.

In 2012, three out of 11 Mega million jackpot winners hailed from the top 10 U.S. metro areas. But mixed in with winners from Los Angeles, New York City and Atlanta were winners from areas with much smaller populations, such as Red Bud, Ill., Milford Mill, Md., Pomona, Calif., Ottawa, Kan.

"It's probably that much of the country does live in small towns and small cities, and maybe they are just more predisposed to buy more lottery tickets than people who live in big cities," Michael Shackleford, who operates the gaming site Wizard of Odds, told ABC News.

"I really don't think there's a conspiracy here. I think everyone has the same chances," Schackleford said.

Lottery tickets can be bought at more than 240,000 locations in North America. According to fiscal sales of lottery tickets for 2005, the last year for which data were available, "New York led the U.S. with sales of $6.2 billion, followed by Massachusetts with sales of $4.5 billion," according to the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries, which represents 52 lottery organizations.

In the past five years, the Mega Millions jackpot has twice been won by people buying tickets in Brooklyn, N.Y., which counts 2.5 million residents. But Kalamazoo, in southwest Michigan, whose population is about 74,000 people, tied with Brooklyn when it came to winning those pots of money.

And earlier this month, a winning Powerball ticket was sold in Lapeer, Mich..

Another Powerball winner for 2012 came from Seymour, Conn., which has a population of about 16,000 people. And, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is not only the hometown of Ashton Kutcher and Elijah Wood but of the Shipping 20, the group of 20 co-workers who hit the $240 million jackpot in June.

While it's become common to see little-known cities, such as Sharpsburg, Ga., and Piqua, Ohio, make the news after a big jackpot, winning all comes down to chance.

"Every ticket has an equal chance of winning. The drawing is completely random. There's no way to bias a random drawing toward particular locations. If there were it wouldn't be random, which would mean that the lottery is cheating," Mark Chu-Carroll, a math blogger, wrote in an email to ABC News.

"True randomness frequently produces what looks like patterns," Chu-Caroll continued. "If you flip a fair coin 10,000 times, at some point in the sequence of flips, you'll probably see 10 heads in a row. Taken by itself, that seems very unlikely, but as a part of the larger, random sequence, if you didn't see something like that, it's a sign that there's something fishy going on."

When Richard Lustig, a multi-time lottery winner, offered ways to increase one's chances of winning the game, critics countered,

"The lottery works randomly. Unlike poker or blackjack, there's nothing you can do to gain an advantage at this. You can't make decisions to influence the outcome," Zac Bissonnette, author of "Debt-Free U," told Business Insider..

So there's no great significance to the fact that the Powerball jackpot was won by residents of Harding, Pa., Lithonia, Ga., Lakeville, Minn., Fall River, Mass., Catskill, N.Y., and Abingdon, Md., in 2011.

"If you look at the number of ticket buyers in a city compared to a small town, there are a couple of confounding patterns," said Chu-Caroll. "Every small town has a couple of stores selling lottery tickets. If you actually look at the number of vendors in the big cities, compared with the number of vendors outside of the big cities, there are actually more lottery vendors outside of the cities. And if you look at ticket-buying patterns, the group of ticket buyers is a much smaller proportion of the population outside of the cities."

But, there is no rhyme or reason for why winners come from a particularly area, experts said.

"It is not known until after the drawing where the ticket was sold. There is just as much of a chance of it being sold in a small town as a large town, the city as the suburbs, the North as the South, the East as the West," Andrea Brancato, a Michigan lottery PR director, told ABC News in an email.

"If you look at the list of Mega Millions winners, for example, you will see that there are large cities (Los Angeles, Richmond, Va., Dallas) all the way to small towns (Lapeer, Mich., and many of the other places that I've not heard of!)."

Here's a look at the locations of Mega Million Winners for 2010:

$25 million won in Broadview Heights, Ohio

$141 million won in Gladstone, Mich.

$54 million won in Brooklyn, N.Y.

$135 million won Morro Bay, Calif.

$64 million won in Agoura Hills, Calif., and El Monte, Calif.

$26 million won in Syracuse, N.Y. and Canastota, N.Y.

$36 million won in Kalamazoo, Mich.

$12 million jackpot won in Greensboro, N.C.

$64 million jackpot won in Brooklyn, N.Y.

$266 million jackpot won in Pico Rivera, Calif.

$20 million jackpot won in Hennepin, Ill.

$134 million won in Long Beach, Calif.

$144 million won in Katy, Texas

Here's a look at some of the locations of Powerball Winners for 2010:

$48.8 million won in Saratoga, N.Y.

$18.7 million won in Louisville, Ky.

$79 million won in Martinsburg, W. Va.

$258.5 won in Marshall, Mo.

$141.4 million won in Asheville, N.C.

$61.5 million won in Bradenton, Fla.

$116 million won in Mabelton, Ga.

$85.7 million won in Baton Rouge, La.

$73.8 million won in Royal Palm Beach, Fla.

$96.9 million won in Helena, Mont. and Kalamazoo, Mich.

http://news.yahoo.com/lottery-strategy-odds-winning-same-large-cities-small-141016090--abc-news-money.html#

the wealthy and corporations

He who has ears let him hear:

Obama Suggests Constitutional Amendment to Silence Free Speech of Wealthier People & Corporations

President Barack Obama used the online springboard provided by Reddit to dive into the media crush at the GOP convention, with a skillfully executed call for a constitutional amendment to curb the free-speech of wealthier people and corporations.

“I think we need to seriously consider mobilizing a constitutional amendment process to overturn Citizens United. … Even if the amendment process falls short, it can shine a spotlight of the super PAC phenomenon and help apply pressure for change,” Obama said during 4:30 p.m. EST online event.

The publicity-grabbing gambit complements his campaign-theme portrayal of himself as the defender of middle-class Americans, and Gov. Mitt Romney as the champion of wealthy, job-exporting plutocrats.

The proposal also helps shift the media’s focus away from the stalled economy, record unemployment, debts and deficits.

http://visiontoamerica.com/11855/obama-suggests-constitutional-amendment-to-silence-free-speech-of-wealthier-people-corporations/

Strictest gun laws in the country:

Nineteen people were shot in seven attacks overnight in Chicago, as the US city's gun violence epidemic continued.

Thirteen of the victims were shot within a half-hour period, including eight in a drive-by shooting on a single street.

Chicago officials have been battling a sharp increase in shootings and homicides, with some elected officials arguing gangs do not fear the police.

The city's murder rate has spiked 29% year-over-year as of this month.

By that time in 2011, 270 people had been killed in the city, according to data complied by the local newspaper RedEye Chicago. In 2012, that number is 348.

Most of the violence has been in Chicago's troubled south and west sides, but there also have been a handful of incidents in the downtown area.

Victims 'not co-operating'

Thursday's violence began shortly after 17:00 local time (22:00 GMT), when four men were wounded on the west side.

A drive-by shooting in the south side injured seven males and one female, ranging in age from 14 to 20 years. Then five people were wounded in three other shootings around the same time.

Early on Friday morning, a 17-year-old was shot in the back.

Andrew Holmes, a community activist, told NBC Chicago some of the injured were not co-operating with police.

"They need to step up and speak up for us," he said. "Nine times out of 10, they knew who was firing the shot at them."

It is not the first time this year Chicago has seen a single night of double-digit victims.

Over the Memorial Day weekend in May, 12 people were killed, and another 48 were wounded.

Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy has been criticised for eliminating police teams sent to crime hot spots.

Chicago's homicide increase is counter to lowered rates in other major US cities, including New York and Washington.