Hillary Clinton Ready to Pounce in 2012?

Dare I make a prediction?

Well, of course I’ll dare – to predict that on Thursday morning, Nov. 4, after final results are in and the House of Representatives goes back to a Republican majority:

Look for further Big News.

Hillary Clinton announces her resignation as secretary of state.

And – within one week – national news is dominated with reports of the opening of HILLARY FOR PRESIDENT campaign headquarters in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, Illinois, Texas and California – to begin with.

How Bill Clinton’s inner circle wielded vast power to discredit and destroy his former objects of desire: “Their Lives: The Women Targeted by the Clinton Machine”

This campaign will not only emphasize that it is now about time (long since!) that the White House stop being dominated only by presidents from the nation’s minority gender. She will also enlist her (now well-behaved) spouse to explain in detail how much of his untouched-by-major-recession presidency was effectively advised by the first lady.

Consider the polls which show that Mrs. Clinton’s popularity is considerably better Mr. Obama’s.

Consider Mrs. Clinton’s virtual silence during the furious debate over Obamacare as well as close Hillary ally James Carville, and how he absolutely blasted the Obamaites for mishandling the unprecedentedly massive BP Gulf-of-Mexico-befouling gigantic oil spill.

Carville also released a poll result reporting that 55 percent of the U.S. believes Obama to be a socialist.

Anyone believing that Hillary will not run against the-president-who-appointed-her-to-the-top-post-in-his-Cabinet has forgotten how many states in their primaries voted for her and against Obama – including a number that are electoral-vote heavies.

All this should lead to a Democratic National Convention that is as fascinating as that one when renominated President Jimmy Carter pursued Sen. Ted Kennedy all over the stage in a disastrously unsuccessful attempt to appear together with Teddy.

That is, unless President Obama decides that one term is enough for him.

Thanks World Net Daily.

[Ask] [Bloglines] [del.icio.us] [Digg] [Google] [Mister Wong] [MySpace] [Netvouz] [Newsvine] [OnlyWire] [Propeller] [Shoutwire] [Squidoo] [StumbleUpon] [Technorati] [Twitter] [Windows Live] [Yahoo!]

Police said a Massachusetts man headed to a Vermont prison to serve a two-day sentence for driving under the influence was intoxicated when he drove himself to prison.

Vermont State Police say that staff at the Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield noticed that a 42-year-old man was intoxicated when he arrived late Tuesday afternoon and that he had driven himself there.

So prison staff called police.

Police said the man was then processed for DUI second offense and released back into the custody of the Department of Corrections.

The man was due to appear in court later this month on the latest charge.

Thanks My Way.

[Ask] [Bloglines] [del.icio.us] [Digg] [Google] [Mister Wong] [MySpace] [Netvouz] [Newsvine] [OnlyWire] [Propeller] [Shoutwire] [Squidoo] [StumbleUpon] [Technorati] [Twitter] [Windows Live] [Yahoo!]
Tagged with:
 

Better beat the crowd and find a doctor.

Primary care physicians already are in short supply in parts of the country, and the landmark health overhaul that will bring them millions more newly insured patients in the next few years promises extra strain.

The new law goes beyond offering coverage to the uninsured, with steps to improve the quality of care for the average person and help keep us well instead of today’s seek-care-after-you’re-sick culture. To benefit, you’ll need a regular health provider.

Yet recently published reports predict a shortfall of roughly 40,000 primary care doctors over the next decade, a field losing out to the better pay, better hours and higher profile of many other specialties. Provisions in the new law aim to start reversing that tide, from bonus payments for certain physicians to expanded community health centers that will pick up some of the slack.

A growing movement to change how primary care is practiced may do more to help with the influx. Instead of the traditional 10-minutes-with-the-doc-style office, a “medical home” would enhance access with a doctor-led team of nurses, physician assistants and disease educators working together; these teams could see more people while giving extra attention to those who need it most.

“A lot of things can be done in the team fashion where you don’t need the patient to see the physician every three months,” says Dr. Sam Jones of Fairfax Family Practice Centers, a large Virginia group of 10 primary care offices outside the nation’s capital that is morphing into this medical home model.

“We think it’s the right thing to do. We were going to do this regardless of what happens with health care reform,” adds Jones. His office, in affiliation with Virginia Commonwealth University, also provides hands-on residency training to beginning doctors in this kind of care.

Only 30 percent of U.S. doctors practice primary care. The government says 65 million people live in areas designated as having a shortage of primary care physicians, places already in need of more than 16,600 additional providers to fill the gaps. Among other steps, the new law provides a 10 percent bonus from Medicare for primary care doctors serving in those areas.

Massachusetts offers a snapshot of how giving more people insurance naturally drives demand. The Massachusetts Medical Society last fall reported just over half of internists and 40 percent of family and general practitioners weren’t accepting new patients, an increase in recent years as the state implemented nearly universal coverage.

Nationally, the big surge for primary care won’t start until 2014, when the bulk of the 32 million uninsured starts coming online.

Sooner will come some catch-up demand, as group health plans and Medicare end co-payments for important preventive care measures such as colon cancer screenings or cholesterol checks. Even the insured increasingly put off such steps as the economy worsened, meaning doctors may see a blip in diagnoses as those people return, says Dr. Lori Heim, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians.

That’s one of the first steps in the new law’s emphasis on wellness care over sickness care, with policies that encourage trying programs like the “patient-centered medical home” that Jones’ practice is putting in place in suburban Virginia.

It’s not easy to switch from the reactive—”George, it’s your first visit to check your diabetes in two years!”—to the proactive approach of getting George in on time.

First Jones’ practice adopted an electronic medical record, to keep patients’ information up to date and help them coordinate necessary specialist visits while decreasing redundancies.

Then came a patient registry so the team can start tracking who needs what testing or follow-up and make sure patients get it on time.

Rolling out next is a custom Web-based service named My Preventive Care that lets the practice’s patients link to their electronic medical record, answer some lifestyle and risk questions, and receive an individually tailored list of wellness steps to consider.

Say Don’s cholesterol test, scheduled after his yearly checkup, came back borderline high. That new lab result will show up, with discussion of diet, exercise and medication options to lower it in light of his other risk factors. He might try some on his own, or call up the doctor—who also gets an electronic copy—for a more in-depth discussion.

“It prevents things from falling through the cracks,” says Dr. Alex Krist, a Fairfax Family Practice physician and VCU associate professor who designed and tested the computer program with a $1.2 million federal grant. In a small study of test-users, preventive services such as cancer screenings and cholesterol checks increased between 3 percent and 12 percent.

Pilot tests of medical homes, through the American Academy of Family Physicians and Medicare, are under way around the country. Initial results suggest they can improve quality, but it’s not clear if they save money.

Primary care can’t do it alone. Broader changes are needed to decrease the financial incentives that spur too much specialist-driven care, says Dr. David Goodman of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice.

“What we need is not just a medical home, but a medical neighborhood.

Thanks Breitbart.

[Ask] [Bloglines] [del.icio.us] [Digg] [Google] [Mister Wong] [MySpace] [Netvouz] [Newsvine] [OnlyWire] [Propeller] [Shoutwire] [Squidoo] [StumbleUpon] [Technorati] [Twitter] [Windows Live] [Yahoo!]

Officials in a small Massachusetts town said a deadline passed without a single resident filing to run in the May 3 election.

Hawley Town Clerk Cyndie Stetson, 62, who also serves as a justice of the peace and a notary in addition to substitute teaching, said the March 15 deadline passed without anyone submitting the required 25 signatures to run for positions including selectmen and a tree warden in the town of 336 residents, The Boston Globe reported Tuesday.

Stetson said the town will vote write-in only May 3, with candidates needing at least two votes to win. She said the winners must then accept the position.

“It’s no big deal to us,” Stetson said.

Thanks UPI.

[Ask] [Bloglines] [del.icio.us] [Digg] [Google] [Mister Wong] [MySpace] [Netvouz] [Newsvine] [OnlyWire] [Propeller] [Shoutwire] [Squidoo] [StumbleUpon] [Technorati] [Twitter] [Windows Live] [Yahoo!]

Too bad your mother is insane but anyhow! Our jaws dropped last Friday when Rosie O’Donnell, who is a good friend of Mia Farrow’s, posted a recent picture of Mia’s 22 year-old son, Ronan Farrow, on her blog. YOWZA! For someone who shares half of Woody Allen’s genes, Ronan is quite the dreamboat. Given his father’s comedic talent and his mother’s activism, though, we’re not surprised that Ronan’s more than just a pretty face. Here are a few more reasons why he’s our crush of the week (…or of all time):

He’s a genius: At age 11, Ronan became the youngest student ever enrolled in Bard College at Simon’s Rock in Massachusetts, which typically only accepts students who are above age 16. After completing his associate’s degree, he transferred to Bard College’s main campus in New York, where he studied biology and philosophy. At 16, he was admitted to Yale Law, but he deferred his enrollment until the fall of 2006 so that he could work with UNICEF. He graduated at age 21 last May. 5 Places To Find A Smart Guy

He’s a humanitarian: With his good looks and celebrity parentage, Ronan could have easily ended up on a CW teen drama, but since 2001, Ronan has worked as a spokesperson for AIDs prevention and treatment, as well as for the prevention of human genocide in Africa. At an age where most of his peers would be indoors playing video games, Ronan was in Kenya, Nigeria, and Angola working to improve the lives of others. While his credentials are too numerous to list out here, we’d also like to point out that Ronan’s writings have appeared in the Boston Herald, The Wall Street Journal, The International Herald Tribune, and The Los Angeles Times.

In 2009, New York Magazine named him their “New Activist Of The Year.” Rumor has it that the Obama administration has appointed him as the State Department’s Special Adviser on Humanitarian and NGO Affairs.

He has a sense of humor: In his interview with New York Magazine, Ronan admitted that he’s writing his first book, which will take a comedic look at America’s proxy armies. Is It Better For A Man To Be Funny Or Rich?

He’s mature: Sure, he’s Hollywood royalty, but we can’t imagine that Ronan’s a spoiled, sheltered kid after weathering his parents’ heavily-publicized custody dispute back in the early ’90′s. Despite the family scandals and Ronan’s consequent estrangement from his father, it seems like he’s grown up to be a well-rounded young man.

Thanks Your Tango.

[Ask] [Bloglines] [del.icio.us] [Digg] [Google] [Mister Wong] [MySpace] [Netvouz] [Newsvine] [OnlyWire] [Propeller] [Shoutwire] [Squidoo] [StumbleUpon] [Technorati] [Twitter] [Windows Live] [Yahoo!]

Police say a Massachusetts man who stuffed 75 bottles of body lotion in his pants couldn’t slip away from authorities, hampered by slacks that were nearly bursting at the seams.

Springfield police say 30-year-old Chamil Guadarrama of Framingham was charged with larceny after the incident Wednesday night at Bath and Body Works in the Eastfield Mall.

Police say mall security officers chased Guadarrama, but he had stuffed so many of the eight-ounce lotion containers in his pants that he could barely run. Police say he could not bend over to get in the police cruiser until some of the bottles were removed.

It was unclear if Guadarrama has an attorney. A telephone number for him could not immediately be found Thursday.

Thanks AZ Central.

[Ask] [Bloglines] [del.icio.us] [Digg] [Google] [Mister Wong] [MySpace] [Netvouz] [Newsvine] [OnlyWire] [Propeller] [Shoutwire] [Squidoo] [StumbleUpon] [Technorati] [Twitter] [Windows Live] [Yahoo!]

Police said a Massachusetts lumber truck crashed into a home after the driver was knocked unconscious by a small chili from Wendy’s. Lowell police said Eric Gremm reported that he choked on the chili when the truck hit a bump, causing him to pass out as the flatbed truck veered off the road and slammed into the home. The man, 59, said emergency workers at the scene told him that he had passed out, but he could not remember losing consciousness.

Police said the truck hit the foundation of the home, and authorities were worried that the home might collapse when the truck was pulled out.

Gremm was taken by ambulance to a local hospital for treatment of minor injuries.

Police said he could be cited for eating while driving.

Thanks My Way.

[Ask] [Bloglines] [del.icio.us] [Digg] [Google] [Mister Wong] [MySpace] [Netvouz] [Newsvine] [OnlyWire] [Propeller] [Shoutwire] [Squidoo] [StumbleUpon] [Technorati] [Twitter] [Windows Live] [Yahoo!]
Tagged with:
 

Once again, the people have spoken, and this time they quoted what Dick Cheney said to Pat Leahy.

Less than two weeks ago, The New York Times said that so much as a “tighter-than-expected” victory for Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley would incite “soul-searching among Democrats nationally,” which sent Times readers scurrying to their dictionaries to look up this strange new word, “soul.”

A close win for Coakley, the Times said, would constitute “the first real barometer of whether problems facing the party” will affect the 2010 elections.

But when Coakley actually lost the election by an astounding 5 points, the Chicago boys in the White House decided it was the chick’s fault.

Democratic candidate Martha Coakley may be a moral monster, but it’s ridiculous to blame her for losing the election. She lost because of the Democrats’ obsession with forcing national health care down the nation’s throat.

Coakley campaigned exactly the way she should have.

As a Democrat running in a special election for a seat that had been held by a Democratic icon (and another moral monster) for the past 46 years in a state with only 12 percent registered Republicans, Coakley’s objective was to have voters reading the paper on Friday, saying: “Hey, honey, did you know there was a special election four days ago? Yeah, apparently Coakley won, though it was a pretty low turnout.”

Ideally, no one except members of government unions and Coakley’s immediate family would have even been aware of the election.

And until Matt Drudge began covering it like a presidential election a week ago, it might have turned out that way.

Coakley had already won two statewide elections, while her Republican opponent, Scott Brown, had only won elections in his district. She had endorsements from the Kennedy family and the current appointed Democratic senator, Paul Kirk — as well as endless glowing profiles in The Boston Globe.

And by the way, as of Jan. 1, Brown had spent $642,000 on the race, while Coakley had spent $2 million.

On Jan. 8, just 11 days before the election, The New York Times reported: “A Brown win remains improbable, given that Democrats outnumber Republicans by 3 to 1 in the state and that Ms. Coakley, the state’s attorney general, has far more name recognition, money and organizational support.”

It was in that article that the Times said a narrow Coakley win would be an augury for the entire Democratic Party. But now she’s being hung out to dry so that Democrats don’t have to face the possibility that Obama’s left-wing policies are to blame.

Alternatively, Democrats are trying to write off Brown’s colossal victory as the standard seesawing of public sentiment that hits both Republicans and Democrats from time to time. As MSNBC’s Chris Matthews explained, it was just the voters saying “no” generally, but not to anything in particular.

Except when Republicans win political power, they hold onto it long enough to govern. The Democrats keep being smacked down by the voters immediately after being elected and revealing their heinous agenda.

As a result, for the past four decades, American politics has consisted of Republicans controlling Washington for eight to 14 years — either from the White House or Capitol Hill — thus allowing Americans to forget what it was they didn’t like about Democrats, whom they then carelessly vote back in. The Democrats immediately remind Americans what they didn’t like about Democrats, and their power is revoked at the voters’ first possible opportunity.

Obama has cut the remembering-what-we-don’t-like-about-Democrats stage of this process down from two to four years to about 10 months. Folks, I’m convinced that if we all work really hard, we can get it down to three months.

Four years of Jimmy Carter gave us two titanic Reagan landslides, peace and prosperity for eight blessed years — and even a third term for his feckless vice president, George H.W. Bush.

Two years of Bill Clinton gave us a historic Republican sweep of Congress, which killed the entire Clinton agenda (with the exception of partial-birth abortion and felony obstruction of justice) — and also gave us two terms for George W. Bush.

And now, merely one year of Obama and a Democratic Congress has given us the first Republican senator from Massachusetts in 31 years.

In other recent news, last November, New Jersey voters, who haven’t voted for a Republican for president since 1988, threw out their incumbent Democratic governor, Jon Corzine. In Virginia, which Obama carried by 6 points a year earlier, a religious-right Republican won the governor’s office by 17 points.

Sen. Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, won his last election in 2006 by 28 points — the largest margin for a Democratic Senate candidate in that state in a quarter-century.

Since voting for the Senate health care bill last Christmas, the once-bulletproof Sen. Nelson not only gets booed out of Omaha pizzerias, but he has also seen his job approval rating fall to 42 percent and his disapproval rating soar to 48 percent. (Meanwhile, the junior senator from Nebraska, Mike Johanns, who voted against the bill, has a job approval rating of 63 percent.)

The Democrats have no natural majority because they have no fundamental principles — at least none that they are willing to state out loud. They are like a drunken vagrant who emerges from the alley to cause havoc every few years. They are the perpetual toothache of American politics.

To be sure, the fact that 52 percent of Massachusetts voters are racist, sexist tea-baggers — i.e., voted for a Republican — means only that the Democrats just went from having the largest congressional majority in a generation to the second largest. But this was “Teddy Kennedy’s seat.” And it was in Massachusetts.

Now, no Democrat is safe.

But the country just got a lot safer.

Please head over to anncoulter.com… Great!

Thanks AnnCoulter.com

[Ask] [Bloglines] [del.icio.us] [Digg] [Google] [Mister Wong] [MySpace] [Netvouz] [Newsvine] [OnlyWire] [Propeller] [Shoutwire] [Squidoo] [StumbleUpon] [Technorati] [Twitter] [Windows Live] [Yahoo!]

From early projections it seems that Scott Brown took this one. Oh, uh… watch out Dems!

[Ask] [Bloglines] [del.icio.us] [Digg] [Google] [Mister Wong] [MySpace] [Netvouz] [Newsvine] [OnlyWire] [Propeller] [Shoutwire] [Squidoo] [StumbleUpon] [Technorati] [Twitter] [Windows Live] [Yahoo!]
Tagged with:
 

Woman Sees Jesus on an Iron in Massachusetts

A Massachusetts woman who recently separated from her husband and had her hours cut at work says an image of Jesus Christ she sees on her iron has reassured her that “life is going to be good.”

Mary Jo Coady first noticed the image Sunday when she walked into her daughter’s room.

The brownish residue on the bottom of the iron looks like the face of a man with long hair.

The 44-year-old Coady was raised Catholic. She and her two college-age daughters agree that the image looks like Jesus and is proof that “he’s listening.”

Coady tells The Eagle-Tribune she hopes her story will inspire others during the holidays. She says she plans to keep the iron in a closet and buy a new one.

[Ask] [Bloglines] [del.icio.us] [Digg] [Google] [Mister Wong] [MySpace] [Netvouz] [Newsvine] [OnlyWire] [Propeller] [Shoutwire] [Squidoo] [StumbleUpon] [Technorati] [Twitter] [Windows Live] [Yahoo!]
Tagged with:
 

Idiot. Massachusetts police say a man locked his two young sons in the trunk of his car while he ran an errand.

Fall River police say Michael Monahan put his kids, ages 3 and 6, in the trunk of his Pontiac Trans Am for several minutes Tuesday morning while he went inside a sailing shop.

According to court records, Monahan told investigators the boys like to play in the trunk.

The 35-year-old Monahan pleaded not guilty Wednesday to assault and reckless endangerment of a child. He was released on cash bail.

A broadcast from WPRI-TV showed Monahan’s attorney telling a judge that his client loves his children.

The children are in the custody of their mother.

Thanks AZ Central.

[Ask] [Bloglines] [del.icio.us] [Digg] [Google] [Mister Wong] [MySpace] [Netvouz] [Newsvine] [OnlyWire] [Propeller] [Shoutwire] [Squidoo] [StumbleUpon] [Technorati] [Twitter] [Windows Live] [Yahoo!]
Tagged with:
 

Two deaths and 26 other illnesses may be linked to fresh ground beef that has been recalled because it might be contaminated with E. coli bacteria, a federal health official said Monday.

One of the deaths involved a New York adult with several underlying health conditions, said Lola Scott Russell, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The other is a death previously reported by New Hampshire, where state health officials said a patient died due to complications.

Russell said all but three of the suspected infections are in the northeastern U.S. and 18 are in New England.

Ashville, N.Y.-based Fairbank Farms recalled almost 546,000 pounds of fresh ground beef that had been distributed in September to stores from North Carolina to Maine. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s recall notice, dated Saturday, said that the possibly tainted meat had been sold in numerous ways, from meatloaf and meatball mix to hamburger patties.

Some of the ground beef was sold at Trader Joe’s, Price Chopper, Lancaster, Wild Harvest, Shaw’s, BJ’s, Ford Brothers and Giant stores in packages that carried the number “EST. 492″ on the label. Those products were packaged Sept. 15-16 and may have been labeled with a sell-by date from Sept. 19 through Sept. 28, meaning they’re no longer being sold as fresh product in supermarkets, Fairbank Farms said.

The rest of the ground beef, packaged in wholesale-sized containers under the Fairbank Farms name, was distributed to stores in Maryland, Massachusetts, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia. That meat was likely repackaged for sale and would likely have differing package and sell-by dates.

The USDA was urging customers with concerns to contact the stores where they bought the meat.

Fairbank’s CEO, Ron Allen, urged consumers to check their freezers for the recalled ground beef.

Located in the southwestern corner of New York a few miles from the Pennsylvania line, Fairbank Farms has had two other voluntary recalls over the last two years, according to the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service.

In September 2007, the company recalled 884 pounds of ground beef products because they may have been contaminated with E. coli, the agency said. And in May 2008, it recalled 22,481 pounds of ground beef products that may have contained pieces of plastic.

Symptoms of E. coli infections include stomach cramps that may be severe and diarrhea that may turn bloody within one to three days. E. coli infections can sometimes lead to complications including kidney failure.

Symptoms usually show up three to four days after a person eats contaminated food, although in some cases it can be as long as eight days. Officials said anyone having symptoms should immediately contact a doctor.

Russell, the CDC spokeswoman, said the E. coli strain involved in the recall, 0157:H7, infects about 70,000 Americans a year and kills 52.

[Ask] [Bloglines] [del.icio.us] [Digg] [Google] [Mister Wong] [MySpace] [Netvouz] [Newsvine] [OnlyWire] [Propeller] [Shoutwire] [Squidoo] [StumbleUpon] [Technorati] [Twitter] [Windows Live] [Yahoo!]
Tagged with: