The Respectfully Republican Conversation

Happened to catch a few words out of Joy Behar's mouth today referring to the Octuplet's mother as being a "smart woman".  I'd like to know what constitutes "smart" these days? 

I heard that it was going to take $75,000 a year per child to raise them. 

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From The Sunday Times
February 1, 2009
Octuplets’ mother wants Oprah to turn her into a $2m TV star
Doctors speak at a during a news conference on the octuplets that were born 26 January at Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center

Doctors at a news conference last week following the birth of the octuplets at Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center in California


THE single mother of octuplets born in California last week is seeking $2m (£1.37m) from media interviews and commercial sponsorship to help pay the cost of raising the children.

Nadya Suleman, 33, plans a career as a television childcare expert after it emerged last week that she already had six children before giving birth on Monday. She now has 14 below the age of eight.

Although still confined to an LA hospital bed, she intends to talk to two influential television hosts this week — media mogul Oprah Winfrey, and Diane Sawyer, who presents Good Morning America.

Her family has told agents she needs cash from deals such as nappy sponsorship — she will get through 250 a week in the next few months — and the agents will gauge public reaction to her story.

Her earning power, though, could be diminished by a growing ethical and medical controversy. Experts believe that the unnamed fertility specialists who gave her in vitro fertilisation (IVF) should not have implanted so many embryos, and in choosing to carry all eight to term, Suleman ignored guidelines, risking both their health and her own.

US public reaction has been mixed: many have asked how an unemployed single mother can raise 14 children, as her first six have already strained the family budget. Angela and Ed Suleman, Nadya’s parents,bought her a two-bedroom bungalow in the suburb of Whittier in March 2007, but soon after got into debt and had to leave their own home.

They filed for bankruptcy and moved in with their daughter and grandchildren. Last week her father said he would return to his native Iraq to work as a translator and driver.

Angela Suleman, who is caring for the first six children — one of whom is autistic — while her daughter is in hospital, said yesterday that she had consulted a psychologist over Nadya’s “obsession with children”.

Nadya Suleman, who describes herself as a “professional student” living off education grants and parental money, broke up with her boyfriend before the birth of her first child seven years ago.

The identity of the octuplets’ father remains unknown, but local reports suggest they were conceived with frozen sperm donated by a friend she met while working at a fertility clinic. He is the father of her twins, born two years ago.

Michael Tucker of the Georgia Reproductive Clinic, Atlanta, said Suleman’s story stunned him. “We are policed by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, which frowns upon implanting more than two or three embryos at a time. It is remarkable that any practitioner would undertake such a practice.”

The babies, born nine weeks prematurely by C-section, were attended to by 46 medical staff, who expected seven babies. When the eighth — a boy — appeared, doctors were “confounded”.

Angela Suleman said her daughter was advised to terminate some of the embryos in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy for the sake of her health, but she refused because she did not know how to make such a life-or-death decision.

“She doesn’t have any more, so it’s over now. It has to be,” said the grandmother.

  




 

IBC, are you saying that we should have claimed our bedroom as an expense?  Hmmm..how bout the telephone and cell phone?  If so, too late now.  LOL

Shirley ... one day, I was at the market ... super big headache!  Bought Tylenol ($9.00 for the bottle) plus a few other things.  Got out of the market, unloaded and saw the bottle in the cart, not the bag.

Checked the receipt... crap, it was not on it.  I was dealing with my headache and thought I could go back later but just went back anyway. Thankfully I did that!!!!!  I walked in with the bottle and receipt and at the same time, the lady was telling me I had left my ATM card!   I would have been frantic.

"the unnamed fertility specialists who gave her in vitro fertilisation (IVF)"

Something isn't quite right here...I think we'll be learning - perhaps some alarming things - in the days to come. I just cannot see how a legitimate IVF "company" would take this risk ...yeah...perhaps if they were being paid MILLIONS by a wealthy couple. But that's obviously NOT the case. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm...something is up with all this.

Kel - Back to my earlier suggestion...Politicians need liability insurance. All this cra* is costing us...the tax payers... big bucks!

Wow, I stumbled on this article by a Libertarian ... Bush lovers, just squint when he criticizes him.

-------he Truth About the Obama Agenda

By Wayne Allyn Root

Ladies and gentlemen, we have sold out. We have sold our souls to the devil ... and the devil is big government. Obama doesn't want to help you - he wants you to desperately crave the government's help.

He wants you to feel hopeless, helpless, aimless, and clueless, and thereby dependent on government to survive. He wants to slip socialism by you and destroy capitalism while we're in crisis - while you're scared and weak - and he hopes you won't even notice. Not as long as he sends you a check, takes over your bank, protects your mortgage (even if he has to ask government to break the legal contract), educates your children at government-run schools, and gives you a job.

And once his plan is complete, he'll own you and your vote for life. But look at the price you'll pay. Every aspect of your life will be dominated and determined by Big Brother.

Author Ayn Rand predicted it all many decades ago in The Nature of Government: "We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force."

Give Obama credit for the deception. His brilliant team of handlers and publicists show the mainstream media images of his wonderful family ... and they have him quote the Founding Fathers ... and talk about choosing a new church for his family. He talks about tax cuts as a big part of his stimulus package, never mentioning that the cuts don't go to the people who actually pay most of the taxes.

And while these nice images and perfectly orchestrated sound bites play in the media, Obama is busy destroying capitalism ... stomping on the Constitution ... and re-distributing the wealth. Karl Marx could not have come up with a more effective plan.

This is a brutal, calculating, manipulative, vicious coup - a takeover of the capitalist system and a highjacking of the electorate through bribery - under the stress of crisis. This is about turning the whole country into one big Chicago ... controlled by big unions, teachers' unions, environmental lobbyists who want to tax you to death to prevent a global warming disaster that hasn't been proven to exist. (We are more likely to be experiencing "global cooling.")

But no matter ... Big Brother is in control and taking action on your behalf - keeping you safe and employed and protecting you from global warming doom and gloom. Remember, if draconian global warming rules, the resulting regulations and taxes will destroy millions of private-sector jobs ... all the better for the Obama agenda. Obama will create millions of government jobs to replace them - making big government even more powerful and beloved.

All of these radical liberal groups are out to destroy capitalism simply because they are no good at being capitalists. They've failed in the current system, so their goal is to tear it down and create a new economic system (or "world order") where they can succeed ... where they will be in control and make the rules. By applying the right pressure - i.e., the bribe of trillion-dollar government bailouts and programs up for grabs - they've even gotten big business to go along with their plan.

This, my friends, is the Socialist Utopia ... the liberal version of the "Stepford Wives." And it took the perfect boob to open the door - George W. Bush, the compassionate conservative who poisoned the Republican brand, caused conservatives to hide in embarrassment and shame, and allowed Obama to do all this because of his incompetence, arrogance, reckless disregard for excessive spending, and record-setting expansion of government.

Now Obama is here to "rescue" us. Not that he's ever been in business ... not that he's ever taken an economics class ... not that he's ever created a job. But simply because Obama is the Anti-Bush, he now commands the American economy and the free world.

In response, we are all stepping off the cliff like lemmings ... following a Pied Piper ... falling to our deaths ... destroying capitalism ... giving up our freedoms ... sacrificing our children's future ... wrecking our economy ... punishing taxpayers ... and rewarding those who failed in the capitalist system (and just happen to support Obama).

Historian and political statesmen Alexis de Tocqueville's words have finally come true:"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."

Some of us can see what is happening. Some of us are willing to stand up to the bullies. Some of us are willing to support capitalism. Some of us are willing to lead the loyal opposition. I'm proud to call myself a Libertarian, Fiscal Conservative, Capitalist, Small Businessman, Home-School Dad, Citizen Politician, Son of a Butcher ... and The ANTI-Obama.

(Wayne Allyn Root was the 2008 Libertarian Vice Presidential candidate.)

posted update on the prayer thread.  but i was skimming here and whew my head is spinning all you politcal gurus!

Sherri, one reason they are checking Liv's gallbladder is gallbladder disease runs in my family.  I suffered for years with it like she is and it is what I kept tell the docs last week and weekend.  For 6 years I was treated for a hietal heirnia (sp?) but at 24 had gallbladder out and fixed me right up.  every test kept coming up normal.........(big shock) but since it ran on my moms side of family they decided to go for it.

I was to have a 30 min laproscopy/23 hr hospital stay.  Turned into 2.5 hour lap and 5 day hopsital stay. My gb was soooo diseased I got infection from them removing it.........

P.S. you know that being exposed to radioactive material when a young child increases chances for breastcancer.  I was watching them pump that stuff into her veins and I almost lost it.  you know that feeling of dread you get in the pit of your tummy???? 

gee ibc,

wish you were my accountant.

I want the 80's back.......sigh, guess we just have to wait 4 years.

You know, what you just said, Marejo, does make me feel better.  Someday they will answer to a Higher Authority and see that they didn't get away with anything at all. 

I had to give up watching C-SPAN, other life does go on.  Anyway, I saw something going across the screen.  They had another vote on another amendment that would add $25 Billion more to $819, that new amendment, the republicans said wouldn't create jobs, and it got defeated!  There's hope here.

Fur is still flying over the made in American only in the porkulous bill.  The republicans have to do a better job of explaining how FDR, or was it Hoover? who tried the same thing.  More jobs were lost back during the depression then would have been because of us tightening up trade.  We've been here before.  They just have to open a history book.  Thank goodness McCain is old enough to give firsthand knowledge and experience from our past.  I hope he doesn't read this.  

Moody,

No I can't imagine your daughter being 12 lbs. less today.  She's beautiful and very brave to have to go through all of this.  I hope it's her gallbladder, and this will be over for her very soon. 

Take care of yourself too. 

Moody, your daughter is gorgeous JUST LIKE YOU!  I do not like you.  And, no, I can't believe she's 12 pounds lightr.  But, she'll gain it back.  Bless her heart.

Shirley

Aww c'mon, can't we like Moody for today?

Love ya girlie and your baby, too!!

Moody, 

She is adorable.  I am willing to bet Liv's mother will know everything about what ever illness is messing with her little girl.  That's just the kind of mom you are. 

I thought this book sounded like an interesting read.

'Welcome To Obamaland' Is A Wake-Up Call For Americans by Cynthia Grenier (more by this author) Posted 02/04/2009 ET


In his subtitle, James Delingpole just about tells the reader exactly what he's going to find as he pages through this sprightly, flip new book, Welcome to Obamaland: "I Have Seen Your Future and It Doesn't Work." Author Delingpole is one of those clever, witty writers so often found in the island across the Atlantic.

His message after giving our present situation a hard look is succinct: "It sucks." And does he have any comfort to help us poor American conservatives face the future? Alas, no. None at all. Mind you, he gives us a lot of pertinent comparisons with what it was like for him living with Tony Blair at the helm in his homeland. And optimistic Delingpole certainly is not.

He gets into the meat, as it were, of the case against Obamaland when he introduces Antonio Gramsci, whom he most accurately describes as "the influential Italian Marxist, who in the early twentieth century formed the devious -- and spot-on correct -- theory that in order to change society the Left would first have to control institutions by which consciousness is formed, perhaps above all, art and the communications industry."

By a most interesting and quite unexpected coincidence, a collection of essays by my late husband, Richard Grenier, published in 1991 bears the appropriate title of "Capturing the Culture"(Gramsci's battle cry: "Capture the culture.") As Grenier defined Gramsci's credo in his introduction, "Culture, Gramsci felt, is not simply the superstructure of an economic base -- the role assigned to it in orthodox Marxism -- but is central to a society."

He goes on to explain that Gramscians would have no chance whatever of "capturing the culture" if it weren't for the spiritual estrangement of the artistic and intellectual classes. "The culture might almost be seen as surrendering to the enemy without need of being captured, and what we are witnessing is certainly is far less the result of a plot or conspiracy from outside than of a transformation from within."

Delingpole nearly always refers to our new president as "your new socialist president," while criticizing his acts, thoughts and such regularly. Needless to say, he is most annoyed by the contributions of former vice president Al Gore, particularly regarding the issue of global warming. "The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear," he quotes President Obama. "Sea levels are rising, coastlines are shrinking, we've seen record drought, spreading famine and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season."

He follows up with a cogent one sentence paragraph: "Few of these statements have any factual basis." He then proceeds to note that "Your new president has gone to the movies. Seen one he particularly likes by a guy named Al. And without bothering to do any background reading, has transformed this guy Al's weird fantasy into official, eye-wateringly expensive U.S. government policy." "Yeah, exactly. That loser presidential candidate you thought you'd escaped forever has snuck in the back door and is gearing up to charge you the earth to "save" the earth. And this time it will take more than a few dimpled chads to stop him."

Delingpole makes for thoroughly entertaining reading while ripping Al Gore's hide to shreds. He calls global warming the latest fashionable variation on original sin, leading him to say that carbon trading and carbon offsetting is the twenty-first century equivalent of medieval indulgences. "You pay your money to some ludicrous charlatan outfit which promises that by planting six mango trees they can magically carbon-neutralize the environment costs of your flight from Washington, D.C., to Heathrow. Et voila: your conscience is salved and the world is saved!"

And we haven't even yet gotten to Delingpole on the subject of polar bears, let alone other vital issues. In his conclusion, he informs the reader that "the land you love has been hijacked by a bunch of left liberal fruitcakes. They don't have much of an idea how to fix the economy. But they do know exactly how to ruin your life. And they will."

Perhaps the most felicitous way of concluding this review is to cite the quote from the late, worthy Samuel Huntington in his The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do." A book not to miss.

Well, the Madoff trials have begun.  This guy who tried to warn the SEC says he feared for his life.  Wow!  Just Wow, that Madoff would be so powerful and ruthless to be able to take a life.  How corrupt is our financial system that he is allowed to get away with this while the SEC purposely looked the other way.