Looks Like the US is headed toward success in Iraq at eh same time it looks like Barack Obama has lost the war in the bloody street of South Chicago from whence he hails.

What the heck has Obama and Rev. Wright organizing in South Chicago anyway? Training centers for street thugs, muggers, dope addicts, drive by shooters and murders?

Can there be any other conclusion?

==============================­============

Sep 4, 2008 12:22 pm US/Central

CHICAGO (CBS) ― An estimated 123 people were shot and killed over the summer. That's nearly double the number of soldiers killed in Iraq over the same time period.

In May, cbs2chicago.com began tracking city shootings and posting them on Google maps. Information compiled from our reporters, wire service reports and the Chicago Police Major Incidents log indicated that 123 people were shot and killed throughout the city between the start of Memorial Day weekend on May 26, and the end of Labor Day on Sept. 1.

According to the Defense Department, 65 soldiers were killed in combat in Iraq. About the same number were killed in Afghanistan over that same period.

In the same time period, an estimated 245 people were shot and wounded in the city.

The South Side's Englewood District, which includes the Englewood and West Englewood neighborhoods on the city's South Side, fared the worst over the summer. A total of 14 people were shot dead there, and 48 were shot and wounded.

The next highest totals came in the Grand Crossing District, which includes the South Shore, Woodlawn, Park Manor and Grand Crossing neighborhoods on the South Side, 12 people were killed and 31 were injured.

Also hit severely by gun violence over the summer was the Ogden District – which includes the Near Southwest Side's Lawndale and Little Village neighborhoods – where 10 people were killed and six were injured.

The South Chicago District on the Southeast Side saw nine people killed and 11 injured, almost all concentrated in the South Chicago and Avalon Park neighborhoods at the north end of the district.

The West Side's Austin District saw also saw nine people killed and 12 injured, while the Far South Side's Calumet District – including the Roseland, Fernwood and Pullman neighborhoods – saw eight killed and 20 injured.

Paul-Z Pal-Z, while I am deeply touched your expressed concern about my native city you have me a bit confused.

I though this election was for the presidency of the United States, not the mayor of Chicago or the President of the Cook County Board of Commisioners. Or are you suggesting that Mayor Daley (God Bless the Daley's, pere et fils, and the Cook County Regular Democratic Organization) has annexed the entire country?

In case he has, how are McCain and Palin going to "What are the planstraighten things out? In the words of Daley, pere, (May He rest in peace and His memory be eternal) "What are their programs? What are their plans? What trees have they planted? What alleys have they lit?"

Those were strangely missing from the McCain-Palin speeches.

And can you tell me where those schools of thuggery, etc are located. I have some leases coming up in "South Chicago" and I suspect that I could get a good farthing from the headmasters of those venerable institutions.

How many Americans are stupid enough to buy it.

Obama & company are toast and will lose by 8% in the popular vote.

Not even close!

And McCain's vision is what? "What are his programs? What are his plans?"

More tax cuts to stimulate higher deficits, a higher public debt and more trips to Premiere Hu's Pay Day Loan Store, more unemployment?

Reducing the capital gains tax as a way of reforming the tax code, changing the income tax to a payroll tax? About wage stagnation?

Letting Sister Sarah speak and watching the stock market go into another tailspin?

What is he planning to do about the nearly 40 million Americans that USDA defines as "food insecure", send more money to Iraq so the Iraqis can increase their budget surplus? By the way, when are they going to start repaying us for our "serrvices" or don't you remember that Georgie-Porgie and Dwarfs Cheney, Clauswitz Runtsfeld and Wolfie of Arabia said this would be a self liquidating war?

Do some thing about healthcare for the 42+ million Americans that are without it because it's no longer affordable? After all, their companies have lost a lot of profits outsourcing manufacturing to bolster bonuses.

What trees is he going to plant, what alleys is he going to light?

Why is it that you and your fellow travellers can't tell me what McCain-Palin are going TO DO rather than offering gratuitous, irrelevant and non-sensical critcism of Obama?

I was referring to health insurance as you well know. And if you doubt that number, then call the HHS Dept and advise them that they are publishing erroneous data. Or has the department been infiltrated by liberal elitists?

Additionally, access is one thing; care, QUALITY CARE, another. And access is not universal. Go ask people who go to Jackson Memorial in Miami or County Hospital in St Louis.

Then there's alway the option of going to a local doctor's office and heaven forbid paying the doctor $50 - 75 for a fee for service office visit instead of buying some crack, coke or pot at an nearby corner.

But for died in the wool liberals like you that would be clearly a misallocation of one's person disposable income.

==============================­===========

In 1986, Congress enacted the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA) to ensure public access to emergency services regardless of ability to pay. Section 1867 of the Social Security Act imposes specific obligations on Medicare-participating hospitals that offer emergency services to provide a medical screening examination (MSE) when a request is made for examination or treatment for an emergency medical condition (EMC), including active labor, regardless of an individual's ability to pay. Hospitals are then required to provide stabilizing treatment for patients with EMCs. If a hospital is unable to stabilize a patient within its capability, or if the patient requests, an appropriate transfer should be implemented.

I take it that you can point me to local doctors who charge $50-75 for an office visit. Where are they, in Butt Fuck, Alaska? And I'm sure that you have documentation for the allegation that people spend that money for crack rather than visiting the doctor.

But relative to EMTALA, seven of eight hospitals in Miami-Dade dropped their Trauma Center Designation, hence now declare themselves incapable of stabilizing patients with acute trauma. They did that because the state wasn't providing sufficient compensation for indigent care.

That puts quite a burden on Jackson Memorial, the public hospital in the county which has a similar compensation issue. When a referendum to increase the sales tax in the county by one-half of one percent, with all that money going to Jackson, it was soundly defeated.

Several years ago, the NYT conducted a study of NYC hospitals and discovered that the indigent as well as people without insurance spent more time waiting in ERs and saw a doctor for less time than their insured counterparts for similar problems. They also were released from hospital confinement sooner.

A Miami Herald study in Miami-Dade replicated those results in the county.

Be that as it made, you're again playing the diversion game. My question to you was What are McCain's visions and plans? Somehow, I seemed to have missed them other than those of the "Stay the Georgie-Porgie course" variety.

And, oh yes, when is the McCain-Palin ticket going to outline their teenage abstention plan?

Now, let's get back to the question I posed: What are McCain's visions? What are his plans, not only for medical

I'm all for you setting up some foundation funded by your personal largess to take care of these people .

I hate to sound callous but it time for the illegals to go HOME.

You know just like ET! GO HOME!

Not me.

I long ago tired of contractors charging journeyman's wages when they send me apprentices and, in a couple instances, "probies"; or, workman who perpetually seem to "forget" a tool in their truck and take 45 minutes to an hour to take an elevator a few floors and walk 50 feet to recover it; cleaning up after them, etc. etc.

But you still have addressed the issue of the McCain/Palin vision or is it in fact staying Georgie-Porgie's "A-" course?