Blue Dog Democrat: All This Town Hall Anger May Not Be So Manufactured After All

As high profile Demorats have been dismissing town-hall protests as "astroturfing", fake grass-roots protests since they started turning against Obamacare. Now, one Democrat, Allen Boyd (FL), may have seen the light that this anger is not so "manufactured" after all:

“They may be in a minority, but they are a larger minority than we’ve seen in the 20-plus years that I’ve been doing this,” said Boyd of the standing-room-only crowds who have been showing up to shout, boo, mutter and, in one case, hand him an actual stack of pink slips since he returned home for recess. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

The overhyped and in many cases fraudulent sense of grass-roots fervor during an August Democrats would like to forget is easy to minimize. But for all the cries of Astroturf fakery and ginned-up crowds, a ground zero view in a district like Boyd’s underlines that a very real sense of anger and frustration is bubbling over as summer wanes.

Sarah Palin: Any Health Care Reform Must Include Tort Reform/Exactly, This Is What GOP Should Be Preaching

For a while, I have been preaching that tort reform is mandatory for any meaningful health care reform. I have been wondering why Republicans weren't talking about it. With all of this discussion about "real" reform, very little has been said about it. Finally, someone has said what needs to be said about this very important issue..

Sarah Palin posted an article on her "Facebook page" this morning which is a very well thought out explanation as to why tort reform is needed.

President Obama's health care "reform" plan has met with significant criticism across the country. Many Americans want change and reform in our current health care system. We recognize that while we have the greatest medical care in the world, there are major problems that we must face, especially in terms of reining in costs and allowing care to be affordable for all. However, as we have seen, current plans being pushed by the Democratic leadership represent change that may not be what we had in mind -- change which poses serious ethical concerns over the government having control over our families’ health care decisions. In addition, the current plans greatly increase costs of health care, while doing lip service toward controlling costs.

She goes on to explain what she (and I) believe is an important part of improving not just the cost and availability but, also, the quality of health care.

So what can we do? First, we cannot have health care reform without tort reform. The two are intertwined. For example, one supposed justification for socialized medicine is the high cost of health care. As Dr. Scott Gottlieb recently noted, “If Mr. Obama is serious about lowering costs, he'll need to reform the economic structures in medicine—especially programs like Medicare.” Two examples of these “economic structures” are high malpractice insurance premiums foisted on physicians (and ultimately passed on to consumers as “high health care costs”) and the billions wasted on defensive medicine.

She quotes Dr. Stuart Weinstein of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons here to he'll explain:

Access is affected as physicians move their practices to states with lower liability rates and change their practice patterns to reduce or eliminate high-risk services. When one considers that half of all neurosurgeons—as well as one third of all orthopedic surgeons, one third of all emergency physicians, and one third of all trauma surgeons—are sued each year, is it any wonder that 70 percent of emergency departments are at risk because they lack available on-call specialist coverage?”

The good doctor listed some estimates by the good doctor as to how much we could save, if we included tort reform.

“If the Kessler and McClellan estimates were applied to total U.S. healthcare spending in 2005, the defensive medicine costs would total between $100 billion and $178 billion per year. Add to this the cost of defending malpractice cases, paying compensation, and covering additional administrative costs (a total of $29.4 billion). Thus, the average American family pays an additional $1,700 to $2,000 per year in healthcare costs simply to cover the costs of defensive medicine. Excessive litigation and waste in the nation’s current tort system imposes an estimated yearly tort tax of $9,827 for a family of four and increases healthcare spending in the United States by $124 billion.

Sarah goes on to give from her own state of Alaska and Texas as shining examples of how real tort reform can decrease costs while increasing the quality and availability of healthcare:

So I have new questions for the president: Why no legal reform? Why continue to encourage defensive medicine that wastes billions of dollars and does nothing for the patients?

Do you want health care reform to benefit trial attorneys or patients? Many states, including my own state of Alaska, have enacted caps on lawsuit awards against health care providers. Texas enacted caps and found that one county’s medical malpractice claims dropped 41 percent, and another study found a “55 percent decline” after reform measures were passed.. That’s one step in health care reform. Limiting lawyer contingency fees, as is done under the Federal Tort Claims Act, is another step. The State of Alaska pioneered the “loser pays” rule in the United States, which deters frivolous civil law suits by making the loser partially pay the winner’s legal bills. Preventing quack doctors from giving “expert” testimony in court against real doctors is another reform.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry noted that, after his state enacted tort reform measures, the number of doctors applying to practice medicine in Texas “skyrocketed by 57 percent” and that the tort reforms “brought critical specialties to underserved areas.” These are real reforms that actually improve access to health care..

Dr. Weinstein’s research shows that around $200 billion per year could be saved with legal reform. That’s real savings. That’s money that could be used to build roads, schools, or hospitals. If you want to save health care, let’s listen to our doctors. There should be no health care reform without legal reform. There can be no true health care reform without legal reform.

Wow! Someone from the right (other than Paul Ryan) is actually thinking about how to counter the Obama and the Democrats' abysmal plan and public option. This is long overdue.

New Jersey Suburb Considering Taking Away Citizens' Right By Enacting Curfew for Adults

Government officials in the New Jersey suburb of Paterson are considering to "implement a curfew" for everyone, adults and children alike, in the town to combat violence that has erupted in the town, if the law is passed next month::

Seeking to curb violence after a spate of deadly summer shootings, Paterson officials are considering an unusual ordinance that would prevent people of all ages from gathering outside in public late at night.

The measure could be the nation's first citywide, non-emergency curfew to include adults, several experts said.

"We're trying to think outside the box," said Mayor Jose Torres. "This was triggered predominantly by fear among city residents over the shootings that have been occurring this summer."

Actually, he trying to think outside the Constitution. The first amendment gives us the right to peacefully assemble at any time not just in the day.

He gives the recent shootings as a reason to take away his citizens rights. However, there have been a fewer amount of murders and shootings, overall, than they did last year. Why is it more important to do this now than before? This is a huge violation of our basic rights.

Video: Seniors Flee Liberally-Minded AARP For More Conservative ASA Amidst Health Care Debate

As I reported "earlier," seniors are becoming incresingly wary of Obamacare. AARP a well-known liberal organization has "paying the price" for Obamacare:

CBS News reports that the AARP’s dance with ObamaCare has produced real results for the senior advocacy group — really bad results.  Over 60,000 members have left the AARP, angered by the group’s support for Barack Obama’s health-care reform efforts and silence on cuts to Medicare that will pay for them.  Many have joined a new group with a more conservative outlook on health-care reform.

While the AARP has benn careful not to endorse Obama's plan, they haven't come close to being too critical of it either. Many seniors worry about the cuts to Medicare and the cost of the program on their grandkids. Those that are fleeing don't feel like the organization that has been around since the late 50's is accurately representing them anymore.

The American Seniors Association, the "conservative alternative" to the AARP for seniors is reaping the benefits. It'll be good to give seniors an alternative to the increasingly liberal AARP.

Houston Obamacare "Supporter" Isn't a Doctor, She Just Plays One at Town Halls

In order to drum up support for Obamacare, liberal astroturf organizations have begun to plant "fake constituents" in the middle of town halls to tout the magnificence that is Obamacare:

Patterico and Lone Star Times capture yet another banner moment from a town-hall forum hosted by Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) . In this clip, Roxana Mayer introduces herself as a doctor (a general practitioner for four years) in order to support ObamaCare and Jackson-Lee in a fairly hostile crowd. For her efforts, she gets a big hug from the Congresswoman, an image which the Houston Chronicle featured prominently on their website coverage of the event.

But was Mayer really a doctor?

Not only was Mayer not a doctor, Roxana Mayer was an Obama delegate, as Patterico discovered with some digging.  What’s more, the Houston Chronicle apparently knew this and failed to include it in its glowing coverage of Mayer’s appearance.  The reporter, Cindy Horswell, has admitted that she knew Mayer was an Obama delegate and that Mayer did’t live in Jackson-Lee’s district when she wrote the Chronicle story.  After getting exposed, the Chronicle quietly changed the caption on the photo without issuing a correction, removing the reference to Mayer being a doctor.

To be fair, there is no proof that Obama, any other Democrat in Congress, or Organizing for America had any direct knowledge of her deception. All I know is that she is an Obama delegate, and that sounds mighty "fishy". So, I'm forwarding this story to flag@whitehouse.gov so they can investigate the matter further.

Stabenow (D): Rise of Hurricanes Are Reality of Climate Change; Halfway Through Hurricane Season: 0 Named Storms

Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow out of Michigan gives us another example of proof of what Obama warned us about: politicians saying what they need to "scare the heck" out of the American people to get their agenda passed::

"Climate change is very real," she confessed as she embraced cap and trade's massive tax increase on Michigan industry - at the same time claiming, against all the evidence, that it would not lead to an increase in manufacturing costs or energy prices. "Global warming creates volatility. I feel it when I'm flying. The storms are more volatile. We are paying the price in more hurricanes and tornadoes."

However, we are now about the halfway point of the hurricane season, and we haven't heard a peep out of the Atlantic. There have been no named storms, only a couple tropical depressions. This time last year we were on number five, and four named storms the year before that this time last year. What increase is she talking about?

Looking at the number of tornadoes this year, I don't see any dramatic increase there, either.

Obama: AARP Wants Obamacare; AARP: Um, No, We Don't

Obama put his foot squarely in his mouth, yet again:

At the town hall in Portsmouth, N.H., Obama said, "We have the AARP onboard because they know this is a good deal for our seniors." He added, "AARP would not be endorsing a bill if it was undermining Medicare."

However, the AARP president had a distinctly different story to tell::

But Tom Nelson, AARP's chief operating officer, said, "Indications that we have endorsed any of the major health care reform bills currently under consideration in Congress are inaccurate."

Like Obama, AARP wants action this year to cover the uninsured and restrain health care costs, but the organization has refrained from endorsing legislation. Nelson said AARP would not endorse a bill that reduces Medicare benefits.

As seniors become increasingly wary of Obamacare's impact on their personal medical care, the AARP, normally a liberal ally, has been reluctant to sign on to the Democrats' current bill 100%.

As a side comment on something Obama said in that town hall:

"Where we do disagree, let's disagree over things that are real, not these wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to anything that's actually been proposed," he said. "Because the way politics works sometimes is that people who want to keep things the way they are will try to scare the heck out of folks, and they'll create boogeymen out there."

Obama, those that want to drastically change things try to "scare the heck" out of people, too. Just take a look at Boxer, the Goracle,or maybe even look in a mirror.

My Oma & Opa (Grandparents) Don't Like Obamacare Either; You Might Be Surprised Why

My grandparents aren't alone. Senior citizens all over the country have become increasingly discouraged about what they've heard of Obamacare, so far. According to a recent Gallup Poll, they have a few reasons why they don't like it. This part of their suspicion of Obamacare shouldn't be a shock to most people:

Seniors are the least likely of all age groups in the U.S. to say that health care reform will benefit their personal health care situation. By a margin of three to one, 36% to 12%, adults 65 and older are more likely to believe health care reform will reduce rather than expand their access to health care. And by 39% to 20%, they are more likely to say their own medical care will worsen rather than improve.

Their own well-being and health care isn't the only thing giving them reservations:

In addition to being less likely to believe health care reform will improve their own medical care and access, seniors are far less likely than younger adults to believe the country as a whole will benefit. Only a quarter of seniors, versus about half of those 18 to 49 and 50 to 64 years, believe a reform law would expand access to health care nationally.

Why do they believe it won't benefit is why some are surprised by these polls. Only 13% believe that health care costs will be reduced, and 36% believe they will increase. They are worried about their grandkids still paying for their health care when they get the grandparents age.

Predictable: Cash-For-Clunkers Goes Bankrupt; House Races to Bailout Program; Schumer Wants More

As I reported back in June, the Cash-for-Clunkers is a disaster of an idea as the government ran out of money almost as soon as they started and became "nightmare now for everyone involved."

The House has already approved $2 Billion more to prop up this "clunker" of a government program. Apparently that isn't enough for the senator from New York, Chuck Schumer, isn't satisfied with that amount. He wants double:

Senator Charles Schumer, one of the original sponsors of the bill, said the program ran out of money because skin flints in the Senate wouldn't give him the $4 billion he wanted for the program, which gives people up to $4,500 toward buying fuel efficient cars to replace their old gas guzzlers.

He took it even further to mock those who didn't want to give him more of your money to begin with:

"There were people in the Senate who didn't like the program and they said 'We won't let it go through. We will filibuster. Try $1 billion and see if it works,'" Schumer said.

He said those senators now have egg on their face.

"This week's evidence shows that people who said the program wouldn't work, who said that the program was the wrong thing to do, are very wrong themselves," Schumer said.

I think we differ in our understanding of "works". If he defines it as people are bringing in the cars to sell their cars for up to about 7x as much as anyone would pay for it, if they would pay for it at all. Then, ya, it works. The fact that people would do sell their cars for much more than they're worth was never in doubt. I would do the same.

The way that I think most other people define "works" it doesn't even come close to working. Car dealers say that it is a mess. It's going to take billions of our money to get ALL of the "clunkers" off the road. That is money that we don't have in our proverbial pockets. We must to borrow it from China and he to pay interest on the loan. There is very little return on our investment. We are not going to be able to sell the cars that are being bought. Therefore, we are never going to get that $1B back. If the extra $2B expansion goes through, that money will not be seen again, either. Do we really want Chuck to have his way and up the ante up to $5 Billion total?

With Obama's Poll Numbers Tanking, Hillary Clinton Keeps Her Election Team On Stand-by

Over the last few weeks, Obama has been hitting new record lows approval number almost every day. His stimulus bill was very unpopular and getting more so everyday as it's ineffectiveness has become well known, and Obamacare and Cap-and-Tax are heading in the same direction. With all of this negative momentum, Hillary is quietly keeping the bulls-eye on Obama for 2012:

Hillary Clinton says running for office isn't on her "radar," but she still has an eight-person political team and sports two overflowing campaign war chests.

Her team transformed the former Democratic White House contender's massive campaign debts into a $3 million mountain of political cash, according to federal fund-raising records through the end of June.

Clinton's failed presidential bid is now $1 million in the black, and her old Senate campaign committee has $2.1 million in the bank, much of it transferred in from the presidential account.

With his numbers falling faster than a mobster swimming with cement boots on, Hillary is keeping the possiblility of another run at the White House within grasp. I don't blame her Obama's blood is starting to get into the water, and she's looking to take advantage, if given the chance. Her ambition is well-known, and I don't believe for one minute that she ever has taken her eyes off that prize. Obama's "Team of Rivals" are going to implode, if things continue as they have.

Geithner to Chinese: Don't Worry, Trust Us; We'll Only Spend What We Need to Spend

After China expressed reservations about Obama's current spending habits, Little Timmy Geithner tried to reassure them by telling them, basically, not to worry and trust us. We'll stop spending whenever our economy stable:

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says he has reassured China that the United States will take steps to address rising budget deficits once the economic recovery is firmly in place.

China has huge investments in the United States and has worried it could be undermined by U.S. budget deficits. Geithner says the Obama administration plans to reverse the spending of hundreds of billions of dollars devoted to stimulating the economy and propping up a teetering financial system.

I'm sure that was a huge relief to China, the country that holds most of our national debt in their hands. The real question is when will Obama and the Democrats feel that the economy is stable enough to stop. The whole point is speculative, at best. "Stable" is a relative term. Democrats' could drag this deficit spending bonanza as long as they see fit.

Governator Finds Fiscal Backbone; Uses Line-Item Veto to Cut $656M Democrats Refused to Cut

Schwarzenegger finds his fiscally responsible backbone and stands up to Democrats in the state legislature:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger made additional cuts to child welfare programs, medical care for the poor and AIDS prevention efforts Tuesday as he signed an $85 billion compromise spending plan that he called "the good, the bad and the ugly."

Schwarzenegger used his line-item veto authority to save an additional $656 million that will let the state restore a reserve fund he says is needed for tough times.

While "child welfare programs, medical care for the poor and AIDS prevention efforts" are all well and good, they are not too big and need to be trimmed down, or the whole state government will fall into bankruptcy. It's about time, we saw Arnold return to what brought him to the dance in the first place, that is being fiscally responsible.

Heath Care Reform Will Help the Retarded or Something

After Obama's Special Olympics comment a few months ago, you would think that House Democrats would be a little more careful with their choice of words:

The proposed health-insurance bill from the House of Representatives refers to mentally disabled people as "retarded" -- a term advocates, relatives and physicians find outdated and offensive. The bill refers to: "A hospital or a nursing facility or intermediate-care facility for the mentally retarded . . ."

The phrase could cause more problems with groups for the developmentally disabled, who were angered when President Obama referred to his poor bowling skills on "The Tonight Show" as "like the Special Olympics." Obama later apologized.

More Taxes on Poor In Order to Help the Poor: New "Fat Tax" on Sodas Proposed

Many critics of Obamacare have questioned Obama's ability to pay for his multi-trillion dollar health care plan. Democrats have responded with the same type of plan that Democrats' always come up with to pay for anything. They want to raise taxes on everyone:

While Democrats await the results of bipartisan negotiations over health care reform in the Senate Finance Committee, one of the proposals put before the committee received a nod of approval from health officials today: taxing soda.

If enacted, there will be a three-cent tax on sugary drinks including: pop, energy, and sports drinks like Gatorade. Last time I checked, Coca-Cola wasn't consumed just by rich people. The lower income families, also, consume such beverages.

In addition to taxing the poor again, it is, also, another example of Democrats trying to tell us that they know better than us how to live our own lives.

Like the soda tax, S-CHIP, the $1 per pack cigarette tax that Democrats say will partially pay for government-subsidised health care for children, was an earlier example of Nanny State Law that are designed to force us to do what Democrats deem better for us.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that a three-cent tax would generate $24 billion over the next four years, and proponents of the tax argued before the committee that it would lower consumption of sugary drinks and improve Americans' overall health.

At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's "Weight of the Nation" conference today, CDC chief Dr. Thomas Freiden said increasing the price of unhealthy foods "would be effective" at combating the nation's obesity problem, reports CBS News chief political consultant Marc Ambinder.

Anyway you look at it, this is another tax on those who make less than $250,000 and another possible broken campaign promise for Obama.

Blue Dog Democrat: Waxman Lied to Me, Democrats Declare Civil War Over Obamacare

There seems to be battle lines are being drawn in between the more moderate and liberal (boderline socialist) wings of the Democratic Party:

The Democratic Party is at war with itself, trying to pump out a deal on health care reform without fracturing on the floor of Congress.

Negotiations broke down Friday afternoon, at least temporarily, between party leaders and the group of fiscally conservative Democrats known as the Blue Dogs, who are trying to win concessions on the health care package.

"It pretty much fell apart this afternoon," said Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., part of the Blue Dog Coalition.

"I've been lied to. I've not had legitimate negotiations," Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-La., another Blue Dog, said after talks hit a wall between his group and Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

It didn't take long for the Democrats to start turning on each other. Obama and company have over reached, and now, the American people are having buyer's remorse. They see all of the deficit spending in the stimulus package that has done nothing as employment continues to go up. They see twice as much spending in Obamacare than the porkulus, and they don't like it. Polls have consistently shown the majority of Americans are uneasy or outright oppose the plan. These unhappy citizens are twittering, calling, emailing, protesting, and petitioning their Congressmen and women to kill the bill.

The Democrats that reside in more moderate districts and states have started to feel the pressure from their constituents and are starting to feel that their political futures in danger, if they continues supporting Obama's free-spending policies. So, Pelosi and Reid are losing support very slowly because of the plummetting approval ratings of Obama and his policies..

Dallas: Anti-Obamacare Protesters Attract At Least Quadruple Pro-Obamacare MoveOn Protesters at Rally

MoveOn.org member and spokeswoman, Paula Anderson, found a big surprise when her and her band of around 30 merry protesters showed up at Senator Cornyn's Dallas office to pressure the Republican Texas Senator to back Obamacare:

Local MoveOn.org members had penciled in on today's schedule a protest in front of Senator John Cornyn's Spring Valley Road office, during which they had hoped to pressure the senator to support President Barack Obama's public health care legislation.

But when Paula Anderson, a MoveOn.org member and spokeswoman, showed up at 11:30 a.m., she found another contingent had beat her to the proverbial punch: A large number of Dallas Tea Party members were already set up, voicing their opposition to the proposal. Anderson was stunned: "We really did not expect them to show up." She estimated the crowd at about 130. "From our perspective we took names of everyone there, and we had about 30 people," she told Unfair Park. "And I would assume they maybe had 100."

Exactly how many each side had is an open debate as there isn't any official head count. The general feeling is MoveOn had somewhere around 20-30 protesters, and the TEA partiers had 200-300 protesters. Obviously, it varies on which side you ask.

In the grand scheme of things, the exact number is irrelevant. The main point is MoveOn barely mustered a small fraction of support than the TEA party coalition could. According to Rasmussen, support for Obama has fallen under 50% for the first time in his presidency. Support for his actual policies are even lower. His honeymoon with America is long over. Now, people are waking up from thinking they elected another Bill Clinton to realizing they, actually, elected another Jimmy Carter.

Democrats Are Playing Hide-N-Seek With Official Obamacare Charts From GOP House Committee Members

Is Pelosi trying to hide the truth about Obama's healthcare plan from the public? It sure seems like it:

House Republicans suggested Thursday that Speaker Nancy Pelosi is standing in the way of Republicans sending to constituents a chart that is in the official record of the House Ways and Means Committee.

The chart, recently submitted for the record during a Ways and Means hearing on the Democrats' health care reform bill, shows the Republican interpretation of the Democrats' proposed legislation. The Franking Commission, which is responsible for determining which mailings can be paid for with the congressional frank, or stamp, deemed the mailing unacceptable.

Is there something that they're trying to hide in it? Why are they making it so hard for the Republicans to send this out to their constituents?

Did Obama Just Imply That More Goverment in Healthcare Means Less Bureaucracy?

Something Obama said during a town-hall earlier today was very peculiar:

"(Cleveland Clinic) set up a system where patient care is the No. 1 concern, not bureaucracy, what forms have to be filled out, 'What do we get reimbursed for?"' Obama said. "Those are changes that I think the American people want to see."

Yes, Obama people want to see less bureaucracy and patient care to be #1, but what you are proposing won't lead to less bureaucracy.

This statement is a bit off an oxymoron when you consider that what Obama is proposing is at least a partial government takeover of the healthcare system. Have you ever hear of anything becoming less bureaucratic after government gets involved? I haven't. The inconvenient truth for Obama in this quote is that more government intervention never means less bureaucracy. It always means more red tape and paperwork. More people have to ok an expenditure when taxpayer money is involved.

Does Obama know how government programs work?

Shocker: Democrat Barbara Boxer Racially "Condescending" to Black President, CEO

Democrats for sometime have been talking down to minorities. They believe in the nanny state because deep down they think that we can' t take care of ourselves. That in itself is a bit condescending to all of us but especially minorities who tend to be poorer.

Sen. Barbara Boxer recently was called out for doing just that when talking with a black businessman during a committee hearing:

"We are referring to the experts regardless of their color," he said. "And for someone to tell me, an African-American, college-educated veteran of the United States Army that I must contend with some other black group and put aside everything else in there. This has nothing to do with the NAACP and really has nothing to do with the National Black Chamber of Commerce. We're talking energy and that road the chair (Boxer) went down, I think, is god-awful."

Basically, she implied that just because another black businessman of an entirely different organization, NAACP, agreed with her that he must also agree with her. This was insulting to the president and CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce.

New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine (D) Is Not Shy About Showing His Obama Love

Democratic New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine introduced "The One" today and didn't hold back showing his man crush to the whole world:

Introduced by Corzine as "our greatest president in this 21st century," Obama stuck up for the embattled Democratic governor, saying Corzine had been "tested by the worst recession in half a century"

That is a bit misleading considering that there has been only two presidents so far this century, and Obama, himself, has only been in office for six months. So, there isn't much of a track record to compare to Bush accurately.

This is a bit risky for Corzine because he is in a tight battle with the Republican Christopher Christie. In fact, Christie has been leading most of the polls recently even though New Jersey is generally heavily Democratic and virtually unwinnable for the GOP in statewide elections. Obama's personal popularity is still high, but his job approval numbers have plummeted and policy approval ratings have mostly tanked as well. So, Obama it could end up hurting in the long run, if Obama's numbers continues to drop like a stone like they have over the last few weeks.