Panther Politicization at Obama DOJ

While New Black Panther thugs intimidate voters at polling booths with billy clubs, one of the worst cases of voter intimidation, Attorney General Eric Holder gives them a pass. Liberty or Tyranny?


Panther Politicization at Obama DoJ
The Heritage Foundation / The Foundry
Posted July 31st, 2009

The Washington Times has published more follow-up stories today and yesterday about the Justice Department’s dismissal of a voter intimidation lawsuit against the New Black Panther Party (a racist hate group according to the Southern Poverty Law Center) – despite the fact that the defendants defaulted and failed to answer the complaint. The new revelation is that Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli approved the dismissal. He is the No. 3 official at Justice and is a political appointee who raised $500,000 for President Obama’s campaign.

There is no doubt that this was one of the worst cases of voter intimidation the Department has seen in decades, but it was against militant black defendants, not white defendants. This is exactly the kind of situation that upsets the traditional civil rights community, which does not believe that federal voting rights laws should be used to protect white voters. The Department’s weak and belated explanation for the dismissal of this suit is frankly absurd.
The Department’s spokeswoman says that “the facts and the law did not support pursuing the claims.” Really? Then why is the Department refusing to allow the trial team who actually investigated the “facts and the law” or the chief of the Voting Section who supervised the investigation to brief members of Congress? We all know why – because those lawyers would dispute the spurious claim being made by their political superiors.

Justice even sent a letter to Cong. Lamar Smith claiming that one of the defendants was dismissed because he was a resident of the building in which the polling place was located, a “fact” that is completely false. The Department’s own pleadings publicly filed in court in Philadelphia, as well as a poll watcher certificate issued to the defendant by the Democratic Party, show that that this defendant did not live at the polling place (a senior living center). This basic factual error shows just how unimportant the real facts were to those dismissing the case. And that defendant, whose MySpace page lists one of his general interests as “Killing Crakkkas,” was dismissed just in time to be reappointed as a poll watcher for the May 19 primary in Philadelphia!

To try to bolster this political decision, the acting head of the Civil Rights Division even ordered the Appellate Section in the Division to review the Voting Section’s work, something totally unprecedented. She must have been sorely disappointed when, in direct conflict to what the Department is now claiming, the Appellate Section provided an opinion that the case was completely justified. The acting head, by the way, although a career lawyer, is in a political position under the Vacancy Reform Act and was appointed by President Obama. I worked with her for four years when I was in the Civil Rights Division. She talked about resigning when I was there to run as a Democratic candidate in Maryland and is as political as any political appointee at Justice.

The message from the Justice Department with this dismissal is that if you are a member of a black hate group, you can intimidate, threaten, and hurl racial epithets at white voters and poll watchers and the Justice Department will give you a pass. We all know that if it had been the Ku Klux Klan or the Aryan Brotherhood at the polls in Philadelphia acting in this manner towards black voters, Associate Attorney General Perelli and Attorney General Holder would never have even considered dismissing the case. They would be bragging in the press about their pursuit of a civil injunction against all of these defendants, and would be pressing the Criminal Division at Justice to indict them on criminal charges.

Clunkers, A Case Study in Why Obamanomics Is Failing

As if we didn't need another reason to reject government run health care, the government run 'Cash for Clunkers' program has been suspended (or in trouble). Add this program to the list: Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, Amtrak, the Post Office, and our school system to name a few.

We can also add to the list "jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs" to quote Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi -- temporary as they may be, and non-existent as they may be. Heritage lays it all out for us:


Cash for Clunkers, A Case Study in Why Obamanomics Is Failing
The Heritage Foundation

If you watch television you’ve seen the ads: “So bring in that old jalopy and get up to $4500 towards the purchase of a new or select used vehicle. That’s right get up to $4500 for that old piece of junk, plus you keep the rebates. You have to hurry! Since funds are limited for this program it’s first come first served!” Well we’re about to find out just how limited those funds were. The Obama administration’s cash-for-clunkers program has been such a “success” that in just the first week of full implementation, the $1 billion originally allocated for the program is about to be exhausted already. Does this mean the program is over? We don’t know. Nobody does. And that is just the beginning of why this program is a perfect illustration of why Obamanomics will fail.

Does Nothing for Environment: Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Susan Collins (R-ME) are open to allocating more money for the program, but only if the rules are changed so that the program might actually do something for environment; because right now it is not. Edmunds.com auto analyst Jessica Caldwell explains why: “What you buy has to have an increase in fuel economy from what you traded in. But in some cases, that increase can be minimal. Owners of large pickup trucks like a Ford F150 only have to buy a replacement that increases efficiency by one mile per gallon. And they still get a $3,500 rebate. The environmental impact is negligible and the impact on national fuel demand and consumption is very small. The only real benefit in a like-for-like swap can be improved emissions standards on newer vehicles. Rather than discourage those people, they included them in this program.” Caldwell didn’t even mention the pollution costs of actually building a new car and the disposal of the old car, rather than just the pollution caused by driving the vehicle.

Hurts Working Americans: The federal government’s push to help auto makers has unintended consequences which will hut many lower-income Americans. Economist, Freakonomics author and New York Times blogger Steven Levitt writes: “People who drive clunkers are generally not in the market for new cars. Presumably their replacement car will be a used car. The increased demand for used cars will lead to higher prices for used cars.” Driving up the cost of older cars may be an intended consequence for policymakers to encourage people to buy new, but it’s a bad deal for consumers.

Hurts Charities: Speaking of ads, you probably have heard a ton on the radio from charities asking you to donate your old in exchange for a tax deduction. Do a Google search of “Donating Cars for Charity” and you will see a list of charities that cash-for-clunkers is taking money from.

Further Entangles Government in Market: The program has already spent $150 million and has another $800 million to $850 million in obligations. What that means is that the nation’s auto dealers have already paid car buyers almost a billion dollars but are still waiting for their cash from the federal government. The USA Today reports: “Carmakers and dealers have booked expensive advertising to capitalize on buyers’ interest in CARS, and now will be left promoting a tie-in with a discontinued government program — one that wasn’t supposed to end until Nov. 1. “Disappointed,” said Chrysler spokesman Scott Brown. “It’s too late to recall the ads,” says Beau Boeckmann of Galpin Ford, the nation’s largest Ford dealer, in Los Angeles. “We had increased our ad budget to get the word out. We are very heavy on radio, newspaper and getting direct mail together,” Boeckmann says. “Now what do you tell people when they walk in” for a clunker deal? “It’s tough.”

Only Adds to Debt: Just this week, President Barack Obama told Business Week: “We’re not going to be able to drive the next big stretch of economic growth through debt.” But the first $1 billion was also deficit spending, and the extra $3 to $4 billion needed to fully fund the program will also have to be borrowed. And much like most government programs, Congress was incapable of actually estimating how much it would cost. They are now facing the prospect of tripling down on a program only a week after it began.

When President Obama bailed out General Motors he told the nation his administration: “will not interfere with or exert control over day-to-day company operations.” But despite what he may believe, his cash for clunkers program does exactly that: it significantly interferes with the day-to-day operations of millions of companies nation wide. In that same Business Week interview mentioned above, Obama says: “What you haven’t seen from our Administration is a suggestion of a bunch of command-and-control, top-down, heavy-handed bureaucratic regulations that would bog businesses down.” But that is exactly what the cash-for-clunkers is. The fact that Obama doesn’t understand this basic economic fact should truly frighten all Americans as he plots more non-"command-and-control, top-down, heavy-handed bureaucratic regulations" for the health care, energy, and financial sectors. As one auto dealer told CBS News: “If they can’t administer a program like this, I’d be a little concerned about my health insurance.”

TOP 10 REASONS OBAMACARE IS WRONG FOR AMERICA

We've seen arguments on both sides of the fence regarding government run health care, and by now are dizzy with all of it. The problem is .... this is so critical, on several points -- The future of our health care is in jeopardy; the take over of several private industries; the attack on our free market society; our Gross Domestic Product will increase by at least another 15%.

The health care bill is 1018 pages long, and thank goodness there are knowledgeable people analysing its content, but leave it to the Heritage Foundation to come up with a Top Ten List:


Top 10 Reasons Obamacare Is Wrong for America

1. Millions Will Lose Their Current Insurance. Period. End of Story: President Obama wants Americans to believe they can keep their insurance if they like, but research from the government, private research firms, and think tanks show this is not the case. Proposed economic incentives, plus a government-run health plan like the one proposed in the House bill, would cause 88.1 million people to see their current employer-sponsored health plan disappear.

2. Your Health Care Coverage Will Probably Change Anyway: Even if you kept your private insurance, eventually most remaining plans—whether employer plans or individual plans—would have to conform to new federal benefit standards. Moreover, the necessary plan “upgrades” will undoubtedly cost you more in premiums.

3. The Umpire Is Also the First Baseman: The main argument for a “public option” is that it would increase competition. However, if the federal government creates a health care plan that it controls and also sets the rules for the private plans, there is little doubt that Washington would put its private sector “competitors” out of business sooner or later.

4. The Fed Picks Your Treatment: President Obama said: “They’re going to have to give up paying for things that don’t make them healthier. … If there’s a blue pill and a red pill, and the blue pill is half the price of the red pill and works just as well, why not pay half for the thing that’s going to make you well.” Does that sound like a government that will stay out of your health care decisions.

5. Individual Mandate Means Less Liberty and More Taxes: Although he once opposed the idea, President Obama is now open to the imposition of an individual mandate that would require all Americans to have federally approved health insurance. This unprecedented federal directive not only takes away your individual freedom but could cost you as well. Lawmakers are considering a penalty or tax for those who don’t buy government-approved health plans.

6. Higher Taxes Than Europe Hurt Small Businesses: A proposed surtax on the wealthy will actually hit hundreds of thousands of small business owners who are dealing with a recession. If it is enacted, America’s top earners and job creators will carry a larger overall tax burden than France, Italy, Germany, Japan, etc., with a total average tax rate greater than 52%. Is that the right recipe for jobs and wage growth?

7. Who Makes Medical Decisions? What is the right medical treatment and should bureaucrats determine what Americans can or cannot have? While the House and Senate language is vague, amendments offered in House and Senate committees to block government rationing of care were routinely defeated. Cost or a federal health board could be the deciding factors. President Obama himself admitted this when he said, “Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller,” when asked about an elderly woman who needed a pacemaker.

8. Taxpayer-Funded Abortions? Nineteen Democrats recently asked the President to not sign any bill that doesn’t explicitly exclude “abortion from the scope of any government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan” or any bill that allows a federal health board to “recommend abortion services be included under covered benefits or as part of a benefits package.” Currently, these exclusions do not exist.

9. It’s Not Paid For: The CBO says the current House plan would increase the deficit by $239 billion over 10 years. And that number will likely continue to rise over the long term. Similar entitlement bills in the past, including Medicare, have scored much lower than their actual eventual cost.

10. Rushing It, Not Reading It: We’ve been down this road before—with the failed stimulus package. Back then, we also heard that we were in a crisis and that we needed to pass a 1,000-plus-page bill in a few hours—without reading it—or we would have 8% unemployment. Well, we know what happened. Now, one Congressman has even said it’s pointless to read one of the reform bills without two days and two lawyers to make sense of it. Deception is the only reason to rush through a bill nobody truly understands.

BEERESTRIOKA: DRINKING TO DISTRACTION

In honor of tonight’s Beer Fest and since the “teachable moment” is for Obama and Gates only, I found this piece amusing from MichelleMalkin.com:


BEERESTROIKA: DRINKING TO DISTRACION
By Doug Powers • July 30, 2009

Today’s the big day. The Obama/Gates/Crowley “beer summit” will take place at about 6 p.m. on a picnic table on the South Lawn of the White House, where every belch will be filled with hope and each beer can pyramid supported by change.

Fortunately for Professor Gates, unless he has a horrible pilot, he won’t have to fly over North Carolina to get to DC.

President Obama will then sit down with Gates and Crowley to discuss in part how they can help get rid of all-too-common racial and ethnic stereotypes — as the three Irishmen drink the afternoon away in front of the entire world.

That brings up another troublesome item — did you notice that when things went bad on the public relations front for a proud “black scholar” and the country’s first African-American president, all of a sudden everybody was Irish? What gives? Are they essentially blaming their race-baiting knee-jerk statements on this one particular singled-out slice of ancestry? If so, this isn’t the kind of racial “healing” I was hoping for.

You might imagine that enterprising Cambridge burglars are now well aware that people in Gates’ neighborhood are going to be terrified to call the police and report crimes for fear of being branded “racist,” but that’s an issue for Gates’ neighbors to take up with the professor when he gets back to his home that hopefully still has all his stuff in it.

Enjoy your beers, fellas — and I sincerely hope that Officer Crowley invites Gates and Obama to his police station for coffee with his fellow officers. The offer probably wouldn’t be accepted (in the progressive ideology, there’s such a thing as “too much healing”), but it would be a nice gesture nonetheless.

Conan O’Brien put it best: “If this works out, the president is going to have Netanyahu and Ahmadinejad over for Jägerbombs.”

OBAMA'S GREAT HEALTH SCARE

While some Chicago-style thugocracy goes on behind closed doors in Congress this week, we have a President appearing in one of his daily, carefully hand-picked Townhall meetings deceiving the American public. Karl Rove, former senior advisor and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush, breaks down the myth of the uninsured and the double-speak coming from the White House.

Rove states some startling numbers from the CBO (the bi-partisan Congressional Budget Office) and an analysis by Keith Hennessey, former National Economic Council director for President Bush – both carefully researched and read, as opposed to Congress.


OBAMA'S GREAT HEALTH SCARE
By Karl Rove - July 30, 2009

On the campaign trail last year, Barack Obama promised to end the “politics of fear and cynicism.” Yet he is now trying to sell his health-care proposals on fear.

At his news conference last week, he said “Reform is about every American who has ever feared that they may lose their coverage, or lose their job. . . . If we do not reform health care, your premiums and out-of-pocket costs will continue to skyrocket. If we do not act, 14,000 Americans will continue to lose their health insurance every single day. These are the consequences of inaction.”

A Fox News Poll from last week shows that 84% of Americans who have health insurance are happy with their coverage. And because 91% of all Americans have insurance, that means that 76% of all Americans will be concerned about anything that threatens their current coverage. By a 2-1 margin, according to the Fox Poll, Americans want coverage from a private provider rather than the government.

Facing numbers like these, Mr. Obama is dropping his high-minded rhetoric and instead trying to scare voters. During last week’s news conference, for example, he said that doctors routinely perform unnecessary tonsillectomies on children simply to fatten their wallets. All that was missing was the suggestion that the operations were conducted without anesthesia.

This is not a healthy way to wage a policy debate. It also risks making the president look desperate at a time when his proposals are looking increasingly too expensive for Americans to accept.

Last weekend, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) demolished Mr. Obama’s claims that his plan cuts the growth of future health spending and won’t add to the deficit. Responding to a White House proposal to create an independent panel to recommend Medicare cuts, the CBO said on Saturday that “The probability is high that no savings would be realized” in the next decade, while entitlement spending would rise $1.042 trillion. The CBO did say there might be $2 billion in savings in the second decade of the program—a pittance.

White House Budget Director Peter Orszag shot back at the CBO with a blog posting on the White House’s Web site arguing, “the point of the proposal . . . was never to generate savings over the next decade.” Really? The White House rolled out the proposal hoping to give cover to Blue Dog Democrats in Congress barking about the cost of overhauling health care.

The House version of ObamaCare adds to the deficit even though the new taxes to pay for part of it begin two years before the program itself kicks in. That head start puts ObamaCare in the black through 2013. But net new spending after that overwhelms future revenue to add to the deficit each year.

Keith Hennessey, who was a National Economic Council director for George W. Bush, estimates the annual deficits in Mr. Obama’s plan will grow to $64 billion a year by 2019. And this assumes that Mr. Obama gets all the tax increases and Medicare cuts he wants.

On Sunday, the CBO released another torpedo at the burning hull of USS ObamaCare. Responding to an inquiry by Rep. David Camp (R., Mich.) about whether the House bill would run a deficit in its second decade, the CBO reported it would “probably generate substantial increases in federal budget deficits during the decade beyond the current 10-year budget window.” The CBO does not believe that Mr. Obama’s proposal “bends” health-care spending down, as the president has repeatedly claimed it would. The CBO says it escalates above today’s rate.

By 2029, Mr. Hennessey estimates that new taxes will bring in $143 billion a year, while net new health spending will have increased by $348 billion a year.

Damaging reports from the CBO had earlier provoked some Chicago-style intimidation, with the president summoning CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf to the Oval Office. It’s safe to assume that they didn’t talk about the Chicago White Sox. Imagine if Mr. Bush had done that after the CBO released numbers that undercut the centerpiece of his domestic agenda. “White House thuggery” and “intimidation” would have been the theme of nearly every editorial writer in the country.

Team Obama’s pressure, however, might have caused the CBO to release its latest missives on a weekend, when fewer people are paying attention to the news.

Mr. Obama’s problem is that nine out of 10 Americans would likely get worse health care if ObamaCare goes through. Of those who do not have insurance—and who therefore might be better off—approximately one-fifth are illegal aliens, nearly three-fifths make $50,000 or more a year and can afford insurance, and just under a third are probably eligible for Medicaid or other government programs already.

For the slice of the uninsured that is left—perhaps about 2% of all American citizens—Team Obama would dismantle the world’s greatest health-care system. That’s a losing proposition, which is why Mr. Obama is increasingly resorting to fear and misleading claims. It’s all the candidate of hope has left.

MALKIN GOES #1. LEFTIST HORDE ATTACKS

Michelle Malkin has written another page turner, and her timing couldn't be better. Her new book, Culture of Corruption, is already a best seller and already attracting hordes of attacks by the left.

Erick Erickson discusses her new book in RedState:


MALKIN GOES #1. LEFTIST HORDE ATTACKS
by Erick Erickson, July 28, 2009

Michelle Malkin has done it again — another best seller. Her new book Culture of Corruption is soaring to #1 on the best sellers lists and it’s no secret why — it is a devastating blow to Barack Obama and, unlike the reality based community, is actually based on real facts.

Naturally, the leftist horde has assembled to attack her and seek to discredit her. No, they are not seeking to discredit her book, but her personally. That’s natural. Michelle did a hell of a job documenting everything she says with lots and lots of notes.

Her book is particularly timely because of the healthcare debate. In the book, she documents how Barry O’s wife got a job via earmarks at the University of Chicago’s hospital and then administered a program engaged in patient dumping.

The high-paying “community affairs” post was another make-work job no one else at the university needed to do until Michelle Obama came along. And it was a job no one else needed to fill after she left. In January 2009, Mrs. Obama’s indispensable job was eliminated as part of a massive restructuring to cut annual budget costs by 7 percent. . . . Unfortunately for many of Chicago’s poor, Mrs. Obama didn’t depart until after she helped engineer a rather un-progressive and unkind plan to dump low-income patients with non-urgent complaints from the medical center.

It’s all there and all documented. It’s also a number one best seller. It’s available right here. http://tinyurl.com/luqxy7

Oh, and full disclosure, Regnery Publishing, which is also owned by RedState’s Beltway Overlords, published the book. That just means I got a free copy to review.

What Would the Founders Think of ObamaCare?

When you continually take from the well, and give nothing back – the well will run dry. As Margaret Thatcher once said “the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”

There’s a lot of buzz in Washington today – will they, before the break, vote on government-run health care or won’t they? While they play games with our lives, I want to share a great piece by Matt Patterson in PajamasMedia on why healthcare is not a right.

I read an American's comment on this, that "This isn't in our Constitution either:

'You have no choice..
You will be told when you can live..
Where you can live..
How you can live..
And how and when you will die..'

The American people are just about ready to make this clear to Obama and Congress."
Thanks, Patriot


What Would the Founders Think of ObamaCare?
The "liberty-mad" rebels would have a tough time understanding how anyone could support the president's health care vision.
July 29, 2009 - by Matt Patterson

Is health care a “right?”

The liberal wing of the Democratic Party has long sought to make it so, and they may be on the verge of achieving their goal. Legislation currently winding its way through Congress would effectively make health care (or more properly, health insurance) open to every American citizen via government subsidized dispensation.

Of course, no such “right” is enumerated in our founding documents — or is it?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. … That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men …

So wrote Thomas Jefferson in the most radical and oft-quoted passage of the Declaration of Independence. An extremely wide reading of these words could conceivably include government-run health care. After all, both “life” and “happiness” are threatened by disease and injury.

(Liberals who would follow down this rhetorical road would do well to tread carefully. The same wide reading of the “life” clause of the Declaration could just as easily be used by conservatives to justify protection of the unborn: if government is justly instituted in part to secure life, then outright abolition of abortion could reasonably be inferred to follow.)

But of course, the founders meant for no such wide-ranging interpretation. Rather, the “life” clause of the Declaration refers to the government’s responsibility simply to not kill its citizens, and to protect them from harming one another. (John Locke certainly inspired Jefferson’s pen with his Second Treatise of Government, where he wrote that “no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.”) Certainly you will search in vain throughout the Declaration, the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, the minutes of the Constitutional Convention, and the ratification debates which followed for the argument that government should be responsible for every citizen’s medical care.

Nor is this surprising — the entire raison d’etre of our national existence is the desire for less government in our lives, less taxes and regulation, not more. Let us never forget the glorious antipathy to tax that was the tinder which nourished our revolutionary flame.

Our founders would be astonished to learn that the tax-hating citizens of their limited republic were now on the verge of swallowing the mammoth new tax rates which will be necessary to create a new, government health care regime (but will never be enough to sustain it: per Maggie Thatcher, the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.)

Surely this prospect would horrify the men who drafted our founding documents and waged our republican revolution, for a government which controls your medical decisions has power of Orwellian proportions. Barack Obama and his legions in Congress do their best to conceal this (aided, as always, by a pliant press), cleverly framing the issue as one of choice — the government-run option will be just another competitor in the market, they say. Or, as Obama put it, “if you like your health plan, you can keep it.” But this is pure chicanery: government is never just another competitor — it can offer services and goods at far below market value, driving any sensible profit seeker out of the business.

So what will you do when you have no other option? When the government refuses to pay for your dialysis because you are over 65 and it isn’t “cost effective” to keep you alive (as happens in Britain)? Or when you have to wait six weeks for that MRI, never mind your crushing headaches (as happens in Canada)?

Nothing. The government, under the rubric of securing your “life,” has instead gained complete mastery over it. The founders would no doubt observe these monstrous proceedings and wonder what on earth they fought for.

What indeed. In 1775, a British emigrant arriving in Maryland surveyed the fermenting colonial scene and concluded that Americans had gone “liberty-mad.”

The madness, it seems, has subsided.

Obama Is Really Really Smart

Anytime I hear the usual Bush Bashing, I think -- Wow, how could I be so wrong? We have The Messiah in the White House, and now everything will be OK.

This piece by Frank Fleming in PajamasMedia is a roar:

Why All the Smart People Say Obama Is a Great President
If Obama is as dumb and inexperienced as you think he is, then how did he get elected president, huh?
July 28, 2009 - by Frank J. Fleming

We have a lot of problems in this country. Much of that is because the previous president was a violent moron who could barely even function in polite society; he probably tried to bomb the economy when he felt it threaten him. He also liked it when children went without necessary medical attention because that made him laugh.

Luckily, before President Bush could kill us all, President Obama came to save us. All the smart people instantly recognized him as a genius and a savior, but Obama also had the wisdom to use simple phrases like “Yes we can!” that stupid people like you could also understand. Assuaged by those words, you dimwits loosened your grips on your guns and religion, and Obama became president. It seemed soon all our problems would be solved with no interference, but it was not to be so.

Polls show majorities of people now doubting Obama’s policies on health care and the economy, but if you polled only really smart people, one hundred percent of them would say that everyone who doubts Obama is an ugly, stupid moron who should choke on his own vomit and die. Obama came to save you, and you ungrateful simpletons now wish to stop him? Obama is a man so obviously smart that all smart people know he’s smart, yet dummies like you now think you know better? It’s like everyone has suddenly become racist again and decided to hate Obama.

Let me tell you something: You people elected Obama on few specifics. His nifty catch phrases and elegant teleprompter reading were all you needed. And you didn’t care that he had no real previous experience because you knew he wasn’t some fool who would fritter away his accomplishments before becoming president and was instead smart enough to save his accomplishing things until after becoming president. So what happened? Where did your blind faith go?

I guess once again it’s time to explain things simply to you easily panicked idiots: Obama will still solve all of your problems just as he promised. He will get you jobs and free health care and stop other countries from being mean and hating us. All he asks of you is that you not question him. That’s all. Nothing more. Except maybe some of your money, but it’s just money you hillbillies would have spent on stupid things you don’t need like NASCAR races and chewing tobacco.

Yes, right now things may not look so good. Joblessness is still on the rise, huge debt threatens us, Iran and North Korea are going after nuclear weapons unmolested, and now racist children-haters are trying to convince you that health care reform will be a huge, horrible boondoggle. But if you get worried, you just need to remind yourself that Obama is really, really smart. Everyone who is smart says so. So if things he does, like support the re-installation of a socialist proto-dictator in Honduras, seem strange and confusing to you, that’s just because you’re trying to understand it with your stupid brain. If you had Obama’s smart brain, you’d understand how this will all work out in the end.

Many of you have blind faith in your invisible sky fairy, which science proves does not exist, so why can you not have faith in Obama (who is real) and all the things that smart people believe in? And did Jesus ever promise you free health care? Sure, some claim that Jesus healed a few people, but Obama is going to heal everyone with his free health care. And he also promises the new health care programs will somehow lower debt and create jobs. As any smart person using logic will tell you, that’s way more miraculous than anything Jesus did. So why not give Obama your unquestioning devotion?

You don’t need to understand how increased spending will help a country in debt or how increased taxes on energy will help a failing economy, you only need to know that Obama is much, much smarter than you. So obviously his solutions will work much better than anything you troglodytes would think he should do. If you could just have blind faith in Obama’s brilliance, you wouldn’t have to worry anymore.

To help you with that, Obama has started having “Look How Smart I Am” parades through various cities so everyone can see how smart he is. If you are smart, then Obama should appear very smart to you. It seems like a good idea, but the last one was marred when some kid yelled out, “The emperor has no brain!” and started laughing at the bucket stuck on Obama’s head. As I’ve explained before, Obama isn’t an emperor — yet — and the reason he had a bucket stuck on his head is that he was quite curious whether his head could fit inside it. Smart people get curious about many different things. If you were smart, you’d recognize that a bucket stuck on his head is in fact a symbol of his genius. And you’d stop laughing at him.

Why do I even try to explain these things to you idiots! How about this: If Obama is as dumb and inexperienced as you think he is, then how did he get elected president? Ha! Explain that one, dummy!

5 Freedoms You'll Lose Under Obama's Health Care

Here are 5 freedoms you will lose under Obamacare, as laid out by Erick Erickson in RedState and detailed in the Fortune piece by Shawn Tully:


You’ll lose 5 key freedoms under Obama’s health care plan

Posted by Erick Erickson, July 27th, 2009

This is your must read article on healthcare (below). According to Fortune magazine, there are five freedoms that you have now that the Democrats in Congress intend to take away from you. These are in the actual legislation.

1. Freedom to choose what’s in your plan
2. Freedom to be rewarded for healthy living, or pay your real costs
3. Freedom to choose high-deductible coverage
4. Freedom to keep your existing plan
5. Freedom to choose your doctors

Call your Congressman. Tell him to vote no on H.R. 3200, the Democrats’ healthcare legislation.

Grassfire.org list of numbers: http://www.grassfire.org/1122/targets.htm

FORTUNE
5 freedoms you'd lose in health care reform
If you read the fine print in the Congressional plans, you'll find that a lot of cherished aspects of the current system would disappear.
By Shawn Tully, editor at large
July 24, 2009

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- In promoting his health-care agenda, President Obama has repeatedly reassured Americans that they can keep their existing health plans -- and that the benefits and access they prize will be enhanced through reform.

A close reading of the two main bills, one backed by Democrats in the House and the other issued by Sen. Edward Kennedy's Health committee, contradict the President's assurances. To be sure, it isn't easy to comb through their 2,000 pages of tortured legal language. But page by page, the bills reveal a web of restrictions, fines, and mandates that would radically change your health-care coverage.

If you prize choosing your own cardiologist or urologist under your company's Preferred Provider Organization plan (PPO), if your employer rewards your non-smoking, healthy lifestyle with reduced premiums, if you love the bargain Health Savings Account (HSA) that insures you just for the essentials, or if you simply take comfort in the freedom to spend your own money for a policy that covers the newest drugs and diagnostic tests -- you may be shocked to learn that you could lose all of those good things under the rules proposed in the two bills that herald a health-care revolution.

In short, the Obama platform would mandate extremely full, expensive, and highly subsidized coverage -- including a lot of benefits people would never pay for with their own money -- but deliver it through a highly restrictive, HMO-style plan that will determine what care and tests you can and can't have. It's a revolution, all right, but in the wrong direction.

Let's explore the five freedoms that Americans would lose under Obamacare:

1. Freedom to choose what's in your plan

The bills in both houses require that Americans purchase insurance through "qualified" plans offered by health-care "exchanges" that would be set up in each state. The rub is that the plans can't really compete based on what they offer. The reason: The federal government wiToday, many states require these "standard benefits packages" -- and they're a major cause for the rise in health-care costs. Every group, from chiropractors to alcohol-abuse counselors, do lobbying to get included. Connecticut, for example, requires reimbursement for hair transplants, hearing aids, and in vitro fertilization.

The Senate bill would require coverage for prescription drugs, mental-health benefits, and substance-abuse services. It also requires policies to insure "children" until the age of 26. That's just the starting list. The bills would allow the Department of Health and Human Services to add to the list of required benefits, based on recommendations from a committee of experts. Americans, therefore, wouldn't even know what's in their plans and what they're required to pay for, directly or indirectly, until after the bills become law.

2. Freedom to be rewarded for healthy living, or pay your real costs

As with the previous example, the Obama plan enshrines into federal law one of the worst features of state legislation: community rating. Eleven states, ranging from New York to Oregon, have some form of community rating. In its purest form, community rating requires that all patients pay the same rates for their level of coverage regardless of their age or medical condition.

Americans with pre-existing conditions need subsidies under any plan, but community rating is a dubious way to bring fairness to health care. The reason is twofold: First, it forces young people, who typically have lower incomes than older workers, to pay far more than their actual cost, and gives older workers, who can afford to pay more, a big discount. The state laws gouging the young are a major reason so many of them have joined the ranks of uninsured.

Under the Senate plan, insurers would be barred from charging any more than twice as much for one patient vs. any other patient with the same coverage. So if a 20-year-old who costs just $800 a year to insure is forced to pay $2,500, a 62-year-old who costs $7,500 would pay no more than $5,000.

Second, the bills would ban insurers from charging differing premiums based on the health of their customers. Again, that's understandable for folks with diabetes or cancer. But the bills would bar rewarding people who pursue a healthy lifestyle of exercise or a cholesterol-conscious diet. That's hardly a formula for lower costs. It's as if car insurers had to charge the same rates to safe drivers as to chronic speeders with a history of accidents.

3. Freedom to choose high-deductible coverage

The bills threaten to eliminate the one part of the market truly driven by consumers spending their own money. That's what makes a market, and health care needs more of it, not less.

Hundreds of companies now offer Health Savings Accounts to about 5 million employees. Those workers deposit tax-free money in the accounts and get a matching contribution from their employer. They can use the funds to buy a high-deductible plan -- say for major medical costs over $12,000. Preventive care is reimbursed, but patients pay all other routine doctor visits and tests with their own money from the HSA account. As a result, HSA users are far more cost-conscious than customers who are reimbursed for the majority of their care.

The bills seriously endanger the trend toward consumer-driven care in general. By requiring minimum packages, they would prevent patients from choosing stripped-down plans that cover only major medical expenses. "The government could set extremely low deductibles that would eliminate HSAs," says John Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a free-market research group. "And they could do it after the bills are passed."

4. Freedom to keep your existing plan

This is the freedom that the President keeps emphasizing. Yet the bills appear to say otherwise. It's worth diving into the weeds -- the territory where most pundits and politicians don't seem to have ventured.

The legislation divides the insured into two main groups, and those two groups are treated differently with respect to their current plans. The first are employees covered by the Employee Retirement Security Act of 1974. ERISA regulates companies that are self-insured, meaning they pay claims out of their cash flow, and don't have real insurance. Those are the GEs (GE, Fortune 500) and Time Warners (TWX, Fortune 500) and most other big companies.

The House bill states that employees covered by ERISA plans are "grandfathered." Under ERISA, the plans can do pretty much what they want -- they're exempt from standard packages and community rating and can reward employees for healthy lifestyles even in restrictive states.
But read on.

The bill gives ERISA employers a five-year grace period when they can keep offering plans free from the restrictions of the "qualified" policies offered on the exchanges. But after five years, they would have to offer only approved plans, with the myriad rules we've already discussed. So for Americans in large corporations, "keeping your own plan" has a strict deadline. In five years, like it or not, you'll get dumped into the exchange. As we'll see, it could happen a lot earlier.

The outlook is worse for the second group. It encompasses employees who aren't under ERISA but get actual insurance either on their own or through small businesses. After the legislation passes, all insurers that offer a wide range of plans to these employees will be forced to offer only "qualified" plans to new customers, via the exchanges.

The employees who got their coverage before the law goes into effect can keep their plans, but once again, there's a catch. If the plan changes in any way -- by altering co-pays, deductibles, or even switching coverage for this or that drug -- the employee must drop out and shop through the exchange. Since these plans generally change their policies every year, it's likely that millions of employees will lose their plans in 12 months.

5. Freedom to choose your doctors

The Senate bill requires that Americans buying through the exchanges -- and as we've seen, that will soon be most Americans -- must get their care through something called "medical home." Medical home is similar to an HMO. You're assigned a primary care doctor, and the doctor controls your access to specialists. The primary care physicians will decide which services, like MRIs and other diagnostic scans, are best for you, and will decide when you really need to see a cardiologists or orthopedists.

Under the proposals, the gatekeepers would theoretically guide patients to tests and treatments that have proved most cost-effective. The danger is that doctors will be financially rewarded for denying care, as were HMO physicians more than a decade ago. It was consumer outrage over despotic gatekeepers that made the HMOs so unpopular, and killed what was billed as the solution to America's health-care cost explosion.

The bills do not specifically rule out fee-for-service plans as options to be offered through the exchanges. But remember, those plans -- if they exist -- would be barred from charging sick or elderly patients more than young and healthy ones. So patients would be inclined to game the system, staying in the HMO while they're healthy and switching to fee-for-service when they become seriously ill. "That would kill fee-for-service in a hurry," says Goodman.

In reality, the flexible, employer-based plans that now dominate the landscape, and that Americans so cherish, could disappear far faster than the 5 year "grace period" that's barely being discussed.

Companies would have the option of paying an 8% payroll tax into a fund that pays for coverage for Americans who aren't covered by their employers. It won't happen right away -- large companies must wait a couple of years before they opt out. But it will happen, since it's likely that the tax will rise a lot more slowly than corporate health-care costs, especially since they'll be lobbying Washington to keep the tax under control in the righteous name of job creation.

The best solution is to move to a let-freedom-ring regime of high deductibles, no community rating, no standard benefits, and cross-state shopping for bargains (another market-based reform that's strictly taboo in the bills). I'll propose my own solution in another piece soon on Fortune.com. For now, we suffer with a flawed health-care system, but we still have our Five Freedoms. Call them the Five Endangered Freedoms.

AMERICA IS A KIND COUNTRY

How many times in our 200 plus year history have foreign countries reached out to America for assistance? More importantly, when have we ever refused? We are a country of great wealth, and a country with a big heart. We have struggled and made supreme sacrifices to get where we are, but are always willing and eager to be Big Brother.

This is why I cringe at the new "Bash America" profile of this new administration. Ben Stein has written a brilliant piece in the American Spectator -- a wake up call !!


We've Figured Him Out
By Ben Stein on 7.24.09

Why is President Barack Obama in such a hurry to get his socialized medicine bill passed?

Because he and his cunning circle realize some basic truths:

The American people in their unimaginable kindness and trust voted for a pig in a poke in 2008. They wanted so much to believe Barack Obama was somehow better and different from other ultra-leftists that they simply took him on faith.

They ignored his anti-white writings in his books. They ignored his quiet acceptance of hysterical anti-American diatribes by his minister, Jeremiah Wright.

They ignored his refusal to explain years at a time of his life as a student. They ignored his ultra-left record as a "community organizer," Illinois state legislator, and Senator.

The American people ignored his total zero of an academic record as a student and teacher, his complete lack of scholarship when he was being touted as a scholar.

Now, the American people are starting to wake up to the truth. Barack Obama is a super likeable super leftist, not a fan of this country, way, way too cozy with the terrorist leaders in the Middle East, way beyond naïveté, all the way into active destruction of our interests and our allies and our future.

The American people have already awakened to the truth that the stimulus bill -- a great idea in theory -- was really an immense bribe to Democrat interest groups, and in no way an effort to help all Americans.

Now, Americans are waking up to the truth that ObamaCare basically means that every time you are sick or injured, you will have a clerk from the Department of Motor Vehicles telling your doctor what he can and cannot do.

The American people already know that Mr. Obama's plan to lower health costs while expanding coverage and bureaucracy is a myth, a promise of something that never was and never will be -- a bureaucracy lowering costs in a free society. Either the costs go up or the free society goes away.

These are perilous times. Mrs. Hillary Clinton, our Secretary of State, has given Iran the go-ahead to have nuclear weapons, an unqualified betrayal of the nation. Now, we face a devastating loss of freedom at home in health care. It will be joined by controls on our lives to "protect us" from global warming, itself largely a fraud if believed to be caused by man.

Mr. Obama knows Americans are getting wise and will stop him if he delays at all in taking away our freedoms.

There is his urgency and our opportunity. Once freedom is lost, America is lost. Wake up, beloved America.

CBO DEALS ANOTHER CRUSHING BLOW TO GOVT RUN HEALTHCARE

Pelosi, Obama & Emanuel are pushing to get Government Run Healthcare through the House this week, BEFORE the break. The obvious rush to ram this down America's throat is in light of the crushing blow dealt by the CBO -- again.

Grassfire.org has a fax form with sample text, and a list of names, phone & fax numbers:

http://www.grassfire.org/1122/offer.asp?Ref_ID=2652&CID=122&RID=21410589

The onslaught of disapproval by the American people has had a tremendous effect, so don't stop now. The Heritage Foundation explains the CBO's new finding:


CBO Deals Another Crushing Blow to Obamacare

For the second time in less than two weeks, the independent and non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has dealt a crushing blow to President Barack Obama’s health care plans. First, on July 17th, CBO director Doug Elmendorf sent a letter to House Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-NY), explaining that, in direct contradiction to President Obama’s promise that his health plan would not add “even one dime to our deficit over the next decade,” the House health plan would actually increase the budget deficit by $239 billion over ten years.

Reeling from this setback, the White House then put all of its cost-containing reform eggs in one basket: a massive transfer of power from Congress to the Executive branch in the form of an “Independent Medicare Advisory Council” (IMAC) that would be “the equivalent of a federal health board determining how health care was rationed for all seniors.”

But as draconian as that solution would be, the CBO again refused to toe the White House line. In a letter to Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Elmendorf writes:

The proposed legislation states that IMAC’s recommendations cannot generate increased Medicare expenditures, but it does not explicitly direct the council to reduce such expenditures nor does it establish any target for such reductions. … As proposed, the composition of the council could be weighted toward medical providers who might not be inclined to recommend cuts in payments to providers or significant changes to the delivery system. … In CBO’s judgment, the probability is high that no savings would be realized … CBO estimates that enacting the proposal, as drafted, would yield savings of $2 billion over the 2010–2019 period.

Just $2 billion! That would leave the House bill still $237 billion short of meeting Obama’s promise to not add a dime to the deficit over the next ten years. Put another way, that $2 billion in savings is two tenths of one percent of what Obama wants to spend on health care over the next ten years. Now Democrats are pushing back against the CBO, claiming the official score keeper just doesn’t understand how wonderful their cost containment schemes really are. One senior House leadership aide told The Hill: “At CBO, they are accountants, but we still have to make our case. They are doing their thing and we are doing ours.”

Now Americans may ask just how accurate is the CBO when scoring the costs of health care reform? Does the CBO have a track record of underestimating how much new health care entitlements will cost? Or is the CBO too conservative and often over estimates new health care spending? Scholars at the CATO Institute went back and compared past CBO estimates on health care to actual spending numbers and found:

When Medicare was launched in 1965, Part A was projected to cost $9 billion by 1990, but ended up costing $67 billion. When Medicaid’s special hospitals subsidy was added in 1987, it was supposed to cost $100 million annually, but it already cost $11 billion by 1992. When Medicare’s home care benefit was added in 1988, it was projected to cost $4 billion in 1993, but ended up costing $10 billion.

History clearly shows that the costs of new heath care entitlements are routinely underestimated. And what would American be getting for their $2 billion in savings from IMAC? The Washington Post’s David Broder wrote yesterday:

But Congress will have to decide if it is willing to yield that degree of control to five unelected IMAC commissioners. And Americans will have to decide if they are comfortable having those commissioners determine how they will be treated when they are ill.

Huge cost estimates that are likely underestimated in exchange for a federal health board deciding the terms of your personal health care is not the reform people were expecting. But more importantly, if the Obama administration can’t trust a federal office to properly score their bill, how is it they trust a similar office to decide which medical treatments you receive?

DeMint Portrayed as Assassin in Political Cartoon

When the going gets tough, the left fight dirty -- as usual. Of all the politicians in congress these days, I don't know a more soft spoken gentleman than Senator Jim DeMint. He reminds me of Thomas Paine, unafraid to speak up against tyranny.

This is atrocious, and HotAir has brought it out in the open for full exposure. Let's keep up the heat: (hat tip to RedState)


DeMint Portrayed as Assassin in Political Cartoon
posted at 6:39 pm on July 25, 2009 by Pundette

*Scroll down for update.

The Washington Post featured this in today’s paper as one of the better cartoons of the week: (above)

Is it okay to portray Sen. Jim DeMint (or anyone else) as a sniper? And what, or whom, is he aiming at?

Supposedly the target is “healthcare,” but the cartoon obviously refers to DeMint’s remark about breaking Obama. It’s not much of a jump to believe that the cartoonist intends us to imagine that DeMint’s target is Obama.

Maybe I’m being touchy. It’s just a cartoon and it’s supposed to be edgy. But most Americans are quite sensitive to suggestions of presidential (or other) assassination, and particularly so when it involves a sniper taking aim from a tall building.

The Post showed terrible judgment when they chose to run this.

*Here’s a link to a photo of the tenements mentioned by commenters below, courtesy of a commenter at RedState.

http://www.life.com/image/85755475/in-gallery/24651/life-exclusive-the-day-mlk-died

CBO Deals New Blow To (Government Run) Health Plan

All I can say is Douglas Elmendorf of the CBO is showing great backbone and strength in standing up to Goliath. Again, he has delivered the truth about Obama's Government Run Health Care. In essence, the CBO states today, Saturday July 25th, "the plan touted by the White House as crucial to paying for the bill would actually save almost no money over 10 years".

While the Democrats race around trying to convince the Blue Dogs and Republicans before the summer break this government run health plan will save America, the truth will hopefully prevail.

I enjoy repeating 'Government Run' Health Care, because Congress has been ordered NOT to use that term. So much for transparency .... you can believe in.

Here's the piece from POLITICO by Chris Frates: (Hat tip Drudge)

CBO deals new blow to health plan

For the second time this month, congressional budget analysts have dealt a blow to the Democrat's health reform efforts, this time by saying a plan touted by the White House as crucial to paying for the bill would actually save almost no money over 10 years.

A key House chairman and moderate House Democrats on Tuesday agreed to a White House-backed proposal that would give an outside panel the power to make cuts to government-financed health care programs. White House budget director Peter Orszag declared the plan "probably the most important piece that can be added" to the House's health care reform legislation.

But on Saturday, the Congressional Budget Office said the proposal to give an independent panel the power to keep Medicare spending in check would only save about $2 billion over 10 years- a drop in the bucket compared to the bill's $1 trillion price tag.

"In CBO's judgment, the probability is high that no savings would be realized ... but there is also a chance that substantial savings might be realized. Looking beyond the 10-year budget window, CBO expects that this proposal would generate larger but still modest savings on the same probabilistic basis," CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf wrote in a letter to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer on Saturday.

On his White House blog, Orszag – who served as CBO director in 2007 and 2008 – downplayed the office's small probable savings number in favor of the proposal's more speculative long-term benefits.

"The point of the proposal, however, was never to generate savings over the next decade. ... Instead, the goal is to provide a mechanism for improving quality of care for beneficiaries and reducing costs over the long term," Orszag wrote. "In other words, in the terminology of our belt-and-suspenders approach to a fiscally responsible health reform, the IMAC is a game changer not a scoreable offset."

But scoreable offsets are the immediate savings that fiscally conservative Blue Dogs and other Democratic moderates have been pushing for precisely because they will help offset the bill's cost.

For the second time this month, congressional budget analysts have dealt a blow to the Democrat's health reform efforts, this time by saying a plan touted by the White House as crucial to paying for the bill would actually save almost no money over 10 years.

A key House chairman and moderate House Democrats on Tuesday agreed to a White House-backed proposal that would give an outside panel the power to make cuts to government-financed health care programs. White House budget director Peter Orszag declared the plan "probably the most important piece that can be added" to the House's health care reform legislation.

But on Saturday, the Congressional Budget Office said the proposal to give an independent panel the power to keep Medicare spending in check would only save about $2 billion over 10 years- a drop in the bucket compared to the bill's $1 trillion price tag.

"In CBO's judgment, the probability is high that no savings would be realized ... but there is also a chance that substantial savings might be realized. Looking beyond the 10-year budget window, CBO expects that this proposal would generate larger but still modest savings on the same probabilistic basis," CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf wrote in a letter to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer on Saturday.

On his White House blog, Orszag – who served as CBO director in 2007 and 2008 – downplayed the office's small probable savings number in favor of the proposal's more speculative long-term benefits.

"The point of the proposal, however, was never to generate savings over the next decade. ... Instead, the goal is to provide a mechanism for improving quality of care for beneficiaries and reducing costs over the long term," Orszag wrote. "In other words, in the terminology of our belt-and-suspenders approach to a fiscally responsible health reform, the IMAC is a game changer not a scoreable offset."

But scoreable offsets are the immediate savings that fiscally conservative Blue Dogs and other Democratic moderates have been pushing for precisely because they will help offset the bill's cost.

The proposal's meager savings are a blow to Democrats working furiously to bring down costs in order to win support from Blue Dogs, who have threatened to vote against the bill without significant changes. The proposal was heralded as a breakthrough on Tuesday after Blue Dogs and House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman emerged from the White House with agreement on giving the independent panel, rather than Congress, the ability to rein in Medicare spending.

Republicans pounced on CBO's analysis as another demonstration that Democratic proposals don't control costs.

"The President said that rising health care costs are an imminent threat to our economy and that any reform must reduce these long-term costs. But CBO has made clear once again that the Democrats' bills in Congress aren't reducing costs and in fact could just make the problem worse," said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.

Saturday's CBO analysis caps a tough week of blown deadlines, partisan bickering and fierce intra-party fighting among Democrats. On Friday, the tension between the Blue Dogs and Waxman exploded when Waxman threatened to bypass his committee and bring the reform bill straight to the House floor without a vote. The move infuriated Blue Dogs who have used their crucial committee votes to leverage changes to the bill.

But by late Friday, Waxman said their colleagues had pulled the two groups "back from the brink" and back to the negotiating table.

Still, Hoyer said there was little chance that that the House would pass a health reform legislation before Friday when lawmakers are expected to leave Washington for summer recess.

House Republican Leader John Boehner's office said that it's time to hit the legislation's reset button.

"This letter underscores the enormous challenges that Democrats face trying to pay for their massive and costly government takeover of health care. In their rush to pass a bill, Democrats continue to ignore the stark economic reality facing our nation," said Boehner spokeswoman Antonia Ferrier. "Let's scrap the current proposal and come together in a meaningful way to reform health care in America by reducing cost, expanding access and at a price tag we can afford."

OBAMACARE TO INCLUDE HOSPICE CARE !

As if it couldn't get any worse .... Reaching retirement age is supposed to be a point in life where one can enjoy the fruits of their labor. We have spent a lifetime providing for our family, worked hard, paid taxes, reached out to help our fellow man, and most important raised our children to respect life.

At what point does it become ANYONE'S right to decide when to end it? Rather than losing my cool, I will let Erick Erickson's piece in RedState take over:


The Future in Rep. Tonko’s and Barack Obama’s America

It’s always great to hear liberals speak when they think no one is listening.

Rep. Paul Tonko is a freshman Democrat from Albany, NY. He’s a typical non-descript eastern machine politician who is a robot for Obama and Pelosi and doesn’t have too many original thoughts. Earlier this week one of his top aides was flying to Washington from the district. She was accompanied by what appeared to be a special interest Washington DC lobbyist, who probably came to Albany to attend some type of big money golf, gambling, and cigars fundraiser for Tonko.

Anyway, unbeknownst to them, a hero of the conservative movement sat quietly behind them. It was impossible to avoid listening to their boisterous conversation, and Tonko’s aide didn’t disappoint.

Naturally, most of the banter dealt with the health care bill, and here are a few of the gems:

The two were talking about whether Tonko would even be given time to read the bill. She told the lobbyist, “well he pays me to read it for him”.

“[The] costliest part [of the Obama healthcare bill] will be the physician’s rate cut,” she said. Lots of political capital is going to be spent to get that through.

And, for the crowning glory, the aide feels that “probably the best part of the bill is the increase in Hospice care which will solve the prolonging of life issue.”

This seems to prove the argument that the Obama bureaucrats will eventually decide who lives and who dies.

Remember, the Democrats have already put in their legislation a requirement for senior citizens to, every five years, learn how to die with dignity.

Also remember that hospice care is for the already terminally ill. So how will increasing hospice care funding solve “prolonging of life issues” unless the government is going to start putting people who are not terminally ill into hospice after they’ve had their mandatory “how to kill yourself” training.

Isn’t “hope and change” wonderful?

ADDENDUM:
We’ve noted remarks by a senior aide to Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY) that “probably the best part of the bill is the increase in Hospice care which will solve the prolonging of life issue.”

That does not tend to make sense because hospice care is for people already at the end of life who need to be kept comfortable. How on earth does more hospice funding solve “prolonging of life issues” when people in hospice already know they are about to die?

Well, it doesn’t until you consider stories like this:

Some terminally ill patients in Oregon who turned to their state for health care were denied treatment and offered doctor-assisted suicide instead, a proposal some experts have called a “chilling” corruption of medical ethics.

Since the spread of his prostate cancer, 53-year-old Randy Stroup of Dexter, Ore., has been in a fight for his life. Uninsured and unable to pay for expensive chemotherapy, he applied to Oregon’s state-run health plan for help.

Lane Individual Practice Association (LIPA), which administers the Oregon Health Plan in Lane County, responded to Stroup’s request with a letter saying the state would not cover Stroup’s pricey treatment, but would pay for the cost of physician-assisted suicide.

545 People Responsible for All America's Woes

Although decades old, this is a brilliant thought. When you think about it, can it be that simple? Maybe not so simple, but it can be done.

This piece written by journalist Charley Reese first appeared in the Orlando Sentinel on March 7, 1985, and the numbers have gone way up (well over 3 million now), which makes even less sense.

Time to take a vote, folks:


The 545 People Responsible For All Of America's Woes

BY Charley Reese
March 7, 1985

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, we have deficits? Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does. You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does. You and I don't write the tax code. Congress does. You and I don't set fiscal policy. Congress does. You and I don't control monetary policy. The Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president and nine Supreme Court justices - 545 human beings out of the 235 million - are directly, legally, morally and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered but private central bank.

I excluded all but the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it.

No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislation's responsibility to determine how he votes.

A CONFIDENCE CONSPIRACY

Don't you see how the con game that is played on the people by the politicians? Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of Tip O'Neill, who stood up and criticized Ronald Reagan for creating deficits.

The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it. The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating appropriations and taxes.

O'neill is the speaker of the House. He is the leader of the majority party. He and his fellow Democrats, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetos it, they can pass it over his veto.

REPLACE SCOUNDRELS

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 235 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts - of incompetence and irresponsibility.

I can't think of a single domestic problem, from an unfair tax code to defense overruns, that is not traceable directly to those 545 people.

When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair. If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red. If the Marines are in Lebanon, it's because they want them in Lebanon.

There are no insoluble government problems. Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take it.

Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exist disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation" or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people and they alone are responsible. They and they alone have the power. They and they alone should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses - provided they have the gumption to manage their own employees.

IS HEALTH CARE FREE LUNCH ?

Everytime I hear "Have you tried the new government run mortgage?", or "Have you thought about the Cash-for-Clunkers program?", or "Have you looked into the Obama COBRA plan?", the hair on the back of my neck stands up, and the words of my dear Mother ring in my ear -- "THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH!" Everything has a price.

All of this is the reason why Obama set off negative signals for me late last summer. Now, it is starting to unravel, more and more is coming out, and people are finally speaking up. The Heritage Foundation sums it up in a short piece:


Obama’s Empty MedPac Promise

Americans may distrust economists, and most of them would have a rough time with an Econ 101 final exam if they had to take it today, but through everyday experience Americans also have internalized one of the most fundamental concepts of economics: there is no such thing as a free lunch. And it is because Americans instinctively believe in this fundamentally conservative concept that poll after poll shows Americans no longer trust President Barack Obama on health care. Americans know Obama is not telling the truth and that fact was crystallized in this exchange from last night’s press conference:


JAKE TAPPER ABC NEWS: You said earlier that you wanted to tell the American people what’s in it for them, how will their family benefit from health-care reform. But experts say that in addition to the benefits that you’re pushing, there is going to have to be some sacrifice in order for there to be true cost-cutting measures, such as Americans giving up tests, referrals, choice, end-of-life care.

When you describe health-care reform, you don’t — understandably, you don’t talk about the sacrifices that Americans might have to make. Do you think — do you accept the premise that other than some tax increases, on the wealthiest Americans, the American people are going to have to give anything up in order for this to happen?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: They’re going to have to give up paying for things that don’t make them healthier. And I — speaking as an American, I think that’s the kind of change you want.

In other words, Obama wants Americans to believe that his health plan covers the uninsured, improves patient care, puts “more money in people’s pockets,” all while adding nothing to the deficit. Obama is trying to convince Americans to disregard every ounce of common sense that they have and believe he is selling them an actual free lunch. Americans have every right to be skeptical. Take Obama’s claims that he can control health care costs by giving more power to a group of experts known as MedPac (Medicare Payment Advisory Commission).

Congress already has a long track record of putting into place seemingly automatic spending reductions in health, only to block them later. For instance, Congress routinely rolls back the “sustainable growth rate” trimming of Medicare physician payments that were supposed to keep down Medicare costs. Congress similarly decided to ignore the requirement in the 2003 prescription drug legislation that it automatically consider White House proposals to limit taxpayer subsidies for Medicare. Americans have every right to be skeptical about this latest gimmick’s capacity for actually bringing down costs. If our health care spending crisis is a long-term one, like Obama says, then Americans should demand that Obama prove he can contain costs in Medicare first before creating a new trillion dollar budget busting entitlement.

But what if Obama’s MedPac idea did work? That might even be a bigger threat to American’s health care. It would be the equivalent of a federal health board determining how health care was rationed for all seniors. Combined with the public plan proposal, that would be another huge lurch towards taking the control of health care out of the hands of patients and their doctors.

Despite Obama’s constant insistence otherwise, conservatives do have an alternative vision for health care reform and do not favor the ”status quo.” For example, Obama wants one single committee of “experts” in Washington to make all medical decisions for everyone in the country. Conservatives take a polar opposite approach. We want to rebuild the health care system from the ground up, not the top down. We want millions of Americans sitting down with their doctors and making millions of decisions every day about what procedures and treatments are best for them. The media is right to be calling out the President for delivering false rhetoric on health care. He’s asking us to trust him on a trillion dollar plan he has not read, and to dismiss what all Americans inherently know: Everything has a price.

Martin Luther King Vs. Saul Alinsky ... In Ten Rounds

Watching the hypocrisy in the White House and the leftist elites these days can make one wonder if one has completely lost one's mind. This is why I love history. It's irrefutable!

In the American Thinker, Kelcy Allen writes a wonderful piece denouncing these elites:


The Ideological Fight of the Century
By Kelcy Allen

How in God's name, and I mean that literally, can liberals lay claim to Martin Luther King? Isn't it the Liberal Left and their ACLU who want to ban the Ten Commandments? Isn't it liberal Democrats who want to take "God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance and off U.S. coinage? Isn't it the modern American Left who vehemently calls for the separation of Church and State? Isn't it only Democrats who want God taken out of public discourse?

Where did Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stand on these issues? Wasn't he an ordained minister, like 24 of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, who themselves had seminary or Bible school degrees? Didn't he hold prayer vigils and constantly invoke the name of Almighty God, and wasn't he often pictured in public while embracing his Bible? Where in Hell, and I mean that literally, did the new liberal Left Democrats come up with such stupefying duplicitous hypocrisy?

An African-American (emphasis on "American") conservative political group called RagingElephants.org, placed an ad over the last 4th of July holiday weekend beside a freeway exit in Houston, Texas. The large roadside billboard stated, "Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican!" I believe they were trying to point out that MLK was originally a member of Abraham Lincoln's emancipating Republican Party. While King may not have been a dyed-in-the-wool Republican, we can say with certainty that the American political Right has now moved so far left that President John F. Kennedy would be a mainstream Republican and Martin Luther King would fall smack dab in the middle of the right-minded conservative Christian camp!

The Liberal Democrats of today can no longer honestly claim MLK as their ideological leader nor can they reasonably call him their political ally. If we look clearly at the guiding philosophy which shapes the mindset of the new breed of Left-Democrat, Martin Luther King is nowhere to be found. The foundation of today's liberal Left politicos is not that of King, it is none other than the rankling divisive strategy of mid-century Marxist-oriented Chicago community organizer Saul Alinsky, an avowed and proud atheist. The very heart of the liberal Left in America now pounds to the beat of Saul Alinsky's cacophonous bellowing, not to MLK's calm appeal for harmony.

If a verbal fight were to take place pitting the unifying voice of Martin Luther King against the divisive rhetoric of Saul Alinsky, who would win -- King's right-minded moral dogma of unity and fair play or Alinsky's amoral left-leaning diatribe of division and crotch-kicking? If there were a ten round "Ideological Fight of the Century", on whom would you bet your future?

Our current leaders on the Left are so steeped in Alinsky's ideology, either by once following him personally, by pro-actively studying his principles and philosophy during college, or by embracing and purposefully initiating his tactics in their activism and speeches, that they are de facto dedicated to Alinsky. These Left leaders who include Rahm Emanuel, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Gerald Kellman, Arne Duncan, and President Obama, among a long list of others, use Alinsky's ‘sacred' divisive political playbook far more often than the ‘accursed' Right imaginarily thumps their Bible.

So, as they say in the sporting world, "Let's get ready to rumble!".......

Round One: Saul Alinsky opens with, "To hell with charity...morality is but rhetorical rationale for expedient action and self-interest."

Martin Luther says, "Now is the time to make real the promises of Democracy."

Round Two: Alinksy fires, "Ours is a world not of Angels but of ‘angles'. Reconciliation is when one side gets the power and the other side gets reconciled to it, then we have reconciliation".

MLK parries, "Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children".

Round Three: Alinsky jabs, "Radicals...have contemptuously rejected the values and way of life of the middle class. They have stigmatized it as materialistic, decadent, bourgeois, degenerate, imperialistic, war-mongering, brutalized and corrupt...they are right."

King fades right, "...Even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream."

Round Four: Alinsky hits below the belt, "Pick a target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Ridicule is a man's most potent weapon. Keep the pressure on. If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counter side".

MLK recovers, "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal."

Round Five: Coming out with a salvo, Red fires quickly, "Men don't like to step abruptly out of the security of familiar experience. A revolutionary organizer must shake up the prevailing patterns of their lives -- agitate, create disenchantment and discontent with the current values. People won't act for CHANGE, but they won't strongly oppose those who do. The time is then ripe for revolution."

MLK, the ‘peace-maker' dodges, fades, and counters, "There is something I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads to the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds."

Round Six: Alinsky lands a left, "The radical realizes that constant dissension and conflict is and has been the fire under the boiler of Democracy."

The preacher counters with a right, "Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline."

Round Seven: As he methodically circles the canvas, a chorus of dissonant jeers erupting from protesters rises to a fever pitch, encouraging the activist-radical as he swings away, "Any revolutionary CHANGE must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward CHANGE among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and chance the future. This acceptance is the reformation essential to any revolution."

MLK isn't buying the ‘divisionist' strategy. He floats like a butterfly, and unloads a unifying barrage of lefts and rights, "With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood."

Round Eight: Both fighters are showing resilience. Angry, and coming from his corner as mad as a hornet, Alinsky fires a devastating left jab, "Remember, we are talking about revolution, not revelation!"

But, just ducking under the punch, it's King who scores and stings like a bee, "This will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning, ‘My Country ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing...Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride -- from every mountainside, let freedom ring.'"

Round Nine: Obviously slowed in the last round, perspiring heavily, and a bit wobbly on his feet, Alinsky nevertheless manages to unleash a quick, concise flurry, "What the present generation wants is what all generations have always wanted -- a meaning, a sense of what the world and life are -- a chance to strive for some sense of order."

But the real crowd favorite, as always, is able to thrust and parry, jab and move, and he connects with a slow-building, counter-attack which stuns Alinsky: "From every mountainside, let freedom ring. And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Round Ten: Damaged but not down, Saul 'Red' Alinsky, the Socialist-Marxist antagonist, plods forward, and with all the false vitality garnered through deception and deceit draining away, he manages a few, slow last-minute punches, "Lest we forget at least an acknowledgement to the very first radical: From all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins-and which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom....Lucifer!" (Satan).

Ignoring the impious eulogy, Martin Luther King, the premier heroic American protagonist of our time, comes quickly over the top with a crushing finale, "And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together." Alinsky drops like a rock! It's over -- it's MLK by K.O.

Ringmaster: Saul Alinsky was a devious and cunning propagandist who in 1972 wrote "Rules for Radicals" which espoused his above mentioned destructive ‘fight dialogue'. He was a divider and a secular liberal who played on emotion and advocated change, Marxist CHANGE, yet our liberal politicians who studied him and our mainstream media who revere him, nonetheless aggressively apply his strategies today.

Martin Luther King was a unifier who believed in the Ten Commandments and the Constitution, and he understood our forebears came to a new land expressly to seek Liberty and escape religious persecution. He also fully comprehended that the original intent of the separation of Church and State was meant to keep the government out of the Church, it was not the new Left's inverse and twisted definition where ‘God' is not allowed anyplace in government nor anywhere remotely close to the public square.

The Left in America no longer believes what Martin Luther King believed, they cannot say what he said, and they cannot do what he did! In America today liberals and most Left Democrats and certainly the media, will not tolerate nor defend God and they will try to sue you if you do, while right-minded conservatives, like Martin Luther King, Jr., depend wholly on God.