Congressman Pete Hoesksta in Michigan

A Meeting With U.S. Congressman Pete Hoekstra....

During the question and answer time, Congressman Hoekstra, who is currently running for Governor of the State Of Michigan, was asked what he thinks about the GITMO prisoners being housed in a prison facility in Michigan's Northern Peninsula. He acknowledges that it would certainly provide several thousand new jobs in Standish. However, he is attempting to make sure that prior to the acceptance of those prisoners, the citizens or their representatives need to be told the truth regarding those prisoners by declassifying for those citizend the pertinent information. Congressman Pete Hoekstra has knowledge of this because of his place on the House's Intelligence Committee.

Regarding the new Democrat calls for possibly replacing "single-payer" legislation to a proposed "co-op" legislation, he says the new term is simply a euphenism (an inoffensive term substituted for one considered offensively explicit). The laws involved would be identical in intention as well as in outcome, as some pols have actually already admitted. Beware!

Regarding ACORN and it's many affiliates, he said that there will be no investigation, change or control, much less a withdrawal of taxpayer funding, during a Democrat Congress. I guess we can expect voter fraud to once again be part of our election process in 2010.
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From Carrie Boudoff: House Democrats are probing the nation’s largest insurance companies for lavish spending, demanding reams of compensation data and schedules of retreats and conferences.

Letters sent to 52 insurance companies by Democratic leaders demand extensive documents for an examination of ‘extensive compensation and other business practices in the health insurance industry.” The letters set a deadline of Sept. 14 for the documents.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, signed the three-page letter dated Monday.

An industry source replied when asked for comment: “This is nothing more than a taxpayer-funded fishing expedition designed to silence health plans."

By Sept. 4, the firms are supposed to supply detailed compensation data for board members and top executives, as well as a “table listing all conferences, retreats, or other events held outside company facilities from January 1, 2007, to the present that were paid for, reimbursed, or subsidized in whole or in part by your company.”

For employees or officers making $500,000 or more, the committee wants information on salary, bonus, options and pension.

And by Sept. 14, the firms are supposed to provide copies of reports from compensation consultants

, plus board drafts of compensation plans, and information about market share.

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BEWARE RECONCILIATION! With only 51 votes, this health care bill can be passed. The minority, apparently, can then "shut down" the Congress for a long time by using a rule to force every bill being considered to be read out loud prior to it's passage..... Now that would take a very long time.......

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ObamaCare Part 1 has already been passed, as it was covertly placed in the Obama Stimulus bill. In H.R. 1: Final Stimulus Bill pages 136, 151, 63, 73, 135, 153 and 351 “healthcare” and establishes the Obama bureaucrat committee known as the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Clinical Effectiveness Research is addressed. I have discussed this in a former blog.
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The Office of Management and Budget leaked word that, sometime this week, it will revise its projection of the federal budget deficit over the next 10 years from $7 trillion to $9 trillion.

That $2 trillion upward revision will put the White House's numbers in line with the $9.1 trillion deficit that the Congressional Budget Office projected in June. Back then, the administration criticized CBO's analysis; now it's admitting that CBO was right after all. (Of course, CBO might yet revise its projection upward even more, in light of current economic realities.) We cannot afford single-payer health care!

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From Glenn Beck: Does HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius have any clue? Apparently not, because as she's trying to describe the benefits of government run healthcare, she's actually describing the pitfall of it. She says, "And without competition costs could skyrocket. In a monopoly system it's not a great way to hold down costs." Ummm, Kathleen, what do you think a government system would do?
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Again from Glenn Beck (and why not from the Main Stream Media?): The Apollo Alliance, a special interest group, was responsible for drafting the stimulus bill. Know this: Apollo is run by the Weather Underground founder, Jeff Jones. So, add yet another radical to Obama's team.....Must be nice to be an unelected group and have a few hundred billion dollars at your discretion, huh? Who is the Apollo Alliance and who is on the board? Here's the segment from TV last night that Drudge linked to today, exposing the radical background of Obama's Green Jobs Czar". Glenn tells us that he has actually been called by the White House, and was asked to, in effect, temper his remarks by not calling the lead person a Czar..... Wait a minute - who was the latest major lobbyist who is also advising the White House? Since actually being a lobbyist while advising the President would be illegal, he is trying to tell us that he is instead a "resource" - a true parsing of the truth. Oh, yes - that would be Tom Daschle, whose plan to be Secretary of Health and Human Services was "dashed" because of a large amount of unpaid taxes. Not only is this President breaking his pledge to NOT hire former lobbyists, he may be illegally using one under the radar". Know this: Apollo is run by the Weather Underground founder, Jeff Jones. So, add yet another radical to Obama's team.....
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Even one of the Left's favorite pundits, James Carville, sees the dangers to our country in the action by President Obama and Rahm Emanuel to investigate and prosecute CIA interrogators. Others have noted that this will embolden our enemies, weaken our defenses and give our allies a good reason not to cooperate with us on any intelligence they may have. Our country will be in greater danger, and the head of the CIA, Leon Panetta, knows it. Even some on the left are questioning on which side this Administration sits, and how far it is willing to go to leave us defenseless against our enemies.

Health Care Bill - a change that will last for decades...

Washington, DC seems to be in a fog bank, unable to see what is the truth about the once "silent" majority.....

The FCC has just appointed a "diversity czar" who once worked for George Soros. I'm sure he won't be trying to bring "fairness" to the airwaves - right? NOT!
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As our President famously said, though fails to believe, "Words mean things". So- pay attention to these words! --------------!
PITTSBURGH - Former President Bill Clinton told an audience of liberal online activists Thursday evening that the nation has “entered a new era of progressive politics” that could last for decades if Democrats can pass ambitious measures such as health care reform and climate change. [keep up the good "fight" against total government control of us!....]

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The following appeared on Boston.com:
Headline: Immigrants to soon lose state health insurance
Date: Aug 17, 2009

"Thirty thousand legal immigrants have begun receiving letters informing them that their state-subsidized health insurance is ending Aug. 31 and will be replaced by a patchwork system of care until Massachusetts officials can piece together a more comprehensive plan for the most critically ill." [Yet another state, Hawaii being the first, has failed in it's attempt at a state-controlled health care plan. What would make us think that the feds, who have run Medicare and Medicaid into near bankruptcy, could efficiently run a health care system for hundreds of millions of patients?]
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Andrew Thomas of American Thinker: regarding whether we conservative, constitution-loving Americans have yet achieved our objectives concerning the cessation of government control: Au contraire, mon frère (as George Carlin would say). We are facing the most ruthless and power-hungry government in American history. They have the most effective and dedicated propaganda arm the world has ever known, i.e. the misnomered "mainstream" media. They are changing the face of America surreptitiously through an unelected and completely uncontrolled group of leftist radicals (including an avowed Communist) known as "Czars". Congress has been relegated to the status of "useful idiots". The government commands the powerful thuggish shadow armies of ACORN and SEIU, with the intent of forcibly drafting millions of our kids, brainwashing them, and inducting them into a third shadow army, AmeriCorps.

This administration currently controls the census, which can initiate creation of additional congressional districts in liberal areas of the country based on their populations as counted by leftist community organizers. The left dominates election committees and polling volunteers. If they decide to sabotage voting machines or vote tabulation software or servers, who will provide the oversight to prevent them from doing so? They run the largest organized voter fraud organization in the world (except for perhaps Iran) a.k.a. ACORN. Who knows what "October surprises" they have planned? Will we see the New Black Panther Party more actively menacing voters at the polls, since the Obama administration refuses to prosecute this voter intimidation?
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The RNC forwarded a press release/research memo to reporters today claiming that a "'public option' by any other name is still government health care." (snip) Reid deemed co-ops as "some type of public option" in early July-- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-NY, told ABC News. "That won't pass the House." "Some of us who have gotten roughed up pretty good at town hall meetings and stuck in there because we believe in this, now kind of feel like we have a tire track on our chest where the bus that rolled over us is," Weiner said. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Self-identified conservatives outnumber self-identified liberals in all 50 states of the union, according to the Gallup Poll. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mike Allen writes: Following a furor over how the data would be used, the White House has shut down an electronic tip box — flag@whitehouse.gov — that was set up to receive information on “fishy” claims about President Barack Obama’s health plan. E-mails to that address now bounce back with the message: “The e-mail address you just sent a message to is no longer in service. We are now accepting your feedback about health insurance reform via http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck.” [And I ask what the difference will be, since they are still accepting messages at a different location?]

TEN REASONS FOR NO SINGLE-PAYER PLAN

TEN REASONS THAT GOVERNMENT CONTROLLED SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE IS WRONG FOR AMERICA - or what will happen if the feds control the delivery system for health care.

1) It would take from us our right to keep our health records private, and to decide for ourselves our own health care.

2) For Americans who happen to be against the government paying for abortions, The Capps Amendment unfortunately requires the establishment of at least one plan covering elective abortions in every federally-subsidized exchange, and it gives the HHS Secretary the authority to include abortion coverage in the public plan. President Obama must not have read the bill, for he continues to deny this provision, saying that it is we who are "bearing false witness". Maybe Obama is just plain prevaricating, or at least parsing the language of the bill, for it says that only the portion of the government money coming from the patient's premium will be used for the abortion. Say what? It is still government money, of course, and would probably cost more than the small premium paid by many.

3) The feds will have the power, via this law, to determine the following things for our MDs, for changes to the plan are permitted from all the new commissions and boards, and the following have already been suggested by those who are developing the plan:

a) the salary they may make (general practitioners would be paid the same as any other specialty, regardless of money and time spent perfecting their expertise), partly because we need more general practitioners, particularly in rural areas (page 127). Page 124 stipulates that there shall be no administrative or judicial review of a payment rate set by the government..
b) just who will be allowed to go to medical school (diversity of gender and race being the primary factor, not intelligence). Since females either practice part time, to a much larger degree, and/or retire early, for instance, the pool of physicians will dwindle.
c) just where in the United States the physician will be paid the most to set up practice
d) through the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research, as well as the Health Choices Administration, the actual care the patient may receive as, for instance, in parts of Section 121:
e) government surveillance of doctors' actions via The National Coordinator For Health Information and Technology wherein unauthorized private care given will be illegal, punishable by high fines and imprisonment

3) The government rules will force many current physicians to retire early, for they did not become doctors in order to work for the government. It will also, because it contains a provision to further reduce reimbursements to doctors and hospitals for Medicare and Medicaid, cause some doctors and some hospitals to close their doors.

4) It will greatly reduce highly qualified prospects from applying to medical school in the first place, for a doctor’s ability to heal patients without government interference and guidance, and get paid appropriately for doing so while maintaining a capitalistic, private practice will be eliminated. Thus, the medical school students of the future could be chosen from a potentially inferior pool of applicants, endangering our care when we do see a physician.

5) Because of the preceding "rules" from the government and their unintended consequences, there will be fewer doctors and even fewer good doctors to care for us. The Congress, of course, has exempted itself from its’ own wonderful plan. Many more millions of people will be getting insurance, including all the illegal aliens who currently drain our resources with their care and who have not been excluded in this legislation. This will occur at a time when we will have fewer doctors and hospitals to care for them, necessitating rationing..... even if our government were not trying to ration care, which they clearly are. To reduce Medicare reimbursement at the same time that we have an enormously growing number of seniors in America will also necessitate rationing. It is not surprising, then, that under the auspices of the National Health Care Board, it has been suggested that the Board should “approve or reject treatment for patients based on the cost per treatment divided by the number of years the patient will benefit from the treatment”.

6) It will require many thousands more government workers to man the many government boards and panels required to actually oversee all this. Another new entity will be the Health Choices Administration, a independent agency in the Executive Branch of the Government, ruled by a "Commissioner" . This Administration will have many functions, the last one listed being open-ended by describing "such additional functions as may be specified in this division". Yes, read it for yourself on page 42. "Data collection", which may be shared with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, will be expected, to "protect consumers and prevent disparities in health and health care, don't you know (described on page 43). Oh! That’s right! It is this President's plan - more government, fewer private jobs.

7) The government has clearly proven that it cannot run Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid (or even a Capitol Building cafeteria) without bringing them close to or into bankruptcy, and without being riddled with billions of dollars of fraud, misuse and corruption. Perhaps our government should be forced to show it can fix these programs prior to taking over another 17% of our economy. The President himself has just recently pointed out that the U S Post Office does a terrible job! How good of him to point this out. Exactly, Mr. President!

8) It just plain costs too much, and will bankrupt our country, which should never try to "afford" it. Taking money from the very richest of us cannot fund this program and its' government bureaucracy. Well - of course - we can just make ALL Americans work for the government, the liberal left's dream (inch by inch - one law at a time). If single-payer legislation is passed, it will have opened the door to the next planned government take-over, and once passed, this legislation will be almost impossible to rescind. Think Cap-and-Trade.....

9) It is in direct conflict with Capitalism, which has made America the most successful country in the world with the best health care as well, for capitalism rewards hard work and inventiveness, entrepreneurship and intelligence. It is no accident that since the last election the American city with the least unemployment is Washington, DC, for this President's hope is full employment via government jobs. When the results of the few are redistributed to those who did nothing to receive them, the few will begin to work less hard, or to quit working altogether. It's the law of civilization, proven time and again through the ages......the law of risk and reward, the law of common sense, and the law of unintended consequences.

10) What this government should be doing is what anyone would support: finding a way to insure or care for those 12 million or so who cannot insure themselves - and leaving the rest of us alone! I say 12 million, for this number removes the millions of illegal immigrants, those who are only temporarily uninsured, those who are eligible for and have not signed up for S-Chip and Medicaid, and those who turn down employer offered insurance (choosing instead to spend their money on other things such as travel, big screen televisions, cell phones, or a new car, perhaps). Of course, when any of these people get sick or injured, they know they can't be turned down for care in any hospital. Guess who pays for these people's care? Perhaps "insurance" should not be the goal at all. Instead, being cared for when sick should be and currently is the standard. Our government should be the insurer of last resort – not the first.

A few sensible laws could reform the current insurance programs, and have been suggested by some conservatives in Congress: allow small businesses to band together to gain insurance as a group for their employees; allow insurance policies to be sold across state lines, thus increasing competition; allow some to purchase only catastrophic, high-deductible insurance while they pay for their everyday health care needs out of pocket; encourage Health Savings Accounts, carrying tax advantages, for the payment of individual insurance and doctor’s visits; equalize the tax laws so that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits; disallow insurance companies from dropping insurance on sick patients; force insurance companies to cover those with preexisting conditions, even though that coverage may cost more (perhaps offering a government tax credit for the extra premium amount); and enact tort reform to end the devastating lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These initiatives would solve some of our problems without dismantling our valued Free Market System.

Remember this quote from Thomas Jefferson: "A government big enough to give you everything is big enough to take from you everything you have".

Sticking His Neck Out To Inform Us

Just sticking his neck out to inform us!

MD’s opinion of Obama Care; keynote speaker at a Congressional Dinner at The Capitol Building in Washington last Friday (7/17)

Dr. Dave Janda
To The Point
Thursday, 23 July 2009

As a physician who has authored books on preventative health care, I was given the opportunity to be the keynote speaker at a Congressional Dinner at The Capitol Building in Washington last Friday (7/17).

The presentation was entitled Health Care Reform, The Power & Profit of Prevention, and I was gratified that it was well received.

In preparation for the presentation, I read the latest version of “reform” as authored by The Obama Administration and supported by Speaker Pelosi and
Senator Reid. Here is the link to the 1,018 page document:
http://edlabor.house.gov/documents/111/pdf/publications/AAHCA-BillText-071409.pdf

Let me summarize just a few salient points of the above plan. First, however, it should be clear that the same warning notice must be placed on The ObamaCare Plan as on a pack of cigarettes: Consuming this product will be hazardous to your health.

The underlying method of cutting costs throughout the plan is based on rationing and denying care. There is no focus on preventing health care need whatever. The plan’s method is the most inhumane and unethical approach to cutting costs I can imagine as a physician.

The rationing of care is implemented through The National Health Care Board, according to the plan. This illustrious Board “will approve or reject treatment for patients based on the cost per treatment divided by the number of years the patient will benefit from the treatment.”

Translation…..if you are over 65 or have been recently diagnosed as having an advanced form of cardiac disease or aggressive cancer…..dream on if you think you will get treated…..pick out your coffin.

Oh, you say this could never happen? Sorry…. this is the same model they use in Britain.

The plan mandates that there will be little or no advanced treatments to be available in the future. It creates The Federal Coordinating Council For Comparative Effectiveness Research, the purpose of which is “to slow the development of new medications and technologies in order to reduce costs.” Yes, this is to be the law.

The plan also outlines that doctors and hospitals will be overseen and reviewed by The National Coordinator For Health Information and Technology.

This ” coordinator” will “monitor treatments being delivered to make sure doctors and hospitals are strictly following government guidelines that are deemed appropriate.” It goes on to say…..”Doctors and hospitals not adhering to guidelines will face penalties.”

According to those in Congress, penalties could include large six figure financial fines and possible imprisonment.

So according to The ObamaCare Plan….if your doctor saves your life you might have to go to the prison to see your doctor for follow -up appointments. I believe this is the same model Stalin used in the former Soviet Union.

Section 102 has the Orwellian title, “Protecting the Choice to Keep Current Coverage.” What this section really mandates is that it is illegal to keep your private insurance if your status changes – e.g., if yo u lose or change your job, retire from your job and become a senior, graduate from college and get your first job. Yes, illegal.

When Mr. Obama hosted a conference call with bloggers urging them to pressure Congress to pass his health plan as soon as possible, a blogger from Maine referenced an Investors Business Daily article that claimed Section 102 of the House health legislation would outlaw private
insurance.

He asked: “Is this true? Will people be able to keep their insurance and will insurers be able to write new policies even though H.R. 3200 is passed?” Mr. Obama replied: “You know, I have to say that I am not familiar with the provision you are talking about.”

Then there is Section 1233 of The ObamaCare Plan, devoted to “Advanced Care Planning.” After each American turns 65 years of age they have to go to a mandated counseling program that is designed to end life sooner.

This session is to occur every 5 years unless the person has developed a chronic illness then it must be done every year. The topics in this session will include, “how to decline hydration, nutrition and how to initiate hospice care.” It is no wonder The Obama Administration does not like my emphasis on Prevention. For Mr. Obama, prevention is the “enemy” as people would live longer.

I rest my case. The ObamaCare Plan is hazardous to the health of every American.

After I finished my Capitol Hill presentation, I was asked by a Congressman in the question-answer session: “I’ll be doing a number of network interviews on the Obama Health Care Plan. If I am asked what is the one
word to describe the plan what should I answer.”

The answer is simple, honest, direct, analytical, sad but truthful. I told him that one word is FASCIST.

Then I added, “I hope you’ll have the courage to use that word, Congressman. No other word is more appropriate.”

Dr. Dave Janda, MD, is an orthopedic surgeon, and a world-recognized expert on the prevention of sports injuries, particularly in children. His website is noinjury.com

Riding the Wave of "Change"

Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement Thursday that the provision [for "death panels' in the Obama health care plan] had been dropped from consideration because it could be misinterpreted or implemented incorrectly. Said Newt Gingrich: "You are asking us to trust turning power over to the government, when there are clearly people in America who believe in establishing euthanasia, including selective standards," Gingrich said Sunday on the ABC's "This Week."
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How's this for hypocritical? The following is a statement by none other than Nancy Pelosi, encouraging those "protesters" who were against "Bush's" war in Iraq:
January 17, 2006: "So I thank all of you who have spoken out for your courage, your point of view. All of it. Your advocacy is very American and very important." My how times change....
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VALLEJO, Calif. -- Wall Street Journal: A health clinic in this blue-collar city north of Oakland, partly funded by the county, is saving local hospitals thousands of dollars in emergency-room visits by treating uninsured patients who suffer only non-urgent ailments. A watchdog group is now calling on county officials to cut funding for clinic patients who can't prove they are in the U.S. legally, a debate certain to surface in the national health-care overhaul.
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Frank Miele is managing editor of the Daily Inter Lake, and writes: Yes, I do realize that health-care costs can be prohibitive for many people, myself included, but that doesn't mean I have to choose to bankrupt our country -- or overthrow its foundational principles -- in order to solve the problem, does it? There is no money for the program, and there is no constitutional provision for it.

Besides, I -- along with many of my fellow citizens -- believe that the reason health care is so expensive in the first place is because of burdensome government rules and regulations that force doctors, hospitals and insurance companies to waste huge amounts of time, energy and money. So getting the government more involved is definitely not my preferred option.
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Aug. 14 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Senate should abandon efforts to pass legislation curbing greenhouse-gas emissions this year and concentrate on a narrower bill to require use of renewable energy, four Democratic lawmakers say.

“The problem of doing both of them together is that it becomes too big of a lift,” Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas said in an interview last week. “I see the cap-and-trade being a real problem.” Terrific, I say!

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Philip Elliott of AP: WASHINGTON – Apparently ready to abandon the idea, President Barack Obama's health secretary said Sunday a government alternative to private health insurance is "not the essential element" of the administration's health care overhaul.

The White House indicated it could jettison the contentious public option and settle on insurance cooperatives as an acceptable alternative, a move embraced by some Republicans lawmakers who have strongly opposed the administration's approach so far.

As proposed by Conrad, the co-ops would receive federal startup money, but then would operate independently of the government. They would have to maintain the same financial reserves that private companies are required to keep to handle unexpectedly high claims.

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A Washington Times editorial: Obama's Mad Science Advisors: When it comes to having past views that should frighten every American citizen, Ezekiel Emanuel (see above editorial) has nothing on the president's ''chief science adviser, John P. Holdren. (Snip) The question naturally arises why President Obama chooses to surround himself with extremists like Mr. Holdren or Dr. Emanuel. No matter how much they claim their views have ''evolved,'' health and science under Obamacare would be a frightening prospect with people like this advising the President.

Earlier this month, Mr. Holdren served as co-chairman when the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology met for the first time. It's a disgrace that Mr. Holdren is even on the council. In "Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment," a book he co-authored in 1977 with noted doomsayers Paul R. and Anne H. Erlich, Mr. Holdren wrote: "Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society."

In case compulsory abortion wasn't enough to diffuse his imaginary population bomb, Mr. Holdren and the Erlichs considered other extremist measures. "A program of sterilizing women after their second or third child, despite the relatively greater difficulty of the operation than vasectomy, might be easier to implement than trying to sterilize men," they wrote. "The development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired opens additional possibilities for coercive fertility control."

It gets worse. The Holdren-Erlich book also promotes "Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods." After noting that, well, yes, there were "very difficult political, legal and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems," Mr. Holdren and his co-authors express hope that their idea may still be viable. "To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements," they wrote. "It must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets or livestock."

Most Americans can be forgiven for thinking that mass sterilization through drinking water is never acceptable and that someone who supported such horrors should have no place on a prestigious White House council. The question naturally arises why President Obama chooses to surround himself with extremists like Mr. Holdren or Dr. Emanuel. No matter how much they claim their views have "evolved," health and science under Obamacare would be a frightening prospect with people like this advising the president.

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After a weekend of relatively tame town halls President Obama found one vocal skeptic in a college student who challenged the President to an Oxford debate over the public option at his Grand Junction, Colo., town hall this evening.

Zach Lahn, a 23-year-old student at the University of Colorado got the President’s attention after shouting out during the Q and A a few times. The President finally called on him during the end of the town hall.

“I just want proof here that I'm happy to get a good debate going,” [well, if it only lasts for 3 minutes, of course] the President said, knowing that he could be wading into harsher waters than he is used to.

“I'd love to have a debate, just all out, anytime, Oxford-style, if you'd like,” Lahn said to President Obama and then proceeded on with his question. “How in the world can a private corporation providing insurance compete with an entity that does not have to worry about making a profit, does not have to pay local property taxes -- they do not have to -- they're not subject to local regulations? How can a company compete with that?”

Lahn said he didn’t want any generalities, or philosophical arguments from the President as a response.

Obama praised his young challenger and said this is a legitimate debate to have.

“It's good to see a young person who's very engaged and confident challenging the President to a Oxford-style debate, I think this is good," he said. "You know, this is good. You know, I like that. You got to have a little chutzpah, you know.” [If this is so good, perhaps the President should set aside some time to do it, instead of setting time aside for, perhaps, being interviewed by an 11 year old (which he's already done).... And just perhaps, the debate should disallow telepromters . So far, no debate has been offered for, in my view, it would tend to highlight just how little Obama understands about health care, insurance companies, and our Constitution.}

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MARIETTA - Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson's office has gotten 10,000 calls just in the last week on the president's health care reform proposals, and 9,000 of those oppose the plans, Isakson said.
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Marc Ambinder: An administration official said tonight that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius "misspoke" when she told CNN this morning that a government run health insurance option "is not an essential part" of reform. This official asked not to be identified in exchange for providing clarity about the intentions of the President. The official said that the White House did not intend to change its messaging and that Sebelius simply meant to echo the president, who has acknowledged that the public option is a tough sell in the Senate and is, at the same time, a must-pass for House Democrats, and is not, in the president's view, the most important element of the reform package. A second official, Linda Douglass, director of health reform communications for the administration, said that President Obama believed that a public option was the best way to reduce costs and promote competition among insurance companies, that he had not backed away from that belief, and that he still wanted to see a public option in the final bill.
The perception that the White House had backed away from the public plan has roiled many prominent Democrats, who took to their blogs, and to Twitter, to protest. [Our work is not yet done!]
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"The White House e-mail list is made up of e-mail addresses obtained solely through the White House Web site. The White House doesn't purchase, upload or merge from any other list, again, all e-mails come from the White House Web site as we have no interest in e-mailing anyone who does not want to receive an e-mail," the statement said. "If an individual received the e-mail because someone else or a group signed them up or forwarded the e-mail, we hope they were not too inconvenienced." One possible reason for the confusion is that advocacy groups, when dealing with online petitions, are sending in their membership lists whenever they make contact with the White House - the e-mail addresses affiliated with those members could then become embedded in the White House distribution list. The White House indicated its Web site managers are going to seek out and block online petitions so that people can only sign up for information individually.
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Truth, Lies and Distortions

Is that Robert Gibbs, the porcupine, lurking in the grass, ready to throw his quills at protesters?

• Because it is so vital to know the truth, and I am finding that none of my friends where I live seem to have taken an interest in actually finding the truth, I am sharing an email from the Republican National Committee:
  
• 
  
• 
  
• Rhetoric: President Obama Promises Americans Can Keep Their Current Health Care Coverage. "You know, the interesting thing is we've actually been very clear on what we want. I've said I want to make sure if you have health care you are going to keep it..." (PBS's "The Newshour With Jim Lehrer," 7/20/09)

• FACT: Analysis Shows Over 88 Million People To Lose Current Insurance Under Government Health Care Takeover. "Under current law, there will be about 158.1 million people who are covered under an employer plan as workers, dependents or early retirees in 2011. If the act were fully implemented in that year, about 88.1 million workers would shift from private employer insurance to the public plan." (John Shelis, Vice President, Lewin Group, "Analysis Of The July 15 Draft Of The American Affordable Health Choices Act Of 2009," 7/17/09)

• Rhetoric: President Obama Pledges Americans Can Keep Their Doctor. "If you like your plan and you like your doctor, you won't have to do a thing. You keep your plan. You keep your doctor...We're not going to mess with it." (President Barack Obama, Remarks At White House Press Conference, The White House, 6/23/09)

• FACT: Mayo Clinic Says Government-Run Health Care Will Force Doctors To Drop Patients. '[L]awmakers are on track to approve across-the-board federal payment reductions of $155 billion over 10 years for hospitals ... Mayo and similar health systems object to the sweeping cuts. 'Across-the-board cuts will be harmful to everyone and we think it is particularly bad to penalize the high-value organizations,' said Jeff Korsmo, executive director of the Mayo Clinic Health Policy Center. 'We will have to violate our values in order to stay in business and reduce our access to government patients.'" (Phil Galewitz, "'Model' Health Systems Press Case For Medicare Fix In Reform," Kaiser Health News, 7/20/09)
• [I, Karen, will reiterate here that when one loses his job and must get new insurance, he MUST take the government plan once the government plan has begun.]
  

• Rhetoric: President Obama Promises No Additional Taxes On Middle Class. "What I've said is, and I have stuck to this point, I don't want to see additional tax burdens on people making $250,000 a year or less." (NBC's "Today Show," 7/21/09)

• FACT: Democrats' Plan Imposes 2.5% Tax On Uninsured Individuals. "The penalty assessed on people who would be subject to the mandate but did not obtain insurance would equal 2.5 percent of the difference between their adjusted gross income (modified to include tax-exempt interest and certain other sources of income) and the tax filing threshold ..." (Douglas W. Elmendorf, "Preliminary Analysis Of The Insurance Coverage Specifications Provided By The House Tri-Committee Group," Letter To Chairman Rangel, 7/17/09)
• [Here, I will add that the bill states that the taxes necessary to fund this plan will NOT be called a tax. Huh?]
  

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Fox News contributor Major Garrett, an a Robert Gibbs press conference, asked Gibbs to explain why he is learning that some Americans are getting emails from the White House without EVER having written to the White House. He asked if the White House also seeks other information to identify those to whom they send their emails without ever having received an email from them or visited the web site. Ending the exchange, Gibbs said, "Let me go someplace else that might be constructive."

[Next time, Garrett - don't ask such a difficult question!]

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Researchers who have examined the effects of preventive care generally find that the added costs of widespread use of preventive services tend to exceed the savings from averted illness

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AmericanSeniors.org. ASA’s Four Pillars: (Time to cancel AARP and go with this group? - I have)

• Social Security Reform
• Medicare Reform
• Tax Reform (Fair Tax)
• Keeping Citizen Benefits
out of the hands of illegal
aliens
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Democrats Questioning Democrat Tactics

Who is that hiding behind the trees? Is it a democrat, hiding from the truth?

From Camille Paglia, a devout Obama lover: My party was populist, attentive to the needs and wishes of those outside the power structure. And as a product of the 1960s, I thought the Democratic party was passionately committed to freedom of thought and speech. Somehow liberals have drifted into a strange servility toward big government, which they revere as a godlike foster father-mother who can dispense all bounty and magically heal all ills. The ethical collapse of the left was nowhere more evident than in the near total silence of liberal media and Web sites at the Obama administration's outrageous solicitation to private citizens to report unacceptable "casual conversations" to the White House. If Republicans had done this, there would have been an angry explosion by Democrats from coast to coast. I was stunned at the failure of liberals to see the blatant totalitarianism in this incident, which the president should have immediately denounced. His failure to do so implicates him in it."
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At a John Dingell meeting a "protester" was walking around carrying a sign with a swastika. How horrifying, said Dingell! It has come to light that the man was given the sign by - now hear this- a Dingell organizer! The man was handing out pro-Obama literature. Does it look like, just maybe, Dingell and his friends are trying to marginalize we good Americans - to allow the media to position us as angry mobs? And why is the media not pointing out the busloads of union members from SEIU, and the ACORN members, etc. who are being bussed in to these meetings?
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It's a web ad on Craigslist: "You can work for change. Join motivated staff around the country working to make change happen. You can make great friends and money along the way. Earn $400-$600 a week." I assume this means that the 13 million emails Obama sent out to his campaign supporters is not panning out. So now WE THE PEOPLE will actually be paying for Obama's pro-government health care take-over workers, for we taxpayers continue to give many millions of dollars to ACORN and it's over 300 connected organizations, because the government continues to describe them as bi-partisan!
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I can tell that even some Democrats are becoming disgusted with their party leaders when a devout Democrat such as Pat Caddell says on Fox News that (in general) his Democrat party used to be for the little guy, but is now calling them names such as un-American, angry mobs and the like. He decried the Democrats who are now ignoring our rights to free speech.

And from Maureen Dowd, , another very liberal columnist: "The postpartisan, postracial, post-Clinton-dysfunction world that Barack Obama was supposed to usher in when he hit town on his white charger, with turtle doves tweeting, has vanished. The young grass-roots army that swept Obama into office has yet to mobilize now that the fight is about something complicated rather than a charismatic hope-monger. No, they can’t? Instead of a multicultural tableau of beaming young idealists on screen, we see ugly scenes of mostly older and white malcontents, disrupting forums where others have come to actually learn something. Instead of hope, we get swastikas, death threats and T-shirts proclaiming “Proud Member of the Mob.” President Obama has proven quicksilver instincts, but not in this case. You would think that a politician schooled in community organizing and the foul balls of a presidential campaign would be ready to squash this kind of nuttiness."

[Can we not see the agenda of the left? It is to paint us as violent, rude, angry, nutty and unworthy. We must make sure our questions are asked, but not in violent ways. And we must not cave in to their desires to shut us up. Our country depends on us and our willingness to stand up and be counted, in spite of the thugs the Democrats are planting among us.]
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Rasmussen now reports that Obama's approval rating has fallen to 46%. And yet our President continues to say that we should stop talking. I will continue to talk, for instance when he says that the health care reform includes no new taxes. Well, do you understand the reason?! The bill itself states that any taxes collected for this bill are not to be considered to be taxes! How truthful do you think that is?

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From DetroitNews.com weblog: Sen. Debbie Stabenow, Energy Leader (National Review, 08.10.09

Michigan just experienced its coldest July on record; global temperatures haven't risen in more than a decade; Great Lakes water levels have resumed their 30-year cyclical rise (contrary to a decade of media scare stories that they were drying up due to global warming), and polls show that climate change doesn't even make a list of Michigan voters' top-ten concerns.

Yet in an interview with the Detroit News Monday, Senator Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.) - recently appointed to the Senate Energy Committee - made clear that fighting the climate crisis is her top priority.

"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."

And there are sea monsters in Lake Michigan. I can feel them when I'm boating -(this said on the blog)

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Health Care Reform's Rationing Provisions

Do you know what President Barack Obama said earlier in the speech where he is quoted as saying: "I don't want the folks who created the mess do a lot of talking. I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess. I don't mind cleaning up after them, but don't do a lot of talking?" He actually said, "We want to make sure that we listen to other people's ideas. We're going to bring labor and business together," he said.

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Congressman John Dingell has now said: "Well, the last time I had to confront something like this was when I voted for the civil rights bill and my opponent voted against it. At that time, we had a lot of Ku Klux Klan folks and white supremacists and folks in white sheets and other things running around causing trouble.

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Mort Zuckerman of MSNBC stated on tv recently: "you start to wonder whether in fact the word socialist is becoming a code word, whether or not socialist is becoming the new N-word for frankly for some angry upset birthers and others."

Cynthia Tucker’s guesstimate that 45-65 percent of town hall protesters are probably racist just shows how out of touch she is with main stream America, for this has not one thing to do with the skin color of anyone. It shows me that she is actually the racist.

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President Obama, without his teleprompter, actually made our case for us during a recent speech on health insurance reform by saying, "I mean, if you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right? No, they are. It's the post office that's always having problems." That comment provoked laughter from the audience. Exactly, Mr. President.

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Susan Ferrechio
Chief Congressional Correspondent

Regarding the section of the health care reform bill pertaining to a collection of personal data for the common good, she says: "I have spent 35 years in information technology," one woman in the audience said to Arlen Specter. "I read this bill very closely. You are about to concentrate more information about more Pennsylvanians and Americans in this bill in one place in the computers of Washington that has ever occurred."

Specter elicited laughs and boos when he responded, "With respect to privacy, we'll do everything we can to stop people from breaking into the files." Following the meeting, Specter said Wednesday he thinks people who have been angrily disrupting town hall meetings on overhauling the health care system are "not necessarily representative of America," but should be heard. Yes, Mr. Specter, it IS representative of the majority of us in America - just read the polls......

Diana Furchtgott-Roth, an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, said the provision in the House bill that calls for an ID card actually goes much further and would allow the government access to a patient's bank account, in order to determine ability to pay.

"What I see as being problematic is that the government can get into your bank account and see how much is in there," Furchtgott-Roth said.

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From Rich Lowry: Billy Tauzin cut a deal with the White House that is keeping his drug industry trade group PhRMA out of its customary place in the pantheon of Democratic hate groups — for now. Pres. Barack Obama goes out of his way to praise the drug industry. Tauzin has visited the White House half a dozen times and has committed to a $150 million advertising campaign on behalf of Obamacare. He’s become the “good German” of the health-care debate — that is, the good $2 million-a-year drug-industry lobbyist.

Tauzin agreed to pass along [an Obama promised limit of ] $80 billion in savings over ten years. It wasn’t clear what exactly PhRMA had gotten in return until congressional Democrats began to run afoul of the unacknowledged provisions of the deal. It turns out the White House had committed not to not to do three things: impose more than $80 billion in savings, have the government set prices in the Medicare prescription-drug program, and import cheaper drugs from Canada. In other words, Obama has bought off the drug companies in order to make them tout his reforms. The Chicago Machine has sent a good soldier to the White House.

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Kelly Anderson Wright of American Thinker: excerpted

Last year, when Michelle Obama declared, "America is a mean country," I disagreed. As the white mom of multi-racial children, I knew our country had its share of race problems, but I never would have called America "mean."

Apparently, Michelle's "mean America" comment was simply premonitory. Last year, I was a sweet, naïve, middle class, white Italian-American businesswoman and single mother.

And now, as I, my friends, and even my elderly mother speak loudly at town hall meetings to tell our elected representatives we don't want government-run health care, we are being called Nazis, racists, political terrorists, rabid mobsters and angry, right-wing wackos, just because we are exercising our God-given right to freedom of speech.

Michelle, you are right, America is mean. The Obamanation is the meanest America I have ever known.
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Let's quote Dr. Ekzekiel Emanuel, Obama's pick to be health-policy adviser at the Office of Management and Budget and a member of the Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research. Emanuel bluntly admits that the cuts [in health care] will not be pain-free. "Vague promises of savings from cutting waste, enhancing prevention and wellness, installing electronic medical records and improving quality are merely 'lipstick' cost control, more for show and public relations than for true change," he wrote last year (Health Affairs Feb. 27, 2008).

Savings, he writes, will require changing how doctors think about their patients: Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, "as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others" (Journal of the American Medical Association, June 18, 2008). "A young person with a poor prognosis has had few life-years but lacks the potential to live a complete life. Considering prognosis forestalls the concern that disproportionately large amounts of resources will be directed to young people with poor prognosis."

When fully implemented, Dr. Emanuel's system, in his words, "produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated."
"Chances that are attenuated" , states Newt Gingrich, is a nice way of saying the young and the old are considered less worthy of health care and, under this system, will get less.
In our country, the road to dehumanizing, bureaucratic health care rationing begins with something called comparative effectiveness research (CER). It sounds completely innocent. In practice, CER means comparing different treatments for diseases to see which works best. And what doctor or patient would object to that, right?

The problem is that, in the context of a government-run health care system, comparative effectiveness research becomes a way to find a cheaper, one-size-fits-all approach to medicine that will limit health care choices for patients.

But don't just take my word for it. Congressional Democrats included $1.1 billion in the Stimulus Bill for CER. Report language explaining the bill noted that the treatments found to be "more expensive" as result of the research "will no longer be prescribed" and that "guidelines" should be developed to manage doctors.

Congressional Democrats also killed several amendments to the current health care bill that would have prevented CER from being used to ration care.
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From Mary Laney of the Chicago Daily Observer: England cannot get rid of its public healthcare now because bureaucrats running its public health system are now the third largest block of employees in the world. The protesters [here in America] know this. They also know that the numbers being given on those without insurance are wildly inflated as 40 million. Take out the 10 to 20 million illegal aliens, remove the 8 to 10 million who can afford insurance but choose not to get it, and the number shrinks considerably. It would be cheaper for the government to simply pay to cover those who can’t afford insurance than to spend 17% of the nation’s economy to rip up the best health care system in the world.
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Sunset For Seniors

David Keene
The San Francisco Examiner

Americans are finally getting a good look at the man in the White House. They’ve been thrilled by his speeches, love his kids and almost desperately want to believe he is who they voted for. It turns out, however, that he simply can’t tolerate disagreement.

In President Barack Obama’s view, those who disagree with him really ought to just shut up. His critics, after all, are the people responsible for the problems he was elected to solve, dupes and hirelings of those responsible, or dangerous kooks.

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Thirty-two (32%) of voters nationwide favor a single-payer health care system where the federal government provides coverage for everyone. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 57% are opposed to a single-payer plan. Fifty-two percent (52%) believe such a system would lead to a lower quality of care while 13% believe care would improve. 87 percent of Republicans are opposed, and those not affiliated with either party reject single payer by a decisive 63-22 percent margin.

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From Phyllis Schafly: A congressional Town Hall meeting on Aug. 6 reminds us of a memorable political moment when Bill Clinton and his chief aides were in Little Rock celebrating his 1992 election. Heady with victory, Chicago staffer Rahm Emanuel demonstrated how he planned to punish political enemies by plunging his steak knife into the table and screaming, "Dead!" as he named each target. The SEIU goons [at the town hall meeting] were following White House advice: "Don't do a lot of talking," and if they encounter resistance, "punch back twice as hard."

On the other hand, there is evidence that Obama's "punch back" tactics are organized. MoveOn.org sent out a "Dear MoveOn member" email stating: "We've got a plan to fight back against these radical right-wingers. We've hired skilled grass-roots organizers who are working with thousands of local volunteers to show Congress that ordinary Americans continue to support President Obama's agenda for change. And we're building new online tools to track events across the country and make sure MoveOn members turn out at each one."

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Have you been wondering what is upsetting those of us who are questioning our Congressmen in recent town hall meetings? The following excerpts explain a lot about our fears about government controlled health care. Once again, extreme, radical thinkers have been appointed by our President to important positions. Does he not even know any moderates? It must be oh, so upsetting that the Internet and talk radio is now able to expose what our leaders have said, are thinking and believing. Once, back in the time of delicious concealment of facts, radical thinkers were not exposed to the masses. By BETSY MCCAUGHEY - Deadly Doctors At least two of President Obama's top health advisers should never be trusted with that power [to decide medical protocols for Americans] Start with Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. He has already been appointed to two key positions: health-policy adviser at the Office of Management and Budget and a member of Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research. Emanuel bluntly admits that the cuts will not be pain-free. "Vague promises of savings from cutting waste, enhancing prevention and wellness, installing electronic medical records and improving quality are merely 'lipstick' cost control, more for show and public relations than for true change," he wrote last year (Health Affairs Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously,Feb. 27, 2008). Emanuel, however, believes that "communitarianism" should guide decisions on who gets care. He says medical care should be reserved for the non-disabled, not given to those "who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens . . . An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia" (Hastings Center Report, Nov.-Dec. '96). He explicitly defends discrimination against older patients: "Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years" (Lancet, Jan. 31). The bills being rushed through Congress will be paid for largely by a $500 billion-plus cut in Medicare over 10 years. Knowing how unpopular the cuts will be, the president's budget director, Peter Orszag, urged Congress this week to delegate its own authority over Medicare to a new, presidentially-appointed bureaucracy that wouldn't be accountable to the public. But Emanuel criticizes Americans for being too "enamored with technology" and is determined to reduce access to it. In the April 9 New England Journal of Medicine, Blumenthal, another of Obama's key appointees, predicted that many doctors would resist "embedded clinical decision support" -- a euphemism for computers telling doctors what to do. Emanuel explained how business should be done: "Every favor to a constituency should be linked to support for the health-care reform agenda. If the automakers want a bailout, then they and their suppliers have to agree to support and lobby for the administration's health-reform effort." Do we want a "reform" that empowers people like this to decide for us? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJxmpTMGhU0 For those who have not actually seen it, you should watch this. Perhaps it should be sent to the White House for it's consideration. It is Hillary screaming about our right to debate any administration.

Dreams of Obama......

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from gormogons.com: Please recall that after Obama's election, but prior to his Inaugural, he first showed us his arrogance by always having on this podium a never before seen logo: Office of the President Elect!

It's All About Me!

Can any of us remember a time when a president of the United States had his own logo? While I only really remember Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr. and Obama, I don't recall seeing a logo for any of the presidents before them. If I'm wrong, drop me a note, I'm not above admitting that I didn't know something. However, not only does Obama have his own logo (the portion of the picture at the left with the "O" shape containing the red and white stripes), the administration is busy using taxpayer money to adapt that logo into a logo for the national healthcare program (proposed logo is the one pictured).

What if president Truman had a logo and included it in the logo for the Central Intelligence Agency after he signed the Executive Order in effect creating the organization? What about George W. Bush putting a big, stylized "B" logo in the middle of the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence? Somehow, I don't think either of those would have gone over well at all.

But in walks Obama and we see cars tatooed with the logo and now it's being used as part of national program. Draw your own conclusions, but I know having a ruler's logo issued as part of national programs isn't in our history but exists in others that aren't too favorable.
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Let's recall what Michelle Obama said while in California during the campaign: "Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zone . . . Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual - uninvolved, uninformed." Do keep these words in mind while reading the following.....

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From a USA Today Op Ed by Steny Hoyer and Nancy Pelosi: These disruptions [by "angry, swastika-carrying mobs"] at town hall meetings are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views — but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American. Drowning out the facts is how we failed at this task for decades. Health care is complex. It touches every American life. It drives our economy. People must be allowed to learn the facts.

Well, we have learned the facts by actually reading the bill, which is more than most of you have done, and we don't like what we've learned! By the way - where was your precious right for opposing views to be heard when you closed Republicans out of the process, meeting in private, and denying that the Republicans actually DO have a plan. You just wouldn't listen to their opposing views, would you? We are attempting to teach to you the facts. You in Congress have attempted to drown out our opposing views by barring us from your meetings, by canceling your meetings, by calling us a 'manufactured mob', and by sending your union thugs in to intimidate us. And now you dare to state that when it is YOU who is drowning out OUR opposing views you are not un-American, but we are. At the time, I am sure you agreed with Hillary Clinton when she screamed that "we have a right to disagree with any administration". Now that the shoe is on the other foot, it is suddenly un-American. This statement alone shows all Americans your true character as well as your true agenda. It was your party which not so long ago declared dissent to be the highest form of patriotism....

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Last year, "Obama's sexy, he was hot, and everybody wanted a piece of that," said Candice Davies, a speech therapist in Cary who trained canvassers for last year's campaign and is trying to organize support for healthcare legislation. "Now, people are going to have to work for something that is not quite as slick or sexy."

The Los Angeles Times reports that "officials in charge of the network concede that opponents of the healthcare overhaul have been more organized than Democrats had expected.

But they say Organizing for America, which was known as Obama for America during the presidential campaign, is quietly and deliberately building a system of professional field organizers and trained volunteers that has already inspired thousands of community events and reached millions of people."

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Last week, after being reported in the Los Angeles Times, the White House confirmed it has promised Big Pharma that any healthcare legislation will bar the government from using its huge purchasing power to negotiate lower drug prices. Now we know why the drug firms are not resisting this new plan, for Obama has promised that the "price" they will pay will be limited to an amount stated by Obama. So much for the Congress actually writing the bill, and so much for Obama's promised transparency.

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