One of the best ways to understand what a piece of legislation is all about is, well, to read it, (which too many of our elected officials refuse to do...or don't allow enough time for the American people to do). This is even more true when it comes to Obamacare. For example, Grover Norquist had a little fun doing a word search on the House version of Obamacare and found some interesting patterns.
The Conservative Outpost points out the following: If you care about your freedom (and/or your money), take a look at how often the following words appear in the bill:
- "Tax" 87 times
- "Taxable" 62 times
- "Excise tax" 10 times
- "Taxes" 15 times
- "Fee" 59 times
- "Penalty" 113 times
- "Require" 118 times
- "Must" 58 times
- "Shall" 3,424 times
Not exactly the language of liberty, is it?
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Obamacare gives Medicare bureaucrats the power to ration health care by forcing doctors to prescribe cheaper medical devices and drugs. In the recent case of Hays v. Sebelius, the court ruled that Medicare doesn't have the right to make this rule,
but Obamacare takes jurisdiction away from the courts to hear any appeal from decisions of the new Medicare Commission. The "stick" applied to primary-care doctors is imposing financial penalties if they refer too many patients to specialists. The "carrot" is financial rewards to doctors who give up small practices and consolidate into larger medical groups or become salaried employees of hospitals or other large institutions. The Senate bill even has a four-page section artfully written to enable ACORN to get federal health care grants. This section describes grant recipients as "community and consumer-focused nonprofit groups" having "existing relationships ... with uninsured and underinsured consumers." http://townhall.com/columnists/PhyllisSchlafly/2009/12/29/ten_new_reasons_why_obamacare_can_still_be_killed?page=2
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/29/opinion/29herbert.html?_r=3
If even the plan’s proponents do not expect policyholders to pay the tax, how will it raise $150 billion in a decade? Great question.
We all remember learning in school about the suspension of disbelief. This part of the Senate’s health benefits taxation scheme requires a monumental suspension of disbelief. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, less than 18 percent of the revenue will come from the tax itself. The rest of the $150 billion, more than 82 percent of it, will come from the income taxes paid by workers who have been given pay raises by employers who will have voluntarily handed over the money they saved by offering their employees less valuable health insurance plans.
Can you believe it?
I asked Richard Trumka, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., about this. (Labor unions are outraged at the very thought of a health benefits tax.) I had to wait for him to stop laughing to get his answer. “If you believe that,” he said, “I have some oceanfront property in southwestern Pennsylvania that I will sell you at a great price.”
A survey of business executives by Mercer, a human resources consulting firm, found that only 16 percent of respondents said they would convert the savings from a reduction in health benefits into higher wages for employees. Yet proponents of the tax are holding steadfast to the belief that nearly all would do so. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
According to David Limbaugh, in part, regarding Barack Hussein Obama: The public is scared to death -- not about the ebbs and flows of the economy in the short term, but about the very survival of the country -- because of the reckless spending policies Obama is deliberately pursuing and the other "elements" of his destructive agenda to remake America in his image -- including going soft on terrorism.
What [liberals] need to get through their heads -- and then share with impervious colleagues -- is that Obama didn't undertake his radical agenda to turn America into a full-blown socialist state because of "the size of the problems (he) inherited." That was just a convenient excuse.
He had plans to "spread the wealth around" long before TARP became an acronym. He and his wife were trashing America as arrogant and dismissive long before this economic crisis fell into their laps just months before the 2008 election.
Obama didn't impose his Draconian stimulus bill or omnibus spending bills to jump-start the economy. He did it to transfer wealth and establish slush funds for re-election (I would add - funds with which to "buy" the votes he needs in Congress to pass his agenda]. He didn't push cap and trade to reduce "global warming," but to bring America down to size with the "underdeveloped" nations of the world. He didn't obsessively promote Obamacare to improve the economy, "bend the cost curve" (what a joke!), achieve universal coverage or improve the quality of health care. He did it to amplify the federal government's power over all aspects of our lives. http://townhall.com/columnists/DavidLimbaugh/2009/12/29/its_not_the_economy,_stupid!_its_national_survival!?page=full&comments=true
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http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Whistleblowers-punished-for-warning-of-aviation-security-lapses-8693641-80219982.html
They've been frantically trying to warn America for the past six years: Aviation security is a joke, and it's only a matter of time before terrorists destroy another airplane full of innocent passengers.
The close call in Detroit on Christmas Day has vindicated a group of highly experienced experts -- including former airline pilots, federal air marshals and Federal Aviation Administration inspectors -- who were fired or demoted for pointing out obvious flaws in the nation's post-9/11 aviation security system to their chain of command.
Even now, facing financial ruin after their careers were trashed and their families destroyed, courageous members of the Whistleblowing Airline Employees Association ( airline-whistleblowers.org) refuse to be silenced.
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Hundreds of al-Qaeda militants planning attacks from Yemen'
“They may actually plan attacks like the one we have just had in Detroit. There are maybe hundreds of them — 200, 300.”
Dr al-Qirbi said it was the “responsibility” of countries with strong intelligence capabilities to warn states such as Yemen about the movements of terror suspects. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article6970574.ece
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The organizers of a Dearborn-area group on Facebook are calling for Muslims to protest against the actions of a Nigerian man accused of trying to attack a Northwest Airlines flight en route to Detroit Metro Airport on Friday. Majed Moughni, a Dearborn attorney, said Sunday afternoon that Muslims need to let the world know that those who would commit terrorism do not represent Islam. His Facebook group, Dearborn Area Community Members, is calling for local Muslims to hold a protest during the scheduled Jan. 8 hearing in U.S. District Court in Detroit for Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. The 23-year-old was charged Saturday with trying to detonate an explosive device on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Friday. He told federal authorities he was acting on orders from Al Qaeda. http://www.freep.com/article/20091228/NEWS02/912280316/Protest-planned-to-tell-world-Islam-is-peaceful
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Is the following (intrusive, invasive xrays that show us totally naked, and place frequent travelers at risk of high radiation levels) what you wish for our government to do to "protect" us all as we fly from place to place? Or do you think that some true profiling should be expected, singling out those types of folks who are currently targeting us and our county, as well as all other infidels, for death? I for one am weary of being picked out of line for further inspection of my purse and my carry-on bag (for explosives, among other things) while those who fit the terrorist profile are left unsearched because we are more afraid of not be politically correct than we are intent on saving lives.... Perhaps we could start by also searching those who actually fit the profile as well as little old ladies, babies and such. Now that would be a beginning!
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http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/18361
Percy Sutton, long-time Borough President of Manhattan passed away this week at 89. (Snip) There is one more little thing that Sutton is known for and that is for revealing that Dr. Khalid al-Mansour, a member of the Black Panthers and a well-known Islamist, was the benefactor that paid for Barack Obama’s Harvard education. In October of 2008 Sutton appeared on NY1, a cable news channel in New York City.
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Press reports have hinted at it for several days, but now the media has just come out and reported it: The same al Qaeda cleric who advised the Fort Hood shooter also counseled Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab – the Christmas Day bomber. Here is Victor Morton in the Washington Times: The Nigerian accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner had his suicide mission personally blessed in Yemen by Anwar al-Awlaki. There is more and more evidence that al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, who Awlaki works with, sponsored Abdulmutallab’s attack. And Awlaki’s involvement confirms that this was a professional hit attempt – not the work of an “
isolated extremist,” as President Obama first claimed. http://www.weeklystandard.com/Weblogs/TWSFP/TWSFPView.asp#14619
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http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein/2009/12/30/napolitano-builds-undie-bomber-terrorists-went-great-lengths
The hapless Homeland Security head has a 679-word piece in today's USA Today basically promising to do better. She begins with this line [emphasis added]:
Friday's attempted terrorist attack against Northwest Flight 253 near Detroit is a powerful illustration that terrorists will go to great lengths to try to defeat the security measures that have been put in place since September 11, 2001.
"Great lengths?" Really? You buy a plane ticket for a kid, stick a few ounces of explosives in his nappies, then hope he'll make it onboard and remember which end to light.
And far from choosing someone with a good chance of completing his murderous mission, the plotters picked a guy with enough red flags surrounding him to have stocked a May Day parade back in the old Soviet Union. Need we count some of the ways?
- Denied British visa.
- On some kind of US watch list.
- Father warned our embassy and various intel agencies.
- Paid cash.
- One-way ticket.
- No checked luggage.
Napolitano would want us to imagine diabolical masterminds behind a fiendish plot that the Obama admin might be excused for not undoing. But far from demonstrating the "great lengths" to which the terrorists will go, what happened on December 25th illustrates only the deep incompetence of those responsible for stopping it.
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