Monday, August 17, 2009
Specter: Town halls shouldn't dominate process
Lawmakers are debating along party lines whether [???] the outrage expressed at town hall meetings around the country is representative of wide opposition to healthcare reform.
Democrats, led by one of the party’s newest members, Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), said Sunday those shouting at town halls represent a minority of Americans.
As such, Specter and others said Congress should be careful not to let the events drive substance on the healthcare legislative debate...
[After all, they're only individuals - it's not like they represent unions or anything. The arrogance.]
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First, do no harm
A new Rasmussen poll suggests that voters want Congress to follow the maxim, Primum non noceres when addressing the issue of health care.
[Both poignant and pertinent. Why doesn't it apply here?]
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Obama Uses Op-Ed to Criticize Health Insurance Industry
The op-ed in The New York Times escalated an approach the White House and congressional Democrats have taken in recent weeks, demonizing another private sector industry to justify its intentions to take over the health care industry rather than arguing the merit of legislation currently being considered by both houses.
Though health care reform critics have flooded town halls over the past month, Obama wrote in his column that media have focused too much on the "loudest voices" -- he suggested that those with inadequate insurance policies are clamoring for reform.
The president claimed that insurance companies "discriminated" against more than 12 million Americans over three years because of pre-existing conditions, adding:
"Almost everyone knows that we must start holding insurance companies accountable"
Obama wrote that he's confident health care reform will pass.
[Again; when a politician {or anyone} uses the 'argument' that "everybody knows", it means they've no factual data or logical construction to support their view. It's the most hollow of demagoguery.]
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THE TRUTH ABOUT HEALTH INSURANCE
Nine out of 10 people under 65 are covered by their employers, most of which cover all employees and charge everyone the same rate:
- If you develop an expensive condition such as cancer or heart disease, and then get fired or divorced or your employer goes out of business -- the individual insurance will be very expensive if it's available.
- Obama wants to wave away this reality with new regulations that prohibit "discrimination against the sick," but if insurers are forced to sell coverage to everyone at any time, many people will buy insurance only when they need medical care. [I.e., it will raise the % of policy holders who are net-debtors of the system.]
- New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts have both community rating and guaranteed issue, and, no surprise, they have the three most expensive individual insurance markets among all 50 states.
- In 2007, the average annual premium in New Jersey was $5,326 for singles and in New York $12,254 for a family; ObamaCare would impose New York-type rates nationwide.
In turn, that would free insurers to compete for the business of all patients, including those with pre-existing conditions, because then they could charge enough to cover the costs -- instead of passing them to others...
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Obama: TV Misreporting What's Happening At Town Hall Meetings
The man who has received more favorable press coverage than any political candidate or President in history struck back at television news outlets Friday for focusing attention on town hall meeting protesters.
Imagine the nerve of these Obama-loving media members daring to broadcast some dissent in the population despite their having been informed {by Obama himself} it's all being manufactured by conservative organizations.
But none of that matters, for Mr. Obama has grown accustomed to nothing but glowing adoration and sycophancy, and what's been shown on recent television newscasts just doesn't fit what he believes is necessary to force healthcare reform down the throats of a nation becoming more and more fearful of the long-term consequences (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript, relevant section at 1:00):
"I know there's been a lot of attention paid to some of the town hall meetings that are going on around the country, especially when tempers flare. TV loves a ruckus.So, his totally controlled, scripted, hand-picked-questioner town hall meeting in New Hampshire "reflects America a lot more than" what's going on all around the country when regular people spontaneously address concerns to their representatives.
Earlier this week I held a town hall in New Hampshire, a few thousand people showed up. Some were big supporters of the health insurance reform. Some had concerns and questions. Some were downright skeptical, didn't believe it could be done.
But I was glad to see that people were there not to shout. They were there to listen and ask questions. That reflects America a lot more than what we've seen covered on television for the last few days."
That's how democracy's supposed to work? Whose democracy, Mr. President?
Our Founding Fathers regularly yelled at each other as they debated independence and eventually our Constitution. There were even fist fights in Independence Hall.
That's how OUR democracy works, Mr. President, and despite how it displeases you, people around the country raising their voices desperately hope media continue to air such emotional displays even in the dishonest fashion they're currently doing it.
[When our 'representatives' lie to our faces, our reactionary options diminish. We're past time to calling them out on their transparent malfeasance - it's the only thing they've left us.]
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Lies, lies and more lies
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President Obama's lies in Montana are the most egregious falsehoods since Bill Clinton said "I did not have sexual relations with that woman".
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CBS Describes Democrats as ‘Orchestrating’ Pro-Obama Town Hall
[Credit where due.]
On Friday’s broadcast network evening newscasts, the CBS Evening News uniquely noted that Democrats in Montana had "orchestrated" a friendly environment for President Obama at a Montana town hall event as many Democrats arrived early to secure tickets. After CBS correspondent Chip Reid filed a report in which he relayed that
"this crowd was on [Obama's] side," and that "the questions were mostly softballs," Reid brought up "orchestration" as one of the reasons for a friendly crowd: "So why wasn't there more anger in here? For one thing, after accusing Republicans of orchestrating their protests, Democrats did some orchestrating of their own, getting in line early in large numbers and snatching up most of the tickets."
On the NBC Nightly News, substitute anchor Ann Curry led with the story:
"The President was to squarely take on the anger we’ve seen in recent weeks over health care reform, flying to a town hall in a conservative part of Montana. The audience, we were told, was not pre-screened. But the meeting was more like a campaign rally than a debate over health care. The President even getting a standing ovation."
[Again, how does one have a 'civil debate' on an issue the opposition is willing to lie to your face about? 'Civility' to those folks is only a half step down from silence, which we all know is interpreted as consent - so what are the realistic options to conveying to our corrupt 'representatives' that the jig is up and we're not buying their stories, given that if we fail to do so we (and worse, our children) will be saddled with government dictated health 'care'?
I.e., raucous discourse is a last-resort option, but the only one these play-actors have left us. ]
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ABC Tries to Tie Health Care Town Hall Protesters to Hate Groups
ABC News correspondent Brian Ross tried to connect the health care town hall protesters to hate groups on Friday’s GMA. Ross cited the Southern Poverty Law Center, whose left-wing political affiliation he omitted, and used two sound bites from the SPLC’s Mark Potok, who hyped that President Obama supposedly
“triggered fears among...white people...that they are somehow losing their country.”
After summarizing how police in Los Angeles arrested a man suffering from “mental problems” for making threats against the White House, and how the case is apparently part of a “disturbing pattern,” Ross played his first clip from Potok, who emphasized,
“I don’t think that these are simply [i.e., 'just'] people who are mentally ill or...you know, kind of off their rockers. I think that...in a very real sense, they represent a genuine reaction- a genuine backlash against Obama.”
[Because of his race, of course.]
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Racism in health care bill seen by US Commission on Civil Rights
The US Commission on Civil Rights is proving a thorn in the side of the Obama administration. First it has problems with Attorney General Eric Holder's Justice Department dropping of the New Black Panther voter rights intimidation case. Now it sees the House health care bill having provisions that are racially discriminatory.
How? By making overt a preference to award billions of taxpayer dollars and preferential treatment to minority students for scholarships, and favoring medical schools that have a record of sending graduates to areas with inadequate health care services. Jennifer Haberkorn of the Washington Times has an exclusive story:
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"These programs are unlikely to reduce health care disparities among racial and ethic groups," according to the draft letter obtained by The Washington Times. "A growing body of evidence indicates that increasing access to high-quality physicians - whatever their racial or ethnic ancestry - is the best way to mitigate such disparities."
The draft letter also cites testimony from Dr. Amitabh Chandra of Harvard University who said the idea that expanding the number of minority physicians and providing "cultural competence training" [?] will bridge the health status gap is "grounded in hope more than science," according to the draft language.
It cites research from Dr. Chandra that found that improving the quality of health care in the 500 largest minority serving areas would improve minority health care more than the elimination of racial disparities within every provider in the U.S.
Press Largely Ignored Hostile Protester Rhetoric Towards Bush
As Obama-loving media continue their assault on town hall meeting protesters, they seem to have forgotten how they covered civil disobedience when George W. Bush was in the White House.
As Fox News's Bill Sammon pointed out Wednesday, when former President Bush was greeted by hostile protesters on a fund raising trip to Portland, Oregon, in August 2002, the news media didn't bother sharing with the public some of the truly incendiary signs in the crowd or the vulgar behavior of the attendees.
In fact, some of the television reports at the time painted the protesters as innocent victims of an overly aggressive police force...
UPDATE: video added at end of post with footage of the Portland protest.
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Uribe says US agreement is a 'step in the right direction'
Colombia's President, Álvaro Uribe, said that the controversial agreement with Washington, which would allow US military to use bases in Colombia, is a step in the right direction to fight terrorism.
"There is no looking back," said Uribe, referring to the politics of the situation. Terrorism must be "fully eliminated and this is a step in the right direction,"
he said during a political act involving members from his Cabinet.
[We've not better friend in the region nor one more capable should he be supported. Meanwhile, the free trade bill he desperately needs to fund his government has been stonewalled in our House of Representatives for over a year at the behest of labor unions who don't want any more competition.
For shame.]
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The Hijra
Modern Day Trojan Horse: The Islamic Doctrine of Immigration
Within the past few decades, mosques have increasingly dotted the landscapes of American and European cities and towns. Islamic schools or academies and a host of Muslim organizations have become omnipresent across the West, and Americans and Europeans have made countless accommodations to Muslim demands.
They have included footbaths; high-decibel, five-times-daily calls to prayer; segregated male-female gym and swimming pool hours; halal food; workplace dispensations for handling pork products and for female head and face coverings; and special, public prayer rooms. Also, shari'ah-compliant financial transactions, the expunging of offensive likenesses of Mohammed or imagined depictions of Arabic characters that connote "Allah," official swearings-in on Korans in place of customary Bibles, the revision of so-called offensive content in movies and television programs, the removal of representations of pigs from the public sphere, and many other acculturations to Muslim entreaties have all been made in the service of respecting Muslim religious beliefs and practices.
This strategic pattern of demands is part of an insidious, 1,400-year-old proscription for Muslims that originates in the Koran and the Sunnah, the deeds of Mohammed. It is the Hijra or doctrine of immigration. Modeled by Mohammed's migration from Mecca to Medina, this immigration is not to a romanticized melting pot wherein newcomers gratefully search for opportunities for a better life in liberty and freely offer their talents and loyalty to benefit their new homeland.
No, Hijra is immigration designed to subvert and subdue non-Muslim societies and pave the way for eventual, total Islamization... [snip]
... former professor of shari'ah law and convert to Christianity, and Elias Al Maqdisi, an expert on Islamic teachings, explain the migration of Muslims to the Dar-al-Harb, the "land of war," as a religious edict with a basis in Islamic doctrine...
... They delineate the step-by-step process of this 1,400-year-old strategy of conquest. It is a transitional strategy which they characterize as the most important step in spreading Islam and preparing an environment ripe for jihad...
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British swimming pools imposing Muslim dress codes
Croydon council in south London runs separate one-and-a half-hour swimming sessions for Muslim men and women every Saturday and Sunday at Thornton Heath Leisure Centre.
Swimmers were told last week on the centre's website that
"during special Muslim sessions male costumes must cover the body from the navel to the knee and females must be covered from the neck to the ankles and wrists".
There are similar rules at Scunthorpe Leisure Centre, in North Lincolnshire... [snip]
Ian Cawsey, the Labour MP for the North Lincolnshire constituency of Brigg and Goole, said:
"I don't think that in a local authority pool I should have to wear a particular type of clothes for the benefit of someone else. That's not integration or cohesion."
"It's seen as yet another demand for special treatment. I can't see why special clothing is needed for what is [already, due to prior Muslim pressure] a single-sex session."
Muslim swimming sessions are also held at a number of state schools around the country. At Loxford School in Ilford, east London, a local Muslim group organises weekly sessions for Muslim men, with the warning that "it is compulsory for the body to be covered between the navel and the knees.
"Anyone not adhering to the dress code or rules within the pool will not be allowed to swim".
The practice of holding special Muslim swimming sessions has led to non-Muslims being turned away... [snip]
After discovering the rules at Thornton Heath one Croydon resident, 34-year-old Alex Craig, said:
"I think it is preposterous that a council should be encouraging this type of segregation over municipal facilities. Surely if Muslims want to swim then they should just turn up with their modest swimwear at the same time as everyone else."
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Putin's Reset Button: Pressing Ukraine
It's really amazing how soon the Obama administration's chickens are coming home to roost. They made a big deal out of finding a "reset" button for U.S.-Russia relations. They wanted to reject what they saw as George W. Bush's truculence over the Russian invasion of Georgia last summer. So they went out of their way to send a message to Russia that they wanted a new beginning in their relations with Moscow.
Well, they've gotten it. London's prestigious Financial Times reports that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has sent a tough "ultimatum" to Ukraine's leadership... [snip]
The 2004 elections in Ukraine were widely hailed in the West as an "orange revolution" because that was the color of Viktor Yushchenko's victorious political party. Persuaded by the U.S., Ukraine gave up nuclear weapons. It seemed a good idea at the time, to reduce the number of countries with nukes might make non-proliferation treaty enforcement easier, it was believed.
When Boris Yeltsin's star was on the rise in the Russian Republic, it seemed reasonable to think that Russia might be headed for a new future as a free and democratic state. That was before Vladimir Putin ... [snip]
Even liberals understand what's happening now. Lilia Shevstova is a senior analyst at the Moscow Carnegie Center. She told FT that the Medvedev letter is
"a message to any new leader [in Ukraine] that we will deal with you only when you accept our demands."
The freedom of 45 million people in Eastern Europe is very much at risk. If Ukraine is clawed back into Moscow's orbit, can Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia hold out? What about the tiny, freedom-loving Baltic States?
When we see Barack Obama and his administration of amateurs falling all over themselves to appease Russia, is it any wonder Vladimir Putin is pressing his own reset button?
It's Ukraine--and Putin is pressing it hard.
[And with Ukraine in-hand Europe follows, as it's the only remaining alternative to Russia controlling virtually all of Europe's oil and gas imports - for which they'll do whatever they're told.]
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The Manufactured Healthcare 'Crisis'
The seeds of the so-called health care crisis were planted long ago, and quite consciously and deliberately
If there were ever any doubt that Barack Obama personifies the Crisis Strategy, it should long since have been removed for anyone with a mind.
For those of you who aren't familiar with it, the Crisis Strategy was the brainchild of two radical socialist college professors, Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven. The idea was to overwhelm government with demands for services to the point where the system would collapse and provide an opening for the socialists to take over.
Their strategy was behind creation of the National Welfare Rights Organization in the 1960s and 1970s which dramatically increased the welfare roles and caused the near bankruptcy of New York City in 1975; creation of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), prime instigators of the mortgage meltdown; the national Motor Voter law signed by President Clinton in 1993, which opened the floodgates to vote fraud, and the illegal immigrant amnesty movement.
As we all should know by now, Barack Obama worked with and trained ACORN workers for many years, and is known and supported by all the major players in this movement.
Healthcare nationalization is a major component of this strategy.
The Left has agitated almost since the turn of the last century for some kind of socialized healthcare system. In fact, from 1939 forward, practically every Congressional session proposed national healthcare legislation. As aptly described in an incisive analysis of Medicare by the Cato Institute:
For more than 50 years before the 1965 enactment of Medicare, the American people repeatedly rejected the idea of government-mandated health insurance. Yet advocates of such federal power inside and outside of government did not take no for an answer. Year after year they kept coming back--pursuing incremental strategies, misrepresenting their proposals, even distributing propaganda paid for with government money in apparent violation of existing law.
Their dream was partially realized with creation of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965 as part of President Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society." The stated goal of these programs was to provide comprehensive healthcare for seniors and the poor. As the programs grew, the Left clamored for ever more benefits to these groups and ever expanding definitions of covered individuals.
Like any free good, demand for services under these programs has skyrocketed. Spending levels were insignificant in the early years, but today Medicare and Medicaid today comprise 36 percent of total US healthcare spending.
In 2006, Medicaid spending alone totaled $314 billion. For perspective, this is roughly equivalent to the baseline defense budget. In 2008, federal Medicaid and Medicare spending totaled $676 billion. Comprising only 2 percent of the federal budget in 1967, these two programs alone today consume 23 percent of total federal spending.
Corrected for inflation, total federal and state government spending on healthcare has increased by 2,591 percent since Medicaid and Medicare funding began in 1967. That is a real annual growth rate of 8.4 percent, almost three times the annual rate of economic growth for the same period.[1]
All these effects were predicted by economists, and we were repeatedly warned.
The Left knew... [snip]
The left has attacked the private healthcare system from another angle as well: malpractice lawsuits. It has gone largely unreported in the mass media, but the dramatic expansion of all forms of liability lawsuits since the 1960s is the result of a deliberate, organized effort by leftist law professors to turn civil courts into agents of income redistribution.
We see the consequences of their handiwork directly in the increased cost of products, liability insurance of all kinds, and the decline or in some cases elimination of domestic industries. According to a study performed by the Pacific Research Institute (PRI), the United States pays out $589 billion per year in excessive tort litigation. That is approximately 5 percent of GDP and costs a family of four on average about $8,000 per year... [snip]
Let me put this as bluntly as possible. The Left has never cared about the elderly or the poor, but ruthlessly uses them as part of their long-term strategy to overburden private healthcare until it ultimately collapses. It is a power grab, pure and simple. There is nothing more to it.
While doubtless some think they are doing good, the ultimate goal, as elucidated by the Left, has everywhere and always been Socialism.
Can you see the Left laughing at you?
[Q: How can we control a government that controls our health care?
A: We can't, its leverage over us will be nearly absolute: any move to cut taxation will be immediately answered with its detrimental effect to our 'care' - reference California cutting emergency services {police, firefighters} first whenever voters push for reduced spending.
More, Highly Recommended > ]
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Earmark Update
Amid all the concern over Health Care Reform and Cap & Trade it is best not to lose sight of the issue that began the current protest against out of control spending -- the earmark process.
According to an analysis by the Taxpayers for Common Sense and Center for Responsive Politics earmarks in 2009 spending bills total $19.9 billion. Earmarks in 2008 spending bills were worth $18.3 billion.
This increase comes despite the fact that both President Obama and Congressional leaders have talked about the need to reform the process.
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BIAS TWOFER
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Senator Rips Fox: 'Nothing More Than An Arm of the Republican Party'
It's not enough that much of the mainstream media cheered on Barack Obama to the presidency in 2008. No, it's time for a "progressive television network" and for left-wingers to support radio hosts that are sympathetic to liberal causes according to Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Sanders, a self-described socialist, appeared on MSNBC's Aug. 13 "Rachel Maddow Show" and blasted Fox News and conservative talk radio. He blamed both for creating 'obstacles to Democratic Party' led efforts to fundamentally alter health care in the United States. But he also said it's time the left attempted to replicate the right and created their own left-wing networks.
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[Attempted? And what, pray tell, are all other channels considered if not liberal?
Exempting its opinion shows {you know, the loud guys}, Fox's 'news' coverage {'coverage' principally defined as story selection, not commentary regarding} is more balanced than any other national organization {by virtue of said selection} and can only be labeled particularly conservative in comparison to the rampantly-left bias which permeates the MSM.
I'm not a Republican. I don't own Fox stock. I dislike their highest rated opinion shows everyone associates with the network. But I peruse more news than probably 98% of the populace and I tell you {yes I know, again} that their newscasts' story selection is consistently broader, and so less consistently left-bias than anyone else.
Exhibit A: Global Warming; at least on Fox you'll occasionally hear of the daily research that's being produced debunking the whole theory - good luck with that on other stations.
Exhibit B...]
'We've Got Two Problems. Um, I Mean, The Dems Do'
Jonathan Capehart let the mask slip on just how much the MSM is one with Pres. Obama and Democrats at large. Here's the WaPo editorialist on Morning Joe today, discussing the daunting task of selling ObamaCare to a doubting public:
"We've got two problems here. We: I should say the administration or Democrats have two problems."
Sorry, Jonathan. Cat out of bag. Toothpaste out of tube. Bell rung.
Not that we doubted the MSM's identification with PBO and the Dems, but still amusing to have it confirmed in this Freudian-moment.
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Woodstock: Was it something, or was it nothing?
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My God.... can we stop this nonsense? Hippies were not revolutionaries.
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NYT: Palin Sees Obama As 'Human Prey' She Seeks To Shoot
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[I.e., she disagrees with him. The Horror.]
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Palin Wins
The first we heard about Sarah Palin's "death panels" comment was in a conversation last Friday with an acquaintance who was appalled by it. Our interlocutor is not a Democratic partisan but a high-minded centrist who deplores extremist rhetoric whatever the source. We don't even know if he has a position on ObamaCare. From his description, it sounded to us as though Palin really had gone too far.
A week later, it is clear that she has won the debate...
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'Death panel' is not in the bill... it already exists
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The Associated Press recently ran a ‘Fact Check' article rebutting Sarah Palin's claim of a "death panel" in the health care bills currently in the House and Senate. The New York Times has joined in the death panel bashing. Both are technically correct in stating that end-of-life counseling is not the same as a death panel and that the health care bill contains no provision setting up such a panel.
What both outlets fail to point out is that the panel already exists.
H.R. 1 (more commonly known as the Recovery and Reinvestment Act, even more commonly known as the Stimulus Bill) contains a whopping $1.1 billion to fund the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research. The Council is the brain child of former Health and Human Services Secretary Nominee Tom Daschle.
Daschle's stated purpose for creating the Council is to empower an unelected bureaucracy to make the hard decisions about health care rationing that elected politicians are politically unable to make. The end result is to slow costly medical advancement and consumption. Daschle argues that Americans ought to be more like Europeans who passively accept "hopeless diagnoses."
Before the Porkulus Bill passed, Betsy McCaughey, former Lieutenant governor of New York, wrote in detail about the Council's purpose:
Daschle said health-care reform "will not be pain free." Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them.
Who is on the Council? One of its most prominent members is none other than Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, who's views on care of the elderly should frighten anyone who is or ever plans on being old. He explains the logic behind his discriminatory views on elderly care as follows:
"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 now was previously 25."
[Ah, equal opportunity discrimination - that's better.][snip]
Ultimately it was Obama himself, in answer to a question on his ABC News infomercial, who said that payment determination cannot be influenced by a person's spirit and
"that at least we (the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research) can let doctors know and your mom know that...this isn't going to help. Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller."
Maybe we should ask the Associated Press and New York Times if they still think we shouldn't be concerned about a federal "death panel."
[Apologies for beating this news to death - I'm sure you've already reached saturation via the 24/7 coverage that TV's provided - I just think it's important, is all.]
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