A heretical but rational liberal look at PelosiObamaCare

An honest examination from the liberal side on this monstrosity reveals exactly how bad this disaster is.

Excerpt:

"So what does it all add up to? The U.S. government is making a costly and open-ended commitment to help provide health coverage for the vast majority of its citizens. I support this commitment, and I think the federal government’s spending priorities should be altered to make it happen. But let’s not pretend that it isn’t a big deal, or that it will be self-financing, or that it will work out exactly as planned. It won’t. Many Democratic insiders know all this, or most of it. What is really unfolding, I suspect, is the scenario that many conservatives feared. The Obama Administration, like the Bush Administration before it (and many other Administrations before that) is creating a new entitlement program, which, once established, will be virtually impossible to rescind. At some point in the future, the fiscal consequences of the reform will have to be dealt with in a more meaningful way, but by then the principle of (near) universal coverage will be well established."

That sums up the whole Dem/Lefty/"Progressive" attitude on health care "reform": "Get the deal done now. Let someone else deal with the disaster we've created."

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"Net Neutrality" equates to "Government Control"

When Net Neutrality came into the spotlight as a public issue, it sounded like a reasonable proposition. Who could argue with such noble principles like these stated at a website called Free Press?

"The future of the Internet as we know it depends on maintaining freedom and openness online. This crucial legislation will help to ensure that the public -- not big phone and cable companies -- controls the fate of the Internet.

The rules that govern the Internet must protect economic innovation, democratic participation and free speech online. If we don’t make Net Neutrality the law once and for all, we could see the innovation and promise of the Internet derailed forever.

An army of lobbyists has been unleashed by the phone and cable companies to kill Net Neutrality so they can become the Internet’s gatekeepers. But the momentum is shifting in the public’s favor. President Obama has repeatedly called for Net Neutrality; we have a new pro-Net Neutrality chairman now heading the Federal Communications Commission; and popular support is growing every day....."

The pertinent points turns out a little differently though when some critical thinking and a little research and perspective are brought to focus on the subject.

Noteworthy:

"Masked beneath the comfort language of the net neutrality bill are provisions that will effectively turn over management of the internet within the United States to the federal government via the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). It's a power for which the FCC hungers. Perhaps it envies China.

So there's nothing neutral about the Obama administration's push for net neutrality. 'Neutrality' is a D.C. comfort word for control. "

In the end, it all turns out to be just one more cog in the construction of a "regressive" political, economic, and social control agenda, doesn't it? And, as always, the people and our nation pay the price and give up more rights for "the greater good".

Are you really surprised to find this out?

"Free Press"! As if......

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Watch for Democrat voter fraud in NJ governor's race

There's a good chance the Dems, with their shady tactics, and their ACORN thug allies are ready to steal the election away from Chris Christie:

"The state has received a flood of 180,000 absentee ballot requests. On some 3,000 forms the signature doesn't match the one on file with county clerks. Yet citing concerns that voters would be disenfranchised, Democratic Party lawyer Paul Josephson wrote New Jersey's secretary of state asking her 'to instruct County Clerks not to deny applications on the basis of signature comparison alone.'

Mr. Josephson maintained that county clerks 'may be overworked and are likely not trained in handwriting analysis' and insisted that voters with suspect applications should be allowed to cast provisional ballots. Those ballots, of course, would then provide a pool of votes that would be subject to litigation in any recount, with the occupant of New Jersey's highest office determined by Florida 2000-style scrutiny of ballot applications."

The standard Democrat script calls for this type of thuggery every time they lose an important election by a small margin. It was successful in putting Franken the Clown into the Senate seat in MN.

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When Cap 'n Trade goes down the tubes, watch for the EPA to backdoor it into existence

In a similar manner as the Obamanation will use in an effort to get Obamacare through via the Reconciliation process in Congress, CO2 taxation and regulation will be handled by EPA edict:

Here's the story of the current academic fraud being used by the True Believers in an attempt to perpetuate the continuation of the scam agenda.

Noteworthy:

"All of this is much more than an academic spat. It now appears likely that the U.S. Senate will drop cap-and-trade climate legislation from its docket this fall — whereupon the Obama Environmental Protection Agency is going to step in and issue regulations on carbon-dioxide emissions.

Unlike a law, which can’t be challenged on a scientific basis, a regulation can. If there are no data, there’s no science. U.S. taxpayers deserve to know the answer to the question posed above."

It's Thug Politics at its best, but the outcome will ultimately be the proper one: the death and burial of this most outrageous scheme yet invented to seperate the public from their money for something of no legitimate benefit.

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CBO vindicates Medicare Advantage companies victimized by Dem demogougery

CBO says Medicare Advantage seniors WILL suffer from lower benefits, to say nothing of the higher premiums, and the departure of their carriers from the market that will also result from the cut:

"However, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, Douglas Elmendorf, in testimony before Baucus’s own Senate Finance Committee, said, in fact, the cuts in Medicare Advantage would result in a loss of benefits and lower enrollment.

'The effect of the original chairman’s mark on Medicare Advantage enrollment in 2019, would be a reduction of roughly 2.7 million people or 20 percent of the enrollment,' Elmendorf said Tuesday. '[T]he competitive bidding process would reduce the extra benefits that would be made available to beneficiaries through Medicare Advantage plans.'

Elmendorf said that, by 2019, the value of extra benefits provided by private insurers but not by the government, would be cut in half if health reform is passed.

'The additional benefits would be smaller: $42 in additional benefits per month in 2019, and it’s a little less than half of what we would project under current law,' he said."

So Obama "didn’t even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money"?

Yeah, right. And the Moon is made of green cheese.

Noteworthy:

The story in a nutshell:

Bertha Lewis is the CEO of ACORN.

In a review of Lewis’s contacts list, which was leaked to RedState, Bertha Lewis has the office, cell phone, home number, and private personal email address of Patrick Gaspard.

Patrick Gaspard holds Karl Rove’s position in the White House and was Obama’s Political Director during the campaign.

In addition to Patrick, Bertha has Patrick’s brother Michael in her rolodex. She lists Michael as working at the Advance Group.

The Advance Group is ACORN’s lobbying organization.

In other words, besides having Obama’s political director’s contact info, the political director’s brother works for ACORN via its lobbying shop.

It's all a coincidence, right?

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Obama and the NEA conspire to push The Agenda

"The NEA and the White House did encourage a handpicked, pro-Obama arts group to address politically controversial issues under contentious national debate. That fact is irrefutable."

Noteworthy:

"On August 10th, the National Endowment for the Arts, the White House Office of Public Engagement, and the Corporation for National and Community Service hosted a conference call with a handpicked arts group. This arts group played a key role in Obama’s arts effort during his election campaign, as declared by the organizers of the call, and many on the call played a role in the now famous Obama Hope poster.

Much of the talk on the conference call was a build up to what the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) was specifically asking of this group. In the following segment, Buffy Wicks, Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, clearly identifies this arts group as a pro-Obama collective and warns them of some 'specific asks' that will be delivered later in the meeting."

Listen to the clips, and read the rest of the article......

Of course, the Obamabots won't see this as any big deal.

Hat tip: Instapundit.

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"Pulling the trigger on Obamacare"

The "trigger" is just another Trojan Horse for government run health care, and is just the latest smoke and mirrors routine "regressives" have used all along to deceive Americans about their true objectives for "health care reform".

"Health care reform" as currently constituted needs to die NOW. It's time to start all over on a brand new proposal with no smoke and mirrors, with no open-ended mandates, with complete transparency throughout the entire process.

From Robert Romano, at Get Liberty Dot Org:

As bipartisan negotiations in the Senate have failed to trick Republicans into supporting a vigorous government-run takeover of the entire health care system, Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are making a last ditch effort to sway at least one Republican member: Olympia Snowe of Maine.

Reports CNN Politics, “For the past months, Snowe has been pushing the idea of a safety net plan, or ‘trigger,’ for a public health care option as part of a key compromise. A source familiar with her negotiations with Obama said that's one of the things they're talking about…The idea would give insurance companies a defined period to make changes in order to help cover more people and drive down long-term costs. But if those changes failed to occur within the defined period, a trigger would provide for creating a public option to force change on the insurance companies.”

Concern over a government-run medical system has galvanized citizens nationwide in opposition to let their voices be heard in town halls. And they’ve left the members of Congress ducking for cover. The political damage has been so extensive that Barack Obama is preparing an address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday to in yet another attempt to sell his latest scheme for ObamaCare.

According to FOX News, White House aides have said that Obama “will deliver the message that Democrats are willing to go it alone if it cannot get Republicans behind it.” The joke is that he does not actually need a single Republican vote to pass what he wants if his own party would just rally behind him.

The true trouble that ObamaCare faces is that Democrats believe that they are on a political Titanic—and vulnerable members in both chambers are stampeding to get to the lifeboats.

The reason Democrats want Snowe—or somebody like her—is so they can parade her around as the token Republican brokering a grand compromise, thus providing what they believe is political cover. And so, now they are ready to give Snowe what she has been asking for: a delayed implementation of the government takeover of the health care system in exchange for selling out her own party.

And if Olympia falls for the Snowe-job, she will do so knowing full well that her sell-out is a charade. After all, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has already played the socialist hand.

“If they want no public option, but a trigger, you can be sure that the trigger will bring on a very robust public option,” said Pelosi, knowing full well that she gets to define and control the mechanism, tied to the escalating costs of providing life-saving treatments.

And of course, government controls that, too. It currently mandates minimal levels of coverage to be provided at the state level. It prohibits insurance to be purchased across state lines. It thus allows regional, corporatist monopolies to operate with impunity that in turn pay handsomely via political protection money to elected officials keep the status quo.

In the legislation now before Congress, even if the so-called public “option” were put on a trigger tied to costs, the bill would still force employers to provide coverage and individuals to buy coverage or else pay a tax. It would establish a whole new body of regulations that would force insurance companies that would eventually, inevitably bankrupt private insurance.

As reported by the Heritage Foundation, the legislation establishes “a single minimum coverage standard that will eventually apply to nearly all health plans and establishes a new ‘Health Benefits Advisory Committee’ within HHS to make detailed recommendations, which the secretary of HHS would then impose through regulation.”

Thus, by simply upping what must be minimally covered under private health plans, costs would skyrocket, and the deadly trigger on ObamaCare would be pulled.

They can call it whatever they want. A delayed public “option.” A compromise. A trigger. But, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid are determined to get what they want. And whether now, sooner, or later, they are determined to force through a bill that inevitably results in socialized medicine.

Olympia Snowe can go along with it, too, if she wants. But she must realize that, really, she’ll only be pulling the trigger on the American people. On freedom of choice. And on quality health care that provides for the young and protects the old.

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I wonder what La Pelosi will say when confronted with this?

"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."

No doubt she will use a variation of the old "Oh, that was then, this is now" rationalization.

Or "Look over there! Isn't that a right winger with a swastika?"

(Hat tip: Breitbart, by way of Anonymous. Note the absurd and off topic reply to Anonymous from one of the most usual of Usual Suspects.)

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"Nazis for me, but not for thee"

Andrew McCarthey:

".....Nancy Pelosi, started this episode by comparing American citizens who oppose Obamacare to the Nazis and asserting that her political opponents were donning 'swastikas.' (Sen. Barbara Boxer simultaneously ripped Obamacare dissenters for their Brooks Brothers suits — it’s not altogether clear where on the twill the swastika goes.)

Pelosi’s tactic was the shopworn smear we on the right have dealt with for six decades. There is no conceivable substantive connection between opposition to Obamacare and German National Socialism — they are antithetical. By invoking the Nazis, Pelosi was patently slandering dissenters as racist thugs."

....and:

"....National Socialism is banned from the Right’s case against socialism, but is somehow acceptable when leftists use it as a smear or when the Left’s nuanced geniuses, after their very thoughtful consideration, decide its invocation is suitable for mature audiences?

I don’t think so."

Today's "Do As I Say, Not As I Do" Reality

Who's REALLY "astroturfing" on the Obamacare issue?

What does his ad tell you?

There's plenty more where that comes from.

The outrage over the abuses and potential abuses in the obnoxious Obamacare legislation are real, substantial, and should be a cause of major concern for all who do not want to see the fabric of this nation rent asunder by the brazen rape and pillage of our liberties.

Unfortunately, there's a minority of people in this nation who aren't concerned about those things. All they're concerned with is ramrodding this thing thorough to fulfill certain worldview agenda items, and to extend the insidious influence and control of government over a major segment of our society.

It's one of many such items on their to do list. Let's make sure it gets stopped here and now.

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"Barack Obama's Lese Majeste"

John Steele Gordon:

"With the demographic group of highest voter turnout—seniors—showing up in droves at every congressional town-hall meeting and loudly voicing its opposition to ObamaCare, it is hard to see how the plan can survive politically. It will be interesting to see if and when Barack Obama figures out that he is only the president and that the sovereign in this country are the people. At the moment, he is telling the people to shut up and get out of the way."

An evil white supremacist/nazi conservative Obama-hating racist pleads guilty

Oh, wait......

Excerpt:

"A black man who pretended to be a white supremacist on the Internet has entered a guilty plea to charges that he issued death threats.

U.S. Attorney Jim Letten says 20-year old Dyron Hart pled guilty in federal court to 'communicating threats in interstate commerce.'

'According to court documents, Hart... admitted that he created a fictitious name and used the photograph of a white supremacist to communicated a threat. He then purported to be a person outraged by the election of President Barack Obama,' Letten said in a news release.

Letten says that Hart sent the threat to an African American student at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux 'indicating he wanted to kill African American individuals because of the election of the President.' "

It's the ultimate in sock puppetry.

I wonder if there's any news on his cohorts, still at large, who have been busy lately painting swastikas on black congressional Democrat's office signs, and other related subversive activities?

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New Obamacare prescription drug for "progressives"

Jeffrey Lord: "Yes, They Really Are Mad As Hell"

Reflections on Obamacare, Town Hall meetings, astroturfing, Benedict Specter, the good citizens of Pennsylvania, and the way the political thuggery of those who push this issue marginalizes the American public.

Noteworthy:

"That something is a genuine anger -- touched by a flash of terror -- that the men and women who have temporary custody of the government of the United States, a government so carefully crafted in Philadelphia -- a city affectionately still known as The City of Brotherly Love -- are poised to enact health care policies that are both distinctly un-brotherly and absent of love. Policies that however well-intended, will ultimately wind up judging the worth of an American life in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, as found wanting in the balance, a needed sacrifice to the God of government- rationed care.

The life of the woman in the pink hat. The woman who lost her sister to cancer. The child of 1924 immigrants. The small businessman, the woman who fears for the disabled and, not least of all, Art the working stiff.

O'Hara's old novel of life in small town Pennsylvania ends with this sentence, spoken of the book's hero.

'And then, when that time was reached when he was placed in the great past, he went out of the lives of all of the rest of us, who are awaiting our turn.'

Awaiting our turn we all are.

But if the men and women of Lebanon, Pennsylvania have anything to say about it, it damn well won't be the government's way. "

Indeed.

Read the whole thing.

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Here's the REAL "disinformation" on health care "reform

We have more than ample reason to NOT TRUST these cretins. They intend to ram a version of health care "reform" into law that the majority of Americans clearly and passionately DO NOT WANT to be enacted.

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Camille Paglia: "Obama's healthcare horror"

"Heads should roll -- beginning with Nancy Pelosi's!'

Those "progressives" who are paying attentions see what their blinded-by-the-agenda pals do not:

"You can keep your doctor; you can keep your insurance, if you're happy with it, Obama keeps assuring us in soothing, lullaby tones. Oh, really? And what if my doctor is not the one appointed by the new government medical boards for ruling on my access to tests and specialists? And what if my insurance company goes belly up because of undercutting by its government-bankrolled competitor? Face it: Virtually all nationalized health systems, neither nourished nor updated by profit-driven private investment, eventually lead to rationing.

I just don't get it. Why the insane rush to pass a bill, any bill, in three weeks? And why such an abject failure by the Obama administration to present the issues to the public in a rational, detailed, informational way? The U.S. is gigantic; many of our states are bigger than whole European nations. The bureaucracy required to institute and manage a nationalized health system here would be Byzantine beyond belief and would vampirically absorb whatever savings Obama thinks could be made. And the transition period would be a nightmare of red tape and mammoth screw-ups, which we can ill afford with a faltering economy.

As with the massive boondoggle of the stimulus package, which Obama foolishly let Congress turn into a pork rut, too much has been attempted all at once; focused, targeted initiatives would, instead, have won wide public support. How is it possible that Democrats, through their own clumsiness and arrogance, have sabotaged healthcare reform yet again? Blaming obstructionist Republicans is nonsensical because Democrats control all three branches of government. It isn't conservative rumors or lies that are stopping healthcare legislation; it's the justifiable alarm of an electorate that has been cut out of the loop and is watching its representatives construct a tangled labyrinth for others but not for themselves. No, the airheads of Congress will keep their own plush healthcare plan -- it's the rest of us guinea pigs who will be thrown to the wolves.

......And what do Democrats stand for, if they are so ready to defame concerned citizens as the 'mob' -- a word betraying a Marie Antoinette delusion of superiority to ordinary mortals. I thought 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.

But 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."

Do you really think Obama, Pelosi, the compliant Demogogue majority in Congress, and their Looney Tooner "reform' supporters really care about any of this, Ms. Pagalia?

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More voters are becoming aware of the nasty realities of an Obamacare program

Rasmussen has the story.

"Public support for the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats has fallen to a new low as just 42% of U.S. voters now favor the plan. That’s down five points from two weeks ago and down eight points from six weeks ago."

It's especially important to note the extremely high disapproval rates among independents.

Here's the reason the grassroot opposition has become so energized:

"Despite the loss of support, 51% of all voters still say it is at least somewhat likely that the health care proposal will become law this year. That figure has hardly budged since the debate began and now includes 18% who say passage is very likely. Thirty-nine percent (39%) say passage of the plan is unlikely, but only 10% say it is not at all likely. "

The public knows the bottom feeder Democrat party will try to ram this through, no matter how opposed and angry the public becomes over this impending outrage.

I think the disapproval numbers will approach the high 60s area. The "regressives" won't be able to stop issuing their obnoxious rants and screeds that have done so much to energize people in opposition.

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Pelosi set to reconvene the new and improved House Un-American Activities Committee

Robert Romano, at Get Liberty Dot Org:

"It is nothing short of a complete political meltdown. Congressional reaction to their own constituents’ opposition to ObamaCare has transformed into a theater of the absurd. And there will be a stiff political price to be paid.

For years, it has become increasingly clear that Congress largely ignores the people they serve. But now it is apparent they actually disdain them, as well. And would like very much if they simply went away. Only, they won’t. So the elected elite is now resorting to ugly threats and name-calling

To put the icing on the cake, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer yesterday leveled the charge that those protesting ObamaCare at town halls nationwide are somehow 'simply un-American'. That’s right, the position of the ruling class is that they—and they alone—have the right to debate public policy.

In the pages of USA Today, Pelosi and Hoyer wrote, 'These disruptions 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.'

This is quite simply disgraceful. So much for the patriotic duty to dissent. So much for 'open covenants openly arrived at.' Instead, Congress is attempting to intimidate and silence dissent by the American people.

That the American people have dared to challenge the single-most radical changes ever proposed to the American health care system is wholly unsurprising. What is surprising is that Pelosi and her ilk have so little respect for those who believe it is their voices that have been drowned out by a political elite and their media handmaidens.

What, exactly, were the members of Congress expecting? That constituents would be throwing rose petals at their feet when they returned home for August recess touting a $1.5 trillion monstrosity that threatens to ration health care into scarcity?

And yet, Congressman Steve Kagen (WI-CD8) said residents attending a Green Bay town hall meeting were 'uncivilized.' Congressman Baron Hill (IN-CD9) said he wants to 'control' his town halls: 'What I don’t want to do is create an opportunity for the people who are political terrorists to blow up the meeting and not try to answer thoughtful questions.'

Actually, it is Congressman Hill—and all Congressmen for that matter—who should be answering questions.

'Political terrorists'? 'Un-American'? These are American citizens—folks who in many cases fought for their right to boldly state their opposition to Congress’ plans to run their lives from afar.

The very flawed argument being leveled by Congress is that by passionately expressing displeasure with their government—a constitutionally-guaranteed right—that ObamaCare opponents are somehow infringing on the prerogatives of Washington’s high-handed and mighty

There are 535 elected members of Congress. Over 500 thousand elected officials in the entire country at the national, state, county, and local level. 2 major political parties. And dozens of minor political parties. And they have instant access to over 1,300 television stations, over 12,000 radio stations, over 1,400 newspapers, and millions upon millions of web pages.

In short, nobody’s voices are being 'drowned out,' except for those of the American people’s—who overwhelmingly oppose the radical nationalization of health care. According to Rasmussen Reports, just thirty-two percent of voters nationwide favor a single-payer health care system where the federal government provides coverage for everyone. Fifty-seven percent are opposed to a single-payer plan.

The fact is, Congress has rightly been given an earful by their constituents, who do not want government bureaucrats rationing health care and making medical decisions for them.

Voicing dissent to an unaccountable government Hell-bent on taking over the nation’s entire health care system is not 'un-American.' It is the very essence of what America is all about. And Pelosi, Hoyer, Kagen, Hill, et. al., owe the American people an abject apology."

Don't hold your breath waiting for an apology that will never come, Mr. Romano. That's not how the thug politics of the Obamanation works.

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