Now I’m Really Getting Pissed Off

Information Clearing House

by:David Michael Green

Hey did you hear about the iconic African-American guy who plays golf, and whose relationship with the public is in a free-fall lately?

No, as a matter of fact – I’m not talking about Tiger Woods.

You know, I’ve really been trying not to write an article every other week about all the things I don’t like about Barack Obama.

But the little prick is making it very hard.

Like any good progressive, I’ve gone from admiration to hope to disappointment to anger when it comes to this president. Now I’m fast getting to rage.

How much rage? I find myself thinking that the thing I want most from the 2010 elections is for his party to get absolutely clobbered, even if that means a repeat of 1994. And that what I most want from 2012 is for him to be utterly humiliated, even if that means President Palin at the helm. That much rage.

Did this clown really say on national television that “I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of you know, fat cat bankers on Wall Street”?!?!

Really, Barack? So, like, my question is: Then why the hell did you help out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street?!?! Why the hell did you surround yourself with nothing but Robert Rubin proteges in all the key economic positions in your government? Why did you allow them to open a Washington branch of Goldman Sachs in the West Wing? Why have your policies been tailored to helping Wall Street bankers, rather than the other 300 million of us, who just happen to be suffering badly right now?

Are you freakin’ kidding me??? What’s up with the passive president routine, anyhow, Fool? You hold the most powerful position in the world. Or maybe Rahm forgot to mention that to you. Or maybe the fat cat bankers don’t actually let do that whole decision-making thing often enough that it would actually matter…

But, really, are you going to spend the next three interminable years perfecting your whiney victim persona? I don’t really think I could bear that. Hearing you complain about how rough it all is, when you have vastly more power than any of us to fix it? Please. Not that.

Are you going to tell us that “I did not run for office to be shovel-feeding the military-industrial complex”? But what – they’re just so darned pushy?

“…I did not run for office to continue George Bush’s valiant effort at shredding the Bill of Rights. It’s just that those government-limiting rules are so darned pesky.”

“…I did not run for office to dump a ton of taxpayer money into the coffers of health insurance companies. It’s just that they asked so nicely.”

“…I did not run for office to block equality for gay Americans. I just never got around to doing anything about it.”

“…I did not run for office to turn Afghanistan into Vietnam. I just didn’t want to say no to all the nice generals asking for more troops.”

Here’s a guy who was supposed to actually do something with his presidency, and he’s turned into the skinny little geek on Cell Block D who gets passed around like a rag doll for the pleasure of all the fellas with the tattoos there. He’s being punked by John Boehner, for chrisakes. He’s being rolled by the likes of Joe Lieberman. He calls a come-to-Jesus meeting with Wall Street bank CEOs, and half of them literally phone it in. Everyone from Bibi Netanyahu to the Japanese prime minister to sundry Iranian mullahs is stomping all over Mr. Happy.

And he doesn’t even seem to realize it.

Did you see him tell Oprah that he gave himself “a good solid B+” for his first year in office? And that it will be an A, if he gets his healthcare legislation passed?

Somebody please pick me up and set me back on my chair, wouldya?

I am seriously beginning to worry that this cat is delusional. He has lopped off twenty full points from his job approval rating in less than a year’s time, falling now below fifty percent. His party, once dominant in generic congressional election poll questions, is today almost even with hated Republicans in the public mind. Last month, Obama’s inverted coattails (don’t even ask where those go) got two Democrats clobbered running for governor in New Jersey and Virginia. The otherwise obnoxious George F. Will (very) rightly points out that in Kentucky, “a Republican candidate succeeded in nationalizing a state Senate race. Hugely outspent in a district in which Democrats have a lopsided registration advantage, the Republican won by 12 points a seat in Frankfort by running against Washington”. Wow. Obama is now wrecking state senate races! What’s next? Will local Republican candidates for sheriff win office just by opposing the embarrassment in the White House who chooses abysmal policies and then refuses to fight for them, lest he should ruffle any feathers?

More

Obama Chooses Christmas Eve as Night of Darkness For Free World

Canada Free Press

By Judi McLeod

December 23, 2009
There may be an ornament with the face of China’s evil Mao Zedong on the White House holiday tree, but for many of the rest of us there’s an elephant right in our living room.

The elephant in our living room is what moseyed in when the mainstream media took a holiday and the mask of President Barack Obama began to crack.  How long have we known in our hearts that Obama is not an American?  How long have we known that even though he professes to be one, Obama is not a Christian, nor even a Christian sympathizer and that his actions over the last year prove he is not a benevolent president.

Obama wants a healthcare bill that is signed, sealed and delivered on Christmas Eve.  Obama wants to ruin America and the Free Enterprise system that made America what it is.

Personal records are required to establish the legal identity of every human being on Planet Earth,  but Obama’s ID was sealed off from public view before he was sworn in as the 44th President of the USA. In the reality that follows such a move, Obama could be anything.  He’s the antithesis of what tens of millions of main-street Americans expect in a president.  Obama is proving to be the worst enemy imaginable.  Since September 11, 2001 for America and its freedom loving supporters worldwide, worst enemy could be defined as radical Muslim.

Back in March 2006 Canada Free Press (CFP) asked in a cover story, “How does a senator who came from out of the fog land himself front and center on the pages of USA Today, where he’s touted as “the new face of change and reform for the democratic party?”

CFP’s cover story went on to say, “Move over, Hillary, Barack Obama is here.

“Some Dems can trump Material Girl Madonna in reinventing themselves. During the last presidential campaign, John Kerry made much of having the same initials as President JFK.

“Barack Hussein Obama’s name only rhymes with Saddam Hussein and Osama, but he did try to parallel the life of President Abraham Lincoln with that of his own—and did it in the mainstream media.

“As Gateway Pundit aptly points out, “Lincoln was a humble man. He did not compare himself after six months in office to great men from history.”

Three years later Obama went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize after only 11 days in the office of president.

But back in March 2006, CFP pondered, “Without the media, could Barack Obama have discovered the fast track to fame?

“Looking at his day job, the Senator from Illinois is a senior lecturer in constitutional law at the University of Chicago. Make that the Rockefeller-funded U of C, a school that is Rockefeller down to the bone.

“Obama’s Dad, a Muslim from Kenya, left home when he was two. His Mom remarried and went with her new husband to Indonesia where Obama lived during his salad years. It is well known that Obama, the teenager lived with his grandparents in Hawaii, where he attended the same school attended by Hawaii royalty. Yet little is known about who Obama’s stepfather was. But some say that he was an Indonesian national and a Muslim.

“Still, Obama must have attended school in Indonesia. Is it possible that as a young Muslim boy he went to a Saudi Madras?

“Yes, that’s a possibility.

“The chapters in the Life and Times of Barack Obama always race ahead. It was during one of those chapters when we found him taking up community organizing in the Altgeld Gardens housing project on the south side of Chicago, when he converted to Christianity, formerly being secular. (brainsip.com—Now can only be searched in wayback machine).

“As a fledgling Christian, Obama didn’t join just any church. He joined the United Church of Christ.

“The United Church of Christ is very anti-Israel and supports divestment. It also sponsors speeches at its many functions by the Arab “Christian” pro-terror religious organization, Sabeel. Sabeel holds some of its biggest meetings in Chicago., (http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0510/S00139.htm).

“The Democrats attract the majority of Jewish voters and funding, and this guy is being groomed as their golden boy?

“Essentially Obama is a Christian convert—but also then a Muslim apostate.

“The “What If” category of “the new face of change and reform for the democratic party” doesn’t get written up by the mainstream media.

“What if Obama is engaged in pious fraud? This is a Muslim practice of pretending not to be Muslim to further the cause of Islam or to “defend the faith”. He becomes President and then says, “Gee…I think I want to be Muslim again” after he finds the “football” in his hands that carries the launch codes for the USA nuke forces.

“Is the “New Face” theory espoused in USA Today, New Face as in the “Portrait of Dorian Grey”?

“What if Obama’s into Pious Fraud Islam–Hudaibiyah treaty”kiss the hand of your enemy until you can cut it off”? (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/708295/posts). Not Obama?
Remember the pictures of the little kids bobbing their heads up and down at the Madrases? They are all of the age Obama would have been in back in Indonesia.

“What if the converted-to-Christianity Barack Obama decides to exercise his right to revert back?

“President George Bush converted to Methodism and Justice Thomas converted to Catholicism and Jeb Bush did as well.

“Then what?

“Currently, Obama is an apostate as far as Islam is concerned. This is a fact and not a conspiracy theory. They say all babies are born Muslim but then parents of infidel religions brainwash the baby Muslims into other lesser faiths. That is a fact.

“What must be done with an apostate of the Muslim faith? Give him a chance to convert back to Islam.

“Obama is soft on the handover of the ports to Dubai.

“Obama’s Mom met his step Dad at the East-West Center of the University of Hawaii. The Center gets money from Bill Gates, the Rockefellers and, of course the United Nations.
“Obama went to Occidental college, whose motto is “West is nearest to the East”.

“Occidental College has a historic connection to the Summer Institute of Linguistics (now known as SIL International.) Associated with the Rockefellers, SIL has something going on in Dubai (http://www.finanz-adressen.de/asien/UAE-info.html, Now can only be searched in wayback machine) Scroll down three quarters of the way until you see their blinking pyramid logo.
“Meanwhile hype notwithstanding, “the new face of change and reform for the democratic party” is no Abe Lincoln, but could be the most upwardly mobile Muslim of the millennium.”

It will be four years ago this March when these questions were being asked by CFP.

The elephant in our living room has been sitting there all that time.  But at 9 o’clock on Christmas Eve, Obama, the Christian, will pull a dark curtain down on the Free World.

On Christmas Eve, the elephant’s trumpet will sound very much like the camel’s bellow.

Whores…I mean Senators march the Health Bill forward

Canada Free Press

By Dr. Laurie Roth  Wednesday, December 23, 2009

The Health care bill arrogantly moves along dreaming for the day it can be in Obama’s next speech.  It has its designer, socialist clothes ironed and glowing red, ready to shine off the Obama teleprompter.  This health care bill has moved half way home and is primed for the Christmas eve vote in the middle of the night while we are all sleeping or dreaming of wassail and gifts.  So far it seems the waffling Senators have been offered the world for their vote.

It has been a week in Vegas for many Senators….excuse me whores.  Just to name a few pay offs we see Senator Nelson from Nebraska getting 100 million for his state;  Florida got their Medicare program frozen so they wouldn’t get Medicare cuts that the other states would get.  That was a 25-30 billion dollar pay off.  Senator Dodd got 100 million for a hospital in his state, on and on.  The pay offs were everywhere and the whores gave up their meat.  Reid got the 60 votes he needed to shut down debate and move things forward.

Obama’s negative ratings have never been higher and poll after poll show the vast majority of the American people don’t want this Health Care bill crammed down their throat but who cares what we think?  Obama needs the Health bill, not the American people.  Obama needs cap and trade, not the American people.  Obama needs another cigarette.

Regardless of the last minute tricks and changes,  we can pretty well count on the fact that abortions will be paid for; health care rationing will occur, targeting our seniors;  Doctors will be paid whatever the Government says they will be paid; Insurance companies will be forced to raise their rates and will increasingly not be able to compete against the rigged and controlled prices;  and my personal favorite:  We will all be forced by the Federal Government to have health care or be fined and sent to prison.  They will have the power as well to determine what the right health care will look like so don’t think you can hide behind your private plan.

Understand that this Government, the one that wants health rationing for seniors and to kill babies, will decide how your health care looks…..that is the health care you are allowed to get.  If America is to allow this draconian,  unconstitutional health nightmare to land,  people of all ages will die prematurely,  real health care will have to submit to financially contrived budgets decided by bureaucrats and we will have no privacy left.

I have talked with several attorneys who have studied the health care bill and are currently analyzing the constitutional betrayal of this bill.  Among these include Michael Connelly michaelconnelley.vivit.com and Steve Eichler faxdc.com.  They all have told me on air and off air that should this pass, legal actions, addressing the constitutional breach of forcing health care on the people will go all the way to the Supreme Court.  We think we see clogged courts now, just wait.  The American people won’t take this ethical, legal and constitutional betrayal and violation.

Perhaps one of the many formal responses to the Government should be a class action suit from the American people.  While we are pursuing legal responses we must make sure and vote our brains out in 2010 and send most of congress home to pursue other careers.  If we can’t impeach this President (which he deserves) we must and can vote him out at year four.  Once he is out and a real patriot is in the White House we must cut off all funding for unconstitutional health bills and neuter them.  We must explore ways to repeal,  unfund,  challenge with other legislation and demand that un-American bills not stand against the American people

Obama’s Message: Be Afraid, Very Afraid

Human Events

Dec. 23, 2009

by  Oliver North

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Washington, D.C. — Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is TIME magazine’s “Person of the Year.” Twelve months ago the “honor” went to president-elect, Senator Barack Obama. Notably, the 1932 recipient was president-elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who asserted in his March 4, 1933, Inaugural Address, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

Roosevelt went on to describe the economic anxieties of millions left jobless in a deepening depression as “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” He then served notice that if the “national emergency” required it, he would “ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis — broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.”

Viewing the grainy black and white film of FDR’s first of four Inaugurals, it is easy to get caught up in his measured, articulate delivery. It is much like watching Obama before a teleprompter. Reading FDR’s words today, more than 76 years after they were spoken, is very scary stuff.

Roosevelt’s masterful exploitation of “fear” masks his blueprint for a vast expansion of federal control over the day-to-day lives of ordinary American citizens. It worked. Well before U.S. involvement in World War II, FDR was granted unprecedented power to preside over a federal bureaucracy that grew more than ten-fold in size, expense, and authority.

Apparently, Mr. Obama and his cronies in Congress have carefully studied the FDR playbook. Last week the President admonished Republicans to “stop trying to frighten the American people.” But a careful review of the record reveals that it isn’t the GOP that has been sowing alarm. “Fear” has been the political staple of the O-Team since the 2008 presidential campaign — and even more so since the election.

On November 9, less than a week after the ballot, Rahm Emanuel, Mr. Obama’s designee to be White House Chief of Staff, told us: “Rule one: Never allow a crisis to go to waste. They are opportunities to do big things.” It is a prescription that has been carefully followed to justify government intervention and takeover of private financial institutions, the auto industry, America’s healthcare system, even global “climate control.”

Nine days after his Inaugural address, the President said: “These urgent dangers to our national and economic security are compounded by the long-term threat of climate change, which, if left unchecked, could result in violent conflict, terrible storms, shrinking coastlines, and irreversible catastrophe.”

On February 4, 2009, speaking of the urgent need to “stimulate” the economy through massive government spending and debt, Obama told us, “We know that even if we do everything we should, this crisis was years in the making, and it will take more than weeks or months to turn things around. But make no mistake: A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe and guarantee a longer recession, a less robust recovery, and a more uncertain future. Millions more jobs will be lost.  More businesses will be shuttered. More dreams will be deferred.”

Five days later, in Elkhart, Indiana, he warned of dire damage if he was not given “the tools” he needs to “fix” our problems: “Economists from across the spectrum have warned that if we don’t act immediately, millions of more jobs will be lost. The national unemployment rates will approach double digits not just here in Elkhart, all across the country. More people will lose their homes and their health care. And our nation will sink into a crisis that at some point we may be unable to reverse.”

By June 17, the President was hyping the catastrophic consequences of failing to enact more onerous government controls on the U.S. economy: “millions of people have had their lives profoundly disrupted by developments in the financial system, most severely in our recent crisis. These aren’t just numbers on a ledger. This is a child’s chance to get an education. This is a family’s ability to pay their bills or stay in their homes. This is the right of our seniors to retire with dignity and security and respect. These are American dreams, and we should not accept a system that consistently puts them in danger.”

The presidential fright-mongering continues unabated. On September 9, he boldly promised a Joint Session of Congress, “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits.” He then threatened, “if we do nothing…our deficit will grow. More families will go bankrupt.  More businesses will close. More Americans will lose their coverage when they are sick and need it the most. And more will die as a result.”

Evidently it’s even worse than he thought. On December 16, Mr. Obama told a television audience that if his “health care bill” doesn’t pass, “the federal government will go bankrupt” and that “health care costs are going to consume the entire federal budget.”

Compared to Barack Obama, FDR was a piker in the panic and dread department. TIME magazine needs a new category. “Person of the Year” is inadequate for a Nobel Laureate with this kind of trepidation. Mr. Obama should be named “Man of the Fear.”

Obama Has Failed His Words

NRO

Dec. 23, 2009

Does anyone feel like Americans are coming together?

By Jonah Goldberg

On his own terms, President Obama is a failure.

During the presidential campaign, he fought hammer and tongs with Hillary Clinton over the best way to govern. Clinton, casting herself as a battle-scarred political veteran, argued that diligence, dedicated detail work, and working the system were essential for success.

Obama, donning the mantle of a redeemer descending from divine heights, argued that his soaring rhetoric was more than “just words”; it was a way out of the poisonous, partisan gridlock of yesteryear. Early on, in New Hampshire, he proclaimed that his “rival in this race is not other candidates. It’s cynicism.”

Occasionally the Obama-Clinton argument was explicit (such as when they sparred over who was more important to the Civil Rights Act — Martin Luther King Jr. or Lyndon Johnson), but it was always there, implicit in everything from their body language and stagecraft to position papers and platforms.

The great irony of it all is that it seems they were both wrong.

↓ Keep reading this article ↓

Obama’s rhetoric in fact looks to be the best way to achieve a Clintonian agenda. But a Clintonian agenda is the worst possible way to live up to Obama’s rhetoric.

From his 2004 DNC keynote speech onward, Obama rejected the partisan divide. He earned points by insisting that invidious descriptions of political opponents were deleterious to civic health and distracted us from the fact that “we are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.”

In a speech following a June primary victory, Obama said he was “absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children . . . this was the moment — this was the time — when we came together to remake this great nation.”

So, does anyone feel like Americans are coming together?

Obama the outsider hasn’t changed the way Washington works; he’s worked Washington in a way that only an outsider with no respect for the place would dare.

Consider his signature domestic priority: health-care reform. After a year of working on it, his progressive base is either profoundly disappointed with him or seethingly angry. His Republican and conservative opponents are not only furious, they are emboldened. And independents — who’ve been deserting the Democrats in polls and off-year elections — are simply disgusted with the whole spectacle. Most important, an administration that once preened over its people-power roots can’t even claim that Americans like what he’s doing.

The bill does have its supporters: inside-the-Beltway pundits and Capitol Hill deal-makers, the pharmaceutical industry, and the supposedly rapacious insurance companies (don’t take my word for it, just ask Howard Dean — or your stockbroker).

Under the Clintonian paradigm of governance, Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson’s parlaying of his pro-life objections to the Senate bill into a windfall for his state and Vermont senator Bernie Sanders’s leveraging of his socialist principles for billions in special deals would be dramatic twists in a conventional story of LBJ-style arm-twisting.

But Clintonian means cannot further Obamaian ends. For the last year, Obama’s party has made a mockery of everything Obama was supposed to represent. The tone has gotten worse as his communications staff spent the year demonizing Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Fox News. House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer called opponents of their health proposals “un-American.” Over the weekend, Rhode Island’s Sheldon Whitehouse insisted that Senate opposition is being driven in part by “Aryan support groups.”

Everywhere you look, the sizzle doesn’t match the steak. He won the Nobel Peace Prize as he (rightly) sent even more men off to war. He promised that the oceans would stop rising but delivered a nonbinding something-or-other in Copenhagen.

In his special health-care address to Congress in September, he said, “I am not the first president to take up (the cause of health-care reform), but I am determined to be the last.” Those were just words, and everyone, including Obama, knew it. Indeed, the only grounds for supporting the bill, according to progressives, is that it is a “first step” or a “starter house” that they’ll build on for years, even generations, to come. In other words, the health-care debate is not only not going to end, it’s going to get uglier for as far as the eye can see.

But here’s the point: Obama’s rhetorical audacity breeds cynicism, because utopianism always comes up short. Obama has many victories ahead of him, but his cause is already lost.

Bin Laden’s Closest Family Found Hiding in Iran

AP

Fox News

Oct. 7, 2001: Usama bin Laden is seen at an undisclosed location.

Usama bin Laden’s closest relatives are living in a secret compound in Iran, members of the family said Tuesday. They include a wife and children who disappeared from his Afghan camp at the time of the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

There has been uncertainty about the family’s whereabouts for the past eight years, with reports that some of the children had been killed in bombings, while others had joined their father in planning terrorist attacks. However, relatives said that they found out last month that the group, including one of bin Laden’s wives, six of his children and 11 of his grandchildren, had been kept in a high-security compound outside Tehran.

They have been prevented from contacting the outside world while Iran has repeatedly denied that any of the relatives were living in the country.

Members of the bin Laden family are now appealing for the group to be allowed to leave Iran and described them as the “forgotten victims of 9/11.”

Omar Ossama bin Laden, 29, the Al Qaeda leader’s fourth-eldest son, said he had no idea that his brothers and sisters were still alive until they called him in November. They told him how they had fled Afghanistan just before the 9/11 attacks and walked to the Iranian border. They were taken to a walled compound outside Tehran where guards said they were not allowed to leave “for their own safety”. The eldest of the children, Saad, was 20 at the time, Ossman 17, Muhammad 15, Fatma 14, Hamza 12, Iman 9, and Bakr, 7.

There had been speculation that Muhammad was second in command of Al Qaeda and that Saad also instigated and plotted terrorist attacks until he was killed about 18 months ago by an American drone. The relatives, however, said that Muhammad is still living in the compound and that Saad ran away less than a year ago in an attempt to find his mother.

Continue reading at The Times of London

Big payoffs to senators on health bill stoke public anger

I guess with the passing of this Bill, Prostitution is now legal in our Nations Capital. What a sad day it is for the Republic.

1Dragon

The Washington Exaniner

By: Susan Ferrechio
Chief Congressional Correspondent
December 23, 2009

With the approval rating of Congress sinking in the polls and public opinion of their health care plan going down along with it, Democrats may have done themselves one favor too many this week when they riddled the bill with special deals for individual lawmakers.

As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., struggled to pull together his 60 Democratic-controlled votes needed to pass the bill, certain holdout lawmakers were able to carve out extra money, benefits or exemptions that senators from other states didn’t get.

Reid said the deal making is just part of how legislation gets done in the Senate.

“It’s not different from other pieces of legislation,” Reid said. “We work compromises. That’s what legislation is all about, the art of compromise.”

He added that for those senators who did not carve out something for themselves, “it doesn’t speak well of them.”

Steve Ellis, who spends his days parsing out pork barrel projects from congressional spending bills, said Reid’s response ignores public disgust over such back-room deals.

“Even if you say this is just the way it works, that doesn’t mean the public likes it,” said Ellis, who is vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group. “It stinks. And the public recognizes that.”

The high cost of health legislation Some of the special favors for powerful or hard-to-convince senators in the health bill expected to pass the Senate Thursday.

» Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La. — Up to $300 million in additional federal money to pay for the state of Louisiana’s share of the proposed expansion of Medicaid.

» Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb. — A commitment that the federal government will permanently pay for Medicaid expansion in the Cornhusker State at a cost of about $100 million.

» Sens. Ben Nelson and Carl Levin, D-Mich. — A provision that shelters Mutual of Omaha in Nebraska and Blue Cross Blue Shield in Michigan from a proposed $10 billion annual fee on the health insurance industry.

» Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn. — Dodd, facing a re-election battle with low poll numbers, inserted a $100 million grant tailored to a proposal for a new hospital at the University of Connecticut Health Center.

» Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. — A 2.2 percent increase in federal coverage of Medicaid expansion, worth about $600 million over a decade.

» Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. — A special provision that will exempt about 800,000 senior citizens in the Sunshine State from any of the proposed cuts to the Medicaid Advantage program.

» Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont. — The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and a chief architect of the health care bill inserted language in the bill to provide services and benefits, including Medicare, for a group of Montana miners exposed to asbestos.

Republicans trumpeted the deals as proof the bill was too unpopular to pass on its own, as evidenced by recent poll numbers showing shrinking public support.

“Payoffs, Kickbacks, Sweetheart Deals Abound in Sen. Reid’s Government Takeover of Health Care,” read the headline on one Senate Republican press release.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., called the deal making “sleazy.”

With the Internet and news saturated with accounts of the special deals secured by Nelson and others, it may be even harder than predicted for the Senate and House to return in January to pass a final bill, especially if they get an earful back home.

A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that 32 percent of respondents believed the health care plan proposed by President Obama was a good idea, down from 39 percent in September. Congress fared even worse in the same poll, which found that 68 percent of those questioned disapprove of the job lawmakers are doing.

Democratic lawmakers nonetheless defended the bill on Tuesday and the special deals within it.

Sens. Mary Landrieu, D-La., Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., all of whom had problems with the reform bill and were threatening to vote “no,” changed their minds around the time their states were given hundreds of billions of dollars in federal money to cover the reform bill’s proposed expansion of Medicaid.

Landrieu said she was simply ensuring that her state received a “correction to a formula that was going to distort our share,” of Medicaid dollars.

“It was not a condition for my vote,” Landrieu said.

Nelson said he secured money for Medicaid because he believed the expansion is an unfunded mandate, which he opposes.

“Many of my colleagues are already talking about getting the same deal that we have,”

A Republican’s Airing of Grievances

The American Thinker

December 23, 2009

By Andie Brownlow

In honor of the made-up holiday Festivus today, here is my airing of grievances. As a conservative and reluctant Republican, I find the tea party movement a much-needed pressure valve for the frustrations over our federal government’s unconstitutional acts and potential treason. It’s empowering to have a voice and a vehicle for action during a time when so many Americans feel helpless and hoodwinked.

Equally frustrating is that the Republican Party doesn’t want to show support for a peaceful, massive opposition movement like the tea parties — especially when it is based on Republican principles. The time is approaching when conservatives will have to rectify the syndrome of “moderate” Republicans; otherwise, our republic will not stand.

The GOP has been noticeably absent from the conservative movement in general. I hear occasional complaints about Obama from Republican congressmen within the political safety of Fox News. These politicians hardly channel the utter frustration of conservatives, and quite frankly, they just come off as irritating. I’d be more inclined to tolerate Republican rhetoric about Obama if Republican criticism weren’t confined to mass-mailed surveys with a remittance slip for a “generous donation.”

What really grates on comservatives’ nerves is that despite the proven leadership of Ronald Reagan, conservatives continue to be treated as the redheaded stepchildren of politics. This alone is proof that today’s Republican leaders care nothing for principles and policies that actually work. When push comes to shove, they care only about preserving the party and its power.

Blind ambition isn’t the only stumbling block; cowardice plays a huge role in the bad decisions of the Republican Party as well. For years, liberals have taunted Republicans with name-calling and bogus accusations of bigotry. Instead of calling out liberals on their lies, the GOP has bent over backwards to prove they’re not bigots and hayseeds. This has served only to tie the entire party into a pretzel of political correctness and fear.

To see the GOP pretzel on full display, let’s think back to the ’08 elections. So how did the McCain camp and the Republican Party deal with a Marxist coup shrouded in the full body armor of leftist clichés?

• Instead of fighting to win, the McCain camp sat on the sidelines, paralyzed by political correctness.

To pick up the slack, Rush Limbaugh’s “Operation Chaos” was designed to force Hillary Clinton to dig up and publicize Obama’s dirt (since McCain wouldn’t do it). The Republicans even swatted away the dangling threads begging to be pulled: Bill Ayers and Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

• At a loss for words and purpose, McCain promoted Obama and framed his whole pitch in identity politics during his NAACP speech. A true conservative’s speech about his principles and policies would not need to change with his audience.

• The McCain camp tossed the only true conservative (Sarah Palin) under the bus even before the presidential election was over. This move wasn’t surprising when one considers that everything else about the campaign was spineless too.

• The RNC elected its first black chairman just after Obama won the presidency. That’s either a huge coincidence, or Republicans felt they could criticize Obama only through their own “token African-American.” Joe Trillo, a national committeeman, said this just before Steele won the RNC Chairman election: “It’s a diverse party. We’re tired of being labeled as white supremacists.” Defeatist attitudes like Trillo’s just give more fodder to liberal lies about Republicans. It’s also a slap in the face to black Republicans who joined the GOP for its principles of merits based on personal achievement, not patronizing affirmative action.

Everything the Republicans have done thus far has been a “me too” response to the Democrats. Notice on the GOP‘s site the creepy volunteerism and commercialization of the party. It’s directed at the youth in the same way employed by the Obama administration.

In addition to copycatting, the site smacks of defensiveness against years of left-wing attacks. It’s also patronizing to anyone old enough to buy a beer. There’s truth in this old saying: “Show me a young conservative and I’ll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old liberal and I’ll show you someone with no brains.” Republicans should present the economic and philosophical wisdom of conservatism as a rite of passage for those who are no longer impressed with the pop-culture gimmicks of liberals.

We can talk all day about what’s wrong with the Republican Party and America in general, but it’s no good unless we’re willing to do something about it. Conservatives have to change the political system to (once again) reflect values of individualism, small government, and respect for the federal limitations in the Constitution. We have to make the Republican Party stand on its principles again. In short, we’re going to have to take the party back.

There are lots of national as well as state and local groups currently working on taking back the Republican Party for conservatism. The plan is called The Precinct Strategy. There is no need for outside help or appeals to politicians, war chests, or political machines; conservatives are successfully doing this on their own.

If we lose the Republican Party to socialism, we’ve lost our last line of defense. Reagan once said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” And once again, he was right.

Health Care Nullification: Things have just gotten underway

Michael Boldin
Tenth Amendment Center
December 21, 2009

For the past few days, I’ve received loads of emails urging me to get active regarding the healthcare vote – most of which had a subject line similar to: “Last Chance to Stop National Healthcare!”

Well, if you believe the only way to protect your rights is by begging federal politicians to do what you want, then these emails are certainly right. The vote went as expected, and so will the next.

So if you think marching on D.C. or calling your Representatives, or threating to “throw the bums out” in 2010 or 2012 or 20-whatever, is going to further the cause of the Constitution and your liberty – you might as well get your shackles on now. Your last chance has come and gone.

But, those of you who visit this site regularly already know that the Senate’s health care vote is far from the end of things – and you also know that even when it goes into effect (which I assume some version will), it’s still not the end of the road for your freedom.

The real way to resist DC is not by begging politicians and judges in Washington to allow us to exercise our rights…it’s to exercise our rights whether they want to give us “permission” to or not.

Nullification – state-level resistance to unconstitutional federal laws – is the way forward.

When a state ‘nullifies’ a federal law, it is proclaiming that the law in question is void and inoperative, or ‘non-effective,’ within the boundaries of that state; or, in other words, not a law as far as that state is concerned.It’s peaceful, effective, and has a long history in the American tradition. It’s been invoked in support of free speech, in opposition to war and fugitive slave laws, and more. Read more on this history here

Regarding nullification and health care, there’s already a growing movement right now. Led by Arizona, voters in a number of states may get a chance to approve State Constitutional Amendments in 2010 that would effectively ban national health care in their states. Our sources here at the Tenth Amendment Center indicate to us that we should expect to see 20-25 states consider such legislation in 2010.

20 States resisting DC can do what calling, marching, yelling, faxing, and emailing has almost never done. Stop the feds dead in their tracks.

For example, 13 states are already defying federal marijuana prohibition, and the federal government is having such a hard time dealing with it that the Obama administration recently announced that they would no longer prioritize enforcement in states that have medical marijuana laws.

Better yet, in the last 2+ years more than 20 states have been able to effectively prevent the Real ID Act of 2005 from being implemented. How did they do that? They passed laws and resolutions refusing to comply with it. And today, it’s effectively null and void without ever being repealed by Congress or challenged in court.

While the Obama administration would like to revive it under a different name, the reality is still there – with massive state-level resistance, the federal government can be pushed back inside its constitutional box. Issue by issue, law by law, the best way to change the federal government is by resisting it on a state level.

That’s nullification at work.

Over the years, wise men and women warned us that the Constitution would never enforce itself. The time is long overdue for people to start recognizing this fact, and bring that enforcement closer to home.

The bottom line? If you want to make real change; if you want to really do something for liberty and for the Constitution…focus on local activism and your state governments.

Thomas Jefferson would be proud!

Sarah Palin’s Death Panels: In BOTH Reid & Pelsoi’s Health Care Bills (Pages Provided)

Governor Palin 4 President

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Dingy Harry Reid slipped in a provision into the health care legislation prohibiting future Congresses from changing any regulations imposed on Americans by the Independent Medical Advisory Boards, which are commonly called the Death Panels. It is section 3403 from pages 1,000 to 1,0007 of the Reid substitute.

There is established an independent board to be known as the ‘Independent Medicare Advisory Board:

PURPOSE.—It is the purpose of this section to, in accordance with the following provisions of this section, reduce the per capita rate of growth in Medicare spending.

• by requiring the Chief Actuary of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to determine in each year to which this section applies the projected per capita growth rate under Medicare for the second year following the determination year.
• If the projection for the implementation year exceeds the target growth rate for that year, by requiring the Board to develop and submit during the first year following the determination year this a proposal containing recommendations to reduce the Medicare per capita growth rate to the extent required by this section by requiring the Secretary to implement such proposals unless Congress enacts legislation pursuant to this section.

1. Page 1811 Advisory Board On Elder Abuse, Neglect And Exploitation
2. Page 1977 Personal Care Attendants Workforce Advisory Panel
3. Page 1648 Patient-Centered Outcomes Research expert advisory panel
4. Page 1660 Expert Advisory Panel For Rare Disease & Expert Advisory Panels For Clinical Trials
5. Page 568, 575 & 585 Maternal and Child Health Services Independent Expert Advisory Panel

Funny how the liberals at Politifact (Death Panels: Lie of the Year) or the St. Petersburg Times are so blinded by their liberalism they actually do no fact checking.  On top of that they miss the underlining characteristics of all government agencies and the services they provide.  All governments are incredibly inefficient, wasteful and always provide lower quality compared to the private sector faced with competition.  To lower costs they are incapable of becoming efficient and will always resort to reducing services.  Government health care is no different but our lives are directly affected. Death Panels have been in every health care bill which includes dozens of advisory boards, panels and committees with the responsibility of reducing costs at our expense.

But what can you say, like any gullible fool who thought for even a milli-second that Obama is qualified or worthy to be president has severe judgement problems.  So when those that voted for and supported the disaster Obama speak of Sarah Palin all we need to do is simply apply the opposite.

The Pelsoi Health Care Bill is also riddled with various bureaucratically appointed advisory boards, committees and panels  with the duties of cutting costs:

1. Page 111 The Health Benefits Advisory Committee
2. Page 589 The Telehealth Advisory Committee
3. Page 734 The Advisory Panel under the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Center
4. Page 1718 The Advisory Board under The Independence At Home Demonstration Program
5. Page 1761 The Advisory Board under C.R.I.H.B.
6. Page 1771 Facilities Appropriation Advisory Board under the Health Care Facility Priority System

God Help Us All!

Congressional & Senate Health Care Bill Links:

The Harry Reid Health Care Bill

The Nancy Pelosi Health Care Bill