March on Washington

I got this email today.

Dear Kristen,
More than ever before, we need your help. On September 12th, 2009, NTU is co-organizing what we hope will be the largest demonstration that Washington, DC has seen in a long time: the 9/12 March on Washington! We need you to be there, and add your voice to thousands of others fighting to turn our government around.

You've been hearing a lot of bad news recently: a $1 trillion government takeover of health care, a $2 trillion national energy tax disguised as "cap-and-trade," a $787 billion so-called "stimulus" package, a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, a Congress that drafts 1,500-page bills nobody has the time to read. The list goes on and on.

But there's good news as well: taxpayers all across the country are standing up and pushing back against this unprecedented expansion in the size and scope of the federal government! You've seen people rallying at Tea Parties and asking tough questions at Congressional town hall meetings on TV. Maybe you've even been to a few yourself. Now it's time to bring the Tea Party movement to Washington, DC!

If you want to visit the nation's capital and raise your voice in support of limited government, please join NTU and thousands of Americans just like you at the 9/12 March on Washington! There are events all weekend, culminating in a march down Pennsylvania Avenue to our big rally on the West Front of the United States Capitol Building. Thousands of people have already signed up, the event is completely free, and it will send a clear and unmistakable message to our politicians: STOP! Stop spending money we don't have, stop raising our taxes, and stop making our mammoth government even bigger!

If you're frustrated about the direction politicians are taking, then please join us on 9/12! We'll need every person we can muster to help turn things around. Please visit the 9/12 website for details -- see you there!
Sincerely,
Your NTU Grassroots Action Team
P.S. -- Whether you can attend or not, please pass this message on to everyone you know. Thank you!

Keep Your Eye On Him

Tim Pawlenty - absent some Mark Sanford meltdown - could be the person to watch over the next few years. He and Sarah Palin could be interesting (and excellent) bookends to a GOP resurgence.

But if Republicans and conservatives are ever going to get off the ground, it's not going to be via listening to the useful idiots in conservative ranks who thought Obama was a good idea.

No, it will be listening to the Common Sense of The People who, in true conservative fashion, face the tasks at hand, use what works, and build upon that. Those who get too enamoured of the intellectual/academic/cocktail-circuit life are the ones who end up losing touch with reality.

I'm not for rule-of-mob but I do think that failing to listen to ideas because they come from a "person" rather than an "academic" is a failure of imagination, courtesy, and intelligence.

Righteously Angry

Still, there are warning signs in the same poll for Steinhauser. Shouting down supporters of the plan was viewed by a majority of Democrats, Republicans and Independents in the Gallup poll as an “abuse” of democracy.

The backlash against the confrontational antics of some of the plans opponents at the town hall meetings could be a pivot point for the White House.

Lucas was stunned when she attended the first town hall of Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) and saw it devolve into shouts, boos and confrontational questions. “It was not a discussion. They made sure an honest debate did not take place,” Lucas recalled. “I knew we had a task in front of us.”

The above quote is from this YahooNews/Politico post here and it has made me see red.

It occurs to me that the supporters of Obamacare as so quick to paint opponents as angry not only because they have NO response to the opponents legitimate questions but also because, well, we are righteously angry.

Unlike the knee-jerk hatred the liberals so often manifest in the face of the slightest, mildest disagreement, conservatives tend to listen to the opposing point of view and then respond. Differing with a conservative is having a real debate. Differing with a liberal is risking a foam-specked person screaming in your face.

But when legitimate constituents go to a townhall, ask legitimate questions, express legitimate concern about Obamacare, and receive snide, arrogant, dismissive answers hawking tired troupes and outright lies, then the opponents of Obamacare get righteously angry.

I watch the videos and I can see the crowds thinking, 'hey, that was a qood questions. Why is this joker not answering it? Why is he being so snide? Isn't he supposed to be working for me?'

Politicians in America work for The People - as in We, The People. It's easy to start thinking of The People as if they were some non-corporeal entity. In the same way, Liberals blame "Wall Street" or the "Insurance Industry" as if it was a separate thing rather than a collection of people, human beings.

In America, The People believe they are in charge. We can vote the bums out. Many of the Congressional Crypt-Keepers have forgotten that. And they should be voted out for doing so.

I tell my children all the time, people shout when they believe they are not being heard. The "Angry Mobs" are shouting not because they want to be disruptive or rude. They are shouting because the man or woman at the podium is not listening, is not answering their questions, and is treating them with an arrogant dismissiveness which I promise you will be returned in kind come Election Day.

So commentators and liberals, please note this is righteous anger. Not liberal anger for liberal sake. Opponents of Obamacare are correct to be angry about their treatment by the press and their politicians. And they will be right to do something about it when before the ballot box.

Stated Goal

Weiner says his aim is to eliminate all private insurance — which is why he will not yield on the public-plan option.

From this HotAir link which has a video of the man saying as much.

Barney Frank Tanks At Townhall

Boston's local Fox News covered Frank's bad behavior at a "rowdy" townhall here.

The Daily Crash

Gallup shows another day, another drop in polls for Obama.

And Policos.com reports the Democratic Party is doing just as badly in the polls as well, here.

A Little More Please

This is an interesting premise of a website.

Biden 2016

According to this The Hill report, Biden's aides have announced he is considering a run for President in 2016. Here.

I'm wondering if the saterical BidenSaidThat.com website is going to cover this?

Your Life. Your Choices

A pamplet that I believe got killed under President Bush but is being resurrected by Obama about your "choices". Given the author, it's not a happy read but a horrible glimpse of our future if Obamacare survives.

Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.

'PAY Czar' Kenneth Feinberg's official government title is "special master for compensation." You'll be happy to know that he's really getting into the confiscatory spirit of his role. Asked by Reuters if his powers include reaching back and revoking bonuses awarded to financial-industry executives before his office was created this year, Feinberg asserted broad and binding authorities -- including the ability to "claw back" money already paid out.

The above is the opening paragraph to Michelle Malkin's article in The New York Post titled "THE INFINITE ARM OF O'S 'PAY CZAR'"

Surely, this czar thing is rapidly becoming unConstitutional? How could these unelected individuals have more power than the US Legal system? This is scary and awful.

Obamacare Daily Round-Up 08-19

(There is so much today, I can't guarantee I've read them all the way through. Sorry.)

Progressive, Black, Hispanic caucuses pledge more than 120 "no" votes on health co-op plan This is gonna trap Obama and the Democrats. If they put in a public option, there will be a huge political price to pay. If they go with co-ops, there will be an equally huge political price to pay. Actually possibly even bigger.

How Free Health Care Got So Expensive Good explanation.

It's a state thing says John Stossel in "Drug Legalization: Let the States Decide"

John Podhoretz has an article up in Commentary titled "The ObamaCare Bluff"

This USA Today article points out that autism isn't really dealt with in Obamacare. What else will fall through the cracks? Read all about it in "Kids with autism deserve better".

CNSNews.com is stating "Obamacare Puts Families Making $192,920 on Welfare." That can't be good.

"ObamaCare Is All About Rationing" is the title of this Wall Street Journal op-ed by Martin Feldstein. Sure the your personal pocketbook will act as a "rationing agent" on your ability to go to get expensive eyeglass frames or afford plastic surgery. But do you want the government to be the rationing agent for ALL your healthcare?

Another newspaper, The Washington Times, pointing out that "'Death panels' exist already"

A rare sensible op-ed from The New York Times titled "Keep Off the Astroturf".

Newt has something to say about the end of our lives over at HumanEvents.com titled "Keeping End-of-Life Decisions, Our Decision"By the way, could you imagine the movie Steel Magnolias but instead of it being a family decision to end Julia Robert's character, they had to put in a scene of the husband and family in front of a government ethics panel?

"Over 45,000 NHS staff call in sick each day" according to this UK Telegraph article here. Wow, working for the NHS looks almost as sucky as being treated by the NHS.

If Axelrod has been negotiating any part of any deal involving any of these players which are funneling money to the firm that owes him money, or if he is advising the president on the deals with any of these groups, that's a conflict of interest. Laundering the money through a "coalition" doesn't remove the conflict much less the appearance of impropriety. The coalition is in effect partially funding David Axelrod's severance package though its members might have done so unknowingly.

That's a very serious allegation being made over at Townhall.com by Hugh Hewitt here. As Mr. Hewitt says, this "conflict of interest" (if true) is far more significant than any Cheney-Halliburton connection. YIKES!

"Democratic investigators target health insurers" is an article from Politico.com, here.Is it just me or does Waxman's nose look positively rat-like?

Letters sent to 52 insurance companies by Democratic leaders demand extensive documents for an examination of ‘extensive compensation and other business practices in the health insurance industry.” The letters set a deadline of Sept. 14 for the documents.
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, signed the three-page letter dated Monday.

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

These are private companies that Waxman is trying to bully. If this behavior is not challenged and destroyed, these illiberal liberals will not hesitate to demand this kind of information from any and all businesses operating in the United States. How would your business fare under such scrutiny? And remember, your doctor, your dentist, your therapists could all be next because they are all small business owners.

As Mark Steyn said over at NRO about the above, "You first. How come the compensations and perks of a vice-president in a private company are to be subject to greater public forensic examination than those of Dodd or Rangel?

They're supposed to be representatives not rulers. George III couldn't have got away with a letter like that."

"August Anniversaries Fans of government-run health care seem eager to forget the French heatwave of 2003." is the title and subtitle of this little slice of history and EU-style government-run hell.

Examiner Claims Obamacare Unconstitutional.

Legal experts and Civil Rights Commission attack Obama health-care plan as unconstitutional

Palin Defends Oil Workers

Here at Sarah Palin's facebook page, she defends American oil and oil workers.

Drill, baby, drill.

Who Decides?

The great Thomas Sowell has a post up at NRO here discussing who decides, ie do doctors or beaurocrats get to make decisions about YOUR healthcare.

His angle is that no one is saying "death panels" but he clearly proves that Obama's selection of Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel is damning.

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel is “Special Advisor for Health Policy” for the Obama administration. That’s nowhere? He is also co-author of an article on Americans’ “over-utilization” of medical care in the June 18, 2008, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Is that nowhere?

Dr. Emanuel’s article points out that Americans do not visit doctors or go into hospitals more than people in other industrialized countries. In fact, we go to both places less often than people do in those other countries, which include countries with government-controlled medical care.

I should explain that the phrase "over-utilization" is Dr. Emanuel's jargon for "reducing healthcare services for those whom I decide do not need it". Don't believe me, read the doctor's publications.

Three PJTV Videos

ZoNation was flagged - but he escapes here. Good silly fun. They use their parking garage a lot. But what is with the kitten cries?

Of course, I always appreciate Zo in "In Pursuit of Happiness: Beating Back Socialism, One Argument At A Time."

I love the title of this video, "Loose Tweets Sink Fleets" here. Yes it is 11 minutes long but it is worth listening too. If only for the reference to Joss's Serenity movie which they get slightly wrong. The anchor says "the signal will always get out" but the correct version is "Can't stop the signal." Either way, it's true.

PJTV's Trifecta (Whittle/Ott/Green) on "Why You'll Be Begging for the Public Option."A public option in wolf's clothing or a way to restrict healthcare to old people?

Cowardly Stacking The Deck

Alan Grayson set up a faux townhall packed with union workers but not a real constituent in sight according the this report here from JammieWearingFool.

So we start out with an audience stacked with union and Democrat Executive Committee members and the local peons wait hours on line and aren't let in.

Charming.

Ongoing Review of HR 3200 pages 400-600

As I have pointed out previously here, The Gormogons are doing an excellent page by page review of HR 3200 aka Obamacare.

Here is their review of pages 401 - 500. The summary of this section is as follows:

At this point, we are clearly seeing patterns. Various, established programs are being ripped apart to include more services, but lack explanations as to how these services will reduce costs or reduce the number of Americans without healthcare. This just reeks of window dressing, with details grabbed from wherever they could find them.

And here is their review of pages 501 - 600.

This should please the SEIU, because there is a lot about protecting the interests of workers at these facilities from management. Indeed, a massive amount of these pages cover filing grievances, protection against whistleblowers and management retaliation...almost as if the SEIU wrote it from one of their standard skilled nursing home labor contracts. That, my friends, is a hint.

Read 'em and weep.

More Frack Jobs, Please

Investor's Business Daily has an editorial up about NY Gov. Patterson's call for creating more "frack jobs" by frack drilling the oil shale in New York state.

What did you think I meant.

Suffice it to say, the article, here, ends with "Drill, Patterson, drill." a sentiment I whole-heartedly agree with.

Still you gotta love quotes like this...

Kennedy and the rest of the fracking opposition say that since the technique uses a lot of water, we should worry about possible groundwater pollution and the impact on water supplies, rivers and streams. Proximity of the Marcellus formation to New York City's watershed has caused concern.

Roger Willis, owner of a hydraulic fracturing company in the Pennsylvania town of Meadville, says thousands of frack jobs have been done on rock formations above and below the Marcellus shale in New York state with no aquifer damage.

The new fracking technology allows access to deeper, denser shale. "These are surgical operations utilizing the most advanced drilling technology known to man," Tom Price, senior vice president of Chesapeake Energy, told lawmakers at a recent hearing in Albany.

Yes, I know.

Boehner Puts PhRMA on The Mat

Here is a pdf.file of the letter Rep. Boehner wrote to Billy Tauzin, head of PhRMA.

You know it is a smackdown when it starts, "Appeasement rarely works as conflict resolution strategy." And continues with Boehner explaining exactly how PhRMA's "backroom deal" with Obama was a selling-out of the American people.

I like Rep. Boehner!

The California Coastal Commission vs. Its Critics

Richard Oshen has spent the past four years making a documentary about the California Coastal Commission (CCC), a state agency too obscure to have gathered any previous documentarian's attention. It is, however, well known enough in the world of land-use policy to have been called, in a 2008 New York Times story, "the most formidable player of all" when it comes to land use decisions in California.

As Oshen learned, the CCC's powers extend far beyond what anyone would reasonably think of as either land use or the protection of California's coast. Coastal protection was the ostensible reason a four-year "Coastal Commission" was first invented for California after 1972's Proposition 20. The CCC was given permanent life by the California Coastal Act of 1976. Its current executive director, Peter Douglas, who is now serving his 29th year, helped agitate for and then draft the very statewide proposition that gave him his job.

The above are the first two paragraphs of this Reason.com article here detailing the scumbag tactics of the CCC and why we should all support Mr. Oshen's project to beam sunlight into this nest of vipers.

The amino acid glycine, a fundamental building block of proteins, has been found in a comet for the first time, bolstering the theory that raw ingredients of life arrived on Earth from outer space, scientists said on Monday.

WOW!

And Cool! From Reuters here.

Two Videos From PJTV

VodkaPundit's Hair of the Dog is always a fun news roundup.

And here is "The Power & Danger of Iconography: The Resistance Steals Obama's Weapons" - very interesting. Actually a must watch. So go there now.

Obamacare Round-up

African-American man protests Obamacare here and here by carrying an assault rifle to protests and its perfectly legal. God Bless that man!

UK's Daily Mail is reporting, "Woman gives birth on pavement 'after being refused ambulance'" - a related story is an op-ed about an American woman who was in labor, showed up at an NHS hospital and was chastised for not bringing her own linens, pads, and other "birthing supplies." Think of this as a real-world glimpse of our Obamacare future.

Here's another glimpse of our Obamacare future from The Vancouver Sun titled, "Thousands of surgeries may be cut in Metro Vancouver, leaked paper reveals."

The AARP's support of Obamacare has lost them 60,000 members so far according to USA Today. I wonder what they're gonna do about this. Membership is money for them. Killing your members by endorsing government-rationed healthcare ain't the brightest move ever.

Rich Lowry points out why Obama is going to find it difficult to let go of the "public option" and to keep it, here.

It's like they don't want to hear from their constituents. Isn't that their job?

So African-American conservatives are protesting the quiet acceptance of the Ken Gladney beating at the NAACP here and here. They deserve ALL our support!

Today's Rasmussen Report on the continuing freefall that is Obamacare in the pools here. "Skeptical" is almost a British understatement by now!

Here's the libertarian take over at reason.com.

Cato, here, explains how "co-ops" are the "public option" by another name. Just like "advisory board" is another name for "death panel". No, I'm serious about that.

Going postal, this report here talks about how postal supervisors consider Obama's reference to them in a recent townhall to be a "kick in the chest". Well, maybe you deserve it a bit. Don't Shoot!

Big Spender

I'm reading this ARthur C. Brooks op-ed in The Wall Street Journal here and this sentence jumped out at me in the second paragraph, "The Congressional Budget Office now estimates that the national debt will balloon to $17.1 trillion by 2019."

Holy Cow!

We, The Taxpayers, will be $17,100,000,000 in debt (probably mostly to China) in ten (10!) years under Obama.

WTF?

Stopping this madness must start now. No to cap and tax! No to Obamacare! No to bailouts and "stimulus" bills. No. No. No.

There are many options out there to solve our problems that DO NOT require the raising of taxes and the deepening of our debt.

Indeed, many solutions would lower our taxes and reduce our debt if only liberals would take their eyes off their utopian thesis papers and take a real look at the real world the rest of us inhabit.

Does a 'Death Panel' Already Exist?

(I liked what Andy McCarthy had to say in this NRO post that I am reproducing it in its entirety.]

At the American Thinker, Joseph Ashby says yes:

H.R. 1 (more commonly known as the Recovery and Reinvestment Act, even more commonly known as the Stimulus Bill and aptly dubbed the Porkulus 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. Before the Porkulus Bill passed, Betsy McCaughey, former Lieutenant governor of New York, wrote in detail about the Council's purpose.

Daschle's stated purpose (and therefore President Obama's 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."

What ought to frighten the daylights out of everyone is how Obamacare lays the groundwork for what Mark Steyn calls the "Big Government ratchet." As Ashby elaborates:

What may pass as a 1,000 page health care law will explode into perhaps many thousands of pages of regulatory codes. The deliberate vagueness will give regulators tremendous leverage to interpret its provisions. Thus Obama's Regulatory Czar Cass Sunstein will play a major role in defining the government's role in controlling medical care.

How does Sunstein approach end of life care? In 2003 he wrote a paper for the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies arguing that human life varies in value. Specifically he champions statistical methods that give preference to what the government rates as "quality-adjusted life years." Meaning, the government decides whether a person's life is worth living. If the government decides the life is not worth living, it is the individual's duty to die to free up welfare payments for the young and productive.

Not to rehash our discussion here about the proper definition of a death panel, but, again, I think saying the government will be "deciding whether a person's life is worth living" is about more than "cut[ting] off care for the critically ill as a cost-cutting measure" — the narrow definition of death panels used by the New York Times (as Ashby recounts). It's about foreclosing care to the treatable — based on some government formula — such that they wither and die before their time. For all these years, the Left has told us we must butt out of end-of-life decisions because they are so intensely personal; turns out they're only intensely personal if you're decision is to die — if you want to live, that's up to the bureaucrats.