Congressman Mike Rogers' opening statement on Health Care reform in Washington D.C.

Thanks for the email, Lauren

Spin and Sabotage

Wow. I hate to keep complaining of MSM leftist bias, but jeez!!! It's so prevalent its sickening, and they are pulling out all the stops to portray the health care townhall protesters as "hate" groups. Yeah. Granny is a card-carrying neo-Nazi. Please. Limbaugh is right -- the MSM is the state-run media.

Stimulating Stimulations

Stimulus in a nutshell - Mark Steyn - The Corner on National Review Online: "The 'stimulus' is advancing an already bloated statism at the expense of the real economy. That's why it's a flop. As for who this Mr Fitch is, he's the 'Acting State Stimulus Office Director'. The 'stimulus' is great if you're thinking of a career in Stimulus Office Management, Stimulus Office Management Consulting, Stimulus Office Human Services, Stimulus Office Promotion, or perhaps becoming a professor in Stimulus Office Studies."

--blogging at NRO, Mark Steyn cites a report on how "stimulus" money saved 700 New Hampshire "state" jobs -- in effect, propping up an already bloated public sector.

Reagan warns against socialized medicine (1961)

Hat tip, Drudge Report

Playing Doctor for ObamaCare

Townhall.com The Blogspot for Political, Conservative and Republican Blogs and Blogger

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Playing Doctor for ObamaCare

Posted by: Meredith Jessup at 2:24 PM

During Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee's town hall meeting... you know, the one where this happened... a doctor stood to voice her support for the proposed health care plan. When prompted, Dr. Roxana Mayer told the congresswoman she had been practicing medicine for four year and told the Houston Chronicle that she was a "pediatric primary care physician." In their story recapping the meeting, the Chronicle noted: Some attendees at the meeting spoke in favor of the plan, go so far as to want a system where the government had complete control. One supporter, Dr. Roxana Mayer, a physician who does not live in Jackson Lee's district, praised the reform plan for overhauling a broken system. "I don't know what there is in the bill that creates such panic," she said. A photo of Dr. Mayer hugging the congresswoman also ran with the story: Turns out, the name "Dr. Roxana Mayer" doesn't appear in the database maintained by the Texas Medical Board, a registry of all licensed doctors in the state. But the name "Roxana Mayer" does show up on Barack Obama's website as a Texas Delegate for Obama--a small bit of information the Chronicle was aware of, but didn't report in its story. Though the Chronicle didn't bother to check into Ms. Mayer's background, some average citizens did. Unable to find evidence of her medical practice, Patrick Frey of Patterico.com emailed Mayer to get more information on her background. Mayer responded to Frey's email correspondence, saying: ...For what it's worth, I went to get a question answered for myself and two other people close to me who are doctors. Too bad she didn't answer it. I also went to lend support to the reform effort. It's easier to be against something especially since anger is such a great motivator... I do think this is all very funny because I just assume that if my going had been part of a conspiracy, it would have been more seemlessly executed. But when pressed further by Frey as to whether or not she was actually a doctor, Mayer said she was not and joked: But who knows, that was only my first town hall meeting–even though I was a delegate. If I go to another one, which I seriously doubt because my husband is already extremely annoyed, then maybe I'll play a plumber. The Lone Star Times later picked up the story: Our own David Jennings secured a phone interview, in which Mayer admitted to impersonating a physician, saying — get this — she thought it would help her credibility. (It didn't.) The Times also ran a photo, which shed a new, crazier light on the whole situation: Some people might recognize the face of the woman who sat in the background while Mayer stood to praise ObamaCare. That woman, who accompanied Mayer to the town hall meeting, was Maria Isabel--the Obama devotee who ran a campaign office which proudly displayed the Che Guevara flag. What a circus. Let this meeting be a "teachable moment" for everyone attending town halls: question what you hear and keep your eyes open for loons.

Glenn Beck Clips 08-10-09 Seg1- Craig List Advertisements Recruiting MOBS for Cash for Hire

"Community Organizing" is only okay for radical revolutionaries

Let the Left show us how to astroturf like pros

The Real AstroTurf: "Indeed, it is the opposition to this opposition that is aggressively and meticulously organized. White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina last week gave the order to 'push back twice as hard.'

And the national field director of the union-backed Health Care for America Now (HCAN) on Aug. 4 apparently sent out a four-page, single-spaced, 2,500-word-plus 'how to bully' memo.

The document, featured on the Talking Points Memo Web site, says 'it's important that you take away right-wingers' opportunities to talk with reporters.' It tells operatives to 'confiscate signs or leaflets' of those opposing ObamaCare. It adds: 'Make sure that you assign marshals to take care of moving the crowd.'"

OMG, The "Angry Mob" funded by Insurance Industry hacks!!!

Look out, congress people! These demonstrators might come at you with some pocket protectors or pencils or something!

Of course, the only way to squelch this un-American dissent is to counteract these "subversive" demonstrations with paid public government union thugs, and the government-funded, "non-partisan" ACORN to intimitate and "punch back twice as hard." Truly, a perfect example of and the spirit of our "unifying," transcendent President and Messiah. The late Saul Alinsky would be proud.

AP to distribute Soros-funded 'journalism'

AP to distribute Soros-funded 'journalism'

Is there really any lingering doubt that today's dominant mainstream media news is no longer reporting, but rather a propaganda offensive largely controlled and funded by ultra-leftist, ultra-rich statists, who coincidentally happen to be Democrats, or control and finance much of the Democratic Party? There is nothing comparable to this on the political right.

"The Associated Press is delivering to its subscribing 1,500 American newspapers content, it has emerged, penned by groups with financing from philanthropist George Soros and another far-leftist billionaire who not only campaigned for President Obama but also topped donor lists to groups like ACORN and MoveOn.org.

The AP announced last month it will allow its subscribers to publish free of charge work by four nonprofit groups, the Center for Public Integrity, the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University, the Center for Investigative Reporting and ProPublica.

Controversial Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., a friend of President Obama who was embroiled in a recent national race scandal, sits on the board of ProPublica. The group defines itself as "an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest."

ProPublica was founded with a $10 million yearly grant from Herbert and Marion Sandler, the former chief executives of the Golden West Financial Corporation, which was one of the nation's largest mortgage lenders and savings and loans. The Sandlers last year sold their business to the Wachovia Corporation for about $26 billion, a deal which valued their personal shares at about $2.4 billion.

The Sandlers are major donors to the Democratic Party and are top funders of ACORN, MoveOne.org, the American Civil Liberties Union and other far-leftist groups like Human Rights Watch.

In 2008, the Sandlers were behind two controversial California Political Action Committees, Vote Hope and PowerPac.org, which spent about $5 million in pro-Obama ads in that state. The two groups were run by the Sandler's son-in-law, Steve Phillips, the former president of the San Francisco School Board.

The journalistic integrity of the Sandler-backed ProPublica, however, has been repeatedly called into question.

A report by the Capital Research Center concluded ProPublica "churns out little more than left-wing hit pieces about Sarah Palin and blames the U.S. government for giving out too little foreign aid." "

Utopia Versus Freedom (TOWNHALL.COM)

Utopia Versus Freedom
Thomas Sowell
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2009/08/04/utopia_versus_freedom

"Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom." We have heard that many times. What is also the price of freedom is the toleration of imperfections. If everything that is wrong with the world becomes a reason to turn more power over to some political savior, then freedom is going to erode away, while we are mindlessly repeating the catchwords of the hour, whether "change," "universal health care" or "social justice."

If we can be so easily stampeded by rhetoric that neither the public nor the Congress can be bothered to read, much less analyze, bills making massive changes in medical care, then do not be surprised when life and death decisions about you or your family are taken out of your hands-- and out of the hands of your doctor-- and transferred to bureaucrats in Washington.

Let's go back to square one. The universe was not made to our specifications. Nor were human beings. So there is nothing surprising in the fact that we are dissatisfied with many things at many times. The big question is whether we are prepared to follow any politician who claims to be able to "solve" our "problem."

If we are, then there will be a never ending series of "solutions," each causing new problems calling for still more "solutions." That way lies a never-ending quest, costing ever increasing amounts of the taxpayers' money and-- more important-- ever greater losses of your freedom to live your own life as you see fit, rather than as presumptuous elites dictate.

Ultimately, our choice is to give up Utopian quests or give up our freedom. This has been recognized for centuries by some, but many others have not yet faced that reality, even today. If you think government should "do something" about anything that ticks you off, or anything you want and don't have, then you have made your choice between Utopia and freedom.

Back in the 18th century, Edmund Burke said, "It is no inconsiderable part of wisdom, to know much of an evil ought to be tolerated" and "I must bear with infirmities until they fester into crimes."

But today's crusading zealots are not about to tolerate evils or infirmities. If insurance companies are not behaving the way some people think they should, then their answer is to set up a government bureaucracy to either control insurance companies or replace them.

If doctors, hospitals or pharmaceutical companies charge more than some people feel like paying, then the answer is price control. The actual track record of politicians, government bureaucracies, or price control is of no interest to those who think this way.

Politicians are already one of the main reasons why medical insurance is so expensive. Insurance is designed to cover risks but politicians are in the business of distributing largesse. Nothing is easier for politicians than to mandate things that insurance companies must cover, without the slightest regard for how such additional coverage will raise the cost of insurance.

If insurance covered only those things that most people are most concerned about-- the high cost of a major medical expense-- the price would be much lower than it is today, with politicians piling on mandate after mandate.

Since insurance covers risks, there is no reason for it to cover annual checkups, because it is known in advance that annual checkups occur once a year. Automobile insurance does not cover oil changes, much less the purchase of gasoline, since these are regular recurrences, not risks.

But politicians in the business of distributing largesse-- especially with somebody else's money-- cannot resist the temptation to pass laws adding things to insurance coverage. Many of those who are pushing for more government involvement in medical care are already talking about extending insurance coverage to "mental health"-- which is to say, giving shrinks and hypochondriacs a blank check drawn on the federal treasury.

There are still some voices of sanity today, echoing what Edmund Burke said long ago. "The study of human institutions is always a search for the most tolerable imperfections," according to Prof. Richard Epstein of the University of Chicago. If you cannot tolerate imperfections, be prepared to kiss your freedom goodbye.

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Suborned in the U.S.A.

Suborned in the U.S.A. by Andrew C. McCarthy on National Review Online: "The birth-certificate controversy is about Obama’s honesty, not where he was born."

In New York, It’s the Summer That Isn’t - NYTimes.com

In New York, It’s the Summer That Isn’t - NYTimes.com: "... this summer has been conspicuously different in New York City. Not one 99-degree day in Central Park. Not a single day that the temperature even approached 90. For just the second time in 140 years of record keeping, the temperature failed to reach 90 in either June or July."