Why Have Congress and Obama Intentionally Excluded Themselves From Having To Participate In Obamacare If It Is So Wonderful?

Probably by now, many people are aware of the exclusion from Obamcare that Congress granted itself, staff members, the President and Vice President. As has been stated myriad times, if the legislation was so utterly fantastic for the American people, why is it not good enough for Congress and the President?

We all know that the political rhetoric which was employed for the bill’s passage was not merely disingenuous but overtly and despicably dishonest and criminal. As stated in a previous post, these politicians see themselves as elitists, members of a privileged class much as was extant in Russia in the 1970’s and early 1980’s – the nomeklatura.

As their employers (at least on paper), we must now revoke their privileges, limit their unrestrained actions, mandate that they abide by the same laws as the rest of us, and vote the offenders out of office.

No Obamacare for Obama
THE WASHINGTON TIMES     March 23, 2010

President Obama declared that the new health care law "is going to be affecting every American family." Except his own, of course.

The new health care law exempts the president from having to participate in it. Leadership and committee staffers in the House and Senate who wrote the bill are exempted as well. A weasel-worded definition of "staff" includes only the members' personal staff in the new system; the committee staff that drafted the legislation opted themselves out. Because they were more familiar with the contents of the law than anyone in the country, it says a lot that they carved out their own special loophole. Anyway, the law is intended to affect "ordinary Americans," according to Vice President Joe Biden (who - being a heartbeat away from the presidency - also is not covered), not Washington insiders.

Mr. Obama frequently tossed around the talking point that the new law gave people the same type of coverage as Congress enjoyed. In his March 20 health care pep talk to wavering Democrats on Capitol Hill, the president said one of the advantages of the health care legislation was that "people will have choice and competition just like members of Congress have choice and competition." At yesterday's signing ceremony, Mr. Obama said Americans will be "part of a big pool, just like federal employees are part of a big pool. They'll have the same choice of private health insurance that members of Congress get for themselves." But the American people will have a public pool; the executive branch and congressional staffers kept their country-club pool private.

Last year, Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, spearheaded efforts to have all Americans included in the plan, but he ran into heavy opposition from unions representing federal workers - the same unions that were pro-Obamacare stalwarts. In September, the Senate approved a scaled-down amendment that covered members of Congress and their staff. When this provision later emerged from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's office, the leadership and committee staff loophole had appeared. A move in December by Mr. Grassley and Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, to close this loophole and to extend the law to senior members of the executive branch - including the president, vice president and Cabinet members - was blocked by Senate Democratic leaders.

Mr. Grassley has introduced an amendment to the Senate health care reconciliation bill that also will apply the law to the upper tier of the executive branch and all Capitol Hill staffers, but it remains to be seen whether Democrats will let this measure move forward.

The special exemptions slipped into the health care law are another example of how those statists who rule consider themselves a privileged class, imposing burdens on the country that they will not accept themselves. Candidates for office in 2010 should pledge to close these and other loopholes in the law that impose unequal burdens and create exclusive privileged classes in America. Meanwhile, we await Mr. Obama's explanation why if his "historic" health care law is so great for America, it's not good enough for him and his family.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/23/obamacare-for-everyone-but-obama/

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Representative Hank Johnson (D. – Georgia 4th District) Needs A Brain … And Needs To Be Replaced

The following unbelievable video or Rep. Hank Johnson (D. – Ga 4th District) is excerpted from a House Armed Services Committee hearing in March. To place the absurdity of his statements and questioning in perspective, Johnson is a member of the House Democratic leadership and was elected by the Democratic caucus to serve as whip for Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida and serves on the House Armed Services and Judiciary committees.

3-25-2010 Representative Hank Johnson (Democrat - Georgia 4th District)

The outrageousness of Johnsons’ inability to concatenate more than a few comprehensible words together is only superseded by the inanity of his absolutely serious concern that an increased population on Guam would place it at great risk to tip over. Shocking, indeed!

Is it possible that any person be such an imbecile? A child of five would never consider entertaining such a thought! His defenders claim his medical condition caused him to act in this fashion but this is unequivocally false. His Hepatitis C (which is in remission) has no bearing on his intellectual void.

To think that he had been a practicing lawyer for 25 years and even more egregiously, was elected to Congress, is incomprehensible. Incredibly, he is an improvement over the previous representative, the racist, criminal and vile psycho Cynthia McKinney (of race-bating Capitol Hill Police Congress confrontation fame, a 9/11 Truther and sponsor of impeachment charges against President Bush, VP Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice).

Is it any wonder now that bills like Obamacare are passed in Congress?

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Orlando Physician Expresses Sentiments Regarding Obama and Obamacare

The story below details an Orlando, Florida area urologist who posted a sign on his office door stating:

“If you voted for Obama … seek urological care elsewhere.”

This physician reaction has created a tempest in many parts, but what did Obama and the Congressional Democrats expect? They have legislated involuntary servitude of America’s physicians with their corruptly passed and ideologically radical healthcare “reform”. They are trying to pay for the Obamacare wealth transfer on the backs of productive citizens and physicians though all healthcare providers including medical device companies will be negatively impacted. They are destroying the physician-patient relationship, quality of care, etc. with the insinuation of federal officials in the mix, determining who can be treated and by what (less expensive) means.

And then there is the reimbursement part that we will put in perspective. Medicare reimbursement rates this year pay doctors below 1995 levels which were low at that time. To make matters worse, as of this April 1st, reimbursement is scheduled to drop another 21.3%. In other words, physicians will be paid almost 22% less than they were 15 years ago. Meanwhile, Congress which incredibly can vote for its own pay raise, will received nearly 95% more than they were 20 years ago!

Many physicians have been losing money for years taking care of Medicare patients at artificially low reimbursement rates that don’t even cover their expenses. Now lower that rate another 22% and add far more government bureaucracy and you have a disastrous situation.

Though it may not judged to be “politically correct” for a physician to react as this sign indicated, it is well within one’s Constitutional rights to do so and does not violate any medical laws nor should it. Despite the fine line that medical societies may need to toe in response to actions of physicians like the above, there is nothing illegal or immoral. Unfortunately, our government has facilitated such actions by their oppressive legislation.

The overwhelming sentiment in the medical community is vehemently against Obamacare for myriad reasons. Therefore, we expect to see additional significant actions in the future that would far surpass this one incident in scope and extent. Reactions to Obamacare are only just beginning...

Doctor tells Obama supporters: Go elsewhere for health care
A Mount Dora doctor posted a sign telling Obama health care supporters to go elsewhere.
By Stephen Hudak, Orlando Sentinel   April 2, 2010

MOUNT DORA — A doctor who considers the national health-care overhaul to be bad medicine for the country posted a sign on his office door telling patients who voted for President Barack Obama to seek care "elsewhere."

"I'm not turning anybody away — that would be unethical," Dr. Jack Cassell, 56, a Mount Dora urologist and a registered Republican opposed to the health plan, told the Orlando Sentinel on Thursday. "But if they read the sign and turn the other way, so be it."

The sign reads: "If you voted for Obama … seek urologic care elsewhere. Changes to your healthcare begin right now, not in four years."

Estella Chatman, 67, of Eustis, whose daughter snapped a photo of the typewritten sign, sent the picture to U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, the Orlando Democrat who riled Republicans last year when he characterized the GOP's idea of health care as, "If you get sick, America … Die quickly."

Chatman said she heard about the sign from a friend referred to Cassell after his physician recently died. She said her friend did not want to speak to a reporter but was dismayed by Cassell's sign.

"He's going to find another doctor," she said.

Cassell may be walking a thin line between his right to free speech and his professional obligation, said William Allen, professor of bioethics, law and medical professionalism at the University of Florida's College of Medicine.

Allen said doctors cannot refuse patients on the basis of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation or disability, but political preference is not one of the legally protected categories specified in civil-rights law. By insisting he does not quiz his patients about their politics and has not turned away patients based on their vote, the doctor is "trying to hold onto the nub of his ethical obligation," Allen said.

"But this is pushing the limit," he said.

Cassell, who has practiced medicine in GOP-dominated Lake County since 1988, said he doesn't quiz his patients about their politics, but he also won't hide his disdain for the bill Obama signed and the lawmakers who passed it.

In his waiting room, Cassell also has provided his patients with photocopies of a health-care timeline produced by Republican leaders that outlines "major provisions" in the health-care package. The doctor put a sign above the stack of copies that reads: "This is what the morons in Washington have done to your health care. Take one, read it and vote out anyone who voted for it."

Cassell, whose lawyer wife, Leslie Campione, has declared herself a Republican candidate for Lake County commissioner, said three patients have complained, but most have been "overwhelmingly supportive" of his position.

"They know it's not good for them," he said.

Cassell, who previously served as chief of surgery at Florida Hospital Waterman in Tavares, said a patient's politics would not affect his care for them, although he said he would prefer not to treat people who support the president.

"I can at least make a point," he said.

The notice on Cassell's office door could cause some patients to question his judgment or fret about the care they might receive if they don't share his political views, Allen said. He said doctors are wise to avoid public expressions that can affect the physician-patient relationship.

Erin VanSickle, spokeswoman for the Florida Medical Association, would not comment specifically.

But she noted in an e-mail to the Sentinel that "physicians are extended the same rights to free speech as every other citizen in the United States."

The outspoken Grayson described Cassell's sign as "ridiculous."

"I'm disgusted," he said. "Maybe he thinks the Hippocratic Oath says, ‘Do no good.' If this is the face of the right wing in America, it's the face of cruelty. … Why don't they change the name of the Republican Party to the Sore Loser Party?"

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/view.bg?&articleid=1244178&format=&page=1&listingType=politics#articleFull

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In Support Of Constitutional Amendments Proscribing Federal Government Power and Perks

Obama is “changing” the Constitution by both by ignoring it and with insidious maneuvering. Activist judicial verdicts further pervert the original intent, reducing citizens’ rights and expanding government power and intrusion. What we need now are explicit Amendments to further delineate and proscribe federal government overreach.

Why should Congress regularly pass legislation that all Americans are mandated to follow but it is exempt from, most notably but not limited to Obamacare? What about the generous perks that they vote for themselves such as regular raises in salary and munificent retirement packages? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the average American could also say” I deserve a pay increase this year so I am going to give it to myself”- and they then do.

This corruption, greed and lack of accountability must be extinguished. Elections alone are not the answer.

Now may just may be the perfect storm for these monumentally important changes to be made.

Will Gov't Health Takeover Bring Constitutional 'Hope And Change'?
By Larry Elder    03/25/2010

We live in a fundamentally different country from that which existed only days ago. The government now requires every American to buy health insurance. The Constitution has been attacked, interpreted in a way beyond its original intent.
Therefore, we must change it.

Ignoring the will of the majority of Americans, the discouraging experiences of countries with socialized medicine, and the already staggering amount of entitlement debt, President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats "reformed" health care.

Once a nation under a Constitution that restricted government intrusion, we now want government to provide for our "needs" by calling them "rights."

We now ask government to prop up failing businesses, make student loans, guarantee mortgages, build and maintain public housing, financially support state education from preschool though graduate school, fund private research, provide disaster relief and aid, pay "volunteers" and on and on.

Many in our nation happily submit to this bargain. They consider the Big Three entitlements — Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — "rights," their absence unimaginable in a modern "caring" society. It is out of the question to expect people, families and communities to plan for retirement.

It's beyond reason to expect medical care, like any other commodity, to follow the laws of supply and demand — for prices and choices to allocate resources and competition to drive down prices and improve quality. It's too much to expect the compassion, morality and spirituality of humankind to aid those unable to care for themselves.

We ignore history's examples of how good intentions produce bad results. Almost 50 years ago, another "transformative" president launched a War on Poverty. But for many welfare recipients and their families, poverty became "structural."
People became dependent on government.

After the government finally placed some restrictions on welfare, dependency declined. Much to the surprise of those who denounced welfare reform as cruel, people changed their behavior.

We ignore the experience of price controls. Government can dictate prices, but cannot dictate costs. Price controls result in rationing, drive producers out of business and cause lower quality and less innovation. America, because its citizens enjoyed greater economic freedom, built a superior health care system — which ObamaCare now threatens to dismantle.

Communism collapsed under the romantic but bankrupt notion of "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." Taking from the productive and giving to the unproductive does damage to the incentive of both parties.

European countries — "social justice" democracies — produce comparatively few private-sector jobs. Europe suffers from high taxes, choking union deals that make it virtually impossible to fire workers, and government policies that mandate paid vacations and other job-killing benefits.

Into this statist abyss we willingly jump.

Former Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern left the Senate after 18 years and bought a small business. It went under. He wrote: "(I) wish I had known more firsthand about the concerns and problems of American businesspeople while I was a U.S. senator and later a presidential nominee. ... Legislators and government regulators must more carefully consider the economic and management burdens we have been imposing on U.S. businesses. ... Many businesses ... simply can't pass such costs on to their customers and remain competitive or profitable."

President Obama, like many in Congress, has little experience in or understanding of the private free-market economy.

Obama never started a business, ran one or struggled to meet a payroll. He shows little respect for the hard, long hours people put in to build successful businesses that hire people. He believes unequal outcomes are unjust and government exists to right this wrong by "spreading the wealth."

If this means telling doctors how to practice, so what? If this means people will be less likely to improve themselves through education and training to get "good" jobs with benefits, so what? If this means we make employers less likely to hire for fear of fines should they fail to offer health insurance, so what? And if the "wealthy" invest less and create fewer jobs because of higher taxes and expensive regulations, so what?

Now what? As many as 39 state legislatures have taken or will take action to block the mandate. Thirteen state attorneys general immediately filed suit, arguing, among other things, that ObamaCare's insurance mandate violates the Constitution's commerce clause. Expect more states to sue.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court broadly interprets the commerce clause — wildly beyond the intent of the Founders — to allow just about anything.

So, the Constitution must be changed. It must be amended to make what was once clear absolutely, positively, unavoidably clear.

Two-thirds of the states can call for a constitutional convention, where an amendment can be proposed to prohibit the forced purchase of health insurance. Three-fourths of the states could then ratify it.

Implausible? So was ObamaCare.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=528448

Posted in Constitution Constitutional Amendments Corruption Government Control Healthcare Reform Larry Elder Socialism Socialized Medicine Taxes Tea Parties with No Comments

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Congressional Democrats Seek Retribution Against Corporations Revealing The True Costs That They Will Be Facing As A Result of Obamacare

Where were these companies and why weren’t the potential costs widely and vehemently exposed while the legislation was still being “debated”? Inexcusable silence by thousands of companies and millions of citizens engendered the passage of Obamacare with less resistance than should have been the case? This is not to say that Americans were not outraged and didn’t translate this into positive and productive action – they unequivocally did with their letter writing, email and telephone calling campaigns and of course, with the Tea Party movement.

Some corporations might have stayed silent out of fear of government retribution, greed or diaphanous promises by politicians … but now we will all pay the price.

Now that many companies have “elected” to reveal the real devastating financial consequences of Obamacare (driven to a sizable extent by their legal obligations as public companies to release the information), several prominent Democrats are egregiously seeking retribution against them for exposing the gargantuan financial fraud that has been perpetrated with the healthcare legislation.

Our government has abrogated many of our rights and freedoms while aggrandizing their power … and continues to thirst for more. This is the evil addiction and corruption of power which must be vanquished and reversed.

This must not be the new America that we have to live in!

Dems Threaten Congressional Show Trials After US Companies Leak Real Economic Damage of Obamacare
Jim Hoft   March 28, 2010

Late last week several US corporations leaked how the democrat’s health care bill will kill their businesses. The radicals in Congress were not pleased that these corporations would go public with this devastating information. In response, democrats threatened to call for Congressional show trials to publicly humiliate these corporations.

The Wall Street Journal reported:

It’s been a banner week for Democrats: ObamaCare passed Congress in its final form on Thursday night, and the returns are already rolling in. Yesterday AT&T announced that it will be forced to make a $1 billion writedown due solely to the health bill, in what has become a wave of such corporate losses.

This wholesale destruction of wealth and capital came with more than ample warning. Turning over every couch cushion to make their new entitlement look affordable under Beltway accounting rules, Democrats decided to raise taxes on companies that do the public service of offering prescription drug benefits to their retirees instead of dumping them into Medicare. We and others warned this would lead to AT&T-like results, but like so many other ObamaCare objections Democrats waved them off as self-serving or “political.”

…Henry Waxman and House Democrats announced yesterday that they will haul these companies in for an April 21 hearing because their judgment “appears to conflict with independent analyses, which show that the new law will expand coverage and bring down costs.”

In other words, shoot the messenger. Black-letter financial accounting rules require that corporations immediately restate their earnings to reflect the present value of their long-term health liabilities, including a higher tax burden.
Should these companies have played chicken with the Securities and Exchange Commission to avoid this politically inconvenient reality? Democrats don’t like what their bill is doing in the real world, so they now want to intimidate CEOs into keeping quiet.

On top of AT&T’s $1 billion, the writedown wave so far includes Deere & Co., $150 million; Caterpillar, $100 million; AK Steel, $31 million; 3M, $90 million; and Valero Energy, up to $20 million. Verizon has also warned its employees about its new higher health-care costs, and there will be many more in the coming days and weeks.

The last paragraph says it all about the democrat’s trickery:

The Democratic political calculation with ObamaCare is the proverbial boiling frog: Gradually introduce a health-care entitlement by hiding the true costs, hook the middle class on new subsidies until they become unrepealable, but try to delay the adverse consequences and major new tax hikes so voters don’t make the connection between their policy and the economic wreckage. But their bill was such a shoddy, jerry-rigged piece of work that the damage is coming sooner than even some critics expected.

Byron York at The Washington Examiner has more on the show trials.

Waxman is also demanding that the executives give lawmakers internal company documents related to health care finances — a move one committee Republicans describes as “an attempt to intimidate and silence opponents of the Democrats’ flawed health care reform legislation.”

…Waxman has ordered the executives to explain themselves at an April 21 hearing before the Energy and Commerce Committee’s investigative subcommittee. That subcommittee just happens to be chaired by Rep. Bart Stupak, the Michigan Democrat who held out his vote on health care reform until a few hours before final passage on March 21, giving the bill’s opponents the unfounded hope that he might vote against it.

Waxman’s demands came Friday in letters to several executives. “After the president signed the health care reform bill into law, your company announced that provisions in the law could adversely affect your ability to provide health insurance,” Waxman wrote to Randall Stephenson, chairman and CEO of AT&T. A few hours before Waxman sent his letter, AT&T announced it will take a $1 billion charge against earnings because of the tax provision in the new health bill. AT&T also said it will be “evaluating prospective changes” to its health care benefits for all workers…

Waxman’s request could prove particularly troubling for the companies. The executives will undoubtedly view such documents as confidential, but if they fail to give Waxman everything he wants, they run the risk of subpoenas and threats from the chairman. And all as punishment for making a business decision in light of a new tax situation.

These democrats in Washington are nothing but thugs. They’ll try anything to keep the truth from coming out about their disastrous legislation.

http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2010/03/dems-threaten-congressional-show-trials-after-us-companies-leak-real-economic-damage-of-obamacare/

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Couldn’t Ask For Better Press and Backside Coverage

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Americans Very Angry At Congressional Democrats and Obama Who Arrogantly and Condescendingly Ignored Their Will

Rightful Anger
Investors Business Daily 03/25/2010

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., warned that politicians should “be very careful ... that our rhetoric doesn’t incite to violent...

Health Reform: Should Americans feel ashamed for being angry that those who rule Washington thwarted the popular will? No more than colonial Americans at the trampling of their freedoms.

If the president and the leaders of his party in Congress think the American people are going to roll over and play dead after the biggest government power grab in history, they don't know this country.

And if they think those on the side of economic freedom will be intimidated by their attempts to caricature them as a bloodthirsty mob of Timothy McVeighs, they underestimate the powers of a free people.

A new CBS News poll finds that 62% of Americans want Republicans to keep fighting the Democrats' health legislation even now that it has passed.

Only 16% believe the new law will "mostly help" them.

Democrats are portraying that majority as a violent minority, being inflamed by the speeches of GOP congressmen and Sarah Palin. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., in an appearance on the CBS "Early Show" on Thursday, warned that politicians should "be very careful ... that our rhetoric doesn't incite to violent acts."

Does that include the rhetoric of former House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., who this week told a Detroit radio show that "it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people"?

Control the people?

This is a country that went to war over onerous taxation by the mother country. We took up arms and sacrificed our sons "to dissolve the political bands" that attached us to King George, and "to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God" entitled our Colonial forebears.

Dingell has again earned his longtime nickname, the Truck. But it will take more than a couple of hundred congressional eighteen-wheelers to turn the Spirit of '76 into roadkill.

Where were Hoyer and his colleagues, now so concerned about inflammatory rhetoric sparking violence, a couple of years ago?

As Victor Davis Hanson points out, "write a book in which you muse about killing George Bush, and its Knopf imprint proves it is merely sophisticated literary speculation; do a docudrama about killing George Bush, and it will win a Toronto film prize for its artistic value rather than shock from the liberal community about over-the-top discourse."

Knopf's defense was that it was "not the first time a novelist has chosen fiction to express their point of view about American society or politics." Newmarket Films' defense of its computer-rejiggered news footage depicting Bush being assassinated was to call it "quite a compelling political thriller. In many ways it is sympathetic to George Bush."

Nor do you even have to go back years ago.

Washington Post columnist Courtland Milloy on Monday said of the Tea Party protesters: "I want to spit on them, take one of their 'Obama Plan White Slavery' signs and knock every racist and homophobic tooth out of their Cro-Magnon heads."

Politically motivated violence is to be condemned as long as America can peacefully be kept free.

Our bet is that as Americans increasingly feel the impoverishing effects of last Sunday's big step toward socialized medicine, they will indeed repeal it — without firing a single shot.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=528481

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Rep. Dingell and the Democrats’ Ideology: “Control the People

The following outrageous comment by Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) just confirms the mind set of many of the far-left Democrats (Obama, Pelosi, Reid, et. al.) and not just regarding healthcare and why we need to be ever vigilant in protecting and fighting for our rights and freedoms. This is an ideology that will relentlessly seek to abrogate our rights, creating an omnipotent, intrusive, and authoritarian Central Government not unlike the Soviet Union or China.

What can and should we do? Fight back. Resist. Remove these Democrats from office in November. Provide support for organizations, agencies, individuals and even states that are trying to rein in and reduce the ever increasing power of the Federal government.

Rep. Dingell: It's Taken a Long Time to 'Control the People'

From American Thinker: Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), the Dean of the House of Representatives for being the longest serving member of the body (he was first elected in 1955, succeeding his father, Rep. John Dingell, Sr.), made an amazing admission during a live telephone interview with Detroit WJR News/Talk 760 radio talk show host Paul W. Smith on Smith's show Monday morning, March 22, 2010. The night before, Dingell had been a featured speaker at the Democrat Congressional leadership victory press conference after Obamacare passed the House. In response to a question posed by Smith, Dingell said:

Let me remind you this [Americans allegedly dying because of lack of universal health care] has been going on for years. We are bringing it to a halt. The harsh fact of the matter is when you're going to pass legislation that will cover 300 [million] American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people.

http://www.thefoxnation.com/rep-john-dingell/2010/03/24/rep-dingell-its-taken-long-time-control-people?page=7

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Best Immediate Chances of Overturning Obamacare Is Through Legal Challenges

Obama and the Congressional Democrats have corruptly and despicably passed a wealth transferring, fiscally bankrupting socialized medicine bill that legalizes seizure and control of our healthcare and privacy by the Federal Government – all in opposition to the will of the people. Though it is imperative that we continue to fight this abomination through Congress and elections, the best immediate chances that we have of overturning it are through legal challenges.

Kill It In Court
Investors Business Daily   03/22/2010

Constitution: Republicans vow to repeal health care reform. But no social entitlement, once signed into law, has ever been overturned. The way to stop this federal overreach is through the courts.

Fox pundit Bill Kristol predicts that Republicans will repeal the law in 2013. Rep. Jim DeMint and other GOP leaders have already pledged to do so.

But that assumes a lot. Republicans must first regain control of both houses of Congress, which will require sustaining the current level of public outrage for six months after the fact.

That won't be easy. While additional negative details about the 2,074-page bill will come out over the coming months, the worst parts won't go into effect for years. And the White House is already reselling the few positives, such as covering pre-existing conditions, which go into effect right away.

Yes, Republicans won Congress for the first time in 50 years after Clinton tried to socialize medicine. And yes, this bill is arguably worse, with 732 more pages, 109 more bureaucracies and just as many new taxes.

But HillaryCare failed, and was cast as a major Democrat defeat. ObamaCare, on the other hand, will be hailed as a big Democrat win. Even in the off chance that they do take back Congress, Republicans seeking repeal will have to fend off all the lobbyists who will cement around new health care rules, programs and benefits.

Then they'll have to override President Obama's veto.

The nation's best chance to kill this monstrosity before it can ruin the best health care system in the world is to get the courts to declare it unconstitutional.

The "individual mandate" is a violation of the 9th and 14th amendments. The Commerce Clause gives Congress the power to regulate the health care industry on issues of interstate trade. It does not give it the authority to force individuals to buy a service from private industry. This is unheard of. Even in World War II, the feds did not make citizens buy war bonds, for instance.

Already Virginia, Florida and South Carolina are preparing constitutional challenges.

The high court — which thankfully (for now) is led by strict constructionists — will not let stand this violence against the Constitution, which the framers designed to limit federal powers.

If the bench were to uphold mandated universal participation in a federal health system, it would give Congress license to do anything it wants under the Commerce Clause. Nothing would be out of bounds.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=528102

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Obamacare Is A Grand Deception … and Theft

As many people are beginning to realize and what we have been warning about for a long time, Obamacare is not truly about healthcare or healthcare reform. That is the liberal pretense used for its passage. This legislation is all about the transfer of wealth, expropriation of 17% of our economy by the Federal government, and unfettered control and intrusion by the government into our private lives including access to our medical records.

There are no cost savings nor will there be a reduction in our national debt. We don’t think that adding in excess of 170 new federal agencies enumerated within this bill will accomplish this trick. Nor will the planned hiring of 16,500 new IRS agents (we don’t think that they have your interest at heart) to monitor compliance save us money. These actions tell you all you need to know about Obama’s and the Congressional Democrats’ true agenda under the guise of healthcare reform.

We all must vigorously thwart implementation of Obamacare by also providing verbal and financial support to our Senators, Representatives, Tea Party Groups, organizations and States who will be fighting this despicable legislation.

Enacting A Lie
Investors Business Daily 03/22/2010

Health Overhaul: Sunday's vote exposed the ugly truth that ObamaCare is not really about health care at all. It's all about who pays for it and who controls it — in effect a massive wealth-redistribution scheme.

Those who believe this will lead to some medical nirvana will likely be disappointed. Fact is, this poorly designed monstrosity will lead to lower-quality care, higher costs, fewer practicing physicians, higher taxes and fewer jobs.
We've done more than 150 editorials in the past year or so documenting these problems. Democrats surely understand them.
Yet, despite a recent CNN poll showing that 59% of Americans oppose ObamaCare, Congress approved it anyway.

Why? Because it's not really about health care. It's the largest wealth grab in American history, masquerading as health care "reform," another step in the socialization of Americans' income in the name of "fairness" and "spread(ing) the wealth around," as Obama himself has put it.

That's why we call the program a lie.

The idea behind all this, simply put, is control. This is a vast expansion of government that will require as much as $3 trillion in added spending over a decade. All claims of deficit neutrality are a joke.

This is socialization through the tax code. That $3 trillion has to be paid for. As we showed last week, the health care bill levies $569.2 billion in new taxes over the next 10 years alone.

At the same time, as noted by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former head of the Congressional Budget Office, it will increase U.S. budget deficits by $562 billion.

Who'll pay all these taxes? Those deemed "rich" by Democrats, and businesses. Specifically, the bulk of the money comes from a special 3.8% Medicare tax on 5 million people earning more than $200,000 a year. That tax is imposed on capital gains, dividends, rents, royalties and interest — that is, investment income.

Obama already has proposed boosting these taxes in his budget. So the top tax take on dividends and cap gains will rise to 23.8% from 15%, an increase of nearly 59%, while top rates on interest and rents will soar from 15% to nearly 44%, a 193% jump.

About 50% of this higher-taxed group reports small business or partnership income. So don't be fooled: These aren't taxes on the "rich," but on small businesses and jobs.

In ObamaCare, the taxes will be ruinous. Unlike real insurance, where individuals pay to cover their risks, this program covers everyone — including 32 million uninsured — and pays for it by a "mandate" ( read: "tax" ) and by taking money from other people to subsidize those who can't pay. And this just scratches the surface of the new taxes — we literally don't have room to list them here.

Hmm. Taking money from one group, and giving it to another. That's called welfare — or, perhaps, health-fare. It's not insurance.

Once the new program is finished wrecking what remains of the private health insurance industry — as it ultimately will — we'll be stuck with the government declaring that "the market doesn't work" and forcing all of us into a single-payer government plan.

That's what those Democrats who back "Medicare for all" want — to kill what's left of the private market for health care, which has created the best medical system on earth, and use "reform" to expand an already-bankrupt Medicare system.
The math behind this is ugly. Medicare's long-term liabilities now total $89 trillion, according to the Government Accountability Office. Based on projected deficits, the just-passed health reform will take that to $136 trillion.

It will take a lot more than the "rich," as defined today, to make up such unfathomable tax shortfalls. That's when they'll come for the rest of us — poor, middle-class and rich alike — and we all will be paying vastly higher taxes for vastly inferior medical care.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=528099

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There is Little Physician Support For Obamacare

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The Congressional Budget Office’s Preliminary Score For Obamacare Is BOGUS!

The preliminary estimates publicized by the Congressional Budget Office have no basis in reality. Though we don't know exactly how they arrived at their artificially low number, it was unquestionably affected by the incomplete and deceptive information that they were provided with. Of course, this does not account for bald faced fraud perpetrated by the Democrats in attempting to reduce the ostensible costs with maneuvers such as removing the Medicare fix costs from the legislation.

Five Reasons The CBO Figures Are Phony
Ed Carson     3/18/2010

The Congressional Budget Office’s preliminary “score” says the health care overhaul will cost $940 billion over the first 10 years, saving $138 billion over that time. But the CBO must assess legislation as written, rather than whether it will actually be carried out. Or, as the Economist put it, “The CBO is required to pretend to believe many impossible things before breakfast.”

1. Medicare cuts
The Senate health care bill relied heavily on unprecedented cuts in Medicare spending increases. If implemented, this would have a huge impact on seniors’ care. But Congress has always balked at Medicare cuts. (See No. 3).

2. Delayed start
To make the budget math work, Democrats plan on delaying the start of subsidies and other costly provisions for several years. (The bill spends just $17 billion through 2013). The true 10-year cost is far higher.

3. The “doc fix” is excluded
The Sustainable Growth Rate imposes automatic cuts in Medicare payment rates to doctors.
For several years, fearing a revolt by doctors — and seniors — Congress has suspended those cuts. The original draft of the House health care bill included a permanent “doc fix.” But that ballooned deficits, so Democrats dropped it, even though everyone knows Congress isn’t going to slash doctors’ rates. The CBO has estimated a “doc fix” would cost $247 billion over 10 years.

4. Student loans are included
Doctors’ payments are excluded from the health bill, but major student loan program changes are included? Yep. The reconciliation bill will end student loan subsidies to lenders. The CBO says this will save $19.4 billion over the first decade, accounting for virtually all of the $19.8 billion in deficit reduction from the health care reconciliation bill. Reconciliation bills must cut the deficit by at least $1 billion. So, without the non-health care items, the health care reconciliation bill would not pass muster.

5. It’s a CLASS act
In the Senate health bill, a new, voluntary long-term care insurance program called CLASS accounted for some $72 billion of the deficit reduction.  The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports program is supposed to be deficit-neutral long-term. But Democrats are counting the upfront premium surplus in the short term and ignoring the significant operating deficits after 2029. Update: Democrats also are counting on projected additional Social Security revenues from payroll taxes on higher wages in lieu of lower health benefits. Again, those benefits have to be paid out.

But wait, there’s more! Let’s assume that the cost savings materialize as planned. It still makes the long-term fiscal outlook worse. Why? Democrats are using up a lot of tax hikes, spending cuts and upfront payment just to get barely better than deficit-neutral. That leaves future lawmakers less scope to bring the nation’s finances into order.

On a related note, Democrats continue to maintain the health bill would extend Medicare’s solvency by several years. But they plan to use those as-yet-unrealized Medicare cost savings for a huge new entitlement and to reduce the overall deficit.

http://blogs.investors.com/capitalhill/index.php/home/35-politicsinvesting/1524-five-reasons-the-cbo-figures-are-phony

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Pithy, Humorous Insight Into Obamacare

The following pithy, insightful and humorous commentary on Obamacare has been appearing all over the internet:

Let me get this straight......

we're trying to pass a health care plan written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn't understand it,

passed by a Congress that hasn't read it but exempts themselves from it,

to be signed by a President that also hasn't read it and who smokes,

with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes,

all to be overseen by a Surgeon General who is obese,

and financed by a country that's broke.

What the hell could possibly go wrong?

Fight to the end against passage of Obamacare!

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Harry Reid and Iran’s Ahmadinejad: Are They Related?

Both Harry Reid and Ahmadinejad of Iran may very well pursue the nuclear option. They also despise the citizens of their respective countries and will impose whatever legislation and controls that they deem fitting regardless of their citizens' sentiments.

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A Vigorous Constitutional Challenge Must Be Mounted If Obamacare Legislation Passes

Obamacare is an inherently and hopelessly flawed, corrupt, complex bill that is constructed on lies and deceptions and threatens to bankrupt our country and usurp our inalienable rights. It is also vigorously opposed by Americans by nearly a 3:1 margin but Obama and the Democrats don’t care.

We must do everything in our power to make sure that it is not passed. If it is, Congressional leaders will have succeeded by using chicanery, ad hominem attacks, dishonesty and other tactics that would make Hugo Chavez proud.

Our next move then? Mount a formidable Constitutional challenge.

Can Forcing Purchase Of Insurance Survive Constitutional Challenge?
Thomas M. Boyd     03/10/2010

“A mandate requiring all individuals to purchase health insurance would be an unprecedented form of federal action. The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States.”
Congressional Budget Office (1994)

During the recent summit on health care reform, Republican leader John Boehner told President Obama that he and his colleagues believe the central funding mechanism underlying the president's latest reform proposal — the individual mandate — is unconstitutional.

This language would require every American to purchase a product — health insurance. It also has appeared in every serious proposal since ClintonCare in 1993, including the proposals now pending before Congress. If it eventually becomes law, it's sure to be challenged before the ink on the president's signature is dry.

The president's response was that Rep. Boehner was resorting to "talking points" rather than substance. It would have been far more instructive if the president, a former lecturer at Chicago Law School who as a candidate opposed the mandate, had given Boehner and the Republicans — not to mention the American public watching on C-Span — his own analysis in support of his current belief that this unprecedented requirement is constitutionally permissible.

The underlying question is as simple as it is fundamental: Can federal law mandate that an individual must purchase a good or service, whether he or she wants it or not, in order to fund a massive social program perceived to be for the larger public good?

If the American people can be forced to purchase health insurance, then can the Congress also require Americans to purchase American cars to salvage the domestic automobile industry?

The most obvious legal basis for this requirement lies in the Constitution's commerce clause. One of the "enumerated" powers granted the Congress, this language allows the Congress broad freedom to "regulate Commerce ... among the several States."

From Chief Justice John Marshall's use of the commerce clause to validate federal regulation of river traffic in Gibbons v. Ogden (1824) to the New Deal's application of federally imposed restraints on wheat grown for purely local consumption (Wickard v. Filburn, 1942), to the more recent affirmation of federal regulatory superiority over otherwise permissible local cultivation of marijuana for medicinal use (Gonzales v. Raich, 2005), the Supreme Court has consistently interpreted its language to expand the role of the federal government, at the expense of the states, in regulating the conduct of people engaged in otherwise intrastate economic transactions.

But every constitutional power has its limits, and it's likely the same policymakers who now endorse the legality of the individual mandate were equally convinced that the Campaign Reform Act's ban on political advertising by corporations or unions within 30 days of an election was sacrosanct.

But on Jan. 21, when the Court rendered its 5-4 decision in Citizens United v. FEC, the nation discovered that the First Amendment trumped the exercise of congressional authority. Similarly, in this instance the freedom to exercise free will may trump the authority of the federal government to dictate choice.

If nothing else, whether the Congress has the power to require every American to purchase health insurance will be, as the CBO noted in 1994, a case of first impression for the court. And the result is certainly not preordained.

While it's always difficult to predict how justices might rule on a different set of facts, their prior opinions on the breadth of the commerce clause suggest that at least four of the majority in Citizens United v. FEC (Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas) may hesitate to embrace the kind of expansive view of the Commerce Clause that would be required to uphold the individual mandate.

That leaves Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion in Citizens as the inevitable swing vote. And his views on the application of the commerce clause in a case like this are anything but clear.

Now that the president has announced his intention to proceed toward a vote on his version of health care reform, the issues are joined. And however the legality of the individual mandate is finally resolved, questions surrounding its constitutionality and the legitimate reach of the Constitution's commerce clause demand serious legal scrutiny and intense public debate in advance of any final congressional vote.

It's worth knowing, for example, where the money will come from if, when the court ultimately rules, the president and his political allies are proven wrong in their belief that the federal government has virtually limitless power to require its citizens to, in effect, go shopping.

Where will the money come from to fund a health care entitlement which, by that time, will have already become law? These questions deserve answers before, not after, Congress votes.

• Boyd, a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of DLA Piper LLP, is a former assistant attorney general under President Reagan.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=526845

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Government Has A Litany of Failures … So Why Not Try Healthcare Next?

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Rep. Steve King (R-IA) Is Encouraging Americans To Disrupt Congress To Thwart Passage of the Obamacare by Illegal Means

We are now seeing some more sensible politicians speaking out against the Federal government's illegal tactics of attempting to impose legislation on Americans and against their will. This is essentially a clarion call to action in order to prevent the government from abrogating our rights and freedoms.

We all must act. Call, write and e-mail your Representatives and Senators again, again and again...

Steve King Calls For Revolution In The Streets Of Washington To Stop Health Care Bill
Eric Kleefeld March 16, 2010

Rep. Steve King (R-IA)

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) is calling for a new procedural solution to stop the health care bill: Have an angry mob of citizens storm Washington and prevent Congress from acting, in imitation of the Velvet Revolution that overthrew communist rule in Czechoslovakia!

The Huffington Post interviewed King after his speech at today's "Code Red" anti-health care bill rally, a speech in which he called upon the crowd to "Storm this city, fill up Washington D.C., jam this capital so they can't move."
Speaking to the Huffington Post shortly after his speech, King declared that a peaceful uprising, a la the successful overthrowing of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia on the streets of Prague in 1989 "would be fine with me."

"Fill this city up, fill this city, jam this place full so that they can't get in, they can't get out and they will have to capitulate to the will of the American people," he said.

"So this is just like Prague under communist rule?" the Huffington Post asked.

"Oh yeah, it is very, very close," King replied. "It is the nationalization of our liberty and the federal government taking our liberty over. So there are a lot of similarities there."

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/03/steve-king-calls-for-revolution-in-the-streets-of-washington-to-stop-health-care-bill.php

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Just A Few Reasons Why Obamacare Should Not The Light of Day

Over the last year, we have expressed our resolute opposition to Government controlled healthcare reform independent of the various iterations that have been promulgated. The present behemoth legislation, in excess of 2700 pages, will destroy the best healthcare system in the world and ultimately bankrupt this country with uncontrollable and unsustainable costs.

There are countless reasons to oppose this legislation, many of which have received little exposure in the press or by analysts (privacy issues). Regardless, this bill must be vehemently fought and opposed by all Americans if we want to preserve the world’s best healthcare as well as our rights and freedoms.

Below, is an abbreviated list assembled by Investors Business Daily of some of the reasons why Obamacare should not be implemented.

Why Health Bill Makes No Sense
Investors Business Daily   03/12/2010

Health Reform: So it's come down to this — desperate Democratic leaders strong-arming members on the worst bill ever before they go home to explain to constituents why they decided to commit political suicide.

We've said just about all we've had to say on this issue — actually dating back to 1993-94, when we wrote nearly 100 editorials in opposition to HillaryCare. Since January of last year, we've weighed in 150 more times against the latest version of socialized medicine.

But to review, here are just 15 reasons why a government takeover of the finest medical system in the world makes no sense at all:

1. The people don't want it! This, we would think, should have some bearing on decision-making. Yet the Democrats forge ahead without consent of the governed. In the latest Rasmussen poll, 53% opposed the Democrats' reform while 42% were in favor. More than four in 10 "strongly" opposed; just two in 10 "strongly" favored. This jibes with other surveys, including our own IBD/TIPP Poll, taken since last year.

2. Doctors don't want it! A survey we took last summer of 1,376 practicing physicians found that 45% would consider leaving their practices or taking early retirements if the Democrats' reform became law. In December, the results were validated by a Medicus poll in which 25% of doctors said they'd retire early if a public option is implemented and another 21% would stop practicing even though they were far from their retirement years. Even if the bill doesn't have a "public option," nearly 30% said they'd quit the profession under the plans being considered.

3. Half the Congress doesn't want it! Not a single Republican backed the health care bill that cleared the Senate on Christmas Eve 60-39. House passage was by a slim 220 to 215, and the lone Republican "aye" has since switched to "no."
Columnist Michael Barone says other changes would put the House vote today at 216-215 in favor, and he has doubts Democrats can even muster 216.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made her job of securing yes votes even more difficult last week when she told a meeting of county officials that "we have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it." Members of Congress aren't waiting: They've already exempted themselves from whatever they inflict on us.

4. People are happy with the health care they've got! Polls show that 84% of Americans have health insurance and that few are displeased with what they've got. Last month, the St. Petersburg Times looked at eight polls and reported that satisfaction rates averaged 87%.

5. It doesn't even cover the people they set out to cover! Supporters of government-run health care say there are as many as 47 million Americans — 9 million to 10 million of them illegal aliens — without medical insurance. The Democrats' plans, however, will put only 31 million of the uninsured under coverage.

6. Costs will go up, not down! Democrats say their plans will cost less than $1 trillion over the first decade. But analyst Michael Cannon at the Cato Institute puts the cost at $2.5 trillion over the first 10 years. Even if we go with the government's lower estimates, the cost is already on the rise. A new estimate by the Congressional Budget Office puts the cost of the Senate bill at $875 billion over 10 years, $4 billion more than its original projection. Imagine how fast costs would soar if one of the bills became public policy.

7. Real cost controls are nowhere to be found! The Democrats are offering no meaningful tort reform that will help push down the high malpractice insurance premiums that are a burden to doctors and their patients. Nor are they considering any other cost-saving provisions, such as allowing the sale of individual health plans across state lines or easing health insurance mandates.

8. Insurance premiums will rise, not fall! One goal of nationalizing health care is to lower costs, to bend the spending curve downward. Yet, as Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin acknowledged Wednesday, that won't be the case.

"Anyone who would stand before you and say, 'Well, if you pass health care reform, next year's health care premiums are going down,' I don't think is telling the truth," he said from the Senate floor. "I think it is likely they would go up."

An analysis completed by the CBO at the request of Sen. Evan Bayh confirms Durbin's suspicions. Insurance coverage in the individual market will "be about 10% to 13% higher in 2016 than the average premium for nongroup coverage in that same year under current law," it concluded.

9. Medicare is already bankrupting us! The Medicare trust fund, which has unfunded obligations of $37.8 trillion, will be insolvent in 2017. How can lawmakers justify another entitlement that will cost trillions when they can't pay for existing liabilities?

10. There aren't enough doctors now! Last month, 26% of physicians responding to a Web poll on Sermo.com, which calls itself "the largest online physician community," said they had been forced to close, or were considering closing, their solo practices. Providing coverage for an additional 31 million Americans when the number of doctors is shrinking won't improve our health care.

11. The doctor-patient relationship will be wrecked! The latest IBD/TIPP Poll, taken just last week, found that Americans, by a wide 48%-26% margin, believe the doctor-patient relationship will decline if the Democrats' plan is passed.

12. Medical care will also deteriorate! IBD/TIPP has also found that 51% of Americans believe care would get worse under government control. Only 10.5% said they felt it would improve. In our doctor poll, 72% disagreed with administration claims that the government could cover 47 million more people with better-quality care at lower cost.

13. Rationing of care is inevitable! Health care is not an unlimited resource and must be rationed, either by the individual, providers or government. In Britain and Canada, where the government does the rationing, medical treatment waiting lists are sometimes deadly and quite often excessively long.

For instance, late cancer diagnoses in an overcrowded public health care system cause up to 10,000 needless deaths a year in Britain. The reasons cited for the late diagnoses include doctor delay, delay in primary care, system delay and delay in secondary care.

14. Private health insurers will be destroyed! Added mandates and price controls will force many insurers to simply get out of the health plan business because it will no longer be profitable.

15. It's probably unconstitutional! One way to help bring down the number of uninsured is to demand that those without coverage buy health plans. But the government has never passed a law requiring Americans to buy any good or service.
Constitutional scholars say any such mandate would likely draw a legal challenge.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=527217

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Obamacare Ultimately Leading to Bankruptcy of Our Country

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The Truth Behind Obama’s Healthcare Reform Rhetoric

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We Must Stop Obama and Democrats in Congress From Passage Of the Healthcare Reform Legislation!

As predictable as the sun rising in the east, Obama will pursue reconciliation in order to facilitate passage of his radical bill which will steal our freedom and rights, fiscally bankrupt our country and destroy the best healthcare system in the world.

We must stop Obama and his radical, elitist minions from this government take over of our healthcare system that a large majority of Americans oppose ... and which Obama and Congress will never have to be subject to.

We urge you to call and email your Senators and Representatives, voicing your vehement opposition to this legislation.

Unreconciled
Investors Business Daily  03/03/2010

Health Reform: As promised, the White House has unveiled the latest tweaks in its plan to take over the U.S. medical care system. Both parties in Congress should beware: You vote for it, you own it.

Survey after survey, including our own IBD/TIPP Poll, shows that Americans firmly oppose more government control over health care. Yet President Obama's new reform plan does just that.

He and other Democratic leaders seem willing to ignore both the voters and the well-founded doubts of opponents to ram a plan down our collective throats — making the grand bet that Republicans, even if they retake Congress in November, will have neither the political clout nor the guts to undo the damage.

Worse, they cynically manipulated us into this situation. Last week, at the much-ballyhooed health care "summit," the president pretended to take ideas from Republican foes to "improve" his wildly unpopular plan. But it was just window dressing.

On Wednesday, the president made clear he'll use the budget reconciliation process to get his radical plan through with as few votes as possible. In short, he'll pass a bill that takes control of 17% of the economy without any GOP support.
So much for bipartisanship.

Worse still, this requires the House to vote up or down on an already-passed Senate bill, with only a vow from the Senate and Obama that they'll go back later and "fix" all that's egregiously wrong with the measure.

So, neither House members nor the citizens they represent will really know what's in the bill until after it's passed. Is this what the White House and Democratic leaders meant last year when they repeatedly promised "transparency" in health reform deliberations?

Still more troubling, no one seems to know the plan's true cost. Obama puts it at $1 trillion over 10 years. But just this week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi vowed a "much smaller" bill, while Majority Leader Steny Hoyer insists there is no "scaled-back" version.

Who's right? We'll just say this: Because of accounting tricks that front-load costs but delay benefits, the real price of ObamaCare is more like $2.5 trillion over a decade. This will require massive tax hikes on the middle class, rationing of care by government bureaucrats and deep cuts in Medicare.

The president also said on Wednesday: "The proposal I've put forward gives Americans more control over their health care by holding insurance companies more accountable." Not true.

Americans will be forced to buy health insurance — something we believe is unconstitutional. By adding 31 million new buyers to the health care market and requiring coverage of pre-existing conditions, private insurance prices will inevitably soar. That will force businesses to drop coverage for millions of workers.

"I don't know how this plays politically, but I know it's right," Obama also said. But he knows darn well his scheme is highly unpopular, and that resorting to reconciliation is the only way he'll get the main item on his presidential agenda passed — even if it ends Democrats' control of Congress.

Surely moderate Democrats and Republicans won't be swayed by talk of joining in a "historic opportunity." Their constituents clearly see the flaws in this government takeover of the best health care system in the world, and a vote in favor of it will likely bring their political careers to a sudden end.

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Data, Evidence and Experience Overwhelmingly Refute Benefits and Political Assertions of Government Controlled Healthcare

Obama and many Congressional Democrats aim to pass government run healthcare no matter what the cost, financially or politically. They are arrogantly and relentlessly pursuing this despite the vehement opposition of a large majority of Americans. In fact, both they and the fifth column news media have added the contemptuous tactics of calling Americans who oppose it dumb, ignorant, and too stupid to understand the complexities of the bill. Of course, they have made many other derogatory claims.

As we have mentioned numerous times, THIS IS NOT TRULY ABOUT HEALTHCARE. Obamacare is a crucial piece in the puzzle that will further co-opt the individual’s rights and transfer it to an all powerful and controlling central government. It is a confiscation by legislation of an additional 16% of our economy which would mean that nearly 50% of it is directly owned and controlled by the government.

Have you noticed how many czars and other officials selected by Obama ardently support communism? This is not by accident. It is part of the overall plan.

The rhetoric of Obama and select Democrats regarding healthcare reform are complete lies. There is no cost savings with this plan. In fact, their claimed costs probably underestimate the total 10 year costs by well in excess of three to four trillion dollars.  Look at estimates of other federal programs and check out how they turned out. Most were off by a factor of three to ten times.

Unbelievable!

The following expose by Thomas Sowell eloquently and cogently examines the relevant issues and information regarding government controlled healthcare, truths, facts and political motivations.

Other Nations' Health Systems Are Overlooked
By Thomas Sowell   03/03/2010

What is most like Alice in Wonderland in medical care reform is the fact that it is being discussed in the abstract, as if there are not already government-run medical care systems in this country and elsewhere.

Yet there seems to be remarkably little interest in examining how government-run medical care actually turns out — medically and financially — whether in Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Administration hospitals in this country, or in government-run medical systems in other countries.

We are repeatedly being told that we need to have a government-controlled medical care system because other countries have it — as if our policies on something as serious as medical care should be based on the principle of monkey see, monkey do.

By all means look at other countries, but not just to see what to imitate. See how it actually turns out. Yet there seems to be an amazing lack of interest in examining what government-controlled medical care produces.

While our so-called health care "summit" last week was going on, British newspapers were carrying exposes of terrible, and often deadly, conditions in British hospitals under that country's National Health Service. But this has not become part of our debate on what to expect from government-controlled medical care.

Such scandals are an old story under the National Health Service in Britain, one repeatedly producing fresh scandals that their newspapers carry but ours ignore.

In addition to a whole series of National Health Service scandals in Britain over the years, the government-run medical system in Britain has far less high-tech medical equipment than there is in the United States. Neither in Britain and Canada nor in other countries with government-run medical care systems can people get to see doctors, especially surgeons, in as short a time as in the United States.

It is not uncommon for patients in those countries to have to wait for months before getting operations that Americans get within weeks, or even days, after being diagnosed with a condition that requires surgery. You can always "bring down the cost of medical care" by having a lower level of quality or availability.

But again, you may never learn any of this by following most of the American mainstream media. It is not that they don't make comparisons between medical care in different countries. But they tend to feature news that will promote government-controlled care.

One of the statistics they spin endlessly is that life expectancy in some countries with government-controlled medical care is higher than in the United States. What they don't tell you is that, in some of these countries, all the infants that die are not included in infant mortality statistics, as they are in the United States.

More important, both political and media supporters of government-controlled medical care consistently confuse medical care with health care.

Much, if not most, of health care depends on what individuals do in the way they live their own lives — including eating habits, alcohol intake, exercise, narcotics and homicide. A study some years ago found that Mormons live a decade longer than other Americans. But nobody believes that Mormons' doctors are that much better than other doctors. When you don't do a lot of things that shorten your life, you live longer. That is not rocket science.

Americans tend to have higher rates of obesity, narcotics use and homicide than people in some other countries. And there is not much that doctors can do about that.

If those who make international comparisons were serious, instead of clever, they would compare the things that medical science can have a great effect on — cancer survival rates, for example. Americans have some of the highest cancer survival rates in the world, and for some particular cancers, the very highest.

When you can get to see a doctor faster, and get treatments under way without waiting for months while the cancer grows and spreads, you have a better chance of surviving. That, too, is not rocket science.

But it is also something that you are not likely to see featured in most of the media, where people are promoting their own pet notions and agendas, instead of giving you the facts on which you can make up your own mind.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=522833

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It Would Be In America’s and the Republicans’ Interests To Start From The Beginning For Healthcare Reform – Or It Will Be Disastrous For All.

Obamacare is an unmitigated disaster. There is nothing that Republicans can do to transform this abominable plan into a prudent and fiscally responsible one. If they attempt to do so, it will be calamitous for all!

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The Democratic Party Has Become the Lawyers’ Party

We can better appreciate the attitudes, bellicosity and tactics of the Democratic Party and more specifically, both Chambers of Congress, by understanding the predominant occupation of the Senators and Representatives.
Lawyers.

Their legal training, mind set and approaches foster more government, control, regulations and lawsuits and do much to restrain our freedoms and rights. The following was written almost 2 years ago and is still quite relevant.

The Lawyers' Party
By Bruce Walker

The Democratic Party has become the Lawyers' Party. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are lawyers. Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama are lawyers. John Edwards, the other former Democrat candidate for president, is a lawyer and so is his wife Elizabeth. Every Democrat nominee since 1984 went to law school (although Gore did not graduate.) Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school. Look at the Democrat Party in Congress: the Majority Leader in each house is a lawyer.

The Republican Party is different. President Bush and Vice President Cheney were not lawyers, but businessmen. The leaders of the Republican Revolution were not lawyers. Newt Gingrich was a history professor; Tom Delay was an exterminator; and Dick Armey was an economist. House Minority Leader Boehner was a plastic manufacturer, not a lawyer. The former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is a heart surgeon.

Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer? Gerald Ford, who left office thirty-one years ago and who barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, running against Ronald Reagan in 1976. The Republican Party is made up of real people doing real work. The Democratic Party is made up of lawyers. Democrats mock and scorn men who create wealth, like Bush and Cheney, or who heal the sick like Frist, or who immerse themselves in history like Gingrich.

The Lawyers' Party sees these sorts of people, who provide goods and services that people want, as the enemies of America. And so we have seen the procession of official enemies in the eyes of the Lawyers' Party grow. Against whom do Hillary and Obama rail? Pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, hospitals, manufacturers, fast food restaurant chains, large retail businesses, bankers and anyone producing anything of value in our nation.

This is the natural consequence of viewing everything through the eyes of lawyers. Lawyers solve problems by successfully representing their clients, in this case the American people. Lawyers seek to have new laws passed, they seek to win lawsuits, they press appellate courts to overturn precedent, and lawyers always parse language to favor their side.

Confined to the narrow practice of law, that is fine. But it is an awful way to govern a great nation. When politicians as lawyers begin to view some Americans as clients and other Americans as opposing parties, then the role of the legal system in our life becomes all consuming. Some Americans become "adverse parties" of our very government. We are not all litigants in some vast social class action suit. We are citizens of a republic which promises us a great deal of freedom from laws, from courts, and from lawyers.

Today, we are drowning in laws, we are contorted by judicial decisions, we are driven to distraction by omnipresent lawyers in all parts of our once private lives. America has a place for laws and lawyers, but that place is modest and reasonable, not vast and unchecked. When the most important decision for our next president is whom he will appoint to the Supreme Court, the role of lawyers and the law in America is too big. When lawyers use criminal prosecution as a continuation of politics by other means, as happened in the lynching of Scooter Libby and Tom Delay, then the power of lawyers in America is too great. When House Democrats sue America in order to hamstring our efforts to learn what our enemies are planning to do to use, then the role of litigation in America has become crushing.

We cannot expect the Lawyers' Party to provide real change, real reform or real hope in America. Most Americans know that a republic in which every major government action must be blessed by nine unelected judges is not what Washington intended in 1789. Most Americans grasp that we cannot fight a war when ACLU lawsuits snap at the heels of our defenders. Most Americans intuit that more lawyers and judges will not restore declining moral values or spark the spirit of enterprise in our economy.

Perhaps Americans will understand that change cannot be brought to our nation by those lawyers who already largely dictate American society and business. Perhaps Americans will see that hope does not come from the mouths of lawyers but from personal dreams nourished by hard work. Perhaps Americans will embrace the truth that more lawyers with more power will only make our problems worse.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/03/the_lawyers_party.html

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Some Simple and Simplifying Suggestions For Healthcare Reform

Americans don’t need a government controlled, bureaucratic, bloated, corrupt, inherently inefficient and unnecessarily costly healthcare system. And that’s not even considering Obamacare. There are many relatively simple solutions that can make the whole system less costly, complex and more efficient for everyone.

The only problem is that these possibilities may remove some of the potential to promulgate corrupt deals and legislation by Obama and Congress.

A Modest And Effective Health Reform
By Benjamin Zycher

Notwithstanding the election outcome in Massachusetts last month, efforts inside the Beltway to "reform" the health insurance system — that is, to centralize the rules and outcomes of health coverage — will continue, and still may prove successful if the drumbeat for "compromise" with fatally flawed ideas is heeded.

This centralization would be a disaster because government does not have patients. It has interest groups, an eternal truth that casts a shadow long and dark in the context of a federal takeover of the health insurance market.

Decentralization — a reduction in the role of government — is the only path that can lead toward reduced cost pressures and increased choices for patients with vastly heterogeneous needs and preferences.

One straightforward reform that could be adopted quickly is the implementation of a nationally available "entrepreneurs" health coverage policy freed from the many benefit mandates imposed upon the health insurance market.

State governments, responsible for regulating health insurers, for years have required health insurance policies to cover particular services and categories of providers. This means that individuals must pay for such mandated coverage even if they otherwise might choose not to do so.

The average state imposes about 35 such mandates, and a conservative estimate of the marginal cost of each is about 0.3% of premiums. Premiums thus are forced up by about $1,294 per year in the average state for a group (employer-based) family policy, ranging from $260 per year in Idaho, the state with the fewest mandates (8), to $2,486 per year in Rhode Island, the state with the most mandates (62).

The specifics of coverage policies freed from such mandates would be determined by competition in the market. But premiums incontrovertibly would fall.

A new study from the Pacific Research Institute shows that these policies would enroll about 13.6 million individuals now covered by private insurance, and, very conservatively, about 3.2 million of those now uninsured. This represents about 8% of those insured privately or uninsured for the U.S. as a whole, ranging from about 1.6% for Idaho to about 11.9% for Rhode Island.

By eliminating the many benefit and provider mandates now imposed by state laws, entrepreneurs' coverage would reduce the degree to which consumers treat health insurance as a way to shift known costs onto others, rather than as a way to pool the risks of future adverse health events.

This would be an important step toward restoring health insurance as protection against catastrophic events rather than prepayment for anticipated medical services, and so would strengthen incentives to economize on the use of health care resources.

More generally, such a reform would be driven by market forces — the preferences of consumers and the costs faced by insurers — and so would decentralize and depoliticize the system.

Because representative democracy is the art of wealth redistribution, and because resources are limited always and everywhere even (or especially) for the federal government, a system of health coverage centralized in the Beltway inexorably would be transformed into a massive tug-of-war among groups seeking both increased allocations for the treatments in which they are particularly interested, and a shift of costs onto others.

Merely consider the tempest over breast mammograms that erupted late last year. Mammograms, of course, are hardly the only medical service for which there is a constituency, and enactment of centralized "reform" legislation would be the beginning rather than the end of such interest-group competition.

Thus would insurance coverage — and therefore the delivery — of various medical procedures increasingly come to be politicized over time.

A new public policy allowing individuals and groups to escape the constraints imposed by state benefit mandates would have the opposite effect, and thus would represent real reform.

Other important reforms include:

• Elimination of the tax preference that now favors coverage purchased in the group (employer) market over the non-group market.

• A rollback of the rules and tax preferences that induce groups and individuals to purchase expensive coverage with low deductibles, co-payments and out-of-pocket maximums.

• An end to the regulatory restrictions that prevent interstate competition in health insurance.

In greater and lesser degrees, such sensible reforms would decentralize decision-making and unleash the competitive processes that offer consumers expanded choice among myriad alternative insurance contracts, thus improving the efficiency of resource use in the health care sector, and restoring the doctor-patient relationship as the final authority with respect to medical decisions.

• Zycher is a senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=521533

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Congressional Democrats Over The Top Attacks On Toyota Are Politically Motivated And Serve As A Warning Against Too Strong A Central Government

The feeding frenzy by the Federal government and the news media regarding Toyota illustrates the dangers and threats to rights of “non-preferred” groups and companies that a too powerful, corrupt central government presents. It should serve as a warning for all of us including those who may still support Obamacare and government take-overs of other areas of our economy.

You can be sure if this were a problem with GM or Chrysler vehicles which the government presently owns, we would not be witnessing such a spectacle. In fact, these two companies have had decades of history of woefully inferior and flawed vehicles that have been subject to countless recalls yet Congress rarely besmirched them as they are doing with Toyota right now. During most of this period, Toyota has been the paragon of excellence and a great employer for hundreds of thousands of workers.

This is not to say that Toyota is innocent of charges. They are not. But, the Federal government, now with the Democrats in charge, clearly has a severe conflict of interest and is paying back and going to bat for one of its largest and most powerful constituencies, the labor unions. You see, Toyota has its plants in non-union right to work states, a situation that the labor unions and their leaders abhor.

Congress Puts Toyota On Show Trial
Investors Business Daily     02/23/2010

Commerce: Toyota's leaders are in for nasty star-chamber hearings in Congress, with politicians grandstanding and regulators pointing fingers. It's no way to treat a big employer that contributes so much to our economy.

When Toyota first came to the U.S. in the 1950s and took out TV ads in the 1960s, the Japan-based company was ridiculed. How could its dinky little cars compete with the mighty Big Three automakers for the American market?

But by the 1970s, word got out that Toyota was making a superior energy-efficient product and it won the public over.
That success seems to be why Toyota is being singled out for loud hearings by two congressional panels for its recent recall of nearly 650,000 cars. "While Honda recalled 636,000 models last month and Ford recalled more than 4 million vehicles last year, neither company was subjected to a Congressional Hearing," noted Americans for Tax Reform in a statement.

Small wonder then that a Toyota internal memo declared the current climate in Washington is "not industry friendly."
That's a fact.

The problem is that while beating up Toyota may serve the political aims of some, its real effect will be to kill jobs, corrupt any semblance of impartial regulatory action, discourage foreign investment, and defund cities and towns whose tax bases depend much on Toyota dealers. In short, the show trial will make us all poorer.

For starters, Toyota employs over 200,000 Americans across the spectrum of the auto industry. Parts plants, assembly plants, dealerships and repair shops all owe their existence to Toyota.

Already plants are shutting down and employees are being laid off, beyond all proportion to the recall problem, because of the congressional effort to drag Toyota through the mud.

City governments take in significant revenues from these operations. Don't think they won't feel the impact of these hearings.

Yet there's more than a whiff of Saul Alinsky's community organizing principles in this noisy government campaign against Toyota — "Pick a target, personalize it, freeze it, polarize it."

So now Congressional committees are hauling in Toyota's president Akio Toyoda all the way from Tokyo to testify. It's a sorry spectacle because Toyota has tried to be a good corporate citizen.

Recall that the first complaint against Toyota in the 1970s was that it imported cars to the U.S. instead of built them here.

So, Toyota built plants here, employing some 30,000 U.S. citizens directly. In the process, it also subcontracted to American companies — such as the one that makes the pedals in question now — all to make the "Buy American" crowd happy.
Toyota also bowed down to Jesse Jackson's race-baiting corporate shakedowns, giving him much of the $7.8 billion it set aside for "diversity" to hand out to his favored groups for his programs.

Now with the recent events — including Toyota's president making an unprecedented apology for the recall of 8.5 million vehicles with suspect accelerator pedals, a humiliating loss of face in Asian culture — Toyota officials must be wondering why they even tried.

The effort to take them down continues because of one thing the unions — and the union-friendly Obama administration — can't forgive: Toyota's choice of states for its plants, states with good investment climates and nonunion right-to-work laws.

As U.S. rivals like GM and Chrysler survive on government bailout money and continue to employ inefficient and expensive union labor, and their U.S. government owners try to regain market share for them, what better way than to discredit Toyota out of all proportion to its supposed sins by using Alinsky-style tactics?

Evidence is piling up that this is political.

First, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who has a conflicting dual role as both regulator and owner of rival auto companies, advised Americans not to drive Toyotas.

Now Politico reports that Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee is calling for an investigation of Transportation department officials' e-mails. These may show they improperly conferred with insurance agency officials about congressional testimony to cover up for Transportation Department neglect of its regulatory duties.

In an atmosphere like this, why would Toyota want to invest more, hire more or try to please political powers as a good corporate citizen? Or any other company?

As Congress tries to discredit Toyota and destroy its market share out of all proportion to its transgressions, the ultimate effect will be to hurt America's interests most.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=522007

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MSNBC News Is, Well … Imbalanced

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Liberal Democrats and the News Media Are Viciously and Contemptuously Attacking Americans

The news media and “our” liberal politicians see themselves as so elitist and righteous that they are resorting to attacking the American people who disagree with their policies. They disparage us as ignorant or benighted simply because we are exercising our Constitutional (and inherent) rights to oppose their far-left positions. Democracy has suddenly become an inconvenience for them as it has made passage of their various bills which would further restrict and control our rights and freedoms and plunder more of our hard earned wealth, nearly impossible.

This is also exactly why they are viciously attacking and denigrating the Tea Party Movement, a grass roots movement that represents an angry middle America. We are sick and tired of politicians imperiously foisting expensive and irresponsibly solutions on us, ransacking ever increasing amounts of the fruits of our labor, and destroying our economy, jobs and freedoms yet they live by another set of rules (including their gold plated healthcare plan), corruptly aggrandize themselves with our tax dollars and evince a general antipathy toward the people who are suppose to be their bosses.

This must stop. These despicable, arrogant, corrupt politicians must be voted out of office ASAP!

As for much of the news media, a boycott of their products and programs can be quite effective. In the following article alone, several of these are quoted from that excoriate Americans that we can place on this list:

Times Magazine, Newsweek, New York Times, Washington Post, New Yorker

To this we can add other far-left media like: MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS

Money, or the lack of it, talks. Let’s be quite loud on this issue!

Blame Americans First
Democrats lose patience with democracy.
By Matthew Continetti     March 1, 2010

What’s the clearest sign the Obama agenda is in trouble? That’s easy: the string of jeremiads in the pages of the New York Times, Washington Post, and other outlets of fashionable opinion. Unable to tout the administration’s successes, and worried about Republican ascendancy, liberals have assigned responsibility for the mess they’re in neither to their program nor to their methods but to larger, structural faults in American politics and society. Beginning with you.

You aren’t too bright, for one thing. After all, opines Jacob Weisberg in Newsweek, the “biggest culprit” behind “our political paralysis” is the “childishness, ignorance, and growing incoherence of the public at large.” You simply do not know what’s good for you. “On many issues these days,” writes the Washington Post’s Steven Pearlstein, “the American people are badly confused.” “The people may have spoken,” writes the New -Yorker’s James Surowiecki. “It’s just not clear that they’re making any sense.” In a blog post titled “Too Dumb to Thrive,” Time magazine’s Joe Klein cuts to the chase: “It is very difficult to thrive in an increasingly competitive world if you’re a nation of dodos.”

The problem, as Weisberg sees it, is that America “simultaneously demands and rejects action on unemployment, deficits, health care, and other problems.” Note the myopia. For Weisberg, the only conceivable “action” on any issue is limited to the policy preferences of liberal Democrats. No other options spring to mind.

This is nonsense. Just because the public says the economy is important does not necessarily mean it has to support a stimulus measure that has added massively to the debt without much benefit. Just because the public is concerned with rising health care costs does not mean that it has to support a bill that could alter existing health care arrangements and increase costs in the long-term. Steven Pearlstein writes that Americans “want to do something about global warming.” No they don’t. Global warming came dead last in a recent Pew survey of public priorities.

The reason health care, cap and trade, and the other blocks of Obama’s New Foundation are unpopular isn’t public ignorance. It’s that the public sees them as counterproductive—and in many cases beside the point. The people’s representatives have responded to a variety of signals, from falling poll numbers, to town hall protests, to GOP victories in -Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. Which is precisely how democracy is supposed to function.

And that’s the problem, says Kurt Andersen in New York magazine. “American democracy has gotten way too democratic.” The “thoughtful, educated, well-off, well-regarded gentlemen” who designed our Constitution “wanted a government run by an American elite like themselves.” But the “populist impulse” abroad in the land today has scared legislators into obeying the people’s demands.

It was not always thus. “In the old days,” Andersen laments, “the elite media really did control the national political discourse” and “presidents and congressional leaders could pretty well manage the policy conversations” without the public trying to butt in. But there’s no going back now; “maybe our republic’s constitutional operating system simply can’t scale up to deal satisfactorily with a heterogenous population of 310 million.”
This liberal uneasiness with democracy is not new. In 2003, in The Future of Freedom, Fareed Zakaria made the case against too much public involvement in government. In 2008, in Hot, Flat, and Crowded, Thomas Friedman dreamed of America becoming “China for a day” so that he could impose his environmental agenda on a truculent populace. In a 2009 New York Times column, Friedman wrote that a dictatorship, “when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today,” has “great advantages” over democratic systems. In the Atlantic Monthly, James Fallows writes that “whatever is wrong with today’s Communist leadership [in Beijing], it is widely seen as pulling the country nearer to its full potential rather than pushing it away.” Nevertheless, the Democrats probably aren’t going to run on “Communist China Does It Better.”

What makes the liberal jeremiads confusing is that they work at cross purposes. On one hand, you’ve got the attacks on the people’s intelligence and representative government. On the other, you’ve got the attacks on American institutions for not being representative enough. Which is it? Are the people the problem, or is their government? According to Fallows, it’s the latter: “Our government is old and broken and dysfunctional, and may even be beyond repair.”

The culprit is the Senate, which gives equal say to states with small populations and requires 60 votes to pass legislation. Fallows says these minority rights have turned the Senate “into a deep freeze and a dead weight.” “America is not yet lost,” Paul Krugman writes in the New York Times, “but the Senate is working on it.” In a Huffington Post blog, Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, writes that special interests are “using the filibuster to stop legislation that would benefit the little guy,” whether the little guy likes it or not.

You can make a persuasive argument that the filibuster has been deployed too frequently in recent years, especially when it has prevented presidents, Republican and Democrat, from staffing their administrations. Nevertheless, the Senate and the filibuster are there for good reasons: to defuse momentary passions that could have unintended and harmful consequences for the country.

The system is designed to ensure broad consensus before Congress enacts major reforms. Such consensus existed during the New Deal and Great Society. And there was consensus behind certain elements of Reagan’s and Bush’s and Clinton’s programs, as well. That was not the case when George W. Bush attempted to overhaul Social Security, however. The public agreed with Bush that there was a problem, but it did not like his solution. It has had the same reaction to Obama’s proposals.

The liberal program is in disarray because liberals have failed to establish general agreement. They have found that simple majorities do not automatically translate into programmatic success. And when they are met with public opposition and institutional resistance, they do what comes naturally. They blame Americans first.

Matthew Continetti is associate editor of The Weekly Standard and the author, most recently, of The Persecution of Sarah Palin (Sentinel Books).

http://weeklystandard.com/articles/blame-americans-first

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