I think, and I know in my case, that all it took was for a plumber to ask one question during the last presidential campaign, for it to be clear to many of us that we had a communist, in the guise of the democrat party, running for president. (Spread the wealth around a little, anyone???)
I keep asking myself if he thinks Pelosi needs to spread her $62+ million around. After all he has said that there’s a point when everyone has made enough money:
This Whittle video is worth a watch again to remind us all that this man is and has always been a socialist. For cryin’ out loud, the man admits to being a Marxist in his book! Most of his cabinet are self-avowed socialists or Marxists — Anita Dunn, her husband Bill Bauer (remember him? the author of the what became known as OBAMACARE while Bill was in JAIL?) or Van Jones ring a bell???
Whittle explains the messaging behind the Obama branding:
Aren't these the guys Obama wanted on his side? photo from Politico.com
Obama invited all these doctors to the White House, dressed them in taxpayer funded lab coats, schmoozed them and courted them to get their much needed endorsement for his Health Care plan and now he’s stealthily stabbing them in the back.
Is this what they had in mind when they went to the Rose Garden? I have to wonder if they understood how the government under Obama can and will reach it’s tentacles into their lives and livelihoods.
According to government documents obtained from Obama administration officials, the mystery shoppers will call medical practices and ask if doctors are accepting new patients and, if so, how long the wait would be. The government is eager to know whether doctors give different answers to callers depending on whether they have public insurance, like Medicaid, or private insurance, like Blue Cross and Blue Shield.
But of course, none of this information will be used against any particular doctor:
In response to the drumbeat of criticism, a federal health official said doctors did not need to worry because the data would be kept confidential. “Reports will present aggregate data, and individuals will not be identified,” said the official, who requested anonymity to discuss the plan before its final approval by the White House.
And these doctors are really supposed to believe this nonsense?
If this doesn’t reek of intimidation, nothing does. And I see nowhere in the story that the reporter called the AMA to get their opinion on this. I also have to wonder how the decisions were made regarding what states to target with these “mystery shopper” calls:
[…] administration officials said, a federal contractor will call the offices of 4,185 doctors — 465 in each of nine states: Florida, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. The doctors will include pediatricians and obstetrician-gynecologists. [In addition to family practice physicans and internal medicine doctors.]
What I find most troubling about this is that these nearly 4200 doctors will be called at least twice to determine if the doctor has different standards of care for private insurance patients versus government insured patients. But 11% of these doctors will be called a third time and this time the caller will identify himself as a govenment employee and will ask whether the doctors accept private insurance, Medicaid or Medicare, and whether they take “self-pay patients.” The study will note any discrepancies between those answers and the ones given to mystery shoppers.
Tell me again that these results will not be used against a physician – tell me again that this information will be kept confidential. Tell me again how Obama wants the support of America’s doctors, most of whom do not belong to the AMA, by the way.
I’m not a lawyer and I’ve never played one on tv, so it took me a couple days and re-reading several times to figure out how this case, Bond v. Unites States, would or could have bearing on the ObamaCare lawsuit.
Thanks to Dena for sending this to me.
In a nutshell, Carol Bond found out there her husband had impregnated her best friend. To exact revenge on her best friend, “Bond placed hazardous chemicals on the homewrecker’s mailbox, car door handles and the like, hoping to injure her now-former friend. All the ex-friend got was a minor burn.” But instead of this being tried as an assault or manslaughter case in a state court, the federal government decided to step in and “charged her with violating a law that was passed under an international treaty banning the use of chemical weapons.”
“The court of appeals ruled against her, holding that she didn’t even have the legal right (which we call “standing”) to bring the claim,because only a state could argue that Congress had infringed upon state power. At the Supreme Court, Bond got some help from an unexpected source: the federal government, which agreed with her that she had the right to challenge the law – a procedure that is known as “confessing error,” or admitting that you are wrong. So the Court appointed an attorney (in this case, as it usually does, it chose a former Supreme Court clerk) to argue that the Third Circuit had been correct.”
The Supreme Court stated that the federal government had no right to interfere with a STATE’S RIGHTS issue. ” She argued that she couldn’t be charged with federal crimes because her crimes were the kind of crimes that states should prosecute. Put into constitutional terms, her argument was that when Congress passed the law, it intruded on the rights that the Constitution, in the Tenth Amendment, leaves for the states.”
Last “Thursday, the Court unanimously agreed with Bond and the government that she did have “standing” to argue that the federal government had gone too far. The Court pointed out that the right Bond seeks to vindicate is her own, because she benefits from a federalist (states’ rights) system.”
Now how does all this relate to ObamaCare, you ask?
The SCOTUS has ruled that an INDIVIDUAL has the right to claim a violation of state’s rights because that is the system of government that we live under.
Government mandated health care can be construed as a violation of the Tenth Amendment – a subject that must be left up to the individual states and its citizens to decide – not the federal government.
This case, that the SCOTUS found in favor of Carol Bond and State’s Rights, could very well be a foreshadowing of how they will rule on the ObamaCare case when it finally comes before them.
I owe a big thank you to Weiner for giving me the comic relief I’ve needed. Times are hard for so many of us and the daily (almost hourly) news is not good so, a little Weiner levity has been great. Everyone from Andrew Klavan to Andrew Breitbart provided some great laughs and one liners. I mean seriously, how can you pair any adjective with the name Wiener and it not be funny?
I also owe a thanks to the White House (and Drudge) for publishing the German state dinner menu:
STATE DINNER MENU DONE ON BUDGET:
White House Honey Gastrique
Tuna Tartare with Rye Crisps
Pickled Young Carrots and Mustard Oil
Spring Pea Salad
Shaved Ham and Ginger Snaps
Petite Filet
With Maryland Crab Ravioli
Wild Ramp Puree
Apple Strudel
Golden Raisins and Topfen
The One's state dinner place setting. Photo from CNN
I had to Wiki half this menu (or ask Jane who’s a food network fan) because I’m just not a cuisine expert. (She knew what Gastrique is. I thought it might be cow or sheep stomach. HA! Martha Stewart would be slapping me with her rubber spatula for that!)
Crock pot roast beef and baked potatoes is a fancy meal at our house. I have to wonder who’s budget this WH menu was based on. Petite filet (one thing on the menu I know about) is kinda pricey and a once a year treat for me. In fact, as a family tradition, we vote every year about our Christmas dinner and more times than not, we vote for steak (Porterhouse, T-bone or filet) because it’s such a rarity for us. And as a person with an Italian heritage, I can tell you crab ravioli is not something I’m familiar with. But it does sound good.
What is Wild Ramp Puree? It a “bed” of something from West Virginia, I do know that much.
All in all, this is not a menu that is friendly to MY budget. But it was semi-entertaining to discuss and research the menu items.
And again, all this frivolity in the news distracted me from some of the more unpleasant (1/3 of all employees will lose their employer-based health care) and scary (reports that Iran could have nukes in less than 6 months – what’s more scary than that?) news reports. Not that Weiner’s sexy (insert surprised emoticon here) online chat, isn’t news worthy – it is. But it was also the more fun times I’ve had reading online.
The surreal press conference that Weiner called on Monday when Brietbart upstaged him, was the BEST television since the debut of the trampoline bear on the Fox Report. It was stunningly hilarious and at the same time, made me feel proud of being a Breitbart fan. Seeing him at Weiner’s podium calling out the so-called “journalists” for being duplicitous and disingenuous (fancy words for being jerkweeds) was absolutely priceless!
I’ve been online for a long time and one thing I have learned is that there is only one type of man who posts penis pictures of himself: the kind of nerdy, inadequate, trying-to0-hard man that Weiner is. Don’t ask me how I know this because I’m not telling (insert red-faced emoticon here) and I’ve used no tax dollars in this research so I owe no one an explanation.
But in that regard, Weiner and his weiner are pathetic. I almost feel bad about laughing at his online sexcapades because I knew men (boys) like him in high school and college. He has some serious feelings of inadequacy that only his online braggadocio can seem to quash.
Sad.
But on the upside for me at least, we’ve not heard the last of Anthony’s Weinergate.
And okay, I admit it, my life is pretty dull.
I’ll leave you with Andrew Klavan’s description of Weiner – “Physically, he’s a dead ringer for a turtle that’s been pulled out of its shell.”
If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.
RomneyCare is not part of the solution; it embodies the problem. If Mitt Romney cannot recognize that, it’s unlikely that he’s the guy to pull American politics back into a passing acquaintance with reality. To put it in Obama terms, America is a moat, and it’s filled with government spendaholics. You could toss a poor alligator in there, but they’d pick him clean in seconds, and leave what was left for Nancy Pelosi’s shoes.
I believe that it only came to light yesterday because it only occurred to the regime’s collective mind over the weekend, after Rep. Ryan released his plan. This brilliant idea isn’t in the actual ObamCare bill.
In his speech yesterday, which was a poor attempt to rebut Rep. Paul Ryan’s much touted Path to Prosperity, Obama disclosed a new plan to the American people:
Fifteen members will serve on the Independent Payment Advisory Board [IPAD – dontcha love these government acronyms?], all appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. If per capita costs grow by more than GDP plus 0.5%, this board would get more power, including an automatic budget sequester to enforce its rulings. So 15 sages sitting in a room with the power of the purse will evidently find ways to control Medicare spending that no one has ever thought of before and that supposedly won’t harm seniors’ care, even as the largest cohort of the baby boom generation retires and starts to collect benefits. The Wall Street Journal
These are 15 UNELECTED “sages” who will be able to spend or not spend money, which up until now has been the job of Congress.
Let’s forego the obvious, that this is a stupid idea, and look at it as though it will really happen.
15 guys are appointed by the president to make these health decisions. When this president is gone, in 4 or 8 years and a new president comes in, a whole new bunch of wise men will be appointed. Where’s the continuity in that? We are dealing with human beings who are making subjective decisions. It’s like musical chairs. They leave and new guys come take their place and all things will change again with every new butt that sits down.
It’s ridiculous. And it can be dangerous to the citizens. Imagine the malevolent chair sitters that might be appointed – guys who really don’t revere the Constitution or our republic, like for instance some of the czar’s that Obama has already appointed.
Obviously, this regime could not have thought this through. These people are supposed to be smart then I and I can see how stupid and unworkable, not to mention unfair, this idea is.
Seriously. Think about this. If you can’t see how unworkable, subjective and just plain goofy this whole idea is, then I’m a Chinese astronaut.
When Clinton’s popularity was waning and he was wracked with sex scandals, we went to war in Bosnia. It was a poorly veiled attempt to shift the focus from one unpleasant thing to something the nation could rally around.
Now, we have another liberal (Marxist) president who refuses to call a terrorist a terrorist or a war a war. In Orwellian fashion, we have newspeak like overseas contingency operations in place of war and man-made disasters in place of homocide bombers.
I’ve noticed that Obama’s honeymoon with the media is coming to an end, albeit slower than with any other president in my memory. These tv guys are asking almost difficult questions of the press secretary and the president, himself. As we all know, there’s dissension in the ranks on Capitol Hill with the democrats being displeased with the president’s actions and decisions, of late. Obamacare is less popular this year than last, states are suing in federal courts and his poll numbers aren’t stellar enough any longer.
So what did he do?
He went to war – the third front in the Middle East.
But this is the just war. The good war. Just as Afghanistan is and Iraq was not – according to Obama and his flock. We’re doing the righteous thing by protecting and aiding the “rebels,” whoever they are (and it’s still being debated just who they are) while we leave Gadhafi alive and in power. We’ll leave him alive so that he can terrorize and brutalize his people on another day.
And at the same time, in Clinton-esque fashion, we are being distracted from Obama’s negatives.
However, after 2 years I think most of us have learned now to keep an eye on what the other hand is doing.
~~~ooOoo~~~
You know that in Obama’s recent budget, he wants to double our aide to Libya from $900,000 to $1.7million? I wonder how much influence his friends Wright and Farrakhan had on him about that?
Today marks the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that protects women’s health and reproductive freedom, and affirms a fundamental principle: that government should not intrude on private family matters.
So what do you call ObamaCare, then if it’s not an intrusion in the private and very PERSONAL matters of an individual and his family?
I am committed to protecting this constitutional right. I also remain committed to policies, initiatives, and programs that help prevent unintended pregnancies, support pregnant women and mothers, encourage healthy relationships, and promote adoption.
His support is through Planned Parenthood which are nothing more than government funded abortion clinics that are aimed at minorities, especially Black Americans. Employees at these facilities are on tape saying as much. This is government sanctioned genocide, primarily against the Black community.
And there is no constitutional right to an abortion, just as there is no constitutional right to force any American to buy anything, including health insurance.
And on this anniversary, I hope that we will recommit ourselves more broadly to ensuring that our daughters have the same rights, the same freedoms, and the same opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.
What he’s saying is that the “burden” of unwanted pregnancies and abortion falls squarely on the woman and men are off the hook. He’s on record as saying that he didn’t want his “daughters punished” with an unintended and unwanted baby. But there is no “punishment” for the father, no burden for him. He can go his merry way and “fulfill his dreams” while the mother is left to the decision of abortion or the “burden” of caring for a child and her dreams are lost. Her future is bleak, that of being an single parent.
The burden of single parenthood is shouldered by the mother and the taxpayers with little or no consequences for the father. I see nothing in his statement – aside from “encouraging healthy relationships” and how he plans to do that from the WH is a mystery to me – that promotes the responsibility of fathers in this matter. On the contrary in fact, by this part of his statement: same opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.
My beautiful, healthy new grandson will be on Medicaid. His parents are both fulltime working adults and they will have to put this child on government aide in order for him to get medical care.
I know this is true because we have called numerous insurance companies and have gotten the same response. Today, I called my congressman, Trent Franks office in DC and got the same answer. A child will no longer be able to get, for instance Blue Cross/Blue Shield. Every company Jane and her dad called told her the same thing: because of the new healthcare bill, they will no longer cover a child.
I can be covered, with an inoperable brain tumor but a healthy newborn child cannot. My congressman’s representative could not explain how that works. . .
Jane is a 2nd grade teacher and is insured through the school district but to add Alexander to that policy, it will cost her an additional $470/month. . . PER MONTH. This is the reason she has been searching for private insurance for him. When I told Jane that Medicaid was going to be her only option – before she had made a second call to any insurance company – she said “I don’t even know what that is.” I told her it was basically welfare and her response was “I’m not doing that. I work fulltime.”
This is the goal of the progressives: continue and reinforce the entitlement society. Put all new citizens on the government dole and if possible, do so from birth.
At this point, I am so angry I can’t think straight to write this blog.
“Brace yourselves, because the war with Muslims has just begun,” 31-year-old Faisal Shahzad told a federal judge. “Consider me the first droplet of the blood that will follow.”
Stop Sharia in America
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Obamas Wisdom and Terror in the Street
"We can absorb a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever...we absorbed it and we are stronger."
Diary of a Mad Conservative 