Michael Moore recently pontificated that under Obamacare Americans would have to wait for certain non life-threatening procedures such as a knee replacement. In his mind a “patriotic American” would be happy to do so. If one takes a critical look at socialized healthcare it would be obvious that it doesn’t work. In the UK, the healthcare system is so strapped for money that it is considering outsourcing the management of it to a German company. It is criminal that we would alter our medical system to emulate one that is obviously broken. Despite the pronouncements of healthcare equality we are rapidly moving towards a two tier system that is separate and unequal – those who have the means to do so will simply opt-out.

It is the insertion of Government into the healthcare system that has put us in the position we are in. Cronyism has given corporate interests such as big Pharma, medical insurance companies and hospitals the power to systematically remove competition, control prices and lead to the too big to fail phenomenon that has left doctors and patients on the outside looking in while those who know ‘what is best for us’ continue to gut what was once the best medical system in the world.  The medical insurance industry is an example of a supporter that helped lobby for the passage of Obamacare that has been a big winner.

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One year ago today President Barack Obama signed into law government controlled health care. It was a punch in the gut to a majority of Americans who had passionately pleaded that this legislation be thrown in the dumpster. How many times did millions of people travel to Washington D.C., call and email our congressman, or attend Town Hall meetings and demand they, “kill the bill?”

We were readily dismissed and slandered by the Democrats in Congress; accused of being astro-turf and even racists. This diversionary tactic was cleverly employed to conceal the fact that Congress was, through calculation and deceit, forcefully imposing their ultra-liberal agenda on the American people.

Let’s make no mistake about it.  This is socialized medicine that will cost us trillions of dollars that we DO NOT HAVE, but don’t worry…we will print the money to cover the bill. Even better, Congress and the President have decided your liberty means very little to them if it means more control for Washington, so the IRS will now force you to enter into an insurance contract against your will.

When was the last time we had 28 states suing the federal government? When was the last time you had a million people take to the streets in opposition to the actions of Congress? When was the last time we saw such a sweeping sea-change in a congressional election cycle? We are beyond angry. We want the insanity to stop in Washington D.C.

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President Obama’s cult of personality and feel-good message of “change” allowed him to sail through the 2008 campaign without being thoroughly vetted by the press.  No one took the time to delve into his past and look at his influences, his actions, or his political theory.  And when something did come up, the press allowed him to skate on by rather than press him for real information (Jeremiah Wright, anyone?).

Recent guest  Stanley Kurtz decided to do what the press failed to do – take an honest look at Obama’s politics.   His investigation resulted in Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism. In this episode, Kurtz discusses the many socialist influences in Obama’s life, from his college years to his time as a community organizer, with men such as Bill Ayers, Frank Marshal Davis, and Jeremiah Wright.

In examining Obama’s main mentors, Kurtz begins to see a clear ideology that motivates the President’s disdain for the middle class, take-no-prisoners approach to passing socialized healthcare, reluctance to discuss political theory and desire for, ultimately, a socialist revolution.

Here is the full episode, you won’t want to miss it:

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Shortly after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it would cut off late-stage breast cancer patients from Avastin, the Obama Administration announced it would create “end of life counseling” program for Medicare patients. How convenient. The government is sentencing women to death but will try to make them feel better about it.

It’s no surprise that the announcement of the creation of “end of life counseling” comes from the rationer-in-chief Donald Berwick — the unconfirmed head of the Office of Medicare and Medicaid Services. Berwick has said that “Cynics beware, I am romantic about the [British] National Health Service, I love it.” Here’s another Berwick quote: “The decision is not whether or not we will ration care, the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open.”

It’s clear the bureaucrats have begun to ration care with their “eyes open” but the question is the American people seeing what is happening?

For decades, America was not only the golden land of opportunity; it was the place where the sick would come for cutting edge treatments that could not be found anywhere else. The socialist health care systems of Europe could not save your life, but a trip to America often could. Americans took this for granted. But we cannot anymore.

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At a time when the American taxpayer is on the hook for trillions in current and future federal spending—when the Congressional Budget Office warns that the current rate of federal spending is “unsustainable”—liberal Democrats in Congress have earmarked over $68 million of taxpayer dollars for a Boston shrine to the late Senator Edward Kennedy.

In a detailed report, the Boston Herald describes the planned Edward M. Kennedy Institute as a “temple for Ted Kennedy built with pork.”

According to their account, congressional Democrats—especially Massachusetts senators John Kerry and Edward Markey—have been cramming earmarks for the project into various government funding bills. The Herald found that Kerry and Markey even intend to siphon $28.9 million of the institute’s funding from the Defense Department budget, with almost $19 million of that amount already signed into law.

Why do they think taxpayers should be paying for this shrine? A statement from a Kerry spokesman declared that the institute will bring “knowledge and good citizenship to thousands of young people.”

This has raised the ire of taxpayer watchdog groups. “If the Kennedy family wants to honor the senator, they should find a way to fund it themselves,” David E. Williams of Citizens Against Government Waste told the newspaper. Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense agreed that “this could be independently funded and doesn’t need to be getting taxpayer dollars.”

Indeed.

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Hopefully by now you are aware that Senator Chris McDaniel and I have filed a citizens class action lawsuit against the PPACA, the liberty-robbing “Obamacare” statute, in the federal court for the Southern District of Mississippi.  Please see our prior article on this subject here. The response from liberty-loving Americans has been overwhelming — from Big Media, not so much.  I understand their disinterest, though, because really important things like the travails of a billionaire golfer takes up so much of their time.

That’s quite alright, because I would rather come directly to you to make important announcements like this:  Lt. Governor Phil Bryant has entered our class action lawsuit against the PPACA as an individual, private citizen.  He is serving as a Petitioner, and is the class representative for a uniquely important class:  employees of the State of Mississippi.

Lt. Governor Phil Bryant addresses crowd in Jackson, Mississippi

Why this new class is important.

Congress is now dictating what must be — and must not be — in your health insurance plan.  In other words, they are controlling the health insurance that your employer is offering you.  Socialism is defined as “government ownership or control of all the means of production (farms, factories, mines, and natural resources) and all the means of distribution (transportation, communications, and the instruments of commerce).”  Realize, “socialized medicine” is here, right now.  Even worse, by controlling what health insurance plans must be offered, Congress and the Executive branch are controlling your employer, and thus your employment.

Your liberty depends on the survival of your republic.  The PPACA is a direct attack on the republican form of government.

Every kid who’s ever put hand over heart and recited the Pledge of Allegiance knows that we live in a republic:  “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

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President Obama, speaking at a rally in Iowa City on March 25, challenged opponents of Obamacare who have vowed repeal. To repeal advocates, the President said, “Go for it.”

Before the first light of dawn on the morning after this Pelosi Congress sent Obamacare to the President’s desk, I started the process to repeal.My decision to take this fight to and through the next election and probably through the presidential election in 2012 was not a knee jerk response to a legislative defeat.It is a commitment to the Constitution, fiscal responsibility, real health care reform and American Liberty.

President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid – the troika that controls America today – have long had designs to shove America into the abyss of socialism. Their philosophy, political power and cynical effort to expand the dependency class all lined up to make Obamacare the law of the land. The highest price every generation of Americans will pay is not measured in dollars but in lost liberty.

America is a unique nation with unmatched vitality. The rights and liberties which transformed the “Dream” into the reality of American Exceptionalism are written on our hearts. We have a vitality that is unmatched because we have skimmed the cream of the crop off every donor civilization.

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If I had a dollar for every time some tool during the health care debate brought up how “we’re the only industrialized” nation in the world without socialized health care I’d have a lot of money. Why, I could even retire from my current job of poisoning the environment and taking advantage of the working man. I could, you know, relax.

Even the U.K., the drones blather, has government run health care. I guess they think we can identify better with the U.K. because they’re mostly white and speak English. I don’t know. I won’t waste any time trying to figure out the left’s thought process. Doing so would be as dangerous and pointless as trying to decipher the Necronomicon.

Invoking the U.K. as a model should, naturally, have the opposite effect on the American psyche. I hate to bring it up, but we kinda fought a war a couple hundred years ago to insure that we were NOT just like England. We already had the English life. We were right there and we rejected it.

Think of all the things we missed out on, only to aspire to end up in the same place. Our fish and chips are inferior. Guinness served over here is never quite as fresh. We don’t have tea time. I really like tea. We also ditched the cool accents. I mean seriously, I could have sounded like Ian McKellan or Sean Connery if it wasn’t for those clowns Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.

Thanks to the American Revolution we can’t claim Led Zepplin, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Arctic Monkeys, The Smiths, Blur or the Spice Girls as our own. James Bond is not our brother. Neither is Dr. Who. On top of it, I would probably be a Lord or Earl or something. Damn it, Lord Leigh Scott of Wauwatosa sounds freaking awesome! Thanks a lot Thomas Paine.

Jerks.

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There is much talk of repealing socialized medicine, though the rhetoric has waffled a bit since passage.  The problem is that even if we gain majorities in Congress we still need 60 votes in the Senate to avoid a filibuster, not to mention the 2/3 majorities we need in both houses to override a presidential veto.  Meet Article V of the Constitution:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, SHALL call a convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate. (emphasis added)

Dark thoughts are on American minds these days, despite the optimism in the American system.  It is not the first time, nor will it be the last.  Travel backwards to the Spring of 1786.  The Articles of Confederation were the “Supreme Law of the Land,” but one Charles Pinckney of South Carolina proposed a revision.  Congress represented the sole institution of our national government, and Congress was rather weak.  The states retained much of their sovereignty, and Congress, with the few powers it actually wielded, could only operate with unanimous consent.  Rebellion and credit issues abounded, not to mention the threat of foreign invasion, without effective centralized governance.  And so, the Constitutional Convention eventually convened in May 1787 to revise our system of government, and prevent disaster.

The Articles of Confederation were completely replaced by the Constitution when New Hampshire ratified it as the ninth state on June 21, 1788.  The United States of America under the Constitution came into existence without a bloody revolution or civil war.  And the Constitution provided a means to revision in Article V. (more…)

Al Franken became famous as a comedian. A long-time writer for Saturday Night Live, he developed routines and characters that made us laugh. But, as my latest video reminds us, even funny people can be humorless. Not only is Franken a jerk to me, as I ask admittedly tough questions about ObamaCare, but he’s a jerk to his own hapless staff. The job market in DC can’t be bad enough to put up with this.

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When Cynthia Rice told me, “I wouldn’t want to wish this upon anybody, especially with all the complications,” she was referring to the long and challenging road she and Jim, her husband of 16 years, have traveled prior to and following his successful liver transplant operation March 21, 2006. After speaking with her at their St. Louis home Tuesday (see video), I’m convinced the same sentiment applies to the government-run health care legislation signed into law this week by President Barack Obama.

The transplant became necessary long before anyone knew about ObamaCare and only five months after Jim, then 52, was diagnosed with Autoimmune Hepatitis, inflammation in the liver that occurs when a person’s immune system attacks his own liver.

Prior to the onset of symptoms during the summer of 2005, Jim weighed 185 pounds and was an active tennis player, said Cynthia, de facto spokesperson for the couple. By the time of his diagnosis, neighbors had begun to notice changes in Jim’s appearance and asked if he had some sort of cancer.

In addition to retaining excessive amounts of fluid in his body, he began to have other serious problems — including hallucinations and the inability to perform even the most mundane tasks — that resulted from his liver’s inability to cleanse his system of toxins, including ammonia. After some prodding by Cynthia, he agreed to see a doctor.

“When we were first told (about Jim’s need for a transplant), we were both very resistant to the idea, because we knew it would be very expensive,” Cynthia said, “but our private insurance came through for us just fantastically. We received excellent care from the hospital where he received the transplant.”

Did she say private health insurance provided quality care for Jim despite the fact that he had changed jobs only nine months before the transplant operation and only a handful of months before symptoms surfaced for the first time? Cynthia confirmed her statement, then we talked about ObamaCare.

Cynthia offered many reasons why she opposes the new law and hopes Republicans in Congress are somehow able to repeal it.

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This week, nominated by Tom Costella of Canton, MI, the “Educated Idiots Award” goes to…

Fidel Castro (remember him)?

The communist octogenarian/anachronism has come out of semi-comatose retirement to praise President Obama’s trillion dollar government takeover of Americans’ health care.  Herewith Cuba’s bath-robed butcher sings a few bars of praise for our President:

“We consider health reform to have been an important battle and a success of his (Obama’s) government,” Castro opined in a published screed.  Though, he couldn’t resist poking a newly socialist Uncle Sam:  “It is really incredible that 234 years after the Declaration of Independence …. the government of that country has approved medical attention for the majority of its citizens, something that Cuba was able to do half a century ago.”

Yet, ominous clouds hover over the dictator’s socialist Utopia.  The very socialism that has earned Comrade Castro “global praise” – “free” health care and education, and heavily subsidized food, housing, utilities and transportation – is not sustainable in the nation’s perpetually depressed economy according to the Cuban regime.

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One of the main selling points of health care reform was that it would cut the federal deficit by a supposed $143 billion over the next decade and a trillion-plus dollars in the one after that.

But not only will the legislation not cut one thin dime from the deficit, it will also certainly cost far more than the $940 billion in new spending already on the table for at least three reasons.

These include:

1. Legislative Trickery. Congressional Democrats have pledged support for “the doc fix,” a permanent upward adjustment to the rates at which Medicare providers are reimbursed. As Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said, “We have made a commitment to do this. This is very important.” The cost of the “doc fix”? Some $247 billion over the next 10 years, wiping out any deficit reduction from health care reform.

2. Higher Premiums. In 2006, Massachusetts passed health care reform very similar to what President Obama just signed. The result? The Bay State now has the highest premiums in the country and cost about 33 percent more than expected.

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Founding Bloggers’ Michael Kadela hit the streets of Chicago yesterday to document people’s reaction to the passage of socialized medicine in the USA.

He spoke with people young and old alike, and the reactions were both varied and interesting.

At :35  seconds, an older immigrant from Sweden says: “I left the old country because I didn’t like the system over there. The Parliamentary system with the government running your life, you know. So I came here a few years ago. And now they are trying to implement the same system over here, which aggravates the devil out of me. I can’t understand where America is going. The spirit, they are trying to wipe out the American spirit.

2:43 “I think a minor increase in our income taxes won’t be such a big deal.”

3:06 “Let’s face the facts for gods sakes. If you can count money you know this isn’t going to work out.”

4:00 “People wanted change, this is change. So they need to shut up. They voted for it.”

We are definitely NOT suggesting that God, Mother Nature or even Zeus has an interest in whether or not the United States adopts socialized medicine. That said, if you wanted this health care-stink bomb to pass, you would be hard-pressed to imagine a WORSE time for DC to be buried in a blizzard. To pass ObamaCare (Version 7.0) by Christmas, the Senate needs to start certain procedures tomorrow…and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Brigadoon) isn’t even in town

The socialist wing of the Democratic Party must have thought the brass ring was within its grasp when Barack Obama was elected president, a larger Democratic majority was returned to the House and a filibuster-proof majority was secured in the Senate.

But with the exception of massive new spending, little, if anything, has been delivered to satisfy the liberal base of the party.  Health care reform is a perfect example.  When the political stars began to align, leftists began moving swiftly to enact their agenda.  After all, a government takeover of health care has long been the ultimate goal for the socialist base of the party.

Despite polls that show solid majorities of Americans opposed to ObamaCare, Congressional Democrats trudge ahead.  Common sense would say they should pull the plug, in order to appease voters.

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No, we haven’t performed a miracle and resurrected Ronald Reagan to provide his take on the current health care debate. We didn’t have to, because the ideas underlying the current proposals, whether it is ObamaCare, PelosiCare or the Reid health care legislation, have been around for decades. This Reagan speech, from 1961, comes for the early days of the debate over Medicare and Medicaid. Well, here we are again. And, Reagan’s words are still relevant.

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As the Congress prepared to vote to let us enter the world of waits for doctors, waits for specialists, waits for testing and waits for surgery, radiation and chemo, we should pause to consider the relative records of the private medical care system in the United States with the socialized system in the U.K.

In 2008, Britain had a cancer death rate 0.25% while the United States had a rate of only 0.18%.  The UK cancer death rate was 38% higher than in the United States.

The Guardian, the UK’s left wing daily, estimated that “up to 10,000 people” are dying each year of cancer “because their condition is diagnosed too late, according to research by the government’s director of cancer services.”  While many people die because of late detection due to their own negligence, there is no reason to believe this self-neglect is more common in the UK than in the US. (more…)

When a small sampling of the White House guest list was revealed several days, Obama campaign bankroller SEIU was at the top of the list.  Having spent over $60 million to elect Obama, why should we expect anything different?

Earlier this year, SEIU president Andy Stern admitted he holds weekly meetings at the White House and, according to the guest list, several with the president himself.  That makes Andy Stern one important man.  Perhaps one of the most important in Washington, in fact.

Andy Stern has long been labeled a ruthless, bare-knuckled union organizer.  His union has a significant portion of its membership made up of health care workers and, not surprisingly, has been of the groups most aggressively pushing for socialized medicine.

Stern’s SEIU has been very aggressive at increasing its membership, often employing intimidation to meet its ends.  Just one example: In, 2008 SEIU thugs beat up members, mainly women, from rival unions at a labor union convention.  SEIU then issued a press release entitled, “SEIU Members Stand Up for the Future of the Labor Movement and the Interests of All Workers.”

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The White House appears to be continuing to throw red meat out to conservative audiences as a distraction from the real issue at hand: the proposed government takeover of health care.

It’s like a dog trainer pleading with a beagle sitting patiently, waiting to attack the target, while a big, fat steak is plopped by his paw.

At 4:31pm this past Friday, typical fare for this crew, the White House sirens released a partial list of visitors to the West Wing.  Why not a full list?  Who knows?  But some of the names were ones that were in the conservative wheelhouse during the election and the first 10 months of this year: Bill Ayers, Michael Moore, Jeremiah Wright and George Soros.

But MSNBC claims the first three: Ayers, Moore and Wright aren’t the Ayers, Moore and Wright.  Then why release the names?  Not to mention: the White House staff and the president himself just happen to have other friends named Bill Ayers, Michael Moore and Jeremiah Wright?  That’s bizarre.

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