Today, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) will formally introduce a new, bipartisan plan for Medicare reform. People 55 years of age or older would not be affected; everyone else, starting in 2022, will receive premium support that will allow them to choose between private insurance and traditional, fee-for-service public insurance.

As Yuval Levin notes in National Review, the Ryan-Wyden plan also plans to keep the cost of premium support low by using competitive bidding among private insurers to provide a defined minimum amount of coverage. That mechanism, Levin adds, is “an even more market-based reform than the original Ryan proposal” passed in the House budget earlier this year.

Sen. Wyden and Rep. Ryan (Photo source: TPM/CQ/Roll Call)

Rep. Ryan’s staff notes that he has always been willing to tinker with his Medicare proposals, and has done so in the past with Democrats such as former Clinton budget director Alice Rivlin. They stress that the key to the Ryan-Wyden plan is that Medicare would move from a defined benefit plan to a defined contribution plan–and they hail Sen. Wyden for his willingness to embrace that step, which is common in the business world but has traditionally been a conservative approach in the public policy arena.

The prospect of bipartisan entitlement reform is shaking the political world–not just because the Ryan-Wyden plan appears closer to Gov. Mitt Romney’s proposals than those of any other presidential contender, but also because it may thwart Democrats’ most cynical, and effective, campaign tactic: scaring seniors.

The left-wing Talking Points Memo predicts: “The move will infuriate other Democrats, all the way up to President Obama, who has been preparing a national campaign that emphasizes — not obscures — the contrast between the parties’ different visions of the social safety net.”

(Update: As expected, the White House has attacked the Ryan-Wyden plan almost immediately, claiming that it would “undermine, rather than strengthen, Medicare.” Even Sam Stein’s not buying the administration spin, noting that the Ryan-Wyden plan contains reforms Obama has previously supported.)

At the Huffington Post, Robert Creamer–the felon who apparently hatched Democrats’ political strategy for Obamacare from federal prison–is furious, claiming that the Ryan-Wyden plan will still “eliminate” Medicare and replace it with “vouchers,” and venting his frustration at Wyden: “What was he thinking?” (more…)

NOTE: Due to a technical problem, most of the videos that were supposed to be part of this article were not visible. These videos are a crucial part of this piece because they constitute the proof of every statement made in video. These videos are now functional.

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What drove Glenn Beck to tell an increasingly large series of lies about his participation in the Shirley Sherrod story that broke back in July, 2010?

Why would he tell both TV and live audiences things like this….

Shirley Sherrod, is the next example. We didn’t rush to condemn her. This is another seemingly “redistribution of wealth” woman — who I would bet that I vehemently disagree with on probably everything. But she asked for the rest of the tape to be heard, the farmers in the story backed her up. It was a turning point story. We defended her and said her side of the story demanded to be heard — because context matters…

or this?

I have a story I want to share with you that I haven’t shared yet. Do you know why I didn’t do the Shirley Sherrod story? Did anyone think that story was uncommon for the people that we have in the White House? That there might be some prejudice that is happening? No. I stood in my office with my entire team, and I said, “something’s wrong, don’t do this story.”That’s what saved me: the Sword of the Spirit.

As you’ll see, both of those statements are totally false. Glenn Beck not only didn’t initially defend Sherrod but he actually dropped the entire context that Sherrod’s video clip was originally presented in. Close to a year later, Beck still hasn’t been honest about his initial context dropping attacks on Sherrod.

So – why? Did Beck start spinning a story and was unable to discern truth from fiction? Did he enjoy the praise he got from left wing sources, who believed his spin?

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I’m a Trump cheerleader. After 25 years as a lobbyist for Trump and Chairman of his 2000 Presidential Exploratory Committee, I like the man. I have studied mountains of polling conducted by the Trump casino interests studying the Trump brand for twenty years. I have studied the shocking new polls that show Trump vaulting to a lead over conventional politicians. A new PPP poll for Talking Points memo showed Trump leading the field.

Trump is a middle class phenomena. Middle aged, middle income, middle class voters are Trump’s core. Hispanic voters give him high favorable ratings as do African Americans and poor whites. The higher your level of education the more likely you are to loath Trump. If you are self-made you are 70% more likely to like Trump than if you have inherited money. Small businessmen like Trump, Wall Street Gekkos do not. The Apprentice has enhanced his standing because his short segments show him being cool, tough and decisive, things voters are looking for after the vacillation of Barrack Obama.

Trump appeals to the strivers. Trump lives as they would live if they were rich. Trump’s over the top lifestyle of the biggest and the best appeals to these voters. The Ivy League educated? Not so much. Old Money? Forget it. Trump appeals to the Perot and Buchanan voter suspicious of both parties. The Tea Party is a natural launching pad for Trump.

Now the Club for Growth is bashing Trump for positions he took ten years ago under far different circumstances. Trump favored a tax on the super-rich to kill the deficit. He was willing to pay himself. He is opposed to the idea today. Hard to imagine voters seeking consistency will switch to Mitt Romney who used to be a pro-abortion, pro gay marriage liberal.

Political operatives who come to work for Trump will soon realize he doesn’t need words put in his mouth and has a very clear sense of what he wants to say and do. Trump is soaring in the polls now because he is following his own populist instincts and expressing himself in street language the average person can understand.

It takes stature, money, energy and discipline to be elected President. Trump has the stature and the money, so far he has demonstrated the energy but whether he has the discipline to stay on his core themes and to parry the attacks on him without getting personal remains to be seen. Much of this furor is about the Trump brand. At last weekends Tea Party Tax rally in Boca Raton Trump asked his host if he should take off his trademark pastel tie for his speech. “No,” he was told, “you gotta look like you look on TV.”

From CBS News:

President Obama earlier this month signed into law a measure to pay American Indians and black farmers a total of $4.6 billion to cover decades of government mistreatment. Now, a Republican congressman says the GOP-controlled House next year will hold hearings to investigate the settlement, which he says amounts to “reparations.”

Conservative Rep. Steve King of Iowa told local radio station KCIM that the Pigford settlement, which was part of the legislation, “is full of fraud” and “amounts to paying reparations to black farmers in America. We don’t do reparations in America.”

King said he expects Republicans to examine this issue and other issues Democrats may be hesitant to investigate, such as the re-organization of the defunct group ACORN. This isn’t the first time King has criticized the settlement, Talking Points Memo points out. (more…)

In response to the announcement that I would provide my analysis on ABC News from Arizona on election night, like-clockwork, from the George Soros-funded Media Matters to Keith Olbermann to Huffington Post to Daily Kos to Talking Points Memo to Twitter (#boycottABCNEWS), the institutional left began on Friday to inundate ABC News with a wave of partisan objections and unfounded allegations against me.

Make no mistake: this is a calculated “astroturf“ intimidation campaign by the well-funded and frightened-for-their-political-lives institutional left to quash dissenting voices. It’s what they do.

What was ABC News’ response?  Not standing up for free speech and the 1^st Amendment.  Not sticking by their original invitation.  Not standing up for diversity of opinion.

Instead, on Saturday, ABC News issued an official statement that was immediately heralded as a victory by the anti-free speech forces on the left:

Since conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart announced on his website that he was going to be a participant in ABC’s Town Hall meeting at Arizona State University, there has been considerable consternation and misinformation regarding my decision to ask him to participate in an election night Town Hall event for ABC News Digital. I want to explain what Mr. Breitbart’s role has always been as one of our guests at our digital town hall event:

Mr. Breitbart is not an ABC News analyst.

He is not an ABC News consultant.

He is not, in any way, affiliated with ABC News.

He is not being paid by ABC News.

He has not been asked to analyze the results of the election for ABC News.

Mr. Breitbart will not be a part of the ABC News broadcast coverage, anchored by Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos. For the broadcast coverage, David Muir and Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg will contribute reaction and response gathered from the students and faculty of Arizona State University at an ABC News/Facebook town hall.

He has been invited as one of several guests, from a variety of different political persuasions, to engage with a live, studio audience that will be closely following the election results and participating in an online-only discussion and debate to be moderated by David Muir and Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg on ABCNews.com and Facebook. We will have other guests, as well as a live studio audience and a large audience on ABCNews.com and Facebook, who can question the guests and the audience’s   opinions.

George Stephanoplous quickly tweeted, “Breitbart NOT on ABC network broadcast http://bit.ly/bgkseJ.” (more…)

Last week, we discussed the rigged game of three-card monte that the FDA is trying to run over unsuspecting patients.  The game is rigged.  If government is allowed to arbitrarily shift from objective data driven safety focused approval to subjective cost based standards for drug approvals — as the appears to be doing in the case of Avastin — patients will always lose.

As in any game of three-card monte — the shills come into play.  In the card game on the streets, the shills pose as actual participants who make the game look simple goading unsuspecting observers to bet money who always lose.  The shills work with the dealers.

In the case of the FDA — the shills were the Associated Press and TalkingPointsMemo.com.  The FDA changed the rules so that price would be a determining factor in the approval process of drugs and the shills stepped in to belittle and goad anyone who didn’t play the game the way the dealers wanted.

Sen. Vitter decided to blow the whistle on the game and yet other shill stepped in.  This time it is another liberal website ThinkProgress.com.

Jumping on the bias claim that Vitter had likened the FDA to a death panel, the group makes the false claim that “Avastin is more likely to harm cancer patients than to help them.”  Patently false.  If ThinkProgress didn’t have a Pavlovian response every time a Republican issued a press release, they would have seen that the article they linked to made no mention of any harm to cancer patients from taking the drug.

Quite the opposite is true.  Patients who take the drug extend their lives.  The only negative side effects motivating bureaucrats in this decision are the ones in their pockets. They are trying to make a subjective determination that the price of the drug outweighs its benefits.  In other words, the FDA is trying to factor in cost of the drugs in whether it should be “de-labeled.”

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On August 6, 2009 two Service Employee International Union (SEIU) leaders and a volunteer for Organizing for America (OFA) assaulted Kenneth Gladney outside of Rep. Russ Carnahan’s Town hall meeting on health care.  The perpetrators were arrested at the scene of the crime, and three months later charges have finally been filed.

Much has been said in the past three months about this incident.  Here at Big Government calls have been made for justice, for formal charges and mostly for the mass media to follow the story and delve into the government’s role in this violent attempt to intimidate and silence dissent.  We can no longer wait for the establishment journalists to connect the dots and bring to light the insidious relationships between the SEIU, OFA, Russ Carnaham’s office and the Obama Administration.

Was this assault merely a flare up of tempers during a heated exchange of rival political camps?  Or was it a coordinated attempt to silence the scores of protesters who had been so effective at swaying public opinion against the President’s health care scheme?  Today, Big Government will bring to light documents that read like an instruction manual for the SEIU forces in St. Louis the evening of August 6^th.  We will also show that on the very same evening of the St. Louis assault, an almost identical scene played out in Tampa Bay, Florida.  Also involving SEIU and OFA.  Also resulting in hordes of union members shouting down and physically evicting protesters from a U.S. Representative’s Town hall meeting.  Finally, we will introduce all of the various players in leadership roles at these organizations, what they said in instructing their members in how to fight back against the Town hall protesters, and how these individuals all connect to each other and to the Obama Administration.  As I said, we’ve been waiting for the “Real” journalists to do this, we’ve waited long enough.

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