Obama election lawyer Samuel Issacharoff (left). Source: NYU Law School

The left is desperate to quash James O’Keefe’s exposé of potential voter fraud in New Hampshire–and to prevent voter ID laws from being passed and enforced in states across the nation.

On Tuesday, during the New Hampshire primary election, members of O’Keefe’s Project Veritas recorded poll workers from both parties providing ballots in the names of recently deceased voters at multiple polling places across the state.

New Hampshire does not require voters to present photo identification at polling places. The state’s Republican legislature passed a voter ID law last year, but Gov. John Lynch, a Democrat, vetoed the measure, and the state senate failed to override his veto.

Left-wing groups and the Obama administration are targeting voter ID laws in advance of the 2012 election. Recently, for example, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder blocked South Carolina’s new voter ID law.

Ryan Reilly of Talking Points Memo (TPM) Muckracker has attacked the Project Veritas sting in an article alleging that “O’Keefe’s allies could face criminal charges on both the federal and state level for procuring ballots under false names.” Citing “election law experts,” Reilly concludes that the undercover video “doesn’t demonstrate a need for voter ID laws at all.”

The media has picked up Muckraker’s talking points (pun intended) and run with them. Salon.com, for example, smugly declares: “O’Keefe has pretty clearly violated the law and TPM reports that a federal prosecutor is reviewing his video. But at least he finally proved that voter fraud is a very real threat….As we all know, once you prove that something is hypothetically possible, it is a factual certainty that ACORN has done it.”

Even the Wall Street Journal fell into step, citing Reilly’s article: “Election law experts say James O’Keefe’s affiliates who got the ballots under false names could face criminal charges, as federal law bans not only the casting of such ballots, but their procurement as well, according to TPM.” Few of the media outlets repeating Reilly’s claims appear to have consulted “election law experts” with different opinions.

Curiously, one of the experts Reilly spoke to is Samuel Issacharoff of NYU Law School.

Issacharoff happened to be on Barack Obama’s legal team during the 2008 election, and assisted John Kerry’s campaign in 2004.

Obama used Issacharoff’s textbook, The Law of Democracy, while teaching at University of Chicago Law School–and Issacharoff thanked Obama on page x of the introduction for his help with the manuscript.

In 2009, Issacharoff regaled an admiring NYU audience with tales from Election Day in Chicago.

Reilly does not provide those highly relevant facts en route to smearing O’Keefe.

Indeed, Reilly may have deliberately sought opinions that would support his evidently predetermined conclusion that O’Keefe’s associates had committed a crime. He sent an email to an election law listserv in which he opined that the sting was “the largest coordinated attempt at in-person voter impersonation fraud,” and asked for comment.

It is unclear whether the experts Reilly interviewed knew more about the Project Veritas sting than he told them. He argues that O’Keefe’s colleagues violated a federal law prohibiting the “procurement” of ballots, even though they left each polling station without voting. However, that law applies to those who attempt to “deprive or defraud the residents of a State of a fair and impartially conducted election process.” O’Keefe and Project Veritas were trying to defend the freedom and impartiality of that process.

Reilly also quotes UC-Irvine School of Law Professor Rick Hansen, who jokes that O’Keefe should “next show how easy it is to rob a bank with a plastic gun.” The more appropriate analogy is the undercover DEA agent who buys cocaine from a drug dealer to bust an entire smuggling ring, or perhaps the “white hat” computer hacker who highlights the security flaws of a computer system in the hope that they will be fixed.

Reilly quotes another professor, Henry Brady, who serves as Dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC-Berkeley: “Yes, this shows it’s possible to do what they did but you have to ask yourself… how many illegal immigrants would risk a jail term to vote illegally?” In fact, in one recent example in Illinois, two Iranian non-citizens were prosecuted after having voted fraudulently for years, and now face possible deportation.

The enthusiasm with which left-wing media have rushed to accuse O’Keefe of voter fraud–while denying that voter fraud is a problem–is laughable. Reilly even admitted, in an interview with Current TV’s David Shuster, that “New Hampshire doesn’t have, like many other states, make you actually sign a piece of paper when you accept your ballot, so that’s something that could potentially have prevented this as well. They do have some lax rules…” (5:51 to 6:05 below).

Al Sharpton of MSNBC devoted an entire segment to accusing O’Keefe of committing fraud–”He actually increased fraud in the state by 1200 percent to try to prove there was a problem that didn’t exist”–deliberately obscuring the point of the Project Veritas sting, which was to show the potential for voter fraud in the absence of photo ID requirements.

Last night, a furious Gov. Lynch called for the investigators to be “prosecuted to the full extent of the law, if in fact they are found guilty of some criminal act.” (Normally, people are prosecuted before being found guilty.) Last July, in explaining his veto of the voter ID law, Gov. Lynch had claimed: “There is no voter fraud problem in New Hampshire. We already have strong elections laws that are effective in regulating our elections.”

O’Keefe’s real “crime” is blowing the whistle on the weaknesses in an election system that does not require voters to prove their identity. Though Project Veritas showed that it was as easy for Republicans to cheat as Democrats, the left knows which party benefits most from the status quo. That why they’ve made O’Keefe–not voter ID–the issue.

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?”

The Ryan-Wyden plan also disrupts the false mainstream media narrative that Republicans want to harm the economy in order to defeat President Obama next November. In fact, it exposes the reformist pretensions of the Obama White House, which is fully prepared to exacerbate America’s debt and entitlement crises to ensure the president’s re-election.

And as the Wall Street Journal suggests in an editorial today, the Ryan-Wyden plan sends a message to those Republicans too timid to offer serious and sweeping policy proposals. Real and meaningful political change is still possible, with the right ideas, and the requisite amount of courage, which both Rep. Ryan and Sen. Wyden have commendably displayed.

***

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?

Back in July, 2010 an article TV Newser reported…

Fox News host Glenn Beck has received quite a bit of praise for his restraint regarding the Shirley Sherrod videos. When many other conservative commentators were condemning her, Beck was defending her, arguing that the brief video clip that cost her her job was taken out of context. As a result Beck was praised this morning by theNew York Times editorial page:

And here’s liberal news site Talking Points Memo…

This is patently false. Yes – on his TV show on July 20th, Beck defended Sherrod…but as you’ll see, this was after Beck has attacked Sherrod for three segments of his radio show.

Becks’ statements have helped muddy the actual story, leaving not just a false impression of Beck’s own involvement. Beck cuts out the context that Mrs. Sherrod’s remarks were placed in – namely, to show the NAACP audience’s reaction to Sherrod’s initial admission to not helping the white farmer. By dropping this essential detail, Beck helped promote the idea that Breitbart had launched an out-of-context personal attack on Sherrod.

Here’s an actual timeline showing how things really went down. On July 19, 2010 Breitbart published the initial blog post, which was focused primarily on a running dispute on racism and the Tea Party that Breitbart was engaged in with the NAACP. In fact, Breitbart mentions the NAACP by name 17 times in the piece while only using Sherrod’s name 4 times.

Beck’s July 19th TV show didn’t mention the story because the show wasn’t news driven, but instead focused largely on Beck’s upcoming 8/28 event.

The first time Beck mentioned Sherrod was on three segments of his radio show on July 20th. By this time, Sherrod had been forced to resign by the White House.

July 20, 2010 – Morning : Radio Show

Here are ‘the missing tapes’ that Glenn Beck doesn’t want you to hear.

Most of Beck’s impact comes from his TV platform, so his radio show comments flew under the radar. On the radio, Beck sliced and diced Breitbart’s two and a half minute video clip down to shorter sound bites. Beck focusing solely on Sherrod and dropping the NAACP angle that Breitbart had focused on. Beck’s radio show also edited out the section (that Breitbart had included) where Sherrod discusses it not ‘being all about race, but about rich and poor’.

At no point during Beck’s radio show does he do anything that could possibly be construed as defending Shirley Sherrod. Nor does he say anything about waiting to hear her side or waiting to see if more of the video will be released. In fact, at the end of the show Beck taunts Sherrod and says she will be the focus of his TV show that night.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the Fox News building.

In the last hour of Beck’s radio show, news breaks on CNN – apparently unknown to Beck, although I’ve since learned that there’s a ‘fourth hour’ of Beck available to private subscribers. I’ve been told that Sherrod was mentioned but I have not heard this personally.

(The following times are from Media Matter’s flawed but occasionally useful timeline.)

11:20 a.m.: On CNN Newsroom, farmer’s wife calls Sherrod a “friend” who “helped us save our farm.”

July 20, 2010 – Between Radio & TV Shows

Then Beck’s radio show finishes…and more of the story breaks in rapid succession.

• 1:03 p.m.: Video producer confirmed that “the full speech is exactly as Sherrod described … she goes on to explain learning the error of her initial impression.
• 1:36 p.m.: HotAir’s Morrissey reports that edited video was “the entirety of the speech [Breitbart] had in his possession.
• 3:58 p.m.: Breitbart confirms in a TPMMuckracker interview that he never had the full video of Sherrod’s remarks.
• 4 p.m.: Rick Sanchez devotes an entire hour of his show to the accusations against Sherrod

This all obviously changed the story from the way it was initially reported. And Andrew Breitbart was showing no signs that he was trying to hide anything. He said in that TPM interview…

Breitbart said he’ll post the full video, if he can get permission from the video production company who filmed it for a local NAACP chapter. He also maintained that he didn’t edit the clip and that it was sent to him already edited.

July 20, 2010 – Evening : Beck TV Show

And suddenly, Beck’s editorial focus and tone about Sherrod changes radically. What you see below is a blatant bait and switch that makes no mention of his clip-job radio show attack on Shirley Sherrod. Rather than use his show to get his viewers up to speed on the developments, he switches into full Beck egomaniac mode and desperately tries to make himself out as the real victim.

In part 2, he says…

“They are trying to make me into the bully.

I mean, she seems like a nice woman.”

But you’ll also note that at no point does Beck mention the wider context of Breitbart’s post. Instead, Beck makes the story all about his own victimhood. Beck lied to cover his tracks and spun out the narrative out in a dishonest direction that benefited no one but Beck himself.

And of course Beck has never had Breitbart on either his radio or TV show since this incident.

Later in the week…

Beck describes himself as ‘a prince of peace’.

In fact, watch at 2:40 – Beck tells O’Reilly a complete whopper where he claims that he ‘sat in his office’ and realized ‘something isn’t right with this’’ – then go listen to his radio show from the 19th. Beck is trying to take credit for getting the story right from the beginning, when he was clearly going after Sherrod on the radio.

At 4:20 or so, he also claims his initial reaction was to support her.

In this video by a Beck hater, Beck goes all in with his lie about deciding not to go after Sherrod and seems to imply that God told him not to go after Sherrod. Apparently, God doesn’t listen to Beck’s radio show, either.

The truth has no agenda. Glenn Beck does.

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.”

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.

The Pigford class-action lawsuit (named for Timothy Pigford, a black farmer from North Carolina who was an original plaintiff) alleged that local offices of the U.S. Department of Agriculture practiced widespread discrimination against black farmers when awarding loans and other aid.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack last month defended the settlement on CBSNews.com’s “Washington Unplugged”, disputing suggestions that the suit is “full of fraud.” Of the 17,000 or 18,000 cases that were adjudicated in the first Pigford settlement, only three were found to be marginally questionable, Vilsack said.

Full article here.

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.”

I can state with absolute certainty that the verbal pitch to me to participate was punctuated by the opportunity to appear as part of ABC News’ broadcast television for the night.  I was also aware that the majority of my participation – seven long hours – would be online.

Here is the email from ABC confirming their invitation for me to participate in their online and network broadcast election night coverage:

Andrew,

So great speaking with you, and I cannot thank you enough for joining us in Arizona on election night. We truly appreciate it.

NY is booking your travel right now, and want to make sure your name on your ID reads “Andrew Breitbart”.

I really look forward to meeting you, and would love to take you out to lunch or dinner before our election coverage.

See below about ABC New’s coverage on election night.

Cheers, and will see you soon.

XXXX

XXXX XXXX

Producer

ABC News

ABC News is conducting a live event from Phoenix, Arizona for our election night special on Tuesday, November 2nd 2010. I am looking for political figures and newsmakers to appear in our Town Hall style panel.

ABC News is providing live coverage of the midterm elections hosted by Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos in New York, and correspondents across the country.

ABC News has partnered with Facebook and The Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University to live stream the entire event on abcnews.com, ABC News Now and Facebook.

The Town Hall is hosted by ABC correspondent David Muir and Randi Zuckerberg from Facebook, as well an ASU student leader.

The audience will consist of 150 students equipped with laptops and Ipads who will participate in online political conversations.

The issues include health care, the economy, immigration, terrorism, and the environment. We will have panelists who will contribute to these conversations remotely from Washington, DC, New York, NY and Los Angeles, CA.

This program will broadcast on the ABC Television Network, abcnews.com, ABC News Now, and ABC News Radio.

The show will be live on the web and ABC News Now as well as on the network from 4:00pm till 11:00pm MST.

We would love for you to be a part of our program, and please let us know what we can do to accommodate your needs.

I am booking the guests for the event and will be in Phoenix starting Thursday, October 28th.

Feel free to email me back or call me at the following number with any questions.

Thanks so much,

XXXX XXXX

Producer

ABC News

In addition to the two times that an ABC News producer confirms in the email that I will be part of ABC News’ network broadcast, David Ford of ABC News confirmed to Media Matters that I “will be one of many voices on our air” on election night.

I was promised no specific amount of airtime, nor payment for my analysis, but was told that I would be a part of the broadcast coverage in addition to participating in the online event, as the email above clearly reveals.

And, clearly, I was being asked to give analysis – or, was ABC News paying for me to fly to Arizona and to foot my hotel bill so that I could perform avant-garde interpretative dance?

Apparently, a Daily Kos blogger has also been asked to participate. Daily Kos, as many of you may know, has been widely discredited for spreading malicious falsehoods and political extremism. It’s creator Markos Moulitsas is currently promoting his book, whose title says it all: American Taliban: How War, Sex, Sin and Power Bind Jihadists and the Radical Right.

I do not ask that the Daily Kos bloggernot get air-time. To the contrary, I have a long history of trying to bring as many voices to the fore as humanly possible. One need look no further than my creating the Huffington Post – a project that’s underlying politics I never embraced – with Arianna Huffington and Ken Lerer in 2005.

During its creation I explained to many bewildered observers: “Bringing my former boss and longtime friend Arianna’s intriguing friends to the blogosphere, the ultimate level playing field, makes perfect sense to me, and I am thrilled to be committed to such a groundbreaking project. Will my pals on the right have a place to offer their two cents at the Huffington Post? Absolutely. Will I agree with everyone’s written word? Of course not. But that’s precisely the point. May the best ideas win.”

This is not really about “me.”   This is about a full-fledged assault on the 1^st Amendment and free speech.  It is an unabashed attempt to win by intimidating a news organization for daring to have a dissenting voice on its broadcast. The same forces just prevailed against Juan Williams, and Erick Erickson’s CNN gig was met with the same anti-free speech, anti-opposing viewpoints full-court press from the institutional left. Again, it’s what they do.

The Internet is the revolution of our time and new media has benefited democracy by expanding the number of people who can influence the political process. My Big sites (Big Government, Big Hollywood, Big Peace, and Big Journalism) have expanded the voice and power of the center-right, and in particular, the Tea Party movement.

As is evidenced by George Soros’s $1 million dollar re-investment in Media Matters, which led the harassment campaign to silence center-left commentator Juan Williams, the political left is doubling down on its “silence your critics” strategy.

I am no stranger to this particular kind of tactic. In fact, my business has been built on the premise of fighting it. Boo, George Soros! Bring it on, John Podesta!

Is this trend of silencing dissenting voices not wholly obvious even to the untrained eye?

I created Big Hollywood for my conservative friends in liberal Hollywood to fight back against this most un-American practice. We are making up for a lot of lost ground in a very short period of time. That is why more and more voices are starting to express themselves and there are more bodies coming out of the closet. These victories motivate me to keep the pressure on.

On Sunday Big Journalism broke the troubling KTVA (Anchorage) voicemail story that showed reporters and producers plotting how to smear GOP candidate Joe Miller. The real story here is that the Big sites have broken huge stories that have affected this election cycle, including ones that show an unhealthy collusion between the political left and America’s major newsrooms. Perhaps on election eve, as I prepare to head to Phoenix to participate — one way or another — in ABC News’s coverage, it’s no surprise that we are ending this news cycle with a clash on this bitterly contested front.

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.”

De-labeling Avastin will deny the drug to cancer patients in need because Medicare and private insurers will no longer cover its costs.  The rich — the people who fund Think Progress — will be allowed the buy the drug if they need it.  But you and I won’t be able to afford the cost.

Welcome to the future.  The government will create subjective standards to determine whether life extending drugs will be covered not based on their safety but based on their cost.  But don’t worry, the shills in the media and liberal blogosphere will be there convince you that its being done for a much more noble reason.