Socialism/Communism
The Era of Health Care Rationing Begins
Posted on September 22, 2010. Filed under: Healthcare, Obama, Socialism/Communism |
And so it begins….as we knew it would.
The Era Of Health Care Rationing Begins
By SALLY C. PIPES
Supporters of health reform said it would never happen. Maybe they got caught up in their own rhetoric. Maybe they just didn’t want to believe it was possible. But rationing in America has started.
This week, the Food and Drug Administration is expected to revoke approval of the drug Avastin for the treatment of advanced breast cancer. Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter has described the anticipated move as “the beginning of a slippery slope leading to more and more rationing under the government takeover of health care.”
It seems that even loyal Democrats have noticed the Obama administration’s not-so-subtle policy shift toward rationing. According to Politico, many of the 34 House Democrats who voted against the health reform bill are aggressively touting their “no” votes in campaign ads.
The FDA claims its decision won’t be based on cost, but Avastin isn’t cheap — a full regimen costs about $100,000 a year.
Jean Grem of the FDA’s Oncology Drug Advisory Committee was cited in the Wall Street Journal explaining why she voted to deprive breast-cancer patients of Avastin: “We aren’t supposed to talk about cost, but that’s another issue.”
Two years ago, the FDA approved Avastin for breast cancer on the condition that further research would show the drug extended life expectancy. Everyone expected the drug to maintain its approval. Avastin has proven to be a wonder drug for countless women with stage IV breast cancer, slowing the disease’s progression and dramatically extending life.
But when no significant increase in “overall survivability” was reported this summer, an FDA advisory panel recommended that Avastin’s approval be withdrawn. Top FDA officials must decide by Friday whether they will accept or reject the panel’s counsel.
No cancer drug has ever been taken off the market based solely on “overall survivability.” Traditionally, calculations of a drug’s effectiveness have been based on tumor response and progression-free survival rates.
Here, Avastin is a miracle drug. In the manufacturer’s critical phase III study, tumors shrank in nearly 50% of patients receiving the medicine. Patients who received Avastin in conjunction with chemotherapy lived nearly twice as long as would otherwise be expected without their disease worsening.
For some patients — known as “super-responders” — an Avastin regime translates into years of additional life.
If the FDA strips Avastin of its approval, it’s likely that private insurers and Medicare would stop covering the medicine, effectively removing Avastin from the anti-breast cancer arsenal.
Government rationing doesn’t stop at Avastin.
Medicare coverage for Provenge, a drug for advanced prostate cancer, is also in jeopardy. Like Avastin, Provenge is expensive. Created using a patient’s own white blood cells, the drug costs $93,000. The FDA has already approved Provenge as safe and effective, yet Medicare officials are currently deciding whether it will pay for the medicine.
If officials decide Provenge isn’t worth covering, it will mark the first time Medicare has refused to pay for an FDA-approved anti-cancer drug.
The outrage over the administration’s campaign against expensive but effective drugs has not been muted. Major cancer advocacy groups like Susan G. Komen for the Cure and the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance have come out in strong support of both Avastin and Provenge.
It’s terrifying to think that distant, faceless bureaucrats are now making Americans’ health care decisions. Welcome to Obama-Care.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )Why the Right Fears Transforming America – and the Left Seeks It
Posted on September 11, 2010. Filed under: America is Awesome!, Conservatives, Liberal Idiots, Politics, Socialism/Communism |
What a great article!!
Why the Right Fears Transforming America — and the Left Seeks It
Dennis Prager
The giveaway regarding presidential candidate Barack Obama’s plans for America was his repeated use of the words “fundamentally transform.”
Some of us instinctively reacted negatively — in fact, with horror — at the thought of fundamentally transforming America.
The “us” are conservatives.
One unbridgeable divide between left and right is how each views alternatives to present-day America.
LIBERAL VIEW:
Those on the left imagine an ideal society that has never existed, and therefore seek to “fundamentally transform” America. When liberals imagine an America fundamentally transformed, they envision it becoming a nearly utopian society in which there is no greed, no racism, no sexism, no inequality, no poverty and ultimately no unhappiness.
CONSERVATIVE VIEW:
Conservatives, on the other hand, look around at other societies and history and are certain that if America were fundamentally transformed, it would become just like those other societies. America would become a society of far less liberty, of ethically and morally inferior citizens and of much more unhappiness. And cruelty would increase exponentially around the world.
Conservatives believe that America is an aberration in human history; that, with all the problems that a society made up of flawed human beings will inevitably have, America has been and remains a uniquely decent society. Therefore, conservatives worry that fundamentally transforming America — making America less exceptional — will mean that America gets much worse.
Liberals worry over the opposite possibility — that America will remain more or less as it is.
Two famous statements encapsulate the operative liberal worldview.
The first was attributed to Robert F. Kennedy by his brother Sen. Edward M. Kennedy:
“There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask, ‘Why?’ I dream of things that never were, and ask, ‘Why not?'”
The other is one of the most popular songs of the last 50 years, John Lennon’s “Imagine”:
“Imagine there’s no heaven. It’s easy if you try. No hell below us, above us only sky. Imagine all the people, living for today.
“Imagine there’s no countries. It isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion, too, Imagine all the people, living life in peace.
“You may say that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will be as one.
“Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can. No need for greed or hunger, a brotherhood of man. Imagine all the people, sharing all the world.
“You may say that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will live as one.”
Regarding the Kennedy quote, a conservative would respond something like this:
We conservatives look at America and ask, how did something so decent, so different from other societies, ever get created and last over 200 years? Of course, we always seek to improve it. But more than anything else, we seek to preserve it and its core values. We do not “dream of things that never were.” We dream the same dream as our American forefathers did — to maintain a society committed to the values of E Pluribus Unum, Liberty and In God We Trust. As for utopian dreams, we believe they are more likely to result in nightmares — horrors that would engulf America and the world if America were to be transformed.
To Lennon’s song, a conservative would respond:
Lennon’s utopia is our dystopia. A world without God to give people some certitude that all their suffering is not meaningless is a nightmare. A world without religion means a world without any systematic way of ennobling people. A world without countries is a world without the United States of America, and it is a world governed by the morally imbecilic United Nations, where mass murderers sit on its “human rights” councils. A world without heaven or hell is a world without any ultimate justice, where torturers and their victims have identical fates — oblivion. A world without possessions is a world in which some enormous state possesses everything, and the individual is reduced to the status of a serf.
Liberals frequently criticize conservatives for fearing change. That is not correct. We fear transforming that which is already good. The moral record of humanity does not fill us with optimism about “fundamentally transforming” something as rare as America. Evil is normal. America is not.
The Stunning Decline of Barack Obama: 10 Key Reasons Why the Obama Presidency is in Meltdown
Posted on August 22, 2010. Filed under: Obama, Politics, Socialism/Communism |
AMEN!!
The stunning decline of Barack Obama: 10 key reasons why the Obama presidency is in meltdown
By Nile Gardiner World Last updated: August 12th, 2010
The last few weeks have been a nightmare for President Obama, in a summer of discontent in the United States which has deeply unsettled the ruling liberal elites, so much so that even the Left has begun to turn against the White House. While the anti-establishment Tea Party movement has gained significant ground and is now a rising and powerful political force to be reckoned with, many of the president’s own supporters as well as independents are rapidly losing faith in Barack Obama, with open warfare breaking out between the White House and the left-wing of the Democratic Party. While conservatism in America grows stronger by the day, the forces of liberalism are growing increasingly weaker and divided.
Against this backdrop, the president’s approval ratings have been sliding dramatically all summer, with the latest Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll of US voters dropping to minus 22 points, the lowest point so far for Barack Obama since taking office. While just 24 per cent of American voters strongly approve of the president’s job performance, almost twice that number, 46 per cent, strongly disapprove. According to Rasmussen, 65 per cent of voters believe the United States is going down the wrong track, including 70 per cent of independents.
The RealClearPolitics average of polls now has President Obama at over 50 per cent disapproval, a remarkably high figure for a president just 18 months into his first term. Strikingly, the latest USA Today/Gallup survey has the President on just 41 per cent approval, with 53 per cent disapproving.
There are an array of reasons behind the stunning decline and political fall of President Obama, chief among them fears over the current state of the US economy, with widespread concern over high levels of unemployment, the unstable housing market, and above all the towering budget deficit. Americans are increasingly rejecting President Obama’s big government solutions to America’s economic woes, which many fear will lead to the United States sharing the same fate as Greece.
Growing disillusionment with the Obama administration’s handling of the economy as well as health care and immigration has gone hand in hand with mounting unhappiness with the President’s aloof and imperial style of leadership, and a growing perception that he is out of touch with ordinary Americans, especially at a time of significant economic pain. Barack Obama’s striking absence of natural leadership ability (and blatant lack of experience) has played a big part in undermining his credibility with the US public, with his lacklustre handling of the Gulf oil spill coming under particularly intense fire.
On the national security and foreign policy front, President Obama has not fared any better. His leadership on the war in Afghanistan has been confused and at times lacking in conviction, and seemingly dictated by domestic political priorities rather than military and strategic goals. His overall foreign policy has been an appalling mess, with his flawed strategy of engagement of hostile regimes spectacularly backfiring. And as for the War on Terror, his administration has not even acknowledged it is fighting one.
Can it get any worse for President Obama? Undoubtedly yes. Here are 10 key reasons why the Obama presidency is in serious trouble, and why its prospects are unlikely to improve between now and the November mid-terms.
1. The Obama presidency is out of touch with the American people
In a previous post I noted how the Obama presidency increasingly resembles a modern-day Ancien Régime, extravagant, decaying and out of touch with ordinary Americans. The First Lady’s ill-conceived trip to Spain at a time of widespread economic hardship was symbolic of a White House that barely gives a second thought to public opinion on many issues, and frequently projects a distinctly elitist image. The “let them eat cake” approach didn’t play well over two centuries ago, and it won’t succeed today.
2. Most Americans don’t have confidence in the president’s leadership
This deficit of trust in Obama’s leadership is central to his decline. According to a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll, “nearly six in ten voters say they lack faith in the president to make the right decisions for the country”, and two thirds “say they are disillusioned with or angry about the way the federal government is working.” The poll showed that a staggering 58 per cent of Americans say they do not have confidence in the president’s decision-making, with just 42 per cent saying they do.
3. Obama fails to inspire
In contrast to the soaring rhetoric of his 2006 Convention speech in Chicago which succeeded in impressing millions of television viewers at the time, America is no longer inspired by Barack Obama’s flat, monotonous and often dull presidential speeches and statements delivered via teleprompter. From his extraordinarily uninspiring Afghanistan speech at West Point to his flat State of the Union address, President Obama has failed to touch the heart of America. Even Jimmy Carter was more moving.
4. The United States is drowning in debt
The Congressional Budget Office Long-Term Budget Outlook offers a frightening picture of the scale of America’s national debt. Under its alternative fiscal scenario, the CBO projects that US debt could rise to 87 percent of GDP by 2020, 109 percent by 2025, and 185 percent in 2035. While much of Europe, led by Britain and Germany, are aggressively cutting their deficits, the Obama administration is actively growing America’s debt, and has no plan in place to avert a looming Greek-style financial crisis.
5. Obama’s Big Government message is falling flat
The relentless emphasis on bailouts and stimulus spending has done little to spur economic growth or create jobs, but has greatly advanced the power of the federal government in America. This is not an approach that is proving popular with the American public, and even most European governments have long ditched this tax and spend approach to saving their own economies.
6. Obama’s support for socialised health care is a huge political mistake
In an extraordinary act of political Harakiri, President Obama leant his full support to the hugely controversial, unpopular and divisive health care reform bill, with a monstrous price tag of $940 billion, whose repeal is now supported by 55 per cent of likely US voters. As I wrote at the time of its passing, the legislation is “a great leap forward by the United States towards a European-style vision of universal health care, which will only lead to soaring costs, higher taxes, and a surge in red tape for small businesses. This reckless legislation dramatically expands the power of the state over the lives of individuals, and could not be further from the vision of America’s founding fathers.”
7. Obama’s handling of the Gulf oil spill has been weak-kneed and indecisive
While much of the spilled oil in the Gulf has now been thankfully cleared up, the political damage for the White House will be long-lasting. Instead of showing real leadership on the matter by acing decisively and drawing upon offers of international support, the Obama administration settled on a more convenient strategy of relentlessly bashing an Anglo-American company while largely sitting on its hands. Significantly, a poll of Louisiana voters gave George W. Bush higher marks for his handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, with 62 percent disapproving of Obama’s performance on the Gulf oil spill.
8. US foreign policy is an embarrassing mess under the Obama administration
It is hard to think of a single foreign policy success for the Obama administration, but there have been plenty of missteps which have weakened American global power as well as the standing of the United States. The surrender to Moscow on Third Site missile defence, the failure to aggressively stand up to Iran’s nuclear programme, the decision to side with ousted Marxists in Honduras, the slap in the face for Great Britain over the Falklands, have all contributed to the image of a US administration completely out of its depth in international affairs. The Obama administration’s high risk strategy of appeasing America’s enemies while kicking traditional US allies has only succeeded in weakening the United States while strengthening her adversaries.
9. President Obama is muddled and confused on national security
From the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to the War on Terror, President Obama’s leadership has often been muddled and confused. On Afghanistan he rightly sent tens of thousands of additional troops to the battlefield. At the same time however he bizarrely announced a timetable for the withdrawal of US forces beginning in July 2011, handing the initiative to the Taliban. On Iraq he has announced an end to combat operations and the withdrawal of all but 50,000 troops despite a recent upsurge in terrorist violence and political instability, and without the Iraqi military and police ready to take over. In addition he has ditched the concept of a War on Terror, replacing it with an Overseas Contingency Operation, hardly the right message to send in the midst of a long-war against Al-Qaeda.
10. Obama doesn’t believe in American greatness
Barack Obama has made it clear that he doesn’t believe in American exceptionalism, and has made apologising for his country into an art form. In a speech to the United Nations last September he stated that “no one nation can or should try to dominate another nation. No world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed. No balance of power among nations will hold.” It is difficult to see how a US president who holds these views and does not even accept America’s greatness in history can actually lead the world’s only superpower with force and conviction.
There is a distinctly Titanic-like feel to the Obama presidency and it’s not hard to see why. The most left-wing president in modern American history has tried to force a highly interventionist, government-driven agenda that runs counter to the principles of free enterprise, individual freedom, and limited government that have made the United States the greatest power in the world, and the freest nation on earth.
This, combined with weak leadership both at home and abroad against the backdrop of tremendous economic uncertainty in an increasingly dangerous world, has contributed to a spectacular political collapse for a president once thought to be invincible. America at its core remains a deeply conservative nation, which cherishes its traditions and founding principles. President Obama is increasingly out of step with the American people, by advancing policies that undermine the United States as a global power, while undercutting America’s deep-seated love for freedom.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Roseville Galleria Mall’s Rules Deny Free Speech, State Appeals Court Says
Posted on August 14, 2010. Filed under: Culture, Nanny State, Socialism/Communism |
This is where we’re going in this country and if it doesn’t disturb people then we’re in even worse shape than I thought!! I posted an article previously that discussed the pastor mentioned in this article being arrested for sharing his faith with someone in the common area of the mall, so you can go back and check it out if you like. He was talking with someone who WANTED to talk with him and yet he was still arrested. This should be a national story and folks should be outraged!!! I will NEVER go to this mall again!!
Roseville Galleria’s Rules Deny Free Speech, State Appeals Court Says
Owners of the Westfield Galleria at Roseville didn’t want strangers talking to each other if they weren’t talking about the mall.
They even had rules to enforce that behavior, but a state appellate court has starkly declared that the mall’s attempt to regulate conversation is unconstitutional.
A three-judge panel of the 3rd District Court of Appeal said Wednesday in a 43-page opinion that the company’s rules of conduct “are unconstitutional on their face” under the California Constitution’s free speech guarantee.
The specific rule at issue prohibits a person in the center’s common areas from “approaching patrons with whom he or she was not previously acquainted for the purpose of communicating with them on a topic unrelated to the business interests” of the mall or its tenants.
The case arose out of the mall’s “citizen’s arrest” of a 27-year-old pastor, who had gone to the shopping center to talk to others about his faith.
The appellate court’s opinion dealt one way or another with possible conversations that the rules would prohibit:
Weather is a no-no, unless one is intuitive enough to observe how it may be affecting the size of the crowd at the mall. Teenagers who use the common areas for social gatherings, not necessarily limited to contemporaries they already know, are out of luck. Should someone stop you and ask directions to Sutter-Roseville Medical Center, you would be well advised to blow them off, lest your humanitarian instincts lead you astray.
Another rule requires written applications for permission to make such contacts “to be submitted to the mall’s security office four days in advance. Mall management will review the application to determine if the proposed activity is permissible.”
Writing on behalf of the unanimous appellate panel, Associate Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye concluded “the rules allow conversation between strangers on matters related to the Galleria … while prohibiting peaceful, consensual, spontaneous conversations between strangers in common areas of the mall on topics unrelated to the … mall.”
The rules also provide that an application may only be for proposed conversation between two persons, thus prohibiting altogether talk among more than two unacquainted persons on subjects other than the Galleria, she noted.
Westfield spokeswoman Katy Dickey said in a prepared statement: “We are disappointed that the court … determined that the rules in question did not satisfy the required legal standard for reasonable time, place and manner restrictions. We are reviewing the court’s decision and will consider our options … including appeal to the California Supreme Court.”
Matthew McReynolds, an attorney for Matthew Snatchko, the youth pastor who challenged the rules, hailed the decision as “a huge victory for free speech and common sense. The opinion is a great credit to Justice Cantil-Sakauye – very thorough, well thought-out.”
Acting Presiding Justice Ronald B. Robie and Associate Justice M. Kathleen Butz joined in the opinion.
The panel reversed Placer Superior Court Judge Larry D. Gaddis’ ruling in favor of Westfield LLC and sent the case back to him for further proceedings.
Hoping for opportunities to share his Christian faith, Snatchko, a Roseville resident, often went to the Galleria, the largest shopping mall in Northern California. While in a common area one evening, he approached three young women who agreed to talk with him on subjects that included principles of his faith.
A store employee called security and an officer responded and told Snatchko to stop talking to the women or leave the mall. When he refused, the officer called for backup and a senior security officer responded and ordered Snatchko out. He again refused, and found himself under “citizen’s arrest,” handcuffed and turned over to Roseville police.
He was booked and released, and when he appeared in court for arraignment, all charges were dropped. The Placer County District Attorney’s Office agreed that Snatchko was “factually innocent,” and a Superior Court judge took the unusual step of a formal finding of factual innocence.
Snatchko sued Westfield, Professional Security Consultants, the security firm employed at the Galleria, and Richard Flores, the officer who made the arrest. He seeks money damages in an unspecified amount for false imprisonment, assault, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, malicious prosecution, and a general violation of his rights under California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act.
Westfield defended the rules several ways, arguing that they:
• “Protect our tenants and the thousands of customers at the mall each day by ensuring a safe and secure shopping, dining and entertainment environment while recognizing the requirements of California law.”
• Promote safety “through the avoidance of fire code violations and the disruption and congestion that could result from unregulated expressive activities.”
• Promote “the convenience of mall patrons.”
But the justices didn’t buy any of those rationales.
The opinion quotes from the deposition of Gavin Farnam, the senior general manager of the Galleria.
“If you’re going to talk about any other subject (other than the mall) … then you’re prohibited from going up to strangers and speaking to them, is that correct?” he was asked by a Snatchko attorney.
“That’s not correct,” Farnam testified. “It doesn’t prohibit you. It just means you have to come in and fill out the application for third-party access for noncommercial” speech.
What if, the attorney postulated, he is excited about the Super Bowl and says to a stranger, “Hey, hope you’re supporting the Patriots,” or “Hope you’re supporting the Giants this week.” Would that violate the rules? he asked.
“You can go in and again fill out a third-party access, if that’s what a person chooses to do,” said Farnam.
LINK: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/08/14/2958400/roseville-gallerias-rules-deny.html#mi_rss=Our%20Region
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Private Enterprise Does it Better
Posted on August 11, 2010. Filed under: Socialism/Communism |
Great article! Why is it that so many people don’t understand this simple concept???
Private Enterprise Does It Better
John Stossel
In “Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity,” I bet my readers $1,000 that they couldn’t name one thing that government does better than the private sector.
I am yet to pay.
Free enterprise does everything better.
Why? Because if private companies don’t do things efficiently, they lose money and die. Unlike government, they cannot compel payment through the power to tax.
Even when a private company operates a public facility under contract to government, it must perform. If it doesn’t, it will be “fired” — its contract won’t be renewed. Government is never fired.
Contracting out to private enterprise isn’t the same thing as letting fully competitive free markets operate, but it still works better than government.
Roads are one example. Politicians call road management a “public good” that “government must control.” Nonsense.
In 1995, a private road company added two lanes in the middle of California Highway 91, right where the median strip used to be. It then used “congestion pricing” to let some drivers pay to speed past rush-hour traffic. Using the principles of supply and demand, road operators charge higher tolls at times of day when demand is high. That encourages those who are most in a hurry to pay for what they need. It was the first time anywhere in the world that congestion pricing was used. Bureaucrats were skeptical. Now congestion pricing is a hot idea for both private and public road management systems.
Likewise, for years there was a gap in the ring road surrounding Paris that created huge traffic problems. Then private developers made an unsolicited proposal to build a $2 billion toll tunnel in exchange for a 70-year lease to run it. They built a double-decker tunnel that fits six lanes of traffic in the space usually required for just two. The tunnel’s profit-seeking owners have an incentive to keep traffic moving. They collect tolls based on congestion pricing, and tolls are collected electronically, so cars don’t have to stop. The tunnel operators clear accidents quickly. Most are detected within 10 seconds — thanks to 350 cameras inside the tunnel. The private road has cut a 45-minute trip to 10 minutes.
Indiana used to lose money on its toll road. Then Gov. Mitch Daniels leased it to private developers. Now it makes a profit. The new owners spent $40 million on electronic tolling. That’s saved them 55 percent on toll collection. They saved $20 per mile by switching to a better de-icing fluid. They bought a new fleet of computerized snowplows that clear roads using less salt. Drivers win, and taxpayers win.
It also turns out that government roads often run more smoothly when drivers have more, not less, freedom.
This sounds paradoxical. Politicians often sneer at libertarians, saying, “You want to get rid of traffic lights?!” Well, yes, actually. In some cases, traffic moves better and more safely when government removes traffic lights, stop signs, even curbs.
It’s Friedrich Hayek’s “spontaneous” order in action: Instead of sitting at a mechanized light waiting to be told when to go, drivers meet in an intersection and negotiate their way through by making eye contact and gesturing. The secret is that drivers must pay attention to their surroundings — to pedestrians and other cars — rather than just to signs and signals. It demonstrates the “Peltzman Effect” (named after retired University of Chicago economist Sam Peltzman): People tend to behave more recklessly when their sense of safety is increased. By removing signs, lights and barriers, drivers feel less safe, so they drive more carefully. They pay more attention.
In Drachten, Holland, lights and signs were removed from an intersection handling about 30,000 cars a day. Average waiting times dropped from 50 seconds to less than 30 seconds. Accidents dropped from an average of eight per year to just one.
On Kensington High Street in London, after pedestrian railing and other traffic markers were removed, accidents dropped by 44 percent.
“What these signs are doing is treating the driver as if they were an idiot,” says traffic architect Ben Hamilton-Baillie. “If you do so, drivers exhibit no intelligence.”
Once again, freedom and responsibility triumph.
LINK: http://townhall.com/columnists/JohnStossel/2010/08/04/private_enterprise_does_it_better
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Jack Cafferty Rips the Bureaucratic ‘Obama-nation’ Created by ObamaCare
Posted on August 11, 2010. Filed under: Healthcare, Nanny State, Obama, Obama Corruption, Socialism/Communism |
Maybe some folks will finally start seeing what we’ve seen all along – Obama is a liar and his policies are bad for America.
Jack Cafferty Rips the Bureaucratic ‘Obama-nation’ Created by ObamaCare
newsbusters.org
By Matthew Balan
Tue, 08/03/2010 –
Excerpt:
On Tuesday’s Situation Room, CNN’s Jack Cafferty used the term “Obama-nation,” a pun on the word “abomination,” which is used on many conservative blogs, to slam the “sprawling bureaucratic giant…that seems to be the result of President Obama’s new health care law.” Cafferty admitted during his commentary that ObamaCare is “shaping up to be exactly what the critics were afraid it would be.”
The CNN commentator devoted his regular Cafferty File segment 12 minutes into the 6 pm Eastern hour to the recent report from the Congressional Research Service that, as Cafferty put it, “says it’s ‘impossible’ to estimate the number of agencies, boards, and commissions that will be created by this new law.” Cafferty explained that the report “points to many reasons for this. First off, the parts of the law that create these new bodies vary drastically. In some cases, the law gives a lot of details- in other cases, barely a mention.”
Later, the CNN personality cited one provision in the ObamaCare law which “requires six separate agencies- six- within Health and Human Services to each establish an Office of Minority Health- six!” After listing two delays in getting new bureaucracies set up, he continued that there were “questions about the ability of Congress to carry out oversight of this sprawling mess.”
At the end of the segment, Cafferty asked his usual “Question of the Hour” of his viewers: “How’s the government going to manage our health care if it’s impossible to know the number of agencies, boards, and commissions that are created by the new health care law?” He even got one minor dig at his nemesis on the right, Sarah Palin. He asked anchor Wolf Blitzer what he thought of his use of the “Obama-nation” term. When Blitzer replied he hadn’t heard of it before, Cafferty quipped, “Me and Sarah Palin- we make up these words.”
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Obama’s National Service and Slavery
Posted on August 11, 2010. Filed under: Obama, Obama Corruption, Socialism/Communism |
Things keep getting scarier and scarier. We need to make a stand before we become Obama’s slaves!
National Service And Slavery
BY BRADLEY HARRINGTON
FOR THE BULLETIN
SATURDAY, JULY 31, 2010
“Those who want slavery should have the grace to name it by its proper name. They must face the full meaning of that which they are advocating or condoning; the full, exact, specific meaning of collectivism, of its logical implications, of the principles upon which it is based, and of the ultimate consequences to which these principles will lead.” – Ayn Rand, “Anthem”
As of last week, Charles Rangel, D-New York, has introduced a bill, H.R. 5741, the “Universal National Service Act,” into Congress – and the provisions and implications of this bill are drastic and far-reaching indeed:
“To require all persons in the United States between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform national service, either as a member of the uniformed services or in civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, to authorize the induction of persons in the uniformed services during wartime to meet end-strength requirements of the uniformed services, and for other purposes.”
Normally, when discussing news, I quote the relevant news story along with publication source and date as a means of documenting the event’s occurrence. In this case, however, I am unable to do so, because there aren’t any.
That’s right: a Google search as of this writing on Google’s “News” section for H.R. 5741 yields zero news results. Nada. The null set. So, if you were thinking that it’s the task of our news media to provide critical information to us mere citizens – and that they’re performing this task – you’d better think again.
The full text of H.R. 5741 quoted above, however, can be found on the Library of Congress’ Web site, (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.5741:) – and this bill represents nothing less than the re-introduction of slavery into the United States of America.
It matters not whether an individual is enslaved on a Southern plantation two centuries ago or in the clutches of enforced “national service” today, nor on whether an individual is enslaved by a private citizen or by their government. None of these instances differentiate and isolate the essential characteristic of slavery: using force to eliminate free will.
A free man does what he wants to do; a slave does what someone else tells him to do. If the idea of “national service” does not represent slavery and involuntary servitude, then nothing qualifies as such and nothing ever will.
The military draft, “national service” and all other forms of slavery are vicious and immoral because they violate man’s most fundamental right: his right to life.
Since life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action, the “right to life” can only mean the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action, which means: the right of a man to choose his own goals and interests, to do what he wants to do and not what some sanctimonious slaver in Washington tells him what to do.
And who, in this particular case, is the slaver? Who would have the legal power to determine those unstated “other purposes?” In Section 102, we find that “The national service obligation under this title shall be performed…as determined by the President…”
And, in Section 103, we find that “The President shall provide for the induction of persons described in Section 102…” And the grounds for acting on these inductions? “(1) A declaration of war is in effect,” or “(2) The President declares a national emergency…” (All italics mine.)
So: Our own president serves as the Head Slaver, with the rest of his executive-branch as the means of implementing our “obligations.” And the time-period of our enslavement? That’s the business of Section 104, which states that “…The period of national service performed by a person under this title shall be two years.”
Conclusion: If this bill passes, our freedoms are gone. Not “dwindling,” not “disappearing,” not “under threat” – but gone. For there will be nothing else left to protect. Any other freedoms that we might (temporarily) continue to experience and enjoy will be done so solely at the discretion of our Head Slaver President.
As such, any passage of this bill will merit the beginning salvos of the Second American Revolution: It’ll be time, at that time, for the citizen-serfs of the United States to rise up and remove these slavers from power, to “alter and abolish” their tyrannical despotism and to restore sound and proper Constitutional government as needed. Better buy weapons while you still can.
Or, will you like your new status as a SLAVE?
LINK: http://www.thebulletin.us/articles/2010/07/31/commentary/op-eds/doc4c543af98d238760898909.txt
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )National Health Service: It’s Coming to America
Posted on August 1, 2010. Filed under: Healthcare, Obama, Politics, Socialism/Communism |
I guess I’ll just keep posting this stuff to remind those who just don’t get it, that we are headed towards disaster with Obamacare!!! We have to get it repealed!
National Health Service: It’s Coming to America
Cal Thomas
PORTSTEWART, Northern Ireland — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told a group of liberal activists meeting in Las Vegas they shouldn’t worry about not getting the single-payer provision in the new health care law. “We’re going to have a public option,” Reid said. “It’s just a question of when.”
Remember the objections conservatives and many Republicans raised during the debate about government-run health care and the danger of eliminating private health insurance, despite its many flaws? Recall that Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) was frequently cited as an example of where the U.S. health system might be headed: coverage for all, but with lower quality, long waits for major surgery and denial of care when the government decides the procedure is not “cost effective”.
Anyone who believes a U.S. health care system based on the NHS model can somehow fare better than Britain’s had better consider this recent headline and story from London’s Sunday Telegraph: “Axe Falls on NHS Services; Hip operations, cataract surgery and IVF rationed; Cancer care, maternity, pediatric services at risk.”
Rationing? Oh yes, and it is something the unconfirmed, recess-appointed U.S. health care czar, Donald Berwick, strongly favors.
British government leaders had promised to protect frontline services. The Obama administration also made similar promises in order to win enough support from members of Congress, most of whom never read the bill before they voted for it.
Here’s what America can look forward to if it follows the NHS model, according to an investigation by the Sunday Telegraph: “Plans to cut hundreds of thousands of pounds from budgets for the terminally ill, with dying cancer patients to be told to manage their own symptoms if their condition worsens at evenings or weekends.” Never has “take two aspirin and call me in the morning” sounded more callous.
Nursing homes for the elderly would be closed, the number of hospital beds for the mentally ill reduced and general practitioners would be discouraged from sending patients to hospitals. Accident and emergency department services would also be cut.
Thousands of jobs would be lost at NHS hospitals, reports the Telegraph, “including 500 staff to go at a trust where cancer patients recently suffered delays in diagnosis and treatment because of staff shortages.” Katherine Murphy of the Patients Association called the cuts “astonishingly brutal.” She expressed particular concern at attempts to ration (that word again) hip and knee operations. “These are not unusual procedures,” she said. “This is a really blatant attempt to save money by leaving people in pain.
What do politicians care about that? In Britain, as in America, top officials (including Berwick who has lifetime health coverage given to him by the Institute for Health Care Improvement) will always have access to the best care, even while they decide the rest of us cannot.
This paragraph in the Telegraph story should send chills down the spine of every American: “Doctors across the country have already been told that their patients can have the operations only if they are given ‘prior approval’ by the Primary Care Trust, with each authorization made on a ‘case by case’ basis.”
When cost, rather than the value of life becomes supreme, rationing will inevitably lead to other cost-cutting policies. And yes, despite protestations from those who favored Obamacare that “death panels” would not be part of the equation, you can count on them. They will, of course, be called something else. We wouldn’t want to disturb any remaining moral sensibilities we might have.
It has taken the NHS 62 years to get to this point. America’s journey should be a lot shorter given the declared goals of Harry Reid and Donald Berwick.
It is more than ironic that this is taking place in the year when Britain is observing the centenary of the revered nurse Florence Nightingale. Given the prevailing attitude toward the value of human life and its care, her replacement might be the likes of Dr. Jack Kevorkian. Hemlock, anyone?
LINK: http://townhall.com/columnists/CalThomas/2010/07/29/national_health_service_its_coming_to_america
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Is Barack Obama the Ultimate Sleeper Agent?
Posted on July 7, 2010. Filed under: Obama, Obama Corruption, Politics, Socialism/Communism |
There is too much about Obama that we don’t know. I’m still amazed that there were enough idiots in this country to get him elected!
Is Barack Obama the Ultimate Sleeper Agent?
Alan Caruba
Not far from where I live in New Jersey, in Montclair, Richard and Cynthia Murphy were arrested as Russian sleeper agents, allegedly in the employ of the SVR, the successor to the famed Soviet KGB intelligence services that waged a covert war throughout the Cold War.
Much of the media attention was focused on a beautiful redhead, Anna Chapman, a Manhattan socialite who was charged as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, but largely unnoted was Mihail Semenko, a 28-year-old Seton Hall University graduate. I live in the same community where the university is located.
In all, ten people were arrested by the FBI, suspected of carrying out long-term “deep cover” assignments in the U.S. for Russia.
The ultimate “deep cover” agent, however, may well be Barack Obama.
My friend, Henry Lamb, writing on October 8, 2007 at Canada Free Press.com, said, “It is getting increasingly difficult to distinguish between the agenda of the Democratic Party and the agenda of the Communist Party.” He quoted Joelle Fishman, chairman of the Communist Party USA Political Action Committee and chairman of the Connecticut Communist Party.
“Our Party has an important role to play in keep the focus on the fight for a new direction in our country for jobs, healthcare, and an end to the war. This is how the 2008 elections will be won.” Universal healthcare, a major objective of the Obama administration, has since become the law of the land. The emphasis on withdrawal from Iraq and a specific date for withdrawal from Afghanistan has been another objective.”
The campaign team, several of whom now serve as advisers to Obama, was composed of people with deep ties to the “progressive,” i.e., communist movement in America. Valerie Jarrett, a senior advisor, was aware that former Green Czar, Van Jones, had a long history of involvement in Communist Party causes. When this was exposed, he resigned.
Jarrett married into a family with Communist Party involvement. Her father-in-law, Vernon Jarrett, worked closely with Obama mentor and a Communist Party leader, Frank Marshall Davis, who was a member of a number of front groups during the Cold War years. It was Davis whom Obama’s grandparents enlisted to mentor him during his formative years growing up in Hawaii.
Political advisor, David Axelrod, has a long history of working for socialist causes. His mother wrote for a New York City tabloid, PM Magazine that often promoted the Communist Party line. Much of the publication’s funding came from Marshall Field, a leftist millionaire who also funded Saul Alinsky’s training school for community organizers.
Carol Browner, the energy and environmental advisor, was a former director of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Clinton. Significantly, she was a member of the Commission for a Sustainable World Society of the Socialist International until that was revealed and her name was scrubbed from the organization’s website on January 7, 2009. Both she and Todd Stern, the Environment Czar, are strong advocates of Cap-and-Trade legislation.
A litany of high level advisors with strong socialist agendas surrounds the president.
Experts in spy craft are not inclined to regard the arrested agents as a small group to be dismissed as bumblers in the employ of the Russian Federation, the successor to the failed Soviet Union. None, however, have been charged with espionage.
Nina Khrushcheva, the daughter of former Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev, and a professor of international affairs at the New School in Manhattan, said, “We are pretty sure there are some dark forces overseeing Russian security. That’s how we do things. That’s how we used to do things. And people don’t think that it has changed.”
In a memo to the Murphys, their Russian handler reminded them, “You were sent to USA for long-term service trip. Your education, bank accounts, car, house, etc–all these serve one goal: fulfill your main mission, i.e., to search and develop ties in policymaking circles in U.S. and send intel (intelligence reports) to (center).”
Many questions regarding Obama’s past remain hidden. Beyond the issue of whether he is a natural born citizen eligible to hold the office, most of the paper trail concerning his education at Occidental College in Los Angeles, followed by Columbia University and Harvard, and the funding for his tuition, his travel to Pakistan as a youth, and other factors normally made public during a campaign are still kept secret.
In his memoir, “Dreams of my Father,” Obama wrote: “To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors…”
Perhaps most telling is his political rise that began in the Chicago living room of former Weatherman domestic terrorists, William Ayers and his wife, Bernadine Dohrn, who held a fundraiser for his campaign to become a senator in the Illinois legislature. In a book, “Sixties Radicals,” Ayers described himself, saying “I’m a radical, leftist, small ‘c’ communist.”
Obama and Ayers had spent three years together serving on the board of the Woods Fund. Obama’s campaign claim that he knew the Ayerses only because they lived in the same Chicago neighborhood was patently false.
The members of the Russian spy group lived a false life while allegedly serving the interests of their handlers. One can only wonder if Barack Obama’s life has also been devoted to the same communist agenda as the ultimate agent of influence?
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )Frightenening: How Did Communism Become Cool?
Posted on June 26, 2010. Filed under: Socialism/Communism |
Soooooo true. It frightens me that the younger generation has no idea what communism is really about!! Notice the goals of the Communist party below, and how they are meeting every one of those goals.
How Did Communism Become Cool?
Thursday, June 24, 2010
By Glenn Beck
I want to talk to you about communism, but I have to tell you, that sounds like a joke. Three years ago I didn’t even think it was around; I would have mocked someone like me. But don’t fall into that trap. Open your mind and your ears — the country is in trouble.
The best thing to ever happen to communists was the red scare and Joseph McCarthy. We had beaten communism, soundly discrediting it in every sense. People viewed communists as traitors who wanted to destroy America. They crept back into unions — especially teachers’ unions — that coupled with colleges, you now had a situation where communists were starting to be the ones writing and teaching history.
Our children have grown up not knowing what communism is. They didn’t have to go through the emergency attack drills at school. They didn’t grow up hearing about the gulags. They haven’t seen the horror show of millions of mass murders and starving people at the hands of brutal communist dictators.
So now it’s cool to be a communist. T-shirts of Che Guevara are one of the most popular t-shirts around. Che was a racist and mass murderer, yet we have schools banning kids from wearing American flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo. If we’re going to ban shirts, how about the one with the communist killer on it? It’s not offensive because no one looks at the history of what they did.
How else can you explain everything going on today that happens with little or no outrage? Things like the statue of Stalin going up in Virginia? How does that idea not cross someone — anyone’s — desk who said, “This may not be a good idea”? It happens because no one knows who these communists really were anymore. It’s just cool.
Cameron Diaz illustrated this mindset when she visited Peru to do a TV project on Peru and its culture. While touring the country, she carried a purse emblazoned with a red star and the words “Serve the People” printed in Chinese. That was Chairman Mao’s slogan. It was a Maoist insurgency in the 1980s and ’90s that killed 70,000 people in Peru. Not to mention the tens of millions of people Mao killed in China. It’s not so cool when you know history, is it Cameron? But they don’t know.
You’ve got communist teachers in California calling for revolution. The Houston branch of Communist Party USA — a group that’s called for the nationalization of BP — is reaching out to young people through Facebook. And their favorite movie is Michael Moore’s “Capitalism, a Love Story.”
Cindy Sheehan in New Orleans talked about challenging capitalism:
CINDY SHEEHAN, ACTIVIST: Any meaningful discussion of this disaster must challenge the system and structure of capitalism. If we had socialism, where the companies were nationalized and the democratic control of the workers, the clean-up — maybe they would have had an acoustic device on the blowout preventer. Maybe they would have spent an extra half a million dollars to prevent this disaster and we wouldn’t have to be here.
Or, Cindy, maybe like every other socialist or communist country in the history of mankind, we’d already be bankrupt and living in gulags. One of the two — I’ll side with history.
It’s obvious we aren’t paying attention to history any more when the Communist Party had their annual convention broadcast on C-SPAN. Think about that: Half a century ago we were rooting out communists as traitors to the country; now we’re dutifully listening to them on C-SPAN.
How did we get here? We were warned, but we didn’t listen. Former Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson warned about what was coming in a 1966 speech where he talked about a meeting he once had with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev:
FORMER SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE EZRA TAFT BENSON: As we talked face to face, he indicated that my grandchildren would live under communism. After assuring him that I expected to do all in my power to assure that his and all other grandchildren would live under freedom, he arrogantly declared in substance: “You Americans are so gullible. No, you won’t accept communism outright; but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you’ll finally wake up and find that you already have communism. We won’t have to fight you; we’ll so weaken your economy, until you fall like overripe fruit into our hands.”
He knew firsthand what was happening and documents now show that FDR had used the Department of Agriculture as his own communist recruiting station.
Henry Wallace was secretary; he was a progressive supported by the Communist Party USA. He never denounced any communist support he received. FDR and Wallace decided they needed to help farmers, who were in dire financial crisis. Their idea: Artificially raise prices. They slaughtered 6 million pigs, plowed up cotton fields and destroyed other crops. This in the middle of the worst depression we’ve ever had. Is it any wonder socialism and communism end up with people starving to death?
ADD moment: Hugo Chavez is seizing control of the food in Venezuela. And now there’s 80,000 tons of rotting food in warehouses. But pay no attention to that, because communism is cool. This is why we need to know the history or else we’re doomed to repeat it.
There’s the stuff you need to know, on how we got here. But really where are we? Is what these people wanted to do a joke? Have they failed?
What did the Communist Party USA say they wanted to do in 1963? Here’s a few that stand out:
No. 3: Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength
No. 15: Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States
No. 17: Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks
No. 18: Gain control of all student newspapers
No. 19: Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack
No. 20: Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions
No. 21: Gain control of key positions in radio, TV and motion pictures
No. 27: Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion
No. 28: Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state”
No. 29: Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis
No. 30: Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the “common man”
No. 36: Infiltrate and gain control of more unions
No. 37: Infiltrate and gain control of big business
No. 40: Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce
This was the to-do list for the communists in the 1960s. Compare that to the U.S. Constitution — which one are we following?
LINK: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,595263,00.html
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