Democrats Will Reveal How They Want to ‘Pay’ For Healthcare

-By Warner Todd Huston

We may know by the end of the week how the Democrats are claiming they will pay for their healthcare plans. News out of the House of Representatives is that they will introduce their bill on either Thursday or Friday of this week.

In the mean time, on Tuesday a caucus meeting with Energy and Commerce Chair Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) will be held on Tuesday to discuss the funding plans. This will be followed by a brief by House Education and Labor Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.) while Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) will speak on Friday. Rangel is last because his committee is in charge of finding the tax increases that will pay for the plan.

Democrats also say that the “public option” will be a prominent feature of their bill and will be similar to the current Medicare system.

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Democrats Will Reveal How They Want to ‘Pay’ For Healthcare”


Stealth Wealth Redistribution

-By Dan Scott

A number of warnings have gone out about the printing of money. The Federal Reserve has been injecting money into the economy by buying US Treasuries in an attempt to keep down interest rates. Their efforts thus far are beginning to fail as bond rates are starting to climb. As we all know, the US Treasury has been forced to issue ever increasing amounts of bonds to finance Congress’s irresponsible spending. The chilling part is the bulk of the Stimulus money has yet to be spent meaning the US Treasury will have to significantly ramp up its bond sales to finance government operations. That on top of the trillion dollar budget deficit this year, next year and years to come.

Given the massive amounts of debt issuance, one must wonder if we are about to become another Zimbabwe experiencing hyperinflation. While the US Treasury, who is tasked to raise funds for government operations, doesn’t have the authority to say no to Congress, the Federal Reserve does. At what point is it the Federal Reserve’s responsibility to say to Congress we can’t print anymore money regardless of your desire to spend it? If the Federal Reserve did so, interest rates would shoot up due to the US Treasury attempting to meet the spending levels. Recently, I have begun to rethink the threat of hyperinflation due to all the wealth destruction over the past year.
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Stealth Wealth Redistribution”


The Ugly Face behind the Mask of Liberalism

-By Selwyn Duke

It has been interesting watching the response to the Honduran military’s recent ousting of its nation’s president, Manuel Zelaya. Barack Obama called the action “not legal” and Hillary Clinton said that the arrest of Zelaya should be condemned. Most interesting, perhaps, is that taking this position places them shoulder to shoulder with Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega and Venezuelan’s roaring mouse, Hugo Chavez, who is threatening military action against Honduras. Now, some would say this is an eclectic group — others would say, not so much — regardless, what has gotten them so upset?

Let’s start with what they say. They are calling the ouster a “coup” and claim that Zelaya is still Honduras’ rightful president. Some of them say we must support democracy. But they have said little, if anything, about the rule of law. And most of what they have said is wrong.
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The Ugly Face behind the Mask of Liberalism”


A New 4th of July Declaration of Independence

-By Thomas E. Brewton

The 1776 Declaration was a resolution to throw off the tyranny of big government.

Borrowing from the 1776 document, the history of the present political administration is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute socialist tyranny over these states. When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce us under absolute despotism, it is our right, it is our duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for our future security.

Democrat/Socialists have made judges dependent upon their ideological will alone. They have erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out our substance. To support socialist labor unions they have threatened to cut off our trade with all parts of the world. They have altered fundamentally the forms of our government. They propose, for specious, scientistic purposes, to destroy major mining and manufacturing industries.
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A New 4th of July Declaration of Independence”


Businesses Hit Hard With Obamacare, Say Goodbye to Mom and Pop Stores

-By Warner Todd Huston

The most insidious part of Obamacare is the backdoor taxes, and defacto control of our healthcare by the nanny state that President Obama’s plan is loaded with. And here is another one that is not getting much play. Employers would be socked with requirements to pay for 72.5 percent of the cost of insurance premiums for their full-time employees under the plan being considered in the House.

They would also be required to pick up an as yet undetermined percentage of the insurance plans for part-time employees, as well. This alone will insure that part-time jobs across the nation are terminated for the destructive cost involved in having them.

Or, conversely, many full-time jobs will be eliminated if the costs of insurance is so steep and that of part-timers less so. Either way, jobs will be lost because of these new, never before seen expenses.

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Businesses Hit Hard With Obamacare, Say Goodbye to Mom and Pop Stores”


If Canada’s System is So Great, Then Why…

-By Warner Todd Huston

The left continually holds up the Canadian socialized healthcare system as the best example, one we should strive to emulate. But as each week passes we find more and more reason to doubt the panacea in the Great White North.

Last week news came out that Canada forced an infant to flee its country and into our own to get life saving treatment. A baby was born 13 weeks premature in Ontario, Canada but there were no neonatal intensive care beds open for the child there.

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If Canada’s System is So Great, Then Why…”


Ten Cost Cutting Suggestions for California

-By Ann “Babe” Huggett

Poor Kal-ee-for-nee-ah Governor Ahnold Schwarzenkennedy! He may have an “R” after his name politically but he’s been running California like a liberal for years now. However, it is finally catching up with him; as of July 1st California went from a state of great weather and fabulous scenery to one of fiscal emergency. Facing a $24.3 billion shortfall in the state’s budget, Governor Schwarzenegger called a special session of the state legislature on June 30th to close the gap but the state’s Republicans held firm against the frantic demands of the tax-tax-tax, spend-spend-spend and spend some more Democrats.

Now California’s vendors and local agencies will be getting IOUs instead of state checks We can also expect needed services and providers like police, firemen and health care workers to get the axe while Sacramento fat cats on six-figure salaries bloviate about the need to cut corners “somewhere”.
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Ten Cost Cutting Suggestions for California”


Talk Back: A Reply to the CNA Talking Points

-By Warner Todd Huston

Unions are spearheading the attack on our healthcare system and none more so than the Service Employee’s International Union and its sister organization the CNA. The ten talking points that the California Nurses Association has put out in order to rev up its membership to support a universal, single payer healthcare system is interesting, to say the least. In this posting, I’d like to reply to each of them with a little rebuke of my own.

But first I’d like to remark on the ham-handed style in which these talking points were written. The class warfare rhetoric here is more reminiscent of a protest placard than any serious discussion of public policy. But, be that as it may, here we go…

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Talk Back: A Reply to the CNA Talking Points”


Union President Stern the Hand in Obama’s Puppet?

-By Warner Todd Huston

The L.A. Times had a very interesting piece last week on the unusually close relationship between Service Employees International Union President Andy Stern and President Obama. The story revealed how Stern “enjoys unusual access to the White House,” and how often Stern is invited to attend meetings the administration holds on policy even as other union heads are left out of the loop.

The piece does cast some doubt on just how much clout Stern might have with Obama as several of the initiatives he has pushed hard for have yet to come to fruition — but it should also be remembered that this administration is only 6 months old. There is plenty of time, here.

Though it does not develop the theme, here is where the Times piece shows the danger that Andy Stern’s close connection with Obama presents to the country and its various governments, federal and state both.

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Union President Stern the Hand in Obama’s Puppet?”


Massachusetts Universal Healthcare System Breaking Down Already

-By Warner Todd Huston

When Governor Mitt Romney instituted a universal healthcare plan for Massachusetts in 2006 he proclaimed it a conservative idea. “It’s a conservative idea insisting that individuals have responsibility for their own health care,” he said. “I think it appeals to people on both sides of the aisle: insurance for everyone without a tax increase.” The plan passed and was put into practice. But has it worked? Has it been successful?

For a time, many thought it might but cracks in the system are already being seen. These cracks are instructive as a lesson on how Obamacare will crash and burn just like Romneycare is now in the process of doing.

One of the early claims that helped push Romneycare through to law was the insistence by its supporters that Emergency Room visits would fall as more and more citizens became covered under healthcare insurance. Since ER care is far more expensive than a doctor’s care, it was thought that more people with insurance would ease the overcrowding of ERs as well as lower the overall costs of healthcare.

However, a flaw in this logic has been seen throughout the state. As more people became insured, more people demanded the care of doctors. These doctors became overloaded with patients and waiting lists for doctors got longer and longer. As a result, ERs in Massachusetts have not seen a downturn in visits. On the contrary, it seems that ER visits are actually on the upswing in the Bay State. In fact, in 2007 they were higher than the national average by 20 percent.

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Massachusetts Universal Healthcare System Breaking Down Already”


Did We Just See Obama Squirm?

-By Dan Scott

Two international occurrences over the past month have given us an interesting insight into President Obama. The first being his initial tepid response to Iranians demonstrating non violently in the streets over a very suspicious election result and the Basij murdering seven demonstrators in a staged attacked to make the demonstrators look violent. The purpose of the attack was to delegitimize a peaceful movement and their dissent in order to shift the focus away from a less than believable election result. One cannot count millions of hand marked paper ballots in a matter of four hours, not even in the US. No one bought the staged attack anymore than the phony election results. However, President Obama curiously refused to support the demonstrators under the rationalization that it would appear as meddling in Iranian affairs and would compromise future nuclear weapons negotiations. It wasn’t until more demonstrators were murdered and President Obama was essentially shamed into it by Congress and then being accused by Iran of meddling that he finally found his rhetorical voice to speak words of support for the demonstrators. Obama affirmed the right of peaceful dissent for the Iranian demonstrators and that the Iranian government should allow them to speak their piece without use of force. He said nothing about the legitimacy elections.

The second insight into President Obama came this week when President Zelaya of Honduras was arrested by the Army removing him from power. President Obama called for the Rule of Law in opposing the ouster of Zelaya. Interestingly, it was the Rule of Law that Zelaya broke and that nation’s Supreme Court ordered his arrest. It appears he wanted to follow in Chavez’s footsteps to become president for life by holding an illegal referendum removing term limits. It was all very democratic, except the part of not following the Constitution of Honduras and President Obama knew this.
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Did We Just See Obama Squirm?”


Meet Claude Castonguay

-By Warner Todd Huston

As I have done several times, an instructive way to learn about what might happen if we are so foolish as to institute a national healthcare program like the one president Obama wants is to look to those unfortunate nations that have already trod that path. To understand what could happen here we need to hear from those leaders elsewhere that once thought they had the solutions that Obama seeks.

One such man is Claude Castonguay of Canada, a man that championed national healthcare for his country when that nation first began to explore the concept. It was full speed ahead as far as Castonguay was concerned. He too thought it an emergency.

In fact, he became known ever after as the “father of Quebec medicare” for his efforts. The Canadian government agreed with him and the plan was entered into with back slaps and hearty congratulations all around.

Yet, four decades later, it was Castonguay that declared that the Canadian healthcare system was in “crisis.” Things weren’t as rosy as he first thought they might be.

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Meet Claude Castonguay”


‘Adios Chavez,’ Gas Station Owner Dumps Chavez Citgo Brand

-By Warner Todd Huston

A smart gas station owner from Wadsworth, Illinois has given up his Citgo franchise and re-opened as a Shell station. To celebrate he posted a sign that gives Hugo Chavez a wonderful sendoff. “Adios Chavez,” it reads.

For the last five years I have personally boycotted any Citgo gas station. Citgo, you see, is wholly owned by Petróleos de Venezuela S.A., which itself is wholly owned by Venezuela’s despotic President Hugo Chavez and his puppet government. I have written several times in the past about this fact (here, and here) and have wondered why more Americans haven’t talked about boycotting this foreign hatemonger’s gas stations?

After all, Hugo Chavez has called the U.S. any manner of names and has centered the U.S. as the chief villain of his paranoid delusions of persecution anyway, so why not let him stew by refusing to do business with this half-witted, half-pint dictator?

So, today I am happy to report that Randy Whitmore’s gas station at Delany and York House roads in Wadsworth, Illinois has done just that. He’s flipped the tin-potted Chavez the bird and gone back to being a Shell man.

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‘Adios Chavez,’ Gas Station Owner Dumps Chavez Citgo Brand”


6 States Want to Nullify Obamacare With Opt Out Law

-By Warner Todd Huston

Six states are currently looking to add an “opt out” law to their books to protect citizens from the possibility of a national healthcare plan imposed by federal fiat.

Arizona started the ball rolling by introducing the Health Care Freedom Act, a voting initiative that will be put before voters on the 2010 ballot. If accepted by the majority of the voters, Arizona will be able to opt out of any federal healthcare laws passed by Washington. Indiana, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota and Wyoming are considering similar measures.

The arrogance of Congress and the president worries many of these state lawmakers, some even consider Obama’s healthcare policies a naked power grab.

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6 States Want to Nullify Obamacare With Opt Out Law”


ABC/Obama Healthcare Special Not so Special in Ratings Game

-By Warner Todd Huston

For those of you that are curious, Obama’s super special, ultra spectacular healthcare infomercial was a dud in the ratings last Wednesday night.

ABC’s Brarackspactacular Healthcare Extravaganza (I think that was the official name of the show, wasn’t it?) went up against the NBC premiere of “The Philanthropist,” widely panned as disappointing, and a repeat of “CSI: NY” on CBS, widely seen as already once widely seen. Unfortunately for ABC, its prop”O”ganda special got a dismal 1.2 rating to the 2.0 and 1.8 ratings respectively for the entertainment competition.

Apparently the TV show where he’s president but plays a doctor on TV didn’t go over well. The “Super-dooper, Obamalicious, Doctor Spock medicine woman show” was only able to cajole 4.703 million viewers into watching while NBC picked up 7.414 and CBS got 7.393 in the ten O’Clock hour. Remembering that we have 300 million citizens and healthcare is supposed to be the biggest emergency in history, well, that is a paltry number of viewers that Doc Barack got.

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ABC/Obama Healthcare Special Not so Special in Ratings Game”


Oh, Now the SEIU is FOR ‘Anti-Union Tactics’?

-By Warner Todd Huston

We have been reporting on the clash between the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and it’s California subsidiary the United Healthcare Workers (UHW). We have talked of the battle between the two, how the SEIU has strong-armed or dismissed the elected members of the UHW board, and how at last thousands of members of what was the UHW are attempting to leave to start a new union to rival the SEIU.

But, it appears that the SEIU is a tad unhappy that so many of its California members would quit to form a new union. And so, in order to stop the rival union’s birth, the SEIU is using what the L.A. Times is snickeringly referring to as “anti-union tactics” to stop the bleeding.

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Oh, Now the SEIU is FOR ‘Anti-Union Tactics’?”


Mark Kirk Must be Eliminated

-By Warner Todd Huston

Rep. Mark Kirk (R, IL) just voted for the worst tax hiking, jobs killing, garbage bill based on the lies of globaloney that ever hit the U.S. Congress. Mark Kirk has eliminated any possibility that I will support him in anything ever again.

Mark Kirk is a traitor to the GOP, to capitalism, to the Constitution of the US.

And even more ridiculously, just as this fool votes for cap and tax bill… I mean cap and trade… the Australians have realized that the exact same bill they passed is so bad for them that they are getting rid of it.

Let us hope that the Senate is smarter than the anti-American House of Representatives and defeats this destructive law.

And, Mr. Kirk? I will work to defeat you, even if it means a Democrat wins your seat.


How ABC Stacked the Deck for Obama

-By Warner Todd Huston

With the very first question of its prime time special, Questions for the President: Prescription for America, ABC set the tone that essentially confirmed for viewers that the president was right in his desire to radically remake America’s healthcare system. As the infomercial began, “moderator” Charles Gibson asked a seminal question of the doctors and other participants that were about to hear the president speak: “How many of you agree with the president that we need to change our healthcare system?” Naturally they all raised their hands.

Imagine that? This handpicked crowd all agreed with ABC and Obama that “change” was paramount. Surprised? Hardly.

So, as the viewer is introduced to the infomercial, they start off with the unanimous affirmation that the president is right, radical changes have to be made. The premise is set and even the sharp questions to the president later in the show are blunted by the assumption that some major change is needed. And since the president is the only person allowed to offer any plan during this ABC special, the further assumption promulgated is that he is the one that must affect that change.

For viewers of this healthcare infomercial, Obama wins thanks to an assist by ABC. The viewer is deftly led to the desired conclusion.

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How ABC Stacked the Deck for Obama”


Crazy Cost of Obamacare Killing Chances for ‘Reform’

-By Warner Todd Huston

Polls. I am not a big believer in them. One of the biggest problems with polls are the questions. Poll questions are often practically useless in relaying any real, usable facts. Let’s take the first one asked by Charlie Gibson at the start of the Obama healthcare infomercial on ABC for example. He asked if everyone agreed with Obama that healthcare needed fixing. Naturally everyone said yes. But what does that question really mean?

Think about it. What does “needs fixing” mean? What sort of “change” are we talking about? It means many things to many different people. Some may want only minor changes, most on the left want a socialist system to entirely replace the one we have. Two great extremes that find common agreement that “change” is needed. But the question is nearly meaningless when considering what degree of change is on the table. It’s all a matter of individual perspective.

This is reflected by the polls in a major way because, while everyone seems to agree that “change” is needed, once it comes down to brass tacks, the largest number of Americans shy from pulling the trigger. And that trigger is paying for it through taxes. Oh, sure, everyone says “change” is good in these polls, but when it comes to “ME” paying for it, well, maybe we don’t need that much change after all, respondents say.

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Crazy Cost of Obamacare Killing Chances for ‘Reform’”


Flawed NYT Poll Used to Urge Obama’s Takeover of Healthcare

-By Warner Todd Huston

Froma Harrop may have once been called Heartland Institute’s “favorite lefty” journalist, but lefty she is and her use of a lopsided New York Times poll to urge President Obama to “act fast” on a government healthcare policy is a perfect example of that.

With her June 23 article, Harrop was frustrated that Obama was not “stepping on the gas” to institute publicly funded healthcare and she wondered why he is dragging his feet when “85 percent of Americans want ‘fundamental changes’ in American healthcare.” This factoid she gleans from a very flawed NYT poll that is so badly skewed to the left that it is amazing anyone takes it seriously.

Harrop makes no bones about the fact that she wants a nationalized healthcare policy to be forced on the nation and she also doesn’t think that anyone needs to listen to Republicans, effectively disenfranchising the roughly half of the American electorate that votes that way. Amazingly, Harrop is supposed to be a “financial reporter,” yet she still wants this disastrously expensive, jobs killing, cost spiraling sort of plan anyway. This doesn’t say much about her grasp of economics.

Nonetheless, Harrop says it should be full speed ahead.

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Flawed NYT Poll Used to Urge Obama’s Takeover of Healthcare”


To Pay for Obamacare, Tax Raises for America… Except Union Members

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Senate is about to pay off the unions for helping get Obama elected. Senator Max Baucus (D, Mont.) looks to be about ready to propose a plan to pay for Obama’s massive, more than $1 trillion in new government spending on healthcare by instituting a new tax on many employees that currently have healthcare through their workplace (nearly 1 in 8 workers according to Peter Barnes). Never having been “income” before, Senator Baucus is prepared to claim it is and will be taxed accordingly.

… unless, of course, you happen to be a union member. If you are a Democrat supporting, Obama voting union member, why you don’t have to pay this never before levied tax at all. You get off scot free. Fuggedaboutit.

So much for equal under the law. Now, all you have to do is join a union and, voila, you don’t have to pay the taxes everyone else suffers under. Aren’t you glad that Obama is so interested in “fair,” and “balanced” governance? Isn’t it great that the Obama era is the “post-partisan” era? If it weren’t the “post-partisan” era, I’d fear for my life instead of just my tax bill this being an example of Democrat’s “fairness” for America.

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To Pay for Obamacare, Tax Raises for America… Except Union Members”


And Another Bad Part of the EFCA…

-By Warner Todd Huston

Of course we’ve talked endlessly about the fact that the Democrat’s Orwellian named Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) eliminates the employee’s free choice to vote for or against unionization using the ages-old democratic practice of a secret ballot. Who hasn’t, right? In fact, we’ve talked about it so much that even Democrats are turning against this aspect of the act and this is one of the reasons that the bill has not been able to muster enough votes to get passed. So, we can mark that as a tentative victory.

But there is more in this horrible legislation that needs to be highlighted. Here is something as egregious, but perhaps not as flashy as the elimination of a secret ballot. It is the forced arbitration clause. Let’s call it the Back Seat Driver’s clause because it is essentially a rule that says government takes away any say in unionization from BOTH the union, the workers, and the employer.

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And Another Bad Part of the EFCA…”


Obama Quietly Pushing Back Healthcare Deadline to December?

-By Warner Todd Huston

The folks at HealthcareHorseRace.com have discovered an interesting inconsistency with Obama’s June 20 statements on his healthcare bill deadline and that posted in the “official” transcript on the White House website. As far as the White House website is concerned, the goal is to have a bill before the president by October. But in verbal statement reported by several media sources, Obama himself has said December and not October. So, what we have here is a hint that Obama might realize his bill is in major trouble and he is quietly trying to push back the expectations on his self-imposed deadline.

During the initial stages of the schedule that Obama was expecting to impose on the healthcare debate, he expected a bill to sign by October. This Fall deadline still appears on the White House policy page in its Briefing Room section where Obama comments are supposedly transcribed for the sake of “transparency.”

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Obama Quietly Pushing Back Healthcare Deadline to December?”


Are you a ‘Healthcare Worker’ By Taking Care of Your Own Son?

-By Warner Todd Huston

I suppose, strictly speaking, if you are a mother that takes care of a developmentally disabled son, well, I guess you might be considered a “healthcare worker” of a kind. Also, I could easily see the state being such a buttinski that it forces such a mother to get “training” to take care of her own son in order to receive state aid. That seems just the sort of twisted logic that might be employed by the nanny state(s) under which we suffer. It might even behoove a mother of a developmentally disabled child to get some training of some type, too, if she so chose, even if the state didn’t require it.

So, that being said I present to you mother Lisa Brown of Fresno, California who is seen in a new Republican ad threatening a meeting of lawmakers. She is in attendance speaking as a member of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the public employees union that might see some budget cuts befall it due to California’s bankrupt treasury.

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Are you a ‘Healthcare Worker’ By Taking Care of Your Own Son?”


Amer. Indians Already Suffer Gov’t Healthcare

-By Warner Todd Huston

Let’s talk about a government healthcare plan that already exists. It might help us understand what sort of situation we might see when Obamacare is fairly begun. It’s not Medicare or Medicaid but the IHS, the Indian Healthcare Service.

Few have remembered during this debate that the U.S. government already has a sort of single payer styled healthcare program already and it is for America’s Indian population. Unfortunately, it has not served our native peoples well.

For example, recently it has been shown that the IHS has “lost” $20 million in high tech healthcare equipment bought by the federal government to care for Indians.

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Amer. Indians Already Suffer Gov’t Healthcare”


The Path to the Future Requires a Return to the Roots

-By Frank Salvato

As President Obama thunders ahead with his liberal agenda, unencumbered by any significant opposition in either chamber of Congress, the focus for the Right has been on how to re-invent the Republican Party so as to be competitive in the 2010 and 2012 election cycles. This renewed and urgent focus is more akin to a meeting of rival mafia families, each faction unwilling to cede influence, power, control or status to another, than it is a quorum of individuals dedicated to true and original Republican principles. In light of this it is appropriate to revisit the founding platform of the party.

In the immediate aftermath of the inaugural 1856 Republican Convention in Jackson, Michigan (the party was founded in Ripon, WI, in 1854), the Republican Party declared as their founding platform commitments and allegiances to:
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The Path to the Future Requires a Return to the Roots”


Playing Political Games With our Healthcare

-By Warner Todd Huston

These days, government lives to feed itself. It’s the old “nose in the tent” theory. Give ’em an inch, they’ll take a mile. And government never fails to make itself more important with each new generation of self-important pols. Unfortunately and because of this propensity, should we be so foolish as to allow the federal government to take over our healthcare, you and your doctor will find a bureaucrat telling you what to do with your healthcare. Your health will no longer be a matter of what is good for you but will become a political football with an edge toward giving others more and more power over your very life.

There is no end to the examples of the hardhearted, unthinking and foolish decisions affecting people’s healthcare coming from bureaucrats in those nations that were foolish enough to allow a government takeover of their medical sector. We’ve already talked of a few of them here.

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Playing Political Games With our Healthcare”


With All Things, Facts & Truth Matter

-By Frank Salvato

“Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.” – Samuel Johnson

Few things are more important in life than the facts and the truth. Ironically, the quest for both has waned over generations. Today, fact and truth suffer the narcissism of a generation of self-indulgent ideologues who have sought to shape the world to their belief system, doing so armed with little more than falsely elevated self-esteem. The result has been to bring our great nation to a divide not seen since the US Civil War; a divide of politics, ideology and culture; a divide that threatens our Republic’s very existence.

Samuel Johnson’s adage about truth being a casualty of war is not exclusive to wars of nations, it is applicable to wars of all breeds: cultural, violent, ideological and political. In fact, today’s American culture places more worth on the delivery of words than on the credibility of words. A gifted orator can mesmerize the citizenry into reacting to a melodic tone and artful inflection and into caring little for the accuracy of the statements being made. He can pass impossibilities as realities using hollow promises, promises that serve as distractions to truth and fact. Truth be told, today, the American public is more interested in being captivated by the “bright shiny” distraction, being entertained by the slickly delivered sleight-of-hand rhetoric of “hope” and “change,” than they are in gathering the facts in an effort to better understand reality.
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With All Things, Facts & Truth Matter”


Unions Team With California’s State Controller to Stop Cost-Cutting Measures

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Democratic Controller of the State of California is joining with unions to prevent the ability of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to get a handle on the state budget by refusing to obey the governor’s furlough plan and pay cuts. And state officers, including the Republican Insurance Commissioner, are backing the Controller showing that unions have co-opted all of them.

State governments have spent themselves into oblivion, we all know. Unfunded mandates, programs that cannot be paid for and for which no provisions for funding were ever arranged, have been the modus operandi of governments across the country. Strange, indeed, is the government program that is properly and affordably funded.

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Unions Team With California’s State Controller to Stop Cost-Cutting Measures”


Gov’t Healthcare Advocates: No Bi-Partisanship Required

-By Warner Todd Huston

There is no mistaking that I stand against a single payer, government controlled healthcare system. The last thing I want is a person with the same attitude as a DMV worker in charge of my health! By now, everyone here has noticed what direction I lean, I’m sure. Nonetheless, I do like to check out what the other side says about what they want, too. This is a report on one of those voices, that of the folks at OpenLeft.com.

Suffice to say, they want socialized healthcare with no private aspect to the system at all. They want all hospitals run by government, all doctors working for government, all research facilities funded and controlled by government. And, if Mike Lux of OpenLeft can be believed, they also want the Republicans to butt out of the whole debate.

This disinterest in the American system of debate, compromise and governance is a typical aspect of the goals of the authoritarian left that is coming on like gangbusters in this healthcare debate. They want socialist healthcare and that is that. They are not interested in capitalism, not interested in freedom, not interested in debate or compromise, not interested in any sort of bi-partisanship… in essence they want a tyranny of the minority. They want the whole cake and they want to eat it, too.

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Gov’t Healthcare Advocates: No Bi-Partisanship Required”