SHOCKING PHOTO: Obamacare and a Seven-Foot Tall Stack of New Regulations

-By Warner Todd Huston

The office of Senator Mitch McConnell, the GOP minority leader in the Senate, has sent out a shocking photo.

This is over 20,000 pages and measures 7′ 2.5″. These are all the Obamacare regulations published in the Federal Register up through last week. Then last Friday they added another 828 pages.

Unbelievable.

And hidden in this giant stack of intrusive new regulations that seem to grow every month is a major job loss problem.

Douglas Elmendorf, Director of the Congressional Budget Office, said in February of 2011 that Obamacare could cost 800,000 jobs and the Federal Reserve has stated that Obamacare is the reason for “planned layoffs.”
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SHOCKING PHOTO: Obamacare and a Seven-Foot Tall Stack of New Regulations”


Sandra Fluke: Religious Employers Will Deny Contraception Coverage, Leukemia Treatments, Blood Transfusions

-By Warner Todd Huston

MSNBC is still scheduling Sandra Fluke as a guest and on Friday’s NewsNation with Tamron Hall she essentially claimed that leukemia treatments and contraception coverage is pretty much the same thing in the eyes of those “religious employers” that want to use religious objections to deny “healthcare” coverage to employees.

“I think what it is important to note is that some of the folks who are continuing to object to this policy are actually worried about employers who are private companies, not religiously affiliated employers in any way, but the boss has a particular religious concern and they want to be able deny their employees particular types of healthcare.

Now if you take a sep back and think about that, that’s, you know, you work at a restaurant, you work at a store and your boss is able to deny you leukemia coverage, or contraception coverage, or blood transfusions or any number of medical concerns that someone might have a religious objection to.

So the folks that are still objecting have some very extreme ideas about religious freedom and employee healthcare in this country.

There are many fallacies in this.
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Sandra Fluke: Religious Employers Will Deny Contraception Coverage, Leukemia Treatments, Blood Transfusions”


Obama Operatives Training Media How to Sell Obamacare

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Old Media is getting a little help from team Obama on how to report about Obamacare the “correct” way. To achieve that goal, Obama operatives are setting up propaganda symposiums for journalists and giving large cash donations to journalism associations to help spread Obama’s word.

This Obamacare propaganda campaign seriously blurs the line between government and “journalism” and seems to be a blatant attempt by team Obama to write the media’s Obamacare stories for them.

Rusty Weiss recently discussed a series of large donations made to the Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW) the latest of which was donated expressly for the purpose of relaying the left-wing agenda on Obamacare.

The donation, a $15,000 grant, was made by the Commonwealth Fund, a group now headed by former Obama operative David Blumenthal who served as the national coordinator for Obama’s Health Information Technology effort.
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Obama Operatives Training Media How to Sell Obamacare”


AP Touts ‘Non-Partisan’ Study Saying Obamacare Great for States

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Associated Press has done it again, pushing on readers a “study” by purported “nonpartisan” organizations that aren’t nonpartisan at all. This one claiming that Obamacare is a “good deal for states.”

The AP notes that this “report” by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation and the Urban Institute says that Obamacare is good for the states because it picks up the largest amount of healthcare costs through its Medicaid expansion.

Expanding Medicaid to cover about 20 million more low-income people will cost over $1 trillion nationally from 2013 to 2022, said the joint report from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Urban Institute. But the analysis found that states will pay just $76 billion of that, a combined share of roughly 7 percent. The feds will pay the other $952 billion.

But what of these two groups? Are they really “nonpartisan”?
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AP Touts ‘Non-Partisan’ Study Saying Obamacare Great for States”


College Professors Lose Hours Because of Obamacare

-By Warner Todd Huston

One of my favorite stories this week is the college professors at Pennsylvania’s Community College of Allegheny who’ve had their hours cut because of the costly requirements of Obamacare.

One of Obamacare’s changes to general business practices is to make people who work 30 hours or more a “full time worker.” For generations that magic number was 40 hours a week. But now that Obamacare is forcing this change to what is considered a full-timer, businesses across the country are forced to change policies and cut the hours of employees to 25 hours per week.

This is what happened at CCAC. Part time professors, teachers, and other staffers will be cut to 25 hours a week so that these part time workers will remain part time workers and will, therefore, be ineligible for healthcare.

Naturally, some folks are mad. They think the evil taskmasters in charge of the school are violating the “spirit” of Obamacare. United Steelworkers representative Jeff Cech, who has been trying to unionize the college staff, is all upset, too.
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College Professors Lose Hours Because of Obamacare”


Papa John’s Pizza to Cut Worker’s Hours Due to Obamacare

-By Warner Todd Huston

John Schnatter, CEO of the Papa John’s pizza chain, has announced that now that President Obama has been re-elected and it is obvious that Obamacare is here to stay, he will likely be forced to cut back worker’s hours because of the cost of the federal government’s take over of our national healthcare.

Provisions of Obamacare state that workers that work 30 hours a week or more will be automatically considered full time and must then be included in their company’s healthcare insurance program. Common practice currently maintains that the eligibility threshold for health insurance is a 40-hour work week, so this will cost businesses exponentially more for workers that work over 30 hours a week. The higher cost associated with this change is forcing many businesses, especially those in the food service industry, to consider limiting workers to less than 30 hours a week.

In essence, implementation of Obamacare will cut the weekly take home pay of millions of low wage workers by forcing companies to cut worker’s hours.
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Papa John’s Pizza to Cut Worker’s Hours Due to Obamacare”


13th Ill. District: David Gill Is Making a Mess Out of Our Economy

“From his support of the failed stimulus to higher taxes on families and businesses, David Gill has shown he has no problem watching Central Illinoisans’ money fly away,” said AAN Spokeswoman Brook Hougesen. “Illinoisans simply cannot afford Gill’s tax-and-spend agenda and have rejected it time after time.”

Transcript:
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13th Ill. District: David Gill Is Making a Mess Out of Our Economy”


Ill. Dem. Claims a Woman Died From no Healthcare, Turns Out Patient Doesn’t Even Exist

-By Warner Todd Huston

Democrat David Gill is having a few problems in his race for the 13th Congressional District in Illinois. Not only did he think he got his nomination on “a cold March day” (it just happened to have been in the 80s that March) but he’s seemingly invented a fake woman who “died” of “heart attack” because of those rascally Republicans.

David Gill seems to be an epic storyteller, for sure. Like Grimm’s fairytales, or something.

Aside from his aforementioned meteorological fairytale, Gill also tells fantastic tales abut his days as a doctor. Gill launched an ad that he felt would skewer those mean Republicans that want to take away everyone’s healthcare. In his ad he claimed to have found a woman named “Susan” who had a heart attack because she “didn’t have health insurance.”

Now, this “Susan” isn’t just the mere subject of a TV ad. Gill, a doctor in his regular life, claimed to have been this “Susan’s” doctor. He claims right in his ad that he tried to save her life and couldn’t.
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Ill. Dem. Claims a Woman Died From no Healthcare, Turns Out Patient Doesn’t Even Exist”


After Slamming Palin, NY Times Excited for Up Coming Obama Death Panels

-By Warner Todd Huston

For The New York Times, Steven Ratner had to admit last month that he was pretty darned excited for those Obamacare death panels to get started. “WE need death panels,” he said on September 16. This from the same paper that in 2009 attacked Gov. Sarah Palin for her rhetoric and an Old Media establishment that gave Palin a “lie of the year” award for her claim that Obamacare death panels were coming.

The Times sudden appreciation of death panels isn’t the only bit of hypocrisy revealed in Ratner’s article. His very first paragraph wallows in rank hypocrisy.

Well, maybe not death panels, exactly, but unless we start allocating health care resources more prudently — rationing, by its proper name — the exploding cost of Medicare will swamp the federal budget.

So, not only is Ratner suddenly looking forward to the very death panels his paper mocked Palin for alerting us all to back in 2009, but he’s now openly admitting that the costs of Obamacare will skyrocket unless we start rationing care and telling some people they aren’t allowed to have health saving procedures!

Doesn’t this paragraph prove out what conservatives have been saying about Obamacare since day one? That there will be rationing, that some government agency will be deciding who will live and who will die, that the costs will be ruinous, and that the Democrat’s claims that “everyone will get care” is an outright lie — this is what we’ve been saying from the beginning.
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After Slamming Palin, NY Times Excited for Up Coming Obama Death Panels”


Media Blasts Ryan, Acts as if AARP is Non-Partisan

-By Warner Todd Huston

Last week the media was all over Paul Ryan’s visit to an event with the American Association for Retired People gleefully reporting that he was booed. The media treated the whole affair as if the AARP was some non-partisan organization. But, the truth is, the AARP is no more non-partisan than any organization carrying water for the Obama administration.

Take The Hill, for instance. In its report the inside Washington newser noted that the boos Ryan received was “a clear sign of just how big a challenge Medicare poses to the Romney campaign.”

This characterization is absurd. It presents the AARP as a venue that might not boo any proposal of the reform of an over taxed government program! AARP is solidly on the side of big government – it was a leading proponent of Obamacare — and will brook no truck with anyone talking of reforming anything. Of course they’ll boo Paul Ryan.
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Media Blasts Ryan, Acts as if AARP is Non-Partisan”


American Action Network Releases State & District-Level Medicare Cuts in Obamacare

From the American Action Network

www.TheyCutYourMedicare.com has the State & District-by-District Breakdowns of How Much Members Who Voted for or to Keep Obamacare Cut from their Area’s Medicare

WASHINGTON – As part of its ongoing effort to make the case for prompt repeal of Obamacare, the American Action Network (AAN) released today the cuts to Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) and Medicare Advantage (MA) in the states and congressional districts of Senators and Members of Congress that voted for or to preserve Obamacare. The district and state specific cuts can be found at www.TheyCutYourMedicare.com and the member-specific sites linked below.

The data used to determine this state and congressional district data comes from the census, the Congressional Budget Office, and a new University of Minnesota study that provided a county-by-county analysis of the Medicare fee-for-service and Medicare Advantage cuts included in Obamacare.

Obamacare cut Medicare by $716 billion to fund a new entitlement, and is leading to higher taxes on consumers and providers, rising healthcare costs for families, and will lead to diminished quality of care for seniors. The need to repeal this disastrous law is more evident daily.
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American Action Network Releases State & District-Level Medicare Cuts in Obamacare”


Bellar for Ill. Senate: Obamacare Summed Up in One Sentence

Perfect…

So, let me get this straight. This is a long sentence. We’re going to be gifted with a healthcare plan that we’re forced to purchase and fined if we don’t, which purportedly covers at least 10 million more people without adding a single doctor but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents, written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn’t understand it, passed by a Congress that didn’t read it but exempted themselves from it, and signed by a President who smokes — [laughter] — same sentence! — with funding administered by a Treasury chief who didn’t pay his taxes, for which we will be taxed for four years before any benefits take effect, by a government that has already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare, all to be overseen by a Surgeon General who is obese — [laughter] — and finally, financed by a country that’s broke.

Dr. Barbara Bellar Candidate for Illinois State Senate, District 18 sums up Obamacare in one sentence. Please go to my website and contribute to my campaign. I am running against the Chicago Machine and I could use your financial help! Go to electbellar.com or send your checks to Citizens to Elect Barbara Bellar – PO Box 557766, Chicago, IL 60655.

http://electbellar.com/


What’s Going Wrong at the Pacific Research Institute?

-By Warner Todd Huston

Early in July extreme left-wing Mother Jones magazine published a piece claiming that Sally Pipes, the head of the Pacific Research Institute, was not doing a very effective job of leading the San Francisco-based conservative, free-market think tank. Unfortunately, whether the magazine is left-wing or not and whether these questions make me comfortable or not (they don’t), there seems to be some truth in the story.

The magazine focused on the excessive amount of money that Pipes has requisitioned from the think tank to pay for Public Relations agencies to assist her in writing the many books, papers, articles and the like that carries Pipes’ name. Calling her “supernaturally prolific,” Mother Jones reported that Pipes employs Keybridge Communications to do the writing.

In fact, according to Mother Jones, Pipes has spent “nearly $1 million — $400,000 alone in 2010” on the services of Keybridge. This is a substantial amount of money considering that the institute has an annual budget of only $4 million. To have spent such a huge chunk on “research assistance” is quite a lot, indeed.

Pipes has a very high profile in conservative circles. She is a sought after speaker with a specialty in healthcare. She’s worked with such big name groups as the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation, and her work appears in newspapers, magazines, and websites everywhere — such as Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, and National Review. Pipes is also listed as the author of at least a half dozen books.
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What’s Going Wrong at the Pacific Research Institute?”


The ‘No One Gets Rich On Their Own’ Baloney

-By Gary Krasner

Obama’s “no one gets rich on their own” rant was to justify policies that soak the rich, and not about the wonders of roads & bridges! But that was how Obamians had tried to spin it, such as here at Huffington Post.

You can read my postscript deconstruction of his Roanoke speech at the end of this article to see how ridiculous that is. Bottom line is that when Obama uttered these two sentences, “If you’ve got a business—-you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen”, he was NOT referring to roads and bridges from the prior sentence. It would have been far too obvious for him to have meant that shop keepers do not build the roads and bridges in the towns where they operate. He sure as hell didn’t mean to suggest that their taxes help build them! No, holding to the full context of the speech, he meant that they are not singularly responsible for their success, that would warrant the degree of wealth they reaped.

The original thesis—-the product of liberal linguistics consultant George Lakoff—-is a way to minimize individual success, so as to justify taking from successful people the rewards of their success, through taxes. Liz Warren—-the women who couldn’t get into Harvard on her own without falsely claiming to have one drop of Cherokee blood—-had adopted this simplistic baloney to frame the debate for OWS, if you recall.

Here’s Lakoff:
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The ‘No One Gets Rich On Their Own’ Baloney”


Hey, Media, The House Did NOT Vote to Repeal Obamacare 33 Times

-By Warner Todd Huston

By the way, we missed this last week when the House voted to repeal Obamacare, but you may recall that the Old Media went bonkers to tell everyone that the July 11 vote was the “33rd time the Republicans voted to repeal Obamacre.” Only there is a little problem with that claim. It isn’t true.

The fact is, the House has only voted twice — not 33 times — to repeal Obamacare in its entirety. And the two times includes the July 11 vote.

Regardless of the truth, though, we were treated to media outlet after media outlet parroting the “33rd vote to repeal” narrative and acting as if it were the truth.

One example is Daniel Akst of Newsday, who scolded Republicans for this repeal attempt. “Despite a host of pressing national problems, House Republicans today voted for the 33rd time to repeal President Obama’s health care law,” Akst scornfully wrote.

Akst’s partisan, skewed those-evil-Republicans narrative was the one most media outlets went with.
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Hey, Media, The House Did NOT Vote to Repeal Obamacare 33 Times”


American Action Network Launches Anti-Obamacare Ads in California and New York

-By Warner Todd Huston

American Action Network has launched a new series of advocacy ads in the states of California and New York to urge voters to hold their elected officials to account for the regrettable error that is Obamacare. The ads urge voters to support the repeal of the budget-busting Obamacare act.

The ads target six districts: Bill Owens (NY-23), Tim Bishop (NY-01), Louise Slaughter (NY-28), Lois Capps (CA-23), John Garamendi (CA-10), Jerry McNerney (CA-09).

Repeal California

Repeal New York:

AAN recently announced a Continue reading


American Action Network Launches Anti-Obamacare Ads in California and New York”


Yes, ObamacareTax IS the Biggest Tax in American History

-By Warner Todd Huston

Lefties everywhere have hastened to try and absolve the ObamacareTax claiming that it really isn’t the largest tax in American history despite that conservatives say it is. What is their proof? Well, as a percentage of GDP ObamacareTax is smaller than other taxes we’ve instituted in the past. This, statistic, though, is quite misleading.

LoudTalkerBlog has crunched the numbers, but the chief take away is in this chart, and, yes, it is the largest in total cost ever:

Talker goes on to detail why the ObamacareTax is the biggest ever.

But, if you look at the raw dollars of the deal, again using Drum’s numbers, the cost of Obamacare is $71.18 billion dollars. (0.49% x 2010 GDP of $14.526B). That would make it the largest tax increase ever. The second highest dollar amount in the list? Clinton’s 1993 tax increase of $33.34 billion, which is less than half of the Obama tax increase. Third would be GHW Bush and fourth Reagan.

Worse, those lefties that are claiming it isn’t the biggest tax ever are leaving out all sorts of aspects to ObamacareTax in order to make its impact smaller.

In other words, they lie.

No surprise.
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Yes, ObamacareTax IS the Biggest Tax in American History”


Texas Attny Gen on SCOTUS Obamacare Decision: ‘The American People Lost’

-By Warner Todd Huston

On Monday, July 2, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbot participated in a conference call sponsored by Americans for Prosperity – Texas to talk Obamacare and how it affects the states. During that call, AG Abbot said “the American people lost” as a result of Chief Justice John Roberts’ decision. He also said the decision “threatens prosperity” as much as any Supreme Court ruling ever has.

Abbott warned that the determination that Obamacare is now a tax, the biggest tax increase in American history, is “a threat to all of us.” He noted that the ruling is “a tax on liberty itself” because now Congress seems to have been given the power to tax inactivity rather than activity.

“The New Taxing Authority will Empower Congress in an almost unlimited way,” Abbott said.

Abbott utilized the same car analogy that many have used since last Thursday to explain why this ruling is dangerous. Congress may now be able to tax people for not buying “green” cars, the AG said.
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Texas Attny Gen on SCOTUS Obamacare Decision: ‘The American People Lost’”


It Begins: CNN Rushes to Point Out Romney Once Liked ‘Healthcare Mandates’

-By Warner Todd Huston

Can you say 10th Amendment? CNN doesn’t seem to be able to

It was practically only hours after the Supreme Court issued it’s historic — and odious — decision to give Obamacare its stamp of approval that CNN rushed to tell readers that Romney, too, once approved of a healthcare mandate. This narrative, we know, will be one the Old Media tries to use to beat Romney down and give Obama his second term.

“As it turns out,” CNN trumpets, “the tax penalty in the president’s health care law was modeled after the reform plan passed in Massachusetts under then governor Mitt Romney.”

Of course, this is basically true, so fair point. But CNN falls down on the job by not explaining what Mitt Romney has been saying about his Massachusetts healthcare mandates. Romney has repeatedly said that his plan was a state-based plan but one he does not think would work on a federal level.
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It Begins: CNN Rushes to Point Out Romney Once Liked ‘Healthcare Mandates’”


How is Obamacare being Received in the States?

-By Warner Todd Huston

Watchdog.org has been doing yeomen’s work covering how the various states are reacting to Obamacare and the Supreme Court ruling making it legal. You can see the collected stories HERE, but here are a few highlights:

Follow WatchDog.org for the ongoing coverage, but in the mean time, check out this Obamacare tax chart from the Heritage Foundation.

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How is Obamacare being Received in the States?”


Congressman Joe Walsh Has a Message for the Illinois GOP and America

-By Warner Todd Huston

Is Congressman Walsh Making a Populist Run for Illinois Governor?

Joe Walsh is not a rock star like Joe Walsh. Joe Walsh (the Congressman) is not Joe Walsh (The rock singer from the 1970s band The Eagles) yet both were in town this weekend working political ends. Singer Joe Walsh was stumping for Democrat Tammy Duckworth, a practically vacant, establishment Democrat who is good for little else but spewing talking points it doesn’t seem she fully grasps, while Congressman Joe Walsh was across town warning voters at a well attended townhall that thanks to Obamacare, the 2012 election may be our last chance to save America. (http://walsh.house.gov/)


Walsh was in the Elk Grove area to talk chiefly about the historic and historically bad Supreme Court decision that gave Obama a win on his nationalization of America’s healthcare industry. So, Obamacare was the big topic this day.

“I was overwhelmed by the close to 400 people who turned out for today’s forum,” Congressman Walsh stated. “It was clear from the crowd that this decision was not only historic, but also tragic. It’s even more clear that the only way to repeal this unpopular law is to do so legislatively. This health care plan is a job killing bureaucratic mess that is now recognized by the Supreme Court as a massive tax on the struggling middle class. I have made it clear that getting Americans back to work and repealing the President’s health care plan are my top priorities.”


More on healthcare in a moment, but first, after the townhall I had the chance to ask the Congressman some questions about his ideas and his campaign for reelection to his 8th District Congressional seat.

At the outset of our interview, Congressman Walsh had some very stern words for the Illinois Republican Party. In fact, he said the Illinois GOP is currently part of the problem, not the solution.

Here is a transcript of Walsh’s warning to the Illinois GOP.
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Congressman Joe Walsh Has a Message for the Illinois GOP and America”


Sign the Petition: Hands Off My Healthcare

-By Warner Todd Huston

Want to express your indignation at Chief Justice John Roberts’ sell out and the Democrats lie-filled faux healthcare law? Go HERE and sign the *petition to tell Congress and the Supreme Court that you are furious at this breach of trust with Americans everywhere.

If allowed to be implemented even in part, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will sink this country to worse than Greek levels in debt, poverty, and the destruction of our economic and business climates. Obama sold this communist plan with a lie on his lips. Not only by lying to the American public that this wasn’t a tax — a lie the Supreme Court corrected with its decision — but in the very name of the bill (the “affordable” part) the Democrats sold this law with lies on their lips.

*Petition sponsored by Americans for Prosperity.
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Sign the Petition: Hands Off My Healthcare”


Chief Justice Roberts Reelected Barack Obama On Thursday

-By Warner Todd Huston

I know many of you may be upset at this article, but I think the election is now over. Obama will get a second term. I don’t say this happily, but barring any really controversial incident that makes Obama look bad — or worse than he is, I should say — it looks to me that he’s now unbeatable, especially by a Mitt Romney.

Now, before you get your undies in a bunch, no this doesn’t mean we should throw in the towel and quit. It always amazes me that people go stampeding directly for the “oh, so you think we should quit” nonsense. I am not saying that, so stow your whining.

To me, the stars seem to be lining up for another Obama win, though certainly one not close to his numbers the first time ’round. Infuriatingly, it is Supreme Court Justice John Roberts that tipped it in for Obama. His giving Obama the supreme win on his socialist takeover of our healthcare system is the win Obama needed to show that he is “on the right track” as far as too many voters will be concerned.

If the Court would have invalidated Obamacare as it should have, Obama would have looked weak. He would have looked the loser. This would have been enough to keep some of his most freebie-loving voters from the polls on voting day and given Romney a fighting chance. But now that “free” healthcare is a big win, the “gimme” set will come out to vote for neo socialist Obama in hopes that in a second term he’ll pay their mortgage and give them a no-work government job.

But even beyond these freebie-grasping, lowlives that will now vote for Obama when many wouldn’t have been excited enough to come out were it a “free” healthcare loss, other Democrat voters who were down on Obama because he seemed to be losing everything lately will now feel energized to come out and vote.
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Chief Justice Roberts Reelected Barack Obama On Thursday”


Democrats Next to Move to Unionize Obamacare Doctors

-By Warner Todd Huston

In another sign that our healthcare industry is soon to be just another arm of the Democrat Party, Chicago are Democrat Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky thinks it’s a great idea if doctors unionize.

This will completely end any chance that doctors will care about patients. They will instead become just another uncaring, slipshod union hack that won’t much care about the excellence of his work because he’s protected by union rules. Patients will no longer matter.

Doctors will be just like officious DMV employees. Just like lazy Streets and Sans guys. Like all those little bored, arrogant placemen that work for government.

You, the patient, will no longer matter at all.

Welcome to Obamacare, folks. We’re all the victim of a death panel now.
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Democrats Next to Move to Unionize Obamacare Doctors”


Obamacare: Largest Tax Hike in U.S. History

Obama specifically said (yes in his own voice) that Obamacare is not a tax when he sold this faux healthcare bill to the American people.

He simply lied. In fact, even after the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare only because it is a tax, Obama’s White House is still claiming it isn’t a tax.

Obama should go down in history are the biggest, most destructive liar ever to sit in the Oval Office.


CPAC Chicago, Part 4: Joe Walsh, Randy Hultgren, Straw Poll Results

-By Warner Todd Huston

Finally, in part four we’ll hear from two solid Illinois Congressmen, the 8th District’s Joe Walsh and Randy Hultgren of the 14th. We’ll also hear the, perhaps not startling results of the straw poll, the most important question from which was who Romney should pick for his vice presidential candidate (hint, the top picks weren’t any of his one-time rivals for the nomination).

Congressman Joe Walsh


Rep. Joe Walsh gins up the crowd

Joe Walsh of the Illinois 8th District is the one Congressman that the left wants to eliminate more than any other Republican Congressman. This is because Joe has carved out from among his fellows an outsized voice for conservatism. He appears regularly on TV and radio to tout the conservative message. But he’s become a major target of Democrat redistricting and now faces a tough challenge to be reelected in his newly reconfigured 8th District. Me, I think he can easily beat the know-nothing candidate the Democrats have put up against him, but Joe is taking nothing for granted.

One thing is sure, though, Joe Walsh knows how to get a conservative audience in motion.
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CPAC Chicago, Part 4: Joe Walsh, Randy Hultgren, Straw Poll Results”


CPAC Chicago, Part 3: Bobby Jindal, Peter Roskam, Michele Bachman

-By Warner Todd Huston

In part three of our series we’ll take a look at the speeches of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, Illinois Congressman Peter Roskam, and Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota. Bachmann’s speech was quite interesting for its singular focus on a particular jihad-supporting Muslim group that is operating in America today. Bachmann was vehement that Obama ban this group.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal


Gov. Bobby Jindal on the main stage

Jindal is another favorite of the greater conservative movement. He has a very compelling story of immigrant parents that came to America to become part of this great nation to finally see their little son become the most powerful man in their adopted state. It’s the perfect American story, for sure.

Speaking of stories, Jindal has a lot of them especially where it concerns his involvement in the BP Oil spill from 2010. I’ve seen Jindal relate this tale several times and it is always a good one. His description of how the federal government was more interested in observing its silly OSHA than deal quickly with the emergency before them was telling and hilarious — though ultimately sad and infuriating. Since this is standard stump speech stuff of Jindal’s, though, I did not Tweet that segment.

Like the others Jindal started praising the Walker win in Wisconsin. One of his funniest lines was that all the news people were proclaiming that the vote would be so close that it would be a long night for Wisconsin as they tallied the votes. But reality proved that the whole thing was over in a matter of hours with Walker’s landslide. Instead of it being a long night for Wisconsin, Jindal joked that it was instead a “long night at Obama headquarters in Chicago!”
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CPAC Chicago, Part 3: Bobby Jindal, Peter Roskam, Michele Bachman”


CPAC Chicago, Wisconsin Praised, Obama Razed — Part One: Rick Santorum, Ron Johnson

-By Warner Todd Huston

Well, Friday evening, June 8, 2012, we marked the end of the first CPAC event held in Chicago and what a great event it was. The triumph in Wisconsin was on everyone’s mind but so was Obama’s dismal record. Not just dismal, but according to several speakers, even dangerous. The economy and the election of Romney were focal points but so was foreign policy this day. One theme, though, was constant: Obama has to go.

Because of other things going on and the several press availability sessions, I didn’t catch every speaker in the main hall, but I did hear the speeches of (in this order) former Senator Rick Santorum, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, Indiana Senate Candidate Richard Mourdock, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Illinois Representative Peter Roskam, Minnesota Representative Michelle Bachmann, and Illinois Representatives Joe Walsh and Randy Hultgren. I also heard and recorded the press availability sessions of Herman Caine, Peter Roskam, and Michelle Bachmann and I caught most of Kansas Representative Tim Huelskamp’s.

Other notables whose speeches I missed were Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner, and Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback.

The event was a great success with well over 2,000 participants, all seats filled for the most part during the speeches and some great groups like the United Republican Fund, the Illinois Policy Institute, the Heartland Institute, Champion News, and others hosting and participating.

I’ll say a few words about the speakers I did see in the order I saw them and I’ll do this in a few installments so that this won’t be one long, overly taxing post. Now, as each of these speakers appeared before us I live Tweeted their comments, so the following quotes are pulled from my Twitter feed.

But before I do that, each speaker was quite enthusiastic over the win of Governor Scott Walker who defeated an effort by the far left and their union overlords to recall him in Wisconsin. Each speaker praised Walker and crowed about the left’s loss in there. I won’t regurgitate the Wisconsin hunk of each speaker as they were pretty much all the same; exuberant. The essential point was that we are all cheeseheads now.

Rick Santorum


Rick Santorum on the main stage

Former Pennsylvania Senator and recent GOP Presidential candidate Rick Santorum gave one of his well-crafted, typically workman-like speeches. One of Santorum’s early points was that America is at a “tipping point” and we’d better be there to tip it in the right direction.
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CPAC Chicago, Wisconsin Praised, Obama Razed — Part One: Rick Santorum, Ron Johnson”


No, We DON’T Need Socialist Healthcare

Lee Doren suitably eviscerates a YouTube vide that is proposing communist-styled healthcare programs for the US.

Doren gives us, “Why we don’t need economic illiterates trivializing the dangers of socialized medicine and spouting abject nonsense on YouTube.”

This is a rebuttal to the video Why We Need Government-Run Universal Socialized Health Insurance, some YouTube blather posted by some guy working for the left-wing Campaign for America’s Future.