Some House Dems that Might Be Persuaded to Vote No on Obamacare

-By Warner Todd Huston

Ken Marrero over at Blue Collar Muse reminds us that there are a few Democrats that could possibly be persuaded to vote against House Speaker Pelosi’s healthcare bill.

Word has it that Pelosi is going to try and strong-arm her bill to a floor vote this Saturday, so if you want to stop this bill, call the following Congressmen and voice your opinion.

  • Michael Arcuri (NY-24th)–(202) 225-3665
  • Steve Dreihous (OH 1st)–(202) 225-2216
  • Gabrielle Giffords (AZ-8th)–(202) 225-2542
  • Debbie Halverson (IL-11th)–(202) 225-3635
  • Steve Kagen (WI-8th)–(202) 225-5665
  • Betsy Markey (CO-4th)–(202) 225-4676
  • Tom Perriello (VA-5th)–(202) 225-4711
  • Loretta Sanchez (CA-47th)–(202) 225-5711
  • Vic Snyder (AR-29th)–(202) 225-2506
  • Zack Space (OH-18th)–(202) 225-2965

I should remind readers that if you call these on-the-fence Democrats it’s far more effective if you are from their District, though. Just random calls from across the country will mean far less than the calls of actual constituents.


Mass Murdering Muslim Major Worked to Assist Obama’s Transition Team Through University Project

-By Warner Todd Huston

Plus, Ron Reagan couples “tea baggers” with Murderer Nidal Hasan.

In 2008 The George Washington University Homeland Security Institute (HSPI) initiated a transition task force to help craft homeland security policies during Obama’s transition period. In May of 2009 HSPI finished its report titled, “Thinking Anew-Security Priorities for the Next Administration.” One of the members of this Obama transition project was none other than the Muslim murderer Nidal Hassan.

Nidal is listed in Appendix C, Page 29 of the HSPI report as having served as a “Task Force Event Participant,” in his position with the Uniformed Services University School of Medicine. (download .pdf of report) We should caution, though, that Hasan did not work for Obama. But he was a part of the University’s efforts to advise Obama.

The HSPI fashions itself a “think and do tank” and claims its mission as that of building “bridges between theory and practice to advance homeland security through an interdisciplinary approach.” I wonder if one of those bridges leads to “understanding” the mindset of terrorists like Hasan, a participant in George Washington University’s “think and do” mission?

There is also video of Hasan participating at the GWU event.

So what of Obama? Why he’s still trying to understand this “tragic shooting.” Hours after the murderous rampage concluded, Obama made some rather facile comments after his jaunty opening remarks to members of America’s “First Nations” consisting of a long list of special “shout outs” to participants there.
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Mass Murdering Muslim Major Worked to Assist Obama’s Transition Team Through University Project”


Current Democrat House Vote Count on Healthcare

-By Warner Todd Huston

One of the jobs of the “Whip” position in Congress is to count votes so that the leadership has an understanding of what sort of support their legislative efforts have. These Whip counts are often made public knowledge (but not always) and The Hill has reported the latest counting of House Democrats and where they stand on the Pelosicare/Obamacare bill.

So, if one of your Congresscritters is on this list as a “yes” vote or is leaning “yes,” contact them immediately and voice your opposition.

As of noon on 11/06/09:

YES OR LEANING YES
Howard Berman (Calif.)
Leonard Boswell (Iowa)
G.K. Butterfield (N.C.)
Steve Cohen (Tenn.) Called the measure “America’s bill”
Gerry Connolly (Va.) Had expressed concern about tax provisions in initial bill
Henry Cuellar (Texas) Got tort provisions added, though still wary of costs
Kathy Dahlkemper (Pa.)
Sam Farr (Calif.)
Gabrielle Giffords (Ariz.) Leaning yes, would like to see more on tort reform
Debbie Halvorson (Ill.)
Alcee Hastings (Fla.)
Rep. Paul Hodes (D-N.H.) Yes
Steve Kagen (Wis.)
Marcy Kaptur (Ohio) Leaning yes
Dale Kildee (Mich.)
Ron Kind (Wis.) Voted no in Ways and Means Committee
Brad Miller (N.C.)
Dennis Moore (Kan.) Was target of death threat last summer over healthcare reform
Jim Langevin (R.I.) Opponent of abortion rights
Tom Perriello (Va.) Held many town halls this summer
Jared Polis (Colo.) Voted no in Education and Labor Committee
Earl Pomeroy (N.D.) Voted no in Ways and Means Committee
Nick Rahall (W. Va.)
John Salazar (Colo.)
Linda Sanchez (Calif.)
Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) Yes
Mark Schauer (Mich.) NRCC quickly pounced on Schauer’s support of bill
Dina Titus (Nev.) Voted no in Education and Labor Committee
Paul Tonko (N.Y.) Leaning yes
Tim Walz (Minn.) “I think we’re getting there.”
Diane Watson (Calif.) Praised bill in speech on the floor
Peter Welch (Vt.)
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Current Democrat House Vote Count on Healthcare”


Do YOU Want to Do Something About Obamacare?

-By Warner Todd Huston

Are you itching to join the fight to help stop Obamacare? Well a coalition of free market groups have come together to offer voters a way to get involved in the fight. It’s called HighNoonForHealthcare.org.

This site gives you tools to write, call and tweet Congress to urge them to stop Obamacare.

The website is sponsored by quite a few groups. Groups such as the National Taxpayers Union, The American Conservative Union, the Hispanic Leadership fund, The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons and many, many more.

Click on the image below to go right to this resource:


House to Vote This Weekend?

-By Warner Todd Huston

Apparently, Speaker Pelosi is getting a bit concerned that this healthcare fight is getting out of her control (do ya think?) and she wants to force a vote through this Saturday.

For his part, Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) says, HR 3962 is a “freight train of runaway federal spending, bloated bureaucracy, mandates and higher taxes.”

Pence is correct that the iron boot of Obama’s government will come down on the necks of each and every citizen if these mandates and this government intervention comes to pass. Obamacare will make healthcare more expensive, harder to get, and of lesser quality. In truth, there is no other possible outcome as has been seen in every country that has tried it already.

Mike Pence on the House Version of Obamacare:


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House to Vote This Weekend?”


SPN 2009 Conference: Final Day

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Wednesday session began with a breakfast address by James K. Glassman the former Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, U.S. Dept. of State during the George W. Bush administration. He spoke on Internet freedom (as opposed to net neutrality) and expressed his hope that a thousand Internet flowers would bloom without onerous regulation squelching it all. (I’ll add some photos later once I return home. All the camera stuff is packed up for the trip home at his time)

Mr. Glassman is about to begin his new role as the executive director of the forthcoming George W. Bush Institute to be housed in Dallas, Texas at the soon to be built G.W. Bush library.

I asked him if he could keep in mind the danger that state taxation presents to the Internet and urged him not just to focus on the federal threat that the Obama administration is presenting at this time. He agreed and I am hopeful that this subject will form a part of his future strategy.
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SPN 2009 Conference: Final Day”


Don’t Copy Europe’s Mistakes: Less Government Is the Right Way to Fix Healthcare

In this Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation video, Eline van den Broek explains that government interference is driving up healthcare costs in America and warns that European style health “reform” will make the situation even worse. Based on what has happened in Europe, she explains that universal health coverage is not the same as universal healthcare, that insurance mandates mean more government control, and that price controls simply do not work. More Information: www.freedomandprosperity.org


Rep. Mark Kirk: What’s Inside the Pelosi Health Care Bill?

Representative Mark Kirk (R, Ill) has sent out a letter with his take on Obamacare…

Yesterday, Speaker Pelosi introduced her health care bill (H.R. 3962) and I introduced a Republican alternative (H.R. 3970). I believe we should pass some key reforms and reject others because they will harm our health care and our economy. Here are the reforms that I am backing:

1. The Medical Rights Act: Prevent the government from interfering with the decisions that you and your doctor have made about you and your family’s care.

2. Eliminating waste, fraud and abuse: Save billions in improper fraudulent payments.

3. Reducing Expensive Defensive Medicine: Lawsuit reform and fully electronic medical records to avoid duplicate tests and procedures.

4. Lowering Insurance Costs: Give Americans the right to buy insurance from any state in the union; provide tax breaks to individuals buying their own insurance; and innovation programs to eliminate pre-existing conditions.
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Rep. Mark Kirk: What’s Inside the Pelosi Health Care Bill?”


S.C. Democrat: ‘Cadillac Tax’ Violates Obama’s Promise

-By Warner Todd Huston

Representative James Clayburn, a Democrat from South Carolina, is expressing reservations about the “excise” tax on so-called Cadillac healthcare plans currently in the Senate’s version of Obamacare.

Clayburn, the House Democratic Whip, said that this excise tax violated Obama’s pledge not to raise taxes on the middle class.

“I do not want to see anything jeopardize the president’s promise not to raise taxes on the middle-class,” Clyburn told MSNBC. “And that could very well get us there.”

Clayburn joins Big Unions in denouncing the tax plan as an attack on the middle class.

The high-end healthcare excise tax plan in the Senate’s Baucus bill is supposed to be levied on insurance companies, but it is clear that these taxes will be passed on to consumers in the form of higher premiums. And then only if insurance companies even bother to offer such high-end plans to tax in the first place.

In place of the tax on Cadillac plans in the Senate bill, the House plan would penalize taxpaying families with a combined income of $1 million annually and individuals that earn more than $500,000 a year.
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S.C. Democrat: ‘Cadillac Tax’ Violates Obama’s Promise”


It’s NOT Your Tree Mr. President

-By Warner Todd Huston

Call it the democrat in me (small “d,” people, small “d”) but every time I hear this president talk about “my house” when he is discussing the White House, I bristle. It isn’t “your house,” Mr. Obama. It is the people’s house. You have just been fortunate enough to have been selected to sleep there for a few years. The arrogance of this man claiming the White House to be “his” house is galling.

Well, now he has apparently decided that all the vegetation surrounding the White House is “his,” too. Or at least one tree is, anyway. Today near the northeast side of the White House on the North Lawn Obama disturbed the grass with a few shovels full of dirt where was planted a new tree; a 25-foot Tilden tree originally from New Jersey.

As the tree was being set, Obama talked with reporters.
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It’s NOT Your Tree Mr. President”


Obama’s Healthcare Failures

-By Warner Todd Huston

Is Obama “Nixonifying” the White House? Many think he is…

During the campaign, Obama promised transparency on healthcare as he is wont to do. So far, all the Democrats have done, however, is meet behind closed doors. That’s bad enough but as the days pass we are discovering that the White House has assembled its own Nixonian enemies list.

Apparently, this is a video that the GOP leadership played for Senate Republicans during a recent policy luncheon to help them in their deliberations. These videos are not often seen outside the offices of the Senate.

Senator Kyle mentioned this during a press conference today:

…we saw a little film clip of the president during the campaign, in his shirt sleeves, out talking to a group of folks. He said, “When I’m elected president you’re going to see this health care legislation written in the open. It’s going to be on C-SPAN, and you’ll be able to see all the different people arguing to see whether they’re on your side or they’re on the side of the drug companies and the insurance companies and so on. But you’ll be able to see that process on C-SPAN.

Republican senators and members of the media highlight President Obama’s failure to live up to his pledge to conduct health care negotiations in full view of the public. Senators and media members also highlight the White Houses alarming tendency to seek to punish those who dont share its views.


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Obama’s Healthcare Failures”


Senator Dick “Turbin” Durbin’s Helathcare Poll

-By Warner Todd Huston

Illinois’ senior Senator, Dick “Turbin” Durbin is sponsoring a poll on the so-called public option on his website this week.

Durbin, who made himself notorious for saying during the Bush years that our troops were just like Nazis, wants to know what you think about the “public option” socialistic government healthcare plans he and his pals in the left-wing, Euroized Senate want to force upon us all.

Ranking your feelings from “0” meaning no support, to “10” meaning greatest support, Durbin wants to know if you want a 50-State public option, an opt-out option, an opt-in option, a trigger plan, or no public option at all.

You can guess which one I chose (hint it’s the last one).

If you are an Illinois citizen, you need to go to this site and tell “Turbin” Durbin that you do NOT want any public option at all.


Senate Making Deals With Union Bosses With Healthcare

-By Warner Todd Huston

Reports have emerged over the behind-closed-doors deal that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is desperately trying to make with Big Unions in order to get the waters smoothed for his Obamacare policies. These reports show where Reid’s sympathies lie: with union bosses and not with the voters.

The Hill reported that Reid made “several significant concessions” to organized labor to smooth the way for his healthcare policies.

We’ve reported in the past that Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, has been highly skeptical of Obamacare because of the punitive tax placed on so-called Cadillac healthcare plans. Trumka feels that this tax will hit his membership too hard. For several decades unions have often foregone hourly wage hikes in order to take on richer benefits the result is that union members often have more extensive healthcare plans than most American workers.
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Senate Making Deals With Union Bosses With Healthcare”


Gov. Pawlenty Goes Off on Obamacare

-By Warner Todd Huston

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty delivered a red meat assessment of Obamacare and it appears he doesn’t like it much. Pawlenty slammed Obamacare as a “bait-and-switch” and said the president is “corrosive to freedom and liberty.”

In a NewsMax interview, Pawlenty really went after Obama serving a hearty dish of red meat to conservative voters across the country. Gov. Pawlenty is widely considered a prime candidate for president in 2012.

Pawlenty calls President Obama a “movement liberal” and says he’s “projecting potential weakness” to the world with his foreign policies.

“His solutions are federalization of policy, spending way beyond anything we’ve seen in terms of deficit or debt levels, spending the country into bankruptcy,” Pawlenty says. “And what’s behind it is a philosophy that government knows best, a nanny-state mentality on domestic issues that will ultimately be corrosive to the other pillars of our country — to markets, private enterprise, individual responsibility, freedom and liberty.”

As to Obamacare, Pawlenty calls it a bait-and-switch.
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Gov. Pawlenty Goes Off on Obamacare”


Doc Quits! $160,000 Per Year Malpractice Costs the Cause

-By Warner Todd Huston

Doctor Jacquelline Perlman has had it. After a 12-year career as an OB-GYN doctor she his quitting her practice. One of the major reasons is the exorbitant costs of malpractice insurance.

“I’ve decided to retire from obstetrics,” said Perlman, 42. “It breaks my heart. Malpractice costs are a big part of it. It’s a very sad story.”

Last spring her insurer dropped her and several of her fellow doctors because of the high risk of covering OB-GYNs. Dr. Perlman’s new insurer was to charge $160,000 a year for coverage and that proved too much for Perlman to take.

Perlman noted that over the last five years, as her insurance costs multiplied, her actual income dropped by 20 percent.

So, another good doctor — one that has never had a malpractice case stick to her — leaves the profession. Now, before some of you out there assume the insurance companies is the villain here, let us pinpoint the real villain: trial lawyers.
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Doc Quits! $160,000 Per Year Malpractice Costs the Cause”


FACT CHECK: Profits for Health Insurance Companies Far From Fat

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Associated Press posted an interesting piece revealing that the health insurance industry is far from the image that Democrats and other leftists want to present. Insurance companies are so often presented as rapacious, fat-cats ripping off all their customers and growing fat on profits. But the AP finds that reality does not quite fit the left-wing image.

In fact, the insurance industry makes far less profits than other industries. As the AP notes, the Hershey chocolate company even has a higher profit margin than health insurers.

Ledgers tell a different reality. Health insurance profit margins typically run about 6 percent, give or take a point or two. That’s anemic compared with other forms of insurance and a broad array of industries, even some beleaguered ones.

Profits barely exceeded 2 percent of revenues in the latest annual measure. This partly explains why the credit ratings of some of the largest insurers were downgraded to negative from stable heading into this year, as investors were warned of a stagnant if not shrinking market for private plans.

Ooopsie! Looks like the image of the fat-cat insurance company is not so pat as the far left and their Democrat enablers want you to believe.
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FACT CHECK: Profits for Health Insurance Companies Far From Fat”


40 Democrats Lining Up to Oppose Pelosi’s Abortion Funding in Healthcare Bill

-By Warner Todd Huston

The news is full of the behind closed doors deals being made by Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Pelosi but all is not harmonious in the land of healthcare “reform.”

One example of this is the fight amongst Democrats over abortion funding in Obamacare. Despite claims to the contrary, abortion will be funded by these various healthcare bills floating about in Congress. This fact makes moderate and conservative Democrats uneasy and forms just one of the many disagreements that Democrats are having with Democrats over Obamacare.

The Hill reports on this disagreement that has seen a group of up to 40 House Democrats banding together to oppose abortion funding in Obamacare.
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40 Democrats Lining Up to Oppose Pelosi’s Abortion Funding in Healthcare Bill”


Another Hate-Filled, Left Wing Journalist’s Brand of Non-Partisanship

-By Warner Todd Huston

BigGovernment.com found another hilarious example of how sold out the left-wing, Old Media is to their Obammessiah. This time it is “journalist” John Guerra of the Key West Citizen in Florida who sent a personal email to Representative Connie Mack’s office in reply to a mass emailing that the Representative sent his constituents.

Mack’s office sent out an email informing his voters that the “trigger” to initiate the “public option” that might be included in the healthcare “reform” bill in the House is little more than “smoke and mirrors.” In reply, this is what the purported journalist sent to the Congressman’s offices.

The Republican Party is now a mentally ill group of people who want nothing more than to destroy Obama’s first term no matter how much the country needs his policies. I despise your party’s activities and the hatred you spew on Fox and other sounding boards for the insurance companies. Please don’t you dare get him killed, which is the underlying goal of you right wing nuts.

I see, so the Messiah’s policies are so “needed” that dissent is verboten, eh? Jawohl, mein Herr Guerra. Ve shall never question the für… er, president.

This is why the odious Old Media is failing so badly. They are, nearly to a man, so sold out to this president that even questioning him in the mildest of manners is to them “hatred” that is tantamount to murder. Of course no one on the right wants to see the president murdered! Sadly, Mr. Guerra makes it exceedingly difficult to assume that the left is similarly against such evil being visited on right leaning Americans.

Difficult, indeed.
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Another Hate-Filled, Left Wing Journalist’s Brand of Non-Partisanship”


Why Does Obama Hate the Poor? Part Two

-By Warner Todd Huston

On August 13 I posted a piece wherein I facetiously asked “Why does Obama hate the poor?” Then I pointed out that the cash for clunkers program was likely to cause the price of used cars to skyrocket in the near future. I also asserted that the reason this will be so is because Obama’s clunkers program was set to destroy hundreds of thousands of otherwise perfectly functional cars all of which would have ended up on the used car market were it not for Obama’s interventionism.

It really is the most simple principle of supply and demand, so simple a ten-year-old could follow it — not that any Democrat is smarter than a fifth grader.

Here is what I wrote in August:

There’s little doubt of what will happen later in the year as cash for clunkers expands. Many thousands of lower end, used cars will be entirely eliminated from the market place as the government destroys them after they’ve been redeemed via that cash for clunkers program.

These will be the many thousands of cars that will not be available for people that have less than $10,000 with which to buy a car because so many perfectly good cars that would have ended up on the used market will have been destroyed by the government. Because all these cars have been artificially removed from the used car market — and all at once at that — there will be thousands fewer cars left for sale. Worse, the ones that are left will rise in price as there will be far more customers for them than units for sale.

This means that many millions of people that make less than $50,000 a year will now not be able to afford to buy a car at all.

I noted that Obama was condemning lower middle class folks to going without a car. He is also dooming many used car dealers, mostly small businesses, to failure because they won’t be able to get stock to sell not to mention for for being priced out of the market.
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Why Does Obama Hate the Poor? Part Two”


Don’t Shut Us Out of Healthcare Mr. President

Once again, Obama lies. He castigated Clinton’s attempts to get Hillarycare by saying that she tried to get her healthcare policies passed behind closed doors. He claimed he’d open the debate before the public and get it out from behind those closed doors. Yet, now Obamacare is being created behind the closed doors of the Senate and the House of Representatives.

So, what happened to Obama’s now hoary promise that he’d have a transparent, open government? It’s gone the way of most of his other promises: down the memory hole.


House Speaker Lacks Democrat Votes for ‘Public Option’

-By Warner Todd Huston

Despite assurances to the contrary, Politico.com is reporting that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D, Calif.) does not have the votes to include the so-called public option in the House version of Obamacare making it more likely that a “trigger” will be included instead.

Politico also reports that Obama himself announced support for the trigger option.

Obama told Senate Democratic leadership at the White House Thursday evening that his preference is for the trigger championed by Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) — a plan that would allow a public plan to kick in if private insurers don’t expand coverage fast enough, a top administration official told POLITICO. It’s also sign Obama is interested in maintaining a sense of bipartisanship around the health reform plan.

Regardless of the Politco report, however, Speaker Pelosi came out today in a press conference and insisted that the public option will, indeed, be in the bill.

Whatever the final outcome will be, however, this shows that Speaker Pelosi is having trouble manhandling her caucus. This also means that voters still have a chance to affect this vote by calling their representatives and urging them to oppose the public option.
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House Speaker Lacks Democrat Votes for ‘Public Option’”


Senate Defeats Dem Leader Reid’s ‘Doc Fix’ Plan

-By Warner Todd Huston

Roll Call is reporting that the $250 billion extension to the Medicare physician payment program was defeated in the Senate today. Reid couldn’t even get a simple majority losing in a 47 to 53 vote.

Naturally Democrat Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev) blames the Republicans. Reid complained that the loss was a result of “activities and actions by the Republican-dominated Washington.” Seriously. A “Republican dominated Washington”? Did Harry Reid miss the fact that the Democrats have majorities in both the House and the Senate as well as holding the White House? How could Washington be “Republican dominated” when the GOP has little capability to affect the debate through the power of majority control?

Roll Call pinpoints the most salient question here, though. If Reid can’t even get this one through with a Democrat majority how is he going to get the rest of Obamacare passed? The GOP, for its part, was ecstatic.
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Senate Defeats Dem Leader Reid’s ‘Doc Fix’ Plan”


Obamacare Lacks ‘Protection Against Treatment Denials’

-By Warner Todd Huston

The L.A. Times published a story that was probably meant solely as a bash on insurance companies, but still the report brings up several issues that Obamacare will only make worse if passed. The problem raised in the headline, “Healthcare bills lack protections against treatment denials, experts say,” isn’t the only problem the story touches upon — not that the L.A. Times dwells on them.

The headline problem is important, of course though the Times tries to phrase the problem as an evil failing of insurance companies. The fact is it is really but a common-sense inevitability. The Times reports that Obamacare will force an increase in denials of services to patients because of cost overruns.
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Obamacare Lacks ‘Protection Against Treatment Denials’”


Obama Abandons Abused Women in Afghanistan

-By Warner Todd Huston

President Barack Obama is putting the finishing touches on making a mockery out of the unsupportable claim that Democrats care about women’s rights by his signal to the Afghan Taliban, warlords, strongmen, militias, and tribal leaders that he’s ready to negotiate with anyone there in order to smooth his efforts in that troubled region.

President Obama is letting it be known that he’s prepared to cut deals with the Taliban in order for Afghan warlords to cut ties with al Qaeda. Obama thinks he can work with the supposedly “moderate” Taliban groups in Afghanistan in a bid to oust al Qaeda. A Taliban moderate. What sort of mythical creature is this?

One thing is sure, however, if Obama turns Afghanistan back over to the Taliban and other Islamic warlords in an effort to make it appear as if he’s had success there, women will be the hardest hit. The possibility that Obama will abandon Afghanistan’s women frightens Wazhma Frogh, an Afghan women’s advocate who received the U.S. State Department’s 2009 International Woman of Courage Award.
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Obama Abandons Abused Women in Afghanistan”


Obamacare: Punishing 85% to Help 15%

-By Warner Todd Huston

Representative Mike Rogers (R, Mich.) made some great points in his opening statements against Obamacare as the debate heats up in D.C. He began by asking why we are punishing 85% of America because of the problems of 15%? He also told us of how bad the survival rate for cancer in the U.K. is compared to the U.S. but that Obamacare will make our survival rate as bad as England’s.

Great stuff, Mr. Rogers, great stuff.
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Obamacare: Punishing 85% to Help 15%”


Obama’s Newest Racemongering Judge: California’s Edward Chen

-By Warner Todd Huston

President Obama has gone out of his way to “diversify” the federal bench with his spate of nominations of various minorities chief of which was his successful seating of the “wise Latina,’ Sonia Sotomayor, on the Supreme Court. Obama’s nominees* for 10 district court openings include four African-Americans, three Asian-Americans, one Latino and four women. One of those nominees, San Francisco U.S. Magistrate Judge Edward Chen, received a favorable vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington today.

So what sort of judge is Edward Chen? Well, for one, the left-wing American Bar Association rated Chen a “well qualified” nominee and many of his associates at the ACLU speak highly of him. As an ACLU lawyer, Chen was known for opposing English-only policies and for pushing discriminatory affirmative action ideals. He even came to the aid of gang members in one case. Chen was quite the ACLU activist between 1979 and 2001.

His ACLU history would suffice to make many wary of him, of course. But for a segment of America, working for the ACLU is not a disqualifier. So in order to judge Edward Chen one must look at his past. Discovering what Judge Chen thinks of the country upon which he apparently assumes to sit in judgment is a telling exercise. Sadly, it seems he has quite a low opinion of the nation that he will be serving.
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Obama’s Newest Racemongering Judge: California’s Edward Chen”


Healthcare Conference Call With Representatives Shadegg and Rodgers

-By Warner Todd Huston

Today at 4:30PM eastern a blogger conference call was held by Representatives John Shadegg (R, AZ) and Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R, WA). The subject we spoke about was that of House Republican’s ideas and problems on healthcare reform issues in both the Senate and the House. The following are my notes of the call, any direct quotes are in quote marks but the rest is my summation of what was said.

The call opened with a welcome from Cathy McMorris Rodgers who introduced herself and Rep. Shadegg. Rodgers talked of the situation in the House and reminded us that 44 House Democrats said they’d vote no on the bill if it has public option and 57 said they’ll vote no if it doesn’t have the public option so the Democrats might not have the votes to pass H.B. 3200.

Shadegg reminded us that the CBO score on the Senate bill was made on 10 years of taxes being taken by the federal government but with only 7 years of coverage afforded, so it’s no wonder the bill sounds like it is paid for. Shadegg also warned of the political monkeying that is going on with the Baucus bill in the Senate. He mentioned that Harry Reid is down in the polls back home so he tried to slip through a sleight of hand way for four favored states to get special Medicaid provisions (including Nev., Oregon, Mich.) forcing the other 46 states to pick up the tab. This was Reid’s attempt to find success in his upcoming elections in Nevada.
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Healthcare Conference Call With Representatives Shadegg and Rodgers”


Government Option Example: Would Government Airlines Work?

Here is a cute little video made by the Independence Institute to explain how bad the public option would be by comparing that policy prescription to what would happen to the airline industry if the government offered a government airlines for transportation customers.


Canadians Talk About Their Nationalized Healthcare

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Mackinac Center has produced a video filled with Canadians warning us that their vaunted nationalized healthcare system, the one Barack Obama keeps pointing to as a model for us, is not all it’s claimed to be.

The MC took its cameras throughout Canada and asked Canadians what they thought of their nationalized, socialistic healthcare system and what they thought of the push in the United States to create its own copy of their system. Almost to a person they warned us against it and each worried that they themselves would lose one of their own healthcare benefits: American medicine used when their system fails them.

The Mackinac Center for Public Policy is a free market think tank in Michigan.

Visit the website of the Mackinac Center for the full video series of Canadian citizens speaking out on healthcare.
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Canadians Talk About Their Nationalized Healthcare”