More lies from the Obama Regime are surfacing. Just as the putrid corpse of a drowning victim will rise after a short period, the stench of the sub-surface lies of ObamaCare are coming to the surface — one at a time.

Remember US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s statement that the Congress would have to pass the ObamaCare law for the citizens of the US to learn what is in it? Of course, you do! That’s why she will be the “FORMER” Speaker of the House is a few days!

Well, they passed it – and now we are learning, just as Pelosi said, what is in it. The majority of Americans STILL hate it! The more we learn about it, the more we learn what is in it, the more we hate it.

Obama is a fast learner. He has learned, since November 2^nd, that he must hide his machinations from the new republican led House of Representatives. He is going to rely on his Czars and his regulatory agencies to pass into law the control over US citizens necessary to “fundamentally transform” (Obama’s words) America into the socialist utopia he dreams about. Conservative commentators and pundits warned Obama would do this… why… because he is an ideologue. He eats, sleeps, and breathes socialist ideology! He can’t help himself. He absolutely MUST bring down America’s constitutional republic.

Remember the “Death Panels” we were warned about by Sarah Palin and other conservatives. It was the so-called end-of-life plan written into the original ObamaCare Plan. When the public learned about it, all heck broke loose and the democrats were forced to drop it from the ObamaCare plan.

But never fear. Obama is doing an end run around the national legislature, the Congress, and forcing it on the American people, anyway! ObamaCare supporters refer to it as a “quiet victory.”

See what I mean?

A new Medicare regulation, which goes into effect next year, “ … will pay doctors who advise patients on options for end-of-life care, which may include advance directives to forgo aggressive life-sustaining treatment.” Go here to read the entire article: (SOURCE: NEW YORK TIMES)

The Obama Regime, and his cohorts in the Democratic Party, were hoping to keep this quiet for they knew that once the public learned of it, they would immediately pressure their new Republican led House of Representatives to either force Medicare to abandon the regulation or cut off funding to effectively starve the regulation to death.

NOW – do you see why so many of us were concerned that Obama would use his regulatory agencies to force the full brunt of the ORIGINAL ObamaCare plan on America??? I am more convinced than ever that THAT is THE PLAN!

Czars, executive orders, and regulations have already begun pouring from the faucet of “Big Brother SOCIALIST” government. Watch for the stream to become a flood in very short order.

This, dear reader, is how you lose your freedom, your liberty, and your country.

But how could this possibly happen in AMERICA – to AMERICANS? The answer is simple, really: Ignorance and Apathy.

The public education system in America, the “government schools,” are turning out some of the least educated graduates on earth. The democrats run the schools. Ok, labor unions, then. But what’s the difference? They are symbiotic. They feed off each other.

Americans have no clue, anymore, about whom they are, where they come from, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, freedom, liberty, what it costs to obtain freedom and, even more important, what it costs to remain free. That is ignorance of the “deadly” kind.

The second deadly killer of freedom and liberty is not caring enough. Freedom and liberty must be cared about and CARED FOR.

Americans MUST get involved in the life of their nation. Why? The election of 2006 and 2008 ought to tell you everything you need to know. We placed our country into the hands of liberal-socialists, called democrats, and they, in turn, have taken America so far down the road of ultimate destruction that our actual survival as a free people is in serious question. The results of both those elections hinged on ignorance and apathy.

The ignorance and apathy of Americans also gave us ObamaCare – and — Obama’s “Death Panels”, government officials deciding who lives and who dies, who receives approved treatment as they approach the end of their lives – and who doesn’t.

And this is just the beginning. It WILL get worse. Trust me.

America has surely entered a time of great tribulation. The handwriting is glaring at us from the wall. America cannot continue to survive on the path she chose in the 1960’s and continues on today.

The path to survival is narrow. It is hard, difficult, and certainly not pleasant. The path we are on, the path to destruction, is broad. It is wide and easy – not difficult at all. But at the end lies destruction.

America’s new Congress is going to need all the help it can get from the citizens of this country – even when Congress doesn’t want it.

I intend to aggravate the living daylights out of my congressman, who happens to be a conservative democrat. (I know that is difficult to believe.) The same goes for my Senators — one democrat and one republican. Why… because it is my job as a citizen… and as a father and grandfather.

America can be saved. She is worthy of being saved. But we cannot save her by sitting back and waiting on the next fellow to do it.

It is time to fight back — to fight for our freedom. Freedom, once lost, is almost never recovered. Doing nothing will certainly allow evil to triumph!

J. D. Longstreet blogs daily at INSIGHT on Freedom at: http://www.csadispatch.blogspot.com/

 

WesternFront America

But, Hey! The Communists Love It!

I am asked, occasionally, why I harp on ObamaCare so much. The answer is simple. America was sold a bill of goods.

I should probably qualify that last statement. Only those Americans who bought into the idea of Obamacare, as Obama and the liberal-socialists who make up the modern Democratic Party presented it, were hoodwinked.

Most of us who are clear-thinking adult human beings saw through the scam from the beginning and warned and warned and warned against it. We TOLD you what it was — and is — and we told you what it would do to America, as a whole, and to you and I as individuals.

Many did not believe us, choosing, instead, to believe they could have something for nothing — when the truth is – THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH! Everything costs something and in the case of ObamaCare the cost is the freedom of the American people.

ObamaCare is a lie, one of the biggest lies ever told the American people and one of the biggest lies/hoaxes ever perpetrated upon any nation on the globe. It was — and is — a grand “CON.” It is founded on Marxism and is, in fact, Socialism. But it is more than that – much more. It brings America to the threshold of becoming a police state.

In an editorial piece at the Washington Examiner entitled “Obamacare is even worse than critics thought” the writer says the following: “Six months ago, President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rammed Obamacare down the throats of an unwilling American public. Half a year removed from the unprecedented legislative chicanery and backroom dealing that characterized the bill’s passage, we know much more about the bill than we did then. A few of the revelations:

Obamacare won’t decrease health care costs for the government. According to Medicare’s actuary, it will increase costs. The same is likely to happen for privately funded health care.

As written, Obamacare covers elective abortions, contrary to Obama’s promise that it wouldn’t. This means that tax dollars will be used to pay for a procedure millions of Americans across the political spectrum view as immoral.

Obamacare won’t allow employees or most small businesses to keep the coverage they have and like. By Obama’s estimates, as many as 69 percent of employees, 80 percent of small businesses, and 64 percent of large businesses will be forced to change coverage, probably to more expensive plans.

Obamacare will increase insurance premiums — in some places, it already has. Insurers, suddenly forced to cover clients’ children until age 26, have little choice but to raise premiums, and they attribute to Obamacare’s mandates a 1 to 9 percent increase. Obama’s only method of preventing massive rate increases so far has been to threaten insurers.

Obamacare will force seasonal employers — especially the ski and amusement park industries — to pay huge fines, cut hours, or lay off employees.

Obamacare forces states to guarantee not only payment but also treatment for indigent Medicaid patients. With many doctors now refusing to take Medicaid (because they lose money doing so), cash-strapped states could be sued and ordered to increase reimbursement rates beyond their means.

Obamacare imposes a huge nonmedical tax compliance burden on small business. It will require them to mail IRS 1099 tax forms to every vendor from whom they make purchases of more than $600 in a year, with duplicate forms going to the Internal Revenue Service. Like so much else in the 2,500-page bill, our senators and representatives were apparently unaware of this when they passed the measure.

Obamacare allows the IRS to confiscate part or all of your tax refund if you do not purchase a qualified insurance plan. The bill funds 16,000 new IRS agents to make sure Americans stay in line. (SOURCE)

We suggest you read the article at the Washington Examiner in its entirety. ObamaCare is socialized medicine through and through. In an article posted on April 4^th, 2010 by Austin Miles at Great Minds Think Right.Com and entitled “We did it!” Communist Party Newspaper on Obamacare”

Mr. Austin says the following: The People’s World is a direct descendant of the old Communist newspaper, the Daily Worker, first issue published by Long View Publishing Co.in1924. Like The Daily Worker, People’s World states that they, “are unashamedly Communist.” They acknowledge their affiliation with the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and the Young Communist League.

When Obamacare was rammed through, the People’s World proclaimed, “We did it! Yesterday’s historic vote on health reform sets the stage for future victories.”  Catch that? WE (The Communist Party) did it!…and sets the stage for future victories, which means of course, Marxism for America.” (SOURCE)

According to a recent Rasmussen Poll 61% of US voters favor repeal of ObamaCare. (SOURCE)

Rasmussen also says: “A strong majority (60%) feel that under the new law, the cost of health care will go up.  Only 13% say costs will go down, and 18% say they will stay about the same.” (SOURCE)

As we were writing this commentary we learned the President has contacted a number of religious organizations and asked them to help sell ObamaCare to their parishioners and members, etc. I cannot speak for you, but if my pastor were to take to the pulpit and begin to expound upon the benefits of ObamaCare for me and for the country, I’d leave the pew and head for the door! (Where are the “separation of church and state” zealots now, huh?)

What we have, dear reader, is a socialist government in power in Washington D. C. It must be excised just as one rids one’s body of a cancerous tumor. If it is not removed from our body politic it will kill it as surely as that cancerous tumor will kill the human body. Thank goodness, surgery is scheduled for November second.

J. D. Longstreet blogs daily at INSIGHT on Freedom at: http://www.csadispatch.blogspot.com/

E-Mail: longstreet1862@gmail.com

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WesternFront America

Will Republicans take the pledge? I mean the Pledge to repeal ObamaCare.

The Independent Women’s Voice is promoting the pledge. They are asking members of Congress and candidates for Congress to sign the pledge. So, who, or what, is the Independent Women’s Voice? According to their website: “The Independent Women’s Voice is a 501(c)(4) nonpartisan, nonprofit organization for mainstream women, men and families. IWV is the sister organization of the Independent Women’s Forum.

Like IWF, IWV is dedicated to promoting limited government, free markets, and personal responsibility. IWV believes that too often the media assumes that all women are represented by liberal organizations that push to expand government. IWV seeks to ensure that our mainstream voices are heard in the media and before state and national policymakers, in order to educate the public about how our conservative principles benefit women, men, and families, and are critical to the future of our country.” (SOURCE)

Let’s take a look at the pledge to repeal ObamaCare candidates are being asked to sign. Here is the text:

“I pledge to vote for all bills which seek to REPEAL the health care bill, HR 3590, signed into law on March 23, 2010.*

“To that end, I do now and will in the next Congress endorse and vote for all measures, including discharge petitions, leading to its defunding, deauthorization, and repeal.

“I shall do so whether those measures are taken for the whole of the bill or those component parts that impose mandates, restrict patient and doctor choice and access, violate individual freedom and privacy, reduce healthy competition, increase costs, or raise taxes.

“*The healthcare bill is defined as consisting of: 1) The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R. 3590), signed into law on March 23, 2010; and 2) The Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act (H.R. 4872), signed into law on March 30, 2010.” (SOURCE)

It will, indeed, be interesting to learn who signs and who does NOT sign the pledge to repeal ObamaCare.

Those of us who are set on riding this nation of ObamaCare understand that as long as Obama is President, he will veto any bill repealing ObamaCare. We KNOW that. But, we also understand we have to begin chipping away at it, as soon as we can, to cripple it and hopefully “starve” the despicable law by seeing that funds for its implementation are cut off, bottled-up, or in some way denied to those who will put the law into practice. Those efforts must begin immediately.

The repeal of ObamaCare is the primary goal. That should never be forgotten. It will take time. It will take dedication on the part of citizens and legislators alike. And it will take work.

The first step is to insure that we vote for candidates for Congress who are dedicated to repealing ObamaCare. The pledge from the Independent Women’s Voice is important in defining who those candidates are, exactly.

In an article at The New American entitled: “Repealing ObamaCare” William F. Jasper describes ObamaCare this way: “This is one of the most far-reaching legislative efforts ever passed by Congress. It is far more than “mere” nationalized, socialized medicine. It will, if allowed to stand, inaugurate social engineering by “experts” on a scale heretofore unimagined … except in the dreams of apostles of the total state. Did the American people demand healthcare “reform” that mandates federally imposed “lifestyle behavior modification” with regard to “proper nutrition,” “appropriate exercise,” “mental health,” and “behavioral health”? Did we envision the invasion of our homes and family privacy to implement “domestic violence screenings,” “childhood home visitation,” and “improvements in parenting skills”? How will ObamaCare’s provisions on abortion, sex education, vaccinations, rationing, and database monitoring play out — if we fail to repeal it?
Analysts for pro-life organizations have charged that the abortion provisions of ObamaCare represent the largest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade. Other sections of the legislation are sure to prove equally far-reaching.” (SOURCE)

If America is to remain free it is imperative that we repeal ObamaCare! It is as simple as that. But just because it is simple doesn’t mean it is easy. The forces in America, and in America’s current government, striving for a totalitarian state in America are dug-in and ready to repel any and all attempts to rid this country of the plague known as ObamaCare.

The current lawsuits in the courts will take years to reach a conclusion, one way, or the other. Those states nullifying the law will, almost certainly, be challenged in the courts by the federal government resulting in years of legal wrangling costing the state taxpayers whopping amounts from their state treasuries — with no assurance they will win. Not to mention the risk they run of having federal funds for ongoing projects in their states cut off.

ObamaCare must be repealed by the US Congress either with the President’s signature or by overriding his veto.

In the next few weeks pay close attention to reports of who signs the Pledge to repeal ObamaCare — and who does not. Then you will know how to vote in November.

J. D. Longstreet blogs daily at INSIGHT on Freedom at: http://www.csadispatch.blogspot.com/

E-Mail: longstreet1862@gmail.com

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WesternFront America

As we bask in the afterglow of Missouri’s Proposition C, and the failure by the Feds to obtain dismissal of Virginia’s lawsuit against ObamaCare, it is once again time to revisit what should be the strategy of Conservatives in Congress (and those seeking office in 2010!) to re-affirm the will of the people in health care?

If I may humbly offer my best suggestion; the time is NOW for Conservative lawmakers to craft, UNANIMOUSLY Co-Sponsor and introduce new legislation that would:

· REPEAL

· REPLACE

· REFORM

· RESTORE

REPEAL AND REPLACE: Simultaneously! We cannot simply repeal ObamaCare and leave a void. We must simultaneously REPLACE it with the HealthCare Bill we WOULD have liked in the first place. The bill’s opening statement should read something to the effect that: “The Affordable HealthCare Act of 2009 is hereby repealed in its entirety and replaced by the following…”

REFORM: The replacement bill must address the real problems in the pre-ObamaCare healthcare system. It must provide for purchasing insurance across state lines. It must sensibly address pre-existing condition exclusions. It should ALLOW cafeteria-style coverages; so a 20-year old healthy single male may reduce costs by purchasing a policy that does NOT cover pregnancy and mammograms… Or a 65 year old woman can choose a plan that covers long term care, but doesn’t include prenatal vitamins and well-baby care! It should expand HSAs. It should ENCOURAGE private sector competition. It MUST include Tort Reform and malpractice insurance reform. It must CLEARLY DENY any federal funds in any form, at any time, for abortion services – and must restrict funding to any organization which provides abortion services or referrals in such a manner as to insure no funds can be redirected toward such services – whether domestically or abroad.

RESTORE: The legislation must RESTORE the Republic by re-affirming the supremacy of individual liberty and of State-Sovereignty. It must re-affirm the constitutional LIMITATION on the Federal Government. It must DENOUNCE federal mandates upon individuals. It should make a clear statement that the Federal Government acknowledges its limited role, and its requirement to govern by the consent of the governed.

Once this legislation is crafted – it should be IMMEDIATELY introduced, in both the House and the Senate Simultaneously, bearing the co-sponsorship signatures of EVERY member who wishes to be considered Conservative and liberty-loving.

Every conservative candidate seeking a Freshman House or Senate seat should, as a requirement of endorsements and campaign assistance, be required to pledge to co-sponsor and vote for the bill, should they be elected.

The 2010 elections should be FRAMED as the opportunity to rid us of ObamaCare once and for all – and it should be the first act of the Congress upon swearing in of the new session in 2011.

If this simple plan is adopted and implemented – not only will ObamaCare be ended early in 2011, but if properly communicated to the American Public – will result in a massive turnover of power in the halls of Washington .

Then the Conservative Congress can turn their attention to Un-Doing the rest of the damage done by the Pelosi-Reid Congress!

Copyright © 2010 by Doug Edelman

Doug Edelman is a conservative political analyst and commentator, and has been a contributing editor for The Conservative Voice. His work is also seen on Western Front American, Small Government Times, Western Journalism, News By Us, The American Daily, The Post Chronicle, New Media Journal, Capitol Hill Coffee House and more. Mr. Edelman is also an IT Consultant/Contractor and owner of a Computer Services Business.  He has taught PC Maintenance & Repair and Networking at his local Community College, and maintains a blog at http://starboard.blogtownhall.com.

 

WesternFront America

By Johanna Dasteel

It is hard to believe. Many of us are still pinching ourselves, hoping that it was only a dream or, rather, a nightmare, but the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as “the Senate bill” is now law. We now stand face to face with a brave new America, home of a nationalized health care system complete with taxpayer-financed murder, most commonly committed by surgical and medical abortions. Not only does brave new America, under this law, usurp our personal responsibilities to charitably care for our neighbors but a few other dastardly delinquencies will also be carried out under its dominion:

1. It gives Planned Parenthood the financial boost it has been posturing to receive for decades, essentially making it the government family planning agency. STOPP National Director Rita Diller outlined the financial (and deadly) boon in her March 26 commentary entitled “Planned Parenthood’s Obamacare Grand Slam.”

2. It funds abortifacient contraceptives through the new insurance option.

3. It does not provide any conscience protection for health care providers, insurance companies or taxpayers with moral objections to providing and funding fatal assaults on vulnerable human beings, particularly the preborn (medical, surgical and chemical abortions, human fetal research, fertility “treatments”), infirm (severely mentally and physically handicapped, people artificially aided with food and hydration) and elderly.

4. Building on the stimulus package’s health information technology, it will use a cost-efficiency model of health care to determine the course of treatments for U.S. citizens—an affront to the dignity of the human person, especially the vulnerable infirm and elderly.

5. And worst of all, it directly funds abortions; notwithstanding the executive order that merely reiterates the language of the health care law, so now those who did not fit in the “status quo” of the traditional abortion funding bans on Capitol Hill will also face taxpayer-funded deaths.

While some in the pro-life movement talked about upholding the “status quo,” Denver’s Archbishop Chaput instead discussed the “minimum moral standards” necessary for Catholic support of the Senate health care bill in his March 17 column for the Denver Catholic Register http://www.archden.org/index.cfm/ID/3583 :

It does not meet minimum moral standards in at least three important areas: the exclusion of abortion funding and services; adequate conscience protections for health-care professionals and institutions; and the inclusion of immigrants.

Archbishop Chaput’s message fell on the deaf ears of Catholics in the House of Representatives, and, worse, what Archbishop Chaput articulated as the Catholic Church’s “minimum moral standards” are not even met by the “status quo”:

- America funds Planned Parenthood, but this occurred even before the passage of HR 3590. Every cosponsor of Rep. Mike Pence’s amendment to the Labor, Health and Human Service’s Appropriation Bill’s Title X, banning Planned Parenthood from receiving any of those grant monies, will tell you that we have been funding abortion for decades. Funding Planned Parenthood is funding for abortions, not to mention the pornographic materials it bills as “comprehensive sex education.”

- America currently directly funds abortions that kill children conceived in rape and incest. Stupak’s language http://www.necn.com/03/21/10/Stupak-Maintaining-status-quo-on-abortio/landing.html?blockID=201691&feedID=4215 perpetuates this discriminatory policy and maintains this “status quo.”

- The “status quo” perpetuates the fallacy that mothers’ lives must be pitted against their childrens’, that doctors are incapable of providing equal care to both mother and child, that when a mother’s health is compromised while with child, that it is not only justifiable to kill her child because it tugs at the strings of our empathetic sentiments, but that it is necessary. It is never necessary to kill one human being so that another might live. The Hippocratic Oath http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=20909 , which requires doctors to provide equal care to every person, just as the government is required to give equal protection to every person, is undermined by this “status quo.” Stupak’s language is a continuation of this lie commonly referred to as the “life of the mother” exception.

Stupak’s language, although lauded as adhering to the “status quo”, was clearly not acceptable. So, why were pro-life groups promoting his amendment, saying that it barred the bill from funding abortion and creating the illusion that it would solve the “pro-life problem?” Of course, his language didn’t survive the process, and now many of these same leaders and their faithful grassroots support are feeling deeply betrayed by their gone-in-the-night hero, Rep. Bart Stupak.

Unavoidably, compromise breeds compromise, and, aside from the parliamentary tricks used to pass HR 3590 into law, it is safe to say that the support of now-infamous and so-called “Catholic” and pro-life organizations was instrumental in the passage of the final bill.

In the wake of this health care nightmare, American Catholics have been left confused and asking that dreaded question: “What now?”

I offer a humble suggestion; one that stalwart pro-lifers have been calling for as well: A recommitment to our original focus and intent to win back the right to life of the preborn, essentially ending all of the compromises.

Murder is not negotiable. Lives are not negotiable, nor are they political “issues” with which we can bargain. It is not the role of government to mitigate injustice, but to prosecute and correct it. Until it is formally and legally recognized that the preborn are persons, the prospect of publicly funding their executions will always be on the table and used for political gains.

In a time in which states’ rights are being discussed at length in order to combat Obamacare, it must be noted that there has been a movement afoot for several years now that has been doing just that.

Meet the answer to “what now?”

The human personhood movement has active initiatives in ten states, among them, Amendment 62 in Colorado, to define the term “person” as one that applies to every human being from the beginning of the biological development of that human being. In a time when the federal government is demonstrably turning its back on the will of the people, it is time to reclaim our liberties through our local and state governments. The human personhood movement realized this sooner than the rest of us. I suggest we hop on board and ride the wave of the states’ rights movement so that the preborn, whose very lives are at stake, have a fighting chance.

Let us pray, recollect ourselves and unite on the only thing that can save the pro-life movement: The bedrock principle that every human being is a person, each possessing inherent dignity, and with a claim to certain inalienable rights that we have an obligation to defend, chiefly the right to life, without exception and without compromise. Personhood Now!

Johanna Dasteel is American Life League’s senior legislative liaison.

 

WesternFront America

Many Conservatives are worried that they won’t be able to maintain the high level of outrage at the Obama Regime and the democrats/socialists until the election in November. That concern is not without merit.

Politicians tend to exploit the short memories of their constituents. The American electorate has the shortest collective memory of any people on the planet. The democrats are counting on it to save their behinds in November.

Meantime, they plan to hand out a few goodies by way of ObamaCare between now and November 2^nd, as well. Yes, ObamaCare WAS deliberately “front-loaded” with a number of the more popular portions of the new law to, shall we say, pacify the masses. And yes, they ARE treating us as though we are children. Sadly, they are not very far off the mark. And that is what is so worrisome.

Already, the dems are shamelessly buying votes with their mortgage bailouts for homeowners unable to make their house payments. There will be many such acts of Obama largesse between now and November.

These should be reminders to Americans that the democrats have just reached into our pockets and stripped as much money from us as they could find — for the moment.

Just a few days ago, a number of major corporations announced the millions, and even billions, of dollars ObamaCare will cost them possibly leading them to drop retiree’s insurance and causing major lay-offs of employees as the corporations attempt to off-set the losses caused them by ObamaCare.

With the predictability of a Stalinist regime, the democrats have summoned the heads of a number of the corporations to Washington to prove their claimed losses before committees made up, primarily, of Obama lap-dogs whose job it is to cover Obama’s behind. (I wonder if they have any idea just how ridiculous they appear to their fellow Americans out here in the hinterlands?)

Then—there is the shortage of doctors and other healthcare professionals. There are reports that as much as 40-some-odd percent of American doctors practicing today intend to quit, or retire, and walk away, as a result of ObamaCare. They simply do not want to become “government apparatchiks.” I mean – think about it. Why would anyone want to spend 8 to 12 years, or more, in school to earn a degree just to work for a salary from the government, rather than setting up their own business, hanging out a shingle, and practicing medicine as God intended? They don’t want to take orders from the government about whom they will treat, how they will treat them, and when they will treat them, and with what equipment they will treat them.

When nearly half of this nations doctors decide to just walk away, that has got to put a crimp in things — especially when you consider that we already have a doctor shortage in America. A BIG one!

So, ask yourself – where will all the doctors come from to treat the current patient load — plus the 32 million more who will be dumped into the system in 2014? Will the government import doctors from overseas? They’ll have too! Then you have to ask: How will the patients of those imported doctors know the doctors assigned to them have been trained to the high standards Americans have always demanded of their medical professionals? The answer, of course, is: we won’t!

There is no question the healthcare system in America will be overloaded. The high quality of healthcare will most certainly decline. And there will be rationing of healthcare…quality healthcare, at the very least. I know you don’t want to hear that, you don’t want to believe that, but healthcare rationing IS coming to America. Under ObamaCare, there is no way to avoid it.

Look, common sense dictates the use of healthcare rationing. How else will so few doctors provide healthcare for so many? It cannot be done without rationing of healthcare. And yet, the Obama Regime and his cohorts in the Congress have lied to the American people — yet again!

As the evidence of the Obama Regime’s lies and the congressional lies become ever more obvious to the American electorate, the level of outrage at the progressives, socialists, Marxists, Maoists, Stalinists, and just plain communists in America’s government today will only grow hotter. Remembering in November will not be a problem.

© J. D. Longstreet

J. D. Longstreet blogs daily at INSIGHT on Freedom at: http://www.csadispatch.blogspot.com/

 

WesternFront America

As I sneezed, snorted, hacked, blew and dripped my way through the sermon last Sunday, I pondered — as I fumbled for more tissue — where exactly does pollen fit into God’s plan?

Couldn’t a means have been devised for plants to propagate that does not involve making me breathe through my mouth like a guppy for three or four weeks each year?

As you read this, the cherry blossoms are predicted to be at their peak around the Tidal Basin in DC. Tourists and residents alike are expected to join in celebrating this sinus cavity Chernobyl.

As the Romans say: “Fors Fortis” (fat chance). Me visiting the cherry blossoms would be like an emphysema victim volunteering for a tour of the R. J. Reynolds factory. I’d just as soon celebrate the invention of mustard gas.

It would be bad enough if I was allowed to suffer peacefully through this pollenpalooza, but my family has to complain about my symptoms. They don’t like sneezing. My wife, Janet says it’s too “loud” and it “startles” her. But it’s not my fault that neighbors across the lake occasionally call out “gesundheit.”

Griping at me for sneezelash is like criticizing a polio victim because he’s no good in the three–legged race at family reunions.

It’s not like I enjoy exploding five or six times a minute. Formerly I drove each week to the Kaiser clinic and got an allergy shot. The “scientific” theory behind this treatment regimen is based on injecting dilute allergens into your arm to you build immunity to Mother Nature. In my experience this is like building resistance to poison ivy by putting a few leaves in your underwear each week.

All six years of shots did for me was aerate my left triceps.

My son, Karl also suffers from allergies and he experienced an early introduction to seasonal despair. My wife took him to the clinic for testing.

Later the doctor sat my son down and told him he is allergic to “trees, grass, weeds, pollen, dust and mold.” Karl’s eight–year–old mind considered this diagnosis for a moment and replied, “Well, that’s just about everything isn’t it?”

Now I sprinkle Benadryl on my food instead of salt and stack antihistamines like bodybuilders stack steroids. Since I can’t operate a pencil while I’m sneezing, giving up my backhoe privileges is a small price to pay for even temporary relief.

Hay fever is bad enough during the day, but it also interferes with sleep. I like to run the whole–house fan in the Spring and early Summer to cool off the bedroom, but Janet calls it “assisted suicide” and claims the fan only serves to bring more pollen into the house at higher velocities.

Since my tolerance for Benadryl and various antihistamines is at an all–time high (something allergy shots could never produce) I’ve had to dabble in homeopathic allergy remedies.

This year’s experiment is the “Neti Pot.” It’s a small blue plastic pot that looks exactly like the “I’m a little teapot” teapot. Three times a day I fill it with a few ounces of warm water containing a soda and saline solution.

Then I take the pot and jam the spout into one nostril and literally “tip me over and pour me out.” The solution is supposed to travel through your nasal passages, drown the pollen and flush it out your other nostril — as you tilt your head and watch in disbelief while this personal Niagara flows out of your nose.

I call it Do–It–Yourself water boarding.

(Practical Joker Note: If you want to give your wife a start, add a little red food coloring to the water before you pour and then ask her to come into the bathroom and help.)

I can’t really tell if using the Neti pot helps, but my contact lenses feel strangely buoyant.

It’s fortunate that the Obamacare bill didn’t single out Hay Fever for government intervention like last year’s War on Swine Flu. Otherwise allergy sufferers would soon be buying their Claritin from West Virginia residents in the local Wal–Mart parking lot.

One thing allergies have done is inspire me to write a song that gets down to the heart of the matter. I’m indebted to Maurice Chevalier for “Every little breeze seems to whisper Louise” which serves as the basis for my lyrics:

Every little breeze only makes me to sneeze,

Buds in the trees know they cause my disease.

Each little rose,

Surely it knows I hate you, hate you.

Michael R. Shannon is a public relations and advertising consultant with corporate, government and political experience around the globe. Audiences agree he’s a dynamic and entertaining keynote speaker. He can be reached at michael-shannon@comcast.net.

 

WesternFront America

By Larry Miller

For those not perceptive enough to be impressed by the destruction of our economy or even our health care system, there is a lot more involved in Pelosi’s rape of the American taxpayer. While these concepts may be too broad for non-political junkies, here are a few, less earth shattering consequences of the bill… an appropriate term in more ways than one. One of the major tax preparation companies came up just a few of the changes that the unbelievers should take note of… as harbingers of things to come.

Each may each seem small, but they indicate a pattern of tightening the screws on the American people. But then, our entire tax systems is geared to having us distracted by scratching and digging for dollars by the hundred while the political class and their friends take it by the millions, billions and trillions.

Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) and Health care Spending Accounts (HSAs), two of the tools we can use to take control of our own health care decisions are beginning to be drawn down. They start in 2011 by eliminating bandages, aspirins, over-the-counter drugs and the like from reimbursement leaving only prescription drugs and insulin. Penalties for unqualified distributions will be doubled from 10% to 20% and more importantly, contributions to FSAs are dropping from the current $5000 to $2500.

Presently, to receive a deduction for medical expenses, they need to exceed 7.5% of your Adjusted Gross Income. As we move into the 2013-2016 period, such expenses will have to exceed 10% of your AGI to be of value… making it even more difficult to make use of the deduction. From the statist perspective, this strategy raises revenue without the nasty publicity surrounding a “tax increase”.

However, to show that they are not totally averse to increasing their take of our revenue, they are increasing the employee share of Medicare tax from1.45% to 2.35% for income over $200,000. The even applies to the onerous self-employment tax on small businessmen and women. Who could fuss about this… taking from those who are obviously rich to take care of old people. Additionally, the evil rich will be hit with a new 3.8% tax on net investment income.

Beginning in 2014, those too irresponsible, or poor to buy government approved insurance plan will pay a tax, starting at $95 and rising to the the greater of $750 or 2% or ones income in 2016. To soften the blow on favored groups, the bill provides tax credits to negate the financial impact.

Businesses are not forgotten. Qualified small employers, defined as having less than 25 employees or a payroll of under $50,000… yeah, I know it looks like a misprint qualify for a special credit as do small 501(c) organizations.

Mixing health and revenue generation, beginning August of this year, there will be a 10% tax on those who defy governmental wisdom and use cancer causing tanning salons. Then they wrap it all up with a 40% tax on those who want to take care of their families with what they call, “Cadillac plans”. It’s a way of smacking achievers down to the level their government has decided is appropriate for it’s subjects. I guess we can at least be glad they kept the reference to an American company instead of calling them Mercedes plans… even though it is an Obama Motors car.

So… this is just a taste of things to come in a bill that no one admitted to knowing anything about. It appears that they want us to believe that that the thing appeared on Nancy Pelosi’s doorstep one morning and it absolutely had to be passed so we could see what was inside.

These are just a few details, with more to come. We just need to keep fighting the progressive vision of health care utopia… our lives could depend on it.

 

WesternFront America

In the wake of last Sunday’s vote by Democrats to begin the socialization of medicine in the United States, Republicans are reduced to throwing things at the wall in the hope that something sticks.

First up is Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli who filed suit in Federal District Court to have Obamacare ruled unconstitutional a mere 12 hours after the bill was signed into law. He was followed by thirteen other attorneys general who joined to file a similar lawsuit in Florida. (Since the Louisiana Attorney General is a Democrat, the effort to defeat the law becomes more bi–partisan than the party–line vote in Congress to pass it.)

Cuccinelli’s reasoning is, “With this law, the federal government will force citizens to buy health insurance, claiming it has the authority to do so because of its power to regulate interstate commerce.  We contend that if a person decides not to buy health insurance, that person – by definition – is not engaging in commerce, and therefore, is not subject to a federal mandate.”

Cuccinelli was quickly joined in his effort by Gov. Bob McDonnell, who was no doubt relieved to find a Cuccinelli issue he could support wholeheartedly without worrying about the necessity to issue clarifying news releases later.

Isn’t it ironic that our first black President’s signature issue establishes part–time indentured servitude? What else would you call forcing taxpayers to work part of each year on his health care plantation, until they earn enough to buy an insurance policy they may not want?

Who thought the “Change” Americans voted for would be sharecropping?

In a juxtaposition that had its elements of humor, as Pelosi and Company were busy creating Dependency Nation inside the Capitol — outside thousands of uninsured (better known as illegal aliens) were demanding to be made citizens so they could share in the bounty.

You may recall that one of the big reasons for passing socialized medicine was to cover the “30 million uninsured” many millions of whom also happen to be uninvited.

So I suppose the same federal bureaucracy that is incapable of keeping landscapers and busboys from crossing the border, will now miraculously gain the ability to force them to buy insurance policies.

Our next hope to defeat Obamacare, if legal efforts fail, is the November election where many, if not all of the GOP candidates will be running on a repeal platform.

But even if they win in 2010, socialized medicine will still be with us.

Let’s say Republicans here defeat Gerry Connolly, Tom Perriello and Rick Boucher and the vote nationwide is such that they take over both the House and Senate — unlikely, but within the realm of possibility. Then Republicans inherit the same problems repealing the law that Democrats faced in passing it. Senate Republicans will have to line up 60 votes to beat the filibuster.

After repeal is passed, the bill is delivered into the tender mercies of the Obama White House, where it will be vetoed, the same way any partial, piecemeal reform will be vetoed.

Republicans need a two–thirds vote in both houses to override the veto, which is 290 in the House and 67 in the Senate.

That’s not going to happen.

It will be 2012 before the voters can evict Obama and by that time pubic anger may well have dissipated.

The only time the public stayed angry long enough to force Washington to change a law was the repeal of Prohibition. But this time instead of taking away their booze, the feds are doing their best to addict the public. Entitlements are the crack cocaine of Democrats.

Their hope is once John Q. Public has a couple of hits off the Obamacare pipe he will be so high that by the time he crashes it will be too late to turn back.

If Ronald Reagan couldn’t get rid of either the Department of Education or the equally useless Department of Energy (neither of which produce any of the product they claim to regulate) then I can’t picture the repeal of socialized medicine after the bureaucrats have had three years to burrow into the government.

Obamacare is a fiscal black hole that will produce increasing deficits without end, while there are fewer and fewer productive taxpayers to foot even part of the bill. As taxes increase and productivity declines, this metastasizing spending will suck the life out of the economy and turn the nation inward.

In 1972 Democrat George McGovern ran for president on a platform of “Come Home America.” Now 38 years later, the Marines, the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, various astronauts, the Peace Corps and other miscellaneous agencies we can’t afford any longer will be coming home — to change America’s bedpans.

Michael R. Shannon is a public relations and advertising consultant with corporate, government and political experience around the globe. Audiences agree he’s a dynamic and entertaining keynote speaker. He can be reached at michael-shannon@comcast.net.

 

WesternFront America

“Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy that did not commit suicide.” — John Adams (1835-1826)

There is no question in my mind that I have lived long enough to see everything the nation once stood for in our own eyes and in the eyes of the world begin to disintegrate and fail.

John Adams, for those who slept through history class, was America’s second president, and one of the Founders who participated in the writing of our Constitution. If you worry about deals made behind closed doors, you are herewith reminded that the Constitution was written behind closed doors. Though the room in Philadelphia had its share of lawyers, the man who presided over the process was a soldier and farmer called George Washington. Others included farmers, physicians, and even clergymen.

Along with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, the sharpest mind among them was that of John Adams. After the ratification of the Constitution, he warned that “a Constitution of government once changed from freedom can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.”

The healthcare bill is freedom lost forever. I hope I am wrong, but I now doubt it will be repealed, nullified by the states, or reversed by the Supreme Court. While it is true that most constitutional scholars believe it is unconstitutional, taking and twisting the Commerce clause beyond recognition, I believe the damage has been done.

I freely admit that, before the vote, I remained hopeful that, even if enacted and signed, it could be overturned, but I am now less confident of that. In retrospect, the entitlement society that began in the depths of 1930s Great Depression and has been expanded ever since has proven to be the slow poison that will undo our constitutional system of government.

Conservatives have long warned against the excesses and delusions of liberals, but we have also seen self-identified conservatives like former President George W. Bush preside over the expansion of Medicare with a prescription program that defied any manner of funding at a time when Medicare and Social Security was known to be going broke.

In 2005, Bush did try to mend the system for the vast redistribution of wealth by campaigning to allow workers to divert some of their Social Security into private accounts as a hedge against old age and illness. When Nancy Pelosi said this was a plan to unravel public pensions, the voters decided they didn’t like that idea.

I confess I have tried in my mind to dismiss the Speaker of the House as just some lunatic, fringe advocate for liberalism run amuck, but like a lot of Republicans today, it is clear that she was underestimated (along with the Senate’s Harry Reid) for her political skills.

She engineered a political victory that has not only restored President Obama’s reputation as a leader on the domestic front, but has set in motion the destruction of America’s frail financial foundations.

Few believe that the U.S. can continue to borrow the billions necessary to maintain Social Security and Medicare. The alternative, of course, is to tax all Americans to such an extent that it destroys the middle class and drives more corporations offshore.

Speaker Pelosi eat, drank, and breathed Democrat politics from birth. Her father, Thomas D’Alesandro was a congressman and mayor of Baltimore. Her brother was also a mayor of Baltimore. She made her first public speech at age seven at her father’s swearing in ceremony.

I opened with a quote by John Adams and will close with one by Thomas Jefferson:

“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”

Americans, however, have long since abandoned the principles of the Constitution, a small and limited central government, for a behemoth that now controls our very lives through a bill that vastly expands the federal government and gives it the power to intervene between our physicians and ourselves.

We have been betrayed by an insurance industry that will be happy to rid itself the high risk and costly need to provide health insurance while continuing to prosper from life, property, and other forms. We have been betrayed by the pharmaceutical companies now salivating at the prospect of future profits funded by the taxpayers. The American Medical Association supported healthcare reform; a betrayal.

Even the States, many of which now want to protect themselves from even greater unfunded mandates, have long since abandoned their sovereignty by allowing the federal government to control education, highways, environment, and a myriad of other local responsibilities.

None of the institutions of government, not the executive, not the Congress, and probably not the courts will uphold a Constitution now distorted beyond recognition. Despite the usual talk of a new revolution, of midterm elections to return power to the Republican Party, the People are essentially defenseless.

Tell me I am wrong. Then tell me why.

© Alan Caruba, 2010

 

WesternFront America