Glenn Beck.com

 

GLENN: I got a letter from a man in Arizona. He writes an open letter to our nation's leadership: I'm a home grown American citizen, 53, registered Democrat all my life. Before the last presidential election I registered as a Republican because I no longer felt the Democratic Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. Now I no longer feel the Republican Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me.

 

The fact is I no longer feel any political party or representative in Washington represents my views or works to pursue the issues important to me. There must be someone. Please tell me who you are. Please stand up and tell me that you are there and that you're willing to fight for our Constitution as it was written.

 

Please stand up now. You might ask yourself what my views and issues are that I would horribly feel so disenfranchised by both major political parties. What kind of nut job am I? Will you please tell me? Read article.

 

That Was Then

Jennifer Rubin, Commentary Magazine.com

 

I thought it would be interesting to go back to then-candidate Barack Obama’s speech to an AIPAC in 2008 forum in 2007 to see what he said then and what agenda he was presenting to the voters. He had this to say about Iran:

 

 

 

 

In 2008 just after clinching the nomination he had this to say:

 

 

This is what he said in Cairo:

 

"It will be hard to overcome decades of mistrust, but we will proceed with courage, rectitude and resolve. There will be many issues to discuss between our two countries, and we are willing to move forward without preconditions on the basis of mutual respect. I understand those who protest that some countries have weapons that others do not. No single nation should pick and choose which nations hold nuclear weapons." Read article.

 

Mark Steyn, NRO.com

 

Overseas, the coolest president in history was giving a speech. Or, as the official press release headlined it on the State Department website, “President Obama Speaks to the Muslim World from Cairo.”

 

Let’s pause right there: It’s interesting how easily the words “the Muslim world” roll off the tongues of liberal secular progressives who’d choke on any equivalent reference to “the Christian world.” When such hyper-alert policemen of the perimeter between church and state endorse the former but not the latter, they’re implicitly acknowledging that Islam is not merely a faith but a political project, too.

 

There is an “Organization of the Islamic Conference,” which is already the largest single voting bloc at the U.N. and is still adding new members. Imagine if someone proposed an “Organization of the Christian Conference” that would hold summits attended by prime ministers and presidents, and vote as a bloc in transnational bodies. But, of course, there is no “Christian world”: Europe is largely post-Christian and, as President Obama bizarrely asserted to a European interviewer last week, America is “one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.” Perhaps we’re eligible for membership in the OIC. Read article.

 

Martin Kramer, Jpost.com

 

The Washington Post ran an article Saturday, exploring the origins of President Obama's heels-dug-in stance on Israeli settlements. White House officials described Obama's position to the Post as "years old and not the product of recent events or discussions."

 

The Post then traced it way back to some of Obama's Jewish friends from Chicago days. The earliest influence named in the piece is the late Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf of Hyde Park, whose synagogue was across from Obama's home (and whom Marty Peretz memorably described as "one of those remaining nudnik Reform clergy who is always pained that, given the distress of the Palestinians, life is too good for the Israelis").

 

But how is it possible to mention Wolf and not Rashid Khalidi, Obama's University of Chicago colleague? Not only did Obama famously have his own "conversations" with Khalidi, but Wolf attested that his own conversations with Obama on Israel and the Palestinians were three-way, involving Khalidi. A journalist who interviewed Wolf last year wrote this:

 

Wolf has impressions about Obama's initial views on Israel more than specifics, and the impression was one of sympathy for the views that he and their mutual friend, Palestinian advocate Rashid Khalidi, expressed to him on Israel - views including the need to pressure Israel to give up the West Bank. Read article.

AWR Hawkins, Pajamas Media.com

 

Barack Obama ran for president on a promise to raise taxes on everyone who makes $250,000 or more a year. His running mate defended the tax hike by saying that “people who are well-off have a patriotic duty to pay higher taxes.” Under the guise of “[spreading] the wealth around,” Obama acts as if his goal is to lift the poor above poverty so they too can enjoy the American dream. But in reality, his plan is to push the rich down closer to the poverty line, so that the equality Americans enjoy can be one of dependence on an intrusive, but increasingly necessary, federal government.

 

This is Obama’s way of leveling the playing field. Instead of removing the myriad of government regulations that hinder the entrepreneurial spirit in this country, he will use tax hikes and redistribution schemes to break the will of the ambitious and energetic, forcing everyone to accept a life devoid of opulence or ease. It seems the rich have become so only off the sweat of the poor. Or to use Obama’s own words: “The strong too often dominate the weak, and too many of those with wealth and with power find all manner of justification for their own privilege in the face of poverty and injustice.”

 

In April 2008, Michelle Obama explained how her husband’s goal of taxing the rich into paying their fair share was going to work: “Most Americans don’t want much. They don’t want the whole pie. There are some who do, but most Americans feel blessed just being able to thrive a little bit. … [Yet], in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more.”

 

On June 7, 2009, the Great Leveler proved his wife’s explanation correct when he said he “wants Congress to consider taxing the wealthy instead of workers to pay for a health care overhaul.” Read article.

 

Terence Jeffrey, CNS News.com

 

President Obama told the American Medical Association on Monday that he thinks single-payer health care systems—socialized medicine—work “pretty well” in other countries, but that he does not want to create such a system here because he wants to “build on our traditions.”

 

In fact, the predictable endgame of the health care plan Obama is trying to rush through Congress this summer is socialized medicine.

 

We now know Obama does not oppose socialized medicine in principle or on practical grounds. So on what grounds does he oppose it? Just one: rhetorical.

 

If Obama candidly said he is trying to put America on the path to government-run health care, it would excite exactly the sort of massive national grassroots opposition needed to kill his plan.

 

So what Obama is doing is paving a one-way street to a socialized medicine while expressly denying he is doing so—and while accusing those who point out what he is doing of being untruthful. Read article.

 

Editorial, Washington Times.com

 

Congress ought to open an investigation, New York Times editorialists should be in a state of apoplexy, and MSNBC hosts ought to be frothing at the mouth. Without appropriate documentation or good reason, President Obama has fired a federal investigator who was on the case against a political ally of the president's. Mr. Obama's move has the stench of scandal.

 

On June 11, Mr. Obama fired Gerald Walpin, inspector general for the Corporation for National and Community Service. He offered no public reason for doing so other than that he "no longer" had "the fullest confidence" in Mr. Walpin. Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, is rightly questioning the firing and the explanation for it.

 

The senator noted that the Inspector General Reform Act requires the president to "communicate in writing ... the reasons for any such removal." Losing one's "fullest confidence" hardly qualifies as a justifiable reason. The Senate report language attached to the act explains: "The requirement to notify the Congress in advance of the reasons for the removal should serve to ensure that Inspectors General are not removed for political reasons." Read article.

 

Jillian Bandes, Townhall.com

 

President Obama is exempting health care legislation from his recent push for renewed adherence to the "pay-as-you-go" principle.

 

His logic is that health care will pay for itself in the long-term while incurring short-term debts, so a single waiver from pay-as-you-go rules in the short term isn’t irresponsible. But past government programs designed to be self-sustaining in the long run simply haven’t lived up to lawmakers' expectations.

 

Social Security amendments passed in 1983 mandate that the program be fiscally solvent for the next 75 years. A recent report released last month by the Social Security Administration claims the solvency of the program will last through 2037, 21 years shorter than expected. Many experts believe this estimate is grossly optimistic.

 

The rhetoric surrounding the creation of other programs suggest that they were originally conceived as self-sustaining, but the principle has always been abandoned after the program was put in place. It was originally believed Amtrak would be self-sustaining within 3 to 5 years. The program lost almost a billion dollars last year and almost $30 billion dollars since its creation in 1970. Read article.

 

Marie Magleby, CNS News.com

 

 A group of Republican lawmakers led by Sen. Jon Kyl (Ariz.) are introducing a bill that would prohibit any move by the federal government to ration health care based on results derived from federally funded comparative effectiveness research.

 

The Preserving Access to Targeted, Individualized, and Effective New Treatments and Services (PATIENTS) Act of 2009 adds a “necessary safeguard” to last year’s economic stimulus bill, which included $1.1 billion for comparative effectiveness research but did not specify that the research could not be used to ration health care.

 

“We feel it is necessary to introduce this bill to make it crystal clear that the government should not be funding research which is then going to be used in one way or another to ration health care for Americans, to decide what diagnostics or treatments or prescriptions or care can be allowed under any kind of federal program,” Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) said. Read article.

 

Scott E. Harrington, Online WSJ.com

 

[Public plan competition with private plans is like alligators competing with ducks.]

 

The Obama administration and the Democratic congressional leadership appear poised to create a "competing" government health insurer as part of its health-care reform. President Obama believes this would provide "a better range of choices, make the health care market more competitive, and keep the insurance companies honest," as he wrote to Sens. Edward Kennedy and Max Baucus on June 2.

 

In reality, equal competition between a public plan and private plans would be impossible. The public plan would inexorably crowd out private plans, leading to a single-payer system.

 

Advocates claim that a public plan would achieve significant savings in administrative costs. Among other omissions, they ignore that a significant proportion of private insurers' expenses are incurred for creating and maintaining provider networks, and for monitoring payments to reduce waste and fraud. Private health plans have a strong incentive to spend a dollar as long as the expected savings in payments is at least a dollar. The resulting expenditures increase reported administrative costs, but they save money overall. A public plan will not have comparable incentives.

 

The argument that a public plan would not need profits and would prevent excessive private-plan profits is populist rhetoric. Read article.

 

Bruce Kesler, Maggie's Farm.com

 

“…I found on most of these questions that the desire for change and support for reform was slightly stronger 16 years ago…”

 

So says Stanley Greenberg, CEO and co-chair with Dem pitbull James Carville of polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner. Greenberg served as a polling advisor to President Bill Clinton, was deeply involved in Clinton’s failed 1993 effort to rewrite Americans’ health care, and is today a prominent Democrat pollster.

 

Greenberg points out that, “the country has maintained the same anxieties about government's ability to improve the system.” Greenberg continues:

 

…Our inability to talk credibly about how we would reduce health care spending or costs for individuals and the country built a contradiction into all our efforts--the more we talked about the comprehensiveness of our plans, the more voters worried this would yield higher premiums or higher taxes. Very quickly, voters came to conclude that their families would face higher costs.

 

And those dynamics are still in play. In my recent polling, I found that voters are skeptical about claims that reform will reduce costs and personal health outlays. Claims about simplicity, information-technology modernization, and best practices don't seem to be enough to persuade them otherwise.

 

For example: “It may surprise you that Obama has already lost seniors, according to our current survey--only one-third approve of his plan. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see there isn't much in it for them.” Similarly for union members. Read article.

 

Mark Steyn, JWR.com

 

Willie Whitelaw, a genial old buffer who served as Margaret Thatcher's deputy for many years, once accused the Labour Party of going around Britain stirring up apathy. Viscount Whitelaw's apparent paradox is, in fact, a shrewd political insight, and all the sharper for being accidental. Big government depends, in large part, in going around the country stirring up apathy — creating the sense that problems are so big, so complex, so intractable that even attempting to think about them for yourself gives you such a splitting headache it's easier to shrug and accept as given the proposition that only government can deal with them. Take health care. Have you read any of these health care plans? Of course not. They're huge and turgid and unreadable. Unless you're a health care lobbyist, a health care think-tanker, a health care correspondent or some other fellow who's paid directly or indirectly to plow through this stuff, why bother? None of the senators whose names are on the bills have read 'em; why should you?

 

Take health care. Have you read any of these health care plans? Of course not. They're huge and turgid and unreadable. Unless you're a health care lobbyist, a health care think-tanker, a health care correspondent or some other fellow who's paid directly or indirectly to plow through this stuff, why bother? None of the senators whose names are on the bills have read 'em; why should you? Read article.

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