May 21, 2012
FSM HOT TOPICS
Exclusive – Oval Office Watch – Wednesday, March 31
by OVAL OFFICE WATCH March 31, 2010
Our Long National Nightmare is Just Beginning.
Morning Bell, Heritage.org
If you are tired of our nation’s year-long health care debate and you were hoping that the passage of President Barack Obama’s health care bill would settle anything, then Politico has some bad news for you: the real fight is just getting started. Starting today, a coalition of leftist groups will sink millions of dollars into television advertising and astroturf events selling the plan to the American people. But as a Washington Post poll conducted after passage last week shows, the Obama administration and their leftist allies face a steep climb.
The top line numbers are bad but not daunting for the pro-Obamacare forces: 50% of Americans oppose the changes in the new law while 46% support them. But the numbers also show that most Americans believe the new law will cause “the overall health care system in this country” to get worse, “the quality of the health care you receive” to get worse, and “your health insurance coverage” to get worse. The poll also shows that most Americans believe the law will weaken Medicare and that there is “too much government involvement in the nation’s health care system.” And strong majorities of Americans believe Obamacare will increase the federal budget deficit (65%), increase “your health care costs” (55%), and increase “overall costs of health care in this country” (60%). The American people are right on all counts. And if the events of last week are any indication, these beliefs will only harden over time. Read article.
ObamaCare Day One: Companies are already warning about higher health-care costs.
Review & Outlook, WSJ.com
Democrats dragged themselves over the health-care finish line in part by repeating that voters would like the plan once it passed. Let's see what they think when they learn their insurance costs will jump right away.
Even before President Obama signed the bill on Tuesday, Caterpillar said it would cost the company at least $100 million more in the first year alone. Medical device maker Medtronic warned that new taxes on its products could force it to lay off a thousand workers. Now Verizon joins the roll of businesses staring at adverse consequences.
In an email titled "President Obama Signs Health Care Legislation" sent to all employees Tuesday night, the telecom giant warned that "we expect that Verizon's costs will increase in the short term." While executive vice president for human resources Marc Reed wrote that "it is difficult at this point to gauge the precise impact of this legislation," and that ObamaCare does reflect some of the company's policy priorities, the message to workers was clear: Expect changes for the worse to your health benefits as the direct result of this bill, and maybe as soon as this year. Read article.
What They’ve Done Can Be Undone
Bosch Fawstin, NewsRealBlog.com
Ayn Rand says it better than anyone:
“I quit when medicine was placed under State control some years ago,” said Dr. Hendricks. “Do you know what it takes to perform a brain operation? Do you know the kind of skill it demands, and the years of passionate, merciless, excruciating devotion that go to acquire that skill? That was what I could not place at the disposal of men whose sole qualification to rule me was their capacity to spout the fraudulent generalities that got them elected to the privilege of enforcing their wishes at the point of a gun. I would not let them dictate the purpose for which my years of study had been spent, or the conditions of my work, or my choice of patients, or the amount of my reward. I observed that in all the discussions that preceded the enslavement of medicine, men discussed everything—except the desires of the doctors.
"Men considered only the ‘welfare’ of the patients, with no thought for those who were to provide it. That a doctor should have any right, desire or choice in the matter, was regarded as irrelevant selfishness; his is not to choose, they said, but ‘to serve.’ That a man who’s willing to work under compulsion is too dangerous a brute to entrust with a job in the stockyards—never occurred to those who proposed to help the sick by making life impossible for the healthy. I have often wondered at the smugness at which people assert their right to enslave me, to control my work, to force my will, to violate my conscience, to stifle my mind—yet what is it they expect to depend on, when they lie on an operating table under my hands?" Read article.
Eve of Destruction
Monica Crowley, Political Mavens.com
In the course of our history as a nation, we’ve have 44 presidents. Some of them have been brilliant; some have been not-so-swift. Some have been effective chief executives; some couldn’t manage their way out of a paper bag. Some have been intellectuals. Some have been populists. And some have been the common man.
Some of them have been stone-cold realists; others have been starry-eyed dreamers. Some have been warriors; others have been pacifists. Some have been strong; others weak. Some were visionary; others couldn’t see past tomorrow. Some were transformative; others were merely stewards of existing policy, placeholders.
We’ve had all kinds in the presidency. But the current occupant represents a first.
All previous presidents had a guiding political philosophy. And all of them—whether you agreed with them or not—at times bent their political philosophy when it became too politically difficult to stick to it or when the American people resoundingly rejected what they were doing.
Some of them pressed on anyway, but all of them at least acknowledged the American people. All previous presidents had a responsiveness to the people they led.
Not this one. This one is driven by such devout and fervent ideology that nothing—not even the Constitution—and no one—not even big majorities of the American people—will stop him. Read article.
The coming consequences of Obamacare
Byron York, JWR.com
For some of the brightest, most politically aware people in the country, the yearlong debate over the Democrats' national healthcare plan has been an inspiring experience. It has inspired them to run for Congress as Republicans.
Dr. Larry Bucshon is one of them. A heart surgeon in Evansville, Ind., Bucshon watched the first months of Barack Obama's presidency with growing alarm. "It became clear to me that what he said in the campaign — big government, more spending, more federal-government control — was what he was really going to do," says Bucshon. By last summer, as the president and congressional Democrats turned to health care, Bucshon was thinking about running for the House from Indiana's 8th District. By October, he had joined the race.
Bucshon is just one of what House GOP leaders believe is the best class of new candidates in many years. "So far, our successful recruitment efforts have helped produce over 95 top GOP recruits," says Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who is leading the recruitment drive for the National Republican Congressional Committee. And those are just the hot prospects in potentially winnable districts; there will also be Republican challengers for even the safest Democratic seats.
Talk to the new candidates, and they're worried about the entire scope of Obama policy. But an indicator of the specific effect of Obamacare is the unusually large number of new recruits — 31 — who come from the medical profession. Read article.
Peace Later
Clifford May.org
Apparently, some things cannot be tolerated. For example, while Vice President Joe Biden was visiting Israel last week, Jerusalem's Regional Planning Council announced its approval of plans to construct apartments for 1,600 Israeli families in Israel's capital, Jerusalem. "I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units in East Jerusalem," Biden said in a statement. "Condemn" is a word seldom used in diplomatic parlance — least of all in reference to an ally.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately offered profuse apologies, but top Obama adviser David Axelrod nevertheless appeared on a Sunday talk show to complain that the White House had suffered "an affront, an insult." Commentators on National Public Radio fumed that Israel's behavior was "a slap in the face" and "too much to bear."
Apparently, other things are not so difficult to tolerate. For example, Fatah, the Palestinian organization that wields power in the West Bank, last week named a square in the town of El Bireh in memory of Dalal Mughrabi, the terrorist who in 1978 hijacked an Israeli bus and massacred 37 Israeli civilians — 13 of them children — and an American photographer. No one in the Obama administration or the elite media seemed to think this deserved condemnation or even serious criticism.
How do you explain the strange calculus that condemns building homes for citizens and condones celebrating terrorism? You start by understanding not how the "peace process" works — because it doesn't — but how "peace processors" think.
They have convinced themselves that the Palestinians will make peace with the Israelis when and if the Israelis make sufficient concessions. So the pressure must always be on the Israelis to offer more concessions. Read article.
‘They don’t embarrass easy.’
Jay Nordlinger, NRO.com
I am not a liberal Democrat, and you may not be, either. But if we were: Don’t you think we’d be embarrassed at the way Pelosi et al. are going about getting “Obamacare” through? The parliamentary maneuvering, the skullduggery? Especially after Obama and the party at large promised openness, transparency, orderliness, and so on? The Democrats’ legislation would mark a major change in the way we operate in this country. Don’t you think the legislation should be handled with honesty and dignity? Don’t you think that most of the country, or at least a good deal of it, should have a feeling of pride and satisfaction about the process?
Yes, yes, I know all about “sausage and legislation”: Had it with my mother’s milk, so to speak. But the overhaul of American health care is not a grimy highway bill or something: It ought to be handled, if it is to be done, with a sense of honor.
I am a Republican who very much wanted something like George W. Bush’s Social Security reform to pass. But if Republicans had acted in a sneaky and highly partisan manner to pass it, I would have been embarrassed — and said so. Social Security is a broadly American concern. Why aren’t Democrats embarrassed about health care? Is it sheer moral vanity — the belief that they are doing something noble, no matter how much the yahoos squawk? Read article.
The House Democrats betrayed the Health and constitution of the American people. The fight has just begun.
Laurie Roth, The Roth Show.com
The Democrats hid Sunday night behind the usual ‘Mother Theresa’ type ‘save the uninsured and poor’ ‘gives 32 million coverage’ type fake outs. It is most clear regardless of who voted yes or no, that ALL those who voted yes on this Health care bill had zero interest in the will of the American people and their health!Sunday I listened to the live testimonies of Members of the House on CSPAN on both sides of the line and thought I would lose my mind. In between the ‘drama queen’ statements that flooded my brain like a bad hang over…let us have a reality check shall we?!!! This bill has nothing to do with health but rather is vividly a socialist, big Government take over of 1/6th of our economy. It is a moral, constitutional and financial failure!
The whole process of this bill that passed has been about nothing but unbelievable buy outs and fraud, from the pharmaceutical pay offs to the Corn Husker kick backs and Louisiana Purchase. This whole process looked up to the Gambino crime family.
Just what is this bill they are emotionally cramming down our throat?
First of all this bill forces all people to have health insurance whether they want it, believe in it or not. Just for being a US citizen you will be forced to have health insurance, much to the thrill and wonder of most health insurance companies who actually want this forced into law. They have been lobbying for it, the very insurance companies that have been demonized by Obama and the Democrats. The opposite is actually true. They are all buddies and greedy friends. Why wouldn’t they want it? Now people would have to come to them for care or else big fines.
This bill also takes out 500 billion from Medicare Advantage, which is a mainstay program that hundreds of thousands of seniors now use and depend upon, like my own parents. Seniors will be hurt badly by the gutting of this wonderful program. Read article.
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Occupy Chicago freakout: The LRAD is coming, the LRAD is coming!
May 21, 2012 00:57 AM
Here is an LRAD. It’s a Long Range Acoustic Device better known as a sound cannon and it’s used to disperse unruly crowds. Here is an Occupy Chicago freakout over the LRAD (led by the same livestreamer who freaked out last night over a brief police stop): Two #LRAD s spotted heading to march.— Tim [...]
Michael Moore spreads hysterical, anti-police fable from his Occupy comrades
May 21, 2012 00:37 AM
The crockumentary film-maker should have read Twitchy first. As we told you Saturday night, the trio of Occupy Chicago livestreamers who freaked out over a brief, Chicago police pullover didn’t have their apartment raided, didn’t have any of their equipment damaged, were not “held at gunpoint,” and had none of their high-priced cameras, phones, and [...]
It will rain: Awww, Occupy Chicago's all wet; finally, free showers for all!
May 20, 2012 11:09 PM
Mother Nature is Chicago law enforcement’s best friend. Tonight, the rabble-rousers’ plans for anarchy got spoiled by rain. Twitter had fun as the Occupiers and their fearless livestream crews ran for cover, while a few of the mobsters hung around to harass officers on duty and break out in senseless chants: Fkin Streamers afraid of [...]
Marion Barry has change of heart after being saved by Filipino hospital staff
May 20, 2012 10:00 PM
In what reads like a bad Hollywood movie script Marion Barry has changed his mind about Filipino nurses. Just a few weeks after complaining about how many Filipino nurses work in Washington DC Barry's life was saved by Filipino nurses. That's right, the same people he wanted to push our of DC hospitals ended up treating his potentially life threatening blood clot.
May 20, 2012 06:15 PM
Violence erupts at the end of the NATO Summit protests. Earlier today, members of Black Bloc were arrested for plotting to attack police stations, Mayor Emanuel's home and President Obama's campaign headquarters. Their violence then turned to the protest; police in riot gear move in, wearing gas masks. Protesters are throwing things at police according to video, live photos and reports from on the ground in Chicago.
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