A Couple in Their Nineties...

...are both having problems remembering things. During a checkup, the doctor tells them that they're physically okay, but they might want to start writing things down to help them remember.

Later that night, while watching TV, the old man gets up from his chair. 'Want anything while I'm in the kitchen?' he asks.

'Will you get me a bowl of ice cream?'

'Sure.'

'Don't you think you should write it down so you can remember it?' she asks.

'No, I can remember it.'

'Well, I'd like some strawberries on top, too. Maybe you should write it down, so as not to forget it?'

He says, 'I can remember that. You want a bowl of ice cream with strawberries.'

'I'd also like whipped cream. I'm certain you'll forget that, write it down?' she asks.

Irritated, he says, 'I don't need to write it down, I can remember it! Ice cream with strawberries and whipped cream - I got it, for goodness sake!'

Then he toddles into the kitchen. After about 20 minutes, The old man returns from the kitchen and hands his wife a plate of bacon and eggs. She stares at the plate for a moment.

'Where's my toast ?'

'I'm as Mad as Hell, and I'm Not Gonna Take This Anymore!'

That famous line from the 1976 movie "Network" sums up the sentiment of many Americans as the health care debate continued to roar across the fruited plain. More town hall meetings featured citizens angry over proposed government expansion, leaving many congressmen not knowing quite how to handle the reaction. It's clear that many Americans have simply had enough.

That doesn't mean that Democrats were convinced to abandon their nefarious scheme. Instead, when their own constituents dared to question the infinite wisdom of the carriers of Potomac Fever, Democrat regulars put into practice the words of Obama administration lackey Jim Messina: "If [we] get hit, we will punch back twice as hard." In other words, don't worry about winning the debate; just try to discredit the opposition.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and her left-hand man, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), started with an op-ed in USA Today declaring, "These [town hall meeting] disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views -- but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American. Drowning out the facts is how we failed at this task for decades." This type of "thinking" -- the transfer of one's own emotions or practices onto others -- is called projection. The Left has long since perfected the art of "drowning out" both opposing views and the facts, while blaming Republicans for doing the same thing.

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) put out a call to action: "Opponents of reform are organizing counter-demonstrators to speak at ... several congressional town halls on the issue to defend the status quo. It is critical that our members with real, personal stories about the need for access to quality, affordable care come out in strong numbers to drown out their voices." The SEIU has since removed the words "drown out," but the message is clear -- silence the opposition.

Last week, the administration encouraged Americans who support "reform" to rat on those who are spreading "fishy misinformation," while Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) denounced the administration's opponents as shills of the insurance companies. This week, the Left is painting town hall protestors as racists. "I think 45 to 65 percent of the people who appear at these groups are people who will never be comfortable with the idea of a black president," said Cynthia Tucker, editorial page editor for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. MSNBC's Carlos Watson worried that "the word socialist ... is becoming the new N-word." And Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein called them "political terrorists" who are "poisoning the political well" and "willing to say or do anything to prevent" ObamaCare.

Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) added, "[T]he last time I had to confront something like this was when I voted for the civil rights bill and my opponent voted against it. At that time, we had a lot of Ku Klux Klan folks and white supremacists and folks in white sheets and other things running around causing trouble." How convenient, then, that one of his supporters showed up at a meeting with an Obama-as-Hitler sign to "illustrate" the opposition's "hate."

Similar signs were made by LaRouche PAC, an organization run by long-time Socialist Workers Party member and seven-time Democrat presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche. Rep. David Scott (D-GA) had a swastika painted on his office sign after a heated exchange at a meeting. Talk about "fishy." What are the odds that the swastika wasn't painted by an opponent? Pretty good, given the Left's history of perpetrating similar hoaxes. Not that comparisons with the National Socialists of Germany aren't appropriate -- we made one last week -- and the Left certainly has done its best to invite the unflattering comparison. After all, it was Pelosi herself who first introduced the word "swastika" to the debate.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is so confident in the health care bill that he will conduct town hall meetings only by phone. And Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) had such esteem for her constituents that she talked to someone else on her cell phone while questions were being asked by meeting participants.

In the end, while Sen. Benedict Arlen Specter dismisses protestors as not "representative of America," here in our humble shop, we suspect that this horde of hysterical hypocrites is in fact not representative of America.

~~~~~~~~

I have no personal knowledge that Obama supporters are pretending to be opponents of the so-called ObamaCare, acting as the Right's "lunatic fringe" and thereby driving support to the health care side. If it's so, then shame on whoever came up with such a stupid idea and organized even stupider people into doing it.

Obviously, the Democrats have a problem with those who oppose them. They can't come out and debate the issue. See, Democrats legislate with their hearts and feelings. That's a good thing, but they can't justify and say in words why they feel they way they do, and want what they want. Their answer is that "we want what's best for the country. Sit down and shut up. I'll tell you what I want you to know and you'd best agree with me and stop asking questions. If I want questions I'll tell you what to ask."

The Republicans, on the other hand have the words. Unfortunately, what they say sometimes comes across as cold and unfeeling. They also want the best for the country. I truly believe both Parties are acting in what they perceive (see, there's that word again!) is the best interest of the country. They're just going about it in the wrong way. One is trying to shove something down our throats and the other is too busy trying to figure out what went wrong.

To the Democrats: stop playing your stupid, childish games. Don't say you want Town Hall meetings and then act surprised when people don't want what you're selling. You've seen the polls. Why are you surprised? If you're there to answer questions, don't answer your cellphone, ignoring people asking questions. It's rude. People get annoyed when they are dismissed for a phone call. Don't call a Town Hall meeting and do it by telephone. That's not a Town Hall meeting which implies that all people are there, even in the technological age we're in today. If you can't face your constituents, don't arrange a Town Hall meeting. Don't allow Unions to attend meetings as something they're not. Union members are citizens and have the right to be there - as themselves, not as, vocal, lunatic-fringe "opponents".

The reason why people are "mad as hell"? You're not listening to us. And worse, you're calling us unpatriotic and unAmerican. You're trying to sell us legislation we don't understand, and we know you haven't read so you can't possibly understand it yourselves. You're patronizing us, patting us on the head and telling us not to worry our pretty little heads over this. You know best and will take care of us. And worse, you call us unpatriotic and unAmerican because we ask questions.

We ask questions about how the government is going to pay for health care, and you don't give us answers. We're told, it won't cost us anything. And you expect us to buy that? Those in my generation and older are trying to tell you that we're worried that our retirements and pensions, our savings and all we've worked for will disappear. We ask questions about what will happen to us and our kids and grandchildren. You answer by saying we're disruptive, unpatriotic, and unAmerican for asking questions. Many people have lost their jobs, their savings, their homes, and you berate us for asking questions and say, yes, once again, that we're disruptive, unpatriotic, and unAmerican.

Politicians who support bad legislation and then don't listen to their vocal constituents, had better hope that the "silent majority" are the people who vote.

FairTax on Twitter

It's FairTax Friday - look at your paystub!

Did U take a look at the Federal withholdings on yr paycheck? How much better off wld U be if U could keep those $$'s?

Call yr state reps and urge them to press for a FairTax on a state level. This application will prove it's success!

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Kathleen Parker: The Barry Lynn of The South

by Ann Coulter

Posted 08/12/2009 ET

Updated 08/12/2009 ET

Just as the left pioneered "AstroTurf" protesters -- homeless people lured to demonstrations with the offer of a free T-shirt and a box lunch -- liberals have also specialized in producing fake "insiders" denouncing their alleged group.

There were the "winter soldiers" -- fake Vietnam veterans claiming to have personally disemboweled babies in Vietnam. It took 30 years and the publication of the book "Stolen Valor" to establish that the bulk of them were utter frauds who had never seen combat -- some had never seen Vietnam. (Shockingly, to this day, the Wikipedia entry on the winter soldiers treats their phony war records as legitimate.)

Then there's Barry Lynn, alleged "Christian minister," whose stock in trade is to denounce any mention of religion anyplace, anytime. Look, I'm a Christian minister, but even I have to admit that the sight of a kindergartner praying is terrifying to most folks. (The first person to post Barry Lynn's bar mitzvah photos or birth announcement (mazel tov!) wins a free copy of my latest book, Guilty: Liberal 'Victims' and Their Assault on America.)

The latest fake insider/whistleblower is Kathleen Parker, the Barry Lynn of the South. Fresh off her mainstream media tour as a Sarah Palin-hating "conservative," Parker is now a self-proclaimed Southerner blaming opposition to Obama's policies on the region's reputed racism.

Uncannily, this claim struck a chord with Northern liberals!

Throughout the presidential campaign last year, liberals were champing at the bit to accuse Americans of racism for not supporting Barack Obama. That was a tough argument on account of the obvious facts that: (1) for every vote he lost because he's black, Obama picked up another 20 votes for being black; (2) Obama won the election in (3) a country that's 87 percent non-black.

So the accusations of racism had to be put on hold until ... the first note of dissent from his agenda was sounded.

Inasmuch as Obama was just elected and his policies have turned out to be the most left-wing the country has ever seen, it wasn't going to be easy to claim the electorate suddenly decided they didn't like the mammoth spending bills or socialist health care bills because they just noticed Obama is black.

But Kathleen Parker has leapt into the fray to explain that the opposition to Obama's agenda is pure Southern racism. And she's from the South, so it must be true!

As she put it on Chris Matthews' "Hardball": "One word, Chris -- one word. 'Confederacy.' I mean, you know, the South is very -- I live there, OK? I want to make that clear, too, because I'm not bashing Southerners."

No, she was certainly not bashing Southerners. This she made clear in her Washington Post column calling for the Republican Party to "drive a stake through the heart of old Dixie."

How one gets from "we don't want socialized medicine" to "we hate black people" was a tough equation. As my algebra teacher used to say: "Please show your work."

Parker's explanation: "Sarah Palin may not have realized what she was doing, but Southerners weaned on Harper Lee heard the dog whistle." And on "Hardball," she said: "You don't position a white woman and a black male and pretend like there's nothing happening there. There's a deep history. That's why I mentioned Harper Lee in there."

So as I understand it, by nominating a black man for president, the Democrats had checkmated Republicans, who should have done the decent thing by not nominating a white woman for vice president, which would be seen as a deliberate ploy to lure gallant Klansmen into defending the white woman's honor by voting against Obama!

Called upon to draw a straight line between Sarah Palin and racism, I guess this is as good a try as any.

Any crackpot can put forward lunatic theories. What gives Parker's slanderous claim punch is her repeated assertion that she's a Southerner, so she's giving us the inside dope. To make sure no one misses the point, Parker issues repeated professions -- "that's what we do in the South," "I am down there," and "I live there, OK?"

Despite the implication that this Daughter of the Confederacy was virtually homecoming queen at Ole Miss, Parker was born and raised in Winter Haven, Fla. She married a South Carolinian and now splits her time between South Carolina and Washington, D.C.

I'm no Civil War buff, but I'm fairly certain there were no brave Confederate stands at Winter Haven against a superior Northern force -- unless those Northern forces were successful dentists from Larchmont. I would lay money that there aren't a lot of antebellum mansions on magnolia-lined boulevards dotted with statutes of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson in Winter Haven, Fla.

Except for the coasts, Florida never had much of a culture below the northern tier on account of the fact that the area beneath the panhandle consisted primarily of malarial swamps. Northerners got that deep into Florida at the turn of the last century -- i.e., about same time as northern Floridians did.

If Parker is a Southerner because she grew up in Winter Haven, then I should be the next spokesman for Gorton's of Gloucester because I grew up in Fairfield County, Conn. I'll pose in rain gear at the wheel of my ship, dispensing flinty, down-home Yankee wisdom -- "Ya cand get theh from heah" -- just like most natives of New Canaan, Conn.

Oh, and one more thing. I was once employed by MSNBC. Speaking as an MSNBC insider, I regret to inform you: We MSNBC-ers hate the military, loathe cops, despise the South and absolutely detest Christians. No really, take it from me -- I'm an old MSNBC hand.

Money Might Talk But Chocolate Sings!

One day I had a date for lunch with friends. Mae, a little old "blue hair" about 80 years old, came along with them---all in all, a pleasant bunch.

When the menus were presented, we ordered salads, sandwiches, and soups, except for Mae, who said, "Ice Cream, please. Two scoops, chocolate." I wasn't sure my ears heard right, and the others were aghast.

"Along with heated apple pie," Mae added, completely unabashed.

We tried to act quite nonchalant, as if people did this all the time... but when our orders were brought out, I didn't enjoy mine. I couldn't take my eyes off Mae as her pie a-la-mode went down. The other ladies showed dismay. They ate their lunches silently and frowned.

The next time I went out to eat, I called and invited Mae. I lunched on white meat tuna. She ordered a parfait. I smiled... She asked if she amused me I answered, "Yes, you do, but also you confuse me. How come you order rich desserts, while I feel I must be sensible?"

She laughed and said, with wanton mirth, "I'm tasting all that is possible. I try to eat the food I need, and do the things I should... But life's so short, my friend, I hate missing out on something good. This year I realized how old I was. (She grinned) I haven't been this old before."

"So, before I die, I've got to try those things that for years I had ignored. I haven't smelled all the flowers yet. There are too many books I haven't read. There's more fudge sundaes to wolf down and kites to be flown overhead. There are many malls I haven't shopped. I've not laughed at all the jokes. I've missed a lot of Broadway hits and potato chips and cokes."

"I want to wade again in water and feel ocean spray on my face. I want to sit in a country church once more and thank God for His grace. I want peanut butter every day spread on my morning toast."

"I want un-timed long distance calls to the folks I love the most. I haven't cried at all the movies yet, or walked in the morning rain. I need to feel wind in my hair. I want to fall in love again."

"So, if I choose to have dessert, instead of having dinner, then should I die before night fall, I'd say I died a winner, because I missed out on nothing. I filled my heart's desire. I had that final chocolate mousse before my life expired."

With that, I called the waitress over.... "I've changed my mind," I said. "I want what she is having, only add some more whipped cream!"

This is my gift to you - We need an annual Friends Day! If you get this twice, then you have more than one friend. Live well, love much & laugh often - Be Happy!!!

Be mindful that happiness isn't based on possessions, power, or prestige, but on relationships with people we love and respect.. Remember that while money talks, CHOCOLATE SINGS!

Three old guys are out walking...

First one says, 'Windy, isn't it?'

Second one says, 'No, it's Thursday!'

Third one says, 'So am I. Let's go get a beer.'

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, What! U 2? I thought I was the only one ~ CS Lewis

Axelrod Cashes In On 'Change'

by Rowan Scarborough (more by this author)

Posted 08/20/2009 ET

Barack Obama's chief White House adviser is collecting millions of dollars from his former public relations firms as they sign lucrative contracts with coalitions recently created to push the president's agenda.

After arriving at the White House as top political guru, David Axelrod filed a required financial disclosure form that shows he will receive $3 million in installments over the next five years in a buyout with AKP&D Message and Media, and Ask Public Strategies.

The bottom line: Axelrod is essentially on his old firms' payrolls as he sits in the Oval Office as the closest confidant to the president. Advocacy groups know that when they are hiring AKP or Ask Public they are helping those companies stay profitable and make good on the $3 million.

AKP, which shares Chicago office space with Ask, is now getting contracts from major groups assembled to push Obama's massive health care agenda. They include Healthy Economy Now and Americans for Stable Quality Care. Their million-dollar media blitz is financed in part my the giant pharmaceutical industry which has a big stake in how the White House -- and Axelrod -- craft a final health care bill.

Press reports say pro-Obama groups will spend $150 million on media ads. AKP's website does not list those groups on its client's list, which includes trial lawyers, the largest single contributor to the Democratic Party.

The White House press office did not respond to several emails from HUMAN EVENTS. The mainstream liberal press generally has ignored the Axelrod buyout.

But Republicans have taken notice. The Republican House Conference, led by Rep. Mike Pence, put out a release headlined, "Big Pharma and David Axelrod: $2 Million of Change You Can Believe In?" The $2 million refers to his buyout deal with AKP, where his son still works.

The release notes that the White House negotiated an agreement with the drug lobby (the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America) to get its political support.

"Has David Axelrod recused himself from the [drug lobby deals] or will he work to defend an agreement with an industry that is directly funding his son's work, and indirectly funding his own $2 million severance package?" the statement said.

It added, "As the pharmaceutical industry spends hundreds of millions supporting a government takeover of health care -- one which the drug companies obviously believe will increase their profits, even as it raises Medicare premiums for seniors -- some may wonder whether White House senior advisors earning millions of dollars paid for in part by the pharmaceutical industry represent the kind of change Americans can believe in."

Axelrod founded AKP and turned it into a successful public relations and political management firm for liberal candidates and causes. His Ask Public Strategies became a master at setting up what appeared to be grass-roots pressure groups -- the practice is called "astroturfing" -- to pressure governments or industry to do their bidding.

AKP has helped to keep the Democratic Party machine in power in Chicago by running its campaigns.

Ask's website is bare-bone. It does not list clients, nor its address.

By channeling money to Axelrod's old firms, the pro-Obama groups are helping to insure that he will ultimately received all his buyout money since it virtually guarantees the companies will stay in business without their founder.

Axelrod may have physically left the Chicago-based firms. But his name lives on. His son works at AKP&D as an executive. And the words of the founder are still prominently displayed on its website.

At the top of one page is this: "Change is something you have to fight for. Change is never easy. We are going to have to work for every vote. The change we need is worth the struggle; it's worth the fight. David Axelrod, Founder."

The site also features a picture of Axelrod with Obama and David Plouffe, an AKP adviser who served as the president's 2008 campaign manager. And it profiles Axelrod as the campaign's chief strategist.

Bloomberg news reported that Axelrod still talks to one of his former partners, Larry Grisolano, about AKP's work for another client, the Democratic National Committee.

Axelrod's buy-out deal calls for five annual installments of $200,000 from Ask. AKP will pay installments of $350,000, $650,000, $400,000 and $600,000.

The White House was asked about the buyout at Tuesday's press briefing. Spokesman Robert Gibbs dismissed the issue:

Q: Have you seen this charge from Republicans on the Hill that they're asking is he profiting from a payment he's getting from his firm, his firm involved in the PhRMA advertising deal?

Gibbs: That's ridiculous. David has left his firm to join public service.

Q: They say he's about to get -- million-dollar payout.

Gibbs: An agreement I think that was made because David started and owned the firm. He left the firm and, if I'm not mistaken, is being paid for the fact that he created it and sold it, which I think is somewhat based on the free market.

Regardless, Axelrod is, in essence, on his old firm's payroll for the next five years. As such, he benefits from any business they receive as do other people on the payroll.

Liberal Lies About National Health Care: First In a Series

by Ann Coulter

Posted 08/19/2009 ET

Updated 08/19/2009 ET

(1) National health care will punish the insurance companies.

You want to punish insurance companies? Make them compete.

As Adam Smith observed, whenever two businessmen meet, "the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." That's why we need a third, fourth and 45th competing insurance company that will undercut them by offering better service at a lower price.

Tiny little France and Germany have more competition among health insurers than the U.S. does right now. Amazingly, both of these socialist countries have less state regulation of health insurance than we do, and you can buy health insurance across regional lines -- unlike in the U.S., where a federal law allows states to ban interstate commerce in health insurance.

U.S. health insurance companies are often imperious, unresponsive consumer hellholes because they're a partial monopoly, protected from competition by government regulation. In some states, one big insurer will control 80 percent of the market. (Guess which party these big insurance companies favor? Big companies love big government.)

Liberals think they can improve the problem of a partial monopoly by turning it into a total monopoly. That's what single-payer health care is: "Single payer" means "single provider."

It's the famous liberal two-step: First screw something up, then claim that it's screwed up because there's not enough government oversight (it's the free market run wild!), and then step in and really screw it up in the name of "reform."

You could fix 90 percent of the problems with health insurance by ending the federal law allowing states to ban health insurance sales across state lines. But when John McCain called for ending the ban during the 2008 presidential campaign, he was attacked by Joe Biden -- another illustration of the ironclad Ann Coulter rule that the worst Republicans are still better than allegedly "conservative" Democrats.

(2) National health care will "increase competition and keep insurance companies honest" -- as President Barack Obama has said.

Government-provided health care isn't a competitor; it's a monopoly product paid for by the taxpayer. Consumers may be able to "choose" whether they take the service -- at least at first -- but every single one of us will be forced to buy it, under penalty of prison for tax evasion. It's like a new cable plan with a "yes" box, but no "no" box.

Obama himself compared national health care to the post office -- immediately conjuring images of a highly efficient and consumer-friendly work force -- which, like so many consumer-friendly shops, is closed by 2 p.m. on Saturdays, all Sundays and every conceivable holiday.

But what most people don't know -- including the president, apparently -- with certain narrow exceptions, competing with the post office is prohibited by law.

Expect the same with national health care. Liberals won't stop until they have total control. How else will they get you to pay for their sex-change operations?

(3) Insurance companies are denying legitimate claims because they are "villains."

Obama denounced the insurance companies in last Sunday's New York Times, saying: "A man lost his health coverage in the middle of chemotherapy because the insurance company discovered that he had gallstones, which he hadn't known about when he applied for his policy. Because his treatment was delayed, he died."

Well, yeah. That and the cancer.

Assuming this is true -- which would distinguish it from every other story told by Democrats pushing national health care -- in a free market, such an insurance company couldn't stay in business. Other insurance companies would scream from the rooftops about their competitor's shoddy business practices, and customers would leave in droves.

If only customers had a choice! But we don't because of government regulation of health insurance.

Speaking of which, maybe if Mr. Gallstone's insurance company weren't required by law to cover early childhood development programs and sex-change operations, it wouldn't be forced to cut corners in the few areas not regulated by the government, such as cancer treatments for patients with gallstones.

(4) National health care will give Americans "basic consumer protections that will finally hold insurance companies accountable" -- as Barack Obama claimed in his op/ed in the Times.

You want to protect consumers? Do it the same way we protect consumers of dry cleaning, hamburgers and electricians: Give them the power to tell their insurance companies, "I'm taking my business elsewhere."

(5) Government intervention is the only way to provide coverage for pre-existing conditions.

The only reason most "pre-existing" conditions aren't already covered is because of government regulations that shrink the insurance market to a microscopic size, which leads to fewer options in health insurance and a lot more uninsured people than would exist in a free market.

The free market has produced a dizzying array of insurance products in areas other than health. (Ironically, array-associated dizziness is not covered by most health plans.) Even insurance companies have "reinsurance" policies to cover catastrophic events occurring on the properties they insure, such as nuclear accidents, earthquakes and Michael Moore dropping in for a visit and breaking the couch.

If we had a free market in health insurance, it would be inexpensive and easy to buy insurance for "pre-existing" conditions before they exist, for example, insurance on unborn -- unconceived -- children and health insurance even when you don't have a job. The vast majority of "pre-existing" conditions that currently exist in a cramped, limited, heavily regulated insurance market would be "covered" conditions under a free market in health insurance.

I've hit my word limit on liberal lies about national health care without breaking a sweat. See this space next week for more lies in our continuing series.

Trust the Government

by Newt Gingrich

Posted 08/12/2009 ET

How much is one additional year of your life worth?

Or one more year of life for your father or your wife? For your child?

In Great Britain, the government has settled on a number: $45,000.

That’s how much a government commission with the Orwellian acronym NICE has decided British government-run health care will pay for one additional year of life for a British subject.

Think it could never happen here? Then you need to pay closer attention to what Washington is planning for your health care.

British Government Bureaucrats Literally Decide if Your Life is Worth Living

The British single-payer bureaucrats arrived at the price of an additional year of life in the same way they decide how much health care all British people will get, through a formula called “quality-adjusted life years.”

That means that if you’re sick in Great Britain, government bureaucrats literally decide if your life is worth living and, if so, how much longer and at what cost.

If it’s more than $45,000, you’re out of luck.

A Well-Connected White House Advocate for Allocating Health Care Based on Perceived Societal Worth

In the highest levels of the Obama Administration there is a theory of how to ration health care that is troublingly reminiscent of the British system of “quality-adjusted life years.”

Dr. Ezekial Emanuel is a key health care advisor to President Obama and the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Earlier this year, Dr. Emanuel wrote an article that advocated what he called “the complete lives system” as a method for rationing health care. You can read it here.

The system advocated by Dr. Emanuel would allocate health care based on the government’s perception of the societal worth of the patients. Accordingly, the very young and the very old would receive less care since the former have received less societal investment and the latter have less left to contribute.

“Forstall[ing] the Concern that Disproportionate Amounts of Resources Will be Directed to Young People with Poor Prognosis”

“The Complete Lives System” would also consider the prognosis of the individual.

Quoting Dr. Emanuel: “A young person with a poor prognosis has had few life-years but lacks the potential to live a complete life. Considering prognosis forestalls the concern that disproportionately large amounts of resources will be directed to young people with poor prognosis.”

When fully implemented, Dr. Emanuel’s system, in his words, “produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated.”

“Chances that are attenuated” is a nice way of saying the young and the old are considered less worthy of health care and, under this system, will get less.

Once Government Becomes the Provider of Health Care, Personal Decisions Become Public Decisions

The point is not that a health care rationing system like the one favored by Dr. Emmanuel will be implemented in the United States tomorrow.

The point is that, as in the British system, once government becomes the single payer or even the main payer of health care, what were once intensely personal decisions become public decisions. And as costs rise, government will look for ways to contain them.

The inevitable result of this pressure to control costs will be rationing, whether it occurs during this administration or the next. At some point, the government will be forced to deny care to those who don’t meet the latest “quality-adjusted life years” cost-benefit analysis.

So the decision on what treatment to pursue that once would have been made by you and your doctor is now made for you by a bureaucrat using a formula -- a formula to literally determine if your life is worth saving.

The Camel’s Nose Under the Tent of Health Care Rationing

Societies don’t arrive at this point overnight.

British health care was nationalized soon after World War II, but NICE, the health care rationing agency, wasn’t created until the late 1990s as a way to control costs.

Today NICE routinely denies Britons life-prolonging drugs that are deemed not “cost effective” -- drugs that are widely prescribed in America to treat cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and other serious conditions.

The result, studies show, is that Great Britain’s cancer survival rates are among the worst in Europe and lag behind the United States.

In America, Rationing Begins with Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER)

In our country, the road to dehumanizing, bureaucratic health care rationing begins with something called comparative effectiveness research (CER). It sounds completely innocent. In practice, CER means comparing different treatments for diseases to see which works best. And what doctor or patient would object to that, right?

The problem is that, in the context of a government-run health care system, comparative effectiveness research becomes a way to find a cheaper, one-size-fits-all approach to medicine that will limit health care choices for patients.

But don’t just take my word for it. Congressional Democrats included $1.1 billion in the Stimulus Bill for CER. Report language explaining the bill noted that the treatments found to be “more expensive” as result of the research “will no longer be prescribed” and that “guidelines” should be developed to manage doctors.

Congressional Democrats also killed several amendments to the current health care bill that would have prevented CER from being used to ration care. (To learn more about the common-sense amendments to the bill that have been blocked, click here).

The Government Has Determined You Must Take the Blue Pill

President Obama innocuously described the intended result of comparative effectiveness research like this: “If there’s a blue pill and a red pill, and the blue pill is half the price of the red pill and works just as well, why not pay half price for the thing that’s going to make you well?”

Listen to what the President is saying here. He’s saying that the government is capable of determining which pill works best for you and should therefore only pay for that pill.

But this one-size-fits-all approach goes against everything modern medicine is learning about the genetics of the human body. Different individuals and members of different ethnic and age groups respond differently to treatments. More and more, treatment of diseases like cancer is highly individualized and based on a genetic analysis of both the patient and her disease. Science is leading us in one direction and the administration and the Congress are taking us in the other.

What if you get sick and your doctor says you need the red pill, but the government has determined that the blue pill is what works best for its budget? In a single payer health world, what do you do then?

Creating a Commission to do the Dirty Work

Government bureaucrats limiting health care choices is terribly unpopular of course, which is why politicians use terms like “comparative effectiveness research” instead of “rationing.”

Another method Washington uses to avoid complicity in health care rationing is the creation of government boards or commissions -- like Britain’s NICE -- to do the job for them.

President Obama has expressed his support for using the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), a commission created to advise Congress on Medicare, to achieve cost savings under health care reform.

Because the commission’s decisions could only be over-ridden by a joint resolution of Congress, it would be virtually unaccountable to the people -- and nervous members of Congress could blame the commission for unpopular decisions.

Combine this kind of a commission with the “complete lives system” advocated by White House health care advisor Dr. Ezekial Emanuel and you end up with a government rationing board literally determining which Americans should live and which should die.

Just Trust the Government

Supporters of government-run health care dismiss these worries as alarmist. They argue that because their big government health care bill doesn’t overtly call for rationing, it is somehow illegitimate to talk about this danger.

But it is always legitimate to consider the long-term consequences of a government program. By refusing to have an honest debate of this issue -- to explore honestly the consequences of the “painful choices” that all supporters of government health care say must be made -- their argument boils down to nothing more than this:

Trust the government.

Trust the politicians who are passing 1000-page bills they haven’t read.

Trust the leaders who are demonizing the citizens seeking to express their disagreement by calling them “un-American.”

Trust the advisors who advocate sacrificing the weak and the old and then hide in the shadows.

Trust the government to know what’s best for the most intimate, most personal part of you and your family’s life: your health.

Go ask a British citizen if it’s worth it.

To just shut up and trust the government.

Your friend,

A man was telling his neighbor...

'I just bought a new hearing aid. It cost me four thousand dollars, but it's state of the art.. It's perfect.'

'Really,' answered the neighbor . 'What kind is it?'

'Twelve thirty..'

“The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 pm on some idle Tuesday.”

– Kurt Vonnegut

And Then There Was One

Hurricane Bill, currently a category 4 hurricane, appears to be on a course to skim the New England coastline and head into the North Atlantic. As Bill heads further north, the waters will be cooler and he will most likely be downgraded as he travels north.

Of course, as we all know, hurricanes have a mind of their own and do as they choose. I know that's humanizing and giving intelligence to a force of nature which has no brain to think with. If you've lived through an active hurricane season, or with just one hurricane, you know that they seemingly move according to no reason that we humans are aware of. So you know and I know that there is no human (or other) intelligence involved, but geez louise! They do make strange moves!

Just saying that although the Hurricane Center thinks this is the most likely path, Bill can end up anywhere. Those of us in Florida are hoping he keeps moving northward.

Ana, as you may know, lost strength and dissipated. Claudette made landfall in northwest Florida as a tropical storm.

Big Pharma” and David Axelrod: $2 Million of Change You Can Believe In?

Follow The Money

August 18, 2009

Online at: http://www.gop.gov/policy-news/09/08/18/big-pharma-and

Even as President Obama campaigned on a platform of change and transparency, recent dealings between the pharmaceutical industry and the Administration raise serious questions as to whether the drug lobby is helping to bankroll a multimillion dollar severance package for one of the President's senior advisors:

• Several weeks ago, the President announced an agreement with the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) to achieve $80 billion in savings as part of health care "reform." The Congressional Budget Office has previously found that eliminating the Part D "doughnut hole"- one element of the PhRMA "deal"-would cause Medicare premiums to rise by 50 percent.
• As a result of the White House agreement with the drug lobby, press reports indicate that a coalition of interest groups led by PhRMA has committed up to $150 million to generate publicity in support of the President's health "reform."
• On Saturday, Bloomberg News reported that one of the firms hired to spearhead the PhRMA-led advertising campaign is AKPD-the firm that Senior Advisor to the President David Axelrod founded, and where his son continues to work.
• The same news story reported that Axelrod will be paid $2 million from AKPD as part of his severance package-payments which will come due beginning in December.

The press reports to date raise other potentially troubling questions about the ramifications of the dealings between the pharmaceutical industry and the Administration:

• Has David Axelrod recused himself from the PhRMA "deal," or will he work to defend an agreement with an industry that is directly funding his son's work, and indirectly funding his own $2 million severance package?
• Why exactly did the head of PhRMA publicly brag about negotiating a "rock-solid deal" with the Administration-and did the hiring of David Axelrod's former firm have anything to do with his confidence?
• How exactly did AKPD generate this advertising contract?

As the pharmaceutical industry spends hundreds of millions supporting a government takeover of health care-one which drug companies obviously believe will increase their profits, even as it raises Medicare premiums for seniors-some may wonder whether White House senior advisors earning millions of dollars paid for in part by the pharmaceutical industry represents the kind of change Americans can believe in.

~~~~~~~~~

It's from GOP.gov, so read and make your own decision.

Mouse builds nest in ATM with $20 bills

Monday, August 10, 2009 | 9:21 AM

August 10, 2009 (LA GRANDE, Oregon) -- A mouse found inside an automatic teller machine -- along with a nest it had built with chewed-up $20 bills -- gave an Oregon gas station employee the surprise of her life.

The mouse, discovered Thursday, had thoroughly torn up two bills and damaged another 14 to line his nest. Employee Millie Taylor says she screamed and slammed the machine's door shut.

The bank replaced all the money that wasn't extensively damaged, and the ATM has continued to work just fine. The mouse also got a reprieve: He was evicted from his nest but set free outside the station.

Other workers at the Gem Stop Chevron in La Grande in eastern Oregon say they're mystified about how the mouse got inside the machine.

~~~~~~~

"The bank replaced all the money that wasn't extensively damaged," so, does that mean the bills that were "thoroughly torn up" were left in the machine?

Dear Citizens,

Due to the current financial situation caused by the slowdown in the economy, I, President Obama have decided to implement a scheme to put workers of 50 years of age and above on early retirement.

This scheme will be known as RAPE (Retire Aged People Early).

Persons selected to be RAPED can apply to Congress to be considered for the SHAFT scheme (Special Help After Forced Termination).

Persons who have been RAPED and SHAFTED will be reviewed under the SCREW program (Scheme Covering Retired-Early Workers).

A person may be RAPED once, SHAFTED twice and SCREWED as many times as I, President Obama deem appropriate.

Persons who have been RAPED could get AIDS (Additional Income for Dependants & Spouse) or HERPES (Half Earnings for Retired Personnel Early Severance).

Obviously persons who have AIDS or HERPES will not be SHAFTED or SCREWED any further by me, President Obama.

Persons who are not RAPED and are staying on will receive as much SHIT (Special High Intensity Training) as possible. I, President Obama have always prided myself on the amount of SHIT I give our citizens.

Should you feel that you do not receive enough SHIT, please bring this to the attention of your Congressman, who has been trained to give you all the SHIT you can handle.

Sincerely,

President Obama

P.S. Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas and oil, as well as current market conditions, the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is, of course, a joke, I understand that. But jokes (political and otherwise) come from a kernel of truth. How much truth might be contained in this joke?

Finally, Change We Can Believe In

By Tony Blankley

August 19, 2009

Those of us who are self-appointed advocates -- who expend our efforts trying to persuade a few more people to our political point of view -- must sit back in slack-jawed wonder when the great American public makes one of its great roars, as we all have been hearing in town hall meetings across the country.

In the animal kingdom, it is the lion that has the loudest roar. Scientists say it is made as a warning to advertise the animal's presence. Are you listening, Washington? The current American public's roar certainly is being heard around the world. Consider the following lead from Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper a few days ago:

"It was a scene of breathtaking political theatre. Arlen Specter, the veteran Pennsylvania senator, stood in stony-faced shock as one of his constituents delivered a furious tirade just a few feet away. 'One day God is going to stand before you, and he's going to judge you and the rest of your damn cronies,' bellowed the senator's grey-bearded adversary in an encounter replayed countless times on American television. 'Then you will get your just desserts.' Minutes later, a woman prompted a standing ovation with her emotional outpouring. 'I don't believe this is just health care. This is about the systematic dismantling of this country,' she said, her voice quaking. 'I don't want this country turning into Russia, turning into a socialized country. What are you going to do to restore this country back to what our founders created, according to the Constitution?'"

Usually, for a nation's public opinion to be heard so far and wide, violence must be involved. Earlier this year, the people of Iran were heard -- but at the price of the government murdering its citizens, shooting demonstrators in the face and violently suppressing the crowds in its capital city. And voices were heard in Tiananmen Square in China in 1989.

But only in America does the political significance of a peaceful public voice reach such magnitude, because here we change power without violence. Yet the media and many Democratic congressional leaders have responded to this peaceful outpouring of passionate opinion by first claiming the crowds were hired by lobbyists. (So far, the only evidence of rent-a-mobs was a Craigslist ad offering up to $600 a week for pro-Obamacare demonstrators to turn up and demonstrate.)

Then, when it became obvious that no one can organize the size and the manifestly sincere passion of so many people (and the polls proved the public believed the people), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused those American people of being "un-American" and "carrying swastikas," while The Washington Post ran an article making fun of the unstylish clothes the people were wearing.

On Sunday, administration officials started backing away from their demand for a public insurance requirement. That's nice. But it is very possible that something much bigger is afoot. As the woman said at the town hall, "I don't believe this is just health care."

Bailouts to banks, huge stimulus payoffs to special interests, nationalization of auto companies, trillions in new debt, the ideological taxing of our great carbon energy supplies, unconscionable deficits stealing from our grandchildren, Washington talk of health rationing, forced abortions, compulsory sterilization, eugenics. Are you all Eurosocialists now? What the hell is going on in Washington?

Maybe, just maybe, the woman is right. Maybe the national roar is a cri de coeur from the heartland to the capital -- just the beginning of a national vomiting of alien ideas being shoved down the national throat by a left-wing Congress.

To those congressmen who oppose the horror: This is no time for timidity and compromise. Let your political courage match the passion of the people.

And to all the Washington politicians in Congress, advice from another generation's poet:

"Come senators, congressmen

Please heed the call

Don't stand in the doorway

Don't block up the hall

For he that gets hurt

Will be he who has stalled

There's a battle outside

And it is ragin'.

It'll soon shake your windows

And rattle your walls

For the times they are a-changin'."

The real change is to come home again, America.

Angry Mobs

About the "angry mobs" protesting at Town Hall meetings, I have this to say...

The day we lose our will to fight is the day we lose our freedom.

GOD BLESS AMERICA

As I recall my history lessons, it was a grassroots movement that turned into the Revolutionary War and our independence from England.

I suppose under the definitions set forth by Speaker Pelosi and others, our Founding Fathers would be considered unpatriotic and unAmerican, or perhaps at that time it would be unEnglish or unBritish. Whatever.

Calling our leaders on things we citizens see as wrong is as Patriotic as fireworks on the 4th of July, picnics in the summer, serving your country in the military, or supporting those servicemen and women. Protesting is as American as Mom's apple pie and a baseball game in the summer or a football game in the fall.

If I protest a plan that I believe is stupid and fiscally irresponsible , you can say I'm wrong, you can call me stupid, shallow, uncaring about others, or just about anything you want to call me, but don't you dare call me unpatriotic or unAmerican.

To call me, or any protestor, unpatriotic or unAmerican is to call every man who signed the Declaration of Independence unpatriotic or unAmerican. Under that criteria every man or woman who protested the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, or either Gulf War would be unpatriotic or unAmerican.

Speaker Pelosi seems to forget about the protestors against the Bush Administration, whom she deemed to be patriotic in their protests. If they were patriotic by speaking out, then so are those protesting the Obama Administration. It really doesn't matter who is or was right and who is or was wrong in their choices. Both chose to exercise their right to Free Speech (it's in the Constitution. Look it up). She seems to want to have it both ways but, sorry, Madam Speaker, can't be done.

I've said this before, but it's still true: it's a matter of perception.

You see protests against something you support as unpatriotic or unAmerican. Those protesting may see YOU as unpatriotic or unAmerican because of what you are supporting, or because you are speaking out against our right to protest.

Morris, an 82 year-old man, went to the doctor to get a physical.

A few days later, the doctor saw Morris walking down the street with a gorgeous young woman on his arm.

A couple of days later, the doctor spoke to Morris and said, 'You're really doing great, aren't you?'

Morris replied, 'Just doing what you said, Doc: 'Get a hot mamma and be cheerful.''

The doctor said, 'I didn't say that.. I said, 'You've got a heart murmur; be careful.'

Power! Americans Making a Difference

Posted By Bobby Eberle On August 13, 2009 at 7:20 am

Something amazing happens when Americans are pushed to the edge. There are legislators who try to pass bills for the benefit of a special interest group. Many seek out power and become corrupt, and not much is said. Yet, when the actions cross that invisible threshold, the American people say, "Enough is enough!"

We saw it with so-called "immigration reform," when Congress and the president tried multiple times to pass amnesty only to have the American people speak out and say, "No!" Now, we have Obama and the left-wing Congress trying to transform America into something that it isn't: a socialist nation, and the American people are fighting back. The townhall meetings have become a place were legislators fear to tread, and where "ordinary" Americans are starting to take their country back.

First, a quick video clip which sums up why Americans are so frustrated with left-wing elitists. Just look at how much Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee cares about the concerns of the American people:

/

These Democrats are starting to hear an earful at their townhall meetings, and the voices of the protestors are resonating all across the country. In a new Gallup Poll, sixty-nine percent of those surveyed say they are "closely following news accounts of town hall meetings on health care reform." In addition, thirty-four percent of respondents say "the protests make them more sympathetic to the protestors' viewpoints," while only twenty-one percent say "the protests make them less sympathetic."

In addition, a new Rasmussen poll shows that support for Congress' health care plan has hit a new low.

Public support for the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats has fallen to a new low as just 42% of U.S. voters now favor the plan. That's down five points from two weeks ago and down eight points from six weeks ago.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that opposition to the plan has increased to 53%, up nine points since late June.

More significantly, 44% of voters strongly oppose the health care reform effort versus 26% who strongly favor it. Intensity has been stronger among opponents of the plan since the debate began.

As the Associated Press points out, "many of those raising their voices and fists at the town halls have never been politically active. Their frustration was born earlier this year with government bailouts and big spending bills, then found an outlet in the anti-tax Tea Parties in April and has simmered in the punishing recession."

The protesters have several concerns, but a unifying emotion is distrust of the government and federal intrusion into individual liberties or personal choices.

The emerging protest movement is almost the mirror image of the grass-roots campaign that helped sweep Obama into office by pulling in people who'd never been politically active. This time Obama is seeing the other side of what can happen when people are motivated, connect over the Internet and seemingly reach a tipping point that turns them from onlookers into activists.

Funny how the only townhall meeting that appeared to go smoothly was the one Barack Obama recently held. It was full of cheer and softball questions. Democrats from around the country are facing real constituents who have had enough, and Obama can't even face a real crowd. He has to hold staged events, which are so obviously fake that members of the media are even getting frustrated.

How are the actions of concerned Americans being addressed? Are the Democrats and Obama beginning to see the light? Of course not. Rather than listening to these voices, Obama and company simply ship in their own band of thugs to drown out the concerns of constituents. Liberal groups are even running ads to recruit "volunteers" (for $15/hr) to rescue Obama's sinking ship.

According to a story in the LA Times, the group Fund for the Public Interest is running an ad on Craigslist under the headline "Work to Pass Obama's Healthcare Plan and Get Paid to Do it! $10-15 hr!"

Despite what Obama and Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid think, the American people aren't ready for socialism. They are speaking out, and the Democrats are running for cover... turning townhall meetings into private conference calls or canceling them altogether. Let's keep up the pressure, and show the liberal elite that America belongs to us... not them.