All posts by Chief

Constitution Watch

Obamacare Waffle Kitchen at Work

A couple of alternative versions of what’s going on with this…all seems in a state of “definite maybe” with B.O. et al.

Bottom line on public insurance plan gets blurry

The Obama administration’s bottom line on a government health insurance option blurred Sunday as White House officials stressed support but stopped short of calling it a must-have part of an overhaul.

As President Barack Obama prepares for a Wednesday night speech to Congress in a risky bid to salvage his top domestic priority, no other issue is so highly charged. Obama’s liberal supporters consider the proposal for a public plan to compete with private insurers do-or-die. Republicans say it’s unacceptable. It’s doubtful the public plan can pass the Senate.

Puh-leese – let it be so!

Finally, Axelrod showed mastery of the sort of bureaucratic governmental dialog illustrated in Atlas Shrugged:

White House political adviser David Axelrod said Obama is “not walking away” from a public plan. But asked if the president would veto a bill that came to him without the option, Axelrod declined to answer.

The president “believes it should be in the plan, and he expects to be in the plan, and that’s our position,” Axelrod told The Associated Press.

Asked if that means a public plan has to be in the bill for Obama to sign it, Axelrod responded: “I’m not going to deal in hypotheticals. … He believes it’s important.”

Meanwhile…both sides in Congress are not pleased…a hopeful sign of possible failure of the whole collectivist mess.

Government Insurance ‘Trigger’ Draws Bipartisan Criticism in Health Care Debate

Conservatives and liberals alike are puncturing the latest trial balloon in the health care reform debate, finding flaws with a proposal that would keep a government-run health insurance plan on reserve in case private insurance companies don’t meet certain benchmarks.

The so-called “trigger” has been floated by Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, a member of the “gang of six” Senate negotiators who are trying to broker a bipartisan compromise. Under such an option, if agreed-upon goals are not met by the insurance industry, then that would pull the trigger on government-run insurance.

It’s unclear whether President Obama will address the idea when he delivers a high-stakes health care address to Congress Wednesday night. But even as the White House signals it’s open to considering alternatives to a hard-and-fast “public option,” administration officials and congressional negotiators are hard-pressed to find an alternative that could win more votes than it loses.

Keep watching. It ain’t over ’till it’s over.

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Czar Abdicates

Obama ‘Green Jobs’ Adviser Van Jones Resigns Amid Controversy

White House green jobs adviser Van Jones resigned in the middle of the Labor Day weekend following persistent controversy over his past remarks and associations.

Jones, who served as an adviser to the White House Council on Environmental Quality, had generated mounting criticism over the past week. He earlier issued back-to-back apologies — first, for calling Republicans “assholes” during a videotaped address earlier in the year, and second for signing a petition in 2004 supporting the “9/11 truther” movement, which believes the Bush administration may have been involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

The latter development, which came on top of several others, was perhaps the most devastating and led to calls for his resignation.

Jones stepped down late Saturday.

Good riddence to bad rubbish!

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UK: How “Death Board” Rules Really Function in Gov’t Health

Sentenced to death on the NHS
Patients with terminal illnesses are being made to die prematurely under an NHS scheme to help end their lives, leading doctors warn today.

This is the real deal: her’s how it actually works in a government health rationing plan…and don’t be deceived…the plans proposed by the Donks of the administration and the Congresscritters of that ilk all force various forms of rationing of care.

In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, a group of experts who care for the terminally ill claim that some patients are being wrongly judged as close to death.

Under NHS guidance introduced across England to help doctors and medical staff deal with dying patients, they can then have fluid and drugs withdrawn and many are put on continuous sedation until they pass away.

But this approach can also mask the signs that their condition is improving, the experts warn.

NOTE: This is not the Chief’s warning…this is from the Doctors working where the rubber meets the road…go to the article & check out the sad details.

The picture presented “ain’t that pretty at all” (to quote a Warren Zevon lyric), but nonetheless it’s what B.O. & the gang have in mind for you and I.

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Bachman Sounds the Tocsin

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Bachmann calls for ‘covenant’ to defeat health care overhaul

If the GOP leadership of the last few election cycles had THIS sort of attitude, B.O. would still be a ward-heeling left-wing Chicago community political hack.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) stepped up the rhetoric against her liberal colleagues in Congress on Monday, calling on Americans to “make a covenant, slit our wrists, be blood brothers” in a mission to stop the Democratic health care proposal.

Commenting on present-day Washington conditions, she shows a clear and correct state of situational awareness:

“You’ve got your usual slothfulness, boozing, skirt-chasing members of Congress — we could only wish that those were our problems,” Bachmann said, according to a video of the event released by the institute. “Right now we are looking at reaching down the throat and ripping the guts out of freedom [in] this country. And we may never be able to restore it if we don’t man up and take this one on. This has to be defeated — this Obama Care. Cap and trade has to be defeated. Those two alone have the strength to destroy this country forever.”

Responding to a question about what changes to health care delivery and payment would be necessary if the Democratic reform proposal were to pass, Bachmann emphasized that “we can’t even have that discussion.” She added: “This cannot pass. It cannot.”

Going beyond opposition there is the suggestion for some much-needed (REAL!) health-care reforms:

Bachmann suggested that better methods of overhauling health care would be to “erase” state boundaries for purchasing health insurance and address tort reform.

You go girl!

National Insecurity

Islamic Diversity?

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B.O. has rendered honors to Islam, and proclaims respect for the diversity and accomplishments of Moslems. Fair enough.

Obama hosts Ramadan dinner at White House

Showcasing the contributions of American Muslims he said represent “extraordinary dynamism and diversity,” President Obama hosted a White House dinner Tuesday to celebrate the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Mr. Obama was extending a presidential tradition and pushing forward his goal of reaching out to the Muslim world in an attempt to show cultural understanding.

Now, where’s the administration’s appropriate response to the following bit of Islamic diversity?  (Hint: ALthought B.O. says we should meet with the mullahs, in reality it DOESN’T involve “cultural understanding!)

Ahmadinejad’s Imam: Islam Allows Raping, Torturing Prisoners

Let’s see now…the U.S. administration is going through contortions to insure that no one offends Islamioterr prisoners, purportedly with the idea that if we’re nice, then they’ll be nice too.

Guess again! Here is what the Iranians have to say about THAT:  [emphasis added]

A highly influential Shi’a religious leader, with whom Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad regularly consults, apparently told followers last month that coercion by means of rape, torture and drugs is acceptable against all opponents of the Islamic regime.

Notice the respect for the Geneva Convention? You don’t? Neither do I. But wait, there’s more from these blithe practitioners of the “Religion of Peace”.

According to the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC), an independent Israeli intelligence analysis organization, Mesbah-Yazdi is considered Ahmadinejad’s personal spiritual guide. A radical totalitarian even in Iranian terms, he holds messianic views, supports increasing Islamization, calls for violent suppression of domestic political opponents, and, according to the ITIC, “declared that obeying a president supported by the Supreme Leader was tantamount to obeying God.”

At the Jamkaran gathering, Mesbah-Yazdi and Ahmadinejad answered questions about the rape and torture charges. The following text is from a transcript alleged by Iranian dissidents to be a series of questions and answers exchanged between the ayatollah and some of his supporters.

Asked if a confession obtained “by applying psychological, emotional and physical pressure” was “valid and considered credible according to Islam,” Mesbah-Yazdi replied: “Getting a confession from any person who is against the Velayat-e Faqih (“Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists”, or the regime of Iran’s mullahs) is permissible under any condition.” The ayatollah gave the identical answer when asked about confessions obtained through drugging the prisoner with opiates or addictive substances.

“Can an interrogator rape the prisoner in order to obtain a confession?” was the follow-up question posed to the Islamic cleric.

Mesbah-Yazdi answered: “The necessary precaution is for the interrogator to perform a ritual washing first and say prayers while raping the prisoner. If the prisoner is female, it is permissible to rape through the vagina or anus. It is better not to have a witness present. If it is a male prisoner, then it’s acceptable for someone else to watch while the rape is committed.”

There’s more gory details in the linked piece, go look to see more of what can be meant when they remind us that “Islam” equals submission. Now you know HOW to submit!

Constitution Watch

I-net Now B.O. Target

Bill would give president emergency control of Internet

Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.

They’re not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.

The new version would allow the president to “declare a cybersecurity emergency” relating to “non-governmental” computer networks and do what’s necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for “cybersecurity professionals,” and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the private sector be managed by people who have been awarded that license.

This has so many problems that it boggles the mind.

Of course, just the power assumption here is a mind-bending expansion of the worst aspects of some of the Patriot Act stuff.

Then there’s the obvious one about having those with their hands on the net being subject ot government regulation…what was that bit about “no law…abridging freedom of speech…”?

Anyone that has have been certified as “cybersecurity professionals” and given a federal network operators license would be S.O.L. in B.O.’s Brave New World (BOBNW). The many non-degree cybergeeks with partial (and even full) degrees in other areas like physics, math, etc. could be completely frozen out…but hey, a lot of them are rather libertarianish anyway, so from the point of view of the BOBNW getting them out of the info roadway would be a positive political benefit to the Administration and it’s crypto-fascist Czars and others of that ilk.

obameinfuhrer21.jpg
Possible new control links for Obamanet!

Defense Matters!, National Insecurity

What, me worry?

A tale of two cities:

WASHINGTON, D.C.:  Negotiates with North Korea; first informally via sending Bubba hisself to render proper obeisance, and then following it up with further contacts. reflecting general attitude of “What, me worry?”

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MOSCOW, RUSSIAN FEDERATION:  Altogether a different response to the same nation:

Russia deploys missile defence system near N.Korea

Russia has deployed a missile defence system near its border with North Korea and is studying other measures to protect its population from stray missiles, Russia’s top general said on Wednesday.

Russia shares a small border with North Korea in the Far East and its main Pacific port of Vladivostok, with a population of 600,000, lies only 150 km (95 miles) from North Korea….

“We are definitely concerned by the conditions under which tests are being carried out in North Korea, including nuclear devices,” the chief of Russia’s general staff Nikolai Makarov told journalists in the Mongolian capital Ulan Bator.

If even Putin worries about the NorKs, perhaps we ought to have some concern too? Just a thought…

(Hmmmm. ANOTHER pesky thought…isn’t this the same thing (antimissile defense) that Putin was crying about when WE planned deployment?)

Uncategorized

Free Pass from B.O.’s DoJ

Firstly, there’s the case of Donk Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico:

Richardson Probe ‘Was Killed in Washington’

Looks like prominent Donk pol Bill Richardson won a “Get Out of Jail Free” card. It’s great to have friends in high places!

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and former high-ranking members of his administration won’t be criminally charged in a yearlong federal investigation into pay-to-play allegations involving one of the Democratic governor’s large political donors, someone familiar with the case said.

The decision not to pursue indictments was made by top Justice Department officials, according to a person familiar with the investigation, who asked not to be identified because federal officials had not disclosed results of the probe.

“It’s over. There’s nothing. It was killed in Washington,” the person told the Associated Press.

Commenting further:

DoJ drops prosecution of top Dem

An unpleasant smell attends the Department of Justice decision to not prosecute New Mexico Governor (and Obama ally) Bill Richardson. Fresh on the heels of the Department declining to prosecute the New Black Panthers for voter intimidation, while appointing a special prosecutor for CIA interrogators, the appearance of a politicized Justice Department is being created.

D’ya think?  (Yep, sure do!)

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Economy Improving? Yeah, right!

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In spite of the optimistic spin on the current economy from the B.O. administration, and others of their ilk in D.C. and the state-directed media, everything is far from hunky-dory.

1,000 Banks to Fail In Next Two Years: Bank CEO

The US banking system will lose some 1,000 institutions over the next two years, said John Kanas, whose private equity firm bought BankUnited of Florida in May. “We’ve already lost 81 this year,” Kanas told CNBC. “The numbers are climbing every day. Many of these institutions nobody’s ever heard of. They’re smaller companies.”

Failed banks tend to be smaller and private, which exacerbates the problem for small business borrowers, said Kanas, who became CEO of BankUnited when his firm bought the bank and is the former chairman and CEO of North Fork bank.

“Government money has propped up the very large institutions as a result of the stimulus package,” he said. “There’s really very little lifeline available for the small institutions that are suffering.”

…not exactly a sign of a roaring recovery, is it? And thern there is this:

Real US unemployment rate at 16 pct: Fed official

The real US unemployment rate is 16 percent if persons who have dropped out of the labor pool and those working less than they would like are counted, a Federal Reserve official said Wednesday. “If one considers the people who would like a job but have stopped looking — so-called discouraged workers — and those who are working fewer hours than they want, the unemployment rate would move from the official 9.4 percent to 16 percent, said Atlanta Fed chief Dennis Lockhart….

Lockhart pointed out in a speech to a chamber of commerce in Chattanooga, Tennessee that those two categories of people are not taken into account in the Labor Department’s monthly report on the unemployment rate. The official July jobless rate was 9.4 percent.

Lockhart, who heads the Atlanta, Georgia, division of the Fed, is the first central bank official to acknowledge the depth of unemployment amid the worst US recession since the Great Depression.

Again…it ain’t that pretty at all.

Uncategorized

Self-Censorship in Effectively State-controlled Media

ABC, NBC Won’t Air Ad Critical of Obama’s Health Care Plan

The refusal by ABC and NBC to run a national ad critical of President Obama’s health care reform plan is raising questions from the group behind the spot — particularly in light of ABC’s health care special aired in prime time last June and hosted at the White House.

The 33-second ad by the League of American Voters, which features a neurosurgeon who warns that a government-run health care system will lead to the rationing of procedures and medicine, began airing two weeks ago on local affiliates of ABC, NBC, FOX and CBS. On a national level, however, ABC and NBC have refused to run the spot in its present form.

This speaks (or rather doesn’t speak) for itself.

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Obamacare Privacy? What Privacy?

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Reported by CBS – not exactly a bastion of the VRWC…

Democratic Health Care Bill Divulges IRS Tax Data

Firstly, as written, the current (House) bill REQUIRES full access to individual tax records:

Section 431(a) of the bill says that the IRS must divulge taxpayer identity information, including the filing status, the modified adjusted gross income, the number of dependents, and “other information as is prescribed by” regulation. That information will be provided to the new Health Choices Commissioner and state health programs and used to determine who qualifies for “affordability credits.”

Section 245(b)(2)(A) says the IRS must divulge tax return details — there’s no specified limit on what’s available or unavailable — to the Health Choices Commissioner. The purpose, again, is to verify “affordability credits.”

Section 1801(a) says that the Social Security Administration can obtain tax return data on anyone who may be eligible for a “low-income prescription drug subsidy” but has not applied for it.

In case you went to Harvard please note the citation numbers. These identify actual sections of the proposed legislation, which seem to be written in English. It’s not the Chief inventing this…just passing along information.

Meanwhile, there’s still the electronicization of health records mandated in the stimulus porculus bill…and not much worry about privacy:

A better candidate for a future privacy crisis is the so-called stimulus bill enacted with limited debate early this year. It mandated the “utilization of an electronic health record for each person in the United States by 2014,” but included only limited privacy protections.

It’s true that if the legislative branch chooses to create “affordability credits,” it probably makes sense to ensure they’re not abused. The goal of curbing fraud runs up against the goal of preserving individual privacy.

If we’re going to have such significant additional government intrusion into our health care system, we will have to draw the privacy line somewhere. Maybe the House Democrats’ current bill gets it right. Maybe it doesn’t. But this vignette should be reason to be skeptical of claims that a massive and complex bill must be enacted as rapidly as its backers would have you believe.

Based on past performance…the Chief is HIGHLY skeptical that the Congs will do what is necessary to install adequate privacy protections.

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Obamacare Update Notes

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Several items concerning Obamacare – at least in it’s “single-payer” government-run manifestation.

Firstly, US lefties are NOT happy campers about the chance that B.O. – The One hisself, may be backing away from this concept:

No Government-Run Health Insurance, No Bill, Say Liberal Supporters of Reform

The Obama administration appears to be stepping back from its insistence on a government-run health insurance plan, earning new wrath from the left as the president tries to appease vocal opponents of a “public option.”

A health care reform plan without government-run insurance is “D.O.A.,” says one left-wing grassroots organizer up in arms about the possibility the Obama administration could abandon its efforts to build a “public option.”

Jim Dean, chairman of progressive group Democracy for America, wrote supporters on Monday to tell them to fight any effort to remove a government-run health insurance plan in place of non-profit “cooperatives.”

Awwww! They’re upset!

Suggesting insider Democrats and the insurance industry are behind the effort to kill a government-run plan, in his e-mail Dean assumed all Republicans in the House will oppose the health care reform with cooperatives, and with a loss of Democratic support, it would be dead on arrival.

“Let’s be clear: A health care bill without a public option is D.O.A. in the House. Period.

PUH-leeeese, let it be so!

Meanwhile, all is not well as far as using the Brits and Canucks as examples of the benefits of universal government health care:

Britain’s No Model for U.S. Health Care

Many opponents of the House plan (President Obama and the senate do not yet have one) cite the way the British deal with their sick and elderly and warn that America could become like Britain. Those critics are right to worry.

Just last week, the Times of London reported that “hospitals creak under the strain as vacancies spread through NHS (National Health Service).” The socialized medicine practices here has brought a shortage of doctors, nurses and other clinical staff.As of March 31, a survey found a 5.2 percent vacancy rate in these critical fields. This compares to a 3.6 percent vacancy rate just one year earlier.

Qualified nurses and midwifes are retiring at a faster rate than newly trained staff can enter these professions. And a poll conducted by the Royal College of Nurses found that among 8,600 young people, aged 7 to 17, only one in 20 would actively consider nursing an attractive career.

YIKES! But things are better in Canada…or not?

Canadian Health Officials: Our Universal Health Care Is ‘Sick,’ Private Insurance Should Be Welcomed

Dr. Anne Doig, the incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association, said her country’s health care system is “sick” and “imploding,” the Canadian Press reported.

“We know there must be change,” Doig said in a recent interview. “We’re all running flat out, we’re all just trying to stay ahead of the immediate day-to-day demands.”

Canada’s universal health care system is not giving patients optimal care, Doig added. When her colleagues from across the country gather at the CMA conference in Saskatoon Sunday, they will discuss changes that need to be made, she said.

“We all agree the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize,” she said.

OK. They’re trying to undo what the Obamacare lib-Donks are trying to do to us? Sure looks that way.

Hmmm. Returning to Einstein’s definition of insanity as repeating the same thing and expecting to get a different result, once again American libs are proving that by that standard, liberalism IS a mental disorder!

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Administration Channeling Hillary’s VRWC

White House Blames E-Mail Controversy on ‘Sinister Conspiracy Theories’

The White House is blaming the controversy over its Web site and mass e-mails on viral rumors, “fear-mongering” and “sinister conspiracy theories” even as it acknowledges problems with its online practices.

Sounds like Hil’s “Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy” is still officially out there! Oh, yeah – no big deal meanwhile: nothing to worry about concerning those pesky “problems with on-line practices” that they found.

After confirming to FOX News over the weekend that third-party groups could be responsible for official White House e-mails that have been sent to people who never signed up for them, President Obama’s new media director took to the official White House blog to “clear up” the confusion.

Oh-oh. To “clear up confusion”? We’re in trouble now!

In a posting Monday night, Macon Phillips again pointed the finger at “outside groups of all political stripes” but downplayed the backlash over the unwanted e-mails spam….Phillips confirmed that the White House had implemented new security measures on its Web site to prevent the problem. He insisted that the White House does not want any unsolicited e-mails spam going out.

Translation: lefty groups were “salting” the e-mail list, but we can’t just blame them, so we’ll be inclusive with the “all political stripes” label to appease our pet bloggers, and we HAVE say something since nobody likes spam-mail.

Phillips also confirmed that the e-mail account set up to field submissions from the public on “fishy” information about health care reform has been deactivated. This development was reported Monday morning by FOX News. Critics had raised questions about how that information would be used and some accused the White House of fishing for entries for an “enemies list,” a charge the White House rejected.

Again…another problems solved! Right? WRONG! Read on:

Phillips said the e-mail account was closed and the public was redirected to the “reality check” site to “consolidate the process.

“People can still submit “fishy” information about health care reform through the “reality check” Web site, set up by the White House last week to rebut health care rumors.

Translation: We’ll keep doing the same thing as before, but we’ll change the web site and call it something different now. “See? With that nasty ‘flag@white house.gov’ gone, the problem is solved! Nothing to see or do here anymore, move along and go back home.”

In the Chief’s former Naval environment, a situation like this would be pungently describes as something including the adjective “cluster”. ’nuff said.

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B.O. Opposes Defense of Marriage

Obama backs marriage act repeal

The Obama administration continued its half-a-loaf approach to gay rights issues Monday by filing documents claiming that federal laws banning same-sex marriage are discriminatory, even as the federal government continues to defend them.

In its nine-page brief, the Justice Department stated that the Obama administration opposes the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act as discriminatory and supports its repeal. Yet the motion also calls for the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by a gay California couple seeking to overturn the federal marriage law.

A little schitzo here? At least DoJ still recognizes some semblance of an obligation to go through the motions of defending Federal law against challenges.

So, otherwise , given the pattern of B.O.’s ideological background over the years, what’s to be surprised about this?

Oh, right – he DID say something about not favoring gay marriage during the campaign, but hey, that was just campaigning, so who was REALLY counting THAT!

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Obamacare Update: No public plan?

White House appears ready to drop ‘public option’

Bowing to Republican pressure and an uneasy public, President Barack Obama’s administration signaled Sunday it is ready to abandon the idea of giving Americans the option of government-run insurance as part of a new health care system.

This is highly disingenuous. If it was only Republican opposition, there would be no issue. With the dominance of the Donkey Party in both houses of Congress, they could effectively do anything they wanted.  The problem is that enough Donks don’t want to adopt a “public” (government) system (that according to the House bill would inevitably result in the destruction of private insurance), so the B.O. administration is apparently poised to run up the white flag on this at least, and blame the “wascally Wepublicans” in a ploy to attempt to appease the Donk’s hard left.

Facing mounting opposition to the overhaul, administration officials left open the chance for a compromise with Republicans that would include health insurance cooperatives instead of a government-run plan. Such a concession probably would enrage Obama’s liberal supporters but could deliver a much-needed victory on a top domestic priority opposed by GOP lawmakers.

Obviously, the situation is developing, or is it decaying?

Uncategorized

Where ‘Death Board” Concept Comes From

No, we’re not really crazy…there is really language in the House healthcare reform bill that sets up a de-facto “death board”…although of course it’s not labeled as such.

This gives a pretty good clue where some of this sort of thing is originating:

DEADLY DOCTORS: O  ADVISERS WANT TO RATION CARE

THE health bills coming out of Congress would put the decisions about your care in the hands of presidential appointees. They’d decide what plans cover, how much leeway your doctor will have and what seniors get under Medicare.

Start with Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. He has already been appointed to two key positions: health-policy adviser at the Office of Management and Budget and a member of Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research.

Savings, he writes, will require changing how doctors think about their patients: Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, “as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others” (Journal of the American Medical Association, June 18, 2008).

Yes, that’s what patients want their doctors to do. But Emanuel wants doctors to look beyond the needs of their patients and consider social justice, such as whether the money could be better spent on somebody else. Many doctors are horrified by this notion; they’ll tell you that a doctor’s job is to achieve social justice one patient at a time.

Emanuel, however, believes that “communitarianism” should guide decisions on who gets care. He says medical care should be reserved for the non-disabled, not given to those “who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens . . . An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia” (Hastings Center Report, Nov.-Dec. ’96).

Nice turn of phrase that: ” irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens”. Those folks setting policy in the 3rd Reich Marching and Singing Society didn’t do nearly as smooth a job when they set about eliminating “useless eaters” (although tsomething may be lost in translation there).

Translation: Don’t give much care to a grandmother with Parkinson’s or a child with cerebral palsy.

He explicitly defends discrimination against older patients: “Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years” (Lancet, Jan. 31).

Now, SOMEBODY WITH GOVERNMENTAL AUTHORITY OVER LIFE AND DEATH WILL (of necessity) be making these sort of imposed decisions, and of course, Emmanuel isn’t alone in pushing things towards this Brave New World:

Dr. David Blumenthal, another key Obama adviser, agrees. He recommends slowing medical innovation to control health spending.

Blumenthal has long advocated government health-spending controls, though he concedes they’re “associated with longer waits” and “reduced availability of new and expensive treatments and devices” (New England Journal of Medicine, March 8, 2001). But he calls it “debatable” whether the timely care Americans get is worth the cost. (Ask a cancer patient, and you’ll get a different answer. Delay lowers your chances of survival.)

Obama appointed Blumenthal as national coordinator of health-information technology, a job that involves making sure doctors obey electronically deivered guidelines about what care the government deems appropriate and cost effective.

In the April 9 New England Journal of Medicine, Blumenthal predicted that many doctors would resist “embedded clinical decision support” — a euphemism for computers telling doctors what to do.

One would certainly HOPE this was the case…at least for your own doctor. But wait…there’s more (or rather, less) in store for us under these proposed neo-Soviet reforms:

Americans need to know what the president’s health advisers have in mind for them. Emanuel sees even basic amenities as luxuries and says Americans expect too much: “Hospital rooms in the United States offer more privacy . . . physicians’ offices are typically more conveniently located and have parking nearby and more attractive waiting rooms” (JAMA, June 18, 2008).

No one has leveled with the public about these dangerous views. Nor have most people heard about the arm-twisting, Chicago-style tactics being used to force support. In a Nov. 16, 2008, Health Care Watch column, Emanuel explained how business should be done: “Every favor to a constituency should be linked to support for the health-care reform agenda. If the automakers want a bailout, then they and their suppliers have to agree to support and lobby for the administration’s health-reform effort.”

Do we want a “reform” that empowers people like this to decide for us?

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B.O. has stated that the direction of his policies can be seen by the quality and character of those advisors he surrounds himself with. Based on this, Obamacare looks more and more like something to avoid like a plague.

Glowbull Warming

Global Cooling Update

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That’s right – COOLING!

Scientific evidence now points to global cooling, contrary to U.N. alarmism

U.S. policymakers who cite “consensus” on man-made global warming as justification for anti-emission regulations are relying upon outdated and misleading material from the United Nations that deliberately omits the influence of natural forces, according to climate skeptics. In fact, a growing body of evidence now points to the emergence of another cooling cycle that could persist for decades.
Dr. Don Easterbrook, a geologist and professor emeritus at Western Washington University, has presented data that shows a cooler and wetter climate is in order for the next 25 to 30 years. The Pacific Ocean has a warm temperature mode and a cool temperature mode known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation or PDO, he said in a recent study.

The shift away from a cooling cycle in 1945 triggered several decades of warming that ended in 1998, according to the study. However, the PDO has now reverted back over to a cool mode, Easterbrook has concluded. This data raises questions about the reliability of models used by the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Easterbrook has said. This U.N. prediction of global temperatures 1° F warmer by 2011 and 2° F by 2038 appear to be very much off track.

Meanwhile, some scientists are convinced earth could experience more than just cooling over the next few decades. Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics with the National Autonomous University of Mexico sees evidence that points to the onset of a “little ice age” in about 10 years that could last for much of the 21st Century. The IPPC models are not correct because they do not take into account natural factors like solar activity, he said in a ecture.

This view is also advanced in a paper published by the Astronomical Society of Australia. The authors anticipate that sun’s activity will diminish significantly over the next few decades.

Unfortunately, we have a much more immediate threat than the U.N. from B.O., AlGor, et al.

Up until now, critics of the Waxman-Markey bill inside and outside of Congress have focused mostly on the severe economic costs of emission caps. During the August recess, it might be helpful to ask members why they continue to pursue regulatory schemes unattached to what new scientific data now shows.

Tune up your snowblowers & snowmobiles, and throw another AlGore log on the fire.

National Insecurity

B.O.: Shazam! No more terror war!

U.S. no longer at war with ‘terrorism’

It’s official. The United States is no longer engaged in a “war on terrorism.” Neither is it fighting “jihadists” nor locked in a “global war.”

This is just stupid.

President Obama’s top homeland security and counterterrorism official on Thursday declared as unacceptable the terms crafted by the George W. Bush administration.

It must be, by definition, that anything the the previous administration said, was incorrect.

It is now solely a “war with al Qaeda” and its violent extremist allies, said John Brennan, head of the White House homeland security office, during a speech Thursday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

There is a lot more going on than just a “war with al Qaeda”. Not to recognize this is to be willfully blind to the nature of the threat…there is a reason it’s called “assymetrical warfare”. There is often a lack of ANY organizational links or coordination. All that is necessary is the germination of one fixed idea in the mind of a potential fanatic, and you have instant jihad…with or without al Qaeda, and with the immediate potential for fully independent and uncoordinated (but no less potentially bloody) action.

The semantic shift is intended to bring precision to the way the president and his aides talk about the nation’s efforts to defeat al Qaeda, though Bush administration officials say the policies that are being put to use have not changed dramatically.

The semantic shift is a willful policy shift in the opposite direction of accurate situational awareness on the part of the administration. Why they would do this, and thereby ignore their Constitutional responsibilities to provide for the common defense? One can only imagine.

In general terms a cautionary note, based on the expression “Never bring a knife to a gunfight.”…

“…never go to a gunfight without a gun and, if you intend to win, never go to a religious war without religion. You’ll lose.”
(The Tuloriad – Afterword; John Ringo & Tom Kratman; Baen Books; ©2009)

UPDATE: Poll results (not final at time of posting)
The Obama administration said the U.S. is no longer engaged in a “war on terrorism” or fighting “jihadists.” Instead, the U.S. is in a “war with al Qaeda.” Do you agree?

Response Percent Votes
Yes            8%         250 votes
No             89%       2726 votes
Undecided   1%       53 votes
Other            1%       31 votes
3060 total votes

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Big Brother Proposal by Dem Cong

Congressman wants government GPS in cars

This is NOT so you can find your destination more easily!

An Oregon congressman says he wants to test having a government GPS unit in every car so a tax could be imposed on the miles driven. The proposal, H.R. 3311, which calls for a test project costing $150 million-plus, was introduced by Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore.

Really… it would only be to monitor miles. Of course, there are a few other features that COULD be used in the future for additional purposes to allow the USSA to control your activities down more effectivelybe able to help you more efficiently.

what other applications would there be for a GPS unit attached to each car in the nation?

What about “shutting down the vehicle when its allotted emissions cap had been reached.”

“Why not?” Lamb wrote, “The current cap-and-trade bill would limit industrial emissions and force each business to pay an extra tax for the privilege of emitting additional carbon dioxide. Why not arbitrarily assign a weekly or monthly cap on auto emissions and shut down the vehicle when that limit is reached? The new Global Positioning Satellite device would have that capability.

“Every American ought to be outraged that such a system is even contemplated,” he continued. “This system is the tool that makes slaves of every person who depends upon a vehicle. Every person should consider just how his life would be changed if he were required to get approval from the federal government to start his car.”[emphasis added]

Lamb said shutting down a vehicle would be among the less intrusive possibilities.

“The proposed GPS road tax system could easily be programmed to listen to and record conversations inside any vehicle. It could stop a vehicle, lock the occupants inside and notify the ‘jack boots’ that the occupants were en route to a tea party,” Lamb wrote. “We would hope that the federal government would never sink to the level of paranoia that gripped Nazi Germany. But then, we also hoped that the federal government would never sink to the level of labeling legal, peaceful assemblies, such as the recent tea parties, as gatherings of potential terrorists.”

Words fail…

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B.O.’s 1st-stage of Einsatzgruppen?

Obama’s spies monitoring Jews house-to-house
‘They try to mingle with us to get more information on what we’re doing’

The Obama administration has set up an apparatus to closely monitor Jewish construction
in Jerusalem and the strategic West Bank to the point of watching Israeli moves house-to-house in certain key neighborhoods, WND has learned.

Obama has called for a complete halt to what he refers to as settlement activity, meaning Jewish construction in eastern Jewish or the West Bank. Obama’s edict extends to natural growth, or accommodating for the housing needs of existing local settler population centers. The demand is an apparent abrogation of a deal Israel struck with the Bush administration to allow natural growth.

Hmmmm. Think, think…hasn’t stuff like this happened before somewhere/somewhen? Oh yeah, those lovely folks of the 3rd Reich Marching and Singing Society with their spiffy uniforms started with stuff like this in the 30’s.

Yesterday marked the second time the past three weeks Israel’s ambassador has been summoned by Washington to protest Israeli conduct in eastern Jerusalem. Last month, Oren was summoned by the State Department to demand a Jewish construction project in eastern Jerusalem be immediately halted.

The construction project, financed by Miami Beach philanthropist Irving Moskowitz, is located just yards from Israel’s national police headquarters and other government ministries. It is a few blocks from the country’s prestigious Hebrew University, underscoring the centrality of the Jewish real estate being condemned by the U.S.

OK – the Foggy Bottom Boys at the State Department are DEMANDING to control what Israel is building in their own country?!

Netanyahu strongly rejected the State Department demand, telling a cabinet meeting Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem was not a matter up for discussion. “Imagine what would happen if someone were to suggest Jews could not live in or purchase [property] in certain neighborhoods in London, New York, Paris or Rome,” [emphasis added] he said just after his ambassador was summoned.

“The international community would certainly raise protest. Likewise, we cannot accept such a ruling on eastern Jerusalem,” Netanyahu told ministers.

By the way…if you don’t know what Einsatzgruppen were, start here. I know…it can’t happen here…can it?

On the other hand, when B.O. calls for establishing a civilian domestic security corps, as large as, as well trained as, and equipped as well as the military…this was done before in history…it was called the S.S.

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B.O. Honoring Anti-semite ex-UNcrat

from PowerLine

The Mary Robinson caper; who done it?

I don’t think we’ve commented on President Obama’s decision to bestow the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Mary Robinson, the former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights who headed up the Durban Conference Against Racism that became an anti-Semitic hate-fest (the Unites States and Israel boycotted it, to Robinson’s dismay). Robinson’s history of consistent animosity towards Israel has caused Abraham Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League, to criticize the selection. Foxman calls Robinson “a lead cheerleader for the Palestinian narrative” during her time as High Commissioner. He explains:…

In addition to examining the reasons for severely doubting the worthiness of Ms. Robinson for this award, the post goes on to make an attempt to see exactly whose fingerprints in the B.O. administration are on this smudged award.

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Change you Better Believe In

No guarantee taxes won’t go up
2 Obama administration officials can’t guarantee middle-class Americans won’t see tax hike

Surprise, surprise, surprise!

President Barack Obama’s treasury secretary said Sunday he cannot rule out higher taxes to help tame an exploding budget deficit, and his chief economic adviser would not dismiss raising them on middle-class Americans as part of a health care overhaul.

As the White House sought to balance campaign rhetoric with governing, officials appeared willing to extend unemployment benefits. With former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan saying he is “pretty sure we’ve already seen the bottom” of the recession, Obama aides sought to defend the economic stimulus and calm a jittery public.

Relax folks…it’s only a middle class tax increase…forget about those pesky campaign promises…that was just politics, right?

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and National Economic Council Director Larry Summers both sidestepped questions on Obama’s intentions about taxes. Geithner said the White House was not ready to rule out a tax hike to lower the federal deficit; Summers said Obama’s proposed health care overhaul needs funding from somewhere.

“There is a lot that can happen over time,” Summers said, adding that the administration believes “it is never a good idea to absolutely rule things out, no matter what.”

Even that stronghold of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, the New York TImes (All the news that fits, we print) has checked in on this:

Obama’s Pledge to Tax Only the Rich Can’t Pay for Everything, Analysts Say

Behind Democrats’ struggle to pay the $1 trillion 10-year cost of President Obama’s promise to overhaul the health care system is their collision with another of his well-known pledges: that 95 percent of Americans “will not see their taxes increase by a single dime” during his term.

President Obama has promised that 95 percent of Americans “will not see their taxes increase by a single dime” in his term.

This will not be the last time that the president runs into a conflict between his audacious agenda and his pay-as-you-go guarantee, when only 5 percent of taxpayers are being asked to chip in. Critics from conservative to liberal warn that Mr. Obama has tied his and Congress’s hands on a range of issues, including tax reform and the need to reduce deficits topping $1 trillion a year.

So what’s it mean to the rest of us? BOHICA! (Bend Over Here It Comes Again)

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History Passing Us By

Harry Patch, last British survivor of First World War trenches, dies

Harry Patch, the last British soldier to have served in the First World War trenches, has died at the age of 111.

Mr Patch, who was known as the Last Fighting Tommy, was the last living soldier to have fought in bloody battle of Passchendaele, at Ypres, in 1917 in which more than 70,000 troops died.

It’s worth noting this…and worth taking the time to talk to those around us whose service allows us to enjoy what we now have. We’re not down to end of the WW-II guys yet, but they are going fast…dang…I even know a bunch of Viet-nam/Cold-war types (I resemble that remark!) who have made their final muster.

Godspeed, Harry Patch.

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“Does anybody really know what time it is?

This just naturally suggested the old tune from the group Chicago:

As I was walking down the street one day
A man came up to me and asked me what the time was that was on my watch, yeah
And I said

Does anybody really know what time it is
Does anybody really care
If so I cant imagine why
We’ve all got time enough to cry

Are we missing a dimension of time?

A scientist has put forward the bizarre suggestion that there are two dimensions of time, not the one that we are all familiar with, and even proposed a way to test his heretical idea next year.

Time is no longer a simple line from the past to the future, in a four dimensional world consisting of three dimensions of space and one of time. Instead, the physicist envisages the passage of history as curves embedded in a six dimensions, with four of space and two of time.

“There isn’t just one dimension of time,” Itzhak Bars of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles tells New Scientist. “There are two. One whole dimension of time and another of space have until now gone entirely unnoticed by us.”

DOH! How could we have missed this?

Until now, they have been reluctant to meddle with time because it can lead to unexpected consequences, such as time travel.

That’s why!  Avoiding that pesky ole’ time travel paradox:

Changing our picture of time from a line to a plane (one to two dimensions) means that the path between the past and future could loop back on itself, allowing you to travel back and forwards in time and allowing the famous grandfather paradox, where you could go back and kill your grandfather before your mother was born, thereby preventing your own birth.

Bars first found hints of an extra time dimension in M-theory in 1995 and, when he looked into it, discovered the grandfather paradox and other fears could be overcome by using a new kind of symmetry – a mathematical property to work out the relationship between the quantities of position and momentum. It is this symmetry that might help reconcile the two mighty pillars of 20th-century physics, quantum mechanics and relativity.

And then there’s this aspect of it…anyone else remember your Platonic “ideals” (reality) and their shadows (what we experience)?

According to Bars, the familiar four dimensional world we see around us is merely a “shadow” of the six-dimensional reality, just as a hand makes many different shadows on a wall when lit from different angles.

Although we cannot experience the extra time dimension directly, we can effectively notice it through the different perspectives of the different “shadows”.

Actually – this is really cool stuff…it would be really neat to figure all this stuff out.

My background from teaching years of H.S. physics isn’t up to all the math details of this, but conceptually I really get into this sort of stuff…I guess it appeals to my SciFi instincts.

If you REALLY want to see what Bars says about this himself, go here, but be warned…this is real physics stuff, even though he’s discussing it conceptually, more or less.

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Demo Congs move to Censor GOP Mailing

1 Comment

If you’ve looked at this posting by the Chief, you can see the chart noted below that the Donk party doesn’t want you to see.

Congressional Democrats Block GOP Health Care Mailing

Democrats are preventing Republican House Members from sending their constituents a mailing that is critical of the majority’s health care reform plan, blocking the mailing by alleging that it is inaccurate.

House Republicans are crying foul and claiming that the Democrats are using their majority to prevent GOP Members from communicating with their constituents.

The dispute centers on a chart (view PDF) created by Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) and Republican staff of the Joint Economic Committee to illustrate the organization of the Democratic health care plan.

At first glance, Brady’s chart resembles a board game: a colorful collection of shapes and images with a web of lines connecting them, but a closer look at the image reveals a complicated menagerie of government offices and programs that Republicans say will be created if the leading Democratic health care plan becomes law.

What’s the issue?

In a memo sent Monday to Republicans on the House franking commission, Democrats argue that sending the chart to constituents as official mail would violate House rules because the information is misleading.

In other words, it illustrates the Byzantine complexity of the House plan…whatever the details are.

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Patriot Act Running Amok

1 Comment

Somehow the Chief doesn;t quite think that this (from St. Louis) is REALLY what most people worry about as terrorism:

Phone rage leads to arrest here for Ohio man

An Ohio man, fed up with deceptive junk mail, made the mistake of losing his temper while on the phone with a St. Louis company pitching an extended auto-service contract. Now he finds himself behind bars, where he is charged with making a terrorist threat.

According to court documents, Charles W. Papenfus, 43, allegedly told a sales representative during a May 18 telephone call that he would burn down the building and kill the employees and their families. He was indicted for making a terrorist threat, a Class D felony; and he could be sentenced to up to four years in prison if convicted.

Papenfus’ wife, Tracie, said she hasn’t seen her husband since his arrest on June 27, when he was lured to a Fostoria, Ohio, police station with a false story about being suspected in a tavern fight there. Charles Papenfus, a self-employed mechanic who sometimes works on the department’s police cruisers, dropped by the station to clear his name, she said.

This is a bit much…at least…especially when the complainant firm has it’s own record of illegal and/or fraudulent sales techniques.

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“End of Life Counseling” in Obamacare – Yech!

Sounds like something from the classic dystopian movie Soylent Green, or motion in the direction of a quasi-Nazi elimination of financially inconvenient seniors (“useless eaters”) who would only continue to consume valuable resources to live IF given necessary treatment.

Unfortunately this really IS in the bill (page numbers cited below).

Government ‘counselors’ on end of life treatment

The House version of the Health Care Bill is going to require (p 425-430) mandatory counseling for all seniors at a minimum of every five years, more often if the senior is sick or in a nursing home.

Just how many government trained counselors will that put into the work force? With an over 65 population of 38,000,000 US (Census, 2007), 4 counseling sessions daily, over 37,000, at a minimum, that’s how many. Plus their supervisors, plus the report readers, plus the oversight agency.

This is bad enough on its own (de)merits, without considering the following contrast, which makes things even worse:

Don’t even think that anyone should receive mandatory counseling regarding the end of life issues surrounding abortion; that’s a invasion of the right of privacy! “Counsel” a senior about their end of life “choices” under Obama Care? Somehow that’s not the same, so just keep your mouth shut.

This REALLY creeps me out! Who could trust the GOVERNMENT for something like this?  Would you trust YOUR loved ones life and death decisions to a government bureaucracy?   If you would, I truly hope you get the government you want…just leave ME out of your National Socialistic nightmare!

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Obamacare Transparency Lacking

PROMISES, PROMISES: Do Obama deals break pledge?

In cutting deals with hospitals and drug makers, President Barack Obama is giving a private inside track to special interests that’s at odds with his promise to make policy in the open.

Obama promised Americans he would hold special interests at arm’s length—that it would no longer be business as usual in Washington. He pledged to open government and let the public and news media hold his administration accountable.

And just over two months before the 2008 election, Obama promised before an audience in Chester, Va., to hash out a health care overhaul in public. “We’ll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies,” he said then.

That didn’t happen.

Instead, the administration’s multibillion-dollar deals with hospitals and pharmaceutical companies have been made in private, and the results were announced after the fact. Both industries promised Obama cost savings in return for an expanded base of insured patients; beyond that, the public is in the dark about details.

In some ways, it resembles what his party criticized President George W. Bush for doing with oil and gas companies as Vice President Dick Cheney wrote a national energy plan in the early days of the Bush administration.

As the Bush White House did, the Obama White House is refusing to release visitor logs that would let people see everyone going in and out during the thick of discussions over major national policies.

I know, I know. There was little transparency and accountability in handling TARP, the “Porkulus” bill, etc., so why be surprised at the latest example of more of the same from B.O.

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Obamacare Note

A funny thing happened to Obamacare as it winds its way through the belly of the legislative beast….

Mayo Clinic calls House plan bad medicine

A world-renowned clinic that President Obama held up as an example of good medicine said Monday that the American people would be “losers” under the House’s health care proposal, joining the growing chorus of critics the Obama administration is trying to fend off as the debate intensifies from Capitol Hill to Main Street.

Minnesota’s not-for-profit Mayo Clinic, which Mr. Obama has repeatedly hailed as offering top quality care at affordable costs, blasted the House Democrats’ version of the health care plan as lawmakers continue to grapple with several bills from each chamber and multiple committees.

The Mayo Clinic said there are some positive elements of the bill, but overall “the proposed legislation misses the opportunity to help create higher quality, more affordable health care for patients.”

“In fact, it will do the opposite,” clinic officials said, because the proposals aren’t patient-focused or results-oriented. “The real losers will be the citizens of the United States.” [emphasis added]

Ooops.

Hopefully another nail in the coffin of “Obamacare.”