68 years ago, Americans around the nation settled into a peaceful Thanksgiving weekend and celebrated with their loved ones. A week later, the nation was viciously attacked by Japan – an attack that sparked our involvement in perhaps the greatest of all wars.

This Thanksgiving holiday is different from that weekend. While we should likewise celebrate and give thanks for our innumerable blessings, this time, the American people are staring at an attack on our nation and can stop it. This attack is coming from within. The Obama/Reid/Pelosi healthcare bill – in its various forms - is an assault on the American way of life and an affront to all the generations before us who fought to preserve and protect our cherished freedoms.

Why? Because the bill will eliminate your God-given ability to care for your family according to YOUR wishes and YOUR conscience. It will insert Washington D.C., and the incompetent bureaucrats who live there, into your hospital room, your doctor’s office, your insurance company, your home and ultimately, into your personal health decisions. As analyzed here, the bill is loaded with active-government terms like “shall,” “tax,” and “require.” And, even a cursory review of the text will show how much power this bill gives Washington to interfere with your healthcare (you know, the town that brought you the TARP bailout, Katrina-relief and over $12 Trillion in debt and counting…). Qualifications, panels, reports, studies, mandatory insurance whether you want it or not, penalties, taxes, fees, mandates on coverage but restrictions on prices… and 2079 pages of non-stop assaults on your right to live free and care for your family as you see fit.

Say hello to lines, waiting rooms, priority lists and more expensive, less effective healthcare. Say goodbye to freedom.

That is, unless you act now. It is your job – indeed, it is your duty – to talk to your friends and family this weekend and in the coming weeks. Call them to action. Other than our fine men and women in uniform fighting around the world, there is nothing more important that you can be doing right now to preserve our children’s birthright – heirs to the greatest nation the world has ever known.

Read over the bill. Read summaries. Whatever you need to do. Try the Heritage Foundation’s website, http://fixhealthcarepolicy.com/. Then… pause the football games and take a break from the turkey and cranberry sauce. Talk to friends and family this weekend. Explain it to them.

Then… next week, when the Senate come back in session - call your Senator. Email more friends. Email more family. Then… Call your Senator AGAIN. Don’t stop. Repeat. Then… call Senators on the fence. And, feel free to start with Senators Ben Nelson (R-NE), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), and Mary Landrieu (D- LA). They represent solidly red states - and need to have their feat held to the fire. The list of Senate office phone numbers can be found here. Shut their phones down. Flood their offices. Visit their offices.

The American people can win this, but only if you take action to stop it. There is one thing that elected representatives fear - and that is YOU, the American people. Celebrate Thanksgiving this year in the American way - by fighting for freedom and working hard to preserve this, the last best earthly hope for mankind.

Call your Senator right now. Use this link to bypass the congressional switchboard.

Tell your Senator to vote NO on cloture for the motion to proceed to debate.

If the health care legislation goes to debate, Harry Reid will start offering amendments to pick off votes.

Call your Senator right now. Tell them both that a yes vote on cloture is a vote for the health care bill. The Congressional Research Service’s latest study proves that.

Democrat Bill Owens wants to succeed former Congressman John McHugh in New York’s 23rd congressional district. McHugh was a faithful representative of the center-right views of his district; in contrast, Owens is doing his best to earn the support of the extreme Left of the Democrat party.

For example, here’s Owens during his opening statement in last night’s candidate debate:

owens-healthcare-reform

Congress needs to overhaul the world’s best health care system ‘as rapidly as possible?’

Who does that sounds like?

Read More →

Multiple people are telling RedState that the Democrats are blocking the public from attending their health care conference on Capitol Hill. The press conference is being held in a public area on the Capitol Grounds that should be accessible to public observers.

Not today.

The Democrats, having tried to avoid the public for the duration of the health care process, are now determined to block the public from getting close to them at the press conference.

This bill would make great strides for all of our members and their families….”
AARP said July 14, as House Committees prepared to review and amend the health care overhaul bill in the House which contains nearly $500 billion in Medicare cuts.

Last week, the Senate Finance Committee passed its version of health reform, and so, it appears, that the health care battle will continue to chug along with cuts to Medicare that will affect up to 14 million seniors across the country (14,000 in Washington State) and force them off of much-needed supplemental coverage providing them with critical benefits, such as prescription drugs.

Why would a seniors’ advocacy group support such drastic cuts to Medicare? It simply does not add up.

On September 21, I sent a letter to AARP requesting an explanation for its support for health care legislation, which contains provisions to cut Medicare and Medicare Advantage.

They responded on October 1, and yet my questions remain unanswered. While they state that AARP “would gladly forgo every dime of revenue to fix the health care system,” AARP continues to run ads touting Medigap plans that will remain seniors’ only option after the proposed House legislation cuts Medicare and Medicare Advantage by $500 billion. And while they stated that “AARP is not an insurance company,” 38 percent of AARP’S annual total operating revenue came from United HealthCare, but simply 23 percent of total operating revenue came from membership dues.

And while they state that “AARP has not endorsed any of the pending bills,” their support of these proposals is clear.

When I was in law enforcement, I often sat in a room for hours with a subject, asking questions to figure out the facts. And if a question wasn’t answered, we continued to ask until we reached a sensible conclusion.

Late last week, I reached out again to clarify the questions they didn’t clearly answer, and I will continue to question them, and work with them until I find answers for the seniors in my district and across the country.

From the diaries by Erick

Yesterday, Americans United for Life’s legislative action arm, AUL Action gave America a much-needed reality check with a groundbreaking new online ad that dispels the deceptive rhetoric in Washington and gives clear evidence how your taxpayer dollars will go to funding abortions in health care reform.

Our new online video ad, “Don’t Be Fooled: Abortion is in Health Care Reform,” is a part of our “Real Health Care Respects Life” initiative to mobilize pro-life opposition nationwide to abortion in health care reform.

This ad cuts through the deceptive rhetoric of pro-abortion politicians and shows how American taxpayers will be forced to pay for abortions against their conscience. The ad highlights current health care reform proposals which would allow abortion in health care reform.

You can learn more about how your tax dollars could go to abortions in health care reform in my op-ed in The Wall Street Journal entitled “Tax Dollars Shouldn’t Fund Abortion” or you can go to www.RealHealthCareRespectsLife.com.

I am told quite reliably that in a meeting today on Capitol Hill, Republican Senators began to rapidly move toward concessions on health care because they are afraid they cannot hold their members. Some Republicans are now thinking of supporting a government program.

Go to the action center and start calling.

Already, Senate Democrats are looking to pass healthcare by attaching it to unrelated legislation — the back door Brian Darling has repeatedly warned us about.

Republicans are starting to waver on this.

Call now. Tell the GOP to stand firm in opposition to the Democrats’ health care plans.

[UPDATED:] I’m hearing this evening from both some Senators in the room and staff that the fears of GOP caving are overblown and we should not be concerned.

-TobyToons

So often during the health care debate we’ve heard: “If you like it, you can keep it.” But who’s heard of this significant exception: “unless you’re a senior with a Medicare health plan”?

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office predicts that 3 million seniors will lose their Medicare health plan coverage and 3 million fewer seniors will enroll in such a plan if the current bill passed through the Ways and Means Committee, H.R. 3200, becomes law.

With a large senior constituency and an array of health insurance products to sell, there’s a lot at stake for AARP in the health care debate. In public statements, and during a personal meeting in my office in July, AARP representatives have advocated for H.R. 3200, stating: “This bill would make great strides for all of our members and their families,” yet the bill contains nearly $500 billion in Medicare cuts, including $156 billion in cuts to Medicare health plans affecting 14 million seniors, many of whom are likely AARP members. In short, they have vocally supported a proposal that would cut Medicare benefits, and I find that curious.

Why would an organization that has historically advocated for our seniors aggressively support such a bill? This week, I put that question – and many more – into writing. I am concerned about the cuts to Medicare, and that our seniors may be left without the care they need and deserve. From where I sit, there appears to be a direct conflict of interest between AARP’s advocacy for legislation that slashes the Medicare Advantage program – in which millions of seniors participate – and the sale of AARP-sponsored Medigap plans.

This week the House Republican Conference released a study about this very topic. “A review of its financial statements finds that in 2008, AARP received more than half a billion dollars in revenue from selling products like Medigap supplemental insurance policies-$652.7 million in direct “royalties and fees,” and an increase of more than 31 percent from the $497.6 million in similar revenue AARP generated in 2007.”

Has AARP lost sight of its mission? Is it now only acting to preserve its own interests? I intend to find out.

Yesterday I told you how Bob Bennett intends to compromise his way into snatching defeat from the jaws of victory on healthcare.

Today, I present to you video on point:

Meet Bob Bennett. He is a Republican United States Senator. He is up for re-election next year.

Bob Bennett is about to screw America.

Bob Bennett is a fiscally irresponsible Senator who prides himself on being a Senator’s Senator. He was the only Republican who stood up and clapped when Barack Obama attacked Sarah Palin in his Joint Session of Congress speech last week.

And Bob Bennett wants to cut a deal on healthcare. Why? Because that’s what Senators do. They compromise. And if you are a Republican Senator, you capitulate.

Bob Bennett is working with Ron Wyden of Oregon on a healthcare alternative. They’ve proposed this plan for a while. The plan is terrible. As the Heritage Foundation correctly notes:

despite many attractive tax reform aspects, a troubling feature of the bill is that it would replace the current health system with one that is heavily regulated by the federal government: Individuals would have access only to plans permitted by the government and would be required to purchase such a plan.

Likewise, the Wyden-Bennett plan supports abortion funding, imposes federal mandates on citizens to have insurance, increases federal regulation, and cripples the several states.

From the Heritage Foundation (PDF):

The proposal’s major problems are rooted in its sweeping and heavy-handed federal control over the insurance markets and its replace- ment of one tax inequity with another. Beyond these shortcomings are other unpleasant policy surprises such as the establishment of Medicare pricing over prescription drugs, permitting prescription drug reimportation, and even mandating that health insurers must cover abortion services.

This is Bob Bennett’s pet snake. He wants to wrap it around the American public and constrict us while championing his having done something.

And today, Barack Obama called Bob Bennett and Ron Wyden to the White House to chat. One guess what that’s about.

Bob Bennett is going to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory just so he can feel good about his legislative record.

Did I mention he’s up for re-election next year?

George Will has a good column this week pointing out why no one believes Barack Obama. The man chronically says two things that contradict each other. One of those is on medicare and “waste, fraud, and abuse.”

Will writes:

He says Medicare is an exemplary program that validates government’s prowess at running health systems. But he also says Medicare is unsustainable and going broke, and that he will pay for much of his reforms by eliminating the hundreds of billions of dollars of waste and fraud in this paragon of a program, and in Medicaid.

Precisely. In fact, last Wednesday night, Barack Obama, in his address to Congress, said

[W]e’ve estimated that most of this plan can be paid for by finding savings within the existing health care system, a system that is currently full of waste and abuse. . . . The only thing this plan would eliminate is the hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud . . . . Reducing the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid will pay for most of this plan.

Get the point? According the Barack Obama, most of his health care plan will be paid for by “reducing waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid” and getting rid of the fraud and abuse.

Who has he chosen as his health policy czar to make sure the waste, fraud, and abuse gets stamped out? Nancy-Ann DeParle.

And why do I call her a non sequitur appointee? Well, a non sequitur is a logical fallacy and that’s what this appointment is. Why the hell would you appoint as your healty policy czar who will focus on rooting out Medicare’s waste, fraud, and abuse the woman who ran Medicare for Bill Clinton and utterly and completely failed to root out waste, fraud, and abuse?

That’s right — Nancy-Ann DeParle was in charge of Medicare during the Clinton Administration and left office having little to show for ridding the system of waste, fraud, and abuse.

But if you think that’s the real story here, this just keeps getting better and better. Let’s dig in, shall we!

Read More →

The Democrats say if you want to keep your insurance, you can. But then why do they require so much of you in order to let you keep your plan? The Democrats’ healthcare legislation uses the word “require” 84 times focusing on what should be your rights.

Why?

Don’t believe me? I’ve got the video:

The House Republicans have been passing around the information below. We got a copy of it and wanted to post it for you.

In a nutshell, the Democrats lack enough moderates to pass H.R. 3200 with the government option and if they ditch the government option, the Democrats would lack enough liberals to pass it. Sucks to be them.

Here is what the GOP is circulating:

NOTE: At least 44 more moderate Members of the Democrat Caucus have gone on the record in opposition to the current health care bill in the House. Likewise, at least 57 liberal Members of the Democrat Caucus have gone on the record saying they will vote against a health care bill without a strong public option. In other words, unless multiple Democrats flip on their stated position on health care, Speaker Pelosi lacks the votes to pass a bill through the House on the strength of Democrat votes alone. How will the President address this intra-party squabbling during his speech tonight?

WHIP COUNT

44 Democrats Opposed

1. Rep. Altmire
2. Rep. Adler
3. Rep. Barrow
4. Rep. Boren
5. Rep. Boucher
6. Rep. Boyd
7. Rep. Bright
8. Rep. Carney
9. Rep. Childers
11. Rep. Cleaver
12. Rep. Cooper
13. Rep. Costello
14. Rep. Cuellar
15. Rep. Dahlkamper
16. Rep. Davis
17. Rep. Driehaus
18. Rep. Ellsworth
19. Rep. Gordon
20. Rep. Griffith
21. Rep. Halvorson
22. Rep. Hill
23. Rep. Holden
24. Rep. Kanjorski
25. Rep. Kaptur
26. Rep. F Kratovil
27. Rep. Marshall
28. Rep. Massa
29. Rep. Melancon
30. Rep. McIntyre
31. Rep. Minnick
32. Rep. Murtha
33. Rep. Oberstar
34. Rep. Ortiz
35. Rep. Perriello
36. Rep. Peterson
37. Rep. Polis
38. Rep. Pomeroy
39. Rep. Ross
40. Rep. Shuler
41. Rep. Stupak
42. Rep. Tanner
43. Rep. Taylor
44. Rep. Titus

57 Liberal Democrats to vote no on a bill without a strong public option

Read More →

-TobyToons

The Media Matters guys are out lying today about Joe Wilson.

They are crying to everyone that the Democrats’ health care legislation specifically excludes illegal aliens from health care.

It does.

But only a confused moron like David Brock and his minion would be so vapid and shallow as to take Congress at its word (they never would if it were a Republican plan).

The Democrats have blocked specific Republican attempts to require citizenship verification to get on the government plan. Why? The State Medicaid agencies are given the ability to set eligibility standards for the low income subsidies that will be used for the plan. And they have no incentive not to enroll illegal aliens, particularly since it’s a 100% federal match.

So doctors are not required to verify citizenship because they and the states will get greater allotments the faster the rolls grow. H.R. 3200 claims to block illegal aliens from the plan, but provides incentives to ignore citizenship.

It is like telling a kid that it is against the law to drink, but then specifically not enforcing the law, nor providing any money or manpower to enforce the law.

-TobyToons

This was not a speech worthy of a national night of media coverage before a joint session of congress.

This was a partisan speech full of rubbing Republicans’ noses in his legislative policy preferences.

Americans tonight are suffering pre-traumatic hemorrhoid disorder, knowing Barack Obama’s government is about to rape their wallets, destroy their wages, and force government healthcare down our throats.

We were treated to a vainglorious, pompous ass playing politics with healthcare while accuses everyone else of playing politics. And he spent the whole hour lying through his teeth.

Barack Obama has signed on in toto to the Democrats’ healthcare plan, including a public option. He said that the plan won’t fund abortions. But it will. In fact, the Democrats specifically cut out of the legislation clear language to prevent funding of abortions. Moreso, the Hyde Amendment, which Barack Obama hides behind, would not apply to this legislation because the Hyde Amendment only applies to Department of Health and Human Services appropriations and, get this, the Democrats have decided that healthcare expenditures will not be in the HHS budget. Therefore, abortions will be paid for.

More importantly, Barack Obama said the plan will not cover illegal aliens. This is a lie. Joe Wilson was right. The legislation clearly says it will not fund illegal aliens BUT the legislation also prevents anyone from checking on the citizenship status of any person seeking healthcare. He is trying to have it both ways.

The entire speech from Barack Obama was loaded with half-truths and flat out lies. For example, he said he would not force the government option on anyone. But, the legislation provides an incentive for private employers to shove their employees onto the government plan.

Likewise, the President says individuals will be able to keep their insurance even when the switch jobs. That is not true. According to the Democrats’ legislation, if an employee switches jobs, they must get on a government approved plan and then can never get off it.

The President also tried to claim that this $900 billion plan will not add to the deficit. He will pay for it without tax increases he said. He said, instead, he’ll save money by reforming present healthcare. Why not do that now? Even so, the Congressional Budget Office says the total savings from stamping out waste, fraud, and abuse would barely be a dent in the overall costs of the legislation.

The President was short on details, high on rhetoric, and much too partisan on this issue. He wants to work across the aisle, but on his terms with a pre-existing failed Democrat plan.

Whatever the President did not accomplish tonight, he waved around the cadaver named Ted Kennedy as a distraction. It is a good thing Ted Kennedy drank as much as he did, because his corpse held up well as Obama dragged it through the aisles of the House of Representatives like Achilles dragging Hector across the plains of Troy. It was a disgusting display of distraction by a man who has staked his Presidency on the destruction of the American healthcare system.

We must help him fail.

So Barack Obama is speaking right now. He’s turning his head back and forth so much for the teleprompter that I think he’s watching a tennis game. I can’t find where the ball is hiding though.

8:26: “Build on what works and fix what doesn’t.” Everyone stands and applauds. This is the problem though: he doesn’t believe it. He wants to raise the costs of private insurance so much that government insurance looks cheap in comparison. In other words, he wants to raise prices all around and, in the process, break the system.

8:28: Just noticed Nancy and Joe. It looks like they had their botox. Better enjoy it while they can because because the Democrats want to tax the hell out of it.

8:28: He’s accusing others of playing “short-term” politics. But . . . but . . . what the hell is this speech? Obama is accusing others of playing politics when he is playing politics.

Three basic goals:

• More security and stability.
• Insurance for those who don’t have it.
• Slow the costs of healthcare.

But he won’t propose tort reform, which would slow the costs of healthcare.

8:30: Obama says his plan includes input from his “primary opponents.” What’s that? Remember Hillary supporting forced mandates for insurance and Obama bashing her in Ohio? Yeah. He’s caving on that.

8:31: “No one should go broke because they get sick,” he says. He stole that from Facebook. Of course, no one should have their insurance lost to pay for the insurance of those who don’t have it. And that’s what he would have happen.

8:32: He’s talking about the exchange. The exchange forces employees who leave their present employer to get on government insurance. They would have no choice.

8:34: Four years? In other words he wants to push the ball down the road so he doesn’t have to deal with the costs during a re-election campaign.

8:35: I told you he was going to flip-flop on mandatory coverage. Oh, and businesses are going to be forced to pay. And here we go: the requirements on business will necessitate businesses don’t grow or they throw employees off their insurance and into a government plan.

8:37: Barack Obama takes on the death panels. He calls them a lie. EXCEPT THEY ARE NOT.

8:38: He says abortions won’t be funded and illegal immigrants won’t be funded. He is lying.
Whichever member yelled out “it’s a lie,” gets a drink on me.

8:39: ZOMG! He said “choice and competition.” Quick, quick stand up and clap Republicans.

8:40: Barack Obama tries to claim a government option is competition. This is crap.

8:42: If lying is a sin, Barack Obama is in big trouble. He’s using so many disproven fatuous canards he’s turning into a walking red herring.

8:43: Talking about the Public Option. He’s trying to split the baby.

8:46: “We will provide you with a choice.” No, we will enslave you to the government.

8:48: Barack Obama wants to speak directly to seniors. They must have put a senior on his teleprompter, because he’s speaking directly there and not at the camera.

8:50: Barack Obama has blown this. He’s turned it into a campaign speech using Congress as a prop. He’s needling the Republicans instead of trying to work with them.

8:53: Obama actually brings up tort reform. Defensive medicine “maybe” contributing to costs? What a load of crap. So Obama is going to pass this off to HHS to rig some results that make it look like tort reform does nothing.

8:56: Barack Obama stakes his Presidency on healthcare. And he says he’ll call us out for distorting the plan. Will he call himself out for distorting the plan?

8:56: He pulls out Teddy Kennedy’s corpse and drags it around the House chamber now. Thank God he drank so much. His body looks well preserved.

8:59: My God. This has become “Weekend at Teddy’s.” Where are Andrew McCarthy and Jonathan Silverman?

9:03: I’m waiting for him to go “I still believe in a place called hope.”