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Doctors take to the streets on healthcare

On Saturday, November 21, all across the nation an event will occur that has received very little attention in the media.  The real doctors--not the ones who run the American Medical Association--are taking to the streets on the healthcare bills that are now before Congress.

http://www.examiner.com/x-3704-Columbia-Conservative-Examiner~y2009m11d18-Doctors-take-to-the-streets-on-healthcare

32 retired generals and Admirals delivered a letter to Congress today supporting the closure of Gitmo and decrying Republican fearmongering over trying KSM in New York.

We have watched with disappointment efforts to engender fear among the American people about the prospect of bringing suspected terrorists to the United States for trial. Our federal justice system has a proven track record of successfully prosecuting terrorists and incarcerating them safely in our prisons. Our courts have convicted 195 terrorists since 9/11. Meanwhile, there have been only three successful prosecutions of terrorists by military commissions over that same period; two of those found guilty were released in less than a year. Those convicted in our federal courts, including many al Qaeda terrorists, are serving long sentences in federal prisons. The highly respected American Correctional Association, the nation’s largest corrections organization, in a recently passed resolution assured the American public they “would be safe from harm and free from danger should any detainees be transferred to a facility or facilities within the United States.” Our prisons currently house more than 150 convicted terrorists and none has ever escaped.

The American people can have confidence that our judicial and penal institutions are strong and that our military, law enforcement and corrections professionals are second to none.

All people are subject to excesses. Bruckner symphonies are too long.  The groovey threads that cats and chicks wore in the sixties look silly in old movies.  The Democratic party went too far in the sixties and seventies.  It tolerated corruption in the name of reform.  It worked to raise taxes and over-spend on often ineffective social programs.  This led to the Reagan backlash.  Bill Clinton got elected by bringing discipline back to the Democratic Party.  He convinced them that Americans would not trust Democrats to run the country until the Democratic party had proven to Americans that it could handle the responsibility.  Now it’s Republicans who have gone too far.  All those Bush appointed “heckofajobbers” left an impression that will take some work to overcome.  Voters will remember the Katrina and Iraq disasters, and the economic meltdown at the end of the Bush years.  If Republicans want Americans to trust them, they will have to prove that they can put competence before ideology and think rationally about our policy choices.Sarah Palin is not helping.  I watched her on Hannity last night.  She said we should be firmer with Iran – we should put on economic sanctions already.  Hasn’t anyone told her that US sanctions without world cooperation would mean nothing to Iran?  She said we should pressure Russia to stop cooperating with Iran.  Doesn’t she know that Bush and Obama both did this?  -- OK, that’s as much as I could take.  She obviously doesn’t know enough to get anywhere near actual policy decisions.Palin is reinforcing all those negative stereotypes voters have about Republicans – incompetence, inability to look at all sides of policy decisions, ideology in place if real ideas.  Voters will have trouble trusting Republicans to run the country as long they see Republicans treating Palin as an asset rather than a liability.   

The White House has gotten a black eye for two key problems with the Recovery.gov stimulus database. The first problem was that the numbers of jobs were bogus. The Washington Examiner has concluded that at least 10% of the jobs were fabrications. The second problem was that the data about congressional districts were clearly garbage.

But I am not here to rehash this. There is a legitimate problem with the data. But the data wouldn't be such a big deal if the White House hadn't tried to politicize the data and claim victory.

Recovery.gov is a tremendous success for the transparency movement. Politicians lie. A key goal of the transparency movement is to give the people the power to keep the politicians accountable. And that's what this has done.

Here's what happened: The White House shared the data and lied about what it showed. And the data has been used to hang them.

First, let's go to the stimulus bill itself. Congress demanded that the White House report jobs created or saved numbers:

(8) The website shall provide a link to estimates of the jobs sustained or created by the Act.

But that legislative langauge says that "[t]he website shall provide a link to estimates" ... "by the Act". The bill doesn't require a per-contract or a per-district accounting of jobs.

So what's happening? The White House quickly learned that the stimulus bill was going to be a hot potato. So they started to use Recovery.gov to give them (and their Democratic allies in Congress -- recall no Republicans voted for this) cover.

Let's be clear what happened here: the White House politicized this data. And now they are getting hung with the politicization of it (not the bad data).

And this goes to the deeper point. Check out this story from the Washington Post from October 30th, the weekend before election day:

Reports to be released Friday on the government Web site Recovery.gov are expected to show that the $150 billion in grants and loans made so far under the economic stimulus package have created or saved about 650,000 jobs, White House officials said Friday morning.

White House officials said the reports -- which were filed by state and city governments and other recipients of stimulus grants and loans -- will confirm their recent estimates that the $787 billion package passed in February has so far saved or created about a million jobs, putting it on track to match their estimates of 3.5 million jobs created or saved over the three-year span of the stimulus. That calculation is based on the fact that today's reports do not include much of the package's spending -- tax cuts, safety net spending and fiscal aid to strapped states, which injected tens of billions more into the economy and, in the case of the state aid, forestalled layoffs of state workers.

The White House clearly leaked this information the weekend before election day to claim victory based on garbage data. Furthermore, they claimed that Recovery.gov confirmed their previous assessments, and didn't come to any new conclusions based on data. 

Fifteen days earlier, based on partial data, the White House also claimed victory based on incomplete data, using the same number. From the Hill's Walter Alarkon:

"All signs -- from private estimates to this fragmentary data -- point to the conclusion that the Recovery Act did indeed create or save about 1 million jobs in its first seven months, a much needed lift in a very difficult period for our economy," said Jared Bernstein, the chief economist for Vice President Joe Biden.

That same 1m had been their talking point for a while. In September the White House said:

This analysis indicates that the ARRA and other policy actions caused employment in August to be slightly more than 1 million jobs higher than it otherwise would have been.

In May, they said:

Our finding was that the ARRA would increase employment relative to the baseline in this quarter by approximately 3.5 million

Six months later, the White House was repeating these same numbers even though they had data to prove it false. That's the problem.

Fooled ya again…seems to be the mantra of the Eric Holder Justice Department. Holder tried more ACLU bait and switch on the Senate Judiciary Committee today in his testimony, telling the Senators that “we need not cower in the face of the enemy”. If our experience with the Obama administration and his Attorney General is any example, then we had better worry plenty.

Holder held forth with a whole bunch of juris-psycho-babble, which came to a dead end with Ariz. Senator Jon Kyle’s (R) blunt question. “How could you be more likely to get a conviction in federal court when Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has already asked to plead guilty before a military commission and be executed?” Holders answer to this was weak at best.

Senator Jeff Sessions, Alabama, commented that time has dulled the administration’s memory that we are at war. Indeed, Senator Sessions. If they ever considered it to be a war to start with. That’s perhaps where the breakdown on this whole issue is.

The Liberal Democrats in this country have never been in this thing from the beginning…it’s at best a terrible inconvenience from their real business, which is to transform this country into a shadow of it’s greatness. Trapping it’s people forever in a maze of government bureaucracy, overwhelming taxation and perpetual subservience to some nouveau-European socio-marxist state.

The DeMarxists see this as an opportunity to once and for all put their biggest enemy, George Bush and his CIA, on trial as their ever-rabid base still insists they do. Only in this way can the hard left expiate their guilt at failing to completely destroy him while in office. Exposing our intelligence operations in a totally Soviet style show trial can be the only result of bringing these people into our federal court system.

Once again, THESE PEOPLE HAVE NO STANDING IN OUR COURTS. They HAVE no Constitutional protections under our system of jurisprudence. They are not US citizens. They are not enemy combatants, fighting for a country under the flag in the regular armed forces of that country, and therefore given the protections of the Geneva Convention. They are irregulars, fighting under no national flag. At no time in the past have we ever given armed enemies of this country any standing in US criminal courts. There is a system for dealing with them, it is in the military justice system and not in our civil courts. Eric Holder and Barack Obama know exactly what they are doing and WHY they are doing it.

The implications are startling and just plain ugly. This is coming to a head and it may get much uglier yet. The American people are going to demand an account and that demand will be coming soon.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2009

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/11/18/dems-finally-notice-flight-of-inde...

Mounting evidence that independent voters have soured on the Democrats is prompting a debate among party officials about what rhetorical and substantive changes are needed to halt the damage.

Following serious setbacks with independents in off-year elections earlier this month, White House officials attributed the defeats to local factors and said President Barack Obama sees no need to reposition his own image or the Democratic message.

Since then, however, a flurry of new polls makes clear that Democrats are facing deeper problems with independents—the swing voters who swung dramatically toward the party in 2006 and 2008 but who now are registering deep unease with the amount of spending and debt called for under Obama’s agenda in an era of one-party rule in Washington.

A Gallup Poll released last week offered a disturbing glimpse about the state of play: just 14 percent of independents approve of the job Congress is doing, the lowest figure all year. In just the past few days alone, surveys have shown Democratic incumbents trailing Republicans among independent voters by double-digit margins in competitive statewide contests in places as varied as Connecticut, Ohio and Iowa.

Looks like the economy is going to be a key issue.

From JohnMcCain.com sponsored email...

Taxpayers simply cannot afford this government takeover of our health care system and this is our opportunity to put an end to it.

That's why I urge you to add your name to this petition showing your opposition to government-run health care.

We still have an opportunity to stop the Democrats' public option from becoming law, but I need to know you stand with us in opposition to a government takeover of health care - so, please sign this petition immediately.

The wasteful spending ways of Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress must be put to an end. Americans are angry and I share your frustration with our current leadership in Washington.

In less than one year, Barack Obama and the Democrat-controlled Congress have increased our nation's spending by more than 80%. Our national debt has reached $9 trillion and will only go higher if the President signs a health care bill with provisions for a government-run option. Last month, unemployment surpassed 10%, the highest rate in over 20 years.

Recent polls show clearly that Americans are against the health care takeover by Barack Obama and the Democrat-controlled Congress. And these same polls show that Americans understand and are infuriated by policies that are mortgaging our children's and grandchildren's future. It must be stopped. We must act now to show our continued opposition to the direction the Democratic leadership is taking our country.

McCain Health Care Petition Against Government Run Health Care.

It is a violation of the law for Government Agencies to be involved in campaigning operations.

• July 28, 2009, 4:47 pm, Email from unknown Obama campaign activist to Yosi Sergant, former NEA Communications Director: "It was good to see you a few weeks ago in Washington. After our conversation, I thought it would be a really good idea to convene via a conference call some significant tastemakers/producers who can support United We Serve. As many of us contributed our services to the campaign, I would love to gather some of those folks to use their enthusiasm to get behind the President's very important service initiative. Here are some people who I think should be part of the call. [Names redacted.]"
• August 6, 2009, Conference Call Invitation sent via email by Yosi Sergant: "A call has come in to our generation. A call from the top. A call from a house that is White. A call that we must answer. And to answer it, we need you...United We Serve is President Obama's call to service challenging all Americans to engage in sustained, meaningful community service. With the knowledge that ordinary people can achieve extraordinary things when given the proper tools, President Obama is asking us to come together to help lay a new foundation for growth, focusing on core areas of the recovery agenda – health care, energy and environment, safety and security, education, community renewal."
• August 6, 2009, 9:46 pm, Email from Unknown to Yosi Sergeant: "How can I get down Yosi? I'm working with [redacted] doing brand consulting and event production for [redacted]. Love to see how we could collaborate our corporate funds with what you're working on."
• August 12, 2009, 3:30 pm, Follow-up Email from Unknown participant to Yosi Sergant: "As per a suggestion on the call, below is a list of action items that might be helpful to inspire an idea on how you can participate in the campaign...Ex) If you are a graphic designer tap into your professional network and organize other designers to create a series of United We Serve posters that can be featured in print, through social media and on serv.gov. Ex) If you are a DJ, tap into your professional network and organize other DJs to promote Serve.gov or a specific local opportunity on the radio or at a club."

http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2009/nov/more-stimulus-fraud-exposed

No indication of FOIA requests yet  - this could becoming interesting - I watch their site for FOIA requests. To be a created or saved job the job would need to last for a year. A considerable amount of the funds have been sent to Democratic pet projects. GOP may have a field day with this on upcoming elections.

The use of the word "fraud" would be correct for jobs that were temporary or for funds that went to CEO bonuses etc etc.

Dr. Jeffrey S. Flier, Dean of the Harvard Medical School, gives ObamaCare a big fat F for not doing anything the Progressives / Statists (i.e. Obama and Co.) claim it will do.

I encourage you to read the whole article here.  But here's one part that hits the nail on the head:

Worse, currently proposed federal legislation would undermine any potential for real innovation in insurance and the provision of care. It would do so by overregulating the health-care system in the service of special interests such as insurance companies, hospitals, professional organizations and pharmaceutical companies, rather than the patients who should be our primary concern.

In effect, while the legislation would enhance access to insurance, the trade-off would be an accelerated crisis of health-care costs and perpetuation of the current dysfunctional system—now with many more participants. This will make an eventual solution even more difficult. Ultimately, our capacity to innovate and develop new therapies would suffer most of all.

The bottom line is that getting the government more involved in the Health Care industry is going to do what government involvement always does: Lower quality and increase costs.

Of course, Progressives don't care about that.  All they care about is government control.  Health Care is the lynchpin for Statist control of the populace.  There are some liberals who simply don't realize this.  When they do finally realize it, they usually become conservatives / libertarians.

A recent Gallup Poll showed that more people than ever before (since Gallup started tracking the question) are of the mindset that the Government doesn't belong in Health Care, so there's hope.  Let's hope that this enlightenment hasn't come too late to reverse all the damage that Progressives / Statists and the Progressive-lite Republicans have done over the last 100 years.