Conservatives Monitoring The Liberal Left
Barrack Obama
Obama staffer wants ‘cognitive infiltration’ of 9/11 conspiracy groups
Jan 14th
By Daniel Tencer
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010 — 10:48 pm
In a 2008 academic paper, President Barack Obama’s appointee to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs advocated “cognitive infiltration” of groups that advocate “conspiracy theories” like the ones surrounding 9/11.
Cass Sunstein, a Harvard law professor, co-wrote an academic article entitled “Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures,” in which he argued that the government should stealthily infiltrate groups that pose alternative theories on historical events via “chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine” those groups.
As head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Sunstein is in charge of “overseeing policies relating to privacy, information quality, and statistical programs,” according to the White House Web site.
Sunstein’s article, published in the Journal of Political Philosphy in 2008 and recently uncovered by blogger Marc Estrin, states that “our primary claim is that conspiracy theories typically stem not from irrationality or mental illness of any kind but from a ‘crippled epistemology,’ in the form of a sharply limited number of (relevant) informational sources.”
By “crippled epistemology” Sunstein means that people who believe in conspiracy theories have a limited number of sources of information that they trust. Therefore, Sunstein argued in the article, it would not work to simply refute the conspiracy theories in public — the very sources that conspiracy theorists believe would have to be infiltrated.
Sunstein, whose article focuses largely on the 9/11 conspiracy theories, suggests that the government “enlist nongovernmental officials in the effort to rebut the theories. It might ensure that credible independent experts offer the rebuttal, rather than government officials themselves. There is a tradeoff between credibility and control, however. The price of credibility is that government cannot be seen to control the independent experts.”
Download a PDF of the article here.
Sunstein argued that “government might undertake (legal) tactics for breaking up the tight cognitive clusters of extremist theories.” He suggested that “government agents (and their allies) might enter chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine percolating conspiracy theories by raising doubts about their factual premises, causal logic or implications for political action.”
“We expect such tactics from undercover cops, or FBI,” Estrin writes at the Rag Blog, expressing surprise that “a high-level presidential advisor” would support such a strategy.
Estrin notes that Sunstein advocates in his article for the infiltration of “extremist” groups so that it undermines the groups’ confidence to the extent that “new recruits will be suspect and participants in the group’s virtual networks will doubt each other’s bona fides.”
Sunstein has been the target of numerous “conspiracy theories” himself, mostly from the right wing political echo chamber, with conservative talking heads claiming he favors enacting “a second Bill of Rights” that would do away with the Second Amendment. Sunstein’s recent book, On Rumors: How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can Be Done, was criticized by some on the right as “a blueprint for online censorship.”
Sunstein “wants to hold blogs and web hosting services accountable for the remarks of commenters on websites while altering libel laws to make it easier to sue for spreading ‘rumors,’” wrote Ed Lasky at American Thinker.
Original Story Here.
POLITICO: Cheney group recalls ‘24′ – Ben Smith – Cheney group recalls ‘24′
Jan 10th
Liz Cheney’s group, Keep America Safe, is out with a new video that casts President Obama’s response to the Christmas Day terror attempt as a parody of the television show “24.”
The video uses unflattering moments from the administration’s response — Gibbs and Napolitano intoning that “the system worked,” Obama golfing — over high-adrenaline music and the sound of a ticking clock.
The ad, among other things, confirms the show’s central place in the American argument about security and civil liberties.
Original article here.
A White House Power Grab that Congress and America Doesn’t See
Dec 8th
A White House Power Grab that Congress and America Doesn’t See
To achieve the goal of a universal, single-payer health system, the White House must secure the power it needs by amending the Social Security Act to transfer pivotal controls from Congress to the executive branch. This transfer of power would ultimately give the President and the majority party, in this case the radical left Obama White House and Pelosi-Reid led progressive Democrats, the authority to frame and manipulate new policy, coverage options, and reimbursements, ultimately reshaping the future US health care system into a something unrecognizable in this country.
The deliberate setup for the White House power grab is built into the each of the health care bills and, if they fail, little-known twin bills called “MedPAC Reform of 2009” are waiting in the wings. The bills,S.B. 1110 and H.R. 2718, craftily amend the Social Security Act and transfer the Medicare guideline and rule setting processes, from the legislative branch to the executive branch. These bills offer cover to one another in case one doesn’t pass the House or Senate, respectively. Remember, Democrats need to gain executive branch authority by amending the Social Security Act over Medicare regulations and physician fee schedules to transform the health care system in a single-payer, socialized system.
More importantly, Medicare’s regulations and physician fee schedules are the keystone to developing payer systems and reimbursement models across the entire health care industry. And where Medicare goes, insurers follow.
To underscore the far-reaching power, a bulk of the states already reference or utilize the Medicare guidelines and fee schedules in determining policy, coverage, and payment, which impacts certain state-specific plans, including, but not limited to, self-funded plans, automobile insurance payers, and state workers’ compensation funds and plans – affecting even Big Labor. For the executive branch to have such authority over Medicare regulations with little oversight is alarming. This raises further issues of the powerful impact these federal mandates could potentially have on the states in stripping them of their own management of their respective insurance industries.
Specifically, the language in the Reid bill intentionally places unlimited power directly in the hands of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, including the ability to designate covered services, or rationing. The Pelosi bill creates a Health Choices Commission and its “commissioner” is empowered to make the same decisions. More alarming, both will have to take direction from the White House–and its unconfirmed czars–due to their executive branch affiliation.
In retrospect, Obama’s pick of Sebelius as HHS Secretary is obvious. Aside from being a governor, Sebelius is the former Kansas insurance commissioner and has the ability to identify the strongest and weakest links–navigating her way quite expeditiously throughout the health care system. And she’ll never disavow one of her first career choices — executive director and chief lobbyist for the Kansas Trial Lawyers Association. That explains the blatant omission of tort reform, in addition to the fact that the trial lawyers are the biggest Democrat donors.
Another disturbing Obama appointee is health care czar Nancy Ann DeParle, who remains unconfirmed, and was the administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), now known as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In short, she “owns” Medicare. And if you put Sebelius and DeParle together in a room for a few hours, you’ll get a formula for a single-payer government-run health care system – with Obama’s wish list met.
These designed appointees make sense of the intentions at hand to frame a universal or single-payer health care system. Everything in this administration makes sense when you look at the overall agenda. Even the branding makes sense. The urgency, caring for the uninsured, taking advantage of the uninsurable, proclaiming it’s paid for, packaging it as deficit-neutral, and amplifying that people are ‘dying’ in the streets.
The aforementioned MedPAC Reform of 2009 bills give the executive branch power it so dearly covets to devise the single-payer system. Currently, MedPAC–the Medicare Payment and Advisory Committee (MedPAC)–is a Clinton-era independent Congressional agency established by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 that advises the Congress on issues affecting the Medicare program, including payments to private health plans participating in Medicare and providers in Medicare’s traditional fee-for-service program. MedPAC also analyzes access to, quality of, and cost of health care.
The MedPAC bill designer, progressive Senator John Rockefeller (D-WV), has strategically branded the need for the bill by calling Congress “inefficient” and “inconsistent” –and who wouldn’t agree with that?
Therefore, the MedPAC Reform bill creates a new MedPAC–the Medicare Payment and Access Commission–and gives the Obama White House and its advisors over-reaching control of several factors governing the economy of the health care system. The new MedPAC, which is exempted from judicial review, would have the authority to rewrite physician fee schedules, redefine medical necessity, evaluate coverage of treatment options, rewrite beneficiary definitions and coverage, and redesign diagnostic definitions and coverage.
The new MedPAC’s mission would also be to inform new research in health services to adequately address deficiencies in the evidence. However, in reality, this would apparently cripple new treatments and technologies by overshadowing progressive research and treatment algorithms by apparently emphasizing the deficiencies, not the benefits, equaling a denial of care and arresting development of burgeoning technologies.
Rockefeller also confirms that the new MedPAC will evaluate and test new and innovative payment models for provider reimbursement. The MedPAC reform is being packaged under the guise of efficiency; however, by maximizing the volume of care delivered at the lowest possible cost, it appears that the payment and utilization schedule is a mechanism to control the pressure that would build when the health care system is overloaded with millions of new patients.
Finally, Rockefeller highlights another intention of MedPAC, which is to expand the capacity to evaluate basic and health services research for reimbursement. This is the pinnacle power grab because this gives the new MedPAC and the executive branch the power to ration or deny care and decide what treatment options are available or acceptable as a whole.
Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, commented, “As a congressional support agency, MedPAC’s mission is to advise Congress on Medicare payment issues. If MedPAC were to become part of the executive branch as contemplated in the Rockefeller bill, then Congress would no longer have this support agency to provide technical support when making policy decisions.” Senator Grassley also confirmed that he is not willing to abdicate congressional responsibilities for Medicare payment policymaking to a body that does not hold certificates of election. He is correct that Congress wouldn’t have the support agency’s advice, but misses that it wouldn’t be Congress’s responsibility anymore—the policy decisions would be the responsibility of the new MedPAC—under the direction of the Obama White House.
What’s inherently disturbing is the fact that Rockefeller has been very outspoken in support of the public option and knows that this transfer of power must take place via the Social Security Act—in any form. He even confirms that health care reform will not be successful, unless all authority is shifted to the executive branch. He also rightly chooses his words–the “healthcare delivery system,” which is code for the public option.
Additionally, Rockefeller confirms the overall task at hand by stating, “Establishing MedPAC as an independent executive branch agency – which can only change through an act of Congress – is the cornerstone of improving our delivery system reform. Health care reform will only be successful if we craft transformative changes.” Transformative, as in a government-run health care system.
If there are any questions if the White House would flex its executive branch authority over an agency, just look the way of the EPA. Congress stalled on cap and trade and Climategate has proven to be a problem, so the White House and EPA took matters into their own hands to keep moving on the agenda—to intentionally put regulations in place that further strangle American businesses, create unemployment, and further destabilize the economy.
Furthermore, with most of the Obama administration graduates of the Saul Alinsky school of thought, of course the main goal of all legislation and policies would be to support the overall intention of Alinsky, which is for the “have-nots on how to take it away.”
In any of these legislative scenarios–Pelosi, Reid or MedPAC bills–the White House gets the power it seeks–and needs–in order to accomplish the task at hand–a single payer, government-run health system.
These bills must be defeated; the power grab thwarted because after the Social Security Act is amended in any form these bills present and the rule changes take effect, it is not likely for the Act to be reopened and amended again. The problem is Congress doesn’t even comprehend what’s at stake in either of the health care bills or MedPAC Reform–and you can’t stop something you don’t see.
White House still listening to Van Jones ‘green’ advice
Dec 2nd
White House still listening to Van Jones ‘green’ advice
Communist-group founder on team influencing environmental policies
By Aaron Klein
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

Van Jones
Van Jones, President Obama’s controversial former “green jobs” czar, serves on the advisory board of an independent environmental organization actively working with the White House, WND has learned.
Jones resigned in September after it was exposed he founded a communist revolutionary organization and signed a statement that accused the Bush administration of possible involvement in the 9/11 attacks.
Jones is one of 20 advisers to the University of Colorado–based Presidential Climate Action Project, or PCAP, which draws up climate-policy recommendations for the White House and has been working with members of the Obama administration.
The PCAP last September released a lengthy proposal to guide the environmental policies during the first 100 days of the 44th U.S. president regardless of whether Obama or Sen. John McCain won the election.
William S. Becker, the PCAP’s executive director, confirmed to WND his group is “about to propose a new and more assertive strategy for President Obama to raise the bar on the U.S. climate goal, with or without Congress.”
Becker told WND his group’s initial proposals have received a “very positive reception from the moment we delivered (the 100-day proposal) last November to John Podesta, co-chair of Obama’s transition team.”
“We continue to work with some colleagues inside the (Obama) administration, as well as continuing to push for bold action from the outside,” he said.
Becker said the White House “adopted quite a few of our recommendations or variations of them.”
He cited a few examples of the influence of the PCAP and other environmental groups on Obama’s policies:
The PCAP recommended that the U.S. reach a bilateral climate deal with China prior to the upcoming U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. The U.S. has since signed several agreements with China to share technology that reduces greenhouse-gas emissions.
The PCAP recommended an executive order that removed the gags from federal climate scientists. This became one of Obama’s first actions on environmental policy.
The PCAP recommended an overhaul of federal energy management to beef up efficiency requirements for federal agencies and to restore absolute carbon reduction targets that had been rescinded by the Bush administration. The Obama administration issued a new federal energy management order in October, including a requirement that agencies develop absolute targets
for greenhouse-gas reductions.
The PCAP recommended (as did many others) that the Environmental Protection Agency embrace California’s vehicle emission standards and begin the process of regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The EPA is doing both.
The PCAP recommended major budget increases for states and communities to engage in energy and climate actions and to weatherize the homes of low-income families. This was part of Obama’s stimulus package.
The PCAP describes itself as seeking to engage the “best thinking of America’s leaders in government, science and civil society to identify actions that will empower all elements of society to meet the challenges of energy security and climate change.” The group actively promotes the theory of global warming.
A means to fight racial ‘justice’
WND reported Jones was a founder and leader of the communist group Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, or STORM.
STORM’s official manifesto, titled “Reclaiming Revolution,” had been published on the Internet until WND and other websites linked to the online publication.
A review of the 97-page treatise found that the manual describes Jones’ organization as having a “commitment to the fundamental ideas of Marxism-Leninism.”
“We agreed with Lenin’s analysis of the state and the party,” read Jones’ manifesto. “And we found inspiration in the revolutionary strategies developed by Third World revolutionaries like Mao Zedong and Amilcar Cabral.”
Cabral is the late Marxist revolutionary leader of Guinea-Bissau and the Cape Verde Islands. Jones named his son after Cabral and reportedly concludes every e-mail with a quote from the communist leader.
Speaking to the East Bay Express in 2005, Jones said he first became radicalized in the wake of the 1992 Rodney King riots, during which time he was arrested.
“I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th, and then the verdicts came down on April 29th,” he said. “By August, I was a communist. I met all these young radical people of color – I mean really radical: communists and anarchists. And it was, like, ‘This is what I need to be a part of.’ I spent the next 10 years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary,” he said.
Jones boasted to the East Bay Express that his environmental activism was a means to fight for racial and class “justice.”
Jones went on to found the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, named after a little-known civil rights firebrand and socialist activist.
Succeeding revelations by WND included:
Jones previously served on the board of an environmental activist group at which a founder of the Weather Underground terrorist organization is a top director.
Jones was co-founder of a black activist organization that has led a campaign prompting major advertisers to withdraw from Glenn Beck’s top-rated Fox News Channel program. The revelation followed Beck’s reports on WND’s story about Jones’ communist background.
Jones and other White House appointees may have been screened by an ACORN associate.
One day after the 9/11 attacks, Jones led a vigil that expressed solidarity with Arab and Muslim Americans as well as what he called the victims of “U.S. imperialism” around the world.
Just days before his White House appointment, Jones used a forum at a major youth convention to push for a radical agenda that included spreading the wealth and “changing the whole system.”
Jones’ Maoist manifesto while leading the group Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, or STORM, was scrubbed from the Internet after being revealed by WND.
Jones was the main speaker at an anti-war rally that urged “resistance” against the U.S. government – a demonstration sponsored by an organization associated with the Revolutionary Communist Party.
In a 2005 conference, Jones characterized the U.S. as an “apartheid regime” that civil rights workers helped turn into a “struggling, fledgling democracy.”
Jones signed a petition calling for nationwide “resistance” against police, accusing them of using the 9/11 attacks to carry out policies of torture.
Searching in Vain for the Obama Magic
Dec 2nd
Searching in Vain for the Obama Magic
One can hardly blame the West Point leadership. The academy commanders did their best to ensure that Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama’s speech would be well-received.
Just minutes before the president took the stage inside Eisenhower Hall, the gathered cadets were asked to respond “enthusiastically” to the speech. But it didn’t help: The soldiers’ reception was cool.
One didn’t have to be a cadet on Tuesday to feel a bit of nausea upon hearing Obama’s speech. It was the least truthful address that he has ever held. He spoke of responsibility, but almost every sentence smelled of party tactics. He demanded sacrifice, but he was unable to say what it was for exactly.
An additional 30,000 US soldiers are to march into Afghanistan — and then they will march right back out again. America is going to war — and from there it will continue ahead to peace. It was the speech of a Nobel War Prize laureate.
Just in Time for the Campaign
For each troop movement, Obama had a number to match. US strength in Afghanistan will be tripled relative to the Bush years, a fact that is sure to impress hawks in America. But just 18 months later, just in time for Obama’s re-election campaign, the horror of war is to end and the draw down will begin. The doves of peace will be let free.
The speech continued in that vein. It was as though Obama had taken one of his old campaign speeches and merged it with a text from the library of ex-President George W. Bush. Extremists kill in the name of Islam, he said, before adding that it is one of the “world’s great religions.” He promised that responsibility for the country’s security would soon be transferred to the government of President Hamid Karzai — a government which he said was “corrupt.” The Taliban is dangerous and growing stronger. But “America will have to show our strength in the way that we end wars,” he added.
It was a dizzying combination of surge and withdrawal, of marching to and fro. The fast pace was reminiscent of plays about the French revolution: Troops enter from the right to loud cannon fire and then they exit to the left. And at the end, the dead are left on stage.
Obama’s Magic No Longer Works
But in this case, the public was more disturbed than entertained. Indeed, one could see the phenomenon in a number of places in recent weeks: Obama’s magic no longer works. The allure of his words has grown weaker.
It is not he himself who has changed, but rather the benchmark used to evaluate him. For a president, the unit of measurement is real life. A leader is seen by citizens through the prism of their lives — their job, their household budget, where they live and suffer. And, in the case of the war on terror, where they sometimes die.
Political dreams and yearnings for the future belong elsewhere. That was where the political charmer Obama was able to successfully capture the imaginations of millions of voters. It is a place where campaigners — particularly those with a talent for oration — are fond of taking refuge. It is also where Obama set up his campaign headquarters, in an enormous tent called “Hope.”
In his speech on America’s new Afghanistan strategy, Obama tried to speak to both places. It was two speeches in one. That is why it felt so false. Both dreamers and realists were left feeling distraught.
The American president doesn’t need any opponents at the moment. He’s already got himself.
Hey U.S. Readers, take a look how the rest of the world views this president.
Read more at Spiegel Online International
Anatomy of a Beat-Down Part 1: Why Kenneth Gladney Was Beaten, And by Whom
Nov 30th
Anatomy of a Beat-Down Part 1: Why Kenneth Gladney Was Beaten, And by Whom.
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Anatomy of a Beat-Down Part 1: Why Kenneth Gladney Was Beaten, And by Whom
by Stage Right
On August 6, 2009 two Service Employee International Union (SEIU) leaders and a volunteer for Organizing for America (OFA) assaulted Kenneth Gladney outside of Rep. Russ Carnahan’s Town hall meeting on health care. The perpetrators were arrested at the scene of the crime, and three months later charges have finally been filed.
Much has been said in the past three months about this incident. Here at Big Government calls have been made for justice, for formal charges and mostly for the mass media to follow the story and delve into the government’s role in this violent attempt to intimidate and silence dissent. We can no longer wait for the establishment journalists to connect the dots and bring to light the insidious relationships between the SEIU, OFA, Russ Carnaham’s office and the Obama Administration.
Was this assault merely a flare up of tempers during a heated exchange of rival political camps? Or was it a coordinated attempt to silence the scores of protesters who had been so effective at swaying public opinion against the President’s health care scheme? Today, Big Government will bring to light documents that read like an instruction manual for the SEIU forces in St. Louis the evening of August 6th. We will also show that on the very same evening of the St. Louis assault, an almost identical scene played out in Tampa Bay, Florida. Also involving SEIU and OFA. Also resulting in hordes of union members shouting down and physically evicting protesters from a U.S. Representative’s Town hall meeting. Finally, we will introduce all of the various players in leadership roles at these organizations, what they said in instructing their members in how to fight back against the Town hall protesters, and how these individuals all connect to each other and to the Obama Administration. As I said, we’ve been waiting for the “Real” journalists to do this, we’ve waited long enough.
On June 1, 2009 President Obama enjoyed a 64% Job Approval rating with a disapproval rating of 30%. As Summer approached, the President began the plans for the roll out of his comprehensive plan to overhaul the entire distribution system for America’s health care services. As the messaging began, the talking points were clear: “If you like your current health plan, you can keep it”, “This plan will cover the 40 million Americans who have no insurance”, “This plan will not add to the deficit and not raise taxes”. It all seemed too good to be true. The House Committee on Energy and Commerce promptly passed the first version of a reform bill in June. President Obama planned multiple town hall meetings across the country including an unprecedented event televised live on ABC and everything seemed moving toward a major victory for the President and the Democratic Party.
In late June and through the month of July, members of congress held scattered town hall meetings in their districts to get their constituents’ feedback on the proposed health care bill. The clusters of semi-organized protesters who had rallied at “Tea Parties” earlier in the Spring took these meetings as opportunities to rejuvenate their energies with passionate opposition to these congressmen. YouTube videos began circulating showing outraged citizens challenging their representatives and showing those representatives completely unprepared for any legitimate questions about the proposed bill. It was clear in many cases that the representatives were not well versed on these bills beyond the boiler-plate talking points the administration had handed them. They were not used to being questioned.
By the beginning of August Sarah Palin had caught headlines by describing certain policy discussions that evaluate a patients “level of productivity in society” and how it relates to the level of prioritized care they would receive as ‘death panels’ , Rep. Michelle Bachmann had delivered a stinging speech on the House floor tearing apart the President’s advisors on health policy, Sen. Arlen Spector was caught flat-footed at a town hall meeting and protests began cropping up all around the country at various town hall meetings of Senators and Congressmen. President Obama’s job approval rating had now plummeted to 52% with a disapproval rating of 41% (an unbelievable 23% swing in approval loss and disapproval gain combined in 60 days). The White House had seen enough. It was time to take action and engage the opposition.
Somewhere between August 2nd and August 6th a strategy was devised that put all tools at the administrations disposal in line and firing at the protesters. August 4th seems to be an important day in the roll out of this strategy. The White House famously posted a new aggressive offensive on their blog calling out what they described as “mis-information” about the proposed bill and directed true-believers to report any sources of these “lies” to a special e-mail address: flag@whitehouse.gov. Also on the 4th, an organization called Health Care for America Now (HCAN) released a document that became a blueprint for intimidation and, ultimately, violence under the guise of confronting the tea party protesters at these town hall meetings.
HCAN is an organization funded by various unions, most significantly SEIU, whose main purpose is to promote and push the effort for government-provided, universal health care. (To understand the SEIU’s reasons for pushing for this government health care, read this post.) The National Field Director for HCAN is Margarida Jorge. Margarida Jorge used to work for the SEIU as an organizing director.
On August 4th Margarida Jorge released a four page memo instructing members of HCAN on how best to combat the mounting opposition on display at the town hall meetings. On the HCAN web site, the new tactics were filed on a post under the heading “Fight Back Against the Right”. A subsequent HCAN call to action on August 5th was under the benign headline “The Guns of August: A Call to Arms for Progressives and Obama Activists” likening the debate to World War I.
The entire memo can be seen here
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The memo features instructions and tactics for the left on how to dominate the meeting and marginalize the protesters from the right:
- Their side will be smaller but noisier. You must bring enough people to drown them out and to cover all our bases so as to marginalize their disruptive tactics.
- We need to stack our folks in the front to create a wall around the Member, and we need to stake out the best spots for visibility and signs. Reconnaissance on the venue and an understanding of the staging will be important here. Make sure you do your homework so you can position your folks most effectively.
It features ideas on how to manipulate the media:
- Make sure you have people holding signs in every place where a TV camera is likely to be and that next to every right wing sign, there’s one of your signs with your message.
- Don’t wait for the reporter to approach you. You must approach the reporters and be assertive in shaping the narrative that they write. Have someone assigned to greeting the media or checking in media as they arrive. That way you will know who they are and be able to work with them both during the event and afterwards.
It has ideas about how to dominate the conversation by asking the congressman prepared, rehearsed questions:
- Line up a number of people who feel comfortable interrupting and prepare them with statements like:
- Excuse me, I came today to listen to Representative XXX explain how this bill is going to make health care more affordable for me and my family. We’re being gouged by insurance companies that just want to make more profits while we struggle to keep up with premiums and co-pays. Representative, how are you going to fix that?”
- “I’m retired and can’t afford my prescription drugs because I’m on a fixed income. Representative, how is this bill going to affect me?”
- “I want to hear the Representative speak. He’s the one voting on the bill. Representative, how will this bill help people who already have insurance at work?”
- “What I’m worried about is how we’re going to keep the insurance companies from continuing to charge people more for being sick and keep them from taking away coverage when we need it most. What’s the plan for that?”
And, on page four of the memo written by Margarida Jorge of HCAN are instructions for hosting a town hall meeting. These instructions include:
- One advantage to organizing your own Town Hall or public event with Members of Congress is that you will have much more control over the event and limit the other side’s opportunities for disruption.
- Make sure you turn out a substantial number of people from your base and that everyone signs a sign in sheet upon entering the event. Give everyone name tags so they are easily identifiable. If you want to ensure greater control over turnout, you can ask attendees to rsvp or even issue tickets to the event and require presentation of the ticket at the entrance.
- Choose a venue that is difficult for the opposition to access without being noticed. Get to your location early and make sure you set up the venue in a way that ensures that the attendees you want are at the front and that any protesters who come are sequestered as far as possible from the stage.
- Make sure that you assign marshals to take care of moving the crowd, keeping people organized and orderly, and acting as security should any need arise to ask noisy or disruptive protesters to leave.
- Another way to limit protesters’ ability to hijack your event is to confiscate signs or leaflets that they may bring into the venue from outside. The best way to do this is to make a blanket rule that no one can bring signs or leaflets and to advertise this fact as you do turn out in the weeks preceding the event. You can distribute your own signs in the event and offer them one as they enter if you choose to allow them to enter.
- It’s important that you take away right-wingers opportunities to talk with reporters by making sure that your staff or leaders are in constant contact with the media who attend.
On August 5th the DNC released a video advertisement calling the protesters an “angry mob” and showing a photo of one alleged protester hanging a congressman in effigy. Also on August 5th we hadSpeaker of the House Nancy Pelosi derisively calling the protesters “Astro-turf” and claiming that they were carrying signs with swastikas.
By August 6th liberal web sites like Talking Points Memo and Daily Kos were cheering HCAN’s instructions and the stance taken by Organizing For America (The left-wing volunteer web site evolved from the Obama Campaign) urging liberals to call congress (providing them instructions on how to do this) and then to register the call at the OFA web site. Huffington Post celebrated the new bold move with a post urging the unions to get more involved (an astounding 11,000 comments appear on this post in just 6 days, many of them from early in the day on August 6th show that the readers of HuffPo knew exactly what this union engagement meant and what the results would be).
Finally on August 6th, hours before the Carnahan town hall meeting where Kenneth Gladney was assaulted by members of the SEIU, David Axelrod and Jim Messina gave a pep talk to Senators on Capitol Hill prior to their leaving for the August recess. According to Politico:
They showed video clips of the confrontational town halls that have dominated the media coverage, and told senators to do more prep work than usual for their public meetings by making sure their own supporters turn out, senators and aides said. And they screened TV ads and reviewed the various campaigns by critics of the Democratic plan.
”If you get hit, we will punch back twice as hard,” Messina said, according to an official who attended the meeting
Two days after the instructions on how to manage and control protestors at town hall meetings were released by Margarida Jorge at HCAN, one day after the Speaker of the House likened protestors to Nazis and mere hours after President Obama’s top political advisors assured Congressional Democrats that “If you get hit, we will punch them back twice as hard”, Kenneth Gladney lay beaten and bloody on the ground outside Rep. Russ Carnahan’s Town Hall meeting.
Tomorrow we will show how the people who are now charged with assaulting him are connected to SEIU and HCAN, how they followed HCAN’s instructions perfectly which inevitably led to the violence, and we will show how St. Louis was not the only meeting that followed HCAN’s template and ended in much the same way.
Americans Still Leaning Against Healthcare Legislation
Nov 30th
Americans Still Leaning Against Healthcare Legislation
Majority disapprove of Obama’s handling of the issue
PRINCETON, NJ — Americans currently tilt against Congress’ passing healthcare legislation, with 49% saying they would advise their member to vote against a bill (or they lean that way) and 44% saying they would advocate a vote in favor of the bill (or lean toward advising a yes vote).
These results are based on a Nov. 20-22 USA Today/Gallup poll, and are essentially unchanged from a poll conducted earlier this month. Within the last month, the House has passed a version of healthcare legislation, and the Senate voted on Nov. 21 to allow debate on its healthcare bill. That debate is scheduled to begin Monday.
“Support among all three party groups has declined since the early October high — falling by 6 points among Democrats, 8 among independents, and 12 among Republicans.”
Since Gallup began tracking Americans’ preferences for healthcare legislation earlier this year, there has never been a strong public mandate in favor of passing a law this year. The high point in support was 51% in early October. But since that time, opinion has shifted from a slightly positive position to a slightly negative one.
However, opinion on the issue is far from settled. When initially asked about their preferred course of action on healthcare legislation, 22% of Americans say they do not yet have an opinion on the matter (although 15% subsequently provide an opinion when asked if they lean one way or the other). The percentage with no opinion on the initial question has fluctuated since August, but has never been lower than the current 22% figure.
Because those who initially express no opinion divide fairly evenly between support and opposition when probed for their leaning, the trend on the initial question has been similar to the trend shown at the beginning of the article that combines initial preferences and leanings.
Support for Healthcare Legislation by Political Party
Republicans are overwhelmingly opposed to new healthcare legislation — 86% would advise their member of Congress to vote against it, while 12% would want their member to support it. Democrats, on the other hand, favor it by a 76% to 17% margin. Independents oppose passage of a bill by 53% to 37%.
Support among all three party groups has declined since the early October high — falling by 6 points among Democrats, 8 among independents, and 12 among Republicans. However, Democratic support recovered somewhat from early November (71%) to late November (76%).
Obama Gets Poor Marks on Healthcare
The poll also finds 40% of Americans approving of President Obama’s handling of healthcare policy, while 53% disapprove. This is slightly more negative than what Gallup found from July through September, and represents his worst review to date on this issue.
Seventy-four percent of Democrats approve of Obama’s handling of the issue, but this is below the better-than 80% of Democrats who approve of the job Obama is doing as president overall.
Republicans are nearly unanimous in their views of Obama’s work on healthcare, with 89% disapproving and 6% approving. Independents are nearly twice as likely to disapprove (58%) as to approve (33%).
Bottom Line
Despite the considerable efforts of Congress and the president to pass health insurance reform, the public remains reluctant to endorse that goal. Over the past month, Gallup has found more Americans opposed to than in favor of healthcare legislation, though at least one in five say they have not made up their minds. Proportionately more independents (27%) and Democrats (24%) than Republicans (14%) are undecided, which at least improves the odds that legislation could wind up getting majority public backing. But the recent trend has been in the opposite direction, with opposition growing.
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Survey Methods
Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,017 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Nov. 20-22, 2009. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points.
Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones (for respondents with a land-line telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell-phone only).
In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
Read More At: Gallup.com
Growing public backlash over Obamacare | Washington Examiner
Nov 29th
Growing public backlash over Obamacare | Washington Examiner.
Two-dozen Democrats from Republican-leaning districts, who voted for the House version of President Obama’s increasingly unpopular health care reform, are beginning to feel a growing public backlash. ReversetheVote.org has already raised $123,105 that will be dedicated exclusively to defeating all 24, including Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., in 2010 if they don’t reject the final conference committee version of the bill. They “voted to take away your healthcare and put it in the hands of federal bureaucrats,” the Web site says. “Democrats made a choice … next fall, voters will make a choice.”
They’re not the only ones. Twenty-nine other House Democrats who voted for the bill come from districts that John McCain carried, making them particularly vulnerable to an angry electorate that never bought into the “hope and change” hype in the first place.
Democratic senators who are up for re-election next year in nine states face the same dilemma. As support erodes for Obamacare’s massive tax increases and deep Medicare cuts, they must also consider the personal political cost. Only 38 percent of the public supports their health care plan, the lowest level of public support in more than two years. As more details of the 2,074-page behemoth — which most members of Congress concede they have not read — continue to trickle out, the more the poll numbers drop.
It’s not hard to figure out why. Obamacare was supposed to lower costs, extend coverage and improve Americans’ health care options. It does none of those things.
Despite accounting gimmicks, Obamacare will cost $4.9 trillion over the next 20 years. This enormous sum will suck the wind out of an already struggling economy. The plan includes higher premiums for younger workers, fines for those who refuse to purchase coverage, lower Medicare payments to doctors and hospitals, and job-killing taxes on employers.
Obamacare will also force an estimated five million workers to lose their employer-provided coverage.
Federal taxpayers will be forced to pay for elective abortions even though only 13 percent favor such coverage.
As far as improving health care options is concerned, the administration wants to cut down on mammograms and slash Medicare Advantage for seniors to save money. After all this spending and upheaval, 24 million Americans will remain uninsured in 2019. Every Democrat who ignores the public will and votes for this higher-cost, lower-care monstrosity will be held accountable. Voters back home won’t let them forget it.
Source: washingtonexaminer.com
Obama Job Approval Down to 49%
Nov 20th
November 20, 2009
Obama Job Approval Down to 49%
President becomes fourth fastest to slip below the majority approval level
PRINCETON, NJ — The latest Gallup Daily tracking results show 49% of Americans approving of the job Barack Obama is doing as president, putting him below the majority approval level for the first time in his presidency.
Although the current decline below 50% has symbolic significance, most of the recent decline in support for Obama occurred in July and August. He began July at 60% approval. The ongoing, contentious debate over national healthcare reform has likely served as a drag on his public support, as have continuing economic problems. Americans are also concerned about the Obama administration’s reliance on government spending to solve the nation’s problems and the growing federal budget deficit. Since September, Obama’s approval rating had been holding in the low 50s and, although it has reached 50% numerous times, it had never dropped below 50% until now.
Of the post-World War II presidents, Obama now is the fourth fastest to drop below the majority approval level, doing so in his 10th month on the job. Gerald Ford dropped below 50% approval during his third month in office, and Bill Clinton did so in his fourth month. Ronald Reagan, like Obama, also dropped below 50% in his 10th month in office, though Reagan’s drop occurred a few days sooner in that month (Nov. 13-16, 1981) than did Obama’s (Nov. 17-19, 2009).
But all presidents except John Kennedy dropped below the majority approval level at some point in their presidencies, and all recovered after the first time below this mark to go back above 50% approval.
Half recovered quickly — Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush were back above 50% approval the same month they dipped below that mark, and Lyndon Johnson returned to majority approval in his second month after his initial sub-50% rating. The remainder continued to sink further below 50% and remained there for many months, but eventually recovered, with Ford’s effort boosted by the Mayaguez incident.
George H.W. Bush took the longest time to recover, going more than a year before his approval rating was restored to the majority level. Unfortunately for him, the 1992 election at which voters denied him a second term in office occurred during this time, and his rating did not go back above 50% until just before he left office in January 1993.
Notably, most of the presidents who fell below 50% during their first term recovered in plenty of time to be re-elected. This list includes Truman, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, and George W. Bush. Ford and Jimmy Carter recovered in the short term but could not sustain improvement long enough to convince voters they deserved a second term, and, as noted, the elder Bush recovered after he was voted out of office. Johnson may well have joined that list had he decided to seek a second term. And Eisenhower did not go below majority approval until after he had been re-elected.
Thus, Obama’s descent below 50% is an important symbolic milestone in his presidency, but history suggests the odds of his regaining majority approval are high, and he could do so relatively soon, particularly since the individual nightly numbers for him in recent days have been right around the 50% mark. History would suggest his current loss of majority approval bears little relation to his chances of being elected to a second term in 2012.
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Survey Methods
Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,533 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Nov. 17-19, 2009, as part of Gallup Daily tracking. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points.
Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones and cellular phones.
In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
Radical 9/11 Cleric Linked to Fort Hood Shooter: Nidal Hasan is a Hero
Nov 9th
Morgen on November 8, 2009
It was reported on Saturday that the Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Hasan, attended the same mosque in Great Falls, Virginia in 2001 as two of the terrorists responsible for the 9/11 attacks. From the Telegraph:
The preacher at the time was Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Yemeni scholar who was banned from addressing a meeting in London by video link in August because he is accused of supporting attacks on British troops and backing terrorist organisations.
Hasan’s eyes “lit up” when he mentioned his deep respect for al-Awlaki’s teachings, according to a fellow Muslim officer at the Fort Hood base in Texas, the scene of Thursday’s horrific shooting spree.
Late this evening, al-Awlaki, who is now based in Yemen, commented on the shootings on a blog posting with the heading “Nidal Hassan Did the Right Thing“:
Nidal Hassan [sic] is a hero. He is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people. This is a contradiction that many Muslims brush aside and just pretend that it doesn’t exist. Any decent Muslim cannot live, understanding properly his duties towards his Creator and his fellow Muslims, and yet serve as a US soldier. The US is leading the war against terrorism which in reality is a war against Islam. Its army is directly invading two Muslim countries and indirectly occupying the rest through its stooges.
Nidal opened fire on soldiers who were on their way to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. How can there be any dispute about the virtue of what he has done? In fact the only way a Muslim could Islamically justify serving as a soldier in the US army is if his intention is to follow the footsteps of men like Nidal.
The heroic act of brother Nidal also shows the dilemma of the Muslim American community. Increasingly they are being cornered into taking stances that would either make them betray Islam or betray their nation. Many amongst them are choosing the former. The Muslim organizations in America came out in a pitiful chorus condemning Nidal’s operation.The fact that fighting against the US army is an Islamic duty today cannot be disputed. No scholar with a grain of Islamic knowledge can defy the clear cut proofs that Muslims today have the right -rather the duty- to fight against American tyranny. Nidal has killed soldiers who were about to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan in order to kill Muslims. The American Muslims who condemned his actions have committed treason against the Muslim Ummah and have fallen into hypocrisy.
I have a hard time even imagining the level of depravity and moral bankruptcy necessary to view the cold-blooded massacre of unarmed men and women as an act of heroism. It’s an act of cowardice, and Al-Awlaki is a sick and evil man. He is an enemy of this country.
Read The Rest Of The Article Here.