Conservatives Monitoring The Liberal Left
National Politics
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.
Was Democrats’ Health Care Strategy Written In Federal Prison?
Dec 7th
Was Democrats’ Health Care Strategy Written In Federal Prison?
Was Democrats’ Health Care Strategy Written In Federal Prison?
On August 31, I headed to the health care town hall meeting of my congressional representative, Jan Schakowsky (D-IL). I suspected that she planned to stack the meeting with paid organizers, after shevowed on Real Time with Bill Maher to bring “millions” of people into the streets to support the so-called “public option.” So I brought a video camera.
A friend and I took turns filming protesters on both sides of the issue. We caught an organizer from the group Health Care for America Now (HCAN) instructing followers to block dissenting views: “So if they stand up and start asking questions, and you’re in that area, simply stand up, and start chanting… ‘Health care now! Health care now!’”
My experience at Rep. Schakowsky’s town hall meeting that night convinced me to challenge her in the 2010 election. I had already stood up to Rep. Barney Frank at Harvard University, when I asked him about his role in the financial crisis. I could not simply watch thugs drown out the people of my own community back home, and do nothing.
The HCAN video became a YouTube sensation, the “smoking gun” in the controversy over which side of the debate was “Astroturfing”—i.e. creating a false image of grass roots support. I have since discovered that the video contains clues about how the entire nationwide health care campaign was planned and executed by congressional Democrats and the White House.
It turns out that the organizer in the video is John Gaudette, the Illinois director of HCAN. Gaudette alsoworks for a left-wing group linked to ACORN called Citizen Action/Illinois. Rep. Schakowsky sits on the Policy Council of the group, which suggests that she may have known about or even coordinated the suppression of her own constituents’ views by HCAN.
The plot thickens.
Rep. Schakowsky’s husband, Robert Creamer, used to be the leader of Citizen Action/Illinois. He also founded its predecessor, Illinois Public Action, in which Ms. Schakowsky served as Program Director. He runs a political consulting firm, the Strategic Consulting Group, which lists ACORN and the SEIU among its clients and which made $541,000 working for disgraced former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich.
Creamer resigned from Citizen Action/Illinois after the FBI began investigating him for bank fraud and tax evasion at Illinois Public Action. He was convicted in 2006 and sentenced to five months in federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, plus eleven months of house arrest.
While in prison—or “forced sabbatical,” he called it—Creamer wrote a lengthy political manual, Listen to Your Mother: Stand Up Straight! How Progressives Can Win (Seven Locks Press, 2007).
The book was endorsed by leading Democrats and their allies, including SEIU boss Andy Stern—themost frequent visitor thus far to the Obama White House—and chief Obama strategist David Axelrod, who noted that Creamer’s tome “provides a blueprint for future victories.”
In the book, Creamer draws lessons from decades of experience on the radical left, including the teachings of arch-radical Saul Alinsky, and several episodes from Rep. Schakowsky’s political career. He also lays out a “Progressive Agenda for Structural Change,” which includes a ten-point plan for foisting universal health care on the American people in 2009:
- “We must create a national consensus that health care is a right, not a commodity; and that government must guarantee that right.”
- “We must create a national consensus that the health care system is in crisis.”
- “Our messaging program over the next two years should focus heavily on reducing the credibility of the health insurance industry and focusing on the failure of private health insurance.”
- “We need to systematically forge relationships with large sectors of the business/employer community.”
- “We need to convince political leaders that they owe their elections, at least in part, to the groundswell of support of [sic] universal health care, and that they face political peril if they fail to deliver on universal health care in 2009.”
- “We need not agree in advance on the components of a plan, but we must foster a process that can ultimately yield consensus.”
- “Over the next two years, we must design and organize a massive national field program.”
- “We must focus especially on the mobilization of the labor movement and the faith community.”
- “We must systematically leverage the connections and resources of a massive array of institutions and organizations of all types.”
- “To be successful, we must put in place commitments for hundreds of millions of dollars to be used to finance paid communications and mobilization once the battle is joined.”
Creamer adds: “To win we must not just generate understanding, but emotion—fear, revulsion, anger, disgust.”
Democrats have followed Creamer’s plan to the letter. They have claimed our health care system is in crisis despite polls showing the overwhelming majority of Americans are happy with the care they receive. They have—with the help of President Obama—circulated false horror stories about Americans dying for lack of health care and health insurance.
They have targeted the health insurance industry, with Rep. Schakowsky herself promising to “put the private insurance industry out of business,” though it is a top employer in Illinois.
Democrats have cut deals with the pharmaceutical industry and the American Medical Association, among others. They have brought in the President himself to tell wavering “Blue Dog” Democrats that their re-election chances depend on passing health care reform. They have bused in SEIU members to town hall meetings, and used rabbis and pastors to back health care reform from the pulpit.
They have used a complex, interconnected web of organizations—including HCAN and Organizing For America, the former Obama campaign arm—to whip up support and silence opposition. And they have benefited from hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising to convince the public to support bills that their representatives have never read themselves.
Creamer wrote his plan in 2006, explicitly proposing that it be carried out in 2009, once a “progressive Democrat is elected President” and once Democrats could count on 60 votes in the Senate. It is curious that Creamer, sitting in prison, could have predicted the details and the timing of President Obama’s legislative agenda so precisely.
The likeliest explanation is that Creamer helped design the Democrats’ health care strategy. That would explain why President Obama made health care an obsession in 2009, when it was only one among many issues he raised on the campaign trail in 2008. It would explain the role of several overlapping left-wing groups, including Creamer’s own Citizen Action/Illinois.
It would explain why HCAN was particularly aggressive at Rep. Schakowsky’s own town hall meeting. And Creamer’s involvement would also explain his high profile after being released from prison. He worked for the Obama campaign, training volunteers at “Camp Obama.” He has continued his work at the Strategic Consulting Group, leading “many of the country’s most significant issue campaigns,” he claims. He was also at the White House state dinner last month—together with Stern, Axelrod, and other cronies—despite the fact that ex-convicts are usually barred from such events.
Creamer’s broader aim, as laid out in his book, is the “democratization of wealth” in America and “progressive control of governments around the world.” As he recently wrote on his blog at the Huffington Post: “If we succeed in winning health insurance reform we will have breached the gates of the status quo. We will demonstrate that fundamental change is possible. Into that breach will flow a wave of progressive change.”
It is a radical agenda, making use of Rep. Schakowsky’s public profile, a network of far-left organizations, and Creamer’s old friends in the White House. It began in federal prison, and has unfolded exactly as intended, over the protests of thousands of ordinary Americans across the nation. It will not end with health care. It will continue until Mr. Creamer’s Alinskyite dream of radical change is realized—or until voters stand up and put a stop to it in 2010.
Obama Approval on Afghanistan, at 35%, Trails Other Issues
Dec 2nd
Obama Approval on Afghanistan, at 35%, Trails Other Issues.
Obama Approval on Afghanistan, at 35%, Trails Other Issues
Decline from 49% in September far exceeds that for other issues and for approval more broadly
PRINCETON, NJ — Americans are far less approving of President Obama’s handling of the situation in Afghanistan than they have been in recent months, with 35% currently approving, down from 49% in September and 56% in July.
“The decline in Obama’s approval rating on Afghanistan is evident among all party groups, with double-digit decreases since September among Republicans (17 points), independents (16 points), and Democrats (10 points).”
Tuesday, Obama outlines his new strategy for the war in Afghanistan in a nationally televised address. The policy has been months in the making as Obama held numerous meetings with his military and foreign policy advisers, drawing some criticism for the delay in formulating a new strategy. The commanding U.S. general in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has recommended that the United States increase the number of troops it has in that country by about 40,000. Obama is expected to announce a slightly smaller increase.
The decline in Obama’s approval rating on Afghanistan is evident among all party groups, with double-digit decreases since September among Republicans (17 points), independents (16 points), and Democrats (10 points).
While a slim majority of Obama’s fellow Democrats approve of his handling of the issue, his new policy may not be well-received by Democrats, who have indicated opposition to troop-level increases in Afghanistan. The details of the policy will likely be more appealing to Republicans, who are supportive of putting more U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
The question about Afghanistan comes from a Nov. 20-22 USA Today/Gallup poll that also asked Americans to rate Obama’s handling of six other issues. The president registers less than majority approval for his performance on all seven issues, with Afghanistan his worst rating. His best rating is on energy policy, with 49% approval.
Obama’s overall job approval rating has also been below the majority level for most of the time since Nov. 20 in Gallup Daily tracking, though it has inched back above the 50% mark in recent days.
The 14-point decline in Obama’s approval rating on Afghanistan stands in contrast to the trend lines on other issues, including the economy, healthcare, and energy. While his current ratings on these issues are down since September, the declines have been fairly minimal.
Bottom Line
The president’s decisions on U.S. military action in Afghanistan are arguably among the most important and difficult of his presidency. He met several times with his advisers in recent weeks before outlining his new policy to the American public Tuesday night. The speech gives the president a chance to regain the confidence of Americans on the issue, after a sharp drop in his ratings over the past two months.
But the decline in Americans’ evaluations of Obama on Afghanistan does not appear to have greatly affected their more general views of him, as his overall job approval rating — though down slightly since September — has not declined to nearly the same degree as his rating on Afghanistan.
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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.
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
GOP Knight Aims To Check Democrats’ Bishop – Conservative anger attracts national attention, financial backing to district
Nov 30th
Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:12:00
Stephen Flanagan’s strategy worked.
The 55-year-old Suffolk businessman and conservative activist wanted to prove to the world that his congressman, four-term Rep. Tim Bishop, could be defeated, despite scant interest from national Republicans.
So Flanagan and his group, the Conservative Society for Action (CSA), whose 3,000 members meet monthly in a rented American Legion hall in West Islip, hatched a plan to attract national attention to the district and lure credible candidates to the race.
They swarmed Bishop’s first summer town hall meeting in June, mobbing him as he arrived and then chanting epithets inside. Police had to be called to escort the congressman from the event.
Footage of the protest spread like wildfire across the Internet and cable news. The National Republican Congressional Committee circulated the video among its donors. Conservative activists across the country mimicked the strategy, fanning a national phenomenon.
And suddenly Bishop, who won by healthy margins in each of the last four elections, became a target.
“We did target him for removal, and we felt that the first step was to create a vulnerability. That’s when we came up with the town hall protest concept,” Flanagan said. “The hope at that point was that, once it became clear that he was vulnerable in his position, it would attract a wider field of candidates and financial support going forward.”
Now, the unrest Flanagan’s group has stirred on the normally sleepy East End has attracted national attention from Republican and Democratic leaders, who see Bishop’s seat as one of a few dozen that could help shift the balance of power in Washington. The contest has also become a national bellwether for the relevance of the right-wing agitators and the ability of national Republicans to channel widespread frustration into electoral success.
“That put a spotlight on the district that had not been there before,” said David Wasserman, the House editor at the Cook Political Report, which has tagged Bishop’s district as a possible swing seat. “Republicans did some more prying into this district to try and gauge whether it was a sort of one-time-only thing, or whether skepticism toward Democrats is more widespread.”
Republicans in Washington and Suffolk say they found the latter, and as a result Flanagan and his allies have secured all of what they wanted and more: a credible Republican candidate, financial backing from wealthy GOP patrons and, at last, the interest of the national party.
Randy Altschuler, a Wall Street entrepreneur and Republican bundler, has emerged as the early favorite among local activists and GOP operatives in Washington, who believe he can meet the all-important benchmarks that determine a candidate’s credibility: endorsements, infrastructure and cash.
“With Randy, it changes the dynamic completely,” said Assembly Member Phil Boyle, who has managed several Republican congressional campaigns in Suffolk. “This is Tim Bishop’s worst nightmare.”
Altschuler has also demonstrated considerable progress toward a crucial benchmark many of his predecessors have promised to meet but failed: At least $2 million in cash-on-hand, the minimum the NRCC prefers to see before committing to a challenger. Altschuler’s campaign announced earlier this month that he has already collected a quarter of that, much of it from his own pocket.
“There’s been a lot of positive support from the national party,” Altschuler said.
An NRCC official confirmed that Altschuler had met with Republicans in D.C. and that, so far, his campaign had reached or exceeded each of the benchmarks national GOP operatives had laid out for him.
“He is impressing people in the first district and he’s generating significant momentum,” said the official. “He’s put up some impressive numbers and an impressive infrastructure.”
Altschuler’s campaign is being run by Chris Maloney, a veteran of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign and a former aide to the NRCC, who has helped Altschuler build a sizeable ground operation and connections to party officials in Suffolk and D.C.
Altschuler has engendered valuable goodwill among local lawmakers and activists by loaning his 100 or so volunteers out to their campaigns. His team hopes that strategy will help him avoid the problems that have plagued upstate Republican congressional candidates Jim Tedisco and Dede Scozzafava, who have suffered from the perception that they were forced upon their districts by national Republicans.
“My team has gotten involved with a lot of local races,” Altschuler said. “You have to show that you’re invested in the local party.”
But some Republicans remain hesitant to embrace Altschuler because of his Wall Street background. During the presidential campaign, when Altschuler served as a bundler for John McCain, reports emerged that a company he founded, OfficeTiger, had helped outsource American jobs to India. Democrats have already promised to make that a central theme of their attack ads, which has given some local Republicans pause.
“There’s a lot of this coronation going on,” said one Suffolk Republican who has stayed out of the race. “I think he probably has a consensus of support, but there are people who are concerned.”
Those people are instead turning to an alternative candidate, George Demos, a former Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer who worked on the investigation of Bernard Madoff. But Demos was late in announcing his candidacy, has raised only a paltry sum and has been outpaced by Altschuler in winning endorsements and assembling a campaign operation.
John LaValle, the Suffolk Republican chairman, said that would make catching up very difficult for Demos.
“Randy Altschuler has clearly established his ability to raise funds, and in addition to that he’s put together a very solid campaign team,” LaValle said. “We’ll see how George proceeds.”
What Demos lacks in money and infrastructure, he hopes to make up in grassroots energy. Demos is a member of Flanagan’s group, the CSA, and has already courted the organization’s members on several occasions for their endorsement.
But so has Altschuler, which Flanagan and his cohorts take as evidence of their growing influence.
“I think they know that we’re responsible for taking the first step,” Flanagan said of the candidates. “Our message is clear: If you don’t represent us, we’re going to come after you.”
Source: The Capitol
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ABOVE: For the first time since 2002, Rep. Tim Bishop has a credible Republican opponent. Photo by Andrew Schwartz
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
Climategate e-mails sweep America, may scuttle Barack Obama’s Cap and Trade laws
Nov 29th
Climategate e-mails sweep America, may scuttle Barack Obama’s Cap and Trade laws.
Just a few considerations in addition to previous remarks about the explosion of the East Anglia Climategate e-mails in America. The reaction is growing exponentially there. Fox News, Barack Obama’s Nemesis, is now on the case, trampling all over Al Gore’s organic vegetable patch and breaking the White House windows. It has extracted some of the juiciest quotes from the e-mails and displayed them on-screen, with commentaries. Joe Public, coast-to-coast, now knows, thanks to the clowns at East Anglia’s CRU, just how royally he has been screwed.
Senator James Inhofe’s Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works has written to all the relevant US Government agencies, acquainting them with the nature of the e-mails. But the real car crash for Obama is on Capitol Hill where it is now confidently believed his Cap and Trade climate legislation is toast. It was always problematic; but with a growing awakening to the scale of the scientific imposture sweeping the world, as far as the Antipodes, the clever money is on Cap and Trade laws failing to pass, with many legislators sceptical and the mid-term elections looming ever closer.
At the more domestic level, the proposed ban on incandescent light bulbs, so supinely accepted in this servile state of Britain, is now provoking a huge backlash in America. US citizens do not like the government coming into their houses and putting their lights out. Voters may not understand the cut and thrust of climate debate at the technical level, but they know when the Man from Washington has crossed their threshold uninvited.
The term that Fox News is now applying to the Climategate e-mails is “game-changer”. For the first time, Anthropogenic Global Warming cranks are on the defensive, losing their cool and uttering desperate mantras such as “You can be sceptical, not denial.” Gee, thanks, guys. In fact we shall be whatever we want to be, without asking your permission.
At this rate, Copenhagen is going to turn into a comedy convention with the real world laughing at these liars. Now is the time to mount massive resistance to the petty tyrants and hit them where it hurts – in the wallet. Further down the line there may be, in many countries, a question of criminal prosecution of anybody who has falsified data to secure funds and impose potentially disastrous fiscal restraints on the world in deference to a massive hoax. It’s a new world out there, Al, and, as you may have noticed, the climate is very cold indeed.
Source: Telegraph.co.uk
Palin Endorses Conservative in Divisive New York Race
Oct 24th
By NADIA TAHA
Former Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska has dipped into New York State politics by endorsing a third-party candidate in a divisive congressional race.
Mrs. Palin backed Doug Hoffman, the Conservative Party nominee, in the traditionally Republican 23rd District. The Republican nominee, Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava, is a moderate who has broken with the G.O.P. by supporting same-sex marriage and abortion rights.
The seat was vacated by John McHugh, a Republican, when President Obama tapped him to become Army secretary, forcing a special election on Nov. 3.
The Republican Party’s selection of Ms. Scozzafava has alarmed some more conservative Republicans, who feel the party is selling out its ideals to retain the seat. In selecting Ms. Scozzafava, state Republican leaders may have been mindful that Mr. Obama carried the traditionally Republican district. And Mr. Obama recently hosted a fund-raiser for the Democratic nominee, Bill Owens.
Mrs. Palin announced her endorsement on her Facebook page, writing that in an election in which “there is no real difference between the Democrat and the Republican,” “Doug Hoffman has not been anointed by any political machine.”
While Mrs. Palin’s endorsement could anger some New York State Republicans, it could also help her in appealing to her conservative base as she considers a presidential run in 2012.
The endorsement comes just a week after a Gallup poll found that Mrs. Palin’s favorability had dipped to its lowest point since she became Senator John McCain’s vice presidential nominee. According to the poll, her approval rating took a hit when she abruptly resigned as governor in July, and has not recovered during her relative absence from the political scene.
Source: The New York Times
Bet on it: ACORN will be back
Oct 18th
ACORN may be down, but don’t count it out.
The elaborate propaganda apparatus erected to support the Obama agenda is already at work spinning the downfall of the community organization into a vicious right-wing plot to destroy the presidency of Barack Obama, who sprouted from ACORN.
The group was cut off from some of its taxpayer dollars after conservative bloggers duped ACORN staffers into offering advice on setting up a child prostitution ring. ACORN had no defense — it was caught on tape and posted on the Web.
But ACORN is too important to Democrats and Obama in particular to allow it to wither away. Much of the taxpayer money that funds ACORN’s activism ends up benefiting Democratic interests.
Stories are showing up about ACORN’s diligent efforts to purge itself of bad apples. News reports document how ACORN’s ability to help foreclosure victims has been hamstrung by the misdeeds of a few gullible staffers.
University of Northern Iowa professors substantiate the right-wing conspiracy by noting a flurry of negative stories about the group prior to the 2008 election. (It doesn’t occur to the profs that this was when ACORN was caught registering cartoon characters and dead people to vote, which tends to make news.)
Expect soon a major national publication to go in-depth on ACORN’s rehab. It’s the pattern the Obama machine follows to push his major issues and marginalize his critics.
It starts with a barrage of e-mails from local residents who coincidentally get worked up about the same thing on the same day — Rush Limbaugh is a racist, for example. Next comes op-ed pieces from left-wing opiners decrying Limbaugh’s divisiveness. Then Limbaugh’s face hits the cover of Newsweek as the personification of the right’s evil intent.
Obama’s conversion of his election team to a permanent network of campaign offices to advocate for his policies — the latest opened in Detroit on Saturday — is unprecedented.
The administration gets away with such ruthless manipulation of public opinion because the media are derelict in watch-dogging this White House and its backers.
Googling ACORN comes up with a lot of hits about how Republicans are trying to use the scandal to derail housing aid programs, and almost none about the inner workings of the group. ACORN’s foibles didn’t trigger anywhere near the frenzy of investigative reporting that Joe the Plumber did.
Similarly, you’ll find a ton of stories debunking claims that health care reform will lead to death panels and rationing. But there’s little critical analysis of Obama’s assertion that the bill will save money.
This is more than a honeymoon with a new president. It’s a torrid love affair that is eroding the media’s credibility.
So of course ACORN can come back. With the press cozily tucked into bed at the White House, what’s to stop it?
Nolan Finley is editorial page editor of The News. Reach him at nfinley@detnews.com.
Read More over at The Detroit News