Contrary to the White House’s video, member of Congress in the House Ways and Means Committee already have exempted themselves from a government-run health plan with the defeat of an amendment by Rep. Dean Heller (R-NV). The amendment, which would have required members of Congress to enroll in the newly created public health insurance plan, failed with 21 Democrats voting no. Here’s the truth behind the entirely private coverage options offered to Congress and government employees through the successful Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Refuting Congressman Dennis Kuchinich
From Opal --
Refuting Congressman Dennis Kuchinich
During our hour with Congressman Kuchinich, he stated several “facts” about health care, which could and should be refuted.
Fact 1
According to him, and depending on what day or who you ask, health care is either one fifth or one seventh of the US GDP (Gross Domestic Product).
Response
Well, so what? If people are buying goods and services, and people are providing or selling goods and services, why is that suddenly “unsustainable”? That statement makes absolutely no sense. What he is really saying is that the government is currently paying out, from ADC, CHIPs programs, Medicare, and Medicaid, too much money. The Government cannot sustain its commitments. Working people buying insurance, doctors and hospitals providing services, people getting treatment is absolutely sustainable, if we have no government interference. And that is the truth.
What he is really saying is that there is a large pile of cash collected by the insurance companies that the government wants to grab, illegally, for themselves. By passing “health care reform” or “health care insurance reform” they will make laws giving them the legal power to destroy an entire industry and take free choice away from the people.
Buying and selling is a free market principal. It does not harm the government. It is only when the government decides it wants to give away something of value that the system gets distorted, perverted, abused, and broken.
Currently, our state government controls the number of insurance companies in Ohio. They control or license these companies and regulate them. Because they control the framework, insurance company competition is restricted and free market principals do not automatically eliminate waste, redundancy, or money spent on paper work.
Which brings me to:
Fact 2
The doctor Congressman Kucinich brought with him as his advisor said “People come to see the doctors every day. The doctors want to treat them but they cannot afford health insurance, and they cannot pay for the needed services. My secretary/nurse has to spend 1 hour on the telephone getting approval for a CAT scan. But the insurance executives make $14 million dollars and that is obscene.”
Now, let us dissect that sentence:
1) People come to see the doctors every day. The doctors want to treat them but they cannot afford health insurance, and they cannot pay for the needed services. Lots of people are not buying or getting health insurance because they cannot afford it.
Well this may be true. But it because the government allows employer provided health insurance to be tax deductible and does not allow self-paying insurance to be deductible the government is driving up the cost to the poor. It would be better if the government allowed all health care insurance to be tax deductible, for starters. And, in a free market, when you have many, many customers, you create tiers or levels of goods and services. Not everyone can have a Cadillac because they can’t afford it. Some people have to settle for the bus. Does this mean that government should force all the automakers to make only Cadillac’s and that everyone has a “right” to them? No. The services provided currently for the poor are free clinics. These are government paid free clinics. Metro Health has a free clinic. Medicaid is a free service paid for by federal and state tax dollars. Are the current options available to poor people adequate? That is the real question.
Jumping FROM a free market TO a government paid system seems to be very, hmm, lacking in innovation and stifling of creativity, which is one complaint rational, intelligent, and thoughtful people can make. It also doesn’t solve the problem because, if currently, the government cannot sustain its share of the cost of health care, why should we believe that it would be able to do so when there is no free market model upon which to hang itself upon? The insurance model is the skeleton and bones upon which Medicare anchors itself upon.
2) My secretary/nurse has to spend 1 hour on the telephone getting approval for a CAT scan.
This is the free market at work. Things need to get approved. Insurance companies have a contract with their customers about what they will provide and why and when. And sometimes, it takes some navigation to get the necessary approval. The big problem with this statement is that the doctor is hinting that doctors will have free reign to order tests for everyone once we get a single payer government system. Is he mad? Because nowhere can any logical or honest person say that they can and will add 47 MILLION people to the current system and have it work better. Does he want us to believe that once the government gets involved, everyone will get CAT scans?
The truth is that his office people will be waiting MONTHS to get the same approval that they got in minutes! This is the problem with blind utopianism. They point to a problem and think that it can be resolved with government but fail to see that government can’t and won’t regulate itself in the same way the free market will. If anything, Canada proves this with a system proving for 30 million people. The US has 10 times more people and it is not a leap of the imagination to believe we will have 10 times the waiting, 10 times the waste, 10 times the abuse, and 10 times the problems.
3) But the insurance executives make $14 million dollars and that is obscene.”
Brad Pitt, Mick Jagger, Michael Vic, Theresa Hines Kerry, Warren Buffet, and some insurance executive. What do all these people have in common? They make money. Lots of money. Tens of millions of dollars every year. Why is it obscene for a guy who runs a multi-billion dollar company to make money? Is it because the $$ seems out of proportion? Stephen King writes one book. Might take him six months. Does that mean he deserves millions of dollars. Heck, we don’t even know if he sweats while doing it. But why does this doctor, who makes a good amount of money himself, and who is not taking vows of service or poverty, want to create class envy? Why should the government, our government, which is made up of people, people like Nancy Pelosi, and Dick Durbin, and Dennis Kucinich, be the ones who decide that this person is making too much money?
If we allowed the free market to work, then big companies would have crashed. Executives would have been out on their cans. Some of them would have lost everything. It is only when government interferes that we have companies failing AND executives still getting big checks.
What is obscene and immortal is not adhering to 10th Commandment “Thou shall not covet.”
If it is the responsibility of the government to regulate the salaries of everyone, then what price do we put on music? What price per hour for an actor? And if the price per hour for goods and services is the same, then should a podiatrist make the same as a neurosurgeon?
The problem with the argument that people are poor, deserving, and innocent while insurance executives are undeserving, evil, and corrupt is obvious to anyone who frames the question. Sadly, Congressman Kucinich and his advisors are failing to see the obvious because they want to believe that their well meaning good intentions take precedence over reality.
The reality is that the man who makes $14 million dollars per year is providing a service. He keeps his company within the law, he is eliminating waste where it is found, and he is tailoring his product to keep it lean and profitable. And that is what they pay him to do. Just like, on any given Sunday in September, you are going to find a bunch of guys on a football field, and they get paid tens of millions of dollars per year to pay just 20 games (or less). Or, if you are LeBron James, you can get hundreds of millions of dollars per year.
So LeBron James makes hundreds of millions of dollars per year while poor people in Cleveland are not getting CAT scans. Do you see that one thing has nothing to do with the other? So why are they trying to make that argument?
Fact 3
A single payer universal system will eliminate waste.
Rebuttal
Right. Because competition has no value. Competition and free market principals are self-regulating. In the free market, if one company is selling junk, word gets around and people stop buying. The seller goes out of business. When one company offers a great product/service, everyone wants to buy from them. They sell their product according to what the market will bear. If they charge too much, no one buys. If their product is good, and their price is right, people flock to them. But in a single payer system, no one knows what the market will bear, so there is no self-regulation. Junk becomes the norm. People make careers out of finding ways to corrupt the system, and they get away with it for generations because politics is inherently corrupt, especially Chicago politics.
Nowhere has government run systems proven to be better, more efficient, or more cost effective than the free market. NOWHERE. Not in the entire history of people and governments. Not even in the USSR, which was 100% socialist. Not in the much-envied country of France, which is waking up to the fact that their universal health care system is sucking all the money out of their economy.
When incentives, like profit, are removed, then the only incentive is fraud. How to scam the system becomes the Number One incentive. Then the business of government becomes more and more regulation. More laws. More restrictions. More stasis. Watchers watching the watchers. So every single dollar that doesn’t go to the profiteers, you know, those evil insurance companies, will go to some political hack or to some new government bureaucrat who is needed to control costs, or to some clever con man who is gaming the system.
Need examples? Let’s use the example President Obama used, Post Office vs. Fed Ex and UPS. The Post office is going broke, even though it has a monopoly on mail delivery while Fed Ex and UPS are making a profit. According to Dennis Kucinich, the answer is – get rid of Fed Ex and UPS because they are making the Post Office look bad.
The other side of the coin that Congressman Kucinich is not talking about is what happens when all the little private or religious charity non-profits or community hospitals no longer have many sources of income? What happens when only one entity is paying them? That is creating a gorilla welding a sledgehammer. Once a single payer system goes into effect, then the government and ONLY the government can decide who gets what and how it will work.
Currently, we have freedom of religion. Many Christian hospitals refuse to participate in terminating pregnancies and euthanasia. When the government controls all the rules and controls all the money, then caring people, like the Catholic Church, will not be pressed into providing for the poor. Government will stifle religion and religious freedom. This is just one aspect of a single payer system. Government will decide everything. And when government decides everything, there is no freedom, there is no creativity, there is no innovation, but there are only ugly and costly unintended consequences.
Fact 4
Congressman Kucinich says that he supports Medicare and the VA hospital systems. He thinks they are examples of good government and he approves of them.
Rebuttal
If Congressman Kucinich believes the VA system works, then I propose that every member of the government become part of it. I propose that all Congressmen, Senators, Supreme Court Justices, Presidents, and their spouses, and their staffs, and every federal employee, become covered by the VA system, and the VA system alone. Bet there would be plenty of improvements then. Suddenly, it wouldn’t be so attractive.
As to Medicare. Medicare is an example of government interference. When my husband turned 65 in January, our insurance company dropped him. Period. They refuse to insure him. They say that Medicare is primary. No discussion. We cannot even pay them to continue to cover him. And we are willing to do that. But we can’t. He must either sign up for Medicare or not get coverage. So much for “voluntary”. And once he signed up, Social Security demanded we make a pre-payment before they would start coverage. And they charged us more than the payment with the promise that we would “get it back” once his checks kicked in and payments would be taken out. In truth, we “got back” about 80% of it. The rest disappeared down the government money hole of calculating. Their math is not the same as math in the real world. Of course, we could spend days upon days filling our requests and forms and challenges but in the end, the time and aggravation factor wasn’t worth it when we knew we’d never see that money again.
Medicare works because some guy is making $14 millions dollars per year providing a good service to people who want and need health insurance. Medicare works because the free market system is able to come to terms with the hospitals over the value of a lab test. If the insurance companies truly did not pay, then the hospitals would not accept them as bargaining agents. Period. But the insurance companies and the health providers reach an agreement about the value of the goods and services. Once government comes in, and only government comes in, then the value of the goods and services will be determined by the government. And who is entitles to those goods and services and what their value is will not be regulated by supply/demand/profit, it will be regulated by cost and value.
So yes, we will not be able to work hard and create value for ourselves but we will have government assigning value to us. We will not be able to purchase better services but we will have government calculating how much is our value vs. the cost of the CAT scan or X-ray or Cardiac doctor. Today, if we have the money, we have services available for purchase. Once a single payer system goes into effect, there will be front door and back door services. Because people with money and power will always get better services. Congressman Kucinich, even Christ said, “The poor will always be with you”.
Does this mean that we should have the straw man argument that the choice is either the status quo or single payer? No. If the government showed a willingness to remove itself from its unsustainable course, we could and would have the brightest and the best bringing forward creative solutions. Single payer is not a creative solution. It is the knife that would kill the best health care system in the world.
This is just part one of a series on Why Congress Needs to Rethink the Health Care Debate.
Refuting Congressman Dennis Kuchinich
During our hour with Congressman Kuchinich, he stated several “facts” about health care, which could and should be refuted.
Fact 1
According to him, and depending on what day or who you ask, health care is either one fifth or one seventh of the US GDP (Gross Domestic Product).
Response
Well, so what? If people are buying goods and services, and people are providing or selling goods and services, why is that suddenly “unsustainable”? That statement makes absolutely no sense. What he is really saying is that the government is currently paying out, from ADC, CHIPs programs, Medicare, and Medicaid, too much money. The Government cannot sustain its commitments. Working people buying insurance, doctors and hospitals providing services, people getting treatment is absolutely sustainable, if we have no government interference. And that is the truth.
What he is really saying is that there is a large pile of cash collected by the insurance companies that the government wants to grab, illegally, for themselves. By passing “health care reform” or “health care insurance reform” they will make laws giving them the legal power to destroy an entire industry and take free choice away from the people.
Buying and selling is a free market principal. It does not harm the government. It is only when the government decides it wants to give away something of value that the system gets distorted, perverted, abused, and broken.
Currently, our state government controls the number of insurance companies in Ohio. They control or license these companies and regulate them. Because they control the framework, insurance company competition is restricted and free market principals do not automatically eliminate waste, redundancy, or money spent on paper work.
Which brings me to:
Fact 2
The doctor Congressman Kucinich brought with him as his advisor said “People come to see the doctors every day. The doctors want to treat them but they cannot afford health insurance, and they cannot pay for the needed services. My secretary/nurse has to spend 1 hour on the telephone getting approval for a CAT scan. But the insurance executives make $14 million dollars and that is obscene.”
Now, let us dissect that sentence:
1) People come to see the doctors every day. The doctors want to treat them but they cannot afford health insurance, and they cannot pay for the needed services. Lots of people are not buying or getting health insurance because they cannot afford it.
Well this may be true. But it because the government allows employer provided health insurance to be tax deductible and does not allow self-paying insurance to be deductible the government is driving up the cost to the poor. It would be better if the government allowed all health care insurance to be tax deductible, for starters. And, in a free market, when you have many, many customers, you create tiers or levels of goods and services. Not everyone can have a Cadillac because they can’t afford it. Some people have to settle for the bus. Does this mean that government should force all the automakers to make only Cadillac’s and that everyone has a “right” to them? No. The services provided currently for the poor are free clinics. These are government paid free clinics. Metro Health has a free clinic. Medicaid is a free service paid for by federal and state tax dollars. Are the current options available to poor people adequate? That is the real question.
Jumping FROM a free market TO a government paid system seems to be very, hmm, lacking in innovation and stifling of creativity, which is one complaint rational, intelligent, and thoughtful people can make. It also doesn’t solve the problem because, if currently, the government cannot sustain its share of the cost of health care, why should we believe that it would be able to do so when there is no free market model upon which to hang itself upon? The insurance model is the skeleton and bones upon which Medicare anchors itself upon.
2) My secretary/nurse has to spend 1 hour on the telephone getting approval for a CAT scan.
This is the free market at work. Things need to get approved. Insurance companies have a contract with their customers about what they will provide and why and when. And sometimes, it takes some navigation to get the necessary approval. The big problem with this statement is that the doctor is hinting that doctors will have free reign to order tests for everyone once we get a single payer government system. Is he mad? Because nowhere can any logical or honest person say that they can and will add 47 MILLION people to the current system and have it work better. Does he want us to believe that once the government gets involved, everyone will get CAT scans?
The truth is that his office people will be waiting MONTHS to get the same approval that they got in minutes! This is the problem with blind utopianism. They point to a problem and think that it can be resolved with government but fail to see that government can’t and won’t regulate itself in the same way the free market will. If anything, Canada proves this with a system proving for 30 million people. The US has 10 times more people and it is not a leap of the imagination to believe we will have 10 times the waiting, 10 times the waste, 10 times the abuse, and 10 times the problems.
3) But the insurance executives make $14 million dollars and that is obscene.”
Brad Pitt, Mick Jagger, Michael Vic, Theresa Hines Kerry, Warren Buffet, and some insurance executive. What do all these people have in common? They make money. Lots of money. Tens of millions of dollars every year. Why is it obscene for a guy who runs a multi-billion dollar company to make money? Is it because the $$ seems out of proportion? Stephen King writes one book. Might take him six months. Does that mean he deserves millions of dollars. Heck, we don’t even know if he sweats while doing it. But why does this doctor, who makes a good amount of money himself, and who is not taking vows of service or poverty, want to create class envy? Why should the government, our government, which is made up of people, people like Nancy Pelosi, and Dick Durbin, and Dennis Kucinich, be the ones who decide that this person is making too much money?
If we allowed the free market to work, then big companies would have crashed. Executives would have been out on their cans. Some of them would have lost everything. It is only when government interferes that we have companies failing AND executives still getting big checks.
What is obscene and immortal is not adhering to 10th Commandment “Thou shall not covet.”
If it is the responsibility of the government to regulate the salaries of everyone, then what price do we put on music? What price per hour for an actor? And if the price per hour for goods and services is the same, then should a podiatrist make the same as a neurosurgeon?
The problem with the argument that people are poor, deserving, and innocent while insurance executives are undeserving, evil, and corrupt is obvious to anyone who frames the question. Sadly, Congressman Kucinich and his advisors are failing to see the obvious because they want to believe that their well meaning good intentions take precedence over reality.
The reality is that the man who makes $14 million dollars per year is providing a service. He keeps his company within the law, he is eliminating waste where it is found, and he is tailoring his product to keep it lean and profitable. And that is what they pay him to do. Just like, on any given Sunday in September, you are going to find a bunch of guys on a football field, and they get paid tens of millions of dollars per year to pay just 20 games (or less). Or, if you are LeBron James, you can get hundreds of millions of dollars per year.
So LeBron James makes hundreds of millions of dollars per year while poor people in Cleveland are not getting CAT scans. Do you see that one thing has nothing to do with the other? So why are they trying to make that argument?
Fact 3
A single payer universal system will eliminate waste.
Rebuttal
Right. Because competition has no value. Competition and free market principals are self-regulating. In the free market, if one company is selling junk, word gets around and people stop buying. The seller goes out of business. When one company offers a great product/service, everyone wants to buy from them. They sell their product according to what the market will bear. If they charge too much, no one buys. If their product is good, and their price is right, people flock to them. But in a single payer system, no one knows what the market will bear, so there is no self-regulation. Junk becomes the norm. People make careers out of finding ways to corrupt the system, and they get away with it for generations because politics is inherently corrupt, especially Chicago politics.
Nowhere has government run systems proven to be better, more efficient, or more cost effective than the free market. NOWHERE. Not in the entire history of people and governments. Not even in the USSR, which was 100% socialist. Not in the much-envied country of France, which is waking up to the fact that their universal health care system is sucking all the money out of their economy.
When incentives, like profit, are removed, then the only incentive is fraud. How to scam the system becomes the Number One incentive. Then the business of government becomes more and more regulation. More laws. More restrictions. More stasis. Watchers watching the watchers. So every single dollar that doesn’t go to the profiteers, you know, those evil insurance companies, will go to some political hack or to some new government bureaucrat who is needed to control costs, or to some clever con man who is gaming the system.
Need examples? Let’s use the example President Obama used, Post Office vs. Fed Ex and UPS. The Post office is going broke, even though it has a monopoly on mail delivery while Fed Ex and UPS are making a profit. According to Dennis Kucinich, the answer is – get rid of Fed Ex and UPS because they are making the Post Office look bad.
The other side of the coin that Congressman Kucinich is not talking about is what happens when all the little private or religious charity non-profits or community hospitals no longer have many sources of income? What happens when only one entity is paying them? That is creating a gorilla welding a sledgehammer. Once a single payer system goes into effect, then the government and ONLY the government can decide who gets what and how it will work.
Currently, we have freedom of religion. Many Christian hospitals refuse to participate in terminating pregnancies and euthanasia. When the government controls all the rules and controls all the money, then caring people, like the Catholic Church, will not be pressed into providing for the poor. Government will stifle religion and religious freedom. This is just one aspect of a single payer system. Government will decide everything. And when government decides everything, there is no freedom, there is no creativity, there is no innovation, but there are only ugly and costly unintended consequences.
Fact 4
Congressman Kucinich says that he supports Medicare and the VA hospital systems. He thinks they are examples of good government and he approves of them.
Rebuttal
If Congressman Kucinich believes the VA system works, then I propose that every member of the government become part of it. I propose that all Congressmen, Senators, Supreme Court Justices, Presidents, and their spouses, and their staffs, and every federal employee, become covered by the VA system, and the VA system alone. Bet there would be plenty of improvements then. Suddenly, it wouldn’t be so attractive.
As to Medicare. Medicare is an example of government interference. When my husband turned 65 in January, our insurance company dropped him. Period. They refuse to insure him. They say that Medicare is primary. No discussion. We cannot even pay them to continue to cover him. And we are willing to do that. But we can’t. He must either sign up for Medicare or not get coverage. So much for “voluntary”. And once he signed up, Social Security demanded we make a pre-payment before they would start coverage. And they charged us more than the payment with the promise that we would “get it back” once his checks kicked in and payments would be taken out. In truth, we “got back” about 80% of it. The rest disappeared down the government money hole of calculating. Their math is not the same as math in the real world. Of course, we could spend days upon days filling our requests and forms and challenges but in the end, the time and aggravation factor wasn’t worth it when we knew we’d never see that money again.
Medicare works because some guy is making $14 millions dollars per year providing a good service to people who want and need health insurance. Medicare works because the free market system is able to come to terms with the hospitals over the value of a lab test. If the insurance companies truly did not pay, then the hospitals would not accept them as bargaining agents. Period. But the insurance companies and the health providers reach an agreement about the value of the goods and services. Once government comes in, and only government comes in, then the value of the goods and services will be determined by the government. And who is entitles to those goods and services and what their value is will not be regulated by supply/demand/profit, it will be regulated by cost and value.
So yes, we will not be able to work hard and create value for ourselves but we will have government assigning value to us. We will not be able to purchase better services but we will have government calculating how much is our value vs. the cost of the CAT scan or X-ray or Cardiac doctor. Today, if we have the money, we have services available for purchase. Once a single payer system goes into effect, there will be front door and back door services. Because people with money and power will always get better services. Congressman Kucinich, even Christ said, “The poor will always be with you”.
Does this mean that we should have the straw man argument that the choice is either the status quo or single payer? No. If the government showed a willingness to remove itself from its unsustainable course, we could and would have the brightest and the best bringing forward creative solutions. Single payer is not a creative solution. It is the knife that would kill the best health care system in the world.
This is just part one of a series on Why Congress Needs to Rethink the Health Care Debate.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
A Tea Party Patriot letter to GOP Chairman Michael Steele
Hello again Patriots
It looks like the Elephant Clan Clowns & their leader, GOP Chairman Michael Steele, still don't hear what we are saying about health care. In the below online "give us more money plea" sent to a local Tea Party Patriot and Westlake 9.12 member, Steele lays out his case on what they want for the seniors in health care reform....
Cynthea's spot on "go jump off a cliff" response is why we all love her...
It looks like the Elephant Clan Clowns & their leader, GOP Chairman Michael Steele, still don't hear what we are saying about health care. In the below online "give us more money plea" sent to a local Tea Party Patriot and Westlake 9.12 member, Steele lays out his case on what they want for the seniors in health care reform....
Cynthea, I'm here to tell you nothing could be further from the truth -- and it's time for Republicans to fight back against the Democrats' smears with the facts.
Republicans believe reforms to America's health care system are necessary, but reform should be incremental and should first do no harm -- especially to our seniors. And we oppose raiding Medicare to pay for Obama's new health care experiment.
America's senior citizens deserve access to quality health care and coverage that will not bankrupt them. That's why the Republican Party is calling for Congress to adopt a Seniors' Health Care Bill of Rights.
The RNC is running a new ad to advance our call for a Seniors' Health Care Bill of Rights that targets Democrats who may be pressured into voting for Obama's health care experiment that cuts $500 billion from Medicare over the next ten years. We need your help today to promote our message as the debate over health care reform continues in the weeks and months ahead.
After you watch our ad, please make a secure online contribution of $25, $50, $100, $500 or $1,000 to help get our message about protecting the health care rights of our greatest generation past the liberal media filter and directly to the voters.
Cynthea's spot on "go jump off a cliff" response is why we all love her...
Dear Michael,
You are wrong. Republicans DO NOT WANT incremental health care reform coming from the GOP. They want free market principals. Free market principals might mean some people have to work at jobs they don't really like in order to get health care (insurance). It might mean they pay more if they have bad habits. But the only true change Americans want in their health care is group buyer advantage.
Michael, with insurance, I still have to pay up to $5000 out of pocket if I have an accident or need treatment. This is on top of my monthly payments, which are around $4000 per year. A lot, yes, but not bankruptcy time. But when I see a doctor or get a lab test, I get a statement of fees for what the lab/doctor/hospital wants to bill me, and what the insurance company says they are allowed to collect.Here is the problem with health care. The only changes to our system that the GOP should be behind is 1) a level playing field of fees and 2) portability. Any socialization will destroy a fragile system.
We can get to socialization fast with the Democrats or slow with the GOP. I think I'll take my changes with the Tea Party Patriots.Bye Bye.
Rep. Betty Sutton Recess Protest in Cleveland" is tomorrow, Thursday, September 3, 2009 5:00 PM
From Diana of the Cleveland 9.12 Group --
- What: Rep. Betty Sutton Recess Protest in Cleveland
- When: Thursday, September 3, 2009 5:00 PM
- Where: Crowne Plaza City Center Hotel
777 St. Clair Ave. at East 9th St. Cleveland OH 44114
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Obama’s Team Crosses the Rhetorical Line
(Update: The website cited below has been suspended by barackobama.com. The screenshot to the right is the original page, but the embedded links will no longer work. Click on the picture to the right for a full-screen view.)
Many Americans took off work and sacrificed family time this past August to attend congressional town halls, where they voiced opposition to a government-run overhaul of their personal health care choices. They hand painted signs, grabbed their children and drove to their local church or school gymnasium for valuable lessons in community organizing and democracy. While they lived the Rockwellian version of American discourse, they were called names, labeled as ‘too organized’ or “un-American”, and likened to mobs, Nazis and Fascists. And now President Obama’s team has designated September 11 as the day to liken conservatives to Al Qaeda terrorists.
Today, President Obama’s campaign organization “Organizing for America” sent out a notice to its “grassroots” supporters. It asked them to wage a coordinated phone campaign for health care by calling their U.S. Senators on September 11 – also known as Patriot Day in honor of the thousands of Americans killed by Al Qaeda terrorists eight years ago. It goes on: “All 50 States are coordinating in this – as we fight back against our own Right-Wing Domestic Terrorists who are subverting the American Democratic Process, whipped to a frenzy by their Fox Propaganda Network ceaselessly re-seizing power for their treacherous leaders.” Please read that again.
Typically when this type of outrageousness is unleashed on the American public, the appropriate response is to recall the webpage and explain the gray area, with phrases such as ‘that was taken out of context’ or ‘we didn’t mean that conservatives were actually terrorists’ or ‘that was written by a junior staffer who has been admonished’. But that should not be sufficient this time. There are several lessons America must learn from this:
Bipartisanship: Rather than rally our nation, which is certainly more divided than ever, they seek to make those divisions even more distinctive this September 11. The President often talks about reaching across the aisle, working with people of differing viewpoints, but that rhetoric is not matched by this reality.
Zealots: This type of irresponsible rhetoric can make dissent against the President seem dangerous. Down the road, the President could paint his detractors as nothing more than right-wing zealots bent on destroying his vision for the nation. Remember, these ‘zealots’ are not smuggling weapons, they’re smuggling poster board and markers. They’re not flying planes into buildings; they’re flying to see their parents for Thanksgiving.
Free Press: How does it help our nation to rally against a free press? If Fox News doesn’t report the story as the White House sees it, does that make them a “propaganda network” as it says on today’s release? Who are the “treacherous leaders” that Fox News is reporting to by the way? These questions need answering.
Memorial: September 11 should be a day to grieve and remember, not a day to lobby for government-run healthcare. It certainly should not be a day to demonize fellow Americans. America’s enemies are violent extremists, bent on bring this nation to its knees, not soccer moms, dads and senior citizens who may disagree with one’s political or policy views.
Results: Will a single American become more enamored with the President’s health care plan, if they are called a terrorist? Will the country become more unified? This is not a strategy that will build consensus, rather it will end health care reform. All Americans want reform; they differ on the details. No reform will be possible in this toxic political environment.
President Obama has a way of deflecting the bad behavior of his subordinates. It is certainly true that he does not get up every morning and write all of his own press releases, and refresh his own website. But he is responsible and accountable for its content. It is time for the President to stop campaigning. He should eliminate his “Organizing for America” website immediately. He needs to stop embracing the rising sun seal of Obama/Biden ‘08 and instead embrace the great Presidential seal of the White House 2009.
On September 11, 2008 then-Presidential candidate Barack Obama said: “Americans across our great country came together to stand with the families of the victims, to donate blood, to give to charity, and to say a prayer for our country. Let us renew that.”
Let us renew that indeed. We should never degrade that day’s events to call those who oppose a policy “terrorists.” Mr. President, this September 11; remember the heroes, remember the victims, remember the families who wept that evening and pray for America’s continued resolve and wisdom, because together we are stronger. Divided we fall.
(Update #2: Several readers have asked us whether this posting on barackobama.com was “user-generated” rather than a staff posting. From what we can tell, this may have been the case. Nevertheless, members of ‘Organizing for America’ in Illinois, North Carolina, Michigan and possibly other states were invited to this event without filter. Anything under the ‘Organizing for America’ banner that is distributed en masse is accountable to those who run the President’s perpetual campaign.
Which is the problem with a perpetual campaign. When you have campaign organizers attempting to assist the White House message, you end up in this situation. If one American received one email that led them to believe that the President shared these views, that is one too many.
This was not an ill-advised comment on a blog, but rather an organizing activity that used hateful language to describe the opposition. The President and his political advisors should immediately denounce this language and continue to remove it from their website. And they should immediately discontinue the use of the ‘Organizing for America’ website to remove any suspicion that the President shares these views. There is a time for campaigning, and a time for leading. Now is the time for the President to lead.)
Screen shotObama campaign org politicizes 9/11 - calls protesters ‘right-wing domestic terrorists’
President Obama’s campaign organization, Organizing for America, goes way, way too far.
Team Obama wants to use 9/11 to push back against protesters, referred to as “Right-Wing Domestic Terrorists” by calling Senators in support of the Obamacare public government option.
Today, the Obama campaign folks sent out a notice to “grassroots” supporters about the planned 9/11″health care organizing event”:
The offensive notice has been scrubbed from the Organizing for America website, but I was able to get the following screenshotWhat day? Our US Senators return to DC the Tues after Labor Day. That next FRIDAY, Sep 11, is Patriot Day, designated in memory of the nearly three thousand who died in the 9/11 attacks.
All 50 States are coordinating in this – as we fight back against our own Right-Wing Domestic Terrorists who are subverting the American Democratic Process, whipped to a frenzy by their Fox Propaganda Network ceaselessly re-seizing power for their treacherous leaders.
How dare they? Don’t contemplate the nearly 3,000 innocent souls murdered by the
terrorists. Instead, politicize a day of remembrance. Whatever happened
to what presidential candidate Obama said on September 11, 2008:
Americans across our great country came together to stand with the
families of the victims, to donate blood, to give to charity, and to
say a prayer for our country. Let us renew that.
What happened to all that hope?
Don’t let team Obama get away with hijacking Patriot Day, a day that should remain a day of remembrance. Don’t wait until the Obamatons launch the planned Senate assault. Call your Senators and your Representatives now. Let them know what you think about this despicable effort to politicize 9/11. Tell them what you think of the president’s campaign organization calling protesters terrorists. Do it now.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Your student might need a sick day on Sept 8th!
President Obama’s Address to Students Across America September 8, 2009
(Let the brainwashing begin-can you say Indoctrination?)
PLEASE, CONTACT YOUR STUDENT'S SCHOOL/SCHOOL BOARD AND FIND OUT IF THEY WILL BE PARTICIPATING IN THIS!
The speech will be broadcast live on www.whitehouse.gov at 1 p.m. EDT.
Please read what other American parents are saying at the following links:
http://www.thewoodlandsteaparty.com/2009/08/31/president-obama%E2%80%99s-address-to-students-across-america-september-8-2009/
http://forums.hannity.com/showthread.php?t=1621571
U.S. Department of Education
Office of Communications & Outreach, Press Office
400 Maryland Ave., S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20202
MEDIA ADVISORY
EVENT DATE:
1 p.m. EDT, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2009
Contact: Sandra Abrevaya
(202) 401-1576 or sandra.abrevaya@ed.gov
PRESIDENT OBAMA TO DELIVER NATIONALLY BROADCAST ADDRESS TO STUDENTS ON SEPT. 8
The President will deliver a speech about the importance of persisting and succeeding in school on Sept. 8, the first day of school for many children across America. The Department of Education is encouraging educators, students and parents to use this opportunity to help students get focused and begin the school year strong. The speech will be broadcast live on www.whitehouse.gov at 1 p.m. EDT. The Department of Education has also asked a group of U.S. Department of Education Teaching Ambassador Fellows to develop some suggested classroom activities around the speech to help engage students and stimulate discussion on the importance of education in their lives. The suggested classroom activities will be available on www.ed.gov.
Here's how the President described the speech in a recent interview with 11 year-old reporter Damon Weaver yesterday: "On Sept. 8, when young people across the country will have just started or are about to go back to school, I'm going to be making a big speech to young people all across the country about the importance of education, the importance of staying in school, how we want to improve our education system, and why it's so important for the country. And so I hope everybody tunes in."
WHO:
President Obama
WHAT:
Presidential Address To Students
WHEN:
1 p.m. EDT, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2009
WHERE:
Broadcast live at www.whitehouse.gov
PreK-6 Menu of Classroom Activities:
President Obama’s Address to Students
Across America
Produced by Teaching Ambassador Fellows, U.S. Department of Education September 8, 2009
Before the Speech:
Teachers can build background knowledge about the President of the United States and his speech by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama and motivate students by asking the following questions: Who is the President of the United States? What do you think it takes to be President? To whom do you think the President is going to be speaking? Why do you think he wants to speak to you? What do you think he will say to you?
Teachers can ask students to imagine being the President delivering a speech to all of the students in the United States. What would you tell students? What can students do to help in our schools? Teachers can chart ideas about what they would say.
Why is it important that we listen to the President and other elected officials, like the mayor, senators, members of congress, or the governor? Why is what they say important?
During the Speech:
As the President speaks, teachers can ask students to write down key ideas or phrases that are important or personally meaningful. Students could use a note-taking graphic organizer such as a Cluster Web, or students could record their thoughts on sticky notes. Younger children can draw pictures and write as appropriate. As students listen to the speech, they could think about the following: What is the President trying to tell me? What is the President asking me to do? What new ideas and actions is the President challenging me to think about?
Students can record important parts of the speech where the President is asking them to do something. Students might think about: What specific job is he asking me to do? Is he asking anything of anyone else? Teachers? Principals? Parents? The American people?
Students can record any questions they have while he is speaking and then discuss them after the speech. Younger children may need to dictate their questions.
After the Speech:
Teachers could ask students to share the ideas they recorded, exchange sticky notes or stick notes on a butcher paper poster in the classroom to discuss main ideas from the speech, i.e. citizenship, personal responsibility, civic duty.
Students could discuss their responses to the following questions: What do you think the President wants us to do? Does the speech make you want to do anything? Are we able to do what President Obama is asking of us? What would you like to tell the President?
Teachers could encourage students to participate in the Department of Education’s “I Am What I Learn” video contest.
On September 8th, the Department will invite K-12 students to submit a 2 video no longer than 2 min, explaining why education is important and how their education will help them achieve their dreams. Teachers are welcome to incorporate the same or a similar video project into an assignment. More details will be released via www.ed.gov.
Extension of the Speech: Teachers can extend learning by having students
Create posters of their goals. Posters could be formatted in quadrants or puzzle pieces or trails marked with the labels: personal, academic, community, country. Each area could be labeled with three steps for achieving goals in those areas. It might make sense to focus on personal and academic so community and country goals come more readily.
Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals.
Write goals on colored index cards or precut designs to post around the classroom.
Interview and share about their goals with one another to create a supportive community.
Participate in School wide incentive programs or contests for students who achieve their goals.
Write about their goals in a variety of genres, i.e. poems, songs, personal essays.
Create artistic projects based on the themes of their goals.
Graph student progress toward goals.
PLEASE, CONTACT YOUR STUDENT'S SCHOOL/SCHOOL BOARD AND FIND OUT IF THEY WILL BE PARTICIPATING IN THIS!
(Let the brainwashing begin-can you say Indoctrination?)
PLEASE, CONTACT YOUR STUDENT'S SCHOOL/SCHOOL BOARD AND FIND OUT IF THEY WILL BE PARTICIPATING IN THIS!
The speech will be broadcast live on www.whitehouse.gov at 1 p.m. EDT.
Please read what other American parents are saying at the following links:
http://www.thewoodlandsteaparty.com/2009/08/31/president-obama%E2%80%99s-address-to-students-across-america-september-8-2009/
http://forums.hannity.com/showthread.php?t=1621571
U.S. Department of Education
Office of Communications & Outreach, Press Office
400 Maryland Ave., S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20202
MEDIA ADVISORY
EVENT DATE:
1 p.m. EDT, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2009
Contact: Sandra Abrevaya
(202) 401-1576 or sandra.abrevaya@ed.gov
PRESIDENT OBAMA TO DELIVER NATIONALLY BROADCAST ADDRESS TO STUDENTS ON SEPT. 8
The President will deliver a speech about the importance of persisting and succeeding in school on Sept. 8, the first day of school for many children across America. The Department of Education is encouraging educators, students and parents to use this opportunity to help students get focused and begin the school year strong. The speech will be broadcast live on www.whitehouse.gov at 1 p.m. EDT. The Department of Education has also asked a group of U.S. Department of Education Teaching Ambassador Fellows to develop some suggested classroom activities around the speech to help engage students and stimulate discussion on the importance of education in their lives. The suggested classroom activities will be available on www.ed.gov.
Here's how the President described the speech in a recent interview with 11 year-old reporter Damon Weaver yesterday: "On Sept. 8, when young people across the country will have just started or are about to go back to school, I'm going to be making a big speech to young people all across the country about the importance of education, the importance of staying in school, how we want to improve our education system, and why it's so important for the country. And so I hope everybody tunes in."
WHO:
President Obama
WHAT:
Presidential Address To Students
WHEN:
1 p.m. EDT, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2009
WHERE:
Broadcast live at www.whitehouse.gov
PreK-6 Menu of Classroom Activities:
President Obama’s Address to Students
Across America
Produced by Teaching Ambassador Fellows, U.S. Department of Education September 8, 2009
Before the Speech:
Teachers can build background knowledge about the President of the United States and his speech by reading books about presidents and Barack Obama and motivate students by asking the following questions: Who is the President of the United States? What do you think it takes to be President? To whom do you think the President is going to be speaking? Why do you think he wants to speak to you? What do you think he will say to you?
Teachers can ask students to imagine being the President delivering a speech to all of the students in the United States. What would you tell students? What can students do to help in our schools? Teachers can chart ideas about what they would say.
Why is it important that we listen to the President and other elected officials, like the mayor, senators, members of congress, or the governor? Why is what they say important?
During the Speech:
As the President speaks, teachers can ask students to write down key ideas or phrases that are important or personally meaningful. Students could use a note-taking graphic organizer such as a Cluster Web, or students could record their thoughts on sticky notes. Younger children can draw pictures and write as appropriate. As students listen to the speech, they could think about the following: What is the President trying to tell me? What is the President asking me to do? What new ideas and actions is the President challenging me to think about?
Students can record important parts of the speech where the President is asking them to do something. Students might think about: What specific job is he asking me to do? Is he asking anything of anyone else? Teachers? Principals? Parents? The American people?
Students can record any questions they have while he is speaking and then discuss them after the speech. Younger children may need to dictate their questions.
After the Speech:
Teachers could ask students to share the ideas they recorded, exchange sticky notes or stick notes on a butcher paper poster in the classroom to discuss main ideas from the speech, i.e. citizenship, personal responsibility, civic duty.
Students could discuss their responses to the following questions: What do you think the President wants us to do? Does the speech make you want to do anything? Are we able to do what President Obama is asking of us? What would you like to tell the President?
Teachers could encourage students to participate in the Department of Education’s “I Am What I Learn” video contest.
On September 8th, the Department will invite K-12 students to submit a 2 video no longer than 2 min, explaining why education is important and how their education will help them achieve their dreams. Teachers are welcome to incorporate the same or a similar video project into an assignment. More details will be released via www.ed.gov.
Extension of the Speech: Teachers can extend learning by having students
Create posters of their goals. Posters could be formatted in quadrants or puzzle pieces or trails marked with the labels: personal, academic, community, country. Each area could be labeled with three steps for achieving goals in those areas. It might make sense to focus on personal and academic so community and country goals come more readily.
Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals.
Write goals on colored index cards or precut designs to post around the classroom.
Interview and share about their goals with one another to create a supportive community.
Participate in School wide incentive programs or contests for students who achieve their goals.
Write about their goals in a variety of genres, i.e. poems, songs, personal essays.
Create artistic projects based on the themes of their goals.
Graph student progress toward goals.
PLEASE, CONTACT YOUR STUDENT'S SCHOOL/SCHOOL BOARD AND FIND OUT IF THEY WILL BE PARTICIPATING IN THIS!
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