The Dean Scream Returns!

It looks like Howie Dean is stirring up the pot for the Democrats that supported the health care legislation. Dean has decided to concentrate of his old group, Democracy for America and has teamed up with the liberals running the Progressive Change Campaign Committee...

From Politico --

POLITICO’s Ken Vogel bears witness to the “resurrection” of Howard Dean, the progressive champion who traded his establishment bona fides as chairman of the Democratic National Committee for a more comfortable role as a liberal vanguard: "After four relatively low-profile years pushing the official party line as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Dean is once again the tribune of frustrated liberals. … And after he called out President Barack Obama and his congressional allies over their concessions on health care, those close to him predict he’s just getting warmed up.

Dean’s health care stand has infuriated party leaders, who have alternately tried to marginalize him and to bring him on board. Yet at the same time, his provocative approach has re-energized the political group he founded and thrilled legions of progressive activists, many of whom were drawn to politics by Dean's insurgent 2004 presidential campaign, then deflated when he didn’t land an Obama Cabinet post. They have grown increasingly disenchanted with Obama’s presidency and are urging Dean to keep up the drumbeat as the health care debate heads to conference this month.”

— A sampling of liberal anger (from Vogel’s Dean piece): “After unsubscribing from OFA and pledging to turn his efforts to (Democracy for America, Dean’s old group) and another liberal PAC that supports the public option called the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, former Obama volunteer and donor Michael Hermann, a Los Angeles musician, told POLITICO: ‘I find the administration's hubris in thinking they will never lose their liberal base astounding.’ Wendy Sejour, a DFA leader in Homestead, Fla., who is also active in her local Democratic Party, said ‘what the administration does not understand is that when they try to marginalized Dean and DFA, they insult us and dismiss our hard work. We are the foot soldiers.’

Another DFA volunteer, Patrick Briggs of Pasadena, Calif., said he scrapped plans to become more involved in OFA over what he saw as its health care capitulation. He said Dean’s salvos ‘reminded some of us in the movement that at least there’s someone out there in the progressive community who’s looking out for our
interest.’”

Thanks Howie!

Mayo Clinic Cuts off Medicare Patients

How's this for irony.... the model given for efficient health care -- The Mayo Clinic -- is no longer taking Medicare patients. With the current deforming of health care being pushed by our "head in the bed pan" politicians, you can be sure there will be more of the same to come....

H/T Ashland Tea Party/9.12 Group --

(Bloomberg) -- The Mayo Clinic, praised by President Barack Obama as a national model for efficient health care, will stop accepting Medicare patients as of tomorrow at one of its primary-care clinics in Arizona, saying the U.S. government pays too little.

More than 3,000 patients eligible for Medicare, the government’s largest health-insurance program, will be forced to pay cash if they want to continue seeing their doctors at a Mayo family clinic in Glendale, northwest of Phoenix, said Michael Yardley, a Mayo spokesman. The decision, which Yardley called a two-year pilot project, won’t affect other Mayo facilities in Arizona, Florida and Minnesota.

Obama in June cited the nonprofit Rochester, Minnesota-based Mayo Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio for offering “the highest quality care at costs well below the national norm.” Mayo’s move to drop Medicare patients may be copied by family doctors, some of whom have stopped accepting new patients from the program, said Lori Heim, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, in a telephone interview yesterday.

“Many physicians have said, ‘I simply cannot afford to keep taking care of Medicare patients,’” said Heim, a family doctor who practices in Laurinburg, North Carolina. “If you truly know your business costs and you are losing money, it doesn’t make sense to do more of it.” (More...)

And I believe they want to cut the overall funding of Medicare AND decrease the amount of the payments to doctors.

U.S. Govt. now owns Controlling Stake in GMAC with $3.8 Billion Bail Out

The U.S. Government now owns a controlling stake in GMAC, the financing arm of General Motors. Refusing to call it a bailout, the administration is calling it an injection of funds....

The US Treasury announced Wednesday a 3.8 billion dollar fresh capital injection into ailing GMAC, the former finance arm of General Motors that became a bank to access federal rescue aid.

It had previously injected 12.5 billion dollars in capital into GMAC.

The 3.8 billion dollar capital injection will be in the form of 2.54 billion dollars of trust preferred securities and 1.25 billion dollars of mandatory convertible preferred (MCP) stock.

Treasury said it would also receive warrants for both types of stocks, totaling 190 million dollars, which it would exercise immediately at the close of the transaction.

The Treasury, headed by Secretary Timothy Geithner, said it would convert 3.0 billion of its existing MCP, which was invested in May 2009, into common equity "to boost the quality of the capital supporting GMAC."

That move will raise Treasury?s equity stake in GMAC to 56 percent from 35 percent. (Google News)

Why does it always seems like "we" are the ones being injected?!?

Volunteer for the Cuyahoga County Charter Transition Advisory Group

Cuyahoga County is looking for people to join committees to help with the Issue 6 Reform transition. These committees will serve under and at the pleasure of the three-member Transition Advisory Group that has been formed as required by the charter.

The County Commissioners have already appointed County Administrator Jim McCafferty, Human Resources Director Joe Nanni and Justice Affairs Director Gary Holland to head this group.

The transition group will include at least eight committees, covering finance and administration; human services; human resources; justice services; infrastructure and supportive services; economic development and planning; county council planning; and boards and commissions. Specific meetings will address specific issues, such as a draft of a code of ethics for county employees, Rawson said. (Plain Dealer)

If we want to help improve this region and be part of forming the future of Cuyahoga County, it is of the utmost importance that the Cleveland Tea Party Patriots and local 9.12 Groups members get involved in this process and volunteer to serve on some of these boards.

You can click here and go to the County Charter Transition Advisory Group website and sign up for one of the committees being seated.

Happy New Year

The Cleveland Tea Party Patriots wish you and your loved ones a healthy and prosperous --

What we has been accomplished in a short 8 months is nothing short of a miracle!

Could you have imagined where our country would be today had it not been for your hard efforts and dedication? None of this could have been done without YOU -- the heart & soul of the Tea Party Patriots!

We look forward to working with you as we roll out the new year and start cleaning up the crap in D.C. and the rest of the political cesspools in this country.

Town Hall's Top 10 Conservatives of 2009

From Town Hall Columnist John Hawkins --

The Honorary Mentions

10) Andrew Breitbart: Andrew Breitbart has really come into his own this year. He now has two huge successful blogs: Big Hollywood and Big Government -- with Big Journalism soon to come. Breitbart was also instrumental in getting James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles' outstanding reporting about ACORN into the hands of the public. Conservatives could use another dozen media entrepreneurs like Breitbart.

9) Marco Rubio: When the establishment Republicans at the NRSC coronated Charlie Crist with their endorsement, many people figured it was over for Marco Rubio. Crist was a popular, ideologically ambiguous Florida governor with a penchant for fundraising while Rubio was merely a young, charismatic conservative leader who was reaching out to conservatives.

A few months later, after some aggressive campaigning by Rubio, he's done the cover of National Review, he's headlining CPAC, and he's already tied with Crist. This race in Florida isn't just about Rubio and Crist; it's about who runs things in the Republican Party: the conservative base or the sort of elitists in charge at the NRSC. Rubio's waving the banner for the base and he's going to win.

8) Rush Limbaugh: It goes without saying that Limbaugh makes a big splash on the radio, but has a radio host ever been such a pivotal player that a presidential administration treated him as a huge threat? Perhaps the fact that Rush's ratings went up while the Obama Administration targeted him might explain why fighting with radio hosts is usually something Presidents avoid. If only Obama had as much enthusiasm for going after terrorists as he did for going after conservatives like Rush Limbaugh, we'd have the war on terror won in no time.

7) Jim DeMint: Nobody in the Senate has been more true to conservative ideals or fought harder against the Obama Administration than Jim DeMint. He has no official
leadership post and lot of establishment Republicans curse his name, but in the fight against socialism, DeMint is the guy who always seems to be on the front lines trying to encourage other Republicans to follow him into battle.

6) Carrie Prejean: Carrie Prejean never sought to involve herself in the battle over gay marriage when she entered the Miss USA contest, but after being asked a question about the subject and politely stating her opposition, she was thrust into the spotlight. Many people might think a bikini model with racy pics and "sex tapes" in her past might make a poor spokesman on an issue -- and they may be right.

However, the extraordinarily vile, over-the-top and perverted attacks on Carrie Prejean by gay marriage supporters fully revealed an extremely ugly side of a movement that too many Americans falsely view as victims. Prejean's respectful courage under fire in difficult circumstances helped make that possible and she deserves to be honored for standing up, not kicked under a bus.

The Runners-Up

5) Dick Cheney: There was a time when former Presidents and Vice-Presidents stayed away from the political arena out of respect for the men who followed them in office, but after years of meddling by Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, and Bill Clinton, Dick Cheney has decided that if the rules don't apply for Democrats, they shouldn't apply for Republicans either.

Cheney has not only done an excellent job of defending the Bush Administration's foreign policy, he has also been an extremely effective critic of the Obama Administration's poorly thought-out national security decisions. Americans should be grateful that there's still a Vice-President who's serious about
defending America from attack. Too bad he's not the VP who's in the White House.

4) Sarah Palin: Quitting her job as governor of Alaska may turn out to be a mistake, but if it is, at least Sarah Palin is making the most of it. Her book tour was a tremendous success, not only in the book-selling department, but in repairing her image. Moreover, she was one of the most effective Republican voices in the health care debate and in an innovative move, she did it from her Facebook page. If Sarah Palin can be as successful in 2010 and 2011 as she was in 2009, we may be calling her President Palin in 2012.

3) Glenn Beck: Beck's ratings exploded in 2009 -- and no wonder. He has a unique charismatic style and he has become one of the Obama Administration's most fierce and effective critics. He created his own 9/12 movement, did a comedy tour, blistered ACORN, and knocked off Obama czar Van Jones. It has been a big year for Beck and hopefully, there will be more big years to come.

2) James O'Keefe & Hannah Giles: Who would have ever thought that a couple of kids in ridiculous outfits would end up doing the best reporting since Woodward and Bernstein? O'Keefe and Giles posed as a prostitute and pimp trying to set up a child prostitution racket, and they managed to get ACORN employees in at least 6 cities to help them out on hidden camera. The resulting scandal badly tarnished ACORN's reputation, cost it a considerable amount of money, and made it so radioactive as an organization that it made it into a South Park episode. If O'Keefe & Giles were liberals who had targeted conservatives this successfully, they'd be getting fawning mentions in the media, Pulitzers, and their own hokey, romanticized made-for-TV movie -- and they'd deserve it all.

The Winner

1) The Tea Party Movement: Is it fair to choose a growing, thriving, leaderless mass of American citizens who've sprang up across the country as the conservative of the year? I think so. In the past, those of us on the Right have mostly left the political rallies to liberals. However, the radical and dangerous socialistic impulses of the Obama Administration have panicked the American people and caused conservatives across the country to come together in the streets to say "enough is enough."

The Tea Party movement has been mocked, slandered, and smeared at every opportunity for a simple reason -- it's getting members of the "silent majority" who make the country work, out of their armchairs and into the streets where they're being inspired to go to Townhall meetings, call their congressmen, and vote. Today's political landscape will probably look very different after November of 2010 and the Tea Party movement will deserve a lot of the credit.

If you want to join the heart & soul of the Tea Party movement & largest grassroots movement in the history of the United States -- click here and become a Tea Party Patriot!

Top 10 Most Outrageous Use of Stimulus Funds

And they wonder why the Tea Party's started!

From Verum Serum -- (Emphasis Added)

“Putting Americans to work doing the work that America needs done“…

10. A $427,824 research grant to design better video games for senior citizens based on their unique “game-play needs”.

9. Funding of a Dartmouth College study involving “sexual arousal in anesthetized female rats” ($9,870).

8. Funding of a $168,300 SBA loan to the Escape Massage parlor in Midlothian, VA.

7. Funding a $447,492 Univ. of North Carolina study on the development and use of “African American English” amongst 70 adolescents.

6. $10,346 for a heating and cooling company to provide “escort services” for other companies performing a laser scanning survey at a courthouse in Honolulu, Hawaii.

5. An academic study comparing outcomes of the concurrent and separate use of malt liquor and marijuana ($389,357).

4. A $225,000 study at Ohio State University on the relative and combined impacts of air pollution and a high fat diet on obesity development.

3. A $712,883 research grant to develop “machine-generated humor“. Project will design artificially intelligent “comedic performance agents”, and will “deploy them both on and off-line for the enjoyment and illumination of everyday citizens”.

2. A $54 million project to relocate one bridge for the Napa Valley Wine Train (!) in order to mitigate the possible impact of a “100 year storm event”.

And the number one most ridiculous use of stimulus funds…

1. $9.3 million (!) to fund the design and development of a “coordinated colony of robotic bees“!