Vol. 09 No. 33
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THE FOUNDATION
"It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth -- and listen to the song of that syren, till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? ... For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it might cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it." --Patrick Henry
GOVERNMENT & POLITICS
The Trojan Horse for single-payer health care
Something Smells Fishy About This Kool-Aid
President Barack Obama appeared to backtrack on a key provision of his attempted health care coup, telling a Colorado town hall audience that "the public option, whether we have it or we don't have it, is not the entirety of health care reform. This is just one sliver of it, one aspect of it." So the president is giving in on the government-run option, right? Wrong.
While it's a given that some on the Left are going bananas over the announcement, none other than former DNC Chief Howard "The Scream" Dean let the cat out of the bag on the strategy. "[T]he president knows very well that you aren't really going to have health care reform without a public option," Dean told MSNBC's Joe Scarborough. "But he also knows he has to get this out of the Senate." So the president is playing a cynical game of politics with health care? Say it ain't so!
For now, 60 votes in the Senate are necessary to avoid a filibuster, and the public option is making that threshold harder to reach. If the bill were passed without the public option, it could be added back during reconciliation, at which point only 50 votes would be necessary for passage.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs spun the strategy shift by calling it a "boring consistency to our rhetoric." Nothing's changed, according to Gibbs. The facts, as usual, contradict the Democrats. On July 18, Obama said, "[A]ny plan I sign must include an insurance exchange: a one-stop shopping marketplace where you can compare the benefits, cost and track records of a variety of plans -- including a public option to increase competition and keep insurance companies honest -- and choose what's best for your family." But according to Gibbs, changing "must include" to "whether we have it or we don't have it" is just "boring consistency."
The proposed alternative to the public option is nonprofit health insurance cooperatives. However, as the Cato Institute's Michael Tanner explains, "Government-run health care is government-run health care no matter what you call it. The health care 'co-op' approach now embraced by the Obama administration will still give the federal government control over one-sixth of the U.S. economy, with a government-appointed board, taxpayer funding, and with bureaucrats setting premiums, benefits and operating rules. Plus," Tanner adds, "it won't be a true co-op, like rural electrical co-ops or your local health-food store -- owned and controlled by its workers and the people who use its services. Under the government plan, the members wouldn't choose its officers -- the president would."
As for the public option, Jacob S. Hacker, the liberal Yale scholar widely attributed with originating the idea, denies that it is a "Trojan Horse" to sneak in single-payer, government-run health insurance behind citizens' backs. It seems, however, that Hacker also suffers from an acute case of "boring consistency." In 2008, Hacker sounded a different note: "Someone once said to me, 'Well, this is a Trojan horse for single payer.' I said, 'Well, it's not a Trojan horse, right? It's just right there! I'm telling you!' We're going to get there [to a government-run system] -- over time, slowly." He continued, "But we'll do it in a way that we're not going to frighten people into thinking they're going to lose their private insurance."
Sounds like the frog in the boiling water to us.
This Week's 'Braying Jackass' Award
"Look at it this way: There's Federal Express, there's UPS, and there's DHL. The public option is a stamp; it's e-mail. And because of the e-mail system, and because of the post office, it keeps DHL from charging $100 for an overnight letter, or UPS from charging $100 for an overnight letter." --Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL) expounding on Barack Obama's ill-advised comparison of the public option to the Post Office
News From the Swamp: Intimidation Time
"In a move some fear is a reprisal for opposing President Obama's health care plan, Democrats sent 52 letters to health insurers requesting financial records for a House committee's investigation," Fox News reports. "Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Bart Stupak, D-Mich., sent a letter warning health insurers that the House Energy and Commerce Committee is 'examining executive compensation and other business practices of the health industry.'" Politico has a list of the 52 companies targeted. Health insurers have until Sept. 4 to provide information on all employees who earned more than $1 million a year between 2003 and 2008, as well as documents about transportation, food, lodging, entertainment, conferences and events held on company property, and even gifts. Waxman's letter gives no indication as to what or why the information is being requested, but the message is clear: Cough up the info or else. "This is using the raw power of the Congress to extort information and humiliate citizens," says former Speaker Newt Gingrich. "It is a chilling example of intimidation." Indeed.
From the 'Non Compos Mentis' File
The Leftmedia continue to portray town hall protestors as right-wing, gun-toting racist nutjobs, even when the shoe clearly doesn't fit. As we noted last week, some "protestors" are carrying signs with Barack Obama sporting a Hitler mustache and the message "I've changed." Of course, the media dutifully highlights the signs, while ignoring that they are distributed by and bear the Web site name of LaRouche PAC, the political action committee of seven-time Democrat presidential aspirant and committed socialist conspiracy nut Lyndon LaRouche. That doesn't fit the template.
Protestors with guns are also a target. The Leftmedia frets that citizens can carry guns near some of these town halls, including outside one held by the president in Phoenix, Arizona. MSNBC's Contessa Brewer commented, "A man at a pro-health care reform rally ... wore a semiautomatic assault rifle on his shoulder and a pistol on his hip.... [T]here are questions about whether this has racial overtones. I mean, here you have a man of color in the presidency, and white people showing up with guns strapped to their waists or onto their legs." What Brewer failed to mention is that the man carrying the rifle was black. In addition, the video shown on MSNBC was carefully cropped to avoid showing that the man was black -- it only showed the man's back and waist, not his face.
Of course, the anti-gun narrative is not new to MSNBC or Contessa Brewer, and neither is the racial double standard mentioned Thursday by Mark Alexander. Truth, unfortunately, is kicked to the curb.
Abortion Will Be Part of ObamaCare
It should come as no surprise that the health care overhaul being designed by congressional Democrats include provisions for federally mandated coverage of abortions by insurance providers. After all, liberals embrace what President Obama has called "reproductive justice," which apparently includes killing unborn children. (The "justice" aspect has us scratching our heads.) Some members of Congress and the president himself on occasion have stated publicly that no such mandate exists, but they are lying.
The word abortion does not appear in the draft legislation, but several provisions would not only force insurance companies to cover abortions, they would override several state laws and would ultimately lead to taxpayer funded abortions. This is what groups like Planned Parenthood have worked for all along, but the secret is out now, thanks in part to some liberal members of Congress who brazenly admit their stance that taxpayers should pay for abortions, regardless of their moral stance on the issue. "Abortion will be covered as a benefit by one or more of the health care plans available to Americans," said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), "and I think it should be." Naturally, a broad cross-section of the public is opposed to this idea, but that's never stopped liberals before.
This Week's 'Alpha Jackass' Award
"We are God's partners in matters of life and death." --Barack Obama
Hope 'n' Change: White House Spam
Let's say one doesn't agree with a White House policy. What does one do in the Information Age? Write a blog about it or post an opinion on a social network like FaceBook, or send an e-mail to friends, family and associates. By doing so, the writer creates a "paper trail," albeit in the electrons of the Internet. Once a communication is in cyberspace, it usually has infinite shelf life, and, often, the anti-White House posting can be traced back to the author.
To expedite things, a White House functionary asked supporters (a.k.a. "snitches"), ala neighborhood watchers in Communist, fascist or other totalitarian regimes, to report "fishy" speech about ObamaCare to flag@whitehouse.gov. Such reports would contain some identification of the originator of the post, hence the fear of an "enemies list."
Then a funny thing happened. All of a sudden, many Americans (including numerous Patriot readers) began getting unsolicited e-mail from the White House, some with the request that the e-mails be further circulated. Standardized unsolicited e-mail, sent in large quantities, is known as "spam." Thus, the White House became one of the most reviled users of the Internet, a spammer, a Netiquette violator.
Due to public outrage, the informant e-mail address has been shut down, though now informers can use the White House's "reality check" Web site. And the spamming was explained away and blamed on "outside organizations" submitting e-mail addresses to the White House. But the administration has demonstrated how Big Brother can use the Internet for dissident identification and for dissemination of propaganda. Is it, as H.G. Wells might have asked, "the shape of things to come"?
Ted Kennedy Seeks Quick Replacement
Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) is always a Democrat first. In a rare open demonstration of how this last of the golden Kennedy boys has always worked behind the scenes, he recently requested the Massachusetts legislature to change a law to allow Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat, to appoint a temporary replacement for him in the Senate, just in case. Kennedy has brain cancer and has been mostly absent for the last 15 months. "[I]t is vital for this commonwealth," he urged state lawmakers, "to have two voices speaking for the needs of its citizens and two votes in the Senate during the approximately five months between a vacancy and an election." In other words, health care is coming to a vote this fall, and another Democrat senator is needed to ensure 60 votes should Kennedy still be absent; but he wants an "explicit personal commitment" that the appointee would not seek the seat permanently.
Obviously, the change he requested is necessary -- for his purposes. In 2004, however, Kennedy succeeded in changing the law to its current form so that then-Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, could not appoint a Republican to replace John Kerry, should the latter have won the presidential election. Furthermore, Kennedy himself would likely not be a U.S. Senator under his proposed change. In 1961, when his older brother moved to the White House, Ted was too young to take the seat, so a loyal placeholder kept the seat for him until he could run in 1962. As we said, always a Democrat first. Or maybe it's Kennedy first, Democrat second.
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Robert Novak (1931-2009)
On Tuesday, noted journalist, television host and political commentator Robert Novak died after suffering from a brain tumor diagnosed 13 months ago. Novak's Washington career spanned over a half-century and influenced many a conservative journalist (yes, the species does exist). Perhaps it was this influence, along with his gruff, sometimes pessimistic demeanor, that earned him the moniker "the Prince of Darkness" -- a tag that Novak embraced.
The Leftmedia focused on Novak's last big story, the outing of Valerie Plame Wilson as a "super-covert" CIA desk jockey. His revelation led to an investigation by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who, although he knew the leaker's identity early on, pressed on and ended the career of Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. The New York Times called Novak "churlish," "pugnacious" and inexplicably charged that he "could not always document" his scoops -- a practice with which the Times itself is all too familiar. ABC's "Good Morning America" and CBS's "The Early Show" didn't bother mentioning Novak's death at all, even though they had plenty of time to cover Michael Jackson ... again.
More honest journalists, however, have recalled Novak for a vast body of work. It's a political résumé highlighted by his representation of conservatism on a number of televised political forums, including CNN's "Crossfire" and "Inside Politics," and by his longtime collaboration with fellow Washington journalist Rowland Evans Jr. on the Evans-Novak Report, a publication which provided insight on political events and campaigns for over four decades and survived Evans' 2001 death before finally closing up shop after the 2008 election.
The most fitting tributes recall Novak as perhaps the last great "shoe leather" reporter, whose vast wealth of sources -- to him one was either a source or a subject -- gave him the scoop on stories inside the Beltway. Once compiled, the stories were written with outstanding prose that gave readers a clear insight on events and the circumstances surrounding them. In short, Novak exhibited a talent that won't be replaced easily and his passing closes an era in Beltway journalism.
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