Category: Health Care

‘Does All of This Activism Matter?’

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When I saw this linked by Dan Riehl, I was frankly stunned that an impressive turnout for a rally in St. Paul inspired Powerline’s John Hinderaker to suggest citizens protesting against ObamaCare “won’t stop the Democrats from doing whatever they have to do to pass a government takeover bill.”

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

Mr. Hinderaker: No coach ever went into the locker room at halftime and told his team they were doomed to defeat. No general preparing to lead troops into battle would begin by telling them their fight was futile. 

“Rock, sometime when the team is up against it and the breaks are beating the boys, tell them to go out there with all they’ve got and win just one for the Gipper.”

“Never take counsel of your fears,” as a great general once said, or to quote Vince Lombardi: “A quitter never wins and a winner never quits.”

Let me amend Lombardi’s famous maxim by saying that so long as there is any hope of victory, a winner never even considers the possibility of defeat — or, if the thought of defeat crosses his mind, he certainly never suggests it aloud.

What is true in athletics or warfare is doubly true in politics, where the “bandwagon” mentality often leads uncommitted voters to support whichever side they perceive as more likely to win.

Mr. Hinderaker: Why do you suppose that Democratic leaders are trying to create the impression of inevitability? Why are liberals trotting out misleading polls and RINO stooges in support of their legislative monstrosity? This is all a psychological game intended to dishearten their opponents and convince wavering members of Congress that they can safely vote “yes.”

If the Democrats believed their own victory was inevitable, they would not be doing these things. Their extraordinary efforts do not indicate confidence, but doubt. If Democrats are doubtful, shouldn’t this inspire us to greater confidence? Rather than pronouncing our own efforts likely to fail, shouldn’t we be even more encouraged that we are about to inflict upon our antagonists a defeat that they will never forget?

“I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing.”
— Ronald Reagan, Jan. 20, 1981

Mr. Hinderaker: Perhaps you didn’t mean to be defeatist when you asked, “Does all of this activism matter?” Perhaps you have overlooked the evidence that “all of this activism” matters very, very much.

When I was in Boston to cover Scott Brown’s Senate campaign, I interviewed Randy May, who drove 1,600 miles to volunteer for the Brown campaign:

“I woke up about six months ago and realized that I had let my country down by letting these things happen.”
— Randy May, Jan. 17, 2010

When a man who has fought for freedom feels compelled to become involved in such a remarkable way, which of us should discourage him by speculating whether “all of this activism” matters?

My computer bag still contains a few scraps of confetti from the Park Plaza ballroom in Boston where we celebrated the victory of “Downtown Scotty Brown,” whose miracle in Massachusetts elected the Senate’s “41st vote” against ObamaCare. It is because of that improbable victory — “The Scott Heard ‘Round the World” — that Pelosi and the Democrats have been forced into the desperate last-ditch maneuvering of the “Slaughter Solution.”

Mr. Hinderaker: ObamaCare is losing. We are winning.

“Does all of this activism matter?” The answer is not just “yes,” but “Hell, yes!”

And I encourage everyone who can make it to Washington to meet me at 9 a.m. Tuesday on Capitol Hill.

The People’s Surge against Obamacare 2.0
Please join us in DC to lobby our congressmen to VOTE NO on Obamacare 2.0. Join us Tuesday, March 16th, beginning at 9:00am outside the Cannon House Office Building (Independence Ave. SE and New Jersey SE). We will be storming the three House Office Buildings: Cannon, Longworth and Rayburn. Our message is simple: VOTE NO on Obamacare 2.0.

BE THERE!

UPDATE: Et tu, Jules Crittenden?

It’s a poorly cobbled together collection of ill-conceived ideas foisted at the worst possible time, primarily because for once, the Dems have found a leader who won’t govern by poll, refuses to believe the polls and won’t surrender, thanks in part to advisors who assure him the polls are wrong.

But that’s not the question at all! No one supposes that Barack Obama or his aides give a damn at this point. No one is trying to persuade them of anything. It’s the Democrats in Congress who are the objects of this activism. Obama is leading them and the entire country over the cliff, and the hope is that their minimal concern for political self-interest — if not some tiny flickering spark of patriotism — will inspire them to end this lemming march into the abyss.

UPDATE II: Say what you will about her, Sarah Palin fights:

This is the final push. We must stand up and stand together one last time to insist on true market-oriented, patient-centered health care reform that reflects America’s values and the will of the people.

Read the whole thing. And be there Tuesday.

A Rhetorical Question, We Presume

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“Isn’t It Time To Euthanize Reid’s Wife?” 

Dan Riehl certainly knows how to provoke Alan Colmes to paroxysms of self-righteous indignation — a praiseworthy project in itself, quite apart from getting written up by the thought-police at Media Matters.

Speaking of euthanization, we earlier mentioned the March 16 Stop ObamaCare 2.0 event in D.C., which aims to put a merciful end to this legislative abomination. Michelle Malkin publishes a list of the key targets of the event.

UPDATE: “Dan’s a snarky bastard” — and I’m sure Tabitha Hale means that as a compliment. Just like Nancy Pelosi meant this as a compliment to unborn babies:

Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children’s health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those – one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.

Memeorandum captures further Riehl-induced commentary.

Surprise! Sandinista Stooge Jim Wallis Endorses Socialist ObamaCare Bill

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Being a student of Cold War history comes in handy when you see a misleading headline like this:

Pro-life group urges Congress
to pass Senate health care bill

“Pro-life group,” my butt. Go down the list of names on that petition, do a little research and you discover that these are all advocates of “social justice,” including notorious anti-American “liberation theology” types like Jim Wallis of Sojourners:

Writing in the November 1983 issue of Sojourners, ministry leaders Jim Wallis and Jim Rice drafted what would become the charter of leftist activists committed to the proliferation of Communist revolutions in Central America. Titled “Promise of Resistance,” this document called on activists to carry out various acts of civil disobedience in order to obstruct any attempt by the United States to invade Nicaragua. CISPES, the propaganda arm of El Salvador’s Marxist guerrilla movement, was invited by Sojourners to participate in acts of resistance in the event of American military intervention. Nearly 70,000 activists signed the document, which was sent to Congress, President Reagan, the Defense Department, and the CIA.
Steadfast advocates of the nuclear freeze movement, Sojourners members maintained that a U.S. nuclear buildup was “an intolerable evil” irreconcilably at odds with Christian teaching, and that “[t]he Reagan Administration remains the chief obstacle to the first step in stopping the arms race.” While assailing the Reagan administration’s defense buildup, Sojourners activists downplayed the threat posed by the Soviet Union, chastising U.S. policy-makers for their tendency “to assume the very worst about their Soviet counterparts.”

If you don’t know that the “nuclear freeze” movement in the West was an anti-American propaganda campaign actively supported by the Soviets — see this 2001 Accuracy in Media report for background — you may not understand the profound significance of that single data point. But you can still probably understand the significance of this:

Sojourners is a member organization of the Win Without War and United for Peace and Justice anti-war coalitions. It condemns the Guantanamo Bay detention center, where several hundred terrorist suspects are being held by the U.S. government. Said the Sojourners website on June 10, 2005:
“Guantanamo Bay has become not only a symbol of the U.S. government’s hypocrisy and dishonesty — or ‘disassembling,’ as President Bush might put it — around the war on terror. The prison camp has become one of the more egregious examples of the cost of unaccountable power. Human rights groups have long documented the abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo, including desecration of the Quran. … The 540 prisoners at the facility have been held incommunicado, denied access to legal counsel, and, in fact, denied the most basic aspects of legal process. … Guantanamo should be closed. But simply closing the facility — and either moving the detainees to another location or returning them to their country of origin — is not enough. If the United States is to regain any credibility as an advocate of human rights around the world, it must begin to practice what it preaches in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Guantanamo, and everywhere else. The erosion of respect for human rights by U.S. personnel didn’t begin at Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay, and the responsibility for it goes all the way to the top.”

Sojourners also gets funding from George Soros’ “Open Society” foundation. Sojourners and Wallis were pro-Soviet during the Cold War. They are pro-Obama now. 

Their anti-American, anti-capitalist agenda remains the same.

UPDATE: Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit has more background on the signatories.

UPDATE II: Left Coast Rebel links with more.

UPDATE III: Dad29 points to the heterodox tendencies of another signatory, Marquette University professor Bryan Massingale.

Exit question: What’s up with the editors of the National Catholic Reporter publishing propaganda for these clowns? I’m not Catholic, so I don’t particularly care what the answer is, but it seems like a question worth asking.

Stop ObamaCare 2.0: D.C. Activism Opportunity — Tuesday, March 16

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Tabitha Hale of FreedomWorks explains it all:

We are calling everyone that is able to come to Washington, DC on March 16th, 2010 for one last push against Obamacare. We will meet at the Cannon building at 9am and speak with as many representatives as possible, encouraging them to vote NO on this version of health care reform.

Here is Tabitha in the official video announcement:

Smitty and I dropped by Friday to see Tabitha at FreedomWorks, and decided that it was a good time to record an unofficial video:

OK, maybe our version lacks smooth professionalism but it’s got that crucial grassroots authenticity, you see.

Tabitha’s FreedomWorks colleague Nan Swift reports that Tuesday’s forecast in D.C. is 64 degrees and partly cloudy — great weather to go to Capitol Hill and tell Congress to stop this ObamaCare trainwreck.

Also be sure to sign the “No Reconciliation” petition — it’s already got more than 100,000 signatures.

ObamaCare Swindle Makes DC Beltway Look Like a Kiddie-Car Ride

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When it comes to cussing people straight to Hell, the experience of driving I-495 would tempt a saint, but it can’t hold a candle to the spontaneous-Tourette’s factor of Lynne Woolsey’s latest proposal:

As House Democrats press for final passage of a health care bill, a legislative scenario has emerged whereby the House wouldn’t have to take a formal roll call vote to endorse the Senate version of the legislation.
Instead, the House would craft a special piece of legislation declaring the Senate bill to have been passed by the House when the House approves its package of “fixes” under the budget reconciliation process. That would spare House members of the perception of endorsing politically explosive Senate deals such as the “Cornhusker Kickback.” . . .
“I don’t need to see my colleagues vote for the Senate bill in the House. We don’t like the Senate bill. Why should we be forced to do that?” said Woolsey, D-Calif. “But what we need to know, before any Senate bill is passed, that we have enough of the fixes that we’ve asked for, that we will be satisfied with the final product as a beginning for health care [reform].”

Are you saying, you contemptible harridan, that you intend to ram this damnable monstrosity down our throats on a voice vote? Generations yet unborn will  curse the name of Lynne Woolsey.

Our Problems Exceed Barack Obama

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by Smitty

Dan Riehl’s post looks into Rasmussen’s poll numbers and concludes that they are suggestive of BHO’s arrogance and that

Obama is completely out of step with America’s priorities right now.

Barack is the culmination of a century of centralization in American politics.
If you check out the non-snarky Twitter #thankaliberal entries, the Left is quick and unfailing to pat itself on the back for every single positive thing that ever happened in the US.
We have to be diligent until January 2013, and I don’t mean to distract from that task.
But do save a couple of brain cycles for the bigger picture. The Left hopes you do not. They, I infer, would gleefully let us think that BHO is the source of all ill, and all we need to do is vote him out. No’ so fast. The real threat is the underlying ideology.
It’s an open question, not to offend the HillBuzz lads, whether HRC would have been better than BHO. I suppose she’d have driven a bit closer to the median, as opposed to stacking her administration up in the port-side ditch. But is her underlying ideology significantly different? I’m not so sure.
The bigger strategic question is more than just how we fight off another unsustainable entitlement. No, it’s how do we take the rest of those sacred cow entitlements out back and butcher them, in a politically executable fashion.
The problem is not the names, but the ideology, and the entitlements it breeds.

Update: Rick Moran points out 8 myths about BHO that Conservatives push.  Again: ignore BHO the tool, and focus on saving the greater project that tool was harming.