The State of Massachusetts has reached a new low. When Sen. John Kerry was the Democratic nominee in 2004, the legislature, fearful that then-Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, might appoint a Republican to replace Kerry in the U.S. Senate, changed state law so that any senate vacancy could be filled only by a special election. Fast-forward to 2009. Massachusetts now has a governor from the Democratic party, and when Sen. Kennedy passed away last month, the great fear of the moment was that there might be a vacancy in the U.S. Senate (one which could easily be filled by an appointed, interim, sure-Democrat successor) during debate on Obamacare. So what do the state legislators do? You guessed it: They changed the law again so that, rather than waiting for a January 2010 special election to select someone to fill the remainder of Kennedy’s term, the governor could appoint a temporary Senator. It was announced today that Kennedy pal Paul Kirk will hold the seat until the January election winner is sworn in next year. Yes, Massachusetts is the state that is so firmly rooted in principles (*cough*) that they change their laws whenever the office of Governor changes parties. Are the citizens of Massachusetts embarrassed by this? I would be…
The Obama White House is hard at work trying to make sure that you don’t see, or at least don’t believe, what Obama said about his goals for healthcare reform prior to the current push for legislation in Congress. For instance, here’s one video published by the White House:
This particular video is in response to this one:
The ploy here is to make such a clamor about what BHO has said before public groups in 2009 that it will hopefully drown out what he said before “friendlies” (and make no mistake, an AFL-CIO meeting is a friendly crowd for him) in 2003. How can we know what his true intentions are? Answer: We can’t! We cannot trust that what he says today is the unvarnished truth concerning his intentions for the future of healthcare in the United States. He is in full salesman mode today, and will say anything to make you believe that his plans are innocuous where your choices and liberty are concerned. Videos like the one featuring Linda Douglas above are propaganda tools.
Think about this: Obama has said a thousand times, “If you like your current plan, you can keep it.” What did he NOT say? He did not say that you could switch from your current plan to another private plan. Under legislation currently pending in Congress, you could either keep the coverage you had at the time the new system went into effect, or you could switch to the “public option” plan. That’s it: Keep what you have right now, or go with Uncle Sam’s grand plan - no other option. Do you like the sound of that? Where does that leave you when your current insurer decides to exit the business, as Pelosi, Reid, and their minions intend? Then the “public option” has become your “only option.”
Ask your Representative or Senator, “Will I be able to choose from any private plan, or only between what I currently have and the government plan?” I don’t believe you’ll get a straight answer to that question from a backer of government-run healthcare. Don’t let them bob and weave like the White House is currently doing.
The Heritage Foundation, in a brief published on July 21st, points out apparent conflicts between what President Obama has been saying about “his” healthcare reform plan since the campaign, and what the plan passed out of a House committee the previous week stipulates with regard to guaranteeing that citizens could keep existing health insurance coverage [...]
There is much discussion, and considerable trepidation, concerning what reforming our health care system will produce, and what role bureaucrats might have in the allocation of resources to individual patients. That’s a wordy way to say it. The simple way: People have questions about rationing medical care.
Rationing is the process of allocating scarce resources which [...]
The massive energy tax couched as a climate bill, most often called Cap and Trade, is only the latest incarnation of liberal genius applied to energy policy. Remember it was Pres. Jimmy Carter (D) who championed the creation of the U.S. Department of Energy, which was accomplished during his first year in office. (Quick: Name [...]
So, I read this article, learn that intelligence suggests that N. Korea is planning to launch a ballistic missile over Japan and toward Hawaii in the next few weeks, and then have to wonder. Remind me again why President Obama cancelled much of the U.S. missile defense program? Was it because he just needed the [...]
The press in the U.S. has long been referred to as the fourth branch of government, meaning that although without any vested powers constitutionally (other than freedom) it carried a duty to provide a check on government’s power and actions by examining and reporting to the citizenry just what government was seeking and doing in [...]
It’s finally official: GM is going to file for bankruptcy, providing protection from creditors as the company seeks to reorganize. Why didn’t we (by “we” I mean the boneheads in Washington) allow this to happen in the final quarter of 2008, when every thinking person could see that it was both inevitable and the only [...]
