ObamaCare & War Against Tyrrany

Some conservatives have likened Sunday night's health care loss to the Battle of Thermopylae. The Spartans lost the Battle of Thermopylae ― in fact, King Leonidas and his men were almost completely wiped out. But the Spartans inflicted so much damage on their enemy that the course of history was permanently changed:

The Greeks took encouragement from the unprecedented sacrifice of a Spartan King and his royal guard on their behalf...

The Greeks defeated, and eventually destroyed, the Persian invaders. The rallying cry of the victors was Thermopylae, the noble sacrifice of the final stand of the outnumbered Greeks, and especially the courage of the fallen Three Hundred Spartans under King Leonidas.

I don't know if we will win this war against tyranny or if future generations will have to win it for us, but the fascist socialists who broke the contract with America that is the Constitution will surely pay a heavy price for what they are doing now.

On the eve of ObamaCare's passage, even the Democrats' friends at CNN found that 60% of Americans were opposed to the ill-conceived plan. Here are a few of the reasons why:

• We NEED thousands of new doctors and nurses, but instead, with ObamaCare, we GET thousands of new IRS agents.
• The Senior Congressional Staff who wrote the ObamaCare bill exempted themselves.
• 70% of Americans believe the federal budget deficit will go up as a result of ObamaCare.
• 62% say the amount they pay for medical care will increase.
• 56% view ObamaCare as creating too much government involvement in health care.
• Never in the history of the United States has the Congress ever passed a law which required any citizen to enter into a contract with another citizen or a private business against their will … Never, that is, until now.
• With this new precedent, if the Supreme Court does not strike it down, there is literally nothing the federal government can’t force us to do.
• You are an employer and you would like to offer coverage that doesn’t allow your employees’ slacker children to stay on the policy until age 26? Tough.
• You are young and don’t want health insurance? You are starting up a small business and need to minimize expenses, and one way to do that is to forgo health insurance? Tough. You have to pay at least $750 annually for the “privilege.”
• You are young and healthy and want to pay for insurance that reflects that status? Tough. You’ll have to pay for premiums that cover not only you, but also the guy who smokes three packs a day, drinks a gallon of whiskey and eats chicken fat off the floor. That’s because insurance companies will no longer be able to underwrite on the basis of a person’s health status.
• You’re a single guy without children? Tough, your policy must cover pediatric services. You’re a woman who can’t have children? Tough, your policy must cover maternity services. You’re a teetotaler? Tough, your policy must cover substance abuse treatment.

Queen Nancy said we would have to pass the bill in order to see what's in the bill. She should have been more careful about what she wished for.

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In the end they have merely made themselves more vulnerable to the gilded clutches of the political class

ObamaCare: Dem "No" Votes and Dem Switchers

Exempted From ObamaCare: Senior Staff Who Wrote the Bill

Nikki Haley’s Money Bomb

GAME OVER

Liberty was raped in the middle of the night.

Now you will live the way the state tells you to live. You will pay the price the state tells you to pay.

I feel no obligation to comply with ObamaCare except to stay out of trouble. There is no moral or ethical imperitive. An unpopular and unconstitutional law has no legitimacy.

In November 2008, our country was noted to be gravely ill. At the time, we had no way of knowing whether the illness was terminal. Now we know.

USA RIP.

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Consent of the Governed?

Encouraging words from Paul Ryan

What I Saw at the Code Red Rally in Washington

It was an incredible day at the Code Red rally in Washington D.C. It was a restrained and compulsively neat crowd (end of speech chant: Pick up trash! Pick up trash!), but it was also an assertive, angry and impatient group.

The Democrats in Washington are apparently immovable, and that's really too bad. If the party in charge of D.C. keeps ignoring the people, the consequences are going to be ugly.

Pictures are worth thousands of words, so without further ado, here are the highlights of my visit to D.C. (click on images to enlarge):

Washington sheds a tear.

These truths are no longer self-evident.

Pony reform!

Code Pink at Code Red

Too brown to work at MSNBC.

Is someone having a Coffee Party?

Sending a message

Keeping the right-wing extremists in check

US Representative Mary Fallin (OK-5)

US Representative Michael McCaul (TX-10): "They still don't have the votes."

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God Bless America: What I Saw on the West Lawn Saturday

Democrats libel 'Kill the Bill' crowd

Media Lying About Racist Attacks

Weird: Black woman among those accused of hurling racial slurs at Congressional Black leaders

Manufactured Outrage of the Day: Left Horrified Over Alleged Slurs at D.C. Rally

Left Coast Rebel: San Diego's Kill the Bill rally

Michelle Malkin: Kill the Bill activists will return on Sunday.

Memeorandum

Kill the Bill: See You in Washington, D.C.

This is it. The House votes on the Senate health care takeover bill on Sunday. If the bill passes, the battle is over. The statists will have won. Forget about reconciliation, that's almost irrelevant at this point. Forget about repealing the bill after the November elections or in 2013. I wouldn't count on piecemeal destruction of ObamaCare in the Supreme Court either.

I can't take this sitting down. I'm flying out to Washington, D.C. tomorrow. I hope some of you can be there too. If you can't make it to D.C., please join me here. I will be live blogging through the day here at RightKlik.

Details on the rally:

Massive Code Red rally in Washington, DC at 12 noon on Saturday, March 20, 2010 at the West Lawn of the Capitol:

Featured speakers at the Washington, D.C. Rally on Saturday will include:

Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann (MN)
Congressman Tom Price (GA)
Congressman Joe Wilson (SC)
Congressman Phil Gingrey (GA)
Actor & Conservative Jon Voight
Dr. Milton Wolf, Barack Obama’s second
cousin who opposes Obamacare
Colin Hanna, Let Freedom Ring
Jim Martin, 60 Plus
Phil Kerpen, Americans for Prosperity
Tim Phillips, Americans for Prosperity
Andrew Langer, Institute for Liberty
Kathryn Serkes, Doctor Patient Medical Association
Mark Skoda, Memphis Tea Party
Amy Kremer, Tea Party Express
Jennifer Hulsey, American Grassroots Coalition
FreedomWorks Representative
Ben Cunningham, Founder of the
Tennessee Tax Revolt
Darla Dawald, Grassfire Nation

...a major rally planned by multiple Tea Party groups voicing their opposition to the $2.5 trillion government takeover of health care.

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Washington, D.C.— Hands Off My Health Care, A Project of Americans for Prosperity®, is part of a grassroots coalition rallying on Capitol Hill on Saturday, March 20th at 12:00 noon in opposition to the health care overhaul that is expected to be voted on in the U.S. House on Sunday.

The noon Code Red Rally will feature speakers such as Rep. Michelle Bachmann, Rep. Joe Wilson, Rep. Tom Price, actor John Voight, Dr. Milton Wolf (President Obama’s second cousin who opposes Obamacare), and leaders from grassroots and issue organizations such as American Grassroots Coalition, Americans for Prosperity, Let Freedom Ring, 60 Plus, Tea Party Express, and many others. In addition to the rally, there will be a candlelight vigil around the Capitol on Saturday evening and a nationwide “virtual vigil” on BlogTalk radio sponsored by DoctorsandPatients.org.

“It is time for Washington to finally listen to the American people by voting to kill this bill,” said Phil Kerpen , AFP’s vice president for policy. “For an entire year, instead of creating jobs, this administration has distracted and divided the American people with wildly irresponsible and unpopular dead-end health care policies. This legislation will limit patient choice, increase bureaucracy, kill jobs, raise taxes, slash Medicare funding, create a system of rationing, and ultimately threaten our country’s financial solvency. American taxpayers, seniors, small businesses, minorities, and the middle class will suffer. This is not real reform and this bill must be defeated.”

What: Code Red Rally

When: Saturday, March 20, 2010 at 12:00 Noon EST

Where: West Lawn of the Capitol

Health Care Tsunami

This is a fiscal disaster waiting to happen. But no one on the other side cares.

The Health Care Tsunami…We're going to be crushed by this wave. Are you ready?

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Courage from Coburn (video)

ObamaCare very unpopular in key Democrat districts

NRO: 12,000 new IRS agents to enforce Obamacare

The Unabomber Has a Higher Approval Rating Than Members of Congress:

Data Scrubbed: Media Matters vs. NEJM (updated)

Media Matters, the mindless mouthpiece of the radical left, is having difficulty accepting the fact that ObamaCare is threatening to drive doctors away from medicine. So Media Matters has attacked the validity of data featured on a New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) website:

Right-wing media have seized on a dubious, three-month old email "survey" that purports to show that physicians are concerned about health care reform and that 46 percent of the primary care doctors surveyed "indicated that they would leave medicine - or try to leave medicine - as a result of health reform."

Many media figures have falsely attributed this survey to the New England Journal of Medicine. For example, on Fox & Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade said: "The New England Journal of Medicine has published a report and did a survey, and they said the impact of reform on primary care physicians, 46 percent, they say, feel reform will force them out or make them want to leave medicine."

This is false.

Media Matters for America contacted the New England Journal of Medicine, which confirmed it neither conducted nor published the "survey."

False? Interesting conclusion. Here's what I found:

(From page 1, click image to enlarge)

(From page 3, click image to enlarge)

http://www.nejmjobs.org/content/rpt/pdf/marApr_10.pdf *

You can click on the link above for a PDF file (while supplies last).* The PDF file is all that is available at the moment. I suspect the PDF file will eventually become inaccessible because the original NEJM web page that featured the same controversial data has been scrubbed.* The cached page (provided by Google) was scrubbed while I was writing this post, just moments before I decided to try to get a screen shot.

The document sports the NEJM seal; it is clearly marked as a product of Massachusetts Medical Society, and it clearly features the information that was later repudiated:

46.3% of primary care physicians (family medicine and internal medicine) feel that the passing of health reform will either force them out of medicine or make them want to leave medicine.

...

Source: “Physician Survey: Health Reform’s Impact on Physician Supply and Quality of Medical Care,” The Medicus Firm, www.TheMedicusFirm.com.

There is nothing in the document (and nothing on the scrubbed web page) to suggest that the information had not been approved and endorsed by the NEJM.

Here's a note with which the progressive folks at the NEJM attempted to cover their tracks after controversy began to swirl:

On December 17, 2009 The Medicus Firm, a national physician search firm based in Dallas and Atlanta, published the results of a survey they conducted with 1,000 physicians regarding their attitudes toward health reform. To read their survey results at The Medicus Firm website, click here.

The opinions expressed in the article linked to above represent those of The Medicus Firm only. That article does not represent the opinions of the New England Journal of Medicine or the Massachusetts Medical Society.

If you didn't know better, you might think that the NEJM was just innocently minding its own business when it was mugged by vicious right-wing yahoos from Medicus wielding dubious data. But you do know better (or you soon will). Here are the relevant relationships...

The Massachusetts Medical Society publishes the New England Journal of Medicine (nejm.org), NEJM CareerCenter (nejmjobs.org) and Recruiting Physicians Today.

Recruiting Physicians Today (RPT) is a newsletter available at NEJM CareerCenter and is the publication that featured the data that caused Media Matters to go into conniptions. The link to the March/April issue of RPT at NEJM CareerCenter is currently missing, but the URL is here.

Here's the deal: The polling numbers published on the NEJM Career Center website are entirely consistent with what we've seen elsewhere (i.e. the IBD/TIPP poll).

The data published in RPT (by left-leaning organization with no clear incentive to have published fabricated right-wing talking points) are also consistent with common sense. The Mayo clinic pulled out of Medicare earlier in the year and this week we learned that Walgreens is pulling out of Medicaid. Also, consider what's happening with physician shortages resulting from RomneyCare in Massachusetts. Isn't it fair to say that a pattern is beginning to emerge? Isn't that pattern consistent with the Medicus data?

If Media Matters and the NEJM find it inconvenient to acknowledge the fact that doctors are serious about leaving their profession if ObamaCare passes, just wait. If their ObamaCare wishes come true, they will get a bitter dose of reality soon.

*Update: I was correct. Massachusetts Medical Society discovered this post today (3.30.10) and the link to the incriminating PDF file now takes you to this: "The NEJM CareerCenter was recently redesigned and the page's address may have changed. We apologize for any inconvenience. "

This content post has been changed to reflect the latest MMS scrubbing.

Here is the publication that contains the data of which the MMS is apparently very ashamed.

Bret Baier vs. Barack Obama

Bret Baier is tough! Would you have the courage to interview a sitting president of the United States in this fashion? This is awesome:

h/t: Sister Toldjah

On the road to Demon Pass, our leader encounters a Baier.

Dennis "UFO" Kucinich Now Believes in ObamaCare

The Democratic Congressman who believes in UFOs has been skeptical of Democrats' health care plan, but after taking a ride on Air Force One, he is now a believer. Here's his explanation:

I got an invitation to go on Air Force One--given my previous record in not supporting the administration on many things, I thought that proper attire would include a parachute," Kucinich joked.

But with health care, Kucinich said, more is at stake--including perhaps the country's ability to do anything.

"I left [our previous meeting] with a real sense of compassion for our president and what he's going through," Kucinich said. "We have to be compassionate towards those who are called upon to make decisions for this nation. It's not an easy burden that he has taken up."

"One of the things that has bothered me," Kucinich added, "has been the attempt to delegitimatize his presidency. That hurts the nation when that happens. He was elected...this is a defining moment for whether or not we'll have any opportunity to move off square one on the issue of health care... I think it's important that--we have to be very careful that the potential of President Obama's presidency not be destroyed by this debate."

Well that's nice. Of the hundreds of millions of people who would be affected by this bill, Dennis "UFO" Kucinich is focused on one: BHO.

As goes Dennis Kucinich, so goes the Republic.

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It’s official: Kucinich switches to “yes” on ObamaCare

Will Kucinich’s Vote Help ObamaCare?

Left Coast Rebel: Dennis Kucinich is the 'prinicipled' progressive guy?

Another 15 minutes of fame for UFO Kucinich?

Kucinich is no longer worried about the economy, doesn't mind forcing people to buy private health insurance.

81% of Americans oppose the ObamaCare plan to allow government to decide what kind of health care we are able to purchase.

WWBHOD?

While Newsweek thinks Obama is god, the New York Times thinks he is Jesus. Or some kind of Messiah, anyway. At least that's what I gather from this highly religulous picture they posted on their website. The symbolism is unmistakable, and I love these comments from Cheryl Prater:

Silly, silly...that’s not a Christian cross, it’s the international sign for hospitals. And that’s not a halo, it’s the sun. And that’s not the kingdom of God in the distance, it’s the White House. And that not the Messiah, it’s the…oh wait, yeah it is.

Erick Erickerson was one of the first to ask, "Is this photoshopping the New York Times' way of endorsing the idea that Obama is now god?"

Close, but no. He's Jesus.

By reviewing the central attributes of the photograph, Doug Ross explains:

• Obama, in what has become a tradition for the media, is deified with lighting that resembles a halo (ever recall the use of similar lighting for George W. Bush?)
• Deification is further emphasized through the use of a cross watermark, courtesy of a mosaic filter.
• The focus, however, is on Obama's single upraised finger, the digit pointing towards the heavens, as if to say "I am the one that can save us, as it was foretold by the ancients." Or something.
• The White House, a tiny, nearly transparent reflection, is located below the President; it seemingly says that the man is bigger than the office. He is more real. He is more important. He is the One.

There's always a doubting Thomas:

Of course, in real life, Barack Obama appears to be little more than a cigarette-puffing Chicago pol, trained in the Alinsky school, whose doctor recently requested that he cut down on his drinking.

Key word: "appears." Appearances can be deceiving.

What was the New York Times trying to accomplish with this picture? The photoshopped image accompanies a NYT article that begs us to help the Democrats save souls lives Obama's presidency by supporting Obama's health care reform health insurance regulation bill:

The Times' concern, laughably, is for the Obama legacy, not the hundreds of millions of citizens whose very lives will be impacted by a Rube Goldberg-esque, certain-to-fail, country-bankrupting, Soviet central-planner's *** dream.

Paging all Coffee Party patriots...STAT!

Some suspect that the religious conceptualizations were unintentional, but the image was created by Nola Lopez, a high profile illustrator who specializes in conceptual illustrations. Here's a blurb from the bio on her website:

After working as a designer/illustrator, a window dresser and photographer's stylist, she decided to pursue photography as a career. She describes her work as conceptual still life and collage and works with a diverse group of clients including Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, In Style, W, Fortune, Random House, A&M Records, Citibank, Merrill Lynch and Visa among others.

[emphasis added]

You don't have a list clients like that if you don't know what you're doing or if you don't understand how to carefully manipulate powerful symbolism. Unintentional? I think not.

Hat tip: iOwnTheWorld