I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately, especially after all these non-elected czars being appointed. Then after watching this deal with Van Jones go down the concluding question is WHO in government actually cares about America, the people and the Constitution?

While the Van Jones controversy has been transpiring, where was the outrage from Congress, irrelevant of the party stripe, about a self avowed communist having the President’s ear. In addition to the communism thing, all of his other idiotic statements were out there, some for a long time, and still, nothing from Congress! Only after public outrage got vehement and was blasted all over Fox News (who themselves were way behind the curve on this), did some republican Congressmen voice their opposition to Jones being in any position of authority.

There should have been intense outrage at the lack of opposition from Congress. This makes me believe there are no patriots in Congress who took their roles and responsibilities, that We the People have charged them with – as in, upholding and defending the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic! Seriously, where were the brave men and women in the Congress who would rise up and put their collective foot down on this administration’s active erosion of civil rights and Constitutionality!? There was NOTHING on their sites about it. Nothing on the news (even Fox) from them about it. They were sitting back and being as quiet as the mainstream news, meanwhile Facebook, Blogs, Twitter and others were lit up and going insane crying out begging for someone, ANYONE to listen …

So as the democrats are actively looking to take this country into the realm of socialism/communism, the republicans are content to sit back and watch silently as the democrats drive the bus off the cliff! ARE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WILLING TO LET THIS HAPPEN?

This should be an emphatic NO!!!!

Democrats, get out the hard left, this Marxist left you are in and surrounded by! Republicans, clean up your party and get your voice and feet to action, your silence is inept!

Maybe it’s time for another party … that is actually for the people?!

The “remaking” of America continues at breakneck speed. The man who occupies the Oval Office has made an appeal to the American people that the time for discussion is over and that socialized medicine in the form of so-called healthcare reform must be passed now. He said, “This is a problem we can no longer wait to fix. Deferring reform is nothing more than defending the status quo – and those who would oppose our efforts should take a hard look at just what it is they’re defending.” Of course, there have been several news stories that the 1,018 page healthcare legislation has not even been read by the Congressmen who will vote on it.

If people would read the healthcare bills before Congress they would be astonished. The legislation mandates the use of taxpayer money to fund abortions. The legislation calls for a government tribunal of political appointees – not even elected officials – to determine who receives healthcare and under what conditions. This healthcare reform is tantamount to euthanasia for senior citizens. Obama told ABC News on June 24th that older people who didn’t have much longer to live were maybe “better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller.” Meaning that if you are no longer productive to society – translated, paying taxes – the government will decide you cannot receive life-prolonging treatment.

However that’s not all the government will control with this brand of healthcare reform. Page 16 of the healthcare bill specifically outlaws individual private coverage. In other words, you will not be able to buy insurance apart from a government-approved plan. Indeed, if you do not want to participate in socialized medicine, you have no choice … no matter what Obama and others say with their mouths! The IRS will have authority to fine you thousands of dollars a year if you cannot prove you are insured by a government approved plan. Small businesses will be required to provide the government health insurance at a tremendous cost, resulting in price increases on goods or closing the doors at unprecedented job losses.

Killing the pre-born; euthanizing the elderly; government appointed tribunals determining healthcare (referred to as the death panels); forcing government healthcare upon reluctant citizens; destroying jobs and causing inflation – these are just a few of the results of HR 3200 – America’s Affordable Health Choice Act of 2009. Ironically the American people, and those in health care professions, will have no choice … the American people in their health choices, and the health care providers in their moral and ethical choices.

Jesus said in Matthew 5:13, “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.” This healthcare bill is immoral and Christians have a directive to stand for righteousness and morality. Let us speak boldly to all who will lend an ear, and after having done that … stand!

I have read extensively and have personal experience with universal health care. The real fact is that Obamacare … in its present 1,000-plus-page H.R. 3200 form … cannot and will not provide the remedy required for health care reform.

We know this Obamacare House bill grants government the authority to come into homes and usurp parental rights over child care and development. But did you know that the underlying source that is spearheading this initiative behind the scenes, as “adviser” to the Obama administration, is Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a bioethicist and breast oncologist and brother of White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. And that his bible for health care reform is his book Healthcare, Guaranteed.

Dr. Emanuel has served as special adviser to the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget for health policy as far back as February, when he confessed to the Washington bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times that he was “working on (the) health care reform effort.” Was this the first draft of Obamacare?

If you want to know the future of America’s universal health care, then you must understand the health care principles and plans of Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel. It is far more than a coincidence how much Emanuel’s book parallels Obamacare’s philosophy, strategy and proposed legislation.

First, Emanuel rejects any attempts at incremental change or reform to our health care system (Page 185). What is needed, he concludes in his book (Page 171), is an immediate and totally comprehensive reconstruction of health care as we know it. That, of course, describes the vision of Obamacare to a T.

Second, in the chapter “Opening the Door to Comprehensive Change,” starting on Page 171 (which reads more like a political and mass-manipulating strategy than a health care manual), Emanuel drives home “a key political lesson: the need to rush the legislation through.” (Seen this methodology being used lately?!)

Third, as Obama crusades around the country pitching Obamacare, he continues to avoid giving virtually any specific details of the program. That, too, is a strategy of Emanuel’s: “Americans need to avoid the policy weeds. Focusing on details will only distract and create tangles and traps (Page 183).” So “details” of health care reform are “weeds”? That is why we continue to hear only warm and fuzzy generalities from Obama, such as, “If you’ve already got health care, the only thing we’re going to do for you is we’re going to reform the insurance companies so that they can’t cheat you.”

Fourth, Emanuel describes a comprehensive government health care program that is run completely by a national health board and 12 regional health boards (“modeled on the Federal Reserve System” — Page 83). Critics would say, “But that is not the national board as described in Obamacare or H.R. 3200.” Not yet, anyway. D oes anyone doubt that the duties and power of the national “Health Benefits Advisory Committee” will morph and grow over time? And what power will it wield when it is like the Federal Reserve?

Fifth, Emanuel believes in the “phasing out of Medicare (and) Medicaid (pages 88-89 and 94-95).” Could their eventual termination be the reason Obama’s administration won’t merely reform those programs to accommodate its universal health care desires?

Sixth, Emanuel believes in ending employer-based health care (pages 109-112). As any businessman knows, why would a company pay the exorbitant costs for employees’ private health insurance when it can benefit big-time from a free ticket for government health care coverage? Some have even proposed that provisions in the House’s health care legislation, under the titles “Limitation on new enrollment” and “Limitation on changes in terms or conditions” (Page 16 of H.R. 3200), could essentially make individual private medical insurance illegal.

Seventh, Emanuel believes a universal health care program could be paid for by phasing out Medicare and Medicaid, adopting a value-added tax of at least 10%, etc., and then allowing Americans themselves to “pay extra with after-tax dollars” (Page 100) for additional medical benefits (beyond the government program). The truth is that whether the money comes from higher corporate taxes, taxing employer-provided health insurance, eliminating health savings accounts or flexible spending accounts, limiting the deductibility of medical expenses, increasing taxes on selective consumptives or the middle class, etc., or all the above, trust me; sooner or later, we all will pay.

Eighth, enough has been written lately about Emanuel’s end-of-life counsel and consultation, including withholding his advice from The Hastings Center Report (in 1996) that medical care should be withheld from those “who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens. … An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.”

I find it striking that Obama’s ethics similarly have allowed him already to pass more laws increasing the terminations of life in the womb than any administration since Roe v. Wade. To add insult to injury, Congress repeatedly has rejected amendments to this universal health care bill that would prevent federal funds from being used for abortions.

In short, whether in title or not, Emanuel is Obama’s health care czar. Obamacare is a junior version of Emanuelcare. Or should I say the beginning stage of Emanuelcare? What’s almost eerie is how they both could be juxtaposed to intersect in full bloom sometime in America’s future.

One last thing: Someone once said, “If two people think so much alike, you can bet that one person is not thinking.”

Think about it!

Healthcare Rationing: Real Scary

By Newt Gingrich

Concerns about government bureaucracies gaining oversight of your treatment are not misplaced. We need reforms, but the answer is not central planning.

When Sarah Palin said that the emerging healthcare reform legislation would lead to “death panels” and government rationing of care, her language was explosive, but her premise about rationing was not.

The most critical test of any reform proposal is whether it will empower individuals or impose on them. It is a fact that the leading bills in Congress would increase the power of government and decrease individual freedom. You cannot spend an additional $1 trillion of taxpayer money and reduce the role of government. You will get new bureaucracies, more regulation, more complexity. That means you will have less control of your healthcare.

Disagree? Just read the versions of healthcare legislation:H.R.3200 in the House. One key proposal is to mandate an “essential benefit package” for every private insurance policy sold in the United States. Currently, individuals and employers usually make these coverage decisions. This legislation creates a new federal Health Benefits Advisory Committee that would decide instead. For example, if you are a single male with no children, the legislation still requires you to have maternity benefits and well-baby and well-child care coverage. You don’t want or don’t need that coverage? Sorry, you have to pay for it anyway.

Other planned agencies would give the federal government unprecedented and unaccountable control over your healthcare. The so-called Health Choices Administration and the National Health Insurance Exchange would set various standards for all health insurance policies. The president is also pushing for another new agency called the Independent Medicare Advisory Council. Described as a cost-control initiative, it would be made up of five government appointees who would, by determining Medicare reimbursement amounts, in essence decide what would be covered and what would not. The fear of government rationing is based on the premise that once government has such power, especially the ability to control what is covered by your private insurance policy, it also has the power to deny and restrict.

Those defending the House legislation claim rationing is not in any of its versions, and though that is technically true – no one wants rationing – the unprecedented power this legislation would grant to virtually unaccountable government agencies is all but certain to lead to rationing.

Consider Medicare, which is projected to go broke within the decade. As the baby-boom generation ages, it will put only more stress on the system. With more than 25% of all Medicare costs generated in the last two months of life, government already has the motive to ration care to the elderly. If the House legislation were to become law, these new government bureaucracies would then also potentially have the power. Are we supposed to trust that they won’t use it?

If such rationing occurs, rules will be needed to determine whether to spend federal healthcare dollars on a given individual. What might those rules look like? Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel is a key healthcare advisor to President Obama and the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. He co-wrote an academic article 09)60137- in January exploring the ethical challenges of valuing an individual’s life in the context of allocating medical resources that are very scarce, such as organs or vaccines.

As an example, he and his coauthors proposed a system of valuation that could take into account that “[a] young person with a poor prognosis has had few life-years but lacks the potential to live a complete life. Considering prognosis forestalls the concern that disproportionately large amounts of resources will be directed to young people with poor prognoses.”

In a 1996 article in another journal, Dr. Emanuel similarly hypothesized that “services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.”

Dr. Emanuel contends that he was exploring what rules might be used to ration care, not specifically prescribing policy. But isn’t that the point? What we see at town hall meetings are Americans who legitimately believe it would be fundamentally unjust for government panels to make these kind of ethical decisions instead of individuals, loved ones and doctors.

To be clear, the healthcare system is in need of reform, particularly health insurance. But the answer is not central planning. The answer is more market competition – giving consumers more choices, more information and more control.

Here is one example. There are more than 1,300 health insurance companies in this country, but currently, consumers can buy only a product licensed in each individual state. Creating a nationwide health insurance market where any individual or group can shop for less expensive coverage from another state would provide more choices, forcing private plans to create better products, improve services and lower prices.

We must also equip individuals with information on healthcare cost and quality. Releasing the Medicare-claims history of doctors and hospitals (with patients’ personal information removed) would give Americans more knowledge to choose the most efficient institutions, practitioners and the most effective treatments. Inexplicably, this taxpayer-funded data remain locked away.

Of course, some Americans also need financial resources to pay for their healthcare choices. Tax credits are one way to help consumers purchase private healthcare coverage, or we could allow individuals to deduct the cost of insurance they purchase, just as employers do now. These are just some solutions to create competition to drive down costs while increasing quality.

There is no doubt that we badly need to improve our healthcare system. I welcome the comprehensive debate now taking place across the country on how to accomplish this goal. But reform must empower individuals, not government.

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is founder of the Center for Health Transformation.

Keeping End-Of-Life Decisions, Our Decision

by Newt Gingrich

Emotions are high in the debate over the future of our health care, and for good reason. What we are discussing are deeply personal, often deeply emotional issues.

Americans are troubled by what we’re hearing from Washington because we don’t want government to dictate these deeply personal, deeply emotional decisions. Especially those decisions that come near the end of life.

Like so many Americans, I know this from personal experience.

My father-in-law recently passed a few years ago. It was a tragic, grief-filled event. But in the end, my father-in-law, his doctors and his family controlled the care he received. Not a bureaucrat. Not an impersonal panel of government “experts.”

That’s why this debate is so emotional.

The Model For End Of Life Care.

I think every American should have the opportunity my father-in-law had to have a conversation with their doctor about end of life care that is totally private, in which there are no standards set by the government and no fear of the bureaucracy.

We had that kind of an experience at Gunderson Lutheran Hospital in Lacrosse, Wisconsin, where my father-in-law died.

At Gunderson – without any mandates from government – 92 percent of patients have advanced directives setting out what kind of care they want at the end of life.

Patients are treated with compassion, dignity and humanity. Families are engaged. Doctors are allowed to do what they think is best for patients, without fearing that the federal government is looking over their shoulders.

Health Care Isn’t Politics. It’s Personal.

End-of-life care is becoming a political football – and that’s precisely why so many Americans are fearful for the future of their health care.

Because it’s not politics. It’s personal.

And the test of any health care reform proposal is whether it gives us more power to control deeply personal decisions, or whether it takes that power away.

What follows is an article I wrote for the Los Angeles Times this weekend that explains how health care reform in Washington threatens to take us down the road to government control, and what we can do to stop it.

Further reading: Healthcare Rationing: Real Scary

The number of proofs that abortion is included in the health care overhaul officially was affirmed once again at a townhall meeting in San Jose, California where House Democrat Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) did a fine job of that confirmation after a member of the audience specifically asked about the abortion mandate. The text of the exchange is as follows.

QUESTION: “[This is a] health care plan that is covering abortion, which we know that over 90% of abortions are purely elective, not medically necessary. Why is this being covered when abortion is clearly not health care?” (Applause).

REP. LOFGREN: “[This is a] basic benefit plan developed by, um, health professionals … Abortion will be covered as a benefit by one or more of the health care plans available to Americans, and I think it should be.”

Making the Internet safer for children and families.

1. Let’s talk about ‘sexting,’ or the practice of sending explicit messages or photos via cell phone. How do parents deal with this issue?

One of the most important things that parents can do is to be informed and not assume that their child is immune from any type of Internet danger or risk. Actually one in five teens have admitted that they are ‘sexting,’ or have done this in the past. One of the things parents can do is not provide Internet access. You can also limit the ability to text.

2. What about social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace?

Be aware that the popular social-networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, do have age restrictions. However, a young person can go on and be dishonest about their age and get a social-networking profile.

If a parent decides to let their child on a social-networking site, it’s important to instruct them to keep their profiles private, so that only people within their own circle of friends can view their private information. It’s also important to let kids know that no information is truly private. The parent also needs to have access to their child’s profile. The only way the parent can view their child’s profile is if the parent has set up a profile and has been added as a friend. So, there is a tremendous amount of cyber-parenting required to keep your kids safe.

3. What about Internet or fantasy games?

Online gaming does create a number of issues and problems beyond just the violence and the fact that it can be addictive. Anytime a young person is gaming online, they can actually be playing with people that they don’t know. So any of those issues of anonymous predators can come up in the gaming world. It’s important for parents to realize that their kids can be playing with perfect strangers who may want to cause them harm.

But there are also parental controls on the popular gaming devices. We always encourage parents to use ‘rules and tools’ on all Internet-enabled devices. Whether it’s an online gaming device, a cell phone, a laptop, a desktop, you have to use safety rules and software tools. They are there so that parents can limit the amount of access that their kids have anywhere in the online world.

4. Even Internet searches can be dangerous for kids. Is there anything parents can do to lessen the danger?

Kids can access any type of content online. It’s important to recognize that the same laws and regulations that shield kids in print and broadcast, for instance, from pornography, do not necessarily apply online or are not being enforced online. Parents must use an Internet filter. This is very, very important. Filters will catch 95-plus percent of the inappropriate content.

What is so nice about them is that you can set different filter levels for different ages of kids in your household, and they allow you to block different categories as well. Most search engines have a preference level so you can have filtered search results, but a parent has got to go and turn those on. If you don’t know how, then learn or don’t give them access. Parents are the stewards of their children’s innocence.

5. What about file sharing, peer-to-peer networks and that sort of thing?

Peer-to-peer file-sharing networks are the most difficult parts of the Internet to effectively safeguard your children because they are passing from computer to computer. Many of the filters and parental control companies will actually allow you to block all the file-sharing programs. The bottom line is you can’t filter file-sharing programs, so blocking is the only way to stop that.

A pro-family activist group is calling for a federal study of the health risks of homosexual conduct.

Americans for Truth about Homosexuality president Peter LaBarbera tells OneNewsNow it only makes sense because the government will investigate the dangers of such habits as smoking and work to curb it. He cites information released by the Food and Drug Administration.

“[Men who have had sex with men since 1977 have] an HIV prevalence rate 60 times higher than the general population, 800 times higher than first-time blood donors, and 8,000 times higher than repeat blood donors,” LaBarbera says.

The pro-family activist also notes an increased level of STDs and hepatitis.

“The people have a right to know about the health risks of homosexual activity just like they had a right to know about the health risks of smoking,” he contends. “There was a huge effort to cover up the risks of smoking, just like there’s a massive politically correct effort today to hide the true health risks of homosexual sex – and the people have a right to know about that.”

LaBarbera especially wants to warn school children who are being taught to accept the homosexual lifestyle as normal and healthy.

Despite the questionable impact of the first stimulus package, there is actually discussion of a second stimulus package. So far, the states have spent roughly 10% of the $787 billion package, but it has yet to register on the “recovery” radar. In fact, the only thing that seems to have changed is the unemployment rate – and not in the direction the President had hoped.

Given where the money’s been directed, maybe none of us should be surprised. Mark Kelly of the Heritage Foundation did some digging on where the House Speaker funneled her District’s dollars, and the list of projects is enough to send taxpayers through the roof. Let me put it this way: Nancy Pelosi is trying to stimulate a lot more than San Francisco’s economy. While the average American is worried about losing his shirt, Congress is funding actors who aren’t wearing any!

According to Kelly, $50,000 was sent to an initiative called CounterPulse in San Francisco that just sponsored a “Perverts [Sleep Around]” event on July 25, urging people to “Join your fellow pervs for some explicit, twisted fun!” Another $50,000 went directly to an entertainment group called Frameline that concentrates on promoting the “lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community” in the arts.

Over at “San Francisco Cinematheque,” organizers raked in $25,000 to promote documentaries like “Thundercrack,” of which a reviewer writes, “Witness if you dare, the world’s only underground kinky art porno horror film, complete with four men, three women and a gorilla.” A company called Jess Curtis/Gravity, Inc. will receive $25,000, presumably to help boost their Symmetry Project, which features nude couples in compromising positions.

Other programs are too crude and embarrassing to even mention. But shouldn’t that say something to the third most powerful leader in America? If these projects are too obscene to talk about, what business does the U.S. government have funding them? This isn’t just waste – It’s reckless, indecent garbage sponsored by Congress and paid for by you. If these are the priorities of America’s new leadership, then we should definitely get a second opinion on their vision for an issue as significant as health care. For more on Pelosi’s “waste” line, visit Mark’s blog at markkelly.posterous.com.

Michelle Malkin Reveals How Obama’s “Unprecedented”

Presidency Breeds Corruption and Kills Change

When Barack Obama launched his presidency, he pledged to “build a more hopeful America.” On the campaign trail he promised to do away with Washington politics as usual.

But in the first six months of his term, Obama has indulged in a breath-taking campaign of nepotism, self-dealing, back-scratching, corporate lobbying, government favors, entrenched incumbency, and hypocrisy.

Obama’s government is not exactly the change people were hoping for.

In her devastating exposé, Culture of Corruption, bestselling author and investigative reporter Michelle Malkin cites example after example of Team Obama’s corrupt dealings and abuses of power. Malkin shows how Obama has hand-picked a team that will do his dirty work for him and exposes dozens of corrupt dealings—all of which the liberal media would rather keep hidden.

From power broker Rahm Emanuel, to pay-to-play tainted Michelle Obama and Joe Biden, to ethically challenged Tim Geithner, to crime-coddling corporate lawyer Eric Holder, Obama’s cabinet is all about increased government power and very little about helping Americans get ahead.

In Culture of Corruption you will learn:

• How the Obama White House has circumvented the pesky approval process by simply appointing unaccountable, unqualified, scandal-ridden “czars” to key posts—16 and counting

• How Obama asserted he “never organized with ACORN,” but Federal Election Commission records show he paid more than $832,000 to CSI “ACORN’s Campaign Services Entity” and then lied about it

• How Obama promises low-cost healthcare for everyone, yet his wife, First Crony-In-Chief, championed a University of Chicago healthcare program that was accused of “patient dumping” and “cherry picking” wealthy patients over poor

• How “Average Joe Biden” has benefited from the former credit card giant MBNA’s wealth, enjoying sweetheart real estate deals and lining his lobbyist son’s pockets

Culture of Corruption proves that this is the government of the crony, by the lobbyist, and for the well-heeled. Obama lacks the will to change Washington politics, and Culture of Corruption reveals what his agenda will mean for his presidency—and America.