The Smoke Break

You want some brie with that whine?

Men Of America – Canada Needs YOU!

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As Mark Steyn so aptly put it at The Corner:   “The ultimate outsourcing” is occurring here in the United States.   That model of socialized medicine perfection, Canada, made it illegal to pay men for their sperm back in 2004, so today there are all of 33 legal (and, need we add, extremely busy) donors available for the whole country.  (The situation is similar in Great Britain, too.)

But wait!  Even if you are a minority couple looking for help, there is still choice.  One is South Asian!

Instead of the Mounties, following that most proper course of political hypocrisies, Canadians have called upon the American free-market economy to come to their rescue:

Doctors and patients have had little choice but to use sperm and eggs from south of the border.

One of the biggest suppliers of donor sperm is Outreach Health Services which imports and distributes semen for assisted reproduction clinics across Canada. The company imports sperm from an agency that collects primarily from men in Georgia and northern Florida, where donors are paid about $100 per visit.

With so much sperm coming from the States, some estimate that up to 80 per cent of babies conceived in Canada through donor sperm have American DNA.

This gives a whole ‘nother meaning to the term, “neighbor”.  Not to mention the potential DNA problems as cousins grow up and start marrying their cousins.  But then, that assures more patients needing government-provided medical care, doesn’t it?

Any wonder President Obama reassured Canadians that while their system works for them, it’s not necessarily what Americans want?

Professional-Grade Astroturf

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Stupid is not the failure of average Americans to believe the lies of the left, but that the left still believes Americans don’t see right through them.  Witness the latest marching orders from the White House:

All throughout August, our members of Congress are back in town. Insurance companies and partisan attack groups are stirring up fear with false rumors about the President’s plan, and it’s extremely important that folks like you speak up now.

So we’ve cooked up an easy, powerful way for you to make a big impression:  Office Visits for Health Reform.

All this week, OFA members like you will be stopping by local congressional offices to show our support for insurance reform. You can have a quick conversation with the local staff, tell your personal story, or even just drop off a customized flyer and say that reform matters to you.

We’ll provide everything you need:  the address, phone number, and open hours for the office, information about how the health care crisis affects your state for you to drop off (with the option of adding your personal story), and a step-by-step guide for your visit.

Click here to find your representatives’ local offices.

As you’ve probably seen in the news, special interest attack groups are stirring up partisan mobs with lies about health reform, and it’s getting ugly. Across the country, members of Congress who support reform are being shouted down, physically assaulted, hung in effigy, and receiving death threats. We can’t let extremists hijack this debate, or confuse Congress about where the people stand.

Office Visits for Health Reform are our chance to show that the vast majority of American voters know that the cost of inaction is too high to bear, and strongly support passing health reform in 2009.

Don’t worry if you’ve never done anything like this before. The congressional staff is there to listen, and your opinion as a constituent matters a lot. And if you bring a friend, you’ll have more fun and make an even greater impact.

Click here to sign up for an Office Visit for Health Reform.

Wherever you live, these visits matter:  Many representatives are pushing hard toward reform, and they are taking a lot of heat from special interests. They deserve our thanks and need our support to continue the fight. But those who are still putting insurance companies and partisan point-scoring ahead of their constituents must know that voters are watching — and that we expect better.

Earlier this week, the President wrote that “this is the moment our movement was built for” and asked us all to commit to join at least one event this month. This is the way to answer that call, and rise to the challenge of this moment together.

Thank you for going the extra mile when it matters the most,

Mitch

Mitch Stewart
Director
Organizing for America

 

In case you aren’t aware, “Organizing For America” is a partner of the Democratic National Committee.

“…Obama for America campaign manager David Plouffe introduced Mitch Stewart, who will serve as Director of Organizing for America.

Organizing for America will work in partnership with the DNC to continue to build, engage and strengthen the unprecedented organization that was built during the campaign and the grassroots network built over the past four years at the DNC. The joint partnership signifies the ongoing commitment to both building and strengthening the grassroots movement, and reaching out to people in all 50 states to engage Americans in this movement for change.

“I’m extremely pleased that Organizing for America will be housed here at the DNC.  Working in partnership, we will seek to engage people in new ways, and to broaden what President Obama calls the ‘Coalition for Change’ in America ,” said Governor Tim Kaine. “I know first-hand how important it is to reach out and engage the grassroots all across a state and all across our country.”

In addition to Mitch Stewart, the DNC also announced that Jeremy Bird will serve as [OFA] Deputy Director.

Mitch Stewart served as Iowa Caucus director, Indiana state director and Virginia state director for the Obama campaign. Before joining Obama’s campaign, Stewart was the coordinated campaign manager for the Democratic Farm Labor party in Minnesota in 2006, when Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D) won her race. In 2004, Stewart served as former South Dakota senator Tom Daschle’s field director. He was also a regional field director in Iowa for former senator John Edwards’ during his presidential bid in 2004.

Jeremy Bird served as Obama campaign field director in South Carolina during the primaries and general election director in Ohio .”

Quote Of The Day

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Courtesty of Ron Hart:

“If Obama has his way, his health care plan will be funded by his Treasury chief who did not pay his taxes, overseen by his Surgeon General who is obese, signed by a president who smokes and financed by a country that is just about broke. What possibly could go wrong?”

Quote Of The Day

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“While discussing the upcoming Universal Health Care Program with my friend the other day, I think we have found the solution.  I am sure you have heard the ideas that if you’re a senior you need to suck it up and give up the idea that you need any health care.  A new hip?  Unheard of.  We simply can’t afford to take care of you anymore.  You don’t need any medications for your high blood pressure, diabetes, heart problems, etc.

“So here is the solution.  When you turn 70, you get a gun and 4 bullets.  You are allowed to shoot 2 senators and 2 representatives.  Of course, you will be sent to prison where you will get 3 meals a day, a roof over your head and all the health care you need.  New teeth, great!!!  Need glasses, no problem.  New hip, knee, kidney, lung, heart?  Well bring it on.
 
“Who will be paying for all of this?  The same government that just told you that you are too old for health care.
 
“And, since you are a prisoner, you don’t have to pay any income tax.”

The 1st Amendment: The Freedom Of Speech

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“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,

or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;

or the right of the people peaceably to assemble,

and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

This is the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.  First in the series and number one for a reason.  The Founding Fathers saw “the freedom of speech” as a most basic of human rights, one that exists through simple, natural law (because it is “…endowed by their Creator….”)  They refer to it as an “inalienable” right, meaning it is a right that cannot be alienated (made hostile, unfriendly, or indifferent when there was previously an attachment; or cause to be withdrawn or diverted); it is not something that can be surrendered or transferred.

This fundamental inability of the government to alienate, surrender, or to transfer the people’s right to the freedom of speech is important.  They do not give to you, and they can’t take it away.  No matter what anyone says or what anyone tries to do, you always, now and forever, have the right to make your thoughts heard.

The current “protests” coming from the far-left that anyone who is now voicing their disagreement with their spin or with their actions (or lack thereof) is somehow doing wrong is actually, in itself, not only incorrect but a dangerous mindset.  It’s not merely a matter of what’s good for the goose should be good for the gander, this reaches even beyond the confines of what most people commonly call “fairness”.  It is that at the most basic and fundamental level, simply because of their existence, anyone in this country has the right to voice their opinion. 

This holds true even and – as hard as this is to swallow for those who embrace the ideology of material entitlement – especially if the way something is expressed is not to the listener’s liking.

Judge Andrew Napolitano explains it this way:

“Because speech can startle and offend, as well as enlighten and illuminate, the courts have held that it requires breathing room.  Stated differently, no one in the government – any government – may impose a burden on the exercise of speech. That means that the government may not require a license, demand permission, or intimidate any speakers. It may not punish speech, no matter what the speech asks.”

Does this mean you should run around screaming and yelling like a moron?  Personally, I don’t think you should.  But if you choose to do so, it isn’t against the law.  Unless you are doing something like yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater and thereby overtly and deliberately endangering the lives of others, you have the right to make an ass out of yourself any time you like.  The consequences of such behavior fall under the jurisdiction of societal mores – meaning, if you run around making stupid or lying statements or are always rude when you speak, don’t be surprised if you don’t have many (if any) friends and people go out of their way to avoid you. 

But while regular citizens may choose to ignore your blatherings, the government does not have the power to shut you up.  No matter what means you use to get your message across, no matter how much they may dislike what you have to say, they may not interfere with your expressing it.

The Obama administration’s latest “snitch” program is in violation of the 1st Amendment.  By encouraging citizens to do little more than spy on one another, even if they cloak their request in the guise of trying to counter “misinformation” about health care reform, they have not simply overstepped their Constitutional authority, they have crossed the line into a place where no such authority even exists.  The laws governing the federal archival of all communication with the executive branch require that they keep the names, e-mail addresses, and correspondence sent to them and this, then, through this latest request for “help”, creates an opportunity for the federal government to create a database of “dissidents”.  There is precedent for such activity and while there are those in the White House who would like you to remain ignorant, the outcome came down firmly on the side of the American people:

When the Nixon administration created the “Cointelpro” and”Houston” plans in the 1970s, it used undercover FBI, CIA, and civilian-garbed military to photograph and record the faces and voices of anti-war protestors. Nixon claimed that he needed the records of this for national security purposes. He argued to David Frost, after he had resigned the Presidency, that in case of domestic upheaval, his government would know who to arrest.

 The Supreme Court rejected the idea that the First Amendment permits the government to make and keep a record of the faces and voices and ideas of its domestic political opponents. The Court called this “chilling” the right to speak freely; in other words, denying it the breathing room that free speech requires. The whole purpose of the First Amendment, the Court wrote, is to encourage – not discourage – open, broad, robust political debate, and any inhibition, real or threatened, that comes from the government is unconstitutional.

In direct response to Cointelpro and Houston, Congress enacted the Privacy Act. Among many other protections, it specifically prohibits the President or anyone in his name from making or keeping records of any persons’ use of speech. The constitutional rule is “All innocuous speech is absolutely protected. And all speech is innocuous when there is time for more speech to address the same matter.”

Continue to speak out, America.  For the ability to dissent is, truly, American and patriotic.  And by doing so, freedom rings.

How The News Should Be Covered

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Here is an interesting and informative piece about what would elsewhere be termed a “confrontation” at Douglasville, Georgia meeting with Representative David Scott:

It is interesting because the reporter, Atlanta 11-Alive’s Duffie Dixon, does not editorialize the event; nowhere in her piece do we hear her opine the words “mob” or “teabag”.

It is informative because it simply presents the incident in question and provides both sides an opportunity to share a little more detail.  Properly leaving it up to the viewers to form their own opinions.

Hats off, Duffie.  You put the rest of the mainstream media to shame.

I Am The Mob

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On the one hand, it’s delicious fun – in that train wreck kind of way – to watch leftwing heads spinning like nuts being tightened by a master mechanic in an overweight, Burkenstocked version of “The Exorcist” as average Americans catch on to the monstrous devastation being heaped upon our beloved country, but on the other, I’ve had more than my fill of suits and lemmings drunk on Kool-Aid endlessly bleating their psychobabble about why I’m angry and speaking out against the policies of this administration. 

Frankly, my dears, I am just your average American citizen.  I go to work, I pay my bills (including my taxes – hint, hint, Obamabuds), I care for my family and my friends, and I care deeply about the freedoms we have in this country.  I care so deeply about those freedoms that I take the time to read the pork-laced swill spewed hastily by Congress and labelled as legislation.  I take the time to listen to the words coming out of lips both painted and unpainted and I pay attention to the actions that follow.  Actions that, inevitably, do something different.

I have never been one to tolerate fools easily and now the attacks being perpetuated on me, a plain, old, hard-working American citizen, through the continuing onslaught against my Constitutional freedoms, have set my teeth on edge and prodded me to the point that I get up out of my chair and march on the street.  As an American citizen it is my right to do this.  And there I find thousands of others who are thinking exactly the same thing.

This government is out of control.  And we, the people, want that control back.

Because I dare to choose to exercise my Constitutional right to assemble or my Constitutional right to voice my opinion, I am labelled any of the following:

  • Bitter
  • Right-wing extremist
  • Mob member
  • Destructive
  • Ringer
  • Astroturf
  • Racist
  • Redneck
  • Teabagger

What is frightening is that these labels are not placed on me (or on any of the other millions of Americans who now find themselves unexpected participants in our process of government) only by those with whom I disagree.  These labels are placed by our Community Organizer in Chief, that Great Divider of the United States, President Obama, and by members of his administration.  Most recently, campaigning at a rally for Virginia’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds, President Obama said:

“I expect to be held responsible for these issues because I’m the president.  But I don’t want the folks who created the mess doing a lot of talking. I want them to just get out of the way so we can clean up the mess.”

Yo, Barry.  You ARE being held responsible.  But the only “mess” here is the one created by you peeing on my leg and then having the audacity to tell me it’s raining.  You are responsible for creating the most enormous deficit this country has ever seen, and doing it in only six short month’s time.  And we, the American people who hold down real jobs in the real world, something about which you haven’t a clue, we aren’t buying your excuses and your “oopses” any more and we certainly aren’t buying your exortions to “spend more to save money”.  The truth is that the current economic “recovery” you’re so quick to claim would have happened had you done absolutely NOTHING.  We see through your rhetoric and we aren’t buying what you have for sale, especially not your takeover of American medicine.  And we are not going to get out of your way.

Encouraged by the President’s childish attention to matters that ought not concern him, such as his “friend” Professor Gate’s recent idiotic behavior, his administration gleefully casts stones as well and is now doing everything they can to marginalize and demonize the American people.  Attempting to divide their precious left from right, blacks and Hispanics from white, they are calling on their unions and the Obama campaign astroturf (including government-funded – read:  our hard-earned tax-dollar-funded – ACORN) to bully people like me and you who take the time to attend a townhall.  They are paying people – with our hard-earned tax dollars – to collect information from snitches about people who disagree with the facts set down in black and white in their draft health care reform legislation and are using the Secret Service to contact those people as a way to intimidate and silence them.

Listen.  Do you hear that sound?  It’s those stones hitting the walls of their glass houses, and it’s growing louder every day.  For the truth is that any argument is lost once one side begins calling the other names.

Mobs may shout.

But anger votes.

Warning: Oxymorons In Motion (Heavy Emphasis On “Moron”)

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Every day provides more evidence that President Obama knows he is fast losing his grip on the American people and he is ever more openly and actively encouraging divisiveness.  Moveon.org, the Obama campaign machine, is now hiring people to organize others to support the administration’s scheme for socialized medicine.

In an email to their supporters, they are begging for money to pay for “using new technology to implement rapid response town hall turnout, organizing personal phone calls from small business leaders and donors to their representatives, running new ads, and activating an energized network of on-the-ground organizers and volunteers.”

And they are hiring “skilled grassroots organizers”.

Are they so stupid that they don’t think the rest of us can’t see that this is exactly what they are accusing regular Americans of doing when they decide to go out and freely participate in the processes of government?

Are they so stupid that they don’t understand that normal Americans don’t need to pay someone else to organize them to voice their displeasure with the dangerous thefts of freedoms proposed by this administration?

If nothing else, this tells us that they have no valid argument and must resort to paying people to play, thinking that simply large numbers of brainless bodies will be enough to convince those who have actually read the legislation and who understand how it will affect each and every American that it’s not pure Orwellian evil.

They are so very, very wrong.

Quote Of The Day

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Courtesy of James Taranto, writing at the Wall Street Journal:

“So, let’s review the arguments:

• Republicans are bad, they lost the last election, and they have partisan motives for wanting to stop ObamaCare.

• People who are angry about this are crackpots who display swastikas and other invidious symbols.  Also, their anger is insincere, and they are shills of the RNC.  They wear nice clothes, and this is not to their credit.

• Some of the arguments against ObamaCare are false, according to Obama.

• If ObamaCare is defeated, Obama would be hurt.

“Is there any argument for ObamaCare? In all the material we reviewed for this item, only this, from the Obama email:

“In other words, the “crisis” is so urgent that any thoughtful deliberation would entail intolerable delay. This is the same old argument that has already failed.

“If this is the best the president can do, he deserves to lose resoundingly.  If that hurts him, there’s always aspirin.”

  

The Fight Is Against Cowards

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With the exception of SEIU and ACORN members, the American people are angry.  And they are letting their unrepresenting representatives know this in rare, loud form.

Paul Wehner writes:

Obama and the Democratic National Committee have embraced a novel approach: attack the voters.  These voters are, a new DNC ad tells us repeatedly, a “mob,” an “angry mob,” engaging in “mob activity.”  Much of the anger, insists the president’ s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, is “manufactured.” There are hints of a conspiracy. And President Obama, in remarks yesterday, gripes and complains about “griping and complaining” by the American public.  (This from a man who, during the campaign, in counseling his supporters on what to do with his opponents, asked them to “get in their face” and celebrated properly channeled “anger” on the part of the American people.)

With public anger toward ObamaCare rising, the president and his allies have decided to pour kerosene on the embers and flames (and fearful Democrats have taken to canceling town-hall meetings).  It is an old and sad story we are seeing play out: rather than facing the rancor at town-hall meetings as a sign of growing frustration and unrest, the president and his team are outright denying it.  They are reacting defensively, bitterly, and aggressively.  And Barack Obama — the man of unsurpassed equanimity and a calm temperament, who praises Lincoln because he always understood the views of those with whom he disagreed, the man who would usher in a “new era” of politics and civility, of enlightened public discourse and comity among previously warring factions — is allowing his representatives to mock and demonize his critics.

And so it is.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said, “They have no interest in letting the negotiators, even though few in number, negotiate.  It’s really simple: they’re taking their cues from talk show hosts, Internet rumor-mongerers … and insurance rackets.”  The U.S. Community Organizer In Chief, through his Democrat handmaidens, has promised the party and allies would “punch back twice as hard” if they are openly criticized.  Nancy Pelosi tells tall tales of you and I, plain old regular Americans, walking around waving swastikas.

On Thursday, the AFL-CIO announced plans to mobilize labor activists to attend town hall meetings in 50 congressional districts during the August recess.  And the Center for American Progress, among other organizations, is drumming up Obamabots to “make sure that health care town halls aren’t hijacked!”

Some Congress critters are taking all this to heart and last night’s town hall meeting in South St. Louis, hosted by Democrat Representative Russ Carnahan, actually locked the doors against regular citizens who lined up to attend.  SEIU members were snuck in through the back door (a door ironically marked “handicapped”) and, in stereotypical union fashion, some of them became violent with the regular citizens in attendance, resulting in six arrests (including people taking pictures).

In Tampa, Florida, Democratic State Representative Betty Reed and U.S. Representative Kathy Castor set up a session on health care and insurance reform but were met by larger-than-expected crowds who didn’t want to hear just talking points.  Meeting organizers scuffled with regular citizens and it wasn’t long before Castor was escorted out of the town hall by police after Reed encouraged her to leave.   (Note to self:  one of the “most popular” articles next to this one is headlined “Woman accused of having sex with dogs “.  Cancel trip to Florida.)

It’s extremely encouraging to see the sleeping dragon, America’s silent majority, has begun to awaken.  But I take exception to those who would cross the line into outright rudeness and become physical with those who hold differing views, no matter how wrong they are.  That only gives validity to the Democrats’ agenda and, considering the mindset of Obama and those he has placed into positions of power in the federal government, give him flimsy reason to do something as stupid as attempt to declare marshall law.

We don’t need violence or – god forbid – bloodshed to wrest this country back from the leeches who are sucking the life out of her.  Cool heads must prevail.  The polls show confidence in the administration continues to drop like a rock.  The Rasmussen Report’s daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday, August 6, 2009 shows:

  •  
    • 32% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President
      38% Strongly Disapprove
    • 71% believe the President’s policies have driven up the federal deficit
      54% say that middle class tax cuts are more important than new spending on health care
      Only 33% now believe the country is heading in the right direction
    • Overall, 49% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President’s performance
      51% disapprove

Those in government know that for every phone call or letter they receive, there are at least 10 people who think the same way but just aren’t taking the time to say so, so we must continue to call and write Congress.  Continue to show up at townhall meetings and Tea Party protests because even if your Congress critter turns tail and locks you out of the dialogue, and even if the mainstream Obama-lapdog media won’t report on it, your presence counts.  But whatever you do, do so with polite resolve.  If confronted with bots and stupidity, meet them with stony silence.  Though the normal reaction is to argue, remember this – when you wrestle with a pig you both get dirty but only the pig enjoys it.  While the last thing they want is to be ignored (and in truth this is the best way to anger them), if you can’t manage to turn your back, laugh at them instead and let their reactions cause them to look the fool.  As more and more regular Americans take up the fight for freedom, more and more cameras will be rolling and, frankly, it’s the perfect opportunity to continue to flush out those with nefarious hidden agendas because when they go on tape saying or doing stupid things, it’s there forever and try as they may, they cannot deny it.

Never forget that although we surround them, this fight for freedom is a fight against cowards.  And cowards don’t play fair.   They won’t discuss facts but instead call names and try to force matters into a place of emotions.  The minute you go there with them, they’ve won.

And this is one fight we, the people, cannot afford to lose.