Posts Tagged ‘Obamacare
HillBuzz Open Thread: Monday, April 2, 2012
Hey folks, happy Monday!
In case anybody out there missed it, a week ago the SCOTUS began hearing oral arguments on Obamacare. Over three days they heard 6 hours of testimony and, based on the reaction of the Democrat spinsters, I think even the Obama camp is worried he mandate or the entire law may be struck down. Check out the Wall Street Journal for the 5 Take-Aways of the Obamacare hearings.
Thanks to the couple of folks who linked to an update on Olbermann’s firing from Current TV (previous HillBuzz write-up: Olbermann Fired). The main goodie from this article is that Olbermann supposedly complained about his car service because the drivers spoke to him and “smelled”. I wonder how many of the 99%-ers who idolize Olbermann have car services? And I wonder just how far in to the 1% you have to be before you feel elitist enough to complain about your car service?
One of the commentors here alerted us to this story on Breitbart: Shockingly, the left and the media are silent when conservative women are treated similarly to Ms. Fluke. Actually, truth be told, although I do not agree with Rush’s comments, he probably had more grounds to make the ‘slut’ accusation than anybody had to make these comments about Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch. After all, it was Ms. Fluke who chose to put her sexual opinions on very public display. All Lt. Gov Kleefisch did was be a conservative woman elected BY THE PEOPLE to public office.
The emperor is truly naked folks. I’ve come to a realization. By and large, besides doing a lot of research, blogging every now and then, and arguing with friends and family, I’ve basically just been waiting for the media to “fix itself”. Not by magic of course, but I always envisioned that the business model would collapse as they continued to lose eyeballs and they would be forced to become more fair, more honest, etc.
However, the book I’m currently reading (and will review here soon), along with Shakedown Socialism, has made me realize that my belief in the inevitability of said outcome is a fantasy. It is not inevitable. In fact, I’m starting to see that the odds are actually stacked the other direction. Throughout history, the “inevitability” is that the media and the government become increasingly intertwined, and the media become MORE corrupt as a result.
Of course I’ve known this for years, but I never believed it could be possible here in the USA. I never believed that insidious forces could sneak in and take over. But that is happening even as I type this. Media collusion, distributed progressive talking points, voter fraud, and Lord knows what else! Maybe we’ll post a list someday of all the ways the progressive left is working to destroy everything that you and I love and take for granted about this country.
You see, most of us conservatives just want to be left alone to live our lives, raise our families, help our neighbors, etc. We don’t like the government intruding in our lives, but along with that comes a desire to not to have to get involved beyond our civic duty of voting and maybe the occasional argument or debate with a family member, friend, or MAYBE even a coworker.
HillBuzz is a microcosm of the conservative populace. For every person who comments here regularly, there are thousands who do not. For every person who comments here occasionally, there are hundreds upon hundreds who never comment. We have some very dedicated folks among us. We have readers and contributors who even get involved in the races. But those of you who do that are in the minority.
I wonder, even among those of us who are highly involved, how many of us are actively working to reverse our slide into socialism? How many of us are actively working to try to force the main stream media to change? I admit, beyond blogging and some debating with folks, I don’t really even know how to go about doing that. How many of you out there have ideas on how we can go after the media? We would love to hear from you. And we would really love to hear from anyone who has been lurking for awhile but never or rarely comments.
What else is on your minds this Monday?
HillBuzz Open Thread: Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Anybody been following the Supreme Court hearing arguments on the constitutionality of Obamacare?
The left is worried. You can tell because they are now talking about how good it will be for Obama if the bill gets struck down. One guy actually said “it’s the best thing that could happen”.
These people are fools and tools.
But it is an interesting theory. If the bill DOES get struck down, will that impact anti-Obama turnout in the election? Likewise, will it rile up the pro-Obama turnout? These are valid questions. The one thing I’ve learned from reading HillBuzz over the years is to NEVER, EVER underestimate the left. They will do everything in their power to transform a possible overturn into a “crisis”, and agitate to turn out the vote.
What do you think?
What else is on your minds?
Did Dick Cheney “Deserve” a Heart Transplant?
The hypocrisy of the elite media is not news. Nor is their total ignorance of their own hypocrisy, or their smugness in the belief that they are smarter and more evolved than those with whom they disagree. Their use of innuendo and euphemism is transparent.
In a clip from NBC Today, http://nation.foxnews.com/nbc/2012/03/26/nbc-did-cheney-really-deserve-heart-transplant?intcmp=fly Matt Lauer opens the discussion about Vice President Dick Cheney’s heart transplant by saying “His case has re-opened debate over whether rules should be changed to favor younger patients”. His guest, medical editor Dr. Nancy Snyderman chimed in with “…this has raised a lot of ethical questions, moral questions, about whether the Vice President, in fact, should have received his heart against — ahead of other people. And, raises the question, how old is too old to receive such a precious transplant?”
Really? “re-opened debate”? “raised a lot of ethical, moral questions”? To whom? By whom? Ethical questions? Moral questions? What questions? What is “a lot of questions”? Pulling back the curtain behind which these cowards are hiding, that of proclaiming that “others” are asking these questions, we see exactly what they are saying. There is just ONE question, and the ones asking that question are Matt Lauer and Nancy Snyderman. That question is “Did Dick Cheney deserve to have a heart transplant?” This is the typical tactic used by leftist tv news show personalities (I cannot, with a clear conscience, call these people “journalists”), to express their own opinion without owning up to it. They proclaim that “there are those who ask….” or “some would say …”, or in the case of this despicable piece of slime, “his case has re-opened debate over whether rules should be changed”. What they are really saying is that THEY question or dispute the “ethics” or “morality” in the light of their own personal, biased feelings. They are saying that in this one case, THEY want the rules to be changed.
I was a transplant nurse for 15 years in the very early stage of the science of organ transplantation. Since that time, transplantation has evolved rapidly from an experimental, last-ditch effort to save the life of someone in end-stage organ failure, to what it is today, a fairly common procedure with a relatively high success rate. In those early years, criteria for receiving a transplant organ were much more strict than they are today. These criteria ranged from age and medical status of the patient, to geographic location and ability of the patient to travel to the Transplant Center within a relatively short amount of time. The life span of organs, once they have been removed from the donor, is measured in hours before the organ ceases to be viable.
Vice President Cheney is 71 years of age. His doctors decided more than 20 months ago that he would be a reasonable candidate for a heart transplant, and placed his name on the national waiting list. (Note that this decision was reached between Mr. Cheney’s doctors and their patient, without consulting with Matt Lauer and Dr. Snyderman — clearly an unpardonable sin.) As this NBC report points out, to its credit, his 20-month wait is longer than most patients wait for a heart. Dr. Snyderman tosses out the innuendo of whether the Vice President “should have received his heart….ahead of other people”. Unless the transplant wait list only had one person’s name on it (that of Vice President Cheney), he would have been given the heart ahead of other people. Names are added to the wait list daily. I ask Dr. Snyderman how she feels about the fact that for the past 20 months, hundreds of “other people” have received their heart transplant ahead of Vice President Cheney.
And I ask Matt Lauer and Dr. Snyderman, and any of the other Cheney haters out there, how they would feel had that heart transplant been performed on George Soros (age 81), or Noam Chompsky (age 83 ) or Jimmy Carter (age 87) or Nancy Pelosi (age 72 ) or Marian Robinson (Michelle Obama’s mother, age 71)? Of course this is rhetorical. Because had any one of those people been transplanted, Matt Lauer and Dr. Syderman would have been singing the praises of the availability of a medical procedure that was able to save the life of this most revered patient. Not one of the so-called “elite” media would have mentioned “ethics” or “morality” with respect to the age of the recipient of the heart. That question only applies to a hated conservative, and in this case, Vice President Dick Cheney.
Leaving aside any discussion of the role that Vice President Dick Cheney has played in our history, can we at least agree that he is a decent man, a tax-paying American citizen, a husband, father, and grandfather, and public servant. He has served his country when called, despite having suffered five heart attacks (the first when he was 37 years of age) and numerous medical and surgical procedures for his heart condition. What more needs to be said. His life is of value. Had he been a homeless 71-year-old man living on a park bench, I think we can pretty well imagine the righteous indignation and outrage that the media would be screaming if he had been denied a heart transplant.
In raising the question of whether Mr. Cheney “deserved” this transplant, NBC has sunk to a new low. Matt Lauer asks Dr. Snyderman in a very smarmy, smug manner, “Is there indication he was given priority?” to which Dr. Snyderman, to her own personal disappointment, is forced to answer that in fact no, he actually waited longer than most. One doesn’t have to be especially perceptive to understand that her implication here was that he should have waited forever. To have these ignorant, out-of-touch “television personalities” insinuate that they know enough to comment on whether this medical procedure was “deserved”, brings up the question of Obamacare and the death panels (that the left has denied exist within that bill). Is this not the classic example of a “death panel” — two arrogant television commentators giving the public a wink-wink about whether or not the hated Dick Cheney deserved to have a medical procedure to save his life? To these opinionated, biased, overpaid television personalities, a decision reached by Mr. Cheney’s physicians and their patient is invalid. They would prefer that the question of “deserving” be part of that equation. And of course, neither the Cheneys nor their physicians are qualified to determine if the transplant was deserved. That decision should be left to the more qualified people in the media.
Wake up, America. Obamacare mandates just exactly this type of process, and the people who will actually make the life and death decisions for us, whether or not our life is of value, whether or not we “deserve” a particular procedure, will be no more medically qualified than Matt Lauer or Dr. Snyderman. They will most likely not be doctors at all, but bureaucrats. You can hate Dick Cheney. You can hate all conservatives and want us all to die in a horrible fire or accident (this was actually “tweeted” this weekend, in a touching get-well wish for Dick Cheney from someone from the “tolerant left”), but this won’t apply just to us hated conservatives. Insert the name of a relative of yours in that equation (or your own name). You will not be exempt from this just because you support Obamacare. No one will be exempt, except the truly elite — congress and Obama’s cronies. The rest of us will be subject to the decisions of unqualified, disinterested bureaucrats who will just look in their manual for specific codes that indicate acceptance criteria for nameless, faceless patients. They will have no involvement in the actual human patient, his or her circumstances, social status, need, want or any human consideration. Just a bunch of check boxes.
Welcome to the “fundamental transformation of America”, Obama style.
Obamacare’s Epic Smackdown: Over Two Million Ohioans Voted for Healthcare Freedom
In the days following the November election, the Democrat-Controlled Media didn’t have much to say about Ohio’s defeat of Obamacare by a 66% to 34% margin. They were too busy crowing about the passage of Issue 2, which defeated the State of Ohio’s efforts to rein in out-of-control government unions.
So instead of government union members having to pay 15% of their healthcare and pension costs (versus the zero percent many of them pay now), Ohio’s municipalities now look forward to years of unfunded pension liabilities, bankrupt local governments, and layoffs of union members (way to go, AFL-CIO!)
Ohio is one of four states with unfunded pension liabilities that are above 35% of the state’s entire gross domestic product. That fact isn’t going away, and Ohioans need to be reminded who was responsible for this looming fiscal tsunami when the destruction finally hits.
Ohio Obamacare Smackdown?
The polls closed almost two hours ago, and very early returns show that Ohioans are smacking down Obamacare by a 2 – 1 margin, with a YES vote on Issue 3, an amendment to Ohio’s constitution.
Click to Embiggen
But there’s bad news on Issue 2, a vote to reign in the power of government employee unions. Thanks to massive spending on a disinformation campaign, it looks as though Issue 2 is going down by the same margin– 2 to 1.
However, election results are coming in extremely slowly. Nearly two hours after the polls closed, 20 of Ohio’s 88 counties have reported ZERO results. Hmmm. Here’s a map:
Click to Embiggen
I’ll update this post with a final vote tally as the evening goes on.
UPDATE: 1:48 A.M.
Ohio Votes To Nullify Insurance Mandate
Liberals–including our former governor, Ted Strickland–are spinning this 2 to 1 landslide against Obamacare as a “totally symbolic” and “meaningless” vote, whereas the 2 to 1 landslide in favor of government unions (Issue 2), on the same ballot, during the same election, was a profoundly significant mandate.
Huh. Reeeeeally.
The big story is the grassroots effort that got Issue 3 on the ballot (a totally citizen-led initiative with ZERO paid petition circulators). This was a profound defeat of Obamacare and socialized medicine at the grassroots level.
in 2013, will healthcare industry whistleblowers send Obama administration officials to prison for the thuggery used to pass Obamacare?
Please read this article in Forbes entitled “The Failure of Health Care Reform: An Insider’s View”.
Here is the most important paragraph:
First, the Obama administration and the Democrats who controlled Congress at the time made it clear that they would make life—and the ability to do business—hell for any insurer that fought them. I can recall talking to an insurance company executive in August of 2009, the summer of the huge rallies against ObamaCare, who told me he had a stack of red folders on his desk—demands from Democratic committee chairmen for various types of information. The message was clear: get on board with ObamaCare or expect to spend a lot of time answering committee demands, or testifying before Congress, or worse. So far I haven’t found anyone willing to speak out on the record about these strong-arm tactics—and probably won’t until 2013.
It’s the “or worse” part I’m most concerned with this morning.
Please chime in if you disagree with me on this, but I have no trouble believing the Obama administration dispatched surrogates to all the healthcare insurance companies and threatened executives to either keep quiet or flat out lie about the impact of Obamacare all of these industry experts knew would come.
I worked for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 primary campaign here in Chicago, so I saw on a daily basis what the Obama camp was capable of — they practically issued copies of the Alinsky Rules book and directed Obama acolytes to hit the streets and bully, berate, threaten, and menace anyone perceived to stand in Obama’s way. Obama won the Democrat nomination through voter fraud, intimidation, and thuggery. Because so many conservatives still possess an irrational hatred of Hillary Clinton, far too few Republicans paid any attention to what the Obama campaign did in 2008 to Hillary Clinton and her supporters…which resulted in the Obama Administration being able to behave this way once “The Golden Age of Hope and Change” began in 2009 and the EXACT SAME TACTICS were used on healthcare industry executives to pass Obamacare without so much as a peep from these people as to the disaster this bill would be for our economy.
I have no doubt Obama’s surrogates told healthcare executives they’d be branded RAAACISTS for criticizing Obamacare in any way and that their careers would be ruined. I also bet the White House approved of threats made to bankrupt any insurance company that spoke out against Obamacare — since Obama said the same thing to coal plants when he threatened their executives into silence whenever he started going on about “reforming the coal industry”.
If you are a conservative who sat the 2008 election out (or 2004 and 2000 before that, because you keep thinking sitting on your couch on election day “teaches someone a lesson”), or you voted for Obama to prove how not-racist you are, I hope you now see what happens when the sort of people who run Chicago are transplanted to Washington, DC and are allowed to translate the thuggery and Alinsky Methods so common in Chicago to the national level.
Hope!
Change!
Suckers!
I want to write to Michele Bachmann tomorrow and ask her to start talking about this issue — about just how much pressure the Obama Administration put on the healthcare insurance industry to keep quiet about what they knew regarding Obamacare’s likely impact on our economy in 2011 and beyond. Out of the declared presidential candidates so far, she’s the only one I can see shouting from the rooftops about this.
If you’re a legal expert, I’d love for you to chime in below in comments and tell us who can be sent to prison for any thuggery that bullied healthcare executives into keeping quiet about the economic disaster that is Obamacare.
Can the executives be prosecuted for keeping quiet and allowing Obamacare to tank our economy?
Who in the Obama Administration can go to prison if they knew healthcare executives were being threatened into silence regarding Obamacare’s true costs to the country?
How can we ensure the 45th President of the United States makes it mission critical to prosecute any and all Obama officials who signed off on the thuggery that succeeded in passing Obamacare?
Your thoughts and ideas are desperately needed below…because we simply need to hold people accountable for this disaster, and the only way to do that is to start planning that accountability NOW.
Texas Ground Report: What do people in the Lone Star State think of Obamacare and our illustrious current president?
Dear HillBuzz,
So, had to go down to Humble {silent ‘H’, pronounced “Umble”}, TX, today, running errands.
My karma must be in the positive zone – I locked the keys in the FodGuy’s go-to-work car, and the couple who parked beside me when I realized it had AAA – they called and said ‘they’ were locked out, so AAA came in one of their CUTE little roadside service vans & popped the lock, no muss, no fuss. Of course, the lady who’d called them & I had held quite a conversation at that point 
.
She works in medical records for an absolutely MASSIVE hospital system here – she’s one of those unsung admin types in hospitals, who try to ensure that the proper papers go in each record. But, HEY! Under Øbamacare, within 10 years, it’s all supposed to be ‘paperless’ – our medical histories will be available via “secured” nets {we all know how well THAT works – Pentagon/NSA/CIA hacking, anyone?} or on CDs {which I really don’t mind, as long as *I* am given a copy of everything, whether via thumbdrive or whatever, to incorporate into MY OWN copies of my records}. Like our pharmacist, she sees the days of what Americans have enjoyed re: healthcare as being things of the past.
Read the rest of this entry »
Proof Obama Has Already Lost Ohio
Obama won Ohio in 2008 through voter fraud, pure and simple. ACORN manufactured about 200,000 questionable voter registrations, which were accepted by the vile and corrupt Soros plant, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner. And (surprise, surprise), the number of ACORN voter registrations from cemeteries, illegal aliens, vacant lots, convicted felons, pets and cartoon characters was roughly equal to Obama’s margin of “victory.”
And yet, despite the best efforts of Jennifer Brunner, the voters of Ohio will get the opportunity to give Obamacare the big electoral finger in November of 2011 (just like they gave Jennifer and the Democrats the finger statewide in November of 2010).
After Obamacare was rammed through Congress in the dead of night on Christmas eve 2009, The Ohio Project–a statewide coalition of Ohio freedom groups–started working to get an anti-Obamacare constitutional amendment on the November, 2010 ballot. But the Ballot Board chaired by Secretary of State Brunner “abused its discretion and clearly disregarded applicable law” when they blocked The Ohio Project’s attempt to offer a single amendment to the Ohio Constitution to preserve the freedom of Ohioans to choose their health care and health care coverage. (At least, that was the unanimous ruling of the Ohio Supreme Court in April, 2010.)
Ohio is a huge state, and nearly all successful statewide petition drives are conducted by paid circulators. Brunner’s office knew that The Ohio Project didn’t have the money that the corrupt unions, ACORN, or the Democrat party had to gather signatures–so they’d have to rely on volunteers to circulate petitions. Brunner’s strategy was to delay certification of the amendment language, assuming that the wicked evil RAAAAACIST Tea Party activists in Ohio wouldn’t have enough time before the 2010 election to gather enough valid signatures to get the amendment on the ballot.
Brunner was right in one sense…everyone involved understood that thanks to Brunner’s unlawful delays, the amendment didn’t stand a chance of going before the voters in 2010. And I’m sure that Brunner and most of the Democrat leadership in Ohio assumed they could keep the anti-Obamacare amendment off the ballot in 2011, as well. (They probably also assumed they would all still have their cushy government jobs after the 2010 election. They were wrong on both counts.)
Instead of wasting the precious time and energy of volunteer petition circulators on a doomed bid to get on the 2010 ballot, the very wise leaders of The Ohio Project decided to focus on getting the constitutional amendment on the ballot this year. And a few days ago, they succeeded.The group needed to collect 385,245 valid signatures of Ohio voters. This week, Ohio’s new Republican Secretary of State certified 426,998 signatures. They were collected by over 4,400 unpaid Ohioans, in their spare time, working as volunteers.
Ohio has 88 counties, and it’s not easy to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot. To get the anti-Obamacare amendment on the ballot, in at least 44 of these counties, volunteers from The Ohio Project had to collect valid signatures in excess of 5% of the number of votes cast in the last gubernatorial election. For the entire state, the anti-Obamacare coalition had to gather a total number of signatures greater than 10% of the number of votes cast in the last gubernatorial election. That, in and of itself, was remarkable.
What is stunning is that in nine Ohio counties, the equivalent of one out of every four active voters signed The Ohio Project’s petition to void Obamacare within the borders of the Buckeye State. In 30 other counties, volunteers collected a quantity of signatures equal to more than 15% of those who had voted in the last gubernatorial election.
So far, over 441,000 Ohio voters have signed petitions to put an Obamacare nullification constitutional amendment on the ballot in Ohio. (H/T Moonbattery.com)
The fact that a statewide coalition of volunteers has organized themselves, trained themselves to collect valid signatures, stayed focused, and successfully collected nearly half a million signatures is simply stunning. It has never before been done.
The Freedom Movement is strong and growing in Ohio. The state is blanketed with Tea Party groups, 912 groups, and other liberty organizations.
The majority of Ohio voters, like the majority of Americans, are against Obamacare. And last November, the voters of Ohio routed Democrats from the Statehouse and Governor’s Mansion.
Obama’s accomplice, Jennifer Brunner, is no longer around to facilitate the massive voter fraud that put Obama into office.
I believe that the combination of this massive show of anti-Obamacare strength, and the absence of Jennifer Brunner (and thus, voter fraud) from the landscape, means that Ohio is going to go GOP in the next election.
What “Healthcare Crisis?” or, What I Won’t Be Able To Do Under Obamacare
H/T Ah, Shoot
Leftists are fond of screeching that there’s a “healthcare crisis.” When what we really have is a “government interference in the healthcare and insurance industries” crisis.
Allow me to share my personal story.
I had been feeling under the weather and exhausted most of the week, but unfortunately, for an entrepreneur under the Obama Regime, that is not unusual, so I ignored it.
The “unusual” waited until Friday morning to show up: a large, painful swelling under my jaw and a 101-degree fever.
My company pays about $195 a month for a high-deductible health insurance policy for me. I’m responsible for the first $3,000 of medical expenses every year. After that, the insurance policy covers everything. I’m generally extremely healthy–one doctor visit in the past two years. So this arrangement works great for me, and if I need medical care, I just buy it like I buy food or utilities or any of the other necessities of life.
So when I woke up Friday morning feeling like death on toast, I called my doctor’s office to get an appointment. My doctor was already booked. But her partner had an opening at 4:15 that afternoon, which I snapped up.
I explained to the intake nurse that I had insurance, but it was a high-deductible policy, so I wanted to pay the out-of-pocket price if that was lower than the negotiated rate. The nurse said she wasn’t sure, but she thought that would be $50. I said that was about all I could afford and that would be fine.
I showed up for my appointment and wrote the doctor a check for $50. There was no paperwork to fill out.
The doctor saw me about 30 minutes later (not bad, considering it was the end of the day on Friday and I was the last patient.) The diagnosis–an incredibly infected gland under my jaw. The treatment–antibiotics.
I told the MD I didn’t have drug coverage. So I asked him for any free samples he might have in the drug cabinet in the back. (Drug reps from the pharmaceutical companies give doctors cases of free drug samples every year–you just have to ask for them.) He didn’t have any antibiotics in the drug stash, but he told me that Meijer, a regional chain similar to Target, offers several antibiotics FOR FREE.
The doc went through Meijer’s “free” list, crossed off the antibiotics I’m allergic to, and wrote a script. It happened to be one that gives me bad heartburn, so I asked him to write me a script for one that I knew I tolerated better–I could call around and get prices on it. Since the office would be closed until Monday, he agreed (I promised him I would throw away the script I didn’t fill.)
In the end, I decided on the free antibiotic at Meijer. When I showed up to fill the prescription, the pharm tech checked my insurance coverage just in case. It turned out I had Rx coverage, and the other antibiotic would be just $20 and I’d only have to take it for 5 days.
Sold.
Within 12 hours of waking up incredibly sick, I was in and out of the doctor’s office for $50 and had a $20 antibiotic that started to kick in the next day. I already feel better. (And I could have chosen the free option.)
So my first question is, “WHAT healthcare crisis?!?!?”
My second question is, would any of this have been possible under Obamacare? Hell to the no.
According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, physician shortages will start in 2014 and continue to get worse. As reported at Hot Air,
“While previous projections showed a baseline shortage of 39,600 doctors in 2015, current estimates bring that number closer to 63,000, with a worsening of shortages through 2025,” the group said in a statement.
After Obamacare kicks in, will my company still pay less than $200 a month for my insurance? Probably not. Since Obamacare was passed, my insurance company has raised rates by 26%.
Will Meijer still offer free antibiotics as a “loss leader” to get non-regulars like me into their store? Who knows. Once the government takes over healthcare, perhaps they’ll decide to “acquire” the pharmaceutical industry, too.
Will I be able to get into the MD the same day (on a Friday, no less?) Of course not. We’ll have Canadian and UK-style waiting lists.
Obamacare must be stopped. Obama must be stopped. Or we can all look forward to this long list of job-killing, old-people-killing, economy-killing, side-effects.
GOP Working Hard to Lose Ohio in 2012, Say Tea Party Activists
Thanks to Hillbuzz reader Temple of Mut for making us aware of this article from Reuters:
Special report: Stuck between the Tea Party and a hard place
Keeping in mind that Reuters is part of the Mainstream Media, this special report still contains a number of gems about the current relationship between the GOP and Tea Party movements throughout the Midwest — Ohio in particular.
Several of us at Buzzquarters are from Ohio, and we get back for meetings of the Mineral City Coffee Club whenever we can.
As the left-leaning Brookings Institute pointed out in March, Ohio is important because President Obama Can’t Win the 2012 Election Without It. Not because of the Buckeye state’s 20 electoral votes, but because
Ohio is close to being a microcosm of the country—closer than any other pivotal state. As such, winning Ohio is a statistical “tipping-point” for any presidential election: If a candidate can carry Ohio, he will have appealed to a large enough slice of the national electorate to have won the states that tilt even further in his preferred direction, and he is odds-on to win the race.
And things aren’t looking good for the Cocktail Party GOP in Ohio. Tea Party activists are fed up. They’re fed up with establishment politicians like House Speaker John Boehner of West Chester (a suburb of Cincinnati). They’re fed up with compromise and politics as usual from the Party of Stupid.
On April 25th, about two dozen Tea Party activists from throughout Boehner’s district met with him in the west central Ohio town of Troy, which could star as Small Town U.S.A. in any campaign ad.
One of the 25 or so leaders, all from Boehner’s district, asked him if Republicans would raise America’s $14.3 trillion debt limit.
According to half a dozen attendees interviewed by Reuters, the most powerful Republican in Washington said “yes.”
“And we’re going to have to raise it again in the future,” he added. With the mass retirement of America’s Baby Boomers, he explained, it would take 20 years to balance the U.S. budget and 30 years after that to erase the nation’s huge fiscal deficit.
“You could have knocked me out of my chair,” said Denise Robertson, a computer programer who belongs to the Preble County Liberty Group. “Fifty years?”
She said “my fantasy now” is someone will challenge Boehner in the 2012 Republican primaries. “If we could find someone good to run against him, I’d campaign for them every day,” Robertson said.
The GOP seems to already have forgotten who was responsible for the biggest midterm clock-cleaning in modern U.S. political history, handed to The Left in the November, 2010 elections.
If they are not careful, Tea Party activists all over Ohio — and America — are going to remind them.
Both the Leftists and the GOP may think that “the heat is off” since Tea Party events are fewer and further between. The truth is that Tea Party organizations in Ohio (and elsewhere) have learned a lot since 2008. They’ve moved away from sponsoring rallies (high-profile, but low ROI) to grassroots political activism.
Ohio Liberty Council
A number of Ohio’s Tea Party organizations got their start as Ron Paul Meetup groups during the 2008 campaign. They’ve moved beyond support of an individual candidate to focus on the fight for individual rights, gun rights, Constitutional governance and free market capitalism in Ohio. The movement has coalesced into an influential and organized statewide alliance of liberty-oriented local groups called the Ohio Liberty Council.
And their efforts are paying off. Liberty activists in Ohio have made history with The Ohio Project, a bid to amend the Ohio Constitution to nullify Obamacare in the Buckeye State. In just over a year, Ohio volunteers have collected over 336,000 signatures and are just 50,000 shy of getting the Health Care Freedom Amendment on the November, 2011 ballot. This is the largest number of signatures ever gathered by volunteer petition circulators in Ohio. This kind of “retail activism” is noted in the Reuters article:
After failing to halt the passage of Obama’s health reform bill, Tea Partiers staffed phone banks, knocked on doors to get out the vote and played a major role in gaining 63 seats for the Republicans in the 2010 elections.
The biggest midterm election year swing since 1938 delivered a large House majority for the Republicans and made gains in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Flush with victory, Tea Partiers dived headfirst into local and state politics in 2011 — the results of which are expected to affect the state and national elections of 2012.
Their primary foe is still America’s progressive left — it is a given in Ohio, for instance, that the top target for 2012 is Democratic U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown.
But now more than ever before the full force of their ire is directed at the Republican Party establishment.
And, unbelievably, the Cocktail Party GOP doesn’t see it coming. At all. And seems intent on living up to its nickname The Party of Stupid.
According to Ned Ryun, head of American Majority, which provides training for conservative activists, the Republicans’ problem is they mistook their November victory as a sign the Tea Party backed them because its members are conservatives.
“The Republican establishment suffers from a weird belief that somehow the Tea Party will fall in line because it is an adjunct of the Republican Party,” he said. “But the Tea Party is not and never will be an arm of the Republican Party.”
Those of us who read (and write for) Hillbuzz understand that “conservative” or “libertarian” is non synonymous with “Republican.”
The Cocktail Party GOP just doesn’t get it. And if they’re not careful, they’re going to lose Ohio because of their blindness and arrogance.
If we don’t take control of the Republican primary process, we run the risk of having another John McCain shoved down our throats by the mainstream media and Democrats voting in open primaries. And another four years of the worst president in the history of our country.
