White House bashed for health care 'snitch' program

Senator says there's no precedent for citizens reporting 'fishy' comments

Posted: August 05, 2009
9:28 pm Eastern
By Bob Unruh
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, today demanded that President Obama either halt a program already widely known in the blogosphere as the 'snitch' program or define how he will protect the privacy of those who send or are the subject of e-mails to the flag@whitehouse.gov e-mail address.
The White House announced the program only a day earlier, pleading with people around the nation to forward to the White House e-mail address anything they might see 'about health insurance reform that seems fishy.'
'I am not aware of any precedent for a president asking American citizens to report their fellow citizens to the White house for pure political speech that is deemed 'fishy' or otherwise inimical to the White House's political interests,' the Texas senator wrote in a letter today to Obama.

National Guard asked to explain 'internment' jobs

Posted: August 07, 2009
11:45 pm Eastern
By Bob Unruh
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

An ad campaign featured on a U.S. Army website seeking those who would be interested in being an 'Internment/Resettlement' specialist is raising alarms across the country, generating concerns that there is some truth in those theories about domestic detention camps, a roundup of dissidents and a crackdown on 'threatening' conservatives."

Call For Informants: If You Oppose Obamacare, Even in ‘Casual Conversation,’ the White House Wants to Know About It

Posted by Jeff Emanuel (Profile)
Tuesday, August 4th at 1:45PM EDT 52 Comments
If you see anybody publicly opposing President Obama’s plan to implement a government-centric overhaul of the health care system, the White House wants you to report that person (or persons) ASAP.
From the White House website:

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

Of course, as we’ve seen in the health care debate to date, the term “disinformation” is used by the Obama White House as a catchall to describe any opposition to the President’s push for single-payer, government-run health care — meaning the White House wants to be informed of any forwarded emails or blog posts or any “casual conversations” that could be taken as opposition to their health care overhaul plan.
The White House has, as yet, offered no explanation of what it is they plan to do with the tips on policy opposition they hope to receive from citizen informers. Interestingly, as Jake Tapper pointed out on Twitter this morning, the title of that post on the White House is a quote from John Adams’ 1770 “Argument in Defense of the Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials.”

Historic Documents - The Declaration of Independence

Historic Documents - The Declaration of Independence: "The Declaration of Independence
In Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

Historic Documents - The Constitution of the United States of America

Historic Documents - The Constitution of the United States of America: "Article. I.
Section. 1.
All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives."

Historic Documents - The Constitution of the United States of America

Historic Documents - The Constitution of the United States of America: "The Constitution of the United States of America
September 17, 1787
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Investor's Business Daily -- Death Knell For Nuclear Power?

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Monday, August 03, 2009 4:20 PM PT
Energy: A Senate vote to kill funding for the spent fuel repository in Nevada shows the Democratic Party and this administration aren't serious about energy independence, economic growth or environmental protection.

Read More: Energy

Killing the storage facility for the spent fuel rods produced by the nation's nuclear power industry has long been a dream of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Obama. Last week, the Senate granted their wish, voting to deny the resources needed to complete a review necessary for Yucca Mountain to open.
'This is a major victory for Nevada,' said Reid, who is up for re-election next year. 'I am pleased that President Obama has lived up to his promise to me and to all Nevadans by working with me to kill the Yucca Mountain project.'"

What are we comming to...

After a weekend of listening to the news and and listening to the radio I somehow have gotten the idea that the folks in Washington think we are stupid.

Now I am not going to say the everything about our health care is peachy. What I am going to say is that their can be room for improvement.

Our doctors, nurses, facilities are first rate.

Our Pharmaceutical companies come up with wonder drugs to help people. While there is debate here that is not what I am discussing in this post.

Most everyone agrees that the biggest area of improvement for our health care is cost. What troubles me most is no one seems to what to discuss what goes into our health care costs.

We hear about insurance companies charging so much for coverage, but insurance companies base their premiums on loss experience since they have to pay claims, to pay the claims they have to collect premiums. So to determine those premiums the have to have a defined benefit that they can statistically calculate cost.

We don't hear anything about what the legal costs to the health care industry is, how much goes in to Medical Malpractice insurance for doctors, nurses or hospitals or even clinics. How much goes in to the cost of Product Liability insurance for Pharmaceutical Companies, Medical Devices or equipment.

Now I am not saying their should be no recourse for negligence but negligence is something that is definable. Suing members of the medical profession with out proof of negligence should be banned.

Think how crazy this is, a drug is approved by the FDA with defined side effects, the product is released, the individual has a know side effect and sues the Manufacture. this is wrong, Recourse should be to the FDA for approving the drug in the first place.

We hear how drugs are cheep in Canada, their is no recourse in Canada if you have a problem with the drug in Canada, hence the price is reduced. The same can be said of Mexico or any number of companies that have State Sponsored medicine.

Let's have a debate of where the costs are then we can address that for everyone.

New HIV strain discovered in woman from Cameroon - Yahoo! News

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer Randolph E. Schmid, Ap Science Writer – Sun Aug 2, 2:31 pm ET

WASHINGTON – A new strain of the virus that causes AIDS has been discovered in a woman from the African nation of Cameroon. It differs from the three known strains of human immunodeficiency virus and appears to be closely related to a form of simian virus recently discovered in wild gorillas, researchers report in Monday's edition of the journal Nature Medicine.

The finding 'highlights the continuing need to watch closely for the emergence for new HIV variants, particularly in western central Africa,' said the researchers, led by Jean-Christophe Plantier of the University of Rouen, France.

The three previously known HIV strains are related to the simian virus that occurs in chimpanzees.

Howard Kurtz Media Notes: Networks Grouse About Coverage of Obama's Conference

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 3, 2009

In the days before President Obama's last news conference, as the networks weighed whether to give up a chunk of their precious prime time, Rahm Emanuel went straight to the top.

Rather than calling ABC, the White House chief of staff phoned Bob Iger, chief executive of parent company Disney. Instead of contacting NBC, Emanuel went to Jeffrey Immelt, the chief executive of General Electric. He also spoke with Les Moonves, the chief executive of CBS, the company spun off from Viacom.

Whether this amounted to undue pressure or plain old Chicago arm-twisting, Emanuel got results: the fourth hour of lucrative network time for his boss in six months. But network executives have been privately complaining to White House officials that they cannot afford to keep airing these sessions in the current economic downturn.

The networks 'absolutely' feel pressured, says Paul Friedman, CBS's senior vice president: 'It's an enormous financial cost when the president replaces one of those prime-time hours. The news divisions also have mixed feelings about whether they are being used.'

While it is interesting to see how a president handles questions, Friedman says, 'there was nothing' at the July 22 session, which was dominated by health-care questions. 'There hardly ever is these days, because there's so much coverage all the time.'"