Revisiting The Chicago Annenberg Challenge

In researching the debate over the health care reform bill, and trying to discern truth from distortion, I came across an Associated Press article about Sarah Palin's recent FaceBook posting. In her posting, she calls Obama's plan "downright evil" and claims it would create a "death panel", saying:

"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care."

The AP article then quickly points out that FactCheck.org rates the "rumor" as false, something Barack Obama keeps insisting, as well. But something caught my eye in the way the AP presented the case. Look closely at the sentence in the article:

"The nonpartisan group FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania says the claim is false."

When I read "Annenberg Public Policy Center", a bell went off in my head. While the AP refers to the organization as "nonpartisan" - which might be true - I think they may still have a place in their hearts for the president, who used to Chair the Chicago Annenberg Challenge for four years...working closely with William Ayers.

That made me wonder what other significance may be attached to this connection, and I found my answer from a year-old article in American Thinker. The significance is two-fold, for it details both the outright lies and secrecy of the new president and his allies, and reveals the only executive experience Obama has ever had. While I and most people I know were astonished that the American people would elect such an inexperienced neophyte to the highest office in the land, we also forgot that he did have some experience running something after all.

Here are the first two paragraphs from the American Thinker article:

The cloak of media invisibility is slowly beginning to lift from Barack Obama's most important administrative leadership experience, helming an expensive educational reform effort in Chicago that failed to produce any measurable academic gains, according to the project's own final report.


Add in the fact that former Weatherman and admitted terrorist William Ayers (whom Obama described in the Philadelphia debate as merely a "neighbor") was head of the operating arm of the CAC, working with Obama on distributing scores of millions of dollars to grantees in the wards of the city, and you have a topic that the Obama campaign wishes to avoid at all costs.

So the only real experience Obama has is the squandering of "scores of millions of dollars". And now he's going to wreak the same havoc but on a much larger scale.

While the article was mistaken in its opening assessment - the media cloak never did lift - it does highlight the extreme protectionism surrounding Obama's past. Stanley Kurtz, of National Review Online, asked the University of Illinois of Chicago for access to the files and was granted it, only to have the permission rescinded shortly thereafter, something that is very unusual, considering that the library is publicly funded.

Now I have been informed by a friend that Sean Hannity is going to run an in-depth documentary tomorrow night at 9:00pm/Eastern time on the Fox News Channel. I urge everyone to watch the show. It is never too late to discover the truth.

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No Mail For You!

Democrats continue to raise obfuscation to an art form, wantonly contradicting the fiscal predictions of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) by insisting on telling the American people that their proposals will actually reduce the deficit. One Democrat congressman even went so far as to tell a town hall meeting that Obama's Universal Health Care would create a $6 billion surplus, much to the chagrin of the audience who promptly heckled him nearly off the stage. Hannity discussed this meeting and the video clearly shows that the audience is obviously better informed than the congressman assessed.



Last night President Obama had yet another televised press conference in which he blathered on at length about a proposal which he has previously admitted that he is unfamiliar. When a caller to a show that Obama was on recently asked about the provision on page sixteen of the bill that would prohibit people from getting new private insurance, Obama confessed that he was "unfamiliar with that portion" of the bill. That doesn't stop him from bloviating on the subject with platitudinous rhetoric, however.

Now we have the controlling Democrats in the House of Representatives who are actually blocking House Republicans from sending out mailings to their constituents that are critical of the health care proposal. According to Roll Call:

Democrats are preventing Republican House Members from sending their constituents a mailing that is critical of the majority’s health care reform plan, blocking the mailing by alleging that it is inaccurate.

House Republicans are crying foul and claiming that the Democrats are using their majority to prevent GOP Members from communicating with their constituents.

The dispute centers on a chart created by Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) and Republican staff of the Joint Economic Committee to illustrate the organization of the Democratic health care plan.

When the Democrats retook Congress in 2006, they promised transparency and bi-partisanship. We have seen neither from them. All during the excruciatingly long campaign for the presidency, Barack Obama promised a new atmosphere of cooperation and transparency. So far he has managed to break his promises one by one, teaming with his fellow Democrats in ramming through pieces of legislation that no one - including those who actually vote on them - has had time to read.

Now, even in the face of growing opposition to this health care plan and accompanying evidence and analyses that portend economic disaster, Obama and Congressional Democrats simply say that all of it is untrue. Deny, deny, deny. This is how they claim that their motives for blocking Republicans' correspondence with their constituents are based on rules. That seems awfully convenient; simply censor your opposition by claiming that they are lying.

I hope the Democrats savor the flavor, and remember this tactic's usefulness in 2011.

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Universal Health Care Bill Is Hotel California

You can check out anytime you like
But you can never leave...

"Don't believe what you see, believe what I tell you" seems to be the mantra of this administration and the democrat leadership in both houses regarding how they spend our money. Running faster and faster with the Father Knows Best mentality, our government is seeking to drive us all to ruin despite our vociferous protestations because they actually believe that we will believe anything they try to tell us. I don't know how many of you have already tried to call your representatives, but if you live in a "blue district", as I do, you probably know well the frustration of dealing with dripping condescension on the other end of the line.

From the incredibly ill-conceived words of our new vice president - who declared quite seriously that we need to spend more and faster to avoid bankruptcy - to the insistence that no matter how bad it looks, Obama and the democrats know what they're doing, the simple truth is that are lying to us. If Obama's own lies on the campaign trail - which he's already backtracked on multiple times - aren't enough for you, there is the latest one about people being permitted (an ominous word from a bureaucrat) to keep the private insurance that they have if they choose to do so.

That is an out and out lie, one that his minions continue to perpetuate even when nailed to the wall on it. Investors Business Daily has obtained a copy of the 1000-plus page health care bill and made an outrageous discovery on page sixteen. It turns out that while those who will be permitted to retain their preferred coverage is true to a degree, what our government hasn't told us is that - under the provisions of this monstrous bill - if one ever loses that coverage, it will be illegal to obtain a new private policy.

From the article:

When we first saw the paragraph Tuesday, just after the 1,018-page document was released, we thought we surely must be misreading it. So we sought help from the House Ways and Means Committee.

It turns out we were right: The provision would indeed outlaw individual private coverage. Under the Orwellian header of "Protecting The Choice To Keep Current Coverage," the "Limitation On New Enrollment" section of the bill clearly states:

"Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day" of the year the legislation becomes law.

So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised — with, of course, exceptions: Those who currently have private individual coverage won't be able to change it. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers.

Add to this revelation the fact that despite the Congressional Budget Office rating the bill a disaster, the administration and congress still insist on voting it in and doing so before their summer recess, it becomes quite clear that our elected leaders are but insolent school children - albeit gravely dangerous ones - who want to be done with this business before they can go play. Consequences be damned.

Again, I beseech all of you to contact your representatives in both houses of congress and tell them that this will not be tolerated by we, the people. We have a scant two weeks to save our country from Marxist ruination. Here again is the link: Contacting Congress

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Death And Taxes

For Democrats, it seems, only one of these is certain, so we can eliminate the guy on the right; the one with the briefcase. Death comes to all whether we decide to go or not, but for Obama cabinet nominees the tax man only comes when they are caught.

Tom Daschle is the latest Obama nominee to be diagnosed with the affliction commonly known as tax cheat. And yet, simply because he is a democrat, he still has the full support of the new leader as well as that of his former colleagues in the senate. Daschle has been tapped by Obama to be his Secretary of Health and Human Services. The Department of Health and Human Services is the principal agency for protecting the health of all Americans. It is comprised of the Office of the Secretary and 11 operating divisions.

Now, I can just envision a man like Daschle doling out good advice - or mandates - about what we should eat or drink for our own good while he dines at fast food restaurants at will. After all, why should he have to abide by his own rules dictated to the masses? Alas, I wander too far...

The Daschle debacle is merely another example of the elitist mindset in politicians. Timothy Geithner is now the head of the U.S. Treasury despite his own tax problems and Congressman Charlie Rangel is still the House Ways and Means Committee chair even though he, too, failed to pay taxes. But Daschle may have a bit of a problem clearing his confirmation process in spite of the dem majority. The reason is his antagonistic relationship with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who’s been in a long-running feud with Daschle.

Baucus, who came to Geithner's defense, has been mute regarding Daschle, so it's not as if ol' Max is being noble in his efforts to stymie Daschle, but at least may end up doing something right in spite of himself. And while Obama has been steadfast in his support of Daschle, it might be wise to remember the words of his own vice president a short while ago: Joe Biden told Katie Couric that paying taxes was the patriotic thing to do. I wonder if it will be chic now to accuse some members of the Obama cabinet of being unpatriotic.

And we must also consider how Tom Daschle felt about tax cheats a decade ago. He said, "Make no mistake, tax cheaters cheat us all, and the IRS should enforce our laws to the letter." Sen. Tom Daschle, Congressional Record, May 7, 1998, p. S4507.

And also keep in mind, as this process goes forward in the media, that body's reaction to the paltry sum owed by an ordinary citizen in Joe the Plumber. Consider that $1200 in back taxes instantly rendered Joe a liar and not credible to criticize Obama. What does that say for Daschle, who owed more than one hundred times that amount? Why of course, it means that we should trust his judgement regarding our health, right?

It's time for Americans to wake up and realize that we are not the free society we always dreamed we were but rather a bunch of peons being ruled by an elite class of well-paid criminals. That's the very thing we fled well over 200 years ago.

A parting thought, courtesy of Jim DeMint of South Carolina: "...I can see now why liberals don't mind if the tax rate goes up, because they're not gonna pay it anyway."

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