My jaw literally dropped when I heard this. I won’t even try to introduce it, just listen to it for yourself and be prepared to use both hands to hoist that jaw of yours back up.

I really, really wasn’t going to say anything bad about Ted Kennedy after the sad news of his passing.. I contemplated posting something short, just to pass along my thoughts, prayers, and condolences to the Kennedy family for their loss. I know that losing any loved one is difficult, and even despite the political differences I had with Ted Kennedy, I still respect his humanity and the pain that his family must be going through because of his death. But in the end, I decided against it; I didn’t think I should say anything, because this is a political blog and I didn’t think he should be dragged into political issues now that he’s gone (a la the way the Democrats are now trying to invoke his memory in order to pass their massive health care bills.)

But after hearing this, I just had to say something. Because my heart, thoughts, and prayers go out to the Kopechne family too. I can’t even begin to imagine how much hearing something like this would hurt, knowing that the man responsible for their daughter’s death now laughs about the fact. I don’t think there’s anything Ed Klein could say to make this sound any better. Sorry, but I rarely ever dare to joke about something that I feel great remorse for.

But then again, I’ve never run away while someone else was dying due to my mistake. I’ve never hid in a hotel room, trying to come up with an alibi, while a young woman spent unimaginably harrowing hours struggling in an air pocket inside of my drowned automobile, before ultimately dying a horrific, drawn-out, cruel, and painful death.

Maybe you just had to be there to get the joke. I’m sure Mary Jo would have laughed too, right?

Word surfaced over this past weekend about a book that’s recently been added to the Department of Veterans Affairs’ list of publications to be distributed to veterans, despite the fact it was deliberately removed several years ago due to material that the leaders of the VA deemed objectionable. Now that we have a new administration in town, apparently even though they haven’t seen fit to fill more than half of the vacant presidential appointments, someone thought it urgent that this book be reinstated. Someone has great priorities.
If you haven’t yet seen the book, you need to read it. Then you might understand why I’m a bit miffed about this.

The book is called ‘Your Life, Your Choices’ – a title which seems strangely apt given the recent debate over government-run health care. While normally such a title should be appealing to me, the content is absolutely disgusting, in my opinion. The reason for my disgust?
It’s an end of life planning counseling book written by Dr. Robert Pearlman, a major proponent of assisted suicide. In fact, Dr. Pearlman has testified repeatedly in multiple court cases wherein he advocated for physician-assisted suicide.
Brilliant. Just who I’d want to get compassionate, sensitive, and humane guidance from about how to make the most out of my life and maintain my dignity, no matter what physical condition I might find myself in.

I have to admit, I was not able to read the entire book. It was just too emotional for me, and I’ll explain why in a minute. But first, I want to give you a sampling of what the book has to offer: a checklist of ways to tell if your life has devolved to the point where you might want to consider that maybe it’s just not worth living anymore. At least, according to Dr. Pearlman.

Click to enlarge

You know what I noticed first? The options. Nowhere is there an option where you can provide an answer that life is more than just “difficult, but acceptable”, but actually valid, enjoyable, dignified, engaging, and valued. That tells you a helluva lot, doesn’t it? What do you think that says to the veteran who’s reading it?

Let me tell you the second thing I noticed. Out of the 18 direct questions, I qualify for at least 11 of them, maybe 12. According to this book, I’d be a more than valid candidate for assisted-suicide. According to them, my life – at best – is “difficult, but acceptable”.

I’m only 24 years old.

Does that mean my life isn’t worth living? Does that mean my life isn’t dignified? Does that mean my life is “difficult, but acceptable”, or “worth living, but just barely”? Does that mean as a human being, I’m not to be valued as much as someone with an able body? Does that mean that I should just roll over and die because life didn’t turn out the way I thought it would?

I’m sorry, but I refuse to see if that way. I find it disgusting and so incredibly offensive that this book doesn’t even begin to recognize the value of every life, able, disabled, or otherwise. I’ve been seriously ill for over half of my life, and yet I’ve been able to contribute in ways most able-bodied people never do. Yet according to the words of this booklet, handed out to veterans by the VA, I rate just barely beyond “acceptable”.

I find this so far beyond deplorable that I don’t have words adequate enough to express my outrage. Some are calling this a “death book.” I certainly wouldn’t go that far or be that trite about it. But I would call it an absolutely appalling example of outright prejudice against the disabled. To devalue any human being should be outrageous to all of us. Because the minute we can devalue someone is the minute we can devalue anyone.

Veterans don’t need to be told that their lives are only barely acceptable if they’ve been injured or suddenly find themselves severely ill. They need to be encouraged, uplifted, loved, and reminded that they can overcome the challenges and obstacles they face, ultimately becoming stronger in ways they may not have previously imagined. I know I have. Sure, life isn’t always easy, but is it ever easy for anyone? Sure, I’ve had to deal with a lot of pain. But I’ve learned and grown as a person because of it. Those veterans can too.
But they won’t, if they’re told by our government that they can’t, that their lives are now worthless, and that they might as well just give up. We can’t devalue them this way, we can’t disrespect their humanity, we can’t just dismiss them. Just like we shouldn’t dismiss anyone with a disability, whether seen or unseen. We’re all human, we’re all born with different abilities, and throughout our lives, those abilities will surely change and transform. But we are all still human and we are all still deserving of the same rights, respect, and validation. How dare the VA even begin to say otherwise.

One final thought; this is how our government is treating our veterans’, how they’re influencing their health care decisions. If that’s how the heroes among us are treated, how would they treat the rest of us if they were in charge of our health care decisions? How much do you want to bet we’d all be reading a book like this one?
Are you willing to bet your life? It is, after all, your life, and your choice. At least, it is for now. I, for one, would like to keep it that way.

If you’d like to download and read the entire booklet, you can read it here on the official Department of Veterans Affairs website. Yup, even though the VA is saying it’s not an official VA document, it’s still available on their website, and the website says otherwise. It says it was created specifically for the VA via a generous grant of your tax dollars. Although it is allegedly under revision, it’s still being handed out in print in its current form to veterans.
And just in case it suddenly disappears, I’ve archived a copy here.

I think I’m going to start some kind of new theme on this site with videos that I’ll tag as “Watch & Share”. These videos will in some way perfectly encapsulate a specific aspect of the healthcare “reform” debate and do so in an efficient, concise, and engaging way. My hope is that these videos will both educate and inspire you, so that you can then forward them to your friends and family, thereby educating as many people as possible about the true nature of the “reforms” Obama & the Democrats are currently trying to rush through Congress.

The first such video comes from VerumSerum.com, and I first heard about it thanks to the folks at No Sheeples Here (love the blog name!). It does a brilliant job of using the words of Obama himself, along with Democrat Representative Jan Schakowsky and Yale professor Dr. Jacob Hacker, to explain exactly what their proposed “public option” would really do to the health insurance market. Meaning – in their own words, mind you – it’s merely a trojan-horse system that will ultimately lead to single-payer government-run health insurance. Don’t want to take it from me? Take it from them.

Please, watch this video and share it with everyone you know. We need to find out what’s really inside this trojan horse of a plan, before we open up the doors and bring it into our lives. As every country that currently employs single-payer health coverage will tell you, it’s nearly impossible to get rid of once it’s implemented. Yeah, you heard me right: nearly every nation with a single-payer government-run system has – and still is – trying to get rid of it, but to no avail. Yup, even Sweden & the UK! The last time I was in the UK there was a huge effort in Parliament to get rid of the National Health Service. But of course, it failed, since the NHS is the largest employer in the nation, and as such, provides a massive voting bloc.
Do we really want to let this trojan horse into our lives without really understanding the true intentions behind it? Listen to the words of the Democrats themselves, the words they uttered when they thought only their allies were listening. Only then will you be able to hear their true intentions, and only then will you understand precisely what they mean by “reform”.

Please keep an eye out for future ‘Watch & Share’ videos. I’ll post them here, on Twitter, and I’ll add them to a special ‘Watch & Share’ playlist on my YouTube account. And of course, if you’d like to recommend any videos, please feel free to post a comment on the blog or email them to me at NoWayNObama AT gmail DOT com (just replace the “AT” and the “DOT” with the appropriate symbol and punctuation, thanks!)
Rest assured, we can still stop the government from taking over our right to make our own healthcare decisions. We’ve delivered crushing blows to the Democrats’ attempts already, by forcing them to delay votes past the August recess. But the fight is far from over. There’s still so much to do and there are still so many people left to educate, we simply can’t stop now.

I want to marry this man and have his cute little cartoony babies!

That cartoon is by the brilliant Michael Ramirez, the editorial cartoonist from Investor’s Business Daily. I’ve been a huge fan of his for a while, but now, I just absolutely love him! I’ve never seen anyone summarize this harsh truth about the uninsured as brilliantly as he has!
A post is forthcoming on this very issue, following a bizarre encounter I had with a nurse at a recent trip to the doctor’s office. But I just couldn’t wait to post this as soon as I saw it. Please, forward this comic to everyone you know. More people deserve to know the truth about just how many people are uninsured in this country, but most importantly, just how many of those individuals are uninsured by choice.
If you’d like even more information about this issue, check out this previous blog entry, where I covered this exact topic.
Seriously, Mr. Ramirez, fantastic job!

As if there were still any doubts about the Democrats’ true intentions regarding their healthcare “reform”, I’ve found yet another article that clearly outlines a few nuggets of truth hidden throughout the latest healthcare bill to come out of Congress.

This time the article is from the NY Post of all places. They’ve discovered that – besides outlawing personal private health insurance policies – there will be an entirely new government agency whose sole purpose is to evaluate every single health insurance company and the policies they provide. This agency will then select certain specific policies which will meet some sort of arbitrary set of guidelines (and who knows what those are); these bureaucrat-approved policies will then be called “qualified plans”.

The kicker is, if you or your employer don’t select one of these government-approved qualified plans, you’ll be fined thousands of dollars via the IRS and then automatically enrolled in a randomly selected plan against your will. So in other words, even though you’ll have the freedom to pay through the nose for a private health insurance plan, whose cost will skyrocket, you won’t have the freedom to choose a plan that fits your own needs. No, silly mindless puny human, obviously a government bureaucrat knows far more about what you need than you do! How could you be so naive…

Yet again, this flies in the face of Obama’s campaign promise that “if you like your health plan, you can keep it,” even after he reforms our healthcare system. Yeah, well, what if I happen to like my current plan but a government bureaucrat isn’t as fond of it as I am? I guess then Obama’s promise won’t mean squat. But hey, maybe there was fine print hidden at the end of his teleprompter that we just couldn’t see.

In all honestly, I’m absolutely thrilled with my health insurance, just like 87% of Americans who are very satisfied with theirs as well. Through my Father’s job, my family has a plan with Anthem/Blue Cross Blue Shield. They’ve been absolutely wonderful, even when dealing with my rather obscure and difficult to treat disease. Compared to the treatment my friends with the same disease get from their socialized medical systems in the UK, Canada, & Australia – i.e. no care at all – I think I’m much better off under the current system than I would be under ObamaCare’s medical dictatorship.
To give you some idea of the quality of my care, I have three nurse case managers, one with my Dad’s company and two with Anthem, all of whom help to track and coordinate my care so that I can get the most out of my coverage. They’ve never disputed anything that I’ve had done, and believe me, I’ve had a LOT done. My medical bills just for the past couple years have added up into the millions. Hell, a few years ago when I desperately needed five rounds of high volume liposuction to keep the disease from killing me by age 22, Anthem actually paid for all of it, even though they’d never before in the history of the company ever encountered medically necessary liposuction, let alone paid for it in full. And that’s just a small sample of the great working relationship I’ve had with Anthem – I could go on and on about all that they’ve done for me and my doctors.
So all in all, I adore my health insurance company. I love them to pieces. In fact, if it weren’t for their help, I’d be dead by now. I’d damn well like to keep Anthem as my health insurance provider. But if Obama and the Democrats have their way? Well, their good track record of taking care of me won’t matter anymore – it’ll be up to some no-name in a suit who has never met me, sitting behind a government desk, whether or not I’ll get to keep paying this company for their wonderful services. That hardly seems fair, that hardly seems free, and that hardly seems to be in keeping with everything Obama and his fellow Democrats have been saying about their true incentives for passing their healthcare “reforms”.

You know, as I was reading that NY Post article, I couldn’t help but think of something. If their healthcare plan is going to cost us a whopping $1 trillion dollars in the first year alone, only to go up by the trillions from there, couldn’t we use that money in a more effective way, without stripping those of us who have health insurance away from our current coverage?
I actually came up with an idea that I’d find more palatable, but still as radically comparable to Obama’s proposed reforms. As I’ve already explained, despite everyone claiming there are 40 million Americans uninsured in this country, the truth is the actual figure is closer to roughly 12 million or so, once you discount illegal aliens, citizens making more than $50k a year, and those who already qualify for existing government programs. How about we take that $1 trillion dollars from the first year of the Democrats’ proposed reforms and instead split that up amongst the 12 million uninsured? We could give them some sort of government coupon that would only be applicable toward purchasing health insurance, that way they couldn’t go and blow it on big screen TVs and exotic vacations. If we did that, each and every one of those 12 million uninsured Americans would receive $83,333. Don’t you think that’d buy one hell of an insurance plan? Hell, even if there really were 40 million uninsured American citizens, they’d still get a whopping $25,000!! That’d definitely be one way that Obama could actually fulfill his campaign promise of ensuring that those who are already insured won’t lose their coverage, yet we’d still be able to get the uninsured covered without creating another massive, bloated government bureaucracy whose sole purpose in existence is to siphon off our freedoms.
Oh, and it’d also help with Obama’s unnamed – yet painfully obvious – goal of drastically expanding our deficit. Hooray.

Whaddya say, Obama? Or gee, is getting people insured not your real incentive here at all? Cause honestly, my idea’s sounding a heckuva lot more appealing right now than yours is.

My friend Joey just sent me a short article written by Investors Business Daily that I sincerely believe every American absolutely must read before they make up their minds about the Democrats’ initiative to pass healthcare “reform”. It’s not an opinion piece, it’s not an editorial, it’s simply a short 1-page article referencing a direct quote from the Democrats’ new healthcare legislation. That’s all.
Please, I urge you to read it. I beg you to send it to everyone you know. If only more Americans realized just what sort of soft tyranny is contained in the first sixteen pages alone of that 1,018 page bill, the Democrats’ true motives would be uncovered and Americans would be able to salvage so much of their own personal liberty before it’s too late. I hate to sound so dramatic, but seriously, if you aren’t free to make your own choices about your own life – decisions that could mean life or death – are you truly free?

Click here right now to read the article.

The more I think about it, the more I realize it isn’t even fair to call what the Democrats are trying to achieve “socialized medicine” or “universal healthcare”. No, this goes so far beyond that it’s not even funny. At least in the UK, for instance, you’re still free to buy private medical insurance, even though you’ll pay through the nose for it (I’ve heard anywhere from 4- to 6- times as much as we pay here.) No, what they’re trying to accomplish goes beyond mere government-run, single-payer healthcare; this is a medical dictatorship.

After discovering the rude disappearance of my side menu, I tried in vain to sort through the piles upon piles of code that made up my WordPress template. But alas, CSS is so far beyond me that it’s not even funny, so the reason for the egregious error eluded me. Without a solution in sight, I decided to do something drastic…
Completely redesign the site! Yay!
So now BarackNObama.net has an entirely new look, one that is complete with its side-menu-ness. Honestly, I’m really glad the previous site’s side menu decided to escape, because I actually like this look a whole lot more. It’s so much brighter, so much more cheerful, which is honestly necessary since all too often I’m blogging about wholly depressing topics. But hey, our country may be going to hell in a hand basket, but oooo look, a cute blue birdie!!

Speaking of that cute blue birdie, the birdie was just oh so cute that I didn’t dare remove it. After all, when I picked out this template I didn’t even have a twitter account to link to, so there would really be no point in keeping the cute blue birdie. That is, unless I finally swallowed my pride and opened up a twitter account.

You know, I never really understood twitter. It always seemed to me to be either a tool for the incredibly narcissistic, or for those with super teensy attention spans, or both. But my good friend Joey has been telling me about its wonders for the past few weeks. Which, knowing Joey, is quite remarkable – she’s even more skeptical of the latest Internet fads than I am. I always kind of look at Internet fads like this: it’s all been done before to some extent. For instance, Facebook is the new MySpace, and MySpace was the new Friendster. So what does that make Twitter? The new form of permanent, public, open-mic IMing? It just seemed so silly. Most of the “tweets” (oh gag, the lingo…) seemed to be stupid stuff no one would care about, like “Hey, I’m at the grocery store right now, buying Ben & Jerry’s. Aren’t I awesome?!”

Anyway, all rants aside, Joey assured me that twitter has evolved from those days – in her words, “it’s grown up” – so here I am, compelled to start my own twitter account because I picked out a new WordPress template with a cute blue birdie I couldn’t resist.
If you’re so inclined to join the twitterista (is that really part of the lingo or did I just make that one up?), you can follow me at BarackNObamaNet. As you also might have noticed, just to the left of that cute blue birdie is a little window featuring my latest tweets. I’m particularly proud of that little window – that wasn’t there in the original template. Oh no, I had to program that myself! And I’m oh so very proud of myself for doing so. I couldn’t repair my side menu, but I damn well wanted to make sure my new tweets filled up that otherwise useless space. When I finally got it working – through a great deal of wild ass guessing, throwing code around like darts hoping it’d stick somewhere – I literally did a little squeal and a happy dance in my office chair. So I sincerely hope you enjoy that little ‘Latest Tweets’ window, cause it sure wasn’t easy to set up.

That’s about it from me for tonight. I hope to be blogging and tweeting (a little part of me dies each time I say that…) more often over the next several weeks. If you wouldn’t mind, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the new design and any other improvements you think I could make. No guarantees I’ll actually be able to accomplish them, mind, but I can sure try. Thanks!

Steven Crowder has just done a remarkable expose on Canada’s healthcare system, where he actually went to Canada and attempted to get treatment, as well as speaking with multiple people who could tell horror stories of their own about their experiences with socialized medicine. It’s twenty minutes well spent, believe me.

Given my own first-hand experiences with socialized medicine in the UK, let me tell you, what you’ve seen in this video is certainly not an exception to the rule. Everything you saw here is the every day reality of living under socialized medicine. It does nothing to bridge the gap of poverty and ensure greater quality of care for all people. All it does is ensure that all of us suffer, while the uber-rich can still get quality care. More of us right now in the United States, despite the faults that currently exist in our system, still have more access to better quality care than in any other nation. I’ve seen the NHS up close and personal, and believe me, no American would ever stand for that sort of treatment. No American would tolerate waiting up to a year for a single 5-minute appointment with a specialist; no American would tolerate waiting six months to a year for a simple MRI; no American would tolerate being denied the care they need just because the government has decided your life isn’t worth it, even though you’re still being forced to pay taxes to cover the care some bureaucrat doesn’t think you deserve.
Choice is always the best option. Do you really want to face having only one option for healthcare? Just think about it for a minute! Any time in history, in any nation, has a monopoly in any market ever, ever produced a multitude of cheaper, higher quality products to more people? No! And furthermore, has the government – hell, any government – any run any sort of program that was efficient and cost effective? Yet again, the answer is no! Why? Simply because their jobs aren’t dependent on things being run smoothly, efficiently, and cost-effectively, so they have absolutely no incentive to keep things in line with the demands of their consumers.
The bottom line is, when your health is on the line, when your life is hanging in the balance, how do you want your doctors to treat you – like a customer who’s always right, or a poorly leech on an already over-burdened system, who should frankly be grateful for any care they receive at all?

As every other nation on earth that employs universal healthcare is – at this very moment – acknowledging the failure of their socialist models and choosing to revert to a freer more capitalistic model, it boggles my mind that somehow we’re still blindly stumbling along the very same destructive, expensive, and deadly path of absolute failure that they’re already rejecting after decades of experiencing the hardships that it inevitably creates. In this day and age where we can instantly communicate with anyone anywhere in the world, why is it that we don’t see more of the truth about the day to day realities of socialized medicine? We are blinding ourselves about the consequences of one of the biggest decisions our government will ever make! Please, let’s educate ourselves before we leap blindly toward the very same mistakes that other nations have already proven to be abject failures. One day, your life – or the life of someone you love – may very well depend on it.

Huge thanks to Steven Crowder for taking the time to put this video together. Perhaps it will show even one more person the reality of socialized medicine.

As quoted in an interview with the New York Times (you know, that bastion of right-wing conservatism), here’s what Ruth Bader Ginsburg had to say about the landmark abortion case, Roe v. Wade:

“Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.”
- Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, New York Times

Wow. All I can say is, wow. It’s astonishing to me that someone finally had the nerve to actually say in all honesty the real reason behind the founding of most abortion rights groups. But the mere fact that Ginsburg is showing any semblance of support for such reasons, that’s truly frightening.
What were those reasons? One need look no further than Margaret Sanger and the organization she began, Planned Parenthood. Sanger has been praised by the left for ages, including Hillary Clinton who spoke of Sanger several times throughout the most recent presidential campaign. But what the Left often neglects to mention while heaping these praises upon her memory is that Sanger was a staunch believer in Eugenics, the idea that society could shape and plan the breeding of their own children so as to eliminate either unwanted genetic traits or diseases, or entire unwanted races. That’s precisely what Ginsburg is referring to in that quote, when she speaks of population control, particularly in “populations that we don’t want to have too many of.”

What are those populations that Eugenicists didn’t want to have too many of? Of course they include the handicapped, physically or mentally. But what most people tend to forget about, is that minorities were – and still are – included in the list of unwanted aspects of our population.
With that in mind, is it any surprise that although African American babies make up 20% of live births in this nation, that they account for 36% of all abortions? Furthermore, over 80% of Planned Parenthood offices are located in predominantly African American neighborhoods! Margaret Sanger spoke repeatedly and specifically that abortion would be a tool not only of controlling and limiting the African American population, but that it could be used to utterly “exterminate the Negro population.” Given that, can we really dismiss such statistics as mere coincidence? In my opinion, no.

I’m astounded that Justice Ginsburg had the nerve to actually come out and say that abortion is a form of targeted, specific population control, and that such feelings about population influenced the outcome of Roe v. Wade. Perhaps her statement will lead others to understand the true intentions of those who championed abortion in the beginning, those who made it so commonplace as it is today. Perhaps then people will better understand exactly what it is we’re dealing with and why such intentions are so terribly, terribly dangerous.

Finally! Someone has finally had the nerve to point out that the reason we’re no longer paying 1960s-era prices for healthcare is in part due to the fact that the highest cost expenditures for hospitals have long since evolved from being ‘clean linens’, as was the case in 1960. I’ve been screaming this at the TV every time I see a politician waxing sentimental about healthcare costs of yesteryear. Yeah, well, I’d love to see how they’d like to settle for the healthcare benefits of the 1960s as they’re battling a serious infection, treatable cancers, or some other previously incurable disease. Not that I’m wishing ill on anyone, but seriously, so many diseases that we can easily cure today weren’t even named by the 1960s! Let’s remember, all was not so cheery back then, as yes, we were paying far less, but receiving far less care. As quality goes up, as services go up, so must prices.
Another large part I’ve been dying to see someone mention? Gee, government involvement which certainly keeps the healthcare market in this country from truly being ‘free’ and ‘capitalistic’, which would keep prices more in line with what the market expects to pay for them. Any time a politician says our healthcare market is currently free, or that Obama’s plan would only provide for an infusion of capitalistic competition into our healthcare market, I can’t help but laugh as I’m gagging on their dishonesty.

And who finally had the nerve to say all these things? Shock of shocks, the Washington Post. This is one of the signs of the apocalypse, isn’t it?
You really have to read this recent op-ed from George F. Will, it’s a spectacular piece of honesty.

Healthcare is complicated these days, as more and more services are provided by hospitals and we expect bigger, better, more miraculous care. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with those expectations, so long as we aren’t expecting miraculous 21st century care with a 1960s-vintage price tag. Let’s stop looking backward, shall we? We must stop looking backward at the prices of yesteryear, and we absolutely must stop looking backward at outdated models of government-run healthcare that have already proven to be spectacular failures in every single nation that has dared try such experiments. Why look backward when we expect our healthcare to look forward? I can guarantee you that no American will tolerate the long waits and routinely denied care of socialized medicine. Let’s try something different for a change; let’s try something that has a proven track record in every market to which it has been applied, yet hasn’t been truly and completely applied to healthcare: truly free capitalism.