Not many people are aware of this, but it’s law in the UK that if a baby is born before 22 weeks – even if it’s alive and breathing – it’s flatly denied care.
It’s time to meet the real-life consequences of this brutal inhuman law, and the real-world consequences of giving up your individual rights to the government. This is the reality of turning over health care to the government; it stops being about you and your doctor, but rather how the government can save money, regardless of the individual consequences.

Meet Sarah and her baby Jayden, who was unlucky enough to be born – alive – only 48 hours before the legislated cut-off. Despite breathing, moving, and having a full regular heartbeat, doctors left the room and repeatedly refused to even see or evaluate the baby. Instead he was left alone to die in his poor mother’s arms. They were even going to deny him a birth certificate, so that he could be counted as a “miscarriage”, rather than a real human being who had been born alive, only to die from neglect.

Click here, because you simply have to read this story. It will break your heart.

In decrying the state of our nation’s medical care, liberals like to trump out figures that state that our infant mortality rate is so much worse than that of other developed – and even some under-developed – countries.
Don’t believe them. Jayden is proof of why those statistics are inaccurate. Why? Because Jayden, despite being born alive, will be counted as a stillborn, a miscarriage.
In the United States, not only would Jayden have been immediately cared for and given every opportunity to live, even if he had died despite every effort made by the doctors, he would have been added to the infant mortality rate.
Yeah, statistics look so much nicer if you don’t even properly count the babies who are actually born alive and breathing. It’s so much easier to make your statistics look better if you just let the babies die rather than risk having him added to your numbers of dying infants. Count him as a stillborn, it looks so much better that way, right?
Tell that to his mother, who held him for two hours as little Jayden struggled for life.

He most likely could have been saved. But by giving up their health care rights to the government, so that the government could take care of them as dependents rather than relying on independence and personal responsibility, Britons sacrificed their rights to make decisions for themselves. It was no longer about Jayden’s Mom deciding what was best for her and her child, but rather, it was about stone-cold unfeeling, inhuman across-the-board rules that refuse to acknowledge individual circumstances, all for the sake of streamlining care to cut costs and pinch pennies. There was no way out of that streamlined system so that one child could be saved. Even if Jayden’s Mom had all the money in the world, she wouldn’t have had the freedom to spend it to save her child’s life.
That’s the reality of government-run health care. That’s the reality of dependence! The minute you give up your independence in order for someone else to care for you, you give up the right to make decisions for yourself. You give up the right to determine the course of your own future and the future of your children.

We cannot make that same mistake here. A public option isn’t worth being shackled by dependence. Don’t even open that door a tiny inch, don’t let the government squeeze itself between a single person and their doctor. You give them an inch, they’ll take a mile. We’ve seen it everywhere else it’s ever been tried. Jayden’s death is now proof of that.
Don’t let it happen here. I’m begging you, do not let it happen here.

    Have you ever read a story where you felt such a kinship with one of the characters, such a relatable connection, that you felt as though they were so real, so familiar, that they’d jump right off the page and into your life? That’s happened to me multiple times with fictional stories, but just recently, it happened again with a story I read about someone we lost.

    A few weeks ago I volunteered with the 2,996 Project, a blogging initiative started a few years ago in an effort to keep the memories of those we lost on September 11th alive. Each year on September 11th, two thousand nine hundred and ninety six bloggers come together, one for each of the lives lost that day. Each blogger is assigned a different victim from that terrible day, whom they will write about on their blog to share the stories of the lives that were cut short in that act of terror.

    A friend of mine volunteered for the project last year, which inspired me to participate this year. But as I read about the life behind the name I was randomly assigned, that special kinship with characters in fictions read in years past took on a new dimension. This time, that special kinship was with someone real, someone whose mark was indelibly left on this world when they were so cruelly taken from us.

Click to view gallery

The name I was assigned was that of Michael Craig Rothberg. The more I learned about him, the more his life, his personality, made me feel that I knew him, that he’d leap right out of what I was reading; that he’d come back. He feels like someone I know, someone from my family, someone who’d fit right in at my family’s dinner table as we talk, joke, and laugh.     It was that familiarity that, I think, caused me to delay writing this tribute until today. Michael’s life hits just a little too close to home, reminding me of what I very nearly lost that day.

    My Father was scheduled to fly on the plane that hit the Pentagon. But thanks to a fluke of family planning, he decided to skip the trip that would have killed him. Now, thinking about what to write of a man who seems so similar to my brothers, my Dad, brings all of that back up.

    Michael, born and raised in Sharon, Massachusetts, seems to have had a gift for finding amusement and joy in the most unlikely of places. I found a story about him in the New York Times, where they related a pet peeve of Michael’s about his letterhead at Cantor Fitzgerald, where he worked as the Director of Program Trading. He jokingly complained that his phone number was listed with a 1 prior to the area code. He reasoned, no adult sophisticated enough to call a bond-trading firm needed to be told to dial a 1 before the area code.

His quick wit, charm, and sense of humor were matched by his athleticism, compassion, and keen analytical mind. That analytical mind propelled him to McGill University in Montreal, where he earned both undergraduate and masters degrees in math and computer science. He soon won great respect on Wall Street with his first employer, Bear Stearns, for his exceptionally adept understanding of complex financial transactions, as well as his innovative approach to finding solutions to whatever stood in his way. He not only understood the technical side of his profession, the computer systems used for program training, but he also intimately understood the communication skills – the compassion – needed to relate to his clients.

Click to view gallery

    Soon enough, his analytical creativity and human approach to trading propelled him to Kidder Peabody & Company, where he became a team leader. He became such an adept leader, that when he later became the Managing Director of Program Trading at Cantor Fitzgerald, his employees came with him. They weren’t just employees to him, though; he called them his colleagues.

    Everything I’ve read about Michael tells me that he was so much more than his job. His compassion propelled him to not only donate money, but to donate his time, efforts, and every resource at his disposal, to causes he deeply believed in. He wasn’t just a philanthropist; he invested his heart and soul in everything he believed in. He gave generously in every way he could to the Dana Farber Cancer Institute’s Jimmy Fund, the Multiple Sclerosis Foundation, and Mutual Funds Against Cancer. As Jamie Bolton, a good friend of his once said, “He was looking out for people.”

Click to view gallery

He loved his family. He was a loving son, brother, grandson, cousin, and nephew. Whenever he heard a complaint, he tried to do something about it, something to help. It was Michael who gave his sister, Rhonda the encouragement and support to start her own business.     Michael reached the top through working hard and maintaining his compassion for everyone around him. He loved deeply, he gave generously, and he maintained his integrity.

    On September 11, 2001, Michael Rothberg was in his office on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center. His life was cut short by an act of cowardice and terror. The lives of his family and friends were forever altered. The world lost a truly remarkable human being, one whose life was a testament to kindness, generosity, and hard work.

    Michael’s family has set up a scholarship in his name for the students of his high school alma mater in Sharon, Massachusetts. Each May since his death in 2001, the scholarship has been awarded to students at Sharon High School who most exemplify Michael’s qualities of academic promise, ethical conduct, and service to community. I’d like to encourage all of you to make a donation to the scholarship, in Michael’s memory. You can learn more about the scholarship & make a donation at their website, MichaelRothbergScholarship.com.

    Just like those beloved characters in the novels I read as a child, I feel that he’s someone I know. But there’s so much more to it than that; I feel the reality of who he was, how he lived, and how he looked at life. He feels not only real, but familiar; he feels like a brother to me.

    Because of the events of that horrific day eight years ago, there’s an incongruous feeling, a feeling I’ve had that never had the chance to be confirmed by reality. That opportunity was taken, the opportunity to meet Michael, befriend him, know him. But I can remember him. We can all remember him, so we can keep his spirit alive as a friend, as a brother; a man whose story will never be forgotten by those who love him.

Click here to view the Michael C. Rothberg Photo Gallery

    I want to offer my sincerest gratitude to Michael’s parents, Iris & Jay Rothberg, and his sister Rhonda, for their support, encouragement, and assistance with preparing and editing this tribute. Your kindness and support has meant the world to me, and it has inspired me throughout the process of preparing this tribute. I’m not sure I could have done it without your help, your blessing, and your love. My thoughts, prayers, and love are with you today, and will be always.

The White House was caught with its hand in the proverbial cookie jar when a brave artist dared to record what was thought to be a private phone conference between devoted Obama followers who had been instrumental in securing Obama’s campaign for the presidency.

Patrick Courrielche, an artist, producer, and contributer to Breitbart’s Big Hollywood, received a series of emails in early August from the National Endowment for the Arts, inviting him to participating in a “brand new discussion” between the NEA, the White House, several political organizations, and several select artists, producers, writers, actors, poets, gallery owners, influential individuals, and “cool people”, to discuss how the art community can best come together in order to “push the President, his administration, and his agenda.”

Yes, you read that right. The White House has directed the National Endowment for the Arts to bring together a coalition of artists and culturally influential individuals in order to produce creative works that will help push the President’s agenda.
I believe the dictionary would define such state-initiated works as “propaganda”.

But it didn’t stop there. Indeed, during the conversation, both the officials from the NEA and the White House specifically requested that the artists focus on several of Obama’s key platform issues, including health care, energy, and the environment. And just in case there’s any question as to the ideology they hoped this artwork would reflect, they specifically mentioned Shepard Fairey’s iconic ‘Hope’ poster and will.i.am’s “Yes We Can” song as examples of what they were hoping the artists could achieve. Yeah, they weren’t exactly hoping for bipartisan messages of patriotism.

Thankfully, when Mr. Courrielche received these emails, something didn’t feel quite right about this whole prospect. So when he joined in on the phone conference, he had his iPhone ready to record the entire conversation. If it hadn’t been for his bravery, this likely would have remained buried.
But the funniest part is, despite having an absolute record of each email and a complete audio recording of the entire conversation, the lead official from the NEA in this project, Yosi Sergant, is actually daring to deny any involvement in the project. But he doesn’t stop there; indeed, he’s trying to deny the project’s very existence. That’s a bit of a stretch, considering the fact that Mr. Sergant’s voice is heard throughout the entire recording, with him going so far as to even voice caution to the participants about being careful with their language, as they’re still ironing out certain legalities. Meaning, they know full well what they’re doing is crossing not only ethical boundaries, but legal ones as well.
Good luck denying all that, Mr. Sergant. You’re gonna need it.

I don’t have much time, as I’m trying to publish three quick posts here before heading off to bed, so I don’t have the best links and resources available for you yet. So please bear with me. But I simply had to post information about this for those of you who may have missed all the hubbub about this today. When I told a friend about this, their first response was, “What? You’ve got to be kidding, this has to be some sort of YouTube hoax, right?” That convinced me I couldn’t wait to post this.

Anyway, the best place to start is probably Mr. Courrielche blog entry that started it all. It’s a bit long, and unfortunately he doesn’t have the audio posted with it, but it’s well worth a read.
Click here to check it out.

As I said, unfortunately Mr. Courrielche hasn’t posted the recording on his blog yet, at least not as far as I’ve been able to find. I did manage to find a YouTube clip of an interview Mr. Courrielche gave to the Glenn Beck program. I know, I’m sorry I’m posting a link to Glenn Beck, I’m sure that will probably offend or upset some of my more moderate readers. Please, put aside your feelings about Mr. Beck, because Mr. Courrielche does a brilliant job of explaining the situation quite concisely. But most importantly, it features audio clips of the actual conversation.

I know there are more audio clips out there from the original recording, since I heard several on the news program where I first heard about this. Again, apologies for not having those ready, I’ve really got to get some sleep. I’ll do some more searching on this tomorrow and post more links as soon as I can.

I saw this on my new favorite web-haunt, ProbablyBadNews.com, and I just had to share! It’s yet another epic fail courtesy of NBC News, because – as they say at PBN – journalism isn’t dying fast enough. At least, mainstream journalism anyway.

Meh, no worries, NBC, it’s not like our housing markets are important or anything! Psshaw, like, my inner valley girl is sooo bored with it already, fer shure!
In fact, I’ve been so impressed with NBC News lately, especially after seeing this report about those awful town hall attendees, that I decided to come up with my own slogan idea for NBC News!! I’m, like, so totally excited to share it with you!

How long do you think it’ll be before I get an excited phone call from the head of NBC News, telling me how much they totally love my new slogan?
Yeah, I’m not holding my breath…

I saw a couple of pictures on one of my all-time favorite blogs, Black & Right, and I just had to repost them here, because it’s just absolutely frightening.
It’s a beautiful – and frightening – before and after. Take a look.

Here’s the before, a delightful picture of the oft-hyped SmartCar ForTwo. Awww, isn’t it all cute and teeny and precious with its shiny leftist ideological gleam? Fabulous!

All is perfect utopian sweetness and light. That is, until – like most leftist ideology – it’s smacked upside the head by cold, harsh, merciless reality:

Click to zoom

Ooooo, doesn’t look so smart now, does it?

That’s precisely why I will never, ever, ever set foot butt in a SmartCar or any similar teeny-tiny pocket hybrid.
And that’s also precisely why I absolutely love my BMW.

Now before you start accusing me of being the typical evil rich white conservative, let me quickly point something out. I’m a proud, proud owner of a 1996 BMW 318i (yes, that’s a tiny engine, but my, how she can pick up n’ go!) It was my very first car, for which I haggled $5,000 off the salesman’s asking price! Not bad, eh?
My baby still looks brand new, despite having dealt with a few significant scrapes over the years. That’s right, it has kept me and my passengers safe through multiple accidents (none of which were my fault, by the way) and it’s still running strong.

But not only is my baby Bimmer safe to drive, it can compete in fuel efficiency too: it just got 35 miles to the gallon on a recent road trip to Georgia & back. That’s pretty damn good, don’t you think?
And to think, the government would declare my darling baby a clunker! My car and I find that offensive.

If you’re still not convinced check out this frightening footage of the Smart Car being subjected to basic crash testing. It did so badly that even the normally generous Insurance Highway Safety Institute is giving you the same warning I am! I’ve never seen them issue such a warning before, and I’m a crash test junkie!

So please, take my advice: if you value your life and the lives of those who travel with you, please consider safety as well as fuel efficiency when buying your next vehicle. I firmly believe you shouldn’t have to sacrifice safety to suit some ideologue’s idea of a vehicular utopia. After all, what use is that vehicular utopia if we’re all dead?
My life and the lives of my family are of the utmost importance to me, and when their lives are in my hands when I’m behind the wheel, I like to know that should we end up in an accident, we’ll have the best chance possible of walking away unharmed. That’s why I’ll never drive or ride in a Smart Car, and why I’m sticking with my “clunker” BMW. After all, nothing says “safety” like pure Autobahn-tested driving perfection.

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.

Really? Really?! Senator Al Franken – someone who is in desperate need of an update on his persona as a clown – actually wastes his time addressing the next nominee for our great nation’s Supreme Court by asking her about Perry Freaking Mason?!
It’s a circus, an absolute circus. The Democrats aren’t even bothering with the pretense of appearing fair, even-handed, and bipartisan; they’re flat out making love to this woman in public, praising her nonstop (I swear, I heard one senator this morning repeat the word “good” about five times in five minutes while describing her), or they’re flat out clowning around. It’s disgusting!

Perry Mason… I’d love, love to hear what Minnesotans have to say about their new Senator now. Who wants to bet he’ll be a one-term wonder?

I’m so sick and tired of this whole Sonia Sotomayor mess. I tried to listen to the questioning again this morning, but after a few mind-numbing hours, I just couldn’t take it anymore. Each and every time she said “suprene court” instead of “surPREME court”, I just about wanted to scream. I say if you can’t even pronounce the court you’re being nominated for, you shouldn’t actually sit on it, don’t you think?
I’m sure she’s a lovely woman and all, but I just can’t get past the idiocy displayed by some of these senators, and her absolute nerve in expecting us to believe her each and every time she flat out contradicts herself with regard to her many, many controversial past statements. Either she lied by misrepresenting herself over a 15+ year period of time, or she’s perjuring herself now in changing her story. Neither option is very appetizing, but it has to be one or the other. Honestly now, which one do you think is more likely, hmm?

And sure enough, I knew this would happen, but her repudiations of her past comments are ticking off certain liberals who used to just love her to pieces. Check it out. Big surprise. What’s that old saying? If you try to be everything to everyone, you’ll soon end up being nothing to nobody.
Just tell the truth, Sonia, whatever it is. Isn’t that the honorable thing to do?

I’m starting to really like this guy!

I need to go see if I can find a copy of that book… I know I read it as a kid, but that’s far too long ago for my memory to keep track of.

I’d also recommend this video by Andrew Klavan, cause it made me giggle, and this one cause it’s oh so very true. Enjoy!

You have to see this to believe it. It’s that bad.

As if that isn’t bad enough, check out the plaque she presented to the school.

This is one of the saddest, most pathetic things I’ve witnessed come out of Congress in a long time – and that’s saying something. She’s seriously, seriously, a part of the US House of Representatives? Seriously!? Her vote in that respected body actually has a sway over each and every one of our lives?
And yet she can’t even manage to form a proper sentence? She can’t even congratulate someone without pulling made up words out of her butt? What in the hell is she doing in that esteemed chamber?!
What the hell is this country coming to? Not only that so many people come out of our schools this illiterate, but that they somehow manage to become representatives in Congress?! Is this seriously what the likes of Abraham Lincoln, Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King, Jr fought so hard – and died – for? Are representatives like her really going to bring us closer together racially? Is she really the best example of African American success this nation could produce?
Is she really the type of person we should be electing as a representative of ourselves and our communities? I sure as hell hope not, because that’s just pathetic. If we can’t expect more than this from our representatives, if we can’t even expect them to have a basic, elemental grasp on the English language, how could we possibly expect anything from our system of government?

You know, this might be funny, if it weren’t for the fact that she’s voting on vitally important legislation that affects the future of our nation. That kind of takes all the fun out of it, doesn’t it?
Hehe, although, it is kind of funny that she’s part of the Democratic party, which has been so thoroughly savaging President Bush for the past 8 years for mispronouncing “nuclear” (in the exact same manner that President Kennedy did, by the way.) That is at least worth a chuckle.

Congratulations, Ms. Brown, for making a complete and utter fool out of yourself.

(Thanks to Iowahawk for the information!)

I’ve just found a truly remarkable video that I think should be required viewing for absolutely every single American. It explains, in clear, simply, understandable terms, precisely what type of government we have, how we came to have it, and how it compares to the other forms of government throughout history. And it explains all of this in only 10 minutes.
Please, please, I’m begging you, watch it right now! And please, send it to all of your friends and family! More of us desperately need to understand the true nature of our government, our republic.