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Biden Admin Pushes Transgender Medical ‘Care’ While Quietly Bankrolling Research Showing Its Risks


BY: ANONYMOUS | FEBRUARY 28, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/02/28/biden-admin-pushes-transgender-medical-care-while-quietly-bankrolling-research-showing-its-risks/

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NIH is funding many studies premised upon how little research has been conducted on the long-term health risks of cross-sex hormones. Yet HHS is pushing for more transgender ‘care.’

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As the Biden administration pushes the Department of Health and Human Services to make “gender-affirming health care” more widely available, HHS’s own National Institutes of Health is funding multiple studies premised upon how little research has been conducted on the long-term risks of taking cross-sex hormones and whether they improve mental health. The NIH research on transgender issues also emphasizes intersectionality and about half has been on HIV prevention. 

The NIH Reporter database, which lists active federally funded research projects, shows 74 with “transgender” in the title, totaling more than $26 million of taxpayers’ money annually. Several NIH-funded studies examine specific health risks of cross-sex hormone treatment — such as associated bone loss and possible increased risk of thrombosis, drug overdose, heart attack, and stroke.

Only a few studies evaluate the risk of infertility, even though “the impact of long-term cross-sex hormone therapy on reproductive health is largely unknown,” as one such project states and experts have warned. In contrast, seven studies examine stigma and disparities in health care for transgender people, in response to NIH’s Notice of Special Interest in understanding the role of alleged intersectional stigmas and how they harm health.

Many studies address higher incidence of sexually transmitted infections in transgender people, and whether hormone therapy might increase that risk. About half of all NIH-funded research on transgender health, including that which has been completed, relates to HIV prevention among the transgender population, totaling approximately $80 million since 1985.

Transgender males “have some of the highest concentrated HIV epidemics in the world, with a pooled global prevalence of 19% and a 49-fold higher odds ratio of acquiring HIV than non-transgender adults,” according to one project summary. Behavioral factors contribute, another project says, but the role of sex hormones needs further study, since they “are known to modulate the immune response, resulting in changes in host susceptibility to pathogens, vaccine efficacy and drug metabolism.”

Many Ongoing Projects Highlight Lack of Research

While suicide prevention is often cited as a major reason to give dysphoric children puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, only one of the current studies is focused specifically on suicide risk, although several emphasize the lack of long-term studies of cross-sex hormones administered to children and their relation to mental health.

Medical professionals “say more specific research is needed to determine whether medically transitioning as a minor reduces suicidal thoughts and suicides compared with those who socially transition or wait before starting treatment,” according to Reuters.

One NIH-funded project summary acknowledges that the long-term effect of puberty suppression on mental health needs further study and will evaluate children already taking puberty blockers.

During puberty, hormones change the structure and organization of the brain. Puberty blockers “may also disrupt puberty-signaled neural maturation in ways that can undermine mental health gains over time and impact quality of life in other ways,” the Nationwide Children’s Hospital project summary says. “The overall impacts” of puberty blockers “have not been systematically studied,” the summary says.

One of the larger NIH-funded transgender studies, funded at $743,000 annually, is at Boston Children’s Hospital. It notes, “Little is known [emphasis added] about how pubertal blockade, the first step in the medical management of a young transgender adolescent, affects bone health and psychological well-being. … In an exploratory aim, we will also consider the effect of pubertal blockade on anxiety, depression, and health-related quality of life.”

Another research project, “Psychological consequences of medical transition in transgender youth,” begun last year at Princeton University and anticipated to end in 2025, notes the lack of quality research in this area:

Five studies to date have longitudinally examined the relationship between one or both of these interventions [puberty suppression and hormone therapy] and mental health in transgender youth. However, these studies have had relatively small samples, none have been able to isolate the effects of endocrine interventions, none have included a cisgender [non-transgender] comparison group, and none have examined the mechanisms by which endocrine interventions might improve mental health.

A longitudinal study that began in 2015 and will run through at least 2026 acknowledges, “Transgender children and adolescents are a poorly understood and a distinctly understudied population in the United States. … Continuing our current research is imperative to expand the scant evidence-base currently guiding the clinical care of TGD [transgender and gender diverse] youth and thus, is of considerable public health significance.”

As the summary of one ongoing NIH-funded research project on sex hormones’ effects on the developing brain says, “There is little to no empirical data guiding clinical practices” of cross-sex hormone therapy in early pubertal adolescents, “highlighting the need for further research to address the critical knowledge gap.” The research, funded at $3 million so far to Stanford University, “will provide a much-needed foundation for understanding the longitudinal impact of treatments that are already being used [emphasis added] in clinical settings.”

The project will elucidate “how sex hormone therapy alters sex-specific risk for disease … and [its] impact on neural networks implicated in psychiatric disorders.” The research proposed “has never been conducted in early pubertal adolescents,” the summary reads.

NIH Acknowledges Limited Evidence, FDA Hasn’t Approved

The NIH, the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world, told Reuters that “the evidence is limited on whether these treatments pose short- or long-term health risks for transgender and other gender-diverse adolescents.” Additionally, the Food and Drug Administration has not approved puberty blockers and sex hormones for children’s transgender medical interventions. As Reuters reported:

No clinical trials have established their safety for such off-label use. The drugs’ long-term effects on fertility and sexual function remain unclear. And in 2016, the FDA ordered makers of puberty blockers to add a warning about psychiatric problems to the drugs’ label after the agency received several reports of suicidal thoughts in children who were taking them. More broadly, no large-scale studies have tracked people who received gender-related medical care as children to determine how many remained satisfied with their treatment as they aged and how many eventually regretted transitioning.

Countries such as Finland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom have begun to limit children’s access to transgender health interventions. Early, foundational research from 2011 on transgender medical interventions has been criticized as failing to meet basic research standards.  

Before 2012, “there was no scientific literature on girls ages eleven to twenty-one ever having developed gender dysphoria at all,” according to Abigail Shrier’s book “Irreversible Damage.” Studies show most children grow out of gender dysphoria, Shrier says.“There are no good long-term studies indicating that either gender dysphoria or suicidality diminishes after medical transition,” according to Shrier.

Yet Biden Administration Pushes Transgender ‘Care’

Meanwhile, despite all the possible health risks, President Joe Biden has issued executive orders charging “HHS to work with states to promote expanded access to gender-affirming care.” The administration has issued directives that federal health insurance benefits must “provide comprehensive gender-affirming care.” The administration also opposes “conversion therapy — efforts to suppress or change an individual’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.”

Taxpayers are already paying for transgender procedures, as they are covered by some insurers and Medicaid in some states. 

I’ll ask again. WHY ARE THESE MENTAL PATIENT LEFTEST SO HYPER ABOUT MUTILATING AMERICA’S CONFUSED CHILDREN? WHAT IS THEIR END GAME?

HHS’s Office of Population Affairs, which is overseen by transgender Dr. Rachel Levine, states there’s no debate: “Research demonstrates that gender-affirming care improves the mental health and overall well-being of gender diverse children and adolescents.” Other proponents acknowledge a lack of research on these hormones’ effect on brain development, but say the pros outweigh the cons.

Growing Transgender Identification

The number of transgender adults in the U.S. is estimated at 1.4 million to 2 million, with an estimated 150,000 to 300,000 transgender children. The number of American children who started on puberty blockers or hormones totaled 17,683 from 2017 to 2021 and has been increasing, according to Reuters.

From 2019 to 2021, at least 56 patients ages 13 to 17 had genital surgeries, and from 2019 to 2021, at least 776 children that age had mastectomies, not including procedures that weren’t covered by insurance, according to Reuters.

The transgender surgery industry grosses more than $2 billion annually and expects to double that by 2030.

Debate Among Medication Providers

“Puberty delay medications are safe and effective,” according to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), a pro-transgender organization that sets standards for trans medical interventions. “Every person, including every TGD person, deserves an opportunity to be their true selves and has the right to access medically-necessary affirming care to enable this opportunity,” WPATH says.

When WPATH recently updated its guidance, authors “were acutely aware that any unknowns that the working group acknowledged — any uncertainties in the research — could be read as undermining the field’s credibility and feed the right-wing effort to outlaw gender-related care,” The New York Times reported. The newspaper is in the midst of an internal fight about its coverage of transgender issues, with some saying it has been too critical of transgender medical interventions.

A draft of the WPATH chapter for adolescents included minimum recommended ages for hormone treatments and breast removal or augmentation, but after criticism from providers and transgender activists, “it was determined that the specific ages would be removed to ensure greater access to care for more people,” WPATH said.

The final guidelines also walked back a recommendation that preteens and teenagers should provide evidence of several years of persistently identifying as transgender, to differentiate from kids whose change in identification is recent, and changed it to a vaguer “sustained” gender incongruence. “In the end, the chapter sided with the trans advocates who didn’t want kids to have to wait through potentially painful years of physical development,” according to the Times.

The final guidelines acknowledged that because of the limited long-term research, treatment without a comprehensive diagnostic assessment “has no empirical support and therefore carries the risk that the decision to start gender-affirming medical interventions may not be in the long-term best interest of the young person at that time.”

Reuters found that gender facilities across the country are not conducting recommended months-long assessments before administering hormones to children. Parents of 28 of 39 minors who had sought transgender interventions told Reuters they “felt pressured or rushed to proceed with treatment.” Gender-care professionals also said some of their peers are “pushing too many families to pursue treatment for their children before they undergo the comprehensive assessments recommended in professional guidelines.”

Studying Causes of Gender Dysphoria

Some of the taxpayer-funded studies may bring clarity to the issue of gender dysphoria by examining its causes. One study will examine social media’s influence on children becoming transgender. A second will study “the life history calendar to examine young transgender women’s trajectories of violence, mental health, and protective processes.”

Another government-funded study will help determine how chromosomes, sexual organs, and hormones combine to create sex differences. Another will “uncover genetic underpinnings of female sexual orientation.”

This byline marks several different individuals, granted anonymity in cases where publishing an article on The Federalist would credibly threaten close personal relationships, their safety, or their jobs. We verify the identities of those who publish anonymously with The Federalist.

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The Whole Transgender Industry Is Founded On Two Faulty Studies


BY: ASHLEY BATEMAN | FEBRUARY 01, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/02/01/the-whole-transgender-industry-is-founded-on-two-faulty-studies/

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Two studies that formed the foundation of the transgender industry in the U.S. should never have been accepted by the professional community.

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Two Dutch studies touting the great success of “gender-affirming” medical intervention on youth have been deemed bad research by experts at the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine. In the report “The Myth of ‘Reliable Research’ in Pediatric Gender Medicine” published earlier this month, researchers describe how the 2011 and 2014 studies that formed the foundation of the transgender industry in the U.S. should never have been accepted by the professional community, falling “unacceptably” short of modern research standards. The studies led to a global movement of wrongly named “gender-affirming care,” resulting in hormone experimentation on youth and, in some cases, irreversible mutilation.

The Dutch studies had several major flaws, according to the report. Study authors only recorded the cases with the best outcomes, concluded without evidence that gender dysphoria disappeared solely as a result of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, and failed to properly examine the risks of the interventions, with disastrous effects.

The American College of Pediatricians responded to the report in a press release on Jan. 25 calling on organizations to “reconsider current protocols for gender dysphoric children.”

“The entire pediatric transgender industry is based on these two Dutch studies,” Michelle Cretella, immediate past executive director of ACPeds and advisory board spokeswoman for Advocates Protecting Children, told me. “This open access report is critical because it exposes the fraudulent foundation of pediatric transgender medicine in the United States.”

The Dutch studies were so foundational to the U.S. movement that the first pediatric gender clinic in the United States was opened by Dr. Norman Spack, a pediatric endocrinologist who was convinced of the necessity of “gender-affirming” interventions after visiting the Dutch physicians who published them, Cretella said.

But if these studies had been published today, the authors conclude, the research would have been recognized as very low quality and would not have encouraged the use of puberty blockers, wrong-sex hormones, and surgery in confused children and young adults in general medical settings.

‘No Evidence’ of Genetic Cause

The report criticizing these studies was published in the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy, and authors E. Abbruzzese, Stephen B. Levine, and Julia W. Mason have years of experience studying so-called gender identity. Levine has worked in the field as a psychiatrist since 1974.

In March 2022, Levine and his co-authors began to articulate concerns regarding the Dutch studies. The scientists published “Reconsidering Informed Consent for Trans-Identified Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults” to characterize the studies’ limitations. The report published in January is a follow-up to that initial report.

“We had no bias, we are just responding to and trying to articulate the limitations of the studies,” Levine told me. “We are doing harm to an unknown percentage of kids, and the data that is supportive of this work does not really address the issue. The real issue here is what happens to these children when they get into their 20s and 30s.”

Youth who have been hormonally and surgically “transitioned” have major obstacles to their happiness and productivity later in life, Levine said.

“After people have sex reassignment surgeries … they want more surgeries,” according to Levine. “It’s very clear they have continued gender dysphoria. The idea that they are being ‘cured’ by affirmative care is an artifact, it’s a myth.”

Hormone and surgical treatment, and subsequent medical intervention, leads many people to assume this must be a “medical problem” but “we don’t have any evidence that this is genetically determined,” Levine said.

“Just because we have hormone treatment doesn’t mean there is a hormonal defect in the person,” he said. “People believe, erroneously, that there is some genetic, pre-determined factor here, but we have not been able to find a genetic cause.”

Cultural, interpersonal, psychological, and developmental factors all contribute to the development of a person’s behavior, Levine said. Gender dysphoria can be a resulting psycho-social problem.

Biased, Uncontrolled Studies

Though the Dutch studies were found to have selection bias and multiple, uncontrolled variables, they were broadly applied in the U.S.

“The Dutch study researchers only took healthy kids from supportive and reasonably healthy families,” Levine said. “They carefully screened kids, so if they had major developmental problems they were not included in the studies. But in the U.S. … the vast majority of these kids have a history of psychiatric issues before they developed gender dysphoria. The Dutch rejected these kids from their research.”

The Dutch study had 196 participants initially and only put 70 in the protocol. Only 55 then completed the protocol. As well as having selection bias, the study was uncontrolled.

“Wisely, the Dutch people gave these kids and their families continued psychotherapy during this protocol,” Levine said. “Is the positive results they found due to the psychotherapy, improvement as they got older, or affirmative care? This is an uncontrolled study. They cannot make conclusions about what caused what. But the world took this as scientific evidence.”

In the U.S., youth who had rapid-onset gender dysphoria and didn’t even meet the baseline criteria for the Dutch study began receiving interventions in pediatric clinics, with doctors utilizing the studies as justification. Furthermore, when the Dutch began this project there was also much less awareness of autism, Levine said. A very large percentage of these kids that have come to American facilities are on the autism spectrum, according to Levine.

Courageous Pediatricians Have Resisted

ACPeds physicians have spoken out against sexual disfigurement and medical intervention in youth with gender dysphoria for years.

“There are a handful of us physicians within ACPeds and across the country who have the courage and expertise to speak out on this issue,” Cretella said. “When we are able to do so in an environment open to dialogue, we are met with significant appreciation and affirmation by fellow physicians and laypersons alike.”

Most colleagues, Cretella said, appreciated ACPeds’ stance, acknowledging that the studies affirming medical intervention in gender dysphoric youth were likely flawed or fake; but too many feared losing their jobs to speak out against transgender interventions.

“Trans interventions are big money,” Cretella said. “Billionaire elites promote trans ideology over truth across all public institutions and media platforms, and [in America] a severe cancel culture results in everything from severe harassment and doxing to ending one’s career.”

Fortunately, signs of sound medical ethics triumphing over junk science are breaking through, Cretella said.

In the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Finland, cultures that embraced transgender interventions for youth early on have reversed course. France has urged greater caution in these cases.

In the United States, Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., has rooted his administration in medical ethics and utilized the best science to establish pro-child treatment of gender confusion with psychotherapy, Cretella said.

Currently, about 13 other states are attempting similar legislative efforts.

Ashley Bateman is a policy writer for The Heartland Institute and blogger for Ascension Press. Her work has been featured in The Washington Times, The Daily Caller, The New York Post, The American Thinker and numerous other publications. She previously worked as an adjunct scholar for The Lexington Institute and as editor, writer and photographer for The Warner Weekly, a publication for the American military community in Bamberg, Germany. Ashley is a board member at a Catholic homeschool cooperative in Virginia. She homeschools her four incredible children along with her brilliant engineer/scientist husband.e who lives in Virginia.

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Trans Ideologues Who Cheer Cutting Off Healthy Genitals Shouldn’t Set Federal Medical Standards


BY: DOUGLAS WILSON | NOVEMBER 23, 2022

Read more at https://www.conservativereview.com/trans-ideologues-who-cheer-cutting-off-healthy-genitals-shouldnt-set-federal-medical-standards-2658771366.html/

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Along the new frontier of ‘transgender health,’ destructive ‘standards of care’ are being set by ideologues — with the government’s blessing.

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Imagine the Environmental Protection Agency decides that, instead of setting air pollution standards, it will outsource oversight to an industry group called the “Emission Standards Coalition,” which, despite its innocuous name, is funded and staffed entirely by coal companies. Or, closer to home, imagine that city councilmembers in your quiet suburb decide that henceforth all speed limits will be set by the local auto racing club. We all would promptly object, haranguing the government for abdicating its most basic responsibility to citizens. “Foxes shouldn’t guard henhouses,” we’d say. Rules meant for public health and safety shouldn’t become tools to advance special interests and profit seekers. Lifting pollution and speed limits may benefit factory and Ferrari owners, but the public at large will have to cope with the resulting damage.

Farfetched as these examples might seem, something like this is happening in health care. Along the new frontier of “transgender health,” novel and even destructive “standards of care” are being set by ideologues and billionaire-backed foundations — all with the government’s blessing.

Earlier this year, President Joe Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published a proposed rule under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act. Behind its 190-plus pages and innocent-sounding name (“Nondiscrimination in Health Programs and Activities”) hides a radical agenda that would reshape the nation’s health care in alarming ways. HHS is proposing new national standards for what it calls “gender affirming care,” mandating that doctors provide these services and insurance plans cover them. What is “gender affirming care” exactly? HHS never really says. Its proposed rule neither defines the term nor identifies objective standards — such as age limits — that might apply. Instead, HHS incorporates guidance from medical societies and a group calling itself the “World Professional Association for Transgender Health,” or WPATH.

WPATH is not a government agency. It is a trans-activist group. Its president is Dr. Marci Bowers, a man identifying as a woman and self-described “pioneer in the field of Gender Affirmation Surgery” with her own transgender reality show, “Sex Change Hospital.” WPATH’s staff appears to be largely borrowed from Veritas, a for-profit company that does marketing and public relations for medical societies. WPATH’s funders include the Arcus Foundation (“one of the largest LGBT funders in the world”), the Soros-backed Open Society Foundations, and the Tawani Foundation, headed by transgender billionaire Jennifer Pritzker.

‘Standards’ Reflect Radical Backers

In 2018, the Tawani Foundation gave WPATH $200,000 to develop its so-called “Standards of Care,” a gift that earned Pritzker the WPATH “Philanthropy Award.” And Pritzker is heavily invested in trans causes. While the foundation has been funneling money to groups like WPATH and the National Center for Transgender Equality, its for-profit arm, Tawani Enterprises, is making financial bets on medical devices, implants, and surgical cutting tools. With the transgender surgery market expected to grow by billions of dollars over the next decade, one careful observer notes that “it is hard to avoid the impression of complementarity” here.

No surprise, then, that the WPATH standards that HHS hopes to enshrine into law reflect the radical views of its backers. On the list of WPATH “treatments” are mutilating surgeries (mastectomies, vaginectomies, penectomies), “chest binding,” “genital tucking,” “aesthetic procedures” like “body contouring” and “voice surgery,” and puberty-blocking drugs for children. There’s no minimum age requirement for these procedures. WPATH even calls for “psychotherapy” for prepubescent “gender diverse children” to “explore their gender,” with parents involved “as necessary” and excluded if their involvement is “contra-indicated.” WPATH says it’s “committed to advocacy” for “social and political climates that ensure social tolerance, equality, and the full rights of citizenship.”

This isn’t medicine. It is the destruction of healthy bodies, the indoctrination of children, and the dissolution of parental rights. It is radical sexual ideology under the guise of science.

Rest of the World Backs Away

Even to call WPATH’s guidance “standards of care” is misleading. As the Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine explains, a true standard of care “is a treatment approach that all reasonable providers would use in a particular clinical situation,” but no such consensus exists for so-called “gender affirming care,” especially for kids. And the mounting damage this form of “care” is doing to both kids and adults is well-documented. It’s why countries around the world are backing away from it, even as HHS bureaucrats are strangely doubling down.

WPATH published its latest guidance in its “partner” journal, the recently renamed “International Journal of Transgender Health.” Among its authors is Susie Green, who heads the United Kingdom-based group Mermaids focused on “gender-diverse kids.” Green is not a medical professional. She spent several years as an IT consultant before famously helping her 16-year-old son undergo transgender surgery in Thailand. Another contributor to the WPATH guidance is Laura A. Jacobs, a self-described genderqueer “activist” and “heretic” whose “psychotherapy specialties” include “LGBTQIA+” adolescents, “BDSM,” “kink,” and “sexwork.”

It isn’t shocking that a bunch of well-funded activists could come together, give their glossy PDFs a veneer of academic credibility, and market their views as a new sexual orthodoxy. What is shocking is that they’ve managed to capture the federal bureaucracy. For HHS to uncritically platform WPATH, mandating shoddy science and destructive medicine as law, is an alarming development that deserves greater scrutiny.

Ultimately, this is a lawless effort. HHS has no power to override the states and the medical profession by imposing “standards of care” for the entire country. Nor can HHS force these standards on health care professionals in violation of their ethical and religious convictions. And purporting to delegate these tasks to billionaire-backed ideologues with no democratic accountability is worse yet. Just as racing enthusiasts don’t set speed limits and coal companies don’t set pollution rules, transgender activists shouldn’t be setting national medical standards.

Douglas G. Wilson Jr. is the chief executive officer of the Catholic Benefits Association and founding board member of the Catholic Health Care Leadership Alliance.

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Will Conservatives Make Use Of Power This Time Around?


BY: CHRISTOPHER BEDFORD | NOVEMBER 09, 2022

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/11/09/will-conservatives-make-use-of-power-this-time-around/

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Election night can be fun, but Republicans should not underestimate their opponents’ ability to keep a tight grip on control in Washington.

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Election night can feel a rush for conservatives, which makes sense: After a few years, those politicians who rejected the country’s history, attacked the police, weaponized science, and persecuted Christians and their children were finally sent packing.

It’s always good to get a little separation from something as destructive as the modern Democratic Party, but there’s one problem, and it’s what comes next?

Really. Most of us lived through Scott Brown’s special election to replace the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. Just two years after he’d been elected in a historic victory, President Barack Obama had launched his signature legislation to increase government control over health care, and the reaction to his (and the GOP’s) elitist overreaches had finally brought out a previously quiet base of Americans. If he won the election, Scott Brown would break Obama’s supermajority, and stop Obamacare from becoming law.

As the election approached, the excitement spread. My parents took a commercial flight a few days before Election Day where the pilot pranked the intercom system, asking a “Sen. Scott Brown to please come to the front of the plane” to raucous applause. When the day finally came, I was off at the D.C. bar I was working at, so flew home to vote and spend my last dollar sharing a room at the campaign’s hotel. “Tonight’s Gonna Be A Good Night” blasted out of the speakers, while a smiling Gov. Mitt Romney gave television interviews from the ballroom risers.

I still have the issue of the arch-liberal Boston Globe announcing Brown’s win that night. I saved it because I thought he’d stopped Obamacare from becoming reality. And Brown did try! (At least on that issue.) The Republican Party, however, underestimated the lengths their political opponents would go to wield power and defeat their opponents. Twelve years later, Obamacare is still the law of the land and by now, not even talked about.

Ten months after the special election, Americans got another go at sending their men to Washington. The “tea party wave” was so strong, even the always-confident president appeared quiet and chastened, admitting to reporters his party had lost touch and taken “a shellacking.”

But he didn’t give up, eventually warning his opponents, “I’ve got a pen, and I’ve got a phone,” before embarking on an ambitious agenda (that included remaking American citizenship) wielding solely executive power.

There was something to 2016, sure. A total outsider was elected president and, despite years of conspiracy theories, owed nothing to anyone. He’d serve as a wrecking ball, fighting the left on every front they opened, but by 2021, was gone. If just under two years on, Republicans are back, to what end?

Sure, neither Mitch McConnell nor Kevin McCarthy will be winning the presidency (a fact they’ll remind you of ad nauseum), but if they win the power of nominations and the power of the purse, how viciously will they wield the power they’ve been handed?

Will they halt the president’s extremely successful judicial nomination record? Halt it completely, without exception?

  • Will they ask where the billions in dollars and arms going to Ukraine ended up, or just keep sleepwalking toward a nuclear standoff?
  • Will they claw back the IRS’s newfound funds, or leave their tens of thousands of new agents on the job?
  • Will they continue to send $45 billion to America’s hard-left universities without a word of objection, as they have for years?
  • Will they demand funding for a wall, end funding toward abortions here and abroad, and refuse to confirm ambassadors and other posts devoted to spreading the left’s culture war to Vatican City and further abroad?
  • Will they break up the Big Tech companies who wield their power to control the flow of information to voters?

Or on all these issues, will they just tinker around the edges and go on Fox News to crow about it?

While election nights like last night can be a whole lot of fun, the reality is voters often wake up next to a stranger who’s planning to stick around for the next two years.

Conservatives have been losing for about a century now, and at this point rightly find little to conserve. If this will change any at all, they’ll need to think of themselves not as conservatives, but as revolutionaries. If they’re going to make a difference, they might as well: They’ll be up against a powerful executive, its sprawling army of lifelong employees, its allies in the intelligence agencies, Pentagon, corporate media, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and beyond.

Like an addict realizing the vicious power the drug holds over them, some among us have finally realized the vicious power being wielded against the West. We’ve been losing for a century, yes, but really, we’ve only begun to fight. Maybe 2022 will be different from all the rest, but not without a fight. You don’t beat the regime by voting on Election Day — you beat it by making hell each and every day.

Christopher Bedford is the executive editor of the upcoming Common Sense magazine, from the Common Sense Society. From December 2019 through October 2022, he was a senior editor at The Federalist. He is vice chairman of Young Americans for Freedom, a board member at The Daily Caller News Foundation and National Journalism Center, and the author of “The Art of the Donald.” His work has been featured in The American Mind, National Review, the New York Post and the Daily Caller, where he led the Daily Caller News Foundation and spent eight years. A frequent guest on Fox News and Fox Business, he was raised in Massachusetts and lives across the river from D.C. Follow him on Twitter.

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The Centers for Disease Control’s Lies Have Destroyed Its Legitimacy


REPORTED BY: Dr. GREGG SCHMEDES | FEBRUARY 22, 2022

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/02/22/the-centers-for-disease-controls-lies-have-destroyed-its-legitimacy/

Centers for Disease Control headquarters

On August 6, 2021, the Centers for Disease Control released a report that the agency claimed showed “Vaccination Offers Higher Protection than Previous COVID-19 Infection.” This assertion came amidst a public battle with Sen. Rand Paul, as the CDC released this data from Kentucky, Paul’s home state.

Yet after indisputable scientific evidence continued to pile up in favor of natural immunity, the CDC finally capitulated on January 19, 2022, recognizing the superiority of natural immunity over vaccination alone: “Between May and November 2021, people who were unvaccinated and did not have a prior COVID-19 infection remained at the highest risk of infection and hospitalization, while those who were previously infected, both with, or without prior vaccination, had the greatest protection.”

The CDC’s reversal came after its previous discounting of natural immunity caused mass layoffs, nursing home resident isolation, and hospital staffing shortages. It must not be forgotten or overlooked, and the CDC must be held accountable.

Last summer, guided by the CDC, President Biden claimed, “If you’re vaccinated, you’re not going to be hospitalized, you’re not going to be in the IC unit, and you’re not going to die.” Biden also spread misinformation about vaccinations preventing the spread of Covid-19 by stating, “You’re not going to get Covid if you have these vaccinations.” 

Who is harmed the most by health misinformation produced by our president and his agencies? Those with low health literacy. Our rich-poor gap is growing in this country and lying about health issues only exacerbates it.

A Positive Test Doesn’t Always Mean Infectiousness

A deeper dive into the August natural immunity study reveals methodology that can be recognized as illogical, even to those without medical experience. The CDC researchers created two groups. The case group included people who tested positive in 2020 and then tested positive again during a two-month window in 2021. The control group included people who had a positive test in 2020 without another positive test during this artificial two-month window.

The study observed that non-vaccinated group registered a positive test 34.4 percent of the time, compared to 20.3 percent of fully vaccinated individuals. The CDC falsely defined the case group’s second positive test as a “reinfection.” This is the central lie of the study. This data conveniently omitted data on people actually becoming symptomatic or what a common person would call “reinfected.”

To illustrate this point, consider if a Covid-recovered person comes into contact with Sars-Cov-2 in their community. They might test positive on a PCR test. Their body can remember the virus, fight it off, and the person never becomes ill. However, shortly after the exposure, a PCR swab can detect bits of genetic material (even if it’s unviable virus). Therefore, this study could be more of a reflection of people’s likelihood of re-exposure to Sars-Cov-2, not reinfection, as the CDC claimed.

By conflating exposure and reinfection, the CDC misled the public. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky stated, “This study shows you were twice as likely to get infected again if you are unvaccinated. Getting the vaccine is the best way to protect yourself and others around you, especially as the more contagious Delta variant spreads around the country.”

This guidance came when mounting evidence indicated Covid vaccines quickly lose their effectiveness against infection and transmission, which the CDC loathed to admit. Unfortunately, Walensky’s guidance undermined the credibility of the CDC for generations to come.

As a physician, it’s frightening that a public health official made a policy recommendation based on such a flawed study. We should encourage critical thinking and scientific skepticism, but such a blatantly flawed study design should not be tolerated in our leading health institutions.

Not an Isolated Incident for the CDC

This isn’t the only time the CDC has been caught misleading the public. Drawing ire from the medical community, the was an uncontrolled study of students in Arizona that Walensky referred to in discussing the CDC’s mask guidance for schools. This study defined a “covid outbreak” as “two or more” positive lab tests among students or staff. So, if your school had two asymptomatic third graders, you’ve got a “covid outbreak” on your hands. Even worse, the study weighted such an “outbreak” equally to a school with dozens of symptomatic teachers or students. According to the CDC, two equals 50—at least for “covid outbreaks.”

In a Georgia study that actually had a sufficient control arm, the CDC minimized the fact that there was no statistically significant difference between masked and unmasked student groups. They’ve also minimized the importance of diet and exercise during the pandemic. They failed to effectively communicate evidence-based, life-saving outpatient treatment protocols. The list goes on.

Why This Matters So Much

How does minimizing natural immunity cause harm in the real world? There are at least three deadly repercussions.

First, many hospitals following the CDC’s guidance mandated that only vaccinated health-care workers be allowed to work at their facilities. This means naturally immune health-care workers were wrongly excluded from the workforce. Based on a toxic lie fabricated by the CDC, hospitals continue to experience staffing shortages, contributing to the hospitalization overcapacity narrative they’ve used to demonize the unvaccinated.

Second, the same problem arose for nursing homes, where seniors were denied visitation rights from unvaccinated, naturally immune family and friends, even though less protected vaccinated people were allowed in. Lack of care workers also prevents patients from being discharged from hospitals to care facilities.

Third, the natural immunity lie also stripped countless Americans of their health coverage and livelihoods. During the delta wave, for example, a worker at Los Alamos National Laboratories was fired from his job for religiously objecting to vaccination, despite working entirely from home and having recovered from a previous Covid infection. The CDC now admits this worker’s immunity provides protection superior to that of his co-workers who had merely vaccine-induced immunity at that time. He lost his job while the less protected did not. By denying natural immunity’s superiority to vaccine-induced immunity, how many others have been fired and lost health-care access the moment we need our population to be at its healthiest?

Punishing People We Should Have Praised

Naturally immune people should have been identified early in the pandemic as the most protected, ushered into hospitals and nursing homes to serve our vulnerable, and certainly should have been allowed to keep their jobs. By refusing to acknowledge the harms of lockdowns, mask mandates, and vaccination, the CDC has brought everlasting shame to itself. There is clear evidence these types of interventions carry measurable risk. A better approach would have been to honestly discuss the risks and benefits with the public, much like I discuss surgical risks and benefits with my patients. This is the very tenet of informed consent, and better communication always results in a better relationship.

Americans need an unbiased, incorruptible, and credible CDC that provides reliable and scientifically sound public health guidance. These lies have de-legitimized and undermined public confidence in the institution of the CDC itself.

The consequences of lying about Covid-19 will spill into other areas of health care. Millions of Americans have lost trust in our hospitals and institutions and are now resorting to “under the table” health care. In health care, loss of trust equals lack of access. The CDC must return to the basics of evidence-based medicine to overcome its crisis of legitimacy.

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Vaccine Microchip Developer: There’s No Stopping This Technology ‘Whether We Like It or Not’


Reported By Jack Davis | January 3, 2022

Read more at https://www.westernjournal.com/vaccine-microchip-developer-no-stopping-technology-whether-like-not/

A technology company that markets microchips believes that its invention is just the thing to serve as a way to document a person’s coronavirus vaccination status.

The Swedish startup DSruptive Subdermals is touting its microchip, which measures 2 millimeters by 16 millimeters and is injected under the skin, according to the Express.

Hannes Sjoblad, managing director of the company, said critics of the technology fail to understand that it can be put to good use.Advertisement – story continues below

“This technology exists and is used whether we like it or not,” he said. “I am happy that it is brought into the public conversation.”

“New technologies must be broadly debated and understood. Smart implants are a powerful health technology,” Sjoblad said.

GO TO https://www.westernjournal.com/vaccine-microchip-developer-no-stopping-technology-whether-like-not/ IN ORDER TO READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE.

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Watch Biden’s Transgender Assistant Health Sec: I’m Here to Improve Americans’ Mental Well-Being


Reported by Andrew Thornebrooke June 4, 2021 at 2:20pm

Read more at https://www.westernjournal.com/watch-bidens-transgender-assistant-health-sec-improve-americans-mental/

An obese man who claims to be a woman was tasked by President Joe Biden to tend to the mental and physical health of all Americans.

This is not satire.

In a video from March 26 that went viral on Twitter this week when it was shared by talk show host Chris Stigall, U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine, a man who identifies as a woman, expressed a commitment to promoting physical and mental health in America.

“Throughout my career, I have focused on the intersection between medical, mental and behavioral health,” Levine said. “And as your ASH, I will continue that focus and support policy initiatives to improve Americans’ physical and mental well-being.”

Just to be clear, despite the watering down of “gender identity disorder” into “gender dysphoria” to protect people’s feelings in recent years, transgenderism certainly represents a mental health crisis in anyone desperate enough to pursue it.

Also to be clear, obesity significantly increases the risk of literally all natural causes of death, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Plainly, no one on earth should be taking health advice from this man.

Of course, Levine’s appointment and subsequent health advice were never actually about the health of Americans, nor even were they about Levine’s qualifications. Rather, they were about the Biden administration’s steadfast dedication to proliferating transgender ideology by any means necessary, up to and including redefining the legal definition of sex to include whatever so-called gender identity a person calls themselves at any given moment.

Indeed, if there were any question as to this administration’s priorities, Biden’s Proclamation on Pride Month was longer than his Proclamation on Memorial Day, and the president has made no secret of his belief that the nation should expand and normalize trans experimentation on children.

So what is one to do with this administration’s sham of a statement on mental health and its relentless propagation of harmful falsehoods? What is one to do with the continuous droning on of Levine who, despite everything, seems to legitimately want to help Americans while also lacking the personal fortitude to help himself?

Levine clearly needs help.

While all Americans should wish him well in that endeavor, however, the nation cannot sit around and wait for the assistant secretary of health to return to mental and physical health. As such, Americans ought to deal with this nonsense the same way they’ve had to deal with all of the administration’s other failures: Ignore it, step up and handle crises locally.

Welcome to the Biden era.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Andrew Thornebrooke

Andrew Thornebrooke is a writer specializing in foreign policy and national security. He is the executive editor of The Rearguard and a MA candidate in military history at Norwich University.@AThornebrooke

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‘The Biden Five’: The Definitive Breakdown of One of America’s Most Corrupt Families


Reported by ROBERT KRAYCHIK | 

 
Read more at https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2020/10/28/the-biden-five-the-definitive-breakdown-of-one-of-americas-most-corrupt-families/

Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute and senior contributor at Breitbart News, explained how Joe Biden’s family members — dubbed the Biden Five — monetized political connections and influence in an interview aired on Tuesday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow.

The Biden Five is composed of Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden; his younger brothers Frank Biden and James Biden, his sister Valerie Biden, and his daughter Ashley Biden.

Marlow highlighted Schweizer’s latest book, Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite, as “the gateway into understanding not just Joe Biden and the Biden family, but also the entire institutional Democratic Party at this moment and their corruption.”

Marlow described Schweizer’s investigation of the Biden family as yielding “indisputable evidence that Joe Biden is running a crime-like syndicate where he is, if nothing else, enabling his family members to get rich, without really any noticeable skill, using the American people’s good name.”

Schweizer noted the internationalization of the Biden family’s business dealings following Joe Biden becoming vice president.

“There’s no question about it. Joe Biden is the planet around which the moons of his family travel,” Schweizer said, “and the gravitational pull is Joe Biden’s power and his position, and the family has enriched themselves based on the positions he has.”

Schweizer continued, “Before Joe Biden is vice president of the United States, they’re really not doing many international deals, but once Joe Biden becomes vice president of the United States, suddenly, they’ve got foreign governments and foreign entities falling over themselves to cut them in on deals that they have no background or no expertise in. There’s a direct link between the corrupt acts of the family and the policy positions and power that Joe Biden has.”

1 – Hunter Biden

Hunter Biden joined his father aboard Air Force Two in December of 2013 on a flight to China. Ten days later, he secured over $1 billion in financing from the state-run Bank of China for a newly launched private equity firm he co-founded.

Schweizer explained, “Before Joe Biden becomes vice president of the United States, Hunter is a lobbyist for online gambling companies in Europe. That’s what he’s doing. That’s his professional background. Once his dad becomes vice president of the United States, he suddenly starts doing a whole host of global deals beginning with China. He flies with his dad on Air Force Two to Beijing China in December 2013.”

“Within 10 days of that trip, Hunter Biden joins the board of directors and gets an equity stake in a Chinese government-financed investment firm called BHR Partners, Bohai Harvest RST,” Schweizer added. “He has no backgroundin private equity. He has no background in China. They put him on the board precisely because his father is vice president and precisely because his father is taking pro-China positions on the global stage.”

Schweizer focused on Hunter Biden’s lack of expertise related to either private equity or China as indicative of the Chinese government’s rationale for funding BHR.

In 2015, the Obama administration approved the sale of a strategically sensitive American company, Henniges Automotive, in a joint-purchase shared by a Chinese military contractor and BHR. The foreign acquisition required special approval from the Committee of Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) due to the company’s manufacturing of technology with military applications.

Schweizer remarked, “Hunter Biden’s business partners were quite explicit that he doesn’t bring anything to the table. He’s not bringing any money. He’s not bringing any expertise. He was the, quote, ‘pipeline to the administration,’ meaning the Obama-Biden administration.”

The Chinese Communist Party viewed Hunter Biden as a conduit through which political influence with the Obama administration could be procured, Schweizer held.

“There’s a very clear reason why the Chinese government wants the son of the vice president sitting on their board involved in these deals,” Schweizer said, “because they need the approval of the Obama-Biden administration, which is, of course, what they get when they start acquiring these companies.”

Joe Biden repeatedly denied having discussions with Hunter Biden about his son’s foreign financial dealings. “I’ve never discussed my business or their business, my sons’ or daughter’s,” said Joe Biden in 2019. “And I’ve never discussed them because they know where I have to do my job and that’s it and they have to make their own judgments.”

Joe Biden previously declared the existence of an “absolute wall” between himself and his family members’ business. He said, “I have never discussed, with my son or my brother or with anyone else, anything having to do with their businesses. Period.”

Laws prohibiting political bribery include transference of money to elected officials’ family members, Schweizer noted.

Schweizer pointed to a photograph of Joe Biden posing with oligarch Kenes Rakishev of Kazakhstan, who once reportedly explored business with Hunter Biden as further evidence of the former vice president’s deception in denying knowledge of his family’s financial dealings.

A recent report from the Daily Mail suggests the procurement of political favors from Joe Biden via Hunter Biden by Yelena Baturina, a Russian oligarch who wired $3.5 million to Rosemont Seneca, a private investment firm co-owned by Hunter Biden. Baturina’s brother said the consultancy fee was “a payment to enter the American market.”

Schweizer identified Hunter Biden’s previous position on the board of directors for Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, as further evidence  of Joe Biden’s monetization of political influence through his son.

“[Hunter Biden] was getting a million dollars a year from a corrupt Ukrainian energy company,” Schweizer stated. “He had no background energy. He had no background in Ukraine. We now know with emails that have been released that he was working at Burisma’s direction to try to deflect investigations into Burisma, which is a very corrupt company run by corrupt oligarchs.”

Schweizer highlighted Joe Biden’s admission in 2018 that he pressured Ukraine to terminate Viktor Shokin during his vice presidential tenure. At the time, Shokin was a Ukrainian prosecutor investigating corruptio? on the part of Burisma.

The Biden family’s lack of expertise in fields within which they have been paid millions of dollars from foreign governments and interests reveals their sale of political influence through Joe Biden, Schweizer assessed.

“What are the Bidens selling?” asked Schweizer. “What product or what service are they providing these Chinese companies [or] a Ukrainian energy company? They don’t know anything about the energy business. They don’t know anything about private finance [or] equity companies. They don’t know anything about that, so the point is these foreign entities are paying the Bidens money — millions of dollars. The question is, what are they getting in return?”

Schweizer concluded, “These are not charities. These are not philanthropies. They are expecting and they are getting something in return, or they would stop paying.”

2 – Frank Biden 

Companies owned by Frank Biden, Joe Biden’s youngest brother, received millions of dollars in taxpayer loans related to real estate development in the Caribbean during Joe Biden’s vice presidency.

Schweizer said, “[Frank Biden was] basically was a real estate agent — not very successful — in Florida. Suddenly decides he’s going to go into the renewable energy business. [He had] no background in any of that. He set up companies in Costa Rica [and] sets up another company in Jamaica, and lo and behold, gets involved in deals that get taxpayer-backed loans from the U.S. government — or more specifically, from the Obama-Biden administration, to do renewable energy projects in Costa Rica and Jamaica.”

Frank Biden’s business interests also received millions of dollars in grants from the Department of Education towards the construction of charter schools. Joe Biden’s youngest brother described his family name as a “tremendous asset” that delivered “automatic acceptance” for government approvals of school projects and securing public funding.

“These are our grants that are discretionary, which means the Department of Education can decide who they want to give them to,” Schweizer explained. “[Frank Biden] took in millions of dollars from the Education Department while his brother was vice president of the United States.”

Schweizer added, “[Frank Biden] actually had a meeting involving his companies in the Oval Office with Barack Obama and just a couple of other individuals. If his name had been Frank Jones instead of Frank Biden, I doubt any of that would have happened.”

3 – James Biden

James Biden, the younger brother of Joe Biden, worked as executive vice president of HillStone International, a firm that received $1.5 billion in government contracts during the Obama administrations, including a contract to build 100,000 homes in Iraq as part of an international development project.

Schweizer detailed the conflicts of interest related to James Biden’s position with HillStone International given Joe Biden’s oversight of ostensibly humanitarian government-funded development projects in Iraq during his vice presidency.

Kevin Justice, founder and president of Hillstone International, visited the White House in 2010 and met with Michele Smith, a top aide to then-Vice President Joe Biden who worked as a liaison to “global government officials and business executives.”

James Biden had no background in construction or international development when he joined the company. Hillstone International’s company profile of James Biden touted his familial connection to Joe Biden as a professional attribute.

“Within six months [of HillStone’s founding], they land these billion-dollar contracts to build homes in Iraq,” recalled Schweizer. “This is part of the Iraqi reconstruction after the war, and who is in charge of the Iraqi reconstruction at the time? Joe Biden, his brother. Now we have a third member of the family, who because of Joe’s position, is cashing in. In this case, taxpayer money is flowing to a member of the Biden family.”

4 – Valerie Biden

Joe Biden’s sister Valerie Biden, who previously managed Joe Biden’s senatorial campaigns in Delaware, financially benefited from donations to her brother’s later presidential campaigns. In 2008, she sent $2.5 million to her political communications firm from Citizens for Biden and Biden for President Inc.

Schweizer described Valerie Biden’s enrichment via Joe Biden’s campaign funding as “legal graft.” He recalled, “When Joe Biden ran for the senate in Delaware — obviously a very safe for him, there hasn’t been a Republican in there for 40 years — what does Joe do? Joe hires his sister to run his campaigns [and] hires her firm as a consultant. As a result, millions of dollars flow to Valerie Biden.”

“It speaks to the pattern [of] the Bidens looking at opportunities to take money, whether it’s taxpayer money, political money, or business money, and steer it to their family members for their benefit,” Schweizer explained.

5 – Ashley Biden

Joe Biden assisted his daughter Ashley Biden by helping her husband, Howard Krein, launch healthcare company StartUp Health in 2011. He arranged a meeting with former President Barack Obama in the Oval Office weeks after the company’s founding.

StartUp Health’s meeting with Barack Obama was a “huge hookup,” Schweizer explained, noting StartUp Health’s securing of an invitation to Health Data-Palooza, a joint conference run by federal government and health industry.

“Health Data-Palooza is very prestigious and very hard to get into,” Schweizer stated. “They get hooked up and they are put front and center in this very important conference, and that’s the beginning of the favors that happen.” Joe Biden gave several private speeches and briefings to the partners and investors of Howard Krein’s business.

Joe Biden’s inside knowledge regarding the Obama administration’s planned healthcare policies afforded Howard Krein a competitive advantage relative to competing healthcare companies, Schweizer held.

Krein is now advising Joe Biden’s campaign on coronavirus matters while StartUp Health plans to invest $1 million in companies developing goods and services pertaining to the novel virus. Politico reported, “Krein simultaneously advising the campaign and venturing into Covid investing could pose conflict-of-interest concerns for a Biden administration or simply create the awkward appearance of Krein profiting off his father-in-law’s policies.”

Schweizer credited the Biden family with expanding the frontiers of American political corruption.

“The Bidens, to me, are unprecedented in the extent and scope of the corruption, because I’ve been doing this for a long time,” Schweizer determined. “I’ve exposed Republicans and Democrats. The most that I’ve ever seen up to this point was a Republican senator from Missouri that had three family members engaged in this kind of behavior. The Bidens now have five, making the Biden Five, in my mind, the the reigning champs when it comes to corrupt behavior in Washington, D.C.”

Breitbart News Daily broadcasts live on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.

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Nightmare: 33-Year-Old Left Barren After Socialized Medicine in Canada ‘Treated’ Her


Reported By Ben Marquis | Published April 30, 2019 at 7:42pm

Ben Marquis
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Ben Marquis is a writer who identifies as a constitutional conservative/libertarian. His focus is on protecting the First and Second Amendments. He has covered current events and politics for Conservative Tribune since 2014.

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U.S. infectious diseases surge as public health controls disappear


Posted by    Sunday, March 24, 2019 at 3:00pm

URL of the original posting site: https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/03/u-s-infectious-diseases-surge-as-public-health-controls-disappear/

If you run a feudal society, you may expect feudal problems

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45qSj4_DVxs

It was with some astonishment I read the latest Scientific American piece, “Medieval” Diseases Flare as Unsanitary Living Conditions Proliferate“, which reviews the government’s response to the recent outbreaks of typhus, hepatitis A, and measles.

Infectious diseases—some that ravaged populations in the Middle Ages—are resurging in California and around the country, and are hitting homeless populations especially hard.

…Public health officials and politicians are using terms like “disaster” and “public health crisis” to describe the outbreaks, and they warn that these diseases can easily jump beyond the homeless population.

“Our homeless crisis is increasingly becoming a public health crisis,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in his State of the State speech in February, citing outbreaks of hepatitis A in San Diego County, syphilis in Sonoma County and typhus in Los Angeles County.

“Typhus,” he said. “A medieval disease. In California. In 2019.”

After all, we noted this fact as early as 2015, when we noticed the combination of Obamacare and illegal immigration was hitting our public health system hard. Legal Insurrection has also followed the outbreaks of hepatitis A, typhus, measles, and other diseases in the news.

The record levels of previously well-controlled diseases is a disturbing trend. Now the Centers for Disease Control is indicating that the U.S. saw the most sexually transmitted diseases to date.

In 2017, the most recent data reported, there were dramatic increases in gonorrhea, syphilis and chlamydia.

In the country, there were 2,365,744 reported cases of these three diseases with chlamydia making up more than half of the reports (1,708,569 cases of chlamydia).

Total cases of these two STDs in the U.S. in 1941 was 679,028. Reporting on chlamydia did not begin until 1984 when there were 7,594 cases of the disease.

Popular Science also recently took a look at infectious diseases, addressing the reason that they were so hard to eradicate. Part of the reason can be attributed to politics.

…[G]etting the number of cases from a handful to zero comes with its own set of challenges, says Stephen Blount, director of Special Health Projects at the Carter Center, a human rights and public health nonprofit organization started by former president Jimmy Carter.

When the number of cases gets this small, he says, political issues become increasingly important. “It takes more time and energy and effort to find the last one, two, or 20 cases than [to] find them when there are hundreds.” People who make decisions around resource allocation might also see getting rid of the last handful of cases as a low priority, as there are always other conditions having greater impact.

However, Blount says, the last remnants of a disease won’t go away on their own. “It’ll almost certainly start to get bigger if you discontinue the human effort to drive cases down.”

Once a disease is eradicated, there’s no longer a need for a public health infrastructure to try and beat back the progress of a virus: If it’s not around, there’s no need for anyone to be vaccinated. But until the number of disease cases hits zero, researchers must invest similar effort and resources to keep the condition from spreading.

…“If you take action for a long period of time, and get numbers down, but stop the intervention, it almost certainly will come back,” Blount says.

Today’s politicians have enjoyed the public health works established by previous generations, but have clearly focused on policies that have undermined the solid efforts of their predecessors.

There were reasons rules were established against vagrancy, illegal immigration, unlawful dumping, and public urination. There was also logic behind measures requiring vaccinations, reporting of sexually transmitted diseases, and controlled care for those whose mental illnesses made it impossible for them to care for themselves properly.

Public health policy isn’t there to be mean, racist, or sexist.

It appears our feudal lords are going to have to relearn and reestablish these public health practices one more time if we are to have a healthy future.

Finally, I will simply point out to my governor that if you run a feudal society, you may expect feudal problems.

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San Francisco Has More Drug Addicts Than Public High School Students, Health Dept Survey finds


Posted by    Sunday, February 3, 2019 at 6:00pm

“There are about 24,500 injection drug users in San Francisco — that’s about 8,500 more people than the nearly 16,000 students enrolled in San Francisco Unified School District’s 15 high schools”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=31&v=YQctLUab5Ks

The Left Coast of this great nation is often held up as a blueprint for progressive policy successes by its politicians, such as Democratic Party presidential hopeful Kamala Harris. However, just how close to utopia are these progressive paradises? A look at the public health conditions show that the only “wealth” that seems to be readily spread through these regions is viral load.

Late last year, I reported that the Los Angeles area was battling a typhus epidemic.

https://legalinsurrection.com/2018/11/typhus-spreads-through-los-angeles-over-100-cases-reported/

Now, a Los Angeles City Hall official is one of the latest victims of typhus, and the disease continues to spread across Los Angeles County.

For months, LA County public health officials have said typhus is mainly hitting the homeless population. But Deputy City Attorney Liz Greenwood, a veteran prosecutor, tells NBC4 she was diagnosed with typhus in November, after experiencing high fevers and excruciating headaches.

“It felt like somebody was driving railroad stakes through my eyes and out the back of my neck,” Greenwood told the I-Team. “Who gets typhus? It’s a medieval disease that’s caused by trash.”

Greenwood believes she contracted typhus from fleas in her office at City Hall East. Fleas often live on rats, which congregate in the many heaps of trash that are visible across the city of LA, and are a breeding ground for typhus.

The California Department of Public Health reports a 55% increase in reported cases of typhus for 2018, with over 160 cases reported across the state. A bit farther North, the blue bastion of San Francisco has a fun, new statistic about which it can boast.

San Francisco has more drug addicts than it has students enrolled in its public high schools, the city Health Department’s latest estimates conclude.

There are about 24,500 injection drug users in San Francisco — that’s about 8,500 more people than the nearly 16,000 students enrolled in San Francisco Unified School District’s 15 high schools and illustrates the scope of the problem on the city’s streets. It’s also an increase of about 2,000 serious drug users since 2012, the last time a study was done….

The problem is particularly visible in the Tenderloin, where police reported more than 600 arrests for drug dealing last year. And where 27 suspects were booked into County Jail for dealing drugs in the first 20 days of the new year.

The out-in-the-open use of drugs on city sidewalks and at the Civic Center BART Station was a huge embarrassment for the city and triggered more police patrols and crackdowns in the past year. The BART station has been cleaned up, but the problem continues in the Tenderloin.

To be fair, who would really want to live in the Bay Area completely sober?

As the final item in our review of social justice citadels, let’s look at Washington state. A few weeks ago, I reported that the section of the state close to Portland, Oregon (an officially designated anti-vaccine hot spot) was experiencing a measles emergency.

Early last week, Washington Governor Jay Inslee Friday a state of emergency related to the measles outbreak.

State agencies will work with local health departments and emergency management teams to help respond to any needs, including epidemiology to verify suspected cases, technical assistance to educate the public on measles outbreaks and guidance on how to protect vulnerable populations, according to Tara Lee, spokeswoman for the governor.

As public health officials review the escalating number of measles outbreaks, some indicate that social media may be a contributing factor to the anti-vaccination movement that is leading to the spread of contagion.

Dawn Nolt, an assistant professor of pediatric diseases at Doernbecher children’s hospital in Portland, said that while measles is only rarely deadly, “it has high consequences” for the short-term health of its victims. She said measles is also highly contagious, and will spread to 90% of unvaccinated people who are exposed to a carrier of the disease.

She has seen an increase in what practitioners call “vaccine hesitancy”, and she added: “I do wonder whether the advent of social media has empowered that anti-vaccine movement.”

Clearly, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington State show that social justice demands conflict with public health needs and common sense.

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Democrats Vote Against CHIP Funding Ahead of ‘Schumer Shutdown’


Reported by Joel B. Pollak | 18 Jan 2018

URL of the original posting site: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/01/18/democrats-vote-chip-funding-schumer-shutdown/

CHIP funding (Scott Olson / Getty)

186 House Democrats voted against keeping the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) funded for the next six years as they opposed a stopgap spending measure in the House of Representatives Thursday that would keep the government open for the next four weeks.

Senate Democrats were likewise poised to vote against CHIP, as they declared earlier in the day that they had the votes to filibuster the spending bill and shut down the government. (Republicans have taken to calling the impending shutdown the “Schumer shutdown,” for Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY), in response.)

CHIP provides funds for health insurance for children from low-income families who are not poor enough to be eligible for Medicaid. CHIP funding is the number one issue for American voters overall, according to a recent poll by Politico and the Harvard University School of Public Health.

When he won Alabama’s special election for the U.S. Senate last month, Doug Jones called on both parties to put politics aside and vote to fund the CHIP program:

“Take this election,” Jones said, “take this election where the people of Alabama said we want to get something done, we want you to find common ground, we want you to talk. Take this opportunity in light of this election and go ahead and fund that CHIP program before I get up there. Put it aside and let’s do it for those million kids and 150,000 here in Birmingham, Alabama.”

Congress did not do so, but Jones proposed a bill last week that would extend CHIP funding for five years — one year shorter than the stopgap spending bill Democrats are rejecting.

CNN political analyst Gloria Borger offered her version of Democrats’ argument Thursday: “If this is so important to you Republicans, why didn’t you take it up earlier this year when you could have, when the Democrats wanted to deal with it? I mean, children’s health insurance is something that you can bring up on the floor any time and renew it, and they’ve been screaming about it — the Democrats have been screaming about it for quite some time.”

Voters in contested House and Senate districts this year can expect to see Republican advertisements noting that Democratic incumbents voted against funding CHIP. Only six House Democrats broke ranks to vote with the GOP.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named to Forward’s 50 “most influential” Jews in 2017. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak

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Socialism at Work: British Feds Ban Surgery for Smokers and the Obese


Reported By Benjamin Arie | on October 18, 2017 at 2:20pm

URL of the original posting site: https://conservativetribune.com/socialism-healthcare-bans-surgery/?

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Socialized medicine is a wonderful, compassionate system that brings important care to everyone… at least, that’s what leftists in the United States and Europe keep insisting.

As the United Kingdom is finding out, however, everyone is not actually equal under health care socialism. As soon as the system starts running out of other people’s money, people are quickly pushed out… and you’d better hope that you’re not one of the unlucky ones who gets thrown aside!

That’s exactly what happened this week in Britain, as the socialized National Health System announced that patients are being banned from important surgeries if they happen to be a bit overweight or smoke tobacco.

Yes, oh-so-caring socialism is now discriminating against its subjects and deciding who receives surgery and who does not based on personal lifestyle decisions.

“The restrictions — thought to be the most extreme yet to be introduced by health services — immediately came under attack from the Royal College of Surgeons,” explained the U.K Telegraph.

“Its vice president called for an ‘urgent rethink’ of policies which he said were ‘discriminatory’ and went against the fundamental principles of the NHS,” the British newspaper continued.

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Many British patients have already seen long delays for care, with some operations being put on hold for months as the socialized system struggles with financial instability.

Medical experts bashed the government’s decision, and made it clear that the bureaucracy was not helping patients.

“This goes against clinical guidance and leaves patients waiting long periods of time in pain and discomfort. It can even lead to worse outcomes following surgery in some cases,” declared Ian Eardley, senior vice president of the Royal College of Surgeons.

The national health system insisted that the surgeries being delayed were non-urgent, but patient advocates were not convinced.

“The new rules increase the amount of weight the heaviest patients must lose —  and crucially, they mean those who fail to lose weight or give up smoking could wait indefinitely,” reported the Telegraph.

In other words, a patient who is overweight and not able to drop the exact number of pounds dictated to them by the government might never receive surgery he needs.

Conservatives were routinely mocked during the run-up to Obamacare when they warned about “death panels” and the dangers of giving the state complete control over health care. Who’s laughing now? Telling one segment of the population, “Sorry, you don’t qualify for the surgery you need, too bad” is precariously close to health panels and yes, even “death panels” that Americans rightly fear.

If socialized health systems keep losing money — and they will — then where is the limit? What prevents the cost-cutting measures from increasing to the point of a nightmare?

Every single person is unhealthy in some way. Almost every part of life, from driving a car to eating red meat to riding a motorcycle or downhill skiing can all be labeled “risky.” Will those disqualify patients from surgery soon?

If the government can cut off a patient’s access to surgery based on a weight number, why can’t it do the same for an age number? One of the biggest strains on the health care system is the elderly.

What happens when an accountant in London or Washington decides that trying to extend the life of an 80-year-old grandfather just isn’t worth the cost?

If you don’t think that is on the horizon, then take one look at the Charlie Gard case, where a sick child was denied possibly life-saving surgery by the government, even though doctors were willing and ready to take a chance for the young boy.

Nobody disputes that being overweight or smoking are poor health choices. However, a free country should focus on maximizing personal liberty and allow individuals to live their lives as they wish, in as many ways as possible.

Under a free market health care system, those who make unhealthy choices may face higher insurance expenses, but they are free to live life on their terms. They can choose to smoke and pay for it, or quit and reap the benefits, but it’s not the government’s decision.

A “Big Brother” state that tells every person how to live is the opposite of American tradition.

The more we ask the government to give us “free benefits” paid for by others, the faster we wrap chains around ourselves and give up our own freedom to live life as we wish.

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Mitch McConnell Gets Bad News… Asked To Step Down


Reported By Jason Hopkins | on October 11, 2017 at 1:39pm

URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournalism.com/conservatives-demand-mcconnel-step-down-as-senate-leader/?

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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has been hit with a heavy vote of no confidence from conservative groups around the country. On Wednesday, leaders from several conservative organizations called on McConnell to abdicate his position, citing a list of broken promises he made to Republican voters.

They are calling on not only McConnell, but also members of his leadership team, to step down.

“You and the rest of your leadership team were given the majority because you pledged to stop the steady flow of illegal immigration,” states their letter to McConnell, according to Fox News. “You have done nothing. You pledged to reduce the size of this oppressive federal government. You have done nothing. You pledged to reduce, and ultimately eliminate the out-of-control deficit spending that is bankrupting America. You have done nothing. You promised to repeal Obamacare, ‘root and branch.’ You have done nothing. You promised tax reform. You have done nothing.”

Disgruntled conservatives held a news conference in Washington, D.C. to address their concerns and desire to see the leadership team dissolved.

“We call on all five members of the GOP Senate leadership to step down, or for their caucus to remove them as soon as possible,” Ken Cuccinelli, the president of the Senate Conservatives Fund, said at the conference.

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The Senate Conservatives Fund, founded in 2008 by former Senator Jim DeMint, has worked for years to elect more conservative GOP candidates to the upper chamber in Congress. The group has regularly clashed with the more moderate wing of GOP leadership. The SCF wasn’t the only group calling for McConnell to vacate his position.

Members from FreedomWorks, For America and the Tea Party Patriots also joined the chorus in demanding GOP Senate leaders step aside after failing to enact conservative legislation, despite voters giving the Republican Party full control of Washington, D.C. on Election Day.

This is not the first time conservatives have called on McConnell to step down as majority leader, but the ferocity of Wednesday’s press conference certainly puts an added weight on Republican lawmakers to get things done this legislative session.

The letter and press conference come as congressional Republicans are currently working to enact tax reform. GOP leaders so far have not succeeded in repealing Obamacare, failing several times to push through their own GOP health care bills. Republicans are hoping tax reform will be an issue the entire party can rally behind.

“If this was a football team, and you’d lost this many times, you’d start seriously considering firing the coaches,” said For America President David Bozell.

Despite all agreeing that they’d wish to see McConnell go, many conservative leaders are not certain who they would like to see as a replacement.

“If I had to pick someone, I’d love to draft like Pat Toomey maybe,” FreedomWorks President Adam Brandon said, referring to the GOP Pennsylvania senator. “There’s a lot of different people out there who I think could unite this caucus and actually lead on some issues.”

Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots group, said she could see herself supporting Georgia GOP Senator David Perdue. “I’m from Georgia, so I’m not opposed to him,” Martin explained, touting the junior senator’s extensive business background as a former CEO.

Conservative candidates are taking notice as well. As the 2018 election cycle begins to heat up, many pro-Trump candidates are hoping to gain traction by displaying stronger support for the president.

“With rare exception, GOP senators blocking Trump’s agenda are impediments we can not afford. Double that for Senate leaders,” Ron Wallace, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Virginia, said in a statement to Western Journalism.

Wallace is an insurgent candidate hoping to win the GOP primary and take on incumbent Democrat Senator Tim Kaine. Wallace is running on a pro-Trump platform and believes it’s imperative the GOP majority pass what they promised to do.

“The American People voted for Tax Cuts, Border Walls, Rapid Growth, Excellent Law Enforcement, and Better Education. I expect strong proactive policies to make those outcomes possible and deliver cost-effective solutions, by whatever means may be necessary,” he said.

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Trump Unleashes Video of McCain Promise That Has Him Scrambling


Reported By Cillian Zeal
on September 27, 2017 at 7:44am

URL of the original posting site: https://conservativetribune.com/trump-unleashes-video-mccain/?

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Any 30-year career in the Senate is bound to have some highs and some lows. However, for Sen. John McCain, those lows seem to be agglomerating themselves in what are sure to be his final years in office.

While nobody ever thought that McCain was particularly a movement conservative — in fact, RINOs his size were usually only espied at the zoo or on safari — his unreliability became a major issue after he effectively sank Obamacare repeal in the Senate.

If McCain thought that his vote would be forgotten, or perhaps remembered as a profile in courage — well, it certainly doesn’t look that way from here. And, as President Donald Trump reminded everyone, McCain’s vote was a stab in the back to voters who relied on McCain’s repeated promises to repeal Obamacare.

In a video posted by the president to Twitter on Monday, McCain is seen saying he would repeal and replace President Barack Obama’s signature legislation over and over again:

This is what McCain supporters are scrambling to hide — it’s not just once or twice. That video is over six minutes long. That’s approximately the average length of one of the deep cuts on The Cure’s “Disintegration.” And, you know what? Listening to it is roughly about as depressing.

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Yes, I know, John McCain is a war hero. Yes, I know he’s going through a tough time right now with his cancer diagnosis. Yes, I know, he has done some good things for the GOP. He has served his country in both the military and the Senate.

However, now that the GOP-led Congress has given up its final effort to pass Obamacare repeal — a weaksauce, establishment-friendly last-ditch effort at that — it’s instructive to remember who shares the most responsibility for that failure.

All McCain had to do was cast the deciding vote and the Senate’s plan would have gone into conference, where problems could have been hammered out. That’s all he was being asked to do. That’s what he torpedoed at age 81, in what is almost certainly his final term in the Senate.

President Trump isn’t going to forget that McCain singlehandedly killed the last chance to accomplish what the Arizona senator has been promising for years. Neither should you.

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Pence To Limbaugh: ‘Disaster Of Obamacare’ Cannot Continue


Reported By Tracy Mastaler | July 10, 2017 at 2:33pm

Vice President Mike Pence appeared on Rush Limbaugh’s radio program Monday to address the status of the Republican health care bill in Congress, declaring that, “We simply cannot allow the disaster of Obamacare to continue.”

Limbaugh asked Pence about the challenge of passing legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare.

“How in the world can it be this hard when it seemed easy when Obama was in the White House?” Limbaugh asked.

Pence contended that “it has to get done,” adding that Obamacare is “putting a tremendous burden on working families, on small businesses, on the American economy.”

“Every single promise that President Obama made to get Obamacare passed has been broken,” Pence said, later adding, “We’ve seen the cost of health insurance rise in every state across the country, in some cases 200 percent and more.”

Limbaugh challenged Pence to detail the obstacles preventing the passage of healthcare reform, noting that, “We’ve got 52 votes plus yours if necessary, if it comes down to that.”

Pence said that the challenges have to do with “the complexity of this disastrous policy launch,” referring to Obamacare. He claimed that the Republicans’ current heath care legislation “doesn’t do everything that we ultimately want to do. … The president’s committed to ultimately allowing Americans to buy health insurance across state lines, the way they buy life insurance, the way they buy car insurance.”

“Nobody’s talking about that. That’s a great point because nobody is talking about it,” Limbaugh said in response.

Still, the budget rules that the Republicans need follow to pass their legislation with just 51 votes do not allow them to make such a “substantive change in the law,” Pence said.

Despite that shortcoming, Pence said that “in this legislation … we accomplished enormous things,” citing the removal of the individual mandate to purchase health insurance or pay a tax penalty to the government.

“The mandate goes away,” Pence said. “The tax increases go away. Medicaid goes back to the states for the purposes of reform. Health savings accounts are greatly expanded so that people can become consumers in their own health care choices.”

According to Pence, another obstacle impeding the passage of the legislation is the varied opinions of lawmakers.

“Every member of Congress has their own opinion, and this administration — as we did with the House of Representatives — is determined to work with each member to address their needs. But we are very close. If I had one message for your tens of millions of listeners around America, it is: ‘This is the moment; now is the time.’”

Limbaugh and Pence also discussed the possibility of a single-payer health care system.

“Obamacare was designed to implode, in part, so as to further the public’s acclimation for single payer.”

The vice president then referred to former congressman Barney Frank’s answer to a reporter’s question about single-payer health care in 2009.

“They said, ‘How come you’re not supporting single payer?’ He said, ‘Obamacare is the quickest way to get to single payer.’”

Pence also referenced to the “heartbreaking story” of 11-month-old Charlie Guard in England — whose single-payer system will not allow his parents to choose potentially life-saving treatment for him — as an example of what could occur in the United States.

When asked by Limbaugh if he would support a clean repeal of Obamacare with nothing to replace it, Pence replied, “We can’t … We simply cannot allow the disaster of Obamacare to continue. It is hurting families.”

“I believe that — with the strong support of the American people — with this president in the Oval Office, we’re going to get it done. We’re going repeal and replace Obamacare. But the time is now,” Pence said.

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Pelosi: ‘Hundreds Of Thousands’ Will Die If GOP Health Care Bill Passes


Reported By Randy Desoto | June 26, 2017 at 12:51pm

URL of the original posting site: http://www.westernjournalism.com/pelosi-hundreds-of-thousands-will-die-if-gop-health-care-bill-passes/

The California congresswoman went on to contend that Republicans should join with Democrats to fix Obamacare, not scrap it, and she argued that Republicans are currently sabotaging the law. According to Pelosi, the GOP House and Senate bills are “systemically, structurally, they are very, very harmful to the American people. They will raise costs, with fewer benefits. …They will undermine Medicare.” The minority leader likely meant to refer to “Medicaid,” because neither GOP bill seeks to change Medicare.

As reported by Western Journalism, Obamacare has failed to live up to many of the promises made by former President Barack Obama and the Democrats.

Perhaps the most infamous promise broken was Obama’s claim, both before and after the bill’s passage, that “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.”

Politifact named this promise the “Lie of the Year” in 2013, as over four million cancellation letters went out to policy holders that year, and such letters continued in the years thereafter.

Despite the insurance mandates contained in Obamacare, the former president promised that premiums would go down an average of $2,500 a year per family of four, thereby living up to the name “Affordable Care Act.” However, the opposite proved to be true, and Politifact listed Obama’s assurance as a “Promise Broken.”

The average nationwide premium cost has increased by 99 percent for individuals and 140 percent for families from 2013 through February 2017, according to an eHealth report.

Moreover, the Heritage Foundation determined that 70 percent of U.S. counties have only one or two insurers offering coverage through the Obamacare exchange. Some areas of the country could face having no insurers on the exchange at all in 2018, according to Bloomberg.

Despite the law’s major failings, Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., joined with Pelosi in arguing that the only solution is to fix Obamacare.

Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Durbin pointed to the Republican plan to provide Medicaid funds to the states in block grants as something he could not support. He added that the Republican plan would result in 23 million less people obtaining health insurance, which is what the Congressional Budget Office projected would be the result over 10 years.

Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., responded, “The amount of dollars going into Medicaid continues to go up year after year. So if Senator Durbin refers to a cut, only in Washington is giving more each year, something you can conceive as a cut, if it doesn’t go up as fast as he would like it to go up.”

Under Obamacare, the Medicaid rolls grew by approximately 12 million people, thanks to new eligibility guidelines. Over 70 million are now enrolled in the program, or about one in every five Americans.

Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies with the Cato Institute, told Western Journalism that even the so-called cuts designed to slow the growth of Medicaid should be viewed with skepticism.

Cannon explained that proposed legislation does not call for true block grants, but rather matching grants based on the number of Medicaid enrollees in each state. States can increase the grant cap simply by increasing the number of enrollees.

Further, Cannon noted, in both the Senate and the House plans, the restraints in the increase in Medicaid spending are not due to take effect until the 2020s, after multiple intervening federal elections. Therefore, he believes the chances of them being repealed is high, particularly since many Republican governors support Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion.

“This is a Medicaid expansion repeal that was designed never to take effect,” he said.

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Perspective: Trump scored big, using a conventional speech to kick off an unconventional presidency


waving flag disclaimerA Perspective by  Daniel Horowitz | March 01, 2017

URL of the original posting site: https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2017/03/trump-scored-big-using-a-conventional-speech-to-kick-off-an-unconventional-presidency

Donald Trump in Mesa, AZ / Gage Skidmore | Flickr

State of the Union Addresses are usually full of carefully-crafted platitudes presenting the president’s agenda in a unifying tone from a position of strength. Typically, no new ground is plowed at these events. In recent years, they have fallen flat for presidents of both parties. But given that Trump is such an unconventional president, a conventional policy speech — carefully crafted with a serious but upbeat tone — is exactly what he needed in order to recover his stalled momentum.

In many ways this was the best speech he has given to date. In fact, it was a perfect presentation of his agenda. To be clear, not all of his agenda is conservative, but that is already baked into the cake. Amidst a month of endless muddled messaging, ramblings about the media, Republican infighting, and competing factions within his own administration, last night was his only opportunity to take his message directly to the American people. It was also a time to move beyond campaign rhetoric and embrace the reality of his party controlling all of government and the need for a forward-looking message.

Here are my quick observations on the policy aspects of the speech, divided into what conservatives should consider good and bad..

THE GOOD

1. Immigration:

Coming into the speech, rumors were swirling in the media that Trump would embrace some sort of amnesty. Not only did that not occur, but Trump reclaimed the term “immigration reform” and used it to describe what the word truly means: finally restoring our immigration system to its historical values before Ted Kennedy destroyed it. That means only admitting immigrants who love our values, do not become a public charge, and do not threaten our way of life. It also means implementing a sane legal immigration system that is not based on chain migration. He put Democrats on defense so that they will have to explain why they oppose merit-based immigration.. For those of us who’ve worked on this issue for years, this speech was just what the doctor ordered.

2. Refugees:

Trump spoke to the morality, not just the legality, of his immigration moratorium, which we called on him to do earlier this week. As Trump said,

“It is not compassionate, but reckless, to allow uncontrolled entry from places where proper vetting cannot occur. Those given the high honor of admission to the United States should support this country and love its people and its values.” He also charted a completely new path on the entire premise and goal of refugee policy: “The only long-term solution for these humanitarian disasters is to create the conditions where displaced persons can safely return home and begin the long process of rebuilding.”

3. Obamacare:

Earlier today, I laid down the gauntlet for Trump to finally speak directly to the problems of Obamacare. I argued he needed to call for full repeal and hold Democrats accountable for creating this disaster but then blocking its solution. Trump did not disappoint in the macro-messaging. The guiding principles he laid out on health care were sound. He actually touched on the central point missed by GOP congressional leadership — that we should focus on lowering costs rather than expanding coverage as an end to itself, saying: “The way to make health insurance available to everyone is to lower the cost of health insurance, and that is what we will do.” Unfortunately, he contradicted that messaging by hinting at a pre-existing condition mandate and refundable tax credits — two elements of the establishment plan that will actually keep prices high. Nonetheless, the overall plan was as good as we can hope for from any Republican at this moment and needs to be bolstered by allies in the administration.complete-message

4. Foreign policy:

Although the details were a little sparse for a speech this long, he made it clear that the era of nation building is over. “My job is not to represent the world. My job is to represent the United States of America,” said Trump in a very effective punchline. At the same time, President Trump spoke to defending American security without apologizing and waging an unflinching war against radical Islamic terror. And thank God, as this is the first time in years a president has mentioned our alliance with Israel without pushing the odious “two state solution.”

5. Drugs and crime:

Although crime is a policy mainly dealt with on a state level, I’m glad Trump used his “job” as ‘citizen in chief’ to address rising crime rates. This is one area of Trumpism that is actually more in line with traditional conservatism, even though it deviates from the current dogma among “right-leaning” policy elites. The same is true for the drug epidemic. He let the liberal open borders crowd own the disaster that is taking place in our communities thanks to drugs pouring over the border.

THE BAD

1. No mention of life and religious liberty:

While we’ve come to expect social conservatism to take a back seat, it’s a shame that these issues didn’t even receive the traditional obligatory mention, especially given the persecution that is taking place at the hands of the sexual identity lobby and the courts. He could have easily woven in respect for the conscience and private property decisions of others into this unifying speech and would have been a good ambassador for the cause. He won with overwhelming support from evangelicals and other faith-based groups in this country. It’s a shame they were left out tonight. Then again, the rest of the party is just as bad on this issue, so it’s not as if Trump is changing the party’s true position. Nonetheless, conservatives need to fight harder to address fundamental rights and judicial reform.amen

Let our policies stand on their own merits and the media’s desire to destroy them will be that much harder.

2. Ivankacare, porkulous, spending, and debt:

As always, there was no mention of balancing the budget, the threat of debt, or the need to cut spending. In addition, President Trump promoted “Ivankacare” and the full blown $1 trillion porkulous he calls an infrastructure rebuilding package. Conservatives should not back down in their opposition to these bad ideas. We don’t need another massive entitlement; we need to repeal Obamacare so that mothers don’t have to work more to pay for a second mortgage. Likewise, the talk of “crumbling infrastructure” is a dubious left-wing talking point. And to the extent there are problems with our infrastructure it’s because of the inefficient, failed federal monopoly on highway spending. Trump said, “the time has come for a new program of national rebuilding.” He is right, it’s time to devolve transportation and education spending to the states in order to improve those important functions.amen

Moreover, Trump must remember that we cannot have economic growth with such long-term debt. Also, the trade deficit he speaks of is only a problem because of our fiscal deficit and the misallocation of investments pouring into this country.

3. The protectionist trade policies:

Nothing new here, but still very problematic. Much of the appeal of “buy America” and “stopping companies from going overseas” stems from the general feeling that we have lost our economy and sovereignty. But were Trump to really propose a solid agenda ending venture socialism — taxation, regulation, and subsidization — along with his virtuous immigration ideas, those problems would go away over time and trade won’t have to be the bogeyman. Furthermore, enactment of true free market policies is the best way to keep companies in America.

Overall, there was really nothing new regarding Trump’s non-conservative views, and I believe they were overshadowed by the solid parts of his speech on immigration and Obamacare. It’s something we must continue to work on as we fight to defend his good policies.

President Trump must now harness the energy from this successful speech and deliver specific policies to Congress on taxes, immigration, and health care. He must whip GOP leaders into shape, get everyone in his administration on the same page, stay on message, and let his policies speak above the rancor of the media. Trump should focus relentlessly on his policies (hopefully the more conservative ones) and back them up with a series of policy speeches while simply ignoring the media. Yes, the media is the enemy, but we must not be our own worst enemy. Let our policies stand on their own merits and the media’s desire to destroy them will be that much harder.

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Why the ‘Resist’ movement is not at all like the Tea Party


waving flagAuthored By: Jen Kuznicki | February 14, 2017

URL of the original posting site: https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2017/02/why-the-resist-movement-is-not-at-all-like-the-tea-party

New York protestors under the nationwide Refuse Fascism movement. / Michael Nigro | AP Photo

Regular patriotic Americans stood up to the Obama administration, not by screaming and berating Democrat politicians, but by looking inside their own houses, their own traditional place within the Republican Party. After years of being told through campaign literature and promises, the Republican Party once again claimed it stood for the Constitution, for free markets and limited government. When the Tea Party drew up to challenge those Republicans who never practiced what they preached, they were castigated by the media and the Republican Party leadership as miscreants, as extremists, and were laughed at as, “hobbits” who should return to “Middle Earth.”

I’m sure any day now John McCain, R-Ariz. (F, 32%) will blast the resistance movement in similar fashion, right?

Don’t count on it. What McCain misunderstood back in 2010 was that the hobbits were the good guys. It is more likely McCain and his ilk will see the current resistance movement as good, right, and pure because what they want is what any big government politician wants: more government.

Yet the resistance movement is improperly named, just like the “Affordable” Care Act. The people blasting Republican members of Congress at town hall meetings aren’t resisting government, they are demanding more. They should be treated as what they are: a mob of Orcs, a group of destroyers of the Constitution and American Exceptionalism.mob-rule-tyranny

The Tea Party went to Republican town halls and said, “we want government out of our lives,” and “we want you to adhere to the Constitution.” They said, “we want less government, limited government, so we can have freedom and liberty.” The destroyers, however, are saying to the Republican politicians, “your job is to control the people, don’t stop doing your job.” They say, “give us more government, more handouts, more welfare, more taxes, more regulation,” anything less makes them scream, “you suck!”

The destroyers are resisting the Constitution, using it and the Declaration of Independence as toilet paper. Any similarities drawn between the two uprisings is the difference between constitutionalism and anarchy, between capitalism and communism, as my friend Mark Levin would say: between liberty and tyranny.When tolerance becomes a one way street

The destroyers claim that they are, “We the People.” But they are not the people the Constitution was formed to govern. We are witnessing the destroyers demand anarchy and lawlessness. When Ben Franklin said, “a republic, if you can keep it,” he was talking about right now.

As former Tea Party members sit back and think their work is done by electing Trump who promised, “only I can fix,” conservatives are rightly frustrated. Complacency and reports of “fake news” has put up walls between Tea Party activists who believed saving the country was a sprint instead of a marathon, and dogged conservatives who rightly reject nationalism yet see a desperate need for coalition.kick-em-out-of-office

And the problem is that this complacency if continued, it will supplant conservative influence on Republican legislators. The destroyers aren’t looking inside their own house, going to the Democrats and demanding they, “do their job,” they are going after the traditional weakest link. The Republicans who want to go along to get along — the ones who traditionally have no — spine will likely fall for the tactics of the far Left, as they per usual, want to, “give the people what they want.” As we have learned in lesson after painful lesson these past years, for some spineless Republicans, their ideology is not that far off from the goals of the Left.

We have to convince regular Americans that the resistance movement is out to destroy America, because that is what they are trying to do.mob-rule-tyranny

fight

Image added by WhatDidYouSay.org

Yet people on the side of right wonder, “what is it the resistance movement is protesting?” The marches included a thousand different issues, the uncoordinated mobs had every cause represented from transgender rights to population control and climate hoax extremists. They are protesting America as founded. They are protesting biological truth. They are protesting God. They are protesting individuality. They are protesting private property. They are protesting capitalism. They are arguing for Fascism and Socialism and Communism.

Fascism is government control of private enterprise; they are arguing for that, not against it. The Tea Party argued against it, causing headaches for Republican members who believed the Left’s big lie that government can and should control the markets. The Tea Party mobilized in every state to stop crony capitalism, stop government from picking private business winners and losers, and stop government from playing favorites with “public-private” partnerships. Many Tea Partyers lost their way when Trump ran for president, because he too agreed with the left-winger belief that government should pick the winners and losers. Those Tea Partyers must come back and face the fact that there must be a stark difference between us and the destroyers of truth, so that spineless Republicans won’t cause more damage to the republic.

Socialism and its logical conclusion — Communism — is represented by Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. (F, 17%) and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. (F, 18%) and is now mainstream in the Democrat Party. What has socialism gotten us? Social Security is bankrupt, as it the entire federal government, yet they want more. We had to put up massive resistance as Tea Partyers to stop Republicans from expanding Medicaid, yet several states ran by Republicans did it anyway. Doing so probably cemented Obamacare forever. Tea Partyers rightly said, “stop giving more, stop spending, you are breaking our backs!” You will never hear a destroyer say that, ever.

No, the destroyers, the mob of Orcs aren’t the same as the Tea Party. There is a war on for the direction of this nation, and it is not over after one election, or ten elections. We are being called to the carpet by the Founders of this great nation to keep a republic. Tea Partyers can’t sit around and wait while these destroyers are claiming they are the same as the Tea Party, as if all they have to do is demand and viola, two years later the Democrats sweep Congress. Tea Partyers have to recognize the Democrat Party is a Fascist/Socialist/Communist party, and that they are resisting America. We have to convince regular Americans that the resistance movement is out to destroy America, because that is what they are trying to do.200-years-ago

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jen Kuznicki is a contributor to Conservative Review, blue collar, wife, mom, political writer, humorist, conservative activist, a seamstress by trade, and compelled to write. Follow her on Twitter @JenKuznicki. 

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They lied all along: Republicans plan to ‘repair’ not repeal Obamacare


waving flagAuthored  By: Daniel Horowitz | February 03, 2017

URL of the original posting site: https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2017/02/they-lied-all-along-republicans-plan-to-repair-not-repeal-obamacare

Green and yellow capsule clamped in a wrench.

Is it possible to repair a house on fire without extinguishing the raging inferno in it? Republicans think we are stupid enough to believe so.

First they promised to repeal Obamacare “root and branch.” Then they promised to “repeal and replace” without explaining its meaning — other than to legitimize the premise of Obamacare as a partial force for good. Now, they are on to “repair.”

The Hill has the relevant quotes from two of the most important committee chairmen (Senator Walden, R-Ore. (F, 36%) and Senator Alexander, R-Tenn. (F, 15%)) drafting the repeal bill … which will not repeal Obamacare:

“I’m trying to be accurate on this that there are some of these provisions in the law that probably will stay, or we may modify them, but we’re going to fix things, we’re going to repair things,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.), a key player on healthcare, told reporters Tuesday.

“There are things we can build on and repair, there are things we can completely repeal,” he said.

Senate Health Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) is sounding a similar note. […]

“I think it is more accurate to say repair ObamaCare because, for example, in the reconciliation procedure that we have in the Senate, we can’t repeal all of ObamaCare,” Alexander said. “ObamaCare wasn’t passed by reconciliation, it can’t be repealed by reconciliation. So we can repair the individual market, which is a good place to start.”

As we noted before, every word of this premise is false because the price-hiking coverage regulations are inextricably linked to the subsidies, as noted by the courts and CBO. Therefore, the regulations can be repealed through budget reconciliation. Moreover, the Senate parliamentarian doesn’t have the final say on addressing Senate precedent.

However, there is a more important point to bring out from this story. These people lied to all of us. They told a bald-faced lie. Absolutely nothing changed structurally about Obamacare from the time they made these promises during the past three elections until now. If anything, premiums went up even more than expected and there are even fewer insurers than previously predicted, making the case for repeal an easier political sell.kick-em-out-of-office

Likewise, nothing changed procedurally from the time they promised to use budget reconciliation to repeal at least most of the main elements of the law. Republicans always knew that they would need to get rid of the actuarially crippling regulations, which would then unfreeze the insurance market, lower costs, bring back choice and competition, and engender much less of a need for subsidies. All the while, everyone always planned to maintain the subsidies and Medicaid expansion for a one to two-year transition period while other free market health care and health insurance reforms were put in place.

Yet, Republicans, particularly those in the Senate, never had any intention of repealing it because they don’t believe or understand free markets, are owned by the big pharma/big government complex, and have no desire or ability to articulate a winning issue to the public without shooting themselves in the foot.

This day was predicted long ago

In 2012 and 2014, conservatives worked against Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. (F, 40%) and his sitting RINO Senators (such as Thad Cochran, R-Miss. (F, 22%), Pat Roberts, R-Kan. (F, 51%) Lisa Murkowski, R-Ala. (F, 20%) and Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn. (F, 15%)) and his chosen challengers in open seats (such as Sens. Tillis, R-N.C. (F, 35%) and Cassidy, R-La. (F, 47%)). Voters were warned that they had no intention of repealing Obamacare. Conservatives cautioned that if Ted Cruz’s, R-Texas (A, 97%) plan to defund Obamacare at its inception was not followed, the law would never be repealed. That if we failed to build a Senate majority upon a solid foundation and stronger leadership, Obamacare would never be repealed even if we were so fortunate to control all three branches. [See my op-ed at Fox News Opinion on October 25, 2013, “Building a GOP Majority on Quicksand”]

Groups like Senate Conservatives Fund were maligned as pursuing “purity for profit” and undermining the creation of a GOP majority that would truly repeal Obamacare. Establishment voices accused the grassroots activists of needlessly creating a civil war over disagreements on strategy. Yet, we knew all along it was a disagreement over beliefs and courage, not strategy. Unfortunately, the establishment used their superior funding (from groups like the Chamber of Commerce that wanted to keep Obamacare all along) to run on repealing the law “root and branch,” as McConnell famously said. Now, some of these very senators are leading the charge to repair the law, which is not feasible.kick-em-out-of-office

Trump must intervene

Obviously, President Trump is having a busy week with his immigration policies and the Supreme Court pick, among many other issues. He can’t address everything in the first month of his presidency. But there is no way to ignore Obamacare. Unless it is FULLY repealed, within a few years no middle-income American will be able to live in freedom and dignity without permanent government support and intervention in healthcare. We will have no freedom in one sixth of our economy. Moreover, the crushing job loss, debt, and diminished wages from the Obamacare regulations are weighing down the economy and will undermine the president’s ability to grow the economy with some of his other plans. It will limit his ability to secure a legacy as a jobs president.

The plan forward

Trump should dispatch Vice President Pence to work with the House Freedom Caucus as well as Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc. (F, 52%) and ensure that the House passes the full repeal bill — along with the regulations. They should make it clear that there are no excuses for the Senate to not overrule the parliamentarian, but at the same time they should not wait around for the lords of the Senate to do the right thing. The reconciliation bill should be structured as follows:

  • An 18-month transition for retaining the subsidies and the Medicaid expansion. However, immediately freeze both programs from new registrations.
  • Repeal Obamacare’s taxes immediately and the regulations by mid-year so that insurance companies can have certainty to offer cheaper, competitive plans in 2018
  • On the administrative end, have Tom Price, R-Ga. (D, 62%) get rid of any cost-sharing subsidies and risk corridor bailouts for insurance companies. This will force them to utilize the lifting of regulations to lower prices and actually compete for business rather than relying on subsidies.
  • Meanwhile, individual states should work on reducing their own onerous health care and health insurance regulations in order to maximize the market effect of reducing federal insurance regulations.

At that point, Trump should relentlessly use his bully pulpit to name and shame the Senate into fulfilling their promise. It can be done if we actually got the momentum rolling in the House. As Reps. Mark Meadows, R-N.C. (A 94%) and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio (A, 96%) said in a statement today, “We committed to the American people to repeal every tax, every mandate, the regulations, and to defund Planned Parenthood. That’s what the American people expect us to do — and they expect us to do it quickly.”amen

In the meantime, conservatives should put the pressure on the Senate by launching a new round of primaries. Members like Jeff Flake, R-Ariz. (F, 50%), Bob Corker, R-Tenn. (F, 45%), Roger Wicker, R-Miss. (F, 28%), and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah (F, 33%) could be prime targets in states won by Trump.

As Bobby Jindal said, “Republicans who want to retreat from repeal to repair should be replaced.”

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Obamacare Regulation Pressures Insurers to Cover Sex Change Operations


waving flagBY: May 13, 2016

URL of the original posting site: http://freebeacon.com/issues/obamacare-pressures-insurers-sex-change/

The Department of Health and Human Services issued a final regulation Friday that will pressure health insurers to cover sex change operations, which could then be subsidized by taxpayers through Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare.

The final rule comes the same day the Obama administration ordered schools to let children use whatever bathroom or locker room matches “their chosen gender identity,” or risk losing federal funding.

The agency released its final “Nondiscrimination in Health Programs and Activities” rule, which enforces Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act.pure socialism

The regulation “prohibits discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability; enhances language assistance for individuals with limited English proficiency; and protects individuals with disabilities,” the agency said in a release.Leftist Socialist Propagandist News

Doctors and health insurers also cannot deny “health care or health coverage based on an individual’s sex, including discrimination based on pregnancy, gender identity, and sex stereotyping.”

In a fact sheet on the portion of the rule regarding sex discrimination, the government explains that health care providers cannot refuse to cover all services related to a sex change—such as hormone therapy, breast implants, and the surgery itself—as a matter of policy.

“Categorical coverage exclusions or limitations for all health care services related to gender transition are discriminatory,” the agency said.

The rule also includes a bathroom provision, stating that “individuals must be treated consistent with their gender identity, including in access to facilities.”Complete Message

Additionally, health care providers “may not deny or limit treatment for any health services that are ordinarily or exclusively available to individuals of one gender based on the fact that a person seeking such services identifies as belonging to another gender.”

The regulation will apply to virtually all hospitals, health care providers, and insurance companies.

“The Section 1557 final rule applies to any health program or activity, any part of which receives funding from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), such as hospitals that accept Medicare or doctors who receive Medicaid payments; the Health Insurance Marketplaces and issuers that participate in those Marketplaces; and any health program that HHS itself administers,” the agency said.engineering

The Obama administration praised the rule as a win for “civil rights.”

The regulation is the “first federal civil rights law to broadly prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex in federally funded health programs,” the agency said.

“A central goal of the Affordable Care Act is to help all Americans access quality, affordable health care,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell. “Today’s announcement is a key step toward realizing equity within our health care system and reaffirms this administration’s commitment to giving every American access to the health care they deserve.”pure socialism

The agency told the Washington Free Beacon that the rule does not force health insurance companies to cover sex reassignment surgeries, but companies cannot deny treatments related to a gender transition outright.

“The final rule does not require covered entities to cover any particular procedure or treatment for transition-related care, including gender reassignment surgery. However, it does bar a covered entity from categorically excluding from coverage or limiting coverage for all gender transition-related services,” an agency spokesperson said.

The rule itself could open the door for lawsuits by transgender individuals, who could claim that being denied a service related to a sex-change violates their civil rights because it is now illegal to deny care on the basis of gender identity.

Several states already had policies in place that ban private insurance companies and Medicaid providers from excluding services for a gender transition. California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Illinois, New York, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia all have “explicitly prohibited private health insurance plans sold in the state from having exclusions for transition-related care,” according to the National Center for Transgender Equality. The final rule now essentially makes those laws national.

The Obama administration removed a ban from Medicare covering gender reassignment surgeries in 2014.

The average surgery cost for a man to become a woman is $23,000.Not okay

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Elizabeth Harrington

Elizabeth Harrington is a staff writer for the Washington Free Beacon. Elizabeth graduated from Temple University in 2010. Prior to joining the Free Beacon, she worked as a staff writer for CNSNews.com. Her email address is elizabeth@freebeacon.com. Her Twitter handle is @LizWFB.

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First they came for the Veterans . . .


http://joeforamerica.com/2014/05/first-came-veterans/

Posted by on May 16, 2014

FIRST THEM CAME FOR Graphic #2 homeless vet

 

First they came for the Veterans’ benefits.

They said, “Because you no longer protect or serve, we’re cutting your pensions, your benefits, and closing your commissaries.”

The Veterans asked, “What about the promises you made?”

They were told, “Your country is running out of money.

The Veterans said, “If that is true, why do illegals receive welfare and food stamps?”

They were told. “That’s not your concern. Just trust us. We’ll do the right thing. Your government will take care of you.”

They lied.

Americans (who were not Veterans) didn’t stand up and speak out and so . . .

THEY CAME FOR the medical care of sick and wounded Veterans.

FIRST THEY CAME FOR Graphic #3 hero w one foot in the grave

They said, “Take a number and wait.”

The Veterans asked, “What about the promises you made?”

They were told. “Your country is running out of money.

The Veterans said, “If that is true, why do VA administrators receive bonuses while we wait and die without receiving medical care?”

They were told, “That’s not your concern. Be patient. Fill out the forms. Just trust us. We’ll do the right thing. Your government will take care of you.”

They lied.

Americans (who were not Veterans in need of medical care) didn’t stand up and speak out and so . . .

THEY CAME FOR Social Security benefits.

FIRST THEY CAME FOR Graphic #4 hands off my social security

They said to the Senior Citizens, “Because you no longer contribute to the greater good, you will not receive a cost of living increase.”

The Senior Citizens replied, “But, we worked, followed the rules, and placed our money into the Social Security Fund lockbox. You agreed to guard our contributions. Instead, you “borrowed” our money and never repaid it.”

They were told, “Your country is running out of money.”

The senior citizens asked, “If that is true, why do able-bodied adults, who chose not to work, receive increased entitlements?”

They said. “That’s not your concern. Just trust us. We’ll do the right thing. Your government will take care of you.”

They lied.

Americans (who were not Senior Citizens) didn’t stand up and speak out and so . . .

THEY CAME FOR everyone’s healthcare.

What were the promises made?

The promised broken?

When will we-the-people stand up and speak out against the massive dishonesty

being perpetrated against us by our own government?

Read the rest of this story at TheBlaze.

 

Molli for Joe

P.S. Additional political stories are available in my FREE book download “Uncle SCAM Wants Your Money and Your Country.”Use these stories to help you begin conversations with the less-aware people in your universe. An effective tool of political information sharing is to “entertain first, enlighten second.”
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President Obama’s heroic new euphemism initiative


http://joeforamerica.com/2013/12/president-obamas-heroic-new-euphemism-initiative/#0SgjO6OzAEtddk3p.99

Posted  by on Dec 2, 2013

President Obama’s presidency is collapsing from accusations of corruption to  incompetence, and White House spokesman Jay Carney is on the hot seat trying to  defend him. The best and brightest minds of the left have been called in to try  and stem the tide of bad news and turn things around. Although it will be an  expensive new government program, the Obama administration finally believes it  has the right approach to get America moving in the right direction.

President Obama is now prepared to “invest” in a “new euphemism” initiative. Millions of dollars will be spent on hiring  marketing consultants to come up with new slogans to change the meaning of  words.

Glitches in Obamacare will now be “prequels to success.”

Benghazi will be explained by pointing out that the  Obama administration has a “99% diplomat survival rate.”

Americans giving up on finding jobs will be praised as “a nation finally  taking time to relax and enjoy time off.”

Obama is also guaranteed a couple of decades from now to remaining “one of  the top 50 American presidents of all time.”

If the consultants fail to come up with real words, the administration will  bring back comedian Rich Hall from the 1980s to reintroduce “Sniglets.” Failing  that, they will borrow Vice President Joe Biden’s Dr. Seuss books for ideas.

In case the new verbiage rollout encounters glitches, Obama administration  officials will roll out the same recycled excuses and euphemisms for failure but  refer to them as new.

“Forward” is the new “forward.”

“Fairness” will be used interchangeably with “fair share.”

“Let me be clear” will be given various spicy but already used adjectives  such as “crystal,” “perfectly” and “totally.” Whether or not these words will be  used in sentences conveying any meaning or truth is “not entirely” clear.

“Make no mistake about it” will be used to convey that President Obama screwed something up royally. So  will “teachable moments.”

The word “investing” will still be a euphemism for spending into bankruptcy,  and every destructive social program will be declared redeemable as long as it  is “for the children.”

“Progressives” who then became “liberals” who then became “progressives” again will again avoid using their actual title of “failures.”

While the Obama Euphemism Initiative is already expected to be a complete  failure, Obama supporters have declared it a success. It did not achieve  anything, but it felt good to say.

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New Catchphrase: “Substandard Coverage”


By Jerry Broussard


It is no secret that the Left has been redefining our language in order to make what they shove down our throats easier to swallow. For example;

  • They call a fetus in a mother’s womb;
    • a globulin mass
    • a mass of tissue
    • a growth like a tumor
    • etc., etc., etc..
  • They took a word meaning, “lighthearted (gay)” so that any reference to homosexuals would sound nice and something to desire.
  • “Reach across the aisle” has now become, “do it our way or we will demonize you out of existence”.
  • “Negotiate” no longer means;
    • : to discuss something formally in order to make an agreement
    • : to agree on (something) by formally discussing it
    • : to get over, through, or around (something) successfully
  • According to the Left it now means “our way or the highway.”

There are so many more, but for this discussion, we want to look at their latest redefinition, “Substandard Coverage”.

You said I could Keep ItNo matter who is speaking, representing the Left, they have all been programmed to refer to health insurance plans that have been cancelled as “Substandard Coverage”, instead of what it really is; FORCED CANCELATIONS OF HEALTHCARE COVERAGE (those policies America was promised they could keep) BECAUSE OF OBAMACARE’S UNINFORMED, UNCARING, IGNORANT DEMANDED COVERAGE THAT A VERY FEW AMOUNT OF AMERICAN CITIZENS ACTUALLY NEED.

Of course, they pretend not to realize that by making that ridiculous statement, they are in fact saying to over 5 million people, “you are so stupid to make the choice of healthcare coverage you did, that we have to force you to get coverage WE DEEM as STANDARD”.

Never mind that you have been happy with that coverage and you;

  • no longer need coverage for pregnancy,
  • have never needed coverage for mental health,
  • never needed coverage to get off drugs,
  • or any of the other demands they think you need.

Never mind that you selected the plan you did because it fit your budget. Never mind that you calculated the risk of needing anything more and believed that you could cover the unexpected if necessary. Never mind that you don’t believe in abortion, or Birth Control medication, so not having it covered is fine with you. Why pay for coverage you will never need?

Insulting Americans has become an action the Left believe they are entitled to because, after all, they are so much smarter than the rest of us. They are convinced they own the right to make every decision for us in order to protect us from ourselves. That is the mindset of Socialist.

When confronted with such lunacy, they quickly respond with, “We’ve never heard any alternative”.  I say, “Free people, making choices for their lives and families, that best meets their needs, budgets and lifestyles, is the alternative.”

While we are on the subject of an alternative, I will repeat what I have been saying for years now;

  • Repeal Obamacare 100%
  • Take the demands off the insurance companies of what they must include in their coverage.
  • Enact the legislation that the National Association for the Self Employed developed several years ago;
  • Allow self employed people to create non-profit groups so they can acquire GROUP coverage in multiple states like big corporations.
  • Under Group Insurance, preexisting conditions are covered because the insurance company spreads the risk across the group coverage.
  • Raise the qualifications so more people can get Medicaid.
  • Enable Self Employed people to write off their health care cost like any corporation.
    • Special Note: The Self Employed are the nation’s largest employer.
  • Provide a way for hospitals to recoup their losses for treating uninsured and/or illegal people who come to them for treatment.
  • Enforce the laws on the books right now regarding people entering our country illegally.
  • Provide a tax break for families who have demonstrated responsibility by acquiring health care coverage.

It is not rocket science. Let the market forces work and this mess will be settled. The Health Care industry was never the mess the Left claimed. Yes, they had their issues. Some of them was related to treating so many illegal people using the Emergency Rooms as their primary care and never paying the hospital bills.

In bottom line is this: President Obama, and whoever is pulling his strings, are determined to gain control over all American lives so they can throw out our Constitution and install a Socialist/Collective Governance. It’s never been about health care for the poor. It has always been about control.

For those of us who know that, we have to constantly bring every discussion with the Left back to that basic fact. We want our country back. We want, and demand the small government our founders envisioned and enacted. We demand you get out of our lives, let the free market forces work like they were designed to do, with as little interference by any government entities. Enforce the laws on we have on the books, especially the laws covering legal and illegal entrance in our country. Honor the Bill of Rights as they were intended and written. Let us be the free people our founders intended, and God the Father desires. And all the people said, “_______”.

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House conservatives submit bill to replace ‘ObamaCare,’ amid ‘defund’ fight


Published September 18, 2013, 

FoxNews.com

 

A group of House conservatives introduced legislation Wednesday that members say will replace ObamaCare and its “unworkable” taxes and mandates with a plan that expands tax breaks for Americans who buy their own insurance.

Under the proposal endorsed by the 175-member Republican Study Committee, Americans who purchase coverage through state-run exchanges can claim a $7,500 deduction against their income and payroll taxes, regardless of the cost of the insurance. Families could deduct $20,000.

The plan — which appears to be congressional Republicans’ first comprehensive alternative to President Obama’s health care overhaul  — also increases government funding for high-risk pools. The plan serves as a rebuttal to Obama’s claims that Republicans just want to eliminate the health law and are no longer interested in replacing it. And it comes as House Republicans, on a different track, prepare to vote on a budget bill that would also de-fund the existing health care law. Democrats have vowed to oppose that bill, warning the strategy risks a government shutdown, with funding set to expire by Oct. 1.

Roughly 75 percent of rank-and-file House Republicans are on the study committee, and the new legislation is being formally presented at a time when leaders of the GOP-led chamber have yet to advance any comprehensive alternative to ObamaCare.

Lawmakers have voted more than 40 times on repealing part or all of the 2010 law, despite Republicans vowing over the past three years to “repeal and replace” the existing law.

“We can lower health care costs and fix real problems without a government-run system that puts unelected Washington bureaucrats between you and your doctor,” said Louisiana Republican Rep. Steve Scalise, the committee chairman.

Scalise also said the group wants an alternative that lowers health care costs and increases access and is going to push for a full House vote, which would call for a full repeal of ObamaCare that Republicans have opposed from the start.

House Speaker John Boehner said on Wednesday that chamber Republicans will pass a budget bill this week that withholds funding for ObamaCare.

The effort stands little chance in the Democratic-controlled Senate, setting up a showdown that could push the government toward a partial shutdown at the end of the month. Funding to operate the federal government runs out at the end of September.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said the House will also push to delay the health care law for a year as part of a plan to extend the government’s ability to borrow. He said debt ceiling talks will include a path forward on tax reform and approval of the Keystone XL pipeline.

Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., who led a small group that drafted the study committee measure, said the tax deduction would ensure that individuals and families enjoy “the same buying power” as employers who are permitted to deduct the cost of coverage they provide to their workers.

He also said the commitment of $25 billion over 10 years to defray the cost of coverage for high-risk patients would ease a problem caused when funding provided under Obama’s plan ran out. Premiums in the high-risk pools would be capped at twice the average cost of insurance sold in the state.

Individuals with pre-existing conditions who already have coverage would generally be permitted to shift existing insurance without fear of losing it.

The legislation also includes expanded access to health savings accounts, which are tax-preferred accounts used to pay medical expenses by consumers enrolled in high-deductible coverage plans.

The RSC legislation includes a number of proposals that Republicans long have backed to expand access and hold down the cost of health care, including features that permit companies to sell policies across state lines and that let small businesses join together to seek better rates from insurers.

In addition, awards for pain and suffering, emotional distress and similar noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases would be capped at $250,000, unless a state had a higher cap.

No overall cost estimates for the bill were available.

The legislation contains no provision to assure insurance coverage for millions of lower-income Americans who are scheduled under current law to be enrolled in Medicaid, a state-federal health care program for the poor.

Nor are there replacements for several of the requirements the current law imposes on insurance companies, including one that requires them to retain children up to the age of 26 on their parents’ coverage plan and another barring lifetime limits on coverage.

Internal divisions have plagued Republicans this year as they struggle to produce alternatives to the Obama plan. Legislation backed by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., to increase funding for high-risk pools was pulled without a vote after some conservatives objected to improving ObamaCare at a time when they want to repeal it.

Obama and Democrats frequently criticize Republicans for focusing so much attention on repeal efforts without coming up with an alternative.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

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The Summer of Our Discontent


Posted by http://joeforamerica.com/2013/07/the-summer-of-our-discontent/

We kicked kings, royal decrees and secret courts out of America long ago–or did we?

Now we have a President who decides which laws will be enforced and which citizens will be subject to those laws. Now, we have secret courts issuing rulings without public notice or argument. Now we have powerful federal agencies going after citizens who object.

In the imperial Presidency of Barack Obama, the government takeover of healthcare was enacted over the objections of a majority of citizens–even before repeated and solemn promises of no new taxes on the middle class were ruled false by the Supreme Court. And it gets worse.

Now the Administration has decreed that hundreds of billions of dollars in healthcare subsidies will be paid out in states that embrace ObamaCare–with no questions asked about eligibility. Neither income nor existing insurance coverage will be certified before taxpayer money is paid out. It is an open invitation to commit fraud.

In a similar announcement last week, big businesses, like four million citizens (most in pro-ObamaCare unions) are to receive one-year “waivers” by royal decree. There is no legal authority for this decision but that is not stopping him.

Even Congressional staffers and their bosses are now lobbying for their own exemptions. Why not? The committee staffers who wrote Obamacare exempted themselves along with Congressional leadership, the White House and Cabinet officers.

Gone is the very concept of the “Rule of Law” that holds that all citizens are equally subject to federal statutes enacted by representatives of the people. Gone is the concept that those who govern are subject to “consent of the governed”.

When past Presidents tried to seize unconstitutional power we relied on the judicial branch of government to assert the needed “checks and balances”. But this President is now simply ignoring two federal courts who have ruled illegal his appointments to the National Labor Relations Board.

Worse, secret courts are making rulings allowing spying on law-abiding citizens with no possible connection to international terrorism. King George had secret courts that rounded up suspects and condemned them without defense or public notice. It is why our Founding Fathers wrote the Fourth Amendment. And how can the governed give consent to such secret decisions? Until Mr. Snowden, they were unknown. .

Frustrated with a divided government and a divided people, Barack Obama has made war on those who disagree. Rogue IRS agents hardly explain how one citizen, Catherine Englebrecht (who started a group investigating voter fraud) found herself the subject of multiple FBI visits and surprise audits from a range of federal agencies, including the IRS. It is simply not believable that this abuse was not directed by powerful figures within this Administration–but the FBI has still not investigated.

His treatment of existing federal laws is equally contemptuous. Obama decreed that 1.5 million illegal immigrants are no longer subject to applicable federal statutes. Unwilling to fight for changes to the No Child Left Behind Act, Obama decided that the law could be ignored. Now, more than half the states have been granted waivers.

Welfare work rules? It was a monumentally successful policy reform embraced by both parties and strong majorities in both the House and Senate, representing widespread public belief that unrestricted welfare payments were actually increasing poverty and dependency. This President has decided that this law, like others, is optional, shifting the entire concept of the Rule of Law and the will of the people to his discretion. All hail the King.

This President has shown through his many actions that he believes that consent of the governed is an outmoded idea that can be ignored. Congress can be ignored. The courts can be ignored.  The Constitution that he is sworn to uphold and the Attorney General is sworn to enforce is optional.

We kicked royalty out of our country long ago but royal decrees are here again. Our great experiment in personal liberty is in danger of being erased from within.

Ken Hoagland is chairman of “Restore America’s Voice Foundation”. His group has delivered two million petitions and hundreds of thousands of phone calls to the House and Senate demanding a new Senate vote on ObamaCare that honestly describes both the taxes levied for the program and the performance promises that have proven false. 

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Column: Christian companies can’t bow to sinful mandate


By David Green

When my family and I started our company 40 years ago, we were working out of a garage on a $600 bank loan, assembling miniature picture frames. Our first retail store wasn’t much bigger than most people’s living rooms, but we had faith that we would succeed if we lived and worked according to God’s word. From there, Hobby Lobby has become one of the nation’s largest arts and crafts retailers, with more than 500 locations in 41 states. Our children grew up into fine business leaders, and today we run Hobby Lobby together, as a family.

We’re Christians, and we run our business on Christian principles. I’ve always said that the first two goals of our business are (1) to run our business in harmony with God’s laws, and (2) to focus on people more than money. And that’s what we’ve tried to do. We close early so our employees can see their families at night. We keep our stores closed on Sundays, one of the week’s biggest shopping days, so that our workers and their families can enjoy a day of rest. We believe that it is by God’s grace that Hobby Lobby has endured and he has blessed us and our employees. We’ve not only added jobs in a weak economy, we’ve raised wages for the past four years in a row. Our full-time employees start at 80% above minimum wage.

But now, our government threatens to change all of that. A new government healthcare mandate says that our family business must provide what I believe are abortion-causing drugs as part of our health insurance. Being Christians, we don’t pay for drugs that might cause abortions. Which means that we don’t cover emergency contraception, the morning-after pill or the week-after pill. We believe doing so might end a life after the moment of conception, something that is contrary to our most important beliefs. It goes against the Biblical principles on which we have run this company since day one. If we refuse to comply, we could face $1.3 million per day in government fines.

Our government threatens to fine job creators in a bad economy. Our government threatens to fine a company that’s raised wages four years running. Our government threatens to fine a family for running its business according to its beliefs. It’s not right.

I know people will say we ought to follow the rules; that it’s the same for everybody. But that’s not true. The government has exempted thousands of companies from this mandate, for reasons of convenience or cost. But it won’t exempt them for reasons of religious belief. So, Hobby Lobby — and my family — are forced to make a choice. With great reluctance, we filed a lawsuit today, represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, asking a federal court to stop this mandate before it hurts our business. We don’t like to go running into court, but we no longer have a choice. We believe people are more important than the bottom line and that honoring God is more important than turning a profit.

My family has lived the American dream. We want to continue growing our company and providing great jobs for thousands of employees, but the government is going to make that much more difficult. The government is forcing us to choose between following our faith and following the law. I say that’s a choice no American — and no American business — should have to make.

David Green is the CEO and founder of Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.

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