GRAYSON MUST GO Updated

I am utterly mortified that this man represents my district. He is an absolute embarrassment. This is the same moron who introduced that bill to mandate paid vacation for all businesses with 100+ employees. Because the economic crisis and the raising of the minimum wage (again) hasn't done enough to cripple small businesses, apparently. Don't get me wrong - paid vacation is something my own family enjoys, and I think more people, especially full-timers, should have the same luxury. But is the middle of an economic crisis really the best time to introduce something like this? In my case, our two weeks of paid vacation this year are balanced by two mandatory weeks of unpaid vacation, in an effort to cut costs and retain employees - and this is a very large, international corporation, not a small mom-and-pop. Come on, people, a little common sense, please!

But I digress.

His ridiculous, embarrassing, and just plain wrong tirade on the House floor stoops to a new low. If he actually had a clue, he might have read H.R. 3400, or perhaps S. 1099, or maybe H.R. 2520 or S. 1324. All of those are republican offerings for the health care debate, and all of them are languishing in committee as the democrats rail that the republicans have nothing to offer but 'no'. For a quick overview of the republican bills, click here.

Not a single one of them says 'don't get sick' or 'die quickly'. I'm not really sure where the whole 'die quickly' thing came from - the only thing I can think of is H.R. 3200. They still have not removed the rationing boards (aka 'death panels') from that legislation, so I would assume poor, confused Mr. Grayson came upon section 1233 of H.R. 3200 when he was picking up trash from the floor of the House and thought that such a horrible idea simply must be from republicans.

Calls and emails to his office have no effect, as he smugly assumes anyone who criticizes the democrat ideas are deluded or don't have the facts. Which is really something, considering at his town hall he insisted that he had read the bill (H.R.3200), but was remarkably light on facts about it when challenged.

His town hall meeting in August for health care was stacked with supporters. He held the town hall at a union facility, after a meeting, so that those who had waited outside for hours to get in couldn't because the union members stayed for the town hall. Only 31 people (out of an estimated 1000+) who had been waiting for hours outside were allowed in.

Did I mention he also brought his kids to the town hall and continually used them as a shield when the discussion would get heated - to the point of cutting the meeting short because it was their bedtime?

I am on his email list and the tele-town hall call list. I received an email on Aug. 10th about energy issues (see picture), but not a thing about his then up-coming health care town hall. A few days later, he held a tele-town hall on health care, and, although I have been included in other tele-town halls, I was not included in that one.

I was finally included in a health care related tele-town hall last week, and I found it remarkable that every single caller was pro-reform. Granted, I didn't hear the whole conference call, only the last 45 minutes or so, but, considering the callers were apparently pre-screened before being called on for questions, one would assume if there were differing viewpoints, they would be interspersed with pro-reform questions.

This man is a partisan hack who has no problem lying through his teeth and using any method available to forward his agenda as his ridiculous, childish 'presentation' on the House floor illustrates. The only good he has done so far is his work on auditing the Fed, but that is just not enough. He is more interested in forwarding the far-left agenda of the Obama administration than listening to his constituents. His smug arrogance and patronizing demeanor are offensive, and I for one can't wait to vote him out.

BTW, the cherry on this cake? Mr. Grayson calls himself the "Congressman from ACORN" - they seem to like him, too. That didn't last long, though, because he voted for defunding the organization when the political winds changed. Of course, he is now chasing the 'Bill of Attainder' meme to get out of the vote, stating the defunding was unconstitutional. The jury is still out on this, so I'm sure this will be used as a stall tactic until people lose interest in the story. That way they can say they voted against funding, but, in reality, because the measure never got a presidential signature, no harm was actually done to ACORN. And Mr. Grayson is on the front line of this defense.

Let's make an effort to say good-bye to Mr. Grayson in 2010, shall we?

UPDATE: I'm sure this won't go anywhere, but kudos to Rep. Price (author of H.R. 3400 -The Health Care Freedom Plan) for stepping up. Hopefully in all the hullabalu the details of the republican's real proposals will manage to leak out.


Just a hint - don't hold your breath.

UPDATE II: Oh, this guy has to go. What a putz.

DEATH PANEL REDUX (Updated)

Last week, Sarah Palin wrote on her FaceBook page about a provision in HR3200, calling them 'Death Panels'. http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=113851103434

This phrase caused an uproar amongst supporters of the bill, and some thoughtful consideration on the part of opposition. Had she gone too far? Has she lost her mind? There was much debate, both for: http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2009/08/inconvenient-truth-about-death-panel.html
and against: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_08/019420.php .

Finally, in his NH town hall this week, President Obama referenced her comments and attempted to make light of them. After all, there's no truth to the crazy stuff she was spouting, right? Well, Mrs. Palin has made another statement on her FaceBook page today in support of her statements, complete with footnotes. http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=24718773587

I'm glad she reiterated that the 'totally voluntary' nature of the legislation is a complete fallacy - when you pay someone to recommend something (like end-of-life counselling), they will recommend it frequently. After all, didn't our own President twice say that doctors perform unnecessary operations in order to make more money? Wouldn't it be far easier to make that money by suggesting counselling than by ripping out some poor kids' perfectly healthy tonsils or lopping off random limbs, as Dear Leader has accused? Not to mention I hardly think mandatory counselling every 5 years or if you are diagnosed with a serious illness can be considered 'voluntary'.

Let us consider, too, the concept of rationing. The administration insists there will be absolutely NO rationing. I beg to differ. According to their estimates, they will be adding 47 million people to the insurance rolls, but we are currently experiencing a shortage of both nurses AND doctors. These are not jobs that you can fill with unskilled workers, and we all know it takes years to train new doctors and nurses. So right out of the gate, there will be a shortage of care due to a shortage of health care workers.

Now lets consider what else might cause rationing. Well, with so many people on board, the costs are going to skyrocket. Especially if, as many maintain, businesses decide it's cheaper to have their staff on the public option, and people start abandoning the private sector for the cheaper public option. According to many in the administration, a single payer option is the ultimate goal, and if they have to take it step by step over a decade, so be it, as long as the goal is reached. Once that goal is reached, the cost of the program will become prohibitive, and cost-cutting solutions will start to be enforced.

Add to that the possibility of an economic crisis - caused, say, by the FED pumping unbacked trillions of dollars into the marketplace, causing the dollar to lose value and interest rates to soar. That would cause a major shortage of tax revenue to pay for massive entitlement programs, and would necessarily provoke rationing to save the bureaucracy from collapse.

Am I saying there will be Orwellian-style 'Death Panels'? Well, first of all, I'm sure they won't call them that. They'll probably use a harmless sounding acronym like the British have http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/health/03nice.html . NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) has decided that a human life is worth around $45,000 per year. If your health care is going to cost more than that, due to expensive procedures or drugs, they consider your life not worthy of prolonging. Was it a panel of doctors who decided that? No. It was a panel of bureaucrats, crunching the numbers. And here's the kicker - if you decide to pay for the drugs/procedures out of your own pocket, the State will refuse to pay for the rest of your care.

Would you call that a death panel?

Yes, her phrasing was a bit over the top, evoking Orwellian images of standing before faceless bureaucrats, but, truly, is it that far off the mark? Really the only difference right now in Britain is that the bureaucrats don't actually see you - there is no face to your case for them, you are merely a number. Which, if you think about it, is even scarier, because it removes all humanity from the decision.

I DO disagree with her on one thing from her original statement. She states that both her senior parents AND her Down's syndrome child would face the panel. I think poor Trig wouldn't even make it that far. According to the beliefs of both our Science Czar, John Holdren, and Obama's health care advisor, Ezekiel Emanuel, a fetus with Down's Syndrome would be a non-productive drain on the system, and would necessarily be terminated (in the case of Holdren, even if it is involuntary termination). Heck, Holdren believes that a born baby will "ultimately develop into a human being". He doesn't really specify at what age they miraculously become human, but it is far past the time of birth, and requires two things - nourishment and socialization in the 'crucial early years after birth'. Yeah, but Palin's the crazy one. If you'd like to read more about Mr. Holdren's beliefs check out his manifesto, called EcoScience. It was published in the '70's, but he has NEVER ONCE refuted his positions.

What we all need to keep in mind when it comes to this bill and others, is the concept of a 'foot in the door'. I think that, ultimately, that is what Sarah Palin is trying to illustrate with her '1984'-like imagery of Death Panels.

By small increments are we brought to a new reality.

UPDATE: Looks like the sunshine Mrs. Palin turned on this subject has done it's job:
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/08/13/breaking-finance-committee-drops-death-panel-provisions-from-senate-bill/

DEMOCRACY IN ACTION!!