The Obamacare Inquisitions: A brief, brutish history
The Obamacare Inquisitions: A Brief, Brutish History
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is just the latest creepy keeper of the Obamacare enemies list. The White House has been keeping tabs on individual and corporate critics of the federal health care takeover for more than a year. It started with the health czar’s Internet Snitch Brigade. Remember?
Last August, the White House Office of Health Reform called on its ground troops to report on fellow citizens who talked smack about the Democratic plan. Team Obama issued an all-points bulletin on the taxpayer-funded White House website soliciting informant e-mails:
“There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.”
Then-health czar office spokeswoman Linda Douglass appeared in an accompanying video singling out conservative Internet powerhouse Matt Drudge. Why? Because his website featured a video compilation of Obama and other Democrats — in their own words — exposing the “public option” as a Trojan Horse for government-run health care and the elimination of private industry.
The Obama dog whistle rang out loud and clear: Report online dissidents immediately.
Calling on the White House to cease and desist, GOP Sen. John Cornyn pointed out that “these actions taken by your White House staff raise the specter of a data collection program. … I can only imagine the level of justifiable outrage had your predecessor asked Americans to forward e-mails critical of his policies to the White House.” The flagging operation was shut down, but a plethora of federal disclosure exemptions protect the Obama administration from revealing what was collected, who was targeted and what was done with the “fishy” database information.
In February, the White House coordinated a demonization campaign against Anthem Blue Cross in California for raising rates. Obama singled out the company in a “60 Minutes” interview, and Sebelius sent a nasty-gram demanding that Anthem “justify” its rate hikes to the federal government. A private company trying to survive in the marketplace was forced to “explain” itself to federal bureaucrats and career politicians who have never run a business (successful or otherwise) in their lives. Sebelius went even further. She called on Anthem to provide public disclosure on how the rate increases would be spent — a mandate that no other private companies must follow.
We already have a federal pay czar requiring companies to justify their pay raises and claiming authority to claw back bonuses already paid. Will the White House next demand that other businesses — not just health insurers — justify price increases deemed unreasonable, excessive or “extraordinary”?
On Capitol Hill, Democratic chief inquisitor Henry Waxman trained his sights on executives from Deere, Caterpillar, Verizon and AT&T in a brass-knuckled effort to silence companies speaking out about the cost implications and financial burdens of Obamacare. He scheduled an April 21 show trial of corporate heads who dutifully reported writedowns related to the Obamacare mandates. Obama Commerce Secretary Gary Locke joined in on the witch-hunt, pummeling the companies on the White House blog and TV airwaves for their “premature” and “irresponsible” disclosures.
After the Democrats’ own congressional staff pointed out that the companies “acted properly and in accordance with accounting standards” in submitting filings that were required by law, Waxman called off the hounds. But it was a temporary reprieve. Sebelius’ threat last week against individual market health insurers who raise rates to cope with new federal coverage mandates will be far from this desperate administration’s last.
As health costs skyrocket, doctors abandon the profession, hospitals lay off workers and private insurers shut down, the only way to quell the Obamacare backlash will be through an even more thuggish campaign to demonize, marginalize and silence nationwide dissent.
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Eidn’t these elitist hacks get their butts handed to them the last time they tried this “citizen against citizen” nonsense.
I’m going to send every “fishy” email I get from the Dem party to this email. I hope it is flooded, again, with nonsense to the degree they have to shut it down. Idiots.
“Didn”t, not Eidn’t. sorry.
There is a lot of disinformation out there from the party of misspeaking and this White House.
None of the people who put this Obamacare together know anything about health care or the system.
Kathleen doesn’t know how the system works.
I have been working with individuals and families on lowering their health care costs for 15 years. I know what is wrong with the system. I know how it can be fixed. Nobody asked me.
If I offered any opinion, that educated and experienced opinion would have been dismissed as my being a ‘shill for the insurance companies’.
I fight against insurance companies on behalf of my clients all-the-time. I only make money when my clients get coverage. Who do you think knows more than someone in my position about the problems with getting policies issued?
Neither Kathleen nor Obama nor any of the congressmen in DC have ever sat down to help someone with their health insurance needs. They have no idea how it works and they have no idea what is wrong with the current system.
Obamacare made everything worse. There are problems that need to be fixed, but Obamacare moves us in the wrong direction at a high rate of speed.
The Stasi has nothing on these goons.
I’m starting to lose track!
First, I’m a ‘bitter clinger’.
Then, since I’m a white male military veteran concerned about the growth of government, I’m a potential domestic terrorist.
Since I’ve been to TEA party rallies, that makes me a racist.
Since I’m pro-life, that makes me a misongynist.
Now, I guess, since I’ve posted some ‘fishy’ comments on MM’s blog, I’m probably ‘Flagged’.
If they gave ribbons for all these things I’d have quite a rack by now!
Cool!
So if I object what are they going to do?
Send me to Vietnam? IRS audit?
They can wail, bully, and demand all day. YAWNNNNNNN
You must feel very special.
Sebelius and the other Marxist apparatchiks are the ones to be investigated and jailed. Looking forward to 2011-2012. Like I always say, take away the taxpayer cookie jar and the cockroaches have nothing to feed on.
15% GDP balanced budget and a fair tax. Period. Easiest way to void 80% of the statists’ power.
If I drop a dime, do I get a brown shirt?
Get 15 stamps on your ‘Frequent Snitch’ card and you get a pair of Jack Boots!
How can there be disinformation about the Healthcare bill, when we had to pass it before we could see what was in it?
It’s standard operating procedure for socialist dictators. Just look at the history of this country. Woodrow Wilson had citizens finking on each other. FDR refined it and did the same. Read Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg to get the true story.
Obrainless is just more of the same. He appoints mindless robots that will do anything, no matter how illegal or questionable, to please him. Very similar to Richard Nixon. And I always thought Obrainless was Carter’s second term. Now I find out it’s the last two years of Nixon’s term.
Brutish? Oh my but it will get ever so much more brutish than this. These are the people who equated the Soviet gulag to a summer camp. These are the heirs and devotees of William Ayres, Joesph Stalin and Mao.
Brutish? The worst is yet to come.
Obama, dreams of my commie anti-colonialist father, now playing on screens in America.
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HI DEXTER ALARIUS–#6. You’re in good company–a lot of patriotic conservatives “fit the profile” Comrade Obama (PBUH), DHS’s Big Sis, DOJ’s Eric Holder, et al have on us.
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I thought Bomber Bill Ayers comments on needing to eliminate millions of non-progressives in our country were quite telling. Ditto for The One’s comment on the need for a homeland security force as strong as the U.S. Military! Refer to the Gestapo, SS, NKVD, KGB, Stasi, etc. for more information.
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Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Chavez, and Pol Pot thought / think this way. And we have some of our Gubmint officials talking about the need for “re-education” of us trogdalytes.
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And the AMERICAN PRAVDA tries to hide the socialist / marxist agendas.
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John Bibb
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This reminds me of the other thread with 72 virgins. I’m holding out for something better than jackboots. Up the ante to full brownshirt regalia and I might be tempted.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is just the latest creepy keeper of the Obamacare enemies list.
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Not to mention, she’s declared herself qualified to determine whether an insurance company’s rate increase is “justified” or not.
She’s about as qualified to run an insurance business or any other kind of business as our current President is. Which is to say, not at all.
Great analogy, Flyoverman! 40 years ago, I remember when the commandants at Fitzsimmons Army hospital would fluster that we (still in the Army) patients would not get haircuts..we asked them “what are you going to do? send me back to Vietnam?”
Applies exactly to these thugs in this, hopefully short lived, administration. The fact that they feel they need to do this shows just exactly how desparate they are…we are doing something right.
Speaking of enemies lists. Look who just was added to the terror list by the State of PA’s Homeland Security office:
It is easy to drive to the office on the weekend, take pictures of the Tea Party people that are protesting and then use them to justify your job.
It takes hard work, initative, analytical skills, and real effort to identify, assess, and track real bad guys.
These Homeland Security people aren’t facists as much as they as incompetent and lazy. The worst security situation you can have is when the security people manufacture the illusion that they have made things secure, when in fact there is none.
Why bother having them.
EVERY communist government on this planet has done the same thing. You must silence your opposition, and threaten and kill your opposition into submission. You have every communist gubmint guarding their borders from people wanting to leave, not arrive. This gubmint of ours is merely doing what all freedom hating dictatorial thugs do.
And let’s not forget this little gem from the Chavez wannabe:
“We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”
Sounds alot like the Hitler youth. But,but…Bush had the Patriot Act! it was supposed to destroy the Constitution….this stuff from Bammy is just plain scary and not a peep from the MSM.
The truth is difficult to stamp out and it will be the undoing of all the czars.
Gosh, that sounds a little like the state government of Arizona to me.
I think you’re confused about the terms Civilian and Government Ragman.
Obamacare is NOT going to fix anything. Obama/Pelosi/Reid, et.al., are now distancing themselves from all the false assurances they gave the public when they were pushing for it to pass.
We knew they were lying then. They used a tank to roll it past us. Now that democrats are accepting it as a failure, why not agree to having it repealed? Don’t they want to regain some sense of self-worth?
CODE FINK