From GOPUSA.com:

By Bobby Eberle
June 30, 2009

The United States Supreme Court has spoken, and because of Monday’s ruling, the nation can move one step closer to truly being a colorblind society. In the process, the majority of Supreme Court justices slapped down the ruling of Obama’s Supreme Court nominee: Judge Sonya Sotomayor.

In a case where white firefighters were denied promotions simply because they are white, Sotomayor ruled that it was fine for the city of New Haven, CT to throw out test results on a promotional exam because no minorities placed high enough to receive a promotion. The Supreme Court said, “Wrong!” I wonder how a conservative nominee would be judged by Democrats if the Supreme Court overturned a recent ruling by the nominee. Do you think they’d dismiss it as they are doing for Sotomayor?

As reported in an Associated Press news story, “The Supreme Court declared Monday that white firefighters in Connecticut were unfairly denied promotion because of their race, ruling against minorities in a major reverse discrimination case that could affect bosses and workers nationwide. The justices threw out a decision that high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor had endorsed as an appeals court judge.”

The case involves the city of New Haven, CT and its fire department. A number of firefighters took the promotional exam in order to be considered for positions of lieutenant and captain. 118 people took the test, and 56 passed. The top 19 firefighters on the exam were eligible for promotion to 15 open spots. The city said that based on those test results, “no minorities would have been eligible for lieutenant, and two Hispanics would have been eligible for captain.” So, what is a city driven by affirmative action supposed to do? That’s right… throw out the test results!

Firefighter Matthew Marcarelli and others filed a lawsuit against the city. Marcarelli actually finished #1 on the test, but was not granted a promotion.

The case found its way to Sotomayor’s court where, as the Associated Press reports, “Sotomayor and two other judges issued an unusually brief decision that went against white firefighters.”

On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled against Sotomayor and in favor of the firefighters.

In its last session until September, the court’s conservative majority prevailed in a 5-4 ruling that faulted New Haven and the courts that had upheld the city’s discarding of results of an exam in which no African-Americans scored high enough to be promoted to lieutenant or captain.

The city said it acted to avoid a lawsuit from minorities, but Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his majority opinion that New Haven’s action amounted to discrimination based on race against the white firefighters who were likely to be promoted.

“No individual should face workplace discrimination based on race,” Kennedy said.

That pretty much sums up how America should be. Of course, on the other side, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the white firefighters “understandably attract the court’s empathy. But they had no vested right to promotion and no person has received a promotion in preference to them.” So, everything is OK because no one else got promoted? What kind of sense does that make? They took an exam for a promotion; placed highly on the exam; and the results were thrown out because they were not minorities. And she thinks that is OK? Crazy.

Will this ruling have any effect on the confirmation of Sotomayor? Not in the eyes of the media and the Democrats.

However, conservatives are hoping it will make a difference.

“This case will only raise more questions in the minds of the American people concerning Judge Sotomayor’s commitment to treat each individual fairly and not as a member of a group,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“It’s just one more data point that she thinks it’s OK to make decisions as a judge based on your own personal preferences, gender, race, background, political agenda — instead of being a servant of the law,” said Wendy Long of the Judicial Confirmation Network.

Tom Fitton of the conservative group Judicial Watch said the case “puts senators in a corner, where they’re going to have to say whether they will vote for someone who thought it was appropriate to discriminate based on race simply to avoid a lawsuit.”

Sotomayor should not be confirmed. Yes, her confirmation will not change the balance of the court, but that should not be a reason for senators to toe the line. Any nominee who thinks it’s fine to discriminate is not worthy of the highest court in the land. If we truly want a colorblind society, then we start by sending a message that all discrimination is wrong… even if it is against a white male.

Obama art is getting more bizarre than ever with a series of nude-Obama riding a unicorn, exclusively from FaithMouse.com

Here’s a few that should leave you scratching your head.

From GOPUSA.com:

Big Obama campaign donors get ambassadorships
By ROBERT BURNS
Associated Press
June 26, 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Thursday selected for ambassadorships in Europe two of his presidential campaign’s biggest fundraisers, extending a pattern of rewarding political supporters.

Obama chose career foreign service officers to head U.S. embassies in Latvia, Benin and Zimbabwe.

Obama said he will nominate William Eacho, chief executive officer of Carlton Capital Group, a private investment company, to be ambassador to Austria. Eacho raised more than $500,000 for Obama’s presidential run; he and his immediate family also donated $226,000 to federal politics in 2007-08, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks money in politics.

Bruce Oreck, a lawyer who raised more than $500,000 for the Obama campaign and with his family gave $202,000 to federal races, according to the center, was chosen to be ambassador to Finland. He had been vice president and general counsel for his family business, the Oreck vacuum manufacturer, until it was sold in 2003.

And Obama picked finance executive and Democratic donor David Thorne to be ambassador to Italy. Thorne contributed a total of $3,300 to Obama’s primary and general election campaigns last year, according to the money-tracking group.

In a series of announcements earlier this month, Obama picked campaign fundraisers and donors for plum posts in Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Morocco, Belize, Canada, the Bahamas and South Africa. He also has named numerous career foreign service officers to postings in Europe, Africa, the Mideast and the Pacific.

The White House said Thursday that Obama intends to nominate Judith G. Garber, a career foreign service officer who currently is deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, to be ambassador to Latvia.

James Knight, a career foreign service officer and director of the State Department’s office of East African affairs, is to be nominated to be ambassador to Benin.

Obama’s choice to be ambassador to Zimbabwe is Charles A. Ray, who has headed the Pentagon’s POW/MIA affairs office since 2006 and is a career foreign service officer.

To represent Washington at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Obama chose Karen Kornbluh, who had been policy director in his Senate office. She is now a visiting fellow at the Center for American Progress, a think tank that has been a frequent source of personnel to fill senior Obama administration jobs.

David Killion, a senior member of the professional staff of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was picked to lead the U.S. mission at the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO. As an adviser on U.N. issues to the late Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., Killion worked on the legislation that was passed in 2001 authorizing U.S. re-entry to UNESCO.

Although not directly relevant to the theme of this blog, this is a must-read article that shows the trouble we are in for with a government over concerned with political correctness and a Republican Party that does not even know their own history. From World Net Daily:

Drenched in blood of slavery
Rodger Hedgecock
June 21, 2009

The U.S. Senate voted unanimously last week to adopt a resolution apologizing for slavery.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, lead sponsor of the resolution, said, “You wonder why we didn’t do it 100 years ago. It is important to have a collective response to a collective injustice.”

Only after decades of public education ignoring and distorting U.S. history can such a huge lie be said with a straight face.

Senator, you didn’t do it 100 years ago because 100 years ago you Democrats were enforcing Jim Crow segregation laws, poll taxes to keep blacks from voting, and riding around in sheets and pointy hats just in case blacks didn’t get the message.

You say “It’s important to have a collective response” because you want to bury the origins, purposes, and historical practices of your own party.

The worst part is, Republicans in the Senate let you get away with it.

Principled Republicans knowing their history would have authored a resolution reciting the facts that the Republican Party was formed, among other reasons, to oppose slavery and that the Republican Party and its first President Abraham Lincoln responded to Southern, Democrat-led secession with a successful war that preserved the union and freed the slaves.

After Lincoln’s assassination (by a Democrat), the Republican-led Congress (over the objections of the Democratic Party minority) amended the Constitution to confirm the liberation of the slaves (13th Amendment: slavery abolished), and the 14th Amendment (freed slaves are citizens equal to all citizens) and the 15th Amendment (right to vote guaranteed to freed slaves).

Southern Democrats spent the next 100 years trying to keep freed slaves down with segregation laws, poll taxes to deny the right to vote, and lynching to enforce the social order. The KKK was formed by a Democrat; no Republican has ever been a member of the KKK. This is the heritage of the Democratic Party.

In fact, the Democratic Party was formed in the first place to defend and expand slavery.

In 1840, the very first national nominating convention of the Democratic Party adopted a platform which read in part:

Resolved, That Congress has no power … to interfere with or control the domestic institutions of the several states … that all efforts by abolitionists … made to induce Congress to interfere with questions of slavery … are calculated … to diminish the happiness of the people, and endanger the stability and permanency of the union.

Got that, Sen. Harkin? Your party was born defending slavery as necessary for the happiness of the people and threatening secession and war if slavery were challenged.

The same party platform language was used in 1844, 1848, 1852 and 1856. In 1860, the Democrat commitment to slavery took a harsher tone.

The Fugitive Slave Law was passed by Congress in 1850. This monstrous law provided that, since slaves were the personal property of their masters, runaway slaves must be returned to their owners. The law required all law enforcement officers to assist in the recapture of runaway slaves or risk a fine of $1,000 (about $100,000 in today’s dollars)!

The Republican Party was formed in the 1850s in part as a political reaction to this unjust law.

In their national convention of 1860, Democrats harshly responded to certain Northern (Republican) states that were passing state laws to evade the Fugitive Slave Law by adopting a plank in the Democratic Party Platform which read:

Resolved, That the enactments of the State Legislatures to defeat the faithful execution of the Fugitive Slave Law, are hostile in character, subversive of the Constitution, and revolutionary in their effect.

Senator, your Democratic Party has much to be apologetic about on the slavery issue.

During the civil war, the Southern Democrats led the Confederacy out of the Union; Northern Democrats formed a separate party which opposed the war. The 1864 (Northern) Democratic Party platform adopted a “peace” plank which read in part:

… after four years of failure to restore the union by the experiment of war … justice, humanity, liberty, and the public welfare demand … a cessation of hostilities … to the end that … peace may be restored …

Here is the origin of today’s Democratic Party “Peace at any Price, Better Red than Dead, Why Can’t we all just get Along” foreign policy.

The war was started by Democrat secessionists, and just as President Lincoln was on the verge of victory, the Northern Democrats wanted to save the South and slavery with “peace talks”! Voters knew better in 1864 and re-elected Lincoln.

But the Democrats weren’t through. In 1868, Sen. Harkin’s party condemned the Republican Party in its party platform as the “Radical Party,” and condemned Reconstruction in these unforgettable words:

Instead of restoring the Union, it (the Radical Party) has dissolved it, and subjected ten states (the former Confederate states) … to military despotism and negro supremacy.

And, senator, don’t tell me this is all ancient history in a lame attempt to evade the true origins of your party.

As recently as 1964, when the Senate debated the Civil Rights Act, Southern Democrats (including Al Gore’s father) voted no. While Northern Democrats voted yes, their votes were not enough. The deciding votes to pass this landmark bill were provided by Sen. Everett Dirksen, R-Ill., and the Republicans.

Republicans should be proud of their heritage of liberation of the slaves and civil rights voting record.

It’s Harkin and the Democrats who should apologize and pay reparations.

From The Washington Post:

Stay Tuned for More of ‘The Obama Show’
By Dana Milbank
Wednesday, June 24, 2009

In his first daytime news conference yesterday, President Obama preempted “All My Children,” “Days of Our Lives” and “The Young and the Restless.” But the soap viewers shouldn’t have been disappointed: The president had arranged some prepackaged entertainment for them.

After the obligatory first question from the Associated Press, Obama treated the overflowing White House briefing room to a surprise. “I know Nico Pitney is here from the Huffington Post,” he announced.

Obama knew this because White House aides had called Pitney the day before to invite him, and they had escorted him into the room. They told him the president was likely to call on him, with the understanding that he would ask a question about Iran that had been submitted online by an Iranian. “I know that there may actually be questions from people in Iran who are communicating through the Internet,” Obama went on. “Do you have a question?”

Pitney recognized his prompt. “That’s right,” he said, standing in the aisle and wearing a temporary White House press pass. “I wanted to use this opportunity to ask you a question directly from an Iranian.”

Pitney asked his arranged question. Reporters looked at one another in amazement at the stagecraft they were witnessing. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel grinned at the surprised TV correspondents in the first row.

The use of planted questioners is a no-no at presidential news conferences, because it sends a message to the world — Iran included — that the American press isn’t as free as advertised. But yesterday wasn’t so much a news conference as it was a taping of a new daytime drama, “The Obama Show.” Missed yesterday’s show? Don’t worry: On Wednesday, ABC News will be broadcasting “Good Morning America” from the South Lawn (guest stars: the president and first lady), “World News Tonight” from the Blue Room, and a prime-time feature with Obama from the East Room.

“The Obama Show” was the hottest ticket in town yesterday. Forty-five minutes before the start, there were no fewer than 107 people crammed into the narrow aisles, in addition to those in the room’s 42 seats. Japanese and Italian could be heard coming from the tangle of elbows, cameras and compressed bodies: “You’ve got to move! . . . Oh, God, don’t step on my foot!” Some had come just for a glimpse of celebrity. And they wanted to know all about him. “As a former smoker, I understand the frustration and the fear that comes with quitting,” McClatchy News’s Margaret Talev empathized with the president before asking him how much he smokes.

Obama indulged the question from the studio audience. “I would say that I am 95 percent cured. But there are times where I mess up,” he confessed. “Like folks who go to AA, you know, once you’ve gone down this path, then, you know, it’s something you continually struggle with.”

This is Barack Obama, and these are the Days of Our Lives.

As if to compensate for the prepackaged Huffington Post question, Obama went quickly to Fox News for a predictably hostile question from Major Garrett. “In your opening remarks, sir, you said about Iran that you were appalled and outraged,” Garrett said. “What took you so long?

“I don’t think that’s accurate,” Obama volleyed testily, calling his toughening statements on Iran “entirely consistent.”

The host of “The Obama Show” dispatched with similar ease a challenge from CBS’s Chip Reid, asking whether his hardening line on Iran was inspired by John McCain. “What do you think?” Obama replied with a big grin. That brought the house down. And the studio audience laughed again when ABC’s Jake Tapper tried to get Obama to answer another reporter’s question that he had dodged. “Are you the ombudsman for the White House press corps?” the president cracked.

The laughter had barely subsided when the host made another joke about Tapper’s reference to Obama’s “Spock-like language about the logic of the health-care plan.”

“The reference to Spock, is that a crack on my ears?” the president asked.

But yesterday’s daytime drama belonged primarily to Pitney, of the Huffington Post Web site. During the eight years of the Bush administration, liberal outlets such as the Huffington Post often accused the White House of planting questioners in news conferences to ask preplanned questions. But here was Obama fielding a preplanned question asked by a planted questioner — from the Huffington Post.

Pitney said the White House, though not aware of the question’s wording, asked him to come up with a question about Iran proposed by an Iranian. And, as it turned out, he was not the only prearranged questioner at yesterday’s show. Later, Obama passed over the usual suspects to call on Macarena Vidal of the Spanish-language EFE news agency. The White House called Vidal in advance to see whether she was coming and arranged for her to sit in a seat usually assigned to a financial trade publication. She asked about Chile and Colombia.

A couple of more questions and Obama called it a day. “Mr. President!” yelled Mike Allen of Politico. “May I ask about Afghanistan? No questions about Iraq or Afghanistan?”

Sorry: Those weren’t prearranged.

From RightWingNews.com:

Back on April 10th, I ran a story called, “An Indication At Walgreens That Obama’s Honeymoon May Be Just About Over.”

That indication was that Obama collectible plates had plunged in price,

Notice what we have there: loads of Obama kitsch, discounted down from $19.99 to $5.19. Let me tell you something, folks: You don’t mark your products down 74% if they’re selling.

Well, in the spirit of journalism, I thought the story deserved a follow-up.

It seems Big Lots in Greensboro also made the Hope and Change on a plate mistake and at this point, they’re just about ready to give them away to get them out of the store,

Wow, down from $19.95 to $2? So, given that Obama’s approval rate is still dropping, when do they go on sale in the Dollar Store?

Did you know these plates actually have their own web page? Oh, and the video on it is just awesome. It describes Barack Obama’s “confident smile and kind eyes.” They also note there is a strict limit of two plates per person at $19.99. After all, these plates are going fast!

And who wouldn’t want one of these plates to hang over the fireplace so that you could have Barack Obama watching over you — or, better yet, why not use it as a dinner plate? Then, as you finished your food, you could see Barack Obama looking up at you with his “confident smile and kind eyes”?

From RightWingNews.com:

Obama’s Plan Didn’t Work

In February 2009, the President urged the passage of a grand rescue plan. Fearing certain disaster, he told the country that if they borrowed and spent $787 billion dollars, then everyone would have jobs again.

So began President Obama’s saga of spending. With a straight face, the President promised America that if his stimulus package passed, unemployment - then at 7.6 percent - would abate. Without it, we were told we would surely reach 9% unemployment - a rate our country has not seen in a quarter of a century.

Four months later, the unemployment rate for May has come in at 9.4% and seems to be climbing.

So, what happened to all the “stimulus” monies that were supposed to put Americans back to work? Well, they aren’t revamping our nation’s aging infrastructure. Instead, they are going to such “shovel-ready” projects as expanding Washington D.C.’s “Smartbike” program. That’s right, $3 million of your tax dollars are going to buy 400 bikes and 40 bike racks for the elite neighborhoods of Adams Morgan, Capitol Hill, and Georgetown - where the average single family home is $1.2 million. Now, I have no objection to bicycles, but at that price, these had better be made of gold!

It is not too early to conclude that February’s stimulus package has failed to deliver on the promises Speaker Pelosi and President Obama made for it. Unemployment is rising and even Vice President Biden has admitted that the money is going to waste, leaving our grandchildren with an unprecedented debt burden.

Just a little over a year ago, when President Obama was campaigning, he reminded us of the foolishness of continuing to grow the National Debt. Back then, he asked: “the first thing you do when you’re in a hole is what?” It is not too late for the President to take his own advice: Stop digging!

Stop the wasteful spending. Stop growing the national debt. Stop inviting hyperinflation. Stop nationalizing private businesses. Instead, do what has always worked to grow our economy: unleash the power of American entrepreneurs. Cut the red tape on developing home grown energy. Incentivize productivity. Rollback unfunded mandates and encourage small business to hire new employees. In other words: do what works.

From GOPUSA.com:

Obama’s ‘Pay Czar’ — Welcome to the Twilight Zone
Posted by Bobby Eberle
June 10, 2009 at 7:15 am

We sure have seen a lot in the nearly five months that Barack Obama has been president. Who could have imagined that the government would be controlling certain financial institutions? Who would have thought that General Motors would be under the control of Obama? Who knew that it was possible to create more debt in five months than all previous presidents combined? Welcome to the new America.

But, it doesn’t stop there. We’ve heard so much weirdness coming from Obama like the jobs that have been “created or saved,” when job losses continue and the unemployment rate keeps going up, but it doesn’t stop there. Today we see yet another step down the path to government control, and another effort by Obama to take freedom away from the American people. In particular, I’m talking about Obama’s new plan to appoint a “Pay Czar” to monitor what people are getting paid. We have now entered the Twilight Zone…

As noted in an Associated Press story, “the Obama administration is ready to issue new regulations limiting the compensation of top executives at financial institutions that have received government rescue funds.” FOXNews.com reports that the position will be a “pay czar” formally known as a “special master for compensation.” Special master for compensation? Are they serious?

As noted in the stories, the position focuses on those financial institutions that received funds from the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP). Now, perhaps there are those who believe that if a troubled business accepts government (tax payer relief) then it should come with strings attached. In some ways that makes sense. I, as an investor, would like to see a return on this investment (bailout), but I also realize that the companies are in the best position to manage things… not me or the government.

Now people are probably jumping up and down saying, “If the companies were so good at running things, they wouldn’t be in this mess.” Well, that’s partly true. We all have to keep in mind that this “mess” was created by forcing lending institutions to loan money to people who would normally be considered “bad risks.”

Ok, back to the main point… regardless of whether a financial institution received government funds, the government has no business telling the institution how to run itself. Wages, regulations, policies, etc. are established by the company or institution. They form contracts between management and employees. That is how companies are run. For Obama to now say that he wants to control what they get paid shows two things: 1) it further reveals his desire to move America toward more and more government control. 2) It shows that Obama has no understanding of business.

If Obama limits the salaries of top executives at companies A, B, and C, don’t you think those executives are more likely to go work for companies D, E, and F? What does that do for companies A, B, and C which are already “troubled?” I guess we already know the answer to that one when we look at General Motors: government “ownership” of production.

But, of course, Obama is not stopping there. Just check out the news story:

The government, however, is not stopping at federally assisted institutions. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke want to give the Fed, which regulates banks, and the Securities and Exchange Commission, which oversees the financial markets, greater powers to set compensation guidelines across the financial sector.

Can you believe this? Now, we are not just talking about institutions that accepted TARP funds. We are talking about an entire sector of the economy. Just look at what Obama’s treasury secretary had to say:

“I think boards of directors did not do a good job,” [Treasury Secretary Timothy] Geithner said Tuesday. “I think shareholders did not do a good job in terms of discipline and compensation practices.”

So, Geithner blasts boards of directors (the managers) and the shareholders (the people). If the managers and regular folks are to blame, what’s left to save the day? That’s right… the government. Can we please wake up from this bad dream?

From RightWingNews.com:

It’s actually become rather routine (From The New York Times)

President Obama’s choice as chief of protocol for the State Department, a position that carries the status of an ambassadorship, did not file tax returns for 2005 and 2006, errors she corrected last November.

Surprising, eh? As a sidebar, remember who the NY Times mostly referred to GWB as “Mr. Bush” rather then “President Bush?”

The nominee, Capricia Penavic Marshall, has placed blame for the problem on the Postal Service and on miscommunication between her husband and their accountant.

Do liberals ever take responsibility for their own actions?

Ms. Marshall may fare better because, after ultimately filing the 2005 and 2006 federal and local paperwork, she was entitled to $37,259 in refunds, according to data she provided to Mr. Lugar.

So, not only did she fail to file 2 years of federal and local returns, she’s an idiot. She was also not assessed any penalties or fees. Nice to have connections, eh?

From Michelle Malkin:

I blogged about Michelle Obama’s role in creating a patient-dumping scheme for the University of Chicago Medical Center back in March. With her husband and the Democrats unleashing health care horror story anecdotes to gin up public fear and build support for the beleaguered Obamacare plan, my syndicated column today revisits the kind of “reform” the Obamas and their Chicago cronies champion — and who benefits.

Here’s a challenge to the ABC News Obamacare infomercial producers. I dare you to ask President Obama this question: What have you done for Dontae Adams, lately?

***

The Obamacare horror story you won’t hear
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2009

The White House, Democrats, and MoveOn liberals are spreading health care sob stories to sell a government takeover. But there’s one health care policy nightmare you won’t hear the Obamas hyping. It’s a tale of poor, minority patient-dumping in Chicago — with First Lady Michelle Obama’s fingerprints all over it.

Both Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa and Democrat Rep. Bobby Rush of Chicago have raised red flags about the outsourcing program, run by the University of Chicago Medical Center. The hospital has non-profit status and receives lucrative tax breaks in exchange for providing charity care. Yet, it spent a measly $10 million on charity care for the poor in fiscal 2007 when Mrs. Obama was employed there—1.3 percent of its total hospital expenses, according to an analysis performed for The Washington Post by the non-partisan Center for Tax and Budget Accountability. The figure is below the 2.1 percent average for nonprofit hospitals in surrounding Cook County.

Rep. Rush called for a House investigation last week in response to months of patient-dumping complaints, noting: “Congress has a duty to expend its power to mitigate and prevent this despicable practice from continuing in centers that receive federal funds.”

Don’t expect the president to support a probe. While a top executive at the hospital, Mrs. Obama helped engineer the plan to offload low-income patients with non-urgent health needs. Under the Orwellian banner of an “Urban Health Initiative,” Mrs. Obama sold the scheme to outsource low-income care to other facilities as a way to “dramatically improve health care for thousands of South Side residents.” The program guaranteed “free” shuttle rides to and from the outside clinics.

In truth, it was old-fashioned cost-cutting and favor-trading repackaged as minority aid. Clearing out the poor freed up room for insured (i.e., more lucrative) patients. If a Republican had proposed the very same program and recruited black civic leaders to front it, Michelle Obama and her grievance-mongering friends would be screaming “RAAAAAAAAACISM!” at the top of their lungs.

Joe Stephens of the Washington Post wrote: “To ensure community support, Michelle Obama and others in late 2006 recommended that the hospital hire the firm of David Axelrod, who a few months later became the chief strategist for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Axelrod’s firm recommended an aggressive promotional effort modeled on a political campaign—appoint a campaign manager, conduct focus groups, target messages to specific constituencies, then recruit religious leaders and other third-party ‘validators.’ They, in turn, would write and submit opinion pieces to Chicago publications.”

Some health care experts saw through Mrs. Obama and her public relations man, David Axelrod—yes, the same David Axelrod who is now Mr. Obama’s senior adviser at the White House. The University of Chicago Medical Center hired Axelrod’s public relations firm, ASK Public Strategies, to promote Mrs. Obama’s Urban Health Initiative. Axelrod had the blessing of Chicago political guru Valerie Jarrett – now White House senior adviser.

Axelrod’s great contribution: Re-branding! His firm recommended re-naming the initiative after “[i]nternal and external respondents expressed the opinion that the word ‘urban’ is code for ‘black’ or ‘black and poor’….Based on the research, consideration should be given to re-branding the initiative.” Axelrod and the Obama campaign refused to disclose how much his firm received for its genius re-branding services.

In February 2009, outrage in the Obamas’ community exploded after a young boy covered by Medicaid was turned away from the University of Chicago Medical Center. Dontae Adams’ mother, Angela, had sought emergency treatment for him after a pit bull tore off his upper lip. Mrs. Obama’s hospital gave the boy a tetanus shot, antibiotics, and Tylenol and shoved him out the door. The mother and son took an hour-long bus ride to another hospital for surgery.

I’ll guarantee you this: You’ll never see the Adams family featured at an Obama policy summit or seated next to the First Lady at a joint session of Congress to illustrate the failures of the health care system.

Following the Adams incident, the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) blasted Mrs. Obama and Mr. Axelrod’s grand plan. The group released a statement expressing “grave concerns that the University of Chicago’s policy toward emergency patients is dangerously close to ‘patient dumping,’ a practice made illegal by the Emergency Medical Labor and Treatment Act (EMTALA)” – signed by President Reagan, by the way – “and reflected an effort to ‘cherry pick’ wealthy patients over poor.”

Rewarding political cronies at the expense of the poor while posing as guardians of the downtrodden? Welcome to Obamacare.

***

You can pre-order Culture of Corruption now at Amazon.

***

Related reading: David Catron on Michelle O’s “Urban Health Initiative” (now run by Obama longtime crony Dr. Eric Whitaker) and see also registered nurse Carol Peracchio on ACORN General Hospital.

From PrisionPlanet.com:

Obama’s Insurance Proposal May Grab Power From States
Erik Holm
Bloomberg News
Friday, June 19, 2009

June 19 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama’s plan to create a U.S. insurance office after the $182.5 billion bailout of American International Group Inc. may take powers from the states that have overseen the industry for more than 135 years.

Obama called for the creation of a federal Office of National Insurance within the Treasury Department to monitor the industry, represent U.S. interests in international insurance agreements, and look for gaps in state oversight. The proposal was announced this week as part of Obama’s planned overhaul of the U.S. financial regulatory system.

The administration endorsed broader federal oversight of firms posing a threat to the financial system, and said more regulation may be needed for parts of companies outside the reach of state supervision. AIG’s Financial Products unit, which brought the company to the brink of bankruptcy after it sold credit protection to firms including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., wasn’t under the states’ umbrella.

“AIG highlighted gaps in our insurance regulatory system,” said Leigh Ann Pusey, president of the American Insurance Association, which has pushed for federal oversight for a decade. “We had 20 different states with authority over 72 insurance subsidiaries of AIG just in this country.” The states didn’t work together “until the crisis hit,” she said.

The creation of a federal regulator is supported by some of the country’s largest insurers, including Allstate Corp. and Travelers Cos. Some smaller firms are opposed. The National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, a trade group for policyholder-owned companies, said in a statement it had “concerns with some of the language in the draft paper” released by the Treasury to coincide with Obama’s announcement.

Full story here.

From GOPUSA.com:

Next Up… The Health Care Infomercial
Posted by Bobby Eberle
June 17, 2009 at 7:30 am

Remember the good, old days when reporters were tough on everyone… working hard to find the facts and get the scoop? Ok, ok, neither do I. I guess I’m too young. How about the days when the line between journalism and political advocacy was starting to blur? Remember those days? Well, now that line is completely gone.

With Obama’s big push for a national health care system that is estimated to cost $1.6 trillion in coming years, ABC News has decided to help get the message out. Next week, they are broadcasting a special called “Questions for the President: Prescription for America” from INSIDE the White House. It will be a question and answer session with questions selected by ABC News from members of an “audience.” The only side of the health care debate that will be presented is Obama’s. So much for that blurry line of separation…

As reported in a FOXNews.com story, on June 24, “ABC News will host an hour-long special on health care reform in the U.S. next Wednesday from the White House East Room — a move that ABC is defending but critics are calling a surrender to the Obama administration’s effort to control the debate.”

According to ABC News, “participants will present a broad range of ‘divergent opinions in this historic debate.’” The problem, as anyone can clearly see, is that only Obama will be doing the talking, and we all know what kind of program will result.

In a letter to ABC News President David Westin, Republican National Committee (RNC) Chief of Staff Ken McKay wrote, “I am deeply concerned and disappointed with ABC’s astonishing decision to exclude opposing voices on this critical issue.”

McKay goes on to write his letter, which was distributed widely on the Drudge Report and news web sites, that “in addition, according to an ABC News report, GOOD MORNING AMERICA, WORLD NEWS, NIGHTLINE and ABC’s web news ‘will all feature special programming on the president’s health care agenda.’ This does not include the promotion, over the next 9 days, the president’s health care agenda will receive on ABC News programming.”

McKay noted that a request to ABC News that the Republican Party’s views be included “to ensure that all sides of the health care reform debate are presented” was rejected.

I find it outrageous that ABC would prohibit our Party’s opposing thoughts and ideas from this national debate, which affects millions of ABC viewers.

In the absence of opposition, I am concerned this event will become a glorified infomercial to promote the Democrat agenda. If that is the case, this primetime infomercial should be paid for out of the DNC coffers. President Obama does not hold a monopoly on health care reform ideas or on free airtime. The President has stated time and time again that he wants a bipartisan debate. Therefore, the Republican Party should be included in this primetime event, or the DNC should pay for your airtime.

ABC News Senior Vice President Kerry Smith offered a rebuttal to McKay’s comments in a letter posted on the ABC News web site. She said that she hopes “we can all agree that a robust debate of health care issues and potential policies is in order.”

To that end, ABC News announced plans to broadcast a primetime hour from the White House devoted to exploring and probing the President’s position and giving voice to questions and criticisms of that position. We hope that any American concerned about health care will find our efforts to be informative, fair and civil.

“Like any programs we broadcast, ABC News will have complete editorial control.  To suggest otherwise is quite unfair to both our journalists and our audience,” Smith wrote.

Informative, fair, and civil? Give me a break! Legislators and researchers are currently engaging in a health care debate. However, this program has no resemblance to a debate. A debate needs two sides. It makes NO difference if the questions come from all sides, if the only one doing the answering is Obama.

The entire premise of the program already sends a message that the Obama plan is the right plan. ABC News is simply helping Obama clarify the plan to “confused” Americans. This is simply outrageous.

The Democrat Majority Leader of the House, Steny Hoyer, doesn’t seem to share my concern. In a story on CNSNews.com, Hoyer said he was “sure” that ABC News will cover comments by the GOP. “If Mr. Boehner and Mr. McConnell or others want to comment, I’m sure ABC would cover them,” Hoyer said.

Cover them? How? With a one-hour primetime program? I don’t think so.

Please take the time to contact ABC News, and let them know how you feel. Not only will the primetime program feature only Obama and air from the White House, that evenings regular news programming will also be broadcast from the White House. This is outrageous. No news organization should set up camp in a facility it is charged with covering.