Posts Tagged ‘conservatism fights back’

The shadow congressman from district 8

Posted: August 15, 2009 by datechguy in internet/free speech, opinion/news
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What do you do when your congresswoman decided not to bother with the people she represents?

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords cancelled an appearance in Green Valley/Sahuarita this week, instead moving the planned public meeting on veterans issues to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson.

If you are her GOP opponent you show up instead:

When Rep. Gabrielle Giffords cancelled a town hall meeting at American Legion Post #66 in Sahuarita, a potential contender for her congressional seat announced he would step in.

Jesse Kelly, who is vying for the GOP nod to run against Giffords next year in Arizona’s 8th District, said Giffords is fleeing from her responsibilities as an elected official.

“If our representative will not come out and hear people’s thoughts on these issues, if she will not come out and face the voters who elected her, I will,” he said.

Giffords had planned to address veterans issues Thursday at the American Legion Post but combined that and another appearance at Pima Community College into one meeting that will be held Thursday at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson. Giffords’ spokesman C.J. Karamargin said the decision was made in order to consolidate two separate meetings covering military issues.

There is video via Gilla Courier and the 8th.

It’s hard to represent people if you are afraid of them.

If I’m the GOP I would use the English Shadow Cabinet model and set up town halls and invite democratic members of congress to show, and if they don’t have their “Shadow congressman” show up instead.

That would make some news.

Via Glenn.

Update: Moe Lane notices

There’s more than one cheese in the dairy section: Update: Comment from Sargento

Posted: August 14, 2009 by datechguy in internet/free speech
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After reading these two posts at Newsbusters and RedState concerning Sargento cheese’s decision to honor the left’s boycott demand of Glenn Beck I sent them this letter via their contact page:

Good afternoon.

As a person of Sicilian decent a good cheese is very important to me. Whether making homemade Chicken parm or a simple pizza the right cheese can make or break a good dish.

My local market carries your cheese, although times are tougher the quality of your product has justified the little bit extra I’ve had to pay to make sure the meals I cook are up to snuff.

Although your company has a fine eye for cheese your eye for politics doesn’t seem to be too keen.

Your decision to publicly pull advertising from the Glenn Beck show on behalf of an advocacy group supporting this white House is beneath you.

I’m not a big fan of Beck but I am a big fan of free speech and the right to disagree and critique with the government. I have taken the liberty of examining Mr. Beck and have decided that your determination that he is propagating “hate speech” is poppycock.

Since you have decided to publicly to take a side it behooves me to do the same. The quality of your product not withstanding I find myself compelled to find another cheese maker who can concentrate on producing their product rather than repressing speech.

When you decide to reconsider your decision as publicly as you made it, I will be happy to reconsider mine.

Thank you.

Redstate has contact info for them and others but I prefer the direct contact page, feel free to follow the link if you agree.

Update: The RedState story now contains this word from Sargento:

“I had never heard of the Color of Change organization until it was mentioned by a consumer who called us and claimed we were influenced by them, and I notice you have mentioned it as well. This group did not contact Sargento and did not influence our decision.”

That’s rather amazing when you consider the following:

“I can confirm that Sargento has instructed our media buyer to not buy advertising that would appear during the Glenn Beck Show,” Gannon said in an e-mail to the Business & Media Institute on Aug. 14. “We market our products to people regardless of their political affiliations. As a business, we sometimes disagree with the administration’s policies. Yet we do not want to be associated with hateful speech used by either liberal or conservative television hosts.”

I would like to know when and how he formed that opinion particularly when you consider this e-mail response they sent to a person advocating the boycott:

We deeply appreciate your reaching out to us and sharing your comments and concerns about Sargento ads appearing during “The Glenn Beck Show.” We sat down with the marketing department to talk about it and I learned that we buy time periods not specific programs. But in any event, they’ve made the decision to exclude that program from our future ad rotation. Simply stated, Sargento ads won’t be airing during that show. Again, thanks for contacting us.

Pat Lombardo

Sargento Consumer Affairs Department

I suspect it’s going to come down to whose business they would rather lose.

Update 2 RSMcCain puts it in perspective

The Left doesn’t have to add more targets to their boycott list in order to damage conservative media. Put the hit on Beck — impose what might be called a political discount on the value of his advertising — and the boycotters have thereby demonstrated their ability to do the same to anyone whom they should decide to target next.

To abandon Glenn Beck and throw him under the bus — to sacrifice him to the Left — would be an act of appeasement akin to Neville Chamberlain giving Hitler the Sudetenland.

He is exactly right, they can’t beat Fox in the ratings so they will use this plan. Sargento if they were smart could have dropped their ads without a comment when the cycle ended, after all Mr. Beck doesn’t have a divine right to their business, but once they made the announcement they took sides.

Update 3: Legal Insurrection looks at the bright side.

Sarah Palin leading them by the nose…

Posted: August 14, 2009 by datechguy in internet/free speech, opinion/news
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Today on the Morning Meeting MSNBC continued to attempt to discredit Sarah Palin’s victory by claiming that she was “for death panels” before she was against them due to the Healthcare Decision Day. As you might guess the White House, msm and Lefty blogs are all over this like ants at a picnic, one example…

In olden times, Palin might have made this claim at a speech or during a news conference where reporters might have asked questions like: “What proof do you have?” or “Aren’t you just trying to scare people?”

But Palin does not risk that. She takes no questions. She has done her duty as a rabid responder. She has rung the tocsin, sounded the alarm, lit the signal fire.

Truth? Accuracy? Responsibility?

Not her territory.

…or perhaps like ants taking poison back to the nest because their charge ensures that her latest highly footnoted (Politico’s Roger Simon who owns the quote above must have missed those links) response will get a ton of attention:

I join millions of Americans in expressing appreciation for the Senate Finance Committee’s decision to remove the provision in the pending health care bill that authorizes end-of-life consultations (Section 1233 of HR 3200). It’s gratifying that the voice of the people is getting through to Congress; however, that provision was not the only disturbing detail in this legislation; it was just one of the more obvious ones.

and that doesn’t even cover her actual response deep in the post

“Ideally, the delicate decisions about how to manage life’s end would be made in a setting that is neutral in both appearance and fact. Yes, it’s good to have a doctor’s perspective. But Section 1233 goes beyond facilitating doctor input to preferring it. Indeed, the measure would have an interested party — the government — recruit doctors to sell the elderly on living wills, hospice care and their associated providers, professions and organizations. You don’t have to be a right-wing wacko to question that approach.” [5]

I agree. Last year, I issued a proclamation for “Healthcare Decisions Day.” [6] The proclamation sought to increase the public’s knowledge about creating living wills and establishing powers of attorney. There was no incentive to choose one option over another. There was certainly no financial incentive for physicians to push anything. In fact, the proclamation explicitly called on medical professionals and lawyers “to volunteer their time and efforts” to provide information to the public.

Comparing the “Healthcare Decisions Day” proclamation to Section 1233 of HR 3200 is ridiculous. The two are like apples and oranges. The attempt to link the two shows how desperate the proponents of nationalized health care are to shift the debate away from the disturbing details of their bill.

This woman is leading them by the nose. If I’m the Dems I’m almost as afraid as the Romney 2012 campaign. Every time she hits the dems on government healthcare she grazes Mitt.

Update: Oh and those olden times Roger, were they back when the media was covering John Edwards ass?

Update 2: Hey maybe this is Mitt’s counterpunch. Oldest trick in the book.

Update 3: How popular is Palin, based on today’s post stats she is more than 50 times more popular than porn.

Update 4: SISU nails it.

And her masterful playing of the national spin machine — check out her FaceBook answer to the president’s dissing of her “Death Panels” meme — continues to leave the spinmeisters reeling. As Judge Napolitano just told Bret Baier, all Sarah has to remember is that freedom rang “200 years ago because people like her were not afraid to challenge authority.”

Yup.

Mocking vs References Sarah Palin vs detractors: Update Palin Victory Lap

Posted: August 13, 2009 by datechguy in internet/free speech, opinion/news
Tags: , ,

Turned on Morning Joe for a moment this morning after mass and there was Gail Collins, Joe et/al hitting Sarah Palin again over “death panels” like the rest of the media.

No mention of the section of the bill Update: Pat just mentioned it in question or of Charles Lane or even Eugene Robinson (a regular guest) who agrees with their assessment of Palin but is suspicious of the section of the bill.

Sarah Palin not only responds but includes footnotes to those things.

The provision that President Obama refers to is Section 1233 of HR 3200, entitled “Advance Care Planning Consultation.” [2] With all due respect, it’s misleading for the President to describe this section as an entirely voluntary provision that simply increases the information offered to Medicare recipients. The issue is the context in which that information is provided and the coercive effect these consultations will have in that context.

Section 1233 authorizes advanced care planning consultations for senior citizens on Medicare every five years, and more often “if there is a significant change in the health condition of the individual … or upon admission to a skilled nursing facility, a long-term care facility… or a hospice program.” [3] During those consultations, practitioners must explain “the continuum of end-of-life services and supports available, including palliative care and hospice,” and the government benefits available to pay for such services. [4]

Now put this in context. These consultations are authorized whenever a Medicare recipient’s health changes significantly or when they enter a nursing home, and they are part of a bill whose stated purpose is “to reduce the growth in health care spending.” [5] Is it any wonder that senior citizens might view such consultations as attempts to convince them to help reduce health care costs by accepting minimal end-of-life care? As Charles Lane notes in the Washington Post, Section 1233 “addresses compassionate goals in disconcerting proximity to fiscal ones…. If it’s all about alleviating suffering, emotional or physical, what’s it doing in a measure to “bend the curve” on health-care costs?”

And she doesn’t even use Just one Minute post that quotes president Obama or Kausfiles.

I think Palin laid a trap here. She used the word death panels knowing the response it would get to bait the media, they responded as expect and now she can counterpunch with the actual bill, talking policy and draw attention to a bad bill.

By being out front on her opposition she when this bill fails she will be one of the political winners. Those town hall attendees are an instant base and even if some bill passes if the provisions of section 1223 are pulled or modified she can claim victory again.

Oh and Harold Ford blamed Republicans for that section just as I started typing this. Shrum is saying it too. When the topic goes from: “This is a lie” to “It was the republicans idea.” then the game is nearly done.

Update: Scarborough says Rush Palin et/al hurt republicans by speaking out. Can someone PLEASE compare the generic ballot from before they spoke out and afterward and get him a copy.

Update 2: Would it shock you to know that the Hemlock Society (now called Compassion & Choices) claims to have had a hand in writing this section? It doesn’t shock me.

Update 3: Can someone please give Joe a link to this post.

Update 4: Doug Brady gets it.

Update 5: Well that’s out of the Bill. Victory lap for Sarah Palin, not bad for “an irrelevant quitter“, Exit question for Joe and Mika: Would this have been removed from the bill if Palin & Rush had never brought it up?

Update 6: Kos is not amused.

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