All Entries Tagged With: "Government"

Obama seeks to track visits to .gov websites

Posted: August 17, 2009 1:10 am Eastern © 2009 WorldNetDaily

WASHINGTON – The Barack Obama administration has announced plans to lift a government ban on tracking visitors to government websites, and potentially, collect their personal data through the use of "cookies" – an effort some suspect may already be in place on White House sites.

A ban on such tracking by the federal government on Internet users has been in place since 2000, however, the White House Office of Management and Budget now wants to lift the ban citing a "compelling need."

In fact, according to the Electronic Privacy and Information Center, federal agencies have already negotiated agreements and contracts with social networking sites like Google, YouTube, SlideShare, Facebook, AddThis, Blist, Flickr and VIMEO to collect information on visitors for federal web sites. All of these private companies are known to have agreements with federal agencies, but the public has never seen them.

In public comments submitted to the Office of Management and Budget, EPIC notes it has obtained documents that show federal agencies have negotiated these contracts with the private sector in violation of "existing statutory privacy rights." Those agencies include: Department of Defense, Department of the Treasury, and the National Security Agency.

There are suspicions the White House is already involved.

It’s time to put up or shut up, America. Literally. Get the book that shows how to fight the assault on your freedom of speech!

When White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was recently asked by Fox News reporter Major Garrett why Americans who had not signed up to receive any e-mails from the White House, were now receiving e-mails from White House adviser David Axelrod promoting President Obama’s health care plan, Gibbs refused to answer the question.

"The Obama administration’s favorite book seems to be ‘1984′ by George Orwell," said Brad O’Leary, publisher of The O’Leary Report monthly newsletter and author of "Shut Up, America: The End of Free Speech." "Only they don’t see ‘1984′ as a warning, but rather a blueprint for spying on every American who visits a government website – something that has been banned for nearly a decade."

According to Obama "technology czar" Vivek Kundra, the "compelling need" driving this major policy reversal is the administration’s desire to create "more open" government and to "enhance citizen participation in government."

O’Leary finds serious fault with Kundra’s rationale.

"According to the new technology czar, there is a ‘compelling need’ to do this," said O’Leary. "The only compelling need I can think of is for a failing Obama administration to compile an enemy list of gun owners, pro-lifers, tea-party participants, those opposed to illegal immigration, and anyone opposed to the Obama-Pelosi agenda of government control over Americans’ lives."

Spy cookies can do more than merely recall the user names and passwords of visitors who return to their favorite web sites. They can also track, retrieve and report selected movements someone makes on the Internet. Through the use of cookies, the federal government could have the power to create an individual profile of anyone who visits a government website – right down to a person’s recent online purchases, or even race, gender and income level.

"No matter what the Obama administration says, a ‘cookie’ is a spy device," said O’Leary. "No matter how inoffensive the administration says their spy devices will be, once you open the door to the federal government spying on every American who visits a government website, it can’t be closed – it can only be expanded."

According to O’Leary, if the Obama administration is successful in lifting this ban on federal privacy invasion, the lives of many Americans could become open books for bureaucrats.

"What if a harmless trip to the State Department’s travel website or the White House’s health care site, the Census Bureau’s web site results in the Obama administration’s discovery that you are someone who recently visited Cabela’s, Smith and Wesson, or a tea party or pro-life web site?" asked O’Leary. "Is this all mundane information that political animals in government don’t care about? Of course not. You might sooner expect a visit from Obama’s IRS or Homeland Security than a pat on the back for ‘participating’ in government."

O’Leary says that it is time for Congress to step in and pass legislation to protect the privacy rights of Americans who could fall victim to White House spy cookies.

"Because of the lack of transparency from the Obama White House, we are filing FOIA requests to determine exactly how these agencies are using spy cookies," said O’Leary.

If you are a member of the media and would like to interview Brad O’Leary, email press@wnd.com

Expose Obama & ObamaCare

(c) 2009 ExposeObama
Make no mistake about it: the chaotic situation Gratzer describes in Canada is exactly the one that awaits you and your family if Obama and his political soul mates have their way.

It’s up to use to stop them.

When you told Barack Hussein Obama and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid that the American people wanted no part of their health care schemes… they tried to shove it down your throat.

Without even bothering to read the legislation, liberals in Congress twisted arms, called secret meetings, made deals and frantically dashed to sneak ObamaCare past you before leaving on vacation.

But then… to add insult to injury… even after you caught them red-handed… they had the audacity to tell the American people that they want the time to go home and regroup so they can hit us again when they come back into session.

They essentially said, let us go back home and make some more deals… have some more secret meetings… twist some more arms… and we promise, we’ll come back in a month with a version of ObamaCare that you’ll really like.

They must think the American people are fools.

Of course… they probably still won’t bother to actually read the legislation… and it would come as no great shock if they tried to sneak it past again once they rolled back into town.

That’s why we need to send a message to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama… and we need to send it now.

When it comes to ObamaCare… The American people don’t want your Retreat… The American people want your Defeat.

The American people don’t want your so-called health care legislation delayed… the American people want it gone.

The American people didn’t ask you to regroup just so you can could back and hit us again. We’re not going to give you a single solitary inch or let you take a breath. We’re going to press you… we’re going to press our advantage… right here and right now.

Starting today, you will come to know that your attempts to transform America into a socialist country are over. The madness ends… now.

Today is the day you start losing and the American people start winning.

With your help, that’s the message we’re going to send right now.
ObamaCare: Is It The American Dream Or An American Nightmare?

During on of his press conferences, Barack Obama actually had the nerve to blame Republicans for blocking his bizarre health proposals.

Can you imagine that?  Democrats have majorities in the House and Senate, but Obama blames the GOP. Disingenuous? Or just plain dishonest – take your pick.

Obama’s health agenda is in trouble because the American people – that’s you – think it’s too expensive, too restrictive, too much about politics… and too little about improving people’s health and extending their lives.

The head of the Congressional Budget Office, Douglas W. Elmendorf, rained heavily on Obama’s parade. He said the proposal legislation would not reduce costs… and that it would sharply increase costs.

The secret is out: the sham health care proposals Barack Obama and his congressional cronies are peddling will bankrupt our nation, force you into an inferior government-run health plan, and endanger your family’s lives and health.

Remember what Obama said in assuring you about your private health insurance and physician choices under ObamaCare?

"If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what."

When Obama said that, his nose presumably grew faster than Pinocchio’s.

Obama has the disturbing habit of feigning ignorance. And true to form, he did it when confronted with the scary words on page 16 of the proposed so-called health care legislation:

“Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day of Y [Year 1].”

That congressional gobbledygook basically means you’ll lose your private insurance – forever – if you change jobs… or your insurer modifies the plan… or if your employer tries either to change insurers or stop offering coverage altogether.

Of course, it also means it would be prohibitive for new private insurers to enter the game. And it means the private insurers now in business can never grow. It means the private insurers will simply fade into history.

So, if you now have a plan that’s the equivalent of sailing first-class, the government will use its power to shove you and your family down below deck into steerage – where you can join the teeming masses stuck with the so-called “public option.”

Here’s a quick description of what health care would be like under that public option: imagine if obtaining essential medical treatment was like going down to the DMV, getting in an endless line, and waiting there… essentially forever. That’s “change” nobody can believe in.

ObamaCare will turn the American Dream into the American Nightmare. We can’t let it happen.
Health Care “Reform” … or Something Much More Ominous?

Do any of the leftist scams masquerading as health care proposals really have anything to do with improving health care?

No more than the government takeover of the banks… and AIG… and General Motors had to do with improving banking, insurance, and the automotive industry

As Mark Levin told his fellow radio-talk show host Sean Hannity; Obama is seeking “a massive transfer of liberty and property from the American people to the government.”

Former Texas Congressman Dick Armey told Fox News that the Democrats’ health care proposals are not about better care… not about greater access to care… and not about lower health care costs.

Instead, Armey said the liberals are involved in a power grab, seeking control over one-sixth of our country’s economy.

What on earth is Obama really up to? Is he merely trying to tear down our America… and build a new one more to the liking of the radical left?

Apparently, he was dead serious when he bad-mouthed the United States all over the world. And seizing health care is only the next step in his relentless march to socialism.

Perhaps the key question is: Do they – Obama and his fellow Marxists - really want to destroy private insurance and private health care in America?

If you believe the answer to that is no, please read the following from the proposed health care legislation:

"The [Health] Commissioner shall establish a grace period whereby, for plan years beginning after the end of the 5-year period beginning with Y1, an employment-based health plan in operation as of the day before the first day of Y1 must meet the same requirements as apply to a qualified health benefits plan under section 101, including the essential benefit package requirement under section 121."

Translating this into English, it means all private health plans in America must be comparable to the government’s public option. Most experts believe that, after a few years, private insurance would have gone the way of buckboards, spittoons, and corsets.

After five years, your private insurance plan - if it still exists - would be indistinguishable from the public option.

Frankly, it’s now or never for us to stand up to the leftists, academic pinheads, and self-important “czars” who are playing Russian Roulette with our economy, our freedom, and our health.

Use the button below to send your urgent and personalized Blast Faxes to Barack Hussein Obama and each and every leader of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives.

Tell them the proposed health care legislation now boiling like a witch’s brew in Congress is a monument to deceit and political cynicism, a recipe for rationing, human suffering, and medical mediocrity. Tell them that the American people want freedom of choice. Tell them that a government-run system will bankrupt our nation and harm its people. And finally, tell them that the American people do not want ObamaCare delayed. We want ObamaCare killed and buried so deep that it can never again rear its ugly head.

Obama’s Real Goal: A Socialistic Single-Payer System…

It’s now clear that all the rhetoric about “public options” and the like is obviously a smokescreen for Barack Obama’s real goal: to establish a European and Canadian socialist “single-payer” system.

That’s where the single-payer is supposedly the government, but is actually the taxpayer – that’s, you. But even though you’re the one who pays, the government takes control over every detail of the care you get – and more often, don’t get.

Every time you take a Tylenol or get a wart excised, some far-away bureaucrat will have determined whether you really have a headache… or if the growth is unsightly enough to justify removal.

George Will brilliantly analyzed Obama’s real intentions in a Washington Post Op Ed:

“The puzzle is: Why does the president, who says that were America ’starting from scratch’ he would favor a "single-payer" - government-run - system, insist that health-care reform include a government insurance plan that competes with private insurers? The simplest answer is that such a plan will lead to a single-payer system.

“Conservatives say that a government program will have the intended consequence of crowding private insurers out of the market, encouraging employers to stop providing coverage and luring employees from private insurance to the cheaper government option.”

How would that affect the overwhelming majority of people who are happy with their private insurance plans?

Will notes:

“The Lewin Group estimates that 70 percent of the 172 million persons privately covered might be drawn, or pushed, to the government plan. A significant portion of the children who have enrolled in the State Children’s Health Insurance Program since eligibility requirements were relaxed in February had private insurance. “

The raw, unchecked power of government – the kind that allows it to fire CEOs of private companies and dictate compensation – would remove any trace of a level playing field… and drive your insurance company out of business.

Once again, George Will hits the nail on the head:

“Government is incapable of behaving like market-disciplined private insurers. Competition from the public option must be unfair because government does not need to make a profit and has enormous pricing and negotiating powers.”

It’s absolutely critical to stop Big Government’s relentless – and mindless – effort to bulldoze a health system that has served our nation so well.

Obama’s Fanatical Effort to Canadianize Our Health System…

Of course, we’ve been told for years that the best single-payer system in our hemisphere is Canada’s.

And many believed it until we started hearing the horror stories.

Invariably, these stories deal with people, often women, who were not near enough to death – or unbearable agony – to qualify for care in Canada.

Many of the Canadian we see telling their stories wouldn’t be alive if they hadn’t been able to pay for needed care across the border… in the United States.

Why does Canada, like its counterparts in Europe, ration care? They do so for the same reason ObamaCare will practice rationing: not enough doctors, not enough hospitals, and not enough money to service the hordes seeking care from good old Uncle Sam.

The bad news is that this health care would not really be government-provided… you’d pay for it with your hard-earned tax dollars. The really bad news is that it probably wouldn’t be available when you needed it the most anyway.

Listen to Dr. David Gratzer, a Canadian-trained physician now practicing in the United States:

“I trained in emergency rooms that were chronically, dangerously overcrowded… all across Canada. I met a middle-aged man with sleep problems who was booked for an appointment with a specialist . . . three years later; a man with pain following a simple hernia repair who was referred to a pain clinic . . . with a two-year wait list; a woman with breast cancer who was asked to wait four more months . . . before starting the lifesaving radiation therapy.”

Gratzer continues:

“According to the government’s own statistics, some 1.2 million Canadians could not get a family doctor. In some rural areas, town councils resorted to lotteries: the winners would get appointments with the only general practitioners around.”

Make no mistake about it: the chaotic situation Gratzer describes in Canada is exactly the one that awaits you and your family if Obama and his political soul mates have their way.

It’s up to use to stop them.

Take 2 aspirin and call me when your cancer is stage 4

Posted: July 22, 2009 5:45 pm Eastern  © 2009 Ann Coultier

All the problems with the American health care system come from government intervention, so naturally the Democrats’ idea for fixing it is more government intervention. This is like trying to sober up by having another drink.

The reason seeing a doctor is already more like going to the DMV, and less like going to the Apple "Genius Bar," is that the government decided health care was too important to be left to the free market. Yes – the same free market that has produced such a cornucopia of inexpensive goods and services that, today, even poor people have cell phones and flat-screen TVs.

As a result, it’s easier to get your computer fixed than your health. Thanks, government!

We already have near-universal health coverage in the form of Medicare, Medicaid, veterans’ hospitals, emergency rooms and tax-deductible employer-provided health care – all government creations.

Tired of keeping quiet about increasing government control? Express yourself with the magnetic message: "No Hope in Socialism"

So now, everyone expects doctors to be free. People who pay $200 for a haircut are indignant if it costs more than a $20 co-pay to see a doctor.

The government also "helped" us by mandating that insurance companies cover all sorts of medical services, both ordinary – which you ought to pay for yourself – and exotic, such as shrinks, in vitro fertilization and child-development assessments – which no normal person would voluntarily pay to insure against.

This would be like requiring all car insurance to cover the cost of gasoline, oil and tire changes – as well as professional car detailing, iPod docks, leather seats and those neon chaser lights I have all along the underbody of my chopped, lowrider ‘57 Chevy.

But politicians are more interested in pleasing lobbyists for acupuncturists, midwives and marriage counselors than they are in pleasing recent college graduates who only want to insure against the possibility that they’ll be hit by a truck. So politicians at both the state and federal level keep passing boatloads of insurance mandates requiring that all insurance plans cover a raft of non-emergency conditions that are expensive to treat – but whose practitioners have high-priced lobbyists.

As a result, a young, healthy person has a choice of buying artificially expensive health insurance that, by law, covers a smorgasbord of medical services of no interest to him … or going uninsured. People who aren’t planning on giving birth to a slew of children with restless leg syndrome in the near future forgo insurance – and then politicians tell us we have a national emergency because some people don’t have health insurance.

The whole idea of insurance is to insure against catastrophes: You buy insurance in case your house burns down – not so you can force other people in your plan to pay for your maid. You buy car insurance in case you’re in a major accident, not so everyone in the plan shares the cost of gas.

Just as people use vastly different amounts of gasoline, they also use vastly different amounts of medical care – especially when an appointment with a highly trained physician costs less than a manicure.

Insurance plans that force everyone in the plan to pay for everyone else’s Viagra and anti-anxiety pills are already completely unfair to people who rarely go to the doctor. It’s like being forced to share gas bills with a long-haul trucker or a restaurant bill with Michael Moore. On the other hand, it’s a great deal for any lonely hypochondriacs in the plan.

Now the Democrats want to force us all into one gigantic national health insurance plan that will cover every real and mythical ailment that has a powerful lobby. But if you have a rare medical condition without a lobbying arm, you’ll be out of luck.

Even two decades after the collapse of liberals’ beloved Soviet Union, they can’t grasp that it’s easier and cheaper to obtain any service provided by capitalism than any service provided under socialism.

You don’t have to conjure up fantastic visions of how health care would be delivered in this country if we bought it ourselves. Just go to a grocery store or get a manicure. Or think back to when you bought your last muffler, personal trainer, computer and every other product and service available in inexpensive abundance in this capitalist paradise.

Third-party payer schemes are always a disaster – less service for twice the price! If you want good service at a good price, be sure to be the one holding the credit card. Under "universal health care," no one but government bureaucrats will be allowed to hold the credit card.

Isn’t food important? Why not "universal food coverage"? If politicians and employers had guaranteed us "free" food 50 years ago, today Democrats would be wailing about the "food crisis" in America, and you’d be on the phone with your food care provider arguing about whether or not a Reuben sandwich with fries was covered under your plan.

Instead of making health care more like the DMV, how about we make it more like grocery stores? Give the poor and tough cases health stamps and let the rest of us buy health care – and health insurance – on the free market.

TEA Party Photos

Over 1000 TEA Parties across the United States on April 15, 2009.  This is a day to remember. This day started the movement of the silent majority in objection to our government’s reckless spending, higher taxes, abandment for the sanctity of life, and the lack of concern for defense.  See photos and videos of TEA Party Photos here .

National Anthem Atlanta Tea Party April 15 2009

The 912 Project

9 Principles

1.  America Is Good.

2.  I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life.

God “The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the external rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained.” from George Washington’s first Inaugural address.

3.  I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday.

Honesty “I hope that I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider to be the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.” George Washington

4.  The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government.

Marriage/Family “It is in the love of one’s family only that heartfelt happiness is known. By a law of our nature, we cannot be happy without the endearing connections of a family.” Thomas Jefferson

5.  If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it.

Justice “I deem one of the essential principles of our government… equal and exact justice to all men of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political.” Thomas Jefferson

6.  I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results.

Life, Liberty, & The Pursuit of Happiness “Everyone has a natural right to choose that vocation in life which he thinks most likely to give him comfortable subsistence.” Thomas Jefferson

7.  I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.

Charity “It is not everyone who asketh that deserveth charity; all however, are worth of the inquiry or the deserving may suffer.” George Washington

8.  It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion.

On your right to disagree “In a free and republican government, you cannot restrain the voice of the multitude; every man will speak as he thinks, or more properly without thinking.” George Washington

9.  The government works for me. I do not answer to them, they answer to me.

Who works for whom? “I consider the people who constitute a society or a nation as the source of all authority in that nation.” Thomas Jefferson