If there’s a part of this story that’s more troubling to me, it’s not the unsubscribe bit; CAN-SPAM likely doesn’t apply to government anyway, and I can always move Mr. Axelrod’s emails to my spam bucket on my own. Rather, the most troubling part here is the fact that the White House is apparently targeting people who have never offered their permission, or their contact information, to the White House in an increasingly desperate attempt to get somebody to listen to them.

Yesterday, the Obama White House launched a self-described “viral e-mail” that, according to ABC News, strategists and spokespersons hoped would “combat the viral e-mails that fly unchecked and under the radar, spreading all sorts of lies and distortions.”

The email, which is from Obama strategist David Axelrod and which has a subject line of “Something Worth Forwarding, is a lengthy (and wholly unremarkable)rehash of Obama administration/Organizing for America/Democrat National Committee talking points on the proposed health care overhaul.

The main content of this email is not really noteworthy in the least. What is noteworthy is the fact that Axelrod’s email appears to lack any way to opt out of future messages from info@messages.whitehouse.gov — a fact that, if Axelrod’s email is to be considered anything other than official government communication, may put it in violation of the federal CAN-SPAM Act.

The CAN-SPAM (”Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing”) Act, passed in 2003, requires emailers to “give recipients an opt-out method,” according to the Federal Trade Commission. Axelrod’s email did not do that.

Granted, the CAN-SPAM Act was written to protect people against commercial email spamming, not against a White House that sent an email without an opt-out feature to a list of people who never requested to be contacted by the Obama White House, and who never provided the administration with their email addresses.

Yesterday, Fox News White House correspondent Major Garrett pressed Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs on apparent inclusion of people on the recipient list who never authorized the White House to email them. Gibbs’s response was to direct Garrett to provide the administration with the names and email addresses of anybody who had complained about receiving Axelrod’s email.

When looked at in the context of the call earlier this month for citizens to turn in their fellow Americans who criticized Obamacare in “casual conversation” to the White House, Gibbs’s request for personal information on those who complained about receiving an unsolicited email from the Obama administration appears to be yet more evidence of a pattern by the White House of responding to criticism by demanding information on, and going after, those individuals who dare to make their criticisms and objections known.

This is the second email in a week to be sent by the Obama White House in an effort to bolster support for its flagging health care overhaul proposal (relatedly, the Obama campaign has sent four in the last 8 days, and the Democratic National Committee two, marking an incredibly desperate attempt by government health care advocates to reverse the growing tide of opposition to their proposals).

The important points on this one, though, are that people were apparently added to the recipient list for this email without ever having requested to be contacted by the Obama White House, and without ever having provided the administration with their email addresses; and that recipients, whether they chose to receive emails from the White House or not, are now on an email list that they have no way of removing themselves from.

So, you can be opted in by the federal government — and they leave you with no way to opt out.

Wow. If this isn’t a metaphor for the entire Obamacare fiasco, I don’t know what is.

The Insurance Czar would be appointed by the President to oversee the Health Choices Administration. This would be the 33rd federal ‘czar’ appointed by President Obama since his January 20, 2009 inauguration.

The appointee would be responsible for establishing and regulating geographically-based Health Insurance Exchanges, determining what benefits and coverages must be included in health insurance plans each year, and assessing fines on employers and individuals who do not provide or acquire health insurance.

The Insurance Czar would also be responsible for regulating private insurers’ marketing activities and use of funds, and for “promoting accountability” of insurance providers both within and outside of the Exchanges in “meeting Federal health insurance requirements.”

Additionally , the Insurance Czar would be privy to individuals’ tax return information, which he or she would use to determine who qualifies for federal subsidies to purchase insurance.

Source: HR 3200 §141-2

I don’t think that Speaker Pelosi was just claiming that people were wearing swastikas [at health care town hall meetings]; people are showing up to events with swastikas, dressed up as Hitler, with signs invoking Nazi Germany, so that’s not something that’s being made up.

Video:

The DC Examiner’s David Freddoso tried to run down this claim, and hit a stone wall:

White House spokesman Bill Burton’s statement on television earlier today that people are showing up at health care town halls dressed up as Hitler was outlandish enough that I had to call the White House and ask if there is anything to substantiate it.

As of this evening, the White House has offered no explanation for this bizarre claim.

By the way, the laugher line of Burton’s interview was the seven-word claim, “We’re trying to have a constructive debate.”

Calling your opponents a dangerous mob of swastika-wearing Hitlers and calling out SEIU thugs to beat them into submissive silence (not to mention setting up an informant tipline by which those who question Obama’s health plan in “casual conversation” can be turned in to the government) is one heck of a way to “have a constructive debate,” there, Bill. Well done.

UPDATE: According to The Hill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has now taken to referring to those who question Obamacare as “evil-mongers.” Classy, Senator.

1. Republicans, who either believe the health care status quo is perfectly acceptable or are in the pockets of lobbyists who pay them to say so, are opposed to the very idea of reform and want to block any effort to fix our health care system.

This is, of course, entirely untrue. Anybody can look at the American health care system — which is and continues to be the best in the world — and spot areas that are in need of improvement. Left and right differ in their views of what those problems are and how they are best dealt with. Republicans and conservatives only oppose “reform” outright if the term is limited to meaning the government-centric overhaul that the president and congressional Democrats are pushing.

Actual reform — a reduction in the dependence on third-party payers, increase in patient choice, reduction of costs, increase in personal freedom and control of health care dollars, added portability of health coverage, and reduced governmental interference — is almost universally supported on the right.

The two sides also differ in their approach to the other’s ideas. Conservatives look at the left’s proposals for “reform” and argue that — based on simple mathematics and economics, as well as on the physical evidence provided by states and countries who have already implemented the Democrats’ proposed solutions — implementing them will only make things worse. Liberals’ knee-jerk reaction to conservative counterproposals is to discard them out of hand because they do not rely on greater government influence and increased regulation to solve the health care system’s issues.

This is followed by accusations that those on the right either favor the status quo or are being paid by lobbyists and “big insurance” to spread the falsehood that “everything is fine” in American health care. The latter deserves no more attention than the brief moment it takes to point out how insulated a worldview is required to believe, as many on the left do, that their proposals and beliefs simply cannot be honestly opposed, and therefore any who publicly disagree with their policies must be getting paid off to do so.

Of course, the right is not defending the status quo in any way, shape, or form in the health care debate. Rather, conservatives are simply offering alternative, market- and individual freedom-friendly solutions while seeking to prevent a fundamental shift in our nation’s economy from being enacted without the relevant legislation even having been read or carefully considered first.

In fact, it is the left that has a recent history of declaring the status quo sufficient during a period of debate over reform. In 2005, when President Bush was pushing a partial privatization of Social Security in order to provide retirees with more control over their retirement dollars and to stave off the program’s looming bankruptcy (Social Security currently sits $20 trillion in the red), Democrats fought tooth-and-nail against the proposed overhaul, citing their belief that the program was not yet in “crisis” and therefore that no action whatsoever was needed.

2. President Obama’s health reform proposal is vastly popular among the people, representing the “collective will” of the American population.

This may be the number one myth driving the left’s passionate defense of their view of health “reform,” and the one which most reinforces their belief that opponents of President Obama’s proposal are in the pockets of Big Insurance or other special interests who pay them well for their active opposition. However, a simple look at public opinion polls will suffice to burst this bubble.

Support for Obama’s health overhaul proposal, which has been declining for months, is only 44 percent of Americans, according to Rasmussen. This is down from 46 percent who supported it in July, which is itself down from 50 percent in June. Further, 53 percent of Americans are now opposed to the Democrats’ “reform” plan that many liberals think represents the “collective will” of the American population.

The fact is, the more time that passes, and the more Americans learn about the Democrat proposal, the less popular it becomes — a key factor in Obama’s failed effort to rush his “reform” legislation through Congress as quickly as possible.

3. Everybody in America hates their insurance provider and has stories of themselves or someone they know being screwed over by an insurance company.

This assertion is so widely assumed to be true among Democrats that it formed the basis for a significant shift in presidential messaging on health care. Throughout his campaign and the first few months of his presidency, Barack Obama referred almost exclusively to “health care reform.” With fewer Americans supporting the idea of a top-to-bottom overhaul of the health care system, Obama and his fellow Democrats changed tack and went for a target they were certain every American could support fighting: so-called Big Insurance.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a public speech in which she referred to HMOs (which, lest we forget, were created by that now-arch-enemy of Big Insurance, Senator Ted Kennedy) as “villains” (though she has said she will not give back the money insurers have given to her campaign over the years), and President Obama himself has replaced the phrase “health care reform” with “health insurance reform.”

The problem with this assumption by Obama and the Democrats is that the sampling they relied on for this messaging shift is about as representative as that Pauline Kael consulted before her famous 1972 declaration that “everybody [she] knew” voted for George McGovern for president!

Generalizations and assumptions like this are a major reason why rigidly ideological leftists like Obama are genuinely mystified at the failure of their ideas and proposals to sweep through and inflame the populace like wildfire. Were Democrats to listen to those they purport to represent, rather than simply relying on that which they “know” to be true, they would know that going after individuals’ health insurers and providers is a losing proposition in this country.

Simple polling shows this to be the case. A July 1 Quinnipiac poll found that 85 percent of Americans are “satisfied” with their health insurance plan, with almost 58 percent of those being “very satisfied.” A June 20 New York Times/CBS News poll found that 77 percent were satisfied with their health care. Further, that same NYT/CBS poll found that 77 percent of insured Americans found health care “affordable.” At the end of May, a Rasmussen poll found that a comparatively paltry 70 percent of Americans rate their health coverage “good” or “excellent.” Much like the Obama “reform” plan has grown less popular as people have found out more about it, Americans’ opinions of their own coverage and care have improved as they have gotten a better look at the government-run alternative.

Further, not only do fewer people than Democrats expect have stories of being “screwed over” by their insurance company, but there are myriad examples of people being denied treatment and care by government-run health care programs and so-called “public options” of the type Obama and his allies wish to implement here. State governments have even gone to court here in the U.S. in an effort to have bureaucrats ruled more competent arbiters of medical decisions than medical professionals themselves.

Pointing out such facts almost invariably elicits the rebuttal “private insurance rations/denies care, too” — a response that is a complete non-starter as long as the goal posts in the health care reform debate remain where the Democrats laying out the playing field initially put them. The rationale for a government-centric health care overhaul has from the beginning centered on the ability of government to somehow do health care better — more humanely, more fairly, and more universally — than the pseudo-free market we currently have. Sadly, empirical evidence shows that such is not the case.

4. Republicans and “opponents of change” are employing scare tactics and peddling misinformation about the cost or contents of the health reform legislation in Congress and about President Obama’s proposal.

This has been the party line for the Democratic National Committee, MoveOn.org, the SEIU, and the Obama administration since opposition to their health care overhaul proposals began to take root among the general population. However, the actions of those pro-ObamaCare organizations — which amount to employing actual scare tactics and waging a misinformation campaign against those citizens who have turned out at town hall meetings across the country to express their concerns about the proposed health overhaul — have not been those of victimized policy proponents, but of professional agitators whose only experience dealing with people is as part of smear campaigns and astroturfing efforts, and whose knee-jerk reaction to dissent is to declare it “dangerous” and to quash it.

The information being repeated by opponents of President Obama’s health overhaul proposal comes from cost analyses published by the officially non-partisan Congressional Budget Office and from testimony by CBO director (and joint Nancy Pelosi/Robert Byrd appointee) Doug Elmendorf, as well as from ordinary citizens actually reading the health overhaul bills — an exercise many in Congress (and the president himself) have turned up their noses at repeatedly.

Publicly stating the contents of legislation, and asking those who will vote on whether that legislation becomes the law of the land, is neither an illegitimate scare tactic nor a misinformation campaign. On the other hand, sending union thugs to threaten protesters, calling on American citizens to turn their fellow men and women in to the government for questioning the president’s policy proposals online or in “casual conversation,” and rallying Democratic supporters by repeatedly and publicly referring to civic-minded citizens as a “dangerous mob” that must be countered and stopped are examples of both scare tactics and misinformation.

It’s just not coming from Republicans, or from those nefarious “opponents of change.”

5. Republicans are preventing health reform from taking place despite the best efforts of President Obama and Democrats in Congress.

The persistence of this myth speaks to both the lack of civics education in our school systems and the prevalence of partisan finger-pointing in the political discourse. The Democratic Party currently has 60 seats in the U.S. Senate — a filibuster-proof supermajority. If Senate Democrats actually want to pass a health overhaul bill, there is absolutely nothing the few Republicans in that body can do to stop them.

Further, Democrats have a 70-seat advantage in the House of Representatives. As Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) pointed out in July, this means every Republican representative could bring their surviving parents to a House vote and still not have a large enough contingent to defeat the Democrats on any legislation the latter wished to pass.

The Democrats got what they wished for — total control of Washington, D.C., and of the lawmaking and enforcing branches of government. However, liberals traditionally specialize in owning intentions, not results or consequences, meaning many are having difficulty accepting responsibility for enacting those policies they so steadfastly claim to support.

In the end, Democrats’ problems passing a health care overhaul bill are theirs and theirs alone, as are their problems enacting any other aspects of the sweeping liberal agenda so many of them — including the president — campaigned for office on.

Originally posted at PajamasMedia.com

Under the bill, those making $280,000 ($350,000 for couples) will have their taxes increased by 1 percentage point, those making $400,000 ($500,000 for couples) by 1.5 percentage points, and those making more than $800,000 ($1 million for couples) by 5.4 percentage points.

This would make the top marginal federal tax rate 40.4% – the highest it has been since the Clinton years. If President Obama keeps his promise to let the Bush tax cuts expire (which he reiterated at a Portsmouth, NH town hall on Tuesday) that top marginal rate will increase to 45% – the highest it has been since the Reagan tax cuts of 1986.

If a review in 2013 by the Congressional Budget Office determines the health care overhaul has failed to save at least $175 billion, the bill provides for an automatic doubling of the tax increases on the lower two of those three incomes.

Further, with state income taxes rising across the country, this surtax and automatic 2013 increase would put the top combined federal-state income tax rates in over half of all states at 50% or more.

Source: HR 3200 §59C

Upon his return, the two servants who had taken that which he had entrusted them with and used it wisely during his absence presented their master with their earnings. He replied to each, “Well done, my good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.”

The third servant, who had merely protected that portion of his master’s wealth with which he had been entrusted, presented the single talent upon the man’s return. Seeing this, the master flew into a rage, chastising the “wicked, lazy servant” for allowing cowardice and irresponsibility to prevent his putting the master’s money to good use and ordering the servant to surrender his talent to the servant who had proved his resourcefulness and trustworthiness by doubling his master’s five talents.

The moral of this New Testament parable – be a good steward of a little and you will be trusted with more, but poor stewardship will lose you the privilege of being trusted with anything in the future – is recalled to mind by the federal government’s current attempt to take over the American health care system. The 33 years Medicare has been in existence have provided the federal government with an opportunity to demonstrate what type of steward its legislators and bureaucrats will be of a national health care program millions of Americans are trusting for their coverage and care.

“Medicare is… a government-run health care plan that people are very happy with,” said President Obama, at a late July town hall meeting in an effort to defend Medicare as a popular and successful example of government health care at its best.

A simple look at the numbers is enough to rebuff Obama’s claim that the program is an example of the federal government being a good steward of American health care dollars and coverage, while also serving to demonstrate the government’s inability to accurately predict the future costs of its programs (a very important fact to keep in mind in light of Congress’ claims that a health care overhaul can be undertaken without costing future generations trillions).

At its inception in 1966, Medicare carried an annual price tag of $3 billion. Its Congressional founders predicted that cost would rise to $12 billion a year by 1990 – a figure that accounted for inflation.

The true cost of Medicare is stunning. In 1990, rather than costing American taxpayers $12 billion, Medicare cost $107 billion – an increase of 800% over the government’s best guess at the program’s cost 23 years before. That cost has increased exponentially as the years have passed since 1990. This year, $484 billion will be spent on mandatory Medicare outlays; by 2018, that number will be $885.1 billion, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. The total amount owed Medicare beneficiaries (American workers who are at least 22 years old and who have paid into the system, meaning they are due Medicare coverage upon retirement) is a staggering $32.3 trillion – an amount over twice America’s GDP, and nearly five times the publicized national debt.

The fact that the federal government has allowed a key health coverage program with which it has been entrusted to fall over thirty trillion dollars in debt should send a powerful message about Washington’s ability (or, more correctly, inability) to be a good steward of Americans’ health care dollars and coverage.

Further, the fact that Congress has refused to do away with a law requiring seniors to enroll in Medicare or forfeit their Social Security benefits – a regulation that is currently being challenged in federal court by a group of plaintiffs led by former Republican Congressman Dick Armey – for fear of losing massive numbers of seniors to private health coverage serves to reinforce both the undesirability of the government-run program. It also demonstrates the federal government’s willingness, when given the opportunity, to force citizens onto the rolls of government care by denying them the opportunity to choose their coverage.

Medicare, the chief example of health care as run by the federal government, is an utter mess that is losing doctors, resorting to anti-choice laws to keep seniors enrolled, and hemorrhaging taxpayer dollars by the trillions. President Obama and his allies in the Democratic-led Congress should demonstrate their ability to be good stewards of the people’s health care dollars and coverage by fixing their own Medicare mess before they seek to expand their grip on America’s health care system as a whole.

Take, for example, this video of Texas Democrat Sheila Jackson-Lee, who is willing to allow her constituents the honor of being in her presence, just so long as they don’t gripe too much about the fact that she’s talking on her freaking cell phone while one of them is raising a Constitutional and ethical concern about legislation she is supporting in her constituents’ name in Congress.

Go to the four minute mark on the video below and watch until you can’t take any more. [UPDATE]: We’ve shaved it down to the relevant parts: below is the new video. - Moe Lane

And they wonder — they honestly wonder — why people are outraged?

Amazing.

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey at HotAir writes:

Keep watching for a couple of minutes afterward, because Jackson-Lee does worse when she’s paying attention. She claims that the public plan won’t impact the existence of private insurance, and then in the same breath claims it will compete against existing private plans to make them “better”.

And while her constituent tells a difficult tale of cancer survival, the best Jackson-Lee can offer is that a public plan will allow people to lose weight without having to pay $19.99 to those programs we see on TV. Er, $19.99 is less than most co-pays; it’s certainly less than what one has to pay through Medicare without Medicare Advantage for a doctor visit.

And what exactly is wrong with Slim-Fast and other private sector nutrition programs? They’re accessible, they’re effective for at least some people, and by the way, insurance plans don’t cover them anyway. If that’s the best sales pitch ObamaCare and Jackson-Lee have, it’s going down in low-cal flames.

h/t Club for Growth

The dollar amount of these grants, and of the total “community transformation” earmark program, is left to the discretion of the Obama administration.

Cities can also apply for “community makeover” grants, which can provide them with up to $10 per resident in taxpayer dollars for “beautifying streets.”

Sen. Tom Coburn, MD (R-OK) sponsored an amendment to the HELP Committee bill that would have prevented any funds it made available from being used “to build, develop, or maintain sidewalks, parks, bike paths, or street lights.” The amendment was defeated by party-line vote.

The “Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009,” the House of Representatives’ health overhaul legislation, also contains an earmark for these grants. The House bill sets the amount available for their funding at $1.6 billion.

Sources: “Affordable Health Choices Act,” Title III, Subtitle C
HR 3200, § 3151

The difference is, you don’t see people tripping all over themselves to praise Biden’s wisdomousness (to use a term from “Friends), or calling for him to make more public appearances as a counter to dipping personal and proposal popularity numbers. You do — inexplicably — see that with Obama, the architect of so many gaffes just one national campaign into his career (and six months into his presidency) that he already rivals the eight years of President Bush in quotable foibles.

“Fifty-seven states”? “Good morning, Sunshine”? “Ten thousand dead - and entire town destroyed”? Give an asthmatic “a breathayzer–inhalater–er, inhaler”?

Now the latest: Today, in defense of his unwavering determination to establish a government-run health insurance entity to compete with existing private insurers (which his Congressional allies are firmly behind as a means to government-run health care as the only option), Obama made a classic argument for…keeping the government out of the market.

The video:

The quote:

If you think about it, uh…uh…uh, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine.

[pause]

Right? Th-The, uh, no, they are! I mean, i-it’s-it’s the Post Office that’s always having problems.

That statement was followed by a long pause, during which one can only assume Obama was struggling to keep up with what he had just said and wondering why he left his Binky home for this appearance (and, perhaps, was wishing Joe Biden was there to take some attention away from his abject blunder).

“UPS and FedEx are doing just fine.” Yes, they are — and their history shows what real competition between private entities can do for a market.

“It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems.” Again, absolutely true; the Post Office has any number of problems, and the only reasons it is still in existence despite providing a level of service and reliability that would drive a private entity out of business are its monopoly on mail delivery and the fact that, because it is government-run, it can lose an unlimited amount of money and remain both in business and in the competition.

There’s no evidence whatsoever to suggest that the Post Office’s existence in the package-delivery marketplace has had the effect of forcing FedEx and UPS to improve their service or to become more competitive.

This brings up a very important question: Why, with the coverage equivalents of FedEx and UPS already serving the American people (at least, as well as they can under a mound of cost-increasing regulation), would we have any desire to hand over our health care to the same crew of failures that runs the Post Office, which even the President concedes is a failure?

This poll shows that the decline in support for the President’s plan, which began in earnest in late June, has continued unabated. Two months ago, support for the Obama/Kennedy/Pelosi health care overhaul stood at 50%; in July, it fell to 47%, and now, in August, it is 42%.

American opposition to allowing government to overhaul the health care system remains 53%, identical to the late July number.

According to the report:

Sixty-seven percent (67%) of those under 30 favor the plan while 56% of those over 65 are opposed. Among senior citizens, 46% are strongly opposed.

Predictably, 69% of Democrats favor the plan, while 79% of Republicans oppose it. Yet while 44% of Democratic voters strongly favor the reform effort, 70% of GOP voters are strongly opposed to it.

Most notable, however, is the opposition among voters not affiliated with either party. Sixty-two percent (62%) of unaffiliated voters oppose the health care plan, and 51% are strongly opposed. This marks an uptick in strong opposition among both Republicans and unaffiliateds, while the number of strongly supportive Democrats is unchanged.

With the popularity of his health overhaul still dropping like it has a millstone tied around its neck, it’s no wonder the President — whose only experience with opposition is engineering union-backed astroturf campaigns for the purpose of preaching “truth to power” — is so anxious to shut off debate, and to have his supporters (and union goons) punch opponents back “twice as hard.”

Further, it’s no wonder that Obama pressed so hard to have a health overhaul bill passed this summer, before the American people could find out what his proposal consisted of, and before Congress had to face those in whose hands their electoral fates lie.

It looks like it’s going to be a long, hot August for the President and his Democratic supermajority in Congress.

The penalty for failing to comply with this mandate to offer employees health insurance is a $750 fine per full time worker per year.

In 2008, employer-provided insurance policies averaged $4,704 a year for individuals and $12,680 for families, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation (p. 2 here). This means employers would be able to save $4,000 per worker (or $12,000 per family) by ending their employee health benefit programs and simply paying the federal government the fine.

Source: Senate HELP Committee bill fact sheet, pp. 7-8.

Under the Democrat-sponsored bill, existing insurance policies are “grandfathered” into the new, overhauled national health care system, meaning that you have the option to keep your health coverage plan and provider even if they don’t conform to the new standards set by the federal government.

However, beginning the year this bill takes effect, individuals who leave their current insurer for any reason – whether it be moving to a different state or changing to a different employer – will be forced to purchase a new government-approved private plan or to enroll in the government-run, taxpayer-funded “public option” for their health coverage, rather than being allowed to choose coverage similar to that which they had before the advent of Obamacare.

Update: Source: HR 3200, § 102

What if nobody cares?

This is a pretty risky maneuver by the White House. If it doesn’t work — if supporters do not show up in large numbers — it will leave the Members of Congress shaken by the thought that all those angry opponents at the Town Halls are real. After all, if the Democrats can’t gin up Astroturf from their list, why should we believe that the Republicans can?

I’m not convinced that an email list of hopeychangey elect-the-first-black-guy idealists are going to be all that excited about health care. This could be an epic fail.

This got me thinking in a way I hadn’t before. Today’s Organizing/Obama for America call-for-astroturfers is telling on its own. However, what is more telling is the fact that this is the third time in the last four days OFA has sent an email to its supporters calling on them to turn out in support of President Obama’s government health care overhaul.

Let me say that again: This is the third time in four days that Barack Obama, community organizer extraordinaire, has called on his legions to turn out in support of his policies. The first of those emails was purportedly from Obama himself, calling on supporters to turn out at “thousands of events” across the country; the second and third were calls to telephone and visit, respectively, legislative offices around the nation in an effort to show support for his badly flagging health overhaul proposal.

Because these emails come with relative frequency, I didn’t fully appreciate the temporal proximity of those three emails — or what that meant — until Bob’s comment forced me to consider it. Now, though, it is clear as day: the Obama administration, and its network of paid community organizers and agitators, is growing incredibly desperate for two reasons.

First, Barack Obama and his allies are losing the organizing battle at every turn to ordinary Americans who aren’t even being directed or paid — just taking an active interest in their government’s actions!

Second, despite repeated calls to action (including a declaration by the President himself that the opportunity to shut down debate on an issue, and to out-organize ordinary American citizens, was “the moment our movement was built for”) — again, three in four days — the Great Community Organizer simply can’t get his supporters to turn out, or his astroturf in place.

One call for supporter action is ordinary (even if it is odd to have a President making that call, particularly when it is paired with an order to mobilize against another portion of the American citizenry). Two calls is a bit odd. Three in four days, though, is utter desperation.

Barack Obama and his astroturfing band of “community organizers” are losing this battle, and they are losing it despite employing every tool at their disposal, from “community organizing,” to mobilizing union thugs to physically harm dissidents, to attempting to silence political opponents by calling on Americans to turn in their fellow citizens to the government for political disagreement.

That’s one encouraging thought. The unencouraging counter to that, though, is this: what does a President whose only experience is as a community organizer, manufacturing outrage and threatening opponents with physical violence (and acting in accordance with the Chicago Way, do when all legal means at his fingertips of enacting his agenda fail? That is a question we may see answered sooner rather than later.

Last week, in what may have been the first instance of an American government officially calling on one group of American citizens to protest against, “get in [the] faces” of, and shout down another group of their own countrymen, President Obama authorized his campaign arms, the DNC and Organizing for America, to call opponents of his health overhaul plan a “dangerous mob” and to encourage supporters to counter (violently, if necessary) reasonable demonstrations and to put a stop to their questioning of elected officials.

Obama followed this up by sending an email via OFA in which he declared the health care reform debate “the moment [his] movement was built for” and called on his remaining campaign supporters to attend “thousands of events” across the country to crowd civic-minded Americans out of public events and to create, through organized efforts, the appearance of actually-nonexistent support for his extremely unpopular health overhaul.

The White House also put out a request for its supporters to turn in any of their fellow citizens who voiced concerns with President Obama’s $1 trillion health care overhaul to the White House — even if those concerns were simply spoken in what the White House called “casual conversation.”

Today, in an additional effort to create the appearance that the proposal is far more popular than it is among the voting public, OFA director Mitch Stewart called on Obama supporters to flood their Representatives’ district offices in support of Obamacare.

The text of the email is below:

All throughout August, our members of Congress are back in town. Insurance companies and partisan attack groups are stirring up fear with false rumors about the President’s plan, and it’s extremely important that folks like you speak up now.

So we’ve cooked up an easy, powerful way for you to make a big impression: Office Visits for Health Reform.

All this week, OFA members like you will be stopping by local congressional offices to show our support for insurance reform. You can have a quick conversation with the local staff, tell your personal story, or even just drop off a customized flyer and say that reform matters to you.

We’ll provide everything you need: the address, phone number, and open hours for the office, information about how the health care crisis affects your state for you to drop off (with the option of adding your personal story), and a step-by-step guide for your visit.

According to our records, you live near Rep. Paul Broun’s office in Athens, GA.

Sign up now to visit Rep. Paul Broun’s office in Athens this week.

(Not your representative, or think there might be another office that’s easier for you to get to? Click here to find a different office.)

As you’ve probably seen in the news, special interest attack groups are stirring up partisan mobs with lies about health reform, and it’s getting ugly. Across the country, members of Congress who support reform are being shouted down, physically assaulted, hung in effigy, and receiving death threats. We can’t let extremists hijack this debate, or confuse Congress about where the people stand.

Office Visits for Health Reform are our chance to show that the vast majority of American voters know that the cost of inaction is too high to bear, and strongly support passing health reform in 2009.

Don’t worry if you’ve never done anything like this before. The congressional staff is there to listen, and your opinion as a constituent matters a lot. And if you bring a friend, you’ll have more fun and make an even greater impact.

Click below to sign up for an Office Visit for Health Reform:

http://my.barackobama.com/OfficeVisit

Wherever you live, these visits matter: Many representatives are pushing hard toward reform, and they are taking a lot of heat from special interests. They deserve our thanks and need our support to continue the fight. But those who are still putting insurance companies and partisan point-scoring ahead of their constituents must know that voters are watching — and that we expect better.

Earlier this week, the President wrote that “this is the moment our movement was built for” and asked us all to commit to join at least one event this month. This is the way to answer that call, and rise to the challenge of this moment together.

Thank you for going the extra mile when it matters the most,

Mitch

Mitch Stewart
Director
Organizing for America

The President of the United States has already called on his supporters to organize against any and all citizens who disagree with his health care proposals. He and his team of fellow “community organizers” are continuing to resort to the only strategy they know — astroturfing, manufacturing outrage, and calling on paid thugs and goons to wage a campaign of intimidation — in an effort to counter a growing citizen uprising against his transformative plans and policy proposals.

Unless the President starts listening to smarter people — people who actually have experience in some area of politics and public relations that does not involve faking grassroots efforts, astroturfing campaigns, and relying on physical intimidation to win debates — this will get a whole lot uglier before it gets better.

To that end, Jen O’Malley Dillon, executive director of the Democratic National Committee, sent an email to supporters this afternoon that is virtually dripping with desperation. Called “5 Facts About the Anti-Reform Mobs,” Dillon’s email is a frantic effort to reassure the shrinking, increasingly-fringe minority that actually support’s the President’s debt-growing and government-expanding programs that, against all evidence, they are the true majority on this issue and the opponents of their increasingly-unpopular proposals are an angry, paid, fringe “mob.”

Dillon wrote:

There’s been a lot of media coverage about organized mobs intimidating lawmakers, disrupting town halls, and silencing real discussion about the need for real health insurance reform.

The truth is, it’s a sham. These “grassroots protests” are being organized and largely paid for by Washington special interests and insurance companies who are desperate to block reform. They’re trying to use lies and fear to break the President and his agenda for change.

Health insurance reform is about our lives, our jobs, and our families — we can’t let distortions and intimidation get in the way. We need to expose these outrageous tactics, and we’re counting on you to help. Can you read these “5 facts about the anti-reform mobs,” then pass them along to your friends and family?

5 facts about the anti-reform mobs

1. These disruptions are being funded and organized by out-of-district special-interest groups and insurance companies who fear that health insurance reform could help Americans, but hurt their bottom line. A group run by the same folks who made the “Swiftboat” ads against John Kerry is compiling a list of congressional events in August to disrupt. An insurance company coalition has stationed employees in 30 states to track where local lawmakers hold town-hall meetings.

2. People are scared because they are being fed frightening lies. These crowds are being riled up by anti-reform lies being spread by industry front groups that invent smears to tarnish the President’s plan and scare voters. But as the President has repeatedly said, health insurance reform will create more health care choices for the American people, not reduce them. If you like your insurance or your doctor, you can keep them, and there is no “government takeover” in any part of any plan supported by the President or Congress.

3. Their actions are getting more extreme. Texas protesters brought signs displaying a tombstone for Rep. Lloyd Doggett and using the “SS” symbol to compare President Obama’s policies to Nazism. Maryland Rep. Frank Kratovil was hanged in effigy outside his district office. Rep. Tim Bishop of New York had to be escorted to his car by police after an angry few disrupted his town hall meeting — and more examples like this come in every day. And they have gone beyond just trying to derail the President’s health insurance reform plans, they are trying to “break” the President himself and ruin his Presidency.

4. Their goal is to disrupt and shut down legitimate conversation. Protesters have routinely shouted down representatives trying to engage in constructive dialogue with voters, and done everything they can to intimidate and silence regular people who just want more information. One attack group has even published a manual instructing protesters to “stand up and shout” and try to “rattle” lawmakers to prevent them from talking peacefully with their constituents.

5. Republican leadership is irresponsibly cheering on the thuggish crowds. Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner issued a statement applauding and promoting a video of the disruptions and looking forward to “a long, hot August for Democrats in Congress.”

It’s time to expose this charade, before it gets more dangerous. Please send these facts to everyone you know. You can also post them on your website, blog, or Facebook page.

Now, more than ever, we need to stand strong together and defend the truth.

Thanks,

Jen

Jen O’Malley Dillon
Executive Director
Democratic National Committee

This is an incredibly obvious sign that Democrats are growing increasingly distraught over their failure to influence public opinion and their inability to manufacture enough outrage, coordinated protest, and mob activity to outdo real Americans’ efforts to communicate with their representatives.

The irony is as delicious as the desperation. The Democratic Party is being led by a President whose sole work experience consists of riling up the masses and provoking mob activity for the purpose of influencing leaders and legislation.

Obama has been the Democrats’ most vocal proponent of mob tactics since Cindy Sheehan disappeared from the public scene two years ago, making such claims and declarations as “If [Republicans] bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun” and “I don’t want to quell anger. I think people are right to be angry. I’m angry,” and issuing such instructions to his foot soldiers as, “Argue with [Obama opponents] and get in their faces!“.

Now, when the American public has turned against both the President and his government-growing policy, the notions that organizing, dissenting, and speaking freely are good things have been thrown out with the bath water by the Community Organizer president and his Democratic National Committee. Instead, those who are legitimately concerned about the policies being put forward by this President are paid servants of evil industry and members of a mindless, violent “mob” — and Republicans’ refusal to participate in the Democrats’ attempt to shut down dissent and portray the American people as unable to take a pro-market, anti-Obama position without being paid to do so makes them complicit in “stirring up the mob.”

This won’t be the last time a Democratic official has to reach out to the DNC’s shrinking base of followers in a dishonest effort to reassure them of their majority status and their opponents’ lobbyist-lined pockets. The fact is, though, the only folks stirring up mobs here are Democrats like Obama and Dillon — and the more their manufactured mobs fail to shout down and silence regular Americans, the louder their screams will become.

*       *      *

This is clever:

Republicans played a trick on Democrats today by redirecting angry telephone calls coming into their switchboard to the Democratic National Committee, CNN reports.

Earlier this morning, the DNC released a web video accusing the GOP of inciting mob activity.

“At the end of the video, the DNC instructs people to call the Republican National Committee to express outrage. Callers who dial the RNC’s main number to voice their concern about the DNC’s charges are told to press 1, which sends them to the DNC’s main switchboard.”

The emphasis on that deliciously ironic pair of phrases is mine. In the name of countering what they claim is the GOP’s inexcusable “incit[ement of] mob activity,” the Democrats did what they always do: stir up the masses and, yes, incite mob activity in opposition to the GOP.

Whoever the clever RNC staffer was who thought to redirect those calls right back to the source of the outrage — the DNC — deserves a free lunch and a letter of commendation. That was freaking awesome.

The ad is below:

Interestingly, the same crowd that is currently spending time and money to organize a campaign denigrating the “mob’s” dissent spent the last 8 years proclaiming such “mob” actions to be the quintessential example of Constitutionally-protected, God-given Freedom of Speech. This includes the current President, who spent that time and the decades before it acting as a professional rabble-rousing astroturfer (something that makes his sensitivity to such tactics understandable, but his apparent inability to recognize real dissent and outrage, rather than its manufactured counterpart, more than a bit puzzling).

As Jim Geraghty wrote this morning in a post titled “When More Than Half Dislike Your Ideas, It’s More Than ‘The Right-Wing Base’“:

I think the DNC — and Democrats, and the Obama administration — are on the verge of making a serious error by dismissing folks who show up at constituent meetings as “the mob.” …Skepticism of this health care plan goes way, way beyond “the right wing Republican base.” Alternatively, the right wing Republican base now amounts to a bit more than half of the voting public. …In the face of numbers like these, what do Democrats gain from a message like this[?]

Beyond being a whiplash-inducing reversal of position from the last 8 years (remember Hillary Clinton screeching “WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO DEBATE AND DISAGREE WITH ANY ADMINISTRATION!”?), the left’s change of position on both free speech and community organizing has negated what they portrayed as President Obama’s strongest qualification for the office (which isn’t saying much, given his overall lack of qualifications): his experience as a community organizer.

Even more striking is the fact that those the DNC and Obama now insultingly claim are organizing and provoking the angry “mob” are, to use Obama campaign rhetoric from just last year, doing the same work Jesus did when He was on the earth.

It’s often striking to consider the swiftness of the people’s reversal on Jesus Himself, from a king’s entrance on Palm Sunday to condemnation and crucifixion just days later. With the Democrats’ sudden 180° on the actions of those they compared to Jesus just months ago, we have a living, current example of just how such a change can happen.

In an email sent via his permanent campaign organization, Organizing for America, and titled “This is the moment,” Obama said the following:

This is the moment our movement was built for.

For one month, the fight for health insurance reform leaves the backrooms of Washington, D.C., and returns to communities across America. Throughout August, members of Congress are back home, where the hands they shake and the voices they hear will not belong to lobbyists, but to people like you.

Home is where we’re strongest. We didn’t win last year’s election together at a committee hearing in D.C. We won it on the doorsteps and the phone lines, at the softball games and the town meetings, and in every part of this great country where people gather to talk about what matters most. And if you’re willing to step up once again, that’s exactly where we’re going to win this historic campaign for the guaranteed, affordable health insurance that every American deserves.

There are those who profit from the status quo, or see this debate as a political game, and they will stop at nothing to block reform. They are filling the airwaves and the internet with outrageous falsehoods to scare people into opposing change. And some people, not surprisingly, are getting pretty nervous. So we’ve got to get out there, fight lies with truth, and set the record straight.

That’s why Organizing for America is putting together thousands of events this month where you can reach out to neighbors, show your support, and make certain your members of Congress know that you’re counting on them to act.

But these canvasses, town halls, and gatherings only make a difference if you turn up to knock on doors, share your views, and show your support. So here’s what I need from you:

Can you commit to join at least one event in your community this month?

In politics, there’s a rule that says when you ask people to get involved, always tell them it’ll be easy. Well, let’s be honest here: Passing comprehensive health insurance reform will not be easy. Every President since Harry Truman has talked about it, and the most powerful and experienced lobbyists in Washington stand in the way.

But every day we don’t act, Americans watch their premiums rise three times faster than wages, small businesses and families are pushed towards bankruptcy, and 14,000 people lose their coverage entirely. The cost of inaction is simply too much for the people of this nation to bear.

So yes, fixing this crisis will not be easy. Our opponents will attack us every day for daring to try. It will require time, and hard work, and there will be days when we don’t know if we have anything more to give. But there comes a moment when we all have to choose between doing what’s easy, and doing what’s right.

This is one of those times. And moments like this are what this movement was built for. So, are you ready?

Please commit now to taking at least one action in your community this month to build support for health insurance reform:

http://my.barackobama.com/CommitAugust

Let’s seize this moment and win this historic victory for our economy, our health and our families.

Thank you,

President Barack Obama

The astroturfer-in-chief has declared this “the moment” his astroturfing apparatus “was built for.” Let’s see if his manufactured outrage can actually stand up to - and defeat - the efforts of regular Americans who are sincerely concerned about the direction their country is headed.

Personally, my money’s on the American people rather than on the former community organizer and his band of goons.

If you see anybody publicly opposing President Obama’s plan to implement a government-centric overhaul of the health care system, the White House wants you to report that person (or persons) ASAP.

From the White House website:

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.

Emphasis added. Of course, as we’ve seen in the health care debate to date, the term “disinformation” is used by the Obama White House as a catchall to describe any opposition to the President’s push for single-payer, government-run health care — meaning the White House wants to be informed of any forwarded emails or blog posts or any “casual conversations” that could be taken as opposition to their health care overhaul plan.

The White House has, as yet, offered no explanation of what it is they plan to do with the tips on policy opposition they hope to receive from citizen informers.

Interestingly, as Jake Tapper pointed out on Twitter this morning, the title of that post on the White House is a quote from John Adams’ 1770 “Argument in Defense of the Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials.”

(h/t Jon Henke)

UPDATE: As Erick, one of RedState’s resident lawyers, points out here, this program may go beyond sinister and actually be a violation of current U.S. law.

Further, flag@whitehouse.gov is not currently subject to Freedom of Information Act requests — something a freedom-loving legislator (Jim DeMint? Tom Coburn? Paul Ryan? Eric Cantor?) should seek to correct at his or her earliest convenience.

The term “Cadillac” has been used for years to refer to health insurance policies that cover an inordinate number of unnecessary treatments and procedures. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), ranking minority member of the Senate Finance Committee and the Republican most closely working with the Democratic majority to pass President Obama’s health overhaul, said negotiators are “taking an intense look at” the proposal as a way of raising revenues to offset the $1 trillion the Finance overhaul bill is expected to cost.

Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME), also a Finance Committee member, called the idea a “practical option” for “creating disincentives for the most expensive [health insurance] policies,” and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) said his proposal to tie the maximum permitted coverage to the average level of benefits provided federal employees, and to tax the health insurance of those whose policies cost or cover more, is “gaining support” in the Senate.

This is being shopped to the public as just another tax on the super-wealthy, with Obama administration officials pointing to the “$40,000-a-year health insurance policies” carried by a handful of top Wall Street executives as examples of such unnecessarily luxurious coverage. However, a tax on “Cadillac” health insurance policies would end up disproportionately affecting middle- and lower-income Americans across the board, as well as the entire insured populations of several states.
The reason for this is the profusion of mandatory minimum coverages state governments require to be included in health insurance policies sold within their states’ borders. This results in residents being forced into uniformly high-priced, coverage-heavy “Cadillac” insurance policies as a result of state law, not their own choice.

Rhode Island leads the nation with 70 treatments and procedures that every policy sold there must cover, including asthma education and in vitro fertilization – one of the most expensive medical procedures health insurance can cover. While there is no doubt these coverages are both useful to and desired by some consumers, all insured residents of the Ocean State are forced to pay for asthma ed and IVF insurance, even if they aren’t potential consumers of either. Rhode Islanders’ premiums are is also higher than they otherwise would be because every policy sold there is required by law to cover the cost of smoking cessation, hair prosthesis, and acupuncture – along with 65 other treatments, procedures, and conditions.

States with fewer mandates than Rhode Island are hardly more consumer-friendly. Minnesota, for example, has coverage for birthmark removal, chiropractics, visits to a registered dietician, and visits from a social worker among its 68 mandates. Arkansas’ 43 mandates include requiring insurance to cover the costs of hiring a personal trainer and a drug abuse counselor; New Mexico’s 57 include circumcision, contraceptives, and “Oriental medicine” – a category that includes such “nontraditional” remedies to medical conditions as acupuncture, holistic medicine, and visits to the neighborhood herbalist.

In these and other states whose governments have responded to the influential clamor of special interest groups by packing health insurance plans to the gills with mandated coverages, consumers are left without a lower-cost, lower-coverage insurance option – meaning every citizen who chooses to carry health insurance is forced into a “Cadillac” coverage plan.

This is reinforced by the fact that all fifty states have laws in place prohibiting residents who may want less “gold-plated” coverage at less cost from purchasing insurance in another state. Allowing more personalized insurance policies to be sold within their borders, or transported across state lines, would be a major step toward decreasing both the cost of insurance and the number of individuals who lack coverage, millions of whom are currently uninsured by choice.

The prohibition against the interstate purchase of health insurance, which Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ) has sought every Congress this decade to have repealed, allows governments to artificially raise the price of their citizens’ coverage by packing policies with all sorts of unwanted mandates without having to worry about competition – and it leaves every resident of affected states open to a federal tax on their involuntarily “Cadillac”-level insurance coverage.

Further, with a blanket requirement that all Americans carry health insurance looming, demand for the increasingly expensive product is poised to become even less elastic than it is now – meaning that states will be free to load policies up with even more mandates, causing the price of coverage to spike and forcing millions of Americans to enroll in a subsidized, government-run “public option” by virtue of having been priced out of the individual private market.

Onerous coverage mandates increase the cost of health insurance and force middle- and lower-income Americans to make an all-or-nothing decision between purchasing outrageously expensive policies that provide coverages they will never need and dropping their health insurance altogether. Imposing a tax increase on these Americans would not only violate one of President Obama’s most oft-repeated campaign promises (not to raise taxes on any American making less than $250,000 a year), but it would add insult to insult by penalizing those who already pay exorbitant insurance premiums for the actions of their state governments.