This is an article about Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill that I wrote for another website last January during the height of the debate over ObamaCare. After hearing Sen. McCaskill’s response to the overwhelming victory of Proposition C in last week’s election, it’s apparent that she remains dedicated to ignoring the will of her constituents and dismissing their concerns as the result of ignorance. Unfortunately, she is not up for reelection in November so we will have to wait until 2012 to toss her out along with President Obama. However, we must factor her behavior into our decisions at the ballot box this coming November as we decide who will join McCaskill in the US Senate to represent Missouri’s interests. Do we want to add another like-minded shill for the White House?

Be sure to check back soon for full coverage of McCaskill’s response to Proposition C. It’s enough to make your blood boil and serves as a stark reminder why 2012 can’t get here soon enough.

(Article first published January 12, 2010.)

Last September, as the health care debate was heating up, Senator Claire McCaskill assured us that any bill she supported would have to “give people choices, bring health care costs down, and not add to the national deficit.” That same month, she sent a letter to Senator Max Baucus about the importance of bending the health care cost curve down and lowing overall health care spending. She explained, “If we don’t do that, we will have failed.” Throughout the year, she also positioned herself as a guardian of Medicare, promising numerous times that no cuts would affect seniors’ access to care whatsoever. On December 14, McCaskill gave another crystal clear statement about what a bill would have to achieve in order to gain her support. Appearing on “FOX News Sunday With Chris Wallace”, she explained, “My statement all along is [a health care reform bill] has to slow down the increase of health care costs over time, and that is bending the cost curve, and secondly, that it has to be deficit neutral… And if it’s not saving more money for our government than we’re spending, then not only will I not support it, the president said he won’t support it.” Ten days later, Senator McCaskill joined with every other Senate Democrat to pass the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” (PPACA) in a strictly party-line vote. Somewhere between her appearance with Chris Wallace and her vote in favor of the bill, she must have altered her requirements because, as Richard Foster, the White House’s Chief Actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS,) confirmed in his report released last Friday, the bill Senator McCaskill voted in favor of fails to keep any of the promises she frequently made during most of last year. By tossing aside her values, Senator McCaskill failed in her fiduciary duty to the taxpayers and betrayed the seniors who trusted her assurances about the security of their health care.

Foster’s report shows that the bill passed by the Senate fails to meet McCaskill’s fiscal requirements. It is not deficit neutral. Instead, it will add $280 billion to the national deficit from 2010 to 2019. However, even that figure is hopeful. The Wall Street Journal points out, “Even that estimate exists only on paper, as Mr. Foster has the honesty to admit. Because ‘most of the coverage provisions would be in effect for only six of the 10 years of the budget period, the cost estimates shown in this memorandum do not represent a full 10-year cost for the proposed legislation.’” The Senate’s bill does not meet McCaskill’s other basic requirement of “bending the cost curve.” Rather, it will increase costs. Foster writes, “The national health expenditure share of GDP is projected to be 20.9 percent in 2019, compared to 20.8 percent under current law…Numerous studies have demonstrated that individuals and families with health insurance use more health services than otherwise – similar persons without insurance. Under the health reform legislation, an estimated 34 million currently uninsured people would gain comprehensive coverage …We estimate that the net effect of the utilization increases and price reductions arising from the coverage provisions of the PPACA would increase national health expenditures in 2019 by about 3.4 percent.”

Perhaps, though, the most egregious betrayal of her supposed values is illustrated by her frequent claims that Democrat plans would save Medicare. The senator’s website currently features a column she wrote on November 4 titled, “Strengthening Medicare Through Health Reform.” In this piece, McCaskill laments that “without adequate reforms, Medicare is on track to cut payments to physicians by as much as 21 percent starting next year which may cause some doctors to drop Medicare patients.” McCaskill claims, “By rooting out more than $400 billion in identified waste, fraud, and inefficiencies, we can make sure Medicare remains solvent for years to come, ensure doctors are paid fairly so that seniors can keep their doctors, and not cut benefits for seniors.” She goes on to plainly state, “Ultimately the assertion that reforms to Medicare would result in cuts is simply not true.” Perhaps Senator McCaskill should meet with the Richard Foster. After all, he is the White House’s authority on the Medicare and Medicaid programs. If any aspect of his report can be trusted it would be his analysis of the effects of the legislation on these programs.

Unfortunately for any of the seniors that found comfort in McCaskill’s reassurances, Foster doesn’t reach her conclusions. According to the CMS, nearly half of the cost-savings in the Senate bill that Senator McCaskill voted in favor of come from reduced payment levels for Medicare Part A and Part B. In plain words, the Senate bill relies on cutting payments for Medicare services as its primary source of funding.

McCaskill also makes the claim in her column that the Democrat’s proposed Medicare cuts will ensure that “seniors can enjoy improved benefits and continue seeing the doctors of their choice.” This statement flies directly in contradiction to the Chief Actuary of Medicare’s findings. As Foster says, the proposed payment reductions are “unreasonable” and will cause large problems for Medicare patients. Foster shows that the reduced payment rates mandated by the Senate bill will not keep up with service providers’ costs, “Thus providers for whom Medicare constitutes a substantive portion of their business could find it difficult to remain profitable and, absent legislative intervention, might end their participation in the program (possibly jeopardizing access to care for beneficiaries). Simulations by the Office of Actuary suggest that roughly 20 percent of Part A providers would become unprofitable within the 10-year projection period as a result of the productivity adjustments.” Yet, somehow, Senator McCaskill apparently believes that a 20 percent reduction in Medicare service providers will “ensure doctors are paid fairly so that seniors can keep their doctors.”  

The infeasible Medicare cuts are no small issue. If Congress merely decides to ignore them, the bill will explode the deficits. However, if the cuts remain, Medicare and Medicaid patients will find themselves increasingly unable to find service providers only compounding the issue of inadequate access to health care. To quote Senator McCaskill’s September letter to Max Baucus, if any version of the House or Senate bill becomes law, “[They] will have failed.”

Senator McCaskill either cast her vote in support of the Senate health care bill out of ignorance of the bill’s true effects, or with no intention of ever keeping the pledges she made to her constituents. In December, she appeared to have taken a bold stance by joining only two other Democrats who voted against the $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill that increased discretionary spending across the board. After she had supported the failed $787 billion economic “stimulus” package and approved President Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget, her stance against the omnibus bill was encouraging. However, the bill was never really in jeopardy of failing to pass. If it were, would McCaskill still have voted against it? Considering how quickly she threw aside every value she promoted during the health care debate in order to push a disastrous, highly partisan bill over the threshold, Senator McCaskill has a large hill to climb to prove that she actually stands for anything other than toeing the Democrat Party line.

On Thursday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was asked about the significance of Tuesday’s vote where 71% of Missouri voters approved a state law that would exempt them from ObamaCare’s mandate requiring every American to purchase federally-approved health insurance. In true elitist fashion, Gibbs, the mouthpiece of the banana republic administration currently occupying the federal government gave a simple one-word answer; “Nothing.” 

Unfortunately, this can’t really be too surprising since this administration has proven time and time again that it doesn’t regard anyone’s opinion other than their own as legitimate.

There has never been an administration this content to rule against the will of the people. Neither the president nor the Democrat leaders in Congress believe that we are smart enough to make our own decisions and they won’t hesitate for a second to use every bit of their legitimate and self-created power to thrust their radical agenda on the nation. November can’t come soon enough.

Yesterday, Missouri voters sent a shockwave through the White House. Since passing ObamaCare against the will of the American people, public opinion polls have showed a continued drop in public support for the Democrats’ government takeover of the nation’s health care. President Obama has initiated a nationwide public relations campaign to improve national opinion of ObamaCare through the sheer force of his charisma but to no avail. The more the president speaks of the bill, the larger the majority of Americans opposed to it grows. Just days ago, a federal judge delivered another blow to ObamaCare by allowing a Virginia-based lawsuit that is challenging the constitutionality of the bill to proceed despite the White House’s effort to have the case dismissed. As if things were not going bad enough for ObamaCare, the voters of Missouri met at the polls and approved Proposition C, a bill to exempt Missouri residents from one of the basic aspects of ObamaCare which is forcing Americans to purchase insurance plans approved by the federal government. Missouri’s ballot initiative was the first chance voters have had to explicitly state their opposition to ObamaCare at the ballot box. An overwhelming 71% of Missouri voters did just that by voting in favor of Proposition C. Sure, Republican Scott Brown’s victory in the race to fill Senator Ted Kennedy’s seat spelled danger for ObamaCare, especially since Brown campaigned as the 41^st vote against it but Democrats were able to tell themselves that there were many other issues besides health care that contributed to Brown’s victory. However, the Missouri vote leaves no question to the voters’ opinion of ObamaCare.

There is already an effort to explain away yesterday’s election results. The reasoning has seemed to follow these main themes:  It was just a primary election in a cycle that conservatives were most energized in a state that McCain won in 2008. Besides, primaries always have lower voter turnout and if it had been on the November ballot the results would have been different.

Had Proposition C had passed by a margin of 10% or even 15%, any of these excuses may carry water. However, the vote was 71% in favor of Proposition C and 29% against. This was a complete landslide. Approximately 577,600 Republicans voted in the primary and there were approximately 316,000 votes cast for Democrat candidates. Another roughly 5,500 ballots were cast with no party affiliation. The Proposition C results show that Republicans weren’t solely responsible for the bill’s passage. Instead, about one-sixth of the Democrats voted in favor of Prop C. Had the issue been on the November ballot as its supporters originally wanted only to be blocked by Democrats who demanded it appear in the primary election, there is no doubt it would have easily passed.

Then, of course, there will also be the usual, desperate charges from Obama and his Democrat minions that the lopsided election result was the product of a severe and intensive “disinformation campaign” from Republicans and the evil special interests who want to deny most Americans access to health care. Who knows, we may even hear Missouri described as a state of racists. Unfortunately for the White House and Democrats, the more Americans learn about the specifics of ObamaCare, the less they approve of it.

The Show Me State came through huge yesterday and, hopefully, showed other states the path to resist the Democrat attempts to inject themselves into every aspect of Americans’ lives.

Opponents of ObamaCare witnessed another brutal attack by one of B. Hussein Obama’s supporters. The Los Angeles Times reported today that a 65-year-old man had his pinky finger bitten off by a member of a group supporting ObamaCare at an event organized by MoveOn.org. (Apparently, George Soros-funded groups don’t qualify as “Astroturf.”)

Last night, at a rally called the “We Can’t Afford to Wait Vigil” organized by the ultra-liberal MoveOn.org, an unidentified man took issue with an elderly counter-demonstrator. A fight ensued at which point the MoveOn.org protestor bit the little finger off of the 65-year-old opponent to ObamaCare.

The injured man was taken to a hospital and the assailant is still at large after fleeing the scene.

Yes, every day it becomes more obvious that we must watch out for the “rightwing domestic terrorists,” as a memo emailed from Obama’s Organizing for America website described opponents to the president’s health care proposals. “Rightwing terrorist” Kenneth Gladney was hospitalized after a brutal beating issued by members of the pro-Obama SEIU labor union outside of a town hall meeting hosted by Democrat Russ Carnahan. Gladney’s offense? According to eyewitnesses, the SEIU members took issue with the fact that Gladney was a black conservative. Now, Obama’s henchmen bit the little finger off of another “rightwing domestic terrorist.” Thank goodness, the Department of Homeland Security issued that report warning about “rightwing extremists.” Those evil rightwingers seem to be bleeding all over everyone after being assaulted by the president’s followers.

On Thursday night, Democrat representative Diane Watson held a town hall meeting for her district in Los Angeles. While speaking about the harsh criticism President Obama has met since taking office, Watson couldn’t resist pulling out a race card to play. Watson, who happens to be black, told the crowd, “They are spreading fear and they’re trying to see that the first president who looks like me — fails.”

Here are her racially-motivated remarks from Breitbart.com:

During the same meeting, Watson also praised Cuba’s health care system and fondly recalled meeting Fidel Castro. This doesn’t help the Democrats’ insistence that there are no socialist ideas behind their agenda. Breitbart.com also posted these comments today.

Although it shouldn’t come as a surprise, it does continue to shed light on the extremely favorable media coverage President Obama receives from his lap-dogs in the press. This week, the nonprofit group League of American Voters submitted a commercial to run on all of the major networks. The ad’s message focuses on the fact that the current health care proposals before Congress will lead to rationing of health care and will disproportionately “decimate the quality of health care for seniors.” Bob Adams, executive director of League of American Voters, said that the advertisement is already running on local network affiliates in several states. CBS has agreed to air the commercial during national network programming and talks are currently underway with FOX. However, both ABC and NBC are refusing to run the commercial. NBC is reportedly questioning some of the facts and ABC rejects it for being too “partisan.”

ABC and NBC won't dare offend the president by running anti-ObamaCare commercial.

None of this should surprise anyone. ABC was the network that turned over a whole day’s programming to the White House for B. Hussein Obama to push his health care proposals. The network refused to give any time to any of the president’s opponents to counter the numerous false claims the president made throughout the day. The other network, NBC, might as well be run from the White House every day. Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of GE, NBC’s parent company, has advised the president on an array of topics including “renewable energy.” GE happens to be the largest manufacturer of wind turbines and has developed products to be used in national carbon trading schemes. Without Obama’s cap-and-trade plan, these products would be worthless. Immelt has also been appointed by the Obama administration to sit on the New York Federal Reserve Board. On any given night, MSNBC can be found singing the praises of B. Hussein Obama and getting thrills up their legs at the sound of the president’s voice while simultaneously demonizing anyone who dares question him.

It’s obvious that journalism is officially dead, especially at ABC and NBC. They’re partisan motives are completely transparent and it shouldn’t surprise anyone that they are refusing to run an ad critical of Obama’s health care plans. These two networks shouldn’t be surprised that as Obama’s public approval ratings tank, so do their ratings.

My hopes that Ted Kennedy’s death wouldn’t be politicized were obviously short-lived. Today the Wall Street Journal reported that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent an email to reporters not long after Kenney passed away, calling for passage of health care reform. Her message stated, “Ted Kennedy’s dream of quality health care for all Americans will be made real this year because of his leadership and inspiration.”

SEIU president Andy Stern issued a similar statement. Stern requested, “Let us continue his cause. Let us take action this year to pass health care reform. And let us continue to build Kennedy’s vision of America.”

The WSJ also included another request from House majority whip, James Clyburn, who said, “As we move forward with health reform legislation, his absence will be palpable. But let us use his inspirational words as our guide, to rise to our best ideals and finally provide decent quality health care to all Americans as a fundamental right, not a privilege.”

Democrat Senator Chris Dodd also called for Kennedy’s death to cause health care opponents to step back and approach the debate in a quieter manner.

Out of respect for the mourning Kennedy family and a deceased man, now is not the time for me to discuss Ted Kennedy’s legacy. As stated in my previous post on Kennedy’s passing, now is not the time to criticize Kennedy’s legacy. Instead, it’s a time to offer our prayers and condolences to a fellow American family dealing with the loss of their family member. However, when I wrote the first post announcing Kennedy’s death, I struggled about whether or not to include the remarks about my hopes that Democrats would not decide to turn his passing into a political tool. As the post reveals, I did decide to include my concerns and today those concerns prove to be well-founded.

The Democrats’ decision to view their colleague’s death as a chance to build support for their health care reform proposals which have become increasingly unpopular with voters shows the Democrat leadership as the political opportunists they are. Wielding their fellow Democrat’s memory as a bludgeon against political opponents only desecrates any fond memories they may hold for him.

Democrat Congressman, Brian Baird of Washington equated town hall protestors to Hitler’s brown shirts. On August 5, Baird said, “What we’re seeing right now is close to Brown Shirt tactics. I mean that very seriously.”

Former Marine, David William Hedrick confronted Baird at a town hall meeting. All Marine’s take an oath to protect the United States Constitution from both foreign and domestic enemies. Thank you Hedrick for continuing to uphold that oath.

The video below was posted on NewsBusters.com. Hedrick is the perfect example of the honor and bravery of the US Marine Corp which is composed of the bravest men and women in our nation.

Democrat Russ Carnahan faced "tough" questions from three people selected for the event by President Obama's campaign group "Organizing for America."

Democrat Representative Russ Carnahan finally found a health care forum where he won’t be bothered by unhappy constituents. After hosting a couple of town hall meetings on health care reform where angry constituents far outnumbered supporters of the Democrats’ health care proposals, Carnahan has withdrawn from any debate over the issue and surrounded himself with friendly supporters. St. Louis talk radio station KMOX reports that Carnahan held a round-table discussion about health care on Friday in a private home in south St. Louis. The media was not allowed to announce the meeting beforehand which only had three participants in the discussion who were chosen by “Organizing for America.”

On their website, KMOX states, “The three participants who shared their health care concerns with Carnahan were pre-selected by a group called “Organizing for America”, which bills itself as a grass-roots project of the Democratic Party.” This is highly misleading because Organizing for America is not exactly a grassroots movement that has popped up to support health care reform. Instead, the group is actually President B. Hussein Obama’s 13-million-member campaign organization that the president emails when he needs activists in his corner. Some might even label them “Astroturf.” Too bad the same labels and rules don’t apply to liberal Democrat groups.

In the private meeting, the owner of the residence, Connie Cominsky, asked Carnahan why so many people are violently opposed to the “public option.” (Wow, Carnahan sure was fielding some tough questions.) Carnahan responded, “They (opponents) fear the public getting the facts and so their strategy has been really to disrupt that.” Thus says the Democrat whose union thugs hospitalized a man because he was a black conservative and who also holds a “discussion” that the media was not allowed to announce and was populated with people specifically selected by B. Hussein Obama’s campaign organization. Frustrated by hearing from the unwashed, ignorant masses, Carnahan decides to hold a secret private meeting surrounded by supporters. Considering all of this, exactly who is trying to keep people from getting the facts? It looks like Carnahan has decided to avoid those pesky constituents and insulate himself from the actual debate. Out of sight, out of mind, eh Mr. Carnahan?

MSNBC cast off any final remnants of credibility when discussing their horror over a man in Arizona legally wearing an AR-15 rifle and a pistol to the rally. In Arizona, residents are able to openly carry legally-owned firearms in plain view without any special permits. Liberals became inflamed at video of a protestor bringing firearms to the rally in order to make a political statement about Americans’ Second Amendment rights. Contessa Brewer of MSNBC charged that the weapons were indications of the racist motivations driving protests to President Obama’s health care reform plans. She said, “’A man at a pro-health care reform rally…wore a semiautomatic assault rifle on his shoulder and a pistol on his hip….there are questions about whether this has racial overtones….white people showing up with guns.” (Emphasis added.) Her statement was accompanied by a video which was obviously edited to “prove” her point. What was so obvious about the editing job of the video? The video clip failed to show a trait of the armed man that completely disproves Brewer’s assessment – the man carrying the firearms was black. This bit of information that MSNBC conveniently left out of their reports shows how far the network will go to push their love for B. Hussein Obama onto, what they perceive to be, an unsuspecting, uninformed, and gullible population.

Below is the video from Brewer’s “report”:

Here’s a picture of the man carrying the firearms. He doesn’t exactly seem to be part of Brewer’s “white people showing up with guns” crowd.  

This is a full shot of Brewer's "white people showing up with guns." From seeing a full picture of the man in MSNBC's cropped video, it's pretty clear that he's not exactly your typical Klansman.

I don’t necessarily agree with this guy’s decision to bring firearms to the event in order to make a political point. As MSNBC has quickly proven, the Obama-freaks in the media are looking for any excuse to label opponents to the president’s plans as violent extremists. However, since the man wasn’t wearing a purple SEIU shirt or a red ACORN shirt, I don’t think he posed much of a threat to the crowd. Even the Secret Service working security at the Arizona event said that they were not worried at all about Obama’s well-being. The armed man stayed in the designated area for protestors and was never anywhere near a position to harm the president.

MSNBC is not a source of any type of honest, serious journalism. Instead, they are just a middle man that the White House and other far-left groups use to push their propaganda into the airwaves. It’s pretty clear that Chris Matthews isn’t the only person in the studio who gets thrills up his leg when Obama speacks. Maybe this is why their ratings continue to plummet every month. Is it any surprise that NBC’s parent company, GE, is run by Jeffrey Immelt who was and continues to be a large supporter of B. Hussein Obama? GE stands to profit greatly from Obama’s push for government-subsidized solar and wind power since the company is one of the largest producers of wind turbines. MSNBC seems to be providing their end of the bargain in this “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” relationship.

However, before we pass judgment on this man’s decision to bring his weapons, we might want to recall Kenneth Gladney’s story in St. Louis. Gladney was brutally beaten by Democrat union goons because he was a black conservative. Maybe this man in Arizona was motivated by racism -fear of racist Democrat goons looking to crack the skull of everyone who doesn’t tolerate opposing political views, especially from members of minority groups who don’t support liberalism. Even the Supreme Court recognized a right to self defense, even against politically-connected union thugs.