Allison Bricker

WASHINGTON D.C. – Congressional leaders from the Democrat majority met with President Obama in a closed door meeting yesterday to discuss the possibilities of forcing health care legislation through the House of Representatives, Senate, and onto the President’s desk before the end of the year. Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) met in Private with the President in preparation to his speech on Wednesday night before a Joint-Session of the United States Congress.

According to insiders on Capitol Hill, President Obama impressed upon both the Speaker and Senate Majority Leader the absolute necessity of getting health care legislation passed as soon as feasibly possible. The President and Congressional leaders are optimistic despite vocal and persistent opposition faced by members of Congress during their summer recess at town halls across the country. This comes as no surprise to political analysts since Speaker Pelosi and other Congressional members from the majority sought to cast opposition as “racist” in an attempt to discredit critics of the Central Authority’s push for control over the health care industry.

In preparation for his address before Congress and the nation, the President spent the weekend working through the night at Camp David located in Frederick County Maryland penning his speech long hand, which at last report, totaled ten pages before then turning it over to aides in his administration for revision.

Expectations are that during the President’s speech, he will seek to correct what are by his view mischaracterizations and fabrications surrounding the government’s health care plan. In addition, there is a strong likelihood that the President will clarify the Administration’s stance on whether or not a public option will remain after remarks by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told CNN’s John King:

“it [public option] is not the essential element”

Kathleen Sebelius
Secretary of Health and Human Service

In the coming weeks “The Smoking Argus Daily” will further delve into the details of the government’s health care plan offering comprehensive reports, editorial, and, analyze key features of the plan such as:

Allison Bricker

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – During a town hall held at the Ward African Methodist Episcopal Church this past Thursday, California Congressional Representative Diane Watson (CA) continued the standard rebuttal to critics of President Obama’s health care overhaul, charging them as “racist”. At the onset of the Congressional recess and the now infamous town hall meetings, Supporters of government intervention into health care originally attempted to dismiss opposition as a staged grassroots effort funded by lobbyists and Political Action Committees (PAC’s) from the insurance industry.

Consequently, after support for President Obama’s plan continued to erode with news of a secret $80 Billion deal brokered by President Obama and top pharmaceutical lobbyist, Bill Tauzin, Congressional supporters of the President’s plan such as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (CA) changed strategies and began an attempt to label opponents to government health care as Nazis and “brownshirts”.

Representative Diane Watson however, opted to avoid any references to the Third Reich and instead sought to sum up opposition wholly based on skin color stating:

“So remember they [opponents] are spreading fear and trying to see that the first president who looks like me, fails; don’t misunderstand what is at the bottom line [racism].”

Representative Diane E. Watson
33rd Congressional District, California

Continuing, she then offered her praise for both the communist Cuban socialized medical system and Dictator, Fidel Castro; calling on her constituents to disregard what they may had heard in the past about the Communist dictator, and referred to him as one of the brightest leaders she has ever met.

Whether painting opponents to the President’s plan as racist will stem the dwindling support for a public government run option remains yet to be determined. Perhaps the biggest liability to a government run option may prove to be the cost and projected National Deficit of $17.27 Trillion by 2019 as opposed to the inferences made on opponents’ racial sentiments.

Allison Bricker

RIDGEFIELD, WASHINGTON – Marine Corps Veteran, David William Hedrick let Democrat Representative Brian Baird (WA), have an earful during a town hall meeting held last Tuesday at the Clark County . Avid news readers will take note that Representative Baird gained national notoriety after his off the cuff  remark comparing town hall protesters to “brown shirts” of Hitler’s Third Reich.

Regardless that he later apologized for making the remark, the damage had already been done in the eyes of  many constituents. In addition to the boisterous cheers accompanying Mr. Hendrick’s disapproval with the proposed government intrusion into private health care, perhaps the loudest support echoed when he requested Representative Baird deliver a message to Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) stating:

“If Nancy Pelosi wants to find a Swastika, maybe she should look at the sleeve of her own arm.”

David William Hendrick
USMC Veteran

Source(s): KELA 1470 AM • David William Hendrick YouTube Channel

Jeff Lewis

This past week we witnessed the “Tea Bag” Tax Protest. It was an orchestrated event that was co-opted, or hijacked by rightwing extremists and Republican conservatives from Ron Paul’s vocal, but normally civilized followers. The purpose for the protest was designed to draw attention, ostensibly, to multiple contemporary evils: excessive taxation, excessive government spending, and excessive insensitivity from our national political leadership.

The “Protest” allowed participants the chance to use inflammatory rhetoric that often characterizes such gatherings.  One of the unique aspects of this cause celeb was the contradictory outcries of “Socialism” and “Fascism”, plus numerous Obama hate messages.  It reminded me of the conundrum one of my innovative professors in college once posed in a political theory lecture that began with the rhetorical question, “Can any one succinctly explain the difference between communism and capitalism?”  After several seconds of deafening silence, he answered by saying, “In Communism, man exploits man.  In Capitalism, it’s just the opposite.”

The national network television news media in general acknowledged that the protest was grass roots, in nature. This aspect was driven home repeatedly by the Republican Party leadership and the Fox television news personalities, two entities often in political lockstep, prior to and after the event.  House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), called the event “Astroturf” because of the overt push it received from fat cat donors and Fox network talking heads.

While the President participated in a gathering of Western Hemisphere political leaders on the island of Trinidad, the release of the DOJ “torture memos” started a firestorm that, I believe, has the potential to sprout a genuine grass roots movement. Obama’s progressive supporters on the Democratic side of the aisle, or his own political family, are aggressively circulating a petition on the internet calling for the prosecution of all those governmental agents in the previous administration who participated in the policy that created the alleged tortuous acts.  The petition’s import is in direct opposition to Obama and the Attorney General’s promise not to prosecute any CIA operatives that may have direct involvement in carrying out these acts, as described in graphic detail in the previously classified DOJ documents.  Obama and Eric Holder have promised those CIA participants taxpayer supported legal defense, because the perpetrators were acting on advice from the DOJ, or, just carrying out orders from higher-ups.  The Nuremburg trials, immediately following WWII, featured prosecutions of Nazi’s, “Just following orders.”

One of the most compelling aspects of Obama’s campaign was his representation that among the “change” he would bring about was his vow to restore America’s moral authority in such matters. As he positioned himself against unjust prosecution of a misguided war, he promised transparency in his leadership in direct contradiction to Hillary and later McCain.  On Wednesday night, progressive stalwart, Keith Olberman of MSNBC, vehemently editorialized on Obama’s decision in this area and unequivocally stated, “Mr. President, you are wrong!”  Ooops!  Up jumped the first “family feud” in the Obama bunkhouse.  Among the graying and balding heads of Obama progressives are veterans of “real grass movement” protests from the 60’s.  Millions of these folks were on the front lines on behalf of civil rights and anti-war (Vietnam) conflagrations that occurred throughout the Republic with intensity and, on many occasions, with ferocity.  It is important to remember that Obama was born in 1961, therefore his memory of these cataclysmic struggles are not indelibly etched in his memory tapes.

At the present moment, Obama has opened a significant rift with conservatives that are outraged at his approved revelation of the previously top secret classified memos, and the bedrock of his political support, by saying he was turning a blind eye toward the perpetrators of these deeds.  Deeds, which are specifically prohibited by international treaties, of which our country is signator.  The president’s position is on a collision course.  The potential problems of this controversy are not inherited like the economic hand of cards he walked into upon his election.  Obama has chosen this present course entirely of his own volition.

In my judgment, President Obama is about to get a “real education” in presidential decision making and “grass roots movements.”