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Shut Up! |
Subject: Obama's Full Frontal Attack on Free Speech
Today, in the Wall Street Journal, two articles discuss the immediate
effect of the new health care legislation. In
ObamaCare Day
One, we hear about companies like Caterpillar, which is
reporting a first year cost of $100 million or more in order to comply
with the new regulations. In another article titled
The ObamaCare Writedowns, it is reported
that government-mandated accounting rules require corporations to
immediately restate earning to reflect the present value of their
long-term health care liabilities and taxes. In response to that
requirement, today AT&T took a one billion dollar writedown. Other
companies reporting health care related losses include: Deere & Co,
($150 million); 3M Corporation ($90 million); AK Steel ($31 million);
Valero Energy ($20 million). The consulting firm Towers Watson
is estimating that the total for all businesses may reach as high as
$14 billion.
What does this mean? It means that the U.S. economy just lost another
14 billion dollars. That's $14 billion that will not be available for
capital investment or research. $14 billion that is now unavailable
for business expansion and new jobs creation. $14 billion that will
never make it into the wallets of workers. That's $14 billion
real dollars, created through productive work — not
paper money simply run off the government's printing presses.
However, if that were not bad enough, just like kangaroo*, the President
and his congressional cohorts are "hopping mad at this sort of
talk!" How dare anyone say a bad word about their amazing
technicolor gift to us all? Gary Locke, the Commerce Secretary,
said that companies having the gaul to report such gigantic costs were
being "irresponsible". And Representative Henry Waxman
announced that in response, the Democrats are going to haul the heads
of these businesses before a House panel and grill them on their
statements. This is nothing more than a blatant attempt to silence
the CEOs through intimidation. In other words, its an all out attack
on their free speech. And it's getting to be routine.
We saw Ken Lewis, CEO of Bank of America, silenced after being made
the scapegoat for the Merrill Lynch fiasco. We've seen the automotive
executives hauled before Congress, making it clear that they were to
quietly comply with the government's nationalization of their
industry—or else. Medical and insurance companies where
threatened with punishment and placated with bribes to silence their
opposition to the health care legislation. And when the medical device
makers refused to go along, Congress slapped huge new taxes on them
to make sure that everybody else got the point. Just another
"teachable moment" for the Obama administration.
The main stream media has become nothing more than a propaganda tool
for the administration, self-censoring any troublesome story including
Climategate, ACORN, Anita Dunn's Mao comments, Van Jones, to name a
few. Then there is Cass Sunstein, Obama's regulatory
czar, who, in his book On Rumors, has proposed making internet
blogs and hosting sites responsible for the remarks of posters,
allowing the government and others to censor and demand deletion of
objectionable "false rumors", or else be sued. Congress has threatened
the reimposition of the "fairness doctrine" as a means of muting the
voice of conservative commentators. And Representative Linda T.
Sanchez introduced bill
H.R.1966
in the House stating:
* "Kangaroo were hopping mad at this sort of talk. She thought herself far superior in intelligence to the others. She was their leader; their guru. She had the answer." [Remind you of anyone?] -- The Story Of The Hare Who Lost His Spectacles, by Jethro Tull |
