The Real Tragedy Of ObamaCare Has Yet To Be Felt By The Poor

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One of the most tragic failings of ObamaCare is that it will make it harder for many of the most vulnerable citizens – patients with no option but Medicaid – to get care.

Medicaid is cumbersome, complex, and wasteful – already the worst health care program in the country. But rather than making changes to improve or modernize this program designed to finance care for the poor, the Obama administration is trying to convince states to add at least 16 million more people to Medicaid, including families making more than $30,000 a year.

That means the poorest and most vulnerable patients enrolled today will be competing with millions of new Medicaid patients for appointments to see a limited number of physicians. Those who have the greatest need and nowhere else to go are likely to have the hardest time getting care.

In its ruling in June, the Supreme Court made it optional for states to expand Medicaid to cover new enrollees. Even with generous federal funding, several states have said flatly they cannot afford the expansion, which would cost states at least $118 billion through 2023.

They are resisting not only because of budget concerns but also because this large Medicaid expansion could have catastrophic effects on those who provide society’s health care safety net.

Read more from this story HERE.

Rare Alaska Storm Packing 100mph Winds Takes Out Power to Half of Anchorage

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An overnight wind storm with gusts of over 100 miles an hour at high elevations knocked out power to at least half of Alaska’s largest city in the biggest outage in Anchorage’s center in decades, municipal and utility officials said on Wednesday.

“It’s incredibly substantial. A huge proportion of Anchorage is affected,” said Dawn Brantley, emergency program manager for the Municipality of Anchorage.

She said she did not know yet what percentage of the city overall had been affected but called the outage the biggest for downtown Anchorage in decades.

Electricity was cut to at least half of Anchorage, including nearly all customers of the utility that serves the central part of the city, the officials said.

Tens of thousands of homes and businesses remained without power by midday on Wednesday, Brantley said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Anchorage Pays Millions to Settle Lawsuits Over Rapes Committed by Decorated On-Duty Cop

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Anchorage has paid more than $5.5 million to settle civil lawsuits filed by victims of a former police officer convicted of raping women while on duty, city officials said.

The municipality agreed to pay 11 women who said they were victims of former police officer Anthony Rollins and accused officials of failing to properly supervise him, according to a statement released by the city late on Tuesday.

Rollins, once a decorated officer and spokesman for the police department in Alaska’s largest city, was convicted last year of committing four rapes and one second-degree sexual assault in 2008 and 2009, and sentenced to 87 years in prison.

Some of his victims were women he had arrested for offenses such as drunk driving, while others were women who accepted rides from Rollins in his police vehicle, according to trial testimony and court records.

Read more from this story HERE.

Insanity: Federal Judge Orders Sex-Change Surgery for Convicted Murderer

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A federal judge on Tuesday ordered state prison officials to provide a taxpayer-funded sex-reassignment surgery to a transgender inmate serving life in prison for murder.

U.S. District Judge Mark Wolf ruled in the case of Michelle Kosilek, who was born as a man but has received hormone treatments and lives as a woman in an all-male prison. Robert Kosilek was convicted of murder in the killing of his wife in 1990.

Judge Wolf is believed to be the first federal judge to order prison officials to provide the surgery for a transgender inmate.

Kosilek first sued the MassachusettsDepartment of Correction 12 years ago. Two years later, Judge Wolf ruled that Kosilek was entitled to treatment for gender-identity disorder but stopped short of ordering surgery. Kosilek sued again in 2005, arguing that the surgery is a medical necessity.

In his ruling Tuesday, Judge Wolf found that surgery is the “only adequate treatment” for Kosilek’s “serious medical need.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Democrats Drop “God” From Party Platform

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Photo credit: kevin dooley

Guess what? God’s name has been removed from the Democratic National Committee platform.

This is the paragraph that was in the 2008 platform: “We need a government that stands up for the hopes, values, and interests of working people, and gives everyone willing to work hard the chance to make the most of their God-given potential.”

Now the words “God-given” have been removed. The paragraph has been restructured to say this: “We gather to reclaim the basic bargain that built the largest middle class and the most prosperous nation on Earth – the simple principle that in America, hard work should pay off, responsibility should be rewarded, and each one of us should be able to go as far as our talent and drive take us.”

The Brody File has calls into DNC to explain why God’s name has been dropped from the platform. Some critics will suggest that when you have planks in your platform that support abortion rights and gay marriage then it’s no wonder that God’s name would be dropped as well.

Delegates will vote on the platform on Tuesday.

Read more from this story HERE.

Restoring Liberty Milestone Reached: Site Surpasses Web Traffic of Most Alaskan Media Outlets

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Photo credit: The National Guard

I want to take this opportunity to thank the loyal readership of the Restoring Liberty website. Since July 4th of this year, when we launched our new website, the traffic to JoeMiller.us has skyrocketed.* Our readership now surpasses almost every Alaskan news outlet, save two Alaskan papers. And we’re closing in on them as well.

Yesterday, Alexa.com, the global leader in web analytics, rated Restoring Liberty at 15,578 out of the 100 million-plus websites in the United States.** In some Alaskan communities, our performance is far better with the website ahead of the national rankings of mainstays like Fox News and Amazon.com.

More importantly, our Restoring Liberty site’s Alexa.com ranking of 15,578 exceeds that of the Alaska Dispatch (18,270), the Juneau Empire (27,505), the Mat-Su Frontiersman (106,486), KTUU (19,772), and KTVA (89,468). As noted above, we’re rapidly closing in on the Fairbanks Daily News Miner and Anchorage Daily News, also.

Many Outside readers (an Alaskan term for those of you residing in the lower-48) may not be aware of the history of animosity between conservative-liberty oriented candidates and the Alaskan press. From the beginning of my race against Lisa Murkowski in 2010, my campaign was attacked relentlessly by each of the outlets described above. Repeated, libelous stories were publicized statewide. Despite demands for retractions, the Alaskan press rejected journalistic integrity in favor of the corrupt bidding of their corporate masters.

Reportedly, subscriptions to and viewership of these traditional “news” sources has declined significantly since our 2010 race. Why? Alaskans, and the country in general, are looking for honest reporting, unbiased by the corruption that is destroying our nation.

As the publishers of JoeMiller.us, Kathleen’s and my commitment to you is that we will continue to post liberty-oriented stories, even the unpopular, without regard to the expectations of the Establishment. We fired a shot across their bow with the start of our 2010 campaign on Lexington-Concord Day. The near-upset of their consummate insider, Lisa Murkowski, gave them a real scare. Little did they know that together, with you, our fight to unshackle our nation would continue.

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*If you wish to advertise with Restoring Liberty, please click HERE or the “advertise” button at the very top of this page. Our rates are reasonable and competitive.

**The Alexa.com ranking fluctuates almost daily and reports both global and national rankings. Of course, only the national statistics are of value here. Curiously, some sites, like the online-only Alaska Dispatch, have a significant following (over 30%) in foreign countries and therefore have a much higher international ranking vis-a-vis Restoring Liberty. Significant foreign followings of unique, Alaska-oriented sites may indicate something other than normal traffic. For instance, employing foreign users to increase website traffic statistics is not unheard of. And given the Dispatch’s multi-million dollar budget, it has many tools available to it to artificially increase the appearance of readership.

Video: DNC Convention Ad – We All Belong to the Government

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A promotional video for the DNC convention in North Carolina declares that “Government is the only thing we all belong to.” Watch the short video here:

Why did the RNC “Kick the Hornet’s Nest” With Respect to the Tampa Rules Change?

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Photo credit: CW2 Harting

Why did the RNC “kick the hornet’s nest” with respect to the Tampa rules change? Richard Falknor of the Blue Ridge Forum suggests that it was

because the Romney Team has already prepared plans to govern from the ‘center‘ – ‘compromising’ with the Democrats in one ‘grand bargain’ after another (as they once expected president Barack Obama to have compromised with speaker John Boehner) — and making big government ‘more efficient,’ marginally less costly, and more ‘suburban housewife friendly.’

Ineptly compromising is the way speaker Boehner now leads the House — major bills passed often have bi-partisan but not necessarily full conservative support. And Marylander Daniel Horowitz (Madison Project) here (video) further illuminates the problem in his “Boehner Calls Opponents of TARP ‘Knuckledraggers’”

Reining in the administrative state has not, moreover, been part of the GOP Establishment’s agenda. And, in our experience, they do not see ‘conviction’ conservative politicians as serious players.

Conservatives must assume that the Romney Team doesn’t go about kicking hornets’ nests for pleasure and profit. Ben Ginsberg seems to be a capable and savvy advocate, whether we agree with his clients’ objectives or not.

Our best guess is that the Romney Team anticipates conservative pushback during Mr. Romney’s first term as president. This is because the Romney Team has likely planned some initiatives that will be distasteful to conservatives. Conservatives in turn need to identify those schemes before they are launched, and effectively advance plausible alternatives.

Read more from this story HERE.

Report: American Airlines Kicked Family Off Cross-Country Flight Because Son Has Down Syndrome (+video)

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A California family says they were kicked off a cross-country American Airlines flight because their 16-year-old son has Down syndrome.

Joan and Robert Vanderhorst, of Bakersfield, Calif., said they intend to sue American over the “humiliating” incident at Newark Airport, in which they were told their special needs son posed a “flight risk.”

“It’s defamation,” Robert Vanderhorst told the Daily News. “It’s a violation of his civil rights and its defamation.”

Joan Vanderhorst pulled out her cell phone and started recording the incident on Sunday in which Bede is seen quietly playing with his hat and an American Airlines official warns that she was prohibited from filming “in a security-controlled area.”

At one point, Port Authority police were even called on the confused family. Read more from this story HERE.

Here’s the family’s video:

Video: New Anti-Obama Campaign Launched Regarding His Assault on Delphi’s Non-Union Pension Plan

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In a news release yesterday, Let Freedom Ring announced a multi-million dollar campaign to reveal what Obama did to the non-union Delphi auto parts employees’ pensions while simultaneously bailing out union pensions.

Here’s the campaign’s damning “Top Priority” ad: