Activist Boyd Quits

From Mountain Xpress Twitter Feed:

RT @mxnow Leslie Boyd sez: "Today is my last day" at Citizen-Times."Will do health care advocacy and education full time." bit.ly/3cifm1

Jason Sanford at Ashevegas relays Boyd's complete statement.

Today is my last day at the Asheville Citizen-Times. I have chosen to step down -- I was offered the chance to stay -- because it's time for me to turn to health care education and advocacy full time. This lousy, broken health care system we have has killed more than a quarter million people since the turn of the millennium...

RELATED

Leslie Boyd
Tim Peck | July 23, 2009
Asheville Citizen-Times reporter Leslie Boyd has violated the code of journalistic ethics by participating in partisan political events as an advocate while also covering the story for her employer.

Unstated Policy At AC-T: See No Evil
Erika Franzi | July 31, 2009
Mr. Randy Hammer, president and publisher of the Asheville Citizen-Times, claimed rather weakly in our phone conversation yesterday to have no personal knowledge of Ms. Boyd advocating a political position in the community.

Turn Yourself In

From the White House:

"There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there. . . 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."

---

From: Tim Peck
To: flag@whitehouse.gov
Sent: Thursday, August 6, 2009 12:03:14 PM
Subject: flag: fishy views

Dear Minister of Propaganda,

I am turning myself in because I believe my views on socialized healthcare to be fishy.

We do not need single-payer healthcare.

I believe that no one has a right to the labor, property or innovations of others. No one has a right to interfere in a person’s ability to use his own judgment and freely contract with others.

The government has no role to play in healthcare. It is government interference in the healthcare marketplace has caused our current problems with cost and accessibility.

I advocate a free market in healthcare and insurance. Free minds, free markets, individual rights.

The government should not be defining our healthcare options. We have the right to act freely. We have the right to complete marketplace freedom to voluntarily buy and offer health care services on mutually agreeable terms, without government coercion. We also have the right to *not* purchase insurance if we so choose, and to *not* pay for the healthcare of others.

Government is currently violating these rights in various ways. The only valid reform is full restoration of these rights.

To understand rights, read The Nature and Source of Individual Rights by Ayn Rand.

Furthermore, I don’t need health insurance companies to care about me. I don’t need any businessperson in any industry to care about me.

I only need entreprenuers seeking profit in a free market to create valuable products and services for which I am willing to voluntarily trade to our mutual benefit. I also need a government that is capable of performing its only legitimate purpose, and that is the protection of individual rights against force, fraud, and predation by others or by the government itself.

Individual liberty and objective rule of law in a free market. That is economic liberty. That is political liberty. And that is not what we have today — in healthcare or any other industry.

Instead, we suffer government interventionism; and that is the source of our economic woes.

Please instruct me on which camp to report to.

Thank you.

**UPDATE** August 17, 2009

Obama Shuts Email Tip List
WASHINGTON -- The White House on Monday shut down an email account set up to collect tips from Americans on "fishy" claims about President Barack Obama's health-care plan, as congressional Republicans raised new concerns about why some Americans received an unsolicited email from the White House last week.

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John Cornyn On the White House Snitch Program




Why Are We Moving Toward Socialized Medicine?
By Yaron Brook | ARI | July 31, 2009
Government intervention in medicine is wrecking American health care. Nearly half of all spending on health care in America is already government spending. Yet President Obama’s ‘reforms’ will only expand that intervention.

Recess Rally

North Carolina Recess Rally

The Nationwide Recess Rally takes place on Saturday, August 22nd, 2009. If you believe your liberty, your hard earned money and your way of life is under attack through dangerous healthcare legislation currently being proposed, get to your local Representative office on August 22nd and make sure he/she knows.

Asheville Recess Rally
August 22, 2009, Noon
Rep. Heath Shuler's Office
356 Biltmore Avenue, Suite 400, Asheville, NC
Voice: 828-252-1651, FAX: 828-252-8734



The White House video rebuttal to the above by former ABC News journalist Linda Douglass is worse than silence.

**UPDATE** August 2, 2009

Two Sides Take Health Care Debate Outside Washington

With Republicans mobilizing against the proposed health care overhaul, President Obama, Congressional Democrats and leading advocacy groups are laying the groundwork for an August offensive against the insurance industry as part of a coordinated campaign to sell the public on the need for reform.

The effort will feature town-hall-style meetings by lawmakers and the president, including a swing through Western states by Mr. Obama, grass-roots lobbying efforts and a blitz of expensive television advertising. It is intended to drive home the message that revamping the health care system will protect consumers by ending unpopular insurance industry practices, like refusing patients with pre-existing conditions.

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Crowd rallies against federal health care plan
Josh Boatwright | Asheville Citizen-Times | Aug 4, 2009
About 100 people gathered in the parking lot of Ryan’s steakhouse on Brevard Road for the rally organized by the Americans for Prosperity Patients First campaign, which is leading a bus tour across the state.

Why Are We Moving Toward Socialized Medicine?
By Yaron Brook | ARI | July 31, 2009
Government intervention in medicine is wrecking American health care. Nearly half of all spending on health care in America is already government spending. Yet President Obama’s 'reforms' will only expand that intervention.

Pro-Liberty Health Rally Draws Hundreds
Ari Armstrong | July 28, 2009
Hundreds of people came to the state capitol in Denver today to protest the political takeover of medicine endorsed by Barack Obama.

What 'right' to health care?
John Lewis | Raliegh News & Observer | Aug. 01, 2009
After 50 years of increasing government interventions, through a maze of agencies that now control half of all medical dollars in America, the financial mess is getting worse.

Federal Revenue

Source: White House Office of Management and Budget.

County Zoning

Buncombe County Commissioners
County Planning Building
46 Valley Street
August 4, 2009, 4:30pm
Public comments will be taken starting at 6:00pm.

"The main focus is on the Let Buncombe Vote on zoning effort. We need people to attend and any that would be willing to speak regarding being able to vote on zoning in Buncombe County. Wear red."

ObamaJoker T-Shirt

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gordondsmith @timothypeck By casting Obama as a psychopathic killer, do you suppose you might incite violence? It's a free country and all, but c'mon.

RT @HeyTammyBruce Flashback: President as Joker was just fine with liberals when Bush was the subject. http://is.gd/218G2

timothypeck FLASHBACK: Man hangs Sarah Palin effigy by noose. http://snipr.com/oowzs Fire hits Palin's church in Alaska. http://snipr.com/oowq2

The Joker

2 Obama officials: No guarantee taxes won't go up

President Barack Obama's treasury secretary said Sunday he cannot rule out higher taxes to help tame an exploding budget deficit, and his chief economic adviser would not dismiss raising them on middle-class Americans as part of a health care overhaul...Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers both sidestepped questions on Obama's intentions about taxes.

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Transcript: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner
ABC News | August 2, 2009
STEPHANOPOULOS: The President has said that taxes won't go up for any Americans earning under $250,000, but it doesn't appear that he's going to be able to keep that promise if you're going to bring the deficits down. GEITHNER: George, we can't make these judgments yet about what exactly it's going to take and we're going to get there.

Obama’s Pledge to Tax Only the Rich Can’t Pay for Everything
Jackie Calmes | NYT | July 31, 2009
Behind Democrats’ struggle to pay the $1 trillion 10-year cost of President Obama’s promise to overhaul the health care system is their collision with another of his well-known pledges: that 95 percent of Americans “will not see their taxes increase by a single dime” during his term.

Hate Mail

Here is some hate mail received today from the wife of Republican candidate for Asheville city council and theocrat Ryan Croft. Apparently, Croft is determined to make all the right moves as he sets just the right tone for his campaign.

From: "Tinkerbell0968@gmail.com"
Sent: Sunday, August 2, 2009 1:52:13 PM
Subject: Fair warning.....

Mr. Peck,

My name is Rebecca Croft. I just looked at your website Et in Arcadia ego, you have a photo with a FALSE heading on it with my husbands photo. (a campaign photo) I believe you have been asked to leave my husband alone. You are not even in the race for City Council. I believe you told Robert Malt that you would step off so to speak. Well, you were given an opportunity to do so, I am sending this message to you as fair warning that I will take action on this starting this afternoon. I have a very close friend who is an attorney, and it is sad that your pathetic life has reduced you to this, but there is no other recourse. This is SLANDER and misrepresentation of my husbands intentions in obtaining a seat on City Council. I will also begin phone calls to Robert Malt and several others who vowed support against any future childish attacks on my husband. You Mr. Peck, are a pathetic human and a waste of flesh. You are a sick man, and I think you should go back to Atlanta where you came from and stop sucking the life out of our beautiful city. Go freeload somewhere else, somewhere where you can actually BE King of The Universe. I pray for you everyday. You are in desperate need of therapy.

The publication on your EGO website was dated July 24th, that was well past the conversation you had with Robert Malt. You may be used to dragging people down your ridiculous path, but this is the wrong family to pull into false representations on the internet. This will be the only warning you receive, and may God himself be with you, you are going to need Him.

Rebecca Croft

Thanks Tinkerbell. I'm glad you won't be contacting me any more. You're an idiot.


P.S. Twitter personae Mad Maxs Girl gives me some love.

**UPDATE** August 2, 2009

Tinkerbell responds:

From: "Tinkerbell0968@gmail.com"
Sent: Sunday, August 2, 2009 10:00:59 PM
Subject: Re: Re: Fair warning.....

No YOU are an idiot and a PARASITE!!!!!! Go back to Atlanta you dirt bag

Fill your pathetic websites....you hide behind that keyboard like some stupid ass journalist!!!! Sissy boy!!!! Punk

Lovely. I expect I'll keep hearing from Tinkerbell like a yapping Terrier.

Why We Fight

Jake writes:

"This isn't conspiracy theories, this is about large corporations expanding markets through the industrial complex, creating new markets and robbing resources. . . Note: The idea in the end of the film [Why We Fight] is there is a conflict between capitalism and our government. The premise is that it is capitalism’s fault we are here. I completely disagree."

You are right.

Unregulated laissez-faire free market capitalism would make this fascistic alliance impossible. Capitalism is the complete separation of economics and state.

This is the error of the left: that whenever confronted by a breach of the separation of business and government, they only see the business side of the equation and absolve government of its essential role in corruption.

No corporation ever created a law. No business ever created a coercive monopoly. It is only with the cooperation of government force that any special interest has an advantage in an otherwise a free market.

This, by the way, is due to the prevailing cultural ethic of collectivism and self-sacrifice. This ethic believes the pursuit of individual achievement and profit to be selfish and, therefore, immoral. The government, on the other hand, is a selfless force for the common good, which is, therefore, virtuous.

This ethic is shared by both liberals and conservatives. This is why conservatives cannot be counted on to properly or vigorously defend capitalism.

It is this ethic that must be defeated before any progress can be made on other more political fronts.

47 Million Uninsured

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Uninsured in America [video]

Healthcare: Does Canada Do It Better? [video]
John Stossel | ABC 20/20 | July 31, 2009