United States News Digest

Where's Himmler? Lamm Calls for 'Better Health Care Through Rationing'

Sept. 24 (EIRNS)—Former Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm emerged from his crypt in academia, to post an article under the above title on HuffingtonPost.com. Lamm came to national notoriety in the early 1980s, when, as governor, he publicly argued that America's elderly have a "duty to die" and get out of the way of the younger generations. In effect, he was the public relations grandfather of Presidential advisor Ezekiel Emanuel and of Newsweek's recent cover feature, "The Case For Killing Granny."

In today's article, Lamm puts forward defenses otherwise advanced in some "health-care reform" circles. "We already ration," Lamm says. "We ration whenever we make choices among the claims of individuals who are competing for scarce resources. Government, mainly through Medicaid and Medicare, pays for approximately 50% of the cost of U.S. health care.... Having undertaken to fund some health care, public policy must be accountable for the consequences of the decision to cover some Americans and not cover others."

After summarizing the rising costs of medical care, and its percentage of GNP, Lamm lies that "We are delivering, and the public is expecting, more medicine than we can possibly afford to sustain." He argues, as has Emanuel, that rationing is inevitable in health reform. In reality, Lamm is advocating genocide, because he supports the current system of bailing out the thieving bankers, and deindustrializing the world—an intentional path toward depopulation.

This is hardly a new viewpoint on health care and the economy, for Lamm. In November 1984, for instance, he asserted on the CBS "Morning News," that "the problem we have here with high-tech medicine is that really, the Faustian bargain, where in fact what we get for a few extra days of life, all we have to do is pay the price that could bankrupt the country. These things are awesomely expensive. America cannot afford the health care we have right now." The difference is that in the early 1980s, Lamm and his queer views were relegated to some odd corner of the Addams Family ghoul house. Now, his views have gained entree to the White House.

Obama Supporter ACORN Under Withering Government Fire

Sept. 24 (EIRNS)—The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the community organizing vehicle created in the waning days of the New Left's late-1960s heyday, which reportedly was heavily involved in "on the ground" support-building for Barack Obama's presidential campaign, continues to find itself abandoned by its erstwhile friends and funders in government. Recent scandalous videotapes of ACORN personnel offering advice on setting up a prostitution business, coming shortly in the wake of ACORN having turned in a number of its own people to the State of Florida for voter registration fraud, appear to have been the straw that broke the camel's back.

Last week, the U.S. Senate voted to block the Housing and Urban Development Department from giving grants to ACORN; the House (including 172 Democrats) voted days later to cut all federal funding for ACORN; and the Census Bureau announced it was cutting ties with ACORN. Crain's Chicago Business reported yesterday, that Census Bureau Director Robert Groves told a press conference in Washington that the existence of ACORN as a Census Bureau partner was actually impeding the bureau's ability to sign up other groups as partners, because of ACORN's negative publicity. And, AP reported today that IRS said Sept. 23 that it would no longer include ACORN in its volunteer tax assistance program, which offered free tax advice to about 3 million low and moderate income tax filers this past Spring.

ACORN has taken several rearguard actions, including hiring a former Massachusetts Attorney General to conduct an "outside review" of its legal problems, and filing a lawsuit in Maryland under the state's wiretap law, against the "reporters" who produced the scandal videos, and the Washington Times columnist who masterminded the publicity about them. But this appears to have had little effect on the avalanche ACORN is facing.

Meanwhile, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, who was the sponsor of the House legislation to defund ACORN, on Sept. 23 asked the House Judiciary Committee to summon Bertha Lewis, ACORN founder Wade Rathke, and other ACORN officers for a hearing on its activities. Issa has also requested the Treasury Department conduct a review of IRS oversight of ACORN and similar organizations; and The Hill reported today that Treasury's Inspector General has agreed to do so. Issa elaborated on his request, "The lack of an appropriate firewall between ACORN's charitable activities and its political arm has raised significant questions regarding the appropriateness of their status as a taxable nonprofit corporation and their management of federal dollars. Cutting ties with ACORN is a good first step for the federal government, but since they have been the recipients of taxpayer dollars, we have an obligation to investigate to discover whether or not those dollars were misused in any way."

British Agent: Obama's Failure, a 'Failure' of U.S. Constitutional System

Sept. 22 (EIRNS)—An attack on President Barack Obama published in the London Guardian today, is more honest than most of such, now-frequent attacks appearing in British dailies. The article states that the reason Obama has been unable to impose British policies upon the United States, is the republican political system established by the U.S. Constitution. That system is what London demands be ripped apart.

"Obama The Impotent," as the Guardian piece is titled, complains that Obama's "oratorical skills," which so excited people worldwide, have not proved sufficient to get the United States to lead on climate change or financial reform or health-care reform—the key points of British policy. "A sinking feeling is arising among many that President Obama may not be up to the task, that he may not possess the artful skills needed to accomplish even his own goals," author Steven Hill writes.

"But it must be recognised that it's not just Obama's shortcomings that are causing the problem. "The very structure of the American political system is at the heart of these failures," Hill proclaims (emphasis added). His main vitriol is directed at the "unrepresentative Senate where 'minority rule' prevails" (two Senators elected per state, regardless of population; the filibuster procedure, under which "a mere 41 senators, representing as little as 20% of the nation's population, can stymie the other 80%"; etc.). Hill finds "the sclerotic U.S. political scene ... deeply troubling."

Why is an American (for such is Hill's pretension) writing in the British Fabians' newspaper, attacking the American system of government?

Hill is a career agent of British influence, operating shamelessly within the U.S.A. for the overthrow of the American Constitution. He cofounded and for many years led the Center for Voting and Democracy, financed with huge grants from George Soros and his foundation network, for propaganda favoring a national switch to British parliamentary-type system. Hill's group traces itself to 19th-Century British East India Company leader John Stuart Mill and his American political circle. In 1993, it gave a Champion of Democracy Award to British intelligence figure Paddy Ashdown.

Hill wrote this year (Sacramento Bee, "Constitutional convention: What history teaches," March 21) that America's "Founders were not as brilliant as the mythmakers would have us believe.... During the ... Convention of 1787... the Constitution was hashed out by delegates who were thoroughly confused and at times beyond their depth.... On three occasions... the delegates voted for the selection of the president by 'the national legislature'—what we know today as a British-type parliamentary system. But apparently this proposal didn't satisfy...." Hill contends that now, we need a "substantive overhaul of ... key institutions."