Posted on 08/13/2009 5:48:25 PM PDT by Josh Painter
The Senate Finance Committee, which is trying to craft a bipartisan health care reform bill, will drop a provision which mandates consultations for end-of-life care from the measure, according to the ranking Republican member. Author and talk show host Tammy Bruce says the committee's decision is the result of Palin Power.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) issued a statement Thursday announcing that the committee will drop the controversial provision after former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, in a series of statements on her Facebook page, criticized "death panels" that conservatives say would encourage the practice of euthanasia:
"On the Finance Committee, we are working very hard to avoid unintended consequences by methodically working through the complexities of all of these issues and policy options. We dropped end-of-life provisions from consideration entirely because of the way they could be misinterpreted and implemented incorrectly."Bruce says Palin "forced the Senate to do the right thing with two Facebook posts":
"This is called leadership and... speaks to the impact and import of Palin’s positions despite the establishments, both political and media, insistence... that she’s irrelevant."Palin responded directly to President Obama and others who attacked her exposure of the Death Panels as part of what Bruce called Obama’s "DeathCare" agenda:
"This time she did it with a hard slap at the Obama admin and viola, after being derided as 'nuts" and out-of-touch, Grassley of the Senate Finance Committee made this statement today."The talk show host added that Grassley's announcement demonstrates that both Democrat and Republican lawmakers "would have codified the idea that seniors should die as soon as possible" had Palin not weighed in on the issue and caused such a stir.
Also crediting the former Alaska governor, U.S. News Jefferson Street blogger Peter Roff says "Score one for Palin":
In what can fairly be described as an admission that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin knew what she was talking about, the Senate Finance Committee Thursday dropped language from its bipartisan health care reform package that Palin and others had suggested would eventually lead to mandated end-of-life counseling sessions for seniors.Agreeing with Bruce, Roff says the decision to remove the end-of-life counseling provisions from the bill "suggests otherwise."Supporters of Obamacare, including President Barack Obama, had accused Palin and others of being dishonest in suggesting the counseling sessions would somehow lead to the government encouraging euthanasia as a cost-cutting measure as part of rationed care.
In a posting on her Pajamas Media blog Wednesday, Dr. Melissa Crouthier wrote that Sarah Palin had defined the health care debate, bringing "the essence of a disputed policy into sharp focus." The concerns expressed in the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate's Facebook postings aligned with those of average Americans, according to Clouthier:
"With the debt, the deficit, and the unrestrained spending, Americans are quite sensibly rejecting a vast new entitlement program. Sarah Palin clearly reflects this sentiment. In fact, she is one of the few voices brave enough to stand with the will of the majority. Too many other Republicans are afraid to be viewed as obstructionist to recognize that they sound out of touch with their own grassroots constituents on the right."By the way, we believe Grassley's announcement will come as a shock to ABC's Jake Tapper, who had characterized Palin's claim as "thoroughly discredited" in a post on his Political Punch blog in which Jake gave Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, architect of the end of life provision, a megaphone through which to shout his "outrage" over the way Palin and other conservatives and libertarians have criticized the supposedly non-existent provision which Grassley's committee is dropping. We are confident that Tapper also furnished Dr. Emanuel with a crying towel.
We won't engage in any breath-holding waiting for the political establishment to give Sarah Palin the kind of credit that Bruce, Clouthier and other Palinistas are convinced that she deserves. To do so would run counter to the campaign of marginalization that has been waged on Palin for the better part of the past year. But while we agree that Sarah Palin deserves much credit for shining a light on the bill's end of life provision, one which the legislation's backers had insisted did not exist, we're sure that she would be the first one to share that credit with the thousands of members of what the state-controlled media characterized as "angry mobs" that turned out at town halls across the land to protest ObamaCare. After all, Sarah knows what it is like to be demonized also.
- JP
“Did ‘Palin Power’ Force Senate To Drop ‘End of Life’ Provisions?” No. But people power did. Just as the Founders intended.
PG 59 gives the Gov’t electronic transfer power over the money in your bank accounts...NO HR3200, as long as Gov’t is allowed to SCREW UP YOUR FINANCES...we know how many errors they make daily.
http://www.oregoncommentator.com/2009/08/13/tinnitus/
And yet, some people just seem to want to hold onto yesterday’s news.
Like the author of the piece at the link above, Dane Claussen, as well as his fellow “commentators”, who are largely a bunch of lowlife cretins.
Palin put it in terms that people can understand though.
I think she played a part in it. Her term “death panels” entered into the LEXICON and made the pudits, President, and MSM respond to it.
You won’t see Romney making an impact like this because his MA health experiment is a bust. Sarah makes a Facebook entry and everyone responds.
Those angry mobs, those un-American evil do-ers....I’m glad Palin wasn’t treated poorly. I’m glad, with respect to Palin, “we” were all respectful.
That whole “irony” concept keeps fulminating in my brain...or is it just “coincidence”? I get confused.
Ohhhhhh. HYPOCRACY!!!! That is the word
The RIGHT to speak out just ain’t for the LEFT, baby!
Sic semper tyrannis.
And please keep calling Americans cowards, Holder, please! I think it worked!
When the Shark Bites! Of course she made them take it out. Hey Dims, nice job getting her out of the Gubnership, careful what you wish for. Shark in the Water!
Pray for America and Lady Palin
Americans first and foremost deserve any credit for what is happening. Rush and the few conservatives leading the charge and voicing those concerns do as well. But far as politicians go, yeah, Sarah deserves credit as well. If confined just to political credit, she foremost is the politician with due.
However, it was one provision in one bill and reconciling the bill could restore it.
So I guess what I’m saying is that this was a nice “political” victory and provides momentum towards her, Americans and the leading conservative voices against it but it’s a small one and I won’t celebrate while this bill is still mostly intact.
Excellent questions were asked. Many people had read large chunks of the bill and asked questions based off of their reading of the bill.
That tells me that people are really doing their homework. And these are conservatives who work for a living; they have given up valuable time to attend a townhall meeting.
People are mad, and they are informed.
todds a lucky man to wake up next to her every morning.. shes some kinda fine
She’s so beautiful and for some that works against her. The left likes their political women ugly.
Sarah’s comment about death panels was right on the mark. That is exactly what they were up to...and what they’ve done here in Oregon.
The immoral left has shown it’s face...their leader voted for live babies to die. Funny how people realize that if it’s an adult that might be them and not a baby that suddenly life matters.
Palin popularized the term 'Obama's death panel'....ouch. The left went on the defensive right away and was in the horrible position of having to explain why their panels were not death panels. Dems knew if that term stuck, they were doomed. The GOP are actually doing the Dems a favor by removing this language, although that was not exactly what Palin was talking about.
It is amazing that Sarah Palin’s uses Facebook in a more powerful way than Obama uses the President’s bully pulpit. Sarah Palin is by far the most powerful Republican right now. Romney couldn’t do this. No Senator or Representative could do this. Certainly Huckabee even with his TV show couldn’t do this. But Palin with Facebook can. Amazing. To think she is not the leading contender for 2012 you would have to have your head buried in the sand.
Well said.
I’ve run across that ‘logo’ on the web. It is awesome!!!!!! ;-)
It needs spreading around just like....if not MORE....than the ‘Obama/Joker’ image. LOVE the ‘omega’ reference.....and ‘those ears’. LOL!
Nuke that thing from orbit. It’s the only way to make sure.
Reagan had radio. Palin has Facebook.
- JP
Yep, she posts on some social networking website and Washington goes nuts. Meanwhile, you got Republicans giving the same-old talking points on the panels and shows and don’t have nothing to show for it. If I was Romney, I’d just quietly slink back to the private sector. There’s no way the grassroots are going to support him.
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