NixGuy and Matt at Weapons of Mass Discussion commented earlier today on the latest development relating to the Malariotherapy Misadventures of 2nd District Democratic Congressional candidate Victoria Wells Wulsin Whatever (affectionately known around here as “VW3″).

Joseph Rhee’s ABC report on the topic has has more meat in it than the local Cincinnati Enquirer has supplied in the two or three years Wulsin’s Malariotherapy Misadventures have been relevant.

But, as an Old Media report, Rhee takes the seemingly obligatory “GOP candidate on the attack” approach, and in the process makes VW3 a much more sympathetic character than the facts and circumstances warrant.

Additionally, Rhee let Wulsin get away with a contention that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny (bold is mine):

Dr. Wulsin told ABC News that she never directly participated in malariotherapy experiments and was only hired by Dr. Heimlich to review existing malariotherapy studies. “He commissioned a literature review and I demonstrated through that, that it was nowhere near scientific or ethically relevant or justifiable,” said Wulsin.

In December of 2004, Wulsin submitted a draft report to Heimlich that concluded that “the preponderance of evidence indicates that neither malaria or Immunotherapy will cure HIV/AIDS.”

Oh, she’s good. With some voice and choreography lessons, and she could join these guys.

But alas, a full vetting and demonstration will have to wait until early next week, as this issue deserves a lot more attention than it will get on the night before Independence Day.

Of all the excuses (bolds are mine):

Barack Obama on Tuesday vowed he would break America’s addiction to “dirty, dwindling, and dangerously expensive” oil if he is elected U.S. president — and one of his first targets might well be Canada’s oil sands.

A senior adviser to Mr. Obama’s campaign told reporters it’s an “open question” whether oil produced from northern Alberta’s oilsands fits with the Democratic candidate’s plan to shift the U.S. sharply away from consumption of carbon-intensive fossil fuels.

….. The remarks amount to a shot across the bow of Alberta’s oil sands industry, which is planning to boost production from 1.3 million barrels a day to 3.5 million barrels over the next decade.

The industry has come under sustained attack from U.S. environmentalists over the past year because the production of its heavy oil emits an estimated three times more greenhouse gases than conventional oil.

….. Mr. Obama is committed to supporting energy sources that help slow climate change if elected — and he will reward industries that meet tough new greenhouse gas standards, Mr. Grumet said.

“It’s a meritocracy. We are going to support resources that diversify petroleum supplies, that bring more production to this hemisphere, and that meet our long-term obligations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” he said. “And I think it’s an open question as to whether or not the Canadian resources are going to meet those tests.”

Who died and put them in charge of the marketplace?

Once again, we see that “globaloney” — my term for the belief that the earth is warming (probably wrong), that humans are the primary cause of it if it is taking place (almost definitely wrong), and that drastic actions to reduce “greenhouse gases” is necessary to “save the planet” (how convenient for the command-and-control types) — leading to the conclusion that we can’t consume energy that is in abundance literally in our neighbor’s back yard.

Can’t drill offshore. Can’t drill in ANWR. Can’t build refineries. Can’t get use new technologies to get oil. Instead, bet on the come that some marvelous “alternative technology” will appear — and ridiculously quickly.

Isn’t it amazing that every time Barack Obama has a choice between continued economic growth and government control that either could or will jeopardize it, he chooses government control? Income taxes, capital gains taxes, energy, education, Social Security, health care — it goes on and on and on. Is there nothing he doesn’t want under his thumb?

Mark Levin is right — this guy is a blind ideologue, and a dangerously ignorant one at that. Facts don’t matter. Economic progress doesn’t matter. Only power does.

UPDATE: Catch of the Day — Eric the Red at Vocal Minority found out who American “historian” Allan J. Lichtman is (Wikipedia entry is here). Eric is right: “This guy is a hard-core radical leftist with a truckload of political axes to grind against Republicans!” If there was any doubt about “worst ever,” the sole-sourcing to an outright partisan disguised as a “historian” erases it.

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(original post)

Two Associated Press writers, with the help of accompanying photos at ABCnews.com, have dug down deep and reached a new low in dismal, depressive reporting.

You can be forgiven if, after reading the entire Saturday afternoon “report” by Alan Fram and Eileen Putman of the Associated Press, you worry that the two writers plan to jump from the nearest tall building — and take their readers with them — unless Barack Obama wins the White House.

This is how the pained pair’s incredibly over-the-top report begins (note how the headline answers the question before the text begins; excerpted text, and photos found at the ABC link, are included for fair use and discussion purposes):

Everything seemingly is spinning out of control
Out-of-control weather, gas prices, economy chip away at American self-confidence

Is everything spinning out of control?

Midwestern levees are bursting. Polar bears are adrift. Gas prices are skyrocketing. Home values are abysmal. Air fares, college tuition and health care border on unaffordable. Wars without end rage in Iraq, Afghanistan and against terrorism.

Horatio Alger, twist in your grave.

The can-do, bootstrap approach embedded in the American psyche is under assault. Eroding it is a dour powerlessness that is chipping away at the country’s sturdy conviction that destiny can be commanded with sheer courage and perseverance.

The sense of helplessness is even reflected in this year’s presidential election. Each contender offers a sense of order - and hope. Republican John McCain promises an experienced hand in a frightening time. Democrat Barack Obama promises bright and shiny change, and his large crowds believe his exhortation, “Yes, we can.”

Freaking-Out Fram and Put-Upon Putman then lament that “a barrel-scraping 17 percent of people surveyed believe the country is moving in the right direction.” It’s a wonder, given the tenor of press reporting during at least the past two years, that it’s as high as it is.

(By the way, did you notice that Fram and Putman didn’t mention who has been in control of Congress while much of this decay in confidence has taken place until the third-last paragraph? Or that Congress is the least-trusted institution in the country — less than HMOs and “Big Business”?)

Global warming, or what yours truly likes to refer to as “globaloney,” even makes an appearance:

Floods engulf Midwestern river towns. Is it global warming, the gradual degradation of a planet’s weather that man seems powerless to stop or just a freakish late-spring deluge?

Then the Disheartened Duo get to the real purpose of their piece: to convince us, now that we’re all completely miserable, that the only solution is a change in which party controls the White House (bolds are mine):

American University historian Allan J. Lichtman notes that the U.S. has endured comparable periods and worse, including the economic stagflation (stagnant growth combined with inflation) and Iran hostage crisis of 1980; the dawn of the Cold War, the Korean War and the hysterical hunts for domestic Communists in the late 1940s and early 1950s; and the Depression of the 1930s.

“All those periods were followed by much more optimistic periods in which the American people had their confidence restored,” he said. “Of course, that doesn’t mean it will happen again.”

Each period also was followed by a change in the party controlling the White House.

By the way, those familiar with the Venona Papers and the work of M. Stanton Evans know that there is a better word to describe the “hunts for domestic Communists in the late 1940s and early 1950s.” The word is “necessary.”

You’ll have to go to the final two paragraphs at the last page of the article yourself to read how these two wrap things up. One really has to wonder how they get through each day.

Fram’s and Putman’s despondent drivel isn’t labeled “analysis,” or “background.” It is apparently what these sad sacks, and their editors at the Associated Press, believe is “journalism.”

No it’s not, but it is this: Something you should save to the hard drive, and show to anyone still clinging to the misbegotten belief that the press hasn’t taken sides in the 2008 presidential election.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

From Minneapolis:

June 7, 2008

The treatment uses umbilical and marrow cells to help develop normal skin. Doctors say it may move his genetic disorder, recessive epidermolysis bullosa, ‘off the incurable list’ for other patients.

Using stem cells from umbilical cord blood and bone marrow, researchers have apparently cured a fatal genetic disease in a 2-year-old Minneapolis boy, which could open the door for other stem cell treatments.

For the first time in his life, Nate Liao is wearing normal clothes, eating food that has not been pureed, and playing with his siblings.

“Nate’s quality of life is forever changed,” said Dr. John Wagner of the University of Minnesota Medical School, who performed the treatment. “Maybe we can take one more disorder off the incurable list.”

The team later treated Nate’s 5-year-old brother, Jacob, and is preparing to treat 9-month-old Sarah Rose Mooreland of Folsom, Calif. Hopes are high for them as well.

Nate suffers from recessive epidermolysis bullosa, which affects 1 in 100,000 children. They lack a critical protein called collagen type VII that anchors the skin and lining of the gastrointestinal system to the body.

Their skin is extraordinarily fragile. Tearing and blistering occur with minimal friction, leading to painful wounds and scarring. Solid food produces erosion of the esophagus. Death usually results from malnutrition, infections or aggressive skin cancer.

The only treatment previously has been to wrap the skin in bandages. …..

Go here for the rest of the story.

Nice try, Jeff, no sale — The validity, or lack thereof, of the complaint to the Ohio’s State Medical Board doesn’t change the validity of conclusions reached in 2006.

First, an important assertion made by the Dean of Cincinnati remains unrefuted, unless someone proves otherwise. Thus, his conclusion still stands:

She told one reporter that she did not find “Malariotherapy” effective, yet in her report to the Heimlich Institute she laid out plans to rename it, promote it, and do further research on it.

….. Dr. Wulsin now seeks the office of congresswoman, representing the citizens of Ohio. While we all can make small errors of judgment and may disagree from time to time, Wulsin’s activities at the Heimlich Institute go beyond simple mistakes. She knew exactly what she was doing, worked for a period of months, had access to records and resources, and was paid for it. How she was paid should be the subject of further investigation. In my opinion, her failure to stop the “Malariotherapy” by exposing it is reprehensible. If she claims she didn’t know then she is inept.

My pre-election take in 2006 also still stands:

Folks, the CDC and others rightly believe that this kind of human experimentation needs to be relegated to the House of Horrors — not given at least tacit sanction, as it was, by an MD who at some point may have been on the take.

As a congressperson in a technically advanced age, Vic Wulsin will be in a position to not only vote on legislation authorizing “advances” in medical science that are questionably ethical, but she will be able to throw the persuasive weight of her medical credentials behind any effort to do so.

(Now, pay attention closely here, because deciding that Vic Wulsin’s ethical breaches constitute a Dealbreaker has NOTHING to do with whether you, dear reader, are prolife, but they have EVERYTHING to do with whether Vic Wulsin is prolife.)

All of this aside, Vic Wulsin could have a failsafe position in all of this if she were unequivocally prolife. Her past dalliance with Dr. Heimlich could be excused as a big, but not fatal, mistake, as she had no hands-on involvement in experiments. She could in theory, say she’s sorry and promise to sin no more. But Vic Wulsin is anything but prolife, and is in fact pro-abort, pro-embryonic stem cell research, and perhaps even pro-cloning (she refused to answer a Cincinnati Right to Life questionnaire which could have cleared up these matters). This means that there is no reason — none — to believe that she would be willing to put the moral brakes on allowing taxpayer dollars to be used for “promising” but unethical medical studies and protocols that might be stampeded though Congress in the name of “the greater good,” or to make such studies a law-enforcement matter if they were attempted in the private sector.

Based on all of the above, Vic Wulsin has earned BizzyBlog Dealbreaker 1: Serious Lapses in Medical Ethics.

(Recall that a BizzyBlog Dealbreaker is “something that completely justifies a person not voting for you, regardless of your party or your stands on the issues.”)

What the state Ethics Board did or didn’t do changes none of this.

If 2nd District voters knew of Vic’s Malariotherapy Adventures, the vast majority would immediately see her as totally out of touch with their values. Wulsin’s only hope is that, with the silent assistance of the Cincinnati Enquirer, they never find out.

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Source Material:

• Oct. 20 — (Cincinnati Beacon, guest column by Dr. Robert Baratz) Black Box Warning: Wulsin’s Claims of Innocence
• Various Dates — (Cincinnati Beacon) Wiki entry for Victoria Wulsin
• A PDF of Wulsin’s report with Executive Summary is no longer available at the link where it was present in November 2006.

Given certain positions I hold, this is an odd “honor” indeed:

Exhibiting the investigatory powers of Inspector Clouseau (except Clouseau could probably have navigated web pages more effectively), Dave Harding at Progress Ohio “congratulated” yours truly on his appearance while missing at least the following Ohio blogs appearing in the Conservative category:
- Bearing Drift Ohio
- Keeler Political Report
- Naugblog, via the old Right Angle Blog
- The Truth in Blogging impresarios at Weapons of Mass Discussion
- Wizblog

As hopelessly craven and corrupt capitalists, I’m sure they welcome the attention (as do I). But based on internal e-mail conversations the SOB Alliance has been having, I can nonetheless confidently say that there is quite a bit of mutual ambivalence about getting noticed by the McCain Campaign. I hope McCainiacs who visit aren’t assuming that they’re entering wholly friendly territory.

Oh, and a memo to the McCain Campaign (cc: Mr. Harding, who probably already knows better) — There’s no space in BizzyBlog.

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Speaking of McCainiacs who happen to be visiting — Assuming that you have any influence over the candidate, you might want to let him know that Objectively Unfit Mitt Romney’s Commonwealth Care in Massachusetts continues to blow up. I would consider it the political campaign equivalent of an IED that could go off at any time during the last 60 days before the election.

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On the heels of this first-hand report at Pajamas Media last week comes this too-timid Wall Street Journal editorial:

It’s hard to exaggerate the significance of Mohammed al-Durra, the 12-year-old Palestinian boy allegedly killed by Israeli bullets on Sept. 30, 2000. The iconic image of the terrified child crouching behind his father helped sway world opinion against the Jewish state and fueled the last Intifada.

It’s equally hard, then, to exaggerate the significance of last week’s French court ruling that called the story into doubt. Not just whether the Israeli military shot the boy, but whether the whole incident may have been staged for propaganda purposes. If so, it would be one of the most harmful put-up jobs in media history.

You probably didn’t hear this news. International media lapped up the televised report of al-Durra’s shooting on France’s main state-owned network, France 2. Barely a peep was heard, however, when the Paris Court of Appeal ruled in a suit brought by the network against the founder of a media watchdog group.

….. Judge Laurence Trébucq did more than assert (media watchdog Philippe) Karsenty’s right to free speech. In overturning a lower court’s ruling, she said the issues he raised about the original France 2 report were legitimate.

….. Under pressure from media watchdogs, and after years of stonewalling, France 2 eventually shared the additional film. ….. The extra material shows what appears to be staged scenes of gun battles before the al-Durra killing.

….. It suggests the Israelis may not have been to blame. It makes it plausible to consider — without being dismissed as an unhinged conspiracy theorist — the possibility that the al-Durra story was a hoax.

I would suggest substituting “possibility in the last excerpted sentence with “near certainty.”

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While the congressional majority would probably welcome a poster child for the “nationwide housing crisis”, I would think it might prefer that said poster child not come from within its own ranks. But California Congresswoman Laura Richardson (D-CA) is ready, willing, and able to step into the breach:

California Rep. Laura Richardson claimed Friday that her Sacramento home was sold into foreclosure without her knowledge and contrary to an agreement with her lender.

She said she is like any other American suffering in the mortgage crisis and wants to testify to Congress about her experience as lawmakers craft a foreclosure-prevention bill.

Richardson turns out to be a perfect exemple of someone that a mortgage bailout bill had better NOT be helping. From “Third Time’s the Charm” file (HT LA Land) —

Richardson, who lost her Sacramento home in a recent foreclosure auction, has also defaulted on properties in Long Beach and San Pedro, records show.

Richardson, D-Long Beach, was able to bring her payments up to date on the Long Beach home relatively quickly, but the San Pedro property lingered in the foreclosure process for almost eight months, and still has a pending auction date.

Note that the LA Daily Breeze, where the excerpt came from, did a better job of identifying Richardson’s party than most of Old Media typically does with other Democrats involved with bad news.

Part of the May 5, 2008 series – “The Obamas and the TUCC Bulletins,” the point of which is that the claims by Barack and Michelle Obama that they have not been aware of the objectionable beliefs of their pastor and of his theology for the 20 years they have been church members are greatly lacking in credibility.

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Note: Some of these are repeats from previous posts, but are deserving of repetition.

Reginald Williams; January 7, 2007 (pictured here):

Consider the following facts: Wal-Mart workers earn approximately $14,000 per year. Health care options for employees include a $1000 deductible for individuals, and $3,000 deductible for families. In addition, employees must also wait in order to qualify for benefits—six months for full-time employees, and one year for part-time employees. At a salary already under the living wage level, the mistreatment of its workers by this corporation that made in excess of $315 billion in 2005 is appalling.

Wal-Mart’s sales for the year ended January 31, 2006 were $315.7 billion. Its net income after taxes was $11.2 billion — less than 4% of sales.

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Reginald Williams; April 15, 2007 (pictured here):

The inhuman treatment and lack of respect given to Black people is still America’s pastime. America was founded on the dehumanization of Black folks, and it still operates with a vision that does not see Black people as human.

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Jeremiah Wright; August 26, 2007 (pictured here):

“Forty Years Later” not much has changed since that speech on the Washington Mall given by Dr. King. Since 1619, when you look at the ‘big picture,’ you will see that not much has changed either when it comes to the rights of Africans living in this country.

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Reginald Williams; November 18, 2007 (pictured here):

For many Indigenous Native Americans (Indian) people, “Thanksgiving” is a time of mourning, of remembering how a gift of generosity was rewarded by theft of land and seed corn, extermination of many from disease and gun, and near total destruction of many more from forced assimilation. As currently celebrated in this country, “Thanksgiving” is a bitter reminder of 500 years of betrayal returned for friendship.

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(thought I’d save this one for last)
Rev. Jeremiah Wright; September 25, 2005 (not signed by Wright, but presumptively his writing; pictured here):

From Murder to Concentration Camp!

The month of September has been an incredible month for African Americans in the United States of AmeriKKKa. Citizens of this country and people all over this world have watched incredulously as the lack of governmental response has murdered thousands of African Americans who are poor and who had no way out of the watery grave that could have been avoided.

Mercenaries from Israel were brought in to protect white property. Black Water (the guys who ran Abu Ghraib Prisons) were brought in as mercenaries to protect white property. White property was protected and black lives were lost!

The evacuees from New Orleans, from Mississippi and from Alabama have been spread out all over the country. Those here in Tinley Park have run away from murder and ended up in a concentration camp!

According to Wikipedia, the total death toll from Katrina in all states affected was 1,836. According to the City of New Orleans, less than 50% of the hurricane deaths in that city were African-American — a disproportionately lower percentage of the population.

This doesn’t prove or disprove the existence of a recession, but I don’t recall heavy-hitter companies in the not-actual recession of 2000-2001 (a recession requires two consecutive quarters of negative growth; it didn’t happen), or the real recessions of the early 1980s and 1990s, delivering rosy results and outlooks. But that is what came in from IBM, as well as Coke and Intel, which announced quarterly results yesterday. JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo also beat reduced expectations.

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The presidential candidate I refer to as Mr. BOOHOO-OUCH (Barack O-bomba Overseas Hussein “Obambi” Obama - Objectively Unfit Coddler of Haters) is back to wearing a flag lapel (HT and verification at Hot Air). Well, yes and no. Neither Obama nor the presidential candidate I refer to HR4C (Hillary Rodham Cackling Crying Complaining Clinton) was, as far as I can tell, wearing one at last night’s debate mutual meltdown (WSJ: “It didn’t take long during last night’s debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to see who the winner would be: John McCain”). Perhaps there was a “don’t disturb the lefties; no patriotic displays” rule in effect.

Atlanta Journal Constitution columnist Jim Wooten predicted the pin would make a comeback during Obama’s race-relations Jeremiah Wright recovery speech. Wooten was just early on the timing. I guess it took longer for Obama’s slow-on-the-uptake handlers to realize that the Wright-related salvage efforts weren’t working.

Allah at Hot Air’s reminder (link added by me):

Conservatives naturally were blamed for making an issue of this last fall but in fact Obama’s the one who politicized it by investing the pin with such grandiose meaning that he simply had to stop wearing it in good conscience.

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Mark Steyn at the Corner noted a case in Canada where, in the process of punishing McDonald’s for failing to accommodate an employee with a disability, the geniuses on the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal ignored hundreds if not thousands of years of human experience and scientific data.

It found no evidence that there is a “relationship between food contamination and hand-washing.”

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The BBC reports about the world’s biggest polluter:

China has already overtaken the US as the world’s “biggest polluter”, a report to be published next month says.
The research suggests the country’s greenhouse gas emissions have been underestimated, and probably passed those of the US in 2006-2007.

Yours truly noted this situation last June (final item at link; original UK Guardian article is here).

The world’s biggest polluter wants hundreds of billions of dollars from the West (that means the US, for all practical purposes) to help it become less of a polluter.

I would suggest that we have already given it to them in the form of hundreds of billions of dollars in trade surpluses over the years. If it’s that important, the world should be saying “You have the money to do it, so spend it already.” But it won’t.

I find it more than a little annoying that leading African-American ministers — and this would, from all appearances, include the currently controversial Jeremiah Wright, who has been/was the minister at the church frequently attended by the candidate I refer to as BOOHOO (Barack O-bomba Overseas Hussein “Obambi” Obama) — support, or at least condone, abortion rights.

So it would be interesting to get the Rev. Wright’s reax to this:

Planned Parenthood of Idaho officials apologized Wednesday for what they called an employee’s “serious mistake” in encouraging a donation aimed at aborting black babies.

They also criticized The Advocate, a right-to-life student magazine at the University of California-Los Angeles, for trying to discredit Planned Parenthood employees in seven states in a series of tape-recorded phone calls last summer.

The whining about entrapment rings very hollow.

It would appear that Planned Parenthood has not completely escaped its eugenics-oriented past. Even if it thinks it has, the real-world result of abortion on demand in the US is that a disproportionate number of babies aborted is African-American:

Black women were 4.8 times more likely than non-Hispanic white women to have abortions in 2005, according to a January report by the Guttmacher Institute. African Americans made up 12.3 percent of the United States population, according to the 2000 census, but black women had 36.3 percent of the abortions that same year, the Centers for Disease Control reported.

Based on this reality, no wonder Alveda King, niece of the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., says that “Abortion is a racist, genocidal act.”

Where’s the Rev. Wright’s outrage against the white-dominated Planned Parenthood (yes, I know about her; PP is still white-dominated)? Their accomplishment of preventing the birth of roughly 12-15 million African-American babies since Roe v. Wade is something Planned Parenthood Founder Margaret “Negro Project” Sanger could only dream of. In fact, if the Rev. Wright is looking for the “KKK of A,” he should begin his search at Planned Parenthood’s national headquarters.

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This story is not getting the attention it deserves:

….. The government now counts more than 700 reports of serious side effects among Heparin users, and perhaps as many as 21 deaths. A leading American maker, Baxter International Inc., has recalled virtually all of its Heparin products in the United States, and companies in Germany and Japan have recalled their Heparin products.

A major focus of Heparin investigators is why the recalled products contained a contaminant that mimicked the drug’s key ingredient. Investigators are also exploring whether the possible counterfeit was responsible for the bad reactions.

Since the key ingredient came from China, the scare has rekindled fears about the integrity of exports from China and the adequacy of inspections by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, prompting congressional hearings.

“I don’t think the pharmaceutical industry knows what it’s doing in China, and I don’t think the U.S. government knows what it’s doing in China,” said Michael Santoro, a Rutgers University business professor who has written about the drug industry’s business in China.

It so happens that over 20 years ago I was on the annual audit of a small company that, among other things, produced this drug. The FDA was a frequent onsite visitor, as was the company’s principal customer. I find it hard to imagine that accidental or deliberate product imperfections would not have been caught by one of the three parties (company, FDA, or customer) well before any product was shipped to hospitals. So I’m more than a little perturbed that the Chinese-produced product is not acceptable.

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“You Don’t Say” items of the day:

• “Saddam supported at least two al-Qaeda groups: Pentagon” (the primary coverage is at the Weekly Standard; Headline is from Hot Air, whose new arrival “Captain Ed” Morrissey also pitches in) — of course Old Media reported the opposite.
• “Harvard economists’ study: Media’s anti-war rhetoric emboldens Iraqi insurgents” (Coverage is at US News; headline and analysis at Hot Air, to which Captain Ed has brought additional gravitas; original study abstract is here). It was during Vietnam when the Left starting claiming, contrary to thousands of years of human history, that antiwar protests and rhetoric didn’t matter. Of course it did, and still does. If the enemy is emboldened, it increases the dangers for our soldiers, and the likelihood that our soldiers will be injured or die. It is not a stretch to say that the Left, and the Old Media outlets that carry its water, have blood on their hands.

The British National Health Service (NHS) is “the sick man of Europe.”

So of course, the country’s supposedly right-of-center party should do all it can to bring this nonsense here (/sarc).

Let me be among the first to suggest that Commonwealth Care in Massachusetts aka RomneyCare, the Bay State’s NHS imitator and the “brainchild” of Objectively Unfit Mitt Romney, is fast becoming “the sick man of the USA.”

GOP insiders, if they prevail in their attempt to convince John McCain to become associated with RomneyCare’s failures by selecting the Mittster as his Veep, will prove once and for all that theirs is really the SOP (Stupid Old Party), fast working on becoming the SDP (Stupid Dead Party).

The warning signs about RomneyCare’s implosion have been out there at least as far back as last October (fourth item at link). Its crackup will be used by the Democratic nominee as “proof” that the only solution to the “health care crisis” is to have Uncle Sam take the industry over, as it’s “just too big” for one state to try to solve.

As you can see from this compilation of posts during Romney’s presidential candidacy, the RomneyCare crackup is one of a bazillion reasons covering the entire range of conservatism why the selection of Mitt Romney as the Vice Presidential nominee would be a Stuck-on-Stupid-Party move.

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ALSO: Adding an exclamation point to all of this, Gregg Jackson had an important update at Pundit Review last week on what is still the best and most important reason to reject Mitt Romney for any kind of state or national office. It vindicates everything that Mass Resistance and Jackson (whom Romney himself characterized as “delusional” in January) have been saying about the inarguable fact that Romney unilaterally, unconstitutionally, and unnecessarily imposed same-sex marriage in Massachusetts.

UPDATE, 3:15 p.m.: Gotta break some news to NixGuy, using his AOL URL. Nix says this –

So the conclusion is that with McCain/Romney, you had better hope that the Evangelical vote will think only about the war/security issues, and not about anything else. Romney’s not a horrible choice, he does unite a couple wings of the party and might further cement establishment support, but there would still remain, I fear, a disconnect with the base, and if that remains until November, Romney and McCain can heal all they want and it won’t matter.

That evangelical “hope” will be dashed when Old Media oh-so-helfully digs out the truth of the gay-marriage situation in Massachusetts. It will further disconnect McCain from the GOP base, with the exception of a certain blogger, who as of this moment has had nothing to say at his blog about Romney as Veep, at least in the past two weeks. I take this as a signal that this blogger is not a big fan of the idea, and that Romney is just toying with us to have an excuse to be in front of the cameras.

It’s tempting to ask for a Democratic ballot on Tuesday to vote for the candidate I refer to as BOOHOO (Barack O-bomba Overseas Hussein “Obambi” Obama). That would help ensure that the candidacy of the person I refer to as HR4C (Hillary Rodham Cackling Crying Complaining Clinton) is not merely dead, but really most sincerely dead.

The problem is that if Obama wins in November, and his presidency turns out to be as bad or worse than currently indicated, I would have to own up to having contributed to it. I cannot, and will not, bear that responsibility.

So I’ll stay on the GOP side for the time being. Now what?

The candidate I refer to as JS3M3 (John Sidney the Mad Maverick McCain III) will not get my Ohio primary vote.

He hasn’t earned it. He needs to understand that he hasn’t earned it.

In fact, he seems to care very little whether he gets my vote.

He has done little since he became the presumptive nominee on Super Tuesday to bridge the divide he has built over the last decade between himself and mainstream conservatives.

His “repudiation” of Bill Cunningham for daring to use Obama’s middle name should not have been a public rebuke. Take your pick — It demonstrates shocking tone-deafness or callous indifference to what should be his base. McCain, who feels that Obama’s real middle name shouldn’t be used (heaven forbid) because it is somehow provocative (a position I totally disagree with), should have advised Cunningham of the impropriety either after-the-fact to the press or in private.

McCain will come perilously close to losing my vote if what Bob Novak has written comes to pass:

Former White House political guru Karl Rove is urging that Sen. John McCain pick Mitt Romney as his running mate, writes veteran Washington columnist Robert Novak.

According to Novak, Rove and other GOP bigwigs want Romney in the No. 2 spot despite the bad blood that exists between the former Massachusetts governor and McCain, an enmity that grew out of their heated rivalry during the Republican presidential primaries.

Despite the hype about his alleged conservatism, Objectively Unfit Mitt Romney is more liberal than John McCain. A McCain-Romney ticket combines an all-too-likely failure to control illegal immigration; a total surrender on social issues (based on what Romney has done, which is infinitely more important than what he has said); increases the chances that McCain would give in to the taxoholic-spendaholics in Washington; puts a person from a culture that gives little heed to national sovereignty one heartbeat away from the presidency; and sets the table for inflicting the scourge of RomneyCare on the entire nation.

If the Global War on Terror weren’t in progress, and the other party’s candidates so pitifully weak on national security, a McCain-Romney ticket would be a bridge too far to cross. I hope against hope that McCain has the sense not to do what Rove suggests.

Voting for Mike Huckabee could have been a legitimate temptation. After all, he’s the one still running. But in the two months-plus since it was revealed, no one that I know of has tried to claim that the story of Huckabee receiving hundreds of thousands in consulting and speaking fees while governor is wrong, or explain why it’s okay. Without any kind of attempt to defend it, the presumption has to be that it’s indefensible. Team Huckabee seems to think the whole thing doesn’t even deserve a defense. Fine: Mike Huckabee doesn’t deserve my vote. With a BizzyBlog Dealbreaker like this, I don’t even waste my time looking into where a candidate stands on the issues, because it doesn’t matter.

That leaves the only other GOP candidate who maintained his viability up to South Carolina. He is also the only candidate who had both a solidly sensible platform and a track record showing that he actually believed in it.

Fred Thompson gets my vote on Tuesday, because no active candidate has done more to earn it up to and including today than Thompson did through January 19.

I strongly suggest that anyone receiving a Republican ballot tomorrow who doesn’t think John McCain gets it yet send Mr. Maverick a message. Vote for Fred Thompson.

There’s Supply-side news from Hong Kong, and an interesting choice made in the tax targeted for elimination:

Booming Hong Kong cuts taxes as surplus soars

Hong Kong’s financial chief said Wednesday he will cut salary and corporate taxes and abolish duty on beer and wine after a booming economy pushed the city’s budget surplus to a record high.

….. Duty on beer and wine — currently at 40 percent — will be cut with immediate effect.

Tsang attributed the surplus to higher-than-expected tax revenues from the city’s booming stock and property markets as well as company profits and salaries.

Tsang fulfilled the government’s last year promise to cut salaries tax to 15 percent in 2008-09 from 16 percent and the corporate tax rate to 16.5 percent from 17.5 percent.

Tax rates went down and tax collections went up. How DID that happen?

Hong Kong residents will surely drink to that success.

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So ….. Basic medical hygiene may be less important than a kowtowed-to religion:

Muslim medics refuse to roll up their sleeves in hygiene crackdown - because it’s against their religion

Health officials are having crisis talks with Muslim medical staff who have objected to hospital hygiene rules because of religious beliefs.

Medics in hospitals in at least three major English cities have refused to follow the regulations aimed at helping tackle superbugs because of their faith, it has been revealed.

Women medical students at Alder Hey children’s hospital in Liverpool objected to rolling up their sleeves when washing their hands and removing arm coverings in theatre, claiming it is regarded as immodest.

Similar concerns were raised at Leicester University -and Sheffield University reported a case of a Muslim medic refusing to “scrub” because it left her forearms exposed.

Some students have said that they would prefer to quit the course rather than expose their arms, but hygiene experts said no exceptions should be made on religious grounds.

It’s worth reminding folks that in a nationalized health care system such as the British NHS, patients often don’t have an alternative as to which hospital they go to, or which doctor will serve them. And besides, in a forced-uniformity system, the problem may exist anywhere there is a Muslim female doctor.

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Jonah Goldberg makes a great point in discussing the “respectability” of unrepentant 1960s radicals William Ayers (”I feel we didn’t do enough [violence]”) and Bernardine Dohrn (HT Instapundit):

What fascinates me is how light the baggage is when one travels from violent radicalism to liberalism. Chicago activist Sam Ackerman told Politico’s reporter that Ayers “is one of my heroes in life.” Cass Sunstein, a first-rank liberal intellectual, said of Ayers and Dohrn, “I feel very uncomfortable with their past, but neither of them is thought of as horrible types now - so far as most of us know, they are legitimate members of the community.”

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This USA Today article shows that those who want to tear us apart are making very real progress:

Teens losing touch with common cultural and historical references

Big Brother. McCarthyism. The patience of Job.

Don’t count on your typical teenager to nod knowingly the next time you drop a reference to any of these. A study out today finds that about half of 17-year-olds can’t identify the books or historical events associated with them.

Twenty-five years after the federal report A Nation at Risk challenged U.S. public schools to raise the quality of education, the study finds high schoolers still lack important historical and cultural underpinnings of “a complete education.”

This is what a large part of the educational establishment wants: No common culture, (except perhaps “US - bad; rest of world, good”). Combine this with the the influx of millions of illegal aliens who clearly are not picking up on our heritage, and in fact are often hostile to it, and you realize that they’re getting their way. And we’re letting them. If there is no cultural glue holding a nation together, it runs the risk of falling apart.

The argument presented in the article that learning basic reading and math skills is getting in the way of learning our culture is as bogus as it comes. How is it that the culture got passed on during the first half of the 20th century, when basic-skills curricula were much tougher? Answer: Because educators almost univerally cared about it.

Note: This column went up at Pajamas Media Friday, under the title “The Perils of Socialized Healthcare.”

Programming Note: From this point forward, I will post the PJM column from earlier in the week on Saturday or Sunday mornings, depending on when PJM posted it.

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This is a difficult column to write, because there’s a glut, not a lack, of pertinent material.

You see, the state-run British National Health Service (NHS) has been decaying steadily for years. Even the formerly fawning British media, after decades of kid-glove treatment, has taken to regularly exposing the NHS’s dark side.

Here are just a few of the most recent sordid examples revealing a system at its breaking point.

The first comes from just outside of many British hospitals (known as “trusts”), in the UK Daily Mail:

A&E patients left in ambulances for up to FIVE hours ’so trusts can meet government targets’

Seriously ill patients are being kept in ambulances outside hospitals for hours so NHS trusts do not miss Government targets.

Thousands of people a year are having to wait outside accident and emergency departments because trusts will not let them in until they can treat them within four hours, in line with a Labour pledge.

The hold-ups mean ambulances are not available to answer fresh 999 calls.

Doctors warned last night that the practice of “patient-stacking” was putting patients’ health at risk.

You don’t say? Ambulances sit; sick patients get sicker; injured patients’ wounds fester. When was the last time you heard about a US ambulance not unloading its human cargo on a timely basis?

Upon admission, the quality of care is, uh, less than perfect:

• “Patient’s anger at cancer retests” (BBC, Jan. 19) — Women with cancer were told they didn’t have it until a year or so later because of botched biopsies.
• “Throat cancer patient ’starved to death’ after feeding tube blunder” (Times Online, Feb. 15; HT Socialized Medicine Blog).
• “Neonatal unit closed after fungal infection kills baby” (Times Online, Feb. 15; HT Socialized Medicine).

I would suggest that those who obsess over “medical mistakes” in the US would have their hands full if they crossed the pond.

Well, if the NHS is to do something about all those parked ambulances, and all those treatment mistakes, they’re going to have to deal with utilization, right?

Here’s one “briilliant” idea, originally written up in the January 28 UK Telegraph:

Don’t treat the old and unhealthy, say doctors

Smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly should be barred from receiving some operations, according to doctors, with most saying the health service cannot afford to provide free care to everyone.

But wait: Wasn’t the whole idea of socialized medicine “free care to everyone”? Instead, we see eugenics not-so-light.

Here’s yet another utilization control measure, from an IBDeditorials.com opinion piece:

“Instead of going to a hospital or consulting a doctor, patients will be encouraged to carry out ’self-care’ as the Department of Health tries to meet Treasury targets to curb spending,” the (UK) Telegraph explained.

Yet it’s liberals who accuse conservatives of advocating a “you’re on your own” society.

Perhaps you’re one of those “unhealthy” folks who wants to stay alive, and for whom “self-care” is not an option. Even if you’re filthy rich, you’ll be in for the shock of your remaining life, as shown in this UK Daily Mail report from late January (bold is mine):

Sentenced to death by idiocy

….. Mrs. (Colette) Mills, a former nurse who has breast cancer, was told back in September that her local hospital trust would not pay for Avastin, a drug which would double the time her disease was kept under control.

Colette, 58, and her husband Eric, said they would buy the Avastin out of their savings. Imagine their shock when they learned that, if they purchased the drug, the mother-of-two would have to pay for all her future NHS care - to the tune of £15,000 a month (about $29,000 US — Ed.).

Health Secretary Alan Johnson has ruled that patients can no longer combine private and NHS care as this creates a “two-tier” system.

Who knew that the NHS’s lousy health care was “worth” about $350,000 a year? So Colette Mills’s choice is to go broke in the private “tier,” or die sooner in the public one — liberal “compassion” at its finest.

These stories rarely receive US Mainstream Media coverage. Even news about Massachusetts’s imploding state-run Commonwealth Care, aka RomneyCare, rarely gets beyond the Bay State. Reporters there incredibly still refer to it as a “grand experiment,” and a “landmark.”

Why? It’s simple:

• Despite all of the contrary evidence, Mainstream Media reporters persist in their belief that socialized medicine can be made to work better than “evil, profit-driven” healthcare.
• Two of the three remaining viable US presidential candidates advocate socialized medicine, aka “universal healthcare.”
• Ergo, the serious problems at NHS and in Massachusetts must be ignored.

If we ever see a nationwide state-run healthcare system in the US, the Mainstream Media will have played a large role in its arrival by ignoring its myriad failures, both overseas and at home.

(Carried to the top Friday evening to shed light on a disclosure non-controversy. See UPDATE.)

It’s here. I will post it at BizzyBlog on Sunday morning under a different title with the same content when the blackout lifts.

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UPDATE, 10:30 p.m. — A PJM reader has drawn attention in a comment at the PJM post to the fact that I have done business with three pharmaceutical companies, and thus must have a “conflict of interest” that might cause me to rail against socialized medicine so that those companies might benefit from the overwhelming weight of my advocacy.

This commenter did not correspond with me for clarification, but instead attempted to get me into hot water by just throwing a comment out there (there’s a word for that: gutless). I do not know who this person “Ray” is, but earlier this evening I responded to PJM management, which concluded based on what I presented that any kind of disclosure or disclaimer is unnecessary.

In case anyone is still awake, I haven’t made any presentations or developed any educational programs for employees at the named companies since 2005 (though it would be nice if that changed). During that time, I was never paid directly by those companies, but instead served as a sub-sub-contractor (in fact, they are identified as “clients of other trainers” on the relevant page at MonetaryMatters.com. To wit, I have never had a direct business relationship with those companies. Further details beyond these would bore readers to tears.

Laura Ingraham’s “conservatives’ conservative” is set to endorse John McCain this afternoon for the GOP nomination:

Republican campaign dropout Mitt Romney agreed Thursday to endorse Sen. John McCain and asked his national convention delegates to swing behind the party front-runner, according to officials familiar with the decision.

Romney collected 280 delegates during his run through the early primaries and caucuses. If enough of them switch, McCain could quickly reach the total of 1,191 needed to clinch the nomination.

The officials who disclosed Romney’s plans did so on condition of anonymity. A formal announcement was expected later in the day.

The former Massachusetts governor dropped out of the race last week after it became apparent that toppling McCain would be near impossible given his lead in the hunt for convention delegates.

Excuse me, AP: Romney suspended his campaign, he didn’t technically drop out (see, I can be fair to Objectively Unfit Mitt when it’s called for :–>).

Those with reality-based knowledge of Mitt Romney’s record, and the willingness to acknowledge his worse-than-Bob-Taft record, are justifiably concerned that Romney’s endorsement, and especially any active involvement he might have in the McCain campaign, will move the Arizona Senator even further to the left. This would EXclude pundit Ann Coulter, who still indulges in the fantasy that Romney is a “strong conservative”; talkers including but not limited to Ingraham, Rush, Sean Hannity, and Mark Levin; a host of others who should know better; and a host of still others who do know better.

Let’s hope that the real Romnian influence is minimal, or, even better, zero.

Hold the line, and then tack right, John. That would be in the opposite direction of what Mitt Romney has done, as the historical record shows that what Romney has publicly said in the interest of getting elected is of little import.

You can always bone up on the real Romney record here at BizzyBlog, starting at “The Pre-Super Tuesday Comprehensive Objectively Unfit Mitt Romney Index.” Enjoy.

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UPDATE: More needs to be said about this, and it appears that this is the last opportune time.

Hannity claims at the top of every hour that his show is “the best and most comprehensive election coverage on your radio dial,” or something very close to that. Levin likes to say that he “bats cleanup” — that is, he supposedly covers the important topics other hosts have neglected or haven’t gotten around to.

Neither of these gentlemen did anything that I know of to criticize the ongoing implosion of Mitt RomneyCare in Massachusetts and to lay the blame for it solely at the former governor’s feet where it belongs. I believe the closest Hannity got was to read from a Wall Street Journal editorial, while studiously avoiding sentences that referred to Romney’s authorship (I only caught the last 2/3 or so of his riff on this, so I’m not absolutely sure). I don’t think Levin touched on it at all, though I obviously didn’t catch every hour of his program. If someone can show me otherwise, I’m open to getting contrary info.

I saw this coming in October (not that it too any special prescience to see it) — The RomneyCare crackup is a huge story that would have sunk a Romney presidential campaign as surely as the fall-apart of Michael Dukakis’s “Massachusetts Miracle” did in 1988. If we had listened to the two usually distinguished gentlemen just noted, we’d have faced an electoral disaster of Goldwater proportions — with no “in your heart, you know he’s right” consolation. It also should sink any crazy-talk of a McCain-Romney ticket.

This was neither gentleman’s finest hour. May they return to a grip on reality.

UPDATE 2, 9:45 p.m.: Ann Coulter doesn’t plan on returning to reality any time soon. The idea that a John McCain would govern more liberally than Hillary has no basis, and tons of contradictory evidence.

UPDATE 3, 10:00 p.m.: Michelle Malkin committed a rare unforced error yesterday in connection with all of this when she acted as if conservative talk radio in general is under assault.

First of all, Mark Helprin should have spared us the insults, and he frankly owes a few people an apology. Beyond that, his “conservatives, get a grip” message was pretty accurate.

It’s absolutely jaw-dropping to see the same talkers who have been wailing against HillaryCare and socialized medicine for the past 15-16 years totally ignore the fact that Mitt Romney actually put it into place in Massachusetts. Then they lionized the guy as a conservative. That’s pure horse manure, and as I said above, not their finest hour. They need to be called out when they’ve screwed up, Michelle, and they screwed up bigtime with their “McCain bad, Romney good” schtick.

UPDATE 4: Here’s the beginning of the report on Romney’s endorsement of McCain —

Republican campaign dropout Mitt Romney endorsed John McCain for the party’s presidential nomination and asked his national convention delegates to swing behind the likely nominee.

“Even when the contest was close and our disagreements were debated, the caliber of the man was apparent,” the former Massachusetts governor said, standing alongside his one-time rival at his now-defunct campaign’s headquarters. “This is a man capable of leading our country at a dangerous hour.”

Will McCain’s critics give an inch based on Romney’s endorsement?

CORE POST, Feb. 4: Why Is Romney ‘Objectively Unfit Mitt’?

Other Important Recent Items:
- Feb. 3 — Duncan Hunter Has Raised the National Security Alarm Over Mitt Romney. So Where Is the Scrutiny?
- Feb. 2 — 50 Ways to Reject Romney
- Feb. 1 — Did You Hear? ‘Conservative’ Talkers and Pundits Love Mitt Romney. Now They’re Trying to Save Him.
- Jan. 31 (external), Sam Brownback: Election a Battle Over Abortion, Pro-Life Judges; Trusts McCain
- Jan 28 (external), insidecatholic.com — “Why I Don’t Trust Mitt Romney” (money quote: “For a lot of people, especially Christian conservatives, it’s one of those black and white issues. You’re either pro-life or not. That’s the trouble with Governor Romney — he’s gray.”)

RomneyCare:
- Feb. 4 — The RomneyCare Crackup Continues, and Is Becoming a Chasm
- Jan. 31 — WSJ Op-Ed: RomneyCare Is Life-Threatening CoerciveCare
- Jan. 30 — ‘Universal’ Health Care ‘Terminated’? Yes, in California. But RomneyCare Is Alive in Massachusetts (and WE Are Paying for It)
- Jan 28 (external), CNS News — “Massachusetts Health Care Costs Skyrocket” (RomneyCare implosion continues)
- Jan. 15 — Midnight Message for Michigan on (Objectively Unfit) Mitt (A Model for HillaryCare II)
- Jan. 7 — The RomneyCare Crackup Is Arriving Early (Heavy Fines and Rationing)
- Oct. 18 — The Coming RomneyCare crackup (fourth item at link)

“Romney, the Courts, and the Constitutions” (RC&C), and Gay Marriage:
- Jan. 10 — Mitt Romney Calls Gregg Jackson ‘Delusional’; What Does That Make Romney?
(more…)

And at an accelerated pace:

Subsidized care plan’s cost to double
Enrollment is outstripping state’s estimate

February 3, 2008

The subsidized insurance program at the heart of the state’s healthcare initiative is expected to roughly double in size and expense over the next three years - an unexpected level of growth that could cost state taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars or force the state to scale back its ambitions.

State projections obtained by the Globe show the program reaching 342,000 people and $1.35 billion in annual expenses by June 2011. Those figures would far outstrip the original plans for the Commonwealth Care program, largely because state officials underestimated the number of uninsured residents.

And, in case you’ve missed this point before, WE are being asked to pay for Mitt Romney’s handiwork — while of course, despite the out-of-control costs, Democratic Governor Deval Patrick is dedicated to keeping the black hole intact:

The state has asked the federal government to shoulder roughly half of the program’s cost from 2009 through 2011, but there is no guarantee of that funding. Commonwealth Care provides free or subsidized insurance for low- and moderate-income residents.

“The state alone cannot support that kind of spending increase,” said Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a business-funded budget watchdog group.

….. The administration of Governor Deval Patrick produced the new estimates to launch negotiations for federal funding, and has shared them with some state health leaders at closed-door meetings. Patrick is seeking about $1.5 billion over three years, half the cumulative cost for Commonwealth Care. The administration declined to discuss the numbers or the assumptions behind them, citing the ongoing negotiations.

Naturally, Talk Radio’s new Mr. Right is pretending he’s not responsible:

The expanding need for new state and federal money is in sharp contrast to the statements made by former governor Mitt Romney, when he proposed the initiative in 2004 and as he campaigns for president. He has repeatedly suggested that the state could insure low-income residents largely by reallocating money paid to hospitals and health centers that serve the uninsured.

“The bill that I submitted to the Legislature didn’t cost $1 more than what we were already spending,” he said Wednesday night during a GOP debate. “However, the Legislature and now the new Democratic governor have added some bells and whistles.”

Cue the laugh track.

So will Rush, Laura, Sean, Levin, Beck et al talk about this today? Or will they use the day to take their last best shots at John McCain and demand that Mike Huckabee withdraw?

The Left has to be relishing this. Talk Radio spent day after day after day (justifiably) ripping HillaryCare in 1993 and 1994 (addendum: and danced on HillaryCare’s grave for the next dozen years after that). Now its Chosen “Conservative” is the guy who established HillaryCare in Massachusetts, created a miserable failure, and is now pretending it’s not his fault.

Any talker who brings up Hillary Clinton’s willingness to garnish the wages of workers to force them to buy health care but doesn’t bring up the RomneyCare fiasco ought to be called out for first-order hypocrisy.

Oh, how the mighty are falling.

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UPDATE 1: Clintonian parsing is now Romnian parsing — “The bill that I submitted to the Legislature didn’t cost $1 more than what we were already spending….” Notice how he did NOT say “the bill I signed.” That is, the Legislature added a lot of “bells and whistles” to the original bill he submitted, and HE signed the result. Especially given that he vetoed certain items in the bill that came to his desk, whose fault is it that any “bells and whistles” remained?

UPDATE 2: Called into Laura Ingraham at about 9:20, got through, said I wanted to talk about the free pass Romney is getting while RomneyCare blows up, and was put on hold. 10 minutes later, I was told that they had a guest coming up and no time for my call. Reach your own conclusions.

Let’s have some fun on TIB tonight (click on the TIB link at Weapons of Mass Discussion).

Based on Paul Simon’s 50 ways to leave your lover

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The problem’s all inside your head on Mitt Romney,
The others make you want to vote for him illogically.
I’d like to help you in your struggle to be free.
There must be fifty ways to reject Romney.

It all starts with the fact that he’s insufferably rude,
Calls critics delusional, y’know that can’t be misconstrued.
So I’ll repeat myself at the risk of being crude –
There must be fifty ways to rip Mitt Romney.
Fifty ways to reject Romney.

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1. Calling Ronald Reagan “adamantly “pro-abortion.”
2. Calling Gregg Jackson delusional for daring to raise why Romney is Objectively Unfit.
3. Tolerating sanctuary cities in Massachusetts.
4. Raising fees in Massachusetts.
5. Failing to roll back the top income tax rate in Massachusetts.
6. Lying to an AP reporter about whether a lobbyist is tied to his campaign.
7. Calling Henry Hyde pro-abortion.
8. Signing on to state-run health care.
9. Leaving Massachusetts’s finances in bad shape.
10. Pretending that he left Massachusetts’s finances in good shape.
11. He was worse as governor of Massachusetts than Bob Taft was as governor of Ohio.
12. He claimed to be a “lifelong hunter,” having hunted at most a few times.
13. He pulled $20 billion out of nowhere and promised it to Michigan.
14. $50 Subsidized Abortions in RomneyCare.
15. Costs out of control in RomneyCare.
16. Huge penalties to those who don’t buy insurance in RomneyCare.
17. His hair is too perfect.
18. He is still invested in Bain Capital.
19. Other family members are still invested in Bain Capital.
20. Bain Capital is invested in Iran.
21. Bain Capital is invested in Russian Oil companies.
22. Bain Capital is invested in Chinese Communist oil companies.
23. Those Chinese and Russian oil companies Bain has invested in have made multibillion-dollar deals with Iran.
24. Mitt Romney has criticized pension funds that have invested in companies doing business with Iran.
25. Bain Capital did not increase jobs at many if not most of the companies it invested in.
26. Romney would not support the Bush tax cuts in 2003 when asked, and now claims he supported them.
27. Romney’s tax increases while governor extracted money from New Hampshire residents to balance the Bay State’s budget.
28. The dog strapped on the roof for an hours-long trip.
29. Falsely claims that he saw his father March with MLK in Grosse Pointe, Michigan.
30. When it was found that his father had never done that, told everyone that it all depended on the meaning of the word “saw.”
31. At least $90 million spent.
32. At least $35 million of it from his own back pocket.
33. Romney Supported Abortion Rights EXPANSION in 1994.
34. Romney presumptively pushed aside the incumbent to attain the governorship in Massachusetts.
35. He and his campaign spread a false rumor that Fred Thompson would drop out no matter what happened in Iowa.
36. He has abandoned RomneyCare now that he is running for president, abdicating responsibility for the monster he created.
37. His personal financial disclosure form is incomplete, misleading, and not on deadline.
38. He co-opted the National Review.
39. He co-opted Massachusetts Right to Life to get an endorsement (and from a sub-group, not the whole organization).
40. His campaign is the most likely source of the anti-Mormon robocalls in Iowa and elsewhere to set up his speech about religion.
41. He co-opted the Heritage Foundation to write a state-run health plan.
42. He left the Massachusetts GOP so weak that it lost the governor’s mansion for the first time in 16 years.
43. He left the Massachusetts GOP so weak that it was a smaller minority in the legislature than when he took office.
44. Weak employment growth while he was governor.
45. Thinks his family’s service as Mormon missionaries is the equivalent of military service.
46. Hoodwinked Sean Hannity, into thinking he (Romney) is less liberal than John McCain.
47. Hoodwinked Laura Ingraham, into thinking he (Romney) is less liberal than John McCain.
48. Hoodwinked Glenn Beck, into thinking he (Romney) is less liberal than John McCain.
49. Hoodwinked Rick Santorum, into thinking he (Romney) is less liberal than John McCain.
50. Hoodwinked the Great One, Mark Levin, into thinking he (Romney) is less liberal than John McCain.