Learning from the California experience – How Voters CAN Restore Accountability to an out-of-control Judiciary

by CTBC Director | 10:49 pm, June 2, 2009

In light of the recent ruling by the California Supreme Court to uphold the will of the people in amending the state constitution (despite a highly-resourced and publicized campaign to overturn, via judicial activism, a strong majority decision), it is useful to look back on the California experience at restoring some accountability to its judiciary [...]

‘Noble Pride’ Lives On: A Principled Lesson for the ‘Hillsdale of the East’

by Ben DeGrow | 5:14 pm, June 2, 2009

Unbelievably, a few weeks ago I passed the 10th anniversary of my graduation from Hillsdale College with a bachelors degree. But the spirit of school pride lives on, and my heart smiled when today I read William McGurn’s Wall Street Journal column “How Hillsdale Beats Harvard”.
After explaining how Hillsdale’s principled stand of not accepting any [...]

Pass a law. Solve a problem?

by David K. Williams, Jr. | 2:42 pm, June 2, 2009

The Denver Post’s front page headline, “Ban on driver texting,” refers to Governor Bill Ritter’s signing of a bill that makes it illegal to send text messages while operating a motor vehicle.

Mystery Tidwell Volunter Steps Over the Line, Hopefully Astroturfing Stops

by Ben DeGrow | 1:29 pm, June 2, 2009

I am relieved to learn that U.S. Senate candidate Cleve Tidwell was not posting bizarre online comments himself.
As Mr. Tidwell joins us for tonight’s Blog Talk Radio show, I hope to hear what the campaign learned from this episode. I also hope today’s revelation marks the end of the online astroturfing.
Inquiring minds will be left [...]

On Astroturfing–Or How Not To Make Friends On The Internet

by elpresidente | 12:48 pm, June 2, 2009

Earlier in the week, good friend and fellow blogger Rocky Mountain Right brought forward evidence that demonstrated a bad-faith, astroturfing campaign by or on behalf of the Cleve Tidwell for US Senate campaign.

Ben DeGrow provides additional examples of what appears to either be a hijacking of Tidwell’s personal email address (unlikely) or a concerted effort to astroturf under a variety of fake names known as sockpuppetry. Numerous conservative/libertarian/GOP blogs have been pounded by “swarms” of purported Tidwell supporters, including the People’s Press Collective.

Of course, this was bound to hit the media at some point, and today Lynn Bartels of the Post covered the brewing controversy:

A conservative blog this week accused Republican U.S. Senate candidate Cleve Tidwell of anonymously posting flattering comments about himself.

Tidwell said he had nothing to do with the posts, adding “as important as I’m sure these blogs are I don’t get involved with them. I don’t even read them.”

The retired Denver businessman said today that when he questioned his campaign about the posts, an “enthusiastic” volunteer with access to his e-mail addresses admitted she “might have stepped over the line.”

He declined to identify the volunteer, but said she has since quit the campaign.

The accusation against Tidwell was posted Monday by Anthony Surace, a 22-year-old student at Metropolitan State College who operates Rocky Mountain Right.

Gotta love the “rogue staffer” defense.

Tidwell earns himself no plaudits either for his backhanded dismissal of blogs in the Post story above even as he is scheduled to appear on the Rocky Mountain Alliance 2.0 Blog Talk Radio Show tonight, and has attempted to cultivate relationships with bloggers for the past few months as the campaign began to swing into gear.

Look, campaigns and their surrogates–whether paid staffers or overzealous volunteers–are always welcome and indeed encouraged to promote their candidates in a friendly manner, without reverting to the use of astroturfing and sockpuppetry to give a veneer of widespread support online when in fact there may be little more than a handful of real supporters at this point in the primary. Not only does the concerted effort to deluge online straw polls and spam comment sections and email inboxes with regurgitated and misspelled testimonials shed a bad light on the campaign itself–and by extension, the candidate, whether or not he is directly involved or even knows that this type of behavior is taking place on his behalf–but betrays a basic lack of Internet-savvy that currently plagues many in the GOP.

Simply having a Twitter feed or a Facebook account does not constitute a campaign with “Web 2.0″ capabilities. Those are merely tools for messaging and developing relationships with potential volunteers and fundraisers.

The gross misuse, however, of blogs and other Internet forums to “plant” support for a candidate while then accusing a blog of being “in the bag” for another candidate when that information comes to light is absurd. True grassroots movements rely on the activism of individuals who share a common goal or support a worthwhile candidate, and their efforts will show in the amount of money raised, the turnout for events hosted, and the number of votes cast in the primary. Faking such a grassroots movement–hence the term astroturfing–reveals the paucity of support for this or any other candidate relying on such tactics.

Ken Buck, Cleve Tidwell, and Ryan Frazier all have campaigns and will be afforded plenty of opportunities to make their strongest case for their own candidacies. For his part, Frazier has extended multiple opportunities to this blogger to chat, conduct interviews, and attend events. Tidwell has agreed to appear on the RMA Radio Show this evening to make his case. Buck will be given similar opportunities, and is indeed welcome to contact this blog or any other in the RMA/PPC community for an interview or an appearance on the radio show as well.

The bottom line? No one likes to be played for fools, or have their own forum abused by even well-intentioned staffers or volunteers, rogue or otherwise.

You want to shout from the rooftops all day about Buck, Tidwell, or Frazier?

Good for you!

Now get your own damn blog and stop crapping on someone else’s carpet.

RMA 2.0: Rocky Mtn Blogs Radio Show #29

by elpresidente | 12:44 pm, June 2, 2009

**Every Tuesday–next show June 2, 8:30 pm.

The Blog Talk Radio version of the Rocky Mountain Alliance. A weekly discussion about politics–national, state, and local–featuring RMA members bloggers led by featured host and producer Joshua Sharf, with rotating co-host duties from Ben DeGrow of Mount Virtus, Randy Ketner of Night Twister, and Michael Alcorn of Best Destiny.

June 2 lineup–Gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes and Senate candidate Cleve Tidwell will join RMA to discuss their respective campaigns.

May 26 lineup–GOP political consultant Patrick Davis and Independence Institute analyst Jessica Corry.

May 19 lineup–State Rep. Kent Lambert and a review of the 2009 Colorado Legislature.

May 12 lineup–At 8:45, U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck, and at 9:30, Colorado Secretary of State candidate Scott Gessler

May 5 lineup–Blogger Ken Marrero, of Tennessee’s Blue Collar Muse.

April 28 lineup–Walker Stapleton, candidate for Colorado State Treasurer.

April 21 lineup–Matt Arnold of Clear the Bench Colorado from 8:45-9:15pm to discuss judicial accountability and retention of judges on the Colorado Supreme Court in 2010.

April 14 lineup–Brian Campbell discusses the April 15 Tax Day Tea Party rally in Denver and the movement in general, and Kate Melvin dishes on the showdown between the Independence Institute and CU over their budget and administrator salaries.

April 7 lineup–In an excellent solo hosting gig, Ben DeGrow reviewed the heated Fort Collins City Council race with co-host Randy Ketner, spoke with J.J. Ament, who is considering a run for state treasurer, and discussed parental rights and homeschooling with Marya DeGrow of the Independence Institute.

March 31 lineup–Nancy Doty talks about a potential run for Secretary of State, and DU law professor Robert Hardaway on HB1299, the bill to replace the Electoral College with a National Popular Vote.

March 24 lineup–we review of the recent state GOP organizational meeting, where Dick Wadhams was reelected as state chair, and Leondray Gholston was elected vice chair after three rounds of voting with Boulder County GOP chair Scott Starin, and David K. Williams, co-founder of the Gadsden Society of Colorado.

March 17 lineup–State Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry was our first guest, followed by Nathan Chambers, candidate for Colorado Republican Party state vice chair.

March 10 lineup–From 8:45 to 9:15, Colorado Republican Party Chair Dick Wadhams and at 9:30 Hassan Daioleslam.

March 3 lineup–two candidates for Fort Collins City Council, Aislinn Kottwitz (District 3) and Andrew Boucher (District 5), and Tom Stone, who is challenging Dick Wadhams for state party chairmanship.

February 24 lineup–Evan Coyne Maloney of Indoctrinate U, whose film of the same name was shown at the inaugural Liberty on Film last Thursday, and Nadeem Esmail of the Fraser Institute, discussing the dangers of single-payer (socialized) medicine from first hand experience.

Indoctrinate U trailer:

Plus two special editions of RMA Radio–the Pork Roast/anti-stimulus rally edition from the steps of the state capitol, as well as extensive coverage of the Larimer County Lincoln Day dinner.

February 17 lineup–Denver-based political activist Chris Maj, also an affiliate of Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty, and a look back to today’s anti-stimulus/pig roast rally at the state capitol.

February 10 lineup–State Rep. Cory Gardner (R-63), probable candidate in the CD-4 GOP primary, and Leondray Gholston, Republican activist and candidate for state GOP vice-chair.

February 3 lineup–Daveed Gartenstein-Ross from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and Mike Saccone of the Grand Junction Sentinel.

January 27–Guests included elections expert Jan Tyler and State Sen. Greg Brophy.

January 20–Guests included Todd Shepherd, Independence Institute, and Mark Hillman, Colorado Republican National Committeeman.

January 13–State Rep. Ellen Roberts, R-Durango (HD 59) and State Senator Mike Kopp, SD 22, R-Littleton.

January 6–CU Regent Tom Lucero, chairman of the successful Amendment 54 campaign and a candidate for CD 4 in 2010.

December 30–RMA took a look back at a dismal year in their 2008 year-in-review.

December 23–Joshua and fellow commentators (including yours truly) hosted Jim Pfaff of Americans for Prosperity Foundation and Opinion Times. Pfaff discussed the AFP Colorado report “Keeping Colorado Competitive” and bridging the Christian/libertarian gap.

On December 16 we hosted State Rep. Kevin Lundberg (District 49), and discussed the Salazar appointment as the Secretary of the Interior in the Obama cabinet.

The December 12 edition featured Aurora City Councilman Ryan Frazier.

Complete list of guests featured on RMA Radio can be found here.

**Bookmark the new RMA Radio home page, with embedded player and calendar of upcoming shows and featured guests.

Stream the show live, or play/download the podcast at your convenience.

I’ll update co-host and guest info for each episode as it becomes available. Stay tuned . . .

RMA’s shows are archived–if you missed any of them, be sure to check out the archive page to stream or download, or scroll down this page a bit, for the embedded archive player.

Rossputin Takes On The Government General Motors Takeover Travesty

by Ben DeGrow | 12:37 pm, June 2, 2009

Last night I wrote about my personal connection to a General Motors plant closing. To put that into meaningful (and frightening) perspective, you simply have to read Rossputin’s insightful account of the travesty that is the wildly unpopular government takeover of GM.
It’s the lead story at Human Events, and for good reason. Congratulations, Ross!

Building Taxes: A Tale of Three Cities

by Ari Armstrong | 9:47 am, June 2, 2009

Three different Colorado newspapers recently published stories about how three different cities are handling building taxes in this time of economic recession. The cities are Denver, Loveland, and Boulder.

The Denver Business Journal reports, “The city of Denver will offer free building permits through the first half of June for home-improvement projects as a way to encourage economy-boosting renovation work. … Building-permit fees normally range from $20 to several thousand dollars, depending on the value of the project.”

Did you get that? A building permit for a home-improvement project can cost you as much as several thousand dollars! The city is implicitly granting that these high fees (or taxes; the difference between those terms is increasingly meaningless) hurt economic development. For two weeks the city will stop screwing home owners. But what about the rest of the time?

Still, this is the best story from among our three cities.

The Fort Collins Coloradoan reports:

McWhinney, Loveland Commercial and other developers will ask the Loveland City Council on Tuesday for a 25 percent reduction of 10 permitting fees in hopes of stimulating building in the city.

The reduction would last 18 months and target the city’s community expansion fees, commonly referred to as CEFs. The fees generate revenue for streets, parks, recreation, trails, open space, the public library, the museum, general government, fire protection and law enforcement, assistant city manager Rod Wensing said.

The CEFs together cost $11,339 for every residential building permit issued in the city of Loveland.

So Loveland may give home owners a slight break for a year and a half.

And Boulder? Surely the city is following suit and considering easing building taxes and fees? Of course not.

Boulder’s Daily Camera blared the headline, “Taxes on new Boulder developments could skyrocket.” The paper reports, “For more than a year, the council has been studying whether to replace the city’s voter-approved excise tax structure with an impact-fee system that circumvents voter approval and raises the amounts charged on new development.”

The new taxes would be used to fund government projects and “affordable housing.” Because Boulder has made housing so expensive through its building controls that few can afford housing there. So obviously Boulder needs to charge higher taxes on housing in order to make it more affordable. During a recession. Huh.

The unsophisticated layperson unacquainted with higher Boulder logic might imagine that such taxes would make housing less affordable for some in order to give others a government handout.

It’s the sort of plan that has given Boulder its national reputation.

RMA Blog Talk Radio Tonight at 8:30: Candidates Dan Maes, Cleve Tidwell

by Ben DeGrow | 7:10 am, June 2, 2009

Tune in tonight at 8:30 PM local Mountain time for the 29th edition of Rocky Mountain Alliance Blog Talk Radio. Guests for tonight’s show are a pair of political newcomers making longshot bids for statewide office.
Evergreen businessman Dan Maes will join us to talk about his grassroots campaign for Colorado’s Republican gubernatorial nomination in [...]

Liberal “Generosity”

by TJ Wihera | 12:21 am, June 2, 2009

The City of Denver is offering free construction permits during the first 15 days of June. How strangely in line with property rights! Good golly, it’s like they gave a conservative the chance to put forth an idea, but since they knew you can’t have too much of a good thing, they decided to cap [...]

Clear The Bench Colorado Director Matt Arnold speaks at Larimer County Republican Breakfast Club, June 1st 2009

by CTBC Director | 11:59 pm, June 1, 2009

Clear The Bench Colorado Director Matt Arnold appeared before the Larimer County Republican Breakfast Club on Monday, June 1st to present the case for restoring accountability to Colorado’s Supreme Court.  Highlighting the “key three” Colorado Supreme Court decisions handed down by the current majority, led by Chief Justice Mary Mullarkey, that most egregiously violate the Colorado [...]

The World is Changing: GM Pontiac Plant Closing Strikes Close to Home

by Ben DeGrow | 9:54 pm, June 1, 2009

This report from the Detroit News strikes close to home:

Oakland County is taking a major hit in General Motors Corp.’s restructuring in bankruptcy, with an estimated 6,600 of the 8,900 factory jobs lost in Michigan based in the affluent county north of Detroit.
But one of the plants to be idled, in Orion Township, is in [...]

Transparent Candidate; Opaque President

by Amy Oliver | 6:02 pm, June 1, 2009

Candidate Barack Obama on Transparency:
Whether you believe Government ought to spend more or spend less or just spend differently, we all should be able to agree that Government spending should be transparent and that public information ought to be accessible to the public.
Following his Big Apple date night with First Lady Michelle Obama, the New [...]

DNA Bill: AP Ignores AP Report

by Ari Armstrong | 10:07 am, June 1, 2009

On May 19, the Associated Press reported:

A Longmont man charged in the 1975 stabbing deaths of a Grand Junction mother and her daughter has been ordered to submit fingerprints, DNA and other identifying information as part of the police investigation into the case.

Mesa County District Judge Brian Flynn issued the order Friday for 64-year-old Jerry Nemnich. The order was made public on Monday.

Two days later, the Associated Press claimed, “Gov. Bill Ritter has signed a bill that would require anyone arrested for a felony to submit a DNA sample. … Under the previous state law, only people who are convicted of crimes must submit DNA.”

Apparently Associated Press writers neglect to read Associated Press news reports. It is obviously not the case that “under the previous state law, only people who are convicted of crimes must submit DNA.” Under previous law, a judge could order DNA samples. You know, under the “due process” provision of the apparently superfluous Bill of Rights.

To date, nobody has seriously addressed my concern that the new law — which I called “Bill 1984″ for its Orwellian implications — will encourage police and prosecutors to arrest and charge people just to get a look at their DNA.

That has not stopped Colorado Republicans from crowing about the new police-state law. On May 21, Owen Loftus issued a media release calling it a “GOP Bill,” sponsored by Republicans Steve King and Scott Tipton. (Ritter is a Democrat and the former District Attorney for Denver.)

And State Senator Josh Penry, a leading potential candidate for governor, said in a separate release, “This is a big victory for the good guys. We know this bill will catch murderers, serial rapists and sexual predators who attack children. This legislation also underscores how members of both parties can come together to make Colorado safer — and violent criminals, more accountable.”

But what about the accountability of the police and prosecution, Josh? What about our fundamental rights to security of person and due process? What about the presumption of innocence?

When the police need not respect people’s basic rights as they go about their job, that is not a “victory for the good guys.” Instead, it blurs the line between good guys and bad, and it perverts the purpose of government from protecting rights to violating them.

This is an unpleasant reminder as to why I am not a Republican.

Denver Post Catches On to Anti-Bill Ritter Roadside Sign Phenomenon

by Ben DeGrow | 8:25 am, June 1, 2009

Several weeks ago I brought your attention to a sign of Bill Ritter’s sagging popularity. As the Denver Post’s Tim Hoover reports today, it seems the handmade signs attacking Ritter and his tax hike policies are popping up all over the place in different parts of Colorado.
The article raises the query of who is responsible [...]

Say It Ain’t So, Cleve Tidwell

by Ben DeGrow | 8:08 am, June 1, 2009

Here’s a good bit of important advice to candidates for major political office that apparently isn’t self-evident to all — Don’t go posting comments online under a false identity:

Cleve Tidwell was posing as someone named “Craig Platon” and posting about how “he gave me and everyone else that waited in line all the time we [...]

Tax increase tough without transparency

by Amy Oliver | 7:02 am, June 1, 2009

Greeley Evans District Six, the largest Colorado school district ever to be placed on accreditation watch, wants more money.  According to the Greeley Tribune the district is asking for a mill levy override to fund $32 million in various projects. 
With a bad economy, a mill levy override is going to be a tough sell.  But [...]

Cleve Tidwell: The embodiment of astroturfing

by RMR | 7:00 am, June 1, 2009

First, a bit of background on what is going on so people don’t think this is just coming out of nowhere. We started out trying to be nice to Cleve. We were kind enough to include him in our straw poll for the gubernatorial race even though we knew he had no shot in hell. What did we get for our trouble? Someone prodding a few hundred Indonesians on a message board into hammering our servers to vote for Cleve again and again (and again and again…). We tried to tell them to stop by pointing out that we could tell what was going on and if they stopped we wouldn’t call out their candidate. They didn’t take the hint, and so we called out Tidwell and his supporters on what they did to our poll. Then came the rambling, poorly-spelled comments about Cleve. They got so ridiculous that we had to amend our site policies to prohibit astroturfing and spamming, something that was never an issue with any of the 2008 candidates. In an email exchange with a Tidwell staffer inquiring why we seemed to be snubbing Cleve in our Senate race coverage, we made it clear that we find their astroturfing effort to be incredibly transparent and could easily trace it back to its source if we so chose. We communicated that we would just assume try to ignore their campaign as we didn’t have many positive things to say about it, that seemed like a mutually beneficial arrangement. Evidently not everyone got the memo.

On Friday night, someone left a poorly-spelled comment accusing us of being part of a "Frazier cult" and making the laughable claim that Tidwell’s supporters have never attacked any of the other candidates (you know, except for calling them cultists in the same breath). Here is the comment that was left, which also has an odd story about the purported author meeting Cleve Tidwell at an "El Paso Meetig":

Really a nice surprise to see Mr Tidwell is going to run for office. I heard Mr. Tidwell speak a number of years ago at a convention. I’m sure this is the same person as I looked up more information on his facebook. I knew then he would one day be a name in the political spotlight. I ‘m so glad to see someone with real business experience and a warm individual stepping up to help our state.

This is what we have needed for a while. I am so tired of seeing people trying to make politics their complete life and we get the same old people always giving us there lines of bull. We need real people and people that talk to us like we are somebody. I assure you if you have heard this guy you will know what I mean. I think he was orginially from the south and it showed. Really a gemtleman. I remember when I talked with him after the meeting he gave me and everyone else that waited in line all the time we needed and seemed only interested in what I had to say. That’s the kind of person I can rally around.

We do need help in Colorado

Got my support
Craig Platon

Needless to say we’ve been getting tired of these transparent attempts at astroturfing, especially after we’ve told them to knock it off so many times. After these comments, and some Tidwell people insisting they are not behind this spam campaign, we decided to put the issue to rest once and for all. We decided to figure out if Cleve has some massive legion of supporters spamming on his behalf, as his supporters contend, or if our theory that a small group of people have posting spam on his behalf was correct. What we discovered surprised even us.

The above comments were posted personally by Cleve Tidwell.

Cleve registered for his account on this site using an email address he had posted in other locations back in 2008 (before he started running for this office) and referred to as his "private address."

Now, go back and read those comments again with that in mind. Cleve Tidwell was posing as someone named "Craig Platon" and posting about how "he gave me and everyone else that waited in line all the time we needed and seemed only interested in what I had to say." He also describes himself as a "warm individual." This is a little narcissistic even for a would-be politician.

It is troubling to say the least that a candidate for United States Senate has no apparent ethical qualms with posting as imaginary people supporting himself. Simply posting under a psuedonym and dropping a comment saying something positive about himself would be bad enough, but posting this elaborate backstory is downright bizarre.

The most insulting part of all this is that Cleve had some of his staffers complain about this site in the comments on another blogger’s post. One of them specifically defended Cleve by saying that we were unfair to act as if Cleve had anything to do with the spamming of our gubernatorial straw poll:

Now as for the Rocky Mountain Right. Your team had an issue with one person spamming a poll for Tidwell, and you assumed that Cleve told the person to do it. Afterwards, you have treated Cleve like he’s some Harry Potter villain by saying “The Candidate who must shall not be named” on the Gubernatorial straw poll. You also added the “Cleve Doctrine” on your rules about spammers. I would expect this type of treatment from CNN, but from a Conservative Blog?

If you’re keeping track, Cleve’s bizarre comment as "Craig Platon" was left on the straw poll post they are denying he had involvement with. I can only assume that Cleve’s staffers are in the dark as to their candidate’s behavior. Cleve should be ashamed of himself of putting them in the position of having to defend his dishonest spam comments and rambling emails.

Cleve: You need to realize right now that you do not have the right to post your lies on our sites without getting called out. Just because you decided to move here and try to put your name on a ballot does not mean that we will swallow your outrageous claims without question. You need to immediately issue a few apologies if you are half the "gemtleman" that your alter-ego Craig seems to think you are. Here a few aggrieved parties you may want to start with:

• The writers of every blog you have ever posed as a fake person on.
• Everyone who read your comments and believed they were reading something from a real supporter.
• The young, idealistic staffers you made carry water for you on this.

 UPDATE: Ben DeGrow unearths comments from Cleve under the name "Kattie Botts."

UPDATE 2: Here’s one of the "Kattie Botts" comments re-posted at Slapstick Politics under the name "Stacy."

UPDATE 3: Here’s a comment left on 5280.com in an identical writing style to Cleve’s other comments smearing Bob Beauprez, Marc Holtzman, and Josh Penry.

UPDATE 4: From the Tidwell campaign site:

‘Right on Right’ on Crime

We at the Cleve Tidwell for Senate campaign are greatly dismayed at the thought of rogue individuals speaking on our behalf. Our volunteers are very enthusiastic, but we have sent instructions to anyone using emails on behalf of Cleve Tidwell or the Cleve Tidwell Campaign to use those accounts only with permission from our messaging team. Individuals that speak on our behalf or that support us, are encouraged to do so with the utmost civility. As conservatives, that is our goal.

We, too, are concerned with ‘astroturfing’ on our behalf and we appreciate only supporters that our genuinely interested in our platform. We encourage support, but discourage ‘spamming’.

Our interest is in getting our message out in a very positive way. We are concerned that various websites may be getting responses from people, within our campaign or outside of our campaign in our name, that do not reflect our true values and message.

Please provide us with any information that you may have, so that we may do our own investigation. We would like to know who is behind this as well.

We can assure you that our best interest is served by being as transparent as possible and supporting true conservative debate.

Thank you for your assistance in this matter and we look forward to working with all our supporters in an open, honest, and transparent way.

 

General Motors bankrupt; Government Motors coming soon

by Rossputin | 5:27 am, June 1, 2009

Following the anti-climactic filing of General Motors for bankruptcy protection, it’s hard to see how the future looks much better for the company or the American taxpayer.

For my more in-depth look at the GM bankruptcy, please see my article at Human Events, and I’ll have more to say about this tomorrow as well:

see “GM Bankrupt: Obama Takes Over”, Ross Kaminsky, HumanEvents.com, 6/1/09
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=32085

Will medical insurance industry hang itself?

by Brian Schwartz | 1:30 am, June 1, 2009

Insurance industry representative Karen Ignagni correctly fears that the “government-run insurance plan that Obama supports … would put private insurers out of business.”  (Denver Post, May 24) This is why supporters of single-payer medicine like it — it’s an incremental step toward a government insurance monopoly.
But Ms. Ignagni’s group has warmed to mandatory insurance, which [...]

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