Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords Claims Attack by Health Care Opponents

Typical of Democrats who have made a political bludgeoning instrument of victimization, is Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a Democrat from Arizona. Giffords told an MSNBC reporter this morning that the glass door to her Tucson office was either "kicked in, smashed, or shot out" by person(s) opposed to her "yes" vote on health care.

Do I need to say that I am opposed to vandalism or similar tactics before I go on to say that I am opposed also to her tactics of governance by insinuation and victimization. I didn't get a look at Giffords' door but I can assure you that she was lost in the ozone of deep hyperbole in making her MSNBC claims. Must ObamaCare supporters in Congress create a new bogeyman?

There is a great deal of difference between a broken door window and a glass door assaulted by a concentrated effort of right-wing militia. An article in the Sierra Vista Herald, where Giffords' maintains another office, reports that "there is no investigative conclusion as to whether the glass in the door was kicked out or shattered by a pellet gun."

Giffords' only reason for mentioning the "shots" could have been to conjure up visions of a well-armed right wing militia in order to create a diversion, stir up the base, and to thwart the searing and widespread criticism of the bill's opponents. According to the Los Angeles Times, no one was in the building at the time of the right-wing "attack" and no one was injured.

Giffords' press secretary told a reporter "there was no way to say categorically the Rep. Giffords' favorable vote on the health care bill was the direct cause of the vandalism."

Giffords might have issued that disclaimer herself and also mentioned the pellet gun theory. Instead, she went on MSNBC with a purpose, that purpose being to spread the agreed upon narrative that health care Democrats were being assailed by the "right-wing" instead of by millions of ordinary citizens who know it is a bad, deceptive, and financially destructive bill which will soon exceed its wildly hyperbolic cost claims.

Meanwhile, the Sierra Vista Herald says in covering the same story that "someone apparently fired a pellet gun at the glass," something that routinely occurs and is often perpetrated by youthful offenders. Pellet gun or B-B gun, vandalism is a violation of law, but a more responsible politician wouldn't have tried to create the notion that her office was under attack by a balaclava wearing right-wing militia armed with assault weapons.

I agreed with Giffords when she said that our democracy "a beacon to the world." Or at least it was-until the health care bill was shoved down America's throat though the majority of people were against it and all polls showed that. An honest vote, without the arm-twisting, special deals, and concessions to Congress members from various states, Big Pharma, the hospitals, and the insurance companies, would have failed to pass even the Democratically controlled House. The White House knows this but, in its infinite disrespect for common sense, accounting practices, and democracy, it is betting they can turn the narrative around with adherence to a consistent story line and a public relations campaign, especially since much of the 2700 page bill is unknown.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Corporate giant Verizon sent an email to all of it nearly 1 million employees which essentially tells them, just one day after President Obama signs the bill, that their health care premiums are either going to increase in the "short-term" and that current employees and retirees should expect less. Read the short-term to mean the period between now and 2014. In other words, somebody's going to have to pay for the increases to their present health care- employees, retirees, consumers, taxpayers. You can guess who's not going to pay for it.

Unlike the current purposefully myopic White House, private telecom giants like Verizon, health care corporations, and insurance companies must file reports which project many years ahead-well beyond 2014. According to the Wall Street Journal editorial, Verizon supported ObamaCare through it's membership in the Business Roundtable. There's no need to understand the intricacies of these tangled relationships, just that ObamaCare supporters and lobbyists, are anticipating a big return on investment for their quiescence.