Canadian Premier Passes Up National Health Service for a Miami Hospital

Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams speaks to members of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce in Calgary, Thursday, Dec. 3, 2009. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

Daniel E. "Danny" Williams is the premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, and while his party is regarded as "centrist" by Canadian standards, during the 2008 Canadian federal election he led what he termed the "ABC Campaign"(Anything But Conservative) in his province, in opposition to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Last year the 60-year-old Williams was diagnosed with a heart murmur, and in December his doctors told him the problem had become severe and cautioned that unless his heart valve was repaired immediately, he risked heart failure.

And where do you think a Canadian provincial leader goes to get urgent heart surgery?

To the world-class national health service that Obamunists point to as a model for the United States? Not in your life!

Saying "this was my heart, my choice and my health," the premier headed straight to Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami, where cardiac surgeon Dr. Joseph Lamelas has successfully performed the needed procedure.

The liberals are all alike, aren't they? Socialized medicine for you, but not for their hearts. No D.C. Scholarship program to help someone else's kids escape the hell that is District of Columbia Public School System, but Sidwell Friends Academy for their children.

Sotomayor's Double Standard

Membership in exclusionary clubs has been an issue in federal nominations for decades, and in New York City liberal feminists succeeded in banning venerable, old "gentlemen only" clubs a half century ago. But apparently political correctness and laws don't apply to the feminists themselves. The Washington Times editorializes about the double standard that permits Sonia Sotomayor to belong to an elite club for women only.

EDITORIAL: Sotomayor's Club for Women Only

The Democrats' double standard on gender

It was revealed Friday that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor belongs to the Belizean Grove, a highly selective club for women only. Senate Judiciary Chairman Sen. Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont announced Tuesday that her confirmation hearings will begin on July 13. If this judge were a man, the nomination would never make it to the Senate for hearings.

The Belizean Grove, founded in 1999, is modeled on the Bohemian Grove, a secretive, elite club for men only. The 125 members of the Belizean Grove include Army generals, Wall Street executives and former ambassadors. Ms. Sotomayor joined after becoming a circuit court judge.

We don't care if nominees belong to all-male or all-female clubs, but a double standard is in play. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.'s supposed membership in an all-male eating club while an undergraduate at Princeton became an issue during his 2006 Supreme Court confirmation hearing. When Judge D. Brooks Smith was nominated to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in 2001, his confirmation was held up for almost a year in part because he belonged to an all-male fishing and gun club.

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