Dr. Hurd's comment, sent out to colleagues and associates:

You might remember a couple of weeks back that the White House set up a special email address for citizens to "flag" fellow citizens who disagreed with beloved Mr. President's health care legislation. The infamous email address was This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Evidently they were flooded with hostile emails, including a lot of people who sent emails saying, "Flag me. Go ahead."

Here's what you now get when you sent an email to that address::host mailhub-wh2.whitehouse.gov[63.161.169.140] said: 550 5.2.1 ...The email address you just sent a message to is no longer in service. We are now accepting your feedback about health insurance reformvia:http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck (in reply to RCPT TO command)

At first, the White House refused to back down from the email address or the principle behind it. Now they have. Obama will have to come up with a plan B for restricting freedom of speech.

One of Dr. Hurd's associates replied:

What is the difference between the 2 sites other than a change in name? Is not the intention the same, just a less confrontational name? The party of equality has the infinite resources of the government to back their ideology and enforce the "correct" answers. We see it in the town meetings where [Sen. Ben] Cardin [of Maryland] and [Barney] Frank etc. discount the views of the public which are at variance to their "correct" ideas. I don't believe that either of these two are concerned about re-election so why bother really listening to the constituents; the meetings were for them to sell the plan. The meetings deliberately begged the question of if we can now afford a health care plan, where does it fit in with priorities for extricating us from the financial crisis, immigration policies for amnesty, etc. Don't bother attacking tort reform which could save more money but jeopardize the income of lawyers. Don't bother that the costs will be escalated and we should first address efficiency issues for the existing health care mess. The program Obama has undertaken is to divert attention from the "if we should" issue to "how should we"; it is now understood to be assumed and inevitable. How can a group of such self proclaimed geniuses not include one student of history? Perhaps Obama may have created a basis for true reform after all. There is a ground swell of people fed up with the way government functions. Maybe the next elections will throw some of the bums out and replace them with a new set of bums. Could you ever believe that I could look back on Clinton with fond memories?

Dr. Hurd's comment:

I'm intrigued by the idea of a "ground swell" of support for an alternative to both ObamaCare and semi-socialized medicine as we know it. We stand where we are today, on the brink of government dictatorship in medicine, because after the defeat of Hillary Clinton's plan all those years ago, Republicans proposed NOTHING to replace the high level of government regulation and control we have. They could have at least proposed partially privatizing Medicare, Medicaid and all the restrictions on health insurance companies that drive prices ever higher and force doctors into more bureaucracy and confusion. I blame the Republicans for allowing us to get to this point. What we need is not to restore power to the old bums, but to find people actually able and willing to roll back ALL government controls and restore freedom in medicine NOW. We need the opposite extreme of Obama. The un-Obama. Anyone interested?