Free Republic

A Maryland family caught in the partisan crossfire over a children's health-care bill in Congress is now stepping back into the divisive debate, advocating this time for state legislation that would expand coverage for adults. Three weeks ago, after 12-year-old Graeme Frost offered a radio appeal for expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), his family became fodder for conservative bloggers. The Frosts were derided as freeloaders who relied on government insurance for their children while they sent two to private school. Bloggers staked out their Baltimore rowhouse, declaring it too fancy for a family that can't afford...

Michelle Malkin talked to FOX's John Gibson, audio here, about the heat she has taken in reporting on the Frost family. Here's a quick "rough" summary: Gibson: "Dems trotted out a kid to be poster child for this bill then objected when someone would look into background like what is their financial condition, what help do they actually need- you can't do that because you are now a purveyor of hate. Joining me now, Michelle Malkin-somehow you got named a big villain in this battle. How'd you do that?" MM-"I listened to folks in the blogosphere, a number were asking...

"One blog, Free Republic.com, posted a report that said Frost attended a private school where tuition was $20,000 a year, that the family lives in an area where one home recently sold for nearly $500,000, and that a photo and "shows what appears to be a recent remodeling job with granite counter tops and glass-front cabinets.""

House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) blamed “hate radio” for demeaning children who were being used to lobby for an expansion of federally funded health insurance in a press conference late Tuesday morning. In the run-up to a House vote to override President Bush’s veto of a $35 billion increase to the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, children like the 12-year old Graeme Frost---who suffered brain injuries after a car accident-- have been pushed to the forefront of the debate. Frost’s position as a so-called “poster child” for SCHIP became controversial when his family’s assets were investigated. This reporter asked...

Congress: After smearing a compassionate conservative in their attempt to override President Bush's veto of an overloaded SCHIP bill, Democrats promise to try again. Maybe next time they will tell the truth.SNIPUnder the Democrats' proposed expansion, says the National Center for Public Policy Research, "it is not inconceivable that a parent with one child with an income of $13,690 will be funding benefits for two children in a family of four with an income of $82,600." "Isn't that sad for America's children?" Pelosi said of the prospect of Bush's veto being sustained. Well, no, not if Pelosi is willing to...

Pelosi: Radio attacks on boy unfair By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent 53 minutes ago Seeking support for a vetoed children's health insurance bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi charged Tuesday that "hate radio has made a vicious attack" on a 12-year-old Baltimore boy who receives coverage through the program. Pelosi said the allegations were "beneath the dignity of the debate" that surrounds the legislation. Democrats hope to enact the measure over Bush's opposition, and a House vote scheduled for Thursday. A two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress is required to override a veto, and supporters of the measure appear...

Conservatives often complain that republicans back down, that they have no spine, that they wilt when faced with criticism of "but its for the children!" Will the fight over the S-CHIP expansion veto be a repeat? Many media outlets and left wing blogs are crowing about all the supposed falsehoods contained in my original post. Before you go running for the hills, tail between your legs, can we at least take a look at each and every point made in that post? You know, the one that "attacks a 12 year old boy". I keep hearing how all my info...

Initial reports over the weekend were that 12 year old boy Graeme Frost was going to walk point yet again for the Democrats on Countdown tonight. However, MSNBC informs us that his parents, Halsey and Bonnie Frost, are stepping up to the plate, sort of. They're going on with Softball with Keith Olbermann. From the Countdown blog at MSNBC:Tonight we'll have the parents of the child who started a thousand smears. You remember Graeme Frost, the 12-year-old boy who was held up as an example of someone whom S-CHIP would be a great help to and who the radical right...

Sen. Harry Reid lured two young children to the public spotlight to help him pass a massive expansion of government health insurance. Gemma and Graeme Frost, 9 and 12 years old respectively, were severely injured in a car accident three years ago. Because liberal lawmakers cannot honestly defend their expansion plans as bona fide aids to the needy, they have surrounded themselves with the Frosts and other kiddie human shields to deflect any tough scrutiny. They invoke the kiddie card to attack their critics for "attacking the children." After 12-year-old Graeme Frost delivered the Democrat radio address, which was penned...

Do people on the dole have a reasonable expectation of privacy vis-à-vis their financial affairs? No. That question, though not always my answer, is coming up frequently as defenders of the Democratic Party's $35 billion SCHIP expansion proposal condemn bloggers and talk show hosts, including Rush Limbaugh, who have examined the statement penned by aides to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and delivered as the official Democratic Party rebuttal to President Bush's weekly radio address by 12-year-old Graeme Frost, that the State Childrens Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is for "families like mine." The questioners' question: If Graeme Frost's family isn't...

Two weeks ago, the Democratic response to President Bush’s weekly radio address was delivered by a 12-year-old, Graeme Frost. SNIP What followed should serve as a teaching moment. SNIP Soon after the radio address, right-wing bloggers began insisting that the Frosts must be affluent because Graeme and his sister attend private schools (they’re on scholarship), because they have a house in a neighborhood where some houses are now expensive (the Frosts bought their house for $55,000 in 1990 when the neighborhood was rundown and considered dangerous) and because Mr. Frost owns a business (it was dissolved in 1999). You might...

Conservatives claim to be in favor of stable families, small businesses, hard work, private schools, investment and homeownership. So why in the world are so many on the right attacking the family of Graeme Frost? SNIP The kids were treated, thanks to S-CHIP. The Frosts spoke out so the public would know that real people lie behind the acronym. Their reward was to be trashed on right-wing blogs and talk radio as if they were multimillionaires ripping off the system. The assault on the Frosts apparently began on the Free Republic website and quickly spread to National Review Online, Power...

This may be interesting: The Frosts joined the debate through family acquaintance Vinnie DeMarco, the president of the Maryland Citizens' Health Initiative. DeMarco introduced them to the pro-SCHIP organization Families USA, which put them in touch with Pelosi's office. So who is Vinnie DeMarco? A busy lefty activist with more than the expansion of S-CHIP on his mind. He even has time to go after Wal-Mart, along with guns and higher taxes. He brags about changing the nation by beating on business here. Around two years ago the Maryland Citizens’ Health Initiative (MCHI) stepped into the breach with the bold...

Since then, Frost and his family have been introduced first-hand to something else that most kids his age haven't: the reality of how brutal partisan politics can be in the Internet age. It started over the weekend, when a blogger calling himself Icwhatudo put up a post on the conservative website Freerepublic.com noting what he had found by scavenging around the internet: that Graeme attends a private school, lives in a remodeled house near one that had sold for $485,000 in March and is the child of parents whose wedding was announced in the New York Times. The post also...

Her Heinous Hillary, Senatrix from New York, smartest woman in the world, enabler of sexual predator Bill Clinton and launderer of Chinese cash spoke out in Boston tonight on the efforts of conservatives to shed light on the efforts by Democrats to expand S-CHIP benefits to middle class families.According to the Associated Press, Clinton warned President Bush and Republicans to, "lay off Graeme Frost," the 12 year old boy being used by her party as a human shield to ward off efforts to incrementally nationalize health care.Clinton, who was reported to have led the campaign to intimidate and discredit women...

This morning, while researching stories following icwhatudo's article about the Frost family and S-CHIP, I noted a curious edit in Michelle Malkin's syndicated column in the New York Post. The credit given to posters at FreeRepublic.com for breaking the story was edited from the Post's version of the column. A check of other outlets publishing Malkin's column today showed that the Free Republic mention was not edited out by her other publishers. The syndicated version:After 12-year-old Graeme Frost delivered the Democrat radio address, which was penned for him by Senate staffers, conservatives on the FreeRepublic.com forum and across the Internet...

When Halsey and Bonnie Frost agreed to go public with how the State Children's Health Insurance Program helped them after a car crash left two of their children comatose, the Baltimore couple expected to hear from critics of government-funded health care. But while the Frosts were helping a bipartisan majority in Congress sell a plan to expand the program, they were not prepared for...

But what on the surface appears to be yet another partisan feud, all the nastier because a child is at the center of it, actually cuts to the most substantive debate around SCHIP. Some Democrats say it is needed to help the working poor — Medicaid already helps the impoverished — but some Republicans say the program wrongly rewards too many people with the means to help themselves. The feud also illustrates what can happen when politicians showcase real people to make a point, a popular but often perilous technique. In this case, the discourse has been anything but polite...

SNIP The onslaught began over the weekend, a week after 12-year-old Graeme Frost delivered the Democrats' weekly radio address with a plea to Bush to sign the bill. A contributor to the conservative Web site Free Republic noted Graeme's enrollment in the private Park School and the sale of a smaller rowhouse on the Frosts' block for $485,000 this year and questioned whether the family should be taking advantage of the state program. SNIP The Frosts say the description of their family's circumstances now circulating is misleading. Halsey, they say, is a self-employed woodworker - he has no employees -...

While announcing his Worst Person in the World awards for today, Olbermann named Limbaugh because he cited "the lunatic, fringe website FRee Republic.com" as confirming that Graham Frost, saved by S chip public health care was a recipient of public aid because he and his sister go to private school, when, according to Olbermann, they are there on scholarship.KO then said that the "group of sociopaths" at FRee Republic posted the home address of the Frost family , in what Olbermann presumed to be "in hopes that some psychotic will go there and attack them".