Yesterday, Barack Obama took his dog and pony show on the road to highlight his push for nationalized health care. The Townhall event was a sham as all the attendees were hand picked and all the questions were pre-screened. The highlight of the Townhall event was a person by the name of Susan Smith from Virginia. She told a sob story of being ill for years and not being able to work. She told of the high cost of going to a doctor and her inability to pay for that cost. She then received a hug from Mr. Obama.

Susan told a great story. She did it with great emotion. Everyone in the audience at the Townhall meeting was moved, but they were supposed to be moved. The television cameras took it in and I am sure many people nationwide believed her story. When I heard it on the radio I believed it, until I heard the rest of the story. Susan Smith worked for Senator Tom Daschle during his hearings on health care. She chaired the meeting in Northwest Virginia. At that time, she exhibited no signs of any illness. She was the epitome of health and fitness. Those meetings with Tom Daschle were less than one year ago. Either a lot happened in one year or she is telling a whopper of a story right now. Since her story was supposed to cover many years, I tend to believe the whopper story. That makes that portion of the Townhall meeting completely false.

On Tuesday, the press was talking to the Press Secretary about how tightly controlled the audience was for this Townhall meeting. The Press Secretary tried to gloss over the fact, but Helen Thomas spoke up and said it was the most controlled audience she had experienced in her 50 years in Washington. That was quite damning evidence if you ask me. Helen Thomas is usually in the back pocket of the liberals, but I think that this controlled environment is getting to her. The other reporters were starting to chafe at the restrictions put on them by the Obama administration. The bloom may be off the rose for the Obama administration. At least, I hope the bloom is off the rose. We need honest reporting coming from the news media. What we have had is Democrat talking points coming from the news media. That is not reporting that is propaganda of the worst kind. The press was freer in the former Soviet Union than the press is behaving today.

The health care initiative of Barack Obama is as false as the Townhall meeting that tried to sell it to the American people. Obama constantly says that the public option is there to increase competition. When Medicare was started, there were a lot of insurance companies that served the older population. After Medicare came on the scene, these insurance companies quickly went into other lines of insurance. The same thing would happen if the public option ever became law. But, the public option would not have to become law for the government to control health care. They would just set very restrictive rules for the insurance companies and doctors to follow and it would amount to the same thing. The only difference would be that you would pay a company instead of the government. The final outcome would be the same.

What got us into the current mess in healthcare is government involvement. To get us out of this mess, we need to remove government from the healthcare industry as much as possible. That would allow competition to take place. In medicine where there is no government interference, prices for services have gotten cheaper or the quality has greatly improved. For example: Years ago, it cost about $1000 per eye to get your eyes fixed by a process called radial keratotomy. Now, it costs between $300 and $1000 per eye to get various laser surgeries. The radial keratotomy cut the cornea of your eye. These laser surgeries do no such thing. They are safer and more reliable. The cost is the same or less than the old procedure. What got us this reduced cost is competition.

In other medicine, government red tape costs doctors and hospitals millions of dollars to fill out forms. This drives up costs and lowers the quality of care. Under socialized medicine, this problem will get worse. Paperwork always gets worse when the government gets involved. When you take the government out of things, paperwork goes down and costs go down.

That is why we have to stop Obamacare from becoming law. If it takes hold the United States as a country of individualism is finished. We would become another European socialist state that will not defend itself. We have to keep America free. Our ancestors fought to give us this freedom. Let’s not give up the freedom our Founding Fathers fought for because of some lies from the White House. We are better than that. We deserve better than that. We need to stand up to this attempt at tyranny and say, “NO!” If we say we do not want socialized medicine at this time, it is defeated for at least a generation or more. That will save our children and our grandchildren the disasters that come with socialized medicine.

There were two items that happened yesterday that need to be mentioned today. The first is the fact that Barack Obama is taking a position on the Honduras Presidential situation that is exactly the same as three known communist dictators and against the rule of law. The second is that Al Franken officially was declared the winner in the Minnesota Senate race. That means that he stole the Senate seat from Minnesota. We are in big trouble if both of these are allowed to go unchallenged.

The most disturbing is the fact that the United States is being put in a position supporting a communist dictator against the people of Honduras. The President of Honduras wanted a second term of office. In fact, he wanted to be President as long as he wanted to be President. The Constitution in Honduras said that he could only hold one four year term of office. So, the President decided to change the Constitution. The only problem with that was that the Legislature had to initiate the process to change the Constitution and they refused to do it. He then decided to have a referendum on his own, without the legislature’s approval. The legislature had to approve the funding to print the ballots and they refused. So, he had the ballots printed in Venezuela with Venezuelan money. When the ballots were delivered to Honduras, the country’s Supreme Court had the ballots seized. The President then organized a mob to get the ballots and hold the election. The Supreme Court ordered the Army to arrest the President and have him removed from the country. That was completed.

Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega, all of our hemisphere’s communists, went on record denouncing the effort in Honduras as a coup. It was not a coup, but a Constitutional effort under the direction of the Supreme Court and the Legislature. Barack Obama sided with the communists and against the free people of Honduras. Today, the leaders in Canada also called on Honduras to allow the return of the dictator to power.

Our country should be on the side of freedom, wherever and whenever we find it. In our current President, we find him not supporting freedom when given the chance and supporting dictators whenever given the chance. This is backwards from what should be happening. Is it just me or is there something wrong with this picture? I am getting the feeling that we are being prepared for something in the future. I am not sure of what that something is, but I have a feeling that I will not like it when it happens. The early indicators are that freedom will not have a part of the Obama legacy.

The second disturbing thing is the elevation of Al Franken to the Senate. He lost the race in November. He lost the first recount. He lost the second recount. Then, his lawyers started finding votes where none existed and he managed to take a 700+ vote deficit into a 300+ vote victory. In the process, every canvassing board decision went against Norm Coleman. The Supreme Court decided that there was no pattern of deceit in the actions of the Franken team or the Minnesota canvassing board. That they could not see the obvious is ridiculous. Anyone with an eye and a brain can put one and one together to add up to two. This is the second election that the Democrats have stolen from the Republicans. The first was the Washington Governor’s race a few years back. In both cases, the Republican won the race and the first couple of recounts. It wasn’t until the Democrat vote producing machine took hold that the vote actually changed from Republican to Democrat. In both cases, miraculous votes appeared from unlikely places to give the Democrat the edge. In every case, the votes came from Democrat held counties. There were never any additional votes found in counties that were held by Republican officials. That makes one smell a rat. If this were a fair recount, there would be votes found in every county or at least most counties. No, all the votes found were in the heaviest Democrat counties. Either the Democrat held counties are the worst places to get votes counted properly or there was voting fraud after the election. I tend to believe the latter.

These two things do not bode well for the future. Al Franken makes it impossible for Republicans to stop anything without Democrat help. That means that any bill the Democrats can muster every Democrat to vote for will pass. It means Sonia Sotomayor will be on the Supreme Court, even though she is not qualified. Al Franken in the Senate is a disaster for America.

Barack Obama is signaling solidarity with his communist brethren. He has done this by coddling Kim Jong Il. He is standing firm against freedom everywhere he finds it. He is even standing firm against freedom at home. We are in big trouble as long as King Barack I is in office. Or is it Comrade Barack? I do not have good feelings about what will happen between now and November 2010. I just hope that there is still an America there that will be able to vote in November 2010. If we get to vote, the Democrats will all be lame ducks between November 2010 and January 2011. That is when they could inflict real damage, but that damage might be just temporary.

Yesterday, I wrote about the Ricci v deStefano case that was decided by the Supreme Court. At the time I had read only preliminary reports. The report I read said that the decision was 9-0. At least that is how I remembered it. It also said that the underlying Constitutional issue was not to be decided and the vote on that one was 8-1 with Justice Thomas the only one voting to decide the Constitutional issue. The actual vote on the Ricci case was 5-4. Some reports had the decision as 5-4 and others as 9-0. The ones with 9-0 were reading Justice Ginsberg’s minority report and interpreting it.

Justice Ginsberg and Justice Scalia said basically the same thing in their minority and majority reports, respectively. Both said that the second court of appeals had not followed the law and was not doing their job. They also said that the standard for deciding whether the case should be decided one way or another should not be whether the defendant would be sued, but whether they would be held liable. In this case, the city of New Haven was obviously liable in denying the firefighters their promotions. The only real difference between the reports by Ginsberg and Scalia is in how they determined how the court should have responded. Justice Scalia said that the court should decide in favor of the firefighters as they had been discriminated against. Justice Ginsberg said that the firefighters deserved the sympathy of the court and that was the proper remedy of the court. So, the difference was in how to apply the law, not in whether the city was liable. That was so obvious that they felt anyone could have seen that.

For the most part, my blog of yesterday was correct. I was incorrect in a few particulars and those I wanted to correct today. The main one was the actual final vote of the Supreme Court. That actual vote was 5-4. I reported the vote as 9-0. Rush Limbaugh among others said that the difference between Scalia and Ginsberg was so small that in effect the vote was 9-0.

I was correct in my assessment that the Supreme Court was voting on the fitness of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to sit on the Supreme Court. I stand by this assessment as all nine justices voted that she showed exceedingly poor judgment as an appeals court judge in this case. I am sure that all nine of the Justices would agree that anyone with judgment that poor would not make a good Supreme Court Justice.

Some liberal pundits are saying that Judge Sotomayor would be the liberal equivalent to Justice Scalia. That is something that has no evidence. Of course, liberals do not need evidence to conclude that something is true. Look at global warming and you see that all you have to do is say something is true and a liberal will believe it. So, if you say that Judge Sotomayor will be the liberal equivalent of Justice Scalia, liberals believe it. She has not shown any ability to write. Her writings have been exceedingly dull at best. She does write better than Barack Hussein Obama, but my 10 year old writes better than Obama. She can give a decent speech, but her speeches show none of the intellectual prowess that Justice Scalia is famous for. I guess that other than speaking and writing, she would be the equal of Justice Scalia. Of course, if you subtract writing and speaking there isn’t much left to go on.

Sonia Sotomayor is an intellectual lightweight. She is a racist. She writes poorly. Her speeches are decent, but nothing to stay up late for. Other than being an average speaker, she perfectly reflects the person that nominated her for the Supreme Court. If she actually makes it to the Supreme Court, Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas will make her look like the fool she really is. Chief Justice Roberts will also make her look like an intellectual lightweight, though he is much more laid back than Justices Scalia and Thomas.

Sonia Sotomayor should not be on the Supreme Court. That is a true statement, unless there is information that has not come to light yet. Since Democrats would have put out the best information first, I doubt that we will find out anything better on her in the coming few weeks. Given the preponderance of Democrats she will probably be confirmed by the Senate. That would be a travesty. It would not be the first, nor sadly will it be the last.

Today, the Supreme Court announced their decision on the Ricci case involving the white firefighters that were denied a promotion entirely because of race. In effect, this decision was a referendum on Sonia Sotomayor because she was one of the judges that denied the firefighters their day in court at the appeals court level. She did not think that the case was important enough to even give it the time of day. The Supreme Court thought otherwise and took the case. They made a decision and unlike most Supreme Court decisions, this one was not even close. The vote was 9-0. The Supreme Court said that the white and Hispanic firefighters were denied the promotions because of race and race alone.

Barack Obama and the Sonia Sotomayor supporters have to be blown away by the decision. In recent years we have been accustomed to decisions that were 5-4. A decision that was not close was 6-3. This one was 9-0, which rarely happens in the high profile cases that get reported on the news. In effect, the Supreme Court was saying that Sonia Sotomayor was outside of the judicial mainstream. How the decision will play out in the final analysis is yet to be written. That is because Democrats are so good at spinning bad news as good news. But, any way you cut it, this is bad news for Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.

For those that wonder what the Ricci case was about, I will give a short report. This short report will get the basic ideas right, but may contain an error or two. The city that started this whole affair wanted to promote some firefighters to Captain and Lieutenant. They contracted with a firm that specialized in producing racial neutral tests. The test was determined to be racial neutral before it was given. When the results were announced, 20 white and 4 Hispanic firefighters had passed the test out of the pool of just under 40 who took the test for Captain. The results were similar for Lieutenant. After announcing the results, the city did not certify them as they decided that not enough black firefighters had made the list. In the city’s decision, the test was racially biased because not enough black firefighters made the list. After throwing out the results of the test, 19 white firefighters and one Hispanic firefighter sued the city. The case became known as the Ricci case after one of the firefighters.

At the appeals court, Sonia Sotomayor and the majority decided that the case did not deserve a decision. They tried to bury it with a non-decision. They were forced to make a decision, so they just rubberstamped the lower court’s decision by attaching the lower court’s report to their report. The judges on the appeals court that disagreed wrote scathing reports. The case was selected as one of the about 300 cases that the Supreme Court heard this year. It was decided that they would hear this case, prior to Sonia Sotomayor being nominated to sit on the Supreme Court.

How is Sonia Sotomayor going to sit on the Supreme Court when they just gave her a trip to the proverbial woodshed? She should have known better. This case was so obvious that a second grader without any legal training could have gotten it right. The only way you could have gotten this case wrong is if you had your mind set in the wrong direction in the first place. Anyone with an ounce of fairness and objectivity could have seen that the city was obviously wrong. Sonia Sotomayor was so racially charged that she was unable to see the case for what it was. She could only see the case for what she wanted it to be. How many other cases are there that she decided on what she wanted them to be?

The 9-0 decision brings into question the ability of Sonia Sotomayor to even see clearly the difference between right and wrong. If she has a mindset in one direction, she would be unable to see the truth if it hit her square in the jaw. Any Senator who votes to confirm her today would be an obvious racist or someone who is so tied to racial politics that the difference is like that between a 6 and the sum of 3+3. I believe that if the vote to confirm were today, she would not be confirmed. The Democrats have to hold off for a time to let the waters calm down on this one.

Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation is on thin ice at this time. More information is needed on what she believes is right and wrong. I know that sounds stupid for a question, but she could not tell the difference in an obvious case. She has some difficult questions to answer now. I was for letting her be confirmed and fight the next one. Now, I see that she is so far out of the judicial mainstream as to be in the mountains, not the water at all. Until I am satisfied that this case was a case of brain freeze (highly unlikely), I will be against supporting Sonia Sotomayor. I will urge all I know, including my Senators and my Congressman to urge her defeat as well. I know my Congressman does not vote to confirm, but he still needs to know my position. I feel that strongly about it right now.

Since Governor Sanford reappeared, the talk shows have had almost non-stop talk about the situation. The facts are rather simple. The Governor was attracted to a woman, not his wife. This went on for a while in relative privacy. Then, he decided to visit her in Argentina. When he made the visit, he did not confide in anyone on where he was going. That is why the false story about the hiking trip was given out. After learning that he was discovered, Governor Sanford admitted to the affair and resigned from the leadership post with the Republican Governor’s Association.

The story is a familiar one. A man in a powerful position finds himself attracted to women. Even though he is married, he decides that nobody will find out about an affair with “this woman”. So, the powerful man breaks his marriage vows and has the affair with the exciting woman that he has found. Of course, he is found out. Some, at this point, try to lie their way out like Bill Clinton. Others, like Mark Sanford, own up to the error and admit the affair. The one thing that almost all of them do not do is give up the power that they currently hold. It is extremely rare for a person in power to give that up over an affair with a woman. They may give up leadership positions, but not the position of power that they currently hold. If the person is a Democrat, things are forgotten and go back to normal. If the person is a Republican, he is hounded all the way through the election to guarantee that he loses and a Democrat can pick up the seat.  This situation is following in the typical pattern. It is still early, so we do not know how it will finally play out.

Mark Sanford was talked about as Presidential material. That talk is now over. This affair will ruin his career potential. He has reached the maximum level that he will ever reach in politics. He could have gone much higher. He was saying and doing all the right things to enable him to be nominated for President or Vice-President.

Mike Gallagher asked a question on his radio program this morning that was intriguing. The question is whether we can have living heroes. Mike Gallagher had put Mark Sanford in the hero category because of his track record on the issues. Now that Mark Sanford has shown that he has feet of sand, he has proven that he is not a hero. Many of us do the same thing with other politicians or public figures. The problem is that all of these “heroes” are human. Humans, by definition, make mistakes. If we accept the fact that humans make mistakes, then we also should accept that our “heroes” will make mistakes. We just have to hope that the mistakes we are talking about are a little smaller than this one by Mark Sanford. For example: I put John Wayne in the hero category. I know that he smoked, but he still qualifies as a hero because of a great many other qualities. The same would work for almost all people that would qualify as heroes. The only unblemished heroes would be fictional or Jesus Christ. All others are fallible human beings.

The Democrats will make hay out of this admission by Mark Sanford and the other recent one by John Ensign. They will claim that Republicans are hypocrites. We preach about family values, then go off and have affairs. These affairs actually prove the message, not disprove the message. The fact that they are unusual proves that Republicans are generally supportive of family values proves the point. That a few fall off the wagon is not a rejection of family values, it is just an acknowledgement that humans are not perfect. On the other hand, nobody bats an eyelash when a Democrat is unfaithful. That is because Democrats do not uphold family values and so are not expected to live them. I would rather live family values and have some fall off the wagon than not live family values at all. Of course, that is the Christian in me talking.

The Democrats have called a vote on their Tax on Trade Bill this Friday. It is officially titled Cap and Trade Bill, but it is really a tax on trade bill. It is a massive tax increase on anyone who uses energy in the United States. Since that includes everyone, it is a massive tax increase on the American public. The problem is that most people are not aware that the bill even exists. Of those that are aware that the bill exists only a few really know what the bill would do to us in the form of taxes.

The bill is being sold as a bill to control greenhouse gases. Since greenhouse gases cause global warming, a hoax by the way, controlling greenhouse gases will control global warming. If the bill is made law the change in temperature 50 years from today would amount to less than one degree Fahrenheit. In the process the massive taxes would cripple or destroy the entire economy of the United States. It would make it impossible to use energy in any meaningful way. Commuting would be a thing of the past. Using energy to heat and cool homes would come to a screeching halt. Most people could not afford the taxes. Layoffs would create millions of newly poor Americans. Even the “rich” would not be immune from these higher taxes. They would lose their ability to earn money and suffer economic losses. The United States would become a third world country with an economy below that of 90% of the world economies. We would find out what it means to be poor. Right now our poor are considered rich in many countries.

The increase in taxes on energy is staggering. The amounts range from 54-90%. That amount of increase would cause huge problems for most Americans. The estimated amount of increase for the average family is estimated to be $1500 by the Congressional Budget Office. By independent organizations, I have seen numbers that put the increase for the average family of up to $3500. I don’t know about your family, but my family could not afford to pay out an additional $1500-3500 per year just to pay taxes. That would drive us from the middle class to the poor class in no time flat.

Outside of Congress, the EPA is trying to do much the same thing. The attorney that won the case allowing the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide is now working at the EPA to establish new regulations regulating carbon dioxide. The regulations would basically make the EPA a legislature and executive office at the same time. They would establish laws for you to live under and then enforce those laws. Right now, those powers are split between the legislative and executive portions of government for a reason. That reason is to avoid abuse of the system. EPA is proposing to go around the Constitution and do both functions. This has to stop. The EPA has one type of function and they should stick to that function. They should not be a legislative branch of government. That is reserved for Congress, not the EPA. They also are not an enforcement arm of laws that they make themselves. This abuse needs to be stopped. We do not even know how Congress wants the issue treated and EPA is going to make everyone dance to their tune. That is not right.

Everyone is jumping the gun. First of all, carbon dioxide has little effect on the temperature of the earth. It is a greenhouse gas. It does help the temperature rise to a certain point. After that point, it has no effect at all. For the first third of one percent it has an effect on temperature, however minor. After that level is reached, the increase in carbon dioxide has no effect at all. That has been proven by the increase in carbon dioxide levels since 1970. The carbon dioxide level has increased steadily since 1970 and the temperature went up until 1998. After 1998, the temperature has gone down. If carbon dioxide was as big a player as global warmers believe, the temperature would have continued to rise. It has not risen, but fallen, which disproves their theory.

Global warming is all a hoax anyway. There is no truth to the theories that are proposed for global warming or the new global climate change idea. The climate always changes. It is always going up or down and the actor in whether it goes up or down is the sun, not carbon dioxide. The second biggest player is water vapor. Carbon dioxide comes in on the less around number 10 or 11. If we were serious, we would try and do something about the top ones on the list, not number 10 or 11. Go tell your friendly global warmer to take a flying leap and then tell the Democrat Congressman to vote against the Cap and Trade tax bill. If enough of us do that, we can defeat this monstrosity. That will save our economy to live another day.

There are two arguments about how Barack Obama is handling the situation in Iran. The administration argues that staying out of the problem completely is the correct course of action. They say that it gives the administration room to move regardless of who comes out on top after the situation calms down. The other side argues that the protesters need support wherever they can get it. The President of the United States represents the “Free World” and as its representative should speak out for freedom whenever and wherever it shows its head.

Most political commentators on the left agree with the administration that the best course of action is to do nothing. Since the commentators on the left have never disagreed with the administration on anything, that stance comes as absolutely no surprise at all. It would come as a shock if one commentator on the left made a comment that was in any way critical of the administration on anything.

Pat Buchanan is one of the very few commentators on the right that says that Barack Obama is doing the right thing. Since I frequently disagree with most of what Pat Buchanan says in recent years, I have a problem with his arguments.

The vast majority of the commentators on the right are saying that Barack Obama is making a mistake in his do-nothing stance towards the protestors in Iran. They say that Obama should speak out in favor of treating the protestors with respect. If the rulers in Iran treated the protestors with respect, the next step would be to replace the rulers in Iran and they know that. President Sarkozy of France has spoken out forcefully in favor of the protestors. Since the other western leaders are afraid to say anything, he is taking the lead in this matter. Somebody on the right must take the right stance. President Sarkozy of France feels that this is the right time to take the proper stance. This principled stance will gain him standing in the court of world opinion.

A woman was killed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in the last couple of days. The video clip has been put on You-Tube for the world to see. I have not seen it yet, but have heard a description of what the clip shows. Shooting this young woman may be the major mistake that does in the rulers of Iran. In situations like this it just takes one stupid move like shooting a woman or a child to turn public opinion against you. In this case, general public opinion was against them around the world. In Muslim countries it was split. Leaders of most countries have stayed silent up until this shooting. I would expect that world leaders would start to turn against the Iranian rulers over the handling of this killing by the Revolutionary Guards. If that happens, the change in leadership in Iran will happen in short order. It may take a few weeks or months, but it will happen within the next year if the world leaders turn against the Iranian leadership.

I would love to see the Iranian revolution end soon. That would greatly reduce the chance of a world conflagration. They are on the verge of a nuclear bomb and ending their rule would greatly derail that effort. I do not see the new rulers in Iran making the same effort to get a nuclear bomb as the current rulers. They might pursue the bomb, but at this point the opposition party seems reasonable and someone you can work with. I pray that the nuclear ambitions of Iran get reduced by removing these radical Mullahs’s from the world stage.

This morning, I was reading the various websites and I came across an article by Roger Hedgecock from San Diego. He was talking about the legacy of the Democrat party and its relation to slavery. I wrote an article on this some months ago, but it is a good time to revisit the issue as reparations are being discussed.

Blacks have the feeling that this is as good a time as any for them to start receiving money from the rest of America in the form of reparations. Their argument is that they were held as slaves against their will for over a hundred years, they should be paid for their pain and suffering. It does not matter to them that there is not one current slaveholder in the United States and there is not one person who was a slave in the United States. They just see it as free money from Uncle Sam.

Since this is an issue, we need to look at the history of the United States and the history of the two current political parties. The Democrat Party was formed from the old Democrat-Republican party of Thomas Jefferson. That party believed in holding slaves and was strongest in the Southern states. The new Democrat party was also strongest in the Southern states and adopted a plank that specifically endorsed slavery as an institution in their first convention to nominate a President. This plank was officially part of their political platform up to and including 1860.

In the 1860 election, the Democrat Party split into two factions. One faction wanted slavery officially adopted as public policy. The second faction was less strident about the issue. The first faction was in the South and the second in the North. After Abraham Lincoln was elected, the first faction took the South out of the Union and started the Civil War. The second faction became the appeasement party. This appeasement sentiment became part of the lexicon of the party for the next 150+ years.

After the Civil War, the three amendments that officially recognized slaves as citizens, gave them the vote and made discrimination illegal were adopted over the objection of the Democrat party. The Democrat party made up rules and poll taxes to keep blacks from voting. Members of the Democrat Party formed the KKK to kill Republicans. At the time in the South, killing Republicans meant that you were killing blacks for the most part. At no time was there ever a Republican in the KKK. The KKK was exclusively reserved for Democrats. That is why the South was solidly in the Democrat column up until the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was written by President Eisenhower near the end of his term of office. It was killed by the Democrat Congress while President Eisenhower was President. After President Kennedy, then President Johnson took office the bill was revived with a few minor changes. When the bill was finally adopted, there were not enough Democrat votes to pass the bill. It took an almost 100% vote from the Republicans to get the bill passed into law. Since then, blacks have seldom held leadership positions within the Democrat party.

Republicans on the other hand have always been abolitionist. They were formed in 1856 to stop slavery. In 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected as the first Republican President and he ended slavery by the end of the Civil War. Then, the Republicans worked tirelessly to end discrimination against blacks by passing Constitutional amendments and laws. Finally, the Democrats saw the handwriting on the wall and embraced anti-discrimination. They were the majority party by then and they hijacked the media’s perception of who led the fight. As a result, most people believe that the Republican Martin Luther King was a Democrat.

The Democrats fought long and hard to keep blacks as second class citizens. First they wanted them as slaves, and then they wanted to make them citizens without the protection of the law. They should be rewarded for all that hard work. If reparations are ever part of the American scene, heaven forbid, Democrats should be the ones to pay. Republicans should not have to pay. Also, how are they going to determine those who should pay reparations?

My mother’s family immigrated here in the 1910’s so they did not own slaves. They lived in California so they were not members of the KKK or any other discriminatory group. My father’s family has been here since the Mayflower. They lived mainly in Massachusetts, Ohio and California. None of them ever owned slaves. Some of them fought for the North in the Civil War. How can they claim that my family owes anyone reparations? We paid in blood for the freedom of the slaves. My ancestors were either in Sweden, Norway or the North. Those in the North were in the heart of abolitionist territory. I have a black son and a daughter that is probably half black. Do I have to pay them reparations?

Democrats on the other hand have an unbroken line back to the beginning of discrimination against blacks and other people of color that includes Hispanics and Asians. If reparations need to be paid, it should be paid by those that have a history of discrimination, Democrats. They should take the money from Democrats and give it to whoever the Congress says has been discriminated against. That would be the only fair way of doing it. My family paid in blood. Other Northern Republican families have paid in blood. Democrats stood on the sidelines and tried to keep blacks as slaves. The question is clear. The problem is that those that want reparations are Democrats. They would never vote to tax Democrats to pay to Democrats. They would want to tax Republicans to give to Democrats. They would consider that fair, even though that would be the most unfair tax of all.

The Obama administration just released a memo that flies in the face of all recent scientific evidence. They announced that global warming is even worse than we have imagined. That this report came from the Obama administration is not surprising. Almost all members of the administration have a bias in favor of global warming. The report was put together by 30 members of the administration. There are no reports on whether there is one scientific degree among the 30 people involved in the report. If not, that would be typical of reports supporting global warming for the past four or five years. Scientists have jumped from the global warming ship in huge numbers. About all that are left are journalists, politicians, communists and non-scientists.

The timing of this report was particularly funny. The Northern Great Plains has been setting records for cold for the past three months. Even Chicago has reported the lowest June temperatures that have ever been recorded. England reported the first snowfall in June in over 100 years or since the end of the little ice age. With all the north countries setting records for cold, you have little chance of people agreeing with the premise that the earth is warming at an alarming rate. There has been no evidence that the earth as warmed at all since 1998. My oldest granddaughter is 10 ½. She has never experienced a year where the temperature has been more than the year before. That is starting to be some sort of a trend.

The reason the global warming people want you to believe that the earth is warming is so they can impose regulations to “solve” the crisis. If there is no crisis, you will not allow these rules to be imposed. So, they have to get you to believe that the crisis is imminent and that your action now will solve the problem. The fact that the evidence shows that there is no warming is just an “inconvenient fact”.

The “Cap and Trade” Bill is supposed to come to a vote next week. This bill will increase the average energy bill of every family in America by about $1500. The actual amount will vary by region, but that is supposed to be the average. Since the government never makes any accurate predictions, you can bet that the average will exceed $1500 by a large margin. It will drive up the cost of everything, not just energy. If you like the current recession that we are experiencing, you will really enjoy the big depression that this bill will cause.

The economy is still in the midst of a recession. People are out of work in large numbers. Tax revenues are down. Homes are not selling well because people cannot afford them. Interest rates on home loans are low to encourage home ownership, but homes still are not selling. This is not the time to impose additional taxes. In my estimation, there is never a good time to add taxes. This is an especially bad time to add taxes as the economy has no cushion at all.

The Democrats that support the “Cap and Trade” bill have a plan on what they want to get done. They know that the time to get things done is closing. People are starting to grumble and when that starts, their window of opportunity is shutting. Democrats from vulnerable districts are starting to take notice that these socialist programs are not selling well in their districts. They know that more socialist programs will doom them to defeat in 2010. There may be enough support for the Cap and Trade bill in Democrat circles to pass the bill, but that support will erode with time. The Democrats know they have to pass it now or never see it passed. In fact, it may already be too late. It failed in one try earlier. This is one they are trying to slip through the back door. All Republicans have to do is just highlight the huge tax increase for no reasonable purpose and the idea will die for lack of support. At least, that is what I hope happens.

Barack Obama is trying to force his health care plan down the throats of Americans with as little discussion about it as possible. He wants no information about the plan to get out. He is going around the country telling everyone that they will not notice any changes to their current health care plan if his plan is adopted. If that is the case, why do we even need his health care plan? He will say to cover everyone, but the plan being discussed in the Senate covers the same amount of people as the current system. In other words, there are 37 million uninsured under Obama’s plan and supposedly 46 million currently uninsured. That is hardly enough of a difference to make any radical changes in coverage.

The plan being discussed in the Senate has a big hidden problem. That problem is the “public option”. That is a government sponsored health insurance plan. If that is adopted, all employers will quickly drop their current health insurance coverage and adopt the “public option”. That would eventually put everyone under the “public option” and give America the single-payer system that Democrats covet. They covet the single-payer system because it gives the government a great deal of control over the citizens of the country.

The Democrats love to talk about the wonderful health plans of England, Canada and Australia. All of them have single-payer systems that are similar. All of them are now starting to allow private health care options because the single-payer systems they have cannot meet the demand. We do not need to follow after the plans that are failing. We should continue the plan that the single-payer systems are starting to emulate.

I spent two years in England between 1970 and 1972. England adopted the single-payer system shortly after World War II. At that time, England and America had health care that was roughly equivalent. By the time I was there in the early 1970’s, England had not progressed very much beyond the health care of the early 1960’s. I had a couple of opportunities to visit English doctors while I was there and was appalled at the shabby conditions that existed. The rooms the doctors used were larger than American doctors, but they were not stocked with enough medical equipment to supply the doctor. When I was there, the doctors were still all English. Now, the doctors are almost exclusively foreign born. That also goes for Canada and Australia.

The medical care is being rationed in England, Canada and Australia. Over Thanksgiving 2008, I visited Spokane, WA. While there, I read the local paper. It was reporting that Canadians were having babies in Washington because the hospitals in Canada had met their quota for the year and would not admit the women. I also have read about patients that have had to come to the United States from Canada to get medical care when needed. They were put on lists and would have died before they could have seen a doctor. In Australia hospitals limit specialists to a small number of surgeries per quarter. It does not matter how many patients need surgery, only that number of surgeries can be performed. That is the kind of thing we can look forward to under a single-payer system.

We have the best medical system in the world. There are problems that exist with our current system. Almost all of them are either directly or indirectly caused by government interference. The best way to reform the current system is to get government out of making requirements for medical insurance. That is just a scam to help their buddies in the health care delivery system. If everyone was allowed to choose their options, insurance would be cheaper. If we could take our policies from state to state, insurance would be cheaper. We could learn a lot from the car insurance system. If we modeled the health insurance system after the car insurance system, insurance would be cheaper and more people would be covered. There are other options that may be better. The one thing we cannot do is allow the government to compete with insurance companies or get into offering health insurance at all. That is a recipe for disaster.

We do need to make some reforms in our health care system. What we do not need to do is throw the baby out with the bath water. Tweaking the current system will deliver more good than any new system could possibly deliver. Changing our system to something else is not about delivering health care. It is about control over you, the citizen of this country. A “public option” is really a recipe for the government to step into your life and tell you how to live.

I prefer to live my life the way I choose. I am an American and was born to freedom. I was not born to be a slave. I will not be a slave to anyone. If you want to be a slave, support the “public option” and kiss your freedom good-bye. If you value your freedom at all, call your congressman and both Senators and tell them you want no part of the “public option”. Then, make sure they follow your lead. If they do not, work to defeat them in the next election. That is the only thing politicians understand. Make sure they know you are serious and they will listen to you.

Iran held elections last week. The election was supposed to be close between the mad Mullah’s man and the challenger. After the election was held, the results were announced. The mad Mullah’s said that their mad had received 66.7% of the vote. The people that voted knew that result was wrong, so rioting started. The mad Mullah’s cracked down with violence. The situation is volatile. It could go either way. The Mullah’s will most likely prevail because they have the army. But if the rioters convince the army that they are right, the Mullah’s could be in trouble.

An interesting development has taken place in the last 24 hours; the mad Mullah’s have announced that they will review the results of the election. That is the first time that they have reversed themselves since taking power in 1979. That is a big development. Their air of infallibility has been snapped. That could be a sign of better things to come. Or it could just be a minor blip on the radar.

Iran is important because they have enormous amounts of oil. Nobody is getting their oil because of the embargo that was put on after the Mullah’s took over in 1979. The Mullah’s are also seeking to get nuclear power. They say it is so they can have nuclear power plants. Since they have more oil than almost anywhere else in the world, which would be a rather thin argument. Their real goal is undoubtedly to produce nuclear weapons. They are probably close to doing just that.

Iran has pledged to wipe Israel off of the map, if they get a chance. Since they do not border Israel their opportunity is rather limited. They cannot wage a land war as they would have to travel across other countries. That would be detected by those countries and/or Israel and stopped. An air war would be impractical as their air force is far below Israel’s in capability. Their only chance to wipe Israel off of the map would be to drop a nuclear bomb on Israel. They have the missiles to deliver the bomb. All they need is the bomb to deliver and they can make good on their promise. That is why Iran is important to the world. Bombing Israel would start a world war that could have a devastating impact.

Our illustrious President is busy pretending that nothing is happening in the Middle East. He goes to Cairo and talks to moderate Muslims. Moderate Muslims might exist in large numbers, but they are ineffective as a group. They are easily intimidated and ruled by small numbers of Islamo-Fascists. That means that even though there may be large numbers of moderate Muslims, they effectively are radical Muslims when taken as groups in their countries. There are no Muslim Democracies, except for Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq and Afghanistan are Democracies only because we imposed democratic rule. The other countries are despotic at best.

The people rioting in Iran need the support of America. Barack Obama needs to speak out in their support. So far, he has remained silent. The entire administration has said nothing about Iran. It would seem that Iran does not exist as far as our administration is concerned. I am not sure that even with our support the rioters could pull off the overthrow of the Mullah’s, but we have to try. If we can get Iran in the hands of someone who actually cares if he lives or dies would be a real plus. Right now, the Mullah’s do not care whether the world ends or not. That makes them truly scary. Hitler and Stalin were scary people, but they both did not want to die. These Mullah’s do not care and that makes them truly scary.

America needs to support those who seek to achieve the goal of independence from tyranny. Unfortunately, our country is sprinting down the path toward tyranny faster than I ever thought possible. Pretty soon, we may be the ones rioting and hoping that some other country sees our plight. Let’s not lose sight of the goal of independence from tyranny. That is what our Founders did and that is what we should also do. I support that goal from the bottom of my heart and with every fiber of my being. I support freedom wherever I find it.

Barack Obama has been traveling around the country selling his healthcare initiative. In his talks, he has emphasized that those of us with health insurance will not notice any difference. We will still have our health insurance. His plan will only add a government option, now called a public option, to allow those uninsured to get health insurance. That is true, if you only consider the time period from the time the law is put into place until about six months out, maybe less. After that time, the companies that have health insurance will dump their health insurance plans for the less expensive “public option”. At that point, everyone will notice that things are different and it will be too late to do anything about it. That is exactly the scenario that Barack Obama is trying to set up.

Why is our President going around the country and not telling the American people the truth? Is he afraid that the American people cannot handle the truth? Is he afraid of what the American people would do if they knew what the truth really is? Those are the profound questions that are hounding the President as he goes from talk to talk not telling the whole truth.

First of all, he is not telling us the truth because he knows that if we really knew what was going to happen, we would not approve. That would mean that his takeover of the health system in America would be dead in the water before it ever took sail. We would be on the phone to our Congress men and women and demanding that they scuttle this travesty before it sees the light of day. The only people that would support it would be the communists and the other Marxist types that haunt this country.

The second question is tied up in the first one. Yes, he is afraid of the public finding out the truth. The truth is the worst thing that can happen to Barack Obama and his socialist healthcare program. He has to lie to the American people to get them to see that there is a problem. And he has to lie to the American people to get them to agree to a solution to the problem that they could not see. First of all, his facts are all wrong. There might be 46 million people without health insurance at any given point in time. That does not mean that there are 46 million people that cannot afford health insurance like Barack Obama and his minions like to tell us. A lot of that 46 million, about 13 million, are the illegal aliens that should not be here in the first place. So, the facts of the matter are not even agreed upon by any expert at any level.

Yes, Barack Obama is afraid of what the American people will do when the American people find out. If they find out before he imposes the socialist health care program on America, he and the Democrats are toast. If they find out before the 2010 elections, the Democrats will take a licking. If the awakening is put off long enough, they will be dependent on the government health care and then the Democrats know how to play them like a fiddle. The secret of this question is when the American people find out. If they find out early, the Democrats are in big trouble. If they find out late, the Democrats are in the driver’s seat.

The problem is now, that a lot of us know that he is not telling the truth on this issue. Since he is not willing to trust the American people with the truth about a vital part of their lives, what other lies is he hiding from the public? The question then becomes, how trustworthy is Barack Obama and the Democrats? This is an issue that the truth would help. Since it is important to every American, the truth would help every American make an informed decision. Democrats seem to believe that lies are better than the truth. When people find out the truth, just answer with more lies and wait for another day. That is part of why we are in the mess we are in. Republicans are not blameless in the not telling the truth game, but they tell the truth far more than Democrats. In this issue, Republicans are trying to get the truth out. Democrats are trying to get the bill passed with no debate and no information getting to the public. That is not how to run a Republic.

We should have politicians that tell us the truth. A politician that tells the truth all the time is a rare thing indeed. Politicians seem to think that the way to get ahead is to tell lie after lie. When caught in a lie, just answer with a lie. That is not the way to get the trust of the American people and keep it. Barack Obama has embarked on the wrong trail if he thinks that not telling the truth to the American people will get him respect as a President. Presidents that tell the American people the way things are will get more respect than a President that lies to the public. Look at the list of Presidents and the best ones are the ones that have a reputation of telling the truth. Obama is on the wrong road. He shows no sign of leaving that road any time soon.

Yesterday, there was a shooting at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. It was done by an 88 year old man who was filled with hate. He was a white supremacist. That makes a number of hate killings in the past few weeks. In the ones that were supposedly done by conservatives or conservative leaning killers, the left has demanded that the right state that they detest such killings. Those statements are forthcoming from the leaders of all conservative groups. When the killings were done by those with supposed liberal leaning ideologies there has been universal silence from liberal groups. Why is that?

Here in the Phoenix area, the Mayor of Phoenix had to step into the controversy by denouncing the killing. That is just fine as far as it goes. I abhor this killing and any other killing. But, the mayor had to add something to his statement that was completely uncalled for. He called on the Sheriff of Maricopa County, Joe Arpaio, to denounce the killing. Again, that is just fine as far as it goes. But again, the mayor had to add something to his statement. He went on to say that Joe Arpaio had been consorting with white supremacists in the past and had his picture taken with them, thereby implying that Joe Arpaio supports the white supremacist movement. Joe Arpaio does not support the white supremacists. He has arrested them on numerous times in the past. Joe has denounced their philosophy and their tactics on numerous occasions in the past. Evidently Phil Gordon (Mayor of Phoenix) does not have a memory that goes back that far. What Phil Gordon is trying to do with the statement is paint Joe Arpaio with the brush of the white supremacist movement. If he can do that, he might be able to stop Joe Arpaio from rounding up illegal aliens and prosecuting them for breaking the laws of Arizona. That is a disgusting display of idiocy from a politician. Unfortunately, it is par for the course for a Democrat these days.

Killings by supposed right wing nut jobs have been on the abortion doctor and the Holocaust Museum. All Right-to-Life organizations have denounced the killing of the abortion doctor. All prominent conservatives have denounced the killing of the abortion doctor. The killing of the guard at the Holocaust Museum was only yesterday, so denunciation of the killing will take time.

Killings by supposed left wing nut jobs include the Muslim killings of the soldiers outside the recruiting station in Arkansas. If anyone, other than conservatives, has denounced these killings I am not aware of that statement. Of course, there is a caveat to this killing. If you denounce a killing by a Muslim, you might be subject to a killing yourself as defaming Islam. That might be true, even if the denunciation is justified. So, most people will keep quiet about killings by Muslims. They will also keep silent about other atrocities by Muslims for the same reason. In that way, Muslims gain power over large portions of the population. You have to stand up to radical Muslims if you ever expect to keep the country.

This uneven outrage is common in every situation. Conservatives will express outrage over any incident that requires it. Liberals will shout that conservatives need to show outrage when then perceive that conservatives need to show outrage. Liberals never show outrage in any situation, except when a perceived conservative does something. Then their outrage is not with the act, it is with the conservatives. It shows what their agenda is. Their agenda does not care what someone does, they just want everyone to think and act alike. Anyone who does not is dangerous.

You can examine any situation and see this uneven response. If a prominent conservative does something wrong, conservatives will take responsibility and remove that person. If a prominent liberal does something wrong, liberals rally around that person and demand that conservatives retract their defamatory statements against this liberal. They then put this liberal that did something wrong into a place of power and authority. The more you do wrong, the higher you go in the new Democrat party. There was a time when Democrats had standards of behavior like conservatives. Now, the situation has changed. Democrats only have standards of behavior for Republicans and conservatives. They have no standards of behavior for themselves. That is one major reason our country is in the fix it is currently in.

If you were an Islamo-Fascist, what would you like the United States to do? That is a question our CIA, FBI and military should ask themselves. The reason the question should be asked is so we can be prepared for all ways that the Islamo-Fascist followers would like to attack us.

Another reason to ask the question is so we can make sure that we are not doing the things that the Islamo-Fascists want. The basic idea behind the question is to know what will weaken the United States. If it will weaken the United States or make the United States appear weaker, then the Islamo-Fascists will want us to pursue that policy.

What then, will weaken or appear to weaken the United States in the eyes of the world? The second part of that question is: have we actually done any of those steps? If we have done any of those steps, can we correct those steps any time soon?

The slowdown in the economy of the world has made the entire world more susceptible to attack by the Islamo-Fascist terrorist organizations. The governments of the world have less money to spend on security. The companies that provide transportation between countries also have less money for security. That would enable terrorists to find openings that did not exist even one year ago.

Beyond the slowdown in the economy, our country has taken some steps that have weakened our economy and made it less resilient. When the economy started to have problems it first appeared in the housing and banking parts of the economy. The government, under George W. Bush, felt that it had to do something so it threw money at the banks to shore them up. That caused a lot of money to go to the banks, but not much money was lent to consumers. When Barack Obama came into office, he gave money to the banks again in even larger amounts. The money being lent to consumers is still rather slow in being released. You almost have to have perfect credit to get any money at all. The downside of Barack Obama giving all that money to the banks is that the government is starting to tell the banks how to run their business. The government is firing executives and appointing people to the boards. That means, in effect, that the government owns the banks and other financial institutions. When the banks tried to get out from under the thumb of the government by giving back the money, the government said they could not return the money.

The next thing the Obama administration did was give large amounts of money to the auto industry. It did start under George W. Bush, but again, the amounts under Barack Obama have been staggering. Ford did not take any money and has remained independent. GM and Chrysler lined up to get this “free” money and the government decided to run both of them. Barack Obama fired the CEO of GM. Obama also decided the winners and losers in the bankruptcy filings for both GM and Chrysler. In both cases, the people with the right to the assets were put in second place and the UAW (the union) was put in the first place. That is backward from the laws of the United States and the Constitution. Barack Obama made Chrysler sell out to an Italian car company named Fiat.

Barack Obama has also been traveling around the world apologizing for the actions of the United States. Apologizing for things is a sign of weakness. To Muslim extremists, and Islamo-Fascists are Muslim extremists, weakness is something they want to see. They interpret weakness as something they can exploit. What they understand is strength. President George W. Bush, no matter his other faults, understood that one thing. Showing the terrorists strength is one way to keep them at bay. Showing weakness is inviting attacks. Obama’s apology tour of the world is just asking to be answered by some terrorist action. The only question is where and when, not if.

When he gave a speech in Cairo last week, he tipped his hand on his positions. He talked about the United States being one of the largest Muslim countries. Since there are about 2 million Muslims in the country, it would not even rate in the top 10; you have to wonder where he is coming from. He also talked glowingly of Muslim history. But, it was in the way he talked about things Muslim that he tipped his hand. A Christian would have talked about Muslims by using terms that designate that Muslims are separate from his faith. Obama talked like Muslims are part of his world in the talk. You have to wonder if all this talk has been to weaken the US for the Islamo-Fascists.

This idea has also been put forth in an article I read last night by Pamela Geller on World Net Daily. She has been highlighting Obama’s Muslim connection for the last couple of years. Unfortunately for the United States, we did not listen. Now we have to pay the piper. I wish it was not so.

The health system that we have in the United States is the best health system in the world. That does not mean that there are not problems. There are problems with the delivery of our health system. The problems are generally the result of too much government involved in the health delivery system, not the lack of government involvement. What I mean by that is that the government requires things that are unreasonable which drives up the costs of health care for everyone. The government then claims that the costs are too high and puts new regulations on the system which drive up the costs further.

The health system does need some reform. The Democrats are crafting their version of reform. The preliminary information coming out about their version of reform is frightening. It sounds innocent on the surface, until you realize that there is a hidden time bomb that will destroy the entire system within a few years. Let’s look at their plan and see if we can see the time bomb.

The plan as I understand it is that everyone will be required to have health insurance. That insurance will be required to be supplied by your employer, even if you are a part-time employee. If the employer decides not to provide the health insurance, the employer will have to pay a “penalty” (tax) to provide for the people who do not have health insurance from their employer. People will be able to choose from health insurance from private insurers or a government option. That is the time bomb. The health insurance companies have to make a profit. The government does not have to make a profit. What this means is that over time, people will move to the government option because it is cheaper. Also, the health insurance companies will have a cap on what they can earn. That will mean a quicker loss of insurers.

Once all the health insurance companies are out of business, we will have only the government option and have a single-payer system. This will take a few years to fully take place. The beauty of this time period is that it does take time. That will mean that the people in the country will get used to the government option before it fully is implemented. That way when it is the only option, people will be used to it and will not complain. When health care rationing finally hits, there will be no place to go. All of the health insurance companies will be out of business and the only place to turn will be the government.

Right now, with our current system, we are looking at a doctor shortage in the next 10-15 years. We currently have about 800,000 doctors and will require about 1.5-3 million by 2030. At our current rate of turnover and replacement, we would not have anywhere near that number by 2030. If we have a single-payer system, the current crop of doctors will retire faster than expected. Also, the number of people seeking to become doctors will go down as their hope of a good income goes down. Under a single-payer system, doctors become government employees and that limits what they will make. Countries with single-payer systems have severe doctor shortages. Also the quality of doctors in those countries has declined since implementing single-payer systems. The quality of people seeking to become doctors has declined in the medical schools in those countries, so the quality of doctors turned out goes down as well. That can be expected to happen here.

A shortage of doctors will mean a shortage of medical care for patients. There will also be an increase in the number of people seeking medical attention, since medical care is “free”. That means medical care will be rationed, especially for difficult medical situations. Also the amount of medical innovation will go down. There will be no incentive to create new and better ways of doing things. There will be no way to compensate anyone for creating new ways of doing things. New medicines will be slow in coming on the market as the cost of creating the medicine is high and the amount of money they will receive in return is low. As a result, the medical care in the country will decline a lot.

The actual way to solve this problem is to get the government out of the way. Right now, the government involvement in medical care is nearly invisible. By removing this government involvement, we can reduce the cost to the consumer. That will mean more people will be able to afford medical insurance. Not everyone will want medical insurance. Some people will want to self-insure. They have enough money to pay for medical care without needing insurance. Some people believe they do not need it right now as they are healthy and young. Let them do what they want, it is their lives. Most states have health insurance for people who cannot afford health insurance. In Arizona, it is called AHCCCS (Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System). All in all, this is a good system.

The only problem with our current system is that government requires certain things be contained in all policies within a state. That drives up the cost of insurance for all. We should be able to choose what things we want included in our policies like we do for auto insurance. In fact, if we ran health insurance more like we do auto insurance we would have lower costs and more people insured. We should look into some sort of an auto/health insurance hybrid to solve the problem of affordability. We do not need the ticking time bomb that the Democrats are cooking up in Congress and Obama wants passed in the next month. Let’s wait a year or two and come up with something good. Let’s not rush into something we will regret like we already regret GM and Chrysler.