The Obama administration knows that most of us cannot concentrate on more than one or two items at a time. That is why they are taking an approach that attacks across a wide front in the dismantling of the United States. The two I have been concerned with have been Obamacare and Global Warming. But, the administration is also going to try terrorists in New York and American courts with American rights. There are others, but I have a hard time keeping up with them all.

The frenzied rush is on to pass the Obamacare bill by Christmas. The vote to approve it is scheduled at 8 am on Christmas Eve. The other bill the Congress wants to pass before 2010 is the Cap and Tax bill. That is where they increase the cost of energy to combat a hoax. Then, when the hoax does not materialize they can claim that their Cap and Tax system was responsible for the hoax not happening.

The first vote is the Obamacare bill. After Harry Reid bribed Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska with an obviously unconstitutional use of our money, Senator Nelson caved and is now voting against the Constitution of the United States. Senator Nelson was just the last in a string of Democrats who were supposedly on the fence in whether they would vote for Obamacare or not. In my mind, there was little doubt that every Democrat would vote for the bill. The only doubt was how much it was going to cost us for those that could play poker better than Harry Reid. Since, almost every Senator there can play poker better than Harry Reid; it has cost us at least a half a billion dollars, most likely much more.

One good thing to come out of Senator Nelson’s sell out of America is that he has been exposed as pro-abortion. He had been telling everyone he was pro-life for years. He even had a voting record that was mostly pro-life. He had many pro-life groups fooled into supporting him in numerous campaigns and even up to his cave-in. He was surprised at the outcry over his cave-in. He thought that they would continue to support him even though he now supports federal funding for abortions. How could he be so stupid? I do not know if he is up for re-election in 2010 or 2012, but he will not be around after his next election day. There are a lot of people that felt betrayed by his actions in this Obamacare debacle.

There are reports that a number of lawyers are lining up to challenge this Obamacare monstrosity. The problem right now is that nobody knows what is in the bill, so nobody can start executing any plans of action. As soon as people find out what is in the bill, there will be people lining up to challenge it. That is great to hear. If you challenge it enough, something ought to be obviously unconstitutional. If one part of this monstrosity is unconstitutional, the entire thing is unconstitutional.

The Republicans are trying to have a meaningless vote on whether the Obamacare bill is constitutional. To get any Democrat to admit that the bill is unconstitutional will be difficult. That would require them to actually admit that the constitution means what it says. Since almost no Democrat believes that the constitution means what it says, they will not admit that the bill is unconstitutional. Also, the Senate is unlikely to admit that a bill they drafted would be unconstitutional. But, anyone with a 4^th grade education will know that the bill is unconstitutional. Democrats are just living in denial about the bill’s constitutionality.

The fight is not over. That we are on the ropes is obvious. Even scheduling a final vote for passage is cause for alarm. The vote should never even be scheduled, if anyone in the Senate had any integrity. But, the vote is scheduled and every Senator must vote. Those that believe in the Constitution will vote, NO. Those that do not believe in the Constitution will vote, YES. That the bill will get more than 50 votes is a lead pipe cinch. The odds are that it will even get the 60 votes it will need for final passage. If that happens, the fight truly begins.

The longer we get to look at the Democrat healthcare bill, the more we learn about how they plan to subvert the Constitution and the will of the people. Hidden around page 1000 are some provisions to make it nearly impossible to repeal the bill. A vote of 66% will be required to repeal the bill. Also, the bill requires that the board that is established has to be funded every year. That could be called a poison pill inserted into the bill to prevent sanity from being restored.

The Democrats love to say that the bill will reduce the deficit. That is only true because the taxes are implemented on day one. The actual healthcare disaster does not start until January 2013. So, for the next three years, we will be paying high taxes that can be used to pay down the deficit. That will make the Democrats look great. Then, when the healthcare bill actually gets implemented the deficits will skyrocket. If the bill was judged on ten years of taxes and ten years of healthcare, the entire bill would increase the deficit.

The Democrats healthcare bill does nothing that the Democrats say that it will. It will not accomplish anything that the Democrats laid out was a goal for them to accomplish. All the healthcare bill will do is destroy the American system of healthcare and replace it with a third world system of healthcare. For that, we get to pay much higher taxes, longer waits for health care and earlier deaths. That does not sound like a great tradeoff.

The Democrats are in such a rush to get this healthcare bill passed by Christmas. It is not going to take effect for over three years, so what is the rush? The rush is because Barack Obama wants this bill as his primary piece of legislation. Since that is his goal, the Democrats will do anything to make that happen. If the bill should not pass, then Obama would lose his primary legislative goal. After he loses his primary goal, he would essentially be a lame duck for the rest of his term.

The one question the Democrats any anyone in Congress should ask about the bill should be: “Is this bill Constitutional?” Making sure that any legislation meets the constitutional question is the primary job of a Senator and Congressman. You would think that the first question that any Senator or Congressman would ask would be to insure that the bill was Constitutional. But, since almost all Democrats believe in a “living” Constitution, they never ask the question. A “living” Constitution can mean anything at any time to anyone. To boil it down to its basics, a “living” Constitution does not mean anything.

The only Constitutional question is really, what did the original writers of the Constitution mean when they wrote each phrase in the Constitution? The commerce clause has been perverted beyond all meaning through progressive interpretations by Congress. Other parts of the Constitution have been perverted as well through precedents established in the past. Anyone with a 7^th grade education can understand what the Constitution says. It does not take a Constitutional lawyer to understand what it says. It takes a Constitutional lawyer to understand all the bends and twists that have been put into the words written by the Founding Fathers. I think that a person selected to the Supreme Court should have no legal training at all. They should be able to read and understand the Constitution as written. If they can do that, they would be qualified to sit on the bench. I know that will never happen, but that would put common sense back into the Constitutionality of the Supreme Court rulings.

The healthcare bill is unconstitutional. There is no question that it is unconstitutional. The only problem is finding someone who will have standing and be willing to fight for the United States all the way to the Supreme Court. The person should be in a judicial district that would be the most likely to rule that the healthcare bill is unconstitutional. That would give us the best shot at defeating this in the courts. It would still be a long shot, but we cannot rest until we give it a try.

The Democrats in the Senate showed that they do not believe in the Constitution of the United States. This is true, regardless of how much they might give lip service to the Constitution. How can I make a statement like that? Harry Reid held a first cloture vote at 1 am this morning. The vote was 60-40 to end the filibuster. Of the 60 votes, 59 were Democrats and one was the Socialist from Vermont. It could be argued that all this vote did was allow the vote on the healthcare bill to be held. The problem with that argument is that the healthcare bill is unconstitutional. Anyone who knows anything about the constitution knows that it is unconstitutional. Even the Democrats know it is unconstitutional, that is why they will not discuss its constitutionality.

Each Senator has taken an oath to protect and defend the constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic. That means that any foreign threat should be defended against. This is something the Democrats are not likely to do, unless the enemy shows up with a gun. The domestic enemy is one who works to undermine the constitution. The Senators and Representatives that do not follow the Constitution are enemies of the Constitution. The Senators have to take action to prevent the Constitution being undermined. That means they cannot make laws that ignore the constitution.

Like Barack Obama said, the Constitution is a bill of negative rights. That means it tells government what it cannot do. It does not tell government what it can do. From a progressive’s viewpoint, that is the problem with the Constitution. But there is a reason the Constitution was written the way it was. The Founding Fathers did not trust government to be always benign. By writing the Constitution as negative rules, they prevent the progressives from making the government do too much. But, the Democrats do not believe the Constitution actually controls their actions. So, they can do anything they want and it is ok as long as they pass it. They are wrong. They have to account for the rights of the minority. But, to Democrats, the rights of minorities do not matter. Only what Democrats want is what they will do. What anyone else wants is obviously wrong in the eyes of the Democrats. Since it is wrong, it must be evil. Since it is evil, it must be stopped regardless of what you have to do, even lie, cheat and steal.

The supposed healthcare bill is not a healthcare bill. It is a control bill. It uses the healthcare system to grab more control over all of the citizens of the United States of America. If the Democrats can control the health care of all Americans, they can control the country. All they have to do is give breaks to their friends and punish their enemies. They will do this under the guise of compassion, but compassion it is not. When rationing of health care becomes the norm, then you will see the favoritism of the Democrats pet groups. All the groups that favor things the left does not like will be discriminated against by cutting their services. How can I make a statement like that? Just look at the stimulus funding and where it has gone. Democrat congressional districts have received over twice the funding of Republican congressional districts. This type of result will continue and accelerate when the Democrats take over the health care system.

America as originally conceived by the Founding Fathers is almost gone. We have slipped a long way from the freedom that our Founding Fathers wrote into the Constitution. The Democrats want to take the rest of our freedom away. This health care bill will go a long way to enslave the people of the United States. A country called the United States will exist past the passing of this health care bill. But, that country will not bear much resemblance to the country that was founded in 1776 or even the country that existed in 1945. It is sad that my generation gave America away to the slavers of the world. We did it without a fight. The fight is not over as the last nail on the coffin has not been driven in. But, things are looking rather black right now. The elections of 2010 might be too late to save the United States from extinction.

Harry Reid announced that the Senate will be voting on the takeover of 18% of the economy and total control of the population on Christmas Eve. The bill is called a healthcare bill, but the bill has nothing to do with healthcare. It has everything to do with control over the public. That is why the Democrats are willing to vote it in and take the political fallout of losing their majorities in the House and Senate. They know that when the bill kicks in that their eternal majorities are assured. All they have to do is demagogue the issue and people will vote to keep the lousy healthcare they have. People do this in Europe, even though there is a better option available.

The question remains as to whether the Democrats have their 60 votes necessary to pass the bill. Currently, Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska has come out against the bill. His objection is about abortion. Ben Nelson is pro-life. The Democrats want this fake healthcare bill to pay for abortions. The two cannot co-exist. What will probably happen is that the abortion option will be dropped from the Senate bill and then put back in during the conference between the House and Senate. That way the bill gets the 60 votes it needs to get passed initially and only needs 51 votes for final passage.

Senator Joe Lieberman had opposed the bill until his wife was threatened with a loss of her job. Then, he caved in and has come out in support of the bill. He will deny that his wife’s job had anything to do with his change in position, but the timing is suspect. Though, Al Franken, the imposter from Minnesota, would not give Senator Lieberman one minute to finish his remarks. From reading the reports, that is highly unusual. The report could not recall a time that a request for additional time had not been granted. This kind of disrespect might just push Joe Lieberman back onto the correct side.

The Republicans have vowed to continue the fight for as long as they can. The Republicans do not have enough votes to stop anything if the Democrats all operate from the same page. The only reason they have any power right now is because the Democrats are in disarray.

The Radicals in the Democrat ranks want this bill passed regardless of what happens. The “true liberals” in the Democrat ranks are upset with the “important” parts of the bill being dropped to get votes. The public option and other parts like that were important to the true liberals. The radicals just want something passed so they can have a framework to institute the radical change they want. The radicals realize that all is needed is a foot in the door. The true liberals want the door done right. As long as that fight goes on, the opportunity to defeat this bill is there. If the two competing Democrat ideas ever get together, the bill will pass because of the huge advantage in votes for the Democrats. The other thing slowing the passage is that some Democrats like serving in the House and Senate. They know that if the bill passes they will not be back in 2011.

The Democrats are trying to set things up so that there are no controversial votes in 2010. They feel that no controversial votes will make life easier for those House and Senate members up for re-election. My hope is that the public has a long memory for a change. A long memory would enable us to get rid of a lot of the dead wood that has accumulated over the years. If the public has their usual short memory, we will be stuck with these losers for another two years and probably never recover from the disaster they would cause.

Last night, Harry Reid unveiled his new $849 Billion version of healthcare. The best part of it is the fact that the cost is below $1 trillion. The bad part of the bill is that we do not have the entire bill that will be implemented. Listening to the Mike Gallagher show today, Mike and his guest brought out that what Harry Reid unveiled is not the bill that will be implemented. He likened it to making a budget for your house. You have all the information except for where you are going to live, so you make a budget based on the information you have on hand and ignore the information you do not have. You will eventually have to put in the part you do not have, but your budget sure looks good in the mean time.

The problem with Harry Reid’s bill is that even without the missing parts, it still is a bloated bill. Like all the Democrat bills, it protects the Trial Lawyers and punishes the Doctors. That is backwards, Doctors provide healthcare. Lawyers make it difficult or impossible for doctors to practice various kinds of medicine. A certain Trial Lawyer, who was a Senator from North Carolina and ran for Vice-President with Al Gore in 2000, almost single-handedly raised the cost of having a baby. He was responsible for suing doctors for causing genetic birth defects. Genetic birth defects are caused because of genetic problems that the parents have, not something the doctor did or did not do. This Trial Lawyer would bring in “experts” who would testify that it was all the fault of the doctor. Then, the Trial Lawyer would channel the baby and tell the juries what the baby wanted them to do. As a result, he got seven figure settlements from juries and made his clients and himself rich. Doctors insurance rates went through the roof and many doctors stopped providing services to assist mothers in delivering babies. In some states there is a severe shortage of baby doctors. Still Democrats refuse to institute Tort reform to stop this travesty from happening. The reason is that the Trial Lawyers give generously to the Democrat party and help elect Democrats to keep Republicans from instituting Tort Reform.

That is just one example of the problem with healthcare in the United States. Lawyers get involved and get juries to award outrageous settlements to clients. Tort reform would correct this problem. A real problem could still be addressed and adequate compensation could be awarded. The outrageous awards should be minimized. The trial lawyer/Senator/Vice-Presidential candidate/Presidential candidate, got juries to award settlements when the problem was with the sperm and/or the egg provided by the parents, not anything done by the doctor. The cases should have been thrown out of court because of stupidity on the part of the Trial Lawyer, but nobody knew enough about genetics to stop the cases. The Trial Lawyer knew that the doctors were innocent of any wrong doing, yet he proceeded with the cases anyway. This is the kind of thing Tort Reform is supposed to stop. This is the kind of thing that the Democrats do not want to stop because this Trial Lawyer is a “respected” member of the Democrat party. He should be considered lower than the low. He is considered by Democrats to be worth listening to. I figure that as long as he is a “respected” member of the Democrat party, I know that they have no standards of conduct or shame.

I figure that the Democrats will keep churning out Healthcare plans until they get one that people line up and salute to. So far, their problem is that the number that approves of a plan goes down with each new plan proposed. Right now, people do not want socialized medicine. They are willing to stand up and be counted in the fight against socialized medicine. That is great for America that we have people willing to stand up and be counted. For a while there, I was afraid that Americans were going to lie down and let Democrats walk all over them. Now, I have hope for the future.

In an unrelated, yet related, note, the Copenhagen Treaty is being watered down because of the protests in almost every country in the world. The Communist leaders that wrote the Copenhagen Treaty have to put the brakes on their plan for a world-wide communist country. Americans are leading in this fight and it is also having an impact on the healthcare debate, which is really not about healthcare, but about government control of your life.

Over the weekend, I heard about numerous plans Democrats have to modify the existing 5 plans to make them more palatable to the American People. The reason they are willing to modify their plans to say almost anything, is that after enacted they can change it to fit what they want. At that point they will have breached the wall and it is all over.

Democrats with their grandiose plans are like a disease or an invading army. They are like a disease in that as long as you keep them out, they are basically harmless. You can identify them as dangerous, but outside your body, they do no harm to you. Once one bacteria or virus gets inside your body, then the infection can occur and you get sick. That is just like a Democrat plan to “fix” something. Once it is enacted, they will keep adding to it until it bankrupts us.

The Democrats are like an invading army, much like a disease. As long as the army is outside your city they are contained. Once they create a breach in the walls, it enables their army to invade and destroy your city.

A saying that I remember from some source is, “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.” We could modify that saying to be, “Beware of Democrats with a plan to ‘fix’ a problem.” Every time the Democrats “fix” a problem, their fix is around forever. We have federal programs that were put in place in the 1930’s to combat the depression that are still there. Every Democrat plan to “fix” something should have a very short shelf life before it is reviewed to determine if it is good. I would suggest a maximum shelf life of 5 years. If the Democrat plan does not solve the problem in 5 years, it is not going to solve the problem. At least that has been the track record of all Democrat programs put on the books since 1791. I realize that is a short span of time, but it is all that were available at the time of this writing. Also, records from United States sources are unreliable before 1791 and the inauguration of President George Washington.

My point is that we have to beware of people like Harry Reid coming out with a “public option” that an individual state can decide not to participate in. This sounds like a great compromise on whether a public option should be present at all. The problem is that all that would have to happen to destroy this seemingly wonderful idea is for the Congress to pass legislation requiring that all states have the “public option” available to their citizens. Also, the Congress will make sure that the public option will be so cheap that people will be asking for it over traditional plans that are burdened with regulations.

I am sure that there are other reasonable sounding plans out there. They are all Trojan Horses. They are designed to get you to lower your defenses and allow the Democrat Universal Healthcare plan (Obamacare) to pass. Once it has passed and is firmly in place, the Democrats would begin tinkering with it until it resembled the worst of the plans already submitted. Also, the cost figures are wildly lower than would actually occur. An example of government misjudging cost is Medicare. When Medicare was passed, it was estimated that it would cost $12 billion after 10 years. After 10 years, Medicate was costing taxpayers over 10 times that amount. We can expect similar results with all these Obamacare bills being adopted by the Democrats.

The best way to handle the situation is to take a step back. First we should kill all the current plans that are out there. Second, we should identify exactly what the problem is in the first place. Third, we should devise a plan that will solve the problem or problems identified in step two. Also, Congress should be required to live under any plan that they pass for the country. That would mean giving up on their Congressional perks, but that would be the price they should pay to pass the bill on healthcare. The things that are not problems should be left alone because they work well. The doctor/patient relationship is one of the items that is working well.

One thing that bothers me is the constant redefinition of words by the left. Words have meanings and that should stay relatively constant throughout a 50-100 year period. When the left is involved, word meanings can change on a dime, if they perceive that their old meaning can help the left.

I was reading the book “The Forgotten Man” and in the 1940 Presidential race, Wendell Willkie was complaining that the word “liberal” had lost its meaning. The left had changed it to mean someone who supports big government. That had not been the previous meaning. So, Willkie tried to restore the meaning of the word liberal during the campaign. As we all know, he failed in that bid. Democrats were too strong to overturn their word changes, even in the 1940’s.

The word “Progressive” used to mean that the person was looking forward to making progress of some type. The left has confiscated the word and now “Progressive” means that you want to return to the big government that was around for thousands of years before anyone thought of a Republican form of government. That is not progressive, that is regressive.

A friend of mine got an email with a video on it. The video was for kids to show them about our form of government. We watched it to make sure that it was appropriate for our kids. It was appropriate for our kids, but I learned from it as well. The video put things into perspective that I had been gathering and pondering on for some time.

In the video, it said that there were 5 possible forms of government. The video then went through the 5 forms until it was left with only 2. The 5 were: Power vested in a single individual, power concentrated in a select few (Oligarchy), a democracy, a republic and anarchy. Anarchy is a temporary condition because everyone in a situation where anarchy is being practiced wants a government to step in and restore order. Power in a single individual is temporary as a group usually gets involved quickly making it an Oligarchy. A democracy is more permanent than either of the others. It has lasted for long periods when it has been tried, but it always ends up in violence and bloodshed leading to an Oligarchy. That leaves just two permanent types of government, the Oligarchy and the Republic.

We live in a Republic. The Founding Fathers set it up that way. They did not want a democracy because it always ends up in a disaster. They did not want a King as that always ends up in tyranny. They put us on the path of a Republic. Those who want to keep us on that path should be supported and promoted. Those who would change our system to something else should be thrown out of office on their ear.

Democrats never want people to know what they are really doing. That is why they always co-opt a word with a good meaning to describe their bad intentions. Abraham Lincoln is frequently quoted as saying that you can fool some of the people all of the time. And you can fool all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. That is the game the Democrats like to play. The Democrats are constantly trying to fool you into believing that they want a limited, smaller government with a strong military. So, they use language that would make people believe that their intentions are in that direction. Then, when they get into office, they go in exactly the opposite direction. They still use soothing words that say they are not doing what you see them doing.

Well, most of the people got fooled in the last election. Barack Obama told us what he was going to do. He just did it in such a way that people did not believe it. That way he fooled most of the people into voting for him. What did he do when he got into office? He did exactly the opposite of what he said he believed in during the election season. Some of them have realized that they made a mistake. Some are still enthralled with the soothing words coming from Mr. Obama’s mouth. They fail to see the actions that Mr. Obama has taken to destroy the greatest nation the world has ever seen.

We need someone who will tell us the truth, whether good or bad. I am reading a book about Ronald Reagan and how he caused the Soviet Union to disappear. One thing that friend and foe alike said about Ronald Reagan is that you can believe what he says. If he says he will do it, he will. If he said he will not do it, he won’t. Even my parents, who were die hard left wingers, always said that you can believe what Ronald Reagan said he will do. They did not like the things Mr. Reagan said he would do, so they voted against him. I thought that it was refreshing to have a politician that says what he means, so I voted for him. That is the type of politician that we need today. We do not need one that will try and pander to this group or that group. We need one that is true to his/her convictions no matter what group is in front of him/her. In my humble opinion, that would mean a return of a Ronald Reagan. That is someone I could support completely.

Our local Sheriff, Joe Arpaio, is under fire for enforcing the law. Democrats have been after Joe Arpaio for years for enforcing the law. The Democrats want some laws enforced and some laws ignored. Joe Arpaio thinks differently. He believes that the law is the law. If you break the law, you go to jail.

The law that has the Democrats up in arms this time is the immigration law. While George W. Bush was President, the Immigration Service (ICE) gave the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department the authority to arrest people who come into this country illegally. The Sheriff’s office has been conducting raids throughout the Phoenix area to arrest illegal aliens. These raids have been successful. The number of illegal aliens in the area has gone way down. Or at least they are less noticeable. The Democrats are crying racism. There is no racism involved. If the person is here illegally, they get arrested. If they are not here illegally they do not get arrested. It is as simple as that. The FBI has conducted numerous investigations at the request of Democrats and has not found one case where they acted out of racism.

Yesterday on the Glenn Beck show on TV, Glenn Beck talked about illegal immigration and what it means for the country. He said that the illegal alien is the equivalent of the slave at the time the Constitution was written. From the argument that Glenn made, I can see the connection between the two. Now, they are not slaves in that the people own them, but they are slaves in that they do not have the rights of a citizen.

Glenn made the point that there are people that do not want them to be assimilated into society. Just like slaves were not assimilated into early American society, illegal aliens are not encouraged to assimilate into American life today. The people that want these illegal aliens to be here have their individual reasons, always personal. But, they do have some common things they desire. These desires are being acted out by the unions and the Democrat party. Just like the Democrat party was the party of slaves back in the time that parties started until 1865, they are the party of slaves today. They say they are looking out for the rights of the illegal aliens, but they never ever give them the chance to get those rights. That is why they are complaining about Joe Arpaio. He is shaking the apple cart and the Democrats do not like it one bit. If he shakes hard enough, he just might turn it over. That the Democrats will never allow.

As an aside, the blacks always complain about only being counted as 3/5ths of a person in the census until after the Civil War. They look at it as if they were being discriminated against. The reason they were counted as 3/5ths is that the Northern representatives wanted to count them as zero as they had no rights. The Southern representatives wanted to count them as a whole person. If they were counted as a whole person, the south would have had far more representatives than they had with 3/5ths. It delayed the abolition of slavery for a long time. Had they been counted as zero they would have eliminated slavery much sooner. Blacks are not told this part of the story, because then they would not have the victim card to play. That is why the Democrats want all illegal aliens counted in the 2010. If all illegal aliens are counted in the 2010 census, the Democrats will be over-represented in Congress. That will delay the inevitable conflict over illegal aliens.

Joe Arpaio is one of those on the front lines of the battle against slavery. It is not called slavery today, but it should be. Joe Arpaio is providing the citizens of Maricopa County with the valuable service that the law requires. He is not backing down, even though the Democrats at all levels of government are now after him. I wish him well in his fight against slavery. I support him in this fight. If I was younger, I would take up my gun and join the Sheriff’s Reserve. I am too old and in much too poor health to do that. All I can give is moral support to those that are on the front lines. Keep up the good fight, Joe!

On the way to work today, there was some disturbing news. Nobody else seemed disturbed by the news that the gang of 6 seems to be reaching some kind of agreement on a health care bill. That is exactly the wrong thing that should happen. The healthcare bill should go down in flames and then you start over with realistic ideas. You don’t try to pull Obama’s bacon out of the fire at the last minute. Obama needs a healthcare bill to sign into law. Any bill that gives the government authority over healthcare is a win for him. Since Max Baucus (D-MT) is happy about the bill, you can bet that the government will have lots of authority over healthcare. It would be a fantastic win after the long series of defeats in July, August and September.

The tendency of Republicans in the Senate is to roll over and play dead when negotiating with Democrats. The Democrats always get what they want and the Republicans never get anything more substantial than it will be considered at some future time, to be determined. Democrats get concrete things they can count on today. Republicans never get anything more than promises. With the reaction of Max Baucus, that would seem to be happening again.

Didn’t the Republicans see all the people that showed up in Washington over the weekend? Maybe they thought it was just a coincidence that they all showed up at the same time to protest about something. They obviously could not be serious or the Democrats would be calling them racists or something like that.

Barack Obama is in a “Take No Prisoners” mood. His talk last week to Congress was full of “My way or the highway” talk. For someone who is being actively opposed by large numbers of people, that is not the way to talk. If he persists in talking that way and forcing his minions in the House and Senate to vote that way, 2010 will be a bloodbath for the Democrats that they will not soon forget. The upshot of that is that it might make Obama into a halfway decent President. That’s what happened to Bill Clinton in 1994. After his Democrats got their clock cleaned, he learned and adapted and became an almost decent President, scandals aside. The same could happen with Obama, except I do not think he has it in him. I do not think that he is one who learns from mistakes. He has always had things handed to him, so he would expect that to continue.

Since the Obamacare bill will not take effect until 2013, nobody will be impacted by Obamacare until then. That would give people time to forget about all the promises that were made to get the bill passed. People will forget about Obamacare until it bites them in the behind. Then it will be too late to do anything about it. That is why action now is so important.

Barack Obama is caught between a rock and a hard place. The public outcry over his “teaching” the children has caused him to revise his plan. It most likely will make the address very bland and uninteresting. If he tried any tricks, he would be called on it and roasted on a stick. He most likely will just say the usual platitudes when dealing with students. There is still the problem of his face in front of children. I have an objection to that because I do not trust the man. I would not have said that about any other President in our country’s history, including Bill Clinton.

Wednesday, Obama will address Congress in an attempt to change the debate on the healthcare bill. Democrat Senators and Congressmen have been hammered by protesters over their recess meetings. The Obamacare bill is withering rapidly and it is in great need of some help. Unfortunately for Obama, the objections to the Obamacare bill are specific and targeted. The objections are about specific things in the bill that the Democrats have invested a lot of their prestige. This will be a hard thing to reconcile.

The biggest problem with the Obamacare bill is that it asks every American to sacrifice except for the Trial Lawyers. The Trial Lawyers are primarily responsible for the high cost of health care in this country because of lawsuit abuse. But, they give huge amounts of money to Democrats to fund their campaigns. Obama got a large portion of his campaign cash from the Trial Lawyers. That is why he will not ask them to sacrifice. If they have to sacrifice, they will not give as much to Democrats, especially Obama. Without Tort reform, Obama is not serious about fixing healthcare problems in this country. With Tort reform in the bill, Democrats will not get funding for their campaigns from Trial Lawyers, so many will go down to defeat. That is the box Obama is in regarding healthcare. It will be interesting to see what he does on Wednesday. My guess is that meaningful Tort reform will not be part of the Obamacare bill. That will mean he is not serious.

There are rumors that the Afghanistan portion of the War on Terror is not doing well. I have heard that we need a surge like we had in Iraq. I have heard that we are losing the hearts of the Afghanistan people. I am not sure if any of that is true. I do know that Obama has sent a lot of troops to Afghanistan and the casualty lists for this year are the highest they have been. Afghanistan is now Obama’s war to win or lose. It is interesting that the people that were demonstrating against Iraq and Afghanistan are now silent. The protesters had maintained that they were against all war, not just the war in Iraq or Afghanistan. Just like I thought, they were not telling the truth.

We have Van Jones causing a ruckus by just being Van Jones. He is on tape telling everyone he was a communist at the time of the taping. He also evidently became part of the “Truther” movement in the Democrat party. The Truther movement are people that demanded to know the truth about 9/11. They insist that George W. Bush and the government knew about the attacks before they occurred and demanded to see the paperwork that verified their claims. Van Jones has denied he was a “Truther”. The leader of the movement said that nobody had their name on the list that did not authorize their name be put there. Either Van Jones is not telling the truth or the leader of the Truther group is not telling the truth. My guess is that Van Jones is the one not telling the truth. There is no real reason for the leader of the Truther movement to lie. There is a great incentive for Van Jones to not tell the truth. My guess is that Van Jones is let go within the next couple of weeks. Van Jones is causing too many problems for Barack Obama. He wants people in those positions that are obscure so nobody will shoot at them.

It will be an interesting week ahead for the gang that couldn’t shoot straight and their leader Barack Obama. If things continue as they have been for the past month, Obama may lose control entirely.

The Saul Alinsky playbook has the advice to overwhelm the system. That means to put more balls into play than can possibly be hit. That will mean that some will get through and your agenda will get passed. We see that principle being used by the Obama administration when it comes to bills that are designed to destroy America as it has always been known.

Right now, Obama is trying to throw things at us faster than we can discuss and decide about them. His problem is the US Senate. It was never designed to handle a large workload of major bills. Every time they get a major bill, it takes a month or three to get it decided upon. That has thwarted the agenda of the Obama administration. They wanted all their bills decided without reading or discussing. That is not what they got in the Senate. They are being discussed. I am not sure if they are being read by Democrats. But Republicans are reading the bills and they do not like what they see. This health bill was supposed to be decided and voted on so the President could sign it by July 4. We are almost two months past that date and rumors have this bill occupying the Senate’s time for another 4-5 months. This is especially true after the death of Ted Kennedy.

What the Republicans in the Senate should do is filibuster all the budget busting bills in the Senate. That would delay things at least 5 months. It would also push these budget busting bills into the election cycle of 2010. That would make the Democrats from conservative states very nervous. In a non-election year, Democrats can get by with voting for stupid things. The public will usually forget about those votes by the time it comes to vote again. Pushing votes on Healthcare, Cap and Tax and all those other bills into an election year suddenly makes them election fodder. Voters may forget votes taken one year ago. They are unlikely to forget votes taken just 2-3 months ago. It would be an interesting way to see how committed these Democrats are to communism.

Many Democrats are vulnerable in 2010. The most prominent Democrat that is vulnerable is the Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. He is being challenged by Danny Tarkanian. The polls show that Harry Reid trails Danny Tarkanian by 11 points at this time. For a powerful incumbent like Harry Reid, this cannot be good news. He should be ahead by 25-30 points at a minimum. To be trailing to a relative unknown is not good news for Democrats. There have to be other Democrats that are also as vulnerable as Harry Reid. It may be possible to retake the majority in the Senate after this election, if the trends hold. Similar results have to be showing in the polls for the House as well.

Democrats are on the ropes right now. We need to press the advantage and keep them down. We cannot give them any chance for a face-saving play. That would destroy the momentum that has built up from the Tea Parties to the Townhall Protests. There is a lot of energy and anger at the excesses of the Democrats. We need to keep the public focused on the socialist agenda that is being pushed by the White House and the Democrat leaders in the House and Senate. If we do that we can retake Congress from the clutches of the Democrats. That would thwart the agenda of the Obama administration. Anything that thwarts the agenda of Barack Obama is good for America.

Articles are starting to appear in the main stream media about the incompetence of the Obama administration. Those articles usually follow a script. They first say they voted for Obama in the last election and that they still support him. Then, they start ripping into the people that surround Barack Obama and how incompetent they are. They will also rip into Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid at this point. What the writers of these articles fail to realize or they realize but fail to articulate, is that the President appoints those around him. If the people surrounding the President are incompetent boobs, then that reflects badly on the person that appointed them. It is not all the fault of the person that they are incompetent. The person doing the appointing should have done their homework and discovered that the person was an incompetent. That the person doing the appointing did not do their homework reflects badly on the person doing the appointing. It also tells us a lot about the person doing the appointing. If they make mistakes at this level, how are they going to be when it comes to appointing people for important positions like Supreme Court Justice?

Those of us who did not vote for Barack Obama were warning of many of these problems before the election. Not in any of our wildest imaginations did we guess that he would have been as bad as he has been. We all assumed that he had a level of competence because his campaign went off almost without any flaws. The fact that he is a total incompetent boob at virtually everything to do with the Presidency is a surprise to everyone. Many of his faults were telegraphed and identified, but not all by any stretch.

What do we do about it now? The election is over and another is not scheduled for another 16 months. We have to hope that the gridlock among Democrats continues. The way things are the Democrats do not need Republicans for anything, not even a quorum. That means that they can push any idea through Congress that they desire. Since assuming total power, there has been a decided lack of progress. This is great as far as the country is concerned. If you are a Democrat, this has to highlight a problem. As Will Rogers used to say, “I don’t belong to any organized political party, I’m a Democrat”. That statement seems to ring true, even today.

The public is currently riled up over the health care bill being considered by Congress. Democrats do not understand the opposition. In their mind, everyone believes like they do. The Democrats live and die by the poll. They know that public sentiment is running against the health care proposal right now. They also know that the longer that the proposal is out in public view, the more opposition there is against the bill. They do get the message that if they vote for the bill that they will be looking for work in November 2010. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are pushing hard to pass the bill. They will undoubtedly attempt to buy off as many Democrats as they need to buy to get the bill passed. It remains to be seen if they can pull off passing a bill when the public is rising up in opposition. That would be a neat trick, but political suicide.

Harry Reid may not be re-elected to the Senate from Nevada. He is getting pushed hard from the Republicans in Nevada. The race is currently a toss-up. As an incumbent, the race has no business being a toss-up. Harry Reid should be way out in front, but he is not. That means he could actually lose this race.

Nancy Pelosi is from a “safe” House seat in California. It is highly unlikely that she would be defeated, even if she were to destroy the American way of life in the process. That is a shame, as it would be wonderful to be rid of Nancy Pelosi. Having her lose her House seat would be poetic justice.

Here in Arizona, the Congressional delegation will be all Republicans after the 2010 election, except for Pastore. He is from a safe seat in south Phoenix. That would restore Arizona to its natural Republican roots. At least, that is how I see the election turning out in August 2009 more than a year away. If a week in politics is an eternity, what is 16 months?

The Democrats cannot take criticism. When the protests against the socialist takeover of our healthcare system began, the Democrats sat in stunned silence. Then, they started crying that it was unfair. Their next tactic was to declare that the protesters were Nazi’s or Nazi sympathizers. Their next tactic was to pack the rooms with people that supported the takeover of the healthcare system and union thugs. All of those tactics did not work and just dug the Democrats into a deeper hole. What are they to do?

If you think that I am going to answer that question, you have another thing coming. My thought and one that I gleaned from Mike Broomhead of KFYI is to let the loony left have their chance to speak. The more that they speak; the deeper they dig a hole that it will be difficult to get out of. The harder it is for them to get out of the hole, the better I like it.

In all the reports from the Townhall meetings between the Representatives and the people, the worst has to be the meeting in St. Louis, MO. That is where the meeting was packed with people from SEIU, a powerful union. When people protested that they were not being let into the meeting, the union thugs decided to beat up the people that objected to having their Constitutional rights trampled. The worst part of that report is that the police on duty for crowd control did nothing to stop the union people from beating up the elderly people objecting.

There is no bigger supporter of the police than me. I was a Deputy Sheriff in Colorado for four years. I also worked part-time in North Dakota as a policeman. To say I support the police is an understatement. I know that if I had been on duty, the union people would have been going to jail with a felony assault on the record. Any policeman that I have known and any department that I have had contact with would not condone the police standing by and allowing innocent citizens to be beaten up. Any department that I have had contact with would have fired the policemen in question as soon as the report got in. They would not have put them on leave awaiting an investigation into the incident. That kind of conduct smells of corruption and corruption cannot be allowed at all, ever. It is like the 1930’s in Chicago, New York or Boston, where the mob ran the police. I am not sure where this incident will lead. But, if there is footage of the police standing by while the beatings took place, I look for heads to roll. The heads will be the police that stood by and the police leaders that told them not to interfere with the union actions. If there is a connection between SEIU and the police union, then all involved should go to jail for corruption and racketeering as well as conspiracy to commit assault. Since this is a Democrat run state, I do not look for much to happen. Democrats are good at covering up their messes. If the tape gets out of the police standing by, then something will have to happen.

We need to let the Democrats on the far left continue to have their say. The more they talk the better it is for our side. If they ever shut up, then we have to do the heavy lifting. In this issue, the heavy lifting will be easy. People like their medical care. They want some tweaks to make it better. They do not want wholesale changes that will make everything worse. That is why this is not selling for the Democrats. They thought the idea of covering everyone would sell, and it hasn’t. It hasn’t because people like the insurance plans they currently have. The plan the Democrats are proposing will make most of them change insurance coverage. If the Democrats had come up with something that just addressed covering the uninsured, the plan would already be in place. But, the Democrats saw an opportunity to have the whole loaf instead of the half loaf that covering everyone would have meant. Their greed was their undoing. Thank heaven for the greed of the left.

The worst part of this whole thing is that if the Democrats in Congress wanted to pass their health destruction plan, they could do so today. The problem is that it would mean that almost all of them would lose in 2010. They want some Republicans to give them cover so the debacle will not be so bad in 2010. So far, the Republicans have stood firm. Let’s hope they continue to do so. Standing on principle on this issue is a winning idea for 2010 and 2012.

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 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.