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.

This morning on the Mike Gallagher show, he was talking about a situation where a business owner asked an employee to anglicize their name when talking to customers. This happened because the employee was at a switchboard. The incident that brought it to everyone’s attention happened in Taos, New Mexico. Since I did not hear the first part of the discussion, I did not hear which news organization handled the report. The woman reporter was upset that the employee was asked to anglicize their name. Another news anchor at the station brought it up later and said that is exactly what he had done. His reasoning was that it is more important that the public be able to understand his name, than it was what he was called. Then he gave his full Hispanic name, which I could not understand. I did understand the name he uses at the station, Rick Sanchez.

The business owner did not ask all Hispanic employees to anglicize their names. He only asked the ones that deal with the public on a first call basis to anglicize their name. The other Hispanic employees are not asked about their names at all.

This only seems fair to me. This is America and the dominant language is English. So, it stands to reason that names are anglicized. That happened to my mother’s father when he came from Sweden. They could not understand him, so they got a close approximation. It was supposed to be Svenson, but he ended up with Swahn. The spelling was also originated by the agents at the intake center. I know of numerous occasions when that has happened to families as they came to America. Their last name was changed because of the intake agent misunderstanding the immigrant or because of the intake agent misspelling the name. Many friends of mine have discovered this as they have done their genealogy.

The situation could become a matter of discrimination if the employer asked all employees to modify their names. That would be discriminatory. Just asking the employees that deal most directly with the public to modify their names is reasonable. They are not asking them to pick some name that is not theirs, they are just asking them to use the anglicized version of their name. What that usually amounts to is changing how their name is pronounced, not actually changing the name itself. That is really nothing at all.

I can see where a person would want their name pronounced correctly. My last name is regularly mispronounced when people see it written. If they just hear it, they have no problem with it. It is only when they see it written they have a problem. The problem also occurs when they try and take the verbal name and translate it to written form. It is really a simple name, but it gives people the fits just the same. So, I understand where the Hispanic employees are coming from. I want my name pronounced correctly all the time. But, over the years, I have come to understand that people mispronounce it with good intentions. So, it has become less of an issue as I have gotten older.

If some employer asked me to change the pronunciation of my name to fit with the language of the country I was living in, I would have no problem. I would probably grumble at first, that would be human, but I would get over it in the long run. Customer service comes first, not my comfort. If it helps my business to get even one more customer because of my changing how my name is pronounced, I would do it in a heartbeat. That is the nature of the cut-throat world of business. Personal pride should come second to helping the business succeed.

I think that the first female news anchor was all wet. She was creating a tempest in a teapot. Rick Sanchez has the right attitude. It has helped him in his career to anglicize his name. It would help other Hispanic individuals to do the same in the English speaking world of the United States. If they want to work on Spanish language stations, then they would not have to worry about the problem. But that would mean a potentially smaller income. The choice should be theirs. Personal pride or customer service are the two competing arguments. In my mind, customer service comes before pride.

On the Mike Gallagher show, I heard a debate about endorsing candidates for office. The office in question is the 23^rd district in New York. There is a candidate that went through the nominating process for the party and has the Republican Party endorsement. She is very liberal on most issues. There is also a Conservative Party candidate that has values closer to those of most conservatives around the country. The debate is which should we get behind, the one that got the party nomination and is liberal or the conservative candidate who did not place high in the party nominating process.

Newt Gingrich has endorsed the Republican candidate for the office. He is catching a lot of flak for endorsing her because of her liberal views. His take on the issue is that you sometimes have to accept candidates that are not 100% with you on all the issues. He cited some examples when he was running for Speaker of the House and after he obtained Speaker. Lee Habib, the Mike Gallagher show political expert, seconded the endorsement by Newt. He cited the example of the Democrats recruiting conservative Democrats to run in Republican districts and winning.

Callers to the show were not necessarily so forgiving. Most were tired of having liberal RINO Republicans voting with the Democrats to destroy important legislation or pass Democrat legislation that is equally destructive. Their point is that it is better to have reliable conservative votes than having unreliable RINO votes.

My position is somewhere close to Newt’s position. It is most important to win and be in a position to direct the affairs of the House and Senate. Second is passing or defeating certain legislation. That said, it is also important that people in your party have certain “core values” that are important legislatively. That does not mean that the candidate has to have all Republican “core values”, just those that will enable the important legislation to get through.

Then we have to decide what are the most important “core values” that a candidate would have to have in order to get an endorsement. In my humble opinion, the candidate would have to be a fiscal conservative. That is that the person would only spend federal money when it was absolutely necessary to spend federal money. The person would necessarily need to desire to follow the Constitution. Now, I would not necessarily expect that the candidate have exactly the same view of what is Constitutional. But, a desire to follow the Constitution would solve most questions on whether to fund a particular federal program. That would be about all that I would require the candidate to have as “core values”.

Some of you are going to ask about social issues. Social issues are important to me. I am as pro-life as anyone in the country, but I also am realistic when it comes to politics. If we require all Republican candidates be strictly pro-life, we would deprive ourselves of some good legislative candidates. Notice I said legislative candidates, not Presidential candidates. A Presidential candidate would need to be pro-life to get my endorsement because the President directly impacts life issues. Legislatures only indirectly deal with life issues, so a pro-choice candidate is not necessarily a liability. But a candidate that is not with you on financial issues can destroy your legislative agenda very fast. That is why financial issues are the hard and fast “core values” that I require in a candidate.

If there are two equally good candidates and one only meets the financial values and the other adds the social values, of course I would endorse the candidate with the social values.

In the case being discussed in the 23^rd district of New York, you have two candidates to choose from. One has been selected by the Republican Party and the other by the Conservative Party. From what I know of New York politics, it is impossible for a Republican to win without the endorsement of the Conservative Party. The reverse would also be true. When you look at how the person would vote, both would follow the Republican line most of the time (using a generic Republican, not this liberal one). So in essence, the Republican Party is running two candidates in this election. Since that is the case, I would endorse the candidate that is closest to my position. That would be the Conservative Party candidate, not the Republican Party candidate. My reasoning is that the Conservative Party candidate would vote with my position almost all the time. The Republican Party candidate would vote with the Democrats more than the Republicans. That is not a Republican candidate that is worth endorsing in my opinion.

I am not saying that Newt Gingrich is wrong. He looked at the party label after the name and made his selection on that basis. He did that because he is a Republican first and a conservative second. I, on the other hand, am a conservative first and a Republican second. That is the main difference between us.

Last night, I listened to the Glenn Beck show on the internet. During one segment, he put the attack on Fox News by the White House in perspective. On his blackboard, Glenn showed all the ways that the Obama White House has tried to limit free speech. The result was a chilling thought of how far we have fallen since January.

On the Mike Gallagher show, I heard another assault on free speech by the White House that Glenn Beck did not cover last night. This is that the United States is now one of the countries supporting the proposal by the Muslim countries on a restriction on free speech because of blasphemy. If this ever gets through and adopted, we will not be able to criticize Muslim terrorists as Muslim terrorists. They would just be terrorists and the Muslim part would have to be left out. That means that the message would be incomplete and the public would be left in the dark as to the truth. But the biggest problem is that the Obama White House even agreed to a restriction on our free speech rights at all. The Constitution is quite clear about the ability of our citizens to free speech. Obama seems to ignore that when it suits him.

We have an attack on our freedoms from many locations. It is difficult to keep up with all the attacks. Sometimes I think that I would like to take a break and let others do the work for me. Then, I realize that it is part of my duty as an American citizen to be informed and to speak out about these issues. Speaking out may have a price some day, but it is a price I am willing to pay. Freedom is important to me and I will defend it to my last breath.

During the period from the late 1940’s to the 1960’s, Ronald Reagan fought for these same values against the communist incursions that were taking place. I am reading a book about how Ronald Reagan won the Cold War against the communists. In the beginning of the book, where I am, it documents these struggles. It also points out that Ronald Reagan felt that we were in a war against the communists that the general public was not aware of. It is much like the war against the Islamo-Fascist’s of today. We are in a war that many in the country deny that we are fighting. As a result, we are in danger of losing our country to the enemy by giving up the ground without a fight. Right now, Barack Obama is surrendering at every opportunity. I hope there is not enough time for him to give everything away before he either gets stopped or replaced.

Freedom of speech is crucial to the proper functioning of our Republican form of government. If there are limits on our freedom of speech or freedom of assembly, we have no chance to stop the enemies of this country from taking over.

Right now, the Congress is trying to take away our property rights as well. When our property rights are gone, the country is gone with it. If this Obamacare bill becomes law, then we have no more private property in this country. That is why the bill has to be stopped. The bill is also a terrible bill that will not solve the problem that it is supposed to solve. It will just destroy what is good and precious.

We are a good people. We try to be kind to those who have less than ourselves. We try to be fair and honest with those that are weaker than ourselves. That gets us in trouble from time to time by putting us on the defensive in the beginning of some problems. When we wake up and decide to fight, there is no power on earth that can stop us. We need to wake up to the menace that is the Obama administration. We need to stop this administration from causing further damage to this country. Then, if we still are allowed to vote in 2010, we should vote all the Democrats and liberals out of office. That would give us a chance to reclaim the ground we have given up to this point. I know that we can do it. We have succeeded against worse odds in the past. We can succeed today. All we have to have is the will to win and the attitude that we will not be stopped. I know we can do it.

Olympia Snowe sold out the country yesterday and doesn’t even realize it. I am not sure which is worse, selling out the country or not knowing it. She has been a Senator for many years. As a Senator, she is expected to know the Constitution of the United States. Since the Constitution is silent about providing healthcare for all citizens, she should know that the bill is unconstitutional. If the bill is unconstitutional, she should vote against it. That she voted for it and did not know it was wrong is mind boggling.

The other item that I could not believe in the first news report is that the bill does not really exist. All they voted for was the idea of a bill. They will fill in the details later. With Democrats, you cannot allow them the opportunity to fill in the details later. They will put things in the bill later that they never talked about or even said would not be there. So, voting on the idea of a bill is asking for a disaster to occur, thereby adding to the stupidity of voting for the bill.

Another sign that it was a stupid idea to vote for the bill is the fact that Democrats are heaping praise on Olympia Snowe for her courage. It did not take courage to vote for this bill, it took cowardice. Courage would have enabled her to stand her ground and say that she was not going allow the Democrats to take over 18% of the country’s output. That would have been courage and Americans for generations would come to thank her for that stand. This vote was one of cowardice. Generations of Americans will curse her for her giving Democrats cover to vote for this terrible bill.

The one thing the Democrats needed in the process of approving the bill was at least one Republican to weaken and vote with them. That would give them cover by allowing them to trumpet the bill as “bi-partisan”. The bill is not “bi-partisan” at all. It is strictly out of the far, far left of the Democrat party. Not even all parts of the Democrat Party support this bill. That is why it is having such a hard time moving forward. It is not the Republicans holding things up. The Republicans do not have enough votes to stop this bill from becoming law. It was Democrats getting cold feet after the unprecedented backlash from the American people. Democrats were hoping and praying (if Democrats pray) that one Republican would break ranks and give them cover.

Having one Republican give the Democrats cover is enormously helpful to those Democrats up for re-election. They can claim that even Republicans supported the bill. Technically they would be right as one Republican did support the bill. She is hardly representative of main stream Republicans, but she is a Republican, just the same. By claiming Republicans supported the bill and they were persuaded by the Republican support might convince some people that do not follow the news. If they can convince just enough of them that they are correct, they could win re-election. Since a lot of people do not pay attention to politics, except just prior to elections that is a distinct possibility.

The trick to winning this thing now, is to keep the pressure on. We have to keep the Republicans on board and have to convince some Democrats that they will lose in November 2010 if they vote to socialize medicine. That can be done by phone calls, cards, letters and emails. I heard Michelle Bachman tell Mike Gallagher that it is important to call your House member and two Senators each day. You should also send them emails. She said that they do respond to the contacts. If the number falls heavily in one category, they tend to follow that path, especially in election years. Mike Gallagher said there is a link on his site to send emails to your Representative and two Senators. They do it by zip code. Get involved in contacting people to stop this Obamacare bill in its tracks. It has passed its first hurdle with the Republican support the Democrats so desperately needed. They did not need the vote. They had plenty to pass the bill. They needed the vote for cover. Let’s not let that happen in its other hurdles. Get involved, do something positive for America. Your children and grandchildren will thank you for your efforts. Your efforts will not be publicized, but will still be of immense service to our country.

Tonight, Barack Obama is going to try and rescue his Presidency. I know the talk is about healthcare, but it really is about saving his Presidency. He has staked everything on getting HIS version of healthcare passed by the House and Senate. Right now, there is a lot of opposition to his version of healthcare. He is going to try and change minds tonight during his speech.

The talk show hosts from the Salem Radio Network (Mike Gallagher, Dennis Prager and Hugh Hewitt) will be presenting about 1.3 million signatures to Capitol Hill. They will be received by Republicans in the House and Senate. The Republicans will then deliver the petitions to the leadership of the House and Senate. That is the largest number of signatures delivered on a single topic on Capitol Hill. My wife and I signed the petition and will definitely vote against any Senator or House member that votes for the bill. I would hope that other signers would have the same commitment. This petition puts a lot of voters on record as opposing Obamacare. This is a big hill to climb.

Barack Obama has a lot to overcome tonight. We shall see if he even tries to overcome this built in opposition. My guess is that he will assume that everyone is on board, at least a little bit. He will most likely repeat the things that we have been hearing for the past few weeks. Most of the statements that he uses to promote the healthcare bill have been determined to be false by logic, if nothing else. He will probably bring the government option back on the table for discussion. The government option gives Obama the quickest and easiest way to get to the “single-payer” Healthcare system. Since that is the goal of the Democrats, the government option is most likely the path he will choose.

The main goal is to get the Obamacare bill passed, period. The second goal is to pass the bill with at least one Republican vote. If they get 1 Republican to vote for the bill (Olympia Snowe, that is you I am talking about), they can call the bill bi-partisan. A bi-partisan bill gives Democrats cover. If they are given cover by the Republicans, the debacle predicted for them in 2010 will be blunted. Democrats need the cover. Republicans should not give it to them by voting for Obamacare. If Obamacare is as bad as predicted, the Democrats will be severely punished. If it is the best healthcare system in the world, then they will be able to reap the rewards. Since every politician knows that it will be a disaster, Democrats want the cover very badly. They may even be willing to compromise, but the compromise would be just for show. It would go back to the worst of Obamacare as soon as the Democrats felt that they could get away with eliminating the compromise.

There are a lot of quick and easy things that could be done that would make health insurance more affordable. But this debate is not about making health care more affordable for all Americans. It is about giving Democrats more power.  The words used make it seem like Democrats are concerned about the cost of healthcare. If that was the case, the Democrats would have proposed fixes to the healthcare system that would have saved everyone money. The Democrats want power. They will use and/or abuse anything to get more power.

The Republicans have proposed the fixes to the system that will reduce the cost for everyone. The Republican proposals get the government out of the healthcare system. That is always a good idea. President Reagan had it right when he said, “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.” If you use that idea you can solve any problem the federal, state and local governments have. It will always result in lower cost and more freedom. Since our goal should always be more freedom, we should try and reduce the government in our lives. Unfortunately, that is not what we will hear tonight from Barack Hussein Obama.

Barack Obama and other Democrats have been telling us since the House bill was introduced that Obamacare will not cover illegal aliens. Obama even devoted part of his Saturday address to repeat that illegal aliens will not be covered by the Obamacare bill. Today, that has been refuted by the Congressional Budget Office. They report that the bill will include illegal aliens.

The way it would work is that everyone living in the country will be covered. There are no provisions to check the immigration status on anyone. So, if an illegal alien signed up for Obamacare, they would be covered and nobody would check to kick them out. The bill does state that undocumented immigrants will not be covered. That means that illegal aliens will be covered because nobody will check their paperwork to discover that they are illegal.

The other insidious nature of Obamacare is that as the plan is introduced, the limits on what can be done will not be reached. After Obamacare has been used for a couple of years the shortages will start. At that point we can either give up this benefit or endure rationing. We will be just like every other country that has introduced socialized medicine; we will endure rationing over giving up the benefit. That means the time to fight Obamacare is now, not after it is passed.

Mike Gallagher from KKNT and the National Center for Policy Analysis will be delivering a petition to Congress next week. The petition is in opposition to Obamacare. Currently there are 1.2 million signatures on the petition. The original goal was 1 million signatures. They are now hoping that they make it to 1.5 million signatures before next week. My wife and I have signed the petition. I signed in the first 100,000. My wife signed when the number reached 500,000. Here is the link: Free Our Health Care Now Online Petition

The Democrats keep saying that we should keep the debate open and honest. They are strongly hinting that it is the people opposing the Obamacare bill that are not telling the truth. But, whenever anyone checks on the facts, Barack Obama and the Congressional Democrats are wrong and the people opposing the bill are right. We would love an open and honest debate on the issues of this bill. What we get from the supporters are lies and attacks. What we get from the people opposing the bill is passion on the prospect of losing their current healthcare coverage and facts. We do not get personal attacks from the people opposing the bill.

You might get some that will say that when you say that Barack Obama lied to us that is a personal attack. No, that is not a personal attack. It is a fact. There is a huge difference between an attack that falsely accuses someone of something and giving facts about someone. When you tell facts, you are not attacking. You are just clearing the air. Just to make sure we all are on the same page, if you know something is false before you say it that is a lie. An error is if you believe something to be true and it turns out to be false. Since the Democrats supposedly wrote the bill, they are expected to know what is in the bill before they come out and discuss it with the public. The people opposing the bill only know what has been published, not what is behind closed doors. It is a pretty sad commentary that the public knows a bill better than the people that supposedly wrote it.

Democrats may ultimately get this bill passed. It does not take effect until 2013. So, if we elect enough people that oppose the Obamacare bill we might be able to get it killed through the back door. That is a long shot. Democrats that vote for this bill will have a difficult time getting re-elected come 2010. That fear might be enough to keep this bill from being actually voted on in the Senate. The best thing right now would be for Harry Reid to bury the bill where the sun doesn’t shine. Hugh Hewitt has a plan to donate money to Danny Tarkanian, Harry Reid’s opponent in the Nevada Senate race. Hugh has also targeted a Colorado Congressional seat. To get the links go to Hughhewitt.townhall.com.  I participated in the plan to donate and then write to the target and tell them why. Hopefully it is having some impact.

We can stop Obamacare, soon to be Kennedycare. But it will take strength from people like us to give Republicans with noodles for spines a chance to stand tall. We have to rely on notoriously unreliable Republicans to stand against the onslaught of Democrats. It can be done, but the Republicans need to know that you are there.

Democrats are finding out that people do not like their planned takeover of the healthcare system. From coast to coast and border to border, Americans are turning out to let their Senators and Representatives know how they feel. Some of these meetings have become rather heated, but the tone has remained the same in all that we do not like what you propose.

What is the Democrat response to an almost unanimous rejection of their ideas? They say that it is all paid for by the insurance companies. They want to try to let “real” Americans show up at these meetings, instead of those bussed in by the insurance companies. They are also cancelling many meetings for fear that this reaction will happen in their district. In other words, the Democrat response to the rejection of their healthcare proposal is to bury their head in the sand.

Many Democrats have come out with statements that the nearly unanimous rejection of their ideas at these Townhall meetings has made them more resolved to pass the legislation approving the plan. What do these Democrats not understand? Don’t they see the handwriting on the wall? If they pass this bill they are writing their defeat in 2010. We may take some time undoing the damage that these Democrats will do, but it will start with a sound rejection of Democrat politicians in 2010.

What happens at the meeting is that people listen to the politician go on about the health care proposal. Then when the time is open for questions, the politician is asked about specific parts of the proposed legislation. The politician does not know the answer, as they have not read the bill, so they get defensive. Question after question comes in and then it becomes a near riot as people express their frustration at the fact that the Democrat at the podium (their legislator) is not listening to them. After the meeting, the Democrat blames the insurance companies over what happened. Also, there is the Democrat version over what happened at these meetings and there is the version that the participants at the meeting remember. Far more people remember the participation version. Only the Democrat politician remembers the Democrat version. I am not sure which is right, but I will take the participants version over the Democrat politician version. There are more people that remember it one way than the other. That is usually a good rule to follow when trying to find out which is the truth.

Democrats who are not up for election in 2010 are urging passage of this monstrosity of a health insurance bill as soon as possible. Those that are up for re-election are now having second thoughts. They will undoubtedly be brought to the Democrat position, as Democrats do not have independent thoughts. But, just like Bill Clinton in 1994, Barack Obama may see the Congress change hands in 2010. That is why he is pushing hard to get is far left agenda passed as soon as he possibly can. He knows that in 2010 the window of opportunity will have closed. That gives him about 5 more months to pass far left agenda items. The problem is that people have been stirred to action on this health care bill. That will mean more action in legislative districts in the 2010 election. The new Congress might be an almost 100% Republican victory, if they play their cards right over the next 12 months. That is not necessarily a given as Republicans have a tendency to fumble the ball on a regular basis.

There is a petition being championed by Hugh Hewitt and Mike Gallagher, among others. This petition has over 1 million signatures as of yesterday morning. If you have not signed the petition, please click on the link I shamefully stole from Hugh Hewitt’s website. And well over a million of our listeners signed the "Stop Obamacare" petition (you can still add you signature.)

Opposition to the Democrat takeover of the health care industry in the United States is growing. There are groups that are even willing to stand up and be counted as opposing the Democrats plan. That takes a lot of courage in Obama’s America. He is very vindictive and is willing to use the power of the federal government to crush all opposition. That some are willing to stand up and be counted says that there is a lot of opposition, more than Obama would be able to crush with a few well placed blows. The “big boys” are still supposedly in favor of the bill, but as the opposition grows they may yet stand up and be counted.

This morning on the Mike Gallagher snow, I heard an employer explain what would happen if he were required to provide health insurance for all his employees. He owns a service business, fast-food. He employs about 100 people both full and part-time. His current profit is just under $150,000. If he were required to provide health insurance under the Democrat plan, he would pay out more than his total profit to supply his employees. If the Democrat plan gets passed, he would have to go out of business. There are plenty of other small businesses that are in a similar boat with this owner. If required to provide health insurance, it would take more than their current profit to pay for the health insurance. He would be unable and unwilling to run the business at a loss.

Democrats would counter that he could raise his prices to pay for the health insurance. If the economy were humming along on all cylinders, that would be a possibility. Since we are in a recession with no end in sight, which is a limited possibility at best. People who frequent fast food restaurants generally would not be able to pay much if any increase in food cost. Raising prices would be to price him out of the market. That means the Democrat bill would increase the unemployed in the country and decrease the number of people that would pay the increased taxes.

Even run of the mill Democrats are starting to feel the heat. They were elected in districts that elected Republicans for a long time. They want to keep their positions. They know that another big tax increase would cause them to be defeated in 2010. As a result, the Obama administration and Nancy Pelosi are waffling on who is going to pay for this boondoggle. The original idea had everyone making more than $280,000 pay a surcharge. Now, they rolled it back to those making over $1 million. That means the bill is not “paid” for, like it was going to be paid for with the original tax increase anyway. At least, they can tell their districts that they focused the tax only on the “evil filthy” rich, those making over $1 million per year.

The mandate to pass this health care bill by the first of August is also starting to unravel. It looks like they are pushing the deadline back to the first of September for now. It does not matter when the bill gets passed. The problem comes if the bill gets passed. We need to keep the pressure on the Obama administration and the members of the House and Senate. The pressure needs to stay there until the bill is dead and buried for all time. Then, and only then, can we relax and worry about stopping the rest of the Obama agenda.

There is the cap and tax bill that is sitting in the back pocket of the Senate. They could bring this up at a moment’s notice and destroy our economy. We cannot let down our guard for even one second as long as Democrats lead the House and Senate and there is a Democrat in the White House. I hope those that voted for Obama and the Democrats have learned their lesson. If they have, things will go much better in the future. If not, things could be just as bad in the future. We can never really let our guard down for any length of time as long as there are Democrats in the House and Senate. They will always be there, so we have to watch them all the time.

Since I work during the Sotomayor hearings, I do not get to hear them live. So, I have to rely on news reports and talk shows to highlight important things that happen during the hearings for each day.

Today, I was listening to the Mike Gallagher show and he played a clip from yesterday’s hearing that would have caused an accident had I actually been driving at that time. I was stopped at a red light when I heard the clip of the question by Senator John Cornyn from Oklahoma asking if there is a right to self defense. As anyone who has read the Constitution knows, the second amendment gives people the right to bear arms. The 14^th amendment says that a citizen of the United States shall not be deprived of Life, Liberty or Property without due process of law. Put those two amendments together and you have a right to self defense. To my knowledge, every state gives their citizens the right to defend themselves against someone who would try to take it. That would make Senator Cornyn’s question as a no-brainer type of a question for someone who knows anything about the Constitution and believes what it says. A citizen of the United States has the right to self defense.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor on the other hand gave an answer that shall forever be classified as one of the poorest answers ever given by a Supreme Court nominee. She said that she did not know of any cases that the Supreme Court had taken up that addressed that question. That was not what Senator Cornyn had asked, so he asked again. She again tried to evade the answer. Again, Senator Cornyn asked the question in a different more direct way in asking her opinion on the matter, not whether there was case law. She still tried to evade the answer. During this exchange some telling things were at play. Either Judge Sotomayor has no clue as to what the Constitution says or she knows and wants to end it. It was obvious from her non-answers that she believes that citizens of the United States do not have a right to self-defense. If she felt they did have a right, she would have said so. If she did not believe that they had a right, she would try to avoid the answer. Since that is what she did, the obvious answer is that she does not believe in a citizen’s right to self defense. The logical conclusion from that answer is that she does not believe that Americans have a right to keep and bear arms as well.

One of the important requirements for a Supreme Court Justice is a command of the English language. Sonia Sotomayor displayed a rather poor command of English by confusing imminent and eminent. She used eminent when she meant imminent. That may seem like a small misstep, but in someone who will end up analyzing every word in a case brought before her a mistake like that would be costly. The other Justices on the Court all displayed a fantastic command of the English language, even those that I disagree with know the language well. Judge Sotomayor would be at a huge disadvantage in the court if she cannot use words properly.

Yesterday was not a good day for Sonia Sotomayor. The Republicans asked her questions that she was not prepared to answer. As a result, they had her floundering for answers. When she has a prepared script, she comes across as average. When she gets off script, she is obviously over matched by even some of the light weight Senators that were asking questions. Now, to give credit where credit is due, Senator Cornyn is a medical doctor and extremely intelligent. To be outmatched by him is not a disgrace for 99% of the population. Sonia Sotomayor is attempting to be a Supreme Court Justice. She is not part of the 99% of the population. She is supposed to be part of the top 1% of all Americans just to be nominated. She is showing by her answers that she is not in the top 1% at all. She is more likely in the top half at best.

For his first Supreme Court selection, Barack Obama did not pick one of the best qualified. He picked an affirmative action nominee. That lowers the quality of the court dramatically. Stephen Breyer is not one of the top Justices on the Supreme Court, but he is no slouch either. He can hold his own with almost anyone on the bench, with the exception of Justices Scalia, Thomas and Roberts. Sonia Sotomayor will not be able to match wits with any of the other justices. She will be the brunt of jokes and will not even understand what is going on.

If Sonia Sotomayor had any personal integrity, she would realize that if she cannot match wits with Senators, she will not be able to match wits with the other Supreme Court Justices. Since she would obviously be the bottom of the barrel, she would either have to spend 10 times more time than anyone else or be the laughing stock of the bench. The bad part is her unintelligent vote would have the same weight as that of Justice Scalia. Talk about injustice. That would be the height of injustice on every case she sat and decided. She should remove her name from consideration and allow Barack Obama to get his first selection right. Since she has always been an affirmative action pick, I doubt that she will see anything wrong with being the affirmative action pick for the Supreme Court. That would just confirm my judgment of her intelligence.

This month, Congress is debating the Health Care bill also known as Obamacare. The Democrats are trying as hard as they can to get the total cost below $1 trillion, but are finding that task extremely difficult. No matter what they do, the total cost remains firmly above $1 trillion. We all know that the true cost will be several times more than the estimated cost, but they have to get the estimated cost below the $1 trillion mark to sell it to the public. So far, that has been impossible. As a result, the public polling indicates that support for Obamacare is now about 50-50. That is hardly enough support to destroy our medical system.

On the way to work, I heard Stuart Varney from Fox News interviewed by Mike Gallagher. He said that there was little reason to tax our health insurance and other benefits to insure the uninsured. The approximately 30 million uninsured include about 10 million illegal aliens, 10 million people earning over $75,000 who want to self insure and 10 million people between 18 and 24 who are invincible and don’t want health insurance. At no point in that equation are there people that truly need our help. There are people included in the uninsured group that are between jobs, but they generally get another job within a very short period of time. Again, that is not a reason to change our health insurance system to include these. There is just not a good reason to justify changing our health insurance system to include people who do not want, do not need or should not receive health insurance. As a whole, Americans are happy with the health insurance they currently have. Any health insurance system designed by the Democrats will force everyone out of the health insurance they currently have into government insurance, which will not be as good.

Making everyone have insurance is one thing. It creates a problem in that if everyone has insurance, they will be tempted to use it more often. If they use it more often, it will tax the ability of our medical community to give us the level of care that we have traditionally received. Government insurance will mean that the waiting rooms will be packed. That will ultimately lead to rationing of care by the government. The government would have to decide who gets priority to the doctor and who does not. The older and sicker you are the less ability to use the medical system will be available. We will be starting a form of medicine like the movie, “Logan’s Run”. In that movie, you received medical care until you reached a certain age. Once you reached that age, you were killed. I am not saying this will be that bad, but I am sure that there will be restrictions on what health care will be available to those over a certain age.

I cannot think of a single advantage, except for the hospital administrator. They will know that the person being treated has health insurance and what coverage is included. Other than to hospital and doctor billing offices, there are really no benefits to the public at large. There is the liberal benefit of being able to say that you were able to get everyone covered with medical insurance. I suppose that is a noble goal, but at least two-thirds of those that are uninsured do not want to be insured. You are forcing them to do something they do not want to do. That is taking freedom away from them. We cannot go around taking freedom away from people. Sooner or later we run out of freedoms and nobody is free. That time is fast approaching. People are too willing to give up freedom for security. As Winston Churchill is supposed to have said, “Those who would give up freedom for security soon find themselves neither free nor secure.” There is a lot of truth to that statement, whether Churchill said it or not.

This month will determine whether there will be an America in 2010. If the Democrats succeed in passing Obamacare, America will cease to exist as an idea. It will still exist as a country, but no longer as the free country it had been for 233 years. It would forever be a socialist country from now on and never again hold the truths of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as true. For those reasons, if for no other reason we have to stop Obamacare. We cannot put forth Obamacare lite. That would just do the same thing only with a Republican twist. We need to stop the Obamacare as proposed and any other government option for healthcare. That is the true AMERICAN way.

Since I wrote last, Michael Jackson died and all the media hype happened. Michael Jackson was big in the music world, though I do not understand why. I never thought his music was that good. His best music, as far as I am concerned, was when he was just starting and he was part of the Jackson 5. From then on, he got a big head and his music just got difficult to understand.

The Michael Jackson I remember is the one who grabbed his crotch on national television during the Super Bowl. That was a disgusting action. I also remember the accusations of child molestation and the protests that every father should sleep with their children. He may have been innocent in the eyes of the law, but in my eyes he was guilty. My standard of guilt does not have to reach the level that the government has to reach for a conviction. I just use a preponderance of evidence to make my decisions. I always figure if it looks like a duck to me and it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck, it is a duck. I do not have to prove it, beyond any shadow of a doubt.

What particularly disgusted me at the funeral was Sheila Jackson-Lee trying to clear Michael Jackson of molesting kids. She took the government standard and tried to apply it to everyone. That way, she could make Michael Jackson seem innocent, when he was really guilty of child molestation. She was waving a Congressional Resolution around that basically absolves Michael Jackson of the crimes he committed. It also honors Michael Jackson for his contributions to the music industry. I have no objections to the part about honoring him for his musical ability. I may not agree with his music, but I am musician enough to recognize that he does have talent. I do take objection to the part where the resolution absolves Michael Jackson of any crimes he committed. That is wrong. He committed those crimes. He should be remembered for the crimes he committed.

Al Sharpton was going on and on about race. To Al Sharpton, everything is about race. You could say it was a great morning and he would try to find some racial undertones to your statement. Al Sharpton was going on and on about how people did not like Michael Jackson because of his race. After Al Sharpton talks for about 2 seconds, I have a tendency to turn him off. You know what he is going to say, so why listen to it. Day dreaming about what to have for lunch sounds better than listening to the Reverend Al speak. People might accuse me of racism because of that statement. There is no racism. Some people are like a broken record. They will repeat themselves over and over again. Reverend Al is one of those people. There are also a number of white’s that do the same thing. It is not racism that gets me to say the statement. It is just boredom with stupid people that cannot think of new things to say.

On the Mike Gallagher show today, I heard a black caller accuse Mike of racism because he was saying bad things about black people. The caller said that Mike Gallagher only said bad things about blacks, not good things. Mike countered with the names of a number of black people that he admired, especially Justice Clarence Thomas. The caller said that Clarence Thomas was not considered black by the black community. That is the problem. The blacks that I admire and build up are not considered black enough by the black community. The reason they are not considered black enough is that they are not flaming liberals. The problem lies with the black community, not with whites. The black community only accepts blacks if they are liberal Democrats. If they are conservatives, the black community considers them “Uncle Tom’s”. An “Uncle Tom” is a black that has sold his soul to the white community. The problem is that the blacks that have sold their soul to the white community are the liberal blacks, not the conservative blacks. The conservative blacks have to be willing to stand there and take arrows. Liberal blacks do not have to do that, so they get a pass all the way to the liberal white establishment. The liberal blacks only get power when whites give it to them. Conservative blacks get power whenever they want to get it. That is the difference.

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.

On the way to work on Thursday, I listened to Mike Gallagher. He played a clip of a TV appearance he had with a Democrat operative. I do not remember the name of the operative and it is not important. But, she was intent to make the point that Rush Limbaugh was the head of the Republican Party and that he was the Warden.

Mike Gallagher tried to dissuade her of her misguided idea to no avail. She had been programmed to say those two things and she repeated them over and over. Her comments were said in a very dark fashion. Mike Gallagher was laughing and having a good time. Her idea that Republicans were somehow in “prison” was not going to sell with someone like Mike Gallagher as the person you are talking to. He is too happy and friendly.

But, in going with her theme of the Republicans being in “prison” and Rush Limbaugh being the Warden, who else tells his “prisoners” what they need to do to break free. The Republicans are in bondage to Democrat socialist agenda items. Every day Rush Limbaugh tells his audience what they need to do to break free of socialism.

The Democrat operative tried to say that the Republicans are where they are because of Rush Limbaugh. That could not be farther from the truth. The Republicans are where they are politically because they have not been listening to Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, Hugh Hewitt and the other conservative talk show hosts. I might make a correction to that last statement. They might have been listening, but they did not act upon the information they were given in all those radio talk shows. Had they listened, the Republican Party would have a majority in the House and Senate and there would be a Republican President in the White House. I am not saying that everything that the talk show hosts say is perfect and should be implemented, but most of it should.

What the Republicans need to do is get the best Republican thinkers together and have them come up with something like the Contract with America that Newt Gingrich did in 1994. A new Contract with America will not work. It worked once and it will probably not work twice. But, having all Republicans working from the same playbook would be a real change. The one thing you can say about the Republican Party is that they do not have a common playbook. That is why the Contract with America worked so well. Everyone was on the same page in their discussions and the country was in total shock that Republicans actually agreed on something for a change. Democrats always work as a top down authoritarian party. All Democrats are given their playbook and are expected to follow it to the letter. Republicans on the other hand do not give anyone marching orders and this has caused mass confusion at times.

These best thinkers should include ALL Republican thinkers, including the leading talk show hosts. Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage are the leading thinkers in talk radio. They should assist in developing any Republican playbook that would have a chance at succeeding. They talk to the public every day and know what the public wants and needs. They are not isolated up in the ivory towers in Washington, D.C. So often we think that only people in Washington, D.C. can come up with ideas. That is not true. When I worked for the federal government, the worst ideas came from Washington, because Washington had to make rules for the whole country. Rules that came from our state were good because they were local. That works the same for things that will work for the country. Washington based thinkers have a Washington based world view. These thinkers need to have various views from the country, not just Washington.

The Republicans can win again as early as 2010. But, we have to get our act together. We have to find good candidates and we have to fund their campaigns. We need a playbook that everyone can agree are the core issues that all can support. Then hammer the Democrats on those core issues until they cannot stand it. When we retake the House and Senate, we need to remember what got us there. We need to maintain fiscal discipline. We cannot repeat the excesses of the past 20 years. That will allow us to have the majority as far as the eye can see. If we lose sight of what we want to accomplish, then we will fall out of power again. Just remember what our lack of focus brought us in 2006 and 2008, nuf said.

Barack Hussein Obama signed into law, the Gender Fair Play Act. It is also known as the Lily Ledbetter law. It should be known as the hire a man law.

Lily Ledbetter worked for a number of years and then discovered that she was paid a lower wage than men doing the same or a similar job. She sued and took her case to the Supreme Court. It was eventually rejected as she had exceeded the time limit allowed by law at the time for this kind of case. She decided to make this a lifetime effort and after 10 years, she finally got the Congress and the President that would pass the law.

The law takes away the time limits on when a person can sue for discrimination on pay differential. If you find out that you were paid a lower wage than a man, you can sue no matter how many years in the past it may have been. What this law will do is make companies not want to hire women. If you have two equally qualified candidates with one being a man and one a woman, the company would hire the man. Why hire the man over the woman? The answer is simple. If you hire the woman, you may open yourself and your company to a potential lawsuit years down the road. If you hire the man, you eliminate that possibility. Is that discrimination? Yes, but the company has to look out for the bottom line and hiring the woman is asking for trouble down the road. Hiring the man is the safe choice.

The law is an attempt to change the pay differential between men and women. Women earn $0.76 for every $1.00 that a man earns. There are a number of reasons for this. The main reason is that women choose employment in jobs that are less risky. Jobs that involve high personal risk are almost exclusively men. Women choose jobs like librarian, teacher or nurse. Those jobs are less dangerous than miners, oil workers or crab fisherman. I am not saying woman cannot do them, I am just saying that women do not choose them. It comes down to quality of life.

Also, men are more likely to relocate to take a job. That gives men more opportunities to take high paying jobs that open up in other states. Men will also take temporary jobs in far off locations that women tend not to take. Again, it comes down to quality of life issues.

Men tend to work more years than women. Women take time off to have children. There is nothing wrong with that. But, it means that you have less experience than another because of that time off. People pay more for someone with more experience.

This morning on the way into work, I heard an interview Mike Gallagher did with a man who wrote a book about the difference in pay between men and women. Since I was in my car I could not write down the man’s name. But, he said there are 25 reasons why women earn less than men and all can be lumped together into quality of life issues. Women want a higher quality of life and are willing to accept less pay to get it. That is the bottom line. This man had been on the board of the National Organization for Women in New York, so he is no conservative. When he heard of the pay difference, he thought about starting some companies and hiring women. Since he would pay them less, he would make more. Obviously that did not work as he is still an academic. It also does not work for companies.

This law is a potential danger for any company that hires a woman from now on. They will have to keep strict records and be diligent in watching out for problems. The law is a windfall for attorneys and women who sue. It is a loser for women looking for jobs. This law will make workplaces more segregated as companies try to avoid the problem by having just men or just women in particular jobs. This law is a nightmare and we are just beginning. Most are not even aware that the nightmare has begun. Wait until the first lawsuit is filed. Then, all companies will be aware real quick.