In the last week, Barack Obama and his henchmen have declared war against Fox News. Over the weekend, David Axelrod said that Fox News was not a “real” news organization and that other “real” news organizations should not emulate their model. I was told long ago, before the internet, that you should not pick fights with someone who uses ink by the barrel. I think the same would be said for someone who broadcasts 24 hours a day.

The Obama administration is remarkably thin skinned. If they are criticized or questioned in any way, they lash out and try to destroy the person or organization responsible. Since Glenn Beck has been a tremendous thorn in the side of Obama for some time, they are lashing out at Fox News. Since they cannot kill the person producing the pain, they would rather destroy the company he works for. I guess they figure that if they make it hot enough for Fox News, they will fire Glenn Beck to satisfy the White House and get them to back off. I do not think that the White House would back off if Fox News would fire Glenn Beck. I think they would just get bolder and start attacking others as well. That means Fox News will have to fight this one to the end. During the dust-up, the one person that cannot be replaced is Glenn Beck. If he goes, the White House wins. If he stays and continues to ask his questions, the White House loses. Right now it is a game of chicken; we get to see who blinks.

The person that announced the beginning salvo in this war against Fox News was the person in charge of communications in the White House. She had said in a commencement speech to high school students that her two most admired people were: Mother Theresa and Chairman Mao Tse Tung. I have no problem with Mother Theresa and I doubt that anyone else in the world would have a problem with her in the list of most admired people. Including Mother Theresa on a list of most admired people would show the sophisticated taste needed to lead any agency or group. The other name, Mao Tse Tung, gives one a chance to stand back and question that person’s judgment. Mao was responsible for killing approximately 70 million Chinese under his rule. He killed more people than any other leader in the entire 20^th century. Having a mass murderer on your list of most admired people is definitely a character flaw on your part. Anyone with the character flaw to have Chairman Mao on their most admired list is definitely having some problems.

When questioned about the talk and her inclusion of Mao and Mother Theresa, she said that she was just telling a joke. I heard the tape of the commencement address on TV and radio. It did not sound like a joke to me. It sounded like she was serious. Glenn Beck had a parent that was at the commencement address. The parent said that the comment was definitely not a joke.

 We do not need a communications director in the White House that thinks that Chairman Mao Tse Tug is someone to be admired. Chairman Mao is someone that should be despised. Mao does not have anything to offer that would make Americana better people. In fact, he does not have anything to offer that would make anyone a better person. Anyone that would follow Mao’s teachings would be a worse person after employing the policies and procedures that Mao set down. Someone you admire should make you a better person, not a worse person.

If you asked me to list the top couple of people I admire, I would list, Joseph Smith and Ezra Taft Benson (if I could include prophets) or George Washington and Ronald Reagan (If I could only include political types). Any one of those four would make you a better person, if you tried to live your life like that person. I would like to think that a person following either pair would be substantially the same person. Following Mother Theresa and Chairman Mao would make you a definitely poorer person to be around. I am glad that I live in America and can still say things like that last comment. Obama’s people are making it increasingly more expensive to say things they disagree with. If Obama has his way, these kinds of comments will be outlawed in the future.

This past weekend, I was able to go to San Francisco with my wife. She was attending a meeting with a textbook publisher and took me along as her “guest”.

San Francisco has a special place in my heart and that of my family. We go back a long way into San Francisco lore. My first ancestors arrived there in 1848. They eventually settled in the Santa Rosa area, north of San Francisco. They owned a ranch up until the turn of the century. Periodically, members of the family would move to San Francisco and get involved in civic affairs.

The part I know best is that my father’s dad was born in Santa Rosa. After World War I, he moved to San Francisco to become a city policeman. Though, my father was born in Santa Rosa, he was raised in San Francisco. He was a regular policeman his entire career.

My mother’s father immigrated to the United States from Sweden when he was 17, just in time for World War I. He found himself in the same military unit as my father’s dad. They became friends during their military service for America. After the war, my grandfather, became a San Francisco Deputy Sheriff. He rose high enough to be involved in many of the high profile cases in the late 1940’s and 1950’s. He does tell of hiring in the 1930’s during the depression. There was a height requirement at the time for Deputy Sheriff’s. Those who were just under the requirement would have friends carry them from their home to the hiring station on a stretcher so they would maximize their height.

When my parents married, their first apartments were in San Francisco. I was born there. About 6 months later, my father got a job in the Visalia area and never really returned to San Francisco, except to visit.

Today, San Francisco is a cosmopolitan city. On Friday, I did not hear a word of English unless the person was talking to me when I was walking around the city. The rest of the weekend, English was not the most common language.

At the dinners with the group from the publishing company, I was able to hear the liberal side of various issues. I kept quiet, so that I would not endanger my wife’s position with the group. It was interesting to hear that they completely misunderstood everything about the support for proposition 8 in California. They attributed the support to fear of gays or discrimination. They discounted all the arguments in favor of proposition 8 as just fear tactics by the supporters. They did not give the supporters of proposition 8 any acknowledgement that their position might come from a value system that was different than theirs. They also totally support Barack Obama with no reservations. Barack Obama happened to come to San Francisco this weekend and some of the people at this meeting were unhappy because they could not attend his speech. I have heard supporters of Obama talk before, but never in such glowing terms as at this event.

My trip was worth the time and cost. I was able to reconnect with my roots in a small way. I did get to smell the salt air. That always makes me feel great. At times I felt like I was like Daniel in the Lion’s Den. But, I did get to see and hear how the other side thinks. That is always a valuable lesson.

This week, I found out that I need surgery to correct a problem in my back. It is fairly major surgery to correct the fact that I have started leaning to the right. I have also started leaning forward, though not as bad as I lean to the left. Before I can have surgery, I have to have an MRI and a CT scan. I also have to have clearance from my personal physician and a cardiologist. Under our current medical system, there are no problems getting in to get an MRI or a CT scan. I have those on Monday. There will be no problem getting in to see my personal physician or a cardiologist. I should be able to clear all the hurdles and have the surgery just before the end of the semester. Under Obamacare, the surgery would be put off for a minimum of one year and probably two or three, if it is scheduled at all. I am 60 years old, so I am at the end of the working life span. According to Ezekiel Emanuel, I would have less call on whether I can use medical services than someone who is 20.

One of the inevitable consequences of Obama care will be rationing. No matter how much the Democrats say that rationing will not happen, it will. You cannot add millions of new patients without adding doctors and not have rationing. Plus, a recent poll said that 45% of doctors practicing medicine today would retire if Obamacare were put in place. So, that would mean millions of new patients and fewer doctors. If rationing did not occur with that scenario, I would be shocked.

With rationing comes the inevitable decision on who gets to the top of the line. Does the person who got there first, get to be first? Or is it the person that has a more life-threatening disease? Should the younger patient be placed ahead of the older patient? All these questions and more will come into play when Obama care gets put in place. No matter what is decided, people will be upset with the decision made. Each person would feel that they should be put ahead of someone else in the line. With our current system, these questions never are brought up. With Obamacare, they become the primary problem.

Right now, we have access to the latest technology all of the time. Our scientists and engineers are developing new ways of treating medical conditions resulting in more patients getting better. There is a higher cost to new technology and procedures, primarily because they are new. The companies have to recoup the cost to develop the technology and procedures. Once that has happened, the prices tend to drop somewhat. One thing that is not happening, but should, in our medical system is competition. Competition drives down costs to their lowest level. It also drives up satisfaction. With the government involvement in healthcare, we lose the competition and satisfaction goes down. That is how we got where we are today.

There are uninsured Americans. Some are uninsured because they cannot afford health insurance. Some are uninsured because they would rather spend their money on other things, because they feel the risk of getting sick is low. Some people are uninsured because they are illegal aliens. Democrats propose to insure all three, while denying that they are insuring the illegal aliens. We could reduce the cost of health insurance immediately and with almost no cost. We could just rule that all medical insurance can be purchased across state lines. If we removed government requirements on what has to be in the health insurance plans, we could reduce the cost even more. Then, health insurance costs would be within the reach of almost every American. We could set up some kind of fund to help those that still cannot afford health insurance. These numbers should be extremely low. This plan will never happen because it would reduce government involvement and Democrats never, ever reduce government involvement in anything.

So, with our current medical system, I can be diagnosed with a need for surgery. I can schedule all of the tests and medical clearances within a month. I can then have the surgery six weeks after being diagnosed as needing the surgery. If the surgery was life-threatening, the pre-surgery schedule could have been sped up. Under Obamacare it would take years, if it happened at all. Americans deserve the best medical system. Why should we saddle ourselves with some second rate system, just because politicians in Washington want to control your life? We should demand the best. We should be able to get the best. We already have it, so why should we give it up voluntarily? It makes no sense to give up the best for a third rate system.

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.

Last week it was announced that Rush Limbaugh was part of a group that was trying to purchase the St. Louis Rams. I did not comment at the time as I felt things should fall out where they may. Also, I felt that the decision to allow the purchase or not would be based on whether they could afford to make the purchase and run the franchise after the purchase. I was wrong in my original assessment. I should have anticipated the race-baiters jumping in with their two cents. I also should have anticipated the other groups that Rush has successfully skewered over the past years to come out of the woodwork to get their licks in as well.

I should set out where I am coming from on this issue. First, I am a Denver Broncos Fan. I bleed Blue and Orange. I do not follow any team other than the Broncos. Second, I must add that the team I rooted for as a kid growing up in Southern California was the Rams. I still cannot forgive the Vikings for defeating the Rams those years the Vikings made it to the Super Bowl. The Rams should have gone those years. Third, I have been listening to Rush Limbaugh since 1989. I can’t listen as much as I used to because of work, but I still listen when given a chance.

My opinion on whether Rush Limbaugh should be allowed to be an owner in the National Football League is that he would help the league grow into new markets. Rush Limbaugh is the most successful talk show host in America. He grew from nothing into the largest listened to talk show host by hard work and an entertaining program. Allowing him into the NFL would enable him to help the league to tap into his vast knowledge of how to connect with audiences. The NFL does a great job right now, but Rush could help the league even more. Also, the Rams are one of the sorriest franchises in the NFL today. Rush would help the team gain some respect and credibility. Rush does not take second place to anyone. He will not allow his team to take second place to anyone. That will be a great transformation to see.

The race-baiters, Al Sharpton and Rev. Jesse Jackson, have spoken up on Rush being an owner in the NFL. Both think that he is a racist and that disqualifies him from being an owner. Their only evidence that he is a racist is comments that he did not make. They also point to his comments about Donovan McNabb a few years ago on ESPN. Rush said that McNabb was overrated as a Quarterback because he was black. It was true at the time and it is true today. Many sportswriters put McNabb on the same plane with Peyton Manning. Donovan McNabb is a good quarterback, no question, but he is not on the same plane with Peyton Manning. There are elite quarterbacks that can almost single-handedly win games. Peyton Manning is in that group. There is a second tier of quarterbacks that are extremely dangerous, but require help. Donovan McNabb is definitely in this group. Also, some quarterbacks move from one category to another from year to year. Even Peyton Manning was not an elite quarterback his first year or two. All Rush was saying is that McNabb should be placed in the proper level and some sportswriters were getting it wrong. It had nothing to do with race.

The other race-baiting information are quotes, attributed to Rush, that were put on Wikipedia by an unknown person without documentation. Rush denies ever saying the comments. I believe him as I have never heard him say a racist thing in the almost 20 years I have been listening to him. Rush always treats his black callers and staff with the utmost respect. Someone who had racist tendencies would not do that on a regular basis. It is just not humanly possible to hide your true feelings with that much public exposure.

The other groups that are out to try and stop Rush from buying the Rams are the unions and others that Rush has shown to be incompetent or irrelevant in this day and age. They see this as the chance at their ultimate payback for all the pain he has been to their backside over the years. They have no rational argument other than to echo what the race-baiters have said. That does not give them any credibility. It just shows them up for the me-too crowd that they really are.

My analysis of the situation is that the people crying about Rush owning the Rams are not making valid arguments. They are making a lot of noise. They are making clouds of dust. But, there is nothing there when all is said and done. They have no argument as their objections have been shown to be false. In the end, the ownership group with Rush as a minor partner should be allowed to purchase the St. Louis Rams. Keeping the Rams in St. Louis will be good for St. Louis and Missouri. Getting stable ownership that is committed to the Rams and winning will make the Rams into a good football team once again. That will be good for the NFL. Everyone wins with the Rams in stable hands. Everyone, that is, except for the race-baiters and the jealous union thugs that have been exposed for the phonies they really are.

This morning, I was giving an older daughter a ride to an appointment. On the way, she asked me if I supported Obama. I told her that I didn’t support Obama. She asked me why I do not support Obama. I thought about that for a moment then summed it up with one word, socialism. I do not think that socialism is an American value. Since socialism is not an American value, it should be defeated wherever it is found.

My ancestor, Richard Warren, came over here on the Mayflower. When the Mayflower Pilgrims first started Plymouth colony, they owned everything in common. As a result of this common ownership, the colony almost died out. William Bradford quickly allowed private ownership and the colony thrived. They proved that common ownership may sound good on paper, in practice it does not work. Private ownership of property always does better than common ownership. Even the Soviet Union found this out. They had large collective farms that could hardly produce enough food to keep the farmers that worked the farms fed. After a while, they allowed the farm families to have private ownership of some small property. The privately owned property out produced the common ownership property by many times. The reason is that people will work harder for themselves than they will for someone else. The key is just that simple.

People may say that I do not support Barack Obama because he is black. I have a black son and a black daughter. How could I discriminate against Obama and then look my children in the eye? No, I do not support Barack Obama strictly on policy and philosophy. I have nothing against a black person holding the job of President. I wish it had happened sooner. I also wish that it had happened with a black person with a better outlook on life. I had said for years that we are nearly ready for a black President. I had also predicted that the black President would be Republican. My reasoning is that Democrats have some built in problems. The main one is that they are soft on defense. Barack Obama is a perfect example of a Democrat being soft on Defense. I also think that the first woman President and the first Hispanic President will be Republican for the same reason.

Obama’s healthcare plan is socialist in nature. Whether it is socialist, communist, fascist or whatnot, the point is that it tends to be socialist. Since it tends to be socialist, I oppose the plan on principle. Everything else Obama has proposed is socialist.

Barack Obama surrounds himself with communists and other radicals. His advisors do not read like what you would expect to see in America. Even if you subscribe to the theory that all America is liberal, not all liberals are communists and fascists. Most liberals are regular ordinary people that you can talk to. Obama has picked the worst from the worst to be his advisors. That to me shows at least extremely poor judgment. Most likely it shows that his views are extremely close to those of his advisors. He keeps telling us that they are not the same as his advisors, but I see no evidence except his word. His word does not mean much as he is constantly in a state of telling a lie. With Bill Clinton his lips had to be moving to be sure it was a lie. With Obama, just seeing him we know that he is telling us another lie.

No, I oppose Obama strictly on policy. I have nothing against his race. Since I am so strongly against his policies, some may take it that I have a hidden agenda against his race. I do not. I have many friends that are black. I work with blacks all the time. I have had many black supervisors that I thought did excellent jobs. To me, black is just a help in identifying the person like hair color or height.

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!

When I logged onto the computer this morning at home, I was shocked to see that Barack Hussein Obama was given the Nobel Peace Prize. I thought you had to DO something to earn that reward. I could not think of one thing that Barack Obama had done since becoming President that would justify giving him the Nobel Peace Prize. The only thing that popped into my mind is that they like to give the award to people who bad mouth the United States. Barack Obama sure has done a lot of that since taking office. Maybe that is why they gave him the award. He surely has not done anything to really earn it.

Other Presidents, including the worst of the 20^th century Presidents, Jimmy Carter, have tried to get the award. Many of them had actual accomplishments that would easily justify giving them the Nobel Peace Prize, but they were denied. All of them had the audacity to talk about the United States in glowing terms. The Nobel Peace Prize Committee will not allow any American to get the award that does not talk about the United States like it is some demented prison camp. At least that is how it has been lately. Presidents T. Roosevelt and Wilson won the award as a sitting President. Jimmy Carter won the award after leaving office.

Other Nobel prizes are awarded for actual accomplishments, like the awards for Physics, Chemistry, and Biology and so on. The Peace prize is different because there usually isn’t much competition for the award. Usually nobody deserves the award in any given year. But, they need to give the award every year to continue to build up the prestige of the award. So, they usually give the award to unknown leaders of some protest group under some totalitarian government. The person usually cannot come and receive the award because the government has them under house arrest. That way everyone feels good and nobody gets offended.

In his reaction to the news, even Barack Obama did not think he had done enough to win the award. The media is tending to agree with him. They are asking what has he done to deserve the award. The Nobel committee cited all the things that Obama said he would do as their reason. If you have to rely on what Obama says he will do to justify this award, they will be real surprised when none of it happens. Bill Clinton was a pathological liar. He would tell a lie even when he did not have to tell a lie. But, Bill Clinton did tell the truth most of the time. Obama just makes things up as he goes. If it sounds good, he puts it in the speech. That way, almost nothing Obama said can be taken at face value for the truth. Everything has to be checked and rechecked to make sure it is true. Even then, you are not sure if you have the whole unvarnished truth. The Nobel committee is pinning their hopes on a guy who almost never tells the truth, to tell the truth. That is a long shot if I ever heard one.

Since I am so negative on Obama getting the award, I suppose some of you are thinking who I think should have won the award. To tell the truth, I have not followed the political situation around the world well enough to give an honest answer to that question. I am sure that there are at least a half dozen people in the world that did more for peace in the last year than Barack Obama. They did not get the award because the Nobel Peace Prize committee wanted to send a message to the United States. That is that if you want the award, you have to act like the United States is a third world country, not the leader of the world. Then, you might get an award just like Barack Obama. Of course, if another President does that there probably will not be a United States to be President of. We might survive one super-weak President, but we could not survive two. I have my doubts about surviving one, if we re-elect the one.

Barack Obama is sure practicing a curious foreign policy. The standard foreign policy for every country in the world throughout history is to keep your friends close and watch your enemies. Obama is keeping our enemies close and watching our friends closely and with skepticism. This is no way to run a country. If Obama wanted to project American weakness to the world, he has done a masterful job. It only took him 9 months to undo what his predecessors took 233 years building up. In the process, Obama is aligning himself with all the wrong people. If he was my son, I would counsel him to stop hanging around with gutter trash and start hanging around with the good guys.

On the Dennis Prager show, I heard that Obama is shutting down a service that documents all torture and civil rights abuses in Iran. The company that provides this service requested only $2.7 million to do the job for the year. Considering the massive amounts of money that Obama is spending like water, that is an extremely modest amount. The company is being shut down because Obama wants to meet with the Mullah’s of Iran and does not want anything to get in the way of those talks. This is very short sighted thinking.

Obama also has refused to meet with the Dali Lama. He is the nominal head of Tibet. Freeing Tibet is a favorite cause of Obama’s Hollywood crowd, yet he will not meet with the Dali Lama. Why? It is because he wants to meet with China and he does not want to make the Chinese leaders mad. Every President in my memory going back to President Eisenhower has met with the Dali Lama. Not meeting with the Dali Lama is a sign of weakness. The Chinese will make careful note that America is now weak. They will act accordingly in Asia and throughout the world.

In Honduras, their President Zelaya decided that he wanted to emulate Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. So, the Honduran Supreme Court ruled that President Zelaya had committed unconstitutional acts and should be deported. A new President was selected to fill out President Zelaya’s term of office. Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro objected to this action by Honduras, calling it a coup. Barack Obama stepped in as the leader of the “Free World” and sided with the communist dictators and against the Honduran people who were following their Constitution. Barack Obama called the Honduran action a “coup”. Zelaya is now in the Brazilian embassy waiting for the communist dictators to give him time to become a communist dictator like them. Obama continues to support the communist dictators by shutting off all support to Honduras. Honduras is a poor country in the first place. Shutting out needed supplies will make things that much worse.

How did the country that is the leader of the “Free World” become a lap dog for communist dictators? Why aren’t we preaching freedom and democracy to the rest of the world? Why is America suddenly so weak that even Venezuela thinks that they can thumb their nose at us? It was only 10 months ago, under George W. Bush, that we were the strongest country in the world. It was only 10 months ago that we were the leader of the “Free World” and spoke out for freedom and democracy.

Now, even our dollar is under attack. The dollar is crashing on world markets. There is talk about replacing the dollar as the currency used to buy and sell oil. If that happens, the dollar will start a freefall and we will be in severe trouble. Hyperinflation would be a real possibility if the dollar becomes disconnected from oil. Last year nobody even gave it a thought to disconnect the dollar from oil. Now, it is a possibility and could happen very soon. I do not want it to happen, not even to a Democrat President. Disconnecting the dollar from oil has implications to the country far from just making buying and selling oil difficult. It means there would be a real glut of American dollars on the market. When you have too many dollars chasing too few goods, you have hyperinflation. Hyperinflation destroys the value of everyone’s savings and investments. It destroys the value of any contracts. It destroys confidence in the System of government. Governments fall because of hyperinflation. We have the best government ever devised by man in this country. We need to keep it at all costs. We cannot let the government be changed just because some people misused it to cause hyperinflation. Let that be a lesson to us for all time that elections have consequences.

We are living in pivotal times. We need to keep our eyes open to the fast moving events that are shaping the world around us. We also need to hold fast to the things that are true. By being vigilant and holding true to our values, we can withstand the whirlwind that is attacking us. Jesus talked about the House built on the rock and the house built on the sand. Let us make sure that we have the house built on the rock so that we can withstand the floods of history.

Today, I finished reading “The 5000 Year Leap” by W. Cleon Skousen. While I knew a lot of that information on an instinctive level, it was great to have it all put out on paper for me to digest. What emerged from the pages of the book was the amazing insight the Founding Fathers had on human failings. They understood what would work in the long run and what would not. They told us what to guard against and how to manage this new invention. It was not a perfect invention, but it was real close.

When I have heard liberals talk about a living Constitution, I have always instinctively known that the statement was wrong. I knew the Constitution worked for any day. I knew that the only reason that liberals wanted the Constitution to be “living” is so they could change it without following the guidelines put in place to change it. The book gives me ammunition in discussions on why the Constitution is not a “living” document, but one that can stand the change in time and technology. It was written to manage human behavior. That has not changed in at least 5000 years.

I see the need to return to the use of the Constitution as our guiding light through these stormy seas. We have wandered away from the Constitution and need to get back on board. One suggestion made in the book that I had disagreed with in the past was to have Senators elected by State Legislatures again. I had always been a bit of a populist and thought that direct election of Senators gave the people the best way to have their say on what goes on in Washington. I had missed the connection between the states and the Senators that existed before the passage of the amendment electing Senators by direct vote. That essentially made the Senate the same as the House of Representatives. The different election pattern gave it a different feel, but since the people directly elected both, the Senators were not looking out for the States. This has led to an erosion of States Rights.

If Senators were elected by the legislatures of the states, they would be acting quite differently in this Obamacare debate. They would see it for what it is, a power grab by the federal government. Since the Senators would be looking out for the states, they would defeat it in a second. They are only considering it now, because they consider themselves to be federal agents instead of state agents. The Founding Fathers set the Senate up as agents of the State Governments. That way the people and the States each had representation in the legislative branch of government. Only things that were in the best interests of both parties would normally pass the House and Senate. Now, the state is ignored in this process. That makes the federal government take too much power.

Electing the Senators by the legislatures would eliminate the worst of the Senators. A bad Senator would not last. If they were not looking out for their state, the state would remove them from office. Senators also would not have to accumulate large war chests to run for office. This would remove large amounts of money from politics. That is always a goal of the left. Senators could be the true statesmen that the Founding Fathers envisioned. They would not have to spend most of their time raising funds and running for office.

Getting back to the original intent of the Founding Fathers would be great for the country. Getting out of debt and staying there would give us financial stability. Knowing what the laws are from time to time would enable investment and innovation. There are lots of positives and almost no negatives to go back to the original intent of the Founders. We obviously could not do that overnight. It would take time to change what we have into what we should have. The change would be like starting a car from a slow start. As we approached the goal of the Founders vision, the faster our society would go.

Right now, we are in danger of becoming the former United States of America. With the debt that our country has and the speed that Obama is printing new money, we are in danger of losing control of the dollar. That would mean hyperinflation. Zimbabwe had hyperinflation a while back. It basically destroyed the country. The money was worthless. There were no investments. Everyone was poor. The Weimar Republic in Germany had hyperinflation and Adolf Hitler emerged from the ruin. We have to stop hyperinflation before it starts, if it is still possible. If we cannot stop it, America as we knew it will cease to exist because our money will be worthless. Something different would emerge after the hyperinflation. An economist on the Glenn Beck show said that hyperinflation is friendly to governments as it allows it to wipe out debt with worthless money. The hyperinflation is horrible for the people, but the government is stronger than ever. We do not want that scenario.

Barack Obama had a photo op with about 150 doctors that he had invited to the White House. These doctors support socialized medicine. Since only about 8% of doctors support socialized medicine, this group makes up most of them. At the photo op, Barack Obama thought that the doctors did not look like doctors. They did not have on their white coats. So, he passed out white lab coats for each one to wear. That way everyone would know that these are doctors, not just someone in a suit or dress.

If George W. Bush had pulled a stunt like that, the press would have hammered him for days. So far, the press has said nothing about the incident. In fact, they treated the photo op like it was an important state function. They took the photos that they were supposed to take, and no more. They asked the questions they were supposed to ask. They did not ask a single tough question to anyone at the press conference.

The Democrats are trying to sell the American people something that they do not want. The Democrats are using slick advertising with wonderful pictures. They have celebrities cooperating with the push for socialized medicine. Still, the majority of the American people are not buying the idea. The number of Americans buying the idea drops each time they take a poll. Usually slick advertising can overcome a weak message. This proves that slick advertising cannot overcome a bad message.

Part of the reason for the failure of the slick media blitz to connect is the alternate media that is available today. People can tweet and use Facebook for immediate connections. The internet and You Tube allow people to pass information around for a more in depth study. All of this alternate media use has been entirely without the direction of any political party. The Republicans are the beneficiaries of the outcomes, but they were not the instigators. This amateur production has achieved a critical mass without any visual leadership of any single individual or party. The groundswell has been genuine and heartfelt.

As Bear in the Woods put it on Hugh Hewitt.com today, if you look at the flags that people are flying you get an idea where they stand. The most popular flag is the American flag. The second most popular flag is the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag with the snake. This flag is also known as the Gadsden flag. That shows that the sentiment among many, if not most, of the Tea Party goers is that they want a reduction in government. A smart politician could pick up on that bit of information and use it to design a campaign. If the campaign promised a reduction in the size and scope of government, it would resonate with a large number of people. That just might be enough to get that person elected President. Of course, that could not be the only item on the platform, but it is an excellent start.

We are at a crossroads in history. We can either take the path that Barack Obama is showing us or take the path that the Tea Partiers are showing us. One leads to bondage and oppression. The other leads back to freedom and prosperity. One promises security. The other promises a chance to succeed. One promises that you can remain a child for the rest of your life. The other makes you grow up and be an adult to face the world as a free individual.

I choose freedom for my choice. The Founding Fathers chose freedom for this country. We cannot allow people to come here and throw away the American dream for the false promise of security. It has been said that those that give up their freedom for security find themselves neither free nor secure. I hope the rest of America chooses Freedom at this crossroads in time.

Today, I was reading an article by Roger Hedgecock at World Net Daily.com and he said something I knew but never really put into words. He said,” And consider the silence of the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council and every other "environmentalist" organization when Mexican drug gangs set up pot plantations in more than 40 national forests, terracing land, using fertilizers and pesticides banned on legal farms and stealing irrigation water.”

For 20+ years I worked for the US Dept. of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service. We would work with private farmers and ranchers to improve their grazing and cropland. When working with ranchers I would help them develop a plan that would improve the grazing on the land for the cattle and the wildlife. It might require some improvements to do this, but all were documented as to how they would increase grazing for cattle and wildlife. We would then present the plan to the BLM or Forest Service. The BLM or Forest Service would have a meeting of all the interested parties which would always include a member of an environmental group. The goal of the environmental group member was to remove the cattle from the land. They did not care if removing the cattle decreased the grazing for the wildlife. They just wanted the cattle off of the land. That always struck me as short sighted and stupid. We could usually get around them by convincing the vast majority of the importance of improving the land for all creatures. The environmentalist would always get upset and leave. That would make the rest of the meeting a pleasant experience.

The other interesting thing is that the BLM, Forest Service personnel and I had college degrees in some technical environmental field. Frequently, we had a Masters degree as well as a Bachelors degree. The Rancher usually had a college degree in an environmental topic. The environmentalist usually only graduated from high school, yet they tried to tell us that we did not know anything about the environment. It was quite an experience to be lectured to by a high school graduate on what was good for the environment. This “environmentalist” also lived in the city and had no experience in working in any environmental situation.

So, when I put my experience with what Roger Hedgecock said, it makes perfect sense. I could easily have come up with the thought, but I didn’t. I had all the facts, but to me they were just a collection of facts. To Roger, they made a pattern that allowed him to see the truth. Then, when he brings it out, I go and slap my head.

Environmentalists are liberals and socialists first. Second, they are environmentalists. But, as environmentalists, they do not really care about the environment. If they really cared about the environment, they would advocate things to actually improve the environment. What they advocate are socialist and communist programs designed to put the people into bondage, not improve the environment. Their solutions usually will have little if any improvement to the environment. My example above shows that their goal is not improving the environment, but some other agenda that is above their care for the environment. The only thing most “environmentalists” know is what the environmental organization has told them. They have not done any research on the topic outside of their organization.

The rank and file member of an environmental group may actually care for the environment. The organization itself could care less. The organization itself is more concerned with politics and power than it is with the environment. That is because power and politics give immediate results. Any environmental solution will take years if not decades for results to be seen. So, if the organization pushes for a political solution to something, it can get its results quickly. As a result, it is more concerned with political ends than environmental. This leads it to get into bed with groups that do not care for the environment.

If environmental groups cared for the environment like they said they did, they would speak out about any destruction on our National Forests. Because they are completely silent on the destruction of the National Forests by illegal immigrants, it proves that their interests are not environmental. As a result, they are partly responsible for this destruction. They did not directly cause the destruction, but have encouraged the destruction to occur.

On the way to work, I listened to Mike Segal on KFYI. He was talking about the fact that 384 Border Control Agents have been removed from the Southern border with Mexico and sent to the Northern border with Canada. There is also a report that indicates that there are 1300 miles of our Southern border that are not secured at this time.

If we have that many miles of unsecured borders on the south we do not need to remove agents. The biggest problem with illegal immigration is on our Southern border. It does occur along our Northern border, but in far smaller quantities. Since the biggest problem is in the south, it would be logical to have the staff in the south get more people than the north. There probably are still more border control agents on the southern border than the north, but that is not the point. Weakening our ability to stop people from coming across our southern border should be the first priority of the Border Control and the Department of Homeland Security. Since Barack Obama and Janet Napolitano are removing agents from our southern border, they obviously do not think that it is a high priority problem.

Whenever it comes time to identify whether someone is legal or not, Democrats always do not want their legality checked. In voting situations, Republicans continually call for voters to show identification before they vote. Democrats always put out some lame excuse that the Republicans anticipated and solved. In any case, photo id at voting is not done. Why is it not done? Who would benefit if an illegal alien voted? If you are in the least amount honest, you would have to say that the Democrat would be the one to get the vote of an illegal alien. In the Obamacare bill, the Republicans put forward a bill that would require identification before receiving Obamacare. The Democrats defeated that measure. Why? Because they intend for the illegal aliens to get Obamacare, either by making them citizens or just allowing it without checking.

The Department of Homeland Security put out a memo that basically said that illegal aliens should not be arrested until they commit a crime. I may be mistaken, but isn’t crossing the border illegally a crime? As a result, cities like Phoenix are seeing an increase in crime. The crime they are seeing is the type that is common down in Mexico. That is kidnappings. On KFYI, Mike Segal went through a couple of cases in the past week here in the Phoenix area. One of the cases involved a pregnant woman. She is still in the hospital. The arrests happened on Thursday. One of the kidnappings Mike Segal outlined was at 9:30 n the morning, in a parking lot. That is pretty brazen, to commit a crime like that in broad daylight.

The Obama administration seems to be telling us along the Southern border of the United States that the border is unimportant. If people can cross without permission, what is the purpose of the border? In order to keep our country, we have to maintain our borders. This administration is not maintaining our borders. This administration is weakening our borders to allow more illegal aliens to come into this country. It must feel terrible to be a Border Control Agent right now. You would know that the Federal Government does not support what you do. My guess is that there will be a number of Border Control Agents that will bail on the department and work for Sheriff’s Offices, Police Departments and Highway Patrols in the states they are working in right now. That would mean a loss of highly trained and experienced personnel. That is never a good thing.

This morning, I was gratified to see that Barack Obama met with General McChrystal for 25 minutes in Copenhagen. Since Obama has stated that the Afghanistan Theater of the war is the most important part, you would think that he would give it a little bit of his time. I can understand that he ignores Iraq and the rest of the war against Islamo-Fascism. He has said that those actions are not important. But, Afghanistan is supposed to be important. When things are important, you give them some of your time.

I think that Barack Obama is not giving time to Afghanistan because he is caught between a rock and a hard place. The radical left is after him to get this Obamacare bill passed. He needs their votes to get it done. The radical left does not believe that we belong in Afghanistan or any place outside of the US, unless it is not in our interest to be there. So, if Obama gives Afghanistan the time it deserves he will tick off the radical left and make it more difficult to pass his Obamacare bill. If he ignores Afghanistan, he might get his Obamacare bill passed, but more of our brave soldiers will die unnecessarily. As a result, he does not really know how to act. He is tending toward not doing anything, which is his default position.

Barack Obama desperately wants this Obamacare bill to pass so he can have a lasting legacy. Obama thinks that people will look to him as some sort of savior for getting the Obamacare bill passed. He does not understand that people will hate Obamacare.

Right now, Barack Obama is in Copenhagen to try and get the Olympics for Chicago. If he manages to pull that off, he will be paying back the people that put him in office. Those people stand to make millions upon millions out of this deal. They all own slum property right where the different Olympic sites will be built and where the Olympic village will be built. That will mean millions in graft money for each of those involved. It will also mean millions in contracts for the different Chicago unions. The regular people of Chicago will not benefit very much from the Olympics, except for the couple of weeks that the events are held. It is the corrupt Chicago government that will benefit. That is all documented very well by Michelle Malkin. When I saw her documentation, I was blown away by the potential corruption that is there if the Olympics are in Chicago.

Barack Obama has brought Chicago style politics to Washington. Chicago style politics is the dirtiest sort of politics. Right does not matter. Only who you know matters. Corruption is rampant among most of the people that surround the White House. Glenn Beck is having a field day documenting all the corruption in and around the White House. He also asks the question that needs to be answered, “How could this person get access to the President?” When we find the answer to that question, we will unlock the door to the secrets in the White House. Of course, in Chicago style politics, if you find out the answer to that question you may not see the dawn.

Electing Barack Obama to the White House was a historic event. Unfortunately for those who voted for him, it was not the historic event they wanted. They were hoping that electing Barack Obama would lead to an end of racial politics. Instead it leads to an increase in racial politics and a dramatic increase in corruption. I am not saying that there was no corruption under George Bush. I am just saying that the corruption is so rampant under Barack Obama that it is impossible to hide for any length of time.

Will Munsil wrote an article for the ASU newspaper. In the article, he laments that some of the conservative voices are not giving the conservative movement a good name. He has a lot of good things to say about Rush Limbaugh. But, he dismisses Glenn Beck, Orly Taitz, Michael Savage and the “birthers” as giving the movement a bad name.

What Mr. Munsil does not realize is that each “voice” in the movement has its place. Orly Taitz and the birthers have their place. While it is not necessarily the face that establishment conservatives would like to put before the world, they are a viable force. Establishment type conservatives generally tend to be a little more liberal than the people that support Orly Taitz and the birthers. To people more conservative than Mr. Munsil, Orly Taitz and the birthers are pursuing something they feel passionately about. Whether it will ever bear any fruit is another matter and not even the point. The birthers build a pretty convincing case based on evidence that is available to the public that there is something to their story. Let them pursue this goal and stay out of their way. If they are right, the evidence will build up and say so. If they are wrong, the evidence will eventually lead everyone to that conclusion.

Glenn Beck does not have the same function in the conservative movement that Rush Limbaugh, Dennis Prager or Michael Savage have. Limbaugh, Prager and Savage discuss the fine points of conservative orthodoxy. Glenn Beck is not in that category. Glenn Beck’s job in the grand pantheon is to be the “Town Crier”. In early America, there were people that went around the towns that gave the headlines of the news. They were known as the Town Criers. Their job was to discover news and report it, not discuss points of doctrine. I am not saying that Glenn never discusses doctrine, just that his role is more of the Town Crier than intellectual. Glenn Beck has been warning America about things that are happening and are about to happen. He does that very well. If you think that he is trying to be Rush Limbaugh or Dennis Prager, you would say he is giving us a bad name. If you understand his role, you will embrace that role and wish we had others that did just that.

Michael Savage performs the same role as Rush Limbaugh and Dennis Prager. If you listen to all three, you would be struck by how similar their messages are. Their approaches are entirely different as are all three individuals. Dennis Prager holds an intellectual discussion with you on the radio. He appeals to your intellect. Rush Limbaugh is the showman. He entertains while teaching. Michael Savage just tells you like it is. You may not like what he says, but you have to realize that what he says is true. Michael Savage does have the problem that he sometimes comes across as too negative. When I listen to Michael Savage, sometimes I have to turn him off because he is too much for me to take. That never happens with Rush because Rush is funny and makes sure you have a good time.

Will Munsil is correct in that we have to wonder about the face that we put forward. But, before we criticize we have to realize the roles each commentator plays. Why? Because if you do not understand why the radio personality says what he/she says, you miss the entire point. The why is just as important as the what.

I do commend Will Munsil on his insight. Any time you write an article and take a stand you will start to take arrows from all those that have a problem with whatever it is that you say. Liberal Republicans want their candidates to be politically correct, so they do not offend Democrats. Just being physically present is enough to offend Democrats on some issues. In other words, if you spend your life trying not to offend Democrats you will end up being a nothing.