The past couple of days I have been hearing reports about proposals from the Obama administration on how the school year and school day need to be lengthened. As a teacher, those ideas caught my attention. I do teach at the Community College level so these proposals do not directly impact me. They undoubtedly would impact me in the long run if they ever got implemented.

The education secretary for the Obama administration has suggested that schools need to be the center of the community. To fulfill that function, they need to be open more. When asked what he meant by being open more, he replied that they should be open for twelve or more hours a day and 6-7 days a week. He did add that this extra time would be filled with all sorts of educational activities and physical education.

From what I know of the educational system in this country, I highly doubt that twelve months of school will produce better students than nine months. I also think that 6 or 7 days of school would produce the same level of student as the current 5 day system. The reason for my optimism is my great respect for the teacher’s union, the NEA.

In my opinion, the reason the Obama administration wants to have schools open longer each day and longer during the year is not to produce better students. Their goal would be to produce better Obamabots. Since a student has the potential to think for him/herself, they can be dangerous. That is because they spend so much time with their parents. Taking them away for twelve hours a day would remove much of the parental attraction. Then, you could indoctrinate the students into whatever you wanted without the influence of the parents.

Parents have the nasty habit of knowing things about the past. Since they have knowledge of the way things used to be, they tend to teach that to their children. That way they pass the knowledge from generation to generation. That is how it has been since time began. The way to break that cycle is to remove the impressionable children from the home and teach them what you want them to believe. Since children tend to believe all that adults in authority say, that would work wonders.

Right now, I only have one ten year old granddaughter at home. We talk about history, culture and our responsibility in that universe. That periodically conflicts with what she is taught at school. But, because I taught her at home, she can withstand the false teachings. What she tries to do is reconcile the differences between the two camps. Generally she sides with my camp, because we have a closer relationship than she does with teachers. It is interesting to see what she comes up with. We talk about her ideas and the pros and cons of her positions. It is interesting to see her grow because of these discussions. I think that is how it is supposed to work in all families. Parents teaching children at home one set of values. Students getting a second set of values presented at school. If you are doing your job as a parent, you will talk to your children about culture and reconcile those issues.

I can’t claim that I am the best father in the world and that all my children are wonderful perfect children. I have children that have made serious mistakes. But, when they do make those mistakes I am there to help them understand what went wrong in a loving way. It has taken some time for some to come around and others are still wandering, but eventually I believe that my children will see that the culture they were raised with is the best one for them. At least that is the father in me talking. Whether my belief that they will come back to the fold will ever happen is something that only time will tell. I hope I am still alive to see it happen.

In the book, “The 5000 Year Leap”, Cleon Skousen makes the point that the Founders of this country did not intend for the federal government to be handing out welfare payments to people. The Founders believed in the ideal that people were helped more by requiring them to work for their living, than handing out the requirements for their existence. Part of this ideal came from the Bible and part came from the pioneer work ethic.

Dr. Skousen quotes many of the Founders in their writings against having the federal government hand out money to the poor. Many thought that taxing the wealthy to give to the poor a bad idea. They also condemned the idea of spreading the wealth around. Those statements are taken from quotes of the Founders in their own words over 200 years ago. It is amazing how far we have fallen in that time in regards to taking care of our poor.

Jesus Christ said that we shall always have the poor among us. By definition, there will always be someone poorer than someone else. To try and make everyone have the same amount of “stuff” is impossible. There will always be inequality. If the government mandates equality of “stuff”, it might be able to maintain some degree of equality of stuff for a time. As soon as the control is lifted, some will be richer and some poorer than others. It is the laws of human nature. Some people are going to be more industrious than others and so be richer. Some will want things done for them and so be poorer. You cannot eliminate the poor. What you can do is improve their lot in life. We have achieved that in America. The left talks like our poor are so bad that they would flee the country if they could. But, if you compare our poor to the poor of any other country in the world, ours have more things.

We have a massive federal bureaucracy to fight the war on poverty as President Johnson called it. In over 40 years of fighting this war on poverty, the percentage of “poor” has not changed. That is not really a surprise as you always have poor. That Democrats make us all think that our poor are so poor as to be barely surviving is a joke. Our poor are comparatively well off. That is not to say that I want to be one of the poor. I want to be one of the rich. I am working hard to become one of the rich. The likelihood that I will make it to the rich category diminishes with each passing year, but I keep trying.

My wife and I are firmly in the middle class. We started out in the poor category when we were first married. We stayed that way until I took my first full time job as a Deputy Sheriff in Colorado about a year and a half after being married. During the interview process, my wife was asked if we could live on the salary of a starting Deputy Sheriff, which they thought was very low. My wife replied that we had been living comfortably on half of that. The interviewers were astounded that we could have lived on less than that beginning salary.

Since that first job, we have gradually moved up the ladder financially. We would never be considered rich, but we do make incomes in the top ten percent of households. I do not consider that rich. I consider that middle class. We would have to make at least 2.5-3 times what we make to be considered rich in my book. Of course, Obama put the cutoff point where he would not raise taxes at that point 2.5 times what my wife and I make.

That is a typical story of most Americans. It is also typical of many of those who are poor today. Many of the poor are those starting out in life like my kids. They have little today, but over time will move up the financial ladder. Some have lost everything and will rebound. There are some that have been there for generations. To talk of the”poor” as all the same is wrong. All are individuals and need individual help. Government help is always “one size fits all”. When I worked for the government I was required to do things that made no sense, because they were needed in other states. In my state, they made no sense. Government help is always this way.

The Founders envisioned that the individual would help himself first. Second, the family would step in and help the individual. Then you move up the ladder through Church and other groups long before you would reach the federal government. Their idea was that the federal government was to come in after a natural disaster or something like that, not for everyday assistance. Many of the Founders wrote that general assistance to the poor was unconstitutional.

We have moved a long way from the ideals of the Founders when it comes to helping the poor. It would be wonderful if we could get back to those days. In my family, we try to help those starting out or who need help. We try hard never to go to the government for assistance. Sometimes it is something too big for the family or the Church to handle, so my kids have gone to the government to get some assistance. Those times have been rare. We are trying to live the ideals of the Founders when it comes to the treatment of those in need. It would be wonderful if others would do so as well.

On the way to work I heard that our President has decided to be the chief lobbyist for Chicago’s bid for the Olympic Games in 2016. He is leaving Washington with a ton of unfinished business that requires his immediate attention. On 60 minutes yesterday, General McChrystal said that he had only talked to the President once in the approximately 70 days he had been the commander of our troops in Afghanistan. Iran shot off some short range missiles over the weekend. They are planning on shooting a long range missile next Monday. There are plenty of critically important issues for Barack Hussein Obama to occupy his time with in Washington. You would think that obtaining the Olympic Games would be a low priority item at best.

Why is Barack Obama hot to get the Olympic Games for Chicago? One reason is that Mayor Daley is in political trouble. Without the oomph of a big splash, he just might lose his next election. Chicago has become a dysfunctional town. He might lose the election even with the Olympics. Without the Olympics, he is most likely the former Mayor Daley. Barack Obama is a good friend of Mayor Daley. He wants to keep his friends in office.

Why isn’t Barack Obama meeting with General McChrystal? Barack Obama selected General McChrystal for this position back in March. At the time, Obama said that General McChrystal would carry out his strategy for Afghanistan. Now, General McChrystal is calling for more troops to be committed to Afghanistan in an effort to win the war. According to General McChrystal, with the troops we can win the war. Without the troops, we cannot win the war. Barack Obama is undecided on what he wants to do. He would like to vote present, like he does on almost everything else. He has to make a decision. The angry left is telling him to withdraw from Afghanistan. The military is telling him that the war is winnable, if we follow this plan of General McChrystal. He is torn between wanting to please the left which put him in office and the military which could give him a military victory he would desperately love to have. A military victory would go a long way to secure a second term in office for Mr. Obama. What is he to do? His answer is to jet off to Copenhagen, Denmark to talk about the Olympics. That is the same as voting present.

Mr. Obama’s healthcare proposal is being destroyed right before his eyes. The people lining up against it grows longer every day. The number of people supporting it shrinks. According to the polls, far more people strongly oppose Obamacare than strongly approve of Obamacare. Democrats in Congress are looking at 2010 and seeing a disaster in the making. They know if they vote for the Obamacare bill, they will be on the street looking for a job. Obama is pressuring them to vote for the bill with a heavy lobbying effort. The Democrats are caught between a rock and a hard place. Their most likely scenario is to just not bring it up for a vote until after the 2010 election. That would infuriate the White House, but might get them re-elected. If they got re-elected they could pass the bill and we would all lose.

The Tax and Tax bill is the next one in the hopper. That bill is supposed to save the planet from a non-existent problem. If they pass the bill, the problem will not occur. The people that passed the bill could claim credit for curing the non-existent problem. The real reason for the Tax and Tax bill is to raise taxes on everybody. The Democrats believe that all the money in the country belongs to the government and you only get your share through the largess of the federal government. So, when they pass a tax bill, they are really just recouping some of the government’s money. At least that is how the Democrats think. Maybe not directly, but indirectly through their actions that is the policies they stake out.

Obama has no reason to leave Washington at this time. There are too many highly important issues on the table that require his immediate attention. While I love to watch the Olympic Games and love to cheer on the athletes, the security of the United States and our allies is more important. If the problem was solved with Iran and he had met with General McChrystal to iron out any problems, then I would say go ahead. But he has not done any of these things. He has not made any effort to do any of these things. He has done everything in his power to avoid the highly important issues. He is not leading us. He is trying to follow some unknown leader that has abandoned him at this time. Obama needs someone to tell him exactly what to do to get him out of the mess he is in. There are a lot of us conservatives who would gladly take on that job. It would be a monumental task, but one I would gladly do.

The latest outrage on the Obamacare debate is the requirement that everyone have Obamacare insurance. If you do not have Obamacare insurance you can be fined (taxed) $1900. If you do not pay the fine you can be charged with a misdemeanor and fined (taxed again) $25,000 or go to jail. Since Obamacare insurance is undoubtedly going to be more than the $1900 tax, you should not get Obamacare insurance. When they come after you, pay the $1900 fine (tax). But, do not purchase Obamacare insurance. That way you only pay a $1900 tax per year for no insurance instead of $4000 for insurance. But, always comply and pay the initial $1900 fine (tax) or you could be charged with a crime. You do not want that to go on your record, mainly because the next fine is really stiff and jail is no fun.

I am being sarcastic in the preceding paragraph. They would undoubtedly have some provision that would require compliance upon paying the $1900 fine (tax).  The Republicans almost killed the requirement in committee, but Olympia Snowe (RINO – ME) came to the rescue and voted with the Democrats. You can always count on Olympia Snowe to come in and stab you in the back when you think you have a hard fought victory in the bag.

In this Obamacare debate, we are not starting at the right place. The debate always starts with the supposed agreement that we must “fix” our damaged healthcare system. We never start where we should start. That is: Should we “fix” the healthcare system at all? After all, we have the best healthcare system in the world. Thousands of people come here from socialist countries to get healthcare that is unavailable in their countries.

Everyone talks about how expensive healthcare is in this country. That is true that healthcare costs are out of control. But, even so, our healthcare costs are less than in any socialized medicine country and we get better medical care for that reduced cost. If you want the truth, the reason our healthcare costs are increasing as fast as they are is the government is too involved in the system. The fastest way to reduce our healthcare costs would be to reduce the government’s involvement in healthcare. Big government types would hate to see that last statement. They like socialized medicine as it gives government total control over the lives of every citizen in the country. Removing government from healthcare would promote freedom and individual responsibility. That is something a statist would hate to have happen. A statist wants a nanny state governing our lives from cradle to grave.

The other night, I was talking to some students before class. I made the statement that in general, less government is better than more government. In reading the “5000 year miracle” by Cleon Skousen, he said that the Founders were trying to find a balance between no government and total government. We have moved the ball far toward total government. We need to get the ball back toward the center of the chart. That means removing government involvement from a whole host of things. Ronald Reagan said it best when he said, “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problems. Government is the problem.”

In looking at everything proposed by the Democrats and the Obama administration, their solution to every problem is to inject more government into a government caused problem. That will not solve anything. It will cause the problem to get worse. If government caused the problem in the first place, more government will not solve the problem. Less government will solve a problem of too much government involvement.

Glenn Beck said the other day that the older he gets the more Libertarian he gets. I feel the same way. I started out as a Democrat and became more conservative. So I became a Republican and a conservative. Now, I wonder about the big government Republicans that have so much power in the party. We need small government Republicans to lead the party. Then we can have the revolution that is long overdue in this country.

Barack Obama has a huge thorn in his side. That thorn is Glenn Beck. Robert Ringer writes about this at World Net Daily. Robert Ringer believes that Glenn Beck has the power to take down Barack Obama by the 2012 elections. That remains to be seen.

We do know that Barack Obama and his minions have thin skins. You cannot criticize them at all without getting threatening calls, emails or other communications. Right now, the Obama team has their noses out of joint about Fox News. During the media blitz over the last weekend, they “punished” Fox News by not giving them access to Barack Obama. Big whoop, their programs made money while the other stations lost money carrying the President.

At some time, Barack Obama and his team will have to address the problem that is Glenn Beck. During the election they got into a tit for tat with the Republican Vice-Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin. That went on until the Obama team convinced Barack that it was beneath him to trade barbs with the Vice-Presidential candidate. As I remember it, she was cleaning his clock when he cut it off.  Glenn Beck is not a problem that Obama will be able to ignore. Glenn has a radio show where he talks for 15 hours a week and he has a TV show where he talks for an additional 5 hours. The tactics employed by the White House to date have driven many people to wonder who this Glenn Beck guy is, anyway. As a result, his numbers are climbing through the roof. His TV show is the number one TV news show on cable TV. The top 10 are essentially all at Fox News.

Robert Ringer said that Obama would most likely give in and give an interview to Fox News. He then speculated on who would get the interview. He figures that O’Reilly is the most likely candidate to snag the interview. That is a possibility, but Glenn Beck is still there. Glenn Beck will still have to be dealt with. Obama will have to go into the Lion’s Den at some point and talk to Glenn Beck. The problem is that Glenn Beck is not like all the other TV and Radio hosts. All the others are comfortable with their lifestyle and would not be likely to give it all up if the chips were on the line. Beck has stated that he would not be afraid of being poor again. He has been poor before and would be willing to be poor again, if it got the truth to the American people.

Glenn Beck is a personification of the Refounders that he is talking about. The original Founding Fathers pledged everything, including their own lives to secure the freedoms this country had. Glenn has taken those ideals to heart and would be willing to make a similar sacrifice if it meant the rebirth of the United States. That means he would be difficult to defeat. Anyone who has the integrity and honor to have that stand is unlikely to be moved by half truths. If Obama meets Beck, Obama will have to give the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Beck will cut through the BS that is Obama’s stock in trade. Since Obama does not want the whole truth to get out, he cannot afford to meet Beck on the current terms. Obama’s only hope in the contest with Glenn Beck would be to wait for a favorable time. In my opinion, that favorable time period Obama needed to have passed a few months ago.

I am a relative newcomer to Glenn Beck. I work when his TV show and radio show are on. I was introduced to the Glenn Beck show by a friend. I access Glenn Beck on the Fox News website. I do not get all of his show, but I do get most of it. I wish I could get more, but am glad for what I do get. I rarely get to hear the radio show. I rarely am off during his radio show. It also comes on an FM station. I only listen to FM on the third Thursday of each week. I find Glenn Beck to be funny and right to the point. If Obama ever met with Glenn Beck, Obama would be rolled in the first five minutes. Glenn can pull jokes out of thin air and at the drop of a hat. Obama has to have jokes pulled from him with pliers. Obama also has to have carefully laid plans for the jokes. In a situation like that, there is no way Obama could even be expected to hold do well against Beck. Reagan could give as much as he got. Clinton might be able to pull off one of his empathy sessions. The two Bush Presidents would not do well against Beck. The reason is that Beck is fast on his feet and the two Bush Presidents are slow. Either Bush would do much better than Obama because either Bush is much more nimble.

  Obama will have to take care of Beck to still be President on January 21, 2013. I do not see it happening under the circumstances as they exist today. In politics, a day is a long time and a month is an eternity. Circumstances could change between now and Election Day 2012. The longer Obama waits for Election Day 2012, the higher the stakes for him. Beck’s stakes remain the same regardless of the time frame involved.

Our President has raised or lowered (depending on your point of view) denigrating America to the world to an art form. His latest was to the United Nations. He must think that it is cute to denigrate America in front of people that spend their time tearing down all that America stands for. As for me, it grates on my nerves to have any American, especially our President, denigrate American in front of foreigners.

My attitude is this: in a political argument within the United States anything goes. That means that you can say whatever you want about America and I will defend to the death your right to say it, no matter how wrong you are. But, in a situation where foreigners are involved, all bets are off. There are protocols to be met and standards to uphold. The first among those is that to foreigners or on foreign soil, you do not speak ill of the United States. I know that with the 24 hour news cycle anything said by a President is known all around the world within seconds. But, if it is a domestic political contest, I still stand by the rule that you can say whatever you want. I am very 19^th century about that sort of thing.

What grates about denigrating the United States to the United Nations is that it plays into the hands of the communist dictators like Fidel Castro or Hugo Chavez. They say that kind of thing all the time. Nobody believes them because they can see for themselves that it is not true. But, when an American President says the same thing, it lends credence to the words of the lying dictators.

One other thing that makes absolutely no sense to me is the situation in Honduras. They had a President who wanted to be a dictator like Hugo Chavez. The legislature, courts and military said that would not happen and threw him out. The legislature, courts and military followed the Honduran Constitution in throwing out the dictator. The communist dictators in the hemisphere protested the ouster of Zelaya and called it a coup. Barack Obama picked up the cry from the communist dictators and declared the constitutionally legal ouster of Zelaya to be a coup. This is crazy. We are aligned with the communist dictators and against the cause of freedom. It should be exactly the opposite of that situation. We have now forced Zelaya back into the country. He is being housed at the Brazilian Embassy until things can be worked out. Even the communist leaning Brazilians know that Zelaya is a thug and are giving Zelaya the cold shoulder. I am just afraid that we will force Honduras to throw out their Constitution and take a communist dictator.

Glenn Beck has been having a series of shows on the people that surround Barack Obama. Since we do not know much about Obama, the only way to know much about him is to know who he associates with. Most of the people that are in his inner circle have some ties directly or indirectly to communism or Marxism. In my mind, those are two sides of the same coin. Since that is the inner core of people working around Obama, can’t we make the jump and say that Obama leans heavily toward the Marxist philosophy. Looking at what Obama is saying and doing would also lead one to believe that Obama is at least leaning heavily toward the Marxist philosophy. My opinion is that he is a Marxist. But that is my opinion, not necessarily a true fact.

As Glenn Beck pointed out on his show yesterday, Barack Obama has all the parts set up to fundamentally change America, if we do not find out what he is doing. Unfortunately for Obama, we have started to figure out what he is doing. Because we are starting to figure out what he is doing, we are starting to fight back against the onslaught of socialist programs. Because of that push back by the American people, we just may regain the America that we had for over 200 years. Even catching it this early, we gave up a lot of ground. That will have to be reclaimed to get America back. The conservative American has awakened. The time for the conservative American to take back this country is coming in November 2010. Then, it will take a lot of hard slogging to get America back on the right track. We would have to rid ourselves of all these socialist programs, one at a time. That will take time and will involve a lot of yelling and stamping of feet. It will be worth it in the end, but hard to take at the time. I hope to be around to see America back in the saddle as the greatest nation on the face of the earth. That is where she belongs and where she should stay. Obama is wrong to apologize for America.

Sorry about the lack of posts this week. On Monday, I had an emergency to take care of. By the time I was finished, it was 9 pm and I was exhausted. On Tuesday, I had to make up for everything I did not do on Monday. Today, I started reading the book Glenn Beck recommends, “The 5000 year Miracle” by Cleon Skousen. Just getting through the introductory material took me my full exercise period. I was really struck with the force of the arguments in the introductory material. I can hardly wait to get into the body of the book. I will probably be posting comments about the book over the next week or two.

Over the weekend, Barack Obama hit all the Government run media. He got real hardball questions like what he thought about the White Sox baseball team’s chances in the American League pennant race. That was really important to the future of the United States to know that bit of information. Had the other questions been weighty, that question would not be out of place. Since the others were not as hard hitting as that one, that one was out of place.

The Obama team thought they were punishing the Fox News Corporation by not putting Barack Obama on Fox News. That increased the viewership of Fox News during those times. That was some punishment. The Obama team is extremely thin skinned. If any TV or radio personality says one thing that might be interpreted as not praising the President, they come unglued and banish that host to the nether world. They call the host and complain. They call the station and complain. They withhold direct comments from Barack Obama as punishment for the misdeed. This group cannot stand to be criticized at all. Where are they from? This is America. Since the time of the Founding Fathers, politicians have been criticized by the press and other politicians. Some of the names have been much worse than those thrown at Barack Obama. Should anyone take these names seriously? No, they are just part of American politics. The Obama team thinks that the names are important and seek to stifle all name calling by anyone, unless it is considered positive.

The Obama team seems to think that our allies and the political opposition in the United States are the enemy. The people that have said that they want to see America destroyed are just “misunderstood”. The misunderstood declared enemies of the United States can be talked to and you can come to some agreement with them. With the political opposition in the US or our allies, they have to be destroyed or made to bow to King Barack I.

What the Obama team seems to not understand is that we have a Republic. When you have a Republic, the leader is a President, not a King. You can criticize a President all you want without fear of reprisal. You cannot criticize a King without fear of reprisal. The Obama team punishes those who do not give the proper respect to Barack Obama. In my book, you have to earn respect. Obama has done nothing to earn my respect. He has done a lot to lose my respect, but none to gain it. Therefore, I will not bow to King Barack I. I will treat him as Mr. President. Just like George Washington wanted it in 1791. It has been that way from 1791-2009. It should remain that way from 1791-51791. In other words, it should remain that way as long as the United States remains a Republic. I will do everything I can to help her remain a Republic as long as I live. If Obamacare passes, that won’t be too much longer. If we defeat Obamacare, I plan on being a thorn from now until Election Day 2012.

On the way to work, I was listening to KFYI. They were talking about Obamacare when I first got in the car. Then, they switched to the case of the children taken from their parents in Arizona because of photos. These two things are seemingly unrelated, but they are not unrelated at all. They are very much related.

The common thread between Obamacare and the case of the children is the nanny state. Or in other words, the government will take care of you and make sure everything goes just like the government wants it to go.

For those who are unfamiliar with the case in Arizona involving the children, Wal-Mart and the City of Peoria, AZ, I will provide a short recap. I am leaving out names on purpose. A married couple has three children ages 5, 3 & 1. All of them are girls. As all proud parents, they like to take pictures of their children. They decided to get some of these photos developed at Wal-Mart. The Wal-Mart technician decided that 8 of the photos were inappropriate and called the police. The police investigated, called Child Protective Services (CPS) and eventually took the children from the home. While the children were gone, they underwent tests to determine if they were sexually abused by the parents. Five weeks later they had a court hearing where the judge threw out the case. As a result, the parents have filed a lawsuit against Wal-Mart, the City of Peoria and Child Protective Services. It has gone national, as it should.

How is this related to Obamacare? Obamacare is all about control over you and your life. In other words, if Obamacare gets enacted we will be on a fast track to have a nanny state government. Nanny state governments sound great as everything will be handled by the government. But that is exactly the problem with nanny state governments, they take care of everything. There is no freedom in a nanny state society. I do not want to live in a nanny state society. The Soviet Union, Cuba and Communist China are some examples of nanny state governments. You do not have people trying to get into nanny state countries. People try to leave nanny state countries. That is a testimony to the lack of freedom and what it does to the soul of man.

Michelle Obama was unveiled yesterday to speak in behalf of Obamacare. She tries to depict the current healthcare system as oppressive to women. That is far from the truth. Obamacare will be oppressive to women. The current system allows women the freedom to choose what they want, when they want in regards to their health. Under Obamacare, women will be forced into a government rationing plan on what they will get, not what they want. For example; if you need a mammogram with the current system, you call up, make an appointment and get it done. Under Obamacare, you talk to your doctor after waiting a few months, then you wait a few months to make an appointment, then you wait another few months to get the mammogram. You decide which program gives women more freedom? Is it the one where you have to wait months and months to get care or the one where you get care right away? In my humble opinion, getting care when you want it gives women more freedom than a system where you have to wait in line for everything.

Obama is trying to sell us a pig in a poke. He has a bad idea and knows it is bad. If it was a good idea, he would be telling us the truth about the plan. He only tells us things that are technically true, but in practice, not true. Like when Obama says illegal immigrants will not be covered under his plan. That is true, the plan says just that. The problem is there is no way to verify if someone is here illegally or not because nobody can check. That will insure that illegal aliens get covered under Obamacare, even when Obama says they will not get covered.

We need to work for a system where freedom is the default option. Right now, the default option seems to be the nanny state. We need more freedom in this country. There are a couple of laws I would like passed. The first is that any law would have to repeal at least twice as many laws as it is implementing and they would have to be of equal value. The second law would be that each law would have to have an attachment on where in the Constitution it says specifically that Congress can do this thing. I realize that both are probably impractical, but they would at least make a dent in the nanny state takeover.

Last night on the way home, I heard part of the Michael Savage show. They were talking about a comment that Nancy Pelosi made regarding blood being spilt over remarks on the Obamacare bill. The tone of their conversation was that this was similar to the statements made by people leading up to the Reichstag fire that propelled Hitler to power. The inference being that if there were some kind of incident, the Democrats could declare martial law and eliminate the need for elections.

I must admit that when I first heard Nancy Pelosi’s remark, I was concerned. I do not trust her in my sight or out of my sight, so anything she says troubles me. This one puzzled me because I could not see any basis for her making the comment. She was talking about violence when the demonstrations have been remarkably civil was unusual.

Of course, I also am reminded that the news media has tried to portray the demonstrators as potentially violent. When a black man showed up with an automatic weapon strapped to his back, they took his picture and claimed it was a white man. The drive by media has an agenda and they will promote that agenda regardless of the facts. The people that showed up on Sept. 12 were the most peaceful demonstrators in the memory of the law enforcement authorities in Washington. These demonstrators are so filled with hate that they even cleaned up after themselves. The areas with demonstrations were cleaner after the demonstration than they were before the demonstration. From what I have picked up from those that were there, it was something you could take your children to.

When Janet Napolitano sent the memo around that made basically every conservative a potentially violent criminal, she was shouted down. The list was withdrawn from the public eyes. Now, we find that that the memo did not hit the wastebasket. It just went underground. It must be circulating freely among the left wing members of the administration. The ideas in Napolitano’s memo were repeated by the Speaker of the House. That means we can expect more comments from senior government officials in the coming weeks and months.

The question that Michael Savage and his callers were addressing was why? At this point nobody officially knows for sure. If there is some type of conspiracy like some were talking about last night, those people know. The rest of us are in the dark until the trap snaps shut. If there is no conspiracy, then things will just happen. We should be aware of the potential for a problem. We should make plans in case there is a problem, and hope that we are wrong. People with 20/20 hindsight always ask the question, “Why didn’t they see all the warning signs?” The warning signs are not obvious until something happens, then it is too late.

Remember back to the beginning of the Obama administration where they had program after program coming at you from all directions? The people that work at ACORN have to be feeling that same way this week. Since the original documentary came out about the politician and the prostitute in Baltimore, they have had almost one revelation a day. Their original denial said that the people making the documentary tried in New York and California and failed, among others. That statement is at least 40% wrong, since 2 out of 5 of the places they mentioned as turning away the couple actually helped the couple.

As gratifying as it is to see ACORN get their just rewards, it puts Obamacare in a different light. We need to focus on killing off all the various incantations of Obamacare. This ACORN mess is a distraction from that major task. Max Baucus came out with a consensus bill yesterday and there was a consensus of politicians rejecting his bill. Democrats and Republicans have declared it stillborn. Since it was introduced, it has a chance of passing. It very well could be a compromise position for Obamacare, if all others fail. That is not likely, but anything is a possibility at this point.

The ACORN situation has clarified their position with Americans. We always had a suspicion that ACORN was corrupt, but did not have any facts to back it up. Now we have the facts that show that at least the ACORN offices in San Diego and San Bernardino, CA, Baltimore, MD, Washington, D.C. and New York City, NY are corrupt. Since those are the only ones we know about, that is a pretty bad percentage for ACORN. ACORN insists that these incidents are being taken out of context and that the tapes were doctored. There are unedited tapes available that the public can see and the people that have looked can find no evidence of any editing errors. As evidence that the tapes are most likely true, all of the ACORN employees on the tapes have been fired by ACORN. If the tapes were doctored, they would not have fired the employees. There is also a voter fraud case in Florida where ACORN has fired 13 people.

The brother of the President of ACORN is the President of SEIU. What has riled people up so much in the Townhall Meetings with their Congressional Delegation is that SEIU seems to show up in numbers to strong arm people at these meetings. Those are the same kinds of tactics used by ACORN in vote fraud cases. In looking at pictures of them on the Glenn Beck show, they do look like Bond villains. Glenn suggested that connection and I have to agree with his assessment. Of course, it could be the photographs that were selected to put on the blackboard the Glenn uses on his program. Selecting photographs is an art form. If you select the right photograph, you can make anyone look like an angel or a devil or anything in between.

Officially, the Census Bureau has cut their ties with ACORN. Since ACORN is just an umbrella organization with hundreds of tentacles, it remains to be seen if that cut is real or imagined. The Senate has cut some funding from ACORN. If these cuts spread wider, ACORN could be in danger of collapsing. It is a creation of some arcane federal laws and some innovative leadership. It receives most of its funding from federal sources. If the federal government truly cut all ties and funds from ACORN, it just might have to cease doing business.

We all seem to forget that Barack Obama was a trainer for ACORN while he was a community organizer in Chicago. Obama has close ties to ACORN. It remains to be seen what will happen if the scandal grows. It could easily infect Democrat politicians all around the country. It shouldn’t get Republicans as ACORN is a Marxist organization and Marxist organizations are almost exclusively Democrat. Things are not looking good for the Democrats to control Congress after the 2010 elections. That is good for America.

Glenn Beck has been talking about corruption in Washington for some time. The past few days he has been talking about finding the “Refounders”. The Refounders are based on the fact that 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence and changed the world. We have strayed far from the ideal that those men envisioned for America. The Refounders would be 56 politicians that would work for the good of America without regard to party. They would identify and remove corruption within their own parties, first.

The idea is a good one. But, I do not see many politicians taking him up on his proposition. There are too many “goodies” for staying on the plantation and not enough for straying off. Many a good person has gone to Washington with the idea that they are going to be the Jimmy Stewart character in “Mr. Smith goes to Washington”. They usually end up being caught up in the corruption and never amount to anything important. The reason that happens is that there are entrenched special interests that like things as they are. They do not want to go back to the era of personal responsibility and small government. That would mean that they would have to compete on an even playing field. That is something most of them have not done for many decades.

There are some good politicians in Washington right now. My Congressman, Jeff Flake is one of them. He has been fighting against the special interests since he got to Washington. The special interests have effectively kept him from leadership positions that he truly deserves. He has done some things that have made me question whether he is being “turned”, but overall he is one of the very best. He is probably the most consistently good Congressman in the House of Representatives. If he is not the best, he is one of the half dozen best.

In looking at my two Senators, one is considered an excellent Senator, Jon Kyl and one is considered a tool of special interest, John McCain. Jon Kyl is an excellent Senator and would have to be in the top half dozen in the Senate. John McCain can be counted on to be with you when it is obvious you have won and not with you when the chips are down. McCain likes the title of Maverick. That would be a good title if it meant that you were always on the side of what is best for America. That has not been John McCain’s track record. His record is that he is always on the side that will give him the best press. He rarely takes an unpopular stand. He cannot be counted on to defend the ship to the last man, if that is what is needed to stop something that will harm America.

I wish Glenn Beck well in finding his 56 Refounders. Those he does find will go down in history like the 56 original Founders have gone down in history. Unfortunately, we do not seem to have enough men and women with backbones to stand up to tyranny and corruption. I hope that I am wrong on this one. I hope that Glenn gets 112 Refounders. If he gets even one Refounder, the character of Congress could drastically change. A little truth goes a long way. One person telling the truth and digging up skeletons would do wonders for the character of those that serve in Congress. If Glenn gets one Refounder from each party, heads will roll and we just might get our country back. If he only gets one, especially if that one is a Republican, then not that much will happen except the Republicans will be painted with the corruption brush. I think a minimum of two, one from each party, would be required to have any real impact on Congress.

I agree with Glenn Beck that Congress should not pass any laws until it cleans itself of the rampant institutional corruption. With Democrats in charge, that is unlikely to happen. Good thought, almost impossible to implement. The best we can hope for is that the conscience of a few Senators and Congressmen are pricked and decide to come clean on what is going on. Then, heads would roll and we would start to see real action. We need to keep up the pressure and get them to examine their own conscience to see if they want to stand up and be counted part of the solution or continue to be part of the problem.

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

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

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

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

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

 This past Saturday, something unusual happened in the United States. The unusual thing was that conservatives showed up for a demonstration in large numbers. I am sure if you took a poll of those attending, almost all would say this was their first demonstration.

If you listen to the government controlled media, you would think that these people showed up for some deranged reason. The government controlled media continuously undercounted and misrepresented what people were there for. The only times they got it right was when they were interviewing someone that participated in the event. Then, when the media person tried to trip up the demonstrator, the demonstrator set the media person straight as to why they were there. Some even gave history and civics lessons to the media types. It was quite instructive to see the demonstrators have far more information at their fingertips than the media types had at their fingertips.

Politicians have to be watching the events unfold. As they unfold, the liberals have to be sweating nails. The Tea Parties were interesting and generated a lot of interest. But, they were a flash in the pan event with no follow-up. The events during the recess Townhall Meetings scared a lot of Democrats into not holding the meetings they had scheduled. But, again they were dismissed as unusual and out of touch with the main stream of America. But, when 1.5 million people show up at a single event people they oppose have to be taking notes.

The interesting thing about this event is that there was almost nobody trying to get people there. There were a few announcements and suggestions, but I did not see a concerted effort to get me to go to Washington. I wasn’t really tuned in to the event until about a week ago. The pictures that were on Townhall.com were outstanding in showing the crowd in time-lapse photography. You really got a good idea of the size of the protest when you saw that time-lapse photography.

The hope is that this energy will carry over until November 2010. That is always difficult with movements like this. There is no charismatic leader and so it can disappear just as quickly as it appeared. It can also overwhelm everything in its path if it continues at the level we see it at now. As long as Barack Obama pushes his radical agenda, the movement will continue to draw energy and grow. The movement does need a leader who will take the movement to a higher level. A movement without a leader can only go so far before it runs into problems. The movement has not reached the problem moment yet, but it will reach that point before we get to the elections in 2010.

There are talk show hosts that are semi-leading this movement. Glen Beck has to be the hot host right now. Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Mark Levin are the ones that are following Glen in stoking the energy level of the movement. None of them are the”leader” of the movement, but they generate some of the energy that keeps it going. I am sure that none of them want to be the leader of the movement. They are all happy being talk show hosts. Why would they want to become a politician? Let a politician take this ball and run with it. The direction to go is clearly defined. All you have to do is grab the ball and run with it. The only problem is you have to be credible to the people in the movement. A “liberal” Republican cannot run with this ball. The person has to be a conservative. But, you have to be a conservative with a backbone. Those are very few and far between in Washington. There are plenty of conservatives. But there are not many conservatives with a backbone in Washington. The problem with Washington is that it corrupts conservatives and makes them moderates or worse, conservatives without a backbone.

Acorn has generated a lot of news this week. All of the news was bad for Acorn and almost all of it bad for the United States. Acorn said each case was isolated and not reflective of Acorn’s standards. Let’s look at the cases and see if we can figure out if it was isolated or a pattern.

The first case that hit the news was a voter fraud case out of Florida. Acorn ended up firing 11 people because of this case. Has Acorn ever been accused of voter fraud? Was that just one time or many times? In the 2008 election, Acorn was involved in registering new voters for Barack Obama and the Democrats. That is just fine as long as they do it legally. But, almost immediately cries of voter fraud started up all over the country. In Nevada, one county registered the entire starting lineup of the Green Bay Packers. Those men live in Wisconsin, not Nevada. They also registered every Disney character. A county in Pennsylvania had more registered voters than there were people in the county. That was counting men, women and children in the total number of people. So, voter fraud was rampant wherever Acorn was involved in voter registration. Those areas also were where allegations of voting irregularity took place. In Philadelphia, there was a report of a bus that took a group of people from one polling place to another around Philadelphia. The driver of the bus was worker from Acorn. So, I think we can safely say that voter fraud is a trademark issue for Acorn and not an isolated incident.

The next two involve a man and a woman coming to Acorn to ask for help in obtaining a house. The house was to be used as a brothel involving underage sex slaves from El Salvador. In Baltimore, the Acorn employees immediately helped the man and woman. They told them how to make the income legal and how to report it to the IRS. They even told them how to use the underage girls from El Salvador as tax deductions. In Washington, D.C., the man and woman took longer to convince Acorn to help them with their brothel. In both cases the Acorn workers seemed very well acquainted with the law and how to get around IRS regulations. These were the only two times this couple made this attempt. When you have nearly identical results in two different locations it would indicate to me that there is something there. There is a small chance it could be isolated, but with two similar outcomes, that is not likely. The employees were too sure of themselves for it to be just isolated incidents. It had to be something they either practiced with regularly or dealt with regularly. I am not talking the exact details, but in general of an illegal activity that they try to make legal.

The fourth incident involving Acorn is kind of a mixed bag result. It is bad for Acorn and great for the United States. The Census Dept. decided that they will not use Acorn in any capacity in the 2010 census. That should greatly reduce the amount of census fraud that will take place. Acorn will lose some funding, which is great. And the US will reduce census fraud which is great. The US came out way ahead on this incident.

Why is Acorn important? They were written into the stimulus bill to receive $8.5 billion. For an organization as corrupt as Acorn to receive that much money is terrible. The money has not been spent, so it can be rescinded. It should be rescinded as soon as possible. Also any contracts the federal government has with Acorn should be ended right now. We should not be funding an organization that is this corrupt. Any organization that advises citizens on how to break the law should be put out on the street as soon as possible. The only problem with this scenario is that Barack Obama worked for and trained Acorn personnel. He will not like the fact that Acorn will be cut out of the stimulus bill. He promised them a place at the trough, I mean table. He will be the biggest obstacle to ridding ourselves of this obviously corrupt organization.

Glen Beck said this week that no legislation should move in Washington until we remove the massive corruption from Washington. I completely agree with that assessment. As long as corruption rules the roost, no good can come out of Washington. The Book of Mormon has the civilization falling primarily because of this type of corruption. We can still rescue ourselves from this corruption. We have to do it soon. Encourage our leaders to rid ourselves of corruption, now. The cost will be high in the short run. The cost will go higher the longer we wait. If we do nothing at all, it will be the highest cost of all. The activities of today will help in that regard. We need to sweep Washington clean of corruption. We will lose a lot of politicians in the process. Some of them may even agree with us, but if they are corrupt, they must go.

Today is September 11. It has been eight years since the terrorists flew the planes into the twin towers and the Pentagon. At the time we said that we would never forget the tragic events of that day. Eight years later, it seems like we have forgotten much about what happened on 9/11 and the days and weeks after 9/11.

On the morning of 9/11/2001, I was up early getting kids ready for school. My youngest son was watching TV in the living room while I was doing some work on the computer in the den. He told me that a plane flew into the twin towers. Of course I did not believe him and turned on the TV in the den. At that time the second plane struck the twin towers. From that moment, my life changed. I have never forgotten the events of that day. I remember having to teach my class that night. Nobody wanted to talk about Biology, so we talked about the attacks on the twin towers and the Pentagon. I did not advance my syllabus very much, but my students felt better about the events in the world. On 9/10, I had a 9/10 mindset. After 9/11, I have had a 9/12 mindset.

Some in Washington are trying to change 9/11 to a day of service. 9/11 should not be turned into a day of service. It should be a day of patriotism and remembrance of those who lost their lives that fateful day. Changing 9/11 to a day of service takes all the meaning out of the day. Instead of learning what is important about America and the world, children would be taught to give service to the all important state. That just seems like the wrong message to me. This is a day where students should be taught the importance of American individualism and freedom. But, the current leaders do not want those messages taught because people would rebel from what is happening now.

There is talk of making 9/11 a national holiday. I am not really in favor of that idea. It would give weight to the honor of those that died. But not having a holiday gives schools a chance to teach freedom and individualism. Even if the schools taught lessons from the Founding Fathers, the students would be ahead of where they are now.

We borrowed the HBO series on John Adams from a friend. The lessons in that series are something that every schoolchild needs to learn. We see that John Adams was a great man, but he was not perfect. He had some crackpot ideas that were rejected. He had some hard times. But, when you look at the man as a whole person, you see a great man. Like all the Founding Fathers, he was trying to forge a path in the darkness. There were no guidelines of where to go. It is a wonder to me that the Founding Fathers were able to accomplish as much as they did. They had so many obstacles that I am awed by the greatness embodied in those men. Everyone needs to see the Founding Fathers and their greatness. If they understood our Founding Fathers, we would be less inclined to give up American Independence for socialism.

We know socialism does not work. It has never worked at any time or in any place where it has been tried. My ancestors tried it at Plymouth in 1620. They almost died from the effort. After introducing capitalism, the colony thrived. While it was under socialism, the colony was in danger of disappearing. We seem to be trying to go back and try the things that they rejected in Plymouth in 1621. Why do we constantly have to repeat the mistakes of the past? It makes no sense to repeat the mistakes of the past. Learn from the past and grow from the knowledge it gives to you. My ancestors got it right in the 1620’s. I intend to get it right in 2009.