Barack Obama gave his highly touted speech last night to both Houses of Congress. I was unable to hear the speech live because I work evenings and could not turn in a radio to listen. So, I had to wait until after work to find anything out.

In reading the speech, he starts telling whoppers at the beginning and continues until the end. He said nothing in this speech that he has not been saying in speeches around the country for the past couple of weeks. The highlight of the night came when Obama made his usual lie that the bill will not cover those here illegally. That was too much for Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina. He yelled out that Obama was lying. Everything came to a screeching halt for a few seconds while everyone caught their breath. Democrats were livid. Republicans were privately cheering him on while appearing uncomfortable.

Today, all the talk is about the fact that Representative Joe Wilson yelled that Barack Obama lied during the speech. To hear Democrats talk, you would think that this is the first time in the history of the Republic that this has happened. They conveniently forget speeches President Bush gave to Congress where the Democrats accused him of lying. The Democrats even went to the fuss of walking out on the President. Joe Wilson just yelled out that Obama lied when he could not take it any longer. He did speak out of turn and he did apologize for that mistake. He did not apologize for saying that Obama lied. He still insists that is true.

Let’s look at the facts on whether Obama or Wilson is correct. Obama said that under his plan no person who is here illegally will be covered by the plan. The bill actually says that in the language included in the bill. But, there is no way to know whether someone is here legally or illegally under the bill and you cannot check to see. In other words, the bill does not cover those here illegally, but if they happen to apply to be covered there is no way for Obamacare to know whether he can be covered or not. So, he would be covered under Obamacare if he asked to be covered. That would mean that a person here illegally could be covered under Obamacare if they took the time to come down and apply for it. So, technically Obama was correct that the bill does not cover illegal aliens. But, Joe Wilson is correct that illegal aliens will be covered under the bill as written. When the Republicans tried to put enforcement into the bill, the Democrats voted it down under a party line vote. In other words, the Democrats intend for illegal aliens to be covered under the bill. They just put the language that they will not be covered into the bill to make people think that illegal aliens will not be covered. Joe Wilson was correct. Barack Obama was wrong.

There was no reason to call a joint session of Congress to listen to this speech. Nothing was said in this speech that had not been said many times over during the past few weeks. Obama added nothing to the information available for the public to use to know where the discussion is on the merits of the bill.

Every reason the Republicans had for not supporting the bill before last night are still there this morning. Barack Obama did not move the ball in any direction. All that happened was a lot of publicity for a regular campaign speech that may or may not have added to the debate over healthcare today. When you add it all up, Obama gave us nothing at all last night in his speech except more of the same old rhetoric that we have heard before and will hear again. With all the build-up you would have thought he could have come up with something new to break the ice. He came up with nothing. That means in the debate, he is a cipher. That is not a good place for the President of the United States.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Van Jones bit the dust. Officially, he “retired” (at about 40) from federal service. He did not retire; he was pushed out by the Obama administration. He and they did not want their finger prints on the event, so the thought up this story to cover the actual truth.

Who is responsible for Van Jones taking a long hike? World Net Daily first broke the story when Van Jones was appointed. But, they were not able to generate a lot of heat to get Van Jones to quit or even get the Obama administration to blink. Glen Beck has been raking Van Jones over the coals for about the last 10 days. The amount of heat Glen Beck generated would have to be what caused Van Jones to quit. Sean Hannity started to do stories on Van Jones this past week. To sum up the credit, World Net Daily has to be given partial credit for breaking the story. Glen Beck has to be given credit for actually getting Van Jones to quit because he was generating a lot of heat. Other talk show hosts were playing off of what Glen Beck had uncovered. Glen Beck’s research team is second to none. They make absolutely certain that Glen is protected when he stands in front of a camera or a microphone and tells it like it is. Part of the credit also has to be given to the Obama team that fumbled the ball at every opportunity. They would have to be likened to the “Keystone Kops” of old movie fame.

The question that has to be asked now is: Who is the next target on the Obama team? There are a lot of shady characters as Czars on the Obama team. Some have already been exposed during the Van Jones exposure as being communist or part of communist groups.

The remaining question about Van Jones is: how did this man get so close to the President? With the background he had there is no way he could have been vetted by the FBI. He must have been vetted by the White House. That says a lot about the White House and their lack of ability to get things done. Either they did not know who Van Jones was, which makes them incompetent. Or they knew who Van Jones was which makes them part of the problem. If they knew who Van Jones was and still approved him, how did these people get approved? Keep walking backwards until you get to the person or persons who are responsible for all these communists and socialist sympathizers getting high level access to the President of the United States. I don’t know about you, but I get real nervous whenever any President gets near a communist. But I am especially worried when THIS president gets near a communist. Barack Obama always seems to have a lot of communists around him. That is probably just a coincidence.

 The next Czar to fall will most likely be the Science Czar, John Holdren. John Holdren advocates forced sterilization of women. That position and many other controversial positions will put John Holdren in the cross hairs of Glen Beck and other conservative talk shows. Now that one Czar has fallen because of an investigation into the background of Van Jones, it is fair game to investigate the background of any Czar. Any Czar with a shaky background will find himself/herself on the hot seat real fast. Since the Obama administration is particularly thin skinned, being on the hot seat is another way of saying that they are on the way out. If I was an Obama Czar with a shady past or thin resume, I would look for better pastures real fast. That is before the hammer falls from an external investigation. The Obama administration would do well to clean house before another investigation shoots another one down. Of course, I do enjoy the show of one investigation after another turning up dirt on some new Czar. The question is will Obama do the right thing or try and hide other incompetent person, only time will tell.

Glen Beck is still under attack from the left. In a way that is a good thing. It means that he is being effective in finding the skeletons in their closet. It is also a bad way because it shows how many companies are spineless lapdogs of the left.

Glen Beck has a terrible time slot to get high ratings, yet he is now frequently the top show on all of cable news. Bill O’Reilly has had the top slot for a long time. Glen is now getting ratings that challenge Bill for the top spot each day. Bill O’Reilly undoubtedly does not like that, but it is the nature of TV that shows wax and wane in the ratings. Right now, Glen Beck is hot and it shows. Both Bill O’Reilly and Glen Beck are on Fox News. Either one gets more people viewing their shows than view the total of the top shows for any other cable channel.

The higher the viewership a show has the more advertisers generally want to advertise on that show. The reason is that you want to be seen. You also want to be seen on the “best” shows. The “best” shows are usually defined as those that bring in the highest viewers. A side note to this is that conservative show viewers tend to be more loyal than viewers for other shows. All of this would lead one to believe that advertisers are knocking down the door to get on the Glen Beck TV show. After Van Jones started the boycott, a number of advertisers have pulled their ads from Fox News and the Glen Beck show in particular. In my mind, those are advertisers to avoid. If they don’t want to advertise on Glen Beck, then I don’t want to buy their products. All I need now is a list of those advertisers and I can change my buying habits.

Why are advertisers boycotting Glen Beck? A couple of weeks ago, Glen Beck said that Barack Obama is a racist on his TV show. The next day on his radio show, he explained why he believed Barack Obama was a racist. Whether you agree with Glen Beck or not, he has a right to his opinion. Viewers have a right to watch his show after a comment like that. His viewership is through the roof. Obviously viewers are not put off by the comment about Barack Obama being a racist. Advertisers also did not have a problem with it until Van Jones started his boycott movement.

Just like I support Michael Savage in his effort to remove the stain of being “Banned in Britain”, I support Glen Beck in this effort. Whether or not talk show hosts will support one another is not important to me. I understand why other talk show hosts do not support Michael Savage’s efforts in regards to England. They believe if they put their support behind Michael Savage’s efforts then they will be lumped together with his views. I can’t really tell much difference between the views of Michael Savage, Mark Levin, Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity. If you boil them down to their essentials, they agree on most issues. That is as it should be because they are all conservatives. But, they also all believe that they are the best talk show on the radio/TV. To put their support behind another host would acknowledge that the other host is important. Their egos will not allow another talk show to be nearly as important as their talk show. That is why they will not support one another, even though they should.

As a private person who has no ax to grind, I can support multiple hosts and have no problem with that support. I listen to all of them and more to gain as much information as possible. Dismissing one or more as unimportant would diminish my information base. When one of my sources of information is in trouble, all of my sources of information are in trouble.

Glen Beck has been exposing the circle of advisors to Barack Obama. Van Jones is one of the closest advisors to Barack Obama. After the revelations this past week, Van Jones cannot last much longer as the Green Jobs Czar. I look for him to disappear from the White House this weekend or early next week. That will diminish the standing of Van Jones, but will most likely cause him to work that much harder to stop Glen Beck from broadcasting. That will kick this battle up one notch. Van Jones has a problem in his fight with Glen Beck. The problem is that Glen Beck only uses highly researched information. Van Jones is using lies to support his position. Glen Beck is using facts to support his position. Eventually the advertisers will see the light and tell Van Jones where to stick it. Companies can lose only so much money over principle.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are some random thoughts to fill the day. My mind will not settle on one issue to discuss. Or even two issues like yesterday. So, I thought I would borrow a page out of Thomas Sowell’s playbook and do a random thoughts blog.

I read an article on Townhall.com that said Democrats should not call themselves progressive. She felt that they should call themselves regressives. The reason is that progressives connote forward thinking. Democrats do everything except think of how to improve the body politic. Democrats are always trying to take us back to something that failed in the past. They will argue that it failed because they were not there to make sure it worked well. There is no arguing with that, but it will still fail because the idea is faulty, not the implementation.

Glen Beck has been warning us about the President’s advisors and Czar’s for the past two weeks. While I knew that some were communists and radicals, I had no idea they were all that way. The big concern with this group of individuals is that they just might decide to seize power. If the military went along with their power grab, they could get away with it. Without the support of the military no coup could ever be successful in the United States. The signs point to a possible coup attempt by Obama and his camp some time prior to the 2010 elections, especially if they are poised to lose the House and Senate. I am not saying they will do anything. I am just saying that there are signs that point in one direction. With this group, signs that point in one direction could be completely wrong.

Democrats never want you to connect the dots on anything they do. The reason they do not want you to connect the dots is that they are always making things worse, not better. They always claim things are better or at least, not worse. When you look at what they do, it always turns out to be a problem. For examples, just look at the federal government. The Democrats always point to Social Security as one of their successes. If you give it an impartial look, you see a program that is broke and failing. It is impossible to fix it because the Democrats cry to the Senior Citizen groups, mostly from AARP. If you talk about reforming Social Security, you suddenly get deluged with calls from senior citizens worried about you taking away their Social Security. Of course the people are mis-informed about what is happening, but that never stopped them from contacting their representatives. Nothing will be done about Social Security until it starts to be a drain on the budget. Then, it will be possible to reform the system. Unfortunately, the time for action will have passed.

Every program promoted by or originating in the liberal wing of either party has either failed, is failing or will fail. Their batting average for success in this is awful. Why anyone still believes them is beyond me.

Michael Savage has been banned from entering England. Putting him on that list was incredibly stupid. Leaving him on the list tells me there is more to the story than just putting him on a list. He is getting vindication of sorts by receiving and accepting an invitation from the Cambridge Debating Society. They asked him to participate in their debate scheduled for later in September. They have hosted Theodore Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, Winston Churchill and other great names. Michael will have to participate by satellite, but at least he will have a presence in England. I fail to see what danger a 67 year old man who talks for a living poses to the English people.

Why Michael Savage does not get more support here at home is another question that I do not understand. I know he says controversial things, but his message is conservative and very accurate. The only thing I can think of is jealousy. The big talk show hosts generally do not acknowledge any of the other talk show hosts. This is like they do not exist. It is silly and childish. This is an issue that transcends any jealousy they may have. If all the talk show hosts made this an issue, England would have to respond. That would help solve the problem.

The sun got its first sunspot in 51 days. It just missed the record of 53 days set 96 years ago. When you have a lot of sunspots, the sun is hotter. When you have fewer sunspots, the sun is cooler. Is it any wonder that we have not had a statistically significant increase in temperature since 1995 and no actual increases since 1998? The sun has had few sunspots in the past 15 years. When we do get a sunspot, it is almost nonexistent. This new sunspot is almost undetectable.

In an article by Jonah Goldberg, he outlines the causes and effects of the scientific opinions. Not being a scientist, he is reluctant to draw conclusions from the information he puts out. Being a scientist, I am not restrained by Jonah’s ignorance of the science involved.

For centuries, scientists have known that sunspots affect the climate. The problem is that they really did not know how sunspots affected the climate, they just knew they did. Last month in the magazine Science, Oregon State University researchers claimed to know what caused and ended the last Ice Age. The OSU scientists claim that increased solar radiation coming from a slight change in the Earth’s rotation caused the Ice Age to end. Greenhouse gases had no impact at all on the Ice Age. Greenhouse gases did not cause the Ice Age to start or stop.

The interesting thing is that the OSU authors and the media have gone out of their way to make the point that this study has no significance on the Global Warming debate. I beg to differ. If all this occurring without the greenhouse gases having an impact, why are greenhouse gases the culprit now? Couldn’t or rather, shouldn’t the same forces be working now to increase or decrease our average temperature? The answer to that question is obviously yes. The same forces that were at work to start and end the last Ice Age are still at work today. To claim otherwise is to ignore the obvious.

The impact of man and pollution on the climate is so minor as to be insignificant. It may rise to the level that it could be detected if we had the right instruments. The odds on that are somewhere between slim and none. If I had to guess at a percentage of the change in the climate that would be due to human activity, I would have to say it would be somewhere between 0.0000000001% and 0.1%. Is it larger than that? I sincerely doubt that it could possibly be larger than 1%. The forces of the sun and nature are so large that we cannot comprehend the magnitude of these forces. We can make a local situation change by quite a bit due to pollution, but climate is a different thing than weather.

People that believe in global warming are always bringing up the computer models that show that we will be boiling to death in 50 years or so. These computer models have been around for years and have never been right, yet. Since they have never been right in the short term, what is the probability that they will be right in the long term? Computer models are great, if you put great information into them. If you put junk into the computer model, you get junk out. We have been loading up these computer models with junk science from the beginning and wonder why we get junk out. We need to start putting real science into these computer models. Then we might actually get some useful data out in return. Until then, the computer models are just there to scare everyone. They are not valid for anything else.

What am I trying to say? I am saying that there are a lot of unanswered questions about the climate. There are more indications that the climate is moved by forces much larger than the greenhouse gases we worry about. If that is the case, why are we rushing to destroy the American economy in an effort to control something that has little or no impact on climate? Why don’t we take the time and get it right before we go about destroying anything. It would be better not to destroy anything when we apply a fix, but if we have to destroy something. At least let us destroy it with the knowledge that it will do some good.

Today, I heard an announcement that Barack Obama wants to address all students up through high school on Tuesday, September 8. My first reaction was that nobody would fall for that joke. Then, I saw it again on another website and got really worried. What is he going to say? What lessons will the students be required to do to accompany this broadcast? Is there any way to opt out of this broadcast?

The lesson plans that I have heard of have been along the lines of: Long live the glorious Leader. One of the activities is to have the students find other great comments from speeches by Barack Obama. The man has only been President since January. There have been very few, if any, speeches that contained anything that was important. There was a lot about things that were important, but he was trying to hide his real intent, so he lied. I don’t think that is what he had in mind.

I think the real intent of this speech is to get the children of America to worship at the cult of Obama. He believes that if he can get before an audience that they will be putty in his hands. I hate to break the news to him, but over half of the country does not trust him to tell the truth. From what I heard on the radio coming into work today, some school districts are not going to participate in this “Fearless Leader” opportunity. I haven’t had a chance to call my granddaughter’s school to protest, but I will today. Hopefully, they are one of the school districts that are opting out of this fiasco.

There is something mildly creepy about the President of the United States talking directly to children. In small groups, this is acceptable because you can monitor it more closely. On this massive scale, there is no way to monitor the situation and cut it off if it gets out of hand. We would have to rely on the judgment of the teachers. Most of them belong to the union that supports Obama the most, so that is not a good thing. Or we could rely on the administrators which would be just as bad.

Turn this around and say President Bush was going to talk to all students up thru high school. What would the reaction be on the left? If their normal is any indication, they would be up in arms and stop it before it ever got very far. Why don’t they have the same reaction when Barack Obama wants to speak to their children? It is because they agree politically with one and not the other. They expect us to have the same reactions as they do. When we have the opposite reaction, they look at us in wonder.

Having a President talk to all high school students is one thing, because they are older and understand more of what is going on. Talking to elementary school students is a completely different matter. Those students still have a basic trust of the authority of teachers and parents. This is stepping on that trust and bending it to an unknown force. If I could review what was going to be said before he said it, I would have an entirely different reaction. We are not given that option. If I had a chance to review what was going to be taught before and after the presentation, I might have a different reaction. But, the unknown factor plays a big part here. I do not trust THIS President to tell the truth. Therefore, I will not give him and his supporters’ free rein when it comes to my granddaughter. That is the long and the short of it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This morning, I heard an interesting local story. A few years ago, a 9 year old girl with cancer, wrote to NBC’s Extreme Home Makeover asking them to renovate the Cancer Center in Tucson. The network was so impressed with the letter that they renovated the Cancer Center in Tucson and built the family a new home. This was a big event in the Phoenix area. It was all over the news and hundreds of people showed up for the unveiling of their new home. The home was 5300+ square feet with a number of bedrooms and almost the same number of bathrooms. The family received the home with no mortgage due on the home.

Today, I heard that the home has been up for sale for some time because the family cannot afford the payments. About a year after the family received the home, they took out a loan on it for $500,000. The money lasted until 2008. The Father was a truck driver and he reports that his health prevented him from working.

What this whole episode illustrates is that not everyone can handle prosperity. There are some people in society that will find some way to become renters, no matter what you give them. This is also illustrated by a report by the Arizona Lottery. They looked at all their big winners of the lotteries since they started in the 1980’s. An interesting trend developed. The lottery winners that continued working generally benefitted from the lottery winnings. Those that stopped working, almost always were worse off than before when they won the large amounts of money. Many were divorced and most were not just broke, they were flat broke and frequently in the hole.

The question is why did some succeed and others fail? The amount of money was not important in determining success or failure of the person or family. Comparing people with the same amount of winnings resulted in some using it to become wealthy, while others squandered it and became poorer than they were before. In the case with this family, they took out loans on the house starting about a year after moving  in. The Father then stopped working as a truck driver and they lived off of the loans. In 2008, the loans became due and they are being forced to sell the home. They originally asked $1.8 million, then $1.5, now they are at $1.3 million. With a sale like that, the family is liable to come out of this with some money.

There was a principle about this I was taught a long time ago. If you take a group of people and put them on an island. You give each person the same amount of money to start. You come back after a time and you will discover that there will be a few rich and many poor. The same thing holds true for real life. No matter how you stack the deck, there will always be those who will be rich and those who will be poor. Taking from the rich to make the poor better off does not help the rich or the poor. The only thing that helps the poor be better off is to teach them how to earn more. Even then, some will try to get out of poverty and others will expect you to hand them everything. Neal Boortz calls these people the “Looters”. That is because they just take resources from others, they do not create any new resources.

Democrats believe that if you take from the rich and give to the poor, that you will achieve equality. Nothing could be further from the truth. All you do is discourage the top producers to produce and encourage the non-producers to not produce. That is the way to take the top country in the world and turn it into a third world power. Obama seems bent on doing it within one four year period. That would have to be some kind of record for turning a Super Power into a third world power. Most Super Powers of their day take at least a generation to decline and fall. A four year decline and fall would have to be a world record.

Since the death of Senator Edward Kennedy, there have been calls for renaming the Obamacare bill the Kennedycare bill and passing it in his name. The Democrats that make these statements say that when people object, they are playing politics with Senator Kennedy’s name. They obviously do not see that they are the ones playing politics with Senator Kennedy’s name, talk about hypocrisy.

Some are making comments about Mike Huckabee. They are saying that he said that Senator Kennedy should have gone home and taken pain pills. Now, I am no fan of Mike Huckabee. During the last election, Mike Huckabee and his followers were obviously anti-Mormon. So, I am coming at this debate with a bias against Mike Huckabee. But, I heard the comments he made on his radio show. At no time did he say that Senator Kennedy should go home and take pain pills. He did quote Barack Obama as saying that elderly patients with a short time to live should consider going home and taking pain pills instead of having that expensive surgery. But, that was not in reference to Senator Kennedy at all. He said that long before he ever got to the part about Senator Kennedy.

The portion of the discussion about Senator Kennedy was respectful and dignified. How different than when he talks about Mormons! He mentioned that Senator Kennedy showed us exactly what was wrong with the bill. Senator Kennedy did all that he could to prolong his life. That is what a typical person would do or want to do. Under the Obamacare bill, a government bureaucrat will tell you whether you can or cannot try to prolong your life based on some charts that he/she will have. Under the Obamacare bill, Senator Kennedy would most likely have been denied the opportunity to prolong his life. Under our current medical system, he has that opportunity as does everyone else in this great country.

Democrats get their knickers in a bunch when you mention death panels. They insist that there is no death panel named within the bill. Of course there isn’t a death panel named within the bill. That would be the most stupid thing a politician could do. It would be asking for trouble. Even Democrat politicians are not that stupid. Sarah Palin said there were “Death Panels” in the bill and support for the bill has disappeared. Democrats make fun of Sarah Palin on that remark, but she actually hit the nail on the head. There are panels that would be set up that would make decisions on who would or would not receive medical procedures. These panels have high sounding names, but you could easily interpret their intent as a “Death Panel”. If you need a medical procedure or you will die, any decision denying medical care would effectively make that panel a “Death Panel”.

A pilot called up to the talk show on KFYI this morning on the way in. He mentioned that he got a neurological disorder a few years ago that required specialized treatment. After receiving that treatment, he is back flying for an airline. Under Obamacare, he would have been denied treatment and his only option then was death.

We have to keep this Obamacare bill from becoming law. Even if they succeed in changing the name to Kennedycare, it still should not see the light of day. It does not matter what the name might be on the name plate, it is what is under the hood that counts. If the nameplate says Mercedes Benz and the engine under the hood is a lawnmower engine, is it a Mercedes Benz? I would say no. That is the kind of thing that the Obama followers are trying to sell us with this Obamacare bill. They say, look at the nameplate. With a name like that, it has to be good. We Americans are saying that what is under the hood does not match what is on the name plate. Therefore we reject the entire package.

Americans need to take responsibility for their own actions. This healthcare bill does not do that. Americans have always been known for being individuals. That is how we defeated the Germans and Japanese in WWII. We need to get back to individual responsibility.

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

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

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

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

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

On the Mike Broomhead show this morning, a caller mentioned one aspect of the Obamacare bill that should frighten everyone who has a bank account. The provision gives the government the authority to tap into your bank account if the bill becomes law. Democrats screamed bloody murder when the Bush Administration wanted to listen to terrorists from overseas call Americans. The liberals claimed that the tactic of listening to phone calls was essentially tyranny. They stomped their feet and screamed at the top of their lungs that they would never stand for this kind of interference with American privacy. Then, when they get in office they want to tap into your bank account. Talk about hypocrisy!

This just brings us to a larger question: What exactly IS in the bill? Democrats tell us that it will be business as usual. But, every time we check up on what they say we find that it is incorrect. So we cannot believe the Democrats story that it will be business as usual after the Obamacare bill is passed. The people that show up at the Townhall Meetings that question the Democrats seem to be accurate in what they say. They tell everyone exactly where to find the information they reference. What do they say about this issue? Well, those that have commented on this issue agree with the caller that passing the bill as originally passed in the House will give the federal government access to your bank account.

That is a really scary thought to me. I do not like people poking around in my bank account unless I know who they are and that I can trust them. One thing I know about the federal government, because I worked for them, if it is possible to screw it up, they will. That means that if it is possible to screw up your bank account, the federal government will manage to do just exactly that. The problem will be caused by them, but you will have to solve it. That thought just warms my heart and makes me want to jump up and support this bill, NOT.

The bigger question is what else is hidden in this bill? Glen Beck has a series of reports this week asking about who is advising the President. One of the reports highlighted the fact that ACORN and other fringe groups wrote the “stimulus” (Porkulus) bill. We can assume that these groups probably also had a hand in writing the Obamacare bill. We can say that because it obviously was not the Democrats in Congress. They have absolutely no idea what is in the bill. If they had any hand in writing the bill, they would get their stories a little closer to the truth. Because they are all over the place and are almost always 150% wrong, we can safely assume that they did not have any hand in writing the bill.

The fringe groups that Glen Beck is exposing on his show are almost all radical or communist or both. There is not one patriotic American group that is currently advising the President. That is a really scary thought. These groups are providing the “Czar’s” that are advising the President on different parts of the government. So far, each and every one has been a committed radical and/or communist. You have to wonder about the quality of the advice coming from a communist about how to improve capitalism. Communists hate capitalism and want it to disappear. Obama has been committing acts that harm capitalism and might cause it to disappear. There seems to be a pattern emerging. This pattern is not encouraging to any patriotic American.

We have people that are from groups that we cannot trust, writing the Obamacare bill that was passed by the House. We have Democrats telling us things that are easily disproved about what is in the Obamacare bill. We have a White House that cannot seem to get its numbers correct from day to day, saying it will only add $1 trillion over the next 10 years. If you look at how far they are off with their other numbers, this $1 trillion becomes $6-7 trillion real fast. We cannot afford $1 trillion. We really cannot afford $6-7 trillion. This Obamacare bill needs to die on the vine and we need to start over using supply and demand principles. When you apply capitalism to any problem, you get the solution for much less than you imagined. If you doubt me, just look at computers. Government basically stayed out of the computer revolution and they have gotten better and cheaper. If the government had been involved, the price would have gone up and the quality would have gone down.

Keep the government out of my bank account. Keep the government out of your bank account. We have a right to privacy, even Democrats agree. Let us exercise our right to privacy and keep the federal government out of our financial affairs.  

Edward M. Kennedy died last night. His death ended one of the more controversial Senate careers in memory. He is being lionized by the left and acknowledged as a Senate leader by the right. After his brother Robert Kennedy was killed in 1968, the mantle of the Kennedy’s fell upon him. At that time, it was thought that Ted would someday become President of the United States. That was not to be after he ran a car off of a bridge and a woman drowned. He ended up taking the Democrats where nobody ever thought the Democrats would ever go under the leadership of a Kennedy. Both John and Robert were strong supporters of the military. Ted became very anti-military.

Mary Jo Kopechne died in the car that Ted ran off the bridge. Ted managed to escape from the car. Mary Jo did not escape and died. After escaping from the car, Ted walked up and down in the area near the accident before deciding what to do. This action has always puzzled me. I would have thought that a great swimmer like all the Kennedy’s would try and help Mary Jo escape from the car as well. Ted never made any attempt to rescue Mary Jo Kopechne. After he decided what to do, he walked into the nearest town and called his attorney. Again, this is puzzling to me. I would think that calling the police or rescue teams would be high on the list of things to do. Ted called his attorney first. I don’t remember much about the rest of the experience, except that the Massachusetts town decided not to prosecute Ted for the death of Mary Jo Kopechne.

Senators that worked with Ted Kennedy say that if Ted gave you his word that he would do something, he would do it. That is always prized when working with people. That is one reason that Ted was so universally well liked in the Senate during his time there. He was even well liked by those that were politically opposed to everything he was trying to do. Ted could demonize you from the floor of the Senate one minute and be your friend in the hallway the next. The demonization was for the TV cameras and the actions in the hallway were the true Ted Kennedy.

Through the years, Ted Kennedy became more and more radical and out of touch with reality. His push for universal health care for America is one such item. Universal health care would be un-Constitutional on its face. There is nothing in the Constitution that says that health care is any responsibility of the US government. But, that made no difference to the “Lion of the Senate”. He just ignored the Constitution and proposed universal healthcare anyway. As the years went on, the Constitution lost all meaning for this supposed “Lion of the Senate”. If he was truly a “Lion of the Senate”, he should have had the interests of the Constitution high up his priority list. Unfortunately for the United States, he disregarded the Constitution for years.

An example of Ted trying to have everything his way is on his replacement. When Mitt Romney (Republican) was Governor of Massachusetts, Ted pushed through a law that required an election 5 months after the death of a Senator or Congressman. That way a Republican could not pick a replacement for a Democrat Senator. Then, when Deval Patrick (Democrat) was elected, Ted started pushing for a change in the law to allow the Governor to appoint a replacement Senator. That is playing politics, pure and simple. Unfortunately for Ted, he died before the Massachusetts State Legislature could act on his request. That means an election will be held in 5 months to elect his replacement. It also means that with 59 votes, the Democrats cannot break filibusters any more. Democrats will be frantic to replace Ted ASAP.

While driving to work today, I listened to Mike Broomhead on KFYI. His topic was on the hate some Muslims feel toward America. Mike received a phone call from a man who said he lived in Saudi Arabia outside of the military base. In other words, he was living in the Muslim sector of Saudi Arabia proper. His point was that we as Americans cannot understand the hate that some Muslims have for America. Mike got huffy about that point as he had been talking about it all morning, but the caller did have a point. We can say we know that Muslims hate us. We can believe that we know Muslims hate us. But until confronted by the hate, you have no idea how bad it really is.

A couple of times in my life I have been confronted by someone that truly hated me or what I stood for. No matter how much I was intellectually prepared, I was always surprised at the level of hate. I would have said that I knew that these people hated me. I would have said that I knew that they wanted me dead. But until confronted with the hate, I did not understand. I think that is the point that the caller to Mike Broomhead’s show was trying to convey.

When you put the level of hate involved in radical Islam with nuclear weapons, you have a situation that is untenable. Radical Muslims can never be allowed to get a nuclear device that works. They also can never be allowed to use the nuclear device. With Nero (Obama) fiddling while Rome (the United States) falls down around him is a sorry state to be in.

Barack Obama has telegraphed to the radical Muslims that we are the weak Americans that they thought we were by going after the people that did the interrogations while George W. Bush was President. He is doing it for a couple of reasons. The first is to get people to stop talking about Obamacare. That is working as I am not talking about how bad Obamacare is for the country. The second is to throw a bone to the far left nuts in his party. They cannot get over George W. Bush and probably never will. Feeding them the interrogators is a way of placating them at this time. It keeps them happy and on board at a time when Obama needs them to be on board.

The interrogators did nothing wrong. They deserve medals for what they did since 9/11. They do not need a witch hunt led by nut jobs on the left. The interrogators followed the rules as they understood them for the past 8 years. The Bush Justice Department decided not to prosecute them for any alleged crimes. That should have been the end of the investigations into their actions. But the left wing nut jobs have to have their red meat, so Obama delivers them up on a silver platter.

What should happen out of these investigations is this: Any investigator that recommends that an interrogator be charged with a crime should be fired for incompetence. Under the Obama administration rules for torture, my employer could be charged with torture. My work hours are such that I am required to be at work late Tuesday night and I have to be in early on Wednesday morning. According to the guidelines for sleep deprivation that the Obama administration put out, that would constitute torture? Of course that is a silly argument.

Obama is going to get us into a hole so deep that I am not sure we will be able to get out of it. He seems bent on allowing terrorists to get nuclear weapons. If they get nuclear weapons, we are in big trouble for a long time. This is especially a problem since Obama wants to reduce or eliminate military programs that are designed to keep us safe. It is going to take a very strong President to get us out of the hole, if it is even possible.