Yesterday, GM filed for bankruptcy. That, in and of itself, is not the important thing. The important thing is the deal that has been worked out. The deal is anti-constitutional because of what it does to the 5^th amendment.

The deal, as I can recall, is this; after the bankruptcy is over, the federal government will own 72% of GM, UAW will own 17% and secured creditors will own 11%. The federal government has no authority to own a private business. That makes this deal illegal, according to the Constitution. The fact that no member of Congress, either Republican or Democrat, has objected is instructive. They either feel that the federal government has the authority or that Barack Obama is so strong they dare not say anything. I believe that it is the latter that is taking place. Barack Obama is so strong right now; anyone objecting will be cut off at the knees in a heartbeat.

The UAW, the union, is an unsecured debtor. That means that in a bankruptcy, they get whatever is left over after the secured debtors get paid in full. In this deal, they are paid much more for their unsecured share of GM than the secured debtors are paid for their secured share of GM. That is against the takings clause of the constitution. It has been long established law that secured debtors are paid in full before unsecured debtors are paid anything. In this deal, things are backwards. The reason things are backwards is that the UAW helped get Barack Obama elected President. The secured debtors did not help get Barack Obama elected President in any direct way. That is why the UAW came out on top in this deal. That seems to be the way things are in Barack Obama’s world. It worked the same way with Chrysler dealerships that were closed. If a Chrysler dealer gave only to Republicans, they were closed. If they gave to Democrats, they were kept open. Only one dealer that gave to Democrats was closed and they gave only $200. All the rest gave only to Republicans. The Dealers that were kept open gave heavily to Democrats.

This deal makes us officially a socialist country. All the other things that have been going on have pointed in this direction, but could be argued that they were not socialist. This is obviously socialist by definition. That puts us on a road that I thought was impossible for America to ever be on. I fear, now, for America. My children and grandchildren will never know the freedom to succeed that I enjoyed. That is a shame. It is my generation that is to blame for this disaster. Even though Barack Obama is not from my generation, he is a product of it. My generation should have been more responsible. Then this would not have happened. We now need to work to fix it before it goes too far.

That GM is a socialist company is now undeniable. It means that I will stay away from any GM vehicles until GM is sold to private investors.

GM now has a competitive advantage over its rivals. It can be subsidized by their taxes and can receive tax breaks that the other companies cannot receive. If their prices are far enough below the others, the other companies may feel they have to go the same route to be competitive. That would mean the entire industry would be destroyed. Right now, the other companies should still be able to make vehicles that people want. GM will make vehicles that the government wants people to buy. The two are not the same thing. The government, because of Barack Obama’s belief in the hoax of global warming, will want you to buy very small cars. Americans want cars they can fit the entire family in and are safe. Americans also like their trucks. Trucks will probably not be part of the GM lineup. At least a variety of trucks will not be on their lineup.

We are now in uncharted territory for America. We know what will happen if we look at Venezuela or any other country that has embraced socialism. If that happens, I expect a knock on the door and a visit to the friendly police station. I will not keep silent about the destruction of the America that I love.

Last week, Barack Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayer for the Supreme Court. At the time, I said I would reserve judgment until I found out more about her. For the past week, I have read all that I can about her and her background. I have read legal experts that I trust and have come to a conclusion. Sonia Sotomayer is not qualified to be on the Supreme Court.

How did I come up with that judgment? There were a number of factors that came into play. Her most talked about statements really troubled me. The one that bothers me the most is the racial statement. She said that a Hispanic woman can make better decisions than a white male based on her life’s experiences. Had a white male said the same thing in reverse, he would have been shown the door in no time at all. The fact that she is Hispanic should have nothing to do with the fact that the statement is one of the most racially charged statements from a Supreme Court nominee since one of the KKK members became a member of the Supreme Court.

The statement alone was not enough to sway me that she was sincere. There is a case that she decided that clinched the argument. The case was about a town that made a test for firefighters for advancement. The test was prepared by experts so that it had no racial components at all. After the test was administered, 17 white males and one Hispanic male passed the test. No blacks passed the test at all. The city then determined that because no blacks passed the test, the test must be racially biased and threw it out. The firefighters then sued the city. The case came to the court of appeals where Sonia Sotomayer was serving. She was on the majority that threw out the firefighter’s case. This was an obvious case of racial discrimination, yet she decided the other way.

One other reason that I do not feel she is qualified is that she has had 60% of her decisions overturned upon appeal to a higher court. As a teacher, if I had any student get 40% on a test I would not say they were a top student. Any judge will have some cases overturned on appeal. Everyone makes mistakes. That is why we have appeals courts. A judge deciding cases strictly on the law should not have cases overturned very much. Sonia Sotomayer had the highest overturned rate of any judge that Barack Obama was considering for the Supreme Court. If she makes so many wrong decisions on lower courts, how can we be sure she gets it right on the Supreme Court? The high rate of decisions overturned tells me that she is deciding some cases based on her own ideas, not the law. Her supporters always bring up cases where she follows the law in sentencing. Those are undoubtedly cases that were not overturned. I would like to know her decisions in the cases she had overturned. That would tell us much more about her judicial philosophy than the cases she got right. Especially since her rate of cases overturned is so high.

On the surface, this appointment looks like an affirmative action pick by Barack Obama. It does not look like he picked the best person in the United States for the Supreme Court. It looks like he decided he was going to pick a Hispanic and just picked one without regard to her track record. I could be wrong, but that is what I think based on the information that is at my disposal at this time. That would be typical of someone who was an affirmative action selection at most levels. Also, Democrats believe fervently in affirmative action. That is another reason that this appointment just does not look right.

I still think that Sonia Sotomayer will become a Supreme Court Justice. Why do I think that? Democrats hold a 59-40 majority in the Senate. If the Republicans do not find something more damning than the racist statement, they will not filibuster the appointment. If they do not filibuster the appointment, she will be approved. That is why elections have consequences. We are now paying for the stupidity of the Republicans in 2006 and 2008. Also, Republicans should be ashamed for trying to be Democrats leading up to the elections in 2006 and 2008. People will always pick the real thing over a fake if given the choice. They made that abundantly clear in 2006 and 2008. I hope the Republicans got the message or they will get it again in 2010. If they got the message, the Democrats will get their hat handed to them in 2010. That would be a good thing for America and the world.

At some fund raisers in Las Vegas and Hollywood, Barack Obama said that the “stimulus” plan was working. It had saved 150,000 jobs. The economy is turning around. Things are starting to look better. He also said that he is pleased with the performance of his administration. That, in my opinion, was entirely fiction.

Now for the facts, since taking office in January, 2009, the economy has lost approximately 1.8 million jobs. There is no way to say if the “stimulus” plan saved 150,000 jobs or not. To claim that it had saved 150,000 jobs is pure baloney. There is no data available to back up that comment. There is ample evidence to show that the economy is still losing jobs.

There are faint signs that the economy may be nearing bottom. Every now and then, you see a sign that this indicator is showing positive news. So far, there has not been any consistent indication that the economy has yet hit bottom. With all the new taxes that the Democrats in Congress want to impose, the economy will not have a chance to recover before it goes into another tailspin. With an economy in shambles, you cannot add new taxes and expect it to recover any time soon. If the economy was humming along like a well tuned engine, you might be able to add some taxes and not mess up the machinery. But, why mess with success?

The general performance of this administration is in the eye of the beholder. If you are a socialist, communist or other person from the far left, this administration has performed well. If you are from any freedom loving part of the United States, this administration has created one disaster after another. We would have to rate the administration’s performance as worse than extremely poor. I thought Jimmy Carter was the worst President in my lifetime or maybe even American History. I was wrong. Barack Obama has Jimmy Carter’s foreign policy, which was the worst ever. Obama also has a much worse economic policy than Carter. We may look back at Carter’s economy and wish we were there by the time Obama and the Democrats are through with us.

The interesting thing about these fund raisers in Las Vegas and Hollywood is that they have had to lower the price of admission. They were not getting many takers at the original prices. They had to slash the prices a lot to get enough people to attend. It shows that even Hollywood and Las Vegas fat cats are feeling the pinch of this economy. That is a good thing for us all. It may wake them up to the disaster that is occurring around them.

Obama did give his usual stirring speech, which said nothing, to the people that paid to hear him. In reading his speeches, I come away with the thought that I just read a jumble of nothing. He says things in generalities. He also gets it wrong when someone disagrees with him, so his examples of disagreement are always off the mark. That makes his arguments against the people that disagree also off the mark. You do not catch that when listening, just when you read. When you listen, you get caught up in the emotion of the speech and not the meaning of the words. It is the same with every Obama speech I have read. They all have the same pattern; stirring words, wrong straw men, poor arguments and wrong conclusions. All of that is then wrapped up in emotion. As a result, people that hear the speech are moved. People that read the speech think it is pedestrian at best.

We are in for a long period of bad times. Too bad we do not have a Presidential election in 2010. That way we could rid ourselves of this error very quickly.

Barack Obama nominated his first Supreme Court Justice yesterday. He selected Sonia Sotomayer. She is a far left nominee, which should be no surprise. If approved, she would be the first Hispanic elevated to the Supreme Court. That would be a distinct honor. That honor should have gone to Miguel Estrada. But the left so demonized him that his nomination was impossible.

For the most part, Judge Sotomayer is uncontroversial. That is to be expected from any Supreme Court nominee. The last thing a President wants is for his nominee to be attacked as badly as Justice Thomas was.

Judge Sotomayer has made a few statements that have people scratching their heads. The worst two are her one that a Hispanic woman can make better decisions than a white male and that the bench is where policy is made. Many people are lining up to oppose her based on those two comments alone. You have to find out the context of those statements before you can jump to a conclusion. Context is what did she really mean when she used the words attributed to her. You look at the statements before and after the statement in question to form the answer to context. At this time, the context has not been released.

The first comment shows a racist tendency. That would be terrible in anyone, but particularly in a Supreme Court nominee. If she truly is a racist, she would not be the first. There have been members of the KKK that have served on the Supreme Court back in the later half of the 19^th century and early part of the 20^th century.

The second comment is one that would indicate that she felt the Constitution was not the law of the land. That would mean that she would be like the other liberal judges on the Supreme Court and use foreign law and her own opinion to determine if something is Constitutional. What Supreme Court Justices are supposed to do is look at the words in the Constitution itself, and nothing else, to determine if something is Constitutional. They can reference other American case law to back up their opinion. But, the words of the Constitution take precedence. Ideally, the original intent of the Framers of the Constitution should be taken into consideration when making the decision. This does not always seem to be the case for more recent Supreme Court decisions.

There is an interview with Jonathan Turley out on You Tube. In the interview, he says that Judge Sonia Sotomayer is just an affirmative action pick. Jonathan Turley teaches law at George Washington School of Law. He should know whether Judge Sotomayer is a good selection or not. Jonathan Turley is also a reliable liberal, so if he is bashing Judge Sotomayer for being an affirmative action pick, she must be pretty bad.

Right now, I am reserving judgment until I know more about Judge Sotomayer. My first impression is not good. The two bad comments raise red flags. Until those red flags are successfully answered, my opinion tends to be negative. If I had a vote and it had to be now, based on first impressions, it would be no. But, we will learn more over the next couple of months. She may not be as bad as the first impressions make her out to be. She might be a Harriet Meier pick or she might be really good. I just hope she is not as bad as Ruth Bader Ginsberg. That would be a total disaster.

The Gargoyle of North Korea is at it again. He set of a nuclear explosion the size of Hiroshima and tested some missiles. He shot off a long range missile on Saturday and two short range missiles on Sunday. The White House reacted with a stern note that it was concerned about the actions of North Korea. The UN reacted by saying they needed a resolution condemning North Korea. All the while, North Korea is continuing on its path to build a nuclear bomb and a delivery system. Our President decided it was a great time to play golf.

The time for Barack Obama to have stopped North Korea was when he first took office. North Korea was set to shoot off a missile. Obama decided to let them shoot off the missile and do nothing, not even track it. The missile fizzled and harmlessly fell into the sea. The Gargoyle learned that Obama will do nothing to stop him from obtaining a bomb and a functioning missile system.

Iran was watching and learned the same lesson. That is why they have stepped up their progress towards having a nuclear bomb and missiles to deliver it. They also are strengthening their presence in the straights of Hormuz for the first time, ever. That is a particularly dangerous development. Most of the world’s oil is shipped out through the straights of Hormuz. If Iran puts a blockade in the straights, the world will starve from lack of oil in no time flat.

Our President thinks that talking to these tyrants is going to make everything perfect. He does not seem to understand that he is dealing with evil people. Evil people cannot be talked to. They understand only one thing, strength. If you show any weakness, they will exploit it. Obama showed weakness in not taking out the missile that North Korea shot off at the beginning of his Presidency. He and the country will pay dearly for that show of weakness for the next four years.

What Obama should have done with the missile from North Korea was take it out on the launching pad. That way the North Koreans learn some important lessons. First that our military can and will hit them without warning whenever and wherever we want. Second, that we will not let them develop weapons to strike at their neighbors. The rest of the evil people in the world would also have learned the same lessons and would have kept a low profile over the next four years. Not taking out the missile on the launching pad, Obama should have shot the missile out of the sky. That would have shown much the same thing as blowing up the launching pad. The only drawback here is that North Korea would have obtained some technical information from the missile. Blowing up the launch pad would not have given them any data to work with.

Right now, we have a big problem with North Korea. They definitely have the capability to build and use a nuclear bomb. Their only problem is the delivery system. With each launch of a missile, they are getting valuable data to get closer to the goal of a delivery system. I am not sure whether their goal is to just threaten Japan or to threaten us, Japan would be easier to reach than we would. The first missile the Gargoyle tested was supposed to have been capable of reaching California. These later tests were on missiles that could have reached Japan. In any event, the more time that we give North Korea, the closer they get to perfect a delivery system that will reach us in the mainland US. At that point, we have a major problem and it all could have been avoided.

Iran is following much the same path as North Korea. They are further behind. Israel is the goal for Iran. Obama has told Israel that they should commit suicide and allow Palestinians into the country. Israel basically told Obama to take a hike. I look for Israel to make some move in the near future when they feel things are at a point that they have to act or die. Right now, they still have some time to plan and prepare. Their time for action will come very soon. They cannot count on help from the United States. There are too many advisors in the Obama administration that would love to see Israel disappear for the US to quickly act to help Israel. Israel is alone in this one.

As events unfold since January 20, 2009, we see that we definitely made a mistake in November. Obama is not up to being President. His advisors are not up to advising. The recession has gotten worse. The tin pot dictators have become braver. Nothing is better today than it was on January 20, 2009. That is a terrible thing to say, but it is true.

Cap and Trade, what does that mean to you? To Democrats in Congress, who do not want you to know what it really is, it is a bill to make energy producing companies pay their share to clean up the environment. But, since everyone knows that companies do not pay taxes, people do, the costs the companies get will be passed on to us in the form of higher energy costs.

How much will our energy go up? The estimated amount here in Phoenix for our electric to go up is just under $4000 per year. Gasoline costs are estimated to go up 74%. Those amounts are going to destroy the economy for sure. We are already in trouble from the banking and housing failures last fall. We have not even begun to get out of that hole. The Democrats in Congress must believe that adding thousands of dollars in new taxes for every American family is the way out of the recession/depression we are in? That is crazy talk. We need fewer tax dollars removed from our wallets, not more, to get us out of this problem.

Democrats never have been very good at understanding what gets us into or out of a recession. They believe that higher taxes got us out of the last recession. They are deluded in that thinking. They believe that higher spending is the way to get out of a recession. Higher spending usually puts us into a depression from a recession. That is why we are seeing this current recession last so long. We should be on our way out of the recession and have no signs that we have even hit bottom yet.

The Cap and Trade bill that the House of Representatives is supposed to pass out of committee within the next week is a disaster waiting to happen. Unfortunately for you and me, the Republicans in the House have almost no power at all. They could not stop the bill unless a lot of Democrats had second thoughts and voted with them. With the power structure the Democrats have, that is extremely unlikely. There is a better chance in the Senate, but even there the chances are slim. There are those northeast Republicans that tend to vote Democrat on these types of issues. That means a massive tax increase is in store by the end of the year. It also means that any chance the Democrats have of holding onto the House of Representatives and the Senate are also gone by the end of the year.

The public will scream loudly when faced with the high energy costs. The blame will fall squarely on the backs of the Democrats in Congress who passed the bill. Any person running against those Democrats would be wise to focus the public’s attention on the fact that their Congressman/woman voted a massive tax increase when we are in a recession. I am not just talking your usual massive 10% tax increase. I am talking about a tax increase that would be in the nature of 40-50%. That will get people’s attention real quick. Any Democrat who votes for the bill will be guaranteeing that they will not be back to Congress after the 2010 elections. Unless there are more stupid Democrat voters than I think there are.

Even though the bill would destroy the economy of the country, the Republicans should just put up a token resistance to the bill. They should talk against it. They should work to have it defeated. They should not filibuster the bill in the Senate. The reason is that letting the bill pass will destroy the Democrats chances at winning in the 2010 elections. The bill would do a lot of damage in the mean time. The bill would pass anyway. The Democrats have the votes to push it through. This is one to let go. You have to fight the fights that you can win. I can’t see pulling enough Democrats into the light to make any difference. You might get a few in the House who are in competitive districts, but none in the Senate. If the Republicans put up a fight in the House, they would not even get the few from the competitive districts.

This bill will destroy what is left of our economy. All that could be done from then on would be to pick up the pieces. The Democrats would probably put in some provisions that people below a certain level of income could apply for relief from these taxes. That would just frost the people not receiving the subsidies even more. There is no good thing that can come out of this for Democrats.

The first shot against the tax and spend Democrats was heard yesterday in, of all places, California. California has been a lost cause for sense when it comes to politics, finally got one right. They rejected a slate of ballot measures that would have endorsed the tax and spend ways of their legislature and the Congress. Instead, they rejected all the measures that would have raised taxes or kept tax rates at high levels. The only measure approved was the one that prevents legislators from raising their salaries during years when there is a deficit. This is a big loss for Democrats.

Even though Barack Obama was not on the ballot in California and did not campaign for or against the measures, he is the biggest loser in this election. This election is a rejection of the out of control spending that Barack Obama has done since being elected. I know that this is just rejecting those measures on a state level, but you can project it to a national level very easily. People do not like to run up huge deficits with no way to pay them back. People also do not like high taxes. With huge deficits, eventually everyone, including the poor, will pay higher taxes.

If Democrats are smart, and I don’t think that they are, they will take the message from California. They will start being fiscally responsible in Washington and take that weapon away from the Republicans. Since I don’t think they will learn from this, they will continue as if nothing has happened. This will play very well into Republican hands. They will shout from the rooftops that Democrats are spending us into poverty and we need to get our fiscal house in order. Democrats will cry back that Republicans ran up deficits, too. Republicans will answer:” yes, but the deficits were about 1/10^th the size of what you are running up “. Results at the polls should be disastrous for the Democrats.

Barack Obama is still running around acting like nothing has happened. He is in the process of taking over General Motors. General Motors filed bankruptcy papers yesterday and their goal is to make a quick sale to the government. The government has no authority to buy a private business. That will not stop Barack Obama and the Democrats from doing just that. Barack Obama wants us to be a socialist country and he will get us there any way he can.

Speaking of General Motors, Barack Obama also announced new standards for emissions on the vehicles produced by auto manufacturers. Obama is trying to do two things with the standards. He is trying to solve a hoax and clean up the air. In his efforts to clean up the air, I applaud him and that part of the standards would be ok. The part of the standards where he is trying to reduce carbon emissions is the part where he is trying to solve a hoax. Since a hoax is not true, solving a hoax is not possible. Since it is not possible to solve a hoax, any emission standard proposed by the government will not solve global warming.

The result of these new emission standards is that the auto makers will have to make smaller, lighter cars. The problem with smaller lighter cars is that I do not fit in them. I wear small cars. I do not sit in small cars. The reason I drive the car I do is because I fit comfortably in the driver’s seat. I drive the smallest car that I can. It is a mid-size SUV. All smaller cars have no room for my feet or knees or head. Other than that, they are just fine.

Back to my general premise, the election in 2010 is an opportunity for the Republicans if they learn. If they learn the lesson from California, they will win and win big. If they try and be Obama-lite, they will lose big. They have to give voters the chance to say that we do not want socialism. We want fiscal responsibility. That being said, Republicans need to get Democrats on record supporting the overspending of Barack Obama. They also need to get the Democrats on record supporting the socialism of Barack Obama. They also need to hope that Nancy Pelosi hangs on for the 2010 election season. If all that happens, the Republicans will have solid majorities in both the House and Senate.

We have to stop Barack Obama from transforming this country into something it was never intended to be. Right now, Republicans need to stall for time as much as possible. The more things they can delay into 2010 and beyond, the better. That means less of a chance they will happen. This is especially true of the disaster of Obamacare. Republicans could be in the verge of a dramatic transformation of the House and Senate. Given their track record on fumbling away opportunities, I am not getting my hopes up too much. But, Democrats also have a history of fumbling away their chances to really transform things. They are fumbling their chance right now. Which side will fumble the most between now and November 2010 remains to be seen.

Today on my drive to work, I was listening to Bruce Jacobs. He started reading an article from the newspaper Pravda. The Russian government owns Pravda and tells it what to print. So, it was a bit surprising to hear hard hitting journalism actually coming from that newspaper. It was a better summation of what is happening in the United States than I have heard from any newspaper or online source to date. This report from Pravda can be found at KFYI.com.

Pravda said that America is now moving away from capitalism and toward Marxism. This happened because the American public has been dumbed down because of a poor education system. The education system teaches pop culture instead of the classics. So that the American public know more about American Idol than what is going on in their own government. The article also said that the final step in the change from capitalism to Marxism was the election of Barack Obama.

They praised Barack Obama for his lavish spending ways. They said that if this spending continues for another year, which seems likely. Nobody is stepping up to stop him from spending. The United States would resemble the Weimar Republic at best or Zimbabwe at worst.

The Weimar Republic was Germany prior to 1932. It had high inflation and high unemployment. The unrest that resulted from those problems led to the election of Adolf Hitler. Part of the problem with the Weimar Republic was the restrictions placed on it after World War I. Those restrictions and payments that it required made Germany go broke.

Zimbabwe is an African country that should be the richest country in Africa that does not have oil. Instead it has an inflation rate that is over 1000%. Everyone is poor and the government is in power only because it has all of the guns. Mugabe, the ruler, kicked the white landowners out of the country and put city people on the land and told them to live there. The country had fed the southern part of Africa. After he kicked out the people who knew how to grow food, the country had to import food to survive. Now, everyone is living in a state of constant starvation.

The American media sees no problem with anything that the Obama administration has done. They have hidden all the faults (however large) and emphasized any potential benefit (however small). It has gotten so bad, that I have a rule of thumb. That rule is: If the main stream media reports it as true, it is false, unless I confirm it as true from a trusted source.

Right now, the main stream media is hiding one of the biggest scams to come along since global warming. That scam is Obamacare, the Obama administration takeover of health care or 1/7^th of the American economy. If this happens as rumor has it, we will all be sorry. The rumors have the plan as some form of one payer system, disguised as an insurance plan. It will be rolled out as government insurance, to compete with private insurance. It won’t take long and the only health insurance you will be able to buy will be government health insurance. Then, we have a one-payer system, just like England and Canada. They do not like their system and are trying to think of ways to get rid of it. We will not like this one and will complain, but it will be too late. After the fact complaining will not do the trick. We have to stop it before it becomes the law, rather than after.

Their might be a silver lining to the Obamacare plan. It would be that the wealthy would have a health care plan that would be cash only, no insurance. That would be a market based system and would be the envy of the world. Unfortunately for the great unwashed in the US, only the wealthy would be able to have access to any doctor they wanted. Most of us would have to go to the doctor that the government insurance plan told us we would see.

Our problem in the US is that we have a media that is not acting like the “free” media it is supposed to be. A free media would be a watchdog media on both liberal governments and conservative governments. Our media is a watchdog only on the conservative governments. On the liberal governments, it is their lapdog. It is like they become our Pravda, only a willing Pravda, not paid Pravda. That is much, much worse than the real Pravda.

Yesterday, Barack Obama spoke at Notre Dame University. It is supposed to be a Catholic University, but Barack Obama stands for everything that the Catholic Church opposes. If Notre Dame University is Catholic, they made a major mistake. If they are not Catholic, then they need to stop claiming that they are Catholic. The evidence would show that they stopped being a Catholic University some time ago. It just took them this long to finally acknowledge the fact. Now, they need to remove the Catholic trappings from the University and make the split final.

When Barack Obama spoke at Notre Dame, you would swear you were listening to Hugo Chavez. There was nothing that Obama said that Chavez would not have said. They may couch the ideas in slightly different words, but the meanings are the same. Both claim to want people to achieve, while stifling achievement. Both claim to want “fairness”. Both blame capitalism for all the problems in the world.

Since Barack Obama and Hugo Chavez could have delivered the speech at Notre Dame, let’s look at how Hugo Chavez has managed his country. That will give us a glimpse at what Barack Obama intends to do to our country. So far, Obama has followed the same game plan. He has just targeted different industries.

Hugo Chavez targeted the food industry. He claimed they were charging the people too much money for the food they were growing. The food growers and suppliers said that was the lowest price they could grow and supply the food. Hugo Chavez did not agree, so he took over the food industry. When he took over the food industry, the media started to complain. So, Hugo Chavez took over the media. Then, when he felt like it or wanted it, he took over other industries one by one. Now, Venezuela is now entirely socialist. To hear Obama and Chavez, Venezuela should be a paradise, where everyone is making a lot of money and living well. It is a hell-hole where everyone is poor.

What has Barack Obama done since he took office. He started by giving money to the banking industry. I know that started under George W. Bush, but Obama continued the practice. When some of the banks tried to pay the money back, he would not take the money. Then, he started dictating terms and policies for the banks. Second, the auto industry started having problems, so he bailed them out with tons of money. After giving them tons of money, he felt he could actually run the auto companies. I don’t know what gave him the authority, but he took it anyway and nobody stopped him. He did not have to take over the media, because the media was in his back pocket all the time. Right now, Obama effectively controls the financial institutions, banking and insurance, the auto industry and the media. He only had to buy two. He is working on a plan to take over the medical industry. Then, he would control everyone’s money and their health. That would give him almost total control over everyone.

Chavez wanted total control, so he declared himself President for life. He still has to be re-elected, but since he is the only candidate, that is a guarantee. Obama, at this point, does not have the same goal. He has total control over the news media. He is trying to gain control over the radio and the internet. If he gains control over those outlets, he would effectively hamstring any group or party that wanted to run against him.

Venezuela is under total control of Hugo Chavez. They have to live with that dictator until someone takes him out or he dies. We still, at this point, have the ballot box to get rid of politicians that we do not like. We need to take advantage of the chance in 2010 and rid our selves of any politician that voted FOR any of the freedom killing ideas proposed by the Obama administration. That would include all Democrats and many Republicans. We have to take a stand while we still can.

Last night, I was watching TV and an interesting ad came on. The ad was promoting global warming and trying to get people to stop eating meat. I thought the spot would be from PETA, but I was wrong. It had another web site that I forget. How in the world did they get an ad promoting a hoax on TV, anyway?

Global warming is the biggest hoax ever to confront mankind. To think that it started by a researcher who wanted a premise to get funding for his research in the South Pacific. He thought that if he was studying the effects of something called global warming, that he could get all the funds that he wanted. The idea was successful and he had government funds to do his studies. Other scientists saw that he was having success with his global warming idea, so they jumped on the bandwagon. Soon the feeding frenzy was on and anybody who wanted government funds had to have a global warming angle or they were shut out.

At first, there was no real concept of what global warming was. They just used the general idea. Then, scientists had to come up with some specifics on what they were studying. They could not use the actual primary greenhouse gas, water vapor, because humans obviously have no control over water. They picked on one that humans do have some control over, carbon dioxide. They dreamed up theories on what different amounts of carbon dioxide would do to the global temperature. When they tried to find evidence for their theories, they could not find any evidence.

After they could not find any evidence, they decided to ignore data that did not fit the theories that they have for carbon dioxide. They started changing the data that we had accumulated over hundreds of years for climate. The medieval warm period was a problem for the carbon dioxide theory. The temperature should not go up without humans being the cause, so they threw it out. The UN agency, that is supposedly impartial, produced graphs of historical data that left out the medieval warm period.

Even recent data was giving them problems. Temperatures that should have been rising were not. So, they started moving weather measuring stations from grassy areas to paved areas. The areas had specifications that they had to be on grass and so far from any human made structure. Some were next to exhaust vents. When even that did not work, they started recording summer readings in the fall. That was the last straw. Finally, the watchdogs caught them and NASA was embarrassed publically. That did not stop the director of NASA from still proclaiming that global warming is a catastrophe. Data from NASA now shows that the earth has not warmed at all in any year since 1998. The warmest decade in the last 100 years was the 1930’s, way before the pollution for global warming.

That has not stopped the alarmists from sounding the alarm on global warming. They say that we will have a catastrophe in the next 50 or so years. That is conveniently far enough in the future that the alarmist will not be here to be embarrassed by his/her error. School children are now convinced that the earth will not be livable by the time they reach adulthood, all due to the stupid hoax of global warming.

I know that most of the people that believe in global warming are just trying to do what is right. Every time I get in a discussion with one, they invariably change the discussion from global warming to protecting the planet from pollution. That is an entirely different argument. Global warming is a hoax and is false. Pollution does happen and should be stopped as much as possible.

Even though global warming is shown to be false every time it is discussed intelligently, the believers still believe. Global warming has become a religion. Science can prove global warming wrong. Most scientists are moving away from being global warming believers. Almost all the global warming believers are now people that have little or no knowledge of science. That is because they can be fooled by pseudoscience. Global warming uses pseudoscience a lot to prove it is right. Real science proves it is wrong every time.

The third of the disasters awaiting the country under this President is the complete and total destruction of our health care system. As a reminder, the other two are the appointment of the Supreme Court Justice and the implementation of a form of the Fairness Doctrine. Any one would be cause for alarm; all three are definitely a call to arms.

Our health care system is the best in the world. For evidence, I give the example that people in other countries come here to get health care, not to socialist countries. People come from Canada, England, Germany and France, where they have socialized “free” health care, to get treatment. Why do they come? They can get treatment right away and get the latest technology.  Countries that have socialized medicine always end up rationing treatments because of cost. Countries that have socialized medicine always postpone adopting the latest technologies because they cost a lot. Here, we adopt the latest technology and have treatments available to anyone.

Are there problems with our current system of health care? Sure, there are lots of problems. The biggest is that the government has become a player in the health care system and messed it up. The government needs to step back and let the system work. Government should be there when there are problems with health care, like poor treatments and the like. Government should not dictate what insurance may and may not cover for a person. Government should not dictate what a doctor should be paid. The health care system should determine those for itself.

We could easily reform the current system and not lose anything. We would still have the latest technologies and have it readily available. One of the problems is that people are not able to choose the coverage they want on their insurance. For instance, I am 60 and my wife is 61, yet we are paying to cover us for possibly having a baby. That is unlikely. We would like to have a policy without maternity care. If people could choose what coverage they want, insurance costs would go down. Also, everyone should be able to pick from the same list of things to cover. Policies would be portable, in that the insurance you buy in Arizona would be the same that you could buy in New York. This would make things easier for everyone. The insurance companies would save because the complexity would go down. People would save because they would not pay for things they do not want or need.

The second thing to do is have people set up health savings accounts. From these accounts, the people would pay for primary care. Catastrophic care would be covered by insurance. Doctors would then receive payments from the people’s health savings accounts instead of insurance. The doctors would be competing for patients instead of taking insurance payments. If you wanted more patients, you could lower your price and get them. If you felt you had enough patients, you could leave your payment the same or raise it. This would put market forces at work in medicine. Look at what market forces have done to eye surgery. When it first came out it was $1000 per eye. Now the cost is $300 per eye, for more advanced surgery. That is the kind of thing that would happen in this case.

There are other things that can be done to tweak our current system to make it better. These are a couple that I thought of. We do not have to take our system and make it socialist. Under socialism, the costs go up, the quality goes down and rationing goes into effect. That has happened in every country it has been tried. We would not be the one exception. The people that would feel the effects first would be the handicapped and the elderly. Those people would have their health care curtailed first to save costs. Their death rates would go up. The regular public would not see anything, except maybe to an elderly or handicapped loved one. By the time it filtered to the general public, the sense of entitlement would have become ingrained and it would be impossible to get rid of socialized medicine. That is the problem the countries that have it are having. They want to get rid of this massive problem, but everyone feels entitled to the care, even though it is terrible. We cannot let it happen here.

A couple of examples of rationing that I would like to point out from the recent past from Canada. One I saw when I was in Spokane last Thanksgiving. Canadian women were being sent to the US to have babies because the province (Alberta or British Columbia) had reached their quota for babies for the quarter and could not accommodate any more. Where would they go if we had the same system? Where would our women go if we had the same system? The second example is from back east. A man had a growth on his brain and needed an MRI according to his doctor. He was going to have to wait for 3 months to have one in Canada. He went to Buffalo and had the MRI. He brought the MRI back to his doctor and was told he was going to have to wait 6 months to see a specialist to determine if he would take the growth out. So, the man went back to Buffalo and had the surgery. He would have died without going to Buffalo. That is exactly what the Canadian health system wanted him to do. It is easier to pay for a dead person than a live one.

Socialized medicine would be the end of America as she has been for over 200 years. She would still be called the United States, but her heart would be cut out. Innovation and individualism that has been the thing that has made the difference in the last 100 years would end. We would turn into another Europe. We would exist. We would not try to excel. There is a huge difference between the two. I would rather try and fail than not to try at all.

The second of the three disasters that are facing our country is the reimposition of the Fairness Doctrine. The other two are the appointment of the Supreme Court Justice and the destruction of the best medical system in the world.

The “Fairness Doctrine” was in place for a long time. It required radio stations to balance talk shows. If they had a show with a conservative opinion, they had to balance that with a liberal show. As a result, radio stations were not willing to take the risk over the determination if they had met the standard. They just did not have talk shows that dealt with political speech at all.

Ronald Reagan came along and said that was not acceptable. The First Amendment to the Constitution says that there shall be no law abridging Freedom of Speech. Since this law obviously did just that, he had the law repealed. After the law was repealed, talk radio took off and is now the number one radio format in the country. Interestingly, conservative talk radio has been successful while liberal talk radio has not. That has resulted in well over 90% of the talk shows being conservative shows. All of the most popular talk show hosts are conservative.

When the current administration and Congress was elected, there was a lot of talk about bringing the Fairness Doctrine back. That got shot down in quick order by the fans of talk radio. Since it is the number one listened to format in the country, there were a lot of calls and letters to Congressmen. In quick order, Congress responded with bills that said they would not put the Fairness Doctrine back in place. That should have ended it, but liberals do not give up easily when they almost have total control.

There is more than one way to get the Fairness Doctrine imposed, without actually imposing it. There is talk of having radio licenses being renewed every two years instead of every eight years. That would mean the liberals would have more chances to get the station to drop conservative talk radio. This might work, but would have to be put with some other method to have any real teeth.

The second way to bring the Fairness Doctrine back would be to have local Community Review Boards. These review boards would determine if a station has enough “local” programming. If this was paired with more frequent renewal of the license, it could have a big impact on whether a station could keep conservative talk radio.

A third way is being discussed. That is to require more minority ownership of radio stations. The thinking here is that minorities would be less likely to have conservative talk radio as their radio format of choice. That would then reduce the amount of conservative talk radio. Conservative talk radio is highly profitable for a radio station. Any station owner who wanted to make money would see quickly that it pays to have conservative talk radio on the air. This might work, but it would most likely have to be paired with something else to really work.

There are others. The problem is that if the liberals pull off the removal of conservative talk radio, there will be no place to get real news. All you will get are liberal talking points from liberal news outlets. The liberal news outlets get their news from the Democrat Party. All dissent would be stopped in the country and you would have a one party rule. We would be like the old Soviet Union with Pravda, only our news outlets would be voluntary arms of the government.

If the liberals get conservative talk radio, the internet is next. The internet would be much easier than talk radio. There will be no outcry, because there will be nobody to find out and report it. Even if someone did find out and report it, things take time on the internet. Things happen almost instantly on the radio. There would be no way to stop them.

There are three potentially huge disasters facing us right now. One is the Supreme Court Justice. The second is the destruction of our medical system. The third is the institution of the fairness doctrine by the backdoor to shut down talk radio. Any one of these is destructive. I am not sure what would happen if we actually got all three. I am going to talk about the Supreme Court Justice today.

Justice Souter is going to be stepping down from the Supreme Court. For one, I am glad to see him go. He was a disaster from the start. After Robert Bork got destroyed by the Democrats in the Senate and the news media, President George H. W. Bush wanted someone with no record. He picked Justice Souter on the recommendation of the Governor of New Hampshire, who was a friend. That recommendation turned out to be bad. Right from the start, Justice Souter voted with the liberals and continued there until today. He never once voted the conservative position or the position that judged the Constitution strictly by what it says. He always tried to figure out what it meant in today’s terms. In other words, he believed in a “living” (dead) Constitution.

Barack Obama has yet to nominate someone to fill the vacancy. He has said that he wants to select someone with empathy for the needy. That is a bad criterion for selecting a Justice of the Supreme Court. We need Justices on the Supreme Court that read the Constitution and decide cases based on what the Constitution says. Justices used to do that up until Franklin Roosevelt appointed some that started finding things in the Constitution that were not written. As a result, we have abortion is legal from Roe v Wade and other numerous examples.

Liberals believe in a “living” (dead) Constitution. That means that the Constitution can be interpreted to mean different things in different times. That is to say that as society changes, the meaning of the Constitution changes with it. Liberals also believe that it is acceptable for a Justice to use foreign opinions to help him/her decide US Constitution cases.

Conservatives believe that the Constitution means what it says. They believe that the Constitution was written with certain intent. It is up to the Justices today to decide cases based on the words of the Constitution as amended and nothing else. Conservatives believe that only the Constitution and American court cases can be used as documentation to help a Justice come to his/her opinion.

That is the great battle that will now be fought. Conservatives will try to find a candidate that will agree to decide cases based just on the Constitution. Liberals will try to find a candidate that will agree to use the “living” (dead) Constitution concept.

Conservatives frequently accuse liberal judges of legislating from the bench. When they say that, conservatives mean that a liberal judge decides a case on his/her opinion, not on the law. The judge then puts himself/herself above the legislatures of the states.

Liberals have started calling judges that judge cases strictly by the law as legislating from the bench. I am not sure how that is legislating from the bench. The judge is saying, en effect, that the legislature makes the laws and he/she enforces them. That is not legislating from the bench in any way.

The next few weeks should be interesting in determining how this battle will play out. The Democrats hold all the cards. They have enough votes in the Senate to approve any person nominated by Barack Obama. The only thing that could stop the nominee would be a filibuster. Democrats have filibustered Republican nominees. The Republicans have said that they do not anticipate a filibuster on this nomination.

This person will serve for the next 20-40 years. That will be a lasting legacy for Barack Obama. This person could be a joke of a justice like Justice Souter or be a stalwart like Justices Thomas, Roberts, Scalia or Alito. My bet is that the justice will be a joke.

In the debate over Gay Marriage, everyone seems to leave out some vital information. The information that people leave out is that gays are asking for more rights than everyone else, not the same rights as they claim.

Let me explain: As the law now stands, marriage is between a man and a woman. That is all the law says. You are free to marry anyone of the opposite sex that you choose. That means that if I wanted to get married, I could choose from any female on the planet. If a woman wanted to get married, she could choose from any male on the planet. That is equality. Everyone has the same rights and everyone is equal.

Gays say that they do not want to marry someone of the opposite sex. They want to marry someone of the same sex. In saying that, they are asking for more rights than anyone else. Everyone else has equal rights and they are asking for something extra that nobody else has or wants. That is not fair.

What is the purpose of marriage, anyway? Marriage was instituted so that children could be brought into the world and cared for properly. By saying that children would be cared for properly, I mean that they would be taught the standards of the society that they live in.

Marriage was not put in place so that two people have a legal standing for one another. The legal standing came because each person in the marriage had a role to play. Since each person had a role, they also had to be protected in case the marriage failed. That is why we have legal standing for the partners in a marriage. If that is why you get married, you are getting married for the wrong reason.

Two men cannot have children without introducing a woman. Two women cannot have children without introducing a man. Therefore, a marriage between people of the same sex would not be equal to a marriage of people of the opposite sex. You may argue that not all traditional marriages result in children. That is true, but the potential is there. Just because children do not happen is not the fault of marriage, it is usually a medical problem.

Just remember that when people talk about “Gay Marriage”, they are requesting additional rights than already exist. Gays claim they just want the same rights, but we all now know the truth. The purpose of gay marriage is not really so gay people can marry. The real reason is to destroy the foundation of America. America is founded on strong homes. Our homes have been under siege for more than a generation. This is the final attack on the walls. If this succeeds, then America will fall. If this fails, America will stand. What stands between America and anarchy are the husbands and wives of America, and most do not know it. Let us hope that what we were taught at our Mother’s knee is enough to see us through this final battle.

The yearly White House Correspondents dinner was held this past weekend. The usual suspects were in attendance. Everyone who is anyone in the news media in Washington and surrounding areas was there. There was also the usual amount of political types, capped by the President.

The lead comedy act set a new low for comedy at these events. She did have her funny moments, but really stepped in it when she started to talk about Rush Limbaugh. I thought that the comedy at this event was to poke fun at the current administration, not the past administration or the opposition. But, when she talked about Rush, she started getting personal. She accused him of being the 20^th hijacker but could not make it because he was high on drugs. To a liberal, that might have been funny. At the dinner, most of the audience laughed. Some made their disapproval known with a chorus of “boos". But, she then got even worse by wishing Rush would die of kidney failure. Now, you may wish someone were dead, but it is not a joking matter and you do not say it in front of the President.

Much is being said on the talk shows about this problem with the “jokes” in the comedy act. They were not funny and were not really intended to be funny. Putting them in a comedy act gives you cover in case they turn out to be offensive. You can claim that it was just part of a joke. You could tell from how she said the remarks that she really did mean what she said. That people laughed showed how sick the audience is. You do not wish someone were dead in a joke. That is not funny, no matter who it is and no matter what the situation.

When performing in front of an audience, you should have a standard of behavior that says that you will not intentionally offend anyone. The remarks about Rush were bound to offend some people, regardless of their political affiliation. The standard of behavior should go up when performing in front of the President, not down. If you respect the office of the President of the United States, you should treat whoever holds or has held that office with respect. That means that you have a higher standard of behavior that is expected of you when you say or do something in front of the President than when you are with anyone else. She lowered her standards to the lowest level of the gutter, not a smart thing to do.

Had she said things like that against people that are on the left, I would have the same reaction. There are some things that are not funny and should not be attempted. The politics of personal destruction should not be attempted in comedy clubs. If your neighbor wants to do it in your house at a party, that is one thing. To do it in public in front of the TV is quite another. She probably feels like she really said something clever because she has everyone talking about it today. What she does not realize is that we feel sorry for her because she is not intelligent enough to realize that she did something incredibly stupid and tacky.

Dennis Prager said that he holds himself to a higher standard when he comes to the radio station. He makes sure that he dresses in nice clothes. He could wear cutoffs and a T-shirt, but he does not do it. He feels it is part of his integrity to try to live to a higher standard when performing. I tend to do much the same thing. When I go to work, I could wear shorts and a T-shirt because I work in the lab and with an autoclave. Those are dusty, dirty and hot jobs. I wear nice pants and a nice shirt so that I look professional at all times. I feel that it helps me maintain a higher standard of behavior. It also makes the lab look like a better place to work if we dress nicely. That is the kind of thing I am talking about. The same idea holds when using speech.