222 years ago 39 delegates gathered in the city of Philadelphia to sign Constitution of the United States of America. On September 17, 1787 our Founding Fathers created the greatest and freest nation on the face of the earth. I find it extremely ironic that the House of Representatives decided this week to limit free speech on the floor. Their actions this week were in response to South Carolina Congressman, Joe Wilson, calling out “You Lie!” during President Obama’s speech last week before a joint session of Congress. Wilson immediately apologized after the speech for his outburst.

While I felt that it was probably not the best opportunity to point out the false claims of the President, I agreed with Wilson’s sentiment. I was not alone in agreement, the Nancy Pelosi led House agreed with Wilson by passing an amendment to the Health Care reform bill that specifically states that illegal immigrants are not to be covered under the reforms. 

The House also decided to dole out the moral equivalent of wagging their hypocritical finger at Wilson for having the audacity of speaking the truth about the President. They formally rebuked Wilson and laid out new rules covering what is not permissible to be said about the President in the chamber. No member of the House may refer to the President as a “liar” or a “hypocrite”, or describe his veto as “cowardly”, or describe him as “intellectually dishonest”, or refer to any alleged “act of sexual misconduct on the President’s part”, or describe the President as “giving aid in comfort to the enemy”.

I find it interesting that the Democrats took such offense to Wilson’s remark. Especially when considering their own rather sordid history of debasing a President and our troops from the floor of both chambers. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stood on the floor of the Senate after 9/11 and demanded to know what President Bush knew and when he knew it. She questioned whether or not our President knew about the 9/11 attacks before they occurred and did nothing about it.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Bush a total failure. California Representative Pete Stark called Bush a liar from the floor of the House. Senator Harry Reid declared that our military had lost the war in Iraq from the floor of the Senate. Pennsylvania Representative Jack Murtha accused our military of murder and rape in Iraq. President Obama claimed our military was air-raiding villages for the war on terror. 

Since January 20, President Obama has made more than 110 speeches or remarks concerning his push for Health Care Reform. On Wednesday evening the President addressed a joint session of Congress to once again plead for support for his unprecedented and unconstitutional power grab. His speech was heralded both before and after as providing clarity on the details of his proposal. Not surprisingly though the speech was basically a rehash of everything he has said over the past 8 months.

He continually perpetuates the same tired lies that his administration and the congressional leadership have been pushing since the debate began. He claimed that, “We are the only advanced democracy on Earth – the only wealthy nation – that allows such hardships for millions of its people.” Are these the same hardships that the citizens of Canada and the United Kingdom endure under their state-controlled health plan? DO we have 4000 women giving birth in stairwells, bathrooms, and broom closets as they do in the United Kingdom because there are not enough rooms for these women?

He claims that the reforms will not cover illegal immigrants, but yet 2 separate amendments were offered up in the House that added specific language to exclude illegal immigrants. Both amendments were voted down along party lines. 

He claims that they are open to any and all reasonable ideas on reform, but yet the President last met with any Republicans on the issue of health care reform in April. That would be a full 3 months before the push started in Congress. The Republicans have offered options that would call for Health Savings Accounts, Tort Reform, and making health insurance portable among other ideas, but yet none of their options have been made part of the bill.

He claims that abortions will not be paid for with government money, but yet again the President is not being truthful. Again amendments have been offered that specifically added language to the bill that forbade abortions being paid for with tax dollars. Predictably, the amendments were defeated along party lines. In fact, they added an amendment that required that at least one insurer in the federal plan would cover abortions. 

He claims that the reforms will be deficit neutral, but this claim has been proven time and time again to be false. The Congressional Budget Office looked at the proposal and concluded that the proposal would add at least $245 billion to the deficit. Of course, after his economic policies have added $9 trillion to the deficit, I guess it is easy to discount $245 billion as being insignificant.

As I returned from vacation last weekend I became aware of the desperation of the Democrats and the White House over their socialist takeover of our health care system. After weeks of plummeting poll numbers and running scared at town hall meetings the administration and the Democratic leadership have resorted to the same tired tactics they have used for years. The politics of fear and race baiting has returned in full force in a feeble attempt to resurrect the health care power grab.

The Colorado Democrat Party headquarters in Denver was vandalized this week and immediately state party officials attempted to spin in into an attack by political opponents of the health care reform proposed by their party. Unfortunately the facts of the case tell a slightly different story. One of the two vandals was caught shortly after the attack and his name is Maurice Schwenkler. He worked in the 2008 elections for a Democrat running for the Colorado state house. He has a history of working for liberal 527 groups and was arrested for unlawful assembly outside of the Republican National Convention in 2008. Of course the Colorado Democrat Party Chairwoman was quick to back away from her initial statements accusing Republicans of the vandalism.

New York Governor David A. Paterson blames racism for his unpopularity in the sate of New York and added that President Obama will be the next victim of racism. They believe, or are at least trying to convince the public, that the reason for the disapproval among the voting public is that we are not comfortable with a black man in power. They want us to forget that the health care reform proposal is an unconstitutional power grab and will further drive our country into economic disaster. Governor Paterson is presiding over a state that is in dire economic straits, but he wants us to believe that it is not his fault but the fault of his racist political opponents. I have been called a racist more times in the past year than in my entire life; all because I have not supported Barack Obama. I have not and will not support any candidate or politician that I do not agree with on the issues. Was I a racist when I supported Michael Steele for Lt. Governor and Senator in Maryland? I supported Steele based on the issues, but because he is a Republican, the left believes that he has betrayed his race.

President Barack Obama said last week that there is a “right wing conspiracy” to defeat his health care reform proposal. It is interesting that he would use those words to describe the opponents of socialized medicine. It is interesting because Secretary of State Hillary Clinton referenced a “vast right wing conspiracy” while she was the First Lady to explain the accusations of infidelity against her husband President Bill Clinton. Of course a few weeks later her husband had to admit his extra-curricular activities with a White House intern. I know the same is true in the current reference to a conspiracy. The facts are that the current health care reform will ration medical care, raise costs, reduce the quality of care, and will give the federal government unprecedented and unconstitutional power over our lives. I do think it is funny that they will try to pin this on the Republicans, but yet they do not need a single Republican to support it for it to pass either chamber of Congress.

The most disturbing, but not surprising ploy being used by the Democrats to force through this debacle is the death of Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy. No more than 2 hours after his death, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was calling for the reform to be passed as a tribute to Kennedy. They are hoping that they can guilt the “Blue Dog Democrats” into supporting the legislation despite the growing dissatisfaction with the proposal. It is ironic that they would seek to tie this reform to Kennedy who sought out the best treatments and doctors available for his disease, but he would not have had that opportunity if the current proposal were passed into law. The attempt to capitalize on the Senator’s death does bring to mind a similar attempt in 2002 when the Democrats tried to turn a memorial service for Senator Paul Wellstone into a political pep rally. The result was a defeat for the Democrats. The early reports of the coverage of Kennedy’s death have shown that the ratings numbers are very low, which points to the public’s cynicism over the political class trying to push this albatross onto our backs. 

A side note to the death of Senator Kennedy; in 2004 Kennedy sought to have Massachusetts law changed so that a vacant U.S. Senate seat would be filled by a special election to be held within 5 months of the vacancy. He fought to have it changed because he was worried that Senator John Kerry would win the presidency and Republican Governor Mitt Romney would fill the vacant seat with a Republican. Now that there is a Democrat in the Governor’s mansion, Kennedy wrote a letter state legislators before his death to have the law changed so that Governor Deval Patrick could fill the vacancy immediately. I believe the frenzy to change the law and name a replacement will be more entertaining than any of the mind-numbing reality TV shows currently on the air.

August is turning out to be a very hot, and uncomfortable month for the White House and especially the Democrat-led Congress. Members of Congress have been met with outrage and frustration over the rush to socialized medicine. Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the White House have tried to spin the opposition as anything from Nazi-like to “Astroturf”. Throughout it all the public has continued to voice their displeasure over the sudden and severe hearing loss that has gripped Washington DC.

President Obama’s approval rating has dropped to a new low for him, down to 47%. His Presidential Approval Index has been hovering in the negative range for several weeks and currently sits at a –8, with a mere 29% strongly approving of the President and 37% strongly disapproving. His plummeting poll numbers are a result of several factors, but his push to socialize the health care system is the main catalyst for his decline. 

Another factor for the public’s growing discontent is the unprecedented spending that the Congress and the President have engaged in over the past 7 months. The Treasury Department released it’s latest figures that showed that the Federal Government has spent $3 trillion in the past 10 months. Before my Bush-hating readers start to scream, allow me to say that Bush started this idiotic spending spree late last fall, but the current administration has more than followed suit. This year’s Federal deficit is projected to be 4 times that of last year’s deficit. Instead of working to reduce the deficit and release us from the stranglehold in which our creditors have us, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner went to Congress to raise the Federal debt limit above the current $12.1 trillion limit. The administration has further driven our country into bankruptcy and instead of changing their drunken-sailor spending habits; they ask to increase their credit limit. I suppose they need to raise it in order to pay for the economic fiasco known as health care reform. The American taxpayer had to work nearly an entire month longer than last year to pay for the ludicrous spending habits of Washington. The cost of government is 61.9% of our national income and these politicians want to raise it even higher.

The President has tried to portray his “townhall meetings” as open and fair minded, but yet there is never anyone who is opposed to his health care nightmare. Meanwhile, every member of Congress that goes out to meet the voters is met with overwhelming opposition. A recent Rasmussen poll has shown that 53% of voters are opposed to the Health Care Reform plan. Worse yet for the politicos in DC is that the much-coveted “independents” are opposed to the plan by a wide margin. President Obama has even tried to assuage our fears about a government run health care system putting private insurance out of business, by equating it to the post office. He said that UPS and FedEx are doing fine, it is always the post office that is in trouble. Can the President be that naïve? Does he really believe that the American public want a health care system that runs as efficiently as the post office? 

The Health Care Reform debate was ordered to be complete by the August recess of Congress. President Obama declared that Congress needed to pass Health Care Reform by the time that they departed Washington for their summer recess. He has placed urgency on the reform stating, “If we fail to act now, we will lose an opportunity that only comes around every few generations.” My cynicism impels me to ask; of what opportunity does the President speak? Is he speaking of our impending national bankruptcy?

The President has applied more pressure on Congress to pass Health Care Reform as more and more Congressman express their concerns over passing such an expensive power grab. He has repeatedly expressed that more than 46 million Americans are living without health insurance. The number in and of itself is staggering, but it is a fabrication on the part of the administration. Investors Business Daily recently published an editorial exploring the facts behind the 46 million uninsured figure. Roughly 10 million of the uninsured are not U.S. citizens and about 17 million of the uninsured reside in households whose annual income is more than $50,000. The editorial further explains that 40% of the uninsured are between the ages of 18 and 34 and simply choose not to spend money on health insurance because they are young and healthy. 

President Obama has also provided some enlightening clues as to where his vision for Health Care Reform will take us. In a town hall meeting in June, he was asked about a woman’s mother, who at the age of 100 her doctor informed her that she would need a pacemaker. 2 doctors refused to do the surgery to implant the pacemaker because of her age. The third doctor, after meeting the patient, realized that the woman had a zest for life and performed the surgery. That was 5 years ago and she is still going strong. The President was asked whether under his plan, she would have been allowed to receive the surgery. Would the plan take into account a person spirit and will to live? The President eloquently said that the plan could not evaluate a person’s spirit, but perhaps they would be better off taking medication to dull the pain. His plan is to provide “end of life” counseling instead of senior care. So we can expect that after we reach the government determined age, we will be evaluated on our viability before we will be treated.

Who are the people who are pushing to control our health care? President Obama has a record of voting in the Illinois Senate for allowing babies who were born alive after a failed abortion to die alone in a dirty linen closet. Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg recently said that she understood that the Roe V. Wade decision was decided to control “populations that we don’t want to have too many of.” Former Vice President Al Gore said during the 1990’s that one of the best ways to control “global warming” was to establish an aggressive abortion policy in the third world. His words are chilling, “it is time to ignore the controversy over family planning and cut out-of-control population growth.” President Obama’s Science Czar, John Holdren, has made similar statements regarding population control. In 1977 he wrote, "It has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society." I realize that these will not be the same people actually making the decisions, but they all share the same twisted view on life. Who are they to decide who lives and who dies?

As a side note, I do find it a bit amusing that the abortion rights advocates have for years been crying to keep your laws off of my body, but yet now they are crying that the government needs to control every aspect of our bodies.

The administration has repeatedly asserted that no one will be required to join the government run plan. They claim that they are merely providing a government option to compete with the private market. The problem is that there is no government program that has ever produced a profit. For those less economically inclined, the government plan will not be required to provide services at a fair market value. This will then cause private market competition to either close before bankruptcy or operate at a loss to try to compete that will inevitably cause them to go bankrupt. For those citizens who choose not to enroll in the government plan or any private plan, will be fined by the federal government about $2500, or whatever it would normally cost to buy health insurance, a year for every year you go without health insurance.  

This Health Care Reform debate is turning quite embarrassing for the Democrats and the administration. The President is taking the prospect of his proposal falling to defeat rather personally. He is repeating the statements from Republicans about defeating his plan as an attempt to rally support for the reform. He is apt to refer to Republican opposition to his proposal, but the truth is that the President does not need 1 Republican to vote for the measure for it to pass. He has enough Democrats in both chambers of Congress to pass this debacle, but yet he points to the Republicans as standing in the way of his power grab. The truth is that all members of Congress are hearing from their constituents and they do not want this plan. An increasing majority of Americans do not want any type of government run health care plan and they are expressing their displeasure over this proposal. Politicians, from both parties, are all generally the same. They all are worried about their next election. When public outcry reaches a point where the politicians realize their political career is on the line, they tend to take notice. 

Last evening, Senator Joe Biden and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin took part in the most widely watched Vice Presidential debate of all time. Nearly 70 million people tuned in to watch the debate. 10 million more than watched the Presidential debate last week between Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain. In the buildup to the Presidential debate, the media and political pundits lowered the standard by which to measure Obama’s performance. When Obama did not stumble in the debates and most pundits considered the debate a tie, the win was given to Obama because he wasn’t expected to perform well. In the same token, the same experts predicted that Palin was not even in the same league with Biden and did not deserve to be in the same room with such a magnificent statesman as Biden. Last evening Governor Palin performance was outstanding. Focus groups clearly favored Palin in post debate analysis, but the punditry decided that Palin’s obvious control in the debate was a clear win for Biden.

Throughout the debate Biden spewed accusations against John McCain, while Palin pointed out the outlandish statements of Biden and Obama. Palin correctly noted that during the Democratic primaries, Senator Biden rebuked Obama for voting to withdraw funding for our troops and for meeting with rogue dictators without preconditions. Biden falsely claimed that Obama had never said that he would meet with rogue dictators without preconditions. He also feebly attempted to say that McCain voted against funding the troops. Both accusations are utterly false. The precondition video is available for anyone to see on YouTube. Obama clearly says that he, as president, would meet with anyone without any preconditions. Next the vote on funding for the troops issue is clear as well. Obama, and his fellow Democrats in the House and Senate, tried several times to gain political points by voting to withdraw funding for the troops and to set an ill-advised timetable for withdraw. McCain wisely voted against a measure that the Democratic leaders tried to set a defeat and surrender timetable in order for funding for our troops in a war zone. 

The debate last night highlighted the differences between the two campaigns. On the one hand, we have a campaign that promises to only raise taxes only the rich and spend a trillion dollars more in new government spending. They plan to socialize health care and expect that only the rich will pay for it. If you think our economy is bad now, just wait until the high tax rates slow the economy to a stand still. Once the economy slows and the revenue drops, the new socialist government will be forced to raise taxes on everyone to sate their appetite for government programs and spending. On the other hand, we have a campaign that promises to cut spending, eliminate earmarks, cut taxes for everyone, and maintain a foreign policy that does not reward rogue dictators with U.S. approval by meeting with them. The choice is clear between the most liberal ticket in American history and a ticket with an actual chance at reform. Palin’s best remark last night was when she admitted that she was an Washington outsider, because she simply did not understand voting for the war and then claiming that you were actually against it. Obama and Biden for all of their platitudes about change and hope, their policies and positions represent more of the same old tired and corrupt Washington politics.

In the immortal words of Gomer Pyle, “Surprise, surprise, surprise”; Senator Hillary Clinton is caught in a lie. The surprise is not that she was lying about the details of her trip to Bosnia as First Lady in 1996, but the fact that the news media actually exposed it. Although they did sit on the story for nearly 4 months before “discovering” that they had video of her trip that directly contradicted the presidential hopeful’s claims. Clinton claimed that she was prepared for the unexpected decisions that a president must make because of her experience as First Lady. Over the course of the past few months, she has used her trip to Bosnia to attempt to prove that point.

Her version of the events of the Bosnia visit was that the plane that she and her daughter Chelsea were flying on had to “corkscrew in to land” because of sniper fire. Once on the ground they had to run with their heads down to escape the sniper fire. The news footage shows a starkly differently story. It shows Clinton being greeted by an 8 year old girl on the tarmac, strolling over to a vehicle and then finally entering the vehicle to be driven away. The military is also discrediting Clinton’s claims, taking issue that they would ever endanger a First Lady, and especially the child of a President, by flying them into a dangerous situation.

Hillary has admitted that she “misspoke” about the incident and that she remembers being warned of sniper attacks in the area. How does one go from a sniper warning to running for cover with their daughter? Was she confusing the trip with another one where she did have to run and duck? If so, which trip is she speaking of? I believe that she expected that the news media would not bring the truth to light. After all, she has been telling the story for months with no one calling her bluff. During her husband’s tenure in the oval office, the media regaled us with “journalistic” pieces on the merits of lying. The Clinton campaign is realizing that the media love affair with everything Clinton is over.