Terrorism Has Returned to American Soil

On Christmas Day, a plane carrying 278 people to Detroit from Amsterdam had a terrorist incident. On it's approach to Detroit, approximately 20 minutes from Detroit Metro Airport, the homicide bomber fired his weapon.

In November, a month before the Detroit flight, a man in Nigeria reported to the United States Embassy that his son might be plotting a terrorist attack on the United States. The father was the former chairman of the First Bank of Nigeria. Still the son was not put on the no fly list.

When the terrorist was purchasing his ticket for the flight, he was asked how long he intended to stay in Detroit and they were told two weeks. Yet he had no luggage. This is a warning sign for possible terrorism. Yet he wasn't checked further. He also paid for his ticket in cash, another warning sign.

The terrorist had sewn an explosive into his underwear. The same explosive used by the Shoe Bomber. We've all heard the stories of elderly men and women being checked thoroughly before being allowed on a plane, but somehow, a guy with no luggage and who paid cash for his ticket, wasn't given the same scrutiny, or possibly any scrutiny.

As the plane made it's approach to Detroit Metropolitan airport, the terrorist set about igniting his bomb. But something when wrong. Instead of exploding, it popped like a fire-cracker, and ignited his pants. Smoke was seen, then fire. A passenger dived across four seats onto the terrorist and suffered burns himself in trying to subdue the terrorist and put the fire out.

The passengers pinned the terrorist down and they, along with the crew restrained him and moved him to the front of the plane. When the plane landed, authorities took the terrorist into custody. They read him his Miranda rights. He is now facing 20 years in prison. He's since claimed to have been trained by Al-Queda for this mission.

Following the attempted homicide bombing, Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano claimed that the security measures worked. She later had to back off of that when challenged on that statement.

Quite the contrary. There are many things wrong with this. First, a prominent man in Nigeria gave the warning about his son. Yet the son was not put on a no fly list. There was no security that prevented the terrorist to board the plane. If there was, he'd have not been permittted on the plane.

The only reason this man was stopped was because of some alert and fast acting passengers none of whom were government security people.

The only thing that the government accomplished in this is they allowed a terrorist on the plane then took him into custody, giving him rights he's not entitled to. The passengers are the hero's.

Does this sound familiar? Beginning in 1993 with the first World Trade Center bombing we were attacked at least 8 times ending with the USS Cole in 2000. All of those caught were tried in Federal courts.

On September 11, 2001 we were attacked for the first time under President Bush. Less than a month later, he took the war to Afghanistan. From September 11, 2001 until the end of the Bush Presidency, we were not attacked on our soil again. Yes, there were attempts, but they were all thwarted. Some we know about, some we don't. During those year, liberals have complained about our government listening in on private conversations of Americans. They don't include in their complaints that the calls are made either to this country from another country or from here to another country. They prefer to make it sound like the wiretaps are on Peggy sharing her chocolate chip cookie recipe with Agnes on the other side of town. They don't seem to have the same problem with the Obama administration monitoring twitter and facebook accounts.

We were warned during the campaign of 2008 that Democrats didn't care about National Security. We were warned by Vice-President Elect Joe Biden that Obama would be tested in the six months of his Presidency. He was only off by three months. On November 5, Fort Hood was attacked. Now, less than two months later, a second attack. There were warning signs in each but they were ignored by this administration.

Let me be very clear. These are acts of war. These are not parking violations. These are not breaking and entering crimes. These are not bank robberies. These are acts of war. So what has this administration done in the past year? They'd said they'd close Guantanamo Bay by January 2010. This will fail. They can't get it done by then. They have released detainees back to their home countries and in the case of one group, released them in the tropics. This group may now be serving you your drinks when you're on vacation this winter.

They have passed a stimulus package that has failed miserably. The money has gone to their backers but not back to the people of this country and what has gone out has failed. They have done "cash for Clunkers" which was a bust. They've passed Cap and Trade in the House, then it was discovered that global warming was a hoax when E-mails by the scientists were discovered.

Now they have passed health care despite more than 58% of the people of this country being against it.

However, they have failed miserably at National security. Two attacks in 10 months time and they are going to try these acts of war in criminal court along with the vilest terrorist, Kaleed Sheik Muhammad.

What was their solution to this latest attack? They came out with a directive that you may have nothing on your lap the last hour of your flight. That was rescinded within 24 hours of having issued the directive, which may be the only right thing this administration has done since taking office.

There are some simple solutions to this. When a father tells you his son may be a terrorist plotting an attack on you, don't let him fly into this country. When you have a nutcase in the military, a psychiatrist no less, you don't give him a weapon let alone teach him how to use it.

When a terrorist does happen to work his way through, and you catch him (or more appropriately the citizens of this country do your job for you), you classify him as a prisoner of war and shove him into a 6x6 cage at Gitmo and get as much information from him as you can and then leave him to rot in that cage until the war is over....sometime in the next century.

Terrorists were treated as jaywalkers in the 90's and prosecuted in the courts. Yet we were attacked over and over again. When they were treated as prisoners of war, and we actually went and bombed Afghanistan after the worst attack in our history, and terrorists were put into Gitmo indefinitely, we didn't have any more attacks in the country. Now we have another liberal in the White House that is afraid to deal with war criminals as war criminals we can expect more and more attacks.

We just keep getting more and more examples of the incompetence of this administration and people die from this incompetence. That's not protecting the American people from foreign attack which is their charge. Two attacks. 12 dead. 32 injured. But not one dead terrorist yet. The courts are filling up though.

We've had three attacks in the past 8 years. Three planes crashed and killed people on the ground. Two at the World Trade Center and one at the Pentagon. People on the plane were killed, people in the buildings were killed. One plane crashed that saved either the Congress or the White House when the passengers (citizens) gave their lives to save politicians. One attack where 12 were killed and 31 injured at Ft. Hood. Now another attack that was thwarted by passengers (citizens) and one injured. So far, it appears that the American citizen is saving more lives than the government, who have the power to stop anyone from being hurt with just a tiny bit of due diligence in these latest two incidents.

Terrorism has returned to our soil after seven years. This could be a long (and deadly) three years coming up.

You're welcome to comment.

Brett

Pimps and Whores Legally Operating in Washington DC

Apparently, the change we can believe in is that we now have blatant examples of Pimps and Whores in Washington.

The whores include, Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska.

Landrieu received $300 million for Louisiana for her vote on the destruction of Health Care in this country. Sanders received several billion dollars to help Vermont pay for the increase in medicaid for the state of Vermont, and Nelson recieved billions with the guarantee that the state of Nebraska will not have to ever pay the increase costs of medicaid in Nebraska along with the guarantee that abortion will not be funded by tax dollars.

The pimps? Well, they seem to be President Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. There is no truth to the rumor that the Presidential Limousine will now be painted pink and have huge fuzzy dice on the mirror nor the big white wall tires. We'll have to wait and see if they redo the interior with shag carpeting.

This farce put on by the United States Senate can only be called nothing more than the actions of a whorehouse. It's quite a fall for what used to be a revered institution. But it's not over yet. The Republican will likely force a reading of the entire bill before the week is out. However, the Democrats will likely bring in a speed reader to try to offset that reading.

The Democrats want this voted on before Christmas because they do not want to go back to their districts to face the voters prior to a vote. It's likely that most Democrats will not hold open town hall meetings when they do come back.

If this does pass the Senate, the next step will be the House and Senate getting together to hammer out the differences. Abortion and public option could still put this bill in the dumper. The liberals don't want to do without either, the moderates (are there any of those on the Democrat side?) don't want it in.

The good news is that this could change the face of the election in 2010 even more drastically than it already would have. Dick Morris predicted about two weeks ago, that just because of the developments to that point on health care was enough to give the Republicans the majority in both the House and the Senate. If this destruction of the Health Insurance Industry bill passes, we could possibly be looking at the Republicans having an outside chance to not just take back both Houses, but also get a 2/3 majority to override a veto.

The mantra for the Republicans could very well be "Repeal the Destruction of Health Care" and if successful, and they get the 2/3 they need, if they do pass the repeal next year, Obama will veto it and the veto will be overridden. This is admittedly pie in the sky hope, but passage of this bill could bring that pie in the sky to more of a reality.

Naturally, Tea Parties will take place all over the country and while it wouldn't be appropriate to throw Tea into the Boston Harbor to make the point, it might be appropriate to take bandages and stick them to the Capitol Dome. Or perhaps a sign in front of the Capitol that says "Public Brothel". I wonder if they'll now have to decorate the Lincoln Bedroom with lace and garters.

Whatever happens, it will be a very interesting year leading up to the election in November 2010.

You're welcome to comment.

Brett

Tiger Woods Saga...or Soap Opera

I have just two things to say about the Tiger Woods soap opera currently being played out day to day in Florida.

First, why is the press covering this? They said that consensual sex during the Clinton years was nobody's business. I guess that only applies to certain people based on their position.

The second thing about Tiger Woods is simple. It's between him, his wife and God. So................

I

Don't

Care!!!

You're welcome to comment.

Brett

Obama is Moonlighting

I have come to the realization that President Obama is not just the President of the United States. He's moonlighting by having a second job. Let's look at what's going on.

He's bringing terrorists, such as Kalid Sheik Muhammad, to New York to be tried in American Courts at the federal level after proclaiming that justice will be served and he'll be punished. Yet, we have three Navy Seals that recently captured a high value Al Queda target who are being charged with giving this terrorist a fat lip. Their trial will be held in the military. They are being court martialed for giving a well known terrorist a fat lip.

Or maybe we could look at Global Warming. This has been debunked with the recent revelations from a hacked E-mail account that netted thousands of E-mails showing that the scientists were playing fast and loose with the truth. Yet, Obama's EPA decided yesterday to announce that CO2 is harmful and now will be regulated by the EPA. Isn't CO2 what we breathe? Anyway, in addition to the EPA coming out with their decision just days after we find that global warming is a hoax, Obama will be going to Copenhagen for the global warming summit, where they have over 1200 limousines in use and over 140 private planes were used to arrive there.

The final clue (and it may not be final, but it's the last one that I'm putting on here) was a meeting held a couple of days ago. The administration held a meeting on Transparency in Government. Just one problem with that. They held the meeting on open government (transparency) behind CLOSED DOORS! In other words, not open to the public.

So it's plain as the nose on your face that Obama's second job is as a comedy writer for all of the comedians out there. The writers on the Tonight Show, Letterman, and Leno couldn't make this stuff up. Why pay writers when they can just listen to Obama speak and get their material from the asinine things he comes up with?

You're welcome to comment...even in the open.

Brett

Can We Afford Obama?

Have you ever heard of the woman that goes to the store, writes a check and is told there is non sufficient funds to cover the check and she says "I can't be out of money. I still have some checks left." ?

Meet President Obama. Obama has spent $3.52 Trillion in his first year and his year isn't even completed yet. If we adjust that for inflation, he's spent $2.8 Trillion compared to President Bush's $1.8 Trillion and President Clinton's $1.6 Trillion.

Obama's budget has a deficit of $1.4 Trillion. That is just under $1 Trillion more than the previous high during the Bush administration.

But those are just dollars. There are other ways that I don't think we can afford Obama. For instance, National Security. Once again, Amnesty is out there. The American people rose up and shut it down two years ago when Bush, McCain and others proposed a pathway to citizenship for those that had come here illegally. Now, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is proposing the same thing all over again. Forgiving those that broker our laws and even rewarding them with citizenship.

Or can we afford to have Obama ponder General McChrystals request for 45,000 troops in Afghanistan. We've been waiting for over 90 days for him to decide. In the meantime, the troops morale has slipped. Deaths of our soldiers have taken a steep climb in recent months. Even Britain, one of our greatest allies is saying that Obama is wishy washy on the war with his indecision.

Now we have a President that is bowing to the King of Saudi Arabia, the Emporer of Japan and the leader of China. There is a cartoon going around showing Obama bowing to the Burger King with an aide telling him that it's not necessary to bow to the Burger King.

The stimulus package was a complete failure. The promise that if the stimulus deal passed, we'd stop the 20,000 job losses each day hasn't happened. That unemployment would stop at 8% (now at 10.2%). Liberals like to say that had it not been for the stimulus the economy would be even worse off. I disbelieve that. I believe that the Free Market System would have boosted the economy more and that the stimulus deal only held back the markets from growing even further.

It's well known that you don't increase taxes in a recession. But that seems to have been lost on Obama. This new health care debacle not only raises taxes next year, but it raises taxes without the American people getting any benefit for their increased dollars sent in for four more years. It's like paying for a car that you can't pick up until it's paid for in four years.

Cash for Clunkers was also a failure. Yes, it helped boost the economy helping to cause a 2.8% growth in the 3rd quarter, but that's a tent that's gone up without a supporting pole. It won't last on that alone. The Cash for Clunkers cost the American taxpayer $24,000 per car.

As with Clinton, Obama ran as a centrist, but as quick as he was handed the keys to the White House, he began governing as a liberal. Or worse. A socialist.

This Thanksgiving, it might be wise for us to give thanks that Obama hasn't already completely destroyed the country. I hope we can give thanks for at least the same thing next year.

You're welcome to comment.

Brett

Another Election, Another Vote Count Screwup

What is it about people that work for the government and election commisions that they don't know how to count by ones? Have the government schools gotten so bad that counting from 1-10 is now a special skill? Let me see if I can help. To count to ten, it's 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10. Once you've got that nailed down, you only need count to ten again, but this time put a one (1) in front of the second count to ten. This is called the teens. Then do it again, to reach 30 and so on. It's really not difficult if you put down the gameboy, x-box and IPod.

What brought this is on is that the New York 23 race may not be over. Apparently, there was a misreporting of numbers and miscounts. The reason has something to do with the phones. You can read the information for yourself at http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2009/11/its_not_over_recanvassing_shows_ny23_race.html

There are over 10,000 absentee ballots to count yet. Bill Owens lead dropped from over 5,000 votes to over 3,000 votes. Since the absentee ballots were sent in prior to Dede Scozzafava suspending her campaign, it's thought that the absentee ballots would go in favor of Doug Hoffman, the Conservative candidate.

Should the count from the absentee ballots overcome the deficit for Hoffman, Bill Owens would have to be removed. Speaker Pelosi swore in Owens before the election was certified to get a needed vote on the Health Care bill passed last Saturday. His vote for the Health Care bill was the opposite of what he'd campaigned on.

It's a slim chance for Hoffman to win, but with how these vote counts have gone in recent years, nothing would surprise me.

You're welcome to comment.

Brett

Terrorism! It's baaaaaccck.

We all knew it would happen. Terrorism has returned to our shores after an 8 year hiatus.

We were attacked in 1993 roughly a month after Bill Clinton took office with the bombing of the World Trade Center. There were a total of eight attacks during Clinton's eight years in office. More if you believe that Flight 800 was also a terrorist attack. Clinton treated it like a criminal act rather than an act of war.

Less than eight months after President Bush took office, we were attacked. The World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania due to some very brave passengers who saved either the White House or the Capitol, on September 11, 2001. Bush reactetd quickly and began the bombing of Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. We were not attacked even once for the remainder of Bush's years. They tried, but Bush and Cheney were on top of it.

Now here we are, just over nine months into Obama's Presidency and we're attacked again. This time from within. What's even worse is that it's from within our own military. What will Obama do?

The prospects of him doing anything significant are not encouraging. It's been 90 days since General McChrystal told the President he needs 40,000 more troops in Afghanistan. This is the war that Obama said was important. Yet, here we are 3 months after the request for troops was made and Obama still can't make up his mind about what to do.

The initial reports were that the shooter at Fort Hood, in Texas was shot and killed. This after he had killed and wounded over 40 people. Then we found out that he wasn't dead. The next reports were that he wanted out of his planned deployment to Afghanistan. He didn't want to go and fight. An odd position for a soldier to take. Of course nobody wants to go to war, but that's what the military is for when we're at war.

Then it started coming out that he was Muslim and was upset about being teased. He had been saying he was against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. So why did he stay in the military? If he's against the fighting, whether it's against countries in the middle east or any other country, if you can't go to fight for your country when told to go, why are you in the military? If you're so against killing and shooting others, why is the answer to shoot and kill 13 people on a military base? Why wound with a gun another 30 people?

It just doesn't fly that he was against war when he uses a gun to shoot his comrades and others on a military base. The choice he made gets him one of three things. Either he's killed by his own hand or by others during his killing spree, he's caught before he dies and then executed for his actions or he's caught and shipped off to a maximum security prison where nobody will hear from him again. A better option for him would have been to go AWOL or to resign.

He didn't like the wars prior to being ordered to the middle east but those that have spoken to him thought that these wars might come to an end with the election of Obama. When it became apparent that Obama was not going to pull out of Afghanistan anytime soon, he became more upset.

Now we find out that he's been in contact with a radical Imam with Al Queda for nearly a year. E-mails he was sending to Yemen have been intercepted. He was identified and the FBI apparently didn't take it seriously. What more will we learn?

Who knows, but with the information coming out, it's obvious that this was a terrorist attack. This man, who by all accounts was a poor pyshiatrist at best, killed and wounded over 40 people on a military base. This should not have happened. The intelligence community apparently dropped the ball. Those on the base didn't take his words seriously. How many people did he treat that came back from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? What's their condition?

More importantly, how will Obama handle this? Will he throw a couple of extra bombs at Afghanistan? Will he turn it over the courts? Now is Obama's chance to prove his worth. We'll now find out if his concern is the safety of America.

I keep remembering what Usama bin Laden said at the start of the war. He said that Americans don't have the stomach for war. This should be a wake up call to Obama. He should be giving McChrystal his 40,000 troops as requested and then after granting them ask the General, "is this enough or would you like more?"

I'm afraid we're about to find out what Obama is made of and that we won't like it. I'll be happy to see him as a one term President, but he still has three years left in that term. That's a lot of time to do alot of damage. Need proof? Look at the deficit. Look at the debt. Look at the taxes we're being saddled with.

What's annoying beyond that is this morning on a radio program, I heard people calling up blaming Bush for this attack. I heard another claim that children shooting up schools weren't terrorists and for the most part, they are white kids shooting up the schools so we shouldn't lable this guy a terrorist. This one really ticked me off because it was nothing more than a repeat of what Van Johnson said in speeches.

We've now got not just terrorists, but a racial divide as well. Now is the time for a leader to step up and put an end to it and label the terrorists for what they are. Terrorists. Unfortunately, the one that's been elected as a leader is not likely to do that.

Vice President Biden said early on to a group of supporters that Obama would be tested within the first year. The test has now been made. If he fails, and it appears it will since it's been four days and he's said little, we could be in for three more years of these attacks.

You're welcome to comment.

Brett

Did the Elections slap down Obama?

Was the Election of November 3, 2009 a repudiation of President Barack Hussein Obama? Yes and no. It is pretty much a standard occurance for off year elections to go against the party in power and against the President, who isn't on the ballot. Only twice has it not happened that way. Those two were Franklin Roosevelt and George W. Bush. However, there were some extenuating circumstances in this election held this year.

The New York 23 race: A Democrat, Owens was running against Skozahfava (I have no idea if the spelling is correct). They were joined by a third party. Hoffman from the Conservative Party. A Democrat had not held that seat since 1850's. So Owens was pretty much a token candidate placed by the Democrats. The Republican, Dede Skozahfava, was even more liberal than Owens who is considered a moderate Democrat. A month ago, people started finding out about Doug Hoffman. Across the country we learned that the Republican was nominated by a group of eleven in the party in upstate New York, which is the district represented by this seat. The people didn't choose Skozahfava, a group of eleven chose her in one of the old classic smoke filled rooms. There was no primary in New York.

Doug Hoffman joined the Conservative party. A new third party begun as a response to the Republicans who, as we know, started spending as much as Democrats always have that cost them the House and Senate in 2006. Hoffman was unknown until a month before the election.

Hoffman received the endorsement of Sarah Palin, Fred Thompson, and others. On the weekend prior to the election, Skozahfava saw the writing on the wall and dropped out of the race. She then threw her support to the Democrat, Owens. Owens eked out a victory from Hoffman. Owens appeared on the ballot twice. Skozahfava was on the ballot twice. She received 5% of the vote. Hoffman appeared on the ballot once.

Next year, this seat is again up for election. I believe Hoffman will run again next year and I believe he'll beat Owens in the election next November.

The New York election can't be attributed to Obama based on all of that information above.

New Jersey is a different story. John Corzine the Democrat incumbent Governor lost to Chris Christie the Republican. Obama appeared at 5 events for Corzine. New Jersey is a decidedly liberal state. They have the highest property taxes in the nation. Corzine has made a bad situation worse in New Jersey. He spent a tremendous amount of money. 3-1 over Christie. Yet Christie beat Corzine. This can be attributed to the poor governing by Corzine as well as the policies of the Obama administration.

Virginia is an impressive state. Both in it's appearance and its' attitudes. Bob McDonnell the Republican against Creigh Deeds the Democrat. I believe this is also a combination of the natural off year elections as well as a repudiation of Obama. The reason for that is the size of the blow out by McDonnell over Deeds. Had McDonnell won by 5 or 6 points, it would be normal, but a 19 point embarrassment must include the Obama factor especially since northern Virginia, a Democrat area, went so strongly for McDonnell.

In Michigan we had our own little election that was a blowout for the Republicans. In the 19th destrict, which is southern middle Michigan there was a special election created when the Senator from that district, Mark Schauer, won the U.S. House seat for the area.

This election had it's own little soap opera to go with it. The seat was vacated after the November 2008 election. Governor Jennifer Granholm decided to leave the seat vacant by not holding a special election sooner and allowing it to remain vacant for nearly a full year. The people of that area were not represented in the State Senate during that time. Mike Nofs (R), a former Representative in the State House ran against Martin Griffin (D), former Mayor of Jackson, Michigan.

In the past year, the former Senator, Schauer, who vacated the seat, was the only one that claimed to have read the stimulus bill back in February when everyone on the planet knew that nobody had read it. He was also given the largest fine for campaign finance violations in state history. In August when the Town Hall meetings were being held and making news, Schauer refused to subject himself to that and didn't hold any open town hall meetings on taxes and health care.

Michigan is already saddled with the distinction of having been in a one state recession for over five years while the rest of the country didn't fall into a recession until a year ago as well as having the highest unemployment rate in the nation for forty months. In addition, the Democrats, led by Governor Granholm raised taxes two years ago and said that we'd not have to raise taxes again, have been trying to raise taxes again this year, and failed to get their budget deal done by the September 30 deadline and passed a continuing resolution for another month where they have fought between deep cuts in spending and raising taxes. The Republicans have prevailed thus far and taxes were not raised, although they likely will be soon.

Noffs beat Griffin by double digits in the special election. This was a combination of tax and spend Granholm, Obama's spending money and the activities of Mark Schauer.

Lastly, there was also and underlying message to Republicans. The message seems to be that the Republicans have an edge due to the Democrats tax and spend, not to mention printing money like it was printing newspapers, but that edge comes with a jaundiced eye. Republicans are trusted more than Democrats, but not by much.

This is a center right country. Conservatives number in the 40% range where liberals are in the 20% range. But Republicans are being watched by people and if they turn out to be Democrat lite, they too are in danger of losing the seats they hold.

So was this election a repudiation of Obama? Yes, but not the entire reasoning behind the results of yesterdays election. Virginia could make the case that it was as Republicans swept the board there.

The fun now begins. Will the Democrats see the writing on the wall and still try to push through this takeover of the health care in this country? Will they still push to get this through and cause tax increases on every person breaking Obama's promise of not one dime of more taxes if you make less than $250,000? I guess the real question would be, are the Democrats that arrogant?

You're welcome to comment.

Brett

Indoctrination of School Children

There really isn't much comment necessary to this. Just watch the youtube video and be afraid.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=0aqMTD5UFmU

You're welcome to comment.

Brett

High Praise for Obama: No Dissent Allowed

Moamar Khadafy (or however he's spelling his name this week) has heaped high praise on President Obama. He called him the son of Kenya and worried about what would America would do when Obama is no longer President.

This must make Obama feel good. Finally! Someone is on his side! He's just gone through a month of the American people telling the Congress (those that dared to have town hall meetings) that their take over of the American Health Care system is not wanted. He's just seen over a million people march on Washington protesting his uncontrolled spending of our dollars, that we can't afford, our government can't afford and our children and grandchildren won't be able to afford.

Obama is telling insurance companies that they cannot write to their customers and tell them that this Health Care Reform is bad. Freedom of speech is apparently a thing of the past under this Obama administration.

So today, he must have his chest all puffed up because Khadaffy, the man who just welcomed home the Lockerbie bomber home to a hero's welcome, praised Obama as his son.

This is a trend that is happening everywhere lately. In Michigan, if you write a letter to Senator Stabenow telling her that you don't want any of the five proposed health care plans (none of which are Obama's, by the way), she writes back to you telling you that she shares your concern for the state of health care in this country and that she is fighting along with the other Democrats to get health reform with a public option, passed.

Then there's Representative Pete Stark, who at a town hall meeting, listened to one of his senior citizen constituents tell him the Health Care plans were not good, and asked the representative not to pee on his leg and tell him it's raining. Starks' reply? "I wouldn't waste the urine on your leg." This is the Democrats idea of 'caring about the input of their constituents'.

I wander around some of the liberal blogs as well. A couple of them have stopped accepting comments from people that don't agree with them and I received an E-mail from someone that told me a blog I used to go to, but ended up banned from, has changed it so that you can only read his blog now if you're invited to do so.

Last weekend, Obama appeared on five Sunday morning news programs and David Letterman. One of them, Univision, didn't even ask him to appear. Obama asked them if he could be on. But he was too afraid to go on the Fox Sunday program with Chris Wallace. He'd have had to answer questions about taxes, ACORN, Van Jones, and others and he just couldn't handle that. Fox is only number one in prime time with all of their programming. The only competition they really have is with each other. Beck, O'Reilly, Hannity and Van Susteran are placing at the top of the ratings and falling way down is CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC and I suppose Univision would be below that.

You can't do anything but look at these situations and laugh. The liberals cannot handle control of both Houses of Congress and the White House. They are on the run.

It was announced yesterday that the Tea Party Express is embarking on another nationwide tour. This time they'll start the end of October in San Diego and end in Orlando, Florida in November.

While the Obamaites hunker down, the American people continue to try to let them know that they are against the Socialization of this country. But at least Khaddaffy is praising Obama.

You're welcome to comment.

Brett

Solve the Health Care Problem

There are problems with the health care in this country. No surprise there. We all know it. Even with all of those problems, we still have the best health care in the world.

I've been reading different proposals and listening to Obama who says he has a plan, but nobody has seen it yet. We've seen HR3200 and now we've seen parts of Senator Max Baucus' proposal that came out of his committee this week. Never mind that it didn't include anyone else out of the gang of six committee. He's still put forth his plan which we now know includes alot of tax increases both hidden and out in plain sight.

The first problem with health care is that many can't afford it. It's not the 46 million, 47 million or 50 million (depending on which number they choose to use on any given day). We've been told there are 20 million illegal aliens in this country. Let's lower it to 12 million because the past couple of days they've been using that number again. We know that there are approximately 12 million that are children just starting out in their lives after college or high school that don't have and don't want to pay for coverage. We also know that there are people that choose to pay cash for their everyday care and only maintain catastrophic care in their insurance. That number is put at somewhere around 10 million. That's 34 million people, using lowered numbers. That leaves approximately 13 million that just can't afford to pay for health care for them and their families or can't get it due to pre-existing conditions.

The problem with the current health care proposals are that everyone will be required to take it, if not immediately, in the near future. It also includes penalities if you don't get the health care that they require. That's not freedom. That's a dictator saying 'do it or else'.

We don't need a health exchange. That's just more government. We don't need to hear that the government is saying we can do this for $900 billion or $850 billion. We all know that the government has never been right on their projections for costs for any plan they've ever come up with (War on poverty, medicare social security, etc). We also know that when we put money in the governments hands, they misuse it (Social Security).

Rather than force an overhaul to a system that is leaving out approximately 13 million and creating a government plan for the other 85% of the people, why not leave freedom in the health care plan? It's your responsibility to get coverage for yourself. It's not the responsibility to tell someone what they need, or should have.

If you don't have health care by choice, it is YOUR choice. If people say that you're irresponsible, that's just them meddling where they don't belong.

So I've come up with some possible solutions from all of the reading that I've done on what people want, and what people propose.

Keeping your Insurance when you leave your job.

First, there is the problem of your insurance covering disappearing if you change jobs. Why not allow the employee to own his policy? You are hired by a company. The company bands it's employees together in a group. This gets their insurance cheaper for them than if they tried to buy it themselves. (there is another option but I'll deal with that later). If your employer contributes to your health plan premiums, that's great for you. Employer pays some, you pay some. You benefit because you're not paying the full price for your coverage, and your employer benefits because he's contributing to your insurance which is likely to alleviate the problem of turnover in employees.

If you pay your own premiums and your employer pays none, that's fine too. He takes your cost out of your paycheck and sends it on to the insurance company for you. You're still benefitting by having a lower cost insurance because you're part of a group.

If you quit your job, or are fired or laid off, then your option is to go with Cobra. You pay a much higher premium for that coverage for a limited time and hopefully you'll get another job to replace the Cobra and get coverage at the new job.

Suppose instead, when you leave your first job, you take your insurance with you? Naturally, you'll have to pay the premiums, but that will only be what you were paying before, unless your former employer picked up part of your costs. Then naturally, you'll have to pay the employers portion as well. But, you still have it as part of the group. When you get your new job, you just turn your insurance information over to your new employer and if he's going to pay a portion of it or not, he can begin paying your premiums from your paycheck immediately. You've lost nothing.

That is currently not allowed under current laws. Why? If you have a 401k at work and you change jobs, you can roll that money into an IRA that you may have or into your new 401k plan with the new employer. So why not health insurance? It keeps you covered and keeps your family covered.

The ONLY problem then is that the employer would be sending out premium payments to various companies for different employees. That problem seems less of a problem than paying a fine for not carrying coverage on employees or for employees for having to pay a fine for choosing not to have coverage.

The cost would come down because you'd always be in a group plan which is less expensive than buying your own individual policy not as part of a group.

Another option for those employers that pay for coverage for the employees is to give the employees a raise by the amount that they pay for each employees coverage and let the employee go out and buy his own coverage. If they go with a Health Savings Account, they can save even more money than what the employer was paying and likely get tax benefits from it as well.

Create more groups.

Another way to make health insurance more affordable is to allow more groups. Currently, this is not permitted. This would mainly be for those self employed, but could also be applied to others. First example; Self Employed. The self employed pay their own social security as well as the employer portion of the social security. That's a bite out of their income. Then add health care to that. If they choose to be part of a group, right now, they can't. The solution: Allow groups to band together and get group plans to save them on their premium costs. Imagine if you're in a city with 50 other self employed people. The self employed could create their own group and sign up for health care under that group getting the lower rates.

Second example: People living in poor areas where they can't afford health care and don't receive it from their employers. Let community groups (yes, I said community groups) band together and create their own group to get lower cost health care.

This could also apply to people that don't want to get it through their employer. Maybe they've chosen coverage from another company that is less expensive than that offered through their employer. So you get people on Elm Street together and create a group for the purpose of buying health care on each family.

Free up companies to offer coverage across state lines

Currently, insurance companies are not permitted in some states. They can't move from state to state. Each state has a choice of maybe five or six companies that are permitted to offer health care in each state. Imagine if all 1,300 companies could now compete in all 50 states (or 57 states in Obama's world). This would naturally drive rates down because of competition.

Pre-Existing Conditions

This is the most difficult part of any insurance plan. I'm going to give an example using life insurance. It's not going to be completely accurate so bear with me while I create figures here, but understand that the concept is correct.

A Life Insurance company looks at mortality tables. These tables show how long a person will live. It's not accurate when applied to one person, but it's really close when talking about a group of people. We know that the average life span for a male is 75.2 (2004 study by CDC). Women live on average 5 years longer.

So a life insurance company will look at a 20 year old male and know that he's going to live for another 55 years. So they figure out what it would take to pay off $1,000 of coverage during that 55 years and charge accordingly. So a 20 year old male will pay approximately 10 cents for each thousand dollars of insurance. A male smoker might pay 12 cents for each thousand dollars. But, if that 20 year old male is a diabetic, his life span decreases, do they have to charge more to cover the costs of paying off at death.

They also know that some will die prematurely regardless of how healthy they are at that time. Car accident, heavy drinker, their weight, if they have asthma or other maladies. All of these and more contribute to premature death. So they will charge accordingly. To the males advantage, if he's getting proper health care for his particular ailment, that counts in his favor and he may not be charged more, or his added charge may be less than it would be if he didn't get the proper care.

Health insurance works basically the same way. They must charge more for those with conditions that are there prior to the application for insurance. If they don't, they can't afford to pay out when it's needed.

So just eliminating pre-existing conditions, or making it illegal to take those conditions into account, will not solve the problem. It only takes the problem of not being able to get insurance to new heights because now, those that are healthy have to pay alot more to cover the cost of those that aren't healthy. You should not be penalized for your neighbor who's had three heart attacks and still eats the fat off his steaks, and smoking a cigarette while jogging in circles around the pool backward while the deck around the pool is wet. That's a guy that's got the coroner waiting at the door tapping his foot wondering how much longer you're going to be before you get there. He's either going to die of a massive coronary, or of a broken neck.

Adding the uninsured to the insurance rolls will decrease costs. Adding insurance companies to the list of choices you have in each state will decrease costs. But you cannot avoid the problem of pre-existing conditions. They are going to be there and they must be paid for if you're going to cover them. Is it entirely fair to someone that was born with a condition? No. Is it fair to the guy that didn't take care of himself when younger? No. But, if you're going to cover everyone, you must have the ability to charge for the ones with problems. If the insurance companies can come up with a way to do that with more people insured, then let them do it.

But whether it's an insurance company or a government, the cost is going to be there and it must be paid for. Would you prefer to have insurance professionals figuring out how to get more customers or would you prefer some elected government official with no idea nor experience in the insurance business doing it? Unless you're just bound and determined to get government health insurance, I think the answer is pretty obvious. Let the pros do it.

Dropping coverage after insured

Obama likes to tell stories about someone that is in the midst of chemotherapy and his insurance company dropping him when he needs it the most. I have no idea if it's true or not. I know that coverage being dropped due to non-disclosure does exist, but his examples always go to the extreme.

Again, in life insurance, there is a provision that doesn't allow the insurance company to drop your coverage after two years. Suicide for instance. If you take a out a life insurance policy and commit suicide within two years, the insurance company will only pay back the premiums paid in. However, if you commit suicide one day after that two year period has expired, the insurance company is required to pay off. It's called the Contestability Period.

I'd suggest making the same sort of Contestability period included in health policies. If it's found within two years that you hid a condition when you took out the policy, your coverage will be dropped. However, an insurance company can look at your health records when you apply for coverage with them. The onus should be on them to do their proper investigation before giving you the coverage and the rates that they'll charge. If they don't do a proper job gathering the information and you did have something unbeknownst to you, they can't drop you. If it's discovered though that you went to your buddy next door who is a doctor and he tells you that the bump on your backside is cancer and you immediately go out and get coverage then go to your regular doctor and he discovers it so that you can get the coverage, you and your neighborhood doctor-friend will be subject to insurance fraud.

This is not the end all be all to solve the health care problems, but if we don't have these things in there to protect us and to protect insurance companies, we're going to put the debt on the government. The government does not earn money. They confiscate money. If you think you're going to get "free" health care through the government, you're sorely mistaken. You're going to pay for it in the form of much higher taxes and you'll be pushing those costs on to your children and grandchildren and probably beyond because government will only add problems, add costs and have the problem of mismanagement.

For you liberals that trust the government or trust Obama, here's something for you to think about. Obama is not going to be the last President of this country. There will be another Republican President, probably in 4 years and more likely if not in four, there will be in eight years. We rarely keep the same party in power in the White House for more than two terms. Do you want to trust your health care to a Republican? I certainly don't want to trust my health care to Obama or his czars or his cronies or any health exchange they set up and staff with their partisans.

Every few years they will tinker with it and say "it's only cost...." This will continue as long as there is government health care.

If it's profit's you're worried about, do you realize that the profit margin for insurance companies is only 3%? That's not the massive profits that Pelosi, Reid and the rest of the liberals and their pundits say it is.

The private sector is always preferable to another government bureacracy. Government screws up everything they touch. They screwed up cash for clunkers. They created a stimulus plan that has not been stimulating unless the checks that went to dead people caused them to get out of their graves to cash the checks. They sent checks to prisoners. Those prisoners didn't all of a sudden become model citizens because some government official sent them $250 of our money. Unemployment continues to rise. The economy is still dismal.

If you're a doctor and your appendix bursts, do you operate on yourself? If you're smart, the answer is no. Yet, you're asking government officials to create a health care plan putting them in charge of it. I'd rather have the insurance professionals in the private sector create a plan or a set of plans that would address the problems, get the uninsured the ability to get insured and lower costs and still have the insurance companies profitable. I want the insurance companies profitable, because if I ever need them I don't want a letter saying "Sorry, Brett, we ran out of money, so we can't pay for your doctors bills."

You're welcome to comment.

Brett

Obama Creates Winds of War

For the past few years we've been hearing liberals say that we've created enemies around the world because of the war in Iraq. It didn't matter that we went in with 34 other countries. Liberals said we were hated around the world, so it must be true.

Well, Congratulations to the Obama administration. He's created more enemies. Poland, the Czechs. But to his credit, he did create one new friend (at least for today) in Russia.

This move to drop the missile defense system was dumb. To do it on the anniversary of when Russia invaded Poland in 1939 shows that this President is an amateur. Now the AP is reporting that Iran does have all that's necessary to create nuclear weapons for use. How many more examples do we need? DVD's as a gift to the Prime Minister of Great Britain. An IPod loaded with Obama's greatest speeches as a gift to the Queen. Now the dumping of the missile defense system saying that Iran isn't close to nuclear technology that would reach the United States.

This is history repeating itself. Shortly after Kennedy was elected President, Kruschev tested him and he stood up to them and they backed down. Now we have Obama. Putin stood up to Obama and Obama backed down. Someone should tell Obama that we're not France.

Iran has defied the world by developing nuclear weapons. Obama said in the campaign that he wouldn't sit down with the Iranian leader. Then after being elected he decided that the US would sit with Iran and talk. They gave them until September 30. Iran defied Obama and only recently said that they'd talk, AFTER September 30 (Obama's deadline) and that talking about nuclear technology was off the table. Still, Obama is willing to talk. This reminds me of how Clinton used to draw a line in the sand with Hussien. When Hussien tested the line, Clinton just drew another line and said 'don't cross this line'. And so on.

Obama has likely guaranteed that there will be an Israeli strike in Iran. His actions today has made that almost a certainty.

Obama has taken the greatest country in history and put it on a path to be the butt of jokes much as France has been.

You're welcome to comment.

Brett

One of a Kind All Star

Normally, when I sit down to write something it's just my opinions/observations on current events mostly political. I do it because it interests me. I don't fool myself into thinking that this is actually reporting or making a difference. Lately though, I've been considering writing something that is outside of current events, politics. I wrote most of this about a week ago, and decided that I'd put it on here tonight.

Regardless of where you live in this country, you've probably heard the voice of Ernie Harwell. Whether it's on rebroadcasts or on national radio or television just in passing a radio or television that has baseball on it. If you've somehow missed hearing his voice, you've probably heard his songs or heard his voice in several movies.

If you're in Michigan, you couldn't miss hearing Ernie's voice on a summer day. He's never played an inning of major league baseball, but he's been baseball in Michigan and even since his retirement in 2002, when you hear his voice you immediately think of baseball.

Ernie Harwell was a rare baseball announcer. He didn't just call the play by play of the game, but his descriptions could put you in the stands even if you were in the upper peninsula listening to the game on the radio. Listening to Ernie announcing the games, you could almost smell the hot dogs. You always felt like you were sitting right there next to him watching the game.

He would tell you if the defense was in double play depth, or the third baseman was hugging the line. You always knew if the pitcher was pitching with a windup or from the stretch. A double play was "two for the price of one". If an opposing batter was called out on strikes, he "stood there like the house by the side of the road and watched that one go by."

Ernie didn't constantly talk like todays announcers do. He'd tell you the situation and then let the sounds of the ballpark take over. He'd work in baseball history into his broadcasts, but he did it with perfect timing and didn't overdo it. He instinctively knew when to say things and when not to say things and just allow the sounds of the ballpark do the talking.

He's a member of the baseball Hall of Fame. He's also a part of baseball history. In 1948, the General Manager of the Dodgers, Branch Rickey, traded a catcher named Cliff Dapper to the Atlanta Crackers for the Crackers radio announcer, Ernie Harwell to replace Red Barber who was ill with a bleeding ulcer. Harwell became the only announcer ever traded for a ball player.

A very famous play was during a playoff in 1951. Everyone remembers Russ Hodges call of the "Shot heard around the world" when Bobby Thomson homered to win the game. Russ Hodges screamed "The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!". It's the most listened to replay of a play in history. Ernie Harwell was also announcing the game on television. He said "the only one that heard my call of the home run was Mrs. Harwell."

In 1960, Ernie joined the Tigers. In 1967, the Tigers were in the pennant race until the last day of the season. In 1968, the Tigers won the pennant. I delivered papers during those years. We didn't have Ipods in those days. We had transistor radios. The radios weren't little pocket radios in those days. Mine was about 8 inches tall. Two inches thick and about 4 inches across. I used to stick it in the bag and listen to the ballgames as I delivered my papers.

As I walked up to the house to leave the paper in the door or on the porch, if anyone was home, you could hear Ernie's voice through the windows. Nearly everyone was listening to the ballgame. We'd had the riots in Detroit in 1967 and baseball with Ernie Harwell was one thing that nearly everyone could agree on.

If the Tigers played on the west coast their games would start at 10:30 at night. This was back when the Los Angeles Angels were still the California Angels. I'd have my radio tucked under my pillow. No small feat since the radio was so large. Trying to keep it loud enough to hear, but soft enough that my parents didn't hear it.

People were fascinated with Ernie's stories and his knowledge of history. He'd seen alot of it and alot of the players that were no longer around and he told it as if it had happened just yesterday.

Ernie was the perfect radio announcer. He'd make you see with his words what you couldn't see with your eyes. Even foul balls were fun to listen to. "There's a foul ball into the stands behind first base and a man from Livonia caught that ball." Or someone from Bay City, or Westland, or another city in the state.

Ernie spent 55 years announcing baseball. 42 of them with the Detroit Tigers. He's a man of deep faith and was involved in baseball chapel. He's a very humble man. He's a member of the baseball Hall of Fame in the broadcast wing at Cooperstown.

In the early 90's the Tigers decided to replace Ernie in the booth. This did not go over well with the fans of the Tigers. Two years later, the Tigers asked him to come back. He retired for good from broadcasting Tiger games in 2002. Later, Blue Cross Blue Shield signed Ernie to a ten year contract to represent them. He'd finish that contract at the age of 95 and Blue Cross pledged to renew his contract for another ten years at that time.

On September 3 of this year Ernie was diagnosed with cancer near the bile duct. He and his family along with his doctor decided not to go with surgery.

Tonight, the Detroit Tigers paid a tribute to Ernie. They played a video salute to him in the third inning of the game against the Royals. Then Ernie came out and said a few words. When he came out, the Tiger players stepped out and lined up in front of the dugout and the bullpen, and on the visiting side, the Royals players and coaches did the same. Some taking pictures of him. He did not come to say goodbye nor to revel in his many accomplishments over the many years. Instead he thanked the fans, and had words of praise for the people of the state of Michigan.

For two to three hours a day over a six month baseball season, Ernie Harwell helped raise kids throughout the state of Michigan by calling Tigers baseball games. He entertained adults and children alike with his descriptions of the plays, the games and even the ball parks around the country for those of us at home, or in the car, or in the backyard bar-b-que or the kids in bed late at night when they are supposed to be sleeping. Yet tonight, it was him thanking the fans and the people of Michigan.

Mr. Harwell is 91 years old. Still married to his wife Lulu. He still lives in the Detroit area. He was born in Georgia, but he's Michigan's now.

Ernie's Opening Day Speech

That's Baseball

Baseball is the President tossing out the first ball of the season and a scrubby schoolboy playing catch with his dad on a Mississippi farm. A tall thin old man waving a scorecard from the corner of his dugout. That's baseball. And so is the big fat guy with the bulbous nose running home one of his 714 home runs.

There's a man in Mobile that remembers that Honus Wagner hit a triple in Pittsburg 46 years ago. That's baseball. So is the scout reporting that sixteen year old kid in Cheyenne is a coming Walter Johnson. Baseball is a spirited race of man against man, reflex against reflex. A game of inches. Every skill is measured. Every heroic, every failing is seen and cheered or booed. And then becomes a statistic.

In baseball Democracy shines its' clearest. The only race that matters is the race to the bag. The creed is the rule book. Color merely something to distinguish one teams uniform from another.

Baseball is a rookie. His experience no bigger than the lump in his throat as he begins fulfillment of his dream. It's a veteran too, a tired old man of thirty five hoping that those aching muscles can pull him through another sweltering August and September. Nicknames are baseball names like Zeke and Pie and Kiki and Home Run and Cracker and Dizzy and Daffy.

Baseball is the cool clear eyes of Rogers Hornsby. The flashing spikes of Ty Cobb, an overaged pixie named Rabbit Maranville.

Baseball is just a game as simple as a ball and bat. Yet as complex as the American spirit it symbolizes. A sport a business and sometimes almost a religion.

Why the fairy tale of Willie Mays making a brilliant World Series catch, and then dashing off to play stickball in the street with his teenage pals. That's baseball. So is the husky voice of a doomed Lou Gehrig saying,.."I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth."

Baseball is cigar smoke and hot roasted peanuts The Sporting News, Ladies Day, "Down in front", Take me out to the Ballgame and the Star Spangled Banner.

Baseball is a tongue tied kid from Georgia growing up to be an announcer and praising the Lord for showing him the way to Cooperstown. This is a game for America. Still a game for America, this baseball! Thank you.

Jimmy Carter Claims Wilson is a Racist

Former President Jimmy Carter claims that Representative Joe Wilson's "you lie" shout during President Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress was based in racism.

His reasoning for this? "There is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be President."

In other words, he has no scientific data to show this is true. He doesn't explain how many is "many". Is many considered more than 50%? What about 25%? 10%? Or is it just his circle of friends that he's drawing from?

Jimmy Carter is not someone that I take seriously, although I am thankful that he was President. His presidency ran from 1976 to 1980. Double digit inflation, double digit unemployment. Gas lines and gas rationing. Jimmy Carter showed us just how bad an American President can be and it led to one of the most positive thinking and patriotic Presidents in our history. Jimmy Carter showed us the failure of Liberalism which set the table for President Ronald Reagan to show us that Conservatism succeeds giving us the largest peacetime growth in history and caused the downfall of the Soviet Union.

There is racism in this country. But it's nowhere near what it was. It continues to decline. Will we ever eliminate it? I doubt it. People will always treat others that are different from themselves, differently. However, claiming racism where it doesn't exist doesn't further the fight on racism, but rather it takes the true racism and makes it questionable. It's much like the story of the boy who cried wolf. Eventually, claiming that racism is everywhere, even where it's not, will cause people to turn away from it and ignore it. This can only lead to more racism.

There is an honest debate that could have taken place over Joe Wilson's shout, but it's been watered down because of the claim of racism when it wasn't racist. There are clear differences between Obama's plans for Health care, stimulus and cap and trade that are honest and could be hard fought debates but the liberals whining that anyone that disagrees just can't stand it because the President is black is showing only that they don't have a argument for their position and need to try to shut down debate so as not to have to deal with the differences in opinion.

By the same token, the other side jumping in and saying "he's not black, he's only half black" is just as silly in that they aren't debating the issue but rather they are joining the racism debate which really has no place in the health care issue.

This current problem with Health Care has some serious problems. Even Jay Rockefeller, Senator from West Virginia is against the bill being pushed by Max Baucus who put together the so-called "gang of six". The three Republicans in the gang and Rockefeller, a Democrat are against it, so Baucus is currently talking about bringing his bill out of that even though there is just he and one other in the "gang" that are anxious to push it forward.

There is no honest debate going on about Health Care Reform. Republicans aren't included. Democrats aren't pushing their plan, they are claiming racism whenever someone raises a question. They aren't interested in getting it right, they are interested in getting a bill. It doesn't matter if it's a good bill or a bad bill, they just want a bill so they can say they did something about it and get their hands on all of the money that they'll be taxing us to pay for it.

By all accounts, Jimmy Carter has never met and doesn't know Joe Wilson. By all accounts, Joe Wilson doesn't have a racist bone in his body. Some have said that he doesn't even laugh at off-color jokes.

This isn't a debate on health care. This is a snowball fight between the left and the right and the ones walking in the middle between them are the American people. We are the ones being hit. We have the best health care system in the world and it could be made better and solve a few of the problems that exist. Unfortunately, we seem to have a bunch of spoiled little kids in the US Senate and the US House and someone left the playpen door open.

Jimmy Carter showed why he had a failed Presidency with his comments that were not backed up with any facts. The nation would be better off if he returned to farming peanuts. Maybe he could take 535 others with him and let them work for the peanuts as well and maybe, just maybe, we'll get some people in Congress that will quit damaging this country with all of the spending and taxing that's going on. It might help as well, if we could get new people in that actually know how to read as well.

You're welcome to comment.

Brett

If You Disagree with Obama.....

How dare we disagree with Obama!!!!! Who do we think we are? This man was duly elected to the Presidency and it's our responsibility to listen to him, agree with him and encourage him to do more of the same that he's doing to us now.

We're now learning that if we disagree with Obama, we're racist. We just can't stand it that a black man is President. So I decided to look. On this day, when a black kid beats a white kid on a school bus while others are yelling for him to continue the beating I've looked for incidents of racism perpetrated by the Right Wing fanatics. On this day when a group of people in Valdosta are calling for the Superintendent of the schools to step down because he refused to allow the Presidents speech to school kids on the first day of school, I've been searching for incidents of racsim since Obama became the clear front runner in the race last year and President in January.

I've decided that I must be a racist too. After all, I disagree with the (not so stimulating) stimulus bill. I disagree with Cap and Trade bill that deals with global warming. I disagree with the government takeover of the health care system. I disagree with the massive influx of czars and am happy that Van Jones is gone. The only thing I can remember agreeing with him about was when he made reference to the day in a speech. He said it was Tuesday and I agreed....after looking at the calendar.

I've also discovered that I'm an angry mob. Or maybe I'm part of a mob. I also checked my closet and am disappointed that I don't have any brown shirts. They are all blue, red, green, white (now if that doesn't indicate racism, I don't know what does). I haven't figured out how I can be an angry mob when I'm just one person, but the President said so, so who am I to disagree?

I have found one incidence of racism from the Right. An assistant to a Congresswoman in Tennessee sent out an E-mail that was blatantly racist. But I haven't found any others. At least, not from the right side of the aisle.

It is now not the proper thing to do to think for yourself. It's okay if there is a white man that is President, but not when there is a black man as President. We must walk on egg shells. The President said that his stimulus plan is working, so it must be working. Never mind that there is nothing to indicate it's working. On Sunday night, I drove 6 miles on a road that had a sign at the beginning of it that said this construction was paid for by stimulus dollars. They sugar coated it and said it was the America Recovery Act or whatever they are calling it. The funny thing is that the sign was at the beginning of my six mile trek and it was at the end of the six mile trek. But between those two signs, there were no construction trucks. There were no cones. No orange signs. Nothing to indicate that the road was, nor has been worked on.

So I assumed that it was Sunday, they must not be working. On Monday, I drove that way again. There were only two differences from my trip on Sunday. First, someone has run over a racoon and it was laying, pretty much flat in the road. The second thing is that I just missed hitting a deer. There were no "deer crossing" signs, so maybe that's what the stimulus money is going to pay for or maybe they cut some bushes so the deer would have an easier time coming out and crossing the road.

While it's true there are no death panels in HR3200, it is just as true that there are "end of life" provisions where you must speak to a government worker every five years. Hopefully, the news is correct and that will be dropped. But how can it be dropped when Obama tells us it's not there? I used to play baseball, basketball and softball and even a little football. Never once did I drop a ball that I didn't have. So how could Obama drop a provision in the bill that is not in the bill?

While it's true that the bills says it won't cover illegal aliens, but it doesn't allow you to check on someone's residency status. I'm glad that the bill doesn't cover illegal aliens. It's good to know that the only way an illegal alien will be covered under money paid by me in the form of taxes for their plans is if that illegal alien signs up for health care illegally. But what proof do we have that they'd do that? Oh wait, they are HERE ILLEGALLY. Maybe they'll see the error of their ways after having come here illegally that they'll begin to respect our laws now.

I must be a racist for expecting my Representative to read the bills. I must be a racist because I expect that if the President is going to talk about what's in the bill that he actually take some time to read the bill. I did. My disagreement comes from an informed position. But if I expect the President to read it and be informed then I'm a racist.

The President by-passed the school systems when he wanted to speak to the school children. He went right past the school boards and sent his speech and lesson plans directly to the schools. Once caught, he had to back track and take that lesson plan away and change his speech. Once he changed it then the liberals said "see, there was nothing wrong with that." Are they really so stupid as to not recognize that he did have a lesson plan until he was caught?

This President has thus far shown a proclivity for incompetence. If that makes me a racist, then I'll add that to my list of accomplishments albeit one that I didn't set out to become. But as long as we let the liberals define us, we'll just have to accept that we're racist. Oh wait. We didn't let them define us. Over a million people showed up in Washington DC to protest the same things that I'm against.

What did the Presidents staff say? 'Gee, we didn't know a rally was planned.' The President? He was off in Minnesota talking about the plan that I read, but that he didn't read. He didn't care what over 1 million people had to say. He preferred to duck into the liberal bastion in Minnesota.

I guess when Obama says that he has a grip on the pulse of the nation, he's just waiting for those that disagree with him to have their pulse stop. Could that be the new end of life counseling?

I found a picture of a man holding a sign. I've posted it above. Is that the new sign of racism? I choose freedom. Freedom to make my own choices, my decisions and my own opinions without being held back by those that don't like my choices, decisions and opinions. If all the liberals have is to call me a racist because I disagree with the man sitting in the White House, then they are really desperate. They have no coherent message to put out other than "you just can't stand it that a black man was elected President." Once again, the only ones talking about race and racism are the liberals. It seems to me, that if they see race without any intelligent arguments to the issues, the true racism lies on the liberal side of the aisle and it tells me that the color blind society that they've been preaching has failed. Imagine that, another failure by the left.

You're welcome to comment.

Brett

The People Speak Loudly and Forcefully!

Forget about the million man march. Forget about the thousands in various cities across the country over the past few weeks. The Tea Party, Tax Protest had up to 2 million people in attendance!!! http://dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1213056/up-million-march-us-Capitol-protest-Obamas-spending-tea-party-demonstration.html

Several groups brought their people, but alot more people showed up on their own, not affiliated with any organizations and created a huge turnout for the protest of Obama's Health Care plan, the House health care plans and the Senate Health Care plan and the increased taxes and the increased spending, and the deficit having been quadrupled in 7 months time and the debt growing out of control.

There were Republicans, Democrats, Independents and people that identified themselves in other ways all at the Capitol. There were so many people that the sound system they had couldn't reach the entire crowd. There were many that said that they had never protested anything before and some that said that it was the first time they marched against something rather than for something.

One of the things that Obama said during the campaign was that he wanted to bring people together. I don't think he intended to bring them together against him. There were many that were protesting the nations move towards socialism and didn't hesitate to say so to the news broadcasts.

People were not happy with CNN. They chanted "Go Home" so much and so loud during a live remote that the reporter couldn't even be heard. CNN has had a bad few months. They have been one of the news outlets that have fawned over Obama and pretty much have given him a free ride. In addition, they reported on a possible terrorist attack on the Potomac yesterday which turned out to be the Coast Guard doing some training.

I am happy to see this. I was afraid that after the tax day tea parties on April 15, this year that people would say 'I did my part and they still aren't listening'. But it hasn't stopped there. It's grown since the spring. August gave us town hall meetings where people wouldn't just accept the "company line" any longer. They challenged their representatives and senators when they tried to give them political speak as if they were just tolerating having to put on the town halls. This led to many that refused to do town halls and instead, many started having teleconference calls where they could pre-screen the questions.

Today, the American people stood up, 2 million strong, and said "Screw you guys. This is what we want and as our Representatives it's your responsibility to act on what the people want."

This has been an amazing day. Now we'll see if the people elected to office actually sit down and say "they don't want our plan we should try to devise a new plan."

You're welcome to comment.

Brett

Do You Remember?

On this date, eight years ago, America was attacked. Not by uniformed soldiers. Not by a country with borders. Instead, we were attacked by men that had come to this country and learned how to fly in our flight schools. They were here with visa's. They didn't attack the military. They didn't stand up to American servicemen. They went after American citizens. Businessmen. Women. Children.

These men didn't use AK-47's. They didn't use shotguns. They didn't use handguns. They used boxcutters. An ordinary everyday household tool. They spread out over four airplanes. Passenger airplanes. They overpowered the flight crew and took over command of the planes.

One flew into the first tower of the World Trade Center. The news organizations broke in to their programming with breaking news. A plane had flown into the World Trade Center. Pictures were shown of black smoke coming out of one of the towers. How could this happen? How could a plane not see the World Trade Tower? But then, a second plane was seen. It was headed for the other tower and flew right into the side of it and disappeared inside. Then the windows broke out on the other side of the tower. There was now no question. We were under attack!

Not long later, reports came in that another plane had hit the pentagon. The questions then started all over. Are there are other planes out there that are headed to do more damage? To kill more Americans? Then a report of a plane coming down in Pennsylvania. Was this an accidental plane crash? Was it caused by the confusion created by the three that attacked New York and Washington? Why did it go down in a field when the rest had largely populated targets?

The President was whisked to Air Force One and the protection protocol was enacted. The Vice President was taken to a bunker. The military was ordered out to airfields. Commercial flights were ordered grounded.

Later, we found out that an attempt was made on the Presidents life early that morning. We also found out that 19 terrorists had boarded these planes and taken them over and purposely headed for their targets. We also found out that there were hero's in this attack. The passengers on the flight that ended in Pennsylvania had heard about the other planes and the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. They called family members and a flight attendant called 911 and learned of the other planes.

Several passengers on the Pennsylvania flight decided that they would attempt to take the plane back. Many said goodbye to their loved ones at home by phone. They knew going in that they couldn't fly the plane but they had to take it back to save other lives. Then, over the phone, people heard the passengers saying "Let's roll" and off they went. They took back the plane and it ended up crashing in a field in Pennsylvania. The lives they saved were all of those that were in the Capitol or the White House.

Meanwhile, back in New York, firemen were rushing into the two towers to rescue anyone they could. People on the upper floors were jumping off to avoid being burned to death. In Washington DC, people were trying to rescue those in the Pentagon. Even Donald Rumsfeld was out assisting to get people out.

The twin towers came down, killing many that hadn't yet gotten out along with the firemen that went in to rescue them. A little later, the second tower came down killing even more Americans. When it was all said and done, nearly 3,000 people were killed. People in the World Trade Center. People in the pentagon and those passengers in the planes that were turned into missiles.

What have we learned? Are we better protected? Could this happen again?

The answer is that we've learned nothing. Our borders are still not secure. Illegal aliens are still here and the only thing seriously being considered to solve this problem is to let them stay and make them citizens. So no, we're not better protected and yes, this could happen again.

You're welcome to comment.

Brett

Is Obama a Liar?

In his speech to the Joint Session of Congress on Tuesday night, Obama laid out his plan for health care. This followed a month of protests, town hall meetings where questions weren't answered truthfully and often ignored altogether by elected officials.

Obama's plan that was unveiled on Tuesday didn't have much detail. However, he did challenge a couple of so-called scare tactics.

One of the things that he claimed were false, was the end of life plans. He said that the idea that seniors will be permitted to die wasn't just false, but he called it a "Lie". Was it a lie? Look up the bill. HR3200. Turn to page 425 and read that page as well as pages 426 and 427. It clearly states in there "end of life" provisions. So Obama was right. There was a lie. Unfortunately, he was wrong about who was telling the lie. It was his lie, not the lies of the Cable News programs or Radio talk shows.

Obama also said that this isn't a government takeover of Health care. Yet on page 72, that is exactly what is happening. So again, is Obama lying? If you read the bill, there is no other conclusion that can be drawn. It states it.

At one point, Obama said that there is no provision for covering illegal aliens. At this, a Representative yelled out "You lie!" Well, again, we look at the bill to find out which is the truth and sure enough, on page 91 we find that Obama is again lying. There is a set up for illegal aliens.

There are many more that you can read in the bill. On each that I've checked out thus far, Obama is the one lying as you can see above.

Obama's plan announced last night is nothing more than a copy of the plan put out by the House. I suspect it will be at least 1,000 pages long as well. The only purpose for creating bills that are 1,000 pages long is because nobody can read it that fast. We already know that the Congress doesn't bother with the reading of these bills before voting on them. They will try to push it through fast before the people can find all of the lies in the bill.

We know the lies will be there. After all, we were lied to on national television by the President.

You're welcome to comment.

Brett