Dear Congress:

I remember when President Nixon fired special prosecutor Archibald Cox and the simultaneous resignation of Attorney General Elliot Richardson on a Saturday night. It was quickly dubbed the Saturday Night Massacre. The press took the story and ran with it, and never relented until the day Richard Nixon died.

Now, in the tradition of Richard Nixon, we have witnessed two major health care votes and a $300 million bribe take place Saturday nights. If the Democrats are so proud of this legislation, why are they taking key votes on Saturday nights? It’s because these folks are flipping the bird to the American people. They are sneaking it through. They are thieves in the night, gutting Medicare; stealing your tax money, and your health care, and your children’s future.

First, they tried to ram it through with no debate. Then they lied about it. Then they tried to change it behind closed doors. When the truth became obvious to anyone that can read, they stopped lying about it, and are now trying to sneak it through in under the darkness of a weekend night.

And when it looked like the Senate did not have enough votes to bring it to the floor for debate, they put in a $300 million dollar bribe for Senator Mary Landrieu and Louisiana. Now we know what Mary Landrieu is…and her established price. As an Ohio boy, I would like to ask my Senator Sherrod Brown…where is the $300 million for Ohio?

Meanwhile, out in the real world, the popularity of this type of health care reform is sinking like a lead weight. Currently, only 37% of the American people support this bill, and a full 70% believe that this bill will raise their taxes, raise the insurance premiums, and raise the cost of health care.

The Senate vote to bring this bill to the floor was pitiful if you were watching. Those old decrepit men hugging each other hopefully out of the eye of the camera was disgusting. Those that voted for it wouldn’t show their enthusiasm to the public with applause. At least the House showed their glee to a disbelieving public. The Senate hung their heads and quietly slinked away.

Joe Lieberman said it best. In this country, we don’t take things over. When the private sector fails, we litigate and we regulate; both of those approaches would have been a good step to alleviating any perceived wrongs in our health care system.

Instead, we are on the verge of passing a financial debacle that has already failed in Massachusetts and Tennessee. It guts $500 billion from Medicare and makes Medicare taxes a source of revenue to the general fund rather than the Medicare program. It forces you to buy expensive health insurance or go to jail. It will increase the deficit. Taxes will go up, and it collects them for 4 years before the benefits of the plan kick in, and then it pays for only 6 years of benefits. At the end of the first ten years, the cost falls off a cliff. It will dictate what health care you are entitled to, and more importantly, what you aren’t entitled to.

Bill O’Reilly gave good warning on his television show the other night. If this bill passes, there will be open revolt in this country. I hope Congress comes to its senses before it’s too late.

Dear Congress: You are elected to serve the people, not your pipedream ideology. If you insist on flipping the bird to the public that sent you to Washington, the public just might flip the bird right back at you.

Bowing Out

As the name of the old television show so aptly proclaimed: That Was The Week That Was. In a period of seven to ten days, we have witnessed Barack Obama sacrifice his presidency on the altar of radical liberalism. If he is nothing else, he is a true believer; ready to fall on the sword to gain his vision of a changed America. He said so in an interview with CNN tonight. He may get his wish. The coalition of left wing Democrats and moderate independents is collapsing, and the events of these past days will hasten the process to the point Obama will be politically neutered.

1) Moving Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s trial to New York City is the single worst decision I have ever seen a politician make outside of issues of war. It is opposed by 65% of the population. It paints a bigger terrorist bull’s eye on NYC. The trial itself will be a circus. Obama thinks the public will be upset about President Bush’s alleged abuses. He is wrong. What the public will be upset about is Miranda rights becoming an issue for that scumbag murderer.

2) Obama’s bow to the Emperor of Japan will become the poster for any Republican candidate running against him 2012. Obama may think it is deferential and showing American respect. Dude, he is there because MacArthur needed him to help pacify Japan at the end of World War II. Otherwise, he would have been shot with the other masterminds behind the invasion of Pearl Harbor. Americans sense weakness, and so do our enemies. The mood of the country has gone beyond another apology tour.

3) The Chinese shoved it up Obama’s you know what. Perhaps he truly believes the old adage if you owe the bank $10,000.00 the bank owns you. If you owe the bank $1,000,000.00 you own the bank. They told him in no uncertain terms that they will pull the plug on the American bond purchases and our currency unless Obama gets the financial house in order. They will call in the loans!!!! They obviously got his attention. Obama told Fox News that the deficit needs to shrink or we will risk a double dip recession. Let me add to that high interest rates and high double digit unemployment.

4) And the Senate continues to move forward on the Congressional dubious health care bill. With the Congressional approval rate at 14% while it tries to pass a health care bill that frankly pisses off everybody, and will include federally funded abortion, it is clear that Obama continues to be held hostage by the far left of his party who are hell bent on self destruction. Meanwhile, unemployment continues to climb while the halls of Congress and the White House ring with ideological debate irrelevant to the American public.

The Rasmussen Poll, for a number of successive weeks, had Obama’s popularity at a -4. Today, it dropped to -14. Don’t be surprised to see it at -20 by the end of the month. Obama may be willing to fall on the sword, and the American electorate will be happy to oblige him.

Obama, the Terrorist, and the Berlin Wall

Obama’s swing to the left becomes more pronounced by the day. It has reached the point where the question can now be asked: Whose president is he? Somebody should tell him he is President of the United States. He is supposed to represent all of us. Two incidents this past week now clearly demonstrate that he is only concerned about his ideological agenda…the rest of the country be damned.

Last Thursday afternoon, the nation was shocked when an Islamic nutcase psychiatrist shot and killed 13 American service people waiting to be deployed at Fort Hood, Texas. The President was scheduled to give remarks to a Native American gathering, and advised the press he would make a statement about the Ft. Hood incident. The cameras cut to his event, and instead of beginning with even the most basic of statements about the sympathy for the families of the fallen soldiers…he does a several minute long fluff introduction giving “shout outs” to various people in the audience. It was almost bizarre. I thought I was the only one who believed this was odd. The press was so stunned it took two days before it sunk in and commentary began to appear. Why would he do that?

The second incident involved our “world” president refusing to attend the ceremony commemorating 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. This event, and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union, represented the ultimate triumph of democracy and freedom against the evils of totalitarianism. The Berlin Wall was conjoined to the institution of the American Presidency as borne out by Democratic President John Kennedy’s famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, and Republican President Ronald Reagan’s equally famous “Mr. Gorbachev…tear down this wall!” speech. Obama can go to Copenhagen to promote the Olympics, but ignore one of the most significant events of our time?

What the above two incidents show is that Obama is either ignorant, or doesn’t care. I would hope for the former, because that is fixable. But I suspect the latter; because everything else he is doing bolsters is ideological view of the world, which is so far to the left the American psyche has yet to comprehend it.

Barack Obama is a committed leftist. If he believes that America is the source of all that is wrong with the world, rather than the source of all that is good, he will simply be flippant with any event that contradicts that view. The historic nature of the collapse of the Soviet Union marked the end of the grand socialist experiment, and is not to be celebrated but mourned. An Islamic terrorist, whether acting alone or in concert with someone else, is only a symptom of America’s sins to the world, and must be viewed “in context.”

No one should be surprised at his insensitivity. Barack Obama believes in one thing: redistribution of wealth. It is his goal to achieve it through a health care takeover and climate change legislation, both so draconian in scope and breadth it will “change America”. Everything else is subordinate and irrelevent to those two goals, including his re-election, and the re-election of his party. Unfortunately, he will be long gone before America finally wakes up and understands that not all change is good, and then it will be too late to undo the damage he is doing.

The Slippery Slope

The slippery slope has almost become cliché; but it is the foundation for the slippage in support of Barack Obama and his health care plan as defined by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. When the slippery slope argument is made relating to health care, those making it get poo-poo’d. “Don’t worry about it, that’s not what it does!” we are told. Anyone over the age of 25 has learned by experience that when we are told not to worry, that’s when to worry.

A case in point is smoking. Now I don’t smoke. It is a bad habit that leads directly to cancer, stroke, and heart and lung disease. But look at the progression. Of course it only seems natural that the tobacco companies would be forced to put warnings packs of cigarettes just in case people missed the steady barrage of smoking warnings in every media venue for the past 40 years. Of course, given that second hand smoke can kill you also, it only seems fair that we should have smoking and non-smoking sections in restaurants and bars, and restricted smoking areas in buildings and the workplace.

But that’s not enough. You know the smoke permeates those barriers, and should be banned completely in the workplace, and restaurants and bars. Of course, who wants to go into a smoke filled hotel room, and hotels should ban it all together. Then it is just too big of a nuisance to allow it any public buildings, or any work buildings, so it is banned indoors altogether. Smoke outside, but not in front of the doors. Stand at least 15 feet away. No, make it 30.

But smoking is so bad, and such a burden on society and our health care costs, perhaps it should be banned in all public areas. No smoking in parks or sidewalks. If you smoke in your house, that smell could reach the house next door, so indoor smoking should be banned in your house; not to mention the car in front of you if the driver is smoking with his window down. And of course, if you have children, it is downright abusive if you smoke in your car with your kids…or smoking in your house if you have kids, so the kids should be taken away from you. Of course, if you smoke at home, why should an employer hire you? You may get sick and cause him to lose money, so it is okay for employers not to hire people who smoke…or drink. In fact, let’s just make entire cities smoke free zones, and you go to jail if you are caught smoking in your home’s bathroom.

Sound funny? It isn’t. All of that has happened, and is happening as we speak. Now let’s pretend that Nancy Pelosi’s health care bill passes, and the government is now in charge of, and paying for your health care. What if you are ten pounds overweight? What if you are 100 pounds overweight? What if you like eating red meat? What if you are eating too much pizza?

Do you listen to the food do-gooders on television telling you what to eat and what not to eat and why? Those do-gooders are ready to become the food police. They have done it to smoking, they will do it to food, all in the name of good health and driving down the cost of health care that government, translate the taxpayer, will be paying for.

What makes you think that if you put the government in charge of your health care…those same do gooders aren’t going to do the same thing to every aspect of your life if you don’t meet their criteria? The government will monitor everything you do, everything you buy, everything you put into your mouth. Those bad habits cause death and are a burden on society. They know what is best for you.

It is a slippery slope…and it is coming to you if America doesn’t wake up to what it means to give away your freedom to government. Do you really want the U.S.Supreme Court hearing cases to determine if a ban on you eating 2 Twinkees in a week is a violation of the Constitution? Scary, isn’t it?