Max Baucus of Montana is hard at work trying to force his healthcare bill through committee and onto the floor of the Senate. If he succeeds we could have a new healthcare system in this country before long. Of course the new system will take care of few if any of the old problems and simply create higher taxes and more government red tape.

As an astute politician Max understands that sometimes compromise is needed to pass legislation. Some changes made to his proposal should get serious attention from those of us who will foot the bill for this program. He has offered changes to the number of people being subsidized to pay for coverage and the penalty for not getting coverage has been lowered.

The Baucus plan will provide subsidies to families and individuals to help defray the cost of getting insurance. This subsidy is available to any family making under $88,200 or any individual making less than $43,230. Of course when we look simply at the dollars one can see why this would be offered. Neither figure is a huge income these days, because the cost of coverage can run to 5 digits for some families. The problem is when you consider what portion of the population will now be subsidized. According to 2005 census figures, this would cover 80% of American households. If Max’s plan goes through 80% of Americans will have their healthcare costs subsidized by the Federal Government. Is anyone silly enough to believe that this will not require higher taxes or cuts to other spending? This is simply an effort to buy support from the American people. By casting wide the net of those on the dole Max hopes to get more people supporting his proposal.

The next problem doesn’t seem like a problem at all. It can almost be spun as a fix to a problem I already addressed. Max’s plan to require all Americans to buy coverage or face a fine is obviously problematic. In recognition of this Max had lowered the fine for not having coverage from $3800 to $1900. This is recognition that many will defy the plan and admission that the purpose is not to defray the costs to the system of uncovered patients. If the system were enforceable and truly for the purpose of getting Americans covered a higher fine makes sense. By lowering it Max is admitting that his plan will quickly make many previously law-abiding Americans into criminals. What will their crime be? Choosing to spend their money elsewhere.

For most people a few months is not very long. A child thinks of this period as an eternity, but an adult facing a wait of several months is a different story. By the time we reach adulthood we learned to wait. We have also had things we wanted put off for months and observed how quickly that time passes. Even with the relative shortness of a few months a lot can happen in that time period.

In nine short months a fertilized egg becomes a fully formed human being. The transformation from single cell to sentient intelligent being is an amazing miracle to consider. Compound that complexity with the quickness of the process and awe is only natural. The mother feels her bond grow daily as her child develops; a father’s first experience of the child is at birth. Just as the bewildered father finds himself bewildered by miracle that has changed him from man to father and feels mixed emotions as he realizes the weight of his new responsibilities, a society can find itself overcome by the changes wrought in a few months by a misguided agenda.

The last few months of US history are a perfect example. We have seen changes in the land unforeseeable only a few years ago. I still remember the days when the media was bemoaning the destruction of the Democratic Party and declaring that the whole country had taken a sharp turn to the right. With the leadership of the American Triumvirate (Obama, Reid and Pelosi) we face a brave new world—not so brave, and if you listen to Solomon, not so new.

Over the last few months the following has come to pass under the leadership of the most left leaning president and Congress in history:
• American’s largest auto manufacturer is majority owned by the federal government.
• The President of the United States has removed the CEO of a major corporation.
• The financial industry is under the heavy hand of the fed.
• Major segments of society are being managed by Czars, not one of them elected.
• Veterans who served their country have been labeled potential terrorists.
• A government website has been established for reporting opposition.
• The government is poised to expand its control of our healthcare.
• War has been declared on the entire health insurance industry.
• Members of previous administrations are being criminalized for policy differences.
• Business is being attacked with higher mandatory wages and proposed new requirements.
• Our children’s wealth has been spent before the children have earned it.
• Government debt has risen to unprecedented levels.
• Art and education are being suborned to speak in support of the president and his policies.
• Our economy is being sacrificed to the new religion of Global Warming.

As if this isn’t enough, imagine what a few more months will bring. Already, in 2010 taxes will increase without any action by the Congress or President. This automatic tax increase will kick in when the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire. It will be spun by Obama and the boys as not being a tax cut, but if your taxes are one amount this year and nearly double next year what do you call it? It is a tax increase and it will be Obama, Reid and Pelosi’s baby.

Some used to be say, “One election doesn’t matter; how must damage could be done in four years?” If the last few months are an example every election counts because the damage done can be irrevocable. Mister Obama, “I’ll keep my current health coverage, my current income and my current freedoms; you can keep the change.”

President Obama plans to tell your kids to study hard and stay in school. In a national address to school children scheduled for Tuesday September 8, he plans to tell them this and a bit more. While this is not unusual for presidents, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush did the same thing, the original plan tells us a great deal about the man who now sits in the Oval Office.

Though changes have been made due to outrage, the lesson plans accompanying the speech originally included having the children write letters describing how they could help the president. While other presidents saw the value of inspiring children to stay in school, President Obama seems to have no problem using this as a tool for an American Jungvolk. Now, I know he did not write the speech, nor did he create the lesson plans to go with it, but the sycophants he surrounds himself with have shown no reticence to presenting him as the Messiah and Deliverer and he shows no sign of reigning them in.

No other president in modern times has demonstrated such a propensity for forceful expansion of government influence. He has increased government power in the financial industry through bailing out companies that were faltering largely due to liberal congressional meddling. Before long the opportunity came to seize control of a huge portion of the American auto industry. Once powerful GMC was bailed out with a huge chunk of the stock in the hands of the government after years of being pillaged by excessive union demands—unions that backed Obama and his cronies.

I’m not an apocalyptic conspiracy theorist, so I do not believe in an orchestrated attempt to get the nation to this point so at the right moment Barak Hussein Obama could bring us into some near future dictatorship. Please don’t regale me with your theories of the Illuminati or the Trilateral Commission or the Council on Foreign Relations. Neither do I want to hear misguided theories about how Obama is the Antichrist. Such discussions are useful for inspiring fear but have little use in meaningful and useful political discourse.

What I do see is a man who seems to have believed his own press. He seems willing to do whatever it takes to expand government influence (with him at the reigns) into all areas of our lives. Whether it is indoctrinating children to seek ways to support him—not the country, not the Constitution, but him personally— or taking control of industry, redistributing wealth from the productive to the unproductive, determining who gets paid what or bankrupting our children, grandchildren and beyond, his opinion of himself shows through.

Mr. Obama, my children and I do not need a Messiah. We already have one. You are the president which means you have been hired by the American people. Just as you can be hired, you can be fired. It is my greatest hope that in the next Congressional election the teeth of your presidency (control of both houses of Congress) will be lost. In the next presidential election hopefully the American people will tire of their venture into political idolatry and will send you back to Chicago.

Calls from the left ring throughout the land, “We must be civil in discussing healthcare.” People are going to town halls to protest and harangue condescending officials defending this takeover of the American healthcare system. Constituents shout, plead and debate the candidate in a way that can be very uncomfortable, but does this lack proper civility?

Efforts of this administration and the Hip-pocket Congress prove that the current elected assemblies in Washington are representing a failed ideology at the expense of the American people. Many of us fear having an imperfect system that works replaced by a system destined for failure. The Democrats in Congress (with the help of their moderate to liberal Republican sycophants) are so set on building their leftist Utopia that they are ignoring the voices of the people.

This congress and administration has done far more to undermine the confidence of the American people in their own government than all previous ones combined. Over the last few months we have become aware that those elected to represent us are voting on bills they have never read, and that many times are not even off the presses. This happened before, but pair it with record spending and you have a government run amuck. Add to this their hatred for dissent with efforts to reinstate the failed “Fairness Doctrine,” special email addresses to report those who would dare to speak out against healthcare, labeling those who served their country with honor as potential terrorists and accusations by Speaker Pelosi that those who are now speaking out are un-American.”

Then there’s the blatant hypocrisy of a Congress that rails against corporate executives flying in private jets, only to turn around and request new business jets from the Pentagon to ferry Congressmen around. According to a story in Market Watch this money will have to be cut out of other areas of the defense budget. Congress is willing to cut the amount of money being spent to support our troops in war so they can get a cushy flight. Of course this ignores the old news request of Speaker Pelosi for a larger jet for her private coast to coast flights. Their hypocrisy doesn’t stop there though. What about Card Check? This plan, also known as the Employee “Free Choice” Act, claimed to be for the support of workers. This claim was possible because leftists still long for the days of the great Revolution and calls of “Workers of the World, Unite!” They overlook the facts about unions—driving up costs, making American manufacturing uncompetitive, and unwillingness to see companies as anything other than cash-cows to be milked at every opportunity. Do you want to know why manufacturing jobs are fleeing the United States? “Look for Union Label.” This nice little bill would have stripped away a worker’s right to a secret ballot in a union vote.

So what are good hard-working Americans to do when faced with these issues? Are we to wait for the media to get the word out? Considering they have still not dropped their love affair with Barack Obama, I don’t think this will happen anytime soon.

Of course we should not be surprised they still fawn over Barack. They should have known that once they sold their souls in the election they would have to keep up the charade for the rest of his presidency. Liberals do not care what you did for them yesterday. Any anchor in the MSM that comes out with any negative press about Barack Obama will find himself labeled a bigot and tarred and feathered by the left. We can hope the media will wake up and resume their post as defenders of liberty and clarions of the truth, but that kind of media is rare.

“If you do not read the newspaper you are uninformed; if you read the newspaper you are misinformed.” —-Mark Twain.

The answer is what we see happening today. Protests and demonstrations are one of the few ways left to get the word to congressmen. The first amendment was not meant to protect only the news industry but all Americans who want to express themselves. Solutions will not be found in quiet discourse and polite debate, but in high volume vitriol. Politician’s calls for niceness and quiet are a veiled attempt to silence and to muzzle. The left has used this tactic for decades. There is a huge difference between what the left did before and what is going on now. When the left would demonstrate, the ranks were filled with the unemployed, the professional protestors and people unlikely to pay for what they demanded. Those protesting now are the very people who write the check and mail it to the IRS to pay the bills of this country. They are the productive in our society. When those who create the wealth in this land feel the need to take time away from work and family to come to a townhall meeting and make their opinions known it is the Congressmen or other official that should sit down and be quiet because those who pay them are speaking.

In the debate on healthcare one of the chief arguments being given by the Obama administration is that the government option will be voluntary and those who currently have coverage will be able to keep it. It is also claimed that this is not an effort to do away with private coverage, but to care for those who cannot currently afford coverage. A few days ago I downloaded a copy of the bill (all 1000+ pages). I did this because whenever someone tells me that the bill says this or that, in this section or that, I like to go directly to the source and find out what it says or does not say.

In perusing the bill I found section 102: Protecting the Choice to Keep Current Coverage. This section must not be missed by anyone who considers this issue. In this bill those who have current coverage will be allowed to keep it. However, 102(a)(1)(A) forbids those offering coverage from enrolling any new clients on or after the first day the law goes into effect. This means that you can keep your coverage, but anyone who does not have coverage will be put into the government system with no option for private insurance.

When this happens the insurance companies will find that they have all the customers they will ever have. They cannot expand their businesses and according to 102(a)(3) they can never raise rates on those who are covered or according to 102(a)(2) can never change what they do or do not cover. This last one also prevents them from entering into any new cost-sharing arrangements to reduce costs. The companies can never expand, or raise rates to offset inflation or higher expenses. The only time a new policy could be written is when someone with private insurance, before hand, changes policies.

Understand what this means, if this bill passes those who are not covered by private insurance will have no choice but the government system—none other can be sold. Those who have coverage can keep it until the company goes out of business or they lose or drop the coverage another way—job change or economic downturn. Once this happens they too will be on the government system, for life, and the government that has proved its inefficiency and incompetence in so many areas will be able to let us down where it matters most. Higher prices, rationing, lower quality and early death for millions will be the legacy of this president. How’s that for Change!

When the USS Abraham Lincoln returned from war in May 2003, President Bush stood before a giant sign that shouted, “Mission Accomplished.” The media and their liberal overlords twisted this sign’s meaning in attack after attack. I recommend the current President and Messiah of the Liberal World proclaim the accomplishment of one of his chief goals.

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We are hearing more details about Obama’s push to create the liberal Utopia where all needs are met by big brother and no one goes without. This week he is making a huge push for his healthcare plan. Like most things spawned from the Democratic side of the aisle it involves meddling in business, reducing freedoms and increasing dependence on Uncle Sam.

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The latest news buzz has been on Barack Obama’s plans for universal healthcare. It is easy to bring out sad stories of people who seem to fall through the cracks in the system and go without care, but before we scrap the greatest healthcare system in the world we must make sure we have the facts straight. It is seldom helpful to base laws on emotional appeals.

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While Congress is away from Washington for the Fourth of July, President Obama replied to charges that his plans for healthcare reform were rushed and too costly. Of course, his reply was quintessential political boilerplate. He says “doing nothing would cost far more than changing the system.” He made no appeal to the need for change and no details of the changes or what we will get for our money–just an unprovable claim that doing nothing would be worse.

Take notice whenever a politician says that the expensive program he is touting is less costly than doing nothing. This is not an attempt to convince but to obfuscate. It is easy to point to statistics and stories of failings of our current system, because his own system has not been implemented and therefore is difficult to examine. Liberal programs are never measured by what they do or do not accomplish but by what they meant to accomplish. Welfare is a good thing because it meant to cure poverty. Never mind the destruction of minority families and the harm done by these programs.

The healthcare status-quo could never be more expensive than surrendering control of one-fifth of our economy to the government and control of our healthcare decisions to bureacrats. The cheapest healthcare system is one that allows market forces to determine costs, and that rewards creativity and innovation. Government healthcare will choke off innovation, will cost everyone in higher taxes and will drive market forces from the equation. Costs, procedures, and standards will be set by government fiat. Anyone who has experienced healthcare systems run by the US government (welfare systems, BIA Indian Health Services, Veterans Administration, etc.) wouldn’t wish that care on the rest of the country.

Isn’t it nice to live in a warmer, friendlier world? Sorry, I forgot a warmer world was bad—that pesky global warming and all. But at least the world we live in is so much friendlier than when George Bush was in office. I know North Korea is rattling its nukes, Iran has an unchecked nuclear program while in a near civil war and Pakistan is fighting for its life with the Taliban. Regardless of all this, according to a June 22nd article on Military.com we are going to fight a new gentle form of warfare in Afghanistan.

General Stanley McChrystal, commander of international forces in Afghanistan, has made two policy changes that will be sure to get soldiers killed and lengthen the war by years. He has said the new standard for success will not be how many insurgents are killed, but how many civilians are “shielded from violence.” Besides this, he will be issuing orders that troops are to break off fights with the enemy if the enemy are hiding in civilian homes. To have an order that is so blatantly bad from one I can only assume to be a fine, dedicated warrior can only mean it comes from higher up, perhaps the Commander in Chief.

Many of the bleeding hearts out there will be singing the praises of this new order, but I wonder what they say when it turns out to have the opposite effect. It is actually likely to get more civilians hurt because once the enemy knows that civilian homes are a safe place from which to launch attacks they will use more of these tactics. The US is in effect handing the civilians over to the mercy of the insurgents. When you face an enemy who will drive a bomb into a mass of civilians you do not give him a single place of safety. You must be willing to follow him anywhere and root him out. It is true that we want to win the hearts and minds of the population, but if President Karsai wants safety for his people he needs to find a way to strengthen his own army and mobilize them against the enemy.

Is anyone surprised that the military under our current Commander in Chief would limit our ability to win this war? After all liberal democrats are good at getting us into wars that last a long time. People often forget that is was the democrats who got us into Vietnam. I can only hope that our current Liberal in Chief isn’t setting our boys up for another bloody defeat.