You are transparently (unlike the Obama administration) so biased that you are not even, as Lenin coined the phrase for those who sympathized with the Ruskies enough to be used by them, a "useful idiot." You fall more into the category of "useless idiot."

"Rep. Joe Wilson deserves all the condemnation he's received for his boorish behavior during President Obama's address on health care."

Well, I don't know about all, but he does deserve some. That was the wrong time and place to call Obama out for lying. But lying he was. According to the Heritage Foundation, which quoted exactly what Obama said and then presented corresponding contrary and refuting facts, Obama lied about at least ten main points being proposed for his so-called health care/insurance "plan."

And I think Wilson should have apologized for his outburst, too, but it should have been an Obama administration style apology -- "I'm sorry, Mr. President, but my passion for the truth momentarily overwhelmed me as I heard you lying to the American people and I'm sorry if you were offended."

"No Democrat ever shouted 'You lie!' during a George W. Bush speech to Congress."

No, that's true -- probably because none of them individually had the cojones, like Joe Wilson did -- but Democrats did boo Bush in unison during his State of the Union Address in 2005, as well as collectively showing other forms of disrepect at other times. And I don't recall ANY of them EVER apologizing for ANY of it, either. So, Dems, take your feigned indignation and false claim to an apology and shove it, as we say, where the sun don't shine.

So, which is worse, one frustrated congressman impetuously shouting out one two-word phrase of "speaking truth to power" (itself a phrase which liberals usually love to use) or a chorus of elected officials more cowardly booing the US president in unison while part of a more anonymous crowd? Both are unquestionably indecorous, but the first at least seems courageous, while the latter seems more like the gang of school boys hanging together to hide which one threw the first rock.

"For the record, Wilson's premise is itself untrue: The framers of the health care bill did all they could to make sure it wouldn't help illegal immigrants. Yes, a few might slip through the cracks and -- horrors! -- get assistance. But the health reformers wrote language as tough as it could be to make sure this wouldn't happen, short of creating provisions so draconian that some who are here legally would also be denied coverage."

That may or may not all be true but -- horrors! -- it (probably intentionally) begs the real question, because, also for the record, they refused to include any enforcement language requiring people applying for the health care to prove their US citizenship and therefore eligibility. In fact, also for the record and just to put an exclamation point on it, the Democrats flatly rejected a Republican amendment specifically requiring such an eligibility check. And if, as Democrats and Obama all say, there was no intent to enable illegal immigrants to take advantage of the health care "plan," why not include legislative language specifically saying that they were barred?

"And what evidence is there that Obama is tearing down our 'institutions and traditions'? There is none, unless you see it as an affront to our traditions that we have our first president whose father was born in Kenya, or that the American people decided to elect someone other than a conservative as our commander in chief."

"And what evidence is there that Obama is tearing down our 'institutions and traditions'?"

How about going abroad and saying we are not a Christian nation, that, in fact, we are a Muslim nation, just for starters? How about increasing the national debt within six months more than all the US presidents in over 200 years before him combined? How about just arbitrarily abrogating over 200 years of US contract law? How about taking over several parts of the country's private sector so far, undermining free enterprise and capitalism and now seeking to take over all of our health care? 

"The far right has decided that extremism in assailing Obama is no vice."

And Obama and the far left have decided that radicalism in transforming our country from a Republic into a socialist state is their mandate.

Obama, in part of his somewhat contentious speech before the joint session of Congress, said that he would "call out" those who lied about so-called ObamaCare. Well, Mr. President -- and also to your apologist, if not one of your propagandists, E. J.  Dionne -- what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

You want to get into "calling out"? Okay. Gloves off. Bring it!

"From the Mail Bag: Wishing Someone Guns Down Joe Wilson"

So Erick Erickson titled his recent RedState.com blog article about some of the emails he's received since saying Joe Wilson, Republican congressman from South Carolina, was a hero for calling the prez out as the liar he is during his recent speech on healthscare reform before the joint session of Congress.

Erick says some of the hate emails he's received are amazing and even posted one of them -- he says one of the "classiest" ones -- in his blog article. He also credits MSNBC's Rachel Maddow having mentioned his calling Wilson a hero with dramatically increasing the volume, if not the clarity, of hate emails he's received.

My comments back to Erick:

OMG, Erick, your post was mentioned by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow?! RACHEL MADDOW?! OH…..MY….GOD. Really?!

W-e-l-l-l-l, you must really be impressed with yourself now, huh? I mean, you've really MADE it now, for sure.

If this email you cited here is one of the “classiest” you've gotten, I don't think we “thinking” conservatives have to worry too much about losing any logical arguments with the “feeling” libs any time soon. All we have to do is say something — usually sprinkled with some of our "pesky" facts and figures — that causes the veins in their necks and foreheads to stand out and makes them want to either pull their hair out or run around like it's on fire. Either of those works for me.

Although I extend condolences to the remaining Kennedys for the loss of the "last brother," the "last knight," if you will, of the media-created sham that was Camelot, I will not miss Senator Ted Kennedy, who was by far much more liberal than either of his brothers, JFK or RFK, one of whom I voted for and both of whom I admired, and therefore far too liberal for me.

However, having said that, what amazes me most about the so-called liberal lion's passing is how quick, how crass, how manipulative and mendacious, how unseemly and unwittingly ungracious Teddy's so-called "friends and fellow liberals" have been in using his death and his name to call for passing Obama's universal health care reform "for Teddy." Oh, please! How transparently Machiavellian.

Literally, within HOURS of Kennedy's death, liberal Democrat and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a statement contending that everyone should now unite in passing ObamaCare "for the Gipper" in the name of Teddy Kennedy, who had for so long desired universal health care for all. What a crock! Hey, Miz Nancy, did some of that botox used on your face leak into your brain and paralyze part of it, too?

You can't "do it for Teddy." Teddy is dead. No one can do anything for him now, except show their respects and pray for his soul. You can try to do it in Teddy's name, but, to me, using his name and his reputation, instead of developing the measured and carefully crafted health care/insurance reform which the country needs and which will stand on its own, both cheapens his name, his reputation and his memory, as well as evidencing your own lack of sincere effort.

Yes, Teddy wanted health care for all, but, as liberal as he was, he would never have supported what you and Harry Reid and Obama are so far proposing. Teddy would have worked across the aisle to gain bipartisan support, even compromising to get it, and he would have at least given some consideration to how to pay for it all. That "doing of the hard work" and "making the hard trade-offs" was what made him such a successful negotiator and legislator over the almost 50 years he was in the Senate. You, Harry Reid and Obama, on the other hand, are "lazy legislators" who just want to "get it done and move on," often without even reading, much less taking time to carefully craft, what you're voting on.

I have little doubt that Obama, perhaps even in delivering his eulogy of Kennedy, will also shamelessly invoke Teddy's name and long-time goal to try to once again "sell" ObamaCare. It won't work, of course, because the American electorate is beyond sentimentality and false claims about this issue, Americans in growing numbers want real answers that make common sense to them, not just town hall talking points and vague reassurances.

And it was awesome.....even with the parts of my game plan for the day which didn't work exactly the way I'd planned.

I live in the suburbs about nine miles from a metro station and had planned to drive there, get my metro ticket by about 10:00 AM and ride the metro into DC, arriving about 11:00. And that's what I did, except that it unexpectedly took me over an hour waiting in line at the metro station just to get my ticket! You see, the station was so crowded with other people with the same idea that the ticket lines snaked all around inside the station. It was a little like trying to get into a rock concert.

So, I rode the metro train packed with other protesters, most of whom got off at the Federal Triangle station to participate in the march down Pennsylvania Avenue from Freedom Plaza (Pershing Park) to the Capitol Building, and I arrived at the Federal Center SW metro station in DC a little before noon, walked three blocks North on 3d Street and approximately two blocks East via Maryland Avenue SW and Garfield Circle and was on the Capitol Building West Lawn by a little after noon.

We were all there: TEA Partiers, 9-12ers, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, adults, teens and children, old and young, white, black, yellow, brown and red, skinny, fat and in-between, tall, short and medium, many with protest signs, many more wearing T-shirts protesting one thing or another, and a lot of people with both. During the afternoon, I talked with people from Virginia, like me (for whom this was just a "day trip," instead of a trek all across the country), Tennessee (where the no-nonsense, salt of the Earth obviously still live), Texas (who were very clear about the federal "gubment" not messin' with Texas), California (who apologized for Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer and said they were embarrassed), North and South Carolina (who want Congressman Joe "You lie, Mr. President" Wilson to run for president in 2012), Georgia (my native state), Pennsylvania (hard-working coal country) and Maryland (the Free Staters), as well as many others who I didn't even ask where they were from.

Someone said they had been told that CNN was reporting there were about a thousand of us there by noon. I will charitably say that must have been caused by some CNN "estimator" who had no input from the scene. Either that, or CNN was just downplaying the real significance of the event. In other words, as they say in DC, being "disingenuous," but as we say in the South, "lying." I jokingly said CNN would probably "round that up," though, to maybe 1,500 by the end of the day.

Instead, we were there by the thousands. There were people as far as I could see, from the steps of the Capitol Building all the way back toward the National Mall. Another person standing near me got a cell phone call from someone reporting that the crowd actually stretched from the Capitol Building West Lawn to the Washington Monument. If you didn't already know, Google a map of the National Mall and you will see that that is ALL of the National Mall.

About 12:30, because there were already so many people on the Capitol Building West Lawn, I asked some people around me if anyone knew if the marchers from Freedom Plaza had begun arriving yet. I was told some cell phone calls between people had confirmed that the marchers, who were originally supposed to start marching at noon, then at 11:30, had been told to start marching at 10:30 because Freedom Plaza was getting too full to hold everyone coming into it to join in the march. I guess that accounted for the occasional cheering I had heard behind me, back toward the National Mall, as the marchers arrived in "waves" and joined with the rest of us already at the Capitol Building.

I observed several interesting things during the approximately five hours I was there. First, we were all angry at the president, this profligate 111th Congress and big government in general, but we were all polite, helpful and supportive to each other. The general atmosphere was -- Big Government: Bad. Throw the bums out. Elitist politicians and lying president. Each Other: One big tailgate party, but just without the actual tailgates, barbecue grills or beer.

Another thing: I sarcastically remarked to a lady from Tennessee that I had never seen so many creative and imaginative, "professional" protest signs in any one place before in all my life. She "got it" that I was making fun of the Democratic politicians who have said we TEA Partiers are "professionally" organized, funded and supplied. I guess, for some paranoid liberals, the "Vast Right-wing Conspiracy" never dies, but no, actually, "professionally organized" would more likely be ACORN red T-shirted intimidators being bused to AIG execs' houses as a false show of congressional outrage at those execs taking bonuses which congressional and White House Democrats had secretly colluded in their receiving in the first place. Or more like purple T-shirted SEIU union thugs being paid to disrupt town hall meetings and physically attack people, like the black conservative man in St. Louis who was simply passing out "Don't Tread On Me" indicia and wound up going to the hospital.

Also, in addition to being angry without being violent and massing in massive numbers without being destructive, conservative protesters are neat. When radical liberal ("progressive") protesters have "descended on" DC and demonstrated, it's sometimes taken days for US Park Authority personnel to clean up all the litter and trash the protesters left behind. But, I didn't see any trash on the ground today. In fact, I saw one little old lady who actually had the banana peel from the banana she had brought as a snack stored in her lunch bag until she could find a proper trash receptacle to put it in. Now, that's neat.

So many other impressions from today. I'm sure I'll remember more and write about them in the days to come. I feel like my participation in today's events has given me enough material for my blog for several articles. Right now, though, I'm going to go for this time.
 
Well, after a shout-out to the blonde from Fredericksburg -- just in case she reads this -- who is more of a right-wing, flag-waving nutjob than I am, but otherwise a seemingly very nice lady.....and possibly a really good dancer. You know who you are.

Oh, and if you, or anyone else who reads this, have any other impressions from today's events, please comment and share them. We are all the richer for your diversity of input.

And one of them is David Corn, columnist and Washington bureau chief for Mother Jones magazine and previous Washington editor of The Nation magazine, who just wrote an "insightful" article, "Why the Right Hates Obama: He's a Liberal," focused on Obama's "ObamaCare" speech to Wednesday night's Joint Session of Congress and the nation -- well, to those of you in the nation who watched it, anyway. I didn't, because I didn't think I was going to hear anything new or that whatever I might hear that was new would probably also be untrue. And I just love it when I'm right!

Anyway, without taking too much of my time completely dissecting Corn's claims, here is my reply to some of them:

Hey, Corn, it's not only because he's a liberal; it's also because he's a LIAR!

You say Obama "...presented a strong case for his version of health care reform." The Heritage Foundation says he flat out lied about at least 10 things and presents his quotes and the applicable refuting facts to prove it.

You say his big finish came after presenting his health care reform plan in "pragmatic and reasonable-sounding terms." It's not "pragmatic" to claim you can spend more to save more or cover millions more people without increasing the number of doctors and nurses, and anyone who says it is a liar and anyone who believes it is an idiot. And regarding "reasonable-sounding," "sounding" is by far the operative word. But, of course, Obama has been "sounding" reasonable for a long time. In fact, he may be the most reasonable-SOUNDING liar I've ever heard.

You say he then embraced the No. 1 liberal crusader of recent decades, Ted Kennedy, and "wrapped his health care reform initiative in the Kennedy cloak." I say he shamefully wrapped his ObamaCare in Kennedy's burial shroud and tried to use the memory of one of the most liberal but at least really bipartisan Democrats in the Senate to sell his brand of ObamaCare snake oil.
 
I think you need to try selling your liberal Kool-Aid farther down the street and not on my corner, Corn, and you might want to consider stopping drinking so much of it, too.
 

Dear Senator So-and-so:

The Senate recently voted 63-35 for cloture on the Cass Sunstein confirmation/approval vote, paving the way for a vote on his confirmation to become President Obama's so-called Regulatory Czar.

The thrust of this letter is: NO to "czars" in general and especially NO to Mr. Sunstein in particular.

More about Mr. Sunstein in particular in a moment. First, general comments about President Obama's special advisors.

I don't understand, and strongly question, President Obama's need for so many special advisors, or czars, now amazingly and troublingly numbering over 30, especially since many of their areas of focus duplicate those of either presidential cabinet secretaries or other extant government officials. Is it not government waste any more to pay two people or agencies to do the same job? For example, would not the function of a so-called Regulatory Czar normally be performed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)?

Further, particularly at a time when increasingly more and more ordinary Americans are out of work, when Team Obama and a profligate 111th Congress have already massively increased the national debt just within the last seven months, and Congress, like many Americans, should be doing some belt-tightening and strict budgeting, it's more than legitimate to ask: What are any of these so-called czars being paid? How big are their staffs? What are these staffs being paid? Who is approving these expenditures of taxpayer money? Is Congress no longer the keeper of the national purse strings?

With the president's creation of a virtual shadow government of unelected and unvetted "czars" who are also unaccountable to Congress, when are those of you in Congress going to do anything to prevent the president from increasingly bypassing your authority to oversee and ensure accountability in so many areas? Hint: One way to do that, if you have the backbone (i.e., political will) is to withhold funding.

Now, to Mr. Sunstein as a czar candidate in particular.

Mr. Sunstein thinks that animals should have lawyers, co-equal rights with humans, be able to sue people, and that all hunting should be abolished. This latter point in turn causes me pause about what he may also think of my Second Amendment rights, which I am absolutely adamant about defending.

He also favors "reformulation" of our First Amendment rights.
 
Much of his work also brings behavioral economics to bear on law, suggesting that the "rational actor" model will sometimes produce an inadequate understanding of how people will respond to legal intervention. Instead, he favors using the law to effect behavioral modification of the population.

He has collaborated in elaborating on the theory of "libertarian paternalism" and is an advocate of the "nudge theory," i.e., maintaining some freedom of choice by people while also steering, or nudging, their decisions in directions that will make their lives go better. He is also partially responsible for coining the term "choice architect."

Now, I am sure Mr. Sunstein is a smart man and may be one hell of an academic, but...

I don't want my First Amendment rights "reformulated," thank you. And don't even think about touching my Second Amendment rights.

I don't favor behavior modification of the population through manipulations of the law. That sounds much too Orwellian to me, as does the concept of a "choice architect."

I don't even like the sound of "libertarian paternalism," much less its overall implication that some libertarian bureaucrat is going to act as my substitute father about anything. I am not a child and don't need, or want, governmental "paternalism." In many instances, government is not the solution; it is the problem. And the more government you have, the more problems it creates. The nature of a bureaucracy is to feed itself first.....and most often.....and in increasing amounts....at the public trough.

I don't want my government insidiously "nudging" me, or anybody else, into decisions in directions that will make our lives go better. "Better" according to whom, some other government bureaucrat?

I want to know my government is there, to provide those common services and safeguards which the general citizenry cannot. Otherwise, I want my government to stay out of my day-to-day life and not try to manipulate me, my rights, my money, my possessions, or my freedoms. Thomas Jefferson had it right when he said that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take everything you have. 
 
Therefore, since I do not agree with so many things for which Mr. Sunstein stands, nor even with the idea of presidential "czars" in general, much less so many of them, I am expecting you to vote NO on Mr. Sunstein's confirmation and will be watching your vote as an indicator of how I should vote for you in the next election.

Sincerely,

Colonel Charles Fowler
USA, RET

[Note: Any of you who read this, agree with it, and want to copy and use it to send to your elected officials have my permission to do so.]

First, let's be clear, there is as yet no one, single ObamaCare "plan" for us to consider or discuss. Instead, there is HR 3200, America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, the bill narrowly passed by the House of Representatives; there is another version, The Affordable Health Choices Act, reported out of the Senate HELP (Health, Education, Labor and Pensions) Committee; and there are at least three other versions of some kind of health care and/or health insurance reform legislation, in various stages of development, discussion, debate and deliberation currently being circulated around the Congress.

So, what you have heard referred to as "ObamaCare" (or health care reform, subsequently changed by Team Obama to health insurance reform and maybe by now "Teddy KennedyCare") by the president who says we are in still another emergency and must once again hurry up and act, by most (but not all, by a long shot) Democrats who support it, by Republicans who almost unanimously object to it, and by angry town hallers who have heaped questions about it on their hapless, and sometimes hypocritical and hubristic, congressional representatives (at least the 1/3 who deigned to even meet with their constituents during the August congressional recess) is, at this point, some general themes and claims of what Obama and the Democrat Congress say should or should not be included.

(Maybe -- hopefully -- Obama will put a finer point on exactly what he thinks it should consist of (as he should have done when debate about it first started) when he addresses the specially convened for that purpose and TV prime-time (again) Joint Session of Congress on this Wednesday evening, September 9th.) 
 
But, while we await that, yet another "historic" address by the Silver Tongued One, let's look at some of those claims and themes.

1. Cutting $500 billion from Medicare will not hurt care or cut benefits for seniors.
This claim by Democrats, in addition to being another socialist redistributionist example of robbing Peter to pay Paul, just flies in the face of logic. How can you take that much money from a system which works pretty well but which almost everyone says is already going broke, which is already covering more and more seniors daily, and say that will not result in less money to provide benefits to more seniors, which of course must diminish the amount and quality of care provided to all who are in the program? That is, unless the Democrats have just figured out how to squeeze water from rocks and they're just not telling the rest of us.

2. Spending $1 to $1.6 trillion -- maybe even $2 trillion -- will save money.
How many of you, in gong over your own personal or family checkbooks or running your own small businesses, actually save money by spending money? The closest you can come to that, in running your business, for example, is to make a capital investment (spend) on new equipment, technologies, etc., which will increase your production capacity and therefore enhance your bottom line (saving you money by "paying for itself" over time). Otherwise, you're like my significant other, who will tell me with glee how much she "saved" by shopping a 60% sale at which she bought some stuff she didn't really need -- but it was such a good price! -- and who fails (more likely just flat refuses) to see my point when I tell her how she could have saved 100%.  

3. Spending $1 to $1.6 trillion -- maybe even $2 trillion -- will not increase the deficit.
I'm sorry, but at heart I'm just a simple Southern boy with a non-Ivy League education and, to me, debt is debt, whether you call it something fancier sounding, like a deficit, or not. To my somewhat unsophisticated view, deficit is just another way of saying longer term, and usually much larger -- and with Obama and this Congress, scary larger -- debt. And you don't reduce debt by spending still more, especially when the debt on the debt (the interest) is a pretty big debt all on its own. And if any of you Democrats know how to spend that much and not increase the deficit, I wish you would help me to pay down my credit card balance 'cause it seems to me that the more I charge on it, the more the credit card company tells me I'm in debt to them.

4. If you like your plan, you can keep it.
Except that within a few years of any Democrat version of ObamaCare being in effect, every insurance plan design for everyone will be dictated by the federal government design requirements, so you may not want to keep any of the plans which are available by then.

5. You can buy any insurance plan from any insurer you want.
Except that you can only buy the government designed, government approved plans. That's like saying you can buy any car you want, but the auto manufacturers all have the same designs and models and can only build and sell those models.

6. This is not a government takeover of the health care sector.
Uh-huh, like firing GM's CEO and giving more than half interest in the bankrupted company to the union which ran it into the ground in the first place was not a takeover, or refusing to let banks which were ready to repay their government loans get out from under government control by repaying them was not sustaining a takeover, i.e., exerting control. Sure. You betcha.

7. There will not be any rationing.
Let's see, our health care system is too expensive and is "broken," we need to take action for a massive overhaul immediately, we need to add 47 million uninsured and underinsured people to the system, no one has talked about how many more doctors and nurses will be needed because of that increase in people covered, much less how we're going to produce those additional doctors and nurses at all, or by when, much less in a timely manner, and there won't be any need to ration health care? Hello? Hmmm, more people added to the rolls and provided health care, plus not adding more doctors or nurses to provide that health care, equals providing more with either less or at least the same resources -- which means rationing. Or, let's put it this way, you and two other people are trekking across the desert and each of you has a half canteen of water. What do you do to ensure you have enough water to last until you get to the next oasis? Right, you ration the resources you have among all those who need it.

8. Campaign promises were explicitly made by the president that he would not cut any deals with “the drug companies.”
Yet he did exactly that in closed door, back room deals in return for Big Pharma spending millions in ads to prop up the sagging ObamaCare "plan" over the summer.

9. Abortion is not a covered benefit.
Democrats say this, despite the fact that the Democratic House pro-life leaders admit that it covers abortion, more than 20 Democrats have told their leadership in writing that they will not vote for any bill that covers abortion, and Republican amendments specifically prohibiting abortion being a covered benefit have been summarily dismissed and denied by Democrat congressional leadership. If, as claimed, it's not intended to be a covered benefit anyway, why not add an amendment specifically saying so?

10. Seniors will not be steered in the direction of dying to save money.
But most of the public knows that the most expense in health care is in the last six months of life, logically making seniors think Obama’s promises sound hollow because, as it turns out, and not surprisingly, they do not want the government making the decision about when that last six months starts, much less made by some cost-saving bureaucrat deciding who should start that last six months by deciding who does or does not get needed health care. So, no "death panels" per se, folks. Just a distant, federal government bureaucracy which will "cost-manage" to the same result.

11. The president is against a single payer system and ending employer provided health care.
So, all those videos of the president saying that he is for a single payer system and for ending employer provided health care, both as a candidate and as president are -- what? Just “misleading”?

12. Your employer may decide to put you in a government designed plan.
Because, that way, your employer will be taxed less than it costs to give you your insurance. Your employer will save money by putting you in the government-run Health Information Exchange -- but then you may be effectively "locked in" and can never leave!

13. The legislation's purpose is to insure the uninsured and accomplish “insurance reform.”
So what openly started out as the massively needed massive overhaul of our entire "broken" health CARE system later changed to only health INSURANCE reform and is just to ensure that the uninsured are insured and to only ensure "insurance reform" now? Uhhhhh-huh. What's that Will Shakespeare once said? Oh, yeah. "A federal government control power grab by any other name would smell as sweet." Or something like that. 
 
14. President Obama promised no mandates in his health plan.
But current versions have an individual mandate (which requires you to get health insurance whether you want it or not) and an employer mandate (which requires your employer to provide you coverage whether he or she wants to or not, or whether you would rather get more pay instead).

15. Families earning less than $250,000 will not see their taxes increase.
But if you don't buy health insurance and you earn more than $19,000 a year, you will be taxed 2.5 percent of your total income. And the no tax increase pledge for families earning $250,000 or less does not apply, of course, to ObamaCare.

16. There won't be any waiting lines.
First, there are waiting lines now. Go to almost any hospital ER, especially on a weekend, and see how quickly you are seen, unless you are bleeding all over the floor or have severe chest pains. But an additional 47 million will be added to the “free” health care system (which more people will use more "freely" because, you know, it's "free"), yet you won't find yourself waiting to see a doctor? Oh, please!

17. Obama says you can keep your own physician.
However, if a physician opts not to sign on to a government-run option and the government-run plan is what you're stuck with, you will lose your doctor. It's as simple as that. And recent polls show that a majority of doctors say they will not accept government plan patients.

18. There is no specific language in any of the current bills specifically prohibiting covering illegal immigrants.
Yet the president keeps talking about providing coverage for the 47 million uninsured, a figure which, although grossly inaccurate in and of itself, for one thing because it includes about 10 million LEGAL immigrants here on visas, etc., does also include millions of ILLEGAL immigrants. Again, similar to Republican amendments specifically prohibiting abortion coverage, amendments specifically excluding illegal immigrants and offered by Republicans have been steadfastly rebuffed by the Democrat congressional leadership. Some Democrats flatly deny that ObamaCare will cover illegal immigrants but, if that is really so, why not put expressly prohibitive language in the legislation saying so?  

19. Those who oppose Obama’s reform belong to the Republican "Party of No," are for the status quo, favor various special interest groups, and don't have anything else to offer.
However, Republicans have put forward at least FOUR major, much cheaper, less intrusive and less complicated proposals to lower the cost of health care, only to be actively ignored by the Democrat leadership, including President Obama, and by the so-called national “news” media.

20. Congressional Democrats will have the same option to use ObamaCare that their constituents will have.
This is just disingenuous, which is a nice word for not telling the whole truth. Some variation of this response is normally given by Democrat representatives when confronted at town hall meetings by angry constituents wanting to know that if what their Democrat representatives are proposing with ObamaCare is so good and necessary, will those same representatives commit to changing to ObamaCare from the cadillac, five-star health plan they now have, usually the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) [which is a system of "managed competition" through which employee health benefits are provided to full-time permanent civilian employees and qualified retirees of the US Government and under which the employer (that would be the US government, with the use of your tax dollars) pays an amount equal to 72 percent of the average plan premium for self-only or family coverage (not to exceed 75 percent of the premium for the selected plan), and the employee (that would be the member of Congress) pays the rest, i.e., 25 to 28 percent]. Not bad, huh? But that response purposefully begs the question anyway. Of course, a member of Congress could select ObamaCare, in whatever form, if any at all, that it finally takes. But that's far different from committing to doing that, instead of keeping the gold-plated, mostly government funded plan you already have and can even keep after you retire -- and which is not even available to most of your constituents (plus continuing to receive the highest annual salary you received, for life).

21. Tort reform and consumer-patients being able to "shop" for health care insurance across state lines would do more, and more quickly, than anything else to lower health care and health insurance costs. 
But, while being able to shop for health insurance like we can now do for other types of insurance may make it into even some Democrat versions of the health care/insurance reform legislation, it's highly doubtful tort reform to reduce frivolous or exorbitant doctor and/or hospital medical malpractice law suits will. As Democrat Howard Dean, former DNC Chairman, recently admitted at a town hall meeting: "When you're trying to change so much about something, you're going to make enemies and you have to be careful about how many enemies you make, or you won't get anything done, and the trial lawyers are a (special interest) group which Democrats just don't want to take on." Or words to that effect.

Well, Howie, you finally said something for a change that I think was not only completely honest but with which I totally agree -- trial lawyers are a mainstay constituency of the Democrat Party which no Democrats want to "take on" -- not even to help all those un- and under-insured folks suffering along with our "broken" health care system out there.

It's a shame, really. Democrats, maybe even with a little "bipartisan" help (and therefore political "cover") from Republicans, could do so much to help so many if they just really meant what they said, instead of actually trying to do something totally different. It's just that Democrats want to use healthscare for a huge government power grab more than they really want to do anything else.

The car that is our health care/insurance system is the best in the world but is too expensive to run now and does need some fine tuning. But the Democrats want to either completely overhaul it or throw it on the junk heap and replace it with a whole new model which may but probably won't work any better, or maybe not as well. That's like getting a small hole in your best-fittin' blue jeans and just throwing them away and getting a new pair, instead of neatly just patching that hole. Wasteful, rash and foolish.

But, let's see how the Silver Tongued One spins some of this, all of this, any of this later tonight, shall we?

I've long questioned not only Obama's inexperience but also his lack of judgment (and veracity) because of some of his questionable associations. One or two radical associations (e.g., Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright) might just have been "guilt by association," as Obama, et al., claimed back during the campaign. But several, and continuing, conscious choices reveal a pattern of deliberate and intentional behavior to associate with and advance radicals.

And creating a job for and handpicking Van Jones to serve in the White House as a special advisor (AKA "czar") is just one of the latest examples.

After not reporting on the Van Jones controversy at all, until it was all but over and Jones had finally resigned -- around midnight, on a weekend night, and still claiming that he had been unfairly smeared (albeit with his own words, acts, lies and off-the-wall, un-American and/or racist conspiracy theories), the liberal MSM, ever in cahoots with this White House, and Obama's "frat boy" mouthpiece Robert Gibbs are now trying to spin it that the flap over Jones was no big deal because his was such a low level position and he really didn't have that much influence.

But, wait a minute. The White House created a specific post just for Van Jones. It didn't simply recruit him to fill an already existing post. It didn't simply look at something it had to get done and then select Jones as the most qualified to do it. Instead, it created a job tailored to Jones and his background. We don't know how much Jones was paid, how large a staff he had, how much they were being paid, or whether that staff still exists (and is still being paid) now that Jones himself is gone, but, according to a Washington Post interview with Jones himself, he had about $80 billion of taxpayer money to "play with" in creating "green jobs," some of which it now seems went to prison inmates, no less. (Now, THAT'S the kind of accountable management of my tax dollars I want to see from one of my -- uh, Obama's -- specially appointed special advisors!)

Well, pardon the heck out of me, Mr. and Ms. Lamestream Media, but having a job created especially for me, in the White House, and giving me "responsibility" for spending $80 billion would make me think that I was pretty damn important.

(By the way, is that $80 billion perhaps -- hopefully -- the same $80 billion in TARP money an Obama administration bean counter told a Congressional committee back in January or February had simply "disappeared" -- POOF! -- now you see it, now you don't -- and couldn't be accounted for? No? Jones' $80 billion was to come out of the $787 billion so-called stimulus plan for which the Van Jones co-founded Appollo Alliance helped dictate the legislative language to members of Congress, you say? Well, maybe that other $80 billion of TARP money will turn up sometime, but I'm not going to hold my breath. After all, to this profligate president and his Democrat handmaidens in this 111th Congress, $80 billion is just a rounding error.)
 
And at least one of the people, if not the main person, responsible for recruiting Van Jones to work in the White House was Obama's right hand woman, Valerie Jarrett, someone indeed very important and very high up in the Obama White House hierarchy. She's even been shown on video on TV saying how they had followed Jones' work for some time and how pleased they were to have gotten Jones to work in the White House. In fact, Jarrett overruled objections about Jones' background raised by the White House Counsel’s Office and insisted Jones be put in his post anyway. So much for whatever little "vetting" Jones got. It seems Jarrett has been a cheerleader of Jones for a while, as has Michelle Obama, also reported to be a big Van Jones "fan."

These things from a woman whose Vogue profile revealed her disclaiming much of any power or influence at all. It was all, "No, no, no, I'm not really in charge of anything." Jarrett claims to give the Obamas "their own perspective," whatever that means.

(I would think two Ivy League educated people, like the Obamas, for example, would be capable of forming their own perspectives, but maybe I'm mistaken and that's not what "Ivy League educated people" are educated to do. In fact, with the Obama administration and its involvement of one kind or another with a seemingly ever growing list of other "Ivy League educated people" from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc., I'm becoming increasingly suspicious that I've previously given those prestigious institutions too much credit for being the hallowed halls strode by only really, really smart people anyway. Privileged either by birth, money or government mandated access, maybe. Smart, not so much.)

Anyway, Jarrett reportedly went on to say, “I am a sounding board. I know him well. I know them both well. So I kind of know what makes them who they are. And I don't have a portfolio, so I can come in really only looking at it from their perspective. I have never been through a campaign before on a national level. I'm not a pollster, I'm not a strategist. I'm freed up from all of that.”

Hmmm. Well, pardon the heck out of me for possibly being rude, there, Valerie, but if you're "freed up from all of that" and a lot of "all of that" sounds like experience and qualifications to serve in the White House in the first place, that makes it sound like you don't really have any qualifications for being in the White House, except that you know the Obamas really, really well. And if you're not really in charge of anything, are not this or that, have never done this or that, and are "freed up from all of that," what the hell is the American taxpayer paying you for? Oh, yeah, I guess for things like the recruitment and vetting (or not) of someone like Van Jones.

So, someone who has never done this or that, doesn't have this or that portfolio or experience, isn't really responsible for this or that, gets to pick someone for a White House position, with salary and staff, insist they not be properly vetted, brag about getting them to work with the president, but when they are revealed to be racist, radical, irresponsible and irrational, it's no big deal because they and their White House position weren't all that important to begin with? Huh?

And now, Dear Reader, you know the reason for my exclamation and interrogatory in the title of this article.

As reported by ArcaMax.com, according to the word-watchers at Global Language Monitor, the media tracking and analysis firm of Austin, TX, the top 10 most used words/phrases since President Obama's inauguration are:

Gee, I'm a little surprised. I mean, some of those make sense to me, based on what I've been seeing and hearing since January 20th, just 231 days ago (can you believe it?), but others surprise me so far as a "top 10" list goes. And I guess one thing that surprises me the most is some of the words left out, rather than some of those included.

I would've thought any "top 10" list of most-used words/phrases since Obama's inauguration would include (in no particular order -- well, except for the first three, of course):

So entitled Ben Smith and Nia-Malika Henderson their recent TeamPOLITICO article over Van Jones' demise as Obama's so-called "green jobs czar." The article was generally okay, with examples of how the Obama White House and "lefties" in general had misjudged various things during the summer, not the least of which, apparently, was FNC's Glenn Beck's ability to kick up a stink over Obama's czars in general and Jones in particular.

However, in one of what might charitably be called POLITICO's occasional "bending over backwards to be fair" efforts, which sometimes bleed into simply being ever-so-sly Obama promoters (as when POLITICO.com's head honcho Mike Allen twice referred during the campaign to Candidate Obama doing this or that at the "Western White House" in Hawaii -- uh, can't have any kind of White House, Mikey, unless you're already the prez) or apologists for this White House and its current primary occupant, the article's authors said something I just didn't want to let pass, so I told them so.

Dear (supposedly objective) TeamPOLITICO:

"Actually the answer is simpler than that...

Van Jones founded an organization that decided to go after Beck personally by attempting to silence Beck and making a big deal about it in the national media. The choice of Jones is retaliation pure and simple. It's hardball politics and this is how its [sic] played."

No, TeamPOLITICO, it's even simpler than that...

If you're going to play apologist for the Obama White House, at least get your chronology straight. Look up the actual dates when Beck started talking and asking legitimate questions about all of Obama's czars and then when Color of Change called for its boycott of Beck.

Beck was already well into "exposing" some of Obama's czars (I think including Jones, but for your own "hardball politics" example, that doesn't really matter) when Color of Change announced its boycott of Beck sponsors in a rather obvious left-wing effort to silence Beck.

So much for freedom of speech, huh? So, it wasn't Beck who "picked on" Jones in retaliation for Color of Change's boycott; it was Color of Change which attempted to retaliate against Beck with its boycott for Beck's "outing" of Jones and others.

But Beck wouldn't be silenced and his audience, and other sponsors, not only rallied to him for it but also grew. Talk about a lefty idea which backfired!

That was the end of my comment to TeamPOLITICO about their bias.

But, encouragingly, it seems like Color of Change's thuggish tactic was just another in a string of lefty misjudgments lately. You know, like Democrat "Congressionals" calling town hallers "un-American," "too well dressed to be serious," "Astroturf," and "a mob," as well as two-thirds of Congressionals not even conducting town hall meetings with their constituents at all during the summer recess and many of the one-third who did either appearing only before specially selected, closed groups of constituents (in "gated" communities), conducting so-called "conference call town halls" rather than meeting face-to-face with their constituents, or, as one Democrat Congressional recently put it, that she was not going to give those people an audience, that she respected herself and her office more than that. Hey, Miz Democrat Congressional, that's not respecting yourself OR your office. That's just plain DISrespecting your constituents. Who do you think you are, and who do you think put you where you are? Those people are your constituents, you work for them. And if they voted you in, they can vote you out. And to say something like that is either the height of arrogance at worse or not even being a useful idiot at best.

2010 -- throw all the bums and crooks and self-servers out! Elect people who are of the people rather than above the people, who want to serve rather than rule, and who want to serve us rather than themselves.

On or about September 1st, President Obama’s continuing campaign organization, Organizing for America (OFA), published a notice on its Web site about blitzing US Senators with phone calls on 9/11, Patriot Day, in support of the ObamaCare (but maybe by now KennedyCare) government option. (By the way, isn't the campaign over now and didn't Obama win? Why then, does he need a continuing campaign organization? Shouldn't he stop campaigning now and start governing?)

The OFA site contained a notice to “grassroots” supporters about the planned 9/11 "health care organizing event,” saying:

"What day? Our US Senators return to DC the Tues after Labor Day. That next FRIDAY, Sep 11, is Patriot Day, designated in memory of the nearly three thousand who died in the 9/11 attacks.

"All 50 States are coordinating in this – as we fight back against our own Right-Wing Domestic Terrorists who are subverting the American Democratic Process, whipped to a frenzy by their Fox Propaganda Network ceaselessly re-seizing power for their treacherous leaders."

Now, while Obama did not personally say any of this (at least, so far as I know), OFA, an organization representing him, did by allowing the post and/or by not having sufficient filters to prevent it. (And I thought, or so we've been told, that Obama supporters are so much more media and Internet savvy than "the rest of us," too.) Similarly, Obama did not personally participate in the August 11th White House-sponsored teleconference call made by Obama "associate" Lennox Yearwood, president of the Hip Hop Caucus, and Liv Havstad, the group's senior vice president of strategic partnerships and programs, about changing the focus of 9/11. Yearwood, who uses the honorific "Reverend" before his name, has been in the news in recent years, often for getting arrested.

On the August 11 White House-sponsored call, a source with insider knowledge said that Yearwood and other leaders (see more below) kept saying that they wanted 9/11 to be used for something "positive," "forward-leaning" and "productive." The plan is "remake" 9/11 from a "day of fear" into a so-called "day of activism" called the "National Day of Service." Now, there's a euphemistically and meaninglessly misnomered national day, if ever I heard of one. Besides, 9/11 already has a name, Patriot Day, and it doesn't need a new name nor any kind of radical activist revisionist "makeover."

And who were those other leaders on the conference call with Yearwood? Well, it was a coalition including the radically left-wing pressure group Color of Change and other far-left, environmentalist, labor and corporate shakedown groups, including: ACORN, AFL-CIO, Apollo Alliance, Community Action Partnership, Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, 80 Million Strong for Young American Jobs, Friends of the Earth, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, Mobilize.org, National Black Police Association, National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, National Council of N-gro Women, National Wildlife Federation, RainbowPUSH Coalition, Urban League, and Young Democrats of America.

Although Obama hopes, as he often has in the past, to maintain "plausible deniability" by "six degrees of separation" from some of his associates and supporters, I resent the thuggish attempts of those associates and supporters to silence legitimate opposition and I therefore put ultimate responsibility for that where it belongs -- right in Obama's lap. He, as president, and even more particularly as commander-in-chief, bears no less overall responsibility than does a military commander who is responsible for all that his troops do or fail to do. And it appears pretty clear from all this that Team Obama wants to subvert and politicize the true meaning of 9/11, as well as to push back against protesters, referred to as “Right-Wing Domestic Terrorists.”

Well, Senator, I am one of those protesters -- and a conservative, and a Vietnam vet, and a disabled vet, and a retired Army colonel, and a TEA Party supporter, and I disagree with most of Obama's agenda and the profligate spending of your 111th Congress. But I strongly resent being labeled a "Right-Wing Domestic Terrorist" just because I disagree, adamantly defend my Second Amendment rights, own guns and/or am a Christian. I HAVE A RIGHT TO DISAGREE! AND I HAVE A RIGHT TO SAY SO -- OFTEN AND LOUD!

So, when you receive all those OFA-organized blitz "grassroots" phone calls on 9/11, remember what 9/11 is really supposed to be about -- a day of sorrow, a day of reflection, of respectful remembrance and rededication to the protection of our Republic -- not a politicized day of partisan politics, a day to "sell" anything, or a so-called "National Day of Service." It's 9/11. It's Patriot Day. Out of respect for all those who died that day, leave it alone and let it be just what it is -- an annual national day of mourning and, yes, perhaps even anger, and renewal and rededication.

Mr. Jones sure seems full of himself -- as well as some pretty wild ideas and accusations.

There's a painting at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland, CA, which appears in a video interview of President Obama’s so-called Green Jobs Czar, Van Jones. Mr. Jones, an unrepentant rioter, race baiter and professional victim monger, started the Ella Baker Center. The painting shows a Jimmy Carter looking white man on the left pointing a gun into the back of the head of what appears to be a Hispanic woman. On the right is an Orin Hatch looking white man holding a piece of paper that says “War on Youth” as he handcuffs a young black male. In the middle are young minority youths just trying to have a good time if only the evil white men would let them.

So, who was Ella Baker? Well, she was a peaceful but persistent activist in the early days of the civil rights movement in this country and, one might say, a modern day American heroine for her work for equal rights for all. Born December 13, 1903, in Norfolk, Virginia, she developed a sense for social justice early in her life. As a student at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, she challenged school policies that she thought were unfair. After graduating in 1927 as class valedictorian, she moved to New York City and began joining social activist organizations.

She began her involvement with the NAACP in 1940. In 1957, Baker moved to Atlanta to help organize Martin Luther King's new organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). In February 1960, a group of black college students from North Carolina A&T University refused to leave a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, where they had been denied service. Baker left the SCLC after the Greensboro sit-ins because she wanted to assist the new student activists. She organized a meeting at Shaw University for the student leaders of the sit-ins in April 1960, and from that meeting, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was born.

Adopting MLK's Gandhian theory of nonviolent direct action, SNCC members joined with activists from the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to organize the 1961 Freedom Rides. With Ella Baker’s guidance and encouragement, SNCC became one of the foremost advocates for human rights in the country. She continued to be a respected and influential leader in the fight for human and civil rights until her death on December 13, 1986, her 83rd birthday.

And who is Anthony "Van" Jones? Born September 20, 1968, he attended the University of Tennessee at Martin and subsequently obtained his JD degree from Yale Law School. He is a lawyer, a civil rights, human rights and environmental activist, a self-proclaimed communist, a former street rioter and jailbird, and the author of one book, The Green Collar Economy (2008).

His current employer is the White House Council on Environmental Quality, where he is listed as Special Advisor for Green Jobs, which means he's Obama's green jobs "czar," which means he works for and is accountable only to Obama but is paid by you, the American taxpayer. How much he's paid or the size and pay of his staff, we don't know -- just as with the approximately three dozen "other" extra-constitutional "czars" which Obama has appointed.
 
By virtue of being Obama's green jobs czar, Jones needs no Congressional approval -- approval he would not get either following an FBI SBI (Standard Background Investigation) or from Congress based on his record as a die-hard communist and self-described Marxist revolutionary. He also has some, ahem, other "interesting" beliefs, as well. He believes that "white polluters" intentionally steered poison into black neighborhoods. He also, just this year, attended a forum to promote Barack Obama’s agenda and, when asked how Republicans were able to block Obama’s agenda, repeatedly called them a-holes. He then said people around Barack Obama would need to get “uppity” to deal with the Republicans. (This is a guy with an advanced degree from Yale?! Well, that just made me much less impressed with Yale, and maybe with affirmative action, that's for sure.)

Oh, and Van Jones was also co-founder in 2005, along with James Rucker, previously Director of Grassroots Mobilization for MoveOn.org Political Action and MoveOn.org Civic Action (2003 - 2005), of Color of Change, the extremist racial grievance group that isn't happy with FNC's Glenn Beck for "outing" "Van the Man" Jones as a former jailbird, self-described "communist" and "rowdy black nationalist." 

Jones later moved on to other pursuits, but, coincidentally (I'm sure), it was Color of Change which recently called for a boycott of Beck's sponsors (let's hear it for free speech!), probably at least with the White House's blessing, if not its collusion. However, their attempt to destroy Beck by convincing advertisers to stop buying time on his show backfired because, although some sponsors did withdraw from Beck's show and/or equivocated about advertising on Fox but not specifically with Beck, it appears none canceled their ads with Fox in general and plenty of others have filled the void and signed up as Beck sponsors -- and Beck's already impressive ratings, especially for a 5PM show, have skyrocketed even more. It's like a few months ago when the DNC and Democrats in general tried to demonize Rush Limbaugh as the "head" of the Republican Party who wanted Obama to fail, and Rush's already incredibly large audience got even bigger.

By the way, Jones was also a founder and previously on the board of the Appollo Alliance, a hard-left environmentalist group that is now literally running parts of the Obama administration. So, had you ever even heard of them before? Me neither, but they're running part of the federal government now, it seems. As also recently reported by -- guess who? -- Glenn Beck (well, you didn't think it was the liberal lamestream media, did you?), the Appollo Alliance has not only recently acknowledged but actually bragged that it literally dictated parts of the legislative language in the February stimulus bill to Congress. (Hmmm, still more radical left associations with, and within, the Obama White House. Oh my! Who would've guessed?)

So, Jones said “people around Barack Obama would need to get ‘uppity’ to deal with the Republicans,” eh? Well, that's okay. I'm from the South, where Ella Baker did most of her good work, and we don't tolerate uppity folks too well. In fact, not much better than we tolerate fools or liars, or communists, or radicals or so-called "revolutionaries," for that matter. And we know how to deal with uppity folks, too, blacks as well as whites. We prefer to treat people as equals but if you're going to act uppity, then get ready for a plain old Southern slapdown. You know, like maybe yo' momma should have given you more of when you were a little, too-big-mouthed boy and before you grew up to be a big ole too-big-mouthed man.

Jones has since, just recently, apologized for his "Republicans are a-holes" comments, saying something like since he started working in the White House, he's realized such comments are counter-productive and yadda, yadda. Well, duh! Looks like someone as smart as Jones seems to think he is, and with a law degree from Yale and all, would already have known that, wouldn't you think? Or were his "a-hole" comments just another example of "uppity" liberal-speak, when the mouth often just runs away with, or is that from, the brain?

Well, Van baby, "apology" NOT accepted! Your history and past comments and actions show who you really are, more than some "make nice" words of apology now. You're basically just another Saul Alinsky style, radical leftist (no wonder you and Obama "bond") who has most recently now taken on the mantle of White House enviro-terrorist and thug-in-chief. I don't think Miz Ella, who was not "uppity" herself, would be very proud of your methods or your mouth. In fact, if she were still alive, she might give you that good old Southern slapdown herself -- you know, the one yo' momma shoulda given you more of as a boy?

You recently said we need to completely overhaul the entire agricultural system in this country, and I simply ask you: Who the hell do you think you are? As we say in the South, "Don't get all carried away with yourself." What, besides your own ignorant arrogance, qualifies you to do anything with our agricultural system? I don't think a law degree even from Yale or the writing of one book or a background of radical victim activism qualifies you to even seriously talk about our overall agricultural system. So, as long as you last as Obama's "green jobs czar," why don't you just stick to seeing if you can create some overly expensive "green jobs" with all that "green jobs" money your Appollo Alliance aiders and abettors dictated into the so-called "stimulus plan" which so far, now even seven months later, hasn't stimulated much of anything?
 
Besides, I think you're already one of those "uppity" guys who needs to learn more about that old saying, "Don't let your alligator mouth overload your hummingbird as-."

But that's just me -- just askin' - just sayin'.

I just read on TVNewser that:

"CBS reporter Cami McCormick arrived at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, at 2amET, September 2, and is in stable condition. She will undergo further surgery for the wounds she received and the fractures in her arms and legs. Last week, McCormick was injured while embedded with US troops in Afghanistan when an IED exploded, killing one soldier and injuring two others. McCormick underwent surgery in Afghanistan and was transported to Germany for further treatment."
 
My comments:

Now, I have nothing against Ms. McCormick personally. In fact I am truly sorry she was injured, wish her a speedy and complete recovery, and admire her courage for being embedded with US troops in an obviously dangerous part of the world. But I am wondering why she is being treated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC).

I can understand her having received emergency battlefield treatment, probably by military personnel in a field hospital in Afghanistan, and even intermediate treatment in Germany, probably at military facilities at Landstuhl, but now that she's been returned to the US, why isn't her employer CBS taking responsibility for her continuing treatment at a top-of-the-line civilian hospital?

...on pushing ObamaCare through Congress. Well, as Dirty Harry once said, "Go ahead, make my day." 

Falsely claiming, once again (or is that, still?), that the Republican "Party of No" won't be nice and "play bipartisan" by joining them in passing Obama's massive makeover/takeover of the American health care/insurance system, various Democrat "leaders" are now -- rather over-dramatically, I might add -- "threatening" to "go it alone" and use reconciliation, AKA "the nuclear option," to force ObamaCare through the Senate and down the throats of the American people -- say, "ahhhh" -- whether they want it or not. And polls increasingly show that they do not want it. (Hmmm, I'm getting confused now. Is that fascism yet or just more socialism by Obama and the Democrats?)

First, aside from President Obama publicly mouthing words of bipartisanship but privately reminding Republicans "Hey, we won," the Democrats in Congress, and especially in Princess Pelosi's House, have been the "Party of We're Not Listening."

It was Democrats who took it upon themselves to exclude Republican participation and "go it alone" in passing a $787 billion stimulus plan without reading it, a "plan" which hasn't stimulated much of anything, of which only about 10 to 15 percent has been spent even now going on seven months later and most of that not in the states most in need of job stimulation, while ignoring and shutting out Republicans who were offering an alternative plan which would have created twice as many jobs, in half the time, at less than half the cost.

It was Congressional Democrats who "went it alone" in passing a bloated budget, which also went unread, which was packed with over 8,000 pork projects and which was quickly signed behind closed doors by a Democrat president who had "promised" he would take his Sharpie and go line-by-line through any spending measure to eliminate earmarks and other waste.

It was Congressional House Democrats who "went it alone" in passing H.R. 2454, The American Clean Energy and Security Act, also called the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, otherwise also known as the clean energy cap-and-tax bill, otherwise known as global warming -- uh, sorry, climate change -- legislation, and otherwise also known as a manufacturing base destroyer, a small business crippler and a potentially huge individual American family energy tax.

At least this time they had an excuse for not reading the bill before voting on it, because they introduced 300 pages of amendments (which were not even integrated into the bill as required, much less read in toto by anybody) at 3AM of the same day on which they insisted on voting on and passing it.

(Is it just me, or does it seem that any time anybody is in that much of a hurry to do something, like this 111th Congress has been the whole time, it may be because they're afraid somebody is going to figure out they're doing something they shouldn't be doing and they just want to hurry up and get it done before anybody can stop them? Ah, no, that's just me, being my cynical old self again, right?)

The fact is, "bipartisanship" to the Democrats only means voting along with what they want to do, however and whenever they want to do it. And, truth be told, knowing they had the votes to approve almost anything they wanted to, they have only wanted so-called bipartisanship "for show" anyway, to give them the "political cover" of Republican participation in case something goes wrong.

Although White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel did recently say, in a stretch of logic meant to put lipstick on a pig (remember Obama saying that about something Palin said during the campaign?), that basically anytime Republicans didn't actively object to whatever the Democrats were doing, that was bipartisanship. No, it ain't, Rambo Rahm, and, just like with your boss Obama and much of what he says, just because you say it's so, doesn't make it so. You can't just "make up" new meanings for words as you go along and "redefine" things just to suit your own purposes of the moment. After all, it was your boss Obama who repeatedly said during the campaign that "words matter." And that means that their normally accepted meanings also matter. (Well, maybe, as we've found out since you all actually got into the White House, except for such words as "transparency," "open and accountable government," "no lobbyists in my government," and, oh yeah, "bipartisanship.")

As I said, the Democrats, knowing they have enough votes in both the House and Senate to pass almost anything they want to without Republican participation, much less support, have not only been excluding Republican participation while falsely claiming that Republicans are just being obstructionists but Obama and the Democrats have also been severely overreaching, some might say unconstitutionally so.

Now, at over seven months into the Obama presidency and with Obama and the Democrat controlled Congress responsible for (a) continuing TARP bailouts and government takeovers of private industry, (b) a massive stimulus plan which hasn't stimulated, (c) the largest and one of the most pork laden budgets in our history, (d) the House passage of Waxman-Markey as a huge energy tax in exchange for the least amount of real climate change benefit, and (e) a quadrupling of our deficit spending in mere months, no one -- I repeat, no one -- can any longer credibly blame Bush for the economy, or much of anything else, for that matter.

Obama and the Democrats own it now. The honeymoon and the hiding behind Bush are over. It's time for Obama and his Congress to lead and to govern on their own. Stop telling us all the time what your predecessors did wrong and show us what you've got.

And if Obama and the Democrats continue to overreach, as they already have so far, for example by using reconciliation, which is a Senate procedure for dealing solely with budget matters and not intended to be used for major pieces of legislation, to ram through ObamaCare, which is definitely a major piece of legislation affecting one-sixth of our total economy, and especially if they do it over Republican objections and against the will of the majority of the American people, they will own that, too. And they will have no one to blame but themselves, which means we will have no one to blame but them also. So, go ahead, Mr. President and the Democrat controlled 111th Congress, overreach again. In other words, again as Dirty Harry said, "Do ya feel lucky, Punk? Well, do ya?"

What's that old saying -- Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely? And what's that other old saying about giving someone enough rope to hang themselves? Well, Obama and the Democrats have the power. So, like the kid at Mickey D's might ask you about fries with your order, would you like some more rope to go with that? We'll try our very best to have all your nooses ready by 2010.