SOMEONE TO SAVE AMERICA


Have been away for two weeks and have had the opportunity to watch the American election develop from afar and to get a new perspective. Some thoughts:


• The Democrats are crazy to nominate Hillary if already 50% of American voters say they will definitely vote against her no matter what. Yes, she could still possibly win with such high negatives, but why take the chance when 2008 is shaping up as a good year for the Democrats? They’d be better off running a dead, embalmed, southern moderate guy.

• Some astute observers now believe we are about to have some sort of major economic meltdown. The sub-prime situation, plus the steep volatility on the stock market may indeed portend imminent trouble. If so, what effect does this have on the election? Certainly it hurts the “party in power” - i.e. the Republicans. But the Democrats are running Congress - so do they get caught up in it, too?

• The “throw out the bums” attitude seems to be growing in intensity - daily. It could be the Perfect Storm - for somebody. But who?

• Could a basically unelectable Hillary ‘grease’ her way in next year because of a weak GOP candidate, a divided and dispirited conservative base, a recession, a war dragging on and other unhappinesses that make her a ‘hold-your-nose-and vote’ winner?

• Is 2008 the year - as has been written about in this space repeatedly - for an Independent Third Candidate to run - and win - by going against “both parties for creating the mess we are in”? Do not rule this out!

• The GOP candidates today: the race is now down to Rudy, Romney and Huckabee. Thompson is a bore and has not caught the imagination of conservatives; Huckabee is more acceptable to them. Brownback dropped out, Ron Paul inspires many but isn’t catching up fast enough. Rudy and Romney are both fatally flawed. They are both posers. It is hard to believe the GOP has come down to two total frauds who have flip-flopped their way to front-runner status. Who can possibly want either of these people to run anything? And how can a conservative party possibly even contemplate nominating either one? No wonder Huckabee is doing better and better. He is a totally acceptable-to-everyone alternative - and should not be ruled out as this thing goes on.

• Ron Paul is also doing better and better - both in fund-raising and in the latest Straw Polls, i.e. this past weekend’s Values Voter Summit in Washington. His problem is he is slow out of the gate - and isn’t catching up in Iowa or New Hampshire fast enough. But his libertarian views are more and more popular.

• The American voter today? Furious over everything; scared about the future; and has yet to find the ‘savior’ candidate who he/she trusts to figure out where to go in the future.

• That is what the 2008 race is all about: finding someone to ‘save’ America.

• And that is why an Independent Third candidate - not a nut like Perot who just wanted to hurt Bush I - but someone who really wants to win, could indeed win next year.

• But everything has to break right: both parties in the dumpster with awful nominees, a distressed American electorate - and the key ingredient of all: the right candidate. So far he has not appeared on the national scene.
• But there is still time.

HILLARY-CARE:FROM CRADLE TO GRAVE


Another day, another window into the real Hillary: a Western European Socialist who wants to implement a vast array of new social programs to ‘hook’ the voter on the heroin of government ‘entitlements’.

Not a week goes by without Hillary unveiling a massive new - and unnecessary - federal social program:

• Two weeks ago she announced in Iowa her $110 billion/year National Health Plan - which will probably cost closer to $250 billion/year;

• Then she announced her Baby Bond program: a $5,000 bond given to every baby when they are born. Why this is done isn’t known, nor is who manages the money, what you can do with it and what you can’t do with it. Cost? $25 billion a year;

• Now, her latest: a $1,000 per person ‘contribution to your 401(k) retirement plan - or else the government creates a new, special retirement account for everyone. Cost? At least $25 billion/ year.

Hey, it’s only October of 2007. At this rate, Hillary has 13 months to announce dozens of more spending plans before the presidential election!

Now, do we need these things?

Are these new federal spending programs - and remember that once they are implemented they are virtually impossible to eliminate or reduce - necessary? Are the people demanding them? Are these programs addressing a pressing issue in our country right now?

Health care is a huge problem - but Hillary’s plan doesn’t fix it; in fact, like Bush’s disastrous Prescription Drug Program, her plan will make the health care/insurance problem even worse.

Most government programs which aim to solve a problem in fact compound the problem in unexpected ways - plus they require new taxes on the middle class, which today cannot afford another penny of taxes.

Oh, sure, Hillary’s disciples will tell us that they are “only going to raise taxes on the ‘mega-rich.’” But that won’t do the trick. In order to pay for all these new programs, it will require Democrats doing what they always do: sap the middle class with huge taxes to pay for these programs. Period.

Furthermore, politically Hillary is trying to do the opposite of George W. Bush: by doing everything for people she contrasts herself to the perceived lack of caring from Bush. Plus, like her hero FDR, she wants to create a lasting social legacy like the New Deal.

Now, let’s get to the philosophical question: is it the role of Washington DC to provide each of us with a ‘birth bond’ and a ‘retirement account’ and to give us health care and other new ‘entitlements’?

Is that the proper role - in the United States of America - of the federal government?

Or, instead, shouldn’t we follow Lincoln’s simple dictum: “government should only do for people what they cannot do for themselves”?

Now, a sadness: these Republican presidential candidates are pathetic in these debates when it comes to defining what we conservatives and Republicans ought to believe. Their blind defense - with the exception of Ron Paul - of everything GW Bush has done is killing them and eliminating any credibility they might have had among Independent voters, who are the key to winning next year.

Fred Thompson had his one moment to seize the race - and he bombed. So it’s Rudy and Romney - the two biggest flip-floppers in the race - neither of whom has a principled bone in his body.

Oh how I despair for our country!

And many, many others share this sense of desperation over the direction of this great land.

HILLARY-ISM


If you want to know what this country will be like if Hillary is elected next year - and the Democrats keep control of the House and Senate - all you have to do is look at Western European democracies in the 1970's: socialistic economies with massive government-run social programs.

That is Hillary’s goal for ‘her’ United States.

Two recent signs that this is Hillary’s ideal plan:

• Her new national health care plan - to cover everyone - will cost - by her own estimate - a whopping $110 billion per year; (if her estimate is $110 billion per year, you can safely double it and then halve it again to figure out the ultimate cost: $250 billion per year);

• Her just-released “Baby Bond” plan to give “every baby born in the United States a $5,000 bond upon birth” to pay for college or housing - she was vague about this. Another $20 billion per year.

• When asked how these programs will be paid for, her staff always has the same answer: “we’ll only raise taxes on the rich.” (Of course, it is their definition of “rich” that will cause trouble down the road as they will inevitably have to raise taxes on middle income people to pay for this coming socialism.)


Now, let us face some facts:

• The Democrats are going to keep control of both houses of Congress in the 2008 elections - regardless of what happens on the top of the ticket in the presidential race. In fact, the odds are good that the Democrats will actually pick up seats in both houses of Congress.

• If Hillary - or any Democrat - is elected president next year, he/she will have the whole ball of wax: the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate. This means they can - and will - launch one of their national ‘themes’ i.e. the Great Society, the New Deal, the Fair Deal.

• And this will be - especially if Hillary makes it to the Oval Office - socialized health care, federal mandates, huge domestic spending programs - even bigger than the entitlements we already have. And massive tax increases on the middle class - because that is the only way to pay for these programs; taxing the rich isn’t going to be enough;

• A simple rule: liberals love to spend money - period!

• So they will go hog-wild in 2009 with a whole new liberal era - patterned in great part on 1970's England, France, West Germany, Sweden, Norway and the other semi-socialistic democracies.

• Interestingly, by the 1980's many of these countries began to reject this socialism - even if at first it had sounded so promising. Margaret Thatcher came along and led the charge against a failed experiment. Helmut Kohl in Germany and others followed suit.

• Eastern Europe - now 17 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall - was addicted to nationalized, communist, from-the-top-down mandatory social programs since the Soviet invasion of the late 1940's. These nations are now fighting to get rid of these elements - and the remaining bureaucracies - and get going on true free enterprise and capitalism.

• Hillary-ism will, of course, ultimately fail to deliver the promises they will make. In the process, they will further dampen our economy, implement new ‘entitlements’ that are virtually impossible to terminate and saddle our nation with even more debt - and we Republicans do not have a leg to stand on in attacking this fiscal irresponsibility because the past 6 years under a GOP Congress with a supposedly-conservative President has been a fiscal disaster.


The 2008 GOP presidential candidates better be prepared to paint a truthful picture of what is coming in 2009 when the Democrats have full power.

What kills me is that the flip-flopping Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani - both of whom had to work with Democratic legislative bodies when they held office - happily went along with their liberalism instead of fighting and leading, as Reagan did with a Democratic House in 1981.

Sadly, none of our GOP candidates can lead us out of a wet paper bag.

And this void invites Big Trouble - in the form of a new leftward swing of the political pendulum.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

MEMO

TO: ANYONE WHO CARES ABOUT SOME OF OUR FELLOW CITIZENS

FR: FORMER CONGRESSMAN JOHN LEBOUTILLIER

RE: AN EXAMPLE OF GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTHCARE GONE BAD


I learned today that Medicare has just stopped reimbursement for a crucial leukemia drug - ARANESP - made by Amgen - even though this is an FDA-approved treatment for leukemia.

When Medicare does this, private insurance companies follow and thus ARANESP will soon disappear if something isn’t done soon.

This is a total disaster for thousands of very, very sick people.

I am asking you - as an American citizen who still runs this country - to help lead the charge to get Congress to override Medicare and mandate that ARANESP continue to be approved.

Here is what you can do:

Call your Congressman and Senator is DC - all you have to do is call the main number - 202-224-3121 - and they’ll connect you to your Congressman and Senators.

Get ahold of a staffer and BEG them to step in and override Medicare - and fast!!!

Please do your best on this - and soon!

Let’s all do this - today! Let’s see if we can move the government to do what we want. Thank you!

INTERNATIONAL WAR CRIMINAL ARRIVES IN USA





On Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to New York and the United Nations: isn’t it amazing that no one in Congress, the White House or the so-called Mainstream Media - or even Talk Radio or Fox, for that matter - ever mentions the fact that most of the remaining 52 American hostages from the 1979 illegal seizure by so-called Iranian ‘students’ are certain that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was one of their captors?

In fact, most remember him quite well as one of the toughest and roughest anti-Americans who advocated torturing the hostages and discussed executing some of them - within earshot of the hostages.

So - assuming that he is indeed guilty of this international crime - and we should take the word of our fellow Americans that he was one of their tormentors - then how can we allow him into the United States without arresting him?

When Austrian President - and former UN General Secretary - Kurt Waldheim was found to be a Nazi officer guilty of war crimes and hiding his past for over 40 years, he was put on a ‘watch list’ here and not allowed back into the US - not even to visit the UN in his official capacity as head of the Austrian Government - despite the ‘diplomatic immunity’ automatically accorded to visiting heads of state.

But Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is going to come here - and get away with his crimes from 1979-1981? He is going to come here and speak at Columbia University - one of America’s best universities - and no one is even going to bring up the hostage crisis?

Are we going to allow him to get away with it?

In fact, all the so-called ‘students’ - and their Iranian governmental patrons - have escaped unpunished for what they did back then: seizing sovereign American territory - our embassy and consulate - and illegally detaining dozens of American citizens in often deplorable conditions for 444 days. They still have our embassy, by the way; they have turned it into an anti-American museum detailing their glorious defeat of Carter and the USA.

Even the sanctions President Carter imposed on the Iranian Government back then were dropped as he tried to recover the hostages.

For those who might say, “Oh, drop it! That’s 30 years ago! Let bygones be bygones” - here is the (sad) truth: when criminals break the law and get away with it they feel above the law and thus are likely to do other criminal acts.

Ahmadinejad - and the radical mullahs who are his source of power in Tehran (and in Qum, the home of radical Islam) - is indeed an international war criminal who is operating with total impunity!

No wonder he happily breaks more international laws: 1) Shipping millions of tons of weapons to Hamas on the West Bank to use against Israel - and, it turns out, on the more reasonable Fatah branch of the Palestinian leadership; 2) Supporting, training and equipping Hezbollah up in Lebanon as they cause repeated trouble for both Israel and for the moderates in Lebanon; 3) The covert arming of Shi’a Iranians in their uprising against the Sunnis - and against US troops.

Yes, he has said awful things - such as the Holocaust never happened and that Israel will soon “cease to exist” - but saying them is not a crime, even though they give us a peek into this war criminal’s twisted mind.

It are his tangible actions for which he must be punished.

And that begins with his 1979 crimes against the United States.

His defense?

He has admitted to being one of the ‘students’ but says he was not involved with the seizure of the US Embassy; instead, he has claimed, he was advocating the seizure of the Soviet Embassy. (Oh, how we should wish they had tried that one! Iran would cease to have existed!)

His consciousness of guilt is clear here: he was indeed one of the radical ring-leaders for the 1979 embassy seizure.

The United States is a paper tiger if we try to sweep this war criminal’s crimes under the rug.

What has become of our once-great country?

THE LITTLE VOICE



Some call it their ‘conscience.’

Others say it is the voice of God inside us.

Some call it the “Christ within.”

Many describe it as “that voice inside me that tells me what to do - and what not to do.”

Have you heard it?

Do you listen - or ignore it?



Many people do listen - and have had tremendous success following that ‘little voice.’

From making money to picking the right mate to changing careers to all sorts of decisions, listening to your conscience - or to the God within you - is one of the most powerful keys to a happy and successful life.

Along with it come other related skills: intuition, having a ‘feeling,’ having a ‘hunch.’ All these things are part of the same aspect of the love God has for each of us. He indeed speaks to you - if you are willing to listen.

A note: have you noticed lately in this society - for some reason - how so few people actually do listen? Instead they are on transmit - constantly talking at people, instead of engaging in a true back and forth.

The most dangerous question you can ask these days is: “How are you?” - which, in the past, was a throw-away ice-breaker that didn’t require an answer other than “fine.”

But now for some reason people want to tell you their whole life story at the drop of a hat!

Anyway, back to listening:

Wise people of faith know that - if you listen - God will help guide you through life. Knowing this is a joy because you are not alone! He is here - looking after you - and answering your prayers!

But the keys are: A) You have to believe; B) You have to ask; and C) You have to listen and then pay attention to the answer for it may not be what you expect or delivered how you expect it.



Do you really believe human beings - with the incredible bodies and minds and talents and skills that we have - were created by chance? By some random happenstance?

Or do you believe that we are indeed created in God’s image and have a divine purpose in life?

If you believe that, then ask yourself this: would God create people, plop them down on the Earth and abandon them? Or would He be available to help, to teach, and to guide. In Christianity, we believe that Mankind went so astray that God had to dispatch his only son to teach people how to live properly. And - even then - some of them rejected these teachings and tortured and killed this son!

So - some believe in God and some do not.

But if you do - and if you ask, you “shall receive.”

And part of your “receiving” is the privilege of hearing that Little Voice advising, recommending and guiding.

Trust it. Believe in it. Listen to it.