Send in the Goons!

And it’s not just in Nevada that the tea party is under attack by a desperate liberal left and their Storm Troopers.

This very weekend the Service Employees International Union plans to send 25,000 rank-and-file workers on 500 buses to Washington to protest the tea party movement, Republicans and Fox News. If SEIU members had any sense, they'd be demonstrating at their own bosses' D.C. headquarters. It's the Big Labor Left, not the Tea Party Right, that is flushing rank-and-file union workers' hard-earned dues down the collective toilet in these hard times.

The co-organizer of the so-called "One Nation" protest by a coalition of progressive groups is George Gresham, president of the behemoth SEIU Local 1199 based in New York. (This is the same SEIU affiliate that employed current Obama domestic policy adviser Patrick Gaspard as chief lobbyist for nine years.) Peeved by all the attention that grassroots conservatives and limited government activists have received over the past year, Gresham spearheaded the rally plans earlier this summer to "counter the Tea Party narrative" and reclaim the voice for "working people." Perhaps Gresham should pay more attention to his workers' pensions than to tea party leaders' media appearances.

SEIU Local 1199's Upstate Pension Fund has plunged from 115 percent funded in 1999 to 75 percent funded, and its Greater New York Pension Fund was funded at only 58 percent of its future obligations as of 2007, according to Hudson Institute analyst Diana Furchtgott-Roth. The union fat cats blame Wall Street. But while the pensions of SEIU workers nationwide are in "endangered status," the pensions of SEIU top brass have been protected and remain fully funded.

The D.C.-based Alliance for Worker Freedom, which monitors labor union abuses, reported last year that 13 major local SEIU pension funds are in serious financial jeopardy. Indeed, fewer than one in every 160 union-represented workers is covered by a union pension with required assets. Local 1199 workers -- already subject to wage freezes to salvage their pensions -- might want to know how their leaders were able to pony up $1 million for Haiti earthquake relief in January while their retirement funds wither on the vine.

SEIU leaders have shown a special talent for squandering their workers' dues. They poured $10 million down the drain in Arkansas on a failed bid to unseat Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln. They spent $10 million on a nasty lawsuit against a competing union in California. They've burned through union dues to transport SEIU radicals to bully bank execs and their families at their private homes and to bus workers to Arizona to protest crackdowns on illegal aliens, who depress the wages of law-abiding working-class Americans.

Under former Purple Army Chief Andy Stern, the union's liabilities skyrocketed from $7.6 million to nearly $121 million. Stern burned through $61 million to put Barack Obama and the Democratic ruling majority in place. And before abruptly stepping down in April, he installed a cadre of labor management stooges embroiled in financial scandals across the country.

One of them, Stern protégé and former SEIU national Vice President Tyrone Freeman, remains under FBI investigation for siphoning off hundreds of thousands of dollars in dues money for his personal enrichment and pleasure. The Los Angeles Times uncovered schemes that ranged from piping $600,000 in union contracts to his wife's video production and entertainment ventures to paying his mother-in-law $8,000 a month to baby-sit his daughter and other union employees' children to footing a $13,000 bill for membership at a Beverly Hills cigar club.

Another Stern underling, former SEIU leader Alejandro Stephens, is under FBI investigation, the LA Times reported this week, for $150,000 in consulting fees paid "under a confidential agreement" signed by Stern. The feds allege the money funded a no-show job for Stephens. While probing the smelly deal, the feds also stumbled upon a cozy agreement by SEIU executives to shell out $80,000 to promote a book Stern wrote in 2006. The SEIU may not have been looking after rank-and-file workers, but Stern made sure the SEIU was looking after him.

Now, Stern's profligate successors will steer an estimated $44 million in union worker dues into Democratic coffers this November -- all in the name of defeating right-wing enemies of the working people. Perhaps it's time for rank-and-file workers to stage a tea party of their own?

But, meanwhile, it’s time to send in the goons.

X may mark the Spot but XX doesn't necessarily ...........

If you want to understand why it seems that America has lost the dynamism she had in the 1950s and 1960s, consider the new Paycheck Fairness Act passed by the House 256 to 162.

The need for such a law, writes Valerie Jarrett, the ranking woman in Barack Obama's White House, is that "working women are still paid only 77 cents for every dollar earned by a man."

But why is that a concern of the U.S. government, and where is the empirical evidence that an inequality of pay between the sexes is proof of sexist hostility to women?

On average, Asians earn more than Hispanics; blacks less than whites. Mormons earn more than Muslims; Jews more than Jehovah's Witnesses. And Polish Americans earn more than Puerto Ricans. Does that prove America is a racist and religiously bigoted country?

The assumption of the Jarrett-backed law is that the sexes are equal in capacity, aptitude, drive and interest, and if there is a disparity in pay, only bigotry can explain it.

But are there not other, simpler answers for why women earn less?

Perhaps half of American women leave the job market during their lives, sometimes for decades, to raise children, which puts them behind men who never leave the workforce.

Women gravitate to teaching, nursing, secretarial and service work, which pay less than jobs where men predominate: mining, manufacturing, construction and the military.

I can tell you this first hand; I retired as an engineer from the IT business and there was no financial discrepancy there so perhaps all this does have more to do with the chosen career path than the absence of a chromosome.

And, while we’re at it, over 95 percent of our 40,000 dead and wounded from Afghanistan and Iraq were men. Men in prison outnumber women 10 to one. Is that the result of sex discrimination?

Sports have become a national obsession, and among the most rewarded professions in fame and fortune. And TV viewers prefer to watch male athletes compete in baseball, basketball, football, hockey, golf, tennis and boxing.
Is unequal pay for men and women professional athletes a matter for the government?

Larry Summers lost his job as president of Harvard for suggesting that women have less aptitude for higher math and that may explain why they are underrepresented on Ivy League faculties in the sciences, economics and math. Would not that male aptitude help explain why men are dominant in investment banking and corporate finance, where salaries are among the highest?

Jarrett wants to empower the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to more closely monitor all businesses until women reach pay parity.

But if inequality of pay is a result of human nature and a free society, a greater equality of rewards can only be achieved through coercion, a government declaring its value, economic parity, to be supreme, and imposing its value and its preferred pay structure upon employers.

If this is where America is headed, why not go all the way and dictate that Asians and Hispanics, Muslims and Jews, women and men, blacks and whites, gay and straight must all be paid the exact same for the same work -- and let the EEOC hire 100,000 more bureaucrats to see that it happens?

Would that be a great country or a socialist hell?

And before we empower the EEOC to monitor every business for sexism and racism, perhaps the commissioners will explain why African-Americans are 40 percent of all EEOC employees, while only 10 percent of the civilian labor force shows this disparity. Not a single white male sits on the commission.

Whence comes this egalitarian fanaticism?

Not from our Declaration of Independence, which spoke of all men being equal in their Creator-endowed rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Nor from the America Revolution, which was about liberty not equality, not this alien ideology of egalitarianism.

Equality is not even mentioned in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, and the 14th Amendment's "equal protection" clause did not even make an appearance until after the Civil War. And that was about equal justice under law, not the socioeconomic equality of all Americans.

No, this egalitarian ideology is traceable to the French Revolution, where the royalty and aristocracy went to the guillotine in the name of "egalite."

Under the Paycheck Fairness Act, writes Jarrett, "employers will be required to prove in court that any wage differences were based on factors other than sex -- such as education, training or experience -- and were consistent with business necessity."

In short, women alleging sexist practices by their bosses do not have to prove their guilt. The boss must prove his innocence. This is another way of saying businessman are to be presumed guilty when charged.

If that is not un-American, it surely once was.

Should this bill become law, the effects are predictable: more forms to be filled out by businesses, more bureaucrats for the EEOC, more charges of sex discrimination, more class-action suits, more fines, more lawyers getting rich via the litigious looting of the private sector.

America's decline is directly related to the growth in government power and the concomitant loss of freedom.

Except in G-d-given and constitutional rights, we are not equal. We are all unequal. The utopian promise of equality is but the banner of every power-hungry politician in modern history.

And the rise of the egalitarian society means the death of the free society.

Ten Questions you're not supposed to ask Islam.

Most of us remember the seven words you can’t say on television as promulgated by the late George Carlin. Of course, that was years ago and many have now been deleted from the list. Just watch Bill Maher and you’ll see what I mean.


Sometimes, when people get emotional while discussing radical Islam, they tend to paint Muslims with far too broad a brush. There are millions of decent, hard working, patriotic Muslims in this country which explains why, as late as 2000, they were voting 78% Republican.

Unfortunately, we hear from those people far too seldom while the terrorists, radical Islamist shills at CAIR, and the dirt bag building the Ground Zero Mosque seem to grab all the headlines. That makes it easy to forget that there are American Muslims out there loudly and forcefully speaking out against terrorism.

Moreover, across the world, the United States has had traditional alliances with Muslim nations, some of whom have fought side-by-side with our troops. Even in hostile nations like Iran, large numbers of Iranians held spontaneous candlelight vigils to show solidarity with America. To view Muslims like that as our enemy seems rather foolish to me.


Along similar lines, some people on the Right argue that Muslims who don't believe in violence or jihad don't understand their own religion. This doesn't seem to be very...wise or helpful? Obviously, there are hundreds of millions of Muslims who don't believe that their religion is violent. Telling them that if they understood their own religion as well as non-Muslims that they would be murdering us seems like a lose/lose sort of argument to make.


All that being said, because of political correctness and the genuine desire by the American people to be polite and tolerant, a lot of extremely important issues are simply not being discussed – and that’s a big problem.


When you refuse to talk about important topics because they make people uncomfortable, animus, distrust, and anxiety inevitably spread. On the other hand, when you have an open and honest dialogue about the real issues people debate privately, you can build comfort and trust and start to reach solutions that would never be possible in an environment where people are attacked and demonized simply for asking basic questions that most people have, but are afraid to speak out about.


So, with that in mind, here are 10 questions you're not supposed to ask about Islam.


1) Why do so few moderate Muslims speak out against Islamic extremism? How can we get more moderate Muslims to speak up and amplify their voices?


2) Of the "moderate Muslims" who have spoken out in favor of moderation or against terrorism, a number of them have later been tied to terrorist groups or have advocated radical policies. This causes a great deal of difficulty for people who want to ally with Muslim groups because the "moderate" they're talking to today may very well make them look bad by advocating radical policies in a month or two. What's the best way to deal with that?


3) Because of the concept of Taqiyya, many non-Muslims believe that Muslims have few qualms about lying to non-believers. Is this a legitimate concern? If not, why not?


4) When it comes to immigration, how does the United States tell the difference between radical Islamists and moderate Muslims? If we can't tell the difference, should that affect our immigration policies?


5) Widely accepted practices in large swathes of the Islamic world -- like Shariah law, honor killings, and death for apostates -- are absolutely, unconditionally incompatible with western civilization. Should we be asking Muslims if they oppose those practices before we allow them to enter our country? Granted, they could lie, but the very fact that we would publicly label those customs as barbaric would send a strong signal.


6) Why does Islam have such "bloody borders?"


7) Much of the Islamic world has an extremely backward attitude toward women. Is this something that goes along with Islam or is it a cultural issue in the nations where Islam happens to have taken root?


8) Why is there so much rabid anti-Semitism in the Muslim world? Pointing to Israel doesn't seem to be much of an answer, given that what Israel does or doesn't do has no impact whatsoever on the day-to-day lives of 98% of the Muslim world.


9) Islam, as it's practiced, seems to be an extraordinarily intolerant religion. Yet, non-Muslims are constantly being told we have to be tolerant to Islam. Why should non-Muslims be so tolerant of Islam when that tolerance is not being returned?


10) While there are certainly individual Muslims who seem to fit in very well in western society, Europe has had a great deal of difficulty assimilating Muslims. So, it seems natural to ask: Is Islam on a widespread scale compatible with the freedom, openness, and traditions of western civilization?


And, for extra credit, try to figure out why all non-Muslims are banned from entering the cities of Mecca or Medina and why all Jews are banned from traveling to anywhere in Saudi Arabia?. Not that many would want to go anyway but it makes for interesting cocktail hour chitchat.

And another two bite the dust ..............

Is Obama throwing Pelosi and Reid under the bus? Of course, the liberal faithful will protest otherwise but in the world of politics and its big-boy nastiness, it's entirely possible that's true, nevertheless.

I learned during the years of Newt Gingrich's control of Congress that it's a lot easier for an incumbent to win the White House when there's somebody else to blame for his and the nation's ills.

Look at the polling. Obama and the Democrats in Washington already weren't faring very well when the president chose to publicly defend the proposed construction of an "Islamic community center" -- aka a mosque -- just a few blocks from the destruction of the World Trade Centers. Once he did that, those polling numbers tumbled some more. Then Obama made it even worse for himself by "clarifying" his statements, which consisted of him basically reiterating his position.


Harry Reid in particular went ballistic. With his own re-election campaign in Nevada in jeopardy, the Senate majority leader had to openly distance himself from the president.


Since that day, Obama has seemingly gone out of his way to say things, or to have his administration do things, that only deepen the hole he and the Democrats are in. He has taken an inflexible stand against extending the George W. Bush tax cuts. His White House has leaked memos about alternative ways to keep illegal immigrants stateside. He's appeared at a town hall meeting and gone away utterly embarrassed. It seems that Obama has made all the right moves to benefit one person -- Barack Obama.


I'll grant that my view comes partly from a personal sense of cynicism. But this is little wonder. I was there in 1996 when President Bill Clinton and his team successfully attached at the hip the by-then unpopular Speaker Gingrich with GOP presidential nominee Bob Dole. This worked like a charm by dooming Dole's campaign from the start.


Ask yourself: If you were Obama, would you really want Reid and Pelosi standing on the stage with you in two years, when you're running for re-election, and you're trying to explain why "Change We Can Believe In" has morphed into "Nightmare on Elm Street"? You wouldn't.


You'd rather have a Republican speaker to blame should the economy take another dip in the wrong direction. Or a GOP Senate leader as a fall guy if foreign policy deteriorates.


The latest fashionable cliche in Washington is to characterize Obama as a professorial type who is easily led astray by a cast of liberal characters who are pulling him in various new directions.


I don't buy it. This man is supposedly bright and exceptionally ruthless. You don't go from being a small-potatoes legislator in a tough-as-nails state like Illinois to being president within 10 years unless you are willing to do whatever it takes to survive politically. I think that's exactly what Obama is doing now.


His answer to our economic plight is to ignore public protests even from Democrats that he is wrong and wrongheaded on taxation and other related issues.


Pelosi apparently is too dim-witted to realize that her continuing devotion to the liberal politics and policies of San Francisco is burying any chance that she can remain as speaker. Of course, Obama will shed few private tears if she falls from power. Pelosi has been nothing if not a pain in the rear to Obama, even as she supposedly has been his supporter.


For Obama, the best case would be for the Democrats to lose Congress, just as they did in 1994 during Clinton's first term. This would allow Obama to lay the blame for the sputtering economy at the GOP's doorstep, as well as provide him with an excuse for not passing the boatload of additional liberal agenda items that his support base will continue to demand.


It might even help him further if the number of Republicans in the Senate goes up to the point that the magic 60 votes needed to defeat a filibuster attempt would be an impossibility.


Could happen ………………..

Ignore the Man behind the Curtain .........

The MSNBC cameras unwittingly, and probably unwillingly, captured a "Joe the Plumber" moment during Monday's town hall meeting called by Obama to discuss the economy. Expressing the frustration of tens of millions of Americans on a day during which the economists called the recession over, Velma Hart, a self-described CFO, wife, mother and veteran, expressed her "deep disappointment" with Obama's economic record to his face.

"I've been told that I voted for a man who said he's going to change things in a meaningful way for the middle class. I'm one of those people, and I'm waiting sir. ... I'm waiting, but I don't feel it yet."

Calling herself "exhausted" by the rigors of the task of defending Obama and his administration, she lamented that she and her husband had thought that the "franks and beans" era in their lives had drawn to a close but said that she hears it "knocking" at the door to return. She concluded with a heart-rending question to President Obama, asking if anxiety is to be her "new reality."

Wow.

This cry of distress coming from an African-American supporter of Obama will echo in each of our hearts as the fall elections approach. When we were in the midst of a recession, even the Great Recession, we came to expect high unemployment much like those in the tropics expect a storm during the rainy season. But we are like those who are experiencing daily rain in the dry season now that the recession is over, and unemployment hovers around 10 percent. Is this, indeed, to be our "new reality"?

The Democrats are gleeful over the missteps of Christine O'Donnell. Too many leading Republicans do not realize that all of our fates in the midterm election are tied to her. If the Democrats can discredit her, they can discredit all of those like her and raise lasting doubts about dozens of Republican candidates who would otherwise be victorious.

If the grass-roots tea party is foisting unqualified candidates upon us, and if our very own party leaders think this is true, what a weapon we are handing the Democrats. Those critical Republican leaders who would criticize the O'Donnells of our party must realize that she is here to stay, she is one of us now and she deserves all our support. Fortunately, the grass-roots knows this fact and has showered her campaign with donations and support.

But the juxtaposing of the O'Donnell-witchcraft story and the Velma the CFO story on the same day speaks to a more profound point: As Democrats line up to savage the likes of Sarah Palin, O'Donnell, Sharron Angle and Rand Paul, they fail to realize that this election is not about them. It is about us. It turns not on their biographies, but on our misery.

We have watched one of the most activist presidents in history blessed with the most compliant of Congresses pass program after program, virtually without modification or even significant amendment, all the while assuring us that they would lead us out of recession and into recovery. Now that the recovery is supposedly upon us, we realize, to our dread, that it may be a future of permanent unemployment, just as they have in Europe.

This is the agony that impelled Velma the CFO to speak out. It is a deeply personal distress call and speaks to each of our expectations for the rest of our lives. If the candidates who dabbled in witchcraft as children or who preach an overly strict personal morality are the ones who back cuts in government spending, a reduction in the deficit, no higher taxes, an end to government takeover of our health care system and no cuts in Medicare, then we will vote for them anyway.

Were the election more academic, were it waged on issues of less personal moment to each of us, it would be different. But who can ignore the witchcraft being practiced not by high-schoolers, but by legislators in Washington hoping to summon prosperity from the other side by spending us into oblivion and taxing us to death? That is the witchcraft that worries all of us. And worries Velma the CFO.

And one other thing is certain. If Velma had been white and had dared to confront “The Anointed One” as she did, the muck-raking media would be dumpster diving into her trash looking for something.

Indeed. They’d be looking for anything.

Come on guys. Who's picking up the tab?

I played Bridge today as usual and it became obvious that the lone Democrat at the table was fearing the worst in the midterms and not even putting a brave face upon it.

“I love him”, she declared, speaking of Obama. “But”, she added, “He’s so unpopular”.

I love math and I love statistics and I had a blast putting this together. Two sets of numbers tell you a lot about an important difference between election year 2008 and election year 2010.

In 2008, 37 million Americans voted in Democratic presidential primaries and just under 21 million voted in Republican presidential primaries. One reason for the difference was that the Republican nomination was decided earlier. But even counting only the early contests, Democratic turnout was 26 million and Republican turnout was 17 million.

This year, it's different. Only 13 million Americans have voted in Democratic primaries held before Sept. 1, according to Curtis Gans of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate. During the same period, 17 million voted in Republican primaries.

As Gans points out, that's historic. Democratic primary turnout has been higher than Republican primary turnout in every off-year election since 1930.

That Republican margin may narrow a little as the final returns from last week's primaries come in from states like New York, Massachusetts and Maryland, which have a lot more registered Democrats than registered Republicans. Yet in California, where Democrats have a similar registration edge, almost as many Republicans showed up as Democrats.

What we're seeing here is a change -- a sea change -- in the balance of enthusiasm.

That's been critical in a decade in which turnout in presidential years increased from 105 million to 122 million to 131 million. Republicans had a narrow advantage in the balance of enthusiasm in 2002 and 2004. Democrats had a wider advantage in 2006 and 2008. Now Republicans clearly have a wide advantage and have a good chance to sweep the elections six weeks and six days from now.

Democratic strategists hope that Obama can rekindle some of the enthusiasm that was so apparent two years ago. Liberal columnists have cheered his slashing attack on House Minority Leader John Boehner and his denunciation of proposals to maintain the tax cuts on those earning more than $250,000.

I doubt that it will be that easy.

Enthusiasm is not aroused simply by a stirring speech. It's aroused by seeing your ideas and policies work out the way you expected. Or, perhaps even more, it's aroused by seeing your political adversaries' ideas and policies fail to work out the way they expected. In that case, you're usually pretty sure your alternatives will work out better -- and you're enthusiastic about trying them.

Consider Republicans during the second term of George W. Bush. Rescue efforts in New Orleans and military efforts in Iraq didn't produce anything like the positive results Republican-leaning voters expected. Republican congressional majorities seemed to be producing nothing but big spending (the bridge to nowhere) and scandals.

When the world isn't responding as you hoped and expected, you tend to stop paying attention. You stop watching the news and maybe even get a life.

Democrats in the past 20 months have seen Obama fail to produce the hope and change they expected. It seemed so easy to call for withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, for shuttering Guantanamo, for trying al-Qaida terrorists in civilian courts. But none of those things have happened.

Neither has Obama ended the ban on openly gay men and women serving in the military. He continues to oppose same-sex marriage, while Dick Cheney backs it.

Meanwhile, the vast increases in government spending in the stimulus package and Obama budgets have done little to produce a robust economic recovery, and the health care bill jammed through a reluctant Congress has failed to produce the widespread gratitude that Obama said we should expect.

For upscale Obama supporters and for residents of Havasu City, these economic policies were believed to be, in Pat Moynihan's elegant phrase, "boob bait for the bubbas". But the bubbas didn't take the bait.

So, just as the world stopped working as Republicans expected in 2005, the world stopped working as Democrats expected in 2009.

You can see this in last week's report from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. It found that in 2008, 67 percent of liberal Democrats said they enjoyed the news a lot, while just 45 percent say so today. In contrast, 57 percent of conservative Republicans say they enjoy the news a lot today. The interesting question is whether they will continue to do so if and when Republicans win majorities and share responsibility for governing again.

42 days to go ………………

Please Sir, Can I Have Some More ..........

I’m really not a pessimist by nature although I readily confess it’s not been easy to grin and bear it during the last couple of years as the Obama regime waged war on this country. But now it seems there is light at the end of a very long and very dark tunnel. And for once, at least, it’s not a train coming in the other direction.

One of my favorite authors has always been Charles Dickens even though he wrote about some very dark times and some even darker topics. One of the few books which he wrote that didn’t comment on social issues in England was set in the bloody days of the French Revolution and the book’s opening words are well known.

“It was the best of times. It was the worst of times”.

The book, of course, was a “A Tale of Two Cities” and this is simply a sneaky way to talk about just that but not London and Paris but rather Los Angeles and Washington D.C.

The Obama regime and their co-conspirators in states and counties and cities around this land have tried their very best to fudge the numbers about the efficacy of their much vaunted stimulus package or should I say packages because, I don’t know about you, but I’ve lost track of just how many we’ve had. And, I’ve also lost track of just how many jobs were supposed to have been created by now,

I do remember Joe Biden back last Spring promising that 500,000 new jobs would be forthcoming each and every month during the “Summer of Recovery” promised by his boss. It seems to me that the only evidence that anything has been created is whoever it is that makes the signs trumpeting the “American Recovery Act” and I’d dearly like to know just how many of those have been planted along the highways and byways of America and how much they cost.

At long last, though, we’re starting to see some hard data but here again the waters are muddied by the confusion over “created” as opposed to “retained”.

The city of Los Angeles somehow was forced or shamed into conducting an audit of one of the stimulus packages and I could drag this thing out but I’ll cut to the chase and tell you that one such effort cost $111 Million and a Miss Grewell grudgingly claimed that it had produced the princely total of 55 jobs. In keeping with my Charles Dickens thing perhaps the good lady’s name should be spelled “Gruel”. But again, she could not or would not define whether these jobs had been created or retained but let’s give her the benefit of the doubt and say they were all created. Well that comes out to more than $2 Million per job.

I don’t know about you but give me half that number and I’ll never darken your door again. Now remember that the unemployment rate in Los Angeles is over 12% and this example is not isolated. Elsewhere in the LA area a “stimulus investment of $70 Million and produced just 14 jobs.

And could it be just coincidental that on the other side of the continent it was revealed that Washington DC had received no less than $3.7 Billion which, again coincidentally, is 3 times the national average but the city reports not one job “created or saved”?

So I’ll leave it up to you to decide if these times are the best or the worst.

Well, what do you think?

Ole!

It is 48 days to the midterms and, while a few months ago, I could see November from my house, now I can smell it. And the heady mixture is of fear and blood in the sand; a bit like a Hemingway bullfight except the fear is the sweat pouring from Democrats everywhere and their political life blood which will surely follow.

And here is a little look at why:

1) Remember the stimulus bill? Republicans strongly opposed it and said it wouldn't work. Democrats said it would revive the economy and keep unemployment under 8 percent. So, what happened? Democrats shoved through a bill that cost $1.1 trillion when you add in the interest. It cost more than the Marshall Plan, the Louisiana Purchase, and putting a man on the moon -- combined. The result? The economy didn't take off, the unemployment rate is still at 9.6%, and Democrats are calling for.......you guessed it, another stimulus bill.

More people have gone broke in a casino by doubling down than by any other tactic.

2) Perhaps the biggest problem with the economy right now is that businesses are so afraid of what the government will do that they're stockpiling cash instead of spending it. Having a pro-market, Republican Congress that will oppose tax hikes, red tape, and damaging new legislation will reduce uncertainty and help give businesses the confidence they need to start hiring and expanding again.

3) While he was campaigning, Obama promised to cut the deficit in half, but in his first 100 days alone, he quadrupled the deficit. As if that wasn't bad enough, his budget blueprint adds more debt than all previous presidents -- from George Washington to George W. Bush -- combined. No civilization in human history has spent like America has over the last two years of Democratic rule and unless we can get more Republicans in office, this country's economic future is going to be deader than King Tut and uglier than a 7 day old chunk of road kill.

4) The Democrats seem hell-bent on taking over as much of the private sector as possible. In a relatively short period of time, this regime has taken over much of the banking industry, auto industry, health care industry, and student loans. There are currently no viable plans to get out of any of these industries either. This sort of Sovietization of the American economy can only end badly. After all, look what similar policies did to the Soviet Union.

5) In the middle of a recession, the Democrats in Congress still seem to be on track to enact the largest tax increase in American history by allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire. Here we are with a struggling economy and businesses that are afraid to move because they can't be sure of what the Democrats will do, and Pelosi, Reid, and Obama still haven't addressed this massive tax hike. How incompetent. How short-sighted. How foolish.

6) “Now, people when I say that, look at me and say, 'What are you talking about, Joe? You're telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?' The answer is yes, that's what I'm telling you." -- Joe Biden.

My ex-wife would thoroughly endorse this curious economic strategy.

7) Our economy is no longer suffering from the recession. At this point, the economy is suffering from the policies the Democrats put in place that were supposed to create a "recovery."

8) I don't mind a President taking a vacation now and then or playing a little golf, but Obama has taken it to a ridiculous extreme. The man has already played more golf in less than 2 years than George W. Bush did in his entire presidency.

Is he planning to try out for the PGA after he gets out of office? And what's with the never ending vacationing? It's like the presidency is a distraction from taking time off for this guy. Wait, is that the phone ringing? Oh, it's Marie Antoinette. She is just calling to say that Obama needs to show more sensitivity to the people during tough economic times.

9) "I wouldn’t dignify you by peeing on your leg. It wouldn’t be worth wasting the urine." -- Democratic Congressman Pete Stark to a constituent at a Townhall meeting.

10) "But I don't want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess. I don't mind cleaning up after them, but don't do a lot of talking." -- Barack Obama explains his views on bipartisanship.

11) "The Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home... What I think we know — separate and apart from this incident — is that there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately, and that’s just a fact. — Obama explains that racism was behind the arrest of his friend, Louis Gates."

12) "Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards." -- Attorney General Eric Holder

13) Iran, a nation that's known for supporting terrorism and chanting "Death to America," is about to get nukes and Obama's reaction has been...well, pretty much nothing.

14) On the other hand Israel, a nation that's known for being a bastion of freedom in an oppressive region and for supporting America, is just trying to survive and Obama's reaction has been cold and hostile. Maybe if Benjamin Netanyahu started leading "Death to America" chants in the Knesset, Obama might become a little friendlier.

15) The President of the United States should not bow to foreign leaders.

16) Nancy Pelosi once promised to run the most "ethical and honest Congress in history." She wasn't alone. Yet, how have the Democrats been doing on that front? Perhaps we could ask Eric Massa, Charlie Rangel, Maxine Waters, Roland Burris, Jesse Jackson, Jr., Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Alan Mollohan, Laura Richardson, Pete Visclosky, and William Jefferson among others. Sorry that all the charges aren't laid out, but covering all the Democratic corruption that has occurred would be a double sized post in and of itself.

17) In one of the most corrupt deals in American history, Obama broke existing contracts and tossed away billions in taxpayer dollars to give his union pals an outsized ownership stake in Chrysler and General Motors. Now, every time you buy a car from one of these, you're essentially contributing to the Democratic Party. Calling that sleazy is like calling the ocean "wet".

18) "The American public...just like your teenage kids, aren’t acting in a way that they should act. The American public has to really understand in their core how important this issue is." -- Energy Secretary Steven Chu on the public's lack of concern over greenhouse gasses.

19) "How about just tracking down every single person who said drill baby drill and putting them all in prison. Why don’t we do that? Starting with Michael Steele." -- Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson

20) "There is no question there is a concerted effort to make this a political issue by some. And I join those who have called for looking into how is this opposition to the (Ground Zero) mosque being funded. How is this being ginned up that here we are talking about Treasure Island, something we've been working on for decades, something of great interest to our community as we go forward to an election about the future of our country and two of the first three questions are about a zoning issue in New York City -- Nancy Pelosi

21) "When I became the NASA administrator -- or before I became the NASA administrator -- (Obama) charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering." -- NASA Administrator Charles Bolden explaining that Democrats no longer view space as one of NASA's top priorities.

22) The Democrats in the House actually managed to pass a cap and trade bill that's supported by Barack Obama. This bill would impose massive new energy costs on American consumers. Estimates range from $1600 to $4000 in new costs per family. Although the Senate hasn't passed this legislation yet, in an almost unbelievable show of arrogance, they're considering trying to push it through during the lame duck session. If they try that, the American people should rise up as one and proclaim that it will be a "cooked duck session" for anybody who tries to shove significant legislation through before the next Congress arrives.

23) How about Obama's big, oily Katrina? Know what the difference was between the oil spill in the Gulf and the other programs Obama has pushed? With most of the other programs, it'll take years for people to see how bad they are. With the oil spill, the country could see the complete and utter incompetence of the Obama regime in real time.

24) It's bad enough that the federal government ignored the law, isn't trying to finish the fence, and refuses to secure our southern border. But now, not only are they still talking up amnesty, they're actually harassing and suing Arizona because that state has decided to do the job that the federal government is refusing to do. If only the trial lawyers, unions, or ACORN were demanding that the border be secured, we might get some action.

25) You'd have to go all the way back to the days when the British were bossing around American colonists at the point of a bayonet to find the sort of government arrogance that led to Obamacare being shoved through in Congress. No matter how loudly the American people said they didn't want the bill, Democrats insisted that they knew best. So now, the quality of American health care will be destroyed, private health insurance will end, rationing will occur, death panels will be instituted, the deficit will soar, and taxpayer dollars will be used to fund abortion -- but on the upside, Democrats think over the long-term, it will be good for their political prospects. However, there is an alternative. The GOP House Leadership has pledged to defund and repeal Obamacare. If we can get them into power, we can start putting on the brakes and start working on healthcare reform that will actually improve that which we have now instead of destroying it utterly and replacing it with an inferior system.

As I said, 48 days and counting ……………………..

Let Slip the Dogs of War ..........

The last go around there was interminable blather about the so-called “Youth Vote” but now it’s beginning to look like maybe the “youth vote” is wising up. But why?

As of February, 2010, ABC News reported that the recent college graduate unemployment rate was running just under 19% - about 2x what the overall rate was at the time. According to the National Association of Colleges & Employers, average salaries of recent grads dropped about 1.3%. 37% of 18-29 year-olds have been unemployed during this recession. And more than 2/3 of college students are graduating with student loans. With all that going on, the last thing that students seem to be concerned about is voting.

Last week the New York Times published an interesting front-page piece: “Fewer Young Voters See Themselves as Democrats” (which was brought to my attention by none other than a 20-year old college student): The college vote is up for grabs this year — to an extent that would have seemed unlikely two years ago, when a generation of young people seemed to swoon over Obama.

Though many students are liberals on social issues, the economic reality of a weak job market has taken a toll on their loyalties: far fewer 18 to 29 year-olds now identify themselves as Democrats compared with 2008.

“Is the recession, which is hitting young people very hard, doing lasting or permanent damage to what looked like a good Democratic advantage with this age group?” asked Scott Keeter, the director of survey research at the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan group. “The jury is still out.”

How and whether millions of college students vote will help determine if Republicans win enough seats to retake the House or Senate, overturning the balance of power on Capitol Hill, and with it, Mr. Obama’s agenda. If students tune out and stay home it will also carry a profound message for American society about a generation that seemed so ready, so recently, to grab national politics by the lapels and shake.

That “whether” word is important for the Democrats. Just last week, Gallup published polling results showing that the enthusiasm levels of black and youth voters has tanked since the 2008 election. Thought given to the election by 18 to 29 year-olds is at the lowest level since 2002.

And even the Democrats are crying DOOM!

Philip Stricker, 21, a biology major who voted for Mr. Obama but says he has not been paying much attention to politics lately, uses a non-technical term to describe the phenomenon.

“There’s a vibe,” he said on a recent afternoon, while pumping weights at the gym. “Right now it seems like Republicans just care a lot more than Democrats.”

A spokeswoman for the university’s chapter of College Democrats, Mandi Asay, 22, said her group battled apathy on one hand and anger on the other. “People are angry — about the budget deficit, health care plan, angry about this and that,” she said. “I feel like Republicans definitely, definitely have a chance of getting back on their feet.”

They should be angry, with an unemployment rate that’s 2x that of the rest of the country. Although the youth vote still skews heavily Democrat (by a 12-point margin as of last April), that makes little difference if they are too indifferent to show up.

The Economist, not exactly a conservative bastion, notes this indifference and disillusionment: WHY, asks a Democrat leading a training session for fellow activists, doesn’t “Yes we can” work as a slogan any more? “Because we haven’t,” a jaded participant responds.

Progressives, as bedrock Democrats like to call themselves, are despondent. The election euphoria of 2008, when their party secured heavy majorities in both chambers of Congress and Obama won the presidency with ease, has deflated so rapidly that analysts are now diagnosing on the left an affliction they ascribed to the Republicans back then: an “enthusiasm gap”.

The present gap is really more of a chasm. Gallup, a pollster, reckons that a mere 28% of Democrats are “very enthusiastic” about voting, compared to 44% of Republicans. By the same token the Pew Research Centre found in June that only 37% of liberal Democrats were “more enthusiastic than usual” about going to the polls, compared with 59% of conservative Republicans. And according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll the same month, the categories of voters whose interest in elections has dimmed the most since the last one are liberals and those who voted for Obama (see chart). “You can’t deny the level of disappointment,” says Raul Grijalva, a Democratic representative from Arizona and head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

The overwhelming sentiments are the gloom and disillusionment of many recent college grads. The youth vote may still lean towards the Democrats, but the longer they are out of college and living in Mom’s basement, the deeper the disgust with Obama policies will become, and conservative Republicans will be successful in defeating Obama lapdogs.

Here I go with that dog thing again ……………….

Remember the Alamo, Pearl Harbor and everything else that has honed this Nation.

If you have a flag, tomorrow would be a good day to fly it.

Nine years ago this week, we began to chant: "We never will forget 9/11."

Not that 9 has some kind of kabalistic or astrological significance but it does come at a time when certain people want to rub salt into, as yet, unhealed wounds.

But nine years later, I think too many of us have forgotten, especially those in the White House.

Islamic extremists murdered almost 3,000 innocent Americans on 9/11. Who would have believed that within a decade of that tragic event, we'd have a president who believes, according to his own 2009 Cairo confession and creed, that it is part of his "responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear"?

Not to mention his mission to fight for the new mosque near ground zero!

Several months ago it was clear that Obama was using his special envoys to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, to "deepen and expand the partnerships that the United States has pursued with Muslims around the world since his speech in Cairo."

Then we learned that about Obama's real spiritual beliefs based upon a rare in-depth interview by a religious reporter for a major newspaper publication, including his beliefs about prayer, sin, heaven, the Bible and Jesus.

Add to that the explanation that Obama categorically has been prejudicial in his treatment against Christians and Christianity in comparison with Muslims and Islam.

For once, so far the Jews have been left out of this excoriation perhaps because we are few or perhaps because 80% of the tribe voted for him for reasons I don't pretend to understand. Even the Rabbi who officiated at the eve of Rosh Hashanah services I attended declared himself to be a conservative and he didn't mean theologically. Of course, this was Scottsdale so that may have had something to do with it.

There is no need to expand further on any of this but it is clear that the Obama administration has changed course in just this past year regarding passing anti-First Amendment defamation of religion resolutions, exclusively benefiting Islam and its proliferation while again abandoning the principles in the U.S. Constitution.

In October 2009, the White House rightly opposed the Organization of the Islamic Conference's (an intergovernmental body of 56 Muslim countries) push for the United Nations Human Rights Council to adopt a resolution that would broadly condemn the defamation of religion (or the defamation of Islam), because it would plunder Americans' First Amendment right to freedom of speech.

Hypocritically, however, as The Heritage Foundation reported, at the same time that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was publicly repudiating that U.N. Human Rights Council resolution, on Oct. 2, 2009, the Obama administration's "delegation to the 12th session of the council and OIC-member Egypt co-sponsored a resolution on freedom of opinion and expression that contains the essential elements of the resolutions on 'defamation of religions' that the U.S. opposed in the past."

And just a few months ago, on June 23, that anti-First Amendment stand was reiterated. Our envoy, one Mr. Hussain, clearly explained the new leg of Obama's Muslim mission at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars -- information, by the way, that no mainstream news agency I could find even reported. Hussain said, "The OIC and the Obama administration will work together in the U.N. on the issue of defamation of religion, especially in Europe." (Please read that again.)

Could it get any clearer? "Especially in Europe," but not excluding America or wherever else Americans reside in the world!

And why should we not believe that Obama will overstep the Constitution again by handing over the administration of defamation of religion laws to global and international powers, when he recently reported Arizona immigration laws to the U.N. as an example of a human rights violation?

The fact is Obama's Cairo pro-Muslim mission continues, and proof came again just last week. On the same day the president announced to the nation from the Oval Office that the combat mission in Iraq had ended, the Obama administration, unbeknownst to most of the country and the world, held a special workshop for 25-30 Muslim leaders from 20 national Islamic groups (under the leadership of the Coordinating Council of Muslim Organizations) to provide the groups "funding, government assistance and resources."

At a time commemorating 9/11, when recent polls show that 70 percent of Americans are opposed to a ground zero mosque and 1 in 5 Americans believes President Obama is a Muslim, does he really expect that we will naively tolerate and approve of the Islamic bias in his presidential religious leadership and administration?

It's time to heed the wisdom of our fourth president, James Madison, who said, "In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself."

God Bless America!

It's a Dogs Life .....

The dog days of summer are winding down and so I present the serious and the not so serious.

Now don’t get me wrong, I find it hard, nay almost impossible, to write about Obama with my teeth unclenched. I should really try to find that device that was supposed to minimize my nocturnal teeth grinding. It’s in the bathroom somewhere. I think.

Obama went to Milwaukee, WI on Monday to speak to one of the few friendly audiences he has left in America — Big Labor.

Our Victim-in-Chief, with no sense of history, declared that people talk about him like a dog. First, it is worth pointing out he named his dog after himself — Bo. Either the dog stinks or got Mr. Obama’s initials.

And, our Victim-in-Chief should consider himself lucky considering the smears against many of his predecessors, including the most recent who was routinely compared by the left to Hitler

By the way, I think it is starting to dawn on the American public that the reason they don’t like him is not just that he’s a socialist. He’s a thin-skinned wimp. Americans like winners, not wimps.

The Victim’s speech is not worth remembering for anything other than its hypocrisy wrapped up in a sales pitch for socialism. Suddenly Obama is for tax cuts and Republicans are against them. Suddenly Obama is against spending. Suddenly Obama is against bailouts. Obama is for saying “yes” to everything and the Republicans are for saying “no” to everything.

The problem for Obama is that the American public believes him — he is for “yes” to everything, but that includes spending, bailouts, and ever greater socialism in our lives.

Consequently, while Mr. Obama may say “yes we can,” it is the voters, not Republicans, replying, “No. You can’t.”

But let’s get back to dogs.

First we had Obama declaring on TV that Black people were “mongrels”. Imagine the 2 Revs, Jackson and Sharpton, if I’d said that. And yes, I’m White according to the Census people.

Then, as I noted above, he referred to a Hendrix lyric and said that, “he was talked about just like a dog.

And that’s what started me thinking that if Obama were a dog, what breed would he be?

Well, here’s my list and I’m sure you could come up with a better list for yourself but here is mine in alphabetical order.

Airhead Terrier

Barbara Boxer

Chicago Bull Terrier

Cocky Spaniel

Labrador Deceiver

Mastiff Ego

Mastiff Tax Increases

Mixed Blood Hound

Open Border Collie

Teleprompter Terrier

Welsh Porgy


But before I choose I want to see the pedigree including the papers.

Less than 60 days ............

First the old news, then newer stuff and then some inevitable conclusions about both.

By now you know that we've been told day-after-day that 32% of Republicans, according to the Pew Research Center, believe that Obama is a Muslim. And more Republicans, 74%, than Democrats, 39 percent, oppose the construction of a mosque near Ground Zero. Thus, goes the argument, opposition to the proposed mosque stems from similar "right-wing" ignorance and Islamophobia.

Why do so many people think Obama is a Muslim? Are they lunatics?

Perhaps people base their assumption about Obama's religion on what they believe Islam says about the matter. In a New York Times op-ed, Edward Luttwak, with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote that Obama "chose to become a Christian." But, Luttwak wrote: "As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his mother's Christian background is irrelevant."

In exactly the same way that the child of a Jewish mother can renounce, claim otherwise, pretend or lie but he or she, according to the “Tribe”, is Jewish ‘til death do us part.

Maybe some follow the lead of Hillary Clinton. When asked on "60 Minutes" whether she believes Obama is a Muslim, then-presidential candidate Clinton said, "Of course not. ... There is no basis for that." She said she goes on "the basis of what he says." But she added, "There is nothing to base that on as far as I know". She wasn't called anti-Muslim.

Perhaps people believe Obama -- who no longer belongs to a church -- is a Muslim because of his 20-year association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Wright's church publication honored the anti-Semitic Nation of Islam's Louis Farrakhan as a man who "truly epitomized greatness."

Or maybe the more people oppose Obama's policies the less they think of him as a person. Discontent breeds negative feelings. After the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, a majority of Americans believed that Germany was behind it. A large plurality of Americans, despite the lack of evidence, believed President Nixon personally planned the Watergate break-in that brought down his presidency.

Liberals should be sympathetic. They are quite adept at willfully refusing to face facts, if necessary, to support wrongheaded views.

Here are some examples:

"The rich don't pay taxes." False. For the 2007 tax year (the latest income tax data year released by the IRS), the top 1% of income earners, those making over $410,000 a year, paid 40% of all federal income taxes. The top 5%, those making about $160,000 a year or more, paid 60 percent of all federal income taxes. Yet according to a 2008 IBD/TIPP poll, only 12%t of Americans knew what the rich, in fact, paid in taxes. And liberals are likelier to get it wrong.

"The rich exclusively benefited from the Bush tax cuts." MSNBC's insufferable lefty Ed Schultz said: "98% of you, it (the Bush tax cuts) doesn't even affect you." False. In a recent New York Times editorial, the liberal paper said extending the cuts to the non-rich -- a policy it favors -- would "cost" about $140 billion next year. Extending the cuts to the rich -- a policy it opposes -- would "cost" about $40 billion next year. If the tax cuts only benefit the rich, why would the Treasury "lose" more money from the non-rich than it would "lose" from the rich?

"The Bush tax cuts caused the deficit." CNN's liberal host Fareed Zakaria said, "The Bush tax cuts are the single largest part of the black hole that is the federal budget deficit." False. In 2002, tax revenues were $1.85 trillion. In 2007, revenues had grown to $2.57 trillion -- a 39 percent increase. Unfortunately, outlays increased almost as much. In 2002, outlays were $2.01 trillion. In 2007 -- the last year before the recession and before TARP, the various "stimulus" programs, bailouts and ObamaCare -- outlays were $2.73 trillion, a 36 percent increase.

"Bush had prior knowledge of 9/11." 35% of Democrats, according to a 2007 Rasmussen poll, believe President Bush had prior knowledge of 9/11, and 26% are "not sure." False. This was investigated years earlier and refuted by the 2004 bipartisan 9/11 Commission Report.

"George W. Bush 'stole' the 2000 election." False. In November 2001, The New York Times wrote: "A comprehensive review of the uncounted Florida ballots from last year's presidential election reveals that George W. Bush would have won even if the United States Supreme Court had allowed the statewide manual recount of the votes that the Florida Supreme Court had ordered to go forward. Contrary to what many partisans of former Vice President Al Gore have charged, the United States Supreme Court did not award an election to Mr. Bush that otherwise would have been won by Mr. Gore."

Mosque opponents can and do distinguish between a right to do something and the appropriateness of doing it. Polls show 60% of Americans oppose the mosque near the World Trade Center -- the same percentage that believe the Muslim group has the right to build it.

Or put it another way. Let’s say your 16-year old daughter just earned her driver’s license. She’s now legal to drive from New York to Malibu for Spring Break with a car full of her friends and she has the right to exercise that legality. Is it smart though and would you let her do it?

So, where are we?

For the 2 years before the election, Obama crisscrossed this country or, as he has put it, all 57 states and, while doing so, he begged for the job he now holds every inch of the way but still he blames President Bush for every failure of his (Obama’s) administration.

The State of Ohio has played a pivotal role in this country. Many, many presidents have hailed from there. Ohio is almost always on the winning side of a presidential election.

And so a poll in that state last weekend should have sounded a fire bell in the night because it revealed that in a head-to-head contest today, President George W. Bush would triumph over Obama by 10 full points. Yes, that George W. Bush. The Warmonger. The Frat Boy. The Clown. The Drunk. The Idiot!

Add that to the Zogby finding that the generic Republican would top the generic Democrat by 12 points and that the approval of Congress is a mere 11% and you begin to understand the strident Left. You will also understand why Democrats running for reelection want nothing to do with Obama including Harry Reid.

If 2 weeks is a long time in politics as we've been told, then 2 years is surely an eternity. Isn't it Harry?

The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank

There is so much political spin, and so many numbers games being played, when it comes to medical care, that we have to go back to square one and the simplest common sense, in order to get some rational idea of what government-run medical care means. In particular, we need to examine the claim that the government can "bring down the cost of medical care."

The most basic fact is that it is cheaper to remain sick than to get medical treatment. What is cheapest of all is to die instead of getting life-saving medications and treatment, which can be very expensive.

Despite these facts, most of us tend to take a somewhat more parochial view of the situation when it is we ourselves who are sick or who face a potentially fatal illness. But what if that decision is taken out of your hands under ObamaCare and is being made for you by a bureaucrat in Washington?

We won't know what that leads to until the time comes. As Nancy Pelosi said, we will find out what is in the bill after it has passed. But even now, after ObamaCare has been passed, not many people want to read its 2,400 pages. Even if you did, you would still not know what it would be like in practice, after more than 150 boards and commissions issue their specific regulations.

Fortunately-- in fact, very fortunately-- you don't have to slog through 2,400 pages of legalistic jargon or turn to a fortune teller to divine the future. A new book, "The Truth About ObamaCare" by Sally Pipes of the Pacific Research Institute lays out the facts in the plainest English.

While she can't tell you the future, she can tell you enough about government-run medical systems in other countries that it will not take a rocket scientist to figure out what is in store for us if ObamaCare doesn't get repealed before it takes full effect in 2014. It is not a pretty picture.

We hear a lot about how wonderful it is that the Canadians or the British or the Swedes get free medical treatment because the government runs the system. Well for a start it’s not free. In the UK, between the employer and the employee you’re looking at 34% of gross pay and that’s for so-called National Insurance. Income tax is on top of that. But, all that aside, we don't hear much about the quality of that medical care.

We don't hear about more than 4,000 expectant mothers who gave birth inside a hospital, but not in the maternity ward, in Britain in just one year. They had their babies in hallways, bathrooms and even elevators.

British newspapers have for years carried stories about the neglect of patients under the National Health Service, of which this is just one. When nurses don't get around to taking a pregnant woman to the maternity ward in time, the baby doesn't wait.

But the American media don't tell you about such things when they are gushing over the wonders of "universal health care" that will "bring down the cost of medical care."

Instead, the media spin is that various countries with government-run medical systems have life expectancies that are as long as ours, or longer. That is very clever as media spin, if you don't bother to stop and think about it.

Author Sally Pipes did bother to stop and think about it in her book, "The Truth About ObamaCare." She points out that medical care is just one of the factors in life expectancy.

She cites a study by Professors Ohsfeldt and Schneider at the University of Iowa, which shows that, if you leave out people who are victims of criminal acts or who die in automobile accidents, Americans live longer than people in any other Western country.

Doctors do not prevent homicides or car crashes. In the things that doctors can affect, such as the survival rates of cancer patients, the United States leads the world.

Americans get the latest pharmaceutical drugs, sometimes years before those drugs are available to people in Britain or in other countries where the government runs the medical system. And, in fact, those people may never get them at all, ever. Why? Because the latest drugs cost more and it is cheaper to let people die.

The media have often said that we have higher infant mortality rates than other countries with government medical care systems. But we count every baby that dies and other countries do not. If the media don't tell you that, so much the better for ObamaCare.

But is life and death something to play spin games about?