Remember this chart?  It was from the 2008 Presidential campaign.  I can’t tell you how many Obama supporters calmly and patiently explained to me that I would be silly to vote for McCain over Obama because I would get a bigger tax cut under Obama.  And I calmly and patiently explained to them that by taxing top earners so significantly, they’d have to cut jobs at their companies.  I also pointed out that in order to fund all of Obama’s socialist pie-in-the-sky ideas, the money would have to come from somewhere, and that I was 100% certain that we’d see that $250k bar drop.

Within a couple of weeks of the inauguration, Obama raised taxes on the poorest people in our country, those who have the highest majority of smokers in their demographic. The cost increase on a pack of nicotine sticks was the highest in US history.

But lots of people don’t see that as a *real* tax, because smokers can choose to quit and probably should for their health.

But even those tobacco-taxes-aren’t-real-taxes people should be worried now.  In an interview out today, President Obama said:

The whole point of it is to make sure that all ideas are on the table… So what I want to do is to be completely agnostic, in terms of solutions.

What I can’t do is to set the thing up where a whole bunch of things are off the table…Some would say we can’t look at entitlements. There are going to be some that say we can’t look at taxes, and pretty soon, you just can’t solve the problem.

The real problem has to do with the fact that there is a just a mismatch between the amount of money coming in and the amount of money going out. And that is going to require some big, tough choices that, so far, the political system has been unable to deal with.

I have a suggestion Mr. President.  How about we spend less money?  Why does Nancy Pelosi need $1000 per week for booze and delicacies on her private cross-country jet rides?  That’s $1000 per week for food and booze, mind you, not the cost of the travel itself. And I’m sure the turtles didn’t really need a $3,400,000 tunnel to cross the road.  What about the $800,000 for repaving a back-up runway at an unused airport?

President Obama, please don’t raise my taxes to fund those ridiculous projects.  I don’t know how much more of your “help” I can afford.

Organizing for America, which can be found at www.BarackObama.com, is “the successor organization to Obama for America, is building on the movement that elected President Obama by empowering communities across the country to bring about our agenda of change.”

On the surface, it looks good.  What’s wrong with encouraging people, especially young people, to become more involved with the political process, to donate their time and talent to serve the community?  Nothing, of course.  Unless it’s just a tool to spread progressive propaganda like “the government knows better than you do” and “rich people are stealing from you.”  On a side note, I’ll never understand why people get upset about CEOs making millions but not Kobe Bryant.

Those crazy kooks over at OFA are busy recruiting high school students in government schools to become part of the team that will transform America.  To help spread the word that health care is a right, not a service, that fetus’s aren’t babies, and that bankrupting energy companies is a good idea.  You know, to really be a part of sumpin’ special.

Remember, this is a partisan organization to promote liberal/socialist ideals, and they’re recruiting teenagers in their high school government classes.  Not at lunch in the quad, not after school in the office, but right in the classroom.  If that isn’t unsettling enough for you, wait until you check out the recommended reading list. On it is Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, a book dedicated to Satan and containing such gems as:

“The third rule of ethics of means and ends is that in war the end justifies almost any means….”

and:

And so the guided questioning goes on without anyone losing face or being left out of the decision-making. Every weakness of every proposed tactic is probed by questions…. Is this manipulation? Certainly….”

and:

“An organizer working in and for an open society is in an ideological dilemma to begin with, he does not have a fixed truth-truth to him is relative and changing; everything to him is relative and changing…. To the extent that he is free from the shackles of dogma, he can respond to the realities of the widely different situations….”

and:

“A Marxist begins with his prime truth that all evils are caused by the exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalists. From this he logically proceeds to the revolution to end capitalism, then into the third stage of reorganization into a new social order of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and finally the last stage — the political paradise of communism.”

Unbelievable.

Today the Supreme Court knocked out significant campaign finance laws, all of which had been unconstitutionally enacted in the name of “fairness.”  The 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (McCain-Feingold) attempted to restrict electioneering by wealthy corporations and labor unions by barring them from using general treasury funds to pay for advertisements or other broadcasts that mention a political candidate.  Just a little bit of unconstitutional censorship, that’s all.

In a 5-4 vote, the Court lifted those restrictions.  Which means that companies will be able to run ads for candidates they like.  You know what kinds of candidates companies like?  The ones that make it easier for them to actually run their businesses, instead of trying to bankrupt them with mandated health care requirements and cap and trade.  If they can successful run a company, they can expand operations… and create jobs!  Remember, it’s better to have a job and no health care than no job and no health care.

From the White House, President Obama called the ruling a “major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.”

This from Mr. Closed Door himself. Obama doesn’t care about everyday Americans.  We’re all just serfs to him, here only to fund his playground of policies and bailouts.  Well we’re done Mr. President.  We’re picking up our toys, packing up our trucks, and going home to the Constitution. Don’t let the sand hit you in the teeth.

The Mayo Clinic, praised by President Barack Obama as a national model for efficient health care, will stop accepting Medicare patients as of tomorrow at one of its primary-care clinics in Arizona, saying the U.S. government pays too little.

Mayo’s hospital and four clinics in Arizona, including the Glendale facility, lost $120 million on Medicare patients last year, Yardley said. The program’s payments cover about 50 percent of the cost of treating elderly primary-care patients at the Glendale clinic, he said.

Those greedy, selfish doctors.  They only want to help themselves and those horrible insurance companies.  Except, you know, health insurance companies only made about 2.2% profit in 2008. And those doctors are just trying to succeed in their chosen careers, running businesses (offices and hospitals, or in this case the Mayo Clinic), raising families, and paying off an average of $140,000 in medical school debt.

Let’s do some basic reasoning, shall we?  It costs money to treat patients.  The medical equipment, the drugs, the cost the building, salaries for receptionists, accountants, and other administrative staff… well, the list could go on, but I don’t have all day here.  Since it costs money to treat people, medical professionals charge their patients for their services.  Just like one pays for their home, clothing, groceries, transportation, and other necessities and/or frivolities.  That’s just the way life works.  If you want something, including medical care, you pay for it or find someone willing to give it to you.

Insert the government.  The government has stepped into an arena where it has no business being, and demands that doctors not charge certain patients more than a given amount, regardless of the patient’s history or circumstances, and regardless of how much it actually costs to treat that patient.  As stated above, the Mayo Clinic was only able to charge the government for about half of the cost spent treating Medicare patients.  Well, the Mayo Clinic has bills to pay, so they have to get that money from somewhere.  Guess where?  The privately patients paying out of pocket or through their own private health insurance. Which is one of many reasons health insurance is so expensive.

The Mayo Clinic has given up trying to recoup any of the money lost to a government run health plan.  They need to pay their bills.  They need to make a profit so they can hire more doctors and researchers and scientists to discover and develop new ways to fight disease and illness.  They can’t keep bleeding money to the government, and it’s not fair to their other patients, who have to involuntarily pick up the extra expenses.

How long before other facilities close their doors to government health care plans?  How long before the government will force them to remain open?  How long before the doctors quit?  How long before the government forces them to remain doctors?  I know it sounds extreme, but let’s follow the line along the path.  The government will make it so unpleasant and unprofitable to practice medicine that no one will want to do it.  Then to “fix” the problem that it created, the government might begin assigning careers to people…like they do in Communist China.

That’s a worst case scenario, of course.  But why even take one step down that path?  Let’s turn around and run the other way.  Let’s privatize health care again.  It’s the only system proven to truly work.

The Secret Service is investigating a poll posted on Facebook recently.  The poll asked: “Should Obama be killed?” The possible answers were “no,” “maybe,” yes,” and “yes if he cuts my health care.”

Bob Beckel, one of my favorite love-to-hate liberals, came out swinging against the person responsible for the poll, demanding that he or she be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

“This is the kind of garbage that’s generated from the extreme right against Obama, and it’s going way over the line…It’s got to be stopped. Find him, prosecute him and put him in jail…If they don’t like what Obama is doing, then maybe they ought to go out and vote for someone else.  But relying on this kind of attack is un-American and unacceptable.”

Those of us on the right apparently just can’t help ourselves sometimes.  We’re so full of angry hate and hateful anger that we do things like throw bricks and sticks at cops while we’re protesting.  Wait, those were liberal, anti-capitalist protesters?

Well, it’s those Fox News Channel worshipers that bring posters to rallies depicting President Obama as Hitler.  Or was it the fringe group La Rouche, which advocates a single-payer health care system (not exactly a right-wing position)? At least we never saw Bush-as-Hitler propaganda from liberals during the eight years he served as our President.  Nope.  Never.  Not once. Ok, maybe once or twice…

Who killed Dr. Tiller, the man who preformed partial birth abortions on babies that would have most likely survived outside of the womb?  That one HAS to be a right winger.  Definitely a crazy, anti-choice, right-wing extremist.  Or maybe accused gunman Scott Roeder was a nut job that refused to pay taxes, believed himself to be above the law, and was clearly not associated with either liberals or conservatives?

Was it former Republican President George W. Bush that called everyone who disagreed with his politics racists and accused them of being part of a conspiracy?  Or was it former Democratic Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton?  These things are so hard to keep track of, you know.

If the Secret Service ever finds the person that posted the “Obama death poll” on Facebook, I would like to politely ask Mr. Beckel to apologize for associating him or her with the right-wing.  Because I can speculate with some confidence that that person is NOT a right-winger.  After he apologizes, maybe Mr. Beckel can point out some instances of the “garbage that’s generated from the extreme right against Obama,” because I sure can’t find it.  All I can find are concerned citizens that are finally speaking up for themselves and the welfare of our country.  They had the audacity to ask Congress to reign in the spending of money that we don’t have.  Some of those crazy right-wingers actually asked their congressmen to read the bills on their desk before they signed them!  The horror!

Questioning our representatives is not garbage.  Holding our elected officials accountable is not garbage.  Attending peaceful protests, town hall meetings, or city council meetings is not garbage.  Don’t let anyone tell you that it is.

Michale Moore is at it again.  Blaming rich, white, capitalist pig-men for all of America’s problems.  Which would be the equivalent of me blaming church-going, child-rearing, blond moms for all of America’s problems.

In his latest cinematic attack on the founding principles of America (Capitalism, A Love Story), Moore discusses the vileness of men and women who love money, and who will stop at nothing to add a few more bucks to their already bloated bank accounts.

And you know, since the film is all about the evils of capitalism, Moore is not charging audiences to view his masterpiece. He has released it online for anyone to download, free of charge.  Anyone that wants to watch it can; even homeless people can walk into a library and watch it-completely free.  Michael Moore would never, ever, cross his heart and hope to die take a single dollar out of the pockets of hard-working-yet-screwed-over-by-wall-street Americans.

No?  He’s not?  It’s being released in theaters?  And then being sold on dvd?  That’s weird… well, I’m sure that he donates every cent of profit above $50,000 (approximately the approximate household income in the U.S.) to the poor, down trodden Americans he claims to speak for. No? I’m sorry, what was the movie about again?  The evils of capitalism, right?  Huh.

That’s weird.