When President Obama came to office he told the nation that a shared sacrifice was key to America’s recovery. He urged Americans toward self-reliance and thrift. In those early days the idea of reviving the “victory garden” concept of WWII became an idea whose time had come… again. So, let’s tell a fairy tale of one upper class Midwestern Mommy, shall wee. With Obama’s example to the nation before her, this mother decided to take the President up on his suggestion and began her own victory garden in her upscale neighborhood.

She was initially excited about her contribution to that shared sacrifice so urgently hailed by the president, even felt duty bound to observe the president’s exhortation. Soon she broke ground with the help of her children. She even brought some local kids over to her house to help so that the spirit of the effort might spread. It was a picture worth seeing and a message earnestly delivered.

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I suppose, strictly speaking, if you are a mother that takes care of a developmentally disabled son, well, I guess you might be considered a “healthcare worker” of a kind. Also, I could easily see the state being such a buttinski that it forces such a mother to get “training” to take care of her own son in order to receive state aid. That seems just the sort of twisted logic that might be employed by the nanny state(s) under which we suffer. It might even behoove a mother of a developmentally disabled child to get some training of some type, too, if she so chose, even if the state didn’t require it.

So, that being said I present to you mother Lisa Brown of Fresno, California who is seen in a new Republican ad threatening a meeting of lawmakers. She is in attendance speaking as a member of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the public employees union that might see some budget cuts befall it due to California’s bankrupt treasury.

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Let’s talk about a government healthcare plan that already exists. It might help us understand what sort of situation we might see when Obamacare is fairly begun. It’s not Medicare or Medicaid but the IHS, the Indian Healthcare Service.

Few have remembered during this debate that the U.S. government already has a sort of single payer styled healthcare program already and it is for America’s Indian population. Unfortunately, it has not served our native peoples well.

For example, recently it has been shown that the IHS has “lost” $20 million in high tech healthcare equipment bought by the federal government to care for Indians.

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First of all, I know it looks impossible to even say, so let’s clear up that last name. It’s pronounced An-gee-ef-ski. I know, I know, that means here in Illinois we could possibly go from a Governor Blagojevich to an Andrzejewski. But the difficult last name should stand as the only similarity between the two men, for Adam seems to have some ideas on how Illinois might get out of its fiscal nightmare. I interviewed him not long ago and he had some very interesting thoughts on how to fix Illinois. (adamforillinois.com/)

In fact, Andrzejewski has already made some headway in shining the sunlight of accountability on various sate and local agencies through his self-funded program — self-funded to stay independent, he said — dubbed “For the Good of Illinois.” Andrzejewski has been at the vanguard of encouraging school boards and county governments in Illinois to put their check registries and finances on the Internet for all citizens to see. In fact, his catch phrase is “every dime online in real time.”

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The reader might be warned that reading this San Francisco Chronicle Father’s Day piece serves as a most perfect emetic. In fact, it’s a wonder that writer Jennifer Weiss could type with all those stars in her eyes. Her Father’s Day adulation of Obama is so over-the-top that Obama suddenly becomes the “father of our country,” and is determined to have “super-dad status.”

The most offensive part of this piece is, of course, the aforementioned assigning to Obama of the role of “father of our country.” There is only one father of our country and that is George Washington, war hero and first president. No other president is the father of our country, nor can they be so even rhetorically. Yet, in its zeal to be an effusive Obamaton, here is the SFChron reassigning the role from the true father of our country to Obama.

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Now wait a minute. Aren’t unions on the side of good and light? I men, they sure pal around with leftists enough to make the claim, right? And the left certainly claims that unions are part-and-parcel to their whole package of policies for what is best for America, for sure. So, one would have to assume that unions are on the side of the fringe enviro movement pushing all these green initiatives, right?

Not so fast. It seems the only real green anything that unions are interested in have pictures of presidents on them; cash!

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Once again President Obama sent out his meaningless rhetoric about how, in his benevolence, we will be “allowed” to “keep our doctors” if we like them. On June 19, the Associated Press promulgated the president’s “promises” as a “health plan guarantee.”

The AP duly reported the baseless claims issued daily from Obama and his advocates that he isn’t interested in a single payer plan and that we will be allowed to keep our current healthcare plan if we are happy with it. Further, Obama and his many mouthpieces claim they aren’t trying to destroy the insurance industry and don’t want it replaced with a socialist, government controlled, bureaucrat operated healthcare plan. But even the AP can’t paper over the singular fact that few with any real knowledge of what Obamacare will end up fostering can believe the president’s empty claims.

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Last Friday the Wall Street Journal once again excoriated the president and his henchmen in that mis-educational system so larded with self-interested union thugs (and other Democrats) by pointing out how these ne’er-do-wells are attempting to kill the D.C. school voucher program that has done so much good for so many minority, inner city kids in the Nation’s capitol.

But the end of the editorial also pointed to the fact that Obama wants to perpetrate the same misdeeds against the educational opportunities of our soldier’s kids. It turns out that because the D.C. voucher program is such a success, military families are asking for a similar program. Democrats and Obama are desperate to head this idea off and kill it before it is fairly born — and Democrats have a lot of experience killing things before they are born, we all know.

As far as parents and kids that have had the benefit of the soon to end voucher program, the whole thing is one they don’t want to lose.

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The Cypress Times of Cypress, Texas has started a little effort to help conservatives show that they are proud to be American and proud to be conservatives. Times Publisher John G. Winder decided it’s time to show the world that “I Am Conservative America” by having conservatives of all stripes from all across the country send in their photo holding a little sign that proclaims their self pride.

I know, I know. if you are a conservative and are reading this posting, I’ll bet your first thought is to roll your eyes. I do know how you feel because I did the same thing. After all, isn’t it the “feels-good idiots” on the left that indulge in these sorts of empty gestures? These are the sorts of fluffy, pointless things that leftist goofballs do, right? We are serious, ya know? I mean, posting our photos on some webpage ain’t a’gonna change anything, we all know.

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These days, government lives to feed itself. It’s the old “nose in the tent” theory. Give ‘em an inch, they’ll take a mile. And government never fails to make itself more important with each new generation of self-important pols. Unfortunately and because of this propensity, should we be so foolish as to allow the federal government to take over our healthcare, you and your doctor will find a bureaucrat telling you what to do with your healthcare. Your health will no longer be a matter of what is good for you but will become a political football with an edge toward giving others more and more power over your very life.

There is no end to the examples of the hardhearted, unthinking and foolish decisions affecting people’s healthcare coming from bureaucrats in those nations that were foolish enough to allow a government takeover of their medical sector. We’ve already talked of a few of them here.

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Mia Farrow’s brother, artist Patrick Farrow, committed suicide Tuesday, June 16. As expected, on the following day the Associated Press released a wire story about the incident. But, the odd thing about the short recount of the Farrows’s lives and the account of the discovery of Patrick’s lifeless body is that that the AP found some reason to slip in an attack on George W. Bush into the story. Worse, the AP used the fact of a U.S. soldier’s death in Iraq as a vehicle to slam the past president. What did BDS have to do with the Farrows, Patrick’s death, and a report on the same?

The customary information about Patrick Farrow’s death was duly reported, of course. We were informed of the laundry list of facts. We got Farow’s relation to actress Mia Farrow; a bit about her life; some on Patrick’s life’s work in sculpture and art; and some of the initial findings surrounding his death also appear. All good and proper reporting, of course. But then, at the very end, we get to the anomaly of the story, a lapsing into Bush Derangement Syndrome that is completely out of place with the rest of the tale.

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It’s a good thing that California’s public employee union is taking it’s rightful place at the head of our government by proposing new taxes for us to pay. Why when we voted to give a union power to control government, I… oh, wait. No one ever voted to put a union in charge of government fiscal policy or give them the role of creating new taxes to burden us all with. How, could I have forgotten that these union thugs are not elected officials?

How could I forget it? Why it’s easy to forget this small fact because our Democratic lawmakers act as a rubber stamp for the unelected, unconstitutionally empowered unions, that’s why.

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Some attention was paid to the fact that the newest social networking website, Twitter, had decided to push off its scheduled maintenance Tuesday morning as the situation in Iran became steadily more embroiled in conflict. As it happened, Twitter was a major source of information coming out of that repressed society as news was happening. Twitter had, though, scheduled a few hours down time just when Iran was at a peak of activity. So, in order to keep the flow of communication to the outside world flowing, Twitter announced it would not turn off its service until Iran calmed down.

This is pretty interesting news, that a mere social networking site was so deeply involved in momentous news of the day and that it became so relied upon by people hungry for news and interested in discussing a major democratic movement is definitely a new thing. It is especially interesting because the U.S. media so badly fell down on its job of reporting activities in Iran making Twitter a vital tool for communication. But what was even more interesting was that Obama’s State Department tried to claim credit for Twitter’s decision to stay in operation during the day.

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It is beyond question that healthcare in America is troubled. Costs have soared, employers are having a difficult time keeping up with the rising costs, and many Americans do not easily get the care they’d like. There are solutions, of course, but the headlong rush to implement a government controlled, top down, cold, autocratic system is the wrong avenue to take.

One of the scariest aspects of a government controlled system is when government gets between you and your doctor and imposes rationing on you both. Rationing is when government decides what medical procedures or medicines you are allowed to have, when the government takes the decisions away from you and your doctor. Worse, rationing is guaranteed if Obamcare is forced upon us all.

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And now another episode of Name That Party where the news customer reads a story and tries his darndest to discern from what party a scandal plagued politician hails. We have many times said that one of the main rules of the Name That Party parlor game is that if the Old Media is talking about a troubled Democrat, often times the pol’s party is either not mentioned at all or is buried way down in the story. On the other hand, if it is a troubled Republican, why the party affiliation often leads the story if it isn’t right in the headline itself. Today we have a pair of stories that proves this axiom well.

First up is the mysterious case of Detroit City Council Member Monica Conyers (wife of Representative John Conyers) who the Associated Press reports is “snarled in bribes probe.” All the sordid details about the tale are laid out for us… except one. It seems the AP somehow forgot to mention that Monica Conyers is a Democrat.

Curiously, the AP does give a hint of our Mrs. Conyers’ affiliation by mentioning that her hubby is a Democrat. I guess we are supposed to extrapolate that she is also a Dem?

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So, not only is ABC not planning to include opposing voices to President Obama’s healthcare proposals during its special presentation next week — though ABC does claim “those in the audience” will ask questions of the president — it is refusing to even allow groups that oppose Obamacare to purchase paid for advertisements to air during the healthcare special.

Rick Scott, chairman of Conservatives for Patients Rights, contacted ABC and inquired about purchasing some ad time during the Obamainfomercial, but was refused the sale. Scott wanted to air his 60-second ad before the healthcare show started. Though it was refused by the national Network, apparently it is still possible for Scott the buy time on local affiliates should he desire it.

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What should be isn’t always what is, we all know. For instance, government is supposed to serve its people. However, more often than not government becomes a burden, an iron boot heel on the neck, and if not so egregiously oppressive at the very least it is often capricious. Today I have two examples of the capriciousness of government. One case in Chicago, a place where if government isn’t capricious it’s big news, and Ohio, a land where capricious is government’s middle name.

Let’s start with Chicago. The city of big shoulders, the city that works, the Windy City, the city that Al Capone Built, the city of the 1968 Chicago riot… er Democratic Convention, the city where a serial killer murdered dozens of visiting World’s Fair goers in 1893. Yeah, that city.

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ABC has made the unprecedented move of giving prime-time programing air time to President Barack Obama for a “Healthcare Reform Special” to be aired next week. Uncommonly a major TV Network has turned over its airtime to what is essentially a White House infomercial on an important upcoming legislative effort.

But, perhaps it is not too surprising that Obama has landed himself some prime viewing time on ABC. After all, former ABC News correspondent Linda Douglass is now the Director of Communications for the Obama White House Office of Health Reform. Coincidence? One would be excused to suspect it.

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The Associated Press posted an “analysis” piece by writer Tom Raum on June 15 to address the GOP strategy against Obamacare and other administration policies but the APs characterization of the GOPs efforts almost seem meant to belittle and de-legitimize that opposition as opposed to describing it. The entire GOP argument against Obama is boiled down to a use of “buzz words” as far as APs Raum is concerned. Apparently, no political truth or ideological disagreement really enters into it. Only “tactic,” and “strategy” built on “buzz words” and “fear” is offered by the GOP instead of real issues according to the AP.

In “GOP using buzz words to taunt Democrats,” with a subhead of “Republicans claim Obama embraces ‘socialism,’” Raum never once admits that Republicans just might have a principled ideological opposition to Obama’s policies leaving readers to get the vague feeling that the GOP is trying just anything to find a winning issue. Further, the entire article is premised as if the Democrats are correct and the GOP is just trying to chip away at their essentially correct stand on the issues. AP even presents a lefty professor to shore up the AP point of view — naturally the professor’s propensities are not divulged.

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On June 9 a rally that saw thousands of participants in support of traditional marriage assembled at Albany, New York, the state capitol. One month earlier, a similar rally was held in Midtown Manhattan that also saw thousands in attendance. And in neither case was there much by the way of media coverage.

A Google search of the words marriage rally in New York June 9 turns up many hits on the story. But almost all of them are from blogs as opposed to traditional media sources, though the Village Voice covered the May rally in Manhattan.

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