Dear Newt,

You've already apologized and, you were not attacking Paul Ryan, or the Republicans in Congress when you made your comment to David Gregory.  Gregory's question was, (I'm paraphrasing...) should Republicans go against the will of the people and change Medicare like the Democrats did when they passed their health care plan?

You rightly responded that right wing social engineering is as bad as left wing social engineering.  It was a hypothetical question, since Republicans don't have the majorities to ram Paul Ryan's plan down the people's throat, without persuasion and discussion.   

If it appears that Conservatives will do the same thing that Liberals did, and use their majorities and the Presidency to go against the will of the people, then we will lose in 2012.

The Republican Party should be open to debate and not shut down a candidate who is willing to debate honestly the important issues that we face!  I am disappointed in those in the Republican Party who are saying that you are finished.

Don't go on Face the Nation and apologize again!  You've apologized enough...now get on with your campaign and be the independent thinker that you have always been.  Let the people decide...not Krauthammer, etc....

Sandra Wise 

Charles Krauthammer, Rush, Medved, Levin, etc., have all declared Newt to be finished!  His candidacy is a few days old, and he's a goner, so say the new Republican leaders. 

How did this happen?  In an answer to a question from David Gregory, of the Main Stream Media, Newt correctly said that right wing social engineering is just as bad as left wing social engineering.  How would it be different from Obamacare if the Paul Ryan plan were implemented against the will of the people with Conservative majorities in the House and the Senate, along with a Conservative President?

Of course this was a hypothetical, since Conservatives are not in the majority.  The question is, why are Conservatives afraid of an open discussion with all ideas for solving the problems created by the Liberal Dems, welcomed? 

This controversy over Newt will only serve to run off independents and we will end up with a Republican candidate who is is the Stepford candidate, repeating what the new self appointed leaders of the GOP want him/her to say.  There will be no need for Republican candidate debates at all.  If you don't agree 100% with Paul Ryan, you are OUT.

What say ye?  Do the American people have a voice in the new and improved Republican Party?  It's beginning to look a lot like the Obama/Pelosi/Reid Regime.

SLW 

On Jan. 14, 2010, I posted "I predict."  I'm posting it again, because it appears that we are right on track, to lose again!  Conservatives are screaming that the Congress has let us down.  They should have shut down the government...on and on!

Here we go again....So, a rerun of "I Predict"

In 2010 Republicans will make substantial gains in the House and the Senate.  The economy will rebound because Republicans will stop many of Obama’s plans.

Conservatives, however, will not be happy because Republicans will not be able to roll back everything that the Democrats have done, and further, they won’t have big enough majorities to implement their own agenda.  Rush, Beck, Hannity, etc., will call the Republicans weak and accuse them of "lacking in principles." The MSM will attack everything that the Republicans accomplish and accuse them of taking health care away from the poor and starving old people.

In 2012, disillusioned, many Conservatives will once again stay away from the polls or vote for third party candidates.  Republicans will make a few more gains in some states but will lose other strong conservatives that had been elected in 2010.

In the Presidential election, the Republican candidate will be called too conservative by the Main Stream Media, and not conservative enough by the Conservative Media.  Obama will narrowly be re-elected.  We will continue with a 50-50 House and Senate for four more years.  There will be more scandals and corruption in the Democrat Party.  Nothing much will be accomplished.

By 2016 a Republican candidate will emerge who has strong name recognition and is a strong social conservative.  The Republican Party will be even more divided, however.  Rush, Beck, Hannity, etc., will not endorse him.  He will win the election in the electoral college but will lose the popular vote.  He will go to Washington without a mandate and will only have a one vote majority in the Senate.  He will get a few things done, but Conservatives won't be happy because he will have to work with Democrats to accomplish his goals.

The Republican President will be attacked mercilessly by the MSM and by Conservatives in the Media and in the middle of his second term Democrats will take back the Congress and the Senate.  In 2024 a strong conservative third party will emerge and split the Republican vote.  The Democrats will sweep everything and in the next eight years will implement socialized medicine, etc.

Rush, Beck, Hannity ..., will retire.  It will be too late to roll back a socialized America.

SLW

Post Script

I hope that I will be able to retract this prediction in 2012.  It will be my pleasure to do so.   

This is not the formula to win back the House, the Senate or the White House in 2012.  As long as talk radio runs things in the Republican Party there is no hope of winning elections...just like in the last election.

The headlines that the Republican Party is being purged of moderates will simply run off the independents.  The results of Republicans fighting Republicans is what we have now.  Democrats running everything.

One thing that conservatives and talk radio have never understood is that "they" only have power when Republicans are in office.  Democrats don't listen to "the people."  Only Republican leaders listen to their constituents.

To those of you celebrating the fact that John McCain lost the Presidential election and is being challenged in Arizona, I ask...Wouldn't it have been better to try to defeat Obama?  The damage that his Presidency will have done will be practically irreversible...he's already ahead of the game with two Supreme Court nominations.  Last year I predicted that he could get as many as four and some of you scoffed - he's half way there in only a year and a half.

Many conservatives were against Governor Cristy in New Jersey because he is not 100% conservative, but look at the job he is doing there.  That could have been McCain on the national level.

One last thought.  I was listening to Mike Ghallager recently, and he said that a woman had stopped him at the airport to say, "this must be a great time to be a conservative radio talk show host."  Yes it is, and Hannity, Rush, etc. are doing great while the country is falling apart.  Congratulations on your success!  Keep it up and you will thrive while America is being destroyed. 

SLW 

       

President Barack Obama said Saturday he is ready to compromise with Republicans on health care if they are serious about it, but that an overhaul must go forward. "Let's get this done," he said....

Obama to GOP on health care: `Let's get this done'

Published - Feb 27 2010

By ERICA WERNER - Associated Press Writer

President Barack Obama said Saturday he is ready to compromise with Republicans on health care if they are serious about it, but that an overhaul must go forward. "Let's get this done," he said. Obama's comments in his weekly Internet and radio address, two days after an all-day bipartisan summit across from the White House, were the latest sign that Democrats are getting set to try to pass health care legislation without any Republicans on board.

Success will require colossal efforts on the part of Obama and Democratic leaders to round up votes after a year of corrosive debate and a Senate special-election upset that threw the overhaul effort into limbo last month. But Obama and the Democrats reject the piecemeal approach sought by Republicans and have no intention of scrapping their 10-year, $1 trillion bill and starting over, as the GOP demands.

"I am eager and willing to move forward with members of both parties on health care if the other side is serious about coming together to resolve our differences and get this done. But I also believe that we cannot lose the opportunity to meet this challenge," Obama said.

"The tens of millions of men and women who cannot afford their health insurance cannot wait another generation for us to act. Small businesses cannot wait. Americans with pre-existing conditions cannot wait. State and federal budgets cannot sustain these rising costs.

"It is time for those of us in Washington to live up to our responsibilities to the American people and to future generations," Obama said.

Obama's legislation would insure some 30 million more Americans over 10 years with a new requirement for nearly everyone to carry insurance and would end insurance company practices such as denying coverage to people with medical problems. Republicans generally oppose mandates that make everyone get insurance, and although they want people with health conditions to be able to buy insurance, they would try to address the problem without new requirements on insurers.  Read More

The reality is that Obama does not need any Republican votes to get his gigantic bill passed.  He clearly is not ready to compromise on issues such as tort reform, selling insurance accross state lines, medical savings accounts, etc.  Mr. Obama wants every American dependent on government for their health care.  He talks a good game, but is one of the most partisan presidents that we have ever had. 

Oh, BTW, "McCain would have been worse for the country," according to some conservatives.  Do not buy that.  With McCain and Republican majorities, we would be implementing health care reform that would solve the problems in health care, not make them worse and bankrupt the country in the process.  That's why elections matter.

slw

After McCain used his time to complain that Obama reneged on a campaign promise to bring "change in Washington," the president bluntly told the Arizona Republican that "we're not campaigning any more. The election is over."

Campaign flashback: McCain clashes with Obama

Published - Feb 25 2010 06:59PM CST

After McCain used his time to complain that Obama reneged on a campaign promise to bring "change in Washington," the president bluntly told the Arizona Republican that "we're not campaigning any more. The election is over."

McCain retorted that he's "reminded of that every day."

Nearly two years after his defeat, McCain is facing a primary challenge from the right in his bid for a fifth Senate term. Former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, a conservative who hosted a radio talk show, is challenging the 73-year-old incumbent, who has an uneasy relationship with his party's right.

McCain has been displaying his Republican credentials, railing against Democrats for finalizing health care legislation behind closed doors despite Obama's promise of transparency for health care negotiations.

He also derides special deals in the health care bill to benefit people, and the lawmakers who represent them, in Nebraska, Louisiana, Connecticut and Florida.

"I hope that that would be an argument for us to go through this 2,400-page document, remove all the special deals for the special interests and favored few, and treat all Americans the same under provisions of the law, so that they will know that geography does not dictate what kind of health care they would receive," McCain told Obama.

McCain said Obama promised better governance during the campaign "and what we got was a process you and I both said we would change in Washington."

During the summit's afternoon session, Obama and McCain had a more good-natured exchange.  Read more

McCain gets under conservative's skin too.  He's a ruff and tumble guy who won't back down from a fight. 

The Republicans did a good job at the Summit today, but unfortunately they don't have the power to do anything.  It's all in the Democrat's hands.

slw 

Between 400 and 1,200 patients in Britain’s National Health Service may have died prematurely as a result of “a lack of care and mistreatment which have no place in any civilized and well run health service....”

Brit links hundreds of deaths to government-run health care

By: Barbara Hollingsworth
Local Opinion Editor

Between 400 and 1,200 patients in Britain’s National Health Service may have died prematurely as a result of “a lack of care and mistreatment which have no place in any civilized and well run health service,” according to a shocking new report released by Queen’s Counsel Robert Francis. The death toll at one hospital was 47 percent higher than normal; four members of one family, including a newborn girl, died within 18 months as a result of medical blunders. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article7039285.ece

Patients were “systematically mistreated,” and often left in urine-and feces-soaked beds for “unacceptable amounts of time,” according to the independent inquiry into conditions at the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust from 2005 to 2009. Relatives reported finding loved ones covered with feces, including one retired agronomist who begged his sister-in-law not to enter his room because of the stench. “He was a very fastidious man and he really was left lying in his own excrement,” she told investigators.

“There can no longer be any excuse for denying the enormity of what occurred,” the report said. Quoting Florence Nightingale (“It may seem a strange principle to enunciate as the very first requirement in a Hospital that it should do the sick no harm”), it added: “Unfortunately, this requirement has not been met at Stafford Hospital.”

Yet not a single NHS official has been disciplined. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1253438/Mid-Staffordshire-NHS-hospital-routinely-neglected-patients.html

The report cited aloof managers with six-figure salaries who were constantly tinkering with management structure, but “not involved on a day-to-day basis, the “battle-fatigued attitude of staff,” and “a sense of chaos and a lack of reflection about what might be the fundamental problems.”

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Brit-links-hundreds-of-deaths-to-government-run-health-care-85354602.html#ixzz0gZMAbeF5

Is this where we are headed?  How could anyone believe that government bureaucrats have the savvy to run our entire health care system?  The answer is, 'follow the money.'  The government wants the billions in premiums that the public would pay into the system.  Obama has said that we need this reform to save our economic situation.   

What track record does government have to show for managing anything well? Medicare is out of money, social security is out of money...so what happens when they spend all of our health care money? 

The scenario above in Great Britain is a nightmare that no American should have to face.

slw 

What did you think I meant by "Join me at the Sumiit?"

The Health Care Starting Point

President Barack Obama argued Thursday that a sweeping overhaul of the nation's broken health care system is imperative for the nation's future economic vitality...

Obama, GOP clash at summit: 'We have better idea'

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR and JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writers Ricardo Alonso-zaldivar And Jennifer Loven, Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama argued Thursday that a sweeping overhaul of the nation's broken health care system is imperative for the nation's future economic vitality, clashing in an extraordinary live-on-TV summit with Republicans who want far more modest changes. "We believe we have a better idea," declared GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander.With the marathon policy debate available from start to finish to a divided public, Obama cast the health care crisis as "one of the biggest drags on our economy," painting his overhaul effort as critical to the economic revival that's even more pressing to many Americans.

"We all know that this is urgent," he said.

Obama lamented the partisan bickering that has resulted in a stalemate over legislation to extend coverage to more than 30 million people who are now uninsured. "Politics I think ended up trumping practical common sense," he said.

And yet, even as he pleaded for cooperation — and "actually a discussion, and not just us trading talking points" — he insisted on a number of Democratic points and acknowledged agreement may not be possible. "I don't know that those gaps can be bridged," Obama said. "If not, at least we will have better clarified for the American people what the debate is all about."

His skepticism about reaching consensus was vindicated as soon as the first Republican spoke — in opposition to the mammoth bills that have passed the House and Senate. Alexander said Congress and the administration should start over and take small steps, including medical malpractice reform, funding for high-risk insurance pools, allowing Americans to shop out of state for lower-cost plans and expanding health savings accounts.

"Our views represent the views of a great many American people," he said.

Disagreements were not always expressed diplomatically.

Alexander challenged Obama's claim that insurance premiums would fall under the Democratic legislation. "You're wrong," he said. Responded Obama: "I'm pretty certain I'm not wrong."  Read more

You are victims. You are helpless against the wiles of big corporations and insurance companies and you need protection...

A month after being crowned the darling of national conservatives, Republican Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts is being branded "Benedict Brown" for siding with Democrats in favor of a jobs bill endorsed by the Obama administration. 

GOP's Brown branded turncoat for jobs bill vote

Published - Feb 23 2010 05:26PM CST

By GLEN JOHNSON - AP Political Writer

BOSTON— A month after being crowned the darling of national conservatives, Republican Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts is being branded "Benedict Brown" for siding with Democrats in favor of a jobs bill endorsed by the Obama administration.

Like the four other GOP senators who joined him, the man who won the late Democrat Edward Kennedy's seat says it's about jobs, not party politics. And that may be good politics, too.

The four other GOP senators who broke ranks _ Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, George Voinovich of Ohio and Christopher "Kit" Bond of Missouri _ also were criticized on Tuesday. But Brown was the big target on conservative Web sites, talk shows and even the Facebook page his campaign has promoted as an example of his new-media savvy.

"We campaigned for you. We donated to your campaign. And you turned on us like every other RINO," said one writer, using the initials for "Republican-In-Name-Only."  Read more

This is the kind of attitude that will kill the 'revolution', even before it gets started.  Scott Brown never campaigned as a 100% conservative.  He was running for Ted Kennedy's seat in Massachusetts!   The tea party and conservatives chose to support him because he had a chance to win, and had an "R" after his name. 

The reaction to Brown's vote is exactly what will happen to each Conservative or Republican who wins an election.  He/she is expected to vote in lock step with the '100% conservative movement.'

This 'movement' destroyed the Bush presidency and made sure that McCain did not win.  The new face of conservatism unfortunately is Glenn Beck, who was the keynote speaker at CPAC. This is not good for the GOP or for the country and could keep Democrats in power for a long time. 
 
slw 

"I have no idea what philosophy Glenn Beck is promoting. And neither does he. It's incoherent..."

Levin on Beck's philosophy: 'incoherent'

Best-selling author Mark Levin explains on Facebook why he wouldn't speak at CPAC this year and, in the process, takes aim at fellow conservative radio host Glenn Beck, who closed the three-day conference.

"I have no idea what philosophy Glenn Beck is promoting. And neither does he. It's incoherent. One day it's populist, the next it's libertarian bordering on anarchy, next it's conservative but not really, etc. And to what end? I believe he has announced that he is no longer going to endorse candidates because our problems are bigger than politics. Well, of course, our problems are not easily dissected into categories, but to reject politics is to reject the manner in which we try to organize ourselves. ..."

Levin says he withdrew from giving the opening speech Saturday after finding out that the John Birch Society was a co-sponsor of the conference.

"Bill Buckley and Barry Goldwater, among others, chased the Birchers from the movement decades ago. And they're not a part of the movement," he wrote. "So, to give them a booth at CPAC was boneheaded."

Skating around with health care reform - I don't think any medals will be won here!  This is one time I hope that the U.S. loses.   

Obama the Winter Olympian, Part II

There they go again...Bill Clinton and James Carville are heading an effort to attack the Tea Party movement and discredit it in any way possible, according to Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com.

Memo to Clinton, Carville: Good luck finding the Tea Party Spartacus

By: Mark Tapscott
Editorial Page Editor
02/23/10 7:17 AM EST

Bill Clinton and James Carville are heading an effort to attack the Tea Party movement and discredit it in any way possible, according to Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com.

"Big Government has learned that Clintonistas are plotting a 'push/pull' strategy. They plan to identify 7-8 national figures active in the tea party movement and engage in deep opposition research on them. If possible, they will identify one or two they can perhaps ‘turn’, either with money or threats, to create a mole in the movement. The others will be subjected to a full-on smear campaign. (Has MSNBC already been notified?)

"Big Government has also learned that James Carville will head up the effort," according to the Capital Confidential feature on Breitbart's site.

No surprise there, really, as the Clintonistas have a long history of going after political opponents in such fashion. But this operation is going to be especially difficult because of the Spartacus Factor, identified by the Tea Party Patriots. Don't know what the Spartacus Factor is? Check out this excerpt from the Kirk Douglas movie (He's the one with the big hole in his chin):

Yes, check out the clip.  It's really good.  "I'm Spartacus..."  "I'm Spartacus..."  "I'm Spartacus..." "I'm Spartacus..." "I'm Spartacus..." Who's the real leader of the tea party?  Not going  to be easy to identify...since there are thousands of them.

Good luck Bill and Jim.  You have a great track record of "scorched earth" maneuvers...but this might make you both look like a couple of malicious arsenists.

slw   

It's "not clear" whether enough Democrats will defect on a majority-vote procedure on health legislation to stop it, the Senate's top Republican said Sunday.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said that opposition to using a maneuver to bypass filibuster rules would be bipartisan, but hedged as to whether it would be strong enough to block such a tactic.

"There'll be a lot of Democrats who will vote against it," McConnell said during an appearance on "Fox News Sunday" about the controversial budget reconciliation process. "Whether there will be 11 Democrats who will vote against it is not clear."

At issue is the the process Senate Democratic leaders have indicated they will use to finish healthcare reform legislation. That process, called budget reconciliation, would allow senators to pass final changes to the original health bill they'd passed in December using only a simple majority of votes, instead of the 60 normally needed to end a filibuster.  Read more

The Dems never give up.  As Nancy said, "if you close the door we'll come through the window, if you build a wall, we will pole vault over it..."  They know that if they pass this gigantic bill, it will be difficult to scale it back, which means more dependence on government for years to come.

slw