I just finished reading Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime. This books provides an inside view of the 2008 presidential campaign and all its personalities. If more than half of what is in the book is true, it is extraordinarily damning of the people involved in 2008. We should have all pulled a lever labeled, “None of the above.” All the candidates who ran for the nomination and presidency from both parties are portrayed as megalomaniacs, bumbling fools or disorganized big mouths and hypocrites. How sad for this country.

My reading of the book makes me feel that it is historically accurate. My only reservation is that the authors may be closet Obama liberals. I do not know enough about their backgrounds to make a definitive statement. What I do know is from the inside flap of the book which says that John Heilemann is the national political correspondent and columnist for New York magazine and that he has written for The New Yorker, Wired and The Economist. Mark Halperin is editor-at-large and senior political analyst for Time magazine and also worked for ten years as the political director for ABC News. Their resumes do not exactly give me a feeling of conservative leanings.

The book is well written and is extremely interesting. I had to force myself to put it down and do other things. Because of this, I would recommend the book. My favorite quote from the book is from then Senator Hillary Clinton on March 3, 2008: “I have a lifetime of experience I will bring to the White House. Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience he will bring to the White House. And Senator Obama has a speech he made in 2002.”

I don’t know about you, but this scares me like no other political statement I’ve heard in all my adult years in the United States. It reeks of “big brother” and of totalitarian control. The last place that I heard of having such a program is Cuba. It has a “neighborhood watch” program called the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR). Each neighborhood has one household that is in charge of reporting any suspicious activities to the government. Maybe Obama not only wants government control of the economy and healthcare, but also over our speech and activities. This is extremely frightening—especially for me who fled a totalitarian state as a young child.

Click here for Senator Cornyn’s press release on the subject.

The full text of his letter to President Obama:

Dear President Obama,

I write to express my concern about a new White House program to monitor American citizens’ speech opposing your health care policies, and to seek your assurances that this program is being carried out in a manner consistent with the First Amendment and America’s tradition of free speech and public discourse.

Yesterday, in an official White House release entitled "Facts are Stubborn Things," the White House Director of New Media, Macon Phillips, asserted that there was "a lot of disinformation out there," and encouraged citizens to report "fishy" speech opposing your health care policies to the White House.  Phillips specifically targeted private, unpublished, even casual speech, writing that "rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation."  Phillips wrote "If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov."

I am not aware of any precedent for a President asking American citizens to report their fellow citizens to the White House for pure political speech that is deemed "fishy" or otherwise inimical to the White House’s political interests. 

By requesting that citizens send "fishy" emails to the White House, it is inevitable that the names, email addresses, IP addresses, and private speech of U.S. citizens will be reported to the White House.  You should not be surprised that these actions taken by your White House staff raise the specter of a data collection program.  As Congress debates health care reform and other critical policy matters, citizen engagement must not be chilled by fear of government monitoring the exercise of free speech rights.

I can only imagine the level of justifiable outrage had your predecessor asked Americans to forward emails critical of his policies to the White House.  I suspect that you would have been leading the charge in condemning such a program-and I would have been at your side denouncing such heavy-handed government action.

So I urge you to cease this program immediately.  At the very least, I request that you detail to Congress and the public the protocols that your White House is following to purge the names, email addresses, IP addresses, and identities of citizens who are reported to have engaged in "fishy" speech.  And I respectfully request an answer to the following:

• How do you intend to use the names, email addresses, IP addresses, and identities of citizens who are reported to have engaged in "fishy" speech?
• How do you intend to notify citizens who have been reported for "fishy" speech?
• What action do you intend to take against citizens who have been reported for engaging in "fishy" speech?
• Do your own past statements qualify as "disinformation"? For example, is it "disinformation" to note that in 2003 you said:"I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care plan"?

I look forward to your prompt response. 

Sincerely,

JOHN CORNYN

United States Senator

Please express your opinion on this matter. Write your representative now. Do not allow President Obama’s egregious behavior to go unchallenged.

I am shocked that the President of the United States would allow his party to call the citizens of his country an “angry mob.” These so called “angry mobs” are concerned citizens expressing their legitimate concerns and exercising their right to free speech. Is free speech next on Obama’s hit list?

Here is a clip from a town hall meeting with Arlen Specter:

I believe that the woman speaking has a legitimate concern. How can we trust the government with the entire healthcare system if they mismanaged a much smaller, “Cash for Clunkers” program?

Be very afraid of a government that wants to stop you from political discourse. The picture at the beginning of this post is of the Democratic National Headquarters in Washington, D.C. I believe that angry mobs should gather there and express their outrage over the “angry mob” email. We the people must show that we will not take this elitist view of the country and of our fears and concerns.

Here is another clip from the same town hall:

This is just a sampling of what you can see on YouTube. My thoughts are that the people are speaking and the president should back down and realize that we do not want a major overhaul of the healthcare system. Write to your representatives. Do not let this pass without being heard.

What is really important to note about this $4,500 cash-back program for older automobiles is that it was supposed to last for a couple of months or until the initial $1 billion ran out. It ran out in 6 days. This shows you how inept our government is. It made the most horrendously flawed forecast of demand and costs that I have ever seen in my life. This flawed forecast would have gotten any business analyst fired in a real business.

It is amazing that the government can make such a blunder with a simple program. Here is how it works: you bring in an old car that meets certain requirements and you get $4,500 or $3,500 back for the purchase of a new vehicle. Now think about it for a second… Something as simple as this and the government screwed it up. Now try to describe the United States healthcare system in a short sentence like I did for the cash for clunkers program. Can you? No, you can’t. Now imagine what a colossal disaster could occur with the government running all of healthcare.

We can’t allow nationalized healthcare to happen. Write to your representatives and tell them where you stand on this issue. If you don’t speak up now, you will be stuck with a colossal blunder and an inefficient healthcare system.

Fortunately for us Americans and healthcare patients, slightly smarter minds are trying to slow down the process in Congress. Our Congress is not doing this out of respect for the capitalist system or for health providers and patients throughout the nation, but instead for their own hides. They all fear a popular uprising that will result in them being voted out. Thank God we have elections and that they are staggered so that we can vote a party that is driving us into the ground out of office before it is too late.

Obama needs to reevaluate what he is doing. We already have nationalized car companies and banks. Do we really want $1.7 trillion to be under government control? That is the amount that USA Today claims was spent on health care last year in the United States. Is it really appropriate for the government of a free country to make health care decisions for the population?

Where will these changes lead us? I think allowing the Democrats to take over all our industry and health care is a, de facto, conversion of the United States to the United Socialist States of America. We are living in dangerous and sad times. Write your congressman and be heard.

Unless you have not listened to the news for months, you know that Acorn representatives have been registering people multiple times and even registering fake names and football star names from other states in various parts of the country. It is systemic and one of the biggest threats to the democratic process that we have seen in decades.

Since it receives tax dollars for its efforts, the Acorn group is supposed to be non-partisan. This is another hoax perpetrated on the American public. There have been numerous video clips on television of Acorn gatherings where they clearly state that they “need Obama and Obama needs them.”

Watch this video from the Associated Press to hear more about the Acorn investigation.

I hope you do not drink the Kool-Aid by voting for Senator Obama. Please resist the urge to vote for a great orator and instead vote for a true leader–John McCain. Obama has been called a “tranformative” figure–I agree, he is someone that could very well transform the United States into something never seen before and that we would wish we had never seen.

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that’s what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. “Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.” Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free.

But what about the other six men * the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share?’

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted
that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued
to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to
compare their savings.

“I only got a dollar out of the $20,”declared the sixth man. He pointed
to the tenth man,” but he got $10!”

“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar,
too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I got”

“That’s true!!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!”

“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison. “We didn’t get
anything at all. The system exploits the poor!”

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks so the nine sat
down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, ladies and gentlemen, journalists and college professors, is
how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

For those who understand, no explanation is needed.
For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

This has been attributed to:

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics
University of Georgia

Dr. Kamerschen has denied writing this and its origin is now in question. The lesson that the story attempts to teach is valid nonetheless.