It’s refreshing to hear our lawmakers taking leadership roles and speaking about the real issues in the health care battle… Congressman Paul Ryan is one of those leaders who gets it.  Read the February 2010 Imprimis article adapted from a speech Congressman Ryan delivered on January 13, 2010 at a Hillsdale College event. 

Some excerpts:

“The ongoing debate over healthcare…is about what the principle of that reform ought to be.”

“Government’s constitutional obligations in regard to protecting such rights are normally met by establishing the conditions for free markets – markets which historically provide an abundance of goods and services, at an affordable cost, for the largest number.”

“…placing control of health care in the hands of government bureaucrats is not compassionate.  Bureaucrats don’t make decisions about health care according to personal need or preference;  they ration resources according to a dolla-driven social calculus.”

“The very idea of government-run health care conflicts with the American idea of a free society and the constitutional priniciples underlying it – the principles of individual rights and free markets.  And from a practical perspective it makes no sense, given that our current health care system is the best in the world – even drawing patients from other advanced countries that have suffered by adopting the government-run model.”

“Americans take pride in self-government, which entails providing for their own well-being and the well-being of their families in a free society.  In exchange for this, the promoters of government-run health care would make them passive subjects, dependent on handouts and far more concerned about security than liberty.”

Amen. 

And make sure you check out the four measures he outlines to reform the current health care system - measures that would revolutionize what we have today.  Read the article here.

Here, check out Congressman Ryan boldly and articulately taking on the President at the February 25th health care summit:

It’s coming Tuesday night… you want to be there so you can make the very best decision for your future. 

This is the Colorado Candidate Debate 2010 you don’t want to miss… it’s your opportunity to submit and ask questions directly to candidates running for US Senate (CO), Colorado Governor and Colorado State Treasurer.  Candidates will answer and debate questions in a professional and timed forum.  I’m privileged to be a debate panelist, and I hope you’ll join me. 

Come and hear all candidates answer the tough questions… find out what they’re made of… then make the very best choice for you, your family, and Colorado at the caucus the following week on March 16th.  Find out more about the Colorado caucus at the Coalition for a Conservative Majority website. 

What happens in November depends upon you.  Come to the debate so you can have a powerful and direct impact on the November elections.  Our future is at stake!

DETAILS

Date: Tuesday March 9, 2010

VIP Meet & Greet:  5:oopm

Debate Begins:  6:00pm

Where:  Mr. Biggs Family Fun Center ~ 5825 Mark Dabling Boulevard, Colorado Springs, 80919

Tickets:  $5 in advance, $8 at the door, $15 VIP Meet & Greet

Tickets available at: 

KVOR 740am  *  Mr. Biggs  *  The Mason Jar Restaurant  *  The British Home Shoppe

GOT A QUESTION FOR THE CANDIDATES?

Submit your candidate questions directly to me at:  mom4freedom@ymail.com. I’ll bring your questions to the panel for consideration and submission in the debate.

Tickets are going fast… get yours soon.  Hope to see you there!

This week, local Colorado Springs television station channel 5/30 featured an interview with the founders of the brand new The Constitutionalist Today newspaper. 

The newspaper is all about our nation’s founding principles, truth, and grassroots.  It’s a newspaper written by the people, of the people, and for the people. 

Pick up a copy and read it (or view it online)… I know you’ll appreciate the fresh truth in media this paper offers to the public… for FREE.

Here, the Channel 5/30 report:

The Scott Brown win for freedom in Massachusetts temporarily derailed Obamacare’s socialized freight train… but just long enough for the President to regroup with Reid and Pelosi, and strategize anew. 

Now that the Brown victory thwarted what would have been the traditional 60-vote passage of health care, they have crafted a new tactic.  Tomorrow President Obama is hosting an all-day, televised, bi-partisan health care summit.  It’s a theatrical attempt to refresh the health care “crisis,” and stage the Republicans as heartless goons who have neither solutions nor sympathy for Americans without health insurance.  

The President has challenged the Republicans to fix a “crisis” that he and his leftist ancestors have shrewdly created for the past 50 years.  He is re-creating the crisis of “Americans without health insurance,” while craftily painting the picture that Republicans are unreasonable if they don’t come to the summit table with real solutions to his crisis. 

This in the name of “transparency” and “bi-partisanship.”  Talk about a setup. 

And to follow Obama’s public relations stunt, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid can pull out the budget reconciliation option anytime he’s ready, which means only a simple majority is needed to pass the “new” healthcare bill Obama is proposing… essentially cancelling the Scott Brown effect.  This is the crooked liberal way to win Obamacare. 

In the trenches, Obama has also mobilized his own grassroots following to rally around his effort, and his organization is actively recruiting 10,000,000 volunteer hours to support candidates in favor of Obamacare.  But we the people can defeat these combined efforts with a little grassroots public relations campaign of our own.   

What You Must Do Now

President Obama’s manipulative publicity stunt must be countered with effective action from you.  Never underestimate the power of YOU… you are an American who loves freedom…and freedom won’t be stopped.  The power of that freedom starts with you.  I urge you to do 2 things, read both action items carefully: 

1)       CALL YOUR SENATORS.  Contact both your US Senators and tell them NO healthcare and NO reconciliation process.  Tell them you want them to start over and give America REAL reform based on free markets and free choice.  Tell them that if they vote “yes” on Obama’s health care bill, we the American people will see that they’re out next election.  Find their contact information at Congress Merge here. 

But wait… you say, “they’re not listening!”  They’ll listen when their name is in print alongside their unpopular words supporting health care.  If your Congressman insists on a “yes” vote for health care, document their words, and then….

2)      WRITE A LETTER TO THE EDITOR.  Speak up and influence both your Congressman and public opinion in your community!  Write a letter to the editor of your local paper.  Congressmen read them, as does everyone else… especially when you mention them by name and quote them.  Go to the Coalition for a Conservative Majority website to learn more about writing an effective letter. 

More About the

Thursday Health Care Summit

•  A Viewer’s Guide to the Health Care Summit
• Obama Invites GOP Lawmakers’ Health Care Ideas
• Boehner: Obama Has “Crippled” Health Care Summit
• Republicans Round Out Team for Health Care Summit

Obama Unveils His “New”

Health Care Proposal

•  The President’s Proposal
• White House Talking Points
• Obama vs. Obama: Cost of President’s Health Care Plan Goes Up as Taxpayer Savings Go Down
• Obamacare Plan Is a Net Tax Hike of $629 Billion
• Obama’s New Health Care Deal:  Tax Hikes, Price Controls, and Sweetheart Deals for Everyone
• Obama’s Health Reform: Tax. Spend. Regulate. Mandate

Reconciliation: the Crooked

Way to Win Obamacare

• What is the Budget Reconciliation Process?
• Reconciliation is Not Negotiation
• Reid to Republicans:  “Stop Crying Over Reconciliation”
• 18 Senate Democrats Oppose Health Care Reconciliation

This is the Colorado Candidate Debate 2010 you don’t want to miss… it’s your opportunity to submit and ask questions directly to candidates running for US Senate (CO), Colorado Governor and Colorado State Treasurer.  Candidates will answer and debate questions in a professional and timed forum.  I’m privileged to be a debate panelist, and I hope you’ll join me. 

Come and hear all candidates answer the tough questions… find out what they’re made of… then make the very best choice for you, your family, and Colorado at the caucus the following week on March 16th.  Find out more about the Colorado caucus at the Coalition for a Conservative Majority website. 

What happens in November depends upon you.  Come to the debate so you can have a powerful and direct impact on the November elections.  Our future is at stake!

DETAILS

Date: Tuesday March 9, 2010

VIP Meet & Greet:  5:oopm

Debate Begins:  6:00pm

Where:  Mr. Biggs Family Fun Center ~ 5825 Mark Dabling Boulevard, Colorado Springs, 80919

Tickets:  $5 in advance, $8 at the door, $15 VIP Meet & Greet

Tickets available at: 

KVOR 740am  *  Mr. Biggs  *  The Mason Jar Restaurant  *  The British Home Shoppe

GOT A QUESTION FOR THE CANDIDATES?

Submit your candidate questions directly to me at:  mom4freedom@ymail.com  I’ll bring your questions to the panel for consideration and submission in the debate. 

Tickets are going fast… get yours soon.  Hope to see you there!

This is where incandescent light bulbs, Audi, and Boulder, Colorado merge into the Green Police video Audi launched on Super Bowl Sunday.  

Before reading further, you must view Audi’s humorous, yet timely, Green Police advertisement , see it in my last blog post here.  In today’s Wall Street Journal, Stephanie Simon writes about this liberal fantasy coming true in “Even Boulder Finds It Isn’t Easy Going Green.”

Her article opens with this to say about Boulder, Colorado, and its efforts at going green: 

“This spring, city contractors will fan out across this well-to-do college town to unscrew light bulbs in thousands of homes and replace them with more energy-efficient models, at taxpayer expense.”

And she goes on to explain the difficulties Boulder officials are having with compliance:

“City officials never dreamed they’d have to play nanny when they set out in 2006 to make Boulder a role model in the fight against global warming.”

“What we’ve found is that for the vast majority of people, it’s exceedingly difficult to get them to do much of anything,” says Kevin Doran, a senior research fellow at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Boulder’s most logical next steps in its citizen-controlling, environmentalist utopian fantasy project couldn’t be set forth more clearly than in Audi’s commercial.  

Cue the music and get set for drama to become reality….

This is hilarious… until you stop and realize it’s a dramatic re-enactment of the type of gleeful citizen control fantasies that knock around in the liberal environmentalist mind. Some of my liberal friends may deny this type of personal intrustion as the end goal… but they can’t ever define the point at which the freedom-choking madness stops. I wonder if they can identify the point at which the enviornment is no longer “threatened?”

This from Audi for the 2010 Super Bowl…

It’s already happened here, they just don’t have the green uniforms yet…or do they? It manifests in environmental production and supply controls from unelected bureaucratic administrative offices. Makes me think of the 2.5 gallon per minute water flow restriction on my shower head… the infamous Preble mouse protection laws in Monument, Colorado forcing drivers onto lengthy routes to avoid disturbing the rodent’s habitat… and more.

It’s beyond ridiculous. But it’s the mindset we battle.

I’ve been told this.  As we approach the 2010 elections, I’m hearing this from some who say they’re on the side of freedom:  “If my favorite candidate doesn’t make it on the ballot in November, then I’m not voting.”  Or worse, they’ve even said they will vote for the liberal candidate. 

Their arguments seem to be either: (1) based on personal moral issue-based conviction, or (2) about allowing their party to fail, so they can send a clear message to “shape up.”  I honestly try to understand all points of view, but at this time in our history it is a stretch that I just can’t and won’t reach. 

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again:  Unless Jesus is on the ballot, we are always voting for the lesser of two evils.  Being human, there is no perfect candidate… anyone we elect will eventually fail us.  Even our favorites.  Which is why we stay actively engaged and keep them all accountable after election day.  

Freedom is hanging in the balance, and it’s tipping to the side of defeat… it won’t take much to topple it all the way over to a crushing demise.  From where it hangs now, it will take a HUGE continued effort and sacrifice to bring it back to the side of victory and keep it there. 

So I ask:  If freedom is purposely allowed to fall into defeat, how realistic is it that we will get it back?  Does history support this “strategy?”  If our founding fathers “stayed home” during the battle against tyranny… would freedom have had victory?

As for me:  I’m voting.

Wow.  Freedom has momentum here in Colorado.  90 freedom-loving American patriots packed into the Mason Jar Restaurant in Colorado Springs tonight for the Colorado caucus training and a mock caucus hosted by the Coalition for a Conservative Majority.  And this is just one of many such events going on around Colorado.

I post these photos to share firsthand the groundswell of freedom-loving, ordinary We the People here in Colorado.  The people gathered here tonight are not “establishment” types, and they certainly aren’t “astro-turf,” as the left would like all to believe.  These are people I go to church with… my neighbors… folks I’ve met at tea parties and rallies… a woman I met at the local shooting club… Bible study friends… small business owners… pastors… teachers… lawyers… painters… engineers… mothers and fathers… grandparents… high school and elementary students… and so many more.  And they weren’t just from Colorado Springs, we had several visitors from Denver and Teller County. 

It was standing-room only.  These amazing patriots spent over 2 hours packed into a room made for 50… and they learned about the ultimate Political Power Tool we call the caucus.  They sat in on a mock caucus and asked dozens of questions.  These folks have energy, commitment, and love for their country.  THESE are the ones who will take this state and nation back. 

Thank you to all who came out tonight.  These freedom-loving, ordinary We the People patriots have started something.  Never underestimate the power of these “grassroots” Americans.  

Look out… an avalanche has begun. 

Think again.  They were so close they could taste it.  We the people spoke against health care all year long, and we were  ignored.  Some Congressional leaders even stated they would vote for the bill even if it cost them their Congressional seat next election.  They could care less that it is unconstitutional.  Their Marxist health care train was rolling full steam ahead, seemingly unstoppable. 

And then, the unthinkable happened.  A gift for freedom straight from God.  In Massachusetts, of all places.  The Scott Brown Senate victory was a shocking blow to the left, to be sure.  Most definitely it has derailed the Obamacare freight train.  But if we think for one second that the left will leave that train off the track to rust, we are fooling ourselves right back onto their Marxist track. 

We’ve heard from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that she doesn’t have the votes to pass the Senate bill through the House at this time.  She also said “we will move forward.”  She’s only stopping long enough to assess the damage, make necessary repairs, and get the train going again.  As are Obama, Reid, and the rest of their cronies. 

President Obama and Congress have plenty of time and opportunity to pass legislation that will increase health care prices, damage the system, and incrementally choke our freedoms.  Democrats will try to pick off Republicans in the Senate and cut a deal.  Keep in mind that this time last year many Senate Republicans supported some form of government-run health care, and Obama could call them out on it.  There have been reports that members of Congress are considering this approach.  There are plenty of potential candidates who can be be picked off for a bi-partisan, slimmed-down, incremental compromise bill. 

For example:  Hatch believes he could get 70 votes for a bill that deals with preexisting conditions, rating reform, and purchasing pools.  

Another example:  Some Senate Republicans and their staff were working on compromise language this summer that included many of the provisions in the Democrat bill.  One of those provisions is the “guaranteed issue” mandate which prevents insurance companies from denying applicants with pre-existing conditions.  If passed, it will increase the cost of health insurance for everyone.  Guaranteed issue is a very compassionate argument and it sounds easy.  However, it allows people to wait until they are sick before buying insurance, and when only sick people buy insurance, rates increase.   New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maine, and Vermont all have guaranteed issue, and health insurance rates in these states are about twice as expensive as in most other states.

Yet another example:  Other provisions Republicans were working to compromise on price controls and connectors (ie, managed competition in individual and small business insurance markets that limits consumer choice).  Any final Reid-Pelosi-White House bill will be amendable in the senate, and it will only get worse on the Senate floor. 

For a time, let’s bask in the train-derailing victory we’ve been given in Scott Brown.  It’s a victory on the side of freedom, to be sure.  But we must be diligent and never give up.  Hold every Republican and Blue Dog lawmaker’s feet to the Constitutional fire until this battle is over. 

For more insight into what the left is doing with their wrecked train, read Grace Marie-Turner’s Health Reform is Not Dead and  Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar’s Dem Leaders Unite on Health Care Strategy.