The coverage of the anti-war rally by the media this weekend was absurd. Not only did they coat it with the usual liberal media bias, but they failed to report what was really going on at the rally. Besides the ‘so-called’ speakers, yellers, some weird hip hop group, a really bad 2 girl folk-type musical group that couldn’t sing to save their lives and some old women’s group, there actually was some violence and defacing of government property. Where was this on the cover of the newspaper? Nowhere! Instead, the print and TV media decided to report that the protest was peaceful. This is a flat out lie. Now it has come out that during the protest there was a rush on the capitol building, no doubt by some communists, anarchists and socialist scum. Police officers were told to stand down. The result: spray paint everywhere and other damages to the Capitol building. Their main goal was to get into the Capitol building itself. I suppose the police were wise enough to stop them once they go to the doors. Capitol Police Chief Morse stated that the spray paint came off easily and any other damage was minor. Regardless of how easy this spray paint comes off, what if it wasn’t spray paint but some sort of explosive? Do the police think that all protesters are law abiding citizens? This goes well beyond free speech. It was a potential security threat. We need to be more forceful when dealing with unruliness at these protests. I do not recall seeing anyone do these things at the Pro Life rally last week, and this rally had about 10 times more people at it. It also received very small coverage in the media. I wonder why.

Nancy Pelosi has been urged to start an investigation of this incident. We shall see how far this investigation actually gets. Her cronies on the far-left will probably lobby her against it. Let’s see if the communist party gives an anonymous donation to the DNC. I’m sure of there is an investigation it will be buried on page 23. Why was this protest covered on the front page and the lead story on newscasts? Because anything that is against the President is worth reporting, even incorrectly. This goes to show certain crazy liberals in Congress that think our media is not biased are themselves brainwashed by the NY times and MSNBC. It’s no wonder circulation of the Times is down and the Home Shopping Network gets better ratings than MSNBC. Media needs to take notice and report to facts, not the sugar coated version of what really happened.

The President delivered his State of the Union address on Tuesday. Of course he acknowledged Nancy Pelosi as the first woman speaker of the house as was to be expected. He even congratulated the Democrat majority. That probably shocked the left side of the aisle. The first half of the speech was rather dull. Bush was not exactly trying to bring forward any major proposals. He was probably advised not to do so as with the Democrat controlled Congress, it would be quite difficult to get anything done. The lamest of the lame ducks apparently. What was long over due, however, was his description of the situation in Iraq. He finally was able to explain to the American people how failure in Iraq would cause catastrophic consequences, not only in the Middle East, but here at home. By far the best line in the speech was when he told Congress that when they voted for the war they voted for victory. I was surprised to see that many democrats did not stand up and applaud. I suppose those individuals would like to lose and lose badly. Maybe this is the true democratic stance. As I’ve stated in past articles, Democrats only adhere to poll numbers and unfortunately they are listening to the wrong poll. In his response, Senator Webb stated that most troops oppose the war in Iraq. What planet is he from? I’m not certain what poll he got his data from but just a quick google search and you will see it’s quite the opposite. There is no question that Iraq was the main issue, in fact, the President spent a lot of time explaining his view and his decision to send more troops. I applaud him for asking for Congress to give the new plan time. As with every plan, time is needed for it to succeed. We shall see.

Along with Iraq, in the second half of the speech, Bush discussed his health care reform plan, which is approved by many conservative analysts. I’ll spare you the details. The democrats will never pass this legislation anyway. However, it is a very strong reform plan that would improve the health care situation in this country a great deal. Energy and global warming was on the table as well. This issue has been around for years, but it seems ever since Al Gore’s documentary, which is now nominated for an academy award, go figure, I will be the first to state he will win, then we will have to listen to him drone on and on about this topic. Nevertheless, it is an important issue to address. More importantly, however, is the issue of alternative fuels, which in my opinion is the precursor to the fight against global warming itself. One thing that was absent from the speech, and not surprisingly, was any mention of family values. This enraged some Christian conservative groups. But what they do not realize is that Democrats do not care about family values, they parade their children and grand children around as if they do, but in the end they vote against every bill that would help these children succeed. We should hope that the no child left behind extension is passed and that a school choice program is put in place. If not, we should start saving now to send our children to private schools.

It is clear that the President’s agenda has shifted some with the Democrats in charge. It is also clear that he will not give in to the demands of the Dems either. The sooner the Democrats see that we are at war, the better. The sooner they start learning and reading for themselves again as opposed to listening to CNN opinion polls, the better. But I know as you do, these are only dreams that will probably never come true.

My boss said something interesting to me Tuesday morning. “What do you think about a Clinton/Obama ticket in ‘08’ I said that sounds like the media’s golden ticket. I had read a few articles about this subject, but mostly they said, wow, what a dream team. Of course that was the liberal media bias talking. A dream team? I’m not so sure. A Liberal team? Most certainly! Besides Obama has announced he will move towards running for President. I love how all of our candidates announce their exploratory committees and how they are ‘thinking of running’, but need their committee to help them decide for sure. It’s a big joke. We already know who is running.

I think what we are seeing here is a pattern regarding certain candidates. Prior to the primaries even as early as a year away from them you get a media blitz on one or 2 potential presidential candidates. Mostly, because the media is so far to the left, it has to do with the democratic side. For example, this year we have Obama. Pretty isn’t he? Well, he likes Monday Night Football too! Last election we had John Edwards. He was pretty too. But this year John Edwards, who is running, will have to take a side step because Obama is blitzing onto the scene! What does this say about the media? You can tell they are very ‘Hollywood’ in their selections. Note, that Edwards did not win his parties nomination, John Kerry did, however, Edwards decided he would run for vice president. Will we see the same thing in ’08? Hillary Clinton winning the nomination and Obama walking beside her for the VP? Possibly, if history repeats itself.

No candidates in 2000 could live up the Hollywood standard, so they went with the sitting VP. In the primary, you had Bill Bradley losing horribly to Al Gore, and Gore picked Lieberman has his running mate. So could it be, that our nation’s media has been ‘Hollywoodized’ since the 2000 election? Most certainly! The whole election seemed like a movie with court room drama and people yelling and protesting. I think more people watched the reports of the election issue than any other TV show at the time. The media needs its ratings.

The republicans are missing a young, attractive candidate for 2008. They do have an attractive, charming former governor, however, in Mitt Romney. What a smile! Somehow I think we will see the wicked witch of the party vs the war hero (McCain), ultimately, slug it out and whoever is left standing will win. But there is a lot of time between now and primary day. And even after primary day there’s a long time to the next caucus day. Just remember anyone with the lead can ultimately lose it, just ask Howard Dean.

President Bush, in his speech on Wednesday night, called for a troop increase in Iraq of around 20,000 troops. This was to be expected as many major media outlets broke stories of this as early as Monday. The President also stated how he came to the conclusion that this change in strategy is the correct one. He met with over 150 law makers, advisors and military experts over the past weeks. He stated the consensus was that the troop increase was the correct path to follow. Harry Reid went on television on Wednesday afternoon and denounced the President for waiting until the day of his speech, which was already written, to meet with democratic leaders. Funny, the President has been meeting with democratic leaders since they won control of congress. I suppose Harry lost his invitation back in November. A typical democrat response is to cry because you were scheduled to talk to the President at the last minute. Could it be that maybe Harry Reid was given that appointment time because he knows nothing about this war and the proper way of handling it? I’m certain the President was not asking for real estate advice from the senator.

Dick Durbin, gave the democratic response to the speech. This response sounded like it was written right before the November election. He stated how in October the President said we were winning and now the President says we are losing. Actually, the President did not say we were losing in his speech. Durbin also stated that we need to turn control over to the Iraqi’s and start moving our soldiers out. The one thing that Durbin does not understand is that we’ve been trying that and it’s not working. If he bothered to notice that the vast majority of Iraqi security forces are still not ready to combat an insurgency on their own. Not because they are not a large enough army, but because they are an inexperienced army who needs our guidance and training. This was one of the positive ideas to come out of the ISG report.  Our soliders are not going to be placed into some huge bloody battle, as Durbin said, but to work with Iraqi's more closely in securing the more dangerous areas.  Will there be casualties?  Probably, but not a blood bath as Durbin would have you believe.

Perhaps Mr. Durbin should ask the troops if they believe the job is done over there. I think he will find that almost all of them say no.  Durbin and his fellow democrats are trying to win an argument just by taking an opposing side, but they never give us solid reasons why we should believe their side over that of the President.

In regards to the plan itself, it appears to be the right choice. Of course, democrats won't admit they think it's a good idea. They are too busy pointing out the President's faults. The main mistake President Bush made was not having enough troops over there to begin with. In fact, if you recall, right after we took Baghdad, many military experts believed that we needed to concentrate on that city with a larger number of troops than we had there at the time. They also suggested beefing up troop levels in Anbar province. Both of which, according to the new plan, will be done now. Now, the President must hope that this isn’t too late in the game. I believe it is not. You will never know unless you try. Simply turning around and running away will not fix the situation. Those who continue to suggest this strategy need to go to their local library and start reading books on how militaries in the past dealt with similar problems. It’s amazing that a lot of these congressional leaders can be so ignorant. It is clear, secure the capital city of the country and you have a center for which government can operate safely. In Iraq, Baghdad is where the heavy population is. More people make it more vulnerable and attractive to terrorists. By taking control of Baghdad and Anbar province, the US will have taken out 80% or more of the insurgency, this dramatically improving the Iraqi army’s chances of taking over their own affairs.

President Bush acknowledged that he made some mistakes. We all know that he did, but for him to announce it was commendable. He admitted mistakes were made, took responsibility and gave us a solution to the problem. Many democrats and even some republicans could learn something from this: time to admit that you make mistakes, and start suggesting a solution to the problem. After all, we know no one is perfect. Even though these people may think they are. I don’t think they received the memo.

On January 8th, the AP reported something quite interesting. ‘Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday proposed extending health coverage to California's 6.5 million uninsured residents, promising to spread the cost among businesses, individuals, hospitals, insurers and the government. Under Schwarzenegger's plan, all Californians would be required to have insurance, although plans for the poorest people would be subsidized. Businesses with 10 or more employees would have to offer insurance to workers or pay 4 percent of their payroll into a state fund. Smaller businesses would be exempt.’

There are so many questions about this ‘plan’ it’s worrisome. For starters, isn’t this similar to the plan that Hillary Clinton has talked about for years, and is sure to be a part of her platform for her run in ’08? Yes, it is. Looks like Arnold is moving more and more left with each decision. Perhaps he was high on some medication after his skiing accident broke his leg. I would advise him to make sure the pills weren’t given to him by the California Democratic Party.

More questions about this ‘plan’:

Who determines who is too poor to afford health insurance? What is the monetary figure?
This has not been stated. So if you make $25,000 a year do you still have to pay? Or is it only those who make less than $15,000 a year? No numbers were given at the time of this article.

You must also understand that this includes a lot of illegal aliens as well, which is amazing. Health insurance companies track their database via social security #’s. I suppose all of the illegals who will be receiving this for free will just make up a number. I suppose this is one way to find out who is legal and who isn’t, right?

What if you don’t want to pay for health insurance? Such as those people who just work the minimum to get by and don’t really care about health insurance for example.

There are those people who work day-labor, fast food joints, multiple construction jobs for under the table money. This is also technically illegal, but people do it anyway. What if they don’t want health insurance? Under this plan, technically many people will have to pay for it, it isn’t free. It sounds to me like the plan is to insure 1.2 million ‘poor’ people and some people for free. But then again, the Governor’s language is not very clear. It sounds like if you are too poor to pay or don’t want to pay for it, the state will take care of you. So how would this stop anybody from paying in general? Why should I pay, when my neighbor refuses to? Very confusing isn’t it?

What happens when premiums rise in the insurance industry?
Will the 4% charged to businesses increase to 10%? 20%? Who will control this? It is apparent that the governor is expanding the size of the state’s government. Certainly there must be control somewhere and the creation of a huge bureaucracy is certainly not conservative in my book. And you can bet insurance companies will have contingency plans for these fees. Those people who can afford it will be paying much more in the long run.

Why aren’t they concentrating on the corruption in many hospitals, with over-billing and crazy fees on their patients first before mandating health care for all? Simply charging hospitals 4% will not stop them from increasing fees.

What exactly is covered under the health care plan from the Gov?

Everything? There are no more co-pays? Prescription drugs are now free? Not so! There is no way that doctors will work without receiving the office co-pay. And I’m sure the pharmaceutical companies would be interested in knowing how much of a discount people will receive on their meds.

As we can see there are a lot of unanswered questions. Although the governor means well and his idea, on the surface, seems like it would help alot of people. His decision on how to pay for this, however, is certainly not a fiscally responsible one.

California Republicans reacted "Imposing a new jobs tax on employers of any size and expanding costly government mandates is the wrong approach," Assembly Republican leader Mike Villines said in a statement, predicting the proposal would "devastate our economy."

The people who can afford the system ultimately will suffer increased costs in the end. There are too many questions with too few answers. The governor should rethink this ‘socialist plan’.