Including health care:

For the first time in over two years of polling, voters trust Republicans slightly more than Democrats on the handling of the issue of health care. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that voters favor the GOP on the issue 44% to 41%.

Democrats held a four-point lead on the issue last month and a 10-point lead in June. For most of the past two years, more than 50% of voters said they trusted Democrats on health care. The latest results mark the lowest level of support measured for the party on the now-contentious issue.

If you look in to the full poll, you’ll see that the GOP and Democrats are tied on Iraq. The one issue voters trust Democrats on over the GOP is – believe it or not – “government ethics” by a 34/31 margin. This shows how badly we blew it when our Congressional GOP became part of the problem in DC – we’ll a long time getting over that and the only sure cure is to gain power and then go after corruption root and branch in DC, letting the chips fall where they may.

We lost the trust of the American people and we deserved to lose it – we lost our way and became part of the problem. We became, that is, just like the Democrats. Now that the people are getting a refresher course in just how horrible Democrat government is, their trust is swinging towards us…but we still have to earn it, and then carry out our duty, no matter how hard it is. If we can show that we’re trust worthy, we’ll be rewarded with a generation of power with which to remake America back towards the constitutional republic it was always meant to be.

Back to basics:

Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. – Barry Goldwater

Losing Specter may end up being the best thing that ever happened to us:

Uncomfortable town hall meetings are just the tip of the iceberg for Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter. He now trails Republican Pat Toomey by double digits in his bid for reelection next year and is viewed unfavorably by a majority of the state’s voters.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Pennsylvania voters shows 48% would vote for Toomey if the election were held today. Just 36% would vote for Specter while four percent (4%) prefer a third option, and 12% are not sure.

These figures reflect a dramatic reversal since June. At that time, before the public health care debate began, Specter led Toomey by eleven…

…If Congressman Joe Sestak is the Democratic nominee instead of Specter, Toomey still leads but by a smaller margin. The polling shows 43% for Toomey and 35% for Sestak. In June, Sestak had a six-point edge over Toomey.

We might be trading a wet noodle RINO for a rock-ribbed conservative. It is still a very long way out, but its been my experience in politics that not too many people recover from the level of negative Specter has reached. The Dems better figure a way to dump him in favor of Sestak or they’ll have a nearly insurmountable problem in PA next year.

Right now, Specter has a 13 point lead over Sestak in the Dem primary, but I expect that number will start to shift as Democrats start to see the writing on the wall. What will remain to be seen is whether or not the Democrat leadership starts to wise up – they do seem rather out to lunch and they may stick with Specter.

Yale is set to publish a book about those Mohammed cartoons which caused that ruckus in 2005 – funny thing about the book:

This is contemporary academia, after all. No, after consulting “two dozen authorities, including diplomats and experts on Islam and counterterrorism,” that great bastion of intellectual light, the Yale University Press, decided to publish a book about the Danish cartoons without the Danish cartoons. (emphasis in original)

These people will not fight against Islamism for the simple reason that they are afraid to do so. This wouldn’t be such a bad thing except that they insist that the rest of us call their cowardice “sensitivity” and that we all become as “sensitive” as they are. Its like the coward running from battle who insists that everyone follow him, lest he be seen for the coward he is.

The Islamists are sure to be pleased – their future slaves are already showing proper deference towards their masters.

Foreclosures rise 7 percent in July from June

Bleak sales are another reality check for economy

Bankruptcy filings surge in first-half 2009

US new jobless claims show surprise increase

‘Fastest Dying Cities’ Meet for a Lively Talk

National Guard drill at high school to prepare for possible H1N1 riot

Statement from Vice President Biden on launch of $2.3 billion recovery act green manufacturer tax credit program

If the government can spend it’s way out of bankruptcy, why can’t I spend my way out of debt?

Congressional pay raises ought to be approved by the voters, not by Congress. Try telling your boss that you and your co-workers voted yourselves a pay raise, and see how far that gets you.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So are government abuses and corruption, it seems.

According to the Democrats, the difference between grassroots and astroturf are which party is being protested.

The way things are going, we’ll only be stuck with Barack Obama for four years. But, Sonia Sotomayor will be on the Supreme Court for life. Think about that the next time you plan to stay home on Election Day because the Republican “isn’t conservative enough.”

As the unemployment rate went down during the Bush years, Democrats kept telling us how much worse the economy was getting. As the unemployment rate goes up under Obama, Democrats keep telling us the worst is over.

Barack Obama is not a president. He’s just playing one in real life. And he’s really doing a crappy job.

In order to get my marriage license, I have to show two forms of ID, including my birth certificate.

After January 20, 2009, dissent went from the highest form of patriotism to being un-American.

Obama critics still don’t use the word “socialism” as much as Bush critics used the term “religious right.”

If you could choose any country in the world for your health care needs, which country would it be?

While on the subject, if Obama needs to go across the country to sell his health care plan at pre-screened town halls, then it will probably go as far as President Bush’s Social Security plan in 2005 did.

Have you ever read the health care bill? It ought to be called Obama’s Health Control Plan, not Health Care Plan. This is stuff you never would expect to see happen in America. It has everything to do with control, not quality of or access to health care.

Most who support Obama’s heath care plan probably support abortion rights. Abortion advocates often say the government shouldn’t have “control over my body.” So, why do they support a plan that allow the government to control what kind of medical care your body can or cannot receive?

Seems that they are:

Either indies have suddenly developed a taste for Nazi mobs of political terrorists or the Democrats’ message war on ObamaCare opponents is a rather epic fail.

Given the left’s monopoly on wisdom and virtue, I must reluctantly conclude it’s the former. When did independents start hating America?

In a survey of 1,000 adults taken Tuesday, 34% say the sometimes heated protests at sessions held by members of Congress have made them more sympathetic to the protesters’ views; 21% say they are less sympathetic.

Independents by 2-1, 35%-16%, say they are more sympathetic to the protesters now…

I’ll bet that a survey of “likely voters” would show an even more marked favorability for the mobs of hate filled morons who don’t know what’s good for ’em. To put it in terms even a liberal can understand: insulting the people you’re trying to convince is a poor debating tactic. Perhaps instead of all that “shut up, you idiots” if you had tried, “we respect your views and will use as many of your ideas as we can”, you might have got a little further towards your ultimate goal. You know, there’s an old phrase about half a loaf being better than none?

Be that as it may, this Obamacare debate has been an excellent way of clarifying the outstanding differences between right and left in this nation – the left exposes itself, day by day, as being arrogant, hate-filled, spiteful and authortarian while the right is more and more shown to be the party of the people, and of freedom.

As people fill the vials of wrath, it is opportune to take to heart these words:

At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide. – Abraham Lincoln

Just keep thinking about “Green shoots” and hoping that the Chinese economy will pull us out of our slump…please ignore things like this:

The federal deficit climbed higher into record territory in July, hitting $1.27 trillion with two months remaining in the budget year.

The Treasury Department said Wednesday that the July deficit totaled $180.7 billion, slightly more than the $177.5 billion economists had expected.

Its all bottomed out. Everything will be fine. No need to worry.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, there is opinion that we’re already in a deflationary economic depression and just haven’t admitted it, yet.

Nothing like saying something stupid and false to get your day start,huh, Barry?

The American College of Surgeons is deeply disturbed over the uninformed public comments President Obama continues to make about the high-quality care provided by surgeons in the United States. When the President makes statements that are incorrect or not based in fact, we think he does a disservice to the American people at a time when they want clear, understandable facts about health care reform. We want to set the record straight.

— Yesterday during a town hall meeting, President Obama got his

facts completely wrong. He stated that a surgeon gets paid

$50,000 for a leg amputation when, in fact, Medicare pays a

surgeon between $740 and $1,140 for a leg amputation. This

payment also includes the evaluation of the patient on the day

of the operation plus patient follow-up care that is provided

for 90 days after the operation. Private insurers pay some

variation of the Medicare reimbursement for this service.

— Three weeks ago, the President suggested that a surgeon’s

decision to remove a child’s tonsils is based on the desire to

make a lot of money. That remark was ill-informed and

dangerous, and we were dismayed by this characterization of the

work surgeons do. Surgeons make decisions about recommending

operations based on what’s right for the patient.

We agree with the President that the best thing for patients with diabetes is to manage the disease proactively to avoid the bad consequences that can occur, including blindness, stroke, and amputation. But as is the case for a person who has been treated for cancer and still needs to have a tumor removed, or a person who is in a terrible car crash and needs access to a trauma surgeon, there are times when even a perfectly managed diabetic patient needs a surgeon. The President’s remarks are truly alarming and run the risk of damaging the all-important trust between surgeons and their patients.

The man is just making stuff up as he goes along – we thought this was just a Biden thing but it seems that Obama, too, will just make up “facts” to fit the statement of the moment. More and more, its getting impossible to trust anything the President says because we don’t know right off the bat whether he’s (a) lying or (b) directly contravening a previous statement. Dishonest Presidents are the worst sort – better an idiot than a liar. You can eventually work out ways to keep an idiot up on the rails, but a liar will continually undercut everything you do.

This long four years gets longer by the day.