Dear Readers I am now the Editor of Red County - Sarasota

Dear loyal readers,

I have been asked to be the Editor of Red County - Sarasota. This is a fantastic opportunity for me to get our conservative message out to a huge audience. I will keep this blog active so you may look at my past articles on key topics.

However, I ask that you now put in your favorites list Red County - Sarasota. Here is the URL for my new blog:

http://www.redcounty.com

Please go to this new web site daily and read the great center-right articles from my fellow bloggers and conservatives like Victor Davis Hanson, Michael Medved, and Hugh Hewitt. You will get both local Sarasota news and commentary, as well as national news and commentary.

Thanks for your loyalty and great support.

Warm Regards,

Rich (theDuke) Swier

The Drama of Obama on Racism

Show 256 The Drama of Obama on Racism. Medved talks to author Wayne Perryman Podcast Episode

Posted using ShareThis

Healthcare Insurance versus Medical Care by Rich Swier

There has been much discussion about healthcare insurance. Let me add my humble voice to this discussion.

I recently went to my doctor and he said to me that healthcare insurance is a civil right. He even had a poster taped to his desk saying so. That is wonderful and noble but wrong headed. Healthcare insurance is not a civil right, it is a bet with an insurance company that I will not be healthy.

Each of us makes decisions each day on what we will spend our hard earned dollars on. I am retired. I pay for the basic necessities of life such as food, shelter, clothing, and a car. I am blessed in that my wife and I made some good financial decisions over our lifetime and are able to support ourselves. In addition to the necessities, I pay for insurance as a hedge against a variety of disasters. I have life, property, personal liability, and car insurance. I even have insurance on my car in case I am hit by a person without insurance. Finally, I have healthcare insurance. Actually, I have three healthcare insurance policies - one from my wife's employer, Medicare supplemental insurance, and long term care policy. Insurance is a great business or racket, depending on who you talk with.

Today you see TV ads and hear the AARP, members of Congress, and of course our Presidential candidates talking about healthcare insurance. Politicians never talk about the 250 million of us already paying for some form of healthcare insurance coverage for us and our families. I think that is a fantastic record compared to say China or India or Mexico. The favorite line from liberals is there are 47 million Americans without healthcare insurance. This is portrayed as a national crisis and you and I are guilty because there is someone someplace suffering because you and I are not providing them with all the health insurance they need. Do you feel guilty enough yet?

Let's have some straight talk about healthcare insurance versus medical care. No one in America goes without medial care. Anyone, including illegal aliens, can walk into any emergency room in any hospital and get medical care. We even provide free medical care to terrorists who want to kill us. Who pays for all this medical care? You and me. If the hospital is a public one, like Sarasota Memorial Hospital, county taxpayers pay the bill. If it is a private hospital, like our local Doctor's Hospital, it gets passed on to us taxpayers as Medicaid reimbursements or the hospital charges you and me pay when we visit. This free medical care to those without healthcare insurance is passed on to you and me in higher taxes, higher health insurance premiums or both. People are not dying in the streets for lack of medical care. They are dying in the streets from vicious gangs and drug deals gone bad.

Now to the bottom line. Who should have and who should pay for health insurance? As a conservative I believe it is up to the individual to decide if he or she will purchase health insurance. When the individual decides they want health insurance they then work and budget to pay for it. If the individual cannot afford it then families should step in to help. They help by adding family members to existing policies or providing funds to pay for a son, daughter, grandson or granddaughter, brother or sister's medical care or insurance until that family member can afford it on their own. That is the American way. Families taking care of one another.

Today most individuals or families have health insurance through their employers. Entrepreneurs and small business owners are self-insured. So having a job will do one of two things: the employer will provide coverage or the individual will have money and buy a personal health insurance policy. Some are proposing that we move away from an employer based system to an individual based system. In this system individuals get the tax breaks that companies do for providing healthcare insurance. The concept is exciting because it puts power back into the hands of individuals. As a conservative I like that. Let me make the decision on what coverage I want to meet my needs, not a company or government entity.

Now that I have solved the problem of who should have healthcare insurance and who should pay for it, let's discuss the real political issue.

The political argument is not about you and I having access to medical care, we already have that. The political discussion is who should be the insurance company - the private sector or government. Let me give you a personal example. I am a retired military officer. I have access to medical care through Tri-care for Life and the Veterans Administration (VA). The VA is socialized medicine. What do you hear in the news about the VA? Patient backlogs, veterans falling thru the cracks, long wait times for medical procedures, rationing of medical care, the growing costs of providing medical care, and the need to increase co-pays.The VA system is a parallel government run medical system to private/public hospitals and local clinics. The costs to run such a system are huge. VA is the largest federal government agency, even bigger than the Department of Defense.

As a user of the VA system I get an annual physical including all lab work. I pay for this in part because I have a higher income than other veterans. My supplemental insurance covers most of these co-pays. The VA does a great job on physicals. I see my VA doctor annually, that is it. I cannot call my VA doctor when I am sick or need routine outpatient care. I have another local civilian doctor who is my general practitioner. He refers me to other, non-VA doctors, for specialty care which is covered by my wife's insurance with Tri-care for Life (Medicare for Veterans) as my secondary. Sound complicated? It is and I am a rather healthy 63 year old.

While the VA does great work and provides many veterans with outstanding care it is socialized medicine and does not meet the needs of all veterans. It never will. Why, because it is totally government run. If government can't keep its obligations to our veterans, especially those injured in the line of duty, what makes you think it can take care of all Americans?

The political argument between liberals and conservatives is who should be your insurer. The private sector or government. Who should pay for your medial care? You via the insurance policy you select or government? Which is more efficient? Which is more responsive? Which gives you the decision making power? Which takes that decision making power away from you? Which promotes individual responsibility? Which makes you dependent on government largesse?

There is no such thing as a free lunch. So it is with healthcare insurance. I either pay for my medical care or depend on the government to provide me with medical care. My experiences with the government run VA system tells me to depend on me, myself and I.

The Liberal Media is Drowning in its Own Ink!

Mark Twain said, "Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel". What is amazing is there is a new quote today, "Never pick a fight with a hockey mom".

The liberal media, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and their liberal owners the New York Times are drowning in their own ink. The more they attack Governor Sarah Palin the more they sink into a "quagmire". The harder they try to throw dirt at her the deeper they sink and the media is taking the Obama campaign with it. As they say, "If you are in a hole, stop digging".

Let's take a look at just some of the false claims made by the major media about Governor Sarah Palin:

• Alan Colmes of Fox News blamed Governor Palin of improper pre-natal care and therefore causing her own son's Down Syndrome. Down Syndrome has nothing to do with pre-natal care as it is an extra chromosome that causes it.
• Palin did not cut funding for special needs education in Alaska by 62 percent. She didn’t cut it at all. In fact, she tripled per-pupil funding over just three years.
  
• She did not demand that books be banned from the Wasilla library. Some of the books on a widely circulated list were not even in print at the time. The librarian has said Palin asked a "What if?" question, but the librarian continued in her job through most of Palin's first term.
• She was never a member of the Alaskan Independence Party, a group that wants Alaskans to vote on whether they wish to secede from the United States. She’s been registered as a Republican since May 1982.
• Palin never endorsed or supported Pat Buchanan for president. She once wore a Buchanan button as a "courtesy" when he visited Wasilla, but shortly afterward she was appointed to co-chair of the campaign of Steve Forbes in the state.
• Democrat Congressman Robert Wexler of Florida and chair of the Florida Obama campaign smeared Republican vice presidential pick Sarah Palin as a "Nazi sympathizer".
• Palin has not pushed for teaching creationism in Alaska's schools. She has said that students should be allowed to "debate both sides" of the evolution question, but she also said creationism "doesn't have to be part of the curriculum."

The Atlantic Magazine ran the horrible and false story from the Daily Kos saying Governor Palin's Down Syndrome son Trig was her grandson. The New York Times ran three front page stories on Sarah Palin's daughter being pregnant. US Magazine put on their front cover over a picture of Governor Palin and her Down Syndrome son the title, "Babies, Lies and Scandals". Major news media outlets are taking their cues from far left blogs like the Daily Kos and Huffington Post, printing their lies and attacks without fact checking any of the allegations. Even CNN "ran" with the Trig is Sarah's grandchild story and reported on it.

Now let's add to this the total breakdown of Obama and his campaign, and his supporters becoming unhinged. We have Representative Steve Cohen, Democrat from Tennessee and Obama supporter, saying on the House floor, "“The parties have differences, but if you want change, you want the Democratic Party, Obama was a community organizer, like Jesus, who our minister prayed about. Pontius Pilate was a governor.” Gee I wonder how that plays with America's fifty Governors let alone Christians.

I have reported on the "Culture of Hate" on the left. We have Obama supporter John O'Brian in sleepy Sarasota, Florida posting the following on the liberal Sarasota Herald-Tribune public forum:

"Anyone who could support the retard breeder, isn't thinking about the welfare of our country. Lets hope she doesn't bring any more retards into thsi crazy world. I can't wait until they stop digging up her dirt."

On September 1, 2008 John posted, "SHE LIED ABOUT THE BRIDGE TO NOWHERE and kept the 500 million dollars, what a joke you queer loving gop smucks. She needst to stay home and take care of her reatrd and have her tubes tied."

When I asked the leadership of the Herald-Tribune about this and other posts by John I was told, "What we typically do in cases like this is suspend the user's rights for 24 hours to get his/her attention and allow for a cooling-off period."

I commend the Sarasota Herald-Tribune's online editor for taking down the offensive quotes but a "24-hour cooling off period" does not address the issue of vile, hurtful and hateful words.

Surely we can all agree that "retard breeder" is hate speech? Well it seems not. I contacted the Obama campaign in Sarasota and their regional press person in Tampa and they have not commented or condemned this hate speech. When you stand silent on speech like this it is the same as casting a vote of "present".

This culture of hate is backfiring. A Rasmussen Reports survey found that 51 percent of voters believe that the media is trying to hurt the Alaska governor with its coverage -- and 24 percent say that makes them more likely to support the Republican ticket.

The liberal media is finally drowning in their own ink. They should be. It is time for a change in the culture of hate. Senator Obama is clearly not up to it. I believe Senator McCain and Governor Palin are.

Barry Goldwater is Back in Town by Paul R. Hollrah

In the wake of the 2006 congressional elections, in which Republicans received a well-deserved drubbing at the polls, Republican members of Congress spent a weekend together at an east coast resort. Either as testament to their mind-numbing political insensitivity, or as a cruel joke on their constituents, they even had the temerity to call their weekend meeting a “retreat.”

With the political “earthquake” of 1994, Republicans were given the opportunity for leadership that millions of activists had worked toward since the close of World War II… the opportunity to lead the nation according to time-honored conservative principles.

They went to Washington and for four years, under the leadership of Speaker Newt Gingrich, the House of Representatives actually acted as if it were the “People’s” House… as the Founding Fathers intended. But then, in 1998, Gingrich decided not to seek reelection after having his reputation tarnished over a book advance from Rupert Murdock. When the 106th Congress was seated in January 1999, House Republicans elected Dennis Hastert as Speaker – a man who couldn’t buy an appearance on a network news program and who never saw a spending bill he didn’t like.

Meanwhile, in the Senate, after conducting a sham trial of Bill Clinton in 1999, Majority Leader Trent Lott was driven from his leadership position in December 2002 after making a racially insensitive remark at Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday party. Lott was succeeded by Bill Frist, a heart surgeon from the state of Tennessee. Frist was a totally honorable, totally decent man who, being unaccustomed to dealing with the likes of Ted Kennedy, Tom Daschle, and Harry Reid, quickly became the Democratic leadership’s favorite breakfast food.

With leaders who were incapable of imposing party discipline, Republicans were soon corrupted by their new-found power. Under the leadership of Tom Delay, House Republicans developed what came to be known as the “K Street Project,” a plan designed to shut Democrats out of the corporate money they had been extorting from K Street lobbyists during all their years in power. It was a completely hare-brained scheme. Since most corporate lobbyists in Washington are what is referred to in the profession as “access” lobbyists, unprincipled and ideologically neutral men and women who buy access to members on both sides of the aisle, they would have given the bulk of their political support to members of the majority party without Delay & Company having to squeeze it out of them.

In a very short time, congressional Republicans became addicted to a Democratic pork barrel invention known as the “earmark.” They began to spend the People’s money like drunken sailors, and in just eight short years after Newt Gingrich’s unfortunate and untimely departure congressional Republicans became indistinguishable from Democrats. In 2006 the American people sent them packing... and deservedly so.

One would have thought that a Republican president, concerned for the pocketbooks of the American people and for the long term future of his party, might have imposed a bit of spending discipline on his Republican colleagues in Congress… but he didn’t. During his first seven years in office, the years during which congressional Republicans were losing their way, committing political suicide through a thousand self-inflicted wounds, George W. Bush never once used his veto power in the interest of either fiscal sanity or party discipline.

But the downfall of the Republican Party didn’t begin with Newt Gingrich’s departure from Congress or with the dawn of the Lott/Frist era in the Senate. The demise of the Republican brand began with Ronald Reagan’s departure from the White House and George H.W. Bush’s ascension to the presidency. The Bushes, father and son alike, are both products of the eastern liberal establishment (Rockefeller) wing of the Republican Party. They are not conservatives. They were, and are, political moderates… Ivy League elitists in ten-gallon hats… and whatever ideology it is that motivates them, it remains a mystery among the party’s conservative base. George W. Bush won nomination in 2000 by claiming to be a “compassionate” conservative… insulting conservatives and confusing non-aligned voters all at one time.

What the Bushes have done, with the able assistance of Trent Lott, Bill Frist, Dennis Hastert, and Tom Delay, is to besmirch the value of the Republican brand. For the better part of a decade they have made it impossible for conservative Republicans, in good conscience, to publicly defend their own party… the party to which so many have dedicated “their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor.” What they have done to the party, collectively, is unforgivable.

But now, in a single act of courage and insightfulness, whether intentional or not, Senator John McCain has made it possible for conservatives and Republicans to put all of that behind them. In choosing Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, John McCain has given his party’s conservative base reason to once again feel proud and unashamed… to march forward to battle with shoulders square and heads held high. Sarah Palin is an unabashed conservative, in the style of Barry Goldwater.

She is courageous, she is self-confident, she knows who and what she is, she knows intuitively what it is that makes our country great, and she understands the evils of liberalism and the virtues of conservatism.

She punctures Democratic pomposity fearlessly and she does it all with grace, charm, and good humor. Not since Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan have we seen a Republican leader with the kind of piercing eyes and determined jaw that causes liberals and Democrats to quake in their boots. Ladies and gentlemen… Barry Goldwater is back in town and he (er, she) plans to kick butt and take names.

Let the games begin.

Article by Paul R. Hollrah

Whodunit? Democrats of course!

This is priceless. It is a Mastercard moment. Let me relish this.

We have the liberal Sarasota Herald-Tribune pounding the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections for losing ballots in their article, "The latest election whodunit"? Amazing.

The editorial board even remembers the butterfly ballots of the 2000 election. Wonderful!!!

Finally, a liberal newspaper is admitting that Democrats don't know how to properly run an election. You see Palm Beach county's Supervisor of Elections in both cases were Democrats. Democrats have been behind giving Florida its bad reputation. Democrats need to take the blame.

The liberals at the Herald-Tribune can't quite bring themselves to identify the Palm Beach folks as Democrats but does mention a Republican for putting a Senate race at the bottom of the ballot with an unfounded allegation that this somehow would befuddle Democrats. Well maybe it did, what does that say about Democrat voters?

It is sweet to see this all in print. Of course it was another Democrat, Christine Jennings that added to Florida's reputation on elections, but wrongly so. Christine, you see, thought when Republicans run a Supervisor of Elections office they must be as bad as Democrats at it. Wrong.

Kathy Dent was vindicated as were Vern Buchanan and the touch screen machines. Victory is sweet. Better to put Republicans in charge of running elections, at least they are dedicated, honest and capable.

We know whodunit - Democrats!

Pastor Manning's Fierce Prayer for Bristol Palin

Pastor Manning is back with his comments about Senator Obama's mother and Governor Palin's daughter. Amazing.



I condemn the speech of Obama mentor and pastor of 20 years Jeremiah Wright. I also condemn the speech of Clinton supporter Pastor Manning. However, it is useful to expose this for what it is, hate speech.