Saturday December 5th 2009

Saturday, December 5th, 2009 is a date that will live in my memory for as long as my mind continues to function.  On that date, we traveled up to Hot Springs, Arkansas to attend the Arkansas Republican Committee Straw Poll.  The straw poll was an opportunity for the seven candidates that are vying for the GOP nomination to run for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Blanche Lincoln.  Each of the seven candidates spoke for seven and one half minutes before the vote was taken.  It was my first opportunity to see and hear several of the candidates.  What I heard was very heartening.  It seems that, for the most part, the Republican Party is trying to move back toward our conservative roots.  It is my opinion that this is what, not only the Republican Party needs, but it’s what our country needs.  One of the men that I was privileged to hear on Saturday will be running against Lincoln in the 2010 election.  We really do believe that we have enough people in various groups across the state to vote Senator Lincoln out of office.  So, some time during the day, Saturday I heard the next U.S. Senator from the Great State of Arkansas.  And there is a pretty good chance that I spoke with him.  I did manage to get some face-to-face time with a couple of the front runners.  I never dreamed that I’d do that.

As most of you know, up until this year I was never politically active.  I have always been concerned about politics but I just never felt motivated enough to get out and do something.  The current administration changed that.  We are rushing headlong into the complete destruction of all that I have believed in and fought for all of my life.  While there are some things that need work in this country, changing the fundamentals of who we are is not the answer.  I have begun reading a book by Leon Skousen, The 5000 Year Leap the 28 Great Ideas that Changed the World.  It is also called “Principles of Freedom 101.”  The book is about the writing of the U.S. Constitution and what the founding fathers were faced with.  The book tells how the founding fathers knew that there must be two parties of government to keep the country balanced at the center where there is freedom, not too far to the left where there is tyranny nor too far to the right where lies anarchy.  Our country has moved too far to the left and if we do not act now to stop this trend the eventual end will be total loss of freedom and tyranny.

I think that by standing up and being counted on Saturday, December 5th 2009 I helped to bring my country back from that precipice.  I hope that you too are doing something to help us.  God Bless America.

John A. Wilson

President

Conservative Action Project

$500 Million Cut in Medicare

There is no longer any plausible deniability.  The new healthcare bill is going to cut $500 Billion from Medicare.  John McCain proposed an amendment to the healthcare bill that would remove the portion of the bill that does so.  Today the Senate voted on that amendment and defeated it along party lines.  So no one can now say that the healthcare bill isn’t going to hurt senior citizens.  The money will be mostly taken from Medicare Advantage.  The percent of the doctor and hospital bills that Medicare Advantage pays for will be reduced.  This means that senior citizens with Medicare Advantage will have to pay more out of their pockets for lifesaving medical care.  The better heeled seniors won’t have a problem with this, but those who depend on Medicare and Social Security will be devastated.  Why? Very simple actually. Doctors will get less for seeing Medicare patients.  To maintain their incomes, doctors will either have to stop seeing Medicare patients or spend less time diagnosing and treating their illnesses.  Therefore, senior citizens will see the quality and quantity of their medical care begin to wane.  Many doctors will stop seeing Medicare patients entirely.  Seniors will find it difficult to even see a physician.  The inevitable result will be that senior citizens will die sooner.  It’s as simple as that.

The most disturbing thing about this is that the largest senior citizen advocate group in the country is supporting this bill.  A bill that will adversely affect their own members is being supported by AARP.  What?  Is it just possible that AARP have gotten a lot like the labor unions.  I have seen a great deal of evidence in my life that labor unions don’t really care about their members as they swear they do.  No, labor unions care about the labor unions.  Now the same thing can be said about AARP, they care about AARP, not the members.  Why would AARP abandon their membership to back this bill?  Again, it’s quite simple.

Since Medicare won’t pay as much of the healthcare bills as it did before, the seniors will end up owing more and more to the doctor or hospital.  There is, however a way around it if the senior citizen can afford it.  Seniors can buy a Medicare Supplement insurance policy.  Consider it gap insurance because it covers the gap between the doctor bills and what is covered by Medicare.  Getting a good gap insurance policy is not difficult, it is even fully endorsed by AARP……..hmmmm……..I’m sure that AARP’s endorsement does not come free.  And the more gap insurance that the elderly must buy, the more AARP gets.  So, AARP turns its back on its own members and endorses a bill that will severely affect senior citizens.  Well, not really turn their back, it’s more like they sold their members out.  It makes you wonder just how much the membership was worth?

A Distinct Lack of Respect.

Those who have never served in our Armed Forces may find what I have to say today rather trivial.  That’s because you have never laid down your life for your buddies and something bigger than all of you.  When a Soldier, Sailor, Marine, of Airman makes the ultimate sacrifice those who have served understand that a debt of honor is owed to that person that can never be repaid.  All we can do is render all of the respect and honor that we possibly can at every opportunity we can find.  There is a movie that I’d like to recommend to everyone.  The name of the flick is “Taking Chance.”  It is about a young Marine killed in Iraq and is being escorted home by a Marine officer.  The young Marine’s name is Chance and the screen play was taken directly from the diary of the Marine officer. If you watch the movie and have any questions about anything in it, feel free to ask me.  It would be an honor and pleasure to help you.

Having said all of that, I can now get to the point of today’s post.  I’m sure that no one is unaware of the fact that a short time ago 13 U.S. Army Soldiers were gunned down aboard their own base at a time when they had no means to defend themselves.  Forty two soldiers were also wounded in the attack.  Whether the shooter had any ties to any known terrorist group, it was an attack by a terrorist in our ongoing war against terror. A few days after the attack there was a memorial service for those killed.  The president attended the memorial service.  I know that this president knows how to render a hand salute, I’ve seen him return the salute of his Marine honor guards.  When The National Anthem was played to honor these brave soldiers full honors should have been shown.  It was by everyone on that podium except for the alleged Commander-in-chief.  He could have simply placed his hand over his heart or rendered a hand salute, but apparently this president does not have enough respect for our National Anthem or for fallen soldiers to render any kind of salute.  I am disgusted by this photo.  I think you will be too.  Remember, this picture was taken as the National Anthem was being played at the memorial service for the soldiers killed at Fort Hood.

The Protracted War

The great master, Sun Tzu, lived in the fifth century Before Christ.  (That’s right, I said Before Christ, not “before common era.”  If my use of the word Christ offends you, then go read someone else’s blog.)  He was, and still is, considered the greatest expert on warfare.  His book, The Art of War, was revered for many centuries.  It was then ignored for several centuries, it has now experienced a great resurgence of study and reverence.  I too have read his book.  As a combat veteran, I see the wisdom in Sun Tzu’s work.  What Master Sun knew 7000 years ago is still true today.  I have seen several documentary films that show where twentieth century generals have followed Sun Tzu’s teaching and succeeded and others that went against Sun Tzu’s writing and lost.  Even though the tools and methods of war have changed a great deal since Master Sun’s time, the philosophy and psychology of war has not.

In one of the many scrolls that make up the chapters of his book, Sun Tzu says, “There is no instance where a country benefits from a protracted war.”  We can look back on wars fought in the twentieth century and see where this one statement is true. World War I became a war of stalemate.  Trench warfare was stalled for a long time and over one million troops were killed.  Both the French and German governments were almost bankrupted when the American Army entered the fray and, by changing the tactics, brought the war to a fairly quick end.

The most successful type of warfare of the twentieth century was the German “Blitzkrieg,” or “Lightening War.”  The German shock troops moved it quickly, struck brutally and won quickly.  Even against the huge French Army caved in very quickly to Hitler’s troops.  Then when General Patton arrived on the scene, he moved just as quickly to put an end to Hitler and his madness.

Then came the longest and most costly war this nation has ever endured, The Cold War.  Yes, the Cold War never became a shooting war, but the United States government and Soviet Russia spend untold billions of dollars in the arms race.  The Cold War’s arms race kept both countries at bay because we knew that winning a shooting war would be almost impossible for either side.  Without a shot being fired, this Cold War almost bankrupted the Soviet Union.  Almost, but not quite.  The fall of the Soviet Union was caused mainly by Soviet aggression in Afghanistan. There, they fought a long, drawn-out fight that gained nothing for Russia except a debt that it could not sustain and finally, the Communist government collapsed.

A few years earlier the United States was in a very similar quandary.  A protracted struggle in Southeast Asia  gained nothing for America.  Luckily we got out of there before the war broke us completely.  Unfortunately we learned nothing either.  The war on terror has caused us to have troops in harms way for over eight years now.  Again, we have gained nothing for the high price we have paid and continue to pay, both in precious American lives and the financial crisis that it has caused.

So, once again, I call for the president to either step up, take the advice of his generals and win this thing once and for all or pull out now.  Yes, I know what will happen if we abandon the fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, there will be a bloodbath.  Millions of innocent people, including children, will suffer and die.  That is why I would prefer for the president to choose a swift victory.  There will be a great loss of life, but it will be over soon and we can all settle down to a peaceful life.

Our economy is in great peril, we don’t need the expense of a long war adding to it.  God bless our troops and let us all be thankful to the enormous debt that we owe to them.  But, Mr. President, either let them fight to win, or bring them home.

John A. Wilson

President

Conservative Action Project.

Are We Stupid?

Just how stupid do politicians think the American People are?  Do you think that they honestly believe that they will get away with the political shenanigans that have been going on?  I think they are about to get a rude awakening.  There have been all kinds of shady deals made, lots of pressure applied and a few outright threats made.  Harry Reid needed all 60 Senate Democrats votes to move the Healthcare Bill to debate on the Senate floor.  The vote to move the bill forward is, in effect, a guarantee that the bill will pass the Senate.  Oh, I know, a couple of sellout Senators are claiming that their votes do not mean the bill will pass.  They say that they just want to bill to be debated.  But there is something else that they are not telling us.  While Prince Harry had to have all 60 Democrat votes to move the bill forward, he will not need all 60 of them to pass the bill.  That’s right, the 60-vote supermajority needed for cloture is not necessary for the bill to pass.  That takes only a simple majority, 51 votes.  So Harry Reid can give up to 9 Senators a free pass to vote against the bill and still get it passed.  Why, you may ask, is this important?

Elementary my dear reader, Blanche Lincoln can vote against the bill on the Senate floor and it will still pass.  You can bet that Senator Lincoln will be trumpeting the fact that she voted against this bill next year in her bid for re-election.  She can make all sorts of claims about how she listened to her constituents and did what she did for the people of Arkansas.  And like Democrats all over the country, she’ll be lying through her teeth.  Senator Lincoln is Chairman of U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry.  There were rumors that her chairmanship of that committee was in danger if she didn’t vote for cloture.  Some more liberal Democrats here in Arkansas have also threatened to run a well-financed campaign to elect a liberal Democrat in the May primary election.  Senator Lincoln describes herself as a centrist Democrat.

Recent polls indicate that over 60% of Arkansans are against this health care bill.  Senator Lincoln has said that she is against some of the provisions in the bill.  One would think that those two facts would be enough to dissuade the Senator from voting for this bill to go forward.  Senator Lincoln had in her hand the power to stop this awful bill once and for all.  But Senator Lincoln chose her political career over the people of Arkansas.  Even if she does vote against the healthcare bill, it will now pass by a narrow margin.  She can shout from the rooftops that she was opposed to this bill and voted against it all she wants to, we are going to remember what she did to us the voters of Arkansas and the whole country.  Count on it, I’m not going to forget and I’ll keep reminding all of you.  The campaign starts now.  Do not re-elect Lincoln.

The Constitution vs The Healthcare Bill

The Constitution of the United States of America was hand-written on four pages.  The document that has endured a Civil War, two World Wars, the Great Depression and the Carter administration can be printed out in Word on six pages.  A six-page document has been sufficient to run this country for over two hundred years.  The document that is supposed to “fix” health care in America is over two thousand pages.  What is wrong with this picture?  The Senate Bill still has yet to be released, but it is even longer than the House Bill so I can only assume that it will be even more complicated, confusing and ambiguous than H.R. 3200.  I’ve gone over the U.S. Constitution again and again, and I simply cannot find anything in it that says the Federal Government has the authority to take control over our health care.  Bear in mind, anything that is not specifically given to the government by the constitution is prohibited to it by the Tenth Amendment.  I am not an expert on the U.S. Constitution, but it is not a very difficult document to understand.  The Constitution is not written in convoluted lawyerese that not even the lawyers that wrote it know all that is covered by it.  The case can be made that the length and complicated wording are designed to make it impossible for the lay people to understand.  Prince Harry and Princess Pelosi think that we, the people, are too stupid to figure that out.  Some folks are in for a rude awakening a year of so from now.

First in a Series

I am going to write a series of blogs about the Constitution as I understand it.  I have a couple of copies in booklet form and have read the entire Constitution several times.  I do not claim to be some kind of expert on the Constitution.  I’m not even sure if the way I understand the document is the way the founding fathers meant it to mean.  This series of articles is merely my take on what the Constitution says and what it means to this country that I love.

On May 25, 1787, 39 delegates from 12 states signed the document that created the government that led to this land becoming the greatest nation in the world.  I did not say that the United States is perfect, but if you really compare this country to any other place in the world, this country is clearly the best.  The foundation of this great country is the Constitution.  It is the rock upon which this country was built.  The Constitution is the guardian of our freedom.  This wonderful document not only described what the government of this country is expected to do, but also states in no uncertain terms the things that the government is not allowed to do.   The Constitution has been under attack for several years now.  I think we have gotten to the point where most Americans are beginning to think that it is time we moved back to what the Constitution says, not what power-hungry politicians claim it says.

I have heard The Anointed One, Our Beloved Leader, Barrak Hussein Obama (peace be upon him) say that The Bill of Rights is a list of “negative rights.”  The Bill of Rights lays out what the government can not do to us.  A lot of those on the left find this unacceptable.   The Anointed One, Our Beloved Leader, Barrak Hussein Obama (peace be upon him) has said that the Bill of Rights should also include the things that the government is required to do for each of the citizens in this great country.  There are two things wrong with that attitude.  One of them I will address right now, the other I will do my best to cover over the next week.

The very concept of The Constitution of the United States of America listing what the government must do flies in the face of what the Founding Fathers intended to do.  This country was founded on the principle that “the government that governs least governs best.”  The purpose of The Bill of Rights is to limit the size and scope of government.  What the framers of our Constitution were working to achieve was an energetic, but limited government.  The colonists had seen what a big, all-powerful government can do.  They had suffered long enough under the tyranny of absolute government.  Think about it for a minute, how bad do things have to be before you make the decision to take up arms against your government.  Once that decision is made, it can not be taken back.  As the great Benjamin Franklin said after the Declaration of Independence was signed, “We must hang together or we shall all hang separately.”  Those who took up arms and threw off the tyranny of the strongest monarch in the world at that time must have had a great many reasons to limit the size and power of the central government when it came time to set down on paper the type of government that we will be happiest under.

So yes, the Bill of Rights does not include the things that the government is responsible for in our everyday lives, because that is exactly what our Founding Fathers intended.  The government has no responsibility to take care of the citizens in a Republican form of government.  And I don’t care what the lefty loons say our country was founded as a Republic, not a “representative democracy.”  That term did not exist back then and was coined by the Democrat Party because they hate anything that has that word in it.  The definition of several types of governance will be covered in later blogs.

I hope that explains one of the reasons that The Anointed One, Our Beloved Leader, Barrak Hussein Obama (peace be upon him) was wrong about the responsibilities of government.  My next blog will attempt to prove that He is wrong about the Constitution not laying out what the government must do.  There is a section of the Constitution called the Enumerated Powers.  More on them soon.

The Definition of Oppresive Governments

Thirty-seven years, four months and thirteen days ago I stood in an office of the Armed Forces Examination and Entrance Station in Shreveport, Louisiana and raised my right hand.  There I swore to protect and defend the United States of America from all enemies both foreign and domestic.  I pledged my life in the defense of the country I loved.  I stated that I would defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies of freedom.  I spent most of the next year training and then took up my weapon and marched off to war.  I killed other human beings to prevent Communism from swallowing up a little country in Southeast Asia.  Then I watched as politicians gave that freedom-loving country away to the Communists and could only bow my head in shame as hundreds of thousands of the people I tried to protect were executed.  I was saddened but not defeated.  I was able to console myself with the thought that at least I had tried.  I did all that I could, but it fell short of being enough.

I have continued my fight to keep Socialism, Communism and Fascism at bay.  For the last several years I have watched all three of them creep into the fabric of my America.  I have tried to fight it, but really didn’t know how until this year.  In early March of this year I found a way to reach out and fight.  I joined an organization called Conservative Action Project.  Since that time I have been able to fight for the Constitution, to defend it against those who wish to undermine it.  But like my fight in Vietnam, this fight has not been enough.  I watched Saturday as Congress voted to pass a bill that eventually gives the federal government control of the health care industry in this country.  The government has already taken control of much of the automobile industry, the banking industry and the insurance industry.  I have been laughed off for mentioning that these takeovers were Socialist or Fascist.  But when we look into the definitions of these oppressive forms of government we can see where they do apply.

To determine whether or not the argument that this government is moving toward Socialism, Communism or Fascism we must first define what those terms mean.  Socialism is a term most of us have heard and have some idea what it means.  Socialism is a system of governance in which the government owns and operates business or industry.  Everyone works for the government and is paid according to what that person’s individual needs are.  Karl Marx, the founder of Socialism gave us this famous quote:

From each according to his ability

To each according to his need.

This is a totally Utopian idea.  For true Socialism to succeed every person must be totally selfless.  None can be hungry for power.  No one may have more than his neighbor has.  It works well with bees and ants, but simply can not and will not work for people.  That is where Communism comes in.  In a Communist state, the government runs everything.  Every decision in your life has to be made from the perspective of what the government expects of you.  The government runs all business but you can advance and make more money that your neighbors.  The catch is, you can only advance within the ruling party, not your ability to do your job.  That brings us to Fascism.  The definition of Fascism is, the citizens own businesses, but the government tells you how to run them.  That is essentially what the government is doing to the banking industry now.  The government has issued regulations as to how much the bank will be allowed to pay its employees among other things.  Banks that have accepted TARP money must abide by these regulations.  Banks that have not accepted TARP funds do not necessarily have to abide by these regulations, but they will be audited by the FDIC if they don’t.

Here in my beloved country, the government owns a huge amount of General Motors, the union owns most of the rest.  No matter how you spin it, or twist it, that is Socialism.  The government tells banks how to go about doing business, that is Fascism.  Now the government is looking to take control of our healthcare.

So there are the facts as I see them.  As I look forward to this Wednesday when our nation will take a moment to thank our Veterans, I can’t help but wonder how sincere the thanks we are receiving are.  What I and countless numbers of my brothers-in-arms have fought for, this congress and administration are methodically destroying.  But I will continue to fight.  For my God and my country, for our liberty, I will carry on this fight.   God bless America.


John A. Wilson
President
Conservative Action Project

Tragic Shooting in Fort Hood

Today we are deeply saddened by the events of yesterday at Fort Hood, Texas. Twelve brave soldiers were gunned down in a place where they should have had the right to believe they were safe, or at least as safe as anyone can be in this mixed-up world these days.  One of their own, a Major no less, walked into a crowded building and opened fire on his brothers-in-arms.  This homespun terrorist coward, after taking the lives of 12 unarmed soldiers and wounding 31, stopped four rounds himself.  Apparently, the first one was from a female civilian police officer.  Since the shooter was a Muslim, being shot by a woman would be only marginally less horrible than being trampled by a herd of pigs.  Fortunately, the coward didn’t die.  Through the miracles of modern medicine he may, one day, be brought to trial to answer for his cowardly acts.

Since he was a member of the United States Armed Forces and in uniform at the time, he must be tried under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).  The UCMJ carries some pretty stiff penalties for several different behaviors.  Since he turned his weapon on other members of the Armed Forces he may be tried for Treason. He will obviously be tried for Murder. Here is what the UCMJ says about murder:

918. ART. 118. MURDER 

Any person subject to this chapter whom without justification or excuse, unlawfully kills a human being, when he- - 

(1) has a premeditated design to kill; 

(2) intends to kill or inflict great bodily harm; 

(3) is engaged in an act which is inherently dangerous to others and evinces a wanton disregard of human life; or (4) is engaged in the perpetration or attempted perpetration of burglary, sodomy, rape, robbery, or aggravated arson; is guilty of murder, and shall suffer such punishment as a court-martial may direct, except that if found guilty under clause (1) or (4), he shall suffer death or imprisonment for life as a court-martial may direct. 

Since he walked into that room with two handguns and extra ammo, I’d say clause one just might be applicable. But, I’m not a lawyer, this is just my opinion.

I realize that the authorities are not calling this an act of terror. I beg to differ.  (Wow, imagine me not agreeing with the government. Who’da thunk it?)  As a soldier, this Muslim creep was a trained marksman.  He apparently knows his way around a handgun since, with two handguns, he was able to fire at least 43 rounds.  He MUST have had several extra magazines.  A trained shooter, with extra ammo walking into a room full of unarmed people is, without question, a weapon of mass destruction. He was about to be deployed to either Afghanistan or Iraq. Soon we may know what he was thinking about.  I hope so.

John A. Wilson

President

Conservative Action Project

Even though I’ve been told I shouldn’t do this, or actually in spite of it, I would like to I want to tell you all a fable.  This is of my own making and I’ve been thinking about it a great deal.  I hope you can see what the moral is and how it applies to all of us.

A single drop of rain floated peacefully in a cloud high above the ground.  The raindrop happened to look down and saw a single flower wilting in the dry earth.  The raindrop knew that the flower needed water, but it was well aware of the fact that it alone would make no difference in the huge expanse of dry ground.  The raindrop thought, “That flower is going to die if someone doesn’t do something.  But what difference would I make?  I am only a single drop of rain.”  So the little raindrop did nothing.  It just floated on in its cloud and never even considered what kind of difference it could make if it had just gotten together with all of the other raindrops.  The flower died and the world was a little less beautiful because one little raindrop thought he could make no difference.

I really do think that the little raindrop should have looked at this picture before thinking that one raindrop can’t make a difference.  This, after all, is the result of single raindrops, countless millions of them, but still individual drops.

                                                    Grand Canyon, Arizona

The Enumerated Powers

I would like to take a minute here to try to set the record straight. I don’t recall exactly when he said it, but I have heard the President of the United States of America, a man who is supposedly a Constitutional Lawyer by trade, speak against the Bill of Rights. The Anointed One, our Beloved Leader Barrack Hussein Obama (may peace be upon Him) has said that the Bill of Rights is flawed because the rights listed are, in his words, “negative rights.” He says that the Bill of Rights only list things that the government is not allowed to do but don’t say anything about what the government is required to do. He, like most liberals, (OOPS, we aren’t supposed to call them liberals any more, they are Progressives), He doesn’t seem to grasp the fact that the founding fathers wrote the Constitution in such a way as to severely limit the power of the Federal Government. Do they not teach that at Harvard Law School? I’m the son of a cotton farmer from Arkansas and I understand that principle. That is the way this country has been governed since the ratification of the Constitution. And that form of government, or lack thereof, is what has made this country GREAT!

Give me a second here to catch my breath and step down off of my soapbox. Talk amongst yourselves for a minute. Okay. Back to the topic at hand.

I am not an expert on the Constitution, but I can read it and understand it. Our Constitution was not written in some high-handed legalese that only a Philadelphia Lawyer could understand. (Speaking of Philadelphia, Go Phillys, beat them Yankees.) I think that Thomas Jefferson wrote in such plain language for a reason. When the language of a law or constitution or any such document that regulates the way we govern or do business is simple, then nothing can be hidden in the document. Compare our Constitution which you can get in a book small enough to carry around in your shirt pocket of the Senate’s Healthcare Proposal. This new monster bill is more than 2500 pages long. Plus, no one except the lawyers that wrote it could understand anything it says.

But back to the Constitution, while what The Anointed One, our Beloved Leader Barrack Hussein Obama (may peace be upon Him), said about the Bill of Rights is true, it’s not 100% true of the Constitution. Yes, the Bill of Rights tells what the Federal Government can NOT do to you, there is a list of things in the Constitution that the Government is supposed to do.

This list of responsibilities or powers is call “The Enumerated Powers.” They make up Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. Article I Section 8 clearly lists the duties of the Federal Government. There are 18 things that Congress is supposed to do. How we’ve gotten to this place where people think that the Government is supposed to take care of them, make sure they have health care, a place to live and food to eat will take someone with much more education than me and much more time to do research. I can tell you this, it didn’t start on January 20, 2009. We have been headed in this direction for decades, not just years and we may never get our full freedom back again. We have given up much of our freedom in exchange for security. That path can only lead to the total destruction of our country, and total loss of our freedom. I don’t know if we can turn this around, but before we can attempt to go back we first have to stop.

Medicare Cuts

We are all waiting with bated breath to hear what the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has to say about the Senate’s Healthcare Overhaul Bill. Reports are still a bit contradictory as to what is in the bill. We know that the Public Option is in the bill. Prince Harry and Princess Pelosi wouldn’t have it any other way. Because, after all, the Anointed One, our Beloved Leader Barack Hussein Obama, may peace be upon him, wills it to be part of the bill. And in Washington, His will shall be done, whether we like it or not. The CBO has the rather daunting task of figuring out just how much this monstrosity will cost the taxpayers’ great grandchildren.

We know that one way the bill will keep costs down is to cut $500 Billion from Medicare Advantage. That is the Medicare program that pays a portion of the patient’s medical costs but allows the patient to buy supplemental insurance to cover the gap between what the government pays and what the doctor charges. Think of it as “Gap Insurance.”

This sounds like it will really hurt senior citizens. It will make them pay more for the healthcare that they will need more and more of as they age. Something that attacks the seniors in this way will surely have a tough time getting this past groups that advocate for senior citizens. They are going to scream bloody murder. But they aren’t. AARP actually supports this onerous new threat to the well being of their members. I couldn’t believe it when I heard this. I thought, it can’t be true, then I did some research.

If you cut a half trillion dollars from Medicare, the doctors will not be getting paid as much for treating seniors. This makes the gap between the doctor’s bill and the government payment. No problem, just buy more “Gap Insurance.” And who sells Gap Insurance? AARP does. Imagine that.

More on the Healthcare Bill

Sometimes the hardest thing about blogging is trying to decide what to write about. It’s not that there isn’t anything to write about, but just the opposite. There is so much going on that it is impossible to concentrate on one issue. I could write for days about what is or isn’t a serious threat to our freedom, but I think it would behoove me to try my best to stick to one topic. For right now, I think I’ll stick to the Healthcare Overhaul.

Today Harry Reid sent the Senate’s version of the Healthcare Bill to the CBO to have it marked up. We won’t be able to view the finished bill until the day before it is voted on. The problem is, it is more than 2500 pages long. I have no problem with the length of the bill. When you are writing in “Legalese” the paper gets pretty long. What bothers me is the fact that the public is not being given enough time to read and evaluate just what is in the bill. What is the big hurry? The bill won’t go into effect until 2013, so why does it have to be voted on this week? We’ve heard it before, “We must act now, tomorrow is too late.” A sieve holds water better than that statement. It is not that the bill MUST be acted upon quickly, it’s that the libs don’t want us to read the bill before they pass it. What do they have to hide? I keep hearing what this bill will contain and what it won’t, but if we are being told the truth, why can’t we read the bill? We do know that the “Public Option” is in the bill, Prince Harry already said so. Reid is totally convinced that a large majority of Americans are in favor of the Public Option. I am not sure just what poll Prince Harry is looking at. The approval rating of the bill is well below 50%.

It seems that the Dems are in denial, they see two million Tea Party Patriots on the mall in Washington DC and they think it is all a put-on. They see people all over the country organizing and standing up for what they believe in and call us Astro Turf. They see the polls that show them losing the war of public opinion and dismiss them as being manipulated by rich Republicans. Well, they are going to get a wake-up call in just a little over a year from now. We are going to get together, we are going to campaign, we are going to raise funds, we are going to work the phones, we are going to send tons of mail and we are going to vote them OUT in ’10!

The Second Amendment

Yesterday I saw a bumper sticker on a vehicle that really got me started thinking. The sticker was on the back of a vehicle that belongs to a friend of mine. I’ve probably seen the sticker dozens of times, but yesterday I really noticed it and spent a bit of time thinking it over. It is amazing how much can be said with just nine words. Those few simple words were, “The Second Amendment makes all of the others possible.” Roll that around in your mind for a minute. All that this country is, it owes to the fact that our founding fathers recognized the importance of the government having something to fear from the populace, not the other way around.

That, of course, brings to mind the words of Thomas Jefferson, “When the people fear the government there is tyranny, when the government fear the people there is liberty.” This is as true today as it was way back then. The government should fear the people. Over the course of several years the government seems to have lost its fear of the people. I recently saw a video of Anita Dunn, White House Communications Director, explain how the Obama campaign was able to control the press. It’s very disturbing to hear someone with her level of power talk about how they forced the media to concentrate on the words Obama said rather than things he had done and the kind of people he hung out with. Why would this be disturbing? I will try to explain.

This administration knows that, with the exception of Fox News and talk radio, they control the media. That is exactly why this administration has declared war on Fox News. The libs have been screaming against talk radio for years. If the government is able to control the media, they can slip all manner of unconstitutional acts into innocuous-looking bills and no one will be any the wiser. Until it’s too late. Total control over the media will also ensure that the ruling party will never be voted out of office. They will have a permanent majority and will lord it over any opposition.

What has that got to do with the Second Amendment? It’s simple, an armed populace is a threat to tyranny. If the government reaches too far in its quest for power, sooner or later the people will rise up and overthrow the oppressors. Knowing that there are millions of law abiding citizens out there that own guns makes the government a little queasy about taking more and more freedom from the masses. I think that there is a direct link between how much a government wants power and how much they want to take guns away from citizens. Make no mistake about it, gun registration is just one more step toward seizing those guns. We’ll discuss more about firearm registration in the future. Right now we must fight hard to keep our right to bear arms. All of the rest of our freedoms rest upon it.

John A. Wilson

President

Conservative Action Project

Win or get out

So far most of my posts have been about healthcare reform, more or less, but today I want to bring up a totally different issue. This is something that means a great deal to me. For years now, I have worked hard to make sure that not one of our troops coming home from Iraq or Afghanistan ever feels the way I did when I came home from Vietnam. It is still just as vivid in my mind today as it was in 1973. I was walking through the LA Airport happier than I had been in a year. I was finally back in the continental United States. I had my sea bag on my shoulder and my flight bag in my hand. OK, maybe I was strutting a bit, after all, I was a 19 year old Marine in full uniform looking my best. Ahead of me I saw a group of young kids. I realize that they were all probably older than I was, but hey, they were civilians, I was very mature for my age. Combat will do that to you. Anyway, as I was walking past the group of kids, a girl stepped out from the group, called me a “Baby Killer” and spit on my uniform. She may have been aiming for my face, but it hit my little rack of ribbons and badges. She immediately tried to duck behind one of the guys in the group but he was doing his best to hide behind her. Of course my first impulse was to beat the crap out of all seven of them, but in the back of my mind a little voice was telling me that if I even showed anger, then they would have won. So, I bent down and put my flight bag on the floor and wiped off my uniform, picked up my bag and walked on.

Yes, I did my best to show no emotion at all toward the youngsters, but I can not tell you how much that hurt. I’ve been in therapy now for almost 20 years and I’ve been hospitalized twice. I like to joke about being crazy, but deep down it is no joke. For some reason in the late 60’s and early 70’s the public blamed the troops coming home for the mess that the politicians got us into. I work to make sure that the people of America don’t feel that way toward our troops today. Our armed forces are made up chiefly of young men and women that volunteered to serve their country and risk their own lives to defend our freedom.

I didn’t mean for this post to be a cry for sympathy for either our troops or me. My message today is this: Mr. President, either give the generals on the ground what they need to win this war or bring them home now. I don’t want to appear less of a patriot than I am and have always been. I hope the president takes the first option. Send enough troops and materiel to the Middle East to win this war once and for all. We need to show these terrorist cowards that we mean business and when we do finally leave there won’t be a wholesale slaughter of innocent people. We should destroy the Taliban completely and let the people of Iraq and Afghanistan a chance to set up a fair government for themselves. If we aren’t going to do that, then bring our troops home now. We should not shed one more drop of American blood unless we are committed to building a stable, secure nation in those countries. We have already been at war now for 8 years. That is already too long. Let’s do it right or get the hell out!

To steal a line from Forrest Gump, that’s all I’ve got to say about that.

John A. Wilson

President

Conservative Action Project

The Baucus Bill

Well, the Baucus Bill, remember the one they passed out of committee on Friday, has finally been written. Now the Libs, and of course Olympia Snowe, can find out what they voted for. It reminds me of an old Cold War joke, on Election Day in the Soviet Union a party member is given his official ballot and starts to open it. A nearby KGB agent stopped him and asked what he thought he was doing. The member said, “I just wanted to see who I voted for.” The KGB agent said, “You can’t do that, it’s a secret ballot.” Well, the secret is out now, so the Socialists in congress can now go and see what they voted for. Apparently all the flack that the Libs got about their thousand-page bills has struck a cord with them. But as usual they took it to mean just the opposite of what was being said, it is not a thousand-page bill, it is one thousand five hundred pages long. Way to go Libs, you’ve outdone yourselves.

If you want to see if you can decipher the legalese this monstrosity is written in, you can. Just go to this address: www.opencongress.org I’ve already looked at it and read about three sentences. By then I was so confused I thought that I was in favor of it. I do hope that someone can go through this bill and publish just what freedoms we give up with each page like they did with H.R. 3200.

I know, there are those who will cry that I’m an un-American racist rabble Astro-Turf GOP funded lying idiot for mentioning that we will give up some freedom if this bill passes. What those don’t seem to understand is that for every power that we give to the government is a little more of our freedom that we have lost. Remember the words of Thomas Jefferson, “A government big enough to give you all that you want is big enough to take everything that you have.”

I’ll leave you with this thought. The government can not give anything to anyone unless they first take it away from someone else.

Have a great day,

John A. Wilson

President

Conservative Action Project

Healthcare Debate

OK, I know I promised to have this up several days ago, but it has been a very hectic week and it has rained every day for two weeks and I just failed to…never mind. I’ll just get busy on it now.

It looks like this healthcare overhaul is about to come down to the wire. This will be a real tragedy for the American people. The alleged Baucus Bill (alleged because it has passed committee, but has not been written yet) is the only one of the five or so bills under consideration that doesn’t include the deadly “Public Option.” However, the bill does NOT prohibit the public option from being imposed at a later date. Of course, that name, public option, is misleading. What it really means is a government option. The federal government is going to start selling insurance. If that ever happens there is no way to prevent the government from eventually taking over healthcare, lock, stock and barrel. Oh sure, they SAY that won’t happen, but if you believe that I’ve got some land in Florida I’d like to sell you.

This debate started out talking about our healthcare system being broke. If you manipulate the statistics in just the right way, America comes in 37th in the world. Trying to understand how the World Health Organization came up with the formula to determine which country ended up in which place almost caused my brain to explode. The fact is, the US has the lowest mortality rate in 13 of the 16 most deadly cancers in the world. Here is a name you may not have ever heard of, Belinda Stronach. Stronach was a liberal member of the Canadian Parliament and a member of the Cabinet. Remember that Canada’s health care system is supposed to be superior to ours. Why then, did Belinda Stronach forego treatment in the wonderful Canadian Healthcare system and have her cancer treatment in California? Maybe she had some family there or something, I don’t know. The fact of the matter is, every year thousands of people come to this country from all over the world seeking medical treatment.

I have long thought that the way to determine a country’s greatness is to compare the number of people who want IN the country to the number of folks that want OUT of it. The number of people that want into this country for medical treatment is much higher than the number of people wanting to go outside the US for treatment. Having said all of that, it seems that the debate has shifted away from the quality of healthcare and has become centered mainly on health insurance. I suppose this should be appropriate since nowhere in the healthcare overhaul bill is anything said about improving the standards for healthcare. It’s all about the availability of healthcare.

I will tackle the issue of healthcare availability in my next posting. I feel that I have some expertise in that area since I worked for over three years in the medical field. Check back tomorrow.

Have a great day.

John A. Wilson

President

Conservative Action Project

Okay, let me get this straight, the Baucus bill was passed out of committee so it can now go to the Senate floor, but it can't go to the Senate floor until it is melded into another bill that is still in committee. We can't explain what the bill allows or doesn't allow because the bill that was passed in committee has not even been written yet. Also, the bill that hasn't been written yet and the bill that hasn't passed the committee vote will then have to be rewritten to make the two bills one, and of course that bill can't be rewritten until the first bill is written. Once it is written and passed it then has to go to the House to be consolidated with the House bill. At this point I don't know whether the House bill has been written or not, but once it is written it too has to be rewritten to match the latest unwritten bill in the Senate...oh forget it, my head is about to explode if I try to figure this out.

Yes, I'm being a bit sarcastic here, but I'm doing it to point out just how incredibly confusing this has become. You don't have to be a Constitutional Lawyer to see right away that this is not what our founding fathers had in mind when they wrote our Constitution. But then, this administration has routinely shunted the Constitution aside and has passed pretty much anything that Barack Hussien Obama has asked for. Time and time again bills have been published in the wee hours of the morning and then voted on before anyone has had a chance to read them. Am I the only one that sees the irony in the fact that this 1000+ page "bill" completely circumvents the Constitution which is less than ten pages long? We have allowed the inmates to take over the assylum. I hesitate to use the word "Bill" to describe this latest nonsense, it can't be a bill until it is written. Therefore, this committee has voted on a concept, not a reality.

BHO took an oath back in January to preserve and protect the U.S. Constitution, a document that, in his words, is fundamentally flawed. How can you protect and uphold a document that you don't agree with???? Every day I pray that I'm wrong in my interpretation of BHO's real agenda, but every day it seems that my interpretation is closer to being proven right. And what is my interpretation? That will take some time to put into words. I hope I'll have it done and put up here tomorrow.

Pray hard and keep up the fight.

John A. Wilson

President

Conservative Action Project

The House and Senate are, once again, on the brink of voting for the most massive healthcare overhaul in the history of this country, possibly the world. There has been a lot of misinformation, hate-filled speech and name calling associated with this massive overhaul. All you have to do is pick up a major newspaper or turn on the network news and you will hear it. And of course it is directed at those who oppose the overhaul. You’d never know that if you listen to the mainstream media. The liberal media wants you to think that the opposition to the bill is out there beating up peaceful protesters, carrying guns to Town Hall meetings and just being generally destructive.

Soccer moms have been called wild-eyed terrorists and senior citizens have been referred to as a rabble. But most disturbing of all, veterans returning from fighting in one of our two foreign wars have been called potential terrorists. What? People who love their country so much they are willing to risk life and limb to protect her are called unpatriotic. There is just no accounting for this behavior. No decent person disparages another person’s right to stand up for what that person believes.

Let’s take a minute to look at the gentleman that got beaten up for trying to sell signs at a protest rally. It wasn’t a conservative that beat him up, it was an SEIU thug. At a Town Hall rally that I attended in Arkadelphia there was a large contingent of people, They were very loud and often rude. They all had little id stickers on their shirts. Were they members of grass roots organizations that went there to support their side of the debate? NO. They were bussed in from Little Rock to make it look like the majority of people were in favor of the Healthcare overhaul. They failed miserably. Yet Nancy Pelosi called those of us who were protesting against the bill “Astroturf.” Meaning we were the artificial grassroots organizations. The thing that leaves me talking to myself sometimes is the fact that when the libs cry foul, it’s in response to the allegation that conservatives are doing just what the libs actually are doing.

You can tell that the conservatives and libs come from totally different worlds. If you want to see just how different the people that make up the opposing sides are, just compare these two pictures of the National Mall.

This is a picture of the National Mall taken on January 21, 2009, the day after almost two million people descended on the Mall to see the inauguration of Barack Obama. Of course there is no grass, it’s winter in DC, but it cost the taxpayers literally millions of dollars to clean up the mess the libs left.

This is a picture of the National Mall taken on September 13, 2009, the day after 1.2 million people marched on the mall for the 9/12 Tea Party. Of course there is grass, but where is the debris? This just shows that a million conservatives are just more respectful of our nation’s capitol than a million libs.

While you didn’t see the first picture on the mainstream media, there is no doubt in my mind that if the 9/12 Tea Party had left one third the mess that the people that turned out to see the inauguration did it would have dominated the press for days.

The far-left libs have no new ideas for America. All they can do is mock the efforts of those who want this country to prosper. They will attack us and then accuse us of personally attacking them. That’s okay. Let them ignore us. But someone might want to remind them, King George didn’t listen to us either.

The Conservative Action Project (CAP)

,October 11, 2009

In February 2008 a group of like-minded individuals began to meet at a small lunch café in downtown El Dorado, Arkansas. They came up with the perfect name for this group, Conservative Action Project. Why is it such a perfect name? First of all, all of the members are politically conservative. Second, the aim is for action, not just sitting around grousing about what is going on in our government. Round that out with the fact that this is an ongoing project and you realize that the name tells just what this organization is all about.

I read about this organization in the El Dorado News Times. A letter to the editor by one of the founding members, Ed Schimberg got my attention. As I read through the letter I knew that this was something that I’d been looking for. For most of my adult life I have been interested in politics but never enough to become actively involved in the process myself. However, as things began to unfold in Washington, DC I became more and more concerned. It seemed as if this country which I love more than life itself was in jeopardy of crumbling under the pressure of socialism. I wanted to do something but had no idea where to start. After I read Ed’s letter to the editor, I looked his name up in the phone book and called him. Ed invited me to come to the next meeting and shortly after I got there I realized that here was something that I could do.

Shortly after I started attending CAP meetings I heard about the plans for the Tax Day Tea Party. I brought the idea up at the next meeting and the members received it very well. We went right to work. On April 15th we drew a very nice crowd to the steps of the Union County Courthouse. Since then we have held two more Tea Party events, we’ve gotten together a convoy of 12 vehicles and 25 people to caravan up to Arkedelphia to attend the only public Town Hall meeting that Mark Ross held in this area during the August recess. We have also had several petition drives and smaller demonstrations and a booth at the Union County Fair. I have also helped to organize another group, sort of a branch of CAP, CAP Ouachita County.

I hope that we can continue to grow and make an impact on how things run in Arkansas, Union County and the U.S.A. We have helped to slow down things a bit and even threaten the passage of the health care reform bills. Today I’m starting this blog in an attempt to extend the reach and scope of CAP. If you would like to know more about CAP and what we are doing next, keep an eye on this blog, or if you’d rather, feel free to contact me at: john_baby@yahoo.com or call me at (870) 814-7528. If you would like to be on our e-mail list, send an e-mail requesting so to: conservativeactionproject@yahoo.com.

May God be with you all and I pray for his guidance as I lead this organization in the way that most honors Him.

John A. Wilson

President

Conservative Action Project