One of the talking points that President Obama has hit time and time again (including Monday in Ohio) has been the old "if you like your current insurance you can keep it" meme.  Many have argued that the way that the bills that came out of the House AND the Senate were written in such a way as to discourage employers from providing their employees health insurance.  Defenders of the President's plan have long poo-poo'd that argument.  Well that discussion was recently (and painfully) brought home to the Logical household

The Logical Husband works for a medium to large multi state business.  While they don't make the multi-billions that some companies do, they make enough that they can (and do) take good care of their employees.  While they have been immune from many of the pressures that plagued their competitors over the last 10 years, they have not been immune from the latest economic downturn.  They have had to lay off many (mostly management) employees over the last year and they have cut expenses where they could.  A couple of weeks ago, the CEO of this company was in town to talk to the sales/support office here in Utah on the state of the company.  Most of the report was apparently good, but the only thing that the Logical Husband remembered about the whole report was the FACT that the health insurance plan that we have through his employer - the one we like so much - will be TAKEN AWAY FROM US if health care reform passes.  You see, we are not fortunate enough to be SEIU and our "cadillac" health insurance plan will be taxed so badly that the company will no longer be able to afford to pay for it.

A strange phenomenon has been getting quite a bit of coverage in the "new media" and it started with a pair of polls.  First was this Pew Research Group Poll last month tha showed young voters trending away from Democrats.  Then came this  Harvard Poll that echoed the Pew Group's findings.  Analysts all over the country wondered if this was the beginning of a disturbing trend for the Democrats.

Back In February The Huffington Post opined...

The findings are significant because they offer further proof that the diverse coalition of voters Obama cobbled together in 2008 – including high numbers of first-timers, minorities and youths – are not Democratic Party voters who can necessarily be counted on.

While young adults remain decidedly more liberal, the survey found the Democratic advantage among 18-to-29 year olds has substantially narrowed – from a record 62 percent identifying as Democrat vs. 30 percent for the GOP in 2008, down to 54 percent vs. 40 percent last December. It was the largest percentage point jump in those who identified or leaned Republican among all the voting age groups.

Young adults' voting enthusiasm also crumbled.

Jim Oberstar the "pro-life, Blue Dog" Democrat from northern Minnesota's 8th Congressional District has announced his intentions to be Speaker Pelosi's lap puppy and vote for the Senate Health Care bill.

Congress will pass a health-care bill in the next two weeks, U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar's predicted Saturday.

And that Senate health-care bill headed for a House vote will likely get his vote, after all.

''I'm prepared to vote for a health-care bill," Oberstar told the News Tribune. "I just want to see all the pieces come together."

But before all you over-sensitive anti choicers get your undies in a bundle, realize that Rep. Oberstar is looking at the big picture - something you single issue voters don't seem to get...

Glen Warchol is continuing his long running attack on Rep. Jason Chaffetz.  His latest salvo came on Saturday with this hit piece.

Congressman Jason Chaffetz may be getting big tea-party pats on the back for a refusing to indulge in earmarks, but pragmatists Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett and Congressman Bob Bishop, all Republicans, say the only way to save one of the state's biggest economic engines, rocket booster builder ATK Systems, will be through earmarks.

Well first off, Mr. Warchol gets two things way wrong.  NO ONE SAID (in the linked to Cache Valley Daily article) that earmarks were the "only way" to save the Constellation and Ares programs.  The headline (and the quote from Senator Bennett - not Hatch or Bishop) says that earmarks MAY be the only way. There is a very big difference between "is" and "may" the last time I looked.

OK so Jazz is on the road with his candidate today and unable to host so it's up to ME to fill in as main host.  You can join us by clicking on the Blog Talk Radio icon in the right sidebar.  Today we will be talking about Eric Massa's escapades, whether earmarks are part of Congress's Constitutional budget setting process as Sen Bennett believes, Bart Stupak's remarkable revelation about health care reform and anything else that strikes our fancy.

Join Gary Gross from Let Freedom Ring Blog, Jazz and I in 25 minutes - 8am Mtn, 10 eastern.

Would he really have said something that overt and inflammatory?  I never would have believed this in my wildest nightmares!  Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) is talking about the state of health care reform negotiations and boy is he disappointed.....

Sitting in an airport, on his way home to Michigan, Rep. Bart Stupak, a pro-life Democrat, is chagrined. “They’re ignoring me,” he says, in a phone interview with National Review Online. “That’s their strategy now. The House Democratic leaders think they have the votes to pass the Senate’s health-care bill without us. At this point, there is no doubt that they’ve been able to peel off one or two of my twelve. And even if they don’t have the votes, it’s been made clear to us that they won’t insert our language on the abortion issue.”…

What are Democratic leaders saying? “If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That’s one of the arguments I’ve been hearing,” Stupak says. “Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America? If money is the issue — come on, we can find room in the budget. This is life we’re talking about.”

Emphasis in the original.  Now Allahpundit is rightly skeptical.  I mean after all what good could ever come to the Democrats or the pro-choice movement if this were really the case?

It was a 5 on 1 smackdown in the Utah House lounge and Rep. Mike Noel (Kanab) came away the victor.  Kudos to Fox13 for not only catching this on camera but for filming the entire 8 minute long exchange. (HT Paul Chesser at American Spectator)

To set the stage - Rep. Noel greets former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson in the House Lounge.  Former Mayor Anderson is accompanied by at least 4 Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) supporters.  Mayor Anderson apparently starts the conversation with an accusation that Rep. Noel does not support "renewable" energy...

President Obama, at his campaign stop in Pennsylvania earlier this week, to the obligatory pot shot at Republicans - and it ended up backfiring on him.  While declaring that the "time for talking was over" President Obama said...

“I got all my Republican colleagues out there saying ‘No, no, no, we want to focus on things like costs.’ You had 10 years. What happened? What were you doing?”

(Video after the jump)

Senator Bennett is at it again.  In trying to do the right thing (saving jobs aerospace jobs at ATK and other companies) he attempted to defend the indefensible.....

Gee - I wonder who he could POSSIBLY be talking about....

Last December, the White House hosted a much touted "jobs summit".  One of the emphasized options from the summit were so-called "green" jobs.

Exhibit A: the Administration's ongoing push to create "Green Jobs." The Administration touts environmental initiatives not only as a way to improve quality of life and discourage climate change, but also as a way to employ more Americans. Accordingly, last week's summit included a breakout session called "The Innovation Agenda and Green Jobs of the Future."

The Green Jobs conceit goes like this: the government should offer tax credits and impose regulations that lead businesses to implement environmentally-friendly practices. This will create jobs doing what's needed to qualify for the credits or comply with the regulations. Most importantly, carbon regulation (most likely in the form of Cap and Trade) will lead to investments in technology that reduces carbon emissions.

President Obama highly touted Spain's success generating green jobs.  The problem is the TRUTH does not match the President's hype - again...

That is the question that the ACLU asks in this full page ad that they took out in Sunday's New York Times.

Candidate Barack Obama vowed to change the Bush-Cheney policies and restore America ’s values of justice and due process.  Many of us are shocked and concerned that right now, President Obala is considering reversing his attorney general’s decision to try the 9/11 defendants in criminal court…As president, Barack Obama must decide whether he will keep his solemn promise to restore our Constitution and due process, or ignore his vow and continye the bush-Cheney policies…

"As president, Barack Obama must decide whether he will keep his solemn promise"?????  Have these people not been watching this first year - a year where EVERY CAMPAIGN PROMISE ever made has had a shelf life of days to weeks?  I can't believe that they were able to that with a straight face.

About a month ago, I wrote a post critical of Rep. Jim Matheson based on his vote to raise the US debt ceiling for the second time in less than 6 months.  Defenders of the irresponsible spending were quick to jump to Congresses defense with cries of "but, but....they passed PAYGO".  At the time I quickly dismissed those defenses and this editorial from Scripps Howard News Service is a great summation of why I was so dismissive of "The PAYGO Fraud".

When a White House statement refers to a "bedrock principle," it means something slushy and soft and not really a principle at all, but a gimmick, still one more fraud to fool the public, a joke of the kind that must keep presidential aides rolling on the floor in laughter at all the fools who cheer them on.

Forget the Glenn Beck/Michelle Malkin debate on the Massa story, Logical Lady Carol Platt Liebau (whom I absolutely adore) has the definitive word on why conservatives should not be so quick to jump on the Eric Massa bandwagon.

Iraqi's took to the the polls last week to vote in their parliamentary elections (same thing as our Congressional Mid-Term elections).  Voter turn out is expected to be in the 62.4% range of eligible voters - 9% higher than the State of Utah had for the 2008 Presidential elections!

Let me repeat that for emphasis - a country that has NO history of representative politics is participating in representative politics in larger numbers than a state that has a 114 year HISTORY of electoral participation.

This Michael Barone column in the DC Examiner dovetails into what I wrote yesterday about small business generation and taxes.

No one would include Perry on a list of serious presidential candidates, including himself, even in the flush of victory. But in his 10 years as governor, the longest in the state's history, Texas has been teaching some lessons to which the rest of the nation should pay heed.

They are lessons that are particularly vivid when you contrast Texas, the nation's second most populous state, with the most populous, California. Both were once Mexican territory, secured for the United States in the 1840s. Both have grown prodigiously over the past half-century. Both have populations that today are about one-third Hispanic.

But they differ vividly in public policy and in their economic progress -- or lack of it -- over the last decade. California has gone in for big government in a big way. Democrats hold big margins in the legislature largely because affluent voters in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area favor their liberal positions on cultural issues.