Constitution will survive Dems’ assaults

Last fall I shared in the disappointment of 47 percent of the voters who did not cast their ballots for Barack Obama and feared his stated intention of "transforming" America into a socialist regime. With Democrats in firm control of both houses of Congress, this seemed a likely as well as a fearful prospect. But things are looking up. This week Obama Administration officials indicated that they may abandon the so-called "public option" feature of their health care insurance proposal because of widespread and intense public opposition. This demonstrates that public opinion still counts for a great deal in our republican form of government and, indeed, is capable of doing some "transforming" of its own - - in this case, thwarting socialized health care.

Without forgetting for a moment that Obama and his fellow Democrats still control all three elective branches of the federal government, we know now that, although they can fool some of the people all of the time and even all the people some of the time, they evidently cannot fool all the people all of the time.

It is critical that we understand the explanation for this serious blow to the Obama Administration’s plans for the nation. Many Americans of both parties, and independents, and even some who have had no previous involvement in politics, were outraged that the terms and conditions of nationalized health care were so severe.

This reaction was not because of alleged "lies" by Republicans and "special interests" (doctors, hospitals, drug and insurance companies) that the government would in due course come to dominate the field and that the unprecedented costs would be covered with higher taxes and rationing, doubtless at the expense of those deemed unworthy of "extraordinary" care. That’s all true.

Way back when, we were admonished to be concerned about approximately 40 million people who lacked health insurance, but that was soon overwhelmed by the hard Democrat push for universal coverage to replace the allegedly capricious decision making of the "evil" health insurance firms.

Unfortunately for Obama and the Democrats, millions of Americans have health plans they are satisfied with. Whatever complaints they may have, they look far less favorably upon a one-size-fits-all system which, if Canada and the United Kingdom are instructive, will force people to wait for months for appointments while unsocialized dogs and cats can get theirs with veterinarians far sooner!

This is a time to be grateful for our free commerce which enables health care providers and consumers to agree to plans and payments which are mutually beneficial. Those plans are valuable properties - - private properties - - which belong to individuals and are not subject to confiscation by the government for the sake of "spreading the wealth around."

Thus, private property, the foundation of our free and profitable trade and commerce, has both taken care of the health of millions and enabled them to "speak truth to power." Americans are not mere ciphers in a soulless administrative state but self governing persons.

This is precisely what the founders of modern republican government intended with equal rights under law and immense opportunities for energetic and capable citizens to rise above mediocrity and follow their dreams.

Those same people are free to vote for representatives of their own choosing, knowing that they have the power to vote out of office any miscreants who would take away their right to govern themselves.

It is not surprising that so many people taking part in politics for possibly the first time in their lives should exhibit less polished arts of speaking and writing than those who have practiced them for many years. I remember vividly my own entry during my college years, impatient for change and wanting to be heard. Since then I have seen others go through the same sort of initiation. Experience is a great teacher and the latest entrants will learn the lessons of moderation that others have before them.

Part of that political education consists in taking the long view of things. All victories are temporary, until the next challenge comes along. However appealing the idea of term limits is, our nation needs a continual supply of citizens not only participating actively in politics but seeking public office if they have virtues to contribute to the public good.

One hopes that current as well as future political leaders will appreciate the advantages of the present fortuitous circumstances and bring more and more public-spirited people into legislative and executive campaigns and governing so that we can continue to keep the socialist wolf at bay.

MSM caught 'watering the plants'

There has been heavy media coverage of the picture of Obama-with-Hitler-mustache that a guy was displaying outside one of the townhall meetings the other day. The picture is at one of the links below. Several talking heads on TV blamed Republicans and conservative talk radio for motivating this ugly display (see third link below). One might be forgiven for thinking that they knew what they were talking about. One might have assumed, naively, that the network news people did some investigative reporting to determine the facts.

In fact, it would have been quite easy. All they had to do was to read the message on the bottom of the picture and go to the web site, which is a Lyndon LaRouche web site (first link below). But no, they simply parroted what their world view told them must be the case. This sloppiness and utter disregard for the facts have become more and more typical of liberal TV news programs.

As it happens, Lyndon LaRouche is closer to a communist than he is to a conservative. On the issue at hand, his web site actually advocates a "single payer" health care plan, just not Obama's.

The activist who was displaying the picture was later seen handing out literature for Democratic Representative John Dingell (see second link below). Thus either he was a Democrat plant or else he was a LaRouche supporter who also supported Dingell.

They call this particular kind of deception "watering the plants". The liberal media bought it willingly, and then spread it far and wide. We can expect to see much more of this now that Nancy Pelosi falsely accused conservative town hall participants of carrying swastikas.

Regarding TV news, it's been tempting to say "trust but verify". But now one can't trust it at all.

http://www.larouchepac.com/

http://theblogprof.blogspot.com/2009/08/busted-obama-as-hitler-poster-was.html

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/seton-motley/2009/08/12/nbc-cnn-msnbc-all-assign-communist-larouches-obama-hitler-poster-conse

Teacher's Desk: Measuring Better

The Colorado Department of Education recently unveiled a new measuring tool and made its results available to the public. Without going into a lot of mumbo jumbo, it shows three years’ growth of students, individually, as a school, and as a district. I say hurray. When I ran for the State Board of Education back in 1990, I supported the idea of a student achievement data tracking system that showed student growth so that parents and others could compare schools and school districts. Hey, along with Independence Institute, I was one of the first to call for academic transparency. I really thought then, and still do, that schools and districts that show more than incremental growth ought to be acknowledged and replicated.

This information from the new growth model should be used to target students that need more time on task, more fundamentals to build a better foundation, and stop passing students through even though they do not understand the concepts and cannot perform at grade level. If District 50’s new standard-based program succeeds, it will be the model!

We all need to re-think math. I have had the pleasure of working with many mathematics professionals to begin to understand how we can catch these kiddos up in about three years (if we have regular attendance). This next year, I will be discussing it further.

Speaking of math, I had a dear friend with a K-8 license who lost her English position at a Denver middle school. She wanted to broaden her horizons by understanding math through eighth grade, so that she could teach 3-5th grades anywhere. She was a fabulous student, and reminded me many times about what turns students who “hate math” to students they really get into it. I wasn’t ever a “hater.” Writing and science was more of my thing, but when a person can understand not only the math processes AND FACTS, but how she/he interprets mathematical learning, they become motivated. The better one becomes in a content area, the more he/she wants to learn it, and the more motivated one becomes. Mostly my students taught me this.

I hope my friend finds a new position because she is a motivated learner and because of that, knows how to motivate others! Kathleen Kullback is a licensed special educator with an MA in educational leadership and is a former candidate for the Colorado State Board of Education.

Fiscal epiphany for Ritter & Bennet?

Impending mortality tends to focus the mind, and looming elections tend to focus politicians' ears on vox populi. But just as theologians debate the sincerity of "deathbed conversions," voters should be skeptical of lawmakers who find religion as elections near. Although 15 months remain until the 2010 elections, Democrats are learning — just as Republicans discovered after their 2004 victory tour — how quickly the political winds can shift for the party in power.

In less than a year, Governor Bill Ritter has seen his favorable/unfavorable margin flip from plus-13 to minus-8, according to Public Policy Polling. Newly imposed vehicle licensing "fees," championed by Ritter, won't make Coloradans with cars or trucks any more charitable, either.

Ritter's beneficiary, appointed Senator Michael Bennet, hasn't impressed many outside his own party during his eight months in office. Bennet's approval/disapproval rating stands at minus-7 (34%-41%) among all voters, but even worse (minus-11) among unaffiliated voters.

Nationally, the trend is no more comforting for vulnerable Democrats: Rasmussen shows the generic congressional ballot favoring Republicans 43% to 38%, while Gallup says voters are souring on President Obama's health care push with 50% disapproving and 44% approving.

Not coincidentally, both Ritter and Bennet sought to induce a bit of voter amnesia recently with tough talk on taxing and spending.

Ritter told a gathering of municipal leaders that he won't ask for a tax hike in 2010. The AP report didn't mention whether Ritter's proclamation was met with audible laughter or just snickering.

Here's a governor who convinced the legislature and the state supreme court that legislation increasing property tax revenue isn't really a tax increase and therefore doesn't trigger the constitutional requirement for a public vote. As a result, property owners will pay some $200 million more this year than they would have without Ritter's "tax freeze."

In the wake of that ruling, Ritter and the Democrat legislature used a new loophole manufactured by the supreme court to enact an additional $125 million in tax increases — also without a vote of the people.

Just this year Ritter championed two new "fees" so large as to make taxes superfluous. First he enacted his famous vehicle fee to raise an estimated $250 million by increasing the cost of licensing almost every vehicle in the state by $41 to $51 annually. Then he signed a "hospital provider fee" that will, when fully implemented, raise $600 million a year from new charges on patient services.

With fees like that, who needs taxes?

Note that Ritter didn't vow to veto any tax increases sent to him by the legislature; he merely vowed not to ask for them.

Bennet's charade is pathetically weak, too, introducing the so-called Deficit Reduction Act of 2009 in an attempt to build credentials as a "fiscal hawk."

Remember that Bennet cut his senatorial teeth by voting for President Obama's $787 billion stimulus package — the one that stimulated very little and really costs $3.7 trillion, including $1 trillion in interest.

Bennet also helped kill a measure that simply sought to limit new federal debt over the next 10 years to no more than the old federal debt accumulated in the previous 220 years. That's right, the amendment would have allowed for a doubling of the federal debt but no more. Even that medicine was just too strong for Colorado's appointed junior senator.

Bennet's fiscal hawkishness is so feeble that he doesn't even bother to suggest that the federal budget should be balanced — only that overspending should be capped at 3% of GDP, not this year or next year or the year after that but by 2013. By that miserly standard, President Bush succeeded at least half the time.

No, Colorado's big spenders aren't changing their ways — just their words.

Mark Hillman served as Colorado senate majority leader and state treasurer. To read more or comment, go to www.MarkHillman.com.

Townhalls & Tea Parties

"The right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances," is constitutionally protected by the First Amendment. Thank goodness. The Tea Party rallies of this spring and the townhall backlash this summer on health care exemplify that sacred right in action, liberal slurs and conspiracy theories notwithstanding. The petition is not negated by strong words, nor the assembly by raised voices. Self-government in a free society is inherently raucous and messy. The stakes are too high for it to be otherwise. ** "Patient power" advocate Amy Menefee and Colorado Tea Party organizer Brian Campbell, now running for Congress, join me on Backbone Radio this Sunday.

** Plus Marvin Hutchens on national security issues and Amy Cook & Marty Neilson with a minority report from inside the state task force targeting TABOR.

** Plus homegrown Colorado novelists Allen Harris & Jason Gray on their fevered imagination about coffee shops, cancer cures, and college basketball.

And finally, while I seldom agree with Pelosi and Boxer, I've taken to heart their warning about this sudden rash of un-American, well-dressed protesters. From now on our show will entertain ill-dressed protest only.

Your voice of the rummage-sale right, JOHN ANDREWS