I’ve just found out that once again, Barack Obama is shadowing me. I am in Minneapolis for a speech (scheduled for many weeks) about how we must defeat Obamacare. And now he is heading to Minneapolis for a speech (just scheduled) about how we (the people who disagree) must be defeated.

 What can we expect from Obama? Surely he won’t miss the opportunity to trash America (a la last night’s “we’re the only modern Democracy that doesn’t have blah blah blah”). He will no doubt continue to make farcical claims about how his plan won’t add a dime to the deficit or interfere with patient-doctor relationships. Z-z-z-z-z 

What is most striking about his Wednesday night speech is that for all the breathless build-up, he really didn’t say anything to answer the main criticisms of the plan.  For months now, he has been making three claims:  (1) we will cover everybody; (2) there will not be significant rationing; and (3) we will not add significantly to the budget deficit. Last night, he merely repeated these same claims.

The problem is that those statements cannot be true.  If we are giving everyone free health insurance, we will either see rationing, much higher taxes, or much higher deficits.  That’s just common sense.  He can keep making these claims all he wants, but they’re just not persuasive.

So despite all the fanfare, the president’s speech was the same old same old broth with a bunch of red-meat rhetoric tossed in for the left.  He brought no certainty or clarity to the debate. He didn’t lay out any deadlines.  He didn’t even say whether he will veto a bill that does not contain a public option.

  And he certainly didn’t respond to the serious concerns that have been raised by Republicans and others about the financial and economic consequences of this bill.  Points that are not credible when made in a normal tone of voice are not made more credible in the louder tone of voice he used last night.

Of course the media savored the slaps at conservatives over “death panels” and the like.  And for a few days, we will hear that the speech was a “home run.”  But if the GOP holds firm, and gives the people time to process the speech, we will see that he hasn’t really answered any of the major concerns expressed by so many Americans during August.

My prediction: the summer of the Democrats’ discontent will turn into their fall.

About the author: In addition to hosting her own syndicated radio program, Laura is an author, frequent columnist, and television commentator. Her book The Hillary Trap, first released in June 2000, was recently re-released in an updated paperback version. Her second book, Shut Up & Sing: How the Elites in Hollywood, Politics…and the UN are Subverting America is a bestseller. Ingraham’s most recent book, Power to the People, was released on September 11, 2007, and topped Amazon’s bestseller list on September 14.

Published in the New York Post on September 2, 2009

This week’s polls are a disaster for President Obama. The Rasmussen poll has his approval dropping to 45 percent, after several weeks at 49 percent. The Zogby poll has it even lower — at 42 percent.

Worse yet, he’s losing his political base:

* People under 30 — long a key element of his support — give him no better than break-even ratings, with 41 percent approving and 41 percent disapproving of the job he’s doing, according to Zogby.

* Only 75 percent of Democrats, who formerly have supported Obama strongly, now approve of his performance in office. Zogby reports that this represents a slide of more than 10 points over the summer.

* Even among blacks, only 74 percent approve of the job he’s doing (also a drop of more than 10 points). 

* Hispanics, who voted for him by a margin of more than 40 points, now break even (36-36) when rating his performance.

Independents, the key swing group in our politics, now deliver a sharply negative 37- verdict on Obama’s job performance. The elderly also give him negative ratings by 42-51.

This poll-implosion leaves Obama with few good options.

He obviously can’t get 60 votes in the Senate for his health-care proposals in their current form. No Republican will support them, and moderate Democrats aren’t likely to vote with him.

If he tries to pass it with 50 votes, using so-called reconciliation procedures, he may also fail — because he’d also lose the votes of less-moderate Democrats who’d quail at using parliamentary tricks to pass such a radical, unpopular program.

If Obama waters down his proposals to attract moderate support, he’d lose votes on the left — perhaps more than he’d gain, at this point.

Yet the longer he takes to resolve this political problem, the more his ratings will slip — diminishing his power to achieve anything. No president with support in the 30s would be able to push through a program like his health-care agenda.

It now looks like health-care reform will cripple the Obama presidency, as it did Bill Clinton’s in 1993.

Of course, Clinton was able to move to the center and secure re-election in 1996. But can a true believer like Obama do the same? He’s shown a willingness to move to the center on foreign policy, leaving troops in Iraq and adding them in Afghanistan. But on the domestic front, the only area where he’s been willing to embrace centrist positions is education.

At best, Obama will be months if not years recovering from this disaster. In the short term, he’s likely to finish September wishing he’d stayed in Martha’s Vineyard.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, today made the following statement regarding the Obama administration’s investigation into past CIA interrogation practices:
 
“Earlier this year, President-elect Obama said he did not want his administration pursuing CIA agents to the point that ‘they’ve got to spend all their time looking over their shoulders.’  Apparently the President’s talk about looking forward and not back was just that – talk.

 
“It is extremely counterproductive to our intelligence efforts for Obama’s Department of Justice under Attorney General Eric Holder to conduct a legal review of past acts and practices of CIA interrogators. In the months after 9/11, U.S. intelligence personnel were working in uncharted territory, attempting to collect information on an elusive, non-state enemy across the globe that had demonstrated the ability to attack our country and kill thousands of Americans. Engaging in an investigation of past practices could have a devastating effect on the future work of our intelligence community. This unprecedented investigation could create an environment in which the CIA and other agencies may be unwilling to take risks required in extreme circumstances, potentially increasing risk to our national security. 
 
“We are fast approaching the eight year anniversary of 9/11.  Thankfully, we have not been attacked since that devastating day in large part because of endless hard work from members of our intelligence, military, and government communities.  Attacks have been prevented and lives saved because of information gained from interrogating detainees.  Our continuing priority and the CIA’s continuing priority should be on ensuring our nation and our people are secure.  They should not be deterred from their important work because of distractions from such witch-hunt investigations.”

While the nation watched the funeral procession of the late Ted Kennedy, the press gave a great amount of air time on the proceedings.  However, I very much doubt that Ted is as concerned as the nation is with the human ceremonies of his passing.

You see, Ted is either in Heaven or in Hell right now.  He is either in the arms of a loving Father-God, or is in the worst place imaginable, called Hell, for an eternity.

So while Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Chris Dodd use Ted’s passing to boost sympathetic support for the Healthcare reform bill, Teddy may very well be singing a different tune.

You see, there IS a real God.  There IS a real Heaven and Hell.  There IS a place, or you may call it a “destination,” in which we are immediately present upon our passing.  Just ask any cardiologist who has brought people back to life from clinical death.  Many cardiologists have heard stories from their patients who went to heaven or to hell, and were brought back to life.  I would wager that none of them said that they went anywhere else.  When people are revived from the dead, they know where they were before they were pulled back in to their bodies.

So if there is a real Heaven, and there is a real Hell, then there is a real God and there is a real plan.  Stay with me here.

Ted was a professed Catholic.  If there is a real God, and there is, by Ted professing his Catholicism, was this enough to get in to heaven?  Well, the Bible says in order to be saved – and go to heaven – you must profess that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior: John 3:16 (New International Version) "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Did Ted believe this? If Ted believed in God, then would not his actions have matched his words and deeds?

Harry Reid reminded us of Kennedy’s own words, the "dream shall never die," in calling on colleagues to carry on where Kennedy left off.  "As we mourn his loss, we rededicate ourselves to the causes for which he so dutifully dedicated his life".

Let’s review these causes:

Senator Kennedy initially ran for office as a Catholic pro-lifer.  Once he was placed into office, he changed his position to become a pro-abortion activist.  One could say that Ted was one of the greatest advocates for abortion.  He championed the abortion cause for more than 30 years.   In addition, regarding the “life” issue, his possibly pregnant secretary was killed in a car that he abandoned.  Did Ted ever consider the biblical commandment, “Thou Shalt Not Kill”?

An interesting twist to the life issue is that Ted supported the man-made creation of life through the creation of human embryos for the “clone and kill” bill.  Ted, Tom Harkin and Dianne Feinstein wanted to create human embryos for the express purpose of experimentation to be killed in scientific experiments.  Does not God give life and does not God take it away?

Ted also fought for the “right” for the same sex to marry and adopt innocent children, as well as promoted the homosexual agenda to our children in our public schools.  Yet God says:

1 Cor. 6:9-10, "Or do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God."

Rom. 1:26-28, "For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper."

It is crystal clear that God abhors homosexuality, there is no ambiguity about it.  Yet Ted and so many people, including self professed “Christians,” fly in the face of God’s word and His will to position homosexuality as “good”.  

Well, it looks to me like Ted has some splainin’ to do with his maker.  I wonder if he had a conversation with God about the killing of viable babies through partial birth abortion procedures under his watch. I wonder about many things that could potentially threaten his salvation.

I have the same wonderment for Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Billy Mays, Karl Malden, David Carradine, Alexis Arguello, Ed McMahon and Steve McNair.

God is always good.  He knows that we are all sinners and lose our way.  He is also a merciful God.  However, we are the ones who choose our destiny in eternity.  We can choose to follow God’s laws, commandments and statutes, or to follow the ugly little man with the pitch fork for our own self elevation and personal gain.  God gives us the freedom to choose our own destiny.

We can only hope that Ted repented, as we all have to do for our choices and sins against God, and made himself right before the our creator, and that his, Michael’s, Farrah’s, Billy’s, Karl’s, David’s, Alexis’s, Ed’s and Steve’s souls were literally saved and did not perish.

Tricia Erickson was the first Damage Control and Crisis Management Expert in the country, as stated by Barbara Walters on the show, "20/20". Tricia is also a political consultant and a frequent on-air contributor who has opined on FOX, CNN, MSNBC and all major TV networks. Some of the issues she has been called to speak to are The Dangers of Radical Islam, Gay Marriage, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, The Well-Masked Cult of Mormonism (she is an expert on Mormonism), Media bias, All Things Political, The Imaging-Posturing-Positioning of Presidential Candidates, All Things Regarding Hollywood, Ethics In The Media, The Culture Wars and more. She is the President of Crisis Management, Inc (crisis management and communications) and also the President of Angel Pictures, LLC (a major motion picture, TV, publicity and development company). Contact:  910-270-8966 and casting33@aol.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it (Interviews available by skype)

Nothing illustrates America’s distrust of Congress quite like the illegal immigrant provision of the House health care bill, HR 3200.

President Obama made it the first item in his last radio address:

“I want to spend a few minutes debunking some of the more outrageous myths circulating on the Internet, on cable TV, and repeated at some town halls across this country.

“Let’s start with the false claim that illegal immigrants will get health insurance under reform. That’s not true.  Illegal immigrants would not be covered.”

Obama chose his words with great care.  Section 246 of the bill — dealing solely with insurance subsidies — states: “Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States.”

Defenders of the bill frequently quote and display copies of this section at their town hall meetings.

Notice how narrow this is?  It says they should not receive the bill’s new insurance subsidies. It doesn’t say they can’t receive taxpayer-paid health care. It doesn’t say they can’t receive other benefits from HR 3200, such as the expanded Medicaid.  

Obama obviously wants to leave the impression that government won’t pay health care for illegals. It’s a false impression. Here are the two big fallacies with Obama’s carefully-chosen and scripted words:

* There are other avenues for illegal aliens to receive health care at public expense.

* All efforts to add enforcement language to HR3200 were defeated by mostly party-line votes. We can expect that the bureaucracy would look the other way under Obama’s control (just as it has with prior presidents).

Current law says illegal aliens qualify only for emergency medical care through Medicaid.  Most of these are childbirths. These costs exceed $3 billion a year.  But because few states require proof of legal presence for regular Medicaid, nobody knows the true number of illegals who receive it, or at what cost.  

The House bill not only makes a major expansion of Medicaid eligibility but also restricts (in Section 1702) inquiries about immigration status. Efforts to fix this and to add enforcement provisions to HR 3200 were offered in the Ways & Means Committee by Rep. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) and in the Energy & Commerce Committee by Rep. Nathan Deal (R-Ga.), but voted down. No Democrats supported Heller. Blue Dog Representatives Mike Ross (D-Ark.), Jim Matheson (D-Utah), Charles Melancon (D-La.), John Barrow (D-Ga.), and Baron Hill (D-Ind.) voted for the Deal proposal.

So we still have the problem as described by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) in his op-ed for The Hill:

H.R. 3200 contains gaping loopholes that will allow illegal immigrants to receive taxpayer-funded benefits. And these loopholes are no accident.  The legislation contains no verification mechanism to ensure that illegal immigrants do not apply for benefits. Republicans offered an amendment to close this loophole — it would have required verification using the existing methods that are already in place to verify eligibility for other federal benefits programs. But, when they were asked to put the language of the bill where their words were, in a party-line vote, House Democrats rejected the amendment to require verification and close this loophole.

Our media, unfortunately, don’t seem to understand.  They persist in an Obama-friendly minimal analysis, saying simplistically that the bill excludes coverage for illegal aliens.  For example:  

•    A recent Associated Press story devoted to “myth vs. fact” states simply, “THE FACTS: The proposals being negotiated do not provide coverage for illegal immigrants.”

•    The website Factcheck.org claims it is “false” that “illegal immigrants will be covered.”

•    Consumer Reports calls it “the myth that will not die.”

Those media evidently believe government can magically exclude illegals even in the absence of a screening system.  

But history shows our social welfare bureaucracy is quite adept at finding loopholes to help illegal aliens. One example is food stamps.

Federal regulations [7 CFR 273.4 (b)] explicitly require that immigration authorities must be notified if they learn that an illegal alien is within a household applying for Food Stamps.  

However, a “Catch 22” was created by the Clinton administration.  In an “Interagency Notice (65 Fed. Reg. 58301, Sept. 28, 2000), bureaucrats were told that unless a person has already had a hearing and been formally determined to be an illegal immigrant, no government agency really “knows” that they are illegal — so they need not be turned in.  

It’s just another example of how laws are bypassed when it comes to illegal immigration.

Only if you believe that our immigration laws are well-enforced can you believe that HR 3200 will not expand public benefits for illegal aliens.  And if you believe that, I’ve got a certain bridge you might want to buy.

Ernest Istook calls himself a "recovering Congressman" from Oklahoma. He is now a Distinguished Fellow at The Heritage Foundation and chairs the National Advisory Board for Save Our Secret Ballot, www.SOSballot.org.