According to Fox News, efforts to get Grayson to shut his lips on how the Republican health care reform was doomed to “die” were akin to those made by Democrats to get Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) to apologize for the “You lie!” incident we all know so well. But in Grayson’s case, as it was surely fact for Wilson, was he telling the truth with his shocking statement?

The Republican effort proved futile. Grayson refused to apologize…at least for what the red elephants wanted. Instead, Grayson gave this apology, as reported by Fox: “I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven’t voted sooner to end this holocaust in America.”

I find this all to be extremely interesting. Why? Well, I’ve visited the Holocaust Museum in D.C., I’ve visited my local museum in St. Petersburg, Fla., and I’ve personally written at least ten reports on the horrifying event; however, I see absolutely zero evidence of this “holocaust” Grayson speaks of in the U.S. What, exactly, is this man talking about?

I love how Democratic ads on Obama’s health care reform plan always seem to say something along the lines of, “…to prevent all those who die in the streets…”

Have you recently witnessed any American citizen die in the street? If you have, please post a comment ASAP and I’ll respond with my personal contact information so we can get together on this.

Of course, I know I won’t be receiving any because this simply does not happen in the United States, even with our currently lacking health care system. That’s because people who need medical attention can go to the emergency room and be treated. Sure, they’ll receive a massive bill in the mail that they likely can’t afford, BUT, they don’t die in the street.

Get your facts straight, Grayson, before you go spouting any more stupidity. And furthermore, you should be ashamed of yourself as an official representative, “Congressman Grayson,” for Florida, and my own home state no less.

Thousands protested Obamacare.

According to AOL News, many of the protesters got the push for this movement from the recent tea parties held to discuss similar dissatisfaction, just a more generalized one in how the entire country is being run… Into the ground in my opinion.

Complaints heard were nothing out of the ordinary.

How can we afford this when our country’s more than $11 trillion in debt?

What about the elderly? I heard coverage for them isn’t going to stretch past a certain age. Who’s right is it to put worth on a human life based on age?

Why would I want to put the most important aspect of my life — my health — in the hand’s of someone else? Especially the government’s?

Aren’t there more important items to spend our money on right now? Granted, our current health care system isn’t the greatest, but no one’s dying in the streets because they can’t get health care.

And what about future generations? How will they afford to pay the debt this plan will incur?

All legitimate questions, I believe.

Something positive this protest has accomplished, no matter what side of the political fence you sit, is demonstrate the fact that some Americans do care about what goes on in this country and what policies are being implemented or trying to be implemented.

For a while there I was beginning to believe no one would stand up to this sickeningly sweet idea of butterflies and unicorns, this dream world idea, and a country that can live happily with the government paying for everything for its people. Does that mean we don’t have to work anymore too?

It’s about time people started to stand up for freedom.

What was once a good idea to liberals and fans of big government meddling into the private affairs of citizens has now turned taboo, with many of the former supporters jumping ship.  The proposal for health care reform has lost plenty of steam over the last several months, calling on Obama and the few liberals still in cahoots with the President over his plan to host a variety of town-hall meetings to discuss the details, or lack there of.  

What was once a keystone for Obama in his election campaign can now be best summed up as “Obama’s health plan woes.”

Prior to Obama’s speech this week, the major headline came from a Senator who proposed fines for those without health insurance, ranging from $950 for single citizens up to $3,800 for families depending on income.  Even though Obama had said in the past that he opposes fining citizens for opting to not carry coverage, there is much talk about the necessity for such a thing to cover the tremendous financial burden that Obama’s plans will add to the national debt.

That brings us to Rep. Joe Wilson and his “You Lie!” outburst during Obama’s speech on  health care Wednesday night.  Wilson has been a proponent of small government since his election to Congress in 2001, and the last time he was in the headlines was during his verbal assault waged on John Kerry over comments on the Vietnam War.  Wilson has four sons that serve in the U.S. military.

Wilson deserves some credit.  It was a rare moment in politics: someone was honest.

The 60 Plus Association made its opinion about Obama’s health care reform known in a new controversial TV advertisement.

According to Factcheck.org, 60 Plus Association is running a false advertisement demonstrating its opposition to President Obama’s health care plan. The group claims that Congress will cut more than $500 billion in Medicare money. In actuality, it will be about $220 billion from the “projected growth of Medicare spending over the next 10 years.”

There’s a wide assortment of generalizations and half-truths throughout this ad placed by the AARP’s conservative counterpart. Many of these can be proved incorrect through just a little bit of research.

Perhaps the elderly folks of 60 Plus Association, a conservative “non-partisan” organization, have forgotten their age. In 10 years these people may not even be around to not see this lack of money. The advertisement even says that they’ve made it through many things like the Great Depression and all kinds of war. This wouldn’t be the worst thing to happen to “seniors.”

Could it be that the older you get the more “stuck in your ways” you are? I think we all just believe what we want to believe. This is a perfect example. Still, it’s a good reminder that you don’t have to believe what everyone else believes.

“It’s a cruel joke,” the narrator says.

The cruel joke, actually, is on anyone who’s going to believe this ad.

So Clinton won the election (with the help of Ross Perot taking a decent chunk of Republican votes) and Bush was taken out of office.

The tables may have turned, with the Democrats on the receiving end.

Obama pledged during his campaign a lot of things, many of which probably won’t happen now that he understands what all it takes to govern a nation.  It’s also another beast entirely to try and be the figurehead standing before millions of people who don’t care about the good of the nation and want to know specifically what it is the president can do for them.  Knowing this, Obama pledged no new taxes on the middle class.  It was a campaign keystone for Obama.

Yet our good friend Timothy Geithner has said that the promise might not stand the test of time.

If Obama can’t keep that promise and keep middle class taxes off the legislative docket, a world of hurt may be ready to bear down upon the Democratic Party.

It has not been a good year for them.  Having a super majority in Congress has done virtually nothing to push through any legislation, giving the image of incompetence and removing much of the credibility Obama’s charisma pumped into his lofty promises before election.

With the launch of the Android phone, Google threw itself into battle with the iPhone, a fight the entire smart phone industry has been waging since Apple first went mobile. Then the release of Google Chrome thrust Google into the war for Internet browsers with Safari, Firefox and Internet Explorer.  

Next is the pending release of Chrome OS, by which Google intends to contend with Microsoft and Apple for market share in operating systems, taking on Windows and OS X.  Apple has even gone so far as to deny Google Voice from being used on the App store for the iPhone, leading all to believe the competition between Google and Apple is amping up.

Sounds like good corporate competitive spirit from different companies vying for market dominance.  Ironically, the companies aren’t that different.

Apple and Google share the same brain.

Goople, as I’ve termed it, is the collective brain trust that has run Apple and Google for most of the last decade.  

Al Gore has been a director of Apple since 2003, and also performs similar duties with Google.  Gore was also instrumental in Steve Jobs’s defense a few years back about stock options.  Several other directors for both Apple and Google have worked together and for both technological giants at the same time, essentially competing against themselves.

Neither company has suffered due to this unusual Goople system, but the FTC has taken notice and launched an investigation into both, which has forced the resignation of one person already.  

Whether or not the FTC will find any foul play involved is unknown, but it does show that the methods people employed during the tech bubble burst are still working.  Someone starts off and improves an existing model, picks up a few people that can contribute, and they move from place to place, bringing expertise and efficiency along the way.

In my opinion, the system hasn’t hurt anyone, and if anything, it has improved the quality of product (and variety) that consumers can access.  If Goople can do it better than two separate companies, then individual corporate greed has taken a step toward technological evolution.

And the prize goes to…

California, and more specifically, Los Angeles, as reported by Fox News.

The posters show Obama’s face covered in white with his eyes blacked out in smudgy rings, and a bright red smile painted on his lips, smile lines extra long and curled around his cheeks. It looks absolutely creepy.

Could it be that our great nation is finally realizing its mistake last November in electing him? Perhaps.

Could this also have something to do with the recent issue regarding socialized health care? I think yes.

According to the report from Fox, we still have no idea on where the posters are coming from, just as we have no clue if it’s the Democrats or the Republicans.

Gee, I wonder which party it could be?

The answer may seem likely as Republicans, of course, but that may not be true. With this health care reform Obama’s trying to force through Congress, many people are worried, both Democrats and Republicans, about where this could possibly take us in the future, if passed. And many are crying socialism.

There are many pros and cons to this reform. It just depends on what you believe in and where you moral ground lies. It does, however, appear in this case that those in support of the cons to this health care mess are a little friskier than those who support it.

According to Reuters, Americans can expect to be waiting for a while longer. Democrats in the House of Representatives told Reuters on Tuesday that it was “unlikely they would vote on a healthcare overhaul before heading home for their August recess at the end of the week.”

The Senate Finance negotiations are pulling for a plan where co-ops compete against private insurers, which they think will cut down healthcare costs. But, there’s some controversy surrounding the idea of cooperatives.

If this were to be passed, the non-profits would be used at a state, regional and national level and could affect up to 12 million people.

Democratic Senator Kent Conrad told Rueters that the government would provide about $6 billion to help healthcare cooperatives start up. Then, each co-op would need about 25,000 members to be “financially viable” and 500,000 members to “negotiate competitive rates with providers.”

What President Obama had been pulling for wasn’t met with much support. It probably has something to do with the price tag: $1 trillion.

“I understand people being scared that this is going to be way too costly,” Obama said. “It’s not too costly if we start making changes right now.”

Maybe, but is it really worth it?

This past week, Obama really stirred the cauldron by saying that Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge Police Department in Massachusetts “acted stupidly” when he arrested Scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Gates is a friend of the president’s, and a black man. Sgt. Crowley is white.

As reported by the Associated Press yesterday, the extent of Obama’s apology is as follows: “I could’ve calibrated those words differently.” Oh yes, and Obama called both Gates and Crowley to invite them over for a beer at the White House.

Those are two surefire ways (especially that last one) to try and douse these racial flames…

We’ll never know for sure if the president accidentally intended any racism toward the white Sgt. Crowley by his choice words, however, I think it’s interesting, and an excellent example that proves we’re all just human. Even the president of the United States has his moments.

Something else I find interesting is how big the media are blowing this up to be, which, I guess, is what they’re good for: blowing anything and everything out of proportion.

I also took notice to how often the words “white” and “black” appear in reference to these two men in the articles written about them. How often is that: quite often. Doesn’t this affect a person’s bias while reading an article like this? Doesn’t immediately stir racial emotion in the viewer/reader? Of course it does.

One one hand, it’s nice to know how the president feels about matters such as this, to know that he does possess some bias, whether it be because Gates is a friend or because they share the same race, or what have you. On the other hand, does this story, essentially about a single adverb, elicit such attention from the media.

Well, I guess it does seeing as how this is one of the most popular stories on the Web right now. I have been known to have a wrong opinion or two in my life.