The Berlin Wall and Nationalized Healthcare DOA?

AP: Germany celebrates fall of Berlin Wall
BERLIN – With prayers, music and pomp, Germany on Monday remembered the 20th anniversary of the day the Berlin Wall fell, sending East Germans flooding west and setting in motion events that soon led to the country's reunification. [Click to read]

I got tears in my eyes to read this. I remember hearing about the 14,000 people that met to pray in and around a church for the reunification of Germany and then lit candles and carried them in protest. The next day, the wall fell. The East German leader later said, "We thought we were prepared for anything. But we weren't prepared for people united in prayer."

In 1990, I went to Berlin and chiseled some pieces off the wall. I still have them and take them out and look at them to remind me of how it used to be, and to pray that it will never get that way here!

AP Wire: House Health Bill Has Nowhere to Go in Senate
WASHINGTON -- Don't look for the Senate to quickly follow the House on health care overhaul.
A government health insurance plan included in the House bill is unacceptable to a few Democratic moderates who hold the balance of power in the Senate. They're locked in a battle with liberals, with the fate of President Obama's signature issue at stake. [Click to read]

The Senate is doing its job. The House tried to rush something through without major debate or bi-partisan input. In my opinion, the Senate will examine this bill, plot out the long-term ramifications, and propose something much better. Let's hope cooler heads prevail than those that pushed this monstrosity through the House!

Berlin Wall and Election Results

From USA Today: Berlin Wall now in pieces across USA
By Rick Hampson, USA TODAY
FULTON, Mo. — Twenty years after it fell, the Berlin Wall has spread around the world, morphing en route from an instrument of oppression to a symbol of freedom.
The wall is found across the U.S. — in scores of major fragments and sections on display in at least 26 states, from a community college in Hawaii to a floating restaurant in Maine to a park near the World Trade Center. [Click to read]

Remember when President Ronald Reagan said, "Mr. Gorbachov--tear down this wall!"?

I have pieces of the wall that I chiseled from it back in 1990, when I was on business in Berlin. It cheers me to see the wall in pieces! However, socialism has now come to the good old USA. Let's roll it back and tear it down, too!

From USA Today: Va., N.J. give GOP reason to celebrate
By Susan Page, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Republicans swept governors' races in New Jersey and Virginia on Tuesday, giving the GOP bragging rights by winning two key states that Barack Obama carried a year ago.
Democrats scored an upset in a closely watched congressional election in Upstate New York that spotlighted the GOP's ideological divide. [Click to read]

Is this a message to the Obama administration that he's giving us change we didn't expect, like "Health Care Reform" that wasn't even in his campaign message? Or quadrupling of the deficit, when he claimed he would be fiscally responsible? How will the moderate and conservative Democrats in congress respond? Will they continue to buck the party line? Only time will tell.

From USA Today: Maine voters reject gay-marriage law
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Voters in the northeastern state of Maine repealed a state law that would have allowed same-sex couples to wed, dealing the gay rights movement a heartbreaking defeat in the corner of the country most supportive of gay marriage.
Gay marriage has now lost in every single state — 31 in all — in which it has been put to a popular vote. Gay-rights activists had hoped to buck that trend in Maine — known for its moderate, independent-minded electorate — and mounted an energetic, well-financed campaign. [Click to read]

The people have spoken over and over again: "Marriage is between a man and a woman." It has been defined that way for thousands of years. There is no need to change it. There are other options for gays without calling it marriage.