Yesterday in Havana, Cuba, that country’s long time totalitarian dictator Fidel Castro praised the passage of the Obama/Reid/Polosi health care bill, calling it a, "miracle."

Seriously.

While it may disturb "normal" Americans that the head of a country where freedom and liberty are merely parts of whispered fables, there is one California Congressman who is undoubtedly quite proud of Castro’s encouragement.

Democrat Congressman Jim Costa, from California’s Central Valley, proudly displays a photo of himself with Castro on the wall of his Washington, D.C., office (see photo).

You have to wonder what other aspects of government-controlled life in Cuba that Costa is interested in bringing here to the United States…… Read More

Fighting LA traffic to voluntarily step foot on the University of Southern California campus aside (sorry Dan Schnur), I'm looking forward to testifying this morning before the Fair Political Practices Commission's Subcommittee on Whether and How to Regulate Political Speech on the Internet (ok, that's my title).

I will try to avoid using the opportunity to rage against Constitutionally questionable laws that restrict and contort the free speech rights of citizens, who should be free to give of their property freely to political candidates or causes of their choosing. These laws, among other flaws, lead to more and more vastly wealthy candidates or candidates promoted by special interests emerging as candidates as severe limits make it more and more diffucult for an average person to raise the funds necessary to wage a competitive campaign.

Anyways, I digress. My testimony this morning will focus on the challenge of trying to restrict or regulate paid political speech in a dynamic and quickly evolving arena – the Internet. Oh, I have faith in the government to try and slap reporting requirements and an ID number on more and more… Read More

You can follow my tweets @flashreport or click on the Twitter Feed button on the main page.… Read More

Quote of the day: "It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." – Theodore Roosevelt, April 23rd, 1910

Now what?: Unless you have been hiding somewhere for the last 24 hours, you know that ObamaCare passed late last night. So now what?

First of all, lawsuits are already being filed by states and others challenging the constitutionality of various provisions in the bill. The provision attracting the most attention is the one… Read More

Republicans are not surprised that Obamacare could not have succeeded without Big Pharma, the Business Round table, Wal-Mart, the American Medical Association, and the American Hospital Association. All statists. All looters. Looking to increase market share and drill more out from government.

If we think the public sector unions are parasitical, we need look… Read More

I am listening in to a Meg Whitman tele-townhall. Got the call about 2 minutes ago.

Meg talked about eliminating a couple thousand appointees and running the state more like a business.

UPDATE: They are saying that thetele-townhall is just in Orange County.… Read More

Watching the vote last night on Obama care as well as all my friend’s status updates on Facebook, Republicans clearly think the bill’s passage will be a political boon to in November. Not so fast.

While it is an unprecedented encroachment on private sector health care and nanny-state socialism, I am unconvinced it’s the political loser for Dems that we think it is.

First, a win is a win. This Administration and this Democrat Congress are running on a victory and that means something. The entire left wing apparatus will now turn to the indocrination effort of telling Americans how wonderful their new "rights" are and that it is Democrats getting things done.

And in an environment in which the electorate thinks Washington is broken (it is), the idea that Democrats in Washington got it done will mean something.

Finally, we will not feel the effects of the change before the November elections and so whatever negative impact of this "reform" will not be realized before it can influence voter behavior.

The wind has been at our backs but we cannot take it for granted. There are still seven months until… Read More

Apparently during the debate on the health care bill, during a period of time when Democrat Bart Stupak was speaking, someone yelled out from amidst the Republican Members of Congress, "Baby Killer!"

This undoubtedly was a reference to the fact that Stupak had for a long period of time been rallying so-called "pro-life" Democrats to oppose Obamacare as passed in the Senate because the legislation coming from Senate included funding of abortion, something that has been prohibited at the federal level for several decades due to the venerable Hyde Amendment. Rather infamously Stupak led these "pro-life" Democrats in a stampede to support (and provide the winning margin for) Obamacare in return for the fig-leaf of President Obama issuing an Executive Order that public funds will not be used for abortions.

Of course there was an immediate frenzy in the media — trying to figure out who should shout such a thing? Who could be so, rude!? Well, from watching the evening’s events on C-SPAN, I can tell you that had I been in the chamber, I would have yelled much worse. In my opinion,… Read More