The one party passage of the ObamaCare will go down in history as one of the successful victories that the Progressives were able to achieve in bringing about the eventual destruction of this country. The promise to bring affordable health care to every citizen of this nation has veiled the actual Democrats' plan for this nation. They want to turn American Exceptionalism into European Socialism. They are not happy that they have most of the planet under a soft tyranny but want to bring about the downfall of the land of the free.
The Democrats usage of obscure rules and policies that run contrary to what was intended by our 'founding fathers' written in the Constitution. They have passed one of the biggest change of policy in this nation's history on a Sunday evening in a very partisan power grab.
The MSM propaganda machine continues to cheer lead this administration and promote these Socialist policies. They are now continuing to try to sell to everyone what a great change this is, much to a disillusioned public. They are even using historical Socialist tactics of fear mongering by bringing up unsubstantiated charges that Tea Party members are threatening heroic Democrat enablers of our country's demise. They have no proof yet are trumpeting non-stop that dangers of a movement of American people who have awakened to this act of treachery by the Left. Where will the MSM's propaganda lead to? 1. 'Going to the Extreme' by Paul Krugman http://is.gd/b2dx5
The continued efforts that the Obama Administration is conducting in the destruction of American industry is evident by the high cost that ObamaCare is going to bring. They have taken over the majority of the American Automotive Industry, banking, Student Loans, Housing and now the entire Medical Industry. The administration's control of the Housing industry can be seen in it's continuing failing policies of trying to manipulate reforms that are both unattainable and unrealistic. 2. AT&T to Book $1 Billion Cost on Health-Care Reform http://is.gd/b2edU 3. Obama readies steps to fight foreclosures, particularly for unemployed. http://is.gd/b2ffH
Mr President, you have thrown down the gauntlet and have screamed, "bring it on!" Well, we will sir, on November 2010 and 2012. You and the rest of your den of destroyers of truth and freedom will be voted out. You, once again, have awakened a sleeping giant and it's dream for our wonderful nation will once again be brought back to the forefront. Our children and grandchildren will be able to see again what a wonderful country this is and that we are a beacon to the rest of the world. We will not see you turn this country into another decadent and impotent failed Socialist state, but what it has always been, the 'shining city on the hill.'
I may only be one person in this world, but I have learned that with God, I am never alone. I will strive with his support and that of my family, friends and many other Americans in this Great Nation, to repeal this abomination that the Progressives have inflicted on us. We will restore the Constitutional Freedoms that were given to us by our Creator. We will not do this only ourselves, but for our children and their children. Freedom has never been free and many have paid a great price for it. We will never sacrifice our sacred honor and rebuke the gifts of our God. God Bless you all.
Before I say my formal good-bye, maybe I should tell you what I'm up to now that I'm out of office. Well, I'm still giving speeches, still sounding off about those things I didn't get accomplished while I was president.
High on my agenda are three things. First, I'm out there stumping to help future presidents - Republican or Democrat - get those tools they need to bring the budget under control. And those tools are a line-item veto and a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. Second, I'm out there talking up the need to do something about political gerrymandering. This is the practice of rigging the boundaries of congressional districts. It is the greatest single blot on the integrity of our nation's electoral system, and it's high time we did something about it. And third, I'm talking up the idea of repealing the Twenty-second Amendment, to the Constitution, the amendment that prevents a president from serving more than two terms. I believe it's a preemption of the people's right to vote for whomever they want as many times as they want.
So I'm back where I came in - out there on the mashed potato circuit. I have a feeling I'll be giving speeches until I'm called to the great beyond and maybe even after. All it will take is for St. Peter to say, "Ronald Wilson Reagan, what do you have to say for yourself? Speak up."
"Well, sir, unaccustomed as I am . . ."
My fellow Americans:
This is the thirty-fourth time I'll speak to you from the Oval Office and the last. We've been together for eight years now, and soon it'll be time for me to go. But before I do, I wanted to share some thoughts, some of which I've been saying for a long time.
It's been the honor of my life to be your president. So many of you have written the past few weeks to say thanks, but I could say as much to you. Nancy and I are grateful for the opportunity you gave us to serve.
One of the things about the presidency is that you're always somewhat apart. You spend a lot of time going by too fast in a car someone else is driving, and seeing the people through tinted glass - the parents holding up a child, and the wave you saw too late and couldn't return. And so many times I wanted to stop and reach out from behind the glass, and connect. Well, maybe I can do a little of that tonight.
People ask how I feel about leaving. And the fact is, "parting is such sweet sorrow." The sweet part is California, and the ranch and freedom. The sorrow - the good-byes, of course, and leaving this beautiful place.
You know, down the hall and up the stairs from this office is the part of the White House where the presidents and his family live. There are a few favorite windows I have up there that I like to stand and look out of early in the morning. The view is over the grounds here to the Washington Monument, and then the Mall and the Jefferson Memorial. But on mornings when the humidity is low, you can see past the Jefferson to the river, the Potomac, and the Virginia shore. Someone said that's the view Lincoln had when he saw the smoke rising from the Battle of Bull Run. I see more prosaic things: the grass on the banks, the morning traffic as people mark their way to work, now and then a sailboat on the river.
I've been thinking a bit at that window. I've been reflecting on what the past eight years have meant and mean. And the image that comes to mind like a refrain is a nautical one - a small story about a big ship, and a refugee and a sailor. It was back in the early eighties, at the height of the boat people. And the sailor was hard at work on the carrier Midway, which was patrolling the South China Sea. The sailor, like most American servicemen, was young, smart, and fiercely observant. The crew spied on the horizon a leaky little boat. And crammed inside were refugees from Indochina hoping to get to America. The Midway sent a small launch to bring them to the ship and safety. As the refugees made their way through the choppy seas, one spied the sailor on deck and stood up and called out to him. He yelled, "Hello, American sailor. Hello, freedom man."
A small moment with a big meaning, a moment the sailor, who wrote it in a letter, couldn't get out of his mind. And when I saw it, neither could I. Because that's what it was to be an American in the 1980s. We stood, again, for freedom. I know we always have, but in the past few years the world again, and in a way, we ourselves - rediscovered it.
It's been quite a journey this decade, and we held together through some stormy seas. And at the end, together, we are reaching our destination.
The fact is, from Grenada to the Washington and Moscow summits, from the recession of '81 to '82, to the expansion that began in late '82 and continues to this day, we've made a difference. They way I see it, there were two great triumphs, two things that I'm proudest of. One is the economic recovery, in which the people of America created - and filled - 19 million new jobs. The other is the recovery of our morale. America is respected again in the world and looked to for leadership.
Something that happened to me a few years ago reflects some of this. It was back in 1981, and I was attending my first big economic summit, which was held that year in Canada. The meeting place rotates among the member countries. The opening meeting was a formal dinner for the heads of government of the seven industrialized nations. Now, I sat there like the new kid in school and listened, and it was all the Francois this and Helmut that. They dropped titles and spoke to one another on a first-name basis. Well, at one point I sort of learned in an said, "My name's Ron." Well, in that same year, we began the actions we felt would ignite an economic comeback - cut taxes and regulation, started to cut spending. And soon the recovery began.
Two years later another economic summit, with pretty much the same cast. At the big opening meeting we all got together, and all of a sudden, just for a moment, I saw that everyone was just sitting there looking at me. And then one of them broke the silence. "Tell us about the American miracle," he said.
Well, back in 1980, when I was running for president, it was all so different. Some pundits said our programs would result in catastrophe. Our views on foreign affairs would cause war. Our plans for the economy would cause inflation to soar and bring about economic collapse. I even remember one highly respected economist saying, back in 1982, that "the engines of economic growth have shut down here, and they're likely to stay that way for years to come." Well, he and the other opinion leaders were wrong. The fact is, what they called "radical" was really "right". What they called "dangerous" was just "desperately needed."
And in all of that time I won a nickname, "The Great Communicator." But I never thought it was my style or the words I used that made a difference: It was the content. I wasn't a great communicator, but I communicated great things, and they didn't spring full bloom from my brow, they came from the heart of a great nation - from our experience, our wisdom, and our belief in the principles that have guided us for two centuries. They called it the Reagan revolution. Well, I'll accept that, but for me it always seemed more like the great rediscovery, a rediscover of our values and our common sense.
Common sense told us that when you put a big tax on something, the people will produce less of it. So, we cut the people's tax rates, and the people produced more than ever before. The economy bloomed like a plant that had been cut back and could not grow quicker and stronger. Our economic program brought about the longest peacetime expansion in our history: real family income up, the poverty rate down, entrepreneurship booming, and an explosion in research and new technology. We're exporting more than ever because American industry became more competitive and at the same time, we summoned the national will to knock down protectionist walls abroad instead of erecting them at home. Common sense also told us that to preserve the peace, we'd have to become strong again after years of weakness and confusion. So, we rebuilt our defenses, and this New Year we toasted the new peacefulness around the globe. Not only have the superpowers actually begun to reduce their stockpiles of nuclear weapons - and hope for even more progress is bright - but the regional conflicts that rack the globe are also beginning to cease. The Persian Gulf is no longer a war zone. The Soviets are leaving Afghanistan. The Vietnamese are preparing to pull out of Cambodia, and an American-mediated accord will soon send 50,000 Cuban troops home to Angola.
The lesson of all this was, of course, that because we're a great nation, our challenges seem complex. It will always be this way. But as long as we remember our first principles and believe in ourselves, the future will always be ours. And something else we learned: Once you begin a great movement, there's no telling where it will end. We meant to change a nation, and instead, we changed a world.
Countries across the globe are turning to free markets and free speech and turning away from the ideologies of the past. For them, the great rediscovery of the 1980s has been that, lo and behold, the moral way of government is the practical way of government: Democracy, the profoundly good, is also profoundly productive.
When you've got to the point when you can celebrate the anniversaries of your thirty-ninth birthday, you can sit back sometimes, review your life, and see it flowing before you. For me there was a fork in the river, and it was right in the middle of my life. I never meant to go into politics. It wasn't my intention when I was young. But I was raised to believe you had to pay your way for the blessings bestowed on you. I was happy with my career in the entertainment world, but I ultimately went into politics because I wanted to protect something precious.
Ours was the first revolution in the history of mankind that truly reversed the course of government, and with three little words: "We the people." "We the people" tell the government what to do, it doesn't tell us. "We the people" are the driver, the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast. Almost all the world's constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which "We the people" tell the government what it is allowed to do. "We the people" are fee. This belief has been the underlying basis for everything I've tried to do these past eight years.
But back in the 1960s, when I began, it seemed to me that we'd begun reversing the order of things - that through more and more rules and regulations and confiscatory taxes, the government was taking more of our money, more of our options, and more of our freedom. I went into politics in part to put up my hand and say, "Stop." I was a citizen politician, and it seemed the right thing for a citizen to do.
I think we have stopped a lot of what needed stopping. And I hope we have once again reminded the people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.
Nothing is less free than pure communism, and yet we have, the past few years, forged a satisfying new closeness with the Soviet Union. I've been asked if this isn't a gamble, and my answer is no because we're basing our actions not on words but deeds. The détente of the 1970s was based not on actions but promises. They'd promise to treat their own people and the people of the world better. But the gulag was still the gulag, and the state was still expansionist, and they still waged proxy wars in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Well, this time, so far, it's different. President Gorbachev has brought about some internal democratic reforms and begun the withdrawal from Afghanistan. He has also freed prisoners whose names I've given him every time we've met.
But life has a way of reminding you of big things through small incidents. Once, during the heady days of the Moscow summit, Nancy and I decided to break off from the entourage one afternoon to visit the shops on Arbat Street - that's a little street just off Moscow's main shopping area. Even though our visit was a surprise, every Russian there immediately recognized us and called out our names and reached for our hands. We were just about swept away by the warmth. You could almost feel the possibilities in all that joy. But within seconds, a KGB detail pushed their way toward us and began pushing and shoving the people in the crowd. It was an interesting moments. It reminded me that while the man of the street in the Soviet Union yearns for peace, the government is Communist. And those who run it are Communists, and that means we and they view such issues as freedom and human rights very differently.
We must keep up our guard, but we must also continue to work together to lessen and eliminate tension and mistrust. My view is that President Gorbachev is different from previous Soviet leaders. I think he knows some of the things wrong with his society and is trying to fix them. We wish him well. And we'll continue to work to make sure that the Soviet Union that eventually emerges from this process is a less threatening one. What it all boils down to is this. I want the new closeness to continue. And it will, as long as we make it clear that we will continue to act in a certain way as long as they continue to act in a helpful manner. If and when they don't, at first pull your punches. If they persist, pull the plug. It's still trust but verify. It's still play, but cut the cards. It's still watch closely. And don't be afraid to see what you see.
I've been asked if I have any regrets. Well, I do. The deficit is one. I've been talking a great deal about that lately, but tonight isn't for arguments. And I'm going to hold my tongue. But an observation: I've had my share of victories in the Congress, but what few people noticed is that I never won anything you didn't win for me. They never saw my troops, they never saw Reagan's regiments, the American people. You won every battle with every call you made and letter you wrote demanding action. Well, action is still needed. If we're to finish the job, Reagan's regiments will have to become the Bush brigades. Soon he'll be the chief, and he'll need you every bit as much as I did.
Finally, there is a great tradition of warnings in presidential farewells, and I've got one that's been on my mind for some time. But oddly enough it starts with one of the things I'm proudest of in the past eight years: the resurgence of national pride that I called the new patriotism. This national feeling is good, but it won't count for much, and it won't last unless it's grounded in thoughtfulness and knowledge.
An informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world? Those of us who are over thirty-five or so years of age grew up in a different America. We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American. And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions. If you didn't get these things from your family, you got them from the neighborhood, from the father down the street who fought in Korea of the family who lost someone at Anzio. Or you could get a sense of patriotism from school. And if all else failed, you could get a sense of patriotism from the popular culture. The movies celebrated democratic values and implicitly reinforced the idea that America was special. TV was like that, too, through the midsixties.
But now, we're about to enter the nineties, and some things have changed. Younger parents aren't sure that an unambivalent appreciation of America is the right thing to teach modern children. And as for those who create the popular culture, well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style. Our spirit is back, but we haven't reinstitutionalized it. We've got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom - freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rate. It's fragile; it needs production [protection].
So, we've got to teach history based not on what's in fashion but what's important: Why the Pilgrims came here, who Jimmy Doolittle was, and what those thirty seconds over Tokyo meant. You know, four years ago on the fortieth anniversary of D day, I read a letter from a young woman writing of her late father, who'd fought on Omaha Beach. Her name was Lisa Zanatta Henn, and she said, "we will always remember, we will never forget what the boys of Normandy did." Well, let's help her keep her word. If we forget what we did, we won't know who we are. I'm warning of an eradication of the American memory that could result, ultimately, in an erosion of the American spirit. Let's start with some basics: more attention to American history and a greater emphasis on civic ritual. And let me offer lesson number one about America: All great change in America begins at the dinner table. So, tomorrow night in the kitchen I hope the talking begins. And children, if your parents haven't been teaching you what it means to be an American, let 'em know and nail 'em on it. That would be a very American thing to do.
And that's about all I have to say tonight. Except for one thing. The past few days when I've been at that window upstairs, I've thought a bit of the "shining city upon a hill." The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we'd call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free.
I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still.
And how stand the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was eight years ago. But more than that; after two hundred years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.
We've done our part. And as I walk off into the city streets, a final word to the men and women of the Reagan revolution, the men and women across America who for eight years did the work that brought America back. My friends: We did it. We weren't just marking time. We made a difference. We made the city stronger. We made the city freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all, not bad, not bad at all.
And so, good-bye, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America. http://is.gd/aTA8b
The Health Care Act that is on the eve of being passed will be the single most important law being passed in this nation which will essentially nullify the Constitution and bring about a 'Change' that was never expected by supporters or the loyal opposition of President Obama. There is nothing in the act that will change the current system other than impose a massive tax by creating a new Government entitlement program. We are all familiar with all the other current Government entitlement programs such as Public Education, Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, Welfare, Public Housing and the rest of these ad naseum liberal plans, which are all financially failing.
The Health Care Act will initially act against and violate the 3rd, 4th ,5th and 10th Amendments in the Bill of Rights. The Executive Branch will have access to your health care, financial and personal information from employer and doctor. 15,000 new IRS workers being hired this week will enforce new taxes that this act will impose on us. This act will, for the first time in our nation's history, give the Government the power to actually impose on it's citizens it's will. This was not what our 'Founding Fathers' did with the Constitution, which was give us Rights that prevented actions being done to us by the Government.
The comparison ,of the tyranny that this Government is imposing on us, to auto insurance is a very poor argument. Driving is a privilege and not a Right. We drive on roads with other citizens, only after being licensed to do so, and have to get insurance to defer any accident that may occur. We are not forced to get car insurance if we do not drive and nor are passengers. The Health Care Act will make insurance companies provide coverage that is not financially viable and will bring about their combined failure. This will lead the Government to come in and establish their public option. The State will eventually win this as it is difficult to compete with an entity that can print an endless supply of cash.
Europe is currently trying to stay afloat with it's expensive and lackluster health care system. They have been able to spend a large part of their GDP on their Social Medicine because the United States has been providing for their defense since the end of World War II. The Health Care Act will soon be too much for this nation to afford and their will not be the money to maintain the current military levels that we have. The current wars against Islamic Terrorism will have to be ended and an embolden enemy will be left behind. How long do you think it will take them to take action? There are also nation states that might also feel the same way. Elections have consequences. Conservatives need to start voting for candidates that will bring back the spirit of American exceptionalism back. This is not a goal that can be achieved quickly but the prospects of 2010 and 2012 look promising. We need to bring this country back under the rule of the Constitution and that will start with the repealing of the abomination of the Health Care Act.
God Bless this country, "the Shining City upon a Hill" - Reagan
Adrian Gregorio Jr Captain, Infantry, USA(Ret) 1981-1989
This is my response to these two statements. I found them both valid and well written opposing views to the current health care issues.
Michael Huyck, Nice Democratic partisan talking points. Maybe you need to read the Health Care Bill and realize what is NOT in it. Like opening up insurance across state lines, and tort reform. The current bill will only raise tax's, enlarge the government, and scratch the back of the Unions. We all need to make sacrifices in life to take care of ourselves and our family. I had to pay out of pocket for years to have my daughter and wife covered. Government mandates like what are in this bill does nothing to lower cost, and make it more affordable. If anything small business will just drop coverage and pay the fine because it is cheaper and easier. No Health bill should be 2700 pages, and pass with a bi-partisan dissent.
Please forward this to the original author of the email regarding healthcare.
I want to begin by stating that this is by far the poorest argument that I have seen against healthcare reform. Your email suggests that the negligence of the doctors had something to do with the NHS of England. The fault in this situation falls upon the oncologists, internists, and histologists that failed to properly identify a cancerous cervical biopsy. Why would you assume that the mistake of a few doctors would be representative of a whole system? You cannot, and your argument is very empty for making that assumption.
Furthermore, you suggest that this would represent the future of U.S healthcare. This might be true if U.S healthcare were to become a nationalized single-payer system (like in England). However, the current reform merely institutes a mandate for everyone to have insurance (like you need car insurance to drive) and establishes a proper exchange to purchase this insurance and provides subsidies for the less fortunate. Current reform requires Americans to purchase insurance from PRIVATE companies (unfortunately there is not a public option choice). This refutes the second art of your assumption and truly shows your ignorance of current healthcare politics and policy.
Having a sister and mother both diagnosed and treated for lymphoma, I know how scary cancer is. But how would a person without insurance or access to healthcare know to be screened in the first place? Uninsured people have no means to access proper screening for things such as cervical cancer. In my mother’s case a dentist noticed the swollen lymph node which sent my mom to the oncologist.
Doctor’s and nurses do not practice for the sake of bureaucracy; they do it to heal the sick. It’s a Hippocratic Oath they take that no one can come in between. At the present insurance companies pocket the majority of their profits and pay themselves rather than investing those profits back into the system where they are needed. Insurance companies are the ones currently denying care to the sick with pre-existing conditions. Yes, this system needs reform fast and is worthy of the current argument. However, your conservative talking point is a complete fallacy and I just wanted to point that out.
Respectfully,
Michael Huyck
U.S Army OIF 2006-2008 Veteran
I want to thank these two fine Veterans for their service to our country.
This blog takes a totally different direction. This is a story of a buddy of mine, Steve Tyler. I met him over a decade ago when I joined the Blue Knights Motorcycle Club, Illinois XI. We traveled to many places around the country with the club. A good time had by all and a great friend made. He showed great friendship, when he was able to help me get into Area 3, Detective Division, Chicago Police Department. I have been there for quite awhile now and am proud to serve the citizens of Chicago there. I can never thank enough the person who was able to make one of my dreams come true, my friend, Steve Tyler. Like all of us, Steve Tyler has his story. His is a very good one and I want to share it with everyone. I hope that you see how lucky I am to work with such wonderful people like this. He didn't do this story for personal fame but to help get the word out for a superb institution, Mercy Home for Boys and Girls. He is a selfless person and has devoted his life to helping others. This is his story:
From Chicago Sun-Times
Part I
A mercy mystery
Cop who grew up in home for troubled kids finds his past isn't all he was told
March 9, 2010
MARK BROWN markbrown@suntimes.com
Steven Tyler was 16 years old and out of options when a parish priest told him about Mercy Home.
He'd spent the previous several nights sleeping in a friend's backyard in Bridgeport, having run away from the latest of three foster homes that took him in after his relatives finished passing him around.
Tyler had grown up without a mother in the care of an alcoholic father who treated him with such contempt that the boy decided he'd be better off as a ward of the state than spending another minute where he wasn't wanted.
Then that didn't work out either, which is why Tyler made the long walk by himself that summer's day in 1980 all the way from the Bridgeport church to Mercy's residential home for troubled youth at 1140 W. Jackson, his mind reeling with worried thoughts about where he could turn next.
At first, he was told there was no room for him at Mercy as well. He'd have to wait six months for a bed to open up. The distraught look on the boy's face must have caused someone to reconsider. Come back Tuesday, they said, and so he did.
Tyler, now 46 and a veteran Chicago Police detective, will tell you that was the turning point of his life.
At Mercy, he found not only a home but a family, not necessarily the family he'd always envisioned with a loving mother and father, but one made of three dozen boys facing the same troubles he had, some even worse.
And in their company, he found a peace he'd never found anywhere else. At Mercy he could talk about the abuse he had suffered with peers who wouldn't judge him.
"I didn't feel all alone. There was more of a common ground. You felt almost equal," the soft-spoken Tyler told me this past weekend over coffee and doughnuts in a Mercy conference room.
"That was the first time in my life I was able to slow down," he said. "I felt a bond with the kids that were here."
After two years living at Mercy and several more working there as a handyman, Tyler would go on to the conventional life he had craved: a good job with the Police Department and a family of his own with a wife and four children.
Tyler is telling his story now not for sympathy but to raise public awareness for Mercy as it enters its annual "Shamrocks for Kids" fund-raising campaign.
Yet, there are more sympathy-inducing twists and turns to his story that I think you'd want to hear. For that, we'll circle back to the start.
Tyler was born in 1963 at the Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium, where his parents had met, both having contracted the disease.
All Tyler ever knew about his mother was what he was told: that she had died when he was an infant. He assumed it was related to TB.
His paternal grandmother raised him until age 4½, when she put him in the car one day and dropped him off with his father, who had since remarried and had rarely even seen the boy to that point. Both father and stepmother made it clear he wasn't wanted, confining him to his room, even for meals.
"I hate to say this, but my father literally hated me, and I came to hate him," Tyler said.
His father's drinking became worse until he could no longer hold a job. Tyler took a paper route. His father took the money.
"That money I made paid for his cigarettes and beer and probably the rent," Tyler told me, more by way of explanation than out of resentment.
All the while, Tyler longed for his mother. "I always had that thought with me as a child that things would be better if she were here," he said.
Instead, he tried living with relatives, then foster families, the arrangements failing mostly because of his own internal restlessness and anger. I've already explained how that led him to Mercy.
Fast forward to 1994. Tyler, by then eight years a policeman, was newly assigned to the Narcotics Division when his unit attempted to serve a warrant at a suspected drug house.
Tyler was shot three times, the worst of which ricocheted off the floor and under his bulletproof vest, penetrating his colon, liver, diaphragm and lung. It was touch and go for a while, but he made it.
While recovering, though, an aunt made a seemingly innocuous observation about it being too bad his mother wasn't there with him. Something in the way she said it caused Tyler to press the point.
To his shock, the aunt let the cat out of the bag. His mother hadn't died. She had left him.
Thus began Tyler's obsessive search for his mother, which ended just last week.
For that part of the story, you'll have to read tomorrow's column. http://is.gd/aa6HI
Part II
Search for mom leads detective to few answers
But on journey, he finds ways to help -- as Mercy helped him
March 10, 2010
BY MARK BROWN Sun-Times Columnist If his mother was alive, Steven Tyler always told himself during a childhood spent with an abusive father in Bridgeport, things would be different.
If only she hadn't died when he was just an infant, he could be living a "normal" life like the other kids.
He clung to that thought during those rough early years with his father and later as he bounced between relatives and foster homes. Later yet, it would sustain him through his turnaround years at Mercy Home, the Catholic charity that gave him safe haven, as it has for countless homeless and troubled children since 1887.
Imagine then how devastating it must have been for Tyler to discover as a 31-year-old Chicago Police detective that his mother hadn't died as he'd always been told. She had left him.
An aunt let the truth slip while Tyler was at home recuperating in 1994 from serious gunshot wounds suffered in the line of duty when he served a warrant at a suspected drug house.
Even as he struggled to recover from his injuries, Tyler was immediately consumed by a need to unravel his past. What was so bad that his mother had felt the need to abandon him? Why?
First, though, he'd have to find her, no easy task under the circumstances. The trail was cold, with Tyler knowing little more than her name, Tina Marie.
He brought his own police skills to bear --and enlisted a former policeman who now specializes in that type of work.
He learned his mother had lived in Detroit for a time, but the addresses didn't check out.
Finding her was an obsession, one that would come and go these past 16 years. At times, he would make headway, then hit a dead end and give up for long periods.
Tyler's search led him to more family. Tina Marie had given birth to twin boys by another father two years after he was born -- and had abandoned them also.
He traced one of his half-brothers to a Cicero address and went there expectantly, only to find he was too late. The half-brother, Richard, had died six months earlier of a heroin overdose. The other half-brother had died in infancy.
But Richard had two children of his own. Tyler kept in touch with them. When he became concerned later that his teenage niece was taking the wrong path, Tyler and his wife took her into their home with their own four children. Tyler is proud that his niece went on to graduate from high school and join the Air Force.
Tyler also kept busy by founding a support group for police officers shot in the line of duty. Drawing on his experiences in group therapy at Mercy, Tyler knew the value of talking about his troubles with others facing the same issues. The Police Survivors now number about 85 members who were traumatically injured in shootings or car accidents on the job.
Still, the unresolved issue of his mother hung there, never far from his thoughts, although he was losing hope, given that she would now be in her 80s.
"I'd come to the resolution she probably was dead," Tyler said.
That's where things stood when the staff at Mercy Home told me Tyler was willing to tell his story to help publicize the organization's important work, which he credits with turning around his life.
It wasn't until we met that I learned Tyler had found his mother a week earlier.
He had gone back to his former detective friend, who found her address -- and other information as well. Tina Marie had been married four times, it turned out. Tyler's father was her second husband. She and her fourth husband were living in a small northern Wisconsin town.
Tyler drove there unannounced on his next off day. The couple weren't home, but he waited. When they returned late that evening, he approached them in the drive as they headed for the door.
"Who are you?" asked the husband.
"Steve, I'm from Chicago. I'm your son," he said directly to Tina Marie, the way he'd always heard himself saying it.
"I have no children," she said.
But Tyler was ready for that, too. He showed her a copy of a wedding photo with his father.
"I remember him," she said. "He was mean. He punched the walls."
He showed her a copy of his birth certificate.
"That's my signature," she said. By then, Tyler had talked himself inside the house.
Over the next hour, he would learn much about his mother. She'd been an artist, a painter specializing in landscapes, with her own studio on Diversey. She'd lost it all when she contracted tuberculosis and landed in the sanitarium where she met his father. She was fluent in numerous languages but uncertain as to her own ethnicity. She was an orphan herself, she explained.
But there were no answers for Tyler's big questions. Exhibiting signs of possible dementia, Tina Marie gave no indication she remembered giving birth, let alone why she abandoned him.
Tyler came back the next day, but the story was the same. It made it harder that she was nice. Not only did he miss out on the answers he'd long sought, neither was there any place to direct his anger.
"There's a part of me that's happy for her, and another part that's a little upset," he told me. "Glad I found her. Don't know what's going to happen from here." http://is.gd/aa7tj
Detective Steve Tyler is trying to inform people to help Mercy Home for Boys and Girls:
Mercy Home for Boys and Girls 1140 West Jackson Boulevard Chicago, IL 60607 (877) 637-2955 For more info==> http://is.gd/aa9bY
He is also one of the founders of The Police Survivors.
If you want more info on this organization please follow this lead==> http://is.gd/aa9X7
Today, the people of Iraq will have an opportunity to have their voices heard in an election based on Democracy. This should not only be very important to the people of Iraq, but also to the Americans who shed so much blood and lost treasure in order for that achievement. There is little coverage in the MSM because of their continued anti-Bush propaganda and to have the democratic process succeeding is a testament that the former President's policies in the region were right. We now have a valuable ally in that region and if that friendship is correctly fostered it will be a lasting one. I am not arguing whether we should have or have not fought this war. War is a horrible business and should only be used sparingly. Once the decision to pull the trigger has been made then we need to support the troops and their mission to completion and victory, anything else is wrong. The elections today are still a very dangerous endeavor in Iraq and I hope that Americans are inspired to go vote when we face so little dangers here in the US. We need to shake off the cloud of apathy and get involved with our future. This election will not be perfect but it is the actual practice of it, that is important. I hope that the non-violent process of having the peoples voiced heard can then spread throughout the region. The future might actually be a little less murky.
Here is a what little the MSM has written about the Iraqi elections.
Iraq elections on March 7: high stakes, shaky hopes By the Monitor's Editorial Board The Monitor's Editorial Board Fri Mar 5, 12:12 pm ET
A series of deadly bombings meant to disrupt national elections in Iraq on March 7 point to the precariousness of the vote as well as its high stakes.
Iraq’s next leader and parliament will be in power for four years – beyond President Obama’s first term, past the scheduled withdrawal of US troops, and just as the nuclear threat from neighbor Iran reaches a more critical level.
In Sunday’s wide-open parliamentary elections, it’s impossible to know which candidates and political parties and alliances will get the approval from voters and their ink-stained fingers. But whoever comes out on top, and whatever coalition gets built, the new government’s success or failure will be hugely consequential not only for Iraq, but also for the United States and the Middle East.
Whatever new leadership emerges, it and the Iraqi security forces must continue the progress made so far toward peace and stability – and away from sectarian strife, even as various groups try to reverse that trend. Iraqis need to be able to shop and walk the streets without fear of being blown up. And seven years after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, they need basic services such as reliable electricity and water, and most important, jobs. (For a Monitor report on Iraq's youth and the election, click here)
But the period following this election could be perilous. Just as with the parliamentary elections of 2005, it will likely take months of hardball politics to form a governing coalition. Such a political vacuum could create a security vacuum – perfect conditions for extremist groups to wreak havoc, as they did with the high-profile terrorist attack on the Golden Mosque in 2006. The rage and violence that followed almost led to civil war – some argued it was civil war.
Meanwhile, the constitutional mandate behind the present “unity” government – that it include all three major sects of Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds – expires with this election. Will the new leadership reach out to other sects and address the nation’s problems together? Or will it lock out representatives of critical populations and thus inflame sectarian anger?
An unstable Iraq would disrupt progress there and could upend US plans for withdrawal. At the moment, the Pentagon is still on track to pull about half its forces by the end of August and withdraw completely by the end of 2011. It needs that draw down to beef up its forces in Afghanistan and to close one front in a costly two-theater war.
President Obama also needs the withdrawal for political reasons. It was a campaign promise – and a strategy to force Iraq to come to grips with its problems. Still, the Pentagon says it has a contingency plan to keep combat troops in northern Iraq beyond Sept. 1, 2010.
How Iraq develops also has implications for the Middle East. Iraq is inching toward democracy in a largely autocratic region. If its crawl develops into a walk, it could positively influence populations in the neighborhood – and frighten their leaders. In the coin of the realm – oil – Iraq could reach Saudi output in a decade, greatly influencing markets.
But the front-burner concern for the region and the US is how Iraq will deal with Iran and its nuclear ambitions. President Hussein, a Sunni, warred against Shiite Iran. Now Iran has influence with the leaders of Iraq’s majority Shiite population. And yet, exerting influence is not the same as changing outcomes, and so far, it hasn’t been able to do that. Indeed, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki put down a Shiite militia with close ties to Iran.
So much remains to be done in the fledgling democracy of Iraq. And yet, the continuum of recent years offers some grounds for hope.
The Iraqi people – often far ahead of its leaders – are thoroughly fed up with terrorism and sectarian division. They turned against Al Qaeda and restrained retaliatory impulses, which helped the US troop surge of 2007-08 succeed. In provincial elections last year, they looked down on parties that organized themselves along sectarian or religious lines.
Indeed, in this election cycle, cross-sectarian alliances are gaining popularity as competition has emerged within groups, such as among the Kurds. In 2005, the Sunnis boycotted the national election. This time – despite a ban on some of their candidates – they’re expected to go to the polls. Meanwhile, important issues, such as corruption, have taken on greater importance.
Despite violence and drawn-out political haggling, the Iraqi parliament actually passed 50 bills in the last year, including a budget. Some institutions, such as the military and judiciary, are slowly gaining respect, and the country has a vociferous media. Women, too, are asserting themselves – in politics and elsewhere.
Many expect combative politics in the months ahead. Iraq may well veer off in a very worrisome direction. But while this country does not fly straight, so far, it’s still aloft and moving forward. Considering where it’s come from, that’s reason for encouragement. http://is.gd/9T84u
Iraqis defy intimidation to vote, attacks kill 26 By HAMZA HENDAWI and QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writers Hamza Hendawi And Qassim Abdul-zahra, Associated Press Writers
BAGHDAD – Insurgents bombed a polling station and lobbed grenades at voters Sunday, killing 26 people in attacks aimed at intimidating Iraqis participating in an election that will determine whether the country can overcome jagged sectarian divisions that have plagued it since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
Iraqis hope the election will put them on a path toward national reconciliation as the U.S. prepares to withdraw combat forces by late summer and all American troops by the end of next year. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is fighting for his political future with challenges from a coalition of mainly Shiite religious groups on one side and a secular alliance combining Shiites and Sunnis on the other.
Despite mortars raining down nearby, voters in the capital still came to the polls. In the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah in northern Baghdad, Walid Abid, a 40-year-old father of two, was speaking as mortars landed several hundreds yards (meters) away. Police reported at least 20 mortar attacks in the neighborhood shortly after daybreak and mortars were also launched toward the Green Zone — home to the U.S. Embassy and the prime minister's office.
"I am not scared and I am not going to stay put at home," Abid said. "Until when? We need to change things. If I stay home and not come to vote, Azamiyah will get worse."
Many view the election as a crossroads where Iraq will decide whether to adhere to politics along the Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish lines or move away from the ethnic and sectarian tensions that have emerged since the fall of Saddam Hussein's iron-fisted, Sunni minority rule.
Al-Maliki, who has built his reputation as the man who restored order to the country, is facing a tough battle from his former Shiite allies, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and a party headed by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
He also faces a challenge from a secular alliance led by Ayad Allawi, a former prime minister and secular Shiite, who has teamed up with a number of Sunnis in a bid to claim the government.
"These acts will not undermine the will of the Iraqi people," al-Maliki said Sunday morning, speaking to reporters after casting his ballot.
Exiting the polls, Iraqis waved purple-inked fingers — the now-iconic image synonymous with voting in this oil-rich country home to roughly 28 million people.
But observers have warned that the election is only the first step in the political process, and with the fractured nature of Iraqi politics, it could take months of negotiations after results are released in the coming days for a government to be formed.
Extraordinary security measures did not foil insurgents who vowed to disrupt the elections — which they see as validating the Shiite-led government and the U.S. occupation. They launched a spate of mortar, grenade and bomb attacks throughout the morning.
In a posting early Sunday on an Islamic Web site, the al-Qaida front group Islamic State in Iraq warned that anyone taking part in the voting would be exposing themselves to "God's wrath and to the mujahideen's weapons," saying the process bolsters Iraq's Shiite majority.
In Baghdad's northeast Hurriyah neighborhood, where mosque loudspeakers exhorted people to vote as "arrows to the enemies' chest," three people were killed when someone threw a hand grenade at a crowd heading to the polls, according to police and hospital officials.
In the city of Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) south of Baghdad, a bomb inside a polling center killed a policeman, said Iraqi Army Col. Abdul Hussein.
At least 14 people died in northeastern Baghdad after explosions leveled two buildings about a mile apart, and mortar attacks in western Baghdad killed seven people in two different neighborhoods, police and hospital officials said.
At one of the blasts in northeastern Baghdad, near the northern tip of the Sadr City slum, rescue workers said they could still hear the sound of women and children caught alive under the debris screaming for help. The blast created a mound of debris, scattered with blankets, pillows and torn bits of clothing. Rescue workers examined the ruins and used cranes and tractors to lift debris. Bodies were being recovered from under the rubble several hours after the explosion.
An explosion in the mixed neighborhood of Kirayaat, in northern Baghdad, killed one person, said police and hospital officials. There were a number of other explosions elsewhere in the country, but no other reports of fatalities.
U.S. troops had received reports of 44 significant attacks in Baghdad so far but most were small, Maj. William Voorhies said.
"These are intimidation tactics, and we are hearing that the focus is on mostly Sunni areas to keep Sunnis from voting and to exacerbate the Sunni-Shiite divide," Voorhies said.
About 6,200 candidates are competing for 325 seats in the new parliament, Iraq's second, full-term legislature since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion seven years ago this month.
To try to secure the elections, Iraq sealed its borders, closed the airport and deployed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi military and police in the streets. Extra checkpoints were set up across Baghdad and in some parts of central Baghdad, people could not go 50 yards (meters) without hitting a checkpoint.
In keeping with the U.S. military's assertion that Iraqis are running the elections, the only visible American military presence was in the air or escorting election observers to and from the polls; four U.S. helicopter gunships could be seen at one point this afternoon in the sky over northern Baghdad.
The U.S., which has lost more than 4,300 troops in the nearly seven-year conflict, has fewer than 100,000 troops in the country — a number that is expected to drop to about 50,000 by the end of August.
Despite persistent violence and frustration over years of government failure to provide even basic services such as water and electricity to the public, many Iraqis were still excited to vote.
In the city of Nasiriyah, in the Shiite south, crowds of people filled the streets — men in what appeared to be their best clothes were accompanied by women in long black cloaks and often children.
"I voted in 2005. There were a lot less people then," said Ahmed Saad Chadian. "Today, participation is much higher."
In the Shiite holy city of Najaf, south of Baghdad, dozens of voters also lined up to cast their ballot.
"We came to participate in this national day, and we don't care about the explosions," said Sahib Jabr, a 34-year-old old taxi driver.
__
Associated Press writers Katarina Kratovac, Hamid Ahmed, Saad Abdul-Kadir, Bushra Juhi, Ben Hubbard and Sameer N. Yacoub in Baghdad, Matt Ford in Nasiriyah, and Lara Jakes in Qahtaniya contributed to this report.
Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, U.S. Army, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), 1st Special Forces. Place and date: Republic of Vietnam, 30 December 1968. Entered service at: Montgomery, Ala. Born: 11 July 1939, Opelika, Ala. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. 1st Lt. Howard (then Sfc .), distinguished himself while serving as platoon sergeant of an American-Vietnamese platoon which was on a mission to rescue a missing American soldier in enemy controlled territory in the Republic of Vietnam. The platoon had left its helicopter landing zone and was moving out on its mission when it was attacked by an estimated 2-company force. During the initial engagement, 1st Lt. Howard was wounded and his weapon destroyed by a grenade explosion. 1st Lt. Howard saw his platoon leader had been wounded seriously and was exposed to fire. Although unable to walk, and weaponless, 1st Lt. Howard unhesitatingly crawled through a hail of fire to retrieve his wounded leader. As 1st Lt. Howard was administering first aid and removing the officer's equipment, an enemy bullet struck 1 of the ammunition pouches on the lieutenant's belt, detonating several magazines of ammunition. 1st Lt. Howard momentarily sought cover and then realizing that he must rejoin the platoon, which had been disorganized by the enemy attack, he again began dragging the seriously wounded officer toward the platoon area. Through his outstanding example of indomitable courage and bravery, 1st Lt. Howard was able to rally the platoon into an organized defense force. With complete disregard for his safety, 1st Lt. Howard crawled from position to position, administering first aid to the wounded, giving encouragement to the defenders and directing their fire on the encircling enemy. For 3 1/2 hours 1st Lt. Howard's small force and supporting aircraft successfully repulsed enemy attacks and finally were in sufficient control to permit the landing of rescue helicopters. 1st Lt. Howard personally supervised the loading of his men and did not leave the bullet-swept landing zone until all were aboard safely. 1st Lt. Howard's gallantry in action, his complete devotion to the welfare of his men at the risk of his life were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit on himself, his unit, and the U.S. Army.
The people of the United States have had over a year to look at what an abject failure ObamaCare is. The MSM, in their most sycophantic way, cannot seem to understand why it is having such a bad time passing. The Democrats are now threatening to use 'reconciliation' or the 'nuclear option' to pass it. Good, pull the trigger and show the American people that their voice does not matter but only what the Democrat Party wants. This Socialist medical system will be such a bad failure here, as it is in the rest of the world and will ruin a sixth of the US economy, at a time when the rest of our economy is in such dire straights. 2010 and 2012, will place people back into the Government who will listen to us and not tell us what to do. POTUS and Nancy Pelosi are having to try to make fellow Democrats but this writer doesn't get it. Albert R. Hunt doesn't seem to understand why even the Democrats are having such a hard time trying to pass this abomination, THE PEOPLE DO NOT WANT IT.
Read below:
Bloomberg.com
Obama Needs to Go Chicago-Style on Health Care: Albert R. Hunt
Commentary by Albert R. Hunt
March 1 (Bloomberg) -- When President-elect Barack Obama, immediately after the election, was deciding who should be Treasury secretary and who should head the National Economic Council, Timothy Geithner told the transition team he wouldn’t take the White House job.
Geithner might have gotten Treasury and Lawrence Summers the NEC job anyway; Obama wanted fresh faces and fewer Clinton administration retreads in his Cabinet. A case can be made this was a mistake. It’s possible both men, and the administration, would have been better served if they had gotten the other job.
Yet Obama never considered putting it to Geithner, then the head of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, like this: “In the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, your country needs you in the job I have in mind for you.” That’s not the Obama style; he tends to be patient, persistent, sometimes charming; although from Chicago, he doesn’t practice the arm- twisting politics the city is known for.
After the Blair House health-care summit Feb. 25, he’ll need to adopt that style over the next few weeks.
There are three realties in the final chapter of the legislative dance that will be the focus of scholars for years: Time isn’t on Obama’s side and any legislation probably has to pass before the congressional spring break at the end of this month. It can only pass with the support of reluctant Democrats, with the House more of a problem than the Senate; and it’s only going to happen if the president uses forceful persuasion on his wavering party members.
Fixed Positions
As the summit showed, Obama very much wants a health-care bill; the Republicans very much don’t. (Instead of offering major changes, the Republican mantra was start all over again, a euphemism for killing it.)
The minority party started on a high note with Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, but the true feelings were manifest in the angry outbursts of Republican House Leader John Boehner of Ohio. Obama can’t count on a single Republican vote in either chamber.
About 90 percent of Democratic lawmakers want to see a health-care overhaul. However, 10 percent to 15 percent of that group wants it passed without their vote.
Those numbers don’t add up. To win simple majorities in both houses, Obama and congressional leaders are going to have to persuade as many as a half-dozen senators and about two-dozen House members to cast a tough vote.
Using Reconciliation
The strategy for achieving this has been clear for some time. The House has to pass the Senate-approved measure, with the promise that both houses will fix some of the imperfections through a process called reconciliation, which requires only a majority vote in both chambers.
Republicans charge using reconciliation in this way would be outrageous and unprecedented. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina says it would be “the end of minority rights in the Senate” and a “destructive act” the likes of which hasn’t been seen in ages. Alexander says reconciliation has “never been used for anything like this.”
The facts are otherwise. Under the Democrats’ strategy, the health-care overhaul wouldn’t be enacted through reconciliation. It would be approved separately, and then some of the abuses in the Senate bill and a few political compromises would be handled in the reconciliation bill. About 80 percent of the $950 billion measure would go through the normal procedure.
Legislative Precedent
In the past, this reconciliation process has been used for major health-care measures, including COBRA, which allows people to retain their health coverage after they lose their jobs. The acronym stands for Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act because that’s how it was passed. The 1996 welfare bill also passed under reconciliation.
Those measures pale in scope compared with President George W. Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, which totaled about $1.8 trillion over 10 years. Both were passed through reconciliation, requiring only a majority vote. Combined they are almost 10 times larger than the health-care elements that may go through that procedure this year.
Nevertheless, Obama is going to have a daunting challenge to win a majority in both houses, especially since there is bad blood between Democrats in the two chambers and growing resentment of the White House. In the Senate, the president won’t be able to offer special deals to the likes of Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson. He can’t lose more than nine of the 59 Democratic votes.
Tougher in House
It will be tougher in the House, which passed a health-care measure by only five votes in November. As many as a dozen previous supporters could defect because they don’t like the Senate bill or because of narrower issues like abortion.
To win, Obama’s going to have to persuade some of the 39 House Democrats who voted against the legislation last year. And 31 are from districts that were carried in the last presidential election by Republican nominee John McCain (One unfortunate concession the White House made to facilitate this task was to dilute the provision that taxes more expensive private insurance plans. Politically unpopular, it nevertheless would help control spiraling health-care costs, and, despite union objections, was a progressive step.)
Today, there are two political imperatives for the president.
One is to insist that Congress act quickly; the Democrats paid a terrible price for delays, both last summer in the Senate Finance Committee, and then with colossal blunders by the leadership in waiting too long to bring the bill to the Senate floor in December. If it goes past the scheduled March 29 recess, sayonara.
Obama will have to employ some heavy persuasion in explaining the political and personal consequences to Democrats if a bill goes down. If the measure passes, it will be controversial and a subject of great debate in the fall campaign and probably the next presidential election.
If it fails, there will be no debate. It will simply be the Democrats’ failure.
To contact the writer of this column: Albert R. Hunt in Washington at ahunt1@bloomberg.net .
