Do you want these guys in charge of your health care?

If President Obama and his Marxist-Leninist thugs get their way, that will be the case.

By the way, did you know if we even talk about changing health care the way it is;

-Leeches will be the only approved treatment for cancer.

-Panels will be convened to euthanize anyone contracting the swine flu.

-Roving bands of wild dogs will be unleashed in emergency rooms to thin out patient lines.

-People with "pre-existing" conditions will be placed in "Relocation Hospitals".

So remember - Don't even THINK about changing the health care system from the way it is, or a meteorite will hit the planet and vaporize us all.

IF WE CHANGE HEALTH CARE, THE TERRORISTS WIN.

*This message paid for by the Committee Appointed to Scare the Crap Out of Everybody for no Reason Whatsoever in Order to Kill Reforms that Might Not Help the Rich Get Richer, and The National Coalition of People Still Pissed Off We Lost the Election...Rush Limbaugh, President.*

Donnelly talks health care with Plymouth residents

By Rusty Nixon
Correspondent

PLYMOUTH – Congressman Joe Donnelly was in Plymouth to speak to the “Breakfast Club” at Pilgrim Manor on health care issues, and so far he isn’t in need of any medical assistance himself.
“I was talking with my friend and fellow Congressman Fred Upton (R – Michigan) the other day and he said, ‘I heard you had a town hall meeting with 250 people at it the other day,’” Donnelly told the crowd. “’If you don’t mind me asking are you still intact?’ I told him yes and he asked my secret. I told him to make sure you go to Church the day before.”
While there were no angry placards or overly harsh words, Donnelly did address concerned questions from those in attendance about current health care legislation before Congress. His main theme – be careful what you believe.
“A lot of the things you’re reading on the internet are not the way things are,” said Donnelly. “I had a woman at a meeting the other day tell me that she watched cable news before she went to bed and it made her so upset that she couldn’t sleep and asked my advice. I told her that I would turn off the TV and listen to a Frank Sinatra record. A lot of the things you are seeing on the news have no relationship to what we are actually working on.”
Donnelly spent much of his time urging his audience to “…have trust that there is some common sense left…” and outlining in detail the choices before Congress on the matter of health care. First of which is the fact that there isn’t just one bill up for consideration, but five different approaches.
“No bill has been voted on and this is a discussion with the American people,” said Donnelly. “The simple fact is that in 15-20 years our current health care system is not financially sustainable. We have to fix it.”
Donnelly stated that as a “Blue Dog” Democrat, he favored an approach that would have no cost, or such considerable cost savings that would make if fiscally responsible. He said that Senator’s Ron Wyden of Oregon and Bob Bennett of Utah have introduced such a plan.
“Some people just want to create controversy,” said Donnelly. “It’s hard to restore confidence to the American people when there are those out there talking about ‘Death Panels’. There are no such thing. A man at a meeting in Logansport who had a son with Down’s Syndrome that he called the ‘light of his life’ asked me why we would cut health care for people with Down’s Syndrome. He’d read it on the computer. Totally untrue. Why would anybody deny care to people who need it?”
He also outlined what he would like to see in any plan.
“I want to see competition,” said Donnelly. “I don’t want just one company bidding on your health care. I want four or five different companies competing for it as well. I want to keep the government out of it as much as possible, but we have to have a competitive system.”

Attention Producers of Burn Notice...My suggested plot line

Because he was a faithful viewer of the show "Burn Notice" Raul was prepared for just such an eventuality and using a wad of chewing gum, a shoe lace and simple household bleach he was able to easily extricate himself from his difficulty and snuff out the evil spy ring that threatened Democracy and toilets as we know them.

My new radio commercial

SFX - Mysterious music plays underneath

VOICE OVER

They say he drafted his first social reform legislation in 1951...Ten years before he was born.

He often completely redesigns entire economic systems...before breakfast.

He turned down Lassie...as a family pet.

He is...The Most Interesting President in the World.

BARACK OBAMA

I don't always drink beer, but when I do it's usually a pointless public relations stunt on the White House lawn.

Stay thirsty my friends.

In spite of the vaccine, Biff feared he might be turning French...

Biff and Raul's experiments in genetic engineering were all fun and games...until the day they crossed that wolverine with a blender...

My Speech Team Thingy

*Special thanks to John Verteramo for the photo.*

As I start this little memoir I have two confessions to make to Dan Tyree that have weighed heavily on my mind over the past 30 years, and I feel that I must come clean to purge my soul.

#1 – Yes, Dan, I did sleep in my suit on Friday nights so that I didn’t have to get up so early on Saturday morning.

I know that you conjectured on it, and even directly asked me about it several times but I was always able to skirt the issue by pointing and shouting, “Look behind you! A dinosaur!” and then running quickly the other way and shouting, “I don’t want to be late for my round.”

#2 – Yes, Dan, I did sit on top of a desk in the back corner of the classroom to deliver part of my speech in one of my state finals rounds, and, yes, there was a judge seated directly in front of me.

I was just following your instruction to converse with my audience and not talk at them. I got all ones in that round if it’s any consolation.

I think those two things kind of sum up our first team. Not that we were slovenly dressed and more than a little kooky – although we were. More that we had no idea what we were doing.

Nobody told us that you were NEVER supposed to be unorthodox. Nobody told us a first year team should NEVER be able to score the way we did. Nobody told us a team with only five entries could NEVER finish in the top three in the state championship – and might have actually won it if that idiot in Original Oratory hadn’t gotten a 6 from one of his judges in the final round. The critique was the guy’s suit looked like he’d slept in it, if I remember right.

Like most idiot savants we didn’t know what we were doing – we just did it.

I’m sure that everybody that shares here is going to write about the skills they learned from being part of the program: Enormous self confidence; To examine things critically and logically; To prepare tirelessly; To think quickly on your feet; and above all to communicate.

Every job that I have ever held I have gotten because of what I learned in Speech.

It was more than that for me. When I was a senior in high school Dan Tyree introduced me to the theatre. My English teacher, Norm Wagner, introduced me to William Shakespeare. I never would have found either on my own. With those skills I then was able to meet another man, the late Dr. Earl Reimer at Bethel College, who completed the job they had started in helping me to discover who I was.

Without the theatre and Shakespeare, my life would have been greatly diminished, and a much darker place.

I have had so many moments of joy in my life, moments of beauty, exhilaration, and sheer ecstasy in the time I spent writing and acting for the stage. So many moments with dear friends sharing those moments. So many lifelong, deep, important relationships that I never would have had without Dan Tyree walking up to me in the lunchroom in September of 1979 and saying, “We’re doing this play and I was wondering…”

Who would have thought that three of us, riding in Dan and Becky’s van to Logansport at 5 a.m. one Saturday, would turn into this?

I do have to relate my favorite speech memory of all – a true moment that will be burned forever in my memory: hitchhiking down the interstate in Georgia with Dan during spring break.

For the full story on that you will have to wait for my tell all book, “All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in Speech”.