Political Landscape

Things happening in the state of Maine around the country and, of course, around the world. So, Danny, I know we've been talking about the app and hopefully folks are going to download the WGAN app at the app store and using it to not only follow the show, but to communicate with the show. Do we have any texts of interest, sir? Well, let's see. Mark, Mike from Harpswell, who definitely likes to comment all the time on it. And he says it's too late for the Democrats. They have been infiltrated by the socialist. You could have seen this coming a mile away. Can't really disagree with that. I mean, this is... This is getting hoisted by your own pittard here. I mean, you play footsie with the devil or you stick your head in the mouth of a tiger. Don't be surprised when the devil or the tiger bites you. You know, the Democrats have worked themselves up into a frenzy calling Republicans Nazis for the last 10 plus years. And now they've become the very thing that they have been pointing at Republicans, I believe, falsely by nominating a guy with a Nazi tattoo who basically endorsed communism really in the form of national socialism. And as Phil pointed out, you know, the Nazis were socialist, the National Socialist German Workers Party. That's what they were. They were socialist. They were statists. And I don't know how the Democrats get out of this mess. I think the momentum, I think Phil is 100% right. The momentum is with the DSA and it's not with the moderates. And it usually, you know, the wing of the party or the party in a general election that is for reform, that is anti-establishment. And in this case, you know, radically so. I mean, when you say the DSA is anti-establishment, I mean, they're anti-American. I mean, they want to tear down the republic. And that is not hyperbole. They want to disband the presidency and the United States Senate. Okay. These are elements that are built into the Constitution. And in fact, the Constitution under the Senate... The Senate, the proportional representation, not proportional, the equal representation in the Senate cannot be amended. It can't be changed. It's outside the amendment clauses reach. The Constitution has a clause to amend the Constitution. And the Senate's clause, its establishment, prevents the amendment clause from being used against the Senate. That's how important the Senate is to the formation of this country. And these guys want to take it out. They want to destroy it. They want to evaporate the United States Senate. I think someone needs to ask Troy Jackson that question. Does he support the DSA's move to abolish the United States Senate? The very office he seeks to hold. I think that's a very, I mean, you would think in a normal situation, you wouldn't have to ask that question. We don't live in normal times.

These are not normal times. But that's the DSA's position. And I just don't know how so-called moderate Democrats, if there even is such a thing, I don't know how they get out of this mess. The only way, I think practically, is they have to win. They have to win these nominating contests, these primaries, at the very least. And because if the Democrat Socialists win primaries and go on to win general elections, which they're going to do in some of these races in New York City, for example, there are three of them that Zohran Mamdani pushed, they're going to win these elections. And as long as the DSA is winning elections, there is zero incentive for them to stop. Zero. Telling them that their ideas are horrific and lead to tyranny, misery, and death on an industrial scale doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Logic, history, facts, doesn't matter. It's raw politics. If they win, they continue. If they lose, they don't. And so the first line of defense is the Democrat Party. And the DSA has said openly that they want to destroy the Democratic Party. They're not shy about this. And then they want to come for the United States as a whole. And so the Democrats, my hope is, is that the moderates can hold the wine. I don't know what's going to happen in Michigan. Phil and I were talking about this. I think it's Abdul El-Sayed is the candidate, the Islamist socialist, the pro-Hamas, pro-socialist candidate for the Senate. This guy said he was a physician, a doctor, but he's not. He was called on it and said, well, I went to med school. And he says it's not important that I'm not technically a physician. What's important is Medicare and Medicaid. I mean, talk about spinning. And of course, he did this with a very sympathetic journalist. If you can even use that word. But if this guy wins the race to be the Democrat nominee for the Senate, which he may well do. They just had a debate, I think, over the weekend in Michigan, then it's just another step down the path of ruin. And then it's up to the people of Michigan to decide, do you want to nominate an Islam? Do you want to nominate? Do you want to elect? an Islamist socialist to the United States Senate. This would have been impossible, even 10 years ago. Impossible. I mean, there was a period where if you even were associated with communism, your political career was over. You could, you had nowhere to go. It would be impossible.

And it doesn't work. And yet the people who have made things so intolerable are now telling you, give me one more chance. Let me add on to all the misery and mistakes I've made in the past because this time I'm going to solve it. Go to Greg on line one. Greg, good morning. What's on your mind? Good morning, Josh. Well, my grandparents came over from Denmark in the early 1900s. My grandfather was in the trenches during World War II. My daughter was over in Denmark just this last month and met a cousin of mine that I've never met, but Denmark has socialized medicine. But she found out from my cousin that if you have a job or you have money, then you can access the A team. If you don't have a job and you don't have money, then you can go to the free clinics. That's their free health care. Yeah. And, you know, it's a two-tiered system. The VA health care system should not exist. They should give the eligible veterans a card that works at any doctor's office, any pharmacy, any hospital, any emergency room, and turn the buildings that they're using now for VA hospitals into, I don't know what, veterans housing, but the VA health care system that was devised during World War II was needed because... Community hospitals couldn't deal with combat injuries. And now there's not a hospital anywhere that doesn't have an occupational therapist, a physical therapist, a prostheticist, everything the veteran needs. Let him get that and his mental health care wherever the hell he wants. and do away with the system. Absolutely. I couldn't have said it better. I mean, that is exactly right. And the bureaucracy and really, I think the VA advocacy groups are often the biggest block in making those reforms. I mean, it really is unbelievable how the veterans, their interests are pushed to the side in the name of bureaucracy and they're kept trapped in that broken system. We appreciate the call, Greg. Thank you very much. Yeah, I mean, that is the answer. Give the veteran a card and let him go or let her go wherever they want, wherever they need to go to get the care that they need. And this is usually how these government programs work, right? It may have been necessary at the time it was created. But trying to close or shut down a government program is like trying to put a genie back in the bottle. It is so, so hard to do. I mean, it has to reach such a boiling point. And, you know, as bad as the VA system is, it still lingers. And our veterans are stuck in it.

And instead of being able to go wherever they want to get the best care they need, nope, they've got to take the government cheese, so to speak. And that's true in Britain and in Canada, there's this two-tiered system. If you've got money, right, you can get out from under a lot of these government mandates. But most people don't have enough money to do that. And they have nowhere else to go. nowhere else to go and the system is, the cure becomes worse than the disease is what happens. It sounds great, right? Because now it's going to be, quote, free, which is itself a lie. Nothing is ever free. It's taxpayer funded. It's government funded. It's not free. You're paying for it indirectly instead of directly. That's the difference. But because of that, You're now under the control of the government, of the state, and your ability to decide for yourself with your doctor what's best for you is gone. It's gone. You do not have control anymore. You do not. This is not an argument to do nothing to reform the current health care system. But remember, remember, Obamacare was supposed to fix all of this. I'm old enough to remember that. I remember when they told us Obamacare was going to fix all of this. And now the same people who told you that Obamacare was going to fix this. Now say, oh, no, no, no, don't worry. Now we have the solution. All right. We got Andy on line one. Andy, good morning. What's on your mind? Yeah, Josh, VA system is very good. I'm a veteran, and I go to the VA clinic in Portland. Okay. And I see my doctor for what I need. And if they don't have a doctor there, like I have COPPD, and they don't have a pulbinologist there, but they send me to a civilian pulmonaryologist downtown. Well, you may be the exception to the rule, okay, because there... Well, I'm sure there's a lot of them that do community care. Yeah. Well, the problem is the weight lines, the mis-the-over-prescribing of drugs, the inability to see a specialist when a specialist is needed, and having no say over-the-matter for most veterans. I can't speak to your particular case. Maybe, you know, I don't know exactly what treatment you're receiving, but... I know at a macro level, the system doesn't work, and it's broke, on top of the fact that it doesn't take very good care of its members. It's also broke. Well, I tell you, the VA system in Maine is very good. You cannot compare it to the VA system throughout the whole country. All right. I know they have problems throughout the country, but Maine is really good. All right. We appreciate the call. Yeah, I mean, look, I'm sure you can find a situation in any system where it's working well for a particular individual. I don't know about the VA system overall working well in the state of Maine. It's like saying Medicaid is working well in the state of Maine. I mean, we've got able-bodied adults who are on Medicaid. Is that really what Medicaid was for? Is that working well?

Medicaid was for the indigent, for people who were poor and disabled and could otherwise not fend for themselves. It was never meant as basically the public option, as the means of providing health insurance to the masses, creeping socialized medicine. It was meant as a stopgap for, again, the poor and the disabled to make sure. that they did not go without insurance. And look, insurance should be widely available and affordable. That should be the end goal so that people can get access to good quality health care. That should be the end goal. I think most reasonable people would agree with that. The question is, how do you get there? Do you get there through market forces or do you get there through government takeovers? That's the debate. The current trend has been more and more government takeovers. That was Obamacare. Obamacare was the single largest expansion of federal power since the great society, since Lyndon Johnson was in office when Medicaid and Medicare were created. Okay. And it doesn't solve the problem. That's my bottom line is you said that Obamacare was going to solve the problem. It was going to make health insurance affordable and provide access to quality health care for all Americans. Has it done it? You be the judge. All right. That's going to do it for this morning show. We appreciate it. I will be back in studio tomorrow on WGAN. We'll see you then. Have a great day.