As our long-time readers know, Dan and I are “Reagan Babies” — we grew up with Reagan as THE President of the United States.  I was physically born under LBJ, but I was ‘born-again as a conservative American’ under Ronald Reagan.

Sunday, February 6, 2011 is The Gipper’s 100th Birthday and there are major celebrations going on all over the nation and around the world.  The focus of the anniversary party is one of my favorite spots in the United States — The Reagan Library. 

Tonight, the party starts with a keynote address by Gov. Sarah Palin at the Reagan Library.  The speech will be shown on C-SPAN at 11PM Eastern Time.  And we will “simulcast” it right here.

Live Streaming by Ustream.TV

Come back tonight at 11PM Eastern and watch the speech.  Follow me on www.twitter.com/gaypatriot throughout this weekend … and next week at CPAC where there will also be Reagan100 festivities!!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

This should be live-streaming at 7PM ET/4pm PT. Until then, click on the play button as there are Reagan vignettes on this UStream channel being played now.

Barney Frank Isn’t Retiring Yet. Well, it would be a good thing for the United State Congress — and public discourse — if this unhappy man set off for Miami Beach and away from the television cameras. But, his self-righteousness and hypocrisy are just too easy to mock.  So, maybe we shouldn’t regret that we’ll have Barney to kick around some more.

And, Barney, let me remind you something Glenn noted, “The mockery has only just begun.”

Look, I appreciate all the efforts Republicans are making to trim some fat off the federal budget.  And in normal times, I would commend them.  Indeed, today, I laud their efforts, but I’m beginning to wonder if they fail to appreciate the task at hand.

You see, the federal government has a deficit of well over one trillion dollars, well, actually closer to 1.5 trillion .   And one of the leading Republican budget hawks, the fetching chairman of the House Budget Committee has proposed cutting the federal budget by $74 billion.  But, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will have none of that, calling the Wisconsin Republican’s plan “unworkable” and “more draconian than we originally anticipated”.  Um, Harry, doncha think trillion-dollar deficits are kind of, you know, um, well, “unworkable.”

“If they think,” Glenn Reynolds quips, “that cutting a mere $74 billion out of the bloated federal budget is ‘draconian,’ they’re really out of touch with reality.”

One legislator show does seem in touch with reality, at least in matters budgetary, is Senator Rand Paul (R-KY).  Taking a “bowie knife to the federal budget,” that first-termer has proposed slicing $500 billion from the federal budget.  (Via Instapundit.)

Now, I don’t agree with all the cuts Senator Paul would make, but at least he’s putting forward the truly draconian level of cuts the federal government must make to put its fiscal house in order.  What Harry Reid calls draconian is really just scraping at the edges.

And the Kentucky Republican’s draconian cuts would only reduce the deficit by one-third its current amount.

UPDATE:   Good news.  Paul Ryan’s proposed $74 billion cuts (which Harry Reid calls “draconian”) are only just the beginning:

From Ryan’s perspective, however, the cuts are only the beginning. “This is just a down-payment by Republicans to get spending under control,” he said in a statement. “House Republicans will continue to tackle the country’s fiscal problems by advancing spending cuts and spending reforms, and by charting a new course with a new budget for the upcoming fiscal year.”

Via Instapundit.

The New York Times offers another reason Obamacare is bad for America:

The Obama administration is examining whether the new health care law can be used to require insurance plans to offer contraceptives and other family planning services to women free of charge.

This requirement grow out of an amendment slipped into the legislation “by Senator Barbara A. Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, requiring officials to pay special attention to the ‘unique health needs of women.’”  But, the real issue is not the merits (or demerits) of offering contraceptive care, but the requirement that insurance plans offer them.

Shouldn’t private companies be allowed the freedom to decide which benefits they offer while consumers choose the policies which offers the benefits they seek?  But, not under the regime created by Obamacare.  If a company doesn’t want to offer contraception, well, too bad, the government will be taking their freedom away.

Under the plan, the administration is examining, the federal government could thus require Catholics (and others who oppose contraception on religious grounds) to offer plans which pay for services they oppose on moral grounds, causing many to drop health care coverage altogether.

If private insurers (and by extension private employers buying policies from said insurers) want to cover contraception, that should be their choice, but the state should not require them to do so.  And now, the Obama administration is weighing regulations making that choice for them (and depriving others of the choice not to cover contraception).

Another reason to repeal this statist legislation speedily.

The more the public learns about the bill Democrats passed last March, the less we like what’s in it.

NB:  Tweaked the post to improve the flow and clarify a point.