Host Paul Lisnek brought up an interesting question: isn’t calling the recent federal health care bill “ObamaCare” partisan or, as Jon Stewart once asked me, offensive?

I don't believe it is partisan at all.

For one, ObamaCare is simply what most people call this law. Most people don’t know it by “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.” Calling it that or some version of that, like “the Affordable Health Care Act” as Jim did isn’t a balanced clarification, it is premeditated rebranding. Most citizens and most pundits call it ObamaCare. Calling it by its technical name is confusing for viewers, plain and simple.

Case in point from the other side of the aisle: when you think of the tax cuts that first came from the last guy in the White House, what do you hear pundits calling it – on both sides of the aisle? The Bush tax cuts. Nobody calls them by their official legislative name. I should say names, as they were codified in two separate bills during Bush’s tenure: the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003. That’s a mouthful.

Second, the technical name is ridiculous. Like many bills and laws – Republican or Democrat – this law’s name doesn’t accurately reflect what it does. Why talk about bills or laws on the terms Beltway wordsmiths set? ObamaCare doesn’t protect patients or make health care more affordable. It does just the opposite.

Perhaps most importantly, if this bill is so great and this president is so proud of how great it is, why wouldn’t the president, his supporters, and supporters of this bill want to call it ObamaCare?

For the full set of videos, click here. Click here for: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, or Part 4

Last night I went on Fox Chicago to debate the debt ceiling issue.

My last comments that were cut from the segment were:

1) Obama isn't sticking to his guns - we don't know what they are as he simply assigns blame and doesn't have a plan of his own.

2) Democrat or Republican, if you're a lawmaker and serious about getting this country back on a fiscally responsible path, taxpayers deserve a guarantee of serious structural spending reform in exchange for raising the debt ceiling.

Our nation - like Illinois - doesn't have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem that got us to this very high ceiling in the first place.

If your teenager taps out the credit card limit at $20,000, you don’t just call up American Express and ask for a raise in the limit without engaging in serious conversation where you assess past spending habits (what’s necessary, what was excessive, what’s possible in the future within a certain budget) and secure a guarantee of change in behavior for more responsible prioritization and spending in the future.

That isn’t partisanship, which is all too common in Washington and state capitals across the country. It is common sense and it is in short supply in this debate.

"The KKK hearts the GOP," the sign read. I approached Bob and asked him what he meant. He explained that the GOP is racist. I mentioned that it was Lincoln, a Republican, who freed the slaves. He conceded that the Republicans were once "the good party."

Just when I thought things couldn't get wackier, they did.

The following video [viewer warning: coarse language not in sync with new tone of civility] is a clip from this roughly five minute conversation (if you could call it that) with Bob captured by a nearby camera with a few folks asking him questions.

In his Daily Show appearance last night, President Obama made a very revealing—and presumably inadvertent—statement about those in Congress who have supported his radical agenda.

In the context of many congressional seats being up for grabs in what pundits and prognosticators are predicting to be a GOP wave election, Obama stated that many of his allies in Congress voted for politically tough bills because they believed “it was the right thing to so” despite being in conservative-leaning districts.

On the surface, what the President says sounds so noble. These politicians are doing what they think is right. They’re standing up despite outside pressure! Except they aren’t standing up for the right people: their constituents. “Doing what they think is right” is warm and fuzzy code for “what Nancy Pelosi / President Obama tells them is right.”

Click here for the full story.

Republicans are doing it; even some Democrats, too. It's called the Chris Christie.

"I want to be the Chris Christie of Connecticut," declares GOP gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley. "Chris Christie is the primo example of how you turn around government," says Scott Walker, vying to run Wisconsin. Mr. Christie's reforms are a "road map" for California, pronounces Meg Whitman. "He tells it like it is, and it's time for that," says Iowa's gubernatorial candidate Terry Branstad.

Read more. (Subscriber only...and I highly recommend subscribing!)

For those without subscriptions, a flashback video of Christie methodically debunking the 'evil budget cutters want to hurt the children' myth:

Here in Illinois, we are engaging tea party activists and concerned citizens across the state to turn what has become known as the land of Blago and Obama back on the path to prosperity.

If you're an Illinois resident or in the area this fall, get on board!

To learn more check out IllinoisTurnaround.com

Fortunately, there's an old piece of paper meant to keep the nation's leaders in check even after they've hopped over every procedural hurdle and bent every rule to get their way regardless of the will and interest of the people: the United States Constitution.

The efforts of a dozen or so state Attorneys General and legislatures to mount opposition to ObamaCare has been couched by many cynical commentators as pointless, legally impotent wheel spinning. The Wall Street Journal ran a heartening piece last week that paints a much more hopeful picture by taking a look at the implications of some of the more egregious parts of the bill, such as the insurance mandate, on the role and power of the federal government:

...if Congress can force Americans to buy a product, the question is what remains of the government of limited and enumerated powers, as provided in Article I. The only remaining restraint on federal power would be the Bill of Rights, though the Founders considered those 10 amendments to be an affirmation of the rights inherent in the rest of the Constitution, not the only restraint on government. If the insurance mandate stands, then why can't Congress insist that Americans buy GM cars, or that obese Americans eat their vegetables or pay a fat tax penalty?

Click here for the full piece.

My latest piece at The Daily Caller:

In a tacit admission of the Tea Party’s success, backers of the wildly unpopular big-government, liberty-crushing policies of the Obama administration are brewing up their own movement—the Coffee Party. It all allegedly started with a random musing in a post by Annabel Park on Facebook in which she called for an alternative to the Tea Party movement.

Read more here.