Barack Obama says more dumb things in a day than some people say in a lifetime. For instance, regarding the shutdown, he said: “The House Republicans are holding the government hostage.” I know that Obama isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer and that he has only a passing relationship with the Constitution, but someone should tell him that the House is a part of the government, no matter how he feels about it. So, were we to take him at his word – always a bad idea! – the House Republicans would be guilty of holding themselves hostage.

One always hears that the president, whoever he may be, commands the bully pulpit, but only under Obama has it been changed into something that could better be called the bully’s pulpit.

I, for one, am getting sick and tired of hearing Obama constantly going on about the needy. In Obama’s case, he is forever referring to them when he’s pushing the Affordable Care Act. For three years, he’s been telling us one whopper after another about this god-awful piece of legislation cobbled together by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi (think Dr. Frankenstein and his assistant, Igor).

He told us that if we liked our doctor and our health insurance, we could hang on to both. He also told us that ObamaCare would not only insure an additional 30 million people, but it would save the average family $2,500. Not even Bernie Madoff would have ever expected anyone to swallow a lie that big. But, as they proved last November, most American voters have very large gullets and no more brains than a herd of sheep.

It is true that the cost of health care will go down for some because of government subsidies. But those subsidies don’t come out of Obama’s pocket, they come out of yours if you pay taxes. So not only will you be paying more for your own health care, but you will be paying for millions of people who will show their appreciation for your generosity by continuing to elect Democrats who will continue to bribe them with your money. What a deal!

The sorry truth of the matter is that most of the neediest people in America are actually the greediest. Just the other day, I was standing in line with my wife at a fast food joint. The two guys in front of us, both of whom wore their pants below their butts, kept comparing wads of twenty dollar bills. I could only assume they made the money mowing lawns. However, when they bought their burgers, they used one of their food stamp credit cards.

The next day, I was at the drug store buying batteries. Again, I had a young fool ahead of me using one of those cards to pay for his purchases. The sad fact, though, is that he had a bigger fool standing behind him than I had standing in front of me. After all, I had helped pay his tab, he hadn’t paid mine.

Obama is now trying to pressure the Supreme Court to put a limit on what people can contribute to political candidates. He spoke of the democratic ideal being tainted by wealthy radical elements. Funny how that didn’t seem to bother him when he still had elections to win. Can we all say George Soros? You can’t get much wealthier or more radical than that old Hungarian commie who learned all about the redistribution of wealth when he helped the Nazis confiscate Jewish property in Budapest.

I have to fess up to a mistake I’ve made more than once. For the past year, I’ve been ruing the fact that Mitt Romney received fewer votes in 2012 than John McCain did in 2008. I must have seen numbers prior to the final tabulation. In any case, I don’t like to spread a falsehood if I can help it. While it’s true that Obama’s own numbers dropped about 3.5 million between 2008 and 2012, Romney did garner roughly a million more votes than McCain.

That reminds me, people, especially Republicans, keep wringing their hands and telling us that we might as well disband as a party because young people, single women, blacks, Jews, Hispanics, Asians and the mass media, all despise the GOP. And although I am not well-suited to play Pollyanna, the fact remains that Obama did lose those 3.5 million votes in his second election, something no two-termer had ever done in the past. In addition, whereas in 2009, the Democrats had super majorities in the House and the Senate, four years later they have five fewer Senate seats, have lost control of the House, and, what’s more, the lion’s share of governors are now Republicans. If anyone should be hitting the panic button, it’s the Democrats. And whether or not they ever get the glitches out of those damn computers, ObamaCare is shaping up to be the disaster the Republicans all said it would be when Obama jammed it through Congress without a single Republican vote.

In case you hadn’t heard, Carrick High School in Pittsburgh decided to have a Trayvon Martin theme day as part of school spirit week. Some parents were upset when they got the news that their kids were being encouraged to wear hoodies on Trayvon Martin Wednesday. I’m assuming they will be even angrier when they hear the kids will be encouraged to sell drugs and steal from each other’s lockers on Trayvon Martin Thursday and Friday.

In other news, future Hall of Famer Chipper Jones, who played his entire 20-year career for the Atlanta Braves, was invited to toss out the first ball of the National League Division Series. But because he had committed the mortal sin of predicting that the L.A. Dodgers would take the best of five game series in four games, none of the Atlanta players, including his former teammates, would volunteer to catch the pitch. As a result, Jones was forced to pitch to the team’s mascot, a cartoonish character with a humongous head shaped like a baseball. The kicker is that the Dodgers won the series in four games. Perhaps Atlanta should have had the mascot suit up in place of one of their overpaid punks.

Finally, wrapping up the news of the day, a prosecutor in Houston filed aggravated rape charges against a 10-year-old girl who had been spotted by a neighbor touching a four-year-old boy in what they’re referring to as “his private area.” In other words, it’s now a felony to play doctor.

I’m no lawyer, but it seems to me that the charge should have been practicing medicine without a license.

Author’s Note: Although I’m still seeking sponsors, my online radio show is on the air, every Wednesday, at 1 p.m. That’s L.A. time. Access www.latalkradio.com, channel 1, and click on Listen Live. You can also download to your iPhone or Android apps. The call-in number is (323)203-0815. I’d like to hear your questions and comments, pro or con. Especially pro.