Friday, May 31, 2013

Health Care On Life-Support

     The planned chaos of ObamaCare is a deliberate strategy by the Obama administration and his gang of America Dismantlers to place the health care industry into a tailspin, forever changing the way in which the people of the United States receive their health care and relate to their government. President Obama delivered a speech to an audience of union devotees in which he said that his plan was for a single-payer, government-run health care system, but that it would take a decade to get the public to accept it, and therefore would have to be implemented in stages.
      And now, with the recent admission of the Internal Revenue Service that they unfairly targeted  groups to be victims of their far-reaching authority based solely on political ideology and opposition to President Obama, one has to wonder how ObamaCare, which in large part will be administered by the IRS, is going to work out for those with a conservative viewpoint. The new health care law imposes no less than 18 new taxes, 12 of which directly fall on the backs of the middle-class, breaking yet another Obama promise not to "raise any taxes on the middle-class."
     It is not just a matter of the IRS using its power to make life harder on conservative organizations like the Tea Party, but they also shared private information from these groups with Left-leaning groups so that they too could join in the harassment of conservatives. The recent revelations about the administration's use of the IRS to suppress political opposition makes it entirely probable that health care services may be denied or approved based on the same criteria.
      Much of the regulatory nightmare of ObamaCare has not been "determined by the Secretary" as the law provides. But businesses do know that if at all possible they must reduce their workforce below the fifty employee threshold and employee work hours under the thirty hour limit in order for their companies to escape castration by the new law. What may eventually happen is that Congress will prevent companies from protecting themselves against the law by making it illegal for those companies near the thresholds to reduce employees or employee work hours. This will not harm the big corporations who provide only about fifteen to twenty percent of the jobs in this country. The real victims will be the many small businesses that will have to shut their doors forever. This, of course, is part of the Obama strategy to make government the health care provider of last, first and only resort. The law has already had a deleterious effect on employment. We have now entered our fifth year of unemployment over seven percent and Gross Domestic Product growth under three percent, a record for post-World War Two America. Today I heard a report from the main stream media that claimed the economy was "making a steady recovery." This kind of language, five years into an economic recovery, is analogous to saying a house is cozy when you mean cramped, and a handyman special to mean the place in falling into a sink hole.
     ObamaCare takes the worst part of the current health care industry and expands it to encompass the entire system. The idea of government exchanges is a direct, if not grossly exaggerated, copy of the HMO model. A model breathed into existence by a law created by the late Teddy "SpongeBob" Kennedy. The Lefts answer to conservative concerns about bureaucrats coming between patients and their doctors, was that this was already happening with insurance company bureaucrats, a direct result of the Kennedy law. But the Lefts solution to the bureaucratization of health care is even more bureaucracy. This top-heavy, centrally-run health care system is bound to fail, as it has everywhere else it has been tried in the world. But then, President Obama and his Washington elite have designed the system, not to succeed in providing people with the best health care at the lowest cost, but to put more and more power into the hands of fewer and fewer elitists who have exempted themselves from the boondoggle under which they have forced the rest of us to live.

Thursday, May 30, 2013

The Bread And Circuses Of Modern America

     Historians will tell any interested party that ancient Rome's power over its citizenry was the result  of a dual edged sword. One edge was comprised of the largest and best trained military in the world at the time. The other edge was each emperor's ability to distract the governed away from his corruption and sinful indulgences with a steady diet of bread and circuses. A populace that is well fed and well entertained is one which will have little cause for uprising or even provide serious opposition to anything their leaders do.
     The concept of bread and circuses explains much of the reason that so many in 2013 America have resigned themselves to a miserable economy that has resulted in over eight million fewer of their fellow citizens working than in January of 2009, when Barackacus Obamicus rode in on his golden chariot to bring a new era to America. Bread and circuses can explain even the seemingly unexplainable, like why there are still people who believe that the Federal Reserve printing money and buying bonds to keep interest rates historically low has actually stimulated the economy. After all, it was only five years ago that Barack Obama and others on the Left made vociferous claims that the financial collapse of 2008 was caused by Republicant fiscal policy of easy money, i.e., keeping interest rates artificially low. The very practice that Democrats tried to tar and feather Republicants with as the source of economic calamity is the very same practice, only multiplied by a factor of hundreds, in which the Obama Federal Reserve has engaged the last four and a half years.
     The bread and circuses of ancient Rome consisted of actual bread and life and death struggles in the Coliseum. The bread and circuses of modern-day America consists of each person, rich or poor, receiving three to four times the caloric intake they need to stay alive, and a steady diet of mind-numbing television shows. It is easy for a president and his party to impose legislation like Obamacare, which reduces health care to the level of acquiring an automobile registration at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, when the populace being imposed upon is stuffing their faces with cheeseburgers and watching reality TV shows. And of course, just as ancient Rome had its Christians, which were fed to the lions while thousands of Romans cheered, America's modern version of bread and circuses has its Christians, which oddly enough, are still Christians. Modern Christians in the United States are not fed to the lions (not yet anyway), but are mocked and marginalized on a daily basis by Leftist politicians and Leftist television producers.
       And what has happened to this once great nation that stood as a beacon of liberty and prosperity for over two hundred years while its people have been distracted by the bread and circuses of Leftists like Barack Obama? We have seen our freedom of choice eroded to the level that we no longer are capable of choosing the kind of light bulbs we use in our homes and we have accepted extreme mediocrity as a substitute for a thriving and prosperous economy. I can almost hear the barbarians at the gate.    

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

How The Republicant Party Became So Extreme

     The recent revelation of the Internal Revenue Service practice of targeting Conservative groups with unfair scrutiny is a result of a culture that was developed and encouraged by the White House, the purpose of which was to silence opposition to an unpopular agenda. I believe the strategy of using the power of federal agencies, like the IRS, to destroy political opposition to the President was a deliberate intent by Barack Obama from the first day he entered the 2008 presidential race. In fact, candidate Barack Obama bragged about being an admirer of Saul Alinsky, whose book, Rules For Radicals, the president claims as one of his major influences. Saul Alinsky promoted imposing unpopular agendas by agitating groups in the community against one another, and whenever possible using the power of government to silence political opposition.
     Barack Obama was able to wrestle the Democrat nomination away from Hillary Clinton (Remember when she was not only the fait accompli to be the Democrat nominee in 2008, but also to be elected President?) using the same Alinskyite tactics as he has used to maintain power the last four and a half years. Many have forgotten that Mrs. Clinton won most of the major Democrat primaries, but it was the caucus states, where candidate Obama was able to employ the thuggery of community agitation to become his party's nominee. After that, it was a matter of doing a cake walk to the presidency with his Republicant opponent, John McCain, practically campaigning for him.
     The Tea Party came along at just the right time for the President. Before Barack Obama slithered onto the national political stage, Democrats and the rest of the Left had had some success in demonizing Republicants and Conservatives, but were not entirely successful in characterizing them as radicals and outside the mainstream. This is because the party of Lincoln still had an air with the American people as being traditional and long-standing on the nation's political stage. Until, that is, the advent of the Tea Party. With the formation of the Tea Party, President Obama and his minions of "kiss the ground he walks on worshipers" were able to give an extremist face to Conservatism, even though the extremity of the Tea Party was an expectation of fiscal responsibility on the part of the federal government. The Tea Party had no John McCains, Bob Doles or John Boehners, so it was an easy target of the Alinsky President for character assassination using the weapons of racism and radicalism.
     The President has achieved success (his only one in fact) at making people believe that the Republicant party has been hi-jacked by extremists like the Tea Party. The result of this has been not only to convince the low information voters, but Republicants inside the establishment of the party, that if Republicants would shake off the shackles of the Tea Party and return to their "non-partisan" ways, the country could experience the Nirvana that President Obama's policies would surely bestow upon this great nation.

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

The Media's Attempt At Reputation Repair

     Some Conservatives and Republicants have been doing handstands over the media's seeming attention to journalistic probity as it relates to the current Obama administration scandals. Some on the right even think that because the Obama administration, through the Holder Justice Department, has targeted journalists, that this means the media will finally wake up and report the truth about President Obama and his many failures. I would caution my friends on the right not to be fooled by the phony outrage of the media over the Associated Press scandal involving the Justice Department secretly, and some say illegally, looking at the phone records of journalists there. After decades of shaping the news to advance a Leftist agenda, the main stream media is not going to suddenly find journalistic integrity over a little government intrusion into a few of their phone records.
     My theory is that the media's interest in the recent administration scandals has more to do with rehabilitating what is left of their credibility than any "come to Jesus" moment as it relates to a renewed dedication to the truth. After four years of exchanging their sacred constitutional duty to inform the public, for the role of court jesters in the Barack Obama White House, the media has even less credibility with the public than Congress. It is not simply the non-reporting of President Obama's failures and blunders, but the incessant praise-heaping the media bestows upon Barack Obama without any evidence of behavior worthy of that praise. They have purposely or unwittingly mistaken political acumen for intelligence as it relates to our President, and in so  doing have destroyed the modicum of integrity they had left with the public.
      Recently, the New York Times tried to excuse the media's lack of reporting on the IRS scandal (where Conservative groups applying for non-profit tax status were targeted for extra scrutiny) a year ago when they were made aware of it, saying that they were preoccupied with Rush Limbaugh's insult of Sandra Fluke on his radio show. Of course the real reason was that it was a scandal that could have cost President Obama the election in November, and the media had already expended too much time and energy propping up an obviously failed presidency to let that happen. They also knew that exposing the scandal would have meant that the IRS would not be able to continue in its suppression of Mitt Romney votes, which I think was instrumental in assuring an election win for President Obama.
     So, with Barack Obama safely re-elected, and the mid-term elections two years away, the media could comfortably report on the scandalous behavior of the Obama administration in an effort to show that they were fair and balanced. The limp outrage over these scandals by the media was just enough to put them on record as having reported them, but not enough to do any real damage to President Obama. In the process they hope to regain some of the credibility they have lost with the public over their evangelizing of Barack Obama and all things Leftist.

Monday, May 27, 2013

A Memorial Day For The "Other" War Dead

     Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, was first proclaimed by General John Logan, commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, on May 5, 1868 and was first observed on May 30, 1868. It was originally founded to memorialize soldiers who gave their lives to either side of the American civil war, but was changed in 1915 to include soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice in any of our nation's wars. As a child and young adult I always anticipated the holiday as an opportunity to have a three-day weekend, which millions of Americans still find as the primary reason to celebrate it. The cookouts, camping trips and the other outdoor activities associated with Memorial Day have, for many, become the holiday. Even the parades on this day do not fully capture the spirit of that first Memorial Day and the passion that ignited it into existence.
     But for any of us who celebrate the original intent of Memorial Day, i.e., to honor the men and women of our military who have made the ultimate sacrifice defending the freedoms of their countrymen, this day is a solemn occasion. I find it especially so since my cousin, Staff Sargent Michael Benson, died in June of 2010. Michael served three terms in Iraq honorably and bravely and came home with the deep scars of war. This sensitive and loving soldier groped for something, anything that would quiet the demons of war that occupied his mind and were his constant companion throughout his daily life. That day in June of 2010 when his earthly existence ended and his heavenly one began, the demons of war ceased and were silenced.
     Michael once told me that he served for all the other members of his family, so that they would not have to. He believed in his mission and the founding principles of his country and sacrificed himself for those values. He truly taught me the value of subjugating oneself to a cause greater than self. Michael embodied the soldierly tradition of honor, duty and country, living and dying in service to those most sacred tenets.
     There are millions of Michaels, soldiers who died in service to this great nation after their time in theater actually ended. I implore anyone reading this post, as you go about your celebration of this solemn holiday, please remember all those soldiers like Staff Sargent Michael Benson, the other war dead, who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country after surviving the hell of actual physical war. Honor them as I do, for it is because of men and women like them that we are able to enjoy this day and every other with minds free of the demons of war that they lived with until their deaths finally defeated them.  

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Sure Hope I Do Not Get Eaten By A Bear!

     I will be leaving tonight to spend the next four days living as my Bedouin ancestors did, i.e., in a tent, cooking over an open flame and hiking miles of trails. I will post again to this blog on Monday, May 27, 2013. Until then, have a look at some of my previous posts, and do not forget to visit Bill Whittle's site, Intellectual Froglegs, Prager University and my other favorites. Talk to again in a few days.

Damon

The Bureaucrastein Of The Left

     There is a tenet of human psychology as it relates to behavior which contends that many people will see in others a weakness that they themselves posses. In some cases this behavior will be taken to extreme, and people may actually accuse others of engaging in the negative behavior in which the accuser engages. This transference has always been a staple of the Left, but it has never had a more comfortable home than it does in the current administration.
     Barack Obama and others on the Left have an almost involuntary response to being held accountable for their bad behavior by accusing their political opponents of manufacturing it in order to advance a political agenda. Part of the reason they do this is to escape accountability for their actions, but the larger impetus at work is that they see every scrap of bread from the daily loaf  of public service as a means to feed their own political aspirations. Because they think in these terms, they assume everyone does, and therefore their political opponents can only be questioning their bad behavior for political gain and not because it is the right thing to do. So they accuse their political opponents of manufacturing scandals for political gain because it is what they do.
     Leftists have campaigned for many decades to convince the voting public that they are the "compassionate" and "fair" ones and anyone who opposes them is not. Therefore, anything they do is beyond reproach, even if it is also beyond the law. Such is the case with the many recent scandals that have been brought into the disinfecting sunlight of public scrutiny. But this sense of entitlement to deceive the public that is the Lefts bread and butter of their political and public policy discourse, goes beyond the major scandals and comprises their daily business as usual.  President Obama embodies the "governing through deception" model of every other authoritarian throughout history.
     This "governing through deception" pre-dates Mr. Obama's entrance onto the national political stage and is a tactic he learned as a community agitator. The successful community agitator will develop a skill for manufacturing a problem or crisis, attaching it to a producer in the community such as a wealthy individual or successful business and then fomenting hatred and outrage among the non-producers in the community against the aforementioned target. Illustrative of this point is the issue of health care. In poll after poll for the last 20 years, over eighty percent of Americans were happy with their health care. The problems that did exist were in health care insurance, not the health care delivery system. But Barack Obama, like other Democrats before him, transformed a few problems with health care insurance into a reason for a government take over of health care. He did it by fomenting hatred and derision for insurance companies, doctors and hospitals among those who were likely to abdicate the responsibility for their own health care in favor of having others provide it for them through a big government bureaucracy.
     You may be asking, at this point, "What does health care have to do with Democrats blaming Republicants for trying to politicize the recent administration scandals?" It is the nature of the Leftist beast to deceive, whether the purpose is in the growing of the government monster ever bigger and more intrusive or whether the purpose is to protect the bureaucrastein they have created in their laboratory of deception and lies.   
    
    

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Mockery As A Substitute For Leadership-The Obama Way

     We all know that a vigorous debate of the issues and an equal airing of differing political views is not something to which President Obama subscribes. In fact, it is something that the Left in general runs away from at every opportunity. The derision of conservatives is not an end in itself for Barack Obama, but simply a means to a bigger end, i.e., elimination of all opposition to his agenda. Once the public can be convinced that a group of people are less than human, it is easier for that group to be shackled. Either physically in chains (as was the case with slavery in the pre-Civil War South), or virtually by using government agencies such as the IRS to limit their participation in the political process (as is the case today with the Obama administration against Conservative groups).
      Dehumanization was the essential factor that made slavery in the pre-Civil War South such an abomination. When people grew up in an environment that taught them that blacks were less than human, and even inherently more capable of evil than whites, it was easier to have public support for enslavement of the black race. Similarly, the almost daily derision of conservatives as something they are not is not only a means to disagree with their policy positions, but to dehumanize them as not worthy to participate in national life. This was made abundantly clear by President Obama a few years ago when he said Republicants had to ride in the back seat and keep their mouths shut. The closing of Republicant-owned GM dealerships after the Obama administration illegally took control of that company and the raids of Gibson guitar, which has a Republicant CEO, are further evidence of using the power of government to silence opposition. It becomes easier for bureaucrats to discriminate against conservative groups like the Tea Party because after all, "They are just teabaggers, even the President said so."
     Once a community agitator like Barack Obama has succeeded in marginalizing and eliminating the opposition, no plan of his own is needed to get the support of the American people, or any group of people that have been similarly fooled. Last fall's election is illustrative of this fact in as much as not even the most ardent Obama supporter could name one plan or policy that President Obama proffered as anything different than what produced 8 million fewer people working than when he took office in January, 2009 and a gross domestic product that has grown at an anemic rate of less than two percent a year. I remind you that at this point in the Reagan recovery, the economy was growing at six to seven percent a quarter and produced months in which half a million or more jobs were added.
     The public will accept the mediocrity of failed policies when the alternative has been mocked and ridiculed daily by a spiteful President and his legions of sycophants in the media. For those on the Left like Barack Obama, who only have vacuous ideas and an impoverished and failed political ideology, mockery of the opposition is all that is available to them. And mockery, as a substitute for leadership, is not commensurate with the greatest nation in history.
    
    

Monday, May 20, 2013

How To Destroy The Best Health Care In The World

     Ronald Reagan, the fortieth president of the United States of America, once remarked that leftists see something moving and they tax it, if it keeps moving they regulate it and if it stops moving they subsidize it. Nothing could sum up the Lefts destruction of health care over the last 40 years better than this Reaganism. And with the one party imposition, and subsequent implementation of ObamaCare, we are witnessing the latter part of the aforementioned Reagan quote on steroids.
     ObamaCare care would be horrible enough if it were only another big government entitlement program, but its tentacles have greedily groped their way into the very sanctuary of liberty and have sacrificed the American spirit at the alter of freedom using the destructive immorality that is Leftism. Sadly, it is only now after it was rammed through Congress with only Democrat support, been upheld by a politically intimidated Supreme Court and is on its way to gobbling up large chunks of the private economy, that people are beginning to realize the horribly disfiguring disaster ObamaCare is and how it will forever transform, not only the nation's health care industry, but our very way of life.
     An example of the unchecked power given to the Executive branch through the Secretary of Health and Human Services by ObamaCare, was recently illustrated by the current Secretary, Kathleen Sebelious. Amid the many recent revelations of scandalous activities by the Obama administration, Ms. Sebelious' activity to illegally fund implementation of a part of the new law which Congress specifically excluded from funding, was hardly noticed by anyone. Congress refused to fund the hiring of 10s of thousands of new federal employees to promote ObamaCare across the country while at the same time signing up participants as Democrat voters. So, in violation of federal law, Secretary Sebelious "solicited" funds for this purpose from businesses in the health care industry, which she regulates. This is just one example of the virtually unlimited can of worms ObamaCare opens with its many hooks for such practices with the phrase, "as the Secretary shall determine."
     In addition to realizing that the rationing of health care, long waits for medical tests and procedures and budget-busting premiums for insurance are now going to be the norm for a once free people with the best health care in the world, the American people are beginning to realize the crushing new taxes that ObamaCare imposes. Just about every financial transaction made by the American people will require a tribute be paid to the federal government for its gracious management of the citizens' health care. Privately held retirement accounts require a 3.8 percent pizzo (protection money paid by businesses to the Italian Mafia) as do all real estate transactions. And the ObamaCare taxes are virtually unlimited. And most are coming straight from the hides of middle-class Americans, the group that President Obama promised would not see any increase in their taxes. Just one in a gaggle of promises broken by this president to the American people he took an oath to serve.

Saturday, May 18, 2013

LOL-Losing Our Literacy

     I am not in favor of abbreviations or acronyms playing a prominent role in our daily communications with each other. In fact, I despise such practices as causing the age of the great illiteracy. The dawn of the texting generation has especially been responsible for making abbreviated communications ubiquitous. For the most part I am not even in favor of contractions, I consider them tools of literary sloth.
     The danger incurred to society with the increase of abbreviated communications is that as goes our written communications so goes our cognitive abilities. One who writes in abbreviations is only training his mind to think in abbreviations. And the abbreviated mind is less capable of critical thinking and rational thought and more susceptible to being lead by emotion. This is the reason that politicians like Barack Obama are able to get elected speaking complete nonsense. To the weak and abbreviated mind, the nonsensical ramblings sound worthy and true. So when the President says "No one succeeds until we all succeed", the abbreviated mind does not grasp the full implications of that statement, it responds completely with emotion.
     A perfect example of the deterioration of the language that is a symptom of abbreviated communication is the expressions "may as well" and "for all intents and purposes", which have respectively become "misewell" and "for all intensive purposes." This combining of words has been encouraged instead of discouraged in our schools and has only accelerated with the modern age of text and email communications. I recently saw a sign in front of a school, advertising some function at the school, and it was replete with abbreviations. I would have hoped that a school, of all places in our society, would have some dedication to literacy.
     My rant is not only about preserving the language, but the effect literacy has on civility. I contend that the level of rancor and anti-social behavior rampant in our culture, in some sense can be attributed to the loss of civility that comes as a result of abbreviated communications. "Pardon me" has been transformed into "Huh", which is a digression to our ancestors who lived in caves. How can there be respect between people when they use a bastardized version of the language to communicate with each other? The mitigation of the mind in the process of human communication results in all humanity being removed from our daily interactions with each other. This regression of the species threatens to destroy the advances in the human condition which have grown symbiotically with the development of language and literacy.

Friday, May 17, 2013

The Real Scandal Lies Within Ourselves

     Founding father and primary author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, once wrote that when the government fears the people there is liberty, and when the people fear the government there is tyranny. The recent Obama administration scandals involving the abuse of power at the IRS and the Justice Department, targeting political opponents of the President in the former and Associated Press journalists putting into print their concerns over the Benghazi attack in the latter, is the very essence of what Thomas Jefferson so eloquently stated over two hundred years ago. The people's fear of their government in a tyrannical system, the kind to which Jefferson alluded, has been given abundant life by this administration.
     Journalists now must fear improper investigations by the Justice Department if they dare to write or report any information that the Obama administration deems "inappropriate." And individuals, wishing to involve themselves in the political process, must now fear reprisals from an authoritarian regime through the tax collection agency known as the Internal Revenue Service. One of the special aspects of the United States has always been its citizens ability to vociferously oppose their government without fear of reprisal. That aspect is in danger of being lost to history forever with the continued existence of the Leftist power base which currently has its home in the Obama administration.
      These recent Obama scandals are not so much scandals as the modus operandi of an administration that employs the thug tactics of Chicago gangland politics on a national level. These tactics are business as usual for Marxists in general and the Obama administration specifically, for the purpose of imposing an unpopular agenda on a fearful and cowering public. The real scandal is that so many Americans fell for this style of banana republic government, not once but twice, while the alarm bell was being wrung by people successfully characterized by the administration as radicals. And now the Obama regime's guns are turned towards its own sycophants in the media, who are so dedicated to the cause that they will sacrifice themselves as willing collateral damage in the battle to advance the administration's Marxist agenda.
     I recently remembered a statement by President Obama early in his first term about creating a government civilian force that was more powerful than the military. His own version of brown shirts, not his words but my interpretation of his words. Now I fully understand the enormity of his statement when I realize that he was talking about using the IRS, the Justice Department and any and all bureaucracies within the government to eliminate any challenge to the imposition of his Utopia on the free people of the United States of America. The civilian force to which the President alluded comprised agencies of the government that could operate outside the law to advance his twisted version of fairness and equality. The ends justifying the means, however immoral or unjust those means are, is the mission statement of the Obama administration. And the recent revelations of the inner workings of the Obama machine are just the tip of an iceberg which seeks to sink the previously thought unsinkable ship of liberty and freedom.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

The Barackacy Of The IRS Scandal

     The Obama administration is representing an acre of swamp land as a hundred acres of prime real estate with their explanation of the IRS scandal. What they expect the public to buy is that the targeting of only conservative organizations by the division of the IRS that is the sole authority over non-profits in the nation, was in no way politically motivated. Furthermore they expect us to believe that the incessant demonization of these groups by their boss, Barack Obama, and the public statement that these groups should be targeted, by the powerful Senator Baucus who chairs the Senate committee that oversees the IRS, had no influence on the "rouge" agents who engaged in the "non-political" witch hunt.
     I caution those conservatives that are doing handstands over the media seemingly asking tough questions of the administration about the IRS targeting groups with "Patriot" or "Constitution" in their name or public statements that contain phrases like, "less government", not to be fooled by their curiosity. It comes from a thirst for direction in which way to steer the narrative and not from any journalistic integrity to reveal the truth. The media was caught flat-footed by the IRS story and had no story prep from the administration, and being narrative-dependent children, are looking to the administration to feed them their angle on the story for the coming days and weeks. Do not be surprised if the main thrust of the story reported by the media is the administration's assertion that they are outraged by the "unacceptable" and "isolated" actions of a couple of "low-level" agents.
     The IRS's admission that organizations were targeted based on their conservatism also begs the question that many have been asking, "Isn't this the bureaucracy that is charged with implementing large swaths of ObamaCare?" And if a couple of "rouge" agents can deny non-profit status to organizations based on their politics, is it unreasonable to assume that a "low-level" agent could conceivably deny someone health care based on those same politics? This is not just right-wing paranoia, but with recent revelations, is a real possibility. We have recently discovered that ObamaCare requires doctors to ascertain if patients are gun-owners, and it is not a stretch to imagine that they will be charged with mining for all sorts of information that has nothing to do with their patients health concerns. And it further follows that based on this information, certain types of care, or care in general, may be denied by over-zealous Leftists working in the bureaucracy that is ObamaCare.
     What the IRS and other recent scandals illuminate in very stark terms is that the government of, for and by the people has been transformed into a Barackacy. And maybe this was what Barack Obama meant during the 2008 campaign when he said he wanted to fundamentally transform the country. He has succeeded to a large extent in replacing the representative republic that has served this country and the world well for hundreds of years with a system of patronage where government bureaucracies are used to reward his friends and eliminate his opposition.
      

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

The Habit Of The Creature

     There have been many who have suggested that much analysis of the events surrounding the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, is pure speculation. And that may be true. But as was a popular Democrat refrain shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks, one should be able to connect the dots to get an accurate picture from the available information. Using the same process, we can  flesh out the actions and non-actions of the Obama administration by connecting the dots of what we know to be concrete in order to add substance to those areas which may not be as hardened with facts.
     What we do know is that the consulate was attacked by an Al Qaeda-style group, four Americans including our Ambassador were killed and the Obama administration deliberately mischaracterized the attack as a spontaneous demonstration in response to an anti-Muslim YouTube video. We also know that Hillary Clinton received a call from Gregory Hicks, second in command of the U.S. diplomatic core in Libya, at 8:00pm Washington time on the night of the attack. Mr. Hicks told then Secretary Clinton that the Benghazi consulate was under attack by terrorists and he feared Ambassador Stevens had been captured by local Al Qaeda operatives. And further, we know from the official record, that Hillary Clinton spoke to President Obama at 10:00pm Washington time and it was shortly thereafter that the media reported that the attack was the result of a protest spurred by the video.
     It was convenient for the Obama administration that there was an actual protest of the anti-Muslim YouTube video in Cairo, Egypt, instigated by U.S. embassy personnel there apologizing for the video before any Muslims were even aware of its existence. Thereby informing Muslim radicals that they should be offended by it. We may never know if President Obama ordered the preemptive apology, but he is responsible for the ethos which spawned it. The classical definition of which is, "the habit of a creature in its place." The habit of the Obama administration creature is to hold American exceptionalism responsible for the bad behavior of every anti-social in the world and to apologize for that very exceptionalism. Just as it is the habit of the Obama administration creature to think of conservative groups like the Tea Party as enemies of the state worthy of special attention by government agencies like the IRS.
     Aristotle talked about the immediate cause and the final cause, e.g., the immediate cause of a sculpture is the tools and stone used to bring it to life, the final cause is the reason for which the thing is done. The immediate cause of Benghazi and the other Obama administration scandals recently coming into public view, are the events themselves. The final cause is the ideology and world view of Barack Obama who, like the creature in its place, creates the ethos or habit of anti-Americanism abroad and corruption at home.
       

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

The Bizarro World Of Barack Obama

     In an issue of Superman comic, the caped crusader enters a bizarro world where everything is the opposite of reality in the real world. In this bizarro world, up is down, black is white and truth is fiction. Watching the Obama administration over the last four plus years has been analogous to entering a bizarro world. Never more so than watching a delusional President Obama struggling through his press conference yesterday. The president, if he actually believes what he said, is worthy of psychological study as a severely delusional person, or he is just a pathological liar.
     When President Obama was asked about the Benghazi terrorist attack last September 11, I am surprised he did not say, "What attack?" I half expected the president to deny that any Americans were killed in Benghazi, and that he had just had lunch with the deceased Ambassador Stevens a few days ago. When asked about crucial emails, which not only contradicted the administration's version of events, but showed a deliberate attempt to lie to the American people, the president said there was no there there. He said no emails would be forthcoming because they were already shared with Congress months ago. The truth is that the emails were viewed by Congressional members investigating the attack, but they were not allowed to copy them or leave a guarded room with the information. This is why the request for the administration to release the emails was made by Darrell Issa's committee. So the president was a little disingenuous when he made the statement that emails were "turned over" to congress. Common sense would inform a rational person that if Congress had the emails already, the request for them would not have been necessary. But in the bizarro world of Barack Obama, his administration shows cooperation simply by saying they are cooperating.
     President Obama took viewers of his press conference into his bizarro world again when he said that Susan Rice was speaking from the information the administration knew at the time when she went on the Sunday shows five days after the attack and stated that it was a spontaneous demonstration in response to an anti-Muslim YouTube video. We know from the testimony last week of Gregory Hicks, the number two diplomat in Libya under Ambassador Stevens, that the administration knew from the start that the attack was pre-planned and orchestrated by an Al Qaeda-style terrorist group. Besides, President Obama proffered the video lie several times in his speech to the United Nations a full two weeks after the attack, which even by the administration's timeline, places it well after they knew it was a terrorist attack and not in response to a video. And the President's spokeskid, James Carney, was publicly blaming the video for the attack months later.
     One of the most effective characteristics of any leader is being tethered to reality and willing to accept responsibility for solutions to problems. An illustration of this point is how Tylenol handled the tampering of their product which lead to several deaths back in the 1980s. They admitted what happened, recalled all their outstanding product and developed the first tamper-resistant cap for their medications. If Barack Obama had been in charge of Tylenol, he would have denied that the company even made any medications, and of course blamed the deaths on Republicants. Such is the dangerous foolishness that we must now suffer as a result of so many voters who willingly inhabit the bizarro world of Barack Obama.
    

Monday, May 13, 2013

Where Has The Subservient Government Gone?

     In the latter part of the 18th century, in a land known as North America, subjects of the British Empire who were colonized there, redefined the roles of the government and the governed. They expanded on the idea of the Magna Carta that those who were the governed had rights that must be respected by those who comprised the government. But instead of acknowledging that those rights came from man for man, they sanctified those rights by building a nation on the foundation that they were created by God for man as an essential part of his nature.
     Fast forward to the dawn of the 21st century, when a people who have enjoyed the fruits that are harvested from the orchard of freedom and liberty, have allowed that fruit to rot by employing task masters and rulers instead of public servants. They have seemingly grown tired of their freedom and instead have traded it for the false security that is tyranny. It is time for the liberty-starved to stand up and shout from the hills and the valleys, "Hey President Obama, and other Washington politicians, who have stolen the constitutional power of the people, you work for us! You are not our kings, dictators or even our parents as the ignorant and misguided have intimated. Our wise and insightful forefathers made you subservient to the will of the governed. It is the government's subservient nature which is what makes liberty possible and has made this country the greatest force for good that the world has ever seen."
     Those wise and articulate men who gathered in candle-lit homes, sanctified churches and all manner of meeting halls, would be saddened by the nation of "sheep being led to the slaughter" that we have become. They would acknowledge that their fears of an all-powerful government were well founded. And even though they created a constitution that mitigated those fears and kept them in check for hundreds of years, they have been realized in this time of political correctness over political wisdom. Of government dependence over self sufficiency, of entitlement over the pursuit of happiness and of groveling at the feet of severely flawed men for the rights that a perfect creator has bestowed upon us as our only birthright.
     Where has the subservient government gone? It has been swallowed up by greedy government. A greed that produces nothing of value and devours large chunks of liberty's virtue and reduces free men to slaves. But all is not lost. We, as a free people, must inform all of the wisdom of the forefathers and once again, with the help and guidance of providence, make those in the halls of power submit to the will of the governed. It is the responsibility of each generation to ensure the flame of liberty does not extinguish from the cold wind of tyranny.

Sunday, May 12, 2013

The Left Bases The Morality Of Life In The Human Heart

     A recent illustration of Leftist hypocrisy is the case of Ariel Castro, the monster who kidnapped, tortured and held three young girls against their will for up to a decade. The hypocrisy is in charging Mr. Castro with murder for taking the lives of his captives' unborn children. My question is, "Where are the protests from all those Leftists who believe abortion is not murder?" All the arguments they make in support of abortion are exactly the reasons that Mr. Castro can not be charged with murder, if there is any consistency in the Leftist ideology. The arguments that a fetus is not a human life until it is born, and that an unborn fetus is just part of a woman's body, like a wart, are the very arguments that should be animating the Left in defending Mr. Castro against the charge of murder. Would Mr. Castro be charged with murder had he removed warts from his captives bodies?
     The Lefts argument in favor of abortion requires intelligent people to believe that the very scientific and biologically based question of life is simply determined by the opinion created by the mother's choice. In other words, all science and biology takes a back seat to someone's decision to label the unborn child as either an inconvenience or a blessing. The hypocrisy of women who so easily and callously support the termination of unwanted life, but yet expect the entire society to perform handstands in celebration of their wanted pregnancies, has always fascinated and frustrated me. And the same women who support a woman's "choice" to kill her unborn child, are the same ones who want special treatment by strangers because they choose to allow their own babies to live.
     The Ariel Castro case and the Kermit Gosnell case (he is the Philadelphia abortion doctor who murdered live babies outside the womb in some horrific and despicable ways) are similar to each other. Both cases are illustrative of the Lefts hypocrisy as it relates to abortion and the question of the sanctity of life. In the Leftist world, the question of life is decided by human beings and not the moral code of God's natural law. The troubling aspect of such a practice is that human beings are fallible and are basically bad, that is why civilization can only remain civilized by following the natural laws of God. There is no morality without God-centered law, otherwise one is simply obeying the ever-changing laws of man for man's sake and no other reason. Morality is a set of unchangeable values that act to restrict the evil nature of humans. This point is boldly highlighted by the Lefts hypocritical view that the morality of life and death is based solely in the human heart and not, as it should be, in the immutable laws of God. 

Saturday, May 11, 2013

Would Benghazi Ad Have Given Romney The Presidency?

      There has been quite a stir among Republicants and Conservatives in recent days with the release of a Republicant National Committee ad dealing with the feckless response by the Obama administration to the Benghazi terrorist attack that took four American lives. Many feel that, had the ad run, it would have changed the outcome of last fall's election. Not running the ad was a calculated risk on the part of the Romney campaign to stay focused on the horrible economy.
     One must remember that before Barack Obama was re-elected, no president had won re-election with economic data worse than when he took office. Mr. Romney was placing his faith in the American people to want better for the country than the Obama administration had delivered in its first term. He thought that bringing an unsettled scandal into the campaign would confuse things and take the focus off the economy. I know it is popular among conservatives to want a magic bullet to which they can point as the reason Governor Romney lost the election. But the truth is that one ad on Benghazi would not have changed the outcome. Besides which, presidential elections are almost always about domestic issues and rarely are decided on foreign affairs.
     All the polling about President Obama's handling of Benghazi, before, during and after the attack, show that his negative numbers never got much over the low fifty percentile. And people still re-elected him. Even to this day, polling shows that there is still not the kind of outrage over the Benghazi attack, and the Obama administration's incompetence before and during and their blatant lies afterward, that there should be from the majority of the American people. For the Romney campaign to have run an ad, no matter how effectively produced conservatives thought it might have been, during the campaign, would not have changed any votes. The people who felt the Obama administration's handling of Benghazi was a national disgrace, were going to vote for Romney with or without an ad about it.
     Conservatives need to move away from analysis of the Republicant failed election bid and begin to wake up to the battle they should be fighting against Leftism. Until there is an acknowledgement in the Republicant party that recent elections have been lost because effectively articulated conservatism has not been the focus of the Republicant message, they will continue to lose elections. And no one ad is going to be a substitute for principled adherence to the conservative values which founded and made this country great.
    
    

Friday, May 10, 2013

Hope Springs Eternal From Benghazi Hearings

     As State Department employees, Gregory Hicks, Mark Thompson and Eric Nordstrom testified before Congressman Darrell Issa's House Oversight committee, I felt hopeful about our country's future. The hope I felt watching these brave Americans testify to the truth in their hearts mitigated some of the hopelessness I have felt since Barack Obama hi-jacked the constitutional position that the voters entrusted to him a little over four years ago. The hope did not reside in any foolish optimism that those at the highest level of our government would finally be held accountable for the uncontested terrorist attack that led to four dead Americans. Nor did the hope I felt reveal itself in some knowledge that Hillary Clinton's complete incompetence and her resulting dishonesty would somehow destroy her worthiness to run for the office of President of the United States of America, as it should. I would not be surprised if the growing number of low to no information voters in this country ensured her election in 2016.
     The hope that I felt was in the bravery and courage of Hicks, Thompson and Nordstrom to place the pursuit of truth above their own careers. Mr. Hicks has already suffered a severe demotion for even daring to question his superiors and walk hand-in-hand with honesty. The others will be dealt with likewise by an administration which greedily rewards its friends and supporters and severely punishes its detractors and those who dare to be independent soldiers in the army of truth and honor. The courage shown by these great Americans is rarely seen at all in this administration, which sees truth and fidelity to ethics as commodities which can be traded and sold when political benefit trumps the sacred oath they have taken to protect the American people.
     I felt the pain in Gregory Hicks' heart that was given voice by his opening statement, a statement that was an unlabeled rebuke of Hillary Clinton's statement in January when she indignantly shouted, "What difference, at this point, does it make." Mr. Hicks told his former boss, and anyone else who was listening, that four Americans who were left to die by the current administration made a difference to him and his colleagues at the State Department who still embodied honor and integrity. It makes a difference, Mr. Hicks continued, to the family and friends of the four who were senselessly murdered. And finally, it makes a difference to the American people, whose sacred trust was given to those who employed callousness of heart when they placed politics over the lives of those serving the people of this great nation.
     In the charred remains of the constitution that is the current administration, Gregory Hicks, Mark Thompson and Eric Nordstrom are the struggling green shoots of traditional American values breathed to life by the constitution, made strong by a people with an indelible thirst for liberty, and lately trampled upon by Leftists who use the people's government to the selfish end of increasing their own political power. If we are taking bets, mine are with the struggling shoots that revealed themselves this week in the men of honor named Hicks, Thompson and Nordstrom.

Thursday, May 9, 2013

The Facts About Gun Deaths The Left Doesn't Want You To Know

     According to recent Justice Department data, gun deaths have decreased by 39% over the last twenty years. And injuries from the use of firearms that did not result in death, decreased by over 60 percent. These results have been reached during a time period when private ownership of firearms has increased dramatically. And it is no coincidence that gun deaths have decreased while the number of states implementing conceal/carry laws has increased to 39 in total.
     The Justice Department data shows that 11,000 people currently die of gun violence every year, two thirds of those deaths are suicides. If one were to subtract out the number of suicides, the average American has a .001 percent chance of being killed by a gun. Looked at in relation to the 50,000 plus traffic deaths every year directly attributable to the federal government's fuel standards, the average American is 16 times more likely to be killed in a traffic accident caused by government energy policy than they are to be killed by someone with a gun.
     The aforementioned facts do not stop those on the Left from using incidents like the Sandy Hook massacre to create a crisis that does not exist in order to increase the federal government's control over individuals, thereby reducing the liberties of a free people. We have seen this behavior from the Left on myriad issues ranging from global warming to health care. Gun control is one of those linchpin issue, which if the Left can succeed at their task, will forever change the fidelity of this great nation to its constitutional principles.
     Leftists will tell those who are the target of their tyranny that their policies are something that they are not. An illustration of this point is the Lefts insistence that those who fear a national gun registry as a result of universal background checks, are just paranoid right-wing extremists. But Wayne La Pierre, president of the National Rifle Association, recently made the salient point of fact that universal background checks can not be achieved without a national registry, otherwise it is not universal. This is in direct conflict with the constitution that has created this great republic and guided it to become the greatest nation in the history of nations.
     Facts are stubborn things and they are usually the enemy of the Left, that is why they continue to manufacture their own version of reality. The facts about gun violence mentioned at the beginning of this post, along with the fact that more crimes are prevented with the proper use of a firearm by law-abiding citizens than are committed  by criminals, are ignored by Leftists. Their goal is not to create a safer and more free society, but to grow government influence in the lives of individuals. To that end, the Left sees truth as a malleable tool to be shaped and twisted to support their demented reality and implement their unpopular agenda against the will of the people and the tenets of common sense.

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

The High Cost Of Amnesty

     The rush to pass a comprehensive immigration bill is for Republicants the fulfillment of a hope that they will garner more Hispanic votes in future elections, and for Democrats it is an addition of 8-12 million new voters to their base in one fell swoop. And while Republicant members of the "gang of eight", like Marco Rubio, can characterize the bill as anything but amnesty, in the final analysis, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it most certainly is a duck. And if the foundation of amnesty upon which this bill is built is not bad enough, the cost to taxpayers is even worse.
    The implementation costs alone for the proposed immigration bill went from 100 million to 1 billion dollars between versions of the bill. When questioned about the tenfold increase in implementation costs, Republicant gangers said the first estimate was a mistake. Sadly these same Republicants can not seem to muster the courage or the vision to see that the entire idea of immigration reform being discussed in the context of this bill, is a mistake. As it is with all government programs, the final cost to taxpayers will be solidly north of the estimate to which lawmakers are willing to admit.
     In addition to the implementation costs, taxpayers will be footing the bill for an even greater expense as a result of the amnesty bill. The Heritage Foundation conducted an economic analysis of the bill, and found that over a ten year period the bill will cost U.S. taxpayers 6 trillion dollars. These additional costs will be in the form of taxpayer-funded benefits, of which the newly amnestied immigrants can avail themselves. The six trillion dollars is the deficit between the additional taxes those given amnesty will pay and the real term dollars they will cost the nation as a whole in taxpayer-funded benefits.
     There is no greater sin that those in government can commit than to misuse precious taxpayer dollars that have been entrusted to them, especially when that misuse is a deliberate attempt to increase their political fortunes. This is a concept that we have witnessed for many decades by Democrats, and to such a large scale that it has become commonplace. But with the current amnesty bill, and the Republicants apparent capitulation on it, they have become no better stewards of the peoples money than their Democrat counterparts. The mis-characterization that those who support amnesty proffer at every opportunity when discussing illegal immigration, is that the current system is badly broken and in need of reform. My question is, "How can the case be made that a system of  laws that are not currently being enforced, be considered broken?" It is analogous to someone spending half a year's salary to replace their home's security system when all they really need to do is flip the switch to activate it.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Benghazi Revisted

     The terrorist attack, most probably an Al Queda operation, that took the lives of U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens and three other brave Americans last September 11, was in fact one of the worst deliberate failures of an administration in recent history. And tomorrow when Republicant Darrell Issa's House oversight committee engages in another round of questioning officials with intimate knowledge of the attack, it is almost certain they will proffer no new information. That is why I do not harbor any anticipation that State Department employees, Gregory Hicks, Mark Thompson and Eric Nordstrom will sink the Obama ship of fools with their testimony.
     The "revelations" from these whistle blowers that have leaked out prior to their testimony are all things that have been known from the start. Like the fact that there was inadequate security for our diplomats in Benghazi, even after repeated requests from Ambassador Stevens. And that President Obama learned of the attack 5 pm Washington time on September 11, 2012 in the course of a regular meeting with then Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. He told Secretary Panetta and Secretary Clinton to handle it, he then disappeared and to this day his whereabouts during the attack are unknown. We also know that Hicks, Thompson and Nordstrom, along with other State Department employees, knew that U.N Ambassador Susan Rice was telling a huge whopper of a lie when she went on the Sunday shows days after the incident and said the attack was the result of a spontaneous demonstration prompted by an anti-Muslim YouTube video. A lie, by the way, that the entire administration, including the President himself, told Americans constantly for two weeks following the attack. President Obama and Secretary Clinton even appeared in a public service announcement that aired in Pakistan that apologized for the American value of free speech and repeated the YouTube video lie.
     The cover-up of the truth about Benghazi was unraveling from the start when the Libyan President was contradicted by Ambassador Rice when he said they knew the attack was a planned terrorist operation instigated by Al Queda, and not the result of some video. The Libyan president was so angered by the slight that he delayed FBI access to investigate the scene of the attack, leading to a less thorough investigation as a result of evidence being disturbed or destroyed. The reason for the clumsily constructed cover-up was so that the Obama re-election effort could continue to claim that Al Queada was in decline with the death of Osama Bin Laden. And it worked, the President was re-elected and the American public did not seem to mind the obvious and blatant lie told about Benghazi.
     Many conservatives have hung much hope on the Issa hearings as a way to neuter or even destroy the Obama presidency. But I am not holding my breath and would be surprised if anything more than a few low to mid-level State Department employees lost their jobs as a result. The reason for my pessimism is the public's demonstrated apathy over this issue and the main stream media's collusion with the Obama administration to continue the cover-up, no matter how far down the sewer of journalistic integrity they have to sink.

Monday, May 6, 2013

The Myth Of Breaking Up For The Childrens' Sake

      It occurred to me the other day that it was forty to fifty years ago we began to hear the concept of breaking up a marriage for the sake of the children. It was the result of the "enlightenment" of the 1960s, which is to say it was one of the cornerstones of the most selfish generation in history. And while there have been many destructive forces visited upon our culture resulting from the dawn of self-centeredness in the 1960s, breaking up marriages for the sake of the children, has been the most destructive.
     Study after study has shown that children who are raised in a home where their biological mother and biological father are married and co-habitating, have the best chance to succeed in life and mitigate the potential to be involved in drugs and crime. These children do not necessarily concern themselves with parents who may not have an ideal marriage, this is an excuse used by selfish parents who want to make their own lives easier. The positive effect of a relationship on a child is the one between the child and their parents, not their parents' relationship with each other. Staying together for the childrens' sake is both honorable and responsible, it is the only option available for parents who see the raising of the children they have created as their primary responsibility.
      But in this "me first" culture began in the 1960s, those who have freely created children see nothing wrong with burdening society with the selfish decision to dissolve the childrens' best chance to be productive citizens by breaking up their own unsatisfactory marriage. This is one of the main differences and lines of demarcation between pre-1960s and post-1960s generations, the ability and willingness to place importance and prioity on something larger than one's own selfish desires. The idea that a marriage, "just wasn't working for me", and therefore I am going to uproot my childrens' lives by making it harder for them to receive the stability and guidance they need to succeed, is something pre-1960s generations would not have even considered.
     Of course I acknowledge that divorce can be the best thing for children, who as a result of a crumbling marriage between their uncivil parents, must suffer an environment of abuse. But the extreme is not the norm for today's parents, who simply can not mitigate their selfish desire to call it quits because it just takes too much effort to be adults for the sake of raising their children in the best possible environment. And so, to lighten the load of not only the responsibility to their children, but of their consciences, they say they are breaking up their marriage for the benefit of their children. As if children somehow benefit from the example set by part-time parents that it is okay to "follow your heart" away from your commitments in order to have "me time." It is the myth of breaking up for the childrens' sake that allows the selfish to fool themselves into thinking that their children will profit from an abandoned marriage and two glaring examples of selfishness.     

Saturday, May 4, 2013

The Coming Tale Of Woe For Retail Investors

     If you are looking to put money to work in the stock market because it hit an all-time high during intra-day trading on Friday, do not be the dope in the market's rope-a-dope scheme. The unemployment numbers were released yesterday and they paint a very dismal picture for the current economy and for the stock market in the near future when Lord of the Fed Ben Bernanke, who gave it will take it all away, causing a collapse.
     You say that you heard the employment numbers were stellar? Well maybe if you only look at the manipulated U-3 number, but the government's own U-6 number (which counts all the unemployed) actually ticked up to 13.9 percent from 13.8 percent last month. Additionally, the number of part time workers has climbed as well and will continue to do so as companies trim employee hours to avoid ObamaCare requirements. The Obama administration is crowing about adding a pathetic 165 thousand jobs, half of which are people who have given up finding employment and are now counted by this administration as "employed." And while we are four years into a recovery that the administration said would be netting 600 thousand jobs a month by this point, the mavens of Wall Street have used the over-hyped numbers as an opportunity to pull unsuspecting retail investors into their web.
     Wall Street sharks have used the government's bond-buying binge with printed money like a bar uses an alcoholic's binge to sell more booze or a casino uses a gambler's binge to win more of his money for the house. The dunces in the financial media play along with the artificial market as if it is actually based on fundamentals. The fact of the matter is that fewer companies are expanding their bottom lines, and by less of a margin, than pre-recession norms. But then, in the Obamaconomy, the new norm is a pathetic mediocrity that floats down the river of low expectations. If it were not for Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke printing 85 billion dollars a month in funny money and using it to buy 80 percent of the federal bonds sold, the stock market would be well under the 10,000 level.
     The professional traders on Wall Street like Warren "please raise my taxes" Buffett, have pushed the market higher because Mr. Bernanke has kept bond rates at an almost zero return with his quantitative easing program. But they also know that Blathering Ben is going to have to discontinue his binge and start to pull all that printed money out of bonds in the near future. This will cause interest rates to rise, making bonds more attractive, and the wheels are going to come off the equities market. Of course, those professionals like Mr. Buffett will be long gone, having sold their stocks at a premium to unsuspecting retail investors who will be stuck in a rapidly sinking market, having been the victims of  "buying high and selling low."
    

Friday, May 3, 2013

The Silk Purse Of 'American Values'

     The incompetence of the Obama administration with regards to executing a successful national security plan, is both a sin of omission and commission. The sin of omission is not being able to connect the dots to prevent terrorists like the Boston bombers from reaching their target with life threatening ordinance. The sin of commision is actually in providing these particular terrorists with financial support in the form of 100 thousand dollars in welfare benefits.
     In just over four years of the Obama administration, the United States has witnessed 5 separate terrorist attacks where the terrorists have reached their targets with life threatening ordinance. The Boston bombing is the latest, but before this most recent attack there was the Fort Hood terrorist attack that took 13 lives, the Alabama military recruiting station attack that took almost half a dozen lives, the Times Square attack and the so-called "underwear bomber." The last two attacks did not result in any casualties only because of the incompetence of the terrorists. In the hands of better trained terrorists, those attacks would have netted the bad guys innocent American lives.
     When compared to the last seven years of the Bush administration after September 11, 2001 in which there were zero attacks on the homeland, the Obama administration's dismal record on protecting the nation is abundantly demonstrated by the five attacks by terrorists whose cowardice took innocent American lives. There are several reasons for the Obama administration's failure to adequately protect the governed for which they took an oath to do so. But beyond all the reasons of incompetence, there lies an ideological one that is the most dangerous to this country.
     The Obama administration is bound by its rigid adherence to political correctness not to employ one of the oldest and most effective tools of law enforcement, i.e., profiling. This cornerstone of law enforcement and crime prevention has been made morally equivalent by the Left with the terrorist acts its use would prevent. To paraphrase Ann Coulter, when virtually one hundred percent of terrorist attacks are carried out by radical Islamic men under the age of 35, that is not profiling but a suspect description. And if acts of terror were being committed by Christians, you can bet Leftists like President Obama would have no problem profiling any and all Christians.
     The president and other administration officials have said that profiling is not consistent with our values as Americans, as if allowing people to blow us up is. Besides, these people who talk about values are the very same ones that support the barbaric practice of infanticide and even use taxpayer money to pay for it. Not only that, but President Obama himself, while in the Illinois state legislature, supported a law to allow babies who survived abortions to have their lives taken from them outside the womb. And they dare hi-jack the term 'American Values' to give aid and support to an enemy whose stated aim it is to kill as many Americans as possible and impose their evil ideology on our culture. Not only is the hypocrisy of the Left in full bloom with this issue, but their strict adherence to political correctness allows them to sell the sow's ear of their incompetence as the silk purse of 'American Values.' 

Thursday, May 2, 2013

The Slacker In Chief

    When Barack Obama became our nation's forty fourth president, the country was facing some serious economic issues. The housing collapse, which was the result of Democrats using the housing market to perform social engineering for the purpose of providing houses to those too poor to afford them on their own, had caused ripples of uncertainty throughout the financial markets. Becoming president at that time was going to be a challenge for any man and require of him leadership, courage and a strong work ethic. Unfortunately, the man elected to the post had none of these qualities.
     President Obama has defined his presidency in terms of one of the most contentious in history, not because of the opposition, but because of his own obstinate and rigid adherence to his Leftist ideology. But even as an ideologue he has shown very little initiative and work ethic. According to the historical record, and accounts of those working in support roles within the White House for decades, most Presidents of the United States generally began their day by 7am and were on the job well into the early evening. Our current president begins his normal day well after 9 o' clock and is finished by mid to late afternoon. In fact, President Obama has spent more of the people's time, graciously given to him to resolve the nations issues, playing golf and on vacation than he has spent working on the number one issue plaguing this nation for the last five years, the economy.
     President Obama has also spent more taxpayer money on the personal "needs" of the first family than any other president in history. In fact, he has spent more of the taxpayers hard earned money on himself and his family than the combined total spent on supporting the first families of any six other nations. The total amount of U.S. taxpayer money spent on supporting the first family in 2012 was 1.4 billion dollars. An astronomical amount, especially when compared to the Royal Family of Great Britain, who only spent the equivalent of 56 million dollars of their nations hard earned money on their personal needs. Furthermore, the money spent on the Obamas was borrowed money that future generations will have to repay. President Obama has borrowed more money per average U.S. household than the average U.S. household makes in earned income per year.
     This President has worked hard at one thing since taking the oath of office to defend and protect the Constitution of the United States of America, completely ignoring that very constitution every chance he gets. Mr. Obama has also worked very hard campaigning, so hard in fact that he has spent more time campaigning since becoming president than he has working at his desk in the Oval Office. But then, it is hard to community organize from behind a desk, that kind of hard work is best left to someone who actually understands the meaning of the word 'work', not our current Slacker In Chief.
    

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

The Stupid Things That Leftists Believe

     The difference between the Left and the Right is not so much a difference of opinion, with both paths leading to the same result. Nor is the difference simply between two meritorious schools of thought as a means of creating the most prosperous and free society. The real difference between the Right and the Left is that the former bases its conclusions and beliefs on the experience of history guided by intelligence, the latter bases its entire stock and trade in emotional stupidity.
     The first stupidest thing that Leftists believe is that even if criminals were somehow prevented from obtaining firearms, that they would stop committing crimes and society would be safer and the crime rate would drop precipitously. Leftist mistakenly believe that crime is a function of an inanimate object called a firearm and not the result of those who actually commit it.
     The second stupidest thing that Leftists believe is that when government removes money from the private economy through higher taxes and regulations, the private economy will somehow grow bigger. This special form of addition by subtraction is analogous to removing gasoline from your vehicle's fuel tank and expecting it to go further.
     The third stupidest thing that Leftists believe is that if the United States reduced its military presence and armaments, that evil men around the world would suddenly become good and not want to attack us. The Left seems to think that we have enemies because we have a strong military that is well-equipped, but those things mitigate the presence of enemies and make personal liberty possible.
     The fourth stupidest thing that Leftists believe is that raising taxes, especially in a slow growth economy, will increase revenue to the federal government and that cutting taxes will always cause the opposite effect. History, economic realities and common sense proves that just the opposite is true. Taxes are generated from private sector economic activity, not as Leftists believe, from government allowing those in the private sector to simply keep less of the government's money.
      The fifth stupidest thing that Leftists believe is that by adding the suffix "fetus" to the word "human" it magically transforms a person into nothing more than a malignant growth to be removed and disposed. Leftists fail to see that medically and scientifically a human fetus, if left to develop, will become a fully functioning human being and there is no chance it will become a petunia or a poodle. The fetus, which for all intents and purposes is a baby, has a unique DNA from his mother. So he is not simply just a part of his mother's body, like her arm or leg, but is a unique human life. Leftists also want to change the medical and biological definition of life by saying that a fertilized human egg in the womb does not meet the requirement, which it most certainly does.  
      The sixth stupidest thing that Leftists believe is that poverty creates crime. If this were true, then the crime rate would have been at one of its all time highs during the Great Depression of the 1930s, it actually was at a historic low during that period. This stupid thing that Leftists believe goes hand-in-hand with another stupid thing Leftists believe, i.e., that poverty creates wealth. The Left thinks if they impoverish the wealthy that this action will somehow enrich the poor.
     This list of stupid things that Leftists believe is by no means all inclusive, I'm sure that regular readers of this blog can conceive of many others. It is meant to illustrate that government policies based on emotion and irrational conclusions are not the best way to ensure prosperity and freedom. That is why leftism must be defeated and not simply an ideology with which to be compromised. For how does one compromise with those whose aim it is to destroy the very foundations of personal liberty and the principles and values upon which this great nation was founded?