Category Politics

Mar 17 2015

Bill to Repeal IPAB to be Announced

Sources in Washington D.C. have informed TMCV that Congressman Bruce Poliquin intends to announce the end of this week, possibly Thursday morning, that he is an original co-sponsor of a bill HR 1190 which repeals the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) established by the Affordable Care Act.  IPAB has been labeled by the Cato Institute as perhaps the most unconstitutional part of the ACA, and may be the most unconstitutional creation in the history of the United States.  It has also been denounced by the AAMC, the Association of American Medical Colleges.

IPAB is a regulatory board created through the Affordable Care Act, at the behest of President OBama and his Chief architect at the time Peter Orszag to bypass the checks and balances our government.  The board is composed of 15 healthcare professionals appointed by the President.  The regulatory “proposals” that are issued from IPAB are to be implemented immediately by the Secretary of Health and Human Services without approval from Congress.  If all three branches of government cannot come up with a bill that matches the precise intent of the IPAB “proposal” it becomes law, with no vote from Congress and the President  has no power of veto.

But the appalling autonomy of IPAB does not stop there!  If Congress fails to repeal IPAB before 2017, language in ACA prevents all three branches from repealing this board and/or altering any of its proposals at any time.  This gives IPAB the power to alter the Constitution through statute, or its “proposals”.  Not only does IPAB hold regulatory control over ObamaCare but it also has been granted oversight in the private healthcare market.

This is a brief overview of the egregious attack on the Constitution this facet of the ACA represents. TMCV intends to post several articles on IPAB in anticipation of the announcement of Poliquin that he has joined forces with Rep. David Roe (R-TN) to repeal IPAB.  Diane Cohen, lead counsel challenging the constitutionality of IPAB, and Michael F. Cannon, director of health policies for the Cato Institute, aptly describe IPAB as not just unconstitutional, but “anti-constitutional”.

IPAB must be repealed and abolished.  We applaud Rep. Poliquin (R-ME) and Rep. David Roe (R-TN) for their leadership on this.

Mar 9 2015

The Last Stand: The Issue

 

“If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth.” -Ronald Reagan

There are two fallacies connected with the traditional marriage versus same-sex marriage debate that we will deal with in this column. The first misconception is that love is the basic reason for marriage. The second widely propagated lie is that marriage is strictly a Christian tradition. Both have contributed greatly to the folly and contention we have today.

We should immediately dispense with the idea that marriage belongs to Christianity. Common sense tells us that Christianity is not the only religion that has had its imprint upon the rites of marriage. Not every Empire has been Christian, but every Empire has had a marriage structure by which to insure the stability of their generations in hopes to insure the longevity of their Kingdoms.

The pervasive thought that marriage tradition is rooted in Christianity comes from the fact that the United States is a Nation built on the foundation of a Judea-Christian faith. This must be tempered by the realization that we are a melting pot and not all peoples represented in this Country have their rites and traditions rooted in the same faith. While influenced by the Christian teaching of love, the origins of many of these various marital rites are very different from Christianity.

The proponents of same-sex marriage have tried to affix the label of Christianity to traditional marriage because it makes for a much easier and popular target. It is no secret that the political establishment has long resented and wanted Christianity removed from having any impact on society. Hollywood elites have longed disdained the teachings of morality and fidelity, and corporate tycoons have loathed the constant reminders to check their greed. Emboldened by the populace perception of Christianity as the evil menace to society, homosexuals have seized the opportunity to target and persecute Christians.

The prevailing argument is that homosexuals are loving couples that wish to have a marital relationship and therefore should not be denied this affirmation of love. This idea that a loving relationship is the fundamental basis for marriage is simple not correct. The institution of marriage was not created in any culture to validate a couple’s love and physical intimacy. No, the first and primary reason for the rite of marriage in every civilization throughout time was for the propagation and protection of the most fundamental and basic building block of society: babies.

The idea of a loving relationship as a prerequisite to marriage is a Western concept that has descended down from European lore and exacerbated by the modern Hollywood culture of today. In some Eastern marriage traditions, the idea of love is viewed as “bonus” that may come with time after the vows have been consummated. The one constant in every civilization is the purposing of marriage tradition as the vehicle by which children are brought into the world, raised, and taught the tenants of that society.

Not every marriage structure has demanded that physical intimacy be kept exclusively for marriage as Christianity and Islam do, but all the marriage rites of every civilization have agreed that the primary purpose of marriage was and is procreation. If a society is to survive it must have a stable structure in which to produce and raise children. The issue of marriage is simply about babies.

Even in the face of our hedonistic society the overarching truth still remains, marriage was created first for procreation not for love. It is a societal and religious rite created by heterosexuals for this primary purpose. Homosexuals did not create the rites of marriage represented in our Country and passed down by the various ethnic groups. The cold truth is homosexuals cannot procreate and, therefore, do not qualify for the purpose of marriage. Love does not qualify one’s relationship for marriage.

Marriage was not created for romance, love, or even sexual pleasure. While those ideals are not excluded, the harsh reality is that marriage was created by heterosexuals for heterosexuals who could, if they desired, create children. Marriage is exclusive for that purpose. Sadly, we are willing as a Nation, to target and revoke the rights and liberties of certain people groups based on reasoning that does not even exist.

Mar 6 2015

Duplicitous Surreal

Can you imagine being a part of a Party where you must operate in fear of showing loyalty to your own Country? Senator Robert Menendez has found out that the Democrat party is just that sort of Party.  Not days after criticizing the President’s treaty with Iran, the Senator from New Jersey finds himself the target of an investigation by the Department of Justice.  Whether the Senator is guilty or not, the speed in which the President has retaliated is a wonder to behold.  The same President, who is oblivious to any scandal within his scandal plagued administration, unsure of how to classify terrorism, gives nary a sniff at the corruption of his Chicago land cronies, and never utters a word of concern for all those in his administration that have terror ties, now has suddenly found the time to emerge from a golf course to climb atop the high horse he has demanded Christians vacate in order to ensure that members in his Party…. just do-the-right-thing….even if they are..left of everything.

This sudden adherence to integrity would be heartwarming save for the surreal duplicitous atmosphere that the Democrat Party generally operates in. Take the matron not-so-saint of the Democrat Party, Hillary Clinton, who is now trying to explain why she has exclusively used, not just personal email, but a personal server, to do Federal business on, yet she excoriated and fired her employees for doing the same thing and publicly rebuked President Bush in 2007 for using personal emails citing it as a violation of the Constitution.    Clinton recently decried American business bemoaning unequal pay for female employee, but the females on Clinton’s staff are paid 20% less than the males.

The speed in which the White House has snapped the punitive lash over Menendez simply brings into stark clarity what is very wrong about the Democrat Party.  While a semblance of Patriotism may still exist in some of the rank and file Democrats, most of the leadership has wholly given themselves to the belief that America is evil and must be punished and any amongst them who defy that agenda will be punished severely.