Tag Archives: Obama

May 2 2012

Slight of Hand

 

Nothing is more repugnant to a civilized culture than to have its most vulnerable exploited.  Even the more appalling are revelations that such behavior could be practiced by the leaders we entrust with guardianship of the domestic tranquility.  Sadly, this reviled behavior has raised its festering head as the election tips the horizon.

The Government Accounting Office (GAO) has called out the Obama administration for a Medicare bonus payout that the White House was trying to quietly work into the Medicare system.  The payout consists of an $8 billion bonus program that is to be divvied out to various healthcare groups throughout the United States.  The GAO calls these groups “mediocre” and admonishes the President that the plan is “badly designed” and is “unlikely to have meaningful results”; in fact, the plan would only delay the impending Medicare disaster until….after the election.

“What disaster?” the reader might ask?  The Medicare trustees announced that Medicare would crash, run out of money, between 2016 and 2020. With so small an amount of money, comparative to the Medicare crises, being pushed forward, obviously that’s not the disaster that the President is worried about.  What, then, is the looming Medicare disaster so close to the election that has the White House wringing their hands?  In order to fund ObamaCare, the Democrats cut $500 billion from Medicare, $150 billion of which is from Medicare Advantage.  These cuts to Medicare will hit seniors a month before the election, in enough time for the realization to set in before millions of Medicare recipients cast their ballot.  Instead of joining Paul Ryan, Republicans and some Democrats who are desperately and repeatedly trying to save Medicare, the President prefers to stealthily move money from a Medicare slush fund into the Medicare Advantage program even though it is “unlikely to have meaningful results”.  Simply put, $8 billion cannot cover, by any stretch of the imagination, $500 billion.

The President calls this an “experimental” program.  The flippant tossing of $8 billion at an “experiment” is, for the reader, representative of an unfortunate pattern with this leadership especially in the light of the administration’s litany of fiscally “prudent” expenditures such Solyndra, GSA, TARP, General Motors, etc., etc.  The President also claims it is to reduce the deficit.  Moving monies from one fund to another does not change the deficit…period.   Has this man ever balanced or budgeted anything?  This arrogant disdain for the citizen’s perception and intellect is, in itself, repugnant.  The move to inject a temporary “bonus” into the system is nothing more than a seedy political move by the President to anesthetize the electorate against the effects of his failed policies until after the election.  Once the election is done, it is simply too late.  The cuts will still devastate Medicare and Medicare Advantage.  The President is just working feverishly to keep some of our most vulnerable Americans oblivious to their calamity until he can be elected.  And then…well…he’s elected.  In essence, what President Obama and the Democrat Party are saying to our seniors and retirees is this, once we’ve gotten what we need from you, we’ll take from you what you so desperately need and thought you had.  Are we the people going to stand for it?  The true test of a society is how it cares for its most vulnerable.

Apr 16 2012

Stacked Deck or House of Cards

The smug and arrogant disdain that the Maine media has for its readers and Maine residents, for that matter, has reached new and disturbing heights this past month. Donald Sussman, the billionaire husband of prominent Democrat U.S. Representative Chellie Pingree, purchased the media group that owns The Portland Press Herald this past year.  Some merely attributed it to a tax write-off move, as the media conglomerate was hemorrhaging money.  Others, such as this columnist, proposed that, in light of the dismal fiscal outlook for the paper, there was a more sinister reason for the “timely” purchase of the media group.

The acquisition has conveniently come on the eve of his wife’s latest campaign for office.  But the cynical have been rebuked by those in the media for fabricating a conspiracy where none exists, until the recent revelations that Mr. Sussman’s papers have blocked any editorials which criticize his wife.  The media mogul’s defense of his wife would be admirable if his wife were not an elected official whose record and policy must be scrutinized and critiqued by her peers and constituents in an public campaign.  This latest flaunt of the stranglehold the liberal left have on print media here in Maine tells of a last desperate and very troubling stand the Democrats are more than willing to make to retake their power over Maine and crush the first flickering flames of reformation within this great State.

Democrats know that those outside of their media market are so disgusted by their lies and blatant propaganda, they either simply don’t vote and remain disenfranchised or they choose to find their information through different and more credible sources.  So they must focus on those still within the fold.  They must follow the Sussman model of blocking dissenting views from reaching the minds of those they control.

Democrats also know that they have been successful in blunting the reformation attempts of the Governor by manipulating the weak leadership of the Republican legislature.  The GOP has heard the outcry against the obstructionist tactics of the Democrats’ moderate allies within the Republican ranks.  It is more than likely, if Republicans can maintain a majority in November, the tepid moderate leadership of the legislature will be replaced with strong conservative leadership, which will work with the Governor rather than against him.  This will herald the acceleration of the much-needed reform to the State of Maine and portend the anticipated rollback of the fiscal gloom that Democrats have toiled so hard to blanket the economy of Maine with, statewide.  This is a crucial last stand for Democrats.  They are building the media firewall now.

These tactics are not relegated solely to the State of Maine.  On the national level, media, both print and televised, have arisen to once again shield the Democrat party from the light of scrutiny’s beacon.  The searing heat of objectivity and fact must not reach those they pet and worship.

For instance, we have the Buffet rule.  Economists state that if the rule were implemented, it would gain the government six billion dollars per year. What the media refuses to acknowledge is that the Obama administration is increasing the debt at a rate of six billion dollars per week.  So the Buffet rule is really just silly math not worthy of grade school discussion.  It’s more for a campaign to afford those who stand on the deck of America’s sinking fiscal ship, a bat to bludgeon those “vile rich people” who are the very ones trying to throw them a lifeline.

Ironically, Warren Buffet has not paid his income taxes in some time.  This seems to be a pattern amongst the friends of the President.  Perhaps if the media were honest, they could expose the fact that the Buffet Rule is simply a re-burnishment of the tired old Democrat adage that rules and regulations are for everyone else to obey and for Democrat allies to ignore.  Sadly, blinded by its own pride and agenda, the media will not scrutinize anything.

A wise man said, “Pride goes before a fall.”  The Democrats have been so smug in the pompous belief that they can say what they will with no repercussions, they grown less careful about covering their deeper darker motives.  Now perhaps, they have made a final fatal trip of the tongue.  Democrats have attacked America’s greatest and most treasured institution, our mothers.  Flippantly discounting the countless hours mothers labor to hold up the bedrock of this great society, the Party, whose symbol is an ass, is seeing their stacked deck crumbling like a house of cards.  Perhaps it would have been better for the media to strengthen their candidate and Party of choice with critique than to let them flounder in misbehavior without fear of the recourse of discovery.  Set to the plummet of fact, their structure of character may have been more substantial than a falling, fluttering tower of cards.

Apr 10 2012

Lawbreaker

 

We are a nation of laws.  It is how we maintain the public peace.  Our businesses rely on laws to validate and insure the contracts in which they operate.  Law is the means to hold the members of a civil society accountable to decency and responsibility.

I would suspect that a majority of Americans have at one time or another found themselves crossways to some rule or regulation.  While we all may grouse and grumble at the results of our negligence or maybe just plain rebellion, oftentimes it soon becomes clear that some laws were put there for the protection of the public.  So we respectfully submit to the repercussions of our actions.

Not so for the members of the Democrat Party, who forage the halls of Washington D.C. in search of more slush funds to consume.  The Federal government is supposed to pass a budget each year.  It’s the law.  Senate President, Harry Reid, has refused to even allow budgets, passed by the House of Representatives, to come to the floor to be voted on and now the Federal government has not had an operating budget for three years.  The “Honorable” Mr. Reid claims that the Republican led House has not put forth a budget to vote on.  Yet the House has repeatedly put forth bi-partisan budgets, passed in the House, that Reid will not acknowledge for a vote.  The Senate President seems more content to break the law than to honor the legislation of a duly elected House of Representatives, the laws that govern him and responsibilities required of him that are vested in the position and authority he currently retains.

Perhaps Mr. Reid is pouting in frustration that the budgets presented by President Obama cannot make it out of the House with a single positive vote.  Yes, the House of Representatives have voted unanimously against the executive budget proposals on multiple occasions.  Barack Obama has proven to be so inept on matters of budget that both Democrats and Republicans have refused to have the President’s fiscal disaster on their hands and have voted a resounding bi-partisan “no”.  That’s zero, Z.E.R.O, zero votes for the President.  Strapped with a leader in the Oval Office that is feckless at best on matters of economy, Harry Reid has decided that perhaps it is best if the law does not apply to him.  Better no budget, than a balanced budget.  Sadly, Mr. Reid, even the nation of Mexico has an operating budget.  Shouldn’t we at least try?

But Mr. Reid is not the most notable lawbreaker amongst Democrat leaders.  President Obama now finds the signature act of his administration in direct challenge to the Law of the Land, the Constitution.  As ObamaCare weighs before the Justices of the Supreme Court, the President has taken the unprecedented tact of threatening the highest court of the United States while it is in deliberation.  The President challenged the court’s authority to judge the constitutional merit of a law, which is one of the primary purposes of the Supreme Court.  This outraged the American people and rightly so.  The President has spent the week trying to “walk back” his words, but curiously, trying to couch his words in such a way as to leave his threat on the table.

This leaves the citizens of the United States with these questions.  If the President is the Constitutional lawyer he claims to be, then is he simply an inept, incompetent lawyer or is he someone who fundamentally disdains the system of checks and balances that founding fathers established?  If you were a Party who believed the government should rule the people, not the people rule the government, wouldn’t you view laws that held you accountable and checked your actions as frustrating encumbrances or barriers to the advance of your agenda?  Something to think about.  What is certain is this. When we the citizens break a law, we pay a fine or face incarceration.  When our leaders in Washington break the law and are exposed, they, by their actions, tell we the people to simply go to Hades.