The Smoke Break

You want some brie with that whine?

Smoke Rings

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Within hours of the 290-135 vote in the House of Representatives for the $32.8 billion expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, approved by the Senate last week, President Obama signed the bill into law. 

SCHIP is designed to help working families who cannot afford private health insurance but earn too much to qualify for Medicaid healthcare coverage for the poor; on the surface it sounds good but with flexibility at the state level in determining income qualifications, the result has been many families who can afford health insurance drop out and use the Medicaid system instead.

I suppose if all you want is for children to have health insurance, then it doesn’t matter.  But just where is all the money going to come from?

Since he is now in a position to well-afford it, our sometime-smoking President is using a 61-cent increase in the per-pack federal tax on cigarettes to help pay for this bill.  That’s a $6.10 per carton price increase, effective immediately.  The new bill also taxes all other tobacco and tobacco-related products, and redefines “roll-your-own-tobacco” to include cigars or cigar wrappers.

Now, if you have a bit of land and think maybe growing your own might not be a bad idea, forget it.  There’s an immediate tax on “any tobacco products, cigarette paper, or tubes produced in the United States at any place other than the premises of a lawful manufacturer of such products”.  Which means, of course, you are no longer free to do as you wish in your own home (that place from which the new Attorney General would like to remove your guns) or on your own property (even though owning tobacco plants isn’t illegal).

But I digress.

Apparently our elected representatives are about as good with financials as Geithner and Daschle.  The published financial impact analysis of this bill “estimates” that it will create a reduction in our unfathomable 10.7 TRILLION DOLLAR deficit of maybe a couple billion dollars.

I want some of what those beancounters are drinking.  As the number of smokers continues to decrease, so, too, will this new-found revenue.  Sure, the cost of health care spent on smoking-related illnesses will drop by some small amount, but the costs associated with cancer and heart disease and obesity continue to rise no matter the decline in the number of smokers, and we’ll continue to insure more and more children who already have coverage, thereby moving the business of healthcare right into the hands of those who’ve been humping for socialized medicine all along.  Replete with the government telling you what it will and will not pay for from a laundry list of what it (and its special-interest medical lobbyists) considers “cost-effective” treatments.  Your health-care choices will no longer be driven by what you or even your doctor wants, even if it’s only a quality of life matter, but by what brings the biggest revenue to a few corporations.

Oh, and by the way, the costs of SCHIP are shared by the states, so while non-smokers are already paying twice for this wonderful program with their state and federal taxes, smokers get to pay for it three times.   As a minority 21% of the U.S. population, that smacks of discrimination, too.

Sit Down and Shut Up

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When The Union Leader, a New Hampshire newspaper, reported in 2006 on psychology Professor William Woodward’s opinions about U.S. leaders and 9/11, U.S. Senator Judd Gregg is quoted as saying that “there are limitations to academic freedom and freedom of speech” and that “it is inappropriate for someone at a public university which is supported with taxpayer dollars to take positions that are generally an affront to the sensibility of most all Americans.”

Senator Gregg, President Obama’s choice for Commerce Secretary, was among those New Hampshire Republican politicans who wanted the University of New Hampshire to fire Professor Woodward. Apparently they don’t agree with the Supreme Court (or several appellate courts) repeatedly upholding academic freedom as a First Amendment right.

Now, while most of us eventually come to learn that discretion is the better part of valor and eventually learn to state our opinions in such a way that others don’t feel like we’ve just run them over with a short bus, the fact remains that those who don’t share our opinion(s) are still allowed to speak their mind.  Personally, I feel that this is one of the major blessings bestowed upon this nation by our Founding Fathers, who wisely realized that open discourse, even if it rankles, is the only means by which the safety of the collective may be assured.

As a lawyer and an elected official for 30 years, Senator Gregg should be intimately familiar with this and though that might well be the case, that he would choose to silence those who voice an opinion with which he doesn’t agree ought to strike as much fear into your heart as does having an Attorney General who doesn’t believe citizens have the right to own guns.

I’m not the only one questioning President Obama’s…ummmmm…judgement in light of his selecting what is fast becoming a litany of tax cheats and liars  for some of the most key positions in his cabinet.  Though admittedly it’s not a bad way to start filling the government coffers, what should now be becoming at least a little obvious is an insidious pattern in the mindset of those with whom he is surrounding himself.

The First Amendment is bad.

The Second Amendment is bad.

Translation:  They don’t want you to talk (think) and they certainly don’t want you to carry a gun. 

Of course this is wrapped up in pretty words delivered with great skill so the unsuspecting won’t see it coming.  That’s the real purpose of  “community organizing”  when following the methods taught by the late Saul D. Alinsky.  Does any of this sound familiar?

“There’s another reason for working inside the system.  Dostoevski said that taking a new step is what people fear most.  Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people.  They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future.  This acceptance is the reformation essential to any revolution.  To bring on this reformation requires that the organizer work inside the system, among not only the middle class but the 40 per cent of American families – more than seventy million people – whose income range from $5,000 to $10,000 a year [in 1971].  They cannot be dismissed by labeling them blue collar or hard hat.  They will not continue to be relatively passive and slightly challenging.  If we fail to communicate with them, if we don’t encourage them to form alliances with us, they will move to the right.  Maybe they will anyway, but let’s not let it happen by default.”  (Emphasis mine.)

Saul Alinsky wrote these words in the prologue of his final book, “Rules for Radicals”.  And it was this that President Obama learned and it was this that President Obama taught others while working for Gerald Kellman’s Developing Communities Project in Chicago’s far South Side.

And it was this upon which President Obama based his election campaign.

While there are certainly things that need changing right here and now, to do so by voluntarily dumbing down, by surrending our sovereignity and our weapons isn’t the way to go about it.  There are far better ways to use that frustration and turn the future into something more viable than blindly follow those who wish our Republic become a socialist regime, to go – and pardon the mixed metaphors – as lambs to a slaughterhouse where those who now glibly blather on and on about unfairness do so only in order to get their own greedy butts to the top of the pigsty.

It’s surely an ill wind that blows across Capital Hill these days and I truly fear we’ve not yet seen the worst of what is possible.  My crystal ball tells me the stimulus bill is little more than smoke and mirrors to hide from us an upcoming power ploy whose sole purpose is to drive those who choose to remain oblivious into deeper blind admiration, and hence subservience.  The better to steal our freedoms with, my dear.

We would all do well to ponder these eerily prescient words penned by Joan Baez back in 1975:

“Idols are best when they’re made of stone,
A savior’s a nuisance to live with at home.
Stars often fall,
Heroes go unsung,
And martyrs most certainly die too young.”

Bad News Comes In Threes

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This evening the Senate voted by a significant majority to confirm Eric Holder as Attorney General of the United States, proving once again that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Mr. Holder has been gunning for this position since the days of Clinton administration and even though his clearly unconscionable role in the Marc Rich pardon has been well-documented, perhaps Mr. Rich’s fugitive mindset has somehow replicated like a rogue virus, magically contagious and able to spirit away the memory cells of our current crop of public servants.  But many outside the Beltway are immune from such funky diseases, and I’m not the only one who remembers that despite the fact that pardons are by definition granted post-conviction, Marc Rich neither took responsibility for his actions nor served any sentence.  He scuttled off to lay low in Switzerland to avoid prosecution for tax evasion, racketeering, and trading with the enemy while his minions here wormed their way into the White House.  Riding on coattails fashioned out of blue cloth that some say bears an uncanny resemblance to a dress once worn by Monica Lewinsky, courtesy of Mr. Rich’s ex-wife, a Clinton friend and major donor to both the Democratic Party and the Clinton Library, the deal was greased and condoned by none other than Mr. Holder.  Who was already on the record as hoping for the Attorney General position in a Gore administration.

It was a brazen and outright piece of brown-nosing but has finally paid off handsomely for apparently Mr. Holder’s alleged “good qualities”, combined with the Senate’s incomprehensible ignorance of history, outweigh the fact that he is a patsy when it comes to standing up to those who wield power and money. 

A fact that I dare say is apparently intended to serve President Obama well in the days to come.  Everyone needs a “good lawyer” in their back pocket.

I’m sure the FALN* members pardoned by former President Clinton agree.  Holder was responsible for signing off on their clemencies, despite the fact that “the FBI was unequivocally opposed to the release of these terrorists under any circumstances and had so advised the DOJ.” (Louis J. Freeh, former Director, FBI)

Mr. Holder also supported the District of Columbia in its case banning ownership of handguns (see District of Columbia v. Heller) that was…ahem… shot down by the Supreme Court and he believes the Second Amendment does not support the individual’s right to bear arms.

Don’t you feel safe now that our nation’s law enforcement is in such good hands?

 

  
* – The Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional (English: Armed Forces of National Liberation, FALN) was a Puerto Rican clandestine paramilitary organization that, through direct action, advocated complete independence for Puerto Rico. At the time of its dissolution, the FALN was responsible for more than 120 bomb attacks on United States targets between 1974 and 1983. The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) classifies the FALN as a terrorist organization. (Wikipedia)

No, It’s NOT Ok

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“Make no mistake, tax cheaters cheat us all, and the IRS should enforce our laws to the letter.”
(Sen. Tom Daschle, Congressional Record, May 7, 1998, p. S4507)

 

It has been reported that Tom Daschle, who holds a degree only in political science and at various times in his Senate career was a member of both the Finance and Ethics committees and afterwards a paid lobbyist (reportedly $2 million in 2008) with Alston & Bird (whose clients include CVS Caremark, the National Association for Home Care and Hospice, Abbott Laboratories and HealthSouth), not only “forgot” to pay taxes on perks received, but has also had “some [other] tax issues” – in one instance being paid $220,000 in speaking fees by health care groups with a vested interest in the work done by the Secretary of Health and Human Services.  Which you should know includes advising the President on matters of health, welfare, and income security programs.

For most of us who’ve been exposed to the corporate world, conflicts of interests are a big no-no.  As is even the appearance of impropriety.  Full disclosure is required at the first sign something might be or might be “merely” perceived as being even the slightest bit amiss.  When even the  perception of vested or conflicts of interests ruin one’s credibility in the business world, I have to ask – why is it any different for those running the business of our government?

Apparently it is different, because despite “concerns” over Daschle’s tax situation, most are going on record saying (at best) they’ve not yet made up their minds about confirming him, or (at worst) that they think it’s ok.  Our President being in the latter camp.

When I was growing up, we were taught that a lie by any other name is still a lie.  Have we grown so complacent we will accept thin justifications based on selfishness over truth – even over black and white law – and honestly believe that nothing can be done?

This may be falsely termed yet another era of change*, but in many respects enough important things remain the same that plenty can be done.  And plenty could have been done had enough people pulled their head out of the sand and taken a firm stance towards responsible accountability and honesty on Election Day*.  Shouldn’t it be common knowledge that every one of those people in Washington are public servants, that they work for every single one of us?  Just because we choose to send them to Washington to represent us doesn’t make them somehow smarter; unless you call the latest examples of deliberate cunning used for the personal gain of Daschle and Geithner intelligence.

I don’t.  And those who cannot lead by example, even the most simple ones like properly paying taxes (when they, far more readily than the rest of us, can afford to pay someone competent to figure out their taxes for them), do not deserve my vote nor deserve the privilege of serving the people of the United States.  Need I spell it out in plain English that if they are, indeed, too stupid to do something as simple as properly pay their taxes they really shouldn’t be representing us in the first place?  Nor should those who think those kind of “mistakes” are ok be in charge of anything.

Bottom line:  blaming your accountant doesn’t absolve you of your personal responsibilities.  The IRS uses those kinds of “problems” all the time to nail criminals wanted for other reasons.  And claiming “confusion” about “reentering private life” is a cheap and smarmy ploy for sympathy; it’s pathetic and inexcusable when that reentrance into a well-heeled private life took place five years ago.

Think about it.  Do we really want such a slow learner (or an outright cheat) in charge of Health & Human Services?

 

 
* – According to the numbers, very little changed after the 2008 election.  In the House of Representatives, 381 of 435 members returned (31 retired; 23 were defeated in either primary or general elections) and in the Senate, only 4 out of 29 running incumbants (5 if you count Minnesota) were defeated.  (Source:  The Corner, National Review Online)

Brother, Where Art Thou?

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Sunday, February 01, 2009 (AP)    “The storm that began in the Midwest has been blamed or suspected in at least 42 deaths, including nine in Arkansas, six each in Texas and Missouri, three in Virginia, two each in Oklahoma, Indiana and West Virginia and one in Ohio. Most were blamed on hypothermia, traffic accidents and carbon monoxide poisoning.”

Thumbing her nose at the proponents of global warming, last Monday Mother Nature unleashed an enormous and deadly ice storm that stretched across the southern plains to the East coast.  Many of the areas do not routinely deal with significant cold or snow, but even those that do cannot forestall the damage caused by heavy icing.

As I write this, almost one week later, the AP reports 700,000 homes and businesses in Kentucky alone still remain without power.  Hardest hit, the area is struggling desperately and people are still dying.

On Friday, January 30th, President Obama declared a federal emergency for Missouri and Arkansas.  As of yesterday, I found myself reading blogs and comments that wondered why he hasn’t yet done the same for Kentucky.

Scary thought, that. 

Ever the cynic when it comes to politics and the media, I started to dig and when I wasn’t able to find any outright pronouncements about Kentucky, I started to wonder if this was perhaps a not-so-subtle chastisement from the “Orchid Office” to non-UAW, profit-making Toyota auto plant-hosting Kentucky?  (Missouri is host to only Big Three UAW plants and was a “blue state” in the election.)

I wondered about the lack of chest-thumping op-ed pieces from the media blasting President Obama for not taking the situation seriously.  The lack of calling FEMA onto the carpet.  Because we all know by now (or should, if we have even half a functioning brain cell) that were this George Bush or any other Republican president, keyboards would be smoking in the effort to post scathing criticisms yet the media remains strangely silent as people, Americans, continue to die.

Wanting only the truth, I continued to research and, at last, with a proper search string, found the following: 

President Announces Emergency Declaration For Kentucky 
Release Date: January 29, 2009
Release Number: HQ-09-012
(Read it here)

Now, getting FEMA’s physical help into Kentucky may end up being eventual cause for criticism, though living where ice is a serious reality the oft-fatal dangers of traversing hilly roads when they are covered with ice and snow cannot be ignored.  At the moment, however, it is only fair to acknowledge that action that could be taken was taken when it was needed.  No matter what color state you live in.  (Though it should be pointed out that when GWB did the same thing before Katrina, ironically, he was later criticized for not having people in place when the storm hit.)

The weather in Kentucky right now shows temperatures across the state have lifted above freezing.  This will allow clean-up and restoration efforts to finally kick into high gear.  Call me in a couple of days if FEMA continues to remain a no-show.

Paying With Our Freedom

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“Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.”

Aristotle was a wise man and I can’t help but wonder what he’d think about the “I won” excuse impolitely blurted out by President Obama.  Surely one is entitled to a bit of gloating after winning what was truly an ugly, bitter campaign fight; however, to actually voice it usually means one has bigger cajones than brain cells.

“Absolute power and authority” and the wielding of same in fist-waving tyranny are those very things against which America was created and against which she has fought long and hard.  She still fights for them today but if the enemy is within, well, the fight will surely cause even more angst and bloodshed and winning will be a hollow victory.  Hollow because it is all so avoidable.  The lessons are right in front of us, yet like bloated sheep too many have closed their eyes to them.

I love our Constitution.  I love common sense just as much.  While all men may be created equal, Louis Napper had it right when he said that none of us are entitled to anything more than the pursuit of happiness.  The day we demand it as our due is the day the snake oil salesmen move into position and sweep our beloved freedoms and rights out from under us.  And with far less grace than could David Copperfield in even his worst performance.

How many of you are familiar with the Global Poverty Act?  I don’t see many nodding heads or raised hands.  Even more frightening than this surface-level-only feel-good little piece of legislation is the fact that so few are aware of it and even fewer understand what it really means.

In a nutshell, the Global Poverty Act would require the U.S. President to deploy a “comprehensive strategy” to help reduce extreme poverty around the world.  It calls for an increase in our nation’s Humanitarian Aid from 23 billion to 98 billion a year.  Estimates place the 13-year total of the U.S. sending .7% of our gross national product out as foreign aid could cost $845 billion OVER AND ABOVE what we already spend.  And none of these figures take into account apparently insignificant facts such as the one that Americans, with their big hearts, sent more money individually to victims of the Tsunami than did all other nations combined. 

What we have here is little more than the President allowing…no, scratch that.  What we have here is the President authorizing the United Nations to tax American citizens.  This man who considers the United States Constitution a “flawed document” is willing to turn over our sovereignty to an organization that no longer serves its original purpose and instead acts as the grasping arms of those who would, quite literally, rule the world. 

You think that’s crazy?  Buried in the Millenium Development Goals of the U.N. are nice little tidbits that, among other things, commits nations to banning “small arms and light weapons”.  Remember the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights?  “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Justice Antonin Scalia, for the majority in District of Columbia v Heller (U. S. Supreme Court 2008) stated, “Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.”  But Justice Scalia won’t always be speaking for a majority who respect the Bill of Rights; President Obama could be appointing as many as 3 Supreme Court justices and with an already questionable track record of selecting wise people for key positions (being smart doesn’t necessarily confer wisdom – or honesty – as has already been proven by both Geithner and Daschle) what has been termed by some as socialist and even Marxist agendas and what I purport are not-so-subtley shown by being an initial sponsor of the Global Poverty Act will almost certainly place the rights so many take for granted in real jeopardy.

It’s been a great 233 years, America.  If we, the people of the United States of America, so many the descendents of men and women as wise as was Aristotle, don’t wake up soon, the question of whether “does that Star-spangled banner yet wave o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave” will be a sad, sad “no”.

How You Like Them Examples?

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It’s a new year and we have a new President.  The Democrats are prostrate in their ecstacy while the Republicans try to salvage some dignity after a ludicrous campaign that resulted in major losses.  Wall Street, the media, and others who lost their sense of personal responsibility in the game of speculation still can’t find their ass with both hands.  The rest of us, of more modest and realistic means, sit here wondering how we’re going to pay our bills as the landscape grows more and more uncertain and the trickle of our tax money becomes a bloody, raging river diverted upstream to bail out those who got us into this mess in the first place.

It’s time to get up off those worshipping knees, toss those rose-colored glasses and take a good look around you.

Right off the bat the Obama inner circle decides Timothy Geithner is a good choice for Treasury Secretary.  I don’t know about you, but it sure gives me a warm & fuzzy that someone besides his mother really believes a man – who was awarded a masters degree in international economics – who conveniently “forgets” to pay his own personal taxes can do a good job watching over the economy of an entire nation.

Now it comes to rather ironic light that he’s shot off his Asian-studies-educated mouth about China “manipulating its currency” – in writing, no less – causing a headlong scramble – led by Joe Biden, no less; he himself a carrier of open mouth disease – to head off the possibility of a trade war.  Don’t care for that kind of icing on the recession cake we’ve been forced to eat of late?  Too bad.  The damage has already been done and the new administration isn’t even a whole 2 weeks old.

Now the news apparently worth just a single day of reporting is that Tom Daschle, Obama’s choice for Secretary of Health and Human Services, also conveniently forgot to pay taxes on a chauffeur perk.  For years.  But accompanied by a large sucking sound coming from the media, since he made up for it and wrote the check on January 2, 2009, it’s ok.

I hate to state the obvious, but no, it’s not.

Just what do these people drink or smoke at night?  How can they believe that these kinds of behaviors have become acceptable in our society?  The message being sent loud and clear from Capitol Hill – purported to be our finest examples of leadership – is that cheating and lying are ok as long as the excuse is “I forgot”.  (And that’s only if you get caught.)

And yet they continue to make fun of and lambast GWB.  Now, I don’t say that in George’s defense for I’ve never been a fan, but the sheer hypocrisy really ought to scare the bejesus out of you.

And last but not least, while those of us struggling to make ends meet in the frigid Midwest sit wrapped in blankets because we’ve turned down our thermostats in order to patriotically save energy and out of necessity to save money, President Obama toodles around the White House in his shirtsleeves with the heat kicked up high enough “to grow orchids”.  Ostensibly because “he’s from Hawaii”.  Anyone else remember that he hasn’t actually lived in Hawaii (or anywhere else toasy warm) for 30 years? He went to college in the Northeast, and spent his entire adult life in the Midwest, neither of which are exactly subtropical paradises. 

As it’s been said, please, don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining.