The Smoke Break

You want some brie with that whine?

Let Us Marginalize

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In the latest of a string of reports and statements from those in the federal government, both FBI Director, Robert Mueller and former President Clinton recently donned their best Daddy Dearest ballcaps and issued statements warning about the dangers of “extreme” anger that might surface from the right.  Progressive liberal code for the Tea Party protests and in stereotypical hypocritical contrast, of course, to His Transparency’s excuse after the Fort Hood shooting, “We have seen, in the past, rampages of this sort.  And in a country of 300 million people, there are going to be acts of violence that are inexplicable.”

Both the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing and the recent bust of the wacko Hutaree militia, not to mention the Islamic-raged Fort Hood shooter, have highlighted the fact that they do, indeed, walk amongst us.  But the dangers posed by a few, no matter what side of the political fence they ride, are no reason to tar the majority of Americans with the same brush of suspicion.  Nor does it show any kind of logic or reason to dismiss active Tea Party members because allegedly a whole lot of them happen to be white and work for a living, and while working manage to not only actually spend their money wisely but to save some of it, too.  (Where, exactly, do you think all that money spent on entitlements come from, anyway?)

Yet that big, broad brush is being swept gleefully as the left’s last, best hope to save its sorry political skin in articles by all sorts of media.  Based on a poll taken by CBS and the New York Times:

Tea Party supporters are wealthier and more well-educated than the general public, and are no more or less afraid of falling into a lower socioeconomic class….

The 18 percent of Americans who identify themselves as Tea Party supporters tend to be Republican, white, male, married and older than 45.

…while most Americans blame the Bush administration or Wall Street for the current state of the American economy, the greatest number of Tea Party supporters blame Congress.

This is simply a prelude to another gut-busting fight now surfacing, courtesy of the brave yet criminally-beleagured state of Arizona, who just last week made it a state crime to be in the country illegally.  Simply put, it reiterates federal law.  Federal law that goes so unenforced that some estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants have invaded Arizona, resulting in a massive crime wave that authorities believe includes the recent murder of rancher Rob Krentz. 

Those who would coddle blatant criminals are angrily protesting, including members of Congress like Arizona Democrat Representative Raul M. Grijalva, who need those beholden, dependent voters to hold onto their self-perceived power, but these protests bear no resemblance to the peaceful Tea Party rallies.  No, these are reminiscent of the liberal left’s protests against the Bush administration, only this time they come with swastikas painted on the windows of the Arizona state capital with refried beans. 

One attendee,  Bill Baker, was quoted as stating the obvious in a Washington Times article, “If I go to another foreign country, if I go to Mexico, I have to have papers.”  All together now:  “Duh“.   To expect the average American to except and embrace criminals here is insanity.

But that insane argument is exactly what is going to be the rallying cry for the November elections.  President Walking Eagle has thrown down the gauntlet by calling on his 2008 minions of “young people, African Americans, Latinos and women” to deliver for Democrats in November, as well as having the Justice Department “examine the civil rights and other implications” of the new Arizona law.  This is, of course, the same “Justice” department of BO cronies who didn’t bother to take the freebie conviction in the Black Panther voting precinct intimidation case and gave the Underoo Bomber Miranda rights. 

All of which is nothing more than continuing to use the race card to pit those raised to believe in entitlement against those who believe in earning their own way.

Don’t Know, Don’t Care

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“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic;
that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion;
and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”
(the Congressional oath of office; enacted in 1884)

 

This nauseating dose of unrepresenting representative is brought to you courtesy of Phil Hare, House Democrat from the 17th district of Illinois.

 

Serfdom, USA – Strike One

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How does a free people take back their country from a government that has become filled with elitists who think that by virtue of some affirmatively-granted diploma from a progressive, Ivy League institution they can plan an individual’s life better than the individual?  Through a modern revolution, of course. 

Many of us are anxiously awaiting November 2nd and the chance to vote progressive liberals from both major parties out of office.  But in the meantime, even though calls, letters, emails, and thousands of people filling Washington, D.C. continue to go ignored, it is still possible to get the federal government’s attention and let them know we mean it when we say we’ve had enough.

Thursday, April 15th starts what is being called the “Tax Day Strike”.  Simply put, it is a 4-day stretch in which patriotic Americans spend NO money and (when possible) do NO work.  Yes, you read that right.  For 4 days patriotic Americans are going to starve the beast.

The idea behind this is to make it clear to the government and clear to their buddies in the “too big to fail” corporations that we, the people, do not condone their shell games at our expense and that we, the people, refuse to play them.  So plan now.  Request time off , make sure you’ve got enough groceries and don’t need to do any banking.  Then just stay home and spend some quality time with your family and friends.  Attend a Tea Party rally near you on April 15th.  If you find you must buy something, avoid the big chains and “box stores” and go only to a locally-owned business (“Mom & Pop” stores).

No, this won’t stop the world but when enough people stop swiping their credit and debit cards and the big corporations must run for a couple of days on skeleton crews, the lack of transactions – that translates into a lack of charges incurred between business and banks – will cause a nice blip on the radar. 

And THAT the administration will notice.

Serfdom, USA

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If you would be a king, you must have subjects.  But as it is no longer possible to command an army and go off to invade and conquer some unsuspecting country, how do you subdue your own countrymen, particularly if they are a truly free and independent people?  For the progressives, this has been their primary question and the answer has been 100 years in the making.  Aided and abetted by the evil of despotic progressivism in Europe that resulted in both World Wars, the self-perceived intellectual elites have slowly and carefully twisted the inherent goodness and morals upon which the Founding Fathers created this great nation.  Asking over and over that those who would work hard and achieve be “thy brother’s keeper” they forged the chains of modern slavery in the form of federal taxes, Social Security taxes, and Medicare taxes.  Insidiously, they have born down upon the Declaration of Independence’s statement that “all men are created equal” to craft class after class of “victims”, whole groups upon whom they could impress the idea that they were somehow not truly “equal”; conveniently forgetting that the Constitution promises us only equality in the freedom to choose, not equality in the inherent consequences of our choices.

This is not to say that America’s evolution of the definition of equality has not had some merit.  To be sure, to insist that women and all people of color and ethnic origin may have equal opportunity to the inalienable Right to pursue their own, individual Happiness is a good thing, for Liberty is, in Her own way, as blind as Lady Justice and therefore anyone may take their hand.  The problem has come from removing the Great Blindfolds and forcing someone else’s vision of equality of outcome because this can only be accomplished at the expense of others.

That so many Americans have fallen victim (sorry!) to these distortions was seen in the election of Barack Hussein Obama.  On the surface, for America to elect its first black president (even though he is only half black, which makes all the hoopla over it rather half-assed, in my not-so-humble opinion) was, indeed, a vindication of our Constitution.  Yet, as has been proven in the year since, his election was also a most wicked and reeling blow to it.  All his teleprompted rhetoric spoke not to the basic, fundamental and Constitutional values of America, but to the twisted distortions of those values so long and patiently pandered by progressives.  And so America elected a man who would be king, not a president. 

There wasn’t a moment of hesitation before he began his inside job of enslaving his fellow countrymen and, whether they understood why it was happening or not, Americans have watched in worried concern as:

The feds deliberately crashed Wall Street and thereby deliberately trashed the housing market.

The feds took over 2/3 of the American automotive industry.

Unemployment reached double-digits nationwide.

The feds continue to take down the banks.

Unemployment benefits were extended because businesses cannot or refuse to hire under current circumstances.

Congress voted to allow the federal government to take over the health care industry.

Congress voted to allow the federal government to take over the business of student loans.

The feds are now forcing banks to modify loans for the unemployed or underwater or overspent.

Social Security has officially run out of money.

And it is slowly starting to dawn on Americans that all of these activities are being paid for by them.  I recently came across a 2008 article about taxes.  In it, Matt Towery noted:

“…there’s a huge segment of the American population that believes they pay no taxes at all!

You read right. We polled full-time employed Americans and asked them, “Last year, did you pay taxes to the federal government, get a refund or both?”

An amazing 40 percent of respondents said they received a refund only. They didn’t say they paid taxes and then received a refund. They only said that they received a refund.

Nearly half the country believes that they don’t pay taxes to the federal government. They probably know they pay sales and other taxes, such as tolls. But because of our system of payroll withholdings, these folks never notice that on their pay stubs, it says clearly that they are taking home a lot less money than they are being paid by their employers.

So is it any wonder that when this vast portion of the American public is asked whether they believe we should all pay more taxes, in order to bankroll certain popular causes, that they’re often all for it? “

It’s almost laughable.  And while I know that in most of the circles I travel regularly there isn’t anyone who isn’t aware of their federal tax payments, there are some, and dare I say too many, who are really that stupid.  Perhaps most infamously exemplified by this exchange that was broadcast on WJR radio in Detroit, Michigan during the 2008 presidential campaigns:

ROGULSKI: Why are you here?
 
WOMAN #1: To get some money.
 
ROGULSKI: What kind of money?
 
WOMAN #1: Obama money.
 
ROGULSKI: Where’s it coming from?
 
WOMAN #1: Obama.
 
ROGULSKI: And where did Obama get it?
 
WOMAN #1: I don’t know, his stash. I don’t know. (laughter) I don’t know where he got it from, but he givin’ it to us, to help us.
 
WOMAN #2: And we love him.
 
WOMAN #1: We love him. That’s why we voted for him!
 
WOMEN: (chanting) Obama! Obama! Obama! (laughing)

 And another one:

ROGULSKI:  Did you get an application to fill out yet?
 
WOMAN:  I sure did.  And I filled it out, and I am waiting to see what the results are going to be.
 
ROGULSKI:  Will you know today how much money you’re getting?
 
WOMAN:  No, I won’t, but I’m waiting for a phone call.
 
ROGULSKI:  Where’s the money coming from?
 
WOMAN:  I believe it’s coming from the City of Detroit or the state.
 
ROGULSKI:  Where did they get it from?
 
WOMAN:  Some funds that was forgiven (sic) by Obama.
 
ROGULSKI:  And where did Obama get the funds?
 
WOMAN:  Obama getting the funds from… Ummm, I have no idea, to tell you the truth.  He’s the president.
 
ROGULSKI:  In downtown Detroit, Ken Rogulski, WJR News.

All this from Lydon Johnson’s poster child “Model City”, of course.   A place that remains a staunch Democrat outpost, represented by the likes of long-past-expiration-dates John Conyers and the Levin brothers.  A place that has become a veritable melting pot of progressive labeled “victims”:  blacks, Muslims, Hispanics, and union workers, just to name a few. 

Sadly, these people were raised to think this way.  Raised by the progressive ideology that because they are some sort of “victim” they are entitled to the fruits of another’s labor.  And in other, similarly progressive strongholds like California, I can’t help but feel concern as I watch them decide to put the legalization of marijuana on their ballot.  It strikes me as just the thing a modern would-be king and his potential court would do in order to continue to dumb down and subdue a population they wished to conquer.  Oh, sure, the state government is thinking there is money to be made that could help their billions of dollars of debt, and were we governed as intended by the Founding Fathers I personally don’t think I’d have a problem with all drugs being legal and taxed and with appropriate consequences when consumption of them causes harm to another person, however, we don’t live in our Founding Fathers’ world any more, Toto.  No, we live in a land where freedom and responsibility have been disconnected and the consequences of actions are beholden upon the class of “victim” to which you belong, defined by the whims of the federal government.

To whit:

After the Senate passed a “fix-it” bill Thursday to make changes to the new health care law, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the influential Finance Committee, said the overhaul was an “income shift” to help the poor.

“Too often, much of late, the last couple three years, the mal-distribution of income in American is gone up way too much, the wealthy are getting way, way too wealthy and the middle income class is left behind,” he said. “Wages have not kept up with increased income of the highest income in America. This legislation will have the effect of addressing that mal-distribution of income in America.”

Never mind that the so-called “wealthy” have been progressively and arbitrarily redefined to be anyone making over $250,000 a year, the vast majority of them very hard-working small business owners who, after paying their employees and all other business expenses, realistically find themselves living on far, far less than that.  No, sir, they are now a pesky problem, the selfish oafs, and must be forced to share with those who have been taught from their welfare-funded birth ’tis better to receive than to give.

All of this, then, leads to the thought of serfdom.  That place where one is born, one lives, and then one dies for no other purpose except that of being an object, a tool.  Needs are provided solely to the extent they allow you to be productive in the manner the overseer requires to benefit the elite.  There is irony in the fact that America’s first black president is hell-bent on enslaving Americans to that same measure as was once so prevalent in Europe during the Middle Ages; though in some dark, unexamined cranny in the back of his blind and narrow little mind it is perhaps perceived more as some sort of poetic justice, a seed-thought planted there by the likes of left-wing terrorists, communists, and radicals, Ayers, Davis, and Wright.

It is hard to imagine that the descendents, both physical and spiritual, of those who took their freedom from King George and later stormed the beach at Normandy in but one in a long series of defenses of liberty would allow themselves to be placed into the servitude of those who have never performed an honest day’s work in their lives.  And yet that is exactly the unintended consequence Americans now face in electing as president a man who would be king.

Serfdom, USA.

In The Aftermath

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President Walking Eagle is going to sign the Senate version of health care “reform” into law today.  And there will be great rejoicing among the progressive liberals who have managed by both hook and by crook to force another monstrous and unsustainable entitlement program onto the backs of the average American.  Not out of some noble and heartfelt sense of fairness, mind you, but from an egotistical and cynical belief that only government – a small, select group of intellectual “elite” – can do for people what people should be doing for themselves.

It is the 180-degree opposite of the intentions of our Founding Fathers, no matter what they say.  Or, in the case of the Speaker of the Nuthouse on Sunday night, try to say as she failed to pronounce the words of the Declaration of Independence properly, let alone state them in the right order.  Which only goes to show how little attention such people pay to the documents that created what was arguably the greatest nation in the history of man.

But I digress.

In the aftermath of the progressive liberal arm-twisting, threats, and taxpayer-funded bribes that pushed socialized medicine into American reality, it is interesting to note that lawsuits have already been prepared to challenge its legality.  How far they will go when the Senate bill creates a whole new army of IRS agents with neither the billions in funding required nor any legal power to enforce the individual mandate remains to be seen, but the very fact the individual mandate exists, that inactivity in the marketplace has become a crime is, indeed, unconstitutional.  (But, hey, those 16,500 new IRS agents are new jobs!)

Adding to what will be the circus is Senator Chuck Grassley’s announcement yesterday that during the Senate consideration of the House’s “reconciliation” legislation he intends to (again) introduce an amendment that would apply the health care “reforms” to the President, Vice-President, cabinet members and top White House staff .

“It’s pretty unbelieveable that the President and his closest advisors remain untouched by the reforms they pushed for the rest of the country.  In other words, President Obama’s health care reform won’t apply to President Obama,” Grassley said.  “Last December, the effort to apply any new law to administration political leaders was rejected by the Senate Majority Leader.  But there’s no justification for the double standard, and I’ll continue to work to establish fairness.”

The Senate legislation passed last night by the House of Representatives includes an amendment Grassley sponsored and got adopted by the Finance Committee last fall to have members of Congress and their staffs get their health insurance through the same health insurance exchanges where health plans for the general public would be available.  During the closed-door negotiations on the bill late last year, the Senate Majority Leader carved out Senate committee and leadership staff from this requirement.

Subsequently, Grassley and Senator Tom Coburn attempted to offer another amendment to restore the requirement during Senate debate on the health care bill, but the Senate Majority Leader would not let their amendment to fix this loophole even come up for a vote.  In addition to Senate committee and leadership staff, the amendment Grassley and Coburn filed during the Senate debate would have made the President, the Vice President, top White House staff and cabinet members all get their health insurance through the newly created exchanges.  It would not have applied to federal employees in the civil service.

Grassley said, “It’s only fair and logical that top administration officials, who fought so hard for passage of this overhaul of America’s health care system, experience it themselves.  If it’s as good as promised, they’ll know it first-hand.  If there are problems, they’ll be able to really understand them, as they should.”

Grassley said the motivation for his amendments is simple:  public officials who make the laws or lead efforts to have laws changed should live under those laws.

Americans have been griping for years about the perks and benefits Congress has voted themselves at the taxpayer’s expense and how the Senate responds to yet another clarion call for personal accountability – in public, we hope – will serve to put big targets on the backs of those who vote against it.

 

By The Dawn’s Early Light

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Will today be another day that lives on in infamy?  This morning, I wonder.  After much bluster and nonsense yesterday, while thousands of red-blooded American taxpayers gathered at the Capitol Building and the Capital switchboard and computer systems nearly went belly-up from the millions of calls and emails in protest of both health care “reform” and the process by which such ursupation of American liberty was being done, House Democrats backed down on “deem and pass”, that ridiculous parlimentary procedure that would have had them voting to agree that they voted to agree the Senate bill was passed as is.

This is a good thing.  It is one less piece of fabric in Nancy Pelosi’s skirt under which House Democrats can try and hide.  Today will be a straight vote in the House on the contents of the Senate’s version of health care “reform”.  Complete with its taxpayer funding for abortion.

The House will then vote on their demands to the Senate that are intended to amend the Senate bill.  But with the Senate bill passed as is in both Senate and House, His Transparency can sign it into law and the Senate is under no obligation to even consider the House amendment bill.

Which leaves Democrats in both houses of Congress in a bit of a fix.  House Democrats will sign the death warrant of their political career by voting for the Senate bill, even if they vote again in favor of their own amendment legislation.  The Senate Democrats believe they have already caved to the wishes of the same constituents with their version so will sign their own political career’s death warrant if they later pass the House’s amendment legislation, which puts even greater penalties and taxes in place on Americans than what they passed in great haste last Christmas Eve.  And the entire process by which today has been reached has left a bad taste in  the mouths of even those who are in favor of these tyrannical violations of Constitutional freedoms.

Let’s not forget that a rally for amnesty for illegal immigrants is scheduled to take place in D.C. today.  A whole clammering crowd of those who wish only to take advantage of the labors of those who have followed the laws of this great land and, if the Senate bill passes in the House, will end up having their health insurance premiums subsidized by honest, hard-working American taxpayers.  Rather ironic, don’t you think?

Unless the Senate bill fails to pass in the House today the November 2010 midterm elections are certain to be a not just a bloodbath, but a total rout.  Not only of Democrats in Washington but of the Democratic party itself.  For the progressive liberal path upon which Americans have been led by Democrats, lo these last 100 years, is now at long last being seen clearly for what it is:  the death of the Republic.  And though generations of Americans have sat back and allowed the inch-by-inch encroachment on their inalienable Rights and their freedoms, the day has dawned when that line that must never be crossed is right in front of them.

One might almost feel a certain pity for those in Congress today.  They are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.  But this did not become the most powerful nation on Earth without reason.  And that reason is the sane minds of the Founding Fathers, who with preternatural wisdom and foresight created a system through which the best of what is Man could flourish.  It was birthed by the literal blood of patriots then, and will be defended and protected with the figurative blood of patriots today.

One nation. 

Under God. 

Indivisible.

With liberty and justice for all.

House Will Cave If Senate Swallows

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The  changes that the Nuthouse wants to see put in place if they agree to pass the Senate’s version of health care “reform” are now available for our weekend’s reading pleasure.  Frankly, as I begin the task, it again becomes clear that no matter how the poor CBO attempts to score any of this nonsense, it’s going to cost every working American one hell of a lot more than the unholy Trinity of Obama, Pelosi, and Reid would like us to believe.

For example, the $750/employee penalty to be levied against employers who don’t provide health insurance will almost triple to $2,000/employee.

All income, whether taxable or not, will now count towards calculating how much you will have to pay out to help subsidize premiums for other people.  This gets a new name for IRS purposes, “modified adjusted gross income”.

Even though by the time they are 27, the vast majority of normal children are out living on their own and for a few years have been able to sign legal contracts, vote, drink, and be sent to war, the federal government will consider them as helpless and let them remain health care “dependents”.

We, the taxpayers, get to foot the bill of a billion dollars just so the feds can “administer” all the nails in this coffin.  Paid for, in part, by taxing investment income starting in 2012.

All 50 states will have their new Medicaid enrollees paid for by the federal government.  Translation:  you and me are going to pay for all the “newly insured”, as the Democrats like to call them.  Through 2016.  Then the percentage paid by us…I mean, paid by the federal government will drop to 95% and then slide down until it bottoms out at 90% after 2020.  And we…I mean, the federal government is going to pay 100% of the going rate for the services of Medicaid primary care physicians.  But “disproportionate share hospitals” will see their Medicaid funding cut starting in 2014.  At the Secretary’s discretion, of course.

And we can’t forget to subsidize those uninsured in U.S. territories like Puerto Rico. 

There’s one great joke hidden in Section 1304:  $250,000,000 allocated to fight Medicare “waste and fraud”. 

And why the concern about the Social Security Trust Fund, eh?  A whole section is devoted to making sure this “act” has no impact on something that was always supposed to have been held separate.  As if Congress is suddenly afraid they’re going to raid that empty cookie jar?

Then there’s the $2 billion set aside for training.  And a whole section devoted to the “SAFRA Act”, which includes funding for federal Pell Grants, an additional $13.5 billion for student loans through 2012, a nod to the race card with monies allocated for “historically black colleges”, and a whole reworking of how loans are paid back (and not paid back).  Exactly how this will help health care in the United States requires tenuous reasoning at best.

It is said there is nothing new under the sun, and in the case of these Democrat demands for modifications to the Senate health care “reform” bill, it’s still true.  Funny that with abortion funding being a big red flag in the House, there’s absolutely no mention of rewording the Senate bill.  Which, of course and as it has always meant, we, the taxpayer will be funding abortion.

It is being reported that the phones of those unrepresenting representatives in the Nuthouse are either busy or going unanswered, and tens of thousands of emails continue to be ignored.  Yet the unholy Trinity continues to look into the camera and say, with a straight face, that this usurpation of 1/5 of the private sector is what Americans want.

On the day when the Real Clear Politics poll shows Obama’s job approval rating is now lower than his disapproval rating.

Cue the flying pigs.

Tyranny Stands Before Us

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I read the latest news about the Democrats’ strategy to pass so-called health care “reform” and hear the soft sounds of the Founding Fathers weeping.  Now dawns the day I feared when Americans decided to blindly cast a majority vote for “hope and change” that was designed as nothing more than to cloak taxation without representation.  

Tyranny now stands before us.

I’ve never seen such insanity emanating from Washington, D.C. and I fear for my beloved country.  Looking at the larger picture, I’m aghast at the sheer laziness of so many generations of Americans that has allowed the progressive liberals to lead them by the nose down this wicked path to enslavement.  A laziness that thinks it’s perfectly fine for the government to keep stealing more and more hard-earned taxpayer money in order to spend it on what is, in the end, not really help but instead simply entitlements for a never-ending cast of know-it-all progressive liberal “intellectually-elite”-defined “victims”.  Actions have consequences, intended or not, and outside of some Ivy League fantasy they are the individual’s responsibility.  Whether from having borrowed or spent more money than can possibly repaid and therefore losing your house or failing to use birth control and getting pregnant, stupidity doesn’t make you a “victim”, it just makes you…stupid.  And no one else should be forced to bail you out.

Still, there are times when people honestly need help, but such charitable endeavors rightly belong to the private sector.  Neighbor is the one to help their neighbor, not the federal government.  The job of the federal government is by Constitutional design little more than to keep the country secure, to maintain interstate infrastructure, and to help keep relations between the states smooth.  But Americans have continued to take the easy way out, handing over bigger and bigger chunks of their paychecks to old Uncle Sam instead of writing a check to charity themselves or, heaven forbid, actually volunteering their time and getting their hands dirty.  They hand over their personal responsibility to help their neighbor through ever-increasing payroll deductions and then lay claim to virtuous deeds performed on their behalf after a hefty skim off the top to pay bureaucrats double the going price in the private sector.

It’s hogwash.

It didn’t used to be that way in America.  And when the federal government wasn’t running the private sector and doing for the individual what is the individual’s responsibility to do for themselves that was when this country was great and it was what made this country so powerful.  People directly helping other people, not sitting around and selfishly waiting on the federal government to “spread the wealth”.

To the nuns and the Catholic Health Association, and anyone else who now suddenly, conveniently thinks the Senate health care “reform” bill is “good enough” in its abortion language because the House is willing to circumvent Constitutional checks and balances to pass it on partisan party lines based solely on some flim-flam sham of a promise to “fix it all later”, I say this:  you have no right to demand that any American involuntarily donate to your cause.  Willing or not, who do you think supports your efforts now?  All charities are given tax breaks that come at the expense of the general population, regardless whether those within the general population agree with their work or not.  Don’t demand that we now be forced to subsidize abortions with our tax dollars because you, personally, want to “help” more people.  Wanting to help is all fine and noble, but it belongs to the individuals within private sector to fund at their discretion, not the federal government.

To members of Congress, particularly those in the Nuthouse, listen and listen good.  A majority of Americans think your ideas about health care “reform” are flat-out wrong and a full 3/4 of Americans think Congress is doing a  piss-poor job and taking this great nation in entirely the wrong direction.  And, though it may surprise you, a majority of Americans DO care about process and slaughtering Constitutional checks and balances in order to violate the Constitution’s declared inalienable Rights of Americans is seen clearly for what it is.  WRONG.  We understand what is at stake here, we see the dangers to liberty that now have faces and names, most with a “D” after them.  Unlike you, we balance our personal budgets and we know that saying you’re going to cut something where there is no realistic chance of that happening but instead spending those “savings” elsewhere is a double-dip.  We know that giving someone money for their health insurance is just a backdoor subsidy that simply frees up their own money to be spent on a policy that covers abortions and in the real world we call it enabling.

Bottom line:  the majority of Americans aren’t stupid.  And so today we weep.

But tomorrow we vote.

“Better Than Nothing” Is A Dangerous Game

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His Transparency makes a great show of what his version of so-called “bipartisan” legislation might look like, but where’s the bill, eh?

Kathleen Sebelius says, “…the American people are desperate.”

Tom Daschle says, “Every time we do [try healthcare reform], the same predictions and the same dire consequences are announced.”

David Axelrod says, “Make my day.” 

The truth is that the American people are, indeed, desperate.  Desperate for proper, Constitutional authority-based leadership in Washington.  Leadership that does not confuse health CARE with the explosion of the business of health care INSURANCE.  Leadership that strives to protect individual, inalienable rights and the inherent responsibilities that go along with them.

The majority of Americans are more familiar with the alleged health care “reform” bills in both the House and the Senate than are most of their unrepresenting representatives.  And the majority of Americans do NOT want anything to do with either one.  The majority of Americans understand the dangers of the federal government usurping control over their access to medical care and control over the kind of care they may or may not be allowed.  The majority of Americans are now wondering just why student loans need to be a part of the “health care reform” package.

And in ways that go beyond simply the horrible matter of the Senate bill allowing federal taxpayer funds to be used to pay for abortions, the majority of Americans do NOT want to be forced to pay for other people’s choices.

This one should have been tossed into the trash a long time ago.  But the Democrats are twisting arms, cutting both deals and throats in a last-ditch attempt to salvage the chance to satisfy their insatiable appetite for control over the lives of others with what amounts to a nothing more than a rotting, stinking heap of unsustainable, unconstitutionally-mandated entitlements.  Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) calls the Democrat’s latest push for overwhelming government control “a political kamikaze mission”.  And to be sure, next November, those in Washington who fail to heed the voice of the American people will find themselves in that long, long, progressive liberal-created unemployment line.

It’s too bad they can’t be ridden out of town on a rail instead.