An Essential Revelation

Would you feel that you were lied to if you found that the Obama regime knew that more than twice as many people would be knocked out of their medical insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act than were uninsured before that law's passage? Forty-five million (45 million) people were reputedly uninsured before Obama Care was enacted. As early as 2010, Barack Hussein Obama and his cadre knew that ninety-three million (93 million) Americans would lose their existing policies under the new law. This article chronicles the extent we were lied to: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2013/10/31/forbes-obama-officials-predicted-2010-93-million-would-lose-health-pl#ixzz2jJGbh1b1. The gift wrapped skunk that few wanted but that was foisted on all of us stinks worse than ever.

As It Is

Political conservatives tend to be realists. Political liberals may be technically competent, successful professionally, educated, knowledable, and smart, but they tend to engage in a sort of magical thinking wherein intentions count for more than results, and where they are able to play ostrich, in that they hide from bad news and information that contradicts their worldview. Some people I care deeply about have evinced these Leftist traits, and are genuinely surprised when they are informed that they placed undue confidence in those who used them as dupes and led them down the primrose path.

Death of Reason

If you or your loved one are in a hospital because you are critically ill, unless advanced life support is provided to assist in transporting you or your loved one to another hospital, you or your loved one are essentially a prisoner at the mercy of that hospital. Let us say your treatment team decides it is no longer worth any effort to save you or your loved one or even provide nutrition and hydration to sustain life (as was the case at Vanderbilt Medical Center with my father Seymour Goodman). Rapid death then becomes inevitable. The highest court in Great Britain just said no law constrains UK hospitals from imposing "futile care policy". In the case, doctors said the patient who was essentially executed by a hospital denying that which would provide any chance at life, claimed the patient who was not treated had only a one percent chance of living if the treatment had been provided, but the certain fact remains that he had no chance at life without it. See the culture of death given imprimatur of law here: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_MED_BRITAIN_WITHHOLDING_TREATMENT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-10-30-07-25-07

Obama's Peace Charade

Barack Hussein Obama has pushed Israel into a corner in which the very existence of the Jewish State is threatened. The Obama regime wants Benyamin Netanyahu to make concessions that amount to national suicide to the Palestinians. At the same time, Obama has not done what was necessary to thwart Iran's drive toward nuclear weapons. Obama dictates to Israel while going hat in hand to plead with the Iranians. Israel has been prodded to release terrorist murderers while Iran is ever closer to obliterating Tel Aviv. "Never again" is proving to be meaningless rhetoric.

The Ultimate Price

The price of a single payer medical system is not the cost of the medical services provided, but the loss of freedom. As government expands, liberty diminishes. It is not mere rising premiums (see this Chad Terhune article- http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-health-sticker-shock-20131027,0,2756077.story#axzz2izA7XLpk) that should concern Americans, it is that every human action or interaction has health implications, and under the banner of protecting patient health, a paternalistic government is able to reach into every aspect of our lives.

Barack Obama's Halliburton

George W. Bush was often pilloried for supposedly "no bid contracts" granted to Halliburton, which was portrayed as absolute evil, during the last Presidency. It now seems CGI Federal might rightly be termed Obama's "Halliburton" with their no bid contract administering the computer system that has not so far delivered on the Obama's more than half billion dollar investment in them and who has also been awarded the contract to deliver two billion dollars in Hurricane Sandy aid without a stellar record of performance in Canada, the nation where the parent company of CGI Federal is domiciled.

Entirely Without Merit

The second term of Barack Hussein Obama has been precisely what commentators on the right predicted it would be. Our President who will not call Islamic fanatics "terrorists" has called Republicans "terrorists, kidnappers, arsonists, and ransom takers". Barack Hussein Obama has actually made substantial cuts in only one sector of our Federal government, that being the Department of Defense. Obama is leaving the nation less able to protect itself from Iran and North Korea and defenseless against a resurgent Russia and the People's Liberation Army of Red China, our greatest existential threat. Barack Obama has inflated the national debt beyond rational comprehension and with his intention to promote Janet Yellen to replace Ben Bernanke as head of the US Federal Reserve, has signalled that he wants to continue printing fiat money until every American literally has money to burn- because US currency is deliberately being made worthless.

Wheels Coming Off

If there are more people riding in our proverbial national wagon than pulling it, our nation will not be able to go very far. There are now more people on the various Federal welfare programs than there are working full time in the United States of America. This excellent Terence P. Jeffrey article highlights this decline: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/census-bureau-means-tested-govt-benefit-recipients-outnumber-full. Editor's note: In addition to unjustly exiling me from the Google AdSense revenue sharing program, Google has apparently disabled hyper-linking to articles by other authors on my blogs. Readers so inclined should search for the links I mention on the search engine of their choice.

Mind Over Murder

I read that my home state of Tennessee is the most crime-ridden state in the union. All I can say to that is that I would rather be in Nashville a thousand times over with my legally-armed law abiding neighbors than in the Windy City of disarmed victims where the lawless run the streets in hellhole Chicago.

Sons of Glitches

Americans have heard much this week about all the "glitches" inherent in the roll out of Obama Care. I do not deny that there is plenty technically wrong with the computer systems set up to enroll millions into Affordable Care's ranks, but I contend the scope of the problems are far broader than programming bugs and point to the ill-conceived scheme in its entirety. Obama Care should be overturned before it crushes not only the uninsured that it supposedly was going to help, but the majority who were already medically insured and eventually, the private sector economy itself.

Obama Sheds Allies

Barack Hussein Obama was going to bring America closer to the world by making America more like other nations and by "leading from behind", that is deferring in international affairs to multilateral bodies like the United Nations. Obama slapped the United Kingdom in the face twice, first by sending back the Churchill bust, and then by siding with Argentina over the Falklands. Obama then expected Her Majesty's Forces to join America in a punitive expedition against Assad after the Syrian Army was alleged to have used poison gas against the Syrian people. In the event, Parliament just said "no". Now, long-time US ally Germany and America's new post UK rejection best friend France are outraged at the American government eavesdropping on their conversations up to and including national leadership themselves. George W. Bush was unpopular around the world but Barack Obama is going to be as popular internationally as a skunk at a cotillion.

Obama Care Irony

Under the Affordable Care Act, most Americans will find they are paying more, not less, for their medical insurance and access to medical services in Bronze or Silver Plans, and will be taxed at punitive rates for selecting a Gold Plan where the plan holder has more covered at a lower deductible. The Affordable Care Act as it was being sold to the public was supposedly going to end the crisis of people not having medical insurance in America. It had already emerged that sixteen million or more would still be medically uninsured after the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. In addition to those who will not be covered, it now appears another sixteen million Americans who do have health insurance are going to forfeit their existing policies due to the Affordable Care Act. Read Jeff McCormack's excellent piece here:http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/millions-americans-are-losing-their-health-plans-because-obamacare_764602.html# . More than thirty million Americans will still end up without medical coverage after two trillion tax dollars have been spent on Obama Care.

Obama's Good Intentions?

Do you really think the GOP wants to see people denied health care? Do you think Republicans want the environment destroyed? They do after all have to breathe the same air and drink the same water as their Democrat neighbors. Barack Hussein Obama has utterly botched the roll out of the Affordable Care Act. Very few Americans are helped but many have been hurt so far by Affordable Health Care's rules that have knocked them out of their former medical insurance or caused their physicians to force them out as patients because of low reimbursement rates or other medical consumers who suffer because their doctors are leaving the practice of medicine early because they will not work in that profession under the constraints of Obama Care. Others are hurt when they find that their new premiums under so-called "affordable care" will soar and their medical deductibles will also go up. I do not presume that any of this damage is an unintended consequence for Obama. I do not credit Obama for any noble objective to provide universal care and do not think the Affordable Care Act was ever designed to work but purposely constructed to cause so much complication that those suffering under it would demand a simplified single payer system as salvation.

The Syria Negotiations

I see no path to peace in Syria despite the new push beginning in Geneva. Assad is rational but unrestrained in committing violence to protect his regime. His opponents are now largely Wahhabists who are al-Qaeda members themselves or share al-Qaeda's absolutist and nihilistic beliefs. These religious fanatics have crowded out most secular opposition to Assad and now both Assad forces (including Iranian Shia proxy Hezbollah) and the Sunni Islamists are targeting the moderates with whom peace might be reached. Who knows how much blood will be spilled and where the fighting will spread (likely into Lebanon, but possibly even spilling over into Turkey, and certainly not calming the sectarian rift in Iraq)?

Sanctity of Life

I have noted in the past that the political Left has a less than reverent attitude toward life. The Left was deliberately cavalier in regard to when life begins so as to continue justifying maintaining the legality of abortion. Now an article has emerged from Canada showing that the Left is not merely callous regarding end of life issues, but openly contemptuous about it. Read Adam Goldenberg cheer-leading for death here: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2013/10/canada_has_death_panels_and_that_s_a_good_thing.html. Here you can witness the bestial nature of Leftists and as Martha Stewart and this vile Jack Kevorkian wannabe might say: "That's a good thing."

Obamacare Website Debacle

The Federal government's website that is the gateway for the Affordable Care Act was supposed to cost ninety million dollars ($90 million). In the event, it has become the most expensive website ever constructed, costing over half a billion dollars ($500 million). The initial cost was bad enough, the cost overrun was terrible, and that the website still does not work, that is unforgivable.

Another Church Attacked

Christians attempting to worship in Egypt by gathering for church services have been murdered yet again by the most devoted practitioners of the "religion of peace". You see, in that faith the best ways to demonstrate that devotion is to kill believers in other faiths (infidels or kafirs), or to die in the process of slaughtering or the attempted slaughter of "unbelievers" and becoming martyrs (shahid). Can you name another faith that currently calls for conversion or death? Where in the Western world are worshippers targeted at mosques and where are Muslims currently under threat from Christians? And where are the voices of political leaders demanding that Muslims honor freedom of conscience and permit people to worship as they please?

More "Irrational Exuberance"

Allan Greenspan uttered "irrational exuberance" years back to tamp down American markets about to boil over, but the same statement about a euphoria gripping Democrats now is certainly in order. What do these partisan hacks think they have won- the love and loyalty of the American people for an Affordable Care Act that even those who want to register for have found a nightmare trying to enroll? Have Democrats won flyover country votes with the mean-spirited and arbitrary closure of National Parks to visitors (except illegal aliens for whom a dispensation was granted in which Federal authorities allowed those demanding amnesty to be given special access to protest on the National Mall during the Federal "shutdown" while even World War II veterans were blocked by the Park Service from war memorials)? Have the Democrats endeared themselves to the coal-producing states by imposing draconian controls on coal-fired power plants? Have the Democrats won America's love by having the Obama's abuse the perks of the Presidency like no First Family before them, with Barack Hussein Obama playing more rounds of golf in five years than any former President has ever played including all the full two-termers, among them the golf-mad Eisenhower; the Obamas taking separate lavish family vacations that as private citizens they never could have afforded, and Obama demanding and successfully extracting concessions from Republicans and then continuing to chastise the GOP after that party has thrown in the towel and given the President his way? Certain Republicans in Congress may have lost support, but that is not because they stood up to Democrat overreach. It is exactly the opposite. Those GOP member who stood strong will survive while those who gave up the fight are in political peril, precisely because they have made common cause with, or are themselves progressives.

Opposite of Dancing

Watching stocks rise on US markets has not been a cause of joy for discerning investors, but has elicited concern that those gains are phony, because they are measured in the US dollar which is increasingly worth less. Of course, shareholders want to see the value of their investments rise, but those in the know are just counting the days until inflation becomes hyperinflation. No American investor wants to be a Zimbabwe billionaire or a Weimar Warren Buffett. You may rejoice to see your 401k's value double, but when the price of all your necessities triples in the same period, you must recognize that you are actually losing ground.

Legacy of Reagan

All is not lost to the political right in America. There are still young, brilliant voices that exemplify the ethos of Ronald Wilson Reagan. Among the inheritors to the message of strong defense, limited government, personal responsibility, and expansive liberty are Mike Lee of Utah, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Ted Cruz of Texas in the US Senate. They have not, as the main stream media suggests, turned off the voting public, but galvanized the right and given hope that behind these minds and the other rising conservative thinkers in the US House and in the states, we will hold the House, retake the Senate, and win the Presidency in the next voting cycles. Worthless Republicans are sullying the brand, but there is still plenty of fight in real conservative leadership across the country.

Obama's Republican Pets

When nothing stands between a country's leader and capricious rule, the citizens of that country are no longer free. When Republicans comply with virtually all Barack Hussein Obama desires, Obama no longer has an opposition party but a pliant dog that may growl a little occasionally but always grovels to kiss master's hand in the hopes of receiving a few scraps from master's table. The GOP under its current leadership is on bended knee. The Republican Party of Ronald Wilson Reagan is well and truly dead and in abandoning its principles and giving up in the government shutdown and debt ceiling fights, that party died by its own hand.

Crashing the Markets

If the Republicans hold the line on fiscal sanity, they will be blamed for default and the resultant rise the US will have to pay to borrow and the crash in our markets that is sure to engender. Ironically, the people fighting to restore a modicum of restraint in Federal government spending and trying to prevent inflation caused by increasingly worthless fiat money will be held responsible for US markets tanking. But it is the TEA Party faction on the right of the Republican Party that may yet be able to save America as She was founded.

Disappearing the Scandals

The flight George Bush never took on a non-existent SR-71 to Paris to make sure the Iranians held their American hostages until just after Jimmy Carter left office merited the scrutiny of Congressional Democrats and an inquisitive media, based on the "seriousness of the charge". The Left gladly carried the water in spite of the fact that the charges were a complete fiction contrived to destroy the GOP. What has happened to the very real scandals of Barack Hussein Obama's administration, notably Fast and Furious, reported by network journalist Sharyl Attkisson and no one else I am aware of in main stream media and virtually forgotten by all but the most strident Rightists in Congress when if the shoe were on the other foot, we know a Democrat Congress and the legacy media would never have let it rest? Where is the journalistic muck raking and the Congressional investigation into the Benghazi Massacre? If a Republican had presided over the disaster in Libya, would network newscasts and Democrat leaders let it slip away? Finally, few in the press or politics have dug into the IRS being used more than ever as a political weapon or tried to evaluate the impact that denying and/or delaying 501c3 status to TEA Party and conservative groups while routinely granting it to liberal and progressive groups had on the last election cycle including the Presidential election? Do you think if the GOP was using the tax authorities to squelch dissent that it might be reported on the network news?

Not a Prank

Good Morning America reported a "prank" wherein someone exploded dry ice in a plastic bottle in an employee bathroom at LAX. The airport was evacuated, hundreds of flights were delayed, and thousands of people inconvenienced. The act may not have been a terror attack, but it was no prank. If not perpetrated by a terrorist, the bomb maker was malicious and a criminal.

No Compromise Possible

Barack Hussein Obama wants total victory- not over the Taliban- he is now willing to reach an accommodation with them- but over Republicans. Obama is intent on destroying them, or on allowing moderate Republicans to destroy their Party themselves. He has given up any pretext of give and take. There is no room for negotiation. In Obama's statements, Republicans are "hostage-takers" and "ransom-seekers". Obama is now even insisting on throwing out the sequester cuts that he himself proposed that became law in 2011, so that he may engage in unfettered, blank check spending without Congressional oversight or restraint. Obama will talk to Iran but now feels empowered to dictate to the GOP. Patriots must not let him.

Republican Kamikaze Crew

It appears that GOP House leaders are preparing to fold in the fight to try to restore fiscal sanity to Washington. If the national Republican Party fails to defund Obama Care, then the next logical step by America's conservatives must be to defund them and direct any and all contributions to those GOP Representatives and Senators who are still resisting the leftward menace until the Progressive poison is drained from the Republican side and the spirit and legacy of Reagan return to power in DC.

Its Own Weight

It is amazing to see Obama Care so poorly administered that it is collapsing under its own weight at its very inception. Social Security was up and running without technology as we would recognize it more than seventy years ago. Medicare was up and operating with what we would consider today primitive and rudimentary computing back in the 1960s without the chaos the Affordable Care Act is causing. The best chance of seeing Obama fail has been giving him the chance to succeed. In the event, Barack Hussein Obama has shown himself to be a miserable manager who probably could not on his own ability even run a retail store.

Those Seeking Notoriety

Too many people want Andy Warhol's "fifteen minutes" of fame. The majority of celebrity seekers are not able to rise to accolades but are more than willing to sink into infamy. For the life of me, I can not imagine why a performer with real talent would stoop to exhibitionism to expand her audience, nor why someone would permit cameras in what should be private space to be featured on reality TV. The lowest common denominator has seized the ratings and the family hour on the old letter networks has decent parents turning off their sets.

Outside, Looking In

We are not the powers that be, the elite. We do not have the US Presidency, or the US Senate, or even a majority of the US House of Representatives, because we are not Republicans, and certainly not Democrats, but Americans who love our nation as She was founded. And there are millions of us. We have our voices in Washington and on talk radio and we will not sit silent while you try to steal our country. We do not need "transformation" in our country, but reverence to the Lord, the Bible, and the US Constitution with its plain meaning from Natural Law from which all rights stem.

Overplaying His Hand

Many voters supported Barack Hussein Obama because they thought he would be a champion for the "little guy". Do his heavy-handed tactics and hurt the public as much as possible antics during the government shutdown portray Obama as a friend of the people? Obama now resembles a willful child who brings his ball to a pick up basketball game and then runs home with the ball when he starts to lose. I have in the past called the President "insouciant", but I did not give him proper credit. In the shutdown with his orders apparently to be make the citizenry hurt, Barack Hussein Obama has shown himself to be deliberately destructive.

A Leader State

When a nation's leader does not enforce the law as written but selects which laws or which portions of laws he will enforce like he is going through a buffet line, that leader is ruling by fiat. Barack Hussein Obama has throughout his administration done just that on issues from enforcing our borders to gay marriage, has recently given waivers from the Affordable Care Act to selected businesses and labor unions and now has even delayed implementation for corporations for another year. Major employers were given a reprieve not based on any part of the law as Congress had written it, but because the President wanted some of the pain Obama Care will cause delayed until after the 2014 elections. Leader states tend not to produce happy endings for their own citizens or the world.

Life and Property

After witnessing fatal floods in middle Tennessee, I would say Louisville was lucky, actually blessed, that the third most rain in a day since records were kept did not kill anyone. Some basements and garages were soaked and some vehicles damaged, but all in all, Louisville survived the rising waters intact.

Retreat to Disgrace

Barack Hussein Obama sent SEAL Team Six on a clandestine mission to Somalia without air support, artillery support, or even covering fire from Navy ships or cruise missiles, and the Islamist terrorists drove US forces back. That Third World thugs drove our forces away is no disgrace to the heroic American warriors who put their lives on the line on the ground, but to the chain of command right up to the President that should have carpet-bombed such a terrorist-infested area out of existence, and not exposed special operators to such unnecessary risk in a failed effort at what was supposed by those who authorized it to be a spectacular morale-boosting quick in and out raid.

Greeting A Deluge

One of the oft-repeated themes of this blog since the millennial flood in Nashville in May 2010 has been floods that I have found myself in in my travels. Today, I find myself in Louisville, Kentucky in the midst of the third worst twenty-four hour rainfall Louisville has experienced since records were kept. I am saddened that my soon to be neighbors (as I will be moving here on a more permanent basis) are afflicted with the sudden destruction water can bring. May the Lord protect us all.

The Chemical Brothers

Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against Kurds and Iranians. He ended up at the end of a noose. Bashar Assad has apparently got by with a comparable crime in Syria, but he has a better press agent.

Our Vindictive Masters

Our Federal overlords are now even trying to block access to tourist attractions that receive no Federal funding. All while Barack Hussein Obama tries to crash the markets by talking up the prospect that the Federal government is about to default on its debt due to recalcitrant, unreasonable, and uncompromising TEA Party Republican members of the US House of Representatives. The ruling cadre are practicing Alinsky-ite vengeance against their countrymen and are glad to see you suffer as much as possible as payback for America's former (pre-Obama) prosperity.

A Reality Check

Barack Hussein Obama is, in a fit of pique, doing much to inconvenience and hurt the public unnecessarily in the so-called "shut down". He demonstrates petty vindictiveness toward child cancer patients by denying treatment that even the House GOP majority offered to fund. Obama closes areas to tourists that none of the seventeen previous government shut downs have ever closed. Obama has never been able to spread the wealth but he is certainly wantonly spreading the pain.

Our Chicken Littles

Do you want to rely on government? That makes you a slave to that entity. Do you want government to reach into the wallet of someone with more than you have, steal from them to give to you? That makes you an accomplice to theft. Do you want a government agent in the exam room with you and your doctor? That makes you a fool. For me, I want the government to clear the deck and allow me to fail or succeed on my own merit and through my own effort.

Sun Came Up

The GOP held their ground and we are in a so-called "shut down" of the Federal government. The sun still came up. The sky did not fall. The military continues to defend the nation. The US Postal Service will continue to deliver the mail. Social Security recipients will still be paid. The only real consequence of the failure of the Democrat majority in the Senate and Barack Hussein Obama to negotiate with House Republicans is that eight hundred thousand so-called "non-essential" Federal workers will either stay home or work a half day today. My question is: If they are "non-essential", why does the Federal government employ them in the first place?