Obamacare Upheld Entirely

Article here.

So much for the survival of the Republic. Now that government intrusion into every facet of life is justified as long as it is considered a “tax”, anything and everything can be justified. Anyone who believes this to be a center right nation needs to look long and hard at the United States, for it has drifted firmly into the hands of the left. Tyranny has risen and will continue to rise unabated.

I wish I could feel more emotion about this than I do. But it is hard to when the writing has been on the wall for some time. What is surprising to me is how many on the right thought the Supreme Court would defend the Constitution like it was supposed to. That has not been the case for many decades.

It is fascinating that taxation was used as the justification for the package of laws called Obamacare. This country was founded by a rebellion against unfair taxation and so it seems appropriately ironic that it dies by taxation. People never learn that governments are infinitely greedy and have a hunger for taxes that is insatiable.  I pity the small business owners who will be crippled financially by all this.

There are those who believe this will be repealed. That is pretty much impossible, but running on that will give Romney the win in November.

I wonder if anyone still believes George W. Bush was a conservative after his biggest court appointee went hard left on the most important ruling in a generation?

Insert Title Here

Pick a title, any title, my creativity is not flowing today. While I have more energy than I did over the weekend, yesterday was a busier than usual Monday and so today is already dragging and it is not even 10:00 am yet.

One thing worked on yesterday was revamping and partially rewriting an old movie review. While I have done this to a minor degree before, this is a much more comprehensive overhaul which makes it a learning experience. Today it should get finished and it is about time I figured out how to bump a post to the front page. If I remember to, that is.

It is spring, so thoughts of maybe following baseball have emerged again. I find it ridiculous that streaming MLBTV online costs $20.00 a month. How sports fans can continue to fork out insane sums of money for PPV, tickets, and merchandise is beyond me. All I can surmise is that it is the latest form of idolatry to afflict the masses and there isn’t even a dollop of spiritual rewards promised.

I am not pleased with the Supreme Court ruling on strip searches. While it is a sad testament to the decay of society that such searches are often needed, the ability to force them on a person if they are arrested for anything is way over the line. The argument that ruling against them would have a “chilling effect” on law enforcement is somewhat legitimate, but when are we going to stop ceding all our civil liberties to the government?

Meanwhile, President Obama took another step toward tinpot dictatorship by threatening the Supreme Court over Obamacare. Why he thinks this will work when even Franklin Delano Roosevelt could not pull it off? FDR was far more popular and had much broader support, but the public completely rejected his attempts to bully and replace that branch of government. Rallying the base is one thing, but when it alienates everyone else it is not even a zero sum gain. It is a loss.

That is a lesson that seems to have been forgotten by a lot of politicians across the spectrum of late.

The wrong hood was ordered for the car and a new one has been placed. Hopefully a sunny day will arrive soon (forecast says tomorrow) to continue work on straightening metal. There is still a radiator attachment made of plastic that I have not figured out how to repair. Since the only other option is replacing the entire radiator, it has to be solved. Normally, a pin could be inserted into a drilled out hole, but I am afraid of leaks from the area if I do drill. Sigh. I probably could seal it well enough if that happens.

I am puzzled how people think that increased manufacturing with decreased demand is a positive sign, even in the short term. All it means is inventory will increase, which is not a good thing in a “just in time” economy. But if there is one thing I have learned about economic experts and investors is that anything can be tortured into becoming good news when desperate.

My growing suspicion is that the US stock markets will become the last haven for money for the wealthy before that wealth is permanently destroyed. Metals and real estate are the best places to sink money into, because the value of both will never reach zero. You will not be able to avoid losing money so it is all about having something rather than nothing in the end.

On that subject, the single most awesome thing I have seen on the Web so far this year. See, the Canadians are good for something!

Odds and Ends

Will be working on a post about the Tea Party in Winona last week and about the Republican Congressional District 1 endorsement convention this past Saturday to put up this week.

In the meantime, a few items that caught my eye the last two weeks:

A follow up on the couple beaten in New Orleans last week by leftwing protesters.  The Palin pin part of it has been debunked, but it is very clear this was a politically motivated attack. The mainstream media shows that they are well beyond simple bias by ignoring this one.  If conservative protesters had done this to a pair of Democrats it would be the overkill story for weeks.

Dr. Helen aka the Instawife has an interesting piece up about how psychologists are moving to social activism in their therapy.  This is damning stuff and worth checking out. The desire to control other’s lives is getting to be the hallmark of the left.

Speaking of controlling people, the FDA is going to start regulating salt in prepared foods.  This serves two goals:  controlling the population even in the most miniscule way and to inflate the number of government employees (they’ll need to hire more to administrate this, of course). Idiocy. Look for more of this under the guise of lowering the government’s cost of providing healthcare.

There is no way ObamaCare can be funded, it is simply impossible.  But the Democrats will keep trying and one way they want to raise taxes is by adding a VAT (Value Added Tax). That hasn’t worked out so well for the Europeans and is yet another way to retard the growth of an economy.  In our case, it would kill it dead. Best quote:

In 2008, the average resident of West Virginia, one of the poorest American states, had an income $2,000 a year higher than the average resident of the European Union, according to economist Mark Perry of the University of Michigan, Flint.

Oh yeah, we really need to emulate those Europeans.

Denial of reality seems to be a big part of leftwing big government.  Over in California they are doing their best to be like Europe and ignore the financial catastrophe they are in.  Entertainment comes first but the piper will have to be paid eventually.

Meanwhile, that unpronounceable volcano in Iceland is still hampering flying and a bigger eruption is possible.  But just how unsafe was it to fly?  Turns out that the grounding was based exclusively on computer models and nary a single weather balloon was sent up to get real data. The religion of computer models has already given us the fraud of man made global warming and now this is going on. Once again reality is being ignored in favor of theory.  I’m afraid science is dead.

The relationship between Israel and the United States is on life support as well.  The hostility of Obama and his cronies toward the Israelis  has been palpable of late and has generated a great deal of concern. I’ve been warning people he is slowly building a case for armed conflict with Israel and been greeted with dismissal.  Better look again, as this refusal by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to rule out shooting down Israeli planes crossing Iraqi airspace to hit Iran. The ghost of Jeremiah Wright is alive and well in the Obama administration.

The Great Divider

For some time I have considered Obama to be “The Great Divider,” especially in regard to racial issues.  The Democrats have been inflaming things by making false accusations of racism and violence by Tea Partiers.  Be sure to read all the links in those posts.

These accusations are flat out lies designed to smear average Americans who don’t want to see the country turn into a socialist state or dictatorship.  Claiming a rock was thrown through a Democrat office window when the said office is on the 30th floor of a building is probably the most ludicrous of the lies.

The end result of this is that there can be no coming together, no bipartisanship, and no reconciliation (not the Senate maneuver) between the right and left in America.  It simply isn’t possible when the left plays these games and if you think things are polarized know you have no clue.  Unless Republicans take back Congress and repeal ObamaCare, I predict a civil war by no later than 2015.   We now have irreconcilable differences and a president who has no interest in building bridges or listening to the people. 

The irony of the smear tactics being used by Obama and his enablers in Congress is that they may breed that which they are lying about.  Not only are they genuinely angering conservatives and libertarians with their lies, those lies are believed by people on the left who have no clue what is really going on.  With the real tendency toward violence on the left, I will not be surprised if we start seeing violent acts against Tea Partiers.  Oh wait, we’ve already seen that with the SEIU thugs.

I think the Democrats have forgotten the important fact that every government must be afraid of the people because that’s where the real power lies.  Instead, they insist on imposing their elitist socialist views on an unhappy populace.  By fomenting anger with lies the leftists think they can control things. They will reap the whirlwind if they keep on this path and I had hoped I wouldn’t be around to see the day when the country was torn apart. Sadly, that is looking very unlikely now.

This is why it will be critical to throw the Democrats out of office in November.  If the House and Senate aren’t taken away from them, ObamaCare will be the least of our worries.  A civil war is not something to want or desire.  It makes me think of Theoden’s speech to Gandalf in the movie LoTR: The Two Towers:

“Simbelmyne. Ever has it grown on the tombs of my forebearers.  Now it shall cover the grave of my son. Alas that these evil days should be mine. The young perish and the old linger. That I should live......to see the last days of my house.”

We need to take action now to undue the damage being done. The voters need to send a clear message in November.

If You Think U.S. Politics Are Bad…

 

Coming off the rather lame healthcare summit that was done for political cover, most of the coverage has dealt with the testy exchange between President Obama and Senator McCain. That was nothing compared to what goes on in other countries.  Check out this withering verbal assault on the President of the European Union.

 

At first it seems like a Monty Python skit, but then the tempers really begin to flare. It makes our politicians look good by comparison doesn’t it?

Back to the summit – I think that was a clear win for the Republicans as the Democrats only had pity inducing stories for ammunition.  The GOP came ready and had their A gamers at the top of their form. Obama did not help things as he gave the Democrats twice as much time to speak than the Republicans.  Then he gave himself more time that either!  If they think this will swing the public over to supporting reconciliation they are sorely mistaken.

 

del.icio.us Tags: Obamacare,summit,Nigel Farage,Obama,McCain,politics

State of Disunion Speech

Well, that was a dismal performance last night.  Watching the talking heads on PBS try to spin the State of the Union speech being a great performance was to view an exercise in futility, as even Mark Shields admitted the speech wasn’t one that would be remembered in history.  I didn’t catch the entire thing but what I saw was a vintage Obama campaign speech.  That means it was devoid of substance, filled with lies, and highly partisan.

The AP put out a fact check that took the President to task on multiple statements and promises he made during the speech last night.  All are valid points and I’d like to add the one that managed to really anger me:  the claim to have supported the protesters in Iran.  Those of us who have followed the protests there have been frustrated with Obama’s refusal to support them and weak criticisms of the ruling dictatorship he wants to negotiate with so badly.

Despite the voters in Massachusetts rejecting Obamacare in shocking fashion earlier this month, the President showed himself to be no Bill Clinton.  There was no attempt to triangulate, or at least no intelligent one, by moving away from health care “reform.” Instead, Obama showed himself to be utterly committed to passing that corrupt bill no matter the cost.  Nobody is buying that it will lower costs, Champ.

Of course, he whined constantly about inheriting all the problems and this shows the Democrats inability to do anything other than “blame Bush.” That isn’t going to work anymore and will be completely without effect by the elections in November.

Another thing jumped out at me was when he announced the spending freeze and that it wouldn’t hurt people today because it would be implemented next year when the economy was better.  No applause when he made his typical “stop for the adulation pause” and scattered laughter followed.  Mr. Cool lost his cool and glared at Congress and ended up evoking more laughter.

Empty promises are the medium politician work with, but this one was such a whopper that even a chamber full of pols couldn’t believe it.  Obama believes everyone is so stupid that they’ll buy into the ridiculous concept of making an emergency cut in funding after it is no longer needed!  That way it won’t hurt!

Oh, please.

More people are waking up to the fact that President Obama is a con man who doesn’t really care about the people of this country.  If he keeps throwing out farcical pronouncements like the spending freeze, his only supporters will be the diehards in the Democratic Party.  It is already getting dangerously close to that as recent special elections have shown. By the time November rolls around, the Democrats in Congress will be in dire shape.

But we are stuck with this fraud in the White House for another three years and he will do a great deal of damage through the bureaucracy.  Barack Obama is simply the wrong man at the worst possible time to helm America.

 

ADDENDUM

I forgot to mention the direct attack on the Supreme Court that was made to their faces.  That was not a Presidential action and showed just what a demagogue Obama really is. Trying to cajole Congress into writing what would be another unconstitutional law to override the SCOTUS decision freedom of speech shows what disdain the so-called Constitutional scholar has for the Bill of Rights.  It also made clear how little value he has for the separation of powers across the three branches of government.

Barack is not a class act.

Brown Wins Senate Race in Massachusetts

All the networks are calling it for Brown with 70% of the precincts reported in.  He won convincingly, 53% to 46% for Coakley and it will be interesting to see if the percentage holds up.  Given the voter fraud that gives Democrats around 5% extra in the race, this was a very solid win.

Good news for now and we’ll have to wait and see if this kills Obamacare.  I suspect it will as Democrats up for re-election this year will be very scared after this debacle.  The last minute campaigning by President Obama did nothing to stem the populist tide and may have hurt things.

November is looking good for the Republican Party.

Weekend Links: Around the World

The Nuclear Threat

The UN is wondering why they’ve found evidence that the Iranians have experimented with a radically more advanced nuclear warhead design than previously thought.  It is pretty clear they are playing for time to get weapons in production and the weak Obama administration is making it easier than ever. Not that President Bush was much better in dealing with them.  It will be up to Israel to defend themselves. There will be fallout one day, probably of the radioactive kind.

Over in Poland, nuclear fears are rising as well.  Russia practiced an invasion and nuclear missile strike on Poland back in September.  They even gamed out a pretext based on ethnic Poles rising up in Belarus.  Nothing is subtle with the Russians and this is clearly a threat being made to Poland. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a repeat of the false flag operation used by the Nazis to justify invading Poland.  A weak US president make previously unthinkable objectives possible, unfortunately.

Rising Up Against Oppression

Over at Gateway Pundit, a collection of reports on continuing protests in Iran against their rulers.  This should have been bigger news, but the media isn’t interested in the story. Iran is not a stable country and that should be of concern to everyone. We need to be on the right side of this if things are to be kept from blowing up in the Middle East.  Sucking up to dictators in hopes they will become accommodating doesn’t work.

Call of Duty Set to Overwhelm the Gaming World

I have to say Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was a brilliant and disturbing video game.  Brilliant in execution and disturbing in plausibility, it put the player in the midst of an international crisis involving a nightmarish scenario of nukes, Russian civil war, and Middle East fundamentalism.  So it is no surprise the sequel is eagerly awaited, but the sales expectations of half a billion dollars worldwide in the first week is a shock.

I don’t play multiplayer so I can’t comment on the latter half of the article.  Still, if the single player experience is as good as the first one, I’ll get Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 -- when it gets very cheap.  It means a wait of several years, but I can afford to be patient. I literally can’t afford impatience in these cash strapped times.

Political Shenanigans

With Cap & Trade and ObamaCare unpopular with the voters, a lot of games are being played to ram them through before the recess.  Pelosi & Reid can’t afford to have Democrats go home and face their constituents before voting on the bills as they might get swayed to vote “No.”

One thing they don’t want out is the penalty for not buying mandatory health care under the House version of the health care bill.  It is freaking totalitarian, that’s all.

The campaign to neuter Fox News is still underway at the White House.  This has been denied, but with the previous actions by the Obama administration I think it is legit. They are determined to control the news at all costs, but I think they are making a huge mistake.  This kind of thing wouldn’t be leaked if it weren’t seriously resented.  The Chicago way is as blunt and heavy handed as the Russians actions in Eastern Europe. Totalitarians never tolerate criticism or the truth well.

Weekend Links: The Economy

It was quite a week for developments on the economic front.  I wish I could report it was good news.
First off, official unemployment hit 10.2% after October’s figures came in.  This indicates things are getting worse for the American worker – not better. Ed Morrisey at Hot Air has an excellent post on it including an updated Romer graph of what the stimulus promised to do versus what actually happened.  We are off the chart now.  Also from Ed is a post with links of what jobs were really saved by the stimulus, starting with California.  Hint: the state & federal governments aren’t honest.
Doesn’t get much more pointed than what India’s finance minister said when their central bank bought 200 tons of gold in order to reduce dollar holdings.  What did he say about the economies of Europe and the US?  That they had “collapsed.”  Asian countries are running from the US dollar now.
Makes the wrangling over how much to increase health care look silly if there won’t be any money at all.  Still, the Republican health care plan was rolled out Wednesday after having the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) go over the figures.  It would actually reduce the deficit by $68 million over a ten year span.  Sounds good compared to the trillion dollar increase in debt from ObamaCare.  Still, how will any of it be paid for? There is no answer on that, because there is no way to!

UPDATE:  I was wrong, the Democrats plan isn't a trillion dollar outlay, but $3,000,000,000,000 plus over 10 years according to the CBO! The Heritage foundation estimate comes in at $2.4 to 2.6 trillion.  This is insane.

Whoa! IRS to Run National Health Care?

The IRS will be the agency to determine who has acceptable health care under ObamaCare.

The IRS has been a loose cannon for a very long time, without any proper oversight.  Having them hunt down and punish people for having insufficient health insurance sounds great, doesn't it?  It would require a massive increase in personnel and power for this to be implemented.  Given their propensity to go after small fish and let the big ones off the hook when conducting audits, I doubt they would be any more fair dealing with health insurance regulation.

Does anybody rational think this is an intelligent idea?

Thugocracy

You know that the ancient Chinese curse of "May you live in interesting times" is true when the unions start rolling out to suppress free speech while claiming protesters are "attacking America." You can't make that kind of idiocy up, though you can satirize the mass media instructions/marching orders given out of Washington. Of course, in the left's view of the 1st Amendment, it is only valid when they protest and when confronted with an opposing view, they are entitled to slap down the opposition. Or just close the doors on anyone who wasn't snuck in the side door in an effort to pack a townhall meeting.

Hey, if someone opposes the Obamacare bill, the White House has asked that people submit their name to a list they are archiving. “These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.”

Nothing intimidating about that!

Then there is the lie about astroturfing (creating fake grassroots, a specialty of the Chicago machine's Axelrod) being spread, with insurance companies, Fox news, or the RNC organizing too well dressed protesters. Which is very silly indeed, as I have been to multiple Tea Party rallies and they are made of a wide political range of people indeed, including Republican haters. Top that off with Republican "insiders" ie: the reigning political class in the party, aka country club Republicans thinking the protests useless and plebian and it becomes clear who is really astroturfing. But don't forget, it is organized mobs causing all the fuss, according to the Democrats.

All of this is like playing with matches in a drought stricken forest. With the ever increasing reach of the federal government into literally all aspects of everyday life, the American people are getting more than uncomfortable. There is a sense that too much control is being taken away from individuals, aggravated by the severe economic downturn that shows no real sign of abatement. That is the motivation for these protests and the people who attend them.

In Discourses, Nico Machiavelli wrote that peoples are "extraordinarily revengeful toward those who have destroyed their liberty." He relates an account of the city of Corcyra in Greece during the Pelopennesian war. Ancient Greece broke between two camps, the Athenians and the Spartans, with the people of Corcyra being torn politically. The upper class nobles wanted an alliance with Sparta while the people wanted freedom and alignment with Athens. Subsequently, the upper class took over and instituted dictatorial rule that lasted until the Athenians were able to render aid to the people of the city.

The populace rose up and imprisoned the nobles in one prison, then set about executing them in cruel ways. Of course, that caused a prison uprising which ended when a crowd of the people marched on the prison. They collapsed its walls and upper story on the nobles to crush them.

Machiavelli concludes, "We thus see how true it is that a liberty which you have actually had taken away is avenged with much greater ferocity than is a liberty which someone has only tried to take away."

At the moment, with cap and trade passed and Obamacare being rushed through, people are waking up to the threat of their freedom to make choices being taken away. That's dangerous enough to cause trouble on its on. Adding in union thugs and a refusal to listen to constituents to the mix takes it from being a threat to an actual denial of liberty. If that threshold of perception is crossed, things can explode.

And one last time for the confused, please click on the difference between grass roots and astroturfers.