I Can Feel It (Desperation!) In the Air Tonight.

I Can Feel It (Desperation!) In the Air Tonight.  In the last few days, we saw another of numerous examples of the Obama administration’s (specifically) and the liberal left’s (in general) awareness that their time in the spotlight is rapidly coming to a close.  The FCC’s autocratic and secretive power grab of Internet regulations this week is the most recent in these symptomatic acts by The One and his ilk as they are shoved closer and closer to the exit.

Pick your agency: The Veteran’s Administration ball of confusion, the Internal Revenue Service’s clown circus, the Attorney General’s cabal, Health and Human Service’s chaotic regulatory gymnastics and ever-increasing examples of incompetence, or the State Department’s Harf & Saki standup comedy routines.  The “Keystone Kops” of this president, and all of the loyal Congressional Democrats who are enabling them, are demonstrating through their ever-increasing acts of bluster and boldness that they are acutely aware of the fact that they have a limited time to affect the way this government operates.  It is pathetic, dismaying, and infuriating to watch this corrupt and idiotic bunch of idealists twist and pervert our government into a tool of their fantastical liberal nirvana crusade.  The “ends justifies the means” mentality of our little man president permeates the weak-kneed minions that he commands and they continue to work their will on the everyday lives of the American people, knowing full well that the Republican opposition in Congress has proven itself to be impotent and the Judiciary moves at a pace that will run well past the end of the current administration.  With no thought towards how our government should run or how our founding fathers provided a constitutional blueprint, Obama and the Democrats are commandeering every nook and cranny of our government in an effort to inflict the maximum amount of liberal influence possible in their time remaining.

Once again…it is time, past time, for Majority Leader McConnell to eliminate the filibuster and begin to stem the tidal wave of Executive abuse that we are witnessing.  It is well past the time to worry about playing nice; it is time to stop the hemorrhaging and begin to establish some common sense, legitimacy, and authenticity back into our government.  If the DHS funding episode tells us nothing else, it clearly shows that the mainstream media will do all within its power to protect The One’s agenda, regardless of the realities as they exist.  If the Republicans do not act quickly and decisively to stem this blatant abuse of Executive power, the amount of damage this nation realizes from this rogue administration will haunt us for generations to come.  The next two years could prove to some of the darkest in this country’s history.

Disingenuousness, Fraud, Deceit, and Outright Lying.

Disingenuousness, Fraud, Deceit, and Outright Lying.  Governor Steve Beshear of Kentucky has governed his state in a fairly conservative fashion.  Although he can be quite the partisan, he has nonetheless accepted the fact that Kentucky voters, including his Democratic constituency, tend towards the conservative side of the ledger.  Now being the good party man that he is, Beshear has maintained a fairly strong allegiance to Obama; at least up to the point where rather than openly criticize some his madness, he simply shuts up and does not comment on the president’s policies…with one exception.  Beshear has been a good governor for Kentucky.  He has been more of a fiscal conservative than any Republican Senate or House in memory, has run the state in an efficient fashion, and I believe holds a deep love and respect for the people who inhabit Kentucky.  However, Beshear has bought into Obama’s largest scheme “hook, line, and sinker” and continues to show a complete and total disregard for the intelligence of any person listening to his comments about Obamacare and its effect on Kentucky.  I will give him the benefit of a doubt and rationalize that in his zest to provide needed health care for many of his state’s poorer residents, he has sold his soul to Obama and his idiotic plan and that is why he prattles endlessly about the benefits of the program while never mentioning the cost.   Just within the last few days (either conveniently before or strategically ahead of the most recent reports of the latest IRS/Obamacare snafu), Beshear crowed to the press about how marvelous Obamacare had been for Kentucky; how so many more people now had health insurance; and that anyone who could not see that Obamacare was “manna from heaven” (wouldn’t Obama just love this reference!) was either ignorant or biased.  In the words of George Orwell, it is what he left out that makes him a tool of Obama’s propaganda machinery.

The fact is that Obamacare is nothing less than a monstrous albatross around the neck of the U.S. Government.  It was sold on the fact that it would save the average taxpayer $2,500 per year on health insurance.  False.  It was sold on the fact that it would expand choice of plans and physicians.  False.  It was sold on the fact that it would not add to the debt of this nation.  False.  It was sold on the fact that the “failure to obtain coverage” penalties were not a tax; yet the only logic that allowed the Supreme Court to uphold the program was the labeling of that same penalty as a tax.    It was shoved down the throats of the American people in a strictly partisan faction through the use of extraordinary legislative maneuvering.  It was passed in spite of the fact that a clear majority of the American public did not know about it and not a single Democrat who voted for its passage understood what it was.  It was a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in more layers of complexity that one can find on an onion.  It took an American health care system that, although being plagued with some serious malfunctions, certainly did not need to be totally discarded and replaced and for all of its warts, still remained the envy of the world.  And worst of all, it placed an inordinate amount of discretion into the Executive branch of government to administer a program under whatever terms and conditions they chose; permitting them to arbitrarily change rules, deadlines, fees, services, and basically anything else to make it more politically palatable and to “kick the can of accountability” a bit further down the road.  It usurped the authority of the Congress and was shoveled out to the public in strategically calculated lies and deceit.

As a resident of Kentucky, I submit that Governor Beshear should be acutely and publicly ashamed of himself.  To brag incessantly and dishonestly about how great a program Obamacare is when it is nothing more or less than giving away services for free is the height of hypocrisy and stupidity.  Obamacare has been the biggest lie ever perpetrated on the American people and as time goes by, it will be further and more openly exposed as nothing less than a bald plan for income distribution.  The great, no…the greatest tragedy, in this whole mess is that 75-85 percent of Obamacare could have been legislated into law in a legitimate, bipartisan fashion; but that would have required actual work and effort on the part of our president and he is not too fond of that stuff.  Instead, each of us was legally required to purchase a private sector commercial product that, no matter how important or logical it might happen to be, should simply remain a matter of personal choice.  We were all forced to become a party to this bogus morass of untruth and complexity that will continue to unfold, expand, and multiply as long as the program lives.  It is a curse that has been placed upon our culture; it is an abomination of our governmental system; it is a bane for the Democratic Party that responsible members should be embarrassed by; and the Governor of Kentucky should be laughed out of Frankfort for his blind allegiance to such a carnival of absurdity.

 

 

Watershed Moment Passes; Drop Da Bomb.

Watershed Moment Passes; Drop Da Bomb.  I wrote not too long ago about a watershed moment arriving; the moment of truth when we find out whether moderate Senate Democrats would vote their conscience and constituency or continue to blindly toe the party and presidential line.  I thought that moment would surround the issue of Keystone; it appears that moment will surround immigration.  The failure of moderate Senate Democrats, who have publicly questioned the president’s authority on immigration executive action, to even help bring the DHS budget question to the floor for debate clearly demonstrates that we have truly gone through the looking glass.  It is with deep regret and great reluctance that I now agree with Dr. K and support the notion that Senate Republicans go nuclear and eliminate the filibuster. 

The failure of the Senate to even bring the DHS budget authority to a point of debate is a clear demonstration that it is warped and clearly beyond repair.  Bottom line is this: Harry Reid began the snowball rolling downhill with his actions in the last Senate session. The president has demonstrated utter disregard for the normal legislative process and his capacity to wreak significant further damage in the remainder of his second term needs to be stemmed.   One cannot continue to fight a noble fight against a dishonorable foe.  One cannot play by the rules when the other side simply changes the rules to suit their agenda.  One cannot fight with a knife when their opponent wields AK47’s.  Mitch McConnell brought a high regard and respect for the Senate with him when he assumed the majority leader position; he should be applauded for that approach.  But the simple fact is that his approach has been ignored and rebuffed by the Democrats.  They have continued their “party above people” strategies of pushing their ideas through whatever means necessary. The members of their party who have demonstrated a modicum of reasonableness have failed when put to the test of working for progress or conducting business as usual.  The continuance of the status quo in the U.S. Senate will only result in legislative deadlock, which will aid and abet the runaway executive actions of the small man in the White House. 

It is nothing short of tragic that we have come to this point in the evolution of our government; but perhaps it was an inevitability that none of us dared to entertain.  In order for Congress to function to any degree of effectiveness, the absolute floor of expectations, it would be beneficial for the Senate to remove cloture requirements and move the great questions and debates of our government machinery to a majority determination.  Will the time come when Democrats use this against the Republicans?  Yes, of course it will.  But the simple fact is that the Republicans, to a lesser degree than the current Democrats, have in the past engaged in the very dilatory tactics of filibuster that we are currently witnessing.  If, as many reputable political observers claim, the Congressional election demographics favor the Republicans while Presidential demographics favor the Democrats, then the removal of the filibuster will not be the destruction of the final firewall between balance of power and authoritarian rule.  There will be times when one party controls Congress and the Executive and will likely succumb to the temptation of authoritarian rule.  However, those actions will give a clear, unvarnished vision to the voting public of their governing ideas and efficiencies and they will be held accountable in following elections.

Viewed in any reasonable light, the mid-term elections of 2014 were a loud repudiation of the Obama and Democratic agenda.  And yes, they are indeed one and the same; the silence of the party leaders has enabled The One to speak for the party.  Obama and Senate Democrats, led by Reid and Schumer, have chosen to ignore the public cry for moderation, compromise, and legitimate debate.  They have instead chosen to stall the process of Senate action, stonewall any Congressional oversight that might hinder executive action, and simply try to run out the clock before their grossly irresponsible behavior can be brought to judgment in the Judiciary.  The Republicans need to drop the bomb, start passing legislation that reflects the agenda that took their party to sweeping victories last fall, and let the public decide who has the better ideas for improving this country.  If they do not take this course, I fear the legislative stalemate will continue, executive actions will become more plentiful and bolder, and the American voter will have a very confusing choice to make in the fall of 2016.  Going nuclear at this point, on the appropriate question of executive action regarding immigration policy, will begin to set the stage for clear choice in 2016.

Hunting Witches and Letting the Trolls Slide

Hunting the Witches and Letting the Trolls Slide.  The Boston Globe has published an article examining the high school career of Jeb Bush; the Washington Post has published an article examining the high school and college careers of Scott Walker.  Jeb Bush is not currently serving in any elected office; Scott Walker is currently the elected governor of Wisconsin.  Both men are considered viable candidates for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.  Both stories have been picked up by other publications throughout the nation, resulting in fairly wide dissemination of the content.  It is reasonable to expect that as the prospects of other prospective 2016 Republican presidential nominees improve, they too will be subjected to a decades-old airing of their “dirty high school laundry”.  And even though he not only graduated from a highly regarded liberal institution, and obtained an MBA from another highly-regarded liberal institution, the liberal media continues their snarky, condescending attitudes towards their favorite “rube”, George W. Bush.   Oh, if we could only examine the One’s life with the same scrutiny used on W, what mysteries would be revealed.

I suppose it is legitimate to place one’s high school antics under the magnifying glass; perhaps there is some mystical conclusion to be drawn from school days juvenile behavior or the foggy memories of fellow classmates.  After all, I am sure that we all found Mitt Romney’s hair cutting adventure to be very indicative of his future rebel rousing and delinquent actions (meh).  As George Orwell once penned, “Propaganda is as much a matter of what is left out, as of what is actually said”.   If the Globe and the Post want to lavish their limited resources (oh…the travails of the print media!) on the high school days of prominent Republicans, dumpster diving through the muddled memories of days gone past, they could at least make an effort to be fair and balanced (sorry FNC) about it.  Upon reading the articles, it is clear that much of the content is supposedly based on facts, but those observations are liberally laced with snarky comments intended to cast a certain “disquieting” light upon the matter and the individual.  As Orwell indicated, one has to be very aware of what is not said in order to divine the true picture.  Cherry-picking of content and exclusion of pertinent information is a much a lie as a printed untruth.

My point is this: Where are these high-minded, award-seeking, journalistic probing efforts relating to our president of six-plus years?  Are we left only with the acknowledged fictitious “Dreams of My Father” to fill in the blanks of Obama’s education?  For all his acclaimed genius, how can it be that there is not common knowledge about his monumental (MUST have been…right?) achievements during high school and college?  What were the nature of his grades; his admission records; his student activities?  Apparently, the liberal mainstream media (talking to you BG and WP) are content to let Obama fill in the blanks, or simply ignore the blanks, while allowing him to take extreme liberties with the facts and use “composite” characters to flesh out the stories.  

I have written before about how I feel history will indict our media for their failure to expose this president for the fraud and the charlatan that he is.  I thought that at some point in his second term, at least following the last mid-term elections of his tenure, they would begin to peel back his self-applied veneer and give us a glimpse of his true life experience.  Alas, I have been far too optimistic in my opinion of the press; they simply cannot shake off the hopey-changey fever.  Just as people in Pennsylvania cling to their guns and religion, the mainstream media clings to the “ideal” that is our first black president.  They continue to blatantly exercise a double-standard, oblivious to the fact that much of the public sees through it and has thus tuned them out.  They are like the pig farmer who goes straight from the hog house to the café; everyone smells it but him (no offence to pig farmers; a good one would make a better president).  They continue to shill for this little man in our White House, thus tying themselves to the stain that will perpetually attach to him and his minions.   It is a tragedy that they have chosen to forego their rightful place as the public watchdogs of our political process, but it will be so satisfying to see future years depict the forced consumption of their just desserts.