Oh Really...O'Malley?

Oh Really…O’Malley?  Oh yeah…might be the best thing that could happen to the 2016 election cycle.  Hillary Clinton puts a pall over the entire upcoming presidential contests.  The Republicans don’t have a lineup of saints running, but they do have several interesting candidates that have actually governed, dealt with the realities of bipartisanship, and authored real notions about how to run a government.  Hillary is like an old relationship that ended badly; do you really ever want to meet that person on the street again?

O’Malley would present a fresh approach to liberal government because, if for no other reason, no one has been paying any attention to him.  Ole Liz up east has been garnering all of the far left love and Uncle Joe has been occupying space along side of her.  But I cannot believe that any rational Democrat (yes…they DO exist!) could actually imagine either of them carrying the party’s nomination into the 2016 election.  Hillary runs on a contrived resume that is as thin as tissue paper and conveys an air of corruption that is palpable.  While O’Malley might not be the life of the party, his reliance on analytics is a good approach to governing when considered alongside what we have seen for the last couple of decades.  My God…efficient and effective government based on careful consideration of the facts…What a novel approach!

Here’s hoping that Hillary’s latest travails continue to fester and she makes the intelligent choice NOT to run for the Democratic nomination. That decision would be good for the Democratic Party.  It would also be good for the tone of politics to come in the next election cycle; and ultimately good for this country.  A presidential contest between Rubio and O’Malley would lay the groundwork for a serious and civil (I know…what a foolish thought…but hope does spring eternal) discussion of practical conservative principles versus practical liberal principles; THAT is a debate we should we should be having. 

Our Petulant President.

Our Petulant President.  Senator John McCain recently scolded our president for throwing a temper tantrum about Israel and its leadership and not keeping a proper focus on ISIS, AQAP, and other dangerous factions in and around the Middle East.  I am not now, nor have I ever been, a large McCain fan in any fashion; but the man is spot on this time around.   This time around, he has nailed it.

From the moment Obama made the fateful decision to blow his political capital account on Obamacare, he has shown himself to be little more than a sophomoric, thin-skinned, insecure, intolerant, arrogant, dismissive, self-centered, little man concerned about little more than his narcissistic and fanciful views of how and why this country and world should operate.  Over more than six years in office, he has not one time made an effort to negotiate in good faith with the Republicans in Congress and time after time takes the easy way out on issue discussion through the use of rhetoric, demagoguery, deceit, and outright untruths.  Blinded by his personal view of his own vastly overrated intelligence, he has been convinced all along that he knows best what is good for this nation and the world and that the ends he imagines will always be worth whatever means are necessary.

This perpetual snit of behavior has led this country’s leadership down a path of unprecedented (at least in my lifetime) conflict, division, stalemate, and partisan anarchy.  Now it is undeniable that the Republicans in Congress have not been blameless in this process; but history always has, and will in this case, recognize that the leadership of this country flows outward from the presidency.  The Executive branch is in a unique position to serve as a catalyst for change in our government.  While the constitution clearly mandates that the president is not to be the sole arbiter of that change (news to this Administration?), the highest office in the nation offers a beginning point for changes in every aspect of our society and culture; they don’t call it the bully pulpit for no reason.  Obama’s laziness and refusal to negotiate in good faith has atrophied our normal legislative process and allowed him to pursue his ill-advised and illegitimate pursuit of Executive rule.

Much of the acidic erosion in our nation’s well-being perpetuated by Obama has focused on his actions that have set back race relations in America; which thanks to he and Holder are now years behind what they were prior to his residency in the White House.  But I believe that time will show us that the regression in race relations that he has wrought are simply a microcosm of his greater impact on this country.  A true caricature depiction of this president would illustrate him as a triangular piece of steel, narrowing from top to bottom, with signs of terrible hammering on top resulting in a thin lip of pounded metal around the perimeter of a rectangular flattened top.  He is a human wedge.  And to be fair, his splintering effect on our lives and this world are self-inflicted.  Elections…do…have…consequences.

A Serious Look at Immigration.

A Serious Look at Immigration.  Like many of the big problems facing America today….abortion, capital punishment, fiscal restraint of government vs. social needs, the need for and balance of U.S. international leadership in many avenues, race relations, the proper level of government involvement in our personal lives….there is no simple solution to the immigration challenges facing our nation.  The majority of the rhetoric that I read and hear takes place either in a right-wing vacuum where all illegal aliens are deported and every foot of border is fenced or a leftist view that virtually eliminates all border security, grants universal amnesty to illegal immigrants, and  grants instantaneous government benefits to all.  This is not the real world that we all live, work, and die in.  The problem is much more complex than that and any solution must be slowly and deliberately devised and applied.

Any person who wants to begin a serious consideration of the immigration question should watch the movie Frontera.  This is a 2014 movie starring Ed Harris and is directed by Michael Berry.  It is quite possibly the most balanced and unbiased movie I have seen that deals with a controversial topic.  One of my biggest pet peeves about Hollywood these days is the incessant “in your face” agenda that the movies shove towards you.  It seems that everyone has a righteous cause and you are either with them and a good person or you are against it and evil.   To me, Frontera gives the viewer a realistic glimpse into some of the concerns swirling around the immigration debate; and it does it in an entertaining and responsible fashion.  It deals with real people, real situations, respects the dignity and foibles of both Americans and Mexicans, and best of all, allows the viewer to judge what is valid and what is not. 

 

At the end of the day, so many of society’s problems, not American society but the world’s society, boil down to dignity, freedom,  and respect for the individual.  I believe those were two of the primary forces that helped to create and shape this great nation we all live in.  We need to somehow, as a people, find our way back to those principles.

 

Embarrassed...Really?

Embarrassed... Really?  Our president says he is embarrassed for the 47 Republican Senators who signed the recent letter that went to Iran’s leader(s) about the ongoing nuclear talks between Iran, the U.S., and several European nations.  The Republicans who signed the letter say that it was necessary due to the fact that they had been cut out of the negotiations, kept in the dark about the details of the deal, and basically had a constitutional right to be involved in the process.  The president says he was…embarrassed?

When this president looks into the media cameras and tells differing stories about his differing positions on differing issues depending on his differing agendas, proving himself to be utterly devoid of principle, he is NOT embarrassed.

When this president and his ex-secretary of state use the infamous “reset button” to ridicule past relations with the Soviet Union and then watch as Putin gobbles up the Crimea and initiates the same action in the Ukraine, he is NOT embarrassed.

When this president campaigns as a dove, and then ramps up the war in Afghanistan, while simultaneously ceding the hard-won independence of Iraq to anarchy, he is NOT embarrassed.

When this president supervises a foreign policy that alienates our allies, emboldens our enemies, makes interested and invested third parties wonder what the hell we are doing, and treats our only true friend and ally in the middle east with shameless disdain, he is NOT embarrassed.

When this president decides that the U.S. healthcare model should be completely and instantly overhauled, notwithstanding its premier position in the international universe, and replaces it with what is quite possibly the biggest legislative boondoggle in history, he is NOT embarrassed.

When this president presides over the most anemic economic recovery since the Great Depression and repeatedly, and shamelessly, labels it as robust and growing, he is NOT embarrassed.

When this president sees the unemployment numbers, after six years in office, come down to moderate levels, for the simple reason that his policies have forced people either into part-time work from full-time work or to have quit pursuing full-time work altogether…and then claims that his economic policies have created the decline in unemployment, he is NOT embarrassed.

When this president implements policies that result in record numbers of citizens on food stamps, a dramatic flow of people from the employed-and-independent sector over to the dependant-on-government sector, he is NOT embarrassed.

When this president, along with his legally-challenged and biased attorney general, pursues policies and positions that have resulted in the largest racial divide in decades, he is NOT embarrassed.

When this president chooses to spend his political capital on himself, preening and posing before the American public like some partisan sophomoric peacock, rather than doing the hard work of running a government in a bipartisan and efficient manner, he is NOT embarrassed.

When this president repeated demonstrates through his words that his grasp of American history is severely challenged, and demonstrates through his deeds that he has absolutely no respect whatsoever for our Constitution and the model of government it represents, he is NOT embarrassed.

When this president fills his administration with partisan hacks and fawning lackeys, rather than competent and objective civil servants and political appointees, sacrificing the very function and efficiency of our government in the process, he is NOT embarrassed.

When this president does not have the common decency and character to look people in the eye, admit when he is mistaken, discuss issues in a civil fashion with respect for opposing views, and constantly ignores the intelligence of the electorate that put him where he is today, he is NOT embarrassed.

When this president looks back over his life, at the false authorship and text of literary efforts, at the unethical methods used in winning elections at every level, at the secretive and disingenuous ways he has shielded information from the public that the public should have every right to, and his entire life of suckling the public teat while never holding a real, full-time job, he is NOT embarrassed.

My friends…I must admit to you that after cutting Congress out of the negotiating process and leaving them little or no alternatives towards fulfilling their constitutional duties in this area, I am rather shocked that this letter has embarrassed our president.  He certainly appears to have a pretty damn high threshold for embarrassment.

 

A Layman's Take on King v. Burwell.

A Layman’s Take on King v. Burwell.  To put it simply, the Executive should not get a mulligan for the Legislative.   I am not a scholar of any type…judicial, intellectual, or otherwise.  But neither am I totally devoid of any logical understanding of how our government and its rule of law should work.  Perhaps it is only natural for a sophistry-challenged mind to over simplify an issue, but to me this case boils down to a very simple issue.

The challengers in this case submit that the legislation (the ACA) was written in a fashion that plainly prohibits government subsidies for Obamacare policies in states (numbering 37, I believe) that have failed to set up insurance exchanges.  The government, through the IRS, contends that it is clear from reading the entire ACA legislative product (a novel thought that might have been pursued prior to passage) that regardless of a few words here or there, the clear intent of the bill was to provide subsidies to all states, regardless of their exchange status.  In other words, the government seems to acknowledge that the bill is imperfect in its construction; that it is not entirely consistent with the manner in which it is being administrated.  But they contend that the very administration of the product (the need for the product) was the primary function of the bill and that any deviation from the legislative process of that administration should be a discretionary issue for the Executive; in other words, the ends justify the means.

The government’s position in this case strikes me as the Executive (Democratic administration of Obama) demanding a mulligan for the Legislative (pure partisan/not a single Republican vote) branch in its faulty construction of the bill.   It is inconceivable to me as a citizen that an agency (IRS) of the Executive would be empowered to remedy a perceived error in the construction of a Legislative product.  Quite simply, my understanding of the balance of power principle requires that the Legislative creates law and the Executive administers law.  The government position in this case, to me, is a clear attempt by the Executive to both administer the ACA through the IRS and create the law through its own interpretation of a flawed legislative product; one can effectively argue it is a flawed legislative product.  Under any reasonable understanding of this arrangement, the balance of power principle is being violated.  If the Legislative product is flawed, be it purposeful or unintentional, the remedy for correcting that flaw lies with the Legislative; not the Executive.  To me, it is abundantly clear that the origin of the flaw goes back to the extraordinary method of the ACA's legislative creation.  Many Democrats in Congress and the Administration knew of the flaw at the time of passage and did not address it because it was legislatively impossible; they did not have the votes in Congress to reopen the bill on the floors of Congress.  And now that those chickens have come home to roost, the Administration proposes that regardless of the legislative flaw, it was the clear intent of the Democrats in Congress to sow the subsidies nationwide.  It might very well have been their intent to do so, but they knew at the time of passage that the bill did not read in that fashion and they could not take the chance to correct it in a fashion that would read that way.

Layman that I am, I am dismayed by the politicization of all things government.  This is not a Democrat thing or a Republican thing; it is a Democrat and Republican thing.   I am not wholly convinced that the original SCOTUS ruling on the ACA, legitimizing its implementation and right of our government to require a citizen purchase of a commercial product, was devoid of political concerns.  To me, the independence of the Judiciary as the third branch in our balance of power arrangement is clearly being put to the test.  Regardless of the administrative implications, this case simply asks whether or not one party’s Administration has the power to legitimize that same party’s botched power-grab in Congress.  If SCOTUS finds in favor of the government in this case, this citizen will view it as a dark day indeed for the balance of power principle in this government.