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.

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.