The Affordable Care Act Was an Expensive Ruse

No treat, just tricks.

How far will our government go to pull the wool over our eyes? How much money -- notably none of it theirs -- will they squander toward achieving their goals? These are questions we must now begin to ask. I guess Halloween is as good a time as any.

For weeks we have been pondering the ineptitude of an administration that could roll out such an embarrassing fiasco as the Affordable Care Act and its accompanying website, especially after a three-year lead time to prepare. Now we are horrified to learn that the man leading our nation could captain such a foul event while wondering how deep his incompetence actually runs.

Such concerns should have been vigorously investigated and reported in 2007 and 2008, when scores of people were then ringing the alarm bells, the same bells that fell on the deaf ears of the minions who sought the first black president of America despite his vacuous qualifications. Now that Obama has had five years -- and an unlikely re-election -- to foist his will upon us, we finally begin to wonder just what in the hell he is doing.

Our Congress has held hearings on the matter, yesterday grilling Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and learning only that the Obama administration has no intention of changing course or accepting culpability in the entire mess.

Sebelius even blamed Verizon for the websites woes, but this is all a ruse designed to generate outrage among the electorate. Is it working? Are you as angry as I am right now? Well, relax, because all of this is theater for the unwashed masses, a clever play designed to steer us all in a particular direction, a direction that could never have been sold when the battle for Obamacare was raging in 2009.

What is that direction, you ask, a fair question considering that I have expended five paragraphs to get here. Well, here it is: Obama intended the Affordable Care Act to fail from the beginning, and he's not embarrassed at all, but giddy. Yes, Kathleen Sebelius will be sacrificed at the altar of Obama, but who hasn't--or who won't be?

The big question I have at this point is who else in our government is complicit, and to what end?

Bob Cratchet begs for a lump of coal.

Certainly the Republicans in Congress could have foreseen what is coming, and certainly they should have been able to warn us, right? Or perhaps the media's unwillingness to question their Messiah Obama lead to a reticence on the Republicans part. Either way, we have been duped and we have been let down. Worst of all, we have been corralled in this direction like cattle, which is how our government views us.

Why would Obama launch a program he knows is destined to fail? Because he calculated that people would be so angry, that the fix would be a single payer health care system. And why not, the people were already suckered into the Affordable Care Act, one more step beyond that would be child's play.

So like Bob Cratchet above, begging Scrooge for a lump of coal for the fire, so will the American people one day have to beg for medicine and operations from the government, the single payer, while the people who were supposed to represent us get the best care in the world.

Just like every good totalitarian society before them, we will all be the subjects of yet another tyrant with no one left to save us from ourselves. The only way for we, the people, to have true representation is to send our own to Congress in a massive wave, washing away the stale, old members who have clung to their seats like barnacles in the sea. If not, we are doomed to drown.

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The Bystander in Chief

Hapless and Clueless

There comes a time in everyone's life when defending the indefensible becomes a burden too great to bear. Perhaps in the case of the American mainstream media, it took this long due to an irrational hope that Barack Obama was truly as brilliant as they believed and as they sold him to us, but now that same media has seemed to have gotten the message that it was all bunk from the beginning. It seems that the rookie will never develop into what they expected.

With every potential scandal that has plagued this administration -- and they have been plentiful -- the same lame excuse has been rolled out by everyone connected to Obama, and even by Obama himself. That excuse is that "Obama didn't know". Yes, we learned each time that Obama found out about all these terrible things perpetrated by people in his administration the same way that we the people did--he read about it in the paper.

That would be a perfectly acceptable response to a question about, say, Kim Kardasian's escapades or perhaps the latest reality show, but about things as serious as Fast and Furious or Benghazi, it is heinous for the alleged Leader of the Free World to so cavalierly toss out such weary exculpations.

Domestically, it is an embarrassment to see the guy allegedly in charge of our affairs not only "surprised" to learn of these incidents the same way that we do, but apparently unconcerned about the people who supposedly surprised him. When the leaders of foreign countries, particularly those whom we consider friends, are learning that they have been spied upon, that goes beyond embarrassing into mortifying.

To veer off course just a bit, as children we were taught the story of young George Washington telling his father after the "Cherry Tree Incident" that "he cannot tell a lie". Raise your hand if you remember that lesson. It was a lesson of honor, something Americans once held dear. Today, honor has vanished in the face of possible victory (or continued "service in the federal government").

The real irony lies in our collective inability to differentiate between lies and other lies. Once they have been perfected and layered with care, like fine masonry, lies build a beautiful wall of secrecy that few have the temerity to penetrate, least of all the average American. While our journalistic community should have been educating our neighbors, they have been too busy carrying the water of an administration they thought was on their side.

Well, our media is learning that this wall was beautifully designed but structurally unsound. And now many may begin, finally, to ask the pertinent questions.

For starters, I would like to see this one question posed to Obama, Jay Carney, take your pick...anyone who speaks for our federal government should suffice; "If Obama is ignorant of Fast and Furious, the IRS scandal, the NSA scandal, Obamacare, Solyndra, Benghazi, then who, precisely, is running our country"?

The funny thing is, the Liberal establishment insisted that Dick Cheney ran the George W. Bush White House because Bush was "too stupid" to handle the job. (Read Decision Points, by the way). It's not funny in the truest sense of the word because, if we are to believe that Joe Biden is the real "brains" behind the operation, then the time for despair is long beyond us.

That is not funny, but sad.

Barack Obama, whose teleprompter-reading skills are arguably beyond reproach, has been touted for years as the leader America needed, the one who would bring hope and change, yea, even a bringing together of all people. Some have used the word messiah, though not this author. Joe Biden, that genius of second string, called him "clean and articulate". Now, I ask, where is the vindication of these claims?

And I still ask, "Who is running America"? We're on a boat, or a bus, whatever the current metaphor may be, with no apparent driver. Are we better off?

Take me to your leader.

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Trading Iron for Velvet

America, home of the free?

One must marvel at the delicious irony of having our first black president as an aspiring slave master. Usually such story lines are reserved for works of fiction, but Obama is swiftly climbing the stairs to the throne.

With food stamp use at record levels, and "Obama phones" scattered across our urban landscape, people are giddily trading the iron shackles of the cruel slavery of the past for the velvet handcuffs of alleged "compassion" today. Both, however, are designed to enslave the people in one form or another.

Since 2009, when Barack Obama was sworn in as 44th President of the United States, food stamp enrollment is up 70%, according to the Washington Times, with little hope that those numbers will drop significantly in the near future. With Obamacare set to kick in in earnest next year, it is likely that unemployment will continue to rise and demand for government assistance to rise in tandem, creating an increasing population of willing slaves.

Haven't we seen this before? When someone helps you out a bad situation and seeks no thanks, that is a selfless act. When someone constantly reminds you of their compassion as they help, beware the warning signs of eventual tyranny. Wasn't Hitler going to help the people of Germany, and didn't they clamor for it? Stalin was an alleged champion of "the people", as was Mao Tse Tung. How did the people under their rule fare after the "assistance" of government?

In the old days, when philanthropy was the primary source of assistance for the genuinely poor, there was also the benefit of tax deductions for the donor. Some would say that is the same thing as a government handout, and that the government is simply cutting out the middleman by delivering aid to the poor directly. A clever argument, but fallacious nonetheless. By the government directly offering aid to the poor, they take not just from those with the means to easily absorb the costs, but also from those who are barely above the line where they themselves would need help.

The tax cost of a charitable deduction is also far below what the philanthropist donates. In other words, a 15% deduction on ten thousand dollars costs the government coffers only fifteen hundred dollars. The philanthropist is happy with this trade off, so why stop him? The answer may surprise you.

For starters, our government is now run by a collection of narcissists who simply cannot abide by the poor being helped by anonymous sources and therefore, must inject itself into the role of ultimate benefactor for the masses, not caring what the cost may be because none of it is borne by them. As the behemoth has grown over the centuries, our Federal Government cares less about our rights and privacy and more about our gratitude for saving us, from what, God only knows.

Further, the government knows that the borderline middle class taxpayer will eventually be devoured by the loss of employment and thus, be forced to succumb to the largess of government. And the former, wealthy philanthropist will ultimately be brought to his knees and be forced to come to Obama -- or whoever his chosen successor may be -- with hat in hand, no longer able to withstand the ravages of a government out of control.

Industry, with no one left to afford the personal expense, will be taken over by the State, and the conquest of the free American people is complete. We will have traded green pastures for the gray, lifeless landscape of the former Soviet Union.

We will have traded iron for velvet, both restraints equally evil and sinister.

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He's No Jimmy Carter; He's Worse, and More Dangerous

No amount of warning was sufficient.

In 1979 I was a young man, and even then, I thought I had lived through the worst president I could imagine. Who could possibly be worse than Jimmy Carter, I wondered. And then 2008 rolled around before I even saw it coming.

Despite my repeated warnings -- not to mention those of far more influential figures than me -- this man with virtually no experience, save for a scant few years of service in national politics, rose to achieve not only the Democratic nomination for president, but was actually elected. If any who voted for him would even bother to listen, I would ask how that is working out.

It's been five years with this man as president, and we have seen ample evidence of both his naivete and sinister sides, at least for those of us who may still be awake. So many of our fellow countrymen have been so bamboozled by this charlatan that the hopes of our own insomnia may be moot, but I will attempt -- once again -- to elucidate those who fail to see the truth.

Going in, I understand that many of the starry-eyed have been deprived of history by our State-run school systems and, therefore, bear little culpability in their ignorance. But I hope they listen to a bit of reason before they are completely lobotomized by the continuing "education" offered by the main stream media.

For starters, Barack Hussein Obama became president on the slimmest of resumes possible. That much should give even the brain dead pause. Think about that; do some research and find another President of the United States in the history of America with less experience, and then think of who makes the decisions today on our behalf, both domestically and globally.

Right out of the box in 2009, Obama rushed over to Egypt to apologize to Muslims for America's poor behavior in the past, vowing to build a new relationship with them. Our newly elected President actually told a foreign audience that we Americans have been arrogant, a radical departure from previous presidents. And for all the talk by Democrats of the alleged damage done in the Middle East by George W. Bush, there is virtual silence today from Democrats and the media (pardon my redundancy) over the actual damage done by Obama.

Libya is a mess, courtesy of Obama's meddling. Syria is in flames, thanks to Obama's incitements, and Iran is on the verge of having nuclear weapons and annihilating Israel once and for all, all because Obama is seen across the Middle East as weak.

Obama also doubled down on the horrendous last act of George W. Bush, the stimulus program. Since then, he has been ripping through America's bank account like Grant took Richmond. In the five years that Obama has been president, the Senate has not passed one budget, relying instead on a series of continuing resolutions, keeping the spending alive and keeping America on a perpetual state of nervousness as the "fiscal cliff" is always within arms reach.

The mainstream media has abandoned journalistic integrity to the point of complicity in a series of lies and scandals. Fast and Furious, Benghazi, potential voter fraud in 2012, the IRS scandal, NSA spying, all of these have been pooh-poohed by the one organization that is supposed to be the peoples' watchdog, the press. The federal government is stockpiling weapons and ammunition at an alarming rate, and for agencies like NASA and the Social Security Administration who should have no reasonable need to be heavily armed. And the media is completely incurious, even to the point of hostility to those who demand answers.

And the latest adventure, the government shutdown, showed the country what a petty tyrant we have as our president, yet many people remain unconvinced. Last year, the Occupy Whatever movement was hailed by the Left as a noble uprising of the people, and our government moved to protect their rights whenever possible. During the shutdown, however, the boy king, in a fit of foot-stomping rage, rushed to erect barricades to keep World War II veterans away from a memorial that many of them had come to see for possibly the last time in their lives. The National Park Service (NPS) had police in riot gear confront the visitors, perhaps trying to invoke a violent response.

And in the middle of the turmoil, the NPS -- along with Nancy Pelosi and some other congress critters -- had a welcoming committee in one of the closed parks for an illegal alien protest.

As the debt ceiling deadline drew closer, Obama was warning that Social Security benefits, military pay, and school budgets could be jeopardized, but never mentioned anything about possibly ceasing aid to foreign countries or stalling the food stamp program. No, your benefits that you earned would suffer, but if you're getting it for free, no worries. Obama knows who votes for him.

Folks, we are being figuratively beaten down slowly and surely until the King decides that we are ready for full surrender, of that I no longer have any doubt. I will not be surprised in 2017 if Obama must be forcibly removed from the White House.

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Fire! Nah, Just Kidding

Do not speak untruths.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf suffered a form of punitive peer judgement from the village to whom he repeatedly asked for help when none was actually needed. We all know how that turned out. Today, the punishment is on the books. One cannot yell "fire" in a crowded theater, e.g., just to see people flee in a panic and possibly trample one another. Of course, if there is a fire, by all means please yell.

There are also penalties for telling untruths by even the President of the United States, particularly if those lies are designed to cause a similar panic, such as the frequent warnings that House Republicans will cause the United States of America to "go into default on our obligations for the first time in history". Not only does this make the financial markets jumpy, but it's also simply not so.

The United States is not going to default, period.

The debt limit restricts government expenditures to the amount of its incoming revenues -- which is still quite substantial -- and does not prohibit the government from servicing its debt. To compare to a household budget; if your bank says it will not lend you any more money, that does not mean that you can't spend your paycheck.

Obama has also lied about...well,  everything, to be honest, but for now let's just stick to some specifics. Obama recently said that it was "unprecedented" for the raising of the debt ceiling to be linked to unrelated budget issues, calling the Republicans' demands "extortion", and accusing the Republicans of "strapping bombs on their chests". The only thing unprecedented is the president's rhetoric in dealing with members of the opposition party.

Obama also said recently that raising the debt ceiling has no effect on the deficit. Despite being a whopper of unprecedented proportions, the products of the State-sponsored school system believe it because the president said it. Now, it could be argued that the statement itself is technically true, since the immediate effect would be nil unless the government begins spending. Have we ever seen the government stop spending? Slow spending? Spend wisely?

Not that it would ever happen, but there is an argument to be made that Obama's constant harping on the possibility that America could default on its debts is an impeachable offense. See Dan Calabrese's article here  from www.Caintv.com.

Personally, I think Obama could be impeached on a variety of charges, but with a Democrat controlled Senate, we're stuck with him for another 1,124 days.

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Perhaps a Simpler View?

The partisan divide seems
worse than it has ever been.

There are two sets of philosophies in America whose differences have widened along the years. One side says that Conservatism is best for people and, quite naturally, the other says it's the Liberal ideology that will save us all and make everyone happy. Since most people now involved in the debate rely on a decidedly left leaning media -- or comedy shows like Jon Stewart -- for their opinions on these matters, I thought it might be time to frame the debate in simpler terms.

I will therefore relate my personal situation as an example, and let the readers decide if they are more like me, or more like Ms. "Obamaphone", the lady splashed all over the social media during the 2012 election season.

For starters, I am Joe Citizen. That is to say, I live paycheck to paycheck like many people. I am not rich, nor have I ever been rich. (Side note: I speak of financial wealth only. As far as my family is concerned -- healthy and happy -- I consider myself to be the wealthiest man on Earth). I have never envied those who are financially successful in a substantive way, meaning I never wanted someone to take their money and give me some. I never wanted anything from the government until they begin paying back the money they took from me all of my working years. And all I ever really wanted was a chance to work and make a decent living.

Somewhere along the line, the brains of roughly half of America have become cross-wired. These people now believe that the fruits of the labor of others somehow are owed to them because it's just not fair if someone else works hard enough to "make it". These people began complaining about unfair taxation, never bothering to learn and understand the tax system, and our increasingly left-leaning government has only stoked that class envy.

The Socialist economic philosophy
perfectly illustrated. 

During a 1963 speech, President John F. Kennedy used the phrase, "a rising tide lifts all boats". Originating with the New England Council, the phrase was also used during the years of President Ronald Reagan to defend his tax cuts. The idea is that if the economy is steadily improving, everyone will benefit to varying degrees. The Socialist (and Liberal) philosophy has been demonstrated throughout time to be to figuratively drain the water from the ocean so that all boats sit equally on the bottom. Equal misery for all.

From the time I started working (1976) until 2010, I have not needed the government's help to get by, even during a 9 week period of unemployment in the late '90's. I worked part time in the interim, and eventually found full time employment while maintaining the part time job for a number of years.

What do we have today? A part time is the best most can do, and as Obamacare grows in coming years, part time will become more common and exclusive to most. I have had to rely on my meager 401k for loans and withdrawals to survive, hoping that I have not made a grave error upon retirement. This is the Liberal dream which was supposed to be our savior.

The exam at the end here will be for any readers -- and I realize that most are fellow Conservatives -- to compare your own realty with the fiction of Liberalism. Consider also, providing you are doing ok in these tumultuous times, how those who are close to you are faring. Obama is not good for America, folks. At least not the America I remember.

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Tyranny's Final Exam

The Baby Steps Are Done

I have been saying for years that the incremental movements of the Left in America were nothing more than baby steps to totalitarianism. It now appears that I was right all along.

The ongoing government shutdown is just what Barack Obama and the political hacks in Washington have wanted from the beginning. What better way to gauge the mood of we ordinary Americans regarding total control over our lives? What better way to assess how much we are willing to endure at the hands of our alleged servants?

Please be aware; I am not talking about the people who today are following the instructions of police so as not to be arrested, even though they know what is happening is wrong. I'm talking about the people who -- not knowing any better but are complete political partisans -- applaud this president's administration and blame the wrong guys for the shutdown, all at their own eventual peril.

The current political atmosphere in Washington bears no resemblance to what our Founders envisioned, from the trampling of the Constitution to the blatant disregard for the electorate. The fact that this shutdown boils down to a battle over the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a testament to what I am saying.

In 2009, when the battle over the ACA was raging, people all across America made their voices heard. The objects of their wrath were not only defiant, but belligerent. The Democrats used every trick in the book to coerce, cajole and conjure votes for Obamacare, and not one single Republican -- in either chamber of Congress -- voted for it. And then, incredibly, no one even read the damned thing, but the Democrats forced it down our throats anyway.

Since 1913, when Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act into law, America has been on a downward spiral; some would say a derailment. Sure, there were brief periods of hope, such as the Reagan years, but the trend has been downward overall. Everything that Marx's Communist Manifesto spelled out is coming to fruition. Every word of Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals has been practiced. And now, the King selected by this ideology is poised to put the final nail in America's coffin.

This government shutdown is tyranny's final exam, the ultimate test of the steps taken by radicals who never thought Americans would tolerate such nonsense as the federal government shutting down open spaces and the ocean, of all things. Yet, instead of the people telling government officials that they have divine rights to the ocean, they instead opt for redress of government. Does anyone see how convoluted that reasoning is?

When this latest bout of political pugilism is done, the memories of it will be filed away in the minds of the Socialists who now run America. The final question of this final exam will most likely have something to do with martial law, and how far can the government take it. Unless we as a people wake up before it's too late, all that ammunition and hardware the government has been squirreling away will be trained on us.

Then what?

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When You Elect a Petulant Child...

...this is what you get.

How in God's name can the media continue to protect this boy president and his cronies in the Capitol? How is it even possible that here in America, a supposed nation of grownups who have weathered every storm we have confronted in the past, we allow this infantile behavior to go unchecked? Has the country lost not only its reason, but also its soul?

On Wednesday, the Obama Administration tried to shut down the World War II Memorial, despite the arrival of Honor Flight senior veterans from around the country. Happily, the aged veterans ignored the barricades and visited their memorial, some of them for the first time.

But Obama was far from being finished with his tantrums. Later in the day, there were workers and a bulldozer at the site, fortifying the barriers around the memorial to prevent further "intrusions" by the people for whom the structure exists. They even have 8 policemen on horseback to ensure that no unruly characters dare visit the memorial. It has been pointed out by several pundits that the cost of keeping people out of the memorial is far more than simply leaving the site as it is normally, which is wide open and accessible 24/7. And yet Obama continues around the country, attempting similar tactics to cause the most pain to the American people as is possible.

In Alexandria, VA, the feds erected barricades at the site of our first president's home, Mount Vernon. The National Park Service (NPS) began setting up barricades to block off the sites car park, which is partly owned by NPS, but requires no immediate maintenance. The park itself is owned by The Mount Vernon Ladies Association, which receives no federal funding. It is privately owned, and yet Obama tried to shut it down, blocking even the tour bus turnaround there.

In a classic case of "when parks are outlawed, only outlaws will use parks", the Obama Administration has been spending resources -- that should not be available during a shutdown, one would think -- well above the cost of leaving the parks open. Around D.C., hiking and biking trails requiring no maintenance or patrols, have been shut down, officers have been stationed along a 184 mile stretch of Chesapeake and Ohio canal, and the handles from the well pumps have been removed. People have simply disregarded "closed" notices and use the trails anyway. Criminals!

It's been mentioned that the WWII memorial has been better guarded than the Consulate in Benghazi. I would also add to that the fact that our government wanted to put watering stations in the desert so illegal aliens crossing from Mexico didn't dehydrate, but they removed the well pump handles in our own parks. Doesn't anyone see the hypocrisy here?

Obama is behaving as a petulant child, angrily reaching out to cause damage because he is upset at not getting his way. This is the person that our nation selected not once, but twice, to "lead" us? And no one in the mainstream media seems to have a problem with these shenanigans?

We have come a long way as a nation in 237 years. I just never imagined we'd end up here.

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