They Finally Did It...

Well they finally did it. Nearly 100 years after the Godfather of Progressive Socialism, Theodore Roosevelt, made socialized medicine part of his Progressive Party campaign, the Democrats achieved another milestone in their relentless march towards Marxist medicine. The Senate voted for cloture in the early hours of Christmas Eve along strictly Party lines, sending the measure to the house by a vote of 60 to 39. Not one Republican voted for the bill which is not a surprise since the bill is the antithesis of Republican and Conservative ideology.

In fact, the bill as written violates the sensibilities of even moderate Democrats who certainly would have voted against it if it weren’t for the threats issued behind closed doors by the reigning Chicago “Thugocracy” in the White House. When the votes of moderates could not be bought through the usual corrupt process of sweetening the pot with pork, the goons came out of the shadows and threatened everything from military base closures to personal attacks on the spouses of the offending Congressmen.

Americans are angry, not only because we oppose this bill by a ratio of nearly two to one and the majority party of Congress doesn’t seem to care, but since Liberal Democrats have seized control of their Party, both houses of Congress and the White House, the legislative process has become a dishonest, corrupt and dangerous game of political dominance as well. The only winners in that game are the special interests that are advancing their agenda; the special interests that have paid enormous sums of money to the political campaigns of the people that are now making their dreams come true.

SEIU for example, directed tens of millions of dollars from their membership to the Obama campaign and God only knows what their contributions have been to other Progressive Democrats. Recently released records show that Andy Stern, President of the SEIU has been the most frequent visitor to the White House, having been there nearly two dozen times since Obama’s inauguration. Of course if the White House had its way, we’d have never known about those visits; it was only after a public outcry for transparency and threats of Freedom of Information law suits that the White House capitulated and released the visitors list.

Andy Stern huh? Considering Andy recently revived the rally cry “Workers of the world, unite!” I doubt he’s been visiting Obama for a series of “beer summits” or to help the President with his bowling score. “Workers of the world unite” is taken directly from the pages of the Communist Manifesto and Andy boy says it is no longer a slogan, but the way that the SEIU and other labor unions must do their work. They are seeking to internationalize the labor movement and complete the dream of a global network of socialist nations under a central controlling body. Historically, the one roadblock to communist expansion had been the United States and what better way to eliminate that roadblock than to convince them to consume themselves.

Since the days of FDR, the United States has been creeping towards the goal of a Socialist United States through the efforts of what Lenin called “useful idiots”. Useful idiots are those that have not become out and out socialists but instead, have been nudged into accepting little doses of Socialist policies with the intention of doing good. Of course the recipients of these new policies become mesmerized by the prospect of getting something for nothing which serves to accelerate the process. What the “idiots” did not realize is that their introduction into that very thought process was part of a carefully orchestrated indoctrination policy founded and funded by the Communist brain trust.

Why fight when you can fudge? Why shoot when you can sway? Why bleed when you can bully? In the end, the United States would keep sliding further and further into the Socialist abyss until one day she would wake to find that the Constitution had become so diluted with legislative exclusions to the constraints the founding fathers had placed on the Federal government, that the government was no longer the servant, but the master. The current healthcare plan is a “starter set”. It is a Trojan horse that requires only a few more strokes of the legislative pen to transform it into a universal socialized medical system very much like the disasters that have been bankrupting Europe for decades.

Not many people believe that the government would enact legislation intentionally designed to destroy the national economy and I agree, but let’s not forget that these are “useful idiots” and while they are under the ether of playing “Robin Hood”, most cannot see where this will eventually lead. Oh the old hardliners of the former Soviet Union know where it is going, mostly because they drafted the plan to corrupt and demoralize the United States. I’m sure Vladimir Putin is rubbing his sweaty little hands together in anticipation. If you remember, Vlad was once the head of the KGB before Russia dissolved Communism and attempted to democratize. He would love nothing more than to return Russia to her former glory without the costly impediment of a strong and prosperous America to contend with.

Other “useful idiots” like Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Pivens had succumbed to the illusion of the utopian society sought after by American communists. They had constructed their strategy for social justice around the need to collapse the financial strength of America so that a new and just socialist government could be put in place. In fact, their strategy had been tested and proved incredibly successful by George Wiley and eventually, Wade Rathke. Their concerted effort to overwhelm the entitlement structure in New York City thrust the city, and nearly the entire State, into bankruptcy.

This healthcare plan is nothing more than a small part of a much larger, revised version of Cloward and Pivens strategy. It does none of what it is advertised to do and if the Federal government were actually bound to obey the same advertising laws that American businesses are bound by, the President and most of the Democratic Party would already have been prosecuted for their misrepresentation of the product they are trying to sell us.

The comical part of this is that Democrats have called this a Christmas present for America. Uh, sure. A present just like when Uncle Bill give’s your kids a puppy for Christmas; except instead of a puppy, this is a cute little baby gorilla. Uncle Bill won’t be around to clean up the mess it makes and he’s certainly not worried about what it will cost you to feed it. Uncle Bill won’t be there when it grows up and takes over your life either because everyone knows a 600 lb gorilla get’s pretty much what ever it wants. No, Christmas gifts are thoughtful and benign. The perfect gifts make no demands on you and they fit your lifestyle instead of demanding change from you to accommodate them. The most important difference is that a gift really isn’t a gift when it’s purchased with money that has been stolen from your wallet.

I know this blog has been mentioned in several places where members of Congress have been but I don’t know if they actually read it and considering the content, I honestly wouldn’t blame them if they didn’t. But just on the outside chance that some of them may see this…..Guys….skip the gorilla and stick with the tie or the slippers….really.

Paul

Congress and Christmas

It isn’t as though we needed a reminder of the iconoclastic nature of Congressional Democrats but just to make sure we haven’t forgotten what they represent, they have scheduled the final Senate vote on healthcare reform for Christmas Eve.

Isn’t ironic that they chose the day that many of us will spend preparing to celebrate the birth of Jesus to move this legislation forward? For Christians, Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promise, the messiah that was to free the world from suffering and the lamb that would eventually be offered for the forgiveness of all sins. The founding fathers recognized that man’s rights descended from God and that all mankind was born free through the grace of God.

The unalienable rights so carefully described by these extraordinary men were not accorded by the act of a beneficent King or through the acts of an enlightened government; they are divine, eternal and inexorable. Jesus represents God’s promise that man should not be slave to man and that our rights, both enumerated and implied in the Constitution, are an affirmation of that liberty. Curiously, the healthcare bill places many of those rights in jeopardy as the roughly seventy new agencies and administrative boards formed under this legislation will for the first time, allow government to determine how we live our lives.

We will find ourselves under government mandate to live healthier lives based on a government agency’s definition of healthy. The bill already contains a special tax on beverages containing sugar and on tanning salons since the current heath advisory panels have already determined these are unhealthy. As the left gain more control the extremists will have more to say about your life than you will.

Animal rights activists have tried to advance their agenda by promoting the health benefits of a vegetarian lifestyle for decades. Studies conducted with the same unscrupulous manipulation of data corrupting the Climate Change argument have already suggested that consuming meat presents a hazard to one’s health. Cass Sunstein, Obama’s regulatory Czar, has already weighed in on the subject in previous writings and would be more than happy to “nudge” people into a meat-free lifestyle using the regulatory authority of the government and the weight of punitive “sin” taxes to achieve that goal.

Gun control, animal rights, leisure activities, hunting and a whole host of other things that we take for granted now, can all be reigned in given the broad brush healthcare officials will be given to paint with. This bill is not centered on healthcare but on preventative care which would give the administration an incredible amount of new power where basic lifestyle choices are concerned.

Worse of all, the sanctity of life itself will be jeopardized by this bill. The new agencies and health panels will mete out care based on your current health, age and their actuarial assessment of how many years of “quality” life you have remaining. As Dad approaches 80, the usual course of medical intervention for prostate cancer may be limited to a regimen of less effective treatment only because it is less costly. For the first time in American history, choices will be made by authoritative government boards that will determine how resources will be allocated based on the need to contain the overall cost of healthcare and not on the need of the patient or the desired outcome of treatment. Grandma may get a prescription for pain medication and a wheelchair instead of the hip replacement she would receive now.

This legislation enacts new taxes and the cuts in Medicare reimbursements immediately even though the benefits of the bill are not fully realized for four years; a little accounting trick to show “budget neutrality” over a ten year period simply to gain passage of the bill. The truth is that the cuts are not going to reduce the cost of the program but to fund a host of entirely new entitlement programs, including subsidies for the low income purchase of insurance through the exchange. Without the promised cuts going to reduce the cost of the overall program, the program must go into financial difficulty in year five through fifteen, forcing cuts in services and draconian rationing of healthcare to anyone that does not fall under the government definition of a “contributing” member of society.

No? Well that was one of the prescribed ideas of Dr. Ezekiel Emmanuel, architect of the Healthcare Bill and brother of White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emmanuel. Dr. Emmanuel believes in redefining the doctors Hippocratic Oath to allow assisted suicide and euthanasia. He also believes in the rationing of care based on an assessment of the patient’s ability to contribute to society and that only government can possess the impartiality required to make those assessments.

In order to pass this legislation, the government has had to manipulate the definition of commerce just to claim the authority for government to intervene in healthcare. They are using the Commerce Clause in the Constitution to find that authority, similar to what FDR did in the 1930’s. Even though you are seeking local medical care from a local doctor and purchasing your medicine from a local pharmacy, the government makes the leap that even this activity has a broad effect on the interstate relationship of the entire healthcare industry. That is a sham and they know it.

The fact is, and the general admission from Congressman James Clyburn is that most of what Congress does is not authorized in the Constitution. It is only the complacency of the American public that has allowed this to continue for as long as it has. Progressives have created an entire segment of the population that not only pays no taxes at all, but actually receives payments from the government for being good little dependents. With only 53% of the population actually paying taxes, we are fast approaching the tipping point where an election based on issues instead of preserving a government entitlement will no longer be possible.

The American people have been lied to since the debate on healthcare began. The truth now, is as it always was, is that the government’s lust for healthcare reform is that they must reduce the costs of their own failed and corrupt programs of Medicare and Medicaid. These programs were in trouble a mere three years after their inception and the short term cure in 1968 was to raid the Social Security trust fund and use that money to prop up Medicare/Medicaid, leaving Social Security as a hollow promise that they would deal with later. Well, later is now and thanks to the Federal government, all three programs are bankrupt and threatening the solvency of the United States. Without an enormous infusion of money, the government will have to admit their gross mismanagement and close the books on the Federal entitlement system or close the doors of the Federal government. The easiest way to achieve that was to channel the American healthcare system through the Federal entitlement machine. Dumping one sixth of our economy into the wide end of that funnel and regulating what drips out of the small end through cuts in benefits and services will allow them to keep the illusion of success alive, but for how long?

In the end, best estimates are saying that the current healthcare bill will only extend the life of Medicare and Medicare through 2019. Beyond that, it will have to collapse because there is little left they can take from us to keep it going. Not to worry, the loss of freedoms guaranteed by this bill will allow our benevolent government to make even more of those hard decisions on our behalf and euthanasia may even become a mandate based on who and what you are. If we let our rights dissolve now, how can we stop it then?

Don’t forget the government already has a free hand to do what the rest of us are still prohibited from doing. Government is still the only place in America where it is allowable to use race in the execution of policy. Government is still the only place where prejudice is allowable e.g.: rich vs. poor in the tax system, right vs. left in public broadcasting and let’s not forget government vs. religion in nearly every expression of faith. The government’s National Endowment for the Arts is prohibited from using public funds for religious art so it will not support the creation of a devotional scene involving a crucifix but it will find art where a crucifix is submerged in a beaker of urine.

As we near Christmas all Americans must ask themselves what they believe. What are our rights? Where do those rights come from? Most importantly, will we heed the call of duty Thomas Jefferson charged us with and fulfill our obligation to defend those rights for our progeny?

Paul

Damn the Republic, Full Speed Ahead - Part Two

The press is on to pass healthcare and the Congressional leadership is more than comfortable to take the entire process behind closed doors and use every little bit of skullduggery and shady legislative loopholes at their disposal. While there is no doubt that President Obama has his own secret agenda, he is only a small part of the problem. Congress has been selling out the United States for years. Some have been doing their dirty work simply to remain in power for as long as possible while others have a more sinister reason for their curious voting record.

91 year-old Robert Byrd from West Virginia has been in the United States Senate for a full 50 years and is not only the oldest current member of congress but the longest serving as well. Ted Kennedy wasn’t far behind having served 46 years in the Senate before he died of brain cancer at the age of 77 earlier this year. 80 year old John Conyers Jr. of Michigan has been a member of the House of Representatives for the past 44 years. 79 year-old Charles Rangel of New York has been in the House of Representatives for 38 years.

I could go on and on but it would just get monotonous. So why would a brilliant attorney turn down a lucrative career in private practice for a congressman’s pay which today, is roughly $175,000 per year for the rank and file? There must be other benefits to the job; benefits that would make these men and women fight tooth and nail to remain in office for decades. There are far too many members of Congress that have served for decades; many of which share other curious ties. Out of just the four gentlemen I mentioned above, two should never have been allowed to serve in Congress and the other two should have been thrown out on their ears.

In 1951, Ted Kennedy was thrown out of Harvard in his freshman year for cheating. He was allowed to re-apply in 1953 and eventually completed his education there. In 1969 he was involved in a mysterious accident after leaving a party held by the “boiler-room girls”, a group of women working on his brother Robert’s campaign. Mr. Kennedy denied alcohol was involved but curiously, did not report the accident to the police until the following morning. The police found the submerged car that still contained the lifeless body Mary Jo Kopechne, a woman who had left the party with Senator Kennedy. The inquest was held in secret at the request of Kennedy’s lawyers and while he was never held responsible for the death of Ms. Kopechne, he did receive a two month suspended sentence for leaving the scene of an accident.

Senator Robert Byrd was a member of the infamous Ku Klux Klan, dropping from its membership rolls just in time to pursue a career in politics. He spent a good portion of his career fighting doggedly against civil rights and equal voting rights legislation. In 1968, he finally voted for the Civil Rights Act citing a change in heart brought on by his participation in a Baptist church however, many feel that the political winds had shifted against open racism and his “epiphany” had more to do with a desire to remain electable than the discovery of any form of morality.

John Conyers Jr. was sited for ethics violations after several former aides accused him of using publically paid Congressional staff members to work on his campaign, forced them to baby-sit and chauffer his children. Mr. Conyers accepted responsibility for “possibly” violating house rules and acknowledged what he called a “lack of clarity” in his communications with his staff regarding their official duties. While he regularly voted against legislation that would force the Federal government to restrain spending and balance the budget, he did proudly author a bill that would have, if passed, provide the religion of Islam with special protection against acts of violence and intolerance. In what appears to be a marriage made in heaven, his 44 year-old wife Monica has recently plead guilty to charges of conspiring to commit bribery while she was a member of the Detroit City Council.

Charles Rangel has his own problems. Recent investigations show that he rents four apartments in the Lenox Terrace complex in Harlem at below-market rates. The newspaper reported that Rangel paid $3,894 monthly for all four apartments in 2007, but that the going rate for similar apartments offered by the landlord in that building would be as high as $8,125 monthly. Three adjacent apartments on the 16th floor were combined to make up his 2,500-square-foot home; a fourth unit on the 10th floor is used as a campaign office, even though that violates city and state regulations that require rent-stabilized apartments to be used as a primary residence.

A Congressional ethics expert cited by The Times indicated that the difference in rent between what Rangel was paying and market rates on the second, third and fourth apartments he rented, an estimated $30,000 per year, could be construed as a gift as the savings is granted at the discretion of the landlord and is not offered to the public at large; if this should be treated as a gift, it would exceed the $100 limit established by the House of Representatives. Rangel was also accused of failing to report income from the rental of a villa he owns in Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic, a three-bedroom, three-bath unit that has been rented out for as much as $1,100 per night in the busiest tourist season, from mid-December to mid-April.

Additional accounting discrepancies were disclosed on September 15, 2008, including omission in Rangel's financial reports of details regarding the sale of a home he once owned on Colorado Avenue in Washington, DC, discrepancies in the value listed for a property he owns in Sunny Isles, Florida (varying from $50,000 to $100,000 all the way up to $500,000), and inconsistencies in investment fund reporting. Curiously, Mr. Rangel is the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, the Congressional committee that is responsible for writing the tax laws that the rest of us “non-congressmen” are expected to abide by or else!

The worst part is that these examples are not the exception. To date there are:
29 members of Congress accused of spousal abuse
7 members of Congress arrested for fraud
19 members of Congress accused of writing bad checks
117 members of Congress either directly or indirectly bankrupted 2 businesses
3 members of Congress have served time for assault
71 members of Congress cannot obtain a credit card due to bad credit
14 members of Congress have been arrested on drug-related charges
8 members of Congress have been arrested for shoplifting
21 members of Congress are currently defendants in lawsuits and
84 members of Congress have been arrested for drunk driving.

Perhaps it is the perceived immunity that their power offers them from prosecution that holds their interest. I’m not saying that none of them have ever been convicted or served time for their crimes. Not even I am that cynical, but they certainly haven’t felt the full weight of the law that the regular citizens of this nation do. The kit gloves treatment they receive is definitely a perk but not the reason that keeps them firmly ensconced in the Capitol building. For many, it is strictly the power that draws them and one can tell by the arrogance with which they treated their constituents during the recent town hall meetings that they now believe that they are aristocrats, a ruling class exerting their dominance over the lowly peasants; in other words, the American people.

That is the good news. There is a darker side to Congress; a side that is dangerously close to seeing the ambitions they have kept secret for decades finally take root. Now the political winds are blowing in their favor; especially since the nation has unwittingly elected a President that appears to be a willing co-conspirator.

Join me tomorrow for a glimpse at the dark side.

Paul