Political Whores Come in All Shapes and Sizes

It’s Monday and the Senate is preparing to take up discussion on the healthcare bill so it’s time, once again, to remind everyone about our new, favorite political prostitute, Mary Landrieu. I do have to issue a correction. Last week I said that Ms. Landrieu had whored her vote out for a measly $100 million dollars in Medicaid reimbursements. Mary Landrieu stood her ground on Capital Hill last week and announced the “bribe” was $300 million, not the $100 million previously reported as if that makes the sale of her vote suddenly honorable. Following that logic, the amount she received from Reid for her state was three times higher than initially reported so I suppose I am duty bound to call her an escort as opposed to a common whore. However, Ms. Landrieu, if you held out a little longer and squeezed your pimp for a cool half a billion, I might have been persuaded to refer to you as a Courtesan which is at least on par with the Senate seat you currently hold.

Of course Mary isn’t alone in the sale of support for Reid’s healthcare scam. The AARP announced support for the legislation only days before the vote, giving opponents little time to react to their betrayal of American seniors. If you recall, the President had claimed the support of the AARP prematurely and the AARP responded with an announcement that they had neither endorsed nor opposed the President’s healthcare plan; leaving me to wonder what caused the reversal last week. At first I thought that the AARP looked at this bill as an opportunity to expand their supplemental insurance market. After all, the AARP is the largest broker for Medicare supplement insurance, the insurance that fills the gap between what the insured is billed and the 80% that the government covers.

It was only recently that we found out that the AARP received over $18 million dollars in stimulus money that they claim was used for “training”. Silly me….I thought the stimulus money was earmarked for job creation. Training people might make them better employees but that is not a “job created”. Since this was training for existing employees, it can’t even be called a “job saved” as the White House loves to claim credit for these days. So why did the Government hand out stimulus money to an organozation that had no intention of using it to create jobs or to expand the economy? More importantly, why did the AARP announced their support for Reid’s plan even though hundreds of billions are to be cut from programs that their membership relies on? It looks to me like they had $18 million reasons.

The AARP, like Mary Landrieu, will suffer for their arrogance. The blood money they received is already causing a backlash resulting in a decline in membership. Seniors are finding that an advocacy group that does not act in the interest of its members is hardly worth belonging to. I resigned my membership to the AARP and have already contacted their insurance underwriters and business partners to inform them that I have no intention of doing business with any company that is associated with the AARP. There are already other senior advocacy groups that were created to fill the gap left vacant when the AARP became too big to care for its membership and those groups are on now on the rise. If they are smart, they will construct their board so that they can respond to the wishes of the members or invariably, they will suffer the same fate that is now befalling the AARP.

One more note: I do not want to lose sight of who is driving this train. Obama campaigned on healthcare reform and lied all through the debates over what it would and would not be. There are a myriad of films still circulating that show Obama giving one speech and interview after another where he states quite clearly that his ultimate goal is the collapse of the private insurance industry in favor of a government run, universal healthcare system. Pelosi, Baucus and Reid are nothing but mindless foot soldiers in his quest to nationalize healthcare. Obama has been curiously quiet on this front over the past few weeks as the nation is slowly coming to the realization that he has no plan for correcting the economy and that his foreign policy is weak and ineffectual. He would love nothing more than to lead the charge on healthcare but since the poll numbers do not support this plan, he would rather leave the “scarecrow”, the “tin man” and the “cowardly lion” to do his dirty work and fall on their swords, if need be, while he tries to convince the country that he cares about the things that they care about.

Americans are understandably annoyed that he has taken nearly four months to “think about” General McChrystal’s request for reinforcements while our brave soldiers are dying in the field. American’s are frightened over Obama’s handling of foreign policy; the images of him bowing to kings and emperors disgust those of us that still believe in the power of the Presidency. While the Nobel committee is obviously impressed by his demeanor, it does not mitigate the fact that Obama’s policies have placed our nation in jeopardy.

Despite months of meaningless “negotiations” with Iran, Ahmadinejad announced this past weekend that Iran will build ten new nuclear enrichment plants and will fund militant groups that oppose the west. The White House has not commented on this threat as of yet even though an immediate response is more than warranted. This is not a matter of the sovereignty of Iran. Does anyone truly believe that if Iran became the newest member of the nuclear armed family that this deadly power would not become the newest weapon in the terrorist’s arsenal? Does anyone not believe that cargo ships with a carefully concealed nuclear device buried in the hold would not arrive at “infidel” ports around the word? They are barbaric but they have also learned their lesson. They have one shot at this game and just like 9/11, the ships would probably detonate their deadly cargo simultaneously in New York, San Francisco, Haifa, Liverpool, etc, etc.

This is a game with deadly consequences and not to be played by a President that has no stomach for the brutality of the rules. While Obama has been fixated on fulfilling his socialist promises to his union and radical friends, the protection of the United States has been woefully ignored. The Healthcare bill and the Climate bill must be defeated because of what they really are and the United States must be allowed to return to a place and time where we have the financial ability and the iron clad resolve to insure the safety of our homeland against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That was your pledge Mr. President; just when do you intend to keep it?

Paul

Political Correctness - I'll just stick with correct, thank you.

The earliest mention of something that is not politically correct is found in the U.S. Supreme Court decision Chisholm v. Georgia (1793). In 1792 in South Carolina, Alexander Chisholm, the executor of the estate of Robert Farquhar, attempted to sue the state of Georgia in the Supreme Court over payments due him for goods that Farquhar had supplied Georgia during the American Revolutionary War. United States Attorney General Edmund Randolph argued the case for the plaintiff before the Court. The defendant, Georgia, refused to appear, claiming that as a "sovereign" a state did not have to appear in court to hear a suit against it to which it did not consent.

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Chisholm but the particular phrase in the argument we are interested in today is:” The states, rather than the People, for whose sakes the States exist, are frequently the objects which attract and arrest our principal attention. . . . Sentiments and expressions of this inaccurate kind prevail in our common, even in our convivial, language. Is a toast asked? [To] ‘The United States’, instead of [to] the ‘People of the United States’, is the toast given. This is not politically correct.”

In this case, the reference to political correctness involved a point of law. The States often forget that they exist for the sake of the people and while a sovereign entity within the United States, that sovereignty does not insulate them from their responsibility to the people they serve. It is obvious that in the 18th century, political correctness meant exactly what it sounded like; a political stance that was legally correct under the generally accepted interpretation of law.

Marxism would pervert the meaning of “correctness”, much as it does everything else it touches. According to Marxist ideology, “correct” is anything that is in keeping with the will of the central party. The notion that the State would conform to a set standard of law for the good of the people had been lost as the central party became a new class of ruling elite. The set standard of law was replaced with a notion of dynamic law that would allow the laws to adapt as the party’s needs changed. In the end, the party, not the people could only prevail since the party was responsible for issuing the newest interpretation of law as often as was needed.

Political correctness didn’t begin to take the form we know today until the counter culture emerged in 1960’s America and began to describe a manner of thought consistent with liberal ideology as “politically correct”. Much as today, the radical left had so overused the notion of political correctness that even moderate liberals found it laughable and a cause for ridicule. It wasn’t until the 1990’s until the term political correctness became a pejorative used by the right to describe the extremes in liberal thought.

Most of what we know about political correctness today is the idiotic fear of offending anyone. The enlightened wordsmiths of our more liberal Universities constantly regurgitate a stream of new “non-offensive” descriptions for nearly everything that is human or has been affected by human behavior. Indians are now “Native Americans” even though anthropologists can trace their roots all across Asia and eventually into the African continent. Anyone that has a modest degree of education in modern man knows that “Native Americans” are as native to North America as the Europeans are.

Every known human malady or frailty is now considered a “challenge”. Despite accurate clinical descriptions that gauge mental ability based on medical criteria, anyone that falls below the norm is “mentally challenged” because the clinical names for each degree of disability is considered by the “enlightened”, to be demeaning.

Other human descriptors are expected to display compassion, tolerance and acceptance. Then there is the whole arena of “people first” language issues. No matter who or what you are, it is now considered important to recognize that you are a person first as if that somehow makes a difference. Short people are now “people of small stature”; minorities are “people of color” and the disabled are now “people with disabilities” of course. I suppose the only exception to that rule is being fat. Apparently every attempt to find a kinder, gentler way of saying fat didn’t meet with the approval of the afflicted so they are taking a completely different route.

1968, the NAAFA or The National Association to Aid Fat Americans was founded by William Fabrey to provide social activities for the large. As the group shifted to political activism, it changed names in the 1980’s and became The NAAFA (The National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance). The NAAFA works to eliminate discrimination based on body size and provide fat people with the tools for self-empowerment through public education, advocacy, and member support. In short, their membership is fat and you had just better accept it.

Truthfully, I really don’t care what people want to call themselves. If dropping one name for another allows people to embrace help for a particular condition or it just plain makes them feel better about themselves, then more power to them. My argument with political correctness is a deeper and more dangerous manifestation.

As a nation, political correctness is in its fiftieth year of its mission to completely disable the American people from being to state with conviction that something is right or wrong. We are being forced to accept the unacceptable in the name of tolerance and now under the threat of “hate crimes”. Slowly the definition of a hate crime is being changed from protection against violent acts perpetrated in the name of bigotry to a whole host of new crimes based on…you guessed it…the spoken word. Regardless of your convictions, the right to be a freak has taken precedence over the rights of society to establish a standard of normality and those that speak out on moral grounds or on the grounds of conservative ideology are being methodically attacked as spewing hate speech.

To me, there is a big difference between saying “This is wrong” and expressing an idea that promotes violent action. However, the left now has the new monopoly on morality and the conventional ideals that this country was founded on have now been replaced with their “superior mantra” of acceptance and tolerance. Do not forget that Aristotle once said that “Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society.” Once a society has lost the ability to speak openly against dangerous and perverted acts, it is not long before demoralization dissolves the last threads that bind its peoples together.

Of course, even the champions of tolerance need an enemy to coalesce their power base. After all, how could you possibly bring attention to your cause if there wasn’t someone to rally against? The tolerant left has no tolerance for Judeo-Christian religions, pro-life beliefs, conservative ideals or American patriotism. Religion has openly been the target for the so-called tolerant in America since the 1950’s when the ACLU backed every half-witted law suit to drive religion from any and all, public venues. The same suspects fight every battle against pro-life groups and protect those that burn flags as a legitimate form of protest.

This is the most dangerous path that the left have taken us down. We are at a critical juncture in our history as our very existence is challenged by crippling debt and a failing economy. We provide fertility services to the poor but cannot guarantee the right to be born once conceived. We protect the rights of Muslims against “dangerous speech” but not the rights of Catholic churches to refuse gay marriages based on clear edicts within their holiest book. We protect the habitat of a Spotted Owl while private homes are being seized by the state under manifest destiny; not for public use, but to provide an incentive for corporations to build new facilities.

If you ask me, the mass shootings at Columbine and Virginia Tech had little to do with gun control and were caused entirely by the elimination of traditional morals in our schools and society. What is there to stop disturbed or depressed individuals from committing these heinous crimes if there is no belief in a life beyond this one especially if we are no longer allowed the ability to guide people into a socially acceptable model of human behavior because we can no longer say…”This is wrong”.

Paul

A Thanksgiving Message from Our President

I must say I was surprised when I received a Holiday Greeting from President Barack Obama. I've sent a number of communiques to the White House regarding my concerns and they were not very complimentary but I guess that automatically earns you a place on the Holiday e-mail list.

Considering his e-mail contained requests for my continued support and hard work to help him bring "change" to America, it is painfully apparent that my original messages for him were either never read or grossly misunderstood.

Still, I could not miss the opportunity to respond to this as much of his message was lacking any sense of reality. Considering what we all know this man has and has not done; I decided to post both letters to the blog today to bring some attention to the dream state our President obviously lives in...

Paul --

Tomorrow, Thanksgiving Day, Americans across the country will sit down together, count our blessings, and give thanks for our families and our loved ones.

American families reflect the diversity of this great nation. No two are exactly alike, but there is a common thread they each share.

Our families are bound together through times of joy and times of grief. They shape us, support us, instill the values that guide us as individuals, and make possible all that we achieve.

So tomorrow, I'll be giving thanks for my family -- for all the wisdom, support, and love they have brought into my life.

But tomorrow is also a day to remember those who cannot sit down to break bread with those they love.

The soldier overseas holding down a lonely post and missing his kids. The sailor who left her home to serve a higher calling. The folks who must spend tomorrow apart from their families to work a second job, so they can keep food on the table or send a child to school.

We are grateful beyond words for the service and hard work of so many Americans who make our country great through their sacrifice. And this year, we know that far too many face a daily struggle that puts the comfort and security we all deserve painfully out of reach.

So when we gather tomorrow, let us also use the occasion to renew our commitment to building a more peaceful and prosperous future that every American family can enjoy.

It seems like a lifetime ago that a crowd met on a frigid February morning in Springfield, Illinois to set out on an improbable course to change our nation.

In the years since, Michelle and I have been blessed with the support and friendship of the millions of Americans who have come together to form this ongoing movement for change.

You have been there through victories and setbacks. You have given of yourselves beyond measure. You have enabled all that we have accomplished -- and you have had the courage to dream yet bigger dreams for what we can still achieve.

So in this season of thanks giving, I want to take a moment to express my gratitude to you, and my anticipation of the brighter future we are creating together.

With warmest wishes for a happy holiday season from my family to yours,

President Barack Obama

And now for the official reply....

My Dear President Obama,

My family and I will also spend Thanksgiving Day humbly giving thanks for all the blessings that God has bestowed upon us. The treasure of family and the shared ideals of our religious and moral beliefs are the glue that binds us together. Among the things that we give thanks for are the selfless acts of our military that sacrifice more than comfort and a holiday meal to insure the safety and security of our Nation. These brave soldiers risk all for us and while they remain constantly in our prayers what they truly need is a Commander in Chief that has the courage to provide them with the means to fulfill their mission safely and successfully. Vacuous platitudes will not shield them from the jeopardy that they face in the absence of meaningful leadership.

Sadly many Americans work two jobs to put food on the table and educate their children but many more wish for the opportunity to work at one job; an opportunity that has been denied to them because despite your every assurance and belief, government cannot create wealth or employment. In fact, government is the antithesis to economic development; much as any parasite, government consumes, it does not create. The best thing government can do to create jobs is to withdraw from its oppressive interference in the free market and allow business to do what it does best.

Yes, I recall that cold winter day in Springfield when you launched you campaign for the Presidency; from Bill Ayers living room I believe. However, it does not seem like a lifetime ago, it has been more like an eternity in Dante’s seventh level of hell. Fortunately, I can claim at least some level of participation in all you have accomplished which Saturday Night Live succinctly pointed out, has been absolutely nothing. I intend to continue my mission to educate as many Americans as I can reach to keep them informed as to the true intent of your “fundamental change” for America. Your socialist doctrines are doomed to failure because they require two things you do not have. First is the courage to do anything that is not hidden behind closed doors or the cover of night. The second and most important is the faith of the American people. We do not believe you and we have no faith in your word. I've got a much better idea...let us keep our money and you can keep the "change".

Sincerely,

Paul M. Magel Sr.

P.S. Have you ever contacted Hawaii about getting that birth certificate issue cleared up? You know….the one that actually has a seal and signature on it.


I thought you might like a look at the messages that are possible when only one person takes the time to read them. I have not forgotten the Holiday and our reasons to be thankful. My description of my family's celebration of Thanksgiving was from the heart and I know that if you are reading this, you understand what I mean and are enjoyng the same revenence for the day that we are.

Please accept my hopes and prayers for a blessed Thanksgiving for all of you and your families. As much fear as we may have for the future of this nation, we also have much to give thanks and praise for. God Bless you all and have Happy Thanksgiving.

Paul

Orwell and Obama, Four Plus Four Equal Five

George Orwell
“1984”

O'Brien held up his left hand, its back towards Winston, with the thumb hidden and the four fingers extended.

'How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?'

'Four.'

'And if the party says that it is not four but five--then how many?'

'Four.'

The word ended in a gasp of pain. The needle of the dial had shot up to fifty-five. The sweat had sprung out all over Winston's body. The air tore into his lungs and issued again in deep groans which even by clenching his teeth he could not stop. O'Brien watched him, the four fingers still extended. He drew back the lever. This time the pain was only slightly eased.

'How many fingers, Winston?'

'Four.'

The needle went up to sixty.

'How many fingers, Winston?'

'Four! Four! What else can I say? Four!'

The needle must have risen again, but he did not look at it. The heavy, stern face and the four fingers filled his vision. The fingers stood up before his eyes like pillars, enormous, blurry, and seeming to vibrate, but unmistakably four.

'How many fingers, Winston?'

'Four! Stop it, stop it! How can you go on? Four! Four!'

'How many fingers, Winston?'

'Five! Five! Five!'

'No, Winston, that is no use. You are lying. You still think there are four. How many fingers, please?'

'Four! five! Four! Anything you like. Only stop it, stop the pain!'

Abruptly he was sitting up with O'Brien's arm round his shoulders. He had perhaps lost consciousness for a few seconds. The bonds that had held his body down were loosened. He felt very cold, he was shaking uncontrollably, his teeth were chattering, the tears were rolling down his cheeks. For a moment he clung to O'Brien like a baby, curiously comforted by the heavy arm round his shoulders. He had the feeling that O'Brien was his protector, that the pain was something that came from outside, from some other source, and that it was O'Brien who would save him from it.

'You are a slow learner, Winston,' said O'Brien gently.

Apparently, we are all slow learners. The Democrats in Congress and the Obama administration has been engaged in a war against free thought. Opponents of the healthcare bill are summarily dismissed as “wrong” and those that would dare take to the streets in protest are labeled as manufactured anger, “Astroturf” and angry mobs. After all, no one in their right minds would argue against the wisdom of government control of healthcare.

For years we have been on the path to allowing our Constitution to be diluted to allow for government control of our very thoughts. Fox news dared to report news items that were contradictory to the administration’s positions and the White House retaliated by dismissing them as an opinion market similar to talk radio and even went as far as suggesting that other media organs ignore the work of Fox with the implication that if they dared to “follow the leader” that they would suffer the same fate.

Of course, this is nothing new. It is the next logical step in the demoralization of America that began decades ago. Political correctness had infiltrated our culture and slowly began the work of eliminating the ability of Americans to state with certainty what is right and what is wrong. Thirty years ago, the education system starting dabbling with “outcome based education” on the premise that self esteem was far more important that the actual school work and students were, for the first time in history, graded for their effort and not for actually getting the right answer. In essence, two plus two could equal five and still gain an “A” rather than bruise the fragile ego of our young scholars.

What did that get us? An entire generation of students that failed miserably when compared with foreign students and an emerging work force of new graduates that were unprepared for the reality that is the meritocracy of corporate America. Productivity waned as these new “worker bees” infiltrated the workplace bringing with them everything they learned in school. On Monday morning, many lounged about discussing what they did over the weekend until Wednesday afternoon when the conversation shifted to what they were planning for the upcoming weekend. Work remained half completed and that half was poorly done. When time for review came, the dreamers felt ill used when the money wasn’t available for substantial raises even though their own absence of drive contributed to the lack of revenue.

The worst display of Orwellian behavior comes from the government itself. Mark Lloyd, who was appointed by Obama to the newly created position of “Chief Diversity Officer” within the FCC, is unapologetic about his disdain for the First Amendment. He feels that tragically, a free press nearly collapsed Hugo Chavez’s socialist revolution in Venezuela and that the First Amendment in this country stands in the way of crucial reform that would benefit the minority community. He has proposed fining private media the equivalent of 100% of their annual operating budget if they fail to meet his idea of diversity and to use that money to fund public broadcasting run by minority interests. The fact is that private media can never meet his idea of diversity unless they relinquish control of the station to a qualified minority and changed their programming, abandoning conservative values in lieu of something more reflective of progressive ideals. As is turns out, Mr. Lloyd’s idea of diversity is strictly race based and lacks an awareness of the gains our nation has made in the elimination of race as a reason for exclusion. It seems that the only place that determination based on race is still permissible is within the Federal Government.

Tomorrow we will delve into the dark chasm of political correctness and the damage that has wrought on our nation.

Paul

Was Orwell's 1984 a prophetic look at the Obama Administration?

Originally published in 1949, George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984” described what life under a totalitarian oligarchy would look like. Through his many books, Orwell warned us about government controls that would seek out and punish those who were not in line with the edicts of that government. Many thought that “1984” was Orwell’s indictment of the British Labor Party and Oceania, the country profiled in this book, was meant to be the future of England if the socialist movements in Great Britain remained unchecked. Mr. Orwell dismissed that rumor and hinted that the book was in fact, reflective of his disdain and deep distrust of Stalinist Russia.

Oceania's four government ministries are in pyramids the façades of which display the Party's three slogans, the names of which are diametrically opposed to their true functions: "The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. Through his work, he warned us about the heavy hand of unchecked government and the inherent corruption that is inevitable when government officials become a small core group of powerful elites.

The Ministry of Peace reported daily on the heroic advances in Oceania’s perpetual war. Of course there were periodic “mini crisis’s conjured up to keep the cause for war alive and well but Oceania would always prevail in the end, at least in the news. Oceania’s world was the remnant countries that survived the atomic war that Orwell largely believed was unavoidable. It is comprised of the three coalesced “superpowers” of Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia.

While the three powers remained in a constant state of war, the war was never fought within the borders of any one country but rather, only in a disputed area. Each superpower was strong enough that it could not be beaten by the combined strength of the other two “nations”. Alliances were made and broken constantly but the Ministry of Truth would simply revise history so that the Party could claim the “new alliance” always will and always had existed.

The Ministry of Truth, similar to Russia’s Pravda, was responsible for the news, entertainment, education and the arts. This Ministry of Truth was also charged with monitoring the statements of the Party and if needed, re-writing history to insure that whatever the Party said would be true.

The Ministry of Love would identify, monitor, arrest, and convert, real and imagined dissidents because the only valid and therefore, permissible love, was love of the Party.

The Ministry of Plenty rationed and controlled food, goods, and domestic production; every fiscal quarter, the Ministry published false claims of having raised the standard of living, when it has, in fact, reduced rations, availability, and production. Of course the “war” was always cited as the need for rationing and the need for Oceania to demand patriotic increases in productivity.

There seems to be an awful lot of parallels to “1984” in modern America, so much so, that I think that Orwell may have been more of a prophet than a novelist. Anyone that has read a newspaper or watched network news lately can only find it hard to ignore that the mains stream media has routinely disregarded anything that would detract from Obama’s image or impair his mission to “fundamentally transform America”.

When the Tea Parties converged on Washington to protest against healthcare reform the press, or should we say “The Ministry of Truth”, re-wrote History and underreported the numbers by a factor of ten. They scoured the crowd to find that one out of a thousand that held signs that were a bit bolder than the rest and crafted stories about the “angry mobs”, negating the peaceful nature of the gathering. Independent estimates placed the crowd size at between one and two million people and the National Park Service confirmed that not only were there no arrests for disorderly conduct, but that the crowd actually cleaned up after themselves as they left leaving nothing behind that would detract from their message.

In comparison, a group of only five thousand socialist activists gathered in Pittsburgh to protest against capitalism during this years G-20 summit. Trash bins were set ablaze and rolled through the streets at the line of police officers guarding the conference. In one night of protests, the police had to resort to firing tear gas grenades and “bean-bag” non-lethal bullets into the mob and reported over two hundred arrests. Of course, reports covering these protests were hard to find and where they appeared at all, were soft-peddled rather than risk showing that anyone would protest against President Obama.

I suppose the Ministry of Plenty would have to be the White House itself. Only the White House could claim victory for the Stimulus Bill as unemployment climbed from 7.6% before the bill’s passage in February of 2009, to over 10.2% in October of that year. The “Ministry” created a web site to extol the virtues of the Governments actions and that web site has been rife with misinformation and fictitious claims and exaggerations of created and saved jobs. Even a peripheral examination of the figures claimed on recovery.gov show a web of deceit with jobs created figures inflated up to ten times the actual amount and outright lies regarding jobs figures from Congressional districts that simply do not exist.

The White House cannot show any success in the economy in general so it has taken the next best step. People are still losing jobs in record numbers as the economy sags even deeper into recession so the numbers people within the White House are quick to point out that even though 466,000 people lost their jobs last week; the job loss figures for the previous week were over 500,000 so the stimulus bill and the White House “in essence, saved over 35,000 jobs. Only government could be so bold. If the government were a corporation and the same people used this logic in reporting the profit and loss statement to the board of directors, they would all be at home working on their resume’s now.

The Ministry of Love? Well, that is evenly divided between Congress and the White House. Promises to address gay rights issues such as same sex marriage and the exclusion of openly gay individuals from serving in the military are on the opposite end of the scale that Democrats used to craft the Healthcare bill. The healthcare bill, like many other provisions of the tax code contain a marriage penalty that levies higher taxes on married couples than it does on individuals. I suppose if there was any good reason to support gay marriage it would be to eliminate the marriage penalties from the tax code. After all, Democrats wouldn’t dare use the same antiquated tax structure that punishes married couples once those couples include such a vocal portion of their core constituency.

I believe the biggest travesty in this administration is the Ministry of Peace and that is Obama himself. Part of the responsibility of the Presidency is the role as Commander in Chief of the United States Military. Under this administration the military has taken a back seat to the image of the President. American troops are still fighting and dying in Afghanistan while the President “considers” what to do about his theater commander’s request for an additional 40,000 troops reinforce the troop levels or face the real possibility that our mission in Afghanistan will fail. Ignoring the treat to the troops that are already in the field does not promote peace but only displays the vacuous policies of a weak an ineffective President. While I am sure he has a sincere desire for peace, the reality is that this poor showing bolsters the will of those that would do us harm and that has historically led this nation into war.

Tomorrow we will discuss another parallel to Orwell’s book, the thought police. Have we finally reached the point where mere thoughts are judged and punished?

Paul

Mary Landrieu - Political Prostitute

Prostitute
Pronunciation [pros-ti-toot, -tyoot] verb, -tut⋅ed, -tut⋅ing.

–noun
1- A woman who engages in sexual intercourse for money; whore; harlot.
2- A man who engages in sexual acts for money.
3- A person who willingly uses his or her talent or ability in a base and unworthy way, usually for money.

In another Saturday night, special session of Congress (there seems to be a lot of those these days), the Senate voted to allow Harry Reid’s version of the healthcare bill to proceed to debate. For a President and Congress that promised unparalleled “transparency” in government, there have been far more closed door meetings and midnight votes than during any previous administration; essential requisites for “ladies and gentlemen of the evening”. That coupled with the fact that the healthcare bill is a staggering 2000 page document that the senate was given a mere 72 hours to digest before a vote was taken spells a total disconnect between the actions of government and the expectations of the governed.

By comparison, Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” is a mere 1275 pages, in hardcover, containing a total of more than 560,000 words. We are now being asked to believe that every one of our elected Congressmen possess the unique ability to be able to read the equivalent of “War and Peace” twice in a 72 hour period. In Senator Mary Landrieu’s speech, she made mention of the time she was granted to do just that. She applauded the work of Senator Blanche Lincoln in assuring that the Senate received the time required to read the legislation and to “attend the necessary meetings”.

We can now surmise that at least one of those meetings was with Harry Reid and the subject of that meeting was just how much taxpayer money it was going to take to purchase her vote to proceed. On page 432 of the Reid bill, there is a section increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for “certain states recovering from a major disaster.” The section spends two pages defining which “states” would qualify, saying, among other things, that it would be states that “during the preceding seven fiscal years” have been declared a “major disaster area.”

This section applies to exactly one state: Louisiana, the home of Democrat Mary Landrieu, who has been playing hard to get on the health care bill. In other words, the bill spends two pages describing what could be written with a single phrase: In exchange for Mary Landrieu’s vote, Louisiana will receive the equivalent of one-hundred million dollars in increased Medicaid subsidies. While she will claim this settlement is “doing the good work” for her home state, it is clear to us that this is only intended to strengthen her position in the 2010 election. Since hurricane Katrina devastated Louisiana in 2005, the payoff will expire in five years leaving her state, by 2015, to contend with the same increased financial mandates that the healthcare bill will impose on all other states.

There is no doubt that Mary Landrieu will deny that she personally gains from this “provision” and since the bribe was crafted in general language that provides relief to any state that has been declared a major disaster area, Harry Reid can and will deny that it had anything to do with Louisiana specifically, but words are words and deeds are deeds. The facts are that Mary Landrieu withheld her support of the healthcare bill knowing that her bid for re-election would be in jeopardy if she voted for the bill. The estimated one-hundred million dollars Louisiana will receive from the bill will go along way in mitigating the negative effects the rest of the states will suffer if this monstrosity passes, in effect, anesthetizing the voters in her state from the pain of the full effects of this bill until the elections are well over.

Mark my words; knowing the way that politics works in Washington, she will distance herself from this bill later. Reid needed 60 votes to bring the bill to the floor for debate but if he uses reconciliation, as has been threatened; he will only need 51 votes to pass the final version. All the Democratic Senators that are facing election difficulties in 2010 including Mary Landrieu, will be allowed to vote no on the final vote and it will squeak by with the minimum number of required votes just as it did in the House of Representatives.

John Kerry looked ridiculous when he made his famous “I voted for it before I voted against it” statement referencing the $87 billion dollar appropriation for the Iraq war. No one believed John Kerry and no one will believe Mary Landrieu either. It is obvious that the Democrats need some new strategists because they keep using the same idiotic plays over and over. We’ve seen this before and no one is buying it. Congress is at its lowest approval rating in decades and these deceitful tricks only serve to deepen our distrust and distain for career politicians. Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, George Voinovich, etc. can try the “Kerry Play” but who will believe them now?

What Mary Landrieu failed to anticipate was the degree of attention this “bribe” for her vote would receive. I’m sure she was aghast after she finally left the chamber and saw her name plastered all over the news. To the American people and to her constituency, she has been singled out in the press as the one Senator who prostituted herself by placing her vote on the auction block. That tells anyone that follows politics that she has no foundation; no fundamental beliefs. Even though I oppose this hideous government takeover of the American healthcare system, I wouldn’t have blamed her if she voted her conscience, stood proud of what she had done and could tell us why. The fact is you cannot publically place your vote up for sale and not be accused of being a political whore.

The funny part is that she believed the Senate “pimp” (Harry Reid) and signed her soul away for something that will probably not make it into the final bill anyway. If the Medicaid savings for Louisiana represents $100 million over the next five years, what costs will be forced on more populace states as this bill shifts more of the burden for Medicaid to them? Does Mary Landrieu not realize that her “spiff” will probably disappear in the final version as other Senators demand similar provisions because of the equally catastrophic fiscal disasters in their own states? Since the government cannot provide that relief for all states, it is doubtful they can honor the agreement to do it for only one.

Not possible? Well the House version only passed the vote because of the last minute passage of the Stupak amendment, eliminating any possible use of public funding for abortion. Nancy Pelosi agreed to allow that amendment to come to a vote to gain the support of pro-life Democrats. As a resolute pro-choice advocate, she only agreed to the Stupak Amendment because she knew the Reid bill would strip that protection and the final version will invariably not provide the iron clad prohibitions that the pro-life Democrats sought. In their haste to pass “something”, they missed the one opportunity they would get to stop this lousy bill in favor of legislation that guaranteed the prohibitions against public funding for abortion could not be removed at a later date.

I am making the prediction now that if the healthcare bill fails, Mary Landrieu only has a 50/50 chance of being re-elected in 2010 because of the publicity associated with selling her vote. Let’s face it. If she were actually representing the will of her constituents, their voices would have guided her vote and not what her pimp promised her. If the healthcare bill passes, her political career will go down in flames and she can spend the next couple of years trying to rebuild her law career in a nation that won’t have the money to hire her services. I intend to use this forum regularly so that we do not forget those members of Congress that are so blatantly corrupt that they would sell their vote for another shot at being reelected. On the bright side, Mary won’t be homeless…ACORN still offers some fantastic housing options for “Ladies of the Evening”.

Paul

Another Nail in the Coffin

So here we are. Another nail-biter as Harry Reid prepares to see if he can “pull a Pelosi” and force a vote on healthcare in yet another Saturday session. We have all seen the crazy things in this legislation and outside of the Democratic Party, there are few good things to be said about it. The National Debt has just topped twelve trillion dollars and the CBO estimates on the debt say it will double to twenty-four trillion by 2019. The sad part is their estimates do not include anything from the Healthcare or Cap and Trade/Climate bills.

Oh yes, Reid says it is “budget neutral” but the House already passed a separate contingency bill to cover the so-called “doctor fix”. That is an additional $270 billion dollars that should have been part of the healthcare bill but they decided to peel that off and pass it separately. If it were included, the healthcare bill wouldn’t be budget neutral anymore and that wouldn’t do. In just another slight of hand from the criminals in Congress, they just snuck that through while you weren’t looking so the CBO could give healthcare a favorable projection. That doesn’t change the fact that the CBO has been historically wrong on everything they score and the miscalculations end up costing the taxpayers seven to ten times more than the legislation was originally scored at.

So if this is such a bad bill, the “worst bill ever written” according to the Wall Street Journal, then why are the Democrats still pushing for this? Don’t forget that this is not the Democratic Party your father knew. That was the party of the blue collar American; the Party of JFK and Truman. The Democratic Party is now the home of the left of the left; the political radicals. All eighty-three members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus are Democrats and the progressive agenda is a verse and chapter copy of the socialist movement.

Universal healthcare is one of the master links in the chains of socialist control. Many progressives in Congress have openly admitted that a “public option” is the best way to achieve a single payer, universal healthcare system because at the heart of the public option is a subsidized payment structure designed to drive private insurance out of business. The elimination of private insurance is critical to their plan because the goal is not really your care but rather, the nationalization of a huge segment of the United States economy. The next target is the energy industry through cap and trade.

Cap and Trade, otherwise known as the Climate bill, will decimate the coal and oil industries in this nation leaving the technological drive to clean energy in the hands of the government. The Climate bill will create a gap in energy production that will force the government to curb your personal usage as yet another government created crisis befalls the American people. If cap and trade become law, the effect on American industry will be catastrophic and then it will be a short step for the government to step in and take over entire industries for the “good of the nation” and this ties right in with our new Presidents fundamental ideas.

If you recall, Obama isn’t just the President of the United States. He is the first President that understands our global obligations. He reaches out to terrorists and dictators so we can finally have a dialogue with them. He is (in his own words) the first “Pacific” President, kowtowing to Asian interests. He is the first President that admitted in his own memoirs that he gravitated towards Marxist professors in college and that obviously proved helpful to him as he taught the strategies of Saul Alinsky when he became a professor himself. He has surrounded himself with left leaning radicals that share the common goal of a global socialist system of government and economics.

As he prepared for his run for the Presidency, Obama was asked if he believes in reparations for slavery. I have to at least say he was honest when he replied “No, I don’t believe in reparations because reparations don’t go far enough.” He is a man of his word because the agenda his administration is championing is a single-minded drive for the largest redistribution of wealth in American history. That redistribution is not the old Robin Hood principals of LBJ that stole from the rich and gave to the poor right here in America. Obama’s plan reaches far beyond that and cap and trade is ultimately a tool to redistribute large portions of America’s wealth and industrial capabilities to foreign countries. Of course our largest corporations (and Obama contributors) like GE don’t mind because they are multi-nationals and American money flowing into nations with no existing infrastructure would mean huge opportunities for them no matter what happens to the folks at home.

Just ask yourself one question….if Obama was not a global Marxist at heart would he have appointed so many blatantly radical Marxists to positions of power within his administration? We’ve already talked about Carol Browner, Climate Czar and former member of Socialist International and John Holdren, Science Czar and author of books that espoused forced sterilization and forced abortion to limit population growth but who have we forgotten?

Ron Bloom, Obama administration, Manufacturing Czar:
“Generally speaking, we get the joke. We know that the free market is nonsense. We know that the whole point is to game the system, to beat the market or at least find someone who will pay you a lot of money, 'cause they're convinced that there is a free lunch. We know this is largely about power, that it's an adults only no limit game. We kind of agree with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun. And we get it that if you want a friend you should get a dog.”

Anita Dunn, Obama administration, White House Communications Director:
"... two of my favorite political philosophers, Mao Zedong and Mother Teresa, not often coupled with each other, but the two people that I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point...”

Van Jones, Obama administration, Former Green Jobs Czar:
“This movement is deeper than a solar panel! Deeper than a solar panel! Don't stop there! Don't stop there! We're gonna change the whole system! We're gonna change the whole thing. We want a new system. We want a new system!”

Mark Lloyd, Obama Administration, FCC Chief Diversity Officer:
"In Venezuela, with Chavez, is really an incredible revolution - a democratic revolution. To begin to put in place things that are going to have an impact on the people of Venezuela….The property owners and the folks who then controlled the media in Venezuela rebelled - worked, frankly, with folks here in the U.S. government - worked to oust him. But he came back with another revolution, and then Chavez began to take very seriously the media in his country. “

"It should be clear by now that my focus here is not freedom of speech or the press. This freedom is all too often an exaggeration. At the very least, blind references to freedom of speech or the press serve as a distraction from the critical examination of other communications policies.”

Lloyd is in fact a Saul Alinsky disciple. In his 2006 book entitled “Prologue to a Farce: Communication and Democracy in America”, he calls for an all-out "confrontational movement" against private media. He wants leftist activists - through incessant political pressure - and the government - through the creation of a totally untenable operating environment of fees, fines and regulations - to work together to force the commercial broadcasters out, to be replaced by public broadcasters.

It is clear through his own statements that he admires socialist dictator Hugo Chavez and intends to “tweak” our First Amendment to insure that those pesky journalists, radio personalities and yes, even bloggers won’t interfere in Obama’s own “incredible revolution”. If threatening the First Amendment isn’t enough to scare you, did you notice that little dig about the “private land owners” in Venezuela that tried to oust Chavez? I have learned the hard way that nothing these people say is an accident and if he felt the need to refer to private land owners in a passing comment, you can be damned sure that personal property rights are just as much in question now as private healthcare insurance is.

According to Columnist Paul R. Hollrah, "After arriving at Occidental College (in Los Angeles), Obama chose his friends carefully. He tells us in his memoir that, among his friends he included "the more politically active black students, foreign students, Chicanos, Marxist professors, feminists, and punk rock performance poets."

"Then, after transferring to Columbia University two years later, he found that "political discussions, the kind that at Occidental had once seemed so intense and purposeful," took on the flavor of the "socialist conferences" he sometimes attended at New York's Coopers Union.""As Obama was preparing to graduate from Columbia he wasn't sure what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. Finally, in 1983, he decided to follow in the footsteps of one of his heroes, radical leftist and communist fellow traveler, Saul Alinsky.

Andy Stern, another believer in Alinsky and President of SEIU, has visited the White House twenty-two times since Obama was sworn in. This is the same Andy Stern that was recently quoted as saying “Workers of the world unite is no longer just a saying.” Hmmm? I wonder what he meant by that?

Paul