How Much Will Pelosi Cost San Francisco?

The Healthcare Bill has passed the House by the slimmest of margins and the slimiest of strategies leaving many wondering what, if any, honor is left in the body that was meant to be the House of the people. Nancy Pelosi was the driving force behind the wheeling and dealing that eventually gained passage of the Healthcare Bill and while she is revered for her work by fellow Progressives and the leftists in the main stream media, most every one else is repulsed by the stories that are creeping out about bribes, bullying and political brutality she employed to get to a mere 219 votes this past Sunday night.

The overwhelming majority of Americans did not want this bill and have made that known in town hall meetings, protests, phone calls, faxes and e-mails. Americans were angry as Congressional Democrats ignored the people they were elected to represent and opposition to this bill climbed to an overwhelming 68% by the evening of the vote. Despite all of this, those that know what this bill will do to the nation watched the signing ceremony that took place Tuesday morning with an unsettling mixture of fear and outrage.

On March 22, 1765 the British Parliament passed the Stamp Act imposing a slew of unpopular and unfair taxes on colonial America. The Stamp Act would rouse anger in the colonies and predicated the colonial revolt against taxation without representation. Isn’t ironic that 245 years later, almost to the day, the United States Congress passed a bill that will tax nearly every facet of American human activity with total disregard of the people they are ostensibly representing. I guess the question now is whether or not the reaction of unrepresented citizens will be the same as the reaction of unrepresented colonists.

As the charge of taxation without representation echoes across the country with the passage of this bill, the real ramifications are just now becoming clear. For the first time in American history, the Federal government will force people to buy a service that they do not want so that government can give it away to people that they determine cannot afford it. The process used by Pelosi to gain the 216 votes she needed for passage was not only rife with charges of bribery but numerous stories about Congressmen being threatened with the loss of their powerful committee assignments or project funding for their districts is now drifting, or should I say oozing into the public light. One Congressman has even accused House leadership of leaking information about an ethics investigation to the press to force his resignation prior to the vote because he would not change his position and support the bill.

Incredibly, Charlie Rangel, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee (the committee responsible for writing our tax code) is currently under investigation for tax fraud and accepting gifts. Nancy Pelosi has not only protected him from public scrutiny for over a year, but openly resisted asking him to relinquish his leadership of the committee until public outrage forced her to reconsider. Oh by the way….Charlie supported the Healthcare Bill and since he only gave up the chairman position and not his Congressional seat, was allowed to vote for the bill this Sunday. It could just be coincidence but knowing what else was done to secure the votes, I seriously doubt it.

Not only are House Republicans furious with the tactics used by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer but there are reports of disgust and outrage from quite a few Moderate Democrats as well. There are many Democrats that secretly equate the passage of this bill with the mass suicide at Jonestown and are left now with trying to figure out how they are going to try and explain their vote to the folks back home. Let’s not forget what they faced in the town hall meetings last August. Now that they betrayed their constituents, they are not sure what they can do to salvage their careers this November. There are unsubstantiated rumors that many of the Democrats that voted for the Healthcare Bill have already mumbled that they will not vote on another piece of controversial legislation until the elections are over, saying that they have “stuck their necks out too far already”. That does not bode well for an ambitious President or his arrogant Speaker and I suspect, the President’s agenda may well be on hold no matter how much Pelosi says it’s time to move forward.

That may present a problem for Obama. The writing is on the wall for the November elections and while some analysts say the Republicans may not gain control of both houses, the President will certainly not be able to move radial or expensive parts of his agenda through the Senate. With this in mind, the President may attempt to a push to get a few more of his pet projects through such as card check, immigration reform or Cap and Trade before the November election brings his agenda to a screeching halt. The problem he has, even today, is that Pelosi and Reid have so deeply angered Congressional Republicans that after the election of Scott Brown, he may find everything he wants dead on arrival in the Senate.

San Franciscans may find themselves with a deeper problem than the President has. Even though House Progressives are falling over themselves to talk about the leadership of Nancy Pelosi, secretly there are many moderates that despise her abusive use of the Speaker’s power over the past year. It is almost a certainty that she will no longer be Speaker by the time January rolls around but the anger runs far deeper than that. I can envision a scenario where Republicans gain enough seats that combined with moderate Democrats; they will see that Pelosi’s district in San Francisco will never receive another nickel for pet projects, pilot programs or economic stimulus as long as Nancy Pelosi is their elected representative. She has proven over the course of the past year, the depth that she would stoop to get what she wants and like a cannibal, even resorted to eating some of her own to get it. That is something not easily forgotten or forgiven in Congress; especially when the cameras are off and the lights go out.

Pelosi may have acted the way she has in part because she is secure in the idea that her district is one of the more liberal areas of the free world. Except for her first bid for Congress, Pelosi has enjoyed the overwhelming support of her constituents and expects the same in 2010. It was only her confidence that she would not suffer the fallout personally that emboldened her to ask her colleagues to jump off a cliff for healthcare. But is she really as secure as she thinks?

Her approval rating across the country is at an all time low of 11% and her approval rating in her own district has slipped well below the 80% she has enjoyed for the past twenty years. She may represent the most Liberal city in America but those Liberals have always seen her as a champion of the people’s rights and the revelation that she is little more than another dried up, old devious and corrupt politician apparently has shaken some of that faith in her. There are already several campaigns forming for the sole purpose of firing Nancy Pelosi and they intend to drive the message home that she is just one more power hungry politician that let her position and power blind her to her obligation to the people she was elected to represent. In the end, we know that San Francisco will offer us another Liberal Democrat to take he place, but if we don’t have to look at or listen to Nancy “Skeletor” Pelosi anymore, the change will be refreshing.

The people of San Francisco should come to their senses and realize that while they might like a good Progressive, she is poison now and having her in Congress to represent them may well cost San Francisco billions in a new Congress. My advice to the City by the Bay is to drop Pelosi like a bad habit. San Francisco has enough to worry about between earthquakes, wild fires and mudslides…..why would you want to risk your future economic security on someone who won’t be able to sell a winning lottery ticket by this time next year?

Paul

Deem and Pass Wasn't Used - This Time

The use of “deem and pass” was narrowly averted when two Democrats sitting on the House Rules Committee voted against the use of the “Slaughter Solution” that was intended to forward the Senate Bill through the House of Representative without requiring members to actually vote on the Bill. While the deem and pass rule has been around since the 1930’s, it has never been used to forward legislation of this magnitude through the House without an actual vote. Deem and pass was dubbed the “Slaughter Solution” after Louise Slaughter (D-NY), the chairwoman of the House Rules Committee that proposed its use to move the Healthcare Bill out of the House.

Louise Slaughter, that ironically represents Erie and Niagara Counties in New York, expected fellow Democrats on the Rules Committee to climb into their own barrels and follow her over the “falls” by approving the use of this legislative trick. Fortunately, Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-CA) and another, yet unnamed Democrat on the Rules Committee realized that this was tantamount to political suicide and voted against the measure. This reduced the vote in favor of deem and pass to the slightest margin of seven for and six against, making it’s use politically dangerous as each one would be seen as the deciding vote in their own district.

America may be a diverse culture with a vast chasm between the political ideologies of the people but they all agree that our government should act with honor. To use this rule would be seen as a corruption of the legitimate process of government. It’s true that deem and pass has been used by both Parties over the past eighty years and pretty much for the same reasons; to pass unpopular or costly legislation while still providing more cowardly members of Congress the ability to go home and tell their constituents they didn’t vote for the Bill. This time, the healthcare bill is so widely despised and has been so closely followed that even deem and pass would not provide the cover that nervous Democrats had hoped for. In fact, once the light of day had been shown on this process, the American people issued a thunderous rejection of the apparent misuse of power so loud that even the Rules Committee thought twice about the consequences.

What I found disturbing is the media’s ready acceptance of this incredibly deceitful process. Except for right wing TV and talk radio, the main stream press had no problem with using deem and pass; citing the historical use of the process. I said I found it disturbing, but does not mean I found it surprising. After all, there are many versions of deem and pass that can be found all over America. The press itself is guilty of similar practices; writing entire stories based solely on damaging quotes by unreliable sources. Since they were merely quoting someone else, they could run with a story that would politically hobble someone they considered an enemy without actually having to bear the responsibility of slandering them. “Hey…I didn’t say it…I just reported on someone that did!” Of course if the subject screamed loud enough, had proof that the accusations were false or threatened a law suit, the press could always bury a single sentence retraction in a rarely read section of the paper that would satisfy the legal world that they corrected the misstatement.

A perfect example of the use of a deem and pass look alike can be found in the global warming / climate change debate. The UN climate panel relied heavily on reports issued by the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia; the same CRU that has recently been exposed willingly manipulating climate data, thwarting the release of information under the British equivalent to the Freedom of information act and conspiring with other global warming proponents to hide information that was contradictory to their claims. The UN climate panel had also created alarming climate reports warning of catastrophic consequences if CO2 levels were not drastically reduced. As it turns out, the UN climate panel used an article about melting glacial ice from a rock climbing magazine and a non-professional paper on the subject authored by a college student. When confronted with these damaging facts, the UN climate panel shrugged it off saying that they apologize for the errors but there is still overwhelming evidence to support climate change (and the U.N.’s global money grab to fight it) but they would conduct further study into the materials they use for their reports. In other words, they deem the crisis is real and passed the blame.

I wonder if I can use deem and pass myself? I could pay sales tax on a new home entertainment system and “deem” that my Federal taxes have been paid as well. No, that wouldn’t work because the Federal government really doesn’t like competition where criminal acts are concerned. I could have a sugar free coke with six slices of pizza and “deem” that I am on a diet or perhaps I could throw out one of the cigarettes in my newest carton of 200 and “deem” that I am cutting back. Yes, we could all use some version of deem and pass but somehow, it just doesn’t feel right to an honest person and it shouldn’t feel right to our elected officials.

Congressional procedure has become so corrupted by lawyers and modern politicians that nearly anything seems possible and the only justification they offer these days is “Well, they did it!” Have things descended that low? Has the Congress become so corrupt that they no longer think about whether or not it is the right thing to do but instead rationalize their actions on what someone else has already gotten away with? If that is true, then what will the future hold? Will we leave morality out of the equation and clone humans to use their bits and pieces for organ transplants or medical experiments? After all, what makes us human? We have already cloned chickens and sheep so cloning is possible and can it really be murder if these unwilling donors were never born? Impossible? Well, the abortion argument has already cheapened our conception of human existence and turned that into a question of when is a person really a person? What would happen if lawmakers began to deem people “non-people”?

As it stands now, our society’s view on the rights of the unborn are left entirely up to the woman that is carrying the unborn. The right to choose is based on the sovereignty of one’s own body and those that choose life have in essence, chosen to deem their unborn child a person worthy of protection. While pro-choice advocates fear that a woman’s right to choose abortion is threatened by the religious right, what they should fear more is the radical left. John Holdren, President Obama’s “Science Czar” has already weighed in on the right to choose and it is truly frightening. In the 1970’s, Holdren was one of the eco-kooks that believed the greatest threat to the earth was the explosion of human population. In a book Holdren co-authored with Anne H. Ehrlich titled “Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment” the pair proposed forced abortion and mandatory sterilization to stave off an impending overpopulation crisis. Holdren and his Hench-woman actually went as far as suggesting retroactive abortion where children below the age of two that faced severe physical or mental disabilities could be “deemed” to be unviable and in fact, unborn since they were incapable of life independent of special means. Children deemed “unborn” could be disposed of neatly and legally within the framework of existing abortion legislation once they were lawfully considered unborn.

Oh yes, there are number of ways that deem and pass have made it beyond our legislature and into everyday life. It is the ways that it could be used in the future that should make rational people very nervous indeed. Just because the Congress didn’t have the nerve to use it this time does not mean it won’t rear its ugly head later when the public is too occupied with something else to notice. After all, that’s how it was used before and with great success. Whatever the political landscape is after the 2010 and 2012 elections, it is clear that the Democrats have provided us with some valuable insights. These devious rules and procedures must be routed out with strong enough language that they can never be used again. While the Party in control may be tempted to used the same rules to move their agenda forward, those temptations must be resisted and these rules must be forever retired if we are ever to return to a lawful, honorable and pure constitutional Republic.

Paul

Bart Stupak caves on abortion - Healthcare passes

The debate is over and the healthcare bill has passed the House by a vote of 219 to 212. Pro-life turncoat Bart Stupak announced late Sunday that he had reached an agreement with the President that an Executive Order would be issued upon passage of the Bill that would uphold the Hyde Amendment prohibiting the use of Federal funds for abortion. Stupak is either a fool or he was merely holding out for his share of the free-flowing money the House leadership used to purchase the votes of so many of his colleagues. Truthfully, I think his support was needed to provide a margin of comfort so Nancy Pelosi and the President leaned hard enough to make him fold like a cheap suitcase. I’m sure he waited too long to get one of the sweetheart deals his other friends received so in the end, all Mr. Stupak will get is an Executive Order from the President so that he can claim he stood fast on his principals.

First of all, considering the track record this President has at keeping his word, I doubt the Executive Order that Stupak will receive contains little more than a confirmation of the language that is already in the bill; language that is woefully inadequate to accomplish what Stupak claimed was essential to gain his vote. Why am I so cynical? The President has far more pro-choice Democrats to placate than the block of so-called pro-life Democrats that Bart Stupak had spoken for. The bill contains language that would allow someone purchasing insurance through the exchange to write a separate check for abortion coverage in order to claim that no Federal funds were used. Asking people to write a separate check for abortion coverage when purchasing insurance through the exchange means very little when the policy itself is subsidized with Federal money. This is a neat little accounting trick that amounts to little more than shifting money from one pocket to the other.

An iron clad guarantee would be the elimination of abortion coverage in the insurance available through the exchange, allowing insurers to offer a separate rider that people could purchase individually and totally outside of the exchange if they so desired. But that really isn’t the issue; now is it. The Hyde amendment already allows the use of Federal funds for abortion in the case of rape or incest but that does not go far enough for Progressive Democrats. Abortion may be a medical procedure but is it healthcare? For abortion to be considered healthcare one would have to place unwanted pregnancy in the same league with disease or illness instead of calling what it is….the natural and expected result of unprotected sex. One would think that abortion wouldn’t be an issue after the advent of AIDS or the less catastrophic but equally chronic plethora of sexually transmitted diseases but apparently, even the threat of disease cannot quell the fever of human desire.

I find it interesting that the pro-choice advocates that have, for years, rallied around the battle cry of “Leave my body alone” are now signing up in droves to support a bill that will give the government an incredible amount of control over those same bodies. Pelosi already said that this more about diet than diabetes indicating that our pro-choice friends may have retained control over their wombs but through this bill, have surrendered freedom of choice in nearly everything else that makes them human.

Progressives operate under the firm belief that there needs to be controlling power at the Federal level because the general population is incapable of making rational and informed decisions for themselves. The exchange was not a compromise to cure a healthcare crisis; it is phase one in the creation of a single payer national healthcare system that will make all of your healthcare choices for you; eventually using monetary penalties to force behavioral changes to reduce government healthcare costs. Even that will not be enough and as the deficit and debt increase because of this malignant entitlement program, the actual rationing of care is as inevitable as the collapse of the private insurance system that is already written into the bill.

The provisions in this bill that mandate changes to the level of coverage that must be offered by approved plans coupled with the proposed caps on premium increases can only have one consequence. Those provisions are intentionally designed to drive private insurance out of business because there is no way they can compete with the subsidized plans offered through the exchange. As the availability of private insurance becomes scarce, the Federal government will “have to” come up with a public option to shore up the exchange with full knowledge that the destruction of private insurance is imminent. When the last private insurer is driven into extinction that is when the public option will morph, out of necessity, into the single payer system Progressives wanted from the start.

No? Well, an employer that currently pays more than $10,000 per year per employee for private healthcare insurance will find some curious things. If even one of his employees seeks a “better deal” through the exchange, the employer will be fined approximately $2,000 for EACH of his employees. If he provides no insurance at all he will pay a fine of $3,000 per employee and be assessed an additional payroll tax for healthcare. As it turns out, the penalties for not providing healthcare insurance are less than the insurance itself. Maybe that’s the $3,000 reduction in employer costs the President said your boss would see if this bill passes? Almost, but then there is the loss of the Bush tax cuts in 2011.

The Executive Order that Stupak will attempt to use to placate his constituents is not a law so it can be rescinded by a future President with the stroke of a pen and I predict we won’t have to wait that long. If this bill becomes law, Obama will need those pro-choice Democrats to continue his agenda and I fully expect that Stupak’s “piece of paper” is one of the bargaining chips that will be auctioned off to obtain future votes for card check, cap and trade or immigration reform.

The American people have been riveted on the healthcare debate and are solidly opposed to this monstrosity. They are watching the debates and saw Bart Stupak not only as one member of Congress that actually stood for principal but as their last hope to defeat this bill. Defeat would have allowed us do something for healthcare that didn’t involve expanding the power of government to that of the level of a totalitarian dictatorship but that hope was stolen from the American people by Stupak today. The Executive Order that Stupak will wave at his constituents to gain their forgiveness for voting for this bill will not shield him from the fallout (or the rotten tomatoes). Let’s face it….if he had said he was opposed to the bill over money or the expansion of government and changed his mind later, he might have been forgiven. Since he made himself the poster boy for Congressional principals, the surrender of his convictions will be used by those that run against him as a clear display of his lack of character and pro-life organizations began that assault the moment the vote was concluded.

The healthcare debate is far from over and even though the Senate has promised to use reconciliation to pass the bill, there are points of order that will be raised by the Republicans for every component of the reconciliation package that is not a budget issue. After all, reconciliation is a budget procedure and anything that is not related to budget, will most likely be stripped from the reconciliation package if the Senate Parliamentarian agrees that it violates the rules of reconciliation. If anything in the reconciliation package is changed, it will have to go back to the house for a new vote; a vote that will take place after these poor Democrats have gone home for the Easter break, faced their constituents and tried to explain what they have already done. I seriously doubt Mr. Stupak’s piece of paper will make a damned bit of difference to any of them.

The Democrats have ignored the American people and that has enraged more of us than a sequestered Congress could possibly imagine. Pelosi and Reid forced this through on strict timelines to avoid the same harassing town halls Congressional members were subject to last summer. The leadership tried to convince their members that the opposition to the bill reflected by the polls is that people want more, not less and that since this bill will eventually achieve that, they will be vindicated. Well, the leadership has misread the people and this vote will go down in history as a political suicide pact. Too bad Nancy Pelosi represents a district that is even further to the left than Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez or she would be packing her office this November too. The only solace I have is that it is virtually guaranteed that by the time January of 2011 rolls around, she will no longer be Speaker of the House.

Paul

Target 2010 - James Oberstar (D-MN)

In preparation for the 2010 election, I am preparing a weekly series to expose those members of Congress that are deserving of special attention this election year. To open this series I have selected Representative James Oberstar (D-MN). James Oberstar is another career politician that has made a mockery of his office and has spent the last thirty years doing everything possible to add to the deficit and debt that countless generations of Americans will have to repay.

Of course, as a member of Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer Labor Party, one would hardly expect that Jim would be a fiscal conservative. In fact, there isn’t a tax he doesn’t like as long as it’s progressive enough to buy all the votes he needs through massive social spending. While Oberstar is not a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, his affiliation with the Democratic-Farmer Labor Party provides him with enough ownership of the increasingly disturbing title of “Progressive” as the Party most comfortably identifies itself with a Liberal / Progressive ideology. There are several members of Congress that are members of the Democratic-Farmer Labor Party, most notably, the recently elected Progressive screw-ball Al Franken.

The Democratic-Farmer Labor Party, or “DFL”, was born after the 1944 merger between the MN Democratic Party and the Farmer Labor Party. The Farmer Labor Party was part of Minnesota’s political landscape since 1918 and was a direct descendent of America’s passing interest with Communism and Socialism at the turn of the century. Most of America eventually grew up and realized that these ideologies were wholly un-American while others, like members of the Farmer Labor Party, took their Socialist leanings underground until they could safely reemerge as Liberals. Of course, they quickly tarnished the name of Liberalism, which forced them to eventually adopt the name of Progressive. During the formation of the Farmers Labor Party, they were politically aligned with American Socialists and American Communists until they decided to break ties with any group that would plot to overthrow the United States through violence and that was the good news. The bad news is that the DFL is closely modeled after the British Labour Party and to bring about the collapse of the Republic using our own laws against us is clearly something they can live with.

My most notable opposition to James Oberstar has to do with his decision to change his vote and support the current healthcare bill being forced through the House of Representatives. Mr. Oberstar sold himself as a pro-life Democrat. Of course now that the bill was in jeopardy, his Progressive (Socialist) spots have shown through and he is willing to turn his back on something that is very important to his constituents in order to help Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi take the first step towards to socialization of America’s healthcare system.

Oberstar refused to vote for the first bill that passed through the house until the Stupak Amendment provided an iron clad guarantee that Federal funds could never be used for abortion, upholding a long standing belief and principal of most Americans. Even Pro-choice Democrats have no problem with banning the use of Federal funds for abortion as long as abortion would remain a choice that people could make as their conscience dictated. Of course we know the Senate rejected the House bill as well as the Stupak Amendment, crafting their own bill under the leadership of Max Baucus in the Senate Finance Committee. It was almost guaranteed that the block of pro-life Democrats in the House would reject the Senate Bill unless there were guarantees that the prohibition of Federal funds for abortion would be promised in a resolution conference; a promise the Senate will not make and a majority of the House Progressives don’t want.

Instead of standing by his principals, Jim Oberstar sold his vote to Nancy Pelosi. Of course, after all the controversy surrounding the “Cornhusker Kickback”, the “Louisiana Purchase” and “Gator-aid” that benefited no one but Nebraska, Louisiana and Florida; nothing quite as controversial would be advertised this time. I predict that once the bill is passed, we will see huge sums of that unspent stimulus money make its way into Minnesota and a few other States that happen to be represented by Congressmen that had one of those crucial, last minute changes of heart to finally support the bill. Why else would so much of that critically important stimulus money still be sitting around? Unfortunately for this gang of thieves, we will be watching this time and will connect the dots as they appear.

Jim Oberstar did something far worse than prostitute himself for some undisclosed, undercover bit of Federal funding. Oberstar sold his integrity. His constituents did not want this bill and they especially did not want their tax money paying for abortions. He promised them he wouldn’t vote for a bill that would help fund abortion and now he will have to answer to them. The biggest problem with selling your principals is what can you run on after that? Can you ask the voters to trust you when you can’t even be trusted with your own convictions? Can you claim to be an honest man when haven’t even been true to yourself? Can you look your constituents in the eye when you now find it hard to look in the mirror?

This goes beyond anything the Federal government has ever done and Jim Oberstar knows it. For the first time in the history of this nation, people will be forced to pay taxes knowing that their money will be used to fund something that many of them not only find morally reprehensible but forbidden by their faith. How can Congress claim to abide by our First Amendment protection of Religious freedom and then force people to violate their own religious principals by knowingly funding abortion? It might be easy for Jim Oberstar to sell his soul but what about his fellow Minnesotans? What about his countrymen?

America is a Republic; a representative government, but it is becoming increasingly clear that what is being represented in Washington is not the will of the people or the voice of the majority. What is being represented is the ideology of a small but powerful group of Progressive radicals that will stop at nothing to transform our nation into the latest “Socialist Utopia”. Oh sure, Progressives don’t actually say “Socialism” because they know freedom loving Americans will reject that. They use carefully crafted code words designed to make people feel good about change like “social justice”. After all, what American would oppose justice? Superman was for justice…even Underdog was for justice! But social justice is different. Social justice is nothing more than stealing from the responsible to help pay for the irresponsible.

Progressives also love to talk about a “truly Democratic Society”. Again, most Americans confuse democracy with freedom and there are quite a few that are not even sure what a Republic is let alone that America is one. Democracy is a society where everything is decided by a direct vote. There are no representatives because none are needed. On the surface, that sounds awesome but Progressives know that only a Democracy can elect a dictator. Think about all of the “Democracies” around the globe like Communist China; the Soviet Union; Saddam Hussein’s Iraq; Ahmadinejad’s Iran and Chavez’s Venezuela. "Truly Democratic Societies" really aren't worth a damn because the ruling party first decides who and what is on the ballot and then controls the counting of the votes.

Mr. Oberstar has brought us one step closer to Socialism and has emboldened the people that want to bring us seven dollar gasoline, five hundred dollar electric bills and a "truly democratic society". This is only the beginning because once this is passed they will move on to energy, housing, food, etc. The goal of the Progressive movement is total control because they can provide nothing for the masses unless the individual surrenders control.

Paul

Social Justice or Progressive Slavery?

Glenn Beck spoke out against the concepts of social and economic justice, citing that they have always been the code words of Socialists, Communists and the radical Left used to bring about societal changes in favor of those ideologies. He recently told his audience that if their church mentions social or economic justice to run far and fast; seek another parish and inform Church officials of what you have found. While some members of the clergy like Evangelist Jerry Falwell Jr. understand and support what Beck is saying, radicalized ministers and priests left over from the crazy 1960’s aren’t quite as understanding.

The usual routine of a radical is to shut out opposing views rather than engaging in debate but that is the good news. In areas where radicals have already attained control and realized their ultimate goals, those with opposing views are usually murdered instead. Religious radicals are no different and those that espouse social justice and other Marxist views are firing back. Rather than debate Beck’s charges, they are trying to organize yet another boycott of the advertisers that support Beck’s programs. The Rev. Jim Wallis is an evangelical leader, CEO and president of Sojourners, a Christian networking group in Washington, D.C and was the first to cry foul over Beck’s focus on religious radicalism. But anyone that knows who Jim Wallis is should not be surprised by his outrage.

Jim Wallis was raised in a traditional evangelical Plymouth Brethren family. The Plymouth Brethren are a conservative evangelical movement that can be traced back 1820’s Ireland. The “Brethren” rejected the Church of England because they felt the Church had ignored or distorted many of the old traditions of Christianity. Apparently, the conservative nature of the Brethren didn’t appeal to Wallis as his slithered over to the radical left. While attending college at Michigan State University, Wallis was President of the Socialist front group, “Students for a Democratic Society” where he developed an interest in political activism that would eventually lead to more than twenty-two arrests for civil disobedience. While studying at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Illinois, Wallis joined with other young seminarians to form the core group of what would become the Sojourners.

Wallis is actively fighting Beck’s claims that Churches speaking of social justice are promoting Socialism but wouldn’t you know it, the Sojourner’s teachings are overwhelmingly Socialist in nature and even the name of their first published news paper, “The Post American”, speaks volumes about their basic ideology which is more about radical politics than religion. Yes, Jesus spoke about charity and caring for the poor but the charity Jesus spoke of was to be willingly offered by the faithful. Government redistribution of wealth is not charity and even if your money happens to end up in the pockets of the poor through the some government entitlement, it holds no weight in the balance books of heaven because the contribution is neither conscious nor willing. Wallis is more concerned about the loss of political momentum that was steering the nation towards Socialism than he is about the poor and so-called disenfranchised. Like any good Marxist, Wallace simply uses the impoverished to forward an agenda and he shouldn’t be taken serious by anyone.

Not that Wallis has much to worry about. Even as we face the reality of a twelve trillion dollar national debt, Congress hasn’t found the nerve to say “no” to deficit spending and the crippling agenda of an equally radical President. International organization such as the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank could care less about our financial burdens because their member nations, like many of our own citizens, have become used to the flow of Federal money to relieve them of the burden of developing their own economies. Billions flow from the United States each year to fund development projects in foreign nations while many of our own people are hungry and homeless. Truthfully, we probably wouldn’t have as many hungry and homeless as we do now if they weren’t so useful to the Progressive agenda. Government largess will not relieve our poverty, only the renewal of the American free market and the restoration of our Constitutional right to self determination can break the cycle.

Oh I can see it now. The forces of Progressivism including Jim Wallis, will gather like a storm cloud to block any initiative that may roll back government social programs and unfortunately, many Americans have become so used to the idea of government solutions that they will reluctantly agree. After all, we can’t do that….people will starve! Oh really? In 1887, Texas suffered a severe drought that devastated hundreds of farms in that area. The farmers needed new seed because the crops had failed so completely that it couldn’t even provide a sufficient quantity of seed that the farmers could use to begin again. In response, the Congress passed the “Texas Seed Act” and passed on to then President, Grover Cleveland for his signature.

President Cleveland vetoed the bill saying: “I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the general government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit. A prevalent tendency to disregard the limited mission of this power and duty should, I think, be steadfastly resisted, to the end that the lesson should be constantly enforced that, though the people support the government, the government should not support the people.

The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow-citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood…”

Can you imagine the outcry if a modern President took such a courageous stance in the defense of the Constitution? Why, he would be called a murderer or worse. When Reagan tried to reform welfare he was called “mean spirited”; when Bush tried to re-privatize Social Security he was called a “Nazi” and these were just reforms, not the total dissolution of the government entitlement structure. Some claim that is because Progressives have no faith that people can attend to these needs without government while I have a far more cynical view. I fear that Progressives actually use a campaign of carefully crafted propaganda to convince the general public that those that have are mostly too corrupt and greedy to help their fellow men and the few that aren’t do not possess the resources. They even argue that to force people to accept charity is demeaning and that an enlightened society must be able to provide for the poor and destitute without that horrible stigma attached to it.

I would argue that the stigma Progressives refer to used to be called gratitude and for them to claim the recipients of charity are demeaned somehow, they would first have to confuse virtuous humility with shame. So what happened to those poor Texas farmers that President Cleveland thumbed his nose at? The resolution Cleveland vetoed would have appropriate ten thousand dollars for the purchase of seed for the stricken area. The President’s faith in the brotherhood of the American citizenry was not only justified, but surpassed. Private donations to help the stricken farmers totaled over one-hundred thousand dollars; more than ten times the amount authorized by Congress.

The net effect of Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” is that we now spend incredible amounts of money to keep people in poverty and if someone should take a menial entry level job and attempt escape the system; they are pretty much guaranteed the loss of all of their government benefits. With that kind of societal “compassion” in place, what hope or incentive do these people have of becoming contributors instead of recipients? In contrast, the programs FDR’s enacted to combat the effects of the Great Depression only spent one one-billionth of what the Federal government currently spends on social programs. He did however, set the stage for future Progressives, like Johnson, to justify nearly anything in the name of “social justice”.

Paul

Kucinich caves - will now support Obamacare

Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) appeared on television this morning to announce his reluctant support for the healthcare bill. Kucinich had originally signed a letter along with 77 other Democrats opposing the healthcare bill because the current bill failed to include a “robust” public option. He maintained that this was not the bill he wanted to support and while he wanted the nation to finally embrace a European style, not-for-profit national healthcare system as opposed to working with for-profit, health insurance companies, he decided to surrender his opposition so that some measure of reform could take place. Dennis Kucinich has made a career out of convincing people that he fights for “the little man”. Well, I suppose that’s true; at 5’7” Kucinich is a little man and there is no doubt that he fights very effectively for his own interests and his interests alone.

There were several areas of Kucinich’s statement that made absolutely no sense and left me wondering if these people even listen to their own words before the cameras are turned on. Kucinich began by recounting storied from his own past and how he survived a youthful brush with poverty that had him living in his car at times. Now I’m not calling the man a liar but I have found very little to substantiate his claims of poverty. His father was a truck driver of Croatian ancestry and his Irish American mother was a homemaker. Since he grew up in the 1950’s, his father was apparently the only truck driver that couldn’t find steady work in the boom times that followed World War II. Curiously contradictory to his story of an impoverished youth is the fact that he somehow managed to attend Cleveland State University from 1967 to 1970 and in 1973, managed to pursue and obtain a Master of Arts Degree in speech and communication from Case Western Reserve University.

Kucinich spoke about how he has been afflicted with Crohn's Disease for much of his adult life which led him to “take charge” of his own healthcare decisions, prompting him to follow the recommendations of traditional physicians and to modify his diet and lifestyle, embracing a more holistic approach of self care. Apparently, Dennis Kucinich doesn’t see the irony of his statements that display the contrasts between his personal life story and his political beliefs. On one hand, he speaks of how he took command of his own healthcare choices in his fight with Crohn’s Disease and then speaks forcefully of his belief that government has to take action to provide a healthcare system that would prevent anyone else from having the ability to exercise that freedom of choice within their own lives.

Kucinich would undoubtedly argue that his belief in a national healthcare system is prompted in part, by his own experience in dealing with Crohn’s Disease and therefore, in trying to make those battles easier for others. I would suggest that his experience not only displays that our current healthcare system worked but when he was faced with the challenge, he found the care he wanted and made the choices that needed to be made to obtain that care. To have government provide health care would relieve people of the responsibility of making beneficial choices for themselves and cheapen the outcome. I submit that is was the absence of a national healthcare system that forced Kucinich to take his participation in his own treatment far more seriously than he would have if some massive government entity relieved him of the responsibility of making his healthcare choices for himself.

While angry Socialists and Progressives may believe that Kucinich has turned his back on the last credible chance to bring about a national healthcare system, I maintain that his opposition is simply window dressing designed to conceal what is hidden deep in the bowels of the Democrat’s 2700 page Progressive manifesto. Kucinich may have wanted to skip a few steps and force a vote for socialized medicine now but the end game will eventually bring that about anyway. You cannot force insurers to provide more coverage, cap the cost and expect that they will stay in business; especially since the health insurance industry only posts a 3.5% profit margin now.

Wait a minute! I thought those evil insurance companies were making billions of dollars? The President said so. Yeah, well that was a cute little trick designed to anger people and create some false support for the bill. If you take all of the insurance companies in the industry and pool all of their profits together, it is billions of dollars but those billions still only represent a measly profit of just 3.5%. The Federal number crunchers know very well when to use dollars and when to use percentages to make their point. In the end, private insurance cannot survive this healthcare plan and that will “force” the government to step in and take their place. It’s a neat little trick to get socialized medicine in through the back door but we know what they are doing and we will blame them when they do it.

The Progressives in Congress know their numbers don’t add up so most have abandoned using them altogether and have resorted to one sob story after another in an attempt to soften the opposition to the bill by appealing to our humanity. Too bad all of the stories they have used are full of lies and half truths. The President spoke of Natoma Canfield during his visit to Ohio. Natoma Canfield is a cancer patient who could no longer afford her healthcare premiums for fear of losing her home. The President made an impassioned plea for his healthcare plan, challenging people to “remember Natoma” and support this plan. Of course what he didn’t tell you is that Natoma was being treated at the state of the art, Cleveland Clinic. Spokesmen for the Clinic said that Natoma is not only eligible for Medicare but that the Clinic itself, has a large charitable endowment of more than one-hundred million dollars with which they can provide free care for people like Natoma, who have no other options.

In another shameless display, Senate Democrats paraded 11 year-old Marcelas Owens before a press conference on Thursday. Coached by his activist grandmother, Gina Owens, Marcelas told a packed room of reporters that he wanted the president and Congress to come together and pass health insurance reform. “I am here because of my mom,” said Owens. “My mom was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension in 2006. She missed so much work she lost her job. And when my mom lost her job, she lost her health care. And losing her health care ended up costing her her life.” As it turns out, Marcelas grandmother is an activist with the Washington Community Action Network, which is another misguided group of community activists that espouse a platform of socialist ideals. If fact, Gina Owens is now preparing Marcelas 7 year-old sister to play her part in this disgusting display of emotional manipulation. Grandma….have you no shame? Of course not…Socialists have no shame because the ends justify the means.
The truth is that it is the existing government healthcare programs that failed Tiffany Owens. If a sick, single mother of three cannot get Medicaid….who can? Where was the activist grandmother during this travesty of justice? Where is her outrage at the social programs that should have saved her daughter’s life? Better still…why wasn’t the activist grandmother actively involved in helping her navigate the Medicaid application process? After all, isn’t that what activism is all about?

There is no doubt that Tiffany Owens succumbed to her illness (pulmonary hypertension) but there are so many pieces of the puzzle still missing. Tiffany had already received care, including an 8 day hospital stay, but when she began vomiting blood, she failed to seek additional care which eventually contributed to her death. Was she too weak to get to a doctor and where was her activist mother at the moment when her needs were greater than anytime before? Where was the Medicaid system that was specifically created to provide care for people just like Tiffany? Most importantly, why should we trust a government with our care when they failed so miserably in the case of Tiffany Owens?

One would think that if seventy people a day are dying because of the lack of affordable healthcare insurance as Progressive Democrats claim, that the President could easily pick case after case where the death of an individual can be solidly linked to the lack of health care but instead, they choose ones that fall completely apart under the slightest scrutiny. The reason they don’t is because they can’t. This nation has had a long standing practice of providing care for anyone that needs it and while there are stories of financial difficulties, those come after the care has already been given and the money is sorted out later. No one in America dies because of a lack of care. Kucinich can claim that insurance companies, from time to time, may unfairly deny paying for a procedure, leaving the patient with the bill but that truth is also a hard indictment of government care. What Kucinich and his President never told you is that the insurance companies that lead the nation in claim denial are the Federal government programs of Medicare and Medicaid. Imagine that!

Paul

Here Lies the Rupublic - May She Rest in Peace

While the talking heads tally the latest count of pro and con votes for healthcare, Nancy Pelosi predicts a vote will take place by late next week. The President has postponed his trip to Asia so he can strong-arm…oops…I meant persuade wavering Democrats for an additional three days. One thing is clear; Pelosi will only proceed to a vote if she is certain of the outcome and that certainty will either be purchased in more promises through back room deals or through the threats of retribution in the form of base closures and the diversion of stimulus money.

A sizeable amount of the stimulus funds remains unspent and many could not understand why the Congress would pass a jobs bill for even more money when so much stimulus money is still waiting for distribution. A quick accounting of stimulus dollars show that the funds that were distributed were focused in areas that were represented by Party faithful by a factor of two to one and that districts represented by Republicans with higher unemployment rates and more dire economic expectations were largely ignored. The eyes of the nation are on the healthcare debate and talk of backroom deals like the Louisiana Purchase (Hi Mary) and the Cornhusker Kickback have infuriated the public so intensely that Democratic leadership can no longer risk such blatant examples of vote buying. What they can do is point to the huge pile of stimulus money still waiting to be spent and wink at those that are on the fence.

Democratic leadership will stop at nothing to get this vote done before the Easter break because the one thing they fear more than anything else is the possibility of the public getting to speak with their representatives before a vote can be taken. After all, those angry people that attended the town hall meetings last August nearly upset the whole reform conversation. Now that the opposition to this bill has been cemented even further and Congressional approval ratings are at their lowest point in recorded history, any contact between Congress and constituent would damage the chances for passage beyond repair. Apparently, this latest push and deadline is meant to prevent that contact from ever happening. Is this democracy? Is this representative government?

The argument has been made that in a Republic, we elect representatives that best reflect our values and then trust them to vote their conscience. If that were true in every case and the will of the people can only be counted on Election Day, then why do so many elected officials claim a “mandate” if they win election by more than a mere majority? When there is overwhelming opposition to any legislation then the will of the people must determine the outcome or the validity of representative government becomes impaired. A Republic can only survive if the governed have confidence that they are actually being represented.

Today, we have little confidence in that representation and even less faith that our confidence can be restored. The 2010 elections will be more than a commentary on this President and his Congressional colleagues; it will be a turning point in the history of our nation. I sadly predict that healthcare bill will pass by hook and mostly by crook and that the Democrats will suffer a major defeat in November because of it. However, if the November election does not usher in a new breed of politician that will act with dignity and honor to restore the faith of the electorate, I have little hope that the United States will escape the grave consequences brought on by the last hundred years of Progressive meddling.

The latest assault on our Constitution is already being planned if the White House and Nancy Pelosi cannot secure the votes to get the bill past the house in the manner prescribed by law. As I discussed Friday, Representative Louise Slaughter (D-NY) has suggested that since the House and the Senate have already passed similar bills, the Senate bill should just be sent to the President without a House vote. If that is attempted, I can envision a fire storm among the electorate that can only end in disaster. People were already incensed at the news that if the Bill passed through the house, the Senate intended to use reconciliation to effectively negate the vote of newly elected Republican, Scott Brown. The Slaughter plan would represent a new low for the most corrupt Congress of the century; negating not only Scott Brown’s vote, but the representative vote of the American people.

Not even during a state of emergency has this amount of power been seized by an obvious minority of elected officials. This is not the opening day of World War III and there is no looming threat of an asteroid collision with earth. There is nothing about this bill that would require such extraordinary and dictatorial measures be taken to secure its passage. If Congress can perpetrate such a clear and dangerous abrogation of due process then the rights guaranteed by the Constitution may only be a signature away from extinction. The legislative rules that Louise Slaughter and Nancy Pelosi obviously consider an issue of mere formality are really the basis of representative government. To use this tactic means that the sheer will of Progressive ideologues can and will create laws, administrations and regulations without the need for even a simple majority. Where is your Republic then?

Blatant chicanery has marred the healthcare bill ever since it was proposed. The kickback schemes that encouraged members of Congress to prostitute their votes (Hi again Mary…and you thought I forgot you!) were only the beginning. The President promised he would not sign a bill that added to the deficit so they began skimming major spending deals out of the bill only to be hidden within other less obvious resolutions. The “Doctor Fix” that would stabilize Medicare payments to doctors is valued at nearly three-hundred billion dollars, would have added every penny of that fix to the deficit. They needed that “fix” to secure the silence of doctors so it was cut from the healthcare bill and now resides quietly and uncounted in the latest jobs bill. It still adds to the deficit but just not as part of the healthcare bill.

The Presidential promise of “If you like your current insurance, you can keep it” has slowly transformed into “If you like your doctor, you can keep him.” Not many picked up on that because it was repeated so often that the minor change of two words was barely noticeable. But the change of those two words makes all the difference in the world. Certain plans will be grandfathered in as long as they meet the new government established requirements while the rest will be replaced. Even grandfathered plans have a shelf life and will be terminated under this bill by 2019.

The President assured everyone that the cost of insurance plans would go down with passage of this bill but now it seems that the reduction the President was talking about is relative to the new expanded coverage mandated by the bill and in fact, current plans will see an increase of ten to thirteen percent almost immediately. The President also said that abortion is not covered under the healthcare bill but even Planned Parenthood is calling for support for the President’s bill because of the new access to abortion the plan will provide.

Lie after lie has been told to gain support for this bill and now that the lies have failed and the truth is too widely known to obscure it with platitudes and sob stories, Progressives are desperate to save it. Reconciliation would have shoved it down your throat but Ms. Slaughter and Ms. Pelosi are now planning a different and more painful route to the gastrointestinal tract. Progressives are like roaches. Most of their work must be done in the dark and they usually scatter when the lights go on. Hopefully, enough people will launch a preemptive strike and flood the Congress with letters and phone calls to warn them we are watching. The Slaughter plan must not be allowed to stand or the Republic will fall as an emboldened President and his Congressional henchmen continue chopping away at our Constitution to create more loopholes in order to advance his radical agenda.

Paul