Relativity

Recent threats of violence levied against those who voted for Obamacare are to be condemned ... and I herein heartily do. Such behavior is childish and misbegotten. But there have been other public death threats made in the past that were not taken so seriously. Witness Rahm Emanuel's knife-wielding outburst back in 1992 ... see the nutty left. Why is this dismissed as political theater while tea-party activists are chastised for generally more benign expressions of outrage? ... such as: the nutty right. I guess Einstein was right ... everything is relative.

The Nose Knows

There have been a number of "promises" made to the American public that would occur as a result of the passage of Obamacare legislation. These vows are:

- it would not increase the federal deficit

- it would not cause anyone to lose their existing health-care insurance

- it would not increase taxes or fees for anyone earning less than $250,000 per year

- it would not include the plethora of sweet-heart deals (explicit or implicit) made in secret with legislators

- it would not cause existing health-care insurance premiums to increase

- it would not provide for taxpayer funding of abortion

- it would not cause any reduction in healthcare treatments or Medicare coverage

- it would not federally-subsidize healthcare insurance for illegal immigrants

- it would reduce Medicare and Medicaid waste, fraud, and abuse by tens of billion dollars

None of these pledges, in fact, will transpire as a result of this just-passed bill. Yet, politicians and political pundits continue to mouth them with a straight face. To me, these group-think prevarications are staggering. And, add to these downsides, the fact that the federal government will now become the only provider of student loans ... and Congress will still exempt themselves from these healthcare insurance constraints ... all this makes for a large case of dyspepsia for this blogger.

But then 26-year old "children" can still be covered on their parents' health insurance policies. This makes it all worth while.

Demon Pass

This Sunday it seems will bring us some interesting national legislative chicanery. The U.S. House of Representatives will be asked to pass a set of changes to the Senate's health-care bill. This House bill has been misnamed a "reconciliation" bill. In this bill will be a provision that the Senate bill will be "deemed to have passed" by the House. At this point, the Senate bill will be separated from the House's hoped for changes and sent to the President for his signature. The House changes will then be sent back to the Senate to deal with (or not deal with) at their leisure. Voila! Barack Obama will win his signature achievement and his Presidency will have been snatched from a monster defeat (after Scott Brown's recent election in Massachusetts removed the Democrats' Senate filibuster-proof majority).

Then, House Democrats, who voted for the "Deem and Pass" back-door way of giving Obama his proto-socialized medicine, will hope that they can hide behind this legislative trick to escape voter retaliation in the Fall. This may be true. But. personally, I kind of hope that this process goes exactly the way Obama's Chicago RICO thugs want ... augmented by that consigliore, Pelosi. This wish of mine seems a little foolish, but hear me out:

First, the Obama/Pelosi tag team will have stuck a stick into a huge hornet's nest of super angry voters and I don't think they have any concept of the national retaliation (not just at the polls) that might be served to them as dessert to their orgy of fiscal irresponsibility.

Second, I believe that the U.S. Supreme Court will overturn this unconstitutional "law" in a New-York second.

And lastly, this slimy process has, I believed, opened the eyes of many otherwise naive Americans as to just how fragile our American Democracy is ... and what diligence must be observed to keep it from slipping away.

Choice Cuts

Sarah Palin arouses strong feelings on both sides of the political spectrum. She has shown that common sense can go a long way toward making government work ... but also that sophistication seems a requisite for acceptance by the media elites. And Barack Obama has once again demonstrated why a pedagogical demeanor makes a lousy management style ... but can easily capture the hearts of the utopians. I'm afraid the question Americans may have to answer in less than three years is: Would you rather be governed by an honest rube or a nuanced charlatan?

My only true hope is that our misguided political process will, next time around, give us two rational choices. Choices that will restore my faith in what our forefathers had in mind when they created a government that would not fritter away our greatness. Choices that would demonstrate strength in both mind and heart. Is that too much to ask?