In My Right Mind

"We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking." - Mark Twain

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Location: Universal City, Texas, United States

"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take away everything you have." - Thomas Jefferson

Friday, January 29, 2010

Is Obama Really Listening?

President Obama stated during his State Of The Union Address a few nights ago that he was willing to sit down with the Republicans and listen to what they have to say about national healthcare solutions. Today, he made a start at making good toward his offer, sort of.

I was watching during lunch time a conference President Obama had today with some Republicans in Baltimore. Beneath his calm, pleasant sounding demeanor was a continued display of his arrogance. Obama may want the nation to believe he’s ready to listen to the other side, but his reaction to the Republicans who questioned him today demonstrated that he really has no real intention of taking their solutions or concerns seriously. He just made his offer to fool those who see him as something new and fresh in DC politics.

He was questioned by a Republican about what they should say to their constituents in response to his administration’s repeated accusations that the Republicans didn’t have any solutions to offer. Instead of actually stepping up and either defending that outrageous claim or admitting it was not true, he just tapped danced around the question without ever really answering it. Instead, he wanted to apply the need for an “independent” professional look at the Republican’s solutions.

As for the Republican plan for Tort Reform, Obama claimed that an “independent expert” had concluded that the overall effect of unnecessary law suits on the fees that doctors have to charge to compensate for their malpractice insurance costs was minimal at best. He produced some miniscule percentage of its effect and claimed that in the long term it wouldn’t really help to lower healthcare costs.

Really? If lawsuits have such a small impact then why have we being hearing differently from doctors for years? Doctors have complained for years that the high price of malpractice insurance necessary to defend them against greedy frivolous lawsuits has almost made it not worth the effort, and forces them to charge much more for their services than they would prefer. The idea that there isn’t a problem with frivolous law suits in this country, especially in the medical field, and that it isn’t resulting in the rise of the cost of medical services is ludicrous at best and down right falsehood at worst.

So, this is the best Obama can do to refute tort reform, a nefarious statistic from an unknown expert? Sorry I am not buying it.

Next, Obama tried to take on the Republican solution for interstate insurance purchase being possible. What was his problem? The unproven claim that insurance companies would find a way to “cherry pick” and only offer insurance to the healthy leaving the unhealthy without insurance. To the contrary, if insurance is expanded to a wider free market of competition there would plenty of opportunities to find affordable insurance from those companies that are looking for clients, particularly clients that other insurance companies allegedly wouldn’t want.

Before I get to the most arrogant and telling example that demonstrated today that Obama’s offer was bogus and that he really has no intention to listen to the other side, there was a common factor that all of his non-answers to the Republican’s question to him mentioned earlier. For Obama, in order for the Republican’s solutions to be consider they must be submitted separately to “independent experts” to approve of. Of course, there has never been such a litmus test for Obama and the Democrats’ healthcare plans.

He lectured the Republicans on the need for their solutions to be not just those of politics but rather well thought out, practical doable solutions. Yet, for his side and his plans, it is different. It is ok for the Democrats to meet behind closed doors and create their own non-vetted solutions and then turn around and claim they haven’t heard anything from the Republicans for alternative solutions to consider. Do you see the hypocrisy of this stance? It was yet another example of Obama doing his best to obfuscate it by a barrage of pompous lecturing to the Republicans about what real solutions should look like.

Finally, there was his threat to the Republicans that if they insist on accusing his and his party’s solution as an attempt for the Federal Government to expand and own even more, the health care market, this time (even though that is exactly what he is after), then they would have no clout with him no matter what they came up with.

Is Obama really listening and reaching out to the Republicans in a bi-partisan way? No. He just uses nice sounding promises to fool those in our citizenry who are incapable of seeing through his insincere flattering words. Obama is a great orator no doubt. But if the listener pays attention to the difference between his words and his actions, especially after a year of evidentiary proof, it becomes clear that he talks out of both sides of his mouth.

Obama has change in mind for America alright. It is the change that progressives/socialists/Marxists want. He’s not listening America. He doesn’t care. He has his agenda and vision for America and he is going to do his damned best to inflict it upon us amidst a flurry of pleasant sounding oration.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Obama's "Hope & Change" One Year Later

I was amazed during the 2008 Presidential Campaign at the vast number of gullible people who were mesmerized by Obama's speeches about "Hope" and "Change We Can Believe In". Here was a guy speaking a bunch of pleasant sounding platitudes, without any real definition of what he meant. It was just empty, pretty sounding words. Now, one year later, he has shown us what he meant.

Change we can believe in? Hope? A new era in politics in Washington? Transparency? Hardly.

One of the first things that Obama and his progressive/leftist democrat congressmen did was to expand the bail out process. It started with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac being to "big to fail". Admittedly, it started under President George W. Bush's watch. I am not a sycophant of Bush and this was yet another example of his not really holding true conservative values.

I held my nose and voted for McCain. He could have done a lot toward his victory had he refused to suspend his campaign and return to Washington to help Bush bail them out. He should have taken a stand against this atrocity. In capitalism, no one is "too big to fail". For every business that folds, there are others that spring up to provide even better services.

But, Obama took it beyond that. He moved on to banks and managed to own them through his bail outs. Government controlling the banking industry, step one toward Fascism. Not Fascism yet, but a step in that direction. Government has no place in the private sector, much less trying to control it. The idea that the federal government sets the salaries and bonuses, if any, of bank CEOs is anathema.

Next came his administration’s focus on owning the auto industry. Only Ford, declined, Step 2. Now the government is controlling the banking industry and the auto industry. Before someone starts with the whole, "aren't you exaggerating" shtick, let's not forget tax cheat Geitner's warning that the government is watching all financial institutions that might be teetering toward failure. Yep. The slippery slope has begun and the federal government is chomping at the bit to own even more of the private sector.

Then there was the first stimulus package that Obama swore would be devoid of pork. It looks like he lied. It was replete with wasteful pork, not to mention sinking our nation into further debt. He is even talking about a second stimulus package, as if he hasn't already sunk our nation into a huge deficit. Even China, who is certainly not our friend, was warning him about irresponsible debt! Debt that we owe them nonetheless.

Lastly, on Obama's disastrous economical plans, is his "Universal Healthcare" scam. Let's see, the federal government controls banks and financial institutions, the auto industry and now he wants to dominate the medical industry? Step three towards Fascism. The idea of the federal government overseeing the medical industry is both frightening and ludicrous. It can't even manage Social Security, which is broke, nor Medicare, which is, you guessed it, broke. Who in their right mind would want government bureaucrats determining their worth for medical treatment?

Obama and the leftist/progressives' universal healthcare plans would sink this country into a over 3 trillion dollar debt. Someone, I don't know who, coined this as "Generational Theft". And that's precisely what it is. How can any American support the idea of pushing our debt on to our children, their children, and their children's children? Thomas Jefferson argued with George Washington about going into debt to support the war as being nothing more than a sin since it would pass the debt on to future generations to pay for. And Jefferson was, and is right!

How about Obama on foreign relations? He has made it his modus operandi to apologize to Europe and the world for America's "crimes". Isn't the President supposed to support his country and its people and not denigrate it? Then there were the embarrassing bows. It's hard to not be ashamed of this Neville Chamberlin like progressive as my President.

Then there was Obama's bone headed idea to close Guantanamo Bay and bring the terrorists there into our country for trials here within our shores, as if they were all American citizens that had constitutional rights! This is a very stupid and dangerous idea. But, it looks like Obama thinks that by appeasing the terrorists they will somehow appreciate his cowardly gestures and have a change of heart.

Lets not forget Obama's war on "man made diasters". Consider Afghanistan. Obama drug his feet for months before making a decision there despite having the reports from the military commanders there and their recommendations that victory would only be possible if he instituted a surge. Meanwhile more died there. Hmm. Obama hesitated and more were decimated.

Obama's latest spin is his refusal to see the Massachusetts vote last night in favor of Brown as a referendum against his party. Yet, now he is talking about the need to not cram his Universal Healthcare down our throats and wait until at least Scott Brown is seated. Yeah right! He was all for rushing it through until last night. This just exposes him in yet another lie.

And let’s not forget his pledge for transparency. Really? How were all those closed door meetings regarding the Universal Healthcare by the democrats, shutting out the republicans. transparent? They weren’t. And to add insult to injury, the democrats had the nerve to proclaim that the republicans didn’t have anything to bring to the table, no solutions. How could the republicans bring a solution to a room that was locked to them, denying their participation? Yeah, so much for a different tone in Washington, so much for a new era in politics that would change from the past partisan politics.

It is now past the point of irritation for us to continually hear Obama blame all of his failings on the Bush Administration. One or two times early on, could be overlooked, but now it’s his mantra to cover his ineptness at every turn.

We are now starting to see a lot of buyer's remorse when it comes to Obama. Let's hope that later this year the voters toss all the politicians out of DC, both republican and democrat. We need statesmen in Congress who are there to represent their constituents and not push their own personal agenda.

Let's hope that in 2012 we toss Obama out and send him back to Chicago. Maybe he can spend the rest of his days preaching his "everything is Bush's fault" claptrap to his sycophant progressive fans in ACORN and the other corrupt politicians in Chicago.

I didn't vote for him, so I don't have buyer's remorse. Nor am I surprised. It is time for change that we can believe in alright. It’s time for Obama, Pelosi, Reid, and the liberal, moderate republicans as well, to be shown the door. It’s time to take back America before the progressive/leftists succeed in running it off a cliff and destroy the best experiment in political governance that has ever existed in human history.