Slip Sliding Away

By William L. Garvin
“Yesterday, I held a fiscal summit where I pledged to cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term in office.”
President Obama’s First State of the Union Address

The Republican primary, aka “the circular firing squad,” is the best smoke screen that the Obama Administration and the Ruling Class could ask for. While the candidates and the media spend inordinate amounts of time on inconsequential details of insignificant matters, American freedoms are slip sliding away.

If you watched the President’s State of the Union address, you may have noticed that there was not a single free market solution offered by the erstwhile CEO-in-Chief. In the words of Mark Alexander, every economic solution was “predicated on government engineering via intervention, regulation or redistribution.” After sternly proclaiming “no more bailouts!” he produced a litany of small ball bailouts and handouts, primarily to his pet green energy projects. Apparently his grandiose dreams of oceans receding and the earth healing have slipped and slid away.

No mention was made of his horrible decision to kill the Keystone XL pipeline and the thousands of jobs that would have been created. The reason for that goes beyond the obvious pandering to environmental extremists. Without the pipeline, the transportation of oil will shift to the slower, riskier, and more expensive railways. It is currently estimated that seventy-five percent of the oil in this region is shipped via Burlington Northern Santa Fe LLC railways. This is a unit of the infamous Berkshire Hathaway Inc. owned by none other than Warren Buffett! This Administration’s “Crony Capitalism” is not restricted to green energy fiascoes!

Since we hear repeatedly that the aforementioned Buffett pays at a higher rate than his “poor” secretary, Debbie Bosanek, (who was conspicuously planted next to the First Lady for the SOTU address), isn’t it time that they released their tax returns? Or are we supposed to blindly accept that this is all true just because the President says so? Furthermore, if the government is the good steward that Buffett seems to think it is, why is he leaving his entire fortune of approximately $800 billion to charity instead of Uncle Sam? Or maybe he noticed that the national debt was $10.6 trillion when the Big O took office and now it’s at $15.3 trillion and he’s about to blow through another $1.2 trillion! Or maybe he noticed that the Senate has failed to pass a budget since April 29, 2009! The President is unable to hold his own party accountable and the media doesn’t care. They’re too busy poring over Mitt Romney’s tax returns and giving ex-spouses and other highly questionable attackers prime time coverage. Media “credibility” just keeps slip sliding away.

You might also wonder why media coverage is 24/7 when a few hundred or a few thousand Occupy protestors take to the streets but is virtually non-existent when thousands or maybe a hundred thousand people gather in Washington DC last week to voice their support of life and protecting the unborn. Likewise, the media silence is thundering when Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius decrees that Obamacare mandates all insurance plans must pay for contraception, sterilization and some abortion drugs. Christians, Catholics and other conscientious objectors cannot escape. Cardinal-designate Timothy M. Dolan responded by saying: “In effect, the President is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences.” Sebelius, simultaneously a Catholic and an ardent Planned Parenthood supporter, previously defunded the Catholic Bishop’s Migration and Refugee Service, which has assisted 2,700 victims of sex trafficking in the U.S. since 2006. Religious freedoms…slip sliding away!

Further down the liberty front, things go from bad to worse. Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Congressman Charles Dent (R-PA) introduced S.1698 and H.R.3166 respectively. Their “Enemy and Expatriation Act” will add “engaging or supporting hostilities against the United States” to the acts for which U.S. nationals will lose their citizenship. Current law requires proof that the citizen does so “with the intention of relinquishing United States nationality.” These bills do not require criminal convictions or proof “beyond a reasonable doubt”, substituting a civil conviction with only a “preponderance of evidence.” If passed, it will be much easier for the government to strip any dissenting citizen of his citizenship. More liberty and freedom…slip sliding away!