Troubled By Comparisons

By William L. Garvin

 

It would be much easier to be an anti-theist in this day and age if one suffered from a bipolar affliction.  On one hand, anti-theists represented by American Atheists are a seething cauldron of hyper sensitivities and on the other hand, they are totally insensitive to the needs of others.  A good example of the former pole is their lawsuit against the World Trade Center and an equally appalling example of the latter is the American Humanist Association lawsuit against a grieving mother in Lake Elsinore, California.

 

In the first instance, many will remember the cross-shaped I-beam that was found in the wreckage after 9/11.  It served as a rallying point and symbol of inspiration for many in the chaotic aftermath of 3,000 murdered Americans.  It is to be included in the WTC memorial museum.  The very thought of that iconic symbol being displayed caused anti-theists “physical and emotional pain…dyspepsia, depression, headaches, anxiety, and mental pain and anguish.”   Surprisingly, these sensitive souls (oops…do anti-theists have souls?) failed to also list “loss of conjugal relations” amongst their many maladies.

 

On the other end of their bipolar scale is the AHA lawsuit in Lake Elsinore.  A mother’s nineteen year old son was killed by a vehicle and she put up a cross and flowers at the roadside of the scene.  The militant anti-theists decided that her show of grief had gone on long enough and because it was on public property, the cross constituted the state establishment of religion.  Remember, these are the folks who don’t want “In God We Trust” on our currency, prayer in school, Jesus Christ in our military, or any religious symbol in any public setting.  Curiously, their anti-religion, anti-God legal jihad never extends to the Muslim front.

 

Comparison Number Two:  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is the front runner for the “Boldest Liar in Congress” award.  It seems that the little leader is not only content with telling the biggest whoppers but also has no misgivings about using the senate floor to attack private individuals.  His latest target has been the Koch brothers, the evil villain du jour for the Democrat Party.  Naturally he ignored the $139 million the Kochs donated to MIT; $100 million to Lincoln Center; $41 Million to Prostate Cancer Foundation; $30 million to Sloan-Kettering; and $15 million to NY Presbyterian Hospital.  In total, they have donated more than $600 million to arts, education and medical research.  Their sin of course is the $18 million they donated to Republican political causes.

 

Harry also ignored the fact that OpenSecrets.org lists them as 59^th on the donation list.  He ignored Numero Uno on the list which is AFSCME at $60.6 million.  Harry, six of the top ten donors are unions.  Yes, it’s estimated the Koch brothers do contribute tens of millions of “dark money” to independent committees but it’s also estimated that the unions contribute half a billion in this fashion.  Tell me again, Harry, who’s spending the most to buy elections?  Why are you so hung up on the Koch brothers?

 

Another unfortunate comparison occurred in front of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.  The representatives of the State Department, the Defense Department, and USAID were asked two simple questions.  One, how much is the U.S. spending in Afghanistan; two, how many American troops were killed in Afghanistan in 2013?  None of the three was able to answer either of the questions.  Apparently our free press, which virtually ran daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, and total body counts and war costs during the Bush era, is now so lax that these folks have never had to prepare a boiler plate answer let alone an honest answer.  Unfortunately, this lack of accountability has become the rule rather than the exception during the current administration.

 

Finally, the Obama administration jumped for joy when the Gallup poll showed that the uninsured rate had dropped from 17.1% the last quarter of 2013 to 15.9% the first quarter of 2014.  In comparison, Gallup also showed that way back in 2008, before all this chaos, before all this expense, before all this chicanery, before this manufactured debacle, the uninsured rate was 14.8%!  And that my friends is what liberals call progress!    

Who, exactly, is living "high off the hog"?

Dear Editor,

 

I found Ms. Pilling's letter to the editor to be highly offensive and incredibly misleading. She says she "appreciates" the military, but with friends like that, who needs enemies. She slams military retirees for living "high off the hog." For the record, after twenty years of serving in harm's way, a Sergeant First Class (E-7) can retire at 50% salary or approximately $20,000 per year. A Lieutenant Colonel (O-5) with the same service would be able to retire at approximately $4,200/month.

 

In comparison, the average salary of a member of Congress is $174,000 and they are eligible for a pension at age 62 after only FIVE years service. They can retire at age 50 after 20 years on the job and receive approximately $60,000 in pensions for their bullet-free,bomb-free, pencil pushing service. Furthermore, half of them are already millionaires or became millionaires along the way!  If there is any inequity in pay and benefits, it is those who sit in their safe and secure, air conditioned offices in Washington, D.C., and make the decisions to send other people to war. Less than 20% of them have served in the military and most do not have children in the armed services.

 

She also institutes typical class warfare strategies by questioning whether money goes to "the hard fighting military that put their lives on the line, or to the high ranking officers who stood behind the lines while enlisted soldiers put themselves in harm's way." That is an insult beyond comprehension. Nearly all "high ranking officers" start out as "low ranking officers" and many were previously enlisted personnel and non-commissioned officers. She obviously also knows nothing of military conflicts. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial alone lists 7,878 officers who were military casualties in Southeast Asia. This includes 12 generals and one admiral. An ignorant, divisive citizenry should be ashamed. May all our warriors live and rest in peace!

 

Sincerely,

Bill Garvin

Of War and Remembrance

By William L. Garvin

What a week to remember!  In the latest skirmish in the border wars, el Presidente de Mexico is “indignant” about the U.S. deportation of illegal aliens.  Apparently, he thinks Congress has a “lack of conscience” because they have not granted amnesty to 11 million lawbreakers.  Maybe we should adopt the draconian Mexican immigration policy and put the shoe on the other foot.  This is another case of the pot calling the kettle black.

The culture wars heated up with the spotlight being placed on whether “gay rights” under the equal rights or commerce clauses will trump freedom of religion under the First Amendment.  One would think that if a photographer didn’t want to take pictures at your wedding, you would hire another photographer who would.  That’s not the preferred avenue for some people.  They would rather go to court and force the photographer to participate in a ceremony that he or she finds contrary to their religious principles.  Simultaneously and curiously, the government’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is suing the Star Trucking Company in Illinois because they fired two Muslim drivers who refused to carry loads of alcohol because of their religious principles.  It seems as if Christians and Jews are bearing the negative brunt of these contradictory positions.

Then there’s the Obama Administration’s war against the Constitution and its “outdated” system of checks and balances.  Attorney General Eric Holder told state Attorneys General that they don’t have to enforce laws that they disagree with which is contrary to their oaths of office.  Why wait for the courts to determine constitutionality when you can do it for yourself!  But then he has a well established track record of selective enforcement and selective prosecution of selected laws based on his personal and political predilections.  He also works for a boss who unilaterally changes the law to suit his political needs without waiting for Congress to make legal and constitutionally required amendments.  Maybe that’s why the CBS poll showed that only 6% of the population view Obamacare favorably and 59% are disappointed in the Obama presidency!  The Kaiser Family Foundation amazingly shows that only 22% of the uninsured view Obamacare favorably!

The President Himself appears to be doubling down on his “Lie of the Year” award.  After his “if you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan, period” winner, he has just received 4 Pinocchio’s for “Seven million Americans have access to health care for the first time because of Medicaid expansion.” Normally one would not even utter such a bold and bald-faced lie but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was quick to kill all conscientious objectors.  For the millions who had their policies canceled, for all those who had their premiums increased, for all those who now have unaffordable deductibles, and for all those whose doctors are no longer in the network, YOU ARE ALL LIARS!  “There’s plenty of horror stories being told (about Obamacare)…all of them are untrue,” proclaimed Harry.  If there was ever a question as to the disdain in which the “ruling class” holds the “country class,” Reid removed all doubt.  Keep in mind there’s not a “smidgeon of corruption” in the IRS targeting of conservatives either!  Also keep in mind that Harry is the one who claimed that Mitt Romney never paid taxes!  This is just one more lie in the tapestry of lies in a typical day of the Obama regime.

As for literal battles in lieu of the figurative, watch the recent predictable machination of the Russian Bear.  In 2008, Sarah Palin said that “After the Russian Army invaded the nation of Georgia, Senator Obama’s reaction was one of indecision and moral equivalence, the kind of response that would only encourage Russia’s Putin to invade Ukraine next.”  In 2012, Romney stated that Russia “is without question our No. 1 geopolitical foe.  They fight for every cause for the world’s worst actors.  The idea that he has more flexibility in mind for Russia is very, very troubling indeed.”  Of course, Palin was inaccurately but incessantly mocked for her naiveté and Romney was inaccurately and incessantly mocked for his “cold war mentality.”

Now we have a Secretary of State who is “stunned” by the Russians “willful choice” to invade the Ukraine.  In a masterful act of self-delusion, he thinks Putin is acting out of “weakness” and “desperation.”  Meanwhile, our Secretary of Defense is proposing additional massive cuts in the military because he predicts they won’t be needed in future conflicts.  What a woeful, war-full week to remember.

Dear Editor,

Once again, Mr. Guzenda plays fast and loose with his facts in his "rebuttal."  For someone who dislikes "talking points," he makes liberal use of progressive talking point spin in trying to defend the Affordable Care Act.  For instance, he claims "an additional 9 million Americans now have coverage" under Obamacare.  How many of those were Medicaid clients who have to enroll every year?  How many of those were because of the 6 million policies that were canceled?  According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, only 22% of the uninsured view Obamacare favorably.  According to a CBS poll, only 6% of the entire population views Obamacare favorably.  If you ask Harry Reid, all the rest of American citizens are liars!  Well, Harry, my wife and I had our supplemental drug insurance premiums increase 70.5% this year...you can't handle the truth!

If the problem was 40 million without insurance, why does the CBO say there will still be 30 million uninsured when Obamacare is fully implemented?  What is the Democrat position on Health Savings Accounts, insurance portability, health care tort reform, allowing insurance companies to sell across state lines, and allowing small businesses to join pools so their companies and their employees can obtain more favorable rates?  These are all alternatives that have been offered and rejected by democrats.

Finally, although Congress had "ample time to read the bill," name one Democrat legislator who did.  There is not enough room to list all those who admit they didn't, including Nancy "We have to pass the bill to find out what's in it" Pelosi, then Speaker of the House.

Democrats don't have enough lipstick for this pig so they kill the messenger, blame Fox News, blame the Koch brothers, blame the Tea Party, blame the Heritage Foundation, blame Rush Limbaugh and still try to blame George Bush.  It's not working and neither is Obamacare.

Sincerely,
Bill Garvin

Creeping Through Cyberspace

 

By William L. Garvin

An audiologist was discussing hearing aids with a new patient.  “I have good news and bad news,” he said.  “The good news is I can help you hear better; the bad news is I can help you hear better.”  That seems very similar to the internet and cyberspace.  The good news is you can find lots of information; the bad news is you can find lots of information.  Most of the information is straightforward and much of it is useful but it ranges from the innocuous to the disconcerting to the terrifying.

Some of it is politically sardonic.  One wag posted “I don’t understand how the Constitution is a ‘living document’ that protects phone calls, emails, and text messages, yet the Second Amendment only applies to muskets.”  Another noted that “The media obsesses over Romney at seventeen and Bush at twenty-five but declares Hillary and Benghazi at sixty-five to be ‘old news.’”  Another poster declared that “Having government watch your health care is like having Michael Vick watch your dog!”  Maybe that’s why Moody’s downgraded the entire health care sector from “stable” to “negative” because of Obamacare.

It’s interesting to note that New York, one of the bluest of Democrat states, is attempting to attract new business in order to cope with their 7% unemployment.  Surprisingly, the centerpiece of their ad campaign is to reduce/eliminate taxes for start-up companies.  It’s estimated that “The Tonight Show” will save $20 million in taxes by moving from Los Angeles to New York.  This reduction of taxes (along with reductions in spending!) sure sounds like a conservative principle. 

It’s disconcerting to follow the $85 billion taxpayer bailout of General Motors.  When the Treasury Department sold off the last of the GM shares, taxpayers lost from $10.5 to $20 billion on their investment.  If you want to rub salt in the economic wounds, check out the video of Dan Akerson, the GM CEO in 2011, on YouTube.  He clearly outlines the plan to shrink U.S. operations and expand China operations.  He points out that seven of ten GM vehicles are already made outside the U.S.  Now they have eleven joint ventures, eleven assembly plants, and 2,700 dealerships planned for China.  Their research and development and state of the art technology is now being jointly shared with a communist country.  If that’s not unsettling enough, how about the Cadillac Division sponsoring a film celebrating the birth of the Chinese Communist Party, complete with the hammer and sickle!

All that pales compared to an article in “Slate” by William Saletan.  He was commenting on an article in the Journal of Medical Ethics by two “philosophers” named Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva.  It has been noted that there is no theory so bizarre that you cannot find an intellectual to defend it.  This seems to be the perfect case on point.  Most human beings would condemn killing newborn babies but Giubilini and Minerva write that:  “We propose to call this practice ‘after-birth abortion’, rather than ‘infanticide,’ to emphasize that the moral status of the individual killed is comparable with that of a fetus…rather than to that of a child.  Therefore, we claim that killing a newborn could be ethically permissible in all the circumstances where abortion would be.  Such circumstances include cases where the newborn has the potential to have an (at least) acceptable life, but the well-being of the family is at risk.”

Last year, a Planned Parenthood lobbyist named Alisa LaPolt Snow answered a question before the Florida legislature as to what would happen if a baby was born alive as a result of a botched abortion.  Her answer was that “any decision that’s made should be left up to the woman, her family, and the physician.”  To all these people, a living baby is not a person and it is perfectly acceptable to kill them.  If there is any doubt as to this conclusion, Giubilini and Minerva conclude: “Although fetuses and newborns are not persons, they are potential persons because they can develop, thanks to their own biological mechanisms, those properties which will make them ‘persons’ in the sense of ‘subjects of a moral right to life’ that is the point at which they will be able to make aims and appreciate their own life.”

If social, psychological, or economic costs are grounds for abortion, they are then acceptable grounds for infanticide.  Would they then advocate euthanasia for the elderly, the infirm, or the terminally ill?  Some things you just don’t want to know, but you must…even if it’s terrifying.

 

Laws, Lies, Leeway and Lunacy

By William L. Garvin

 

Is there any doubt that the Affordable Care Act is nothing but bait and switch, a pig in a poke, an absolute sham sold under false pretenses, and a massive fraud perpetrated upon the American people by “progressives” with malice of forethought?  “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor, period.”  Wrong.  “If you like your health insurance plan, you can keep your health insurance plan, period.”  Wrong.  “The Affordable Care Act will create four million jobs, four hundred thousand immediately.”  Wrong.  “Obamacare will dramatically improve Medicare.”  Wrong.  “I will not sign a bill that adds one dime to the federal debt.”  Wrong.  “The average family will have their insurance premiums reduced by $2,500 per year.”  Wrong.  The Democrats unilaterally passed this law and as we finally get to read and find out what’s in it, the news gets worse and worse.

 

Even if you think that government is capable of and is responsible for planning, implementing, and controlling your health care, you must have the same mounting concerns that the majority of your fellow Americans do.  There is no denying that the rollout of Obamacare has been an unmitigated failure.  Dems can do their best to rationalize the absurdly expensive, absurdly malfunctioning, absurdly complicated website as a “glitch” or a “bump in the road,” but there is no putting lipstick on this pig.  Predictably that is what happens when the nanny state formulates a “one size fits all” plan that the private insurance companies must offer which must include unnecessary and unwanted benefits that everyone is forced to purchase or be “taxed” for their noncompliance.  We have already seen over six million plans cancelled and no one knows how many more notices are still to come.  Unfortunately, the Congressional Budget Office says that after all is said and done, there will still be thirty million Americans who are uninsured.  After all the angst, after all the disruption, after all the turmoil and hardship, Obamacare does not solve the problem of the uninsured and does absolutely nothing to improve the quality of health care or the availability of health care.  Adding political insult to injury, Democrat political puppets now redefine your loss of personal freedom as “liberating”!  It is now somehow laudable in liberal la la land to work less in order to reduce your income so you too can receive a government subsidy!  Pray tell what happens when the worker bees morph into dependent parasites and the symbiotic relationship collapses?

 

If this government-centric future is not frightening enough, delve further into the insidious nature of the law itself.  Charles Kesler, a Distinguished Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College singles out the Independent Payment Advisory Board, aka “death panel” in the Act.  The IPAB is fifteen people appointed by the President.  They are to recommend “efficiencies” regarding Medicare.  Typically, such efficiencies are accomplished by rationing or reducing payments to doctors and hospitals to the point that no one will perform them.  According to Professor Kesler’s analysis, “Unless both houses of Congress overrule IPAB by passing their own equal or greater cuts to Medicare, IPAB’s proposals automatically become law.”  Here’s where the perfidy ensues.  According to the Act, no resolution to repeal the IPAB can be made before January 1, 2017, or after February 1, 2017, nor can it take effect until 2020!  In effect, the IPAB is exempt from the Constitution for the next six years except for a single month!  What sort of Machiavellian intent is behind this machination?  Skeptical minds may conclude that the entire charade is merely a stepping stone to single-payer, government run health care as advocated by the President, the Vice-President, the Senate Majority Leader, and the Minority House Leader, all Democrats.

 

Also keep in mind that Section 1342 of the Affordable Care Act forces taxpayers to make insurers whole for most of the losses they incur selling policies on the Obamacare exchanges through 2016. This “absorption of costs” (don’t ever call it a bailout!) is meant to hide the full scope of the economic failure of Obamacare until after the next presidential election.  That’s also the reason the President “with his phone and his pen” delayed the mandate to provide Obamacare-compliant insurance for some employers.  With a stroke of his presidential pen, he changed established law from “will”, “shall”, and “must” to “may”, “might”, and “maybe.”  Welcome to the “fundamental transformation” of America.  It’s good to be king!

 

 

 

 

Deliberate or Dysfunctional?

By William L. Garvin

During the presidential campaign, Candidate Obama was continually lauded for his new age prowess via his Blackberry while Candidate McCain was derided as a techno-troglodyte.  There was considerable ballyhoo relating to encrypting the Obamaphone as he was continually multi-tasking, perpetually wired and virtually on top of everything.  His campaign was praised in the highest terms for its sophisticated use of technology and supreme organization in gathering funds and voters.  Then there is his presidency.

Typical of many multi-taskers, there is very little multi-finishing.  For someone who is reputedly so technologically advanced, President Obama seems to get most of his information from the “same news reports you watch.”  How can someone who is so on top of things know nothing about “Fast and Furious,” know nothing about IRS targeting political opponents, know nothing about NSA spying, and know nothing about DOJ seizing AP and Fox reporter correspondence?  Furthermore, how could someone who was so directly involved that you would have thought he personally pulled the triggers on the Somali pirates and personally led the charge up the stairs to kill Bin Laden know so little about Benghazi?  Despite Candy Crowley’s erroneous lifeline in the 2012 debate, he never called Benghazi a terrorist attack until long after his “provocative video” cover story was exposed for the blatant lie that it was and is.

What is even more astounding is the absolute technological incompetence displayed throughout the Democrat rollout of Obamacare.  After more than three years of advance planning and hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money, the Democrats could not even build a functioning website.  What is wrong with this picture?  How could such aforementioned technological brilliance and organizational genius deteriorate into such an abysmal and unmitigated disaster?  Is this the final nail in the progressive belief that government can do everything and compelling evidence that big government has bitten off more than it can chew or could there be another explanation?

A socialist professor at Columbia University (President Obama’s alma mater) named Richard Cloward and his wife Frances Fox Piven (also a socialist professor) developed the Cloward-Piven strategy.  Inspired by Saul Alinsky, these left-wing, radical champions of the poor deliberately sought (Cloward died in 2001) and seek the destruction of capitalism by class warfare in physical terms.  Not satisfied with gradual evolution, they prefer violent revolution.  The overarching principle in their strategy is to overload the entitlement system by adding so many people to the roles that our economic system collapses.  Anarchy, chaos and violence will be the inevitable result.  If you need a visual picture, think of Greece in combination with a Mad Max film…Detroit on a national scale. 

As far back as 1966, Cloward and Piven wrote:  “It is our purpose to advance a strategy which affords the basis for a convergence of civil rights organizations, militant anti-poverty groups and the poor.  If this strategy were implemented, a political crisis would result that could lead to legislation for a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty.”  In blunter terms, Cloward stated that poor people will only advance when “the rest of society is afraid of them.”  Cloward and Piven were instrumental in developing ACORN.  Cloward and Piven were standing behind President Clinton when he signed the “Motor Voter” act into law.  President Obama was a community organizer who practiced Alinsky “Rules for Radicals” tactics.  As a young lawyer, Obama represented ACORN in a lawsuit to implement the motor-voter law in Illinois.  President Obama has stated:  “I've been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career.”   President Obama has also promised to “fundamentally transform” America.  The question is, into what? 

Does the president envision some sort of socialist utopia?  Does he think that the Democratic Socialists, brandishing their shibboleths of social justice, economic justice, income inequality, and redistributive justice will step to the fore and bring about a “fair” New World Order?  Does he think this political-economic theory which has a one hundred percent failure rate elsewhere will somehow miraculously work here?  If so, maybe the failure of the trillion dollar stimulus makes sense.  If so, maybe his trillion dollar deficit years make sense.  If so, maybe a $17.3 trillion dollar national debt makes sense.  If so, maybe record numbers of people on food stamps and millions more too dispirited to even look for work makes sense.  In that perspective, the disastrous Obamacare policy and implementation makes sense.  It is not clear whether or not President Obama’s administration is consciously employing the Cloward-Piven strategies.  But if they were to do so, it’s crystal clear that they would only have to make minor adjustments to their current practices.