This post is in response to an article by Allen Clifton sent to me by C Tyler Storm. The article blames Republicans for the shutdown and all the pain associated with it. Here is my reply. You will find the original post on my time line and the rest of my reply if it is cut off. . C Tyler Storm, you put me in a difficult position. How do I respond to these stories without sounding callous or insensitive toward someone else’s pain? You put my name on your post, however, so I guess I have to respond. . First, I feel sorry for the two people and their families referenced in this article and I am sure if we look hard enough, there are others that have experienced financial loss because of the shutdown. My heart goes out to them. In every case I hope their loss is quickly repaired and short lived. God willing, loving, and caring family, friends, neighbors, churches, communities and some of the safety net this country has in place will help them get through the hard times. On occasion, people bounce back from hard times to a better place than where they were when the trouble began and this is my prayer for these good folks. . Second, if I prove the Democrats are primarily responsible for this shutdown would all the nasty words, motives, descriptors, and charges thrown at Ted Cruz, the Tea Party, Republicans, Speaker John Boehner, and Conservatives in this article by Allen Clifton then apply toward President Obama, Harry Reid, and the Democrat controlled Senate? You bet they would, so let’s get started. . The facts. . This author and others like him are not concern about anyone hurt by the shutdown. Ms. Harris and Mr. Anderson are simply pawns to be used in a battle to discredit and damage the reputation of conservatives. In fact, it is President Obama, and the Democrats who wanted to make this shutdown as painful as possible. . These are tough words. The question is can I prove it. Before I do, however, I want to stress one additional point. Allen Clifton and others like him and the Main Street Media, and the Press are not just misrepresenting a few facts regarding the shutdown. They are placing the blame on people and groups that are innocent while covering over the sins of those responsible for the shutdown and in this case, those they support. In doing so, the Media and the Press have become deliberate, calculating, manipulative, skunks, and scoundrels. They have become outright liars, and propagandists for Democrats, would be Socialists, United States haters and apologists, and the Obama Administration. There is no room for any other interpretation regarding this article and others like it. The consequences for allowing this kind of misdirection and blame shifting to continue are too great. This lie, this distortion of reality and the facts by the left, the Democrats, and their adoring, sycophant Main Stream American Media and the Press is so damaging, it must be exposed. . The proof. . Let’s start with the simplest fact that can be proven without a shadow of a doubt. There have been many other shutdowns. I believe I heard a number of about 25. In all the other shutdowns, The Lincoln Memorial has never been closed. This time, for the first time, it was. Why? What made this shutdown so different from all the others? Nothing. Who made the call to close The Lincoln Memorial and other open air national parks and what was their motive? Did Ted Cruz, the Tea Party, Republicans, Speaker John Boehner, or Conservatives shut down the Lincoln Memorial? No, a Democrat did, in particular, a sick, sadistic, narcissistic, self-serving President and his Administration did. . The answer to the ‘why’ is even more disturbing. In all the other shutdown cases, the Administrations tried to limit and minimize the amount of pain, suffering, and inconvenience caused by the shutdowns. In the case of President Obama and company, the administration sought to maximize the amount of pain, suffering, and inconvenience caused by the shutdown. You know the old adage used by this President and his hack friends, ‘Never let a crisis go to waste’. We should add to this; ‘Never forget to use a crisis to damage the reputations of your opponents’; even those crises you yourself create. . In addition, and what makes matters worse, is that this President has put in place, in decision making positions throughout the Administration, left leaning, liberal, progressive, socialist, jack booted, political thugs; uncaring beasts, ready to do the dirty work assigned to them. Like all good liberals, they believe their cause, their issues, their positions, their side is so important, it does not matter who gets hurt in the process. You see it in how this shutdown was handled; the closing of national parks that did not have to be closed, the harming of people that did not have to be harmed. You see it in how the IRS was used to hurt the President’s opponents. You see it in the stonewalling of Congressional investigations. You see it in the abuses of the EPA. You see it in the non help that was sent to four heroes in Benghazi, and you see it in how the Justice Department has been used as a tool to intimidate anyone or anything that challenges this Administration. . This also explains why the WWII outdoor War Memorial was closed to 80+ year old veterans that might never be able to make the trip again. This explains why, that very same day, illegal immigrants were given free reign over that same park to hold a rally and/or a protest in support for amnesty for illegal aliens. This explains why the families of four veterans killed in Afghanistan were denied survivor benefits making it difficult to claim the bodies of their loved ones. This explains why private, self-financed, museums, and national park tourism centers, that do not receive a penny in federal revenue, were required to close their doors. This explains why many open air national parks were unnecessarily closed. This explains why medical research to help children was halted. This explains why Estes Park in Colorado and Yosemite Park in California were shut down and not just the areas damaged by the flooding and the fires and this also explains why I have no respect for this President or his administration. . More proof. . Since I was a child and while studying and considering conflict resolution, I have learned that usually, some responsibility lies on both sides of an argument, a disagreement, a conflict, or a fight. You know the old adage, it takes two to Tango. Do you see any hint in this article by Allen Clifton that other factors and/or personalities or groups, like the Democrats or the President, might be involved in the shutdown and thus be partially responsible for any of the resultant pain? No, not one word. Does that sound reasonable to you? Does that sound like an honest appraisal and what an honest and responsible reporter should do? . Could this shut down occur without the President and the Democrats in the Senate wanting it to happen? It could not. Did you know that House Republicans passed and sent to the Senate a bill that funded the entire Government except for Obama-care and the Democrats would not even take up that bill for discussion let alone debate and a vote? How many times has Harry Reid said Dead on Arrival when referencing legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives? How many times has Harry Reid refused to allow House bills to be brought up on the Senate floor even for discussion or debate? Why did Senate Democrats refuse to debate a bill that funded the entire government except for Obama-care and which could have prevented nearly all the hardship associated with a shutdown? . The Democrats and the President refused to consider that House bill because they knew Obama-care would not pass today and could not stand on its own. So Democrats chose to closed down 17% of the Government in order to save their and the Presidents pet, though seriously flawed, program called Obama-care. It is the Democrats that insisted on closing down the government in order to get their way. If the Media and the Press had ever told the truth about a pending shutdown, it would never have happened. A majority of the American people recognize Obama-care as being bad law despite the propaganda from the left. They do not want it and the Democrats would have been held largely responsible for any damage caused by a shutdown and for blackmailing the U.S. House of Representatives into funding bad law through the use of a shutdown against the will of the American people. You will say the American people blame the Republicans and I will tell you they blame Republicans only because of lies and distortion of the public record by the Media and the Press and writers like Allen Clifton that act as the propaganda arm for Democrats. . The reality is that Democrats and President Obama are primarily responsible for this shutdown though allen Clifton’s article paints Ted Cruz, the Tea Party, Republicans, Speaker John Boehner, and Conservatives as being the culprits and insensitive, uncaring bastards. . We also know for a fact this Administration wanted this shutdown to really sting, and we know that other open air, outdoor parks, like the Lincoln Memorial, Estes Park in Colorado, and Yosemite Park in California did not have to close at all. Why were these facts left out of the article? The goal of this article was to find victims and use them like a club to bludgeon Republicans, not to help repair their lives or the lives of other victims of the shutdown or make them whole. The goal of this article was to damage Obama-care opponents, those supposedly responsible for the victim’s pain and to cover up those who were really responsible. Lets look a little further see what else is going on. . When we analyze estimates as to how many have been hurt by the shutdown; that is hurt not inconvenienced or had their income postponed for 3 weeks, we notice that those estimates ranged from millions, to thousands, to many, with only two being described here in this article. You should also note the accompanying requisite photo with tears to play on our emotions and do as much harm as possible to President Obama’s opponents. . If millions were harmed by the shutdown, we would not be looking at the two examples described in this article but hundreds, possibly thousands. This is standard procedure for the left, exaggerate the numbers and find a victim you can use as a pawn. Later, I will identify other victims, victims of Obama-care that the left, being the true hypocrites they are, never address and appear absolutely unconcerned about, as though their tears, discomfort, and pain mean nothing. . It should also be noted that all federal employees furloughed by the shutdown are going to receive their back pay in full. This changes their shutdown pain into pleasurable shutdown paid vacations, in most cases. Nice work if you can get it. This might explain why the millions harmed by the shutdown are rapidly becoming millions inconvenienced by the shutdown. . Furthermore, you will find the 20 to 24 billion dollar economic loss we have been hearing about that resulted from the shutdown will in large measure turn out to be propaganda, a deliberate lie, an exaggeration, and a figment of someones imagination. Why, because all the tasks the Government needed to perform during the shutdown are still on the books. All the contracts signed remain in effect. All the garbage needing to be hauled away still needs to be hauled away. All widgets needed to be made or manufactured still need to be made or manufactured. . The shut down will actually generated new tasks that need to be addressed, extend contracts, meaning more money for the contractors involved, and shortened the time frame for others requiring overtime be paid in order to get them finished on time. This supposed loss is more likely a delay that will, in large measure, be recouped in the months ahead. . The author of this article chose to use the word ‘devastate’ (to ruin or destroy completely, making waste) when referring to these two victims of the shutdown, not the word harmed, or hurt, or inconvenienced or set back. However, when referring to the hurt suffered by the veterans locked out of the WWII Memorial the author used the term “cheap outrage”. The author also chose areas of the country that had already experienced major catastrophes, flooding in Estes Park, Colorado and wildfires in Yosemite Park, California, placing most of the blame for the injuries to these two victims on the shutdown and Republicans instead of the underlying cause, the catastrophes themselves. The fact that anyone should be devastated because they lost two and a half weeks of income speaks more about the economy the Obama Administration has given the citizens of this country and the possibility of some poor personal and/or business decisions then anything Republicans did; but I forget we live in a county where everyone has an excuse for the bad decisions they have made or bad things they have done, especially Obama. . The issue. . This government shutdown, which is a misnomer in and of itself, since less than 17 % of the government was ever threatened with being shut down, occurred over a disagreement concerning Obama-care. On one side we had President Obama and his supporters in the Senate, i.e. Harry Reid et. all, and on the other, we had the Republican led House of Representatives. What caused the disagreement and what options did the parties have at their disposal to address that disagreement once it developed, should be of concern to anyone interested in a fair minded analysis of the shutdown issue and who was ultimately or primarily responsible for it. . Obama-care was written to provide medical insurance, medicine, and medical services to approximately 30 million Americans residence who did not have and supposedly needed and wanted medical insurance, medicine, and medical services that were otherwise not being provided or were not being provided in a fair and equitable manner. It was hoped that Obama-care would streamline services and make emergency room waits shorter while improving the quality of medical insurance and the services provided. . Amongst the 30 million residents without medical insurance were people who could not afford medical insurance, people who did not want medical insurance or medical insurance at its current available price, people who could not get medical insurance because of pre-existing conditions and people who might not be entitled to medical insurance because of their immigration status. Obama-care was promoted as though it was a human right where it has never been a human right but a luxury, a convenience, a perk provided by companies to encourage worker loyalty and health. . A Mountain of Broken Promises. . Obama care was also sold to the American people through a series of false promises and/or deliberate lies such as; ‘If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor’. ‘If you like your current policy you can keep your current policy’. ‘When Obama-care is fully implemented, everyone will be covered’. ‘There will be no such thing as rationing and death panels’. ‘Obama-care will be better, cheaper, and fairer than what we have now,’ and ‘it will slow down the cost curve’. All these promises have been broken in one form or another. . Faced with these issues, Obama-care rapidly became unpopular with a majority of American citizens but Obama-care also included something many other well intentioned federal programs have, that is unintended consequences. . Unintended consequences. . Obama-care has hurt the U.S. economy. It has slowed down job creation. It has prolonged the recession. It has slowed down the growth of full time jobs with benefits. It has promoted the generation of part time jobs as opposed to full time jobs. It has prompted businesses to convert full time positions to part time positions without benefits. It has caused worker hours to be reduced. Estimates as to its projected costs have tripled. It will add to the national debt while three other entitlement programs, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social security are slowly going broke. Since forty cents out of every dollar spent by this government is borrowed money, for every 100 people put on Obama-care, 40 of them will be supported by borrowed money. There is a good chance this type of borrowing and spending is not sustainable. . In addition, Obama-care will damage the Doctor/Patient relationship by putting a bureaucrat between them. It will include the rationing of medical benefits. People will not be able to keep their current medical insurance plans or their doctors. Estimates are that when Obama-care is fully implemented, more than 20 million residents will still be without medical insurance. Costs have gone up significantly. The quality of American medical care is likely to deteriorate. Obama-care is driving doctors out of business, making them retire early, and causing doctors to go into private, for cash, practices. . . Bribery, Graft, Power Grabs and the Baby-Boomers. . Obama-care was put in place by power hungry elites with bribes, kickbacks, and gifts to every conceivable special interest group including bribery of US Senators and the AARP, with adjustments being made for those who missed out on getting some of the candy and the graft when the law was originally written. The Democrat controlled Senate had to change its own standards and normal procedures in order to pass the Affordable Care Act. Furthermore, Obama-care had no bi-partisan support or Republican input. You heard me correctly. The representatives of nearly one half of the citizens of this country had no input whatsoever in the program we now call Obama-care. Whole areas of possible improvement and cost shaving in health insurance and health services were ignored; like portability and competition between states and tort reform, because of the influence of lobbyists. The mere length of Obama-care, more than 2000 pages, suggests that more than just providing medical insurance for the uninsured might be at play here, not to mention the more than 10,000 pages of regulation that have been added to the law since it was passed and the sixteen taxes that were hidden but included in the law. These additional taxes, many hitting the middle class, are another broken promise by President Obama. . Some people contend that Obama-care was never been about health care. It has always been about the accumulation of power and control by the federal government over the rights of the citizens of this country. They say it is about diminishing the constitutional protections afforded the citizens of this country and the redistribution of wealth. They say our country is being fundamentally transformed from a country of free and responsible citizens to a county of dependent clones controlled by the state. . Others suggest that Obama-care is this Administration’s effort to deal with the medical needs of the baby boomers which can not be addressed without rationing and ‘death panels’. They say Vice President Joe Biden was right when he whispered in President Obama’s ear, ‘This is a big f*ing deal’, and unfortunately, for American seniors, we will see just how big this rotten deal is over time. . Finally some people believe President Obama is deliberately trying to fundamentally transform, some would say destroy, this country because he really does not like how this country was originally organized and how it is currently structured. They say he really believes the rich got rich by abusing blacks, slaves, and the poor. They say Obama believes America’s wealth comes from the pillaging other countries and he believes most of us white folk are racist. They say that with this mindset, why would he not try to destroy this country and its economy, reshape it, or fundamentally transform it? I will not hazard an opinion on this issue but I thought you should be made aware of it. . More problems with Obama-care. . Does Obama-care, as it is currently constituted, have any other problems? You bet it does. First, within days of Obama-care being signed into law, waivers, changes, modification, exclusions, exemptions, delays, and carve outs were added to the law by the Administration, changing substantially what was originally passed by Congress and possibly rendering Obama-care, as currently structured, unconstitutional. In addition, the current Obama-care rollout has been terrible and that may be putting if mildly. CBS has reported that insurance premium quotes given to consumers through the Obama-care web site are grossly underestimated and a leading health insurance expert has estimated that as many as 16 million people may lose their health insurance because of Obama-care. . The potential for a Currency Colapse. This may be the elephant hiding in the room. . Second, who, in their right mind, would add a fourth entitlement and more bills to the U.S. budget, while three other entitlements, already on the books, are slowly going broke, while the national debt is 17 trillion dollars and climbing, and while the Federal Reserve is printing 85 billion dollars a month in funny money out of thin air which is producing, amongst other things, inflation and a stock market bubble that will eventually burst?. What idiot would do a thing like that? The Democrats and Obama would, and they can’t understand why this is the slowest recovery in American history, not to mention the possibility of a U.S. dollar currency crash. They fail to understand that Federal Government spending, borrowing, taxing, and regulating is sucking the life out of our economy. This means we should be trying to reduce our current spending not increasing it with new entitlements. . I do not want to skip over this issue regarding a possible dollar crash too quickly. Do you have any idea what a dollar crash would mean to you, and your children? This country is lacking in reason and responsibility. The Media and the Press down play and ignore the possible consequences of a financial collapse. We, however, still have a responsibility to use our brains and it would be reasonable to error on the side of caution. If the dollar crashes, there will be no quick fix. Take a second and check out the effects of currency crashes in other countries and see what happened there. We are talking about starvation, riots, food shortages, violence against ones neighbors, death, and people struggling to survive. Obama-care is not operating in a vacuum. If Obama-care adds to our problems with additional debt and hastens a dollar crash will the results be any less severe? If the U.S. is weakened, what will foreign idiots feel embolden to do? The above article by Allen Clifton highlights the damage a two and a half week shutdown caused in people’s lives, if the dollar crashes, the consequences of that catastrophe will make this shutdown appear smaller than a peanut compared to an elephant. . Third, I mentioned briefly that the Obama Administration used the IRS as a weapon to harm its opponents. I think more detail is in order here. The IRS has proved itself to be a corrupt political instrument of the Democrats and the Obama Administration and has lost all credibility with the American people. Under Obama-care, the IRS is charged with enforcing the law and taxing or fining those who do not have insurance. Recently, the IRS targeted conservatives. In delaying their ability to organize, the IRS trampled on their right of freedom of speech, their right to representative government, their freedom of association, their right to assemble, their right to partition their government for the redress of grievances, and their right to vote. Now, Obama-care has given 16,000 new IRS agents the authority to review our medical data leaving us susceptible to blackmail and threatening our access to available medical insurance and services. . In addition, the IRS can determine if the medical insurance we have qualifies under Obama-care, giving the IRS the ability to add thousands of dollars to our medical insurance bills, and the IRS has the power to tax and fine anyone without medical insurance or anyone whose medical insurance does not qualify under the law; and we know from experience that the power to tax, fine, and/or delay is the power to destroy and/or put out of business. The IRS can therefore delay an individual or businesses medical insurance from qualifying under the law and maybe, if the individual or the group are opponents of the current administration, a few of them will drop dead during the delay. Therefore the question is, do we really want 16,000 IRS agents or bureaucrats, reviewing our medical data? Do we really want to risk being blackmailed, embarrassed, or harmed because of our medical history or because our medical history was leaked to a political operative. Do you really want a bureaucrats telling our mother that her hip replacement is not covered or that she is not going to get a hip replacement because she is too old or that a hip replacement is not cost effective for a person her age or in her condition and though it has absolutely nothing to do with our decision to deny your mother a hip replacement, do you know your mother donated to Republicans the last 5 years in a row? . Fourth, while the government struggles to implement Obama-care, good money and time is being wasted. Time that could be used to rewrite the law, taking into account the good policies that were part of Obama-care and other good policies that were left out of Obama-care that might be worthy of consideration. . Fifth, recently it has been alleged that individuals and agencies within government have been extorting political donations from individuals, businesses, and groups they are charged with regulating. Said extortion consists of promising to leave alone and not regulate anyone who donates enough money to a person or political party’s campaign. With Obama-care, thousands of new government employees, boards, oversight committees, and agents are added to the Federal bureaucracy making it likely that more bribery, graft, and extortion will take place. . The Choice. . Based upon the Constitution, who is charged with the responsibility of funding all aspects of Government? The answer is The U.S. House of Representatives. Should the U.S. House of Representatives have any discretion in determining which programs should be funded and which programs should not? Logically you would think so; otherwise all funding should have been made automatic and why did the Constitution give funding responsibility to a single branch of government? Should our President’s agenda be followed as though he were a dictator? I would hope not. Should Congress give up its right, responsibility, and this check and balance tool of funding programs that deserve it and withholding funding from programs that do not, in order to make governing convenient or easy? The answer is ‘No’. In fact, if Obama-care is bad, unfair, ineffective, or flawed law and a flawed program, Congress has a fiduciary responsibility not to fund it and to insist that it be rewritten, modified, or replaced. . How bad would a law or program have to be in order to earn the distinction of not being worthy of funding? Since when is it wrong to oppose bad law that is hurting more people than it helps? If Obama-care, with all the issues and problems identified above, does not reach that threshold, what program or law would? Yes there are other ways to remove Obama-care from the books but asking the U.S. House of Representatives and indirectly the citizens of this country to relinquish a tool given to them by the Constitution to stop bad policy or law from being implemented seems a bit much. . Finally, if medical insurance is expensive now, how is it possible to add a layer of governmental bureaucracy and think you will somehow save money? Whenever government gets involved there is waste, abuse, cost overruns, and overhead. I am referring to the pencil pushers and bureaucrats that run the program not to mention the cost associated with the loss of personal freedom. Government, in general, does nothing very well and the cost associated with government is rarely ever cheaper. There is the issue of whether it will work, whether it will really save money, whether it will really provide better and more available care and a very real concern regarding the unintended consequences of any federal program. As a case in point, Welfare of the 60s was a well intentioned program designed to help the poor. Instead it resulted in the dissolution of millions of American families and the creation of a permanent underclass we have yet to repair, permanently help, and/or address. . The Question. . The ultimate question and answer to whether the shutdown was legitimate and who was responsible for the shutdown rests on the answer to the question, “Is Obama-care, as currently structured and implemented, good law or bad law? I have listed the original intention of those that supported Obama-care and I have described some of the negatives associated with the law as it currently stands. For me, the answer to this question is obvious. Obama-care, as currently structured and implemented is bad law. The harm caused by Obama-care far out ways the good. As such the U.S. House was well within it rights and responsibility to defund Obama-care. If Obama-care is bad law, how could and why should the House of Representatives fund it? They should not. Any responsibility regarding the shutdown rests upon President Obama, Harry Reid and the Democrat controlled Senate who were unwilling to compromise or recognize the legitimate concerns expressed by the U.S. House of Representatives and for that matter, a majority of citizens of this country. The President and the Democrat controlled Senate chose to shutdown 17% of the federal government in order to blackmail the House into funding Obama-care. Unfortunately, and to the shame of Republicans in the House and the Senate, they were successful. . A final note. . Based on what I have heard, The American people are holding Republicans mostly responsible for the shutdown and it consequences. If this is true, it is extraordinary fact because the Republican led U.S. House of Representatives are the only government institution that arguably was looking out for interests of the citizens of this country. . I do not want to gloss over this point too easily. The one institution of government that sought to do its job and protect the financial interests of the citizens of this country is receiving the blame for the negative effects of the shutdown while the President and the Senate, those who were really responsible for the shutdown and those that brought us the nightmare, commonly referred to as Obama-care, escape condemnation and blame. Everything is turned on it head. . If this is true, how, is it possible for this country to get any hotly contested political issue right? We can’t. It becomes impossible. We may be doomed because of this very sad reality. . The innocent, those doing their job in good faith, are held guilty and the guilty, those failing to live up to their responsibility are made to look innocent because the Media and the Press are corrupt and lie about who and what was responsible for the shutdown and its cause. . It would be nice if the issues we are discussing were mere banter, a philosophical debate with no effect on reality, but that is not the case. We are dealing with real, down to earth, weighty issues here that will impact people’s lives. . Because of a lying Media and Press, Obama-care remains law. Obama-care grabs much more power than it needed, it is too costly in light of our debt, it had no bi-partisan support or input, it required bribery in order to get enough votes to pass, it adds another entitlement when three currently on the books are slowly going broke, and no sooner was it passed then waivers, changes, modification, and exclusions had to be added to make it palatable while also making it unfair under equal protection of the law scrutiny. Because of Obama-care, real people will lose their jobs. Real people will have their hours cut. Real people’s medical info and social security numbers will be exposed, stolen, and abused. The economy will remain stagnant. College students will have trouble finding jobs. The country’s debt will increase dramatically. Health care costs will rise while service and quality suffer and the doctor patient relationship and our personal freedoms will be diminished. . And the Media and the Press, what about them? They will go about their business slowly destroying this country and its economy. Since they have no conscience and limited intellect, we have little hope. . I said earlier that I would give you examples of other citizens harmed by the implementation of Obama-care. Citizens whom Allen Clifton and other hypocrites from the left have no concern for and choose to ignore. Please check out this link and you see where the real damage associated with this issue is coming from, and it is not a two and a half week 17% government shutdown. . Big governments greatest success is in the destruction of the people, their lives and their liberty under its control. themattwalshblog/2013/10/21/the-definitive-guide-to-how-obamacare-is-destroying- .american-lives/?awesm=freedo.mw_i0j The Definitive Guide to How Obamacare is Destroying American Lives themattwalshblog On Sunday night, I wrote a short post soliciting stories from my readers about how Obamacare has already immediately impacted their lives. I asked that all of these emails be directed to ObamacareM...
Posted on: Fri, 25 Oct 2013 10:21:08 +0000
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