ObamaCare

Going “FORWARD”, What Positions Favor Progressives?

Retired Spook187 Comments

This post originated a couple threads back with Cluster offering the following challenge:

“Bring it on liberals. There is not one position in your favor and I look forward to bashing you about the head for the next four years.”

One of our resident Leftist Useful Idiots, thetruthshallsetyoufree, responded with:

Except for all those positions that favored liberals on election day, of course. Good point.

JR responded with:

Small-minded as you are, TruthSSYF, it’s clear you fail to see the irony in that. Absent mass forced reeducation camps, the only thing this election will result in is death and despair. And there are those of us who, if it’s the last thing we do, will see to it that you and those who share your views will be on the receiving end of that paradigm. I don’t think you have the slightest grasp of what lies ahead, but it ain’t gonna be pretty. It is gonna be fun to watch, though.

And I responded with:

Not really a good point, Truthie, as JR points out. Besides winning the presidential election and increasing the Donk majority in the Senate, what positions on November 6th favored Liberals? No President in the last 75 years has been re-elected with the unemployment rate as high as it is — and it’s going higher. No other President has been re-elected with economic growth as weak as it is since they began keeping such statistics in 1930, and Obama’s policies will ensure that it’s only going to get weaker. No other President has been re-elected with the right track/wrong track numbers so stacked against him. The number of GOP governors (30) is at a 12-year high. The GOP-controlled House still controls the purse strings. I haven’t spoken to a single Conservative since the election whose resolve has been anything but strengthened.

Other than free contraceptives and free abortions, what, pray tell, does a second Obama term offer anyone except those with their hands out? As JR alludes to, our side still has most of the guns, and the U.S. military will never, I repeat, NEVER side with Obama. And if you think that Obama’s cute little Kiddie Corps is going to be anything other than cannon fodder, you’re more delusional that I thought.

This exchange, probably close to the end of a dead thread got me to thinking; is there anything that really favors the Progressive agenda going “forward”?  Do Progressives now believe they can just do what they want the next 4 years without repercussions?  The House of Representatives does still hold the purse strings, but what if Obama continues to just bypass the House with executive orders?  Will the nearly 60 million people who voted against him just lay down and do nothing?  What, if any, policies will Obama pursue going “forward” that will result in more liberty and more prosperity?

Update: I’m not getting any takers on the final question of the post, and, admittedly, it asks for someone to have a crystal ball.  So let me rephrase it: what policies going “forward” would you like to see Obama pursue that you believe will have a positive effect on liberty and prosperity?

Open Thread: BAraCKWARDS! Hope and Change A Miserable Failure!

tiredoflibbs42 Comments

Why? You ask that ‘Hope and Change’ is a miserable failure?

Well, for one thing, if he had a successful record on which to run we would not see the LIES and the PANDERING of certain groups from the left.

The Obama propaganda team tries to distance itself from the now-infamous Romney cancer ad.  But there’s one problem …

Re-igniting the war on women, at a campaign stop this week, Dear Ruler accused Republicans of wanting to take the nation“back to policies more suited to the 1950s than the 21st century.”

We have not one, not two, but three members of the ObamaMedia who say that Mitt Romney’s ad on Obama gutting welfare reform is raaaaaaaacist.

His green energy programs, most of which went bankrupt…

The Solyndra scandal widens … Obama’s staff arranged for him to be personally briefed last summer on the loan program to help clean-energy companies like Solyndra.

NEGATIVE net job creation even after the stimulus (over $1 trillion in new spending), in which we were promised unemployment would not rise above 8%.  We have been over that for FORTY STRAIGHT MONTHS.  His team predicted that we would be around 5.6%.

Compared with each president since 1945, Obama ranks dead last in job creation, losing 316,000 jobs.

On Monday, August 13, the national debt will reach $16 trillion.  Obama, the same ruler who in 2009 promised to CUT THE DEFICIT IN HALF by the end of his first term, is responsible for more than $5 trillion of that debt.

Out of control spending with the stimulus and other WASTEFUL programs, Solyndra, nationalizing the auto industry, cash for clunkers, omnibus spending bills, etc. etc.

How the Department of Homeland Security wasted millions of tax dollars on a chemical facilities security program.

“We must pass healthcare to see what is in it.” – we were sold a FRAUD when it came to healthcare.  Premiums are going up at a more alarming rate that BEFORE and actually seeing a doctor will take longer and care will be rationed to control costs.

Nearly two-thirds of employers expect to see a cost hike in their health plans when ObamaCare goes into effect in 2014.

A new CBO report says that under ObamaCare, 30 million non-elderly Americans will remain without health insurance in 2022.

And from the GOVERNMENT IS OUT OF CONTROL FILE:

The Oregon man convicted of collecting rainwater and snow runoff on his own property surrendered to authorities this week to begin serving his 30-day jail sentence.

The looters, moochers and drones will insist on four more years of this train wreck of an administration.

Pathetic.

Keep it civil people….

Update: whatever happened to:

“I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits — either now or in the future.” 
(Remarks by President Obama to a Joint Session of Congress, September 9, 2009)
This afternoon Budget Committee Ranking Member Ryan walked through why the bill put forward by Democrats FAILS the President’s deficit test.
Vice-Presidential candidate Paul Ryan took apart obamacare in six minutes.

ObamaCare Open Thread

Mark Noonan84 Comments

Today is The Day – we’ll find out if our nine Justices can read the Constitution.  If at least 5 of them can, then ObamaCare will be struck down because it is patently absurd that government can compel us to buy something (which, by the way, will pave the way to abolishing the absurd laws mandating auto insurance…what a scam that is:  insurance companies got people to pass laws to force people to buy insurance).  If 5 or more can’t read the document – and it is only a few pages long – then we’ll get some tortuous, involved opinion about penumbras and how if you have you Law Professor Secret Decoder Ring and read the Constitution in half-light with the Moon over your left should then you can see the fine print put in there by Madison which says “Congress shall make laws forcing people to buy stuff”.

I hope it is struck down – but, honestly, Obama has used the law already to insert a huge amount of ObamaCare in to our bureaucracy.  The only sure cure is a complete repeal – with the repeal including a specific provision voiding all regulations implemented since passage under the authority of the ObamaCare statute.  So, even if it is upheld, repeal is still the answer.

And repeal can only happen under President Romney – remember that if for a moment you lack enthusiasm to vote Romney on November 6th…only Romney means the end of ObamaCare.

Obama Crosses the Line

Retired Spook163 Comments

Well, the President has certainly stepped in it this time.

The Supreme Court firmly established in Marbury v. Madison in 1803 that government behavior that is repugnant to the Constitution is not valid, and it is the duty of the courts to make that determination and to invalidate such behavior. This is called “judicial review:” It is the power of the courts to review the acts of the other branches of the federal government, and to review the laws of the states, and to void them when they exceed the confines of the Constitution. No serious legal scholar has questioned this power in the past 175 years.

The president is entitled to his own opinions, just like everyone else is. He is free to argue and to predict that ObamaCare should and will be upheld. But he cannot seriously suggest, with intellectual honesty, that the Court is without lawful authority to invalidate an act of Congress that the Court determines is repugnant to the Constitution.

Nor can he, with intellectual honesty, issue veiled threats to the Court.

The Court is his equal, as a branch of government. But since 1803, the Court is superior to the president on having the final say as to what the laws and what the Constitution mean; and the president knows that.

Now the Judge says the President “knows” all this, which begs the question, why then did he say what he said?  Is it simply his narcissism showing through?  Did Justice Kagen already get word to him that ObamaCare will be struck down, and he’s just getting even — in a juvenile, school-yard sort of way.  He could have just called the Supreme Court a bunch of poopy heads; it would have been about as effective and classy as what he said.  I suppose this could, as a number of pundits have suggested, be a way of preparing his army of useful idiots to take to the streets in protest if and when the Court announces that it has found the law unconstitutional.  And, of course, there’s always the possibility that he already knows the Court will uphold ObamaCare, and he will simply be able to say, “see, I told you they couldn’t strike it down”.  I’m not betting the farm on that last option, but nothing this crew does surprises me anymore.

The interesting thing to take note of will be opinion polls over the next week or two as they relate to Obama’s approval by Independents.  I can’t imagine a large percentage of Independents admiring this latest move by the President, and without a strong majority of Independents’ votes, he’s toast in November.

Supreme Court Oral Arguments on ObamaCare – Open Thread

Retired Spook187 Comments

The Supreme Court is halfway through its 3 days of oral arguments on the constitutionality of ObamaCare, highlighted by this reaction from Justice Anthony Kennedy:

Justice Anthony Kennedy, a possible swing vote for the court, was rigorously challenging Verrilli. Kennedy said he needed to answer a “very heavy burden of justification” to show how the Constitution authorizes Congress to require that individuals buy insurance or pay a penalty.

At one point, Kennedy said the mandate changes the relationship between citizens and the government “in a fundamental way.”

Lots of news on this, and judicial bloggers are having a field day.  Good time for an open thread.

“Hello, Is This Thing On?”

Leo Pusateri54 Comments

Obama lifted his political skirt today as the media is now awash in how in a supposedly ‘hot mic’ unscheduled moment he told Russian President Dimitri Medvedev to pretty much ‘chill out’ and that he’d have much more ‘flexibility’ after winning his second term.

The main question to ask here, of course, is “Flexibility to do what?”

Well, perhaps candidate Obama can give us some clues:

In the full video, then-candidate Obama later stated that he is fully committed to the policy as outlined above, and that he will “keep (his) promises.”

But before you go dismissing out of hand the notion that Barack Obama keeps any of his promises, consider this:

Obama promised that health care ‘reform’ will pass; it did so, even though via the auspices of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, we indeed did not find out what was in the bill until it was passed.

During the campaign, then-candidate Obama also promised that under his policies, the cost of electricity/energy will “necessarily skyrocket.”

That too, has become reality.

There are some promises, of course, that Obama chose not to keep; and one could argue never intended to keep. One was that you’d be able to keep your doctor and your health plan under Obamacare; another that the public would never be forced to pay for an abortion under Obamacare; you know, lipstick-on-a-pig type stuff.

But make no mistake. Obama is a dyed in the wool socialist. Any promise he has made that will serve to further his neo-socialist agenda, and in the process compromise America’s economic and military security (remember, America is arrogant and needs to be taken down a few notches), you can bet your bottom dollar (that is, if you have any dollars left when he’s done with the economy) he will keep.

So, sleep peacefully under Obama’s second term, knowing that he fully intends to bring the United States into the community of feckless, neutered, third-world nations.

How’s that hopenchange working for you, anyway?

On Dalliances With The Devil…

Leo Pusateri49 Comments

It seems that the White House is now dictating what Catholic Doctrine really means…and Cardinal Dolan isn’t liking it:

The White House seems to think we bishops simply do not know or understand Catholic teaching and so, taking a cue from its own definition of religious freedom, now has nominated its own handpicked official Catholic teachers.

Welcome to the almighty church of Obama… Mr. Hussein, presiding.

They told the Church what to do in Maoist China… Communist Russia, Cuba… and even killed those who wouldn’t comply and staffed churches with their ‘state approved’ clergy. Obama is a Marxist. That’s what he does. What kills me is that the liberal Catholic priests and bishops actually SUPPORTED Obama, being the useful idiots that they are, even though it was widely known that Obama would be the most pro-abortion president–ever, and that he voted THREE TIMES AGAINST the born-alive protection act. But they thought their dalliance with the devil would be worth it if they could attain their unattainable ‘social justice’ nirvana fix here on earth. The same folks who brought you “liberation theology” are the same folks who have run our seminaries for too long now; the same element of folks who tolerated pedophiles in the priesthood; the same folks who not only turned a blind-eye to Marxism but encouraged it.

Even given the above, the Catholic church acts surprised–shocked–I say– when the openly Marxist President Obama starts telling them how to run things. This is a direct result of the Catholic Church worrying too much about establishing a non-attainable ‘heaven on earth’ via ‘social justice;’ via their support of Obamacare and other neo-socialist endeavors, and not enough about what was and should continue to be their true mission– the salvation of and preparation of souls for eternal life with Christ in Heaven.

I have had contact with some ‘priests’ who during the 2008 elections knew of Obama’s pro-infanticide predilections, but chose to support him anyway because of the ‘greater good’ that would supposedly result from his proposed social programs.

It was regrettably the ‘useful-idiot’ Catholic vote that helped Barack Hussein Obama first achieve presidential power.

As a Catholic, it will be a sad day, indeed, should the Catholic vote allow Obama a second term.  It will not be a day that I left the Catholic church; rather, it will be a day that the Catholic Church left me.

Can I Hear An AMEN?

Leo Pusateri57 Comments

I am a Catholic– A fallen-away Catholic, but a Catholic, to be sure. I believe in the infallible tenets of the Trinity, the Immaculate Conception, Transubstantiation, and other Church doctrine; but I could no longer abide the turn for the worse in these past four decades in how the middle-heirarchy of the Church, mainly Bishops (and errant Priests) led the Flock astray, by promoting a godless, unattainable socialist utopia on earth via the “social justice” movement. They would get in bed with anyone to make it happen, including the most pro-abortion President in the history of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama. They were more than willing to walk over the corpses of dead babies if it were to achieve their godless, earthly dream–

And then I saw this article, on Red State this morning, and I said AMEN!!! Someone gets it and isn’t afraid to excoriate the Bishops who have led their flock astray–

These are just a few of the paragraphs– I encourage everyone to read the whole enchilada– this NEEDS to be said to save the Catholic Church!

Quote:
Back when there was a New Ledger, I wrote a now long-forgotten piece excoriating the Bishops in this country for complicity in its passage, for not speaking up, for not excommunicating the public officials who actively fight for the abortion license despite the infallible teachings of our Church — and by extension, for enabling a culture of license that enables the Culture of Death. (Piece stolen here; TNL no longer publishes essays.)I stand by every word, and would like to add a few things. Let me start with the most basic one.

You can all, each of you, and I say this after a week of prayerful meditation and with all of the respect I can give, go straight to the darkest pit in the lowest valley of the Ninth Layer of Hell and burn there.

It was easy to sell out the unborn, wasn’t it? To just wish away an infallible teaching that — let’s be honest — has been such a headache since a Catholic Supreme Court Justice helped its mass breaking, and Catholic Democrats abandoned everything else to protect that breach, right? To let others commit a sin that our Church treats as so grave that it incurs the automatic sanction of excommunication? All in return for a goal you’ve shared with your Democrat masters since the 1940s — a chance to drive healthcare costs through the roof with the fig leaf of social caring. All so you could work with the sorts of people who are elected to office by publicly calling you theocrats and misogynists for more-or-less upholding the two-thousand-year-old Tradition of our Church.

Thirty pieces of silver must buy one Hell of a lot more for you than it does for me.

Who among you has stepped forward to say, Whoops! Or, We are infallible on matters of faith expressed through the Tradition or through an ecumenical Council, but we can err on policy, and hoo-boy, did we blow this one. Who among you spoke out last week and said, Attention my flock: I must now inform you that the Democratic Party has proven once and for all that if you vote for a Democrat in this country, you engage in material cooperation with evil. We will now be holding weekly mass Confession to handle the backlog until it clears.

Because that is truth. In 2009 and 2010, nominally faithful Catholics who value all of the policy choices you do — labor unions, forced charity, high rates of taxation, urban ghettoes, and of course, universal “health care” — and who claimed to be ardent defenders of the unborn sold out to a one, sacrificed millions of babies and betrayed the infallible teaching of their faith so they could get one gigantic step closer to the social justice you so crave.

And for that, for that moment when they put aside their baptismal and confirmation vows, repeated every Easter, and their recitation of whatever version of the Nicene Creed you’ve settled on this week, your response was … applause. Silence. Satisfaction. A professed willingness to work with the Administration.

You made all of this possible. For almost my entire life, you have given my fellow Catholics every reason to believe they can freely sin, and hey, no problem, so long as they favor higher taxation and government spending. They can murder the unborn, and I have had all of two homilies, two, in my entire time as a Catholic, which is to say from birth and for the thirty-five years after, in parishes and dioceses across the country, in which a priest has said, If you have had, caused, or aided in obtaining an abortion, and you take communion today, you will go to Hell. You look out into your emptying pews, terrified of the wood you see and the flesh you don’t, through families of one, two, or sometimes amazingly three children, and think, Well, at least they’re still coming, as if you do not understand the connection between these things.

This–the ENTIRE ARTICLE– is what should be read from EVERY pulpit this Sunday!