The End of Liberalism …NOT!

Conservatives like Joe Scarborough, Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer and others are using the troubles of the Affordable Health Care Act to push their message that liberalism and government does not work. In their minds, the two go together as a package.

The Republican Conservative machine like Fox News, talk radio, Frank Lutz and politicians are spearheading this message, not your FB Republicans, relatives, or tea party uncle, because they are merely parroting what they hear.

It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy because if they can get elected based on being anti- government, everything they do to disrupt government progress is a plus. They run on a platform of smaller government and never on efficient government. For example, the FDA may be undermanned but TSA may have too many people working for them. I’ve always found that 16 intelligent gathering agencies make them less efficient.

It’s worth mentioning again, Conservatives are great campaigners, but they suck at governing because it goes against their principles. Their main goal is less government and more free market, but they just want government to protect our country and deliver the mail. They’re doing everything possible to take mail delivery away from them. If that’s the case do we need all those congressmen? The non-libertarian conservatives do want big government when it comes to social issues such as gay marriage and abortion.

We should never underestimate conservatives because they wake up, eat their breakfast cereal, drink their cup of coffee and their minds instantly switches into gear thinking of ways they can indoctrinate the whole country. They eat, sleep and drink this ideology, and it’s as much of them as their religion is. Joe Scarborough is a great example of this, just this morning he introduced Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia as being a great conservative model despite the fact that the governor is mired in a bribery scandal.

On the other hand, Liberals/Progressives do think that government has a role to play, but they’re more compromising. For example, the public option and single payer were not a viable option in the rollout of the Affordable Care Act. They settled for universal health care using expanded Medicaid and private insurance companies. Liberals/Progressives do take a firm stance against the voucher system, whether it be in education or Medicare because they see it as a first step toward privatization. I’ve always said that government is the equalizer.

It’s getting a bit confusing because conservatives of all stripes are trying to take the dominant position of the political party they chose to participate in. The old established Republicans talked of small government but expanded the defense department. The new tea party Republicans wants smaller government, but their method puts a choke hold on growth.

Right now, there’s a total distrust in government; unfortunately that will eventually lead to economic failure. Is that the goal of conservatism?

Does a Tyrant Apologize?

Yesterday, President Obama apologized for saying the words that might have misled 14 million Americans, who believed they could keep their health insurance plans if they wanted to. It was the right thing to do because he was damned if he apologized and damned if he didn’t. The president’s enemies are now saying that the apology just proves that he’s not up to the task of being president. I can remember the same people saying that the president was a tyrant who  was pushing his agenda without congressional approval. A tyrant does not apologize.

After the president’s apology, John Boehner put out a statement saying that if the president was sincere, he would get behind the house bill to reinstate those cancelled policies. Wait a minute, Congress doesn’t have the authority to reinstate policies; the insurance companies would never go for that. The Affordable Care Act and private insurance companies made agreements before the law was passed.

The GOP won’t be satisfied until Kathleen Sebelius gets fired thus leaving Health and Human Services without a director. The Senate won’t confirm judges; do you really think they would be in a hurry to confirm someone whose job it will be to make ACA a successful program?

On my way back from taking a blood test, I flipped on an AM station to see what right wing radio was saying this morning. The talk show host was playing parts of the apology and started asking leading questions such as “why isn’t the president apologizing for the hardships that are sure to come from Obamacare?” He went on to say that starting next year companies will start dropping their healthcare plans. There’s no viable proof of that but the talk show host doesn’t have to pay any penalty for lying to his audience.

I can understand the president’s frustration with media’s appetite for sensationalism. They will broadcast several people’s hardship stories after losing their health insurance, but they ignore the ones who saved money through the exchanges. Unless pressed by a supporter of ACA the media will not mention that healthcare costs were a major problem before Obamacare. The media will hold the people who are trying to do something to lower healthcare costs “feet to the fire” but will give those who don’t care a free pass. How many times have you heard a pundit asked a critic of ACA “and what is your plan?”

When is a Lie a Lie?

A journalist went through the archives and pulled out 26 occasions where President Obama said that if you’d like your health-care plan and your doctor, you could keep them. The main stream media jumped on the White House surrogates with gotcha questions. It was the same way for the IRS investigations and the latest NSA snooping allegations; “what did the president know and when did he know it?"

The president’s supporters should probably admit that his words should’ve been more precise and they should have included a disclaimer. Hindsight is always 20/20. The president should go around the country and apologize for his misleading statements but also use the opportunity to explain how the exchanges will be better than the junk policies they now have. The administration should drop a line that it will only affect 5% of the policy owners because that amounts to about 14 million people, so there’s no real way to sugarcoat it. The disastrous rollout of the website exacerbated the situation because the millions of people with canceled policies were are not able to choose a better plan.

The president’s detractors are overjoyed with the disastrous website roll out because they hated Obamacare all along. Where were the crocodile tears for people losing their healthcare prior to 2010? Where is the alternative plan that will keep the goodies in Obamacare and expand coverage to the millions of people who currently do not have health coverage? I heard one right wing pundit complaining about losing their freedom to have junk policies. Then he complained about how the subsidies are costing the taxpayer’s money. The lack of quality coverage (junk polices) and the use of the emergency room are costing taxpayers money. This group is getting all the political play they can out of the president’s words, which they deem lies. Rush Limbaugh said the president’s words were Nixonian.

I don’t think the private sector can afford to implement universal health care. We are one of the few industrialized countries to use the market place. If Obama care is going to work, the individual mandate is a must because insurance companies have to offset their costs from the people with preexisting conditions with those of young people who don’t normally get sick. As I recall the public option or single payer universal health care didn’t have a seat at the table during the negotiations.

I also think that health insurance companies don’t like the individual plans and are looking for ways to get out of them because they don’t produce the profits they want. It’s the same way for companies who are now weighing the difference between the penalty and providing health care coverage for their employees. You can blame Obamacare but that would be a lie.

The president’s enemies are using a narrative that Obama is out- of –the- loop or he’s lying when he says he did know anything about the IRS scandal that never materialized. Rather than to go into a lot of detail, it’s well known that the original charges did not have any basis because not one conservative group was denied a 501( c)(4) but several liberal groups were. The real story was the abuse of that particular code.

The recent NSA revelations brought out a new reason to think that the president was either lying was not inquisitive enough to know what’s going on and plausible deniability was never considered. I don’t know enough about what NSA is doing to come up with a reasonable explanation and that’s the way should be. I’ve known for decades that NSA was gathering information wherever it could. We started snooping on our allies in 2002; at least, that’s what’s on the record. I don’t know, but I believe it’s helpful to know why Germany did not join us when we were removed Omar Qaddafi or to what extent Israel might go in attacking Iran. I think it’s pretty naïve to presume they’re not spying on us. The NSA got caught, the president has egg on his face, and the rest is guesswork.

Lessons Learned in Arguing With Conservatives

The first thing I learned was that I was going to need a lot of patience because we were going to go down many rabbits trails before we got to the main topic. I knew I was going to have to take a lot of name calling, sift through the exaggerations, and  I needed to try and calm down my angry opponent. That’s right, I’m satisfied with the last two presidential elections and my opponent is not. An angry person is not likely to make much sense until they cool down.

The conservative is likely to be a Ronald Reagan or a Ron Paul disciple, so they come into the argument with an idea that they are superior and if things somehow don’t go their way, then the system had to be rigged. They seem to think that President Obama couldn’t possibly get those millions of votes legitimately, so he would had to entice his constituents with government goodies. There’s no other possible explanation.

In the VA’s thread titled “America is ineptocrasy not democracy’ “the right-wing commenters wanted to make it about “makers and takers” and they got upset when other posters did not want to follow that storyline. They want to control the dialogue using their talking points rather than facts from reliable sources.

I had to sit patiently while my conservative opponent went through his monologue where he would call the president a socialist, tyrant, illegitimate, or the latest thing he heard from talk radio. I knew that I would be wasting my time trying to refute all those false claims, so I sat there and" bit my tongue" until we could get to the issues. It’s a rope- a- dope tactic.

If we were arguing in front of an audience, my conservative opponent would put on a show, by wildly exaggerating all his points. I had to carefully phrase my opinions and points, so he didn't mock my answers as much, since we are not having a formal debate. A good example is the last comment in the “Voter ID Law No problem in Crossroads” thread where a poster stated “Did you bother to read the article? “The voter ID law hasn't presented any problems. The gloom and doom stories were just that, stories?” The poster doesn’t know that’s such a small sample, that it is not representative sample that we can rely on but he thinks we can’t read.

The conservative is not dumb, but you have to keep repeating the facts that you got from reliable sources because they won’t sink in the first, second or even the third time around. For example, many have moved off the IRS non scandal because there were not enough facts to support their conspiracy, so it quickly became not a matter of concern. Benghazi is still alive to them because they think there are still pieces of evidence around to bring down the Obama Administration or to weaken Hillary Clinton in her presidential run. The Republicans have not come up with any meaningful legislation, so this is all they have to cling to.

Today, the GOP is on a “what did the president know and when did he know it?” strategy. Yesterday’s congressional hearing about the disastrous rollout of the Healthcare.gov website, there were  more questions and statements about the president’s promise that people could keep their crappie insurance policies if they wanted to. It’s too late in the game for the GOP to start playing the “I feel your pain” game because everyone is aware that they have never cared about universal affordable health care.

There’s a Obama Derangement Syndrome Epidemic in the GOP

We are approaching Halloween so Larry Marek wrote another scary letter “President Obama is intentionally ruining America” but as usual, he doesn’t tell us how or what his solutions are. He says that left wingers will reap the same agony as anyone else but isn’t that always the case; regardless of ideology? He states that he is not a Republican or Democrat, but he’s definitely not a Democrat; and that leaves what? He says, “It’s your choice.”Huh?

I can understand Larry being confused. What type of Republican is up in the air because he has a few choices these days? Is he a mainstream Republican who believes what is reported on ABC news, or is he an avid Fox news believer? Wait, he has another option, he can be a Glenn Beck (The Blaze/ info wars) Republican. The GOP is split but they agree on two things; equal hate for Obamacare and President Obama himself.

Larry, you complain about the Obama Administration  not being transparent, yet you preach gloom and doom, so how did you acquire all your information? You are very transparent. You don’t like Muslims because it would be reprehensible if the president of United States belonged to that religion. You find it distasteful, that a college graduate would help people of the poorer south side of Chicago and all this time I thought it was a Christian deed. He was also a college constitutional professor at the University of Chicago before he became a state senator and then a United States senator. Ordinarily, that would be an impressive resume.

This morning, Joe Scarborough tried to make his show all about President Obama either being out -of -touch or a liar with nothing in between. Joe Scarborough reminds me of people like Larry Marek who won’t be satisfied until everyone has the same contempt for the president as he does.

The latest criticism about Obamacare seems to be about the president promising everyone that if you liked your healthcare plan, you could keep it. Joe Scarborough is trying to make the case that the president intentionally lied. I never paid much attention to those words because like 80% of other Americans, I won’t be enrolling in Obamacare. Joe had Lisa Meyers on, who had written an article that stated “50 to 75 percent of the 14 million consumers who buy their insurance individually can expect to receive a ‘cancellation’ letter or the equivalent over the next year because their existing policies don’t meet the standards mandated by the new health care law. One expert predicts that number could reach as high as 80 percent. And all say that many of those forced to buy pricier new policies will experience ‘sticker shock.” Joe got upset when one of his guests said it was more of an upgrade than it was a cancelation. The people Lisa interviewed had catastrophic policies which are not health plans. Chuck Todd then angered Joe even more when he said that the insurers were ripping off those people. It boils down to this; the old policies did not meet the new ACA standards, so the profit motive insurance companies’ immediately raised their prices and canceled the existing one.

Joe Scarborough is trying to make a case “what did the president know and when did he know it” for every hiccup that involves the administration. It’s as if this administration invented “plausible deniability.” Joe was going hard trying to make his point that President Obama had to know that Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cell phone was being tapped.. Mika Brzezinski threw a curveball that hit a surprised Joe Scarborough. She told them that we started spying on our Allies in 2002. All he could say was “are you sure about that?” Joe is the host of that show, so it’s up to him to keep informed and not just make his daily anti-Obama comments.

Things ought to be looking good for Alcoa because the orders for aluminum for all the tin-foil hats has to be at record highs.

If I were to meet  Marek and Joe Scarborough.I would say “dudes the president is not going anywhere for the next three years; the voters have spoken.”    

Fix the Darn Glitches

The shutdown is over, and now the GOP will set its sights on the computer glitches associated with healthcare.gov. This morning Joe Scarborough said the GOP should point out that the company  working on our Affordable Care Act website was recently fired by Canada. Joe said the party should emphasize that this fiasco is in a $100 million overrun so far. If I would’ve been on that panel, I would say “the cost pales in comparison to the $24 billion the shutdown cost us.” I would have also said "the Medicare Part D’s website the Republicans passed had its delays and glitches. That would be just to get the Republicans off their high horse because this administration has to own this horrendous rollout.

There’s no way to sugarcoat the failure to implement a website that was supposed to help seven million Americans get affordable health care. It’s inexcusable but it’s not because the president had a high tech team running his reelection campaign and they should’ve known better. That’s the media version and they will repeat that line time and time again.

 This system has to be able to communicate with Homeland Security, the IRS, the Veterans Administration, and Social Security and also with the state’s unique data bases. It’s a serious problem because consumers have until December 15 to choose a plan that can be in force January 1, 2014 but no later than Feb.15, 2014 or they could be hit with an IRS penalty. I wouldn’t be surprised if Health and Human Services (HHS) extended the deadline, only to hear the GOP say “I told you we should have the delayed the individual mandate for another year.”

The GOP wanted to delay ‘the individual mandate” for political reasons and not because they cared about the people who didn’t or now has insurance. The party knew if they could delay the implementation of ACA, reinforcements would come (more republicans) in the 2014 elections. They are not backing off one bit because their number one goal is to kill Obamacare.. A delay would mean that those who were insured through that the new Obamacare Medicaid program would no longer have insurance. I don’t know why the administration and democrats didn’t do more to emphasize that.

 The president should make the successful healthcare signup website a priority because the GOP will exploit every hiccup. Robert Gibbs said that the administration could hire the best computer techs from Silicon Valley, but I can see the GOP controlled House handing over that much money to repair a system they hate to the core. More importantly, the people trying to signup are probably the ones who need it the most. The state’s websites are running smoothly, but they tell us that the applicants make at least 18 visits before they purchase, and traffic is the heaviest near the deadline for signup. There’s still time and when the glitches are fixed, the ones who remember this fiasco will be drowned out by the successful logins.

People seem to forget that the healthcare insurance was skyrocketing before President Obama ever took office, and the GOP did not have a plan nor were they interested in one. To this day, the Republican Party does not have a healthcare plan that will provide affordable health care for 30 million people. Republican legislators will tell us that people are not ever denied health care, but they leave out the part that those people regularly use the expensive emergency-room. Hospitals in most cases will charge the insurance companies the excess and that domino affect will add about $1000 to our health care premiums.

Rep. Louie Gohmert told a right-wing talk show host that the shutdown kept the Dems from brings up immigration reform. I don’t usually pay attention to Mr. Gohmert, but it’s in line with the GOP minority party tactics. Their plan is to filibuster, delay and basically run out the clock, so the president can’t pass his agenda.

I read an interesting Washington Post story that fact checked Senator Ted Cruz's claims about the job killing ACA. The newspaper only gave him two Pinocchios because our country has 315 million  and a lot of his data could not be verified yet. Once businesses get going, those part timers will become full- timers regardless of their healthcare status ,so to say we are nation of 29 hour work week is not true.

Some Things Will Never Change

I got a little upset this morning when Harold Ford JR. and Mika Brzezinski said that Paul Ryan’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal was a bipartisan approach to end the shutdown.  No it wasn’t, it’s the same budget proposal that lost the 2012 election for the GOP.  Paul Ryan might not have mentioned Obamacare, but he didn’t mention new revenues either.

Republicans and Democrats don’t change, as one is for privatizing and the other is for making government work.

John Boehner has heard from the Koch brothers and others about the consequences of default; his next strategy is to keep the government closed but he now wants to raise the debt limit for a short period of time.  Republicans cannot come to the table without having a hostage to bargain with.  Yes, Democrats have forced shutdowns in the past but we’ve never gotten this close to default.

I don’t think the tea party cares about the 28% approval rating the GOP has, in fact, they are probably making tee shirts with 28% written across the front and back.  They didn’t come to Washington to govern; they came to blow up the place and start anew.  These people are libertarians with a low regard for government, regulations, and taxes.  They’ll take Social Security, Medicare and VA benefits and rail about the government takeover.  Libertarians can’t win elections, unless they run under the Republican banner but now that they have, they are destroying the brand.

Democrats bring your chair little closer to your monitor so you can see plainly what the Republicans are up to.  Entitlement reform is privation in Republican speak.  Joe Scarborough said that reforms are needed in order to save these entitlements, but his way of saving will make it hard on those people who depend on them.  There’s no question that reform is needed but benefits do not have to be cut.  We could lift the caps and raise the contribution amount to 7% and make the program solvent for several years.  Don’t fall for the means testing approach.  When you mean test a social program, it makes a class warfare issue. We don’t have to raise the eligibility age on Medicare or Social Security because that’s all some people are looking forward to.  I am against President Obama’s wiliness to move on a Chained CPI because it would hurt the poor in outlining years.  Democrats can’t continue to give away the store without equal cuts in defense spending and insisting on tax increases or increasing the minimum wage.

 This is an ongoing battle and you have to be pretty naïve not to think that the subsidies in ACA won’t always be a target for Republicans. Remember Paul Ryan may look like the boy who lived next door, but he’s still a disciple of Ayn Rand. We should compromise but beware of the Trojan Horse.