Deadly Denial–Part 2

This is the second post in a series that hopefully will show that sticking our collective heads in the sand is not conducive for not only our health, but the health of our country.

“We need doctors, we needs scientists, engineers. We need all those people involved in government, not just lawyers…I don’t have anything against lawyers, but you know, here’s the thing about lawyers…I’m sorry, but I got to be truthful…got to be truthful – what do lawyers learn in law school? To win, by hook or by crook. You gotta win, so you got all these Democrat lawyers, and you got all these Republican lawyers and their sides want to win. We need to get rid of that. What we need to start thinking about is, how do we solve problems?” – Dr. Benjamin Carson, 2013 National Prayer Breakfast

I would hope that no one reading this finds the above surprising in the fact that our elected officials are not problem solvers.  Indeed, all one has to do is look at the antics of the politicians in Washington DC concerning sequestration understand that these folks are problem creators more than anything else.  Legislation to solve a “crisis” is now the hallmark of Congress creates more problems that what that legislation was originally to resolve.

We have all watched with more than a cursory interest in the pains of the funding of Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid, and it seems that every couple of years that there is a threat of these programs going under unless additional legislation was passed to continue funding the programs.  And there are many people that have bought into the premise that the government would take care of them.  To which I wrote:

To rely on the government for anything long-term is stupidity at best and insanity at worst. – Equal Diversity

Doesn’t one ever think that Congress, among the thousands of hours spent crafting various bills and laws, come up with a solution to fund these programs without having to revisit the funding of these programs under a crisis situation?

Now I do realize that Congress is tasked, by law, to propose and vote upon a yearly budget which should include the above programs.  Except that Congress has not passed a budget in close to four years, and this is in violation of the Constitution.  The consequences of such fiscal irresponsibility has been the constant raising of the debt ceiling and the lowering of the credit rating of the United States.

Initially, the raising of the debt ceiling doesn’t sound so bad except that it means that Congress can borrow more money that will eventually need to be paid.  With interest.  Which is kicking the can down the road farther until that road runs out.

Lowering the credit rating means that the interest at which Congress can borrow money becomes higher, which increases the amount of money that will need to be paid.  This means that not only is the road running out, but the end is coming faster.

One-half of Congress and the Administration have a solution – raise taxes. The other half of Congress wants cuts in governmental spending.  The Obama compromise is to do both (sequestration).  Taxes have already been raised.  Here’s what the cuts look like, and the Congresscritters are having fits.

Now mind you, the cuts that are being talked about are a drop in the bucket when compared to the amount of deficit spending that Congress runs up every year.  And for those uninformed, deficit spending is spending more money than what is taken in.  But that doesn’t stop the fear-mongering sky-is-falling rhetoric by the Administration or by the Congresscritters.

From the post Congressional Fiscal Malfeasance:

We, as a country and as individuals, are now being bombarded by visions of gloom and doom that the “fiscal cliff” is coming, and that Congress must act or the sky will fall.  Never mind that it was these clowns that created this situation and the situation that created the financial meltdown in the first place (read the post “The American Dream or Nightmare?” for an in depth background).  And isn’t it highly suspicious that although this situation was pending, very few politicians or news outlets brought it up until after the election?

I have no doubt that the political parties are playing political brinksmanship with this “crisis’ in order to score political points with the electorate.  I also believe that both the Republicans and Democrats have had their talking points & strategies in place long before now… 

No, we do not have problem solvers in Congress, nor do we have honorable public servants in the halls of our Government.  We have people with personal agendas that are contrary to not only the best interests of the People of the United States, but of the country itself.  To quote Dr. Carson from the passage above:

“We need to get rid of that. What we need to start thinking about is, how do we solve problems?”

Any solution, any response to the sequestration should include some if not all of the following bullet points:

• A plan to reduce deficit spending from the current levels to zero within the next ten years not covered in the points below 
• Reduction or elimination of non-essential functions or departments
• Elimination of duplicate departments (ex. Do we really need multiple law-enforcement departments such as DHS, FBI, ATF that engage in turf wars and overlapping responsibilities?)
• Aggressive prosecution of waste and fraud within the governmental agencies, and those who benefit from it.
• Removal of programs that cost money instead of saving it (the new projections of the spending on Obamacare show that this legislation will cost billions more than it was promoted to save)
• Rewriting of the tax code to be fair for all (individuals and businesses), instead of increasing penalties for earning more (i.e., flat tax)
• Elimination of foreign aid to hostile regimes – our enemies should not receive our tax dollars
• Reduction of foreign aid to friendly regimes – we need the money here to resolve our financial crisis before giving it away

The final bullet point is stopping something that Congress likes to do to legislation passes by previous Congresses – changing the laws.  Congress needs to make a long term plan, pass the legislation to support it, and don’t change it.

No individual or business can remain viable if the country they are residing in is in a financial crisis.  Jobs are tentative, benefits to those who need them are reduced, and businesses will go out of business.  If you don’t believe me, look at the riots in Greece and France over losses of jobs and benefits, and perhaps you will see the future of this country if Congress doesn’t get the country’s financial house in order.

If our elected officials of either party do not enact legislation solving the financial ills of this country, then I propose We the People give them this:

 

---

Cross-posted to Wise Conservatism

Kicking the Can–Again!

I really, really like Michael Ramirez –

Our politicians did not do anything to solve the fiscal cliff during the last-minute, middle of the night negotiations.  In fact, all they really did is kick the can down the road again.

The politicians created this crisis over a year ago, sat on it, and true to a previous post, political brinksmanship was fully in force with both parties of both Houses of Congress and the President weighing in on resolving “the crisis”.

What a load of horse manure!!

The Republicans caved with the “promise” that the all important spending cuts would be addressed later.  The details of this debacle are:

They won Obama’s signature on $1 trillion in cuts over a decade after using the debt limit as leverage, but were forced into a humiliating surrender a year ago after trying to block an extension in payroll tax cuts. And in the last major act of the 112th Congress, they were forced to swallow legislation that contained next-to-no spending cuts, raised tax rates on the wealthy while keeping them even for the middle class and boosted deficits by an estimated $4 trillion over a decade.

And now, the newly enfranchised Congress will begin by raising deficits. National flood insurance legislation to help victims of Hurricane Sandy will create slightly more than $9 billion in red ink if it passes as expected on Friday (it did – Tom). A follow-up disaster aid measure that Boehner has said will be brought to a vote on Jan. 15 would add $27 billion — more if the bill grows, as seems likely, after it is reconciled with a $60-billion Senate version.

Meanwhile, the national debt climbs higher and higher for another two months (when Congress will address the issue – again!).  And I have no doubt that yet another set of political Band-Aids will be enacted to temporarily fix this upcoming issue (from Townhall.com):

Legislation passed this week to avert the “fiscal cliff” could still leave in place deficits averaging more than $900 billion a year over the coming decade if Congress fails to follow its tax increases up with further spending cuts or tax hikes, the nonpartisan scorekeeper for Congress said Friday.

The Congressional Budget Office also says the measure should reduce the risk of recession this year by not slamming the economy with a huge tax increase.

The CBO issued a study in August predicting a $10 trillion deficit over the next 10 years if Congress simply followed existing tax and spending policies instead of following the laws that threatened a combination of automatic tax increases and spending cuts.

This weeks’ cliff law would cut $700 billion to $800 billion from CBO’s 10-year, $10 trillion deficit estimate. But it also leaves in place across-the-board spending cuts that would cut more than $1 trillion from the budget over that time.

Somehow, I don’t think that various Congresscritters are going to allow spending cuts to their favorite programs…

No, it’s going to be more of the same BS with the same result – more taxes, more spending, more debt, and a lower credit rating for the United States.  And we’re going to be in the situation below, only worse:

We’ll be in an inner tube or treading water before long.

Congressional Fiscal Malfeasance

While the incident in Benghazi is put on the back burner, the media is now focusing upon the “fiscal cliff” that Congress has so conveniently swept under the rug until after the elections.   And on top of it, the first consequences of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka, Obamacare) are now becoming apparent.  Let’s not forget who is responsible for these “crises”.

That’s right – Our elected officials, the politicians who are mostly attorneys & not accountants, are making financial decisions that will affect this country and its citizens.  Their track record is absolutely abysmal.  After all, look at their forays into –

• The Post Office – Government mandated and losing money hand over fist.
• Amtrak – After 40+ years of government subsidies, it’s nowhere near breaking even.
• Medicare & Medicaid – Will still go broke no matter what Obamacare props up or robs from the programs.  I fully expect Obamacare to replace Medicare & Medicaid at some point in the future.
• Social Security – Is there ever an election cycle that doesn’t state that Social Security must receive new funding or it will go broke by some future date?
• Department of Energy – Originally set up in 1977 with the mandate to bring the United States forward to be energy-independent.  Where are we in 2012?  Lots of failed ventures into “green” energy, and definitely not energy independent with conventional energy sources.
• Corporate bailouts – Taxpayers will never see full returns on bailouts of the financial institutions and car companies.
• Housing – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were just two of the government-sponsored disasters that started the current financial crisis.

And now healthcare for us all.  Who cannot remember this quote from a townhall meeting with Senator Arlan Spector and Kathleen Sibelius?

“I look at this health care plan and I see nothing that is about health or about care. What I see is a bureaucratic nightmare, Senator.  Medicaid is broke, Medicare is broke, Social Security is broke and you want us to believe that a government that can’t even run a cash for clunkers program is going to run one-seventh of our U.S. economy?  No sir, no!”

This is what government is now good for – bureaucratic nightmares that the average person cannot wade through without an attorney present.  Good for the attorney (if you can find one that can understand what the law states), but bad for you & me.  But I digress from the point of this post…

We, as a country and as individuals, are now being bombarded by visions of gloom and doom that the “fiscal cliff” is coming, and that Congress must act or the sky will fall.  Never mind that it was these clowns that created this situation and the situation that created the financial meltdown in the first place (read the post “The American Dream or Nightmare?” for an in depth background).  And isn’t it highly suspicious that although this situation was pending, very few politicians or news outlets brought it up until after the election?

I have no doubt that the political parties are playing political brinksmanship with this “crisis’ in order to score political points with the electorate.  I also believe that both the Republicans and Democrats have had their talking points & strategies in place long before now.  Frankly, I think this is disgusting because these asshats are playing with people’s lives, and for what?  How can businesses come up with a business plan (1 year plan, 5 year plan, etc.) if the government cannot come up with any long-term plan and make it stick?  Government policies change depending on who is elected, what their agenda is, and what laws they manage to get passed.  Let’s take the example of Obamacare and how businesses are now reacting to the changes that will be enacted after the first of the year.

One of the provisions is that businesses must provide health insurance benefits to full time employees.  A full time employee is defined as a person that works 35 or more hours per week.  Thus, as been reported in the media these past couple of weeks, many businesses, mostly restaurants, are cutting their employee’s hours to below 35 hours to avoid the mandate.

It is interesting to note that the above mandate actually hurts the people that Obamacare is supposed to help – the lower income, service-oriented workers who traditionally do not get healthcare benefits from their employer. Now, they may get healthcare, but they also have their hours reduced if they have a job at all.

While my liberal friends (yes, I have a couple) are decrying this development stating that this is unfair, I have to remind them that a business is in business to make money for the owner and investors, not to provide benefits solely for the employees.  If a business cannot make a profit taking all the expenses, taxes, and benefits into consideration, then they are out of business, i.e., no one has a job.

Welcome to the real world…

At the moment, I have health benefits from my work as it is a large company with several hundred people.  However, I do worry about what is going to happen in January 2014 when this little jewel will hit:

• Impose a $2,000 per employee penalty on employers with more than 50 employees who do not offer health insurance to their full-time workers (McNamara, Kristen (March 25, 2010). “What Health Overhaul Means for Small Businesses”. The Wall Street Journal.)

Now I know that my health insurance costs my company more than $2,000 a year.  I’m half expecting that my company (being ever so cost-conscience) will take the penalty hit, leave me out on my own to get healthcare coverage, and not compensate me for the premium that I would need to pay out of my pocket.  There will be others in the same situation.

What Obamacare and the fiscal cliff have in common is that our elected non-representational representatives are not capable of making long-term financial decisions that are in the best interests of the country and its people.  They are swayed by the almighty vote and tax dollars to be used for funding their pet projects.  Until the electorate wises up to this fact and realizes that these Congresscriminals are picking their pocket and holds them accountable, nothing will change.

Supreme Fallout

I have been on vacation this past week, and catching up on some much-needed yard work.  Yeah, the heat was bad, but that didn’t get my temperature up (as well as the blood pressure) when I heard about the following.

While working in the yard, I listened to Mark Levin’s “Audio Rewind”, which is basically his radio show on a podcast.  I don’t listen to him very often, but I wanted to find out what this Constitutional lawyer had to say about the Supreme Court’s decision on Obamacare.  In listening to his podcasts from his 6/28 and 6/29 shows, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts dropped the ball…big time…

Mark basically describes Justice Robert’s reasoning for calling the individual mandate a tax is un-Constitutional as there are no valid reasons or provisions for Congress to pass such a tax.  The Commerce Clause did not apply at all.  With this revelation, the individual mandate should have been invalidated, and Justice Roberts should have ruled as such.  Indeed, he should have sided with the dissenting Justices and overturned the entire law.  But he didn’t – he punted the issue back to the People with this statement:

“Members of this court are vested with the authority to interpret the law; we possess neither the expertise nor the prerogative to make policy judgments.  Those decisions are entrusted to our nation’s elected leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them. It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.”

While true, the Supreme Court is also the last bastion of the People to protect the Constitution from a Congress or President gone rogue.  The Supreme Court is charged with upholding the Constitution.  They have failed in this task with this decision.

With the decision on Obamacare and the decision on the Arizona immigration laws, it has become apparent that the Supreme Court will not protect the rights of the People.  The People will have to protect their own rights.

So now what?  Here are a few thoughts from around the Internet:

There once was a penalty, not a tax
Or, so said the liberal hacks
But we know the score
We’ll be paying much more
The burden is on middle class backs.

via @MalarkeyFilter & @ImpeachTheIdiot

From The Gateway Pundit:

With the Supreme Court giving President Obama’s new health care law a green light, federal and state officials are turning to implementation of the law — a lengthy and massive undertaking still in its early stages, but already costing money and expanding the government.

The Health and Human Services Department “was given a billion dollars implementation money,” Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg of Montana said. “That money is gone already on additional bureaucrats and IT programs, computerization for the implementation.”

“Oh boy,” Stan Dorn of the Urban Institute said. “HHS has a huge amount of work to do and the states do, too. There will be new health insurance marketplaces in every state in the country, places you can go online, compare health plans.”

The IRS, Health and Human Services and many other agencies will now write thousands of pages of regulations — an effort well under way:

“There’s already 13,000 pages of regulations, and they’re not even done yet,” Rehberg said.

And then it’s not only one tax, but 20!  From the Washington Times:

It’s official: Obamacare is Obamatax. The Supreme Court saved Obamacare but at the expense of exposing it as simply a massive collection of taxes – 20 taxes at least. Obamacare was supposed to reduce the cost of health insurance but it has six taxes on Americans who already have health insurance. Your insurance will cost more to pay Mr. Obama’s tax hikes.

Obamacare was supposed to “bend the cost curve down” but it has a tax on medical devices. What medical devices? Braces for your kids. A stent for your heart. A wheelchair. All the cool stuff you see in hospitals will now cost more in order to pay Mr. Obama’s tax on medical devices.

Obamacare has a tax on lifesaving drugs. Great – now our drugs will cost more. Obamacare raises taxes on making new drugs by $2.3 billion a year. And you will pay it.

Obamacare promised that you would be able to keep your insurance. Not if you have a Health Savings Account – that is hit with new tax penalties. Just try and buy over-the-counter nonprescription drugs pre-tax with your HSA – not anymore. Your Flexible Spending Account is now going to be taxed so that parents who use these insurance accounts to take care of special-needs children will find part of their own life savings taxed away to Washington. And if you have insurance that Washington bureaucrats have decided on your behalf is too good, then you pay part of the $32 billion Mr. Obama is adding in new taxes on those with “too much, too good” health insurance.

Obamacare even has a tax on charitable hospitals.

Seven of the Obamacare taxes directly hit middle-income Americans. So much for Mr. Obama’s promise to never raise “any form” of tax on anyone earning less than $250,000.

There is a tax on tanning services. New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg won’t let you have soft drinks he doesn’t approve of. Obamacare taxes you 10 percent if you want a tan and cannot get a free ride to the sun on Air Force One.

Twenty taxes comprise the total that raise the cost of health care, trash your present insurance and ability to save for future health needs.

What if you get really sick and have very high medical bills? In the past, you could deduct high medical bills from your taxable income when they were above 7.5 percent of your total income. Mr. Obama thinks that is being too nice to sick people and raises the limit to 10 percent. Perhaps the theory is that taxing sick people will lead to fewer sick people.

Much focus has been placed on one of the 20 tax hikes. That is the tax hike on Americans who fail to submit to the “mandate” that you buy health insurance chosen for you by the government. You may buy any color Model T you wish as long as it is black. You may have any health insurance package the government picks out for you.

And here’s one more lie from President Obama:  He has stated that if you have health coverage, and you like it, then you can keep it.  But if that coverage isn’t approved by the government, or if your employer decides to change providers or drop coverage altogether, then you are totally out of luck.  You are now at the mercy of the government bureaucrats, and we all know how efficient and speedy they are (think of your last visit to the DMV, and you’ll understand).

This isn’t about containing medical costs or making sure that everyone has healthcare coverage – we already know from independent and government accounting that the costs will go up beyond whatever projections were used by Congress and the President to promote this law.  A Rasmussen poll has stated that 52% of Americans now favor a repeal of Obamacare, and 47% in a Gallup survey believe that Obamacare will hurt the economy.  What’s worse, Townhall.com had this:

The Doctor Patient Medical Association has released a new survey of about 700 doctors, and the results are bleak. Scary bleak. Among other dismal figures, Doctors’ Attitudes on the Future of Medicine: What’s Wrong, Who’s to Blame, and What Will Fix It found that 83% of respondents are contemplating leaving the industry if Obamacare is fully implemented, owing to its disastrous projected consequences. Indeed, they openly blame the healthcare law for their industry’s woes:

KEY FINDINGS

• 90% say the medical system is on the WRONG TRACK
• 83% say they are thinking about QUITTING
• 61% say the system challenges their ETHICS
• 85% say the patient-physician relationship is in a TAILSPIN
• 65% say GOVERNMENT INVOLVEMENT is most to blame for current problems
• 72% say individual insurance mandate will NOT result in improved access care
• 49% say they will STOP accepting Medicaid patients
• 74% say they will STOP ACCEPTING Medicare patients, or leave Medicare completely
• 52% say they would rather treat some Medicaid/Medicare patient for FREE
• 57% give the AMA a FAILING GRADE representing them
• 1 out of 3 doctors is HESITANT to voice their opinion
• 2 out of 3 say they are JUST SQUEAKING BY OR IN THE RED financially
• 95% say private practice is losing out to CORPORATE MEDICINE
• 80% say DOCTORS/MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS are most likely to help solve things
• 70% say REDUCING GOVERNMENT would be single best fix.

The bottom line is that this is a power and money grab by the government solely for the purposes of funding whatever pet projects the party in power has for their patrons.  Why else would people and organizations give thousands and thousands of dollars to a political candidate?  After all –

…a typical politician’s primary job is not to serve the people who elected him. His primary job is to get himself (or herself) elected or re-elected. Second is to reward all those contributors that gave $$ to help him get elected. Third is to get as many perks & benefits as he can while he is in office. Last on the list is the common person like you & I.

Be well, everyone – we may not have a choice…

Our Insane (or Inane) Government

I’ve been rather busy the past couple of weeks with work and home.  I hope that the load will lighten up soon so I can write & visit everyone’s blog more often.

But that doesn’t mean that the politics of the country have stopped its insanity, nor that life has paused.  For instance:

Obamacare Ruling Expected this Week:

The Supreme Court is expected to rule on Obamacare this week.  The more and more we find out about this law, the more of an economic disaster for both business and the individual is revealed.  Whether the law is struck down in whole or in part, it’s a bad law on so many levels and should be struck down in its entirety.

After all, with the exceptions, special deals, and hidden provisions, the passage of this law is a study in the culture of political corruption that occurs in our Government every day.

Executive Privilege?:

After AG Eric Holder has delayed, misled, and otherwise lied to Congressional investigators, Congress cites the AG with contempt for not providing required documentation.  The White House (aka President Obama) invokes Executive Privilege.  Why?  David Limbaugh had this to say:

Few principles are more important to our constitutional scheme than the separation of powers, which is precisely why President Obama’s bogus assertion of executive privilege to thwart Congress’ investigation into Fast and Furious is so inexcusable.

Executive privilege is an important safeguard against congressional overreach and to preserve the separation of powers. The inherent right of the executive to protect highly sensitive information has long been recognized, and the privilege was judicially established during the Watergate era.

As such, Congress should not go on fishing expeditions against a president to score political points. But neither should a president assert the privilege to obstruct a legitimate investigation when there appears to be no colorable claim to the privilege. This trivializes the privilege and the separation of powers it is designed to protect.

Legal experts agree that the privilege applies to communications to which the president or an adviser acting on his behalf is a party. But they disagree about whether it applies to internal communications within executive agencies when neither the president nor his representative were involved in those communications.

As the communications for which the privilege is being asserted here were reportedly internal Justice Department communications, many view the privilege claim dubiously.

But even when the privilege is applicable, it is qualified and can be overcome when Congress demonstrates it has a substantial need for the information it seeks. In this case, Congress is seeking relevant information from the Justice Department, which it has been trying to obtain for more than a year.

At every turn, Attorney General Eric Holder has stonewalled and obstructed congressional investigators. He is withholding thousands of pertinent documents, using an internal investigation as cover. It was because of Holder’s persistent refusal to cooperate that Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., threatened to hold him in contempt.

At the last minute, President Obama, who had claimed from the outset that he had no prior knowledge of the operation, asserted the privilege on Holder’s behalf, as only the president can invoke this important privilege.

This is a smoke screen for purely political reasons.  President Obama cannot, at this time, throw his AG under the bus and reinforce his critics assertion that he appointed a hack to administer the Department of Justice.

As a side note, this clown has shown a remarkable lack of judgment while running the DOJ.  As Debra Saunders writes:

When Obama first took office, his DOJ sicced a special prosecutor on CIA interrogators who already had been investigated for their use of enhanced interrogation techniques approved by the Bush administration — even though DOJ officials had recommended against prosecuting those operatives. It was a vindictive act against public servants who stuck out their necks to protect this country.

Holder was hell on wheels with interrogators who might have waterboarded three high-value detainees, but he has demonstrated no such scruples when it comes to the Obama administration’s reliance on drones in the war on terrorism.

Under Holder’s watch, the Drug Enforcement Administration has seized states’ supplies of sodium thiopental, a drug used in lethal injection, because the drug is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. That’s just plain ridiculous.

At first, Obama’s Justice Department advised U.S. attorneys not to focus on medical-marijuana prosecutions in states that have legalized its usage. Now U.S. attorneys are raiding medical-marijuana facilities regularly.

And I still remember when this AG wanted to bring certain terrorists to NYC for trial, and to transfer terrorists from Guantanamo Bay to a facility in Illinois.  Let’s also not forget to mention that this AG wants to prosecute a certain Sherriff for arresting illegal immigrants…

Estate Tax Hike if Obama is Re-elected:

As reported by NewsMax.com:

President Barack Obama’s promise to raise the estate tax by 5 percent to 55 percent should he be re-elected in November is “not just wrong, it’s criminal,” legendary singer Pat Boone told Newsmax.TV.

“People that have worked hard, people who have saved, paid their taxes, set something away and now want to leave it to their family — if they have the bad judgment to die, the government will step over and say: ‘Thank you. We will take 55 percent of that,’ ” Boone told Newsmax in an exclusive interview on Friday.

“And if you have to sell your business, have to sell your house, have to borrow the money, you have to pay the government 55 percent of whatever was left — I think that’s just robbery. It’s not just wrong, it’s criminal. It ought to be abolished, and it must be abolished.”

So now the government has a reason to formulate the infamous “death panels” as part of Obamacare – if coverage is delayed or denied and the person kicks the bucket sooner, the government gets a bigger chunk of the estate.  Not only is this self-serving, but someone has to pay for the free cheese that is Obamacare…

Our Leaking White House:

Just some of the leaks as reported by Debra Saunders:

News reports outed a Pakistani doctor who had set up a phony vaccination program to obtain information on Osama bin Laden’s location in Abbottabad. After an unusual proceeding last month, a Pakistani official found Dr. Shakil Afridi guilty of treason and sentenced him to 33 years.

Another leak revealed that a double agent had obtained a new and improved al-Qaida underwear bomb in Yemen. That leak, Feinstein said, endangered an ally and the individual who saved American lives by procuring the bomb.

Two recent New York Times stories hyped President Barack Obama’s “will,” “pragmatism over ideology” and hands-on role in drone strikes over Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Those stories also revealed telling details about a computer worm that targeted Iranian nuclear centrifuges and the process used to cull the “kill list.”

and yet…

The Obama administration has no trouble prosecuting low-level and midlevel leakers.

Obama’s feds have prosecuted six cases, double the number prosecuted by previous presidents. Yet the Department of Justice has been slow to respond to spin stories that play up Obama’s national security acumen but also give away too much information.

Immigration Politics:

Anyone who thinks that President Obama’s directive for ignoring immigration laws for children of illegal immigrants 30-years old and below was done for humanitarian purposes is sadly mistaken.  Not only was it for political points to gather the Latino/Hispanic vote, it kicks the immigration issue down the road (again), and, most importantly, President Obama is violating the laws of the country to issue such a directive.

No President can knowingly or unknowingly violate or ignore the laws of this country.  He is not king, nor does he write the laws.  It is his Constitutional duty that he has sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution and the laws of this country!!  The current laws state that illegal immigrants are to be arrested & deported.  By directing the law enforcement agencies of this country to ignore the laws of this country is illegal and potentially treasonous (if our servicemen knowingly violate a legal order from a superior officer, they can be tried for treason.  The same should hold true for a President that violates or advocates breaking the laws of the United States).

The immigration issue does need to be addressed with finality, but not by Presidential directive…

Recap:

Our government is broken.  We, the People, have allowed this to happen by our inattentiveness and the assertion that “government is here to help.”  It may be too late to right the ship with the political parties in charge, but We The People must hold our elected leaders accountable no matter what political party is in power.  Otherwise, this nonsense will continue, and ruin this country to the point that it cannot be fixed.