President Obama

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Government By the People? by James Stuckey

I’ve been trying to be thoughtful about a number of things that have been happening in rapid succession at all levels of government, but particularly at the federal level.  Let’s make a list:

  • After a horrendous start to Obamacare, the President unilaterally changes many of the legislation’s rules, to deflect the groundswell of anger and frustration expressed by large numbers of Americans across demographics and geography.  It’s unclear whether he has the authority to do so without legislation.  Notwithstanding these changes, over 5 million Americans who have had their insurance cancelled will likely not be able to get the policies they had and wanted back.
  • The President and his ally’s have tried a number of strategies on how to deal with the outcry.  First, the President tries to redefine what he said over thirty times about being able to, “keep your health care, period.”  Next, he does a soft Mea Culpa in a one on one interview with NBC.  Then, he’s pressured into doing a more extensive, apologetic, “I own this” one hour press conference, in which he deflects the “you can keep it” decision to insurance companies and state insurance commissioners.  He leaves them six weeks to rectify his broken promise; amusing, in that his administration could not get it right in three years after spending $600 million of our tax money.  I spent about $300 to set up my website with GoDaddy, and it has not crashed once.  I accept credit card and PayPal payments on my site, set up multiple email addresses, and allow people to comment and communicate with me.  I realize I don’t have the web traffic as Healthcare.gov  (I wish), but I spent $300.00.  I did it myself, and I am far from a website expert!  
  • Now, the President unilaterally delays a notification period on how Obamacare will affect close to two hundred Americans until after next year’s mid-term election. He and his administration know that if they didn’t, it would likely result in a routing of the democrats in both Houses of Congress.
  • It appears, however, that Americans can’t be fooled.  Only 37% approve of his job performance; close to 55% now state they don’t trust him; and, about 65% believe he lied about Obamacare.

Now, lets move on some other areas.

  • Harry Reid and the Democratic Congress stage an unprecedented power grab, instituting the so called “nuclear option” that would allow them to appoint judges with a simple majority vote.  Likely, they will extend this to other appointment and legislative matters in the future.  Virtually everyone of these democrats – Obama, Reid, Pelosi, Schumer, etc. – condemned this procedural maneuver when the Republicans controlled the Senate.  In a perverse way, this may come back to bite them, in that red state democrats will now have to vote on uber-liberal ideas and show their true colors to their constituents.
  • Having already completely screwed up on earlier foreign policy concerns in Egypt, Syria and Afghanistan, the President enters into a mind boggling “agreement with Iran”.  The negotiations produce nothing for America except what will probably be a huge security risk in the future.  In the process, we jeopardized a sacred bond with Israel, and with the few moderate Arab states in the mid-east, all of whom know the incidiousness of Iran far better than we.

In the early 1990’s, I spent a lot of time in Russia when the former Soviet Union was falling apart.  For years, there was no rule of law.  Yeltsin, the Russian President would issue decrees. The Russian Parliament would issue decrees.  The break-away former Soviet States would issue decrees.  The monetary system collapsed.  Nuclear material disappeared.  There was no rule of law.  With our President taking unilateral “executive” actions, and Harry Reid and the Senate making unilateral “nuclear” decisions, I’m feeling a creepy feeling reminiscent of what I saw during the wild west break-up of the Soviet Union.  We are starting to lose the very basis and foundation of our country.  I hate to say this: this is not class warfare as some preach, it is warfare on the classes.

© James Stuckey

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The President and the Pope

I couldn’t help but being struck by the two approaches taken over the last few days by President Obama and Pope Francis regarding the poor and the less fortunate.  The President, as reported in today’s New York Times, was quoted as saying, “Racial tensions won’t get better; they may get worse, because people will feel as if they’ve got to compete with some other group to get the scraps from a shrinking pot.”  Several things are implicit in this statement.  First, the president assumes that only people of color are being left out of the flimsy economic recovery that’s occurring under his watch.  While it is true that there is, and has been, a disproportionate share of unemployment between the African American and White communities, that problem has been exacerbated and has grown during the last four and a half years under Obama’s Presidency.  Secondly, the quote clearly once again pits one group against another.  Under the guise of discussing the need for racial calm, the President states that racial tensions “may get worse.”  This language doesn’t bring unity; rather, its aimed at causing fear, divisiveness, and resentment towards “some other group.”  It only serves the President’s own interest in distracting from the real problem: his failure to lead.  It is fraught with discouragement – certainly not the audacity of hope.

To the contrary, Pope Francis, during the World Youth Conference this weekend in Brazil, talked extensively about the need for service to the poor and unfortunate. As reported in the Associated Press, over three million people came to see him celebrate mass on Rio’s Copacabana beach.  Pope Francis was quoted as saying, “No one can remain insensitive to the inequalities that persist in the world!  No amount of peace-building will be able to last, nor will harmony and happiness be attained in a society that ignores, pushes to the margins or excludes a part of itself.”  The “slum pope” as AP said he is dubbed for his work with the poor, is quoted further as saying, “You are often disappointed by facts that speak of corruption on the part of people who put their own interests before the common good. To you and all, I repeat: Never yield to discouragement, do not lose trust, do not allow your hope to be extinguished.”  He further criticized a culture of selfishness and individualism which is common in today’s society.

So I put these two quotes side by side.

First, President Obama: “Racial tensions won’t get better; they may get worse, because people will feel as if they’ve got to compete with some other group to get the scraps from a shrinking pot.”

And, Pope Francis from his first Encyclical, “Lumen Fidei,” or “The Light of Faith”: “We need to return to the true basis of brotherhood.  Faith teaches us that every man and woman represents a blessing for me, that the light of God’s face shines on me through the faces of my brothers and sisters.”

© 2013 James Stuckey