Dave and Blarney Discuss Health Care - Part 1

Blarney:  Yes we can!  Hope we can believe in!  Change that matters!  Organize for America!

Dave:  What has you so worked up, Blarney?

Blarney:  I am just so pumped!  I just left a “Town Hall” meeting with the  President.  It was great!

Dave:  What was it about?

Blarney:  It was about health care reform.  Wow!  It was stupendous!

Dave:  Really?  What is the plan?

Blarney:  I’m not really clear on that, but it will be great!

Dave:  How do you know, if you don’t know what the plan is?

Blarney:  No child will be without health care!  Everyone in America will be covered!  The current system is broken and he will fix it!

Dave:  How?

Blarney:  Are you one of those right wing nuts that is opposed to health care reform?  Why are you asking these obnoxious questions?

Dave:  I just want to know what kind of change we are expecting.

Blarney:  If you are happy with your current program, you can keep it!  There will be no rationing!  This will save Social Security and Medicare!

Dave:  If everybody keeps their current plan, what will change?

Blarney:  Well…  Uh… People without current insurance will have lifetime coverage!

Dave:  And who pays for that?  Where is the money coming from?

Blarney:  There you go, asking irrelevant questions.  The GOVERNMENT will pay for it all.

Dave:  And where will the government get its money?

Blarney:  We’ll tax the rich, of course.  We need to spread the wealth around!

Dave:  Ok, let’s let that one go.  Will this plan provide more medical personnel?

Blarney:  What?  Well… Uh… Why is that important?

Dave:  Because if more people will have medical care than now, unless there are more doctors, somebody will have less.

Blarney:  This plan will keep the greedy doctors from overcharging, so the money will go further.

Dave:  That’s not the point.  If currently each doctor is seeing as many patients as they can, who will take the new patients?  Someone will have to lose their current care or we need more doctors.  What is the incentive for someone to be a doctor if the government will cap their wages?

Blarney:  We don’t need to worry about that.  With more abortions and mandatory end of life counseling, there will be less children and less seniors to drain the system.  If we can convince everyone to kill themselves after 65, Social Security will no longer be bankrupt.  Medicare will be solvent.  It is the perfect solution.

Dave:  Unless, of course, you are 65.  Why should 65 be the magic number, what about 60?

Blarney:  Sure, even better.

Dave:  How about 55?

Blarney:  Now you are getting it!

Dave:  Did you ever see Logan’s Run?

Blarney:  No, why?

Dave:  Never mind.

 

Happy Mother’s Day

Isn't it interesting that we have this national holiday to recognize mothers, no matter who their offspring turned out to be? Charles Manson had a mother. So did Ted Bundy.

And, as it turns out, so did Jesus of Nazareth. Catholics have raised His mother to an idol. Protestants want to throw her under the bus. Can't we find a middle ground? After all, the Angel thought she was special (Luke 1):

²⁶And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth,

²⁷To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary.

²⁸And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.

²⁹And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.

³⁰And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God.

³¹And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.

Well, now: "Highly favored" . . . "Blessed among women". . . "Favor with God". It certainly seems like she would be due at least a little bit of honor. If God thought enough of her to entrust His Only Begotten Son to her and Joseph, we should venerate her at least as much as we do Abraham, David and any of the patriarchs. This is not to say we need to worship her as though she were God, but she was certainly touched by God. Carrying the Holy Child for nine months is at least as impressive as watching God part the Red Sea, wouldn't you say?

So, then… Happy Mother's Day, Mary.

Life is Good

Once upon a time there was a country founded by people who wanted to enjoy freedom of religion and freedom from unjust taxes. These people framed a document which they called a "Constitution". This document clearly described a system of limited federal government holding together a group of otherwise autonomous states. These states, in turn, were governed by the people from the state. It was a wonderful plan and it lasted over 150 years.

At that time, people who had enjoyed freedom began to get strange ideas. They reasoned that life could be much better if the government could fix things. And so, little by little, the government began to take responsibility for more than diplomacy and defense. The elected leaders were so much smarter than the citizens that they were able to determine how much each should receive for the mere act of breathing. As more and more people were allowed to depend on the government, they implemented a system of taxation which was "progressive" (That means that the larger the income,the larger the percentage of it that the government would confiscate). Now some thought that "progressive" sounded so good they would adopt that terminology, making the word an emotional one.

Once upon a time the government-owns-everything-and-will-only-let you-keep-what-it-thinks-is-fair economies collapsed, but no one noticed. People everywhere liked the sound of "fair". They even applied it to what people could say and called it the "Fairness Doctrine". By that they meant it was not fair to speak the truth about economics or politics. It was only fair to be "progressive.""Liberal" and "progressive" are good, "conservative" and "fundamentalist" (one who wants to return to the fundamentals) and "originalist" are bad - like old stick-in-the-mud fuddy-duddies. Much better to be fun loving liberals. (Funny how those fun loving liberals always seem so angry.)

But I digress. My sad tale continues. Once upon a time there was a political party that believed in freedom and liberty and limited government. They are largely extinct now and the government believes it know the right kind of car for all to drive, and the right kind of fuel to put in that car (depending on where you live, of course). The government also know the right kind of light bulb, toilet and television to put in your house. Life is so much simpler when you don't have to make choices. I will just sit back, quit my job, go on welfare and let my rich Uncle care for me.

Would you like some Kool-aid?

Eleven Principled Democrats

The recent vote on the so-called stimulus package found every single House Republican voting “No”.  That isn’t much of a surprise, since the package is all about funding liberal pet projects, growing government and having no positive impact on the economy. 

 

What might be more surprising is the fact that eleven Democrats stood up to their party (including my own Representative, Bobby Bright).  In case you are interested in personally thanking these people, I am providing a link to their Congressional home pages.

Allen Boyd, FL (2)

Bobby Bright, AL (2)

Jim Cooper, TN (5)

Brad Ellsworth, IN (8)

Parker Griffith, AL (5)

Paul Kanjorski, PA (11)

Frank Kratovil, Jr, MD (1)

Walt Minnick, ID (1)

Collin Peterson, MN (7)

Heath Shuler, NC (11)

Gene Taylor, MS (4)

 

Kudos to the Blue Dogs and the conservatives in the Republican party for standing up to this sham legislation.  Too bad it passed the House anyway.  Now let’s see what the Senate does.

 

Dave and Blarney at the Inauguration

Dave: Well, Blarney, your man gave a great speech. I only hope he will be a great president.

Blarney: Dave, have you nothing good to say?

Dave: Weren’t you listening to me? I said the speech was great.

Blarney: That’s the problem with you right wing Looney Tunes. You are always criticizing our great President. Look at the mess Bush made of the last eight years.

Dave: Blarney, get a grip. I did not criticize President Obama. And to what specific mess do you refer? The fact that we were not attacked since 9-11? Or is it the fact that we have liberated over 50 million Iraqis and Afghanis?

Blarney: The economy, stupid! Bush absolutely ran the economy into the ground. Look at the unemployment – look at the banking crisis – look at that mess!

Dave: For seven of the eight years, the economy was doing well, although you would not have known that if all you listened to was the drive-by media. If you actually did some research and looked at the facts, you would see that unemployment has been lower than previous administrations until this last quarter when the economy finally caught up to the dire reporting.

Blarney: This is worst economy since the Great Depression!

Dave: Blarney, that’s just not true. This might be the worst economy since Jimmy Carter, but unemployment and inflation are actually still lower than during his watch. Again, do some research and look at the facts.

Blarney: I need a bailout. My stocks have tanked.

Dave: You do know that the Democrats were in charge for the last two years, don’t you? Since 2006, they have had a majority in Congress. Congress makes laws. Congress oversees the Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac corporations that caused the banking crisis. Congress raised the minimum wage, which, predictably, caused a rise in unemployment. You know that the Democrat controlled Congress had a lower approval rating than President Bush.

Blarney: Of course, the rating was low – it’s those darned Republicans. That’s why we voted for change! Change we can believe in! Yes we can!

Dave: Blarney, the Republicans were not in control of Congress during this debacle – the Democrats were.

Blarney: Says who? You? Am I supposed to believe that right-wing propaganda?

Dave: Look at the Senate and House statistics for yourself. Do you know who the Speaker of the House is?

Blarney: I sure do, it’s Nancy Pelosi.

Dave: Right. And do you know who the Senate Majority Leader is?

Blarney: Well, of course. That would be Harry Reid.

Dave: I’m impressed. That’s better than most people. Now you know that they are both Democrats, don’t you? And you know that those positions are filled by the majority party don’t you?

Blarney: Well,…yeah…Oh!...er….But that doesn’t mean that the Democrats were in control!

Dave: [Sigh]

Eleventh Hour Victory for Compean and Ramos

If you have followed the case, you know that the last best hope for these border patrol agents would be a pardon or have the sentence commuted by the President.

President Bush has just announced that he would commute the sentences of both Compean and Ramos. The Associated Press, in true left wing fashion, hammered on the Border Patrol agents:

Bush's decision to commute the sentences of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean,
who tried to cover up the shooting, was welcomed by both Republican and
Democratic members of Congress. They had long argued that the agents were merely
doing their jobs, defending the American border against criminals. They also
maintained that the more than 10-year prison sentences the pair was given were
too harsh.
...
Bush didn't pardon the men for their crimes, but decided instead to commute
their prison sentences because he believed they were excessive and that they had
already suffered the loss of their jobs, freedom and reputations, a senior
administration official said.The action by the president, who believes the
border agents received fair trials and that the verdicts were just, does not
diminish the seriousness of their crimes, the official said.Compean and Ramos,
who have served about two years of their sentences, are expected to be released
from prison within the next two months.

At least they will be released soon. Now about the lawsuits and movie deals...

It's a New Year

It is an historic year, with the very first black American set to assume the highest executive office in the land.  As everybody knows, he is a Democrat and should be instituting an extreme agenda of left-wing policies.  Indeed many pundits are warning us of that very possibility.

 

Yet, here is an amazing thing.  Of the announced nominations for his cabinet, I really can’t object to any of them on ideological grounds.  Oh, sure, they aren’t Republicans (well some of them anyway), but neither are they charter members of MoveOn.org.  As far as the War on Terror, Mr. Obama proposes leaving the current Secretary of Defense in place.  For his National Security Advisor, he has chosen a decorated General (is that redundant?).

 

Now, it could be that he is even more clever than some give him credit for.  The Senate must approve all the nominations.  Since it is Democrat controlled, we could expect a rubber stamp on each one.  But wait, there is more.   Suppose the Senate REJECTS his “first” choices.  Then Mr. Obama will be FORCED to nominate someone more in line with the extreme left, just so he can get them confirmed.

 

Kind of makes you go “Hmm…”