Category Archives: Washington

Parades, Revelations, and Bread and Circuses

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I think I’m recovered now. Our neighboring town had a Veteran’s Day parade on Saturday and I walked in it with Mrs. Crucis and some friends. The parade wasn’t too long, a mile and a half, perhaps, but the wind was strong and cool.  According to my pedometer, we walked about 3,000 steps. I normally walk 4,000 steps, almost two miles, three times a week.

But, if you’ve ever walked in a parade, you know it is not a steady walk. The parade bunches up and you’re standing around waiting for the group ahead of you to move. Then they do, and you’re almost running to catch up. Repeat for the duration of the parade.

I think it was the cool wind and the approaching cold front that did me in. Temperatures overnight dropped to 16, locally last night. But today I’m inside perched next to my heater in my office and all is right in the world.

***

The Obamacare news continues to get worse. According to Rasmussen, 55% of those polled want Obamacare to be repealed. The latest news, is that Obamacare, again, targets a specific segment of the country with less benefits than others—the military. One of the features of Obamacare that Obama and the libs have been bragging is that your adult children, until they are 26, can be added to your, the parents, health insurance. That’s true…unless you are active or retired military. Perhaps, that denial is a good thing.

Military members, veterans missing out on key ObamaCare provision

FoxNews.com

One of the most touted benefits of President Obama’s health care overhaul law is the provision allows parents to keep their adult children on their health insurance until age 26.

However, Trace Gallagher reported on “The Kelly File” Monday, this benefit is not being extended to a significant group of Americans: members of the U.S. military.

TRICARE, the Department of Defense program that provides health coverage to active duty and retired military members and their families, only covers young adult dependents up until age 21, or age 23 if they are enrolled full-time in college.

TRICARE recipients can then purchase a plan for their young adult dependents, according to their website.

Air Force veteran Eddie Grooms said he was disappointed to learn he could not add his 21-year-old daughter to his insurance provided by the military, as he thought he had been promised under the health care overhaul.

“It’d be nice if they leveled with everybody and let them know so that people could make plans, because this is going to hit all, I mean it’s going to hit thousands of retirees over time,” Grooms said.

Jessie Jane Duff of Concerned Veterans for America told Megyn Kelly the reason the benefit has not been extended to military members is the rates under TRICARE are very low because they are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers.

She said “unfortunately” this means adult children cannot be covered, saying there has to be some “give and take” for the reduced rates.

“We’ve been very fortunate because legislation was passed that exempted TRICARE from a lot of the ObamaCare standings, so that actually has benefited veterans to keep the rates that they’ve had,” Duff said.

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If you’ve been watching the news from south of the border, Venezuela is back in the headlines. The communists are still in power and still as stupid as ever. Those of you who have read anything from Ayn Rand, will recognize the term, ‘looters.’ Venezuela has become a nation of looters supported in their looting by the country’s military.

In their latest adventure, the army seized some retail outlets and forced them to sell their merchandise at a loss. They now expect to do the same to other retailers. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that when a company is forced to sell at a loss, it will soon cease to exist. No profit, no company, and no jobs, either.

Venezuela Becomes A Nation Of Looters

IBD Editorial, Posted 11/11/2013 06:48 PM ET

Looters: Venezuelan troops storm a local electronics retailer in the name of enforcing “fair prices,” brazenly blaming the private sector for state policies. Sounds familiar — and not just because it’s a communist takeover.

With municipal elections just around the corner on Dec. 8, it’s no surprise to see Venezuela’s failing socialist government turning to pork-barrel handouts to lure voters — as it always has.

Shovel the goodies to the red-shirted low-information voters and gain just enough votes in upcoming elections to claim a dictatorship is really a democracy.

Not coincidentally, President Nicolas Maduro declared that Venezuela would celebrate the beginning of Christmas in October — to distribute goodies.

But there’s a new twist here: Venezuela is out of money to shovel pork. Its foreign reserves have fallen to $21.4 billion as oil prices slump. Instead of using its vast oil earnings to buy votes, as in the past, Venezuela’s Marxist government is now making do by stealing from Venezuela’s battered private sector.

Which is what brought the bizarre spectacle of the Venezuelan military occupation of Daka — the country’s five-store equivalent of Best Buy, loaded with the flat-screen TVs, computers and smartphones favored by looters everywhere.

As troops stood by, crowds looted one Daka store, stripping its shelves bare. Call it government by looting.

Or in reality, call it communism. Because such destruction of private property in the name of redistribution has been a feature of every communist takeover from Russia to China, to Vietnam, to Cuba.

Defending his government-of-looters, Maduro officially blamed the store for charging “unfair prices,” a preposterous statement since Daka’s prices weren’t inconsistent with the official inflation rate of 56% in an economy that must pay for 90% of its goods imports, including consumer electronics, with dollars.

There is even some speculation, by bloggers such as Miguel Octavio of the Devil’s Excrement, that the viciousness of the government action could be due to the company engaging in high-profit arbitrage on the country’s two-tier exchange rates.

There’s also no doubt the government was sending a message to other retailers not to raise prices by making an example of one of them. Message received.

But the bottom line is, horrendous government policies forced retailers to do what they have. It wasn’t Daka that created price controls or a corrupt two-tier exchange system that made the resulting inflation.

The black market currency rate is now 10 times higher than the official rate, meaning they’re on the verge of hyperinflation due to a government that can’t stop spending. This explains why imported basic commodities, such as chicken, milk and toilet paper, are now scarce, just as in the old Soviet Union, or in today’s Cuba.

Were Venezuela a true democracy, such a destructive economic record would bring down the ruling party.

But this is Venezuela. It has benefited not just from having the U.S. as its top oil customer and consumer goods supplier, but also from a lot of White House love — from President Obama’s and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s embrace of late strongman Hugo Chavez at a 2009 summit, to ex-President Jimmy Carter’s dishonest endorsement of Venezuela’s fraudulent 2004 recall, which the Bush White House meekly accepted.

And now the results: Venezuelan troops occupy electronics retailers while yelling about “fairness.”

Doesn’t this tale sound familiar? If you substitute Obama ‘phones, welfare EBT cards and Food Stamps, isn’t our federal government doing much the same? Delving into history, I hear the refrain, “BREAD and CIRCUSES!” The Roman emperors kept the Roman mob satisfied with bread and circuses—food and entertainment, (now you understand why the liberal elite controls Hollywood,) while looting the empire to pay for the bread and the circuses, and to quiet the mob. In the end, the empire could no longer pay, having been picked clean by Roman tax collectors and the Roman empire collapsed to the barbarians outside the empire…and the barbarians within.

Now, with Obama’s Redistribution of Wealth, we’re facing the same situation as did the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire is just a memory from history, its cities are a pile of rubble, some carefully preserved but most destroyed for the materials in them.

What will the United States be in a few hundred years? A viable nation leading the world, or a pile of picked rubble, destroyed by the liberal tax collectors and the Washington mob?

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Tuesday’s Thoughts

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Tomorrow is the 12th anniversary of 9/11. I expect the MSM will do the usual 30 second spiels and then forget about the occasion…unless it fits some agenda item of theirs.

I’ll be in Jeff City to attend the veto override session tomorrow, so I’ll post this little reminder of 9/11, today.

ramirez_09092013***

Obama is facing opposition from all directions, even his own party. He made a fool of himself by drawing a “Red Line” over chemical warfare in the Syrian civil war. Obama blamed Assad, wanting to support his Muzzie buddies. The problem is no one can prove who used Sarin gas on whom? Both sides claim the other did it.

Obama blamed Assad and threatened to attack Syrian government installations. The rebels cheered. Then, more news appeared and the rebels did not appear to be so blameless. The EU, as usual, got cold feet. Five years of Obama’s diplomatic assaults and insults against the UK grew fruit and the Brits said, “Not us!”

One by one, Obama’s expected allies dropped away, soon to be followed by…members of his own party. Locally, Representative Emmanuel Cleaver, who never met a commie he didn’t like, said, publicly, that he would not support Obama. Other democrat pols joined the opposition.

As Reid and Boehner counted noses in Congress, Obama did not have any support to attack Syria. Reid, to save some face for Obama,is delaying a resolution to attack Syria to a vote. Boehner is like to follow. Why would they not vote? Neither wants to embarrass Obama.

Now Vladimir Putin has upstaged Obama with a solution to remove all chemical weapons from Syria. Assad has agreed. The rebels are balking. That speaks volumes on who is likely to have attacked whom—those Obama wanted to support.

Obama can’t lie his way out of this situation.

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We have a local issue that is beginning to draw public attention. Last October, the Raymore city council voted to install a Roundabout at the intersection of one of the city’s heaviest points, Lucy Webb and Dean. Both are high-volume streets, especially during rush hours. Before construction started, only Dean Avenue had stop signs, Lucy Web did not.

The reason for the roundabout was supposedly for increase safety and enhance traffic flow. The proposed cost, last October was around $450,000. Since that time, the contractor has raised his price another $100,000. Over half a million in construction costs alone. Cheaper options to add two more stops signs, making the intersection a 4-way stop, costing maybe a $1,000 at most, or to install traffic lights like the intersection a few hundred yards to the east, were discard, if they were discussed at all. In the end, the vote was a tie to kill the project or at least to revisit the cost and scope. Mayor Pete Kerckhoff broke the tie to continue the project and increase the budget to more the $500,000.

Construction started a week or so ago and we’re already seeing the results of the council’s lust to spend. The proposed roundabout, designed purposely to be single-lane, is too small. A truck got stuck this morning trying to navigate through the intersection. I drive a Tahoe. I have difficulty getting around the roundabout traffic lane.

No, the whole project is turning into a gigantic example of governmental misfeasance and incompetency. One council member claims they tested the design by drawing the traffic lanes in a parking lot. They had no problems. Obviously, their testing was faulty.

Half-a-million dollar project and it is too small. I would not be surprised, after real-world use proves the defects of the concept, that the council will want to spend more to “fix” the roundabout’s design. How much will this cost in all? A million? More? There is land to be bought to expand the intersection if that is the solution.

More waste by council members with a lust to spend when a solution could have been in place last year for a thousand dollars or less. You can bet Raymore’s residents will remember this fiasco when the next city elections come around.

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Convergence

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There was a movie a couple of years ago called, The Perfect Storm. A number of weather events converged to create a monster storm in the Atlantic. It’s beginning to appear as if a Perfect Storm is building in Washington, DC.

There are three scandals coming to light in Washington—four, if you include the Kermit Barron Gosnell trial in Philadelphia. First is the Benghazi investigation. We now know that not only were the Marine guards reduced during Hilliary’s term as SecState, that warnings of the attack were received in advance, that security forces were stood down from the beginning of the attack and the WH and the State Department tried to blame a You Tube video that was uploaded months previously and that had very few viewings.

The second is the IRS’ attempted intimidation by audit of the tax-exempt status conservative and Jewish groups supporting Israel and of those similar groups applying for tax-exempt status. We now know this affront was started in the IRS HQ in Washington, not solely in the Cincinnati field office as initially claimed. In fact that Cincinnati office isn’t a field office at all. It is the prime office governing Tax-exempt applications and audits of those tax-exempt organizations. This scandal continues to grow as more evidence is being uncovered that shows the audits of conservative and Jewish groups was much wider than initially thought.

The third scandal that has just appeared is the DoJ’s “investigation” of reporters of the Associated Press. The DoJ wiretapped 20 lines in the AP’s Washington office and seized telephone records of hundreds of reporters. The DoJ has refused to explain their actions. So much for Obama’s administration for the 1st Amendment and freedom of the press.

The pressure on Obama is mounting and the stress is showing. He’s acting more and more erratic. In a fundraiser at Harvey Weinstein’s home with Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel, he blamed Rush Limbaugh as the reason why ‘Pubs won’t cooperate with him and give him a rubber stamp to do whatever he wants. It’s like a child having a hissy-fit when that child doesn’t get what he wants. It is reminiscent of Nixon wandering the halls of the White House during his last days, conversing with the ghosts of past presidents and crying in the arms of Henry Kissinger.

However, Nixon was, by heritage, a Quaker. Obama’s heritage is that of a socialist, a Marxist.  Nixon, under pressure, reverted to his heritage. He sought forgiveness and redemption, an inculcation of his Quaker heritage that lead to his resignation.

We don’t know what Obama will do under pressure, but we can assume he won’t resign like Nixon. No, I would expect Obama to be more like Hitler, hiding to the last in a bunker as events sweep toward him, lashing out against his foes to the end.

In the mean time, we live under that old Chinese curse: “to live in interesting times.” Personally, I’d rather it’d not be quite so interesting. However, that option was taken from us with Obama’s reelection.

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Friday Follies: A Positive OpEd on Sarah Palin in the New York Times

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Really, I wouldn’t have believed this if someone had told me. As usual, I brought up Drudge this morning and what do I see?
 The New York Times, known for falsifying and fabricating news, has something positive to say!  And—remarkably unbiased.

By ANAND GIRIDHARADAS
Published: September 9, 2011

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS — Let us begin by confessing that, if Sarah Palin surfaced to say something intelligent and wise and fresh about the present American condition, many of us would fail to hear it.
That is not how we’re primed to see Ms. Palin. A pugnacious Tea Partyer? Sure. A woman of the people? Yup. A Mama Grizzly? You betcha. 
But something curious happened when Ms. Palin strode onto the stage last weekend at a Tea Party event in Indianola, Iowa. Along with her familiar and predictable swipes at President Barack Obama and the “far left,” she delivered a devastating indictment of the entire U.S. political establishment — left, right and center — and pointed toward a way of transcending the presently unbridgeable political divide. 
…

So here is something I never thought I would write: a column about Sarah Palin’s ideas. 
There was plenty of the usual Palin schtick — words that make clear that she is not speaking to everyone but to a particular strain of American: “The working men and women of this country, you got up off your couch, you came down from the deer stand, you came out of the duck blind, you got off the John Deere, and we took to the streets, and we took to the town halls, and we ended up at the ballot box.” 
…
She made three interlocking points. First, that the United States is now governed by a “permanent political class,” drawn from both parties, that is increasingly cut off from the concerns of regular people. Second, that these Republicans and Democrats have allied with big business to mutual advantage to create what she called “corporate crony capitalism.” Third, that the real political divide in the United States may no longer be between friends and foes of Big Government, but between friends and foes of vast, remote, unaccountable institutions (both public and private). 
In supporting her first point, about the permanent political class, she attacked both parties’ tendency to talk of spending cuts while spending more and more; to stoke public anxiety about a credit downgrade, but take a vacation anyway; to arrive in Washington of modest means and then somehow ride the gravy train to fabulous wealth. She observed that 7 of the 10 wealthiest counties in the United States happen to be suburbs of the nation’s capital. 
Her second point, about money in politics, helped to explain the first. The permanent class stays in power because it positions itself between two deep troughs: the money spent by the government and the money spent by big companies to secure decisions from government that help them make more money. 
“Do you want to know why nothing ever really gets done?” she said, referring to politicians. “It’s because there’s nothing in it for them. They’ve got a lot of mouths to feed — a lot of corporate lobbyists and a lot of special interests that are counting on them to keep the good times and the money rolling along.” 
Because her party has agitated for the wholesale deregulation of money in politics and the unshackling of lobbyists, these will be heard in some quarters as sacrilegious words. 
Ms. Palin’s third point was more striking still: in contrast to the sweeping paeans to capitalism and the free market delivered by the Republican presidential candidates whose ranks she has yet to join, she sought to make a distinction between good capitalists and bad ones. The good ones, in her telling, are those small businesses that take risks and sink and swim in the churning market; the bad ones are well-connected megacorporations that live off bailouts, dodge taxes and profit terrifically while creating no jobs. 
Strangely, she was saying things that liberals might like, if not for Ms. Palin’s having said them. 
“This is not the capitalism of free men and free markets, of innovation and hard work and ethics, of sacrifice and of risk,” she said of the crony variety. She added: “It’s the collusion of big government and big business and big finance to the detriment of all the rest — to the little guys. It’s a slap in the face to our small business owners — the true entrepreneurs, the job creators accounting for 70 percent of the jobs in America.” 
Is there a hint of a political breakthrough hiding in there? 

The political conversation in the United States is paralyzed by a simplistic division of labor. Democrats protect that portion of human flourishing that is threatened by big money and enhanced by government action. Republicans protect that portion of human flourishing that is threatened by big government and enhanced by the free market.

What is seldom said is that human flourishing is a complex and delicate thing, and that we needn’t choose whether government or the market jeopardizes it more, because both can threaten it at the same time. 
Ms. Palin may be hinting at a new political alignment that would pit a vigorous localism against a kind of national-global institutionalism. 
On one side would be those Americans who believe in the power of vast, well-developed institutions like Goldman Sachs, the Teamsters Union, General Electric, Google and the U.S. Department of Education to make the world better. On the other side would be people who believe that power, whether public or private, becomes corrupt and unresponsive the more remote and more anonymous it becomes; they would press to live in self-contained, self-governing enclaves that bear the burden of their own prosperity. 
No one knows yet whether Ms. Palin will actually run for president. But she did just get more interesting.

I have always been a Palin fan.  I makes me grieve when I hear her bad-mouthed by Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham and other ‘Pubs.  The establishment of both parties fear her; perhaps the ‘Pubs more.  Why? Because she has the potential to upset and eliminate the status quo.  She does not travel the country with her family, speaking here and there, suddenly appearing at a park, zoo, touring the country and listening to people, just for the fun of it. 

 
The “lamestream” media, as she calls it, still has power.  Too many still have their opinions formed by the media and the establishment.  The proof of that are some polls that says Palin could not win any electoral race.  I find that hard to believe.
 
Why do I not believe those polls?  Because everywhere Sarah Palin goes, crowds gather.  Even in the rain in Indianola, IA, thousands stood in the drizzle and rain to hear her speak.
 
Palin has power.  Whether it is as a candidate, or as an issue strategist, when she speaks, the country listens.

East coast earthquake…

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I was at a local greasy-spoon for lunch when Mrs. Crucis texted me to say that a 5.8 earthquake had hit near D.C. I mentioned it to my waitress, a thirtysomething woman.  She got a blank look on her face and asked if that was going to affect us here near KC.

I replied, “It’s near Washington, DC.”  Still a blank look.

Finally, I said, “No. We’ll be OK.”  That satisfied her.  Evidently the fact we’re over a thousand miles away was over her head.