Republicans Don't Want Young Adults to be on their Parent's Health Insurance

The affordable health care act enabled young adults to stay on their parents' health care plan until they are 26. Last month the house voted to undo this in their 33rd attempt to derail the widely popular law.

I saw widely popular and some of you are ready to rage. Everyone hates it you say. Well, that's not entirely true.  If you ask people if they support the individual elements of the law, it gets wide support. Yet as a whole, if you ask if they support the law itself, some say they are against it. 

This makes no sense at all.  Republicans claim they want to repeal and replace the law but will not say what they would replace it with.  I can understand they don't want to give specifics. But no details at all? None.

We live in a country where we elect people to enact laws and run the country in accordance with a set of rules.  Those set of rules allowed the Affordable Healthcare act to become law.  As it was created so can it be undone.  If there is political will to do it then move forward. But at least have the decency to say at a high level what you are going to do to replace these very excellent parts of the law.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-keenan/mitt-romney-abortion_b_1668883.html

No Fear, Do The Right Thing

My apologies if you are not interested in politics.  Some people consider this the most boring subject.  Yet I say to you that it is likely one of the most important things in your life.  The actions taken by elected officials affect your life greatly.  We are fortunate to live in a time and place where we can voice whatever is on our mind. Do we agree with it all? Certainly not. With some, we disagree on how to get something done.  With others, they are borderline insane and push out ideas, conspiracies and backwards logic that would make Einstein's brain spin.  But we embrace it all. No one gets to stifle ideas, thoughts and opinion.

That being said, I thought I would talk about fear.  Fear is a natural human emotion.  It triggers one or more built in processes in ourselves. It can paralyze or energize. However, fear, taken to its extreme can make us do some pretty stupid things.  Since it makes us do SOMETHING, ANYTHING, to change the immediate or perceived situation. 

I was once in a situation where there was a boat fire. One of the guys on the boat with me thought that it was going to explode so he jumped off. I grabbed a fire extinguisher.  His fear was that the boat would explode immediately like in a cartoon. In the end, nothing happened.  His perception of the situation caused him to have a faulty outlook, which triggered a false fear and consequently he took an erroneous action.

The bible says not to fear.  It is a theme that is repeated many times.
Our country is changing.  It is not the same country it was in 1620 or 1776 or 1866 or 1910 and so on.  Change is the way things are.  Indeed, America itself is the result of even more changes that preceded her founding. Do not fear the change. And do not let falsehoods guide you.  We live in an age where it is easier than ever to locate sources of information. Yet these sources also are carriers to fear based falsehoods and fallacious arguments all intermingled so that it is difficult to tell one from the other.

The ten commandments says not to bear false witness.  If you know something to be false you are obligated to do something about it even if it is contrary to your own interests.  We call this "Doing the right thing".  And yet we may be presented with a situation where we feel that doing the right thing won't get us where we feel that we have to be.

In politics there are always lies, inaccuracies, misleading statistics.  What infuriates me the most is the stupid logic that goes like this. All terrorists use water, therefore water must be bad. We primarily have two parties and no doubt both engage in these practices to one extent or the other. Which one does it more? I have no idea. I have no studies to say one way or the other.  I'm certainly not going to make something up.

Remember that the ends NEVER justify the means. Not ever. There can be no rationalization that doing something unscrupulous or unethical or evil because it will bring a good result.
Do the right thing.  All will be well.

The Supreme Court

Are you ready for corporations to be people?

Are you ready for Roe V Wade to be overturned?

This and more may be coming your way if Mitt Romney is elected president.  Romney famously said "Corporations are people too my friend." The supreme court sort of agreed with him when they ruled that corporations have free speech rights and could "speak" with their money.

Perhaps the enthusiasm for Obama is not what it was. I will grant that. However, he is still a much better choice for President than Romney.  And most important of all is the supreme court.  Obama has shown that his approach to the court is balanced and sober.  He has two justices of his choice on the court now and neither was very controversial during the appointment process.

It isn't Romney that should be feared but his "advisors" who no doubt will be placed there perhaps not even of his own choosing. We know that Republicans like to operate in a top down hierarchical manner.  And to some degree, Romney will have to accept certain "advisors" who will drive him in certain directions.

Romney is neither pro-choice or pro-life.  He is for whatever will get him elected. The internal pressure for him to appoint a justice to the supreme court will almost force him to select the next Scalia. Scalia in my opinion is a very smart man but should not be on the supreme court.

Here is what I suggest you do.  Pick 5 people you know and adopt them as your voting block. Be responsible for reminding them to go vote. Be a bit of a pain.  Check to see if they are registered.  If  you can, ask each of them adopt 5 people they know.

This government of ours is very dysfunctional.  But it is our government. We need to own it and be responsible for it.

Stimulus

Somewhere along the line, the word stimulus became a bad word.  A stimulus is not supposed to be a controversial thing. President Reagan did a stimulus. So did  President Clinton and George W. Bush. So why did the stimulus signed by President Obama become such a big deal? It makes no sense.

The stimulus signed by President Obama was really part 2 of the stimulus signed by George W Bush. About one third of Obama's stimulus was in the form of tax cuts.  Did you know that?  All those who clamor for the days of no taxes should be shouting from roof tops.  But no.  If Obama did it, then it must be bad.

I'm no economist so I can't argue these points with great technical accuracy.  But most of you are not economists either.  And yet, there you are trying to tell me and others that the stimulus was bad.  Guess what? You are in no position to make such a claim.

I met a guy who takes engines that output 500 horsepower and modifies them to output 1100 horsepower. You think I should tell him which parts of his job he isn't doing right? I have no idea how to do that.

Nothing in this world is perfect. We did not execute World War 2 with perfection. Going to the moon was not perfect. I could go on. Should I?  Using the logic that the stimulus ended up with some bad elements so therefore it should not have been done is ludicrous.

Obama the Conservative

It might come as a surprise to some that liberals consider Obama to be a conservative Democrat. The right has spent considerable effort to convince everyone that Obama is the most liberal person ever born. Progressives are confused by this. Because Obama has taken positions that are anything but left on several positions. It isn't that he is a right winger, but I see him as a centrist in many cases.

The most prominent of these of late was the issue of gay marriage.  President said a long time ago that be personally did not support gay marriage. Civil unions were alright with him but not marriage.  From a progressive stand point, that was a centrist position.  The president took that stance for three years as president, only recently stating that he would support gay marriage. I don't think he changed his mind personally.  I think he saw that his own personal position was different than how it should be viewed as president.

When the issue of gun control in Washington DC was decided in court in the favor of gun owners, Obama said he supported the decision. Again, this is not a position a liberal would normally take.

An objective look at Obama's position shows that he is more centrist than some make him out to be.

What I Think

I think the president wants solutions to problems.  And that means getting Congress to play along. Parts of Congress have taken the stance that anything that the president wants is bad for them. They allow nothing to happen. It goes like this. I must get EVERYTHING I want and  you must get NOTHING you want or no one gets anything.

Seems pretty stupid to me.

Who Wants to Legalize Immigrants

I have to admit, the immigration issue in the United States baffles me. All I heard for years was everyone shouting that they wanted comprehensive immigration reform. What does that mean? No one was ever clear.

President Obama has never said he wants to legalize all immigrants.  If you heard that from someone, then that person is mistaken.

From an email I received...

LEGALIZE 12 MILLION ILLEGAL MEXICAN IMMIGRANT
Just giving these 12 million potential new citizens free health care
alone could overwhelm the system and bankrupt America .
But it adds 12 million reliable new Democrat voters who can
be counted on to support big government.
Add another few trillion dollars in welfare, aid to dependent children, food stamps,
free medical, education, tax credits for the poor, and eventually Social Security...
(see note above re: Puerto Rico )

The writer is stating that President Obama wants to make 12 million illegal immigrants legal. That seems like a simplistic view to me but who am I?  When last I checked several politicians, including John McCain wanted comprehensive immigration reform. Again, I have no idea what this means.  None of them have ever given any specifics so we really have no idea.

This is what I think.

For entirely different reasons, no one wants to touch immigration in a major way. They don't even appear to want to tweak it.

In general, the business end of the Republican party like the cheap labor. But they have to be careful, because a large part of the Republican party don't like immigrants. In particular, they don't like that immigrants bring a different culture.  It is in part a culture war.  It is like saying "It's as American as tacos".  Their heads want to explode. So, the cheap labor republicans have to be careful not to appear to be for immigrants so they don't scare away supporters and voters who put them in office to protect culture.

Democrats like immigrants for two reasons. Immigrants are often poor and tend to vote for democrats with the exception of the Miami Cubans who are more right wing than anyone.  That's a story for a different day.  They also like immigrants because there is a segment of the party who believe in open borders. They are often heard uttering phrases like "they are just trying to better themselves."  This rationalization makes no sense but it seems to logically flow for them.

What is a fact is that there are a large number of illegal immigrants in the United States. Any country will have some number of people who are there illegally.  But this is a large number.  And it has negative affects on many.

My Solution

Yes, I do have a proposed solution. Step one is to make it more difficult to get into the country and make it even more difficult to work once they are here.  I would not advocate spending too much time chasing them down.  But when they do show up on the radar, then get them back where they belong.  If they want to apply for resident status, so be it. They made the choice to be in the county illegally. They should stand the consequences when the time comes.

What is Universal Healthcare Really

UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE

Ask anyone about individual parts of the Affordable Healthcare Act and you will find that it is highly supported. Yet mention "Obamacare" and the vitriolic nature of some boils over. It makes no sense.

First, The Affordable Healthcare Act is not universal healthcare at all. It isn't even close.  In fact, those who really do want universal healthcare were extremely disappointed with that bill. Universal healthcare means everyone gets healthcare services.

I would prefer that all discussions start with actual facts and that we draw logical conclusions. That appears to escape some people as they seem to get a notion in their heads and want to find any clues to support what they already think. The Affordable Healthcare Act was controversial from the beginning to end and continues to this day.  This is interesting because the bill as it stands should not be controversial.  Why do I say this? Read on please.

All Presidents going back to Nixon have made statements regarding their desire to reform healthcare so that it is available and affordable to anyone, not only those with the ability to pay.  We find it abhorrent that a person's life or health is subjected to their bank account.  We are a people of life.

In the 90's President Clinton attempted to get a healthcare law passed. This resulted in a strong opposition which ultimately caused the bill to go nowhere.  One part of that opposition was presented by Republicans was to have a healthcare mandate where people were required to buy health insurance.  Candidate Obama did not support this approach when he was campaigning in 2008. After he was elected, Obama and his team set out to get a healthcare bill passed. President Obama was convinced by his staff that the mandate was the only logical way to proceed. So here we had President Obama, embracing a Republican idea, which the Republicans subsequently opposed with every fiber of their being.  That is truly strange.

So what do we have lurking around the Internet about healthcare?  Check this out:

From an email I received ...

The health care bill had very little to do with health care.
It had everything to do with unionizing millions of hospital and health
care workers, as well as adding 15,000 to 20,000 new IRS agents (who will
join government employee unions).
Obama doesn’t care that giving free health care to 30 million Americans will add trillions to the national debt.
What he does care about is that it cements the dependence of those 30 million voters to Democrats and big government.
Who but a socialist revolutionary would pass this reckless spending bill in the middle of a depression?

Here are some points to consider.

1. There is no indication anywhere that IRS agents will be added to monitor healthcare. Someone made this up.
2. The Affordable Healthcare Act does not give free healthcare to anyone.
3. A great amount of effort was put into making sure that the finances of the healthcare act were balanced.
4. The President cares that Americans have access to affordable healthcare.
5. We are not in a depression. Granted things could be better. 

At the end of the day, this is all about money.  Those who have something financial to lose want to block, overturn or repeal the law. And they are spending tons of cash to convince anyone who will listen that the law is bad.  To be blunt, they are lying only to protect their own pockets.

Obama's Classmate Wayne Root

I get various emails which go off on some wild claims. I generally find them amusing but I wonder if there aren't people out there who really believe this stuff.  I suspect there are many of them. If you see one of these wild claims, the first thing to do is check snopes.com. They will generally tell you if these things are true or not, even if they are partially true.

So let's start.  This one is from a man named Wayne Root who claims to be Obama's classmate.

Obama is destroying America claims Wayne Root

By Wayne Allyn Root (OBAMA'S CLASSMATE)
Barack Hussein Obama is no fool. He is not incompetent.
To the contrary, he is brilliant. He knows exactly what he’s doing.
He is purposely overwhelming the U.S. Economy to create systemic
failure, economic crisis and social chaos – thereby destroying
capitalism and our country from within.
Barack Hussein Obama was my college classmate.

The first thing that jumped out at me was the word "classmate". I took that to mean he had some inside information on President Obama that the rest of us did not have.  Maybe he had conversations with him while they were in school together. It turns out that isn't the case.  Root attended the university at the same time as Obama. They never met. Why is he being identified as a classmate? I can only draw one conclusion. It is an attempt to mislead.  The author of the piece is counting on the reader to accept the Mr. Root as having credible information when in fact he does not.

On any given morning, someone can wake up and make outrageous claims. That does not make them true. What matters are facts and drawing logical conclusions from those facts.  Sometimes facts do not lead to any   conclusion. Mr. Root is making outrageous claims that have no facts to back it up. And just because he says something does not make it factual.

By the way, this classmate story was from 2010. It is now 2 years old. 

My suggestion to Mr. Root is to write some fiction. He seems to be good at it.

You can read more details of this on snopes which lists other sources.