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Yosemite under Orion's gaze

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Obanocchio and other topics

James Carville thinks that Obama likes pissing off the liberals. Maybe he does, interesting that he can break campaign promises with such ease, the social security cpi reversal only the latest example.

Add that to the ever growing, long list of broken promises and betrayals, you have to wonder if he stands for anything at all? Let's see, we've had five long years of the war he was going to get us all right out of, the constitutional law professor has instituted a privacy and civil rights policy to the right of his far right predecessor, he expanded the Patriot Act, he failed to deliver an immigration bill in the first year as promised, he promised to set a hard cap on all emissions at a level that scientists say is necessary to curb global warming, promised to close Guantanamo, promised to lead an effort to change the bankruptcy laws so that people could stay in their homes, promised to respect state's rights in regard to medical marijuana, promised to seal the revolving door for government workers and lobbyists, signed the Monsanto Protection Act, promised to strengthen the whistleblower act instead of punishing whistleblowers, failed to deliver on any of these promises, said he would bring Americans together, maintains that he has the right to assassinate americans abroad and on american soil without a trial, the list goes on and on.

Politifact estimates that he has broken about 22% of his promises on it's Obameter.

I am not going to belabor this, politics is certainly the art of the possible and compromise is needed in this polarized world of ours. But this guy never seems to ever get anything back in his quid pro quos. Zeno's law in action. Gives but never gets.

And eventually, in trying to please everybody, he will please nobody and once again we are looking at Jimmy Carter all over again. I know Bill Clinton and Obama's certainly no Bill Clinton. Everybody not liking you is not a good recipe for success. And when you continually alienate your supporters, well you just might find out that you may need them once again one day and don't be surprised when they simply tell you to piss off. His press secretary said something the other day to the effect that if everybody is mad at you, you must be doing something right. It also might mean that you suck.

Very disappointing. I think that he just might be bringing Americans together. In their dislike and distrust of him. A shame really. I am a liberal and I thought that I had a standard bearer. Turned out to be gutless.

Strange new bumper sticker, are the babies supposed to shoot back?

Obama made one more promise that I would like to point out. He said that he would cut the average family's health insurance premium by up to $2500.00 a year.

"I will sign a universal health care bill into law by the end of my first term as president that will cover every American and cut the cost of a typical family's premium by up to $2,500 a year."Barack Obama - June 23, 2007.

I don't know you but my premiums go up, up, up every year, how about yours? He definitely gets a pinnochio for this one.

Now I am a loyal democrat and I realize that the supreme leader has been obstructed at every turn by the opposition. But shouldn't we at least consider that the Affordable Care Act might turn out to be a poorly written and constructed piece of crap in the long run? That the detractors may well have been right.

I talked to the people who arrange for my health care policy the other day and the general consensus is that premiums will go up 30 to 50% across the board next year for Californians. "But they will cover more stuff" they tell me. Well great, my plan already looks like a catastrophic coverage plan, I had to push my deductibles so high. What is so great about Obama care again? I had some heart tests last week and was tempted to tell my cardiologist to forget it because I feel fine and it would be a large out of pocket expense since I haven't hit my deductible. So forget preventive medicine now, who can afford it? Who can afford to even go to the doctor for anything?

And the doctor's of course hate it too, since the government is wanting to cut reimbursement costs that their payments already don't cover. Is socialized medicine supposed to make medical care a freebie from the doctor?

And why in their right mind would anybody hire new employees if they were responsible for taking on such bloated medical care responsibilities? Did the Obama health plan ever make sense or pencil out? I am curious, if anyone knows, please clue me in.

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Hawaii is Monsanto's little guinea pig - Alternet

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A client came in the other day and asked me if I knew that Brad had died. I did not. Four or five months back. He didn't go into details but we both narrowed it down to his liver, Brad having lived outside one bar or another in his truck for at least the last six or seven years by my count and having a textbook case of blood in the alcohol stream.


He was a smart guy, a vietnam vet who never got the care he needed afterwards and made it a point never to see the noon hour sober. Had a real bad case of the shakes. He was rolling pretty good for a while there, when he had the shop on Coast Highway but life took a couple of wrong turns and spit him out and he could never recover.

I bought stuff from him every once and a while just to keep his alcohol transfusion going but the material got worse and worse and it mostly became an act of charity.

Lynne said that he was originally from Kentucky, he wanted to go back there but she didn't think he  ever could ultimately make the trip. A shame.  She said that he knew fine food and libations and was a true southern gentleman. He was intelligent and had a good eye and was a nice guy. Smart and well educated. Life just caved in on him. Adios, Brad.

4 comments:

Ken Seals said...

Politics is becoming the art of lying thru your teeth to get you and your party elected on the safe assumption that most of the electorate will be too stupid and ignorant to notice. The important thing is to make them feel good during the lying campaign.
Ken

Anonymous said...

I fear you are right about politics Señor Ken. There is a detachment from reality that permeates the whole shebang. The only thing that seems consistent is the "rubber band theory of reality". There is the chance that we will all "muddle through" the current problems simply because the deadlocks in government force a kind of "default moderation" on all sides. God protects babies, drunks, Irishmen and now, hopefully, the USA.

Blue Heron said...

I myself have tried to look beyond parties and focus on issues that are important to me.

O has been pretty much a failure on many of these, especially on the environmental front. The caving on mountaintop coal removal was the first.

I see the eventual Keystone XL cave as the last straw, one that will sever his connection with a wide portion of his base and relegate him to the dustbin of big talking politicians who achieve very little.

Richard Carpenter said...

Dear Blast,

I am in the general classification of a 'liberal commie martyr' and I like Bill Clinton's intellect and political prowess, yet he brought us bank deregulation, Consolidation of the media to further control the message to the masses, trade agreements that decimated the working middle class, and the art of oral sex not being a 'real sexual act'. The latter is a minor thing but the point is that he was lying about it. The Clintons tried to bring universal healthcare to this country but failed mainly due to their own party. The alternative, Republican, Heritage foundation plan is what we have now. It is painful but apparently necessary a start to the process that is so convoluted in this country. The Democrats are the ones that stopped the Clintons and the ones who changed the Obama health plan in the Senate finance committee. The reality is that the government we have is simply a reflection of who we are as a society. I state the obvious. If we want something different we must create the opportunity for that to happen. We cannot depend on the aspirations of a president. A constitutional amendment to have taxpayer financed elections and new regulations restricting collusion between lobbyist and government staffers, regulators etc. will change the whole 'Shebang'. You know, government by the people, for the people etc.. Focusing on the Black man in the white house is important to point out in order to illustrate the discrepancies between promises and actual policy. Yet it is also a lesson in futility as we must go beyond the focus on one man to reveal the cancer behind it all. Politics is like sports, an opiate for the masses to get 'their/yer ya yas out'. And,,,God bless the Irishmen!!!They are so good at politics. Respectfully, your humble servant.