Posted by Tina
Watching politicians in DC is discouraging. Individually those who lead us can sound quite reasonable at times…put the in a room together and there’s nothing laying brick and setting off fireworks. The most frustrating trait is pigheadedness. The most evil are those who work only for themselves. The people deserve better but we are too fractured, too uninformed, or too disengaged to make better choices. Term limits might help in that regard but that too seems like an idea that would only apply a band aid to a situation requiring major surgery.
I was thinking about all of this when I came across a piece written by Charlie Daniels who wrote:
I know that people of much different political persuasions can not only get along with each other, they can be good friends, and I believe that any problem this nation faces can be resolved by sending in the cooler heads, who are willing to respect the opinions of the people across the table, listen to what each other have to offer, cull through the theories and ideas and mutually and honestly choose the ones which are the best for We The People.
Unfortunately, after pondering the situation, I have come to the conclusion that there are many on both sides of the issues who don’t want to work out differences, who only want to see the other side reduced to the point that their party will be in power, that they know what kind of country the United States of America should be, and they will settle for nothing less, the well-being of the people they are sworn to serve be damned.
American politics decades ago bypassed the realm of public service and entered the realm of ideologies, transcending the rational, the sensible, the durable in the quest for enough votes to elect a president, to gain a majority, a game of thrones with power as the prize.
Any nation that allows itself to go almost twenty trillion dollars in debt does not deal in rationality.
Any nation that allows the money working Americans have contributed to their retirement to be raided by vote greedy politicians passed the point of competent leadership long ago.
Any nation that allows millions of illegals to enter the country without documentation, health checks or any immigration supervision is not totally sane.
Any nation that goes to war without a clear-cut definition of victory and sets the rules of engagement to such a politically correct standard that it ties our warrior’s hands, rules totally unobserved by the enemy, has lost its hold on the reality of what a war is and should not even set a foot on that path.
Any nation that allows their sworn blood enemy and the world’s largest exporter of terror access to trade and give them billions of dollars to spend on our destruction lost touch with political sanity long ago.
Any nation that allows its citizens in the inner cities to be held hostage by violence, their children in constant danger on the streets, the schools they go to substandard, undisciplined and their neighborhoods falling apart, has lost touch with what America was designed to be.
The diatribe could go on and on…
Daniels goes on to talk about the kind of country we want to leave our children. I hope you’ll give it a read.
Today President Trump gave the Republicans in Congress an ultimatum after working with them for weeks to get a healthcare bill passed and forwarded on to the Senate. It’s sad that the President must play the role of daddy to these grown men and women but if that’s all that was left for him to do then good for him. It’s time for the pig headed, the self-centered, and the strictly partisan to stop their games and think about the people. We need relief from the healthcare mess and the suffering that government has caused with it’s meddling…we also need an improved economy and jobs.
You in DC have so much more to do and so little time to do it.
Yes, it’s time for conservative Republicans to bend and get this done. It’s time for those Democrats who can to think of their constituents and bend to get this done.
We didn’t arrive at this crossroad overnight and we will not reverse seventy years of government intrusion, overspending, waste, fraud, and abuse with a single piece of legislation or a single vote.
I consider myself a conservative with libertarian leanings and I say to those conservative and Libertarian Republicans holding back, “Enough!” You have done your best and that’s all you can do. You agreed to the system when you decided to run for Congress. Now you must work within the parameters and fight for as much ground as you can get while realizing tomorrow is another day to press for those ideas you honesty believe are right.
Charlie loves America and Charlie makes sense. I sure wish our representatives would pause, listen to Charlie, and take notice of who and what they represent!
Daniels speaks of compromise and bipartisanship in the first part of that quote, condemning partisan fighting and disrespect for others’ opinions…but then every talking point he raises is a conservative one that condemns liberals.
As for the healthcare bill, it’s a disaster. Conservative holdouts are refusing for the wrong reasons–apparently, the bill won’t make enough people lose their healthcare coverage–but I’m still glad they’re holding out. Since when do Republicans want more coverage losses and premium increases?
http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/325535-cbo-releases-new-score-for-obamacare-repeal-bill
“…every talking point he raises is a conservative one that condemns liberals.”
I disagree. His points condemn representatives on both sides of the aisle. Congress has moved far afield of their constitutional powers with votes from both sides. Congress has attempted to fix problems and failed. Congress has not taken it’s fiduciary responsibility seriously…our debt is now close to $20 trillion. Democrats complained a $10 trillion, remember?
“apparently, the bill won’t make enough people lose their healthcare coverage”
Bryan that’s a load of garbage, but typical of you, all attitude.
Before you go criticizing things you do not fully understand, try admitting that the ACA is responsible for a lot of people losing their healthcare, for people having healthcare they cannot use due to high deductibles, for people being unable to afford high premiums, and a plethora of other problems. The ACA is not working. Insurance providers are leaving because their losses are so excessive. Doctors are very unhappy with all of the added paperwork that’s so onerous many docs have chosen to retire or are considering it.
Democrats promised a better system and delivered a stinker.
Something has to be done and done.
Democrats refuse to own their mistake. They have no current objective to give Americans relief. Their intentions are partisan, sinister and selfish.
Strong conservatives are being pigheaded, given that this is step one of a three step plan and given the Senate still has to weigh in.
The CBO report is interesting but useless since it is a static report and cannot take into consideration future developments. That’s why Democrats deceitfully delayed the ACA taxes for four years, to give the illusion that it scored positively at the launch.
Premiums are rising more slowly under the ACA then they were before, so you can’t blame the ACA for rising premiums. As for insurance providers leaving, the most famous example is Aetna, and they were found by a judge to have lied about the reasons for pulling out–it wasn’t because of Obamacare, they just said it was. Is it possible that the other providers have too?
If you don’t trust CBO reports to give you objective advice on whether a plan will work, who do you trust?
Chris I don’t know where you got the idea that premiums are rising slower under the ACA .
Fiscal Times:
TownHall:
My own experience is that premiums rose year over year before the ACA but never by as much as 20%…and 50% is just outrageous.
The reason they are climbing so high is that the mechanics of Obamacare DO NOT WORK IN THE REAL WORLD. All the empathy in the world cannot change real world realities. Insurance companies cannot continue to operate with high losses forever. The federal government cannot bail them out year after year after year. The very idea is just STUPID!
So while Democrats and the pigheaded conservatives may be partying over the failure to repeal and replace at this time there are a lot of Americans who are not partying for the simple reason that they cannot get insurance or they cannot afford the insurance available to them. I call that a real failure on the part of Congress as a whole body to observe the crisis government has created and fix it.
This is exactly why the Framers put limits on the federal government and preferred power to do such harm be left with the people and the states. At least any harm done is more easily remedied and since there is variety in approach there’s opportunity to learn from the mistakes and successes of others.
Commentary from else where—
http://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=9899
The author makes this comment about FBI Director Comey: “Of course, there’s no way to touch him as he runs the FBI.”
I disagree. The Director serves at the pleasure of the President. President Trump should fire him, or give him enough rope to hang himself. Either way, it needs to happen soon. There needs to be a new Director who will light the fuse to blow the log jam.
I agree. In addition to the misuse of information gathered in intel collection, Comey also made an incredibly strong case to indict Hillary Clinton and then refused to refer the case to the Justice Department.
These two items plus the targeting by the IRS spells extreme abuse of power…heads should be rolling and the Easter Egg roll cancelled due to the HAZMAT hazard.
We were once a nation with a common goal. Yes, we had problems because we weren’t perfect. We were motivated with our love for our country, neighbors, family and the work we did to support our families and to benefit our communities.
We not longer have a common goal. It’s now a dog eat dog world fighting over a bigger piece of the bone. The last eight years has divided this country so much we no longer trust our political leaders, the media, our neighbors and everyone who doesn’t agree with everything we do.
Our country is coming unglued, with breaking news notices coming out daily exposing another crisis or scandal. There aren’t enough hours in a day for the media to cover it all, therefore a lot is not being given any air time or ink at all. The 14 year old girl who was raped in the school bathroom by a 17 and 18 year old freshmen received no msm coverage and little cable coverage. The internet though was/is full of articles including ones showing the lack of coverage. Alinsky’s overwhelming the system is working.
This whistleblower has been trying for years to get this info. out, but no one seemed interested. Amazing!
CIA Whistleblower Leaked Proof Trump Under Illegal Surveillance; Blown Off by Authorities:
“Montgomery left the NSA and CIA with 47 hard drives and over 600 million pages of information, much of which is classified, and sought to come forward legally as a whistleblower to appropriate government entities, including congressional intelligence committees, to expose that the spy agencies were engaged for years in systematic illegal surveillance on prominent Americans, including the chief justice of the Supreme Court, other justices, 156 judges, prominent businessmen such as Donald Trump, and even yours truly. Working side by side with Obama’s former Director of National Intelligence (DIA), James Clapper, and Obama’s former Director of the CIA, John Brennan, Montgomery witnessed “up close and personal” this “Orwellian Big Brother” intrusion on privacy, likely for potential coercion, blackmail or other nefarious purposes.”
http://thefederalistpapers.org/us/cia-whistleblower-leaked-proof-trump-under-illegal-surveillance-blown-off-by-authorities
Peggy this story is developing faster than I can keep up…shades of Watergate. As the guy in RHT447’s comment wrote, Nixon only talked about doing this.
The information being leaked is “raw” which means it can be misleading or false too.