ObamaCare bailout for Members of Congress and their staffs

How does even the most devoted Democrat justify this?

“Thanks to an amendment from Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley that Democrats enacted in 2010, the Affordable Care Act says that "the only health plans that the Federal Government may make available" to Congress are the ones offered on the ObamaCare insurance exchanges. But Members and many aides have been flipping out because they won't qualify for ObamaCare subsidies and they'll lose employer contributions they now receive under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, or FEHBP, which picks up about three-quarters of the average premium.

At President Obama's personal request, the Office of Personnel Management decreed that the Members don't have to get off the gravy train after all. The eat-your-own-cooking provision begins with the phrase "Notwithstanding any other provision of law." The feds now interpret that clause as a loophole to mean that the Affordable Care Act did not change the 1959 law that created the FEHBP.

Since Members and staff still technically meet the definition of federal employees qualified for the FEHBP, the Administration says they're still entitled to enroll in the FEHBP concurrently with the exchanges. The feds then "clarify"—their euphemism—that the regulatory meaning of health benefits in the FEHBP can be ObamaCare plans. Voila, taxpayers will continue to chip in $4,900 for individual and $10,000 for family coverage.”

Wall St. Journal, Review and Outlook, August 7, 2013

Screwed again by the very guys that assured us they also would be covered by Obamacare, so how bad could it be.  As it has turned out, worse than anyone expected.

Guest blogger Murray on the “liberal” media

The other day I read the news article from the Huffington Post on the Internet about Obama claiming the gun lobbyists lied to the members of Congress and that's why the gun legislation didn't pass. I commented at the site:

HuffPo: “Obama placed blame on the gun lobby during his remarks."The gun lobby and its allies willfully lied about the bill," Obama said.”

Murray: “If anyone knows about lying it's Obama. He's done that throughout his entire political career.  How about the B.S. when he claimed he was at the hospital while his mother died because she had no medical insurance."

The next day I received this notice from Huffington:

Your actions have led us to freeze your account for an indefinite period of time. We try to make sure that this community is an enjoyable place to be, and while we understand that sometimes things flare up, your actions have crossed a line. We are sorry that it has come to this. If you think that your account has been unfairly frozen and would like to talk to someone about
this, please report a community issue on our contact page and we'd be happy to discuss with you.

Huffington Post Community Support Team

A viral joke—'Liberals Accept Responsibility for Killers' program, or L.A.R.K.

at least I hope it isn’t real, but it is suitable for my Democrat readers who think Republicans unfairly blocked the Gitmo transfers to Illinois or the NYC trial.

Adopt a Terrorist  (HT Murray)

A Canadian female libertarian wrote a lot of letters to the Canadian government, complaining about the treatment of captive insurgents (terrorists) being held in Afghanistan National Correctional System facilities. She demanded a response to her letter.

Shortly, she received back the following reply:

From: National Defense Headquarters
M Gen George R. Pearkes Bldg., 15 NT
101 Colonel By Drive
Ottawa , ON K1A 0K2
Canada

Dear Concerned Citizen,
Thank you for your recent letter expressing your profound concern of treatment of the Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorists captured by Canadian Forces, who were subsequently transferred to the Afghanistan Government and are currently being held by Afghan officials in Afghanistan National Correctional System facilities.

Our administration takes these matters seriously and your opinions were heard loud and clear here in Ottawa . You will be pleased to learn, thanks to the concerns of citizens like yourself, we are creating a new department here at the Department of National Defense, to be called 'Liberals Accept Responsibility for Killers' program, or L.A.R.K. for short.

In accordance with the guidelines of this new program, we have decided, on a trial basis, to divert several terrorists and place them in homes of concerned citizens such as yourself, around the country, under those citizens personal care. Your personal detainee has been selected and is scheduled for transportation under heavily armed guard to your residence in Toronto next Monday.

Ali Mohammed Ahmed bin Mahmud is your detainee, and is to be cared for pursuant to the standards you personally demanded in your letter of complaint. You will be pleased to know that we will conduct weekly inspections to ensure that your standards of care for Ahmed are commensurate with your recommendations.
Although Ahmed is a sociopath and extremely violent, we hope that your sensitivity to what you described as his 'attitudinal problem' will help him overcome those character flaws. Perhaps you are correct in describing these problems as mere cultural differences. We understand that you plan to offer counselling and home schooling, however, we strongly recommend that
you hire some assistant caretakers.

Please advise any Jewish friends, neighbors or relatives about your house guest, as he might get agitated or even violent, but we are sure you can reason with him. He is also expert at making a wide variety of explosive devices from common household products, so you may wish to keep those items locked up, unless in your opinion, this might offend him. Your adopted terrorist is extremely proficient in hand-to-hand combat and can extinguish human life with such simple items as a pencil or nail clippers. We advise that you do not ask him to demonstrate these skills either in your home or wherever you choose to take him while helping him adjust to life in our country. Ahmed will not wish to interact with you or your daughters except sexually, since he views females as a form of property, thereby having no rights, including refusal of his sexual demands. This is a particularly sensitive subject for him.

You also should know that he has shown violent tendencies around women who fail to comply with the dress code that he will recommend as more appropriate attire. I'm sure you will come to enjoy the anonymity offered by the burka over time. Just remember that it is all part of 'respecting his culture and religious beliefs' as described in your letter.

You take good care of Ahmed and remember that we will try to have a counsellor available to help you over any difficulties you encounter while Ahmed is adjusting to Canadian culture.
Thanks again for your concern. We truly appreciate it when folks like you keep us informed of the proper way to do our job and care for our fellow man. Good luck and God bless you.

Cordially,
Gordon O'Connor
Minister of National Defense

Join the Tea Party, Murray sez

Both parties have failed us, according to Murray, a semi-regular contributor to this blog. Our only hope now is the Tea Party, he told me in an e-mail. He's even mad at Michelle Bachmann (I still have confidence in her).

It represents the only viable chance to stop the bleeding and institute real positive change for our country. I know it's tough to abandon the party of your choice but I think if you are honest with yourself when considering what's going on and listen to the deception and lies, you'll realize both the Democrats and Republicans have failed us miserably. It's so important to get involved now. Join or donate to your nearest Tea Party for the solutions. It will be tough to overcome the billion dollars that Obama will more than likely raise. He spent his first two years selling Obamacare and campaigning worldwide.He will be spending the next two years campaigning for re-election and ticking you off.
Of course there's the chance you want more of the same but I don't think so. But that's just what you will get if you keep playing the Democrat vs. Republican game. It's time to kick butt.

Maybe so, Murray, but remember third party Ross Perot who put Clinton in office by draining away almost 20 million Republican votes from Bush I? Obama intends to destroy the country by collapsing it from within--not so sure even a lily livered RINO wants that!

The oil crisis--it's been going around

When the gas prices go up, the "Garfield" cartoon linked to the oil crisis comes around--oldest I found was early 2008. Remember, President Bush gave us an unsuccessful stimulus to try to goose the economy and it didn't work any better than Obama's. But anyway. . . without using a copyright cartoon of Garfield, here it is:

A lot of folks can't understand how we came to have an oil shortage here in our country.
~~~
Well, there's a very simple answer.
~~~
Nobody bothered to check the oil.
~~~
We just didn't know we were getting low.
~~~
The reason for that is purely geographical.
Our OIL is located in:
~~~
ALASKA
~~~
California
~~~
Coastal Florida
~~~
Coastal Louisiana
~~~
Kansas
~~~
Oklahoma
~~~
Pennsylvania and Texas
~~~
Our DIPSTICKS are located in Washington, DC !!!!


HT Murray

What could possibly go wrong?

This was forwarded by guest blogger, Murray.

Let me get this straight.

We're going to be "gifted" with a health care plan we are forced to purchase and fined if we don't,

written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn't understand it,

passed by a Congress that hasn't read it and

whose Speaker states we will pass it to see what it says,

and by a Congress that exempts themselves from it,

to be signed by a president who also smokes,

with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes,

to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese,

and financed by a country that's broke.

Restoring honor event exposes hate on the left--Guest Blogger Murray

On Aug. 28 Glenn Beck will be hosting a rally at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC promoting "Restoring Honor". This promises to be a historic event. One which the MSM and the Obama Administration will do everything in their power to discredit and associate it with racism and violence. The MSM, without knowing exactly what will be taking place, has already indicated the intention is to stir up the anger towards our government. They have falsely implied the Tea Party movement is part of this rally. There will be many Tea Party people there, however it's all Beck's doing. This is all about "Restoring Honor" to ourselves and our great country. There will be no signs allowed and Beck says bring the children.

Like I said, this will be historic. It will be big. It will upset the Progressive/ Liberal/ Left-Wingers to the point that they will do anything to disrupt the rally. Look for SEIU or ACORN to attempt to create a disturbance. We should all be there. Why aren't we?

Murray

Murray tries to be counted

Guest blogger Murray who lives in Mt. Morris, Illinois, and The Villages, Florida, has been playing tag with the U.S. Census. He writes here about his experiences with the 2010 census.

Have you been officially counted yet? Or if you're like me maybe you just don't count. I was in Florida when I received a Census form to fill out but since I don't claim Florida as my legal residence, I didn't fill it out for that address. We have our mail forwarded from Mt. Morris so we were just silly enough to think our Illinois census would be forwarded like our other mail. That did not happen, so I called the U.S. Census Bureau and told a person there of my dilemma and she took my address and said they would mail a census form to my Illinois address. That didn't happen, so I called them again and was told that they were no longer mailing out forms so I would have to wait for someone to show up. That didn't happen, but I did find a weather beaten notice in my bushes that a Stephanie Wolfe from the census had been in the neighborhood, so I called her number. Stephanie told me she didn't think she went to our street but couldn't explain how I had a "notice of visit" with her name and number on it. Implying that maybe "that didn't happen," she said that she had already turned in her information to her supervisor so there wasn't anything she could do. She said she would give her supervisor my phone number and he would probably call me. If I didn't hear from him then I must already be counted. Hmmmm, kinda makes me wonder how that happened! Now. . . we're supposed to trust the Federal government to run Obamacare? Plus all the other programs and policies the Obama administration have doled out against the wishes of the majority of the taxpaying citizens? Why not? I mean he's doing a hellava job with the oil spill, bringing the two political parties together, balancing the budget, our southern border disaster, ridding Washington D.C. of lobbyists, controlling spending, immigration control, our foreign policy, the two wars, kicking ass and stepping on necks of CEOs, etc., etc. And to think there's more to come! Murray

Explaining it to the grandchildren, guest blogger Murray

"Have you decided how you are going to explain to your grandchildren that their future has already been squandered?

That if they expect the same lifestyle that you had and fortunately still exists today, it's NOT going to happen for them?

That if they work hard to try to make it to the middle class or higher they'll have to do it while carrying someone on their backs?

That we screwed up and allowed Obamaism to dictate that we must share our successes with people who make little or no effort to succeed?

We have already helped them with their mortgage payments, buying cars, appliances, food, and weatherizing their homes. Then there are the bank and auto bailouts, Obamacare, and massive PORK spending all of which our children will have to pay for. Obama has only scratched the surface and he's still itching. Cap and Trade and Amnesty are coming up.

It has become quite obvious that Obama will lie, use deception, props, stage town hall meetings with planted questions and fake doctors, plus present people with hard luck health stories that are only partially true but are molded to sell his agendas. The only interview he has had where hard questions were asked was with Brett Baier of Fox News and it was a bust. Obama refused to answer the questions. Brett was criticized for interrupting the President in an attempt to simply get him to answer the questions. For Obama to answer them honestly, he would have to expose his massive destruction of our Republic.

The Stupak Eleven diversionary tactic on abortion was just to take the focus away from all the ugly things buried deep within the Obamacare bill. It worked. Ask yourself, if Obamacare is a good plan then why does Obama find it necessary to keep running around the country continually selling it after it was rammed through? There is no doubt that Obama will say anything to sell his agendas. Do not listen to what he says, but do pay attention to the results! They aren't the same."




Murray

A letter to Senator Brown

Murray received a funds appeal from Senator Scott Brown. So did I. I think I scribbled across mine and mailed it back, something to the effect that I wasn't pleased with his first vote, but I'd wait and see. Murray actually sent him a letter which he's allowing me to reprint here (under U.S. copyright law, he owns the content, not Sen. Brown)

March 17, 2010

Senator Brown:

I received your letter today thanking me for my contribution to your successful victory in the Massachusetts Senate race. You need to understand that my contribution, among thousands of others, was for a specific purpose. Thankfully, that purpose was realized.

"We The People" need your help to not only stop Obamacare but to stop the recklessness that's taking place every day with our legislators. This means Obamanomics needs to be stopped in its tracks. As I write, Obama is readying himself to sign the just passed $18 billion stimulus/jobs/hire bill while he has $500 billion of the stimulus left yet to spend. You know. . . the billions that we needed quickly a year ago for "shovel ready" jobs. You voted for the stimulus/jobs/hire bill while it was $15 billion and watched it grow to $18 billion practically overnight. I guess that's strike one on you!

Anyway, if you help the taxpayers of this country during your next year by stopping the spending frenzy, government's takeover of anything else, cap & trade and raising taxes, then I'll consider helping you extend your political career along with many of the other taxpayers. I'll be holding on to your request for donations until then.

Please help this great country survive.

Murray

Good job, Murray. Couldn't have said it better myself!

Do it for the children and their children--guest blogger Murray

"OK folks, the Democrats are putting forward the BIG PUSH this week. More arm twisting, bribes, lies and special deals. The Tea Party and Patriot groups will be in D.C. the morning of March 16 to get IN their representatives' faces about the ugly healthcare bill by sitting in their offices. Let's get together and help. Please call or e-mail every legislator you can between now and 3/16 to help to push back.

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

http://www.congressmerge.com/onlinedb/

If you need some encouragement click here:
http://www.usdebtclock.org/

You can do this. I'm calling on you to STAND UP and defend yourself on behalf of your children and grandchildren."

Murray

Who is behind all this, asks guest blogger Murray

Time Magazine's missed opportunity--photo of the fed up American patriot in Washington DC.
If you’re tired of bad news, I’ll give you some more. I believe we have a behind the scenes enemy with an agenda to destroy our economy--an enemy who has placed Barack Obama in office and is now using him and our legislators to destroy our great country from within. Who, I don’t know, perhaps some form of a secret society. However, if you review the last several years, it leaves little doubt regarding the possibility. This enemy has developed a strategy over many years to create a massive crisis for our great country to bring it down.

Bush and the Republicans were demonized to the point that the people began to hate them. It's still being done every day. If you back a Democrat or Obama into a corner, they start playing the “Blame Bush Game” because they have no other excuse or answer to justify their destruction. I was no Bush fan. I believe that the Bush administration did a lot of things wrong, but the Democrats played a huge role in the downturn of our economy and promoted the excessive spending DURING the Bush Administration and then later turned up the volume as they came into power. They now all deny their participation. Going backwards and blaming Bush solves NOTHING!

Why do I think there is an enemy group behind the scenes? Could one man be this bad all the time all by himself?

1 We have a President who came out of nowhere, who has a questionable background and associations with known communists and who continues those relationships.
2 . . . who signs unread bills laden with PORK after promising to end PORK barrel spending.
3 . . . who constantly blames the previous administration for our economic crisis.
4 . . . who builds his administration with liars, tax cheats and communists.
5 . . . who encourages bribery as a tool to get votes for his agendas.
6 . . . who stymies us with "political correctness".
7 . . . who thinks terrorists and war prisoners should be treated like citizens.
8 . . . who refuses to try to win the wars, puts out timelines for withdrawals and shares our war plans with the enemy.
9 . . . who travels abroad and downplays our great country's past role in the world.
10 . . . who has professed to be Muslim.
11 . . . who has agendas that promise to economically destroy our country.
12 . . . who claims to have created 600,000 jobs when in reality we lost 7 million more.
13 . . . who promotes and finances the activities of SEIU and ACORN and they him.
14 . . . who ignores our Constitution and allows others to do the same in the name of change.
15 . . . who TOTALLY ignores the very citizens that he pledged to work for while they try in every way just to get him to listen to them.
16 . . . who turns a blind eye to illegal immigration.
17. . . who demonizes and attacks anyone who is critical of his actions.
18 . . . who feels the need to constantly campaign to sell his agendas. (While I'm typing this I just seen on TV that Obama is at Home Depot today selling HIS "cash for caulkers" tax credit which is on its 2nd round, but with a new name.)
19. . . who promises us one thing (transparency, for instance) and then does the opposite and lies to the taxpaying citizens on a daily basis.
20. . . who has promoted various hoaxes like Global Warming, Swine Flu, gate crashers, slap the bad guy CEOs hearings, etc., to distract from the damage his administration is trying to accomplish.

All presidents have used some of these tactics and misused their power from time to time, but a watchdog press has been on duty to warn us. Today’s MSM, the mainstream media, are also being controlled by someone. In the past, there has been no group powerful enough to completely control the news. The politicians aren't organized or smart enough. Now there no longer exists any investigative reporting among them. There are only a few outlets for the "behind the scenes" stories that expose what is really happening in our government and to our economy. One being Fox News. ABC, CBS, NBC, all fail to report the facts regarding the destruction taking place every day. All you get from them is a high profile personality with daily drivel. They accept Obama's deception.

The enemy knew there was no way our great country could be taken by force so the way to put it down was the economy. Obama was selected to orchestrate and direct this destruction. They wanted a person that could appear to ride in on his white horse and "save" us from the evil doings of that nasty Bush Administration. The enemy picked a person that could "sell" himself and their agendas. The Democrats were so power hungry that they easily went along with Obamanomics. Besides, it allowed them ample PORK for reelection.

So where are we now and what do we do? Well, if you consider yourself a grass roots taxpayer, middle class or over 65, you're pretty much screwed. Obama, the MSM and the Democrats refuse to listen to the masses. You can call all of them, write to them, e-mail them, march against them and they refuse to respond. The polls all show the masses are not pleased, but the polls get ignored. The grass rooters can say they will just vote them out of office, but the first opportunity isn't until November 2010. While were waiting for that date they are burying us with political correctness, debt., taking away our freedoms, destroying our healthcare, raising our taxes, indoctrinating our children, destroying Social Security and Medicare, devaluing the dollar and expanding their power over us.

Now if you don't think those actions will economically destroy this great country then continue to sit back and relax. Or if you don't think this is what's going on, you could get a job with the MSM and hope you will be able to look your children and grand children in the eye 5 years from now. The unions and community organizers will be doing the same thing in 2010 they did for Obama. They will be hauling anyone that breathes to the polls and falsify registration wherever possible for a Democratic incumbent. Both the Senate and the House voted unanimously to cease funding ACORN but Obama never signed the bill plus a Federal judge in a district court has ruled it UNCONSTITUTIONAL. Also, only about one third of the stimulus money has been spent at this time and that will be released in time for the next election to buy House votes.

What's behind the closed doors?

While I head for the coffee shop, Murray will give you his ideas on what Harry Reid was trying to do this week with the healthcare bill.

This week Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev) tried taking 250 billion of expenses out of the healthcare Bill in an attempt to lower the overall cost. $250 Billion! How ? By simply eliminating it from the healthcare Bill and paying the 250 billion out to doctors over a 10 year period of time. This would be unfunded and simply be added to the national debt!

It appears there were two problems he was trying to solve. Lower the cost of the health plan to make it look better and still appease the doctors who aren't supporting the plan. You see, even though the AMA claims to be for the plan, the majority of the doctors in this country are not. That's why Obama held that little fiasco handing out white coats to a select few who were supposed to be doctors in an attempt to fake us out one more time. Obama is good at that.

Fortunately 12 Democrats plus the Republicans defeated the move which proved to be a miscalculation by Reid. I'm sure there will be other attempts to make this "dog" bill look better before it's over. This attempt to extract 250 billion of costs out of the healthcare bill has NOT CAUSED A RIPPLE in the mainstream media. With all the attention and focus on this bill, wouldn't you think NBC, CBS, ABC and the major newspapers would jump all over this? No, no, no! They'd rather give us another report on the Swine Flu.

Well the only people that have so far [Thursday] is Fox News. You know Fox. That's the News station that the Obama administration keeps trying to shut down. They have all the others cooperating but so far they haven't been able to quiet Fox but that doesn't mean they haven't been trying! They put political pressure on Fox's advertisers and claim that Fox IS NOT a news station.

There probably is another reason for sneaking out some of the costs of the healthcare bill. These are my own thoughts. You see, Tuesday the Democrats were behind closed doors ( no Republicans allowed in spite of the fact that Obama calls this a bi-partisan effort) to merge two of these bills into one. Now in order to do this there had to be some arm twisting to get everyone in the room to agree. So how do they do this? PORK! Yes folks, it's PORK time again. Since the CBO has already come up with a number, they can't come out of that room with a bigger one. So I think ol' Harry figured if he gets the 250 billion out of the Bill then there's room for $250 billion of negotiable PORK. Pork is always a tool that is used to pass a dog bill. Regardless, whether that was the plan or not, you can count on the fact that if there isn't any PORK in the current Bills , there certainly will be!
Murray

If you can find another reason for the closed doors, the campaign to isolate and then close down Fox, and the sneaky $250 billion move, write me!

Blogging from the kitchen

Today I'm sitting in the kitchen with the laptop--the one that frequently balks and quits, and I have to reload everything. I've learned over time, to not upgrade anything on it--not virus protection, not internet settings; don't add widgets or gizmos, nothing that flashes or wiggles. No music. No streaming radio. It wants to live in its own little cocoon of 2004, or whenever I bought it. So I got this e-mail from Murray, who will be my guest blogger until I can get the office computer to work (where I keep my drafts). Murray is living in Florida right now, but Spring is coming even to Illinois, wrapped in another very cold winter, and he and the Mrs. will soon be returning home to the golf links of Sunset Golf. course.

Murray sez: President Obama has been visiting some of the major cities to sell HIS plan to help people who got in over their heads and cannot keep up with their mortgage payments. His last stop was Phoenix where he assured the crowd that he has committed 75 billion towards that goal. He states that this help is only for the people that got caught up in the housing bubble or lost their jobs and will not assist the speculators, house flippers, and the people that bought more house than they could afford. (Heh,heh,heh!) Now, I would like someone to tell me just when did the Federal Government ever fine tune any financial bailout or large expenditure and track exactly where the money went? When they release this 75 billion it's gone. Never to be seen or heard from again. Just like free money for services in the war, the 150 billion PORK package and for Katrina. Anybody know what happened to those funds? They will manage the bail out just like they did with Medicare, Social Security and the National debt. They couldn't get the Prescription drug plan, the tax code, or even the simple AMT right.

Today I watched CNBC as the majority of the analysts argued why should the people who didn't do anything wrong bail out the people that did. One of our legislators responded with "these people did nothing wrong, they just got caught in the housing bubble"! Well, that statement ticked off quite a few people and one of the analyst replied, "me and everyone around me did nothing wrong but now our 401-K's are 201-K's. Who's gonna bail us out?" Excellent point that will go unanswered!

I'm sure by now you have all heard of ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. You know, they're the group that went to Ohio and rounded up anybody they could whether or not they lived in Ohio and took advantage of a weeklong period in which new voters can register and cast an absentee ballot on the same day in Ohio. You just know that they didn't round up anybody to vote Republican. Well, anyway these same shock troops will be rearing their ugly heads again. The troop hero (Obama) is dedicating millions of his PORK plan to this organization. Their next goal will be to stop people from being evicted from their homes even if it means that they will chain themselves to the front porch and refuse to be evicted. Or if evicted they will move back in. This will constitute civil disobedience. ACORN's drum beat and chant will be that they are defending these poor defenseless homeowners from the big bad banks. Columnist Michelle Malkin says "the ACORN foot soldiers, funded with your tax dollars, will scream, pound their fists, chain themselves to buildings, and engage in illegal behavior until they get what they want."

Here is a link to a video of ACORN breaking into a Baltimore house formerly owned by a woman who could no longer afford the payments after the Balloon. The bank she did business with no longer owns it and had resold it to someone else. Someone who probably had the traditional credit check and standard loan.

The lawyers will have a heyday AND your President already is aware of the tactics planned by ACORN and will see to it that they are adequately funded. This could, by itself, drag on for years.

I just looked in on the office computer. After hitting the F1 (or F2) key, after about 30 minutes a message came up about the keyboard, so I unplugged, replugged, and also rearranged the mouse just for good measure, and it seems happy now. Maybe the cat was looking for something to do last night when she wasn't sitting on my head while I was sleeping.