Monthly Archives: March 2014

2012 Election, 2014 Election, 2016 Election, Economy, Obamacare, Politics

I Want My Affordable Health Care

Have you begun to notice that the Affordable Care Act, which was supposed to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, (never mind that 85% of the population were happy with the health insurance and health care they had), keeps getting delayed (illegally I might add) from implementation? Curiously, all the bad stuff, like policy cancellations and the people seeing their premiums double and deductibles quadruple, losing their doctors, hospital, and medicine, keep being pushed back to periods AFTER elections. After 2012, after 2014, and now some provisions after 2016 and long after 2016.

If this law is so good, something that Americans just couldn’t live without, then let those policy cancellation notices come out in September and October of 2014. Let’s get it on already. It wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that Democrats totally OWN the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, would it? Or from the fact of what we’ve seen so far that it is turning out to be nothing like what was promised? Or maybe it was because the promises have been revealed to everybody, including democrats, to be not promises, but outright lies?

Ignoring the failure of Obamacare is one thing. What’s even more amazing is the democratic strategy for the 2014 mid-term election. A strategy designed to not make Democrats look like they have to run away from Obamacare. Their idea is to run on fixing it.

To a Democrat in Washington this makes perfect sense. Just like their inability to stimulate the economy with so-called stimulus spending, and wanting to spend more, while the only result is record long-term unemployment, the lowest worker participation rate since Jimmy Carter, and massive record national debt. In other words, they’ve proven that what they’re doing does not work. So let the ones who broke the economy fix the economy by doing the same thing that broke it in the first place.

It follows then that we should re-elect the people who destroyed our health care system and health insurance industry so that they can ostensibly “fix” it in however many years it will take. And that makes sense to who? Especially when there has been a private sector alternative solution to Obamacare for 4 years now. And on that topic, remember, every time you hear a Democrat say “they have no alternative,” you know they are lying to you again.

Egypt, Middle East, Politics, Russia

The Budapest Memorandum, circa 1994, Ukraine Edition

The Budapest Memorandum was a security agreement signed Dec. 5, 1994 by US President Bill Clinton, UK Prime Minister John Major, Russia’s Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kuchma for Ukraine. Not having a meaningful military of its own, but did have nuclear weapons, the Budapest Memorandum was Ukraine’s agreement to dismantle their nuclear capability in exchange for security guarantees for their sovereignty and protection of their borders.

The Budapest Memorandum was affirmed as recently as Dec. 4, 2009 when China and France joined as signatories to this agreement. And no one, except Russian President Vladimir (the dog killer) Putin denies that the generic troops in the Crimea part of Ukraine that came from Russia are in fact, Russian troops. And no one, except Putin, believes that the Russian-speaking Ukraines there need protecting by him. By all other accounts, including the Ukraine government, Russia has invaded their country and violated their border and sovereignty.

With Russia keeping the unarmed Ukrainian military from their posts with its military, including firing warning shots at them, preventing them from going to work (picture above), some Ukraine officials are calling on the Budapest Memorandum for the help they were promised.

Arsen Avakov, the new interior minister and member of Fatherland, the party of oligarch Yulya Tymoshenko, alleged that the international airport in Sebastopol in the Crimea had been blocked by Russian forces. He wrote on Facebook, “I regard what is happening as an armed invasion and occupation in violation of all international treaties and norms. This is a direct provoking of armed bloodshed on the territory of a sovereign state.”

By invoking terms of a 1994 agreement, he aims to provide a casus belli justifying Western military intervention in Ukraine.

Two things are certain. There is no will on the part of the signatories of the Budapest Memorandum to use military force to repel the Russian troops from Crimea. And, the world now sees who is calling the shots, and it is not President Obama and the United States.

There are plenty of sanctions that can be placed upon Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Sanctions that will hurt their economy and the Russian people. But what remains to be seen is where Putin will stop. Will he move on to Kiev and claim the whole country? Then move on to another former Soviet satellite country in a move to effectively re-establish the former Soviet Union?

It is clear that the time to act to prevent this has long past. What is surprising (not) is that the only people who could see this coming were Republican politicians like Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney. An examination as to why that is reveals the differences between the two parties. The Republicans deal with reality whereas the Democrats deal with the way they think things ought to be, or, the way they want them to be.

Putin knows this, and just as sure as Palin and Romney knew what he was all about, Putin knows how far in over his head Obama is, and what he’s all about. One pundit characterized it this way, “while Putin is playing chess, Obama is playing marbles.”

Refusing to admit this foreign policy debacle, the Democrats in Washington are criticizing Republicans for blaming Obama for letting this crisis grow into a crisis. It wasn’t Republicans that took an apology tour throughout the Middle East and Egypt. They didn’t voice support for the green movement in Iran, then abandon them in support of the Mullahs. They weren’t the ones that sparked the Arab Spring in Egypt, supporting the students and people who wanted democracy, only to abandon them after Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood took over. They weren’t the ones voicing support for the Syrian opposition, then doing nothing to help, until it was too late to help. Now a couple hundred thousand dead and millions in refugee camps later, al-Qaeda and Hezbollah have taken hold in Syria. And Putin is on the side of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

What President Obama has shown the world is that the United States is all talk and can not be a trusted ally when the going gets tough. Trying to save face, Obama’s response is one for the ages. As big as the lie of the year was. Ukraine is hearing, if you like your country, you can keep your country.

President Obama’s statement on Russia’s action qualifies for the joke of the year . . .

I actually think that this has not been a sign of strength, but rather, is a reflection that countries near Russia have deep concerns and suspicions about this kind of meddling.

If Russia’s move into Ukraine is not a sign of Putin’s strength, then it is an example of Obama’s weakness, naiveté, and incompetence.

Media, Politics, Russia

Obama Warns Russia Against Intervention

Psst. Hey media! They’ve already intervened. Russia has taken over Ukraine airports and seaports. Putin has done this before, in Georgia.

‘Leading from behind’ is so predictable. Nothing different here than how President Obama reacted to Egypt, Lybia, Syria, or how candidate Obama reacted to Georgia.

So predictable in fact, that Sarah Palin called it six years ago . . .

“After the Russian Army invaded the nation of Georgia, Senator Obama’s reaction was one of indecision and moral equivalence, the

Crimean Prime Minister Sergey Aksyonov tweeted a photoshopped image of President Barack Obama in a Russian military uniform.
Crimean Prime Minister Sergey Aksyonov tweeted a photoshopped image of President Barack Obama in a Russian military uniform.

kind of response that would only encourage Russia’s Putin to invade Ukraine next.”

Our president’s official reaction:

  • Any violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity would be deeply destabilising, which is not in the interests of Ukraine, Russia or Europe.
  • It would represent a profound interference in matters that must be determined by the Ukrainian people.
  • It would be a clear violation of Russia’s commitment to respect the independence and sovereignty and borders of Ukraine – and of international laws.
  • Just days after the world came to Russia for the Olympic games, it would invite the condemnation of nations around the world.
  • And, indeed, the United States will stand with the international community in affirming that there will be costs for any military intervention in Ukraine.
  • The president is also considering boycotting a G8 summit hosted by Russia.

As if any of that has Putin quaking in his boots. I can imagine Russian President Vladimir Putin rolling on the floor laughing his ass off.

And news on ABC’s Nightline tonight? Nothing about Russia invading a sovereign country. “News” is the Oscars.

Link: BBC News – Ukraine crisis: Obama warns Russia against intervention  |  “Stupid” “Insipid” Sarah Palin Predicted Russian Invasion of Ukraine (Video)