Lies, Extortion, and Religious Oppression: Just Another Week in Washington

“If you like your health insurance or your doctor, you can keep it.”  (1)  This was the mantra throughout the debate over the passage of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare or the unaffordable care act).  However with the continued failure to launch of the Obamacare exchanges these words will no doubt go down in history right alongside Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook” and Bill Clinton’s “I never had sex with that woman.”  These words prove that politicians will say anything to stay in office, win elections, or have a crucial piece of legislation passed. 

The finger pointing has begun in Washington over the failure to launch of the Obamacare exchanges.  During the recent Senate hearings regarding the failure of the Obamacare website to work, the government is blaming the tech companies responsible for writing the software and running the infrastructure.  (2)  These companies are blaming the government for making last minute changes including a change not allowing people to browse different plans before providing personal information.  (3)  In fact, imbedded in the code for the software is language stating that people signing into the site have no reasonable expectation of privacy.  (4)  This means that once someone provides private information such as their Social Security number and birthdate, that information may become available to third parties, including hackers and identity thieves.  Since this information is required up front, visitors to the site expose themselves to identity theft even if they do not purchase health insurance. 

We even had one senator stating that HIPPA did not apply when applying at the exchanges because the process asks no health questions.  (4)  This may be true due to the fact insurance companies will no longer be able to consider pre-existing conditions and do not need this information.  However, have these senators ever heard of identity theft?  I guess some senators may not have heard of identity theft since they seem to have been in Washington too long and have lost touch with the American People.  No wonder many, including myself, support term limits. 

The truth is people are losing their health insurance, including 300,000 in Florida.  (5)  Doctors are retiring in large numbers (6) and people who have lost their insurance coverage will soon be flocking to emergency rooms to receive care, because the law requires the hospital to treat them, and then not paying for it.  This will place a financial strain on hospitals and possibly cause many to go broke.  (7)

It is now obvious that Obama’s promise we could keep our insurance or doctor was a lie just like Nixon’s and Clinton’s but with one exception.  This lie will affect every one of us since we are all consumers of health care at some time in our lives.  We can only hope that with these lies now revealed, voters will do a better job of checking out the candidates in the future. 

This week also saw the release of Peter Schweizer’s book Extortion:  How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Pockets.  In the book Mr. Schweizer explains how politicians introduce legislation, not because they are interested in it becoming law, but as a means of extorting money from people and organizations to protect themselves from onerous legislation becoming law.  (8)  This extortion racket helps explain how politicians are able to leave office wealthy far beyond what their legislative salaries would justify. 

According to Mr. Schweizer this scheme, known as tollbooth, works the following way.  “Here the speaker of the House or a powerful committee chairperson will create a procedural obstruction or postponement on the eve of an important vote.  Campaign contributions are then implicitly solicited.  If the tribute offered by those in favor of the bill’s passage is too small (or if the money from opponents is sufficiently high), the bill is delayed and does not proceed down the legislative highway.”  (8)  In other words, as most of us have suspected all along, those with sufficient amounts of cash can get legislation through committee and passed through the legislature or block legislation harmful to their interests. 

Along with lies and extortion, we also observed religious oppression this week and in of all places, our own military.  At a Ft. Hood briefing soldiers were reportedly told that evangelical Christians and Tea Party supporters are a threat to the United States and are “tearing the nation apart.”  (9)  As if this was not bad enough the briefing went on to tell soldiers that they could be charged with a military crime if they supported evangelical Christian or Tea Party organizations.  (9) In other words, a soldier giving his tithe to his evangelical Christian church may be subject to court martial.  By the way, this is the same Ft. Hood where a shooting by a radical Muslim extremist was excused as “workplace violence.”  I guess there is no longer religious equality in the military. 

What a travesty.  Men and women, many of them hardly out of High School, volunteer for the military and our politicians send them into harm’s way.  Many of these men and women do not come back alive and some come back with disabling injuries and missing limbs.  Many of these men and women find comfort in their faiths and to denying them comfort of their faith will significantly reduce their morale. 

I read many news reports in preparation for the pieces I write for my blog and do not recall reading of any terrorism done by evangelical Christians or Tea Party organizations and so am puzzled as to why our military would consider them a threat to our national security.  The only threat I can see from these organizations is their political threat to the liberal statist agenda. 

It was just another week of lies, extortion, and religious oppression in Washington.  Is it any wonder many are calling for the bums to be thrown out in the next election?  (10)

1. Ellerson, Lindsey. President Obama Continues Questionable “You Can Keep Your Health Care” Promise. abcnews.go.com. [Online] ABC News, July 16, 2009. [Cited: October 25, 2013.] http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2009/07/president-obama-continues-questionable-you-can-keep-your-health-care-promise/.

2. Kuranda, Sarah. 'Tech Surge' Ordered To Fix Stumbling Obamacare Site. www.crn.com. [Online] CRN, October 21, 2013. [Cited: October 25, 2013.] http://www.crn.com/news/channel-programs/240162913/tech-surge-ordered-to-fix-stumbling-obamacare-site.htm.

3. Cohen, Tom. Contractors blame government for Obamacare website woes . www.cnn.com. [Online] CNN Politics, October 25, 2013. [Cited: October 25, 2013.] http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/24/politics/congress-obamacare-website/.

4. Martosko, David. Revealed: Obamacare subscribers have 'no reasonable expectation of privacy' and their details will be shared with 2,000 employees . www.dailymail.co.uk. [Online] Mailonline, October 24, 2013. [Cited: October 25, 2013.] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2475265/Obamacare-subscribers-reasonable-expectation-privacy-says-hidden-website-text-Democratic-congressman-calls-House-hearing-monkey-court.html.

5. Dixon, Matt. Florida Blue to cancel 300,000 policies over Obamacare. m.staugustine.com. [Online] Morris News Service, October 23, 2013. [Cited: October 25, 2013.] http://m.staugustine.com/news/florida-news/2013-10-23/florida-blue-cancel-300000-policies-over-obamacare.

6. Pipes, Sally. Thanks To Obamacare, A 20,000 Doctor Shortage Is Set To Quintuple. www.forbes.com. [Online] Forbes, June 10, 2013. [Cited: September 20, 2013.] http://www.forbes.com/sites/sallypipes/2013/06/10/thanks-to-obamacare-a-20000-doctor-shortage-is-set-to-quintuple/.

7. Pinckney, Barbara. Hospitals feel financial crush from uninsured. www.bizjournals.com. [Online] Albany Business Review, January 19, 2009. [Cited: October 25, 2013.] http://www.bizjournals.com/albany/stories/2009/01/19/story3.html?page=all.

8. Schweizer, Peter. POLITICIANS' EXTORTION RACKET. www.breitbart.com. [Online] Breitbart News, October 22, 2013. [Cited: October 25, 2013.] http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/10/22/Politicians-Extortion-Racket.

9. Klukowski, Ken. MILITARY TRAINING DOCUMENT: ANTI-CHRISTIAN SPLC A TRUSTED SOURCE TO DEFINE 'EXTREMISM'. www.breitbart.com. [Online] Breitbart News, October 23, 2013. [Cited: October 25, 2013.] http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/10/23/Military-Training-Doc-Anti-Christian-SPLC-a-Trusted-Source-to-Define-Extremism.

10. Montanaro, Domenico. NBC/WSJ poll: 60 percent say fire every member of Congress. firstread.nbcnews.com. [Online] NBC News, October 1, 2013. [Cited: October 25, 2013.] http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/10/20903531-nbcwsj-poll-60-percent-say-fire-every-member-of-congress.