Obamacare and the fight ahead

In the early 16th century, Hernan Cortes and his army of conquistadors were prepping themselves to invade, and ultimately conquer the Aztec empire.  As the soldiers prepared for battle, their ships sat anchored off the coast of what is now Veracruz, in plain sight of his anxious troops.

If all else failed, they thought, they could make a quick getaway to the ships and sail to safety.  Cortes realized that some in his crew where getting uneasy, and ordered that the ships be scuttled.  Knowing that they would be faced with only two options—fight to survive, or die.

On Thursday, Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the majority opinion to uphold Obamacare, writing that the individual mandate is equivalent to a tax, and therefore, constitutional.

For months prior to the ruling, as Mitt Romney made his way through the GOP primaries, the debate over both Obamacare and Romneycare loomed as a political sticking point for his campaign (and for the Obama campaign as well).

As the case against the law made its way through the federal courts, speculation built that it would head to the supremes and the belief that the court would strike down the individual mandate, and thus, the entire mess of it, grew stronger.

Personally, I felt that if the court struck down the law, it wouldn’t be the dominant issue that Romney had to deal with during the campaign.  I’m sure this suited most conservative s and Republicans just fine.

I didn’t see how Romney could honestly make a case against Obamacare after his Romneycare experiment in Massachusetts.   Making this argument eventually would end up doing more harm than good for Romney.

But John Roberts scuttled our ship.   With the stroke of a pen, the lines in our political battle were redrawn.

The campaign is now about (or should be about) those who want to repeal Obamacare in its entirety, and those who want to embrace and keep this monstrosity of a law, along with its onerous regulations, bureaucracy and a price tag of over $1 trillion.

This makes things interesting for Democrats this election season.  Democrats now have to make the case for defending Obamacare and embrace this law during their town halls and campaign stops this summer and fall.  All this with high unemployment, an anemic economy and a toxic President.  Good luck with that, Democrats.

If this is going to be an honest debate, I encourage the Democrats defend all aspects of the law.  But of course, they’d rather talk about the long list of Obamacare ‘benefits’, and not about the reality of its costs.  And certainly not the fact that Obamacare is about more government control and numerous new taxes, taxes that eventually will be paid for by the majority of taxpaying Americans, which is to say, the middle class.  In fact, despite the court’s ruling, the White House is already trying to twist the truth.

As for Republicans and conservatives, I agree with Paul Ryan.  This is our last chance.  Democrats have their hands full, but as a party the GOP have to have the right conditions–the White House, a majority in the Senate, and build on gains in the House.  On top of that, the Republicans need leadership with intestinal fortitude to make the right decisions when all of that is obtained.  Remember, repealing Obamacare was a priority of the 2010 campaign also.

Repealing Obamacare means catching lightning in a bottle and it needs to happen within the next year.  If all the conditions are met, there should be no reason why it can’t happen over the next twelve months.  I for one, don’t trust politicians enough to play a waiting game.  The repeal process is like cement, the longer we wait, the harder it is to remove.  Just like the conquistadors, there is no turning back.  The America we know is at stake.

It’s Obama vs Clinton in New Jersey’s 9th CD

I never really bought into the notion that there’s a friendly peace between the Obamas and the Clintons. Sure, Bill Clinton is campaigning for Obama, Hillary is the Secretary of State, and all appears to be tranquil in Democrat land. But I still don’t buy it.

I’m old enough to remember the political cage-match that was the 2008 Democratic primary, with its ugly charges of racism, the ‘pimping’ of Chelsea, the whole bit. Despite her bitter loss, Hillary still wants to be president, and I have no doubt that she will make another go of it. (I’ll leave the speculation as to whether she replaces Biden on the ticket this year or makes a solid run in 2016, for another time).

All that being said, there’s a literal endorsement battle between the two for Democrat candidates down ticket, one specifically in a congressional race here in New Jersey:

A top Obama campaign adviser is taking sides in a member-versus-member primary in New Jersey, with senior adviser David Axelrod set to campaign for Rep. Steve Rothman (D-N.J.), according to a national Democratic aide.

Rothman faces Rep. Bill Pascrell in a North Jersey district that was merged by redistricting.

[…]

Bill Clinton endorsed Pascrell this month, making this race the seventh in which he has supported a Hillary-endorsing candidate against an Obama backer.

The Pascrell campaign thinks so highly of Clinton, he made it to their latest campaign ad:

For what it’s worth, Pascrell’s district is a predominantly middle class, blue collar constituency, whereas Rothman’s former district included a sizable portion of the more affluent Bergen County which is closer to Manhattan, consisting of upper-middle class NYC commuters, and a growing immigrant population. Demographically, there’s a noticeable difference between the two, but both districts are solid blue Democrat.

And then there’s this–a source I know with knowledge of the Pascrell campaign implied that there was a financial strain on both camps because of the redistricting fight, but acknowledged the Pascrell got “a boost from the Clinton endorsement,” adding “…[Clinton’s] favorables are much better than Obama, even in the cities.”

The primary’s on June 5th, and I’m thinking Pascrell wins the district, based on the demographics I mentioned and it could very well be that the Clinton endorsement puts him over the top. I’d be interested to see how the other Obama vs Clinton endorsements in other CDs go, and I’m sure the Obama campaign will be keeping an eye on that as well.

The great Nor’easter of 2011

Okay, 2011 has seen many “great” storms, including the blizzards earlier in the year.  But yesterday’s storm dumped about 3-4 inches of global warming onto central Jersey, and today was just warm enough to melt most of it away, creating miles of heavy, wet slush throughout the area.  My friends and family in Northern Jersey were the hardest hit however, with over 6 inches in most areas (and over a foot in Sussex County). 

With one of the earliest snowstorms on record (early being late October), piling snow onto trees which are still laden with leaves, which have only just recently begun to turn, the biggest danger we’ve had has been snapping trees and tree branches.   Thanks to that, power is out all over the state. 

During the warmer months, and into the fall, and before after daylight savings time, I usually forgo the gym for walking and hiking.  I really enjoy the seclusion and austerity of an hour-or-so walk.   Roosevelt Park is somewhat close to my home and one of its great features is a 3+ mile hiking trail, which includes a paved walkway for about a quarter of the trail, and forest trails for the remainder.

This morning I bundled up to take a walk in the brisk post-storm air (sunny and upper 40s most of the day today) to find that the Nor’easter did a job on the trail that would make any landscaper proud.   The trail already took a hit with Hurricane Irene this past August, and now even more damage was done.   I took some photos with my iPhone. 

Upon entering the trail:

Amazing how this happened:

In the following shot, you can see a stream.  Up until August, you couldn’t see it from the the trail path.   After Irene, it was partially visible.  This morning, it’s in plain sight:

More ruined trees:

Finally, you can’t make it out to well, but here is significant damage to the trail which all but blocked the path:

Obama: You need me to increase your dependence on the government

The Occupier-In-Chief:

At a million-dollar San Francisco fundraiser today, President Obama warned his recession-battered supporters that if he loses the 2012 election it could herald a new, painful era of self-reliance in America.

“The one thing that we absolutely know for sure is that if we don’t work even harder than we did in 2008, then we’re going to have a government that tells the American people, ‘you are on your own,’” Obama told a crowd of 200 donors over lunch at the W Hotel.

“If you get sick, you’re on your own. If you can’t afford college, you’re on your own. If you don’t like that some corporation is polluting your air or the air that your child breathes, then you’re on your own,” he said. “That’s not the America I believe in. It’s not the America you believe in.”

You really don’t need to read any more to confirm that Barack Obama, the career community organizer, is just fine with Occupy Wall Street’s collective stamping of the feet.  In fact, Obama has lifted the bar for populist rhetoric the past few weeks, offering student loan “relief” for college students (who have a big presence at the OWS clown parades) among other hand-outs and free passes to various freeloaders, in a pathetic attempt to buy votes.

Moreover, this is the kind of rhetoric that is red meat to the OWS crowd, and the overall base of the radical Democrat party.  The politics of entitlement and dependence  is a powerful opiate and will be tough for Republicans to overcome.

Indeed the Democrat fringe has used that weapon to enslave generations of blacks and minorities in a ruinous cycle of dependence.  Republicans need to pound the message home about alternatives, and to point out these blatant truisms of the Democrat party.

Barack Obama in a nutshell

Monty over at Ace of Spades put up his daily Doom post earlier, as he does each and every weekday morning.  It’s well worth checking out for your daily fix of financial/economic misery.

As part of today’s lineup, he writes this sentence which stuck out to me and which succinctly sums up Barack Obama, the man and his career:

 Obama isn’t trying to solve the problem at hand, but he wants to appear to be solving it.

To that I will add that this is all done to further his and his party’s goals of exponentially inflating the size of government.  Plain and simple.

Harry Reid: Private sector employment is ‘fine’

The irresponsible leader of the irresponsible Democrat majority in the US Senate:

James Sherk clarifies:

Senator Reid is not just mistaken; he has his facts exactly backwards. If the recession has barely touched one sector of the economy, it is government. Since the recession began in December 2007 the private sector shed 6.3 million net jobs, while government payrolls are down by just 392,000.

That amounts to a 5.4 percent drop in private sector employment, while government employment has slipped only one-third as much (1.8 percent). Education-related government jobs have fallen even less, down 1.4 percent.

The majority of the American unemployed, those not employed by the public sector, will be glad to know that their Senate leaders are completely clueless about what’s going on in the real world.

More on Steve Jobs

He left a personal fortune of approximately $6 billion and, interestingly, the bulk of his net worth was not in Apple, but rather his holdings of Disney and Pixar.

And, he appeared to be a relatively practical individual:

Jobs did not part with money easily, as he showed in June when he rejected a Cupertino City Council request for something extra for approving Apple’s new headquarters.

City council member Kris Wang jokingly asked the mogul at the time, “Do we get free Wi-Fi or something like that?”

Jobs replied, “Well, see, I’m a simpleton. I’ve always had this view that we pay taxes and the city should do those things.”

Democrats have their Wall Street cake, and eat it too.

This is certainly not surprising to learn, but it is amazing that Democrats are always this brazen about their hypocrisy:

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) said taking money from a group doesn’t equate to supporting them. “It’s what you fight for and how you vote, it always has been,” Kerry said in a recent interview. “It’s hard to run for office and not have somebody in some sector or some industry have contributed to you; but the question is, are you voting commonsense and values and for the interests of the people, broadly?”

See?  It’s ok to pander for money from greedy, Wall Street 1%-types, who, say some OWS clowns, should be executed, and throw them under the bus while on the campaign trail at the same time.

It’s also OK for Senator Kerry to dock his boat in Rhode Island to avoid his state’s onerous luxury yacht taxes.  It’s all for the betterment of Massachusetts voters, and Americans in general.   So, when will you ignorant Tea Partiers stop being such rubes?

Remembering Steve Jobs

I’m still sifting through all of the remembrances and recollections about Steve Jobs since his passing last week, and here’s a bit of one that stuck out:

One of Jobs’s many gifts was that he knew what to give a shit about. He knew how to focus and prioritize his time and attention.

That would strike me as being true about most successful entrepreneurs and innovators.

This past weekend, I made a trip to the Berkshire mountains in western Massachusetts to take advantage of the long weekend, so I kind of unplugged myself from everything and tried to relax.

Yesterday, the Steve Jobs news really hit me upon waking into a Barnes & Noble, with all of this week’s news magazines were on the racks, with several of them featuring Jobs’ likeness on their covers.

Long weekend time

It’s a three day weekend, so me and the signifcant other are packing up the car and headed to western Massachusetts, the Berkshires to be exact.  As of right now, we should be driving up I-95. 

Normally it’s supposed to be in the 50-60 degree range up there, but this weekend is supposed to be sunny and unusually warm–more like low 70s.  Hopefully, I can get to relax and recharge from an anxious, stressful few weeks.   And some nice New England foliage won’t hurt.  To wit: