Friendly Advice to Enemies: Go Home

It is necessary to identify and even name the nation’s enemies.
There are more than a few.

This Bill Whittle video appeared at YouTube on September 26th and has already had 14,453 views, 793 likes and 19 dislikes.

The suggestion at the end of the video that President Obama and Senator McCain “go home” is a good one. However, the video is a useful metaphor in other areas too.

Internationally

Having a strong, well led, well motivated and well equipped military can often make it unnecessary to use it to kill people and break things. We have a weak President, ill focused and unprepared to deal with our enemies — or even to recognize who they are. Should that make it necessary for our military to engage with them, it will have to do so in ways that allow the enemy to kill more people and to break more things than our guys do. Our military currently seems more focused on political correctness and Islamist-friendly rules of engagement than on engaging with and defeating our enemies. In consequence, our military is becoming weaker while our enemies are becoming, at least comparatively and maybe even absolutely, stronger.

Domestically

ObamaCare. The big deal now is the battle between President Obama (along with His minions) and “Racist Republican Terrorists” in the House of Representatives, who are said to want to precipitate a (partial) Government shutdown by defunding or otherwise defeating ObamaCare. They do not want to precipitate even a partial shutdown and have offered a new plan to avoid it:

(WASHINGTON) — The Associated Press has learned that House Republicans will unveil a new bill for preventing a government shutdown on Tuesday that would also delay implementing the rest of President Barack Obama’s health care law for one year.

Republican Rep. Devin Nunes of California told the AP that the new bill also would repeal a new tax on medical devices in the Affordable Care Act. Republicans also will try to pass a bill that would get paychecks to members of the military on time if a shutdown occurs.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said the Senate will not pass any bill keeping the government open past Monday that would alter the health care law. [Emphasis added.]

The House voted

to repeal the medical device tax while funding the rest of government was 248-174, with 17 Democrats joining the GOP — a vote that could signal a potential bipartisan area of agreement. But Mr. Reid has sent his fellow senators home and told them not to return until Monday afternoon, with just 10 hours to go before the midnight deadline for passing a bill.

The full one-year delay of the Affordable Care Act also passed on a 231-192 vote, with two lawmakers on each side defecting.

President Obama again promised to veto the bill should it reach His desk. At least Senator McCain, a strong Republican conservative RINO, had already conceded defeat to his betters, the Democrats.

“I’d remind my colleagues that in the 2012 election, ObamaCare … was a subject that was a major issue in the campaign. … Well, the People spoke… and they reelected the president of the United States. Now that doesn’t mean we give up our efforts to try to replace and repair ObamaCare. But it does mean that elections have consequences, and those elections were clear … a majority of the American people supported the president of the United States… I think all of us should respect the outcome of elections, which reflects the will of the People.” [Emphasis added.]

I hadn’t realized that ObamaCare “was a major issue” during the 2012 election campaign. I had thought that Governor Romney’s embrace of RomneyCare for Massachusetts had substantially foreclosed the issue of ObamaCare. Silly me. Damn! Those other intransigent, obstructionist, racist terrorists just won’t give peace ObamaCare a chance. It’s the Law of the Land and they are un-American, according to Huff and Puff. 

The Constitution does an admirable job of describing the way our government is supposed to operate, and nowhere does it say the House of Representatives has the power to shut it down in order to revoke a law that displeases it. In fact, it makes it clear that this is not how our system works.

. . . .

The Constitution doesn’t give the House that kind of unilateral power. It does, however, include these words: “The Senators and Representatives before mentioned … and all executive and judicial Officers … shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution.”

What the Republicans are attempting to do is, therefore, both un-Constitutional and a violation of their own sworn promise — an oath sworn on the Bible they claim to revere. Their consciences must decide whether their behavior is un-Godly, but the Constitution they swore to uphold makes it pretty plain that it’s un-American. [Emphasis added.]

Thus spake Huff and Puff. How dare they try, selfishly and “unconstitutionally,” to apply some brakes to avoid the approaching train wreck which is ObamaCare! 

As of this writing that video, Posted on September 27th, has had 114,555 views, 1,798 likes and 45 dislikes. The people who hit the “like” button must not have received this important memo from President Obama (it arrived in my Spam pile on September 28th).

From: Barack Obama
Subject: I want to make sure this message gets through:

Friend —

Right now, the hard work we’ve put in to get our economy back on track is at risk. And there’s only one reason for it: A group of far-right Republicans in Congress is obsessed with making an ideological point.

The horror of it! For shame!

They refuse to pass a budget unless I let them sabotage Obamacare, something they know is not going to happen. Now, we’re left with only four days before a government shutdown.

This is reckless and irresponsible. Republicans are not focused on what’s best for you. They’re playing political games.

I called House Speaker John Boehner the other night to tell him that Americans like you have worked too long and too hard to dig our nation out of the financial crisis, and the last thing we need is for Washington to manufacture another.

I want to make sure that message gets through. Add your voice — remind Speaker Boehner that Congress has a job to do.

Passing a budget is the most basic duty the Constitution gives to Congress.

Congress needs to hear from the people who sent them to Washington.

As we get closer to the September 30th deadline, that might mean picking up the phone, getting the facts out to friends on social media, or showing up at your local congressional office. OFA will be asking a lot of you, and I hope you’ll get involved.

Start today by telling Speaker Boehner that Congress must come together to pass a budget:

http://my.barackobama.com/Pass-a-Budget

Thank you,

Barack

President Obama, apparently known to His friends as “Barack,” will not negotiate with “Terrorists,” although He is pleased to do so with currently “moderate” Iran. Perhaps having had His posterior handed to Him by Russia’s Putin and having been cowed by Iran’s Rouhani, He feels compelled to present Himself as a forceful leader domestically.

Presumably, conservative “Terrorists” would prefer a straight repeal of ObamaCare, but that is not going to happen with President Obama in the White House and a Democrat majority (with or without help from RINOs) in the Senate.

Senator Cruz might have been the U.S. fighter pilot in the Raptor who suggested that the Iranian pilot “go home,” except that he didn’t have a scary stealth jet or even a scary stealth plan capable of appearing “out of thin air.” He did, however, have the testicular fortitude to go against the RINO leadership and it presently seems likely that enough of them feel sufficient pressure from their constituents to let the Democrats stick to their scripts and give us a partial showdown shutdown.  

Will many members of the public notice the shutdown, beyond hearing in the ObamaMedia about the horrors caused by partisan Republican ideologues? Not many.

[C]ritical services like patrolling the borders, inspecting meat and controlling air traffic would continue. Social Security benefits would be sent and the Medicare and Medicaid health care programs for the elderly and poor would continue to pay doctors and hospitals.

Aside from “non essential” Federal Government workers, few will be touched. It should be interesting to see how many Federal employees are “essential,” to what. Alas, the less than “essential” Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) may find itself temporarily shuttered.

The Environmental Protection Administration would essentially be closed to most of its approximately 17,000 employees, except for those involved in shutting down systems, tasked with emergency cleanups, or doing legal work in ongoing federal cases, said John O’Grady, president of the local union of EPA employees in Chicago.

Can the nation survive a tragedy of that magnitude? It’s probably best to stop breathing (or at least to wear a gas mask) and to drink no water. However, beer and other adult beverages should still be safe; we may find them essential while trying to endure ObamaMedia pontifications.

Daycare centers operating in Federal agencies will apparently continue functioning, sort of.

While the daycares that operate within federal businesses are expected to remain open in the event of a shutdown, fewer children will be attending, and the loss of revenue could cause some of them to close.

And, of course, ObamaCare will march ever forward.

The health care act would continue its implementation process during a shutdown because its funds aren’t dependent on the congressional budget process.

Debt Ceiling. Next up in the Congress are the debt ceiling and another partial Government shutdown if the roof is not raised to permit the Government to continue borrowing more money than it needs for legitimate purposes. Apparently, more is (again) necessary than the customary budgetary slights of hand.

This is Fun!

The ceiling has “only” been raised seven times during the Reign of Obama, and those increases have amounted cumulatively to “only” $43,000 per U.S. household. That must be no big deal, so why not do it again?

President Obama has said that He will not negotiate on raising the roof again, either. According to one of His senior advisers, Dan Pfieffer,

What we’re not for is negotiating with people with a bomb strapped to their chest. We’re not going to do that… Republicans are not asking for a negotiation. It’s a negotiation if I’m trying to sell you my house, and we are debating the price of it. It’s not a negotiation if I show up at your house and say, ‘Give me everything inside or I’m going to burn it down.’… Republicans have provided a laundry list of essentially ransom demands of things that were essentially the Romney agenda that voters rejected.

The Obama Administration — a model of fairness, decency, common sense, transparency and collegiality — won’t negotiate with a bunch of nut cases. Israel, on the other hand, has been forced to cave in to “negotiate” with the PLO and the Obama Administration is negotiating with charming, moderate Iran. Those negotiations deal only with trivia, such as the survival of Israel and which Islamist nut cases in the Middle East will have nuclear weaponry first. There seems to be rather less than symmetry, but maybe the (few) conservatives in the Congress should threaten to nuke Israel (maybe Kenya?) or to do something else that might garner respect from the Obama Administration. Then, they can become “moderates” so that He will negotiate with them. Yeah, sure. That might work. This might be better.