WE DO NOT ELECT EMPERORS OR KINGS

If a president intentionally lies in order to get a law passed, is it still a law? Should it be enforceable?  Must we obey it? But wait a minute, you say. What if that law is all about giving health insurance to people who can’t afford to buy their own? Isn’t the end, insurance for poor people, worth the necessary lies to get it passed? In other words, doesn’t the end justify the means even if the means is outright lying? I’ll let you form your own judgement. I have formed mine.

If a president says publicly that even if you are living in the same household as illegal aliens you can go ahead and sign up for Obamacare because nobody in the government will check out the legal status of your housemates. Is there anything wrong with that? If you know that you are living with a person who has committed a crime and you don’t report it, aren’t  you guilty of aiding and abetting crime and harboring criminals? Would it be any different if, for example, the crime was bank robbery, or kidnapping, or arson, or child molestation? In other words, what crimes are really crimes and what crimes are just suggestions? You’ll forgive my ignorance but I thought crime was crime.

What if a president decided that we are just too harsh when it comes to deporting illegal trespassers and that we should be more compassionate? We might be breaking up a family. Often it appears, illegal aliens come here, marry legal citizens, and start families. Should we just look the other way? What’s next? If a person with a wife and children robs a bank, or hijacks a car, or kills somebody, should we just forgive him because we don’t want to break up his family by putting him in prison? In other words, when do we realize that crime is crime? People who break the law should suffer the punishment called for in that law.

I guess what I am asking is this, shouldn’t the President of this country be held as responsible for law breaking as anyone else? Shouldn’t the President be held accountable for what he says just like everybody else is? Where in our book of laws is any government official exempt from the law? The answer is of course, there is no exemption, president, attorney general, or anyone. No one is above the law.  

Over the last several years the office of President has become something other than what I believe our Founders envisioned. It seems our presidents dominate the news every day. I think they see themselves as some sort of royalty and it didn’t start with this President, it has just dramatically increased recently. The so-called mainstream media serves to add to all the pomp.

We the people need to put government officials back in their place. We do not elect emperors or kings. Presidents do not make laws and they also do not get a pass when they break laws. All government employees from the President on down need to be held accountable for their violations of the law regardless of their positions. Media outlets who cover for lawbreakers are aiding and abetting illegal activity and they too should be held accountable. All would-be emperors and kings and liars in general need not apply when it comes to leadership positions in America. Frankly we’ve had enough.

Ron Scarbro

AFTER MARCH 31, WHAT THEN?

Let’s see now if I have this straight. About four million people have signed up for Obamacare but no one seems to know how many have actually paid. The original  goal by March 31st was eight million. That was changed to seven million, then six million, and now they will be lucky if they get five million and who knows how many of those will actually pay their premium. In the meantime approximately six million existing policies have been cancelled because they don’t measure up to ACA requirements.

Initially the Administration said they needed a large majority of the signups to be young healthy individuals, but that isn’t happening. Estimates are somewhere around twenty-five percent. These are not good numbers. Let’s face it. This whole deal is an unmitigated disaster. It is no wonder that Kathleen Sebelius is trying to hide the numbers. If I were in charge of this mess I would try to hide them too.

One of the big problems with all this is Democrats cannot run from it. They and they alone caused it and they and they alone are responsible for it. There will be no place to hide. No amount of spin is going to fix this mess.

So if you are a Democrat and you want to win an election, what do you do? What if you are an incumbent and you want to run for reelection, what do you do? Do you run as a supporter of Obamacare? Do you brag that you voted for this turkey? Do you invite Obama to your district to campaign for you? Far be it from me to offer help to the Democrats, but to all of the above, I think I would just say no. President Obama and his programs have become a boat anchor to the Democrat party. The smart ones will run in the opposite direction.

Another big problem for the country is that Obama surely knows his days are numbered. He has to know that after this midterm election, he will not have a supportive Congress to rubber stamp his programs. So he has apparently decided to “use his pen” to enact legislation and get what he wants. I am sure he believes the Democrat Senate will let him get away with it. I offer this bit of caution to the Democrats however. Be very careful. Just look at what this blind approval has already caused.

 

True to his word, Obama promised to fundamentally change America and change it he has. Now it will take years to fix the mess he has created.

When Obamacare was first introduced there were supposedly some thirty million uninsured people in this country. Now, with the number of signups and the number of cancellations, the problem is only worse.

Today if a gang banger in  any major city gets shot or stabbed will he go to the emergency ward and be treated? Do you really think he will have insurance? Will the illegal alien who has an accident while driving on our highways without a license be treated? Will he have insurance? How about all the others who refuse to buy insurance protection, will they get treatment? Of course they will and nothing that has happened will change that.

All of the drama caused by Obamacare is so unnecessary. The fundamental change offered by Obama is also unnecessary. Granted, the medical industry in this country needs reform. Obamacare isn’t the answer. After March 31, what then?

Ron Scarbro

THE FACTS WILL COME OUT

So Lois Lerner refuses to testify before the Congressional Committee. Are you surprised? I’m not. It has been reported that she has had death threats. Again I am not surprised. I actually kinda feel sorry for her. She is on the horns of a dilemma.

Let us consider what her dilemma might be. First she is not smart enough or, for that matter, stupid enough to pull off the situation she is accused of causing. Using an agency of our government to abuse any special interest group is dangerous to say the least. To pull this off requires more horsepower than she possessed. No, she had to have high powered help from the White House calling the shots. This brings up dilemma number two. The people she is covering for could make her life very uncomfortable if they chose to. All she has to do is keep her mouth shut, draw her sizable pension, and stay out of sight.

That would be doable if only the Congress would just leave her alone. But they apparently didn’t get the memo. Congressman Issa seems intent on getting to the bottom of this issue. If that is true, the next thing on the agenda is a grant of immunity for her testimony which would then render her claim of Fifth Amendment protection mute. Contempt of Congress would be the least of her worries. She could be facing serious jail time along with the people who got her into this regardless of the positions of those people.

All we need now is for the Congress to do the job we pay them to do. Not only does the House pay the bill for all government agencies, they also have the job of oversight. That includes insuring the IRS, or any government agency for that matter, obey the rules. The American people have the right to expect honesty from all agencies of our government. We also have the right to expect the Congress to do their job. Obama’s assertion that this is just another phony scandal is reminiscent of Clinton’s “move on” strategy. This administration seems intent on changing the subject. After all, it has worked in the past, so why not? We, the American people, will not let this just go away.

I believe the vast majority of IRS employees are honest, honorable, and capable. The IRS is necessary for our system of government to work. The bills have to be paid. If any employee of any government agency compromises that agency, we have a huge problem. The IRS is autonomous, therefore they absolutely have to be above reproach. As a country we absolutely cannot and will not allow malfeasance in our agencies to go unpunished nor can we allow any refusal to answer questions, period.  

These so called “phony scandals” are not going away. Benghazi, NSA spying, gun giveaways to Mexican Cartels and IRS cheating are real and they will be solved. Obama’s intent is to ignore them and hope they disappear. Well, sorry, but that isn’t going to happen. Today I think his biggest fear is that he will indeed lose the Senate to the Republicans and that they will retain the House thereby eliminating his built in protection.

I don’t know about you, but I am tired of this dishonesty. I want answers. I want guilty people prosecuted. I want the media to quit acting like lap dogs for this administration and be diligent in seeking truth. We are not a third world dictatorship. We elect our representatives and we can get rid of them. The facts will come out, and the sooner the better.

Ron Scarbro

IS IT AN ACCIDENT OR JUST ACCIDENTAL SUICIDE?

I remember when I first heard about drugs. I’m not talking about the drugs your doctor administers when you are sick, but instead the drugs that are sold on the streets and shot up in dark alleys and flop houses. Understand, this was the fifties and drugs had not become the huge problem they are today. I was naive, of course. It occurred to me that only a moron would give themselves a shot when they didn’t have to. I thought nobody was that stupid. Well I was wrong. It turns out that many, many people are that stupid.

Like you I have had a lot of injections. That’s what the medical profession prefers to call shots. I have had injections for sickness as well as when I traveled to Europe and to Asia, and now regularly for flu and other maladies. I cannot say that there was ever a time when I enjoyed an injection. I feel sorry for those people who must give themselves injections for diabetes and other diseases.

But this column is not about the drugs that are legally administered. This column is about the illegal drugs that are a cancer on our society. Just recently actor Philip Seymour Hoffman died with a needle in his arm on his bathroom floor. Today, as I write this piece, the coroner has ruled his death as accidental. I have a few questions.

I doubt that Hoffman intended to take his life on that particular evening. In fact he had probably given himself that same combination of drugs before and gotten away with it. But he, along with countless others who have experimented with illegal drugs, died because of their actions. My question is, is this really accidental?  Really? An accidental death caused by an accidental overdose of illegal drugs? Time and again we hear of people who have died because of their dependence on illegal drugs. Are these accidents? Or are these just a way that nature adjusts the gene pool and culls out those who would further weaken the pool?

In the so-called “lesser animal kingdom,” when a particular animal doesn’t conform to the realities of their breed, they are often culled by their peers or just by nature herself. An example is the occasional albino animal who doesn’t survive primarily because of their inability to camouflage themselves. Nature deals with these abnormalities in a harsh but effective way. Such is life.

Did Marilyn Monroe die of an accidental overdose? How about Janis Joplin or Jimi Hendrix, or so many of the others who took themselves out at very young ages? Were these all accidents?

I doubt that any one of them ever was forced to stick a needle in their arms and inject the poison that was bought on the street from who knows whom. So, when they do, is this an accident or is it just accidental suicide?

I feel sorry for their loved ones and their fans. I feel sorry for the families they leave behind. I feel sorry for those who try to understand what went wrong. I even feel sorry for a coroner who must try to determine a cause of death. Is this an accident or is it just suicide? And what is the responsibility of the drug dealer who sold the drugs to these people? Did he commit murder? Yes, I do indeed have questions.   

Some are “hooked” they say. They can’t help themselves. Sadly, for all of them, it is just a matter of time before they join all the others who “couldn’t help themselves.” The rest of us will be left with the mess to clean up. We will watch as nature cleanses her gene pool. It just doesn’t seem like an accident to me.

Ron Scarbro