Fundamental Change

            What scares me the most about a second term for President Obama is the very real possibility that our Constitution will be shredded permanently.

            I don't know why Congress has not objected more vociferously to the Obama executive orders that violate established laws. And I don't understand why this is not a major campaign issue.
            Exhibit One: No Child Left Behind. Obama waived provisions of the law that he didn't like, effectively making enforcement of this law arbitrary.
            Exhibit Two: Obamacare. The president waived certain requirements of the law for hundreds of favored businesses and groups, especially labor unions.
            Exhibit Three: Immigration. Having been rebuffed in his attempt to grant amnesty to illegals,  Obama created a new class of illegal immigrants who could stay in this country legally and permanently.
            Exhibit Four: Welfare. President Obama decided that the law's work requirement no longer applied to recipients of welfare. You can sit on the couch for as long as you like.
            One might argue that taken individually none of the executive orders are calamitous. But taken together they point to a fundamental change in the way we govern ourselves. In the words of Thomas Sowell, "When a President can ignore plain language of duly passed laws, and substitute his own executive orders, we no longer have 'a government of laws and not of men' but a President ruling by decree, like the dictator in some banana republic." Indeed, we would no longer be a free people who choose the laws we want to live under.
            Why is the next election so important? Because the next president will probably appoint two Supreme Court justices. A 5-4 liberal majority would no doubt rule that Obama has the constitutional right to circumvent any law through executive order. And that would be the end of the fundamental principle underlying the balance of power in our three co-equal branches of government. Congress would be toothless, and Obama would become the dictator he has always aspired to be.
            In my view, Barack Obama is committing an impeachable offense by systematically and repeatedly violating his oath of office to faithfully execute the laws passed, and not just the ones he agrees with. Yet, Congress remains quiet, oblivious to the pain of having its teeth pulled one by one.
            Candidate Obama did promise us a fundamental change, didn't he? Well, here it is.

           

Lies and More Lies

            Is it any wonder people keep the media in such low esteem. The announcement of Paul Ryan as Romney's choice was met with an immediate trashing by TV pundits and newspaper editorials. Now, I don't mind others having a position on issues. What I do mind is parroting outrageous lies without questioning their veracity.

            Exhibit One: My daily paper, The Virginian-Pilot wasted no time in publishing a Herblock cartoon portraying Paul Ryan as a person who would end Medicare.
            Exhibit Two: On 8/16 it published a vicious slander from the pen of longtime leftist icon Maureen Dodd of the New York Times. After slicing and dicing Ryan with her acerbic tongue, she concludes in her inimitable fashion, "Ryan should stop being so lovable. People who intend to hurt other people should wipe the smile off their faces." How gifted is Ms. Dowd in being able to divine another person's malevolent intentions!
            Exhibit Three: A short letter to the editor from a Virginia Beach moron who declared his decision to vote for Obama because "Ryan wants to cut all entitlements for the middle class and elderly, including Social Security and Medicare." This is the kind of guy who would have drunk Jim Jones's Kool-Aid, no questions asked.
            Why do people buy into the outrageous lies spewing from Obama's campaign headquarters? On Medicare alone, any person with an ounce of critical thinking would know by now that Ryan's plan would preserve Medicare as is for anyone 55 and over and that Obama's plan would take over $700 billion from Medicare to fund Obamacare. But repeat lies loudly and often enough and some people will swallow them whole.
            Because he cannot run on his record of failure, the only strategy left to Obama is a smear campaign  featuring  lies accusing Romney of being a felon, not paying income taxes, poisoning children, murdering women, and now, according to Vice-President Biden, putting blacks back in chains. These reckless, unsubstantiated accusations are McCarthyism at its worst, and none of them have been repudiated by the president. To update South Dakota Senator Karl Mundt's question at the McCarthy hearings:
            Have you no sense of decency, Mr. President?

I Remember

            Obituaries on August 14 celebrated the lives of two people I knew and admired.

            The first was Johnny Pesky, the veritable icon of the Boston Red Sox. I started following the Red Sox in 1948 when Pesky was the Sox third baseman and continued admiring him as he became coach, manager, and all-around ambassador for the team he loved. After admiring him for sixty plus years, I felt I knew him. I especially remember the time the Red Sox were staying in Detroit's Pontchartrain Hotel, as I was, and Pesky was entertaining a group of younger players in the lobby with stories of Ted Williams and Bobby Doerr and the glory days of the 40s and 50's. I stood and listened in awe. He was a truly special baseball man and an even better person. He will be missed.
            The other was Helen Gurley Brown who revolutionized women's magazines during her years as editor of Cosmopolitan Magazine. I knew Helen personally while working for Hearst Magazines in the 70s. Even though she was a fabulous success and a great star in the magazine world, she was a lovely person who cared for and appreciated every person around her. I was one of those people.
            One morning in 1970 Kate MIllett and a band of feminist extremists moved in and occupied Helen's office at the corner of 57th Street and Broadway in protest of an article in Cosmopolitan they had found offensive. Hearst Magazines President Dick Deems burst into my office and asked me and a co-worker to get over to Helen's office to take control of the situation. My colleague went up to her office, but I stayed outside the building's entrance, because Deems had said that Helen had not arrived yet and, for her safety, should not be allowed upstairs.
            Sure enough, I caught sight of her heading in my direction along 57th Street. I hurried over to her, swung her around, and told her she shouldn't go to her office because of the occupiers. While I was explaining the situation to her, we realized we were being followed closely by a rather large woman who had been posted at the building's entrance, ostensibly watching for Helen as I had been. Reacting to the threat, Helen took us into a building on the corner of 57th and 7th Avenue where, she said, she knew the people at the MCI radio station on the third floor. The tail followed us into the elevator and stood behind us as we rode up.
            The elevator doors opened to MCI's floor, and Helen walked out into a mass of people, including several New York City police officers. I found out later that the police were there to provide protection for a Saudi prince who was being interviewed on radio. Perfect. I blocked  the tail to prevent her from following Helen. The doors closed. Helen was safe, and the threat fizzled.
            The next day Helen's secretary came to my office with a package for me. In it was a bottle of wine and a note. It said, "To my favorite bodyguard. Helen." She had not forgotten.
            Neither have I.

Maine Cuts Medicaid

            Some news items just don't seem to get the coverage they deserve. At the very bottom of page 2 in the 8/2/12 edition of the Wall Street Journal was a short piece by Christopher Weaver that really grabbed my attention. In it, Weaver says that the state of Maine has moved to strip about 30,000  Medicaid patients from its state-run health program.

            That is stunning news. It seems that the Supreme Court's June ruling on Medicaid might have released states from the law's ban on striking current Medicaid enrollees. The article suggests that other states have taken notice and are planning similar cuts.
            Why is this big news? Because one of the reasons Medicaid has become such a budget buster is that its rolls are inflated with hundreds of thousands of recipients who shouldn't be there. We're not talking about removing the safety net for children or the indigent. Nobody is arguing for them to be bumped off the rolls. On the other hand, Maine is targeting some people, for example, who earn up to 133% of the poverty line. That's just about $30,000 a year for a family of four. Should the safety net really be meant for them?
            There's more. Under Obamacare, an estimated 30 million people who  claim they can't afford medical insurance would be added to the Medicaid rolls. And that's in addition to the ones already on Medicaid. Remember when  Obama promised that costs wouldn't go up? It's no wonder states are refusing to take them on.
            Maine's move is being challenged, of course, by Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services. The nanny of HHS, like her boss, has no interest in seeing a reduction in the number of people who are dependent on the government.
            Heck. Adding another trillion or two to the federal deficit is no problem... Just as long as the people who are happy being slaves to the government continue to vote.

Palestinian Culture

            During his visit to Israel, Mitt Romney attributed the backwardness of Palestinians to their culture. For that, he was branded a racist by his critics. But did he have a point? Instead of a personal attack on Romney's character, the discussion should be on the merits of the issue.

            Romney certainly has a point when you look at the huge differences in material and economic success in Palestine and Israel. A case can be made for blaming Palestinian lack of success on the Palestinian culture of repression, corruption, and terrorism. But is that really "culture" in the traditional sense?
            Webster defines culture as "the totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought characteristic of a community or population." In that sense, Palestine culture is dominated by Islam. Is Islam, therefore, the cause of Palestinian failure? Is Judaism the key to Israel's success? In either case, I think the answer is both yes and no. The key to success or lack of it is, in my view, not just cultural, but also political.
            Turkey is perhaps the most successful Islamic country in the Middle East. It is governed by a secular regime that does not let religious beliefs interfere with economic policy or democratic institutions. Unfortunately, it is quite alone in that respect.
            In the last two years Islamic countries of the Middle East and North Africa have been swept by political revolution. The so-called Arab Spring has seen despots ousted from power in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Iraq. Syria is not far behind. It's not clear, however, that despotism is being replaced by something better. Western hopes for the emergence of democracies are not likely to be realized everywhere, if anywhere at all. Instead, we will probably see Islamists grab control, and Islamists have not proven to be terribly fond of democracies. But at least there's a chance that they will adopt some democratic institutions to mitigate the effects of Islamic thought and practice.
            Palestine is a different story. There the government is dominated by Hezbollah whose sole, all-encompassing motivation is the extinction of Israel. As clients of Iran, Palestinians are controlled by jihadists who use terrorism as their principal method of advancement. This is not culture: it is madness. And as long as this madness persists, Palestinians can never hope to achieve the success of Israel, the only true democracy in the region.
            We are now faced with terrible questions. Will Israel strike Iran? If it does, as is increasingly likely, will the Islamists who have newly come to power stand with Tehran or will they stand aside? Will the United States, with a president who has openly declared his Islamic faith and is irresolute in the face of Iranian threats,  back Israel?
            I fear we will know the answer. And it won't be before very long.