OPINION – A disgruntled reader recently emailed me saying that I was a lame-brained ignoramus for not supporting Obamacare. The email went on to say that my time would be better spent informing the public about the discrepancy in pay between men and women for “like” work rather than lambasting our president.
I am not sure where I stand on equal pay for like work, but this much I do know: Worrying about equal pay more than Obamacare is tantamount to wanting to rearrange the patio furniture on the Titanic right after she hit the iceberg. Do we really want our health care system run by the same people who brought us Amtrak, the U.S. Post Office, and the current budget fiasco?
It took some old fashioned Chicago style arm twisting to get Obamacare made law in the first place, but it was a ruling by the Supreme Court that sealed the fate of Obamacare through a technicality … by calling it a tax under the “Commerce” Clause.
Here is the question I now have for you: If you call the tail of a horse a leg, then how many legs does a horse have? The answer of course is that a horse has four legs … just because you call the tail a leg doesn’t change the fact that a horse only has four legs. Oh, that the “Supremes” could have been so wise.
Those voting against Obamacare on the day it was passed included 100 percent of the Republicans, plus roughly 34 other members of congress. Hours after Obamacare was passed our president proudly declared: “This is what change looks like.”
Personally, I would prefer to keep our freedoms and let Obama keep the change.
Republicans and numerous other residents of Capitol Hill are still upset about the wrangling that brought us Obamacare. This explains the current budget impasse. Those who have been against Obamacare since Day One are using the same type of tactics to kill it that those in favor of Obamacare used to make it law in the first place … a technicality.
In the course of not passing a budget bill, the powers that be on Capitol Hill have inadvertently shown us how foolish our government can be. Take, for example, the World War II memorial in Washington D.C. that tried to keep out elderly WWII veterans that came to visit. Closing the memorial to the public required a greater mobilization of government workers than was required to keep it open as it is an unguarded, open-air memorial. Who is running our National Park Service anyway? Barney Fife?
This leads me to believe that there must be a top-secret government agency somewhere that is in charge of making moronic plans to get people to think we need federal employees more than we really do. Try to picture the following conversation between two fictional government workers by the name of Nancy and Harry who are trying to make our lives miserable in an effort to save Obamacare during the current budget impasse.
Nancy: I just had a great idea. Let’s shut down all national parks to make the general public miserable during the budget impasse!
Harry: Great idea! We can also turn off all of the websites to the national parks and redirect them to the Department of the Interior.
Nancy: That’s pure genius, but don’t you think the public will wonder why one government site is up and the other down?
Harry: Nah, the general public is a bunch of trusting nitwits.
Nancy: I just had another fun idea. Let’s tell everyone that we have to shut down the internet!
Harry: But we don’t run the internet do we?
Nancy: Sure we do. It was invented by the same Democrat that invented carbon credits. How do you feel about telling people that there will be no Social Security checks this month?
Harry: Great idea! Then to add insult to injury let’s give ourselves a raise!
Nancy: Bravo! I don’t understand why we haven’t been promoted to IRS auditors already. This is FUN!!!
Harry: You think this is fun, just wait until we get to the debt ceiling impasse.
We have a big problem in this country. We keep electing the same people, expecting to see a change. It turns out that everyone believes that the senators and congressmen from other states need to be replaced but never their own. We are lucky to have good representation …. It’s California and Nevada that have elected buffoons.
John Carter is temporarily stepping in for his daughter, Elise Haynes, as she deals with the wonders and glories of moving. Carter is a well known radio personality who co-hosts the morning show with Marty Lane on 97.7 Big Classic Country (our sympathies to Marty Lane). He is also known to throw on a good ole country-western dance party and is far too easily amused by lousy George Takai impersonations.
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Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2013, all rights reserved.
John Carter has just ruined his daughter’s reputation on this site. Instead of amusing stories about family or everyday life (she once wrote about Twinkies, didn’t she?), he has gone overboard with partisan political talking points and hyperbole. Twice!
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“Well known radio personality” or not, Mr. Carter did not keep the column true to its roots. Sort of like Mark Levin taking over for Erma Bombeck.
John Carter’s opinion is a distillation of every bad Republican piece of dogma and propaganda that he
can find. Typical of Utah Mormon Republicanism brainwashed to the core. It hates and kills anything
with the opposing party view. Utahans spend hours listening to the hate filled radio stations learning new talking points that have little basis in truth. Or Fox channel TV news , which isn’t “news” but more opinion to stoke the fires of hate, that attack anything that is not Republican. The “Carters” of this State are scared and angry. Anger based on fear of anything new. Fear of losing money, Fear of taxes for the poor. They are the bigots of ‘NO Change” “I got mine” and the rest of you don’t need to bother me. This belief system is so deeply ingrained, so completely established there is nothing else they know, or wish to know. It would be so easy to pick apart Obama and all his failings, all his lies and misconceptions he layed on the electorate when he got in. Mr Obama is just another lawyer that thought he might do some good for about the first 3 weeks in office. Then he found out who really runs the country, and quickly turned into another ‘Bush”. For those of you that haven’t watched closely for the
last 3 decades on both sides of aisle. It doesn’t matter if your republican, democrat, or independent.
It doesn’t matter how much you wave the flag and quote the documents. Because they don’t belong to
you anymore. They belong to “K” street.
I loved Elise’s humor. Too bad John Carter hijacked the column and decided to turn it into a Tea Party blog. I’m out of here.
ObamaCare is NOT about healthcare….it IS about control of people. Plain and simple!
John, I miss your (and Mr Cooper’s) column in the “Neighborhoods” rag. Is there any way both you and Elise can write for stgnews? On another subject, I’m tired of people railing against Fox News without mentioning MSNBC. Same hate, different message.
To P thum it’s not propaganda that he spouted. He’s speaking some truth.
To Phiilipo, what he wrote was pretty spot on. What did he say that didnt make sense?- the parks and monuments dont need to be shut down when they spend billions on things we don’t need, that has been the easiest and clearest things since daygone of the shut down. It’s all to make people think they are pinching pennies. And I’ll say it for him, there is a secret group wanting to make our lives miserable. Oh wait, you nay sayers didnt see that press release that they actually said just do things that effect the daily lives of people and make them. miserable? This is a show and non sense. Wake up.
Truthseeker, it might be helpful to you to understand the process that each government agency goes through to determine which employees to furlough and how to shut down some departments. It is a complicated and non-partisan process. Here are some links that will help.
http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/furlough-guidance/guidance-for-shutdown-furloughs.pdf
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/contingency-plans
PS I would love to see the link to the “press release” that you mentioned in your comment. And don’t bother if it the one from Ted Cruz blaming the Democrats for the shutdown. By now we all know who caused the shutdown and our Mike Lee is his buddy.
To P.Thum…………….Why does the truth hurt so bad? I wonder if you are part of the populace that thinks Obamacare and the Affordable Care Act are different things.
I think that is most of the Republicans in the United States. They like the Affordable Care Act but don’t like Obamacare.
To those that are mad at John Carter for hijacking a normally humorous column, the events of this week beg us to leave humor behind for a moment. This is a time to be serious and act like responsible people. Even if it is momentary for most of you. And to you John Carter, Thank You for not being a sheeple. It is much appreciated by more than one of us.
Karen, it costs more to send security guards and police and barricades and arrest people at the monuments, then it costs to keep it open and let people.walk.it. And the monteary resources it takes for the things they are shutting down costs a fraction of what they spend that we don’t need. It’s political theater. Shut down is a joke in that it’s hyped up in ways to make people think it’s worse than it is and makes it loon like they are pinching pennies. And that’s what the distraction was fo with the wild lady in DC. It puts govt back in favor. Have you ever criticized in thing the government does? II hope you don’t think it’s patriotic to agree with everythng they do. The dangerous to do that. Blind patriotism and nationalism. Dissention is the greatest form of patriotism and criticism is why the country was great. And you read from the “obamacare Julia article” post the thing about blaming one political.party or the other. Or I’ll repost it here.
Tom is right.
PThum. If the truth scares you then that’s what happens when your identity is threatened. The fear mongering is done by every presidential administration on a large scale, and you claim people warning others are a fear monger?…
To Karen, on who’s fault it is. By the way, I’m not a dem or a rep. I don’t kniw much if the Utah representstives but as far as congressman involved, I don’t think it comes down to blaming a political party repeatedly. That makes no sense to me how people do that. I’m not interested in debating little details of who did what.. How about the bigger picture? Both parties are ran by the same people and the populace is stuck in a ridiculous left right paradigm. Blame game, back and forth, as if entertaining certain pointless debates should even be the focus. Spinning our f#!$ing wheels. It’s incredible that people can’t see the empty promises and lies by politicians. Is it the short term.memory and endless distractions that people forget or are unaware of the discourse? And why is there only 2 party’s? How bout no party, not even three party’s. Why is it so institutionalized? It’s bought and paid for and even a former president said presidents are selected not elected. It’s rigged and the figure head we see is just a puppet like almost all.the rest of them. So I don’t blame Obama or any president. In fact, the teams of advisors and cabinet and corporate special interests are the ones that tell the president what to do. It boggles my mind that people can think that these presidents are geniuses. The plans and policies these so called presidents have are not their own individual ideas. Politicians and paid actor speaker politicians can’t fix any problem in society bcus they aren’t trained to do so. Congress can pass laws, but what have presidents and congresse really improved? if they were genuine and even if they are highly intelligent which most are, it doesn’t mean they can make our lives better. Did anyone vote for wars and bailouts and loss of liberties?- no, and since all but a handful of them are full of crap, it is insanity to buy into it any longer… To the people that like Obama and to people that like Romney, to the dems vs reps.- We’re you all aware Obama’s and Romney care are the same?- I can list.the points and send links to points listed if.it helps for you to realize this madness.
To Karen, a park ranger was ordered to make the lives of peopel harder bcus of this hyped up theatrical shutdown. I’d be willing to bet he will get fired or docked pay. This isn’t the Cruz one you mentioned. It’s not like anythng I say is a secret or made up out of thin air.
http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/3/pruden-the-cheap-tricks-of-the-game/