Why You Should NOT Argue with Democrats...

"You've Got One Side of Capital Hill Investing In Failure"

"Failure to Launch"

I miss Ronald Reagan.

He'd know what to say at a time like this.

I'm thinking that it would be something like, "Well, there you go again..."

It's funny (and tragically predictable) how themes from the past revisit us in the present day.  Democrats, Progressives, and Liberals in general are like old dogs - clinging to well-worn and gummed-up bones regardless of how ratty, and smelly they are simply because 'they own them'.  Speaking of 'owning them' - Dems, Progs, and Libs own, "Health Care" now.   

The thing that's 'not quite so funny', however, is that in 2013, we have NO Reagan to look the Opposition in the eye and say, "Well, there you go again..." and then go on to clarify what his actual position was, following the misrepresentation of the opposition.

No Republican leader in the House or Senate stands ready to face this generation's 'Jimmy Carter', and tell him that he...  Is full of 'it'.  

(Yes, I'm being really nice here with the choice of words, because for some reason I cannot fully explain, I am in an unusually good mood today.)

Meanwhile, what is President Obama (currently completing 'Carter's Third-Term') saying about US (or them, as in Republican Leadership, if you prefer)?

Funny that you should ask... 

Hold my hand.  We're going in.

Photo Credit - AP

Washington Examiner, November 19, 2013:  Obama: GOP 'invested' in health law failing 

President Obama on Tuesday laid part of the blame for Obamacare's problem-riddled rollout on Republicans, saying that “one side of Capitol Hill was invested in failure.”


Recalling how he and his supporters had to “fight tooth and nail” to get the law passed by a slim margin in Congress, Obama said his administration should have anticipated that dynamic would create a “rockier rollout – that one side of Capitol Hill is invested in failure and that makes the iterative process of fixing glitches and fine-tuning the law” difficult.

...

“We probably underestimated the complexities of building out a website that needed to work the way it should,” he said.


Obama also singled out the federal government’s information procurement process.


“I probably could have identified earlier the way the federal government does procurement and does IT is just generally not very efficient,” said Obama.


“What we probably needed to do on the front-end is blow up the way we do procurement for IT,” he said.


The troubled rollout of the healthcare.gov website intended to register consumers in Obamacare's new insurance exchanges and the president's broken promise that the public could keep their current health plans even under the new law threaten to undermine support for the law.

Perhaps we need to have a few defining moments before we proceed?  I do this only because I want to be COMPLETELY accurate in interpreting what the President said at the Wall Street Journal's CEO Council.

 

According to the President, Republicans have 'Invested in Failure' as it pertains to the Affordable Care Act.  O-k-a-y...

From a historical perspective, Republicans have NOTHING TO DO with the Passage of or Implementation of ObamaCare.  

Trust me, I even looked it up online to make sure I wasn't making this stuff up...

LOOK!  A source!:   Wikipedia


Republican House Members Voting for ObamaCare = 0
Democrat House Members Voting for ObamaCare = 219 

Republican Senators Voting for ObamaCare = 0
Democrat Senators Voting for ObamaCare = 58
Independent (Democrat) Senators Voting for ObamaCare = 2
 

 

Adding the total number of Republicans in the House and Senate who voted FOR ObamaCare equals (shoot, I don't even need to pull my shoes off for this one)...

Zip.

Zero. 

None.

Null.

Nobody, no how, no way.  

So how can the President blame hapless Republicans - because the Bill which HIS Party rammed through the House and Senate via the 'Nuclear Option' is 'stinking up the place'?  

And how exactly does he justify his assertion that Republicans are somehow involved in 'screwing the health care pooch'?

In two very unique ways:

1. The President says that he, "should have anticipated that dynamic would create a “rockier rollout – that one side of Capitol Hill is invested in failure and that makes the iterative process of fixing glitches and fine-tuning the law”, and,
2. “I probably could have identified earlier the way the federal government does procurement and does IT is just generally not very efficient,” said Obama.

Yeah, okay.

First, addressing Item 1 above, the Law is being enacted by HIS Administration.  Could someone please get me a count of EXACTLY how many Republicans work for HIM regarding the implementation of the ACA? 

Second, regarding Item 2, did he just BLAME the failure of his hallmark 'massive Federal bureaucracy expansion' on a procurement-related failure of a 'massive Federal bureaucracy'?

Yes, I believe that he did.  

The only thing Republican Leadership is guilty of is for being naive and gutless in not expressing their concerns (outrage?) regarding this legislation over the past four years to the extent that it needed to be conveyed (to the American People).  

Oh, I guess I can also toss in the fact that they keep 'dissing' members of their own Party who went to DC to do what their constituents requested that they do...  

Repeal ObamaCare.

So, Mr. President, if we use the BING-provided definitions of 'Investing' and 'Failure' to describe YOUR Law, and lay blame where it belongs, if there is, "One side of Capital Hill investing in Failure"?


It is YOUR side which has invested in failure (or, if you prefer, the 'catastrophe', 'disaster', 'fiasco', or 'disappointment') of your crowning legislative achievement.  

You wrote, funded and implemented this 'Failure' on YOUR terms because you told Republicans Members in Congress that 'You won' and you didn't need THEIR input regarding the running of your government.

Congratulations, you are a WINNER!  

You own it baby!

Enjoy the fruits of your hard-won victories surrounding your valiant health care battle against the will of the majority of Americans!

It looks good on you...

Just THREE more years.

Buh-bye!

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And then...  Hello Sexy!!!

Hillary Clinton - circa 2012

No aging required for the requisite Hillary Clinton Presidential image!

You'd people had better get with the program if you want to avoid this particular 'man-made disaster'.

See ya later Big Guy...

Aint' He Tweet?

President Barack Obama and Obama Advisor Dan Pfeiffer - thick as theives

President Obama did not attend the 150th Anniversary of Lincoln's delivery of the Gettysburg Address in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania yesterday.  We were told it was due to numerous scheduling conflicts, he's busy fixing the ObamaCare website, and still working on 'lowering the seas' as he promised during his 2008 campaign.

Yes, the President was too busy to attend Tuesday's commemoration (it's over 43 miles away from where he is after all), but he was able to squeeze in 18 holes this past Sunday.  In the end, the President remains conflicted, the website (and Legislation) remains 'busted', and 'sea levels', well, they are what they are - no changes to the good or ill recorded.  

It would have been nice if the President saw his way clear to spend a few hours celebrating the vision and sacrifice of those who fought and died so that he might one day become President of the United States, but 'Matters of State' being what they are, well, he had no time for mixing it up with the masses.

He has work to do.

For America?

No.  For his Democratic Party.

I say this not because I believe the President is an Ideologue who puts politics above all else (okay, I BELIEVE it, but I'm not saying it here, okay), but rather because White House Advisor, Dan Pfeiffer said it for me.  

A reporter inquired of the White House as to WHY the President would not be attending an event which would remember the 16th President who, passed Legislation which declared slaves free, allowing Barack Obama to become President, Oprah Winfrey to become a Racist, and Al Sharpton to, um, whatever it is that he is...

The President WAS busy, but he wasn't busy with matters of state, he was busy trying to address the only thing which matters to him...  His Party.

Ron Fournier's Question:  "What's on his schedule that is more important than Gettysburg anniversary?"

Dan Pfeiffer's Response:  "Oh, I don't know, there's this whole website thing that someone suggested might destroy the Dem Party."

Yes, this is the official response from the White House's 'Communications Guy', Dan Pfeiffer.

He's not looking to fix the website because people are losing their insurance, rather, he's looking to save his Party.  

Well played Dan, well played.  

Is this the first time Dan's been in a Twitter 'Roid Rage?  Oh no, he's been here before...

Someone tweeted Pfeiffer a note on October 8, 2013, that a website acknowledged race as a major factor in American political 'polarization', blaming the increased 'divide' on (radical?) Internet and cable sources, vs. traditional (Administration Friendly) Media outlets.

Pfeiffer responded that "It's a very smart point and massive factor in political polarization."

He then went on to Tweet, "Also a much nigger factor on the right."

Okay, I know that he was attempting to blame the 'bigger' political polarization on the 'Right', but seriously, Dan, do you read what you actually post?

I will NOT pick on Dan any longer, instead, I'm including a couple of Tweets sent to him following his 'N-Word' drop via Twitter...

Yeah, what they said.

The polarization of America continues.

It begins at the top and worms it way down into the core of our society.  

Getting Out from Under... God

Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863
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. Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
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Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
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.But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. 
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It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
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--  Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 1863
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 The above represents the Bliss Copy of the Gettysburg Address.  This is the version which adorns the wall of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC.   This is the speech given by the Sixteenth President on November 19, 1863 - 150 years ago today.
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Documentary film-maker, Ken Burns, asked all living Presidents to read the Gettysburg Address for an upcoming PBS production.
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President Obama read the entire speech and it is presented here for your review:
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Well, my last statement is NOT entirely accurate.
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He read a different version of the speech leaving out two little words found in the final transcript of the Address.
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Those words, as you may have already guessed were, "under God". 
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Ken Burns' website, www.learntheaddress.org, put up a note by Noon today that the film maker requested that the President read the Nicolay version of the Address, the first draft of the speech (the one which pretty much no one knows), vs. the final version of the speech, the only one signed and dated by President Lincoln.
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I found this odd, as today we are are remembering the ACTUAL speech, rather than the draft version of the speech.
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But, between you and me?  I expect no less from our current President.
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If he couldn't sneak in a, 'under Me', into the address, there was no way on Earth he was going to say, "under God".
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The dude might burst into flames.

Not because he's Satan or anything, but just that the realization that there is something 'Greater than himself' he might vibrate so hard that he would spontaneously combust...  
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