Are you as tired of hearing about the president’s birth certificate as I am? Probably. To be pragmatic about it, at this time in his term, it doesn’t make any difference one way or another.
Say convincing, absolute proof emerged he is not a natural citizen. So what will happen? You think the FBI is going to scurry into the White House and lead him away in handcuffs?
Get serious.
After the certificate of birth was made public, you probably noted many of the president’s supporters reminding ‘birthers’ with a smug I-told-you-so that President Obama was—oops, sorry, Freudian Slip, is indeed a natural citizen.
Some of the pundits even went as far as gloating over the revelation of the birth certificate.
And in all honesty, I understand their delight. Their beliefs are vindicated. Their man had been unjustly accused. Now he has been exonerated.
Or has he?
As far as I’m concerned, he answered the question of citizenship and nothing more should be said about it.
But, that just isn’t the way things are.
A couple days after the revelation, I received an email concerning discrepancies in the certificate. It sounded legitimate, and the truth is, the discrepancies were legitimate as far as they went.
The document was a perfect example of why one should never take for gospel what he reads or hears, especially online.
Here’s the story.
The certificate listed Obama’s birth as August 4, 1961. It also listed Barack Hussein Obama as his father and his age as twenty-five. It stated his father was born in ‘Kenya, East Africa.’
The author jumped on that. He said ‘Kenya did not exist until 1963, two years after Obama’s birth, and twenty-seven years after his father’s birth. Up until 1963, the country was called British East Africa Protectorate.”
His point was ‘How could the father be born in a country that did not exist?’
His second point is that Obama was born in the ‘Kapi’olani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital’. The problem says the author is that in 1961, there were two hospitals, ‘KauiKeolani Children’s Hospital and Kapi’olani Maternity Home’. They merged in 1978 under the name ‘Kapi’olani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital’, seventeen years after his birth.
The email seemed convincing, but I researched the data myself.
It’s true, Kenya did not become an independent republic until 1963-64, but even as the British East Africa Protectorate, from about 1939 on, it was called Kenya Colony.
The author was right. In 1961, Kenya, the independent republic, did not exist, but the Kenya Colony did.
The second question concerning the hospitals was much simpler to answer. In fact, I can’t see why there was ever a question in the author’s mind. In 1918, the Kapi’olani Maternity Home was established. Thirteen years later in 1931, it changed its name to ‘Kapi’olani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital. Now it is true there was a merger in 1978, but the name was already in existence.
I’ve run across a dozen different conspiracies concerning the birth certificate. It’s time to let it die a natural death, but that will never happen.
The third point the author made is one that I wonder about. I’m not going to lose sleep over it though he does raise a good question. “Why,” he asked. “Did it take over three years and 1.7 million dollars in court fights to keep the document from being released?”
Personally, I don’t care, but it does seem like a waste of taxpayer money.
On the other hand, look around. What else is new?
rconwell@gt.rr.com
www.kentconwell.blogspot.com
Showing posts with label federal politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label federal politics. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
How Much is Your Government Helping You?
Feel like taking a little true and false quiz today? It is a simple one based upon the conservative Heritage Foundation and the liberal Huffington Post.(like Fox, fair and balanced) It just measures how much you know about how our government is helping us. By government, I mean all parties and all administrations for the last several decades.
I think you’ll be surprised at the results.
1. Since 2000, the amount of money the federal government spends per household has risen by twenty-five percent to a staggering $20,000.00 per family.
2. In the next six years, interest will double on our national debt.
3. In 2009, 64.3 million Americans—almost one of every five—depended on government for their daily housing, food, and health care.
4. Congress passed a law that will force you to replace all your old reliable light bulbs with more expensive ones—bulbs that don’t work as well and include chemicals dangerous to your health
5. New federal standards on auto emissions will add about $500 to the sticker price of a new car!
6. When Washington passes a regulation, it is not legally required to estimate the financial cost of the new red tape on families, individuals, or businesses.
7. A former Obama official accused current administration of being indifferent to immigration problems.
1. False. $20,000 per household is the amount Washington politicians spent back in 2000! Today, they are spending $31,000 for every household, and increase of 33%.
2. False. In the next six years, interest will triple! Imagine your own personal debt tripling. If you’re like me, that would be catastrophic.
No wonder more Americans predict that their children’s lives will not be as prosperous or free as their own. But there is still time to act. Cutting federal spending, cutting regulations, and lowering taxes will unleash America’s economy and help reduce annual deficits and our total national debt
3. True. You tell me. Should one out of five Americans totally depend on the rest of us for all of their housing, food, and medical bills? Government welfare has created a class of dependent people. And unless steps are taken, this class will continue to grow. Right now, we’re into the third generation of welfare with the fourth baking in the oven.
4. True. In 2007, Congress imposed energy standards that effectively banned the traditional incandescent light bulb invented by Thomas Edison, which had faithfully served Americans for decades. The last American light bulb factory, in Winchester, Virginia, has closed. Soon, Americans will be forced to buy more expensive compact fluorescent bulbs, mostly made in China, which have higher malfunction rates and can expose you to dangerous amounts of mercury when broken.
5. False. It’s actually worse! Experts estimate those new emissions standards will actually add a thousand bucks to the price of a car! That car will now also be harder and more expensive to fix. And will this cut down on air pollution from autos? Not likely, because research indicates the regulation will force more people to hold on to older cars that pollute more. It’s another example of big government making things worse all around.
6. True. Incredibly, Congress enacts suffocating regulations without any requirement to identify the costs they impose on people like you and me.
7. True. According to Andrew Becker in the liberal ‘Huffington Post’, Roxana Bacon, who served as an Immigration Official for the current president claims the administration has shied away from vision and practical leadership on immigration because they were both indifferent and timid.
I hope you did better than I did. I missed three out of seven. Scary.
As far as I’m concerned, the kind of help the government is providing is help we don’t need. On the other hand, I don’t see any major change coming about despite all the hoopla in Washington. I hope I’m wrong, but I’m afraid Washington is going to help our country into the grave.
I think you’ll be surprised at the results.
1. Since 2000, the amount of money the federal government spends per household has risen by twenty-five percent to a staggering $20,000.00 per family.
2. In the next six years, interest will double on our national debt.
3. In 2009, 64.3 million Americans—almost one of every five—depended on government for their daily housing, food, and health care.
4. Congress passed a law that will force you to replace all your old reliable light bulbs with more expensive ones—bulbs that don’t work as well and include chemicals dangerous to your health
5. New federal standards on auto emissions will add about $500 to the sticker price of a new car!
6. When Washington passes a regulation, it is not legally required to estimate the financial cost of the new red tape on families, individuals, or businesses.
7. A former Obama official accused current administration of being indifferent to immigration problems.
1. False. $20,000 per household is the amount Washington politicians spent back in 2000! Today, they are spending $31,000 for every household, and increase of 33%.
2. False. In the next six years, interest will triple! Imagine your own personal debt tripling. If you’re like me, that would be catastrophic.
No wonder more Americans predict that their children’s lives will not be as prosperous or free as their own. But there is still time to act. Cutting federal spending, cutting regulations, and lowering taxes will unleash America’s economy and help reduce annual deficits and our total national debt
3. True. You tell me. Should one out of five Americans totally depend on the rest of us for all of their housing, food, and medical bills? Government welfare has created a class of dependent people. And unless steps are taken, this class will continue to grow. Right now, we’re into the third generation of welfare with the fourth baking in the oven.
4. True. In 2007, Congress imposed energy standards that effectively banned the traditional incandescent light bulb invented by Thomas Edison, which had faithfully served Americans for decades. The last American light bulb factory, in Winchester, Virginia, has closed. Soon, Americans will be forced to buy more expensive compact fluorescent bulbs, mostly made in China, which have higher malfunction rates and can expose you to dangerous amounts of mercury when broken.
5. False. It’s actually worse! Experts estimate those new emissions standards will actually add a thousand bucks to the price of a car! That car will now also be harder and more expensive to fix. And will this cut down on air pollution from autos? Not likely, because research indicates the regulation will force more people to hold on to older cars that pollute more. It’s another example of big government making things worse all around.
6. True. Incredibly, Congress enacts suffocating regulations without any requirement to identify the costs they impose on people like you and me.
7. True. According to Andrew Becker in the liberal ‘Huffington Post’, Roxana Bacon, who served as an Immigration Official for the current president claims the administration has shied away from vision and practical leadership on immigration because they were both indifferent and timid.
I hope you did better than I did. I missed three out of seven. Scary.
As far as I’m concerned, the kind of help the government is providing is help we don’t need. On the other hand, I don’t see any major change coming about despite all the hoopla in Washington. I hope I’m wrong, but I’m afraid Washington is going to help our country into the grave.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Don't You Dare Forget!
Like the majority of retirees, we live on a fixed income, which doesn’t provide an excess of discretionary funds. Like death, taxes, and spam email, one certainty in life is that in the coming years, those flexible funds will shrink.
What I purchased at WalMart five years ago for ninety-five bucks now rings out of the register at one-twenty or thirty. If my math’s right, that’s over a twenty percent increase.
I’m lucky however in that I can control the spending. As many, I purchase items I can well do without, and eventually, I’m sure I’ll be forced to forego such indulgences.
While many of my acquaintances are in the same boat, there are some who have unfortunately compounded their problems by an injudicious use of the dreaded credit card.
The fees and interest they pay on what those innocuous slabs of plastic provides eats into what little discretionary income they might have.
And if you can’t guess where all of this is leading, I’ll tell you.
At this very moment, our country is in that same boat. As one, we are facing rising prices and an almost insurmountable debt. What is it now, thirteen trillion and counting?
Hey, the BP gusher is a dribble compared to the runaway gusher of additional debt Obama and his followers have slapped on our shoulders. And they’re still spending. They won’t stop!
According to watchdog, Bob Livingston, Congressman Ron Paul’s Federal Reserve Transparency Act was taken out of the Wall Street reform bill. An effort by House Republicans to re-insert the language failed, with more than 120 Democrats who had co-sponsored the bill voting against it. That’s something I can’t figure. If they’d co-sponsored it, why vote against it?
Heaven forbid, partisan politics!
There is only one way to stop this insanity. It is up to us, the common, everyday citizen who tries to follow all the rules that many in congress ignore.
There must be a change in the mindset of those in Washington. Look how the health bill was jammed down our throats. How much did the Speaker of the House truly know about the bill when she blithely remarked “We’ll have to pass the health bill so we’ll know what is in it for us.”
Such insouciance is not only appalling, but a stinging slap on the cheek of every American unless they’re too dumb to know she has insulted them. She doesn’t give doodly-squat about the American people. Her position is for her ego, just like so many up there. That isn’t the mindset we need.
I’ve had folks call me to task for some of the negative columns I’ve written about the problems the health bill will create. I hope by now they’ve opened their eyes as more and more worrisome details float to the surface like BP’s oil.
You know the bill forces employers to provide insurance for workers or face massive tax increases. Right? Did you also know those taxes would reach up to $52 billion? Result? Goodbye jobs.
American businessmen aren’t stupid. They’ll cut the workforce, adding to the ten percent unemployed. Some companies, like John Deere, Caterpillar, Medtronic, Verizon and even some ski resorts have already announced their intention to cut jobs.
Why didn’t Obama, Reid, Pelosi, and those others recognize this problem? They didn’t because all they care about is themselves and their egos.
There are still over three months until mid-term elections. You can bet those jokers will be filling the air with the lies of success and distortions of truth that unfortunately are part of the political game.
As an average citizen, you can’t let them fool you. That’s what they’re counting on, that we’ll forget their tricks.
If we can manage to wrest control of one of the chambers, the House or Senate, then we can refuse funding for the bill, effectively stopping it until it can be reworked, not in a smoky backroom, but in the open, with the media watching. Like the guy who said he would save America promised.
By the way, remember that provision that says insurers cannot cut your health benefits off at a certain point? That’s true. The catch is, it isn’t free. In fact, premiums will run—are you read for this?-- from four to nine hundred a month.
Now, you sleep well.
What I purchased at WalMart five years ago for ninety-five bucks now rings out of the register at one-twenty or thirty. If my math’s right, that’s over a twenty percent increase.
I’m lucky however in that I can control the spending. As many, I purchase items I can well do without, and eventually, I’m sure I’ll be forced to forego such indulgences.
While many of my acquaintances are in the same boat, there are some who have unfortunately compounded their problems by an injudicious use of the dreaded credit card.
The fees and interest they pay on what those innocuous slabs of plastic provides eats into what little discretionary income they might have.
And if you can’t guess where all of this is leading, I’ll tell you.
At this very moment, our country is in that same boat. As one, we are facing rising prices and an almost insurmountable debt. What is it now, thirteen trillion and counting?
Hey, the BP gusher is a dribble compared to the runaway gusher of additional debt Obama and his followers have slapped on our shoulders. And they’re still spending. They won’t stop!
According to watchdog, Bob Livingston, Congressman Ron Paul’s Federal Reserve Transparency Act was taken out of the Wall Street reform bill. An effort by House Republicans to re-insert the language failed, with more than 120 Democrats who had co-sponsored the bill voting against it. That’s something I can’t figure. If they’d co-sponsored it, why vote against it?
Heaven forbid, partisan politics!
There is only one way to stop this insanity. It is up to us, the common, everyday citizen who tries to follow all the rules that many in congress ignore.
There must be a change in the mindset of those in Washington. Look how the health bill was jammed down our throats. How much did the Speaker of the House truly know about the bill when she blithely remarked “We’ll have to pass the health bill so we’ll know what is in it for us.”
Such insouciance is not only appalling, but a stinging slap on the cheek of every American unless they’re too dumb to know she has insulted them. She doesn’t give doodly-squat about the American people. Her position is for her ego, just like so many up there. That isn’t the mindset we need.
I’ve had folks call me to task for some of the negative columns I’ve written about the problems the health bill will create. I hope by now they’ve opened their eyes as more and more worrisome details float to the surface like BP’s oil.
You know the bill forces employers to provide insurance for workers or face massive tax increases. Right? Did you also know those taxes would reach up to $52 billion? Result? Goodbye jobs.
American businessmen aren’t stupid. They’ll cut the workforce, adding to the ten percent unemployed. Some companies, like John Deere, Caterpillar, Medtronic, Verizon and even some ski resorts have already announced their intention to cut jobs.
Why didn’t Obama, Reid, Pelosi, and those others recognize this problem? They didn’t because all they care about is themselves and their egos.
There are still over three months until mid-term elections. You can bet those jokers will be filling the air with the lies of success and distortions of truth that unfortunately are part of the political game.
As an average citizen, you can’t let them fool you. That’s what they’re counting on, that we’ll forget their tricks.
If we can manage to wrest control of one of the chambers, the House or Senate, then we can refuse funding for the bill, effectively stopping it until it can be reworked, not in a smoky backroom, but in the open, with the media watching. Like the guy who said he would save America promised.
By the way, remember that provision that says insurers cannot cut your health benefits off at a certain point? That’s true. The catch is, it isn’t free. In fact, premiums will run—are you read for this?-- from four to nine hundred a month.
Now, you sleep well.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
A Lie by Any Other Name
By the time you read this, they might have passed that monstrosity they call the Senate Bill. I hope not. But, I don’t have to tell you that our president is hot and heavy on the campaign trail for health care just like he was for the first primaries. The only difference is that the majority of Americans believed him when he was on the primary trail.
Today? Well there might have been a president who distorted the truth more than our current one. No, that isn’t a fair remark. Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, among many, many others, were no slouches when it came to verbal distortion.
Sure, we’re all jaded by politics. We know many of them lie and mislead us, telling us what we want to hear while doing just the opposite.
As much as I dislike saying it, our president is no better. And somehow, the fact he is President makes it even more reprehensible. Representatives or senators might lie, but not the President. Of course, I’m not so naïve to believe they have all been paragons of truth and virtue. Most of them can’t spell those two words. They’ve all lied, all except perhaps for good old Harry Truman.
And in the last few weeks, President Obama has been distorting the truth in almost every breath.
Don’t believe me?
Remember his last talk about health care? According to The Heritage Foundation, the President claimed the plan would lower health care costs. It doesn’t because it does nothing to solve the inefficiencies in the system that drives prices upward. He knows that, and the bill does nothing to address the problem.
Then he claimed his plan would not give government bureaucrats or insurance companies more control over health care. It does. According to the plan, spending increases in proportion to lessening controls, giving government and insurance what they want.
Obama again claimed “if you like your plan, you can keep it. If you like your doctor, you can keep him.” That, according to the Heritage Foundation, is simply not true. Not true, meaning ‘a lie’.
How? Read on. The much acclaimed Senate Bill gave federal regulators the power to define minimum benefit packages; specify the minimum amount that health plans must spend on medical claims; and impose new taxes that will not count toward minimums.
Stop and think. How many private health plans will meet all of the bill’s requirements, thereby allowing appointed officials, by accident or intention, to create a regulatory ‘squeeze’ that could eliminate current individual health plans?
Hey, don’t run off. We’re not finished.
Then the President had the gall to say his plan gives the same health care plan to citizens as those of Congress. It does not!
Two departments will administer health care. The OPM, Office of Personnel Management, which is an agency of the White House, will administer to federal employees, and HHS, Human Services, will administer to everyone else.
When questions or differences arise between the two, who gets the shaft, the White House, or the rest of us?
And finally, he says the plan is paid for. And again, it is not.
According to the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, Obama’s 950 billion cost is actually one trillion, and in ten years, would add up to 2.5 trillion.
Now whom do we believe, the CBO, or the community organizer from Chicago?
You see what I mean about lies? I’m fed up with them.
Now, the President claims he has a new plan that he will reveal as soon as the House passes the Senate Bill, but he refuses to say what is in the plan. He’s asking them to trust him.
Trust him, the guy who promised to end income taxes for seniors making less than $50,000.; close Gitmo; toughen rules for lobbyists; allow bankruptcy judges to modify terms of a home mortgage; double after school funding; and on and on and on?
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I told you before, folks. I’m scared about what’s going on.
You best be too.
Today? Well there might have been a president who distorted the truth more than our current one. No, that isn’t a fair remark. Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, among many, many others, were no slouches when it came to verbal distortion.
Sure, we’re all jaded by politics. We know many of them lie and mislead us, telling us what we want to hear while doing just the opposite.
As much as I dislike saying it, our president is no better. And somehow, the fact he is President makes it even more reprehensible. Representatives or senators might lie, but not the President. Of course, I’m not so naïve to believe they have all been paragons of truth and virtue. Most of them can’t spell those two words. They’ve all lied, all except perhaps for good old Harry Truman.
And in the last few weeks, President Obama has been distorting the truth in almost every breath.
Don’t believe me?
Remember his last talk about health care? According to The Heritage Foundation, the President claimed the plan would lower health care costs. It doesn’t because it does nothing to solve the inefficiencies in the system that drives prices upward. He knows that, and the bill does nothing to address the problem.
Then he claimed his plan would not give government bureaucrats or insurance companies more control over health care. It does. According to the plan, spending increases in proportion to lessening controls, giving government and insurance what they want.
Obama again claimed “if you like your plan, you can keep it. If you like your doctor, you can keep him.” That, according to the Heritage Foundation, is simply not true. Not true, meaning ‘a lie’.
How? Read on. The much acclaimed Senate Bill gave federal regulators the power to define minimum benefit packages; specify the minimum amount that health plans must spend on medical claims; and impose new taxes that will not count toward minimums.
Stop and think. How many private health plans will meet all of the bill’s requirements, thereby allowing appointed officials, by accident or intention, to create a regulatory ‘squeeze’ that could eliminate current individual health plans?
Hey, don’t run off. We’re not finished.
Then the President had the gall to say his plan gives the same health care plan to citizens as those of Congress. It does not!
Two departments will administer health care. The OPM, Office of Personnel Management, which is an agency of the White House, will administer to federal employees, and HHS, Human Services, will administer to everyone else.
When questions or differences arise between the two, who gets the shaft, the White House, or the rest of us?
And finally, he says the plan is paid for. And again, it is not.
According to the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, Obama’s 950 billion cost is actually one trillion, and in ten years, would add up to 2.5 trillion.
Now whom do we believe, the CBO, or the community organizer from Chicago?
You see what I mean about lies? I’m fed up with them.
Now, the President claims he has a new plan that he will reveal as soon as the House passes the Senate Bill, but he refuses to say what is in the plan. He’s asking them to trust him.
Trust him, the guy who promised to end income taxes for seniors making less than $50,000.; close Gitmo; toughen rules for lobbyists; allow bankruptcy judges to modify terms of a home mortgage; double after school funding; and on and on and on?
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I told you before, folks. I’m scared about what’s going on.
You best be too.
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