Help me out here. I’m a big picture guy, not a lawyer. It’s obvious upon reflection that ObamaCare is supposed to fail and bankrupt all the private sector insurance companies. Which feeds automatically into single payer government control of all healthcare, which means the government owns your body and everyone else’s too.
But there’s not enough time for this to happen in Obama’s second term. He needs, must have, a third term, paving the way for the title ‘President for Life.’
I know that the easiest path is an excuse for the declaration of martial law. But somehow it seems too obvious. Except that I can’t think of a way more suited to O’s authoritarian personality. So, I guess, the excuse has to seem like an unexpected calamity. Collapse of the world economy in the aftermath of Iran nuking Israel? Collapse of the world economy following a 50 percent crash in the stock market and the hyper-inflation generated by the traitorous chairman of the Federal Reserve who finally stopped printing money backed by nothing? Another 9/11 scale attack on the nation that succeeds in spite of the valiant efforts of the NSA to protect us by listening to our bedroom conversations via bugs in our wives’ negligees?
Or will it be as simple as the sudden death by toaster malfunction of Justice Scalia, leading to a good-will Republican confirmation of Van Jones as his replacement and a sudden reversal of the 22nd Amendment in a test case involving the Obama Action Committee’s fundraising for the 2016 election.
Or maybe he’ll just declare that he’s running for a third term and the New York Times will tell us that any opposition is mere racism, and Eric Holder will explain that, once again, the Constitution doesn’t matter.
As I said, I don’t know. You smart ones need to lend a hand.
We keep hearing buzz about Hillary 2016, but what about Michelle 2016? That seems like the easiest path to two more terms without martial law, and you know she wears the pants in the White House, anyway.
If that fails, though, I’m with him simply declaring that he’s running for a third term. Which he’ll win, btw, when he trounces Chris Christie.
Yeah. Nobody wears a suit better than O. And nobody wears a suit worse than Christie. Call it destiny. The end of the world presided over by Joan Rivers’s Fashion Police. How perfect.
Also. Michelle is way too busy shopping, vacationing, and harvesting the zucchinis in the WH garden to run for president. Get real.
Yeah but remember: Obama’s spent most of his time in office golfing & compiling NCAA tournament brackets. Following Michelle’s shopping & touring extravaganzas would surely send a tingle up the legs of we proles every time we saw them mentioned on Entertainment Tonight. Busy, busy queen bee.
Vascillation is poison; ask not what your country can do for you, ask what way is best to bankrupt your country.”
Robert. Have you read “On World-Government or De Monarchia” by Dante Alighieri? Likely written between 1301 and 1317. It is the Playbook. Exactly 700 years after he wrote it.
(Que dramatic music)
“Whoever is mindful of the good of the commonwealth is ipso facto mindful of the purpose of right.”
No. But I should. Dante pursued a path I recognize. He wrote about the meaning of life and he wrote about contemporary politics. How could you do the one and NOT the other?
I’ll look into it.
I want to know who they’re grooming. They ushered in the first black president, so they’re going to be amping up to get the first female president in. Clinton? I don’t think she’d make it. Michelle? I can’t really see it either, though I’m sure many will hope for it.
The future is hazy on this one for me.
Wait till you have the time and can take the links at the Redneck post. The future might seem less hazy…
Swarzzenneggar-Putin. Getting rid of residency requirements and term limits really opens up some Red State options here.
I’ve taken to calling it a #HealthCaste System. Platinum kids with Platinum, Gold kids with Gold and Silver, and Bronze with Bronze.
“Bronze Sugar! How come you taste so good!?”
“I see a Bronze door and I want it painted Plat.”
Good stuff. Untouchables are the uninsured. Nobody consorts with them.
Who are the Beneficiaries of Raising the Debt Ceiling?
The principal and immediate beneficiaries of increasing the debt ceiling are the wealthy bond-holders, and the medium and long-term beneficiaries are the military-intelligence-empire-builders who can continue to secure over $700 billion in annual budget allocations. The principal strategic losers from raising the debt ceiling will be the hundreds of millions of beneficiaries of social programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and their family members. As part of the ‘Grand Bargain’ struck by the Democratic President and Republican Congress – between $1.3 trillion and $1.4 trillion in social cuts will take effect over the next ten years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The cuts in Social Security will occur by raising the age of eligibility for full benefits to 70 years, resulting in a loss of $120 billion, as many older retired workers would be expected to die before drawing a single payment while millions of Americans will be forced to delay retirement and work an extra five years.
Secondly, the earliest age of eligibility for partial benefits will increase from 62 to 64 years – resulting in an additional loss of $144 billion dollars from workers.
Thirdly, the cost of living index would be reduced – a ten- year loss of $112 billion dollars.
Fourthly, the calculation for initial benefits would discard the wage-based method for a so-called “price-index”, resulting in American workers losing another $137 billion dollars over 10 years. In sum, workers’ social security benefits would be reduced by more than half a trillion dollars – an enormous transfer of wealth to the billionaire creditors, investors and empire builders – all in the name of ‘debt reduction’.
The cuts in MEDICARE and MEDICAID would result in an even more retrograde class polarization. The ‘Grand Bargain’ could lead to additional losses of over $419 billion dollars.
The biggest cost to the workers will come in the form of an increase in their monthly premium for physician services (MEDICARE Part B) from the current 25% to 35%, resulting in a loss of $241 billion dollars. The second biggest loss to workers will result from raising the age of eligibility for MEDICARE from 65 to 67 years costing workers an additional S125 billion dollars. The third loss for workers will be a $53 billion hit from restricting the use of MEDIGAP insurance – supplementary policies that cover MEDICARE cost sharing requirements.
Further cuts of $187 billion in MEDICAID– the medical plan for the poor and disabled– would result when the federal government shifts its direct funding to block grants to the states that would severely cut services for the poor – a plan first proposed during the Clinton Administration with regard to welfare funding.
Once these reactionary cuts in basic social programs are in place, the beneficiaries, who are able, will be forced to buy alternative supplementary private medical insurance and private retirement plans, while the poor will go without. The running down of public social services by Wall Street has been a deliberate, cynical strategy to cause popular discontent paving the way for the gradual privatization of services: adding costs, eliminating options and limiting medical treatment, surgery and procedures, especially for the elderly. The privatization of Social Security, MEDICARE and MEDICAID, will maximize insecurity while minimizing services and lead to untreated and under-treated illness, greater suffering and economic distress. Bi-partisan Congressional –White House agreements via the “Great Bargain” to raise the debt ceiling will widen and deepen inequalities in the United States.
In sum, “the Grand Bargain” will cause American workers to lose over $1.119 trillion dollars over the next 10 years, leading to a sharp decline in life expectancy, access to health care, living standards and quality of life.
Two points: 1) don’t think this is Helk but FA. 2) what do you mean by the term “loss”? It sounds as if you’re equating handout cuts with personal financial losses. Not buying it.
I appreciate your heart, child, but please make the time to take a course in economics before you write your next fiscal essay.
Mr. Laird a.k.a. Grandpa,
That was written by Professor James Petras, he is the author of more than 62 books published in 29 languages, and over 600 articles in professional journals, including the American Sociological Review, British Journal of Sociology, Social Research, and Journal of Peasant Studies. He has a long history of commitment to social justice, working in particular with the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement for 11 years. He writes a monthly column for the Mexican newspaper, La Jornada, and previously, for the Spanish daily, El Mundo. Dr. Petras received his B.A. from Boston University and Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. You can visit his website here. http://petras.lahaine.org/
Do you respect it more now that you know it was written by a white guy that is as old as you?
Respectfully,
FA
No. It was never about sex. Being as old as I am doesn’t make you right. The argument is wrong on the grounds I cited. Handout cuts are not losses. I knew the argument wasn’t yours because sometimes you rely on your intuition, which isn’t bad at all. I want you to study economics so you won’t get taken in by clandestine Marxist nonsense. Economics claims to be a science. Social justice is a secular religion. There can be no more toxic and wrong-headed mix.
I’ve grown fond of you over the years. But I can tell when it’s not really you…
You admire him? Send him here. I’ll hand him his old head on a tray.
Social Security is not and was not intended to be a handout. It was designed to be a mandated investment in your own retirement. As such, you paid into it and therefore it is not an entitlement. Do people take advantage od the system? Sure. But that does not invalidate the fact that mot people, in theory all legal workers, are *forced* to pay in. I refuse to accept the proposition that a system I pay to support can ever label me as a recipient of a ‘social welfare service.’ Total garbage.
Good for you. Coming to FA’s rescue is noble, even when she has a crush on a Marxist professor.
But it’s all crap nonetheless. Social Security was the stalking horse — or judas goat — that led us to where we are today. Dependents with our palms turned up awaiting government largesse. You’re too young to remember the time before government breasts were a beneficence we all got to suckle.
You, FA, and most everyone have your faces tilted up to the government, believing you’re entitled, when all is said and done, to universal milk.
I’m just old enough to believe differently. Sorry.
Well, there are some kids donning their tin foil hats while saying the cyber terror drill on November the 13th will cause martial law, all-out doomsday and 1984-style dystopia. A romantic thought; it would be just like the video games and movies they love so much. It’s a pity the world isn’t like that… it would make things easier if there were simply good guys and bad guys.
But the removal of the 22nd amendment would cause a bit of a stir, as it is a concept ingrained into the public’s idea of the presidency, and no one would want to rock the boat more than necessary… unless that’s what the people wanted to hear. Everyone likes the downtrodden, so if Obama and his crew can manipulate it so he looks like the underdog (which is somewhat hard to do as an incumbent, especially one as deviant as he’d be), he may get another term. He’d still be rocking the boat, and this time instead of something as vague as health insurance it would be one of the basic beliefs of the presidency that the public holds. This could lead to some potential changes. But I doubt it. Probably Obama will just be replaced with another democratic puppet. Rednecks are about as close to your South Street punks as we’re gonna get, so maybe a “redneck” President? Why not a governor who chases bears in his underpants?
Robert, you are spouting nonsense. I *own* things. I pay taxes, you dolt. I don’t look up to government, I look away from it (in disgust).
You, sir, are deluded and inane to accuse me of wanting anything from this government (note I did not say ‘my’ government).
And what you mean to say is you are old enough to start getting those SS checks. You will be eating from the tit of government long before I will.
Dolt? Maybe. You can regard social security however you want to obviously. But it is not an insurance plan. There is no trust fund. It’s a tax that funds a social welfare service we’ve all been forced into. It’s also a multi-generational Ponzi scheme, paying benefits out of current revenues. The money we’ve paid into it in the past is gone, already spent. But we are still entitled to benefits. That makes it an entitlement.
I apologize if my language was too colorful for you. Just jousting as usual.