Inevitable…
…move:
The Office of Personnel Management, under heavy pressure from Capitol Hill, will issue regulations saying that the government can continue to make the employer contribution to the health plans of members [of Congress] and aides, according to several Hill sources.
Anyone surprised?
There are many reasons Congress hasn’t really opposed Obama’s grants of exemptions to this or that or the other group he wants to favor. But one of them is the fact that they wanted to feel free to grant their own exemptions—to themselves.
Anyone else getting a Kramer from Seinfeld vibe when he said, “They just write it off!”
“We’ll just waive the requirement!”
According to what I have read, OPM is currently “writing new regulations” to harmonize current and retired Federal worker’s health care insurance with Obamacare.
I wonder if the current Federal government monthly contribution of close to 75% will still stay in effect.
Now that Congress and all their staffers have “gotten theirs,” one wonders if they give a damn about anyone else.
OPM = Other People’s Money
Of course.
I’ve been reading about the French Revolution in Jay Winik’s “The Great Upheaval,” 1788-1800. What’s especially relevant right now is how impossible it was to stop the Terror once it began. Tens of thousands of people were murdered, including the “intellectuals” who thought they were so smart.
We have an out-of-control government now, and I don’t see how we can get back to the rule of law. I try to be upbeat, but it’s hard not to despair.
Remind me again:
Why, exactly is the D.C. leviathan a legitimate government any more?
Perfect example of Fen’s Law: The Left doesn’t really believe in the things they lecture the rest of us about.
The joke’s on them, though, because Obamacare is changing the medical industry in such a way that they will still feel its effects. There will be doctor shortages, medial device & drug innovation will dry up as those funds are redirected to treatments that are covered/mandated, and their elderly relatives will be put on palliative care in lieu of treatment (and feel the pain of so few doctors now supporting Medicare). Only the richest pols will have the option to get to quality care from physicians working outside of the system (direct pay) or overseas.
if they exempt themselves and stick this on the rest of us…..
time to storm the Bastille.
How dare they not suffer this nightmare with the rest of us.
“Storming the Bastille” was the kind of mob action that Obama and Holder are promoting with their attacks on Zimmerman and deification of Trayvon. The French Revolution was mainly mob rule with some fancy speechifying by “intellectuals” who had no idea what kinds of monstrous evils they were unleashing.
Even demagogues like Obama and Holder were killed.
Of course, if the Tea Party had been allowed to grow naturally, things would have been solved in the good old American way, like elections. Now what is being promoted besides mob rule and immiseration of working people (which includes the “middle class” and the “one percent”).
The greedy bureaucrats think they’ll come out OK. But they won’t. I can’t envision a happy future until some congressional leaders and state governors come to their senses and actually try to save the Republic.
Stumbled across this just from Googling actress Carol Lynley of Poseidon fame (movie was on last night; wondered if she was still alive.))
Aside from that, interesting site, way over my head, but loved reading content here.
Promethea, 7:39 pm — “I can’t envision a happy future until some congressional leaders and state governors come to their senses and actually try to save the Republic.”
“Some” won’t be enough. Not even a mere majority of congressional leaders and state governors will constitute “enough”, thanks to the immensely successful ongoing duping of the low information crowd, brought to you by the Antonio Gramsci Apostles’ crowd.
*I* can’t envision a happy future for my children’s children, if my children ever beget any. And I’m increasingly worried about my children, because the implosion process of the USA and of western culture generally seems to be accelerating.
The destruction of the rule of law and the Constitution continues. Our elections are now for our choice of dictator.
If there was any question that the establishment Republicans are part of the problem, here is the answer.
Promethea–Unfortunately, I think that a lot of people are sensing things, smell the same things on the wind, and have the same premonition; that instead of things generally being–barring the odd hiccup or two–just fine and hunky-dory, with us here in the U.S.A. just going blithely along, continuing our automatic, guaranteed, charmed ascent into a limitless future (the Tarot card image of “The Fool”), it is quite possible that we here in the United States are, instead, on the cusp of the seemingly inevitable path of decadence, decline, and diminution that every other nation that led and/or dominated their world for a time–England, France, the Dutch, Spain, ancient Rome, Greece, China, and Egypt, to name a few–inevitably took. If so, as these things go we have had a very short run, but lots of unexpected things may yet happen to delay or stave off the darkness.
Moreover, it is true that our Founders fully realized that such an experiment in Republican democracy as the United States was could only function, survive, and thrive if the majority of its citizens were religious and moral, hard-working and industrious, fiercely independent and self-sufficient, patriotic, honest, thrifty, educated, relatively well-informed, aware, engaged and proud people, citizens who knew who they were, were proud of America and of being Americans, and were zealous in protecting both the United States and their individual rights and liberty.
Given the accelerating Pagan takeover of our society, the deliberate dumbing down, mis-education, but heavy and near universal propagandizing of our increasingly Post-Christian citizenry, and the ever growing number of our citizens determined not to face unpleasant, even grim reality, but determined, instead, to immerse themselves (myself included) in diverting but ultimately meretricious trivia—things like materialistic consumerism, T.V., sports, travel, the Internet, Twitter, Facebook, and various other electronic “realities,” cultural events, entertainments and hobbies–the time may be coming when the number of those citizens left who possess those characteristics, that “civic virtue” may just be too small to keep our experiment going.
To explore just one avenue leading down toward that decline I quote Ben Franklin,
“When the people find they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic.”
I submit that when half of the population pay no taxes, the “official” public debt stands at $17 trillion dollars and is set to go higher, when almost 70% of the entire 2014 Federal Budget is projected to be consumed in paying just for “mandatory” Entitlements (at 64%) and interest on the Federal Debt (another 6%) (http://nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/), with the percentage devoted to mandatory Entitlements due to rise–by law– each year, when the purchasing power of the dollar now stands at $0.05 cents vs. the $1.00 is had in 1913 when the Federal Reserve was created, or even the $0.75 cents it had in 1933 when FDR made it illegal for U.S. citizens to hold gold coins, bullion, or certificates (see http://visual.ly/purchasing-power-us-dollar-1913-2013), when close to 50 million people are on food stamps, a record number of close to 10 million are on Social Security Disability–many of them signed up in the last few years of the “Obama economy” and that total rapidly rising, and virtually everyone gets some sort of government handout, that time is, pretty arguably, at hand.
Once you start adding up all the exemptions how will this be actually, you know, enforced. And on whom?
Walla Dalbo @ 11:31 . . .
Well said. Right now, there are no forces operating to stop our decline. At first I thought a military coup or Secret Service coup might be a temporary answer, but it’s clear that these noble institutions have been co-opted too.
The rising tide of slimy sex scandals, cheesy greed (by people who already have everything, like Warren Buffett, Jeffrey Immelt, and their ilk), and crapola military bureaucrats (Colin Powell, Petraeus) are dragging us all down into the gutter.
Vanderleun…
Venn diagram… Set mathematics…
Think of the universal set … then exclude every Democrat constituency able to palm the Pink House … leaving the excluded set.
Do the math.
Welcome aboard, Sharon.
Promethea Says:
August 2nd, 2013 at 7:33 pm
So it wasn’t all bad, then?
Promethea:
I have Winik’s book, although I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet. It sounds very interesting.
I found it in a bargain bin in the frozen food aisle of my supermarket. First edition hardcover, too. Most of the other books were cookbooks, children’s books, and mass-market novels. I have no idea what that one was doing in there. I think I paid $5 for it, if that.
Nowadays I always spend a few minutes pawing through the bargain bin, but I’ve never found anything like that since.
rickl . . .
Winik’s book is a lot of work to get through, but he writes extremely vividly. He also has a lot to say about Catherine the Great.
The French Revolution material is especially chilling. Unfortunately, reading history at this level of detail makes the chronology extremely hard to follow. I have notes all over the book labeling the basic chronology.
History is NOT an easy subject unless one has a good memory, which I don’t.
Someday, someone will have to write about the Obama regime. Instapundit has an 8:52 am IBD blurb on the firing of a Chattanooga editor. Where does that fit into the grand scheme of things?
We’re watching a horrible slow-motion movie of ghastly things to come. Obama and Holder, etc. are clearly the heirs of Marat and Danton.
Promethea–An interesting if somewhat obscure and neglected book that I believe I have mentioned here before, and one that may well have a lot of insights applicable to our situation today is Israeli Historian J. L. Talmon’s, seminal 1952 work “The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy”–(also termed “Messianic Democracy), a direct criticism of Rousseau and his ideas including the “Social Contract” and “natural man,” which discusses and dissects the Leftist ideology that drove the French Revolution and the Terror, and the Left’s idea that its utopian goals are so noble that that end justifies any means, and that includes destroying anyone who stands in the way of accomplishing those goals (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totalitarian_democracy) .
A key idea is that the Left wants to “force you to be free,” as it defines “freedom.”
Wolla Dalbo . . .
Thanks for the reference.
The greedy bureaucrats think they’ll come out OK. But they won’t.
They certainly won’t. Zettai
I have notes all over the book labeling the basic chronology.
It’s easier to organize history around people and their motivations, rather than a timeline. This is true both for women and men, but women who are able to organize dates and calendar events with particular personal details have a slight edge.
A timeline of abstract numbers, dates without meaning, and categorized periods, is essentially meaningless to a human being evolved to survive death and violence.
Use Neo’s Amazon link and get anything by Jean-Francois Revel, including “How Democracies Perish” and “The Flight From Truth”. Brilliant and easy to read.
Neo’s site with its comments section is a gold-mine with the finest treasure: Knowledge, the treasure you can keep even as you’re giving it away!!!
Thanks, Neo
vanderleun said: (August 3rd, 2013 at 12:15 am)
Once you start adding up all the exemptions how will this be actually, you know, enforced. And on whom?
– – – – –
Sadly, it’s gonna be you, me, and three other guys. We’re going to need to buckle down and start earning more — together we’ll be supporting 302,578,221 other people!
Generally speaking, the regimes merely liquidated the property of Jews. Ask Soros how that worked, he got his start on the job there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros
It’s a great way to get the starting capital for various things. And if Jews are too poor… well, there are always others.