One Congressional District Receives 20% of Latest Health Care Law Waivers

Last month, April 2011, the federal government issued 204 additional new waivers to President Obama’s signature piece of legislation that was misnamed the Affordable Care Act; more commonly known as Obamacare.  That makes over 1700 waivers that have been granted thus far to various labor union chapters, large corporations, financial firms, and local governments to excuse them from having to comply with this new law, like the rest of the nation will have to do. 

What is particularly unusual is that in this last batch of 204 waivers, nearly forty of them all went to one congressional district.  In other words, one congressional district out of 435 received nearly 20 percent of the waivers issued in this last round.  Who is the congresswoman for this district, you ask?  Well, it is none other than the former Speaker of the House and current House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Ms. Pelosi maintains that this is simply a coincidence and that she had nothing to do with this seemingly disproportionate awarding of waivers to businesses and friends within her own congressional district.  What is further striking is that many of these waivers went to expensive top-notch restaurants, nightclubs, and hotels in Pelosi’s district.  

This is quite a departure from the typical businesses that were awarded waivers in the past.  Indeed, restaurants such as McDonald's now have something in common with such upscale places as Boboquivari’s in San Francisco, which advertises $59 porterhouse steaks, $39 filet mignons, and $35 crab dinners.  Both businesses now are exempt from having to abide by the dictates of the Affordable Care Act. Now aside from the fact that this supposedly well-intentioned and yet un-constitutional health care law was designed to fix all of our health care issues and provide coverage for all of those yet un-insured folks, whether they really wanted coverage or not, one has to ask why is it even necessary to grant waivers, let alone so danged many of them, if this is such a fantastic law? 

The fact that local governments and some unions are the biggest beneficiaries of these waivers, and thus will not be lawfully obligated to abide by the very law that so many of their members fought and argued for, strikes me as inconsistent at best and perniciously hypocritical at worst.  I guess we can add the friends of Nancy to this list of now-waivered hypocrites.  After all, laws are only meant for those of us without political clout and connections which would allow us to otherwise skirt these nuisance laws.  It’s just one more bit of hope and change to believe in, I suppose.

Hate Speech and the Leftist/Progressive Media

I keep having this ridiculous reoccurring conversation with my liberal/progressive friends about how the media is "right-wing biased" in their views and that it is these right wing news groups (Fox, of course, is always at the top of their list) are always spouting vile hate speech and inciting violence towards the left. 

Never mind the fact that most right-wing OPINION shows that I have heard almost unanimously and specifically say that they do not advocate violence nor want people to use intimidation tactics when engaging the militant left since that will only hurt our credibility and give them ammunition to use against the right. 

All of this being said, I find it interesting that from Mike Malloy to Bill Press to Chris Matthews etc. that the left is once again coming unhinged in their hate speech.  Of course their whipping boy is President George W. Bush on the occasion of the release of his new book, Decision Points. 

Now I have a lot of grievances with Bush regarding his handling of our domestic and economic policies.  There is indeed room for reasonable people to offer criticisms here.  I can even see reasonable people disagreeing on the necessity of the Iraq war, but the hate and vitriol spewing from many on the left regarding Bush on this is execrable. 

Funny how the progressive left gets all up in arms when someone calls Obama a socialist, or God forbid, a Marxist.  They erupt and call this nonsensical hate speech.  Then some of these very same defenders of Obama turn around and compare a President that did what he thought best to keep America and its allies safe with the Iraq war and compare him to Hitler, other mass murderers, and sociopaths such as Ted Bundy.  Amazing. 

See the attached video below for a sampling of this even-handedness in political discourse:

The 2nd Amendment and Left-wing Hypocrisy

This editorial was forwarded to me by a friend. Evidently this incident occurred in late August of last year in North Carolina and serves as another example of left wing hypocrisy in this country.

Long time Anti-Gun Advocate State Senator R.C. Soles, 74, shot one of two intruders at his home just outside Tabor City, N.C. about 5 p.m. Sunday, the prosecutor for the politician's home county said.

The intruder, Kyle Blackburn, was taken to a South Carolina hospital, but the injuries were not reported to be life-threatening, according to Rex Gore, district attorney for Columbus, Bladen and Brunswick counties.

The State Bureau of Investigation and Columbus County Sheriff's Department are investigating the shooting, Gore said. Soles, who was not arrested,declined to discuss the incident Sunday evening.

"I am not in a position to talk to you," Soles said by telephone. "I'm right in the middle of an investigation."

The Senator, who has made a career of being against gun ownership for the general public, didn't hesitate to defend himself with his own gun when he believed he was in immediate danger and he was the victim.

In typical hypocritical liberal fashion, the "Do as i say and not as i do" anti-gun activist lawmaker picked up his gun and took action in what apparently was a self-defense shooting. Why hypocritical you may ask? It is because his long legislative record shows that the actions that he took to protect his family, his own response to a dangerous life threatening situation, are actions that he feels ordinary citizens should not have if they were faced with an identical situation.

It has prompted some to ask if the Senator believes his life and personal safety is more valuable than yours or mine. But, this is to be expected from those who believe they can run our lives, raise our kids, and protect our families better than we can.

I would like to add that this is not atypical of the left with their elitist attitudes. California's Senator Diane Feinstein has long been an anti-gun activist and yet reportedly has her own hand guns.

The same is true with many Hollyweird leftists. You may recall Rosie O'Donnell purportedly inviting Tom Selleck to come on to her TV talk show years ago to plug a new movie he was doing at the time.

Mr. Selleck was a spokesman for the NRA back then and Ms. O'Donnell decided to ambush him about his support for our 2nd amendment Constitutional right to keep and bear arms. The public debate that ensued in the following weeks brought to light the fact that Rosie, while not owning a gun herself, hired an armed body guard to protect her. Again, evidently only the rich and powerful should have the right to defend themselves. Just another rare instance of liberal hypocrisy for you.