The Real War on Women

My daughter was married just last month. She’s young, educated, beautiful and in love with a wonderful guy. She’s a teacher in charge of an entire staff of dance instructors and he’s a psychologist working with autistic kids. They married because they love each other and because they want kids.

Enter Obamacare. If you want a look at the Real War on Women on Women is not the bogus media hyped limitations on abortion, but the very real economic realities that allow some women-notably the poor and ignorant who rely on public largesse-to make whatever choice they want. If they want birth control, it’s free. If they want and abortion, it’s subsidized.  If they want a baby, they can have as many as they want. And this is because they are the demographic base that the Democrat party relies on for votes.

As two young healthy working adults, you would think that health insurance wasn’t a problem, especially under the auspices of Obamacare.  But not so quick. My daughter had her own insurance through Blue Cross Blue Shield. No underwriter in the nation is covering pregnancy on private insurance policies. She can have birth control. She can have an abortion. But under the private insurance, my daughter and her husband cannot have a baby without finding about $14K to come up with to cover labor, delivery and hospital costs. So while the indigent woman from across the border gets free pregnancy, prenatal and healthcare covered, my daughter cannot.

So they sought out the insurance from both their places of work. With a $5000 deductible-meaning they pay up to that amount out of pocket. For two young people starting their careers and paying off college loans, rent, car payments,  that’s a hard row to hoe. They looked at policies from both places. Both places costs two to three hundred dollars per month. And they covered things that they do not need, but which are MANDATED by Obamacare such as mental healthcare and drug treatment. As my daughter joked “maybe if I become a crack addict they will pay for me to have a baby.” It wasn’t a happy joke, but one that told she was giving up.

And what is she giving up? She’s giving up the dream of having kids. She’s giving up the dream of having her own house of being able to find other better jobs.  While the Obama Team likes to think that as a young  women she is supporting them, she is not. And many of her friends are in similar states of despair. They know the score. They know that they are paying for those who are too irresponsible to pay their own bills. And these young people, they ones with jobs who pay their bills and who live circumspect lives are growing in their resentment of a leisure class composed of Obama voters shouting “more free stuff” at every turn.

I ran into my own clarification of how Obamacare has created a Real War on Women. Today my doctor tried to make an appointment for me for a mammogram.  As the only one working due to the economy, I can’t simply peel off and pay a couple of hundred bucks for an appointment. I was told that if I ran it through insurance my bill would be $311 and it would go against my $5000 deductible (the deductible that I never reach because we can’t afford that kind of outlay) OR if I didn’t run it through insurance my bill would be “only” $150. First of all, this sounds like a scam to me. Why would you pay more when insured and less when it’s out of pocket? Second, why is it that doctors keep ordering tests and exams without knowing how much they cost? Three years ago a mammogram was $75. The only reason for rising costs is the rising cost of liability insurance and the failure BY THE PRESIDENT to have tort reform.

Many young people are still celebrating the dubious triumph of Obama. I think they are in for a harsh reality  come January. Layoffs are on the horizon and last hired is first fired. Contract workers are replacing full time employees with the self-employment taxes that entails. By the way, when you lose a contract position, as a contractor you are small business person and sometimes can’t get that nice unemployment check. Add to that the rising cost of healthcare insurance, shorter hours and the same braindead college kids who voted based on the preferences of Brad Pitt, George Clooney and  Steven Colbert are in for a very basic lesson in how our economy works.

How it works is like this: Every penalty, every fee, every tax placed on a business is passed along and paid for by the consumer. So when you make energy more costly, you drive up the cost of groceries which is a tax on everyone. And when goods and services become too costly to afford, businesses close, people become unemployed and tax revenue drops. At that point, government services have to be cut meaning  that all those feel good services suddenly cease. Then the rioting begins. As it has happened in Greece. As it has happened in France. And sadly, as I fear it will happen here. I wish I had some happy note of optimism to lay out here, but the mindless drones on the Left allowed their souls to be bought for cheap. We will all suffer for years as a result. God help us all.

What Are You Paying In Taxes????

And remember, Team Obama wants you to pay more!

It's Not Easy, or Cheap, Being Green

An interesting break down of what Texas would have to pay in terms of higher costs for energy if certain measures make their way through Congress is Here.
The entire study is HERE
Just keep these number in mind when you vote.

Kerplunk - Common sense from Down Under: The Islamification of France

Kerplunk - Common sense from Down Under: The Islamification of France
I've said it before but I'll keep saying it until someone pays attention.

Now, Can We Drill?

I want you to consider the amount of damage that has been perpetrated in the name of environmentalism. Thanks to the China Syndrome, we stopped building nuclear power plants. And the last ones built were so challenged in the courts that their costs were three times the original plan. Thanks to other environmental programs, we can't drill off of the coasts of Florida-where one of the potentially richest oil fields is currently being illegally tapped by Cuba. We can't drill in ANWR in Alaska for fear of a dwindling caribou population. We are pushed by a Congress with eyes on rural votes to have corn ethanol in our fuel. We haven't built a refinery in 29 years. We can't use coal because of acid rain. So what are we to do?

The Ivory Tower advocates for clean air like to point to things such as hybrid cars, expensive fixes for homes and ethanol from corn-which not only reduced fuel efficiency but causes the price of gas at the pump to spike due to the necessary purging of fuel lines in order to have it added. The same people who so elegantly point to rows of cars don't stop to consider that average people cannot afford these things. And with the rising cost of fuel, everything is going to rise in cost from food to energy. It's funny how the same folks who push these ideas don't understand that those of us who work for a living can't just trash our old clunkers and spend $400 a month paying for a new car. And what's worse, they don't really seem to care.

There is the laissez-faire attitude that we "little people" can simply walk to work or turn off the air conditioning. What about the elderly, the infirm or the very young? I guess it's easy to do without air conditioning when you live in a climate were it's only needed a few weeks per year, but what are you going to tell folks in Houston, Dallas, Flagstaff, New Orleans, Phoenix or El Paso? Should we simply close shop and leave town from May until September? Should we wander around like previous generations of the Dust Bowl era?

And it goes farther than that. There's no question that the war in the Middle East has to do with national security in as much as oil is necessary to our livelihood. With Saddam in power and exercising control of the region, we would have been his virtual economic slaves. Right now, environmentalist are limiting our abilities to produce domestic fuel in so many ways, and yet they refuse to realize that these goals have forced our hand internationally. Oil is reaching record purchasing amounts, and the government makes money off of every gallon. We have reserves, we have potential sites for exploration and drilling, but the same folks who seem to be blind to the needs of everyday people are keeping us from progressing. It's the same attitude that helped Marie Antoinette lose her head. At estimated costs to the consumer of $4.00 a gallon coming soon to a neighborhood near you, isn't it time for us to stop this wasteful navel gazing nonsense and begin to use what resources we have available to tide us through until the next great wave of transportation technology comes along? Most midwives and obstetricians will tell you that an induced birth is more painful for the mother and the child. What organized environmentalism is doing to our nation now is the energy equivalent of a pitocin drip. So for the last time, NOW CAN WE DRILL?

My New Personal Political Agenda

I am dismayed by the way the primary season has run out. We have Hillary Clinton, actively campaigning in Michigan and Florida-states whose delegates aren't supposed to be seated because they move up their primaries. We have main stream media that is shaping the battlefield for a race between John McCain and some democrat regardless of what the general population wants. We have small homogeneous states picking and choosing candidates for the rest of us based on their limited and largely rural backgrounds. We have this candidate casting stones at the others and in general, if you are like me, you are sick to death of it.

My candidate is out. I really think that Fred Thompson had the most concise and logical platform of ideas. But he didn't run the campaign to the media's liking and so dropped out. Giuliani too, not my favorite but an early frontrunner, was scuttled by a media which wants to heap laurels on two small states and begin the bickering and backstabbing on a national scale. And what of Texas and other states whose primaries are down the road past Super Tuesday? It would seem that our votes don't matter. It would also seem that the candidates simply do not care. Why should I waste time and effort voting for someone who doesn't even know I exist?

So here's my strategy (or stratergery if you prefer.) Since I consider Clinton a vindictive and dangerous nominee who has too much ambition and is too clever by half, in a McCain v. Clinton election, I hold my nose and voter for McCain. BUT.....In a McCain v. Obama race, I choose Obama. Why? you ask. Because:
1. This would lay to rest the use of the "race card" in all public and governmental events.
2. If you are going to elect someone with liberal causes anyway, you might as well go whole hog and pick one that has the liberal street cred. That way when the wheels fall off, it won't be the Republicans stuck holding the bag, again.
3. I think that Obama is calmer, younger and more detail oriented than McCain. His background as a professor would cause him to be more analytical, and although they may not like it, more conservative in the measures he chooses to take. Unlike Clinton, his background is constitutional law and he knows the structure of the government and the limitations of the office of President.
4. The election of Clinton would play into every negative female CEO stereotype and set women back fifty years.
5. McCain is simply not reasonable as has been demonstrated in a number of contradictory stances on many public issues.
6. Clinton has a great deal of political baggage and political payback. The POTUS and Congress are already at their lowest ebb-Congress being lower-than before in history. We really don't need a radical ideologue to cram a bunch of heavy handed programs down the throats of a weakly controlled and slavish Congress.

How To Tell Governments Apart

This has been posted in various forms elsewhere, but bear repeating. I had actually not seen the second half of this before. It's funny, but sadly true. Thanks to Spikymaxx at MyFoxDFW.com.

"DEMOCRAT You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. You feel guilty for being successful.

REPUBLICAN You have two cows. Your neighbor has none. So?

SOCIALIST You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor. You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.

COMMUNIST You have two cows. The government seizes both and provides you with milk. You wait in line for hours to get it. It is expensive and sour.

CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE You have two cows. You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.

BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE You have two cows. Under the new farm program the government pays you to shoot one, milk the other, and then pours the milk down the drain.

AMERICAN CORPORATION You have two cows. You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one. You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when one cow drops dead. You spin an announcement to the analysts stating you have down sized and are reducing expenses. Your stock goes up.

FRENCH CORPORATION You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows. You go to lunch and drink wine. Life is good.

JAPANESE CORPORATION You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains. Most are at the top of their class at cow school.

GERMAN CORPORATION You have two cows. You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give excellent quality milk, and run a hundred miles an hour. Unfortunately they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.

ITALIAN CORPORATION You have two cows but you don't know where they are. While ambling around, you see a beautiful woman. You break for lunch. Life is good.

RUSSIAN CORPORATION You have two cows. You have some vodka. You count them and learn you have five cows. You have some more vodka. You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. The Mafia shows up and takes over however many cows you really have.

TALIBAN CORPORATION You have all the cows in Afghanistan , which are two. You don't milk them because you cannot touch any creature's private parts. You get a $40 million grant from the US government to find alternatives to milk production but use the money to buy weapons.

IRAQI CORPORATION You have two cows. They go into hiding. They send radio tapes of their mooing.

POLISH CORPORATION You have two bulls. Employees are regularly maimed and killed attempting to milk them.

BELGIAN CORPORATION You have one cow. The cow is schizophrenic. Sometimes the cow thinks he's French, other times he's Flemish. The Flemish cow won't share with the French cow. The French cow wants control of the Flemish cow's milk. The cow asks permission to be cut in half. The cow dies happy.

FLORIDA CORPORATION You have a black cow and a brown cow. Everyone votes for the best looking one. Some of the people who actually like the brown one best accidentally vote for the black one. Some people vote for both. Some people vote for neither. Some people can't figure out how to vote at all. Finally, a bunch of guys from out-of-state tell you which one you think is the best-looking cow.

CALIFORNIA CORPORATION You have millions of cows. They make real California cheese. Only five speak English. Most are illegal. Arnold likes the ones with the big udders"

New Democrat Legislation Proposed

Sorry-I couldn't pass up the opportunity. This clears up so many questions about a great deal that is going on in our society. I got it from an email, I don't know the original source, sorry.

New Democratic Legislation Proposed

"The Americans With No Abilities Act (AWNAA)

WASHINGTON, DC - Congress is considering sweeping legislation which will provide new benefits for many Americans. The Americans with No Abilities Act (AWNAA) is being hailed as a major legislative goal by advocates of the millions of Americans who lack any real skills or ambition.

"Roughly 50 percent of Americans do not possess the competence and drive necessary to carve out a meaningful role for themselves in society," said California Senator Barbara Boxer. "We can no longer stand by and allow People of Inability to be ridiculed and passed over. With this legislation, employers will no longer be able to grant special favors to a small group of workers, simply because they have some idea of what they are doing."

In a Capitol Hill press conference, House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pointed to the success of the U.S. Postal Service, which has a long-standing policy of providing opportunity without regard to performance. Approximately 74 percent of postal employees lack any job skills, making this agency the single largest U.S. employer of Persons of Inability.

Private-sector industries with good records of nondiscrimination against the inept include retail sales (72%), the airline industry(68%), and home improvement"warehouse" stores (65%). At the state government level, the Department of Motor Vehicles also has agreat record of hiring Persons of Inability (63%).

Under the Americans With No Abilities Act, more than 25 million "middle man" positions will be created, with important-sounding titles but little real responsibility, thus providing an illusory sense of purpose and performance.

Mandatory non-performance-based raises and promotions will be given,to guarantee upward mobility for even the most unremarkable employees. The legislation provides substantial tax breaks to corporations that promote a significant number of Persons of Inability into middle-management positions, and gives a tax credit to small and medium-sized businesses that agree to hire one clueless worker for every two talented hires.

Finally, the AWNA Act contains tough new measures to make it more difficult to discriminate against the Non-abled-banning, for example,discriminatory interview questions such as "Do you have any skills or experience which relate to this job?"

"As a Non-abled person , I can't be expected to keep up with people who have something going for them," said Mary Lou Gertz, who lost her position as a lug-nut twister at the GM plant in Flint, Michigan, due to her lack of any discernible job skills. "This new law should really help people like me." With the passage of this bill, Gertz and millions of other untalented citizens will finally see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Said Senator Ted Kennedy: "As a Senator With No Abilities, I believe the same privileges that elected officials enjoy ought to be extended to every American with no abilities. It is our duty as lawmakers to provide each and every American citizen, regardless of his or her adequacy, with some sort of space to take up in this great nation."