Hennessy's View

Besides . . . lots?

In 1994, Dan Rostenkowski, then Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, was convicted of felony fraud charges. 

In 2010, Charlie Rangel, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, is found guilty of ethics violations. (And BO says it’s time for him to go.)

In 1994, Democrats were on the ropes after winning the House, the Senate, and the White House.

In 2010, Democrats are on the ropes after winning the House and Senate in 2006 and the White House in 2008.

In 1994, Republican conservatives ran a national campaign to win the House and Senate.

In 2010, Republican conservatives, bolstered by a massive grassroots movement, is running a national campaign to win the House and Senate.

How will it all end?

Popularity: 2% [?]

Steven Lipstein is president of BJC Hospitals.  He is part of well-funded, national campaign to deny Missourians the right to NOT purchase something they don’t want.

In a preposterous letter to his employees, Lipstein attempts to argue that human beings have no right to say “no” to health insurance.  As self-anointed overlord of our spending, Lipstein questions the very foundations of America’s guiding philosophy when he writes:

Can a citizen decide not to buy health care services, and with that decision, not be required to buy health insurance? The answer is not as straightforward.

Really, Steven? Because you sell medicine, you deny me the right not to buy it?

He goes on:

So, is an individual’s choice not to purchase health insurance an issue of "freedom"?

When educated men start to believe that human beings have no right to NOT buy something, despotism lives.

John Dickinson of Pennsylvania explained rights 240 years ago:

Kings or parliaments could not give the rights essential to happiness . . . They are not annexed to us by parchments and seals.  They are created in us by the decrees of Providence, which established laws of our nature. They are born with us; exist within us; and cannot be taken from us by any human power, without taking our lives. In short, they are founded on the immutable maxims of reason and justice.

Dickinson perfectly stated the basic belief of the United States.  But let’s look quickly at the consequences of Dickinson’s words.

If our rights are inherent in our nature as human beings, then they exist independently of any government, any industry, any technology, or any invention.  Adam and Eve after the fall had precisely the same rights as a child born in Barnes Hospital as I type.  Rights cannot be added or subtracted by humans.

If man does not, in 2010, have the right to not own insurance, he never had the right not to own insurance. Again, rights cannot be added or subtracted.

Nor can healthcare be a right. No one can be compel someone else to become a physician. If we are free to choose to be doctors are not, are we not free to choose to visit a doctor or not?  If we are free to be an insurance agent or not, are we not free to not buy an insurance agent’s services?

Lipstein makes an argument that we lost our right to not buy insurance because of a law that requires hospitals to render emergency treatment to anyone.  This argument is already invalid since neither Lipstein nor the government has the power to eliminate a right. But his argument is economically invalid, as well.

Barnes will treat the same number of emergency cases regardless of compulsory insurance because they are compelled to do so.  Further, those who cannot afford insurance today will not be able to afford insurance under the new law.  Instead, those who can afford insurance today will pay for the insurance of the indigent.  Nothing changes.  Except that Lipstein and his authoritarian friends in Washington will gain the power to tell you what you may or may not buy with your money.

In the end, his motives are obvious.  Mr. Lipstein would like to use the power of government to force us to buy what he sells.  Well, I ain’t buyin’ it, and neither is John Dickinson, Thomas Jefferson, or the majority of Americans.

If you believe that governments cannot create or destroy rights, then you must vote Yes on Proposition C.

Popularity: 3% [?]

The weekend of September 12, 2010, will be The St. Louis Tea Party Weekend. 

We have the Arch steps.

We have the Overlook Stage.

We have the streets.

We have the people.

We have the hunger.

We have the voice.

We have the people.

We have the stars.

We have the plan.

We have the people.

We have the cause.

We have the dedication.

We have the people.

We have the sound.

We have the music.

We have the people.

Details to follow. 

If you have out of town relatives who Tea Party, invite them in for the weekend. This St. Louis’s chance to shine, to inspire the nation to Win this Election for the People, for the States, for the Fallen, for our Children.

This is the FINAL TEA PARTY before November 2.  MAKE IT COUNT!

This is for you, St. Louis. For the people who fought for Healthcare Freedom, trekking to Jefferson City throughout the winter, handing out flyers on hundred degree days. 

This is for the people with mouths taped, unable to speak to the President cum overlord.

This is for the campaign workers who’ve shivered and sweated through a year of dedicated service to candidates, causes, and country.

This is for the noble warriors who stepped in to the Arena, to stand before God and man and have their lives examined for fitness for office.

This is for the candidates who side with their former opponents on August 4th to face down the deadly evil of tyranny.

This is for the family from deep southern Missouri who borrowed the church van to come to St. Louis for the April 15 2009 Tea Party, ferrying two other families with them.

This is for Moose McArthur and all the other heroes recovering from wounds sustained defending us.

This is For The Win.

This is For America.

This is For You.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Just before her beatification, Shirley Sherrod jumped the shark.

On Thursday, CNN’s Anderson Cooper let the embattled former USDA director talk for an hour. Bad idea. It was bad for CNN, bad for viewers, and really bad for Sherrod, who lost her mind on the air. This is what she said:

I think he’d [Andrew Breitbart would] like to get us stuck back in the times of slavery, That’s where I think he’d like to see all black people end up again.

The sad tale gets sadder.

If Anderson Cooper’s purpose was to expose Sherrod as a bitter, racial, crank, then he did yeoman’s work.  In that one hour special of All Shirley, All The Time, Cooper didn’t just knock Sherrod off of her pedestal—a pedestal I helped place her on—he hit her in the head with it. 

But the destruction of Shirley Sherrod was not Cooper’s intent, I’m sure.  He hoped to canonize the woman. It’s a comedy of errors all around. Sherrod’s media performance was so terrible she was banned form the Sunday talk shows. If we ever hear from her again, it will be after intense media coaching from the best the DNC has to offer.  But no coaching or make-up will cover her seething anger toward everything that doesn’t hand her cash.

In the end, Andrew Breitbart—the man who broke the story—got it just about right. He said all along that Sherrod hadn’t gotten past race. 

Jonah Goldberg said Shirley Sherrod owes Breitbart an apology. I agree. But don’t hold your breath.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Have you noticed few people call Barack Obama “The One” anymore? “The Golfer” or “The Vacationer” is more like it. Something less than One, by any measure.

Still, with each passing day and each new, permanent crisis, it seems like BO just ain’t up to the job of President.  Nothing new.  When Jimmy Carter’s incompetence became obvious, the lefty press developed a theory that the job had simply grown too complex for one man. Don’t be surprised to hear it again shortly. They carried that meme right into the GOP convention of 1980 when Walter Cronkite decided that Ronald Reagan needed to appoint Gerald Ford his co-nominee rather than veep. 

Of course, Reagan became President and proved, in short order, that  not only could one person handle the job, the right person could do it in 6 hour days with a nap to boot.  The trick, of course, is finding the right person. And America apparently failed at that challenge in 2008. 

I don’t have a bunch of stats and numbers for this, but I do have an awfully strong hunch.  Bill Clinton was dealt bad news from time to time, but he always seemed to land on his feet.  Barack Obama has good news every now than, and he somehow manages to screw that up, too.  Let’s look at headlines of the past week:

• Wikileaks releases ten of thousands of sensitive documents about Afganistan
• Maureen Dowd reveals that Obama’s “white guys” pushed Shirley Sherrod out of her job
• Hugo Chavez, Obama’s best friend in this hemisphere, threatened to cut off oil to the US over Columbia
• Obama backed release of Lockerbie Bomber, we learned

Did I say past week?  That was TODAY! 

Here’s the thing: today wasn’t a aberration. Every day of the Barack Obama presidency is like this.  Or worse. In fact, a few weeks ago, former Obama fawner, Peggy Noonan, declared Obama a “snake-bit President.”  And that ain’t good.

But Mr. Obama is starting to look unlucky, and–file this under Mysteries of Leadership–that is dangerous for him because Americans get nervous when they have a snakebit president. They want presidents on whom the sun shines.

Indeed. In 1981, the masters at Bishop DuBourg High School had us all watch Reagan’s Inauguration on TV.  We saw it happen live, on CBS, if I remember correctly.  Here’s the story from Defense.gov:

In stepped Reagan. After taking the oath of office, Reagan strode to the dais. As the new president began his inaugural address, the sun broke through the clouds. A woman in the crowd said that even Hollywood couldn’t have written a better script.

Reagan’s whole presidency was like that. Not scripted, but lucky.  When Dutch (Reagan’s nickname from back in Dixon, Illinois) screwed up, something happened. He’d come out smelling like a rose.

Noonan was right, of course. We want lucky leaders.  As goes a song from the musical Pippin, “It’s smarter to be lucky than it’s lucky to be smart.”

I would argue that intelligence, education, and experience, alone, are not enough to be president. Yet Obama appears to lack all of those, in addition to luck and instinct.  We know he went to Harvard. But so did George W. Bush. And Hank Paulson.  And the CEOs of most of the banks that collapsed in 2008.

So we have a lot of evidence that we hired the wrong dude to lead America.  The question becomes “what do we do now?”

There’s only so much we can do, and some of you have been doing it for a while.

1. We can keep pressure on Congress to STOP enacting this snake-bit, incompetent President’s agenda.
2. We can support candidates who will stop Obama’s agenda in the next Congress.
3. We can recruit and train candidates for 2012 who will reverse the damaging growth of government.
4. We can pray that our country survives this present crisis of government.

Until we have a Congress and President who understand the Constitution and voluntarily abide by its limitations on government powers, it’s up to us to remain vigilant against further government growth. And it’s also incumbent upon on us to understand what a colossal mistake we made by electing this snake-bit, failure of a man to our country’s highest office. 

Popularity: 2% [?]