WELCOME

You are reading the thoughts of one who has kept them mostly out of the public venue. By virtue of the concept, blogs seem narcissistic so you can expect a lot of personal pronouns to show up.

I don't like being pigeonholed, though many have called me a conservative. I agree with much of what is often considered conservative views, but I do tend to occasionally differ on this view point. I have also been termed opinionated. Well, please remember this is my view, and I consider my view valid until convinced otherwise. That doesn't necessarily make it right; it simply makes it my view.

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NOTE: The posts in this blog are duplicates of the column I write for the Perris City News and Sentinel Weekly.

All right, let's get started. You are about to read neither the rantings of a madman nor the reflections of a genius. Perhaps somewhere in between:

December 3, 2014

Working the Con

There are famous con men, people who swindle for a living. Frank Abagnale kited some 2.5 million dollars worth of bad checks while posing as an airline pilot, doctor, and eventually a lawyer and a teacher. Abagnale’s life story was made into the movie Catch Me If You Can. Then there is the infamous Charles Ponzi – the one they named the Pyramid Scheme after. One modern day practitioner of this scheme was Bernie Madoff, the ex-NASDAQ chief who bilked investors out of an estimated 68 billion dollars.

You might recall the movie The Sting where con men were portrayed as heroes who bilked the mob out of a pile of money. That may make for a great Hollywood story. In real life, though, these people are merely thieves who pull the wool over the eyes of trusting and unsuspecting individuals. Although many people admire the way these con men gain the trust of their victims, the practice is in fact a despicable and highly illegal practice that leaves the victims with a traumatic sense of being violated.

Now comes Professor Jonathan Gruber, who, along with his accomplices Nancy Pelosi and Barrack Obama, may have pulled the greatest con in America’s history.

Let’s examine Gruber. He is currently a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has taught since 1992. He is also the director of the Health Care Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research, where he is a research associate. An associate editor of the Journal of Public Economics and the Journal of Health Economics, Gruber has been heavily involved in crafting public health policy, including the Massachusetts healthcare policy aka. “Romneycare.”

Why is Gruber important? Well, it turns out the good professor helped write and promote the 905-page Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare that President Obama signed into Law in 2010.

Yes 905 pages of “tortured language” that very few in Congress bothered to read, let alone understood. The then Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, stood at the podium of the House and told Congress they will have to “pass the bill to find out what’s in it.”

Well we did find out – the hard way. As the newly minted law began to be implemented, the American public found out they had been scammed. “If you like your doctor, you can keep it -- if you like your healthcare plan you can keep it” soon became the lie Obama could not overcome or explain away. As insurance premiums began to grow and the official Web Site rollout proved to be a disaster, Americans started to wonder just what the government had gotten us into.

Well we found out what those 905 pages were all about when the well-paid consultant, Gruber, appeared on television and explained that the bill was intentionally written in a way to deceive the “stupid voters.” Even more significant was the revelation that the law was written to avoid the appearance of it being a tax – one of the first controversial points that went before the Supreme Court.

Of course, the White House and Nancy Pelosi denied even knowing Jonathan Gruber. Another co-conspirator HHS secretary, Kathleen Sebelius denied knowing the professor, even though they both sat on the same committee, and she signed his paycheck for several hundred thousand dollars.

Deception upon deception, this fraud was foisted upon the American public – many of whom bought into it in good faith – just to learn that it was a scam promoted by unrepentant con men, including the Speaker of the House and President of the United States.

Do you feel violated and taken advantage of? I do. But then again, I never believed any of Obama’s lies. This bill passed without a single Republican vote and was signed into law by a Democratic President. Since the Republicans gained control of the House, they have tried some 40 times to repeal this fraudulent law only to be thwarted by Democrats in the Senate. It’s apparent that it will take a Republican controlled Congress and Republican President to set the Affordable Care Act right. Until then folks, you will just have to put up with being taken for a ride by the Democrats, and being the victim of the Great American con called Obamacare.


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