Nullification: Obamacare's Waterloo?

Your faithful Peasant recently learned about a bill
in the South Carolina Senate which would effectively
nullify Obamacare in the Palmetto State. This bill
could become a model for the rest of the states as they
strain under compliance with the controversial health
care program's mandates. As I type this piece, some
other states may also have similar legislation pending
before their legislatures.

House Bill 3101 passed the South Carolina's House
last spring and is now in the Republican-controlled
Senate, and is on a fast-track for action to be taken.
If the bill gets signed into law, and it would certainly
be welcomed by South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley
(R) at her desk, that state will be the first state to exempt
citizens and businesses from all participation in the
laughingly named Affordable Health Care Act! Gov.
Haley has been a stalwart ally in the fight against
the implementation of President Obama's controversial
health care program from the very start.

State Senator Tom Davis (R), the bill's sponsor, said
that the bill have five components to it, all being within
the state's power to do. He told the press "What the
Supreme Court said in Printz vs. United States is that
states are not merely political subdivisions of the
federal government, to carry out what the federal govern-
ment does; they are sovereign entities,".

Davis continued, "Congress can pass laws, but it cannot
compel the states to utilize either their treasury or person-
nel to implement those federal laws."

Other provisions of the bill would outlaw state exchanges,
issuing tax deductions to persons equal to the tax penalties
levied by the federal government, and directing the state
attorney general to sue over whimsical enforcement of the
law. Altogether, the provisions would free the people of
South Carolina from the reach of Obamacare. Last I heard,
this bill has a great chance of passage in very short order
and would be signed with alacrity into law by Gov. Haley,
an ardent foe of Obamacare. The Tea Party activists there
are already involved in campaigning for this much-hailed
bill's passage, no surprise there. May this action catch on,
and quickly, in the other 49 states! Since the congressional
Republicans either can't, or won't, repeal or defund Obamacare,
the states may be able to step up to rid us of this menace.
Peasant to my state's Gov. Scott Walker: Hint, hint!

The Peasant wishes to thank Newsmax for publishing the
story about this legislation (SC Bill Would Nullify Obamacare,
Could Be Model for Others by Cathy Burke) which I have
here commented on.


MEM

A Fitting Epitath for Liberalism

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney recently
inadvertently gave what would serve as a fitting epitaph
for liberalism when he tried to paint a positive picture
of President Obama's healthcare overhaul, one of several
given since its comically clumsy rollout which was followed
by some painful consequences for many Americans who
were told by the Liar-in-Chief that if they liked their current
health care plans that they could keep them. To add salt to
their wounds, an estimated 2.3 million Americans will lose
their jobs by 2021, according to the Congressional Budget
Office, after studying the possible effects of the so-called
Affordable Care Act. Here's what the spokesgeek for the
president had to say:

"Opportunity created by affordable, quality health insurance
allows families in America to make a decision about how
they will work, or if they will work."

Now, my avid readers, take a minute to let that statement sink
in. The Obama regime claims that this message means that
the Affordable Care Act will "empower" Americans to
"make choices about their own lives and livelihoods, like
retiring on time rather than working into their elderly years
or choosing to spend more time with their families."
What unmitigated gall! Such boundless arrogance! The
taxes, along with the premiums for the Obama-mandated
policies (oh, that's right, those premiums are taxes too;
the Supreme Court said so) will make not working a more
economically attractive choice than working for many
workers, thereby rendering them ex-workers and wards
of the state. The more people dependent upon the state for
their subsistence, the more people under government control;
these very people will vote the straight Democrat ticket each
and every election in perpetuity to ensure a lasting Democrat
reign. The people would thus be like rodents in a laboratory,
conditioned to press a lever to make a food pellet roll down
to them whenever they get hungry. And this program is
considered by liberals to be the jewel in their crown! For
in this program they have detailed their endgame for our
society.

Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer gave his take
on Carney's words:

"(Carney) says opportunity. This is what he is heralding in this
achievement, that the government is giving opportunity to
people to decide if they want to work. This is the liberals' idea
of the opportunity society ... Of course, in a free society, you
can decide if you want to work, but what Obamacare does, and
so the essence of liberalism, is you can choose not to work, and
the people who do work end up subsidizing you."

And therein lies the rub. The more put upon the productive
members of our society become through higher and additional
taxes to support those who are not being productive, the more
that they will question whether it is a good idea to continue to
be productive, to work, to do for themselves. And if enough
Americans take this tack, a tipping point will have been reached
where there will not be enough Americans generating revenue
and too many Americans receiving monetary benefits from
the government, so something will have to give --- namely, the
handouts. Then the bedlam and the mayhem will quickly follow.
Remember what Greece went through not that long ago?

And our economy, and our country as we know it, will die.
And so will liberalism, as this voracious leech will be without
a host to suck from, as the stupid sponger will thus have done
itself in! And its epitaph will read:

"HERE LIES LIBERALISM

 Opportunity created by affordable,
 quality health insurance allows families
 in America to make a decision about how they
will work, or if they will work."

I would add to this epitaph:

"Famous last words."


MEM


NOTE: The Peasant gratefully acknowledges
The Personal Liberty Digest P.M. Edition
for publishing the remarks by White House
Press Secretary Jay Carney and Charles
Krauthammer's thoughts on same.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

The Peasant wishes you, my fabulous, fantastic readers,
a very Happy Saint Patrick's Day! I shall be attending
Milwaukee's Saint Patrick's Day Parade and Post-Parade
Party, as I do every year, and shall attend the party for
Ireland's patron saint that O'Donoghue's Irish Pub in
nearby Elm Grove hosts on the day. I hope that you all
will have some wonderful and fun events and activities
that you will be enjoying!

See you all next week!


MEM

Pete Seeger, R.I.P.

Pete Seeger, long-time folk music singer,
songwriter, and musician who blended
political activism into his songs, died
recently. Seeger was 94.

A fixture on the radio in the 1940s,
Seeger had many hit records in the '50s
as a member of the folk group The Weavers,
including a cover of Leadbelly's "Goodnight
Irene" which topped the charts for 13 weeks.
Seeger wrote and recorded "Turn, Turn, Turn"
whose words Seeger took from the Book of
Ecclesiastes in the Bible, along with other
notable songs such as "Where Have All The
Flowers Gone?" (with Joe Hickerson);
"Little Boxes"; "Dear Mr. President," and
"Waist Deep in the Big Muddy". Though
many of his songs were protest songs,
Seeger wrote some folk songs which were
just for the sake of entertainment, some of
which with children in mind.

Pete Seeger involved himself in many issues,
which included poverty, war, racism, unions,
farmers' concerns, and enviornmentalism.
Once a member of the Communist Party USA
(CPUSA), Seeger, in his own words, "drifted
away" from both the party and its politics
while remaining on the Left. He gradually
came to see communism, through the way
that the Soviet Union practiced it, as some-
thing as oppressive, if not more so, than any
other brand of politics or political system in
existence. This did not prevent him from
being blacklisted in the '50s, along with his
Weavers mates and other contemporaries in
their musical genre, all under suspicion of
being communists or having pro-communist
sympathies.

However, to Seeger's credit, he not only left
the communist Left, he decried their foul deeds.
This is in contrast to many outspoken fellow
travelers of old who either never renounced their
politics or else have simply quietly and sheepishly
slipped away from same, refusing to discuss the
oppression and destruction of the communists
rendering into lied the false promise of the
ideology. In 2007 Seeger responded to a former
banjo student of his (the banjo was Seeger's
musical instrument of choice) and former
Trotskyite Ron Radosh who now writes for the
National Review when Radosh criticized
Seeger for his pro-communist activities of long
ago in writing a letter of response to Radosh.
In the letter Seeger stated "I think you're right,
I should have asked to see the gulags when I was
in the USSR (in 1965)". With the letter Seeger
enclosed a copy of a song he wrote slamming
Joseph Stalin. It took great courage for Seeger
to admit that his initial support for communism
and the Soviet union was a mistake, and to make
up fpr it in a very public way. Pete Seeger had
not only the courage but the integrity to do this,
qualities the likes of which many western reds
and pro-communist stooges do not have and never
will.

Pete Seeger was a wonderful musical performer
and storyteller, and a man of uncommon
integrity and decency who truly and deeply
cared about his fellow man. May he rest in peace.


MEM

A Nascent Political Career Gets Underway!

Your intrepid Peasant recently received some exciting news!
A famous entertainer, with whom I am personally acquainted,
who happens to be a staunch and unabashed conservative in
a field which is hostile territory to conservatives has declared
her candidacy for public office!

Victoria Jackson, of Saturday Night Live fame, has tossed her
hat, or perhaps I should say her bow, into the ring to become
a candidate for Williamson County Commissioner. Her county
is in the state of Tennessee, close to Nashville. Jackson filed
as an independent, as she has publicly stated her disappointment
with the Republican Party and had left the GOP some time ago.
She is a Tea Party activist, and has appeared on some Tea Party
tours giving speeches and meeting the throngs turning out.
Jackson will face the Republican nominee, who will be chosen
by the Williamson County GOP on May 6.

Your faithful Peasant avers that Victoria Jackson has the courage
of her conservative convictions, as she has proven in working in
liberal territory for a long time, and not having compromised her
political principles one little bit; the lady neither asks nor gives 
any quarter. And she is an avid student of politics, and does her
research on the issues of the day most meticulously. Jackson
has, in fact, participated in some debates on political talk shows,
proving herself to be a formidable debater.

So conservatives in Williamson County, take note: you won't have
to settle for supporting some establishment mush-mouth that your
county's Republicans may endorse and nominate. In Victoria
Jackson you'll have a true champion of conservative principles.
Your humble Peasant hereby endorses Victoria Jackson for the
office of Williamson County Commissioner. Godspeed, Victoria!
May your campaign be victorious.


MEM

The Obama Regime's 2013 Accomplishments

Team Obama congratulated themselves for their actions
in 2013, and tried mightily to spin their record as a great
success. However, last year was quite the opposite for
Obama and his merry men and women, as your faithful
Peasant will detail here.

While the Democrats and Republicans came together to
to pass a budget after a great tussle, the Dems were at the
time faced with a new "no budget, no pay" provision
which meant that if a budget was not passed by April 15,
all senate salaries would be held in escrow until a budget
was approved. The Dems finally passed a budget, although
the original senate version called for increasing taxes in
2014 by $1 trillion and passed by a single vote --- with no
Republican votes and four Democrats joining the GOP to
vote against the measure.

The Dems boast that American businesses created 2 million
jobs in the old year, but conveniently failed to mention that
the staggering job losses experienced in the first term of
Obama's presidency is still weighing down our economy.
Furthermore, if the number of people who lost their jobs
in that period and have left the job market --- that is, that
they have ceased looking for new jobs --- are added into
the calculation of our unemployment rate, the rate would
be in double-digit per cent territory.

The party of the donkey also brags that the economy is
growing; the truth is, though, that the alleged recovery
is the slowest in many decades, and that we still have not
recovered the jobs that died off in Obama's first term.
And the effects of Obamacare and Obama's high corporate
taxes have proved to be an extra couple of albatrosses
around the neck of the economy. And the former has not
been fully implemented yet!

These same charlatans claim to have cut the nation's budget
deficit in half since Obama took office in 2009, but Obama
has presided over the five largest budget deficits in history,
and this is one of his and his regime's biggest and hairiest
lies to date.

Now, the US oil industry is, in fact, having some fat times.
This, in the face of Obama trying to kill off the Keystone
Pipeline which would bring oil down from the Canadian
oil fields, denying oil permits on federal lands and off
US coastlines, and heaping on more regulatory oversight.
Credit oil drilling on private lands and fracking for the oil
industry's high productivity, not Obama's misguided
policies.

The American auto industry is not thriving like Obama and
friends would have us believe; The US has at last sold its
final stake in General Motors, saddling the taxpayers with
a $10 billion loss. And recently, the Italian automaker Fiat
bought the shares of Chrysler which were also held by Uncle
Sam to have a strong controlling financial stake in the
company. Now our "Big Three" car makers numbers two.
Yippee.

And Obama and his fellow Dems are boasting that Americans
are getting better and more affordable health care coverage
thanks to the so-called Affordable Health Care Act. We have
examined the myriad flaws in both the program and in the
website to register for it here on this blog. And Americans
are continuing to lose their old, affordable health care policies,
in greater number than that of Americans that have signed up for
the Obamacare monstrosity so far. Remember Obama's pie crust
promise that if we "liked our health care policies, we could
keep (them)"? one of the biggest whoppers yet from the Liar-
In-Chief!

And let's not forget the biggest attempted backside covering
in history, the Benghazi scandal. We discussed that ugly
event here as well.

So we know what to expect for 2014 and the remaining two years
to come from the Obama reign. And it won't be pretty. However,
we can mitigate the effects of the waning time of the lame duck
imperial president by electing a conservative senate (not merely
a Republican senate, mind, but a conservative senate; electing
truly conservative Republicans to that chamber) and beefing up
the Republican ranks in the House with more conservatives.
If we do this, we will make Obama the lamest lame duck that
ever watched the hourglass sands trickle out on his remaining
time in the Oval Office. Having thus mitigated this misbegotten
president, we then can concentrate on electing a conservative
president who will undo the damage that this president
has done to our economy, our laws, our livelihoods, and
our lives.


MEM

Shirley Temple, R.I.P.

Shirley Temple Black, child actress extraordinaire,
American diplomat, politician, and a role model
for girls and ladies back in the days when it was
fashionable to be ladylike, as well as a symbol of
courage for women suffering breast cancer, sailed
on the Good Ship Lollipop for heaven's shores on
February 10. Having lived on this earth for 85
years, Temple lived both a long and a full life.

Having gotten into show business by her mother's
design as a tot, Temple was signed by 20th Century
Fox in the 1930s and made an impressive (for those
Depression-era times) $250,000 per picture, making
her the richest child actress in movies. She was
a bright and cheerful diversion for a gloomy, finan-
cially-struggling people seeking to forget their
troubles for an hour or two at their local cinemas.
At the tender age of six, she received a miniature
Academy Award and had her footprints immor-
talized in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre,
joining the other movie luminaries so honored.

Among the movies that Temple starred in were
"Curly Top"; "Wee Willie Winkle"; "Heidi";
"The Littlest Rebel", in which she famously tap
danced with famed tap dancer Bill "Bojangles"
Robinson, and "Dimples". Temple was also known
for her curly hair and her dimples. In one film
she sang "On The Good Ship Lollipop", which
had practically become her signature song.

At 22, Temple saw her acting career wane as she
had outgrown her typical roles upon attaining
womanhood, so she married and started a family.
However, her first marriage ended in divorce,
and she next threw herself into politics, becoming
active in the Republican Party. She was appointed
Ambassador to Ghana by President Richard Nixon,
later named Ambassador to Czechoslovakia by
President George H.W. Bush, and was appointed
Chief of Protocol by President Gerald Ford in
between these postings, this appointment making
her the first woman to hold this post. Temple
once ran for Congress but lost. Her fame from her
first career made her visible and prominent abroad,
increasing her effectiveness in her diplomatic duties.

Temple had been diagnosed with breast cancer and
had undergone a mastectomy in the 1970s, at a time
when women generally didn't openly discuss having
either the disease or the surgery, and helped make
it easier and more sociably acceptable to do so by
making public her surgery. In so doing, she helped
save many womens' lives.

She remarried, taking as her second husband former
naval officer Charles Black, with whom she had two
children; Temple had had one child with her first hus-
band. This marriage gave Temple the marital bliss
and joy that her first marriage failed to deliver. She
remarked in an interview that her life was "overflowing"
with happiness and that "It is because I am Mrs. Charles
Alden Black ... housewife and mother of three happy
and healthy children. Not because I was Shirley Temple."
A successful woman in two career endeavors and in her
family life. Not exactly music to the ears of radical
feminists.

In summation, Shirley Temple Black succeeded in life
on her own terms, and she did so without ever compromising
her femininity, her dignity, or her morals. She was a role
model for women throughout her long and storied life,
and could be so again after her passing, if the women
of today would take the time to give her a long, serious
look; for they would learn that they could have fulfilling
lives without making gratuitous sideshows of themselves.
Rest in peace, Shirley.


MEM