Double Whammy

I caught the ABC World News tonight and had to rewind it for two reasons.  The first was that the kids have big mouths (but I love them anyway).  The second was to be sure that I heard the President correctly.  I almost had to do it a final time to catch what former President Clinton said, but I heard knew I heard it correctly based on the rest of the statement.  Probably the stupidest statements I've heard from a politician in a long time, really!



So our current president decided he needed to try to push the Supreme Court to vote the way he wants to with regards to the healthcare bill.  I have a major problem with this bill in that it requires everyone to have health insurance.  My new job is a contract position which means, among other things, I don't get any supplementing for the health insurance premiums.  That wouldn't be so bad but the only independent insurance that I can get in my county is for self-employed folks or I can get it through the firm that I have the contract through.  I have a family so I need to cover them as well and this cost comes up to $1500 per month.  I'm making a decent wage so it isn't horrible but still, that is the equivalent of $9.38 per hour.  This law will mean that once our kids graduate from college they will have to start out making about $30 per hour just to be able to afford the health insurance that they are required to buy plus repay their college debt!  And that is assuming they will live at home because they won't be able to afford an apartment.  But I've gotten off topic.  So President Obama's statement was something along the lines that the Supreme Court doesn't have the power to overturn the law because congress passed it.  I can't remember the exact quote but this is a very close paraphrase.  I instantly grabbed the phone to make a note because I didn't want to forget it.  One of the things that I learned in high school was that one of the ways in which to set the government up for self governance was to create check and balances.  One of those check and balances was to create the judicial branch that would determine the constitutionality of laws passes by the executive branch.  Which means that either President Obama wasn't paying attention to that particular section of studies or he has chosen to ignore it based on the fact that he is now head of the executive branch and it doesn't suit his needs.  The Supreme Court is well within their limits to uphold or overturn a law, no matter my opinion on the subject.  That is what they are supposed to do!


But the story doesn't stop there.  Since it is an election year, the parties are now bringing out the "big guns" to show their support for the candidate, no matter if they agree with them or not.  So the Democratic party decided to bring former President Clinton into the mix and you know ABC wouldn't pass on the opportunity.  His statement was something to the effect of George Washington passed a law stating that all able bodied men in the United States must own a firearm.  I found it odd that he had to go back that far just to find an example.  I don't know if that is true or not (I may look it up at some point) but he is comparing apples and oranges.  George Washington was president when the country was new and struggling to prove itself in the world.  We were under constant threat of attack by the British and had to be prepared to defend our country, so to me it isn't the same thing.  That law, if real, made sense.  We defeated the British by gorilla warfare and having every household with at least one firearm and, presumably, ammunition would allow us to defend ourselves the same way.  I find this a desperate attempt by the Democratic Party to show that President Obama has done what he promised.