As the persecution of Christian heightens around the world, what is our president’s response? Many have been watching in horror as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) took control of Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, and are now moving toward Kirkuk. Along the way, they are killing the innocent and causing Christian populations living in the region since the first century to flee their homes for their lives. Plus, we also watch the military gains won by our brave soldiers in Iraq slowly slipping away, squandered by an incompetent Obama administration. By pledging 275 military personnel to our embassy in Bagdad, Iraq, Obama has done nothing to stop ISIS’s spread or curtail any Christian persecution in the region.
Where was Obama when Somalia’s al-Qaida-linked terror group al-Shabaab recently went door to door murdering Christians in a Kenyan village as they watched the World Cup? Did he speak up about the atrocities? Did he call these acts a hate crime? No, unfortunately Christians appear to be of no concern to our president. While he publically calls out a man for creating a video which supposedly offended some of a certain religion, churches burn and are looted across the Middle East. Syria, Egypt, Libya, Kenya and Somalia are but a few of the countries that immediately come to mind where Christian intolerance is reaching all-time highs.
However, his lack of concern or outrage on the subject comes as no surprise. Most do not remember or even ever heard of the Christian persecution in Egypt by the Muslin Brotherhood. After the fall of Morsi, Christians were paraded throughout the streets, many faithful were outright killed, churches were vandalized and the religion was demonized. Pope Francis recently spoke publically about the problem by stating Christian persecution is worse now than it was in the first century when the religion was banned by the Roman Empire.
Is the president too busy playing golf, promoting his progressive agenda, on another vacation or just doesn’t care enough to speak up against the worldwide rise in Christian persecution? The president’s silence and lack of any response only emboldens those that wish to wipe Christianity from our planet and impose their way of life upon us. As he has already seemingly forsaken Israel and now does the same to the Christian faithful, Obama’s true beliefs and agenda are no longer transparent. The man is of no ally to Israel or the Christian world.
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Unemployment Numbers are a Hoax
Did you ever consider why our unemployment numbers seem so low despite the fact that government subsidies are at an all-time high? With the marked increased usage of food stamps, Medicaid, WIC, section 8 and disability among others, how do any of these trends correlate with a thriving economy?
First, the unemployment number represents only the percent of legal Americans who are ACTIVELY looking for work who can’t find a job. It does not represent the unemployed who simply can’t find an adequate job and simply gave up looking. As the above graph shows, the working participation rate has hit a 35-year-low of 63.2 percent in the United States in 2013, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)—clearly identifying that less Americans are working. Ironically, this percentage has not been so low since when Jimmy Carter was in office.
Plus, the number of people considered working also represents those who are forced to take underemployment or part time because they can’t find an adequate job. It should not come as a surprise about the increase in part time employment. Due to Obamacare, this number continues to increase by the day because the law penalizes low-wage employers for hiring full-time workers while encouraging workers to prefer part-time jobs. In fact for those in the bottom quintile of income, the average workweek has shrunk by more than an hour since the recession began. Also the proportion of those in this same quintile with full-time jobs also dropped significantly. In some industries and occupations, the decline amounts to losing five weeks of work a year.
Worse yet, here is a passage form a recent article by the Daily Signal: Obamacare also encourages many low and moderate income workers to prefer part-time jobs. Employees generally work full-time for two reasons: to make more money and to get health benefits. Under the ACA, the government now subsidizes health benefits, but only for workers whose employers do not offer them it. Many workers can now make as much working part-time without health benefits, taking all their compensation in cash, and collecting exchange subsidies as they would by working full-time and taking part of their compensation as employer-provided health coverage. Consequently Obamacare will put downward pressure on both the supply of and demand for full-time jobs. The Congressional Budget Office estimates Obamacare will appreciably shrink total hours worked in the economy over the next decade, finding the largest declines “will probably occur among lower-wage workers.”
This downward trend will make it difficult to become finally independent and create more people on the federal dole by the day. Ironically, that is what Obama wants, and the law is set up in such a way to make it happen. Unfortunately, we are creating a generation of Americans dependent not on themselves but on government. Remember, the American dream represents life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness–not a shorter life expectancy under Obamacare, no liberty under the NSA and the pursuit of the next government handout.
Where is this economy headed?
As many of our honored veterans languish on fake waiting lists or are denied needed medical care, one must ask if the VA is properly using its funding provided by taxpayer money. Just like any business, expenditures should be evaluated on a regular basis to ensure solvency of the company. Unfortunately, unlike private businesses, the government is not accountable for its taxpayer dollar spending and has little accountability. However, when our veterans are suffering as a result, I think that it should be of the utmost priority to ensure that every taxpayer dollar allocated to veterans go directly to their health and wellbeing.
Recently, I read an analysis by Free Bacon about frivolous VA spending which is both an affront to our veterans and all those legally paying taxes in the United States. On the government’s official spending website, it showed the VA spent $1.3 billion in the past five years for “support” and “professional services.” When you read further and find out what these services are, you will be dumbfounded by the wastefulness of these programs.
First, millions were spent on PR for the VA to make them look more positive in the public eye. For example, in a series of 10 transactions, the VA awarded Woodpile Studios $5 million on 9/29/10, $1.7 million on 7/15/10, $1.7 million on 7/14/11 and another $1.8 million on 6/27/12 for the message campaign; while another contract for $2.9 million was awarded in 2010 for “marketing and advertising” to another company. The commercials ran in major cities during 2011 ESPN College bowl games and the Country Music Awards. They were designed to “increase awareness and confidence among the U.S. veteran population of the value and extent of VA services available to them.” It urged “family members to send their warriors to the VA.”
Plus millions of millions of dollars were spend for bureaucratic peer reviews. For example, a $6.3 million contract awarded in 2011, another $5.9 million contract in 2013, and another $1.7million contract in 2013, all of which were awarded to Ascellon Corp. during the past five years to conduct surveys to ensure Compliance. And these examples were just the tip of the iceberg.
Plus, costly “peer reviewed” programs included such monetary tallies as one for $15.3 million, one for $11.7 million, another for $12.5million, and still another for $12.2 million. Other contracts awarded during the current administration under “office support/professional service” included millions spent on “energy program development.” Due to an executive order signed by Obama in October 2009, the VA is required to make its facilities more energy efficient and sustainable.
By 2020, the VA’s goal is to increase its renewable energy consumption to 20 percent; a total of 183 green energy projects were awarded for VA facilities across the country. One such contract was for a Washington D.C.-based VA facility for nearly $1 million.
When you look at these expenditures, it makes you sick to learn that a recent VA audit showed over 100,000 Veterans are experiencing long wait times over 3 months for their healthcare. Obama once boasted the VA a triumph for government-run healthcare and used it as a model for Obamacare. If this is what we should expect from Obamacare, our health system is doomed.
As a physician, I can attest to the recent article I’ve read in the Courier Journal about more people using the emergency rooms due to Obamacare. Unfortunately, under this new law, the newly insured Americans were supposed to be utilizing their primary care physicians instead of the emergency room. However, that has turned out certainly not to be the case.
With the number of visits to the ER soaring by the day, most ask why this rise is happening if more Americans are supposedly receiving coverage through Obama’s Affordable Care Act. The answer is actually simple. The health insurance that well over 50% people now covered by Obamacare received is Medicaid. Because there are too few primary care doctors actually accepting this insurance, these newly insured patients have no other place to go to see a physician other than the ER.
As stated in the Courier Journal article: “It’s a perfect storm here,” said Dr. Ryan Stanton of Lexington, president of the Kentucky chapter of the ER physician group. “We’ve given people an ATM card in a town with no ATMs.” In short, Obamacare provided millions with Medicaid, but there are no doctors accepting Medicaid.
The article went on to use Kentucky as an example. A workforce capacity study conducted for the state by Deloitte Consulting last year found that Kentucky needed 3,790 more doctors, including 183 more primary-care physicians, to meet pre-ACA demand. Under the law, it said the state may need to add an additional 284 primary-care physicians by 2017. Complicating matters, a quarter of Kentucky’s primary-care doctors could be ready to retire within five years, the report said. The report also said roughly 56 percent of the state’s primary-care physicians, and 22 percent of all physicians, accepted a Medicaid payment in 2011, which Deloitte said was its best estimate for figuring out how many physicians accept Medicaid.
While primary care may be difficult to find, emergency rooms cannot turn anyone away. Stanton said every patient who comes in must have a medical screening, and most doctors do more; “the vast majority … do treatment to decrease medical and legal risk.”
The problem gets even larger when you realize that Medicaid reimbursements are a fraction to that of Medicare. The physician reimburse is so low that a private practice doctor would go bankrupt if they only saw Medicaid patients. Between their overhead and malpractice, Medicaid reimbursements would not cover even the basic costs of doing business. In the end, there is no incentive for any private practice physician to accept Medicaid patients. Then, when you realize that reimbursements by the federal government for Medicaid are being cut, you will quickly realize that the number of physicians who accept it will also be dwindling.
So where does that leave those patients now? Worse off than they were before.
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Obamacare is a Financial Disaster
As Obamacare continues to decimate the American healthcare system, few media outlets highlight the facts about this ever growing problem. Though Obama claims his new law (which he enforces on an imperial, piecemeal basis) is a success, the truth is much different. When you break down the over 8 million enrollees signed up by the plan, you will quickly realize that over 5 million of them are on the federally funded Medicaid program. Then, with regard to the remaining 3 million, it is uncertain how many actually paid their premiums and how many needed this insurance because they were kicked out of their previous health plans due to the Affordable Care Act. A recent article in The Business Insider sums up the economics of Obamacare: Of the 5.45 million people who signed up through the federal exchange, 5.18 million (or 95%) applied for financial assistance in their insurance plans. As a businessman and physician, I can sum up these numbers in a very easy way:
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Only a very small percentage of patients enrolled through Obamacare are actually paying for it
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Our government has created a new and massive bureaucracy to manage Obamacare
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We can’t afford the Medicaid program which has been expanded another 5 million people
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Few doctors actually accept Medicaid, leaving the “newly insured” without true access to the healthcare system
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We can’t afford the Medicare program
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Where do we get all this money needed to pay for 2 programs we can’t afford and a new program, Obamacare, that is financially unsustainable?
The financial truth about Obamacare is that it is an economic disaster. Many think the Tea Party and Conservatives are against it just because they are displeased with Obama. The truth is, most of them understand that the health insurance programs created by our national government are financially unsustainable and will eventually bankrupt our country. We are in 18 trillion dollars of debt already. Where will this madness end?
The surge of illegal immigrants across the border has caused a humanitarian crisis and possibly a medical one also. Worse yet, Breitbart Texas states that just in 2013, 36,000 convicted criminals were among those illegal immigrants released into US territory. And the number is growing. In 2013, the Border Patrol in the Rio Grande Valley sector arrested 154,453 immigrants in 2013, which is a marked increase from 97,762 in 2012- and these tallies are just a small fraction of those crossing the border.
The biggest question is where are the illegal immigrants going, and what diseases can they potentially be spreading to American citizens? Border Patrol agent, Chris Cabrera states that many of these illegals are carrying contagious illnesses with them when they enter the states. He states, “There’s been an outbreak of scabies that’s been going on for the past month. We are (also) starting to see chicken pox, MRSA staph infections, we are starting to see different viruses.”
Plus, Cabrera also admitted that these diseases are “contagious. We are transporting people to different parts of the state and different parts of the country. Just the fact we are exposed to it, and so is everyone here in south Texas, it’s a great concern to us.” Governor Brewer of Arizona recently chastised the federal government for bussing and flying these illegals to her state without her consent. My question is, where else are the feds transporting them without our knowledge?
The Department of Homeland Security states that they are screening all the illegal immigrants in custody. However, as border patrol agents admit, those with infectious and contagious illness are still being placed into the general population. Plus, the bigger concern are all those illegals that were not caught or evaluated by the Department of Homeland Security. What could they be spreading into our country that has gone undocumented?
Senator Cruz openly admonishes Obama and his administration for this crisis. He said, “We need a president who is willing to uphold the law,” Cruz said. “On issue after issue the Obama Administration has openly ignored, defied, and unilaterally tried to change the law. Just a few months before the last election the president illegally and unconstitutionally granted amnesty to some 800,000 people illegally. If the president wants to change federal immigration laws, the Constitution lays out a way to do so–you go and make your case to Congress and you convince Congress to change the laws…unfortunately for President Obama, following the Constitutional structure is apparently too cumbersome. One of the consequences were seeing on the border is a humanitarian crisis that is a direct consequence of Obama’s lawlessness.”
Will this massive increase in illegal immigrants instigated by the failure of the Obama administration to uphold the law cause unintended medical consequences in our country. As our health system becomes decimated through government interference, could we handle the possibility of a new, emerging medical crisis? Only time will tell.
An article by Jessica Berardino recently piqued my interest. Though many have dismissed Obama’s daily assault on our Constitution, powers grabs and ratcheting down of American’s civil liberties, Law Professor and Author Francis Buckley appropriately pointed out what most in the media have failed to expose. He wrote that Obama was the first elected official, “who assumed king-like powers as President.”
Berardino’s article went on to state: Buckley explains that while this government didn’t start with President Obama, he has certainly taken it to a higher level. The professor says that the way President Obama makes and unmakes laws without consent on Congress; the spending of government dollars; committing America to war; and rewarding his friends while punishing his enemies makes him “rex quondam, rex futurus – the once and future king.”
“Who cares which party controls the Senate, if all the action is at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue,” said Buckley in his column. He believes that the main idea that the founder’s had in mind when creating the Constitution was if political power became centralized in a single person, this would be a threat to liberty. He fears that if the media doesn’t start showing more interest in the quick rise of presidential power then the future will begin to resemble the past.
The past he writes about is a return to a monarchal rule not unlike that of King George III of England during the revolutionary days. One must remember that for our government to properly function each of its branches must stay within their legal boundaries as mandated by the Constitution. The Executive branch was created to enforce the laws passed by Congress. However, Obama selectively chooses the laws he wishes to enforce or picks parts of the law that he puts into effect. Also, through executive orders, he has unilaterally created legislation and bypassed Congress in the process to pursue his socialistic agenda. With his pen and phone, he has usurped the Legislative branch of government’s power and made his position one of total authority.
Unfortunately, this exact scenario is that which the founding fathers fought so adamantly to avoid. They knew what tyranny meant and saw its deleterious consequences.
Must we as Americans head down this path and relearn what our founding fathers warned us about so many years ago? Must we live through tyranny once again before we denounce it evils? Obama has fundamentally changed our country. Unfortunately, he has changed it for the dire WORST.
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Book Expo America
I am simply writing this post to thank all those who were involved in the Book Expo America (BEA). Special thanks goes out to my publisher, Light Messages, and everyone who waited in line to get a signed copy of my bestselling novel, The New Reality. The experience was priceless, and made all the long hours of writing my novel, editing it, and bringing it to publication well worth it.
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Hold Obama Accountable
The major question in the news is if Obama’s unilateral action of negotiating with a terrorist organization is legal? Recently, the POW, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was freed after the Obama administration released five high-level Taliban members from the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
The release of these terrorist combatants completely diverges from our current policy as noted by Senator Ted Cruz. “The reason why the U.S. has had the policy for decades of not negotiating with terrorists is because once you start doing it, every other terrorist has an incentive to capture more soldiers.”
Some have stated that since we’ve previously brokered deals with countries that harbor terrorist such as Iran and North Korea, there has been no unilateral breech in American foreign policy. However, those making the argument have failed to realize that the Taliban is not a sovereign nation.
Susan E. Rice, the president’s national security adviser, argued, “Sergeant Bergdahl wasn’t simply a hostage; he was an American prisoner of war captured on the battlefield. We have a sacred obligation that we have upheld since the founding of our republic to do our utmost to bring back our men and women who are taken in battle, and we did that in this instance.”
Though Senator McCain welcomed the American soldier’s return, he called the five Taliban detainees, “the hardest of the hard core. It is disturbing that these individuals would have the ability to re-enter the fight, and they are big, high-level people, possibly responsible for the deaths of thousands” of Shiite Muslims in Afghanistan.
The question remains if this negotiation and trade were legal. Those that argue that Obama’s unilateral action was unjust simply point to the law. They note:
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Congress requires official notice of any prisoner release from Guantánamo.
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The secretary of defense is required to determine “the risk posed by the detainee” and certify that release or transfer “is in the national security interests of the United States,” according to U.S. law as written in the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
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Congressional committees must be notified by the administration at least 30 days before the release of any Gitmo inmate
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The secretary of defense “must provide detailed information regarding the circumstances of the transfer or release along with the notification, including how the risk posed by the detainee will be substantially mitigated, the security arrangements in the receiving country, and an assessment of the capacity, willingness, and past practices of the receiving country”