It’s More Than Just Syria, Remember?

With the morning, noon, and night Syria this, Syria that, it is difficult to remember the plethora of disasters which had been plaguing President Barack Obama and the legislative initiatives which had been dominating the headlines, AM political talk shows, and the late night comedians. Before we had our lesson in translating Arabic, care of Senator John McCain, with his informing a curious public that when terrorists and al-Qaeda or Muslim Brotherhood fighters are screaming “Allahu Akbar” that it means “Thank G0d” and not “Allah is the greatest,” we had former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s infamous quote of, “What difference now does it make,” regarding the murder of four brave Americans in Benghazi including Ambassador Chris Stevens, State Department staff member Sean Smith and Former SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, the last two continued to fight for their lives for close to seven hours painting the mortar position which eventually killed them but nobody was coming, they had all been ordered to stand down. We still have not been privileged to be told where the stand down orders originated and we are now fully aware that during the campaign when Hillary Clinton decried, “Who do you want answering that telephone at 3:00 in the middle of the night?” We now know that it is neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama. It probably has not improved all that greatly replacing Ms. Clinton as Secretary of State with John Kerry or with adding as Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel.

 

Then there are plans to provide anywhere from eleven to twenty-plus million undocumented workers a path to citizenship despite that they are more accurately described as illegal aliens; though I get the feeling that they have other names depending on which side of the argument one sits. There are those mostly amongst the Republicans who look at the illegal aliens as a low cost workforce which can benefit big business while many Democrats view these illegal aliens as future Democrat voters who very well might sway future elections such that the Democrats retain a majority in both the House and the Senate and retain the White House, well, at least for the foreseeable future. Remember the discussions as to whether we should refer to these illegal aliens as undocumented workers, unfortunates simply seeking a better life for their families, migrant workers, seasonal workers or any of any of a collection of misleading terminology had been raging for months. The main thing is that you must never refer to the “path to citizenship” as “amnesty”. No matter how you describe these illegal aliens, you must ignore the fact that these people crossed our borders, broke our immigration laws, jumped the line, and began their American experience by stealing somebody’s identity and instead show compassion and understanding. We need to remember that the immigration problem also has a group of politicians who have met and plotted out a path which will lead to a resolution by which everybody will receive fair treatment. These legislators go by the name of “Gang of Eight” and includes the following Senators;  John McCain (R-Ariz.), Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.). Of course there is also one small peculiarity to the immigrations debate, apparently there is a sizeable portion of the population who would support President Obama simply making the illegal aliens legal citizens by Presidential edict and going around the Congress and the Constitution. With the way everybody is paying attention to Syria, President Obama just might get away with simply decreeing citizenship for the illegal aliens with blanket amnesty, or whatever it will be called to avoid using the dreaded amnesty terminology, by Presidential Executive Order. President Clinton’s aide Paul Begala summed it up perfectly when he stated, “Stroke of the pen. Law of the land. Kinda cool.”

 

Then there is less than a month before Obamacare requires Americans to register with health exchanges in order to attain health insurance or else pay the fine. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, despite the piecemeal enactment being broken apart as President Obama selectively grants favored groups, companies, unions and politicians waivers from having to comply with Obamacare, is still barreling forward to forever drastically change the way Americans receive healthcare. Add to that the little inconvenience of postponing the implementation of the employer mandate but not the personal mandate means that businesses can simply refuse to insure their workers while the employees will have to either get insurance or pay a fine. Then there is the small miracle which is predicted to become very popular is opting for paying the fine for being uninsured as the fine is significantly less than insurance will end up costing very quickly. The first year the cost for insurance will be affordable, yet later when more people choose to opt out of buying insurance and simply pay the fine, which will cost less, knowing full well that they can always buy insurance immediately should they develop a serious health emergency without any fears that they could be turned down, costs will skyrocket. The eventual aim of Obamacare is to bankrupt the insurance providers forcing everyone on to a single payer government healthcare system. The real fiasco here is that both the majority of the Democrats and Republicans are supportive of forcing the entirety of the population of the United States into government healthcare so neither side will take any actions which will actually prevent the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act from taking effect. What made the reality that the aim is to collapse the health insurance industry came when President Obama gave employers an extra year before they will be required to insure their full-time employees. This will place all of the costs on the individual while the employers simply stop providing health insurance. The initial casualties have already been put on display as many employers have cancelled the options for insuring an employee’s spouse and even children. Another consequence has been the massive shift in hiring from full-time employees to a significant percentage of part-time employees. The percentage of part-time employment making up the new jobs each month is well over fifty percent and approached well over seventy-five percent. Who would have figured out that the most visible change caused by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act would end up being a shift to mostly part-time employees in order to get around the draconian measures and requirements on employers for providing healthcare for their employees but only those who are full-time.

 

Syria is a terrible situation that is likely to only get worse with time but it is not the only problem on the horizon as demonstrated above. What makes the state of the world even more troublesome is that Syria is far from the only problem in the Middle East and North Africa. Tunisia has devolved back into a series of chaotic demonstrations with the people very adamant that they want a far more secular government and will not tolerate creeping Sharia. Libya never actually established a national government and has broken up into mostly tribal forces exerting their influence over their separate tribal areas. Many of the cities either belong to a local tribal leader or to al-Qaeda or other terrorist forces. Mali is still in the throes of a civil war and the French are not securing much beyond the major cities. Nigeria is in a state of civil war with the Islamic forces controlling the north and destroying churches and murdering Christians where the two influences border each other. The Islamist forces are slowly pushing southward sewing destruction to everything of a Christian influence as they proceed. The Egyptian military has removed President Morsi and the Truth and Justice Party from control over all the levers of the government halting their drifting towards Islamist Sharia governance. Turkey is experiencing Sunni-Shiite violence with many of the Shiite fighters taking refuge in Iraq and being supplied by Iran and receiving training from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRCG). Yemen is in the grasp of a civil war with tribal forces in the northern parts of the country while fighting to hold off al-Qaeda from taking over the southern parts of the nation including some of its most vital ports. Somalia and the Horn of Africa is still an unruly disaster with the cities broken up into small enclaves with violence the rule, not the exception. And then there are the secretive peace negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians which are being held under a cloak of silence. Nobody appears to be certain about anything concerning these negotiations which with knowing President Obama, Secretary of State Kerry, Secretary of Defense Hagel and the State Department can only make any supporters of Israel extremely nervous. In addition the Israelis are represented by a Post-Zionist Tzipi Livni who was one of those who assisted in crafting the offers under Ehud Barak which offered to split Jerusalem and return over ninety percent, some have noted it was close to ninety-seven or ninety-eight percent of Judea and Samaria, to make up the Palestinian State. Add the rumors that President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Kerry provided Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian Chief Negotiator Saeb Erekat letters guaranteeing them that every single Palestinian demand and precondition would be granted even if the United States had to force such a solution upon the Israelis. That would include removing close to nine-hundred-thousand Jews from Judea and Samaria, dividing Jerusalem placing all of Jerusalem’s holy sites beyond the reach and unable to be visited by the Israelis, and forcing an influx of as many as five and a half million Palestinian refugees inside pre-1967 Israel making the Palestinians the majority population in Israel thus erasing the Jewish State. I really hate rumors.

 

Beyond the Cusp