So there I was, at the
monthly meeting of the Massachusetts Center-Right Coalition,
listening to various speakers bringing us up-to-date on issues of
the day: federal, state and local budget battles; new federal
government “Common Core” education standards; the Second Amendment;
EBT cards; illegal immigration; tax credit cheating and new tax
proposals. As a speaker began a presentation about a new threat to
privacy, I heard Stephanie Davis of the Boston Tea Party, who was
sitting behind me, sigh: “Overwhelmed.”
I know exactly how she
feels.
Earlier that week I’d
watched the entire House hearing on Benghazi, during which three
whistleblowers began the process of unraveling the truth of why and
how the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans died there. Over
the weekend, I saw the email memos between the CIA and Hillary’s
State Department that prove we were initially lied to about the
cause of the Benghazi attack. Soon there may be more whistleblowers,
and some Republicans are planning another hearing for which they can
issue subpoenas and solicit testimony under oath. I look forward to
hearing more from Hillary Clinton about how all this doesn’t matter.
On the way home from
the Coalition meeting I heard the IRS admitting it’s been targeting
conservative groups with the words “tea party,” “patriot,” and other
scary words like “Constitution” in their names, though it insists
this was not official policy just bad behavior on the part of some
“low-level employees.”
As someone noted on
talk show host
Todd Feinburg’s Facebook, where I like to hang out: “… Just
remember that under Obamacare the departments that will be handling
your medical records and deciding what treatments you may receive
will also have ‘low-level’ employees.”
I’ve been reading the
“ObamaCare Survival Guide.” It says that the IRS will be responsible
for administering the “individual mandate.” Americans who don’t have
insurance can be harassed and will be penalized by “low-level
employees” of the Internal Revenue Service. Fortunately, after
Congress read the 2,700-page law, it repealed, for now, the section
that required businesses to account for each purchase they made in
excess of $600 by sending a 1099 form to the IRS.
The IRS has issued an
apology for the targeting of assumed Obama-opponents, trying to get
ahead of what is expected to be a damning report from the Treasury
Department’s inspector general, due out soon. The Associated Press
reports that senior IRS officials were notified about the targeting
of conservative groups back in 2011. And we are just learning that
the AP has also been a target of the government, as the Justice
Department had been secretly seizing its phone records.
However, this may fall
into the ongoing discussion about Freedom of the Press vs. Homeland
Security that can’t be breached by an irresponsible media
interfering with a terrorist investigation. Not to be confused with
political correctness interfering with the FBI’s targeting jihadist
Muslim immigrants.
Speaking of
immigration: Amendments are being debated in the Senate Judiciary
Committee on a proposed immigration reform bill that is expected to
be sent to the Senate floor this week. The Obama administration and
most Democrats continue to support amnesty for illegal immigrants
while supporting border security in the sky, by and by. Some
Republicans are so afraid of offending Hispanic voters that they’ll
pretend that THIS time, amnesty won’t encourage another 11 million
illegals to cross the still-unsecured borders, as happened when
Ronald Reagan did it.
I’ve been thinking
about my grandfather, who, according to family lore, came here from
Croatia at age 18 with 32 cents in his pocket, went directly to work
in the steel mills and eventually had two children who also worked
hard. Can’t help but wonder: if he’d been met at the dock with an
EBT card, would his descendants, including me, still be on welfare?
Speaking of Electronic
Benefits: let’s trade them in for Essential Better Transportation.
I’m waiting for local mayors Driscoll and Scanlon, who want higher
taxes for transportation projects, to deplore the waste and abuse in
the state welfare system and demand evidence that the new taxes will
actually be spent on transportation.
I understand why some
people are permanently overwhelmed by political issues and too busy
to sort it all out. Now if only they wouldn’t pretend they’re
qualified to vote, thereby electing the likes of John Tierney to
Congress.
There he was, during
the Benghazi hearing, sneeringly mocking the Republicans for their
concern about the Obama administration misleading the American
people “for political purposes.”
Fortunately, as I tried
to decide where to start on Monday morning, Paul Craney of
Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance invited me, with Christine Morabito of
the Greater Boston Tea Party, to sign on to a letter to the
Massachusetts Congressional delegation. We called on it to publicly
condemn the IRS actions: “This type of behavior cannot be tolerated
and it’s important that residents of Massachusetts know how their
Members of Congress stand on this good-government issue.”
Here in the 6th
Congressional District, I await a response from Mr. Tierney and
Senator Warren. It’s long-past time to make our politicians feel
overwhelmed by public outrage.
