Left & Right March 27, 2019

Mark Guerringue again sits in the left chair. We open with the release of the Mueller Report last Friday. I reiterate what I've claimed for two years: There never was evidence of the Trump campaign colluding with the Russians so it's not surprising Mueller couldn't find any.

Mark asks if I accept the results of the investigation given that I never believed Mueller to be the straight-arrow prosecutor he was purported to be. I respond that Mueller should never have taken the case because there never was any crime or evidence of one and he should have seen that.

Mark says there was lots of smoke in the form of indictments generated by Mueller that didn't rise to prosecutable levels but that Trump had too many contacts with the Russians. He thinks the clearing of Trump is good for Democrats because impeachment proceedings would have hurt them like the impeachment proceedings against Clinton hurt Republicans twenty years ago. He thinks Democrats should "move on."

I say it's likely now that the Trump Justice Department will rev up its investigation of the frame-up initiated by Obama intelligence officials in CIA, FBI, NSA, and DOJ that should result in indictments of them.

We discuss Obamacare and the lawsuit from Texas challenging Obamacare's constitutionality after Trump eliminated the mandate/tax provision. That was Chief Justice Robert's rationale for the legality of the legislation -- that it was a tax, which it isn't anymore.

We discuss the efficacy of Medicare. Mark praises it. I call it unsustainable because government pays providers less than the cost to deliver the services so other consumers must pick up the difference. I cite that Democrat candidates for president would abolish private medical insurance companies. Mark is against that. He prefers a free market. We agree.

I raise the Jussi Smollett case and cite numerous connections to left/Democrat people behind dismissal of his charges including Michelle Obama and George Soros and that one of Smollett's lawyers was indicted along with Michael Avenatti earlier this week.

Mark brings up security clearances and neither of us knows if a president has to obtain one the way others do, or does he just get one automatically after being elected and inaugurated? I contend that Obama would never have gotten one as a private citizen because of his numerous connections to radical Islamic figures.

Mark like Andrew Yang as a Democrat presidential candidate after he visited the Conway Daily Sun offices recently for a discussion. We discuss his idea of giving $1000 a month to every citizen of the USA. I'm skeptical.

Mark suggests that next show we discuss political bias in social media. I'll be in Ireland the next two weeks and will miss the regularly scheduled next show.

The Politics of Fatigue

Summer is half over and I haven’t played enough — almost not at all, but I’ve begun to make some changes to allow it. Yes, I have to finish a book proposal and send it out, but I hate doing it and have to force myself to work at it every day for a little while at least. I have to get outside more and clear my head between sessions. I also have to stop reading obsessively about political goings-on. I’m staying away even though it's especially hard to do when so much is happening. It's been a nice break to avoid politics and write about other things, but here are some political “reflections on the passing scene” as the great columnist Thomas Sowell used to pen occasionally before he retired.

*After seven years of promising to repeal Obama care and passing countless bills to do so knowing they’d be vetoed by Obama, Republicans in Congress can’t do it with a Republican president who would sign it. Meanwhile, Obamacare is collapsing as predicted. Thanks Democrats. Thanks Republicans. You’re both pathetic. If members of Congress and everyone else who works for our way-too-big federal government were forced to be under Obamacare along with the rest of us, it would never have passed in the first place, or would surely be fixed now.

 *Seventy years ago, Congress passed Amendment 22 which limited a president to two terms. It’s time for Amendment 28 to limit senators and congressmen to a total of twelve years each, after which they must be banned from lobbying for an additional ten years. Think of all the obnoxious senators and congressmen we wouldn’t have to listen to if Congress’s terms had been limited seventy years ago too? Think of where we’d be today instead of where we are.

*Finally, finally, we have some actual evidence of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. It’s very thin — not evidence of actual collusion, but only an email indicating that Donald Trump, Jr. was open to hearing about possible help from a Russian back in June, 2016. Over a year of investigation, and that’s all we’ve got. Will another year of even more investigation yield anything else? Don’t hold your breath. The investigation is having the desired effect however. It’s driving Donald Trump crazy, much crazier than he otherwise might be.

*Meanwhile, I’m kicking myself for not working harder against Donald Trump during the primaries. I should have trusted my first instinct that any guy in his seventies who would pay that much attention to his hair has personality problems. When I think that we had sixteen alternatives, any of which would have been so much better, including Scott Walker, Carly Fiorina, Ted Cruz, or anyone else except John Kasich. Okay, maybe even him.

*President Trump’s antics are so embarrassing I can hardly stand it, but Hillary Clinton? I could never have brought myself to put a check next to that name. If I could go back to that voting booth last November, I believe I’d do the same thing. In the meantime, I’d like the president’s sterling cabinet to get together and prepare an ultimatum for their boss: Fire the Mooch, stop tweeting, do what General Kelly tells you, use the speechwriters you had for the Middle East and Poland speeches, and use the teleprompter exclusively when speaking in public — or we resign, en masse, right now. Maybe that would smarten him up.

The Mooch was fired the day after I wrote this on Sunday. Hooray for General Kelly!

*Yeah, Trump’s approval ratings are very low, but guess whose ratings are even lower — the media’s. Trump deserves his ratings and media have certainly earned theirs as well. Can there be any more doubt about left-wing mainstream media bias? Yeah, Fox is biased right, but nearly every other television media outlet is biased left — and most newspapers too. I’ve spent years on both sides of the spectrum and it’s patently obvious to me. Are we all ready to admit this now?

*Trump’s worst mistake would be to fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions. It would be worse than firing Mueller, which would only make the left — in media and in government — go even more crazy than they are now. But how much crazier can they get? They’re already cutting Trump’s head off in effigy and one leftist wing-nut opened fire on Republicans at a baseball practice, nearly killing Congressman Scalise and wounding several others. But to fire Jeff Sessions would sink Trump with conservatives who are already annoyed with his tweets. His support would dry up almost entirely.

*Maybe a third party will emerge of disaffected Democrats and Republicans who would shrink the federal government and return power to the states. We could call it the Tenth Amendment Party. 

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. (Amendment 10)

Forcing Through

“I’m done torturing myself for the day.”

My wife and I often say that on those days we force ourselves through our different exercise regimens. She likes to do hers privately in front of a television screen showing people doing various strenuous moves that she copies. I prefer to do my exercises privately as well but some of it requires running, and that I have to do out on the road in front of my house, or along the waterfront near Bug Light in South Portland when we’re staying down there. Cars go by in Lovell and dog-walkers go by in South Portland, but the rest of my regimen is performed alone in my room.

I hate it all. I only do it because I feel better afterward than I would feel if I didn’t. The running part is relatively new. That I started about six or seven years ago after my brother had his legs amputated due to a condition we both have: Buerger’s Disease. I should use past tense in his case because he died of it a couple of years ago. It’s a rare, hyper-allergic reaction to using tobacco products. He’s dead because he couldn’t stop smoking. I’m alive and still have all my parts because I could. Addiction can be a terrible thing and takes many forms. I cannot run very far because I have diminished blood flow to my lower legs and they cramp up with vigorous use. So, I jog a short distance, let the blood come back, then sprint as far as I can. All this helps increase blood flow to my feet. With exertion, my legs develop what’s called “collateral flow” - the actual formation of new, small arteries, but never enough to get back to what I was born with.

Since I have to force myself to do it each day, I’ve tried hard to focus on the bright side of exercise - or should I say the slightly less-dark side. While running, for example, I’m aware that each season has its own smells. This time of year there’s a kind of sweetness in the air as leaves and other formerly-green vegetation decay, adding another layer of duff covering the forest floor. When the last autumn leaves blow across my path and I can see further into the woods, it brings back many memories. A silvery autumn light shines on bare, light-gray trunks and branches of beech trees, oaks, and other hardwoods. Gray stone walls become more visible and I remember pleasant days spent hunting with my brothers.

Kezar Lake Last Monday

We’re all going to die sometime, but I’d like to live as fully as possible until the end - and exercise helps. That’s what I think about when I force aching muscles through their paces. Entering the stage of life when people are most likely to need it, health insurance is our biggest expense. The Maine Public Employees Retirement Fund only covers about $300 a month in premiums and I have to pay an additional $1300 to cover both of us. There isn’t much left of my pension after that, so I keep working at the part-time jobs I always had while teaching. My wife still works as well, seeing clients two days per week as therapist.

President Obama promised us his Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare,” would bring down health care costs for everyone and reduce premiums by an average of $2500. But none of that has happened. Instead it has had the exact opposite effect. Costs are rising fast and so are premiums. The president has been hiding even greater increases until after the midterm elections were over, threatening insurance companies not to release information beforehand. The bad news of more huge increases is expected any day now.

It’s not encouraging that Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel was the primary author of Obamacare. He just published an article in last month’s Atlantic entitled: “Why I hope to die at 75,” and subtitled: “An argument that society and families—and you—will be better off if nature takes its course swiftly and promptly.”

He’s telling us we’d all be better off dead. This is the guy, brother to Obama’s former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who was accused of creating the infamous “death panels” alluded to by Sarah Palin. The left ridiculed her and vehemently denied their existence, but Emanuel’s article last month would seem to lend credence to Palin’s claim. Health care will have to be rationed by government and younger, healthier patients will take priority over older, less-healthy ones.

I’ll be eligible for Medicare in about eighteen months and my wife a year after that, but more and more doctors are refusing to take on medicare patients. All these things motivate me to continue my self-torture each day.

Leftist La-La Land

In leftist la-la-land people really believe they can bring about an age when we “Ain’t gonna study war no more,” as the old gospel song goes. They really believe America was the primary cause of war in their lifetime. They believe that after they twice elected a president who would fundamentally transform America as The Big O has so often promised, war would disappear. He said it would only take five years the world would be filled with smiling, happy people holding hands. That’s why Obama’s chief dopelimat diplomat, John Kerry, characterized Putin’s invasion of Crimea saying: “It's really 19th century behavior in the 21st century.” He’s not supposed to be doing this in the world he and his boss understand.

Putin obviously hadn’t heard that Obama has already ushered in the Age of Aquarius here in 2014. The moon is in the seventh house. Jupiter aligns with Mars. Peace is guiding the planets and love is steering the stars. So what the heck is Putin doing? Young people are, like, “Oh my god!” which is the most severe exclamation in their parlance. Is it possible that Obama can’t actually change the world? If that’s true, maybe he can’s really stop the oceans from rising either! But he promised! We voted for him! Twice!

Nonetheless, Obama and Kerry are proceeding as if the biggest problem facing the world early in the 21st century really is global warming, and the mainstream media is cheering them on. Only three weeks ago Kerry called it: “perhaps the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction” and belittled those who don’t believe it as “flat-earthers.” Well, this writer knows the earth is round - and human-caused global warming is a crock, but most leftists still don’t think so. Global warming is a religion with them, and while their faith has been shaken by the winter we’ve had, they still believe.

Obama is proceeding with his global warming policies undeterred, as if his branch of government is the only one with power. When Congress failed to pass his “Cap and Trade” legislation, he had his EPA declare carbon dioxide a “pollutant,” so all of you reading this right now are polluting the air as you exhale CO2. More recently, his EPA dialed up air standards so high it's putting the coal industry out of business.

Meanwhile, Congress sits on its hands while he amasses power in the White House. He’s turning one executive department into a protection racket. When congress refused him funds for selling Obamacare, he used HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, whose department regulates insurance companies, to shake them down for money. She contacted them, and said, in effect: “Nice little insurance company you got there. Be a shame if anything happened to it. And by the way, I need some money to implement Obamacare.”

When he couldn’t silence Fox News or Rush Limbaugh, even with George Soros spending millions on Media Matters, he turned to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler who regulates radio and television. He sent FCC officials to media outlets saying, in effect: “Nice little station you got there. Be a shame if anything happened to it. By the way, we’re conducting a “Critical Information Needs” study here and we’d like to ask you a few questions, like how do you select what stories you report?”

When “too many” black students were being suspended from schools, he turned to Education Secretary Arne Duncan who regulates schools, and Attorney General Eric Holder out to talk to them. Both sent their people around saying, in effect: “Nice little school you got there. Be a shame if its federal funding dried up, now wouldn’t it?”

In spite of all its failures in the 20th century, leftists still believe that communism can work. They just didn’t have the right leaders in Russia, China, Vietnam, North Korea, or Cuba. If they did, Utopia would have manifested by now. Obama is the one though. He told us so. He can do it, if only those Tea Party Republicans in the house weren’t standing in his way. They nearly stopped him from taking over 16% of the economy with Obamacare, and now all they can do is criticize it.

In spite of the continuing disaster of the Obamacare roll-out, the mainstream media are doing their best to find a silver lining. What do we expect? They’re all leftists too.

Left, Right, Forward March

It’s time again to tell readers that I wasn’t always a conservative-racist-homophobic-misogynist bigot. No. Back in the day people though I was a weirdo-hippie-commie-pinko-progressive. I worked with Saul Alinsky radicals and then for John Kerry’s 1972 congressional campaign. I believed poverty caused crime and people were poor only because other people were rich - and got that way by ripping off the poor. I believed in big government because it was the only way to counteract big corporations who were our real enemies. I believed government worked best when it played Robin Hood and spread the wealth around. If I hadn’t grown up, I’d probably be working for the Democrat Party or writing for some progressive think tank, and I’d likely have voted for Barack Obama twice. Ugh.

But I did grow up twenty years ago, and I’m embarrassed it didn’t happen sooner. What can I say? I was a late bloomer. The process began years earlier, but the transformation wasn’t complete until about 1994. So, I was a diehard lefty from about 1970 to about 1990 or so, then the transition, and for two decades since I’ve been the thoroughly conservative writer with whom you’ve become familiar on these pages. It hasn’t been helpful for my bottom line though. I would likely have progressed farther income-wise if I’d remained a lefty both in education and in writing columns, but I just didn’t believe in that world-view anymore and I couldn’t fake it.

What caused the change? Too many things to include here. My book goes into detail about the transformation and I’m past the halfway point writing it. I should be ready to shop it around to publishers come early summer. It compares how conservative critics treated me when I was a lefty teacher/writer to how lefty critics treated me when I became a conservative teacher/writer. The latter part is much longer though. It goes into depth about how various “tolerant” and “open-minded” liberal individuals and groups tried to get me dismissed or silenced. Book-publishing is a competitive business, but I believe readers will find my book interesting and I’m prepared to give my best effort when selling it to publishers.

As a committed conservative, the reelection of Barack Obama in 2012 discouraged me deeply. Most of my like-minded friends have since given up hope of a conservative resurgence, but I haven’t. “Look,” they say. “The left controls the media, education, the culture (Hollywood), most of the judiciary, the White House, and the Senate. What have we got? Talk Radio, Fox News, some churches, and the House. That’s it.” They’re correct in all that, I know, but I have more faith in the American people. My pessimistic friends expect the fed to keep printing money, government to keep spending it, the debt to keep increasing, more people to go on welfare, fewer workers and businesspeople to pay taxes - and for everything to go on like that until it all collapses. 

That could happen, I admit, and it could happen sooner rather than later. A lot of Americans have become dependent on government programs of one kind or another - even a majority by some counts. There are many “low-information voters” out there and their numbers will increase enormously if amnesty for illegal immigrants passes. It can get discouraging, no doubt, but I guess I believe in the common sense of Americans more than most of my conservative friends. Most of us know as some deep level that it just can’t go on like this. According to Rasmussen, two out of three Americans believe we’ve become too dependent on government. That would have to include people who are themselves dependent to one extent or another, but they know the government gravy train will go off the rails eventually. Not enough of them went to the polls in November of 2012, but that can change in the next two election cycles.

More and more Americans will be discovering this year what was in the Obamacare bill Democrats rammed through in 2009 and they won’t like it. I think it’s safe to say that most already don’t like it, but that number will reach critical mass sometime in 2014 as millions more lose their coverage and are forced onto the exchanges. Others who think they’ve already signed up will discover how much more Obamacare is costing them compared to what they had before its implementation.

We’re in for some economic and foreign policy shocks, but I expect Americans to survive them and smarten up in the process. They’ll learn that, as Margaret Thatcher put it: “The facts of life are conservative,” and vote accordingly. We’re in a deep hole, but I choose to believe we can still climb out of it.

Hips From The Favor Bank?

Will the time ever come when we’ll need a political favor for a hip replacement? Will we have to pay a bribe, I mean make a campaign contribution to move up on the waiting list for an MRI, or to get treatment for late-stage cancer? I hope not but, if current trends continue the possibility isn’t far-fetched. Not only has Obamacare has been a catastrophe only two-and-a-half months in, implementation has been riddled with unlawful edicts and political favoritism for Democrat constituents.

Taking the most recent example first: On November 25th Obama exempted his union buddies from paying their share of the $12 billion “reinsurance tax” for 2014. Five weeks earlier, the liberal magazine Slate wrote: “Labor essentially asked the Obama administration to exempt their existing insurance plans from the fee. Since [their request] . . .  had no particular merits to it the administration declined.” That was then. This is now. Slate doesn’t even question whether a president has the constitutional authority to pick and choose what parts of legislation he’ll enforce and which he won’t.

Well he doesn’t have that authority. Article II requires him to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” He can’t change them anytime he feels like it, but that’s what he does. Earlier this year, he unconstitutionally put off Obamacare’s employer mandate for a year because he knew it would hurt Democrats in the 2014 election. He exempts Congressmen and their staffs who wrote the legislation. He doesn’t enforce immigration laws he doesn’t like either. When Congress didn’t pass an amnesty bill he wanted called the “Dream Act,” he issued an executive fiat instead. There are other examples too numerous to mention.

The bottom line is: when our president can decide for himself which laws he’ll enforce and which ones he won’t, we’re not a nation of laws anymore are we? Not when the president places himself above the law. When he took over General Motors and Chrysler, he stiffed bondholders, fired dealers, ordered GM to produce Chevy Volts nobody wants, bailed out the unions, and “stepp[ed] over the bright line between the rule of law and the arbitrary behavior . . .” according to an analysis by George Mason University’s Todd Zywicki called “The Auto Bailout and the Rule of Law.”

So far, Obama get away with wielding unconstitutional power for political gain. Can he do that? Well, there’s can’t and there’s “ain’t supposta.” He’s isn’t supposed to do all this, but clearly he can because he’s doing it. Who’s going to stop him? Congress is supposed to check and balance the president, and the House of Representatives issues subpoenas for documents, information and witnesses, but when Obama stonewalls them, then what? Well, there’s impeachment.

The House has sole power of impeachment, but impeachment means “bring charges against.” The Senate has to decide guilt, and how likely is that while it’s under the control of Senator Harry Reid? And even if Obama were found guilty, the only remedy is to remove him from office. Who would take over then? Vice President Joe Biden, who more and more resembles a cast member from “Dumb and Dumber.” Politically speaking, impeachment isn’t a likely scenario - at this point at least. Unfortunately, that’s the only remedy Congress has to stop the president’s unconstitutional power-grabbing.

 So now back to the original question. Will access to health care become completely politicized? Those signing up for Obamacare are overwhelmingly getting Medicaid - 1.46 million of the 1.6 million signed up so far. More and more doctors are refusing to take on Medicaid patients, so millions will be all dressed up in their new Obamacare policies with no place to go. Unless Obamacare is repealed, some expect the federal government to draft doctors. Kevin Williamson at National Review Online considers it almost inevitable.
 

Millions of others whose health insurance policies were cancelled will have spent weeks on healthcare.gov trying to sign up, think they have, and find out after January 1st that they’re not because of still more healthcare.gov “glitches.” Nearly 100 million others who like their policies and whom Obama promised could keep them will get cancellation notices in 2014. Obamacare will collapse. Then what?

Never one to “let a crisis go to waste,” will Obama take it all over like he did with General Motors? He’s wanted a government, single-payer system all along. Will he appoint Kathleen Sebelius as Healthcare Czar? She who shakes down companies for cash? Can we trust the 16,000 new agents in Obama’s IRS not to harass conservatives as they “implement” Obama’s new health care policies? You may trust them. I do not. If Obamacare isn’t repealed early next year, kissing up to a congressman for a new knee or to get Grammy into a nursing home could be in our future.

Honeymoon Over

Something’s going on. Still ubiquitous only a month ago, Obama stickers are disappearing from the Volvos and Priuses around the very blue Portland, Maine metropolitan area. As I wrote last August, they seemed to be everywhere. People were still proud to identify themselves with President Obama and his policies. Now I have to look for them. Driving around my usual routes down there last week, I saw fewer than a dozen. What does it mean?

Yeah, the president’s poll numbers are tanking. Yeah, making fun of him on Saturday Night Live is getting to be a habit. Yeah, 53% of Americans don’t trust him now - but think of what it takes for all those bumper stickers to disappear. People who loved what Obama represented now want to sever their public identification with him. After listening to his 1000th speech, they walked to their vehicle, saw the stickers, and made a decision to peel them off. Some had been on since 2007 or 2008 and it’s not as easy to take those old ones off as it was to put them on. The adhesive hardens. The vinyl breaks up and your fingernails wear down trying to get purchase on remaining fragments. Then you need to rub off dirty old adhesive with a solvent.

These are actions akin to taking off a wedding ring and throwing it away. Or, in an age in which people tend to just live together without getting married, it’s more than just choosing to sleep on the couch. It’s like putting his clothes out on the sidewalk - or even throwing them out a second-story window if you’re’ really mad that your health insurance policy was cancelled after hearing him promise you thirty times that if you like your policy, you can keep it - period.

But, unless he’s impeached, Obama will still be your president for more than three more years. Considering that, it seems more like you bought a house with him and you both have to live in it together until the divorce is final and you can sell it. Then you can split up the the proceeds and move on, but that can take a long time. Meanwhile you treat him with silent contempt and try not to brush up against him when walking by.

But what if he keeps on talking? Should you tell him to just shut up because you don’t believe him any more? Why does he keep thinking he can make everything all right by giving another speech? For three more years you’ll think to yourself: “What did I ever see in him?” and “How could I ever have fallen in love with him?” and “Why didn’t I pay attention to those early warning signs?” and “He’s been lying about a lot of things. How could I have been so stupid?”

The media fell in love with him too and avoided looking into his relationships with friends like Bill Ayers - the left-wing terrorist, or Reverend Jeremiah Wright - the racist pastor, or Frank Marshal Davis - the communist pornographer who was his mentor. They never looked into his college transcripts either or whether he and his wife got into those prestigious universities through Affirmative Action, and not because they were smart, hard-working students in high school. He belonged to the “Choom Gang” in high school for cripe sakes. He was a stoner. But he made all of you feel good when he spoke. He gave you tingles up your leg. When he said he would bring Hope and Change, you thought he meant your hopes, the changes you wanted. He knew that. He kept it vague and you all swooned because he said it so well.

Yeah, the man sure could talk. But now you’re realizing, along with everyone else, that that’s all he knows how to do. And it isn’t enough anymore. Talk is cheap, but it’s all he’s got. You know he’s going to keep on talking, and you’re not sure you’ll be able to stand it for three whole years.

And you only have yourself to blame.

Brave New World Arriving

Jack London’s short story “The Law of Life” is about dying. A blind, old Indian man was near death, but the nomadic band he had lived with couldn’t wait for his end. They needed to hunt if they would survive, so, with his consent, they left him behind to die alone in the frigid Arctic north country. His son patted him on the head before leaving on his dogsled. He expected the cold would take him - a relatively peaceful death, if lonely. But, just as he ran out of firewood, a pack of wolves surrounded him.

We all have to die of something. Like most, I’d prefer to go in my sleep next to a beautiful woman after enjoying a good meal with good wine, and, you know. Truth be told, though, I don’t really want to know the how or when of it. It’s out of my control. And what happens after that? I believe the Catholic version of everlasting life, but that’s not the subject of this column. Death is.

I read a lot of Jack London as a boy. He was an atheist, a socialist, a eugenicist, and an alcoholic, but I didn’t know any of that while I was reading him. I have little doubt that if he were alive today, he’d be an Obama supporter. He’d support Obamacare and its death panels I suspect, but maybe not. In the story, London described the old Indian’s death as a mutual decision of both the clan and the individual. They were kin and would have nurtured him in his final hours or days out of respect, but they all understood that to delay the hunt would weaken the whole band. They cared for him, but their survival was more important. He cared enough for them to accept that. Government death panels, however, would be comprised of strangers, not family, and would not necessarily include input from the dying individual. The decision would be based on a cold, bureaucratic, cost/benefit analysis.

Then again, maybe the eugenicist in London would approve. It’s worth mentioning here that Nazis admired American eugenicists like Jack London and Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood and patron saint of gender feminists. The Nazi Holocaust began with the extermination of the weak and feeble-minded as a drain on German national resources, and then “progressed” to mass murder of “inferior” races.

While a young college student, I worked as an orderly on the 3-11 shift in a state, chronic-care hospital in Massachusetts where people didn’t get better and go home. They died there, and it was my job to put their toe tags on, wrap them up in a shroud, and bring them down to the morgue. Before they died, I fed them dinner, played cribbage with them, cleaned them up if they needed it, and talked to them about dying if they wanted to. Some died with dignity. Others didn’t. How they went wasn’t about external circumstances though. It was about how they were inside. After two-and-a-half years I got my undergrad degree and left that job. It taught me much about the end of life. I was a young man - twenty-four - but unlike others my age who thought themselves indestructible, I came away with a deep understanding that nobody lives forever. That awareness has enriched my life ever since.

Last year this time, my wife’s father lay dying. He was ninety and unless a feeding tube were surgically inserted, he wouldn’t last. The family gathered and conferred with his doctor in a nearby room. The decision was unanimous - make him as comfortable as possible and wait for the end. The doctor complimented everyone and said unanimity in family meetings like that was rare in his experience. The family meeting could have been called a death panel, I suppose, but it was one comprised of people who loved him, not disinterested government bureaucrats. Unless Obamacare is repealed, I don’t think it’s going to be like that for too many of you reading right now. Unless you go suddenly with a heart attack or something, which only 10-20% of us do, your end will be determined by a government death panel decision, not a family one.

Consider that when your health insurance company sends you a cancellation notice. Think about it when you shop on the exchanges and learn that you’re going to be paying much higher premiums for much less coverage under the “Affordable” Care Act. Your increased premiums will pay for abortions and death panels, or, as Obamacare euphemistically calls them: “Independent Payment Advisory Boards” or IPABs. Their job will be to decide if you’re worth spending money on.

Jack London’s old Indian faced a pack of wolves as his end. Tomorrow’s Americans will deal with government bureaucrats on their local IPAB. What will it be like dealing with them? Think how it is at your local Department of Motor Vehicles. Take a number and wait. Welcome to the brave new world of Obamacare.