Obama's State of the Union Address 1/28/2014: A Sneak Preview

Once again I have obtained a partial copy of President Obama’s State of the Union speech next Tuesday and am leaking it three days ahead of schedule.

Here it is:

My fellow Americans, today we find our nation on the upswing! Everything is fine! Ok, things could be more fine but really, everything is going great. Just look, we’re dropping the unemployment rate figures on a weekly basis. Pretty soon the rate will be 0.0% and that will mean we will in fact be entering a “Golden Age”. The Golden Age of Obama! Isn’t that wonderful? But wait, there’s more…

We will do more to get people working! We will entice more private companies to join a “Partnership” with government if they know what’s good for them, to create even more “shovel ready” jobs. Just like last time. And maybe this time I won't have to threaten them with IRS audits or Justice Department investigations!

Oh yeah, and if Congress doesn’t act, I will raise the minimum wage myself to $ 12.00 an hour. And why not? If you can’t find a job paying $ 7.25 an hour, you’ll look a whole lot better on paper being out of work for $ 12.00, right? No, don’t thank me yet, there’s even more…

If you are out of work and just haven’t felt like looking for one of these 9 million jobs we used to have in this country, your government will keep the unemployment checks coming for a third year and double your food stamp allowance. And if you should feel like you really should get out of the house, we will now create and fund new “Job Training” centers so you can learn from the best that government has to offer. Our NSA and Covert Operations apprenticeships are filling up fast.

And about these so called ‘Illegal Immigrants” running around our country, 11 million of ‘em they tell me, well I’m just going to go ahead and make them all legal. That’s right, they shouldn’t have to abide by legal immigration rules just because others before them have, they are yearning to get free benefits so to not want them here collecting benefits and mowing lawns on the side, well that’s downright mean spirited I’d say. By keeping them on the public benefit plan I’d say that would be a hell of a voting group to overcome, eh? 

And this leads me to another thing bothering me: Income Inequality! People work hard. People who work at McDonald’s work harder and they should get the same stock options and benefits that the CEO of the company gets. That’s right, it’s not their fault the only jobs out there right now are these crumby minimum wage fast food jobs, it’s mine. So to correct this inadvertent and unforeseen consequence of my own fiscal policies, I will command that these people make more money. Where's my pen?

And for women, it doesn’t matter that women are making the most money in the work force and have reached a higher level of autonomy and independence in this country than ever before, I’m going to fix that!  

And as I was coming here today through the cold and the snow I could not help but think that man-made Global Warming…er, I mean man-made “Climate Change”, excuse me, is the BIGGEST threat to our nation, right up there with the Tea Party, Edward Snowden and a Successful Russian Winter Olympics.

We’ve got to do something about this in a hurry and if I’m re-elected…I mean, sorry, I misspoke, if Congress doesn’t act I will sign an executive order to stop the exhalation of non-oxygen gases from all that emit them. With the exception of all branches of government and the U.S. Mint.

As for foreign policy, I think we’ve had a pretty good year with the exception of Libya, Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, Russia, Syria, China, France, England and Iraq. And although it’s getting harder by the month, I’m confident we will eventually find another country to screw with so we can test out more communications surveillance equipment and satellite guided drone missiles which are major parts of our foreign policy strategy. Whoa, I feel safer already.

The infrastructure of our nation is crumbling so I propose that we increase expenditures to make our roads and bridges better so that businesses can get their products to market and people can get to work on time and it doesn't matter so much if you no longer have a job to go to or a marketplace to take your products to, those roads, built by workers loyal to your government, will look so fine!

We will continue to subsidize green jobs, continue to choose which businesses are viable ones and that we want in our country and we will continue to pursue our enemies here on U.S. soil and, well, here on U.S. soil mostly, yeah.

Yes, with the Government on your side, you cannot fail. We will take care of everything. We will expand the economy, we will feed your kids, we will give them a good home and we will educate them too. With the power of all invasive government, we can make sure that you all will be well taken care of and so don’t worry, we’ve got it covered.

Just like always.

NSA Searches, Big Government & the 4th Amendment

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the person or things to be seized.”

The NSA, as an agent of the law, is bound like any other, to adhere to and uphold the Constitutional protections outline in the Bill or Rights. Without the Bill of Rights, the U.S. Constitution would not have been adopted by the States and therefor e is the lynchpin of all it stands for and the modern structure of the United States of America. To think otherwise is to ignore history and reality.

The whole idea of the term “Probable Cause” has been that authorities have to prove adequate reason to arrest someone or conduct a search, or seizure of their property. Probable Cause is required to be declared in a document where the facts for the arrest or search are detailed and a judge must agree, even if this step is a matter of course, for a warrant to be issued. These facts must be specific and not based on a “hunch”.
 
Now does any of this sound like what is going on?

Is the possibility that “Everyone could be a criminal.” a good enough excuse or that “it’s for the good and protection of the country.” when it clearly is not. However, it IS good protection for the preservation of the status quo of Big Government.

Does anyone believe, in light of the Internal Revenue Service scandal regarding the targeting of opposition groups and individuals for audit, denial of due process and exemption approval and the sharing of private tax information with the ruling party members that the NSA would NOT be called into service to listen in on and provide additional surveillance of these people?

And so this vague and general reason for the NSA listening in on conversations and sweeping and storing phone data and the ability and execution of reaching into a citizens computer records is a clear violation of the truths we hold as self-evident: It is wrong.

The NSA, thanks to Edward Snowden, has been revealed as yet another tool of the Authority State.

The current government and its agents the NSA and the IRS are acting in the unconstitutional exercise of authority.

This harkens back to the British “Writs of Assistance” exercised in 1761 where an officer of the British custom houses court could walk into any house and search it for smuggled goods without specifying the house or the goods. What is the difference between then and now except the means of the search?

The protection of the 4^th Amendment is not limited to one’s home but extends to one’s personal effects and papers where ever they may be. It does not mention “telephone” for obvious reasons but what is stored on today’s personal communication devices of only which part of is a phone these days should obviously be regarded as “your papers”. And in this world of converged networks where your personal computing device whether it be your laptop, tablet computer or your smartphone, you have a Constitutional protection from intrusion into your personal effects.

This is important to note because this amendment is specifically believed to have come from an incident when the controversies between England and the Colonies were reaching confrontational proportions whereby certain prominent opposition colonists were targeted for prosecution by the English state. Sound familiar?

Our ancestors didn’t bust their asses to come here to be held to an allegiance with the government for their sustenance, livelihood and well-being. They came here for the opportunity, the chance, to make the most of themselves in a free market of ideas and industry and to carve out a life of their own, free of an overbearing presence that dictates their behavior and customs. They had lived without the freedom of worship; they had lived without the right to be private in their homes and their affairs and without the protections from unreasonable searches and seizures. The challenge is what to do about these rights being ignored.

This is not a case of the Government preserving itself, this is a clear attempt at one party seeking to hold power into perpetuity and subverting the process of purging and renewal that keeps this country growing and going forward. Should this succeed even in the short run, stagnation and decay shall follow.

It is ironic that these United States, a country that has stood as a symbol of freedom and liberty throughout the world attempts to secure itself by rescinding the very statutes that made the nation what it was.

Hospital Code of Silence

The case of David Kwiatkowski, the cardiac technologist who was recently convicted of infecting a total of 48 people so far, patients in hospitals in New Hampshire, Kansas, Pennsylvania and Maryland where he worked, with hepatitis C has brought to light an aspect of America’s politically correct and legally confused healthcare establishments.  

This man, an intravenous drug addict, worked in a total of 18 hospitals across the country and from at least 4 of them that we know of, was fired for drug abuse and theft. Did any of these 4 hospitals call the police and have him arrested? Bet they didn’t. They let him walk out the door knowing he was a liability and an accident waiting to happen…to somebody else.

And did any of the hospitals he applied to for jobs afterwards check his references or call his previous employer? If they did, the chances are that all they got were the dates of his employment.  “Mr. Kwiatkowski worked for St. Lady of the Consumption Hospital from such and such a data to such and such a date.” And that’s all the information their HR department can legally provide. They can’t legally say; “Well he was stealing drugs so we fired him.” Because heaven forbid the guy sues them because he can’t find a job. No, that’s more important to the hospital’s bottom line than either having the bum arrested or telling a prospective employer that they should take a pass on this guy. It’s only a HOSPITAL after all, what could possibly go wrong?

I bring this up because of a conversation I had with a person who’s nephew is a registered nurse and also a drug addict. He has also been fired from two hospitals for stealing drugs. He is currently working at another hospital in the same city.

He is also an accident waiting to happen. But because nobody has taken any steps to either have him arrested which would give him a legal paper trail to follow AT LEAST, or attempted to have his nursing license taken away, this man is free to possibly infect people in his care with lord knows what.

There are probably a couple of thousand David Kwiatowski’s out there working in America’s hospitals. These are people who know that nothing is going to happen to them if they get caught stealing drugs.  The worst thing that happens is they have to go work someplace else. Just like the hospitals that enabled Mr. Kwiatkowski to keep moving from hospital to hospital to spread his disease.

And it was all preventable.  

Had some hospital Human Resources person spoken up or if someone had the sense turn this guy over to the police, this wouldn’t have happened. But since the bottom line apparently trumped their common sense, we get the suffering of his victims and their families. These people should fry along with Mr. Kwiatowski.

It's a matter of trust. Trust in an institution that has taken an oath to "Do no harm" or is it just the Doctors who have to pay attention to that one?

But no worries folks, hospitals also give the same silent treatment for bad Doctors who they simply just ask to leave with no questions asked.

I hope that Kwiatowski’s previous employers are held accountable for withholding what they knew about him. They must share the responsibility for doing nothing until it was too late and having the knowledge that they could have done something to prevent it. I hope these people know it and have to live with it.

It’s time hospitals stepped up and start protecting their patients to the level that they protect their bad employees.

Isn’t that what they’re in business for?