Obama Periods Are Not Periods Period!

The circus over Obamacare continues and the news of possible deception are getting harder and harder to take. My mother told me a long time ago "Mike never make a promise you can not keep, A promise is a bond and broken memories run deep Broken promises are the pores through which integrity forever lost seeps Never sell your honor with broken promises cheap Sow with broken promises and loss of self respect and friends you will reap. Obama must have known that individual policies continuity  would be at risk. Yet and without the teleprompter excuse he flat out misled the American people on being able to keep their doctors and their policies. Now like Ptolemy with elliptical orbits on elliptical orbits trying to advance the theory that the universe including the Sun revolves around the Earth, the spin factory of this Administration and its supporters is that even though we have lost the ability to determine the scope of our policies and the prices we feel we can afford, we should be happy we have more coverage even though we have to pay significantly more

The iconic statement from the Vietnam War as we watched a village lit

A lieutenant with lighter in hand “We had to destroy the village to save it”

Fast Forward to Pelosi commenting on the late night passing of Obamacare

“We had to pass it so we could understand it”—a failure of Congress beyond compare

Now it’s in order to force people to insure their individual policies they will lose

They be forced to sign up on the Exchange, the right to keep and choose they will lose

When the employer mandates kick in after a one year delay

They will lose their jobs as the insurance will be too high for the employers to pay

Pentagon Papers detailed how this nation by the Pentagon during Vietnam was misled

Fast forward to Obama intoning “you can keep your policy you won’t have to shed”

Period is not a “maybe”, a “perhaps”, a “in many cases”, or a “subject to the fine print or legalese”

In his urge to pass his Act he did more that promise what he could not keep, the nation he deceived

If any of the 15 million holders would have known any change in a policy however minute

Would cause a loss, the outcry and rage would have given the Act a quick and rightful boot

Like the onion that is slowly being pealed

More troubling facts are slowly being revealed

Loss of policy, loss of doctors, loss of promised cuts in what we would have to spend

Just the tip of the iceberg— when will the train wreck revelations ever end
The Administration refuses to reveal how many to the exchange have enrolled
Or how realistic it can possibly be to reach the needed signup goal
One hates to waste $400 million for a website that fails to function
But a silver lining that not a train wreck but a new helpful junction
The path of rising anger over being misled meeting the path of need to review, delay and revise
Just might be a bargain for us all if the flaws of Obamacare are not fixed and it heads to an early demise

Bargain number two is that as the problems, costs and deception continue to mount

Finally a first in this Administration an administrator like Sebelius for incompetence is held to account

Bargain number three is that Blues are not all toeing the Obamacare line

Recognition that the Act needs more change than just a website redesign   

© Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet October 29, 2013

Helen of Troy Deja View

       We may never know or receive a full accounting over the unbelievable chaos surrounding the rollout of Obamacare, nor today will we know whether the Act that almost no one in Congress read and if there staff had the time to read it, almost no one really understood it. One thing we do know is that we spent millions of dollars for a website that did not work and that Ms. Sebelius as of today is not being held accountable for the mistakes made
       Commentators on both sides of the spectrum do not have a good record of predicting what the future entails for Obamacare, probably because despite their intelligence too many of them are incapable of stepping back from their bias and prejudice and unwilling to consider rational discussion. Maybe that is not their fault as the rhetoric in Washington over the "shutdown" or "slimdown" or the debt ceiling has drowned out any chance of rational discourse. Candidly we deserve better.
          We also as of today do not know the name of the young woman who appears on the website
for the Affordable Health Care Act at www.healthcare.gov only that she is an attractive young lady who seems to be very pleased. Hope you enjoy my muse observations.

 Helen of Troy Deja View or A New Mona Lisa?    

It may not be the face that launched a thousand ships

To recover Helen whom Paris had taken from her husband’s grip

But instead of angry Greeks with revenge in their eyes and hearts

It has teased thousands shut out on the Website before Obamacare can even start

The face and smile are stunning and have a calming everything is easy air

Though that stunning face hides the roll out failure of Obamacare

This women is a mystery and she may have a distinction quite rare

A select few who somehow, some way signed up for Obamacare

Who is this woman, who is this woman that launched a thousand quips?

She could have made millions to share her sign-up tips

She may not be a Mona Lisa destined for National Gallery of Art

But at least a monument to deception and failure in Obamacare from the start

© October 26, 2013 Michael P. Ridley aka

Obama's Legacy for 5,000,000 Lines of Code

Finally the voices of disappointment and outrage are being voiced by Senate and House Blues, some of whom are up for reelection in 2014, over the chaos surrounding the rollout of the Obamacare website. The amount of money spent on the website, $500 million, is, in governmentspeak, a mere drop in the near $4 trillion budget of the United States, but to mere mortals who in many cases struggle to make ends meet and worry about losing or finding a job, putting their kids through college, keeping their house, or being able to retire with some sense of dignity, it is a lot of money.

It is always difficult to decipher grandstanding among elected officials whose office is their career or at least a training ground for a lucrative lobbyist position but finally it appeared that Blue representatives were no long to go down as automatons to the whims of Pelosi or Reed and come to the realization that they work for all voters not just those who voted for Obama. Karen Sebelius needs to come to that same realization as does our President.

                            My Legacy for 5,000,000 Lines of Code

The Obamacare website is becoming the Perfect Storm

Any support for Obamacare should be shred and torn

500 million spent for a system that does not and cannot work

Sebelius from accountability completely shirks

We have been victims of the classic carny “bait and switch”

Sebelius proclaims no one to be fired for this “glitch”

Smoke and mirrors and classic Obama deceptive damage control

A Cadillac website missing engine, transmission and tires preventing a chance to enroll

How many millions needed to fix this is anyone’s guess

Will we ever know if normal beta testing would have avoided this mess?

The U.S. is blessed with enough programming talent to fix the website

But fixing it will enable Obama to ignore the nation’s fiscal plight

Fixing the website is like our health care system that treats the symptoms

While ignoring the underlying driving disease forces, the disease cause

Most of our 535 have never read nor understood the regs, understood the law

Those flaws are like the financial vultures coming home to roost

While our health care may suffer and our debt suffers a quantum boost

The only silver lining in this disaster Obamacare cloud

The financial costs in 2014 will put many a Blue in an election casket, wrapped in a shroud

© October 24, 2013 Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet

North Wind and Sun Aesop Deju Vu

             For a slave without computer, Harvard or Stanford degree, assistants, or a library, Aesop must have been a pretty amazing person. How many stories in literature have withstood the tests of time and to this day in a world that has changed exponentially in the almost 3,000 years following their creation, captured the human spirit, explained it, and remained able to reach out and motivate it and impart morals and ethics that have transcended a very agrarian society to today’s incredibly complex society with its foundations under siege?  Very few, very few indeed.  Most of our modern day authors and thinkers are quickly relegated to the deep discount bin at Barnes and Noble or if they made the cut at our public libraries, soon sold off by the libraries to maintain shelf space.

Not so with Aesop’s Fables. It is a shame that we do not require them as mandatory reading in our schools, in our homes, and most importantly in the halls of Congress and the White House. Personal attacks in photo op and sound bite rhetoric simply are not conducive to this nation trying to solve its problems.  Enough is enough. Stop acting like the North Wind and more like the Sun as we mere mortal travelers trudge about our lives:

                                  Here Comes the Sun

We always thought politicians were full of empty blast and hot air

Unleashing their ego on us mere mortals that we could hardly bear

Alas we were wrong, and the ego winds that can be summoned at the drop of the hat

Can in an instant turn wet and cold and knock even the strongest egos flat

North Winds without compunction to drive with words elephants on their knees

Especially those new pachyderms that have a fondness for Teas

The North Wind may be brutal but  its memories of history fall short

May knock down the man but the spirit to follow one’s values will not abort

Look only to the dark days of the London Blitz or the Dresden fires

Walls may be broken but our spirits will not fold or retire

Label a man a jihadist or hostage taker or holder of a gun

More often than not any attempt to reach an agreement he will shun

You may blow demeaning rhetoric in increasing. demeaning  force

May slow him down, bend him over but not cause him to change course

Like the traveler who. in the increasing winds,  grips tighter his cloak

To think the rhetoric winds shed his cloak and bring him to the table is a joke

There has been too much blame passed around

Time for reason and compromise to prevail for the cloak to fall to the ground

Let the warmth of the civil and rational Sun through the rhetoric clouds

Toning down the shrill personal attacks out of line,  too raucous loud

536 leaders need to once again act like responsible adults

Shed this nonproductive chaotic finger pointing cult

Time for inflaming, demeaning   rhetoric for all to resist

Time for a 536 leaders to put Aesop’s Fables on top of their reading list!

© October 10, 2013 Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet

 

Blame Game Defames, Inflames, Pains-- Shame, Shame, Shame!

            Obama, Reid, and Pelosi are acting like tantrum--infected, spoiled children pointing fingers of blame in this chaos while  trying to inflict as much pain on us mere mortals by shutting down such symbols as the World War II Memorial and the Statute of Liberty, and even blocking state roads to Mt. Rushmore. When will they ever learn that the best way to have a person stop listening is not to give them earplugs but rather insult them personally with inflammatory remarks like anarchists, hostage takers, holders of guns to the head, jihadists, etc.? Pelosi's latest sound bite was only a two on a scale of one to ten with ten being most inflammatory that the Republican Party "the No Party" was causing this shutdown. I wish I could report that the Reds are blameless in the Rhetoric game but sadly they too are not, although perhaps theirs is less inflammatory.
             We have Alcoholics Anonymous (June 10, 1035), Narcotics Anonymous (October 5, 1953), Gamblers Anonymous (January, 1957)   Overeaters Anonymous (January, 1960),   Cocaine Anonymous ( November 18, 1982), to name but a few successful 12 step programs. Where is Blamers Anonymous when we really need it in Washington D.C.? Time for Reds and Blues and that definitely includes Obama to stop this blame game rhetoric and sit down at the table and resolve their differences!

Blame Game Defames, Inflames, Pains--Shame, Shame, Shame!

If only Congress and the White House were in a canyon we might get on track
With each new shrill "It's your fault" the words would repeat and echo right  back
If the Sound Bites and Photo Ops were also so shaped in D.C. La La Land
This blaming game and mess might not have gotten so very out of hand
But since echoes in D.C. do not get produced
Here is a thought on how this insane rhetoric might be reduced
If you point a finger at your foe,  be you Red or Blue
Outnumbered in an instant as three are pointing back at you
Worse in this insane finger pointing you make a fist
Provokes only the normal response to immediately resist
Look closely and see the suggestion to you of your own curled  thumb
If you can't imagine Hell you're either oblivious or completely dumb
If instead of pointing you open your fingers three
Now, a hand for shake with an uncurled thumb up
Surprise rhetoric ends and compromise blooms and erupts
Red and Blue children pretty basic stuff
How many millions of us have to scream "ENOUGH!"

(c) October 5, 2013 Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet

The Final Wound and No Purple Heart

This was the epitome of callous ingratitude: The images of men who fought for this country in World War II and in the late winter of their lives, mere shadows of their youthful selves to pay final homage to those comrades who died on the battlefields or who, by the grace of God, training, or just luck, survived and returned only through the years to be beaten by the most relentless general of them all--General Old Age--who awaits all of us (see poem General Old Age on www.alaskanpoet.blogspot.com being turned away by government barricades under the guise of a government shutdown should outrage us all. The President who was supposed to bring us together has turned out to be the most partisan, divisive president we have ever seen. Whether you supported Obama or not, this trip for these brave men could well at their ages be their last. Shame on you President Obama, shame! To try to force the House to capitulate to your demands by using these veterans as pawns is outrageous. My father served in the U.S.Navy in World War II and saw action in Operation Typhoon, the invasion of Okinawa, the bloodiest and deadliest battle the United States Navy in which 4907 sailors lost their lives. Thank God he died at 87 in Petersburg, Alaska an was not alive to witness this travesty: 

 

 

The Final Wound and No Purple Heart 

The endured in the ice and snow, rubbled cities, muddy fields, desert sands and the monsoon rains and jungle rot

And throughout it all they grabbed their M-1s, closed the hatches, climbed aboard to soldier on and as citizen soldiers fought

Waded through the bloody Tarawa waters, Pelileu’s coral reefs and deadly MG 42 caressed Omaha Beach

Festung Europa, Shuri Line. Gustav, les bocage, Siegfried, not a barrier or barricade they could not breach

They crossed the Rhine, jumped too many times into harm’s way from the sky

All the time watching too many Purple Hearts earned, too many men to die

In thin khaki or steel ships and tanks, wooden Higgins or gliders or aluminum planes

Fought and bled and died as youthful hopes and dreams interrupted and detrained

And now in the late winter of their lives, mere shadows of their former  youth in a final parade

A maybe final, slow, halting, hobbling march to an open air Memorial guarded with a fresh barricade

They fought, bled and died so this Republic would endure

A right to vote, consent of the governed and free debate to insure

Only to become pawns in a childish my-way-or-the--highway game

As each, yes each, side plays the photo opt and talking heads defame

But a Memorial closed  by a government only to score points  that on this day turned its back

A sacrilege of these vets’ honor and sacrifice, totally off base and on a despised track

A group of Red House members moved the barriers so aging vets did not have to depart

Images on this sad October day of final wounds, but without even debt of final Purple Hearts.

© October 3, 2013 Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet,

Politics Is Not Computer Science

Politics at least in a democracy is not computer science with only a binary set of absolute rules, zero one or in layman's terms all or nothing, or in Harry Reid's vernacular "my way or the highway" or "DOA". Senators were supposed to portray the image of statesmanship, elevated from the passion of the members of the House and their need to go to the voters every two years to justify their record. Reid with his iron fist over his fellow Blues who seem to have lost their independent thinking ability and his poor choice of inflammatory remarks like "anarchists" belies that image and is a discredit to the Senate and his position. This poet is dismayed beyond belief the this country is prepared to reach out to Iran, North Korea, and Syria, certainly not countries on the A List of friends or supporters of human rights, yet refuses, absolutely refuses to speak with American Reds. Reid,s and Obama's "All or Nothing" is the underlying cause of this mess and sadly only a preview of the coming debt limitation crisis that will soon be upon us and may dwarf this slim down. Obama and Reid may in the end get their all, not because they are right but because Republicans do not want to shut this government down and put this country's interests ahead of any political agenda. However, getting all will plant the seeds of outrage like we have not seen in some time and pity a Blue in the fall of 2014...Hope Obama learns to quack well as the result of a hopefully large  Red landslide in 2014.

Politics Is Not Computer Science
The Jenny Craig movement in politics has had one positive effect
The slim down has caused heads to essential workers select
The EPA according to Reuters allowed only 6.6% to stay
 Maybe its war on fossil energy will now be held at bay
A negative effect is that Obama is cancelling or curtailing  part of his Asian trip
Bad photo op images of basking in Bali while we're in the slim down grip
He'll have more time to spend in D.C. to on the Reds cast blame
He'll have more chances with ransom remarks the partisanship fires to inflame.
Nevada should be proud of Reid; he is like the casino that must always win
The idea of compromise or even discussion to him is a mortal sin
Like a pit boss he rules with an inflexible and iron hand
Not a vote or discussion even as  Obamacare will begin to  scourge this land
Nevada's icon of ethics pure and one of the earmark kings will not budge
Even the piecemeal funding approach for Veterans or D.C. will not nudge
Reid, your party leader wants discourse and talks with Iran
Clearly a cannot-be-trusted foe with a strong jihadist strand
Yet your fellow Americans in the House or across the aisle
All words with or  any votes you deem not worthwhile
There is more than enough childish blame to spread
To be a Senate Leader time, dear Reid, to negotiate with even your "anarchist" Reds
If you do and act as a Senator not just in name
A bit of advice while your intemperate rantings you tame
Subject you and your colleagues and staff to Obamacare
Then you and they can with us mere mortals its pain to share!
(c) October 2, 2013 Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet

A True Trojan Horse

Trojan Horses have been the bane of mankind since Homer's time. From the walls of Troy to the computer viruses of today that cause data plunder and havoc beyond the imagination of the ancient Greeks. As a poet or as I often remark a herald, the goings on in Washington have been fascinating to say the least.  Our President is willing to negotiate with Iran who wants Israel wiped off the map and will not deviate from its quest to do so by acquiring nuclear weapons. He is also willing to negotiate with North Korea that is likewise on the nuclear weapon quest. When push comes to shove and his red lines become lines in the sand, erased by the tides of events, he is willing to step back and hand the process over to Putin. Yet in a matter that is critical to us all, Red or Blue or Independent, he and his dynamic name-calling duo of Pelosi and Reid are unwilling, incapable, and insanely opposed to sitting down and negotiating with his fellow Americans who are Blue and in the House and Senate. A Caesar like Reid has no place and does not belong in the Senate, a place for rational discussion, debate  and compromise on issues of the day.
          I am indebted to Charles Lane, opinion writer for the Washington Post for the inspiration of this poem. His column today was excellent and I recommend it. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-lane-what-the-gop-missed-on-obamacare/2013/09/30/1f11e644-29f0-11e3-8ade-a1f23cda135e_story.html  I hope you enjoy the following poem:

A True Trojan Horse

The pundits have always held the Chinese are the true masters of the game of ping pong

But after watching the charades in D.C., it is clear that they were wrong

Reid and his Senate Blues are the true ping pong pros

Each House Red Obama Care smash returned adding to the Reds' woes

With a winning case and the public on their side, the House Reds met their match

From the jaws of victory only the taste of defeat from Reid have they snatched

“My way or the highway” and D.C. into shutdown mode

But in this circus a seed of hope will be sowed

The ringmasters Obama, Pelosi and Reid will be cracking the whip of blame

Media airwaves bias against the Tea Party Reds will seek to  inflame

Obama Care will be funded but Congress and its staff will be exempt

But the Reds tried and unlike the Blues in 2014 will escape the wrath of voter contempt

There is a Trojan Horse in the Act that to the public unions will lay waste

At the door step of Obama, Reid, and Pelosi the demise will be clearly traced

Their members may drive Toyotas but their health plans are Cadillac

The tax on such plans may mean the union link to Blues may crack

With costs of insurance going through the roof, sinking a company's bottom line

Watch employer paid health insurance plans unravel and unwind

If an employer somehow health coverage manages to maintain

Watch part time ineligibles soar and full timers rapidly wane

Obama's thoughts are so often in a teleprompter photo opt link

So difficult to understand the how and why he thinks

A sane Blue would never have supported a Cadillac tax

Only result is that it would break many a union's back

This poet is not like Reid and believes the Blues are not crazy or insane

Actually admires their astuteness for a Red winning hand to detrain

Since the Act is incomprehensible and almost impossible for a human read its millions of lines

Choked With inconsistencies and ambiguities unchecked that grow faster than a Kudzu vine

A closet Blue  staffer must have inserted the provisions. meanings unread or unseen

A true Trojan Horse now activated on October 1 that will devastate the Blues in 2014

© October 1, 2013 Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet