Armed Conflict Narrowly Avoided in Nevada Grazing Rights Stand-off

In case you missed it, last week a potentially deadly stand off between Nevada rancher, Cliven Bundy, and the US federal government was resolved peacefully when the armed Bureau of Land Management officers withdrew from the vicinity of Mr Bundy's ranch. I'm not sure of all the details surrounding this case but the gist of the dispute is over grazing rights on federal land and fees the government says Mr Bundy owes. Regardless of who is ultimately found to be in the right, what I find troubling is that the Bureau of Land Management can muster a paramilitary response to a dispute over cattle grazing. Admittedly, the government claims Mr Bundy owes a million dollars in unpaid fees which to an ordinary citizen might seem like a large sum of money but in the grand scheme of things is a insignificant and it certainly should not have nearly come to bloodshed.

So my question is: Are you comfortable with the Bureau of Land Management (a part of the Department of the Interior) having a SWAT/Special Operations-type law enforcement capability including snipers that they are willing to use against ordinary citizens over cows eating grass?
I know I'm not!

Why Should Anyone Pay One Penny More?

On 20 March, a report was released by the Inspector General that disclosed that its investigation found that the Department of State under Barack Obama could not account for $6 billion in funds in the 6 year period it looked at mainly during the tenure of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Regardless of whether or not they can afford it, why should any American be asked to pay one cent more in taxes when things like this are happening? If she runs for president in 2016, do you think this will be an issue for Hillary Clinton?

Democrat High Fives All Around for Meaningless ACA Enrollment Number

There is an old military saying, "When you are up to your ass in alligators, it's easy to forget that the original mission was to drain the swamp." For the Affordable Healthcare Act this seems very apropos. The liberals won't remind you but the original goal of healthcare reform was to insure the alleged 40 million Americans who didn't have health insurance. Now for a little math: 7.1 million divided by 40 million is 17.8%. Would most reasonable people consider this success? This is just one of the many ACA "alligators". Even if one believes the number provided by the Obama Administration, there is no way to draw any real conclusions from the enrollment number reported Monday following the end of the first open enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) but that didn't stop the President and his fellow Democrats from crowing and doing a victory dance at a press conference. Funny how Mr. Obama didn't take any questions from the media - as if they would have asked any tough ones. In order for the number to have any meaning, we need to know the details. How many of the 7.1 million didn't previously have health insurance and how many of that number had to replace the insurance that they had and were happy with but lost because the new law 'declared' it inferior? Well the Administration won't tell us. There are many reports that millions of Americas were in this situation. Rand, the highly respected think tank, has determined that 6.3 million Americans lost their insurance due to the ACA. That would mean that only about 900,000 of the 7.1 million are actually newly insured. And how many of those who had to replace their insurance now have higher premiums and higher deductibles? Uh, well we don't know. How many of the supposed newly insured have actually paid their first premium? Again, we don't know but can one really be consider enrolled if you haven't paid? What about the percentage of the 7.1 million enrollees are having their new insurance subsidized by the government or how many people have been added to the Medicaid rolls? Again, no answers are forthcoming. Why not? When you have a program that encompasses one sixth of the U.S. economy, it is essential to set up a mechanism to accurately assess its effectiveness. You need metrics and getting those metrics would have been easy to get, if they had only asked these questions on the website but they didn't? Why? The answer is because they didn't want to know. This is precisely why conservatives hate big government programs like this. One would have to be ignorant, profoundly stupid or an ideological zealot to believe that the enrollment figure is any indication of success at all. If you are among the believers, you now have the facts, so you are down to two choices. So which one are you?