MSNBC commentators rebuked the Obama administration for its blatant “secrecy” and “lies” behind the horrific Obamacare online exchanges, saying the rollout has been “almost criminal.”

“The rollout is unacceptable,” Time magazine senior political analyst Mark Halperin accused on “Morning Joe.” “The secrecy is unacceptable. It begins with not saying how many people have enrolled. I don’t understand why they can’t release that figure on a rolling basis.”

“But in addition, you search in vain for answers to lots of questions. … Reporters have asked them every day for basic information. When governments are in crisis, they withhold information, and sometimes they don’t tell the truth,” he said.

The panel agreed that the administration’s attempts to explain away the problem as a website developer issue have been unacceptable.

“I’m not being ideological,” host Joe Scarborough said. “These people want to run our health care system, and they want to be the grand organizers of what’s most important to most Americans over the age of 35 or 40. And yet they’re not telling us what’s going wrong with our system that they want to run?”

Journalist Mike Barnicle jumped in to accuse the administration of “lying” about the Obamacare enrollments figures.

“They’re lying about it now,” Barnicle said. “They’re not depriving us of information, they are outright lying … about the numbers of who have enrolled, the numbers who have made the process complete, the numbers of people who have actually signed up, a couple others things. The larger point is they keep using the word, ‘unacceptable.’ This is not unacceptable, this is outrageous.”

The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein agreed that the exchange failures have been unacceptable, adding that someone is going to be held responsible.

“Up until recently, they didn’t realize how bad this was going to go out,” Stein said. “No one beta-tested the site, which is almost criminal, when you think about it. The president was caught off-guard, which is really unfortunate and also really kind of messed up.”

“So you need someone who brings accountability to the process; I wouldn’t be surprised if a few people lost their jobs. But this starts with basically explaining to Congress and to the American public what went wrong. I think that’s a very low bar for the administration to hit,” he said.

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Americans first rebelled against the tyranny of an unresponsive, lawless government that imposed its megalithic will on the people, by declaring war and fighting the American Revolution (see our treatise on the Founding herein).

The purpose of the break with Great Britain was clearly outlined in the Declaration of Independence (from Britain):

“When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” Declaration of Independence.

The “causes” for the separation and the underlying principles upon which the emerging nation must be built were then “declared”:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

As the Founders constructed a new national government, they did so with the goal of bonding the 13 American colonies into a single, unified nation. The benefit of becoming united would be better defense against common enemies, plus a larger, unified, robust economic system. The engine that would build and drive the emerging nation would be individual liberty, nurtured and protected by the governments tasked with upholding and enforcing the new Constitution.

The citizens of the 13 colonies were less enthusiastic about the prospect of a national government, because they did not desire to replace one tyrant with another—they were very focused on the principles of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” and all they implied. To allay the fears of the colonists, the Founders built safeguards into the Constitution of the new nation that would forever ensure that the national government could not grow beyond its statutory restraints; thus never becoming the governmental equivalent of King George (the Founding), whom they had repelled at the cost of their most precious blood.

George Washington said it best:

“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.”

This sums up the foundational philosophy upon which the Constitution of the United States of America was constructed.

This was the prevailing attitude among America’s founders, and its citizens, who had witnessed the blood of 25,000 spilt in breaking the shackles of Great Britain’s government. They were very much of the opinion that government is indeed a monster, to be kept in chains, to be limited with every restraint available . . . because if left to itself, it will feed, and grow, and take, and pillage, until it is the master and the people who created it are the slaves.

The best form that the new government should take was richly debated among the people and by the Founders, and several scholarly papers were presented in the national press, and are now collected into The Federalist Papers. Many of the Founders further warned that securing the personal liberty afforded by a Constitutionally-based government might be easier than maintaining it, as expressed so eloquently by Thomas Jefferson:

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

With this in mind, the new national government was established.  It was made up of three separate branches; the executive, the legislative and the judicial, each tasked with checking or limiting the powers of the other—to ensure that it never reached beyond its modest initial mandate. Although it is clear that the rights of individual citizens and the states were to never be further burdened or infringed by the national government, tyrants have reappeared, and have diluted the shackles of the Constitution to the point that the national government has overgrown our nation and overshadowed its citizens with its all-encompassing powers.

With the breakdown of the checks-and-balances system in American government, and the coup d’état of the current Executive Branch (Marxist) over the other two branches of government, many in America feel it is indeed time for Jefferson’s instructive imperative to be revisited.

Has this country truly reached the point where the citizens of the states must retake the national government and again pare its powers to just those few enumerated by the Constitution (see list of enumerated federal powers in Founding)?  There is no doubt that those who currently wield power in the federal government have entirely abandoned the Constitution of the United States, and are usurping the government of the people with their own tyrannical, totalitarian form of rule.

If those who love liberty do rise up against this tyranny, how will they do it? Who will fire the first salvo? What form will it take? Who will lead it?

If not us, then who? If not now, then when? – John Lewis

Will it be you?

Who are the American patriots who will step forward and restore the personal liberties that are being pried from the hands of America’s citizens? How much longer can free men stand by and watch the destruction of their liberty and culture? Who will step forward? Every member of the U.S. military is sworn to uphold the Constitution. Perhaps they should lead the fight, with our blessing. If they are unwilling to start it, they may be more than willing to support it once underway.

America is waiting for you.

PUBLIUS

The good news: The national parks are open, furloughed federal workers are back on the job, and the country will not cut off benefit payments because it can’t borrow.

The bad news: The national debt is back on course to hit $17 trillion any day now, with no deal in sight to ever reverse the climb.

The latest increase in the debt cap is the sixth since President Obama took office, when the debt was $10.6 trillion. It was raised three times when Democrats controlled Congress, and has been raised three times since Republicans took control of the House.

Fiscal conservatives and government watchdog groups reacted with dismay Thursday after Washington, following weeks of hard-nosed negotiations, produced only a stopgap bill to end the partial government shutdown and raise that cap. And despite the chaos of the past few weeks, they are once again trying to refocus Washington on the need to — seriously — lasso the nation’s debt and break the habit of endless over-spending.

“Both houses should act quickly to stop the madness,” said Maya MacGuineas, head of the Committee for a Responsible Budget and the Campaign to Fix the Debt. While voicing relief that the partial shutdown is over, she called the last-minute deal “incredibly disheartening,” describing the debt as a “fire” that could “get out of control at any moment.”

Republicans have been modestly emboldened in their push for spending cuts after the dire consequences that administration officials said would emerge from the so-called sequester, in large part, did not happen. Even the partial government shutdown had a limited impact on the country.

Obama, while urging both sides to come together on a new budget agreement in the coming weeks that addresses the nation’s fiscal problems, on Thursday also downplayed the red ink.

“The deficit is getting smaller, not bigger,” Obama said.

That’s true. But, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said: “You still have an unsustainable problem in place.”

Since Obama took office, the total national debt has risen by nearly 60 percent. It was $10.6 trillion on the day he took office. It was $16.7 trillion when the nation technically hit the debt ceiling.

But, even during that period, the Treasury racked up another $200 billion in debt, borrowing from various U.S. funds to buy more time while Congress debated. As the New York Post explained Thursday, the debt is actually at $16.9 trillion.

So what do numbers so impossible to comprehend mean for the United States?

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office issued a rather dire warning last month about what the future holds if the trajectory is not changed.

The analysis explained how the government has been expanding at historic rates. Between 2009 and 2012, it said, deficits were larger relative to the size of the economy than at any point since 1946 — in turn fueling the rapid growth in the debt.

Deficits are projected to fall for the next few years, but then rise again, in large part because of two major factors — interest on the debt, and entitlement programs.

The growth of the debt has triggered a vicious cycle, where higher debt leads to bigger interest payments, in turn growing the debt even more.

The CBO estimates that by 2038, interest on the debt will rise to 5 percent of GDP — compared against a modern historical average of 2 percent. That means less money in the federal coffers for everything from the military to benefits programs.

But the biggest benefits programs, known in Washington as entitlements, are the dominant factor.

Programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are poised to eat up more and more of the federal budget. The CBO says the share of spending on those programs will double by 2038, to 14 percent of GDP. As a consequence, spending on everything else will drop.

Obama said Thursday that longer-term deficits do need to be addressed, and that budget negotiators need to focus on programs like Medicare and Social Security.

But Rubio said the problem is Obama has resisted major changes to any of those programs, due in part to resistance from the liberal base.

Let’s think about this. I go to buy a car for my wife. I walk onto the lot and pick one that is worth $20k, but is listed for $25k. I tell the salesman that I will pay only $10k. We negotiate and I end up giving in and paying $20k. I come in a few months later to buy a car for my son. He wants the same car that my wife has and the price is still $25k. Knowing that I paid $20k last time, I tell the salesman that I am willing to pay $20k again. But this time he says no, he’s standing firm. We negotiate and I end up paying $22k. Now my daughter wants a car and I go back in for the third time, same make and model. Knowing what I paid last time, I decide to offer $22k, not a penny more. But, as before, the salesman demands $25k. We split the difference and I pay $23.5k.

So here’s the question. Who is the strongest negotiator? The salesman who starts every negation with everything he wants and settles for less and less of a discount with each transaction or, me who begins each negotiation with what I settled for last time, instead of starting each negation episode with everything I want, the car for $10k and settle for paying $20k?

As simplistic as this might be, this is exactly what has been happening for years in Washington DC. The Democrats come to DC demanding everything they want. The Republicans’ point of departure for renewed (or continued) negotiation is to ask for no more than what they got last time, forgetting what their voters originally wanted.

I heard a sour grapes interview with former senator Bob Bennett recently. He was criticizing his replacement, Mike Lee and others, for “hostage taking.” He explained that in ‘his day’ people went to Washington to “look for ways to get something done.” That’s right Bob, but what we wanted was for you to remember WHAT we, the voters, want done. You didn’t do that. The American people are tired of sending politicians to Washington who say WHAT they will do while campaigning and later return to us with some version of, “it’s harder than I thought it was going to be.” From that point forward it seems that their main focus becomes HOW to get things done. Understandable, but wrong. While we certainly want our elected officials to be effective in their efforts, the “how” does not equal the “what.” It’s discouraging to see old guard Republicans trash the freshman class of Senators (i.e. Lee, Cruz, Rand, etc.) because of their “how,” disregarding their “what.”

To the Republican Establishment: THE MAJORITY OF AMERICANS DO NOT WANT OBAMACARE! It will destroy the country. We want you to do whatever it takes, within the law, to get rid of it. Stop talking about the good old days of statesmanship, compromise and good will among your colleagues within the Halls of Congress. The opposition has already declared war on us. Stop acting as if their positions are reasonable, just different than ours. They’re not. If Obamacare stands the economy will be irretrievably damaged—decimated. Don’t tell us that risking the “full-faith and credit” of the United States is too high a price. The implementation of Obamacare will do that anyway. We want our representatives to STOP Obamacare, not just slow its implementation.

One more point. Whenever I talk with republican operatives, it sickens me to hear them talk about Mike Lee, Ted Cruz and others as party interlopers or as individuals who didn’t “come up through the ranks the right way.” One such republican operative recently told me that Mike Lee took advantage of a flawed caucus system in Utah and was therefore able to unseat Bob Bennett. Her criticism of Lee centered on the idea that he has not spent the time building enough trust within the party to be effective. She further pointed out that what the party needs is someone who has a demonstrated ability to “build coalitions” that will facilitate “getting things done.”

My response: by staying focused on WHAT his constituents want instead of getting hoodwinked by the opposition into believing that “HOW we do things in the Senate” should be the focus, he is building a broad-base coalition on a foundation of trust among the VOTERS. Others within the party would do well to stop criticizing him, stop helping the opposition party, and stand with him as he endeavors to represent the people who sent him to Washington to get rid of Obamacare and otherwise return the nation to a Constitution based government.

Forget the “how” and stay focused on the “what.” The “how” will become self-evident as we go along. The only thing required then is to have the courage to exercise the “how” in pursuit of the “what.”

Mike Lee has my support and my respect.

by John Bingham