If you are a US Senator, be a Senator for ALL AMERICANS!

I know this is a tilting at windmills kinda thing, but the titles for our federal representatives in Congress is "United States Senator from " fill in the state name here. In other words, they should be representing what is in the best interests of the country AS A WHOLE! Why should I have to pay higher FEDERAL income taxes in Texas because California or New Jersey has decided to have high STATE income taxes. Why should the people of high state tax states have input in my FEDERAL taxes when I don't have any input in their STATE taxes. If your state has a problem because you won't be able to deduct state taxes, FIX IT THERE FIRST!

Ben Franklin's Final Speech at the Constitutional Convention

For full disclosure, Ben Franklin is my great-great-great-great-great-great-great Grand Father.  It was the side of  William Franklin, the Tory governor of New Jersey...but we can't pick our ancestors, now can we!

Mr. President:

I confess that I do not entirely approve of this Constitution at present, but Sir, I am not sure I shall never approve it: For having lived long, I have experienced many Instances of being oblig'd, by better Information or fuller Consideration, to change Opinions even on important Subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow the more apt I am to doubt my own Judgment, and to pay more Respect to the Judgment of others. Most Men indeed as well as most Sects in Religion, think themselves in Possession of all Truth, and that wherever others differ from them it is so far Error. Steele, a Protestant in a Dedication tells the Pope, that the only Difference between our two Churches in their Opinions of the Certainty of their Doctrine, is, the Romish Church is infallible, and the Church of England is never in the Wrong. But tho' many private Persons think almost as highly of their own Infallibility, as of that of their Sect, few express it so naturally as a certain French Lady, who in a little Dispute with her Sister, said, I don't know how it happens, Sister, but I meet with no body but myself that's always in the right. Il n'y a que moi qui a toujours raison. 

In these Sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution, with all its Faults, if they are such; because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no Form of Government but what may be a Blessing to the People if well administered; and I believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a Course of Years, and can only end in Despotism as other Forms have done before it, when the People shall become so corrupted as to need Despotic Government, being incapable of any other. 

I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain, may be able to make a better Constitution: For when you assemble a Number of Men to have the Advantage of their joint Wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those Men all their Prejudices, their Passions, their Errors of Opinion, their local Interests, and their selfish Views. From such an Assembly can a perfect Production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this System approaching so near to Perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our Enemies, who are waiting with Confidence to hear that our Councils are confounded, like those of the Builders of Babel, and that our States are on the Point of Separation, only to meet hereafter for the Purpose of cutting one another's throats. Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure that it is not the best. 

The Opinions I have had of its Errors, I sacrifice to the Public Good. I have never whispered a Syllable of them abroad. Within these Walls they were born, and here they shall die. If every one of us in returning to our Constituents were to report the Objections he has had to it, and use his Influence to gain Partisan in support of them, we might prevent its being generally received, and thereby lose all the salutary Effects and great Advantages resulting naturally in our favour among foreign Nations, as well as among ourselves, from our real or apparent Unanimity. Much of the Strength and Efficiency of any Government, in procuring and securing Happiness to the People depends on Opinion, on the general Opinion of the Goodness of that Government as well as of the Wisdom and Integrity of its Governors. I hope therefore that for our own Sakes, as a Part of the People, and for the sake of our Posterity, we shall act heartily and unanimously in recommending this Constitution, wherever our Influence may extend, and turn our future Thoughts and Endeavours to the Means of having it well administered. 

On the whole, Sir, I cannot help expressing a Wish, that every Member of the Convention, who may still have Objections to it, would with me on this Occasion doubt a little of his own Infallibility, and to make manifest our Unanimity, put his Name to this instrument.

Someone please explain....

Why is it that the left is so concerned about foreign interference and influence in our elections? I would think, based on their OWN actions, they would welcome that. Reason you say? Because they obviously welcome interference and influence in our law making! Otherwise, they would NOT have their panties in a wad over DACA!!!!!

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So you think Obamacare kept health insurance premiums down? Think again!

According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, the average exchange premiums were 105% higher in the 39 states using Healthcare.gov in 2017 than average individual market premiums in 2013. Average monthly premiums increased from $232 in 2013 to $476 in 2017, and 62% of those states had 2017 exchange premiums at least double the 2013 average.  This is NOT from a right wing think tank or Fox News.  It is not from Rush Limbaugh.  This is from the people who actually are responsible for this.  Read for yourself here.

Repeal THEN adjust by market forces, NOT REPLACE~!

ACA, aka ObamaCare is one of the worst pieces of legislation EVER passed into law.  It shouldn't be replaced.....it SHOULD be repealed in its entirety and allow the free markets, now that the publicity provided to the insurance industry has been digested, to provide the products and services that the market asks for at a price they are willing to pay.  It is bad legislation!

It is a bad legislation because it does MULTIPLE bad things:

1. It has mandates that require policies to include things that some people will NEVER NEED. A single man does NOT need birth control pills or mammograms….EVER! And NO women need prostate exams….EVER!
2. It allows people to pay a small penalty to the government (regardless of whether you say it is a tax or not) UNTIL they need insurance, THEN buy it. This becomes an actuarial nightmare. I would like to be able to buy car insurance or home owners insurance AFTER I need them!
3. It did NOT strengthen MediCare. In fact, the additional “free” items that the law mandates, like an annual wellness visit and elimination of the drug “donut hole” in Part D have actually weakened Medicare financially. The latest projections are that Medicare Part D spending will more than double between 2016 and 2025. When Medicare's trustees reported on the status of the federal healthcare program in 2015, they projected that the Medicare Part A hospital insurance trust fund would run out of money in 2030. Now the trustees estimate that the trust fund will be depleted in 2028 -- two years earlier than previously expected.
4. Most importantly is the slight of hand that the left has used to sell this canard! They have tried to make healthcare a RIGHT! IT IS NOT!! This is only about an attempt to create a single payer system in the US so the government controls a LARGE part (as much as 1/6th) of then economy. It started with a law they KNEW would eventually implode because it is financially unsustainable. It is obvious because they actually made plans to pay insurance companies for their losses in the first years. They KNEW that premiums HAD to go up and would go up substantially, regardless of their statements (remember save $2500/year?) and that choices would go down (remember keep your plan and keep your doctor?). They KNEW that the next step, after the “evil” insurance companies became the target, would be to say “OK, this has become too expensive! We need to take control!” They put the health insurance companies OUT OF BUSINESS and EVERYONE goes on Medicare, essentially.

Of course, they didn’t plan on Republicans taking control of the White House, Senate, and House. So unless we can repeal it and return to free market competition, the left will do what they always do….wait until they can pick it back up. Make no mistake, that is the price of NOT repealing the entire legislation.

Illegal Aliens and their children. Are "anchor" babies citizens?

Why do you suggest we treat parents who are illegal aliens and their children who are, also, illegals differently?  The liberal position seems to say if you have children, you don't have to follow our laws.  Now, what OTHER laws do they NOT have to follow?  I know we have somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 million illegals and it isn't practical to deport them all, but we have to start looking out for the best interests of Americans first.  We need to be very aggressively deporting ALL criminal aliens AND their families, regardless of where the children are born.  The parents go back and take their children with them.  Pretty simple.

Now libs will be screaming at the top of their lungs "if you are born here, you are a citizen!!!!"  and will cite SCOTUS precedent (which is rooted in completely inane footnote in a case by William Brennan, an extremely liberal "activist" judge who refused to hire women and probably the most inexplicable appointment EVER made by a Republican president) and the 14th Amendment, conveniently ignoring the fact that the 14th Amendment was intended to ensure that freed slaves were citizens.  It had NOTHING to do with immigrants.  In fact, in 1884, in Elk v. Wilkins (112 U.S. 94), the Supreme Court ruled that the 14th Amendment did not grant Indians citizenship.  The first sentence of the 14th Amendment "was to settle the question, upon which there had been a difference of opinion throughout the country and in this court, as to the citizenship of free negroes and to put it beyond doubt that all persons, white or black … should be citizens of the United States and of the state in which they reside.”  It says NOTHING about immigrants.

Regardless of what MANY people think, SCOTUS is not infallible.  Remember, Dred Scott was the law of the land for 50+ years.  They DO make mistakes when they allow politics to enter into their decisions.