Continued political in-congruence

By Jim Killebrew

[January 28, 2015]  Back in July 2014 I wrote about the "Political in-congruence" between the President and the Congress. The republican party had been railing on the President about the scandals and the activities of the departments under the President's authority. I wrote,

"For weeks now we have been listening to the complaints from the Republican Party members about the multiple scandals that have unfolded from the Administration. How many times have we listened to the tirades of republican representatives and senators complaining about the spying from the NSA? We have listened to the travesty of the waiting lists in the veteran’s administration hospital system and the number of veterans who have died as a result of the sub-standard care and lack of leadership. We are even now hearing of the House of Representatives suing the President for overreaching and extending his power by changing various laws, especially in the Affordable Care Act."

Isn't it interesting that now the Congress is controlled by the republicans and none of these things we held as issues last year have not been resolved; in fact, they still simmer on the back burner, even with new ingredients being placed in the pot.

Has the NSA stopped spying on the American people? Is that "meta-data" being used only for tracking terrorists who might be plotting attacks on American cities and people? No. That spying is continuing as it was then, Edward Snowden continues to be "at-large" out of the reach of the American Jurisprudence System, and things have even gotten worse. We are now hearing that the Administration's Department of Justice (DOJ) is tracking every American who drives. License plates are being photographed, GPS signals are tracking the places visited by Americans, telephones are being tracked to know were each American who owns the telephone to inform the DOJ a list of all the places those Americans visit each day. That massive data system is gathering "meta-data" in several different forms on each American. There is no guarantee from the government the data is used only for tracking the bad guys.

Regarding the Veteran's Administration debacle, it was simply swept under the rug with the firing of a few underlings. Waiting lists continue, veterans continue to wait for services and are still not receiving services with the quality needed. This is especially true for those more recent veterans who have returned from the Middle East wars diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). There is such a deluge of incidents that wave over those things we worried about back then are not even thought about in today's news.

Has anything been done about the President changing the laws pertaining to the Affordable Care Act, or better known as Obamacare? The only thing that has happened in 2015 is being reminded that the deductions have increased, the insurance premiums continue to be many times higher than those premiums paid for previous policies, and co-payments are much higher than before. The reality of millions of people having lost their previous policies when they were promised they could keep them if they liked them has now set in as a permanent fact of life.

Additionally, in July 2014 I wrote about the foibles of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and their targeting conservative groups to prevent them from fully participating in the re-election efforts of the Presidential election.

"How many times have we heard about Lois Learner, her alleged involvement in the targeted IRS investigations into conservative groups and individuals? Now we are even hearing about the IRS official Lois Learner having written an instant message to subordinates asking about the messages and warning them to not write anything that might be shared with Congress during various investigations; the so-called “smoking gun” of the IRS issue.

Once again, at the beginning of the new year we still have no resolution to the IRS issue. Lois Learner has move on in the government with more responsibility in the affairs of the people. The special committee in Congress formed to investigate this scandal continues to be fighting the Administration simply to have documents delivered. People who were responsible for taking government-owned computer hard drives and destroying them if they were found to be related to Lois Learner have still not answered for their actions. The Administration continues to stonewall the Congressional investigating committee and seemingly continues to do so with impunity.

Finally, in July 2015 I wrote about the Presidential inaction.

"Of course while the President has been keeping himself busy with the activities of his “pen and phone” to give the Congress reason to take action of their own against his abuse of power, there is something he could do that would be beneficial and increase his standing with the American people at the same time."

"It was back to jail for the Marine Sgt. Tahmooressi who had a court hearing in Mexico on July 9th. For over 100 days he has been in prison for his having mistakenly crossed the U.S. and Mexican border more than three months ago. The judge hearing the case made the decision to return Sgt. Tahmooressi to his jail cell to wait for the next hearing that will keep processing for months to come as it passes through the Mexican judicial system."

"Here is a Marine who has spent two tours in the Afghanistan war theater and has seemingly been “left behind” in Mexico with little or no intervention from the President or his Administration. There are many Congressional representatives who are trying to intervene on the Marine’s behalf. The President, however, seems too busy to speak up for that Marine, but for one who may have deserted his post to look for the Taliban the President seemed all too willing to negotiate with the Taliban that ultimately received five high-ranking terrorists back into their fold to fight against Americans another day."

Now, in 2015 the President has doubled down in making his threats against Congress to use his perceived power to take matters into his own hands and circumventing the Congressional responsibility. Thank God the Sgt. Tahmooressi has now been released from the incarceration in Mexico. It was not done by any action taken by the President, however. Instead, as I wrote in July 2014, the President was busy negotiating with the Taliban to release five high-ranking terrorists as a trade for another sergeant, Sgt. Bergdahl, who had deserted his post to go looking for the enemy. Now we are learning the military wants to bring charges against Sgt. Bergdahl as a result of the investigation that has produced enough evidence that he indeed did desert his post to join up with the Taliban. The Pentagon is now waiting for a decision from the Administration regarding the move forward to a court marshal for Sgt. Bergdahl.

It seems in Washington, DC the wheels of justice move extremely slow. If there was political in-congruence in July 2014, it seems the list of scandals and issues we discussed then continue to be just a viable at the beginning of 2015.

[By JIM KILLEBREW]