Weekly Comments Archive
Archived Issue
Sunday, December 22, 2013
ISSUE #783
Duck Dynasty and Obamacare divide the country

The Federal Reserve met last week to do a thorough examination of the economy. Ben Bernanke announced the patient is improving, and will soon be able to walk on its own. He’s been supporting it with $85 Billion a month of “printing press” money (some of us call it counterfeit), and he will remove $10 Billion of the $85 Billion and keep an eye on it to make sure the economy doesn’t stumble and fall on its face.

Wall Street liked the announcement and set another record. Those folks are thrilled the printing press was only slowed down a little, and not scrapped.

President Obama is glad the economy is growing. Unemployment is down to 7%. But he looks at Wall Street and says the rich are not sharing enough of the wealth with the poor. Pope Francis agrees with him that “income inequality” is a problem.

Personally, I think the Pope can do more to solve it than the President. If he would follow the example of Brigham Young and have all his followers give 10% to be distributed among the poor that would sure help balance the scales. The President might be able to do the same thing, but he would have to persuade us to give about 30%.

Concerning the Affordable Care Act, the President said on Friday, “Eighty-five percent of Americans have benefitted. It’s working as intended.” Not everyone agrees with him, especially the other fifteen percent. He has made so many changes that no one is quite sure what his “intention” is. The 5 million who have lost their insurance will now be able to sign up for a simple “catastrophic” plan. Previously, it had been outlawed. With a January deadline looming, the President turned the whole situation over to Secretary Sebelius and the insurance companies and flew off to Hawaii to play golf.

Have you been following this Duck Dynasty controversy? It has divided the country even more than Obamacare. I had been contemplating what to say about it myself, when Jay Leno beat me to it with the perfect comment. He said that Phil Robertson, the patriarch of the family, criticized gays, so gay people are upset with him. “Then he went on to criticize adulterers, drunks and swindlers. And now Congress is mad at him.”  Yes, I sure wish I had thought of it first.

Historic quotes by Will Rogers: (on Christmas)

    “I am too busy replacing presents to write today. I bought some mechanical and electric things for the kids and wore ‘em out playing with ‘em myself.” DT #120, Dec. 23, 1926
 “Merry Christmas, my constant readers, both of you. No scandal today. There is some, but it will be more scandalous by tomorrow.  Men, act surprised this morning as if you didn’t know the tie was coming.” DT #121, Dec. 24, 1926

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