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“The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.”  – President Barack Obama, Inauguration, 1/20/09

And that has been Obama’s and the Progressive mantra – size of Government doesn’t matter but if it “works”.  Progressives have placed all of their belief into the [misbegotten, from my standpoint] view that Government is full of non-partisan experts that can run our Society in an efficient manner.  Remember, Progressivism began in the Industrial Revolution, when machines were mechanical, big, and wondrous things.  They reasoned that Government should be so – and in charge of the even larger machine of Society.  Which, as I have said before, reduces the rest of us to mere cogs in that machine – and they are OK with that.  But is that machine working?  No, because after all, we ain’t cogs.

When I went over to Newsbusters (quoting a National Journal piece) and saw this, I nearly plotzed when I read this:

“Questioning why the Veterans Affairs Department hadn’t been overhauled months ago as promised by Obama (actually that was seven years ago, plus six other times, Ron — Ed.), a senior White House official conceded privately to me, ‘We don’t do the small stuff well. And the small stuff is the important stuff.'”

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When our “Meet the New Press” radio show was around, that was an oft said saying as a take off of what Massachusetts pol (and later US Speaker of the House) Tip O’Neil used to say “All politics is local”.  We extended it as it seemed that all of the political problems we talked about locally about our hamlet and surrounds, we also heard about in other areas.  Also, we have seen the Democrat model replicate itself: what happens in DC is tried locally in Concord (especially if the Progressive Dems can’t pass the desired legislation in DC).

Well, our original mantra still holds true as we see, once again, politicians unwilling to make the hard decisions that we send them to Concord and to DC to do.  Remember a few months ago when everyone in Concord was wailing that our Highway Trust Fund was running out of money and that we had to raise more money to fix our “failing bridges and roads”?  I do, and it was clear that Progressive politicians (both Democrat and Republican) were unwilling to make the hard decisions we expected and failed to seal up the leaks that stole money from that Fund. 

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Reason why?  Scott Brown brought has it upon himself (we merely talk about it):

• Scott Brown keeps emphasizing that he looks forward to working with Democrats again
• He voted for Romneycare (Obamacare before the steroids hit) as a “good thing”

Oh year, the news:

UnitedHealthcare to cut doctors for Mass. seniors.

“National insurance giant UnitedHealthcare plans to cut up to 700 Massachusetts doctors from its physician network for seniors enrolled in its private Medicare plan as a way to control costs, according to company officials.

For elderly patients enrolled in the plan, the cuts mean they will have to find a new doctor or eventually switch to a new health plan that covers their current doctor.”

And of COURSE, we hear the faux outrage from Democrats who can’t stand the idea that the private sector providers are merely following the Law

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Yes, this has stretched out a bit too long – I seem to get distracted but given this is vacation time, time to get caught up on some of the “lingering” stuff.  I’ve commented already on several of the speeches that were given at the NH GOP Annual meeting and this is the last one (simply because it was the last one given that day).  It is the Chair report.  I took the time to transcribe it all (after the jump with the video) and I have some serious concerns in what she had to say.

Sure, it was a time for “rah-rah” speeches and no doubt, her’s was one of those “call to arms” types.  The problem is, I’m not so sure that all the folks she aimed this to are all that willing to just drink from her cup.  Yes, the “Republican Republicans for the sake of the Party” (“RRFTSOTP”), those that believe solely that only important letter is “R” (and that makes all things just dandy) probably ate it up with thought of animus towards folks like us that actually look at the words and the thoughts driving them from behind.  They’ll accept whatever, gorging at the buffet while we’re looking at “er, did this spend too long a time not in the fridge”?

Remember, she made three specific promises during her campaign to be the Chair (mimicking her rival as she was a step behind in my mind) – she would:

1. Unite the Party
2. Fill the coffers
3. Redo the technology to better what the Dems had

With those PRIMARY items in mind, I went through her speech to see how close she came to reality or how close she was to merely “rah-rah”.

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That is not from a talking head pundit or other private sector apologist for the Obama Administration.  That was tweeted out by:

MeetBrandon Friedman, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; he previously served as Director Online Communications at U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. He is a veteran; he was as an infantry platoon leader and executive officer in the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division, completing combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq between 2001 and 2004.

Here’s the tweet:

Here's the thing about Bergdahl and the Jump-to-Conclusions mats: What if his platoon was long on psychopaths and short on leadership? (1/5)

— Brandon Friedman (@BFriedmanDC) June 5, 2014

From all reports, the White House decided to do this “Wag the Dog” of bringing back Bowe Bergdahl to get the VA Scandal off the stage.  I betcha there was a conversation like that going around in the West Wing;

Crap, why did Obama have to say the VA was going to be a big deal?

Easy – how many in the military trust us Progressives – throw them a bone.

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Seriously,  this Political Correctness on campuses is just getting well past “Stuck on Stupid”.  Does anyone study any serious subjects anymore?  Or is this stuff just the end result of the intersection of the Self-Esteem Trophy movement in our educational system with the Cultural Marxist (aka, Political Correctness) – just a huge puddle of precious snowflakes that are too fragile for normal life?  This from The College Fix (emphasis mine, reformatted):

Stanford University’s Inter-Sorority Council hosted a public forum last week in response to protests against a Cinco de Mayo-themed fundraiser at Pi Beta Phi and a number of other Greek life events.  “As a rule of thumb, if an item or tradition is stripped of its original intent or cultural significance, it’s probably cultural appropriation,” said the moderator in opening the discussion.  He added cultural appropriation is the stealing of intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions, or artifacts from someone else’s culture without permission – and it’s made worse when “the source is a minority group that has historically been oppressed.”

Like the title asks – WHO would you ask for permission?  Is there some council or Star Chamber group that every ethnicity has stashed away somewhere so that you could knock on the door, rush in, hushly ask “hey, this ok?” and then go out and party?  Well of COURSE not, you dumbo!  Just the fact that you have to ask in the Progressive controlled cultural world now means that you’re one of the moronic insensitive unenlightened unwashed.

Cultural Appropriation.  Sigh.  One thing is sure, the Political Correctness crowd has no sense of: 

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