CENTRAL VIEW for Monday, March 17, 2014

Oy vey: ObamaCare, Crimea & Cat fights

Supposedly, the latest change to ObamaCare is that if any individual finds ObamaCare to be unaffordable and/or ObamaCare causes a hardship, the individual mandate to enroll in ObamaCare is waived until December 31, 2016.

But what if some young person who is "supposed" to enroll in ObamaCare asks you what to do? No responsible person wants to provide bad advice. No one knows which parts of ObamaCare are going to be enforced and which are not. The potential exists for serious trouble with the IRS, for poor credit ratings, even criminal prosecution. To paraphrase Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker when ObamaCare was passed, "You have to be sick or injured before you’ll know if your medical expenses are covered or not."

With ObamaCare on life-support, the excuse for its failure will be the same excuse offered after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Some Marxist- Leninists in this country claimed that "true" Communism had never really been attempted in the Soviet Union. You will hear ObamaCare failed because it was never given a chance to work.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State John Kerry finds himself "Swift Boated" by Vladimir Putin. The Crimea is a Black Sea too far for today’s reduced U.S. military power. When Russia and neighboring Georgia went to war in 2008, Georgia lost control over 25-percent of Abkhazia and 40-percent of South Ossetia. Even back when we were militarily much stronger, all President Bush could do was fly humanitarian relief supplies into Georgia. Final score: Putin 1. Georgia 0.

Now that the people of Crimea have voted to detach from Ukraine and join Putin’s Russian Federation, Russia will own, once again, the warm-water ports of the Crimea. Putin will not have fired a single shot. At the White House last week, comedian, Zach Galifianakis, did an in-person interview during which he asked Mr. Obama, "What is it like to be the last black president?" Ouch!

On the home front, a dispute has broken out among three major components of the U.S. Government (USG): The Democrat-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee, the White House-controlled CIA, and the FBI, which is under Mr. Obama’s appointee, Attorney General Eric Holder.

The CIA claims Senator Diane Feinstein’s Intelligence Committee gained unauthorized access to certain Top Secret CIA files. The CIA asked the FBI to investigate. Senator Feinstein counter claims the CIA hacked into her committee’s computer files, altered some files and deleted others. The FBI is caught in the middle. This cat fight among elected and appointed Democrats cannot be good for national security.

Underlying this unseemly fight may be the smoking gun of Benghazi because the eight congresspersons who are supposed to be briefed on "black operations," may have been briefed in advance about some sort of Top Secret operation being carried out by the murdered Ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi. House Speaker Boehner (one of the eight) refuses to appoint a Select Committee on Benghazi. A Discharge Petition (H. Res. 36) to force the Speaker to act needs 218 co-sponsors. So far, 190 House members have signed up. If 28 more sign, we may uncover a lot more than just the truth about Benghazi.

Nationally syndicated columnist, William Hamilton, was educated at the University of Oklahoma, the George Washington University, the U.S Naval War College, the University of Nebraska, and Harvard University.

©2014. William Hamilton.

You may unsubscribe to "Central View" at any time by sending an e-mail message with the word “unsubscribe” in the subject line and addressed to news@central-view.com. You will receive an automated acknowledgement.

Dr. Hamilton can be contacted at:

Email: william@central-view.com