Coming Soon: FREE Screening of "Wait Till It's Free"

Welcome to 2015!  Wow!  Is it even possible that we've just rung in a new year?  I guess so, and with the new year also marks the beginning of Obamacare.  You remember Obamacare, right?  I mean, how could we forget it?  It seemed doomed from the beginning, starting with the drama surrounding its passage back in March 2010 to the Supreme Court decision to uphold the individual mandate as constitutional to the decision of Congress to fund multiple Continuing Resolutions with 'hard-wired' funding for the omnibus health care bill.  Its faulty website launched in 2014 and appointing 16,000 IRS agents to handle its implementation and enforcement of purchase further prove what a mess it is. I mean, the government runs the Postal Service and it's doing...fine...ahem.

The healthcare law has triggered skyrocketing premiums for all families across all income levels, proving that its official name of Affordable Care Act is a definite misnomer.  Let's not forget a few of the dramatic bumps it had along the way to passage.  I love playing a game I call, "What's My Line?"  of quotes from various office holders of what they said during that year and a half struggle.  My absolute favorite was the one from Alan Grayson, the Democrat from Florida that said since Republicans didn't want it passed that the GOP wanted "..Americans to die and die quickly!".  Yeah, pretty sad.

Other events during the negotiation process, which, if you remember, was going to be as transparent as a piece of rice paper AND were going to be televised on C-SPAN, we had the Corn-husker kick back and the second Louisiana Purchase. Don't forget the Stupak amendment, which is the executive order he 'negotiated' with the president to protect the Hyde Amendment which was written to prevent tax-payer funded abortion, which in all reality, didn't do anything.  But I digress....

So why am I bringing all of this up again?  Ever heard of a movie called, "Wait Till It's Free"?  Here's a description of the movie from their website:
"Wait Till It's Free" is an entertaining and provocative look at the current healthcare crisis. This film takes a hard and honest look at the way we do healthcare in America by looking at every relevant aspect of modern medicine, from the escalating cost of health insurance to the move towards universal government healthcare. The film asks what kind of alternatives there are for families caught between expensive insurance-based coverage and the "Free" government solutions. The film explores the alternatives for individuals, churches, and families, and offers moving and enlightening stories about those that have chosen to follow innovative and independent approaches to healthcare."

Notice the last two lines in the description:  "The film asks what kind of alternatives there are for families caught between expensive insurance-based coverage and the "Free" government solutions. The film explores the alternatives for individuals, churches, and families, and offers moving and enlightening stories about those that have chosen to follow innovative and independent approaches to healthcare."  I think that's what the GOP needs right now and has needed for some time--Alternatives.  Options.  Choices.

We've all discussed the repeal of Obamacare, haven't we?  We've all heard campaign promises doled out by some GOP congressmen and women that they were going to repeal it and replace it, but with what, exactly?  This movie offers some viable replacement options. 

What I'm even more hopeful about is that a pastor of a local church is actually orchestrating the viewing of this documentary.  We all know that politics and religion don't normally mix, and I wanted to ask him about that.  His name is Pete Allison and he's been kind enough to let me interview him and ask him about his decision to show the movie.

Kelly Horsley: "Why do you think it's important to show this movie?"

Pastor Allison: "It’s important to show this movie because people need to know that:

-Government medicine is detrimental to liberty and our health 
-There were serious problems with our healthcare before Obamacare
-The out of control healthcare costs are the result of government medicine
-There are other options besides government medicine.
What people don’t know in this area can be very detrimental to their health.

Kelly Horsley: "We've often heard it said that politics and religion don't mix.  What do you say to that?"
Pastor Allison: "To those who say that politics and religion should not be mixed, I would reply that it is impossible to separate them. Politics is, by definition, the practice of one’s religion or beliefs in the area of civil government. It’s a topic about which the Scriptures have much to say."

Kelly Horsley: "I personally applaud your involvement and wish we would see more pastors and church goers involved in the political process.  What are some ways you think we could get the Evangelical voters out to the polls?"

Pastor Allison: "From my interactions with evangelical voters, there seem to be two predominate reasons many evangelical voters do not go to the polls. One group, probably the smaller of the two, doesn’t see anyone on the ballot for whom they can vote. They see little point in picking the lesser of two evils as they are still voting for evil (http://blog.dollarnoncents.com/2008/10/wasted-third-party-votes.html). The other group is just consistently living out their religion (or theology) which is that the kingdom of heaven has nothing to do with the civil magistrate. In essence, the world belongs to the devil; were just here to save as many souls as we can until we’re raptured away from this mess.

We’ll get more evangelical voters out to the polls when we have biblically qualified candidates on the ballot who are worth voting for and when we reach these voters with a more accurate gospel and they start working for what Christ taught us to pray for in the Lord’s Prayer – your will be done on earth even as it is already been done in heaven."

Kelly Horsley: "The Pastors Council has a statistic that says that less than one out of three churchgoing citizens vote in each election, a fact of which we should be ashamed.  Do you agree that stat is something we need to change?
Pastor Allison: "The Pastors Council’s statistic, by itself, is not the issue. The evangelical vote has supported almost as many bad things as the liberal vote (e.g. unconstitutional wars of aggression, opposition to immigration, truncation of constitutionally contracted rights, legalization of abortion (http://blog.dollarnoncents.com/2014/04/why-not-constitutional-convention.html), though I grant that where the liberal vote is correct, it is often not for the right reason. Getting more evangelical voters to the polls won’t do any good if they vote in unbiblical or unconstitutional ways."


On to the particulars of the event, the movie is showing Friday, January 16th at 7:00 PM at The Lone Star Convention and Expo Center.  Address is 9055 Airport Rd, Conroe, TX 77303.  This event is FREE and open to the public. The Director and Producer, Colin Gunn, will be present to discuss the film.

So, please make plans to join us!  I have a feeling that this is something that you won't want to miss!

Voting 'No' Is a Waste of Time

Hi, gang.  It's been a while since I've carried my pitchfork and torch and been screaming about an officeholder's vote, hasn't it?  Sadly, that time it's come to an end.  Only, it's not over just one vote this time; no it's more about an attitude.

I have been writing blog posts about a certain U.S. Congressman, John Culberson.  I relayed some of his votes on some Hurricane Sandy relief bills and the vote to fund Obamacare.  He and his staff had no idea I did this.  Well, then I got an invite for lunch with the congressman and other precinct chairs in his district.  I did attend, just to see what he had to say.  Nothing exciting or new, just more of the same.  With that said, I sent him an email in which I shared with him my personal displeasure over his votes and also revealed the blogs AND the link to my blog so he could see what I had written. I also asked him to call me so we could discuss.

So, next morning I get a phone call from...guess who on my cell phone?  If you guessed Chewbacca, you were wrong, sorry.  So, we had a nice little chat in which he 'enlightened' me.  Heh. When I raised questions about the Hurricane Sandy relief bills, he assured me that there was money in those bills allocated for the rebuilding of Section 8 housing in New Jersey.  Great, more entitlement spending.  He also said that the representative from New Jersey Rodney Felinghuysen, a man whom he trusts, assured him the money would go straight to the housing authority.  The Congressman also reminded me of how we here in Texas sometimes experience hurricanes and he hoped that the same representative from New Jersey would stand beside him and vote for relief for Texas.  Okay, I can agree with that portion of his statement.  What I can't agree with is the spending, and what it's going to be spent on.  Here is a portion of the text of that bill from FreedomWorks website.  How can you argue with this?

This amendment, sponsored by Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (NJ-11), would add another $33 billion to the Disaster Relief Act, bringing the total spending in the bill to over $50 billion. Although the bill is supposedly to help the victims of Hurricane Sandy, the better portion of this amendment funds unrelated programs such as community development block grants. The "emergency" spending is also not offset, meaning that it will add to the federal deficit. 

Congressman Culberson also tried to reassure me that the spending would be 'offset' in next years budget, because the budget would be cut.  Great, but if you don't cut SPENDING, then there is a problem!   Oh, and by the way, he couldn't cite any places where they had 'offset'. 

Moving along to the Continuing Resolution (C.R.) to fund Obamacare.  So, the true story is, that YES, there is Obamacare funding in the C.R.  Congressman Culberson said that funding was 'hard wired' into the bill and there was no way to separate it from the other funding that needed to be passed.  So, I asked him why Representative Louie Gohmert would have considered voting no on that same C.R.  His answer was that sometimes Louie doesn't know what Louie is doing.  He also followed that up by saying that voting 'no' is a waste of time.  Now, in all fairness, he could have meant on this particular C.R. or just in general.

If it's the latter, I'm furious.  Even if it isn't, I'm still furious.  Voting 'no' is a waste of time?  Since when?  Tell that to Senator Cruz and Senator Paul and Senator Lee.  I'm sorry, kids, but that spells defeat in my book.  That tells me you've given up.  That would be like me, as a mom, deciding that it was just too damn hard to tell my kids 'no' anymore.  Does that even make sense?  I was so astonished when I heard those words come across my phone.

So now what?  The primary is coming...you figure it out.