Fourth Estate in Washington

Folks have asked for my reaction to Delegate Kilili’s recent report to the Legislature. The issues are miniscule or negligible. No wonder it never really registered on my radar screen.

What I find of substance, though, is the emergence of what’s known as the Fourth Estate or Branch—federal bureaucracies—that craft and dish out tons of federal rules and regulations annually. This is most troubling given Kilili’s seeming ignorance of the legal relationship of the NMI and Washington under the Covenant.

Is the CNMI a “territory” of the United States, sir? Do you realize the implication if you succumb to the definition of “territory”? Is this an issue so difficult to understand and promote given that it is U.S. law? It boggles the mind how many times—via vital legislation—have you acquiesced the use of the term “territory” that slams the NMI into a legal definition that compromises the agreement?

I’ve challenged Kilili to explain his obvious lack of interest to seek exemption of the NMI from Obamacare. He and the Inos administration have remained deaf, mute, and servile on this score. The Guam Legislature has begun working up a storm to delink the territory from it.

Obamacare isn’t what Obama promoted and openly promised of a cut in healthcare cost per family of some $2,500. In fact, it has forced health premiums to increase beyond the reach of millions of Americans, the very people it’s supposed to help. The same happened here where retirees and regular employees have opted out of their health insurance because it has gone up by 40 percent!

George F. Will, a columnist with The Washington Post and a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1977 for commentary, wrote how the U.S. Supreme Court has reined in government bullies on contraceptives. Asked he: “Why did Congress, having enacted Religious Freedom Restoration Act, write this clearly incompatible birth control mandate? Congress didn’t.

“In the ACA, Congress simply required health plans to provide ‘preventive care’ for women. An Executive Branch agency decided this meant the full menu of 20 technologies. So, during oral argument in March, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy asked: ‘What kind of constitutional structure do we have if Congress can give an agency the power to grant or not grant a religious exemption based on what the agency determined?’

“The answer is: The constitutional structure we have is the kind progressives prefer, wherein more and more decisions are made by unelected and unaccountable executive-branch ‘experts’ exercising vast discretion.

“Today’s court—nine fine minds producing written explanations of their reasoning about important principles—has its own discord. It is, nevertheless, a lagoon of logic in the forest primeval of today’s overheated politics and overbearing government. Twice this week the court played its indispensable role as constable, policing portions of this forest where progressivism has produced government guilty of gratuitous bullying.”

Sorry, Kilili, you’ve failed us on this score. We elected you as the CNMI’s representative, not federal loonies whom we’ve never met nor elected who draft rules and regulations by the tons annually! Have you any sensible answer, sir? Don’t attempt articulating an issue you don’t understand for you’d certainly sound like what a young scholar once said listening to your garbled speech—“an abecedarian.”

Scouting for competency
Billboards have bloomed all over the island of fully suited new candidates challenging seats currently occupied by exhausted and irrelevant incumbents.

I’m tickled by the academic and professional competence under their belts or whose views I’ve read in the papers demonstrating common sense and vision that are a scarcity among incumbent legislators. Call it a pleasant surprise! Yes, indeed, I’m pleasantly pleased what the new group would bring to the table.

We can begin by throwing the bums out so we start anew with a slate of poised folks equipped with superior academic and professional competence. The tired bunch has been panting for air in the lagoon of illogic and disconnection. There’s a tidal shift (low tide) slowly draining out the various channels here. The old exhausted guards are inching their way through the crowd ready to board their canoes into the sunset. One fond adios and, if this isn’t enough, how about, “No mas!”

Days of yore
As an altar boy more than 55 years ago, I’d look at the faces of the old folks who frequent the early morning Mass daily. I literally memorized their faces and specific seat among pews.

Occasionally, I’d quiz myself if going to church were the only thing that the old folks do? Nah! But this is the spiritual group that makes it every break of dawn.
The wrinkled humble faces, the dispensation of well-intended blessings to the young, reduced agility as they age or going to church daily and their eventual departure seems a pattern I’ve seen over the years.

In fact, I used to ask if that was the next best thing people do when we reach their golden years. Tried to deny it but here we are navigating our canoes on the same waters since days of yore. Well, live each day to the fullest and spend time with loved ones.

Your grandchildren are your chosen roses, growing and glowing brightly in the beautiful garden of your heart. They too will remember your old face and fragility “When I’m 64!”

The words of wisdom conveyed with the virtue of patience by our elderly reminds us that they’ve been up that alley and know what the playground looks like. Often it pays to listen for in those words of wisdom we could draw lasting lessons. If you’ve plundered friends, does it bother your conscience that your new forte has turned you queen or king of deception? Is this something you’d like to leave behind as your snail-like trail of accomplishment?