President Obama has become a master of manipulation. When confronted with opposition, he enlists the MSM to deliver his version of contorted reality without scrutiny. We saw another stage production just this week when the Idaho media reported on Obama’s message that he will hurt Idaho kids, seniors, travelers, military personnel – unless Congress capitulates again to tax increases.

Under the guise of implementing the “sequester” – Obama says he will cut $3.7 million in federal funds to schools. Particularly hard hit will be those children with disabilities. Funding for Mountain Home Air Base will be cut. Grants for law enforcement, kids’ vaccines, and even a program to help women caught up in domestic violence will suffer because Barack Obama says they must. They must suffer to make Republicans pay and repent of their obsession with fiscal responsibility.

Why do we talk about this?

By our count, Obama is threatening to stop something like $15 million in federal funds from going to Idaho if the sequester happens later this week.

Here’s another idea: The Idaho Senate just approved a plan to implement an insurance exchange as part of Obama’s plan to impose health care “reform” on the people of Idaho. A program no one but Blue Cross wants. Attached to the bill is a $30 million federal grant.

How about we tell Obama to keep his $30 million, and keep the change to pay down the deficit – so long as he promises to leave us alone? So long as he stops using our tax dollars to impose ugly social policies upon the people of this state, so long as he ends his war on our religious freedom?

And why hasn’t Dan Popkey or other media personalities commented on the expansion of federal “aid” to Idaho at a time when Obama is threatening to slash spending in other areas already dependent upon the Santa Claus on Pennsylvania Avenue? For that matter – why haven’t members of the Idaho Legislature taken notice of this tragic irony?