March 22, 2013

NEWSMAX
Marine Kills Two at Quantico, Takes Own Life
by Thomson/Reuters
March 22, 2013

A U.S. Marine shot dead two fellow service members at a base at Quantico, Virginia, then barricaded himself in a building and apparently killed himself, prompting a brief lockdown of the base, the Marines said on Friday.
The shootings took place late on Thursday in the vicinity of the Marine Corps Base at Quantico's Officer Candidate School, and all three people who died were identified as Marines, Marines spokesman Sergeant Christopher Zahn said.

"An isolated shooting incident has occurred at Officer Candidate School, Quantico," the base said on its Facebook page. "The suspect has been barricaded by law enforcement personnel."

The Facebook message told base residents to remain in their homes with their doors locked, until the lockdown was lifted before dawn on Friday. No other injuries were reported, and Zahn could give no details as to a motive for the shootings.

"The investigation is in the very early stages," he said.

The shootings came days after seven U.S. Marines were killed in a mortar explosion at an Army munitions depot in Nevada during a live-fire training exercise.

In that incident on Monday, a lightweight mortar exploded prematurely in its firing tube, killing the Marines from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, who had been undergoing mountain warfare training, and wounding eight other service members.

It prompted the Marines to order a blanket suspension of the use of 60mm mortars pending a review.

Read more: http://goo.gl/fIEPR

HUMAN EVENTS
Devouring Freedom: Can Big Government Ever Be Stopped?
by James Antle
March 21, 2013

You wouldn’t know it by listening to the political debate in Washington, but the United States government is essentially broke.

The $16 trillion national debt is just the beginning of the problem. The major entitlement programs have unfunded liabilities bigger than the national economy. Social Security is currently promising $8.6 trillion more in benefits than it has revenues to pay for. Extend that time horizon even further into the future and that number eclipses $20 trillion.

Medicare isn’t in much better shape. Last year’s Trustees’ report estimated the net unfunded liability for the program that pays for our seniors’ health care at $42.8 trillion. The trust funds are stuffed with IOUs.

We’ve already seen this happen at the state level, where government workers’ pension benefits are crowding out other budget priorities. Medicaid is also bankrupting states. An aging population plus rising health care costs is causing government to grow on auto pilot.

People’s eyes tend to glaze over looking at such big numbers. It has also been difficult to get the voters’ attention because the dates when Social Security and Medicare were projected to be in trouble were so far into the future.

But now the future is almost here. Within a decade, interest payments on the national debt may exceed the entire military budget. Think about that: money we should be spending protecting the country from future Osama bin Ladens will instead be paid to our creditors.

Medicare is already paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes. Social Security ran a deficit in fiscal 2012.

And that’s assuming interest rates don’t return to where they were before the 2007 financial crisis or spike even higher. Higher interest rates would make it even more expensive to service the debt.

Unless there are structural reforms, it is likely that the quality of these programs will worsen at the same time taxpayers are expected to contribute more to pay for them.

The Senate Democrats took four years to produce a budget and it achieves deficit reduction mostly through nearly $1 trillion in tax increases.

Sounds like a great bargain, right?

The problem is much bigger than money. Our current fiscal path limits our political options. We can’t have the kind of government programs we want, whether it is investing infrastructure, enhancing homeland security, or funding the cure for cancer, because the dollars are already spoken for.

Every dollar of federal spending is sucked out of the private economy, a net drain on the American people’s resources. That limits your freedom, as do the myriad regulations big government imposes.

Obamacare comes not only with new federal subsidies and mandates, but also a clearer government role in your personal lifestyle choices. The government wants to be able to tell you what health insurance you have to buy, how much water your toilet will hold, what light bulbs you can use, and what size soda you can drink.

No wonder they don’t want to answer questions about whether they can launch domestic drone strikes! No limit on federal power, even one extremely unlikely to ever be exercised, can be contemplated in public.

The people who say the present course is sustainable rely on two arguments: Trust us, we’re the experts. And there’s a sucker born every minute.

Think about the contradictions there.

The suckers’ argument is, “Hey, people are buying our bonds now, so they always will.” Uncle Sam can borrow money indefinitely, the liberal’s American exceptionalism.

The experts’ argument assumes technocrats can avert a fiscal crisis with the right policy adjustments at the last minute. The government can bid down health care spending and spend us into lower deficits with fiscal stimulus.

The economist and Paul Krugman gave us a preview of that would look like recently: “death panels” and “sales taxes.”

But the situation is not hopeless. The truth is, from Reagan to Gingrich to even the end of World War II, we have cut government spending before. We can learn from their mistakes. We can also build on their successes.

More often than not, the problem isn’t that big government can’t be curtailed. It’s that politicians seldom have the will to try.

Despite the results of last November, a growing number of voters doubt the experts. They don’t believe a sucker is born every minute. And they want their politicians to protect their pocketbooks—and their freedom.

Read more: http://goo.gl/ymHCT

TOWNHALL
Democrat Controlled Senate Votes to Repeal ObamaCare Medical Device Tax
by Katie Pavlich 
March 22, 2013

Apparently, the Senate thinks the medical device tax in ObamaCare is a pretty bad idea and voted to repeal it last night.

The Senate overwhelmingly passed a largely symbolic resolution calling for repeal of a 2.3 percent tax on medical device companies on Thursday, as more than 30 Democrats joined Republicans in approving it. 

The tax helps to fund President Barack Obama's 2010 healthcare law. It applies to a range of medical products - from bedpans to expensive heart devices - many manufactured in the home states of the senators backing the repeal. 

The Senate voted 79-20 to call for repeal of the tax, but the resolution is non-binding and will not change the levy. The symbolic measure will be attached to a non-binding budget measure drafted by Senate Democrats that is expected to pass on Friday. 

Full repeal of the tax may be difficult to achieve, given its $30 billion price tag and the opposition of key Senate Democrats, including Majority Leader Harry Reid.

As a reminder of just how bad the medical device tax is, it's pretty much a tax within a tax that will not only kill jobs in the medical device industry, but will kill medical device innovation as well.

Not only does this tax increase costs on companies, it also increases costs on hospitals, doctors and people in need of medical treatment that requires medical devices to be used. As a consequence of this, biomedical or medical device engineering firms are already laying off workers who develop crucial medical products due to the "unforeseen" costs, or in other words, the costs of ObamaCare. Not to mention, the more money these companies pay to the government, the less money they have to invest in research and development. 

With this new medical device tax, students who pay large sums of money to get degrees in the field of biomedical engineering, just like doctors, will no longer see the benefits of going into the field and therefore, we will have a shortage of engineers developing new medical device technology. The medical device tax is a death sentence for American medical innovation.

And where exactly does this tax hurt the most? When it comes to research and development of new products.

Medical-device manufacturers contend, however, that the potential problems go much further. While the tax may seem relatively small -- it would amount to $230 on the sale of a $10,000 medical device -- opponents note that it hits sales, not just profits, which increases its impact. Indeed, several medical companies say that the surcharge would eat into their profitability, at the expense of their research and development budgets. Large orthopedic device maker Stryker says that in anticipation of the tax, it plans to cut more than $100 million from its annual pretax operating costs next year. Smaller device maker Zoll Medical says the new surcharge will raise its overall rate above 50 percent and use up its entire R&D budget.

Read more: http://goo.gl/RzfrC

February 1, 2013

THE BLAZE

Conservatives Launch New Social Network to Escape Facebook ‘Censorship’ — Will You Join?

by Jason Howerton

January 31, 2013

Fed up with the threat of “censorship” on Facebook, a group of a conservatives are launching their own social network called “The Tea Party Community.” The site, which doesn’t even officially go online until Saturday, has already attracted nearly 50,000 members.

The site’s co-founder, Tea Party activist Ken Crow, told Fox News that The Tea Party Community will be the “new home for conservatives and the Tea Party movement in America.”

“Most of us are subjected to censorship on Facebook…I’ve been suspended there as have many of my friends. You also absorb a lot of abuse from liberals,” Crow said.

Crow reportedly teamed up with Tim Selaty Sr. and Tim Selaty Jr. to put the social networking site together in November, which dubs itself as a “safe haven for the conservative movement where we can share ideas and thoughts and express ourselves without fear of retribution.”

Crow said he, along with many other conservatives, feel as if Facebook intentionally targets conservatives through its policies.

“Most of us are subjected to censorship on Facebook,” Crow explained. “I’ve been suspended there as have many of my friends. You also absorb a lot of abuse from liberals.”

“As many as 100 Facebook users contacted Fox News with complaints that the social networking site had either removed conservative content or blocked them for posting conservative content,” Fox News reports.

Fox News has some additional details about The Tea Party Community:

It’s no surprise The Tea Party Community has a very similar look and feel to Facebook.

“That was intentional,” Crow said. “We didn’t want there to be a learning curve for the new members.”

You can “friend” people and “like” posts. You can also join pages and meet up with like-minded conservatives in your home state. And like Facebook – The Tea Party Community is free of charge.

Crow said he’s not surprised by the popularity of The Tea Party Community. He expects it to become not just a social networking site – but a political networking site.

Read more: http://goo.gl/JysnX

CVN EDITORIAL
The Perpetual Campaign
by Conservative Sue
February 1, 2013

Well, it appears that perpetual campaigning is no longer the exclusive domain of the Obama administration.  Apparently, Reince Priebus, the dear leader of the Grandiose Old-White-Man Party, liked Obama's perpetual campaign strategy so well, he has adopted it for the GOP 2016 race.

That's right.. we are now beginning the 2016 campaign for President of the United States.

Seriously?

Now, perhaps you can sense the sarcasm in my tone.. but just in case you missed that...

This move by the GOP is just one more example of big-party voter manipulation.  It will do NOTHING to solve our problems as a country; this perpetual campaign will be used to deceive voters into towing the 'party line' and will likely just increase the divide (and distrust) that already exists between voters and their elected leaders. If you think people hate politics now, just wait until a few years have passed when we have been enduring campaigning 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.  I enjoy politics, but even I will loathe it when it never stops!

What happened to statesmanship?

What happened to governing?

What happened to writing and passing budgets?

What happened to being accountable to the voters?

Campaign is just a fancy word for propaganda.  Politicians say whatever they have to say, do whatever they have do ...to get votes.  Lies are just fine, as long as they result in the right person being elected and re-elected, right?  It's Saul Alinsky 101 - the ends justify the means. Maybe they all need to be limited to ONE term in office, so they can actually stop the campaigning and start the governing.

We can't afford a 'say whatever you have to say' government. They all lie.  Liberals lie to get bigger government.  Conservatives lie to hide the fact they don't have the guts or the intelligence to  slow down the growth of big-government.  We must step up and demand the lies STOP, that leaders be HELD TO ACCOUNT for what they do while they are in office (or rather, fail to do).

Enough of the fun and games, Mr. Priebus and the GOP.  It's time to get serious and get to work, or GET OUT OF OUR WAY.

REDSTATE

Thanks to Democrats, poor families getting squeezed on Obamacare exchanges

Moe Lane

January 31, 2013

They’re calling it a “glitch.” Goodness gracious:

Some families could get priced out of health insurance due to what’s being called a glitch in President Barack Obama’s overhaul law. IRS regulations issued Wednesday failed to fix the problem as liberal backers of the president’s plan had hoped. 

As a result, some families that can’t afford the employer coverage that they are offered on the job will not be able to get financial assistance from the government to buy private health insurance on their own. How many people will be affected is unclear.

The Obama administration says its hands were tied by the way Congress wrote the law[*].

Essentially, it breaks down like this: the government is forcing everybody to buy health insurance. The government is also mandating the existence of health care exchanges. If somebody theoretically can’t afford the exchanges, then they theoretically can get subsidies. The rule of thumb for ‘affordability’ was capped at a level designed to keep people from simply dropping their employer coverage. But the rule of thumb was also capped assuming average costs for individual coverage, not average costs for family coverage. As a result, some families will be left in a bad situation: they don’t get family coverage from their employers, they aren’t able to afford the new exchange policies on their own, and they can’t get subsidized because they’re over a badly-designed arbitrary affordability level. And, of course, this is all disproportionally targeting lower-income families.

Well, as Nancy Pelosi (in her increasingly doddering way) said, they had to pass the law in order to find out what was in it.

Read more: http://goo.gl/28H3n

January 31, 2013

NEWSMAX
Obamacare Glitch: Some Families to be Priced out of Health Coverage
by Associated Press
January 30, 2013

Some families could get priced out of health insurance due to what's being called a glitch in President Barack Obama's overhaul law. IRS regulations issued Wednesday failed to fix the problem as liberal backers of the president's plan had hoped.

As a result, some families that can't afford the employer coverage that they are offered on the job will not be able to get financial assistance from the government to buy private health insurance on their own. How many people will be affected is unclear.

The Obama administration says its hands were tied by the way Congress wrote the law. Officials said the administration tried to mitigate the impact. Families that can't get coverage because of the glitch will not face a tax penalty for remaining uninsured, the IRS rules said.

"This is a very significant problem, and we have urged that it be fixed," said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, an advocacy group that supported the overhaul from its early days. "It is clear that the only way this can be fixed is through legislation and not the regulatory process."

But there's not much hope for an immediate fix from Congress, since the House is controlled by Republicans who would still like to see the whole law repealed.

The affordability glitch is one of a series of problems coming into sharper focus as the law moves to full implementation.

Starting Oct. 1, many middle-class uninsured will be able to sign up for government-subsidized private coverage through new healthcare marketplaces known as exchanges. Coverage will be effective Jan. 1.

Low-income people will be steered to expanded safety-net programs. At the same time, virtually all Americans will be required to carry health insurance, either through an employer, a government program, or by buying their own plan.

Bruce Lesley, president of First Focus, an advocacy group for children, cited estimates that close to 500,000 children could remain uninsured because of the glitch. "The children's community is disappointed by the administration's decision to deny access to coverage for children based on a bogus definition of affordability," Lesley said in a statement.

The problem seems to be the way the law defined affordable.

Congress said affordable coverage can't cost more than 9.5 percent of family income. People with coverage the law considers affordable cannot get subsidies to go into the new insurance markets. The purpose of that restriction was to prevent a stampede away from employer coverage.

Congress went on to say that what counts as affordable is keyed to the cost of self-only coverage offered to an individual worker, not his or her family. A typical workplace plan costs about $5,600 for an individual worker. But the cost of family coverage is nearly three times higher, about $15,700, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

So if the employer isn't willing to chip in for family premiums — as most big companies already do — some families will be out of luck. They may not be able to afford the full premium on their own, and they'd be locked out of the subsidies in the healthcare overhaul law.

Employers are relieved that the Obama administration didn't try to put the cost of providing family coverage on them.

"They are bound by the law and cannot extend further than what the law provides," said Neil Trautwein, a vice president of the National Retail Federation.

Read more: http://goo.gl/5RTYl

TOWNHALL
Gun Control Takes Center Stage
by Bob Barr
January 30, 2013

The race to further the gun-control agenda in the wake of last month’s tragic shooting by a crazed gunman in Newtown, Connecticut is moving into high gear. The Grand Old Lady of Gun Control, California Senator Diane Feinstein, last week introduced a bill that not only seeks to reinstate the 1994 “Federal Assault Weapons Ban” (AWB), but goes far beyond the scope of the earlier law (which expired a decade later) in undermining Second Amendment protections for law abiding Americans.

Feinstein’s proposal specifically targets 157 modern sporting rifles -- or, as she almost gleefully refers to them, “assault weapons.” In addition to these firearms, the California liberal’s bill prohibits the sale, transfer, manufacture and importing of semi-automatic rifles and pistols able to accept detachable magazines, and which have at least one cosmetic “military” characteristic (the “Clinton Gun Ban” only banned those types of rifles with at least two such characteristics). The bill goes on to outlaw magazines with capacities greater than 10-rounds, and bans the sale or transfer of larger, grandfathered magazines.

Don’t even think about trying to get a semi-automatic shotgun with a rocket launcher attached; Feinstein specifically listed those as well.

By now, Americans should realize that gun bans such as Feinstein’s have little to do with stopping crime or solving the plague of gun violence. As Feinstein herself said, the goal is eventually to “dry up the supply of these weapons over time,” and completely remove them from our society. In other words: take them out of the hands of the millions of law-abiding citizens who use them without incident every year; and leave the military and law enforcement -- and criminals -- with a monopoly as such firearms and ammunition clips.

Following the Clinton Gun Ban’s expiration in 2004, the federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) studied the results. Unsurprisingly, they found “insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws or combinations of laws reviewed on violent outcomes.” Additionally, the National Criminal Justice Reference Service reported “the ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement.”

Gun control advocates, of course, remain undeterred. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, “they may trip over the truth, but get right back up, simply dust themselves off, and keep right on going.”

Read more: http://goo.gl/8YKoY

THE WEEKLY STANDARD

Government Report: Women in Combat to Cost Money

by Jeryl Bier

January 31, 2013

Ever since outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced a week ago that the U.S. military would lift its ban on women in combat roles, the debate, which has been simmering for decades, boiled up again. Much of the argument has centered on cultural, social, and morale-related effects that such a change would bring about, though other practical issues have been raised as well. However, a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released just this week may bring some other considerations to the fore, among them, the financial impact.

According to the introduction to the GAO report, the National Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2012 charged the GAO with conducting “a review of the female-specific health care services provided by DOD to female servicemembers...”  Though not directly addressed by the GAO, the report raises a perhaps unanticipated consequence of lifting the ban on women in combat. With an increasing number of women in combat units, as well as presumably an overall increase in women enlisting in the service now that more positions will be open to them, there may be a corresponding increase in health-related costs. For example, the report says:

DOD has put in place policies and guidance that include female-specific aspects to help address the health care needs of servicewomen during deployment. Also, as part of pre-deployment preparations, servicewomen are screened for potentially deployment-limiting conditions, such as pregnancy, and DOD officials and health care providers with whom GAO met noted that such screening helps ensure that many female-specific health care needs are addressed prior to deployment.

Read more: http://goo.gl/lCsJy

January 19. 2013

HUMAN EVENTS
GOP plays small ball (again)
by David Harsanyi
January 18, 2013

So House Republicans will vote next week on a bill that would raise the nation’s debt ceiling for three months. The catch? It will feature a provision that would stop all pay for members of Congress if the Senate doesn’t pass a budget. When we consider that the median wealth for a senator in 2009 was almost $2.38 million; well, this clause isn’t the most effective threat available to snap Harry Reid (worth between $3-$10 million) into action. The chances of the Senate passing it? Zero.

Strategically speaking, this is obviously another attempt to shift the public’s ire from Republicans to Senate Democrats on the ongoing cliff battles. I’m not sure it’s exactly a bad idea, but more than likely it is an ineffective one. The problem with this stuff is that it’s small ball and transparently political. It sounds like a stunt. (UPDATE: Not to mention, probably unconstitutional.)

In a statement released from Republican retreat in Virginia, Eric Cantor said: “The first step to fixing this problem is to pass a budget that reduces spending. The House has done so, and will again. The Democratic Senate has not passed a budget in almost four years, which is unfair to hardworking taxpayers who expect more from their representatives. That ends this year.”
Well, the last time the Senate passed a budget was April of 2009. And the habit is probably not going end this year.

Cantor might be right in substance, but everyone understands: 1 – Republicans were going to vote to raise the debt ceiling. All kinds of Republicans have openly said they’d do it. Whether you agree with taking a stand on the debt ceiling or not, to extract concessions from a president who offers so little, you have to be prepared to take the dive. 2 – Republicans aren’t making compelling big-picture arguments so there’s no way to win the small ones. Even if you believe, like I do, that conservatives are right on these budgetary issues, they’re not very convincing.

As Jonah Goldberg recently argued, the GOP’s problems do not stem from “being insufficiently conservative. Its troubles stem from it being insufficiently persuasive, not to its right flank but to the general public.” Want proof? Most polls – now, and during the debt ceiling showdown in 2011 – show that Americans oppose raising the debt ceiling. As you’ve no doubt heard, this is supposedly the position of the most extremist and radical elements in society. Yet, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal Survey found that 45 percent of those polled say they will blame Republicans if the debt ceiling is not raised and the United States defaults. Only 33 percent would blame Democrats. That means there is a broad problem communicating to average, disinterested Americans a compelling reason to side with them. At some point, Republicans will have to take a stand, and with it the consequences.

Read more: http://goo.gl/FxdX4

PJ MEDIA
Nothing, and Maybe Worse: A President’s Nonsensical Gun Proposals - He knows not what he speaks.
by John Rosenberg
January 18, 2013

As far as I can tell, here is the totality of what President Obama proposed Wednesday to do about “assault weapons” and high-capacity magazines. (Actually, regarding those guns and magazines, he didn’t really propose to do anything; what he proposed for was Congress to do something — the same thing it did in 1994). In any event, here is the beginning, middle, and end of what he proposed:

Congress should restore a ban on military-style assault weapons, and a 10-round limit for magazines. (Applause.) The type of assault rifle used in Aurora, for example, when paired with high-capacity magazines, has one purpose — to pump out as many bullets as possible, as quickly as possible; to do as much damage, using bullets often designed to inflict maximum damage.

And that’s what allowed the gunman in Aurora to shoot 70 people — 70 people — killing 12 in a matter of minutes. Weapons designed for the theater of war have no place in a movie theater.
Here’s my recommendation: Congress should take the president literally, and do exactly what he says: nothing.

“Weapons designed for the theater of war” have the capability of firing automatically. Such weapons have been prohibited (except to collectors, who pay a very high license fee) since 1934. They are not available to the general public.

They have been used in no mass shootings, and no crime at all, for over 60 years.

Banning them again would ban no weapon currently in production or readily available anywhere. What weapons would the president’s “proposal” ban? Who knows? He certainly doesn’t. The 1994 law dealt with the fact that there really is no such thing as an “assault weapon” by naming a few specific weapons and by listing some required identifying features. For example: a pistol grip or a detachable magazine could qualify a gun as an “assault weapon.” But what would President Obama have Congress do about this rifle?

Note that this Mossberg MVP Varmint Rifle has a very distinctive pistol grip, and it also has a detachable box magazine. Many hunting rifles do, but this one is distinctive: it uses any magazines that will fit AR-15 rifles. It comes with a 10-rounder (of the same caliber, 5.56 NATO/ .223 Remington) that most AR-15s and other scary-looking “military style” weapons fire. Thus, it will accept the 20- and 30-rounders that Obama would like to prohibit.

Yet — since it is a bolt action and not a semi-automatic, this weapon would not be illegal under the terms of the 1994 law, even though it can be fired rapidly enough (as can pump action shotguns, also not banned in 1994) to do extensive damage quite quickly.
Would Obama have it be outlawed? Certainly, he doesn’t know.

The “one purpose” of the weapons used in Aurora (the movie theater in Colorado) and Sandy Hook, according to the president, is “to pump out as many bullets as possible, as quickly as possible.” This description does not distinguish those weapons from the millions of other semi-automatics (and high-capacity magazines) currently in the hands of law-abiding Americans.
The Washington Post reports that when the 1994 ban went into effect, “there were roughly 1.5 million assault weapons and more than 24 million high-capacity magazines in private hands” (and that was just “assault weapons” according to the limited definition of the 1994 ban — not all semi-automatics). There are many more now, and none of those weapons or magazines already produced were affected by the ban. Nor are the bullets those “assault weapons” fire — the .223 Remington — different in any way from those widely in use in all those other semi-automatic rifles.

The president’s reference to “bullets often designed to inflict maximum damage” presumably refers to hollow-points, bullets designed to expand on impact. But is the president seriously proposing to ban all hollow-point ammunition? If so, it is not accurate to say that his attempt to restrict “military style” weapons and limit the capacity of magazines would have no effect whatsoever on the likelihood or lethality of mass shootings. Indeed, banning hollow-points would almost certainly make future shootings — at least future shootings conducted with federally approved ammunition — much more lethal.

Solid bullets penetrate walls, doors, bodies, etc.; hollow points do not, or do so rarely.
In fact, limiting magazine size can also be predicted to cause more rather than fewer fatalities. As I argued here:

Indeed, a perfectly predictable but unintended consequence of banning high-capacity magazines would be to decrease the appeal of 9mm handguns and increase the popularity of more the powerful and lethal .40 and .45 caliber and .357 Magnum, since the main appeal of the 9mm has always been its higher-capacity magazines.

As with many “reforms,” the president’s proposals are sure to be ineffectual if implemented, and in some cases are far worse than doing nothing.

Read more: http://goo.gl/8HHve

REDSTATE
An interesting, if mildly depressing, exchange on Obamacare
by Moe Lane
January 18, 2013

Goodness gracious, but check this out. Background: Whole Foods CEO John Mackey called Obamacare first ‘socialist,’ then ‘fascist,’ then regretted calling it fascist because the Left is generally too ill-educated to understand the difference between National Socialism and economic fascism* -so they were thus all getting hung up in their own ignorance, and thus omitting to address Mackey’s point. Cue CNN Carol Costello, who gave a stunning demonstration of same.

So, once Mackey had dumbed it down again for the nice talking head, we get this exchange:

Costello then asked, “But why inject yourself into the debate over ObamaCare in the first place?” 

Mackey responded that he provides health insurance for 73,000 Whole Foods employees and some provisions of Obama’s health care law will raise his company’s costs. “It’s making it more difficult to provide the insurance at affordable rates to our team members, so I’m trying to protect them as well as I can,” he said. 

“I think, though, that many of your customers probably wouldn’t agree with you since, I don’t know, you kind of run a store that appeals to the more liberal in America in some ways,” Costello replied. 

“I don’t understand what your question or your point is,” Mackey said.

I suspect that Mackey was being nice. The question was Why are you publicly disagreeing with your customers on a political issue? and the point was HERETIC! UNBELIEVER! Which Mackey almost certainly knew, although I’m not sure that Carol Costello did.

Read more: http://goo.gl/MYwjH

January 14, 2013

NEWSMAX

Obama White House to Push for Comprehensive Immigration Plan
by Bloomberg News
January 13, 2013

President Barack Obama plans to push for a comprehensive immigration plan that includes a legislative solution to issues such as undocumented immigrants, according to administration officials.

While no final decision has been made about when the Democratic White House’s proposal will be formally introduced, administration officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said they will oppose efforts by Republicans to break immigration legislation into smaller bills.

In his first news conference after winning re-election, Obama promised to begin working on a major immigration bill soon after the formal start of his second term.

“I am very confident that we can get immigration reform done,” the president told reporters on Nov. 14. “My expectation is that we get a bill introduced and we begin the process in Congress very soon after my inauguration.”

Even as much of Washington has focused on fiscal issues and curbing gun control, the administration has been working on a plan for several months. Their proposal will include a path to citizenship for the country’s 11 million undocumented immigrants, according to officials -- an idea opposed as amnesty by Republican critics.

Separately from the White House, a bipartisan group of senators, headed by Democrat Chuck Schumer of New York and Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina have been working on a parallel bill.

Read more: http://goo.gl/EzbqO

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
ObamaCare's Health-Insurance Sticker Shock
by Merrill Matthews and Mark E. Litow
January 13, 2013

Health-insurance premiums have been rising—and consumers will experience another series of price shocks later this year when some see their premiums skyrocket thanks to the Affordable Care Act, aka ObamaCare.

The reason: The congressional Democrats who crafted the legislation ignored virtually every actuarial principle governing rational insurance pricing. Premiums will soon reflect that disregard—indeed, premiums are already reflecting it.

Central to ObamaCare are requirements that health insurers (1) accept everyone who applies (guaranteed issue), (2) cannot charge more based on serious medical conditions (modified community rating), and (3) include numerous coverage mandates that force insurance to pay for many often uncovered medical conditions.

Guaranteed issue incentivizes people to forgo buying a policy until they get sick and need coverage (and then drop the policy after they get well). While ObamaCare imposes a financial penalty—or is it a tax?—to discourage people from gaming the system, it is too low to be a real disincentive. The result will be insurance pools that are smaller and sicker, and therefore more expensive.

How do we know these requirements will have such a negative impact on premiums? Eight states—New Jersey, New York, Maine, New Hampshire, Washington, Kentucky, Vermont and Massachusetts—enacted guaranteed issue and community rating in the mid-1990s and wrecked their individual (i.e., non-group) health-insurance markets. Premiums increased so much that Kentucky largely repealed its law in 2000 and some of the other states eventually modified their community-rating provisions.

States won't experience equal increases in their premiums under ObamaCare. Ironically, citizens in states that have acted responsibly over the years by adhering to standard actuarial principles and limiting the (often politically motivated) mandates will see the biggest increases, because their premiums have typically been the lowest.

Many actuaries, such as those in the international consulting firm Oliver Wyman, are now predicting an average increase of roughly 50% in premiums for some in the individual market for the same coverage. But that is an average. Large employer groups will be less affected, at least initially, because the law grandfathers in employers that self-insure. Small employers will likely see a significant increase, though not as large as the individual market, which will be the hardest hit.

We compared the average premiums in states that already have ObamaCare-like provisions in their laws and found that consumers in New Jersey, New York and Vermont already pay well over twice what citizens in many other states pay. Consumers in Maine and Massachusetts aren't far behind. Those states will likely see a small increase.

By contrast, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, Wyoming and Virginia will likely see the largest increases—somewhere between 65% and 100%. Another 18 states, including Texas and Michigan, could see their rates rise between 35% and 65%.

Read more: http://goo.gl/jrCXq

THE BLAZE
Armed Good Samaritans Rescue Man After Gunpoint Robbery: They ‘Protected Me When I Couldn’t Protect Myself’
by Jason Howerton
January 14, 2013

A Houston man was robbed at gunpoint as he made his way to his car after leaving a bar on Thursday. But in addition to the man’s wallet and phone, the robber ended up with bullet wounds and bite marks from a German Shepherd, thanks to a pair of quick-thinking good Samaritans.

Police say the armed thug was canvassing a local neighborhood when he thought he had found an easy mark. The victim, Kevin Dorsey, told KHOU that he hadn’t even closed his car door before a man, dressed in all black and wearing a ski mask, put a gun to his chest and demanded his wallet, cell phone and car keys.

Dorsey took off on foot after being robbed, prompting two men in a Mercedes to ask him what had happened.

“As soon as they pass me, they see the guy has a gun to me,” Dorsey told KPRC. “They stopped right there. The guys in the gray Mercedes asked me, ‘Did you just get jacked?’ I said yes.”

The two unidentified vigilantes went after the suspect and reportedly exchanged fire with the criminal. The good guys eventually won the gun fight and wounded the thief.

In a twist of irony, the robber jumped a fence after being shot in an attempt to escape — only to find a German Shepherd waiting for him on the other side. The dog attacked him and prevented him from escaping before police arrived.

“I don’t own a gun. I’m totally at the mercy of my saviors. They obviously sent two angels to help me. These people protected me when I couldn’t protect myself.”

The robbery suspect, later identified by police as Christopher Hutchins, was being treated at Ben Taub Hospital for a gunshot to his abdomen. He is expected to recover.

It’s unclear whether the two men who came to Dorsey’s rescue were concealed carry permit holders, however, reports do not indicate that police took any action against the men.

Read more: http://goo.gl/P7KRp

December 30, 2012

BREITBART

Hobby Lobby Defies Obama Administration with Civil Disobedience for Religious Liberty

by Ken Klukowski

December 28, 2012

“We must obey God rather than men!”—Acts 5:29.

Now that Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has denied Hobby Lobby’s application for an emergency injunction protecting them from Obamacare’s HHS Mandate on abortion and birth control, Hobby Lobby has decided to defy the federal government to remain true to their religious beliefs, at enormous risk and financial cost.

Hobby Lobby is wholly owned and controlled by the Green family, who are evangelical Christians. The Greens are committed to running their business in accordance with their Christian faith, believing that God wants them to conduct their professional business in accordance with the family’s understanding of the Bible. Hobby Lobby’s mission statement includes, “Honoring the Lord in all we do by operating the company … consistent with Biblical principles.”

The HHS Mandate goes into effect for Hobby Lobby on Jan. 1, 2013. The Greens correctly understand that some of the drugs the HHS Mandate requires them to cover at no cost in their healthcare plans cause abortions.

Today Hobby Lobby announced that they will not comply with this mandate to become complicit in abortion, which the Greens believe ends an innocent human life. Given Hobby Lobby’s size (it has 572 stores employing more than 13,000 people), by violating the HHS Mandate, it will be subject to over $1.3 million in fines per day. That means over $40 million in fines in January alone. If their case takes another ten months to get before the Supreme Court—which would be the earliest it could get there under the normal order of business—the company would incur almost a half-billion dollars in fines. And then of course the Supreme Court would have to write an opinion in what would likely be a split decision with dissenters, which could easily take four or six months and include hundreds of millions of dollars in additional penalties.

This is civil disobedience, consistent with America’s highest traditions when moral issues are at stake. The Greens are a law-abiding family. They have no desire to defy their own government. But as the Founders launched the American Revolution because they believed the British government was violating their rights, the Greens believe that President Barack Obama and Secretary Kathleen Sebelius are commanding the Greens to sin against God, and that no government has the lawful authority to do so.

The Christian tradition of defying government commands to do something wrong goes back to the very birth of Christianity. When the apostles were ordered not to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with anyone, the Book of Acts records: “Peter and the other apostles replied: ‘We must obey God rather than men! The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead—whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree.’”

Eleven of the twelve apostles—including Peter—would lose their lives for the sake of spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ; only the apostle John died of old age. They were determined to obey God’s will at all costs.

This issue of civil disobedience is never to be undertaken lightly. The Bible teaches Christians to submit to all legitimate governmental authority (e.g., Romans 13:1), and so a person can only disobey the government when there is no other way to obey God.

But here in America, the Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land, and in its First Amendment it protects against a government establishment of an official religion and separately protects the free exercise of religion. On top of that, Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) to specifically add an additional layer of protection against government actions that violate a person’s religious beliefs.

The HHS Mandate is a gross violation of the religious beliefs of the Green family. The issue before the courts here is whether the Greens religious-liberty rights include running their secular, for-profit business consistent with their religious beliefs. In other words, is religious liberty just what you do in church on a Sunday morning, or does it include what you do during the week at your job?

The Greens are now putting their fortunes on the line to do what they believe is right. The courts should side with them, affirming a broad scope of religious liberty under the Constitution and RFRA. And the Supreme Court should resolve this matter with dispatch in their favor.

Millions of Christians across the country feel exactly the same way as the Greens. The Obama administration has issued a statist command that is a declaration of war on people of faith who object to abortion, and civil disobedience could break out all over the country unless the courts set this matter right—and quickly.

Read more: http://goo.gl/d86N3

THE BLAZE

‘We Have Passed That Point of No Return’: Ron Paul Explains What’s Missing in The ‘Fiscal Cliff’ Talks

by Becket Adams

December 29, 2012

Even if Congress manages to come up with a solution to avert the “fiscal cliff,” a combination of year-end tax increases and spending cuts, it won’t be worth anything because it’ll probably only deal with tax rates and ignore the problem of runaway government spending, or so say Texas Congressman and former presidential candidate Ron Paul.

“I think we have passed that point of no return where we can actually get our house in order,” Rep. Paul said Friday on CNBC. “I believe there is too much bipartisanship on the spending. Nobody is talking about cutting any spending.”

“Republicans and Democrats,” he continued, “they pretend they’re fighting up there, but they really aren’t. They’re arguing over power, spin, and who looks good, and who looks bad, but they’re all trying to preserve this system where they can spend what they want, take care of their friends, and let the Fed print money when they need it.”

However, that’s not to say Rep. Paul doesn’t believe U.S. lawmakers will come up with temporary solutions to things like the “cliff.”

“[It’ll be] sort of like — how many times have they had a ‘solution’ for the Greece crisis? About ten or 15 times?” the congressman asked, referring to the eurozone’s most unstable and financially broken member.

“There’s no admission that they [U.S. lawmakers] have a crisis. They have no admission that the country is bankrupt. There’s no admission that our government is spending way too much and it’s way beyond our means and there’s not a single bit of effort to cut anything,” the congressman continued.

“They are so they so far removed from admitting the seriousness of this crisis and if they don’t admit it, they can’t solve the problem. They’re like a bunch of drug addicts that just want another fix. That’s what they are looking for,” he concluded:

Read more: http://goo.gl/SNSSP

TOWNHALL
Putting the Spending Genie Back in the Bottle
Bob Beauprez 
December 30, 2012

As the following chart from Investor's Business Daily demonstrates, The Bush Tax Cuts didn't starve the federal treasury – revenue flooded in as the economy expanded from the pro-growth policies implemented in 2003 and continued until the sub-prime mortgage market collapse.

Even with the anemic Obama economic recovery, revenues are again nearly equal to the level required to fund the government had spending over the last fifteen years increased at the rate of population plus inflation growth.  But, that has not been the case.

The pox on Bush and the Republican majorities is that while revenues soared following implementation of the 2003 tax cuts, spending did as well.  To be fair, much of that increased spending was related to the war on terror following the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Also, the rate of GOP spending increases pale in comparison to what happened when Democrats took control of Congress beginning in 2007 and further accelerated when Obama moved into the White House in 2009.

  

Federal revenue rose from $1.7 trillion to $2.4 trillion from FY 1998 to 2012 as indicated.  "Revenue growth averaged 2.9% annually, despite two recessions, bear markets, - and tax cuts," as David Hogberg explained in the feature article accompanying the IBD graphic.

However, federal spending rose nearly twice as fast – 5.7% per year – surging from $1.6 trillion to $3.5 trillion over the same period, notes Hogberg.

Further, the chart shows that if spending had increased over the period at the same rate as population and inflation, revenue would have trended upward about the same even allowing for the effects of the recessions.  But, current spending levels are nearly $1 trillion beyond what population-plus-inflation growth increases would have dictated.

Hogberg calculates that had spending from FY1998-2012 increased consistent with population-plus-inflation growth, revenues would have exceeded spending by $177 billion – a net budget surplus!  Instead, because of the dramatic increase in spending, the federal government racked up an additional $6.7 trillion of new debt.

Every objective observer knows that the elephant in the room is the out of control rate of spending increases over the last many years.  True to form, however, Washington – and particularly Barack Obama - is laser focused on who they can raise tax rates on and by how much.  Their efforts would be better directed at putting the Spending Genie back in the bottle.

Read more: http://goo.gl/ALHXq

December 20, 2012

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
America's Dangerous Powerball Economy
by Arthur Brooks
December 19, 2012

What can the state lottery teach us about how to deal with the fiscal cliff? Quite a bit, actually.

Last month, two families in Missouri and Arizona had their dreams come true when they shared the largest Powerball lottery jackpot in history: $587 million. "We are truly blessed," one of the winners told the press.

Perhaps. People always imagine all the nice things that would happen to them if they won the lottery: They would travel more, buy a beautiful home, start a foundation or quit a tiresome job. Rarely do people say, "If I won the lottery, I'd marry somebody who doesn't love me, buy a bunch of things I don't really want, and then start an ugly alcoholic spiral."

But hitting the jackpot generally leads to unhappiness. A famous 1978 study of major lottery winners in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology showed that while the winners experienced an immediate happiness boost right after winning, it didn't last. Within a few months, their happiness levels receded to where they had been before winning. As time passed, they found they were actually less happy than they had been before winning.

Does this suggest that money makes us unhappy? Not at all. There is a huge amount of research showing that money, when earned, has a generally positive association with happiness. The problem is when it is unearned, when raw purchasing power is untethered from hard work and merit. Above basic subsistence, happiness comes not from money per se, but from the value creation it is rewarding.

The University of Chicago's General Social Survey reveals that people are twice as likely to feel "very happy" about their lives if they feel "very successful" or "completely successful" at work, rather than "somewhat successful." The differences persist whether they earn more or less income.

Entrepreneurs of all types rate their well-being higher than do members of all other professional groups in America, according to years of polling by the Gallup organization. And it's not because of the money. The employment website CareerBuilder.com reported in 2011 that small business owners made 19% less per year than government managers.

While earned success facilitates the pursuit of happiness, unearned transfers generally impede it. According to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, going on the welfare rolls increases by 16% the likelihood of a person saying he or she has felt inconsolably sad over the past month (even after controlling for poverty and unemployment). A study by economist John Ifcher at Santa Clara University shows that single mothers who were required by the 1990s welfare reform to work for their benefits—and therefore lost leisure time, had to find child care and the like—were still significantly happier about their lives after the reforms than before.

All this data relates to our policy debates because every year, fewer and fewer people earn their way in America without a government subsidy. As my colleague Nicholas Eberstadt has written, entitlements have doubled as a percentage of the ballooning federal budget since 1960. Today, more than half of American households receive government transfer benefits.

And this isn't just a case of senior citizens taking the Social Security they have paid for. Unearned transfers are exploding. Consider that the number of Americans receiving disability benefits has increased almost 20-fold since 1960, to 8.6 million today from 455,000. The Tax Foundation notes that nearly 70% of Americans now take more out of the tax system than they pay into it.

It is a simple fact that the United States is becoming an entitlement state. The problem with this is not just that it is bankrupting the country. It is that the entitlement state is impoverishing the lives of the growing millions dependent on unearned resources. The good news is that we have a golden opportunity to rein in entitlements, for the first time in many years.

But there is bad news, too. President Obama argues that the real problem is undertaxing the public, not overspending on entitlements. He is currently asking Congress for $1.3 trillion in tax increases over a decade but less than $1 trillion in spending cuts—largely deferred, meaning much of that may not even take place. A study by Ernst & Young shows that Mr. Obama's proposed tax hikes would force small businesses to eliminate about 710,000 jobs.

Mr. Obama's proposal suggests he is entirely comfortable with an entitlement state. His telling entrepreneurs that they weren't responsible for their success on the specious grounds that government was responsible for the country's infrastructure—"You didn't build that"—wasn't just an inartful turn of phrase. It implied he is blind to the moral difference between what is earned and what is unearned.

Before us today is a chance to improve the true welfare of our nation while changing our overspending ways. By reforming entitlements and the tax system instead of extracting more money with higher tax rates, the economy could be reoriented away from unearned transfers to earned wages. This would make the economy fairer and sounder. And in the process it could build a happier country for ourselves and our children.

Read more: http://goo.gl/nYVqT

AMERICAN THINKER
A Crack in Obama's Armor?
by Matt C. Abbott
December 20, 2012
Just when you're about to give up entirely on the federal courts, a small sign of hope emerges.

From The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty:

Today [Dec. 18], a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. handed Wheaton College and Belmont Abbey College a major victory in their challenges to the HHS mandate. Last summer, two lower courts had dismissed the Colleges' cases as premature. Today, the appellate court reinstated those cases, and ordered the Obama Administration to report back every 60 days-starting in mid-February-until the Administration makes good on its promise to issue a new rule that protects the Colleges' religious freedom. The new rule must be issued by March 31, 2013.... 

'This is a win not just for Belmont Abbey and Wheaton, but for all religious non-profits challenging the mandate,' said [Kyle Duncan, general counsel of The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty]. 'The government has now been forced to promise that it will never enforce the current mandate against religious employers like Wheaton and Belmont Abbey and a federal appellate court will hold the government to its word.'

A win? Perhaps. Still, I think it's a bit premature to declare victory. One can hope that these legal challenges to the HHS mandate are making the Obama administration sweat a little, so to speak. Or maybe the president will actually have a pang of conscience. After all, the least he can do is allow for authentic religious freedom here in the United States of America.

As Pope Benedict XVI recently stated, religious freedom is a fundamental human right. (Granted, I'm not holding my breath that the president will embrace the pope's wisdom.) In his message for the 46th World Day of Peace on Dec. 14, the pope said:

'One of the fundamental human rights, also with reference to international peace, is the right of individuals and communities to religious freedom. 

'At this stage in history, it is becoming increasingly important to promote this right not only from the negative point of view, as freedom from-for example, obligations or limitations involving the freedom to choose one's religion-but also from the positive point of view, in its various expressions, as freedom for-for example, bearing witness to one's religion, making its teachings known, engaging in activities in the educational, benevolent and charitable fields which permit the practice of religious precepts, and existing and acting as social bodies structured in accordance with the proper doctrinal principles and institutional ends of each. 

'Sadly, even in countries of long-standing Christian tradition, instances of religious intolerance are becoming more numerous, especially in relation to Christianity and those who simply wear identifying signs of their religion.'

Read more: http://goo.gl/8DGSs

NATIONAL REVIEW
The New Racial-Derangement Syndrome
by Victor Davis Hanson 
December 20, 2012

There is a different sort of racialist derangement spreading in the country — and it is getting ugly.

Here is actor Jamie Foxx joking recently about his new movie role: “I kill all the white people in the movie. How great is that?” Reverse white and black in the relevant ways and even a comedian would hear national outrage. Instead, his hip Saturday Night Live audience even gave Foxx applause.

Race-obsessed comedian Chris Rock tweeted on the Fourth of July, “Happy white peoples [sic] independence day . . . ”

Actor Samuel L. Jackson, in a recent interview, sounded about as unapologetically reactionary as you can get: “I voted for Barack because he was black. . . . I hope Obama gets scary in the next four years.”
No one in Hollywood used to be more admired than Morgan Freeman, who once lectured interviewers on the need to transcend race. Not now, in the new age of racial regression. Freeman has accused Obama critics and the Tea Party of being racists. He went on to editorialize on Obama’s racial bloodlines: “Barack had a mama, and she was white . . . very white, American, Kansas, middle of America . . . America’s first black president hasn’t arisen yet.”

Freeman’s racial-purity obsessions were echoed on the CNN website, where an ad for the network’s recent special report on race included a crude quote from three teen poets: “Black enough to be a n. White enough to be a good one.”

In the 21st century, are we returning to the racial labyrinth of the 19th-century Old Confederacy, when we measured our supposed racial DNA to the nth degree? Apparently, yes. ESPN sports commentator Rob Parker blasted Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III last week for admirably stating that he did not wish to be defined by his race rather than by his character: “He’s black, he does his thing, but he’s not really down with the cause.” Parker added: “He’s not one of us. He’s kind of black, but he’s not really like the kind of guy you really want to hang out with.” (ESPN suspended Parker for his remarks.)

Unfortunately, the new racialist derangement is not confined to sports and entertainment. The Reverend Joseph Lowery — who gave the benediction at President Obama’s first inauguration — sounded as venomous as the Reverend Jeremiah Wright in a speech that Lowery delivered to a black congregation shortly before this year’s election: “I don’t know what kind of a n***** wouldn’t vote with a black man running.” Lowery reportedly preceded that rant by stating that when he was younger, he believed that all whites were going to hell, but now he merely believes that most of them are. And in his 2009 inauguration prayer, Lowery ended with his hopes for a future day when “white will embrace what is right.”

Wasn’t Obama’s election supposed to mark a new post-racial era? What happened?

Read more: http://goo.gl/IGO7b

December 18, 2012

NEWSMAX
Club for Growth, Heritage Action Blast Boehner Concessions
by Newsmax Wires
December 17, 2012

The conservative groups Club for Growth and Heritage Action expressed outrage with the concessions made in the budget proposal House Speaker John Boehner presented to President Barack Obama Friday.

The plan reportedly would allow the top tax rate to increase to 39.6 percent from 35 percent currently. The proposal includes $1 trillion of tax increases, up from $800 billion in Boehner’s prior proposal. There’s also a possibility for a one-year extension of the debt limit in exchange for spending cuts.

“The proposal, as reported, represents a clear path toward surrender on conservative principles,” Dan Holler, Heritage Action’s communications director, said in a statement, The Hill reports.

“Rather than fighting for real reforms that would actually solve the problem, GOP negotiators seem intent on negotiating with themselves in hopes of striking a grand bargain that will ultimately fail, as so many others have before,” said.

Chris Chocola, president of Club for Growth, didn’t mince any words either. “First Speaker Boehner offered to raise tax rates after promising not to, and now he’s offering to raise the debt ceiling,” Chocola said in a statement. “Raising tax rates is anti-growth, and raising the debt ceiling is pro-government growth – and this is the Republican position?”

Some analysts think that the concessions Boehner offered the president will enable an agreement to be reached to avoid the fiscal cliff of automatic spending increases and tax hikes set for Jan. 1.

"The political burden is now shifted back to the president, who must be willing to take on his party in order to get a deal Boehner can ultimately pass,” Sean West of Eurasia Group, a political risk consulting firm, told Reuters. “We do not think the president will overreach: Obama will work with Boehner to get to a deal."

Read more: http://goo.gl/xzPFM

TOWNHALL
Get Ready For the Costs and Chaos of Obamacare
by Byron York
December 17, 2012

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was widely mocked when she said of Obamacare, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” At the time, March 2010, Pelosi's words accurately described the Democrats' just-get-it-done approach to passing a national health care bill. But now it turns out Pelosi was wrong. In fact, we have to implement Obamacare so that you can find out what is in it.

Amid the other momentous events coming in 2013 -- bitter fights over federal spending, debt, entitlements and immigration -- the biggest story of the year, and of 2014 as well, will be the arrival of Obamacare in the lives of every American.

For millions of people, Obamacare will mean, alone or in some combination: higher insurance bills, unwanted changes in status at work, higher taxes, loss of employer-based health insurance and a bewildering bureaucracy that will make today's already complex insurance maze seem downright simple.

Whether Obamacare's benefits will outweigh the chaos it produces could decide the future of the program.

Start with higher insurance bills. “The big unwritten story is that for people who already have insurance through the individual market, or small companies that are buying products in the state-regulated small group market -- those current policies are going to see premium increases on the order of 25 percent to 30 percent come Jan. 1, 2014,” says James Capretta, a health care expert and close student of Obamacare at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center. “They are going to have a rate shock like you wouldn't believe.”

The reason is that those people are generally younger and healthier and are able to get lower rates. Under Obamacare, they will be combined with older and less healthy people who cost more to insure. Capretta says about 30 million people will see a steep increase -- a population big enough to make a lot of political noise.

Then there is the change in work status. Under Obamacare, companies don't have to insure, or pay fines for not insuring, employees who work less than 30 hours a week. So it's no surprise that many companies are going to make sure their part-time workers, and some current full-time workers, stay below the 30-hour limit. That will mean less work and less pay for those employees.

Then there are the unexpected costs. This week, the Department of Health and Human Services revealed it will charge employer and individual plans a $63 “fee” for every person they cover. The Obama administration says the fee will be temporary, but it could touch about 190 million Americans at least for the next few years.

Read more: http://goo.gl/zbNE1

THE DAILY CALLER
NAACP Voices 'Major Concerns' about Tim Scott's Appointment 
by Vince Coglianese
December 17, 2012

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People isn’t too excited about the appointment of Rep. Tim Scott to South Carolina’s soon-to-be-vacated U.S. Senate seat.

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley announced her appointment of the black Republican during a noon press conference in Columbia, South Carolina. Scott will replace Sen. Jim DeMint, who is leaving to take the top position at the conservative Heritage Foundation. (RELATED VIDEO: DeMint going from 4th-poorest senator to Heritage millionaire)

That appointment will make Scott the only black U.S. senator, at least until 2014, when he runs for re-election. The last black senator was Illinois Democrat Roland Burris, who left office in November of 2010.


Hilary Shelton, senior vice president for advocacy and policy at the NAACP, told The Daily Caller Monday afternoon that the group welcomed diversity in the Senate, but expects the new senator to work against the NAACP’s agenda.

“It is important that we have more integration in the U.S. Senate,” said Shelton in a phone interview. “It’s good to see that diversity.”

“Mr. Scott certainly comes from a modest background, experience, and so forth, and should be sensitive to those issues,” he said, referring to Scott’s impoverished single-parent upbringing in Charleston, SC.

“Unfortunately, his voting record in the U.S. House of Representatives raises major concerns,” Shelton said.

Shelton explained that the NAACP platform is crafted through an annual voting process which engages grassroots-level delegates who vote on the group’s national agenda. That agenda calls for an expansive role for federal government spending in black communities.


Scott, Shelton said, would likely work against that agenda, favoring instead the “small government” posture of Ronald Reagan and that president’s Secretary of Education, William Bennett.

“Small government usually means, as it’s being described these days, the elimination of the role of government and support for initiatives and programs that are crucial for the African-American community,” Shelton said.

“When the discussions about small government were utilized by Ronald Reagan, he appointed Bill Bennett as the Secretary of Education. Bill Bennett had actually voted during his time in the House of Representatives to eliminate the Department of Education,” he continued, though Bennett never held elective office. “That’s not within the African-American community’s best interest.”

Smaller government also means less federal assistance for housing and signals an abandoning of civil rights regulations as enforced by the Justice Department, Shelton said, highlighting the Department’s crackdown on what he called “anti-immigration” laws across the country.

Scott “has demonstrated a record of opposition to civil rights protection and advancing those real issues of concern of the NAACP’s noted African-American community,” Shelton added.

Read more: http://goo.gl/wK0UQ

November 29, 2012

TOWNHALL
Poll: Majority Says Federal Government Shouldn't Be Responsible for Healthcare
by Guy Benson
November 28, 2012

Since most of the data in post-election polling has offered little beyond a parade of ugly news, here's a glimmer of hope from Gallup:

For the first time in Gallup trends since 2000, a majority of Americans say it is not the federal government's responsibility to make sure all Americans have healthcare coverage. Prior to 2009, a majority always felt the government should ensure healthcare coverage for all, though Americans' views have become more divided in recent years...Republicans, including Republican-leaning independents, are mostly responsible for the drop since 2007 in Americans' support for government ensuring universal health coverage. In 2007, 38% of Republicans thought the government should do so; now, 12% do. Among Democrats and Democratic leaners there has been a much smaller drop, from 81% saying the government should make sure all Americans are covered in 2007 to 71% now.

A look at the trendlines:

Americans also remain overwhelmingly opposed to the imposition of a government-run, single-payer healthcare system, which very much remains leftists' endgame:

One thing that has not changed is that Americans still widely prefer a system based on private insurance to one run by the government. Currently, 57% prefer a private system and 36% a government-run system, essentially the same as in 2010 and 2011. Prior to the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, the percentage of Americans in favor of a government-run system ranged from 32% to 41%.

A few final notes:  (1) Though Gallup's final likely voter poll prior to the election was off by four points, their registered voters numbers were pretty much spot on.  In other words, their LV screen was too restrictive, but their overall data was sound.  (2) Despite a heavily Democratic electorate on election day, a substantial plurality still supported Obamacare repeal, a result that mirrors stable polling trends.  (3) For an idea of what a mind-blowing cluster Obamacare has already become, read this piece by Mary Katharine Ham.  Deadlines keep getting pushed farther and farther back, and the administration has finally issued coverage rules for the state exchanges that are supposed to be up and running in a matter of months.  These rules took 32 months to produce.  An unmitigated mess.

Read more: http://goo.gl/z19yo

THE WEEKLY STANDARD

Are Republicans Learning the Wrong Lessons?

by  Jeffrey H. Anderson

November 28, 2012

As hard as it is to believe, it’s been only a little over three weeks since Election Day. But there are already plenty of signs that Republicans are learning many of the wrong lessons from that debacle. For starters, there’s been a lot of excessive emphasis on racial demographics, which actually changed very little from 2008.  According to exit polling, the portion of Hispanic voters went up just 1 percentage point, the portion of Asian voters went up just 1 point, and the portion of black voters stayed the same.  Meanwhile, the portion of white voters fell 2 points — largely because, as Sean Trende notes, Mitt Romney failed to turn out several million such voters.

Now Senator John McCain says that, when it comes to the life-or-death matter of abortion, Republicans should “leave the issue alone.” Well, it would be hard to have left the issue any more alone than Romney did, and what did it get him? On an issue on which Americans are typically split pretty much right down the middle, exit polling showed that voters favored the legality (59 percent), rather than illegality (36 percent), of abortion in “most” or “all” cases. This suggests that Romney’s silence in the face of Obama’s pro-abortion rhetoric caused some swing voters to shift their position leftward (as people are inclined to do when they hear only one side of an issue advanced) — while millions of pro-life voters apparently sat this one out.

In truth, the Romney strategy on essentially every issue — and especially on Obamacare — could aptly be summarized as “leave the issue alone.”  Even on the economy, the one issue on which the Romney camp generally seemed eager to engage, the campaign left alone the question of how we got into this mess in the first place.  Relatedly, it left alone the crucially important claim that Bill Clinton made at the Democratic convention:  “Listen to me now.  No president, no president — not me, not any of my predecessors — no one could have fully repaired all the damage that [Obama] found in just four years.”  This, of course, was ridiculous.  FDR had inherited the Great Depression, and yet, in the year that he first sought reelection, real economic growth was over 13 percent — more than six times what it’s been this year under Obama.  But Romney characteristically left that one alone, and — more than three years into the Obama “recovery” — exit polling indicated that voters still blamed George W. Bush (53 percent), not Obama (38 percent), for the stagnant economy.

As a result of Romney’s failure to make the case on essentially any issue — either against Obama’s abysmal record or on behalf of his own proposals — we ended up with this very strange result:  In an election pitting perhaps the most liberal president in American history against a moderate Republican who was never fully trusted by the conservative wing of his own party, likely voters polled by Pew Research less than two weeks before the election said that Obama (50 percent), not Romney (38 percent), takes the “more moderate positions.”  And in an election pitting a Democratic president who rammed Obamacare through on a straight party-line vote and then spent the next two years demagoguing Republicans, versus the former Republican governor of heavily Democratic Massachusetts, likely voters in that same poll said that Obama (47 percent), not Romney (41 percent), was more “willing to work with leaders from the other party.”

As such polling suggests, Republicans didn’t lose this election because of demographics, and they didn’t lose it because of the positions they took on the issues.  They lost it because they failed to make the case against Obama or on behalf of their own ideas and principles.  As a result, they failed to rally independents to their side to the extent that they should have, and they failed to turn out their own base.  Far from leaving key issues alone in the future, Republicans need to engage the American public on matters of importance and make their case in persuasive language.

Read more: http://goo.gl/Z8EUE

AMERICAN THINKER
The Governing Class and the Decline of America
by Steve McCann
November 29, 2012

The United States will not reverse its descent into the abyss of financial and societal bankruptcy until the current political and governing establishment is replaced. That will not happen until the American people, who have been deliberately ill-educated and deceived, experience first-hand the early stages of the turmoil and suffering extant in Europe and elsewhere.

While professing to care for the interests of the average person, the underlying motivation for the vast majority of the governing class or Establishment is first and foremost self-aggrandizement and the acquisition of wealth. While a few may be motivated by ideology, the preponderance are not.

There are no offices on Connecticut Avenue in Washington D.C. with signs reading "The Republican Establishment" or the "The Democratic Establishment"; rather it is an amalgam of like-minded groups with one common interest: the control of the government purse-strings and the attendant power contained within.

The Republican and Democratic political establishments are made up of the following:

1) many current and nearly all retired national office holders whose livelihood and narcissistic demands depends upon fealty to Party and access to government largesse;

2) the majority of the media elite, including pundits, editors, writers and television news personalities based in Washington and New York whose proximity to power and access is vital to their continued standard of living;

3) academia, numerous think-tanks, so-called non-government organizations, and lobbyists who fasten onto those in the administration and Congress for employment, grants, favorable legislation and ego-gratification;

4) the reliable deep pocket political contributors and political consultants whose future is irrevocably tied to the political machinery of the Party; and

5) the crony capitalists, i.e. leaders of the corporate and financial community as well as unions whose entities are dependent on or subject to government oversight and/or benevolence .

The current iteration of the Democratic establishment was begun during Franklin Roosevelt's 12 years in office as the Party chose to follow the lead of those such as Benito Mussolini in Italy, who promoted government as the source of all salvation and survival. This philosophy fit in nicely with those whose egos and drive was directed toward the aggregation of power and wealth.

The Republican members of the governing class, with the exception of the presidency of Ronald Reagan and the Republican controlled House of Representatives from 1995 to 1998, have been content since 1946 to merely slow down the big-government policies of the Democrats, while publically decrying their tax and spend policies. However, in truth, many have been comfortable with reaping the financial and ego-gratifying rewards of such indifference.

Since the1950's this overall scenario has been tolerated and generally ignored as the nation was experiencing overwhelming and seemingly endless prosperity. The Democrats, with the tacit consent of the Republican establishment, promoted an ever-increasing litany of government programs to ostensibly help the people, under the rubric that the nation could not only afford it but was, in fact, obligated to guarantee a "decent" standard of living for everyone. Further, in the 1960's the American left, as the Republican establishment turned a blind eye, began to dominate the education agenda. The public's children were no longer taught American history and the importance of individual liberty; instead, the basics of capitalism and wealth creation were demonized. Additionally, the essential characteristic of a flourishing republic -- a society wedded to honor, decency and integrity -- was demeaned and ridiculed.

Thus the citizenry has become more willing to not only vote for whoever promises the most financial security, but they are now easily susceptible to unconscionable demagoguery and are increasingly tolerant of dishonesty as well as unethical behavior. Today, with the advent of welfare, food stamps, near endless unemployment benefits, free health care (Medicaid), and a myriad of other state and federal programs, the Democrats have succeeded in creating a virtually permanent voting bloc. One the Republican Establishment now claims, if they wish to win future elections, they must pander to as part of a new strategy of inclusion. Yet, by their acquiescence and indifference over the years, they helped create their electoral dilemma.

How have all these promises and deceptions perpetrated on the American people placed the nation's financial future in jeopardy? Since 1956 the United States has seen a phenomenal growth in its Gross Domestic Product from $3,700 Billion (inflation adjusted) to $16,100 Billion (+335%). However, government spending at all levels has grown from $978 Billion (inflation adjusted) to $6,400 Billion (+554%) and the nation's debt, $2,250 Billion in 1956 (inflation adjusted) is now $16,300 Billion (+625%). (source: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com)

As of today, the nation's true indebtedness (promises that have been made for spending obligations, less all the taxes the Treasury expects to collect) exceeds $222,000 Billion. The indebtedness to Gross Domestic Product ($16,100 Billion) is a staggering 13.8 to 1. The United States is not facing bankruptcy, it is bankrupt.

Yet there is no sense of urgency or desire on the part of the governing class to level with the American people. This nation is living on the residue of the economic growth begun in the 1950's and accelerated in the 1980's. That tidal wave of prosperity has ebbed. The United States has entered into a death spiral of unrestrained spending, excessive taxation, printing near worthless money, and stagnant economic activity. Rather than be straightforward with the populace, the governing class is content to paper over the problem by the usual shell games of phony long-term spending cuts, more borrowing, and prevarications about the efficacy of raising taxes on "the rich."

The true nature of the GOP establishment's motivation has been exposed by their reaction to the Tea Party movement. This grassroots rebellion was the first manifestation of the awareness by a large portion of the American public of the nation's problems and ultimate consequences. Despite the overwhelming success of the Tea Party working within the Republican Party in the 2010 mid-term elections, nearly all of the Republican elites downplayed their success and fell-in with the mainstream media and the Democrats in their well-worn and gratuitous aspersions against these concerned and patriotic Americans. The Tea Party movement poses a threat to not only the accumulated power of the governing class but their livelihoods, thus the concerted effort to marginalize them by any vile or preposterous means possible.

The United States finds itself in a circumstance once thought unthinkable. An ill-educated and near morally bankrupt society increasingly made up of those dependent on government combined with a governing class whose primary interest is themselves. The nation cannot, therefore, make any meaningful course correction unless and until the people finally understand they have been lied to and conned by the current establishment. That will, in all likelihood, not occur until America faces imminent collapse and the citizenry turns on those who brought the nation to its knees.

Read more: http://goo.gl/VYDg0