Supreme Court Obamacare Ruling. My Reaction?

The next ObamaCare disasters

From Family Security Matters.

The next ObamaCare disasters


On Friday the president used the long-awaited resignation of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to again claim victory for his namesake health law. "She got it fixed, got the job done," Obama said. Right.

Sorry, there is plenty of more bad news ahead.

It's not called SebeliusCare, and she wasn't to blame for most of its problems. The horrors were mostly baked into the law, with some made worse by the president's dishonest hard sell to get unsuspecting Americans to sign up.
Premium defaults

Obama claimed Friday that 7.5 million people have enrolled in exchange coverage. In fact, perhaps 20 percent haven't paid their first premium and therefore aren't covered, according to estimates by RAND Corp. and Goldman Sachs.

The bigger question is how many will keep paying premiums. That's got the American Medical Association, a chief ObamaCare booster, so worried that it's sending warnings to its members.

Why the concern? First-time insurance purchasers, especially those living paycheck to paycheck, will be shocked by ObamaCare's high deductibles, about $3,000 for the silver plan (the most commonly selected) and $5,000 for the bronze plan (the most affordable).

Basically, you'll have to pay thousands out of pocket for appointments, tests and prescriptions until you reach your deductible.

Millennials who heard Obama say on "Between Two Ferns" that they can buy a health plan for the price of a cellphone contract won't be laughing when they realize what the $5,000 deductible means. (It's like a cellphone contract that makes you pay $5 a text for your first thousand texts.) Rather than pay thousands out of pocket for care while also paying premiums, some will quit paying premiums.

That's why the AMA is worried. Section 1412 of the health law gives consumers a 90 day "grace period" before their subsidized plan is canceled for nonpayment. But insurers only have to keep paying doctors and hospitals for 30 days. The next 60 days of care are on the care provider. The AMA says "it could pose a significant financial risk for medical practices."
Premium hikes

Consumers reeling from Obama­Care premium shock are in for another jolt when the 2015 rates come out.

Overall, consumers had to pay far more for individual plans this year. In some states (Delaware and New Hampshire), rates went up 90 percent or even 100 percent, according to a newly released Morgan Stanley analysis.

And insurance executives already are warning about double- or triple-digit hikes for next year. "I do think it's likely premium-rate shocks are coming," said Chet Burrell, CEO of Care First BlueCross BlueShield. Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini, one of the first to raise the alarm, said increases "could go as high as 100 percent."

In most states, insurers will be setting their 2015 rates in June, but the administration is doing everything possible to keep the grim news under the radar until after the November elections. It even postponed the beginning of the open enrollment period until Nov. 15.
Losing on-the-job coverage

But there's no way to hide the impact on the 25 million to 30 million Americans who could lose coverage in the coming months.

For the same reasons that millions of policies in the individual market were canceled last year, employers who buy plans in the small-group market will have a hard time renewing their old plans this year. Many will have to choose between providing the more costly ObamaCare benefit package or dropping coverage altogether.

Count on employers with low-wage work forces (such as retailers, hoteliers and restaurateurs) to push employees and their families into the exchanges.
Protests over cancer care

Cancer is the leading cause of death in America and our No. 1 health fear. But access to the nation's top cancer centers is becoming a hot-button issue, as ObamaCare enrollees are finding how few choices of hospitals and doctors they have.

Many plans exclude all specialty cancer hospitals, even though research shows that women with ovarian cancer, for example, live a year longer when they are treated at high-volume cancer hospitals instead of local facilities. But insurers say they'd have to raise premiums for exchange plans even higher if this growing outrage over access to cancer centers forces them to broaden their networks.

The president said Friday that ObamaCare has "turned the corner." Not exactly. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says he hopes the confirmation hearings for Sebelius' successor, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, "will be the start of a candid conversation about ObamaCare's shortcomings."

That could take a while.

Obamacare For Illegal Aliens? It Was Inevitable

From Family Security Matters.

The Inevitability of Obamacare for Illegal Aliens


You knew it was coming. I knew it was coming. When government expands entitlements, illegal aliens always end up with a piece of the pie. Obamacare promoters relented to GOP pressure to include an illegal alien ban on eligibility and vowed endlessly that no benefits would go to the "undocumented." But denial isn't just a river in Egypt. It's the Obama way.

In Oregon this week, officials confessed that nearly 4,000 illegal immigrants had been "accidentally" steered from the state's low-income Medicaid program and instead were enrolled in Obamacare in violation of the law. Oopsie. The Oregonian newspaper's Nick Budnick reported that the health bureaucrats "discovered the problem several weeks ago and are correcting it." Get in line. The beleaguered Cover Oregon health insurance exchange has been riddled with ongoing problems, errors and glitches since last October that have yet to be fixed.

Take note: This wasn't a one-time computer meltdown. Because Oregon's health insurance exchange website has been offline and its software architects under investigation for possible fraud, the Oregon Obamacare drones have been processing each and every application manually. That means nearly 4,000 illegal alien applications with "inaccurate" data somehow passed through government hands and somehow ended up getting routed through as new enrollees with Obamacare-approved full-service health care.

How many Obamacare services did these nearly 4,000 illegal aliens avail themselves of, and at what cost?

Does anyone believe the same incompetent boobs who enrolled them will be able to track down the nearly 4,000 illegal alien beneficiaries, "correct" the "errors" and ensure that it doesn't happen again?

What a slap in the face to the millions of law-abiding Americans who have lost their health care coverage and work hours thanks to Democratic-sponsored federal health care regulatory burdens and mandate costs.

One Oregon Obamacare manager defended the unlawful illegal alien enrollment by explaining: "We were just getting people into the services." And there's the rub. The imperative of these government social engineers is to herd as many "clients" into taxpayer-subsidized programs as possible. Just last week, Obama's Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson publicized an open letter to families with illegal alien relatives promising that no one would be deported for seeking Obamacare services.

"No one in America who is eligible should be afraid to apply for health coverage because they have a family with mixed status," Johnson assured. And in another sign of how the White House is still planning for mass illegal alien amnesty, Johnson also made clear: "Enrolling in health coverage ... will not prevent your loved ones who are undocumented from getting a green card in the future or who do not yet have a green card at risk."

As always, California Democrats are at the forefront of busting open Obamacare for the illegal alien population. Earlier this month, Democratic state Sen. Ricardo Lara introduced a bill to extend health benefits and a special online marketplace to one million illegals under an Obamacare-style program subsidized by state taxpayer dollars.

In case you forgot, President Obama had already paved the path for illegal alien Obamacare when he signed the massive expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) in 2009. As I've reported previously, the law loosened eligibility requirements for legal immigrants and their children by watering down document and evidentiary standards -- making it easy for individuals to use fake Social Security cards to apply for benefits with little to no chance of getting caught. In addition, Obama's S-CHIP expansion revoked Medicaid application time limits that were part of the 1996 welfare reform law.

Open-borders activists saw those provisions as first steps toward universal health coverage for illegals. They see America as the medical welcome mat to the world. Over the past year, they've ratcheted up public protests demanding free organ transplants for illegal alien patients. In Chicago last fall, they marched on a hospital with caskets and posters demanding scarce organs. One illegal alien blasted authorities for putting "paper over our lives." In California, illegal alien transplant patients count on federal incompetence and lax enforcement to abet them, because if they notify the state that DHS "is aware of their presence and does not plan to deport them," they are eligible for full-blown Medi-Cal coverage, according to the state.

Now, Obamacare peddlers from Oregon to New York and all points in between are rushing to sign up new "customers" in advance of the March 31 open enrollment deadline. How many more thousands of illegal aliens will be roped into the system? Remember: In the lexicon of the left, "accidental" is just another word for inevitable entitlement creep.

And Now A Bit From Dr. Seuss

Nuff said?

The Absolute Joy of Watching Obamacare Go Down In Flames

From Family Security Matters.

Obamacare Schadenfreudarama
by JONAH GOLDBERG


To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, you'd have to have a heart of stone not to laugh at the unraveling of Obamacare.

First, the obligatory caveats. It is no laughing matter that millions of Americans' lives have been thrown into anxious chaos as they lose their health insurance, their doctors, their money, or all three. Nor is it particularly amusing to think of the incredible waste of time and tax dollars that has gone into Obamacare's construction. And the still-unfolding violence that this misbegotten legislation will visit on the economy and our liberties is not funny either. This very magazine has been downright funereal about the brazen and unconstitutional seizure of one-sixth of the economy, and rightly so.

But come on, people.

If you can't take some joy, some modicum of relief and mirth, in the unprecedentedly spectacular beclowning of the president, his administration, its enablers, and, to no small degree, liberalism itself, then you need to ask yourself why you're following politics in the first place. Because, frankly, this has been one of the most enjoyable political moments of my lifetime. I wake up in the morning and rush to find my just-delivered newspaper with a joyful expectation of worsening news so intense, I feel like Morgan Freeman should be narrating my trek to the front lawn. Indeed, not since Dan Rather handcuffed himself to a fraudulent typewriter, hurled it into the abyss, and saw his career plummet like Ted Kennedy was behind the wheel have I enjoyed a story more.

Alas, the English language is not well equipped to capture the sensation I'm describing, which is why we must all thank the Germans for giving us the term "schadenfreude" - the joy one feels at the misfortune or failure of others. The primary wellspring of schadenfreude can be attributed to Barack Obama's hubris - another immigrant word, which means a sinful pride or arrogance that causes someone to believe he has a godlike immunity to the rules of life.

The hubris of our ocean-commanding commander-in-chief surely isn't news to readers of this website. He's said that he's smarter and better than everyone who works for him. His wife informed us that he has "brought us out of the dark and into the light" and that he would fix our broken souls. The man defined sin itself as "being out of alignment with my values." We may be the ones we've been waiting for, but at the same time, everyone has been waiting for him. Or as he put it in 2007, "Every place is Barack Obama country once Barack Obama's been there."

In every tale of hubris, the transgressor is eventually slapped across the face with the semi-frozen flounder of reality. The Greeks had a god, Nemesis, whose scythe performed the same function. It was Nemesis who lured Narcissus to the pool where he fell in love with his own reflection. Admittedly, most of Nemesis's walk-on roles were in the Greek tragedies, but in the modern era, comeuppance-for-the-arrogant is more often found in comedies, and the "rollout" of Healthcare.gov has been downright hilarious. (I put quotation marks around "rollout" because the term implies actual rolling, and this thing has moved as gracefully as a grand piano in a peat bog.) But, as the president says, "it's more than a website." Indeed, the whole law is coming apart like a papier-mâché yacht in rough waters. The media feeding frenzy it has triggered from so many journalistic lapdogs has been both so funny and so poignant, it reminds me of nothing more than the climax of the classic film Air Bud, when the lovable basketball-playing golden retriever finally decides to maul the dog-abusing clown.

During the government shutdown, Barack Obama held fast, heroically refusing to give an inch to the hostage-taking, barbaric orcs of the Tea Party who insisted on delaying Obamacare. It was a triumph for the master strategist in the White House, who finally maneuvered the Republicans into revealing their extremism. But we didn’t know something back then: Obama desperately needed a delay of Healthcare.gov. In his arrogance, though, he couldn’t bring himself to admit it. The other possibility is that he is such an incompetent manager, who has cultivated such a culture of yes-men, that he was completely in the dark about the problems. That’s the reigning storyline right now from the White House. Obama was betrayed. “If I had known,” he told his staff, “we could have delayed the website.”

This is how you know we’re in the political sweet spot: when the only plausible excuses for the administration are equally disastrous indictments.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, it took about five minutes for liberals to cast the chaos and confusion of the disaster as a searing indictment of not just the Bush administration but of conservatism itself. Whatever the merits of that argument (and there are not many), Katrina was at least a surprise. The October 1 deadline for Obamacare was set by Obama’s own administration years ago — and it caught them completely off guard. The president may now claim that he knew nothing, but he must have wondered why Henry Chao, Healthcare.gov’s chief project manager, set the bar of success at sea level last March: “Let’s just make sure it’s not a Third World experience.” At this point, it could only be more of a Third World experience if Healthcare.gov required enrollees to pay with chickens.

Regardless, if Obama were a tenth as good a politician as he thinks he is, he could have blamed the delay he desperately needed on his political enemies, calling them “hostage-takers” even as he secretly understood they had rescued his most beloved hostage from his own incompetence. Instead, on September 26, he went out and told an adoring audience: “On October 1, millions of Americans . . . will finally be able to buy quality, affordable health insurance. In five days.” “Starting Tuesday,” he added, Americans will be able to “compare and purchase affordable health-insurance plans, side by side, the same way you shop for a plane ticket on Kayak — same way you shop for a TV on Amazon. You just go on and you start looking, and here are all the options.”

Come on, that’s hilarious.

Okay, maybe he didn’t know then what bad shape the website was in. But how to explain the president’s remarks three weeks after the debut of Healthcare.gov? Even if it’s true that the president only hears about bad news from the newspapers, by then the papers were full of reports that Healthcare.gov worked about as well as a Somali superconducting supercollider. Obama knew that Healthcare.gov was a fiasco, and that the “navigators” used the same broken website that consumers had spent days poking at like Chinatown chickens in an abandoned tic-tac-toe machine, desperately but fruitlessly trying to get some reward.

And yet the president strode out into the Rose Garden anyway and told millions of Americans they could buy their coverage by phone. He told them the 1-800 operators were standing by. He told them it would take only 25 minutes to apply. None of these things were true. In his mind, Obama surely thought he was putting the issue to rest, like Zeus declaring that Odysseus would make it home alive. But here’s the thing: All that Zeus needs to do to make something happen is to say it. When Barack Obama says things, reality doesn’t bend to his will. Somehow, Barack Obama has been led to believe that his job is simply to go out and say things, as if saying things alone could change facts on the ground. So while I’m sure he thinks he sounded like the voice of eternal truth, in reality he sounded like the infomercial spokesman played by Chevy Chase in the old Saturday Night Live skit:

WIFE (GILDA RADNER): New Shimmer is a floor wax!
HUSBAND (DAN AYKROYD): No, new Shimmer is a dessert topping!
WIFE: It’s a floor wax!
HUSBAND: It’s a dessert topping!
WIFE: It’s a floor wax, I’m telling you!
HUSBAND: It’s a dessert topping, you cow!
SPOKESMAN [enters quickly]: Hey, hey, hey, calm down, you two. New Shimmer is a floor wax and a dessert topping! Here, I’ll spray some on your mop . . . and some on your butterscotch pudding . . .
HUSBAND [eating while wife mops]: Mmmmm, tastes terrific!
WIFE: And just look at that shine! But will it last?
SPOKESMAN: Hey, outlasts every other leading floor wax, two to one. It’s durable, and it’s scuff-resistant.
HUSBAND: And it’s delicious!

But not as delicious as the tears of his praetorian guard. First of all, every day Jay Carney looks even more like a little boy who put on his dad’s suit. You have to wonder what goes on in his mind, as a former journalist, when he tells his former colleagues that “the American forces have been completely destroyed with minimal Iraqi casualties.” (Oh, wait, that was Baghdad Bob. I get them confused.) And what about Dan Pfeiffer going on the Sunday shows to insist that no American should believe his or her lying eyes?

On October 1, Media Matters for America — David Brock’s sweatshop for twentysomethings who couldn’t get an internship at the DNC — raced to defend the crashed website as a sign of success, in keeping with the idea that all Obama failures are further proof of his awesomeness: “Right-Wing Media Frantically Spin Obamacare Exchange Success Into Failure.” Taking their cues from the White House, MMFA insisted that the administration’s only mistake was failing to appreciate just how popular the program would be. “Right-wing media were quick to jump on the problems, declaring them a sign of the law’s shortcomings rather than its popularity,” cackled MMFA’s Samantha Wyatt. She went on to mock various Fox News journalists and, of course, Rush Limbaugh for calling the disastrous launch a disaster. Meanwhile, Ezra Klein called the initial popularity of the site exactly “what the Republicans were afraid of.” Now even Klein has turned on the White House — more in sorrow than in anger, to be sure. When the White House has lost Ezra Klein . . . well, it still has the cast of Morning Joe. No, wait — even they have abandoned the president. Heh.

To be sure, there was some apparent plausibility to the claim that the website was working only too well, because the White House lied so confidently about what was going on. Few critics grasped at first that this was going to be the Charlie Sheen of IT launches — a spectacularly mortifying failure, punctuated with desperate shrieks of “Winning!”

It wasn’t until later that we learned that, of the uncountable hordes flocking to the federal exchanges that first day, the number who actually registered for an insurance plan totaled exactly six. At that rate, Obamacare would reach its target of 7 million enrollees around the year 5013, or 3022 a.o. (Anno Obamae).

Obviously, the website will get better. It could hardly get worse, short of a finding that it causes irritable bowel syndrome. Indeed, on the second day, the number of enrollees hit 248, according to the same leaked contractor memos. But the site needs to be able to handle tens of thousands of enrollees per day.

More recent numbers suggest that the federal exchange has enrolled about 27,000 customers since October 1, which amounts to about half an enrollee for each Obamacare “navigator.” (Someone in the White House is surely thinking, “Hey, let’s just hire another 14,000,000 navigators! Problem solved.) In order to rationalize that dismal performance the White House now must insist that they always knew the numbers would be tiny at the outset.

Here’s a number that isn’t tiny: Five million people — and counting — have lost their health insurance, despite the president’s years of “you can keep your plan” promises. The president has apologized, sort of. He says he’s “sorry” that people have found themselves in a bad situation because of “assurances” he made. But no one has lost their insurance because of the president’s assurances, they’ve lost their insurance because of the president’s law. If a captain has the lifejackets filled with cement, his assurance that “you can keep your lifejacket” is only half the crime. Obama knew the lifejackets wouldn’t work. In 2010 he admitted that 8 to 9 million people in the individual market might “have to change their coverage” because of the law. And that’s just the individual market. Millions more will eventually lose the insurance they like because of Obamacare, according to the administration’s own internal estimates.

The cancellations aren’t a bug, they’re a feature, and the president lied about it over and over again.

And now the Democratic panic has begun. Terry McAuliffe almost lost his bid for Virginia governor because of Obamacare. Senator Kay Hagan of North Carolina has seen her double-digit lead against a generic Republican all but vanish. Henry “let’s avoid a Third World experience” Chao is now insisting he never got the memo warning of “limitless” security problems. And, just this week, the big dog himself, Bill Clinton, announced he thinks Obama should honor the “commitment” the federal government made to Americans that they can keep their health insurance. Clinton’s brazenness is a marvel to behold, given that he surely knew all along that Obama’s “incorrect promise” — to borrow the New York Times’ latest desperate euphemism — was a lie and yet he happily defended the law. Moreover, he knows that honoring that commitment would, in fact, permanently gut Obamacare.

Which is one reason why Republicans are proposing a law that would do exactly that with the “Keep Your Health Care Plan” Act. This creates a miserable predicament for Democrats. As Jim Geraghty writes: “Can you picture the ads? Senator [Insert Democrat Here] voted for the Obamacare law that took away your health insurance . . . and then voted against the Keep Your Health Plan Act.”

Democrats are in the opening stages of the crab-in-a-trap phase. When crabs are caught in a trap they will try to climb out of their predicament. The problem is that other crabs will grab the would-be-escapee and pull them down. When the really nasty infighting starts, as countless Democrats look to fix or delay the law, I’m looking forward to pointing out that such an agenda was once considered “extreme,” even “racist,” by Democrats. Or to quote Harry Reid from last September: “Obamacare has been the law for four years. Why don’t they get a life and talk about something else?”

It would be great fun to watch Reid say something similar to the throngs of panicked fellow Democrats racing for the exits like the Irish peasants below decks on the Titanic. Reid, of course, is just desperate to buy time. He hopes to make it to November 30, the appointed date when the White House still insists it will be able to say, “Behold the power of this fully functional website!” Politically speaking, with every day still producing another terrible story for the White House, that is the sort of timeline that would make Godot look punctual. And that’s if they hit the deadline. So far, the press has been unable to produce a prominent IT expert willing to say on the record that the target date is feasible. Jay Carney is sticking to that promise, but the musky stench of fear, sweat, and urine wafting from the podium makes it hard for all but the true believers to put much stock in his words.

But let’s assume HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius makes the most of that copy of Web Sites for Dummies that a protester handed her at a town-hall meeting last week. Then what?

We have a hint from Colorado, where the state’s own version of Healthcare.gov has been up and running. Al Jazeera America interviewed one of Colorado’s exchange navigators a month after the debut. When asked how many people she had signed up, she replied, “So far, no one. Thus far everybody has taken a look at the rates and they’ve walked out the door. There’s sticker shock. They just can’t afford it.” Medicaid has been driving most of the enrollments, and those who have ended up in private plans are older and poorer on average than the planners had hoped.

Every day, the supposedly conspiratorial right-wing smear that Obama cared more about economic redistribution than he did about the middle class or economic growth looks more reasonable. Surely we’re allowed to say, “We told you so”?

As a matter of public policy and fiscal health, this is a mixed bag. It’s good that poor sick people without insurance coverage are getting something. On the other side of the scale, we have the fact that the country is racing toward entitlement-fueled bankruptcy. So if you can overlook that, yippee!

But as a political and ideological matter, this is beyond fantastic. For years we’ve been told that Democrats were more “reality-based,” that “facts have a liberal bias,” in the words of Paul Krugman, and that if they could just have their way, they could fix all of our problems. No one represented this arrogant promise more than Barack Obama himself. But, with an irony so rich it would be made of Corinthian leather if it was a car seat, the only way he could get his signature legislation passed was to baldly and brazenly lie about it, over and over and over again. He created a rhetorical cloud castle where no one would lose his insurance, every family would save thousands of dollars, and millions of the uninsured would suddenly get coverage. Anyone who doubted this was called a fool or a liar, or even a racist. It was, in the parlance of liberalism, a “false choice” to assert that Obamacare couldn’t be a floor wax and a dessert topping.

And all of this — every bit of it — is their own fault. The bedraggled cadres of Obama’s defenders are valiantly trying to blame it all on Republican sabotage: The Obama administration had to keep the whole thing secret for fear of “feeding the opposition,” in the words of a Washington Post reconstruction of the debacle. But when you read the stories, if you replace phrases like “keep the Republicans from finding out” with the more accurate “keep the public from finding out,” you’ll get a better sense of things. The Obama White House, by which I mean the Obama campaign, was desperate to keep voters from grasping the scope of its misinformation campaign until after the election. And then, after the election, it was afraid to let the public know what they’d been misinformed about.

The argument against gloating holds that conservatives should want Obamacare to succeed even though we said all along it couldn’t. It’s such an odd argument, particularly since the Democrats’ lies were of the first order, in that Obama’s aides actually debated and discussed them, no doubt presenting them to focus groups like a jar of “new Shimmer, now an erectile-dysfunction treatment and paint thinner all in one!”

When a product is brought to market and the market discovers — as it eventually has to — that the advertising wasn’t merely a tissue of lies but a geological stratum of lies, the utterly fair and justified response from the critics is “I told you so!” — not “Let’s make this thing bipartisan now.” That’s particularly true when the president continues to lie. On September 26 he said, “If you already have health care, you don’t have to do anything” to keep your plan. On November 3 he said, “What we said was you could keep [your plan] if it hasn’t been changed.” Who knew that dozens of flat declarative statements — “You can keep your plan. Period” — were trailed by a cloud of asterisks like so many invisible fireflies?

If Obamacare had been a shining success from Day One, do you think the Democrats would be in the mood to share the credit? Then why should Republicans be in more of a mood to share the blame?

Feel free to cross your fingers that reality will bend to the gravitational pull of Obama’s stellar ego, his invincible hubris. As for me, I’ll be sitting on the sidelines cheering on Nemesis, with joy in my heart.

...And a coach arrived at East Capitol Street and 1st Street NW this 30th Day of October in the Year of Our Lord, 2013

1. Grim Reaper

The Grim Reaper is Death with a capital D. He is perhaps the most recognized entity of all time, neither ghost nor god; the Grim Reaper is a psychopomp who’s job is to conduct the souls of the recently dead into the afterlife. He is often depicted as a tall pale skeletal figure shrouded in a long, dark, black hooded cloak wielding a scythe which he uses to harvest souls with, although some accounts say he just touches the person to pop their soul so they don’t feel pain when they die. When he moves, he seemingly glides rather than walking. The Grim Reaper is known for not saying much, always having a grin on his face, and of course being the main focus of attention in whatever room he is in. He is able to turn his head completely around a la Linda Blair so that he can survey his domain; The Reaper must be vigilant lest someone try to cheat him.

He rides in a rickety old coach drawn by white horses that makes a god awful noise due to the stones he carries in it. When he takes someone’s soul, he drops off a stone. The Grim Reaper is not an omnipresent personification of death in charge of the entire world, but rather each area has their own Grim Reaper who serves as the Grim Reaper of the area until such a time as they find a replacement. 

From The Urban Dictionary

Hat Tip:  Sondrakistan

-- 

Hope. Change. Fascism.

(Hat Tip: WeaselZippers)

Beware of Obama's "Navigators"

From Family Security Matters.

Obamacare ‘Navigators’: Another Sebelius Snitch Brigade?


U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius controls a $54 million slush fund to hire thousands of "navigators," "in-person assisters" and counselors who will propagandize and enroll Obamacare recipients in government-run health insurance exchanges. This nanny-state navigator corps is the Mother of all Community Organizing Boondoggles. It's also yet another Obama threat to Americans' privacy.

A reminder about Secretary Sebelius' sordid snooping history is in order here. In August 2009, HHS and the White House Office of Health Reform called on their ground troops to report on fellow citizens who dared to criticize their federal health care takeover. Team Obama issued an all-points bulletin on the taxpayer-funded White House website soliciting informant emails. Remember?

"If you get an email or see something on the Web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov," the Obamacare overlords urged. The feds even singled out conservative Internet powerhouse Matt Drudge because he had featured a video compilation of Obama and other Democrats -- in their own words -- exposing the "public option" as a Trojan Horse for government-run health care and the elimination of private industry.

Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn protested at the time that "these actions taken by your White House staff raise the specter of a data collection program." The flagging operation was shut down, but a plethora of federal disclosure exemptions protect the Obama administration from revealing what was collected, who was targeted and what was done with the database information.

White House lapdogs dismissed the concerns of conservatives as paranoid delusions. Now, fast-forward three years. In light of the draconian IRS witch hunt against tea party groups and the Justice Department's plundering of journalists' phone records and email accounts, every tax-subsidized Obama "outreach" initiative warrants heightened scrutiny.

Obamacare navigators will have access to highly personal data from potential "customers" to assess their "needs." That means income levels, birthdates, addresses, eligibility for government assistance, Social Security numbers and sensitive medical information. They'll be targeting both individuals and small businesses. Anyone they can lay their grubby hands on. Who's getting the navigator grants and training? "Community groups" in 33 states that naturally include socialized medicine-supporting unions and Saul Alinsky-steeped activist outfits.

On Capitol Hill last week, a top Obamacare official told GOP lawmakers that navigators will not be required to undergo background checks. Criminal records are not automatically disqualifying -- and that includes identity theft. The federal rule-makers will require online training of a measly 20 hours. Health care regulations watchdog Betsy McCaughey adds that navigators "don't have to know math or insurance, but rules announced April 5 specify you have to match the race, ethnicity and language preferences of the neighborhood that will be targeted."

The Obamacare navigator corps smacks of ACORN redux, stocked with demographically tailored Democratic Party recruitment operatives, not objective, informed insurance experts.

Sebelius and her enforcers promise strict neutrality and clean conduct. The bureaucrats say there will be severe consequences for violating citizens' privacy or breaking any other laws. Pffft. The Office of Special Counsel determined that Secretary Sebelius herself violated the federal Hatch Act prohibition on exploiting her HHS leadership position for partisan activity last fall. She then tried to cover up her breach after the fact by classifying the event in which she electioneered for Obama as a "personal" appearance.

Consequences? What consequences?

Sebelius has zero credibility when it comes to reining in overzealous partisans. But she's darned good at unleashing them. During the White House pressure campaign for Obamacare, Sebelius goaded her "brothers and sisters" from the brass-knuckled SEIU. SEIU goon Dennis Rivera joined her on a White House conference call in which he lambasted tea party activists as the "radical fringe" of "right-wingers" whose protests amounted to "terrorist tactics."

Now, the SEIU is on the board of directors of Enroll America, the left-wing, Obamacare advocacy nonprofit for whom shakedown artist Sebelius has been soliciting funds.

Sebelius' corruptocracy runs deep. While she was governor of Kansas, an independent inspector general reported that her appointed health policy board had "applied pressure to alter an audit report, restricted access to legal advice and threatened to fire her for meeting independently with legislators," according to the Topeka Capital-Journal.

Team Sebelius was also embroiled in a ruthless vendetta and obstruction campaign against then-GOP Attorney General Phill Kline, who unearthed damning evidence that the Sebelius administration had shredded key documents related to felony charges against Sebelius' abortion racketeering friends at Planned Parenthood.

Sebelius notoriously threatened private companies and insurers who increased rates to cope with Obamacare coverage mandates. She bullied private companies to meet discriminatory and arbitrary disclosure demands. And she lashed out at newspapers that dared to report on the true costs of the Obamacare regulatory leviathan.

You can't trust sleazy Sebelius to navigate anything with her broken ethical compass. This is worse than the fox guarding the henhouse. She has unfettered authority and a bottomless budget to weaponize legions more foxes who will serve as Obamacare's eyes and ears on the ground. The snitch brigade lives.

The Last Line of Republican Resistance To Obamacare Disintegrates

Eight of them.  Yep, eight Republican governors have now bowed down and crumpled in front of the legislative and economic weight of Obamacare and what we have now seen is what was once a solid line of defense against Obamacare is now a bunch of sissy capitulators....Republican governors who simply have given away the last remnant of their autonomy to the dictate of the Federal government.

You know, the communist strategy in America to effectively break the will of the states to stand up to a centralized federal government by going around them with federal entitlements that would break each state financially has worked perfectly.  That part of the war is over.  Victory to the communists.

The 10th amendment may not be dead but it is on life support.

The story comes from Family Security Matters.

More GOP Governors Drink Medicaid Kool-Aid


New Jersey's Chris Christie has become the eighth Republican governor to agree to expand Medicaid coverage in his state under the provisions of the Affordable Care Act.

Is the last line of Republican resistance to "Obamacare" disintegrating?

In 2011, 26 states joined a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Obamacare provision that would have forced them to expand Medicaid coverage as a condition of continued participation in the federal program.

The Supreme Court ruled in their favor last year, negating the mandatory requirement, so it is now voluntary for states to expand Medicaid coverage.

The Congressional Budget Office still estimates that expanded Medicaid coverage, though now voluntary rather than mandated on states, will contribute about a third of the reduction in the number of uninsured Americans brought about by Obamacare by 2022.

So it was assumed, once expansion of Medicaid became voluntary, that this wa s a line Republican governors would not cross. Refusal of Republican governors to play ball could be a serious setback for Obamacare to advance and plant its institutional roots.

But one by one, Republican governors like Christie, and just before him Florida's Rick Scott, are playing ball.

Christie was graphically honest in describing the perverse dynamics going on.

"... I am no fan of the Affordable Care Act. ... I think it is wrong for New Jersey and I think it is wrong for America. ... However, it is now the law of the land and I will make all my judgments as governor based on what I believe is best for New Jersey."

By expanding the qualifying conditions for Medicaid, Obamacare opens the door, according to the Congressional Budget Office's latest estimate, to adding another 11 million people to the almost 68 million Americans already in the program.

The costs of those 68 million are paid for by a combination of state and federa l funds. However, as incentive to bring in the additional 11 million, the federal government is paying 100 percent of the costs for the first three years.

Christie and seven other Republican governors are agreeing to take the bait.

And Christie says, clear as a bell, that he is doing so even though he knows he is strengthening a program that is bad for his country.

Assume that Christie's assessment is correct. Multiply by 50, and we can have 50 states agreeing to take a bribe to strengthen and advance a program that will hurt the country.

A classic explanation for why free markets produce prosperity and socialism does not is that individuals benefit in government-run markets by taking from someone else. In free markets, individuals benefit as a result of serving others, making everyone better off.

Medicaid violates basic management principles.

One, there is no clear institutional responsibility. The program has grown t hrough funding from both state and the federal government. Anyone who has ever run an organization knows that absence of clear responsibility produces bad results.

Medicaid spending has grown from 0.5 percent of GDP in 1970 to 2.7 percent of GDP in 2010. According to Medicaid's chief actuary, "From program inception, the cost of Medicaid has generally increased at a significantly faster pace than the U.S. economy."

And there is no individual responsibility. Medicaid is a pure welfare program. Participants have 100 percent of their costs covered by the government. And once you have qualified, there is no time limit. There are no incentives to behave and spend efficiently.

The only direction of Medicaid is to spend more and more money less and less well.

Delivering health care to low-income Americans is a real challenge. But to keep America great, we need to behave intelligently as well as compassionately. If we are going to subsidize health car e for the poor, it should be through some kind of voucher to buy insurance -- not through welfare.

Meanwhile, the evil geniuses in Washington have devised a way to get even Republican governors to buy into a welfare program they know can only hurt our nation.

Obama Administration: We Can and Will Force Christians to Act Against Their Faith

One of the growing pains that Americans will feel as the Communist takeover of our country becomes more and more real is that our religious freedoms fall under attack - in every instance of Communist revolution on this planet over history, the religion, the faith of the people was put under assault.  Since faith in one's G_d conflicts with the demanded faith in one's Government, the Communist heathens see that "G_d" is the biggest threat to order and obedience.

Thus, the founders of Hobby Lobby find themselves one of the martyrs.  One could argue that the provisions in Obamacare that deal with abortion and contraception really didn't need to be included in the sweeping legislation.  But then again, if you think that, you really don't understand why Obamacare was formulated and pushed so hard.

Look at it this way...when Barack Hussein Obama and Eric Holder decided to take guns out of the hands of American citizens, they knew they could not pass a law or an executive order or repeal the 2nd amendment straight out...but if they devised "Fast and Furious" they could accomplish their aims via that "under the radar" maneuver.  So, when Barack Hussein Obama and the other Communist radicals decided to begin the destruction of Christianity in America, they knew they couldn't just blatantly restrict the worship of citizens with laws and orders....so the Obamacare wedge against religion was spawned.

The article comes from CNS News.

Obama Administration: We Can and Will Force Christians to Act Against Their Faith


(CNSNews.com) - In a legal argument formally presented in federal court in the case of Hobby Lobby v. Kathleen Sebelius, the Obama administration is claiming that the First Amendment—which expressly denies the government the authority to prohibit the “free exercise” of religion—nonetheless allows it to force Christians to directly violate their religious beliefs even on a matter that involves the life and death of innocent human beings.

Because federal judges—including Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor—have refused to grant an injunction protecting the owners of Hobby Lobby from being forced to act against their Christian faith, those owners will be subject to federal fines of up to $1.3 million per day starting Tuesday for refusing to include abortion-inducing drugs in their employee health plan.

The Obama administration is making a two-fold argument for why it can force Christians to act against their faith in complying with the regulation it has issued under the Obamacare law that requires virtually all health care plans to cover, without co-pay, sterilizations, contraceptives, and abortion-inducing drugs.

The first argument the administration makes against the owners of Hobby Lobby is that Americans lose their First Amendment right to freely exercise their religion when they form a corporation and engage in commerce. A person’s Christianity, the administration argues, cannot be carried out through activities he engages in through an incorporated business.

“Hobby Lobby is a for-profit, secular employer, and a secular entity by definition does not exercise religion,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Stuart Delery in a filing submitted in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma.

“Because Hobby Lobby is a secular employer, it is not entitled to the protections of the Free Exercise Clause or RFRA [the Religious Freedom Restoration Act],” Delery told the court on behalf of the administration. “This is because, although the First Amendment freedoms of speech and association are ‘right[s] enjoyed by religious and secular groups alike,’ the Free Exercise Clause ‘gives special solicitude to the rights of religious organizations.’”

In keeping with Delery’s argument, the Washington Post, as a corporation, can use its First Amendment-protected freedom of speech to write editorials in support of the Obama administration imposing its contraception mandate on businesses like Hobby Lobby. But the members of the family that created and owns Hobby Lobby, because they formed Hobby Lobby as a corporation, have no First Amendment freedom of religion that protects them from being forced by the government to act against their religious beliefs in providing abortion-inducing drugs.

The second argument the administration makes to justify forcing Christians to act against their faith is more sweeping. Here the administration argues it can force a person to act against his religion so long as the coercion is done under the authority of a law that is neutral and generally applicable—in other words, as long as the law was not written specifically to persecute Christians as Christians, the government can use that law to persecute Christians.

Hobby Lobby is a family business. David Green created it in his garage in Oklahoma City in 1972. He and his wife, Barbara, and their three children—Steve, Mart and Darsee Green Lett-- have grown the business to where it now operates 500 stores in 41 states. David Green is Hobby Lobby’s CEO; Steve Green is its president; Mart Green is vice CEO; and Darsee Lett is vice president. Mart Green is also CEO of the privately owned Mardel chain of Christian bookstores, which operates 35 stores in 7 states. Through Hobby Lobby, the Greens have created more than 13,000 jobs. Mardel has created 372 jobs.

The Greens, who are Evangelical Christians, do not suspend their religious beliefs while running their businesses. Instead, they strive to run them fully in accordance with their Christian beliefs. They are unanimous in stating that they have always “sought to run Hobby Lobby in harmony with God’s laws and in a manner which brings glory to God.” They do not have two sets of morals—one for when they are at church or at home and another for when they are working on their businesses. They have only one set of morals—that they strive to follow at work or any other activity. For example, they close their business on Sundays, so their employees can spend that day with their families, and they pay their full-time workers a minimum hourly wage of $13, which is far exceeds the federal minimum wage.

They also provide their employees with a generous self-insured health care plan, and they even operate an on-site, cost-free health clinic at their corporate headquarters. But, guided by their Christian faith, the Greens believe that human life begins at conception and that aborting on unborn life is wrong. In keeping with this, they do not cover in their employee health plan abortions, abortion-inducing drugs or IUDs that prevent implantation of an embryo.

Unlike Catholics, the Greens do not believe that contraception and sterilization are morally wrong.

In September, the Greens, Hobby Lobby and Mardel bookstores sued Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and the departments of Health Human Service, Labor and Treasury. Their complaint said that the Obamacare contraception mandate violates their First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion because supporting abortion or counseling for abortion is contrary to their religious faith.

As the mandate now stands, the Greens must begin complying with it on Jan. 1. On Nov. 11, U.S. District Judge Joe Heaton refused to grant a preliminary injunction to stop the mandate from being enforced on the Greens while the court decided their case on its merits. In his ruling on the injunction, Judge Heaton determined that the Greens were not likely to establish they had a right to “free exercise” of religion while operating Hobby Lobby.

‘[T]he court concludes plaintiffs have not established a likelihood of success as to their constitutional claims,” said Judge Heaton. “The corporations lack free exercise rights subject to being violated and, as the challenged statutes/regulations are neutral and of general applicability as contemplated by the constitutional standard, plaintiffs are unlikely to successfully establish a constitutional violation in any event.”

The Greens appealed their request for an injunction to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. A panel of two appeals court judges refused their plea. They then appealed to Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who sits over that circuit, and she declined to reverse the lower courts and issue an injunction.

When Sotomayor ruled against a preliminary injunction on Thursday, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing the Greens, issued a statement indicating that the Greens would not start complying with the mandate on Tuesday and that they would continue to pursue their case in federal court.

“Hobby Lobby will continue their appeal before the Tenth Circuit,” said Becket Fund General Counsel Kyle Duncan. “The Supreme Court merely decided not to get involved in the case at this time. It left open the possibility of review after their appeal is completed in the Tenth Circuit. The company will continue to provide health insurance to all qualified employees. To remain true to their faith, it is not their intention, as a company, to pay for abortion-inducing drugs.”

As the nation approaches the much publicized fiscal cliff, it also approaches a moral cliff: Will the Obama administration compel Christians to act against their faith? As of now, the answer seems plain: Starting Tuesday, it will.

Russia Cites Obamacare As a Human Rights Violation On the American People

How bad can it get when the American people have to rely on Vladamir Putin to look out for our rights and well being?   LOL

The Russians have cited several items that they view as human rights violations by the United States with a couple being expected ones like predator drone strikes and the NDAA but the last one they site...that of Obamacare is hilarious.  We Americans have been screaming for two years that Obamacare violates the U.S. Constitution in requiring that we purchase a product - everyone knows it is unConstitutional and that includes Justice Roberts, but for a bunch of commies in Russia to understand it and push it back in our faces is beyond belief.

What a Presidency we have plagued America with, huh?

The story comes from CNS News.

Russian Report Cites Obamacare, Drone Strikes and ‘Xenophobia’ as U.S. Human Rights Violations


(CNSNews.com) - Russia claims that Obamacare, the National Defense Authorization Act and CIA drone strikes are all examples of human rights violations being committed by the United States.

In its now-annual report on human rights in the U.S., the Russian government of Vladimir Putin lists a host of alleged violations, including the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, of which the report says: “Human rights organizations considered this Act to be a violation of human rights and freedoms as it obliged the citizens to buy insurance policy.”

The “report,” which is based on U.S. government reports, activist group publications and news stories widely available to the U.S. public, claims that 50 million Americans, or 16.3 percent of the population, do not have health insurance.

Citing the liberal Institute for Democracy and Cooperation, it notes that the current U.S. healthcare system involves “insurance companies, banks, pharmaceutical companies, research centers, and healthcare institutions.” It adds that in the “majority of cases” ordinary Americans “are on the losing side.”

The Russian government also cited elements of the defense authorization bill, which passed the House of Representatives on May 18, on a 299-120 vote.

“The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 legalized officially the authority of the executive power to arrest people indefinitely and without trial,” the former Soviet Union noted.

The Russian report noted that the indefinite detention provision of that bill received opposition from groups ranging from the ACLU to the Bill of Rights Defense Committee.

Drone strikes on targets in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen also made the list of alleged U.S. human rights violations.

“Apart from operating on the battlefield, the CIA is actively pursuing a secret unmanned aerial vehicle program for ‘targeted’ elimination of terrorists abroad,” according to the report, noting that over eight years beginning in 2004 the CIA launched 327 air strikes in the country south of Afghanistan.

The death toll from drone strikes in Pakistan range from 2,500 to 3,200, the report claims, placing the number of “peaceful Pakistanis” killed in the range from 482 to 852, including 175 children.

According to the Russians, racism and islamophobia are also on the rise in the U.S.

The report cites “American law enforcement authorities” who it said “register progressive increase in the number of extremist groups, significant number of crimes committed on the grounds of racial, religious and ethnic enmity.”

“Sociologists believe that 15-20 percent of the USA population belong to rabid xenophobes,” according to the Russians. “Approximately so many Americans suppose that it is necessary to prohibit the followers of Islam from working in the government,” it added.

The report even quoted the Southern Poverty Law Center as stating that there are “over one thousand extremist groups” -- a list which includes groups that oppose homosexual activism and same-sex marriage.

The report also restates allegations made in previous reports, including alleged abuses at what it calls CIA “black site” prisons.

In addition, it chides the U.S. for -- among other things -- police brutality, the conditions of U.S. prison systems, capital punishment, voting rights, immigration policy and Arizona’s controversial 2010 immigration law.

The Russian report also called lobbying “a legalized form of corruption that undermines the U.S. ability to confront various economic, social and political challenges.”

Death Panels are HERE

By Findalis

The Grouch at Right Truth is a practicing Emergency Room Doctor.  He is a man who doesn't give into hysterics, conspiracies, and tin foil craziness.  So when he speaks out against Obamacare I listen to him.  And you should too.  Having said that, I received this from his lovely wife Debbie of The Right Truth with a plea to pass it along.  That I am doing.

Death Panels are HERE

Today while working my shift in the emergency room, an old lady was brought in very sick and in fact near death. I did my usual workup and evaluation and attempted to administer life saving treatment. It was my plan to admit this woman to the hospital. I found out a little later that this same woman had been a patient here just slightly more than 2 weeks ago with a DIFFERENT DIAGNOSIS. I was told that if this woman was admitted, the hospital would not be paid.

The new Medicare rule now is that if the same Medicare patient is re-admitted to the hospital within 30 days, the hospital will not be paid. When they first started this nonsense they said this only applied to patients with the same diagnosis. Now they have "expanded" the rule to include re-admissions for any reason. So if you're in the hospital for pneumonia, and 3 weeks later, you break your leg.......too bad. Medicare will not pay the hospital to fix your leg.

A little later a man was brought in by ambulance, very sick, in pain, and near death. I did my usual evaluation and treatment, doing my best to ease pain and stabilize this man's illness. He needed to be admitted. To my chagrin I found out that he had been treated for the SAME problem at a DIFFERENT HOSPITAL about 10 days prior. If I admitted this man, our hospital would be paid nothing. I admitted the man.

My friends I am caught in a terrible position. I could have given treatment to both of these people and sent them out. There is no doubt that both of them would have died. Oh, I could also be sued for malpractice, but nobody cares about that. That's why we have insurance, right?

My other choice is to admit the person, knowing full well that the hospital will have to absorb the cost of care without hope of remuneration.

This is the climate we as healthcare providers find ourselves in today. How many small and struggling hospitals will survive under such ludicrous payment schemes? Indeed many facilities will close their doors. Many doctors will retire early or simply go do something else. As more and more are added to the Obamacare rolls, there will be less and less access. People will get sicker and yes, people will die because of it.

I had a sick and sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach today after both of these incidents. We have a good hospital. Our nurses, technicians, and support staff work very hard and they deserve to be paid for their efforts. I am not so worried about myself as I am near retirement, but I worry for all the younger folks in the healthcare business and I worry about our seniors who are in the long run going to be sacrificed as the government implements cost cutting shenanigans to cover up their broken promise made way back in 1964.

Folks, this is a nightmare!

Remember when Nancy Pelosi said that we had to pass the bill to know what was in the bill?  We now know what is in the bill.  AND WE DON'T LIKE IT!

If you will, please pass this along.  Either through Facebook, Twitter and/or on your own blog.  And remember to vote on Nov. 6th to remove the problem that caused this disaster:  President Barack Hussein Obama.

FOR OUR COUNTRY

By Findalis
Monkey in the Middle


Stolen From Texas Fred

Sent to Texas Fred (One of the finest patriots I have the pleasure to know.) this scared me.  It should scare you into action.  Feel free to pass it on.

***********************************************************************************
From: John Porter
To: Americans everywhere

I was sitting at my keyboard halfway through my writing a letter to you about how Barack Obama was fulfilling his pledge to “Transform America” by “Changing the fundamentals of America”, so that our government would become the plantation, he the owner, and we the slaves, when this article by Steve McCann appeared in my in box. After checking it for accuracy, and finding it so, I put my writing on hold and here present it to you, for I could not say it better.

…Is it already too late?

Obama’s Second Term Transformation Plans

The 2012 election has often been described as the most pivotal since 1860. This statement is not hyperbole. If Barack Obama is re-elected the United States will never be the same, nor will it be able to re-capture its once lofty status as the most dominant nation in the history of mankind.

The overwhelming majority of Americans do not understand that Obama’s first term was dedicated to putting in place executive power to enable him and the administration to fulfill the campaign promise of “transforming America ” in his second term regardless of which political party controls Congress. That is why his re-election team is virtually ignoring the plight of incumbent or prospective Democratic Party office holders.

The most significant accomplishment of Obama’s first term is to make Congress irrelevant. Under the myopic and blindly loyal leadership of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, the Democrats have succeeded in creating an imperial and, in a second term, a potential dictatorial presidency.

During the first two years of the Obama administration when the Democrats overwhelmingly controlled both Houses of Congress and the media was in an Obama-worshiping stupor, a myriad of laws were passed and actions taken which transferred virtually unlimited power to the executive branch.

The birth of multi-thousand page laws was not an aberration. This tactic was adopted so the bureaucracy controlled by Obama appointees would have sole discretion in interpreting vaguely written laws and enforcing thousands of pages of regulations they and not Congress would subsequently write.

For example, in the 2,700 pages of ObamaCare there are more than 2,500 references to the Secretary of Health and Human Services. There are more than 700 instances when he or she is instructed that they “shall” do something and more than 200 times when they “may” take at their sole discretion some form of regulatory action. On 139 occasions, the law mentions that the “Secretary determines.” In essence one person, appointed by and reporting to the president, will be in charge of the health care of 310 million Americans once ObamaCare is fully operational in 2014.

The same is true in the 2,319 pages of the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act which confers nearly unlimited power on various agencies to control by fiat the nation’s financial, banking and investment sectors. The bill also creates new agencies, such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, not subject to any oversight by Congress. This overall process was repeated numerous times with other legislation all with the intent of granting unfettered power to the executive branch controlled Barack Obama and his radical associates.

Additionally, the Obama administration has, through its unilaterally determined rule making and regulatory powers, created laws out of whole cloth. The Environmental Protection Agency on a near daily basis issues new regulations clearly out of their purview in order to modify and change environmental laws previously passed and to impose a radical green agenda never approved by Congress. The same is true of the Energy and Interior Departments among many others.

None of these extra-constitutional actions have been challenged by Congress. The left in America knows this usurpation of power is nearly impossible to reverse unless stopped in its early stages.

It is clearly the mindset of this administration and its appointees that Congress is merely a nuisance and can be ignored after they were able to take full advantage of the useful idiots in the Democrat controlled House and Senate in 2009-2010 and the Democrat Senate in the current Congress.

Additionally, Barack Obama knows after his re-election a Republican controlled House and Senate will not be able to enact any legislation to roll back the power previously granted to the Executive Branch or usurped by them. His veto will not be overridden as there will always be at least 145 Democratic members of the House or 34 in the Senate in agreement with or intimidated by an administration more than willing to use Chicago- style political tactics.

The stalemate between the Executive and Legislative Branches will inure to the benefit of Barack Obama and his fellow leftists.

The most significant power Congress has is the control of the purse-strings as all spending must be approved by them. However, once re-elected, Barack Obama, as confirmed by his willingness to do or say anything and his unscrupulous re-election tactics, would not only threaten government shutdowns but would deliberately withhold payments to those dependent on government support as a means of intimidating and forcing a Republican controlled Congress to surrender to his demands, thus neutering their ability to control the administration through spending constraints.

Further, this administration has shown contempt for the courts by ignoring various court orders, e.g., the Gulf of Mexico oil drilling moratorium, as well as stonewalling subpoenas and requests issued by Congress. The Eric Holder Justice Department (DoJ) has become the epitome of corruption as part of the most dishonest and deceitful administration in American history. In a second term the arrogance of Barack Obama and his minions will become more blatant as he will not have to be concerned with re-election.

Who will be there to enforce the rule of law, a Supreme Court ruling or the Constitution? No one. Barack Obama and his fellow-travelers will be unchallenged as they run roughshod over the American people.

Many Republicans and conservatives dissatisfied with the prospect of Mitt Romney as the nominee for president are instead focused on re-taking the House and Senate. That goal, while worthy and necessary, is meaningless unless Barack Obama is defeated. The nation is not dealing with a person of character and integrity but someone of single-minded purpose and overwhelming narcissism. Judging by his actions, words and deeds during his first term, he does not intend to work with Congress either Republican or Democrat in his second term, but rather to force his radical agenda on the American people through the power he has usurped or been granted.

The governmental structure of the United States was set up by the Founders in the hope that over the years only those people of high moral character and integrity would assume the reins of power. However, knowing that was not always possible, they dispersed power over three distinct and independent branches as a check on each other.

What they could not imagine is the surrender and abdication of its constitutional duty by the preeminent governmental branch, the Congress, to a chief executive devoid of any character or integrity coupled with a judiciary essentially powerless to enforce the law when the chief executive ignores them.

Conservatives, Libertarians, the Republican Party and Mitt Romney must come to grips with this moment in time and their historical role in denying Barack Obama and his minions their ultimate goal. All resources must be directed at that end-game and not merely controlling Congress and the various committee chairmanships

*************************************************************************************

This election is too important to ignore, to be complacent, to "forget" to vote.  We need everyone to go out to the polls.  If you know of a person who needs a ride to the polls, give it to him or her.

Feel free to "Steal" this from me.  Pass this warning along.

Oklahoma State Rep. Proposes Bill of Nullification That Would Put Any Federal Official Forcing Obamacare On Oklahomans In Prison

The 10th amendment and state sovereignty are alive and well ...at least in the heart and mind of Oklahoma state representative Mike Ritze.  Ritze has proposed a bill in the Oklahoma legislature that not only just nullifies Obamacare in the state of Oklahoma but makes it a felony for any Federal official to enforce the healthcare law on Oklahoma residents.

Mike Ritze, thank you.  Thank you for being one of the few with the balls to stand up to the Feds.

The tree of liberty does need some watering.

The story comes from Family Security Matters.

How to Nullify ObamaCare if You’ve Got the Guts


State Representative Mike Ritze from Oklahoma will be proposing a bill that nullifies ObamaCare. No, nullification isn't when all the white conservatives demand that we bring back black slavery to the states. Nullification happens when the states tell the Feds, "Don't you forget that we created you, and that we're sovereign to you. We're not going to abide by your unconstitutional laws, and if you try to force them on us, you'll find your agents in jail."

Ritze's bill isn't just one of those non-binding resolutions that merely states that Obama's healthcare mandate is unconstitutional. Those resolutions do nothing but make politicians feel better about themselves. It gives them something to point to when people ask them what they are doing to counteract Obama's tyranny. "Well, I voted for some non-binding resolution saying that ObamaCare was unconstitutional. Doesn't that count for something?" they might ask. Well, no, not really. Resolutions don't do anything. In fact, they can make things worse because politicians think that at least it's doing something, and after they've voted for the resolution, they think, "Well, at least we tried." Resolutions in effect say, "Hey, Feds. We don't really agree with what you're doing, but I guess we'll accept it if we have to. Thanks, bye." Yeah, I'm sure the Feds shake in their boots when they get non-binding state resolutions voicing their opinions. If only people put as much stock in Supreme Court decisions as they do in empty resolutions. How about something with teeth?

Ritze doesn't just call ObamaCare unconstitutional; his bill will criminalize any U.S. government agent who tries to enforce Obama's brand of healthcare socialism in the state of Oklahoma:

"Any official, agent, or employee of the United States government or any employee of a corporation providing services to the United States government that enforces or attempts to enforce an act, order, law, statute, rule or regulation of the government of the United States in violation of this act shall be guilty of a felony and upon conviction must be punished by a fine not exceeding Five Thousand Dollars ($5,000.00), or a term of imprisonment not exceeding five (5) years, or both.

Any public officer or employee of the State of Oklahoma that enforces or attempts to enforce an act, order, law, statute, rule, or regulation of the government of the United States in violation of this act shall be guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding two (2) years, or by a fine not exceeding One Thousand Dollars ($1,000.00), or both such fine and imprisonment."

A Republic, If You Can Keep It

From Family Security Matters.

A Republic, If You Can Keep It
by TOM MCLAUGHLIN
July 9, 2012



So it's a tax law, huh? If it were a law forcing people to buy health insurance or pay a penalty, it wouldn't be constitutional, but if it's a tax law, it is constitutional. But Obamacare didn't pass as a tax bill. Democrats in Congress who passed it (not a single Republican voted for it) insisted it wasn't a tax bill. It was signed by a Democrat president who insisted it wasn't a tax bill. It never would have passed if it were a tax bill, so they didn't call it that. Rather, they called it "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act," though few call it that anymore. Everyone calls it Obamacare.

So the Roberts Court should have declared it unconstitutional and sent it back to the Congress, right? But they didn't do that. Instead, Roberts re-wrote Obamacare as a tax law and declared it constitutional! He did this with the four liberal justices who just wanted to move it along no matter how that was achieved. Even Justice Flipflopper - I mean Kennedy - was flabbergasted. Talk about legislating from the bench! Even my middle-school civics students knew it's the Congress that writes laws, not the Supreme Court.

And now government can tax us for what we don't do? How is that possible? To tax our income, they had to pass the 16th Amendment back in 1913. Why isn't the amendment process required this time?

Two more problems: the Constitution requires that tax bills originate in the House of Representatives, and it doesn't give the Supreme Court power to write law or re-write law. Obamacare originated in the Senate, then was re-written in the Supreme Court.

Article I empowers a legislative branch to write law. Article II empowers an executive branch to carry out the legislation. Article III empowers a judicial branch to ensure the Constitution is adhered to. Roberts overstepped. He's not empowered to rewrite legislation. So, is the United States a constitutional republic or isn't it? Are we governed under the rule of law or aren't we?

There are reports from both left and right that Roberts switched his vote at the last because he was worried about what media and Democrat criticism would do to the image of his court and to his legacy. If those reports are true, we're screwed. We have a chief justice whose decisions are not based on the Constitution. For as long as he is the fifth vote on vital constitutional issues, we will not be a constitutional republic. If government can do this, is there anything they cannot do?

Shrewd Democrats structured this penalty bill, I mean tax bill, I mean "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" so as to give people benefits first and penalties/taxes years later - so that makes it difficult to repeal. When has government ever taken away an entitlement? I cannot point to a single instance in our history, and I can see what's happening in Europe when "austerity" measures are proposed which would cut entitlements there। No wonder politicians fear this, but that doesn't stop them from promising more and more entitlements like Obamacare which they know we cannot afford to deliver for very long before we go bankrupt. Stockton, California just went belly-up and it looks like the whole state will soon follow. Then other states. Then . . . who knows?

It may be that in the wake of what Roberts did, the Tea Party will reinvigorate voters and elect a Republican Senate, a Republican president, and retain a Republican House. If all that happens, they may introduce a repeal. It's a long shot that it'll go all the way through the process though. It's more likely that government takeover of health care will continue.

And what would that look like? I have a pretty good idea. A few years ago, I was stopped every morning for ten days by a woman with one of those turn-around, stop/slow signs on Route 5 here in Lovell. I'd wait in a line of cars until she turned the sign. Then I'd proceed slowly past several orange, state trucks and a dozen or so men standing around talking while one of them occasionally operated a machine that was cleaning out the drainage ditch beside the highway. During two of those days, I watched a small, private, local business paving a driveway while I waited. It was a frenzy of activity as a few of my former students laid, graded, and packed a gravel base the first day - then put down a layer of pavement the second day. It looked great and it still does. The state government crew took almost two weeks on a job that should have taken a day - with half the "workers" and equipment.What's going to happen to our small, private hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, etc. when the federal government takes them over? You already know, don't you? Longer delays, increased costs, and poorer service. "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act"? Talk about a misnomer.

Emerging from the Constitutional Convention back in 1787, Benjamin Franklin was asked what sort of government the Founding Fathers created. His reply was: "A republic, if you can keep it."

The New and Higher Taxes For America's Middle Class....Thanks To Obama and Obamacare

How many of those guilt-ridden white folks who ran to their neighbors house in 2008 to proudly proclaim that they had voted for a black man are now willing to admit that actually, they ended up voting for a liar and a devout Marxist?   How many of the so-called independents in this country will admit that they once again through the country down a rabbit hole due to their affection for "Pro Choice" in 2008?  How many good old staunch conservatives who figured they would stay home in 2008 and teach the damn Republicans a lesson are now emptying their kids' piggy banks?

The bad news comes from Family Security Matters.

Obamacare: 21 New or Higher Taxes


1. Individual Mandate Excise Tax(Jan 2014): Starting in 2014, anyone not buying "qualifying" health insurance must pay an income surtax according to the higher of the following

1 Adult 2 Adults 3+ Adults
2014 1% AGI/$95 1% AGI/$190 1% AGI/$285
2015 2% AGI/$325 2% AGI/$650 2% AGI/$975
2016 + 2.5% AGI/$695 2.5% AGI/$1390 2.5% AGI/$2085

Exemptions for religious objectors, undocumented immigrants, prisoners, those earning less than the poverty line, members of Indian tribes, and hardship cases (determined by HHS)


2. Employer Mandate Tax(Jan 2014): If an employer does not offer health coverage, and at least one employee qualifies for a health tax credit, the employer must pay an additional non-deductible tax of $2000 for all full-time employees. This provision applies to all employers with 50 or more employees. If any employee actually receives coverage through the exchange, the penalty on the employer for that employee rises to $3000. If the employer requires a waiting period to enroll in coverage of 30-60 days, there is a $400 tax per employee ($600 if the period is 60 days or longer). Combined score of individual and employer mandate tax penalty: $65 billion/10 years


3. Surtax on Investment Income ($123 billion/Jan. 2013): This increase involves the creation of a new, 3.8 percent surtax on investment income earned in households making at least $250,000 ($200,000 single). This would result in the following top tax rates on investment income

Capital Gains Dividends Other*
2010-2012 15% 15% 35%
2013+ (current law) 23.8% 43.4% 43.4%
2013+ (Obama budget) 23.8% 23.8% 43.4%

*Other unearned income includes (for surtax purposes) gross income from interest, annuities, royalties, net rents, and passive income in partnerships and Subchapter-S corporations. It does not include municipal bond interest or life insurance proceeds, since those do not add to gross income. It does not include active trade or business income, fair market value sales of ownership in pass-through entities, or distributions from retirement plans. The 3.8% surtax does not apply to non-resident aliens.

4. Excise Tax on Comprehensive Health Insurance Plans($32 bil/Jan 2018): Starting in 2018, new 40 percent excise tax on "Cadillac" health insurance plans ($10,200 single/$27,500 family). For early retirees and high-risk professions exists a higher threshold ($11,500 single/$29,450 family). CPI +1 percentage point indexed.


5. Hike in Medicare Payroll Tax($86.8 bil/Jan 2013)


6. Medicine Cabinet Tax($5 bil/Jan 2011): Americans no longer able to use health savings account (HSA), flexible spending account (FSA), or health reimbursement (HRA) pre-tax dollars to purchase non-prescription, over-the-counter medicines (except insulin)


7. HSA Withdrawal Tax Hike($1.4 bil/Jan 2011): Increases additional tax on non-medical early withdrawals from an HSA from 10 to 20 percent, disadvantaging them relative to IRAs and other tax-advantaged accounts, which remain at 10 percent.


8. Flexible Spending Account Cap - aka"Special Needs Kids Tax"($13 bil/Jan 2013): Imposes cap of $2500 (Indexed to inflation after 2013) on FSAs (now unlimited). There is one group of FSA owners for whom this new cap will be particularly cruel and onerous: parents of special needs children. There are thousands of families with special needs children in the United States, and many of them use FSAs to pay for special needs education. Tuition rates at one leading school that teaches special needs children in Washington, D.C. (National Child Research Center) can easily exceed $14,000 per year. Under tax rules, FSA dollars can be used to pay for this type of special needs education.


9. Tax on Medical Device Manufacturers($20 bil/Jan 2013): Medical device manufacturers employ 360,000 people in 6000 plants across the country. This law imposes a new 2.3% excise tax. Exemptions include items retailing for less than $100.


10. Raise "Haircut" for Medical Itemized Deduction from 7.5% to 10% of AGI($15.2 bil/Jan 2013): Currently, those facing high medical expenses are allowed a deduction for medical expenses to the extent that those expenses exceed 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI). The new provision imposes a threshold of 10 percent of AGI; it is waived for 65+ taxpayers in 2013-2016 only.


11. Tax on Indoor Tanning Services($2.7 billion/July 1, 2010): New 10 percent excise tax on Americans using indoor tanning salons


12. Elimination of tax deduction for employer-provided retirement Rx drug coverage in coordination with Medicare Part D($4.5 bil/Jan 2013)


13. Blue Cross/Blue Shield Tax Hike($0.4 bil/Jan 2010): The special tax deduction in current law for Blue Cross/Blue Shield companies would only be allowed if 85 percent or more of premium revenues are spent on clinical services


14. Excise Tax on Charitable Hospitals(Min$/immediate): $50,000 per hospital if they fail to meet new "community health assessment needs," "financial assistance," and "billing and collection" rules set by HHS


15. Tax on Innovator Drug Companies($22.2 bil/Jan 2010): $2.3 billion annual tax on the industry imposed relative to share of sales made that year.


16. Tax on Health Insurers($60.1 bil/Jan 2014): Annual tax on the industry imposed relative to health insurance premiums collected that year. The stipulation phases in gradually until 2018, and is fully-imposed on firms with $50 million in profits.