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News, Politics

obamacare premiums

Republicans aren’t letting the Obama administration get away with the decision to delay next year’s open enrollment season under ObamaCare until after the 2014 midterm elections. Lawmakers accused the Obama administration of attempting to hide increases in ObamaCare premiums and rate shock until after the 2014 midterm elections.

As reported by People’s Pundit Daily, the administration announced Friday it would allow consumers to start signing up for coverage under ObamaCare on November 15, 2014, which is conveniently after the midterm elections and 1 month later than originally scheduled. The unilateral policy change will not affect those who must register this year.

Congressional Republicans called out the administration for changing the dates due to political motives, or to hide an inevitable spike in 2015 premiums. It is unclear whether this tactic will work, because information will most likely be available for 2015 premiums already before the midterm elections on November 4, 2014.

“That means that if premiums go through the roof in the first year of ObamaCare, no one will know about it until after the election,” Senator Chuck Grassley R-IA said in a statement. “This is clearly a cynical political move by the Obama administration to use extra-regulatory, by any means necessary tools to keep this program afloat and hide key information from voters.”

Grassley was echoed by Senator Lamar Alexander R-TN, who accused the White House of moving next year’s open enrollment date as a last minute effort to protect embattled Democrats up for reelection next year (View Interactive PPD 2014 Senate Map).

“The only American consumers this change will help are Democratic politicians who voted for Obamacare, because it delays disclosure of some of the law’s most insidious effects until after the election,” Senator Alexander said in a statement.

Senator Alexander also said that he intends to introduce a bill that would require insurers to provide Americans with “proper notice” of premium increases before open enrollment period on the exchanges begins. The requirement would bring the information that the administration hopes to conceal before the election, just as the administration did in 2012.

The administration claims that the change is to allow insurers more time to prepare and submit premiums.

“This change is good news for consumers, who will have more time to learn about plans before enrolling and an open enrollment period that’s a week longer,” said a Health and Human Service Department official.

This year, 17 states and Washington, D.C., posted the data publicly ahead of the administration. “We’ll definitely start seeing some premiums earlier from state insurance departments,” said Larry Levitt of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.

However, the Democrats could skirt political consequence if the website fails again during the next open enrollment season, because that second act would not take place until after the 2014 midterm election votes are counted.

Separately, the administration also announced a small schedule change in this year’s open enrollment season, pushing that deadline to December 23. The administration has plainly refused calls from both Republicans and Democrats to delay or extend the current enrollment period beyond March 31, 2014.

Republicans aren't letting the Obama administration get

Opinion

Normally I wouldn’t even bother to respond to arguments such as this, but Sally Kohn truly gives us a glimpse into the alternate reality liberals live in.

Here we’re on the precipice of the worst liberal policy-induced disaster since the financial crisis, if not the worst since the Progressive Movement was hijacked by statists, and Sally Kohn is writing an obituary for the Republican Party. Obviously, Sally Kohn doesn’t get out of the elite, liberal city bubble much these days.

Even if the historic failure that is ObamaCare wasn’t presently threatening to destroy the Democratic Party for a generation or more, her argument relies on supportive material just about as solid as the two false assumptions of liberalism (or, progressivism or whatever they choose to call statism these days), which is 1) that centralized government is efficient enough to be used as a force for good, and 2) those in government who espouse such endeavors honestly give a crap, and aren’t using a myriad of false crusades to achieve their own despotic ends.

Nevertheless, even if we grant that to Sally Kohn and other out-of-touch liberal pundits, rather than offering up wishful arguments that interpret data and anecdotal happenings through the prism of her alternate reality, she would instead still have to back up her argument with actual facts.

Unfortunately, this is something Sally Kohn is incapable of doing, and because the examples are so vast we must discredit them one-by-one. For reference, the thesis of her argument holds “voter rejection of a late-term abortion ban in New Mexico, a reliably purple state, spells trouble for the GOP,” and “the Republican Party cannot avoid its rapid death spiral into political irrelevance.”

Alternative Reality Quote #1: “The latest case in point comes from Albuquerque, New Mexico. There, in a purple city in a reliably purple state, voters struck down a municipal ballot seeking to ban all abortions in the city after 20 weeks.”

Reality: None of the words in this statement are remotely true. First, Albuquerque is not even close to what political scientists would consider a “purple city” and New Mexico is not “a reliably purple state.” Albuquerque is located smack dab in the center of the New Mexico Technology Corridor, a collection of high-tech companies and government institutions along the Rio Grande, most of which are wholly dependent on the federal government.

Even when New Mexico was a red state (like 10 years ago), demographic shifts in New Mexico cities such as Albuquerque ensured the state skipped purple on its way to becoming reliably blue. According to the 2010 Census, 46.7 percent of the city’s population were liberal-voting Hispanics. Voter registration in Albuquerque — as of September, 2013 — shows Democrats outnumber Republicans 179,925 (or, 49.38 percent) to 136,201 (or, 37.38 percent).

As far as the politics of abortion, as Sally Kohn knows full well, “Albuquerque is the late-term abortion capital of the world.” Yet with all of these variables working in their political favor, abortion extremists were only victorious by a vote of 55 percent to 45 percent. Looks like Ms. Sally Kohn neglected the stubborn fact that, in reality, they lost some of their Democratic base, and nationwide the gap between reality and her alternate reality widens further.

I have offered extensive analysis on the politics of abortion on PPD, but to briefly recap, it is Sally Kohn and her friends in the abortion industry that are out-of-touch with mainstream America.

Since 1995, when Gallup measured a 23 percent advantage for the pro-choice designation, support for abortion has steadily ceded ground to the pro-life designation. The reason for the shift is simple and two-fold.

First, most Americans have realized that abortionists like Sally Kohn are full of it, and pro-abortion groups are protecting abortion industry profits, not a women’s right to choose. Americans do not support the killing of babies on demand, with no restrictions tagged to stage of development.

Second, the shift among younger Americans has been the most prominent, with even libertarian-leaning millennials opposing the act of crushing a 5 or 6 month-old baby’s head or throwing it in a jar of solution to drown.

But don’t take it from a right-wing extremist such as myself, as no doubt Sally Kohn would falsely label me, just ask knowledgable folks on the left.

William Saletan, who writes for the liberal publication Salon, honestly asked and answered in his article during the Texas abortion ban debate: “Who has the upper hand? Pro-lifers do.” And Sally Kohn and her fellow abortion industry proponents can thank no demographic group more than women, who are even more likely to favor late-term abortion bans than men.

As Saletan intellectually surrendered, the gender gap favoring women was 4 percent in the latest National Journal poll, 6 percent in the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, and 7 percent in the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll. If and when you average these surveys, late-term abortion ban proposals enjoys a plurality of support among men, but an even greater majority support among women.

Just a quick note before moving on, her reference to the Virginia governor’s race was also inaccurate. In the month of May alone, Cuccinelli received only 4 stories with a positive angle, and 95 stories accentuating the negative, or a 24-to-1 ratio. On the editorial page, the anti-Cuccinelli slant consisted of 7 positive articles to 78 negative ones (if you want to read my May article on this it’s here).

The month of May just so happened to be the month Cuccinelli lost his 10-point lead, but despite the final Washington Post poll showing McAuliffe leading by 12 points, he barely eked out a win. If that Tuesday election took place on Thursday, because of the toxicity of ObamaCare and despite being outspent 10 to 1, Ken Cuccinelli would be governor-elect now.

Furthermore, though he made stupid social comments, Gov. Christie holds no different position on life and marriage, and he won big in deep blue New Jersey the same day.

Alternative Reality Quote #2: “And then there’s immigration. In addition to the fact that polls show a strong majority of *all* Americans support immigration reform, support is particularly high among Latinos—the fastest growing segment of the American population and, as seen in the 2012 election, an equally quickly growing powerhouse in American politics. For the first time ever, in the 2012 election, Latinos comprised 10 percent of voters and supported President Obama at such wide margins that this demographic shift is given credit for the President’s re-election.”

Reality: The idea that a large Hispanic vote who supported him in droves reelected Barack Obama in 2012 was false on Election Night when Sally Kohn and others said it, and it’s still false now.

While Hispanics did increase their raw vote numbers from 9.7 million in 2008 to 11.1 million in 2012, which is a net increase of 1.4 million voters, the real voter turnout rate among Hispanic registered voters actually decreased from 49.9 percent in 2008 to 48.0 percent in 2012. Hispanics increased their share of the electorate due to the 6 plus million white voters who stayed home.

In fact, the number of Hispanic voters who chose not to vote in the presidential election increased by 2.3 million to 12.1 million in 2012, up from 9.8 million in 2008. There is more evidence (turnout by age) to suggest that those missing Hispanic voters supported McCain in 2008 and Bush in 2004, than there is data to show they would have supported Obama.

If Sally Kohn wants to give a demographic credit for reelecting Barack Obama, then she should give it to black women. In 2012, blacks voted at a higher rate (66.2 percent) than non-Hispanic whites, who voted at a historically low 64.1 percent. This is the first time since the Census Bureau started publishing voting rates by the eligible citizenship population in 1996 that black voters have outvoted white voters.

Still, both blacks and whites had voting rates higher than Hispanics and Asians, which voted at a rate of about 48 percent each in 2012 (again, you can read full, correct analysis here).

Bottom Line: Sorry to break the news to Sally Kohn, but in an actual challenge of the minds, and this is even true of the academic world that is constructed to disproportionately benefit her, she’s rather simple. Truthfully, even in the company of non-bought and paid for Ivory Tower intellectuals, she’d be laughed out of the room.

I imagine we will see much more of this as ObamaCare continues to threaten the future of the Democratic Party. It is always difficult to tell whether or not the poser pundit is just being a good little hack for their party or cause, or if they are so far removed from reality that they really believe their own garbage.

As for Sally Kohn and Co., it is probably both. But if I had to pick one or the other, then I would probably say it is just the way she views the state of American politics through the prism of her liberal alternate reality.

Here we're on the precipice of the

US, Video

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Juan Williams “fasten your seat belt,” because Judge Napolitano is about to give you a basic lesson on U.S. legal history, politics, and the ideological origins of America. The real sad aspect to this video, however, is that the Judge even needs to tell Juan Williams “the federal government should stay within the confines of the Constitution.”

Even sadder, the American people and particularly constitutionalists, shouldn’t continue to let a man appear on their television every night who doesn’t understand why our Founding Fathers made it such that the “Constitution does not authorize the federal government to have anything whatsoever to do with healthcare.” He should be booed and objected toward to the point that Roger Ailes is forced to rethink renewing the contract of one Juan Williams.

All jokes aside, healthcare for all as “a right not a privilege,” sounds all well and good to many Americans, though according to Gallup no where near a majority — but, pundits like Juan Williams who could not even give you the intellectual, foundational answer to why the federal government should not be involved with healthcare, because it is unconstitutional despite cowardly Chief Justice Roberts switching his vote at the last minute, shouldn’t even be on television, let alone a “Special Report” panel pundit.

Federal programs such as ObamaCare not only undermine liberty, but our entire confederation of states, known as federalism. Napolitano put plainly the dynamic Thomas Jefferson envisioned when he described the states as conducting “experiments” in a “laboratory” in order to find what works for individuals in their individual states:

“So, if you want mandatory healthcare, go live in Massachusetts. If you want the free market and you want individual savings accounts, financial money savings accounts, go live in Texas. As Uncle Ronnie used to say, you can vote with your feet. When the government attempts to do what only the free market can do, when the government says everybody has got to drive a Mercedes whether you can can afford one or not, whether you want to drive one or not, very few people will have cars and everybody will be walking to work.”

Napolitano also said that we should abolish Medicare and Medicaid at the federal level, “because the Constitution doesn’t authorize it and it would be far better administered by the states and by private enterprise.” In what can only be described as hypocrisy and with an anti-Age of Reason logic, Juan Williams argued that popular opinion would never allow it.

“Do you think you can do away with Social Security and Medicare in this country?” The judge suggested the programs be phased out of the federal government over time, save for those who have already paid into the systems and have constructed their lives around those plans. But for younger, indebted Americans with libertarian leanings, it could be done and it is the right thing to do.

First, since when does Juan Williams and the Democratic Party even care if We the People support entitlement programs and reforms? ObamaCare has never enjoyed majority support, especially when it was being passed and now that it has hit new highs in unpopularity. Yet that never phased Juan Williams before. Such an argument truly speaks to either intellectual or character-induced dishonesty.

Second, since when does Juan Williams and his elite, extremist Democratic friends even know what We the People want? As Judge Napolitano said, “It’s not the beltway world where you live. People don’t look to the federal government to take care of them.”

Juan replied, “I think the voters would go crazy.” Does he mean crazy as in how crazy Americans went in 2010 when the Democrats rammed ObamaCare down the throats of a nation who hated the law?

They did not and do not care about any preference held by We the People if it conflicts with what they believe is best for us, and they would rather do without the pesky Constitution that constantly threatens to restrain their despotism. Either Juan Williams doesn’t care or is too stupid to know why the Constitution delegates powers to different power centers among government entities in our federalist system.

Either way, Judge Napolitano got to the heart of it when he responded to Juan Williams saying, “you abandoned the whole notion of conservatism tonight.”

“You have abandoned the notion that the Constitution means what it says,” he quickly responded. And that says it all in a nutshell, because no ideology — conservatism or statism — takes precedent over the absolute rule of law, the Natural Law outlined in our Constitution.

Any opinion to the contrary presupposes that those given said opinion believes themselves to be smarter than our Founding Fathers. Only a dunce, a Daily Dunce like Juan Williams would think that.

Juan Williams "fasten your seat belt," because

News, Politics

The Obama administration will delay the start of next year’s ObamaCare enrollment period, conveniently pushing the second round of enrollment past the 2014 midterm elections.

The administration also plans to push a narrative that the move is a way to give consumers and insurance companies more time to study their options. But this is just the latest in several instances of delaying the inevitable disasters of the law to avoid electoral defeats.

A Department of Health and Human Services official confirmed the change this morning. The decision will not affect consumers who are trying to enroll this year. Rather, it affects those who will sign up late next year for 2015 coverage, when those with employer-sponsored coverage are thrown off of their plans due to Essential Health Benefit Standards (Read PPD Sudy: 145 Million Americans Will Lose Their Health Plans).

The Obama administration has again acted to change the law unilaterally, allowing consumers to start signing up on November 15, 2014, as opposed to October 15. ObamaCare enrollment will last until Jan. 15, 2015, rather than December 7, as the law states.

An HHS official told Fox News the move will give insurers “the benefit of more time to evaluate their experiences during the 2014 plan year” and allow insurers to take into account late-filing customers when setting their 2015 rates.

The official added, “This change is good news for consumers, who will have more time to learn about plans before enrolling and an open enrollment period that’s a week longer.”

The administration refuses the growing number of calls — from both Republicans and Democrats — to delay or extend the current ObamaCare enrollment period beyond March 31, 2014, despite the fact that repairing the broken HealthCare.gov site is nowhere near finished, and some states continuing to struggle with their own exchanges, as well.

But by pushing off next year’s ObamaCare enrollment period, the administration conveniently pushes off the ObamaCare-induced coverage lapses, as well as other politically unpopular aspects to the law’s consequences, until after the midterm elections.

Obama announced a so-called “fix” prior, which allowed states and insurance companies to re-offer cancelled insurance policies. Yet many states and insurers, however, are refusing to make any changes to the way they handle those plans, as they were just complying with the law’s Essential Health Benefit Standards, and to change or reverse forward planning now would create more chaos in the insurance market.

HHS argued that the delay next year will give consumers more time to educate themselves about the plans, presumably a response to the record number of Americans who want the law repealed, but it would not affect coverage this year.

The Obama administration will delay the start

Opinion

WASHINGTON — A president desperate to change the subject and a secretary of state desperate to make a name for himself are reportedly on the verge of an “interim” nuclear agreement with Iran. France called it a “sucker’s deal.” France was being charitable.

The only reason Iran has come to the table after a decade of contemptuous stonewalling is that economic sanctions have cut so deeply — Iran’s currency has collapsed, inflation is rampant — that the regime fears a threat to its very survival.

Nothing else could move it to negotiate. Regime survival is the only thing the mullahs value above nuclear weapons. And yet precisely at the point of maximum leverage, President Obama is offering relief in a deal that is absurdly asymmetric: The West would weaken sanctions in exchange for cosmetic changes that do absolutely nothing to weaken Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.

Don’t worry, we are assured. This is only an interim six-month agreement to “build confidence” until we reach a final one. But this makes no sense. If at this point of maximum economic pressure we can’t get Iran to accept a final deal that shuts down its nuclear program, how in God’s name do we expect to get such a deal when we have radically reduced that pressure?

A bizarre negotiating tactic. And the content of the deal is even worse. It’s a rescue package for the mullahs.

It widens permissible trade in oil, gold and auto parts. It releases frozen Iranian assets, increasing Iran’s foreign-exchange reserves by 25 percent while doubling its fully accessible foreign-exchange reserves. Such a massive infusion of cash would be a godsend for its staggering economy, lowering inflation, reducing shortages and halting the country’s growing demoralization. The prospective deal is already changing economic expectations. Foreign oil and other interests are reportedly preparing to reopen negotiations for a resumption of trade in anticipation of the full lifting of sanctions.

And for what? You’d offer such relief in return for Iran giving up its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Isn’t that what the entire exercise is about?

And yet this deal does nothing of the sort. Nothing. It leaves Iran’s nuclear infrastructure intact. Iran keeps every one of its 19,000 centrifuges — yes, 19,000 — including 3,000 second-generation machines that produce enriched uranium at five times the rate.

Not a single centrifuge is dismantled. Not a single facility that manufactures centrifuges is touched. In Syria, the first thing the weapons inspectors did was to destroy the machines that make the chemical weapons. Then they went after the stockpiles. It has to be that way. Otherwise, the whole operation is an exercise in futility. Take away just the chemical agents, and the weapons-making facilities can replace them at will.

Yet that’s exactly what we’re doing with Iran. It would deactivate its 20 percent enriched uranium, which besides being chemically reversible, is quickly replaceable because Iran retains its 3.5 percent uranium, which can be enriched to 20 percent in less than a month.

Result: Sanctions relief that leaves Iran’s nuclear infrastructure untouched, including — and this is where the French gagged — the plutonium facility at Arak, a defiant alternate path to a nuclear weapon.

The point is blindingly simple. Unless you dismantle the centrifuges and prevent the manufacture of new ones, Iran will be perpetually just a few months away from going nuclear. This agreement, which is now reportedly being drafted to allow Iran to interpret it as granting the “right” to enrich uranium, constitutes the West legitimizing Iran’s status as a threshold nuclear state.

Don’t worry, we are assured. The sanctions relief is reversible. Nonsense. It was extraordinarily difficult to cobble together the current sanctions. It took endless years of overcoming Russian, Chinese and Indian recalcitrance, together with foot-dragging from Europeans making a pretty penny from Iran.

Once the relaxation begins, how do you reverse it? How do you reapply sanctions? There is absolutely no appetite for this among our allies. And adding back old sanctions will be denounced as a provocation that would drive Iran to a nuclear breakout — exactly as Obama is today denouncing congressional moves to increase sanctions as a deal-breaking provocation that might lead Iran to break off talks.

The mullahs are eager for this interim agreement with its immediate yield of political and economic relief. Once they get it, we will have removed their one incentive to conclude the only agreement that is worth anything to us — a verifiable giving up of their nuclear program.

Brilliant.

Charles Krauthammer’s email address is [email protected].

A president desperate to change the subject

Economy

Today’s Dow record high close of over 16,000 shows the deep economic divide between Wall Street and middle America, as manufacturing jobs struggle.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied more than 100 points to close above the 16,000 mark for the first time in history, but optimism over the Fed keeping its bond-buying program fueled the new Dow record high close, not widespread economic growth and prosperity.

While the middle class, working American continues to suffer in the Obama-economy, Wall Street is enjoying a big rally this year. The Dow is up more than 22 percent this year and has rallied 145 percent since its bear-market low in March 2009.

Naturally, as well as the investor class, this benefits small retirement plans held by Americans across the country, but it isn’t that simple. Two major economic deficiencies are preventing Americans from enjoying widespread prosperity that is traditionally associated with American economic history.

For starters, the Dow record high is not reflective of the real economy, and the latest news doesn’t comport with the lack of success in the labor market. What good is a Wall Street rally if Americans do not have any jobs or sufficient wages to feed their 401K, if they even have one?

The October jobs report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics found the economy added 204,000 jobs, but the unemployment rate — which apparently has been faked by bureaucrats for years now anyway — rose by 0.1 percent to 7.3 percent, matching economists’ forecasts. The labor force participation rate – a measure of the proportion of the population employed or seeking employment – dropped to 62.8 percent, which is the lowest level since March of 1978.

Today the Philadelphia Fed reported manufacturing in the mid-Atlantic region slowed to 6.5 in November, down from 19.8 in October. Economists polled by Reuters expected growth to grow at a much swifter pace of 15. The latest manufacturing index followed the New York Fed “Empire State” index, which showed the state’s manufacturing sector unexpectedly contracted in October, according to a report released last Friday from the New York Federal Reserve.

The New York Fed’s “Empire State” general business conditions index contracted to minus 2.21 from 1.52 in October. Friday’s index report, which is one of the earliest, most-indicative measurements, was the first negative reading since May, and also took economists by complete surprise. Economist polled by Reuters had forecasted an index of 5.0, obviously way off.

In manufacturing index measurements, readings above zero show expansion, while those below indicate contraction, and it certainly was. Which brings us to our next economic challenge.

While the Fed pumping money into the equities market certainly helps the rich profit from investment income, it increases inflation and offers next to zero for interest on savings, reducing the saving power of the everyday American. So, looks like even those Americans who are fortunate enough to have a 401K must take greater risks to keep pace with current and future inflation.

The trend is more than likely to continue, with the Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Janet Yellen clearing the Senate Banking Committee to become the next chair of the central bank. The move now clears the way for a full vote in the Senate later this year. And since the Democratic Party has invoked the nuclear option, ushering in a new era of Democratic tyranny, Janet Yellen is going to ensure the rich continue to get richer by continuing Ben Bernanke’s highly accommodative monetary policy that is the only reason stocks are 25 percent higher this year.

This wouldn’t be so dire if the U.S. economy was creating good-paying, middle class jobs that historically fueled the wealth of the American middle class, such as manufacturing jobs. We will be waiting on the Midwest index to be released next, but despite economists’ expectations, we have no reason to believe it will be any better.

This divide is the only true promise of collectivism, which the modern Democratic Party and President Obama promised would lead us to a utopia with receding ocean levels. In the Obama-economy, approximately 70 percent of all the jobs created have been part-time jobs, another “unintended consequence” of the collectivist achievement of the century, ObamaCare.

Under President Reagan, GDP growth averaged over 7 percent, even without changes being made to the calculations in order to “fake” another economic number. Contrary to what we are told about supply side economics, wealth did trickle down during the Reagan recovery that officially began in 1982, unlike the direction of wealth we have seen money travel under Obamanomics.

Real per-capita disposable income increased by 18 percent from 1982 to 1989, with the American standard of living increasing by almost 20 percent in only 7 years. The poverty rate declined every year from 1984 to 1989, dropping by one-sixth from its peak of 15.2 percent, which I examine in detail in Our Virtuous Republic. The stock market more than tripled in value from 1980 to 1990, a larger increase than in any previous decade. However, it was a real reflection of prosperity, not future inflation as the Dow record high now shows.

In fact, America suffered crushing double-digit inflation, with the CPI registering at 11.3 percent in 1979 (thanks to our last collectivist president and a collectivist Congress), and 13.5 percent in 1980, which totaled 25 percent in just two years. Just as the progressive Washington elite economists tell us Obama was dealt the worst economic hand of any U.S. president, so they said of inflation during the Carter administration that was just a new normal. Except, it wasn’t.

People’s Pundit Daily has long reported on the real economic situation around the country. Data released by the Associated Press revealed 4 out of 5 American adults struggles with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, “a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream.”

Make no mistake, the Dow record high 16,000 level reflects future inflation thanks to collectivist policies and monetary policies. Thousands of years worth of economic history will not be wrong because Paul Krugman, Ben Bernanke and Barack Obama says so.

Major Averages: Performance from Bear Market Low

Last

9-Mar-09

Chg

%Chg
DJIA

16009.99

6547.05

9462.94

144.54%
S&P 500

1795.85

676.53

1119.32

165.45%
Nasdaq Comp.

3969.16

1268.64

2700.52

212.87%
DJ Transports

7173.36

2146.89

5026.47

234.13%
Russell 2000

1119.62

343.26

776.36

226.17%

Looks like a recovery, doesn’t it? No, it really doesn’t, and Dan Mitchell gives a must watch comparison of Reaganomics vs. Obamanomics.

Today's Dow record high close of over

Opinion

What he was, he was: What he is fated to become Depends on us. — W.H. Auden, Elegy for JFK”(1964)

BOSTON — He has become fodder for an interpretation industry toiling to make his life malleable enough to soothe the sensitivities and serve the agendas of the interpreters. The quantity of writing about him is inversely proportional to the brevity of his presidency.

He did not have history-shaping effects comparable to those of his immediate predecessor or successor. Dwight Eisenhower was one of three Americans (with George Washington and Ulysses Grant) who were world-historic figures before becoming president, and Lyndon Johnson was second only to Franklin Roosevelt as a maker of the modern welfare state and second to none in using law to ameliorate America’s racial dilemma.

The New York Times’ executive editor calls Kennedy “the elusive president”; The Washington Post calls him “the most enigmatic” president. Most libidinous, certainly; most charming, perhaps. But enigmatic and elusive? Many who call him difficult to understand seem eager to not understand him. They present as puzzling or uncharacteristic aspects of his politics about which he was consistent and unambiguous. For them, his conservative dimension is an inconvenient truth. Ira Stoll, in “JFK, Conservative,” tries to prove too much but assembles sufficient evidence that his book’s title is not merely provocative.

A Look magazine headline in June 1946 read: “A Kennedy Runs for Congress: The Boston-bred scion of a former ambassador is a fighting-Irish conservative.” Neither his Cold War anti-communism, which was congruent with President Harry Truman’s, nor his fiscal conservatism changed dramatically during his remaining 17 years.

Visitors to the Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum here, on the salt water across which his ancestors came as immigrants and on which he sailed his yacht, watch Kennedy press conferences, such as that of Sept. 12, 1963, when, responding to a question about Vietnam, he said his policy was to “win the war there” — “That is why some 25,000 Americans have traveled 10,000 miles to participate in that struggle.” He added: “We are not there to see a war lost.” His answer was consistent with a 1956 speech calling Vietnam “the keystone to the arch, the finger in the dike,” adding: “This is our offspring — we cannot abandon it.”

A few years later, with the war going badly, several Kennedy aides claimed that he had been planning to liquidate the intervention. But five months after the assassination, Robert Kennedy told an oral history interviewer that his brother “had a strong, overwhelming reason for being in Vietnam and that we should win the war in Vietnam.”

Interviewer: “There was never any consideration given to pulling out?”

RFK: “No.”

Interviewer: “The president was convinced that we had to keep, had to stay in there … ”

RFK: “Yes.”

Interviewer: ” … And couldn’t lose it.”

RFK: “Yes.”

As president, JFK chose as Treasury secretary a Republican Wall Street banker, C. Douglas Dillon, who 30 years after the assassination remembered Kennedy as “financially conservative.” Kennedy’s fiscal policy provided an example and ample rhetoric for Ronald Reagan’s supply-side tax cuts. Kennedy endorsed “a creative tax cut creating more jobs and income and eventually more revenue.” In December 1962, he said:

“The federal government’s most useful role is … to expand the incentives and opportunities for private expenditures. … It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now.”

John Kenneth Galbraith — Harvard economist, liberal polemicist and Kennedy’s ambassador to India — called this “the most Republican speech since McKinley.” It was one of many. Kennedy was driving to the Dallas Trade Mart to propose “cutting personal and corporate income taxes.” Kennedy changed less during his life than liberalism did after his death.

The Kennedy library here where he lived draws substantially fewer visitors than does Dallas’ Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, where he was murdered. This is emblematic of a melancholy fact: How he died looms larger in the nation’s mind than how he lived. His truncated life remains an unfinished book and hence a temptation to writers who would complete it as they wish it had been written. This month, let it suffice to say what Stephen Spender did in “The Truly Great” (1932):

“Born of the sun, they travelled a short while toward the sun.

And left the vivid air signed with their honour.”

George Will’s email address is [email protected].

Award-winning columnist George Will, reflects on the

News, Politics

In an unprecedented power grab, Harry Reid and complacent Democrats have invoked the nuclear option, ushering in textbook Democratic tyranny.

President Obama, hypocritically applauded another hypocrite, Majority Leader Harry Reid for his success Thursday at invoking the so-called nuclear option, as Democrats voted to strip the minority party of its most powerful tool to stop the tyranny of the majority, the power to block nominations and the general use of the filibuster.

Obama said it’s critical to “change the way that Washington is doing business.” In case the president hasn’t been aware of this either, since he seems to bliss of most other events, he has changed the way Washington has done business. A perfect example is when he rammed through his now unpopular, failed health care law with zero minority support in Congress and majority opposition among the people.

Republicans and even some consistent Democrats have warned that Harry Reid and President Obama have just opened Pandora’s box. Harry Reid has been slowly but surely stripping minority rights and powers during his time as majority leader, even using budget reconciliation to pass ObamaCare, but invoking the nuclear option on nominees is trampling on the idea of representative government.

“This was nothing more than a power grab,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said. “He might as well have said if you like your Senate rules you can keep them.”

In a rapid-fire set of developments on Thursday, the Senate narrowly approved a rule change that would limit the ability of the minority party to block key presidential appointments. Rather than needing 60 votes to break a filibuster, Democrats will instead only now need 51.

Speaking Thursday from the White House briefing room, Obama said the change was needed to deal with Republicans’ “unprecedented pattern of obstruction.” He hypocritically cited the tenure of George W. Bush, who he claimed did not have such as hard time getting nominees confirmed. But as a Senator, President Obama voted to filibuster President Bush’s Supreme Court nominees.

“For the sake of future generations, we can’t let it become normal,” Obama said.

Bush, on average, had a waiting period of 211 days to get a nominee confirmed, while it’s taken Barack Obama’s nominees 228 days to get confirmed, only 17 days more. Judicial nomination statistics show that Obama has a confirmation percentage of 76 percent.

Following the vote Thursday, embattled Democrats seeking reelection conveniently criticized the decision, though just 3 Democrats voted against the measure.

Senator Mark Pryor D-AR., one of three Democrats who opposed the move, said it could “permanently damage” the Senate.

“This institution was designed to protect — not stamp out — the voices of the minority,” he said.

In order to change Senate rules of this nature, it takes 67 votes. But Harry Reid, as usual, again used an illegal maneuver. passing the measure with just 51 votes.

Retiring Sen. Carl Levin, D-MI, whose open seat is also a battleground race, put out a 2,300-word statement explaining in great detail why Reid’s decision was over the line.

“Changing the rules, in violation of the rules, by a simple majority vote is not a one-time action,” he stated. “If a Senate majority demonstrates it can make such a change once, there are no rules that bind a majority, and all future majorities will feel free to exercise the same power, not just on judges and executive appointments but on legislation.”

Levin argued that the move opened the floodgates for the majority to change important rules on a whim going forward.

“Today, we once again are moving down a destructive path,” Senator Levin said. “Pursuing the nuclear option in this manner removes an important check on majority overreach which is central to our system of government.”

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-WV, was the other Democrat to oppose the rule change, though he has not yet made a statement.

Republicans arent the only voices calling the move Democratic Tyranny, nothing less than a complete evaporation of our constitutional principles, which have kept Americans free for 2.5 centuries.

The late Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., presented a powerful case against changing the rules back in 2010, when he said doing so would “destroy the uniqueness of this institution.”

“In the hands of a tyrannical majority and leadership, that kind of emasculation of the cloture rule would mean that minority rights would cease to exist in the U.S. Senate,” he said.

The Senate vote on Thursday strips the power of the minority to oppose nominations and makes it easier for federal judges to get lifetime appointments. That is what President Obama meant when he said the other day at a fundraiser that Democrats were “remaking the judicial branch.”

The passage, and subsequent defense of the health care reform bill, has proven Democrats unworthy of such power. Harry Reid and the Democratic Party rammed ObamaCare through the Senate despite the election of Republican Scott Brown in deep blue Massachusetts, because the American people were adamantly opposed to the law.

Now, the law is a complete and total failure, which Democrats are well-aware have destroyed not only Barack Obama’s approval rating, but his legacy in the law. Using the nuclear option is but the last move from party leadership, including the president who pushed Reid to do this, in an effort to grab as much power as possible before the American people remove statists from power.

The avalanche is coming, so they are hoping to make reforms and appointments that cannot be reversed for generations. Not even the will of the people can stop, arrest, or reverse their unpopular, despotic course. That is, by definition, tyranny.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell put it well earlier on the floor of the Senate when he said, “When Democrats were in the minority they argued strenuously for the very thing they now say we will have to do without, namely the right to extend a debate on lifetime appointments. In other words they believe that one set of rules should apply to them and another set to everybody else.”

This is a sad, shameful day in U.S. history, when the likes of Harry Reid and Barack Obama changed “the most deliberate body in the world,” into the biggest joke in the world.

In an unprecedented power grab, Harry Reid

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For boosting his potential agreement with Iran, President Obama is pushing for sanctions to be delayed, which both party lawmakers are adamantly opposing. Republican and Democratic lawmakers agree that tougher economic pressure on Iran is necessary due to the progress they had made with their nuclear program.

The Obama administration tried to waylay this issue and were discussing a temporary agreement that would permit Iran over a six month period to enrichment limited uranium during the negotiations.

Six Republican senators proposed an amendment to a defense spending bill that would introduce a new round of sanctions on Iran. The amendment, offered by Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Il) and co-sponsored by five other Republican senators, targets the remaining money Iran has in overseas bank accounts, most of which comes from the sale of oil.

Attached to the National Defense Authorization Act, the amendment would sanction any bank that allows Iran to spend revenue in overseas accounts on items besides food and medicine, and lays out what steps Congress would need to see in any interim agreement with Iran.

The amendment also states any such interim agreement must require Iran to stop the enrichment of uranium, a condition of earlier U.N. Security Council resolutions.

President Obama’s administration and Secretary of State Kerry have been lobbying against increasing sanctions on Iran — justifying a decision to start the process of loosening sanctions without Iran having to dismantle its nuclear infrastructure.

The president has asked Congress to hold off on any new sanctions bill in order to allow the Geneva negotiations an opportunity to succeed.

Obama stated that Iran would gain progress in its ability to build a nuclear weapon if a diplomatic deal is not obtained in order to halt or roll back its nuclear program.

Israel forewarned against any sanctions relief on Iran until Iran begins to dismantle the thousands of centrifuges it has built in Natanz and Qom. Israel believes until Iran begins to roll back its capability to quickly produce the highly enriched fuel needed for a nuclear weapon sanctions should remain in place.

The implications of delaying the Senate from creating new sanctions gives Iran the opportunity to install more centrifuges, enrich more uranium and improve their nuclear capability.

White House Spokesman Jay Carney told reporters at a press briefing, “The president underscored that in the absence of a first step, Iran will continue to make progress on its nuclear program by increasing its enrichment capacity, continuing to grow its stockpile of enriched uranium,installing advanced centrifuges, and making progress on the plutonium track.”

Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Il.) said, “If Iran is capable of negotiating while violating international law, the United States should be equally capable of negotiating while imposing new sanctions pressure.”

The world powers were hoping for a breakthrough over Tehran’s nuclear program that would satisfy Washington, Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The Geneva meeting occurs amid heightened turmoil in the Middle East after twin suicide bombings outside the Iranian Embassy in Beirut killing at least 23 people on Tuesday.

Naturally Iran blamed Israel and its “mercenaries” yet, ten days after said drama the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany have been optimistic that a deal is possible this time.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, posted a conciliatory but defiant message ahead of the meeting stated that there was “every possibility for success”.

President Obama was more circumspect, telling a Wall Street Journal CEO forum on Tuesday: “I don’t know if we will be able to close a deal this week or next week.”

The president’s foreign-policy team is determined to suppress the dissent Israelis and Saudi Arabians have about Washington’s desire to strike an interim deal with Iran that would leave the regime’s nuclear program and its “right” to enrich uranium.

Secretary Kerry stated in response to Israel’s justifiable concerns that, “Nothing that we are doing here, in my judgment, will put Israel at any additional risk. In fact, let me make this clear: We believe it reduces risk.”

The WH administration had succeeded in their delays of sanctions which only paves the way for Iran’s nuclear program. The Senate decided to recess until after Thanksgiving, giving Secretary Kerry the opportunity to get his deal in front of Congress.

After the meeting, six senators wrote to Kerry urging the administration not to accept any deal that would ease sanctions without rolling back Iran’s progress toward gaining a nuclear weapon.

“If we are reducing sanctions, Iran should be reducing its nuclear capabilities,” they wrote, specifically voicing their awareness that a proposal would let Iran access frozen capital without making major concessions.

Furthermore, the administration seemed to be more criticizing of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which only fuels Iran’s fire to not settle and to push the envelope further.

Alienating both Israel and moderate Arab states by treating their justifiable concerns about Iran’s nuclear ambitions as secondary, is putting America in a precarious position.

The White House needs to be most cautious, because the administration is the one that sets the tone and an agreement that is not suitable for our allies can set a series of events that no one will be able to influence or stop.

Iran has repeatedly stated — mockingly of the presidet — that their “red line” in negotiations is maintaining their nuclear option and leaving Washington willing only to turn to economic sanctions.

Senator Kirk’s amendment would give U.S. diplomats in Geneva the leverage the lawmakers are asking for. He stated, “Sanctions remain the best way to avoid war and prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. This proposal will give our diplomats the increased leverage they need to get a good deal at the negotiating table—a deal that peacefully brings Iran into full compliance with its international obligations.”

For well over a decade Iran has been intent on having a nuclear weapon and to believe they have any intention of giving up now when they are so close to their goal, is ludicrous.

President Hassan Rouhani has already driven a wedge between the United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. Majority of Israelis already believe that President Obama has either lied or is withholding information from them.

Obama is tipping his hand to the Iranians by showing his fervency for striking a deal. Amid heightening tensions with two key allies and alienating a key domestic constituency, Obama may be fanning the flames of the Iranian negotiating position more than he understands.

The president’s disposition has given Iran’s leader a reason to hold out for even better terms than what is being offered.

The regime’s “boss” Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has made it crystal clear that he does not respect President Obama, the “paper tiger,” nor their diplomatic efforts, viewing the United States’ resolve as weak. Khamenei said: “They intend to ratchet up the pressure on Iran. Iranians will succumb to no one under pressure.”

In a speech given by Khamenei to well over ten thousand volunteer Basij militiamen in Tehran, broadcasted live on Iran’s Press TV, said Iran will “not step back one iota from our rights.” Khamenei’s audience responded with chants of “Death to America.”

Hearing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei call our allies the “rabid dog,” is not very comforting. If at all any deal is made, Iran gives credibility to those suspicious that the Iranian’s will honor said deal. Iran is not known for their ability to holding their end of the bargain and to make our allies sign such a deal that favors Iran instead of them, will lead to dangerous consequences.

Netanyahu supports the initiative by France to strike a deal in which Iran complies with demands laid out by a U.N. Security Council resolution:

  1.  Suspend enrichment of uranium.
  2.  Halt production and installation of additional centrifuges.
  3.  Transfer uranium enriched to 20% or higher to another country.
  4.  Halt construction of a plutonium reactor that can produce weapons-grade plutonium.

Netanyahu believes anything less than what the Security Council demanded of Iran will be a “historic error” that heightens the risk of war. Israel will not allow Iran to have nuclear capability and will attack militarily if needed to stop such an outcome.

Committee Chairman Representative Ed Royce (R-CA) stated: “The United States cannot allow Iran to continue to advance toward a nuclear weapons capability while at the same time providing relief from the sanctions pressure we worked so hard to build.”

Netanyahu told German newspaper Bild that Iran already has five bombs’ worth of lower enriched uranium and could convert it in a matter of weeks to weapons-grade uranium. He said last week a “bad deal” that lets Iran off the hook will lead to the military option, the very option the world is trying to avoid.

The end result is a lack of trust that will only undermine Middle East stability and make it less likely anyone will heed the president’s warnings or advice even if Iran goes nuclear.

If there is to be a deal in place it should demand the complete dismantlement of all nuclear capability from Iran, putting a stop on Iran’s enrichment of uranium — they do not have a “right” when they have no respect to either our allies or the United States.

For boosting his potential agreement with Iran,

News, Politics

WH email shows the White House had ‘fears’ that the ObamaCare website — HealthCare.gov — would not be ready for launch.

A few days before the failed ObamaCare launch, top IT official Henry Chao said that the White House was nervous about being embarrassed if the site was unavailable after its launch.

An email chain dated September 25 from HealthCare.gov project manager Henry Chao — obtained by Fox News and viewable below — shows the Obama administration had more knowledge than they claimed publicly about the website problems that resulted in its failed October 1 launch.

Not only was the administration made aware of the ObamaCare website problems, but they were fielding suggestions about how to break the news to the American people.

In the email chain, Chao suggests the administration should come up with a more tenable strategy to tell the public that the website was not working in case it failed after the launch, saying that such a move could help prevent the media from “just ramping up the hyperbole about hc.gov not [being] functional.”

The email refers to a September 24 meeting, which took place the previous day, and included White House Chief Technology Officer Todd Park and CMS chief Marilyn Tavenner.

“When Todd Park and Marilyn was (sic) here yesterday one of the things Todd conveyed was this fear the WH has about hc.gov being unavailable,” wrote Chao.

Chao added, speaking of Park, “He will come back again and ask on 9/30 because after knowing him for the past 3+ years I can tell when he will hang on to something for a long time. Todd does have a good point and I think we should have a more comprehensive answer as to how we will ensure high availability.”

Chao also attached to the email the now-infamous image of a screenshot from HealthCare.gov that read, “The system is down at the moment. We’re working to resolve the issue as soon as possible. Please try again later.”

A White House official tells Fox News the “fear” referenced in the email refers to warnings that glitches were likely during the rollout, as with any rollout of a major website.

In this case, the official added, the glitches they were worried about apparently had to do with high traffic, which did occur. The official said that is “a good indication that there’s high demand for the product.”

Despite reality, the Obama administration has repeatedly claimed the website failures were due to high user traffic, but we now know that was yet another lie.

In the email, which was sent to members of the Exchange Administrative Group among other administration officials, Chao suggested that the team should come up with a more tenable strategy for explaining problems with the website, as if there was some way to avoid all of the media attention and scrutiny.

“Can you think about a better way to convey to the public when the site is not available?” wrote Chao. “I am picturing in my mind all the major print and online publications taking screenshots of what is below and just ramping up the hyperbole about hc.gov not [being] functional.”

Back on November 14, President Obama told reporters at a news conference that he was never told “directly” about of the ObamaCare website problems before its launch.

“I was not informed directly that the website would not be working as — the way it was supposed to,” he said.

A few days before the failed ObamaCare

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