op ed review 12/22
THIS WEEK’S NEWS
WSJ: “Obama Repeals
ObamaCare” Under pressure from Senate
Democrats, the President partly suspends the individual mandate.
SEBELIUS: Yes, you will pay more...
45 States Still
Haven't Hit 10% of the Enrollment Goals...
Four out of the 15 chiefs of Obamacare insurance
marketplaces run by individual states have either quit or gone on leave since
the botched Oct. 1 launches of their health exchanges.
“Obamacare Is Falling Apart Before Our Eyes: Obamacare madness, Christmas edition.”
ObamaCare may soon start freezing Americans in place.
Millions are losing their health insurance policies and being forced onto the
ObamaCare exchanges, where most plans only provide local medical coverage.
Some Obamacare Navigators have been actively encouraging
enrollees to commit fraud.
Why Obama and Obamacare may be the
death of American liberalism
Seattle Times: “As thousands of state residents enroll in Washington’s expanded
Medicaid program, many will be surprised at fine print: After you’re dead, your
estate can be billed for your ordinary health-care expenses.”
The new face of Obamacare is a man in a plaid pajamas. “..(liberal groups promoting Obamacare) are
staffed by third-growth McGovernites who have come of age at the exact point
that the radicalism of the 1960s finally won out. As David Burge of “Iowahawk”
fame likes to joke, perhaps it wasn’t “a good idea to turn the most successful
country in the history of the world over to the grievance faculty at Harvard.”
Still, that is what we have done. And we have ended up with a parade of
over-educated and under-experienced perpetual children who don’t think twice
before dressing a grown man up in footie pajamas.”
President Obama is ending his fifth year in office with the
lowest approval ratings at this point in the presidency since President Richard
Nixon,
On CNN’s Piers Morgan Live, Barbara Walters admitted,
“We thought that he was going to be - I shouldn't say this at Christmastime,
but - the next messiah”
The conservative group Ending Spending may have premiered
the ad that nationalizes the 2014 midterm elections around Obamacare. The
30-second killer ad targets the first-term Democratic Senator from New Hampshire who is
likely to face former GOP Senator Scott Brown next year. The ad begins with
footage of Shaheen on the Senate floor echoing President Obama by saying, “if
you like your insurance you can keep it.” An overlay graphic points out that
Obama was given the “Lie of the Year” award from a fact-checking group for that
whopper. The ad then shifts to a local focus: It notes 20,000 people in New Hampshire have lost
their insurance to date and that Obamacare exchanges offer only a single
provider on the state’s individual market. The ad ends with a zinger sign-off:
“Next November, if you like your senator, you can keep her. If not, you know
what to do.”
"Senate democrats vote to cut military pensions instead
of cutting welfare for illegal immigrants."
A&E has placed Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil
Robertson on indefinite hiatus following “anti-gay remarks” he made in a
recent profile in GQ.
“Duck Dynasty” has been a ratings juggernaut for A&E,
recently drawing around 9 million viewers for its Christmas special.
Bobby Jindal Backs Phil Robertson: “I Remember When TV networks believed
in the First Amendment”
Sarah Palin says the suspension Robertson is an attack on
free speech.
A Facebook page dedicated to defense of Phil Robertson has
received well over 400,000 likes since it was launched just 14 hours ago.
Petition: "I am
asking your network to immediately reinstate Mr. Robertson to Duck Dynasty, and
to formally apologize to him, his family, and the millions of viewers who tune
in every week, stand by him, and share his worldview."
Ken “The Hutch” Hutcherson, 61, a former Seattle Seahawk and
an outspoken pastor who championed racial equality but opposed gay marriage, died
on Wednesday after a long battle with prostate cancer.
The Obamas leave for their $4 Million Hawaiian Vacation
“VIP Hotel and Vehicles for Mandela Funeral Trip Cost More
Than $11M”
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/vip-hotel-and-vehicles-mandela-funeral-trip-more-11m_771470.html
Michelle Obama wears controversial
J Mendel jacket AGAIN despite backlash last
year over its $6,800 price tag
Liberal advocacy groups are outraged that a new Georgia policy
that would charge the state’s 800,000
users of free “Obamaphones” a $5 per
month fee. “some advocacy groups say the
new policy...is an attack on the poor.”
“Obama mocks Putin,
picks gay athletes to represent America
at the opening of the Sochi Olympics.”
The Republican establishment is fed up with the “outside
groups” — the conservative lobbying shops and super PACs that have pulled the
party Rightward in recent years — and this time, it’s the establishment that is
uninterested in compromise.
http://m.washingtonexaminer.com/the-republican-establishment-and-insurgent-groups-brace-for-all-out-war/article/2540722?utm_source=Tim%20Carney%20Reoccurring%20-%2012/15/2013&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Washington%20Examiner:%20Timothy%20P%20Carney
It was the shot heard ’round the conservative world……in
defending the new, bipartisan budget agreement, House Speaker John Boehner took
aim at the right-wing advocacy groups that vehemently opposed the deal. His
language wasn’t just blunt. It was shockingly sharp for an exchange between
supposed ideological allies. http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2013/12/20/the-gop-right/32MkJrV24HA6x2bvas1vKL/story.html
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi privately urged the Obama
administration to halt deportations for “undocumented Democrats”, saying that
President Obama needs to use more “discretion” to reduce the number of people
he’s kicking out of the country.
“479 Sheriffs Refuse to Enforce New Laws on Gun Control.”
Teenage pot smokers could be damaging brain structures
critical to memory and reasoning, according to new research that found changes
in the brains of heavy users.
_______________________________________________________________________________
THIS WEEK’S FEATURED COLUMN
Frank Miele 12/21
America
is at war with itself. The fight between A&E and Robertson is actually a
fight between traditional values and secular humanism, and what it reveals is
the deep divide that exists between those two world views that inhabit the same
political body.
It should be understood that only in a free country such as
America — perhaps only in modern America and its post-modern spawn — can we
even have such a polite conversation about what is right and what is wrong as
is implied in the first nine principles. What we need to remember is that
almost every society which has existed, including 18th-century America,
has had a set of shared rules and mores which are taught from a very early age
so that every new member of society is indoctrinated to believe without
question the truth of that society’s values, morals and customs.
The lack of such shared values in modern America is neither practical nor
sustainable. As a result, the United
States of America is poised to test the
Bible’s dictum that a “house divided against itself shall not stand.” In the
past 20 years, the gay-rights lobby has achieved a considerable victory in
persuading courts and legislators to codify homosexuality as moral behavior.
They are even on the verge of declaring that preaching against homosexuality is
a hate crime. But that does not mean traditional, Bible-believing Christians
such as Phil Robertson are going to willingly surrender their beliefs.
In my opinion, that means a significant change is going to
happen. Either we are going to become a society where secular humanism will
prevail and where preaching from the Bible is going to land you in jail, or we
are going to become a society where people with traditional values will fight
back against their marginalization and re-establish the so-called moral
majority, possibly at the expense of certain liberties which we now take for
granted.
This has nothing at all to do with whether A&E gives
Phil Robertson and his family a TV show, which is why the controversy over
“Duck Dynasty” is overblown.
But it has everything to do with Phil Robertson’s belief
system, and that is why the controversy could be just the start of a larger
backlash against those forces that want to criminalize Christianity.
We already know the people who hate Phil Robertson hate him
because of what he stands for; now we are waiting to find out whether the
people who support Robertson like him because he has a long beard and talks
funny or because they identify with his values.
If it is the latter, then Robertson may turn out to be more
than just a reality TV star; he may be an unlikely culture hero whose
plainspoken words reveal the growing rift in American society and force it to
be addressed.
No wonder A&E is scared. That may be just a bit too much
reality for reality TV.
Another good read: Jonah
Goldberg 12/6
Maybe someone can explain to me how,
exactly, conservatives are the aggressors in the culture war? In the
conventional narrative of American politics, conservatives are obsessed with
social issues. They want to impose their values on everyone else. They want the
government involved in your bedroom. Those mean right-wingers want to make
“health-care choices” for women. Now consider
last week’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to consider two cases stemming
from Obamacare: Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius and Sebelius
v. Hobby Lobby Stores……Suddenly,
the government is the hero for getting deeply involved in the reproductive
choices of nearly every American, whether you want the government involved or
not. The bad guy is now your boss who, according to an outraged Senator Patty
Murray (D.,Wash.), would be free to keep you from everything from HIV treatment
to vaccinating your children if Hobby Lobby has its way. Murray and the White
House insist that every business should be compelled by law to protect its employees’
“right” to “contraception” that is “free.”
________________________________________________________________________
FROM OTHER COLUMNS
"Three years ago,
the Milwaukee County
district attorney opened an unusual legal process known as a 'John Doe'
investigation, targeting a who's who of prominent Republicans and conservatives
in Wisconsin,
looking for violations of campaign-finance law. Under this rarely used
procedure, groups such as Americans for Prosperity and the Club for Growth have
been forced to turn over hundreds of thousands of emails and confidential
documents. What makes the process especially pernicious is that the targeted
have no legal way to challenge the subpoenas. They can't even acknowledge what's
happening. ... Any conservative who complains about the treatment or who speaks
up in his own defense can be jailed. Democrats get to read through the plans
and goals of their opponents, and taxpayers are paying for it. This is meant to
tell national conservative groups to stay out of Wisconsin lest they get pulled into the
dragnet. ... They can't beat Mr. Walker on policy or at the polls, but a
partisan prosecutor doesn't need a legitimate case to take an incumbent down.
Investigations, often deliberately stalled to make the pain exquisite, can drag
on for years. This is power that no district attorney, of whatever party,
should have. Reform of prosecutorial power is long overdue."
-Washington Times
_______________________________________________________________________
LEFTIST WATCH
On Tuesday, MSNBC host Krystal Ball devoted a portion of The
Cycle to advocating for the establishment of a national minimum guaranteed
income. She insisted that research shows such a program does not create
disincentives to work and could “eliminate poverty” with merely the stroke of a
pen.
New senior Obama adviser compares GOP to Jonestown cult..
The Jonestown incident marked one of the most horrific mass killings in
American history.
__________________________________________________________________________
CHRISTMAS UNDER FIRE
“New York
School Removes Religious
References from ‘Silent Night’”
“NM teacher who said Santa is white is on paid leave”
http://www.myfoxdc.com/story/24242269/nm-teacher-who-said-santa-is-white-on-paid-leave#ixzz2npuJ2RzV
__________________________________________________________________________
GLOBALONEY
“Climate alarmists' search for proof going cold”
“We have written many times about the corruption of the
global warming movement. Billions and billions of dollars are being poured into
the pockets of global warming alarmists, because they perform such a valuable
service: they help to persuade voters that governments should be given greater
control over the world’s economies. What’s a few billion dollars when trillions
are at stake?....”
It was only five years ago in December that Al Gore claimed
that the polar ice caps would be completely melted by now. But he might be
surprised to find out that Arctic ice coverage is up 50 percent this year from
2012 levels. “Some of the models suggest that there is a 75 percent chance that
the entire north polar ice cap, during some of the summer months, could be
completely ice-free within the next five to seven years,” Gore said in 2008.
Before NASA and NOAA start tampering with the data, 2013 is
one of the ten coldest years in the US since 1895, and has had the
largest year over year decline on record.
In honor of the 17th year without global warming, The Daily
Caller News Foundation has put together seven setbacks for global warming
alarmism.
________________________________________________________
ARTICLES
The claim: The United States is the richest nation in the
world, and as a matter of decency should pay for the health care of all
Americans who can’t afford to pay for their own. The truth: The United States is not the
richest nation in the world; we are the richest debtor nation in the world. We
literally owe trillions of dollars — not just in the national debt, but also in
unfunded liabilities for various entitlements.
http://www.dailyinterlake.com/opinion/columns/frank/article_15286682-6530-11e3-b245-001a4bcf887a.html
Huge backlash mounts
over suspension of ‘Duck Dynasty’ star Phil Robertson
“Supporters of gay marriage have become that which they
hated……We are all Phil Robertson now.”
So what to think about the Ryan-Murray budget deal? Americans for Prosperity says “This budget
deal is not conservative”
But “Americans for Tax Reform has a more realistic
understanding of the total effect of the deal on spending. It says, “Over the
long term budget horizon, [the Ryan-Murray budget deal] is a large net spending
cut…. the spending cuts included in the plan are permanent and mandatory. It
would take an act of Congress to amend them.” ATR adds that under the deal,
“The 2014-2015 divergence from the discretionary spending caps’ trend line was
a one time event not repeated in the [budget] window. The cuts to pay for this
anomaly, however, are permanent and will reduce government spending by many
times more than the small spending increases in 2014 and 2015. [The budget
deal] is a short-term discretionary spending increase dwarfed in size by a
long-run mandatory spending cut.”…..But if all the most conservative voters
stay home next year, having been convinced by conservative commentators and
opinion leaders that the Republicans aren’t worth coming out to vote for, then
Washington will conclude that the American people want to go Communist. If that
seems like an overstatement, that is
because you don’t understand Washington.”
From the wacky to the infuriating: “The federal government this year made
significant cuts to important services and programs while at the same time
wasting $30 billion on frivolous expenditures like the "pillownauts"
study NASA conducted to learn the effects of lying in bed all day, a new
watchdog report shows. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., on Tuesday released his fourth
annual "Wastebook," a catalog of questionable government spending
that is, at best, pretty wacky (funding for "Popular Romance Project"
-- $1 million) and, at its worst, infuriating (continuing pay for Army Major
Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter)”
University
of Texas sociology
professor Mark Regnerus’s study, “How Different Are the Adult Children of
Parents Who Have Same-Sex Relationships? Findings from the New Family
Structures Study,” published in the academic journal Social Science Research
last year, caused a firestorm in the scientific community. Unlike most previous
studies, Regnerus found that children of parents who had experienced a same-sex
relationship fared worse than children of heterosexual parents on measures of
social, emotional, and psychological adjustment as well as educational
attainment, employment history, need for public assistance, substance abuse,
and criminal justice system involvement.
___________________________________________________________________________
NOTEWORTHY WEBSITES
Surprise Military Homecomings for Christmas That Will Make
You Smile
You will enjoy this!
“The Christmas Scale”
“Picture of VP Joe Biden groping a White House reporter
Red Alert focuses on the hottest political topics in the
nation and calls Americans to action.
New website: Welcome to SHIFT Washington
– a new online platform for shifting the debate in Olympia. We’re glad to have you as part of
the effort, and hope you’ll be active in helping SHIFT Washington
State in a positive
direction.
Singing Telegrams International.
The Washington Post has produced six massively detailed maps
showing the religious make-up of America.
Nice Christmas story
__________________________________________________________________________
LATE NITE
Leno: "Over the
weekend the ObamaCare website was down. Fortunately, most Americans were
unaffected because they never knew it was up……..Political correctness is
in full swing this holiday season. Kids can't even call Santa's helpers
"elves" anymore. They have to be known as "undocumented little
people…….A New York
lawmaker wants to legalize marijuana so it can be taxed and the money used to
pay bills. Wasn't that the plot of "Breaking Bad" — selling drugs to
pay bills?
posted by gary at
9:31 AM
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