THE CONTINUING INSANITY OF OBAMACARE
Monday (3/23) was the fifth anniversary of passage of Obamacare. Seven Democrat senators marked it by asking for delay of yet another provision of the law. Putting companies with 51 to 100 employees in the costlier "small group" market could be "harmful and disruptive," they said in a letter to HHS Secretary Silvia Burwell. The uninsured should be given another chance to avoid the fine for not having health insurance, three House Democrats said in a letter to President Obama in February. "If ObamaCare is so great, why do Democrats repeatedly try to hide its more unpleasant features?" Investors Business Daily asked then. Here are the lies President Obama told, which he assured us were true, before the law was passed:
OBAMA PERSONIFIES GEOSTRATEGIC INCOMPETENCE
The United States has handled its economic diplomacy with shocking myopia. The US Treasury's attempt to cripple the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) before it gets off the ground is clearly intended to head off China's ascendancy as a rival financial superpower, whatever the faux-pieties from Washington about standards of "governance". Such a policy is misguided at every level, evidence of what can go wrong when a lame-duck president defers to posturing amateurs in Congress on delicate matters of global geostrategy. Washington has enraged Britain by trying to browbeat Downing Street into boycotting the project. It has forced allies and friendly countries across the Far East to make a fatal choice between the US and China that none wished to make, and has ended up losing almost everybody. Germany, France, and Italy are joining. Australia and South Korea may follow soon. The AIIB is exactly what the world needs. Here's why...
PROOF IN PERU THAT MORE FREEDOM PROVIDES MORE PROSPERITY
Lima, Peru. When someone mentions Peru to you, what is the first visual image that pops into your head? Inca Indians with their llamas in the Andes Mountains, looking at the some of the stone ruins of their ancient civilization? Yes, Peru still does have some of that, but most Peruvians are now employed in an increasingly rapid-growing and diverse economy. In 1985, Peru was very poor with almost the lowest level of economic freedom in the world. In the early 1990s, former President Alberto Fujimori began major economic reforms. These reforms have continued through a series of administrations, including that of the current president, Ollanta Humala. Peru is now listed as the 20th most-free economy in the world, according to the Economic Freedom of the World 2014 Annual Report. As a result of the economic liberalization and increase in economic freedom...
IS AMERICA FINALLY FED UP WITH LIBERAL RACISM?
A week after announcing his "Race Together" campaign, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz walked it back. His baristas no longer will write "Race Together" on the coffee cups of customers, or try to engage them in "conversations" about race relations in America. The response he got wasn't the applause Mr. Schultz was expecting. Corey duBrowa, Senior Vice President of Global Communications, received so much negative feedback he deleted his Twitter account the day after the campaign was announced. PBS anchor Gwen Ifill, who is black, spoke for millions when she tweeted: "Honest to God, if you start to engage me in a race conversation before I've had my morning coffee, it will not end well." Schulz's "moral exhibitionism," as Mona Charen described it, did not end well because Americans have had it with liberal race-baiting racism. Here's why...
THE LESSON OF IWO JIMA
CONSERVATIVE PUNDITS FORM CIRCULAR FIRING SQUAD
According to Gallup’s annual poll, 38 percent of Americans are conservative, just 24 percent say they’re liberal. Yet liberals win elections far more often. The teapot tempest that erupted this week over Liz Mair illustrates one of the reasons why. In the likely event you’ve never heard of Liz, she’s an evidently highly regarded Republican political consultant with expertise in social media. Ms. Mair is also a woman of strong opinions, whose views on amnesty for illegal aliens, abortion and gay marriage many conservatives find distressing. Wisconsin Gov. Walker exposed himself as a secret squish by hiring Liz Mair, said, among others, Matt Boyle of Breitbart News and columnist Michelle Malkin. By accepting her resignation, Gov. Walker indicated he’s easy to push around, said, among others, Jonah Goldberg of National Review, Erick Erickson of Red State, and Michael van der Galien of PJ Media.
HALF-FULL REPORT 03/20/15
Who knew St. Patrick was Jewish? Tuesday, March 17 was a great day for the Irish, a greater day for Israelis; a bad day for the putz in the White House and for the Lying Swine; a very bad day for the mullahs in Tehran. Zero plans to punish Israel for voting for the guy he doesn't like. "Every single Obama failure... is followed by a Prolonged Snit," says Ace. That the White House was "doing its damndest to vilify him on the Sunday talk shows" indicates the carpet bombing of Sen. Tom Cotton, R-AR has failed, said William Bigelow of Breitbart News. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Monday the administration's request to lift the injunction issued by District Judge Andrew Hanen barring implementation of Zero's executive orders providing amnesty for illegal aliens. Hanen is peeved about having been lied to; may impose sanctions on the Justice Department. The EPA wants to regulate backyard barbecues; monitor how long hotel guests spend in the shower. It's "burning the Constitution," said liberal Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe. "Late Night" host Seth Meyers tried to ambush Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex, Tuesday on "climate change." It did not go as planned. The Obama administration has shut down walk-in tax preparation centers where the IRS provided, for free, assistance in filling out their income tax forms to the poor and elderly, diverted the money to left wing nonprofits with ties to the administration.
RULES ARE NOT LAWS: WHAT 2016 SHOULD BE ABOUT
The power to make laws rests wholly in Congress - at least that is what the Constitution says. Yet who makes the "laws" in our federal system today? Vast amounts of legislative power have been "delegated" to independent federal regulatory agencies like the Federal Communications Commission or to the president or his cabinet secretaries. The sheer volume of these rules is mind-numbing. Consider that in 2014, the year that just ended, 75,000 pages of new regulations were adopted by the Executive Branch, either by the Obama administration directly or through independent regulatory agencies. This is in addition to the myriad executive orders the president gives to his various departments regarding how to administrate federal laws. The imagined need for these rules is that congressional legislation cannot anticipate every situation or change that requires new regulations. That is true, of course, only if we accept the underlying premise that the federal government ought to be directly involved in almost everything we do. Abolishing the completely illegal and unconsitutional scam of legislative delegation to unelected bureaucracies should be a major GOP campaign theme in 2016.
A REPUBLICAN WE CAN COTTON TO
Dr. George Logan of Germantown, Pa. took it upon himself to negotiate an end to our undeclared war with France, which peeved President John Adams. So in January, 1799, Congress passed the Logan Act, which forbids a citizen, "without the authority of the United States," to "engage in correspondence or intercourse" with a foreign government "in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States." There was one indictment under the Logan Act - in 1803 -- but no prosecutions. Unhinged Democrats resurrected the Logan Act from the musty pages of history after Sen. Tom Cotton, R-AR, wrote an "open" letter to the mullahs in Tehran (full text in the link) to remind them that if the Senate doesn't ratify it, any deal they make with President Obama will end when his term does. Sen. Cotton wrote it to shine a light on President Obama's willingness to permit Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, which at least 77 percent of Americans oppose, according to a Gallup poll in February. Mission accomplished - in large part because of the hysterical, hypocritical overreaction from Democrats.
HOW TO GET REGIME CHANGE IN IRAN
There's a profound disgruntlement in the Force over the impending Iran deal, ranging from the Israelis to the Saudis, and from the French to the Gulfies. It isn't just words, apparently - there are rumors suggesting that some of the disgruntled Arabs are arranging to get their own nukes, just as Netanyahu foresaw (or perhaps even knew), and as Kissinger warned (and perhaps knew). The powers-that-be have bought into the false option of either making a deal or going to a war footing. It was once known as the Sarkozy Option: Iran with the bomb, or bomb Iran. It need not be, and everybody knows it. Deep in the subtexts, and every now and then in public, we hear about the White House's not-so-secret dream that the Iranian regime will either moderate or fall. It's worth recalling that Gorbachev managed both. First he reformed, via glasnost and perestroika, and then he fell. There was never a fatal choice between a deal and war. Indeed, regime change is a constant leitmotif of the world today, having reshaped Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia, threatened Syria and Venezuela, aimed at Jordan, and raged across Africa. It can be done in Iran and here's why.