Thor

Department of Homeland Security Stacked With Pro-Amnesty Attorneys Ahead of Illegal Immigration Fight | Katie Pavlich

• Posted by Kevin Fobbs on December 5, 2013 at 3:51pm
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Sometimes wading through the new America according to Obama where everything is about race and nothing is about uniting as Americans is as difficult as it is tiring. So one can only imagine the utter frustration and even anger that White students had to feel sitting through class after class where a Black Professor made them the convenient targets of her inner demons.

This seemed to be the common practice of English Professor Shannon Gibney who turned her class at Minneapolis Community and Technical College into a frequent diatribe about alleged White privilege, according to the Daily Caller. Is it racism in reverse or is it the actions of an out of control teacher who is searching for fake racial victimization?

Imagine the reality of having a target painted on your back in an English class which has precious little to do with racism or racial issues. The class was turned on its head and used as a personal crusade against non-minorities: i.e. White people. Even if oppression occurred in the nation’s past, the reality that this professor and many of the civil rights pimps of today who continue to cling to divisive racist instigation is disturbing yet acceptable by leaders like Barack Obama. Remember who he inserted himself into the criminal trial of George Zimmerman by asserting that if he had a son, “He would look like Trayvon Martin”?
Professor Gibney is clearly caught in a time warp where her comfort zone is not complete unless she can raise the shadows of past racial injustices and create a whole new imagined racism stew today in modern Minneapolis, Minnesota.
One truly has to wonder did the English Department or the college even scrutinize her teaching credentials to see if she is really certified, because something is surely amiss here. She claims according to the Daily Caller that she was not, “talking about all white people, or you white people in general.” Professor Gibney instead suggested that, “We are talking about whiteness as a system of oppression.”

Obamacare's Perilous Protection Plan for Debtors

"Uh-oh." That's the sound being uttered in doctors' offices and hospitals across the country as medical providers realize they're getting stuck with another bottomless Obamacare bill. While the White House desperately tries to pivot from the havoc wrought by the "Affordable Care Act," its hidden regulatory bombs keep exploding.

I heard about the latest problem this week from an eye doctor friend who received a letter from a Colorado-based insurer informing her that she's essentially on the hook for Obamacare's payment grace period for debtors. The optometrist is bracing for a flood of similar letters from other insurers. Like countless other independent providers, she's extremely concerned about the potential liability, uncertainty and fraud the rule imposes on her business.
Here's the raw deal: The Affordable Care Act created a 90-day grace period before insurers can drop patients who fall behind on premiums. So, delinquents who obtain tax-subsidized health insurance through an Obamacare health insurance exchange have three months to settle up their bills prior to their policy being canceled. As written, the law puts insurers on the hook for the grace period.
But the bureaucrats at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services decided to issue a rule in March making insurers responsible only for paying claims during the first 30 days of the debtors' grace period. Who's on the hook for the other two months? Well, customers are entrusted to foot the bills for additional services. But if they blow off the payments, it's up to physicians and hospitals to collect.
In real-world practice, this means providers will be eating untold costs. Several large hospital associations raised red flags over the issue this summer. In August, the Missouri Hospital Association noted that the regulatory shift "unduly burdens physicians, hospitals and other health care providers" by making them directly collect payments from patients, which "puts them at an unfair and significant risk for providing uncompensated care to patients."
Emillie J DiChristina of Practicefirst Medical Management Solutions spelled out the financial risks for clients on the company's blog: "This leaves providers in a potentially bad place as they have a high potential for accruing bad debt on services provided between 31 and 90 days of the allowed grace period." Can you spell f-r-a-u-d? People could "go on and off" insurance plans, Tampa Bay health care lawyer Bruce Lamb told me, and game the system by bailing on payments and exploiting Obamacare protections against denial of coverage.
Or as MHA officials put it: "We also are very concerned that some disreputable individuals will learn they can manipulate the system and win a full year's insurance coverage on only nine months of premiums. Knowing they are entitled to three months of grace period coverage, dishonest persons could stop paying premiums on the ninth month, enjoy free coverage during the 90-day grace period, have their coverage terminated, and then re-enter the exchange market where the Affordable Care Act's guaranteed issue mandate would prohibit another plan from denying them coverage."
Think such nefarious behavior won't occur? Then you haven't been paying attention to the data manipulators and con artists in the Obamacare navigator program. As I reported earlier this year, the seedy nonprofit Seedco secured multimillion-dollar navigator contracts in Georgia, Maryland, Tennessee and New York to recruit Obamacare recipients into the government-run exchanges — despite settling a civil fraud lawsuit for faking at least 1,400 of 6,500 job placements under a $22.2 million federally funded contract with New York City a year ago.
Additionally, investigative journalist James O'Keefe and his Project Veritas team have caught Obamacare navigators on tape advising health insurance exchange customers to under-report their income and lie about their health status in order to cheat the system.
CMS has made no effort to repeal its cost-shifting rule or to do anything to address the concerns of providers who will be left holding the bag. As one hospital rep told me: "It's potentially catastrophic." Private practices are already being hit hard with slashed reimbursements, the electronic medical records mandate, ICD-10 medical diagnostic code changes, and increasing federal intrusions on how they provide care. In yet another entry on the laundry list of Obamacare's unintended consequences, this regulation will hurt patients by dissuading doctors from participating in exchange plans.
In short: less choice, higher prices, increased potential for fraud, more bureaucratic headaches and more disincentives to enter or stay in the medical profession. When the government grants "grace," everyone must watch their wallets. It's always easy to afford compassion when someone else is paying for it.
Michelle Malkin is the author of "Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks and Cronies" (Regnery 2010). Her e-mail address is malkinblog@gmail.com.

Chris Matthews: Don’t worry, I’ll include some easier questions when I interview Obama

    Via the Washington Free Beacon, can we trust a guy who compared himself yesterday to a kid on Christmas Eve to ask tough, newsy questions of the president? The whole point of agreeing to a town hall carried by a liberal cable network, with an audience full of college kids, hosted by someone who cops to getting thrills up his leg at Obama’s oratory, is to let O pitch ObamaCare in the most favorable of media environments. He’s playing tee-ball here, by design. They might as well invite him to wear pajamas. Even the “hard” questions are more likely to be along the lines of “Were you disappointed on launch day that your team had failed you?” than “HOW COULD YOU NOT HAVE KNOWN?” The fact that Matthews has actually allotted time for questions even he thinks will be easy — as well as a “fun” segment at the end — makes me want to watch in morbid curiosity to see how bad it can get. Will there be any tingles mid-program? What would that look like? Is America, as a society, prepared for it?
As for the audience, I’m betting that the disaffected millennials who want to recall Obama will be grossly underrepresented. One interesting tangent on that, though: How come young adults aged 25-29 are still more or less on O’s side whereas younger adults aged 18-24 have soured on him? Emma Roller has a theory:

Intuitively, you’d think younger millennials would be more supportive of Obama because his health law allows them to stay on their parents’ plan longer for free. Why is it the opposite? My working theory: older millennials are more supportive of the president is because they were around to vote for him in 2008, and so have a more visceral tie to his policies.
I asked IOP pollster-in-chief John Della Volpe if he thought my theory was plausible. He responded, “Not only is that plausible but I agree!” So it may not be so much that the 18-24 set likes Obama less; they just don’t risk their egos as much by not supporting him.

No doubt. Older millennials made the purchase psychologically on Hopenchange; it’d have to fall apart completely before they admit it’s a lemon. Younger millennials aren’t similarly invested. There may be another element, though. Some studies suggest that once a person’s political identity is formed in youth, it remains surprisingly steady for the rest of his or her life. Older millennials aren’t just kids who got suckered by Obama hype, they’re voters who, like most of the rest of America, soured on Bush and the GOP because of Dubya’s second term. Unlike most of the rest of America, though, that pro-Democrat/anti-Republican orientation is more apt to endure in their age group because it developed during a formative age for political awareness. They’re sticking with Obama not just for ego-protection, in other words, but because of bona fide partisan identification. Younger millennials are in a different position, having largely missed the Bush years and picked up politics in the Obama years of economic stagnation. They’re not firmly forged Democrats, unlike their slightly older brothers and sisters. That’s good news for the GOP, even if older millennials are now mostly a lost cause.
Anyway, set your DVRs. Exit question: What would constitute a “hard question” for Obama? Matthews seems to think asking him about NSA surveillance qualifies, which is understandable but … not really true, I think. You know what Obama’s going to say — it’s a delicate balance between freedom and security, no one’s more concerned about privacy than he is, he’s convinced that these programs save lives, etc etc. It’s not a hard question if you can guess the answer in advance. But then, that also goes for my hobbyhorse lately about O violating separation of powers. That’s not a hard subject to spin either: The executive branch has some discretion in how it enforces the law and he’s exercising that discretion in ObamaCare’s transitional period to make the program better for Americans. The art of the hard question is in the follow-up, not the initial ask. We’ll see how Tingles does tonight.

Drones

Obamacare Lawsuits Mount as Notre Dame Joins Scrum of Opponents

Hours after the University of Notre Dame filed a religious challenge to the U.S. health-care overhaul in Indiana federal court, a judge in Washington heard arguments in a lawsuit assailing tax provisions of the statute.
The cases underscore the persistent and diverse nature of legal attacks on the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act even as the Obama administration struggles to fix bugs in HealthCare.gov, the online marketplace for health insurance created by the measure.
Obamacare litigation continues partly because questions about its legitimacy as a piece partisan legislation are unresolved, said Ilya Shapiro, a senior fellow in constitutional studies at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington and an opponent of the act. The statute passed Congress without Republican support in either the House or Senate.
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It doesn’t matter what motivates the plaintiffs bringing those challenges as long as “their legal arguments are sound, because that’s what the courts are looking at,” Shapiro said.
The suit in Washington, in which a federal judge yesterday heard arguments for an immediate verdict, was brought by seven individuals and businesses from six states. At least three similar complaints have been filed in Oklahoma, Virginia and Indiana. All challenge some of the federal government’s authority to offer tax credits to subsidize health insurance for poor people under Obamacare.
Catholic Teaching
The complaint Notre Dame filed yesterday, alleging that the law’s requirement health plans cover birth control violates Roman Catholic teaching, is a re-filing of a lawsuit dismissed in December on procedural grounds.
The Notre Dame case is among 86 lawsuits attacking Obamacare on religious grounds, according to Erin Mersino, trial counsel at the Thomas More Law Center, of Ann Arbor, Michigan, a Christian-based public interest law firm.
Forty-one of the cases involve primarily Catholic nonprofit groups such as Notre Dame and take issue with the birth control mandate, Mersino said. The other 46 were brought by for-profit entities whose owners argue the contraception provision violates their religious freedom, she said.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 26 agreed to hear two cases from the for-profit group involving the craft store chain Hobby Lobby Stores Inc., and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. They, too, claim an exemption from covering employees’ birth control on religious grounds.
First Look
The dispute will be the court’s first look at President Barack Obama’s biggest legislative accomplishment since a majority of the justices upheld the core of the law in 2012.
The court on Dec. 2 declined to hear an appeal by Liberty University, a Virginia school founded by the late evangelical preacher and activist Jerry Falwell, which lost a lower-court case arguing the law’s employer mandate exceeded Congress’s power over interstate commerce.
The suits by nonprofit religious groups are less advanced in the courts because the Obama administration delayed the birth control mandate for a year as it sought an accommodation with them.
While the religious cases have drawn attention because of their number and high-profile plaintiffs such as Notre Dame and the Archdiocese of Washington, they don’t threaten the viability of Obamacare, according to Timothy Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, and a consumer representative to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

“They’re challenges to one particular part of one particular regulation,” Jost said. “They’re very important cases, but I don’t think they mean much for the Affordable Care Act.”
The tax cases, involving federal subsidies to people shopping for insurance on government-run marketplaces, or exchanges, present a “significant challenge” to the law because, if successful, they could prevent millions of people from buying coverage, Jost said.
Plaintiffs in those suits argue the language of the health- care legislation allows subsidies only for people using state- run exchanges, not the federal government’s.
Thirty-three states, including Ohio, Texas and Florida, declined to set up exchanges.
“No legitimate method of statutory construction would interpret the phrase ‘established by the state’ in the ACA’s subsidy provisions to mean ‘‘established by the state or federal government,’’ according to a brief filed by plaintiffs in the case argued yesterday in Washington.
Congressional Intent
That argument will probably fail because courts look on laws as a whole, not narrow slices of language, and ‘‘it’s clear Congress meant for the federal exchanges to be treated the same as the states’ exchanges,” Jost said.
Shapiro, of the Cato Institute, said the tax credit cases could “have legs.”
“There’s a very strong technical argument that the challengers are bringing,” Shapiro said. “It’s not some sort of glitch or scriveners’ error. Congress wanted to incentivize states to create these exchanges.”
At least one other case challenges the Affordable Care Act on the grounds that it violates the Constitution’s origination clause, which requires revenue-raising measures to originate in the House, not the Senate.
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U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington in June rejected that argument as made by Matt Sissel, an Iowa man, concluding the challenged bill originated in the House even if it was completely rewritten by the Senate.
The cases are Notre Dame University v. Sebelius, 3:13- cv-01276, U.S. District Court, North District of Indiana (South Bend), and Halbig v. Sebelius, 13-cv-00623, U.S District Court, District of Columbia (Washington).

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Stunning hypocrisy from Democrats in wake of ObamaCare's broken promises

Hypocrisy and double standards are two things that disgust and infuriate all Americans, regardless of where they fall on the ideological spectrum.
Unfortunately, these qualities are far too prevalent in our political culture today, and are prime reasons why Washington and the politicians that work there are held in such low regard.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the implementation and implosion of ObamaCare.
During the debate over the deeply flawed bill in 2009 and 2010, voters were repeatedly assured by President Obama and his congressional allies that everyone who liked their current health care plan would be able to keep it. “Period.”

Rather than join with Republicans and immediately repeal this catastrophe before it gets any worse, Democrats are stubbornly digging in their heels. 

Now, as the new law implodes before our eyes, millions of Americans have received letters of cancellation. With approximately five million people across the country expected to lose their current plan and millions more to follow, when all the smoke clears, it’s clear that the Democrats broke their promise to the American people.
Many other Americans are experiencing fewer medical options as insurers restrict their choice of doctors and hospitals in order to keep costs low.
Some of the country’s top medical facilities are being excluded from the new exchange system, meaning patients who have been getting treatment from doctors they like all of a sudden find themselves out of luck.
For example, in New Hampshire, only 16 of the state’s 26 hospitals are available on the federal exchange, meaning patients must either pay more to keep their current doctor or seek inferior care elsewhere.
Neither is a good option.
New Hampshire is not alone. Across the country, some of the best hospitals are not available on plans on the exchange, leaving patients with difficult choices and unwanted sometimes, life threatening decisions.
Rather than join with Republicans and immediately repeal this catastrophe before it gets any worse, Democrats are stubbornly digging in their heels.
They know that backing away from President Obama’s signature achievement would be a huge embarrassment for the White House, and they’re unwilling to buck their party leadership.
Instead, they’re hiding behind meaningless show votes in Congress, offering half-hearted and meaningless attempts to reinstate cancelled plans or delay implementation of some of the particularly onerous new federal regulations.
All these false efforts will do is add to the increased costs and put things off until after the 2014 elections.
No one is mistaking these transparent moves as profiles in courage.
ObamaCare became the law of the land because every single Democratic Senator fell in line with their party bosses and voted for it. For any sitting member of the Senate to somehow now suggest that they are fighting to protect their constituents from this “trainwreck” is completely hypocritical.
If they were really interested in sparing their constituents from ObamaCare’s harmful impact, they should have stood up when they could have stopped the whole thing from becoming law.
They could have also voted to allow for the protection or “grandfathering” of the older policies.
They did neither.
Adding insult to injury is the fact that politicians in Washington have access to many special perks and privileges unavailable to the general public when attempting to navigate ObamaCare.
Beyond having more top-flight plans to choose from, senators have access to what the New York Times recently described as “concierge-type services” and “in-person support sessions” available only to members of Congress.
Democrats who voted for ObamaCare are therefore not exposed to the same frustrations of a broken website and complicated red tape that millions of everyday people are being forced to work through.
The hypocrisy is stunning. Saddling the rest of the country with complicated rules they didn’t want and don’t need in pursuit of a health care takeover that will hurt patient care, limit options and devastate our economy is no way to run a country.
Not only is President Obama to blame here, so too are every single one of the Democratic senators who forced this fiasco on the American people.
The president is not going to face voters again, but his congressional enablers and supporters will in less than a year. When they do, it’s going to be an unpleasant experience for any incumbent having to explain their deciding vote and continued support for the ongoing disaster of ObamaCare.

Senseless