California Lawmaker Pushes Bill Extending Obamacare To Undocumented Immigrants

 

 

A California state lawmaker plans to introduce legislation that would allow undocumented immigrants to have access to government health insurance plans.
The lawmaker, state Sen. Ricardo Lara, a Democrat, said if the current focus of healthcare reform is make sure everyone has access to coverage programs, the millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States cannot be omitted.
“We’ve made enormous strides to reduce California’s uninsured population with the implementation of the [federal] Affordable Care Act, but we won’t have a truly healthy state until everyone has access to quality, affordable coverage,” said Lara, head of the state Latino legislative caucus, in a press release. “Immigration status shouldn’t bar individuals from health coverage, especially since their taxes contribute to the growth of our economy.”
Federal laws preclude undocumented immigrants from many programs – including state insurance ones – that receive federal funding.
The healthcare reform measure, called the Affordable Care Act (ACA), does not allow participation by undocumented immigrants. In California, Covered California, the healthcare exchange that is part of ACA, excludes undocumented immigrants, the Los Angeles Times said.
Lara’s office said in a press release that about a million California residents would be left out of the coverage overhaul because they are undocumented. About another million undocumented immigrants get some form of health care benefits through their place of work, the Times said.
Some of the possible ways undocumented immigrants could get access to health care coverage are expanding Medi-Cal, the state’s plan for low-income people, or through a program linked to Covered California that does not receive federal funding, the Times said.
“Access to preventive care keeps people healthier by providing regular check-ups and screenings, and early diagnosis of health problems ensures those problems can be treated before they become overly expensive,” said Lara’s press release.
“By ensuring everyone has access to health care, we can improve the health of our entire community, limit the overcrowding of emergency rooms, and reduce the costs of healthcare in California.”
Some state Republicans object to Lara's views on allowing undocumented immigrants to get access to government insurance programs.
Assemblyman Tim Donnelly of Twin Peaks, a candidate for governor, said, "California cannot afford to create another incentive to attract people to come to our state illegally in pursuit of taxpayer-subsidized benefits. It's shameful that … Lara would trade on the plight of those who are ineligible."

GOP rep: Require food stamp recipients to work

A Republican congressman renewed his call Sunday for Congress to require able-bodied adults on food stamps to work or volunteer in order to keep receiving the benefits, as the rolls of the welfare program have grown to a record 47 million people. 
"I think it makes sense," Rep. Steve Southerland, R-Fla., said on "Fox News Sunday," after a week during which the Obama administration proposed new initiatives to target poverty. Both parties are floating ideas to address poverty and "income inequality," 50 years after the "War on Poverty" was first waged, to limited success.
Southerland's proposal was included in a House-passed version of a food stamp bill approved this past fall, but the House and Senate still have not agreed on final legislation addressing both food stamps and farm subsidies.
Southerland, co-chairman of the Republican Study Committee's Anti-Poverty Initiative, stressed that his plan would exclude disabled people, seniors and children. He claimed most people would agree that food stamp recipients should work, train, look for work or volunteer while on the benefits.
But Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, noted that the other part of the House Republicans' bill would cut billions from food stamps over the next decade, and said many households receiving the benefits are in fact working households.
"You're actually sending a very bad message about work," he said.
The House and Senate remain at odds over how and at what level to fund food stamps, which cost nearly $80 billion in fiscal 2012.
The House bill would cut nearly $40 billion over the next decade. The Senate plan, however, would cut just $4 billion.

Bush's Fault

Standards for Impeachment

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Article II, Section 4

Impeachment is the constitutionally specified means by which an official of the executive or judicial branch may be removed from office for misconduct. There has been considerable controversy about what constitutes an impeachable offense. At the Constitutional Convention, the delegates early on voted for "mal-practice and neglect of duty" as grounds for impeachment, but the Committee of Detail narrowed the basis to treason, bribery, and corruption, then deleting the last point. George Mason, who wanted the grounds much broader and similar to the earlier formulation, suggested "maladministration," but James Madison pointed out that this would destroy the President's independence and make him dependent on the Senate. Mason then suggested "high Crimes and Misdemeanors," which the Convention accepted.
Because "high Crimes and Misdemeanors" was a term of art used in English impeachments, a plausible reading supported by many scholars is that the grounds for impeachment can be not only the defined crimes of treason and bribery, but also other criminal or even noncriminal behavior amounting to a serious dereliction of duty. That interpretation is disputed, but it is agreed by virtually all that the impeachment remedy was to be used in only the most extreme situations, a position confirmed by the relatively few instances in which Congress has used the device.
The word "impeachment" is popularly used to indicate both the bringing of charges in the House and the Senate vote on removal from office. In the Constitution, however, the term refers only to the former. At the Convention, the delegates experimented with differing impeachment proceedings. As finally agreed, a majority vote of the House of Representatives is required to bring impeachment charges (Article I, Section 2, Clause 5), which are then tried before the Senate (Article I, Section 3, Clause 6). Two-thirds of the Senate must vote to convict before an official can be removed. The President may not pardon a person who has been impeached (Article II, Section 2, Clause 1). If an official is impeached by the House and convicted by the requisite vote in the Senate, then Article I, Section 3, Clause 7, provides that the person convicted is further barred from any "Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States." The convicted official also loses any possible federal pensions. With a few exceptions, those impeached and removed have generally faded into obscurity.
In The Federalist No. 64, John Jay argued that the threat of impeachment would encourage executive officers to perform their duties with honor, and, used as a last resort, impeachment itself would be effective to remove those who betray the interests of their country. Like the limitations on the offense of treason, the Framers placed particular grounds of impeachment in the Constitution because they wished to prevent impeachment from becoming a politicized offense, as it had been in England. Nonetheless, Alexander Hamilton, in The Federalist No. 65, also warned that during impeachment proceedings, it would be difficult for Congress to act solely in the interests of the nation and resist political pressure to remove a popular official. The Framers believed that the Senate, elected by the state legislatures, would have the requisite independence needed to try impeachments. The Framers also mandated a supermajority requirement to militate against impeachments brought by the House for purely political reasons.
There have been several impeachment proceedings initiated since the adoption of the Constitution, principally against judges in the lower federal courts. The most important impeachments were those brought against United States Associate Justice Samuel Chase in 1805, against President Andrew Johnson in 1867, and against President William Jefferson Clinton in 1999. None of these three resulted in removal from office, and all three stand for the principle that impeachment should not be perceived as a device simply to remove a political opponent. In that regard, the caution of the Framers has been fulfilled.
President George Washington appointed Samuel Chase to the Supreme Court in 1796. Washington had been warned of Chase's mercurial behavior, but Chase had written the President that, if he were appointed, he would do nothing to embarrass the administration. In his early years on the Court, Chase kept his pledge and did render some fine decisions clarifying the powers of the federal government. In the election of 1800, however, when Thomas Jefferson ran against Washington's Vice President and successor John Adams, Chase earned the ire of Jefferson's emerging Republican party. For one thing, Chase actively took to the hustings to campaign for Adams (a move rare for sitting judges even then). What finally brought President Jefferson to approve of efforts by his party's representatives in Congress to remove the judge was a grand-jury charge Chase made in Baltimore in 1803. There Chase lamented the Jeffersonian restructuring of the federal judiciary in order to abolish the Circuit Court judgeships that the Adams administration had created, and the Maryland Jeffersonians' abolishing a state court and establishing universal male suffrage in Maryland. Chase argued that all of this was plunging the country into "mobocracy." Chase voiced sentiments common to a wing of the party of Washington and Adams, but Jefferson and his men believed that to have a federal judge publicly articulating such views was harmful to the government, and they moved against Chase. In addition to citing his behavior in Baltimore, the impeachment charges included several counts based on Chase's conduct during controversial trials in 1800 against Jeffersonian writers who had been prosecuted under the Alien and Sedition Act of 1798 (a temporary measure that punished libels against the government).
The proceeding against Chase was part of a broader Jeffersonian assault on the judiciary, and it was widely believed, at least among Federalists, that if it were successful, Chief Justice John Marshall might be the next target. None of the specifications brought against Chase charged him with any criminal conduct, and their thrust seemed to be that his legal rulings were simply not in accordance with Jeffersonian theory on how trials ought to be conducted or how juries should function. There was substantial legal precedent behind each of Chase's rulings, however, and although he may have been guilty of having a hair-trigger temper, it was also clear that to permit his removal would seriously, perhaps permanently, compromise the independence of the judiciary. The requisite two-thirds majority of Senators could not be cobbled together to remove Chase, and, in fact, members of Jefferson's own party even voted for acquittal. From that time to this, the Chase acquittal has been understood to bar the removal of a Supreme Court Justice on the ground of his political preferences. Subsequently, there have been several attempts to begin impeachment proceedings against particular Justices, but none has ever prevailed in the House.
Andrew Johnson, who succeeded to the presidency following Abraham Lincoln's assassination in 1865, was impeached because of his failure to follow procedures specified in federal legislation (passed over his veto) that prohibited the firing of Cabinet officials without the permission of Congress. The legislation, known as the Tenure of Office Act, was arguably unconstitutional because it compromised the independence of the executive. Nevertheless, the radical Republicans, who then controlled Congress and who recoiled at President Johnson's active hostility to their plans to protect the newly freed slaves, sought to keep the sympathetic members of Abraham Lincoln's Cabinet in office. When Johnson fired Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, the gauntlet was thrown down, and impeachment was voted by the House. Though just as political as the Chase impeachment proceedings, there was some support for the Tenure of Office Act (Alexander Hamilton, writing in the The Federalist No. 77, had suggested that the consent of the Senate would be necessary "to displace as well as to appoint" officials). As it turned out, the conviction of Johnson failed in the Senate by only one vote.
The administration of President William Jefferson Clinton was beset by assorted scandals, many of which resulted in the appointment of special federal prosecutors, and several of which resulted in the convictions of lesser officials. One of the special prosecutors, Kenneth Starr, recommended to the Congress in 1998 that it consider evidence that the President had obstructed justice, tampered with witnesses, lied to a grand jury, and sought to conceal evidence in connection with a civil proceeding brought against him involving claims of sexual harassment. President Clinton denied the charges, but the Arkansas federal judge who presided in that civil proceeding eventually cited and fined Clinton for contempt based on his untruthful testimony.
A majority of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted in early 1999 to impeach the President based upon Judge Starr's referral. The House managers argued that what the President had done was inconsistent with his sworn duty to take care that the laws of the nation be faithfully executed. When the matter was tried in the Senate, in February 1999, however, the President's defenders prevailed, and no more than fifty Senators (all Republicans) could be found to vote for conviction on any of the charges.
The only other time a President came close to being impeached was the case of Richard M. Nixon. He resigned from office in 1974, after a House Committee had voted to put before the full House a number of impeachment charges, the most serious of which was that he had wrongly used the FBI and the CIA in order to conceal evidence that persons connected to the White House had participated in a burglary at the Democratic Party's offices at the Watergate apartment complex. Nixon avoided impeachment, though not disgrace.
There is no authoritative pronouncement, other than the text of the Constitution itself, regarding what constitutes an impeachable offense, and what meaning to accord to the phrase "other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." When he was a Congressman, Gerald R. Ford advocated the ultimately unsuccessful impeachment of a Supreme Court Justice by defining an impeachable offense as anything on which a majority of the House of Representatives can agree. As impeachment is understood to be a political question, Ford's statement correctly centers responsibility for the definition of "high Crimes and Misdemeanors" in the House. The federal courts have thus far treated appeals from impeachment convictions to be nonjusticiable. Nixon v. United States (1993). Even if the issue of impeachment is nonjusticiable, it does not mean that there are no appropriate standards that the House should observe.
Some scholarly commentary at the time of the Nixon impeachment proceedings argued that the actual commission of a crime was necessary to serve as a basis for an impeachment proceeding. However, the historical record of impeachments in England, which furnished the Constitution's Framers with the term "high Crimes and Misdemeanors," does not support such a limitation; at that time, the word "Misdemeanors" meant simply "misdeeds," rather than "petty crimes," as it now does. The issue was revisited at the time of the Clinton impeachment, when those who sought to remove the President from office, basing their arguments principally on the English experience and The Federalist No. 64, claimed that a President could be removed for any misconduct that indicated that he did not possess the requisite honor, integrity, and character to be trusted to carry out his functions in a manner free from corruption. As James Iredell (later Associate Justice of the Supreme Court) opined in the North Carolina ratifying convention, impeachment should be used to remedy harm "arising from acts of great injury to the community."
On the other hand, some have argued that a President should not be impeached unless he has actually engaged in a major abuse of power flowing from his office as President (although judges, who serve during "good behavior," have been impeached for conduct occurring outside of their official duties). In the end, because it is unlikely that a Court would ever exercise judicial review over impeachment and removal proceedings, the definitional responsibility to carry them out with fidelity to the Constitution's text remains that of the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Stephen B. Presser

Sullivan & Cromwell Professor of Law

Northwestern University School of Law

Obama administration cutting ties with HealthCare.gov contractor

The Obama administration is cutting ties with contractor CGI Federal over its handling of the problem-plagued HealthCare.gov, months after the troubled Oct. 1 launch.
The Washington Post first reported that federal health officials plan to sign a year-long, $90 million contract with Accenture. A source later confirmed the decision to The Associated Press.
The government's contract with CGI was up at the end of February anyway, but the administration apparently is deciding not to renew it. According to the Post, officials concluded CGI was not effective in fixing the myriad problems with the federal ObamaCare website.
A statement to Fox News from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said only that it is working with contract partners "to make a mutually agreed upon transition to ensure that HealthCare.gov continues to operate smoothly for consumers."
The statement continued: "We continually evaluate our needs and remain focused on ensuring consumers have access to affordable, quality coverage, and more than 1.1 million already have enrolled in a private plan in the federal Marketplace."
Republicans are not letting up in their criticism of the law's implementation.
"A change in contractors does not change the sad state of this law," House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., said in a statement.
Enrollment through the federal website has picked up considerably since the Oct. 1 launch, when many were blocked from accessing the site due to technical glitches.
But outside experts had to be brought in and many lawmakers criticized CGI and other contractors who had been working for years on the project.
At first the administration said the problem was not having enough equipment to handle the high level of interest. But major software and design flaws quickly emerged. For example, unlike most e-commerce sites, HealthCare.gov had no way for prospective customers to browse health plans without first opening an account. That only created more computing work for the overwhelmed system to handle.
The administration later acknowledged HealthCare.gov was down 60 percent of the time in October.
The White House sent in a troubleshooter, management consultant Jeffrey Zients, who managed to turn things around by the end of November. Since then, more than 1 million people have signed up for coverage, and when state-run websites are counted, enrollments total more than 2 million.
CGI and other contractors have told Congress that there was not enough time to properly test the system and also meet the administration's Oct. 1 deadline for launching it.

Dem senator under fire for pressuring agency to change insurance cancellation stats

Democratic Colorado Sen. Mark Udall is under fire following reports that his staff pressured the Colorado Division of Insurance to walk back its claims that 250,000 people in the state had their health insurance canceled due to ObamaCare. 
"It's downright shameful that Sen. Udall would attempt to intimidate state employees to give him political cover," Colorado GOP Chairman Ryan Call told FOX31 in Denver.
The allegations surfaced Thursday after the news site Complete Colorado published emails between Udall's office and the Colorado insurance agency last November. At the time, controversy was heating up over the hundreds of thousands of insurance cancellation notices going out -- the cancellations undercut President Obama's campaign-trail assertions that those who like their health plans can keep them.
Udall's staff challenged the Colorado agency for saying there had been 249,000 cancellations.
"Sen. Udall says our numbers were wrong. They are not wrong," one insurance department official wrote, according to a Nov. 14 email. "Cancellation notices affected 249,199 people. They want to trash our numbers. I'm holding strong while we get more details. Many have already done early renewals. Regardless, they received cancellation notices."
The dispute apparently was over the fact that many of those receiving cancellation notices were also being offered renewals.
"We reached out to the Dept. of Insurance because 250,000 cancellations was radically different than the number we were hearing from the insurance industry," Udall spokesman Mike Saccone told FOX31 Denver. "In fact, 96 percent of Coloradans who received 'cancellation letters' were offered an opportunity to renew their current coverage. To the average Coloradan, that is not a cancellation."
Udall's office wanted that clarification to be made.
But the tone of the emails drew accusations of intimidation.
One email showed the same insurance agency official telling colleagues she got a "very hostile phone call" from Udall's deputy chief of staff.
Another email showed a Udall staffer telling the division "we need to move on this ASAP -- or we'll be forced to challenge the 249K number ourselves."
Brook Hougesen, a spokeswoman with the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said in a statement that Udall "authorized his staff to pressure and intimidate state officials to manipulate health care cancellation statistics resulting from ObamaCare."
Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., also wrote a letter on Thursday to state Insurance Commissioner Marguerite Salazar pressing for details about their insurance cancellation calculations.
Salazar told the Denver Post there was no "ongoing pattern of intimidation" with Udall's office.
Udall also told the Denver Post it was "really important to correct the record."

Chris Christie

Unemployment benefits extension hits snag in Senate

WASHINGTON –  Senate Democrats’ plan to extend long-term jobless benefits has hit political turbulence after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pushed a reworked version but blocked Republicans from offering any changes.
The dispute threatened to stall the legislation, just days after it narrowly cleared a Senate hurdle.
“Indiana voters didn’t send me here to be told just to sit down and forget it,” said Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind., complaining Republicans had been sidelined.
The original version of the bill was a three-month, $6 billion extension that was not paid for. Republicans objected, and Reid came back with a 10-month extension that was paid for.
But he then moved to block Republicans from offering amendments, going so far as to accuse Republicans of “continually denigrating our economy, our president and frankly, I believe, our country.”
Coats, who had earlier in the week helped advance the bill, expressed anger he hadn’t been consulted about changes in the legislation. By Thursday evening, most of the Republicans who had been on board with the plan earlier in the week signaled they’d be pulling their support.
The now-expired law provided a maximum 47 weeks of payments after an unemployed worker had used up state-funded benefits generally capped at 26 weeks.
The re-worked legislation reduces the 47 weeks to a maximum of 31 weeks, based on a sliding scale that dates to the expired program. Reducing the number of weeks would save about $8 billion, a Senate source told Fox News.
The first tier of additional benefits would be six weeks, and be generally available to all who have used up their state’s eligibility.
An additional six weeks would be available in states where unemployment is 6 percent or higher; an additional nine weeks in states with a joblessness rate of 7 percent or higher; and 10 or more weeks in states where unemployment is 9 percent or more.
The cost, which Republicans had issue with, would be offset in part by extending a previously-approved reduction in Medicare payments to providers. It would also be paid for by extending the sequester cuts to mandatory spending by another year, which would save around $17 billion.
Additional funding would come from limiting or eliminating the ability of people on Social Security disability from also receiving unemployment benefits, which the Senate source told Fox would save another $1 billion.
Senators from the two states — Democrat Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Dean Heller, a Republican from Nevada — were central to the talks, and the White House was also being kept informed.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters that administration officials have indicated they would be satisfied with a deal that won the backing of Senate Democrats.
Another Senate vote is tentatively scheduled for next week.
Any legislation that clears the Senate would also have to pass the House, where Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has said he is only willing to consider an extension of the expired program that is fully paid for.
Calls to Boehner’s office Thursday by FoxNews.com were not immediately returned.

San Francisco environmentalist group wants global warming warning on gas pumps

Bailey comment: " Ever notice that our idiot politicians all across America use California as their role models".
First cigarettes, now gas pumps.
A group of San Francisco environmentalists want to remind drivers that refilling their cars with gas is leading to global warming by slapping a sticker on gas pumps similar to those you find on a carton of cigarettes, The San Francisco Chronicle reported.
"The goal isn't to take transportation away from people and say, 'You're a bad person,'" Jamie Brooks, a member of the Bay Area chapter of 350.org, told the paper. "The goal is to create a signal saying, 'You need to change your behavior.'"
350.org is a group that seeks to build a global grassroots movement to "solve the climate crisis," according to its webpage, and the group made clear that the warning label fight is solely an initiative by the Bay Area branch.
The label's design is straightforward. It has white on black writing, topped off with "Warning" in bold on an orange background. The text reads, "The state of California has determined that global warming caused by greenhouse gases poses a serious threat to the economic well-being, public health, natural resources and the environment of California."
The Bay Area group is pitching the idea to local government. Gas station owners and oil companies would likely fight a ruling in favor of the warning labels.

Reid Overstates Reduction in Uninsured

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid incorrectly claimed that 9 million Americans “have health care that didn’t have it before” because of the Affordable Care Act. That figure includes an unknown number who previously had insurance but switched to a policy sold through the exchanges, plus an unknown number of Medicaid recipients who renewed their coverage.

 

Reid made the statement on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Jan. 5, saying:

Reid, Jan. 5: [R]ight now, as we speak, there are 9 million Americans … who have health care that didn’t have it before. We have, as you know, we have 3 million Medicare [Medicaid]. We have 3 million on their policies because they haven’t reached, they haven’t reached age 26. And we’ll have more than 2 million. They’re coming.

The 9 million figure includes three categories of Americans: 2.1 million who have selected plans on the federal or state insurance marketplaces, or exchanges; 3.9 million who were determined to be eligible for Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (higher than the 3 million figure Reid used); and an estimated 3.1 million young adults under the age of 26 who were able to join their parents’ policies as a result of the ACA.

But it’s wrong to assume, as Reid does, that all of those people were previously uninsured.
Let’s start with those who were uninsured. Some may consider the inclusion of the 3.1 million young adults an attempt to puff up the numbers after a slow, glitch-filled and, by any standard, unsuccessful launch of the exchanges last fall. After all, this provision of the law was implemented in September 2010. But this is the one estimate that’s made up exclusively of those gaining insurance. The estimate comes from the Department of Health and Human Services, which said in a June 2012 press release that the figure was based on the National Health Interview Survey conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics, which found an increase in the percentage of young adults (age 19 to 25) with insurance between September 2010 and December 2011. (Some among this estimate may well have gained coverage in another manner — other than being added to their parents’ plans — but the number does represent an increase in the insured in an age group directly affected by the law at the time.)

It’s the other two categories that include folks who did have health coverage before, contrary to Reid’s remarks.

The 2.1 million people who selected exchange plans include some who had insurance but switched to these marketplace plans, such as those whose insurers canceled specific plans or even pulled out of the individual insurance market altogether. And, as Washington Post Fact Checker Glenn Kessler pointed out, it even includes Reid, who, like other previously insured members of Congress are required to get their coverage through the exchanges, rather than the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, as they did before.
Then there’s the Medicaid estimate. Marilyn Tavenner, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, announced on Dec. 31 that 3.9 million “learned they’re eligible for coverage through Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) in October and November.” She noted: “These numbers include new eligibility determinations and some Medicaid and CHIP renewals.”

So, some portion of that 3.9 million — a figure that comes from state reports — includes Americans who already had Medicaid or CHIP and are simply renewing, and it could include those who had insurance through another source and are now eligible for Medicaid. CMS doesn’t have such a breakdown on these Medicaid-eligible folks. The figure also includes those who were previously eligible for Medicaid (before the ACA) and are now signing up. Some of those previously eligible folks may not have been influenced by the law; others may have been prompted to seek coverage because of the individual mandate, or because they’ve heard so much about the health care law.

One last note: Americans buying their own insurance don’t have to go through the exchanges; they can buy directly from an insurance carrier. It’s possible some of the previously uninsured have done so, but we know of no estimate for that.

What we do know is that it’s incorrect to say, as Reid did, that the 9 million figure represents “Americans who have health care that didn’t have it before.”

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that in 2014, due to the Affordable Care Act, the number of uninsured would decline by 14 million, with 7 million joining the exchanges, 9 million gaining Medicaid and CHIP, and 2 million fewer Americans getting coverage through the individual market. It remains to be seen how closely reality will track with those estimates.

– Lori Robertson

Rodman

Any other time or place this creep would have been put against a wall and shot. They use to call them traitors, but now the kids call them basketball stars.

Chamber of Commerce vows to fight ObamaCare employer mandate in 2014

The head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce vowed Wednesday to fight ObamaCare's so-called employer mandate and other "onerous" provisions in the year ahead, even as the pro-business group acknowledged the bill as a whole cannot be repealed in the current climate.
The agenda was outlined by Commerce President and CEO Thomas Donohue, in his annual Washington address. Though the law's requirement on mid-sized and large businesses to provide health coverage to workers was delayed by a year, Donohue said the Chamber still plans to lobby against that mandate in 2014.
“In 2014, we will work to repeal onerous health care taxes; repeal, delay, or change the employer mandate; and give companies and their employees more flexibility in the choice of health insurance plans,” Donohue said. He also cited immigration reform, entitlement reform and more domestic energy production as other major objectives.
“We’re not going to get rid of [the Affordable Care Act] so we’re going to have to find ways to make it work,” Donohue said afterward. “It’s a massive tax bill. It’s a massive rules-and-regulations system. And lots of people are worried about how they are going to get their health care.”
In his speech, Donohue said the health insurance cancellations that “swamped” the individual market last year are expected to hit the small business market even harder this year. And many firms are not hiring and are cutting workers’ hours because of the law’s mandates, he said -- despite claims by the Obama administration to the contrary.
Donohue deflected a question after the speech about how long of a delay he wants for the employer mandate, which requires businesses with 50 or more full-time employees to offer insurance, saying only that he was speaking in “broad terms.”
“We’ll delay what we have to delay,” he said. “Whatever we have to keep, we’ll keep.”
As further indication that the chamber doesn’t support the ObamaCare repeal effort by the Tea Party and others in the most conservative wing of the Republican Party, Donohue suggested those trying to extract spending cuts or other deals when negotiating over raising the federal debt ceiling “are not helping us.”
He also made clear the Chamber will support candidates in the 2014 elections who “want to work within the legislative process.”
Despite the Chamber’s apparent resignation to ObamaCare being here to stay, he said the group would “head to court to sue” if necessary to achieve its objectives on health care and other issues.
Donohue said the Chamber repeatedly warned Congress and the administration about ObamaCare’s many flaws and argued problems with the president’s signature law go beyond the rollout of the websites on which Americans buy insurance policies from private companies.
“The administration is obviously committed to keeping the law in place, so the Chamber has been working pragmatically to fix those parts of ObamaCare that can be fixed,” he said. “Computers can be fixed.”

Obama's Supreme Court foe: Nuns who care for the elderly poor

For an administration seeking to win a skeptical public over to ObamaCare, the Justice Department could not have picked a more sympathetic foe for a Supreme Court fight than The Little Sisters of the Poor.
The administration is fighting back against a lawsuit filed by the non-profit, which does not meet ObamaCare's classification of a "religious employer"  because it hires and tends to people of all religious and ethnic backgrounds.
Supporters say The Little Sisters of the Poor epitomize service by caring for the elderly poor and those deemed "worthless" by society. In the United States, it runs 30 homes where hundreds of its employees provide nursing and end of life care.
"You know there's a lot of good Catholic organizations out there - the soup kitchens and the like," says Bill Donahue, president of the Catholic League, "But let's face it, when it comes right down to it in terms of one-on-one personal care, the work that the Little Sisters of the Poor are doing has no parallel."
Because it does not meet ObamaCare's definition of a "religious employer," lawyers for the Little Sisters of the Poor say the organization is not exempt from the contraceptive mandate in the health care law. That means it must provide the abortion pill to its employees - something that is strictly against its religious doctrine.
It is suing the administration to change that.
In an opposing brief to the Supreme Court, the Justice Department claims the Little Sisters are, in effect, exempt from the contraception mandate. The DOJ says the non-profit has the right to hire a third party to administer coverage and that by signing a simple two-page waiver, the Little Sisters can forego the mandate.
The brief says the Little Sisters are "under no legal obligation to provide the coverage after applicants certify that they object to providing it."
But lawyers for the Little Sisters doubt that. They cite other court papers in which the government has said it is considering other options to enforce the contraception mandate against churches and religious organizations.
Daniel Blomberg, an attorney for the Beckett Fund, which represents the Little Sisters  told Fox News, "The document on its face says when you receive this third party insurer, you have a legal duty to provide these drugs. Now, all the government is saying is, we can't enforce that legal duty. That'd be like the government saying, yeah, the speed limit is 55, but we don't have any police officers who can catch this particular type of vehicle right now."
If the Little Sisters don't sign the waiver, the organization could potentially be fined $4.5 million a year - about a third of its budget.
Last week Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor granted a temporary injunction preventing the government from enforcing the contraception mandate against the Little Sisters, while it is contested in lower courts. She can extend the injunction herself, or refer it to the whole court for arguments and then a decision would be likely in June.

ObamaCare subsidy for Congress

Sen. Ron Johnson told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly Monday he decided to sue the Obama administration over the subsidy for lawmakers in the president’s health care law because it is unfair to give members of Congress special treatment.
Johnson, R-Wis., said the subsidy creates a double standard that favors members of Congress and their staff over other Americans, and should be eliminated.
“It’s a matter of basic fairness,” Johnson said. “It’s also a matter of standing up, ensuring that we actually enforce the rule of law because, let’s face it, this president across the board is pretty well just ignoring his ignoring his constitutional duty,  his oath of office to faithfully execute the law.”
Johnson said Congress has tried the legislative route to getting rid of the subsidy, such as amendments in the House and the Senate, but they failed. Johnson said since lawmakers exhausted all their legislative options, they must turn to the courts.
Johnson also said he hopes getting rid of the subsidy will show Democrats the reality of ObamaCare.
“The only way they are going to start changing this law, the only way they are going to start repairing and limiting the damage is if they feel the full, harsh realities of the law and that’s another thing this lawsuit would actually accomplish,” he said.

global warming?

Capitol Hill vote on unemployment benefits delayed

A preliminary Senate vote to extend unemployment benefits was postponed Monday night after the extreme cold across much of the country prevented some senators from traveling back to Washington.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid -- who vowed to make the vote his “first item of business”upon returning to Capitol Hill from winter break -- rescheduled the vote for Tuesday.
The bipartisan bill to extend long-term benefits to 1.3 million unemployed Americans will cost $26 billion and needs 60 votes in the Senate on its way to a final vote.
However, Reid will need at least four Republicans to votes yes in the 100-member upper chamber, which has 45 Republicans, 53 Democrats and two Independents, who typically vote with Democrats.
Eighteen senators missed the vote earlier Monday night that confirmed Janet Yellen as chairman of the Federal Reserve, which appeared to make the jobless benefits vote too close for Reid, whose decision to postpone received unanimous consent.
Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, among the Senate Republicans considered likely to support the bill, said Monday that she got a call in the morning from President Obama looking for her support and that she would vote yes in the first round.
But whether she would cast a final vote in favor of the extension was unclear.
Collins told Fox News she would like to restructure the unemployment program, particularly linking the extension to job training for workers in dwindling industries and that she expressed her disappointment to Obama that Reid was not allowing amendments.
Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk, another Senate Republican who was considered a possible yes vote,  suggested Monday afternoon he is against the extension because the spending is not being offset by cuts.
Senator Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said he will vote against the bill, as expected.
“Unfortunately, this bill is being jammed through, has not been considered in committee and will not be able to be amended on the floor,” he said. “Spending [billions] in three months without trying to find ways to pay for it or improve the underlying policy is irresponsible and takes us in the wrong direction.”
The money for Americans unemployed for at least six months was cut from a budget deal passed in late December, but not before Republicans made clear they would not restore the money unless Democrats agreed to the so-called offsets.
Reid and Obama have led the Democrats in calling for passage of the legislation that is sponsored by Nevada Republican Sen. Dean Heller and Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Jack Reed.
“Instead of celebrating the beginning of a new year on January 1, more than a million Americans …were left wondering how they would feed their families,” Reid said Monday on the Senate floor before delaying the vote. “I hope a few reasonable and empathetic Republicans will join my colleague from Nevada and help us advance this bill today.”
The extension faces an even more uncertain future in the Republican-led House, where leaders say the cost must be offset.
"I would like to find a way to get a compromise to extend unemployment insurance, at least for a brief period of time, but at the same time, the Democrats should make compromises," Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., told CBS on Sunday.
Critics of the plan also argue the benefits have been in place longer and paid out more than in past recessions.
Obama earlier called the cuts “just plain cruel,” and is scheduled to give a White House speech Tuesday, surrounded by unemployed Americans, to push for the benefits.
Restoring the money appears critical to Democratic lawmakers who need to energize core voters in the midterm elections, which typically have low voter turnout. It also is part of their large, emerging pl

Romney accepts MSNBC host's apology

     
 Bailey comment:  "Seems like someone up there in the ranks has a little class"!

A day after MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry issued a tearful on-air apology to Mitt Romney for joking about his adopted black grandson, the former Massachusetts governor accepted it as "clearly heartfelt."

“I recognize that people make mistakes," Romney said on "Fox News Sunday." “And the folks at MSNBC made a big mistake. They’ve apologized for it. And that’s all you can ask for.”

On her show last week, Harris-Perry showed the Romney family Christmas card: a photo of the family and his grandchildren — including Kieran, an African-American child adopted by one of Romney's sons. Harris-Perry and her guests then joked that it was the 2012 Republican nominee's "token" attempt at diversity.

On Saturday, Harris-Perry apologized. "Showing the photo in that context, that segment, was poor judgment," she said. "Adults who enter into public life, implicitly consent to having less privacy, but their families, especially their children, should not be treated callously or thoughtlessly. My intention was not malicious, but I broke the ground rule that families are off-limits. For that I am sorry."

“People like me are fair targets," Romney said on Sunday. "If you get in the political game, you can expect incoming. But children, that’s beyond the line. And I think they understand that."

He added: “I think it’s a heartfelt apology. And for that reason, we hold no ill will whatsoever.”

Also Sunday, Romney, who managed the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, said he's confident the upcoming games in Socchi will be safe from a terrorist attack.

"I'm convinced, the case of a nation like Russia, they have the resources to do their very best to protect people from that kind of attack," Romney said.

I’m madder than hell and I’m not going to take it anymore

• Posted by Dan Short on January 4, 2014 at 9:00am
• View Blog

I’m yelling at the top of my lungs, I’m madder than hell and I’m not going to take it anymore. We all should know this little refrain. Yet how many of us are so damn fed up we are throwing open our windows, shouting into the street, and telling the world, this is insanity—we as a nation do not deserve this!
How anyone in their right mind, not some hallucination of smoking marijuana and retarding their minds ability to think, cannot and is not beyond screaming about the attack occurring on this nation is beyond me. Today, thanks to not only the leadership of the dumbest man to ever walk upright on this planet, but a congress that has no more idea of this nation’s design that----? There is no one anywhere else on the face of this planet that doesn’t understand this nation more than the absolute ideocracy of the actions and proposals of this nation’s political parties. I mean ‘both’ political parties, the communist dyed in the wool Democrats, and the damn ignorant communist light of the Republicans.
When I think of this nation’s wonder, I wonder what in the hell are the people, the citizens of this nation thinking. How can any society, of people who profess to be civilized, who make the façade they are homo sapiens—with the ability to think and reason—elect the cause of our demise, the political parties that are politically motivated for their own self-interest than this nation’s wonder.
Every American, who is part of our society—you work providing goods and services—trading you wealth…your life…in exchange for earnings, exchanging your life for currency wealth of transfer can sit idly by while the government is stealing all they can is inconceivable. The government in every way possible uses the corruption of economics to steal from each and every individual every single second, of every hour, of every day and year of your life. While the government is indebting, your progeny into debt they will never be able to pay!  Reducing our society to slaves of the government, and the citizens, the people of this nation do not react is beyond the reasoning of rational man.   
This nation isn’t ignorant, or are we? The man who developed the communist design of destroying this nation—John Maynard Keynes—told us how it works. ‘The design is simple, for the process engages all the hidden force of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million can diagnose!’  What tripe, anyone, any man or woman who has watched the absolute debauchery, the destruction of the value of wealth by this administration and this congress that cannot identify how it destroys is in cognitive of reality? Who in the hell is so ignorant to not realize that the prices of groceries hasn’t been going up exponentially since this absolute disgrace has been elected. Your electric bill, has it gone down? I won’t even mention the absolute fiasco of the medical servicing destruction occurring, for if you don’t know that you can qualify as a Coloradan—worrying about legalizing marijuana so you can destroy your ability to think—than the reality of living in this world.
It ain’t even begun. The bureaucratic communist attack of central planning on the books designed for initiation this year will make the last 5 years of tragedy seem like an interlude of serene calm.
Well I’m not going to take it! I’m going to do everything in my power—shout at the top of my lungs, refuse to acquiesce, lie down like the spineless Republican Party and imitate a door mat. I’m standing with Dwayne Stovall.
You see, Dwayne Stovall as Texans do, has followed the path first identified by Colonel Travis at the Alamo. Travis’s request was simple, while identical with the same position that Swayne Stovall is taking today, ‘if you stand with me, you stand for Texas, and you stand for this nation cross this line and join me.’
We don’t have to meet in San Antonio and man the walls, but what we must do is just as important. We must become the agents for this nation’s preservation. We must be the campaigners to wake up the ignorant, the naïve, and the complacent to the danger this nation is in. We also must open our wallets; contribute our wealth, of our exchange of life for currency, to fight the powers of the political parties. For the political parties only put up their puppets for the political parties self-interest, the hell with Texans, the hell with this nation. As long as their greed, their crony capitalism, their debaucher of the monetary value of this nation satisfies their wants—and their wants only.
You have a choice; you can stand idly by and watch the government through taxation steal the wealth in your wallet. Alternatively, you can become pro-active and cross that line, stand with Stovall, and do every damn thing you can to insure the ‘Preservation of This…WONDROUS…Nation.’
Cross that line, learn “HOW TO KEEP THE GOVERNMETN FROM STEALING FROM YOU!’ Remember that after March 4^th, if we don’t succeed, this nation will once again have a senator from Texas not for Texans, but for the Political Party of acquiescence, the door mats of the current communist intrusion destroying this nation.
http://texansforstovall.com/12_steps_to_beat_government_theft.pdf  
My names Dan Short,
I not only approve this message, I wrote it.
I’ve not gained any position of our society by government dictate advancing inequality. I’ve not been allowed into Harvard where I smoked marijuana, and studied Marx. However, I’ve learned that the last thing this nation requires is any damn fundamental transformation.
I also know, that I stand with any American who stands for the ‘Preservation of this Nation.’ For if you don’t you are as much of an enemy to me—as any other enemy this nation has, foreign or domestic. 

Exposing the world's great lie about ObamaCare and socialized medicine

In health care, 2013 was a year of great irony. In the United States, the Obama administration bullheadedly forged ahead in advancing the most controversial and expensive law in recent memory, the deceptively named Affordable Care Act.
The law, opposed by a clear and consistent majority of citizens, immediately caused millions of Americans to lose their health insurance along with their choice of doctor and hospital, and millions more to pay far higher insurance premiums.
While the focus has been on the embarrassing roll-out that, at a minimum, demonstrated both the incompetence and the poor judgment of this administration, the true harm of this law is still to come as new government authority over U.S. health care dramatically increases.
Concurrently, Britain’s National Health Service (NHS), the paradigm of government-controlled health care, turned 65 years old in 2013 and officially entered senior citizenship.
The NHS received its review by the British press this past year on an almost daily basis.
Headlines blared across the UK, endlessly documenting scandalous patient care, shameful waiting lists, catastrophic hospital practices, and financial debacle.
Directly undermining those who advocate for an even stronger role for government in U.S. health care, the British press has instead been documenting the disgraceful state of the NHS.
Despite what Americans are led to believe about nationalized health systems, including the claims that everyone is insured and care is free under such systems, the facts about what’s really important in health care --- actual medical care access and quality -- showed the harmful impact of government control on health care.
One critical distinction generally lost amid the naïve but passionate backers of nationalized insurance is the difference between being insured and having access to care.
Despite the chest-thumping that everyone is insured, U.K. citizens relying on the NHS experience unconscionable problems with access to care, problems not even remotely found in the U.S.
How poor is access to care in socialized systems like the NHS? Access problems are so widespread that the government was compelled to issue England’s 2010 “NHS Constitution” in which it was declared that no patient should wait beyond 18 weeks for treatment.
It is noteworthy enough that the UK government felt so much pressure from the systemic failures of its NHS that they were forced to issue “rights” to patients about receiving medical care.
But should it not bring chills that the government of free people, in the 21st century, had the authority to define those rights about seeking and receiving personal medical care? And even more Kafkaesque is the government’s boldness to define lengthy target times and then to claim that standards have been met. Indeed, designed to propagate the illusion of meeting quality standards, the government decreed that targets were met, even if patients waited a full four months after the diagnosis was made for treatment to begin.
What is the current status of access to care, now that the rights of NHS patients to medical care were enumerated?
At the end of June, the number of people waiting in England to start NHS treatment was 240,000 higher than the same time last year.
NHS England figures for July showed that 508,555 people in London alone were waiting for operations or other treatment to begin — the highest total for at least five years.
Almost 60,000 more patients were waiting for treatment at the capital’s 34 NHS hospitals than one year ago. According to NHS data released in August, hospital waiting lists soared to a five-year high, with almost 2.9 million patients with a known diagnosis in the queue for treatment.
In Wales, the number of patients waiting more than nine months for hospital treatment in November had more than doubled in six months. The Welsh government also reported their NHS is still failing to treat 8 to 13% of the most urgent cancer cases within 62 days – two full months after diagnosis.
Even given a laughably long leash of an 18 week standard, the number of patients not being treated within the target of 18 weeks soared to 39,145 — up 16 per cent on the previous month -- in London alone.
The BBC discovered even more scandalous news back in February --  many patients initially assessed as needing surgery were subsequently re-categorized by the hospital so that they could be removed from waiting lists to distort the already unconscionable delays.
Royal College of Surgeons President Norman Williams, calling this “outrageous,” publicly charged that hospitals are cutting their waiting lists by artificially raising thresholds.
Though long proven by facts documented by the UK government and in scientific journals, these shocking waits for care, whether for specialist appointments, heart surgery, stroke treatment, diagnostic scans, or cancer care go virtually unreported by the U.S. media.
Ironically, U.S. media outrage was widespread when time to appointment for Americans averaged 20.5 days for five specialties in 2009. Escaping American media coverage was that those requests were for healthy check-ups in almost all cases, by definition the lowest medical priority.
It remains unreported that the U.S. wait for routine check-ups was significantly less than for sick Brits needing heart surgery (57 days), or Canadians with “probable cancer” of the gastrointestinal tract (26 days) or proven GI bleeding (71 days).
Even for purely elective routine physicals, U.S. waits are shorter than for seriously ill patients in countries with nationalized insurance.
The disgrace of nationalized insurance systems extends far beyond limited access to care.
Comparing data for cancer, heart disease, and stroke, the most common sources of serious illness and death in the U.S. and Europe, and the diseases that generate the highest medical expenditures, we see the overt failure of the NHS and its socialist relatives compared to the U.S. And the same bottom line is true for the most important chronic diseases that portend long term morbidity and mortality, including high blood pressure, diabetes, and high cholesterol.
All have better access to care and better treatment results in the U.S. than in the U.K., proven by studies in the world’s leading medical journals.
Adding to those undeniable facts is a long list of inexcusable scandals in NHS hospitals that were repeatedly discovered, investigated, and catalogued with promises of change this past year.
These outrages were epitomized in 2013 by the Staffordshire Trust debacle, where between 400 and 1,200 neglected and abused patients died in squalid and degrading circumstances, where patients were left so thirsty that drinking from the pots of watered plants was necessary.
Although unreported here in the U.S., the 2013 Francis report about Staffordshire NHS hospital, containing more than one million pages and 64,000 documents, and costing British taxpayers about $20 million, caused outrage even for those wedded to government-controlled health care.
While forcing the resignation of the NHS chief, the report more importantly officially called out the insidious negative culture in the NHS, involving a tolerance of unacceptably poor standards and patient neglect , a preoccupation with cost-cutting, targets and processes while losing sight of its fundamental responsibility to provide safe patient care.
Yet, the greatest deception of all about NHS-style socialized medicine, the silly canard that it provides “free” health care for everyone, was visible for anyone interested in facts in 2013.
The cost to British patients and taxpayers for their dismally performing NHS has been enormous and has increased by 94 per cent in real terms between 1999-2000 and 2009-2010. And even in the face of such outrageous money-wasting as reported in September that millions of non-existent “ghost” patients were registered at NHS surgeries costing taxpayers £750 million over five years, Secretary of State for
Health Jeremy Hunt intransigently argued against any restraints on the 2014 NHS budget of £114 billion ($175 billion), despite its shameful performance and lack of accountability.
And that cost still does not prevent a growing number of British taxpayers from looking elsewhere for medical care. About six million Brits now buy private health insurance, including almost two-thirds of Brits earning more than $78,700.
According to The Telegraph, the number of people paying for their own private care is up 20 percent year-to-year, with about 250,000 now choosing to pay for private treatment out-of-pocket each year.
Isn’t it notable that more than 50,000 Britons travel out of the country per year and spend £161 million to receive medical care due to lack of access, even though they are already paying for their NHS insurance?
Despite all of these realities, just as in America, many in positions of power refuse to accept the facts and continue to deceive the public.
Even the hard-hitting 2013 Staffordshire report still insisted near the top of its list of summary points that “the NHS is a service of which the country can be justly proud, offering as it does universal access to free medical care, often of the highest order.”
In a truly offensive effort to further manipulate the public about their failing system of socialized medicine, the NHS in London separately spent even more taxpayer money -- almost £13 million, or about $20 million -- on public relations in the last three years, as reported by the BBC.
Eerily echoing that disgraceful waste of hard-earned taxpayer money, our own Obama administration will spend about $684 million, as cited by the Associated Press, mainly on a massive campaign to convince young people to sign up for ObamaCare exchanges and purchase unnecessarily bloated, highly expensive insurance they don’t need or want.
Finally, the system often heralded as the model for US health care reform, offers access and quality of care so poor that Britain is now experiencing a serious brain drain of their young doctors.
The NHS has become hugely reliant on doctors trained outside the UK. An estimated 94,833 of the 259,719 doctors of all doctors registered with the General Medical Council, 36.5% of the total, are from foreign medical schools. And what is the solution to the disastrous waiting lists and disgraceful care in the NHS in the face of a considerable outflow of UK medical professionals?
The U.K. government is now considering sub-contracting operations to private firms from other countries.
Is anyone in the U.S. government watching this socialized medicine debacle unfold?
Yet, the stubborn pursuit of an overtly failed system like the NHS, where government controls medical care, is the model for ObamaCare, so the inexorable progression towards what we see in the U.K. should be in the minds of American voters as more components of the law unfold in 2014.
Ultimately, the only way out is for taxpayers and all U.S. citizens who care about choice, access, and quality of health care to make their voices heard.
Thankfully, another election is approaching.

McCain, Graham blast Obama for Al Qaeda-related takeover of Fallujah, call situation 'predictable'

Republican senators on Saturday blamed the Obama administration for Al Qaeda affiliates over-running parts of Iraq, including the city of Fallujah, which the United States secured before President Obama removed all U.S. forces from that country in 2011.
Sen. John McCain, Arizona, and Lindsey Graham, South Carolina, called the recent turn of events “as tragic as they were predictable” and suggested Obama misled Americans into believing that Iraqi leaders wanted U.S. forces out of their country.
“While many Iraqis are responsible for this strategic disaster, the administration cannot escape its share of the blame,” the senators said in a joint statement. “When President Obama withdrew all U.S. forces … over the objections of our military leaders and commanders on the ground, many of us predicted that the vacuum would be filled by America's enemies and would emerge as a threat to U.S. national security interests. Sadly, that reality is now clearer than ever.”
The Al Qaeda-affiliated fighters took over Fallujah on Friday after a bloody three-day battle, raising their flag over government buildings as a sign of victory, according to The Washington Post.
At least eight people were killed and dozens injured Friday night as the Iraqi army tries to regain control of the city. The army, which lobbed mortar bombs in its response, has been joined in the fray by tribesmen from Ramadi, a Sunni stronghold.
U.S. forces secured Fallujah in 2004 after one of the deadliest battles of the Iraq war. Fallujah became notorious among Americans when insurgents in 2004 killed four American security contractors and hung their burned bodies from a bridge.
After the recent takeover by Al Qaeda-tied fighters, the Obama administration on Saturday called the attacks barbaric and said it is working with the Iraqi government and the tribal leaders.
“We are … concerned by efforts of the terrorist Al Qaeda/Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant to assert its authority in Syria as well as Iraq,” said State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf. “Their barbarism against civilians of Ramadi and Fallujah and against Iraqi Security Forces is on display for all to see.”
Major Sunni tribes turned against Al Qaeda before the American withdrawal at the end of 2011. But they do not support the Shiite-led government in Iraq, creating an odd alliance in the battle against militants.
“The administration's narrative that Iraq's political leadership objected to U.S. forces remaining in Iraq after 2011 is patently false,” said McCain and Graham, military hawks with an active interest in Middle East affairs. “We know firsthand that Iraq's main political blocs were supportive and that the administration rejected sound military advice and squandered the opportunity to conclude a security agreement with Iraq."
On Friday, the Al Qaeda affiliates tried to win over the population in Fallujah with a militant commander appearing among worshippers holding Friday prayers in the main city street, proclaiming that his fighters were there to defend Sunnis from the government, a resident said.
There have been no reports on the total number of people injured or killed in the fighting that started earlier this week.
The overrunning of Fallujah and Ramadi, another Sunni stronghold, by Al Qaeda’s Iraqi branch in the Sunni heartland of western Anbar provinces is a blow to the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister al-Maliki. His government has been struggling to contain discontent among the Sunni minority over Shiite political domination that has flared into increased violence for the past year.
Anbar province, a desert area on the borders with Syria and Jordan, has almost an entirely Sunni population. The area served as the heartland of the Sunni insurgency that rose up against American troops and the Iraqi government after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. Authorities earlier this week arrested a senior Sunni politician and dismantled a months-old sit-in in Ramadi sparking anger among Sunnis.
In an effort to ease tensions, al-Maliki pulled the military out of Anbar cities to transfer security duties to local police, a top demand of Sunnis who see the army as a tool of al-Maliki’s rule. Al Qaeda militants then erupted in Fallujah and Ramadi overrunning police station, driving out security forces and freeing prisoners.
“Thousands of brave Americans who fought, shed their blood, and lost their friends to bring peace to Fallujah and Iraq are now left to wonder whether these sacrifices were in vain,” said McCain and Graham, who argued the administration’s failure in Iraq has been compounded by its failed policy in Syria.
That country is involved in a years-long civil war in which tens of thousands have been killed or driven from their homeland, which the senators say has resulted in a regional conflict that now threatens U.S. national security interests.
The senators also called on Obama to learn from the Iraq experience and promptly decide on the troop levels needed to secure U.S. national security interests in Afghanistan and to keep out Al Qaeda and its terrorist allies.

Michael Moore

Administration to high court: Don't exempt Catholic groups from contraception mandate

Bailey comment: " This is our federal government out of control ".


The Obama administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court not to exempt Catholic groups from an ObamaCare requirement to offer contraceptive coverage, after the high court gave them a temporary reprieve earlier this week. 
The court filing comes in response to a surprise order -- issued shortly before coverage under the law went into effect -- by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. The justice issued a stay late Tuesday preventing the government from enforcing the so-called contraceptive mandate against the Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged.
The group of Catholic nuns argues that the contraceptive coverage requirement violates their religious beliefs. To get around the mandate, they claim they'd have to sign a "permission slip" authorizing others to provide contraceptives and "abortion drugs" -- or pay a fine.
Lawyers for the group made one more plea for emergency relief late Friday, filing a 17-page brief with the court saying the reprieve spared the nuns from having to choose between violating their faith and facing IRS penalties. The brief claimed the government is "simply blind to the religious exercise at issue: the Little Sisters and other Applicants cannot execute the form because they cannot deputize a third party to sin on their behalf." 
But the Justice Department, responding just before the Friday morning deadline, reiterated its argument that the group has no foundation for its case. The administration says religious nonprofit groups such of this one can certify that they don't want to provide contraceptive coverage. In that case, it would be up to a third-party administrator to decide whether to provide it.
The DOJ filing noted that the administrator in this case "says it will not provide contraceptive coverage."
"Applicants have no legal basis to challenge the self certification requirement or to complain that it involves them in the process of providing contraceptive coverage," the administration claimed.
The Catholic group, though, has argued that even signing the certification form would violate the nuns' beliefs.
A lawyer with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing the group, blasted the administration over the filing.
"The government demands that the Little Sisters of the Poor sign a permission slip for abortion drugs and contraceptives, or pay of millions in fines. The Sisters believe that doing that violates their faith, and that they shouldn't be forced to divert funds from the poor elderly and dying people they've devoted their lives to serve," senior counsel Mark Rienzi said in a statement.
Government lawyers say the nuns' insurance is a "church plan" that is not required to provide contraception coverage and has decided not to, so they have no legal basis to complain.
It is not known when Sotomayor will make a decision.

Illegal Immigrant Allowed to Practice Law in California

  Bailey comment: "Unbelievable ".

 The California Supreme Court granted on Thursday a law license to an illegal Mexican immigrant who graduated from law school and passed the bar, a precedent setting decision and a key victory for immigration rights advocates, the New York Times and other news outlets reported.

The undocumented immigrant, California resident Sergio Garcia, 36, had challenged a 1996 federal law that bars illegal immigrants from obtaining professional licenses from government agencies or with the use of public funds, unless the state ruled otherwise.

In October, California was the first state in the nation to pass legislation that allows children who were brought to the U.S. by their undocumented parents to become lawyers.

Urgent: Do You Approve Or Disapprove of President Obama's Job Performance? Vote Now in Urgent Poll

The California Bar Assn. and California's Attorney General agreed that the status of citizenship should not be a requirement to receive a California law license.

But it was the State Supreme Court, which finalizes requests of applicants to be licensed as lawyers, which granted Garcia's application.

In its ruling the court wrote, "In light of the recently enacted state legislation, we conclude that the committee's motion to admit Garcia to the State Bar should be granted."

The federal government's opposition to granting Garcia a law license seemed to fly in the face of President Obama's program that allows illegal immigrants to avoid deportation and work here as long as they were brought to the U.S. as children, graduated high school, don't have a criminal record and are under 31. Garcia was too old.

In this case, the government had argued against Garcia practicing law because the court, which oversees the licensing of lawyers, is funded by public money.

Garcia was brought to the U.S. by his father to work in the almond fields. He later attended Cal Northern School of Law and passed the bar in 2009. He applied for citizenship 10 years ago.

Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/california-immigration-jerry-brown-law/2014/01/02/id/544908#ixzz2pO6MPBXN
Urgent: Should Obamacare Be Repealed? Vote Here Now!

Michael Moore: 'ObamaCare is awful'

Bailey comment: " WOW "!

Michael Moore is not happy with ObamaCare.
The liberal documentary filmmaker marked the Jan. 1 launch of coverage under the Affordable Care Act with a scathing op-ed that declared: "ObamaCare is awful."
This, he wrote in The New York Times, is the "dirty little secret many liberals have avoided saying out loud for fear of aiding the president's enemies."
Moore's problems with the law, though, naturally are different than the complaints from Republican critics.
Moore continues to back a single-payer, government-run system and argues that the current one is too favorable to the insurance industry.
"I believe Obamacare's rocky start -- clueless planning, a lousy website, insurance companies raising rates, and the president's telling people they could keep their coverage when, in fact, not all could -- is a result of one fatal flaw: The Affordable Care Act is a pro-insurance-industry plan implemented by a president who knew in his heart that a single-payer, Medicare-for-all model was the true way to go," he wrote.
Yet in the same op-ed, Moore also called ObamaCare a "godsend," because of its protections preventing insurance companies from denying or dropping sick patients.
He urged the public to pressure "blue states" to add a so-called "public option" -- a plan run by the government -- and "red states" to expand Medicaid.

ObamaCare brings new taxes, fees for 2014

Bailey Comment: " Did all of you Idiots that voted for Obamacare really think you were going to get it for FREE"??


Get ready for the next wave of ObamaCare fees. 
With the launch of coverage under the health care law on Wednesday, a new set of taxes and fees is kicking in this year -- as part of the hundreds of billions of dollars the government intends to raise over the next decade to help pay for the program. 
This year, the increases come in the form of fees on health insurance companies which could translate into higher premiums. And for those who don't buy coverage, the IRS plans to slap them with a fine -- some call it a "tax" -- for not complying.
"This is only the beginning," the conservative Heritage Foundation warned Thursday.
The biggest revenue-raiser kicking in this year is an annual fee on health insurers, meant to help fund premium subsidies and other provisions.
The fee is projected to bring in $8 billion this year and roughly $100 billion over the next decade. The insurance industry -- and more than 200 House lawmakers -- are trying to repeal it, warning that these costs will be passed onto the consumer (though some will get Affordable Care Act subsidies).
An industry-commissioned study by consultant Oliver Wyman estimated that rates will rise in 2014 by up to 2.3 percent for that reason alone. By 2023, the study said, rates could be rising annually by up to 3.7 percent because of the tax.
The other major fee to watch out for is the individual mandate penalty. Under the law, those who do not get insurance by the end of March and do not qualify for an exemption will be charged the fee. This year, that penalty will be $95, or 1 percent of household income, whichever is greater.
The penalty will increase considerably in 2015 and beyond, though it remains unclear whether it is big enough to compel reluctant individuals to enter the insurance market.
Finally, insurance companies are dealing with another set of increases. They are:
-- A so-called "reinsurance fee" will be applied to some health insurers this year. The temporary fee is meant to raise $25 billion over three years, to help pay for the cost of those with pre-existing conditions signing up for coverage through the ObamaCare exchanges.  The fee would start at $63 per person, but then drop to a bit more than $40 per person in 2015. It would drop again the following year. Critics warn that this could result in higher premiums, much like the annual tax on health insurers.
-- Individual and group health insurers will be required to pay a small fee to fund a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. The fee is set at $2 per covered person this year, and will be adjusted annually based on "medical inflation."
-- Some insurers will also be hit with a fee to fund what is known as a "risk adjustment program." This is meant to spread the risk around, by charging policies with lower-risk customers and using that money to offset costs for policies with higher-risk customers.
-- The Department of Health and Human Services has proposed charging a monthly user fee equal to 3.5 percent of the premium for policies in the federal exchange. This money is meant to help fund the insurance exchanges.
Republicans argue that all these fees and more will contribute to rising premiums. House Speaker John Boehner recently called the law "unworkable and unaffordable."
But supporters, and the Obama administration, argue that the protections and benefits Americans are getting in return more than make up for the costs.
When coverage launched on Wednesday, the White House declared it a "new day for the millions of Americans who finally have the security that comes from quality, affordable health coverage."
Among the changes, insurance companies can no longer deny coverage to those with pre-existing conditions; insurance companies cannot impose annual caps on health benefits; and millions may qualify for subsidies to help them buy insurance. Millions more will qualify for expanded Medicaid coverage.

Enrollment is up, but ObamaCare still faces uncertainty, politically and otherwise

ObamaCare appears at least for now to be off life support -- after a total 2.1 million Americans enrolled to get insurance coverage this year. But whether President Obama’s signature health care law survives -- at least in its entirety -- remains uncertain.
Despite House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and other ardent supporters of ObamaCare declaring that it remains “the law of the land,” other congressional Democrats facing re-election this year have hinted at cannibalized the legislation in the face of a confused and frustrated electorate.
In early November, 39 House Democrats, including many in battleground districts, voted to allow millions of Americans to keep the health care plans they lost under ObamaCare, joining Republicans who have rigorously opposed the 2010 law since then-presidential candidate Obama proposed it in 2007.
Weeks after the recent House vote, Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., among the most vulnerable Senate Democrats and who had roughly 90,000 people in her home state get their insurance revoked, also broke with her party by introducing a similar bill.
Yet the broader issue looming beyond the politics is whether the entire, federally-subsidized program can become self-sustainable by getting enough enrollees, preferably younger Americans, or fall into what critics are calling the “death spiral.”
Their argument is that the administration will need millions of younger, healthy Americans to sign up to cover the costs of older enrollees who typically need more medical care. And without the young and healthy, insurance companies will increase prices to cover their losses, which will result in even few enrollees and some sort of government intervention, the critics further argue.
“If they do [succeed,] it'll be pure, irrational dumb luck,” said Dan Holler of Heritage Action for America, which has helped lead efforts to “defund” ObamaCare. “The program they designed, and the incentives they put in place, look destined to fail.”
Holler argued Tuesday that ObamaCare problems are systemic, with doctors eventually no longer accepting low reimbursements and Americans “refusing to spend exorbitant amounts of money on plans that won't allow them to keep their doctor.”
However, the results of Kaiser Family Foundation study released last week suggest only a slight increase in insurance premiums in 2015, despite low enrollment so far by young people. (Rates are already locked in for 2014.)
"It is nowhere near what is sometimes referred to as a death spiral," Larry Levitt, a health economist at the foundation, said following the report's release, according to Reuters.
Preliminary figures suggest roughly 25 percent of Americans who have so far signing up for ObamaCare are in the crucial 18-to-34 age group, below the administration's goal of roughly 40 percent.
The administration has said it needs to enroll roughly 7 million Americans by March 31, on its way to expanding coverage to 25 million by 2016.
However, Levitt said, “It doesn’t matter how many people sign up. What matters more is the proportions.”
And on Monday, Howard Dean -- a former Vermont governor, presidential candidate and Democratic National Committee chairman – suggested the so-called "individual mandate" in ObamaCare that requires Americans to purchase insurance or face a tax penalty might not have been needed for the program to be successful.
He told CNBC that actuarial data does not lead to the conclusion that huge cost overruns will result without the mandate.
"Insurance companies like it because it does bring young, healthy people who aren't likely to get sick into the system," he said. "But our experience [in Vermont,] although it's with young people under 18, not with everybody, is that the individual mandate was not that necessary."

ObamaCare insurance tax in effect

New Year's Day marks the start of coverage under ObamaCare for millions of people -- but it also marks the start of a massive tax increase which could further inflate premiums. 
Beginning Wednesday, the Affordable Care Act imposes an annual fee on health insurers. The fee is projected to bring in $8 billion next year and roughly $100 billion over the next decade, making it one of the biggest under the law.
The health insurance industry has been howling about the "tax" for years, and is trying to rally support for a bill in Congress that would repeal it. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., has 229 co-sponsors -- which represents a majority of members in the House.
But the White House will fight any effort to repeal it, and for now the measure is in effect.
On Tuesday, America's Health Insurance Plans President Karen Ignagni warned that the fee will end up hitting consumers in the form of higher premiums. 
"Taxing health insurance makes it more expensive and that undermines the goals of health care reform," she said.
The health care overhaul impacts what people pay for health insurance on the individual market in a host of ways.
For some, premiums will rise, but they'll be eligible for subsidies to offset the cost, ultimately bringing down their health care tab. Others, who make too much to qualify for subsidies, will see their health care costs rise. The impact will vary depending on the state, the level of coverage sought and other factors.
Some premiums were already on the rise, in part because insurance companies are being required to cover high-cost patients and offer more benefits; and in part because premiums have been rising for years.
But insurance companies are also expected to raise rates this year and beyond to offset the cost of the insurance industry fee.
An industry-commissioned study by consultant Oliver Wyman estimated that rates will rise in 2014 by up to 2.3 percent for that reason alone. By 2023, the study said, rates could be rising annually by up to 3.7 percent because of the tax. 
Such hikes would only increase the strain on individuals and businesses trying to comply with the law's mandate to buy, or provide, insurance -- which, for individuals, kicks in at the end of March. 
The primary X factor in 2014 will be enrollment. If droves of young, healthy Americans comply with the mandate and sign up for coverage by the March 31 deadline, it will reduce the need for insurance companies to jack up their rates.
The Obama administration says enrollment has picked up considerably overall since the rocky debut of HealthCare.gov and various state-based exchange sites. At last count, officials said Tuesday more than 2 million people had signed up through the federal and state sites.
But whether the young and healthy will rush in remains an open question. And the administration faces serious political headwinds, including from lawmakers pushing to chip away at the law's various mandates and fees.
Some lawmakers voiced skepticism that the boosted enrollment numbers signal a turnaround for the law. Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee predicted "rate shock" in 2014.