Krauthammer: Obama's More Miss America Than World Leader on Russia

President Obama’s foreign policy naïveté is more like a Miss America contestant than the leader of the free world, says The Washington Post's Charles Krauthammer.
Under Vladimir Putin, Russia has "run rings" around the United States, "from the attempted ingratiation of the 'reset' to America’s empty threats of 'consequences' were Russia to annex Crimea," Krauthammer writes.
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Obama's Pollyanna approach to world matters fails to grasp Putin’s long-held anti-America beliefs, according to Krauthammer, and is only the latest in Obama’s international missteps.
The president has characterized Russia as a “regional power acting out of weakness,” a grave miscalculation.
“Where does one begin?” Krauthammer asks. “Hitler’s Germany and Tojo’s Japan were also regional powers, yet managed to leave behind at least 50 million dead.
“Numberless 19th- and 20th-century European soldiers died for Crimea. Putin conquered it in a swift and stealthy campaign that took three weeks and cost his forces not a sprained ankle. That’s ‘weakness’?
Obama's purported "consequences" for Russia's invasion and annexation of Crimea are laughable, he opines. The defiant Russian leader is stuck in enmity of decades past, he says, noting that Putin's referenced the early 20th Century Russian Revolution in his railing speech following his country's seizure of Crimea.
And, Krauthammer says, Putin has made no secret of his next targets: Kharkiv and Donetsk and the rest of southeastern Ukraine.
Obama's minimization of Russia and the potential problems it could cause "makes his own leadership of the one superpower all the more embarrassing."
Not only does it allow Putin to make a mockery of the U.S., it diminishes America’s reputation at a time when credibility with other nations matters greatly, according to Krauthammer. Obama’s "fanciful thinking" of diplomacy over action could cost America dearly.
"What are the allies thinking now?" writes Krauthammer. "Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, and other Pacific Rim friends are wondering where this America will be as China expands its reach and claims. The Gulf states are near panic as they see the United States playacting nuclear negotiations with Iran that, at best, will leave their mortal Shiite enemy just weeks away from the bomb."

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Obama urges Putin to pull back troops from Ukraine border in phone call

President Obama told Russian President Putin during a phone call Friday that the U.S. strongly opposes Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine, and urged him to pull back his troops from the border.
The White House said in a press release that Putin called Obama to discuss the U.S. proposal for a diplomatic solution in Ukraine, which Secretary of State John Kerry has presented to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
The release said Obama asked Putin to deliver a written response to the proposal, and the two agreed to have Kerry and Lavrov meet again.
Obama also urged Putin to avoid further military provocations in Ukraine, and to pull back the troops that Russia has on the Ukraine border. Obama said Ukraine's government is pursuing de-escalation despite Russia's incursion into Crimea.
The call comes as Ukraine's government and the West are concerned about a possible Russian invasion in eastern Ukraine.
The Associated Press contributed to this report

Corruption probes hitting Dems across the country

A wave of corruption arrests and investigations is roiling Democratic politicians, posing a potential image problem in an election year. 
The latest were a pair of arrests earlier this week, snagging Charlotte Mayor Patrick Cannon, who later resigned, and California state Sen. Leland Yee. The latter involved a tangled web of allegations including claims that the gun control-pushing lawmaker tried to connect an undercover agent with an international arms dealer. 
So far, these cases are confined to the state and local levels, so it remains to be seen whether Democrats running in the congressional midterms will be tarnished. 
In fact, the only major arrest of a U.S. congressman since the beginning of 2013 was that of a Republican, Florida Rep. Trey Radel, who was convicted for cocaine possession and resigned early this year. Each party typically is careful to throw stones when the other side finds itself on the wrong side of the law, because corruption and other misbehavior is a bipartisan problem. 
For every Anthony Weiner, there's a Mark Foley. 
But since Radel's October arrest, the bulk of the corruption cases have involved Democrats. 
In California alone, Yee's case marked the third arrest or conviction in as many months of a state Democratic official. 
State Republicans, who have been struggling to regain their political footing, have sought to capitalize on the wave of criminal charges as a way to undo Democrats' dominance in the Legislature. Republicans have repeatedly tried to expel Sen. Rod Wright after he was convicted of perjury and voter fraud in January for lying about his legal residence in Los Angeles County. Democratic leaders have blocked those efforts. The state Senate, though, voted Friday to suspend all three of the lawmakers in trouble. 
The other, Sen. Ron Calderon, was indicted on federal corruption charges in February. Prosecutors say Calderon accepted about $100,000 for himself and family members in exchange for promoting legislation to expand Hollywood tax credits and protect the interest of a hospital that benefited from a provision of the workers' compensation law. 
Then came Yee, whose alleged activities were more befitting Hollywood than his San Francisco district. 
The criminal complaint contained dramatic details about Yee's alleged efforts to connect an undercover agent with a firearms dealer. 
"Do I think we can make some money? I think we can make some money," the senator allegedly said in one of the meetings. 
The cases, while involving local politicians, have put powerful Democrats in an awkward position. 
U.S. Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein of California joined a growing list of officials on Thursday in distancing themselves by demanding Yee's resignation. The Democratic leader of the state Senate, President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, warned Yee to resign or face suspension by his colleagues, saying "he cannot come back." 
Cannon, meanwhile, was ensnared in an FBI sting and faces federal corruption charges alleging he accepted more than $48,000 in cash, airline tickets, a hotel room and a luxury apartment from undercover agents posing as real estate developers and investors. Cannon, while not a household Democratic name, led the city that hosted the Democratic National Convention in 2012. 
On top of that case, Rhode Island House Speaker Gordon Fox said Saturday he was resigning from leadership and would not run for re-election, a day after federal and state authorities raided his Statehouse office and home as part of a criminal investigation that they would not detail. 
The Friday raids were carried out by the U.S. attorney's office, FBI, IRS and state police. Boxes of evidence were carried off after agents spent hours at both his home and office. Officials will not say whom or what they are investigating. 
The 52-year-old Providence Democrat, who became the nation's first openly gay House speaker in 2010, said he planned to serve out the remainder of his term through the end of the year, but that "my personal focus going forward will be on my family and dealing with the investigation." 
Meanwhile, in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol, the mayor of the District of Columbia, a Democrat, is facing his own problems. A U.S. attorney claimed earlier this month that Mayor Vincent Gray knew about an illegal, $668,000 "shadow campaign" that helped propel him into office four years ago. Despite denials from the mayor, who has not been accused of a crime, the revelation further damaged him ahead of next week's primary. 
"I think the question politically is whether it becomes emblematic of the national party," said Mary Katharine Ham, a Fox News contributor. "And that, to some extent, depends on media coverage. In, for instance, 2006, there was the drumbeat against Republicans was this culture of corruption; and that, to a large extent, was effective because it was so consistently covered in the media."

Obamacare

Holder says feds will recognize Michigan gay marriages despite state decision

Attorney General Eric Holder said Friday that the federal government will recognize about 300 same-sex marriages performed in Michigan before a federal appeals court halted them, despite a decision by Michigan's governor not to recognize those unions. 
The decision means federal benefits will be extended to those couples -- including the ability to file taxes jointly, get Social Security benefits for spouses and request legal immigration status for partners. 
"These families will be eligible for all relevant federal benefits on the same terms as other same-sex marriages," Holder said in a statement. 
The announcement Friday morning is Holder's latest entry into the state-level same-sex marriage debate. Holder did the same thing in Utah, where more than 1,000 same-sex couples got married, before the Supreme Court put those unions on hold in January after a federal judge overturned the conservative state's same-sex marriage ban in December. 
Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman struck down Michigan's gay marriage ban. 
Four counties then took the extraordinary step of granting licenses on the Saturday before the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a temporary halt. The stay was extended indefinitely on Tuesday. 
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder afterward called the marriages performed last weekend legal but said Michigan won't recognize them. 
Snyder, who is a Republican, acknowledged that same-sex couples "had a legal marriage." But because of the court's stay, he added, the gay marriage ban has been restored. The governor's move closed the door, at least for now, to certain state benefits reserved solely for married couples. The American Civil Liberties Union has said more than 1,000 Michigan laws are tied to marriage. 
Holder cited Snyder's statement in his own on Friday. 
"The Governor of Michigan has made clear that the marriages that took place on Saturday were lawful and valid when entered into, although Michigan will not extend state rights and benefits tied to these marriages pending further legal proceedings," he said. "For purposes of federal law, as I announced in January with respect to similarly situated same-sex couples in Utah, these Michigan couples will not be asked to wait for further resolution in the courts before they may seek federal benefits to which they are entitled." 
Seventeen states and Washington, D.C., issue licenses for same-sex marriages. Since December, bans on gay marriage also have been overturned by courts in Texas, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Virginia, but appeals have put those cases on hold. 
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Critical part of ObamaCare website still not fixed

Even as the Obama administration struggles to deal with the approaching end of open enrollment for health care exchanges, one critical part of the website has yet to be fixed.
Earlier, administration officials had predicted ObamaCare could be seriously jeopardized if the key back end of healthcare.gov were not fixed ahead of the March 31 enrollment deadline.
The back end of the website is the two-way connection between the government and insurance companies aimed at telling each other who signed up for what.
"Insurance executives just see this as a major nightmare," says Robert Laszewski of Health Policy and Strategy Associates. "I mean, when are we finally going to be able to reconcile all the data, to know who is really covered, who is really paid, and what the insurance companies should be paid for?"
Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, raised concerns over it at a recent hearing with Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
“The number that's really important," Doggett said, "is not how many people have enrolled, but how many people have paid their premiums that are actually getting in exchange-base coverage. A number," he said pointedly, "we've never been given."
Former Congressional Budget Office Director Doug Holtz-Eakin says,"Nobody knows.There remains no clear information about who has paid the premium and as a result, who the insurance companies need to get reimbursed for."
Though some analysts believe the administration knows a lot more than it is saying, officials deny having any reliable information.
Industry sources and surveys show that while officials boast 5 million sign ups, about 1 million of them are not paying premiums, and therefore not officially enrolled.
The administration hired the firm Accenture in a no-bid contract to fix the site after a previous contractor failed, arguing in official documents last December that there was no time for competing bids,since mid-March was a key turning point in the law, and any delay would, as the document put it, "... result in financial harm to the Government..."
It even went so far as to say that "... the entire health care reform program is jeopardized” by any failure of the back end, and it laid out a list of things that could go wrong, including "Inaccurate issuance of payments to health plans which could seriously put them at financial risk; potentially leading to their default and disrupting continued services and coverage to consumers..."
"This had to get fixed right now," says Laszewski. "Well it's past 'right now', it's - you know we're into March and we don't have the back end of the system done, we don't have the ability for insurance companies to be paid, we don't have the ability for reconciliations to be done."
Those reconciliations include who has really signed up, who has paid, and if the subsidies are accurate -- something officials say they don't currently know.
Sebelius tolda congressional committee recently,"people are buying a product in the private market. As soon as we have accurate information, we will give it to you but we do not currently have information about how many people have paid."
Officials now tell Fox News, however, that the dramatic language predicting possible disaster is "no longer an accurate assessment"because they're using temporary workarounds with insurance companies.
But the companies themselves say a reckoning is coming ... that could cost them tens of millions of dollars when the books are finally reconciled. And that could take months, well after insurance companies have to set new rates for 2015.

'Not educated': Reid blames Internet ignorance for ObamaCare extension

   SENATE MAJORITY LEADER Harry Reid, attempting to explain the Obama administration's latest decision to extend a key ObamaCare deadline, says people just 'are not educated on how to use the Internet.'

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