The Democrat controlled Senate continues to stiff the nation.
This Senate, under Harry Reid, is doing more to harm this country than anything in recent history.
The mindless morons on the left are in lock step with Reid. How much longer will Americans tolerate a Senate that does virtually nothing for the country but does everything it can to harm the country---how were these people elected? The Senate has not passed a budget in three years. What is going on? Are you angry yet? If not you should be! (See 1 and 1a below.)
Just keep bending over pliant Americans. If "Obamascare" is ruled Constitutional you better start liking broccoli! (See 1b below.)
Also: (See 1c below.)
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The sanctity of voting is one of the greatest safeguards of any free society.
This president is now in the drone business spying on citizens allegedly in defense of our nation. His Attorney General says we can kill Americans overseas without a trial yet identifying legitimate voters to make sure elections are not fraudulent is an injustice.
Are you angry yet? You should be. (See 2 below.)
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This is an article by a friend of mine who is Christian and whose organization is a strong supporter of Israel both on religious grounds as well as the fact that Israel is a democracy. (See 3 below.)
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Public service is a privilege and public employees are theoretically servants but now we have become their slaves. It is because Andy Stern saw the writing on the wall as he realized private sector union membership was in serious decline. Why? Because they were helping wreck our nation's industrial base with their over sized pay and benefit demands and their anti competitive work rules. All of these efforts were supported aggressively by progressive Democrats and frightened Republicans. Nor do I justify comparable outrageous executive pay packages and rewards in the guise of golden parachutes. There just aren't as many executives as union workers so their impact is less damaging though totally unsupportable.
Stern left the private sector union leadership and turned his attention to building up the public service unions which are now doing the same thing . (See 4 below.)
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Obama argues sanctions will work, bring the mullahs to the table and bombing Iran's nuclear facilities, at best, will create a short term delay while uniting the nation and eliminating prospect of regime change.
It is a logical argument but it can , and probably does, provide a false umbrella under which Obama's approach will, more likely, allow Iran to become a nuclear nation. That is the nub of the two arguments that divide Netanyahu nd Obama. History is on Netanyahu's side if we learn anythig from the Chamberlain, Carter - Obama approach.. (See 5 below.)
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The more people learn about 'Obamascare' the more dispirited and scared they become. (See 6 below.)
When AbuGrab prison torture was uncovered, GW was excoriated and blamed because it happened on his watch and voter's discontent and lack of Democrat support, in fact persistent attacks, for the Iraq War caused an outcry of news, media criticism loud enough to be heard round the world.
Yet, the recent killing of innocent Afghanistans, tragic as it is, has caused no comparable anger and/or calumny heaped upon Obama or blame laid at his feet - justified or otherwise. Why? Just more evidence of bias? More double standards ? You decide.
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Dick
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1)Senate turns back sweeping oil-drilling amendment
By Ben Geman and Josiah Ryan
The Senate on Tuesday blocked an amendment to pending transportation legislation that would have mandated a huge expansion of offshore oil-and-gas leasing, opened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling and approved construction of the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline.
Sen. Pat Roberts’s (R-Kan.) amendment, which failed 41-57, would have also extended several energy efficiency and renewable fuels tax incentives and extend a pay freeze for federal workers, among other provisions.
"My amendment addresses the rising cost of gasoline," said Roberts in support of his amendment prior to the vote. "It cuts red tape, opens up more federal land for oil-and-gas exploration and drilling, it would approve the Keystone XL pipeline and extend renewable tax provisions."
While the measure fell short, it provided Republicans another messaging vehicle, amid rising gasoline prices, to allege White House energy policies are keeping too many areas off-limits to development.
President Obama opposes opening the Arctic refuge in Alaska, and his administration’s offshore leasing plans are focused on the central and western Gulf of Mexico, where development is already centered.
The Interior Department’s 2012-2017 plan also calls for new lease sales in Arctic waters off Alaska’s northern coast in several years.
But Republicans and some conservative Democrats are pushing for allowing development in regions off the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts, among other areas.
They have also hammered Obama for rejecting — at least for now — the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that would carry oil from Alberta, Canada’s oil sands projects to Gulf Coast refineries.
The Roberts plan would have also required sales of commercial leases for development of oil shale in western states.
1a)Harry Reid Opts for Political Theater on Judicial Nominees
Now, in a blatant political stunt, Reid is attempting to blame the Republican minority for the Senate's failure to confirm 17 of President Obama's district court nominees.
"Republicans have refused to allow us to even vote -- won't even allow us to vote -- on these qualified judicial nominees," Reid declared. "Republicans have prevented the Senate from doing its constitutional duty and that's what it is."
Reid should be commended for his hyperbole.
Let's begin with the fact that Reid is majority leader, the one who sets the Senate's agenda and determines the floor schedule. So if Reid is unsatisfied with the pace of progress on Obama's nominees, then he has only himself to blame.
Conservatives aren't blocking any votes because they aren't filibustering. According to statistics compiled by the Senate Republican Policy Committee, Obama has secured approval for 129 district-court judges in three years. That's more than President George W. Bush's 120 confirmations over his final four years in office.
There's also the fact that Obama has sent fewer nominees than Bush to the Senate. In the first three years of his presidency, Bush nominated 215 district court judges; Obama made 173 nominations.
That follows a pattern under Obama. Of the 83 judicial vacancies that currently exist, he's made 39 nominations, leaving 44 openings unaddressed. And 17 of those nominees haven't yet been approved by the Democrat-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee.
That means an astonishing 73 percent of current judicial vacancies are awaiting action from either the White House or the Senate Judiciary Committee. What's more, it has been reported that the American Bar Association secretly declared a significant number of the president's nominees to be "not qualified."
When Reid has brought Obama's nominees to the floor for a vote, the president has a near-perfect record, including the confirmation of two Supreme Court justices, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) reminded Reid yesterday.
So while Reid would like to paint Republicans as obstructionists, his criticism is misdirected.
Conservatives should use Reid's stunt to remind Americans about the unconstitutional appointments Obama made earlier this year. In January, while Congress was still in session, Obama ignored the Senate's advise-and-consent role and purported to unilaterally appointed three people to seats on the National Labor Relations Board and Richard Cordray to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Obama's actions prompted an initial outcry from Republicans. But with few exceptions, they've acquiesced. In the two months following Obama's illegal appointments, the Senate has confirmed seven judicial nominees. That alone is a strong rebuttal to Reid's bombastic statement that "Republicans have refused to allow us to even vote."
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) is one of the few conservatives who has vowed on principle to vote against each nominee until the Senate properly considers the four illegally appointed individuals. Lee's approach is different from a filibuster, which requires a 60-vote threshold. He simply wants a recorded up-or-down vote on each nominee.
"We simply cannot continue to afford nominees near-complete deference until President Obama rescinds his unconstitutional appointments and restores the Senate's proper constitutional role in the confirmation process," Lee explained. "I cannot sit idly by and watch as the president openly violates the Constitution and ignores a century of Senate rules."
Lee spoke at Heritage last month about the long-term consequences, noting that he would be equally outraged if a Republican president was pursuing the same strategy. Watch our exclusive interview.
Reid, however, appears perfectly comfortable with Obama's approach. He suggested that more illegal "recess" appointments could be coming. He warned, "we will have no alternative but to take action." Reid's actions also reveal his blatant hypocrisy. He originated the use of pro-forma sessions to avoid recess appointments under the previous administration, and that's more proof that Reid’s actions are nothing more than partisan grandstanding.
While Senate conservatives have not filibustered, they would be well within their prerogatives to do so. After all, as Heritage's Hans von Spakovsky noted, former Senator Robert Byrd held up more than 70 nominations and the promotions of 5,000 military personnel over recess appointments that he believed pushed the limits of the recess appointment power, even though the Senate actually was in recess. That's in contrast to the unconstitutional and invalid act of this president of making recess appointments while the Senate was not in recess.
Now is not the time for political theater. Reid, unfortunately, appears more willing to appease his liberal allies when he should be focusing on issues of job creation and gas prices.
1b)
Compliant Americans
In a number of states, pregnant teenage girls may be given abortions without the notification or the permission of parents. The issue is neither abortion nor whether a pregnant teenager should have an abortion. The issue is this: What gives the government the authority to usurp parental authority?
Part of the problem is that people who act as instruments of government do not pay a personal price for usurping parental authority. The reason is Americans, unlike Americans of yesteryear, have become timid and, as such, come to accept all manner of intrusive governmental acts. Can you imagine what a rugged American, such as one portrayed by John Wayne, would have done to a government tyrant who confiscated his daughter's lunch or facilitated her abortion without his permission?
I believe that the anti-tobacco movement partially accounts for today's compliant American. Tobacco zealots started out with "reasonable" demands, such as the surgeon general's warning on cigarette packs. Then they demanded nonsmoking sections on airplanes. Emboldened by that success, they demanded no smoking at all on airplanes and then airports and then restaurants and then workplaces -- all in the name of health. Seeing the compliant nature of smokers, they've moved to ban smoking on beaches, in parks and on sidewalks in some cities. Now they're calling for higher health insurance premiums for smokers. Had the tobacco zealots demanded their full agenda when they started out, they would not have achieved anything.
Using the anti-tobacco crusade as their template and finding Americans so compliant, zealots and would-be tyrants are extending their agenda. Why not control what we eat? San Francisco, Chicago and several other cities have outlawed or are seeking to outlaw serving foie gras in restaurants. Here's my challenge to these people: Don't be a coward and use the state to accomplish your agenda. If you see Williams eating foie gras, just come up and take it off his plate.
Other food tyrants want to stop us from eating Dove and Haagen-Dazs ice cream, Mrs. Fields cookies and McDonald's Chicken McNuggets. San Francisco has already banned McDonald's from selling Happy Meals with toys in them as sales pitches to children. Seeing San Franciscan compliance may have been the source of inspiration for the North Carolina schoolteacher who took the 5-year-old girl's lunch.
Americans have become compliant in nation-crippling ways. Over the past several years, gasoline prices have been shooting through the roof, but not to worry. President Barack Obama's current secretary of energy, Steven Chu, said in December 2008, "Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe." That translates to $8 or $9 a gallon. During a recent hearing on the Department of Energy's budget, Rep. Alan Nunnelee, R-Miss., asked Secretary Chu whether it is the DOE's "overall goal" to lower gasoline prices. "No," Chu responded. "The overall goal is to decrease our dependency on oil, to build and strengthen our economy."
Because Americans are so compliant and willing to suffer silently at the gasoline pump, the Obama administration is willing to press on as handmaidens of environmental extremists who want to halt the exploration of our country's vast oil supplies, which are estimated to be triple those of Saudi Arabia. The Obama administration would rather pour more taxpayer dollars into risky alternative crony energy suppliers and electric cars. The OPEC nations have to be laughing at us, and I wouldn't be surprised if it were revealed that they are making under-the-table payments to environmental wackos.
1c)Coming Soon: The Commercials that Obama Fears
By Ed Lasky
1c)Coming Soon: The Commercials that Obama Fears
By Ed Lasky
President Obama knows that every public statement he makes is recorded and lives forever on the internet. That is cause for serious worry. The best campaign ad to run against Obama is one that uses his own words -- and those of the officials he has empowered -- against him. When it comes to high gasoline prices, this is a target-rich environment.
Two new polls show that Americans' opinion of Barack Obama has taken a dive. The Washington Post headline "Gas Prices sink Obama's ratings on economy" zeroes in on the impact of high gas prices on his political prospects. A New York Times/CBS poll released the same day shows a similar dramatic decline and states that Obama is heading into the general election on "treacherous political ground" and also chalks up at least part of the decline to much higher prices at the pump over the last few months. High gas prices are a particular vulnerability of Obama's since they affect so many people so many times a week -- especially in those battleground states where people are forced to drive long distances. Each of those signs is free advertising for the Republicans. They can't be explained away by Barack Obama's friends in the media.
The fact is that Americans believe that the president can do a lot about oil prices. And that is an invitation that the Republicans can ride to victory parties in November.
There is no need to rehash all the steps that the Obama administration has taken over the last three years that have helped supercharge the price it takes to fill our cars. These would include slow-walking drilling permits, shutting down much offshore development, closing off federal lands, and killing Keystone XL. There are many more that could be listed and have been by others. The Republicans should also point out that Obama has wasted three-plus years on passing two very unpopular pieces of legislation (ObamaCare and the Stimulus) rather than taking the steps needed to bring us affordable gasoline.
But there is a delicious irony in taking advantage of Obama's Obama Obsession. He has been so busy bloviating over the last few years, so eager to display his omniscience when it comes to energy, that there is plenty of visual material to cull from the public domain that can and will be used against him as the campaign season rolls on, if the GOP has any brains. Call it divine justice that the man who seemingly can never stop talking can be hoisted on his own petard.
One can start with a graph of how gas prices have gone from $1.84 when Obama took office to $3.79 and climbing during March (and this is before the summer driving season spikes them upward). Then there's the voice we have heard so many times over the years that it seems to come straight from George Orwell's 1984: Barack Obama talking during the campaign about his wish to see higher gas prices. Fade to Ken Salazar, Obama's choice to head the Department of Interior -- the department that has done so much to stop oil exploration and development on federal land. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell proposed a bill to encourage offshore oil drilling. Ken Salazar kept objecting to the bill even when McConnell suggested that the amendment be triggered when gas prices hit $10 a gallon at the pump. Even when gas prices hit $10 a gallon, Salazar was opposed to allowing more offshore drilling. The YouTube clip can be found here.
Then pair it up with Energy Secretary Chu telling us in 2008 that his desire is to figure out "how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe." He is well on his way to accomplishing his goal. Nor is he showing much repentance in the face of high gas prices ruining people's budgets (it won't ruin his -- he doesn't drive). He recently testified before Congress that reducing gas prices was not a top priority for his department. Remind me again: why do they call it the Department of Energy? Then flash "Solyndra: $550 million wasted," "Beacon Power: out of juice," "Karma: The Cool Car that won't work no matter how many taxpayer dollars are bundled into it." Show Obama beaming inside a Volt on a factory visit, and then a Volt on fire.
There are many examples of wasted green energy boondoggles. Only the federal government using other people's money could produce as many disasters.
Follow with Obama's recent statement that while he is president, he will not ever give up on green energy -- not ever.
That should set the right tone.
Then fade to a new scene from last April during a town hall meeting. A father of ten children complains about the high price of gasoline. Obama has one of his Marie Antionette moments (see his suggestion to hard-up farmers that they grow arugula, for example, since it sells for such a high price at Whole Foods) when he gives this sarcastic piece of advice to the needy dad:
If you're complaining about the price of gas and you're only getting eight miles a gallon -- [laughter] -- you may have a big family, but it's probably not that big. How many you have? Ten kids, you say? Ten kids? [Laughter.] Well, you definitely need a hybrid van, then.
Being publicly ridiculed by the president of the United States on national television has to hurt. (Shades of his notorious Special Olympics joke on Jay Leno.) Who taught Barack Obama his sense of humor? Don Rickles?
Aside from the fact that no one sells a hybrid van in America, where is the empathy and fairness that the president wants voters to believe drive him? After all, high gas prices are regressive -- harming the less well-off disproportionally.
Then segue to all those convoys of gas-guzzlers that Obama takes to campaign events -- including Air Force One and that absurd armored bus (made in Canada) that drove him around the Midwest as he trolled for votes on our dime.
Next up: Obama deflecting calls for increased drilling by insisting that people just inflate their tires more. That is so reminiscent of Jimmy Carter's wearing of cardigans and turning down the thermostat in the White House. Here would be a nice opportunity for a split-screen comparison of the two presidents. Americans can be reminded that apropos of Jimmy, Obama also scolded usthat we can't...well, be comfortable in our homes:
"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK," Obama said."That's not leadership. That's not going to happen," he added.
There would be the added bonus of revealing the hypocrisy that is the center of ObamaWorld since, at the same time he was hectoring the rest of us to sacrifice warmth so other nations would not disapprove of our lifestyles, he was turning the White House into a hot-house during winter so he could be reminded of the carefree days of his youth in Hawaii. If only we could figure out a way to harness Obama's hypocrisy to generate energy.
Another commercial could feature his claim that increased drilling would not solve our high gas prices by showing how increased drilling for shale has produced so much natural gas that prices have plummeted, houses are far cheaper to heat than they had been for decades, and the parts of America than can take advantage of access to this bounty are becoming Boomtowns. That technology -- produced by the same private companies that Obama regularly attacks -- is now being used to tap vast oil riches in North Dakota. Drill, baby, drill may be derided as a bumper sticker by Obama, but not only is it sensible on an intuitive basis, but it works to lower the price of energy. The more Obama criticizes the concept that drilling leads to more energy, the more out of touch he appears to voters. His opposition to more drilling reinforces the perception (as with ObamaCare) that he ignores voters' concerns.
Obama constantly dismisses drilling as a solution to high prices by peddling the line that it takes too long to produce results. A commercial could point out that when President George Bush issued an executive order abolishing the moratorium on offshore drilling, oil prices started falling precipitously as it became clear to the market that the administration would be adopting policies likely to produce more crude oil and lower prices at the pump. Furthermore, the ad could point out the self-defeating nature of Obama's claim. If the reason to oppose more exploration and development is that results are in the future, there would never be a reason to encourage oil drilling.
Obama's claim that he is concerned about America's energy security can be belied by a clip telling Brazilian leaders how much he looked forward to America buying more oil from Brazil and video of his obsequious bow to the Saudi king.
And of course, saving the best for last, Obama's everlasting, God-awful obtuseness can be shown for all to see by comparing the vast increase of natural gas that has come from drilling more to his plan to fill our tanks with energy derived from algae or pond scum. This proud statement is so ridiculous that even the normally staid Charles Krauthammer was driven to a comic monologue.
And he says, as we heard, drilling for oil to relieve our dependency is not a solution, it's not a plan. He said we have to go to clean energy. He talks about something really revolutionary today. Algae. A $14 million grant for the development of algae. It's not oil. His solution is algae. And because we know that the Secretary of Energy is physicist that won the Nobel Prize, the president knowing this stuff said that one of the reasons we should do this is because we can grow algae here in the United States.
Now, it happens that algae will grow on anywhere on earth. I looked it up while I was away for those three days. You thought I was sunning myself. I did research. It grows in oceans, in lakes and ponds, in your swimming pool when the pool man is on vacation. In snow, in ice, on soil, on turtles, on sloths, the bark of trees and rocks. Why are we drilling for oil? We are the Saudi Arabia of rocks. We have a mountain range called the Rockies and we are allowing ourselves to be dominated by these oil producers. I think he's on to something here that is truly revolutionary. Why would you build a pipeline, the Keystone pipeline with real oil from Canada to put in real refineries and put in real existing cars when you can do algae? I think he is on to something. And I think this shows the vision, the hope and change he promised in 2008.
Humor always sells. Sadly, there is nothing funny about the people in charge of energy policy. Nor is there anything funny about the numbers we see spinning by as we fill our cars while emptying our bank accounts.
Ed Lasky is news editor of American Thinker.
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2)Texas Law Requiring Voter IDs Is Blocked
By DANIEL GILBERT
The U.S. Justice Department on Monday blocked Texas from enforcing a law that requires voters to show state-issued photo identification at the polls, saying it would disproportionately affect Hispanics.
The agency's move is likely to fan the flames around the issue nationally, as state legislatures consider toughening voter-ID laws in an election year. Republicans argue that requiring voters to show IDs will help combat fraud; Democrats claim the measures are designed to make it harder to vote for minorities, the elderly and other groups who tend to back Democrats.
Texas is one many jurisdictions, mostly in the South, required to get permission from the Justice Department or judges in the District of Columbia federal court before making changes to voting laws. This requirement applies to states that were found by the U.S. to have restricted the opportunity to vote.
The Justice Department said that Hispanics registered to vote in Texas are considerably less likely to have drivers licenses or state-issued IDs than other voters, citing data supplied by Texas in its bid to win clearance for the law passed last May. Under the Voting Rights Act, states must prove that voting legislation does not make it harder for racial or ethnic minorities to vote.
"I cannot conclude that the state has sustained its burden," wrote Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general, in a letter to Texas's director of elections on Monday. He added, "The state has failed to demonstrate why it could not meet its stated goals of ensuring electoral integrity and deterring ineligible voters from voting" without the new law.
Also Monday, a county judge in Wisconsin blocked part of a voter-ID law passed last year, ruling the Wisconsin legislature and GOP Gov. Scott Walker "exceeded their constitutional authority" by requiring citizens to show a photo ID to vote.
In the ruling, Dane County Circuit Judge Richard Niess agreed with a local voter group that the law violated the state Constitution by disenfranchising citizens without a photo ID. Judge Niess also questioned the effort to prevent voter fraud with voter-ID laws. Voter "fraud is no more poisonous to our democracy than voter suppression," he wrote. "Indeed, they are two heads on the same monster."
Another Wisconsin judge last week temporarily suspended the law until a hearing next month. The law, which drew four lawsuits, is now blocked pending a successful appeal of Judge Niess's ruling. Wisconsin holds local elections and the Republican presidential primary on April 3.
Mr. Walker's office said, "Requiring photo identification to vote is common sense—we require it to get a library card, cold medicine and public assistance.… We are confident the state will prevail in its plan to implement photo ID."
The Texas decision marks the second time in recent months the Justice Department has blocked a state from requiring voters to show a state-issued photo ID. In December, it objected that such a law in South Carolina would disproportionately affect minority voters. The state has sued the agency in federal court in Washington to get judicial approval of its law.
Texas, anticipating the agency's rejection, also sued, arguing its law should be approved because of similar laws in effect in other states. State Attorney General Greg Abbott said Texas "should not be treated differently and must have the same authority as other states to protect the integrity of our elections."
The spat is likely to ripple across the nation: Voter-ID legislation is pending in 32 state legislatures, and 10 of them are considering proposals to tighten requirements, said the National Council of State Legislatures.
Attorney General Eric Holder, in recent speeches and congressional testimony, has said instances of voter fraud are rare, and that he views voter-ID laws as a "solution in search of a problem."
In a speech last month at Tulane University, Mr. Holder said that while voter fraud wouldn't be tolerated by the Justice Department, "new state rules requiring photo identification to cast a vote too often appear to make a mockery of the promise of real participation in our electoral system."
Evan Perez and Jack Nicas contributed to this article.
A version of this article appeared Mar. 13, 2012, on page A4 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Texas Law Requiring Voter IDs Is Blocked.
Copyright 2012 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Fifty-seven days . . .
That's the amount of time that went by between the first release of our Voter Fraud investigation and the passing of a new Voter ID bill in the New Hampshire Senate.
While we do not advocate specific resolutions to the issues we expose, it's clear that our work makes an impact.
And we're just getting started.
Last week, our small team of investigators visited Vermont during Super Tuesday.
Providing the names of both the living and the deceased, our investigators were offered ballots at every opportunity with no questions asked aside from the occasional correct pronunciation of a name . . . even when addressing the poll workers in French and stating foreign addresses.
When our team members offered to present ID, they were told repeatedly, "You don't need it." One worker oddly stated, "We Believe You," when registering to vote on Primary Day.
While the upbeat volunteers and workers involved in Vermont's electoral process were incredibly trusting to take any name and situation - no matter how absurd - at face value, other Vermont establishments were quick to crack down on photo ID requirements.
When our road-weary investigators stopped at a bar, hotel or restaurant, the statist requirements of photo verification were brought down like an iron hammer.
Admittedly our guys are stubborn in their values for liberty and felt if they were just offered primary ballots at the mention of a name, the should be able to grab a drink or a hotel room - and even a "civil union" license - without being required to present "papers."
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3)Obama’s words disguise his Israel foreign policy actions
By EARL COX
The president is commendable when he says he wants to avoid war. His policies, however, favor war by destabilizing the Middle East making it extremely hostile and favoring radical Islam over America’s ally, Israel.
President Barack Obama challenged Americans and Israel to judge him by his deeds, not his words, when it comes to US-Israel relations. If we are to do so, the conclusion can only be that the president is taking a very dangerous path for both America and its top ally in the Middle East.
In a March 6 news conference he said, “When I came into office, Iran was unified, on the move, had made substantial progress on its nuclear program, and the world was divided in terms of how to deal with it. What we’ve been able to do over the last three years is mobilize unprecedented, crippling sanctions on Iran. Iran is feeling the bite of these sanctions in a substantial way. The world is unified; Iran is politically isolated.” In reality, two key members of the United Nations Security Council, China and Russia, have stonewalled proposed resolutions and have watered-down sanctions making the president’s claim of world unity and deterrence preposterous.
On March 5 he told the Prime Minister of Israel at the White House that the US will, “always have Israel’s back when it comes to Israel’s security.” On March 6 he told reporters, “I think it's very important for us to take a careful, thoughtful, sober approach to what is a real problem. And that's what we've been doing over the last three years. That's what I intend to keep doing.” His sanctions and diplomacy, however, have resulted in Iran and its allies continuing to not only develop nuclear weapons but to arm and aid terrorists throughout the Middle East, including the Syrian hotspot. It is no secret that radical Islamists wait in the wings to take over after the so-called “democracy” crowd ousts the Syrian dictator.
The president is commendable when he says he wants to avoid war. His policies, however, favor war by destabilizing the Middle East making it extremely hostile and favoring radical Islam over America’s ally, Israel, and American interests in the region. He continues to allow Iran time to build a nuclear weapon. He continues to pressure Israel to give up land for peace to hostile state actors. These actions play into the hands of the enemies of Israel and America.
The Biblical prophecies are consistent on the fate of those nations who act against Israel. Zechariah 12:9 quotes our Lord: “I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Israel.” That destruction will be based on actions rather than words. The president has chosen a very dangerous path for every American and one that promises great difficulty for Israel.
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4)What Public Employee Unions are Doing to Our Country
By WILLIAM MCGURN is a vice president for News Corporation and writes the weekly “Main Street” column for the Wall Street Journal. From 2005 to 2008, he served as chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush. Prior to that he was the chief editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal and spent more than ten years in Europe and Asia for Dow Jones. He has written for a wide variety of publications, including Esquire, the Washington Post, the Spectator of London and the National Catholic Register. He holds a B.A. from the University of Notre Dame and a master’s degree in communications from Boston University, and currently serves on the board of Notre Dame’s Center for Ethics and Culture.
The following is adapted from a speech delivered on February 15, 2012, at a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar in Newport Beach, California.
MANY SCHOLARS ARE better versed on the history of public employee unions than I am, but there is one credential I can claim that they cannot: I am a taxpayer in the People’s Republic of New Jerseystan. That makes me an authority on how public sector unions—especially at the state and local level—are thwarting economic growth, strangling the middle class, and generally hijacking the democratic process to serve their own ends rather than the public.
Now in my experience, when one says the words “New Jersey,” people for some reason think it is a laugh line. Perhaps you know us from The Sopranos or Jersey Shore. You might think that such a state has nothing to teach you. If so, you would be very wrong. New Jersey offers something that can profit the entire nation: We are the perfect bad example.
As conservatives, of course, we believe in virtue. We like to point to policies and practices that work—low taxes and light regulation for the economy, a strong national defense to keep us safe from foreign attack, and social policies that favor community over government. These are all valuable. But the bad example has its honored place as well: It’s how we illustrate our warnings.
As parents, for example, selling virtue only takes us so far. To make our point when we see a character trait we don’t care for in our kids, we’re far more likely to say something like, “You don’t want to grow up to be like Uncle Bob, do you?”
This is the reason Governor Chris Christie’s reforms have had such resonance. Almost anywhere he points, he has before him an example of how New Jersey’s bloated public sector is hurting growth, limiting the efficiency of government services, and squeezing middle class families. How many state governors and legislators might be more inclined to do the right thing if before they acted they first said to themselves, “We don’t want to be like New Jersey, do we?”
These days, when conservatives get together to discuss the debilitating role played by government workers, we reassure ourselves with statements by FDR and labor leader Samuel Gompers about the fundamental incompatibilities between a union of private workers working for a private company and a union of government workers laboring for our city, state, or federal governments. We also trace the line of expansion to various events, including John F. Kennedy’s executive order that opened the path for collective bargaining for public employees at the federal level.
I don’t want to rehash that today. Today I want to talk about the situation as we find it, and suggest that the first step toward a cure is to diagnose the illness accurately. This means changing the way we think of public sector unions. And in what I have to say, I will concentrate on public sector unions at the state and local levels.
It’s not that I don’t consider the unionization of federal workers to be an issue. Plainly it is an issue when the teachers unions represent one of the largest blocs of delegates at Democratic conventions, when the largest single campaign contributor in the 2010 elections was the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, when union money at the federal level goes at an overwhelming rate to Democratic candidates, and when the Congressional Budget Office tells us that federal employees earn more than their counterparts in the private sector. Nonetheless, I believe that the greater challenge today—to state and city finances, to democratic representation, to the middle class—is at the state and local level. This is partly because state and city unions have the power to negotiate wages and benefits that their counterparts at the federal level largely do not. More fundamentally, it is because we cannot reform at the federal level without correcting a problem that is bringing our cities and states to bankruptcy.
When I say we need to change our understanding, what I mean is that we have to recognize that public sector unions have successfully redefined key relationships in our economic and civic life. In making this argument, I will suggest that the elected politicians who represent us at the negotiating table are not in fact management, that our taxing and spending decisions at the city and state level are in practice decided by our public sector contracts, and that when you put this all together, what emerges is a completely different picture of the modern civil servant. In short, we work for him, not the other way around.
Who is Managing Whom?
Let me start with the relationship between government employee unions and our elected officials. On paper, it is true, mayors and governors sit across the table from city and state workers collectively bargaining for wages and benefits. On paper, this makes them management—representing us, the taxpayers. But in practice, these people often serve more as the employees of unions than as their managers. New Jersey has been telling here. Look at our former governor, Jon Corzine.
You Hillsdale folks are a genteel sort. When you speak about the unions being in bed with the Democratic politicians, you mean it metaphorically. In New Jersey, we take it to Snooki levels: Mr. Corzine once shared a home with the New Jersey leader of the Communication Workers of America, Carla Katz. Back when he was running for governor, he was asked whether that relationship would compromise his ability to represent the taxpayers in negotiations with outfits such as CWA. “As the governor,” Mr. Corzine responded, “you represent eight-and-a-half million people. You don’t represent one union. You don’t represent one person. You represent the people who elected you.”
That’s the way it ought to be. In real life, it turned out that during heated negotiations over a contested CWA contract, Mr. Corzine and Ms. Katz had a long email chain—subsequently published by the Newark Star Ledger, despite the governor’s legal attempts to keep them private—in which she pressed him on the union issues.
But it wasn’t just the CWA. Scarcely six months after he was elected, Governor Corzine appeared before a rally of state workers in Trenton in support of a one percent sales tax designed to bring in revenues to a state hemorrhaging money. Not cutbacks, but a tax. Naturally, Mr. Corzine’s solution was the one the public sector unions wanted: Get the needed revenues by introducing a new tax.
The twist was that there was someone in the New Jersey government who understood the problem—who understood that a new sales tax wouldn’t do much to fix New Jersey’s problems, and that the only way to get a handle on them was to get state workers to start contributing more to their health care and pensions.
These were the pre-Chris Christie days, so the author of this bold proposal was the Senate president, Stephen Sweeney. Mr. Sweeney is not only interesting because he is a prominent and powerful Democrat. He is also interesting because in addition to his political office, he represents the state’s ironworkers. And what Mr. Sweeney proposed for the public sector unions was something private union members such as his ironworkers already paid for. It was also common sense: He knew that if New Jersey didn’t get a handle on its gold-plated pay and benefits for its government employees, it would squeeze out the private sector that hires people such as ironworkers.
If the leader of an ironworkers union could realize that, surely so could a governor who had earlier served as a high-powered executive for Goldman Sachs. But Mr. Corzine was having none of it. Instead, he told the crowd of state workers: “We’re gonna fight for a fair contract.”
The question is, whom was he planning on fighting? Wasn’t he management in these negotiations?
Six months later, Governor Corzine proved this was not simply a slip of the tongue. When workers at Rutgers University were planning to unionize, he turned up at their rally. This was too much even for the liberal Star Ledger, which—in an article entitled “Jon Corzine, Union Rep?”—noted that Mr. Corzine’s appearance at the rally raised the question whether he truly understood that “he represents the ‘management’ side in ongoing contract talks with state employees unions.”
Manifestly, the problem is not that Mr. Corzine and other elected leaders like him—mostly Democrats—do not understand. In fact, they understand all too well that they are the hired help. The public employees they are supposed to manage in effect manage them. The unions provide politicians with campaign funds and volunteers and votes, and the politicians pay for what the unions demand in return with public money.
In New Jersey as elsewhere, most leaders of public sector unions are not sleeping with the politicians who set their salary and benefits. They are, however, doing all they can to install and keep in office those they wish—while fighting hard against the ones they oppose. And until we recognize the real master in this relationship, we will never reform the system.
The Tail Wagging the Dog
My second point relates to my first. Not only have the public unions too often become the dominant partner in the relationship with elected officials, but the contracts and the spending that goes with them are setting the other policy agenda. In other words, even when we recognize that the packages favored by public employees are too generous, we think of them simply as spending items. We need to wake up and recognize that in fact these spending items are the tail wagging the dog—that they set tax and borrowing decisions rather than follow from them.
Take the case of Northvale, a small, affluent town of about 4,600 people at the northeast tip of New Jersey. Its median income is about $99,000, comfortably above both the New Jersey and national levels, and its budget is $21.8 million. Of this, $13.2 million—or nearly two-thirds—goes to the schools. The lion’s share of that, of course, goes to salaries and benefits.
Northvale’s school budget is voted on in the spring. That’s part of the scam, because turnout for these elections is much lower than it is in November for the regular elections. With lower turnout, it’s easier for teachers and other interested parties to dominate the elections. Thus the great bulk of Northvale’s budget is not determined in the regular elections, or by the mayor and city council. Effectively, it is determined by the education lobby and school officials—who in turn are chosen in elections involving only 20 percent of the electorate.
From the other one-third of the budget, Northvale has to run its police force and fire department, remove snow, arrange for garbage pickup, and so on. That means there is not much discretionary spending left. Even when voters rebel—last spring Northvale voters overwhelmingly repudiated the budget—they are frequently ignored, and the back door system ensures there is little in the way of accountability.
But there are consequences: This dynamic helps explain why, in the decade before Chris Christie was elected governor, the property taxes of New Jersey residents went up 70 percent.
Mr. Christie is not in charge of local spending. But he understands that this is part of an exceptionally unvirtuous circle. So he’s made some changes. Last year, for instance, with the help of allies such as Mr. Sweeney, he pushed a reform through the legislature that required public workers to start contributing to their health care and up their contributions to their pensions. It’s not nearly the same percentage as their counterparts in the private sector, but it’s a start.
Mr. Christie also put through a property tax cap that forces cities to go to the people for a vote if they increase property taxes by more than two percent. And just last month, he signed a bill that will allow towns to move their school budget votes to the November ballot—not only saving money, but also ensuring that more citizens vote, not simply those who have a vested interest.
At the same time, Mr. Christie has begun to campaign against abuses using language that people can understand. His most recent target is the practice of awarding six-figure checks to public employees who are allowed to accumulate—and cash out—unused sick pay. In New Jersey these payments are called “boat money,” largely because retired government workers often use the money to buy pleasure boats when they retire. Across the state, cities have liabilities of $825 million because of these boat checks.
And what’s been the opposition’s response? Instead of agreeing to reasonable cuts, the Democrats keep thumping for a millionaire’s tax. New Jersey being New Jersey, the millionaire’s tax aims at people making far less than a million dollars. But even if it didn’t, it’s hard to see how driving millionaires out of the state will help it meet its huge and growing unfunded pension liabilities.
To summarize my second point: You and I make spending decisions the way all households do. We take our income, and we live within our means. In sharp contrast, public employee unions have introduced a whole new dynamic: They negotiate pay and benefits in contracts we can’t rewrite. When the revenues to meet these obligations fall short, they push to raise taxes to make up the difference.
The Corruption of Public Service
That leads me to my third and final point: If I am right that the public employee unions are in fact the managers in the relationship with politicians, and that public sector spending is driving tax and borrowing policy, the inescapable conclusion is that you and I are working for them.
That’s not how we usually understand and speak of public service. Traditionally, the idea of a public servant is someone who is working for the public, with the implication that he or she is sacrificing a better material life to do so. But can anyone really define today’s relationship this way? Especially when health care and pensions are included, government workers increasingly seem to live better than the people who pay their salaries. How many of you walk into some local, state or federal office these days and leave thinking, “The men and women here are working for me”?
In some ways the change has been driven by larger changes in union life. From one out of three workers at its high point in the 1950s, today fewer than one out of 14 private sector workers belongs to a union, and the percentage continues to drop. Conversely, the unionization of government employees continues to grow, to the point where public sector union members now outnumber their private sector counterparts for the first time in American history.
In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, Fred Siegel notes that public sector unions have
become a vanguard movement within liberalism. And the reason for that is it’s the public sector that comes closest to the statist ideals of McGovern and post-McGovern liberals. And that is, there’s no connection between effort and reward. You’re guaranteed your job. You’re guaranteed your salary increase. There’s a kind of bureaucratic equality.
“This vanguard,” Siegel continues, “becomes in the eyes of many liberals the model for the middle class. Public-sector unions are what all workers should be like. Their benefits are the kind of benefits everyone should get.” So instead of the private sector defining the public, the public sector is thought to define the private.
As public employees unionize, their dues—often collected for the unions by the government—fund a permanent interest constantly lobbying for bigger government. To pay for this bigger and more expensive government, they advocate for higher taxes on those in the private sector. Only when they are threatened with layoffs are they inclined to compromise, and sometimes not even then. That is what I mean when I say that we work for them.
Where to Go From Here
One of the few silver linings of our tough economy today is that it is forcing tough decisions. Big city mayors and governors are having issues with their public employees, because we’ve reached a point where we simply cannot afford business as usual. With a sluggish economy—and fewer taxpayers—the problems that have piled up are becoming too difficult to ignore.
Across the nation we have governors and mayors trying to solve their public employee problems with varying degrees of seriousness, from Chris Christie in New Jersey to Jerry Brown in California to the great experiments going on in the Rust Belt—in Indiana, which has done the best, and Wisconsin, Ohio, and Michigan. Only Illinois, led by Democratic Governor Pat Quinn, has opted for business as usual with a mammoth tax increase that is now being followed up, in today’s typical way of Democratic governance, with tax breaks for large companies threatening to leave Chicago because of the tax burden.
In most of these places, there’s probably little we can do about the contracts that exist. What we can do is bring in new hires under more reasonable contracts and pro-rate contributions for existing employees. Even marginal changes can have a big impact, as Wisconsin found out when Governor Scott Walker’s collective bargaining reforms for public workers helped restore many of the state’s school districts back to fiscal health.
My father was a federal employee, as an FBI agent. I spent some time as a government worker in the White House. I also know many fine and devoted people on the public payroll who work hard, are good at what they do, and earn everything they get. But there are also those who work without results. I believe Americans are a generous people who can recognize the difference. We need to restore our public sector to a place where those in charge can make those distinctions and allocate rewards and resources accordingly.
In the meantime, I think the best thing we can do is speak honestly. That is what Mr. Christie is doing in New Jersey. His style isn’t for everyone. Yet his popularity suggests that Americans appreciate a politician willing to talk about the reality of public employee unions today—and the unreasonable costs they are imposing on our society.
We’ll never return to the ideal of public service until the rest of us start speaking honestly as well.
Copyright © 2012 Hillsdale College. The opinions expressed in Imprimis are not necessarily the views of Hillsdale College. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided the following credit line is used: “Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College.”
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5)Iran: Obama Has Surrendered
By James Lewis
It's vital for Americans to realize that Obama has already surrendered the defense of the civilized world. We know that, because the critical window of opportunity to prevent Iranian nukes has been closing, closing, closing. The risk of preventive action is getting greater by the day, which means that the optimal time for intervention is now fading as the Iranians continue to disperse and fortify their nuclear industry. Every honest military adviser must have explained this to the White House, echoed by the Saudis, the Gulf States, the Israelis, the Turks, Afghans, Middle Eastern Christians, and yes, European atheists.
Charles Krauthammer just wrote:
Iran is tripling its uranium output, moving enrichment facilities deep under a mountain near Qom and impeding IAEA inspections of weaponization facilities.So what is Obama's real objective? 'We're trying to make the decision to attack as hard as possible for Israel,' an administration official told the Washington Post in the most revealing White House admission since 'leading from behind.'... The world's greatest exporter of terror ... the systematic killer of Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan, the self-declared enemy that invented 'Death to America Day' is approaching nuclear capability -- and the focus of U.S. policy is to prevent a democratic ally threatened with annihilation from pre-empting the threat?
Obama has failed to act when it was safe to do so -- because we know how to intervene in Libya, in Gulf War I and II, and in the Tanker War of the 1980s.
We do not have to repeat the Bush mistake of occupying a bad actor like Saddam Hussein; all we need is to keep his jets and missiles from ever launching, using a no-fly zone. The Bush invasion of Iraq, followed by a failed nation-building effort, was overreach. But pre-emption is still the only way to stop nukes.
Instead, Obama has preemptively surrendered.
The Clinton administration did the same things with North Korean nukes and missiles. In the Clinton years, Madeleine Albright waltzed with Kim Jong-il, the mass murderer, quietly conceding nuclear weapons to North Korea. She came back to the U.S. and proclaimed a great victory. The Norks agreed to give up plutonium bombs and worked on enriched uranium instead. Bill Clinton claimed that he solved the problem and our Moron Media applauded, and today the North Koreans have nukes. They are exporting them to places like Iran, and Slick Willie danced away scot-free.
Nuclear proliferation is therefore the product of the American left, in direct collusion with fanatical madmen around the world. I don't want to believe that, but it keeps happening.
Gordon Chang just reported that China has sold long-range missiles to Iran -- missiles able to drop nukes 3,000 miles away, the distance across the Atlantic. America is now coming within range of Islamofascist missiles -- soon, not some imaginary time far from now.
China has also been revealed to be behind North Korean nuclear and missile development. That way China can evade responsibility and still weaken and endanger the West.
Last week Obama forced Netanyahu to agree to postpone any military action until after the election, to avoid the possibility that Obama may have to take a tough decision.
If he is re-elected, Obama will keep dithering and let the mullahs become the great regional power in the Gulf, with incalculable consequences. The Middle East will go nuclear, because the Saudis and Egyptians will have to defend themselves.
If, on the other hand, we luck out and a Republican is elected, any American action will be viciously criticized by the left. This is how they operate: Clinton let Osama bin Laden slip away four times after the 1993 truck-bombing on the World Trade Center, and when 9/11/01 happened, the New York Times blamed Bush. Jimmy Carter knowingly facilitated the first Islamic fascist regime in Iran, and today the left blames Israel for surviving.
The radical left is never wrong, even after 100 million dead in the 20th century. Once you control the organs of propaganda, you control what people think.
Obama's dereliction is not an accident. He is knowingly failing to do what all American presidents since FDR and Woodrow Wilson have done: to defend this country against another rising wave of totalitarianism. When Obama pretends to speak in defense of Israel and America, he is simply lying. His true values are expressed by the ignorant armies of the Occupy movement raging against capitalism and freedom.
Black nationalists like Obama hate capitalism for ideological reasons -- but capitalism means economic freedom, which sustains political freedom. For radicals, the political use of mobs is preferable to middle-class peace and prosperity, or what Jeremiah Wright rails against as "middleclassness." That is why the Occupy movement is still training mobs for the election campaign, courtesy of the SEIU.
Last weekend Leslie Stahl, the famously objective star of Sixty Minutes, interviewed Israel's former head of intelligence, Meir Dagan. Stahl freely admitted to the development of Iranian nukes, and Dagan was invited to argue that Israel cannot defend itself against massive missile attacks. It was just another Sixty Minutes ploy to persuade America that the mullahs can't be beaten.
First you empower the deadliest enemies of civilization; then you demoralize our side. It's not hard to see how the radical left operates. They always have the same moves. They always surrender to truly evil ideologies. This is what they believe.
The United States is still by far the most powerful nation in the world, and the only power capable of knocking down rogue regimes hankering after nukes. It is absurd for Israel, a nation of 7 million, to have to defend Western civilization, including Europe, America, and what remains of a moderate Middle East. This is what Carter's foreign policy guru calls "strategic vision." The rest of us see it for what it is: abject surrender to barbarism.
Once the American nuclear umbrella is breached and Islamic missiles are twenty minutes from our soil, radicals can dictate their terms. Nobody will dare to challenge them.
Twenty years ago, the Soviet Union crumbled, and Western civilization was triumphant. Today the Western left has hacked big holes in the bottom of our lifeboat, and we are in genuine danger again.
This is not about Israel. It is about civilization, which is all the good things you and I take for granted. It is about freedom for women -- now that hundreds of millions of women have been locked into medieval tyranny all over the Arab and Persian world, thanks to Obama and Jimmy. But don't expect the New York Times to take notice of the lights going out all over the Muslim world, because they are too busy slandering Sarah Palin and the next Republican standard-bearer. The left is a political parasite. It will consume its host if it is not stopped.
What we are seeing in the Muslim world is not an accident, but an act of suicidal sabotage by the left-Islamist alliance. Obama and the rad-left Democrat establishment have knowingly sabotaged our defenses wherever they've had a chance. That is why Jimmy Carter now defends -- defends -- Iranian nuclear weapons, and argues that the Muslim Brotherhood are just a bunch of good guys. Well -- ask the 10 million or so Coptic Christians in Egypt, who are now stampeding for the exit. Christian Copts built churches in Egypt before the rise of Islam. Today they are under attack again by the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist fanatics.
The Democrats' left-of-left foreign policy has been to sabotage American victory in the Cold War, to undo what they see as American hegemony. That is why the left continues to enable the mass criminality of the Sudan, Iran, and the "Arab Spring" reactionaries at the United Nations.
The real axis of evil is forged between Islamic fascism and the left. That is why we are being accused of "Islamophobia," and that is why multiculturalist nonsense was shoved down the throats of unwilling college students for decades. It was to sabotage Western civilization, the common enemy of the radical left and Islamic fascism.
The Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1938 is back with new players, for the identical strategic reasons, because the totalitarians of Marxism and fascism have a common enemy.
That would be us.
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By Grace-Marie Turner
ObamaCare is taking on water as we head into the second anniversary since it passed, and the news about the president’s signature legislation gets worse by the day.
To mark the law’s two-year anniversary, the House of Representatives is planning a vote to repeal one of the law’s most unpopular provisions — the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), which many seniors fear will become Medicare’s rationing board.
A few days later, the Supreme Court will hear a remarkable six hours of oral argument in the case with 26 states challenging the law’s constitutionality. Demonstrators will fill the streets outside the Supreme Court during the three days of hearings March 26-28.
For much of the last year, the White House had adopted a “strategy of silence” on ObamaCare. That’s clearly over.
After the 2010 election drubbing, the president rarely talked about his signature legislative achievement and even when he did, he only spoke about the small early provisions — 26-year-old children on their parents’ insurance, “free” preventive care, and more help for seniors with their drug costs.
For a while, the strategy was working. ObamaCare has died down as a major issue. The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to repeal the law a year ago, and, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll, about half of those polled afterward thought the law has been repealed or weren’t sure. The confusion — and the lack of their basic knowledge of civics — suited the White House just fine.
But ObamaCare is back to center stage this month, and the more people learn about the law, the more unpopular it becomes. Here are just some of the recent revelations:
· Soaring costs. ObamaCare will cost $1.76 trillion over a decade, according to a new projection released Tuesday by the Congressional Budget Office, rather than the $940 billion forecast when it was signed into law.
The new 10-year projections cover nine years of ObamaCare’s implementation (2013-2022). Original estimates counted only six years of implementation — a budget gimmick to obscure the true cost of the law. At this rate, the conservative estimates of ObamaCare’s cost will be $2 trillion over 10 years, not the $1 trillion that President Obama promised.
· Lost coverage. Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) released a statement saying that the CBO’s estimate also shows that the new health law will dramatically increase Medicaid spending and result in 4 million fewer people getting health insurance through their jobs. So much for being able to keep the coverage you have now “no matter what,” as the president promised.
· Opposition locked in. An AP-GfK poll taken early this month shows that only about a third of Americans (35 percent) support the health care law, while nearly half (47 percent) oppose it. That’s about the same split as when it passed.
Opposition remains strongest among seniors, many of whom object to Medicare cuts that were used to help finance coverage for younger uninsured people.
· Anti-conscience mandate. And then there is the mega-controversy the administration created over the anti-conscience contraceptive mandate. The president had tried to make the issue about “women’s health.” But the American people understand that it is a violation of the constitutionally-guaranteed protection of religious freedom to force Catholic hospitals, universities, and charities to cover drugs that cause abortion, sterilization, and contraceptives in violation of their strong moral beliefs.
A new poll from The New York Times and CBS News reveals that a substantial majority of Americans — 57 percent to 36 percent — favor an exemption for religious-affiliated employers. And a sizable majority — 51 percent to 40 percent — still favors a religious and moral exemption for all employers. This is the same poll that shows the president’s approval rating dropping to 41 percent.
· Loss of 25 Dem seats. President Obama personally promised Democratic members of Congress that if they voted for the bill, their constituents soon would thank them, arguing that a vote against the bill would be most damaging.
Yet a new study by American Politics Research found that at least 25 members of Congress lost their seats in Congress during the 2010 elections precisely because they voted for ObamaCare.
· Bi-partisan opposition to ObamaCare is brewing. When the House of Representatives votes next week on repealing ObamaCare’s unaccountable, unelected IPAB board, at least some Democrats are likely to support repeal. The IPAB repeal bill, sponsored by Rep. Phil Roe (R-TN), received bi-partisan support as it made its way through House committees, showing that Democrats are equally worried about the power of the board to usurp the job of the people’s elected representatives.
· Employers will drop coverage. A new study of employers conducted by Willis Human Capital Practice found that employers expect higher health costs for both employers and employees as a result of ObamaCare, and many expect to shift employees into taxpayer-paid coverage once the option is available. That shift would certainly exacerbate the exploding costs of the law.
Last year, health costs rose 9 percent for employers, triple the rate of the year before ObamaCare’s provisions began to be implemented. Employers expect costs to only go higher.
· Investors recoil. Uncertainty about the future of the health sector is also drying up investor capital — and threatening tomorrow’s medical innovations. The share of venture dollars flowing to seed and early-stage investments in biotechnology and medical devices has plummeted since 2007, when investors pumped $3.6 billion into 332 deals in which a price was disclosed, according to data compiled for Kaiser Health News by FactSet Research Systems. Overall venture investing declined by nearly one-third as the economic recession set in.
The list goes on: If public opposition is hardening now against ObamaCare, just wait until the mandate kicks in on January 1, 2014, when everyone will be required to purchase expensive government-dictated health insurance under penalty of federal law. And as seniors find it harder and harder to find a doctor who can afford to see them. And as they begin to fear the impact of the cuts of ObamaCare’s rationing board. And as states find it is impossible to provide basic services because the mandate to vastly expand Medicaid is gobbling up virtually all of their budgets. And as the unemployment rate refuses to drop because employers are frightened about the huge costs they are facing with the employer mandate. And as taxpayers see the gusher of red ink that will explode the federal budget deficit as ObamaCare’s subsidy costs explode.
If the Supreme Court does not throw out the whole law, the voters will have to finish the job with their votes in November.
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