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Got this from a long time friend who has a delightfully mordant sense of humor:
"I wanted to let you know that earlier today I received my "Obamacare enrollment packet” from the White House.
It contained:
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· An aspirin and a band-aid.· An 'Obama Hope & Change' bumper sticker· A 'Bush's Fault' yard sign· A 'Blame Republicans first, then anybody and everybody' poster· A 'Tax the Rich' banner· An application for unemployment and a free cell phone· An application for food stamps· A prayer rug· A letter assigning my debt to my grandchildren· And lastly, a coupon for a machine that blows smoke up my ass.Everything was made in "China" and all directions were in Spanish.Keep an eye out. Yours should be arriving soon. (See 2 below.)
Yogi Berra said: "It ain't over til it's over."
Yes Republicans lost an unwinnable war trying to defund Obamacare.
Now the ball is in their court. Obama and Reid thought they would embarrass and bludgeon Republicans with Sequester. Republicans passed it and now Obama and Reid and other extreme liberals, who only know how to spend, are bleeding from their own self-inflicted wound.
The next debate will be about spending , a budget and Republicans, if they remain tough and united, have Sequester and automatic cuts working in their favor.
Most voters, who are not brain dead, know we are in a financial pickle and must curtail spending. If Sequester is the only way, meat axe as it might be, so be it. Yes, Sequester impacts our military disproportionately but Obama's intent all along has been to reduce America's "Colonial" foot print and weaken our ability so we must endure that consequence for a few more years.
As for Obamacare, enforce it and let the pain of this ill conceived law bite. Obama was given a chance to extend its implementation and rejected it because it remains the crown jewel of his presidency and allows him to shove 16% of our GDP under government's tent. Now we are witnessing governmental implementation of this disaster.
Many liberals probably want to see Obamacare fail so they can move towards total government control of our health care and thus control more of our freedom of choice.
As for Obama, he needs to take back Congress and hold onto the Senate so moving forward any proposed legislation will be designed to test Republican mettle and resolve.
This is why conservatives must hang tough, stand united, not give in to altering Sequester for some flimsy promise which will proves another Obama trap.
Let the public finally see Obama lied to them all along except in one regard . He told the absolute truth when he promised to transform America, transfer wealth, raise taxes, increase debt and dependency upon expanded government, govern in an ex parte manner disregarding Constitutional Separation of Powers and conducting a foreign policy of disdain for our allies while blaming everyone and everything on others.
This is the tragic leadership we bought and re-elected.
I hope Republicans have the guts to allow us to enjoy the discomfort of our lumpy bed.
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Has China become the stuckee regarding ownership of our debt? (See 4 below.)
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Et Tu Brute Obamacare? (See 5 below.)
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Dick
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1) Chemical Belly of the Syrian Beast
by Avi Jorisch
Al-Arabiya
Al-Arabiya
With civil war raging, Syria, a state sponsor of terror, has attacked its own people with chemical weapons and attempted to skirt international sanctions. The United States, the EU, Russia and the UN must identify the full extent of the threat and eliminate Syria's chemical weapons capacity.
Syria's Centre D'Etudes et de Recherches Scientifiques (CERS), the Scientific Studies and Research Center, is apparently at the heart of Syria's efforts to produce and disseminate weapons of mass destruction.Established in 1971 to advance and coordinate scientific endeavors, it serves as Syria's Los Alamos. It is believed to be responsible for research and development of Syria's chemical and biological weapons (CBW) arsenal. It also played a central role in Syria's pursuit of nuclear weapons, which, thanks to Israel, is no longer active. According to U.S. and European officials, CERS answers to President Bashar al-Assad and the most senior members of his Alawi clan. French intelligenceasserts that the clandestine Unit 450 of CERS has overall responsibility for the weapons stockpiles and for maintaining security over sites where they are held.
As a direct result of work by CERS, Syria possesses the region's largest CBW capability, estimated at over 1,000 metric tons. Government agencies on both sides of the Atlantic suspect, however, that there might be yet more.
Syria is the second country in the Middle East to deploy chemical weapons against its people. Iraq was the first, using mustard gas, tabun and sarin in the 1980s and killing an estimated 40,000 Iraqi Kurds and Iranians. The UN haspresented "clear and convincing evidence" that on August 21 of this year, sarin used in Syria killed more than 1,400 people, including 400 children. Most of the international community believes the government is behind the attack.
Of added concern is the spread of these weapons within Syria and transferred to sub-state actors like Hezbollah and Hamas. CERS has reportedly been dispersing its stockpiles to as many as 50 sites around the country, impeding the West's ability to track and destroy them through inspections or bombing. The regime's CBW have traditionally been held at several large sites in western Syria, but U.S. officialscontend that CERS began to disperse them about a year ago.
Over the last six years, Israel has allegedly carried out at least four airstrikes against Syria, three of them against CERS and related entities. The first, in 2007, destroyed Syria's nuclear reactor in Deir Ezzour which, according to Israelisources, was built and managed by CERS with North Korea's assistance. The second and third strikes took place inJanuary and May, targeting the CERS facility in Jamraya.
Other Western allies have targeted CERS and its subsidiaries through other means. The United States maintains ablacklist of terrorism financiers, weapons proliferators and other illicit global actors. In 2005, President Bush issuedExecutive Order 13882, targeting CERS for proliferating weapons of mass destruction. Two years later, the U.S. Treasury expanded the program, pursuing CERS subsidiaries andblacklisting the Higher Institute of Applied Science and Technology (HIAST), the Electronics Institute, and the National Standards and Calibration Laboratory (NSCL) for their support of Syria's WMD program. Other countries, including Japan and South Korea, have also targeted some or all of these entities.
Syrian rebels, too, have focused on CERS and its three subsidiaries, investing tremendous effort in seizing the main CERS facility in Damascus. They have also posted a "wanted list" (translation) of CERS employees, providing their names and positions, the types of cars they drive and other identifying information. The rebels recently assassinatedShaza Sliman, a CERS engineer and a teacher at HIAST, which according to the U.S. Treasury, is the main institution training CERS engineers.
Short of neutralizing CERS through a bombing campaign, what can be done to stop Syria from maiming and killing innocent civilians? The United States and the EU should blacklist any international companies and individuals that continue to conduct business with CERS, HIAST, the Electronics Institute and NCSL and block their access to U.S. and European markets. In addition, they should publish the names of employees of these institutions, particularly Unit 450.
Information from the rebels and human and signals intelligence can help identify those playing a role in the regime's CBW program. Furthermore, many HIAST graduates and current and former CERS employees have profiles on social and professional networking sites, including LinkedIn, Facebook and Russian VK. Most live in Syria, but some reside in other countries, including throughout Europe, Latin America and even the U.S., where they are more easily reached.
The United States and EU should also consider cyber attacks against Syria like the Stuxnet and Flame viruses used against Iran. Furthermore, no one should be surprised if Syrian scientists start meeting untimely deaths through assassinations, car bombings, drive-by shootings or "random" acts of violence.
The United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) also have a critical role to play. UNODA's mission is to curb the use and deployment of weapons of mass destruction. The FATF is tasked with issuing standards on anti-money-laundering, terrorism finance and proliferation finance guidance and assessing countries' compliance. UNODA and FATF's Typologies Working Group should issue a report on CERS (and its subsidiaries) and the methods they employ to finance themselves and procure weapons, then issue guidance to global financial institutions and law enforcement agencies on CBW proliferation.
The international community must prevent Syria from using chemical weapons again. This will require a strategy employing economic and diplomatic means; low-intensity conflict, such as cyber warfare and assassination; public diplomacy; and/or military means. Unless the international community addresses Syria's flagrant use of weapons of mass destruction, other rogue regimes will assume they can use them with impunity, something that must be avoided at all costs.
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2)1-800-ObamaCare-Denial
Website problems don't matter when your intentions are good.
'More than a website" is the latest defense of the Affordable Care Act's painful rollout, and liberals are partly right. ObamaCare has larger ambitions than the basket case called Healthcare.gov and the 36 federally run insurance exchanges.
But building the website was supposed to be the easy part. The health law's fiasco of a debut doesn't inspire confidence in those other ambitions, such as re-engineering how U.S. medicine is provided, but it does help explain the modern liberal project.
The White House pitched President Obama's Rose Garden event on Monday as a new transparency, but the event amounted to an infomercial, complete with a 1-800 number. Operators are standing by and "the product is good," the President said. He even encouraged Americans to bypass the website and apply for benefits over the phone or by mail.
Too bad this infomercial lacked tangible information. Mr. Obama might have explained what went wrong, and why, and where the buck stops, or if there is even a provisional timetable for when the exchanges will function properly. Instead he minimized the severity of the problems, perhaps for political reasons. Or maybe he didn't say because the defects are so deep that no one can identify the specific solutions.
By the way, we called the hotline on Monday and the automated menu redirected us to Healthcare.gov, which in turn told us to get in touch with someone at the call center.
In an era where Google is making self-driving cars and Amazon offers next-day delivery for just about anything, the White House plunged ahead with a system it knew to be defective and is relying on the technology of the 19th century as the fall-back. Five days before the exchanges launched, the Health and Human Services Department increased the Virginia information technology company Serco's $114 million contract by $87 million—to help process paper applications. Are contingency plans in place to sign up via telegraph?
The danger is that those who manage to enroll will mainly be the most expensive patients. Younger and healthier patients who don't need ObamaCare will have to cross-subsidize the sick and old or else the premiums won't cover the cost of claims. So the 36 malfunctioning exchanges could take an entire market down with them.The consequences of this mismanagement go beyond the technical. Mr. Obama bragged that millions of people are using the website and many (he didn't say how many) are signing up for coverage. But this overlooks that no one knows what the risk profiles on the exchanges will look like.
Insurance companies are also already sending out notices to millions of consumers cancelling individual policies because they are non-compliant with ObamaCare's new mandates. Kaiser Health News, usually a cheerleader for the law, reports that "Florida Blue, for example, is terminating about 300,000 policies, about 80 percent of its individual policies in the state." Kaiser Permanente in California has sent notices to 160,000 people, Highmark in Pittsburgh is dropping about 20% of its individual market customers, and Independence Blue Cross of Philadelphia is dropping about 45%.
Remember when Mr. Obama said you could keep your policy if you liked it?
The White House could have asked Congress for a delay to get the exchanges right and avoid this debacle. Liberals claim to be in favor of "what works and what doesn't," as Mr. Obama likes to say, and the exchanges clearly belong to the latter category.
But the exchanges fiasco is revealing the larger truth that ObamaCare's claim to technocratic expertise was always a political con. It won over the New Yorker and made ObamaCare designer Peter Orszag a celebrity. But it was all a veneer for ObamaCare's real goal, which is to centralize political control over health care.
That false front is clear now as we are told to ignore the faulty rollout because it will get fixed, eventually, and in any case the law is really about reducing inequality. At least now Democrats are being honest. The actual results will always matter less to liberals than their good intentions and expanding the reach of government.
In a blog post over the weekend, the Health and Human Services Department sought to assure Americans that "Our team is bringing in some of the best and brightest from both inside and outside government to scrub in with the team and help improve HealthCare.gov." HHS won't even disclose who these ringers are. Just wait until the Independent Payment Advisory Board gets up and running and starts to review individual medical treatments without explaining its data or the reasons for its decisions.
Mr. Obama did identify one culprit on Monday—naturally, the Republicans who he claimed somehow sabotaged Healthcare.gov despite having nothing to do with its development. "I just want to remind everybody, we did not wage this long and contentious battle just around a website," he said. Yes, and that's what should really scare the public.
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3)Fred Barnes: The Upside of the GOP Shutdown Defeat
Republicans can't go on offense, but the intact budget sequester will allow them to play effective defense.
In the deal that ended the government shutdown, Republicans lost. They got almost nothing they'd sought. But what has been largely overlooked is that the deal didn't curtail, much less end, the automatic spending cuts known as the budget sequester. And undoing the sequester is what President Obama and Democrats wanted most of all.
The survival of the automatic spending cuts gives Republicans the upper hand in confronting the White House and congressional Democrats on budget issues and new proposals by Mr. Obama that would involve new outlays, such as his plan for universal pre-K education. For Republicans eager to corral federal spending—and that's most of them—the sequester is a gift that keeps on giving.
To say the sequester has backfired for Democrats is putting it mildly. The specter of automatic cuts was supposed to scare members of a Senate-House panel assigned to forge a bipartisan budget accord. If they failed, the sequester would become law. Democrats believed this would never occur. But it did.Democrats, especially Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, are fit to be tied as they watch cherished social programs gradually shrink. The sequester, enacted during the struggle over the debt limit in 2011, was the brainchild of the White House. It requires $1 trillion in cuts over 10 years in nonentitlement spending, $84 billion in 2013 and $109 billion in 2014.
Now across-the-board cuts go into effect annually without the need for a fresh vote in Congress or the president's signature. Nor are Republicans forced to offer Democrats the sweetener of tax increases. The sequester is cuts and only cuts. As a result, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell noted proudly last week when announcing the end of the shutdown that "government spending has declined for two years in a row [for] the first time in 50 years."
Mr. McConnell negotiated both the 2011 agreement, known as the Budget Control Act, or BCA, and the shutdown deal. He's not about to let go of either, unless Mr. Obama and his Democratic allies offer a serious slate of money-saving entitlement reforms. A special Senate-House conference has been given until Dec. 13 to reach still another budget agreement that theoretically could restrain entitlements and soften the sequester. But Mr. McConnell doesn't expect this to happen. Neither does Mr. Reid.
Saving the sequester "has been a top priority for me and my Republican colleagues throughout the debate" about the shutdown, Mr. McConnell said. "Let's not understate the importance of the BCA or the importance of the fight to preserve it."
Mr. McConnell also touts the deal he worked out with Vice President Joe Biden in late December 2012 to preserve the Bush income-tax cuts for 99% of taxpayers (those with taxable income of less than $400,000 a year). At that time, the White House had considerable leverage, since the Bush cuts were on the verge of expiring for all taxpayers, with Republicans likely to get the blame. So they yielded to higher taxes on the well-to-do to avert a sweeping national tax hike.
Now the Bush tax rates are permanent and White House leverage is gone. This means that Republicans, if they're united, have the ability to block tax increases in the Senate and House. The same is true for proposed changes in the sequester.
Despite leaving the sequester intact, the shutdown deal was in other ways a setback for Republicans. They lost face when forced to surrender on their demand to defund or delayObamaCare. The media blamed them for the government closure and gave Mr. Obama a pass.
There were also some adverse political repercussions for Republicans from the shutdown. The Cook Political Report downgraded the re-election prospects of a dozen GOP House members, and the shutdown exposed an angry rift between younger, more impatient conservatives and older conservatives and moderates. But even if the GOP lost all 12 of those seats, Republicans would still retain the House.
Even the survival of the sequester wasn't an unalloyed win for Republicans. The automatic cuts take a huge bite out of Pentagon spending, which is bound to weaken military readiness. This has distressed many Republicans, and rightly so. Sens. John McCain (R., Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) have called for action to ease the impact on the armed forces.
Mr. Reid claims that the Pentagon spending reductions give Democrats the advantage over Republicans in the new budget talks. (The shutdown deal keeps the government open until Jan. 15.) Yet most Republicans have been willing to swallow defense cuts—so far. They regard the sequester as a rare victory in their fight to reduce the size of government.
But there are limits to its value as a political instrument. For one thing, Mr. Reid says the annual reductions will become less painful when cuts decline as spending caps rise. For now, though, this doesn't appear to have eased the obsession of Mr. Reid, Mr. Obama and Democrats with the impact of the sequester. Quite the contrary. Mr. Obama insists that it is damaging the economy.
The sequester won't put Republicans on offense in Washington. True, it has the potential as a card to play in budget talks. But Mr. Reid has ruled out trading cuts in Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid for scaling back or eliminating the sequester. For that, he told the Huffington Post recently, Republicans must agree to raise taxes.
Republicans ought to be satisfied with playing effective defense. "If Republicans are realistic, they'll accept that their main job is to protect the sequester and the previously negotiated tax rates," politics professor Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia tells me. "The GOP isn't going to get much more while both the White House and the Senate remain Democratic. If the Republicans get very lucky and win six net Senate seats in 2014, then the balance of power will open up new vistas."
Meanwhile, Republicans can sit on their hands and experience the joy of trimming the size of government and, thanks to the sequester, watching Democrats gripe about it.
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4)
Why China Won't Dump U.S. Debt
David Fessler, Energy and Infrastructure Strategist, The Oxford Club
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