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Subject: short and not so sweet
Dr. James D. Manning on Obama!<http://ourlighterside.com/2013/09/20/dr-james-d- manning-on-obama/>
Manning said it. I just thought it
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We leave for Israel early Thursday and I have much on my plate before we depart so, as always, I will say this is my last memo until sometime after we return on Nov. 10 and then proceed to send a few more but just in case I stick to my word you are now forewarned.
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Sticker shock? Have Democrats walked off the cliff in lock step to the tune of their three musketeers -Obama , Reid and Pelosi?
Meanwhile Obama's hound dog press secretary is back pedaling so fast he might fall off another cliff.
Stay tuned because this is better than Johnny Carson.
Speaking of Johnny Carson. I am reading Bushkin's biography of his client. Not a pretty picture. Carson was a complex man who had wonderful mid-western values but his mother was a disaster and it influenced him greatly. A very interesting and seemingly truthful story told by the man who probably knew him best and was most involved with ever facet of his career (See 1 below.)
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Se if you can bare to watch this: Canadian Washing Machine Commercials
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Jeremy Siegel is a noted professor at Wharton and has been accurate more times than not. (See 2 below.)
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The office of the president is a political one and the current occupier has enjoyed overworking the word.
Obama said after Osama was dead, al Qaeda was also dying. So when Bhengazi happened at a difficult political time he and Hillary played politics and failed to send help.
Obama told us 'Obamascare' would not interfere with those who wanted to keep their doctors and policies and now that seems to be another political lie.
Obama told us that the NSA was not snooping in an unlawful manner and now we know it was listening to Ms Merkel singing while she was taking her baths..
Obama told us his would be an open administration but when it came time for many appointees to testify about their many screw ups they become clams. Since most everything they have done smells perhaps that is a normal consequence.
It is evident Obamabelieves he is too bright and thus, above being president so he plays a lot of golf and often seems out of touch with what is going on under his name. He vetoed postponing 'Obamascare's' implementation because it would have meant admitting something was rotten in Denmark.
So now Obama has extended the time people can sign up because someone just told him something really is rotten in Denmark!
Solyndra was a brilliant idea which was going to cut down on our use of dirty coal so we burned hundred of millions of tax payer dollars instead.
I could go on but I hope you get the idea. We elected a community organizer who paraded as a learned legislator, Constitutional Law Professor and executive. Does anyone out there feel suckered?
Things have gotten so bad those in the media and press, who once poked fun at GW, have turned their guns on the man who blamed GW for everything under the sun.
Times sho' have changed!
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Don't throw the rascals out only to replace them with more rascals - Sowell! (See 3 below.)
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Abbas apparently has made demands that are likely to end the prospects of successful talks. When you give Palestinians what they demand it simply leads to increase demands so every time Israel negotiates with them it ends the same way.
The only way these talks will end positively is if/when Obama bludgeons Netanyahu and Netanyahu cracks. (See 4 and 4a below.)
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Dick
1)
Sticker Shock: The cold touch of Obamacare reality
Thousands of Californians are discovering what Obamacare will cost them -- and many don't like what they see.
These middle-class consumers are staring at hefty increases on their insurance bills as the overhaul remakes the healthcare market. Their rates are rising in large part to help offset the higher costs of covering sicker, poorer people who have been shut out of the system for years.
Although recent criticism of the healthcare law has focused on website glitches and early enrollment snags, experts say sharp price increases for individual policies have the greatest potential to erode public support for President Obama's signature legislation.
"This is when the actual sticker shock comes into play for people," said Gerald Kominski, director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. "There are winners and losers under the Affordable Care Act."
Fullerton resident Jennifer Harris thought she had a great deal, paying $98 a month for an individual plan through Health Net Inc. She got a rude surprise this month when the company said it would cancel her policy at the end of this year. Her current plan does not conform with the new federal rules, which require more generous levels of coverage.
Now Harris, a self-employed lawyer, must shop for replacement insurance. The cheapest plan she has found will cost her $238 a month. She and her husband don't qualify for federal premium subsidies because they earn too much money, about $80,000 a year combined.
"It doesn't seem right to make the middle class pay so much more in order to give health insurance to everybody else," said Harris, who is three months pregnant. "This increase is simply not affordable."
On balance, many Americans will benefit from the healthcare expansion. They are guaranteed coverage regardless of their medical history. And lower-income families will gain access to comprehensive coverage at little or no cost.
The federal government picks up much of the tab through an expansion of Medicaid and subsidies to people earning up to four times the federal poverty level. That's up to $46,000 for an individual or $94,000 for a family of four.
But middle-income consumers face an estimated 30% rate increase, on average, in California due to several factors tied to the healthcare law.
Some may elect to go without coverage if they feel prices are too high. Penalties for opting out are very small initially. Defections could cause rates to skyrocket if a diverse mix of people don't sign up for health insurance.
Pam Kehaly, president of Anthem Blue Cross in California, said she received a recent letter from a young woman complaining about a 50% rate hike related to the healthcare law.
"She said, 'I was all for Obamacare until I found out I was paying for it,'" Kehaly said.
Nearly 2 million Californians have individual insurance, and several hundred thousand of them are losing their health plans in a matter of weeks.
Blue Shield of California sent termination letters to 119,000 customers last month whose plans don't meet the new federal requirements. About two-thirds of those people will experience a rate increase from switching to a new health plan, according to the company.
HMO giant Kaiser Permanente is canceling coverage for about half of its individual customers, or 160,000 people, and offering to automatically enroll them in the most comparable health plan available.
The 16 million Californians who get health insurance through their employers aren't affected. Neither are individuals who have "grandfathered" policies bought before March 2010, when the healthcare law was enacted. It's estimated that about half of policyholders in the individual market have those older plans.
All these cancellations were prompted by a requirement from Covered California, the state's new insurance exchange. The state didn't want to give insurance companies the opportunity to hold on to the healthiest patients for up to a year, keeping them out of the larger risk pool that will influence future rates.
Peter Lee, executive director of Covered California, said the state and insurers agreed that clearing the decks by Jan. 1 was best for consumers in the long run despite the initial disruption. Lee has heard the complaints -- even from his sister-in-law, who recently groused about her 50% rate increase.
"People could have kept their cheaper, bad coverage, and those people wouldn't have been part of the common risk pool," Lee said. "We are better off all being in this together. We are transforming the individual market and making it better."
Lee said consumers need to consider all their options. They don't have to stick with their current company, and higher premiums are only part of the cost equation. Lee said some of these rate hikes will be partially offset by smaller deductibles and lower limits on out-of-pocket medical expenses in the new plans.
Still, many are frustrated at being forced to give up the plans they have now. They frequently cite assurances given by Obama that Americans could hold on to their health insurance despite the massive overhaul.
"All we've been hearing the last three years is if you like your policy you can keep it," said Deborah Cavallaro, a real estate agent in Westchester. "I'm infuriated because I was lied to."
Supporters of the healthcare law say Obama was referring to people who are insured through their employers or through government programs such as Medicare. Still, they acknowledge the confusion and anger from individual policyholders who are being forced to change.
Cavallaro received her cancellation notice from Anthem Blue Cross this month. The company said a comparable Bronze plan would cost her 65% more, or $484 a month. She doubts she'll qualify for much in premium subsidies, if any. Regardless, she resents losing the ability to pick and choose the benefits she wants to pay for.
"I just won't have health insurance because I can't pay this increase," she said.
Most Americans are required to have health coverage starting next year or pay a fine of $95 per adult or 1% of their income, whichever is greater. The fines increase over time.
A number of factors are driving up rates. In a report this year, consultants hired by the state said the influx of sicker patients as a result of guaranteed coverage was the biggest single reason for higher premiums. Bob Cosway, a principal and consulting actuary at Milliman Inc. in San Diego, estimated that the average individual premium in 2014 will rise 27% because of that difference alone.
Individual policies must also cover a higher percentage of overall medical costs and include 10 "essential health benefits," such as prescription drugs and mental health services. The aim is to fill gaps in coverage and provide consumers more peace of mind. But those expanded benefits have to be paid for with higher premiums.
The federal law also adjusts how rates are set by age, a change that gives older consumers a break and shifts more costs to younger people. Rates by age can vary by only 3 to 1 starting next year as opposed to 6 to 1 in some cases now in California. People in their 20s just starting their careers may earn so little they qualify for subsidies. But that might not be the case for consumers who are slightly older and earning more.
"It has the effect of benefiting people in their 50s and 60s and shifting costs to people in their 20s and 30s," said Patrick Johnston, president of the California Assn. of Health Plans. "Benefits are being increased for all, but it's not government subsidies for all. Some will pay more."
Rates would be going up regardless of changes from the healthcare expansion. The average individual premium will climb 9% next year because of rising healthcare costs and increases in medical provider reimbursement, according to Milliman's estimates.
Some consumer groups have questioned whether insurers are inflating their rates under the guise of the healthcare law changes.
"We believe the prices are higher than they should be," said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, a Santa Monica advocacy group. "This is giving a bad name to the Affordable Care Act."
State regulators checked the insurance companies' math and underlying cost projections for next year, but they don't have the authority to deny increases. Under federal rules, insurers can be ordered to issue rebates if they don't spend a minimum amount of every premium dollar on customers' medical care.
"The rates aren't going up because insurance companies are pocketing more money," Lee said. "That is what it takes to pay the claims and deliver the healthcare."
Javier Lopez, 38 and a self-employed aerospace engineer in Huntington Beach, pays about $750 a month for an Anthem Blue Cross plan for his family of four. His premiums may rise nearly 20% next year for a new policy because his current plan is being phased out.
Lopez says he's willing to absorb that one-year jump if it means the government can rein in future rate hikes.
"I'm hoping with this reform," Lopez said, "we won't see big increases year after year."
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2)Jeremy Siegel: Dow Could Reach 17,000 By Year-End
By Dan Weil
The party isn't over for stocks yet, says market guru Jeremy Siegel, a finance professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.
The Standard & Poor's 500 Stock Index hit yet another record high Monday, and he tells CNBC the Dow Jones Industrial Average will soon reach an all-time peak too.Siegel predicts the Dow will end the year at 16,000 to 17,000. The latter level would represent a 9 percent increase from its Monday morning level of 15,562. The Dow set its record high of 15,710 Sept. 18.
So what's going to push the market higher?
"I think the economy's going to hold in here, and tapering has been delayed," Siegel proclaims.
Economists don't expect the Federal Reserve to curb its quantitative easing until March, he says.
"So there are no major uncertainties that are hanging over the market, at least in these two months coming up."
Fourth-quarter earnings will likely prove to be strong, Siegel asserts.
"One of the good things about rising interest rates is that the pension funds are a little bit better funded this year than they were last year," he notes. Pension funds earn much of their income from fixed-income investments.
An increase in pension fund earnings means companies don't have to worry as much about pension shortfalls.
"And that was one of the things that dragged down fourth quarter earnings last year," Siegel argues. "I think we get a little tail wind on earnings."
The market also will benefit from the fact that companies are increasing their dividends 10 to 15 percent a year, Siegel adds.
Asked what poses a threat to U.S. stocks, Siegel says he was worried when the 10-year Treasury yield rose to about 3 percent in September.
In addition, investors may be too bullish about Europe's recovery. "The euro at $1.38 seems too high to me," he contends. It traded at $1.3789 Monday morning.
"But none of that, I think, is going to be really critical to bringing down the U.S. market," Siegel asserts. "This is a very favorable climate for equities."
Many investors share Siegel's bullishness.
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3)Throw the Rascals Out?
By Thomas Sowell
Polls indicate that the public is so disgusted with Washington politicians of both parties that a surprisingly large proportion of the people would like to get rid of the whole lot of them.
It is certainly understandable that the voters would like to "throw the rascals out." But there is no point in throwing the rascals out, if we are just going to get a new set of rascals to replace them.
In other words, we need to think about what there is about current political practices that repeatedly bring to power such a counterproductive set of people. Those we call "public servants" have in fact become public masters. And they act like it.
They squander ever more vast amounts of our tax money, and still leave trillions of dollars of national debt to be paid by our children and grandchildren. They intrude into our private lives with ever more restrictions, red tape and electronic surveillance. And they turn different groups of Americans against each other with class warfare rhetoric and policies.
None of this is inevitable. In fact, this pattern is largely the culmination of political trends set in motion during the 1930s, and reaching a climax today. During the 1920s, the national debt was reduced and the role of government scaled back. Unemployment went as low as 1.8 percent.
President Calvin Coolidge, with every prospect of being reelected in 1928, declared simply: "I do not choose to run." Later, in his memoirs, he explained how dangerous it is to have anyone remain too long in the White House, surrounded by flattery and insulated from reality. What a contrast that attitude is with the attitude of the current occupant of the White House!
The contrast extends beyond these two presidents. What we have today that we did not have in the early history of this country is a permanent political class in Washington -- a Congress and an ever growing federal bureaucracy composed of people who have become a permanent ruling class.
The United States was not founded by career politicians but by people who took time out from their regular professions to serve during a crucial time in the creation of a new nation, and a new kind of nation in a world ruled by kings and emperors.
In the nineteenth century, there was a high rate of turnover in members of Congress. Many people went to Washington to serve one term in Congress, then returned to their home state to resume their lives as private citizens.
The rise of the permanent political class in Washington came with the rise of a vast government apparatus with unprecedented amounts of money and power to control and corrupt individuals, institutions and the fabric of the whole society.
The first giant steps in this direction were taken in the 1930s, when the Great Depression provided the rationale for a radically expanded role of government that Franklin D. Roosevelt and his followers had believed in before there was a Great Depression.
There are now people in Washington whose entire adult lives have been spent in government, in one role or another. Some begin as aides to politicians or as part of the sprawling empires of the federal bureaucracy. From this they progress to high elective or appointed offices in government.
Turnover in Congress has been reduced almost to the vanishing point. Political alliances within government and with outside special interests, as well as the gerrymandering of Congressional districts, make most incumbents' reelection virtually a foregone conclusion.
The ability to distribute vast amounts of largess to voters, at the taxpayers' expense -- President Obama's giving away free cell phones during an election year being just the tip of the iceberg -- further tilts the balance in favor of incumbents.
This kind of government must constantly "do something" in order to keep incumbents' names in the news. In short, big government has every incentive to create bigger government.
Throwing the rascals out will not get rid of this political pattern. The first step in limiting, and then scaling back, government itself must be limiting the time that anyone can remain in office -- preferably limited to one term, to make it harder to become career politicians, a species we can well do without.
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4)" The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an Opportunity" Abba Eban
With prisoners’ release, Palestinians demand Israel withdraw to 1949 lines, renounce E. Jerusalem
The prime minister also kept mum about his offer to the Palestinians of financial compensation for land remaining under Israeli control – the first time any Israeli leader has put a price tag on disputed territory.
The 16 Palestinian demands, below, make the release of convicted Palestinian murderers a dangerous exercise in futility, because each demand is enough to drive the negotiations into impasse, just as Mahmoud Abbas did two years ago.
After seeing the Palestinian list, Netanyahu should have put the release of prisoners on hold until Abbas comes around to a rational perception of the negotiations as a give-and-take process for the object of reaching an agreement – not an opportunity for outrageous extortion.
Israel’s senior negotiator Justice Minister Tzipi Livni tried arguing that the Palestinians were just making an opening bid and they expected it to be driven down in the bargaining process. However, negotiations have been going on for three months and the process is into the fourth month of the nine-month period assigned up to deadline.
Mahmoud Abbas, rather than seeking common ground, has used the time to raise his price for a deal to an exorbitant level, while keeping his hand firmly on the terrorist spigot.
It is a matter of record that a large proportion of jailed terrorists have reverted to violence after they walked in the past through the exits of Israeli jails.
First published list of Palestinian demands
- The United States and Israel must acknowledge that the Palestinian state is “under occupation.” (This is the Palestinian response to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s demand to recognize Israel as the Jews’ national state.)
- Israeli must repeal legislation extending Israeli law to East Jerusalem
- The Palestinians will have full sovereignty over their air space. (This will bar Israeli air force flights over Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip).
- The Palestinians will have exclusive control of all border crossings to neighboring nations. i.e. Israel and Jordan.
- Israel’s withdrawal to the pre-1967 boundaries is not enough. Its pull-back must go all the way to the 1949 armistice lines, additionally annexing to the Palestinian state broad strips of Israeli land that were demilitarized at that time. Among the areas which the Palestinians want to lay hands on are the Ayalon Valley, the Latrun enclave and the Armon Hantatiz district of Jerusalem between the Old City and West Jerusalem; the Huleh Lake Valley; the Golan slopes running down to the Sea of Galilee; and the Nitzana belt north of the Gaza Strip – plus one third of Dead Sea water and shore.
( The Palestinians hope to grab substantial Israeli territory beyond the pre-1967 borders by invoking the long moribund 1949 accords.) - Electromagnetic space (radio frequencies, satellite and other communications) will be under sole Palestinian control
- The Palestinians are ready to relinquish 1.9 percent of West Bank territory.
- All parts of East Jerusalem including the shrines sacred to Muslims, Christians and Jews will come under sole Palestinian authority against a pledge of freedom of worship.
- Israel and its armed forces will draw back from the Palestinian state over a three-year period. Six months after the drawdown is complete, the Palestinians will be willing to sign final peace treaties with the State of Israel
- The US and Israel must accept the settlement of the Palestinian refugee problem as “a just and agreed solution.”
- Every Palestinian refugee (as per the Palestinian Authority’s definition of up to the fourth generation) will be free to choose between three options: settlement in Israel or the Palestinian state or staying at their present locations.
- Whichever option is chosen, the refugees will be entitled to appropriate restitution.
- Only when the refugee issue is finally resolved will the Palestinians agree to declare their dispute with Israel at an end
- An international mechanism will be tasked with administering the disposition of the Palestinian refugees and their resettlement. It will be composed of Palestinian, Israeli, American, European, Canadian, Australian, Japanese and Arab League representatives
- The Palestinian state will be authorized to sign treaties including military pacts without the intervention of a third party, such as Israel.
- All parts of the Palestinian state will be clear of Israeli civilian and military presence.
4a Talks Will Fail Because Palestinians Don’t Want Peace
)Israel and Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority (PA) are engaging in negotiations refused for years by the PA. Yet, only weeks ago, the PA Minister of Religious Affairs, Mahmoud Al-Habbash, delivered a paean to Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, founder and leader of Hamas, the terrorist organization that has murdered hundreds of Israelis in scores of suicide bombings, calling him a Palestinian “icon.” How can peace talks and glorifying a terrorist chieftain coexist in the PA?
Al-Habbash gave us the answer this summer, when he justified this return to diplomacy by reference to something well-known to his mosque audience––the 628 Treaty of Hudabiyyah.
Hudabiyyah was an agreement between Muhammad and the Meccan Quraish tribe, in which Muhammad promised a decade of peace. But in less than two years, a Qureishi-allied tribe committed a breach by attacking a Muhammad-allied tribe. Muhammad, who had meanwhile organized a huge army, took this pretext to attack the Qureishis. Isolated and unprepared, the Qureishis surrendered.
This approach, says Al-Habbash, has “brought us to where we are today.”
“We have a [Palestinian] Authority and the world recognizes the [Palestinian] state. All this never would have happened … only through the wisdom of the leadership… exactly like the Prophet [Muhammad] did in the Treaty of Hudabiyyah… This is the example, this is the model,” he said.
In short, the Hudabiyyah strategy––working towards the weakening and eventual elimination of Israel through negotiations––has been the operative Palestinian strategy since the Oslo Accords were signed 20 years ago. Arafat said as much in a May 1994 speech in a Johannesburg mosque. (Israel demanded a retraction and an end to terrorism, got neither –– but continued nonetheless negotiating and conceding).
When Arafat told a confidential meeting of Arab ambassadors in Stockholm in January 1996 that the aim of Oslo was “splitting Israel psychologically,” and “eliminat[ing] the State of Israel and establish[ing] a purely Palestinian State” that would “make life unbearable for Jews,” the revelation was ignored even by Israel, which chose to ignore Arafat’s words as well as their political ramifications.
Since Arafat’s death, his successor, Mahmoud Abbas, has made it abundantly clear that not only has he not accepted Israel’s right to exist as Jewish state (“I do not accept the Jewish State, call it what you will”) but he also intends to set up a Jew-free state (“when a Palestinian state is established, it would have no Israeli presence in it”).
Questioned in an interview on the need for recognition of Israel, Abbas replied that, while official recognition was unavoidably necessary for the purpose of obtaining vital Israeli concessions, “It is not required of Hamas, or of Fatah, or of the Popular Front to recognize Israel.” And, indeed, Abbas’s Fatah has never altered its Constitution calling for the destruction of Israel and the use of terrorism to achieve it. Former Fatah strongman in Gaza, Muhammad Dahlan, put it plainly when he said, “The Fatah movement does not recognize Israel, even today.”
Words and bombs are thus the Fatah/PA strategy, a strategy made possible only by duplicity. That’s why the late Palestinian leader Feisal Husseini once dubbed it the strategy of the “Trojan Horse,” in which the Palestinian regime installed via negotiations would serve “our final aim… the liberation of all of historical Palestine, from the river to the sea.”
That’s why senior PA figure Abbas Zaki tells an Arab audience, “If I say that I want to remove [Israel] from existence, this will be great, great, [but] it is hard. This is not a [stated] policy. You can’t say it to the world. You can say it to yourself.”
That’s why the PA claims to be interested in a negotiated peace, even while it tells its people repeatedly that the Jews have no historical connection of rights in Jerusalem or anywhere else.
In short, the PA has a long-established policy of duplicity about its anti-peace intentions. In these circumstances, not only are the Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations convened under American auspices foredoomed, but in pursuing them, the Obama Administration has embarked on a fool’s errand. Furthermore, by pressuring Israel to make further concessions––like the freeing of jailed Palestinian terrorists, merely to get the PA to the negotiating table––it is endangering an ally.
This is a moment for the Congress to act. It can produce a detailed list of Palestinian bad faith statements (of which we have provided here only a fraction) and call upon the PA to explicitly retract each statement to its own public. It can make further aid to the PA conditional on verifiable Palestinian reforms, like outlawing terrorist groups, arresting terrorists and ending the incitement to hatred and murder that feeds the conflict. And it can withhold aid until these prerequisites for a genuine peace are forthcoming.
Morton A. Klein is National President of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA). Dr. Daniel Mandel is Director of the ZOA’s Center for Middle East Policy and author of H.V. Evatt & the Establishment of Israel (London, 2004).
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