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Well I was wrong again. Our turkey president did in fact eat crow but only after many Democrat rats threatened to desert the Obama Titanic Heath Care bill. Oo once again our fearless leader led from behind but this time there were others in his party pushing him from the rear. (See 1 below)
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I am back from Orlando and it was a very nice trip. I spent some time with my kids and got to read Dagny some bed time stories and met with the members of the law firm's Orlando office. A fine bunch of people who celebrated the firm's 125th year with this message: " To 125 years of service to our clients, our people, and our communities. To 125 acts of Kindness in honor of our great history. May that spirit of kindness, our culture of service and the firm that is Baker Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell and Berkowitz, last another 125 years."
My daughter Abby gave a heartfelt presentation about her grandfather and then I spoke a little about my father and answered questions from the staff.
It was a memorable day and the managing partners emphasized again that the firm is unique in that their focus is enjoying the practice, serving their clients and doing community service and yes being profitable is very important but that is not their most treasured pursuit.
I told them my father would be pleased because he saw being a lawyer as serving first and compensation would come as a by product.
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American crdibility as Glick sees it. (See 2 below.)
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Dick
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1) The President's ObamaCare Backpedal
His proposal to allow people to keep their health plans will not provide a political escape hatch for beleaguered congressional Democrats.
By
Kimberley A. Strassel
Succumbing to the growing panic over his health law, the president on Thursday moved to throw his party a political lifeline. As rescue apparatuses go, it is likely to do more harm than good.
Mr. Obama took to the podium in the White House briefing room to explain that yes, some Americans may indeed now keep the health-care plans they like. Maybe. If insurers can undo three years of work in a few weeks. If state regulators can move at similar lightning speed. So long as the old plans come with new warning labels. And with the understanding that those Americans lucky enough to receive a renewal option can only keep the plans they "like" for a further year. Those giant caveats aside, the president wishes you good fortune.
This small turnabout was nonetheless a humiliating concession for Mr. Obama, whose press secretary, Jay Carney, only a few days ago was ripping the idea of allowing insurers to continue selling "substandard" plans. His hand was forced by a growing mob of congressional Democrats who are getting slammed over cancellations, and who threatened revolt if the administration didn't act.
The primary purpose of the White House "fix" was to get out ahead of the planned Friday vote on Michigan Republican Fred Upton's "Keep Your Health Plan Act." The stage was set for dozens of Democrats to join with the GOP for passage—potentially creating a veto-proof majority, and putting enormous pressure on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to follow suit.
The White House couldn't risk such a bipartisan rebuke. Moreover, the Upton bill—while it lacks those GOP joy words of "delay" or "repeal"—poses a threat, since it would allow insurers to continue providing non-ObamaCare policies to any American who wants one. Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu's version of the bill would in fact (unconstitutionally) order insurers to offer the plans in perpetuity. Both bills undermine the law's central goal of forcing healthy people into costly
ObamaCare exchange plans that subsidize the sick.
The president's "fix" is designed to limit such grandfathering, but that's why it is of dubious political help to Democrats. Within minutes of Mr. Obama's announcement, several Democratic senators, including North Carolina's Kay Hagan —whose poll numbers have plummeted in advance of her 2014 re-election bid—announced that they remain in favor of Landrieu-style legislation.
And the White House "fix" doesn't save Democrats from having to take a vote on the Upton bill. A yes vote is a strike at the president and an admission that the law Democrats passed is failing. A no vote is tailor-made for political attack ads and requires a nuanced explanation of why the president's "fix" is better than Upton's. Which it isn't. Politicians don't do nuance very well. This explains why the Democratic leadership on Thursday promised to soon introduce its own legislation that would "reinforce" the White House change (and, it hopes, provide its members better cover).
The White House "fix" was likely also groundwork to shift the blame for canceled policies to insurers and state regulators, trusting the public won't notice the difference between "can" and "may." It is highly unlikely that most insurers "can" rip up their business plans (rates, policies, eligibility, actuarial tables), get state regulator approval, reprogram their computers, send out notices and new explanations, give consumers time to think, and then re-sign people up in the one month that remains before the Dec. 15 deadline. But as Mr. Obama has now said they "may," and you can bet he'll blame the failure for this to happen on anyone but his administration.
The question is whether blame-shifting is even possible. The Obama announcement was designed to quell the cancellation furor, to push it beyond next year's midterms. But what's becoming clear to horrified Washington Democrats is just how successfully they re-engineered health care.
ObamaCare's pieces are vastly complex, intricately linked, and built upon each other. For Democrats who want political cover, there are no "fixes" around the edges.
The White House's Thursday play will not end cancellation notices. Fixing Healthcare.gov simply gives more Americans access to the budget-busting premiums and limited networks within the exchange. Grandfathering, to the extent it happens, only pushes those premiums higher. So does a delay in the individual mandate. Further exemptions, say to taxes, strip money Democrats are banking on. Extending enrollment periods does nothing but provide Americans more time to contemplate their miserable choices.
Grandfathering current and canceled plans only adds to the confusion. And the White House's decision to do this administratively reopens questions over the legality (and illegality) of the White House's many ObamaCare actions. This doesn't restore credibility; it further undermines it.
A Democratic aide this week told The Hill that the party was concerned about "being dragged into this nonstop cycle" of bad news. It is way too late for that, especially if the GOP continues to stay out of the way and let this be about Democratic liabilities and divisions. The only real "fix" for this law—and for Democratic political pain—is to scrap it.
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2) The US remains having the most powerful actor in the world. But last week, American credibility was shattered
BY CAROLINE GLICK
What happened in Geneva last week was the most significant international event since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The collapse of the Soviet Union signaled the rise of the United States as the sole global superpower. The developments in the six-party nuclear talks with Iran in Geneva last week signaled the end of American world leadership.
Global leadership is based on two things — power and credibility. The United States remains having the most powerful actor as it's President in the world. But last week, American credibility was shattered.
Secretary of State John Kerry spent the first part of last week lying to Israeli and Gulf Arab leaders and threatening the Israeli people. He lied to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the Saudis about the content of the deal US and European negotiators had achieved with the Iranians. Kerry told them that in exchange for Iran temporarily freezing its nuclear weapons development program, the US and its allies would free up no more than $5 billion dollars in Iranian funds seized and frozen in foreign banks.
Kerry threatened the Israeli people with terrorism and murder — and so invited both — if Israel fails to accept his demands for territorial surrender to PLO terrorists that reject Israel's right to exist. Kerry's threats were laced with bigoted innuendo. He claimed that Israelis are too wealthy to understand their own interests. If you don't wise up and do what I say, he intoned, the Europeans will take away your money while the Palestinians kill you. Oh, and aside from that, your presence in the historic heartland of Jewish civilization from Jerusalem to Alon Moreh is illegitimate.
It is hard to separate the rise in terrorist activity since Kerry's remarks last week with his remarks. What greater carte blanche for murder could the Palestinians have received than the legitimization of their crimes by the chief diplomat of Israel's closest ally?
Certainly, Kerry's negotiating partner Catherine Ashton couldn't have received a clearer signal to ratchet up her economic boycott of Jewish Israeli businesses than Kerry's blackmail message given just two days before the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht.
Kerry's threats were so obscene and unprecedented that Israeli officials broke with tradition and disagreed with him openly directly, while he was still in the country. Normally supportive leftist commentators have begun reporting Kerry's history of anti-Israel advocacy, including his 2009 letter of support for pro-Hamas activists organizing flotillas to Gaza in breach of international and American law.
As for Kerry's lies to the US's chief Middle Eastern allies, it was the British and the French who informed the Israelis and the Saudis that far from limiting sanctions relief to a few billion dollars in frozen funds, the draft agreement involved ending sanctions on Iran's oil and gas sector, and other industries.
In other words, the draft agreement exposed Washington's willingness to effectively end economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for Iran's agreement to cosmetic concessions that will not slow down its nuclear weapons program.
Both the US's position, and the fact that Kerry lied about that position to the US's chief allies ended what was left of American credibility in the Middle East. That credibility was already tattered by US fecklessness in Syria and support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
True, in the end, Kerry was unable to close the deal he rushed off to Geneva to sign last Friday. Of course, it wasn't Iran that rejected the American surrender. And it wasn't America that scuttled the proposal. It was France. Unable to hide behind American power and recognizing its national interest in preventing Iran from emerging as a nuclear armed power in the Middle East, France vetoed deal that paved the way a nuclear Iran.
Kerry's failure to reach the hoped-for deal represented a huge blow to America, and a double victory for Iran. The simple fact that Washington was willing to sign the deal — and lie about it to its closest allies — caused the US to lose its credibility in the Middle East. Even without the deal, the US paid the price of appeasing Iran and surrendering leadership of the free world to France and Israel.
.For its part, just by getting the Americans to commit themselves to reducing sanctions while Iran continues its march to a nuclear weapon, Iran destroyed any remaining possibility of doing any serious non-military damage to Iran's plans for nuclear weaponry. At the same time, the Americans boosted Iranian credibility, endorsed Iranian power, and belittled Israel and Saudi Arabia — Iran's chief challengers in the Middle East. Thus, Iran ended Pax Americana in the Middle East, removing the greatest obstacle in its path to regional hegemony. And it did so without having to make even the slightest concession to the Great Satan.
As Walter Russell Mead wrote last week, it was fear of losing Pax Americana that made all previous US administrations balk at the possibility of reaching an accord with Iran. As he put it, "Past administrations have generally concluded that the price Iran wants for a different relationship with the United States is unsustainably high. Essentially, to get a deal with Iran we would have to sell out all of our other allies. That's not only a moral problem. Throwing over old allies like that would reduce the confidence that America's allies all over the world have in our support."
Yet, the Obama administration just paid that unsustainably high price, and didn't even get a different relationship with Iran.
Most analyses of what happened in Geneva last week have centered on what the failure of the talks means for the future of Obama's foreign policy. Certainly Obama, now universally reviled by America's allies in the Middle East, will be diplomatically weakened. This diplomatic weakness may not make much difference to Obama's foreign policy, because appeasement and retreat do not require diplomatic strength.
But the real story of what happened last week is far more significant than the future of Obama's foreign policy. Last week it was America that lost credibility, not Obama. It was America that squandered the essential component of global leadership. And that is the watershed event of this young century.
States act in concert because of perceived shared interests. If Israel and Saudi Arabia combine to attack Iran's nuclear installations it will be due to their shared interest in preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear arsenal. But that concerted action will not make them allies.
Alliances are based on the perceived longevity of the shared interests, and that perception is based on the credibility of international actors. Until Obama became US President, the consensus view of the US foreign policy establishment and of both major parties was that the US had a permanent interest in being the hegemonic power in the Middle East. US hegemony ensured three permanent US national security interests: preventing enemy regimes and terror groups from acquiring the means to cause catastrophic harm; ensuring the smooth flow of petroleum products through the Persian Gulf and the Suez Canal; and demonstrating the credibility of American power by ensuring the security of US allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia. The third interest was an essential foundation of US deterrence of the Soviets during the Cold War, and of the Chinese over the past decade.
Regardless of who was in the White House, for the better part of the past seventy years, every US government has upheld these interests. This consistency built US credibility, which in turn enabled the US to throw its weight around.
Obama departed from this foreign policy consensus in an irrevocable manner last week. In so doing, he destroyed US credibility.
It doesn't matter who succeeds Obama. If a conservative internationalist in the mold of Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy or Ronald Reagan is elected in 2016, Obama's legacy will make it impossible for him to rebuild the US alliance structure. US allies will be willing to buy US military platforms — although not exclusively. They will be willing to act in a concerted manner with the US on a temporary basis to advance specific goals.
But they will not be willing to make any long term commitments based on US security guarantees. They will not be willing to place their strategic eggs in the US basket.
Obama has taught the world that the same US that elected Truman and formed NATO, and elected George H.W. Bush and threw Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, can also elect a man who betrays US allies and US interests to advance a radical ideology predicated on a rejection of the morality of American power. Any US ally is now on notice that US promises — even if based on US interests — are not reliable. American commitments can expire the next time America elects a radical to the White House.
Americans uninterested in surrendering their role as global leader to the likes of Tehran's ayatollahs, Russia's KGB state and Mao's successors, must take immediate steps mitigate the damage Obama is causing. Congress could step in to clip his radical wings.
If enough Democrats can be convinced to break ranks with Obama and the Democratic Party's donors, Congress can pass veto-proof additional sanctions against Iran. These sanctions can only be credible with America's spurned allies if they do not contain any presidential waiver that would empower Obama to ignore the law.
They can also take action to limit Obama's ability to blackmail Israel, a step that is critical to the US's ability to rebuild its international credibility. For everyone from Anwar Sadat to South American democrats, for the past 45 years, America's alliance with Israel was a central anchor of American strategic credibility. The sight of America standing with the Jewish state, in the face of a sea of Arab hatred is what convinced doubters worldwide that America could be trusted.
America's appalling betrayal of Jerusalem under Obama likewise is the straw that has broken the back of American strategic credibility from Taipei to Santiago. If Congress is interested in rectifying or limiting the damage it could likewise remove the presidential waiver that enables Obama to continue to finance the PLO despite its involvement in terrorism and continued commitment to Israel's destruction. Congress could also remove the presidential waiver from the law requiring the State Department to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Finally, Congress can update its anti-boycott laws to cover new anti-Israel boycotts and economic sanctions against the Jewish state and Jewish-owned Israeli companies.
These steps will not fully restore America's credibility. After all, the twice-elected President of the United States has dispatched his Secretary of State to threaten and deceive US allies while surrendering to US foes. It is now an indisputable fact that the US government may use its power to undermine its own interests and friends worldwide.
What these Congressional steps can do however, is send a message to US allies and adversaries alike that Obama's radical actions do not represent the wishes of the American people and will not go unanswered by their representatives in Congress.
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