Daily Kos Boss’s Sarcastic ‘Serious’ Obamacare Question: ‘How Much Freedom Did That Cost Us?’

(News Busters) – Markos Moulitsas, the founder and publisher of Daily Kos, blogged on Tuesday morning that despite scary rhetoric from conservatives about “the ‘death of freedom’ and…jackbooted Obamacare Nazi Alinsky thugs,” the Affordable Care Act has done or will do a great deal of good for our health-care system.

Kos wondered, “Anyone know how much freedom was lost?” as a result of the ACA, and cheekily invited right-wingers to quantify, a la Bill Watterson’s Calvinball, any such losses.

The post in full:

Serious question. We’re going to see around seven million people get private insurance (as the Heritage Foundation intended) through the exchanges. Medicaid expansion will deliver health insurance to anywhere between 4.7 and 6.5 million more. And don’t forget the three million or so young adults who are able to stay on their parents’ insurance until they’re 26.

So… how much freedom did that cost us?

You see, conservatives keep talking about the “death of freedom” and the jackbooted Obamacare Nazi Alinsky thugs who will [fill in the blank and make it really horrible]. So now that the Affordable Care Act has been (mostly) implemented and millions of people now have insurance when they didn’t before, or are paying less for better insurance than they had before, it’s time for a proper accounting.

Anyone know how much freedom was lost? Was it, like, 13? More than that?

[H/T NewsBusters: Tom Johnson]

NBC Hails ‘Good Day in Washington’ As Obama Poses for Selfie With Red Sox Player

(News Busters) – Forget all the unanswered questions about ObamaCare or the President’s sinking poll numbers or the Democratic Party’s vulnerability in the midterm elections, on Wednesday’s NBC Today, all that was wiped away by President Obama taking a selfie with Red Sox player David Ortiz.

As fill-in news anchor Tamron Hall put it, “In a town where they don’t agree on a lot, I think everyone agrees that this was a pretty cool moment….The Red Sox meeting with the President…. Big Papi [David Ortiz] with the President preparing to take his official photo. Then, he went rogue….The Big Papi selfie….Look at those smiles there. A good day in Washington.”

http://www.mrctv.org/embed/126320

The morning show cast spent several moments of the nearly two-minute segment playing a guessing game about which White House staffer donned a Red Sox cap and fake beard during the team visit. Hall finally broke the suspense: “This is White House Press Secretary and Red Sox superfan Jay Carney.  He wore the beard in honor of the team. You know, they grew out their beards for the series.”

Co-host Savannah Guthrie started off the exchange by declaring “a big day at the White House.” After running footage of Obama and Ortiz taking their selfie, Hall gushed: “And you can bet it was trending. Over 33,000 re-tweets.”

Meanwhile, Today spent a total twenty seconds on the President claiming victory over ObamaCare enrollment numbers.

[H/T NewsBusters: Kyle Drennen]

Pelosi won’t run on Obamacare: ‘While we’re proud of the Affordable Care Act, we now pivot to jobs’

(The Daily Caller) – While Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi took an Obamacare victory lap Tuesday afternoon, she appeared hesitant to make the law the central plank in her party’s push to win in 2014, telling reporters that “while we’re proud of the Affordable Care Act, we now pivot to jobs.”

Pelosi appeared in front of the White House to extoll the expected 7 million Obamacare sign-ups the administration reached before the quasi-deadline on March 31. But when a reporter asked the California congresswoman whether this represented “vindication” and a “turning of the tide” on the unpopular law, she stopped short of declaring Obamacare a winning issue.

“Well let me just say, those of us who fought for this knew what we believed in and really don’t think we needed any vindication,” she responded. “We just had to protect it from those ideological anti-government people who didn’t want to see it succeed — for ideological, or political or whatever those reasons are.”

“Taking the heat on something like that — well, that’s what we do,” she bragged. “That’s like, all in a day’s work.”

And regarding Obamacare’s power to help Democrats in 2014?

“We’ll see,” she shrugged. “I think the fight for the election — elections are always about jobs. So I think that while we’re proud of the Affordable Care Act, we now pivot to job creation.”

“Which is — you know, the bill creates — will create 4 million jobs,” she added. “This is a jobs bill — we never advertise that — it’s a deficit reducer, it’s a job creator. And again, it is affordable, quality care. So maybe it just clears the air a bit so we can have a fuller discussion of jobs. And that’s a place where Republicans have been totally bankrupt in terms of their suggestion.”

Breitbart reports that the White House and Democrats attempted their last “pivot” to jobs in November. Pelosi’s announcement marks the 22nd time a national Democratic leader has tried to reset their party’s focus on unemployment and other economic issues.

[H/T TheDailyCaller: Brendan Bordelon]

Barack Hussein Obama: The Manchurian President

(Western Journalism) – Many who distrust Obama consider themselves birthers, spreading the meme that Obama was born in Kenya and therefore ineligible to be president of the United States.  These people believe that Obama was born overseas, that he is a Jihadist in hiding, and that his agenda is to destroy the power and influence of the United States around the globe.  The mainstream media demonizes these beliefs.  I have, however, always counseled my friends on the left to look at the results of their policies versus how they make them feel.  With the recent events in Syria, Iran, and now Crimea, I believe this advice works when regarding our president as well.  For at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if Obama is a wolf in sheep’s clothing or not; the results are the same.

One does not have to look very far for a long list of examples.  Let’s start with the U.S. economy.  For the first time in many decades, America has the chance to become energy independent.  We now have an estimated 300 years worth of hydrocarbons under our own feet.  We could bolster our national security by exporting this windfall to our allies in Europe and wean them off Russian gas.  If we focused on developing and harvesting this sector, our economy would explode with access to cheap and plentiful energy.  The Obama administration has steadfastly refused to take advantage of this fact.  Even in the face of Russian aggression, we have not heard a word about using energy to contain Putin.  Our healthcare system, commonly known as the best in the world, is being purposefully destroyed before our very eyes.  This is being accomplished by lying to the American people over and over again.  It’s so screwed up that no one even knows what’s going on.

On the national security front, Obama has coined a new phrase, “Leading from behind.”  He has stood aside and abandoned long-term U.S. allies in the Middle East one by one.  Israel can no longer count on the United States to stand with her as she defends herself against an emerging Islamist government tidal wave and terrorist threats emerging from the Arab Spring.  Iran soon will have a nuclear capability, and the administration has been in appease mode for years.

China is threatening its neighbors with air defense zones over contested territory.  A Chinese military official last year threatened to destroy the Japanese economy by attacking their bond market due to Japan’s overwhelming sovereign debt.  They want the Senkaku Islands.  After the U.S. response to Russian actions in Crimea, might they just take them?  What about our friends in Taiwan?  Would you count on Obama to support you in the face of Chinese threats?  The Chinese military is also showing photographs of war games highlighting nuclear missile tracks over American cities.

Ally after ally has been abandoned or humiliated.  Obama returned the bust of Churchill from the Oval Office to the United Kingdom.  I’ve mentioned Israel and Egypt.  Poland and the Czech Republic were shocked when Obama removed anti-missile systems from Europe.  But I’m sure Joe Biden can calm things down with his trip there this week.

NASA has been turned into an agency for Muslim outreach.  Control of the internet is being turned over to the international community and will be open to Chinese and Russian control.  Obama has withdrawn in disgrace from Iraq and now most likely will do the same in Afghanistan.  All of the blood and treasure America spent to enhance U.S. national security in the region will have been wasted as the Taliban and Iran retake the area.

The administration now wants to shrink the United States Army to pre-WWII levels.  The Russian threat notwithstanding, in the face of all the other global threats I’ve mentioned, why in the world would any U.S. president even consider such a reduction?  Any reasonable person must consider this question:  What is the agenda of this administration?

So now let’s discuss what’s been going on in Ukraine.  It has been no secret that Vladimir Putin’s goal is to reestablish the Russian sphere of influence in the former Soviet territories.  In spite of this, we have seen the Obama administration lie prostrate in front of Putin time and time again.  Whether it be Iran, Syria, or recent events in Crimea, the response has been the same.  With the naivete in responding to the events in Kiev and the surrounding area, either by discussing national security on an unsecure line, or completely misunderstanding the Russian historical ties to the region, this administration has been a bumbling mess.  Or again, is there a darker agenda?  One must remember the Obama quote to Medvedev, when it was very obvious Russia wanted to further reduce the American nuclear arsenal: “Please tell Vladimir I’ll have more flexibility after the election.”  Those words now seem downright frightening.

Can we expect Obama allowing Taiwan to become Chinese?  American space research to be abolished? The chance to become energy independent thwarted?  Meanwhile, half the American public has become dependent on the government.  Obama is strangling the economy with truckloads of new regulations.  He picks and chooses what laws to enforce, weakening American rule of law and fomenting racial division.

Dr. Evil himself couldn’t have dreamed up a better plot to destroy America.

[H/T WesternJournalism: L. Todd Wood]

5 Reasons Obama’s 7.1 Million Number Is Meaningless

(Breitbart) – On Tuesday, President Obama triumphantly announced that, with the power of the mainstream media, Hollywood, and the threat of the IRS, the mission had been accomplished: 7.1 million Americans had selected an Obamacare plan.

Obama’s tone was nothing short of exuberant: “7.1 million Americans have now signed up for private insurance plans through these market places. 7.1! Yep!” He then went on to criticize those who had expressed objections to Obamacare for its deprivations of plans, doctors, drugs, and liberty: “Why are folks working so hard for people not to have health insurance?”

Now, it was always foolhardy for Republicans and conservatives to stake their objections to Obamacare on the number of sign-ups; Social Security is going bankrupt despite 100% enrollment. The reality is that Obama was always destined to hit his required numbers because, after all, he has the power of government to compel action. The real problem with Obamacare has little to do with the number of people signing up, and a lot to do with the restrictions on insurance companies and reimbursement rates to doctors.

Nonetheless, the 7.1 million statistic is a meaningless one. It’s meaningless for a variety of reasons:

It Doesn’t Measure How Many People Have Actually Paid. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius admitted yesterday that of the 6 million people who had signed up for Obamacare at the time, “What we know from insurance companies…tell us that, for their initial customers, it’s somewhere between 80, 85, some say as high as 90 percent, have paid so far.” In other words, about five million people were signed up. As Aaron Blake of the Washington Post points out, “If between 80 and 90 percent of the six million have paid premiums, the number who are fully enrolled would be closer to five million than to six million.” With the increased number of sign-ups in the last days, that percentage number has likely dropped. This is not an unimportant distinction; insurance will not cover those who don’t pay.

7.1 Million Enrollees in the Private Exchanges Doesn’t Mean 7.1 Million Who Were Previously Uninsured. Some five million Americans saw their policies cancelled thanks to Obamacare. Those Americans were forced into the Obamacare exchanges by the government. According to a RAND Corporation study, only 858,000 previously uninsured Americans had actually joined Obamacare. That’s a far cry from 7.1 million.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated in March 2010 that 37.3% of all uninsured Americans would gain insurance thanks to Obamacare in 2014. That estimate rose to 38.9% in March 2011. In February 2014, the CBO suggested that in 2014, 22.8% would gain insurance through Obamacare. The actual statistic: 12.5%. In other words, the original estimates were off by approximately 66%.

The Chief Beneficiaries of Obamacare Have Been Medicaid Recipients and 26-Year-Old Basement Dwellers. There are approximately 6.1 million people who have gained coverage through Obamacare’s non-private exchange program. 4.5 million were beneficiaries of Medicaid expansion, and another 1.6 million 26-year-old “children” were forced onto their parents’ policies. That far outweighs any supposed gains in the private insurance market. As Chris Conover of Forbes writes, “At the end of the day, we appear to have covered 1 in 8 uninsured, but to get to this point, we have disrupted coverage for millions, increased premiums for tens of millions more and amplified the pain even further with a blizzard of new taxes and fees that will end up cost even the lowest income families nearly $7,000 over a decade.”

The Huge Majority of Those Signing Up Are Getting Subsidies – and Even Those Who Are Subsidized Aren’t Signing Up. In order for Obamacare’s cost structure to work, millions of Americans must sign up to pay inflated prices; that would help pay for the subsidies to cover insurance company costs on those with pre-existing conditions. In March, the Obama administration reported that 83% of those who had signed up were eligible for subsidies. As Robert Laszewski estimates, in the end, just 27% of those who are eligible for Obamacare subsidies nationwide have signed up.

How Much Will The Numbers Drop? These are all preliminary statistics. We now know that somewhere between 2% and 5% of people who paid their insurance bills in January did not do so in February, to go along with the high percentage of people who signed up and never paid at all (that number in Obamacare success story Washington state, for example, was 39% as of early February).

The 7.1 million statistic is not all that important, in the end. Obama will hit his numbers, by hook or by crook. Likely by crook. But conservative opposition to Obamacare should not be predicated on its ineffectiveness in forcing sign-ups. Instead, it should be based on deprivation of liberty and destruction of medical care.

[H/T Breitbart: Ben Shapiro]

Muslims pressure NYC schools to provide halal food

(Allen B. West) – I often share with y’all one of my favorite sayings: “when tolerance becomes a one way street it leads to cultural suicide.” The way radical Islamists will subvert our culture and way of life will be simple and incremental. They will force decisions to be made to accommodate their sharia-based Islamic law, and those who challenge them will be castigated as “Islamophobes.” I will not be deterred.

As reported by the Jewish Press, “Proposed legislation was introduced into New York City Council to require that the city’s public schools provide Islamic-compliant food – halal – as an option in the cafeterias. The New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) joined forces with council member Rafael L. Espinal, Jr. (Brooklyn) and fourteen other city council members who co-sponsored Espinal’s Resolution 54.

Yes, the infamous organization CAIR is behind this initiative, the same organization listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorist funding trial in US history, the Holy Land Foundation. And you must understand, they are demanding that the American taxpayer be responsible for providing these specific foods.

The Resolution goes into explicit detail about what Islamic-observant students are permitted to eat and what they must avoid eating, as well as stating who made those determinations. Here’s just a snippet:

Whereas, The practice of Islam is determined by the Islamic teachings as guided by the holy book Quran and the Hadith, and sayings of the Prophet Mohammad, which includes observing dietary laws; and Whereas, Islamic dietary laws delineate foods that are halal, meaning lawful or permitted, and those that are haram, meaning not permitted.

The group has no accurate way to determine how many schoolchildren in New York City are Muslim or how many observe strict halal guidelines, but it could be around 12 percent. Undeterred by the lack of hard information, the legislators pointed to the Detroit public school system where 35 percent of the students are estimated to be Muslim. In Detroit, the school district began a halal pilot program in 2001 which has expanded to 35 schools in the district.

But you don’t want school kids going hungry do you? You see, unless a halal option is offered, the unknown number of New York City’s schoolchildren who can only eat halal food will suffer — either having to eat the vegetarian option already offered in the school system, or having to bring their own food from home. If the food is brought from home, it probably won’t still be hot by lunch time. Oh, the inhumanity of a cold sandwich!

But here’s the key point. There are of course many other students in New York City schools who have religious dietary requirements. That would be the Jewish kids. The New York City public schools don’t offer kosher lunches and to date, no Jewish groups have marched themselves into the New York City council chambers demanding that there be a kosher food option.

What I find quite interesting, if this passes, is that NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to close down successful charter schools in Harlem for lower income black children, but taxpayers will have to feed Muslim kids special meals? Dude, this is dumb, it is a no-brainer. Tell CAIR to pound sand. If they want special halal meals for their kids, pack it for them. The parents can buy a special halal meal microwave and get school permission to place them in the cafeterias — case closed, problem solved.

This is not about lunch for Muslim kids, it’s about the slow steady march towards sharia compliance. And while we’re on the subject, lets talk about why there are no churches in Saudi Arabia and why Christians are being murdered, persecuted, and driven out of their historical homelands by Islamic terrorists. Spare me the kumbaya “coexistence” stuff.

[H/T AllenBWest]

This Is Why Republicans Need Rand Paul And Huckabee

You have to look all the way back to 1984 to find a Republican nominee with true conservative credentials.

(Western Journalism) – John McCain and Mitt Romney are moderate Republicans who were both nominated after a broader group of candidates split up the majority conservative vote. They both came from behind to win the nomination, and they both were defeated in the general election.

This cycle is older than you might think. You have to look all the way back to 1984 to find a Republican nominee with true conservative credentials, and that candidate was Ronald Reagan. Since then, many conservatives have run, and they always lose the nomination to a non-conservative candidate.

But things look different this year, according to a WPA Opinion Research poll that tested the strength of the 2016 Republican contenders. The top two contenders are both conservative, and they’re locked in a dead heat at 13% each. The probable candidates are Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. The top-placing RINO is former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who scored 11%. Every other contender is in the single digits.

“With a field of quality candidates, it’s no surprise that no one has broken away from the pack,” said WPA Research CEO Chris Wilson. “The important thing at this point of the race is staying in the conversation, and the fact that Rand Paul, Huckabee, Bush, Christie and Cruz are all managing to do that bodes well for them long term.”

Wilson added, “Rand Paul seems to be doing what his father never was able to and reaching out to other parts of the party to win support. While young voters are his best group, Paul also manages to pull in support from other age groups, as well. He wins 16% of the 65-to-74 age group.”

Let’s Focus on Ideas, Not Rhetoric

Of course, the Washington GOP establishment would be aghast if either Huckabee or Paul became the Republican nominee. The party elites spent decades discrediting Paul’s father, former Congressman Ron Paul. Remember when Ari Fleischer, George W. Bush’s former White House Press Secretary, tweeted that Ron Paul “is nuts”?

Not much has changed when it comes to his son, either. The classic argument is that “Rand Paul could never win… he’s too libertarian.”

And as far as Huckabee goes, the establishment says that “Mike Huckabee was once a Baptist preacher, a preacher could never win the presidency.”

Notice how neither argument is centered on ideas. That’s because party moderates can’t secure the nomination by saying, “Rand Paul wants to cut the size and scope of government. What we need is a big-government Republican like Chris Christie.”

Big-government Republicans rely on arguments devoid of ideas and focus on unprovable assertions such as, “Candidate X is unelectable.” Expect to hear lots of this type of bogus reasoning flowing out of D.C. in the next two years.

Let’s hope the GOP voters will ignore the noise and pick a conservative like Mike Huckabee or Rand Paul. Both would be great candidates, and either would likely beat whatever opponent the Democrats dig up to carry the banner of Obamacare, food stamps, higher taxes, and more government regulation.

[H/T WesternJournalism: Floyd Brown]