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« on: October 31, 2013, 09:27:23 PM » |
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The Patriot Post Wednesday Digest 10-30-2013
From The Federalist Patriot
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THE FOUNDATION
“For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it might cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.” –Patrick Henry
GOVERNMENT & POLITICS
Repeat a Lie Often Enough…
“No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away, no matter what.” –Barack Obama in June 2009
Well, never mind. NBC News now reports1 that “50 to 75 percent of the 14 million consumers who buy their insurance individually can expect to receive a ‘cancellation’ letter or the equivalent over the next year because their existing policies don’t meet the standards mandated by the new health care law.” Surprise!
The administration, of course, has known this since the law passed and its regulations were written. Those regulations set specific standards for health insurance, and the administration acknowledged (though not publicly) in 2010 that between 40% and 67% of customers would lose their plans. It wasn’t passive knowledge that the market would react a certain way, either; it was writing the rules so that people would lose their policies. And not only are policies being canceled, but many insurers aren’t participating in the ObamaCare exchanges2 at all. The goal is to crush private insurance.
Yet the president and his NeoCom cadres continued to lie for four more years, “If [you] already have health insurance, you will keep your health insurance.” (Watch the video montage3.)
Why do they lie? They don’t, says House Democrat Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD): “I don’t think the message was wrong. I think the message was accurate. It was not precise enough. … [It] should have been caveated with: ‘assuming you have a policy that in fact does do what the bill is designed to do.’” Rep. Sander Levin (D-MI) says those “so-called cancellation notices” are just a means to “help people transition to a new policy.”
Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney blamed insurance companies, saying of course you can’t keep your plan “if your insurer basically threw you off that plan.” He also explained that Americans just aren’t buying the right policies. “It’s correct,” Carney conceded, “that substandard plans that don’t provide minimum services … are no longer allowed because the Affordable Care Act is built on the premise that health care is not a privilege, it’s a right.” The Left thinks it’s your “right” to be forced to buy insurance that pays for everything from contraceptives to mental health, whether or not you need or want it. You don’t know what’s good for you; Obama does. Or as analyst George Will put it, “You’re free to choose if you choose the right thing.”
Also in 2009, Obama said, “My view is that health care reform should be guided by a simple principle: Fix what’s broken and build on what works.” He has now built what’s broken. Indeed, from here forward, Americans of every political stripe who have any issue with health care will tie blame for their discontent4 like a noose around the necks of Obama and his Democrats.
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ECONOMY, REGS & TAXES
Income Redistribution: The Fannie and Freddie Con Job
While the government four years ago bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to the tune of $188 billion, a settlement reached last Friday between Uncle Sam and J.P. Morgan Chase required the latter to pay $5.1 billion to the government for “duping” the federal government into purchasing mortgage-backed securities that eventually piled upon each other and brought down both the housing market and the economy at large. Instead of taking their share of the blame, Fannie and Freddie tried to shift it to Chase, which was a key player but not the only one taking advantage of an overheated market.
Yet when you own or guarantee over $5 trillion in mortgage assets as Fannie and Freddie did, one would think there were people minding the store. On the contrary, a former Fannie Mae risk officer wrote in an email that the company “was not even close to having proper controls processes for credit, market, and operational risk.” Evidently, they figured the market would forever appreciate, because so-called NINA (No Income No Asset) loans at Freddie didn’t even require verification of borrower income or assets.
In the end, it’s the federal government exacting another toll from a business that only followed the lead of what those inside the Beltway were mandating or doing. Partisans continue arguing over just who’s to blame, in the process negating any effort to assist the millions who lost their homes and livelihoods after the housing bubble burst.
NATIONAL SECURITY
What Obama Didn’t Know and When He Didn’t Know It
Barack Obama is claiming that he was unaware of the extent of the NSA’s international spying activities until an internal White House review was conducted this summer. The review revealed that the NSA monitored communications of 35 world leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who may have been the target of NSA data snoops as far back as 2002, three years before she became chancellor. However, Obama was actually briefed three years ago7 and signed off on the effort.
America’s allies are making a lot of noise about these revelations, with the French and German governments suggesting that a new international framework be laid out with regards to spying and intelligence collection. Prohibitions on spying among allies and new protocols about the sharing of information are popular solutions, but they are merely political reactions to an age-old practice. In fact, European intelligence helped the NSA collect data8. Obama now says he will put an end to spying on allied leaders, but many of the data collection efforts conducted by the NSA are intricately intertwined, so it’s difficult to determine how long such a policy reversal will take.
Finally, back to Obama’s blind-eye defense, being completely unaware of what his government is doing has become a tiresome refrain. He didn’t know about the NSA. He didn’t know about the looming train-wreck rollout of Healthcare.gov. He didn’t know about the IRS targeting Tea Party conservatives. He didn’t know about security protocols at Benghazi or other embassies. He didn’t know about the ATF running guns to Mexico. And so on. We don’t buy any of it for a second, but what makes him think being oblivious is a good defense?
CULTURE, SCIENCE & FAITH
More Military Political Correctness
Another U.S. Army briefing and yet another incident of Christians and Tea Party members cast as a threat to America. This time, the briefing took place at Fort Hood, where, as you’ll recall, an Islamic fanatic killed 13 people and an unborn child in a murderous rampage based solely on his religion. Earlier this month, we noted9 that soldiers at Camp Shelby in Mississippi were told that the American Family Association is an extremist group. The same thing happened at Fort Hood. And last year, Army Reserve troops were briefed about Evangelical and Catholic “religious extremism.”
In each case, the Army insisted that the soldiers responsible for the presentations did their own research on the Internet and that these were isolated incidents. Once is isolated and twice might be coincidence, but three times is a pattern. Combined with the restriction of chaplains, and the mysterious removal of “so help me God” from Cadet and Officer oaths10 at the Air Force academy, there is obviously a more widespread effort to undermine our tradition of faith in the military. |
