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« on: November 02, 2013, 08:21:55 PM » |
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The Patriot Post Friday Digest 11-1-2013
From The Federalist Patriot
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THE FOUNDATION
“Let it simply be asked, where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths…” George Washington
NATIONAL SECURITY
Another Victory for Liberty
Earlier this week, we reported on the third instance in which military training curriculums identified Christians and Tea Party1 organizations as “hate groups.” Once is an isolated incident and twice might be coincidence, but three times is a pattern.
However, we note that these briefings were not DoD-authorized briefs, but prepared by local personnel who obviously are Obamaphiles.
One of those briefings took place at Fort Hood, where, as you’ll recall, Islamist Nidal Malik Hasan murdered 13 people and an unborn child while yelling “Allahu Akbar.” As Hasan aptly demonstrated, there is a need for legitimate “terrorist profiling2.”
The Ft. Hood briefer targeted such “radical” Christian groups as the American Family Association3 – a pro-family group that only the most jaded Obamaphile would describe as “radical,” or someone too ignorant to distinguish the fact that the AFA is not a “domestic hate group.” The information on AFA was from the ultra-Leftist Southern Poverty Law Center4, which lists most pro-family Christian groups under its “hate” umbrella.
Fortunately, it did not take long for some briefing attendees, who were smart enough to recognize that AFA is not a terrorist group, to expose this nonsense.
Responding to objections to this and other briefings targeting conservative and Christian groups5 as a threat, the Department of Defense quickly issued a halt to the use of SPLC information, issuing a directive to restrain its security briefers6 and “Emphasize that neither DoD nor the Army maintain or publish any centralized list of specific organizations considered to be extremist in nature or in opposition to the Army’s core values.”
No sooner had that fire been contained than word arrived on a 600 page Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute training manual7 that “healthy, white, heterosexual, Christian” men – members of what the text calls the “White Male Club” – hold an unfair advantage over other service members. “Simply put, a healthy, white, heterosexual, Christian male receives many unearned advantages of social privilege, whereas a black, homosexual, atheist female in poor health receives many unearned disadvantages of social privilege.”
Meanwhile, The Patriot is still aggressively pursuing answers about the removal of “So help me God” from Cadet and Officer oaths8 at the Air Force academy, an apparent subterfuge by the Obama administration to provide a proxy, Michael Weinstein, with a layup, a legal “gimme,” which he can ultimately parlay into the removal of “So help me God” from every military oath.
GOVERNMENT & POLITICS
Lies on Lies on Lies
Obama was in Boston this week, attempting to deflect attention from his key O'Care sales pitch promise that Americans could keep their insurance and doctors, “period” – a remark even the Washington Post classified as a “WHOPPER11.” Obama doubled down on the lie: “If you had one of these substandard plans before the Affordable Care Act became law and you really liked that plan, you’re able to keep it. That’s what I said when I was running for office. That was part of the promise we made.”
Analysts now believe that more than 90 million plans12 are at risk of alteration or cancelation, both individual and corporate policies, and that this information was known to the administration in 2010. The lie just keeps getting bigger.
Back in Washington, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, the Obama bureaucrat directly responsible for the failed launch of ObamaCare, was planting prevarications before Congress.
Sebelius admitted that the Healthcare.gov rollout was “miserably frustrating” and said, “I’m responsible.” She then proceeded to deny responsibility, and even repeated her boss’s lie13 about consumers being able to keep their health plan if they like it. Period. She argued, “If a plan was in place in March of 2010 and, again, did not impose additional burdens on the consumer, they still have it. It’s grandfathered in.” She complained that, before ObamaCare, the insurance market was “unregulated.” That’s patently false, and, of course, those pesky “additional burdens” – like mandatory maternity coverage even for single men14 – were placed on insurance companies by HHS and ObamaCare regulations. So much for accountability.
Sebelius also told Congress, “The website [Healthcare.gov] never crashed. It is functional, but at a very slow speed and very low reliability.” But when she was asked to disclose the enrollment numbers, she replied, “The system isn’t functioning, so we are not getting that reliable data.” Her flip-flop is hardly surprising, but concerning her original comment, the system’s constant failure is one of the primary reasons she was on Capitol Hill, not to mention the reason that the majority of consumers have been unable to enroll. Additionally, her statement was made all the more ironic considering the site crashed moments before Sebelius began her remarks. Half an hour into her testimony, the exchange was still dead in the water. (For the record, CBS reveals15 that only 6 individuals successfully enrolled within the first 24 hours of the exchange’s launch.)
Yet another laughable moment came when Sebelius insisted that it would be “illegal” for her to obtain insurance coverage through the exchanges. There are, however, just three requirements listed on Healthcare.gov for purchasing a plan on an exchange: Buyers “must live in the United States”; “must be a U.S. citizen or national (or be lawfully present)”; and “can’t be currently incarcerated.”
The secretary didn’t even know whether Healthcare.gov is a secure website. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a former FBI agent specializing in electronic security issues, chastised Sebelius and by extension, Obama, for the lack of security at Healthcare.gov: “You allowed this system to go forward with no encryption on backup systems. They have no encryption on certain boundary crossings. You accepted a risk on behalf of every user [and] put their personal financial information at risk because you did not have even the most basic end to end test on security of this system.” As The Patriot noted months ago, one of the liabilities that will plague Democrats who supported ObamaCare is the fact that it will be an easy mark for ID theft.
ObamaCare is also proving to be the biggest voter registration fraud scheme16 in our country’s history. The Medicaid sign-up portal is not only signing folks up for subsidized health care, but to vote! Under current federal law (“Motor Voter”), when someone goes to the DMV for a driver’s license, he or she is asked whether or not they want to register to vote. Under the ObamaCare application process, if you apply for Medicaid, you are automatically registered to vote unless you opt out (by completing a form designed to unduly complicate the process).
Finally, as we’ve said before, while Sebelius is indeed responsible for much of the current debacle, to suggest she should resign implies that a better HHS secretary might have made it work. Fact is, the failure of the rollout is but a metaphor for the reality that a government bureaucracy can’t even effectively manage a basic commerce website for insurance comparisons – much less an enterprise that encompasses 18% of the U.S. economy.
ECONOMY, REGS & TAXES
Paying Through the Nose, and by the Mile
It’s a vexing question for those in government: How do you pay to expand and maintain our highway system? For decades most states and the federal government relied on a tax levied per gallon of gasoline. But as cars become more fuel efficient by federal edict, the gasoline tax fails to produce the necessary funds. Moreover, the federal tax rate, which was enacted two decades ago – when cars averaged far fewer miles per gallon than their present-day successors – hasn’t budged because a tax increase would not exactly be popular. Yet the cost of building and maintaining roads has raced ahead.
Some see the mileage tax as a user fee fair to everyone, but critics contend it would penalize rural drivers and those who work in travel-intensive industries. Meanwhile, new concerns arise from privacy advocates who despise the “black box” technology tracking motorists' movements or speed. A similar device is already used by a major auto insurer17, which teases discounted premiums if drivers agree to install it.
Leading the way in adopting a mileage-based tax is the state of Oregon, where 5,000 volunteer drivers will soon pay a mileage tax in lieu of a gas tax as part of a test run for possible statewide adoption. While Oregon is, for now, presenting a choice of how intrusive their device would be, New York City’s idea is to enhance the device by allowing automatic payment of parking fees and per-mile insurance.
Nevada, another state piloting such a project, warned, “It would be fairly easy to turn these devices into full-fledged tracking devices.” With the current regime in power, the probability of our nanny state snooping on your driving habits may soon rival that of death and taxes. |
