The Patriot Post Digest 4-8-2016

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The Patriot Post Digest 4-8-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
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Mid-Day Digest

Apr. 8, 2016

THE FOUNDATION

“The Constitution … is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please.” —Thomas Jefferson (1819)

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Obama’s Political Constitution1

Barack Obama only talks about the Constitution when it helps him politically, and even then, he’s not correct. On Thursday, Obama paid a visit to the University of Chicago — the place where he lectured on constitutional law — though no word on whether he visited his old benefactor William Ayers2. Obama lamented that Senate Republicans are cheapening the power of the Supreme Court by refusing to hold nomination hearings for his nominee, Merrick Garland3.

“The courts will be just an extension of our legislatures and our elections and our politics,” Obama warned. “And that erodes the institutional integrity of the judicial branch.” Yes, Supreme Court justices are nominated through a political process by a president and a Senate that both swear to uphold the Constitution. Time and time again, however, the courts have held Obama’s executive actions as unconstitutional.

Clearly, in those years teaching constitutional law, Obama didn’t learn much. And it’s most certainly demonstrable that the Senate cannot trust him to pick the justice to replace the grand originalist, the late Antonin Scalia4. While Obama lectures with faux intellectualism, the Senate based its decision to not hold nomination hearings for Obama’s pick on precedent set by Democrats5.

However, senators — some Democrats and Republicans Mark Kirk and Lindsey Graham — all said they would or have sat down with Judge Garland to meet one-on-one. In Graham’s instance, his office said6 Graham stands with the rest of the GOP in opposing a nomination process, but he still met with the nominee as a “courtesy.”

Meanwhile, Obama touted his record of nominating minorities and people in the LGBT community to benches across the nation. “Yeah, he’s a white guy,” Obama said of Garland. “But he’s a really outstanding jurist.” The key word there was “but.” To him, it’s all about legacy and getting his way.

Democrat Qualifications7

It’s not just the Republican candidates bruising their brand with petulant infighting. With Bernie Sanders' win in Wisconsin earlier this week, the feud between him and Hillary Clinton is picking up steam. During a rally at Temple University, Bernie Sanders went on the offensive (if you can call it that) in response to Clinton’s recent attacks on him.

Here’s Bernie: “She has been saying lately that she thinks I am quote-unquote not qualified to be president. Let me just say in response to Secretary Clinton, I don’t believe that she is qualified if she is through her super PAC taking tens of millions of dollars in special-interest money. I don’t think you are qualified if you get $15 million through Wall Street for your super PAC. I don’t think you are qualified if you have voted for the disastrous war in Iraq.”

It’s not often we say this, but he’s right to say that Clinton isn’t qualified to be president — though for entirely different reasons. Clinton is a sleazy politician, and when it comes to character her duplicitous behavior makes Sanders look like a saint. That said, if this is the best Sanders can muster, he’d better start packing up and heading home.

There are numerous better examples Sanders could have chosen. First of all, the Benghazi debacle8 that left four Americans, including a U.S. ambassador, dead on her watch. Then she lied repeatedly about it. That issue alone disqualifies her.

Or perhaps he could have mentioned the intensifying email scandal9, and the pending FBI questioning of Clinton herself. Then there’s the pay-to-play income-tax shelter known as the Clinton Foundation10, which we suppose he meant with is fundraising jab but didn’t actually name.

From a broader perspective, Sanders has to make sure he doesn’t so strident in his criticisms that he can’t bring his supporters back around to her in the convention. Again, this is tame compared to the insults thrown on the GOP side, but the divisions are more stark now than at any previous point in the Democrat campaign. One thing is clear: If Sanders expects to derail the Clinton Machine, he’s got to do better than this.

With 43% Not Paying, When Will Student Loans Collapse?11

About 22 million Americans, or 43% of the students who borrowed money from the U.S. government to pay for college, are not making their repayments, according to the Wall Street Journal12. Altogether, those 22 million Americans owe $200 billion in debt. Already, 3.6 million of those former students did not make a single payment in 2015 and are in default. This raises questions: When will this bubble collapse, and what will be brought down with it?

The government created a system that gave out loans to anyone who asked for one. There are no cosigners, nor does the government verify that the people to whom they loan money are prepared for the rigors of college, or disciplined enough to pay off their debts. Credit checks? That’s a little used tool on youth headed for the Ivy League — or Podunk Community College.

In his column titled “The U.S. education bubble is now upon us,” Mohamed El-Erian notes13 that student loan debt dwarfs the combined debt of credit cards and auto loans. And while the cost of higher education has skyrocketed, the value of that piece of paper at the end of four years has deteriorated because even students who graduate are struggling to find employment in their fields of study.

The student loan market is not like the housing bubble of 2008, however. Unlike a conventional loan company, the government has the power to garnish wages and seize tax refunds. But the risk to the whole system is huge: Federal financial assets are 45% made up of student loans — even while there’s a culture that fosters not repaying those loans. Under one repayment plan, the Department of Education forgives14 outstanding loans after 20-25 years. And with all the leftists out there telling students that a college education should be free, why pay the bill?

BEST OF RIGHT OPINION

David Limbaugh: We Don’t Have to Break It to Fix It15
Mona Charen: Run Against Obama16
Jonah Goldberg: Arguments Against Free Trade Are Deeply Flawed17

For more, visit Right Opinion18.

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
ObamaCare Cost Curve Hits The Patriot Post. Again.19

By Nate Jackson

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is working toward euthanizing health savings accounts (HSAs). Democrats have barely attempted to hide their preference for a single-payer health insurance system, so it only stands to reason they’d work to pull the plug on the most attractive market option standing in the way.

Democrats have always hated HSAs because they put patients in charge of their own health spending (to a point — in some ways, HSA users are still swimming upstream against the health system’s lack of price transparency.) But the market-driven approach has become increasingly popular in the last decade.

“In the past seven years, [HSA] enrollment has climbed 18% a year on average,” notes Investor’s Business Daily20. “Today, there are almost 20 million enrollees who have more than $24 billion in their HSA accounts. Even the number crunchers in the Health and Human Services Department admit that these ‘consumer-directed’ health plans are helping to hold down costs.”

Imagine where we’d be without them.

Back in March, just in time for ObamaCare’s six-year anniversary21, HHS issued new rules that will effectively end HSAs. Roy J. Ramthun, an expert on the subject often known as “Mr. HSA” — president and founder of HSA Consulting after having led the U.S. Treasury Department’s implementation of HSAs upon enactment in 2003 — explains the impact of the rule changes:

1) Plans must apply specific deductibles and out-of-pocket limits that are outside the requirements for HSA-qualified plans.

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The Patriot Post Digest 4-8-2016
From The Federalist Patriot
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2) Plans must cover services below the deductible that are not considered “preventive care.”

In other words, HSAs will still be legal, but ever fewer plans will meet the requirements. Ramthun writes, “It is only a matter of time before the HSA-qualified plans completely disappear. That could happen as early as 2017 even though the standard benefit designs are optional. By 2018, when the designs likely become mandatory, HSAs will cease to exist in the marketplace.”

So we weren’t the least bit surprised to find out this week that we face a major rate increase this summer for renewing our small business health insurance plan.

Here’s a peek into the window of the internal operations of our humble shop:

Our full-time employees range in age from about 25 to 60 — the median age is 37. All of us are married, and some of our families include children (as in younger than 26 years of age). We’re all of reasonable health and don’t unduly burden the health care system with claims. Our plan is a high-deductible HSA, and it doesn’t include eye or dental insurance.

One would reason, therefore, that our premiums would be low. And one would be dead wrong. That used to be true, but that was before ObamaCare. For last several years, our premiums have gone up by double digits annually, and this year’s 33% increase is among the highest so far. On top of that, our deductibles also rose last year. Since the “Affordable” Care Act came along, we now pay nearly four times as much — for less coverage.

Another note: Our plan doesn’t actually qualify under ObamaCare’s requirements, but it’s “grandmothered” for the time being. Changing anything will only make either the price go up or the coverage go down — or both.

It would be one thing if our experience were an outlier, but it’s not; it’s the norm. Health insurance premiums around the country are going up by double-digit percentages every year, and some by 50% or more. What ever happened to “bending the cost curve down” as Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats regularly promised? “We’ll lower premiums by up to $2,500 for a typical family per year,” he guaranteed. Reality is just the opposite. How is that in any way “affordable”?

Or how about being able to keep one’s doctor or one’s plan? While millions of patients have been told to look for other doctors, millions of insurance plans have been canceled in recent years. Indeed, a large portion of the people signing up for coverage under ObamaCare had coverage they liked but lost.

This is all just part of the ObamaCare web of lies22.

In 1785, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him.” And that above all else defines Obama’s pathetic legacy — not just on health care, either.

If there’s a silver lining, it’s this: With increasing frequency, Americans of every political stripe who have any issue with health care, whether a hangnail or heart transplant, a delay in a doctor’s office or in critical care for a loved one, will tie blame for their discontent like a noose around the necks of Obama and his fellow Democrats, who are solely responsible for forcing this abomination upon the American people.

We Depend on You

Fellow Patriots, as we continue to stand on the front lines of the battle to restore constitutional limits on the central government, your Patriot Post editors and staff humbly request your support for our mission23. For 20 years, your generosity and commitment have made it possible to offer The Patriot Post without a subscription fee to military personnel, students and those with limited means. We continue to hold the line on our budget — it’s not going up. We hope you’ll consider making a donation23 to our 2016 Patriots' Day Campaign today. From each of us here, our sincerest thanks for your support.

MORE ORIGINAL PERSPECTIVE

ANALYSIS: VA: Bureaucracy Is as Bureaucracy Does24
New York Subway 2, Demo Candidates 025
And Giuliani’s Vote Goes To…26
Retiring Obama Strafes Campaign Trail27
The Good and Bad of Labor’s Fiduciary Rule28
Army Chief of Staff Doesn’t Want Troops Concealed Carrying29
North Korea May Possess Mid-Range Nukes30

TOP HEADLINES

Bill Clinton Hits Obama: World Is ‘Coming Apart’31
Mosul Siege Stalled as Iraqi Army Once Again Flees32
Number of Islamic State Jihadis Doubles in Libya33

For more, visit Patriot Headline Report34

OPINION IN BRIEF

David Limbaugh: “We will not recapture America’s greatness through powerful determination alone. We must discipline ourselves to work within the constitutional framework, or we will forfeit the system that has made us unique in history. Some may dispute that Trump supporters care only about certain core issues and are willing to employ extraordinary measures to address them. Well, a new Quinnipiac poll reveals that 53 percent of Trump supporters agree with this statement: ‘What we need is a leader who is willing to say or do anything to solve America’s problems.’ This is consistent with what I hear from far too many Trump supporters. Frankly, I would hate to be so pessimistic about our ability to overcome our problems that I’d be willing to compromise the rule of law and constitutional order to do so. … You don’t have to be a policy wonk to be a good president, but I would hope that you would have at least given serious consideration to important issues beyond the few that brought you to prominence. You must have at least rudimentary knowledge on issues before you can make proper decisions, even with the best advisers available.”

SHORT CUTS

Insight: “You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.” —Dr. Adrian Rogers (1931-2005)

Another jab at the Obama legacy: “Unlike when I became president, a lot of things are coming apart around the world now.” —Bill Clinton

Rare moment of truth: “You are defending the people who killed the lives you say matter. Tell the truth!” —Bill Clinton’s response to a Black Lives Matter demonstrator

Case in point: “It’s important to talk about the myth of black on black crime. It’s just that — a myth.” —Black Lives Matter organizer Aaron Goggans

Vast right-wing conspiracy: “I know [Republicans] live in that world of fantasy and hope because they’ve got a mess on their hands on the Republican side. … There is not even the remotest chance that [I’m going to be arrested]. But look, they’ve been after me, as I say, for 25 years. They have said things about me repeatedly that have been proven to be not only false but kind of ridiculous.” —Hillary Clinton

Don’t keep or bear arms: “You take the Fort Hood incident number two, the one where I was the commander of Third Corps, those police responded within eight minutes and that guy was dead. So, that’s pretty quick and a lot of people died in the process of that, but that was a very fast, evolving event and I am not convinced, from what I know, that carrying privately owned weapons would’ve stopped that individual.” —Army chief of staff Gen. Mark Milley29

Late-night humor: “Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have scheduled a debate for next Thursday in Brooklyn. Which is about as close as Bernie Sanders can get to Wall Street without spontaneously combusting.” —Seth Meyers

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis!
Managing Editor Nate Jackson

Join us in daily prayer for our Patriots in uniform — Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen — standing in harm’s way in defense of Liberty, and for their families.