Conservative Happenings: Obama Regime

Showing posts with label Obama Regime. Show all posts

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Robin Leach: Gov't Took Away Incentive To Work

Television journalist Robin Leach on how the Obama admin is targeting the rich
Via: Fox News
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Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Obama Has Already Won The Shutdown Fight And He’s Coming For Immigration Next

WASHINGTON — As the fiscal fight roiling Washington nears its end, the White House is already signaling that it plans to use the political momentum it has gained during the shutdown fight to charge back into the immigration debate. And this time, Democratic pollsters and advocates say, they could actually win.

The final chapter of the current crisis hasn’t been written yet, but Democrats in Washington are privately confident that they’ll emerge with the upper hand over the conservatives in Congress who forced a government shutdown. And sources say the administration plans to use its victory to resurrect an issue that was always intended to be a top priority of Obama’s second-term agenda.

Advocates argue the post-fiscal crisis political reality could thaw debate on the issue in the House, which froze in earlier this year after the Senate passed a bipartisan immigration bill that was led by Republican Sen. Marco Rubio and Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer.

“It’s at least possible with sinking poll numbers for the Republicans, with a [GOP] brand that is badly damaged as the party that can’t govern responsibly and is reckless that they’re going to say, ‘All right, what can we do that will be in our political interest and also do tough things?’” said Frank Sharry, executive director of the immigration reform group America’s Voice. “That’s where immigration could fill the bill.”

The White House and Democrats are “ready” to jump back into the immigration fray when the fiscal crises ends, Sharry said. And advocates are already drawing up their plans to put immigration back on the agenda — plans they’ll likely initiate the morning after a fiscal deal is struck.

Via: Buzzfeed

Obamatude Ahead

It will be foolish to rush into a debt ceiling deal that fails to curb spending.

Polls show the nation growing impatient. The public wants Washington politicians to get a deal done now to raise the debt ceiling and open the government. Rushing is a mistake. The urgency of the debt ceiling is exaggerated, while the drastic consequences of a deal that fails to curb spending are being ignored.

Here are three reasons not to rush a settlement:

1. The U.S. will not default on its debt this week or anytime soon.

On October 7, Moody’s rating agency circulated a memo on Capitol Hill explaining that “there is no direct connection between the debt limit (actually the exhaustion of the Treasury’s extraordinary measures to raise funds) and a default.” First of all, “there are no interest payments until the end of the month…. Thus, a Treasury based default is not technically possible until that date.”

What’s more, “the government is very likely to prioritize interest payments,” meaning servicing the debt before paying other bills.

Backing up Moody’s analysis, Fitch rating service called default “a low risk.”

Yet Rep. Peter T. King, Republican of New York, said “We’re now backed into a corner. We have to do this by Thursday. We have to make it work, but it’s not going to be perfect.”

No one expects perfection in politics, but Republicans should be fighting to keep the “savings” they gained in 2011, in exchange for agreeing to the largest debt ceiling hike in history.

Via: The Spectator

DOD Refuses to Say If It Would Stop Priest from Giving Last Rites to Dying Serviceman

(CNSNews.com) - Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale, a spokesman in the Office of Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, is refusing to say whether the Department of Defense would attempt to stop a civilian Catholic priest, who had been a contract chaplain for the military, from administering the last rites to a serviceman on a U.S. military base.

“I feel no particular compulsion to answer outlandish, hypothetical questions in a yes/no fashion nor does the Department, generally, answer hypotheticals at all,” Breasseale said in an email.

“Further, it is a matter of long standing Department policy to not address matters that are currently under active litigation,” Breasseale continued.

Prior to Breasseale sending this email declining to say whether DOD would try to stop a priest from administering the last rites to a serviceman, a spokesman for the National Security Staff at the White House, had responded to the question, by saying: “We'd refer you to our colleagues at DOD for comment.”

Via: CNS News
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Web brokers on standby, waiting to sell Obamacare plans

A man signing up for Obamacare is shown. | Reuters

The Obama administration has enlisted a small army of online brokers to help sell new Obamacare health plans, but those sites have been sidelined in the health care law’s first two weeks as the feds struggle to sort out their own glitch-filled website.

The federal agency in charge of the exchanges signed agreements this summer with several e-brokers to sell health plans in the 36 states where the feds are running the new individual marketplaces. But the online brokers, eager to tap a new market of people who’ll qualify for federal subsidies, learned shortly before the Oct. 1 launch that they wouldn’t be able to offer exchange plans right away.

The brokers say the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services didn’t act fast enough to let them integrate their websites with the IT systems supporting the federal insurance marketplaces. They hope to get everything linked up with the feds in the coming weeks.

“I think it just comes down to they weren’t ready,” said Michael Mahoney, vice president of consumer marketing for Web broker GoHealth. “Like anybody else, when they realized they weren’t going to be ready with a variety of things, they have to look at circumstances and prioritize.”

(PHOTOS: 25 unforgettable Obamacare quotes)

The online brokers’ websites, which predate the health care law, offer an experience similar to what HealthCare.gov is supposed to provide. They allow consumers to shop and compare health plans — until now, only for insurers they’ve had financial partnerships with. They’ll now have to offer all the plans available on the federal-run exchanges, even if they don’t financially benefit from the enrollment. And they’ll let consumers know whether they can get government help to purchase insurance.

Via: Politico

How Much Will Obamacare Coverage Cost?

As many Americans are losing their current health plans, they may be striking out on their own into Obamacare’s health insurance exchanges. (Or at least they will be, if the website ever starts working.)

Thanks to a new study from Heritage, you can quickly get a sense of the Obamacare prices hitting your state’s individual insurance market.

Heritage analyst Drew Gonshorowski is a step ahead. He took all the available data released thus far from the states and federal government and calculated the average premium change(per month) from buying health insurance in the non-group market to buying in the Obamacare exchanges.

>>> See how your state fares here

Unsurprisingly, Obamacare brings increases across the board. The news is particularly bad for young people. In at least 11 states, the hike for a 27-year-old is more than 100 percent.

“Our findings confirm that younger populations see larger percentage increases in premiums,” Gonshorowski said. “A state that exhibits this clearly is Vermont, where the increase for 27-year-olds is 144 percent and the increase for 50-year-olds is still 60 percent, but far less. All states exhibit this relationship.”

Via: The Foundry