Leaders, Followers, Fence-Sitters, and Obamacare

When conservatives look for elected Republicans to stand for our values, we are not just looking for someone who might vote with conservatives when convenient; we are looking for someone who will give voice to conservatives.  Hence, we are looking for leaders – people who will articulate the message, fight the conservative battles, and move the polls.  We have no need for more followers, fence-sitters, and finger lickers.  The recent developments in the fight to defund Obamacare serve as a quintessential example of this divide between the leaders and the fence-sitters.

After several months of hard work from Jim DeMint, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Tom Graves, Mark Meadows, and some of the outside groups, there is tremendous momentum behind using the budget bills to force the issue on Obamacare once and for all.  Obamacare is now more unpopular than ever.  It is so unpopular that Republicans are viewed as more favorable on healthcare than Democrats.  This has never happened in years.  As Erick noted earlier today, when the leadership void is filled, the polling begins to move.

Naturally, all of the establishment followers and fence-sitters are joining the bandwagon of fighting Obamacare on the budget bill (or “the next fight” – the debt ceiling).  However, they want us to believe that they have a “smarter” plan to accomplish it.  They will push to delay the law for one year or focus on some other aspect of Obamacare.

Let me submit that without the efforts of the conservative leaders, the GOP establishment followers would never be talking about fighting Obamacare in any form.  They are terrified of brinkmanship – be it over defund or delay – and had no intention of ever picking this fight, even as Obamacare goes into effect next month.  Their call for delaying the law is just the latest subterfuge to undermine the fight and capitulate to Democrats while concurrently co-opting the fight against Obamacare – as if they were supportive of the effort all along, albeit with a craftier strategy.

Via: Red State

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12 Years after 9/11 Weak Oversight of DHS Keeps U.S. Vulnerable

Weak congressional oversight over the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) keeps the United States vulnerable to terrorist threats posed by small aircraft and boats, cyber attacks and biological weapons, according to a diverse panel of lawmakers and security officials.

This may be difficult to swallow twelve years after the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history but it’s the conclusion of a task force of Homeland Security officials and experts as well as current and former members of Congress from both political parties. The task force found that one of the key recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission, the special panel that Congress created to investigate the terrorist attacks and prevent them in the future, has not been fulfilled.

After all these years one of the commission’s most significant recommendations to guard against future attacks has not been implemented.  It’s the call for consolidated Congressional oversight of DHS, the monstrous agency created after 9/11. Jurisdiction over DHS is fragmented and that impedes the agency’s ability to deal with the three major vulnerabilities mentioned above, the experts found.

DHS has no oversight structure like other crucial agencies such as the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Justice (DOJ), the panel of intelligence experts and lawmakers reveal. Instead, more than 100 Congressional committees and subcommittees claim jurisdiction over it creating a seriously disintegrated oversight system and massive bureaucracy.

The new report indicates that, as a nation, we’ve learned little from the 2001 terrorist attacks that killed thousands of innocent Americans. Here are some of the experts who helped put the report together; former Florida Governor Bob Graham, former Bush DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, Obama DHS Undersecretary of Intelligence Caryn Wagner and California Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, the second-highest ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.

“The recommendations of the 9/11 Commission addressed problems that contributed to the United States’ vulnerability to attack” in 2001, the report says. Graham, who was co-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee on 9/11 offers an example: “We found among other things that there had been inadequate communication among the agencies with a responsibility to alert us to a security threat. The FBI and the CIA had information which, had it been brought together, might well have allowed us to have avoided 9/11.”

Via: Judicial Watch

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Obamacare’s Useful Idiots

One by one, the dupes have been double-crossed by Obama and the Democrats.

Remember that March day in 2010 when the President, surrounded by devout supporters, solemnly signed Obamacare into law? It was, as Joe Biden brayed, “a big f——-g deal.” Obama and his army of righteous reformers had finally triumphed over the forces of evil and passed legislation that would drive the moneychangers from the temple of U.S. health care. Many of those beaming down on the President as he wielded his terrible swift pen represented prestigious national organizations and coalitions whose support had made the glorious moment possible. Some of these groups, however, have since seen the error of their ways.

The most recent such coalition to repent of its support for the “Affordable Care Act” (ACA) has been the AFL-CIO. As has been widely reported, that federation of unions approved a resolution during its recent convention declaring that Obamacare will increase health insurance premiums so dramatically that many of its members will have to drop their coverage. In order to avoid this inevitable consequence of their support for the health care law, union goons like Richard Trumka have been putting pressure on the President to honor his backroom promises to provide unions with special dispensations from inconvenient provisions of “reform.”

One of the most controversial union demands, which would have resulted in extra ACA subsidies for union members, was rejected by the Obama administration on Friday: “The Treasury Department issued a letter that confirmed that people in multi-employer healthcare plans could not receive the Obamacare tax credits.” This letter merely reiterated the clear language of the law, but the union bosses are not amused. Terry O’Sullivan, president of the Laborers International Union of North America, has even begun using the “R” word: “If the Affordable Care Act is not fixed… then I believe it needs to be repealed.”

Via: American Spectator

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Congress’s Exemption from Obamacare

Make Congress get insurance the same way the little people do? Hill denizens howl in fury. 

Prostitution. Bribery. Blackmail. Thuggery. Hypocrisy.

Those were just some of the incendiary words thrown around the U.S. Senate last week, and that doesn’t count what people said in private.

The Senate may still have a reputation as a genteel club, but lawmakers seemed to abandon rules of decorum completely last week in arguments about whether Congress should be treated like the rest of the country when it comes to Obamacare. 

Senator David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican, has demanded a floor vote on his bill to end an exemption that members of Congress and their staffs are slated to get that will make them the only participants in the new Obamacare exchanges to receive generous subsidies from their employer to pay for their health insurance. Angry Senate Democrats have drafted legislation that dredges up a 2007 prostitution scandal involving Vitter. The confrontation is a perfect illustration of just how wide the gulf in attitudes is between the Beltway and the rest of the country — and how viciously Capitol Hill denizens will fight for their privileges.

In 1995, the newly elected Republican Congress passed a Congressional Accountability Act to fulfill a promise made the previous year in the Contract with America. For the first time, the Act applied to Congress the same civil-rights employment and labor laws that lawmakers had required everyday citizens to abide by. With some lapses, it’s worked well to defuse public outrage about “one law for thee, one law for me” congressional behavior.

Via: National Review Online

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NBC’s Pete Williams Identifies Navy Yard Gunman As Aaron Alexis, 34, of Ft. Worth, TX

NBC News reporter Pete Williams identified one of the gunman who attacked the Washington Navy Yard on Monday morning as Aaron Alexis, 34, of Ft. Worth, Texas. Alexis was killed at the scene, but police have asked for Washington D.C. residents to remain on the lookout for two additional suspects. 

RELATED: CNN’s Barbara Starr: ‘We’re Talking About a Conspiracy to Attack the U.S. Military’

“There’s only one confirmed gunman and authorities say he’s 34-year-old Aaron Alexis of Fort Worth, Texas,” Williams reported. “That he had just recently begun working as a civilian contractor for the Navy.

Williams noted that reports indicate Aaron infiltrated the highly secure facility by using the identification of a current employee of the facility who has not yet been identified.

“What his motive was is a long way from determined,” Williams continued.

Watch the clip below via NBC:

Via: Mediaite.com

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Obama Campaign Group Comes Out Swinging – and Scaremongering – on Obamacare

The Hill reports that President Obama’s campaign group, Organizing for Action (OFA), is out with a new ad campaign, which contains inaccurate claims about the fight to defund Obamacare.

First, OFA claims that those who want to defund the law “are threatening to shut down the government if Obamacare isn’t dismantled.” Nothing could be further from the truth.

Conservatives don’t want to shut the government down; they do want to shut down Obamacare. And legislation accomplishing both of these objectives—funding all of the federal government except for Obamacare—was introduced last week.

As we’ve previously noted, the only person who wants to shut down the federal government is President Obama himself. The Obama Administration has threatened to veto multiple House-passed spending bills. The Administration made these threats because liberals want to replace sequestration’s spending cuts, agreed to by both parties, with tax increases. And if they don’t get their way, the President and his advisors have pledged to shut down the federal government.

Second, OFA claims that if a shutdown occurs—and as noted above, it would occur only because President Obama wants it to occur—such a scenario “could disrupt Social Security and veterans’ benefits.” That’s just not accurate. As a previous Heritage Foundation fact sheethas noted,

The term shutdown substantially overstates the matter. The most essential services continue, such as: (1) providing for national security, (2) conducting foreign affairs, (3) providing for the continuity of mandatory benefit payments, and (4) protecting life and property. These services include military, law enforcement, veterans care, and others. Social Security checks are still mailed and self-funded agencies like the Postal Service would continue operating.

It couldn’t be more clear: Social Security checks would still get mailed, and the Postal Service would remain in business to mail them.

Via: The Foundry

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[VIDEO] Obama: ‘Gun Control—We Had 80, 90% of the Country That Agreed With It’

(CNSNews.com) - Appearing on ABC News’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” on Sunday, President Barack Obama said he had 80 to 90 percent of the country agreeing with him in favor of gun control, but the he could not get gun-control legislation enacted because of a “faction of the Republican Party.”

Obama made the observation about the supermajority of Americans he believes favor “gun control” when Stephanopoulos asked him why the issues he had chosen to focus on at the beginning of his second term seem to have stalled.

“You put gun control at the top of the agenda, immigration reform, climate change--all of it's stalled or reversing,” said Stephanopoulos. “How do you answer the argument that beyond the deficit, this has been a lost year, and how do you save it?”

First, Obama said the Senate-passed immigration bill, which creates a “pathway to citizenship” for illegal aliens, would win in the House if Speaker John Boehner brought it up for a vote.

Via: CNS News

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Washington Navy Yard the 'beating heart of the United States Navy'

The Washington Navy Yard, where police were responding to a shooter Monday morning, may not be one of the capital's most well-known facilities. But it serves as a major headquarters for several Navy divisions. 

Fox News security analyst K.T. McFarland described it as the "beating heart of the United States Navy." 

One of the most prominent facilities, which is where the shooter at one point was reported, is the Naval Sea Systems Command headquarters. This headquarters is the office for about 3,000 people.  The command's job is to "engineer, build, buy and maintain ships" and other systems, according to the Navy. Its annual budget is nearly $30 billion -- accounting for a quarter of Navy spending. 

Capt. Chuck Nash, former Navy captain, said the command's principle job is "acquisition" and not military operations. 

"It's mostly a civilian organization," he told Fox News. 

Details about the shooting are still emerging. Navy officials say at least 10 people have been shot, including multiple dead. 

The Navy Yard as a whole has been in operation since the early 19th century. It is the Navy's oldest shore establishment, and went from being a shipbuilding center to an ordnance plant. Now it is described as the "ceremonial and administrative center" for the U.S. Navy. 

Via: Fox News

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Morning Bell: Will Unions Want to Repeal Obamacare?

In a typical Friday afternoon “news dump,” the Treasury Department announced it could not grant unions’ request for another special Obamacare break.

This time, unions had lobbied the Administration to let union-run, multi-employer plans receive taxpayer-funded insurance subsidies on the new exchanges. These subsidies would be in addition to the tax break that multi-employer plans, like health plans offered by all employers, already receive.

Union leaders wrote to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in July asking for the Obamacare “fix,” stating that their progressive “vision has come back to haunt us”:

When you and the President sought our support for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), you pledged that if we liked the health plans we have now, we could keep them. Sadly, that promise is under threat. Right now, unless you and the Obama Administration enact an equitable fix, the ACA will shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class.

However, despite comments by Reid that unions would get another special break, the Administration actually found one part of the law it wants to uphold—after all the waivers, delays, and illegal modifications made to other parts of Obamacare.

Via: The Foundry

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‘You may not leave’: Senate went into lock down after Navy Yard shooting

UPDATE: In a 4:16 p.m. email, the Senate sergeant at arms emailed staff saying, “I am lifting the portion of the lock down which required you to remain in the buildings.”

In explaining the original move, he wrote, “While this [lock down] approach is inconvenient, it is at times necessary. The lessons of Boston, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, and Aurora are clear, and just still too raw.”

WASHINGTON – The Senate complex in the Capitol Building has been locked down after a shooting at the nearby Navy Yard early Monday morning.

UPDATE: In a 4:16 p.m. email, the Senate sergeant at arms emailed staff saying, “I am lifting the portion of the lock down which required you to remain in the buildings.”

In explaining the original move, he wrote, “While this [lock down] approach is inconvenient, it is at times necessary. The lessons of Boston, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, and Aurora are clear, and just still too raw.”

WASHINGTON – The Senate complex in the Capitol Building has been locked down after a shooting at the nearby Navy Yard early Monday morning.

Via: Daily Caller

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