Bill DeBlasio, Clintons Make Political Marriage Official

New York City’s newest mayor, Bill de Blasio, was sworn into office in the first moments of the new year with the blessing of some very important friends seated in the front row: Bill and Hillary Clinton.

The former president and the Democrats’ greatest hope to run for president in 2016 have a long history with de Blasio. And they’ve drawn upon that history to help pave the way for New York City’s first Democratic, and most progressive, mayor in more than 20 years.

Bill Clinton further cemented the relationship with a symbolic swearing-in ceremony of de Blasio today.

“I strongly endorse Bill de Blasio’s core campaign commitment that we have to have a city of shared opportunities shared prosperity shared responsibilities,” Clinton said today moments before leading de Blasio in his oath of office. “This inequality problem bedevils the entire country.”

The Clinton-de Blasio connection goes way back.

De Blasio served in Clinton’s administration in 1997 as the highest-ranking New York and New Jersey official in the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

One prominent Clinton hand, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Harold Ickes, has played a crucial advisory role in the de Blasio campaign, also helping to corral the donors in the Clinton orbit that de Blasio needed to win the general election after he rocketed from relative obscurity to front-runner in the final days of the Democratic primary last year.

It was also Ickes who helped place de Blasio in the high-profile role of manager of Hillary Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign, though the post did not make him an instant insider in the famously cloistered Clinton inner circle.

Nevertheless, that connection has paid dividends.

Via: Fox News

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[CARTOON] America, meet Obamacare! You’ll love him!

Via: California Political Review

Access to Health Care May Increase ER Visits, Study Suggests

Supporters of President Obama’s health care law had predicted that expanding insurance coverage for the poor would reduce costly emergency room visits as people sought care from primary care doctors. But a rigorous new study conducted in Oregon has flipped that assumption on its head, finding that the newly insured actually went to the emergency room more often.

The study, published in the journal Science, compared thousands of low-income people in the Portland area who were randomly selected in a 2008 lottery to get Medicaid coverage with people who entered the lottery but remained uninsured. Those who gained coverage made 40 percent more visits to the emergency room than their uninsured counterparts. The pattern was so strong that it held true across most demographic groups, times of day, and types of visits, including for conditions that were treatable in primary care settings.

The finding casts doubt on the hope that expanded insurance coverage will help rein in rising emergency room costs just as more than two million people are gaining coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

Instead, the study suggests that the surge in the numbers of insured people may put even greater pressure on emergency rooms and increase costs. Nearly 30 million uninsured Americans could gain coverage under the law, about half of them through Medicaid. The first policies took effect on Wednesday.

“I suspect that the finding will be surprising to many in the policy debate,” said Katherine Baicker, an economist at Harvard University’s School of Public Health and one of the authors of the study.

Via: NYT

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[CARTOON] On Board with Obamacare

Via: California Political Review

Only Richard Nixon Less Popular than Obama in Year 5

President Obama came into office promising to be the opposite of George W. Bush, but he is imitating his predecessor in one regard — his second-term slide in popularity is almost a mirror image of the Republican’s declining fortunes in 2005.

Mr. Obama’s job-approval ratings in most polls this month were 40 percent or lower, down from 54 percent at the start of the year and the lowest of his presidency. Mr. Bush’s popularity in December 2005 stood at 43 percent, down from a high of 57 percent near the beginning of his second term and less than half the 90 percent-plus approval ratings in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Only Watergate-plagued Richard Nixon had a worse rating than Mr. Obama at the same point of his presidency, in 1973. Although presidents tend to lose some public approval after winning second terms, Mr. Obama’s numbers slipped more quickly than most others.

“The history of the presidency is like an hourglass with the sand running out,” said Stephen Hess, a presidential historian at the left-leaning Brookings Institution. “There is a little bump up at the start of the fifth year, and then the downward trend continues. The problem here is that Obama had such a terrible fifth year. He blew that one opportunity he had to put some things together.”

Almost from the moment of his reelection, Mr. Obama was sidetracked by scandals including the Internal Revenue Service targeting of conservative groups and revelations of widespread spying by the National Security Agency.

In October came the hapless launch of the Obamacare website and the public’s realization that Mr. Obama didn’t tell the truth when he assured consumers that they could keep their health insurance policies if that’s what they preferred. The president’s broken promise damaged his credibility and was chosen by an independent fact-checking group as the biggest political lie of 2013.

Via: Washington TImes

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[CARTOON] Agony of Defeat

Via: California Political Review

The Four Freedoms: 75 Years of Liberal Betrayal

In the second half of the 2000s liberals did a fine job of blaming Bush for everything that went wrong in the US. His "neo-con" supporters, they asserted, were just as bad.

Now that President Obama and his signature legislation are a twin disaster the same opportunity beckons for conservatives. It's not just Obama, it's the whole liberal project that created this mess. So the road to 2016 involves discrediting Obama, but also the whole liberal ruling class.

A good place to start would be FDR's Four Freedoms, for when the campaign to elect the un-Obama kicks off in 2016 it will be 75 years since Franklin Delano Roosevelt unveiled his Four Freedoms on January 6, 1941. In case you forgot, the freedoms were:

Freedom of Speech

Freedom of Worship

Freedom from Want

Freedom from Fear

Have you ever thought about how the liberals have utterly betrayed the noble sentiments of the Four Freedoms?
Nothing personal here. It's just that all power corrupts, and liberal power corrupts absolutely.

Let us give our liberal friends the benefit of the doubt and stipulate that, then and now, liberals believe what they say they believe in. Even so, for the sake of truth, justice and the American Way, we must look at the liberal record on the Four Freedoms.

Via: American Thinker

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The One Line of Communication No One Can Breach

In a world where governments are gobbling the privacy of ordinary citizens, there is something owned by every human being that is completely immune to the interference of the NSA, FBI, IRS or any other earthly agency: a powerful and always available direct line of communication that cannot be tampered with and is impossible to break.

It’s a direct line of communication with your Creator and nobody or no thing can take it away from you should you put it to use.

This direct line of communication can be tapped into from anywhere, at any time.  You don’t have to wait for a Sunday to use it because the cathedral of the human heart, where it originates,  can be put into use, 24-7.

That direct line to the Creator is precious, not least of all because it is the only private one left in a world that continues to rob citizens of privacy and peace of mind.

Having the prayers of others is always a Godsend.  While the prayers of others can keep you buoyed up and even feeling safer in an increasingly hostile and secular world, organized prayer, or Breakfast Prayer meetings are not the only means to get in good with God.

Western governments of the day are proving they can take everything away from you—the privacy you assumed you had, your job, your family’s food, the roof over your head, your very peace of mind.

Via: Canada Free Press

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[CARTOON] GOP Obstructionists

Via: California Political Review

On MSNBC, Daily Beast's Obeidallah: 'Conservatives Hate a Lot of Women'

Appearing as a guest on the Friday, December 27, Hardball on MSNBC, comedian and Daily Beast columnist Dean Obeidallah -- who has also been a CNN contributor -- cracked that "conservatives hate a lot of women" as he recounted that the woman whose face appeared on the ObamaCare Web site had been tagged "the most despised woman in America"  by "some bloggers on the right," whom he failed to identify.

Substitute host Michael Smerconish asked about the background of the woman known as Adriana whose photograph was used for the Web site: "Dean, what was the back story here? She posed in exchange for free photographs or something?"

Obeidallah responded:

For nothing. They paid her nothing, and look what she got in exchange. They said, "We're going to use your photo on some of the rollout." I bet you under their hushed breath, they were like, "You're going to be on the home page."

But they didn't want to say that to her because no one would want to be on the home page of this huge program. And then she was demonized. First, comics made fun of her. Then, some bloggers on the right called her "the most despised woman in America." Which is a pretty high bar because conservatives hate a lot of women.

The comedian then quipped that, if he had gotten his own face on the Web site, it might have landed him a job hosting on MSNBC:

But, on the flip side, is she got really well known, and I wish, for that reason, they would have used me. I would have been happy to be the face of ObamaCare Web site. I would have become better known. Maybe I could have guest hosted Hardball one night, Michael. You never know.

--Brad Wilmouth is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow Brad Wilmouth on MSNBC.

Via: Newsbusters

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These 13 Tax Increases Hit in 2013

It’s about time for us to uncover our eyes and take a hard look at what 2013 did to our finances.

Did you feel the pinch of the 13 tax hikes that hit Americans this year?

Before you review the list below, put these two on your watch list for 2014:

• Obamacare’s individual mandate. Beginning in 2014, it’s mandatory to purchase health insurance. If you don’t, you’ll pay a penalty that dramatically increases over time. It starts at $95 or 1 percent of your income (whichever is greater). It rises to $325 or 2 percent of income in 2015, and $695 or 2.5 percent of income in 2016.
• Obamacare tax on insurance companies. If you liked seeing your premiums go up, you’ll love this new tax on health insurers—which they are most likely to pass on to you.

As you start reviewing your tax information for 2013, here’s what you’re contending with.

The 13 Tax Increases of 2013

1. Payroll Tax: increase in the Social Security portion of the payroll tax from 4.2 percent to 6.2 percent for workers. This hit all Americans earning a paycheck—not just the “wealthy.” For example, The Wall Street Journal calculated that the “typical U.S. family earning $50,000 a year” would lose “an annual income boost of $1,000.”

2. Top marginal tax rate: increase from 35 percent to 39.6 percent for taxable incomes over $450,000 ($400,000 for single filers).

3. Phase out of personal exemptions for adjusted gross income (AGI) over $300,000 ($250,000 for single filers).

4. Phase down of itemized deductions for AGI over $300,000 ($250,000 for single filers).

Via: The Foundry

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