Obama: Speeches won’t help make ObamaCare popular

President Obama said he can't turn around public opinion on his signature healthcare law with a public-relations push, but insisted that the law will be popular once it is fully implemented.

Polls show the healthcare law is unpopular, and its approval ratings are falling. Disapproval topped 50 percent in a CBS News poll last week.

Obama said in an interview with The New York Times that the law will gain popularity once key provisions take effect next year and people are able to more easily purchase insurance.

"But until then, when we’re getting outspent four to one and people are just uncertain about what all this means for them, we’re going to continue to have some polls like that," Obama said. "And me just making more speeches explaining it in and of itself won’t do it. The test of this is going to be is it working. And if it works, it will be pretty darn popular."

The administration has ramped up its public-relations push recently, bringing on new healthcare communications strategists and enlisting celebrities to help encourage people to sign up for new coverage options.

Obama has also made three speeches just since May about the law. But he downplayed those efforts in the Times interview, saying full implementation is the real test.

"Over the course of six months to a year, as people sign up, and it works, and lo and behold, the people who already have health insurance are not being impacted at all other than the fact that their insurance is more secure and they are getting free preventive care, and all the nightmare scenarios and the train wrecks and the 'sky is falling' predictions that come from the other side do not happen, then health care will become more popular," Obama said.

The key deadline in the administration's implementation push is Oct. 1. That's when new insurance marketplaces known as exchanges are supposed to open in each state, to begin enrolling people in private insurance plans that begin Jan. 1, 2014.

Most people who buy insurance through an exchange will receive tax subsidies to help cover the cost of their premiums.

Via: The Hill

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How To Get Around The Law That Requires Cutting Off Aid To Countries With Coup? Obama Admin: “We Will Just Not Say It Was A Coup”

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has concluded it is not legally required to determine whether the Egyptian military engineered a coup d’état in ousting President Mohamed Morsi, a senior administration official said Thursday, a finding that will allow it to continue to funnel $1.5 billion in American aid to Egypt each year.

The legal opinion, submitted to the White House by lawyers from the State Department and other agencies, amounts to an escape hatch forPresident Obama and his advisers, who had concluded that cutting off financial assistance could destabilize Egypt at an already fragile moment and would pose a threat to neighbors like Israel.

The senior official did not describe the legal reasoning behind the finding, saying only, “The law does not require us to make a formal determination as to whether a coup took place, and it is not in our national interest to make such a determination.”

“We will not say it was a coup, we will not say it was not a coup, we will just not say,” the official said.

News of the administration’s legal determination began circulating on Capitol Hill after a deputy secretary of state, William J. Burns, briefed House and Senate members in closed-door sessions earlier on Thursday.

The White House said it would continue to use financial aid as a lever to pressure Egypt’s new government to move swiftly with a democratic transition. On Wednesday, the Pentagon delayed the shipment of four F-16 fighter jets to the Egyptian Air Force to signal the administration’s displeasure with the chaotic situation in Egypt.

Such case-by-case decisions, the official said, would be the model for how the United States disbursed aid in the coming months. The administration might also “reprogram” assistance to promote a transition, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the White House’s internal deliberations.

Via: New York Times

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George Will: Detroit doesn’t have a fiscal problem, but a ‘cultural collapse’

On Sunday’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” on ABC, Washington Post columnist George Will took on proponents of federal assistance for Detroit, which declared bankruptcy earlier this month.

According to Will, the city isn’t undergoing a fiscal crisis, but is facing a much more serious cultural one, which is the source of its woes.

“Can’t solve the problems because the problems are cultural,” Will said. “You have a city, 139 square miles. You can graze cattle in vast portions of it. Dangerous herds of feral dogs roam in there. You have 3 percent of fourth graders reading at the national math standards. Forty-seven percent of Detroit residents are functionally illiterate. Seventy-nine percent of Detroit children are born to unmarried mothers. They don’t have a fiscal problem, Steve. They have a cultural collapse.”

The Nation magazine editor Katrina vanden Heuvel objected to Will’s analysis, arguing Detroit was more a victim of deindustrialization.

“I find that really insulting to the people of Detroit. I think there’s a serious discussion about the future of cities in a time of deindustrialization. But in many ways, Detroit has been a victim of market forces, and I think what Steve [Ratner] said is so critical. Retirees and workers should not bear this. And it should not be about greedy public unions and fiscal responsibility.”

Will referenced an op-ed in the July 20 New York Times by Steve Rattner, President Barack Obama’s former so-called auto bailout czar. In it, Rattner insists on aiding the Motor City, however, he did  cite self-governance as one of the areas where Detroit residents are responsible.

“What Steve said in his op-ed was ‘the people of Detroit are no more to blame than the victims of Hurricane Sandy, because apart from voting,’ you said,” Will added. “Well, what did they vote for? For 60 years, they voted for incompetents, malcontents and in some cases, criminals.”

Via: Daily Caller

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First Lady: Barack's Working to Free Americans from 'Any Form of Public Assistance'

In an e-mail to supporters, First Lady Michelle Obama says she grew up in a family that didn't need help from the government, and that her husband is working to make Americans free from dependence on government once again.

In her message sent yesterday from democratparty@democrats.org, Mrs. Obama says:

"When I was growing up, a family like mine -- living on my hard-working father's salary at the city water plant -- could build a solid life without much debt and without relying on any form of public assistance. Today, for too many families, that American promise is no longer within reach.

"Barack is working to fix that and he needs solid Democrats in Congress to help him."

However, her husband's administration is spending millions actively promoting dependence on government assistance in the form of things like food stamps and health care.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) has written to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack investigating the USDA's efforts to promote food stamp usage, focusing on a partnership with the Mexican government to promote food stamp usage among Mexican immigrants living in the United States:

"Your department provides a document on how to 'overcome the word "No" and rewarded a recruitment worker for overcoming people's 'mountain pride.' There is even a promotional guide suggesting those targeted for enrollment harm their communities by not accepting benefits."

The Obama Administration's Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has arranged to pay a public relations firm $8 million to promote dependence on government-run health care - enrollment in ObamaCare's health insurance exchanges.

In Pennsylvania alone, HHS is spending $4 million to promote Obamacare at state health clinics.

And, a DHS website is promoting a range of government programs to immigrants, in both English and Spanish:

Via:CNS News

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Obama: Race Relations “May Get Worse”

Obama: “Race Relations Won’t Get Better, May Get Worse” Unless We Redistribute More Wealth…

President Obama said that if economic prescriptions of the type he supports to increase economic growth and reduce “income inequality” are not adopted, then race relations in the United State may deteriorate further.

“If we don’t do anything, then growth will be slower than it should be. Unemployment will not go down as fast as it should. Income inequality will continue to rise,” Obama said in an interview published Sunday by the New York Times. “Racial tensions won’t get better; they may get worse, because people will feel as if they’ve got to compete with some other group to get scraps from a shrinking pot. If the economy is growing, everybody feels invested, ” he said.

Obama said Americans in recent decades have lost a sense of security, feeling that a chance at upward mobility is being denied them. He railed against the deficit hawks in the Republican Party, suggesting cuts were being made to quickly and without proper discretion, and that “vital investments” must be preserved.

The president in recent days has suggested he will back massive new spending outlays, including funding for vast programs like infrastructure projects and early childhood education.

Obama vowed to act unilaterally if Congress blocks him.

“I’m not just going to sit back if the only message from some of these folks is no on everything, and sit around and twiddle my thumbs for the next 1,200 days,” he said.

Via: White House Dossier

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White House: Obama Will Reject Spending Cuts

The Obama administration dug in Sunday on its vow to reject proposed spending cuts by congressional Republicans in upcoming budget talks, but declined to say whether the president would veto their proposals or allow a government shutdown.

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told “Fox News Sunday” that President Obama will neither sign government funding bills that slash domestic spending nor negotiate with Republicans over spending cuts to reduce the federal debt limit.

    "Congress has to do its work."

- Treasury Secretary Jack Lew
However, he would not say whether the president would veto proposals and put the responsibility on Capitol Hill.

“Congress has to do its work," Lew said.
He also repeated what the administration has said in the weeks ahead of talks on short-term funding for federal agencies before a Sept. 30 deadline -- that Capitol Hill lawmakers must replace so-called sequester cuts with less drastic ones.

“Congress should find a way out of sequester,” Lew said.
The across-the-board cuts to Defense Department and domestic spending began in March, after Washington failed to agree on a more even approach.

He also said the president was not going to accept a budget in which domestic spending is further cut to soften the blow to Defense spending.

“That's unacceptable," Lew, who appeared on three Sunday shows to re-enforce the president’s positions,  told  NBC's "Meet the Press." "He won't sign that.

Via: Fox News

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Is ObamaCare Destined to Become a Parking Lot?

Once upon a time, some of us counted heads and concluded that there was little chance of ObamaCare ever becoming law -- or, if through some mischance it did, ever staying law.  But now after the passage of a number of years and any amount of public and private maneuvering, our naiveté has evolved into a much more realistic view of politics.  We now know, for example, that if the left-wing liberal power structure get the chance to put another notch in their gun, they'll pull the trigger, no matter how many innocent people wind up shot.  No matter how many of their own party they have to bribe or threaten, no matter how much they have to lie about what they're doing, no matter how many stories they have to make up about other people. 

We also learned that the Republican Party establishment get by only by breathing the air bubbles trapped under the Democratic Party's ice.  And so, despite the election of 2010 -- indeed, in the face of the 2010 election -- the best we can get out of them are meaningless votes to repeal ObamaCare when the one effective blow they could have struck in the House of Representatives was to defund it, and they can't bring themselves to do it.

The final disillusionment was of course the Supreme Court.  A weak reed for Americans and especially conservatives to lean on but still, even some of the Democrat representatives and senators who voted for ObamaCare were hoping that the court would strangle it before it grew fangs.  No such luck.  Chief Justice John Roberts developed an opium-eater's vision of what ObamaCare was, or said he did (there must be story behind that!), and so, 5-4, we're bereft of any hope for relief.

Via: American Thinker

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McConnell Silent on Defunding Obamacare in CR, Says Senate GOP ‘United’ Against Obamacare

(CNSNews.com) – Although his office would not say whether Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is advising his GOP colleagues to oppose a plan by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) to defund Obamacare through a must-pass continuing resolution funding measure, the Senate Minority Leader’s office did say that his party is “united” in getting rid of the unpopular health care law.

“Republicans are 100 percent united in their support for repeal of Obamacare, and the Leader is a co-sponsor of a bill to defund it and a bill to repeal it,” Don Stewart, communications director for McConnell, told CNSNews.com in an email.

However, Stewart would not say whether McConnell opposes Sen. Lee’s plan or if news reports that McConnell is actively working against Lee are true.

The continuing resolution, or CR, is legislation to fund the government for a certain period in the new fiscal year, which starts on Oct. 1. It is must-pass legislation, meaning Congress and the president must come to an agreement on how much to spend and for how long by Sept. 30 or the government would shut down for lack of congressionally authorized funding.

Via: CNS News

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Progress in North Carolina

New clean-election standards and a law protecting unborn children have Democrats’ heads spinning. 

Democrats are terribly upset with Republicans in North Carolina: Having won the state house, the state senate, and the governorship, along with nine of thirteen U.S. House seats in the last election, Republicans in Raleigh are acting like they run the place.

The Republicans’ most controversial piece of legislation is a new voter-identification law, which Democrats are treating as the Second Coming of Jim Crow. Such is the low bar for controversy in the early 21st century: The new law simply requires that voters present a state-issued photo ID such as a driver’s license or the similar ID that the state issues to non-drivers. Other forms of identification not subject to the same documentation and security standards — such as student IDs and work IDs — are not acceptable under the new law. It is really something to watch the Democrats treat a trip to the DMV as an unbearable burden: Under Democratic initiatives, everything from a trip to the doctor’s office to opening a business requires or will require running a bureaucratic gauntlet indistinguishable from a trip to the DMV. Such trips are therefore properly regarded as educational: There is nothing that quite so perfectly attunes one’s senses to the ineptitude and hostility of a Democrat-dominated bureaucracy as a visit to the driver’s-license counter. Little wonder the Democrats object.

The absence of state-issued identification is not a bar to voting only — it marginalizes people from much of modern life, restricting their ability to travel or access financial services. If there are really that many in North Carolina who cannot get a state-issued ID, then the solution is to help them to do so.

Via: National Review Online

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