Morning Bell: Should We Delay or Defund Obamacare?

Conservatives are united in one idea: Obamacare is devastating policy for America. To halt its destructive effects, some are saying Congress should merely delay the law. But to truly stop it, Obamacare must be defunded.

Some conservatives are arguing for postponing the individual mandate and employer mandate for one year. Others add that Obamacare’s new entitlements should be delayed.

Delay is not enough.

Obamacare is far more than the individual mandate, the employer mandate, and the new entitlement spending. It’s a massive, government-centered restructuring of American health care.

Simply delaying Obamacare:

• …doesn’t stop Obamacare from harming people. Regulators could continue to enforce the Health and Human Services (HHS) anti-conscience mandate and issue new Obamacare rules that raise costs and premiums for struggling businesses and families alike.
• …is a gift to the Obama Administration. Federal bureaucrats have missed nearly half of their self-imposed deadlines to get the law up and running. Why provide them more time to make sure thousands of regulations are entrenched in the private health care sector?
• …doesn’t stop Obamacare programs from launching. A 53-page Obamacare timeline shows that in 2014 alone, 27 separate Obamacare programs and requirements are scheduled to take effect.

Via: The Foundry

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A Guide To The Nation's Most Vulnerable Governors

If you're looking for the most interesting gubernatorial races to watch in the coming year, the nation's biggest states are a good place to start.

Democrats Jerry Brown and Andrew Cuomo look like safe bets for re-election in California and New York, respectively. And, despite the pending retirement of Rick Perry, Republicans are confident of maintaining their hold on the governor's mansion in Texas.

But Florida, Pennsylvania and Illinois all feature embattled incumbents whose reelection campaigns will easily cost tens of millions of dollars. Michigan GOP Gov. Rick Snyder could also face a real contest.

In all, 36 states will be voting for governor in 2014. All but a handful will feature incumbents favored for re-election.

List of current United States governors

Two states are holding gubernatorial contests this year. New Jersey Republican Chris Christie is considered close to a lock for a second term, while the open race in Virginia between Republican Ken Cuccinelli and Democrat Terry McAuliffe remains a toss-up.

With no discernible "wave" as yet looking likely to break in favor of one party or the other next year, the overall partisan breakdown — currently favoring the GOP by 30 to 20 — is not likely to change terribly much.

Each contest matters, however. Within each state, the governor is the main political actor and can largely set the agenda as he or she sees fit.

Via: NPR

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MORE GUNS EQUAL LESS CRIME AGAINST WOMEN

Concealed carry laws not only benefit society by lowering violent crime, they benefit women especially by lowering violent crimes most often directed toward them. 

As Breitbart News reported on August 25, concealed carry laws prove guns are part of the solution to gun violence. 

During the early 1990s, as concealed carry laws were being instituted around the country,gun scholar John Lott used FBI stats to show the value of such laws at the county level. For example, in counties where concealed carry laws went into effect, "murder fell by about 8 percent, rapes fell by about 5 percent, and aggravated assaults fell by 7 percent."

Lott also demonstrated that while the passage of concealed carry laws benefit both men and women, they actually benefit women more.

For example, in the category of murder, Lott used FBI crime stats to find that "one additional woman carrying a concealed handgun reduces the murder rate for women by 3-4 times more than one additional man carrying a concealed handgun reduces the murder rate for men."

Lott claimed, "This occurs because allowing a woman to defend herself with a concealed handgun produces a much larger change in her ability to defend herself than the change created by providing a man with a handgun."

Criminals target those whom they believe will be the easiest victims; for this reason women are especially targeted for certain crimes because criminals believe they can physically overtake women easier than men. But a gun in a woman's hand changes this scenario completely. 

A woman who can shoot back is not a victim, and she could be a criminal's worst nightmare.

Via: Breitbart

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[Flashback] ‘Nothing More Impeachable' Than War Without Authorization, Says Constitutional Scholar

(CNSNews.com) - Louis Fisher, a scholar in residence at the Constitution Project who served for 40 years as a constitutional law expert at the Library of Congress, says Americans and members of Congress should understand that President Barack Obama committed a “very grave offense” against the Constitution in taking military action in Libya without congressional authorization.

“I am not going to recommend that the House Judiciary Committee hold impeachment hearings, but I would like members of Congress and the public to say that nothing would be more impeachable than a President who takes the country to war without coming to Congress, who does it unilaterally,” Fisher told CNSNews.com’s Online With Terry Jeffrey.

“So, I would like people to be educated, including members of Congress, to be educated that that is a very grave offense,” said Fisher.

On March 19, President Barack Obama ordered the U.S. military to take actions against the Libyan regime of Muammar Gadhafi.

The day before that, Obama had given a speech stating that a resolution passed by the U.N. Security Council on the previous day that authorized the use of military force in Libya would justify U.S. action there.

Via: CNS News

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Coulter slams media for hyping rare white-on-black crime while ignoring black-on-white crime

On Saturday’s broadcast of “Justice with Judge Jeanine” on the Fox News Channel, conservative commentator Ann Coulter took aim at the media for its handling of interracial crime, accusing it of playing up rare white-on-black crime while ignoring the more prevalent black-on-white crime.

Coulter, author of “Mugged: Racial Demagoguery from the Seventies to Obama,” blamed President Barack Obama for the phenomenon and cited Justice Department statistics on interracial rape to make her case.

“It was much worse in the ’70s, ’80s,” Coulter said. “We’re getting back to it. Obama brought it all back and that’s this racial etiquette from the media. They don’t report on the much more common black-on-white crime, but the very rare man-bites-dog story of white-on-black crime — that gets covered hysterically not because it is a man-bites-dog story, but they act as if, ‘No, this is all too common, it’s the racism in America.’ No, it is very rare. In one example of my book — rape cases, interracial rape cases, the number of black-on-white rapes going back 15 years, 15 years there are about 1,000-to-2,000 a year black-on-white rapes. For 15 years according to the Department of Justice victimization surveyd, the number of white-on-black rapes are either 0.0 or sample too small for a number.”

Coulter referenced the beating death of 88-year-old World War II veteran Delbert “Shorty” Belton and the lack of coverage of it in places beyond the Drudge Report and Fox News as evidence that the media tend to ignore white-on-black crime.

Watch:

Via: Daily Caller
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Barack Obama, Rush Limbaugh and the politics of blame

President Obama blamed some of his problems on Rush Limbaugh the other day. And that may not be a brilliant strategy.

In an interview with CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, the president said that some congressional Republicans tell him privately that they believe defunding ObamaCare is a bad idea, but say they are “worried about what Rush Limbaugh is going to say about me on the radio.”

Really? A guy with a microphone is preventing the president of the United States from getting his way on Capitol Hill? Is Rush that powerful?

Cuomo, to his credit, pressed Obama: “How much of the lack of action in Washington do you put on yourself in terms of blame?” he asked. Obama went Trumanesque, saying “the buck stops with me” but that he is “frustrated” by GOP intransigence.

Let’s unpack this a bit. As the nation’s most powerful radio broadcaster, Limbaugh is an unquestioned force on the right. But when Republicans (who probably do want to defund ObamaCare but don’t want the political risks of a government shutdown) invoke him, what they’re really saying is they fear a backlash from conservatives powered by the likes of Limbaugh.

They don’t want a Tea Party primary challenger. They don’t want their fundraising to dry up. They don’t want leading conservative pundits to turn on them.

So Obama was indulging in a bit of shorthand by saying his problem is El Rushbo—and in the process elevated Limbaugh to his level.

Via: Fox News Politics

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Why won't the president visit North Dakota?

Good question because North Dakota, which produced an eye-popping 800,000 bbls of oil last month, has now become the second largest oil producing state behind Texas.

And it's all happened without much help from the federal government.

Why should Obama visit?

National Journal:

This energy boom is producing clear benefits, for North Dakota, which has the lowest unemployment rate in the country, and for the rest of America, which is importing the fewest barrels of oil since the mid-1990s and getting closer than ever to the elusive goal of energy independence.

"I would encourage him to go out," said former Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who campaigned with Obama in the state in 2008. "You've got to see it to believe it. It's a big boost to our economy and also a big boost to our nation's energy policy."

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., is planning to visit the region in September, and Interior Secretary Sally Jewell toured the oil fields earlier this month. While notable, these visits don't carry with them the power and significance of a presidential trip.

"He's got an incredibly busy travel schedule, and it's not something we've spoken about," Jewell said. "The president relies on me and other members of his Cabinet to be his eyes and ears on the ground where development is taking place."

Jewell said she and Obama have so far only talked at "a high level about a commitment to an all-of-the-above energy strategy about reducing our dependence on foreign oil," Jewell said. "But, I haven't had a conversation with him about the Bakken. I know his advisers close with him are keenly aware of it."

Via: American Thinker

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AP Takes Meat Cleaver To Obama Foreign Policy

WASHINGTON (AP) - Nearly five years into his presidency, Barack Obama confronts a world far different from what he envisioned when he first took office. U.S. influence is declining in the Middle East as violence and instability rock Arab countries. An ambitious attempt to reset U.S. relations with Russia faltered and failed. Even in Obama-friendly Europe, there's deep skepticism about Washington's government surveillance programs.

In some cases, the current climate has been driven by factors outside the White House's control. But missteps by the president also are to blame, say foreign policy analysts, including some who worked for the Obama administration.

Among them: miscalculating the fallout from the Arab Spring uprisings, publicly setting unrealistic expectations for improved ties with Russia and a reactive decision-making process that can leave the White House appearing to veer from crisis to crisis without a broader strategy.

Rosa Brooks, a former Defense Department official who left the administration in 2011, said that while the shrinking U.S. leverage overseas predates the current president, "Obama has sometimes equated 'we have no leverage' with 'there's no point to really doing anything'."

Obama, faced most urgently with escalating crises in Egypt and Syria, has defended his measured approach, saying America's ability to solve the world's problems on its own has been "overstated."

Via: AP

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