N.J. Gov. Chris Christie: Obamacare a ‘train wreck’ a newbie could’ve seen coming

Not only is Obamacare a “train wreck,” N.J. Gov. Chris Christie says, but it’s a train wreck that even a newbie politico could have predicted.

“This is a disaster, and it was a train wreck that anybody who’s managed anything, ever, in their lives could’ve seen coming,” Mr. Christie said to New Jersey 101.5 FM.

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But he was just getting warmed up.

Politico reported he went on: “This is just an awful law. It made no sense and that’s why I didn’t get into a state exchange. And no, I have absolutely no regrets. In fact, I’m really glad that the train wreck’s not mine. It’s [President Obama’s,]” and Mr. Obama is now “scrambling.”

Why?

He’s up the creek without a paddle on promises that Americans could keep their insurance plans if they wanted.

“This entire Obamacare program is a failure,” Mr. Christie said in the Politico report. “It’s a failure and people are seeing it starkly and clearly right now and the president is scrambling. He should’ve just told people the truth from the beginning, but you know what if he had — they wouldn’t have passed it. Not even Democrats would’ve passed this.”

Mr. Christie, the newly minted chairman of the Republican Governors Association, is a much-touted possible GOP nominee for president in 2016. He’s been a moderate conservative on many policies, such as climate change — and a vocal supporter of the president during the Superstorm Sandy devastation that hit New Jersey.

Via: Washington Times

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HAGAN PLEADS THE FIFTH ON OBAMACARE

Last week more of Kay Hagan’s Democratic colleagues revealed that they knew full well that some Americans would lose health care plans that they liked, yet repeatedly made dishonest promises otherwise.

Kay Hagan, however, has repeatedly refused to acknowledge the truth that millions of Americans are losing health insurance that they like as they are forced into the ObamaCare exchanges. This is - and always has been - an intended consequence of the Affordable Care Act.

ABC11′s Jon Camp reports: “Sen Kay Hagan defends ‘Obamacare’ but won’t say when she learned not everyone would be able to keep their insurance, as promised.”

Click here to watch the full segment.

Kay Hagan’s own spokesperson all but admitted that the Senator knew that Americans would lose their health insurance, despite repeatedly promising otherwise. Three years ago, Hagan joined her Senate Democratic colleagues in unanimously supporting the very ObamaCare rule that’s responsible for the health insurance cancellations that have caused so much consternation over the last month. Even though 473,000 North Carolinians face the possibility of losing their health insurance, Kay Hagan refuses to accept responsibility for her deciding vote in favor of ObamaCare.

Either Hagan was knowingly dishonest about people keeping their care yet repeatedly promised otherwise; or, Hagan is so incompetent that she didn’t comprehend the legislation that she championed.

Via: Human Events

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Why Are Unions Protesting Walmart Again? Is It Because Five Million Americans Applied For 500,000 Union-Free Jobs?

Three days before unions protest at Walmarts across the country, Diana Furchtgott-Roth makes an interesting observation:

The odds of getting into one of the top American universities are about 1 in 10. American workers view Walmart in the same way as high school seniors view American colleges: last year 5 million Americans applied to Walmart for 500,000 jobs. These are highly valued positions.

But unions think that Walmart employment policies are flawed. For the second year in row, on Black Friday, one of the busiest shopping days of the year, unions are organizing 1,500 protests against Walmart. Protests will be held at stores as far north as Ellsworth, Maine, and Fargo, North Dakota, and as far south as Chula Vista, California, and Houston, Texas. [Emphasis added.]

Unions have long hated Walmart–not necessarily for its policies, but more for the fact that Walmart associates do not pay union dues and the company’s business model puts unionized grocers at a competitive disadvantage.

With one million associates, if the unions were to unionize Walmart (at $40 per month), not counting initiation fees to join, union bosses would stand to rake in nearly half a billion dollars in union dues from Walmart associates every year.

No wonder the unions are upset.

Via: Red State

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CARSON: A health care lemon - Americans have a right to an Obamacare refund

When I was a teenager, my mother broke her own rule of never buying someone else’s trouble and purchased a used car. We were quite excited because it was beautiful and sleek, and it was a convertible.

The salesman said the car was practically new and was the deal of the century. Before long, it was discovered that the engine was completely shot, and the car was essentially a beautiful piece of junk. The salesman did not know my mother, and in the end, gladly refunded her money and took the car back.

This kind of story is, of course, the reason that used-car salesmen have such a bad reputation. Just behind used-cars salesmen are politicians, who have also been known to sell people a bill of goods with no substance. Obamacare is such a bill of goods, one that was promoted as one thing and turned out to be something quite different. In the real world, it is frequently possible to gain legal relief in the case of a fraudulent deal, but in the case of Obamacare, we are being told that it is the law of the land and that you simply must live with it.

When you place misdeeds by the government beyond the reach of normal mechanisms of recourse, you establish a condition ripe for abuse. If a bill is passed under false pretenses, shouldn’t we question its legitimacy and. at the very least, reintroduce the bill after disclosing the aspects that were hidden previously? If the bill still passes after such disclosure, it would then become legitimate. We must remember that we are talking about one-sixth of the U.S. 

economy. We should not be playing fast and loose with the laws and details surrounding the most important possession we have: our health. I think this would be a fair-minded solution to anyone who does not have ulterior motives in health care reform.

Via: Washington Times

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Faltering Obama revs up attacks

Buzz Cut:
• Faltering Obama revs up attacks
• President’s approval craters in Ohio
• Paperwork nightmare for small businesses
• Hillary handlers horn in on credit for Iran deal
• ‘We got married in a fever…’

FALTERING OBAMA REVS UP ATTACKS - President Obama is back in attack mode. Obama’s tone, which was briefly contrite following his admission that he had misled voters about being able to keep their insurance policies, turned combative during his West Coast campaign swing. He blamed Republicans for problems with his faltering health law, promising that “anybody who is going to keep on pushing against that, they will meet my resistance.” Obama is very much reverting to his 2012 playbook: firing up the base with sharp attacks on Republicans and personalizing policy differences. That’s one thing in an election when he could pin it on an individual opponent, but quite another when the issue is a law passed with only Democratic votes and enacted by his own administration. While liberals may be feeling less bilious as signups for free and subsidized health insurance pick up, the problem is all about the people who are losing coverage and jobs because of the law.

[Calls to delay the next round of penalties under the health law are growing louder. WSJ has more]

Gather together - Liberals armed with Twitter-fed talking points are ready to bring the battle of ObamaCare to the Thanksgiving dinner table, but the problems will far outlast the holiday or any of the shifting deadlines for enactment and enforcement of the law. The president’s hope to revive and drive his campaign supporters in defense of ObamaCare sounds okay for an administration deep in panic mode, but what about when the cancellation notices keep rolling out and premium spikes continue to torment so many of the 85 percent of Americans who already have coverage? Convincing folks that the uninsured should be covered is one thing, but telling them that they have to give up coverage or pay more for what they have in order to finance it is quite another.

Via: Fox News

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Obamacare’s online SHOP enrollment delayed by one year

The White House will hold off on launching its online health exchange where small businesses can shop for coverage until November 2014, an HHS official confirmed Wednesday.

Small businesses will still have the option to purchase coverage through the new marketplace but will not be able to do so online. Instead, until next fall, employers with fewer than 50 workers will need to work through a broker or agent to buy health plans for their employees.

"We’ve concluded that we can best serve small employers by continuing this offline process while we concentrate on both creating a smoothly functioning online experience in the SHOP Marketplace, and adding key new features, including an employee choice option and premium aggregation services, by November 2014," the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services wrote in a Q&A distributed to health law stakeholders.

Health law supporters expressed frustration at the decision, but said they still support the overall goal of making it easier for small businesses to shop for coverage.

Via: Washington Post

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Media to Obama: Where’s the openness you promised?

About 40 different news groups have joined forces to demand the White House answer this one question: Where’s all the open government that President Obama promised?

In a letter sent last week, followed by a meeting among White House officials and members of the press, the media groups complained about restrictions that have been placed on photographers whose primary job descriptions are to take pictures of the president, the Los Angeles Times reported. Only thing is: The White House won’t grant them access, preferring instead to send out photos that have been snapped by their own, in-house photographer.

The practice is tantamount to propaganda, the news organizations complained.

Or, in the words of their letter: The restrictions on accessing the president create “a troubling precedent with a direct and adverse impact on the public’s ability to independently monitor and see what its government is doing.”

Among those complaining are the White House Correspondents Association and the Tribune Company, the L.A. Times reported.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said in an email, reported by the L.A. Times, that the administration was “working to address some of the concerns raised by photographers covering the White House. We certainly do not believe that official photos released by the White House are a substitute for the work of independent journalists.”

Via: Washington Times

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Good news: Bloomberg’s gun-control group offering printable placemats for Thanksgiving dinner

More or less annoying than the Thanksgiving ObamaCare talking points from OFA? I’m going to say “more,” not because of the subject matter but because the thought of sitting down to eat after a lecture about health insurance only to find more leftist propaganda staring back at me might make me flip the table. Simple request for America’s O-bots this week: Choose. You can either encourage me to throw my money away on an ObamaCare plan I can’t afford or convince me to give up my gun because that’ll reduce the odds of another mass shooting by one one-hundred-millionth or whatever. Thanksgiving is a day for indulgence, but only within reason.

Click here for full size. Can a placemat do what a months-long White House campaign last winter couldn’t, my friends?

Question: Given that so many liberal activists have decided that Thursday is a day for Raising Awareness, is it worth shifting to a preemption strategy? All I want to do is watch football and eat but that kind of passivity might land me in the audience for some twentysomething cousin’s 45-minute meditation on how “if you like your plan” wasn’t technically a lie. Maybe the only solution is to prepare a list of topics and start running through it as soon as the guests’ coats are off. Baseball’s new instant-replay rule, the terribleness of “Homeland,” America’s awakening to the fact that Chinese-food cartons are supposed to be opened and used as plates — there’s no shortage of ways to play conversational keep-away from the earnest young liberal who read this awesome Ezra Klein post the other day about enrollment targets that he wants to tell you about. Be proactive. And take comfort in the fact that, come next Thanksgiving, lefties will be looking to play their own game of conversational keep-away.

Via: Hot Air

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EXCLUSIVE--TEA PARTY PATRIOTS: KARL ROVE CANNOT 'BUY HIS WAY INTO THE CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT'

In response to the news that Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS is funding Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) to the tune of $26 million in 2012, Tea Party Patriots National Coordinator Jenny Beth Martin told Breitbart News that Rove cannot buy his way into the conservative movement.

“The old adage 'keep your friends close and your enemies closer' is more relevant in today’s political arena than ever before,” Martin said. “It is not surprising that there are groups we thought were in this fight with us have been shown to have ulterior motives." 

"The GOP establishment is uncomfortable with the Tea Party and the fact that Karl Rove is funding other establishment entities that have undermined or dismissed the Tea Party shows that we need to work harder than ever on behalf of the American people," she explained. "The bottom line is that Rove is not a conservative and will never be able to buy his way into the conservative movement.”

On Monday, news broke that Rove was funding Norquist’s organization, according to Crossroads GPS's tax return documents the organization made public. In addition to the revelation that Norquist’s ATR is funded by Rove, ProPublica questioned the legality of the arrangement between the two GOP establishment entities.

Via: Breitbart

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Wisconsin: State Considers Pro-Abortion License Plates

Personalized license plates are a common offering among motor vehicle departments across the nation. Whether through a message or the design of the tag itself, motorists are able to express causes or issues close to their hearts.

For some Wisconsin legislators, drivers who want to ensure that more babies are killed in America should not be left out. Democrat State Rep. Chris Taylor recently proposed an initiative that would allow residents to purchase a “Support Planned Parenthood” license plate design.

Taylor, who previously served as the abortion provider’s public policy director, said she favored the option for “consumers who feel very passionately” about snuffing the life from a defenseless human child.

Her proposal came just weeks after Republican lawmakers voted to introduce a “Choose Life” tag design.

Naturally, leftists in the state felt compelled to answer the conservative message with their own barbaric beliefs. Furthermore, all purchases of the plate would result in a $25 donation to Planned Parenthood.

An organization that funnels millions of taxpayer dollars into its network of abortion mills obviously needs the additional revenue stream in order to maintain its dedication to “women’s health.”

Via: Western Journalism

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