Democratic Strategists in 2014 Are Like French Generals in 1940

It is reminiscent of the quandary faced by Gen. Maurice Gamelin on the evening of May 15, 1940. Suddenly he realized that German panzer troops had broken through the supposedly impassable Ardennes.

French troops to the north were cut off and rendered useless, troops to the south were falling back in disarray on all sides and no reserves were available between the front and Paris. "Yes," he told the prime minister, "it means the destruction of the French Army."

Now, analogies between military history and politics are never exact, and no one in American politics remotely resembles the Nazis. But there is some resemblance between the plight of Gen. Gamelin and the plight of Democratic strategists in key Senate and congressional races this year.

The general had run out of feasible alternatives. His one hope was that the other side would make a mistake. Alas, the Germans didn't, and a great nation was lost within a few days.

Today's Democrats face losing an election, not a nation, and the cause is Obamacare. They stand on ground of their own choosing, which they suddenly find themselves unable to defend, and they must hope that the opposition makes disabling mistakes.

That has been made starkly clear by Republican David Jolly's defeat of the better-known Democrat Alex Sink in the Florida-13 special election on March 11. The margin wasn't large, 49 percent to 47 percent, and the dropoff in Democratic vote not huge -- President Obama carried the district 50 percent to 49 percent in 2012.

What was more significant is that the well-financed, national party-selected Sink was unable to defend her ground.

Entirely missing from her campaign was a message along the lines of "hands off my Obamacare." You would have heard something like that if a Republican had advocated repealing Social Security or Medicare a year or two after these programs were passed.

But support for Obamacare has been under 50 percent since before it was passed. Democrats would be running ads showing happy Obamacare consumers if they could find any.

Via: Real Clear Politics
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Michelle Obama Takes Another Taxpayer-Funded Trip

The first lady, her mother, her two kids, plus numerous White House aides and security personnel are going to tour China this month, but White House officials are refusing to say how much the taxpayers will pay for the trip.

However, they did say it would be a thrill for everyone on the trip, including for Michelle Obama’s top aide, Tina Tchen.

“It is a real honor and privilege, and I think we are all, here in the first lady’s office, quite excited about the upcoming trip,” said Tchen, just after she declared that “my parents emigrated from China in the late ’40s, so this … will be my fourth time returning to China but the first time, obviously, in a role such as this.”

(Read Full Article)

Via: California Political Review

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Energy-booming states continue to outshine energy-regressive states

The Federal Government released yesterday its monthly “Regional and State Employment and Unemployment” report of January. (The State numbers are released 4-6 weeks after the national numbers are out).

Here are some interesting numbers about January – the latest month available:

– The unemployment rate in Texas (5.7%), Utah (3.9%), South Dakota (3.6%), and in North Dakota (2.6%) are well below January’s national UR of 6.6%, while the UR in Illinois (8.7%), California (8.1%), and New York (6.8%) are higher than the national average. A key issue that empowers the first half state over the second half is energy production: ND and TX have massively increased their production in recent years while NY and CA have both cut their natural gas and crude oil production since 2008.

– In terms of jobs, Texas added 778,600 jobs in the last five years starting with February 2009 (Obama’s first full month in office), while California produced 644K jobs in the same period. New York State came in a distant third with 270,500 added jobs. ND in this same period produced about 85K jobs. Remember: ND does not even have close to 1M people living there while NY has almost 20 million and CA almost 40 million!

- The 863,600 combined jobs created in two of the most energy-producing states (TX-ND), account for 24.3% of the net jobs created since Obama’s first full month in office. Meanwhile, NY and CA, two energy-regressive states with a combined population more than double of TXND, produced only 25.7% of the jobs over the same period.

Considering that the jobs data are based on surveys and rough estimates subject to endless revisions, it’s fair to say that job gains in NYCA are essentially the same as in TXND despite boasting 58M people to the 27M of TXND.

If only the people running GOP messaging had the brains to showcase those numbers during the 2012 election.

Democrats try to dismiss  these numbers by claiming that those jobs are low-paying. Putting aside the fact that by saying this, the Democrats are trashing a BIG percent of the Obama-era jobs, the fact is that of all the state that income to the bottom 5% fell since the recovery began, it dropped least in TX. Better yet, of the three states that income to this class actually rose, it did best in ND!

Via: The Right Scoop

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Reince Priebus Predicts 2014 ‘Tsunami Election’ for GOP

“I think we’re in for a tsunami-type election in 2014,” Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus told the audience at Tuesday morning’s Christian Science Monitor breakfast in Washington, D.C. Looking ahead to this fall’s midterm elections, Priebus boldly predicted big gains for the GOP, especially in the Senate.

”My belief is, it’s going to be a very big win, especially at the U.S. Senate level, and we may add some seats in congressional races,” Priebus predicted. “But I need to and we need to at the RNC make sure that we can capture the positives and the benefits we’ve been able to provide in 2014 and build on that to have success in 2016, which is a very different type of election.”

RELATED: Progressive Pundits Trying to Scare Democrats into Holding the Senate

The chairman went on to “guess” that the biggest demographic gains for Republicans would come from young people and women as a direct result of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. “It’s very, very, very personal among women losing your doctor, getting your insurance canceled,” he said. “Then young people, Obamacare is intentionally designed to screw young people over. Actuaries sat down, decided, let’s just screw over everyone 35 and younger. That’s what they did.”

Priebus’ comments echo a similarly bullish prediction Rush Limbaugh made last month on his radio show. The host predicted a 2014 “wave election that would make 2010 look small,” when Republicans successfully picked up control of the House.

Via: Mediaite.com

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Report: Premiums rising faster than eight years before Obamacare COMBINED

Health insurance premiums have risen more after Obamacare than the average premium increases over the eight years before it became law, according to the private health exchange eHealthInsurance.

The individual market for health insurance has seen premiums rise by 39 percent since February 2013, eHealth reports. Without a subsidy, the average individual premium is now $274 a month. Families have been hit even harder with an average increase of 56 percent over the same period — average premiums are now $663 per family, over $426 last year.

Between 2005 and 2013, average premiums for individual plans increased 37 percent and average family premiums were upped 31 percent. So they have risen faster under Obamacare than in the previous eight years.

An important caveat is that eHealth’s prices don’t include subsidies, so the prices for anyone earning between 100 and 400 percent of the federal poverty level will be lower. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has repeatedly claimed patients will pay as little as $18 per month, without noting the taxpayer cost.

Premiums are being hiked across the board for several reasons, but the biggest contributor is the Obama administration’s highly touted “essential health benefits,” services that insurers on and off exchanges must provide.

Some benefits, such as emergency and laboratory services, are uncontroversial. But others, like maternity, newborn and pediatric services, are causing headaches for huge swaths of the population that don’t need them. Anyone past childbearing age, single men, the infertile, even nuns — their premiums are rising as well, because their plans must, by law, provide more services.

But premiums aren’t the only key to health care costs — deductibles and out-of-pocket costs like co-pays are also rising. When it comes to employer health plans alone, four out of five U.S. companies have increased deductibles or are considering doing so. (RELATED: 4 of 5 companies may hike deductibles due to Obamacare)

Prices may be people away from purchasing health insurance. The latest survey from consulting firm McKinsey found that half of those who haven’t purchased health insurance yet this year cited their inability to pay the premium.

Via: The Daily Caller

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Obama to Hispanics: We won’t deport relatives if you enroll in ObamaCare

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President Obama on Tuesday sought to assure legal immigrants that they can sign up for ObamaCare without worrying that “the immigration people” will come for family members who are in the country illegally.

In an interview with Univision Deportes, a Spanish-language sports radio show, Obama said immigration officials won’t have access to the personal information that consumers provide when signing up for healthcare on the new exchanges.

“Well, the main thing for people to know is that any information you get, you know, asked with respect to buying insurance, does not have anything to do with … the rules governing immigration,” Obama said. “And you know, you can qualify if you’re a legal resident, if you are … legally present in the United States. You know, if you have a family where some people are citizens or legally here, and others are not documented, the immigration people will never get that information.”

The administration has made this point before, but Hispanics have been slow to enroll under ObamaCare, and some believe mixed-status families might be staying away from the exchanges out of fear it will jeopardize family members in the country illegally.

“You know, you will qualify, you know, regardless of what your family’s status is,” Obama said on Tuesday. “So, you know, people should not hold back just because they’re in a mixed-family status.”

The White House has said there are 10.2 million uninsured Hispanics eligible for ObamaCare in the country, and about 8.1 million are likely eligible for tax credits. Hispanics have the highest rate of uninsured of any ethnic group in the country.

The administration has focused on Hispanics in its final enrollment push through initiatives like the Latino Enrollment Week of Action, and in its partnership with Spanish-language media.

Obama’s Tuesday interview on a sports talk show also dovetails with the administration’s effort to leverage the popular NCAA basketball tournament to get its message out.

Via: The Hill
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[CARTOON] Obama’s Genie Problem

Via: California Political Review
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Epitaphs for the Obama presidency (3)

American voters don’t care much about foreign policy … until they do. And President Barack Obama has painted himself (and our national security) into a corner. The estimable Roger Kimball clearly sees where this is leading:

In a melancholy passage of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle observes  that we can follow certain courses of action which will put us in situations where there is no right response.  Whatever we do, it will be wrong, or at least unhappy.

Confronted with the West’s habitual acquiescence in the face of Russian (and not only Russian) swagger and belligerence, Aristotle would no doubt have said, “See what I mean,” or words to that effect.

Skillful diplomacy might have headed off the crisis in Crimea.  But we did not field skillful diplomats. We sent John Kerry, backed up by Barack Obama, Susan Rice, and Joe Biden. As in 1854, “someone had blundered.” Tennyson recorded the result.  Today, the “reset button” turns out to have been disconnected at the source. Obama really did push it. Comrade Putin paid it no heed. He had taken the measure of the man long ago. 

Via: American Thinker
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[VIDEO] Epitaphs for the Obama presidency (2)

Bringing home the point that the youthvote has caught on that Obama is a big phony, a former Obama groupie has taken to YouTube to vent her disgust with the man she voted for. Worse, she has done so with a compelling visual image. Tom Tillison of BizPacReviewwrites:

Saying she was once among President Obama‘s “most hysterical supporters,” Carey Wedler wants the world to know she has come to see the president in a different light these past five years.

Wedler, who now calls Obama “the criminal-in-chief,” posted a video Thursday on her Youtube channel titled, “Why I’m burning my last bridge with Obama.” In the video, she is seen burning an Obama t-shirt she wore on the night he was first elected in 2008.

Watch her, and enjoy her rant:

 Via: American Thinker
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Epitaphs for the Obama presidency (1)

Things are falling apart for Obama so fast (“freakout” is the current term showing up in even liberal outlets) that the measure of his presidency is already being taken. Bret Stephens, writing in the Wall Street Journal, has a particularly pungent and insightful column full of near-aphorisms on the president and the media forces which sustain him with decreasing effectiveness. A sample:

A cavalier foreign policy by an inattentive president that elicits the contempt of the people it intends to punish ultimately encourages their aggression as well.

…We need a fat president. Or at least one who rarely thinks and never speaks about how he looks in jeans. And one who doesn't spend his day testing his wits against a Hollywood stoner or bantering with Ryan Seacrest while a European ally is being pummeled by Russia. And one who would rather spend his time working than working out, even if it means putting on a few pounds. And one who can pitch from the mound and reach home plate. However confined.

Via: American Thinker
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Brad Blakeman: Ceding Control of Internet ‘Part of President’s Strategy of Appeasement & Pandering’

The U.S. government plans to open up the body that manages Internet names and addresses to the global Internet community.

This would mean giving up control of a system developed in the U.S.

Brad Blakeman, former deputy assistant to President George W. Bush, explained the plan to Harris Faulkner on “Fox Report.” He said the Department of Commerce currently keeps track of and doles out all domains and IP addresses. Now, the Obama administration wants to cede that authority to an international body.

“I think it’s part of the president’s strategy of appeasement and pandering,” Blakeman said.

According to Blakeman, the move could raise access fees for domains and IP addresses.

“We should control it. We made it, we paid for it, it’s ours,” he said.

Via: Fox Insider

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L.A. earthquake: Shaking, jolted nerves reported across wide area

A 4.4-magnitude earthquake that struck near Westwood provided an early morning jolt for the greater Los Angeles area, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

The quake struck at 6:25 a.m. at a depth of 5.3 miles, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The quake was centered two miles north of Sherman Oaks, not far from the intersection of Mulholland Drive and the 405 Freeway.

A shallow magnitude 2.7 earthquake followed up at 7:23 a.m. four miles from Westwood, according to the USGS. That quake was reported at a depth of 4.3 miles. 

The Los Angeles Fire Department was in "earthquake emergency mode" as crews surveyed the city by air and on the ground, but public safety officials across the region said there did not appear to be any significant damage.

“We did our initial survey and it was felt only. No reports of any damage,” said County Fire Supervisor Michael Pittman.

FULL COVERAGE: Southern California earthquakes

Joe Ramallo of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power said that as of 6:45 a.m. there were no reports of water main breaks or power outages immediately following the earthquake. But he said crews are conducting routine safety checks after the quake to ensure their durability.

Metro light rail service, meanwhile, had resumed normal service shortly after 7 a.m. after a system-wide inspection found no damage.

Stacey Dirks, the 25-year-old assistant manager at Noah’s New York Bagels in Westwood, was at work at the time and said “it just felt like a sudden shake, it was just like rapid and quick.”

No bagels fell off the shelves and “everything stayed in place,” Dirks said.

Via: LA Times
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Why Liberals Can’t Govern

Back in late February, a new contract document revealed that the Department of Health and Human Services would be paying $60 million for the computer cloud that supports back-end data sharing for HealthCare.gov and state Obamacare marketplaces, more than five times the amount in the original contract. This week HHS revealed that the contract has been further revised — to roughly $120 million, now more than ten times the original $11 million value of the contract when Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services first awarded it in 2011.

In most professions, when you end up spending ten times what you budgeted, the consequences are swift and severe. Heads roll. Responsibilities are reassigned. Budgetary authority gets yanked. This, of course, is not how things work in the federal government.

When George W. Bush was in the Oval Office, liberals often argued that conservative wariness and distrust of government made them poor managers of it. Because they didn’t believe in the power and benefits of an active, powerful federal bureaucracy, they tolerated and came to expect waste and mismanagement.

Alan Wolfe articulated this idea in the Washington Monthly in 2006. “Unable to shrink government but unwilling to improve it, conservatives attempt to split the difference,” he wrote, “expanding government for political gain, but always in ways that validate their disregard for the very thing they are expanding. The end result is not just bigger government, but more incompetent government. . . . As a way of governing, conservatism is another name for disaster.” His article was entitled simply “Why Conservatives Can’t Govern.”

Via: NRO

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CA Republicans Seek Return to Reagan Blue

At this weekend’s state party convention at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport, a group of influential California Republicans has an odd request for delegates: help turn California blue. 

“Around the globe, blue is identified with conservative, free market parties, while red is identified with social democratic parties,” points out Shawn Steel, a former chairman of the state party who now serves as its representative on the Republican National Committee. “It is why conservative-leaning Democrats in Congress were called ‘Blue Dogs.’ Everyone knew what it meant.”

Steel is among a group of Republicans that have introduced a resolution calling for the California Republican Party to adopt blue as its official color in branding materials. The informal coalition of “Republicans, Red No More” says that it’s time to conform to proper historical and international standards for political ideology, correct a 14-year-old mistake by the mainstream media and, in the process, confront “the idea of a hopelessly divided nation.”

The group has some high-profile backers, including two members of California’s congressional delegation.

“Should the Republican Party choose its own principles and symbols, or should we let the national media do that for us?” asked Rep. Doug La Malfa, R- Richvale, in an email to delegates. “Well, the answer should be obvious.”

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach, pleads, “Will you join with me in taking back our Reagan Blue?” He was a speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan.

No Red States and Blue States

Think the whole color conundrum is trivial? Wayne Johnson, one of the state’s most successful political consultants, believes that the media’s emphasis on red states vs. blue states increases public cynicism about the political process.

Via: California Political Review

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Obama: Health Insurance Isn't Expensive - Just Cancel Your Cable and Phones!

This is a few days old, but it’s amusing nonetheless. Barack Obama appeared in a town hall for Spanish-language media on March 6th to discuss ObamaCare and promote enrollments, and got challenged by a viewer on the economics of it for low-income Americans who are now forced to buy comprehensive health insurance. On a $36,000 annual income, the requirement to buy the broad policy rather than something a little more economical — say, hospitalization coverage combined with an HSA, a strategy which is now all but illegal — makes it impossible to comply. Pshaw, Obama replied. Why, all those low-income folks need to do is stop spending money on luxuries like cable television and cell phones!

The President responded that “if you looked at their cable bill, their telephone, their cell phone bill… it may turn out that, it’s just they haven’t prioritized health care.” He added that if a family member gets sick, the father “will wish he had paid that $300 a month.”

The Libre Initiative points out that premiums have skyrocketed, thanks to the forced changes in ObamaCare, along with the mandate for comprehensive coverage:

According to the National Center for Public Policy Research, the health care law is reducing choice and increasing premiums for millions of Americans. Ehealthinsurance reports that consumers are paying an average of 39% more than they did before the law was implemented. The high cost of policies is contributing to the continued weak enrollment numbers under the law, which are now showing signs of decreasing with less than 3 weeks left to enroll. When he sought the Presidency, Mr. Obama said his plan would deliver affordable care that people would be “desperate” to purchase.

Daniel Garza, Executive Director of The LIBRE Initiative released the following statement:

“If the President actually believes that a family earning less than $40,000 per year can afford nearly $4,000 in health insurance premiums, then he truly does not understand middle-income families. Americans do not need the President to tell them how to budget their households. People are already cutting back on things like cable television and cell phones, just to compensate for an awful economy.This President promised he would deliver on affordable health care. Instead, premiums are up, out-of-pocket expenses are up, and overall cost of living is up. The President simply doesn’t get it. And his condescending attitude adds insult to injury.”

Let’s take a look at that $300 a month, too. Assuming that we’re talking about a family of four, that would force the family to spend $3,600 a year. While that might be money well spent in the case of catastrophe, it’s a bad investment on several levels otherwise. If both kids break a bone, it might run them $500 each to get treated, or perhaps even a thousand each if they go to an emergency room. If they get the flu, perhaps another $200 each for a doctor visit. Throw in wellness checks for everyone at $250 each, and we’re talking about $3400 in medical care, $200 less than their premiums.

But wait! In most plans of that cost, the family will have to spend thousands of dollars in deductibles first for everything but the wellness checks — so the only benefit will be covering the $1000 those cost. In this example, the family that normally would have spent $3400 out of pocket in that year will now spend $5,800.

That’s why families such as the caller’s used HSAs to spend pre-tax money on routine care and smaller emergencies, and chose so-called catastrophic insurance to deal with serious issues requiring hospitalizations. They could do that and still afford to have a phone and cable TV, at least until Barack Obama assumed he could prioritize their budgets better than they could.

Via: Hot Air

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[CARTOON] The Democrats’ Hot Air

Via: California Political Review

ObamaCare's Secret Mandate Exemption - HHS quietly repeals the individual purchase rule for two more years.

ObamaCare's implementers continue to roam the battlefield and shoot their own wounded, and the latest casualty is the core of the Affordable Care Act—the individual mandate. To wit, last week the Administration quietly excused millions of people from the requirement to purchase health insurance or else pay a tax penalty.

This latest political reconstruction has received zero media notice, and the Health and Human Services Department didn't think the details were worth discussing in a conference call, press materials or fact sheet. Instead, the mandate suspension was buried in an unrelated rule that was meant to preserve some health plans that don't comply withObamaCare benefit and redistribution mandates. Our sources only noticed the change this week.

That seven-page technical bulletin includes a paragraph and footnote that casually mention that a rule in a separate December 2013 bulletin would be extended for two more years, until 2016. Lo and behold, it turns out this second rule, which was supposed to last for only a year, allows Americans whose coverage was cancelled to opt out of the mandate altogether.

In 2013, HHS decided that ObamaCare's wave of policy terminations qualified as a "hardship" that entitled people to a special type of coverage designed for people under age 30 or a mandate exemption. HHS originally defined and reserved hardship exemptions for the truly down and out such as battered women, the evicted and bankrupts

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

But amid the post-rollout political backlash, last week the agency created a new category: Now all you need to do is fill out a form attesting that your plan was cancelled and that you "believe that the plan options available in the [ObamaCare] Marketplace in your area are more expensive than your cancelled health insurance policy" or "you consider other available policies unaffordable."

This lax standard—no formula or hard test beyond a person's belief—at least ostensibly requires proof such as an insurer termination notice. But people can also qualify for hardships for the unspecified nonreason that "you experienced another hardship in obtaining health insurance," which only requires "documentation if possible." And yet another waiver is available to those who say they are merely unable to afford coverage, regardless of their prior insurance. In a word, these shifting legal benchmarks offer an exemption to everyone who conceivably wants one.

Via: WSJ

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