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Right Angle | Right Hook | Right Opinion
Patriot Headlines | Grassroots Commentary
FOUNDER'S QUOTE DAILY
"Men, to act with vigour and effect, must have time to mature measures, and judgment and experience, as to the best method of applying them. They must not be hurried on to their conclusions by the passions, or the fears of the multitude. They must deliberate, as well as resolve." --Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833
WH (Sort of) Open to O'care Delay
Remember just before the partial shutdown when Republicans offered to pass a continuing resolution if Democrats would concede to delay all of ObamaCare? At the time, the Left cried foul; a fiery Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid even blasted Republicans for having "lost their minds" by entertaining such a thought. Of course, that was then. Now that the shutdown is over, and given the troubles surrounding Healthcare.gov is making enrollment near impossible, they're evidently experiencing a change of heart. Press Secretary Jay Carney this week said, "The law is clear that if you do not have access to affordable health insurance then you will not be asked to pay a penalty because you haven't purchased affordable health insurance." The same law that Obama was willing to unilaterally delay for employers, but not individuals -- perhaps until it's convenient to do so. Once again, Obama's showing flexibility.
Blame Sebelius?
After some consternation over "will she or won't she," HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has agreed to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee next Wednesday, regarding the botched Healthcare.gov rollout. Sebelius vowed, "I'm not throwing out the system and starting over." Well, OK. Some House Republicans are calling on Sebelius to resign. However, to suggest she should be held responsible for the Healthcare.gov debacle implies that a better HHS Secretary might have made it work. Fact is, the failure of the rollout is but a metaphor for the reality that no government bureaucracy is ever going to manage 18% of the U.S. economy, much less a basic commerce website for insurance comparisons. As Mark Alexander has asserted, the "Silver Lining" of ObamaCare is that its cascading failures will be hung around Democrat necks for as long as the Democrats keep it intact.
Rubio: Delay Individual Mandate
With the ongoing repairs to Healthcare.gov making the website essentially useless, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is offering a bill that would delay ObamaCare's individual mandate until the exchange successfully operates for six successive months. "It's not fair to punish people for buying something that's not available," he said. HotAir reveals Rubio's strategy: "Delay the mandate for months and you're all but guaranteeing that healthy uninsured people won't sign up soon, which means insurers won't have the new revenue they were banking on to cover sick people's preexisting conditions. Voila -- you've created the conditions for an industry death spiral. Democrats know it too, just like they also know that they're not getting anything like single-payer through Congress so long as there's a Republican majority in the House. So they have no choice but to oppose Rubio's bill and defeat it in the Senate, even though doing so will make for terrible politics."
O'Care's Greatest Liability: O'Care
In 2010, Mark Alexander made the case that the enactment of the so-called "Affordable Healthcare Act" would come with dire consequences for Democrats, far beyond its disastrous rollout and other "up front" liabilities. Alexander recently wrote, "From October 1 forward, Americans of every political stripe who have any issue with health care will tie blame for their discontent like a noose around the necks of Obama and his Democrats, who enacted it, and more recently refused to defund or delay it." Indeed, Lanhee Chen, Hoover Institute Fellow and Stamford Professor of Public Policy, argues that Republicans need to get out of the way and let ObamaCare become a political liability for the Left. Chen notes, "Let's fight ObamaCare by getting out of the way. ... Republicans can still use Obamacare's failings to their advantage, but it will require a disciplined, realistic approach. And it means recognizing the impossibility of large-scale changes to the law while Barack Obama is president." Indeed, when your adversary is self destructing, don't interfere!
Seven Million by March?
The Obama administration announced that its objective is to sign a total of seven million ObamaCare "customers" by March of 2014. Unfortunately, economists estimate that it will take at least says 30 million signees, many of whom need to be young and healthy, if ObamaCare is to remain solvent. Of course, the word "solvent" is in no government dictionary.
Heritage Action Concedes
Given the consequences of the derailed House strategy to force Demo votes on measures to "defund" and "delay" ObamaCare, the president of one of the most well-funded grassroots organizations, Heritage Action, now concedes, "Everybody understands that we're not going to be able to repeal this law until 2017, and that we have to win the Senate and win the White House." Unfortunately the shutdown damage is done, but for the record, even the most novice of political observers could have predicted the Senate diversion and resulting Republican infighting would give Democrats an opening for a partial shutdown, which they would hang around Republican necks. And indeed they did. Some say there is nothing to be learned from the second kick of a donkey -- the first kick being the 1995 shutdown. But hopefully those who forgot the first kick will remember this one!
ObamaCare Workaround: 1-800-318-2596
At a Rose Garden press conference Monday, Barack Obama "celebrated" the launch of DemoCare, noting there have been a few glitches but advising the nation there are easy workarounds until Healthcare.gov is functional. "You can still buy the same quality affordable insurance plans the old-fashioned way -- over the phone. You can get your questions answered by real people 24 hours a day in 150 different languages. The phone number for these call centers is 1-800-318-2596. I want to repeat that: 1-800-318-2596. Wait times have averaged less than one minute so far on the call centers." Apparently, somebody forgot to tell Obama that the call center "navigators" use the same Healthcare.gov website that has failed consumers, which is to say the wait time on calls is because it only takes a minute to tell somebody there is nothing that can be done by phone!
$17 Trillion? Actually $205 Trillion
Stanley Druckenmiller, one of the most brilliant market analysts in history, notes, "there's just one little problem" with the politicians' math on the debt. "Everyone's running around saying the debt is $17 trillion." In fact, if government were run like a business, its balance sheets would actually have to list unfunded liabilities like Social Security and Medicare. When those liabilities are added, our "future liabilities are $205 trillion, not 17." If you thought $17 trillion is bad, the actual liabilities are about 12 times the size of the U.S. economy.
CA Shoots Down 2nd Amendment
California's 4th District (Division 1) Court of Appeal has ruled that the state's ban on AK-style semi-automatic rifles -- or "assault weapons," as the Left so meticulously calls them -- does not violate the Second Amendment. The Court opines, "We construe *Heller* as standing for the proposition that the right secured by the Second Amendment is 'not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose' ... but is instead the right to possess and carry weapons typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes such as hunting or self-defense..." This infringement is not what the Founders intended, as illustrated in their own words.
Holder on Mass Shootings
"Attorney General Eric Holder said Monday the average number of mass shooting incidents has tripled in recent years," Politico reports. "According to Justice Department figures on mass shootings, 404 people were shot and 207 people were killed from 2009 to 2012. From 2000 to 2008, 324 people were shot and 145 were killed." Yet his remarks neglect a very important statistic we first reported in September: Since homicides peaked in 1993, murders with guns are down 39%. A Pew Research Center study found that homicides with guns fell almost 49%. Both reports found that non-fatal crimes involving guns were down 70%. In other words, "gun free zones" -- a ludicrous policy the Left increasingly encourages -- are directly correlated with the rise in mass shootings. Criminals engage in areas of least resistance.
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team
Join us in daily prayer for our Patriots in uniform -- Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen -- standing in harm's way in defense of Liberty, and for their families.
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