Via NewsBusters & MRCTV
Obama-Care
Rush Limbaugh On Obama Care`s HHS Mandate, and U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell On Protecting 1st Amendment from Obama Care
The LEFT Legislating Progressive Mores on Christian Organizations ~ Obama-Care and the HHS Mandate
How the Left legislates Their Morality, via The Blaze:
The Church’s vocal arguments against the Obama administration are centered upon a Health and Human Services Department requirement that employers must include contraception and abortion-inducing drugs in health-care coverage. While this requirement doesn’t apply to houses of worship, it will force Catholic colleges, hospitals and other Christian groups to provide these drugs despite their faith-based opposition to them.
70% Increase is a cut in Democratic Terms
This is similar to Dems saying Bush was cutting military veterans benefits. Bush just slowed the growth… they were still increases:
CANON 2: A JUDGE SHOULD AVOID IMPROPRIETY AND THE APPEARANCE OF IMPROPRIETY IN ALL ACTIVITIES
HotAir has a post regarding the involvement of Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan in the writing of/defense of Obama-Care. Here is some of the work done over at Judicial Watch:
According to a January 8, 2010, email from Neal Katyal, former Deputy Solicitor General (and current Acting Solicitor General) to Brian Hauck, Senior Counsel to Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli, Kagan was involved in the strategy to defend Obamacare from the very beginning:
Subject: Re: Health Care Defense:
Brian, Elena would definitely like OSG [Office of Solicitor General] to be involved in this set of issues…we will bring in Elena as needed. [The “set of issues” refers to another email calling for assembling a group to figure out “how to defend against the…health care proposals that are pending.”]
On March 21, 2010, Katyal urged Kagan to attend a health care litigation meeting that was evidently organized by the Obama White House: “This is the first I’ve heard of this. I think you should go, no? I will, regardless, but feel like this is litigation of singular importance.”
In another email exchange that took place on January 8, 2010, Katyal’s Department of Justice colleague Brian Hauck asked Katyal about putting together a group to discuss challenges to Obamacare. “Could you figure out the right person or people for that?” Hauck asked. “Absolutely right on. Let’s crush them,” Katyal responded. “I’ll speak with Elena and designate someone.”
However, following the May 10, 2010, announcement that President Obama would nominate Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court, Katyal position changed significantly as he began to suggest that Kagan had been “walled off” from Obamacare discussions.
For example, the documents included the following May 17, 2010, exchange between Kagan, Katyal and Tracy Schmaler, a DOJ spokesperson:
Shmaler to Katyal, Subject HCR [Health Care Reform] litigation: “Has Elena been involved in any of that to the extent SG ]Solicitor General’s] office was consulted?…
Katyal to Schmaler: “No she has never been involved in any of it. I’ve run it for the office, and have never discussed the issues with her one bit.”
Katyal (forwarded to Kagan): “This is what I told Tracy about Health Care.”
Kagan to Schmaler: “This needs to be coordinated. Tracy you should not say anything about this before talking to me.”
Included among the documents is a Vaughn index, a privilege log which describes records that are being withheld in whole or in part by the Justice Department. The index provides further evidence of Kagan’s involvement in Obamacare-related discussions.
HotAir puts a timeline together in regards to the above info:
Just so we’re straight on the timeline here: On March 21, the day ObamaCare was passed, Katyal is inviting Kagan to strategy sessions about the new law. On April 9, John Paul Stevens resigns and speculation erupts about Kagan succeeding him. On May 17, Katyal is suddenly telling people that Kagan’s never been involved in anything — even though she is, in fact, the solicitor general of the United States and even though he explicitly invited her to a meeting about the law less than two months earlier — and Kagan is warning people via e-mail to make sure everyone has their story straight on what she knew by “coordinating.” Is that about right? I want to make sure we’re all square on this nonsense for when the mandate challenge finally reaches the Court and we’re told by her office that everything is magically copacetic.
20% of Obama-Care Waivers Go To Its Biggest Proponents District (Pelosi)
NewsBusters has this jaw-dropping hypocrisy.
As NewsBusters previously noted, there were 204 ObamaCare waivers issued in April, and almost 20 percent of them went to establishments in former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) San Francisco district.
The Daily Caller’s Matthew Boyle reported Tuesday:
Pelosi’s district secured almost 20 percent of the latest issuance of waivers nationwide, and the companies that won them didn’t have much in common with companies throughout the rest of the country that have received Obamacare waivers.
Other common waiver recipients were labor union chapters, large corporations, financial firms and local governments. But Pelosi’s district’s waivers are the first major examples of luxurious, gourmet restaurants and hotels getting a year-long pass from Obamacare.
For instance, Boboquivari’s restaurant in Pelosi’s district in San Francisco got a waiver from Obamacare. Boboquivari’s advertises $59 porterhouse steaks, $39 filet mignons and $35 crab dinners.
Boyle noted a number of the establishments getting these waivers are very high-priced eateries in Pelosi’s district, many of which as a Bay Area resident I can attest to being some of the finest in the nation.
Some Regulatory Straight Talk from Larry Elder
I put together just a few clips and a phone call of Larry Elder commenting on:
1) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (from zero to 3:30),
2) a caller asks about regulatory issues about the Federal Reserve (3:35 to 6:41),
3) Burden of Government on Families (7:50 to 10:50),
4) as well as the stated reasoning for Obama “ramming down our throats” health care – failing (10:50 to the end).
For more clear thinking like this from Larry Elder… I invite you to become an Eldorado: larryelder.com/
REJECTED
The court had an opportunity to simplify matters ahead of time by accepting the expedited appeal and consolidating the cases. Their decision to stay out of the process at this time may mean that they are interested in hearing from the appeals courts on the wider variety of arguments already in play, rather than focus mainly on the Virginia case. It also may indicate that the justices aren’t concerned about the appeals taking a very long time to get to them anyway; as the AP notes, they’ll still probably get at least one of the cases in the 2011-12 term, giving them plenty of time to rule on the law before much of it takes effect.
Government Run Health Care Postponed Operation for 9-months~Death Ensued
Here is a great example of what we should expect from government run healthcare, via NewsBusters:
Long Wait for Operation Fells UK Health Director
James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal editorial page caught this story about Britain’s National Health Service.
“A former NHS director died after waiting for nine months for an operation–at her own hospital,” London’s Daily Mail reports:
Margaret Hutchon, a former mayor, had been waiting since last June for a follow-up stomach operation at Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford, Essex.
But her appointments to go under the knife were cancelled four times and she barely regained consciousness after finally having surgery.
Her devastated husband, Jim, is now demanding answers from Mid Essex Hospital Services NHS Trust–the organisation where his wife had served as a non-executive member of the board of directors.
He said: “I don’t really know why she died. I did not get a reason from the hospital. We all want to know for closure. She got weaker and weaker as she waited and operations were put off.”
It would be cruel to put this down to karma, so instead we’ll just note that it can’t possibly be true. After all, as New York Times star columnist Paul Krugman has observed, “In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We’ve all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false.”
More Waivers from Obama for Obamacare
Another sad story of defeat in regards to the Obamacare “health” law that our great Democratic Congress has graced us with. You will hear little about this topic in the mainstream media as it refutes an icon of the Left [by the Left I might add]. One of the laws staunchest defenders, Anthony Weiner, also asked for a waiver from the health law for NY:
This latest news from Gateway Pundit:
The Obama Administration has now granted over 1,000 health care waivers. Of the 129 latest waivers more than half went to unions.
Jamie Durpree at the AJC reported:
The Obama Administration has rolled out another 129 waivers to one provision of the new health reform law, with almost half of those new exemptions going to various union groups.
The extra waivers bring the total to 1,168, giving businesses, health plans, unions and others an exemption from a portion of the law that in 2011 requires an annual benefit limit of no less than $750,000.
In other words, these 1,168 waivers allow companies to limit health insurance payouts to less than $750,000 – those annual benefit limits will be phased out by 2014.
The waivers now cover almost three million Americans, but the feds argue that is “less than 2 percent of all Americans who have private health insurance.
Almost half of the new round of waivers were given to union health benefit programs, a fact that is sure spur new complaints from health law critics in the Congress, who see these waivers as evidence that the Obama health plan is flawed.
Among the unions that were recently approved for waivers:
# Teamsters Local 237 in New York, covering over 51,000 workers
# Carpenters District Council of Kansas City Welfare Plan, for 20,898 workers
# Southeastern Iron Workers, for 5,143 policies
# Minneapolis Retail Meat Cutters and Food Handlers for 10,720
# the Fulton Fish Market Welfare Fund for 1,211
Karl Rove previously reported that a disproportionate number of waivers, nearly one-third, were being granted to union workers even though unionized workers make up only 7% of the private work force.