Obama administration could dump sick people out of ObamaCare high-risk pool

Hot Air "What turned out to be “premature” was the passage of ObamaCare. As this demonstrates, Congress had no clear idea of actual costs or complications in the program. It should never have passed in the first place, but this key issue shows what happens when government attempts to run a business sector without having any expertise in it."

Obama-Care Means Longer ER Waits   "Emergency rooms, the only choice for patients who can’t find care elsewhere, may grow even more crowded with longer wait times under the nation’s new health law. That might come as a surprise to those who thought getting 32 million more people covered by health insurance would ease ER crowding. "   Carla K. Johnson, AP Medical Writer

How the AMA Sold Out Doctors, Patients for Obamacare  "The AMA endorsed Obamacare when member physicians were fiercely opposed. The groups early support was one factor that contributed to the bill’s passage, contrary to the expressed will of the majority of member physicians."

Weasel Zippers photograph

The decreasing relevancy of Obama's presidency

American Thinker  " Almost no one now listens to him, and of those who do, fewer still believe him or take him seriously. The Euros rejected his calls for more stimulus to their economies, recognizing what he apparently does not, that they and we are in danger of all collapsing under the weight of excessive spending. They told him to stuff it." Tony Gallardo

Barack Obama Is Making Me Laugh "But looking back after the Gulf oil spill, it is clear that Bush did a damn fine job, considering the Democratic opposition he had to work with in Louisiana. The Democratic state of Louisiana failed abysmally. The “chocolate city” mayor Ray Nagin refused to evacuate. The fact is that the loss of life and the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina was glaring proof of the failure of the welfare state, a.k.a. the Democrats’ statism model. It was a Democrat mayor, a Democrat governor, and a Democrat political machine in Louisiana that were responsible for the lack of action, response and coordination of pre- and post-Katrina efforts (and to ABC’s surprise, Katrina victims praised Bush and blamed Nagin).  The surrounding Republican states suffered horribly from Katrina and Rita, but you never heard about them."   Pamela Geller, editor and publisher of the Atlas Shrugs website and is former associate publisher of the New York Observer.

RECTAL-CRANIAL INVERSIONS IN WASHINGTON

Boortz , of course. "What I'm driving at folks is that these Democrats in Washington -- Barney Frank, Barack Obama - they are perfectly OK with the idea of private industry being driven into the ground. In fact, they are telling us that it will happen. What will be the result? Government structured bailouts and even more federal involvement in our financial system."

Thanks to Tax Competition, Corporate Tax Rates Continue to Fall in Europe  "Now we have a new report from the European Commission indicating that the average corporate tax rate in member nations of the European Union has plummeted to just 23.5 percent while the corporate tax rate in the U.S. has stagnated at 35 percent."

 We're looking more like France  "President Barack Obama’s Democrats have set out to alter fundamentally the nature of the U.S. political system. The changes they’ve wrought will not be easily undone.
Obama has sought to remake America into a social democracy — like Germany or France — with a larger public sector, expanded entitlements, stronger labor unions and a changed political structure. He’s doing quite well so far."  Will conservatives have the courage to undo all the damage done by Democrats? Especially in the face of intimidating liberal demagoguery?

How to Spot a Legal Progressive

Townhall   "How can you spot a legal progressive? A legal progressive is someone who believes rights that are not stated in the Constitution, but inferred or extrapolated, should be given more weight than rights plainly enumerated." Maggie Gallagher is a nationally syndicated columnist, a leading voice in the new marriage movement and co-author of The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier, and Better Off Financially.

Cartoon by Lisa Benson.

Unprecedented Arrogance

David Limbaugh "He also said that every economist who's looked at it has said that the recovery did its job. Would someone please get this man a link to The Heritage Foundation's website or any other credible conservative think tank or economist? Time and time again, Heritage scholars have not only argued but also demonstrated why Obama's economic policies don't work in theory and haven't worked in practice. As noted many times before, they have not helped avert a crisis, but have exacerbated already bleak conditions. Sure, all economists agree with him, just as all Americans agree with his socialistic policies."

"Obama is a menace to Israel, to Western Europe, . . . and to the whole of the Western World." "Finally, he has talked of a nuclear-free Middle East and a nuclear-free world, and what he intends to do, of course, if he can, is to disarm Israel’s great equalizer. It has been able to defend itself against the far more numerous Arabs by virtue of the fact that it has nuclear weapons and Obama will, and he’s indicated he will apply every pressure to Israel to take that equalizer away from them. "

Why Is the Gulf Cleanup So Slow?

WSJ  "One possibility is sheer incompetence. Many critics of the president are fond of pointing out that he had no administrative or executive experience before taking office. But the government is full of competent people, and the military and Coast Guard can accomplish an assigned mission. In any case, several remedies require nothing more than getting out of the way.
"Another possibility is that the administration places a higher priority on interests other than the fate of the Gulf, such as placating organized labor, which vigorously defends the Jones Act.
"Finally there is the most pessimistic explanation—that the oil spill may be viewed as an opportunity, the way White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said back in February 2009..."

  Thad Allen: Jones act no problem for vessels outside three-mile limit  "This emergency rule allows us to relax some of those response requirements and allows us to aggregate capability at different port levels through mutual assistance to free up additional resources that we could bring to the Gulf. We are looking now to go around the country and asses the implications of easing those requirements and what resources could be freed up to brought to the Gulf."

What is the Jones Act?

Russian espionage: A blow to Obama’s ‘reset’ with Russia

CS Monitor "Though the White House and the State Department have said that relations with Russia will not suffer, soft-pedaling espionage is wrong: if not rebuffed, it will breed only more spying – especially since Russia, instead of apologizing, is blaming the US."   Obama apology begins in 3...2...1...

Making the World More Dangerous   "This is beyond naive. This is profoundly dangerous. Who can possibly fail to notice that the Obama administration not only imposes no costs on those who cross it, but redoubles its efforts to appease?"   Mona Charen

(Even a Few) Words Matter

Victor Davis Hanson  "Even little words and gestures still matter in high-stakes international relations. Bad actors look hard for even the smallest sign that they might get away with aggression without consequences.
"A deferential and apologetic President Obama may think he is making those abroad like us --and he may be right in some cases. But if history is any guide, aggressive powers are paying close attention to these seemingly insignificant signs Soon, they may turn their wild ideas into concrete aggression -- once they convince themselves that America neither wants to nor is able to stop them."Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a recipient of the 2007 National Humanities Medal.

Neville Chamberlain and his appeasement of Hitler "In March, 1939, the German Army seized the rest of Czechoslovakia. In taking this action Adolf Hitler had broken the Munich Agreement. The British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, now realized that Hitler could not be trusted and his appeasement policy now came to an end."

ODD Humanitarianism

Mike Adams "Erica: No, there’s more to it than that. I know he has ODD because of the hateful words he uses when he’s upset. He is just so spiteful and so bent on gaining revenge against anyone he thinks has wronged him.
"Me: So, in other words, the boy is a jerk.
"Erica: I guess you’re right. He is a jerk."

Obama’s Stirring Immigration Speech Slightly Tainted by Misquote of ‘The New Colossus’

NY Magazine "Obama employed a familiar formula: identifying what the extreme left wants to do (straight-up amnesty), identifying what the extreme right wants to do (round up every illegal and kick them out), and then placing his vision for immigration reform squarely in the middle."

Arizona Gov. to Obama: Do your job!  "The same day President Obama is delivering a high profile speech on immigration, a web video is making the rounds featuring a frustrated Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer imploring the president to "do your job" when it comes to securing the borders."

Make Case For Afghanistan — Or Get Out

LARRY ELDER  "What happens if we leave before the Afghan government can maintain security? Will it again become a base of operation for al-Qaida and other terrorist groups? Will they step up their efforts in neighboring Pakistan, a country with nuclear bombs? Will a defeat in Afghanistan confirm the enemy's assumption that we can and will not make the necessary commitment to defeat them?
"Obama now seems to speak of summer 2011 less as a fixed date for withdrawal and more as one based on conditions. But it's hard to say what the president believes. In any event, the mixed signals give comfort to the enemy."

The Humbling of an American President

Peter Wehner " It is simply not correct that “every economist” who has looked at the stimulus bill says it did its job. In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, for example — on the very day Obama claimed universal support among economists for his stimulus package — Allan Meltzer, a professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University, began his op-ed this way: “The administration’ s stimulus program has failed.” "

 Why Obamanomics Has Failed "Uncertainty about future taxes and regulations is enemy No. 1 of economic growth." Allan Meltzer.