Friday night posts on Obamacare

National Review Writer: Obamacare ‘The Biggest Mistake That Any Party Has Made in 100 Years’ 
..."Asked first to react to the president’s press conference, Cooke said that it might be “the lowest I’ve ever seen him.”
“ 'He looked broken,” he added. “And he flailed. He filibustered when he was given the Iran question in the middle, for example. He talked at length. He just desperately didn’t want to talk about health care.' ”

39 Democrats Break With Obama to Pass Upton 'Fix'   "The Upton bill now goes to the Senate. Sen. Mary Landrieu is sponsoring legislation that is similar to Rep. Upton's, except that it would require insurance companies to continue offering the individual plans. Upton's bill would allow them to offer the plans, but not require them to do so."
10 Senate Dems Who Should Apologize for ObamaCare

Obamacare: How Is Incompetence a Defense?  "President Barack Obama made several excuses for himself and his party in an attempt to minimize the damage the Obamacare debacle will cause Democrats in the 2014 midterm elections. All of these excuses, however, try to use incompetence to excuse failure."

The Washington Post Pinocchios   "Getting another three Pinocchios from the Post for blaming health insurance companies for people losing their health coverage didn’t do it. But finally, hearing an earful from 16 panicked Democratic senators apparently got through to the president, convincing him that he needed to come clean because their constituents are so outraged over ObamaCare’s failings."

 

Obama channels 'Animal House' at presser   "You screwed up...You trusted us."

The President Is Losing His Plan  "The callous disregard for the very idea of law inherent in this manner of governing is matched by the overt cynicism of the move itself: After having created the circumstances in which millions of people lose their health coverage, the administration imagines this latest move can allow Democrats to say that the president and his health reform are not at fault but insurers and state insurance commissioners are because, after all, although they have had to prepare to follow the law for three years they now have thirty days to prepare to ignore it."

US cancels purchase order of Russian Copters for Afghanistan forces

RIA Novosti:  May 4th, 2013;  Pentagon to Buy Russian Helicopters Despite Ban  ..."The US Department of Defense said Thursday it plans to sidestep a Congressional ban to purchase 30 helicopters from Russian state-owned defense firm Rosoboronexport, despite objections from US lawmakers who allege that the firm has equipped the Syrian government to commit brutal crimes against civilians."...
The above article came with comments including this:

.... "Or consider this. The  United States Air Force is grounding 17 squadrons because of $591 million  dollars in budget cuts. Our Air Force is not able to do its mission because it  lacks the money to fly but we have the money to give Afghanistan $700 million  dollars in Russian helicopters.

And this is where Barack  Obama thinks we should spend our money? Most people reading this story will not  have heard about it. Why?

Because the Obama  Propaganda Media is moving in lock step to make sure there is no bad news that  might damage Obama's presidency.This is a story that should damage him and  outrage every American. "....

This next story is some months later:
Nov 13th, 2013; US Cancels Russian Helicopter Buy Amid Syria Standoff – Senator 
“ 'I applaud the [US] Defense Department’s decision to cancel its plan to buy 15 additional Mi-17 helicopters from Rosoboronexport,” US Sen. John Cornyn said in statement, The Associated Press (AP) reported.
"Cornyn, a Republican from Texas, has been leading a push in Congress to oppose the Pentagon’s purchase of Russian helicopters for deployment in Afghanistan due to Moscow’s weapons shipments to the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad as his forces battle rebel groups in a fierce civil war."

Yet these links from months earlier accompanied the article about the US no longer buying Russian helicopters:

• US to Buy 30 Russian Helicopters for Afghanistan Next Year  June 2013
• Russia to Deliver 12 More Mi-17 Helicopters to Afghanistan May 2013
• U.S. Buys More Russian Helicopters for Afghanistan  May 2013

The article about the cancellation is the most recent of the lot.

Hat tip to John Uhrig; Plano, TX

Obamacare ads by Democrats and by Tony Branco

washingtontimes.com

comicallyincorrect.com

Why liberals are panicked about Obamacare

Charles Krauthammer  ... "The reaction to the incompetence, arrogance and deception has ranged from ridicule to anger. But more is in jeopardy than just panicked congressional Democrats. This is the signature legislative achievement of the Obama presidency, the embodiment of his new entitlement-state liberalism. If Obamacare goes down, there will be little left of its underlying ideology

"Perhaps it won’t go down. Perhaps the Web portal hums beautifully on Nov. 30. Perhaps they’ll find a way to restore the canceled policies without wrecking the financial underpinning of the exchanges.

"Perhaps. The more likely scenario, however, is that Obamacare does fail. It either fails politically, renounced by a wide consensus that includes a growing number of Democrats, or it succumbs to the financial complications (the insurance “death spiral”) of the very amendments desperately tacked on to save it.

"If it does fail, the effect will be historic. Obamacare will take down with it more than Mary Landrieu and Co. It will discredit Obama’s new liberalism for years to come."

Amazing World War 2 Photos

Mission4Today   Many, many photos, of which these three are just a sample.

 

 The nose gunner grabs a smoke.

After the bombing run over Germany the pilot should inform him that smoking is hazardous to his health.

Dauntless dive bomber,1944

 

 B-17 ball turret 1942 

 

Hat tip to Val Brose; Santa Maria, CA.

 

This next data comes to us from a childhood friend, Irma Dedera Sannes of San Francisco. I have made a few edits and comments to add clarity. TD

(It's Battle of Britain Day today, commemorating the unbelievably fantastic efforts of the "few" young RAF pilots of Spitfires and Hurricanes whose defeat of Hitler's invading Luftwaffe over southern England in Sep 1940 caused that bastard dictator to abandon his plan and look eastwards instead. That gave us a brief chance to build more planes to replace the heavy losses and to train up new young men to replace the hundreds of dead ones, until our American allies came in to help us after Pearl Harbour. Without them, we might have been speaking German now.)
The following document shows just how much the Americans helped us in the air:
Amazing WW2 Aircraft Facts; These are very moving statistics and people who were not around during WW2 have no understanding of the magnitude. This gives some insight.

On average 6600 American service men died per MONTH, during WW2 (about 220 a day).

276,000 aircraft manufactured in the US.
43,000 planes lost overseas, including 23,000 in combat.
14,000 lost in the continental U.S.

The staggering cost of aircraft in 1945 dollars
B-17 $204,370. P-40 $44,892.
B-24 $215,516. P-47 $85,578.
B-25 $142,194. P-51 $51,572.
B-26 $192,426. C-47 $88,574.
B-29 $605,360. PT-17 $15,052.
P-38 $97,147. AT-6 $22,952.

From Germany's invasion of Poland Sept. 1, 1939 until Japan's surrender on Sept. 2, 1945 = 2,433 days.  (America entered the war over two years after that. Until then, Britain stood alone against Hitler in Western Europe, the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and North Africa.)
America lost an average of 170 planes a day.

A B-17 carried 2,500 gallons of high octane fuel and carried a crew of 10 airmen.
9.7 billion gallons of gasoline consumed.
108 million hours flown.
460 thousand million rounds of aircraft ammo fired overseas.
7.9 million bombs dropped overseas.
2.3 million combat flights.
299,230 aircraft used.
808,471 aircraft engines used.
799,972 propellers.

Obama vs. the Generals

Politico   "McDonough insisted, and has “close, and in some instances warm, relationships with his military chiefs,” as the Post put it. During my own time at the Pentagon, where I worked as an Obama appointee from the spring of 2009 until mid-2011, few seemed to hold this view. I recall asking one general, recently back from Afghanistan, if he’d shared his experiences and insights with the president. Rolling his eyes, he told me grimly that the White House preferred the military to be seen but not heard."...  Full article

No soldier in his right mind would guarantee ‘no boots on the ground,’” a retired senior commander told me. “You can never make such guarantees.”

...."According to most of those I interviewed, Gates’s scathing words reflect an unhappiness with the commander in chief that is widely shared in the military. “The military does not take kindly to people asking them to do things without thinking them through,” Eaton observes. “Military guys get kind of bemused when civilians tell them it’s OK to blow people to smithereens using bombs, as long as you don’t kill them with chemical weapons.”....

Our military, both standing and in coffins, I feel are nothing more that photo-ops for this president. The same might be said for the Clintons as well

The future for President Obama is looking dim

Volokh Conspiracy; The Legality of the Latest ObamaCare Fix  ..."Does this make the renewal of non-compliant policies legal? No. The legal requirement remains on the books so the relevant health insurance plans remain illegal under federal law. The President’s decision does not change relevant state laws either.  So insurers will still need to obtain approval from state insurance commissioners. This typically requires submitting rates and plan specifications for approval. This can take some time, and is disruptive because most insurance companies have already set their offerings for the next year. It’s no wonder that some insurance commissioners have already indicated they have no plans to approve non-compliant plans." ...

 

 New James O’Keefe sting reveals rampant Obamacare navigator fraud   This is subsequent to the similar one O'Keefe posted a few days ago with more to follow this, he says. 

 "Conservative provocateur and undercover filmmaker James O’Keefe released a video on Thursday revealing rampant fraud among Obamacare navigators." 

Related post from Black Quill and Ink: Barack Obama…Brilliant Politician or Bumbling Idiot?  "... Americans must decide if President Obama is a brilliant man or, as facts would suggest, an inept, bumbling and detached narcissist who sees himself as a great leader but who in fact lacks the skills to lead. Well I feel he is the former."

James O'Keefe @JamesOKeefeIII       

We have so much footage, so many offices. So many employees. So much fraud caught on tape. We're going to release them all one by one.

PJ Media; The backlash to the Obamacare fix has already started   "It took about three hours exactly for states to start pushing back against President Obama’s request that regulators allow insurance plans to offer current products in 2014."

Was Benghazi Not Enough? Obama Should Resign over Obamacare 

"If I were Barack Obama, I would resign as president. Forget all the temporary fixes and limited hangouts, I would be too ashamed of myself for having lied so blatantly to the American people — and on matters of such great significance.
Yes, I am a highly imperfect person. Yes, I have lied. But I doubt I would ever have done what he did, lie so repeatedly and manipulatively to my fellow citizens for my own aggrandizement or for what I personally believe is their better good (even if they don’t)."  Roger L Simon

 

High School Senior’s Testimony Devastates Common Core

"Ethan Young is a student who has been subjected to the Common Core in the Knoxville School system and is currently a senior at  Farragut High School.  He testified on November 6th at the  at Knox County (TN) Regular Board Meeting.  His five-minute testimony to a packed house is devastating to the Common Core initiative."

First he takes on the facade of the Common Core Standards as “State Led .”   "He then takes some time to defend teachers and to speak against the teacher evaluation, then gets to the crux of the matter with common core, that it is a model of industrialized learning."

Somewhere our founding fathers are turning in their graves, turning and screaming and trying to say to us is that we teach to FREE MINDS….we teach to inspire, we teach to equip.  The careers will come naturally…ask yourselves: haven’t we gone too far with data?

Steyn to president for revelations of Obamacare difficulties: ‘Well, thanks a lot genius’

Daily Caller  Click for the audio of this interview.

"Conservative commentator Mark Steyn says that President Obama’s Thursday press conference proposing an Obamacare “fix” was underwhelming, and that Obamacare’s disastrous rollout stems from the fact that he never ran anything prior to his presidency."

Reaction to the Obama speech today

Howard Dean: I Wonder If Obama Has the 'Legal Authority to Do This'

Obamacare: Is it time to gloat yet?  "The must-read column of the day is Jonah Goldberg's hilarious take on the Obamacare belly flop in National Review Online. Acknowledging the "obligatory caveats" ("It is no laughing matter that millions of Americans' lives have been thrown into anxious chaos as they lose their health insurance, their doctors, their money, or all three," for example), Jonah wields a rapier (or is a stiletto?) on the big fat target of liberal hubris, as expressed in the president's "signature legislation.' " More

Goldberg writes, "A big part of the fun is the pompousness of Obama himself:"...  Then he teaches us the words, "schadenfreude” and "hubris".

That Goldberg article in which he states: "The primary wellspring of schadenfreude can be attributed to Barack Obama’s hubris — another immigrant word, which means a sinful pride or arrogance that causes someone to believe he has a godlike immunity to the rules of life."

Obama Announces Obamacare ‘Fix’ That Doesn’t Fix Anything, Blames Insurance Companies   "Barack Obama’s credibility is now entirely gone. Having never had any Republicans on board with Obamacare, he cannot blame them. He cannot accept blame himself or blame Congress, as it was controlled entirely by Democrats when Obamacare passed. It’s not in his character to accept responsibility for anything he does that doesn’t turn out good. His only hope was to try shifting blame to the insurance companies, so that’s what he intends to do."...

 

There is a wealth of material on this subject at Lucianne.

 

Is Obama Any Good at Politics?  ..."Not campaigning; we know he can do that—at least so long as he’s got a teleprompter in tow.  But today’s press conference may well be the worst since Nixon’s “I am not a crook” and “let others wallow in Watergate” press debacles 40 years ago.  His petulant parting shot at the media today— “The things that go right, you guys aren’t going to write about”—could stand with “You won’t have Dick Nixon to kick around any more.' ”

Today, Obama Repeated the Five Percent Lie  "Many conservatives are exulting over an exchange between Major Garrett of CBS and President Obama during today’s press conference. Garrett called Obama on his “if you like your health care plan, you can keep it” lie, and asked whether the American people aren’t owed greater accountability. He also asked about Obama’s apparent ignorance of the problems with the Obamacare web site."

 

Man, this guy can talk non-stop. And does.

The Volokh Conspiracy: The Constitutionality of the ObamaCare “Fix”  ..."The “fix” amounts to new legislation – but enacted without Congress. The President has no constitutional authority to rewrite statutes, especially in ways that impose new obligations on people, and that is what the fix seems to entail. And of course, this is not the first such extra-statutory suspension of key ObamaCare provisions."

Now is the time to pull this out of storage and use it once more:

 The Country's in the Very Best of Hands

When Obama is scared of Iran - The U.S. is now afraid of war against Iran.

By Abdulrahman al-Rashed.   Who won the last time?

 

"What prevents many regimes and terrorist organizations from engaging in adventures is their fear that the price may be high. The idea of deterrence based on the option of using power has, for around seven decades, succeeded at decreasing the number of wars and maintaining stability in most of the world. The opposite is also true - making threats without implementing them deepens wars and encourages crimes to be committed."   (Emphasis in the original)

 

The natural result of countries no longer trusting the US as an ally: Russia and Egypt in key Cairo talks
..."Top Russian and Egyptian ministers are holding talks in the Egyptian capital Cairo that will reportedly include possible arms deals that could be worth as much as $2bn (£1.2bn).
"It is the highest level visit to Egypt by a Russian delegation in years.
"It follows the US decision to cut defence aid to Egypt in response to the ousting of President Mohammed Morsi."

 

The fecklessness of Democrats and their voters will cost this nation dearly, both economically and militarily in the future. But I fear the voting public is no longer educated nor perceptive enough to comprehend the importance of foreign policy. Nor do I see anyone in this nation able to inform them. TD

Warm up the teleprompter – Obama to address nation at 11:35am this morning regarding Cancelled Health Plans As we speak

News Ninja  ..."Obama will attempt to spin his Obamacare failure — hoping you people will still be gullible enough to believe everything Obama says.
Finally I think even loony liberals are seeing what a phony, what a liar Obama is."

Count the ways he will blame the insurance companies. Lets hope they push back.