The population of the U.S. is 314 million. On the day Obamacare was passed, the estimate of the uninsured was 60 million. So in this context, the supposed 7 million Americans signed up for insurance on the Obamacare Exchanges, even if that is a valid number, and all of those have actually started paying premiums, both of which are highly dubious, does not mean any significant success for Obamacare.
That is especially so since at least 6 million Americans have lost their health insurance due to Obamacare, so far, with more to come once the illegally and arbitrarily delayed employer mandate becomes effective, if it is ever allowed to do so. The estimate based on a new Rand Corporation study is that only 858,000 Americans signed up on the Obamacare Exchanges were previously uninsured. That is barely a dent of just over 1% in the original number of uninsured, from the historic Obamacare program that was supposed to provide “universal” coverage.
Yes, there are other sources of coverage under Obamacare. President Obama told us in his celebratory, hocus pocus, Obamacare address on April Fools’ Day that “more than 3 million young adults have gained insurance under this law by staying on their family’s plan.”
But that number is a publicly documented fabrication. It comes from a 2010 survey by the highly politicized Department of Health and Human Services estimating coverage for 19 to 25 year olds from all sources, including taxpayer financed Medicaid, and private insurance, which includes employer provided insurance and individually purchased plans, not just coverage from their parents’ health insurance, as David Hogberg explained at Spectator.org on April 2.
Moreover, that data is now outdated, as later HHS surveys show that health coverage for 18 to 25 year olds has since declined from 2010, Hogberg adds. That is why HHS has not released any new data on the point for almost two years now.
…As I say, put aside the argument, step back and view the thing at a distance. Support it or not, you cannot look at ObamaCare and call it anything but a huge, historic mess. It is also utterly unique in the annals of American lawmaking and government administration.
Its biggest proponent in Congress, the Democratic speaker of the House, literally said—blithely, mindlessly, but in a way forthcomingly—that we have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it. It is a cliché to note this. But really, Nancy Pelosi’s statement was a historic admission that she was fighting hard for something she herself didn’t understand, but she had every confidence regulators and bureaucratic interpreters would tell her in time what she’d done. This is how we make laws now.
Her comments alarmed congressional Republicans but inspired Democrats, who for the next three years would carry on like blithering idiots making believe they’d read the bill and understood its implications. They were later taken aback by complaints from their constituents. The White House, on the other hand, seems to have understood what the bill would do, and lied in a way so specific it showed they knew exactly what to spin and how. “If you like your health-care plan, you can keep your health-care plan, period.” “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor, period.” That of course was the president, misrepresenting the facts of his signature legislative effort. That was historic, too. If you liked your doctor, your plan, your network, your coverage, your deductible you could not keep it. Your existing policy had to pass muster with the administration, which would fight to the death to ensure that 60-year-old women have pediatric dental coverage.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2014-04-13 00:38:302014-04-13 00:38:30America Suffers From A President Dangerously Disconnected From Reality
This week, the Bureau of Land Management has been attempting to confiscate the cattle of Cliven Bundy, the last rancher in Nevada’s Clark County. On Wednesday, BLM agents confronted the Bundy family and supporters, using attack dogs, tasers and stun guns. Bundy’s son was tased and his daughter thrown to the ground. Three others were injured. Bundy supporters eventually drove the BLM off, but not before they had taken some cattle.
The BLM claims the cattle are “tresspassing” on land designated for the endangered desert tortoise. This designation is a red flag that something else is going on. Desert tortoises have co-existed with cattle for over 100 years and the cattle offer no threat.
Sure enough, as Dana Loesch reports today in a great piece of investigative journalism, Senator Harry Reid, known as “Cleanface” by the Nevada mob, and named by Judicial Watch as one of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians,” has been using the BLM to seize rangeland on behalf of campaign contributors. One of Reid’s former senior advisors, Neil Kornze, was recently appointed to lead the BLM, but he has worked there since 2011, and been de facto leader for at least a year. According to Loesch, Reid even ordered BLM to alter boundaries of tortoise habitat to allow top contributor, Harvey Whittemore, to develop the land. Yet another compassionate Democrat concerned for the environment. Good old Cleanface.
All other ranchers have been driven out of the county, but Bundy refuses to bend. The BLM claims Bundy owes them grazing fees dating back to 1993, however, he says his grazing rights predate the BLM, his family has used the land since the 1800s and those rights should have been grandfathered in. Contrary to BLM’s accusations, Bundy has been paying grazing fees, but to the governmental entity he believes has true title to the land: Clark County, Nevada. Loesch relates:
The BLM arrived much later, changed the details of the setup without consulting with Bundy — or any other rancher — and then began systematically driving out cattle and ranchers. Bundy refused to pay BLM, especially after they demanded he reduce his heard’s head count down to a level that would not sustain his ranch.
The BLM may have authority under the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934. Bundy says that “public land” belongs to the citizens, but the court claimed that “the public lands in Nevada are the property of the United States because the United States has held title to those public lands since 1848, when Mexico ceded the land to the United States.” In justifying the seizure the court stated “Bundy’s cattle have caused and continue to cause damage to natural and cultural resources and pose a threat to public safety.” It would be interesting to see the justification for that claim. What “cultural resources” exist in that open, undeveloped, remote area, and what was the damage to natural resources? Certainly not the tortoise, which they used as an excuse to close the off the land in the first place. What they really want is the land.
The desert tortoise is so “endangered” in this area, that the government is planning to euthanize some of them. Furthermore, the tortoise was virtually extinct before people even settled the area. Ranchers actually improved its prospects by accessing springs and developing other water sources, according to Myron Ebell, Director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Energy and Environment Center. But with the extreme environmentalists at the Interior Department no good deed goes unpunished, because they want the land, period.
The government’s agenda in this and many other land confiscation activities is actually motivated by Agenda 21’s “Rewilding” program, which advocates pushing humans out of rural areas entirely, and into densely packed urban zones. The idea was a brainchild of Dave Foreman, founder of EarthFirst! who popularized the use of tree-spiking to prevent logging. Read here how it’s working out in California. However, these environmental hypocrites have all shown their true color when these “precious lands” subsequently are sold, developed or otherwise used to benefit the politicians who fixed the deal.
The politicians who fixed this deal are Senator Harry Reid and his son, Rory. And they did so on behalf of the Communist Chinese who intend to build the largest solar energy complex in America. Reuters reports:
[Reid] and his oldest son, Rory, are both involved in an effort by a Chinese energy giant, ENN Energy Group, to build a $5 billion solar farm and panel manufacturing plant in the southern Nevada desert. Reid has been one of the project’s most prominent advocates, helping recruit the company during a 2011 trip to China and applying his political muscle on behalf of the project in Nevada.
“His son, a lawyer with a prominent Las Vegas firm that is representing ENN, helped it locate a 9,000-acre (3,600-hectare) desert site that it is buying well below appraised value from Clark County, where Rory Reid formerly chaired the county commission.” (Emphasis added.)
So now we get the true picture. Likely Clark County political corruption going along with this. All for the tortoise, that will doubtless become completely extinct when this massive monstrosity blankets its ground. This issue needs to be fought at every level and Harry Reid & Co. need to be brought up on charges!
Bundy is getting some support. Sheriff Richard Mack, founder of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Police Officers Association, is traveling to the ranch along with some fellow CSPOA members, and state representatives from Arizona and Nevada, as well as Nevada’s governor, Brian Sandoval, have issued criticisms.
Sandoval has taken a wait and see attitude. “Earlier this week, I advised the BLM not to limit or hinder the constitutional rights of Nevadans and be mindful of its conduct…” he said. Clearly the BLM has done neither. Will Sandoval let them get away with it? It is now clear what is happening. Will Sandoval allow this fraud to continue? Is he part of it? This is a telling moment for the Republican govenor. Will he do his job and honor his oath to “support and defend the U.S. Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic?” Right now it appears that we are dealing with enemies both foreign and domestic.
The legal issues on the land rights may be debatable, but the federal government’s increasingly despotic behavior toward defenseless citizens is completely without justification. Furthermore, its alleged reasoning is outrageous, given what we now know about the filthy handed, “Cleanface,” Harry Reid.
This is a defining issue and a defining moment in U.S. history, one that should be at the forefront of our nation’s attention today.
James Simpson is an economist, businessman and investigative journalist. His articles have been published at American Thinker, Accuracy in Media, Breitbart, PJ Media, Washington Times, WorldNetDaily and others. His regular column is DC Independent Examiner. Follow Jim on Twitter and Facebook
Nevada Rancher Renews Fight Against Big Gov: ‘We’re Standing Up for the Constitution’
By Fox News Insider.
Tensions are flaring in the standoff between Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and the federal government.
In 1993, the government decided his land is a habitat for federally protected desert tortoises. Since then, Bundy defied two court orders to remove hundreds of cattle. The feds say he is trespassing and owes up to a million dollars in grazing fees.
The showdown escalated on Wednesday when Bundy’s supporters confronted armed federal officials. The family claims an elderly woman was thrown on the ground and another protester was Tased three times.
About 300 of Bundy’s cattle have been seized. His son says the tortoise isn’t endangered and is being used a scapegoat for government control.
Out-of-state groups ride in to stand with Nevada rancher in battle with feds over grazing rights
By Fox News.
Groups from as far away as New Hampshire are riding out to Nevada to join the cattle rancher whose standoff with the federal government is growing tenser by the day.
The groups said they were going to the ranch, some 80 miles north of Las Vegas to stand with Cliven Bundy, who property is surrounded by federal agents. Bundy’s herd, which once numbered nearly 1,000, is being thinned out by private contractors under the watch of dozens of armed federal agents in SUVs and helicopters, the government says, he has refused for two decades to pay fees to allow the cattle to graze on federal lands.
“Our mission here is to protect the protestors and the American citizens from the violence that the federal government is dishing out,” Jim Landy, a member of the West Mountain Rangers, who made the journey from Montana to Nevada, told Fox News Channel. “People here are scared.”
Bundy’s family called for support this week after some incidents of violence between the family and protestors with law-enforcement. Bundy’s son was shot with a stun gun on Wednesday and his sister, Margaret Houston was pushed to the ground in incidents caught on video. The protests began to grow last week, after agents from the federal Bureau of Land Management shut off access to a large swath of federal land to round up Bundy’s cattle.
Landy said groups were going to the scene to try to help keep the peace.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2014-04-13 00:37:232014-04-13 00:37:23Senator Harry Reid: Cattle Rustler for Communist China
Sen. Ted Cruz said Attorney General Eric Holder ought to be impeached if he doesn’t take tough action against former IRS official Lois Lerner, who’s been tied to the agency’s targeting-of-tea-partyers scandal.
During a talk with Sean Hannity on the host’s radio show on Thursday, Mr. Cruz called Mr. Holder the “most partisan attorney general the country has ever had,” and said that he should be impeached for “defying Congress and the rule of law,” Breitbart reported.
For example: Mr. Holder has not indicted anybody in the eight months after the inspector general found that the IRS has indeed wrongfully targeted conservative and tea party groups, Mr. Cruz said.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2014-04-12 03:00:342014-04-12 03:00:34Ted Cruz: Impeach Eric Holder for ‘Defying Congress and the Rule of Law’
On MSNBC last night, host Alex Wagner continued her ongoing “leave the IRS alone” theme with a defense of the organization and its key players that tread into the territory of virtuosity in the art of reversing the spin. Not only, Wagner would have you believe, is the IRS not guilty of anything, not only were conservative groups not harmed or hampered in any way, but in fact it is the IRS who is truly the victim of unjust targeting. They are not the aggressor but the innocent victim, the simple, plainspoken agency that gosh darnit just wants to do its job for America and can’t because Republican meanwiches.
Wagner spends a great deal of time in the heady throes of indignant hysterics. Throwing around terms like “shameless,” circus,” and “witch hunt.” Republicans, she reasonably explains, are following Darrell Issa on a “dark mission.” Are you scared yet?
You see, Issa’s “insanity” has buried the “real story’ she claims. That real story being that the IRS, and not the conservative groups it singled out, are the ones who are really being targeted. Her stinkiest comparison of all, however, is to McCarthyism. Yes, investigating the IRS is the same as The Red Scare.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2014-04-12 02:58:052014-04-12 02:58:05WATCH: MSNBC Blames Conservative Groups for IRS Targeting and Says Lerner the ‘Real Victim’
Kathleen Sebelius, the face of ObamaCare, is out. If only the Affordable Care Act were going with her.
Unhappily, as much as Republicans may cheer the departure of the Health and Human Services Secretary, who oversaw the bungled roll-out of President Obama’s signature health care legislation, the damaging law will continue to infect the economy like a great virus.
Sebelius may have drastically mismanaged the start-up of ObamaCare, but she cannot be blamed for the law’s fundamental flaws.
The law forces healthy young people to pay excessive rates for a level of insurance they do not need in order to fund the costs of coverage for older sicker people.
The fines that are meant to drive young people to this foolish economic choice are inadequate; many will simply choose to go without.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2014-04-12 02:57:412014-04-12 02:57:41Sebelius is Out, but ObamaCare’s Problems are Here to Stay
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday blamed racial issues for the GOP’s failure to act on comprehensive immigration legislation.
“I think race has something to do with the fact that they’re not bringing up an immigration bill,” the California Democrat told reporters at her regular weekly press conference. “I’ve heard them say to the Irish, ‘If it were just you, this would be easy.'”
Pelosi was responding to a question about whether race factors into how Republicans deal with members of the Obama administration. She accused Republicans of being generally disrespectful to members of the administration and to women.
Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill later clarified that the reported GOP comment about the Irish has been relayed to Pelosi a number of times by Irish immigration activists she’s met with.
Pelosi’s comments come as frustration grows among immigration activists and the House’s Democratic minority about the refusal of the GOP majority to act on a far-reaching immigration bill passed by the Senate last year. The Senate bill would provide a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the country illegally and tighten border security.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2014-04-12 02:56:362014-04-12 02:56:36Pelosi Says GOP Failure to Act on Immigration Legislation Has Something to Do with Race
Why did Democrats applaud the loathsome community organizer Melowese Richardson, a freshly released, unrepentant voter fraud felon, at a recent “voting rights” rally in Ohio?
Because, like Richardson, they believe they are entitled to vote more than once against a system they see as unjust. Some serial voters do what they do in order to exact revenge against a society they feel did them or their ancestors wrong. Richardson is far from alone. Double-voting is distressingly common.
Many leftists have contempt for the electoral process because they don’t believe in the electoral system as it is constituted in capitalist America. To them, elections are already a fraud – an instrument of the rich, or as Saul Alinsky prefers to call them, the Haves. If the electoral system doesn’t serve “the people,” but is only an instrument of the Haves, then election fraud is justified as the path to a future that will serve the Have-Nots, as David Horowitz has explained.
This belief helps Democrats and the rest of the left rationalize their habitual efforts to suppress and cancel out lawfully cast votes. It helps to explain the strenuous efforts of leftists like former Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-Ill.), now federal prisoner number 32451-016, to assure the public that voter registration fraud is no big deal and that fraudulent registrations almost never turn into fraudulent votes.
This is why liberal fascists inside and outside government routinely excuse electoral fraud – in all its manifestations – arguing in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary that such fraud is merely a Republican invention created to keep minorities and the poor down.
President Obama labeled complaints about voter fraud “bogus” and accused Republicans of cynically trying to prevent Americans from accessing the polls in a fiery speech Friday at a civil rights forum hosted by Al Sharpton.
Obama argued that attempts in some states to impose new voter identification restrictions were actually efforts by Republicans to make “it harder, not easier to vote.” And the president said that while voter fraud should be prevented, it rarely occurred.
“So let’s be clear, the real voter fraud is the people who try to deny our rights by making bogus arguments about voter fraud,” Obama said.
Obama sad that the efforts betrayed a weakness within the Republican Party, saying his opposition needed to restrict poll access to remain competitive.
“If your strategy depends on fewer people showing up to vote, that’s not a sign of strength, it’s a sign of weakness,” Obama said.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2014-04-12 02:55:572014-04-12 02:55:57Voter Fraud: The Left’s Tool For Social Justice
On top of rising premiums, Obamacare taxes are adding hundreds of dollars per year onto customers’ costs, according to new study from the American Action Forum.
Those who braved the health-care law’s exchanges will have to pay an extra $354 on average in 2014, reports the free-market D.C.-based think tank, just due to seven taxes included in Obamacare.
The vast majority of the country covered by employer-sponsored health insurance will be forced to pay a somewhat lower tab of $196 to cover the taxes. Those with self-funded employer-sponsored insurance are exempt from several of the largest culprits and will have the lowest added cost at $94 in 2014, which will drop to $59 by 2016.
One is aimed at the insurance companies, forcing them to pay the federal government for the privilege of selling health insurance — an ironic touch for a law meant to make health coverage cheaper. AAF estimates that this tax alone, which will be passed onto consumers, will cost an extra $101 in 2014; in 2015 and 2016, it’ll be increased to $143 on average as the federal government ups their funding requests every year.
In 2014, the total tax will amount to $8 billion; in 2015 and 2016, it’ll be $11.3 billion, and the current plan comes it at $14.3 billion in 2018.
Last night on The Kelly File, we told you about Brandeis University’s decision to revoke an honorary degree for Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a women’s rights advocate in the Muslim community.
Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born woman and United States citizen, was subjected to genital mutilation and forced to flee her marriage. She has endured death threats for speaking out against Islam. Recently, she executive produced and starred in a documentary called, “Honor Diaries.”
Last night, Megyn Kelly spoke to Hirsi Ali and also took on Ibrahim Hooper, from the Council on American-Islamic Relations. That group was behind the movement to push Brandeis to take back Ali’s honor.
During part two of the interview, above, Megyn questioned CAIR’s tactics for attacking some of its critics.
Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) has previously stated, “[CAIR] we know has ties to terrorism… prominent members of [CAIR’s] current leadership… also have intimate connections with Hamas.”
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2014-04-12 02:53:382014-04-12 02:53:38‘You Want to Silence’: Megyn Challenges CAIR Member Over Campaign Against Islam Critic
Angry parents, at least one student suspended and — in one school district — children denied ice cream.
Such has been the roll-out of Common Core testing in New York, the first state to implement the test component of the controversial nationalized educational standard.
Seirra Olivero, a 13-year-old student at Orange-Ulster BOCES, claims she was suspended from school last week after telling classmates they could opt out of taking the Common Core English test — a decision few students and parents in the area knew was possible, according to the girl’s mother.
The eighth-grader was suspended for two days for “insubordination,” following the April 1 incident, in which she informed her friends they had a choice whether or not to take the exam on the day of the test. According to Seirra, she had just stepped off the school bus when she encountered a fellow classmate who was “anxious” about taking the test.
“I told my friend he didn’t have to take the test and then a teacher who overheard me told me to shut my mouth and keep walking,” Seirra told FoxNews.com. Once inside the school, Seirra told another friend the test was not mandatory, she says, prompting that same teacher to usher her into the principal’s office. After walking out of the principal’s office following an argument and then threatening to sue an administrator over his handling of the matter, Seirra was given a two-day suspension.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2014-04-12 02:52:452014-04-12 02:52:45NY Dishes Out Punishments for Opting Out of Common Core
