‘Thank You, Ted Cruz’ Ads Set to Run During Thanksgiving NFL Games (+video)

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A conservative group’s ad thanking Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) for his efforts to defund the Affordable Care Act is set to air this week during the televised broadcast of multiple National Football League games.

The video ad, created by the Conservative Campaign Committee, praises the Texan senator for “step[ping] forward” to take on the “disastrous Obamacare scheme” by “doing everything he could to stop Obamacare before it could hurt Americans.”

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Tea Party Still Standing Tall in Fight to Reform GOP

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Photo Credit: APThe Republican civil war erupted into full view this fall, and the establishment looked like it was about to shove the movement back in line.

But the early skirmishes ended with the tea party no weaker than it was.

And while the party’s internal fight will rage on, the opening battles suggest the establishment is just starting to see how much it will take to reclaim the power it has ceded to the movement in recent years.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee’s first big play: threaten to blacklist any consultant who does business with a key group taking on sitting Republicans.

The result: pretty much business as usual.

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Joe Miller: Begich Empowers Washington, Blames Alaskans

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Photo Credit: SenateDemocrats U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller today called into question Senator Mark Begich’s “independence” for engaging in hyper-partisanship in Washington and, through his actions, undermining our republic.

In a naked power grab last Thursday Democrats broke with a long-standing Senate tradition requiring a 60-vote majority in order to confirm judges. In so doing, Democrats have abandoned all pretext of governing by consensus, instead seizing more power for unelected government bureaucrats and judges who regulate, tax, and wield arbitrary power over Americans lives.

And what did Senator Mark Begich do? He abandoned bi-partisanship to carry the water for those he truly serves in Washington–Barack Obama and Harry Reid–and then had the gall to blame his constituents for his own outrageous actions. The Los Angeles Times quoted the senator as saying, “. . . the American people are asking us to fix this system.”

US Senate candidate Joe Miller responded:

“The fact that Mark Begich is continuously pushing his ‘independence’ in Alaska, while at the same time engaging in hyper-partisanship back in Washington is bad enough,” said Miller. “But to go a step further and blame his constituents for this naked power grab is, in my opinion deeply cynical.”

Senators Chuck Grassley and Orrin Hatch, who are both longstanding members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, note there are far more pressing vacancies in the other federal courts nationwide. The DC Circuit has the lightest caseload in the country, and filling its vacancies is simply unnecessary. Incidentally, Democrats made similar arguments in opposition to President George W. Bush’s appointees to the same court.

The junior senator’s move is all the more troubling when one considers the fact that the impetus behind the rules change appears to be an attempt by the White House to stack the DC Appellate Court in hopes of saving the Obama agenda, including Obamacare – a bill Begich was the 60th and deciding vote on.

In recent days, Begich has feigned outrage over the failed healthcare roll-out, even engaging in faux attacks on the White House in an attempt to distance himself from political fallout. But Alaskans can now see to what lengths he will go to save the president’s failed socialist experiment.

While Begich has voted for the Obama-Reid agenda 91% of the time during his tenure in the United States Senate, Joe Miller will work tirelessly to repeal Obamacare, and fight every day to restore our liberties and keep Washington outsiders from meddling in our lives.

Joe Miller concluded, “Mark Begich’s ridiculous claim that there is some public consensus out there to justify his vote to give unaccountable judges more power over our lives is disingenuous in the extreme, and it’s anything but independent. It is partisan, divisive, and deeply troubling for the future of liberty in America.”

Krauthammer: ‘Iran Agreement Is a Farce, the Worst Deal Since Munich in 1938’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: Fox News We heard some strong words from Charles Krauthammer Monday night on Special Report, as he blasted the Obama administration over the weekend’s nuclear deal with Iran.

Krauthammer likened the actions of President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry to Europe’s appeasement of Adolf Hitler in the late 1930s, when Germany’s borders were expanded.

“It’s really hard to watch the president and the secretary of state and not think how they cannot be embarrassed by this deal,” said Krauthammer, calling the agreement a “farce” and the “worst deal since Munich” in 1938.

He argued that the United States has now formally signed off on Iran remaining very close to possessing a nuclear weapon.

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Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Cases on Contraceptive Mandate – Hobby Lobby

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Photo Credit: AP By Jennifer Haberkorn

The Supreme Court has agreed to revisit Obamacare, this time to review the requirement that most employers provide contraceptive coverage in their employee health insurance plans.

On Tuesday, the court accepted two cases centered on the issue of business owners’ religious expression.

It’s another test for the embattled health care law, which is already struggling under the weight of a botched website and a political backlash after millions of Americans saw their current insurance plans cancelled for 2014.

The case could also rekindle the same clash that unfolded during the 2012 presidential campaign, when Republicans attempted to make the contraception rule an important issue. A ruling against the contraception coverage rule wouldn’t knock down the whole health law, but it would give more fuel to its opponents.

This is not Obamacare’s first trip to the high court. In 2012, the court ruled in favor of another controversial piece of the law — the individual mandate, which requires most Americans to have health insurance. Chief John Roberts sided with the liberal wing of the court to uphold the mandate, a surprise move that kept a key piece of the law intact.

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Photo Credit: LifeNews By Steven Ertelt

Hobby Lobby’s battle against the HHS mandate is headed to the Supreme Court, as the high court today agreed to hear its lawsuit against the controversial provision in Obamacare. The Obama administration is attempting to make it comply with the HHS mandate that compels religious companies to pay for birth control and abortion-causing drugs for their employees.

However, the U.S. Supreme Court today agreed to take up Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., a landmark case addressing the Constitutionally guaranteed rights of business owners to operate their family companies without violating their deeply held religious convictions. This is good news to the Green family, who own the store.

“This is a major step for the Greens and their family businesses in an important fight for Americans’ religious liberty,” said Kyle Duncan, general counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and lead lawyer for Hobby Lobby. “We are hopeful that the Supreme Court will clarify once and for all that religious freedom in our country should be protected for family business owners like the Greens.”

The Obama administration says it is confident it will prevail, saying, “We believe this requirement is lawful…and are confident the Supreme Court will agree.”

“My family and I are encouraged that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide our case,” said Mr. Green, Hobby Lobby’s founder and CEO. “This legal challenge has always remained about one thing and one thing only: the right of our family businesses to live out our sincere and deeply held religious convictions as guaranteed by the law and the Constitution. Business owners should not have to choose between violating their faith and violating the law.”

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Pres. Obama Proposes Strict New Rules for Tea Party and Other Non-Profits

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Photo Credit: APIn an aggressive move designed to crack down on free-spending outside political groups, the Obama administration is proposing strict new rules curtailing nonprofits like Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS and the pro-Obama Priorities USA.

The draft proposal, released Tuesday by the Treasury Department, would keep so-called social welfare 501(c)(4) nonprofits from getting a tax exemption if they engage in too much “candidate related” political activity.

The groups were at the heart of this summer’s scandal over Internal Revenue Service targeting of tea party and other conservative groups seeking tax exemptions.

The proposal is the first major response to a Treasury inspector general report in May blasting the IRS for added scrutiny of tea party conservative groups seeking tax exemption — a major scandal that led President Barack Obama to fire the acting IRS commissioner and other officials to exit the agency.

The inspector general report recommended the IRS tighten its rules.

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CNN Poll – ObamaCare Is Sinking Obama: “The Numbers Are Ugly”

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Photo Credit: JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/GettyA new CNN poll confirms what America’s collective gut has been saying for weeks: Obamacare is sinking its namesake.

The numbers are ugly: Just one in four respondents say President Obama is a competent manager of the federal government. For all the hand-wringing about comparing the HealthCare.gov site rollout to Hurricane Katrina, the bottom line is that this president, like his predecessor, has now suffered a signature event that has convinced a majority of Americans that he is unfit for the job.

Piling on, the president also scored his lowest marks on honesty and trustworthiness, with 53 percent of those surveyed responding that they don’t feel Obama is being straight with them. To put it in some context, Bill Clinton was widely viewed as shifty but competent, and Jimmy Carter as honest but hapless. Obama at the moment seems to have combined the worst of both worlds.

The CNN results amplify Obama’s political problem: The Affordable Care Act imbroglio is having an outsized effect on his entire presidency, with voters reassessing his basic qualifications. “This is serious,” says Chris Kofinis, a Democratic strategist and former chief of staff to Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. “This is much more serious than I hear some Democrats saying publicly. This is not a temporary drop.”

Adds John Geer, an expert on public opinion at Vanderbilt University, “In a sense, the public was collectively willing to be patient. That reservoir of support among independents and moderates has evaporated.”

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Map Shows the NSA’s Massive Worldwide Malware Operations

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Photo Credit: APA new map details how many companies across the world have been infected by malware by the National Security Agency’s team of hackers, and where the companies are located.

Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad reports the NSA uses malware to infect, infiltrate and steal information from over 50,000 computer networks around the globe. This new, previously unreported scope of the NSA’s hacking operation comes from another PowerPoint slide showing a detailed map of every infection leaked by former contractor Edward Snowden.

The practice is called “Computer Network Exploitation,” or CNE for short, and it’s carried out by the NSA’s Tailored Access Operations team. A yellow dot on the map signifies a CNE infection. The NSA plants malware within a network that can flipped on or off at any time. Once a network is infected, the malware gives the NSA unfiltered access to the network’s information whenever it’s most convenient. The Washington Post previously profiled the team of “elite hackers” who make up the NSA’s TAO division.

The British intelligence service liked this strategy too, NRC Handelsblad reports, because they successfully duped a Belgium telecom company with a fake LinkedIn account. A strip at the bottom says the map is relative to relative to the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, the “Five Eyes” nations that share intelligence.

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Large Employers Cite Obamacare ‘Cadillac’ Tax in Reducing Benefits (+video)

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Photo Credit: ReutersFor 75 million Americans who get their insurance through large companies, the Affordable Care Act is a mixed bag. Experts tell NBC News the new healthcare law is only slightly increasing premiums next year, but causing some companies with the most generous plans to reduce their employees’ benefits.

Aaron Baker, 36, his wife Billie and their two young children are covered under a generous health insurance plan offered by the private Midwestern university where he’s worked for 10 years. When they opened their benefits notice this year, they were pleased to see their $385 premium is only up by four dollars next year. However, they were shocked to discover that instead of covering the first dollar they spend with no deductible, the Baker’s plan now includes a $1,000 deductible and a $2,500 out of pocket maximum. They also will still have small co-pays for services.

According to the enrollment notice, the changes are “to relieve future health plan trend pressure and to put the university in a position to avoid the excise tax that becomes effective in 2018.” The 40 percent excise tax—often called the “Cadillac tax”— is part of Obamacare and is levied on the most generous health plans. It’s designed to bring down overall health costs by making companies and workers more cost-conscious. The thinking is that if consumers have to pay more expenses themselves, through higher deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses, they’ll avoid unnecessary or overly costly procedures. And that is supposed to make care more affordable for everyone.

Billie Baker doesn’t think much of that concept. “I think that saying that your insurance is too good so we’re going to give you a penalty,” she said, “is sort of outrageous to me.”

Said Aaron, “You would think the government would want employers to offer good health care packages to their employees. It seems like that is not the case.”

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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The Bad-Faith Presidency

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Photo Credit: APAt the end of the day, the root of President Obama’s mendacity on Obamacare was simple: He didn’t dare tell people how the law would work. He couldn’t tell people how the law would work.

Forthrightness was the enemy. It served no useful purpose and could only bring peril, and potentially defeat. It had to be banished. Instead of candor, Obama made the sale on the basis of dubious blandishments and outright deceptions.

If this is the only way to pass your signature initiative—and a decades-long goal of your party—it ought to give you pause. But Obama was a natural at delivering sweeping and sincere-seeming assurances that weren’t true. This kind of thing is his métier.

If he were awoken at 3 a.m. and told he had to make the case for nationalizing the banks by denying he was nationalizing the banks, he would do an entirely creditable job of it, even without a TelePrompTer. The salesmanship for Obamacare represents in microcosm the larger Obama political project, which has always depended on throwing a reassuring skein of moderation on top of left-wing ideological aims.

All politicians are prone to shaving the truth, giving themselves the benefit of the doubt and trying to appear more reasonable than they are. Obama has made it an art form. Bad faith is one of his signal strengths as a politician, and makes him one of the greatest front men progressivism has ever had.

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