Media Knew Obama ‘Keep Your Plan’ Promise Was Phony

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Photo Credit: ReutersNBC News on Monday claimed to have uncovered evidence that President Obama knew all along that his promise that “you can keep your health plan” under ObamaCare wasn’t true. The story came out just as millions across the country are getting cancellation notices from their insurance companies.

“Buried in ObamaCare regulations from July 2010,” NBC said, is an estimate that shows “the administration knew that more than 40% to 67% of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans, even if they liked them.”

Although ObamaCare included a provision meant to grandfather health plans sold before 2010, regulators defined what “grandfathered” meant so narrowly that most plans wouldn’t qualify.

Yet Obama went on repeating this promise, saying, as he did in June 2012, that “if you’re one of the 250 million Americans who already (has) health insurance, you will keep your health insurance.”

That the administration knew this wasn’t true is troubling.

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CBS News: Policy Cancellations, Higher Premiums Add to Frustration Over Obamacare (+video)

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Photo Credit: ReutersNearly five weeks into the launch of HealthCare.gov, the management expert brought in to turn around the website says its issues are fixable. But it’s going to take weeks, not days. That comes as some Americans are being surprised, not only that they are being booted off their current plans, but at how much they’re being asked to pay for new ones.

For many, their introduction to the Affordable Care Act has been negative: a broken website, and now cancellation notices from insurance companies followed by sticker shock over higher prices for the new plans. It’s directly at odds with repeated assurances from the president, who has said “if you like your insurance plan, you will keep it. No one will be able to take that away from you.”

But people across the country are finding out they’re losing their existing insurance plans under Obamacare because requirements in the law, such as prenatal and prescription drug coverage, mean their old plans aren’t comprehensive enough.

In California, Kaiser Permanente terminated policies for 160,000 people. In Florida, at least 300,000 people are losing coverage.

That includes 56-year-old Dianne Barrette. Last month, she received a letter from Blue Cross Blue Shield informing her as of January 2014, she would lose her current plan. Barrette pays $54 a month. The new plan she’s being offered would run $591 a month — 10 times more than what she currently pays.

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Schlafly: Amnesty Is Republican Party Suicide

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Photo Credit: Townhall Most Americans believe that the United States of America is an exceptional country. The “borders test” proves that people are coming to America, not fleeing from America to exit to other countries.

Republicans and conservatives recognize that the principal reason for our unique abundance is our constitutional restraints on the power of government, separation of powers, balanced budgets, and a minimum of government supervision and interference in our daily lives. America offers a remarkable opportunity for foreigners; no matter what socioeconomic rank they were assigned in their native country.

Most of the millions of immigrants we have welcomed came from countries where the only government they knew was one that made all decisions about economic and social policy. The current level of legal immigration to America adds thousands of people every day whose views and experience are contrary to the conservative value of limited government.

The influx of these new voters will reduce or eliminate Republicans’ ability to offer an alternative to big government, increased government spending, and favorite liberal policies such as Obamacare and gun control. New voters will lean on our hard-pressed health care system and overcrowded public schools to demand more government services.

Amnesty advocates point to the assimilation of large numbers of immigrants in the early years of the 20th century. But that was followed by a national pause and slowdown of immigration from the 1920s to the 1960s, which allowed newcomers to assimilate, learn our language, and adapt to our system of government.

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Lawmakers, Coal Industry Slam EPA Regs at Capitol Hill Rally

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Photo Credit: Graeme Jennings/ExaminerThousands of coal miners swarmed the Capitol’s west lawn Tuesday to protest forthcoming Environmental Protection Agency regulations that they say will kill jobs in coal communities.

The estimated crowd of 3,000 at the industry-sponsored event railed against greenhouse gas emission rules floated by President Obama’s EPA. Attendees, as well as lawmakers who spoke at the event, contended the agency is putting their livelihoods in jeopardy.

“We’re going to push back against these people in every chance we can. We are going to stop this war on coal,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said at the event. “[Obama] has created a depression in eastern Kentucky.”

The EPA’s carbon rule for new power plants is due by June, and the one for existing plants is scheduled for June 2015.

Republicans, centrist Democrats and industry officials say those impending rules, which are the centerpiece of the Obama administration’s plan to address climate change, will drive energy prices higher, stunt the economy and create ghost towns out of coal communities.

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Alaska North Slope Strengthens With West Coast Work Seen Delayed

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Photo Credit: Paxson Woelber/flickrAlaska North Slope crude strengthened to a three-month high after a report that Chevron Corp. (CVX) plans to delay maintenance at its El Segundo, California, complex, the largest single refinery on the U.S. West Coast.

Chevron will push work on a crude unit and coker back to late April from January, according to a person familiar with the schedule who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public.

ANS, a medium, sour crude used by refiners on the U.S. West Coast, increased $1.75 to $7.50 a barrel over West Texas Intermediate at 2:05 p.m. New York time, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It was the grade’s largest premium since July 12.

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McCain: We’ll Try to Pass Immigration Changes After GOP Primaries

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Photo Credit: AFPSen. John McCain (R-AZ) gave the clearest indication that proponents of comprehensive immigration reform may make their final–and strongest–push to get legislation passed next year after House Republicans make it through their primaries.

“I think conventional wisdom is that time is not on our side,” McCain told reporters on Monday after an event in Chicago. “But there are a number of members of Congress who have primaries and when those primaries are done, they may be more inclined to address the issue of comprehensive immigration reform.”

President Barack Obama has urged Congress to pass immigration reform legislation this year. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) is reportedly going to bring legislation to the floor within the next month and other House Republican leaders have indicated support for piecemeal pieces of legislation that can make it to conference with the Senate, where proponents and opponents of immigration reform had said a pathway to citizenship will prevail.

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Sean Penn: ‘I Think It’s A Good Idea’ to Have Ted Cruz Committed (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP“There’s a mental health problem in Congress,” says actor and liberal activist Sean Penn. The president could solve the problem “by committing them by executive order,” Penn told CNN’s Piers Morgan Monday night.

Asked if Penn would have “people like Ted Cruz” committed, Penn said, “He is my American brother. I won’t — I think we should take care of him, he is in, he’s the trouble.”

“Well, actually have him committed,” Morgan followed up.

“Yeah, I think it’s a good idea,” Penn said.

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NBC: Small Business Owner’s Premiums Increase By 400% Under Obamacare (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTube NBC’s Lisa Myers profiled several people who are receiving health plan cancellation letters due to Obamacare Tuesday.

For example, George Schwab of North Carolina, said he was “perfectly happy” with his plan from Blue Cross Blue Shield, which also insured his wife for a $228 monthly premium. But this past September, he was surprised to receive a letter saying his policy was no longer available.

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Soaring Number Of Cubans Are Entering The United States Through Mexican Border

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Photo Credit: GETTY IMAGESThe easing by the Cuban government of restrictions on traveling abroad has led to a rise in the number of Cubans who try to enter the United States through the Mexican border, the Miami Herald reports.

Undocumented Cubans stopped at the U.S.-Mexican border totaled 2,300 from January through August, more than double the 994 in the same time frame last year, the newspaper says, citing Mexican government figures.

Authorities estimate that roughly 13,000 got to the border undetected between Sept. 2012 and Sept. 2013, the Herald says.

The theory for the rise is that Cubans who make it to the U.S. border benefit from this nation’s “wet-foot-dry-foot” policy, which holds that any Cuban national who puts foot on U.S. soil may stay in the country. Those who are stopped at sea often are repatriated.

Meanwhile, Cuban officials say travel abroad has risen 35 percent since the island’s government loosened restrictions this year.

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McCaskill Demands Explanation Over Staged Arrival Ceremonies for Fallen Soldiers

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Photo Credit: AP2011Sen. Claire McCaskill is pressing the Pentagon for answers following reports — and an admission by the U.S. Department of Defense — that it staged “arrival ceremonies” for fallen soldiers.

“This is even more evidence that these recovery efforts are suffering from systematic problems and a lack of coordinated leadership,” McCaskill said in a statement. “Families in this community just want officials to be honest and forthright about the government’s efforts – instead, what they’re often getting is false hope and fake ceremonies.”

Joint Prisoners of War, Missing in Action Accounting Command — a unit in the Defense Department — has been holding arrival ceremonies for seven years, with flag-draped coffins being carried off cargo planes as though they held the remains of American troops that had just been returned, according to an initial investigation by NBC News. However, the remains typically were on site before each ceremony began, at a lab where they were undergoing analysis. The report focused on ceremonies at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii.

“These ceremonies, which have been held numerous times over the past seven years, reportedly represented to veterans and families that the remains had been recently recovered and were arriving in the United States for the first time,” McCaskill wrote in her Oct. 25 letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.

Following the report, the Pentagon acknowledged that the ceremonies were more of a “pre-planned” memorial than a series of actual events unfolding. The Pentagon also confirmed allegations that planes used in the ceremonies at the military base in Hawaii couldn’t even fly and were towed into position.

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