Belief Obama’s ‘Honest and Trustworthy’ Hits All-Time Low

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/Carolyn KasterThe belief among the American people that President Barack Obama is “honest and trustworthy” has hit an all-time low, according to a Gallup poll released today.

Nonetheless, 50 percent of those surveyed by Gallup do believe the president of the United States is an honest and trustworthy man.

Forty-seven percent do not.

Also hitting or matching all-time lows, according to Gallup, are the beliefs that Obama has a clear plan for solving the countries problems, that he can manage the government effectively, that he understands the problems Americans face in their daily lives, and that he is a strong and decisive leader.

On seven occasions, starting when Obama was running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, Gallup has asked poll respondents: “Thinking about the following characteristics and qualities, please say whether you think each applies or doesn’t apply to Barack Obama. How about is honest and trustworthy?”

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Cruz Backs Paul’s Strategy for Audit the Fed Vote

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Photo Credit: Douglas Graham/CQ Roll Call File PhotoSen. Ted Cruz announced Wednesday that he is backing an effort by fellow Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky to get a vote on auditing the Federal Reserve as a condition for considering the nomination of Janet L. Yellen to be chairwoman of the Fed.

“I agree with Rand Paul: before the Senate votes on whether to confirm Janet Yellen, we should at the very least allow a vote on the Audit the Fed bill,” the Texas Republican said in a statement. “The Federal Reserve has expanded our money supply by trillions, benefiting Wall Street but making life harder for millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet.”

Paul and Cruz cannot block Yellen’s confirmation because Senate supporters could work around them with a cloture vote to limit debate and avert a possible filibuster.

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Sexually Suggestive ObamaCare ad Called ‘Degrading’ to Women

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Photo Credit: Fox News A sexually suggestive advertising campaign in support of Colorado’s health insurance exchange is taking heat, after the latest ad featured a woman boasting about her birth control while wondering how to get her man “between the covers.”

The ad, by ProgressNow Colorado and the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative, is being hammered as demeaning to women. It follows a prior ad from the same campaign featuring young men doing keg stands, under the banner “Got Insurance?”

“It’s degrading to women, and it says a lot about what they think of America’s youth today,” Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., said of the latest ad.

The new ad shows a woman holding a packet of birth control pills, while a suave-looking young man stands next to her with his arm around her waist.

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Bill Clinton Bluntly Criticizes Obama: Live Up to Your Healthcare Plan Promise

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Photo Credit: APA blunt critique from Bill Clinton on President Obama’s handling of the rocky ObamaCare rollout is prompting the White House to pledge another set of health law fixes — though in doing so, it could inadvertently build the case for those calling for a delay in the law’s implementation.

Aside from scrambling to fix the broken HealthCare.gov website, the administration is now trying to deal with the millions of Americans who have received cancellation notices. On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said the president’s team is trying to figure out a way to offer relief to some of those policyholders.

The statement comes after former President Clinton, in an interview with the site Ozy.com, said Obama should live up to his promise to Americans that if they like their health plans, they can keep them.

“So I personally believe, even if it takes a change to the law, the president should honor the commitment the federal government made to those people and let them keep what they got,” Clinton said.

Asked Tuesday if Obama agreed, Carney said: “The answer’s yes.”

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Three More Apologies the President Will Be Making

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Photo Credit: NewscomFaced with the grim reality of Obamacare, President Obama apologized that millions of Americans are losing coverage because of his law, which was supposed to make health insurance available and affordable.

Sadly, this is not the last apology the President will need to make about his health care law. Although not comprehensive, here are three more apologies on the horizon.

1. “I’m sorry that the cost of coverage — premiums, deductibles, and copayments — is going up for millions of Americans.”

It’s bad enough that people are getting their policies canceled, but it is downright scary when they find out that what’s offered on the exchange is far more expensive.

Before Obamacare, Natalie Willes, a young woman in Los Angles, paid $199 a month; with Obamacare, it increases to $278 a month. Add a deductible of $6,500 and suddenly, a currently insured Natalie wonders if she will be able to afford to stay insured.

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Appeals Court Delivers ‘Significant Victory’ for Religious Liberty in ObamaCare HHS Mandate Case

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/Matt YorkIn a 2-1 ruling on Friday, a federal appeals court in Chicago upheld the rights of both individuals and companies to challenge Obamacare’s contraception-abortifacient-sterilization mandate.

It is the first decision of its kind in the ongoing litigation against the requirement that all employers — despite their deeply held religious beliefs — must arrange and pay for employee health insurance that covers no-cost contraceptives, abortion-inducing drugs, and sterilization, under penalty of fine.

“This is a significant victory for protecting the religious beliefs of individuals and corporations,” said Edward White, senior counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, who represents one of the plaintiffs, an Illinois company.

“It is also important to note that the appeals court determined that the HHS mandate should not move forward against our clients while this issue is being litigated. It has been our position from the beginning that the HHS mandate violates America’s longstanding history of protecting conscience rights. The mandate is unlawfully compelling employers such as our clients to do the following: abandon their faith to comply with the law, or follow their faith and pay significant annual penalties to the federal government. The decision by the appeals court is encouraging as this issue heads to the Supreme Court.”

The ACLJ represents Korte & Luitjohan Contractors, Inc., a family owned, full-service construction contractor located in Highland, Illinois. The company provides a group health insurance plan for its non-union employees, which number about 20. Cyril B. Korte and Jane E. Korte own a controlling interest in the company and contend the HHS mandate violates their Catholic faith. The ACLJ filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of both the individuals and the company in October 2012.

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For Hollywood, the Joke’s On Obamacare

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Photo Credit: APObamacare has gone from Hollywood leading lady to comic relief.

When the Obamacare exchanges launched last month, celebrities were out front, with everything from nearly topless #GetCovered tweets from young actresses touting affordable care to Funny or Die videos going viral. But since then, amid mounting bad press on everything from the faulty website to the “you can keep it” controversy, Obamacare has become the punch line instead of the star.

Organizers of the celebrity push say they haven’t gone away; rather, they’re still eager to help promote enrollment over the long haul.

The push to promote the Affordable Care Act with celebrities was designed to motivate the hardest-to-reach populations to to sign up. The “young invincibles,” healthy Americans who might not believe they have any need for health insurance, are seen as one of the key groups that Obamacare needs to reach in order to succeed, and celebs were one of the ways to accomplish that.

Last week, country singers Carrie Underwood and Brad Paisley mocked HealthCare.gov’s long wait times and early low enrollment figures in a skit during their hosting of the Country Music Awards, singing a duet including the lines “Obamacare by morning/Over six people served.”

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Comprehensive Immigration Reform Would Hurt Economy, Lower Wages

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Photo Credit: APAdding millions of workers through comprehensive immigration reform would have a devastating impact to an already poor economy, according to a growing number of Republicans in Congress.

Analyses of the Senate’s “Gang of Eight” bill show that the legislation would add 30 million additional immigrants to the United States over the next decade, at a time when the number of Americans not in the labor force has reached record highs.

“Granting amnesty to untold millions of illegal immigrants will flood our job markets and reduce wages and employment for those hard-working immigrants and lower-income workers who have followed our laws,” Rep. Lou Barletta (R., Pa.) told the Washington Free Beacon.

One of the major reasons Rep. Walter Jones (R., N.C.) opposes the Senate bill is the impact it would have on the economy.

“Congressman Jones has consistently expressed his staunch opposition to the Senate bill—and any other legislation that provides a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants—for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that amnesty would allow individuals who have cheated the system and entered the country illegally to take jobs that could otherwise be filled by lawful citizens,” his spokesperson Sarah Howard said.

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Churches Post ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’ Billboards Around Detroit

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Photo Credit: Fox News A wave of gun violence in Detroit has prompted local church leaders to inundate the city with “Thou shalt not kill” posters and billboards in hopes of quelling the violence.

A coalition of clergy leaders held an emergency meeting on Nov. 7 to develop a plan to promote the message of the Sixth Commandment in the community, WWJ-TV reported.

“We all have to do what we can do, and right now we don’t have a respect in our communities for life; we don’t have a respect for many things,” a local minister, Ovella Andreas, told the station. “But we still have to create a standard to hopefully have a consciousness about God …. because even our people have become apathetic.”

The group, which spearheaded efforts to get the city to designate the 22nd day of each month as “Stop the Violence Day,” hopes to saturate the community with the campaign by placing posters on the sides of buses, billboards and at area businesses.

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Democrat Senators Co-Sponsoring Bill To ‘Keep Your Healthcare Plan’

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Photo Credit: KAREN BLEIER/AFP/GettyBy CBS Sacramento/AP.

Health insurer Anthem Blue Cross of California has agreed to a two-month extension of about 104,000 individual policies after failing to give the required 90-day cancellation notice, state Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones announced Tuesday.

The policies had been set to expire on Dec. 31 but will be extended until Feb. 28 for those who choose to re-enroll. Notices informing customers of the extension will be sent out this week, Anthem said.

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Photo Credit: APDianne Feinstein joins push to keep health plans

By Seung Min Kim.

It’s not just red-state Democrats who want to take aggressive steps to mend controversial provisions in Obamacare.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said Tuesday that she will co-sponsor a bill by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) to require insurance companies to continue offering their existing health care plans — a way to make good on President Barack Obama’s promise that consumers can keep their current coverage if they like it.

“This bill provides a simple fix to a complex problem,” Feinstein said in a statement Tuesday, calling Landrieu’s proposal a “commonsense fix” and urged Congress to pass it “quickly.”

But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has no plans to bring Obamacare delay bills to the floor, and most Senate Democrats appear to be waiting until the end of the month — the date by which the administration has promised to fix the problematic health care website — to demand major delays to the law’s implementation.

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