Rep. Steve King: “Obama governing like a King”

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Pointing to the Health and Human Services regulation that will require virtually all health care plans to cover sterilization, artificial contraception and abortifacients for free, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) said that President Barack Obama is governing like a “king.”

The mandate, which goes into effect on Aug. 1, requires nearly all health insurers to provide sterilizations, contraceptives, and abortifacients free of charge. President Obama announced the finalized rule on Feb. 10, during a press conference at the White House.

“The rule that was published by [HHS Secretary] Kathleen Sebelius directed even our religious institutions that are health care providers to provide abortifacients, sterilizations and contraceptives free of charge as part of every health care policy that they would offer, even though it violated the deep religious convictions, especially of the Catholic Church, but many others as well,” Rep. King told CNSNews.com.

“And when [President Obama] took two weeks of heat over that and realized that he had earned the enmity of the entire Catholic Church and many other faith organizations — when they read the letter of the bishops in my church, which said, ‘We cannot, we will not obey this unjust law’ — the president then held a press conference at noon on a Friday about two weeks from the time this rule was issued.”

“They didn’t change the rule at all,” he said. “Not a single letter, not an ‘I’ dot or a ‘T’ crossed differently, the same rule exists today that existed when they first ruled it out. The president then stepped up at noon on a Friday and he said, ‘I’m going to make an accommodation to the religious organizations and now I’m going to require the insurance companies to do this for free.’ And he repeated himself, ‘for free.’”

Read more HERE.

8,733,461: Workers on Federal ‘Disability’ Exceed Population of New York City

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A record of 8,733,461 workers took federal disability insurance payments in June 2012, according to the Social Security Administration. That was up from 8,707,185 in May.

It also exceeds the entire population of New York City, which according to the Census Bureau’s latest estimate hit 8,244,910 in July 2011.

There has been a dramatic shrinkage in the United States over the past 20 years in the number of workers actually employed and earning paychecks per worker who is not employed and is taking federal disability insurance payments.

In June 1992, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 118,419,000 people employed in the United States, and, according to the Social Security Administration, there were 3,334,333 workers taking federal disability payments. That equaled about 1 person taking disability payments for each 35.5 people actually working.

When President Barack Obama was inaugurated in January 2009, there were 142,187,000 people employed and 7,442,377 workers taking federal disability payments. That equaled about 1 person taking disability payments for each 19.1 people actually working.

Read more HERE.

Why did Roberts cheat to save Obamacare?

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Chief Justice John Roberts rewrote the specific language of Congress by claiming in his ObamaCare ruling that the penalty that the lawmakers had clearly attached to the individual mandate was actually a tax. It was the only way in which the Affordable Care Act could be saved; for the Court rejected the Commerce and Necessary and Proper clause defenses as constitutional grounds for the existence of the law.

By “penciling in” the tax language necessary to satisfy his own requirement of constitutionality, Roberts behaved no differently from any liberal, activist judge so often criticized by conservatives for judicial malfeasance; that is, he cheated rather than rule against a personally favored piece of legislation.

The question is WHY? WHY did the Chief Justice defraud the Court and the American public rather than rule ObamaCare unconstitutional?

In the majority opinion, Roberts wrote: “The Federal Government does have the power to impose a tax on those without health insurance. Section 5000A (the individual mandate) is therefore constitutional, because it can reasonably be read as a tax.”

No, Mr. Chief Justice. Section 5000A may be reasonably re-written BY CONGRESS as a tax, but it may not be READ that way because that is NOT the way in which Congress WROTE it! A great many laws may be reasonably re-written into something they are not, thus bringing them into line with the personal views of justice, propriety, or constitutionality held by the judge preforming the artful edit. But that is not the proper role of a Supreme Court Justice.

Read more HERE.

Obama contributor and “key player” in enactment of ’94 assault weapons ban, ran ‘Fast & Furious’

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Dennis K. Burke, who as a lawyer for the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee in the 1990s was a key player behind the enactment of the 1994 assault-weapons ban, and who then went on to become Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano’s chief of staff, and a contributor to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential primary campaign, and then a member of Obama’s transition team focusing on border-enforcement issues, ended up in the Obama administration as the U.S. attorney in Arizona responsible for overseeing Operation Fast and Furious.

When Obama nominated Burke to be U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona, Burke told the Arizona Capitol Times he believed he understood what the president and his attorney general wanted him to do.

“There’s clearly been direction provided already by President Obama and Attorney General Holder as to what they want to be doing, and this is an office that is at the center of the issues of border enforcement,” said Burke.

Over the course of several days, CNSNews.com left multiple telephone messages with Burke for comment on this story. He did not respond.

Dennis K. Burke has had a long career working as an aide and political appointee to Democratic elected officials. From 1989 to 1994, he was a counsel for the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, working in that capacity for several years on an assault-weapons ban, which was finally enacted on Sept. 13, 1994 as the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. That act expired on Sept. 13, 2004.

Read more HERE.

CBS: Justice Roberts switched views to uphold health care law

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Chief Justice John Roberts initially sided with the Supreme Court’s four conservative justices to strike down the heart of President Obama’s health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, but later changed his position and formed an alliance with liberals to uphold the bulk of the law, according to two sources with specific knowledge of the deliberations.

Roberts then withstood a month-long, desperate campaign to bring him back to his original position, the sources said. Ironically, Justice Anthony Kennedy – believed by many conservatives to be the justice most likely to defect and vote for the law – led the effort to try to bring Roberts back to the fold.

“He was relentless,” one source said of Kennedy’s efforts. “He was very engaged in this.”

But this time, Roberts held firm. And so the conservatives handed him their own message which, as one justice put it, essentially translated into, “You’re on your own.”

The conservatives refused to join any aspect of his opinion, including sections with which they agreed, such as his analysis imposing limits on Congress’ power under the Commerce Clause, the sources said.

Instead, the four joined forces and crafted a highly unusual, unsigned joint dissent. They deliberately ignored Roberts’ decision, the sources said, as if they were no longer even willing to engage with him in debate.

The inner-workings of the Supreme Court are almost impossible to penetrate. The Court’s private conferences, when the justices discuss cases and cast their initial votes, include only the nine members – no law clerks or secretaries are permitted. The justices are notoriously close-lipped, and their law clerks must agree to keep matters completely confidential.

But in this closely-watched case, word of Roberts’ unusual shift has spread widely within the Court, and is known among law clerks, chambers’ aides and secretaries. It also has stirred the ire of the conservative justices, who believed Roberts was standing with them.

Continue reading on the CBS News website…

PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

Harm to Your Privacy and Medical Freedom Lie Ahead

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By Elizabeth Lee Vliet, M.D. for AAPS

The Supreme Court has ruled that Obamacare is constitutional and has upheld the law – a victory for those who want the Federal government to micromanage your life and medical care. This is a tragic defeat, however, for those who support our Founder’s vision of liberty and privacy and the right to control our private property, such as our medical records, and our medical decisions in the privacy of personal consultations without government intrusion.

So what happens now? What does it really mean for patients and their doctors and their privacy and their freedom to choose their medical care?

With Obamacare upheld, dangerous threats lie ahead for patients and their healthcare professionals, both from ObamaCare and from the “stimulus” bill passed in 2009.

This President’s campaign promises—no new taxes, lower insurance premiums, the ability to keep your doctor and your insurance if you liked it—were shredded in the secret back room deals of the single-party bill, which Congress did not read before its frantic midnight passage.

Now that people have read the law over the past two years, we see that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is neither protective of patients, nor affordable.

Continue reading on the AAPS website here…

Feds want to force O-B-E-S-E Americans into Counseling

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If you’re a US citizen, there’s a one-in-three chance that you’re also obese. Now after failed attempt after failed attempt at slimming down citizens, a federal panel is pushing to force overweight Americans into counseling.

The US Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF) introduced their latest plans to help push down the obesity rate in America this week, and their newest effort calls for more than just urging people to exercise. The federal panel of medical experts is asking primary care physicians to put obese Americans into intensive counseling programs in order to combat the epidemic.

“Obesity is a very serious health problem in the United States, and in the past 30 years, obesity rates have dramatically increased,” Task Force member Dr. David Grossman, a pediatrician at Group Health Research Institute in Seattle, says in the USPSTF press release put out on Monday. “The good news is that is that even modest weight loss can reduce health risks for people who are obese. And, there is strong scientific evidence that shows that intensive programs with 12 to 26 sessions in the first year can help people manage their weight.”

While experts have long argued for urging obese Americans into specialized programs to push healthier habits on them, the USPSTF is asking physicians to place any patient with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or more into counseling. Currently more than one-third of adults meet that criterion, with non-Hispanic black adults more than 44 percent likely to be considered obese.

According to a report compiled earlier this year by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 42 percent of the US population will be obese within the next two decades. At the time of that publishing, the Institute of Medicine’s Shiriki Kumanyika told Reuters that “People have heard the advice to eat less and move more for years, and during that time a large number of Americans have become obese.” Advice, many argue, hasn’t been enough, though.

Read more HERE.

Why GOP Might Accommodate Obama Yet Again

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Barack Obama’s invocation of executive privilege to keep subpoenaed documents from congressional committees investigating Fast and Furious came as rather a shock to many DC observers. It wasn’t that pundits were surprised the “most transparent administration in history” had chosen to OFFICIALLY cover up the Fast and Furious affair.  After all, no one actually believed Obama’s phony openness claims in the first place.

What really confounded Administration friends and foes alike was the fact that Obama invoked the privilege in the face of such an extensive body of disapproving legal precedent. “Where there is reason to believe…documents sought may shed light on government misconduct, ‘the privilege is routinely denied…’” wrote the DC District Court of Appeals in the Clinton era US v Espy case. How could a former instructor of law make such an obvious and fundamental legal “error?”

It’s a safe bet that Eric Holder and Barack Obama worked out the executive privilege idea well in advance of the Attorney General’s scheduled meeting with Darrell Issa. It was, after all, a worst case, fallback scheme the pair undoubtedly agreed must be implemented should Oversight Committee chair Issa refuse Holder’s last-minute attempt to buffalo the Congressman and Republican leaders into accepting the AG’s testimony in lieu of subpoenaed documents.

In fact, the privilege claim was only invoked after a year of stonewalling had failed, threatening to result in an embarrassing contempt charge that even the 90% of national media types who had buried the Fast and Furious story would eventually be forced to report. Yet, although political fallout resulting from the contempt vote and the illegally advanced privilege claim would be swift, it would be NOTHING compared to the nuclear blast resulting from a release of documents that proved Obama and Holder had been in on the implementation and ensuing cover-up of the Fast and Furious debacle from the very beginning. Documents yielding such a revelation obviously had to be denied the Committee and the American public at all costs, as a loss in November might be accompanied by a stretch in Leavenworth.

Though Barack Obama knew a political firestorm would accompany his claim of executive privilege, it was a decision he was forced to make.

 Read More at Western Journalism. By Doug Book.

Has the Day of the Islamist Arrived?

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Sixteen months after the United States abandoned its loyal satrap of 30 years, President Hosni Mubarak, to champion democracy in Egypt, the returns are in.

Mohammed Morsi, candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, is president of Egypt, while the military has dissolved the elected parliament that was dominated by the Brotherhood, and curbed his powers.

The military and the mullahs will fight for the future of a country that is home to one in four Arabs. The soldiers who have dominated Egypt since the ouster of King Farouk in 1952 show no willingness to surrender what they have long controlled of the state and economy.

Yet in the long run, the Brotherhood—whose claim to guide the nation’s destiny is rooted in a faith 1,400 years old—is likely to prevail.

In Syria, the uprising against Bashar Assad appears headed for civil war, with atrocities on both sides. Some 10,000 are estimated to have died, a far bloodier affair than Egypt. And here, too, the day of the Brotherhood, massacred in the thousands by Bashar’s father in Hama, seems not far off.

Read more at takimag.com. By Patrick J. Buchanan.

Photo Credit: Jonathan Rashad (Creative Commons)