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The Sprawling, Dimming Age of Obama

June 30, 2013/2 Comments/in Featured, Opinion /by Lloyd Green

Photo Credit: AP

In Barack Obama, America elected a chief executive whose Department of Justice has repeatedly targeted the press, whose Internal Revenue Service has gone gunning for conservatives, and whose government has elevated secrecy into a cardinal virtue. The Obama administration’s data grab is not just about national security, or Edward Snowden. It is also an epilogue befitting a candidate who delivered his 2008 convention acceptance speech in front of a temple façade dedicated to himself, and whose faith in government and the state is at the center of his presidency.

Under the Obama Rules, the unauthorized dissemination of non-classified government information is now “tantamount to aiding the enemies of the United States.” Think Nixonism without the sweaty five o’clock shadow; Cheneyism without the dyspepsia, armed with a jump shot instead of a shotgun.

Forget Obama’s paeans to civil liberties. The Age of Obama is a celebration of ever-growing and ever-more intrusive government, with mandated healthcare, crony capitalism, and First Family daytime and late-night television appearances as the modern iterations of bread and circuses.

On Tuesday, Obama environmental adviser Daniel Schrag announced to the world that “a war on coal is exactly what’s needed,” only hours before the president rolled out his environmental regulatory scheme that would have the EPA issue more regulations, while constraining development of the Keystone XL Pipeline — jobs be damned. Talk about timing! Just a day later, first quarter GDP growth was revised downward to 1.8 percent.

Having previously been rebuffed by Congress over a carbon tax, the President didn’t propose anything to Congress this time. He simply announced what his executive branch would do unilaterally.

When will Republicans Understand Free Market Healthcare?

April 19, 2013/0 Comments/in Featured, Opinion /by Daniel Horowitz

Photo Credit: WND

Healthcare is one of the most complex policy issues. The lack of free market healthcare, engendered by endless government interventions (and secondary interventions to fix the original interventions), has made policy solutions even more cumbersome. But the overarching principle of any reform must begin with the understanding that federal intervention in the healthcare industry has inexorably driven up the cost of healthcare and health insurance. As such, no healthcare policy panacea can begin with growing government and further distorting the already grossly-altered healthcare market.

Instead of proposing more free market solutions, Republicans are offering pale-pastel versions of Democrat government intervention as solutions. Here are two examples.

Last week, Congressman Larry Bucshon (R-IN) introduced the Orwellian-named “Truth in Healthcare Marketing Act of 2013” (HR 1427) – a bill that forces optometrists to disclose all their licensing and qualifications in all advertising. It grants wide latitude to the Federal Trade Commission to regulate and penalize offenders. The bill is heavily backed by special interest hustlers like the AMA and American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO). The ophthalmologist lobby doesn’t want competition from cheaper healthcare providers (optometrists), and they want to use the boot of the federal government to ensnare them in red tape.

It is this sort of anti-free market special interest legislating that has crowded out choice and competition from the marketplace. The reality is that there are already strict laws in most states to punish those optometrists who step outside of their scope of service beyond their qualifications. There is no reason, beyond special interest politicking, for the federal government to get involved. The bill was introduced on April 9, a day before the AAOs national meetings in DC commenced.

White House Tried To Muzzle Dr. Ben Carson (+video)

March 3, 2013/0 Comments/in Featured, Video /by Dean Chambers

Appearing as a guest on the Sean Hannity Show on the Fox News Channel last night, Dr. Ben Carson disclosed that a member of the White House staff, before his speech last month to the National Prayer Breakfast, had urged him “not (to) offend the president.” Additionally, Dr. Carson said the White House requested to see his speech before the event. When asked by Hannity, Dr. Carson said he believed it was wise that he did not disclose the White House member who made that request before the National Prayer Breakfast.

Dr. Benjamin Carson, who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2008, is the Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dr. Carson is also the author of America the Beautiful: Rediscovering What Made This Nation Great.

Hannity said, “Dr. Carson made headlines last month when he dared to speak truth to power about where we stand as a nation,” in reference to his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast where he sharply disagreed with President Obama’s views on health care reform and several other issues. Dr. Carson also, in that same speech, gave his views on how political correctness stifles open discussion and debate on key issues.

This is just the latest in several stories about how the White House has been accused of either attempting to control events where the president appears or appearing to want to control the message from these events or how they are covered in the media.

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