Sebelius Finally Admits Premiums Will Rise as a Result of ObamaCare – Katie Pavlich

Sebelius Finally Admits Premiums Will Rise as a Result of ObamaCare – Katie Pavlich.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is finally admitting that the Affordable Care Act isn’t actually that affordable. Think tanks have been warning for years about the expensive cost of ObamaCare and many have already seen their health insurance premiums rise as a result of its implementation yet, the administration has denied the bill will actually increase costs for consumers until now.

Some people purchasing new insurance policies for themselves this fall could see premiums rise because of requirements in the health-care law, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told reporters Tuesday.

Ms. Sebelius’s remarks come weeks before insurers are expected to begin releasing rates for plans that start on Jan. 1, 2014, when key provisions of the health law kick in. Premiums have been a sensitive subject for the Obama administration, which is counting on elements in the health law designed to increase competition among insurers to keep rates in check. The administration has pointed to subsidies that will be available for many lower-income Americans to help them with the cost of coverage.

The secretary’s remarks are among the first direct statements from federal officials that people who have skimpy health plans right now could face higher premiums for plans that are more generous. She noted that the law requires plans to provide better benefits and treat all customers equally regardless of their medical claims.

“These folks will be moving into a really fully insured product for the first time, and so there may be a higher cost associated with getting into that market,” she said. “But we feel pretty strongly that with subsidies available to a lot of that population that they are really going to see much better benefit for the money that they’re spending.”

Most people who have “skimpy plans” have them because they either a) don’t need a fancy health insurance plan b) can’t afford a health insurance plan. Forcing consumers into plans they don’t need or can’t afford is counter productive. Not to mention, Sebelius argues consumers will see a “much better benefit for the money that they’re spending.” Better benefits? Does she mean better benefits of having fewer doctors?

Most physicians have a pessimistic outlook on the future of medicine, citing eroding autonomy and falling income, a survey of more than 600 doctors found.

Six in 10 physicians (62 percent) said it is likely many of their colleagues will retire earlier than planned in the next 1 to 3 years, a survey from Deloitte Center for Health Solutions found. That perception is uniform across age, gender, and specialty, it said.

Another 55 percent of surveyed doctors believe others will scale back hours because of the way medicine is changing, but the survey didn’t elaborate greatly on how it was changing. Three-quarters think the best and brightest may not consider a career in medicine, although that is an increase from the 2011 survey result of 69 percent.

“Physicians recognize ‘the new normal’ will necessitate major changes in the profession that require them to practice in different settings as part of a larger organization that uses technologies and team-based models for consumer (patient) care,” the survey’s findings stated.

About two-thirds of the survey responders said they believe physicians and hospitals will become more integrated in coming years. In the last 2 years, 31 percent moved into a larger practice, results found. Nearly eight in 10 believe midlevel providers will play a larger role in directing primary care.

Or how about the better benefits of fewer life saving medical devices thanks to the innovation and job killing medical device tax in ObamaCare?

Biomedical or medical device engineering firms are already laying off workers who develop crucial medical products due to the “unforeseen” costs, or in other words, the costs of ObamaCare. Not to mention, the more money these companies pay to the government, the less money they have to invest in research and development.

The Obama administration is no longer trying to lie about ObamaCare, instead they’re simply trying to justify the lies by making everyone feel better about the so-called benefits ObamaCare will offer at a much higher price.

Related articles

• HHS Sec. Kathleen Sebelius admits Obamacare is raising some peoples insurance rates… (bluegrasspundit.com)

 

A Carbon Tax Would Destroy America – Tea Party Nation

A Carbon Tax Would Destroy America – Tea Party Nation.

By Alan Caruba

If you want to know what a carbon tax on emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) would do to America you need only look at the destruction of industry and business in Australia, along with the soaring costs for energy use it imposes on anyone there.

“The carbon tax is contributing to a record number of firms going to the wall with thousands of employees being laid off and companies forced to close factories that have stood for generations”, Steve Lewis and Phil Jacob reported in a March 18 issue of The Daily Telegraph, a leading Australian newspaper.

“Soaring energy bills caused by the government’s climate change scheme have been called ‘the straw that broke the camel’s back’ by company executives and corporate rescue doctors who are trying to save ailing firms.”

The passage of a carbon tax in America would have the exact same results and it remains a top priority for the White House and Democrats in Congress who see it as a bonanza in new funding for the government.

As Paul Driessen says in a Townhall.com commentary, “More rational analysis reveals that dreams of growth are nothing more than dangerous tax revenue hallucinations. They would bring intense pain for no climate or economic gain.”

Too many Americans still believe that CO2 is causing global warming, but CO2 plays no role in climate change and is barely 0.038 percent of the Earth’s atmosphere. More to the point, there is no warming and hasn’t been for the last seventeen years as the Earth is in a natural cooling cycle that has prolonged the advent of spring with severe snow storms throughout the nation.

There is no scientific justification for such a tax, but those advocating it don’t care about the science. They care about raising revenue for an ever-growing government to spend and waste.

Driessen points out that “Hydrocarbons (coal, oil, and natural gas) provide over 83% of all the energy that powers America. A carbon tax would put a hefty surcharge on everything we make, grow, ship, eat, and do. It would put the federal government in control of, not just one-sixth of the economy, as under Obamacare, but 100% of our economy and lives. It would make the United States increasingly less productive, less competitive globally, less able to provide opportunities for our children.”

The case for a carbon tax simply doesn’t exist, but there are powerful forces in Congress and the support of the White House to impose such a tax. The power of the environmental movement and its long history of lies about the climate, primarily the global warming hoax, cannot be dismissed or ignored.

In Australia, “The Australian Securities & Investments Commission reports there were 10,632 company collapses for the 12 months to March 1—averaging 886 a month—with the number of firms being placed in administration more than 12 percent higher than during the global financial crisis.” It represents “a record high…led by widespread failures in manufacturing and construction, which accounted for almost one-fifth of collapses.”

Greg Evans, the chief economic economist for the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said that “It defies logic to adopt a policy which even the Treasury acknowledges will lower our standards of living and be harmful to national productivity.” Adding to Australia’s struggling companies, the carbon tax and one on mining were showing up as “sovereign issues” in discussions with foreign investors.” Who would want to invest in Australia if these two taxes were destroying the economic strength of the nation?

Politics in Australia is no less a battleground than here in America. Australia’s Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, who introduced the carbon tax, just beat back a bid by her Labor Party’s dissidents to reinstall former leader Kevin Rudd who lost to her in 2010 and 2012. Much of the opposition to her comes from the harm being inflicted by the carbon and mining taxes.

Marlo Lewis is a senior fellow in energy and environmental policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. During the 2012 campaign, he described a carbon tax as “political poison for the Republican Party.” Mitt Romney opposed it, but ‘the big attraction of carbon taxes these days is not as a global warming policy but as a revenue enhancer. In both parties, deficit hawks and big spenders (often the same individuals) are flailing for ways to boost federal revenue.”

That is precisely the problem afflicting a nation whose Congress and President could not find a reason to cut anything from the federal budget. The result was the “sequestration” that imposed cuts neither party could agree upon.

In a Fox News article, “Here comes Team Obama’s carbon tax”. Phil Kerpen, president of American Commitment and author of “Democracy Denied” reported that “The Treasury Department’s Office of Environment and Energy has finally begun to turn over documents about its preparations for a carbon tax in response to transparency warrior Chris Horner’s Freedom of Information Act request. The documents provide solid evidence that the Obama administration and its allies in Congress have every intention of implementing a carbon tax if we fail to stop them.”

President Obama’s nominee to be the next Secretary of Energy, Ernest Moniz, is on record wanting to double or triple the cost of energy, much as his predecessor wanted.

A carbon tax, if enacted, would totally undermine a nation that has a debt climbing toward $17 trillion and millions unemployed in an economy that is struggling to inch its way out of the depths of the financial crisis.

If you wanted to destroy America, you could do it with a carbon tax. Australia is reeling from the cost to its economy and the higher energy costs its people are paying. We don’t want that here.

© Alan Caruba, 2013

Related articles

• Carbon tax hallucinations (wattsupwiththat.com)
• DRIESSEN: Obama’s misguided carbon tax plans (washingtontimes.com)
• Obama’s Carbon Dioxide Lies (iceagenow.info)

Rangel: ‘Millions of kids’ being shot down by assault rifles – Washington Times

Rangel: ‘Millions of kids’ being shot down by assault rifles – Washington Times.

By Jessica Chasmar – The Washington Times

New York Rep. Charlie Rangel appeared on MSNBC this morning to opine about the assault weapons ban getting dropped from the Senate gun-control bill.

He made a few claims about politics as usual and the power money can have in this type of a case, but his most noteworthy comment was about his knowledge on crime statistics.

“I’m ashamed to admit it but its politics and its money, The NRA has taken this position, there is no reason, there is no foundation. There is no hunter that needs automatic military weapons to enjoy the culture of going hunting,” the Democrat told MSNBC’s Chris Jansing.

“We’re talking about millions of kids dying — being shot down by assault weapons,” he continued. “Were talking about handguns easier in the inner cities, to get these guns in the inner cities, than to get computers. This is not just a political issue, it’s a moral issue…”

The FBI’s 2011 data says only 323 people were killed by rifles, compared to 728 people who were killed by hands, fists, feet etc. Handguns are much more likely to be used in a homicide with 6,220 killed nationwide in 2011.

Related articles

• Charlie Rangel Assault Weapons Ban Exaggeration: “Millions of Kids Being Shot Down By Assault Weapons” (americanlivewire.com)
• Rangel Claims Millions of Kids Being Shot Down By Assault Weapons (libertynews.com)
• Charlie Rangel lies and states ‘millions of kids being shot down by assault weapons’ (VIDEO) (guns.com)
• Excuse me folks, but I am about to break my no “F” word rule (thedaleygator.wordpress.com)

 

Dumb and Dangerous: America’s Fast Pass for Saudi Arabia – Michelle Malkin.

Dumb and Dangerous: America’s Fast Pass for Saudi Arabia – Michelle Malkin .

It’s business as usual in the post-9/11 world. Your federal government is back to pandering to wealthy travelers from Saudi Arabia. In the eyes of our massive homeland security apparatus, the comfort of Saudis is a higher priority than the safety of American citizens.

And thanks to reckless, feckless bureaucrats who fear being labeled “racists,” “xenophobes” and “Islamophobes,” political correctness remains the handmaiden of terror.

According to a new report released this week by the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), President Obama’s Department of Homeland Security plans to bestow “trusted traveler” status to travelers from Saudi Arabia. Yes, the home of 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers will soon enjoy the exclusive privilege of new entry shortcuts into the U.S.

Fox News points out: “Only an exclusive handful of countries enjoy inclusion in the Global Entry program: Canada, Mexico, South Korea and the Netherlands. According to the IPT, some officials are questioning why Saudi Arabia gets to reap the benefits of the program, when key U.S. allies like Germany and France are not enrolled.”

Saudi suck-up Janet Napolitano, head of the Department of Homeland Security, hailed “the bond between the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia” and pledged to work with the government to facilitate “legitimate trade and travel.”

This foolish move is astonishing but not unprecedented. As I noted in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration had created its own fast-pass system for Saudi elites called “Visa Express.” Thanks to this GOP idiocy, three of the 9/11 hijackers skipped the usual consular interview process and bypassed long lines in the hot Saudi sun.

Throughout the jihadist-coddling Saudi kingdom, applicants could simply file their visa paperwork through travel agencies and courier companies for a small fee — without having to appear in person or submit to extensive background checks. The U.S. embassy in Riyadh bragged before 9/11: “Applicants will no longer have to take time off from work, no longer have to wait in long lines under the hot sun and in crowded waiting rooms, and no longer be limited by any time constraints.”

Investigative reporter Joel Mowbray obtained the shocking, shoddy applications filed by the hijackers — whose omissions about where, when and what they planned to do when they arrived in the U.S. should have raised blood-red flags. But after the Saudi-dominated 9/11 jihad crew murdered nearly 3,000 innocent men, women and children on our soil, Bush administration officials bent over backward to assure touchy Saudis that no changes would be made “in determining visa eligibility as a result of the (9/11) attacks.” Visa Express was expanded.

 

Map of the territory and area covered by present-day Saudi Arabia. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Moreover, State Department employees were banned from communicating with foreign governments about their citizens’ visa applications, making it virtually impossible to verify vital information. The Bush State Department official in charge of implementing the “Visa Express” program that helped enable 9/11 hijackers and their colleagues was not punished. Instead, she received “cash prizes for ‘outstanding performance in the 12 months from April 16, 2001, to April 15, 2002′ — a period during which at least five of the 9/11 terrorists received visas that should have been denied according to the law,” as Mowbray noted, “and during which September 11 happened.”

Since that time, consular screening has remained an abject joke. There is still no operational tracking system to detect and deport hundreds of thousands of visa overstayers, including untold numbers of illegal aliens from jihad-friendly Middle Eastern countries. Law enforcement training for consular officials is scant. And Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., stated the obvious about Obama’s Fast Pass 2.0: “I think you have radical Wahhabism in certain elements in Saudi Arabia, and I think to be more lenient there than in other places would be a mistake.”

Twelve years after a Saudi-dominated cabal of young male Muslims committed mass murder in the skies and brought down the Twin Towers, your government refuses to do the unapologetic national security profiling necessary to prevent another domestic attack by foreign jihadis. Instead, they’re searching your grandma’s knitting bag, your Marine’s prosthetic limbs and your toddler’s bags packed for Disneyland — while waving Saudi “trusted travelers” through the fast lane. Deadly deja vu.

Related articles

• Dumb and Dangerous: America’s Fast Pass for Saudi Arabia (conservativeread.com)
• Dumb and Dangerous: America’s Fast Pass for Saudi Arabia (cnsnews.com)
• Concern Growing Over DHS Decision to Give Saudi Arabia Fast Track Travel Privilege (foxnewsinsider.com)
• America’s Fast Pass for Saudi Arabia (nationalreview.com)
• The Bloodsucking Barbaric Saudis Given Special “Fast Pass” Around Customs Intended for Civilized Nations (therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com)
• Special Travel Benefit for Saudis a “Slap in the Face” (culturaljihad.wordpress.com)

An Hour of Darkness. Or Light! – Tea Party Nation

An Hour of Darkness. Or Light! – Tea Party Nation.

By Alan Caruba

On Saturday, Greens around the world will turn off their lights in a symbolic “Earth Hour” gesture against climate change, the term they adapted in the face of the fact that the Earth has been cooling for seventeen years and is on the cusp of a mini-ice age that will ensure cold weather for many years to come.

Earth Hour is a protest against the use of electricity—energy—to light our lives in countless ways. Anyone who has gone through an outage as I did in the wake of Hurricane Sandy will tell you that life without electricity is an immediate return to primitive times. Mine lasted a week and included the loss of access to the Internet and the ability to use my computer and every other piece of equipment in the apartment. It was not fun.

We derive electricity from burning coal, from natural gas, from nuclear fission, and from hydroelectricity generated by huge dams. The least amount of electricity we use comes from oil and, in particular from wind and solar, a bare two percent or so. These latter two sources exist only because of government subsidies and mandates. Without these they could not compete against far more affordable and effective sources. Oil, of course, fuels all our vehicles.

What Americans generally have not absorbed is the fact that the large, multi-million dollar funded environmental organizations oppose every form of energy we use. Here is a week’s schedule of events planned to lead up to and follow Earth Hour in New Jersey by the Sierra Club chapter.

# On Thursday, March 21, they sponsored a “Fracking Waste Ban Lobby Day” in the state capital of Trenton.

# On Saturday they will sponsor an “adventure aquarium trip” devoted to sea turtles and a lecture on “how our plastic addiction impacts them.” We are no more “addicted” to plastic than to oil from which it is produced and found in virtually everything we use. Energy is not the enemy. It is the lifeblood of a successful economy and society.

# On Sunday there will be a town hall meeting about “clean energy solutions” in concert with Climate Mama, 350.org and the Sierra Club with a panel that will discuss how clean energy, solar and wind, “can dramatically reduce our use of fossil fuels and move our state forward without the pollution.” It will also discuss how “climate change has impacted you.” Americans are not going to reduce the use of fossil fuels, oil, coal, and natural gas. We already enjoy the cleanest air and, more importantly, the Earth in general and America in particular has enormous reserves of these energy reserves.

# On Wednesday, March 27, another panel will engage in “pipeline education”, ignoring the fact that America has 170,000 miles of pipelines that transport oil and natural gas throughout the nation. They are safe and secure, but none carry ethanol, a chemical that erodes not only pipelines, but damages the engines of millions of cars and trucks. The pipeline panel will likely take note of the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada that has been delayed for five years now and cleared of any charges of environmental harm.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute suggests that Earth Hour is a good time to celebrate “Human Achievement Hour”, a way to debunk the global warming hoax and the nonsense surrounding “climate change”, a process that has gone on for billions of years on the planet. The notion that people can do anything about the climate is so absurd it defies the imagination.

Earth Hour is just one more way for the Greens to continue spreading their lies about fossil fuels, plastic, and chemicals they want to demonize despite the advances in health and longevity, the manufacture of products we use, and the extraordinary lifestyle we enjoy with abundant food and protection against the multitude of insect and rodent pests that afflict us, along with the many species of weeds that affect crops.

Not that long ago, Greens were spreading nonsense about “peak oil”, saying that the Earth was running out of this energy source, but new reserves of oil are being found all the time. Between 1945 and 2010, the United States alone produced 167 billion barrels of oil, more than eight times more oil than the amount of proven oil reserves it had in 1944. Oil doesn’t merely fuel our cars and trucks, but as fracking techniques have been developed, more and more of it is available. Between 1980 and 2010, the U.S. produced 77.8 billion barrels of oil and still had 20.7 billion barrels of oil reserves left.

What Americans should keep in mind during Earth Hour is that we have a White House that has done everything in its power to deprive us of the coal, oil and natural gas that we have at our disposal. It has restricted the exploration and extraction of billions of barrels of oil from offshore of our east and west coasts, and in Alaska. It has generated regulations that have already shut down coal-fired plants and is seeking to impose greater restrictions despite the fact that we have enough coal to keep them operating for hundreds of years.

With more than 1.7 trillion barrels of recoverable oil under our soil, we have enough oil to fuel our present needs for the next 250 years. Delaying the Keystone XL pipeline has deprived the nation of thousands of jobs and will result in $5 billion being spent annually to import oil. Meanwhile, the Obama administration has wasted billions on “clean energy investments.”

Americans know their energy bills are increasing as the result of anti-energy policies, know that the energy sector, if allowed to flourish, would provide thousands of jobs, and should know that every drop of oil and cubic foot of natural gas we secure from our own reserves would reduce the cost to everyone in every way.

Turn on your lights at 8:30 PM on Saturday. Turn them all on. Send a message to the White House and to the world that energy is the heartbeat of life and economic growth for America and the world.

Hating energy is another form of hating humanity.

© Alan Caruba, 2013

 

The Mini-Ice Age has Arrived–Despite What Obama Says – Tea Party Nation

The Mini-Ice Age has Arrived–Despite What Obama Says – Tea Party Nation.

by Alan Caruba

Climatologists and meteorologists are familiar with the last Mini Ice Age (MIA) that occurred between 1350 and 1850 AD. It is also referred to as the Little Ice Age. Suffice to say it was cold and, as such weather cycles tend to do, it altered history in a variety of ways.

The failure of crops was one aspect of the cold spell and in France the revolution that overthrew the monarchy is attributed to the unhappiness of its citizens, but famine in the northern hemisphere was widespread. In the United States, it is best recalled for the horrid winter our revolutionary war soldiers spent at Valley Forge. At one point during the cycle Americans spent what they called “a year without summer” when the weather remained too cold to plant crops.

Since climate is cyclical, it is not surprising that the MIA followed the Medieval Warm Period, also known as a climate optimum. Crops flourished, empires rose and declined, and neither cycle had a thing to do with so-called greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and everything to do with what was happening on the sun.

As spring arrives in the U.S., there was also a broad band of snow storms that comes with it.

One of the world’s most respected long-term climate forecasters is Piers Corbyn, an astrophysicist whose expertise is relied upon by corporations and others who need to know what the weather will really be as opposed to the criminally false claims about global warming. His website, WeatherAction, is well worth visiting.

In his own words, “WeatherAction is involved in the Global Warming/Climate Change debate where we point out that the world is now cooling not warming and there is no observational evidence in the thousands and millions of years of data that changes in CO2 have any effect on weather or climate. There are no scientists in the world who can produce such observational data. There is only effect the other way, namely that ocean temperatures control average CO2 levels.”

Recently Corbyn announced that “The CO2 story is over. It has been pointing the world in the wrong direction for too long. The serious implications of the developing mini ice age to agriculture and the world economy through the next 25 to 35 years must be addressed.” World cooling is now locked in says Corbyn, citing the decrease in average solar activity and a jet stream that is often further south than normal, resulting in extreme weather events.

Following in the heels of Corbyn’s forecast was the release of a new report by Dr. David Whitehouse, published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, and what makes it fairly extraordinary after decades of global warming propaganda is that he concludes that there has been no statistically significant increase in annual global temperatures since 1997. That’s seventeen years of atrocious lies about a warming earth.

The irony that Dr. Whitehouse includes in his report is that the atmospheric composition of carbon dioxide has increased during that time from 370 ppm to 390 ppm. So, everything you have been told about carbon dioxide emissions and those of other so-called greenhouse gases “causing” a warming earth is just lies, lies, and lies.

“If the standstill (lower temperatures) continues for a few more years,” wrote Dr. Whitehouse, “it will mean that no one who has just reached adulthood, or younger, will have witnessed the earth get warmer during their lifetime.”

Now here’s the kicker. The President of the United States, according to a recent Business Week article, “is preparing to tell all federal agencies for the first time that they should consider the impact on global warming before approving projects, from pipelines to highways.” The result “could be significant delays for natural gas export facilities, ports for coal sales to Asia, and even new forest roads, industry lobbyists say.”

“In taking the step,” said Business Week reporter Mark Drajem, “Obama would be fulfilling a vow to act alone in the face of a Republican-run House of Representatives unwilling to pass measures limiting greenhouse gases.”

The President, as usual, is lying through his teeth. There is no global warming or, as it is more frequently called these days, climate change unless you include a colder earth in that change.

The result will be four years of a second term in office during which Obama and his minions will do everything they can to slow what little is left of the U.S. economy, currently growing at a rate that requires a microscope to detect.

For the rest of us, the Mini Ice Age has arrived.

© Alan Caruba, 2013

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Americans will Curse Obama for Obamacare – Tea Party Nation

Americans will Curse Obama for Obamacare – Tea Party Nation.

By Alan Caruba

Following the sequester debacle in which Obama and his cohorts were swiftly found to be lying through their teeth, his polling numbers have begun to fall and, folks you ain’t seen nothing yet.

As the realities and costs of the Affordable Healthcare Act—Obamacare—kick in, when he leaves office, he will be remembered for inflicting pain and suffering on Americans.

As the various aspects of Obamacare become active, the impact on everyone will reduce their income and increase their costs. In retrospect it will be seen as the largest poison pill any President or political party ever swallowed. Recall that Obamacare was passed December 24, 2009, Christmas Eve, by a straight Democrat party vote, none of whom had even read the legislation.

The House passed the bill with a vote of 219 to 212 on March 21, 2010, with 34 Democrats and all 178 Republicans voting against it. At 2,000-plus pages, it has now been joined by thousands of pages more to implement it. It is a regulatory nightmare.

In January, the author of “Priceless: Curing the Healthcare Crisis”, John C. Goodman, wrote of Obamacare’s impact on your tax bill. “You will join other Americans in paying more than $500 billion in nineteen new types of taxes and fees over the next decade to fund health reform. Some of the new taxes will be indirect and will be passed on to you in the form of higher prices, higher premiums, or lower wages.”

As Americans address paying their 2012 income taxes, here are some of the new taxes that will afflict some or all of them at some point.

# A tax on medical devices. This will cover “everything from surgical instruments and bedpans to wheelchairs and crutches. Even pacemakers and artificial hips and knees are taxes.” If Obamacare is not repealed, it will rake in $20 billion over the next decade.

# A tax on health insurance. Beginning in 2014, there will be a $60 billion tax on health insurance that will be felt in higher premiums. A typical family of four will have to spend nearly $1,000 a year.

# A tax on drugs. If you think prescription drugs are expensive now, some drug makers have already begun to raise prices.

# A tax on medical savings accounts. You will no longer be able to use these tax-free accounts to purchase over-the-counter drugs, forcing people to purchase drugs such as Claritin, aspirin or Advil at a cost that is 30% higher for a middle-class family. Contributions to such accounts will be capped at $2,500.

# A tax on becoming ill. Today’s tax law allows you to deduct medical expenses up to 7.5% of your adjusted gross income. Obamacare increases this to 10%, making your future deductions smaller. It became effective this year for people under 65 years of age and goes into effect in 2017 for those 65 and older. Obama will be out of office by then. He won’t care even if you do.

# Additional taxes. The Medicare payroll tax will increase by almost one-third for some people, rising from 2.9% today to 3.8& on wages over $200,000 for an individual and $250,000 for a couple. An additional 3.8% Medical payroll tax will be levied on investment income (capital gains, interest, and dividend income) at some income levels. The “rich” will pay more, but in effect this impacts most of the middle class.

Benjamin Domenech, Managing Editor of Heartland Institute’s Health Care News, recently reported that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has concluded that “Obamacare is going to be more expensive than the Obama administration thought, disrupt the marketplace more than they thought, and be tougher to implement than they thought.”

Recalling that Hillary Clinton was put in charge of similar healthcare changes during her husband’s administration where the effort failed, if she were elected in 2016, you can be sure she would retain Obamacare. It can be repealed only if Republicans control both houses of Congress, so the midterm elections in 2014 are critical.

Domenech reported that the CBO has concluded that the insurance exchanges that are part of Obamacare and are supposed to be up and running by next January will cost more than $1 trillion through 2022, a dramatic increase over the original budget forecast of $814 billion. Incredible disruptive, more employees will be dropped from their existing plans and fewer uninsured people will get coverage. With somewhere between 23 and 26 million Americans already out of work, millions more will join their ranks as companies cut their payrolls.

According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Obamacare will add $6.2 billion to the federal deficit. Recall that in September 2009 Obama promised that “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits—either now or in the future.” Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) said, “This is how a country goes broke.”

For these and a host of other reasons, people will curse Barack Obama as the full impact of his signature piece of legislation, his primary means of “transforming America” begins to affect Americans, some of whom will either be denied or be unable to afford medical treatment. They will die.

Obama has already transformed America from the world’s superpower to a debtor nation whose credit rating has been lowered, whose national defense capabilities have been reduced, and whose governance is guided by the absurd belief that humans cause and control the climate.

Barack Obama has four more years to work his will and future historians will conclude that Americans twice elected a President who hates them and their nation.

© Alan Caruba, 2013

Bipartisan group set to take Keystone decision out of Obama’s hands – Washington Times

Bipartisan group set to take Keystone decision out of Obama’s hands – Washington Times.

By Ben Wolfgang – The Washington Times

President Obama has often used executive authority to get around Congress — and he has promised to continue that approach in his second term.

But now a bipartisan group of lawmakers wants to turn the tables on the White House.

Late last week, Rep. Lee Terry, Nebraska Republican, introduced a bill to take approval of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline out of the president’s hands. The measure has the support of at least two Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The bill eliminates the need for a presidential permit and would officially green-light the 1,700-mile pipeline, designed to transport oil sands from Canada through the U.S. to refineries on the Gulf Coast. It also would create thousands of jobs in the process.

“The time is up. No more delays. It’s time to build the Keystone pipeline,” Mr. Terry said at a Capitol Hill news conference Friday.

The move comes on the heels of a similar proposal in the Senate. Sen. John Hoeven, North Dakota Republican, and Sen. Max Baucus, Montana Democrat, have put forth legislation to approve the project using Congress‘ authority under the Commerce Clause.

Other Democratic senators, including Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, are co-sponsoring the bill, as are a half-dozen Republican senators.

“The Keystone pipeline is the perfect opportunity to put Montanans, and folks across the country, to work right now,” Mr. Baucus said in a statement last week, after the measure was introduced. “American workers cannot afford to wait any longer for Keystone jobs, and there is absolutely no excuse for further delay.”

Of course, both pieces of legislation would need to be signed by the president whose powers it would strip. While it appears both bills could easily pass in their respective chambers, it’s unclear whether either could garner enough support to overcome a potential veto by Mr. Obama.

At the very least, the bills once again demonstrate the growing sense of frustration in Congress over the administration’s handling of the project.

Mr. Obama has continually put off a final decision on the pipeline, even in the face of growing pressure from lawmakers, the oil and gas industry and even the Canadian government, which has begun to make clear that it intends to do business with China and in other Asian markets if the U.S. refuses to build Keystone.

The president reportedly told lawmakers last week that he is nearing a decision, but it’s still unclear exactly when the White House will give an answer.

The answer isn’t expected until summer, at the earliest, after the State Department finalizes its comprehensive environmental impact review of the project.

A draft of that report, released earlier this month, seems to pave the way for approval of the project. The long-awaited study found that the pipeline will have little or no impact on greenhouse gas emissions, one of the most frequent complaints raised by environmentalists and other opponents of the project.

Specifically, the study said that the fuel eventually will be developed and made into burnable fuel by someone — if not by the U.S., then by China.

The study also found that Keystone would have little, if any, impact on American demand for crude oil. Environmental groups have dismissed the report and ramped up pressure on Mr. Obama and Secretary of State John F. Kerry — formerly one of Congress‘ loudest voices on climate change and the environment — to kill the project once and for all.

The study, had it been a damning indictment of the project, could have been used by the White House as environmental justification for rejecting Keystone. Instead, it is being held up as proof that the pipeline should be built immediately.

“All of this unnecessary delay has done nothing to improve our energy security or our economy,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Alaska Republican and co-sponsor of the Senate bill. “If the White House can’t see that, then it’s time for Congress to act.”

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• Unlock Keystone (nationalreview.com)
• Baucus on Keystone: ‘We Should Have Been Building It Yesterday’ (nationalreview.com)
• API: Reviews back Keystone XL (upi.com)
• 70% of Americans Support Building the Keystone Energy Pipeline (speaker.gov)

 

Obama Halts Global Warming by Executive Order – John Ransom – Townhall Finance Conservative Columnists and Financial Commentary

Global Warming (Photo credit: mirjoran)

 

Obama Halts Global Warming by Executive Order – John Ransom – Townhall Finance.

 

President Obama has apparently halted global warming by a secret executive order, which, amongst other things, commands the seas to stop rising, the world to begin to heal and the Chevy Volt assembly line to show a profit in 2013 despite a MSRP of $39,999, less $7,500 in government rebates.

 

This is the only conclusion that I can come to as I ponder the Global Warming Alarmists Brigade’s latest effort in pseudo-science, or what I like to call “Science for Journalists.”

 

Recently Shaun Marcott, Ph.D., published a paper that “proves” that the world is warmer now than at anytime during the last 4,000 years.

 

And the hucksters in the media, if they don’t exactly believe it, at least they publicize it. 

 

“In the new research… Shaun Marcott, an earth scientist at Oregon State University, and his colleagues” reported the New York Times “compiled the most meticulous reconstruction yet of global temperatures over the past 11,300 years, virtually the entire Holocene. They used indicators like the distribution of microscopic, temperature-sensitive ocean creatures to determine past climate.”

 

That all sounds very impressive and meticulous, but is the reconstruction accurate?

 

Ummm, no.

 

David W. Kreutzer, Ph.D., Senior Fellow in Energy Economics and Climate Change from the Heritage Foundation told me that the data was rigged in the same way that the famous “Hockey Stick” graph was rigged.

 

The original global warming Hockey Stick was rigged by Michael Mann- the Ph.D. is implied- in order to bring overall historical global temperatures down, so that our present day temperatures can look warmer by contrast.

 

“As a young, relatively unknown recent Ph.D. graduate,” says James Taylor, Forbes columnist and a fellow researcher at Heritage, “Mann attained wealth, fame and adulation among global warming alarmists after assembling a proxy temperature reconstruction that he claimed showed global temperatures underwent a steady, roughly 1,000-year decline followed by a sharp rise during the 20th century. The media reported on the Mann hockey stick reconstruction as if it settled the global warming debate, but objective scientists pointed out several crucial flaws that invalidated Mann’s claims.”

 

Mann achieved these results, in part, by cherry picking data by using proxies for temperature data- proxies like the “distribution of microscopic, temperature-sensitive ocean creatures”- rather than data that would conflict with his goal of showing dramatic, current-day temperature increases.

 

While Manna’s data showed that temperatures were hotter now than any time in 1,000 years, Marcott goes him four times better by showing that the earth has never been hotter in 4,000 years.

 

Taylor, however, says “many temperature studies, including studies presented by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, indicate current global temperatures are cooler than the vast majority of the past 4,000 years.”

 

So do historical records.

 

In fact, records indicate that temperatures today aren’t even the hottest in the last 1,000 years. 

 

Matt Ridley, a global warming supporter, writing in the Wall Street Journal, concludes that there is ample reason to believe that temperatures are cooler now than during the Medieval Warm Period, saying “the evidence increasingly vindicates the scientists who first discovered the Medieval Warm Period.”

 

Ridley cites four recent scientific studies that tend to support the notion that temperatures were hotter then.   

 

Mann’s hockey stick- and Marcott’s too- eliminated an historical epoch called the Medieval Warm Period, a period during which archeological, written and historical records suggest temperatures may have been warmer than today’s.

 

The Medieval Warm Period was a period that saw the Vikings colonize Greenland, between the 10^th and 15^th Centuries, for example, disappearing just as the climate began to cool. It would have been impossible to conceive of the Vikings being able to colonize Greenland without significantly warmer temperatures. It also would have been impossible to have grown varieties of flora that were found on Greenland during that period were the temperatures as cold as today’s.

 

Data actually suggests that the earth stopped warming 15 years ago.  This pause in warming wasn’t anticipated in any climate change models created by global warming advocates.    

 

And that’s really the rub when it comes to climate science.

 

When the data doesn’t go their way- which is almost always- they either re-write the science, the history or rely on an Obama executive order.  

 

Related articles

 

• Warmest Temperatures In 4,000 Years? Not So Fast, Global Warming Alarmists (forbes.com)
• Global Warming is BS (pointsandfigures.com)
• The Hockey Stick, Broken Again (powerlineblog.com)
• Bad Science and Bad Journalism are a Bad Combination – Tea Party Nation (gds44.wordpress.com)
• Broken Hockey Sticks (rightwinggranny.com)
• Green Weenie of the Week: Stick Figure Men (powerlineblog.com)
• Another Hockey Stick? (wattsupwiththat.com)
• ‘More than 700 scientists from 400 institutions in 40 countries have contributed peer-reviewed papers providing evidence that the Medieval Warm Period was real, global, & warmer than the present’ (climatedepot.com)

 

Who is Susan Rice? – Tea Party Nation

Who is Susan Rice? – Tea Party Nation.

By Alan Caruba

Having taken the fall for President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the wake of the Benghazi scandal, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice is poised to make her way up the career ladder as the “top contender” for the position of national security adviser to the President.

The proposed appointment as Secretary of State, a reward for going on television and spreading the administration’s outright lies about the Benghazi attack, was swiftly derailed by the backlash to her appearances. If appointed as national security adviser, she will not have to be approved by the U.S. Senate, thus avoiding its oversight and consent.

The obvious question is “What does Susan Rice know about national security?” though she did serve on President Clinton’s National Security Council. As the Assistant Secretary of State on the Africa desk when the Rwanda genocide occurred in 1994, both Clinton and she were missing in action. He later would say it was one of the biggest mistakes of his time in office.

Her area of expertise for many years has been Africa and, in that capacity, even The New York Times noted that in 1998 she celebrated a “new generation” of African leaders, many of whom turned out to be despots after having been rebel commanders.

One example The Times cited was Meles Zenawi, the late prime minister of Ethiopia who she eulogized in September as “brilliant” and “a son of Ethiopia and a father to its rebirth.” The Times noted that “Mr. Meles dismantled the rule of law, silenced political opponents and forged a single-party state.” Others whom Ambassador Rice found little to criticize were Isaias Afwerki of Eritrea, Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Yoweri K. Museveni of Uganda, all still in power.

Richard Grenell, who served as the spokesman for four U.S. ambassadors to the UN, wrote a scathing commentary which was published by Fox News in November 2012. Referring to the Benghazi attack and its aftermath, Grenell wrote “To veteran foreign policy observers, Rice’s performance that Sunday was one of many blunders over the last four years.”

“The case against Susan Rice has been building for years with little fanfare,” wrote Grenell. “Not surprising, the mainstream media reporters based at the UN have either ignored her mistakes or strategically covered them up.”

“”Rice’s diplomatic failures and silence in the face of outrageous UN antics have given the United States pathetic representation among the 193 members of the world body,” wrote Grenell. “UN members, not surprisingly, prefer a weak opponent. Rice is therefore popular with her colleagues. It may explain why she ignored Syria’s growing problems for months.” Grenell noted that “Rice didn’t even show up for the first two emergency Security Council meetings on the unfolding Arab Spring revolution last year” and “when she actually does show up, she is a miserable failure.”

Even more surprising, given her status as a diplomat, Ambassador Rice is widely described in the most unpleasant terms as abrasive and difficult to work with. Her mentors have been former Secretaries of State, Madeline Albright and Hillary Clinton, and if getting along with one’s boss is the key to success—and it is—her pending appointment to the National Security Council is proof of that. Even so, the White House has rolled out word of it to test the waters and see if she draws too much fire.

When she was being considered for Secretary of State—from which she withdrew—Benjamin H. Friedman, a research fellow in defense and homeland security at the libertarian Cato Institute, had some unkind thoughts about her, noting that “she has supported just about every proposed U.S. military intervention over the two decades. The president should nominate someone that occasionally opposes a war.” In retrospect, that would appear to be a fair judgment. Obama ran in 2008 opposing the war in Iraq, but also increased troop levels in Afghanistan in an effort to score a few points before setting in motion the U.S. withdrawal from there. Both wars have proved to be deeply unpopular.

The Rwanda experience no doubt increased Ambassador Rice’s preference for intervention, but the “lead from behind” intervention in Libya has not turned out well.

Indeed, little in the way of foreign policy in the Middle East has turned out well for either former President George W. Bush or his successor, Barack Obama. Moreover, Africa has become a new battleground for al Qaeda and a place where Western interests and workers are now attacked, kidnapped, and killed with increasing frequency.

Ambassador Rice’s rise through three administrations will likely culminate with her National Security Council appointment. It is doubtful that the new Secretary of State, John Kerry, or the new Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, will turn out to be in any hurry to intervene anywhere for any reason. No doubt Ambassador Rice will put her finger in the wind and go in whatever direction it blows.

© Alan Caruba, 2013

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• Who is Susan Rice? (papundits.wordpress.com)