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Ignorance
Well, the Shumlin administration has established a precedent for ignoring deadlines set in state law to detail funding plans. He has declined to produce a plan for funding universal health care despite having signed a law that said he would by last year. (Burlington Free Press, 3/31/2014)

Shummy no doubt has learned from the Obama administration that flouting the law is perfectly acceptable. 


GM Celebrity Pitchman
“That program (Cash for Clunkers) was good for automakers, consumers, and our environment and the Chevy Cobalt that you build here was one of GM’s most sought-after cars under that program. Dealers across the country started running out of it and needed you to build more.” (President Barack Obama)

Thanks to Jim Geraghty (Nationalreview.com, 4/1/2014) for reminding us of this as hearings open on Capitol Hill on deaths attributable to Barack Obama's favorite GM model.


Spattered
The public spats between outside groups are nothing compared with the private finger-pointing over who could be responsible if Republicans ride a political wave this year. The moderate wing is prepared to blame the party for avoiding centrist initiatives like free-trade deals and entitlement reform, while the Left will argue party leaders didn't do enough to protect benefits. (Nationaljournal.com, 3/30/2014)

Let the Democrat party finger-pointing begin. You are forgiven if you were not aware of schisms among Democrats. The Legitimate Media has been too busy reporting on the Tea Party. 


Kill Zone
The “imperial presidency” message has also been good for fund-raising. A recent email by the National Republican Congressional Committee warned, “Barack Obama thinks he’s above the law and can do anything he wants with the help of his friends, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.”

Then the email moved in for the kill: “Contribute $100, $50, $25 or what you can so that we can continue to defend Americans from Obama’s power grabs and massive government overreach.” (New York Times, 4/1/2014)

Imagine if you will the Wall Street Journal writing about Democrat party fundraising and using the expression: "moved in for the kill." The hysteria would go on for weeks. Republicans would have to issue rebukes; Congressional hearings would be held; and the reporter would be fired. 


The Fix
Administration officials realized when the fiasco was unfolding last fall that nothing mattered in the first year except getting people on the program — and so they did whatever was necessary to HealthCare.gov to make signing up easy. Those fixes are likely to lead to a large percentage of erroneous subsidy payments, as controls and other checks were turned off. That’s clearly a price the administration will gladly pay to get more people onto the program. (James C. Capretta, Nationalreview.com, 4/1/2014)

Here is the next Obamacare horror story that we will hear about: the bribery that was used to get people to sign up.  Today there will be endless rounds of high fives among Democrats about the number of sign-ups. But the Obamacare methodology has not fundamentally changed. Any and all problems are simply pushed down the road.  There will be a day of reckoning.

Formal Drift

The Idea Man
“I am sure that I will have even better ideas after a couple days of sleep and sun.” (President Obama, 12/20/2013)

"Oh God help us." (RedStateVT, 12/20/2013)


Undone Deal
However incoherent these fixes may seem, they send two messages, loud and clear. The first is that although liberal pundits may think that the law is a done deal, impossible to repeal, the administration does not believe that. The willingness to take large risks with the program’s stability indicates that the administration thinks it has a huge amount to lose -- that the White House is in a battle for the program’s very existence, not a few marginal House and Senate seats. (Megan McArdle, Bloomberg.com, 12/20/2013)

Good reminder that the "Obamacare is the law of the land" defense from Dems is, well, not exactly accurate. 

It is also important to note how each "delay" or "fix" of Obamacare creates embarrassment for Dems and their media supporters who five minutes earlier were earnestly defending the very things that Obama had to postpone or unwind.


Doubtful
In a year-end press conference, Obama was asked to identify the worst error of his administration this year. “There’s no doubt that when it came to healthcare roll-out, even though I was meeting every other week or every three weeks with folks … the fact is, it didn’t happen in the first month, the first six weeks, in a way that was at all acceptable,” he replied. (Newyorkpost.com, 12/20/2013)

So Obama was meeting every two or three weeks with the team responsible for what he himself calls his most important initiative? 

Is he kidding? In the business world, such meetings would be at least once a week. Not that Obama has a clue about how the business world works....

We take some solace that Obama is finally being asked the type of question that the Legitimate Media peppered George W with repeatedly. 


With Conviction
Gov. Deval Patrick’s convicted drug dealer cousin was among eight people whose hefty sentences were commuted yesterday by President Obama, who cited a disparity in penalties for crack cocaine. (Bostonherald.com, 12/20/2013)

So THAT'S why Patrick and his wife had that dinner with the Obamas right after the election.


Cliff Dive
Ginger Chapman and her husband, Doug, are sitting on the health care cliff.

The cheapest insurance plan they can find through the new federal marketplace in New Hampshire will cost their family of four about $1,000 a month, 12 percent of their annual income of around $100,000 and more than they have ever paid before.

Even more striking, for the Chapmans, is this fact: If they made just a few thousand dollars less a year — below $94,200 — their costs would be cut in half, because a family like theirs could qualify for federal subsidies. (New York Times, 12/20/2013)

One of the heretofore untold consequences of the mess that is Obamacare. But, it is actually worse. Assuming a deductible of (conservatively) $5000, the Chapmans could end up paying more like 17% of their pre-tax income for health care. 

Thank you Liberals. Hard-working middle class people get screwed so that you can provide federally subsidized insurance to others. 

Trending

Smelly
In private meetings and phone calls, Mr. Obama’s aides have made clear that the new organization will rely heavily on a small number of deep-pocketed donors, not unlike the “super PACs” whose influence on political campaigns Mr. Obama once deplored. 
....
“It just smells,” said Bob Edgar, the president of Common Cause, which advocates tighter regulation of campaign money. “The president is setting a very bad model setting up this organization.”

Mr. Obama’s new organization has drawn rebukes in recent days from watchdog groups, which view it as another step away from the tighter campaign regulation Mr. Obama once championed. Over the past two years, he has reversed course on several campaign finance issues, by blessing a super PAC created by former aides and accepting large corporate contributions for his second inauguration.  (NYT, 2/22/2013)

And so we add the following to our list of Things That The Legitimate Media Can No Longer Criticize Republicans For Because Obama And The Democrats Do Them Too:

• Take big donations from a handful of wealthy supporters
• Take corporate contributions for a presidential inauguration.

It's a growing list!


Offsets
A higher gas tax would help fix crumbling highways while also generating money that could help offset the impact on low- and middle-income families. Increasing the tax, as part of a bipartisan budget deal, with a clear explanation to the public of its role in lowering oil imports and improving our air and highways, could be among the most important energy decisions we make. (Valerie J. Karplus, research scientist in the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change at M.I.T., NYT, 2/21/2013)

Yet another Liberal waving the flag for more taxes. Not new news, we admit, but we loved the approach. It just needs to be 'clearly explained' to people! We aren't certain, but we're guessing that most people understand: "Your taxes are going up which means you will have less money." Knowing about how the government wastes their money, people stop listening after that. 


Share Alike
Here's a trend you'll be reading more about: part-time "job sharing," not only within firms but across different businesses. It's already happening across the country at fast-food restaurants, as employers try to avoid being punished by the Affordable Care Act. In some cases we've heard about, a local McDonalds has hired employees to operate the cash register or flip burgers for 20 hours a week and then the workers head to the nearby Burger King or Wendy's to log another 20 hours. Other employees take the opposite shifts. (WSJ, 2/22/2013)

The spirit of capitalism is once more alive and well in America. Government imposes ridiculous taxes, rules and regulations and yet again, capitalism adapts!

Reader Discretion Advised

Resolution
His supporters will say he is resolute and the Republicans are pigheaded; his opponents (including this column) would reverse the adjectives. A neutral way of describing it is that the two parties' worldviews are irreconcilable. (James Taranto, WSJ, 2/13/2013)

Taranto gets it right: irreconcilable. To which we add the answer to the question: Why won't Republicans compromise? The answer is that they have compromised and they are losing the battle. 

To wit:

• The government is expanding in size and scope.
• Entitlement programs are growing.
• Health care is being nationalized.
• Taxes have been raised.
• Regulation is increasing.
• Abortion is legal.
• Marijuana is legal (in some places).
• Princeton University is now transgender-friendly.
• Etc.

What would compromise look like to Democrats?


On The Road
Coverage of the speech described how he'll now "hit the road to sell his ideas to audiences in North Carolina, Georgia and Illinois." It seems normal until you notice he spends little or no time trying to sell any of this to Congress itself. Most of his past high-visibility proposals have underachieved or disappeared in Congress. He prefers instead the wand of solo executive authority. Even Bill Clinton, no stranger to the admiration of crowds, spent presidential capital building support one-on-one with key members of Congress. Hillary or Joe Biden would have done the same. (Daniel Henninger, WSJ, 2/13/2013)

Henninger nails it again. In private moments, even Democrats have spoken of how Obama has made little effort to engage members of his own party, never mind Republicans. Obsessed with his legacy, Obama will find it diminished due to this. What is to prevent President Rubio in 2016 from undoing Obama's executive orders? 


Pointless
President Obama is a freer man than he has been at any point in his presidency. He is free from the need to save an economy close to collapse, from illusions that Republicans in Congress would work with him readily, from the threat of a rising tea party movement and from the need to win reelection. (E..J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post, 2/13/2013)

Dionne's latest love sonnet to Obama. Did he actually write that Obama is "free from the need to save an economy close to collapse?" 


Bored Games
The Obama administration's electric car efforts took another hit on Wednesday after a federal inspection found a South Korean advanced battery maker never scaled up U.S. production despite receiving $142 million in federal grants.
...
The inspector general said that to avoid layoffs at the factory LG Chem paid idle workers $1.6 million in the third quarter of last year, about half of which was covered by its U.S. grant, even though there was nothing for them to do. The workers played board games, watched movies, and volunteered at local animal shelters during regular work hours, Mr. Friedman said. LG Chem has since paid back the government's share of those charges. (WSJ, 2/13/2013)

Unfortunately this report of the latest Obama green energy debacle has been lost due to the breaking news reported by the Legitimate Media that Senator Marco Rubio took a drink of water.


Lewdown
Mr. Lew seems to have been equally disengaged about his own investments. He said he didn't know why the venture-capital fund in which he had invested was based in the Cayman Islands or whether its location had resulted in any tax benefits. (WSJ, 2/13/2013)

Hypocrisy thy name is Democrat.

Trench Warfare

Dark Night Of The Soul
Mr. Obama spoke darkly of the consequences of a failure to reach a budget deal, which would set off automatic spending cuts on the military and other programs. “These sudden, harsh, arbitrary cuts would jeopardize our military readiness,” he said. (NYT, 2/12/2013)

As Charles Krauthammer has reminded us; the sequester is Obama's invention and military cuts is exactly what Obama and the Dems desire. The 'Legitimate Media' will not, of course, report this.


Shadowland
In another sign of the election’s lingering shadow, Mr. Obama was creating a bipartisan commission to investigate voting irregularities that led to long lines at polling sites in November. Studies indicate that these lines cost Democrats hundreds of thousands of votes. (NYT, 2/12/2013)

Republicans have been talking about voter fraud for years while Democrats have insisted it does not exist. Recent reports from Ohio indicate that there may be truth to the Republican claim. In response, Dems have now created the Next Big Lie which a compliant media will enshrine as fact (see Climate Change). The lie is that "hundreds of thousands" of Democrat voters were disenfranchised; notwithstanding, of course, an Obama victory.


Autonomous
Vermont’s independent child care providers continue to resist efforts by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), and a number of state legislators, including Governor Peter Shumlin, to force them into becoming part of a collective bargaining unit under the AFT’s umbrella.

Vermont's Child Care providers are independent small business owners, many of whom chose their profession because of the autonomy if affords them. The concept of a union is antithetical to the core values of many, and they’ve vowed to fight the effort. (TrueNorthReports.com, 2/10/2013)

We had heard a bit about this issue and thought mistakenly that Vermont's child care providers were looking to unionize. Silly us! It's the teachers union that is demanding that they unionize and Vermont's feckless Progressives who are supporting it. It's all about the union dues, of course. It is always about the union dues. A portion of such dues which first go to pay off the union bosses and the balance of which get funneled to Liberal politicians. Vermont's child care workers are no different than other workers who - when given the opportunity to do so - opt out of joining a union. 


Transfixed
Over the last decade, as activists started pushing colleges to accommodate transgender students, they first raised only basic issues, like recognizing a name change or deciding who could use which bathrooms. But the front lines have shifted fast, particularly at the nation’s elite colleges, and a growing number are now offering students health insurance plans with coverage for gender reassignment surgery. 
...
Those lists include many of the top American universities — Harvard, Stanford, Cornell, Penn, Emory, Northwestern, the University of California system, Yale, Princeton, M.I.T., Washington University and others. 
...
Princeton says on its Web site that it has been named a “top 10 trans friendly university” and that “recently, we launched an online guide” for transgender students. (NYT, 2/12/2013)

Need more proof that the End of Days is rapidly approaching? 

Here it is. 

You have been warned.  


Expectations
Mr. Obama's second inaugural was a clarion call to "collective action," as he put it, and Tuesday's speech showed what he thinks that should mean in practice. "The American people don't expect government to solve every problem," he said, while proceeding to offer a new government program to solve every problem. (WSJ, 2/13/2013)

Mr. Fix-it.