Learning to Love the Government Shutdown

Victim Alert!
Robyn J. Skrebes of Minneapolis said she was able to sign up for health insurance in about two hours on Monday using the Web site of the state-run insurance exchange in Minnesota, known as MNsure. Ms. Skrebes, who is 32 and uninsured, said she had selected a policy costing $179 a month, before tax credit subsidies, and also had obtained Medicaid coverage for her 2-year-old daughter, Emma. (NYT, 10/8/2013)

Prediction. 

Ms. Skrebes will receive subsidies which will reduce the cost of her insurance to $0. 

Creating another ward of the state.

And another Democrat voter. 

And where, we wonder, is the father of her daughter, little Emma? 

In fact, the location of deadbeat dads matters little to Liberals as long as they can celebrate another single mother.

Decoding the Government Shutdown

Tenderness
And outside experts said that White House officials should have spent more time tending to the computer code and technology of the Web site, rather than recruiting Hollywood celebrities to promote it. (NYT, 10/7/2013)

Ya think?


NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams: Why the Gov't Shutdown is the Fault of Republicans Edition
Here is how corrupt NBC News is: They run a story about how the families of five U.S. servicemen killed in Afghanistan are not going to get their death benefits because of the government shutdown. You - as an astute reader of RedStateVT - immediately say the following: I did not hear anything about five servicemen being killed in action. 

Of course you did not. 

That would have reflected badly on Obama. NBC buried the story of the five brave patriots only until they could exploit it. Namely, the Republicans shut down the government and now the families of these heroes are being punished. 

NBC News long ago ceased being a legitimate news organization. Now they are merely contemptible.  


Moderation in the Extreme
As a moderate House Republican, Representative Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania by definition typically finds himself somewhere near the middle when the majority of his colleagues veer well to the right. (NYT, 10/7/2013)

The New York Times profiles a "moderate" Republican. In a short 27 paragraph article we get the following word count:

Moderate or variation - 6
Centrist or variation - 4
Pragmatist or variation - 2
Realist - 1
Middle - 1

We are still awaiting an article by the Times which talks about a moderate Democrat. 

It won't happen.

Or perhaps Representative Dent is really that moderate Democrat. Witness this from the same article:

"Mr. Dent has proved himself to be more socially liberal than many of his Republican counterparts. He was just one of 15 Republicans in 2010 who voted to repeal the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, and he is a co-sponsor of several acts to prevent bullying and discrimination based on sexual orientation. Earlier this year, he chastised a group of his colleagues for pushing a controversial bill to ban abortions after 20 weeks, saying they should be focusing on more important issues like the economy."


Ridicule
“It’s just ridiculous,” Edward L. McNeil, an official with the local council of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said of the mounting costs. “The only thing that’s getting done is that these people are getting paid big-time while the citizens of Detroit are getting ripped off.” (NYT, 10/7/2013)

The union boss is unhappy with the fees paid to lawyers working on Detroit's bankruptcy. Which - when you think about it - is kind of like that old joke about the kid who kills his parents and then complains to the judge that he is an orphan. 

All Government Shutdown; All the Time

Beneficial
(Health insurance exchanges) are a central part of Mr. Obama’s health care law, which was passed in 2010 to extend coverage to those who do not get insurance benefits on the job. (NYT, 10/5/2013)

This lie, unchallenged, has been retold a million times: Before Obamacare, it was impossible for individuals to buy health insurance. 

Baloney! 

RedStateVT stands alone in setting the record straight. In fact, prior to Obamacare here is what you had to do if you wanted insurance and did not get it through an employer:

Call up an insurance company and have them send you an application. Fill out the application and send it in with your premium.   

That's it. You're covered.

Some insurance companies even provided information and applications on something called a computer. Millions of Americans have computers and hence could apply using that same computer. This was called an "on-line application."

History, however, has already been written: Obamacare has allowed uninsured Americans to buy health insurance.


Swing Set
The recent revelation that New York City mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio supported Nicaragua's Sandinista military government in the 1980s is a reminder of the high cost Latin America pays for being the playground of the American left. It should also further enlighten New Yorkers as to the politics of the man who is the front runner in the race.
...
In an interview with a New York radio station last month, however, some hints emerged when he was asked about his decision to honeymoon in Cuba in 1994. (Mary Anastasia O'Grady, 10/6/2013)

New York City's next mayor. 

Note to residents: You have been warned. 

What if They Shut Down the Government and Nobody Noticed?

Appreciation
"I do appreciate the hardship that an increased monthly premium will be for your family." (Mark Larson, Commissioner, Department of Vermont Health Access when it was pointed out that monthly premiums would triple for some Vermonters given the unavailability of high deductible health insurance plans in the state.)

Larson goes on to explain that the solution will come when Vermont implements a single payer health care system. 

Yeah, that will solve the problem.


Stop and Think
New York City voters want to keep Raymond W. Kelly as police commissioner. They want more charter schools. And nearly half of them support the Police Department’s use of the stop-and-frisk tactic.

But the city’s voters, by an enormous margin, are planning to support Bill de Blasio for mayor next month, despite the fact that Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, opposes each of those positions, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll released on Friday. (NYT, 10/3/2013)

Just like those who voted for Obama despite opposing his policies, NYC voters will get what they deserve. 


Fear of Flying
On Thursday night, the president canceled the last of his scheduled destinations in a trip he had planned for Asia, saying the government shutdown had made it impossible to travel to a Pacific Rim economic conference in Indonesia or an East Asian security conference in Brunei next week. (NYT, 10/3/2013)

The good news for the president? Now he can golf!

This and That

Little Feat
Mr. Reid’s strategy to break Republicans depends on keeping his caucus unified, which is no small feat in a party as Balkanized as the Democrats can be. (NYT, 10/2/2013)

Another inconvenient truth which slipped by the censors at the Times. 


Shacked Up
Mr. Reid’s upbringing in tiny Searchlight, Nev., where he grew up in a shack, is never far from his mind, even when he is speaking from his mahogany desk in the Senate chamber. (NYT, 10/2/2013)

Yes, Harry Reid, the career politician from Nevada who somehow has managed to become a multi-millionaire on a government salary. 


Omen-ous
Tim Liddle, 53, a Web designer in Nashville, Tenn., said he was frustrated after not being able to create an account on the federal exchange Web site for two days, and called the technological problems “a very bad omen of things to come with this Web site and this program.”

“I can’t imagine Apple or Ford or McDonald’s rolling out any new product before making perfectly sure they first could provide what they promised,” he said. (NYT, 10/2/2013)

What Liddle needs to remember is that we are talking about the government. All expectations need to be adjusted. 

Downward. 


Grab Bag
But to many independent economic analysts, it remains too early to tell how the sweeping Affordable Care Act will affect the jobs market.
...
Anecdotal reports about the law’s effect on jobs have grabbed headlines over the past year. Major retailers like Trader Joe’s and Home Depot said they would no longer provide coverage for part-time workers, instead having them buy it on the exchanges.

Food-service chains like White Castle have said they might hire more part-time employees because of the Affordable Care Act.

“I would like to tell you we’ve continued to open more restaurants in more neighborhoods, providing more jobs, and serving more customers,” Jamie Richardson, a White Castle executive, told a Congressional committee this summer. “I’d like to tell you that, but I can’t. In fact, White Castle’s growth has halted” because of the law, he said. 
...
In a Chamber of Commerce survey in July, about three-quarters of small businesses said the law had made it harder to hire. Of those affected by the employer mandate, half said they would cut employees’ hours or replace full-time workers with part-time. (NYT, 10/2/2013)

It may be too early and the reports may be anecdotal, but there are certainly leading indicators, wouldn't you agree?

Put another way, there have been no reports - NONE - of a company announcing that they are increasing hiring as a result of the new health care law. 


Kneed
With Washington embarked on another of its oxymoronic shutdowns, everyone is giving it in the neck to the Republicans. So maybe someone should give it to Barack Obama in the knees. He's the president. He wanted this job and must bear some responsibility for what has become of politics in the nation's capital. Which is to say, the obliteration of politics. (Daniel Henninger, WSJ, 10/2/2013)

Good column by Henninger. 

Years from now, will historians remark about how effective Obama has been as a leader?

We tend to doubt it. 

How You Can Profit from the Government Shutdown!

Adventures in Liberal Logic
Climate change is real even though the Earth has not experienced an increase in temperature in the past ten years.

Obamacare is working even though no one can get access to the new insurance exchanges. 


Will Power
George Will, who has been a conservative presence on ABC News for more than three decades, is leaving for the Fox News Channel, the cable news network announced on Tuesday.
...
Because “This Week” already has a deep bench of contributors, Mr. Schneider said, ABC will not hire anyone to replace Mr. Will. (NYT, 10/1/2013)

An unnamed source at ABC added: "We don't really want to hear from conservatives anyway."

Government Shutdown Edition

Breaking News from RedStateVT: Federal Government Shuts Down, World Does Not End


Links
After being criticized by the Senate once again, House Republicans emerged Monday afternoon from their closed-door meeting with their latest distinctly political offering to the Senate, a bill that would link further government spending to a one-year delay of the new insurance requirement for individuals, as well as a proposal to force members of Congress, their staff, and White House staff, to buy their health coverage on the new exchanges without any government subsidies to offset the cost. (NYT, 9/30/2013)

Well, what is wrong with a one year Obamacare delay for individuals? The same deal given to corporations. 

And what is wrong with requiring that Congress get the same deal as the rest of America?

Liberals will never say. 


Black and White
A closer look at the shooting shows it was not about race. One of the three suspects was white, another had a white mother and a third had many white friends, including a girl he had been dating. “It was not a black-on-white crime,” District Attorney Jason Hicks of Stephens County said. (NYT, 9/30/2013)

Immediately and preemptively the New York Times announces that there was no racial element to the murder of a white Australian. This after Liberals at the Times immediately concluded that Hispanic George Zimmerman (he who tutored black youths) murdered Trayvon Martin out of racial malice. 

Logic is never the strong point of Liberal thinking.


Pumped Up
Between 1998 and 2012 the global economy more than doubled in size—to some $71 trillion in GDP from $30 trillion. That's the good news. Over the same period the world pumped more than 100 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. That is supposedly the bad news. Yet global surface temperatures have remained essentially flat. That's the mystery: If emitting CO2 into the atmosphere causes global warming, why hasn't the globe been warming? (WSJ, 9/30/2013)

Nothing to see here, folks. Climate change is settled science. Evidence to the contrary is, dare we say, inconvenient. And Bill McKibben will continue to get standing ovations in Montpelier.