Daily Digest
THE FOUNDATION
“It has hitherto been supposed a fundamental maxim that in governments rightly balanced, the different branches of a legislature should be unconnected, and that the legislative and executive powers should be separate.” –Richard Lee, Letter to Edmund Randolph, 1787
TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKS
Democrats Don’t Wait to Lose Before Pointing Fingers
Democrats have been running from Barack Obama for some time, but now they’re already beginning to point fingers over the looming Election Day debacle. “This off-year election has become almost entirely a referendum on the president,” said one Democrat consultant. “It’s not just anger at [ObamaCare]. He has become, in my opinion wrongly, the symbol of dysfunction in Washington. That has led to a demoralized Democratic base, energized Republicans and those in the middle have an easy way of venting their frustration, and that is to punish the president’s party.” Another consultant added, “It is not all Obama but a lot of it is.” Part of the problem is thatObama thinks it’s all about Obama. “Make no mistake,” he said, “[my] policies are on the ballot.” And it’s killing Democrats. More…
Doctors Decline ObamaCare Plans Because They Aren’t Worth It
About 214,000 doctors have opted out of providing health care to people who bought insurance through the “Affordable” Care Act’s health exchanges because of low pay. In some cases, doctors might not get paid at all. The reimbursement rates for ObamaCare are lower than those for Medicare – the rationale being that if doctors only worked harder and faster, they could make the same amount. And if patients don’t pay their premiums, doctors are left holding the bill. TheAmerican Action Forum, a DC think tank, writes, “Because of the pressure placed on insurance companies to keep the cost of exchange plans unrealistically low, providers are being reimbursed at financially unsustainable rates. This reduction in payment rates has caused many physicians and hospitals to decline to accept insurance plans issued through the exchanges, and thereby negating the intended effect of providing individuals with affordable care by virtue of eliminating their access to care.” Not only do the plans cost more, but the quality of service is much, much less. More…
Activists Push Obama to Move on Immigration
The issue of immigration isn’t as big an issue with the average Latino voter. It is the immigration activists who are pushing Obama to go big. They have heard reports that DOJ and DHS will recommend that Obama grant amnesty to a smaller number of people than they hoped for – and those activists feel angry and marginalized. Executive director for the National Immigration Law Center, Marielena Hincapié, said any executive action Obama takes on this issue would be met with Republican opposition (because of its constitutionality, mind you). “Whether it’s one million or two million or seven million, it will be equal criticism,” she complained. “This isn’t about appeasing Republicans; he’s never going to appease them.” But according to Pew Research Center, the top four issues that matter to Latino voters are education (92%), jobs (91%), health care (86%) thenimmigration (73%). Furthermore, the Latino vote is not firmly in Democrat hands. While 50% of Latinos think Democrats perform better on immigration, 27% believe Republicans do a better job. If Obama acts on immigration, it will be first to appease activists, not Latinos. More…
Good News: Houston to Drop Subpoenas
It took a couple of weeks of outrage at the trampling of religious liberty, but Houston Mayor Annise Parker is backing off on persecuting Christian pastors over their stance on gender-disorientation pathology. The Houston Chronicle reports, “The City of Houston will withdraw its controversial subpoenas of five pastors tied to a lawsuit over the city’s equal rights ordinance, Mayor Annise Parker announced at a news conference Wednesday.” But Parker was defiant, saying, “I didn’t do this to satisfy [critics]. I did it because it was not serving Houston.” Neither is she if that’s what being mayor means to her. More…
Students Suspended for Picture With Airsoft Rifles
Once again, zero tolerance is way off target. CBS Boston reports, “Last Friday, Tito and his girlfriend Jamie Pereira posed with … Airsoft rifles before the Bristol Plymouth Regional Technical School homecoming dance. The [Facebook] post got them suspended from school.” The photo was not taken on school property and the two teens did not threaten anyone or disrupt school in any way. They simply made the mistake of tagging their post “Homecoming 2014.” That brought in the school SWAT team administrators. National Review’s Charles C.W. Cooke notes the most important thing: “Here, supposedly responsible adults in Taunton have been presented with a choice. Do they punish two kids for an entirely legal photograph that they took in their home, and that caused no trouble to anybody? Or do they stay the hell away from the issue? That they not only chose the first course, but imposed a serious sanction as well is a bad sign for those of us who want schools to act as schools, and parents to act as parents. Don’t Tread on Me, says the flag. Give us your children, says the state.” More…
For more, visit Right Hooks.
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RIGHT ANALYSIS
Only Flat-Earthers Oppose Haphazard Ebola Quarantine Policy
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Well, anserine gender stereotypes aside, it turns out that what’s good for one potentially Ebola-stricken American is not good for another. So says this White House, which is against the practice of forced quarantine – except when it’s for it. And if you disagree, it’s because you hate Science™.
Barack Obama recently lashed out at Governors Chris Christie of New Jersey and Andrew Cuomo of New York for instituting mandatory quarantine for individuals suspected of carrying the Ebola virus. In New Jersey, nurse Kaci Hickox was quarantined after returning from treating Ebola patients in West Africa, prompting her to protest that her basic human rights had been violated. She now refuses to comply with a quarantine, insisting through her lawyer, “She’s a very good person who did very good work and deserves to be honored, not detained, for it.” While her work is good, evidently in her opinion, doing that good work involves no risk to herself or others.
The Obama administration sided with Hickox, issuing the veiled threat, “We have let the governors of New York, New Jersey and other states know that we have concerns with the unintended consequences … policies not grounded in Science™ may have on efforts to combat Ebola at its source in West Africa.”
Of course, it’s purely coincidental that nurse Hickox is a CDC employee whose lawyer attended an official White House state dinner earlier this year. Complete coincidence. We’re sure Obama would just as quickly have rushed to the defense of a Tea Party leader whose lawyer was a member of the NRA. But we digress.
Ironically, while Obama was attacking state-mandated quarantines with phony appeals to Science™, his Defense Department was instituting mandatory quarantines for troops returning from Ebola-ravaged regions of West Africa.
Apparently, this is okay with the administration because, as White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest put it, the difference is that civilians returning from West Africa may number “a couple of dozen health-care workers,” while military personnel include “thousands of military service members who have been or will be deployed to West Africa.” Therefore, the military policy simply wouldn’t do for civilians. Or, as Earnest says, “The Science™ would not back that up.”
Confused? So is The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto, who – tongue planted firmly in cheek – ponders, “So the Pentagon has a de facto quarantine policy, whereas civilian federal health agencies are leaning on governors not to impose similar policies stateside. If only there were an official assigned the task of coordinating the government’s response to Ebola!”
Of course, new political hack Ebola czar Ron Klain has been spotted fewer times than Bigfoot.
The president also claims quarantining civilians constitutes “running” and “hiding” and would prevent medical personnel from traveling to Africa to fight Ebola. “If we are not dealing with this problem there, it will come here,” Obama said, neglecting to note it is here. “If we’re discouraging our health care workers who are prepared to make these sacrifices from traveling to these places in [need],” he continued, “then we’re not doing our job in looking after our own public health and safety.”
It’s more than unfortunate that the president doesn’t have the same “fight it there so we don’t have to fight it here” approach to Jihadistan, but that’s another story.
In all of this, the curious sound bite that keeps coming from the White House is the claim that civilian quarantines simply aren’t backed by Science™. However, common sense dictates that if Ebola in 100 people should be quarantined, then one person who was exposed to Ebola should be quarantined so it doesn’t spread to 100. A Nobel Prize-winning doctor agrees. But since when has science ever guided this administration’s policies?
If it had, the Keystone Pipeline would have been approved five years ago, Secretary of State John Kerry wouldn’t have compared the terrorist threat of ISIL to Al Gore’s bugaboo of man-made climate change, and our government dietary guidelines, which have helped build Americans' menus for nearly 35 years, would be updated based on new scientific studies showing the low-fat craze ingrained into dietary lingo may actually do more harm than good.
Unfortunately, Democrats consider science nothing more than a word to be trademarked and then tossed around to silence debate. And where science does guide policy, it’s science purely of the political kind.
Is Obama’s Relationship With Israel Really This Bad?
“The thing about Bibi is, he’s a chickens–t.” So said an Obama administration official in reference to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Ironically, the brave official remains anonymous, and the White House has no interest in discovering his or her identity. The episode highlights the two nations' deteriorating relationship.
The contrast between Netanyahu and our own president is obvious. Netanyahu saw combat as an elite special forces unit leader in the Israeli Defense Force, while Barack Obama was team leader of the dope-smoking “Choom Gang.”
Netanyahu is no stranger to strife with this administration. The last year in particular has featured numerous examples of tension between the two allies. Another Obama official lectured Israel about peace, while Secretary of State John Kerry flubbed cease-fire discussions and showedfavoritism toward the Palestinians, all after he called Israel an “apartheid state” – these are but a few of the kerfuffles driving the nations apart.
Now it’s come to name-calling, of which “chickens–t” is merely the latest entry. According to The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, “Over the years, Obama administration officials have described Netanyahu to me as recalcitrant, myopic, reactionary, obtuse, blustering, pompous, and ‘Aspergery.’ (These are verbatim descriptions; I keep a running list.)”
The administration official says the White House views Netanyahu this way because the Israeli leader didn’t launch a preemptive strike against Iran’s nuclear program. “It’s too late for him to do anything,” the official said. “Two, three years ago, this was a possibility. But ultimately he couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger. It was a combination of our pressure and his own unwillingness to do anything dramatic. Now it’s too late.”
It was the Obama administration that pressured Netanyahu not to strike Iran, and yet this official has the gall to turn around and call him names.
Obama campaigned in 2008 on plans to meet Iranian leaders “without preconditions” to discuss that nation’s nuclear program, and he has largely carried through on his promise. The U.S. has required very little of Iran, and sanctions have had limited effect. That didn’t stop Obama from talking tough in 2012, when he declared, “As long as I’m president of the United States, Iran will not get a nuclear weapon.” Perhaps it won’t happen until after he leaves office in 2017.
Obama has done next to nothing to deter Iran’s nuclear program, besides extend deadlines and meet for more “talks.” In fact, The Wall Street Journal reports, “The Obama administration and Iran, engaged in direct nuclear negotiations and facing a common threat from Islamic State militants, have moved into an effective state of détente over the past year.”
Comparing relations is illustrative. As the Weekly Standard’s Steve Hayes asks, “When is the last time you had anybody from the administration say anything nearly as critical of the Iranian regime as what they just said about Benjamin Netanyahu?”
Indeed, we’re fairly certain Israel would view détente with the U.S. as an improvement.
For more, visit Right Analysis.
TOP 5 RIGHT OPINION COLUMNS
- Michael Reagan: Quarantine Questions
- Arnold Ahlert: A Salad of Progressive-Inspired Insanity
- Victor Davis Hanson: Our Make-It-Up World
- R. Emmett Tyrrell: After the Wave Comes the Liberation
- Jeff Jacoby: A Clinton vs. Bush Race? Again?
For more, visit Right Opinion.
OPINION IN BRIEF
Communist leader Josef Stalin (1879-1953): “Comrades, I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how. But what is extraordinarily important is this: who will count the votes, and how.”
Columnist Michael Reagan: “The quarantine question shouldn’t have to become a constitutional issue. And there’s no reason for state or federal governments to be put in the position of having to force an American citizen to undergo a quarantine. The solution is simple. Before anyone goes to West Africa, they should fill out and sign an application form. If they are unwilling to submit to a 21-day quarantine when they come back, they should be told by their employers, their relief agency or their church group that they cannot go. Period. … [A]ny health worker who’s not willing to undergo a quarantine isn’t a real hero and isn’t looking at the big picture. If they’re willing to do good works in Africa, and God bless them for that, they should be willing to do it the right way. And that means paying the full cost of doing good overseas by ensuring the safety of their families, friends and neighbors back home. America is an incredibly generous country. It has millions of goodhearted heroes who would volunteer to help the sick and dying in West Africa. But they can do good without endangering the rest of us.”
Columnist Arnold Ahlert: “Ferguson has become the ultimate vehicle for Democrats desperate to get out the black American vote, highlighted by a Georgia campaign ad that warns them there may be ‘another Ferguson in their future’ if they don’t vote. Sadly, there will always be another Ferguson in the future, wherever and whenever it accrues to the interests of a divide-and-conquer Democrat party. The same divide-and-conquer Democrat party set to sell out black Americans by forcing them to compete for jobs with the millions of illegals the president intends to unilaterally legalize. I’m guessing there aren’t any Democrats promoting that reality in any of their campaign ads.”
Comedian Jimmy Fallon: “The man investigating the Secret Service prostitution scandal got caught with a prostitute. So Obama appointed an Irony Czar.”
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
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