Daily Digest
THE FOUNDATION
“When we say, that all men are equal; we mean not to apply this equality to their virtues, their talents, their dispositions, or their acquirements.” –James Wilson, Man as a Member of Society, 1791
TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKS
Network News Remains Silent on Senate Elections
The big three television news networks are cheating their audiences out of serious political coverage this election cycle. While 23 million people primarily get their news from these three organizations, the broadcast giants make little mention of the predicted GOP takeover of Congress. According to the Media Research Center, “Our analysts found that, when Democrats were feeling good about their election prospects eight years ago, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, and ABC’s World News aired a combined 159 campaign stories (91 full reports and another 68 stories that mentioned the campaign). But during the same time period this year, those same newscasts have offered a paltry 25 stories (16 full reports and 9 mentions), a six-to-one disparity.” This is why the Internet is good for an informed citizenry. Network news is clearly a relic of the previous Leftmedia monopoly, and can’t be bothered with bad news about fellow liberals. More…
Autopsy Says Brown Was Shot at Close Range
To the dismay of race baiters everywhere, Michael Brown, the black thug shot by Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson, doesn’t appear innocent. In fact, Wilson’s story keeps checking out. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports, “The official autopsy on Michael Brown shows that he was shot in the hand at close range.” That supports Wilson’s account that Brown fought with him over the officer’s gun. The Post-Dispatch adds, “Dr. Michael Graham, who is not part of the official investigation, reviewed the autopsy report for the newspaper. He said Tuesday that it ‘does support that there was a significant altercation at the car.’” Other wounds indicate Brown was facing Wilson when he was shot. Not only that, the paper reports, “The accompanying toxicology report shows he had been using marijuana.” Furthermore, his levels of Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active ingredient in marijuana, may have been high enough to cause hallucinations. Pro tip: It pays to wait for the facts before rioting in the streets. More…
The Left Suddenly Sees Same-Sex Marriage as a Constitutional Issue
Barack Obama evolved in his view of same-sex marriage. At first, he was mum on the issue. But then, to drum up the Left’s LGBT base in time for his re-election (and forced by Joe Biden’s premature comments on the subject), he declared he was in favor of the redefinition of marriage.Now he’s sailing with the winds of change and saying same-sex marriage is a constitutional issue that requires a Supreme Court ruling. Ryan T. Anderson at The Daily Signal writes, “This is a case study in how liberals ‘evolve’ on policy. First they embrace a policy change. If they can’t convince a majority of Americans to vote for their preferred policy, they discover that the Constitution requires their preferred policy. So, according to the Obama of today, the Obama of early 2012 held an unconstitutional view of marriage. Or, perhaps, it wasn’t unconstitutional back then but it is now.” Whatever happened to the liberal mind between 2012 and 2014, you can be sure it wasn’t a greater concern for the Constitution. They still use it as a political tool only when convenient.
Lewinsky: ‘I Was Patient Zero,’ and My Affair Birthed Social Media
Forbes' 30 Under 30 Summit featured a blast from the past: Monica Lewinsky. The infamous former White House intern proudly claimed the victim mantle, telling the audience, “I was Patient Zero – the first person to have their reputation completely destroyed worldwide via the Internet.” And it wasn’t even high-speed Internet, she complained: “It was all done on the excruciatingly slow dial up.” In fact, her tryst practically invented social media. “There was no Facebook, Twitter or Instagram back then,” she noted. “But there were gossip, news and entertainment websites replete with comment sections and emails which could be forwarded. … [Y]ou could argue [that] was the first moment of truly ‘social’ media.” What’s amusing is that, not only does she conspicuously avoid blaming Bill Clinton for being a sexual predator, but she seems shocked by the idea that an intern’s affair with the sitting president in the Oval Office got all that much attention.
Weather Channel Co-Founder Slams Climate Forum
Ecofascists Michael Mann and Brenda Ekwurzel will be drumming up more “climate change” rhetoric at a forum Thursday hosted by The Hammer Museum at UCLA, and organizers are making it clear the event is about promoting an agenda, not representing a balanced view. “Despite the overwhelming scientific consensus that global warming is a danger to the planet, little progress has been made to reduce CO2 emissions,” reads the opening sentence of the program advertisement. Meteorologist and Weather Channel co-founder John Coleman penned an open letter taking issue with the biased forum, writing: “[Y]ou have scheduled as your only speakers two people who continue to present the failed science as though it is the final and complete story on global warming/climate change. This is [a] major mistake. I urge you to re-examine your plan. It is important to have those who attend know that there is no climate crisis.” He continues, “I am not a wacko flat-Earther. Nor am I a ‘paid shill’ (as has been claimed) of the Koch Brothers. I am a serious professional.” These words will no doubt go in one ear and out the other, presenting another telling example of who constitutes the true climate “deniers.” More…
Don’t Miss Alexander’s Column
Read The Demos' ‘Good Crisis’ Diversion, on the political nature of Obama’s response to practically everything.
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For more, visit Right Hooks.
RIGHT ANALYSIS
Terrorist Attack in Canada Is a Sign of Emerging Threat
Michael Zehef-Bibeau, a recent Muslim convert, attacked the Canadian Parliament Wednesday in a possible attempt to get to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who was in a meeting of legislators in the building at the time. Clearly, jihad isn’t far from home, and that’s a threat greater than Ebola.
Zehef-Bibeau was killed by the House of Commons sergeant-at-arms in a dramatic shootout caught on video, but it’s possible he wasn’t working alone. Authorities are pursuing possibly two other suspects. Before attacking Parliament, Zehef-Bibeau killed a Canadian soldier, Cpl. Nathan Cirillo, at the National War Memorial.
Wednesday’s incident wasn’t the only one in Canada this week. On Monday, a jihadi named Martin Rouleau drove his car into two Canadian soldiers, killing one, in a mall parking lot near Montreal. Rouleau was killed after a car chase and shootout.
The prime minister was scheduled yesterday to honor Nobel Peace Prize co-winner Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager who survived a Taliban assassination attempt. Was the timing of Wednesday’s attack more than coincidence? Or perhaps both attacks were in response to Canadian participation in military operations against ISIL.
Regardless, these fanatics don’t need to be specifically directed by al-Qaida or ISIL. This new face of lone-wolf jihad is an immediate threat to the West precisely because its homegrown nature.
As noted by Mark Alexander in his column, Islamic Jihad – Target USA, “Despite assurances to the contrary from our nation’s commander in chief, it turns out that global Jihad is thriving. According to those who do not bend the truth to comport with political agendas, Jihad now constitutes a greater threat to our nation’s security than at any time in history. Obama’s retreat from Iraq left a vacuum for the resurgence of a far more dangerous incarnation of Muslim terrorism under the ISIL label, which has displaced al-Qa'ida as the dominant asymmetric Islamic terrorist threat to the West.”
Alexander continues, “Islamic terrorist groups are surging worldwide, including Khorasan (a.k.a. al-Qa'ida), Jabhat al-Nusra (a.k.a. al-Qa'ida), Boko Haram, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taliban, Jamaat-e-Islami, Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Muslim Brotherhood and now, front and center, ISIL, a.k.a. the Islamic State – all of which together constitute Jihadistan, that borderless nation of Islamic extremists aligned under the Qur'anic umbrella.”
Notably, Alexander concluded, “Of course, the most likely form of attack against the U.S. homeland will be similar to those witnessed almost daily in Israel – homicidal bombings or mass shootings. This type of attack is low tech, but effective in terms of achieving terrorist goals to extort policy change by instilling fear in the public.”
If ObamaCare Is So Great, Why Aren’t Democrats Campaigning on It?
ObamaCare isn’t exactly Democrats' favorite campaign theme this year, but then again, they’re having trouble coming up with even one reason to vote Democrat in the midterm election. Hence the tired tropes of how Republicans are racist, sexist, anti-gay discriminators who also hate puppies and rainbows. But just remember: Democrats are staying away from ObamaCare for good reason.
The New York Times editorial board complains, “[T]he Affordable Care Act, one of the most far-reaching and beneficial laws to have been passed by Congress in years, gets little respect even among the Democratic candidates who voted for it. Though none support the Republican position of repeal, most talk about the need to ‘fix’ the health law, as if it were a wreck alongside the road rather than a vehicle providing millions of people with health coverage.”
We’ll give the Times “far-reaching,” though that’s an awfully mild way of putting it for a law that took over one-sixth of the U.S. economy. But “beneficial”? For consumers whose plans are now drastically more expensive – if they can keep them at all – the law is anything but beneficial. Taxpayers who will foot the bill for this monstrosity aren’t getting much bang for the buck, either.
In his remarks to a joint session of Congress on Sept. 9, 2009, Barack Obama pledged, “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits – either now or in the future.” Conservatives were never fooled by this outlandish promise, and subsequent events have borne out our predictions.
Early projections by the Congressional Budget Office in 2010 forecast that ObamaCare wouldreduce the deficit by $124 billion between 2010 and 2019. But that was only thanks to what Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) called “gimmicks and smoke-and-mirrors” accounting.
After the first years of ObamaCare’s outworking, however, the Senate Budget Committee released its own report using the CBO’s methods, and the committee found that ObamaCare willincrease the deficit by $131 billion between 2015 and 2024. It’s likely more than that, but again, this is based on the CBO’s methods.
As for premiums, we’ve often noted the drumbeat of price increases, but here’s a new one. Last year’s open enrollment began in October. This year, it’s no accident the enrollment period, along with announced premium rates, was delayed until after the election. And for good reason. Jed Graham of Investor’s Business Daily expects Bronze Plan premiums (the most affordable on the market, and therefore especially appealing to low-income people) will increase by an average of 14%. In some cities, like Seattle, it could rise 64%.
Okay, well, scratch the savings on federal spending and insurance premium rates. At least, as the Times' editorial also boasts, ObamaCare is “providing millions of people with health coverage.” How’s that working?
Not well. According to the National Health Interview Survey, some 41 million Americans remain uninsured, and nine out of 10 of them have no idea open enrollment is around the corner.
As for those who are enrolling, Edmund Haislmaier and Drew Gonshorowski write at The Daily Signal, “[T]he Obamacare gains in coverage were largely a result of the Medicaid expansion and that most of the gain in private coverage through the government exchanges was offset by a decline in employer-based coverage. In other words, it is likely that most of the people who got coverage through the exchanges were already insured.”
Haislmaier and Gonshorowski found ObamaCare enrollment was 6,254,564 individuals, but those with “private employer-sponsored group plans declined by 3,788,978 individuals.” Furthermore, “In the states implementing the Obamacare Medicaid expansion, enrollment in Medicaid grew by 5,716,977 individuals. In the states not implementing the Obamacare Medicaid expansion, enrollment in Medicaid grew by 355,674 individuals.” In short, the gain in insured individuals occurred primarily because of the expansion in Medicaid, as well as moving previously insured people from private plans onto ObamaCare. They couldn’t keep the plan they liked.
That trend is only going to get worse as the employer mandate kicks in next year (it too was delayed until after the election). Businesses employing at least 100 people must provide health insurance or pay a fine – about $2,000 per employee. Employers are cutting hours for employees, or offering bare-bones, “skinny” plans to avoid both the fine and insurance.
But many employers are looking to take advantage of ObamaCare’s provision for low-income workers. An employer is no longer charged a penalty if an employee qualifies for and enrolls in Medicaid. Nor is the employee fined (or was it taxed?) for not having insurance. It’s a win-win. Well, except for taxpayers.
Swelling the ranks of Medicaid users wasn’t exactly the grand Democrat promise. Skyrocketing insurance premiums and one of the largest effective tax increases in history weren’t either. Democrats have mastered the art of the BIG Lie, and the nation is paying the price.
Bureaucrat Accountability 101: Retire Early
Why get fired when you can retire?Lest you think the Veterans Affairs scandalresolved itself and corruption fled of its own accord, it didn’t. What did flee, however, are VA employees involved in the scandal. The evaded the pink slip by retiring. How convenient.
The latest case in point is Susan Taylor, a former deputy chief procurement officer and one of four VA officials “proposed for removal” due to unprofessional conduct. But removed she wasn’t. You see, when Congress passed that VA reform bill over the summer, theoretically making it easier to fire or demote senior executives for “poor performance and misconduct,” VA bureaucrats were none too pleased with the idea of accountability for employees. So the agency created another process to give advance notice to employees who may be fired. Those so notified have five days to retire or otherwise leave of their own accord instead of being fired.
Naturally, faced with getting canned or retiring with full benefits, it’s a no-brainer. So, when advised she had been “proposed for removal,” Taylor instead wrote a letter, stating, “[A]fter 29 years of federal service, I have decided to resign and retire, effective Oct. 14th.” How proactive of her.
But she’s not the only one evading accountability, and this isn’t a problem limited to the VA. Remember Lois Lerner, the IRS official at the center of the Tea Party targeting scandal? She opted for a cushy retirement, too.
This problem is widespread. The government is so incapable of firing people that it’s just putting them on paid leave, in some cases for several years. According to a 62-page report published this week by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), taxpayers forked out more than $700 million to fund paid leave for some 57,000 federal employees – just for fiscal years 2011-2013. Of these, 53,000 were on paid leave for one to three months, 4,018 for three months to one year and 263 for one to three years. Who needs unemployment benefits when you can find a job with the government and get paid to do nothing?
Here’s the clincher: Some of these employees were on paid leave because they were being investigated for alleged misconduct or criminal acts. Nothing like getting paid to stay home … while under investigation … for three years. Nice “work” if you can get it. What’s worse (if that’s possible) is that in some cases agencies couldn’t even give a reason the employees received the amount of paid leave they did.
It’s ridiculous, really. Because the government has a seeming inability to fire anyone, we the taxpayers keep paying their salaries. As James Sherk, Heritage Foundation Senior Policy Analyst in Labor Economics, recently testified before Congress, “Managers who wish to fire problematic employees, whether because of misconduct or poor performance, must go through draining and time-consuming procedures that take about a year and a half. Consequently the federal government very rarely fires its employees, even when their performance or conduct justifies it. In fiscal year (FY) 2013 the federal government terminated the employment of just 0.26 percent of its tenured workforce for performance or misconduct – a rate one-fifth that of monthly private-sector layoffs.”
So because of the government’s unparalleled ineptitude and inbred aversion to accountability, incompetent and perhaps even criminal employees avoid firing, collect a paycheck while doing nothing, or write nice retirement letters.
But please don’t claim a smidgeon of corruption. No, not one smidgeon.
For more, visit Right Analysis.
TOP 5 RIGHT OPINION COLUMNS
- Cal Thomas: Who Needs an Ebola Czar?
- Victor Davis Hanson: Our New Missiles of October
- Tony Perkins: Judge on Marriage: I’ll Stand by You
- Stephen Moore: Oil, the Real Economic Stimulus
- Burt Prelutsky: The Minimum Wage War
For more, visit Right Opinion.
OPINION IN BRIEF
British novelist C. S. Lewis (1898-1963): “Hitherto the plans of the educationalists have achieved very little of what they attempted, and indeed we may well thank the beneficent obstinacy of real mothers, real nurses, and (above all) real children for preserving the human race in such sanity as it still possesses.”
Columnist Cal Thomas: “Obama has named a political operative, Ron Klain, as his Ebola czar. Defenders of the appointment say Klain is an experienced political operative who can ‘coordinate’ the U.S. response to the virus. Why do we need a coordinator? What is the secretary of Health and Human Services for? How about the surgeon general’s office? Granted, we have only an acting surgeon general because Republicans opposed President Obama’s choice due to his advocacy of gun control and other policies they oppose, but an acting surgeon general can still act like one. … A virus doesn’t discriminate. It can kill Democrats and Republicans and so should have no place in the political debate. Except President Obama seems determined to turn even Ebola into a political fight by selecting a rabid partisan and former aide to Vice President Joe Biden and Al Gore. … Klain’s only medical experience seems to be self-administering aspirin for a headache.”
Historian Victor Davis Hanson: “In October of 1962, America worried whether an untried young president, John F. Kennedy, could keep us safe from nuclear-tipped missiles from nearby communist Cuba. Today’s October worries are more insidious: the Ebola virus, the macabre Islamic State, a tottering stock market, a bellicose Russia, and a crisis of confidence in our government. … The Obama administration sees government agencies as political tools to further its agenda, as we have seen with NASA’s new Muslim outreach, the IRS hounding of conservative nonprofit groups and the patent office’s antagonization of the Redskins. The October missiles of 1962 were never launched, but the crisis still forced JFK to adopt a new realism about the Soviet Union. In contrast, for Obama to meet these current October threats head-on, he first would have to admit they were largely self-created.”
Humorist Frank J. Fleming: “If the problems African Americans have could be solved by voting for Democrats, shouldn’t they have been solved decades ago? You have 90%+ African Americans voting for Democrats. Who are you fooling thinking you’ll get change by increasing that number?”
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Join us in daily prayer for our Patriots in uniform – Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen – standing in harm’s way in defense of Liberty, and for their families.
By James Simpson.
