The Front Page Cover
~ Featuring ~
The Road to Single-Payer Health Care
by Charles Krauthammer
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So, Susan Rice Was the One 'Unmasking'
Bloomberg's Eli Lake has a critical update on the kerfuffle involving Barack liar-nObama, Donald Trump, Devin Nunes, U.S. intelligence and Russia.
White House lawyers last month learned that the former national security adviser Susan Rice requested the identities of U.S. persons in raw intelligence reports on dozens of occasions that connect to the Donald Trump transition and campaign, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
The pattern of Rice's requests was discovered in a National Security Council review of the government's policy on "unmasking" the identities of individuals in the U.S. who are not targets of electronic eavesdropping, but whose communications are collected incidentally. Normally those names are redacted from summaries of monitored conversations and appear in reports as something like "U.S. Person One."
The relevant intelligence reports pertained largely to conversations between foreign leaders regarding the Trump administration's transition, though some of those conversations involved members of Trump's team. And, as Lake notes, Rice's behavior highlights the issue so many Americans have with the wide net of government surveillance — trusting those who are doing the surveilling. It doesn't help that back in March she insisted, "I know nothing about this."
Meanwhile, Rep. Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and the one leading the congressional investigation into the whole affair, has been embattled by controversy because of a visit to the White House to review relevant material. Unfortunately, he's come off looking more like a Trump surrogate than an independent investigator. But Lake explains why that visit wasn't what it seems:
The news about Rice also sheds light on the strange behavior of Nunes in the last two weeks. It emerged last week that he traveled to the White House last month, the night before he made an explosive allegation about Trump transition officials caught up in incidental surveillance. At the time he said he needed to go to the White House because the reports were only on a database for the executive branch. It now appears that he needed to view computer systems within the National Security Council that would include the logs of Rice's requests to unmask U.S. persons.
Knowing what we know about the liar-nObama administration, political considerations trumped all other concerns. So while Rice may have acted within the law, a legal battle may also ensue to determine where she was acting in the interest of national security or liar-nObama's political objectives. The overarching thing to remember is that Democrats are heavily invested in the "Russia hacked the election" narrative so as to delegitimize Donald Trump. Whatever Rice did was almost surely motivated in part by that objective. Readers will recall how adept Rice is at shaping narratives — she was the first to trot out the "YouTube video" excuse for Benghazi... ~The Patriot Post
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Steve Bannon removed from
National Security Council
by foxnews
{foxnews.com} ~ President Trump’s controversial chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, was removed from the National Security Council on Wednesday, Fox News confirmed... Bannon was put on the NSC’s “Principals Committee” as a check on former National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn to make sure Flynn carried through with a directive to depoliticize the NSC, a senior administration official told Fox News. "liar-nObama administration National Security Adviser Susan Rice operationalized the NSC during the last administration," Bannon said in a statement. "I was put on to ensure that it was de-operationalized. National Security Adviser General [H.R.] McMaster has returned the NSC to its proper function."... http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/04/05/steve-bannon-removed-from-national-security-council.html
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The Joys of ¼ Black Privilege
by Daniel Greenfield
{frontpagemag.com} ~ Black privilege can be a wonderful thing even in its diluted ¼ form. You might not think that being ¼ black gets you much privilege, but this just might change your mind... Hannah Black is angry. The ¾ white British-German artist who has a Jamaican grandparent somewhere in the mix is outraged over a painting of Emmett Till at the Whitney Biennial because the artist is white. At least whiter than Black. Black, who moved from the UK to Germany, rants that the painting must be “destroyed”. Why? "Because it is not acceptable for a white person to transmute Black suffering into profit and fun". Except if that white person can find a black ancestor somewhere... http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/266316/joys-%C2%BC-black-privilege-daniel-greenfield
.Proof! Evidence of liar-nObama
Administration Targeting Trump...
by Jay Guy
{ipatriot.com} ~ In the first independently corroborated evidence reported by a major news organization, multiple news outlets have now reported President Donald Trump’s assertion, in his now infamous Tweet... that he was surveilled by the liar-nObama administration prior to his election as President is in fact true. “Rice had requested that at least one Trump transition team member be “unmasked,” Bloomberg View reported Monday, leading to claims that the liar-nObama White House had intended to use that intelligence to damage Trump’s transition. While Rice did not deny making any such requests — declining to comment on specific reports — she denied that her actions went outside the scope of her job. Two anonymous U.S. officials told Bloomberg’s Eli Lake that the former liar-nObama national security adviser was the one who requested unmasking Trump administration officials in raw intelligence files since viewed by Reps. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the heads of the House Intel Committee.”... http://ipatriot.com/proof-evidence-obama-administration-targeting-trump-trump-supporters-including-sean-hannity/
.All Sitting Supreme Court Justices Have Been
Involved With Federalist Society, Labeled
a ‘Front’ Group by Democrats
by Rachel del Guidice
{dailysignal.com} ~ Judge Neil Gorsuch, President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court choice, came under fire from Democrats Monday because of his involvement with the Federalist Society, a conservative legal organization... “I don’t know what Donald Trump’s judicial philosophy is as president, but we sure do know the judicial philosophy of the Federalist Society, which was given the responsibility of coming up with a list of nominees to fill the Antonin Scalia vacancy on the Supreme Court,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Monday before Gorsuch’s Senate Judiciary Committee vote. A new report, however, released Monday by the conservative nonprofit America Rising Squared, or AR2, shows that all current U.S Supreme Court justices, appointed by both Democrats and Republicans, and not just Gorsuch, have been involved with the Federalist Society...
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Rice Isn’t FBI, She Was Acting Politically,
What Was liar-nObama Role?
by Rick Wells
{rickwells.us} ~ The customary stalling, obfuscation, half truths and lies that the Democrats like liar-Hillary Clinton, Hussein liar-nObama, Jihadi Jeh Johnson and even Susan Rice have, in the past... used so effectively to avoid accountability for their actions may have lost some of their magic. If Senator Rand Paul has his way, Rice will have to answer some key questions regarding her likely criminal espionage activities. In an interview with Brian Kilmeade, Paul points out in no uncertain terms, “I don’t think she answered the question, did she unmask people in the Trump administration. She says, ‘Well, maybe I did but I didn’t do it for political reasons.'” “I think it’s incumbent upon her to try to prove to the American people why it wouldn’t have been a political reason,” says Paul. “If someone were investigating the Trump administration, it would be the FBI, not political people in the White House. She’s a political appointee that reports directly to the ‘president.'”... http://rickwells.us/sen-paul-rice-fbi-acting-politically-obama-role/
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by Charles Krauthammer
{freedomsback.com} ~ Repeal-and-replace for liar-nObamacare is not quite dead. It has been declared so, but what that means is that, for now, the president has apparently washed his hands of it and the House Republicans appear unable to reconcile their differences.
Neither condition need be permanent. There are ideological differences among the various GOP factions, but what’s overlooked is the role that procedure played in producing the deadlock. And procedure can easily be changed.
House leadership crafted a bill that would meet the delicate requirements of “reconciliation” in order to create a more achievable threshold of 51 rather than 60 votes in the Senate. But this meant that some of the more attractive, market-oriented reforms had to be left out, relegated to a future measure a so-called phase-three bill that might never actually arrive.
Yet the more stripped-down proposal died anyway. So why not go for the gold next time? Pass a bill that incorporates phase-three reforms and send it on to the Senate.
September might be the time for resurrecting repeal-and-replace. That’s when insurers recalibrate premiums for the coming year, precipitating our annual bout of liar-nObamacare sticker shock. By then, even more insurers will be dropping out of the exchanges, further reducing choice and service. These should help dissipate the preemptive nostalgia for liar-nObamacare that emerged during the current debate.
At which point, House leadership should present a repeal-and-replace that includes such phase-three provisions as tort reform and permitting the buying of insurance across state lines, both of which would significantly lower costs.
Even more significant would be stripping out the heavy-handed liar-nObamacare coverage mandate that dictates what specific medical benefits must be included in every insurance policy in the country, regardless of the purchaser’s desires or needs.
Best to mandate nothing. Let the customer decide. A 60-year-old couple doesn’t need maternity coverage. Why should they be forced to pay for it? And I don’t know about you, but I don’t need lactation services.
This would satisfy the House Freedom Caucus’ correct insistence on dismantling liar-nObamacare’s stifling regulatory straitjacket — without scaring off moderates who should understand that no one is being denied “essential health benefits.” Rather, no one is being required to buy what the Jonathan Grubers of the world have decided everyone must have.
It is true that even if this revised repeal-and-replace passes the House, it might die by filibuster in the Senate. In which case, let the Senate Democrats explain themselves and suffer the consequences. Perhaps, however, such a bill might engender debate and revision — and come back to the House for an old-fashioned House-Senate conference and a possible compromise. This in and of itself would constitute major progress.
That’s procedure. It’s fixable. But there is an ideological consideration that could ultimately determine the fate of any liar-nObamacare replacement. liar-nObamacare may turn out to be unworkable, indeed doomed, but it is having a profound effect on the zeitgeist: It is universalizing the idea of universal coverage.
Acceptance of its major premise — that no one be denied health care — is more widespread than ever. Even House Speaker Paul Ryan avers that “our goal is to give every American access to quality, affordable health care,” making universality an essential premise of his own reform. And look at how sensitive and defensive Republicans have been about the possibility of people losing coverage in any liar-nObamacare repeal.
A broad national consensus is developing that health care is indeed a right. This is historically new. And it carries immense implications for the future. It suggests that we may be heading inexorably to a government-run, single-payer system. It’s what Barack liar-nObama once admitted he would have preferred but didn’t think the country was ready for. It may be ready now.
As liar-nObamacare continues to unravel, it won’t take much for Democrats to abandon that Rube Goldberg wreckage and go for the simplicity and the universality of Medicare-for-all. Republicans will have one last chance to try to persuade the country to remain with a market-based system, preferably one encompassing all the provisions that, for procedural reasons, had been left out of their latest proposal.
Don’t be surprised, however, if, in the end, single-payer wins out. Indeed, I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if Donald Trump, reading the zeitgeist, pulls the greatest 180 since Disraeli “dished the Whigs” in 1867 by radically expanding the franchise and joins the single-payer side.
Talk about disruption? About kicking over the furniture? That would be an American Krakatoa.
The Road to Single-Payer Health Care
{freedomsback.com} ~ Repeal-and-replace for liar-nObamacare is not quite dead. It has been declared so, but what that means is that, for now, the president has apparently washed his hands of it and the House Republicans appear unable to reconcile their differences.
Neither condition need be permanent. There are ideological differences among the various GOP factions, but what’s overlooked is the role that procedure played in producing the deadlock. And procedure can easily be changed.
House leadership crafted a bill that would meet the delicate requirements of “reconciliation” in order to create a more achievable threshold of 51 rather than 60 votes in the Senate. But this meant that some of the more attractive, market-oriented reforms had to be left out, relegated to a future measure a so-called phase-three bill that might never actually arrive.
Yet the more stripped-down proposal died anyway. So why not go for the gold next time? Pass a bill that incorporates phase-three reforms and send it on to the Senate.
September might be the time for resurrecting repeal-and-replace. That’s when insurers recalibrate premiums for the coming year, precipitating our annual bout of liar-nObamacare sticker shock. By then, even more insurers will be dropping out of the exchanges, further reducing choice and service. These should help dissipate the preemptive nostalgia for liar-nObamacare that emerged during the current debate.
At which point, House leadership should present a repeal-and-replace that includes such phase-three provisions as tort reform and permitting the buying of insurance across state lines, both of which would significantly lower costs.
Even more significant would be stripping out the heavy-handed liar-nObamacare coverage mandate that dictates what specific medical benefits must be included in every insurance policy in the country, regardless of the purchaser’s desires or needs.
Best to mandate nothing. Let the customer decide. A 60-year-old couple doesn’t need maternity coverage. Why should they be forced to pay for it? And I don’t know about you, but I don’t need lactation services.
This would satisfy the House Freedom Caucus’ correct insistence on dismantling liar-nObamacare’s stifling regulatory straitjacket — without scaring off moderates who should understand that no one is being denied “essential health benefits.” Rather, no one is being required to buy what the Jonathan Grubers of the world have decided everyone must have.
It is true that even if this revised repeal-and-replace passes the House, it might die by filibuster in the Senate. In which case, let the Senate Democrats explain themselves and suffer the consequences. Perhaps, however, such a bill might engender debate and revision — and come back to the House for an old-fashioned House-Senate conference and a possible compromise. This in and of itself would constitute major progress.
That’s procedure. It’s fixable. But there is an ideological consideration that could ultimately determine the fate of any liar-nObamacare replacement. liar-nObamacare may turn out to be unworkable, indeed doomed, but it is having a profound effect on the zeitgeist: It is universalizing the idea of universal coverage.
Acceptance of its major premise — that no one be denied health care — is more widespread than ever. Even House Speaker Paul Ryan avers that “our goal is to give every American access to quality, affordable health care,” making universality an essential premise of his own reform. And look at how sensitive and defensive Republicans have been about the possibility of people losing coverage in any liar-nObamacare repeal.
A broad national consensus is developing that health care is indeed a right. This is historically new. And it carries immense implications for the future. It suggests that we may be heading inexorably to a government-run, single-payer system. It’s what Barack liar-nObama once admitted he would have preferred but didn’t think the country was ready for. It may be ready now.
As liar-nObamacare continues to unravel, it won’t take much for Democrats to abandon that Rube Goldberg wreckage and go for the simplicity and the universality of Medicare-for-all. Republicans will have one last chance to try to persuade the country to remain with a market-based system, preferably one encompassing all the provisions that, for procedural reasons, had been left out of their latest proposal.
Don’t be surprised, however, if, in the end, single-payer wins out. Indeed, I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if Donald Trump, reading the zeitgeist, pulls the greatest 180 since Disraeli “dished the Whigs” in 1867 by radically expanding the franchise and joins the single-payer side.
Talk about disruption? About kicking over the furniture? That would be an American Krakatoa.
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