What’s the End Game for Obamacare?

Dan Holler/ Townhall Columnist

Speaking “on the condition of anonymity,” a Republican lawmaker told one Capitol Hill newspaper last week that conservatives pushing to stop the implementation of Obamacare had “no plan B.”

Before diving into the substance of the criticism, let’s spend a minute on how that criticism was delivered. Folks in Washington love speaking “on the condition of anonymity.” In a meandering profile of NBC News’s Luke Russert, a reporter for the liberal New Republic wrote, “Fellow reporters related the meanest anecdotes they could think of—‘but not for attribution, OK?’”

For one reason or another, these reporters have decided criticizing Russert wasn’t a savvy career move. From that perspective, you can understand why this GOP lawmaker would not want to publicly denounce a strategy that has the support of folks like Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), Rand Paul (R-KY) and Marco Rubio (R-FL). You can imagine this lawmaker running into trouble back home after saying Cruz, Lee, Heritage Action and the others have “a laudable goal,” but I ain’t gonna help them fight.

If Republican lawmakers are not willing to fight the implementation of Obamacare by actively defunding the law, they must have another plan to stop it, right? I posed variations of this question to numerous folks over the past week and the answer was nearly unanimous: stunning silence.

Yesterday, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) cautioned against “swinging for fences” and offered “there are more effective ways…we think that we can do better by delaying this law.”

Delay. Defund. Repeal. Halt. Block. Stop.

Absent a legislative strategy, those are just words. In a must read piece, Heritage Action’s Russ Vought explained the political strategy:

“It is wonderful that Congressmen support repealing Obamacare, but it’s not enough. The House has had numerous votes to repeal Obamacare, but the chances of statutorily repealing the law decreased once President Obama won a second term. Conservatives cannot wait another three-and-a-half years to begin dismantling Obamacare; they need to leverage current opportunities to defund Obamacare on ‘must-pass’ spending bills.”

He also explained, contrary to the assertions of many people who should know better, the implementation of Obamacare could be stopped on a spending bill:

“Defunding Obamacare means attaching a legislative rider to a ‘must pass’ bill (debt limit, annual spending bill, etc.) that 1) prohibits any funds from being spent on any activities to implement or enforce Obamacare; 2) rescinds any unspent balances that have already been appropriated for implementation; and 3) turns off the exchange subsidy and new Medicaid spending that are on auto-pilot.”

Senator Cruz and Rep. Tom Graves (R-GA) have introduced legislation that would accomplish those goals. If that is swinging for the fences, then sign me up because fighting to preserve the status quo isn’t going to inspire the American people or save the country.

Unfortunately, that is exactly what some are advocating – let’s wait until 2017. Charles Krauthammer wrote, “You can’t govern from one house of Congress. You need to win back the Senate and then the presidency.”
 
Let’s flip Washington’s conventional wisdom upside down.

Instead of proclaiming with certainty that President Obama would never sign a bill that harmed his signature legislative accomplishment, imagine the pundits proclaiming that House Republicans would never pass a bill that funds a law they were elected to reverse.

Right now, however, almost no one in Washington – and more importantly no one outside of Washington – believes House Republicans are willing to mount a massive assault against the implementation of Obamacare. Until they do, they’ll be on the outside looking in.

Over August, Heritage Action will be traveling across the country to make the case against Obamacare. The Washington Post noted “Democrat-aligned groups already are responding aggressively.” They are preparing to “go on the offensive” over August, “deploy[ing] every tool and tactic available” to defend Obamacare and put Republicans on the defense.

Obama’s allies understand the fight is now. Will our allies wake up before it’s too late?

Full-Time Employment Down Over 5 Million Since 2007

Mike Shedlock/ Townhall Finnce

PEW Social Trends research shows a Record 21.6 Million Young Adults Live in Their Parents’ Home

Here are some clips from the fascinating PEW study.

In 2012, 36% of the nation’s young adults ages 18 to 31 the so-called Millennial generation—were living in their parents’ home, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. This is the highest share in at least four decades and represents a slow but steady increase over the 32% of their same-aged counterparts who were living at home prior to the Great Recession in 2007 and the 34% doing so when it officially ended in 2009.

A record total of 21.6 million Millennials lived in their parents’ home in 2012, up from 18.5 million of their same aged counterparts in 2007. Of these, at least a third and perhaps as many as half are college students.


The steady rise in the share of young adults who live in their parents’ home appears to be driven by a combination of economic, educational and cultural factors. Among them:

• Declining employment: In 2012, 63% of 18- to 31-year-olds had jobs, down from the 70% of their same-aged counterparts who had jobs in 2007. In 2012, unemployed Millennials were much more likely than employed Millennials to be living with their parents (45% versus 29%).
• Rising college enrollment: In March 2012, 39% of 18- to 24-year-olds were enrolled in college, up from 35% in March 2007. Among 18 to 24 year olds, those enrolled in college were much more likely than those not in college to be living at home – 66% versus 50%.
• Declining marriage: In 2012 just 25% of Millennials were married, down from the 30% of 18- to 31-year-olds who were married in 2007.

Percent of Married Millennial Declines



Long-Term Changes in Young Adult Living Arrangements



Household Formation




Married Residing in Own Household Plummets



Since 1968, age at first marriage has increased by nearly six years for both men and women. Consequently, the share of young adults who are married and residing in their own household has plummeted since 1968. In 2012, only 23% of Millennials were married and residing on their own as household head or spouse, a precipitous decline compared with 1968 when 56% of 18- to 31-year-olds were married and on their own.

End PEW

San Francisco on high alert after terror threat

From Jihad Watch / Posted by Robert Spencer

Those Islamophobes never know when to quit. "San Francisco on high-alert after terror threat," by Lilian Kim for KGO-TV, August 4:

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- The Department of Homeland Security is beefing up its presence at airports, train stations and other travel hubs in the United States in the wake of global travel warning imposed on all U.S. citizens. 

Local authorities are not going into specifics but the San Francisco Police Department does acknowledge receiving a bulletin by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and DHS.

The SFPD says their officers are monitoring various areas of the city and will determine if additional resources are necessary.

They say they have the ability to rapidly deploy and redeploy resources as the department deems necessary.

No specific location has been mentioned, but authorities are keeping a close eye on airports, train stations and other transportation hubs. There is also increased scrutiny of visitors coming into the United States.

These latest measures have been implemented out of an abundance of caution.

"al Qaida and the Arabian Peninsula is probably the biggest threat to the homeland. They're the al Qaida faction that still talks about hitting the west and hitting the homeland. And their expertise is chemical explosives. Hitting the aviation sector as we saw with the underwear bomber, so we are on a high state of alert," said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas.

The bulletin sent by the FBI and DHS urging local law enforcement to be vigilant was classified, which reflects the sensitivity and seriousness of the situation.

Former Muslim Brotherhood member tells us what the government won’t about the terror attack in Benghazi

From Bare Naked Islam

Dr. Mark Christian from the Global Faith Institute sent The Gateway Pundit his account of the Benghazi attack on September 11, 2012:

Dr. Mark Christian, an obstetrician/gynecologist by profession, was destined to become a Sunni religious leader in Egypt. Mark was groomed from boyhood to become an influential leader of the Muslim faith. He later converted to Christianity and moved to America. Mark now hopes to educate a sleeping American public to the actuality of Islamic intention in this country.

Gateway Pundit (h/t Mike F) Syrian president Bashar el Assad, Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah of Lebanon are fully responsible for the death of United States Ambassador Christopher Stevens. President Obama has known this fact since the minute he first learned about the attack.

Stevens, from his Benghazi base, was stockpiling weapons – and resourcing the expert fighters who could use them – to topple Assad’s rule in Syria. On September 11, 2012, Assad powerfully punched back, raiding the Benghazi compound which housed the armament for his own destruction. Though Assad’s reprisal resulted in the loss of four American lives, including Stevens, he forcefully conveyed that he would not be thrown out of the ring.

The Syrian uprising is not a simple “the good guys vs. the bad guys” action-packed conflict. While there is plenty of action, there are no good guys. There are, however, two opponents who have been duking it out for hundreds of years, the Sunnis and the Shiites. In the Sunni corner, we have U.S. President Barack Obama, championed primarily by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and (pre-Morsi overthrow) Egypt. Their combatants, the Shiites, include Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah – the Lebanese militia controlled by Iran and Syria.

Under President Barack Obama’s direction in the 2011 Arab Spring, the Sunnis had already ousted evil dictators from countries such as Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya. It appeared to be pro-democracy freedom-fighting at its finest. It wasn’t. The overthrown governments were quickly replaced with Muslim-Brotherhood-aligned, Sunni Islamic theocracies. And the next country on the list for overthrow was Syria. But unlike the easier targets of Mubarek, Ben Ali, and Gaddafi, Shiite Syrian leader Bashar Assad has the powerful allies of Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia.

The Assad regime was fully aware of the shrouded activity in Benghazi, fully aware that Ambassador Christopher Stevens, the man credited for the assassination of Gaddafi, was much more than an ambassador. Though serving in Tripoli as the U.S. Ambassador to transition a tribal Libya to Sunni Islamic rule, Stevens covertly used Benghazi as his base of operation for the next phase of Arab Spring: overthrowing Assad in Syria. From his Benghazi compound Stevens stored and supplied weapons for thousands of hired, rebel fighters – many of which were al-Qaeda – headed to Syria.

In August, 2012, team Sunni provoked team Shiite on their home turf in Tehran at the Non-Alignment Movement Summit. After making several diplomatic attempts to end the illicit smuggling of guns and gunners by Obama and the Sunnis into Syria, Iran became insulted when Egyptian President Morsi demanded removal of Syrian President Assad. Following this ultimatum, Morsi arrogantly snubbed the fundamental Shiite beliefs held by Iranian President Ahmadinejad and spiritual leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. This was the last straw.

The threatened Shiites forcefully and strategically retaliated by attacking the Benghazi compound. Why? They were seeking to expose the Sunni agenda of President Barack Obama to the American electorate during Obama’s re-election campaign, Iran was confident that this bold retribution would prevent Obama’s second presidential term, and squash the Sunni initiative in Syria.

On the morning of September 11, 2012, Christopher Stevens and his aide, Sean Smith, were meeting at the Benghazi headquarters with Turkish Consul General, Ali Sait Akin, and his associates. Turkey was the staging ground through which the Syria-bound guns and rebels were smuggled. Thirty-four additional Syrian opposition supporters were also in attendance. Shortly after Mr. Akin & Co. left, the compound was struck by a highly-organized assault by Hezbollah fighters. The eyes of the Middle East, as well as any online observer of Libyan and Middle Eastern press, watched the brazen attack on Benghazi…

…If Americans knew what really happened, if the mainstream media uncovered and exposed Obama and his Sunni agenda, Obama would not be the current American president, but a prosecuted American citizen. If his orchestration and support of Arab Spring, including Syria, was revealed, President Obama, who has hidden much more than Benghazi from the American people, would finally be held accountable for his actions. If it became public knowledge that – while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was ignoring the body of her American Ambassador Christopher Stevens, she was ordering that all of Stevens’ classified information in Tripoli be destroyed – then Ms. Clinton’s presidential aspirations might be imprisoned. And the families of Stevens, Smith, Woods, and Doherty would definitively know what difference it does make when the daylight of truth shines on the darkness of night.

Eye-witnesses, including the thirty-four various nationals who participated in Stevens’ meeting on the morning of September 11, 2012, could provide testimony exponentially more illuminating than the scripted smoke of the one-day Congressional performance of Benghazi whistle blowers. However, their interest in exposing the truth, and their whereabouts, is extremely unlikely since they were undoubtedly complicit with the Sunni scheme.

But Benghazi was just the beginning. Assad and his gang continue to target countries supporting the Syrian uprising. Were these attacks just isolated events or part of a coordinated plan?

*On April 15, 2013, two bombs exploded during the Boston Marathon in America.

*Two Iranian-linked terrorists were apprehended just days following the Boston bombing when their plan to derail a Canadian passenger train in Toronto was thwarted.

*A car bomb injured two guards at the French Embassy in Tripoli on April 23, 2013; France financially supported the Syrian opposition.

*British Prime Minister Cameron met with Russian President Putin on May 10, 2013, and with President Obama on May 13, 2013. On May 22, 2013, a British soldier was publically beheaded by terrorists.

*Dozens are killed from a car bomb near the Syrian border in Reyhanli, Turkey on May 11, 2013.

*President Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan meet on May 16, 2013 followed by violent riots in Istanbul, where bombings as recent as June 5, 2013 have occurred.

As tensions between Israel and Syria intensify, as Syria is purported to have received its first shipment of $300 anti-aircraft missiles from Russia, all the key players are keenly conscious that an attack against Syria, the dominant subject of the upcoming Geneva talks, is an attack against Russia. The stakes are shockingly high, and there is no indication of either faction, Sunni or Shiite, backing down. Meanwhile, as the controlled and calculated fires of IRS and the Associated Press capture the American attention, keeping them distracted and clueless, a catastrophic wildfire awaits. World War III could readily ignite, and the Benghazi blazes were simply the match.

Newsmax

Peter King: Terror Intelligence Suggested 'Enormous' Attack, Possibly in United States

The information includes communications among known terrorists intercepted by the National Security Agency in recent days, according to two U.S. officials who asked not to be identified discussing classified intelligence matters. They declined to offer specifics about the exchanges, only saying the content is credible and disturbing.

While an attempted attack is most likely to happen in the Middle East, “It could be in Europe, it could be in the United States,” Representative Peter King, a New York Republican who serves on both the House Intelligence and Homeland Security committees, said on “This Week.” “It could be a series of combined attacks.”

“This threat was so specific as to how enormous it was going to be and also certain dates were given,” King said.

The U.S. State Department last week issued a worldwide travel alert warning citizens of potential terror attacks in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia by al-Qaeda or its affiliates. The primary focus is on al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a terrorist group based in Yemen and a remote part of Saudi Arabia, according to King and the two American officials.

Late Sunday, the department extended the closures of some embassies and consulates in the Middle East through Aug. 10 due to caution but not the emergence of any new threat, the State Department said.

Other U.S. diplomatic posts, including in Kabul, Baghdad and Algiers, that had been closed on Sunday, will reopen on Monday, the State Department said.

Posts in Abu Dhabi, Amman, Cairo, Riyadh, Dhahran, Jeddah, Doha, Dubai, Kuwait, Manama, Muscat, Sanaa, Tripoli, Antanarivo, Bujumbura, Djibouti, Khartoum, Kigali, and Port Louis will be closed through Saturday.

U.S. diplomatic posts in Dhaka, Algiers, Nouakchott, Kabul, Herat, Mazar el Sharif, Baghdad, Basrah, and Erbil will open on Monday.

“This is the most serious threat that I’ve seen in the last several years,” Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, the top Republican on the chamber’s Intelligence Committee, said today on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program. “There’s been an awful lot of chatter out there” among terrorists planning attacks, Chambliss said, noting that this was “reminiscent of what we saw pre-9/11.”

The embassies and consulates closed this weekend as a precaution include those in Libya, Egypt, Yemen and Afghanistan, according to a list posted on the department’s website.

“Current information suggests that al-Qaeda and affiliated organizations continue to plan terrorist attacks both in the region and beyond, and that they may focus efforts to conduct attacks in the period between now and the end of August,” the department said. The attacks “may involve public transportation systems and other tourist infrastructure.”

The warning of a potential attack by al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations is unusual this time partly because the groups are so “widely dispersed,” said Michael Chertoff, who was Homeland Security secretary under President George W. Bush.

“It’s actually quite rare to have this broad and yet so alarming and specific a warning be publicly disseminated,” Chertoff, who founded a security consulting company in Washington, told ABC’s “This Week.”

President Barack Obama instructed his national security team last week to “take all appropriate steps to protect the American people in light of a potential threat occurring in or emanating from the Arabian Peninsula,” according to a press release issued by the White House yesterday. “The president has received frequent briefings over the last week on all aspects of the potential threat and our preparedness measures.”

The State Department pledged to increase security at embassies and consulates after the attack on a U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012, led to the death of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. The Central Intelligence Agency said it had warned the State Department repeatedly of terrorist threats in Benghazi before the attack, according to e-mails released later by the White House.

The State Department had issued a similar warning of possible attacks before that.

The latest alert and embassy closures may be an effort to disrupt al-Qaeda operations, according to Michael Hayden, who served as CIA director under the George W. Bush administration.

The announcements may be designed to put al-Qaeda “on the back foot, to let them know that we’re alert and we’re on to at least a portion of this plot line,” Hayden said today on “Fox News Sunday.”

The U.S. warning came days after al-Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, urged his followers in a speech posted on jihadist websites to attack U.S. sites as a response to American drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors terrorist groups.

God Save The Queen: NSA Paying Brits To Violate U.S. Constitution

by Sam Rolley / Personal Liberty Digest

SPECIAL

In the United States, the Bill of Rights protects Americans from governmental invasions of privacy. And while the National Security Agency has used the terrorist boogeyman to eviscerate many of the privacy protections, there are, believe it or not, still some limitations on the lengths the agency can go to spy on Americans.

So what’s a nosy NSA desk jockey to do when he can’t intrude quite as much as he would like? Simple: contract spies in countries where American privacy protections are completely void.

British newspaper The Guardian revealed Friday that the leaked documents provided by NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden contain information about hundreds of millions of dollars in secret U.S. payments to the U.K.’s Government Communications Headquarters over the past three years. The NSA put the powerful British intelligence agency on the payroll because the nation’s loose privacy laws allow GCHQ to do some of the dirty work that even the Constitution-abrogating NSA deems out of bounds.

And the American spies expect the British spies to get the job done. “GCHQ must pull its weight and be seen to pull its weight,” said a GCHQ strategy briefing obtained by The Guardian.

Another leaked document reveals that the Brits value the relationship strongly, fearing “US perceptions of the… partnership [could] diminish, leading to loss of access, and/or reduction in investment… to the UK” if they fail to deliver.

The leaked documents also reveal that U.S. taxpayers pay half of the operation costs for a British intelligence facility in Cyprus and partially fund operations at several other facilities across the pond.

The Guardian also reported on the GCHQ’s expanding surveillance capabilities:

• GCHQ is pouring money into efforts to gather personal information from mobile phones and apps, and has said it wants to be able to “exploit any phone, anywhere, any time”.
• Some GCHQ staff working on one sensitive programme expressed concern about “the morality and ethics of their operational work, particularly given the level of deception involved”.
• The amount of personal data available to GCHQ from internet and mobile traffic has increased by 7,000% in the past five years – but 60% of all Britain’s refined intelligence still appears to come from the NSA.

Evidently, our government is now paying Great Britain to spy on American citizens without the burden of Constitutional limitation — more than two centuries after rebelling against the British government for the very type of citizen abuse U.S. leaders are now seeking to impose on their own subjects.