Tag: mandate

Week 4: DOGE Finds Another $1,900,000, Hamas Frees American Hostage, Political Lawfare Continues

On By kingsjesterIn Politics1 Comment

Item #1-“The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the Elon Musk-led group tasked with eliminating wasteful spending, on Friday said it found $1.9 billion that was misplaced by the Biden administration. 

The funds were from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and have been recovered.”(Courtesy FoxNews.com)

Item #2-“American-Israeli Sagui Dekel-Chen, 36, was among three hostages released by Hamas on Saturday morning after being held in captivity in Gaza for almost a year and half. The other two hostages handed over to Red Cross personnel in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis were Israelis Sasha Troufanov, 29, and Iair Horn, 46.” (Courtesy CBSNews)

President Donald J Trump continues to fulfill the promises he made the American people during his campaign to become the 47th president of the United States of America.

And, he’s doing so st breakneck speed  despite all of the incessant Political Lawfare, demonstrations, and political propaganda being released on him by the Democratic Elite and their minions in Legacy and Social Media.

Not since the Revolutionary War Days of the British Tories attacking America and the Communist Infiltration of the 1950s has there been such a concerted effort to tear America apart at the seams.

The Democrat Elite are right in regards to their claim that this is a Constitutional Crisis

However, not in the way that they are claiming that it is.

Nowhere in our Constitution does it give the Judiciary supreme power over the Executive Branch of government.

Our Founders created three co-equal branches of government, each with a singular mission.

The Executive Branch was created to provide leadership to our country and to lead America to peace and prosperity.

The Legislative Branch was to develop and create laws that would be a boon to the American people and help create an orderly society.

The Judicial Branch was created to enforce the laws and to help maintain a civilized society, not to be used as a Political Weapon against the sitting President of the United States of America.

The Democrat Elite and their obsessed minions refuse to accept the fact that President Donald J Trump was given a mandate by the American people to restore our Sovereign Nation to prosperity.

Just like the political Ideologues who believed in the teachings of Karl Marx and Saul Alinsky back in the 1950s, these self-appointed “Social Justice Warriors” are determined to have their way in changing America from a Constitutional Republic into a Socialist Paradise.

Their immaturity is astounding.

This vocal minority actually believe if they hold their breath until they turn blue while screaming at the top of their lungs and stomping their feet that the majority of Americans will somehow take back the election of Donald J Trump and embrace their failed political ideology.

To quote Star Trek’s Lt. Commander Spock, “Highly Illogical.”

In reality, they are standing in the middle of the tracks, and the Trump Train is coming through.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Victory’s Aftermath…What Now? (A KJ Op Ed)

On By kingsjesterIn PoliticsLeave a comment

AFBrancoHarryReid1152014So, here we are, two days removed from a Political Tsunami which registered at 10 on the Richter scale .

We were all walking around on cloud nine yesterday, celebrating the victory of the Republican Party… and America. Later on that afternoon, reality reared its ugly head, as President Barack Hussein Obama strode to the podium.

In an attempt to appear bipartisan, Obama instead looked like a petulant 7-year-old, who was threatening to take his ball and go home. President Pantywaist was visibly irritated by the straightforward questions of a mainstream media ,who  now, after being awakened by the Republican landslide of the night before, determined to show the public that they actually could be objective (or, getting even with Obama for the Democrats losing so badly), by asking the president tough questions, instead of the usual softballs which they had thrown in the last 7 years.

Petulant President Pantywaist was not very pleased at all. His answers, while skirting the surface of bipartisanship, were still undergirded by the same divisiveness which Obama has demonstrated with such zeal during his presidency.

Do you remember when Barack Hussein Obama first burst onto the scene? It was during the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Here was this young Senator from the state of Illinois, who received the opportunity of a lifetime, to be one of the main speakers at the convention.

Meticulously prepared by his handlers,  when the young Senator took the stage, you would have thought that he was the second coming of Elvis.

George Soros, David Axelrod ,and all of the powers behind the scenes in the Democratic Party made sure that the Main Stream Media would trumpet the triumphant arrival of their next “Golden Boy”, a charismatic individual who would carry the Democrat Party on his back in their quest to reclaim the White House.

And sure enough, thanks to a propaganda campaign by the Main Stream Media and a Democrat ground game spearheaded by the illegal efforts of ACORN, America’s low information voters, desperately wanting to ride the wave of an event which they were told would be historic, the election of America’s first black president, elected instead, America’s first Anti-American president.

As our country quickly found out, we did not elect a world leader, we elected a community organizer.

The problem that Republicans face in dealing with the incumbent President, is the fact that, after 7 years as President, Obama is still nothing but a community organizer. He is still trying to fight “The Man”. His use of the rhetoric of c=Class Warfare is meant to be racially divisive and is meant to consolidate his power base.

However, as eloquently demonstrated on Tuesday night, the overwhelming majority of Americans have  a different perspective on our nation and the problems we face, than President Barack Hussein Obama does.

When Obama was asked by one of the reporters in his press conference yesterday if the election was a referendum on his leadership, Obama claimed that it was not.

But then again, what did we expect him to say? That, yes, he’s a lousy president?

Just as it has during the entire length of his failed presidency, Obama’s arrogance would not allow the Lightbringer to admit the dire situation that our country finds itself in.

In fact, Obama had the nerve to describe how much better off our nation was than when he took over.

The 92 million six hundred thousand Americans, who are no longer in our workforce, would disagree with him .

Republicans face a daunting challenge.

For those of us who voted them into office, it was a mission to preserve this Blessed Land. However, it was not just a mission of preservation, it was a mission of salvation.

It is up to Republicans to hold the line against a barrage of executive orders which will soon come from Obama’s desk.

Make no mistake, Tuesday night’s election results were a mandate. Every single Republican who ran for Congress and who got elected on Tuesday night, promised to repeal Obamacare.

Now, while that may not be possible while Obama is sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office , the Republicans need to make every effort to move in that direction before the 2016 presidential election.

This is the time for the Republicans to display resolute leadership, not the go along-to-get-along spineless behavior, which we have seen all too often during the last 7 years. They have control of Congress now. Harry Reid is no longer blocking legislation.

Republicans, if they wish to cement their legacy, have to start listening to the ones who elected them on Tuesday night. They witnessed firsthand what happens to politicians who value the wishes of special interest groups over those of average Americans.

As Kevin Kline said in the movie “Dave” about the Presidency, being elected to Congress is a temp job.

It is not an entitlement.

Tuesday night, the American people spoke loud and clear. We love our country. And, we will stand up to anybody who wants to radically change her in a direction in which we do not want to go.

This is not a democracy, a Marxist State, or a monarchy . This is a Constitutional Republic.

It is way past time to see our system of Checks and Balances at work once again.

Tuesday night, the American people gave the Republican Party the ball. Let’s see what they do with it.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Welcome to America…and Obamacare

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

obamadoctorGive me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free…and have Government Benefits?

The majority of Americans are dreading the implementation of Obama’s ever-growing National Healthcare Monster,  known as Obamacare.

Obama and minions are already hard at work, preparing for the socialization of the (soon to be formerly) best Healthcare System in the world, by revamping the DHS-supplied informative manual given to new legal immigrants.

Carol May of The Daily Caller reports that

…USCIS spokesman Daniel Cosgrove told TheDC the new manual will be out by the end of fiscal year 2013.

When asked if the revamping had anything to do with the president’s push for immigration reform, Cosgrove said that the effort was “an ongoing project” for the department.

As TheDC previously reported, some have concerns about the manner in which the government is promoting government benefits, including in the welcome materials, to new immigrants.

In November, Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions advocated taking the “Government Benefits” page down.

“Some of these programs are clearly not available for immigrants,” Sessions told TheDC in November, “and it just creates confusion out there and suggests that if you can get into America, you can leave and get onto these programs, and from what we are seeing, many of these people are successful in getting on benefit programs that they are not lawfully entitled to.”

DHS launched WelcometoUSA.gov in 2007, and the guidebook was first developed in 2004 and revised in 2007.

Update: After publication Sessions weighed in on the department’s expected addition of the Affordable Care Act to WelcometoUSA.gov.

“The administration’s determination to place immigrants on federal assistance, including the President’s health law, will add trillions to the cost of any amnesty,” the Alabama senator told TheDC. “It is wrong and unfair to ask Americans to pay higher taxes and bear more debt in order to provide free benefits to legal and illegal immigrants. Such a policy weakens growth and undermines the core legal and economic principle of immigration – that you should be able to establish before you come here that you are financially self-sufficient.”

What about those of us who are already as American as Apple Pie? Is Obamacare free for us, too?

Answer:  Oh, Heck no. We’re going to be paying out the wazzoo. (That’s a medical term.)

CNSNews.com tells us that

In a final regulation issued Wednesday, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) assumed that under Obamacare the cheapest health insurance plan available in 2016 for a family will cost $20,000 for the year.

Under Obamacare, Americans will be required to buy health insurance or pay a penalty to the IRS.

The IRS’s assumption that the cheapest plan for family will cost $20,000 per year is found in examples the IRS gives to help people understand how to calculate the penalty they will need to pay the government if they do not buy a mandated health plan.

The examples point to families of four and families of five, both of which the IRS expects in its assumptions to pay a minimum of $20,000 per year for a bronze plan.

“The annual national average bronze plan premium for a family of 5 (2 adults, 3 children) is $20,000,” the regulation says.

Bronze will be the lowest tier health-insurance plan available under Obamacare–after Silver, Gold, and Platinum. Under the law, the penalty for not buying health insurance is supposed to be capped at either the annual average Bronze premium, 2.5 percent of taxable income, or $2,085.00 per family in 2016.

Here is the best summary of this unneeded monstrosity that I’ve ever seen, given by an American Doctor, who was introducing a serious speech about Obamacare:

We’re going to be gifted with a health care plan we are forced to purchase and fined if we don’t, which purportedly covers at least 10 million more people without adding a single new doctor, but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn’t understand it, passed by a Congress that didn’t read it, but exempted themselves from it, and signed by a president who smokes … same sentence … with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn’t pay his taxes, for which we will be taxed for four years before any benefits take effect by the government, which has already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare — all to be overseen by a Surgeon General who is obese, and financed by a country that’s broke.”

– Dr. Barbara Ruth Bellar

The Maha Rushie’s brother, David Limbaugh, wrote the following :

Americans were outraged and horrified by this president’s reckless spending and his endless assaults on the Constitution, but no issue drove them to rise up and fight back like Obamacare – both the abominable legislative monstrosity itself and the tyrannical, corrupt manner by which Obama crammed it through the legislative process.

So now, in an effort to buy votes from potential new Democrat voters, the President and his Administration are marketing (And, I should know, I’m a VP of Marketing) Obamacare to legal immigrants, as one of the perks gifted to them by their benevolent Uncle Sugar.

I always thought that the promise of American Freedom was enough to buy loyalty.

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

Evidently, Mitt Still Likes Mandates

On By kingsjesterIn Politics6 Comments

On Tuesday, Democratic Super PAC Priorities USA issued an ad featuring a steelworker, blaming Mitt Romney for his loss of health insurance after Bain Capital closed down the plant he was working at.

Later, his wife suffered and passed away from cancer.

Yesterday, the Romney campaign put both feet in its collective mouth.

Romney Press Secretary Andrea Saul told Fox News that the steelworker would have been fine, if that person had lived in Massachusetts. He would have been covered under the former governor’s health law.

Quoteth this genius:

If people had been in Massachusetts, under Governor Romney’s health care plan, they would have had health care.There are a lot of people losing their jobs and losing their health care in President [Barack] Obama’s economy.

So, who is this young lady, who just inadvertently showed American Conservatives exactly what Mitt Romney thinks of them?

Per p2012.org:

Press Secretary Andrea Saul

(announced March 3, 2011 as communications advisor to Free and Strong America PAC) Press Secretary for Carly Fiorina’s U.S. Senate race in California. Communications director for Gov. Charlie Crist during his recent U.S. Senate run but resigned in April 2010 upon his decision to switch party affiliation. Press secretary to U.S Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) during much of 2009. Director of media affairs for McCain-Palin, responsible for organizing all television, radio and surrogate activity. Director of media affairs at the Republican National Committee, 2007-08. Associate account executive at DCI Group, 2005-07. Graduate of Vanderbilt University, 2004.

An establishment approved Press Secretary for the GOP Establishment Candidate.

Back on 5/10/11, USA Today published an opinion piece by former Massachusetts Governor, and favorite of the GOP Elite, Mitt Romney, Entitled Romney: As first act, out with ObamaCare, it contained the following statement:

If I am elected president, I will issue on my first day in office an executive order paving the way for waivers from ObamaCare for all 50 states. Subsequently, I will call on Congress to fully repeal ObamaCare.

The needle on my Irony Meter, at the time I wrote that post, pegged so hard it snapped in two.

Back in 2006, Romney was singing a different tune as he signed a massive health-insurance overhaul into law as Governor of Massachusetts. “Romneycare” was packed with subsidies, exchanges, and mandates to extend coverage to the uninsured. Four years later, it became the model for the national nightmare known as Obamacare, the very National Healthcare Law that he now promises to eliminate.

During a New Hampshire Presidential Campaign Debate on Jan. 6, 2008, the following revealing moment transpired:

Debate moderator Charles Gibson of ABC News: “But Gov. Romney’s system has mandates in Massachusetts, although you backed away from mandates on a national basis.”

Romney: “No, no, I like mandates. The mandates work.”

GOP contender Fred Thompson: “I beg your pardon? I didn’t know you were going to admit that. You like mandates.”

Romney: “Oh, absolutely. Let me tell you what kind of mandates I like, Fred, which is this. If it weren’t –“

Thompson: “The ones you come up with. Bingo”

Later, during an April 19, 2010 interview with Newsweek’s Andrew Romano, Governor Romney added the following:

I’d like to clear something up about that federalist argument. During one of the 2008 debates, Charles Gibson said, “You seem to have backed away from mandates on a national basis.” And your response was, “No, no, I like mandates. The mandates work.” Were you saying that you supported federal mandates then, even though you say you don’t now?

No. We created an incentive for people to get insurance at the state level. Our plan is a state plan. I oppose a federal plan for purposes of federalism. It would be like saying, a father has spanked his son. Do you think that the federal government should be allowed to spank children?

So people are misinterpreting that quote?

I do not favor the federal mandates that are part of Obamacare.

Back in February 2007, you said you hoped the Massachusetts plan would “become a model for the nation.” Would you agree that it has?

I don’t … You’re going to have to get that quote. That’s not exactly accurate, I don’t believe.

I can tell you exactly what it says: “I’m proud of what we’ve done. If Massachusetts succeeds in implementing it, then that will be a model for the nation.”

It is a model for the states to be able to learn from. During the campaign, I was asked if I was proposing that what I did in Massachusetts I would do for the nation. And the answer was absolutely not. Our plan is a state plan. It is a model for other states—if you will, the nation—it is a model for them to look at what we’ve accomplished and to better it or to create their own plans.

There are obvious similarities between Obamacare and what you did in Massachusetts. Do you acknowledge that what you did in Massachusetts has become a model for nation under Obama, whether you wanted it to or not?

I can’t speak for what the president has done. I don’t know what he looks at. He never gave me a call. Neither he nor any of his colleagues [gave me] a call to ask what worked and did not work, and how would they improve upon it and so forth. If what was done at the state level, they applied at the federal level, they made a mistake. It was not designed for the nation.

Well, Governor, evidently your Press Secretary doesn’t think so.

As a Vice-President of Marketing, I can tell you, a Marketing/PR Professional, like a Press Secretary’s, job is to communicate the information they have been given by their boss.

Perhaps “what we have heah is failure to communicate”.

Perhaps not.

Good luck, Mitt. (And God help us.) Pandora just opened the box.

The Supreme Court Tackles Obamacare: Buyer, Beware

On By kingsjesterIn Politics5 Comments

The United States Supreme Court begins hearings this week on Obamacare, Obama’s National Healthcare Monster that was shoved down Americans’ collective throat by the Obama Administration and their lackeys in the then-Democratic-controlled Congress.

I have an inkling that the Administration is a wee bit concerned as to how SCOTUS is going to rule.

Yahoo.com reports that

Neal Katyal, who as acting US Solicitor General defended the constitutionality of President Barack Obama’s flagship health reform in lower courts, has warned in an interview with AFP of “grave” and “profound” consequences if the Supreme Court accepts a challenge to the law.

Q:) Experts say that this Supreme Court challenge is historic. Why so?

A:) The case that’s coming before the Supreme Court which challenges Congress’s Affordable Care Act is undoubtedly a significant case. It’s rare for a president’s signature initiative to come before the Supreme Court and be challenged as unconstitutional.

Q:) The requirement for each individual to have health insurance coverage is central to the president’s reform. Can the law survive without that measure?

A:) It’s a hard thing to imagine that the law, that all of the rest of the law would survive if the individual mandate is struck down, because Congress when they passed the Affordable Care Act, said: ‘We want to get rid of discrimination against those who have pre-existing conditions to make sure that insurers are going to insure everyone at a fair cost’. And if you get rid of the provision that says everyone has to carry insurance, then you’re really effectively undoing the logic of the ban on discrimination of those with pre-existing conditions.

Q:) In what way could the individual mandate by judged “unconstitutional”?

A:) The challengers to the reform say that never before has the government forced people to buy a product. We’re not forcing you to buy a product. Health care is something all Americans consume, and you don’t know when you’re going to consume it. You could get struck by a bus, you could have a heart attack and the like. And if you don’t have health insurance, then you show up at the emergency room. The doctors are under orders to treat you — as any Western, any civilized society would do. And who pays for that? Well, ordinary Americans pay for that. They’re the ones who have to pick up the tab for those who don’t have insurance. We are not regulating what people buy, we’re regulating how people finance it.

Excuse me, when something is mandated, doesn’t that mean you HAVE TO do it?

Todd Gaziano details SCOTUS’ schedule at heritage.org:

Six hours of oral argument will be conducted in four sessions, spread over three days. That’s what the Supreme Court has allocated for the cases challenging the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare).

The arguments begin Monday, as attorneys representing 26 states, the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), and a few of its individual members square off against U.S. Solicitor General Donald B. Verilli, Jr. and one of his deputies. Other attorneys appointed by the Supreme Court will join the fray on two issues. Here’s the schedule and the line-up for the arguments.

Monday, March 26, 10:00 a.m. (90 mins. of argument).

The Issue: Is the challenge to the Obamacare mandate ripe for a court challenge?

The 145-year-old Anti-Injunction Act (AIA) provides that courts may not hear most cases to block tax collections until the challengers first pay the tax and seek a refund. The individual mandate in Obamacare doesn’t kick in until 2014, and one court ruled that no one may challenge it until they pay the penalty for not buying insurance in 2015. The United States no longer takes that position; it thinks the AIA doesn’t apply to the mandate penalty because it is not a tax. The challengers argue there are four other reasons why the AIA doesn’t apply.

Since the administration agrees with the challengers on the AIA, the Court appointed a private attorney—Robert A. Long, Jr.—to argue the other side. Long will present the first 40 minutes of argument. He’ll be followed by Verrilli, who has 30 minutes allotted. Gregory G. Katsas, representing NFIB and the states, will have the final 20 minutes to argue that the AIA creates no obstacle to challenging the mandate.

Tuesday, March 27, 10:00 a.m. (two hrs. of argument)

The Issue: Does the Constitution give Congress the power to compel individuals to purchase particular financial instruments?

While Monday’s session will be largely technical, Tuesday’s session is the main event. Verrilli will argue that the Constitution’s Commerce and the Necessary and Proper Clauses give Congress all the authority it needs. Verilli will also argue that the mandate penalty is a “tax” for constitutional purposes. The challengers are represented by former Solicitor General Paul Clement, arguing on behalf of the 26 states, and Michael Carvin, speaking on behalf of NFIB, who will each have 30 minutes before the justices. Clement and Carvin will contend that, in imposing the mandate, Congress exceeded its authority, and that the penalty is not a constitutional tax. In addition, they will argue that if the mandate is allowed to stand, Congress would have virtually unlimited power to require citizens to buy anything or do anything.

Wednesday, March 28, 10:00 a.m. (90 mins. of argument)

The Issue: If the mandate must go, can the rest of the law survive?

The challengers maintain that, if the Court strikes down the mandate, it should invalidate the rest of the law as well. The administration will argue that a few related provisions would have to go if the mandate is found to be unconstitutional, but the rest of the law should remain in force. The Court appointed an amicus counsel, H. Bartow Farr, III, to stake out a third position: that the mandate is completely severable, so nothing else in Obamacare needs to change even if the Court gives the mandate the heave-ho. Clement will speak for the challengers and Deputy Solicitor General Edwin S. Kneedler will represent the administration.

Wednesday, March 28, 1:00 p.m. – (one hr. of argument)

The Issue: Does Obamacare’s huge expansion of Medicaid and the conditions for any federal funding of it violate basic principles of federalism?

Clement will argue that the law effectively coerces states to participate in a radically more expansive Medicaid program than what they have worked under for decades. In the early years of the expansion, slated to begin in 2014, the feds will supposedly pick up all the new costs. But the states argue the expansion will impose massive new costs almost immediately, which will only increase in future years when the federal government decreases its payments. Verrilli will argue that the federal government can alter the terms of the federal-state program any time it wants to and, if the states don’t care for the changes, they can just opt out of Medicaid.

The Supreme Court does not allow oral arguments to be broadcast live, either on TV or radio. For this case, it will release an audio tape of the arguments a few hours after they conclude. For more timely reports on the arguments, check the Foundry, where reports and pod casts will be posted soon after the sessions’ closings.

By the way, since its passage, Obamacare has turned out to be a heck of an investment for the Obama Administration.  That is to say, it’s worth has more than doubled since its “birth”:

President Obama’s national health care law will cost $1.76 trillion over a decade, according to a new projection released today by the Congressional Budget Office, rather than the $940 billion forecast when it was signed into law.

Democrats employed many accounting tricks when they were pushing through the national health care legislation, the most egregious of which was to delay full implementation of the law until 2014, so it would appear cheaper under the CBO’s standard ten-year budget window and, at least on paper, meet Obama’s pledge that the legislation would cost “around $900 billion over 10 years.” When the final CBO score came out before passage, critics noted that the true 10 year cost would be far higher than advertised once projections accounted for full implementation.

Have you ever bought a used car whose repair bill turned out to be more than its net worth?  Well, that’s what Obama and the Democrats gave us with their passage of Obamacare.

Hopefully, the Supreme Court will  take this lemon off of our hands.