What’s interesting in the news today?
Open thread, here’s a few to start off.
1. They just don’t learn. There is no such thing as a moderate Islamist.
From TheLongWarJournal “After the US’ efforts to prop up the Free Syrian Army have failed and the larger Islamist brigades of the FSA, which have fought alongside al Qaeda, have defected and created the Islamic Front, the Obama administration is now seeking to court the Islamic Front. The catch: The group must denounce al Qaeda and join the peace process. Here is an excerpt:
The Obama administration is willing to consider supporting an expanded Syrian rebel coalition that would include Islamist groups, provided the groups are not allied with al-Qaeda and agree to support upcoming peace talks in Geneva, a senior U.S. official said Thursday.
In addition, the official said, the Americans would like the Islamic Front groups to return U.S. vehicles, communications gear and other non-lethal equipment they seized last weekend from warehouses at the Syria-Turkey border.”
Maybe we should make them pinky swear too, just to be sure. 🙄
And maybe a pretty please will get your stuff back too.
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2. Remember folks, taxpayer dollars don’t fund abortion. But it frees up 1.5 million a day that will.
From TheDailyCaller “Planned Parenthood’s 2012-2013 annual report is out, and a pro-life group has already found that the pro-abortion group received nearly $1.5 million a day in government funding over the year.”
“Twenty-six percent of Planned Parenthood’s revenue came from private contributions in 2012, 25 percent came from non-government health services revenue and 4 percent came from “other.” Government grants and reimbursements accounted for 45 percent of Planned Parenthood’s revenue, or $540.6 million.
The organization further reported over $1.3 billion in net assets and $58.2 million in excess revenue.”
The Hyde Amend. is just one more law in a long list that this administration ignores or refuses to enforce or defend.
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3. Which brings us to this piece.
From TheWeeklyStandard “Congressman Tom Rice of South Carolina, a Republican, is sponsoring a resolution in the House of Representatives that would, if adopted, direct the legislative body “to bring a civil action for declaratory or injunctive relief to challenge certain policies and actions taken by the executive branch.” In other words, Rep. Rice wants to take President Obama to court for not faithfully executing the laws.
“President Obama has adopted a practice of picking and choosing which laws he wants to enforce. In most cases, his laws of choice conveniently coincide with his Administration’s political agenda. Our Founding Fathers created the Executive Branch to implement and enforce the laws written by Congress and vested this power in the President. However, President Obama has chosen to ignore some of the laws written by Congress and implemented by preceding Presidents,” Rice wrote in a letter to fellow House members to ask them to co-sponsor this resolution.
“This resolution allows the House of Representatives to bring legal action against the Executive Branch and challenge recent actions, inactions, and policies.” The “legal action against the President” would be, according to an aide for Rep. Rice, “for ignoring Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution.” Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution states,
He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper; he shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers; he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all the officers of the United States.”
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4. DHS is urging insurers to cover people starting January 1st, even if they haven’t paid yet.
Yeah, that’ll work. 🙄
From CNSNews “Fearing that many people will think they have health insurance coverage when they do not, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is “urging” insurance companies to “give consumers additional time to pay their first month’s premium and still have coverage beginning Jan. 1, 2014.”
Insurance companies should cover people who haven’t yet paid, in other words.
With just a few weeks to go until Obamacare takes full effect, Sebelius announced additional changes on Thursday, some that tell insurance companies how to run their business and others that “strongly” encourage insurance companies to waive their rules — on premium payments, for example.
Sebelius now says insurance companies MUST accept payments through December 31 (instead of Dec. 23) for health care coverage that begins the next day, Jan. 1.”
They ignore and re-write this as they go along. Also illegal according to their own law.
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5. And as if things weren’t bad enough, a new glitch that steals money from your bank account. Nice. 🙄
From KGW/Portland “For the second week in a row, the Washington Healthplanfinder website is down, and it’s causing problems for people who are dealing with billing issues. Some of them say the website is mistakenly debiting their accounts.
Shannon Bruner of Indianola logged on to her checking account Monday morning, and found she was almost 800 dollars in the negative.”
“The Bruners enrolled for insurance on the Washington Healthplanfinder website, last October. They say they selected the bill pay date to be December 24th. Instead the Washington Healthplanfinder drafted the 835 dollar premium Monday.”
“One viewer emailed KING 5 saying, “They drafted my account this morning for a second time.”
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Wandering Views 
1. Blowback is quite common when the enemy of your enemy is your friend. The US has a long history of funding groups who later turn on them. In this way, Obama isn’t much different than any other post war president.
3. A strong executive was Cheney’s intention and now he has has it. When Bush and Cheney accumulated “wartime” like powers, many wondered how the Republicans would react when a Democrat was in office.
5. Pre-authorized withdrawals or charges to credit cards are often mistakenly set up and then difficult to change. I rarely allow it for simply that reason …. fitness clubs, cell phone providers etc are notorious for mistakes. Not surprised health insurance companies are emulating this practice… an other reason to go single payer.
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You’re definitely right about blowback, hwesseli, although if the phenomenon wasn’t clear enough before invading Iraq, the fallout from that ridiculous decision should have made it crystal clear to W by his 2nd term, and to any president thereafter. If getting in bed with questionable characters was foolish 20 years ago, it was insanity to do it 5 years ago. That’ just plain not learning a lesson.
Good point, also, about Cheney. Time for both sides to decry that kind of accumulation of power.
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Unanticipated consequences.
“Nearly half of U.S. companies said they are reluctant to hire full-time employees because of the law. One in five respondents said they are likely to hire fewer employees, another one in 10 may lay off current employees and 44 percent of companies said they will consider reducing health benefits to current employees in response to the health care law.”
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/12/todays-obamacarefail-news-roundup.php
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HRW,
Just one point.
It wasn’t a healthcare company that did this. It was the state run exchange that did. Billing and payment is thru them. Can’t blame the big insurance for this one.
“The Bruners enrolled for insurance on the Washington Healthplanfinder website, last October. They say they selected the bill pay date to be December 24th. Instead the Washington Healthplanfinder drafted the 835 dollar premium Monday.”
“Washington Healthplanfinder emailed the Bruners a few days ago telling them to log in to view their invoice, something they couldn’t do because the website has been down. The Bruners haven’t been able to get through on the helpline either. They finally contacted Healthplanfinder administrators by posting a message on their Facebook page.”
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True enough but single payer would be paid through general taxation and not make withdrawals.
It also points out people’s expectations of government is higher than fitness clubs, cell phone companies. etc.
solar — I was thinking of Reagan’s funding of Osama during the Soviet Afghan occupation.
The centralization of power in the executive at the expense of the legislature seems to be trend. Its also a problem in Canada where party discipline is extremely tight.
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hwesseli,
I am a tiny bit surprised that you are still humming that same tune about “Single Payer.” Do people of your persuasion not see that the US just doesn’t want it?
Oh, and by the way, I still don’t remember you answer to my question about why it is right to make all health care personnel into government workers? I understand about the military, not about any other job. Maybe police, too.
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Depending on how the question is phrased, Americans do support single payer. If they are asked do they support expanding medicare to everyone, there is overwhelming support. If the question is phrased as “gov’t provided”,”single payer” and “socialized” the numbers decrease in order. Vermont is going single payer and Massachusetts voters voted yes to single payer in a non-binding vote. I can see single payer implemented the same way as Canada; province by province. The competitive advantage will be enough to bring states on board.
I don’t understand why its so bad to become government workers. If doctors don’t like it, they can go into fields not entirely covered by single payer — plastic surgery, dermatology, etc. This is similar to the education field; most teachers work for the government. If they don’t like that, they can find a private school. Personally I’d rather work for the government — my labor is for the benefit of all not for a corporation to enrich itself, its overpaid CEO, and shareholders.
In addition, doctors in Canada are not gov’t employees, they are self-employed (or employed by a clinic) who receive most but not all of their payments from the government. Other payers include private health and auto insurance, worker’s compensation, non-residents, hospitals, etc. In talking to an American doctor who immigrated to Ontario, the only aspect of government intrusion in comparison to private insurance intrusion was the speed in which he was paid in Ontario; it was quicker and with less paper work. In my doctor’s office, there are three doctors, one receptionist and one medical secretary who does the billing for all three doctors.
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hwesseli, Reagan and the Taliban is one example of many. If the blowback threat wasn’t clear back then, as it should have been, it was crystal clear early on after invading Iraq, and no president nowadays has the slightest excuse for following the same policy.
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Obama then is not some Muslim communist selling out America rather he’s just like any other American president carrying out a policy that supposedly is designed to protect American interests. And like any other president since WWII, he’s making the same mistakes.
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WaPo: “The White House systematically delayed enacting a series of rules on the environment, worker safety and health care to prevent them from becoming points of contention before the 2012 election, according to documents and interviews with current and former administration officials. …
“The Obama administration has repeatedly said that any delays until after the election were coincidental and that such decisions were made without regard to politics. But seven current and former administration officials told The Washington Post that the motives behind many of the delays were clearly political, as Obama’s top aides focused on avoiding controversy before his reelection. …
“Previous White House operations have weighed in on major rules before they were officially submitted for review. But Jeffrey Holmstead, who headed the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation in the George W. Bush administration, said the effort was not as extensive as the Obama administration’s approach.”
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I know, no real surprise here. But I am glad to see that the media is finally getting some teeth in covering this administration.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/white-house-delayed-enacting-rules-ahead-of-2012-election-to-avoid-controversy/2013/12/14/7885a494-561a-11e3-ba82-16ed03681809_story.html
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He’s making mistakes that each successive president since Eisenhower has had more and more culpability in making, and the mistakenNESS has been more and more glaring–exponentially so since after the invasion of Iraq. Whether any of his motivation is Communist or Muslim sympathy, that may be, too, just as the other presidents had their own mix of motivations.
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