Saturday, October 26, 2013

Obamacare and Uncontrolled Immigration: Full Speed to National Disaster

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Mike Scruggs

      A principle objective of Obamacare is to make healthcare insurance available to all residents of the United States at reasonable prices. Note that “residents” of the United States include native-born American citizens, naturalized American citizens, legal immigrants, and illegal immigrants. Most reasonable people would confine government benefit payments to U.S. citizens. Our welfare bill is already too big. Why are we trying to fund some sort of worldfare for visitors, many of whom are here illegally? Can we borrow more money from the Chinese?

     According to a 2009 study by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), 27 percent of U.S. residents do not have any health insurance. However, only 13 percent of native-born Americans lack health insurance, but 32 percent of all immigrants and their children under 18 do not have health insurance.

     It doesn’t take a lot of brainpower to figure out that a huge portion of whatever Obamacare will cost will simply be a transfer payment from native-born Americans to immigrants. Since approximately 64 percent of illegal immigrants have no health insurance, we can conclude that a major fraction of Obamacare costs will be a transfer payment from native-born Americans to illegal immigrants. Furthermore, approximately 85 percent of the increase in uninsured households within the last five years is attributable to new immigration, legal and illegal.

     It now appears that Obamacare is not going to save working Americans money. It is going to cost them dearly. Many are now worried about being able to afford healthcare at all. The ironic consequence of this thoughtless politicizing of healthcare is that healthcare is being made less available to Americans, so it can be given liberally to illegal immigrants who are taking American jobs, using false or stolen identities, and defrauding the government out of taxes. Most Americans will not be happy with Obamacare, but the new politicized healthcare will be a strong magnet for more illegal immigration.

     According to CIS, approximately 48 percent of immigrants are either uninsured or on Medicaid. This is because of the lower education and skill levels of the recent wave of immigrants. Before the “chain migration” provisions of the 1965 Immigration “Reform” Act, the average American immigrant was better educated and more skilled than the average American. According to the Heritage Foundation, 51 percent of illegal immigrant household heads in 2010 were high school dropouts, compared with 20 percent of legal immigrants, and less than 10 percent of native-born Americans.

     The late Milton Friedman, America’s most prominent free market economist for several generations, once made the rather self-evident observation that you cannot have a welfare state and high levels of immigration. The problem for the last 40 years has been that a majority of the political and media classes would rather not confront the predictable and obvious results of foolish immigration and welfare policies, much less draw conclusions from the growing piles of statistical evidence of their folly. They had rather turn their eyes away from accumulating fiscal, economic, and social ruin and hope that illogical and deluded emotional appeals for more immigration and more welfare will somehow save the day. Such mawkish flight from reason may sway the voters for a season but will sow bitter weeds of future reality. As Steve Camarota with CIS has said, “It is very difficult to imagine getting our healthcare house in order without getting our immigration house in order.”

     The Schumer-Rubio immigration bill that passed the U.S. Senate earlier this year is now under consideration by the U.S. House. This bill is not about getting our “immigration house” in order. It is massive special interest legislation driven by cheap labor lobbyists and those who stand to gain by changing the American electorate to one more supportive of left-liberal social and economic policies. According to the Heritage Foundation, the measurable fiscal costs of its amnesty provision for 11.5 million illegal immigrants alone would cost American taxpayers $6.3 trillion over the long term. That does not count its provision to bring an additional 30 to 33 million legal immigrant workers into the U.S. over the next decade to compete with American workers. This would inflict considerable painful damage on the wages and job prospects of American workers. Excess legal and illegal foreign labor supply is already costing the average American worker $2,800 per year. This is essentially an economic transfer of $400 billion from American workers to businesses and individuals who use legal and illegal foreign labor.

     The U.S. has become a welfare state thanks to the Great Society programs that were passed under the Johnson Administration in 1965 and 1966. In 2010, the United States paid out over $695 billion in means-tested welfare assistance—cash, food, housing, and medical care in over 80 programs—for low-income people. Of this,  $131 billion, 19 percent, was for legal and illegal immigrants. Since 2010 however, the Obama Administration has added Food Stamp and Medicaid recipients so rapidly that the 2013  means-tested welfare payout will probably break the $1.0 trillion mark. According to the Heritage Foundation, in 2010 the average American household received $1,158 more in government benefits and services than paid for in taxes. Illegal immigrant households received $14,347 more per year than taxes paid. Giving them amnesty would raise that cost to $22,337 per year because of increased welfare and social security eligibility.

     Politicians are reluctant to admit that the U.S. has two big immigration problems: illegal immigration and excessive legal immigration with little quality control. Most Americans now get it. Approximately 65 percent believe immigration levels should be reduced.

     However, we have already come to a point in American politics, where emotional appeals to poorly informed voters and aggressive special interest lobbies have pushed both healthcare and immigration policy to points of unbelievable fiscal irresponsibility. The U.S welfare state may quickly become insolvent through a combination of amnesty, massive increases in legal immigration, and Obamacare. We need to open our eyes and steer a wiser course.

NC Republican Larry Pittman: Obama is No Traitor Because He Has Not Harmed Kenya


Pittman's comments were made during a town hall meeting in Concord, North Carolina and the video was made by the American Bridge, a Democrat group that follows Republican speaking engagements.

2012-08-06-marty6_0-375x250The NC representative recalled seeing Barack Obama's face recently on Facebook with the word "traitor" beneath it.

"I don't always agree with the guy, certainly didn't vote for him. But I've got to defend him on this one," Pittman says in the video. "I just don't think it's right at all to call Barack Obama a traitor. You know, there's a lot of things he done wrong, but he is not a traitor. At least not as far as I can tell, because I've not come across any evidence yet that he has done one thing to harm Kenya."

Allen West: America 'on verge of race war?'


The latest edition of Colin Flaherty’s book “White Girl Bleed A Lot: The Return of Racial Violence to America and How the Media Ignore It” continues to receive rave reviews from readers, including former Republican Rep. Allen West of Florida.

On his personal website, West, a tea-party favorite, wrote: “We were supposed to be living in a post-racial America since we elected the first ‘African-American’ president. But esteemed scholar Thomas Sowell fears we’re almost on the verge of a race war.”

More than 2,681 Facebook users shared West’s posting on their individual pages, and 5,174 people “liked” it as of 5:30 p.m. Eastern Time Friday.

West asked: “Are we on the verge of war?”

He answered, “I hope not, but just this past week in Brooklyn a white couple was attacked, dragged from their car and beaten by a black mob.”

West also pointed to the fatal beating of 86-year old World War II veteran Delbert Benton in Spokane, Wash., by two black males last month. Just two days ago in the Boston area, he noted,  a 24-year-old white female teacher was brutally killed by a 14-year-old black male.

“Earlier this year, in my home state of Georgia, two teenage black males shot a baby in the face, after shooting the mother.”

West asked: “And where is the nonstop coverage?” 

More @ WND

Clerk pulls gun on robber, then loses job



Robert VanConett of St. Petersburg owns a 9mm semiautomatic handgun and has a concealed weapons permit. 

"I've had it for about four years now. I got it after the first time I got robbed," VanConett told FOX 13 News, adding there was a second robbery about this time last year at the 7-Eleven where he worked the past six years.

Then came a third armed robbery October 12. That was the one that cost him his job.

"I figured as soon as I pulled it, I was going to get fired -- violation of their policy," VanConett admitted.

Surveillance video shows a man entering the store, then throwing a cup of hot coffee on another clerk after the clerk opened the cash register. He waved a knife at VanConett and his co-worker.

"I thought he might come over across the counter so I figured I'd just pull the gun and scare him out," the soon-to-be-terminated clerk said. "After the third robbery, I guess it was time to start looking for something different anyways."

St. Petersburg police have no problems with his actions.

More @ Fox

Carjacking suspect subdued after holding family hostage

 

The standoff was roughly an hour old.

A couple and their two adult sons waited, held hostage at gunpoint by an intruder who had blasted his way into the rural farm home, injuring the wife, shortly after nightfall. Outside, SWAT teams gathered as a negotiator tried to make contact.

Then the father saw a chance and took it. 

He grabbed the barrel of the shotgun while his two sons quickly pounced on the intruder until officers could rush in.

U.N. Benghazi report an inconvenient truth for Obama?

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JERUSALEM – Is the State Department hiding the involvement in the Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi attack of an Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood-linked terrorist group?

A new United Nations report ties perpetrators of the Benghazi attack to the Muhammad Jamal Network, or MJN.

The network and its founder, Egyptian Muhammad Jamal, were designated by Obama’s State Department this month as “specially designated global terrorists” affiliated with al-Qaida.

The designation not only sanctions MJN’s assets but now allows President Obama to use a Bush-era military doctrine to capture Jamal terrorists overseas.

The State Department document designating MJN as terrorists does not mention the Benghazi attack.

This despite an October 2012 Wall Street Journal report that fighters affiliated with Jamal’s group participated in the Benghazi attack.

More @ WND

CNBC: Signs Are Flashing of an Overbought Stock Market

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Naw, who would have thunk'..........?  It's been overbought since 6K as far as I'm concerned.

Are things just too good to be true for the high-flying U.S. stock market?

Maybe. There are warning signs that there might be a bit too much froth in the frosting, CNBC reported, but investors are simply ignoring the signals.

"One of the biggest red flags out there is that there doesn't seem to be any red flags out there," Paul Hickey, co-founder of Bespoke, told CNBC.

For starters, there are suspicions that investors are becoming too complacent.

The latest American Association of Individual Investors survey showed the lowest amount of pessimism about the market in the past 21 months, while optimism is the highest it's been in 10 months.

There are also questions about valuations. The Standard & Poor's 500 now trades at more than 16.5 times earnings, higher than the market average of 15.8.

More @ Newsmax

14 Southern Pictures 1925 - 1963

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1940. "Prospect Hill, Airlie, Halifax County, North Carolina."

More @ NamSouth

The Masks Are Off

Via Redleg

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A long time ago back at Eternity Road, in connection with the "McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act," I wrote:
In his fine 1967 book The American Tradition, Dr. Clarence Carson noted that liberal opinion about freedom had settled on a rather stunted view: that free speech plus a voting mechanism provided all the freedom the nation could ever require. Of course, that view leaves everything else to be legislated, regulated, and taxed to the hilt -- an electorally ratified totalitarianism in which everything not compulsory is forbidden -- but that's all right because we're still free to complain about it.... 
Should our legislators ever presume to pass a law criminalizing "hate speech," and should a case under such a law reach the Supreme Court, would the Justices uphold the law, taking refuge once more in "international opinion"? Given recent developments, it's hard to be confident that they wouldn't.
Liberal attachment to free speech and open elections has always been shaky. Herbert Marcuse's famous essay "Repressive Tolerance" has beckoned to them from the ideological darkness for forty years. Considering how far they'll go to overturn an election in which they came out second best, just how much would it surprise anyone were they to use "evolving standards," "living document" and "clear and present danger" themes to attack what remains of the right of free expression guaranteed by the First Amendment? And given the demonstrated proclivities of supposedly conservative Republican legislators, who want to retain their power and perquisites quite as much as their liberal Democratic counterparts, how much resistance to the notion could we expect the GOP to mount?
Well, concerning that final question, now we know: 

Your move, Virginia: McAuliffe promises gun control push if elected governor

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Speaking in the final Virginia gubernatorial debate on October 24, Democrat candidate Terry McAuliffe said he doesn’t care “what grade [he] got from the NRA” and that more gun control is necessary.
The debate took place at Virginia Tech, and McAuliffe referenced the 2007 shooting on that campus as justification for more gun control.
Republican candidate Ken Cuccinelli correctly stated more gun control would not have prohibited that shooting and that shooters like the killer in that instance, Seung-Hui Cho, are “almost impossible” to find before they decide to start shooting. McAuliffe replied, “Some people should not own guns.” He then defended his gun control proposals, saying: “I don’t care what grade I got from the NRA. I never want to see another Newtown or Aurora or Virginia Tech again.”
If elected, McAuliffe wants to work with Michael Bloomberg and Barack Obama to disarm you.
Isn’t that sweet?

More @ Bearing Arms

CBS News: Obamacare's Entire Financial Model is In Danger of Collapsing

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With so much of the media's attention fixated on Obamacare's technological meltdown, some important storylines have gone under-explored. CBS news, to its credit delved into one of them today, noting that of the people who have successfully obtained coverage under the new law, it appears that the vast majority of them are new Medicaid enrollees. And that poses a mortal threat to the entire structure of the law:

The disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov may have another serious problem: A CBS News analysis shows that in many of the 15 state-based health insurance exchanges more people are enrolling in Medicaid rather than buying private health insurance.

And if that trend continues, there's concern there won't be enough healthy people buying health insurance for the system to work...

The newly insured in some of those states are overwhelmingly low-income people signing up for Medicaid at no cost to them. Matt Salo, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors, said, "We're seeing a huge spike in terms of Medicaid enrollments." He says the numbers have surprised him and state officials.

CBS News has confirmed that in Washington, of the more than 35,000 people newly enrolled, 87 percent signed up for Medicaid. In Kentucky, out of 26,000 new enrollments, 82 percent are in Medicaid. And in New York, of 37,000 enrollments, Medicaid accounts for 64 percent...

More @ Townhall

Rand Paul: 'Audit the fed' before new chief approved. Senator plans to tie Obama nominee to more transparency

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Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who already has called several times for a full audit of the Federal Reserve, the quasi-public organization that largely controls U.S. monetary policy, now is tying his effort to Obama’s nominee to the Fed chairmanship.

Paul, whose father, former congressman Ron Paul, sought for years an audit of the Fed, confirmed Friday that as “part of Senate consideration of the Janet Yellen nomination to be chair of the Fed,” he will ask for a positive response to his “Transparency Act.”

The Fed’s current chairman, Ben Bernanke, is expected to step down Jan. 31. Yellen now is the vice chairman.

She needs Senate confirmation, however, and now the senator is linking her prospects to garnering more information about the Fed, which largely has operated behind a screen of secrecy since it was created almost 100 years ago.

While Democrats, who presumably would support their president’s choice, are a majority in the Senate, it would require 60 votes to break a senator’s hold on a candidate. So such a move would require support from at least a handful of Republicans.

The senator’s statement said, “The American people deserve transparency from the Federal Reserve and the federal government as a whole.”

Ron Paul said in an interview with John Stossel on the Fox Business Network that the Federal Reserve has extraordinary power, and Americans at least should be informed of what it’s doing.

                                                               More with videos @ WND

Sea Lion steals fishermans catch X2


LANGUAGE

The key to stopping Obamacare is for its opponents to win in congressional elections in 2014.


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One huge political question surrounds the catastrophic launch of Obamacare: Will the cancelled insurance contracts for millions, terminated doctor-patient relationships, sticker shock from higher premiums and deductibility, damage to job hiring and economic growth and the administration's double-talk get the GOP off the shutdown hook for the 2014 midterm elections?

That is the question. Donald Rumsfeld would call it a known unknown. And right now nobody knows the answer.

But Christopher Ruddy, founder and CEO of Newsmax, makes an interesting point about this:

More @ Newsmax

Steve Forbes: Obamacare Launch 'Incompetent From Top to Bottom'

Image: Steve Forbes: Obamacare Launch 'Incompetent From Top to Bottom'

Publisher Steve Forbes minces no words when it comes to placing blame for the disastrous website rollout of the Obama administration's sweeping healthcare program.

"It's incompetence from top to bottom," Forbes told Newsmax TV in an exclusive interview Friday as Democrats continued to jump ship amid 2014 election fears and as the administration scrambled to fix a website that has kept untold thousands from registering for federally required health insurance.

"It starts with the top, with the president, and then everyone in the chain of command, including [Health and Human Services] Secretary [Kathleen] Sebelius," said Forbes, publisher and editor-in-chief of his namesake magazine. "Everyone knew there were going to be problems. And then something as complex as this, you have to bird-dog it every step of the way."

More with video @ Newsmax