Probably not.
http://nypost.com/2014/01/12/no-space-no-books-no-leader-no-clue-at-citys-worst-elementary/
Monday, January 13, 2014
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
From Hero Greg Palaast
Larry Summers: Goldman Sacked
18 September 13
oseph
Stiglitz couldn't believe his ears. Here they were in the White House,
with President Bill Clinton asking the chiefs of the US Treasury for
guidance on the life and death of America's economy, when the Deputy
Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers turns to his boss, Secretary
Robert Rubin, and says, "What would Goldman think of that?"
Huh?
Then, at another meeting, Summers said it again: What would Goldman think?
A shocked Stiglitz, then Chairman of the President's
Council of Economic Advisors, told me he'd turned to Summers, and asked
if Summers thought it appropriate to decide US economic policy based on
"what Goldman thought." As opposed to say, the facts, or say, the needs
of the American public, you know, all that stuff that we heard in
Cabinet meetings on The West Wing.
Summers looked at Stiglitz like Stiglitz was some kind of naive fool who'd read too many civics books.
R.I.P. Larry Summers
On Sunday afternoon, facing a revolt by his own
party's senators, Obama dumped Larry as likely replacement for Ben
Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.
Until news came that Summers' torch had been snuffed, I
was going to write another column about Larry, the Typhoid Mary of
Economics. (My first, in The Guardian, 15 years ago, warned that
"Summers is, in fact, a colony of aliens sent to Earth to turn humans
into a cheap source of protein.")
But the fact that Obama even tried to shove Summers
down the planet's throat tells us more about Obama than Summers-and whom
Obama works for. Hint: You aren't one of them.
All these Cabinet discussions back in the 1990s
requiring the blessing of Goldman Sachs revolved around the
Rubin-Summers idea of ending regulation of the US banking system. To
free the US economy, Summers argued, all you'd have to do is allow
commercial banks to bet government-guaranteed savings on new
"derivatives products," let banks sell high-risk sub-prime mortgage
securities and cut their reserves against losses.
What could possibly go wrong?
Stiglitz, who would go on to win the Nobel Prize in
Economics, tried to tell them exactly what would go wrong. But when he
tried, he was replaced and exiled.
Summers did more than ask Rubin to channel the spirit
of Goldman: Summers secretly called and met with Goldman's new CEO at
the time, Jon Corzine, to plan out the planet's financial deregulation.
I'm not guessing: I have the confidential memo to Summers reminding him
to call Corzine.
[For the complete story of that memo and a copy of it, read "The Confidential Memo at the Heart of the Global Financial Crisis".]
Summers, as Treasury official, can call any banker he
damn well pleases. But not secretly. And absolutely not to scheme over
details of policies that could make a bank billions. And Goldman did
make billions on those plans.
Example: Goldman and clients pocketed $4 billion on
the collapse of "synthetic collateralized debt obligations"-flim-flam
feathers sold to suckers and dimwits i.e. the bankers at RBS.
Goldman also cashed in big on the implosion of
Greece's debt via secret derivatives trades permitted by Summers'
decriminalization of such cross-border financial gaming.
The collapse of the euro-zone and the US mortgage
market caused by Bankers Gone Wild was made possible only by Treasury
Secretary Summers lobbying for the Commodities Futures Modernization Act
which banned regulators from controlling the 100,000% increase in
derivatives assets, especially super-risky "naked" credit-default swaps.
The CMFA was the financial equivalent of a fire department banning smoke alarms.
Summers took over the Treasury's reins from Rubin
who'd left to become director of a strange new financial behemoth: The
combine of Citibank with and an investment bank, Travelers. The new bank
beast went bankrupt and required $50 billion in bail-out funds.
(Goldman did not require any bail-out funds–but took $10 billion
anyway.)
Other banks-turned-casinos followed Citi into
insolvency. Most got bail-outs ... and got Larry Summers–or, at least,
Larry's lips for "consulting" or for gold-plated speaking gigs.
Derivatives trader D.E. Shaw paid Summers $5 million
for a couple of years of "part-time" work. This added to payments from
Citigroup, Goldman and other finance houses, raising the net worth of
this once penurious professor to more than $31 million.
Foreclosure fills the Golden Sacks
When Summers left Treasury in 2000, The New York Times
reports that a grateful Rubin got Summers the post of President of
Harvard University-from which Summers was fired. He gambled away over
half a billion dollars of the university's endowment on those crazy
derivatives he'd legalized. (Given Summers' almost pathological
inability to understand finance, it was most odd that, while President
of the university, he suggested that humans with vaginas aren't very
good with numbers.)
In 2009, Summers, Daddy of the Deregulation Disaster,
returned to the Cabinet in triumph. Barack Obama crowned him "Economics
Tsar," allowing Summers to run the Treasury without having to be
questioned by Congress in a formal confirmation hearing.
As Economics Tsar in Obama's first term, did Summers redeem himself?
Not a chance.
In 2008, both Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican
John McCain called for using the $300 billion remaining in the
"bail-out' fund for a foreclosure-blocking program identical to the one
Franklin Roosevelt had used to pull the US out of the Great Depression.
But Tsar Larry would have none of it, although banks had been given
$400 billion from the same fund.
Indeed, on the advice of Summers and his wee assistant, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Obama spent only $7 billon of the $300 billion available to save US homeowners.
What would Goldman think?
As noted, Goldman and clients pocketed billions as a
result of Obama's abandonment of 3.9 million families whose homes were
repossessed during his first term. While American homeowners were
drowning, Tsar Summers torpedoed their lifeboat: a plan to prevent
foreclosures by forcing banks to write-off the overcharges in predatory
sub-prime mortgages. Notably, Summers' action (and Obama's inaction)
saved Citibank billions.
Loan Shark Larry
The deregulation disaster machinery is not done with
mangling Americans. While not-for-profit credit unions, lenders of last
resort for working people and the poor in the US, have been under legal
and political attack, a new kind of banking operation has bubbled out
of the minds of the grifters looking for a way to make loan-sharking
legit.
One new outfit, for example, called "Lending Club,"
has figured out a way to collect fees for arranging loans charging as
much as 29%. Lending Club claims it cannot and should not be regulated
by the Federal Reserve or other banking police. The recent addition to
its Board of Directors: Larry Summers.
If you want to know why Obama would choose such a
grifter and gamer to head the Fed, you have to ask, Who picked Obama?
Ten years ago, Barry Obama was a nothing, a State Senator from the South
Side of Chicago.
But then, he got lucky. A local bank, Superior, was
shut down by regulators for mortgage shenanigans ripping off Black folk.
The bank's Chairwoman, Penny Pritzker was so angry at regulators, she
decided to eliminate them: and that required a new President.
The billionaires connected Obama to Jamie Dimon of
J.P. Morgan, but most importantly to Robert Rubin, former Treasury
Secretary, but most important, former CEO of Goldman Sachs and mentor of
Larry Summers. Without Rubin's blessing and overwhelming fundraising
power, Obama would still be arguing over zoning on Halsted Street.
Rubin picked Obama and Obama picks whom Rubin picks for him.
Because, in the end, Obama knows he must choose a Fed chief based on the answer to one question: What would Goldman think?
Saturday, April 20, 2013
From Hero Will Grigg
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Nationalizing Children
 |
| Commissar for Children: Anton S. Makarenko, depicted in a Soviet Postcard |
We must remove the children from the crude influence of their families. We must take them over and, to speak frankly, nationalize them. –
Instructions given at a congress of Soviet educators in 1918 (cited in Separating School & State: How to Liberate America’s Families, by Sheldon Richman, pg. xv).
[The Soviet family] is an organic part of Soviet society. Parents are not without authority … but this authority is only a reflection of social authority…. In our country he alone is a man of worth whose needs and desires are the needs and desires of a collectivist…. Our family offers rich soil for the cultivation of such collectivism. –
Soviet family theorist Anton S. Makarenko, The Collective Family, A Handbook for Russian Parents, pgs xi-xii, 42.
If we want to talk about equality of opportunity for children, then the fact that children are raised in families means there’s no equality…. In order to raise children with equality, we must take them away from families and communally raise them. –
Dr. Mary Jo Bane, Assistant Secretary of Administration for Children and Families at the US Department of Health and Human Services, 1993-1996; currently Thornton Bradshaw Professor of Public Police and Management, Harvard Kennedy School; quoted in “The Family: It’s Surviving and Healthy” by Dolores Barclay, Tulsa World, August 21, 1977.
Whenever a progressive refers to “investments,” he or she is referring to confiscation of private wealth.
Whenever a progressive invokes the “community,” that term refers to a state-engineered collective in which the individual has no rights.
Whenever a collectivist refers to “public education,” that phrase is shorthand for the process of destroying a child’s developing sense of self-ownership and indoctrinating them in the notion that they are the property of the “community.” This process is also known as “socialization,” which is the indefinable value-added element that supposedly makes “public education” superior to homeschooling.
Whenever an advocate of “public education” refers to “our children,” conscientious parents should take a quick inventory of their arsenals.
Melissa Harris-Perry, a slogan-spewing news reader for the Stalinist media outlet called MSNBC, ran the table of these collectivist nostrums in a recent installment in the network’s “Lean Forward” ad campaign. The “Lean Forward” spots feature various MSNBC luminaries holding forth like Communist Party functionary exhorting the cadres at a “struggle session” in the Chinese Cultural Revolution.
Harris-Perry is a collectivist of such passionate conviction that she regards opposition to Obama's radical centralization of power to be a species of sedition. She considers private firearms to be a pestilence, but embraces a vision of social engineering that would require a great amount of gun-related violence by state functionaries.
Although – or perhaps because -- Harris-Perry is a credentialed academic, she has the odd and annoying habit, so common among adolescents, of ending every statement with a vocal inflection that suggests a question. In her "Lean Forward" ad, she uncorked this specimen of unfiltered collectivist cant:
“We have never invested as much in public education, because we’ve always had a sort of private notion of children – your kid is yours, and totally your responsibility. We haven’t had a very collective notion of, `These are our children.’ So part of it is that we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents, or kids belong to families, and recognize that kids belong to whole communities. Once it’s everybody’s responsibility, and not just the household’s, then we start making better investments.”
Harris-Perry’s disdain for parental authority is wedded to a denial of the idea that the individual child has a right to self-ownership. During an MSNBC discussion about a North Dakota law that would ban abortion after six weeks, she used the expression “this thing” to refer to the developing fetus and warned that “if this turns into a person, there are economic consequences.”
It’s important to understand that Harris-Perry’s commitment to legalized abortion doesn’t grow out of a misapplied commitment to individual liberty, but rather her devotion to the collective management of the human population. It’s akin to the view expressed in the early 1970s by then-Rutgers professor Ruth Bader Ginsburg that the Roe v. Wade ruling was a product of “concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations we don’t want too many of.”
Belief that the unborn human child has a right to be protected against lethal aggression, according to Harris-Perry, is a “faith claim … not associated with science.” However one views that moral proposition, the humanity of the developing individual is an incontestable scientific fact. The existence of the invisible, intangible abstraction called the “state” is based entirely on faith claims that Harris-Perry is willing to impose through coercion.
 |
| Nationalize children: Dr. Bane. |
In an essay she wrote for The Nation magazine three years ago – then, as now, she wore her surname fashionably parted in the middle, but in a slightly different style – Harris-Perry described how she catechizes her unfortunate students in the gospel of the Almighty State:
"I often begin my political science courses with a brief introduction to the idea of `the state.' The state is the entity that has a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, force, and coercion. If an individual travels to another country and kills its citizens, we call it terrorism. If the state does it, we call it war. If a man kills his neighbor it is murder; if the state does it it is the death penalty. If an individual takes his neighbor's money, it is theft; if the state does it, it is taxation."
In addition to instructing other people’s children in the fear and admonition of the Divine State, Harris-Perry is eager to see its heretical enemies put to the torch.
"The Tea Party is a challenge to the legitimacy of the U.S. state," Harris-Perry insisted. "When Tea Party participants charge the current administration with various forms of totalitarianism, they are arguing that the government has no right to levy taxes or make policy. Many GOP elected officials offered nearly secessionist rhetoric from the floor of the Congress [during the debate over nationalizing health care]. They joined as co-conspirators with the Tea Party protesters by arguing that this government has no monopoly on legitimacy."
The overt act that made that impious “conspiracy” a prosecutable crime, according to Harris-Perry, was an anti-Obamacare protest in which Tea Party activists heckled Georgia Rep. John Lewis. As an elected official, Lewis is not merely a human being, according to Harris-Perry, but an “embodiment of the state” – or, to use appropriate creedal language, al living image of the invisible deity.
"When protesters spit on and scream at duly elected representatives of the United States government it is more than an act of racism," snarled Harris-Perry, making a de rigueur – and entirely gratuitous -- reference to Lewis's ethnic background. "It is an act of sedition."
String up the barbed wire, sharpen the guillotine, ready the basement cells of the Lubyanka: There are "seditionists" to be dealt with!
Like many others of her ideological persuasion, Harris-Perry is a stranger to concision. In describing the totalitarian state’s proprietary claim on children, someone who represented a slightly different strain of collectivism – albeit not as different as Harris-Perry would insist – stated the matter much more tidily almost exactly eighty years ago:
“When an opponent declares, `I will not come over to your side,’ I calmly say: `Your child belongs to us already…. What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in this new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community.”
Those words were spoken on November 6, 1933 by the community-organizing, civilian-disarming, socialized medicine-promoting, government stimulus-peddling, unitary executive who presided over Germany’s National Socialist government. When Harris-Perry and her comrades demand that we "Lean Forward," that's the direction they have in mind.
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To view this item online, visit http://www.wnd.com/2013/04/feds-admit-drying-up-ammo-supplies/
WND EXCLUSIVE
Feds admit drying up ammo supplies
Napolitano to Congress: Contract was for up to '1-point-whatever billion' rounds
by
At least police departments and other gun owners now know what’s
creating a shortage of ammunition across the nation: It IS the federal
government, as those online reports, including several at WND, have
explained.
Word came just now when Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was talking to members of Congress and was asked about the ammunition issue.
There have been a multitude of headlines about massive government purchases of ammunition, so that manufacturers have been unable to keep up with the admittedly rising demand from consumers alarmed that the Obama administration will succeed with its agenda of banning many kinds of firearms.
Napolitano was being asked by Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., about the reports of the purchases, and she explained her department dismissed the concerns when they arose, not feeling it was worth a response.
She said the widely reported purchase of 1.6 billion rounds – enough for many years of a war at the rate ammunition is used by the U.S. military these days – was right. At least she thought so.
“This was a five-year strategic sourcing contract for up to one-point-whatever billion rounds,” she confirmed.
Concerned about surveillance drones, tanks in the streets and gun confiscation? Find out “HOW AMERICA IS BECOMING A POLICE STATE” in this shocking WND special report.
The actual reports have contained the figure 1.6 billion rounds. And calculations done by the Washington Examiner suggest that would be enough for “something like a 24-year supply of ammunition on hand.’
What it is accomplishing is that other consumers of ammunition, from the weekend hunter to police departments, are finding the shelves bare.
For example, Utica, N.Y., police have been told it could take up to 10 months now to get the ammunition they order.
They especially have trouble getting .223 and .45 caliber rounds, those of the type that the government also orders.
In Mobile, Ala., Nick Sagler said, “You can’t find what you need.”
And Jeremy Windle called it an “extreme shortage.”
Ronica Williams, at the Greater Gulf State Fairgrounds gun show, said all of the ordinary supplies are backordered “six months or better.”
In Boca Raton, Fla., the problem is just as bad.
“Right now ammo’s pretty hard to get. People bought everything that was to be bought, They’ve completely cleaned out the supply chain,” said a gunsmith.
In Caldwell, W.Va., retailers said the expense is going up for gun owners, because of the shortage of ammunition. The reporter there suggested it was “ammunition hoarding,” because of talk in Washington about gun regulations, rules, restrictions and requirements.
A range operator said, “I think it’s made more people panic and made more people purchase whatever they can.”
In Catoosa, Okla., law enforcement agencies report paying a lot more for ammunition.
Sgt. Keith Prince said, “America’s in a state of panic right now because they’re afraid they’re going to lose their Second Amendment rights.”
Other points reporting problems:
The pushback already has started developing. In Kansas, the governor has signed what’s been called the strongest pro-gun bill in the nation.
The law is designed to counter the push by liberal federal lawmakers for increased restrictions on gun rights. It nullifies any new limits on firearms, magazines and ammunition – whether enacted by Congress, presidential executive order or any agency.
If Congress would have passed the Senate amendment expanding federal background checks, for example, the Kansas law would nullify it in the state.
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican, signed Senate Bill 102 into law, which exempts Kansas from any laws the federal government might pass that would infringe on Second Amendment rights.
Specifically, the Kansas law prevents federal law enforcement officials from enforcing any laws restricting Second Amendment rights.
An impressive 32 state legislatures have now introduced pro-Second Amendment “nullification” bills. The progress of the bills can be tracked at the Tenth Amendment Center’s website.
Montana began the trend with its Firearms Freedom Act. The law is currently tied up in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which heard arguments last month. The Cato and Goldwater Institutes have filed a friend-of-the-court brief, “arguing that federal law doesn’t preempt Montana’s ability to exercise its sovereign police powers to facilitate the exercise of individual rights protected by the Second and Ninth Amendments.”
Even on the national level, the campaign launched by President Obama is tasting the bitter flavor of defeat. Just this week, the Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate shot down Obama’s effort to control guns in a series of votes.
The votes were on amendments to a bill by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and the loss was so bad that Reid immediately removed his entire bill from consideration.
The first, and key, amendment was to expand background checks widely. It failed 54-46 under a requirement of 60 votes for adoption.
Obama was bitter, saying the Senate’s performance, because it did not give him what he wanted, was “shameful.”
One of the few places where significant new gun limits have been adopted is in Colorado, where Democrats control the Senate, House and governor’s office.
But there sheriff’s already are preparing a lawsuit against their own state over the new rules, which they say are unconstitutional and impossible to enforce.
Weld County Sheriff John Cooke said, “The legislators ignored the will of the people and passed these unconstitutional gun laws, and they need to be held accountable for their decision.”
Colorado was a test case for the Obama administration, which dispatched Vice President Joe Biden to lobby for the state limits.
David Kopel, an attorney with the Independence Institute, which will handle a lawsuit against Colorado’s legislation, said the brief is still being prepared, but he expects to file it in the next few weeks.
“We are still working out the details, but there is a very solid case here. We are still working on some of the specifics, however we do feel we have a variety of strong legal claims that are worth bringing to court,” he said.
State officials admitted they were doing the bidding of the White House. In February, Biden flew to the state to strong-arm Democratic lawmakers who were feeling pressure from their constituents to vote against the bills.
“He (Biden) said it would send a strong message to the rest of the country that a Western state had passed gun-control bills,” Tony Exhum, a Democratic lawmaker from Colorado Springs, told the Denver Post.
House Majority Leader Mark Ferrandino, an open homosexual who also pursued a “civil unions” agenda this year, admitted the gun-control bills introduced by fellow Democrats had national implications.
“I was shocked that he called. He said he thought the bills could help them on a national level,” Ferrandino said.
The Colorado gun battle also created a number of opportunities for Democrat gaffes. U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., for example, displayed her ignorance of ammunition magazines.
“I will tell you these are ammunition, they’re bullets, so the people who have those now they’re going to shoot them; so if you ban them in the future, the number of these high capacity magazines is going to decrease dramatically over time because the bullets will have been shot, and there won’t be any more available,” she said.
The Denver Post said DeGette didn’t appear to understand that a firearm magazine can be reloaded with more bullets.
Another notable comment came from state Sen. Evie Hudak, D-Westminster, who scolded a witness opposing one of the gun restrictions.
Amanda Collins, 27, of Reno, Nev., was telling her story of being assaulted and explained that had she been carrying a concealed weapon, the incident might have ended differently.
“I just want to say that, actually statistics are not on your side even if you had a gun,” Hudak said. “And, chances are that if you would have had a gun, then he would have been able to get that from you and possibly use it against you.”
Hudak continued, speaking over the committee witness, “The Colorado Coalition Against Gun Violence says that every one woman who used a handgun in self-defense, 83 here are killed by them.”
Finally able to resume her testimony, Collins said, “Senator, you weren’t there. I know without a doubt [the outcome would have been different with a gun].
“He already had a weapon,” she told the meeting of the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee. “He didn’t need mine.”
Then there was the comment from state Rep. Joe Salazar.
He said that a woman who feels threatened by rape on a college campus doesn’t need to be armed because she can use a call box to get help.
Salazar’s statement came in a debate over a proposal to ban citizens possessing a concealed-carry permit from being armed on university campuses.
“It’s why we have call boxes,” said Salazar, “it’s why we have safe zones, it’s why we have the whistles. Because you just don’t know who you’re gonna be shooting at.
“And you don’t know if you feel like you’re gonna be raped, or if you feel like someone’s been following you around, or if you feel like you’re in trouble when you may actually not be, that you pop out that gun and you pop … pop a round at somebody.”
WND also has reported that Jim Sitton, who lost multiple family members to a shooting, delivered a message to lawmakers and citizens who advocate restricting the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans.
“[I understand] what it’s like to be completely helpless and powerless when someone attacks your family with a gun. … For me, it comes down very simply to, when someone bursts into your home with murderous intent in their heart, wanting to kill you and your family, you have a choice: You either choose to be armed and trained to protect yourself – or you choose not to arm and protect yourself and your family.”
He said congressional plans for more limits are not foolproof. He noted the government had five opportunities to rein in the man who eventually shot and killed his family members and failed.
Meanwhile, a forensic profiler who worked on the disappearance of Natalie Holloway and the double-murder case against O.J. Simpson says it’s clear Obama’s goal is total gun control.
Andrew G. Hodges, M.D., who wrote “The Obama Confession: Secret Fear, Secret Fury,” explained in an analysis of the president’s statements for WND that Obama’s words suggest the unconscious message that “one day the government’s coming for our guns.”
Hodges previously said Obama’s statement “I am not a dictator” actually meant, “I am the dictator president,” and concluded Obama unconsciously confessed to stealing the 2012 election.
On Hodges’ website, Steven A. Egger, associate professor of criminology at the University of Houston, Clear Lake, has written that Hodges’ technique is “becoming the cutting edge of forensic science.”
“Dr. Hodges’ investigation of forensic documents in the Natalee Holloway case indicates that his ‘thoughtprint decoding method’ and ‘reading between the lines’ is, in fact, becoming a major contribution to law enforcement tools used by criminal investigators,” wrote Egger.
Hodges is not new to the field, already having identified killers by studying ransom notes, emails, letters and police interviews to spot secret confessions. He decoded Simpson’s “suicide note” to confirm Simpson had committed a double murder. He deciphered the JonBenet Ramsey ransom note in Boulder, Colo., to identify the child’s killer. He decrypted letters from BTK to predict that he was about to kill again – the only profiler to do so. He studied statements by Joran van der Sloot and Deepak Kalpoe to tie them to the slaying of Holloway. He showed how Casey Anthony secretly confessed to killing her daughter in 200 letters written to a jail mate. He even decoded Bill Clinton’s comments about Monica Lewinsky.
See all the details in Hodges’ book “The Obama Confession.”
Hodges now has looked at Obama’s recent statements about gun control, especially his April 3 appearance in Denver where he insisted on being surrounded by law enforcement officers, leading some police department members to protest they were being used for a political agenda.
“We again pay close attention to his ‘right-brain’ images and his denials for unconscious warnings from his super intelligence, his deeper moral compass which must tell the truth and spot any deception. Deep down his mind’s eye constantly monitors his true motivations,” Hodges explained.
He noted Obama’s statement, “ginned up fear among gun owners that have… nuttin’ to do with the facts but feed into fears about the government.”
“His denial accompanied by images of ‘fear among gun owners’ and ‘facts that feed into fear about the government’ suggest the unconscious message: the facts about Obama indeed lead to fear about the government,” Hodges wrote. “His image of ‘ginned up fear’ suggests his primary tactic in proposing more gun control which, in truth, has nothing to do with the facts.
“We find a key message marker: ‘you hear’ implying ‘hear my deeper message’ – pay close attention to what comes next. The unconscious mind often uses key communication images (e.g. ‘hear’) to underscore a vital message. When he follows with (you hear) ‘I need a gun to protect myself from the government,’ the image itself strongly suggests the Second Amendment to the Constitution – as in citizens need to be armed in case of ‘a government gone wild.’”
Hodges wrote that Obama denies any reason to worry about the government “but we must keep in mind that denial attached to an idea can tell us to keep an eye on that particular idea and consider deception. Denying the very plan he secretly has in mind. For this reason we always contemplate denial as a revelation of the real truth with the cover-up, ‘Let me tell you what I’m not going to do – ‘wink-wink.”
“Obama follows with a second comment of denial and ridicule, ‘(you hear) we can’t do background checks because the government’s going to come take my guns away.’ Again read his condescending denial as a warning of the possibility one day the government’s coming for our guns,” he wrote.
Hodges said, “Read through his denial ‘can’t do background checks’ as an unconscious instruction: do background checks on Obama to see if he personally has intentions for extreme gun control. We can even read the entire sentence as an unconscious confession – no background checks on Obama about gun control because it would reveal his wishes to take our guns away. Indeed it is publicly known from a former fellow law professor at the University of Chicago who Obama dubbed ‘the gun guy’ that Obama doesn’t believe anybody should own a gun,” Hodges wrote.
WND’s reports have included the DHS plans to buy well over a billion rounds in just the past year. Most recently confirmed were plans by the FBI to spend up to $100 million over five years on millions of rounds for its machine guns and pistols.
According to a solicitation revised and released March 25 that WND discovered during routine database research, the FBI is gathering the ammunition “to be carried and fired [by FBI Special Agents] in defense of life” as well as for training purposes.
The ammunition includes a combination of field-ready Glock 9mm rounds as well as reduced-lead training ammo. Weapons listed in the Statement of Work, or SOW, are Glock Model 17, Glock Model 19, Glock Model 26, SIG Sauer P226, SIG Sauer P228, Heckler and Koch MP5 9mm submachine gun (K, A2, A3, SF and SD versions).
“The FBI is the federal government’s principal agency responsible for investigating violations of more than 260 federal statutes,” the SOW points out. “As the investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Justice, FBI Special Agents (SA), in the pursuit of duty, may be involved in high threat assignments where deadly force may be used in the face of violent confrontations.”
Although DHS has not yet awarded contracts in that proposed CBP acquisition, late last year it revealed its intention to buy 250 million rounds of Smith & Wesson .40 ammunition over the life of a five-year contract.
DHS yesterday separately issued a revised solicitation to buy a combination of 100,000 handgun and rifle rounds destined for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, or FLTC, in Artesia, N.M. It did not disclose the estimated cost.
The department also additionally released another amended procurement notice for 360,000 rounds of jacketed hollow-point .40 caliber training ammo also destined for the Artseia FLTC.
InfoWars.com reported on the initial release of that particular procurement earlier.
Although the estimated cost of the solicitation, likewise, has not been disclosed, DHS last month awarded a $49,000 contract to Grace Ammo LLC for a similar batch of ammo for the Artesia facility.
DHS in January purchased an additional 200,000 rounds of jacketed hollow-point .40 caliber rounds. It awarded a $46,000 contract to Evian Group Inc. in that instance.
Word came just now when Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was talking to members of Congress and was asked about the ammunition issue.
There have been a multitude of headlines about massive government purchases of ammunition, so that manufacturers have been unable to keep up with the admittedly rising demand from consumers alarmed that the Obama administration will succeed with its agenda of banning many kinds of firearms.
Napolitano was being asked by Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., about the reports of the purchases, and she explained her department dismissed the concerns when they arose, not feeling it was worth a response.
She said the widely reported purchase of 1.6 billion rounds – enough for many years of a war at the rate ammunition is used by the U.S. military these days – was right. At least she thought so.
“This was a five-year strategic sourcing contract for up to one-point-whatever billion rounds,” she confirmed.
Concerned about surveillance drones, tanks in the streets and gun confiscation? Find out “HOW AMERICA IS BECOMING A POLICE STATE” in this shocking WND special report.
The actual reports have contained the figure 1.6 billion rounds. And calculations done by the Washington Examiner suggest that would be enough for “something like a 24-year supply of ammunition on hand.’
What it is accomplishing is that other consumers of ammunition, from the weekend hunter to police departments, are finding the shelves bare.
For example, Utica, N.Y., police have been told it could take up to 10 months now to get the ammunition they order.
They especially have trouble getting .223 and .45 caliber rounds, those of the type that the government also orders.
In Mobile, Ala., Nick Sagler said, “You can’t find what you need.”
And Jeremy Windle called it an “extreme shortage.”
Ronica Williams, at the Greater Gulf State Fairgrounds gun show, said all of the ordinary supplies are backordered “six months or better.”
In Boca Raton, Fla., the problem is just as bad.
“Right now ammo’s pretty hard to get. People bought everything that was to be bought, They’ve completely cleaned out the supply chain,” said a gunsmith.
In Caldwell, W.Va., retailers said the expense is going up for gun owners, because of the shortage of ammunition. The reporter there suggested it was “ammunition hoarding,” because of talk in Washington about gun regulations, rules, restrictions and requirements.
A range operator said, “I think it’s made more people panic and made more people purchase whatever they can.”
In Catoosa, Okla., law enforcement agencies report paying a lot more for ammunition.
Sgt. Keith Prince said, “America’s in a state of panic right now because they’re afraid they’re going to lose their Second Amendment rights.”
Other points reporting problems:
- In West Texas, consumers and police alike reported problems.
- South Carolina’s ammo supply for police departments is short.
- In Waco, police have noticed a ammo shortage.
- In Illinois, handgun training is being hindered because of the shortage.
- New York gun owners are getting frustrated by the ammo shortage.
- In Vermont, local shops can’t keep their customers satisfied, because they can’t get the supplies.
- In Alaska, gun owners are left searching for ammunition.
- Lodi, Calif., police also are walking a thin line of keeping their weapons loaded.
- In Fort Wayne, Ind., store operators complain they are being hurt because they cannot obtain the supplies.
- The U.S. government ammo grab is hurting stores in Hastings, Neb., owners say.
The pushback already has started developing. In Kansas, the governor has signed what’s been called the strongest pro-gun bill in the nation.
The law is designed to counter the push by liberal federal lawmakers for increased restrictions on gun rights. It nullifies any new limits on firearms, magazines and ammunition – whether enacted by Congress, presidential executive order or any agency.
If Congress would have passed the Senate amendment expanding federal background checks, for example, the Kansas law would nullify it in the state.
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican, signed Senate Bill 102 into law, which exempts Kansas from any laws the federal government might pass that would infringe on Second Amendment rights.
Specifically, the Kansas law prevents federal law enforcement officials from enforcing any laws restricting Second Amendment rights.
An impressive 32 state legislatures have now introduced pro-Second Amendment “nullification” bills. The progress of the bills can be tracked at the Tenth Amendment Center’s website.
Montana began the trend with its Firearms Freedom Act. The law is currently tied up in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which heard arguments last month. The Cato and Goldwater Institutes have filed a friend-of-the-court brief, “arguing that federal law doesn’t preempt Montana’s ability to exercise its sovereign police powers to facilitate the exercise of individual rights protected by the Second and Ninth Amendments.”
Even on the national level, the campaign launched by President Obama is tasting the bitter flavor of defeat. Just this week, the Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate shot down Obama’s effort to control guns in a series of votes.
The votes were on amendments to a bill by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and the loss was so bad that Reid immediately removed his entire bill from consideration.
The first, and key, amendment was to expand background checks widely. It failed 54-46 under a requirement of 60 votes for adoption.
Obama was bitter, saying the Senate’s performance, because it did not give him what he wanted, was “shameful.”
One of the few places where significant new gun limits have been adopted is in Colorado, where Democrats control the Senate, House and governor’s office.
But there sheriff’s already are preparing a lawsuit against their own state over the new rules, which they say are unconstitutional and impossible to enforce.
Weld County Sheriff John Cooke said, “The legislators ignored the will of the people and passed these unconstitutional gun laws, and they need to be held accountable for their decision.”
Colorado was a test case for the Obama administration, which dispatched Vice President Joe Biden to lobby for the state limits.
David Kopel, an attorney with the Independence Institute, which will handle a lawsuit against Colorado’s legislation, said the brief is still being prepared, but he expects to file it in the next few weeks.
“We are still working out the details, but there is a very solid case here. We are still working on some of the specifics, however we do feel we have a variety of strong legal claims that are worth bringing to court,” he said.
State officials admitted they were doing the bidding of the White House. In February, Biden flew to the state to strong-arm Democratic lawmakers who were feeling pressure from their constituents to vote against the bills.
“He (Biden) said it would send a strong message to the rest of the country that a Western state had passed gun-control bills,” Tony Exhum, a Democratic lawmaker from Colorado Springs, told the Denver Post.
House Majority Leader Mark Ferrandino, an open homosexual who also pursued a “civil unions” agenda this year, admitted the gun-control bills introduced by fellow Democrats had national implications.
“I was shocked that he called. He said he thought the bills could help them on a national level,” Ferrandino said.
The Colorado gun battle also created a number of opportunities for Democrat gaffes. U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., for example, displayed her ignorance of ammunition magazines.
“I will tell you these are ammunition, they’re bullets, so the people who have those now they’re going to shoot them; so if you ban them in the future, the number of these high capacity magazines is going to decrease dramatically over time because the bullets will have been shot, and there won’t be any more available,” she said.
The Denver Post said DeGette didn’t appear to understand that a firearm magazine can be reloaded with more bullets.
Another notable comment came from state Sen. Evie Hudak, D-Westminster, who scolded a witness opposing one of the gun restrictions.
Amanda Collins, 27, of Reno, Nev., was telling her story of being assaulted and explained that had she been carrying a concealed weapon, the incident might have ended differently.
“I just want to say that, actually statistics are not on your side even if you had a gun,” Hudak said. “And, chances are that if you would have had a gun, then he would have been able to get that from you and possibly use it against you.”
Hudak continued, speaking over the committee witness, “The Colorado Coalition Against Gun Violence says that every one woman who used a handgun in self-defense, 83 here are killed by them.”
Finally able to resume her testimony, Collins said, “Senator, you weren’t there. I know without a doubt [the outcome would have been different with a gun].
“He already had a weapon,” she told the meeting of the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee. “He didn’t need mine.”
Then there was the comment from state Rep. Joe Salazar.
He said that a woman who feels threatened by rape on a college campus doesn’t need to be armed because she can use a call box to get help.
Salazar’s statement came in a debate over a proposal to ban citizens possessing a concealed-carry permit from being armed on university campuses.
“It’s why we have call boxes,” said Salazar, “it’s why we have safe zones, it’s why we have the whistles. Because you just don’t know who you’re gonna be shooting at.
“And you don’t know if you feel like you’re gonna be raped, or if you feel like someone’s been following you around, or if you feel like you’re in trouble when you may actually not be, that you pop out that gun and you pop … pop a round at somebody.”
WND also has reported that Jim Sitton, who lost multiple family members to a shooting, delivered a message to lawmakers and citizens who advocate restricting the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans.
“[I understand] what it’s like to be completely helpless and powerless when someone attacks your family with a gun. … For me, it comes down very simply to, when someone bursts into your home with murderous intent in their heart, wanting to kill you and your family, you have a choice: You either choose to be armed and trained to protect yourself – or you choose not to arm and protect yourself and your family.”
He said congressional plans for more limits are not foolproof. He noted the government had five opportunities to rein in the man who eventually shot and killed his family members and failed.
Meanwhile, a forensic profiler who worked on the disappearance of Natalie Holloway and the double-murder case against O.J. Simpson says it’s clear Obama’s goal is total gun control.
Andrew G. Hodges, M.D., who wrote “The Obama Confession: Secret Fear, Secret Fury,” explained in an analysis of the president’s statements for WND that Obama’s words suggest the unconscious message that “one day the government’s coming for our guns.”
Hodges previously said Obama’s statement “I am not a dictator” actually meant, “I am the dictator president,” and concluded Obama unconsciously confessed to stealing the 2012 election.
On Hodges’ website, Steven A. Egger, associate professor of criminology at the University of Houston, Clear Lake, has written that Hodges’ technique is “becoming the cutting edge of forensic science.”
“Dr. Hodges’ investigation of forensic documents in the Natalee Holloway case indicates that his ‘thoughtprint decoding method’ and ‘reading between the lines’ is, in fact, becoming a major contribution to law enforcement tools used by criminal investigators,” wrote Egger.
Hodges is not new to the field, already having identified killers by studying ransom notes, emails, letters and police interviews to spot secret confessions. He decoded Simpson’s “suicide note” to confirm Simpson had committed a double murder. He deciphered the JonBenet Ramsey ransom note in Boulder, Colo., to identify the child’s killer. He decrypted letters from BTK to predict that he was about to kill again – the only profiler to do so. He studied statements by Joran van der Sloot and Deepak Kalpoe to tie them to the slaying of Holloway. He showed how Casey Anthony secretly confessed to killing her daughter in 200 letters written to a jail mate. He even decoded Bill Clinton’s comments about Monica Lewinsky.
See all the details in Hodges’ book “The Obama Confession.”
Hodges now has looked at Obama’s recent statements about gun control, especially his April 3 appearance in Denver where he insisted on being surrounded by law enforcement officers, leading some police department members to protest they were being used for a political agenda.
“We again pay close attention to his ‘right-brain’ images and his denials for unconscious warnings from his super intelligence, his deeper moral compass which must tell the truth and spot any deception. Deep down his mind’s eye constantly monitors his true motivations,” Hodges explained.
He noted Obama’s statement, “ginned up fear among gun owners that have… nuttin’ to do with the facts but feed into fears about the government.”
“His denial accompanied by images of ‘fear among gun owners’ and ‘facts that feed into fear about the government’ suggest the unconscious message: the facts about Obama indeed lead to fear about the government,” Hodges wrote. “His image of ‘ginned up fear’ suggests his primary tactic in proposing more gun control which, in truth, has nothing to do with the facts.
“We find a key message marker: ‘you hear’ implying ‘hear my deeper message’ – pay close attention to what comes next. The unconscious mind often uses key communication images (e.g. ‘hear’) to underscore a vital message. When he follows with (you hear) ‘I need a gun to protect myself from the government,’ the image itself strongly suggests the Second Amendment to the Constitution – as in citizens need to be armed in case of ‘a government gone wild.’”
Hodges wrote that Obama denies any reason to worry about the government “but we must keep in mind that denial attached to an idea can tell us to keep an eye on that particular idea and consider deception. Denying the very plan he secretly has in mind. For this reason we always contemplate denial as a revelation of the real truth with the cover-up, ‘Let me tell you what I’m not going to do – ‘wink-wink.”
“Obama follows with a second comment of denial and ridicule, ‘(you hear) we can’t do background checks because the government’s going to come take my guns away.’ Again read his condescending denial as a warning of the possibility one day the government’s coming for our guns,” he wrote.
Hodges said, “Read through his denial ‘can’t do background checks’ as an unconscious instruction: do background checks on Obama to see if he personally has intentions for extreme gun control. We can even read the entire sentence as an unconscious confession – no background checks on Obama about gun control because it would reveal his wishes to take our guns away. Indeed it is publicly known from a former fellow law professor at the University of Chicago who Obama dubbed ‘the gun guy’ that Obama doesn’t believe anybody should own a gun,” Hodges wrote.
WND’s reports have included the DHS plans to buy well over a billion rounds in just the past year. Most recently confirmed were plans by the FBI to spend up to $100 million over five years on millions of rounds for its machine guns and pistols.
According to a solicitation revised and released March 25 that WND discovered during routine database research, the FBI is gathering the ammunition “to be carried and fired [by FBI Special Agents] in defense of life” as well as for training purposes.
The ammunition includes a combination of field-ready Glock 9mm rounds as well as reduced-lead training ammo. Weapons listed in the Statement of Work, or SOW, are Glock Model 17, Glock Model 19, Glock Model 26, SIG Sauer P226, SIG Sauer P228, Heckler and Koch MP5 9mm submachine gun (K, A2, A3, SF and SD versions).
“The FBI is the federal government’s principal agency responsible for investigating violations of more than 260 federal statutes,” the SOW points out. “As the investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Justice, FBI Special Agents (SA), in the pursuit of duty, may be involved in high threat assignments where deadly force may be used in the face of violent confrontations.”
Although DHS has not yet awarded contracts in that proposed CBP acquisition, late last year it revealed its intention to buy 250 million rounds of Smith & Wesson .40 ammunition over the life of a five-year contract.
DHS yesterday separately issued a revised solicitation to buy a combination of 100,000 handgun and rifle rounds destined for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, or FLTC, in Artesia, N.M. It did not disclose the estimated cost.
The department also additionally released another amended procurement notice for 360,000 rounds of jacketed hollow-point .40 caliber training ammo also destined for the Artseia FLTC.
InfoWars.com reported on the initial release of that particular procurement earlier.
Although the estimated cost of the solicitation, likewise, has not been disclosed, DHS last month awarded a $49,000 contract to Grace Ammo LLC for a similar batch of ammo for the Artesia facility.
DHS in January purchased an additional 200,000 rounds of jacketed hollow-point .40 caliber rounds. It awarded a $46,000 contract to Evian Group Inc. in that instance.
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Criminalizing Children at School
19 April 13
he
National Rifle Association and President Obama responded to the
Newtown, Conn., shootings by recommending that more police officers be
placed in the nation's schools. But a growing body of research suggests
that, contrary to popular wisdom, a larger police presence in schools generally does little to improve safety.
It can also create a repressive environment in which children are
arrested or issued summonses for minor misdeeds - like cutting class or
talking back - that once would have been dealt with by the principal.
Stationing police in schools, while common today, was
virtually unknown during the 1970s. Things began to change with the
surge of juvenile crime during the '80s, followed by an overreaction
among school officials. Then came the 1999 Columbine High School
shooting outside Denver, which prompted a surge in financing for
specially trained police. In the mid-1970s, police patrolled about 1
percent of schools. By 2008, the figure was 40 percent.
The belief that police officers automatically make
schools safer was challenged in a 2011 study that compared federal crime
data of schools that had police officers with schools that did not. It
found that the presence of the officers did not drive down crime. The
study - by Chongmin Na of The University of Houston, Clear Lake, and
Denise Gottfredson of the University of Maryland - also found that with
police in the buildings, routine disciplinary problems began to be
treated as criminal justice problems, increasing the likelihood of
arrests.
Children as young as 12 have been treated as criminals
for shoving matches and even adolescent misconduct like cursing in
school. This is worrisome because young people who spend time in adult
jails are more likely to have problems with law enforcement later on.
Moreover, federal data suggest a pattern of discrimination in the
arrests, with black and Hispanic children more likely to be affected
than their white peers.
In Texas, civil rights groups filed a federal
complaint against the school district in the town of Bryan. The lawyers
say African-American students are four times as likely as other students
to be charged with misdemeanors, which can carry fines up to $500 and
lead to jail time for disrupting class or using foul language.
The criminalization of misbehavior so alarmed the New York City Council that, in 2010, it passed the Student Safety Act,
which requires detailed police reports on which students are arrested
and why. (Data from the 2011-12 school year show that black students are
being disproportionately arrested and suspended.)
Some critics now want to require greater transparency
in the reporting process to make the police even more forthcoming.
Elsewhere in the country, judges, lawmakers and children's advocates
have been working hard to dismantle what they have begun to call the
school-to-prison pipeline.
Given the growing criticism, districts that have
gotten along without police officers should think twice before deploying
them in school buildings.
8th grade student suspended, arrested over gun t-shirt
Posted: Apr 18, 2013 11:17 PM EDT Updated: Apr 19, 2013 4:27 PM EDT
When 8th grade Jared Marcum got dressed for school
on Thursday he says he had no idea that his pro-Second Amendment shirt
would initiate what he calls a fight over his First Amendment rights.
"I never thought it would go this far because
honestly I don't see a problem with this, there shouldn't be a problem
with this," Jared said.
It was the image of a gun printed on Jared's t-shirt
that sparked a dispute between a Logan Middle School teacher and Jared,
that ended with Jared suspended, arrested and facing two charges,
obstruction and disturbing the education process, on his otherwise
spotless record.
Jared's father Allen Lardieri says he's angry he had
to rush from work to pick his son up from jail over something he says
was blown way out of proportion.
"I don't' see how anybody would have an issue with a
hunting rifle and NRA put on a t-shirt, especially when policy doesn't
forbid it," Lardieri said.
The Logan County School District's dress code policy
prohibits clothing that displays profanity, violence, discriminatory
messages and more but nowhere in the document does it say anything about
gun images.
"He did not violate any school policy," Lardieri reiterates. "He did not become aggressive."
Now, Lardieri says he's ready to fight until the situation is made right.
"I will go to the ends of the earth, I will call
people, I will write letters, I will do everything in the legal realm to
make sure this does not happen again," Lardieri said.
Logan City Police did confirm that Jared had been arrested and charged today.
13 news tried contacting the Logan County School District but has not heard anything back.
Friday, April 19, 2013
The Wheels Come Off Obamacare
Bureaucrats bungle implementation while health care costs
skyrocket.
Klein’s post focuses primarily on the implosion of Obamacare’s exchanges. Pointing out that the President’s apparatchiks squandered three full years during which they should have been hard at work preparing for the advent of these insurance “marketplaces,” Klein laments their failure to do so with the following piece of Solomonic wisdom: “This is a really bad sign.” Indeed it is. And Klein isn’t the only advocate of Obamacare to finally notice that this hopelessly Byzantine health care “reform” law is an implementation nightmare.
Even the Secretary of Health & Human Services (HHS) has admitted as much. But, whereas Klein correctly assigns responsibility to the President, Commissar Sebelius places the blame on evil Republicans: “It is very difficult when people live in a state where there is a daily declaration, ‘We will not participate in the law.’” Other Democrats have been more candid. Senator Jay Rockefeller, who played an important role in getting the law passed, called Obamacare “so complicated that if it isn’t done right the first time, it will just simply get worse.”
And it most emphatically isn’t getting done right the first time. Not only has the go-live date for the insurance exchanges been pushed back a year, a wide variety of the law’s other key provisions have either been delayed or simply abandoned. The most conspicuous of the latter category was the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act. This program was so badly designed that Kathleen Sebelius admitted HHS couldn’t pay for it and one of its own administrators speculated that it might collapse. It was repealed in January.
Another moribund provision of Obamacare is the “Basic Health Plan,” included in the law to give states the flexibility to provide coverage for low-income residents unable to afford employer coverage or qualify for Medicaid. Democrat Senator Maria Cantwell is so frustrated with administration foot dragging on this provision that she has announced her opposition to Obama’s nominee to head the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), Marilyn Tavenner: “Ms. Tavenner definitely will not have my support.”
Senator Cantwell was also among the thirty-three Democrats who voted with all of the Senate Republicans last month to repeal Obamacare’s job-killing 2.3 percent excise tax on manufacturers and importers of medical devices. This vote was toothless as a practical matter because, as Daniel Horowitz explains, “They know that this is only an amendment to a massive budget bill that will never have the force of law.… If 33 Democrats really supported repeal, they could force Harry Reid to bring it to the floor as a standalone bill.”
Still, the vote was not meaningless. These Democrat Senators know that Obamacare is still profoundly unpopular with the public. Indeed, yet another poll was released in early April showing that only 41 percent of American voters approve of the law and that a mere 15 percent expect it to help them personally. Despite the virtual blackout by the major broadcast media of bad news concerning Obamacare, including the medical device vote, the implementation delays and even the survey just cited, the public understands that the law is already failing.
Even the much-touted Obamacare provision that we were told would eliminate the “pre-existing condition” scourge is proving to be a bust. According the Heritage Foundation, the Obama Administration estimated that 375,000 people would enroll in the pre-existing conditions insurance plan (PCIP). “But as of January 2013, over two-and-a-half years since the plan began, only 107,139 were enrolled—less than 29 percent of original projections.” And yet the program is running out of money, forcing the HHS bureaucrats to suspend enrollment.
It hardly needs saying that this failure, like everything else associated with Obamacare, is incredibly expensive: “In a 2012 report, the Administration conceded that claims’ costs had been 2.5 times greater than they had anticipated.” This is of a piece with the “Affordable Care Act” in general. When Obamacare was first shoved down our throats, we were told that it would cost $898 billion. Now the projected cost is $1.6 trillion. Meanwhile, many of its taxes are now in effect and it is forcing health insurance premiums through the roof.
What we are left with, then, is a big-government vampire that will drain our personal and public coffers without delivering on its most important promises. Where will all this end? To quote Joe Klein again, “One thing is clear: Obamacare will fail if [President Obama] doesn’t start paying more attention to the details of implementation.… And, in a larger sense, the notion of activist government will be in peril.” Here’s hoping that the President continues to focus on his golf game and delegates Obamacare implementation to his creatures.
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