Obama's Crackdown on Journalists

Citing an article by former Washington Post editor Leonard Downie, Michael Barone writes: "Journalists are being surveilled to a greater extent than before and are meeting sources secretly — a la Bob Woodward in the parking garage — rather than communicate by phone or e-mail."

The legal basis for this is the Espionage Act of 1917 ... passed during Woodrow Wilson's administration after the United States entered World War I. It is widely considered overbroad. Wilson used this statute and others to infringe more on civil liberties than any subsequent administration. Socialist party leader Eugene Debs was jailed for writings opposing the war; Wilson's Republican successor, former journalist Warren G. Harding, pardoned Debs and invited him to the White House. Now the Obama administration is using Wilson's legislation to crack down more on journalists than any other president since his Democratic predecessor of 100 years ago.

One would think a man purportedly as brilliant as Obama would avoid biting the hands that feed his fragile ego.

Obamacare Stories to Laugh About

Obamacare is becoming rather entertaining:

1. The much-touted Obamacare "first enrollee" was a fraud. Chad Henderson took Politico, the Washington Post, and the Huffington Post (among others) for a spin, then subsequently admitted he hasn't enrolled after all.
2. The Obamacare national hotline phone number 1-800-F**KYO
3. The official Obamacare Facebook page is "riddled with people expressing sticker shock over the government's high cost premiums."
4. An HHS-run website of the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) "was apparently hacked as long as two months ago," and dozens of pages hawking retail merchandise have been uploaded to the SAMHSA site, ranging from NFL jerseys to Ugg shoes to Armani fragrances. Screenshots here.
5. Few of the Obamacare exchange websites are functioning as they are supposed to. Now we learn a Canadian tech firm -- "a darling of the Obama administration, which since 2009 has bestowed it with $1.4 billion in federal contracts, according to USAspending.gov" -- "is behind the glitch-ridden United States health care exchange site healthcare.gov." With all the bright tech minds in the U.S., the Obama Administration chose to outsource enrollment in his only legislative achievement!
6. By law, Congress and its staff are required to move from the federal employees health insurance system to the Obamacare exchanges on Dec 31. They howled about the cost differential (and some staffers threatened to quit), so the Obama administration arbitrarily granted them a special government subsidy to offset the high cost even though most of them earn far too much to qualify for a subsidy under the law. Now they learn the administration will only grant them a government subsidy if they purchase one of the "gold-tier" health plans with much higher premiums than the silver and bronze plans. It's delicious that Congress will have to live under at least one law that it foisted on the rest of the country!

Women Waiting Tables

From Bloomberg news, Women Waiting Tables Provides Most of Female Gains in U.S.:

Unemployment data appear to reflect big advances for women. The jobless rate in August for females 20 years and older was 6.3 percent, the lowest since December 2008, compared with 7.1 percent for men. As recently as January, the rate was 7.3 percent for both genders, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The downside is that the gains have been largely in lower-paying industries such as waitresses, in-home health care, food preparation and housekeeping. About 60 percent of the increase in employment for women from 2009 to 2012 was in jobs that pay less than $10.10 an hour, compared with 20 percent for men, according to a study by the National Women’s Law Center using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The story also reports:

• While students and recent graduates are taking low-wage jobs to get started, other women are turning them down. About 2 million married women have dropped out of the work force since 2008. 
• Females lost 444,000 public-sector jobs in the four years starting in June 2009, when the recession ended, compared with 290,000 for men.

Furchtgott-Roth: Obamacare's Marriage Penalty

"At one time, getting a job was not that much of a problem. Neither was getting married," writes economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth. "But the Affordable Care Act appears to create substantial disincentives both to hiring and marriage, potentially changing the fabric of American society in serious ways."

By now, most people know Obamacare is turning the U.S. into a part-time nation. Since moving from 49 to 50 full-time employees can cost a business $40,000 more a year, many businesses are opting to add part-time rather than full-time employees.

They may not yet know about the penalties against married people. Furchtgott-Roth explains:

Under the Act, if workers have affordable single-family coverage from an employer — coverage that by law workers are obligated to accept — their family members will not be eligible for premium subsidies on the exchanges. This can make the cost of insurance for some low- or middle-income families unaffordable. But if they divorce, they get the subsidy.

In a 2011 National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, Cornell University professor Richard Burkhauser, Indiana University professor Kosali Simon, and Cornell PhD candidate Sean Lyons showed that in 2014, when the law will take full effect, 13 million low-income Americans may be unable to get subsidized health insurance through new state health care exchanges because one family member has employer-provided coverage for that person only.

Perversely, the only way for other family members to get subsidized coverage would be for the spouses to get divorced. Then the spouse without coverage and the children could get coverage on the exchange.

This provision of the Act also discourages marriage. Say that Jeff, who receives health insurance from his employer, wants to marry Jenny, who is buying her subsidized health insurance from the state exchange. If they married, Jenny would no longer qualify for subsidized coverage.

Furthermore, since premium subsidies are on a sliding scale, two married people getting their coverage on the exchange would pay more than if they were single.

The author argues that Obamacare will produce significant long-term negative consequences:

The structure of the Affordable Care Act will increase the already widening gap between the rich and the poor. More divorces and fewer marriages at the lower end of the income scale result in more households headed by singles. Children in these families often have fewer advantages and lower educational performance, making it harder for them to get a well-paying job when they grow up.

There will be many glitches when the state exchanges open for business on Oct. 1. But the effects of the Act on job creation and marriage — two of the stepping stones to the American dream — are even more damaging.

Government Shutdown: CBS Poll

"CBS News' brand new national survey has four major take-aways" on the federal government shutdown, writes Guy Benson @ Townhall.com.

(1) Obamacare remains unpopular.  
(2) Government shutdown is even more unpopular, with 72 percent of the country opposed.
(3) Americans narrowly blame Republicans more than President Obama (44R/35O/17both), though the split is far less lopsided than it was in 1995 (2-to-1 blaming the GOP).
(4) The public overwhelmingly supports a compromise solution to resolve the impasse:

Most Americans want compromise. Majorities think the President and the Democrats in Congress (76 percent) and the Republicans in Congress (78 percent) should compromise in order to come to an agreement on the budget. But there are some party stalwarts who don't think compromise is the way to go. Thirty-eight percent of Republicans say members of their party in Congress should stick to their positions even if it means not coming to an agreement, while 36 percent of Democrats say that about their party.

James Taranto @ the Wall Street Journal asks, "Could Republicans be Winning?"

...we've been surprised this week at the Democrats' tactical maladroitness. As Josh Jordan quipped yesterday on Twitter: "Since the shutdown began, Obama and [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid have taken tough stands against the two most villainous groups: WWII veterans and kids with cancer."

[snip]

Even diehard partisans in the press are on the defensive. "Come On, No. Harry Reid Doesn't Hate Kids With Cancer," reads a headline on The Atlantic's website. When you feel compelled to answer a question like that, it's a sign you aren't winning the argument.

As Benson points out, government shutdowns are common occurrences in recent history.

Democrats controlled at least one house of Congress throughout Reagan's two terms, during which time there were eight separate shutdowns. Here's the liberal Wonkblog's timeline of the 17 shutdowns since the late 1970s.

What may not be so common is that government shutdowns may no longer be an automatic public relations win for liberals.

McAfee Founder: Obamacare is Hacker's Dream

"What idiot put this [Obamacare] system out there and did not create a central depository [for official application sites]?" asks John McAfee, founder of the McAfee Anti-Virus software, in the interview with Fox Business News's Neil Cavuto.

This isn't a problem that software can fix, he argues. Government officials never set up a single, government site with protected links to all subordinate Obamacare websites. It's a hacker's dream: the hacker can set up an official-looking fake Obamacare filing site and extract as much personal information from unwitting visitors as he needs to clean out their bank accounts and ruin their lives.

Watch the full interview here.

Government Shutdown - Thank Rabid Progressives

"Is this really a "Republican" shutdown? No," argues Matt Vespa. "Sen. Harry Reid [D-NV] and his execrable cadre of left-wingers are the ones truly holding the country hostage."

In at least four separate times, the House has passed a bill to fund the government.  Democrats have completely turned their backs on everything sent over by the House.  In doing so, they have also turned their backs on American families and workers.  How is that fairness and compromise?  Furthermore, 77% of Americans want to delay Obamacare’s individual mandate, including 65% of Democrats!

Vespa catalogues 34 separate news reports showing the extent of Democrat dissatisfaction over the new health care law, which is the root issue of the government shutdown. He concludes:

Harry Reid could’ve avoided this shutdown if he listened to his own ranks about Obamacare.