The incompetence of our neo-monarchy

By Mark Steyn – a MacPundit favorite author.

It is a condition of my admission to this great land that I am not allowed to foment the overthrow of the United States government. Oh, I signed it airily enough, but you’d be surprised, as the years go by, how often the urge to foment starts to rise in one’s gullet. Fortunately, at least as far as constitutional government goes, the president of the United States is doing a grand job of overthrowing it all by himself.

On Thursday, he passed a new law at a press conference. George III never did that. But, having ordered America’s insurance companies to comply with Obamacare, the president announced that he is now ordering them not to comply with Obamacare. The legislative branch (as it’s still quaintly known) passed a law purporting to grandfather your existing health plan. The regulatory bureaucracy then interpreted the law so as to un-grandfather your health plan. So His Most Excellent Majesty has commanded that your health plan be de-un-grandfathered. That seems likely to work. The insurance industry had three years to prepare for the introduction of Obamacare. Now the King has given them six weeks to de-introduce Obamacare.

“I wonder if he has the legal authority to do this,” mused former Vermont governor Howard Dean. But he’s obviously some kind of right-wing wacko. Later that day, anxious to help him out, Congress offered to “pass” a “law” allowing people to keep their health plans. The same president who had unilaterally commanded that people be allowed to keep their health plans indignantly threatened to veto any such law to that effect: It only counts if he does it — geddit? As his court eunuchs at the Associated Press obligingly put it: “Obama Will Allow Old Plans.” It’s Barry’s world; we just live in it.

The reason for the benign Sovereign’s exercise of the Royal Prerogative is that millions of his subjects — or “folks,” as he prefers to call us, no fewer than 27 times during his press conference — have had their lives upended by Obamacare. Your traditional hard-core statist, surveying the mountain of human wreckage he has wrought, usually says, “Well, you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.” But Obama is the first to order that his omelet be unscrambled and the eggs put back in their original shells. Is this even doable? No. That’s the point. When it doesn’t work, he’ll be able to give another press conference blaming the insurance companies, or the state commissioners, or George W. Bush . . .

The most telling line, the one that encapsulates the gulf between the boundless fantasies of the faculty-lounge utopian and the messiness of reality, was this: “What we’re also discovering is that insurance is complicated to buy.” Gee, thanks for sharing, genius. Maybe you should have thought of that before you governmentalized one-sixth of the economy. By “we,” the president means “I.” Out here in the ruder provinces of his decrepit realm, we “folks” are well aware of how complicated insurance is. What isn’t complicated in the Sultanate of Sclerosis? But, as with so many other things, Obama always gives the vague impression that routine features of humdrum human existence are entirely alien to him. Marie Antoinette, informed that the peasantry could no longer afford bread, is alleged to have responded, “Let them eat cake.” There is no evidence these words ever passed her lips, but certainly no one ever accused her of saying, “If you like your cake, you can keep your cake,” and then having to walk it back with “What we’re also discovering is that cake is complicated to buy.” That contribution to the annals of monarchical unworldliness had to await the reign of Queen Barry Antoinette, whose powdered wig seems to have slipped over his eyes.

Still, as historian Michael Beschloss pronounced the day after his election, he’s “probably the smartest guy ever to become president.” Naturally, Obama shares this assessment. As he assured us five years ago, “I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors.” Well, apart from his signature health-care policy. That’s a mystery to him. “I was not informed directly that the website would not be working,” he told us. The buck stops with something called “the executive branch,” which is apparently nothing to do with him. As evidence that he was entirely out of the loop, he offered this:

Had I been I informed, I wouldn’t be going out saying, “Boy, this is going to be great.” You know, I’m accused of a lot of things, but I don’t think I’m stupid enough to go around saying, “This is going to be like shopping on Amazon or Travelocity,” a week before the website opens, if I thought that it wasn’t going to work.

Ooooo-kay. So, if I follow correctly, the smartest president ever is not smart enough to ensure that his website works; he’s not smart enough to inquire of others as to whether his website works; he’s not smart enough to check that his website works before he goes out and tells people what a great website experience they’re in for. But he is smart enough to know that he’s not stupid enough to go around bragging about how well it works if he’d already been informed that it doesn’t work. So he’s smart enough to know that if he’d known what he didn’t know he’d know enough not to let it be known that he knew nothing. The country’s in the very best of hands.

Michael Beschloss is right: This is what it means to be smart in a neo-monarchical America. Obama spake, and it shall be so. And, if it turns out not to be so, why pick on him? He talks a good Royal Proclamation; why get hung up on details?

Until October 1, Obama had never done anything — not run a gas station, or a doughnut stand — other than let himself be wafted onward and upward to the next do-nothing gig. Even in his first term, he didn’t really do: Starting with the 2009 trillion-dollar stimulus, he ran a money-no-object government that was all money and no objects; he spent and spent, and left no trace. Some things he massively expanded (food stamps, Social Security disability) and other things he massively diminished (effective foreign policy), but all were, so to speak, preexisting conditions. Obamacare is the first thing Obama has actually done, and, if you’re the person it’s being done to, it’s not pretty.

The president promised to “fundamentally transform” America. Certainly, other men have succeeded in transforming settled, free societies: Pierre Trudeau did in Canada four decades ago, and so, in post-war Britain, did the less charismatic Clement Attlee. And, if you subscribe to their particular philosophy, their transformations were effected very efficiently. But Obama is an incompetent, so “fundamentally transformed” is a euphemism for “wrecked beyond repair.” As a socialist, he makes a good socialite.

But on he staggers, with a wave of his scepter, delaying this, staying that, exempting the other, according to his regal whim and internal polling. The omniscient beneficent Sovereign will now graciously “allow” us “folks” to keep all those junk plans from bad-apple insurers. Yet even the wisest King cannot reign forever, and what will happen decades down the road were someone less benign — perhaps even (shudder) a Republican — to ascend the throne and wield these mighty powers?

Hey, relax: If you like your constitution, you can keep your constitution. Period. And your existing amendments. Well, most of them — except for the junk ones . . .

— Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is the author of After America: Get Ready for Armageddon. © 2013 Mark Steyn

By MacPundit

Transforming America Obama Style

“We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” President Elect Barack Obama.

The Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, is designed to give our government control over one-sixth of our entire economy. It is the largest, most aggressive grasp for power in U.S. history. It is precisely the kind of big government-vested power that our founders feared most. It is because of this fear that they created a constitutional republic in which the power is vested in the people.

Vladimir Lenin, the father of Russian Communism, said:

“Socialized Medicine is the keystone to the arch of the Socialist State”

While Barack Obama’s ultimate goal is still not entirely clear, that he is a hardcore proponent of radical Liberal big government is perfectly clear. There should be no doubt that he advocates for a significant shift of power from the people to the government and that he has already made remarkable progress toward that goal.

Other big-government initiatives not withstanding, Obamacare alone is a huge step in that direction—both in its function to redistribute private sector wealth and its overbearing intrusion into our private lives. Obamacare restricts our freedom to make our own life choices and it punishes personal success through government-imposed redistribution of wealth. It is wholly un-American and if left in place it will destroy our great American economy, which has been the envy of the world for countless decades and which has fed, housed, clothed, and generally raised the quality of life for more people—here and abroad—than any other economy in world history.

A great and grotesque irony is that while Europe struggles to untangle itself from the failures of Socialism and other liberal big-government economies, President Obama and his cadre of Liberal Democrats in Congress, are relentlessly determined to transform the U.S. into the very same model of a European-style nanny state that has never been able to approach the success of our traditional U.S. model.

While this correspondent cannot know whether their intentions are good, I am reminded of the old saying that “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Then again, I honestly cannot be sure that Mr. Obama’s intentions were ever good.

After five years, the results of Mr. Obama’s purposes and policies have been abysmal. Our economy is in what appears to be a chronic state of non-growth. The so-called recovery is the worst in U.S. history. The real unemployment/under-employment rate has been stuck at about 14 percent for years. While he continues to claim that he is the savior of the middle class, his policies have caused a significant decline in annual middle class income. At the same time, taxes and the overall cost of living have risen sharply and remain high with no relief in sight. These core factors as well as an alarming increase in restrictive government regulations and massive and unsustainable debt have severely diminished the capacity of the private sector to expand and create new jobs. Hence, the quality of life for average American citizens is degraded. Additionally, our debt, which now exceeds $17 trillion, has imposed a literally unimaginable financial burden on our children and grandchildren! This alone is both deplorable and unconscionable.

Then there is the debacle of Obamacare. As noted earlier, Obamacare was designed to put the healthcare of U.S. citizens under the control of the government. If fully deployed, the government will control about 17 percent of our entire economy, or one-sixth. That is why Vladimir Lenin, the father of Russian Communism, identified healthcare as the key to gaining power over the people. But after three full years of preparation, the launch of Obamacare has been a monumental disaster—a government failure of unprecedented magnitude. It is just one more example of why big government is a fundamentally bad idea and why transforming America President Obama style is not and cannot be good for America.

Obamacare is a national disgrace!

By MacPundit

The announced and highly publicized purpose of the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, was to achieve universal health coverage for all Americans. It’s passage into law has been loudly praised and promoted by the Democrats as President Obama’s crowning accomplishment. That is until October 1, 2013 when the much-anticipated Healthcare.gov website launched on schedule and then immediately and ignominiously, sank into the “Great Sea of Incompetency.” Six weeks later it remains submerged as millions of additional tax-payer dollars are spent to find and plug-up its leaky code.

The Obamacare website debacle

The president told us that the Obamacare website would make signing up for a healthcare plan as easy as ordering a screwdriver from Amazon, but it did not quite work out that way. Instead, it has been either completely down (offline) or effectively dysfunctional ever since its launch.

Note: I just visited the Healthcare.gov website and it appears to be partially functional with the following message at the top of the homepage:

NEW Weekend Alert: The Health Insurance Marketplace online application isn’t available from approximately 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. EST daily while we make improvements. In addition, between Saturday evening, November 9 and early morning on Tuesday, November 12, there will be times when you can fill out your application, but you will need to return and log in Tuesday afternoon to review and submit it. The rest of the site and the Marketplace call center remain available during these hours.

The website debacle is as embarrassing as it was predictable. With three years to get it right, the Obama Administration got it wrong. With much fanfare (and hot air) the website launched on October 1^st as scheduled. But it did not work. After three years in the making and hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, Healthcare.gov did not work.

When the Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor, our military ranked 18th in the world. Then Hitler declared war on us. We were in no shape to fight any war and certainly not in two major theaters of operation—the Pacific and Europe. Yet President Franklin Roosevelt mobilized the nation and in a miraculously short period of time we began to produce airplanes, tanks, artillery weapons, and everything else we needed. It wasn’t long before we were able to supply our allies with war materiel as well. By the end of the war we had the most powerful military in the world.

Among other things, President Eisenhower mobilized the country to build a new federal highway system, the same system we enjoy today.

President Kennedy challenged the nation to go to the moon “… in this decade” and we did.

So why did President Obama fail so miserably to accomplish such a comparatively easy task as having a website built in three years? After all, starting from way behind, we mobilized the entire nation to build a huge military force and won a world war in less than four years. Simply put, President Obama is not a leader. When he ran for the presidency in 2008 he was by any fair standards the least qualified presidential candidate in U.S. history. He had been a community organizer, an unremarkable state senator in Illinois, and had not even completed his first term in the U.S. Senate. He was and remains a campaigner, not a leader. He is also a hardcore liberal politician who regularly puts politics before the welfare of the country. So why should we have expected that he would be a good leader, or for that matter, a good president? Half the country knew that he was clearly unqualified to be president and the other half did not seem to care. They apparently did not know that elections have consequences.

President Obama’s radical liberal beliefs and his personal associations coupled with his lack of leadership experience continues to have a serious detrimental effect on the health of the nation. He is a rigid ideologue and he is belligerent toward anyone who opposes him. Studies by credible non-partisan organizations rate Mr. Obama as the most divisive president in U.S. history. This too was predictable because he was the most Liberal member of the Senate and voted 97 percent of the time along party lines. After becoming president, he tellingly said of Republicans, “They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in the back.”

The fact that the Affordable Care Act was passed into law without a single Republican vote is significant. It is also unprecedented. It was the first time the U.S. passed a major piece of legislation of this magnitude without bipartisan support. The Democrats, who controlled both houses of Congress, rammed the bill through Congress in one of the most conspicuously corrupt legislative processes ever. With somewhere in the neighborhood of 2700 pages, they did not even bother to read it before they voted on it.  The process was a national disgrace as is the law itself.

Incredibly, then Speaker of The House, Nancy Pelosi, infamously said,

But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.”

Fog of the controversy? How about the foggy brains that passed this monstrosity?

There should be no doubt that the Affordable Care Act is the worst piece of major legislation in U.S. history. Already, as of this date, it is widely reported that at least 5 million Americans have lost their healthcare plans even though President Obama promised repeatedly that “If you like your healthcare plan you can keep it.”

If Obamacare is not repealed it will cause irreparable damage to our economy, seriously reduce the quality of our healthcare system, forever diminish our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms.

We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” Barack Obama

Maybe it would have been a good idea to have asked him what, exactly, he meant before voting for him! Ya think?

President Obama said, “If you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it. Period.”

By MacPundit

He said it at least forty times with various rhetorical iterations:

“If you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it. Period.”

“If you like your healthcare plan you can keep your healthcare plan. Guaranteed. Period.”

“If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. Period. End of story.”

“If you like your hospital, you can keep your hospital. Period.”

Notice that he even added the word “guaranteed” occasionally, as if he was worried that we would not believe him when he simply said “period.” In fact, sometimes he actually used “period,” “guaranteed,” and “end of story” all in the same sentence. When people began to lose their healthcare plans—the ones they liked—he was asked why that was happening because he had promised they would not lose their plans. He said he should have been more clear. More clear? What could be more clear than, “If you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it. Period.”

Millions of healthcare plans already canceled and still counting …

Conservative estimates from credible non-partisan organizations are that private healthcare cancellations could total 15 million or about 5 percent of the population. But, apparently, that is just the beginning because some predict that cancellations may well reach as high as 129 million after the business mandate kicks in.

It’s only about 5 percent of the population. That’s what President Obama and the hardcore Obama apologists keep telling us. In other words, why is everyone so concerned that we misled a mere 15 million Americans?

If you I like your healthcare plan, you can keep it.

“But,” the spin-masters say, “the plans they had were sub-par, garbage plans and Obamacare will replace them with much better plans.” First, let’s not forget the promise that if you like your plan you can keep it. — Period. Guaranteed. End of story. Just where exactly is there even a hint of a caveat or condition to the very clear promises that the President of the United States of America made to we the people? When did our president say that you can keep your plan if it meets Obamacare standards? Of course the answer is that he never said any such thing. Period. End of story. In fact, now he is essentially saying, “If I like your healthcare plan, you can keep it.”

The insurance companies canceled the plans, not us.

Incredibly, the Obama White House spin machine, Democrats in Congress, and some of the left-wing media quickly added that tortured lie to the Big Lie. Really? The insurance companies are the culprits? Have you people no shame?

Let’s be clear: The lie is not always in the words alone, but it is always in the intent. It is true that the insurance companies canceled the healthcare policies, but they did so because they had no choice. If the healthcare plans do not meet the new requirements in the Obamacare regulations, the policies can no longer be offered. So any attempt to place blame on the insurance companies is blatantly dishonest.

Higher monthly premiums and deductibles

As shocking as it was for those who have been notified that their healthcare plans will be canceled as of January 1, 2014, the worst was yet to come. They soon realized that the plans offered by Obamacare are much more costly than their canceled plans. Many Obamacare plans increase monthly premiums by as much as 800 percent and some people have reported that their deductibles have gone from $3500 up to as much as $12,500 — increases they simply cannot afford. Not surprisingly, they have reacted with anger and fear — anger at President Obama for deceiving them and fear for their future.

Coverage I don’t need and don’t want

A common complaint is that the plans offered by Obamacare to replace the plans people have and like are loaded with coverage they do not need or want. For example, a thirty year old unmarried man is offered a plan with maternity care, pediatric care, and other coverage for which he has no need. The same unnecessary and unwelcome coverage is in Obamacare plans for older couples who are beyond their child-bearing years. Our governments reaction? – Take it or leave it.

Presidential fraud!

If anyone in the business sector had made the kind of false promises that President Obama made, they would have most certainly been charged with fraud. It is now well documented that the Obama White House knew years ago that upon the implementation of Obamacare, millions of Americans would lose their healthcare plans. Did Mr. Obama, himself, know this? That question is yet to be answered, but we must suspend all credulity and rational thought to believe that he did not.

President Obama is a dishonest man

President Obama’s intimacy with deception is well-documented on this website. He is a habitually dishonest man. This is not opinion, it is fact. So yours truly was not in the least surprised to learn that his repeated declarations that “If you like your healthcare plan you can keep it. Period.” were all false. Still, I was left with a troubling question: Why has it taken so long for so many to realize that our president is a very dishonest man?

See: Obama’s Dishonesty