Charles Krauthammer: Claim of Seven Million Obamacare Enrollees Is ‘Phony Number’

Mediaite.com:

Charles Krauthammer doesn’t believe seven million people have actually enrolled in Obamacare, telling Bill O’Reilly Tuesday night that the White House is throwing out “phony numbers” by broadening their standards in order to attain a personal victory.

Both men agreed that the goal of Obamacare was to eventually convince the country to shift to full government control of the health care system, with Krauthammer saying it at least would have been clearer than “this insane mishmash” in the middle. He then charged that President Obama and the White House is not being honest when it says that a little over seven million people have signed up.

“These numbers that they are touting are phony numbers… That’s like saying anybody who goes on Amazon, orders a nifty stereo set, puts it in the shopping cart, has purchased the stereo set. I assure you it’s not going to show up at your house until you pay for it.”

Krauthammer charged that the goal from the beginning was to make health care, “the great liberal objective,” a reality by any means necessary. And he found it laughable for Democrats to keep asserting it’s the law of the land, because “nothing that’s written in the law matters, they decide what the law is every Wednesday morning.”

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Don't Believe Liberal Media, Democrats To Blame For Shutdown

NYDailyNews.com:

The Obamacare/shutdown battle has spawned myriad myths. The most egregious concern the substance of the fight, the identity of the perpetrators and the origins of the current eruption.

(1) Substance

President Obama indignantly insists that GOP attempts to abolish or amend Obamacare are unseemly because it is “settled” law, having passed both houses of Congress, obtained his signature and passed muster with the Supreme Court.

Yes, settledness makes for a strong argument — except from a President whose administration has unilaterally changed Obamacare five times after its passage, including, most brazenly, a year-long suspension of the employer mandate.

Article 1 of the Constitution grants the legislative power entirely to Congress. Under what constitutional principle has Obama unilaterally amended the law? Yet when the House of Representatives undertakes a constitutionally correct, i.e., legislative, procedure for suspending the other mandate — the individual mandate — this is portrayed as some extra-constitutional sabotage of the rule of law. Why is tying that amendment to a generalized spending bill an outrage, while unilateral amendment by the executive (with a Valerie Jarrett blog item for spin) is perfectly fine?

(2) Perpetrators

The mainstream media have been fairly unanimous in blaming the government shutdown on the GOP. Accordingly, House Republicans presented three bills to restore funding to national parks, veterans and the District of Columbia government. Democrats voted down all three. (For procedural reasons, the measures required a two-thirds majority.)

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid won’t even consider these refunding measures. And the White House has promised a presidential veto.

The reason is obvious: to prolong the pain and thus add to the political advantage gained from a shutdown blamed on the GOP. They are confident the media will do a “GOP makes little Johnny weep at the closed gates of Yellowstone, film at 11” despite Republicans having just offered legislation to open them.

(3) Origins

The most ubiquitous conventional wisdom is that the ultimate cause of these troubles is out-of-control tea party anarchists.

But is this really where the causal chain ends?

From Social Security to civil rights to Medicaid to Medicare, never in the modern history of the country has major social legislation been enacted on a straight party-line vote. Yet Obamacare — which revolutionizes one-sixth of the economy, regulates every aspect of medical practice and intimately affects just about every citizen — passed without a single GOP vote.

The Democrats insist they welcomed contributing ideas from Republicans. Rubbish. Republicans proposed that insurance be purchasable across state lines. They got nothing. They sought serious tort reform. They got nothing. Why? Because, admitted Howard Dean, Democrats didn’t want to offend the trial lawyers.

Moreover, the administration was clearly warned. Republican Scott Brown ran in the most inhospitable of states, Massachusetts, on the explicit promise to cast the deciding vote blocking Obamacare. It was January 2010, the height of the debate. He won. Reid ignored this unmistakable message of popular opposition and conjured a parliamentary maneuver — reconciliation — to get around Brown.

Nothing illegal about that. Nothing illegal about ramming it through without a single opposition vote. Just totally contrary to the modern American tradition — and the constitutional decency — of undertaking major social revolutions only with bipartisan majorities. Having stuffed Obamacare down the throats of the GOP and the country, Democrats are now paying the price.

I thought the Republicans’ defunding demand impossible and, therefore, foolish. I thought that if, nonetheless, they insisted on making a stand, it should not be on shutting down the government, which voters oppose 5-to-1, but on the debt ceiling, which Americans favor 2-to-1 as a vehicle for restraining government.

Tactics are one thing, but substance is another. It’s the Democrats who have mocked the very notion of settled law. It’s the Democrats who voted down the reopening of substantial parts of the government. It’s the Democrats who gave life to a spontaneous, authentic, small-government opposition — aka the Tea Party — with their unilateral imposition of a transformational agenda during the brief interval when they held a monopoly of power.

That interval is over. The current unrest is the residue of that hubris.

RELATED: Where Ted Cruz Is Coming From

How Barack Obama Creates His Own Laws

WashingtonPost.com:

That was then. On Monday, Attorney General Eric Holder, a liberal in a hurry, ordered all U.S. attorneys to simply stop charging nonviolent, non-gang-related drug defendants with crimes that, while fitting the offense, carry mandatory sentences. Find some lesser, non-triggering charge. How might you do that? Withhold evidence — for example, the amount of dope involved.

In other words, evade the law, by deceiving the court if necessary. “If the companies that I represent in federal criminal cases” did that, said former deputy attorney general George Terwilliger, “they could be charged with a felony.”

But such niceties must not stand in the way of an administration’s agenda. Indeed, the very next day, it was revealed that the administration had unilaterally waived Obamacare’s cap on a patient’s annual out-of-pocket expenses — a one-year exemption for selected health insurers that is nowhere permitted in the law. It was simply decreed by an obscure Labor Department regulation.

Which followed a presidentially directed 70-plus percent subsidy for the insurance premiums paid by congressmen and their personal staffs — under a law that denies subsidies for anyone that well-off.
Which came just a month after the administration’s equally lawless suspension of one of the cornerstones of Obamacare: the employer mandate. 

Which followed hundreds of Obama­care waivers granted by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to selected businesses, unions and other well-lobbied, very special interests.

Nor is this kind of rule-by-decree restricted to health care. In 2012, the immigration service was ordered to cease proceedings against young illegal immigrants brought here as children. Congress had refused to pass such a law (the DREAM Act) just 18 months earlier. Obama himself had repeatedly said that the Constitution forbade him from enacting it without Congress. But with the fast approach of an election that could hinge on the Hispanic vote, Obama did exactly that. Unilaterally.

The point is not what you think about the merits of the DREAM Act. Or of mandatory drug sentences. Or of subsidizing health care premiums for $175,000-a-year members of Congress. Or even whether you think governors should be allowed to weaken the work requirements for welfare recipients — an authority the administration granted last year in clear violation of section 407 of the landmark Clinton-Gingrich welfare reform of 1996. 

The point is whether a president, charged with faithfully executing the laws that Congress enacts, may create, ignore, suspend and/or amend the law at will. Presidents are arguably permitted to refuse to enforce laws they consider unconstitutional (the basis for so many of George W. Bush’s so-called signing statements). But presidents are forbidden from doing so for reasons of mere policy — the reason for every Obama violation listed above. 

Such gross executive usurpation disdains the Constitution. It mocks the separation of powers. And most consequentially, it introduces a fatal instability into law itself. If the law is not what is plainly written, but is whatever the president and his agents decide, what’s left of the law?

RELATED:  Obama’s unconstitutional steps worse than Nixon’s

Newt Gingrich Slams House Republicans For Negotiating With President Obama: ‘Get A Grip!’

Listen to the man, he makes plenty of sense.

HuffPo.com:

Former GOP Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich urged Republicans on Wednesday to simply "back out" of all negotiations with President Barack Obama to avert the fiscal cliff, saying that they were ceding their leverage by even talking with the White House.

“My number one bit of advice to the congressional Republicans is simple: Back out of all of this negotiating with Obama," Gingrich said at a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, Calif., according to the Daily Caller. "The president is overwhelmingly dominant in the news media.

You start setting up the definition of success [as] finding an agreement with Obama, you just gave Obama the ability to say to you, ‘Not good enough.’”

Gingrich portrayed the fiscal cliff as a "fantasy" Democrats are using to push higher marginal tax rates on the wealthy while squeezing out the GOP's goals of large-scale entitlement reform and spending cuts, and said congressional Republicans were actually in the driver's seat.

“One of the things I would say to House Republicans is to get a grip,” Gingrich said, according to the Ventura County Star. “They are the majority. They’re not the minority. They don't need to cave in to Obama. They don't need to form a surrender caucus.”

Gingrich made a similar argument in the wake of the elections, telling Human Events that GOP leaders should approach the decision to enter negotiations on the fiscal cliff with caution.

“Republicans have to insist that there were two mandates on Election Day. There’s a mandate for Obama and there is a mandate for House Republicans. So, it’s important to put in context that they are meeting as equals to talk about the country," Gingrich advised in an interview with the outlet. "They are not working for Obama, but they are willing to work with Obama.”

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Charles Krauthammer: ‘Ridiculous’ GOP Congress And ‘Embarrassing’ Candidates Are Handing Obama A Victory

Mediaite.com:

President Obama’s consistent lead over most Republican contenders has taken some on the right by surprise, given his low approval ratings and the bad economy the administration can’t seem to shake. To Charles Krauthammer, none of the credit should go to President Obama, however, but to the “embarrassing” Republican candidates and the “ridiculous” behavior of the Congressional Republican leadership.


Krauthammer explained during Special Report today that President Obama has mostly been a “passive observer” to a landscape that has been remarkably favorable to him and his administration despite the bad times domestically. Krauthammer attributed the “ridiculous way the Republicans have conducted themselves in Congress” for “making Obama look like at least a grown-up,” while Republicans have had “an almost year-long exposure to a weak Republican field.” “The fact that Santorum is the last standing alternative,” he explained, “think of how this is going: Trump, Bachmann, Perry, then Cain, then Newt– who’s really in decline now– Ron Paul, who is on the ascent but not electable, then Santorum.”


Concluding that “Every alternative is going to get a try,” Krauthammer highlighted how the weak field made a difference by arguing, “imagine a race with a Mitch Daniels, Paul Ryan, Christie, Thune… it would’ve had a completely different complexion” instead of having “embarrassing candidates like Cain and others.”

RELATED: CNN Iowa poll: Romney 25, Paul 22, Santorum 16, Gingrich 14

Charles Krauthammer Calls Obama's SOTU Speech "Flat" And "Uninspired"

Mediaite.com:

President Barack Obama delivered his third State of the Union speech tonight, and in an age in which opinion media so dominates political will, the reaction to the delivered text by various pundits is almost as interesting as the text itself. Take for example the initial reaction by the Fox News panel that seemed primarily unimpressed by what some may have seen as a significant move to the center by the Democratic president. Charles Krauthammer did not demure, calling the speech “flat and uninspired” and “remarkably against the trend of what the electorate said this November.”


To be fair, the energy in the room was dramatically different than recent State of the Union speeches, largely because the two parties were not sitting in clear and separate sections of the House. Without question, the somewhat improvised mixed seating arrangement that was conceived to show unity, took away many of the partisan interruptions but made for a more fractured and yes, entertaining experience. While it was perhaps less interesting to partisan bloggers looking for snark, it did create a rare and more unifying experience for the speech.


But this was largely overlooked by the Fox News panel, who focused on the actual rhetoric and ignored the “room,” at least in their initial reaction. Brit Hume seemed to agree with Krauthammer’s critique saying that it appeared that Obama “wanted the speech to be upbeat about America’s future, but only outlined further government spending.” When challenged by fellow guest Juan Williams, Hume doubled down by theoretically asking the President “How much borrowed money, Sir are you willing to spend on these items?” Sharp words that appear to have come from someone who may have missed (or overlooked?) any bipartisan effort from the President.


Token Democrat Kirsten Powers presented faint praise by suggesting that State of the Union speeches are always lackluster and that this was no different. But Williams went to bat for Obama, lauding the President for the realistic nature of the speech, clarifying that it was “not a time for fake oratory” adding admiration for the simple note that Obama made when he said “we do big things.”

Sarah Palin Disses Michelle Obama Over 'Dessert'

CNN.com:

Sarah Palin is again taking aim at Michelle Obama over her anti-obesity campaign, taking the opportunity in Sunday's "Sarah Palin's Alaska" to land a diss against the first lady's efforts to improve nutrition.


While making s'mores at one point during Sunday's episode, the former Alaska governor proclaims the marshmallow and chocolate treat is "in honor of Michelle Obama, who said the other day we should not have dessert."


It's not the first time Palin has taken a jab at Mrs. Obama over her campaign to discourage fattening foods, especially from public schools. The former vice presidential nominee told conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham last month that "the first lady cannot trust parents to make decisions for their own children, for their own families in what we should eat."


Palin also hand-delivered cookies to a Pennsylvania school last month before delivering a speech there, saying: "Who should be deciding what I eat? Should it be government or should it be parents? It should be the parents."

I like Sarah going after Michelle, but she needs to stop getting riled over constructive criticism from fellow Republican pundits. It makes her look petty.

Chris Coons dares Sarah Palin To Come To Delaware And Campaign For Christine O'Donnell

DailyCaller.com:

Who does Delaware Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Chris Coons want campaigning in Delaware? Sarah Palin, of course.


Facing attention-grabbing Republican candidate Christine O’Donnell, the Coons campaign sent an e-mail to supporters Tuesday wondering aloud why the matriarch of the “Mama Grizzlies” hadn’t yet fulfilled a promise to campaign for the struggling candidate.


“The Delaware Republican Party turned its back on O’Donnell. Then the National Republican Senatorial Committee turned off their support,” read the letter. “Sarah Palin’s absence in Delaware is a sign that she is set to do the same?”


Far from a rhetorical question, the Coons campaign seems eager to actually have the former vice presidential candidate make an appearance for O’Donnell.


“I think Sarah Palin coming in would be great,” said Coons’ Communications Director Daniel McElhatton. “Sarah Palin, Jim DeMint, [and] Christine O’Donnell have all the same types of ideology and policy positions … So if Sarah Palin wants to come in and articulate those positions to Delawareans, all the better.”

Who was it? Yeah, the great Charles Krauthammer who declared that you support the best "electable" candidate, not some schmuck with little to no chance to win. Wise counsel for far-right yahoos like Michelle Malkin, Jim Demint and Sarah Palin who ignored all sense of logic in endorsing Christine O'Donnell after her upset win over moderate Mike Castle.

Charles Krauthammer Calls Out NPR On The Hypocrisy of Firing Juan Williams

Clearly, Juan Williams' firing from NPR had nothing to do with race, because ummm, liberals can't possibly be racists, right?

That's the question Charles Krauthammer asked on PBS's "Inside Washington" Friday night. And, as you knew would happen, no one on the panel could answer it. In fact, I've yet to hear any of my colleagues from the left side of the page coherently explain the difference between what Juan Williams did on Fox and what NPR's Nina Totenberg does every week in similar venues. Yet, Williams gets fired via telephone after 10 years of loyal service, and Totenberg keeps her job in honored fashion.


You can dance around this issue all you like. You can get mired in the "changing" ethics of journalism (which, btw, I totally reject). What this really is is an example of the totalitarian left raising it's ugly head and dropping the fig leaf of being tolerant of free speech.


Krauthammer asks the right question. Where did Juan Williams go wrong? What line did he cross that Totenberg has crossed hundreds of times.

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Charles Krauthammer Smacks Down Inside Washington Panel Over GOP Campaign Contributions

Newsbusters.org:

Charles Krauthammer on Friday called the entire panel of PBS's "Inside Washington" a bunch of whiners for complaining about anonymous campaign contributions Republicans are receiving this election cycle.


After host Gordon Peterson briefly explained the impact of the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling earlier this year, NPR's Nina Totenberg called it a "scandal in the making...this is the kind of thing that led to Watergate."


Peterson then surprisingly asked, "Are you aware of any Democrats turning down soft money like this?"


Totenberg hypocritically answered, "No, but the Democrats aren't getting - it's eight to one is the, is the disproportion here."


Krauthammer marvelously jumped in, "So in other words, it's whining," and that's when the fun started.

Charles Krauthammer: Classified Leaks in Bush and Nixon Years Got You a Pulitzer Prize, With a Dem President You're Condemned

Newsbusters.org:

Charles Krauthammer on Friday made a truly wonderful observation about how differently the media handle leaks of classified information depending on whether there's a Democrat or a Republican in the White House.


As the discussion on PBS's "Inside Washington" moved to the Wikileaks affair, the Washington Post's Colby King said, "I don't see it as such a difficult issue at all for the Pentagon. It's, you know, it's our material, it's not [Wikileaks']."


This led Krauthammer to ask, "How come in the Bush years and the Nixon years, when you leaked stuff that's our material, classified material, you end up with a Pulitzer Prize, and now if you have a Democratic administration, you end up being condemned from left and right?"

He continued, "I'm not sure I understand"

RELATED: WikiLeaks To Publish New Documents

Charles Krauthammer: No Chance Of KSM Trial In NYC After Times Square Bomb Attack

Besides George Will and Bill O'Reiily, Krauthammer is the best voice on the right. And he's so on point here, you just know Eric Holder's not sleeping well tonight.

Charles Krauthammer: Janet Napolitano Needs The Boot

Charles Krauthammer -- "The Stimulus (Package) Is A Bust," and It Ballooned the Deficit

Hey, even Joe Biden admitted that the stimulus hasn't worked.

Liberal Press Finally Gets Tough With Obama, Barack Gets Testy!

Charles Krauthammer says it best:

Columnist Charles Krauthammer noted on FNC's Special Report that while “there wasn't exactly aggressiveness on the part of the press with a couple of exceptions” during the afternoon presidential press conference, “it looked as if the stupor that the press has been in for the last six months is lifting slightly.” Krauthammer quipped: “I say that as a psychiatrist who has a lot of experience in watching these things.”

Earlier in the program, Brit Hume declared “the head over heals phase of the honeymoon with the press is over” and he speculated: “I think the reporters down there were tired of being criticized for being soft on Obama.”

Politiks As Usual: In The News 2/9/09

Senator Richard Shelby Says Obama's Stimulus Plan Will Lead To 'Disaster'

Crisis, Catastrophe: Are These Words Of Hope?

SCHIP Enables Bad Parenting, Benefits Illegal Aliens

'Today Show' Suggests Single Moms Only Need Dad's Money

Child Porn Pandemic As Police Estimate 600,000 Americans Trade Child Porn Online

New York Liberals Love Watching Will Ferrell's Bush Derangement Syndrome

Republican Defectors Facing Backlash For Stimulus Support

Obama's Justice Nominee's Porn Agenda Raises Alarms

Editorial: President Bush Had Nothing To Do With Financial Crisis

White House Grabs 2010 Census Power

Ruth Ginsburg, Diagnosed With Pancreatic Cancer, Plans Quick Return To SCOTUS

Politiks As Usual: In The News 12/22/08

Hillary Clinton Campaign Debt Now At $6.4 Million

Princess Caroline Wants To Be Anointed

Sarah Palin Church Burning - 'Hate Crime' Virtually Ignored?

Paul Weyrich Cast Long Shadow In Conservatism

CNN Meteorologist: Manmade Global Warming Theory 'Arrogant'

Courteney Cox: Divorce Is Not An Option

Dangerous Foes Await The Obama Administration, Gaffney Warns

Why Are Female Teachers So Hot For Students?

Obama Names Two Global Warming Nutcases To Cabinet Posts

The Huffington Post Slammed For Content Theft

Politiks As Usual: In The News 10/27/08

Sarah Palin and Elisabeth Hasselbeck Blast Wardrobe Story

John McCain The Stalwart

Billionaire Leftist George Soros Banking Catholic Groups That Support Abortion

Study: Coverage Of McCain Much More Negative That That Of Obama

Woman Says No To Aborting Down Syndrome Baby: 'He's A Human Being'

Obama, McCain Face Most Pressure Since FDR To Speed Transition

New York Magazine Cover Crowns Obama...9 Days Early!

Hillary Backers Decry Massive Obama Vote Fraud

Barbara West Speaks On Joe Biden Interview

Oliver Stone's "W" Flick Bombs At Box Office

Democrat Senator Jeff Bingaman Wants To Bring Back Fairness Doctrine

Politiks As Usual: In The News 9/15/08

Nearly 2,000 Hurricane Ike Victims Rescued

Help Barack Obama's Half-Brother Move Out Of His Hut

Ex-Air America Host Randi Rhodes Says Palin Can't Be Trusted With Teen Boys

Joe Biden's Average Annual Charitable-Gift Total: $369

Cindy McCain Rips "The View"

Florida Supreme Court Strikes Down Vote On Faith-Based Programs

Ex-Clinton Aide Says Media Is Tougher On Palin

Karl Rove: McCain's Ads Have Gone Too Far

San Francisco Considering Measure To Decriminalize Prostitution

Black Male Suicide: Why Are So Many Young Men Killing Themselves?

Charles Krauthammer Debunks Charlie Gibson & NYT's Attacks On Palin