October 22-23, 2013
Oct 22 00:43 Who's hurting 'the brand'? Oct 22 06:51 Enrollment math: The good, the bad and the ugly Oct 22 13:59 A jobs report worth delaying Oct 22 15:56 A game-changer? Oct 22 16:31 Most transparent administration? Oct 23 01:39 Has politics gotten this disgusting? Oct 23 22:07 Steve Hayes indicts, Juan Williams defends administration
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Who's hurting 'the brand'?
According to Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz's tactics have ruined the GOP brand :
Sen. Lindsey Graham said Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz' battle to defund Obamacare, resulting in a government shutdown, hurt the GOP brand.
Asked on CBS' "Face the Nation "about the role Cruz played in the shutdown, Graham called it a tactical mistake. "I think the tactical choice that he embraced hurt our party," said Graham, a South Carolina Republican.
"The political marketplace will determine Ted Cruz's future. We helped President Obama when he needed our help the most. After this debacle called the shutdown, our party's been hurt, our brand name is at the lowest ever, Obamacare actually got a bump in polling, and we got in the way of a disastrous rollout," Graham said. "So from my point of view, this was a tactical choice that hurt us, but the good news for the Republican Party is the debacle is over if we don't do it again, and Obamacare is a continuing debacle," Graham said.
That's typical DC-think that's demanded by Conventional Wisdom gurus. That plus a dollar is worth a dollar.
That doesn't mean I think Sen. Cruz picked the wisest approach. He didn't. That said, he energized TEA Party activists and other conservatives by fighting. Conservatives had gotten demoralized by politicians like Sen. Graham making ill-advised deals in which President Obama gets everything he wants and Republicans walk away with nothing.
Sen. Graham and his 'elections have consequences' teammate Sen. McCain are the politicians that've hurt the GOP brand. Rather than fighting for what's best for the American people, Sen. Graham and Sen. McCain have fought for what's popular amongst the DC media.
Graham said Sunday the Republican Party went too far right in its fight to repeal Obamacare.
"We're a right-of-center nation, we're not a right-ditch nation," Graham said. "As a party, we've got to do some soul searching," said Graham, who repeatedly urged House Republicans to follow the leadership of House Speaker John Boehner.
Sen. Graham is right. We're a right-of-center nation. That said, he's a left-of-center politician. Any idiot that's willing to buy into immigration reform without stiff enforcement isn't playing with a full deck. Anyone that's willing to sign onto cap and trade isn't a conservative. That's the stuff that liberals believe.
I'm not a purist but it's difficult for me to find common ground with appeasers like Graham and McCain. Anyone that thinks that caving after hearing President Obama's first offer is too much of an appeaser to help improve the GOP brand.
Frankly, it isn't a stretch to think that Graham will lose in the GOP primary next year. What would he know about improving the GOP brand?
Posted Tuesday, October 22, 2013 12:43 AM
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Enrollment math: The good, the bad and the ugly
Enrollment Numbers: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
by Silence Dogood
According to a press release by SCSU:
"The university remains the largest in the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) system and the second largest public university in the state."
Looking at duplicated headcount, as of October 18, 2013, SCSU has 16,246 students compared to Mankato's 15,378. Minnesota State University - Mankato has traditionally been our rival because of its size and similarity to SCSU. So according to the headcount data, SCSU wins! We are the biggest (and hopefully) the best state university in Minnesota.
A closer analysis of the data may tell a different story. When you look a breakdown of the enrollment status from the MnSCU website for these students you find the data presented in following table:
While SCUS has 868 more students than Mankato, Mankato has 1,624 more full-time students taking on average 0.8 credits more than SCSU. SCSU wins the contest as the second largest university in Minnesota because of a much larger investment in the Senior to Sophomore Program (where high school students get college credits for courses taken in high school).
However, when you look at full year equivalent students (FYE), the number upon which budgets are based the data is quite clear and significantly different. Mankato has 6,700.8 FYE compared to SCSU's 6,014.7 FYE. Since budgets are based on FYE not headcount, Mankato has an 11.4% larger budget to educate a smaller number of students. So in the comparisons of the budgets, Mankato wins. Given the choice, I personally think that Mankato is the better situation to be in. How do you decide on who's the 'largest,' I guess you decide where you fit with the data. If you think the largest headcount number of students is the criterion, then SCSU wins; if you think budgets and full-time students is the criterion then Mankato wins. Now let's talk about something really important the BCS college football rankings!
Posted Tuesday, October 22, 2013 6:51 AM
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A jobs report worth delaying
The jobs report that was supposed to come out on Oct. 3 was released this morning. It isn't good news for the Obama administration :
September saw the U.S. economy add just 148,000 jobs, significantly worse than expected, according to a report delayed more than two weeks by the government shutdown.
The unemployment rate unexpectedly fell to 7.2 percent, the lowest since November 2008, as the labor-force participation rate held near 35-year lows, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Private payroll creation stood at just 122,000, with state and local governments adding 28,000 positions and the federal government cutting by 6,000.
That's just the tip of the iceberg. Here's some data from ZeroHedge on what jobs were created :
As part of our monthly NFP-day tradition, we break down the monthly job gains (and losses) by industry. So here they are: in September the biggest job gaining sectors, accounting for 86K jobs or 58% of the total 148K jobs added, were the following four industries:
- Transportation and Warehousing: + 23K
- Government: +22K
- Retail Trade: +21K
- Temp Help: +20K
In short: nearly two thirds of all jobs created in September (according to the BLS' increasingly more flawed data so these numbers are likely completely made up) were truck drivers, bureaucrats, salespeople and temps.
What about "real" jobs: well, Financial Activities were down 2K, Manufacturing were up 2K, Information (those very critical programmers so instrumental in the glitchless roll out of Obamacare): +4K, and Professional and Business Services (ex temps): +12K.In other words, there's reason to worry that the economy is slowing down. That doesn't necessarily predict another recession. It just means the economy might be weakening.
Posted Tuesday, October 22, 2013 1:59 PM
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A game-changer?
This article asks a ton of questions that the Obama administration doesn't want to deal with. Thanks to this lawsuit, President Obama is put in the unenviable position of defending his signature accomplishment in an uphill fight:
The Affordable Care Act forbids the federal government from enforcing the law in any state that opted out of setting up its own health care exchange, according to a group of small businesses whose lawsuit got a key hearing Monday in federal court.
The Obama administration, according to their lawsuit, has ignored that language in the law, enforcing all of its provisions even in states where the federal government is operating the insurance marketplaces on the error-plagued Healthcare.gov website.
Thirty-six states chose not to set up their exchanges, a move that effectively froze Washington, D.C. out of the authority to pay subsidies and other pot-sweeteners to convince citizens in those states to buy medical insurance.
But the IRS overstepped its authority by paying subsidies in those states anyway, say the businesses and their lawyers.
The subsidies serve as a trigger that determines who has to comply with the now-famous individual and employer mandates. So, the lawsuit claims, the Obama administration illegally enforced the Affordable Care Act - suddenly making millions of taxpayers and small employers subject to paying fines if they don't play ball.
The Affordable Care Act authorizes subsidies only for policies purchased 'through an Exchange established by the State .'
The clearly written language of the bill says that the only people who are eligible for federal subsidies are people who purchase their health insurance through state-run health insurance exchanges.
This lawsuit won't get the Affordable Care Act ruled unconstitutional. That isn't what the Obama administration is worried about though. If the federal government isn't able to force people in those 36 states to obey the individual or employer mandates, the financing of the bill will collapse.
If the Supreme Court rules in favor of these plaintiffs, there's a bigger worry facing the administration:
Kazman is general counsel for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free-market think tank that is coordinating the case.
'The IRS cannot rewrite the law that Congress passed,' said Tom Miller, resident fellow at another think, the tank American Enterprise Institute. Its regulation expressly flouts the statutory text of the Affordable Care Act, the intent of Congress and the reasoned choices of [36] states.'
'The fiscal impact' of denying the Obamacare system millions of dollars in lost fines, 'while sizable, wouldn't be large enough to bring down the house,' Kazman added. The poltical one, however, is. You'd have 34 "refusenik" states exempting their employers and many of their citizens from the employer mandate and portions of the individual mandate,' he explained.
'You'd have companies in participating states considering whether to move their operations' to states where they don't have to obey the Affordable Care Act. 'And you might even have some of those states seeking to undo their choice to participate.'
The law is clearly written. Still, I'm unsure because John Roberts screwed things up pretty badly when he had the chance to kill an unconstitutional law. Make no mistake about this fact: this lawsuit will be dedided by the Supreme Court.
Forgive my cynicism but that's what happens when the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court rules that it isn't his place to undo a political catastrophe. HINT TO CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: The Affordable Care Act wasn't just a political catastrophe. It was about whether the Constitution put a limit on the federal government's authority and reach. Chief Justice Roberts punted on that.
Perhaps he's ashamed of that ruling. I hope he is. He should be. This time around, the lawsuit is clear. It's about whether the clearly written language of the Affordable Care Act means what it says. Chief Justice Roberts better not botch this one. That might be the only clearly written part of the Affordable Care Act.
Posted Tuesday, October 22, 2013 3:56 PM
Comment 1 by J. Ewing at 23-Oct-13 08:23 PM
I'm still waiting for further news about the lawsuit that FOLLOWS the Roberts ruling. Namely, since it has been ruled a tax, the origination clause of the Constitution requires it to have originated in the House. It didn't. If it's a tax, it is unconstitutional.
Comment 2 by Gary Gross at 23-Oct-13 10:14 PM
The bill that was used as the vehicle originated in the House. That won't be ruled on by SCOTUS. That's been happening for half a century or more. SCOTUS won't rule on Senate political procedures.
Most transparent administration?
The press is finally figuring out what Americans have known for years. The Obama administration isn't the most transparent administration in history. Here's today's proof of that:
Jay Carney, aka the Obama administration's replication of Baghdad Bob, walked out when asked basic questions about the Affordable Care Act.
Let's see if this is proof that a single walk out is worth a thousand front page articles. I suspect people on the internet will know about it but that the networks will mostly ignore it.
Posted Tuesday, October 22, 2013 4:31 PM
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Has politics gotten this disgusting?
Has politics gotten so unvirtuous that a political party thinks that outright lying is ok if it helps them win another election? That's what's apparently happening with the Democratic Party regarding Rep. Alan Grayson, (D-FL):
What's the 'T' in tea party stand for? For Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., it represents a Ku Klux Klan's burning cross.
Grayson's 2014 re-election campaign sent out fundraising email today that compared the tea party movement to the KKK, titled, 'The Tea Party: No More Popular Than The Klan.'
The email included a graphic image of two Klansmen standing near a giant burning cross. The cross is used to spell out 'tea party' in burning flames.
I thought about posting Grayson's disgusting picture but decided against it. It's telling that Al Sharpton didn't take the opportunity to criticize Grayson during his interview of Grayson:
Rev. Al: Congressman, does the President have the Tea Party on the ropes?
Alan: I think so. I think that ordinary Americans are with the President. They're appalled by the Tea Party's tactics. They come to the President saying, 'If you don't let us steal your car, then, we are going to burn down your house.' They are appalled by the way the Tea Party cheered on the shutting down of the government, cheered at the fact that we put our credit at risk for a generation to come. And they're appalled by the enormous expense - the fact that this temporary shutdown ended up costing America $24 billion. That's almost $100 for every man, woman, and child in this country. Frankly, they want their money back, and the Tea Party out of their lives. At this point, the Tea Party is no more popular than the Klan.
Rev. Al: Now, Congressman, some on the right are already threatening those who didn't push the defund movement all the way to the end. Sarah Palin wrote on Facebook, and I'm quoting it, 'Rest well tonight for soon we will focus on important House and Senate races. Let's start with Kentucky.'From sea to shining sea. Congressman, what will happen if the right, not just the Tea Party, all [have] primary fights all over the country?
Grayson is a despicable excuse for a man. He's intellectually dishonest. He's hateful. Most importantly, he didn't hesitate in accusing honest Americans of being violent racists.
George Wallace was one of the biggest biggots in the South. He was a lifelong Democrat. Robert Byrd was elected to be the Exalted Cyclops (the top officer of the local KKK). Later, he was elected to the US Senate, where he was the top Democrat in the Senate. Al Gore's father filibustered the Civil Rights Act. Yet Grayson has the temerity to accuse TEA Party activists of being hate-filled racists?
I'm betting that Grayson isn't as stupid as he appears to be on TV. I'm betting he's just that hate-filled and dishonest. Further, I'm betting that he knows that the TEA in TEA Party stands for Taxed Enough Already.
At some time in the near future, the Democratic Party should be asked whether they'll put a higher priority on winning elections than they put on honesty and civility. I think we already know the Democrats' answer. It'd just be nice to hear a little honesty from a liberal.
Grayson is a disgusting excuse for a human. It says everything that the Democrats haven't already booted him from their Party. If Democrats won't boot out the closest thing they've got to human excrement, then they've told us that they aren't interested in integrity. In fact, we can't be certain that they're interested in anything except accumulating as much power as possible. If the country suffers while they grab power, that's fine with them.
Posted Wednesday, October 23, 2013 1:39 AM
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Steve Hayes indicts, Juan Williams defends administration
A little over 90 seconds into this video, Juan Williams made an outrageous statement, which Steve Hayes rightfully pounced on:
Here's that brief, spirited exchange:
JUAN WILLIAMS: They don't want to say, I suspect, because I don't think they've got it under grip because of all of the technological issues. I would add that you can still call on the phone to get this done. And one final point, you know two-thirds of Americans say, you know, Republicans, slow down. Stop the piling on. Let this thing happen for better or worse.
NINA EASTON: From a nonpartisan perspective, a CEO of an insurance company who knows the systems very well says that things are so broken that you have to get in there and start fixing things before you know the extent of what's wrong.
STEPHEN HAYES: That is really one of the big questions. Do they know what's wrong and they're just not saying or do they not even know? I think the evidence suggests that they don't even what's wrong. And Kathleen Sebelius, at this point, or really at any time, doesn't have to be a superior technological manager as I think you called her. We needed basic competence. And not only was there not basic competence, but I think what you said is interesting and compelling. They did this because they didn't want Republicans to have a talking point. They did this for purely political reasons, which is inexcusable. So they said, by your characterization, in effect, let's take our chances because they don't want to give the Republicans the talking point. If that's true, if that's even close to being true, that's outrageous on another level.
WILLIAMS: Wait a minute. You mean to say that in the midst of all of the political polarization surrounding this issue, Obamacare, that you are going to slam the Obama administration for making a decision to go ahead so as not to feed the critics?
HAYES: Yes, that's what I would say. It's outrageous. They have tests that it's going to fail and fail miserably, they're going to go ahead and do it at a tremendous cost to the American people?
The thought that this administration is so thin-skinned that they'll hide important facts from the public is disgusting enough. What's worse is that, according to Juan Williams' logic, it might be ok to hide these things from congressional investigators. Williams should ask himself if he'd afford a Republican president the same latitude or if that's just available to Democrats.
It's time for President Obama to man up and admit that his administration has failed in its initial attempt to implement key portions of the Affordable Care Act. If he isn't willing to do that, then he isn't equipped temperamentally to be the Leader of the Free World. If he isn't willing to admit that his administration failed, for whatever reason, then he isn't the profile in courage we need him to be.
The other disgusting part is that Williams isn't alone in thinking that President Obama should get a pass on this epic failure. These journalists wouldn't think of giving a Republican a pass but they won't think twice about giving a Democrat a pass.
The time for intellectual honesty is now. The time for doing what's right for America is now, too. Giving President Obama a pass for the failure of the Affordable Care Act and the portal at HealthCare.gov isn't doing what's right for America.
Posted Wednesday, October 23, 2013 10:07 PM
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