It has become increasingly clear since President Barack Obama’s reelection that he and his administration intend to govern as they wish, pushing as far and as fast as they can against constitutional and other legal limits which have constrained previous administrations. It has also become more than obvious that it is willing to hurt those who might get in their way, and to exploit others whose help they can co-opt to accomplish their agenda. In essence, Obama and his administration are telling America’s institutions, its states, its legal framework, and Americans in general: “Bleep you.”
What follows is but a small sample of “Bleep You” actions from this president and his administration, all of them garnering notice in just the past few weeks.
1. Headline from California Healthline (HT Doug Ross): “Budget Cuts To Hamper HHS OIG’s Ability To Curb Health Care Fraud”
The story: Just as Obamacare enrollment is set to kick into high gear, “HHS Office of Inspector General officials say the agency will be significantly restricted in its ability to monitor and address Medicare and Medicaid fraud and abuse within the nation’s health care system in the coming years.” Among the tasks the IGs will not undertake: “An audit of computer systems security for the ACA insurance exchanges.”
Better headline: “Obama, HHS, and Kathleen Sebelius to Americans Interested in Protecting Their Privacy and Identities: Bleep You.”
2. Headline from Wall Street Journal editorial: “Obama’s New York Model; How the State Destroyed Its (Individual) Insurance Market Using Obamacare Rules.”
The story: Obamacare’s model for individual private insurance to be applied to the entire nation will only be a bit less extreme than the version which was implemented in New York two decades ago. Its key to failure is limiting premium differentials for demonstrated underwriting risks. In New York, that approach shrank the pool of those purchasing individual policies from 1.2 million in 1992 to 128,000 in 2001 as premiums skyrocketed beyond reason.
Better headline: “Obama, HHS, and Sebelius to Those Seeking Affordable Individual Health Insurance Coverage: Bleep You.”
3. Headline from NPR on July 18: “Part-Time Workers Say Schedules Are Getting More Erratic.”
The story:
For many workers, hours are not only short, but increasingly erratic as managers scramble to cover shifts without the steadying influence of experienced full-time employees.
…
The change reflects business owners’ reluctance to hire full-time workers while they still have so many worries about the strength of the recovery and the cost of the Affordable Care Act …
Despite repeated denials by administration officials and economists who should and in many cases do know better, the looming Obamacare train wreck has caused many employers who would have returned to hiring full-timers in a decently recovering economy not to do so.
Better headline: “Obama, HHS, and Sebelius to Part-Time Workers Looking for Predictable Schedules and Hours: Bleep You.”
4. Headline from Forbes: “Sorry, Mom and Dad: The Kids Aren’t Moving Out Yet.”
The story: “The latest population data show that young adults are still living with their parents — even if they have jobs.” Why? Somehow, the economist who did this write-up missed something obvious which Obama has bragged about, namely that “kids” as old as 26 “may be able to be added as a dependent under their parent’s policy” under Obamacare — as long as they stay at home. Meanwhile, because of the historically pathetic post-recession “recovery” seen in this phony economy, those who have jobs are increasingly finding them to be lower-paying, part-time, or both.
Better headline: “Obama Administration to Twenty-somethings Who Need to Get Their Careers Going and Start Achieving Financial Independence (and Their Long-suffering Parents): Bleep you.”
5. Headline from Gateway Pundit: “$700 Million to Promote Obamacare — (But Only) In Swing States.”
The story: Based on identified ad-buying decisions, it has become clear that the administration is less interested in attaining Obamacare sign-ups than it is in placing the equivalent of campaign ads “in battleground states with U.S. Senate races where the Democratic incumbent voted for Obamacare and is defending their vote.” Large markets with huge numbers of the uninsured like New York and Los Angeles are on track to be neglected.
Better headline: “Obama, HHS, and Sebelius to the Uninsured in Non-Swing States: Bleep You.”
6. Headline from Concord, California (HT the Corner): “Half of Affordable Care Act Call Center Jobs Will Be Part-time.”
The story: At a call center being set up to answer consumer questions about Obamacare, “about half the jobs are part-time, with no health benefits.” This has completely blindsided local leaders who expected otherwise, while “the new ‘intermittent’ employees feel like they’ve been used as a political tool.”
Better headline: “Obama, HHS, and Sebelius to Obamacare Call Center Workers and Their Community: Bleep You.”
7. Headline from the Atlantic Wire: “The NSA Admits It Analyzes More People’s Data Than Previously Revealed.”
The story: “[A] National Security Agency representative rather casually indicated that the government looks at data from a universe of far, far more people than previously indicated.”
Better headline: “Obama’s NSA to Americans Who Believe They Have a Presumptive Right of Privacy: Bleep You.”
8. Headline at Fox News: “States Attorneys Now Opposing Feds’ Opposition to Criminal Background Checks for New Hires.”
The story: The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, following up on a position it articulated last year that criminal background checks “can discriminate against African-Americans because they being are arrested at a disproportionate rate compared to the rest of the U.S. population,” has “filed lawsuits against discount retailer Dollar General and a BMW facility in South Carolina” for running such checks.
Better headline: “Obama Administration EEOC to Employers Trying to Protect Themselves and Their Owners From Financial and Other Harm: Bleep You.”
9. Headline from the Associated Press — “Southern States Gird for New Fight on Vote Laws.”
The story: Even though the Supreme Court has struck down the Voting Rights Act’s pre-clearance requirement applied to most southern states and certain other localities with past histories of overt race-based voting rights discrimination — almost all of which occurred 45 or more years ago — Eric Holder’s Department of Justice, in what can only be seen as sheer vindictiveness, intends “to drag some of these mostly Southern states with histories of minority discrimination into rematches.”
Better headline: “Eric Holder to the Supreme Court and the South: Bleep You.”
10. Headline from the Politico: “President Obama’s No-Congress Strategy”
The story:
President Barack Obama is planning to bypass congressional Republicans with a surge of executive actions and orders on issues like voting rights, health care, job creation, the economy, climate change and immigration.
And this time, he really, really, really means it. Really.
Better headline: “Obama to Congress and the People They Represent: Bleep You.”
Readers who follow the news closely surely know that the above examples barely scratch the surface. Those who oppose the president’s “bleep you” agenda still don’t appreciate its magnitude.
Instead, we have a Republican House speaker who believes his role is to be a “facilitator” who offers no political opinions, and a two-faced Senate minority leader who will talk a good game about repealing Obamacare but appears to be chickening out on the most logical way to stop it — defunding it.
Going on offense is the only thing that will work against the “Bleep You” bullies. It’s high time Obama’s Washington and nationwide opposition recognize that.
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