Speaking at the sixth annual Women in The World Summit, Hillary Clinton used euphemisms like “reproductive rights” and “reproductive health” — which of course, includes abortion — and said “deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed” for the sake of giving “access” to women for “reproductive health care.”
Those deep-seated religious beliefs of yours need to be changed, at least according to Ms. Clinton.
Mike McCurry, the former White House press secretary for President Bill Clinton from 1995-1998, thinks Hillary Clinton would make an excellent Supreme Court Justice. He writes, for Real Clear Politics:
What if a vacancy now appeared on our nation’s highest court? Given the bitterness and polarization that exists in Washington today, it is hard to imagine any nominee offered by Barack Obama having a less than tumultuous path to confirmation.
With one exception: Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Hillary Clinton would bring to the U.S. Supreme Court a keen intellectual perspective, a robust appetite for the legal give and take that makes good fodder for judicial decisions, and a personality that would fit well in the current court and help build consensus and respect for constitutional law — a subject she knows very well going all the way back through two impeachment discussions involving U.S. presidents. No doubt her memories of those times, painful and otherwise, would give her a perspective on the constitutional balance of powers that no other sitting justice could equal.
Hillary would bring “intellectual perspective” and “a robust appetite for the legal” while building “consensus and respect for constitutional law”? Is Mr. McCurry smoking some medical marijuana? Hillary is a pathological liar that has demonstrated that she’ll do anything to advance HER agenda.
…And would not she have a longer-term, more lasting impact on the direction of our country as a consensus-building Supreme Court justice than as a U.S. president trying to govern in the stultifying, sulfurous atmosphere of a divided Washington?
Haven’t we had enough of politicians that govern by fiat because they say the tiresome, cumbersome system set up by our Constitution is too slow?
…Hillary is probably the one person Barack Obama could nominate who would be confirmed in a nanosecond, hopefully because many senators would see her as superbly qualified jurist, but also because some no doubt would like to see a formidable presidential contender removed from the field.
Not only is Hillary über partisan and not a “superbly qualified jurist,” she is not a formidable presidential contender. Hell, the community organizer with limited qualifications whipped her. Any GOP candidate with conservative credentials would destroy her.
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Mr. Obama has an interesting perspective regarding separation of powers, Presidential fiat and future abuse when he sat down with ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos on ‘This Week’ 11/23/14.
In his own words:
STEPHANOPOULOS: How do you respond to the argument, a future president comes in, wants lower taxes. Doesn’t happen. Congress won’t do it – he says I’m not going to prosecute those who don’t pay capital gains tax.
OBAMA: Well, the truth of the matter is, George, that the reason that we have to do prosecutorial discretion in immigration is that we know we are not even close to being able to deal with the folks who have been here a long time. The vast majority of folks understand that they need to pay taxes, and when we conduct an audit, for example, we are selecting those folks who are most likely to be cheating. We’re not going after millions and millions of people who everybody knows are here and were taking advantage of low wages as they’re mowing lawns or cleaning out bedpans, and looking the other way – but then you got politicians suddenly going out there saying, suggesting somehow that we should be deporting all of them. Everybody knows, including Republicans, that we’re not going to deport 11 million people.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So you don’t think it’d be legitimate for a future president to make that argument?
OBAMA: With respect to taxes? Absolutely not. But what is true – what is true today is we don’t audit every single person, but we still expect that people are going to go ahead and follow the law. And we have limited resources, we have to make sure that we prioritize those folks who are most dangerous and we should acknowledge what everybody has already acknowledged through their actions – and Congress acknowledges through their budget – which is we’re not in the business of deporting millions of people or breaking up families.
Interesting that Obama says “we still expect that people are going to go ahead and follow the law.” Yet, when millions don’t, i.e. illegally entering the country, he believes that those people should be given a pass.
Read the full transcript of the ABC ‘This Week’ interview here.
So, how does the House Intelligence Committee explain the apology ad? Just curious.
According to the Wall Street Journal:
GOP-Led Panel Says Administration ‘Talking Points’ Were Flawed; Military, CIA Responded Properly
A House report on the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya, concludes that the Central Intelligence Agency and U.S. military responded properly and that Obama administration “talking points” were flawed, but didn’t find that administration officials attempted to mislead the public.
The two-year-long investigation by the Republican-led House intelligence committee is the latest congressional probe to examine the attacks, and its conclusions deflate allegations suggesting misconduct by the Obama administration.
Among other findings, the report concluded that a CIA response team hadn’t been ordered to “stand down” after an assault began on the U.S. compound, and didn’t delay a rescue operation.
The report also said there had been no intelligence failure prior to the attacks, and that intelligence on those who participated in the attacks “was and remains conflicting” concerning their identities, affiliations and motivations.
So, there was no misleading in the attempt to coverup the lack of security, or no attempt in covering up the cause of the attack?
Panel members said they have “endeavored to make the facts and conclusions within this report widely and publicly available so that the American public can separate the actual facts from the swirl of rumors and unsupported allegations.”
The report by the House intelligence panel is unlikely to be the last word on the furor over Benghazi. A separate investigation by a House select committee is under way and members said Friday they have reviewed the House intelligence report.
The issue is certain to be raised in the 2016 presidential race if Democrat Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state in 2012, decides to run. GOP attacks over Benghazi have focused on Mrs. Clinton, as well as on Susan Rice , then the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and now the White House national security adviser.
Ms. Rice, appearing on television news programs a week after the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks, described the events in ways later found to be inaccurate.
The report Friday found that while public statements by Ms. Rice and other U.S. officials eventually were proven wrong, the inaccuracies stemmed from poor intelligence rather than manipulation of the information.
Rather than accusing Ms. Rice and the administration of deception, the panel said, “The early intelligence assessments and the administration’s initial public narrative on the causes and motivations for the attacks were not fully accurate.”
Early intelligence indicated that the attacks evolved from a protest, the report said. Other available early intelligence—which turned out later to be correct—didn’t assert there had been a protest.
Nonetheless, the CIA initially assessed that the attacks grew out of a protest, the House report said. The CIA changed its initial assessment nearly a week after Ms. Rice appeared on Sunday shows to discuss the event, determining there had been no demonstration…
In a statement, Rep. Mike Rogers (R., Mich.), the committee chairman, and Rep. C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger (D., Md.), the senior Democrat, said the report stemmed from “thousands of hours” of investigation, including interviews with senior intelligence officials and security personnel and an extensive review of documents and intelligence assessments.
“Based on the testimony and the documents we reviewed, we concluded that all the CIA officers in Benghazi were heroes,” Messrs. Rogers and Ruppersberger said.
A bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report released in January sharply criticized American diplomats and intelligence officials, and found that the assault in Benghazi was “likely preventable” through improved security and intelligence operations.
Write to FELICIA SCHWARTZ
According to a Washington Post story, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that, not only did Jonathan Gruber not play a significant role in drafting Obamacare, but that she doesn’t even “know who he is.”
Pelosi on Gruber: “I don’t know who he is. He didn’t help write our bill.” According to the Washington Post, Pelosi mentioned Gruber and his work in November 2009, at the height of the Obamacare debate.
Here’s the transcript published by the Washington Post, via Nexis:
Q: As you know, the Republicans released their health- care bill this week. And I wanted to get your comment on the bill, and specifically on the CBO analysis that it would cost significantly less than the Democratic plan and that it would lower premiums.
PELOSI: Let me just say this. Anything you need to know about the difference between the Democratic bill and the Republican bill is that the Republicans do not end the health insurance companies’ discrimination against people with preexisting conditions. They let that stand. That’s scandalous, the fact that it exists. I don’t understand why they have not heard the American people, who have said preexisting conditions should not be a source of discrimination.
And secondly, the Republican plan ensures about 3 million more people than now, and ours does 36 million people. So that’s a very big difference in that.
We’re not finished getting all of our reports back from CBO, but we’ll have a side by side to compare. But our bill brings down rates. I don’t know if you have seen Jonathan Gruber of MIT’s analysis of what the comparison is to the status quo versus what will happen in our bill for those who seek insurance within the exchange. And our bill takes down those costs, even some now, and much less preventing the upward spiral.
So again, we’re confident about what we set out to do in the bill: middle class affordability, security for our seniors, and accountability to our children.
In trying to distance herself from Gruber, Pelosi’s spokesperson Drew Hammill told the Post that the minority leader meant that she didn’t know Gruber personally. He posted this statement via Twitter to clarify the comment.
Mr. Gruber, who has been touted as a leading architect of ObamaCare, according to Pelosi and Hammill, played no role in drafting th bill
Apparently “the stupidity of the American voter” is something the Democrats are clinging to, somewhat like conservative cling to their guns and Bibles.
Justice Roberts got ObamaCare wrong: ObamaCare was written as a fine because had it been written as a tax, it would not have passed. The American people bought this garbage legislation and SCOTUS gave it a stamp of approval.
President Obama wasn’t lying to conservatives, but rather liberals to get the Affordable Care Act passes. At least we know which group of people the Democrat party believes to be stupid, as no conservative believed the lies.
Chief Justice Roberts interpreted the law as written (a fine) to mean a tax. In Mr. Gruber’s words, “this bill was written in a tortured way to make sure the CBO did not score the mandate as taxes. If the CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies.” Words have meaning, especially in laws and legal proceedings. Justice Roberts bought the lie.
SCOTUS has the opportunity to get it right when the ACA comes before them again soon. We’ll understand if the letter of the law matters or if just the intent of the law is acceptable, no matter how fuzzy or deceitful the language . If intent is good enough, then our system of government is finished.
It’s just — you can’t do it — politically. You just literally cannot do it. OK, transparent financing. Let’s start with transparent financing – transparent spending. I mean, the, this bill was written in a tortured way to make sure the CBO did not score the mandate as taxes. If the CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies. Okay. So its written to do that. In terms of, in terms of risk-rated subsidies, if you get a law which said healthy people are going to pay in — you made it explicit that healthy people pay in and sick people get money — it would not have passed. Okay. Just like the lack of — people — transparent — lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, you know, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to get the thing to pass. And, you know, it’s the second best argument, look, I wish Mark was right and we could make it all transparent, but I rather have this law than not. So its kind of like his reporter story, you know, yeah, there’s things I wish I could change, but rather have this law than not.
We should congratulate Mr. Gruber for his honesty.
George Orwell’s 1984 is a step closer to reality, albeit 30 years late. The top European Union court has deemed that if something on the Internet doesn’t suit you, it must be scrubbed. Left or right, this is a dangerous idea.
[T]he European Union’s top court that EU citizens have a legal right to control the availability of “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant or excessive” information about them, material that would otherwise remain permanently available via Google and other search engines. …
The “right to be forgotten” is the quintessential example of a slippery slope. It starts off with a seemingly undeniable premise, which is that the Web has made it easier than ever before to commit and disseminate libel and slander. Moreover, I think most of us would agree that there’s something decidedly discomfiting about the equally undeniable fact that a 12-year-old can post foolish comments about another person (or about himself) that will be universally accessible forever after. There oughta be a law, right? But the trouble with such arguments is that they have a way of running into the law of unintended consequences, at which point terrible things can happen. …
All this serves as a valuable reminder of how our existing notions of “truth” are being undermined by the migration of information from the printed page to cyberspace, which is infinitely malleable. George Orwell predicted as much when he wrote in Nineteen Eighty-Four of the ceaseless and insidious activities of the Ministry of Truth, one of whose functions was to alter previously published newspaper, magazine and encyclopedia articles to bring them into more perfect accord with the latest dictates of Big Brother. Any evidence to the contrary was promptly dropped down the nearest “memory hole” and whisked away to an incinerator. Today such rewriting is vastly easier: Any editor who longs to change history need only alter the electronic text of his online edition, instantly and at will. It’s carved in mush, not stone.”
I’m no fan of Robert Reich, but back in 2007 he spoke honestly about ObamaCare: Young people will pay more, old people will not get all the care they want in the last years of life, and medical advancement will be stunted. A rare occasion for a liberal.
Could a student that worked a summer minimum wage job make enough to pay a year’s tuition in 1978? If someone was to work a full-time summer job today, how much would the minimum wage need to be?
In 1978, the minimum wage was $2.65. Working a full-time summer job (40 hrs x 12 weeks) would gross $1,272.
I couldn’t find the average tuition for a four-year degree in 1978, but in 1981 it was $3,951.
That 1978 summer job would only pay 32.1% of that tuition bill, leaving one $2,679 short. The claim that working a summer job at minimum wage would pay a year’s tuition is obviously false.
Fast forward to 2014. What will minimum wage get you?
Working a summer job at today’s minimum wage of $7.25 would gross $3,489.
The average annual tuition in 2012 was $33,716 (2012 is the most recent data I could find). A full-time summer job in 2012 would only pay 10.3% of that tuition.
Granted, $7.25 today is not equal to $2.65 in 1978. 1978’s $2.65 per hour, when adjusted for inflation, would equal $9.69/hour today; that means $2.65 in 1978 was worth 33% more than $7.25 is worth in 2014.
The average annual tuition in 1981 was $3,951. Adjusted for inflation, that would be $9,554 (in 2012). The average yearly tuition in 2012 came to $33,716. That’s a whopping 352% increase in tuition costs.
Today’s minimum wage rate lags behind the wage in 1978. What is extraordinary, however, is the exponential increase in college tuition.
To earn $33,716 working a minimum wage job full time during the summer break, the minimum wage would need to be $70.24.
Sources:
Historical minimum wage data: http://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/chart.htm
Education costs: http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=76
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