Hillary Supporters Should Be Ashamed of Themselves

The Democrat’s 2016 Presidential hopeful just can’t seem to shake her little email problem and rightly so, she’s created quite the mess for herself.

Hillary Clinton’s emails have been a point of contention from almost the moment she was sworn in as Secretary of State.  News agencies including the Associated Press and watchdog groups such as Judicial Watch have, through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), made countless document request to the State Department pertaining to the then Secretary’s emails.  Many of these request were made long before the Benghazi tragedy took place and just as has been the case with dozens of similar requests made by congressional oversight, these FOIA requests were never fulfilled.

At the time, it was not known publically that the State Department did not retain custody of the former Secretary’s record {she was in fact still serving as Secretary at the time many of these FOIA requests were made} however, this is no longer the case.  We now know the story behind Hillary’s private email account and home brewed email server.

It was almost two years after Hillary’s tenure as Secretary of State ended that she turned over some 50,000 pages of emails to the State Department.  She did not do so out of duty nor to follow policy, she did so only after the State Department, which was coming under mounting pressure to respond to subpoenas, congressional and FOIA requests, encouraged her to do so.

Shortly after turning the emails over to the State Department the story broke of Hillary conducing State Department business using a private email account as well as having a private email server at her personal residence.  Forced to respond to what was quickly growing into a new scandal, at a news conference, following her March 10th speech at the United Nations Forum on Women in Society, Hillary publically admitting to her exclusive use of a private email account and having her own private email server.  Her explanation for using both was nonsensical at best.

Again, it had been nearly two years since her tenure as Secretary of State ended before the State Department finally compelled Hillary to turn over the record of her time serving at State.  During that two year period, the failure of the State Department to produce all of the former Secretary’s documents pertaining to Benghazi made the news hundreds of times.  There were congressional hearings specific to the failure; countless requests made; four congressional oversight reports released that address the failure and even a letter written to President Obama, singed by several congressmen, asking for his assistance in getting the State Department to comply. 

The State Department’s failure to turn over documents, of which we now know were in the sole possession of Hillary Clinton, bounced in and out of the news cycle countless times over those two years.  All the while, Hillary sat and watched quietly. 

But with little choice other than to act on the State Departments request, in October and November of last year, Hillary and her lawyers scoured over the contents of her email server, scrutinizing each email and hand selecting what they saw fit to represent their interpretation of the full account of Hillary's record as Secretary of State.  Some 50,000 pages, representing roughly 30,000 emails were ultimately printed, boxed and turned over to the State Department in early December of 2014.

While Hillary has not done so under oath, she has repeatedly claimed that the 50,000 pages of emails that were turned over to the State Department are in fact the full record of her time as Secretary of State.  However, twice now, emails link to Hillary but not included in the record she turned over to the State Department, have surfaced thus calling to question the completeness of those 50,000 pages.  As well, there appears to be a two month gap in the email string, a gap that covers a critical period of time being scrutinized by the Benghazi Select Committee.

And so, to ensure that the complete record of the period covering the Benghazi investigation is preserved, Trey Gowdy - Chairman of the Select Committee on Benghazi, requested that Hillary voluntarily turn over her private email server to in independent and impartial 3^rd party so that any missing documents pertaining to their investigation could be retrieved.  This request was immediately denied by Hillary’s attorney who also informed Chairman Gowdy that the email server’s hard drive had been scrubbed thus negating the need for anyone to review its contents.

So let us review what we know to this point:

1.  We know that Hillary set up a private email server and email account to which she claims to have used exclusively or all her email correspondence during her tenure as Secretary of State.

2.  At the end of her service as Secretary, Hillary did not turn over her record as is State Department Policy.

3.  For the following two years, Hillary was fully aware of requests being made for her documents {they were being asked for while still serving} yet she stood by silently and watched the State Department make one excuse after another, never revealing the truth which was that they did not have Hillary’s record.

4.  Once finally compelled to turn over her record, Hillary did not turn over the server but instead, with the aid of her lawyers, reviewed each and every document on her email server and printing out those they collectively decided would become the “official” record of her time serving as Secretary of State.

5.  Hillary has refused to turn over her email server which has been requested to ensure that all documents pertaining to the Benghazi investigation can be retrieved. {Update - she has done so since this blog was first posted}

6.  Hillary’s lawyers have claimed that the email server hard drive has been scrubbed.  {Update - We have learned that the sever was in fact NOT SCRUBBED since this blog was first posted}

Wow, that’s quite the list!

As more and more people look into the circumstances surrounding Hillary Clinton’s emails, we may learn that she in fact broke no laws in creating this unique email arrangement with herself.  We may also learn that there were no classified emails sent or received through her private server as many are claiming.  But, none of this matters. 

For whatever reason, Hillary Rodham Clinton willfully and deliberately set up an unorthodox email system, for herself, to be used during her tenure as Secretary of State.  Then, upon her departure from the State Department, Hillary clearly had no intention of turning over her record as is required by all senior government officials.  This should trouble everyone regardless of political affiliation as it is the duty of every elected official to ensure a complete record is kept, both for transparency and historical purposes.

Beyond failing to fulfil her duty and turn over her record, Hillary stood silently and watched a clear division created in our nation over the Benghazi investigation, a division that would have never happened had the requested documentation been handed over to congressional oversight in a timely manner thus allowing the various investigation to reach  a timely conclusion. 

Instead, nearly three years after the attack, congressional oversight is just now getting State Department documents that were in the custody of the former Secretary all this time.  And still, there is no assurance that the full record has been turned over, all we have is the word of the individual who chose to try and keep them out of the public record.  This too should trouble everyone regardless of political affiliation.  But sadly it does not.

The majority of Democrats still rally their support around Hillary Clinton despite the undeniable string of unethical activities that surround her unique email arrangement and her continued defiance to ensure transparency.

For this, Hillary Clinton supporters should most definitely be ashamed of themselves.

ObamaCare 2016 Open Enrollment - Three Data Points Does Form A Trend

Despite poor turnout by the uninsured on the state and federal ObamaCare exchanges, Congressional Republicans have remained largely silent on the issue of the underperforming healthcare exchanges and rightly so.

During the inaugural 2014 open enrollment period only 1.4 million of the 6.7 million individuals who purchased a healthcare plan through one of the state and federal healthcare exchanges came from the nation’s pool of uninsured non-elderly.  By the end of the second open enrollment period an additional 2.3 million joined the ranks of the nation’s insured.  Combined, the result of the two open enrollment periods decreased the nation’s number of uninsured nonelderly by roughly 3.7 million.

(Note:  Since the writing of this blog HHS has released new data which reduces the number of uninsured nonelderly who have purchased and maintained a healthcare plan through the exchanges significantly) 

The Obama Administration has never played up the enrollment through the healthcare exchanges and rightly so as they have been horribly off of projection.  The administration’s target for the 2014 open enrollment period was to insure 7 million of the nation’s long term uninsured and to increase that number to 10 million by the close of the 2015 open enrollment period.  They missed both projection by a significant amount.  It is important to note that these targets were the very same that were used by Democratic lawmakers, and others, during the pitch to get the American public on board with the president’s namesake law.

Republicans have as well remained relatively quiet on the failure of the healthcare exchanges to attract the uninsured although for a different reason. 

Two data points do not form a trend therefore, it would be disastrous for Republican lawmakers to publically call the program, still in its infancy stages, a failure based on such a limited amount of data, despite the healthcare exchanges obvious failure.  The stakes are so high for Democrats that such a challenge would be met with a litany of rebuttals which of course would be difficult to refute on the sole basis of two open enrollment periods.  But all that changes in less than nine months.

The administration is already fearing the worst for the 2016 open enrollment period and have every reason to.  They are at a total loss as for what to do about the poorly performing healthcare exchanges and to be honest, there is nothing short of a miracle that can be done. 

Driven by an even larger penalty for not complying to the federal mandate to obtain healthcare insurance coupled with what was then believed would be lower insurance premiums, the administration originally projected that 12 million of the nations uninsured nonelderly would take advantage of tax subsidies offered through the ObamaCare exchanges during the 2016 open enrollment period.  These projected 12 million individuals, along with the 10 million originally projected to have obtain a qualified healthcare plan during the first two open enrollment periods, would have raised the number of healthcare plans sold to the uninsured nonelderly to an astounding 22 million by the close of the 2016 open enrollment period if the healthcare exchanges were to perform as planned.

But reality speaks far louder than projections and the administration knows that it is all but a mathematical impossibility to achieve its original enrollment goals, it can’t even come close.  And so, Republican lawmakers sit and wait for that 3^rd data point which will establish an irrefutable enrollment trend of failure. 

There will be no excuses that can be made; no claims of inaccurate or unreliable enrollment data; no more saying that the law needs time to work; and most of all, no more spreading the narrative that republicans are targeting ObamaCare simply because they don’t like the president.  If the coming open enrollment period does not produce a significant number of long term uninsured signing up for a qualified healthcare plan, the fate of the law will be signed, sealed and will just be waiting for its finally delivery.  And the time to be delivered will come almost immediately.

If the healthcare exchanges fail to deliver in 2016 it will become one of the major talking points for the 2016 presidential election and with such a large number of republicans having thrown their name in the hat you can be assured that they will come together for the one common cause of staging an all-out assault on ObamaCare and the 2016 Democratic hopefuls who continue to support the law.

It will be impossible for the “party of care” to justify leaving between 10 and 15 million individuals uninsured above the 30 million originally projected by the administration.  As well, it will be impossible for democrats to justify keeping a law on the books that instead of making insurance affordable to all has priced healthcare insurance out of the reach of the average American even with subsidies.

Republican lawmakers have been criticized for not being more aggressive in their attempts to repeal and/or dismantle ObamaCare, waiting for this third data point is the reason why!

Praise for the President appears more like Desperation

As I read through the various news feeds over the weekend I stumble across a number of different articles that seemed to share a common thread, that being that last week was history making for President Obama.  One article I read inferred that the week secured the president’s legacy while another called the week Obama’s best ever.  In each of the articles there was praise given to a president for a number big ticket items that culminated throughout the week.

But is President Obama in fact worthy of the praise that is being doled out to him for the highlights of last week’s news cycle?   When you put in to perspective the impact or influence that the president may have had on any of these events, one would be hard pressed to conclude that he was.

Let’s take for instance the presidents reaction to Friday’s Supreme Court’s ruling on gay marriage and his history on the subject.  Following the ruling the president tweets:

 "Today is a big step in our march toward equality. Gay and lesbian couples now have the right to marry, just like anyone else. #LoveWins."

This reaction is in line with the president’s 2012 flip flop which now puts him in support of gay marriage.  Hey, we all grow right and certainly Obama is not the first president to conveniently “evolve” their positions on a hot button issue.   However, this is not the first time that the president has flip flopped on this particular topic. 

Back when Obama was running for the Illinois State Senate he was questioned by a Chicago based gay newspaper as to his position on gay marriage.  Obama answered that he supported gay marriage and that he would fight any effort to prohibit such.  It was just a couple of years later that Obama shifted to an “undecided” position on gay marriage which later then evolved in to the position that he supported civil unions but not gay marriage, a position he held during his 2004 run for the US Senate.  Obama has provided a number or explanations to his constant shifting on the position of gay marriage over the years, none of which holds much water but of course are accepted by his devout supporters.

As for the Supreme Court’s decision in support of gay marriage this past Friday, I don’t think we can honestly consider President Obama’s two decades of flip flopping position on the matter to be credible and certainly not worthy of any praise being given to him by the media and his supporters.  His ever changing position on the matter of gay marriage proves that he is either indecisive or that his actions are politically motivated.  Neither is a very attractive trait in a leader.


And what about Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling on King vs Burwell.  The left has claimed this as a major victory that has sealed the president’s legacy.  Someone somehow concluded that this decision ensures that ObamaCare is engraved in stone and safe from repeal yet reality draws a much different conclusion.  The same problems that plagued the controversial healthcare law before Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling were still there after the decision was read and the problems facing ObamaCare continue to mount.  As for the President’s involvement in this decision, there was none.

If however the president must be recognized in some way for his contribution to ObamaCare, he should be chastised instead of praised as had the Supreme Court ruled in favor of King then the tax subsidies for over 6 million individuals would have been toppled by four words contained in a poorly written law which bears his name.

Then there was the President’s recent trade agreement that after an early defeat and fierce debate in congress, was finally passed.  One of only a few check marks on the President’s “to do” list, since he took office in 2009, and hardly one that should foster any praise for him or any democrat for that matter.  How ironic is it that one of the very few key legislative accomplishment of President Obama’s terms in office happened at the will of Republicans while facing heavy opposition by his own party.  If there is any praise to be handed out over this trade agreement, it needs to go to those on the right who made the deal possible for the president.

And this past Friday, President Obama delivered the eulogy for Rev. Clementa Pinckney, the pastor who died in the senseless shooting on June 17^th during a prayer meeting.  It was a moving and memorable moment without question but certainly not a defining one, presidentially speaking, as it was described in many of the articles that gave praise to the president over the weekend.

One article in particular that I read was titled “Barack Obama is officially one of the most consequential presidents inAmerican history”.  This particular article, while inspired by the events of the King vs Burwell ruling, was more a recap of what the author felt were the grand achievements of President Obama.  However, just as the events of last week were overblown as some type of presidential achievements, so were the talking point in this article.  The opening paragraph of this article reads as follows:

After Thursday's Supreme Court ruling, there's no longer any doubt: Barack Obama is one of the most consequential presidents in American history — and he will be a particularly towering figure in the history of American progressivism.

It may in fact be true that Barack Obama will be recognized as a significant figure in the history of American progressivism, however, those expecting favorable recognition for Obama might find disappointment in the forthcoming history books. 

The article provided significant discussion on the history and the failed attempts of past administrations to impose national healthcare upon the states.  In contrast, the article dedicated only a few lines to ObamaCare, mentioning only its success in expanding Medicaid.  No other successes were mentioned and of course there were no mentions of the laws numerous failures.

The article moved on to the president’s early stimulus package without addressing the fact that it ultimately failed to create any shovel ready jobs nor did it simulate the economy in any measureable way.  It author of the article also pointed out the bold yet ineffective use of Executive Actions by the president aimed to curb greenhouse gases and grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens, along with a list of others.  Of course there was mention of the president’s historic yet meaningless action to reestablish relations with Cuba and the Iranian nuclear deal which looks as though could be the worst foreign policy move of his presidency, which is saying a great deal.

In all fairness, the article did point out some of Obama’s failures are president although it tamped them down significantly, leaving out the worst policy errors altogether.  The article was predictably void of  mention to the mountain of scandals that surrounds Obama’s Presidency nor was there any mention made that President Obama is responsible for creating the least transparent administration of any in all US history.

While I understand that the left must capitalize on every opportunity that presents itself to bolster their lame duck presidents appearance, they probably should reel in the rhetoric a bit as the weakness of President Obama’s past weeks achievement make their praise come off more as desperation than an affirmation of presidential successes.

The Hillary Clinton Email Scandal Will Put to Test the Morals and Ethics of the Democratic Voter

There is a great deal that we do not nor likely will ever know about the emails Hillary Clinton stored on her private email server during her tenure as Secretary of State however, there are a number of things that we do know for certain about the email scandal.  Let’s review.

We know for certain that, at her own public admission, Hillary Clinton chose to opt out of using a government email account and instead purposely used her own private email server, a Clinton owned domain and a personal email account to which she claims to have conducted all of her email correspondence on while serving as Secretary of State.  We know that this decision was deliberate as she had the email account set up just days before her Secretary of State Confirmation hearing began.  

We also know for certain, and again at her own public admission, that Hillary Clinton consciously and deliberately chose to retain sole custody of the contents on her private email server after her departure from the State Department.

Most troubling, we know for certain that while an endless stream of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and congressional oversight requests for Hillary Clinton’s emails were being made, some even while she was still serving as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton stood by silently, knowing that she held the full record of what was being requested in her basement yet never released them.  She held her silence even knowing that subpoenas were issued for her emails.

What we don’t know for certain is exactly what it was that finally drove Hillary Clinton to provide the State Department with her emails, two years after the fact.  It is reasonable to assume however, that someone within the State Department who was under pressure to turn over Clinton emails to the various agencies requesting them, compelled Hillary to do so.

And we do know for certain that the emails Hillary Clinton turned over to the State Department were handpicked, by herself, and then scrutinized by her team of lawyers before the hard copies were boxed up and delivered to the State Department.  What we don’t, or at least we didn’t know at the time, was if what was turned over to the State Department was a full record of her time served as Secretary of State.

We know for certain that the request from congress for Hillary to turn over her private email server to a third party arbitrator was denied.  At the same time this request was denied it was also disclosed {claimed} that they {the Clinton’s} had the email server’s hard drive “scrubbed” of its contents following the retrieval of the some 50,000 printed pages of emails which were subsequently turned over to the State Department.

And while Hillary Clinton has repeatedly claimed that the hard copy of her emails were the full record of her time served as Secretary of State which existed on her private email server, we know for certain that this is an untruth.  On at least two occasions since the handpicked set of email document were turned over to the State Department, additional email documents, belonging to the former Secretary, have surfaced that were not part of the record she turned over to the State Department.

Now Let’s Summarize!

Hillary Clinton created a personal email system of which she had sole custody of, to be used to conduct the people’s business on while serving as Secretary of State. 

While still in office and during the early stages of the Benghazi investigations Hillary was fully aware of the requests being made to the State Department for her emails yet played ignorant and did not turn them over.

Upon her departure from the State Department Hillary made the conscious decision to withhold all of her email records and for the following two years again played ignorant to the well-publicized news reports {and I’m sure we was being briefed on this matter from the inside} of the State Department failing to turn over documents pertaining to her service as Secretary of State.

Two years after her term ended as Secretary of State and only after coming under pressure from the State Department did Hillary Clinton turn over a handpicked selection of her Secretary of State emails and turn them over to the State Department.

As a result of the Clinton emails being turned over to the State Department, who then were able to respond to at least some of the FOIA requests, it was first discovered that Hillary was using a private email account; that she stored those emails on a private email server of which was under her sole care and custody; and that she had been withholding her emails all this time.

And finally, we have learned that the 50,000 hard copy pages of emails that Hillary Clinton turned over to the State Department in fact is not the full record of her time served as Secretary of State, such as she has claimed them to be a numerous occasions.

 

In a nut shell, the former Secretary of State and now 2016 Democratic hopeful has proven that she can willfully and intentionally hide the people’s records from the people and ignore legal subpoenas.  She has also proven that she is willing to lie to the people, as she did when she claimed that she had turned over all of her email records from her service as Secretary of State.  She only did so two years after the fact and only because she was compelled to do so.

The time and money that has been wasted in congressional oversight due to the obstructions created by Hillary Clinton intentionally hiding the people’s emails from the people is shameful, not to mention the division between the parties it has caused.  But aside from all that, what Hillary Clinton has done is created a moral and ethical issue that each Democratic voter must look square in the face and decided which direction their compass points.

A Supreme Court Ruling in Favor of King could save Democrats

We will know as early as Thursday and no later than this coming Monday, how the Supreme Court rules in the case of King vs Burwell. 

So what happens if the Supreme Court rules in favor of King in this case?  Well, if you listen to the rhetoric coming from the Obama Administration, the ruling will be utter chaos and millions of hard working Americans, 6.4 million to be exact, will all find their healthcare unaffordable and consequently they will be without.  And of course, the administration has assured everyone that Republican’s do not have a clue as what they might do if in fact they win this case.

As well, the Obama Administration claims to have no fallback plan of their own and speaks mostly of the doom and gloom that will befall those 6.4 million who will have their healthcare plans snatched from their hands if the Supreme Court does not do what Constitutional Scholars expect them to do.

And as do Republican lawmakers, the Obama Administration certainly does have a plan B, if they don’t then they are without a doubt the most inept administration that has ever served the White House.  The big question is, will either party have to reveal their plan B?  That we will have to wait and see.

But what if the Supreme Court rules in favor of Burwell, would this be a grand victory for the Obama Administration?  Well I guess to at least some Democrats maybe, but such a decision would do nothing to help with the litany of both old and new problems that are certain to doom the already struggling healthcare law, it would only prolong the laws suffering.

While you’ll never get one to admit it publically, there certainly has to be some number of Democrats in congress that would not lose any sleep if in fact the Supreme Court ruled in favor of King.  Politically this would take the pressure off of Democrats who have had to live with this ObamaCare albatross around their neck.  ObamaCare has already cost Democrats the House and the Senate and if the law continues to deteriorate, it could very easily seal their fate in losing the White House.

Granted, repealing the individual mandate, for all intents and purposes, guts the law.  But politically speaking, if a solid fix could be put in place that brought stability to what remained of ObamaCare, it would be difficult for Republicans to gain public support to repeal the entire law even if they were to win the White House.  On the other hand, if the law continues to falter, Democrats might be forced to take a position against ObamaCare.  Having the wheels already set in motion by a Republican action significantly lessens the political backlash as oppose to what Democrats would face if the law simply imploded upon itself while under Democrat’s control.

It will be interesting to see what happens either way and I hope folks on the left are not going to be too disappointed when the world does not come to an end if in fact the ruling is in favor of King.

Apparently ObamaCare is Just for Poor People

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) release their monthly report, dated May 1, 2015, in which it stated that 11.7 million individuals have enrolled for Medicaid/CHIP since the rollout of the Medicaid expansion.  And just a few days later, on May 5th, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a report which stated that since several of the Affordable Care Act’s coverage provisions took affect, 16.4 million uninsured people have gained health insurance coverage.  The figure reported by HHS included the 2.3 million young adults who gained healthcare through the provision in the law which allowed them to stay on their parent’s insurance plan until the October 2013 rollout of the healthcare exchanges. 

So what do these figures tell us?  Well, they tell us that over 85% of those who have benefited for ObamaCare are of low income.

And while it is important to assist those that are in need, the intent of ObamaCare was to reduce the number of all uninsured people not just those eligible for FREE Medicaid.  However, using the Obama Administration’s own published figures, it looks like they left the middle class out of their plan.

It is important to note that at the time of the ObamaCare rollout, the number of uninsured people whose income was above that which qualifies for Medicaid was roughly double that of those who qualify for Medicaid.

The Irony of ObamaCare Subsidies

With the Supreme Court expecting to release their decision on the King vs. Burwell case any day now, Democrats, with the aid of the liberal media, have been pushing the narrative that Republicans will be responsible for the 6.4 million Americans that could face the possibility of losing their healthcare if the SCOTUS rules in favor of King.

How ironic is it that the party who solely created and passed a massively complex and purely partisan piece of legislation of which the majority of Americans have never been in favor of, wants to make this a Republican problem.  But there is an even greater irony of which pertains to the subsidies themselves.

Let’s brake this whole subsidies thing down so to see what I am talking about.

Of the 6.4 million individuals the Obama Administration claims could lose their healthcare insurance if in fact the Supreme Court rules in favor of the King, well over 4 million of those individuals were insured and paying a premium they found affordable prior to being mandated to do so by the Federal Government.  Now that's ironic

And of the roughly 2 million in balance, whom we have no idea of what their income status is other than it is above what would qualify them for Medicaid, the narrative Democrats would like people to believe is that every one of these 2 million or so individuals would find healthcare insurance unaffordable without the aid of subsidies.  However, it is just as likely that some percentage of these individuals were capable of affording healthcare insurance at pre-Obamacare rates but simply chose not to.  This too is quite ironic.

Whatever the percentage of these 2 million individuals, whose income is in fact so low that they are relied upon the subsidies in order to afford healthcare insurance, they would be no worse off if they where to lose their insurance than they were before Obamacare existed.  And if in fact these individuals were to lose their healthcare plans, they would have Congressional Democrats and  President Obama to thank for passing in to law such a convoluted, poorly written and massively unpopular partisan healthcare bill that was certain to be riddled with problems and likely to be repealed.

And wouldn’t it be ironic of it took a Supreme Court decision in favor of King to finally get ObamaCare out of the way so that legislators could then sit down and ultimately create a market based healthcare reform plan that actually made healthcare affordable instead of just getting other people to pay for a subsidies Band-Aid?