PrairiePundit

Yahoo:   The Washington Examiner recently reported on an academic study on the 2008 presidential election entitled "The Palin Effect" that examined the effect of then Gov. Palin on the John McCain campaign. Its conclusions run counter to conventional wisdom. The cliché, advanced by the media and the now infamous HBO TV show "Game Change," was that Palin helped to cost McCain the election because of her "controversial" personality. In fact, typical of most vice presidential running mates, Palin had a marginal but largely positive effect on McCain's standing with the voters. She certainly did not drive away independents and moderates, who along with Republicans approved and liked her. This analysis pretty much tracks with the effect of a vice presidential running mate has for most presidential elections. Opponents of an opposing ticket occasionally make the serious mistake of focusing on the person on the bottom of the ticket. Voters make decisio

Daily Beast: The Kremlin cheated on a nuclear pact it signed with the United States, the U.S. government believes—and Secretary Kerry was briefed on the violations almost a year ago. Congressional leaders are acting to force the Obama administration to confront Russia on its violations of a nuclear treaty that U.S. officials have acknowledged since 2012. On November 27 of that year, two top Obama administration officials held a closed-door hearing with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Sen. John Kerry, who only months later would become President Obama’s secretary of state . Inside the top-secret hearing, acting Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Rose Gottemoeller and Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global Strategic Affairs Madelyn Creedon told lawmakers that Russia had violated the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) , according to two U.S. officials who attended the classified meeting. Inside the meeting, Kerry ex

Information is going into a black hole for some people. Here is more on the problem that is effecting about five percent of applicants at this point.

Events have proved that his opposition was a good argument against Obamacare.

Dallas Morning News: Insurance companies, brokers and consumer advocates say a highly publicized national wave of health plan cancellations largely bypassed Texas. There are several complex reasons, but one of the biggest is this: Following the example of Arkansas and other Southern states, the Texas Department of Insurance told health insurers in June that they could compress the contractual period of this year’s policies. That meant they could be renewed late this year. The little-noticed advisory may have steered as many as 2.2 million Texans who are in individual or small-group plans around the federal health care law’s demands for richer benefits and tighter caps on out-of-pocket expenses until almost 2015. So when President Barack Obama tried to quell a political furor by announcing Nov. 14 that canceled policies could be extended for one more year, it had little practical effect in Texas. Insurance broker John Krantz of the McLaughlin Brunson Insurance Agency of Dallas says ea

Daily Beast: Maj. Jason Brezler’s warnings about an Afghan police chief and his ‘tea boys’ went unaddressed, and three Marines were slain. One year later, the Marines are taking action—against him. More than a year after three Marines were shot to death on their base in an insider attack by an Afghan police chief’s “tea boy,” there is still no official explanation for why a warning that could well have prevented the tragedy seems to have gone unheeded. There is also no explanation for why the police chief was allegedly allowed to sexually assault children with apparent impunity on an American military facility. But authorities have taken action against one person they should be praising, the 32-year-old Marine Reserve officer who issued the warning about the police chief and his crimes. Marine Reserve Maj. Jason Brezler—now also a firefighter with the elite Rescue 2 of the FDNY—faces a forced exit from the Marine Corps as a result of an inconsequential security infraction he committe

Opinion Journal: ... This political mugging is especially unfair to the people whose plans on the current individual market are being taken away. The majority of these consumers are self-employed or small-business owners. They're middle class, rarely affluent. They took responsibility for their care without government aid, and unlike people in the job-based system, they paid with after-tax dollars. Now they're being punished for the crime of not subsidizing ObamaCare, even though the individual market was never as dysfunctional or high cost as liberals claim. In 2012, average U.S. individual premiums were $190, ranging from a low of $123 in North Dakota to a high of $385 in Massachusetts. Average premiums for family plans fell that year by 0.5% to $412. Those numbers come from the 13,000 different policies from 180 insurers sold on eHealthInsurance.com, the online shopping brokerage that works. (Technological wonders never cease.) Individuals can make the trade-offs between

Guardian: Britons protest over Israel plan to remove 70,000 Palestinian Bedouins More than 50 public figures including Antony Gormley and Brian Eno put names to letter opposing expulsion from historic land ... With this:   Saudi Arabia drives out 2m migrants Ethiopian workers face hostility amid 'Saudisation' campaign to control foreign labour and get more Saudi citizens into work There is little protest about the Saudi action affecting two million people, but great protest about the action by Israel on a much smaller population.   It suggest there is an ethnic bias against the people of Israel.

Washington Post: Obama may be a rare ex-president who stays in Washington I think he is going to have a tough time being an ex president.  Giving up changing a law on a whim will be difficult.

This looks like a very effective ad.  AFP has produced some of the best ads in recent years.  Hopefully voters will respond appropriately and vote against the Democrats who supported this bad law.

Daily Caller: ... The Iraq War “was won and we were in a position, if we had just negotiated a status of forces agreement, to have an ally in the region, to have a base, to train their air force — that would have changed the course of the future,” he told The Daily Caller. “Instead, a decision was made by the new administration to evacuate, leaving a vacuum where Iran has come in, where al-Qaida thrives and al-Qaida actually has extended itself into Syria. This was all unnecessary — and all the result of the liquidation of a war that was won.” ... Obama's handling of the situation in Iraq maybe one of the biggest blunders in recent history.  It is an example of the overrated intellect of a liberal President.  There are many losers as a result that go beyond US policy goals and the biggest losers are those who still live in the region and have to contend with a resurgence of the sectarian violence and the evils of a religious bigot hegemony from Iran.   This failure also shows th

WSJ: Prisoners Fight U.S. Over Repatriation From Guantanamo Bay Effort to Close Prison Hits Snag as Some Detainees Resist Transfer to Home Countries This has to be a disappointment to the human rights wackos who have created a myth of oppression around the facility.

American Prospect: Media Needs to Do More to Help Obamacare   They have already done too much to foist this monstrosity on us.

Washington Times: N.M. students take refuge in bus stop ‘kid cages’ as gray wolf population soars For some reason a dangerous predator remains on the Endangered Feces Act while kids are put at risk just trying to catch a school bus.  The Act should be abolished, if this is a result.

Express: The Argentine Embassy in London tonight issued a statement warning British companies and individuals they face prison sentences of up to 15 years. Fines equivalent to the value of 1.5 million barrels of oil–about £100million at current prices–would also be levied. The move by Buenos Aeries is a major ratcheting of the tension in the region and has triggered a furious response by the Foreign Office reminding Argentina that the Falklands are British sovereign territory. The new law means companies would also be banned from operating in Argentina and any oil found or exploration equipment would be confiscated. The statement said the Argentine Embassy in London has already sent more than 200 letters to companies directly or indirectly involved and “warning them they are liable to administrative, civil and criminal actions in accordance with the laws governing such activities, including environmental protection laws”. Argentina, which has previously made formal protests to London

Telegraph: A young Royal Marine officer likened to Lawrence of Arabia for immersing himself in an Afghan police unit to live and fight alongside them has received one of the highest awards for gallantry. Capt Owen Davis learnt fluent Pashto, grew a long beard and bonded with his Afghan militiamen comrades in Helmand over poetry and cricket. He fought alongside them almost daily against local Taliban insurgents and was nearly killed when a grenade landed at his feet during the storming of one compound. The 25-year-old from Swansea received a Conspicuous Gallantry Cross, second only to a Victoria Cross, for his courage and “exemplary” leadership. ... Capt Davis, a former professional rower, worked as a cultural advisor for nearly a year in Helmand. He was sent to review a unit of Afghan police in the Upper Gereshk valley who were struggling against attacks from a determined insurgent commander. After earning their trust, he felt safe enough to live alongside them with no other British

Bloomberg/Houston Chronicle: Statoil said oil discoveries off eastern Canada may signal potential crude finds off Morocco in northwest Africa because the regions could have similar geology. Statoil’s latest Bay du Nord find in Canada’s Flemish Pass Basin may hold as much as 600 million barrels of recoverable oil, according to the Norwegian company. That part of the North American coast used to be joined with Africa before the continents’ tectonic plates moved apart more than 100 million years ago. “The analogue is probably more toward northwestern Africa, toward Morocco,” Tim Dodson, vice president of exploration at Statoil, said in an interview . “This is where potentially you could look.” Some of the world’s biggest oil companies, including BP and Chevron Corp., plan to expand operations off Morocco this decade, while the U.K.’s Cairn Energy started a new well there in October. Across the Atlantic Ocean in Canada, Statoil and local partner Husky Energy made their first discovery a

AP/Houston Chronicle: Mexican drug cartels looking to diversify their businesses long ago moved into oil theft, pirated goods, extortion and kidnapping, consuming an ever larger swath of the country's economy. This month, federal officials confirmed the cartels have even entered the country's lucrative mining industry, exporting iron ore to Chinese mills. Such large-scale illegal mining operations were long thought to be wild rumor, but federal officials confirmed they had known about the cartels' involvement in mining since 2010, and that the Nov. 4 military takeover of Lazaro Cardenas, Mexico's second-largest port, was aimed at cutting off the cartels' export trade. That news served as a wake-up call to Mexicans that drug traffickers have penetrated the country's economy at unheard-of levels, becoming true Mafia-style organizations. The Knights Templar cartel and its predecessor, the La Familia drug gang, have been stealing or extorting shipments of iron or

This has some very realistic animation.  It shows how the various elements of a missile defense system work.  Remember when Democrats said this would never work?

Daily Mail: Boy, 7, born with rare cancer loses his insurance because of Obamacare... leaving his parents needing $50,000 to pay for life-saving chemotherapy There is no good explanation for this travesty.  Democrats can try blaming insurance companies, but they can't ignore the fact that had this monstrosity not been passed and signed into law, this child and his family would still be covered. And there is this: Sortly after giving the interview to Megan Kelly, Bill Elliot received a notice that the IRS was auditing his returns for several years back.

AP/Washington Times: China said it sent warplanes into its newly declared maritime air defense zone Thursday, days after the U.S., South Korea and Japan all sent flights through the airspace in defiance of rules Beijing says it has imposed in the East China Sea. China's air force sent several fighter jets and an early warning aircraft on normal air patrols in the zone, the Xinhua agency reported, citing air force spokesman Shen Jinke . SEE ALSO: South Korea, Japan join U.S. in defying China’s air defense zone The report did not specify exactly when the flights were sent or whether they had encountered foreign aircraft. The United States, Japan and South Korea have said they have sent flights through the zone without encountering any Chinese response since Beijing announced the creation of the zone last week. Shen described Thursday’s flights as “a defensive measure and in line with international common practices.” He said China's air force would remain on high alert

Jonah Goldberg: ‘I’m not a particularly ideological person,” President Obama told an audience of donors in Seattle over the weekend. He added (in Reuters’s words) that “pragmatism was necessary to advance the values that were important to him.” This is an old refrain of Obama’s. As he said in his first inaugural, “The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works.” “What works” is a cruel standard for the author of Obamacare, which may be one reason the White House has taken to scrubbing the sobriquet from its website and the president’s speeches in favor of the law’s official name, the Affordable Care Act. I’m tempted just to bang my spoon on my high chair about the ridiculous notion that Obama isn’t “ideological.” But I’ve been doing that for so long, there are spoon-shaped divots in my tray. The president is a committed ideological liberal, and that’s fine. He’s just not honest about it. In their new book, Double Down , Mark Halp

Breitbart: ... A third of America's one-hundred U.S. Senators are up for re-election every two years. Of the 33 or 34 facing a 2014 election, the National Journal identifies 15 seats as vulnerable. Thirteen of those seats are held by Democrats. But of the 7 seats most likely to turn over, all 7 are held by Democrats. Republicans need only pick up 6 seats to win the chamber. ... Obamacare has become a nightmare for Democrats many of which repeated the same lie Obama did about people being able to keep their policies and doctors.  The ads are already in the can on those previous promises.

NY Times: Lack of Doctors May Worsen as Millions Join Medicaid Rolls Under the health care law, a flood of new patients will soon be covered by Medicaid, a program that has struggled for years with a shortage of doctors willing to accept its red tape and low reimbursement rates. This is one of the reasons governors like Rick Perry refused to accept an expansion of Medicaid.  With few doctors already taking the low pay available from Medicaid, it makes little sense to add to this patient load.

Reuters: Iran will pursue construction at the Arak heavy-water reactor, Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif was quoted as saying on Wednesday, despite a deal with world powers to shelve a project they fear could yield plutonium for atomic bombs. France , one of the six powers that negotiated Sunday's landmark initial accord with Iran to curb its disputed nuclear program, said in response to Zarif's statement that Tehran had to stick to what was agreed in the Geneva talks. The uncompleted research reactor emerged as one of several big stumbling blocks in the marathon negotiations, in which Iran agreed to restrain its atomic activities for six months in return for limited sanctions relief. The agreement is intended to buy time for talks on a final settlement of the dispute. Western powers fear Arak could be a source of plutonium - one of two materials, along with highly enriched uranium, that can be used for the core of a nuclear weapon - once it is operational. Iran says i

Reuters/NY Times: Japanese and South Korean military aircraft flew through disputed air space over the East China Sea without informing China, officials said on Thursday, challenging a new Chinese air defense zone that has increased regional tensions and sparked concerns of an unintended clash. The move came after Tokyo's close ally Washington defied China's demand that airplanes flying through its unilaterally announced zone identify themselves to Chinese authorities, flying two unarmed B-52 bombers over the islands on Tuesday without informing Beijing. Tensions have ratcheted up since Beijing's weekend announcement of the zone that includes the skies over islands at the heart of a feud between Japan and China, and its demand that planes flying in the area first notify Chinese authorities. Japan and the United States have sharply criticized the move, which some experts said was aimed not only at chipping away at Tokyo's control of the islands, known as the Senkaku in

Washington Times: Special delivery: Drone drops contraband into Georgia prison yard They found the tiny chopper and several pounds of tobacco products in a nearby car.  I suspect that one of the inmates planned to sell the smokes to others for a profit.

RT.com: An urgent request made by United States soldiers in combat has prompted the Pentagon to place an order for three-dozen, state-of-the-art micro-drones that resemble birds and can be launched by hand. Prioria Robotics of Florida announced earlier this month that the US Army Rapid Equipping Force, or REF, awarded them $4.5 million in federal contracts to deliver to the Department of Defense 36 models of the company’s Maveric unmanned aerial vehicle by December. Each Maveric can soar through the sky at speeds up to 55 knots and has the ability to offer soldiers an array of advantageous features, but perhaps most interesting about the tiny drone is its size and shape: each aircraft weighs roughly two-and-a-half pounds, and according to the Army News Service, the Maveric’s flexible wings help enable the UAV to blend into its surroundings. REF project manager Tami Johnson told Army News Service that the Pentagon’s request “called for a small, subtle capability that could be employ

AP/Fuel Fix: The National Park Service has withdrawn “inappropriate” comments about a proposed rule regulating hydraulic fracturing operations on public lands. Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis says no one in management reviewed the staff comments, which he said were submitted erroneously to the federal Bureau of Land Management. Both agencies are part of the Interior Department. In a letter to Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, Jarvis said the park service erred when it submitted the unsigned comments, which quoted a New York Times opinion column written by Cornell University Professor Anthony Ingraffea, a well-known critic of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Ingraffea has argued that shale gas produced by fracturing poses a greater global warming risk than coal, primarily because of methane leaks during production. Methane is far more potent at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, the most abundant global warming gas, although it doesn’t stay in the air as long. In a Nov. 13 letter, Jarv

Daily Mail: How Obama referred to Tea Party protesters as 'tea-baggers' in handwritten letter to Texas teacher complaining about health care law  Thomas Ritter, of Texas, received the note on official White House stationary after writing to the president that Obamacare has created a toxic environment in the country. It is a good example of how liberals tend to slip into insults when they can't come up with a reasoned argument.

CNN: The Obama administration is promising a much smoother ride on HealthCare.gov come Saturday, but insurers worry that behind-the-scenes glitches will keep consumers from enrolling in the health insurance plans they want. Insurance industry insiders tell CNN that when some people sign up for coverage through the website, their personal data is not being properly transmitted to the insurance companies of their choosing. Insurers are still getting inaccurate and duplicative data. And that's even if it makes it to them at all. So how do insurers know they aren't getting the information? Customers who signed up for coverage are calling the companies with questions and finding they aren't in their systems. And insurers have been testing the site, submitting John Doe records and not seeing them come out the other end, an industry official said. "There's no part of us that thinks all of this will be fixed in three days from now," the industry official said, refer

Rich Lowry: The bad-faith presidency Obamacare was just one of the issues where he chose to mislead rather than lead with the truth.  When you don't believe the voters will buy what you are selling if you tell the truth, that is the essence of the politics of fraud.

They maybe overwhelmed with traffic --from hackers.

Capitol City Proj.: With the roll out of Obamacare being as disastrous as possible for the Obama administration, one group was given a $1 million grant to help lead a rebranding effort with hopes of salvaging the law in the eyes of the American people. Families USA (FUSA) — an organization that describes itself as a “national nonprofit, non-partisan organization dedicated to the achievement of high-quality, affordable health care for all Americans” — was given a $1.1 million grant by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on October 4, 2013, to gather “success stories” of Americans dealing with Obamacare and distribute them to the media who often refer to them as an “independent” group. This is part of a greater upcoming effort to bolster the perception of the lowly health care law. “The purpose is to bridge the information gap for people who can significantly benefit from the Affordable Care Act,” Ron Pollack, the Co-founder and Executive Director of Families USA, told TIME on Octob

John Podhoretz: Give President Obama credit: You can’t trust his promises, but when it comes to his ideas, you can be certain he means what he says. As a politician, he’s as dishonest and slippery as any we’ve ever seen, but as an ideological leader, he tells you the truth about what he really believes. Thus, you can’t trust that the ObamaCare Web site will be fixed by Nov. 30, but you know he meant it when he said it is “doing what it was designed to do.” What it was designed to do is fundamentally reshape the relationship of the American citizen and the government. You couldn’t trust his promise that he’d strike Syria for its use of chemical weapons because that evil regime crossed the “red line” he drew. But you know he meant it when he said earlier in 2013 that he hoped to have “the kind of constructive, cooperative relationship that moves us out of the Cold War mindset” with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin. So far out of the Cold War mindset is Barack Obama that he allowed Puti

NY Times: Karzai’s Bet: U.S. Is Bluffing in Warning on Security Pact President Hamid Karzai appears to believe the United States would not follow through on its warning that it may leave no troops in Afghanistan if he fails to sign the pact. His bluff in Syria and elsewhere has been called and nothing really happens.  Karzai may calculate that the effect of the Iraq pullout may make Obama less likely to do a hasty retreat from Afghanistan.  It is really in neither countries best interest for the US to pullout completely.

Jimmy Kimmel has some pretty good zingers about the President's trip.

Alabama residents feel like they have been mislead.  On a deeply personal level it was not an 'Inaccurate" statement about getting to keep their healthcare.  It was a lie.

Reuters: China carrier steams towards disputed South China Sea for drills It is not a scary carrier, but a rehabbed Russian effort that never quite launched.  The Chinese are characterizing the exercise as a training mission.

WFB: Iran: White House Lying About Details of Nuke Deal Can you really trust either side of this deal to tell the truth?

Fuel Fix: Giving in to demands from the oil industry, business groups and their allies on Capitol Hill, the Obama administration on Tuesday formally released the calculations behind its new estimate of the social costs tied to emitting carbon dioxide. The public now has 60 days to look at the data and weigh in on the new metric, which is used to evaluate the cost and benefits of proposed regulations. The deadline for submitting comments is Jan. 27. The once little-known calculation aims to put a price tag on damage from emitting a ton of greenhouse gases, including lost agricultural productivity, human health impacts and more floods. A government working group in May bumped up the price tag to $38 per ton in 2015, up from a 2010 estimate of $23.80 — a decision that ultimately could lift the projected economic benefits of proposed environmental regulations. Lawmakers who wanted more sunlight on the social cost of carbon calculations praised the White House for opening the documents

Daily Mail: The CIA turned some Guantanamo Bay prisoners into double agents then sent them home to help the U.S. kill terrorists in the early years after 9/11, officials have revealed. The CIA promised the prisoners freedom, safety for their families and millions of dollars from the agency's secret accounts. It was a risky gamble. Officials knew there was a chance that some prisoners might quickly spurn their deal and kill Americans. For the CIA, that was an acceptable risk in a dangerous business. For the American public, which was never told, the program was one of the many secret trade-offs the government made on its behalf. At the same time the government used the risk of terrorism to justify imprisoning people indefinitely, it was releasing dangerous people from prison to work for the CIA. The program was carried out in a secret facility built a few hundred yards from the administrative offices of the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The eight small cottages were hidden behin

Guardian: White House threatens to pull all US troops out of Afghanistan This looks like another example of this administration's inability to negotiate a deal.  Karzai maybe a difficult person to deal with, but there are certain things that are in both side's interest and leaving in 2014 is in neither side's interest.

The Hill: A pair of American B-52 bombers flew unannounced into a recently established Chinese no-fly zone in the East China Sea, in a direct rebuke of Beijing's asserted authority over the area. The bombers, based out of Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, entered the contested airspace as part of a training operation dubbed Coal Lightening, according to The Wall Street Journal . The aircraft were unarmed and were not escorted by American fighter jets, a defense official told the Journal. "The planes flew a pattern that included passing through the [Air Defense Identification Zone]," the official said. "The flight was without incident," the official added. A majority of American operations flown in the area consist of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations and large-scale training missions with U.S allies. But during the mission, the U.S. aircraft did not comply with the new air restrictions set by China as part of the no-fly zone. .... It wou

Kieth Koffler: The Magnitude of the Lie Koffler reviews a series of lies associated with the scheme to impose Obamacare on the US.  With the administration looking for us to trust them on things liek the Iran deal and other nuclear issues, people should be asking why they should. Also see economist Robert Samuelson's  take on the lies used to sell this law: Millions Face Losing Their Insurance Due To Obama Lie This lie should be a big deal to people.

This is just the beginning of those losing their employer based healthcare.

LA Times: Judge's ruling throws Calif. bullet train's future in doubt   In a major legal blow, the court finds the state can't use billions in bond funding and must come up with a new plan to finance the massive $68 billion project. This whole project never made economic sense.  Even if they could find financing for the project, there is little hope that it could ever be repaid out of the revenuers from the project. It is time to stop wasting time and money on this boondoggle.

I think Tom cotton deserves to win this race.  He has shown a willingness to serve and has the conservative values to fight against the liberal agenda.

Forbes  says the added flow of oil will lead to lower prices making it economically unfeasible to extract tight oil from some formations.

Dr. Krauthammer nails the problems with this deal.

Bill Gertz: Iran, North Korea Secretly Developing New Long-Range Rocket Booster for ICBMs If they are not interested in nuclear weapons why would they want to build a delivery system?  This deal makes no sense.

NY Times: ID Verification Lagging on Health Care Website Many people have had their applications cast into limbo after they uploaded copies of driver’s licenses, Social Security cards and voter registration cards to HealthCare.gov. With their hacker friendly website, this looks like they are running an identity theft website on the side.  They are sure making it easy for the crooks and hard on people forced into using their exchanges.  Why are all those picture ID's required for healthcare, but are opposed by Democrats for voting?  Are they trying to keep the poor from getting healthcare?

NY Times: Nuclear Accord Underlines Rift Between U.S. and Saudis Although the Saudis remain close American allies, the nuclear accord is the culmination of a slow mutual disenchantment that began at the end of the Cold War. Actually we were never closer to the Saudis than we were in the first war with Iraq, that was mostly launched from Saudi Arabia.  The Saudi government has been a good ally in the war with al Qaeda. al though some of its citizens have been the enemy.   What is different about this deal is that Iran is seen as an existential threat by bot the Saudis and Israel and Obama went behind their back to make what looks to most like a very bad deal which gives Iran time and money to build a bomb and save its economy.  If you not a labor union or a Chicago boss it is very dangerous to be an Obama ally.

Bret Stephens: To adapt Churchill : Never in the field of global diplomacy has so much been given away by so many for so little. Britain and France's capitulation to Nazi Germany at Munich has long been a byword for ignominy, moral and diplomatic. Yet neither Neville Chamberlain nor Édouard Daladier had the public support or military wherewithal to stand up to Hitler in September 1938. Britain had just 384,000 men in its regular army; the first Spitfire aircraft only entered RAF service that summer. "Peace for our time" it was not, but at least appeasement bought the West a year to rearm. The signing of the Paris Peace Accords in January 1973 was a betrayal of an embattled U.S. ally and the abandonment of an effort for which 58,000 American troops gave their lives. Yet it did end America's participation in a peripheral war, which neither Congress nor the public could indefinitely support. "Peace with honor" it was not, as the victims of Cambodia's Kill

Hugh Hewitt: ... Eight weeks in, in a state where a million plus "folks" -- the president's term for the ruled, replacing citizens -- have received cancellation notices, CoveredCA.com has 80,000 "enrollees." None of the 80,000 have yet paid a bill from their new insurer. No one has yet, in fact, received a bill. But they are all "enrolled." Another 250,000 have been to the website and "begun an application."... ... ... in all of October, less than 1,000 people listing Spanish as their language of choice enrolled at the site. ... ... CoveredCA.com has no projected mix of applicants necessary for sustainability of any of the policies. None. Almost everyone in American who follows the story even a little knows that "adverse selection" will likely cripple Obamacare if the young and healthy simply refuse to be drafted and pay their insurance bills and pay their fine instead. (Or not pay the fine, hoping that the government so ineffic

Erick Erickson: ... If the deal happens, it will mean Saudi Arabia goes nuclear — they’ll buy Pakistani made nukes. It also means Israel will probably preemptively strike Iran solo. ... In short, this deal, which turns out to not really be a deal at all, but a lot of hype to distract from the Obamacare mess, would mean Iran can keep building its bomb with minimal inspection, get more money from American and European taxpayers, and keep funding terrorists around the world. The West is willingly being played the fool by a player elites assume is actually rational, but is not. By the way, it is amazingly pathetic that President Obama won’t let you keep your insurance plan, but he will let the Iranians keep their enriched uranium program. Just what sort of idiot will negotiate with terrorist regimes, but not with Americans?   (Emphasis in the original.) ... Obama did this in secret which meant he failed to get a political consensus among the allies for the deal.  That is why I

Byron York: In April, Real Clear Politics' average of polls showed that 47 percent of Americans opposed Obamacare, while 41 percent supported it — a 6-percentage-point edge for opponents of the president's health care law, which at the time was still months away from implementation. The latest average of polls, less than two months into the law's rollout, shows 57 percent opposing Obamacare, with 38 percent supporting — an enormous 19-point gap between opponents and supporters. The two numbers explain why Republicans made little progress when they tried to warn Americans about Obamacare. For years, GOP warnings about Obamacare were about something that had not yet arrived. People had not experienced Obamacare, did not have friends who had experienced it and didn't fully understand what it was. Many tuned out the Republican alarms. Now that has changed. Millions of Americans are unhappy with what they have experienced under Obamacare — canceled policies, higher p

AP/Fuel Fix: For decades, presidential candidates’ chances in Iowa were wounded if not doomed unless they backed federal support for ethanol, a boon to the state’s corn-growing economy. That rule of politics collapsed resoundingly in the 2012 campaign when five of the six top Republican candidates said it was time for such intervention in the private market to end. Now, Iowa’s senior political leaders are pondering how to shore up political support for the corn-based fuel at a time when its economic and environmental benefits are under attack . The latest blow came this month, when the Obama administration proposed cutting the required amount of ethanol in the nation’s fuel supply for the first time since Congress established a standard in 2007. The state’s leading Republicans and Democrats hope they can still use Iowa’s political importance as a swing-voting state and as the site of the first presidential nominating contest to get candidates to support keeping the requirement, or a

The Hill: Poll: Obama's approval falls among wealthy People with post graduate degrees are also dissatisfied with Obama and he is losing support even in the East.

Reuters: Republicans went to the American South on Monday to press their opposition to President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law in a U.S. congressional hearing that the law's supporters called a one-sided political attack. The hearing, chaired by Republican Representative Rob Woodall of Georgia, heard from witnesses picked by the panel's Republicans who said that the healthcare law - intended to help millions of uninsured and under-insured people get affordable medical insurance - actually will raise insurance costs and reduce coverage choices for many people in rural America. Michael Boyette, a 28-year-old businessman from Ellijay, Georgia, said his insurance premium was increasing by almost $200 per month for his family of three. "You may think that we went with a more expensive plan or have gotten more coverage," Boyette said during the hearing, the second of four events on the Affordable Care Act to be held outside Washington by the Republican-led H

Bloomberg: President Barack Obama moved to keep a deal with Iran over its nuclear program from being undermined, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said lawmakers would weigh whether new sanctions are needed.  “We cannot close the door on diplomacy,” Obama said during a speech today in San Francisco. “Tough talk and bluster may be the easy thing to do politically,” though it is not right for national security. The agreement reached over the weekend will place the first real constraints on Iran’s nuclear program in a decade, he said.  Reid said today that members would “take a look at this to see if we need stronger sanctions” after the Senate returns from its Thanksgiving holiday break on Dec. 9.  Obama’s aides have been calling lawmakers urging them to hold off passing more sanctions against Iran. The president spoke by phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu , who called the six-month interim deal with Iran “an historic mistake.”  The agreement among the U

CNN: Only four out of 10 Americans believe President Barack Obama can manage the federal government effectively, according to a new national poll. And a CNN/ORC International survey released Monday morning also indicates that 53% of Americans now believe that Obama is not honest and trustworthy, the first time that a clear majority in CNN polling has felt that way. According to the survey, conducted last Monday through Wednesday, 40% say the President can manage the government effectively. That 40% figure is down 12 percentage points from June and is the worst score Obama received among the nine personal characteristics tested in the new poll. "A lot of attention has focused on the President's numbers on honesty in new polling the past three weeks, but it looks like the recent controversy over Obamacare has had a bigger impact on his status as an effective manager of the government, and that may be what is really driving the drop in Obama's approval rating this fall,&quo

Chicago Tribune Editorial: Abbott Laboratories chief executive Miles White said something last Tuesday that should jolt tens of millions of Americans who watch from a comfortable distance as the giant Obamacare blimp ignites and tumbles to the ground. These Americans are safely ensconced in employer-provided health care coverage — for now. But there are "clear incentives for companies to drop their health care plans and move people onto the exchanges," White told analysts at a luncheon, referring to the disastrously cranky and unreliable online insurance marketplaces created under Obamacare. "I can tell you that the employees of Abbott or AbbVie (the pharmaceutical firm Abbott spun off in January) are going to be pretty unhappy about that, you know, if we did that," White said. If President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders think the outcry against Obamacare is fierce now, watch if millions more Americans get blindsided with the news that they'll be forced i

David Freddoso: ... The most alarming finding has to be another one that showed up in both the Quinnipiac and Fox polls — the young vote appears to be swinging wildly to the Republicans for next fall’s midterm in a way not even seen in 2010. Those polls’ subsamples suggest that the young feel even more deceived by Obama than the rest of the population, and are angrier. The potential for an electoral rout is shaping up, although it’s certainly not inevitable just yet.  There is also evidence in Quinnipiac’s state polling that voters — who still view Republicans and Tea Partiers askance — are nonetheless souring on Obama and even seemingly safe Democrats at the same time. The negatives and “do not re-elect” numbers for Sen. Mark Udall, D, in Colorado have risen by double digits quite abruptly. If that sleeper race actually becomes a serious contest, it’s a pretty ominous sign that Democrats are on their way to losing their Senate majority. ... Blatant lies about the healthcare law