Monday, October 21, 2013

Monday, October 21, 2013
Obama Defends Obamacare 

Three weeks in and with no end in sight, President Obama was finally forced to address Obamacare's disastrous rollout. Of course, he delivered yet another speech defending his signature initiative. And, as he has routinely done for the past five years, he avoided taking any questions from the press. 

Consumer Reports is warning its readers to avoid the Obamacare site "for at least another month." Obama condemned the "glitches" and "kinks" as inexcusable, and vowed that experts from the best tech companies in America were being called in for a "tech surge" to fix the site. 

Why weren't these people called in to begin with? What did we pay $600 million for? That money should have paid for a lot of technical experts! 

Ironically, a young woman fell ill and nearly fainted during Obama's speech about health care. No doubt a lot of Americans felt the same way after learning that their current policies were being cancelled and new ones would cost significantly more. 

By the way, why can't the liberal media find any victims of Obamacare? NBC News was still interviewing "victims" of the government shutdown on its evening news broadcast last night. Talk radio shows are filled with angry people calling in and complaining about losing their current policies and facing massive premium increases. But Big Media acts like these folks don't exist.

President Obama took another shot at Obamacare's critics during his remarks today, suggesting that they were more interested in denying people healthcare. Obama's chutzpah is breathtaking!

This has been Obama's modus operandi for five years. Obama causes problems in Washington then condemns Washington because it has problems. He promises bipartisanship but then does everything possible to make bipartisan cooperation impossible. Now the program that he conceived and built with no-bid contracts isn't working, and Obama demonizes conservatives for suggesting it should be delayed because it isn't ready! 

Beyond Glitches 

Those who say that if it weren't for the shutdown strategy the media and the public would be focused solely on Obamacare should take note of what's happening. Several weeks ago the White House decided that the best thing it could do with this fundamentally flawed program is to call the problems "glitches." A glitch is a minor problem that requires tweaking. Big Media has adopted the administration's talk points almost verbatim. 

But the problem with Obamacare isn't slow moving servers or poorly written computer code. The problem isn't a glitch. It is a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of health care delivery and the nature of fairness. 

Obamacare is a redistribution scheme that is significantly raising the cost of insurance for millions of Americans. It uses that money to provide subsidized health care to other Americans who are largely Obama voters. 

Moreover, in its thousands of pages of legislation and regulations, it pushes a leftist agenda forcing religious institutions to subsidize procedures they find morally objectionable. The outcome of this legal battle, and the future of religious liberty in America, will largely depend on moderate swing Justice Anthony Kennedy. 

That is how close we are to losing a fundamental guarantee of religious liberty. And the left's battering ram is Obamacare. 

Divided We Fall 

Many conservatives, myself included, thought the strategy of defunding Obamacare was a fight worth having. I wish others, like Karl Rove, would have had an ad campaign to help counterbalance the liberal media. Lots of things could have been done better. 

There are also people in the Beltway establishment who thought it was a bad idea and who are rarely willing to risk a fight. And there were others, like Senator Tom Coburn, a principled conservative, strongly pro-life and pro-family, who doubted the value of the defunding strategy. 

Is the biggest split in the country really between conservatives like Tom Coburn and Ted Cruz? Of course not! But in the process of trying to achieve shared goals, conservatives should not make it easier for America to be fundamentally and permanently transformed. 

The criticism and vitriol some on the right are directing at Ted Cruz needs to be stopped. It should be redirected toward the left, which is day-by-day dismantling our country. 

This fight is far from over. Some parts of Obamacare may be popular. But, unlike Social Security and Medicare, many people are being hurt by Obamacare. They are losing their insurance. Their premiums and deductibles are skyrocketing. Their hours and paychecks are being cut. If conservatives can stay united, I believe there is still a chance to undo a lot of the damage. 

Standing With Israel 

My friends, I could use your prayers tonight. I will be speaking at a Night to Honor Israel, sponsored by Christians United for Israel, at West Virginia University. Surprisingly, WVU has one of the largest Muslim Student Association chapters in the country. 

The MSA is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has harassed Jewish students and disrupted pro-Israel events on college campuses. There have been threats to prevent me from speaking tonight. 

I don't respond well to threats, and I am more determined than ever to deliver my remarks!

Christians United for Israel is doing incredible work on behalf of Israel at campuses all over country, and I'm proud to be part of those efforts. 

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