Category Archives: Saudi Arabia

The Rime…

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Ah! well a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.
— The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Part II, Stanza 14.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Obama must be feeling as if he were that Ancient Mariner, who killed the Albatross and was condemned to wear its dead body around his neck. The difference is that Obama’s Albatross is Obamacare.

Some statistics were published today that is another weight, another burden, around Obama’s political agenda. Statistics, such as:

OBAMACARE POLL: THEY’VE TRIED IT AND THEY DON’T LIKE IT
Fifty percent of voters disapprove of ObamaCare, 43 percent strongly so, according to a poll out from the budget hawk group Public Notice. The survey, conducted by Tarrance Group, found that while 40 percent of respondents approved of the health law, a majority of key groups disapprove including women ages 18 to 44 (51 percent), employees of small businesses (57 percent), adults in households with children (56 percent) and voters who’ve tried to shop on ObamaCare Web sites (52 percent). The poll also showed that Members of Congress who voted for the president’s law are getting a negative reaction from voters, with 43 percent saying they less likely to re-elect those who voted for the health law versus 38 percent who are more likely to vote for their member if he or she voted for ObamaCare. — FOX Newsletter, 12-10-2013.

The critical issue is the age groups in the poll above. These groups are the demographic segment that Obama was planning on soaking to pay for his monstrosity. Now, they are opting out, refusing to play Obama’s game, a game he is losing badly.

But that isn’t the only damaging news about Obamacare. As we move closer to the implementation date, more failings of Obamacare are emerging. This time for prescription drugs—the list of covered drugs has been slashed. Many of us, forced onto Medicare, take maintenance drugs. Some are to control cholesterol, some to control blood pressure, plus many others. Now, with the list of covered drugs slashed, Obamacare and Medicare participants must pay for those drugs out of their pockets. Plus, for Obamacare enrollees, those out-of-pocket costs cannot be charged to your deductible.

OBAMACARE PAIN PILL
Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former senior policy adviser to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services told Megyn Kelly that many prescriptions may not be covered under ObamaCare. “The list of drugs that the plans cover, in many cases, aren’t very long.  And if the drugs aren’t covered you’re on your own, you basically have to pay for it entirely out of pocket, and the money that you spend on those drugs doesn’t count against your out of pocket limit or against your deductible,” Gottlieb said. “This could cost patients who need special drugs a lot of money, literally tens of thousands of dollars a year.” — FOX Newsletter, 12-10-2013.

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What a disappointment Paul Ryan has turned out to be. He ran in the last election, as a conservative, a tax conservative and a spending conservative. His current budget plan, with democrat Senator Patty Murray, exposes the lies he spoke during that campaign.

The Big Spenders Return

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  December 10th, 2013 at 04:30 AM

If Paul Ryan were a Peanuts character, he’d be the guy who pulls the football out of the way just as he himself is about to kick it. Over the past number of years, Congressman Ryan has come up with a few reform proposals.

From his roadmap to this, he has made as his starting point for negotiations that which should be his ending point.

Now, with liberal Senator Patty Murray, Congressman Ryan wants to raise spending today on the promise that Congress will restrain itself ten years from now (or whenever the benchmark will be). It’s a return to pre-sequestration Washington — spending increases today in exchange for promises of spending cuts later.

I opposed sequestration at the time the GOP came up with it. I figured they’d do an end run around it. But they did not. Surprisingly, they stuck with it if only because they couldn’t figure out a way to undermine it without rocking the boat with their base.

Now it’s looking like they are prepared to rock that boat.

The Democrats have repeated painted doom and gloom scenarios about sequestration. They said it would undermine economic growth, but the latest economic figures dispute that. They said it would cause increased unemployment, but the latest employment numbers dispute that. They’ve said a great deal, all of which has been nonsensical hyperbole.

Based on what has been reported so far, the Ryan-Murray plan seems like outright capitulation to the big spending, big government agenda of both parties’ lobbyist class. In fact, the op-eds already coming out for it are being written by those who stand to profit from more spending.

Congress should start at sequestration spending levels and reduce spending from there — not raise revenue and not raise spending. After all, like Obamacare, sequestration is the law of the land too.

A sellout in any form, is still a sellout. Actions like this, Ryan’s betrayal of his Tea Party supporters, makes me wonder if there are ANY national politicians, Cruz, Lee and a handful of others excepted, who are not traitors to their constituents?

Here is a link to another report on the Paul Ryan-Patty Murray Tax and Spend bill. It’s very informative.

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If you watch the news coming out of the Middle-east, you may have come across this article, the possible creation of strange allies, Saudi Arabia and…Israel! Neither country wants a nuclear Iran on their borders.

Saudis to Obama: We Will Not Tolerate a Nuclear Iran

By Karin McQuillan, December 10, 2013

Individuals who have even visited Israel, or who observe Judaism, or who carry a Bible are banned from Saudi Arabia.  Yet Saudi Arabia’s Israel-hating King Abdullah just flew in an Israeli scientist to have dinner with him, to enjoy some royal hospitality, accept a medal and the $200,000 “Arab Nobel Prize.”  It’s a not-so-subtle message to President Obama: the unthinkable can happen, so don’t assume the Saudis won’t join with Israel to bomb Iran.

Obama’s new Iran policy moves the Mid-East closer to war over oil and religion — Sunni Saudis versus Shia Iranians.  There is no more strategic commodity than Gulf oil to the entire world economy.  American national security stakes could not be higher.   Iran’s end game, some say more than an attack on Israel, is to seize the Saudi oil fields.  There is a Shiite majority in the oil province that the Saudi Princes fear could be turned by Iran.  The Saudis no longer see the U.S. as an ally in stabilizing the Middle East.  We have become a force for chaos. The UK Telegraph:

Chris Skrebowski, editor of Petroleum Review, said the great unknown is how Saudi Arabia will react to a move deemed treachery in Riyadh… The great question is whether they can live with this deal, or whether it is intolerable,” he said.

Mr Skrebowski said the Middle East is a tinder box, in the grip of a Sunni-Shia civil war comparable in ideological ferocity to the clash between Catholics and Protestants in early 17th Century Europe. Saudi Arabia has already shown how far it will go to protect its interests, helping to overthrow Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.

The Saudis are signaling that they will unleash a pre-emptive war in the Middle East in response to Obama’s nuclear capitulation to Iran.  These signals are an effort to change Obama’s decision to prop up the mullahs and green light their nuclear program.  Can the Saudi threats become real?  It’s a wild card our President is willing to play.

The column continues, here, at the American Spectator website.

The Obama administration, acting as if by design, is alienating our friends and allies. If Obama’s plan is to isolate the United States from our friends around the world, he is being extremely successful. That’s is Obama’s only agenda item that is working.

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Peace…for our time

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In 1938, after Germany invaded and incorporated Czechoslovakia into the German Reich, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain flew to Germany to make an agreement with Adolf Hitler to end Germany’s expansion in Europe. On his return to London, Chamberlain gave his famous speech saying he had gained, “peace for a time.”

barack_chamberlainOver the weekend, Obama announced an agreement created by Sec’y of State John Kerry with Iran to “halt” their nuclear weapons program. Of course, the agreement has no teeth and leaves Israel swinging, alone, in the breeze. As a consequence, Saudia Arabia, fearing a nuclear Iran, is in the process of buying some nukes of their own from Pakistan. The Saudis have split with Washington over the justifiable fear that if attacked by Iran, the US would do nothing.

Yes, peace…for a time. A year after Neville Chamberlain made his famous speech, Britain was at war with Germany. The events of this last week leads me to wonder what the coming year will bring in the Middle East. Israel has never announced whether it has nuclear weapons, nor has Israel signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that would allow outside inspectors to see if Israel really had any. That aside, some sources estimate that Israel has approximately 90 nuclear weapons with enough material to manufacture 150-200 more on short notice.

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Obamacare is heading back to SCOTUS again. This time for possible violations of the First Amendment. Obamacare requires individuals and corporations to buy and provide birth control for themselves and their employees regardless of religious opposition. Hobby Lobby has filed suit and that suit is going to the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court to decide whether to review ObamaCare contraception mandate

Associated Press

WASHINGTON –  President Barack Obama’s health care law is headed for a new Supreme Court showdown over companies’ religious objections to the law’s birth-control mandate.

Amid the troubled rollout of the health law, and 17 months after the justices upheld it, the Obama administration is defending a provision that requires most employers that offer health insurance to their workers to provide a range of preventive health benefits, including contraception.

Roughly 40 for-profit companies have sued, arguing they should not be forced to cover some or all forms of birth control because doing so would violate their religious beliefs.

Both sides want the justices to settle an issue that has divided lower courts. The high court could announce its decision whether to take up the topic as early as Tuesday, following its closed-door meeting.

Arguments probably would take place in late March with a decision expected in late June.

The key issue is whether profit-making corporations can assert religious beliefs under the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Nearly four years ago, the justices expanded the concept of corporate “personhood,” saying in the Citizens United case that corporations have the right to participate in the political process the same way that individuals do.

The administration wants the court to hear its appeal of the Denver-based federal appeals court ruling in favor of Hobby Lobby, an Oklahoma City-based arts and crafts chain that calls itself a “biblically founded business” and is closed on Sundays. Founded in 1972, the company now operates more than 500 stores in 41 states and employs more than 13,000 full-time employees who are eligible for health insurance. The Green family, Hobby Lobby’s owners, also owns the Mardel Christian bookstore chain.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said corporations can be protected by the 1993 law in the same manner as individuals, and “that the contraceptive-coverage requirement substantially burdens Hobby Lobby and Mardel’s rights under” the law.

In its Supreme Court brief, the administration said the appeals court ruling was wrong and, if allowed to stand would make the law “a sword used to deny employees of for-profit commercial enterprises the benefits and protections of generally applicable laws.”

In two other cases, courts ruled for the administration. Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp., a Pennsylvania company that employs 950 people in making wood cabinets, is owned by a Mennonite family. Autocam Corp. is a Michigan-based maker of auto parts and medical devices that employs more than 650 people in the U.S.

The companies that have sued over the mandate have objections to different forms of birth control. Conestoga Wood objects to the coverage of Plan B and Ella, two emergency contraceptives that work mostly by preventing ovulation. The FDA says on its website that Plan B  “may also work by preventing fertilization of an egg … or by preventing attachment (implantation) to the womb (uterus),” while Ella also may work by changing of the lining of the uterus so as to prevent implantation.

Hobby Lobby objects to those two forms of contraception as well as two types of intrauterine devices (IUDs). Its owners say they believe life begins at conception, and they oppose only birth control methods that can prevent implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus, but not other forms of contraception.

Autocam doesn’t want to pay for any contraception for its employees because of its owners’ Roman Catholic beliefs.

The article continues at the website. You can read it here.

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Thanksgiving is just around the corner. I wish you all have a great Holiday.
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