RUTHFULLY YOURS

Hillary Clinton admits she’s running to extend the Obama legacy, and so far she’s had a free ride in defending it. She hasn’t even had to explain the increasingly obvious failures of ObamaCare to deliver the affordable insurance that Democrats promised.

The Affordable Care Act is now rolling into its fourth year, and even liberals are starting to concede that the insurance exchanges are in distress and Congress may have to reopen the law. Premiums are high and soaring; insurers have booked multimillion-dollar losses and are terminating plans; and the customer pool is smaller, older and less healthy than the official projections.

The natural result is another round of rate shock for 2017. Insurers in 49 states have submitted their premium requests to regulators, and the average “enrollment-weighted” rate increase, which accounts for market share, is in the range of 18% to 23%. The Congressional Budget Office projected 8%.
Liberals call this evidence anecdotal and premature, and they’re right that bad anecdotes are easy to find: Geisinger Health System in Pennsylvania, a model of the integrated care that ObamaCare attempts to promote, wants a 40% rate increase for its insurance arm. The other liberal claim is that insurance commissioners will approve rate increases somewhat smaller than the insurer requests (maybe) and that consumers can switch to cheaper plans (assuming any are left).

But consider New York, which last Friday became the second state to finalize rates for 2017. The 19.3% rate increase the insurers requested on average for the individual market came down to 16.6% after regulatory fly-specking. The New York political class is hailing this as a great victory, but overall health-care costs aren’t rising by near 16%, and middle-class incomes aren’t either.

Then there are such approved Empire State rates as high as 29.2% (Metro Plus and North Shore), 29% (UnitedHealthcare of New York) and even 89% (Crystal Run). And New York is one of the bright spots.

So is California, where 11 of the 12 health plans that sell coverage under the state’s ObamaCare’s rules turned a profit the last two years. Yet the state is now reporting a final average rate increase of 13.2%, up from 4.2% in 2015 and 4% in 2016. In states with is less competition, the exchanges are even worse off. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that as many as 664 U.S. counties (out of 3,007) may be served by only a single insurer in 2017, up from 225 in 2016.

A major problem is that more people are abusing the law’s lack of verification and undefined “special enrollment” periods. They wait to sign up until they need costly medical care like knee surgeries and then dump coverage again. CONTINUE AT SITE

Later this week, student leaders from around the country will assemble in Brainerd, Minnesota, for this year’s annual CFACT “Eco-Summit.”

There, they will learn the hard facts to debunk climate and other Green myths, swap war stories, and receive vital training on organizing techniques that can help turn their campuses upside down this fall.

Will you help support this critical summit and equip CFACT’s campus chapters for the raging battles ahead?

Our top-notch student leaders will participate in workshops that teach them:

How to promote CFACT’s message on their campus

How to recruit students, build their chapters and outwit hostile college administrators

How to promote free-market environmental speakers and events

How to maximize social media on their campus

How to carry out petition drives, surveys and other grassroots organizing tactics

As you know, the Left has institutionalized itself on college campuses and is determined to shut down any free speech or right thinking that challenges it.

60’s campus radicals demanded the right to speak out and our free society gave it to them.

No sooner were they through the academic door, however, when they slammed it shut behind them and created today’s Politically Correct college environment that bullies students into believing there is only one way to think.

Richard D. Lamm was a Democrat who served as governor of Colorado for twelve years from 1975 to 1987. His speech “My Plan to Destroy America” given in 2004 at a Federation for Immigration Reform is worth reading again. It is brilliant and prescient. rsk

” I have a secret plan to destroy America. If you believe, as many do, that America is too smug, too white-bread, too self-satisfied, too rich … then let’s destroy America. It is not that hard to do.

History shows that nations are more fragile than their citizens think. No nation in history has survived the ravages of time. Arnold Toynbee observed that all great civilizations rise and they all fall, and that “an autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide.” So here is my plan:

1. We must first make America a bilingual/bicultural country. History shows … that no nation can survive the tension, conflict and antagonism of two competing languages and cultures. It is a blessing for an individual to be bilingual; it is a curse for a society to be bilingual. …

Scholar Seymour Martin Lipset put it this way: “The histories of bilingual and bicultural societies that do not assimilate are histories of turmoil, tension and tragedy.”

2. I would then invent “multiculturalism” and encourage immigrants to maintain their own culture. I would make it an article of belief that all cultures are equal … there are no cultural differences that are important … and the black and Hispanic dropout rate is only due to prejudice and discrimination by the majority. Every other explanation is out-of-bounds.

3. We can make the United States a “Hispanic Quebec” without much effort. The key is to celebrate diversity rather than unity. As Benjamin Schwarz said in the Atlantic Monthly recently: “… the apparent success of our own multiethnic and multicultural experiment might have been achieved not by tolerance but by hegemony. Without the dominance that once dictated ethno-centrically and what it meant to be an American, we are left with only tolerance and pluralism to hold us together.”

4. I would encourage all immigrants to keep their own language and culture. I would replace the melting pot metaphor with a salad bowl metaphor … I would make our fastest-growing demographic group the least educated. I would add a second underclass, unassimilated, undereducated, and antagonistic to our population. …

5. I would then get the big foundations and Big Business to give these efforts lots of money. I would invest in ethnic identity, and I would establish the cult of victimology. … I would start a grievance industry blaming all minority failure on the majority population.

6. I would establish dual citizenship and promote divided loyalties. I would “celebrate diversity.” … It stresses differences rather than commonalities. Diverse people worldwide are mostly engaged in hating each other … when they are not killing each other.

A diverse peaceful or stable society is against most historical precedent. People undervalue the unity it takes to keep a nation together, and we can take advantage of this myopia. … Dorf’s World History tells us the [ancient] Greeks believed they belonged to the same race; they possessed a common language and literature and worshiped the same gods. All Greece took part in the Olympic games in honor of Zeus and venerated the shrine of Apollo at Delphi. A common enemy, Persia, threatened their liberty. Yet all of these bonds together were not strong enough to overcome two factors … local patriotism and geographical conditions that nurtured political divisions … .

Philadelphia’s egregious sanctuary city policy that has repeatedly allowed illegal aliens to commit rape in that city has to end, says Sen. Pat Toomey.

Philadelphia has one of the most “extreme versions” of the policy, Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican in a tough reelection fight, said on the “O’Reilly Factor” Wednesday.

There are hundreds of sanctuary jurisdictions across the country. Some left-wingers use the dreadful euphemism “civil liberties safe zones” to describe them. The phrase blurs the distinction between citizens and non-citizens by implying illegal aliens somehow possess a civil right to be present in the U.S.

The sanctuary movement that gave illegal aliens permission to rob, rape, and murder Americans is the product of decades of concerted collusion by radical George Soros-funded groups like the ACLU to get cities to pledge to violate laws that protect U.S. national security. Cheered on by the Left, sanctuary cities frustrate immigration enforcement efforts and shield illegal aliens from federal officials as a matter of policy.

The Obama administration is fine with that. President Obama has made America a sanctuary country, rolling out the red carpet for illegal aliens, especially those from Mexico, to come to the U.S. and depress labor markets while they suck the nation’s welfare state dry.

On Fox News Channel, Toomey slammed the City of Brotherly Love for unleashing a violent illegal alien from Honduras named Ramon Aguirre-Ochoa on Pennsylvanians. Aguirre-Ochoa was previously deported from the U.S. in 2009. He reentered the country illegally and was in the custody of police but was liberated when Philadelphia officials failed to honor a federal request to keep him in custody.

“This monster raped a child and he never should have been here,” he said. “And the folks at ICE didn’t want him here. They had asked the police department of Philadelphia to hold this guy until they could send an agent to pick him up and deport him.”

But “their hands were tied by a very bad policy that forbids them from cooperating with federal immigration officials. It’s terrible, and it’s a security risk for all of us.”

Failing to cooperate with immigration officials who want a prisoner held beyond the expected release date is in theory a violation of federal law, some say, but court rulings have clouded the issue.

At the Democratic National Convention in July, Pakistani immigrant and Muslim Brotherhood member Khizr Muazzam Khan held up a booklet containing our U.S. Constitution in condemnation of Donald J. Trump’s plans to ban Muslim immigrationDid the mainstream media speak up to expose the fact that Khan advocates for Sharia Law to be implemented in the United States? Did “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd expose the fact that Khan’s membership in the Muslim Brotherhood equates to conquering and destroying America’s constitution? Did John Dickerson at “Face the Nation” expose Khan’s legal firm ‘buying’ U.S. citizenships for his Muslim brothers in Saudi Arabia?

Not a word! In fact, the mainstream media jumped all over Trump rather than defend their own country from the Muslim immigration threat. Its consequences play out all over Europe in accelerating lone wolf massacres and subsequent parallel societies.

Journalist Daniel Greenfield wrote, “When you turn on the evening news and see a running death toll, it’s happening more and more often. The new brand of Islamic terror only needs one thing… Muslims. Lone wolf terrorism operates off the existing Muslim population in a particular country. The bigger the Muslim population, the bigger the risk. The FBI or other law enforcement agencies cannot monitor even a fraction of the Islamic settler population sympathetic to terror. As the Muslim settler population in the country increases, the number of cases will grow.” (Source: Right Side News, Stop Lone Wolf Terrorism by Ending Muslim Immigration, August 2, 2016)

Notice none of the mainstream outlets expose Hillary Clinton’s top aid Huma Abedin stands first, last and always—a Muslim. The same media that enjoys our 1st Amendment rights never touches the fact that Obama employs 13 Muslims on his staff. One of them named Mr. Magid works on implementing Sharia Law in America. He’s known as the Sharia Law czar in the White House.

Being from the Deep South, it was hard not to learn about the evil of segregation. Thank goodness those days are over.

Aren’t they?

A group of Claremont Colleges students looking for roommates with which to share off-campus housing posted an ad on Facebook, with one caveat — white folks need not apply:

Student Karé Ureña (PZ ’18) posted on Facebook that non-white students in need of housing arrangements should reach out to either her or two other students with whom she plans to live in an off-campus house. The post states that “POC [people of color] only” will be considered for this living opportunity. “I don’t want to live with any white folks,” Ureña added.

Dalia Zada (PZ ’18) expressed concerns to the anti-white discrimination. “‘POC only?’ Maybe I’m missing something or misunderstanding your post, but how is that not a racist thing to say?”

“This is directed to protect POC, not white people. Don’t see how this is racist at all…” responded AJ León (PZ ’18), a member of the Pitzer Latino Student Union.

“People of color are allowed to create safe POC only spaces. It is not reverse racism or discriminatory, it is self preservation [sic],” Sara Roschdi (PZ ’17), another Pitzer Latino Student Union member, stated. “Reverse racism isn’t a thing.”

“We don’t want to have to tiptoe around fragile white feelings in a space where we just want to relax and be comfortable,” commented Nina Lee, a Women’s Studies major. “I could live with white people, but I would be far more comfortable living with other poc.”

“White people always mad when they don’t feel included but at the end of the day y’all are damaging asf [sic] and if a POC feels they need to protect themselves from that toxic environment THEY CAN! Quick to try to jump on a POC but you won’t call your friends out when they’re being racist asf [sic],” noted Terriyonna Smith (PZ ’18), an Africana Studies major and Resident Assistant (RA) for the 2016-2017 year. “I’m not responding to NO comments and NOPE I don’t wanna have a dialogue.”

Pay close attention to these bigoted students’ coursework: we have an African Studies major, a women’s studies major, and two members of the Latino Student Union. With such coursework, should we be surprised they fail to see they’ve embraced evil as a virtue?

The Movement for Black Lives, which encompasses a slew of organizations associated with Black Lives Matter, has issued its platform.

The platform, essentially a Marxist screed, states:

We are a collective that centers and is rooted in Black communities, but we recognize we have a shared struggle with all oppressed people; collective liberation will be a product of all of our work.

A section of the platform called “Invest-divest” deals, among other things, with U.S. foreign policy issues. Not surprisingly, this section features the Palestinians as one of the “oppressed people[s]” with which the Movement for Black Lives claims to have a “shared struggle.”

Calling Israel “a state that practices systematic discrimination and has maintained a military occupation of Palestine for decades,” this part of the platform asserts:

The US justifies and advances the global war on terror via its alliance with Israel and is complicit in the genocide taking place against the Palestinian people…. Israel is an apartheid state with over 50 laws on the books that sanction discrimination against the Palestinian people. Palestinian homes and land are routinely bulldozed to make way for illegal Israeli settlements. Israeli soldiers also regularly arrest and detain Palestinians as young as 4 years old without due process. Everyday, Palestinians are forced to walk through military checkpoints along the US-funded apartheid wall.

“Genocide,” “apartheid,” “apartheid wall,” and other allegations of monstrous Israeli behavior are, of course, staples of BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) and other movements across the world that seek to delegitimize and ultimately dismantle Israel.

If one looks at the record, Israelis appear to be inept genocidists. In 1967, when Israel took over the West Bank and Gaza as a result of the Six Day War, there were about half a million Palestinians living in these territories; today there are three to four million. As for “apartheid,” the Arabs of Israel enjoy full democratic rights and say Israel is the only country they want to live in; the Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza were offered statehood in 2000, 2001, and 2008 and each time turned the offer down flat.

The demonization of Israel is, however, a shibboleth of worldwide radical-left movements, and the Movement for Black Lives clearly aligns itself with those.

Meanwhile, the Fatah movement—which governs the West Bank and is seen as the “moderate” Palestinian faction compared to Hamas, which governs Gaza—boasts of having killing 11,000 Israelis.

Fatah made the genocidally tinged boast in an election-propaganda Facebook post that was translated by Palestinian Media Watch. With municipal elections in the West Bank and Gaza slated for October 8, and Fatah and Hamas as the main contestants, Fatah—notorious for corruption and headed by the weak, aging Mahmoud Abbas—is worried about Hamas winning. CONTINUE AT SITE

Wages for Americans are dropping at a rapid rate, instead of rising as the feds had claimed. This shocking news – making President Obama’s claim that the economy has recovered from the great recession laughable – was buried in a report on second-quarter earnings and has barely registered in the nation’s media, which are anxious to elect Hillary Clinton.

Neil Munro of Breitbart summarizes the changes:

“Real hourly compensation decreased 0.4 percent after revision, rather than the previously-published increase of 4.2 percent,” the BLS admitted. Compensation also fell another 1.4 percent in the second quarter, from April to June, the BLS admitted in the same report. That’s 2 percent drop in wages since December.

Pay shrank 0.3 percent in 2013, rose a mere 1.1 percent in 2014, but rose a promising 2.7 percent in 2015, according to the BLS.

Based on the erroneous data, President Obama has been taking victory laps on the economy.

In June, Obama cited the mistaken 2016 wage-growth claim while arguing the economy was finally helping ordinary Americans. “Let’s get wages rising faster,” Obama declared in a speech at Concord Community High School, Elkhart, Indiana.

I also know that I’ve spent every single day of my presidency focused on what I can do to grow the middle class and increase jobs, and boost wages … Here’s the good news: Wages are actually growing at a rate of about 3 percent so far this year. That’s the good news. Working Americans are finally getting a little bigger piece of the pie. But we’ve got to accelerate that.

That speech was advertised as his first speech of the 2016 campaign, and he continued his wage-boosting theme during his July 27 speech at the Democratic Convention;