Oct. Labor Report | Obama's 'Half-Hearted Apology On TV'
Today in Washington, D.C. - Nov. 8, 2013
Both the House and Senate were not in session today.
Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) filed cloture on the nomination of Cornelia Pillard to be a judge on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Pillard is the second Obama nominee Senate Democrats are pushing in an explicit attempt to “switch the majority” on the DC Circuit court by overloading the court with new "excess" judges who are liberal democrats. This is being done to make the DC Circuit Court a rubberstamp for the president’s executive branch excesses. Last week, Reid pushed the nomination of Patricia Millett to the DC Circuit, but Senate Republicans blocked the nomination.
Reid has set up a cloture vote (to cut off debate and move towards confirmation) on the Pillard nomination for 5:30 PM on Monday.
Also yesterday, the Senate voted 64-32 to pass S. 815, the ENDA bill. Prior to passage, the Senate voted 64-34 to invoke cloture on S. 815 and 43-55 to reject amendment offered by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) that would have expanded religious exemptions in the bill.
The Democrat-crafted The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) bill will force most employers to provide special privileges to workers based on their "actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity." This will place severe restrictions on religious freedom in the workplace. The current Senate bill requires businesses with more than 15 employees to offer these special rights. Employers would not be able to consider the ramifications of a man suddenly dressing as a woman or a woman identifying as a man. "ENDA not only adds more costs to businesses, but tells them how they can and cannot practice the faith of their owners and managers," said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. "Under ENDA, employers can be held liable for workplace environment complaints, which will make them inclined to silence employees who express a religious belief or opinion that isn't deemed as accommodating to perceived or changing gender identity. ENDA encourages discrimination against anyone with a different moral viewpoint.”
This morning, the Department of Labor (BLS Dept) released the jobs report for October, 2013. The United States unemployment rate was at 7.3 percent with The U.S. economy addeing 204,000 jobs in October.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) issued the following statement after the Department of Labor released its unemployment report: “While it’s a good sign that more Americans found work last month than some predicted, wages are still stagnant, and millions of families and workers are facing cancellation notices and higher premiums because of ObamaCare. That’s why next week the House will vote on the ‘Keep Your Health Plan Act’ – a bill that gives the president a serious opportunity to honor his apology and his promise. In the months ahead, Republicans will continue to focus on reforms like this that protect Americans from this broken health care law, address the drivers of our debt, and strengthen our economy for everyone.”
Evan Feinberg, President of Generation Opportunity, was not so encourage with the data for overall Millennial (ages 18-29) Unemployment rate being at dismal 15.9% for October, 2013. And even worse, the unemployment rate for 18-29 year old African-Americans being at 19.6 percent. Feinberg said, "Looks like another month of lousy job creation and opportunity being stolen from my generation. Some will undoubtedly blame this lousy jobs report on the shutdown. The problem isn’t that the government shut down – it’s that when it reopened, it continued to spend away our future and regulate away our opportunity. Obamacare is a great example of government keeping its boot on the neck of small business owners, and my generation paying the price."
Americans for Limited Government President Nathan Mehrens issued the following statement: "I hope that the jobs data reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics is wrong, because if it is not, almost one million people abandoned the labor force in October. This is not due to any short-term government shutdown, but a wholesale loss of hope that Americans have a future in the U.S. economic system. To put this into perspective, there has not been this small of a percentage of people participating in the labor force since 1978. It is hard to imagine a more devastating report on the state of the current economy. Almost one million Americans gave up on the American dream. The implications of this simple fact are unfathomably bad. Let's hope this report is an aberration, because if it is not, our nation is in even deeper trouble than anyone had imagined."
AFP writes today, “President Barack Obama apologized, saying he was sorry for Americans who had health insurance plans canceled because of his new law, even though he had promised they would not. Obama's mea culpa came amid a controversy over his repeated assurances that if citizens liked their existing coverage, they could keep it under his signature health care reform, dubbed Obamacare. But hundreds of thousands of Americans have in recent weeks received notices from their health providers that their policies will be canceled. ‘I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me,’ Obama told NBC News in an interview. . . . The Obamacare debacle has mushroomed into a political crisis that has called into question Obama's personal candor and administrative competence and cast a shadow over an already difficult second term.”
But is this really much of an apology? The president repeatedly and explicitly promised, “If you have health insurance and you like it, and you have a doctor that you like, then you can keep it. Period.” He didn’t mention that he used this promise to sell his unpopular health care law. He didn’t mention that he’s the one who signed the bill into law, or that it was his subordinates who wrote the regulations that are partly responsible for all these cancellations. Nor did he mention that, according to NBC News, “The law states that policies in effect as of March 23, 2010 will be ‘grandfathered,’ meaning consumers can keep those policies even though they don’t meet requirements of the new health care law. But the Department of Health and Human Services then wrote regulations that narrowed that provision, by saying that if any part of a policy was significantly changed since that date -- the deductible, co-pay, or benefits, for example -- the policy would not be grandfathered. . . . That means the administration knew that more than 40 to 67 percent of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans, even if they liked them.”
Time’s Zeke Miller notes, “For the second time in as many months, President Barack Obama has dramatically changed his communications strategy for coping with the troubled rollout of his signature legislation. In an interview Thursday with NBC‘s Chuck Todd, the President apologized for the fact that some people in the individual insurance market had found their health plans canceled under the new law, in violation of Obama’s promise that ‘if you like your plan, you can keep it.’ . . . The statement came after more than a week of attempts by the administration to obfuscate the hardship faced by some people who were being forced under the law to pay more for new insurance plans they did not choose. On Oct. 30, during a speech in Boston, Obama claimed falsely that anyone bought insurance as an individual would ‘be getting a better deal’ under the Affordable Care Act. . . . Just a few weeks earlier, Obama had appeared in the Rose Garden to announce a similarly stunning reversal in messaging, this time about the state of the website designed to allow people to sign up for the plan. ‘No one is more frustrated than I am,’ he said on October 21 of the technical problems that had rendered the website for the Affordable Care Act inoperable. For the three weeks prior, Obama had dismissed the plague of technical issues as mere ‘glitches,’ and complained that Republicans were ‘rooting for failure’ when they were discussed.”
Miller further points out, “Complicating matters for the administration is that they knew about both issues before the public faced them, but plowed on with the implementation—and their initial message—despite it. The warning flags were clear for the website in August, if not earlier, when security reviews found issues with the site’s coding. Obama’s ‘you can keep it’ line and accompanying policy has been flagged as misleading by fact-checkers for years, even before it was signed into law.”
Frustrated with President Obama’s focus again on rhetoric over policy changes, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said last night, “If the President is truly sorry for breaking his promises to the American people, he’ll do more than just issue a half-hearted apology on TV. A great place to start would be to support the Sen. Johnson bill that would allow Americans to do what the President promised in the first place: keep the plan they have and like.”
Just last week, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) introduced his bill, of which Leader McConnell is a co-sponsor, that would make Democrats finally live up to their promises and allow Americans to keep health care plans they like. Will any Democrat join Republicans? Will the president support this bill to actually change something and live up to his pledge to the American people?
Tags: October, unemployment report, Democrat packing courts, Obama, half-hearted apology To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
Both the House and Senate were not in session today.
Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) filed cloture on the nomination of Cornelia Pillard to be a judge on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Pillard is the second Obama nominee Senate Democrats are pushing in an explicit attempt to “switch the majority” on the DC Circuit court by overloading the court with new "excess" judges who are liberal democrats. This is being done to make the DC Circuit Court a rubberstamp for the president’s executive branch excesses. Last week, Reid pushed the nomination of Patricia Millett to the DC Circuit, but Senate Republicans blocked the nomination.
Reid has set up a cloture vote (to cut off debate and move towards confirmation) on the Pillard nomination for 5:30 PM on Monday.
Also yesterday, the Senate voted 64-32 to pass S. 815, the ENDA bill. Prior to passage, the Senate voted 64-34 to invoke cloture on S. 815 and 43-55 to reject amendment offered by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) that would have expanded religious exemptions in the bill.
The Democrat-crafted The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) bill will force most employers to provide special privileges to workers based on their "actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity." This will place severe restrictions on religious freedom in the workplace. The current Senate bill requires businesses with more than 15 employees to offer these special rights. Employers would not be able to consider the ramifications of a man suddenly dressing as a woman or a woman identifying as a man. "ENDA not only adds more costs to businesses, but tells them how they can and cannot practice the faith of their owners and managers," said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. "Under ENDA, employers can be held liable for workplace environment complaints, which will make them inclined to silence employees who express a religious belief or opinion that isn't deemed as accommodating to perceived or changing gender identity. ENDA encourages discrimination against anyone with a different moral viewpoint.”
This morning, the Department of Labor (BLS Dept) released the jobs report for October, 2013. The United States unemployment rate was at 7.3 percent with The U.S. economy addeing 204,000 jobs in October.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) issued the following statement after the Department of Labor released its unemployment report: “While it’s a good sign that more Americans found work last month than some predicted, wages are still stagnant, and millions of families and workers are facing cancellation notices and higher premiums because of ObamaCare. That’s why next week the House will vote on the ‘Keep Your Health Plan Act’ – a bill that gives the president a serious opportunity to honor his apology and his promise. In the months ahead, Republicans will continue to focus on reforms like this that protect Americans from this broken health care law, address the drivers of our debt, and strengthen our economy for everyone.”
Evan Feinberg, President of Generation Opportunity, was not so encourage with the data for overall Millennial (ages 18-29) Unemployment rate being at dismal 15.9% for October, 2013. And even worse, the unemployment rate for 18-29 year old African-Americans being at 19.6 percent. Feinberg said, "Looks like another month of lousy job creation and opportunity being stolen from my generation. Some will undoubtedly blame this lousy jobs report on the shutdown. The problem isn’t that the government shut down – it’s that when it reopened, it continued to spend away our future and regulate away our opportunity. Obamacare is a great example of government keeping its boot on the neck of small business owners, and my generation paying the price."
Americans for Limited Government President Nathan Mehrens issued the following statement: "I hope that the jobs data reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics is wrong, because if it is not, almost one million people abandoned the labor force in October. This is not due to any short-term government shutdown, but a wholesale loss of hope that Americans have a future in the U.S. economic system. To put this into perspective, there has not been this small of a percentage of people participating in the labor force since 1978. It is hard to imagine a more devastating report on the state of the current economy. Almost one million Americans gave up on the American dream. The implications of this simple fact are unfathomably bad. Let's hope this report is an aberration, because if it is not, our nation is in even deeper trouble than anyone had imagined."
AFP writes today, “President Barack Obama apologized, saying he was sorry for Americans who had health insurance plans canceled because of his new law, even though he had promised they would not. Obama's mea culpa came amid a controversy over his repeated assurances that if citizens liked their existing coverage, they could keep it under his signature health care reform, dubbed Obamacare. But hundreds of thousands of Americans have in recent weeks received notices from their health providers that their policies will be canceled. ‘I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me,’ Obama told NBC News in an interview. . . . The Obamacare debacle has mushroomed into a political crisis that has called into question Obama's personal candor and administrative competence and cast a shadow over an already difficult second term.”
But is this really much of an apology? The president repeatedly and explicitly promised, “If you have health insurance and you like it, and you have a doctor that you like, then you can keep it. Period.” He didn’t mention that he used this promise to sell his unpopular health care law. He didn’t mention that he’s the one who signed the bill into law, or that it was his subordinates who wrote the regulations that are partly responsible for all these cancellations. Nor did he mention that, according to NBC News, “The law states that policies in effect as of March 23, 2010 will be ‘grandfathered,’ meaning consumers can keep those policies even though they don’t meet requirements of the new health care law. But the Department of Health and Human Services then wrote regulations that narrowed that provision, by saying that if any part of a policy was significantly changed since that date -- the deductible, co-pay, or benefits, for example -- the policy would not be grandfathered. . . . That means the administration knew that more than 40 to 67 percent of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans, even if they liked them.”
Time’s Zeke Miller notes, “For the second time in as many months, President Barack Obama has dramatically changed his communications strategy for coping with the troubled rollout of his signature legislation. In an interview Thursday with NBC‘s Chuck Todd, the President apologized for the fact that some people in the individual insurance market had found their health plans canceled under the new law, in violation of Obama’s promise that ‘if you like your plan, you can keep it.’ . . . The statement came after more than a week of attempts by the administration to obfuscate the hardship faced by some people who were being forced under the law to pay more for new insurance plans they did not choose. On Oct. 30, during a speech in Boston, Obama claimed falsely that anyone bought insurance as an individual would ‘be getting a better deal’ under the Affordable Care Act. . . . Just a few weeks earlier, Obama had appeared in the Rose Garden to announce a similarly stunning reversal in messaging, this time about the state of the website designed to allow people to sign up for the plan. ‘No one is more frustrated than I am,’ he said on October 21 of the technical problems that had rendered the website for the Affordable Care Act inoperable. For the three weeks prior, Obama had dismissed the plague of technical issues as mere ‘glitches,’ and complained that Republicans were ‘rooting for failure’ when they were discussed.”
Miller further points out, “Complicating matters for the administration is that they knew about both issues before the public faced them, but plowed on with the implementation—and their initial message—despite it. The warning flags were clear for the website in August, if not earlier, when security reviews found issues with the site’s coding. Obama’s ‘you can keep it’ line and accompanying policy has been flagged as misleading by fact-checkers for years, even before it was signed into law.”
Frustrated with President Obama’s focus again on rhetoric over policy changes, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said last night, “If the President is truly sorry for breaking his promises to the American people, he’ll do more than just issue a half-hearted apology on TV. A great place to start would be to support the Sen. Johnson bill that would allow Americans to do what the President promised in the first place: keep the plan they have and like.”
Just last week, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) introduced his bill, of which Leader McConnell is a co-sponsor, that would make Democrats finally live up to their promises and allow Americans to keep health care plans they like. Will any Democrat join Republicans? Will the president support this bill to actually change something and live up to his pledge to the American people?
Tags: October, unemployment report, Democrat packing courts, Obama, half-hearted apology To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
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