HALF-FULL REPORT 11/14/14

Jack Wheeler is still off in parts of the world it’s best not to talk about, so I’m filling in for him again on the HFR this week…which has been a terrible week for Democrats because of the loose lips of an Obamacare architect who just couldn’t resist bragging to his fellow liberal elitists about how the White House gang bamboozled Congress and the American people. Even former White House Press Secretary Jay Carney thinks he’s an ass.

Zero made it clear he intends to do precisely the opposite of what the American people want him to do, which signals many more terrible weeks are ahead for Democrats.

The big loser in the midterms was Hillary Clinton, Matt Continetti thinks. The libs on the Morning Joe panel are inclined to agree. The electoral map looks grim for Democrats, says Michael Barone. The future is looking up for the GOP…unless they bungle illegal immigration.

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Jonathan Gruber, MIT economics professor and Obamacare architect, is getting his 15 minutes of fame. Neither he nor the Obama administration are enjoying it.

Mr. Gruber thinks he’s very smart, and you’re not. In speeches you can watch here, here, and here, he called Americans stupid, said Obamacare was deliberately designed to deceive them. He was speaking to fellow liberal elitists, who he assumed, correctly, would chuckle appreciatively at the shots he took at the Great Unwashed. But if Mr. Gruber were as smart as he imagines himself to be, he’d have remembered virtually everything these days is recorded.

In this video, from January, 2012, Gruber said the language in the Obamacare law which restricts subsidies to those who purchase insurance on state exchanges was put there to bully states into setting up exchanges :

This undermines the administration’s argument Congress intended for those who bought policies on the federal exchange to get subsidies too.

That was just a speak-o, Gruber said when the video emerged. Which was a stupid lie, because shortly after he said it, videos surfaced of him saying the same thing on two other occasions.

What Gruber said isn’t true, he really didn’t have much to do with Obamacare, the White House says. Nobody believes that. Gruber has become such a tar baby for Dems that Nancy Pelosi, who once praised his work, now claims not to know who he is. David French lists the reasons here why try as they might, Dems will be stuck to their tar baby.

Deliberately deceiving Congress and the American people isn’t a big deal, most in the MSM think. There was nothing on the evening newscasts on ABC, NBC and CBS about Gruber last night. "There really are two Americas, and one of them has no idea what is going on, because it depends on "journalists" whose job it is to blockade the news so that unhelpful facts don’t leak through," John Hinderaker said.

Philip Klein of the Washington Examiner, Ron Fournier of the National Journal, the Chicago Tribune, and even Howard Dean (!) disagree.

So does Charles Krauthammer. Thanks to Gruber, he said, "now we know what lay behind Obama’s smooth reassurances – the arrogance of an academic liberalism that rules in the name of a citizenry it mocks, disdains, and deliberately, contemptuously deceives."

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After secret negotiations, President Obama made a deal with China on "climate change." It’s "historic," a "game changer," say most in the MSM. But Foreign Policy magazine wonders: "Why is Beijing downplaying the supposedly huge climate change deal?

Perhaps because it’s a "meaningless sham," says Investor’s Business Daily. "Fluff and PR," says JoAnne Nova. A "meaningless charade," said Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-OK, incoming chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and the warmists’ worst enemy.

The administration plans to issue executive orders to reduce carbon emissions. If implemented, they’d cripple our economy. Republicans will fight them, but a 2007 Supreme Court decision may give Zero license to wreak havoc, frets Patrick Michaels.

Record shattering cold slams Colorado. Snow blankets upper Midwest. Record low temperatures were set in Florida. Maybe if the Pajama Boys got out of their parents’ basement more often, they’d notice.

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Zero also has been conducting secret negotiations with Iran. It speaks volumes about the parlous state our country is in that the president is more eager to deal with the mullahs than with Republicans.

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In another finger in the face of the new GOP majority in Congress, President Obama has demanded the Federal Communications Commission regulate the Internet. But FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, who got the job because of his skill at raising money for Zero, is backing away from it.

"One has to wonder how badly a President has to bungle executive management to get a bundler to declare his independence from a President," Ed Morrissey said.

Perhaps Wheeler is reticent because Republicans are reminding him from whence cometh the FCC’s funding. This could be another reason. John Hayward summarizes the issues here.

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Al Qaida and the Islamic State have formally joined forces. Maybe this will make Zero stop pretending they’ve nothing to do with each other, and their terror has nothing to do with their religious views. But I wouldn’t bet on it.

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Republican Dan Sullivan has been declared the winner of the senate race in Alaska, but Sen. Mark Begich is still playing Sore Loserman.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, who now moves to the top of the Endangered Species list, made an impassioned plea on the Senate floor Wednesday for the Keystone XL pipeline. Senate Democrats are contemplating passing a bill to authorize it, to give Mary a boost in the runoff Dec. 6.

But the House already passed a bill by Rep. Bill Cassidy, her opponent in the runoff, to authorize Keystone, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has promised him a seat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, which reduces Mary’s trump card to something more like a deuce.

The Senate Democratic Campaign Committee has cancelled ad buys on her behalf. ActBlue, which raises funds for liberal candidates, is trying to take up the slack, without much success. So far, 96 percent of tv ads in the runoff have been for Cassidy. Internal polls indicate the race is becoming a laugher.

"Landrieu should save everyone a lot of money and just concede now," tweeted uber leftist Markos Moulitsas.

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New VA Secretary Robert McDonald actually has begun to fire people. This is so remarkable – the first hint of accountability ever in the Obama administration – I had to mention it. McDonald said Monday he plans to can about 1,000 more. Good on him.

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Dr. Ben Carson is the first to throw his hat in the presidential ring. He plans to air a 40 minute documentary about himself in 22 states. Olivia Nuzzi of the Daily Beast has a review of his campaign team here.

He’ll have lots of company, soon. Sen. Ted Cruz is gearing up. So are Mike Huckabee and Rand Paul.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker was on Meet the Press last Sunday, sounding like a presidential candidate. That’s good, said Rich Cromwell in The Federalist: "Does Walker sizzle? Not exactly. Is he a particularly charismatic speaker? No, he isn’t. But does he sit upon a throne made of the skulls of his enemies? Yes, yes he does."

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Rush Limbaugh may sue the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for blatantly misrepresenting his views on sexual assault in a fund-raising letter. 

Good for Rush. It’ll be hard for him to win, but he might, so the DCCC has to spend money on legal fees. Just by filing the suit, Rush highlights their dishonesty.

* * * *

The Marine Corps turned 239 Monday. I was a Marine, so I’m biased. But you gotta love a service that was born in a bar (the Tun Tavern in Philadelphia), whose first mission was to the Bahamas.

Marines have a well earned reputation for courage, ferocity and skill in battle. Perhaps their greatest tribute came from the German officer in World War I who after the battle of Belleau Wood said Marines were "Teufel hunden" (hounds from Hell).

The Corps made certain Marines got every bit of glory they deserved, perhaps a scoche more. When WWII began, the Corps had the wit to create the MOS of "Combat Correspondent," fill it with veteran newspapermen such as Richard Tregaskis (Guadalcanal Diary) and Robert Leckie (Helmet for my Pillow).

There were many more soldiers than Marines in the Pacific, but you couldn’t tell that from reading the newspapers. The exploits of the Marines were publicized so well that Gen. Eisenhower is said to have remarked, with a trace of doubt in his voice, that he thought his Rangers were as good as they were.

For 239 years, no military service has performed nearly as well on the battlefield, nor been better at self promotion. Happy Birthday, Devil Dogs!

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President Obama plans to issue an executive order granting amnesty to about five million illegal immigrants by the end of next week, reported Fox News. The New York Times confirmed.

This is actually good news, because it will unify Republicans in opposition to the president. House Speaker John Boehner, R-OH, promised Thursday to fight it "tooth an nail."

And Americans will be royally peeved.

"It will create a backlash in the country that could actually set the cause back and inflame our politics in a way that I don’t think will be conducive to solving the problem," Sen. Angus King, a liberal Independent from Maine who caucuses with the Dems, told the New York Times.

Even Dingy Harry Reid thinks it would be a mistake.

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It’s outrageous President Obama is contemplating an action he has absolutely no legal authority to take, as he himself once acknowledged.

But the substance of what Zero proposes might not be so bad. Amnesty would be limited, essentially, to otherwise law abiding parents of U.S. citizens who’ve been here for five years or more, perhaps for at least ten years, the Fox News and New York Times reports indicate. 

Republicans must respond firmly, but not recklessly. The GOP must make it clear they are for protecting the Constitution and the rule of law; securing the border, protecting the health and the jobs of Americans. They must not let themselves be perceived as anti-Hispanic.

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How should Republicans try to stop him? 

The Retromingent Right – plus a few conservatives who have IQs above room temperature – want to use the threat of a government shutdown to blackmail him into submission. Which is exactly what Obamunists hope Republicans will try to do. I noted in the Gruber item above that 13 months ago, only 28 percent of Americans approved of the GOP. That’s because Americans blamed us for the last government shutdown.

Yet this idiot says "the shutdown worked." Which is like saying the Democrats won the midterms. As Talleyrand said of the Bourbons, the Retromingent Right has "learned nothing and forgotten nothing."

As Democrats were cruising to re-election in deep blue Oregon, Ballot Measure 88, which would have provided drivers’ licenses to illegal aliens, went down in flames (33.6 percent Yes, 66.4 percent No.) This points the way forward. The way to defeat Zero is with rapier thrusts at his most vulnerable spots, not by taking a meat axe to the entire government.

A long term funding measure for the government is "pre-emptive surrender," say the chest-thumping Yahoos. Precisely the opposite is the case. If the vast majority of the functions of government which are not at issue can’t be used as a distraction, Republicans can focus like laser beams on the few critical to Zero’s illegal schemes.

When the government is run properly (that is to say, not by Democrats), the government is funded by 13 separate appropriations bills – not by one big omnibus bill. But because the senate never acted on these bills, an omnibus bill must be passed in the lame duck session.

The smart thing for Republicans to do would be to pass an omnibus bill that would fund for the remainder of the fiscal year all of the government save for those agencies which would carry out Zero’s executive orders. These should be funded in a short term bill which would expire in February or March. This would give Republicans leverage without permitting the MSM to use the "government shutdown" boogieman as a distraction.

Here’s another tool Republicans can use to rein Zero in.

Matt Continetti has some good ideas – and one bad one – here. He thinks Republicans should say there’ll be no immigration reform if Zero "commits such a brazen and unconstitutional act." As I’ll explain below, what Republicans should do is pass an immigration reform bill that Obama won’t like, but Americans will.

* * * *

"Latinos aren’t a ‘cheap date’ for Democrats anymore, said columnist Ruben Navarette.

Zero is counting on those who holler "Amnesty!" at the top of their lungs whenever anyone proposes any consideration whatsoever for otherwise law abiding illegals to flip this issue back in favor of Democrats.

The right kind of immigration reform is the key to thwarting Obama’s overreach; could cement, and expand upon, the tentative gains Republicans made with Hispanics this year.

A Republican immigration reform bill should satisfy the most pressing concerns of Hispanics without heaping additional burdens on taxpayers or enfranchising millions of new voters. It should contain provisions Zero will have difficulty swallowing, but which Democrats in all but the darkest blue districts and states will pay a price for opposing.

* * * *

What might those provisions be?

* We must have new legislation to: (1) restrict entry into the U.S. of travelers from Ebola hot zones; (2) to force the administration to stop issuing visas to Islamists such as the Tsarnev brothers; (3) to forbid the Department of Homeland Security from releasing into the general population before their deportation hearings illegal aliens who have committed violent felonies; (4) to require DHS to establish a means for tracking those who overstay their visas; (5) to streamline deportation procedures, and (6) to secure the border, chiefly by building a fence in high traffic areas.

These measures would be popular with most Americans, including minorities. Not enough is being done to secure the border, said 63 percent of Hispanics in this poll. The government has a responsibility to protect Americans from competition for jobs from illegal immigrants, said 63 percent of Hispanics. In this poll last year, 60 percent of Hispanics backed an "enforcement first" approach.

A bill that addresses Ebola and Islamist terror would reinforce the notion Republicans are trying to protect Americans, not harm Hispanics.

What otherwise law abiding illegals want most is to stop looking over their shoulders for immigration agents. Republicans could lift fear of deportation right away without adding a burden on taxpayers, by making explicit in a grant of conditional amnesty those who receive it will not be eligible for welfare.

*I referred to the CCES numbers on noncitizen voting in the HFR last week, and in a column this week. The problem is here and now – not something that will happen down the road if illegals are offered a "patch to citizenship." We need to do something about it now. An immigration reform bill gives us the opportunity. We can make it clear illegals who vote in our elections will forfeit conditional amnesty, be subject to immediate deportation.

* A GOP reform bill should require employers to use E-Verify to check the citizenship status of new hires; provide stiff penalties for employers who don’t. Otherwise law abiding illegals who have jobs should be permitted to keep them. The purpose of the provision is to remove an incentive for future illegal immigration. And if illegals are going to be denied welfare benefits, they’ve got to be able to work.

An E-Verify provision would make it possible for Republicans to throw the Chamber of Commerce a bone on a guest worker program and H-1b visas. But a GOP bill should provide H-1b relief only if employers can’t find Americans qualified for the job, not so they can pay foreigners less.

* For illegals who snuck in as adults, citizenship should be off the table. But Republicans should offer a "path to a green card." And illegals brought here as children should be able to become citizens, especially by honorable service in the U.S. Armed Forces. That’s only fair, is what conservative Hispanics urge.

* * * *

An immigration reform that satisfies most Hispanics could grease the wheels for passage of tougher ballot security measures, because it would vitiate the inevitable Democrat charges of racism. Most Hispanics support ballot security measures. More would if it were clear they weren’t aimed at them.

No Republican can be elected president without getting at least 40 percent of the Hispanic vote. The eye-popping margins by which Brian Sandoval was re-elected governor of Nevada (70.59 percent), and Susana Martinez was re-elected governor of New Mexico (57.34 percent) indicate far more than that are willing to vote for a Republican.

Sandoval and Martinez are Hispanic. But Rep. Steve Pearce crushed a Hispanic Democrat in a New Mexico district that is 52 percent Hispanic. In Texas, newly elected LtGov. Dan Patrick (lieutenant governor is an important office in Texas) got 53 percent of the vote among Hispanic men against a Hispanic Democrat. In Colorado, exit polls indicate Cory Gardner broke nearly even among Hispanics. Anglo Republicans can get the Hispanic votes they need without compromising their principles, if they listen to Hispanic concerns, treat them with respect, and ask for their votes.

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I apologize for going on so long, but we’ve got to get illegal immigration right. Jack Wheeler should be back next week.

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