Category Archives: Law
Aetna Says Bye Bye to ObamaCare
The four biggest insurers are going wobbly on ObamaCare.
What initially looked like a great deal for them – customers federally mandated to buy their product – doesn’t seem to be working out as they had hoped. Bloomberg Businessweek reports that insurers are loosing hundreds of millions of dollars on Obamacare.
Aetna Says Bye Bye
So Aetna now says bye bye to ObamaCare by way of pulling out of exchanges in 11 of the 15 states it serves. UnitedHealth and Humana are following suit. UnitedHealth is ditching 31 of its 34 states, and Humana is leaving 9 of 19 states.
In July the Justice Department blocked a proposed merger between Aetna and UnitedHealth. At the time Aetna wrote that without the cost savings of the merger it would leave the exchanges.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton supports a government funded public option to compete on the exchanges with the remaining private insurers.
Obama Launders Iran Ransom Money
Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert was busted for paying hush money by making cash withdrawals that would be difficult to trace. Never mind that he was a perv trying to hide the fact that he had molested a high school wrestler. It was violating the $10,000 cash withdrawal limit that got him busted.
Well, the WSJ reported yesterday that the Obama administration tried to hide a $400 million cash payment to Iran. And it tried to hide the purpose of the payment – ransom of five hostages.
The Justice Department opposed the deal.
Michelle Kosinski of CNN asked White House spokesman Josh Earnest if the hostages would have been released without the payment. He refused to answer. Actually, Earnest’s drawn out unrelated responses were kind of amusing. You can see the exchange at the -41:11 mark of this C-SPAN video.
Ransom Laundry
The ransom was paid in Swiss Francs and Euros delivered by unmarked plane in the middle of the night. Since it’s against the law to trade dollars with Iran Dr. Krauthammer says the administration is guilty of money laundering.
Obviously, it wasn’t a coincidence. The reason that it was objected to by Justice, there is a statute that prohibits us from engaging in Iran dealing with dollars. So, they had to print the money here, ship it over to Switzerland, turn it into Swiss francs and euros and ship it over to Iran. If a private company had done this, this is called money laundering. The CEO would be in jail right now.”
He added, “The reason it was concealed is because it’s illegal. That’s why Congress wasn’t notified, because it’s scandalous for the administration to explicitly defy a law that says you can’t deal in American currency. And the second thing is, it isn’t only that it encourages terrorism in the future, it’s that the money is in cash. Why in cash? Because that you can’t trace it. It’s going to go straight to Hezbollah, straight to Hamas, straight to terrorists in Iraq.”
Update:
Andrew McCarthy in National Review maintains Obama committed a felony. He says the law restricts the transfer of value to Iran in any way.
By his own account, President Obama engaged in the complex cash transfer in order to end-run sanctions that prohibit the U.S. from having “a banking relationship with Iran.” The point of the sanctions is not to prevent banking with Iran; it is to prevent Iran from getting value from or through our financial system — the banking prohibition is a corollary. And the point of sanctions, if you happen to be the president of the United States sworn to execute the laws faithfully, is to follow them — not pat yourself on the back for keeping them in place while you willfully evade them. The president’s press conference is better understood as a confession than an explanation.
Lying to FBI and American People
Hillary Clinton didn’t testify under oath in her three and a half hour interview with the FBI. Director Comey said there was no evidence she was lying. There was no transcript either.
On Monday a federal judge delayed ruling on a deposition of Hillary. The deposition was requested by Judicial Watch as part of its lawsuit against the State Department over her private email server.
Black Lives Lie Matters
The deaths on live video of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling created a shocking impression, to say the least. How do you draw a cartoon about a snuff film?
I held off because things don’t always turn out the way they seem. Learned that from the Michael Brown case in Ferguson. Brown was portrayed by the media as a “gentle giant”. Eric Holder’s Justice Department found him to be a thug who was shot and killed while attacking a police officer.
“Hands up don’t shoot” was a lie but Black Lives Matter ran with it anyway.
The irony is five Dallas police officers died while defending a Black Lives protest march.
” I may not agree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it.” – Not just words.
Black Lives
Eugene Robinson explains here why “the racial divide, has its roots in lingering claims of white supremacy.”
John Gibbs explains here why Robinson is full of it. He blames Obama for wrongly “accusing the police and justice system at large of racism.”
And here’s an eight and a half minute YouTube by Paul Joseph Watson that tells the truth about Black Lives Matter.
Notorious RBG Packs for New Zealand
Canada must be getting crowded with Trump averse celebrities. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, told the NYT she’s headed for New Zealand if The Donald gets elected. She said, “I can’t imagine what our country would be like with Donald Trump as president.”
Trump called the Supreme Court Justice’s criticism “highly inappropriate“. The Times and Washington Post editorial pages agreed.
But Justice Ginsburg, aka The Notorious R.G.B., was on a roll. She told CNN Trump is “a faker”. She has also said it’s the Senate’s job to vote on Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court and she wants Citizens United overturned.
Packing for New Zealand
The WSJ editorial page says it’s time for her to go.
Update:
Ginsburg apologizes:
“On reflection, my recent remarks in response to press inquiries were ill-advised and I regret making them,” Justice Ginsburg said in a statement on Thursday. “Judges should avoid commenting on a candidate for public office. In the future I will be more circumspect.”
