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Sunday 28 June 2015

Obamacare is a Public Requiem by Supreme Decree

“The Congressional Record will forever show that [Obamacare] was passed in a romper room of overgrown children seemingly barely old enough to keep from peeing on themselves.” 
Matt Taibbi

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Obamacare is a Public Requiem by Supreme Decree

Do you have an absolute right to refuse medical treatment? Well, if you recognize the immutable authority of natural rights, you must defend the birthright of individuals to reject the quackery of government-imposed medicine. Common law clearly discerns that there are limits on the power of governments to force human beings into becoming pinned up sheep, against their will. Already far too many cowardly citizens are eager to comply with the next dictate of a tyrannical regime. Subsequently, when the death panels summon you into their diagnostic pool of drugs, why would you want to accept the pharmaceutical prescription for a controlled and managed demise?

Obamacare is unmistakably a tax. If government levees a tariff on a taxpayer, that is not news. However, when inclusion into a collectivist system of government medicine becomes mandatory, the life essence of individual will is sucked out of the body of an immortal spirit.

The legality of the mandates is up for grabs by a tribunal of Star Chamber jurists. The sideshow about recusal, rivals reality TV programming and confuses the constitutional illiterates. Solicitor General Elena Kagan, in all her glory, conveyed her delight. "I hear they have the votes, Larry!! Simply amazing,"

Kagan

said to Harvard Law Prof. Laurence Tribe in one of the emails.

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CNSnews reports,

"The March 2010 email exchange between Kagan and Tribe raises new questions about whether Kagan must recuse herself from judging cases involving the health-care law that Obama signed--and which became the target of legal challenges--while Kagan was serving as Obama's solicitor general and was responsible for defending his administration’s positions in court disputes.

According to 28 USC 455, a Supreme Court justice must recuse from "any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned." The law also says a justice must recuse anytime he has "expressed an opinion concerning the merits of the particular case in controversy" while he "served in governmental employment."

The argument made by the Nation that Justice Clarence Thomas must recuse himself from any ruling on the Affordable Care Act, because of his wife’s work as a conservative activist and lobbyist, where she specifically agitated for the repeal of "Obamacare", conveniently ignores reality. Kagan was the person appointed to represent the federal government before the Supreme Court of the United States. Thomas was not a lobbyist. The difference should be self-evident for any objective observer.

The essential question never asked is how a nation of inherent autonomous individuals, would allow a politicized court to rule on natural human right authority. Your right to refuse inclusion into a medical insurance scheme, designed for gently leading you down death’s road, is inalienable. Obamacare is a question of exercising the right NOT to participate, much less about forced tribute to pay for the costs of hypochondriacs, who believe physicians are gracious drug pushers.

The electorate made their voice heard in the 2010 elections. The Tea Party eruption was largely a spontaneous repudiation of Obamacare. Criticism of the 112th Congress should be directed against the House for not having the guts to issue and vote upon articles of impeachment against the pretender president, who is bent on destroying the civil rights of mentally healthy citizens.

So why is the nation suffering from the tyranny of the inflicted?

Wendell Potter

, a former CIGNA executive-turned-whistleblower, lays out the reason in plain simple language.

"Opponents of the Affordable Care Act who believe the Supreme Court will declare the law unconstitutional are going to be disappointed next year when a majority of the nine justices vote to uphold it. It will likely be a 5-4 decision, but moderate conservative Anthony Kennedy will, I’m confident, recognize that without the law, the free-market system of health insurance, so highly valued by conservatives, will implode, sooner rather than later.

Here’s the reality. The provision of Obamacare at the heart of the constitutional challenge — the requirement that all Americans will have to buy health insurance if they’re not eligible for a public plan like Medicare or Medicaid — is a "must have" for the nation’s health insurance industry."

If conservatives really value a free-market health insurance system, by what claim of legitimacy can court dictums be imposed, upon individuals who rationally and willfully refuse to be part of that medical injection revolving door treatment? A free-market business, especially the medicine cartel, needs to re-invent itself, not seek government imposed guaranteed funding subsidies.  

In the NBC video report, the prospects that some conservative justices may well uphold this new expansion of government fiat into the lives of Americans is chilling. Jay Sekulow on MSNBC Discussing ObamaCare at the Supreme Court asks the question: Where will it stop? Expanding brand new federal powers is not an authentic conservative viewpoint.

The supreme decree for public enslavement that Obamacare represents, does not originate with the decision from the Supreme Court. It comes from the pathological sickness of the Nanny State, accepted by millions of intellectual cripples and self-absorbed government syncopates, looking for a bigger welfare check. Just maybe self-reliant folks, who go to great pains to live a healthy lifestyle, just do not want to be part of the medical meat grinder.

Reality Check: ObamaCare & Death Panels by Raven Clabough provides an update.
"Democrats found a way to achieve their goal by way of regulation instead, introduced by Obama Medicare chief Dr. Donald Berwick. A new Medicare regulation implemented on January 1, 2011 pays doctors to advise patients on options for end-of-life care, which includes advanced directives to forego aggressive life-sustaining treatment.

In addition to the end-of-life Medicare rule, state governments are implementing "death panels" of sorts to help handle their budget woes."

 

 

Now view contracting positions on the impact of this reality in the video, Obamacare Death Panels Are Back!!! Even if you dismiss the prediction that Obamacare makes a concerted effort to rush your demise and hasten your mortality, prospects of arbitrary rationing are inevitable.

"With Medicare’s trustees predicting the Medicare program will go bankrupt in 2024 - five years earlier than was projected before the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act - even Americans who strongly supported Obamacare have little choice but to acknowledge that Medicare must be reformed - and soon. While lawmakers continue to argue about the best way to protect this vital program for the seniors it serves and those who it has yet to serve, there is a growing bipartisan consensus that the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) is one provision of the new health law that will do more to undermine the program than save it.

Unfortunately, most people in the country, including seniors relying on Medicare, have no idea what IPAB is or how it will affect their lives if it ever becomes operational. More concerning, President Obama decided to make the board the centerpiece of his efforts to reduce the deficit by calling for it to be strengthened - not eliminated. Starting in 2015, the IPAB will give 15 unelected bureaucrats unprecedented power to slash billions of dollars from Medicare when spending exceeds targeted growth rates. The cuts made by the board will come on top of the $500 billion that was transferred from Medicare to a new entitlement program as a result of the new health care law."

Add to this discretionary allocation, the revolting practice of exceptions. The issuance of waivers from the law to political favorites or "too big to fail" conglomerates, is blatantly a violation of equal protection. Yet, in the hologram construct that passes for lawful government, the whims of class warfare, becomes the standard for this abhorrent Obama administration. The favoritism of the corporate/state economy at the expense of main street free enterprise is as vivid as it has even been. The working poor and the self-employed can kiss their economic future goodbye. Obama wants the middle class to suck it up and become dependent parasites, in the brave new world of coerced medical experimentation.

The social fascists that bleed for universal health care, provided by a single payer bureaucracy are fundamentally statists. Strategies for repeal are weak and remote. Nina Owcharenko in Repealing Obamacare and Getting Health Care Right, describes accurately the problem but is unrealistic for a political solution.

"Congress must repeal the new law. Congress cannot build sound market-based health care reform on the PPACA foundation, which is utterly incompatible with a health care system based on consumer choice and free markets.

Beyond the unprecedented mandates, new taxes, massive entitlement expansion, unworkable and costly insurance provisions, and its failure to control costs, the new law concentrates enormous power in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). It creates a giant network for the federal micromanagement of health plans, benefits, insurance markets, and unprecedented intervention into the details of health care financing and the delivery of medical care."

Repeal of Obamacare is justified. However, the supreme decree that enacted the original legislation comes from an inept and illicit political class. They will resist to the death, retracting their handy work. Even with new replacement legislators, the executive administration envisions a new cash cow for milking. If the Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of Obamacare, your duty is to opt out of the government medial payment system. Encourage the implosion, or resign to total enslavement. This is your terminal and only existential choice.

DARPA: We Are Engineering the Organisms That Will Terraform Mars

It’s no secret that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is investing heavily in genetic engineering and synthetic biology. Whether that excites or terrifies you depends on how you feel about the military engineering totally new life forms. If you’re in the excitement camp, however, here’s a nugget for you: DARPA believes that it's on the way to creating organisms capable of terraforming Mars into a planet that looks more like Earth.

The goal of terraforming Mars would be to warm up and potentially thicken its atmosphere by growing green, photosynthesizing plants, bacteria, and algae on the barren Martian surface. It’s a goal that even perpetual techno-optimists like Elon Musk think isn’t going to happen anytime soon, but it’s a goal that DARPA apparently already has its eyes on.

“For the first time, we have the technological toolkit to transform not just hostile places here on Earth, but to go into space not just to visit, but to stay,” Alicia Jackson, deputy director of DARPA’s new Biological Technologies Office said Monday at a DARPA-hosted biotech conference. As she said this, Jackson was pointing at an artist's rendering of a terraformed Mars.

Ignoring Tsipras Plea For Calm, Greeks Storm ATMs, Stores, Gas Stations

Just a few hours ago Greek PM Tsipras addressed his nation imploring then to "remain calm" and reassuring them that their "deposits were safe." It appears the Greeks did not believe him. Many were wondering where the Greek bank lines were for the past several months. Turns out the local depositors were merely waiting until just after the last minute to withdraw their funds... horde gas... and stack food. Greece, it appears is Venezuela - the new socialist paradise.

Tsipras implored: "Keep Calm...."

 

They did not listen...

Call that an ATM line...

 

Now THIS is an ATM line...

 

 

 

 

 

Even at the airports...

 

 

And gas stations are overwhelmed...

 

 

 

As grocery stores and general appliance stores come under seige...

         

 

We have seen this before - in Russia recently as the Ruble collapsed and citizens spent any and every piece of currency they had on 'assets'.

The great news for Greece is that GDP for Q2 will be sent soaring.

Simply put - it's all about inflation expectations. And unlike The Fed or The BoJ, who keep trying to jawbone higher expectations into their citizens' minds, the Greek government may have achieved it implicitly through devaluation expectations and with it - a spending spree before things get more expensive and implicitly a surge in GDP. Of course, however, the spending surge can only be short-term and will stop as soon as there are no more euros to spend.

Top German Politician Blasts Nuland & Carter: "F##k US Imperialism"

With intra-Europe relations hitting a new all-time low; and, having already been busted spying on Merkel, Obama got caught with his hand in Hollande's cookie jar this week, the following exultation from one of Germany's top politicians will hardly help Washington-Brussells relations. As Russia Insider notes, Oskar Lafontaine is a major force in German politics so it caught people’s attention when he excoriated Ash Carter and Victoria Nuland on his Facebook page yesterday... "Nuland says 'F*ck the EU'. We need need an EU foreign policy that stops warmongering US imperialism... F*ck US imperialism!"

Here is the Facebook post (in German):

 

Lafontaine  has been an outsized figure in German politics since the mid-70s. He was chairman of the SPD (one of Germany’s two main parties) for four years, the SPD’s candidate for chancellor in 1990, minister of finance for two years, and then chairman of the Left party in the 2000s. He is married to Sarah Wagenknecht, political heavyweight, who is currently co-chairman of Left party.

Lafontaine’s outburst came a day after his wife, Sarah Wagenknecht, blasted Merkel’s Russia policy in an interview on RT. 

Here is the full translation of the post:

“The US ‘Defense’ secretary, i.e., war minister is in Berlin.  He called on Europe to counter Russian ‘aggression’.  But in fact, it is US aggression which Europeans should be opposing. 

 

“The Grandmaster of US diplomacy, George Kennan described the eastward expansion of NATO as the biggest US foreign policy mistake since WW2, because it will lead to a new cold war.  

 

“The US diplomat Victoria Nuland said we have spent $5 billion to destabilize the Ukraine. They stoke the flames ever higher, and Europe pays for it with lower trade and lost jobs.

 

“Nuland says ‘F*ck the EU’. We need need an EU foreign policy that stops warmongering US imperialism.

 

“F*ck US imperialism!”

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When he comes out swinging this way, you know something is changing. 

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America - making friends and influencing people for 238 years...

Greek Capital Controls Begin: Greek Banks, Stock Market Will Not Open On Monday

Update 2: Greece's Skai reports that if/when banks reopen (supposedly on Tuesday), a 60€ withdrawal limit will be imposed.

Update: In a televised address to the nation, Greek PM Alexis Tsipras assured Greeks that their deposits are safe despite an upcoming bank holiday and despite the fact that Greek stocks will not open for trading on Monday. Tsipras also said Athens has re-applied for a bailout extension and urged Greeks to "remain calm" in the face of what is sure to be a turbulent week.

  • GREEK PRIME MINISTER SAYS GREEK PEOPLE SHOULD REMAIN CALM
  • GREEK PM: BANK OF GREECE PROPOSED BANK TRANSACTION RESTRICTIONS
  • GREEK PRIME SAID GREECE RE-APPLIED FOR BAILOUT EXTENSION
  • GREEK PRIME MINISTER SAYS DEPOSITS ARE COMPLETELY SAFE

Earlier:

Despite the reassurances from any and all elected (and unelected) officials, given the run on bank ATMs in Greece has turned into a stampede, it is not surprising that:

  • GREEK BANKS TO REMAIN CLOSED FROM MONDAY FOR A WEEK: PIRAEUS BANK CEO
  • PIRAEUS BANK CEO THOMOPOULOS SPEAKS TO REPORTERS IN ATHENS

The announcement was made when Piraeus Bank CEO Anthimos Thomopoulos told reporters after a meeting of the government’s financial-stability panel on Sunday. The launch of capital controls just as the Greek summer tourism season starts, is sure to be the final crushing blow to Greece, whose entire economy will now grind to a halt.

At the same time, Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said an announcement would be made after a Cabinet meeting due to start imminently in Athens. Which is ironic considering just earlier today Varoufakis said he is opposed to the "very concept" of capital controls:

Banks will remain shut until at least after a July 5 referendum called by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on whether to accept austerity in exchange for a European bailout, Kathemerini newspaper reported, citing unnamed sources.

Reuters is also reporting that the Greek stock market will not open on Monday (leaving us wondering just what that will do to the Greek ETFs liquidity in US markets) as hedgers scramble to protect un-closable losses wherever they can.

More from Reuters, which reports that "Greece's banks, kept afloat by emergency funding from the European Central Bank, are on the front line as Athens moves towards defaulting on a 1.6 billion euros payment due to the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday."

The ECB had made it difficult for the banks to open on Monday because it decided to freeze the level of funding support it gives the banking system, rather than increasing it to cover a rise in withdrawals from worried depositors.

 

Amid drama in Greece, where a clear majority of people want to remain inside the euro, the next few days present a major challenge to the integrity of the 16-year-old euro zone currency bloc. The consequences for markets and the wider financial system are unclear.

 

The head of Piraeus Bank, one of Greece's top four banks, speaking after a meeting of the country's financial stability council, said banks would be shut on Monday while a financial industry source told Reuters the Athens stock exchange would not open.

 

"It is a dark hour for Europe....nevertheless from where we're sitting we have a clear conscience," Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said earlier in an interview with the BBC.

 

Greece's left-wing Syriza government had for months been negotiating a deal to release funding in time for its IMF payment. Then suddenly, in the early hours of Saturday, Tspiras asked for extra time to enable Greeks to vote in a referendum on the terms of the deal.

 

Creditors turned down this request, leaving little option for Greece but to default, piling further pressure on the country's banking system.

 

The creditors want Greece to cut pensions and raise taxes in ways that Tsipras has long argued would deepen one of the worst economic crises of modern times in a country where a quarter of the workforce is already unemployed.

 

Pro-European Greek opposition parties have united in condemning the decision to call the referendum on the bailout terms, but people on the streets of Athens backed the decision.

 

"I want him (Tsipras) to knock his fist on the table and to say 'enough!'," said resident Evgenoula.

 

Many leading economists have voiced sympathy with the Greek government's argument that further cuts in spending risk choking off the growth which would give Greece some prospect of servicing debts worth nearly twice its annual national income.

 

The IMF has pressed European governments to ease Athens' debt burden, something most say they will only do when Greece first shows it is trimming its budget.

 

Long lines formed outside many ATMs on Sunday, including some of 40 to 50 people outside some in central Athens.

 

The Bank of Greece said it was making "huge efforts" to ensure the machines remained stocked.

The German foreign ministry said tourists heading to Greece should take plenty of cash to avoid possible problems with local banks and some tourists said they were joining the ATM queues.

"I am trying to go over to the bigger banks," said Cassandra Preston, a Canadian tourist. "I am here for another month and I would like to make sure I have some cash on me."

* * *

In other words, Greek speculators (and of course, those depositors who were dumb enough to still have money in local banks) just got CYNK'd - you can buy stocks all you want, but if the market is about to fall out of the bottom, you simply are not allowed to sell.

Which, incidentally, is coming to every centrally-planned, banana "market" near you...