TedCruzworkingonbillthatwouldrepeal

Ted Cruz working on bill that would repeal Obama’s 2012 amnesty for DREAMers; Update: Or would it?

posted at 11:21 am on July 17, 2014 by Allahpundit

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Actually, per Breitbart, he’s working on two bills. One would repeal DACA, Obama’s 2012 executive order that suspended deportations for qualifying young illegals. The other, a more urgent priority, would block Obama from expanding DACA. That means no executive amnesty for the Central American children who’ve come here recently (although they could, I assume, still be allowed to stay under asylum laws) and, maybe, no executive amnesty for the five million adult illegals whom O has promised immigration activists he’ll help.

Given the post-Romney terror within the GOP leadership over being demagogued as anti-Latino, I wonder if the bills will get more flack from Democrats or from Republicans.

“No legislation [to solve the border crisis] should be considered unless it specifically prohibits Obama from expanding” the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), “which allows those who have come here illegally to stay,” Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier told Breitbart News. “That should be a prerequisite for any bill considered to address this crisis.”

Frazier also told Breitbart News that Cruz is working on a bill on the matter that aims to end DACA altogether.

Cruz’s stand would appear to exclude support for a bill offered by his Texas colleagues Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), the Senate Minority Whip, and Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), and House officials crafting the GOP bill in the lower chamber have not discussed any provisions related to reigning in DACA.

Simple logic. If DACA and the prospect of “permiso” it raises for illegal immigrant children are encouraging people to come then it’s time to take away that incentive. And it is an incentive: Politico notes that Susan Collins made a presentation at a GOP Senate lunch recently showing that apprehensions of young illegals at the border have more than doubled since Obama issued DACA in 2012, circumstantial evidence that more kids are coming now that word’s gotten out that the president’s not a stickler about sending young illegals home. Are Senate Republicans willing to join Cruz in pounding the table about DACA, though, or is the thought of DNC attack ads accusing them of hating children too worrisome? It would be … odd for the leadership to have spent the last 18 months flirting with comprehensive immigration reform in hopes of building goodwill with Latinos only to turn around now and back Cruz on undoing Obama’s kids amnesty. The politics of all this haven’t changed that much. Or have they?

Some Republicans grumble to Politico that fighting over DACA now will only make it harder to pass funding for more security to handle the border crisis. But that funding is already blocked thanks to Democrats like Reid and Pelosi, remember? The emerging Democratic line in Congress is that they won’t support any bill that makes it easier to deport kids who’ve arrived here recently. The “GOP hates kids” demagoguery is too precious to them; they won’t give it up for something as trivial as a deterrent to illegal immigration. Why would a party that favors open borders do that? So either the GOP’s going to cave and pass a “clean” funding bill, with no provisions in it a la Cornyn/Cuellar that would expedite deportations of young illegals, or they might as well go all in and have a big fight with Democrats over DACA. I sure hope it’s the latter, not just because this incentive to border-crossing needs to be lifted but because I’m dying to see how many 2016 Republican hopefuls follow Cruz’s lead in opposing amnesty for DREAMers. Cruz can get away with it because, if he runs, it’ll be as a stalwart tea-party conservative. Everyone else in the field will be running to various degrees to his left, which means they’re stuck between alienating centrists by backing Cruz here or alienating righties by opposing him. Which, of course, is exactly what Cruz wants. He’s seizing a potential litmus-test issue in the primary and forcing his competition to choke on it.

And yet, I’m a little surprised that Cruz himself is willing to come out against DACA. He hasn’t taken a “send ‘em all home” hard line as a senator. He’s against a path to citizenship but has made occasional approving noises about legalization. Even he, I suspect, by and large accepts the CW that Republicans need to do better at winning over Latinos. The fact that he wants to nuke DACA makes me wonder if he’s planning to soften this blow somehow, maybe by endorsing some sort of legislative fix for DREAMers down the road after the border crisis has eased, or if he’s calculated that the politics of immigration have shifted so sharply and irretrievably from all this that there are now potentially more votes to be had from being a stalwart border hawk than from pandering to Latino voters with various forms of amnesty. Hope he knows what he’s doing.

Update: Cruz’s office e-mails to say that they’re focused first and foremost on stopping DACA. What happens to DREAMers currently covered by the policy will be handled later; right now, the most important thing is to remove the incentive for further illegal immigration by ending the policy. Especially at a moment when Obama’s talking about expanding it to adult illegals.

Update: Yep, looks like my headline here is wrong. Cruz wants to end DACA — but not repeal it.

“We want to stop any more people from getting deferred action under DACA and we want to stop the president from being able to expand it as we have heard he wants to do,” spokeswoman Catherine Frazier told National Review Online.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) accused Cruz of attempting to deport the people who have already passed through the DACA program, but this bill does not do that.

“Our bill doesn’t address people who have already received deferred action under DACA,” Frazier explained.

If you already qualify for amnesty under DACA, you get to keep your amnesty. This is all about ending eligibility for future illegals, not taking it away from people who already have it. That makes sense in light of what I said above. Cruz wants to show that he’s tougher on illegal immigration than his GOP rivals but not so tough that he’s a punching bag for “YOU HATE CHILDREN!” attacks from the left. He’s willing to let children currently involved in the program keep their eligibility. Which makes this a miniature version of comprehensive immigration reform: So long as future waves of illegals are turned away, the ones who are already here enjoy legalization.

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Tags: 2012, amnesty, border, central america, crisis, daca, dream, illegals, obama, Ted Cruz, young

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TedCruzworkingonbillthatwouldrepeal

Ted Cruz working on bill that would repeal Obama’s 2012 amnesty for DREAMers

posted at 11:21 am on July 17, 2014 by Allahpundit

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Actually, per Breitbart, he’s working on two bills. One would repeal DACA, Obama’s 2012 executive order that suspended deportations for qualifying young illegals. The other, a more urgent priority, would block Obama from expanding DACA. That means no executive amnesty for the Central American children who’ve come here recently (although they could, I assume, still be allowed to stay under asylum laws) and, maybe, no executive amnesty for the five million adult illegals whom O has promised immigration activists he’ll help.

Given the post-Romney terror within the GOP leadership over being demagogued as anti-Latino, I wonder if the bills will get more flack from Democrats or from Republicans.

“No legislation [to solve the border crisis] should be considered unless it specifically prohibits Obama from expanding” the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), “which allows those who have come here illegally to stay,” Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier told Breitbart News. “That should be a prerequisite for any bill considered to address this crisis.”

Frazier also told Breitbart News that Cruz is working on a bill on the matter that aims to end DACA altogether.

Cruz’s stand would appear to exclude support for a bill offered by his Texas colleagues Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), the Senate Minority Whip, and Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), and House officials crafting the GOP bill in the lower chamber have not discussed any provisions related to reigning in DACA.

Simple logic. If DACA and the prospect of “permiso” it raises for illegal immigrant children are encouraging people to come then it’s time to take away that incentive. And it is an incentive: Politico notes that Susan Collins made a presentation at a GOP Senate lunch recently showing that apprehensions of young illegals at the border have more than doubled since Obama issued DACA in 2012, circumstantial evidence that more kids are coming now that word’s gotten out that the president’s not a stickler about sending young illegals home. Are Senate Republicans willing to join Cruz in pounding the table about DACA, though, or is the thought of DNC attack ads accusing them of hating children too worrisome? It would be … odd for the leadership to have spent the last 18 months flirting with comprehensive immigration reform in hopes of building goodwill with Latinos only to turn around now and back Cruz on undoing Obama’s kids amnesty. The politics of all this haven’t changed that much. Or have they?

Some Republicans grumble to Politico that fighting over DACA now will only make it harder to pass funding for more security to handle the border crisis. But that funding is already blocked thanks to Democrats like Reid and Pelosi, remember? The emerging Democratic line in Congress is that they won’t support any bill that makes it easier to deport kids who’ve arrived here recently. The “GOP hates kids” demagoguery is too precious to them; they won’t give it up for something as trivial as a deterrent to illegal immigration. Why would a party that favors open borders do that? So either the GOP’s going to cave and pass a “clean” funding bill, with no provisions in it a la Cornyn/Cuellar that would expedite deportations of young illegals, or they might as well go all in and have a big fight with Democrats over DACA. I sure hope it’s the latter, not just because this incentive to border-crossing needs to be lifted but because I’m dying to see how many 2016 Republican hopefuls follow Cruz’s lead in opposing amnesty for DREAMers. Cruz can get away with it because, if he runs, it’ll be as a stalwart tea-party conservative. Everyone else in the field will be running to various degrees to his left, which means they’re stuck between alienating centrists by backing Cruz here or alienating righties by opposing him. Which, of course, is exactly what Cruz wants. He’s seizing a potential litmus-test issue in the primary and forcing his competition to choke on it.

And yet, I’m a little surprised that Cruz himself is willing to come out against DACA. He hasn’t taken a “send ‘em all home” hard line as a senator. He’s against a path to citizenship but has made occasional approving noises about legalization. Even he, I suspect, by and large accepts the CW that Republicans need to do better at winning over Latinos. The fact that he wants to nuke DACA makes me wonder if he’s planning to soften this blow somehow, maybe by endorsing some sort of legislative fix for DREAMers down the road after the border crisis has eased, or if he’s calculated that the politics of immigration have shifted so sharply and irretrievably from all this that there are now potentially more votes to be had from being a stalwart border hawk than from pandering to Latino voters with various forms of amnesty. Hope he knows what he’s doing.

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Tags: 2012, amnesty, border, central america, crisis, daca, dream, illegals, obama, Ted Cruz, young

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Immigrationadvocatesmadthatfedsmightletyoung

Immigration advocates mad that feds might let young illegals choose deportation voluntarily

posted at 11:21 am on July 11, 2014 by Allahpundit

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We can’t deport them against their will — federal law on child trafficking requires that they stay here in the care of HHS and eventually receive a hearing if they’re from a non-contiguous country — but can’t we deport them with their cooperation? No way, say amnesty fans. You can’t get legal consent from a minor for something like that; they’re bound to feel coerced and “volunteer” for removal even if they don’t want to go. A hearing is the only way. And if most of them, after being released, decide to vanish into the United States and never show up for that hearing, hey. Just another example of “due process” being used to subvert the legal process entirely.

The punchline here is that the reason the White House and people like John McCain are suddenly eager to stop this flow of migrants from Central America, even if it means getting kids to “volunteer” to go home, is because it’s screwing up their plans for a much bigger amnesty. They’ve spent 18 months pounding the table for comprehensive immigration reform and now the project is at risk thanks to this ongoing example at the border of just how FUBAR U.S. enforcement is. You would think immigration activists would be smart enough to see sending the kids home as the strategic retreat by their allies that it is, in service to winning the wider war. Nope.

The White House plans to send a separate request to Congress to allow DHS to offer voluntary removal to all unaccompanied children who are picked up at the border, Johnson said. Right now, the border patrol can only offer that option to children who cross the border from Mexico. The officials offer those children the opportunity to go home safely and be delivered into the custody of Mexican child welfare officials without any kind of deportation punishment. Advocates say the interviews are confusing and intimidating for a child…

Indeed, the current trafficking law requires that the Department of Health and Human Services take care of the undocumented children who cross the border if they are not from Mexico. (The exception in the trafficking law also applies to Canada, but few people are apprehended on the Northern border.) The children are provided with medical care, mental health screenings, and education. They are also given some legal services, although not actual representation.

Issa says that amounts to free babysitting for people who crossed the border illegally. It’s hard to argue with him. The testimony of HHS officials this week on Capitol Hill describing the care of the children in their country can almost be read like an advertisement for crossing the border. “The children in our shelters receive physical, mental, dental, education, and physical activities,” said Mark Greenberg, Acting Assistant Secretary for Children and Families at HHS at a Wednesday hearing in the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association is unhappy with “voluntary deportation,” notes National Journal, and some Democrats in Congress might be ready to side with them and force a fight over security funding because of it. Either we shift back to summary deportation, though, whether voluntary or compulsory (if Congress has the numbers to amend the statute), or we keep the current system in which HHS ends up handing kids off to relatives in the U.S. who are themselves illegal, never to be seen again. According to the WSJ, more than 47,000 children were apprehended at the border last year. Many of them were from Mexico and thus some were summarily deported, but it’s hard to know how many. Of the number who weren’t immediately sent back, just 3,500+ received formal orders of deportation — and of that number, just 1,600 or so were returned, meaning that more than half of the kids who actually did end up in the system also ended up evading it in the end.

Right now, there are nearly 42,000 — no typo — cases pending, with backlogs of two or three years not uncommon. So, clearly, what we need is an even slower system involving even more process-evading process:

[M]ore than half of all minors who go through immigration court proceedings in the U.S. do so without the guidance of an attorney. That’s why the American Immigration Council, along with the American Civil Liberties Union, Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, Public Counsel and K&L Gates LLP, have filed a class-action lawsuit against the United States, arguing that the government should be required to provide legal representation to children during immigration court proceedings…

The current flow of undocumented minors, many from Central America, over the Mexican border into Texas—about 90,000 are expected to arrive this year in all—will eventually flood the already clogged immigration courts. Immigration proceedings are considered a civil matter, rather than a criminal one under U.S. law and as a result, defendants—regardless of age—are not required by law to be provided with counsel if they cannot afford a lawyer on their own. The groups suing the government want to make sure that all of these kids will have access to legal representation when their day in immigration court comes.

“A fair hearing means having an opportunity to be heard and they can’t have a meaningful hearing without a legal representative,” said Beth Werlin, the American Immigration Council’s deputy legal director.

Imagine the backlog when every young illegal not only gets an asylum hearing but has an experienced lawyer working procedural magic to delay those hearings as long as possible. Could the backlog reach 10 years? At that point you might as well skip the hearings altogether and amnestize the kids as they enter the country, as there’ll be virtually no way to find them and enforce the orders by the time they’re issued. Which, again, is the desired outcome. Grassroots righties like to accuse lefties of following the Cloward-Piven strategy in all manner of things, but it really is apt here. The goal is to undermine border enforcement as much as possible. That means is overloading that system, replete with new legal procedures, to the point where it can’t cope so that a more left-wing system replaces it. It’s working.

Serious question: If we’re hot to import endless thousands of children from violent countries, why aren’t Iraqi and Afghan children getting first dibs? Libertarians argue that America can’t be a global policeman, and the worse Iraq gets these days, the more persuasive that argument seems. We’re not here to solve the world’s problems, they say. Yet some of them (not the Pauls, it should be said) also basically argue that America should be the world’s nursemaid for anyone who actually makes it across the border. When it comes to mass illegal immigration from war- or gang-torn countries, evidently we are here to solve the world’s problems. In that case, why is surviving a journey through Mexico and into Texas the moral touchstone for who should be allowed admittance? If we’re going to start amnestizing kids, we should probably start with kids whom we already have a direct relationship with after 10 years of war and reconstruction. But since Iraqis and Afghans don’t have as easy a route into Arizona as Hondurans and Guatemalans, they’re stuck dealing with ISIS and the Taliban while Central Americans enjoy HHS’s babysitting service. I don’t get it.

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Tags: amnesty, border, central america, crisis, illegals, immigration, young

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Obamatoimmigrationgroups:I’llpressmyexecutive

Obama to immigration groups: I’ll press my executive power to the limit to spare millions from deportation

posted at 11:21 am on July 7, 2014 by Allahpundit

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Just making sure that this Major Garrett scoop from late last week doesn’t get lost in the holiday shuffle. Takeaway: Obama’s going big on executive amnesty.

Obama told the groups what they had been dying to hear—that he was going to condemn House Republicans for inaction and set the most expansive legal course permissible to beef up border security, slow deportations of noncriminal aliens, and provide legal status to millions of undocumented workers—all by himself…

Obama made it clear he would press his executive powers to the limit. He gave quiet credence to recommendations from La Raza and other immigration groups that between 5 million to 6 million adult illegal immigrants could be spared deportation under a similar form of deferred adjudication he ordered for the so-called Dreamers in June 2012.

That executive action essentially lifted the threat of prosecution and deportation for about 670,000 undocumented residents—those older than 15 and younger than 31 who had been brought to America before their 16th birthday.

Obama has now ordered the Homeland Security and Justice departments to find executive authorities that could enlarge that non-prosecutorial umbrella by a factor of 10.

The only surprise is the timing. Garrett isn’t firm on it but I get the sense that O’s thinking of making a move sooner rather than later, which would be quite a curveball ahead of the midterms. (Amnesty champion Frank Sharry, who attended the meeting with Obama, said of the timeline “He didn’t seem to give a sh*t.”) The whole point of giving House Republicans time to pass a bill this year, I thought, was so that Democrats wouldn’t have to risk a nasty backlash in November by doing something bold on amnesty by themselves. Maybe the timing is negotiable: If, say, the new ObamaCare rates this fall are bad and the Dems are suddenly staring at a rout, O might decide at that point that he’s got nothing to lose by upending the table politically with an order that effectively amnestizes five million people. If, on the other hand, we get a few more solid jobs reports, he’ll be more inclined to go slow and postpone amnesty until next year. The true target here is 2016, remember, a point that White House officials themselves made to Garrett. The presidency will be in play, Democrats will be on offense in Senate battlegrounds, and Latino turnout will be up. No sense wasting an amnesty mega-pander now if it can be saved for later, especially if Obama still thinks there’s a chance Congress might pass something next year.

I can’t quote more from Garrett but make sure to read down further in the piece for details about Obama — allegedly — warning these same amnesty groups that he needs to stop this recent border surge by young illegals. Money line: “Sometimes, there is an inherent injustice in where you are born, and no president can solve that, Obama said.” That’s an … interesting attitude from a guy who’s now deporting about one-fifth the number of illegals under 18 that Bush was deporting in 2008. Maybe it’s a mitigation strategy. If he moves boldly on executive amnesty this fall, he’ll need something he can point to as evidence that he cares about border security when Republicans start screaming at him. By being “tough” on kids who are crossing into the U.S. now, he gains an enforcement credential he can tout. In other words, when the GOP accuses him of having unilaterally enacted amnesty, he’s going to turn around and claim that what he’s really done is enact comprehensive immigration reform instead — amnesty for illegals who are already here, sure, but also more security at the border to keep new illegals from entering. That position is easier to sell politically, especially when you’re pitching it to a public that seems not to care which branch does what anymore so long as it’s happy with the results.

The added benefit to Dems from all this, of course, will be watching Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Chris Christie, and the rest of the 2016 GOP gang squirm when they’re asked whether they’ll rescind Obama’s executive order if they’re elected president in 2017. The boilerplate response, I assume, will be to dodge the question and say that what they really want to do is replace the order with legislation, which is how immigration reform should have been handled. And what if Congress can’t get together on a legislative deal? What would President Rubio or President Paul or President Christie do then about Obama’s order? That’s the answer I’m eager to hear. Exit question via Conn Carroll: How exactly is Obama being “tough” on young illegals who’ve entered the U.S. this year? Granted, federal law says that those kids can’t be summarily deported but must be processed, released, and given a date for a hearing (which many won’t show up to), but Obama doesn’t give a wet fart about federal law, especially when it comes to immigration. If he wants to show how tough he is and further entrench the principle that the president can do pretty much whatever he wants, why not ignore the law and start busing them back to Mexico anyway?

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Tags: amnesty, border, children, daca, illegal, immigrant, immigration, obama, sharry, young

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It’s time to deploy the National Guard to the southern border, says … John Boehner?

It’stimetodeploytheNationalGuardto

Uhoh:Housecommitteeclaimsonlytwo-thirds

Uh oh: House committee claims only two-thirds of federal ObamaCare enrollees paid first premium by April 15

posted at 7:01 pm on April 30, 2014 by Allahpundit

And you know what that means: No money, no coverage, which means the widely touted figure of eight million enrollments that Barack “Mission Accomplished” Obama’s been pushing lately is flatly bogus. Anyone who hasn’t paid by the end of the grace period offered by their insurer — and some of those grace periods were undoubtedly extended beyond April 15th, the cut-off date for this analysis — will be tossed from the rolls.

The figure that’s been cited for months on payment rates is 80 percent. The Energy and Commerce Committee claims it’s actually significantly lower, at least when it comes to enrollees on the federal exchange, i.e. Healthcare.gov. As you read, focus on the following question. Why couldn’t HHS have calculated this?

Data provided to the committee by every insurance provider in the health care law’s Federally Facilitated Marketplace (FFM) shows that, as of April 15, 2014, only 67 percent of individuals and families that had selected a health plan in the federally facilitated marketplace had paid their first month’s premium and therefore completed the enrollment process. Nationwide, only 25 percent of paid enrollees are ages 18 to 34…

On April 17, 2014, President Obama declared the success of his law, claiming that 8 million Americans had signed up for health insurance, but data from the insurance providers reveals that the president’s figure is largely misleading. As of April 15, 2014, insurers informed the committee that only 2.45 million had paid their first month’s premium for coverage obtained through the federally facilitated marketplace. While the administration has relied on questionable nationwide figures to boast the law’s success, the state-by-state breakdown compiled by the committee underscores the serious problems facing some states…

“In a sad reversal away from its vows of transparency, the Obama administration, from inside the Oval Office on down, has gone to extraordinary lengths to keep basic details of the health law from the public. Tired of receiving incomplete pictures of enrollment in the health care law, we went right to the source and found that the administration’s recent declarations of success may be unfounded,” commented full committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI). “We need a complete picture of how this law is working. We will continue to strive for transparency and hold the administration accountable for this law’s shortcomings and broken promises.”

One big caveat here: Because they’re only looking at states that use the federal exchange, they’re missing the numbers from states that run their own exchanges — which include hugely populous behemoths like California and New York. If those states are seeing higher rates of payment, for whatever reason, then the payment rate nationally is actually higher than this. We’ll need to wait and see. If the payment rate in those states isn’t higher then the number of true, paid enrollments nationally is something on the order of 5.36 million, more than two and a half million less than the number Obama’s been waving around. As for the age breakdown among those who paid:

Under 18: six percent;
Ages 18 to 25: 10 percent;
26 to 34: 15 percent;
35 to 44: 16 percent;
45 to 54: 23 percent;
55 to 64: 29 percent;
65 and older: 1 percent.

That’s not disastrous for the White House, I think. They’ve got 31 percent overall who are paid up aged 34 or younger; I remember reading somewhere that they could probably function reasonably well as long as there are no fewer than 25 percent of “young invincibles” in the risk pool. It’s probably also true that young adults are overrepresented among the one-third of sign-ups who haven’t paid yet. Logically, older people who need insurance more desperately than younger people do will be scrupulous about making their payments on time to guarantee that the coverage is in effect. If the White House can do something to give young deadbeats more time (and incentive) to make their payments, they can probably tilt the risk pool a bit younger than it is right now. Which means those grace periods for payment that insurers have extended are likely to be extended quite a bit longer.

Exit question: How many of 2.45 million paid enrollees on the federal exchange were previously uninsured?

Update: Pretty much, yeah.

WH won’t release enrollment data, tells GOP to ask insurers. GOP asks insurers, WH disputes data. GOP asks WH for data, WH won’t release.

— Andrew Stiles (@AndrewStilesUSA) April 30, 2014

Tags: adults, committee, energy, enrollments, house, invincibles, obama, ObamaCare, premiums, sign ups, young

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Brutal: Democratic poll finds Obama’s base is ready to stay home in November

Brutal:DemocraticpollfindsObama’sbaseisready

Gallup: Percentage of uninsured drops to lowest level since 2008

Gallup:Percentageofuninsureddropstolowestlevel

Pew poll: 61% of Republicans under age 30 support legalizing gay marriage

Pewpoll:61%ofRepublicansunderage30

Pew poll: 61% of Republicans under age 30 support legalizing gay marriage

Pewpoll:61%ofRepublicansunderage30

Funnyordie:ObamapitchesObamaCaretoZach

Funny or die: Obama pitches ObamaCare to Zach Galifianakis; Update: Goal achieved

posted at 11:21 am on March 11, 2014 by Allahpundit

A rare presidential foray into “cringe humor.” If it were anyone else I’d assume this was done under duress, knowing that young adults aren’t signing up on the exchanges at the rate needed for a healthy risk pool. He’s got just three weeks to grab their attention and get them interested before the enrollment deadline passes (unless it’s extended by kingly proclamation, of course). If mugging with Galifianakis for five minutes in a sure-to-be-viral vid boosts the number of twentysomethings who surf over to Healthcare.gov, oh well.

You can tell Obamacare is working great because plugging it on Funny or Die doesn't smack of desperation at all

— John Tabin (@johntabin) March 11, 2014

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Still, I doubt anyone had to twist his arm. Spock-ish though he is, it must pain him that the cultural electricity of Hopenchange circa 2008 has shorted out as much as it has. No one respects him abroad anymore and his biggest moves domestically lately are sporadic ad hoc “tweaks” to undo O-Care rules that he himself signed into law. It’s only natural that a man going through hard times would want to recapture the excitement of youth. Here’s one way to bring a little currency back.

But there appears to be no place that Mr. Obama is unwilling to go in his search for young people, which the image makers of his predecessors have noticed.

“We have to worry about the dignity of the presidency,” said Mike McCurry, who served as Mr. Clinton’s press secretary in the 1990s. “There’s a limit to how much you can do.” Still, he said, “the shifts in the popular culture and the way people are entertained and get information almost mandate new strategies.”

Nicolle Wallace, who was Mr. Bush’s communications director, said she suspects there are some lines that even Mr. Pfeiffer and his current team will not cross.

“You can’t put a president on ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians,’” she said, perhaps hopefully.

We’ll see about that.

Galifianakis is a natural choice for this role, by the way. He and the rest of the “Hangover” gang cut an impromptu campaign ad for Obama in 2012. Galifianakis himself has said of the left’s Emmanuel Goldstein, the Koch brothers, that “It’s not freedom what they are doing,” whatever that means. Sonny Bunch is disappointed that comedy in the age of Obama seems to have moved from challenging the powerful and telling uncomfortable truths to acting as emcee during a presidential insurance seminar, but don’t worry. Things will be back to normal once a Republican’s back in the White House.

As for the clip itself, let’s put it this way: It’s funnier than any of “The Hangover” movies. Make of that what you will.

Update: There is a method to this madness:

http://t.co/FrO24hdvcA is the #1 source of referrals to http://t.co/0r93BavlrV right now.

— Tara McGuinness (@HealthCareTara) March 11, 2014

Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis: President Barack Obama from President Barack Obama

Tags: adults, ferns, funny or die, galifianakis, obama, ObamaCare, young

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Funnyordie:ObamapitchesObamaCaretoZach

Funny or die: Obama pitches ObamaCare to Zach Galifianakis

posted at 11:21 am on March 11, 2014 by Allahpundit

A rare presidential foray into “cringe humor.” If it were anyone else I’d assume this was done under duress, knowing that young adults aren’t signing up on the exchanges at the rate needed for a healthy risk pool. He’s got just three weeks to grab their attention and get them interested before the enrollment deadline passes (unless it’s extended by kingly proclamation, of course). If mugging with Galifianakis for five minutes in a sure-to-be-viral vid boosts the number of twentysomethings who surf over to Healthcare.gov, oh well.

You can tell Obamacare is working great because plugging it on Funny or Die doesn't smack of desperation at all

— John Tabin (@johntabin) March 11, 2014

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Still, I doubt anyone had to twist his arm. Spock-ish though he is, it must pain him that the cultural electricity of Hopenchange circa 2008 has shorted out as much as it has. No one respects him abroad anymore and his biggest moves domestically lately are sporadic ad hoc “tweaks” to undo O-Care rules that he himself signed into law. It’s only natural that a man going through hard times would want to recapture the excitement of youth. Here’s one way to bring a little currency back.

But there appears to be no place that Mr. Obama is unwilling to go in his search for young people, which the image makers of his predecessors have noticed.

“We have to worry about the dignity of the presidency,” said Mike McCurry, who served as Mr. Clinton’s press secretary in the 1990s. “There’s a limit to how much you can do.” Still, he said, “the shifts in the popular culture and the way people are entertained and get information almost mandate new strategies.”

Nicolle Wallace, who was Mr. Bush’s communications director, said she suspects there are some lines that even Mr. Pfeiffer and his current team will not cross.

“You can’t put a president on ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians,’” she said, perhaps hopefully.

We’ll see about that.

Galifianakis is a natural choice for this role, by the way. He and the rest of the “Hangover” gang cut an impromptu campaign ad for Obama in 2012. Galifianakis himself has said of the left’s Emmanuel Goldstein, the Koch brothers, that “It’s not freedom what they are doing,” whatever that means. Sonny Bunch is disappointed that comedy in the age of Obama seems to have moved from challenging the powerful and telling uncomfortable truths to acting as emcee during a presidential insurance seminar, but don’t worry. Things will be back to normal once a Republican’s back in the White House.

As for the clip itself, let’s put it this way: It’s funnier than any of “The Hangover” movies. Make of that what you will.

Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis: President Barack Obama from President Barack Obama

Tags: adults, ferns, funny or die, galifianakis, obama, ObamaCare, young

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NBC: Young married twentysomething Olympian with a two-year-old daughter is living an “alternative lifestyle”

NBC:YoungmarriedtwentysomethingOlympianwithatwo-year-old

ObamaCaregoingforyouthswithanOlympicsad

ObamaCare going for youths with an Olympics ad blitz

posted at 6:51 pm on January 8, 2014 by Erika Johnsen

Are enough young and healthy people signing up for health insurance plans through the ObamaCare exchanges to balance out the new and costlier risk pools created by older and sicker individuals more likely to be interested in doing so? We don’t know, because the White House is flatly refusing to tell us — which doesn’t seem too bode well for them (you know that they would be reveling in the release of that information if the numbers were on their side), and they certainly aren’t slowing down on their sustained PR effort to convince the all-important youth demographic that ObamaCare is just about the best thing that will ever happen to them. Via ABC:

The White House is planning to make a major play to sign up young and healthy Americans for Obamacare when the Winter Olympics open next month.

The Department of Health and Human Services will launch a TV ad blitz to take advantage of anticipated increased viewership on NBC stations which will carry the Olympic coverage between Feb. 7 and 23, an administration official confirmed to ABC News.

The official said the ads would run in markets with the highest rates of uninsured, but declined to specify the locations or the amount that would be spent.

The ads will encourage uninsured people, particularly young adults, to enroll in Obamacare coverage before the March 31 deadline.

No word on exactly how big the buy is or what the ads will look like, but it’s probably a good call on the advertising front — Wide audience? Check. High-injury extreme sports? Check. Advantageous and prolonged timing smack in the middle of the latter half of the enrollment period? Check — and it sounds like the White House is going to need it.

Tags: advertising, health insurance, ObamaCare, Olympics, young

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Video:“Isanybodygoingtobuyhealthcare

Video: “Is anybody going to buy health care because Barack Obreezy tells them to?”

posted at 3:21 pm on December 18, 2013 by Ed Morrissey

No, this isn’t a quote from Twitter or talk radio, but from ABC’s White House correspondent Jonathan Karl at yesterday’s press briefing.  Karl asked Jay Carney about the PR campaign from the Obama administration that’s attempting to sell ObamaCare to younger Americans as something hip and cool, rather than expensive and a raid on their pocketbook. Greg Hengler captures the moment, and Carney’s surprisingly composed response:

This question comes after an initial attempt by Karl to pin down Carney on the topic of demographics in the ObamaCare “enrollments” (which may or may not actually have effectively enrolled anyone yet), which the administration has yet to specify. :

Q    Do you have any update at all for how successful the effort to sign people — get people to enroll on healthcare.gov has been on getting young people?  What’s the status on that?

MR. CARNEY:  I don’t have any data specifically broken down by age.  I would refer you to CMS.  I’m not sure what they have. There’s no question that overall, between now and March 31st, there needs to be a good mix of individuals who enroll in the marketplaces.  As I think we’ve talked about in general, it is common, as we’ve seen from past experience, for enrollment of any kind in these kinds of programs, including the private health insurance that most of you enroll in and have open enrollment periods for, to happen disproportionately towards the end and that young people are even more inclined to wait until the last minute to get their paperwork done or their online applications done.  So having stated those facts, I don’t have any specific information with regards to the age breakdown so far.

Q    CMS won’t give that information out either.  I mean, do you not have it?  You must have it.

MR. CARNEY:  I don’t have it, so I would refer you to CMS.  I don’t have that data.

Q    And what efforts is the administration making to get young people to sign?

MR. CARNEY:  Well, I think you’ve seen a broad-based effort to focus on the opportunities and options available to millions of Americans across the country, including young people.

I think that if you saw in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, there was an article — we’ve often gotten questions about or statements from commentators about the fact that it would be proof that enrollment is working and the website is functioning for the vast majority of users when you saw outside groups, third-party groups, including insurance companies, invest in advertising to reach potential consumers.  And I think there was an important article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday about a number of insurance companies that are investing substantial sums to do just that.  And I think that would indicate that they believe the opportunity to reach those potential consumers exists, and that those consumers will be able to enroll in their plans if they so choose.

So it’s going to be — it’s a broad-based effort and it continues not just now but through March.

Mary Katharine covered this part of the question in more detail yesterday. It led to Karl’s follow-up:

Q    What do you make of some of these efforts by Obamacare supporters to reach out?  I mean, some of them — the upside-down keg stands and whatnot.  I mean, is anybody going to buy health care because “Barack Obreezy” tells them to buy it because it’s hot?

Well, that has to beat Pajama Boy as a spokesperson, doesn’t it?  On the more serious side, Carney does a good job of not taking the bait and tangling with Karl over his remarkably snarky framing of the question. It does demonstrate, though, that the White House press corps is running out of patience with Carney and the administration on its failure to produce real answers to substantive questions.  That pressure is likely to continue, especially as Obama’s falling approval numbers make him anything but cool these days.

Tags: jon karl, ObamaCare, press corps, White House, young

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Uhoh:Manyyoungerconsumerswon’tgetsubsidies

Uh oh: Many younger consumers won’t get subsidies in ObamaCare exchanges

posted at 1:11 pm on November 25, 2013 by Ed Morrissey

If CNN’s analysis is correct, then the website is the least of the White House’s worries on ObamaCare.  The administration, specifically Kathleen Sebelius, insisted that anyone earning less than 400% of poverty level would qualify for subsidies on the exchanges, but that may not actually be true.  Thanks to a complicated formula for subsidies, the system will exclude many lower-income younger consumers from subsidies … the very people the ObamaCare program needs to sign up to keep the system from collapsing (via NewsAlert):

But a CNN analysis shows that in the largest city in nearly every state, many low-income younger Americans won’t get any subsidy at all. Administration officials said the reason so many Americans won’t receive a subsidy is that the cost of insurance is lower than the government initially expected. Subsidies are calculated using a complicated formula based on the cost of insurance premiums, which can vary drastically from state to state, and even county to county.

That doesn’t change the fact that in Chicago, a 27-year old will receive no subsidy to help offset premiums of more than $165 a month if he makes more than $27,400 a year.

In Portland, Oregon, subsidies for individuals making just $28,725 a year phase out for those younger than 35 years old.

CNN compares this to testimony from Sebelius in April, in which she told Congress that anyone under the 400%  of poverty level line would qualify for federal subsidies in the exchanges:

Back in April, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told a congressional subcommittee that any individual making under that $45,960 threshold — or four times the poverty level of $11,490 for an individual — would qualify for “an upfront tax subsidy.”

“Somebody who’s making $25,500 would definitely qualify for a subsidy if he or she is purchasing coverage in the individual market,” Sebelius added.

Despite the secretary’s assurance, a 25-year-old living in Nashville, Tennessee, making $25,500 will not qualify for a subsidy, for example.

The trigger on this is the premium price for a qualifying “bronze” plan in the exchange for the consumer.  If the premium does not go over a certain percentage of income, then the formula produces a zero for the calculated subsidy.  The problem for these consumers is that the baseline plans still cost more than their previous options, and have large deductibles to boot.  That sets the incentives for younger consumers to bail out of the system, paying the fine and only signing up for insurance after a catastrophic event, which they cannot be denied under the new law.

That will mean disaster for the ObamaCare system, as CNN notes in this video:

If the subsidies don’t show up, neither will these consumers. They’d be better off paying retail, which thanks to the enormous deductibles in these comprehensive plans they’d have to do anyway, rather than premiums and retail for provider services. And this is yet another point on which the administration has been less than honest with the very people who backed them through two successive presidential elections.

Tags: Department of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, ObamaCare, subsidies, young

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Greatnews:Inanalternateuniversewherethe

Great news: In an alternate universe where the 2012 election is being held today, Romney wins

posted at 8:01 pm on November 19, 2013 by Allahpundit

A silly — but not entirely worthless — addendum to Ed’s post this morning about the dismal new ABC/WaPo for O. Beyond the dumb topline number showing Romney “winning” 49/45 (331 electoral votes!!!) lies some ominous news for The One: He’s losing his base.

* Obama won women in 2012 by 11 points, according to exit polls; today he leads by one point.

* He has seen his lead among young voters (18-39 years old) drop from 18 percent to 2 percent…

* Among those making less than $50,000, Obama’s 22-point lead is now three points.

* The biggest drop is among those professing to have no religion. While this group backed Obama by 44 points, it now supports him by a 22-point margin.

I included the data point on religious unaffiliateds for fun (can’t go wrong tossing atheism into a blog post) even though it’s almost certainly just a proxy for disaffection among liberals generally. The more significant data is the downturn among young voters and the lower middle class. ABC has a bit more about the former:

At the same time, there’s also one core support group in which Obama is hurting – young adults, a group he won by an historic margin in 2008, and strongly again in 2012. The president’s overall approval rating has lost 23 points among adults age 18 to 29 since January, his steepest loss in any group. Their view that the country’s headed in the wrong direction has gained 20 points since May. And in just the past month, opposition to the health care law has jumped by 16 points among under-30s, with strong opposition up by 21 points.

Hard to say how much of that is a direct result of discontent with ObamaCare and how much of it is discontent over other policies influencing their perceptions of ObamaCare. Every poll I’ve seen since the shutdown shows O, like the GOP, taking a beating on questions about his handling of the economy, which is the last subject on which a president wants to see slippage. Lose people on that metric and you’ll lose them on nearly everything. Could be that’s what we’re seeing here — although it would stand to reason that there’s a backlash brewing among young adults to ObamaCare. I’m skeptical that it’s happening already just because many “young healthies” aren’t paying attention to the mandate yet; come next April, when they’re forced to either paying an insurance company for coverage or pay Uncle Sam a fine, you’ll see it then. But the fact that even a liberal cohort like young adults has soured for the moment on O’s big boondoggle shows how much work he has to do to turn things around. Given the other pitfalls facing Democrats on health care, there’s no reason to think he’ll succeed.

Even more intriguing, though, is watching the lower middle class peel away. It’s easy to see why the young might turn on O-Care: Gradually, they’re waking up to the fact that the new health-care regime is built on their premiums specifically, in the hope/expectation that they’ll rarely use the coverage they’re now paying for. They’re the cash cows of ObamaCare, forced to kick in a chunk of their monthly income when decent-paying jobs are already hard enough to come by for a twentysomething. The lower middle class, however, is in a different position. They’re the “winners” in the new regime theoretically thanks to the federal subsidies they’re now in line for. And yet, as Phil Klein points out on Twitter, support for ObamaCare itself among people who make less than $50,000 a year now stands at … 38/59. Maybe that’s a simple function of the fact that the subsidies haven’t begun to flow yet; once people get signed up and get their money from Uncle Sam, things will turn around. I don’t know, though — the woman from Washington state who’s in the news today was crushed when she found out that she was eligible for a federal subsidy but that it wasn’t enough to make her new premium payment a comfortable monthly expense. That could be a recurring phenomenon among the lower middle class — unhappiness that they’ve gotten a little help from the feds but not enough to keep their knees buckling under the financial weight of their new health-insurance obligations. Bad, bad news for Democrats next year if it holds. Exit question: Romney 2016?

Tags: 2012, ABC, campaign, election, obama, ObamaCare, polls, romney, WaPo, young

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