Patriotic Federalist

By Jon Feere, September 11, 2013

Officials representing over 100 corporate interests issued a letter to Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) demanding the legalization of 11 million illegal aliens and increased legal immigration through the creation of new visa programs. As these companies put it in their letter:

[W]e strongly support efforts to bolster the availability of a workforce at all skills levels, through a separate visa program as well as by creating a path to legal status for those already here.

[Lobbying]

The companies include well-known names like Hallmark Cards, Disney, CVS, the Cheesecake Factory, American Airlines, Wendy’s, McDonald’s, the Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Coca-Cola, T-Mobile, AT&T, UPS, Rubbermaid, and McCormick spices — just to name a few examples.

These companies cite a recent Congressional Budget Office report, arguing that the Senate bill would grow the economy. They conveniently left out the CBO estimate that even though the amnesty might make the economy larger, it would simultaneously make American workers poorer by lowering the wages of American workers for a decade or more. The companies claim the bill is an “opportunity to level the playing field for U.S. employers” but it is more of an effort to level the wages of American citizens.

It is difficult to understand how these companies can feel justified in demanding the importation of cheap labor with a straight face at a time when tens of millions of Americans are unemployed. The number of working-age (16 to 65) native-born Americans who are not working — unemployed or out of the labor market — stood at 57.5 million in the second quarter of 2013. The unemployed population is spread throughout the labor market and includes 25 million with no more than a high school education, 16 million with some education beyond high school, and nine million with at least a bachelor’s degree.

The letter is available online. The names of the companies pushing to amnesty illegal aliens, double legal immigration, and undermine immigration law enforcement are listed here:
Continue reading

It’s no longer just restaurants and stores cutting hours and employees due to Obamacare—state and local governments are making changes as well.

The law defines a “full-time” employee as one working more than 30 hours per week, and employers with more than 50 full-time employees must provide government-approved health insurance or pay a penalty. Even though the employer mandate has been delayed for a year, the stories keep rolling in of businesses that have already acted.

Jed Graham of Investor’s Business Daily has compiled a list of 363 employers who have cut back employees’ hours due to incentives created by Obamacare’s employer mandate.

Here are a few state and local governments taking action because of Obamacare:

Indiana’s state government cut hours for part-time and temporary employees from a maximum of 37.5 hours per week to fewer than 30.
Georgia’s Fulton County is cutting a number of employees to fewer than 30 hours per week.
Delaware’s state government is cutting hourly and seasonal employees to a maximum of 29.75 hours per week.
Alabama’s Huston County is cutting hours of part-time employees to fewer than 30 per week.

Heritage’s Alyene Senger warned that Obamacare “creates an incentive for businesses to avoid both the penalty and cost of coverage by hiring part-time employees instead of full-time employees, since businesses will not be penalized for failing to provide health insurance to part-time employees.”

Check out the list Investor’s Business Daily is compiling to see hundreds more situations where workers are being negatively affected by Obamacare.

Crystal Goodremote – Nov 2013

 

The New York Times is catching flak for a blatant example of liberal media bias: pretending that President Obama simply “misspoke” when he told Americans at least 36 times they could keep their current health insurance.

Sunday’s editorial drew fire from readers, according to Times ombudsman Margaret Sullivan. But it was the backlash from Fox News host Greta Van Susteren that put the spotlight on one of America’s largest newspapers.

On her blog, Van Susteren wrote:

The President said this not once, not twice, but multiple times and it was part of the Obamacare supporter talking points. You say it one time and it could be misspeaking — but when it is part of your mantra, and your talking points … repeated over and over and over again … well, the rest of us just are not that stupid.

That drew a response from Sullivan, who took the matter to editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal.

But rather than admit a sloppy choice of words, Rosenthal defended the editorial, telling Sullivan the language was fine. He did this despite the government’s own admission that it knew three years ago that millions of Americans would lose their insurance.

Here is Rosenthal’s exchange with Sullivan:

“We have a high threshold for whether someone lied,” he told me. The phrase that The Times used “means that he said something that wasn’t true.” Saying the president lied would have meant something different, Mr. Rosenthal said — that he knew it was false and intended to express the falsehood. “We don’t know that,” he said.

That would put the New York Times at odds even with President’s former spokesman, Robert Gibbs, who said it was “certainly” wrong for Obama to make the promise.

At this point, an Associated Press tally estimates more than 3.5 million Americans have already lost their insurance thanks to Obamacare. That number is expected to rise to 16 million.

So, who’s to blame? According to the New York Times, congressional Republicans, of course. Here’s another line from the same editorial:

Congressional Republicans have stoked consumer fears and confusion with charges that the health care reform law is causing insurers to cancel existing policies and will force many people to pay substantially higher premiums next year for coverage they don’t want.

That just doesn’t make any sense. The cancellations and excessive premiums aren’t partisan “charges.” They are cold hard facts. And they are being clearly reported by the media and have led both congressional Democrats as well as Republicans to express dismay.

How facts can stoke “confusion,” is unclear, unless the Times editorial board is easily confused by facts.