Right Wing Nut House

Join us for the next blatantly non-partisan episode of the RINO Hour of Power with your host Rick Moran and special co-host Jazz Shaw.

Forget the shutdown and the arbitrary exercise of power by the administration (that’s, uh, tyranny folks) to shut down popular programs and attractions and deliberately inflict pain on the American people. The potential for a genuine catastrophe exists if the two sides can’t reach some kind of agreement to raise the debt ceiling by October 17.

But some Republicans say a default wouldn’t be so bad. Who to believe? We’ll ask Matt Lewis of the Daily Caller to help sort it out.

The show streams live from 8:00 - 9:00 PM Eastern time. A podcast will be available shortly after the end of the show.

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You won’t want to miss the next wild episode of the RINO Hour of Power with your host Rick Moran and special co-host Jeff Kropf.

Well, they went and did it. Congress couldn’t come to an agreement on funding the government so the plug has been pulled on most non-essential government operations.

Whose fault is it? Does it matter? And what does this shutdown mean for the future?

We’ll ask historian and pundit Ron Radosh those and other questions about the shutdown.

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Just who is this guy Ted Cruz and what does he want? The Senator from Texas has been all over the news with his campaign to defund Obamacare this week - despite not having much of a plan to do so.

Now he’s on the floor of the Senate talking until he drops, he says. Is he a sincere patriot standing up to the entrenched interests in Washington? Or is he hugely ambitious, cold, calculating politician with a monumental ego?

You won’t want to miss this next episode of the RINO Hour of Power with your host Rick Moran and co-host Fausta Wertz of Fausta’s blog.

An examination of the man and his motives - Ted Cruz will be the topic of discussion. The hosts will be joined by JR Dunn of American Thinker.

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How dysfunctional is a political party when futility is passed off as “strategy” and breaking from reality portrayed as “principle?”

Obamacare isn’t as impactful an issue as slavery but it may as well be considering what it is doing to the Republican party. Where the issue of slavery nearly destroyed the Democratic party, weakening it for more than a generation before and after the civil war, Obamacare threatens a similar meltdown for the GOP as even the most fervent opponents of the law are now having their commitment to getting rid of it questioned.

This is a different Republican party than just 5 years ago — which was a different party from a decade before and the decade before that again. The shift has been radical. It has redefined conservatism in the process, eschewing traditional conservative principles and substituting a blindly partisan, wild-eyed extremist ideology that turns on and bites its own at the first sign of apostasy.

Cannibalism is not a sign of a healthy political movement. But Texas Senator Ted Cruz had a few chunks bitten from his hide when he dared point out that, at the moment, the arithmetic in the Senate does not favor the effort to defund Obamacare:

Cruz, a tea party favorite, is one of the most vocal proponents of defunding the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s health care reform law. He’s spent months championing the cause. But on Wednesday, as House Republican leaders unveiled their latest plan for sinking Obamacare — tying a measure to defund the law to a must-pass resolution that keeps the government running — Cruz thanked House Republicans for their fight, and said they’re on their own.

“[Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid will no doubt try to strip the defund language from the continuing resolution, and right now he likely has the votes to do so,” Cruz said in a statement. “At that point, House Republicans must stand firm, hold their ground, and continue to listen to the American people.”

The sense of betrayal from House Republicans is palpable. “We haven’t even taken up the bill and Ted Cruz is admitting defeat?” spit one GOP House aide. “Ted Cruz came here to throw bombs and fundraise off of attacks on fellow Republicans. He’s a joke, plain and simple,” said another.

Cruz pointing out the reality of the situation is apparently too much to bear for many Republicans. In what universe will the Senate ever vote to defund Obamacare? Perhaps some of those fire breathers in the House could invite 15 or so Democratic senators out for a few drinks, slip them some mickeys, and force Harry Reid to bring the continuing resolution to the floor where it can be passed. Other than that, they have no strategy, no arguments they can make to Democratic senators to get them to change their minds, and no threats that haven’t already been made. There are no parliamentary gimmicks that Republicans can use to engineer victory. A filibuster would shut down the government, which the Democrats are perfectly prepared to do. But how long can that go on?

Forget about political blame for a shut down. Let’s look at what that means for Obamacare. Because unless the Republicans are willing to shut the government down until 2017 when they may be able to repeal it, they have lost. And Obamacare will limp forward with the exchanges already funded and will be up and running in less than a fortnight, the individual mandate will still be the law of the land, Medicaid expansion will go forward, and the 20,000 pages of rules and regulations that have already been written will still have the force of law. Of course, the subsidies will not be funded, but people will still have to purchase insurance on the exchanges or face the music with the IRS. That will no doubt be wildly popular with the public.

Accusing Cruz of “surrendering” is lunacy. Republicans apparently want to show up on the battlefield only to find it empty. Who or what are they supposed to fight? How can you “surrender” when you’re the only one fighting the war?

Cruz went even further in remarks to reporters after a speech in Washington:

“Right now, [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid has 54 Democrats and they presumably are going to stand with him … and a number of Senate Republicans have expressed that they may support the Democrats here,” Cruz told a couple of reporters, just after his remarks at an event hosted by the National Auto Dealers Association.

“I think it is likely that it will take another election for a full repeal,” he said.

Let’s hope, although the Republicans better have an alternative insurance reform plan ready to go or the idea of repeal is useless. Imagining what would happen to people’s insurance, the economy, and the entire health care industry if Obamacare is yanked with no substitute ready to replace it is beyond the ken of our understanding. Millions would see their premiums skyrocket without subsidies, states would be stuck holding the bag on Medicaid expansion, massively increasing their costs, while rules governing doctors, hospitals, insurance companies and the rest of the industry would still be enforceable. The economic dislocation and confusion would be unprecedented.

Still, Obamacare is worth repealing. Removing the tentacles of the state from one sixth of the economy will be extremely disruptive but in the end, probably worth it.

Back to the present hallucination that defunds Obamacare, the Senate isn’t the only actor in this fantasy, of course. Looming over the defunding scenario is the dark visage of Lord Sauron, sometimes referred to as President Obama. In the House GOP scheme, after Senate Democrats have a road to Damascus moment and vote to defund a bill they voted for in 2010 and defended for the last three years, the continuing resolution lands on the president’s desk where he is so terrified of the political consequences of a government shut down that he cuts off his own testicles and signs it.

And we all lived happily ever after.

“Ted Cruz and [Utah Sen.] Mike Lee have been asking for this fight,” said Louisiana Rep. John Fleming, a reliable conservative. “The conservative base has been asking for this fight. So we’re gonna give ’em the fight.”

And that pretty much sums up the reason why so many Republicans — perfectly aware that they are beyond tilting at windmills and are now upside down with their heads stuck in the mud — are going to vote for this strategy. Shadow boxing with phantoms is being sold as a “fight” because this proves that Republicans are “serious” about getting rid of Obamacare.

My colleague at PJ Media, Andrew McCarthy, explains:

Resistance is futile, in other words, so why resist at all? It’s an ironic argument since it seems Republican leadership only resists when doing so is futile, when the resistance is token. Thus the prior votes to repeal Obamacare, all forty of them, taken in the comfortable knowledge that they had no chance of succeeding – just going through the motions in faux fulfillment of a commitment to the base to work tirelessly to undo the law. But when something might not be futile – when it could actually work, and therefore entails hard work and risk – we generally find leadership in folderoo mode, babbling its one-half-of-one-third mantra.

Mr. McCarthy goes on to describe just why defunding is different than repeal and why it has a real chance of success. The Many Worlds Theory of Quantum Mechanics posits the notion that once a quantum event is observed, the universe is split into an infinite number universes, each representing a different possible outcome for that event. For example, in our universe, you go out to check your mailbox tomorrow and in another universe, instead of bills and circulars, you find a check for a million dollars. Any outcome is possible.

So one supposes in some universe in the quantum firmament, there is scenario where Democrats in the Senate vote for defunding Obamacare and, in a grand ceremony at the White House, President Obama signs the CR with a flourish, thanking Republicans for saving America.

Meanwhile, back on planet earth, this defunding mirage is tearing at the vitals of the Republican party. It has aroused enormous animosity and bitterness in the base who are demanding that the attempt be made not because it has any chance whatsoever for success, but because the effort itself will prove that the establishment is paying attention to the right wingers and that they can be controlled like a bunch of first graders lining up for a fire drill. The 40 or so votes to defund Obamacare,as Mr. McCarthy points out, weren’t serious and didn’t prove that members were sufficiently dedicated to getting rid of the law. Ergo, Republican lawmakers must pretend that the defunding hallucination is real by voting for it in the House and filibustering any continuing resolution in the Senate that authorizes one cent for the law.

There is no objective reality at work here. But as ideology is refined and sharpened even more, fewer and fewer Republicans dare stray off the right wing reservation. If the base can turn its back on Ted Cruz, who in the entire GOP caucus is safe?

You won’t want to miss the next fascinating episode of the R|INO Hour of Power with your host Rick Moran and special co-host Rich Baehr of the American Thinker.

The deal worked out between Russia and the US that would supposedly put President Assad’s chemical weapons under international control appears on the surface to have placed Russian President Vladimir Putin in an ascendant position in the Middle East.

Was the deal a blow to American influence? We’ll ask international relations expert Richard Fernandez of the blog Belmont Club.

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Join us for another informative episode of the RINO Hour of Power hosted by Rick Moran and special co-host Jeff Kropf.

Should we or shouldn’t we? The answer to the question of Syrian intervention will probably be given by Congress.

For the president, it’s win or lose credibility at home and abroad. What can he and his team say that will convince a skeptical public and reluctant Congress to follow his lead?

We’ll discuss the issue of Syrian intervention with Bill Straub, PJ Media Washington correspondent.

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Fifty years ago this week, Martin Luther King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and told a quarter of a million people of his dream of an American future where race didn’t matter in judging your fellow man, only the content of his character.

King, who spent most of his life as a Republican, never imagined that his descendents in the civil rights movement would make every effort to ensure that race would become the only thing that mattered and that one’s character was judged by politics, and not on any moral basis that King would have recognized.

Host Rick Moran and co-host Fausta Wertz will be joined on this week’s edition of the RINO Hour of Power by J. Christian Adams, a former attorney in the civil rights division, to talk about the state of Martin Luther King’s dream 50 years on.

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You won’t want to miss the next blockbuster episode of the RINO Hour of Power with your host Rick Moran and special guest host, Jazz Shaw of Hot Air.

Just how crazy are Republcans? Talk of impeachment - with no impeachable offense, shutting down the government to defund Obamacare - when Obamacare can’t be defunded, and a string of crazy, radical, extreme statements that scare the hell out of voters.

To discuss this issue, the hosts will be joined by Matt Lewis of the Daily Caller.

We stream live from 8:00 - 9:00 PM Eastern time. A podcast will be available shortly after then end of the show.

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You won’t want to miss the next stimulating episode of the RINO Hour of Power with your host Rick Moran and special co-host Rich Baehr of the American Thinker.

The Obama administration has canceled another requirement of the ACA - yearly limits on out of pocket cash consumers will have to spend on health care. The exchanges are a mess, security is suspect, and even Democrats are getting antsy about the political fallout from the law.

We’ll talk about all of this with Doug Mataconis of Outside the Beltway blog.

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As we advance toward the much anticipated rollout of Obamacare on October 1, the true horror of what Congress and the president have wrought is beginning to sink in. There is a growing nervousness that the state insurance exchanges not only won’t be ready, but may harbor a dangerous vulnerability that would allow hackers access to the personal information of consumers who sign up for insurance via the sites.

There is also a growing number of Democrats who are advocating a repeal of one of Obamacare’s major pieces; the Independent Payment Advisory Board, which will arbitrarily rule on Medicare payments to doctors and hospitals. Howard Dean wrote in an op-ed last month that the IPAB would end up rationing healthcare for Medicare recipients and should be repealed. Also, in a vote last month, several Democrats broke from the pack and voted to delay the individual mandate for a year — the first real sign of dissension within the ranks as vulnerable members search frantically for a way to avoid responsibility for their vote to enact Obamacare.

Then there’s the exemption for members of congress and their staffs from some Obamacare requirements, while special rules have been written that would allow lawmakers to keep their generous tax-payer subsidy — up to 75% of their insurance premiums. Add that to the thousands of waivers granted to administration allies and large corporations who are exempted from the ACA for at least a year.

Beyond all of this, there is the threat that, in the process of trying to defund Obamacare, Republicans will force a government shutdown creating further chaos. A shutdown will not stop Obamacare from being implemented, but it will probably create additional confusion (if that’s possible) among consumers.

The US military has come up with several euphemisms that are apt descriptions of what we might expect on October 1 and beyond with Obamacare’s rollout; SNAFU (”Situation Normal, All F–ked up”), FUBAR (”Fu–ked Up Beyond All Recognition”), and the simple, declarative Clusterf–k. Given what we know, less than 60 days from the rollout, those may be some of the milder epithets we will hear from the American people once they begin to deal with the state exchanges, the Independent Payment Advisory Board, the IRS, HHS, and the insurance companies themselves.

Perhaps the most serious threat to the rollout is the inexplicable and incompetent manner in which the government is trying to insure that a citizen’s personal information — massive amounts of which will be required to sign up for the insurance policies and get the subsidy — is protected and secure.

The news was dumped on an unsuspecting public last Friday and it wasn’t until midweek that it began to sink in that the government geeks responsible for designing a secure website to handle all the private information of American citizens had fallen months behind in testing the sites’ vulnerability. At issue is the Federal Data Services Hub that will connect the various federal agencies to the exchanges and allow the flow of information necessary to service the consumer. An inspector general’s report revealed that a “security control assessment” scheduled for May still hasn’t been performed and that other critical tests have also been delayed. It is now expected that a final report on security won’t be forthcoming until September 20 at the earliest and that a decision on whether the exchanges are secure enough to open won’t be made until September 30 — one day before the sites go live.

As this IDB editorial points out, the reason this comes as a surprise is because officials in the Obama administration lied to Congress about progress on securing the exchanges:

As far back as December 2012, Obama administration officials were insisting that the data hub at the center of the ObamaCare exchanges was nearly finished.

Yet all the while, they were pushing back deadlines or missing them altogether, to the point where, unless ObamaCare’s launch is delayed, millions of people’s privacy will be at risk.

Obama officials may, in fact, have flat-out lied to lawmakers about the data hub’s progress.

In February, Sen. Orrin Hatch pressed Gary Cohen — who is heading up much of the ObamaCare implementation efforts at the Health and Human Services Department — about the status of “service-level agreements” required with all the agencies before they can open their data to the hub. The agreements define services, responsibilities, performance and other terms for data sharing.

Hatch asked Cohen whether HHS had “signed service-level agreements with IRS, the Social Security Administration, homeland security and all the other agencies that will be providing information to the data hub.”

“We have,” Cohen said.

But at that time there were no service-level agreements in force, according to an inspector general report. HHS didn’t sign its first — with the IRS — until March. And all but two of the seven still haven’t been signed.

It isn’t a question of the sites being totally secure in order to open. A loophole in a 2002 law governing the security of government websites will allow the Health and Human Services chief information officer to sign off on opening the exchanges even if the level of security isn’t totally up to snuff.

In short, political considerations may enter into the decision whether to open the insurance exchanges despite known vulnerabilities. The PR disaster of delaying the opening of the exchanges could very easily outweigh the security concerns that might still be present due to the rush to get things done.

Even if the IT people meet their deadlines and everything is secure, that won’t prevent low level government workers and even total strangers from accessing someone’s personal information. It will be part of the job of bureaucrats to eventually vet the information being supplied by consumers, such as income levels and citizenship status.

Then there are the tens of thousands of “navigators” who will be assisting consumers who need help in signing up. They, too, will have access to some of your information in order to help you sign up for the right insurance plan, get the subsidy you are eligible for, and generally speed you on your way.

The most vulnerable point for hackers will be the data hub itself. The Obama administration has said that “The hub will not store consumer information, but will securely transmit data between state and federal systems to verify consumer application information.”

Oh really?

But a regulatory notice filed by the administration in February tells a different story.

That filing describes a new “system of records” that will store names, birth dates, Social Security numbers, taxpayer status, gender, ethnicity, email addresses, telephone numbers on the millions of people expected to apply for coverage at the ObamaCare exchanges, as well as “tax return information from the IRS, income information from the Social Security Administration, and financial information from other third-party sources.”

“The federal government is planning to quietly enact what could be the largest consolidation of personal data in the history of the republic,” noted Stephen Parente, a University of Minnesota finance professor. Now doesn’t that just make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside?

One devoutly wishes this train wreck could be defunded, defrocked, demobilized, and de-stroyed. But even if the Futility Caucus in the Republican House were successful in shutting down the government, the Obamacare juggernaut would continue to roll forward. It may be hard for some Republicans to accept, but there it is. The current justification is that shutting down the government will give heart to the base and “prove” that the GOP congress really, truly, cross-their-heart-and-hope-to-die want to repeal Obamacare. One would think that 40 votes to repeal the law would convince most rational people, but when it comes to Obamacare, rational left the building long ago.

The argument is bizarre. Republicans in Congress should shut down the government to prove they’re as irrational as their base? Forget the political fallout. If you don’t want to believe the GOP will be blamed for a government shutdown, fine. How about responsible governance? It is an extreme, radical, unnecessary and ultimately self defeating gesture to shut down the government when the purported objective for doing so — defunding Obamacare — cannot be accomplished. Cheering up or firing up the base is not a legitimate reason to take such a drastic step.

No matter. The American people may very well destroy Obamacare before the fantasies of some Republicans are realized. Who is going to trust the government when they say that the exchanges are secure? Would they even tell us if there was a breach? And if the government’s expectations for millions of young invincibles to sign up in order to offset the cost of insurance for the sick isn’t realized because the youngsters are smart enough not to fool with a website that has gaping security vulnerabilities, the whole system could collapse of its own weight before it’s barely off the ground.

The incompetence of government may yet rescue us from this monstrosity of a law.