RUTHFULLY YOURS

Republicans are still trying to defuse the ticking Obama Care bomb without blowing themselves up, and on Thursday the GOP cut the first wire: President Trump signed an executive order that could begin to revive private insurance markets. More to the point, Americans may start to have more choices at a lower cost.

One piece of this week’s order directs the Labor Department to “consider expanding access” to Association Health Plans, which would allow small businesses to team up to offer insurance. The purpose is to let trade groups form insurance risk pools across state lines and enjoy economies of scale. Many large companies are freed from state and some federal benefit mandates and operate under a law known as Erisa. Smaller businesses deserve similar flexibility.

More association plans might start to reverse the decline in small business coverage, and a White House fact sheet notes that the share of workers at small firms with employer coverage has dropped to about one-third in 2017 from almost half in 2010.

The order also seeks to expand the flexibility and use of health-reimbursement arrangements, which allow employers to pay back employees for health-care expenses with pretax dollars. This could be a step toward equalizing the tax treatment for smaller businesses that don’t offer coverage and thus don’t qualify for the subsidy known as the employer tax exclusion.

A third part of the order directs cabinet agencies to consider new rules on short-term insurance plans, which the Obama Administration restricted for the mortal sin of popularity. The plans traditionally could run for a year and often cover catastrophic events with relatively broad networks of doctors and hospitals. This can be a lifeline for folks between jobs.

But an Obama rule that took effect earlier this year limited the duration of the plans to 90 days. ObamaCare’s central planners hated that so many people were choosing the short-term options that can cost a third of standard plans. The Obama Administration said short-term plans don’t qualify as “minimum essential coverage” under ObamaCare, though it sure beats the risks of going without insurance.

The short-term market has historically been minuscule, but perhaps demand will be higher now given that average ObamaCare premiums have increased dramatically since 2013. One unknown is how many insurers will participate or what coverage will be included. Presumably the Administration will certify the plans as compliant with ObamaCare’s coverage mandate, though the executive order doesn’t say.

ObamaCare’s defenders are calling all of this “sabotage” and warning about “adverse selection,” in which a more robust individual market will siphon off the healthy customers that prop up ObamaCare’s exchanges. They predict a death spiral of higher premiums for the sick or elderly left on the exchanges.

Almost a half-century ago, in 1968, the United States seemed to be falling apart.

The Vietnam War, a bitter and close presidential election, antiwar protests, racial riots, political assassinations, terrorism, and a recession looming on the horizon left the country divided between a loud radical minority and a silent conservative majority.

The United States avoided a civil war. But America suffered a collective psychological depression, civil unrest, defeat in Vietnam, and assorted disasters for the next decade — until the election of a once-polarizing Ronald Reagan ushered in five consecutive presidential terms of relative bipartisan calm and prosperity from 1981 to 2001.

It appears as if 2017 might be another 1968. Recent traumatic hurricanes seem to reflect the country’s human turmoil.

After the polarizing Obama presidency and the contested election of Donald Trump, the country is once again split in two. But this time the divide is far deeper, both ideologically and geographically — and more 50/50, with the two liberal coasts pitted against red-state America in between.

Century-old mute stone statues are torn down in the dead of night, apparently on the theory that by attacking the Confederate dead, the lives of the living might improve.

All the old standbys of American life seem to be eroding. The National Football League is imploding as it devolves into a political circus. Multimillionaire players refuse to stand for the national anthem, turning off millions of fans whose former loyalties paid their salaries.

Politics — or rather a progressive hatred of the provocative Donald Trump — permeates almost every nook and cranny of popular culture.

The new allegiance of the media, late-night television, stand-up comedy, Hollywood, professional sports, and universities is committed to liberal sermonizing. Politically correct obscenity and vulgarity among celebrities and entertainers are a substitute for talent, even as Hollywood is wracked by sexual-harassment scandals and other perversities.

The smears “racist,” “fascist,” “white privilege,” and “Nazi” — like “Commie” of the 1950s — are so overused as to become meaningless. There is now less free speech on campus than during the McCarthy era of the early 1950s.

As was the case in 1968, the world abroad is also falling apart.

The European Union, model of the future, is unraveling. The EU has been paralyzed by the exit of Great Britain, the divide between Spain and Catalonia, the bankruptcy of Mediterranean nation members, insidious terrorist attacks in major European cities, and the onslaught of millions of immigrants — mostly young, male, and Muslim — from the war-torn Middle East. Germany is once again becoming imperious, but this time insidiously by means other than arms.

The Daily Wire recently posted a short, satirical video (since removed) mocking those who gleefully take offense at the most imperceptible of slights. In this case, that we celebrate Columbus Day (and not, as they would prefer, “Indigenous Peoples Day”).https://amgreatness.com/2017/10/11/conservatives-need-to-stop-indulging-leftist-narratives/

The video depicted Native Americans savagely killing one another and cannibalizing the dead. Columbus then arrives and brings enlightenment, peace, and material progress. It closes with two columns which list achievements: one for the natives up until the arrival of Columbus and one for the continent following the introduction of Western civilization by Columbus and those who followed him. The natives’ list is quite short and comprised mainly of some trivialities (and some horrors), while the post-Columbus list is quite lengthy and boasts much more impressive civilizational content.

The video is meant to be inflammatory. It is, after all, responding in kind to those who are inflammatory themselves. Those who seek continuously to divide us along racial, ethnic, class, and gender lines—those who desire the obliteration of our collective historical memory and to replace it with politically correct fictions—deserve to be called out for their subversive activity and bizarre worldview.

Is the video reductive? Of course! But so is the Left’s preferred approach to race (i.e., all white people are a plague, and all non-whites are their sainted victims). Did Columbus’ arrival result in some serious evils? Sure (even if many of them were unforeseeable and unintentional tragedies, such as the spreading of disease and misunderstandings resulting from cultural barriers). Can any serious person contend, however, that, on balance, the arrival of Columbus on this continent was a bad thing?

Doubtful, and I think that’s a project doomed to failure. Just look around.

So why did the video evince such panicky, overwrought denunciations from some corners of the Right—and even a groveling apology from Mr. Ben “facts don’t care about your feelings” Shapiro himself?

Because the only thing that a “mainstream conservative” enjoys more than fulminating impotently after losing an election to a Democrat is trying desperately to win the approval of those same Democrats after losing to them. Conservatives love being cheap dates for Democrats.

The “mainstream conservative,” therefore, gets an unalloyed thrill—not unlike the thrill that once ran up Chris Matthews’ leg—from viciously attacking alleged “bigots” on his own side. Why does he do this?

Because he has bought into the Left’s game. He has accepted their warped, destructive, and cynical way of thinking about race, and he is eager to demonstrate his own personal separation from it and, thus, to signal his virtue. He believes that he has a duty to atone for the supposed racial sins of his tribe, announced infallibly by the Left’s religion: Social Justice. How to atone? By screaming, like a dutiful drone, “Racist!” whenever a progressive would.

For the past year, conservative writer Warner Todd Huston’s home in Chicago has been under attack by vandals in what looks like an attempt to intimidate him.

Huston is a feature writer for Breitbart News and has written articles for RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, YoungConservatives.com, and a host of other conservative news sites — including his own website, Publius Forum.

The vandalism started off small. Early this year, an Army flag was pulled off his flag staff and left ripped and in pieces on his lawn.

A few weeks later, the flag he replaced it with was stolen. Next, his garage door was egged.

Then it escalated: “On the night of July 1, the U.S. Army flag that I fly in honor of my son who is in the service was scorched and on it was written in marker ‘die dogs’,” Huston wrote at Publius Forum.

After that, he filed a police report “just to be on the safe side.”

On September 24, his garage door was egged again, and someone wrote “racist” on one of the metal panels.

Huston then filed a second police report.

Late last week, Huston says, the vandalism escalated dramatically.

Huston described what happened at Publius Forum:

At about 1 AM or so on Saturday morning, I was awakened by a noise outside my home. I can’t really say what the noise was as it woke me from a deep sleep. It was just a shout that awoke me. I looked at my window and saw what struck me as a strange light outside. So, I went to the front door…

And saw my car interior on fire…

The surface of my passenger seat was set aflame and the entire interior of the car destroyed. Fortunately it isn’t a new car (it’s a 1999 Oldsmobile 88). But unfortunately, because it is so old I never put it on comprehensive coverage leaving it only at liability coverage. So, insurance won’t cover this destruction and I am now without a car.

Naturally the police became involved, but they say they won’t classify it as arson because they don’t have any evidence to show for it. A plastic pop bottle and cap was left inside by who ever did this. It smelled of gas to me.

Police wondered if I smoked in the car. I don’t smoke cigarettes and only occasionally smoke a cigar but NEVER in a car. If you’ve ever smoked a cigar you know that doing so in a car is a messy, ashy endeavor. I don’t do it. So, there is nothing that should have set my car on fire 7 hours after I last drove it. Also, it was the surface of the seats that went up in flames. Nothing electrical any where near the burn zone.

Chicago is home to many far-left groups, but these attempts to intimidate Huston could also be the work of a “lone wolf” extremist. Or it could be punks in the neighborhood who don’t like his politics.

As a conservative journalist, Huston writes about a variety of subjects important to conservatives such as Islam and immigration. PJ Media asked him if he has written anything about antifa in recent months. He replied: “Sure have.”

Still, Huston has no idea what is behind the vandalism. “I haven’t a clue who did it,” he said. “It has been a bit of a problem for most of the year. As to topics, you know me, I cover everything going on out there. I could have set off any number of people!!” CONTINUE AT SITE

WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump picked cybersecurity expert Kirstjen Nielsen to be the next Homeland Security secretary, putting a low-profile figure into a critical job after former Secretary John Kelly was named White House chief of staff.

Ms. Nielsen, 45 years old, was Mr. Kelly’s chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security. She followed him to the White House, where she serves as principal deputy chief of staff, Mr. Kelly’s top aide. Her close relationship with Mr. Kelly was critical in the decision to name her to the post, people familiar with the selection said Wednesday.

Secretaries of homeland security have traditionally been high-profile figures, including former governors and, with Mr. Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general. That isn’t the case with Ms. Nielsen. But administration officials point to her wealth of experience in many issues the agency handles and note that she would be the first secretary to have worked at the agency before.

One downside, though, is she lacks the sort of experience communicating with the public that elected officials have, and that can be important in an emergency or in the case of a terror attack. Acting Secretary Elaine Duke, another nonpolitical homeland expert, ran into trouble for indelicate comments in response to a question about one of the recent hurricanes, for instance.

But Ms. Nielsen is well steeped in the issues that the agency deals with on a daily basis, from her service during the Trump and George W. Bush administrations.

She worked at the Transportation Security Administration and for the White House Homeland Security Council during the Bush years. She then worked in the private sector—at positions including the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at George Washington University and the National Cybersecurity Center—before being brought into the Trump transition to help guide Mr. Kelly through his Senate confirmation process.

If confirmed by the Senate, she would succeed Ms. Duke, who was deputy secretary under Mr. Kelly and has been acting secretary since July.

DHS, created in the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks, is a sprawling operation with responsibilities including immigration enforcement, disaster response, the Secret Service and U.S. border and airport security.

As such, Ms. Nielsen would be thrust to the forefront of some of the administration’s most controversial initiatives. Those include Mr. Trump’s effort to build a wall on the southwest border with Mexico, increase deportations of undocumented immigrants, enforce travel restrictions on people from targeted countries, and increase vetting of travelers to the U.S. She would also take over the Federal Emergency Management Agency at a time of intense recovery efforts following a series of damaging hurricanes.

The House has been working for months behind the scenes on the most significant improvement to commercial air travel in decades: Converting Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) air-traffic control into an operation governed by pilots, airlines, controllers and other industry experts. This would be good news for the economy and the traveling public, if Republicans don’t wig out.

House Transportation Chairman Bill Shuster’s legislation would set up a nonprofit entity that manages air-traffic operations, while FAA continues regulating safety and certifying equipment. Instead of taxes, the services would be funded by user fees. This arrangement has allowed Canada to lower levies by about one-third and manage routes and landings more efficiently. Canada’s air-traffic outfit even sells technology to other countries.

For years the Inspector General of the Transportation Department has been the official biographer of the FAA’s failures in overhauling radar technology that dates to World War II. The tales include tech updates that are billions over budget and a decade late. One microcosm: An IG report from 2014 noted that FAA had implemented 51 initiatives to boost controller productivity, improve best practices and cut costs. Only two produced discernible savings. Six increased costs, and no one can be sure what the other 43 did.

A version of Mr. Shuster’s plan stalled in the House last year amid objections from the general-aviation community, which is now trying to shoot down this year’s draft. Yet the bill exempts hobbyists from paying user fees and explicitly bans the air-traffic operation from restricting air space. GA outfits have also pumped specious national-security concerns, even as Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has welcomed the spinoff.

One overwrought objection was that the bill would be a big business giveaway to major airlines, which would have had four representatives on the governing board. The revised bill grants airlines one seat and adds representation for cargo and regional airlines, as well as airports. Robert Poole, the intellectual force behind the idea who supported the first version, calls the new bill a “big improvement.”

Another concern is that rural airports will be closed or harmed, though the bill maintains subsidies for remote areas, which is lamentable if a political reality. A Reason Foundation report details how FAA after the 2013 budget showdown put a moratorium on new contract towers that can benefit small airports, which will never beat out JFK or San Francisco International for FAA dollars. Under a new arrangement, rural airports could explore technology like remote towers, which allow controllers to manage operations with sophisticated cameras and communication equipment.

Many of these complaints come from the unprotected class of Americans known as corporate-jet passengers. The National Business Aviation Association is opposing the bill even though it exempts business jets from paying more in fees. That dispensation is regrettable. If the proletariat sitting in steerage pays for air services, so should a CEO flying across the country for lunch. The irony is that corporate-jet users are the least price-sensitive passengers and put a high value on time. Wouldn’t many executives happily pay extra for a faster landing and shorter lines on the tarmac? NetJets to its credit seems to recognize these realities and endorsed the bill this month.

The Department of Justice has been investigating DisruptJ20, a “resistance” group that plotted to shut down President Trump’s inauguration. The DOJ has demanded the IP addresses of visitors, along with any emails, photos and names it can get. But the pipeline of Dj20 funding goes back to George Soros.

And not just Soros.

Money from the Global Justice Alliance went to Refuse Fascism, a group founded by members of the Revolutionary Communist Party, which staged violent protests. “Respectable” big money leftist groups like the Hill Snowdon Foundation and Ben and Jerry’s Foundation fund middlemen like the Alliance. And then the Alliance funds “direct action” groups that are willing to get their hands violently dirty.

The DOJ, better than anyone, should understand this model. It’s commonplace among criminals.

And when you go after criminals, you don’t stop with the street thugs. Instead you go after the bosses. The left’s funding pipelines launder money by moving it from respectable foundations to increasingly radical groups until they reach the thugs that mace, club and set fires. The multiple tiers buy their donors respectability and plausible deniability. But it’s nothing that the DOJ can’t easily penetrate.

It’s not all that different from the Castellano era in the Gambino crime family. And it needs to be treated the same way. Fiscal sponsorship of groups that engage in street violence is a crime. Prosecute it!

The Center for Community Change Action, another “direct action” group, recently had its donors exposed. They included Soros’ Open Society Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Approximately $7 million has gone from these big donors to the “direct action” group.

The CCCA has its own groups for which it’s acting as a “fiscal sponsor”. That’s how it works.

The Ford Foundation has become notorious for its backing of Black Lives Matter through the Black-Led Movement Fund whose goal was to raise over $100 million for the black nationalist racist hate group.

There is big money behind the street violence tearing apart America from Ferguson to Berkeley.

And there are big foundations behind the big money. The DOJ took down the big crime families. It’s time for it to take down the big leftist foundations.

Many of these foundations were born in sin. And they’ve only grown worse since.

Their bid for “campaign finance reform” shifted the axis of political finance from donations to political organizations to “outside” groups that matched their agendas. We all live in the cracks of the shadowy political system created by the Ford Foundation, George Soros, Carnegie and MacArthur. The lefty foundations spent over $100 million to make “campaign finance reform” a reality. And that gave them enormous power to control national politics through unaccountable networks and soft money.

Representatives Ron DeSantis (R-FL), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Jim Jordan (R-OH), and Scott Perry (R-PA) on Tuesday hosted a caucus meeting on the Democrats’ IT scandal, which continues to be ignored by House leadership and the mainstream media.

Investigative reporter Luke Rosiak — who has done most of the investigative reporting on the story for The Daily Caller — was also at the meeting, as was Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, who lamented the fact that there have been no House hearings yet on what appears to a humongous scandal. The Capitol Police and FBI investigation appears to be going nowhere, as well.

“A proper investigation into this series of events doesn’t seem to be taking place,” said Rep. Perry. “I think many Americans feel the same way.”

Rep. Gohmert said the purpose of the meeting was “to bring out information that might be of interest or assistance to members of Congress.”

Rep. Perry began by reciting a rundown of the facts in the case as discovered by the Office of the Inspector General.

“The OIG tracked the Awans’ network usage and found that a massive amount of data was flowing from the networks,” he said. “Over 5,700 logins by the five Awan associates were discovered on a single server within the House. The server of the Democratic Caucus chairman, then-Rep. Xavier Becerra of California — 5,400 appear unauthorized. He is now the attorney general of California. According to the reports, the Becerra server was actually housing the entirety of the servers of all the member offices that employed Imran or his associates — a clear violation of House policy. This means up to 40 or more members of Congress had all of their data moved out of their office server or out of their cloud storage system and onto the Becerra server without their knowledge or consent.”

Perry said that the OIG reported their findings to “the speaker’s office, Democratic leadership, and the House Administration Committee, as well as the House sergeant at arms and Capitol Police in late September and early October of 2016.” He said, “Capitol Police began a criminal investigation into Imran Awan and his associates at that time. Capitol Police determined that the image they required Imran to provide was falsified, likely with deliberate attempt to conceal the activities that they knew were against House policy and the law.”

“These facts, standing alone, indicate a substantial security threat at the least,” Perry said. “But the events don’t end there.”

The congressman also brought up Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s mysterious laptop, which was found in a phone booth in the Rayburn Office Building on April 6, 2017, along with several pieces of ID belonging to Imran Awan.

For nearly two hours, the group discussed some of the most disturbing aspects of the scandal — including a possible kick-back scheme that could implicate congressional Democrats and the possibility that Imran Awan may have stolen the identity of a House Intelligence staffer after his own House email address was shut down.

There’s also the question of the Awan brothers’ ridiculously high salaries:

Rep DeSantis said he noticed a double standard in how the DOJ enforces the law.

“Look at the Mueller investigation,” DeSantis said. “Picking Manifort’s lock in the middle of the night and drawing guns on him and his wife for some white-collar crap from three or four years ago — I mean, that’s like scorching the earth, but yet, with Hillary … Comey exonerated her two months before she was brought in for questioning.”

He continued: “My fear on this case is that the ferocity will not be where it needs to be because … on the FBI, U.S. attorney ,DOJ side — I think you can get answers to these questions, and I think you can break it open. I have not seen that as of yet.”

DeSantis asked if anyone on the panel had seen leaks about the investigation. “I mean, we see all these other leaks. … The initial indictme