Egypt Updates, Energy Issues, ObamaCare

31Jan/110

Egypt Updates, Energy Issues, ObamaCare

From a writer at Time who seems to believe his job is to report the news, why the US isn't in a particularly good position to predict what's going to happen in Egypt. [via Wombat-Socho at TOM]

[via Barcepundit]

Stacy's got a round-up of round-ups, but more importantly . . .

In energy news, the Chinese commit to use American research and technology to ensure their energy needs, by building Thorium reactors, while Obama pursues his Splatnik projects. As Chris Matthews might appreciate, it's important to develop such technologies, especially since the Panama Canal has been relocated to Suez. After all, how are we going to get those awesome battery powered cars charged up?

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday called the US role in Egypt's political crisis "shameful," Reuters reported.

"It makes you kind of sick to see the meddling of the US, wanting to take control," Chavez said after being briefed on the situation in Egypt by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and Syria's President Bashar Assad.

"See how the United States, after using such-and-such a president for years, as soon as he hits a crisis, they abandon him. That's how the devil pays," Chavez said.

Yeah, Mubarak was used to the tune of tens of billions of dollars in aid. It's interesting, though, to hear Chavez come down on the side of the status quo in the Middle East, since he's got such strong ties with the Iranian mullahocracy, who are backing El-Baradei--whose prominence comprises as strong a commentary on the UN's orientations as one could wish.

As a member of OPEC and a dictator himself, there's only so far he can go in backing a potentially democratic movement, I suppose. At any rate, kudos for choosing a side.

Speaking of choosing sides:

Backroom deals and cover-ups may be business as usual for Washington, but understanding why the Obama administration protects its friends from Obamacare offers special insight into what the purveyors of the mandate themselves think about their own law. This is key: The waivers aren’t meant to protect victims from unintended consequences of Obamacare; they are meant to exempt them from the very intentional increased costs of health insurance that the law causes. Under Section 2711 of the Public Health Service Act, Obamacare increases the annual cap of insurance benefits, which sounds great - as does everything else in big government - until the bill comes due, in this case, in the form of higher insurance premiums.

In short, the administration has decided that you will face increased health insurance premiums, but special friends in the unions will not. Look closely, and you’ll see not only the White House‘s duplicity but also what the Obama administration really thinks of its crown jewel, Obamacare. White House words say that the annual insurance benefit cap is a feature of the program, but its actions say that it’s a bug.

The question remains: If Obamacare is such a great law, why does the White House keep protecting its best friends from it?

Obama insists that he won't "re-fight" HCR, but it's not really up to Obama. Apart from the purse power of the House, now in Republican control, there are numerous state challenges to the purchasing mandate, which the administration has argued either is not or is a tax, depending on the needs of the moment.

The issue of Obama's re-election just got stickier, too, with Arizona's adoption of a law requiring documentary proof of eligibility, and other states marshaling a combined 107 electoral votes set to do the same. Hawaii's legislature is considering making a long form birth certificate available to anyone ponying up $100 to have it, but it appears that it's going to be passed along in an envelope to Dan Rather's producers, with an autographed copy of the Donation of Constantine available for only $50 more.

Yesterday, we got hits from 1) Stacy McCain, 2) Maetenloch at AoSHQ, and 3) Instapundit. This is apparently a cosmic commentary on my whining yesterday that we don't get any links from the big sites.

A couple of months ago, I wrote a fanboy post on Chase Masterson, talking about how great she looked for a woman her age, only to discover that I had miscalculated it, adding 10 years. Oops. It gets worse. Before I found that out, I discovered that she was on Twitter, and sent her the link. I think I'm forgiven, though, since she responded to me when I tweeted that she would have made a better Catwoman than Anne Hathaway.