Flap’s Links and Comments for March 16th on 12:27

These are my links for March 16th from 12:27 to 15:28:

• ObamaCare A Year Later: The $2.6 Trillion Birthday Present – enator John Ensign today examined the impact of the $2.6 trillion health law during a Senate Finance Committee hearing. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testified on the effectiveness of the law while Senator Ensign questioned its cost to taxpayers and its many unintended consequences.
   
  “Birthdays are cause for celebration, but the anniversary of $2.6 trillion worth of bad policy is hardly something to applaud,” said Ensign.  “This law fails to address the number one problem facing health care and that’s cost.  Unfortunately, this law does accomplish three things: higher healthcare costs, higher taxes and fewer jobs.
   
  “I traveled across our state to speak with Nevadans before this law was voted on and after it passed, and let me tell you, the support behind this law is not there, but the frustration is. Nevada employers are already being forced to choose between hiring employees and paying the higher healthcare premiums for the ones that they do have.  Steve Wynn told me today that between 2005 and 2010, his company’s premiums went up about 8% per year, but this year alone the premiums are up 12%.  This is an almost 50% increase in the rate of growth and amounts to about $900 per year per employee; how do we repair Nevada’s economy when our employers cannot afford to provide healthcare coverage?  We can and need to do better than this.” 

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  ObamaCare is something America cannot afford

• Barack Obama’s lack of leadership — Obama the Invisible – the world's most despicable regimes.

  So where is the president?

  Japan may be on the verge of a disaster that dwarfs any we have yet seen. A self-governing nation like the United States needs its leader to take full measure of his position at times of crises when the path forward is no longer clear.

  This is not a time for leadership; this is the time for leadership.

  So where is Barack Obama?

  The moment demands that he rise to the challenge of showing America and the world that he is taking the reins. How leaders act in times of unanticipated crisis, in which they do not have a formulated game plan and must instead navigate in treacherous waters, defines them.

  Obama is defining himself in a way that will destroy him.

  It is not merely that he isn't rising to the challenge. He is avoiding the challenge. He is Bartleby the President. He would prefer not to.

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  Read it all

  Obama is voting present just like he did in the Illinois Legislature or you could say he is phoning it in.

• Hillary’s End: Hillary Clinton says no to second term – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told CNN's Wolf Blitzer she does not want to serve a second term as secretary of state or run for president of the United States.
  Blitzer sat down with the former 2008 presidential candidate in Cairo.
  Full transcript:

  Q- If the president is reelected, do you want to serve a second term as secretary of state?
  No
  Q- Would you like to serve as secretary of defense?
  No
  Q- Would you like to be vice president of the United States?
  No
  Q- Would you like to be president of the United States?
  No

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  Hillary is moving on and I think she has her priorities straight