It is the pre-dawn hour and six sheriff’s deputies in flak vests and bright lights bang on your door! Like the sound of that? I sure don’t. Wisconsin special prosecutor Francis Schmitz is on a politically motivated witch-hunt, fortunately not at your door but a pre-dawn horror for certain. What’s happening here is much like the recent abuse by the IRS of conservative groups. The Obama crowd was responsible for that disgrace. This time we have Wisconsin’s thuggish special prosecutor Francis Schmitz to drag out on the carpet. Pre-dawn raids by a flak-jacketed force is sure not the American way. The abuse of the Obama administration is of historical proportions.  And now we have the emergence of a neo-Nazi-like pre-dawn force in Wisconsin. Francis Schmitz is abusing the political process to target conservative groups that might have the audacity to support Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s badly needed union reforms. Schmitz is in over his head with his abuse of process. Among those attacked here is my friend Eric O’Keefe. Mr. O’Keefe is as principled a gentleman as you could know. He has been a leader in the conservative cause for decades. Schmitz, to make an example, has now targeted Eric. We’re looking at an IRS-like abuse here. Unfortunately for Francis Schmitz, Eric O’Keefe is an old hand at fending off thugs. Schmitz is going to pay the price for his outrageous abuse of process. Here is the story as detailed in the WSJ. I will keep you up on the emergence of Wisconsin’s neo-Nazis.

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You can read here the 10 Budget-Cutting Suggestions for Paul Ryan and Patty Murray by Chris Edwards. Chris is the director of tax policy studies at Cato and editor of www.DownsizingGovernment.org. He is a top expert on federal and state tax and budget issues.

Federal policymakers will have to make spending cuts sooner or later, and the sooner the better to avoid racking up even more debt. The cuts here are assumed to be phased in over 10 years, and    the dollar amounts are 10-year figures.

It’s true that politicians don’t like to cut spending, but they should not think of cuts as taking bad-tasting medicine. Rather, cuts would generate large benefits by expanding individual freedom and liberating resources for private sector growth.

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Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S., has created one of the most vital books on the health of your family you will ever find, The 150 Healthiest Food on Earth. The lavishly illustrated, 358-page weighty tome gives you more vital information on foods that can keep your family healthy than any other publication I have ever come across. And I am always on the look out. I have given the book to family members and often advise it for others. I have now selected a “Great 10” list of food choices to share with you. My goal here is pass on ideas that perhaps you did not previously know about.

I eat a few Macadamia nuts everyday. But it is wise to keep it to a few, as these great nuts are calorie loaded. As Jonny notes, Macadamias were among Dr. Robert Atkins’ favorite foods. The oil in Macadamia nuts is 80 monounsaturated fat, the main fat in the Mediterranean diet. Not even olive oil has as much monounsaturated, heart healthy fat. The Mediterranean diet has long been associated with lower levels of heart disease and cancer as well as to a longer lifespan. Jonny mentions the famous Lyon Diet Heart Study and its experience with monounsaturated fat and statin drugs. The study reported a great reduction in heart attack risk with monounsaturated fat versus statin drugs.

I have an ongoing issue with statin drugs and advise all patients receiving a prescription for a statin drug to ask their doctors this question: What is the event the doctor is seeking to prevent by prescribing a statin drug? Next you want your doctor to give you the NNT (number needed to treat). If the number is 100, for example, it means 100 patients would have to be given a specific drug to avoid 1 of the bad events looking to be avoided. And most drugs are loaded with potentially dangerous side effects. I have a strong bias against drugs, hospitals, and commercial food stores and have written extensively on all three.

Macadamia nuts contain calcium, phosphorous and magnesium (for strong bones and teeth). They also contain phytosterols, including beta-sitosterol, which, as Jonny highlights, has been shown to lower cholesterol and promote prostate health.

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Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) discusses a planned bailout for insurance companies here in The Wall Street Journal. Rubio correctly states that Americans shouldn’t be put on the hook for the administration’s failure to execute its own legislation.

Under ObamaCare, abysmal enrollment numbers so far are a warning sign that this law will cost the American people more—and in more ways—than they ever imagined.

One of these ways was exposed last week after President Obama announced his unilateral action to “fix” his broken promise that Americans could keep their existing plans: a bailout of health-insurance companies.

Buried deep in the Department of Health and Human Services’ press release that accompanied the president’s Nov. 14 speech was this sentence: “Though this transitional policy was not anticipated by health insurance issuers when setting rates for 2014, the risk corridor program should help ameliorate unanticipated changes in premium revenue. We intend to explore ways to modify the risk corridor program final rules to provide additional assistance.”

Risk corridors are generally used to mitigate an insurer’s pricing risk. Under ObamaCare, risk corridors were established for the law’s first three years as a safety-net for insurers who experience financial losses. While risk corridors can protect taxpayers when they are budget-neutral, ObamaCare’s risk corridors are designed in such an open-ended manner that the president’s action now exposes taxpayers to a bailout of the health-insurance industry if and when the law fails.

Subsequent regulatory rulings have made clear that the administration views this risk-corridor authority as a blank check, requiring no further consultation or approval by Congress. A final rule handed down in March by HHS and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services states: “Regardless of the balance of payments and receipts, HHS will remit payments as required under section 1342 of the Affordable Care Act.”

On Nov. 14, the American Academy of Actuaries issued a press release saying that President Obama’s plan to reverse health-insurance cancellations “could lead to negative consequences for consumers, health insurers, and the federal government.” More specifically, the academy said, “Costs to the federal government could increase as higher-than-expected average medical claims are more likely to trigger risk corridor payments.”

It is a damning indictment of ObamaCare’s viability when the president’s only response to people losing their health insurance plans entails putting them on the hook for bailing out insurance companies. The American people are already being directly hurt by ObamaCare’s early failures, and it is unconscionable that they be expected to bail out companies when more failures emerge.

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America has lost heart, and Daniel Henninger explains why here in The Wall Street Journal.

The ObamaCare train wreck is plowing through the White House in super slow-mo on screens everywhere, splintering reputations and presidential approval ratings. Audiences watch popeyed as Democrats in distress like Senators Kay Hagan, Mary Landrieu and Mark Pryor decide whether to cling to the driverless train or jump toward the tall weeds. The heartless compilers of the Washington Post/ABC poll asked people to pick a head-to-head matchup now between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. Mitt won. This is the most amazing spectacle of mayhem and meltdown anyone has seen in politics since Watergate.

No question, it’s tough on Barack Obama. But what about the rest of us? For many Americans, the Obama leadership meltdown began five years ago.

In fall 2008, the U.S. suffered its worst financial crisis since the Depression. That wasn’t Barack Obama’s fault. But five years on, in the fall of 2013, the country’s economy is still sick.

Unemployed middle-aged men look in the mirror and see someone who may never work again. Young married couples who should be on the way up are living in their parents’ basement. Many young black men (official unemployment rate 28%; unofficial rate off the charts) have no prospect of work.

Washington these days kvetches a lot about what Healthcare.gov is doing to the Obama “legacy.” Far worse than ObamaCare, though, is that the 44th president in his second term presides over a great nation that is punching so far below its weight that large swaths of its people have lost heart.

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“Is it me, or are we all walking around with a little jump in our step now that everything we’ve been warning people about Obamacare—for the last three years—has actually come true?” said one of the All-Star panelists. This was an evening to remember. The All-Star cast from National Review was in rare form at the sold-out meeting Wednesday night in a small back room at the Harpoon Brewery in Boston.

The last time Dick and Debbie saw National Review publisher Jack Fowler was at Hotel Lutetia in Paris (of all places!). For Becky and me it was our first time meeting Jack and he could not have been nicer. In an email to all of us the next morning Jack wrote: “Thanks to all who came, some from California and Arizona and Missouri and Canada (is that one of Obama’s 57 states?). To any and all, on behalf of myself and all my NR colleagues — Have a Happy and Blessed Thanksgiving. And folks, remember, the next time you buy beer — BUY HARPOON!”

Not that Harpoon is struggling. The last time I was at the Harpoon brewery it was tiny, but that was back in 1995 when I was working at Fidelity in the World Trade Center (also on Northern Ave but closer to the city). It’s huge now. The changes along Northern Ave are breathtaking. No longer there are the familiar institutions such as Anthony’s Pier 4 and Jimmy’s. Instead you feel like you’re still in the city among the massive buildings, like Fidelity’s Seaport Hotel.  By the way, if you want to get around Boston in style, download the Uber app on your iPhone. A town car will be at your feet within minutes if not seconds—for the price of a cab. Talk about arriving in style.

Inside the brewery’s private room, NR’s senior editor Jay Nordlinger emceed the panelist session which included founding editor of National Review Online,  Jonah Goldberg, frequent Rush Limbaugh guest host Mark Steyn, “Campaign Spot” author  Jim Geraghty, and writer of the “Exchequer” and author Kevin D. Williamson. If you read these guys like we do, it’s hard not to feel a little awestruck with all of them sitting there. But it wasn’t pretentious, it’s a brewery after all, and it was more like hanging out with them and cracking some jokes. One panelist commented that the polls are so bad for Obama that if the Romney/Obama election were held today, Romney would win—and Obama would jump at that opportunity in a second!

On a more serious note, when asked what conservatism means to “you”, Kevin Williamson said it’s about self-reliance and the individual. And when another asked if there’s hope that Washington will change, the answer was probably not. Because what a progressive believes deep down in her heart is that she knows more than you. And that their arrogance means they’ll never admit their mistake or that they’re wrong. Instead they’ll throw more money at it because government at the end of the day is always the answer to your problems.

In speaking with Kevin afterwards one comes away with a strong sense of pride that there are other Americans out there like you and me fighting the same fight. It’s so rewarding to go to events such as this one because a lot of the time it’s easy to feel like you’re fighting alone. That’s certainly not the case. And based on Obama’s plummeting poll numbers, it’s only going to get better for folks like you and me.

Left to right: Jay Nordlinger (standing), Jonah Goldberg, Mark Steyn, Jim Geraghty, Kevin D. Williamson

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