On Thursday, <a href="http://press.foxnews.com/2018/09/fox-news-partners-with-the-national-merit-scholarship-program-to-establish-memorial-scholarship-for-charles-krauthammer/">FOX News announced</a> that it has partnered with the National Merit Scholarship Program to create a scholarship in honor of the late commentator Dr. Charles Krauthammer.
Krauthammer served as a contributor to Fox News from 2002 until his death in 2018. He was a Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated journalist and a Harvard-educated psychiatrist. He <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/32163/memoriam-charles-krauthammer-ben-shapiro">passed away in June</a> at age 68 from cancer.
The scholarship will reportedly be launched in 2020 and only children of FNC and FOX Business employees will be eligible. The winners will be awarded $2,000 per year of college for a maximum of four years. The selection of winners will be conducted by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC). 
&#8220;Charles was a beloved member of the FOX News family, but more importantly, he was an incredible mentor and role model for millions of Americans across the country,&#8221; Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott said. &#8220;We are proud to honor Charles, his legacy, impact and countless contributions with a new scholarship program enabling the next generation of thought leaders the opportunity and education they need to reach their dreams.&#8221;

Fox News Creates Memorial Scholarship In Charles Krauthammer’s Name

Charles Krauthammer

Fox Business Channel

Fox News

On Thursday, Pulitzer Prize-winning conservative powerhouse Dr. Charles Krauthammer lost his battle to cancer at 68 years old. With the tragic announcement came a flood of well-wishes and warm memories shared from those touched by Krauthammer&#8217;s significant life.
As those who have followed Krauthammer&#8217;s career know, the intellectual giant suffered a freak spinal cord injury when he was just 22 years old and became mostly paralyzed for life. Despite the devastating injury, he finished his medical degree on time and became a monumental political influence, starting from the Left side of the aisle and moving to the Right.
A letter penned by Krauthammer to a man he met at a political gathering in Washington, D.C., who would later also suffer a spinal cord accident that left him paralyzed, perfectly highlights Krauthammer&#8217;s resilient spirit and blazing compassion for others.
The recipient of the letter is the father of TIME magazine journalist Nash Jenkins, who shared the story via Twitter soon after the announcement of Krauthammer&#8217;s passing.
&#8220;I would like to share a story about Charles Krauthammer,&#8221; started Jenkins. &#8220;In October 2016, my dad met Krauthammer and Robert Reich at a thing in Washington. I&#8217;m not sure exactly what the thing was, but they chatted for awhile after. My dad&#8217;s a geek for this stuff, so he got a photo and posted it to Instagram.&#8221;
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In October 2016, my dad met Krauthammer and Robert Reich at a thing in Washington. I&#8217;m not sure exactly what the thing was, but they chatted for awhile after. My dad&#8217;s a geek for this stuff, so he got a photo and posted it to Instagram. <a href="https://t.co/ATS6hanRiN">pic.twitter.com/ATS6hanRiN</a>
&#8212; Nash Jenkins (@pnashjenkins) <a href="https://twitter.com/pnashjenkins/status/1009927513034936320?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 21, 2018</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;Until I saw that photo, I&#8217;d had no idea that Krauthammer was in a wheelchair. I just knew him as the pundit that conservatives of an older generation (like my dad) revered,&#8221; said Jenkins. &#8220;I looked it up and learned that in his first year of medical school at Harvard, Krauthammer was in a swimming accident that left him largely paralyzed. Despite this, he found success as a psychiatrist and then as a political writer,&#8221; he said, adding: &#8220;&#8216;Still,&#8217; I remember thinking, &#8216;how sad.'&#8221;
The journalist then explained that his father had an accident on June 25 of last year.
&#8220;My dad is now 56, but up until that point he had been pathologically active &#8212; in this case, he was surfing in Nicaragua. A wave had crashed on him and slammed him to the bottom. He quickly realized he couldn&#8217;t move,&#8221; he explained. &#8220;To abbreviate a long story that&#8217;s still very painful: after a 48-hour trip from the jungle to Managua to the neurosurgical hospital at UNC, my dad learned that he had broken his neck and severed his spinal cord. He was and remains paralyzed from the chest down; doctors told him very candidly that he&#8217;d never walk again.&#8221;
Jenkins said that he distinctly remembered an email Krauthammer sent his dad. Here&#8217;s the letter in its entirety:
<blockquote>
Dear Mr. Jenkins,
I heard about your accident. I&#8217;m so sorry. I enjoyed meeting you last year and am deeply sympathetic to your new and most harrowing situation. As you know, I&#8217;ve been there.
I know full well how difficult things are at the beginning and often how hopeless they seem. I also do know what&#8217;s possible. And it turns out to be quite a lot. 
I don&#8217;t pretend it&#8217;s everything. But a good and productive and deeply enjoyable life is possible. What it required in my case was the simple determination to keep going in the direction I was headed. I found that I could do psychiatry and then a journalism career at a totally even par with my colleagues. 
Your accident is occurring much later in life than mine. (I was 22.) Which presents its own challenges. On the other hand, you have so many years of experience and much respect and admiration from friends, colleagues and family accumulated over a lifetime. They will serve you well and help you through what will, at first, be significant challenges.
I write you because I know the challenges firsthand. I know how discouraging they can be initially. But I also know, with absolute certainty, that they can be accommodated and even overcome and that a good life is possible. 
I&#8217;m fully aware of how terribly discouraging it is to have to put in twice the effort for gains that seem so meager at the beginning. But I can assure you that it can be done. And then it is rewarded. 
I don&#8217;t mean to sugarcoat things. Life is more difficult with a spinal cord injury. But the obstacles are not insurmountable.
I know this is all scant consolation, and it is not really meant [as] that. It is simply meant to give you a different perspective on your future. Mine is from the rearview mirror. I know what actually can be. I also know that, for me, so soon after your accident, it is prospective &#8212; you are looking into a future that is necessarily unclear to you. I wish only to assure you from my own experience of 45 years post-accident that it can be a very good life indeed. 
I hope this is helpful. I wish you all the best in your recovery. 
Charles Krauthammer
</blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
But what I do remember is the email Charles Krauthammer sent my dad. I&#8217;d like to share it here. <a href="https://t.co/FO6hMJvjwz">pic.twitter.com/FO6hMJvjwz</a>
&#8212; Nash Jenkins (@pnashjenkins) <a href="https://twitter.com/pnashjenkins/status/1009930238023950336?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 21, 2018</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;There is no playbook for coping with spinal cord injuries. They&#8217;re statistically rare. Support networks are limited at best. But in a year that has been defined by uncertainty and emotional exhaustion, that letter has meant the world to my dad and to us,&#8221; said Jenkins. &#8220;I always wanted to thank Mr. Krauthammer for that, and am ashamed that I never did. It was a voice of lucid hope at a time when my family needed it more than anything. I will always be so grateful for it.&#8221;
The journalist concluded, &#8220;I guess I don&#8217;t really care about his politics right now &#8212; there will be others to eulogize and critique. I&#8217;m writing this because Charles Krauthammer knew what to say at a time when virtually no one did, and he took the time to say it, and it meant so so much.&#8221;

MUST-READ: Journalist Shares Moving Letter Charles Krauthammer Wrote To His Father After Tragic Spinal Cord Accident

I grew up on Charles Krauthammer.
I don&#8217;t mean that I grew up reading Charles Krauthammer. I mean that Krauthammer helped me grow up. The older I got, the more I valued Krauthammer; as I attempted to move beyond the temptation toward provocativeness and toward something more substantial, I saw Krauthammer as something of a guide. When my father asked me which writer I considered the best in the business, there was always only one answer: Krauthammer.
Charles Krauthammer is the thinker I aspired to be, the writer I wanted to emulate.
I failed; I&#8217;ll always fail. But, to be fair, that&#8217;s not my fault. He was just that good.
I&#8217;m not alone. Krauthammer&#8217;s writings shaped an entire generation of young conservatives &#8211; conservatives who were looking for thoughtful, reasoned explanations of the issues of the day. Krauthammer was a moral and political bellwether. If you didn&#8217;t know what to think, Krauthammer nearly always did.
And if he didn&#8217;t, that was because Krauthammer was willing to consider all sides of an issue. Read some of his columns. This was a man who picked up an issue, turned it over, examined its smooth surfaces and rough undersides, and came away with a judgment. Because, in the end, that&#8217;s what Krauthammer was: a judge. A judge of nations, a judge of character, a judge of men.
I met Krauthammer twice, both times briefly. Once, we met in his office; I was with several other columnists and reporters, and we were all rather awestruck to be in his presence. He traded baseball jokes with us as he asked about the news of the day. That was another funny thing about Krauthammer &#8211; he wasn&#8217;t a news junkie. He was a thought junkie. The headlines of the day simply mattered less to him than the philosophies and worldviews that could be only faintly spotted through the murky waters of daily politics. That&#8217;s why Krauthammer seemed to be so clear &#8211; he was speaking and writing from a deeper place. It&#8217;s also why he was so prescient: the waves of politics varied, but the bottom of the ocean was stable.
The second time I met him was at the offices of Prager University, where he was about to cut a video &#8211; a video in which he, an immigration dove, argued for a border wall. We only met briefly again, but in that brief time, he grilled me in specific detail on the differences between the Canadian healthcare system and the Australian healthcare system. Needless to say, I failed the grilling. I remember turning to a good friend who was at the meeting, and asking, &#8220;Was Krauthammer testing me?&#8221; My friend, who had met Krauthammer a few more times than I, replied, &#8220;No. He genuinely wanted to know.&#8221; (Only later did I learn that Krauthammer had to lie down for a few minutes after our conversation to recover physically. He was a man so hungry for knowledge that he would literally put himself in physical discomfort to seek it.)
And that was Krauthammer: a man who genuinely wanted to know, and who obviously took great joy in learning and thinking. Only a man who took such joy in the intellectual life could have succeeded so wildly in a life marked by such a great tragedy as his paralysis. Only a man devoted to the pursuits of the mind could write about the end of his life thusly:
<blockquote>
I leave this life with no regrets. It was a wonderful life &#8212; full and complete with the great loves and great endeavors that make it worth living. I am sad to leave, but I leave with the knowledge that I lived the life that I intended.
</blockquote>
May we all live such lives. May we all be blessed by his memory, and by the wealth of writing and thought he left behind. Baruch Dayan Ha&#8217;Emet.

IN MEMORIAM: Charles Krauthammer

Conservative intellectual giant, Pulitzer Prize winner, and Harvard-educated psychiatrist Charles Krauthammer passed away at the age of 68 on Thursday.
Krauthammer&#8217;s passing was expected after he wrote a heartbreaking letter in his column on June 8 informing the public that he had cancer. He <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/06/21/charles-krauthammer-conservative-commentator-and-pulitzer-prize-winner-dead-at-68.html">wrote</a>:
<blockquote>
Recent tests have revealed that the cancer has returned. There was no sign of it as recently as a month ago, which means it is aggressive and spreading rapidly. My doctors tell me their best estimate is that I have only a few weeks left to live. This is the final verdict. My fight is over.
</blockquote>
Krauthammer, who was also an influential Fox News contributor, was widely respected for his honesty, grace, and exuding class.
&#8220;We are deeply saddened by the loss of our colleague and friend, Charles Krauthammer,&#8221; Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott said in a statement. &#8220;A gifted doctor and brilliant political commentator, Charles was a guiding voice throughout his time with FOX News and we were incredibly fortunate to showcase his extraordinary talent on our programs. He was an inspiration to all of us and will be greatly missed. Our thoughts and prayers are with his beloved wife Robyn and his son Daniel.&#8221;
Despite his tragic passing, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/charles-krauthammer-pulitzer-prize-winning-columnist-and-intellectual-provocateur-dies-at-68/2018/06/21/b71ee41a-759e-11e8-b4b7-308400242c2e_story.html">The Washington Post</a>&#8216;s Adam Bernstein attacked him in Krauthammer&#8217;s obituary, appearing to blame him for the Iraq war in the opening line of his obituary:
<blockquote>
Charles Krauthammer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post columnist and intellectual provocateur who championed the muscular foreign policy of neoconservatism that helped lay the ideological groundwork for the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, died June 21 at 68.
</blockquote>
Calling Krauthammer, whose calm and non-confrontational demeanor defined him, a &#8220;provocateur,&#8221; was completely inaccurate, to say the least.

BREAKING: Charles Krauthammer Passes Away; Washington Post Attacks Him In Obituary

Appearing on Fox News&#8217; Special Report on Friday, Charles Krauthammer offered a brutally honest take on what he believes is going to happen following the resignation of Steve Bannon:
<blockquote>
Look, what happened today is that the civil war moved from inside the White House to outside the White House &#8212; but the war continues. Bannon is very clearly going after the same list of people he found were undermining the president that he talked about in that interview.
He&#8217;s gonna go after them from the Breitbart platform or any other. He&#8217;s gonna go after all the softies, as he sees it, on policy, and this is gonna be really a bloody affair. I think he&#8217;s been immensely strengthened. I mean, who heard of Bannon a year ago? Everybody&#8217;s heard of Bannon now, and I think the meeting with the Mercer&#8217;s was very significant.
He&#8217;s got, you know, billions of dollars behind him, the platform, the machinery of Breitbart under him, and he&#8217;s got a clear free fire zone. He&#8217;s not held back anymore. This, I mean, for Trump, it was quite a risk, which is, I think, why it took him so long to get rid of Bannon. It was a double-edged sword, and he&#8217;s now gonna have to face one of those edges.
</blockquote>
The pertinent portion begins at the 7:10 mark, but the entire segment is worth watching:
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Krauthammer: The White House Civil War Is Not Over

Donald Trump

Steve Bannon

On Thursday, Charles Krauthammer appeared on Fox News&#8217; Tucker Carlson Tonight, and explained that the removal of Trump from office for anything other than &#8220;high crimes&#8221; would &#8220;cause a rupture in the country.&#8221;
<blockquote>
CARLSON: He&#8217;s been in office &#8212; 9 months since he got elected. From the very first day, people were saying, &#8220;We&#8217;re gonna take him out.&#8221; Now this investigation looks like it has the potential to do that. If that were to happen, some of these voters may conclude that they&#8217;re not really allowed to pick their own president.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
KRAUTHAMMER: Well, that&#8217;s why I think we are really headed into very choppy and dangerous constitutional waters. We know what the Democrats want to do. They want to get control of the House, and on day one, they&#8217;re gonna start impeachment. Now, I happen to think &#8212; as you now, I opposed the Trump candidacy. I don&#8217;t think he&#8217;s very well fit for the presidency. But fitness is not a reason for impeachment and removal. High crimes are. Here we have a prosecutor looking for high crimes. With Watergate, you started with a crime, and then you [tried] to find out how it happened. Here, they&#8217;re looking for a crime. Perhaps they&#8217;ll find one, I don&#8217;t know. As of yet, I haven&#8217;t heard of one. Collusion is unseemly, but it ain&#8217;t a crime.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
So you&#8217;ve got a political establishment &#8212; mostly Democratic, but there are some Republicans who would like to see him taken out of office. I think that would be a catastrophic mistake. It would cause a rupture in the country where people would say, &#8220;When we people, the ones who&#8217;ve been abandoned, elect somebody we like, our guy gets taken out? I thought we had a stable democracy.&#8221; Again, I think he&#8217;s unfit, but that&#8217;s not grounds for removal.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
If you think a man is unfit, you vote against him &#8212; but you don&#8217;t remove him from office. And that&#8217;s where I&#8217;m afraid we are headed given the forces that are surrounding the president. I just hope that cooler heads prevail.
</blockquote>
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WATCH: Krauthammer Says Some Republicans Want Trump ‘Taken Out Of Office’

On Tuesday, Fox News contributor and Washington Post columnist Dr. Charles Krauthammer <a href="https://twitter.com/foxandfriends/status/880008945196085249/video/1">said</a> the core issue creating the struggle for Republicans to repeal Obamacare is not necessarily a messaging problem or a failure of leadership by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, but, rather, the out-of-control growth of entitlements, namely Medicaid. As noted by the scholar, Medicaid was &#8220;inflated by Obamacare to include able-bodied workers up to 400 percent of the poverty line&#8221;; such a large entitlement is almost impossible to reign in once unleashed. 
&#8220;Their problem is not &#8212; forgive me &#8212; this is not a failure of communication as in &#8216;Cool Hand Luke,&#8217; this is a failure of expectations,&#8221; Krauthammer said on Fox News&#8217; Special Report. &#8220;The country does not want to see the entitlements that were handed out by Obamacare retracted. That&#8217;s the issue. It&#8217;s not communication. It&#8217;s not the lack of coordination between the House and Senate. It&#8217;s the fact that Medicare was inflated. It was supposed to be for women and poor children and the disabled. It was inflated by Obama to include able-bodied workers up to 400 percent of the poverty line. So this is completely out of its original intent.&#8221;
The columnist explained that even the marginal cut to Medicaid proposed in the current Republican health care bill is deterring Republican lawmakers from signing on. 
&#8220;The fight now, and the reason a lot of moderate Republicans are scared is because under this bill it goes from 400 percent down to 350 percent,&#8221; he said. &#8220;This is a marginal retrenchment of what makes you eligible for Medicaid. And people are used to what was. They don&#8217;t want to give it back. That&#8217;s the reason that Obamacare repeal is in trouble.&#8221;
As noted by the author, offering entitlements to the American people is a longtime winning strategy by Democrats, dating back to President Franklin D. Roosevelt&#8217;s New Deal.
&#8220;The country is not where it was seven years ago. It&#8217;s the reason that the Left usually wins, because when you hand out goodies since the New Deal, it is extremely hard to bring them back. That&#8217;s the core issue here,&#8221; he explained. 
Krauthammer&#8217;s argument is hard to rebut, but radio talk show host Laura Ingraham added another element to the conversation: the Republicans&#8217; messaging, or lack there of, to sell their brand of health care, which is rooted in free market capitalism and subsequent innovation as a way to lower costs, is seriously deficient. 
&#8220;I think if a really good strong communication strategy on a free market approach to health care was done, I think you&#8217;d have a much better look at public approval polls. &#8230; I think that was absent here. I think it&#8217;s part White House failure. I think it&#8217;s part congressional Republican failure,&#8221; she said. &#8220;The Democrats are, of course, exploiting that.&#8221; 
You&#8217;d be hard-pressed to find anyone who&#8217;d disagree with the idea that Republicans usually run into a messaging problem. 
WATCH:
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WATCH: Krauthammer Explains Real Reason Republicans Can’t Get It Together On Health Care

Democratic Party

Health Care

Medicaid

Obamacare

Republican Party

Illegal immigration is an important issue facing the country &#8212; which is in part why President Trump was elected &#8212; but any sensible solution must start with one thing: building the wall.
Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer explains in <a href="https://www.prageru.com/courses/political-science/build-wall">PragerU&#8217;s latest video</a> that it is necessary to legalize the 11 million illegal immigrants residing in the country, but it can only be done if there is less incentive for people to enter the country illegally. After amnesty for almost three million illegals was implemented in 1986, no physical barrier was constructed along the border, causing the illegal immigrant population to swell to 11 million since many immigrants believed that amnesty would happen again.
Krauthammer argued that if people could be assured that future illegal immigration could be curtailed following legalization, there would be more of &#8220;a national consensus behind it.&#8221;
That&#8217;s where the wall comes into play.
&#8220;Build a barrier,&#8221; Krauthammer said. &#8220;Call it a wall. Call it a fence. Call it what you will. Add cameras and sensors. Add drones. Beef up the patrols. All that matters is that we regain control of the border.&#8221;
Krauthammer added:
<blockquote>
Fences work. The triple fence outside San Diego led to a 90 percent reduction in infiltration. Israel&#8217;s border fence with the West Bank produced a similar decline. Even holier-than-thou Europeans have conceded the point: Hungary, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Austria, Greece, Spain &#8212; why, even Norway &#8212; have all started building border fences to stem the tide of Middle Eastern refugees.
</blockquote>
The columnist also advocated for an E-Verify system to prevent illegals from working in the country and a way to properly track visas &#8220;since 40% of illegal immigrants are visa overstays.&#8221;
Krauthammer proceeded to debunk the asinine argument that America&#8217;s wall would be the equivalent of the Berlin Wall.
&#8220;When you build a wall to keep people in, that&#8217;s a prison,&#8221; Krauthammer said. &#8220;When you build a wall to keep people out, that&#8217;s an expression of sovereignty.&#8221;
Krauthammer acknowledged that the wall wouldn&#8217;t completely curtail illegal immigration, but it would cause a dramatic enough decline to bring the focus solely on what to do with the 11 million illegals already in the country.
&#8220;If we do it right, not only will we solve the problem, we will get it done as one nation,&#8221; Krauthammer concluded.
The full video can be seen below:
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<a href="https://twitter.com/bandlersbanter">Follow Aaron Bandler on Twitter.</a>

PragerU Video: Build The Wall

Prager University

Appearing on Fox News&#8217; Special Report with Brett Baier on Tuesday night after President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer said the decision was &#8220;almost inexplicable&#8221; and the reasons the White House gave for the decision were &#8220;implausible.&#8221;
Krauthammer began, &#8220;Look, it is so amazing that I think we&#8217;re only at the very beginning of the story. Here&#8217;s what&#8217;s so odd about it. This is about, according to the deputy attorney general, something that occurred on July the 5th.&#8221;
Krauthammer was referencing the July 2016 press conference where Comey announced the FBI <a href="https://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2016/07/06/analysis-the-fbi-directors-devastating-indictmentless-indictment-of-hillary-clinton-n2188349">would not recommend criminal charges</a> against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for her email scandal.
He continued, &#8220;So we start out with something that&#8217;s highly implausible. If that was so offensive to the Trump administration, which you would have done in the transition is you would have spoken to Comey and said, &#8216;We&#8217;re going to let you go.&#8217; That is when a president could very easily make a decision to have a change that&#8217;s not unprecedented, but to fire him summarily with no warning in the middle of May because of something that happened in July is almost inexplicable.&#8221; 
Krauthammer continued by referring to the <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/347867207/Comey-firing-letters">letter</a> from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, in which he noted the &#8220;FBI&#8217;s reputation and credibility have suffered substantial damage&#8221; and cited the &#8220;Director&#8217;s handling of the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary Clinton&#8217;s emails&#8221; as the reason Comey should be fired.
Krauthammer then voiced his skepticism:
<blockquote>
Second, the reason ostensibly is, as you read in that letter, for doing something that you&#8217;re not supposed to do, to usurp the Attorney General, but second, to release all that information which was damaging to Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump&#8217;s opponent. Do we really believe that Donald Trump, after all these months, decided suddenly he had to fire this guy because he damaged Hillary back in July? Another implausible conjecture. We are left to believe that it might have something to do with the egregious mistake that Comey made in the testimony this week &#8211;
</blockquote>
Baier interrupted, &#8220;Although it&#8217;s not mentioned in any of the letters.&#8221;
Krauthammer continued: &#8220;&#8211; mentioned anywhere, but if you&#8217;re saying the ostensible reasons are implausible &#8211;&#8221;
Baier: &#8220;Then you&#8217;re looking to hang it on something.&#8221;
<blockquote>
&#8220;Do we really believe that Donald Trump, after all these months, decided suddenly he had to fire this guy because he damaged Hillary back in July?&#8221;
Charles Krauthammer
</blockquote>
Krauthammer concluded:
<blockquote>
 &#8211; on something that we have not heard about, and we end up with that very strange clause that you read in the letter to Comey, &#8220;While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation&#8230;&#8221; Who has been talking about FBI investigations of Trump? This sort of explodes on us, without any preparation, without any background; I suspect where this is going to go is to that clause.
</blockquote>
Video below:
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WATCH: Krauthammer Explains Why It’s ‘Inexplicable’ To Fire Comey Now

James Comey

Appearing on Fox News&#8217; <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/05/05/krauthammer_i_would_predict_that_in_less_than_seven_years_we_will_be_in_a_single-payer_system.html">Special Report</a> Thursday, conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer hit the nail on the head as it pertains to the way in which Americans perceive the role of government in the health care industry:
<blockquote>
&#8220;I think historically speaking we are at the midpoint. We had seven years of Obamacare, a change in expectations. And I would predict that in less than seven years, we will be in a single-payer system. I think that&#8217;s the great irony of this. 
Obamacare failed at every level. Politically, the Democrats were crushed over six years and four elections, whereas you say, they lost seats in the House, the Senate, the governorships, etc. largely because of Obamacare. 
It failed on the ground, as was pointed out earlier. The insurers are in a death spiral. The Obamacare exchanges are collapsing. You&#8217;ve had these exchanges, these community exchanges completely disintegrating. But the irony is in the end, I think Obamacare wins the day because it changed expectations.
Look at the terms of the debate. Republicans are not arguing the free market anymore. They have sort of accepted the fact that the electorate sees health care as not just any commodity. It&#8217;s not like purchasing a steak or a car. It is something people now have a sense that government ought to guarantee.&#8221;
</blockquote>
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Progressives like Obama are masters at the game of perception manipulation. With the help of a complicit media, progressives have been able to shift the debate regarding healthcare from &#8220;free market vs. socialized medicine&#8221; to &#8220;semi-socialized medicine vs. fully government-run health care.&#8221;
With the extraordinary failure of Obamacare, the semi-socialized side of the argument has come undone; it is no longer viable. This leaves us with just one option: government-run health care.
Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/16109/end-freedom-republican-senator-federal-government-ben-shapiro">writes</a>: &#8220;Obama won and continues to win because he shifted the political ground upon which Republicans now walk. Not one elected Republican has the strength of mind or character or political position to tell the truth about healthcare.&#8221;
This is true. Republicans have the option to move the debate back to the ground on which it belongs, but the majority will not. They are either too dim or too terrified. That said, Republicans have no ground on which to argue but that of semi-socialized health care. Arguing in favor of a system that has proven to be a failure &#8211; merely offering a tweaked version of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) &#8211; Republicans will continue to lose the debate.
When the Republican version of Obamacare fails, and it will, the Democrats will push for a fully government-run health care system. After so many years of perception manipulation, the American people will agree. Republicans will acquiesce, because they&#8217;re spineless, and the United States will join the ranks of the U.K. and Canada.
This could all be prevented, of course, if the Republicans would be willing to argue on free-market principles &#8211; but they aren&#8217;t. Self-interest and fear govern their philosophy, and as long as those feelings are the prevailing drivers of Republican policy, conservatism will die.

WATCH: Krauthammer Says That Within 7 Years, We’ll Have A Nationalized Health Care System

On the same day that WikiLeaks&#8217; Julian Assange <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/01/02/assange_to_hannity_our_source_was_not_the_russian_government.html">told Fox News</a> that, contrary to the Obama administration&#8217;s claims, the Russian government was not the source for their leaked Democratic Party documents, conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer said President Obama&#8217;s newfound adversarial stance and actions against Russia are &#8220;largely political,&#8221; intended to delegitimize President-elect Donald Trump. Krauthammer went as far as to suggest that Obama was looking to seek &#8220;revenge&#8221; on Trump for his prominent voice in the Team Hillary-originated &#8220;birther&#8221; movement. 
Krauthammer&#8217;s comments came during a discussion with Special Report host Bret Baier about the future Trump administration&#8217;s claims that Obama&#8217;s retaliation against Russia is an obvious attempt to use the &#8220;Russia hacked the election&#8221; narrative to undermine Trump. 
Team Trump, explained Baier, are &#8220;pointing to the Chinese hack of OPM where they took millions and millions of identification numbers, Social Security numbers of government employees&#8221; as evidence that Obama is acting completely inconsistently. While he has made a big show of publicly decrying Russia and announcing his administration&#8217;s retaliatory measures, he handled the serious China hack completely differently. As the New York Times put it at the time, &#8220;In public, Mr. Obama has said almost nothing and officials are under strict instructions from naming China as the source of that attack.&#8221; 
&#8220;The Trump folks, Charles, are pointing to that, saying they chose not to say anything there, and yet here they are expelling diplomats and talking openly about it,&#8221; said Baier. 
Krauthammer responded by saying he essentially agreed with Trump&#8217;s take, describing Obama&#8217;s actions as &#8220;largely political.&#8221; 
&#8220;I think their case that this is largely political on the part of Obama is true,&#8221; answered Krauthammer, before making it clear that this &#8220;doesn&#8217;t mean that the Russians weren&#8217;t behind it and that the U.S. ought to make a strong response.&#8221;
Krauthammer argued that the Obama Administration has been soft on Russia and our political foes at large since the moment Obama stepped foot in office in 2008. Obama &#8220;appeased the Russians from day one,&#8221; he said, after acknowledging that the POTUS said nothing about the Chinese hacking our Office of Personnel Management. 
&#8220;This is a president who has appeased the Russians from day one,&#8221; said Krauthammer. &#8220;He cancels the missile defense system as he comes into office, Obama did. He then lies down, does nothing about Syria, essentially nothing about Ukraine. Does nothing about all the trespasses of the Russians vis-a-vis the U.S. They learned about the hacking 18 months before today. They do nothing at a time when it would actually have an effect.&#8221;
According to Krauthammer, Obama&#8217;s sudden act to expel 35 Russian diplomats from the the United States in response to 18-month-old evidence of Russian hacking was clearly in effort to connect the Russians to the 2016 election results, a claim unsupported by evidence. In effect, this would undermine the legitimacy of Trump&#8217;s future presidency, just as Obama perceives Trump attempted to delegitimize him when pushing the claim that the Hawaii-native was actually born in Kenya, explained the pundit. 
&#8220;[A]ll of a sudden with a month to go, he decides to do this,&#8221; said Krauthammer. &#8220;The timing and the severity of what he did is clearly &#8212; this is Obama&#8217;s revenge on Trump for the birther thing. Trump, he perceives, Obama perceives, tried to undermine his legitimacy. There&#8217;s no better way left for Obama to undermine the legitimacy of Trump than to apply &#8212; you&#8217;re absolutely right, there&#8217;s no connection to the actual election but most Americans think this is about the election, to imply that Trump won because of this. That&#8217;s what all of this is about and that&#8217;s why I think that Trump is right in protesting this.&#8221;
Though the &#8220;Trump people&#8221; may be correct in pointing out the motivations of Obama&#8217;s actions, suggested Krauthammer, the actions themselves may be warranted. 
&#8220;Nonetheless, we as a country can&#8217;t take our example from Obama as he did for 18 months. We can&#8217;t let it go. And we should punish the Chinese and we should next time,&#8221; concluded Krauthammer. 
Watch: 
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Notes: This article has been expanded to provide more details. Transcript <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/01/02/krauthammer_obama_attempting_to_undermine_trump_using_russia_like_trump_did_with_birther_attack.html">via </a>Real Clear Politics.

Krauthammer: Obama’s Sudden Russia Moves Meant to Delegitimize Trump as ‘Revenge’ [Video]

Barack Obama

Russia

On Monday, Fox News contributor and conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer blasted the United Nations for ignoring genocide and other serious humanitarian tragedies and displaying blatant and active anti-Semitism. A fired-up Krauthammer ended his pointed rant by offering up some advise to President-elect Donald Trump: Slap your name on the UN headquarters in New York City and &#8220;turn it into condos.&#8221; 
After noting that the United States pays for nearly a quarter of the UN&#8217;s funding, Krauthammer <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2016/12/27/the-united-nations-gets-krauthammered-trump-should-turn-it-into-condos-video/">said</a> that the organization spends &#8220;more than half its time and energy and resources and bureaucracy trying to attack the only Jewish state on the planet, a tiny little spec, while genocide, mayhem, murder and terrorism is going on all over the world.&#8221;
As indirectly referenced by Krauthammer, President Barack Obama cemented his <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/03/20/a-complete-timeline-of-obamas-anti-israel-hatred/">anti-Israel stance</a> on Friday when he stabbed Israel, America&#8217;s greatest Middle Eastern ally, in the back by <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/11858/happy-chanukah-obama-obama-backed-un-resolution-ben-shapiro">abstaining</a> from a vote at United Nations Security Council on Israeli settlement construction. Without America&#8217;s veto, the resolution to condemn the settlements and brand East Jerusalem non-Jewish territory passed 14-0, putting Jewish lives at risk.
&#8220;It&#8217;s an obsession that, to an outside observer, appears to be insane,&#8221; the pundit continued, before directly inquiring why the United States is even funding the UN. 
Krauthammer added that the UN spends a huge portion of its resourses &#8220;undermining the United States and democracy and our allies around the world.&#8221;
&#8220;It is an organization that exacerbates tensions, it does not assuage them,&#8221; he stated. 
The UN may have been &#8220;born in hope, at the end of the Second World War,&#8221; said Krauthammer, but &#8220;it turned out to be a disaster.&#8221;
Putting the final nail in the UN coffin, the conservative suggested that a President Trump turn the UN into condos. 
&#8220;I think that&#8217;s good real estate in downtown New York City,&#8221; he joked, referencing UN headquarters. &#8220;And Trump ought to find a way to put his name on it and turn it into condos.&#8221;
Watch:
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On Friday, Krauthammer blasted Obama for the resolution&#8217;s passing, unequivocally stating that such abstention was an <a href="http://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2016/12/27/krauthammer-on-un-israel-resolution-this-was-a-us-operation-all-the-way-n2263797">intentional &#8220;U.S. operation&#8221; to slight Israel</a>. 
Read the seven worst things the UN has ever done <a href="http://www.dailywire.com/news/11906/7-worst-things-un-has-ever-done-michael-qazvini">here</a>.

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