Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Great stuff today


I apologize that my blog was down yesterday, due to a Google hiccup, and that their new CAPTCHA took forever to log me back on. I wasn't directly briefed about website problems, which are the fault of the GOP, the Tea Party, George Bush, Ted Cruz or Global Warming. ~Bob


Obama says Republicans share some blame for health-care law’s failures
Excerpt: “One of the problems we’ve had is one side of Capitol Hill is invested in failure,” Obama said at the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council meeting in Washington. “We obviously are going to have to remarket and rebrand, and that will be challenging in this political environment.” (Obama says the GOP is vested in the failure of the healthcare law. Since every GOP congressman voted against it, and every one has voted to repeal it something like 40 times, this is new how? But it seems to be failing from his incompetence with no help from them. ~Bob)

Poll: Obamacare support, Obama approval sink to new lows
Excerpt: Thirty-seven percent now approve of the job Mr. Obama is doing as president, down from 46 percent in October -- a nine point drop in just a month. Mr. Obama's disapproval rating is 57 percent -- the highest level for this president in CBS News Polls. A rocky beginning to the opening of the new health insurance exchanges has also taken its toll on how Americans perceive the Affordable Care Act. Now, approval of the law has dropped to 31 percent - the lowest number yet recorded in CBS News Polls, and a drop of 12 points since last month. Sixty-one percent disapprove (a high for this poll), including 46 percent who say they disapprove strongly.

Dear @BarackObama ~ Just had my benefits enrollment mtg. Thanks for making what was once affordable for this single mom NOT affordable. #ACA

Security Fail: Major Hacking Threat With Healthcare.Gov. By Carol Platt Liebau
Excerpt: This report reveals that Henry Chao, the official responsible for building Healthcare.gov, was not informed of serious security risks to the site, including the possibility of identity theft; unauthorized access; and misrouted data. A CMS memo -- which Chao told congressional staff he had never seen -- concluded that "the threat and risk potential" to the healthcare site "is limitless." 

Computer Security Experts Warn Americans to Avoid ObamaCare Website
Excerpt: Clueless IT chief Henry Chao - the guy who claimed he was kept in the dark about ObamaCare's endless series of half-assed failed tests by his own team - promised Congress today that the new stuff would be checked out "in the same exact manner we tested everything else," which should have caused lightning flashes, spooky rolls of thunder, demonic laughter, and the theme song from "The Exorcist" to simultaneously erupt in the hearing room. An argument could be made that ObamaCare is a threat to national security because of its vulnerabilities, and the treasure trove of secure data that hackers can find their way into, once they kick in the flimsy balsa wood front door of Healthcare.gov. It's patently obvious that it's a menace to everyone who uses it, and you can bet your bottom dollar that the already reluctant "young invincibles" aren't going to go anywhere near the damn thing once the first identity-theft cases make the front pages. (Article notes linked to IRS and DHS as well…once a hacker is in….Barb)

Obama flubs during health care conference call with community organizers, claims 'more than 100 MILLION Americans' have enrolled
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2509715/Obama-flubs-health-care-conference-community-organizers-More-100-million-Americans-successfully-enrolled.html
Excerpt: President Barack Obama told a conference-call audience of progressive volunteers on Monday evening that 'more than 100 million Americans' – in a nation of less than 314 million – have successfully signed up for health insurance via the Affordable Care Act.

Krauthammer On Obamacare: "This Is A Level Of Incompetence That Is Indescribable"
Excerpt: To quote the president, I'm not stupid enough to not react when I hear the president of the United States say, as we just heard him say, I was not informed directly that the website would -- now what in God's sake does that mean, indirectly? The historian Bea Kristol was once asked if she read a certain book and she said, 'yes, but not personally.' So what does it mean, he was indirectly told? How was he told? What did he hear?

Private consultants warned of risks before HealthCare.gov’s Oct. 1 launch. By Juliet Eilperin and Sandhya Somashekhar
Excerpt: The Obama administration brought in a private consulting team to independently assess how the federal online health insurance enrollment system was developing, according to a newly disclosed document, and in late March received a clear warning that its Oct. 1 launchwas fraught with risks.

Obama was briefed earlier in year on health website problems. By Roberta Rampton And Caren Bohan, Reuters
Excerpt: President Barack Obama, who has portrayed himself as surprised by technical problems with the government's new health care website, was briefed earlier this year on a consultant's report that warned of possible widespread site failures, the White House said on Tuesday.

Why re-selling Obamacare won’t be easy. By Juliet Eilperin And Scott Wilson
Excerpt: Seven weeks after HealthCare.gov’s troubled launch, President Obama is hoping to (re)focus Americans’ attention on both the benefits of his signature health care law and the Republicans’ effort to undermine it. But this strategy faces its own set of challenges, which may be hard to overcome even as the administration makes progress in fixing the online enrollment system.

The end of Obamacare as we never knew it. By Shikha Dalmia
Excerpt: President Barack Obama finally decided last week to honor his promise of letting people who like their “junk” insurance policies, keep them. “Period.” In a rambling, hour-long press conference he said insurers would now be allowed to restore the plans that he himself had forced them to cancel because they did not comply with the minimum benefits of the Affordable Care Act. Whether this will save Democrats from a shellacking next November remains to be seen. But this might well be the beginning of the end of Obamacare as we never knew it.

The Insiders: For Democrats, dark days ahead. By Ed Rogers
Excerpt: Now we are headed into the holiday season, when families will get together and trade stories of the personal turmoil they’ve experienced thanks to the president and his Democratic allies. Very few will share happy tales of satisfaction with Obamacare or anything else the president is doing right now.

Excerpt: The key question about ObamaCare is: Who’s running this thing? And that explains why it’s such a disaster — just as confusion over that very question was the key to understanding why the Bush administration handled the war in Iraq so badly before the 2007 surge. (Tweet from Ed Morrissey ‏@EdMorrissey: Tinkerbell, unless you heartless Republicans don't start clapping. Tweet from Melissa Clouthier ‏@MelissaTweets. Magical health fairies on unicorns.)
Excerpt: President Obama’s relationship with congressional Democrats has worsened to an unprecedented low, Democratic aides say. They are letting it be known that House and Senate Democrats are increasingly frustrated, bitter and angry with the White House over ObamaCare’s botched rollout, and that the president’s mea culpa in a news conference last week failed to soothe any ill will.

Obamacare Website Crashes In Front Of Sebelius In Miami
Excerpt: Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, encountered first hand the famous Obamacare website glitches when the website crashed in front of her.

Worth Reading: A Very Dangerous Game. By Thomas Sowell 
Excerpt: New York City police authorities are investigating a series of unprovoked physical attacks in public places on people who are Jewish, in the form of what is called "the knockout game." The way the game is played, one of a number of young blacks decides to show that he can knock down some stranger on the streets, preferably with one punch, as they pass by. Often some other member of the group records the event, so that a video of that "achievement" is put on the Internet, to be celebrated. The New York authorities describe a recent series of such attacks and, because Jews have been singled out in these attacks, are considering prosecuting these assaults as "hate crimes." (This topic is just growing with time, month by month. A search shows that several people have been killed due to this 'game". Dr. Sowell is right, and it is going to get very messy at some point if the police and media don't start really doing their job. I'm waiting for some targeted victim to be fast and have his/her own weapon, and a bunch of kids get shot. --Del)

Former NYPD detective: Media suppressing racial, anti-Semitic elements behind ‘Knockout’ game
http://dailycaller.com/2013/11/20/former-nypd-detective-media-suppressing-racial-anti-semitic-elements-behind-knockout-game/
Excerpt: “That was the Bloods and the Crips were involved with that,” Dietl said. “Also, there was — you had to go shoot somebody. But this thing, again, it’s being suppressed by the news media. The liberal news media doesn’t want to say exactly what it is. It’s gangs of black youths attacking whites. It’s called polar bear hunting. It’s called Jews being targeted. And that’s exactly what it is. It’s black-on-white crime. That’s racism.”

Obama's Legacy. By Jim Geraghty, Morning Jolt
Sign up for Morning Jolt here: http://www.nationalreview.com/newsletters
Excerpt: In the coming years, a solid majority of Americans outside of committed liberals will begin to acknowledge the hard truth that Barack Obama has been a failure as a president. It isn't merely that his signature reform was sold with lies and managed to exacerbate the problems of the health-care system instead of solving them. What else will be Obama's legacy? This terrific economy we're enjoying? The out-of-control domestic-surveillance programs at the NSA? Partisan abuses of the IRS? The national debt more than doubling under Obama's presidency? The partisan fury in Washington? Eight years of ignoring the ticking time bomb of entitlements as the Baby Boomers begin to retire? This isn't even touching on foreign policy. Yes, President Obama authorized the bin Laden mission and got U.S. troops out of Iraq, but the Middle East is a bloody mess, Israel feels besieged and abandoned, our allies are alienated by our NSA activities, we're spent enormous amounts of blood and treasure in Afghanistan for inconclusive results, Russia is on the march, and we appear to be desperately trying to get a deal with the Iranians that the French think will allow Tehran to pursue a nuclear program. He has no warm relationships with any other world leader.

‘Out of touch’ unionized public employees strike over 14.5 percent raise
Excerpt: Taxpayers in Will County have offered its public employees a hefty pay raise and are willing to pick up 90 percent of the cost for their health insurance, but that’s not good enough for members of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Local 1028.

Underemployment In America. By Wendell Cox 
Excerpt: Both rates are reported by the Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The national underemployment rate (BLS “U-6” labor underutilization measure) is far higher than the unemployment rate (BLS “U-3” labor underutilization measure). The 2012 underemployment rate was 14.7 percent, compared to the unemployment rate of 8.1 percent. The total unemployed population was 12.5 million in 2012, while the total underemployed population was 23.1 million.

Cut Spending by . . . Cutting Spending: No more sacred cows for either party — it’s time to get serious. By Michael Tanner
Excerpt: It is important to understand that a compromise doesn’t require new taxes. According to the Congressional Budget Office, revenues will return to their historic average without any new tax hikes. And, between the new taxes in Obamacare and the fiscal-cliff deal last December, Democrats have already pushed through more than $2.8 trillion in new taxes over the next ten years. The basis for any budget compromise must come on the spending side.

Privatizing energy project enriched bureaucrats, drained federal coffers. By Luke Rosiak 
Excerpt: It started as a plan small-government conservatives could get behind: spinning off a Department of Energy project into the private sector, where it would save the government money and prosper, a nimble ship steered towards access to cutting-edge non-governmental technology by executives unencumbered by the federal bureaucracy. It didn’t work out that way. Instead, the United States Enrichment Corp. became a revolving door where federal bureaucrats left their government jobs for a publicly traded company that paid them millions of dollars, even as it perennially begged the government for assistance in deals that tended to add to taxpayer liabilities and didn't produce any innovative technology on its own.

Must Read: Obamageddon in the Middle East. By Daniel Greenfield 
Excerpt: The easiest way to tell that Obama has run out of things to do in the Middle East is his desperate pivot to the peace process. The never-ending peace process, which is now on its fourth administration and its sixth prime minister, is the gift shop in the museum of the Middle East. It’s the place you stop by on the way to the exit because it’s convenient and everyone back home expects some souvenir peace t-shirts. ... After the collapse of Obama’s Arab Spring, France began to set the Western agenda in the Middle East. 

The Persecution of Wisconsin Conservatives. By Arnold Ahlert 
Excerpt: Conservative political entities who supported Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker are being subjected to a secret investigation. Special Prosecutor Francis Schmitz has issued a series of subpoenas to 29 conservative groups, demanding that they submit all documentation related to the recall campaigns mounted by unions and their supporters against Walker in 2011 and 2012. The investigation is being conducted under the auspices of the state’s John Doe law, which forbids the targets of subpoenas from revealing the contents of those subpoenas to anyone other than their lawyers. The effort reeks of political intimidation. 

Afghans Demand That U.S. Admit Military Errors
Excerpt: Months of fraught negotiations and public posturing over how a long-term American military force could remain in Afghanistan have suddenly come down to a demand for a single personal gesture: a display of contrition by President Obama for military mistakes that have hurt Afghans. (How about a display of contrition for the billions of dollars embezzled and the Americans murdered by "allies"? ~Bob)

Egypt Suicide Blast Kills 11
Excerpt: A suicide bomber rammed his explosive-laden car into one of two buses carrying off-duty soldiers in Egypt's turbulent region of northern Sinai on Wednesday, killing 11 and wounding 37, security and military officials said. (Muslims killing Muslims for Allah. ~Bob)

Dozens Killed in Wave of Attacks in Baghdad
Excerpt: A wave of apparently coordinated bombings at bakeries and public markets hit the Iraqi capital Baghdad on Wednesday, killing 37 people and wounding more than 80, many of them as they rushed to shop in a break during unusually heavy rainstorms, according to the police, residents and medical officials. (Muslims killing Muslims. Allah Akbar! ~Bob)

Hundreds of undocumented immigrants captured at southern Arizona military post (Fort Huachuca)
Excerpt: How secure are U.S. military installations? You would think the answer is: very. But, as the News 4 Tucson Investigators uncovered, one installation, right here in southern Arizona, continues to face potential outside security risks, and the problem doesn't seem to be getting any better. Fort Huachuca is only 15 miles north of our state's border with Mexico.

The Obama Collapse: "Have A Positive Experience!" By Hugh Hewitt 
Excerpt: As my conversation with WellPoint founder Danny Weinberg --the "old insurance guy" as his website calls him-- pointed out on Monday's radio show, the systemic, interlocking flaws of the vast Rube Goldberg scheme cannot help but crash down and into one another over the next two years. Denny's series of suggested fixes over at www.oldinsuranceguy.com are the common sense observations of one of the most successful health insurance executives in America in the past two decades, but unless he and like-minded, experienced insurance professionals are empowered quickly, the chaos in health care will grow to extraordinary levels.

Fun Column: "Psychic Phenomena"
I saw this coming. ~Bob. Excerpt: Last week I read that the Obama Administration is cracking down on gypsy fortune tellers (I'm not making this up folks! (http://wildhunt.org/2007/05/shutting-down-psychics.html). Spurred by crackdowns in Philadelphia and New York City, the Commerce Department has decided to lower the boom on psychics and fortune tellers. In New York City they are proposing that gypsy fortune tellers submit to a DNA test to determine if they have any gypsy blood in them. In Philadelphia the new law has already closed down 16 fortune telling businesses and more closings are expected. The Commerce Department is demanding that all fortune tellers be licensed but no one in the federal bureaucracy has yet figured out what questions to pose on a licensing test. Well, I was a bit taken aback about this and wondered if business had been affected at our local fortune teller up on Geezer Square in Sun City, Arizona. Star Sophia has been operating out of a defunct and dilapidated former coin laundry for as long as I've lived here. So, to keep my dear readers warned and informed, I thought I'd drive on over and have a little chat with Star Sophia.

RIP: Colonel Charles Waterhouse USMCR
Great artist and great Marine. Met him twice and have a signed print of "Ripley at the Bridge." ~Bob

Al Jazeera America Floundering Amid Low Ratings: US TV channel of Qatar-based Al Jazeera suffers from low viewership two months in, caused perhaps by Muslim Brotherhood connection.
Excerpt: Since its August 20 launch to 40 million US homes Al Jazeera America's TV channel has only averaged 13,000 viewers a day nationwide, equivalent to a public access channel, reports the New York Post. Al Jazeera, which is owned and funded by the government of Qatar, bought the channel in January for $500 million from former US Vice President Al Gore, replacing his Current TVchannel.

Cheaters for Public Office. From The Patriot Post
"College students who cheated on a simple task were more likely to want government jobs, researchers from Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania found in a study," reports the Los Angeles Times. But here's the kicker: "Their results, recently released as a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research, suggest that one of the contributing forces behind government corruption could be who gets into government work in the first place." Ya don't say! What other conclusion could you surmise when evaluating the individuals who occupy Congress and the Oval Office? What's equally disturbing is the fact that these officials keep getting reelected to public office. Clearly, there's an underlying problem here -- a problem bolstered by the ever-growing entitlement state.

Steinem Honors Eugenics. From The Patriot Post
Professional militant feminist Gloria Steinem told the National Press Club that she's thrilled to be receiving the Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama, and that the award would be "honoring the work of Margaret Sanger." It was Sanger, of course, who founded Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the largest abortion provider in the United States. Since Roe v. Wade, well over 50 million children have been killed, many of them by Planned Parenthood. Furthermore, Sanger was a proponent of eugenics, the forced sterilization and abortions of black and minority children. So Steinem thinks that Obama, who is half black, will honor that legacy with the Medal of Freedom? Planned Parenthood has long swept Sanger's true history under the rug, but some memories aren't as short as they hope.

Teenage poet, Islam critic, assaulted in Denmark
Excerpt: A young Danish poet of Palestinian descent has been assaulted and his suspected attacker has been arrested, Danish police said Tuesday.

Quote
“I always take Scotch whisky at night as a preventive of toothache. I have never had the toothache; and what is more, I never intend to have it.” - Mark Twain

The Chicago Way: Big Pharma, not tobacco companies, wages war on electronic cigarettes
Excerpt: But now, Glaxo and colleagues are lobbying against other tools smokers could use to quit — and the Obama administration is again walking hand-in-hand with Big Pharma. To head the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products — the entity quarterbacking regulation of e-cigarettes — Obama named former lobbyist Mitch Zeller, whose consulting clients have included drug companies like GlaxoSmithKline.

Excerpt: Mexican study affirms a 1951 finding by top American scientists that carbon dioxide (CO2) cannot cause global warming. Applying known scientific values, more eminent scientists are coming forward to confirm that atmospheric CO2 mixes with clouds and water vapor to cause only cooling. As such, the credibility of "consensus science" claims about man-made global warming being caused by CO2 are left in serious doubt.

Worth Watching: Former President George W. Bush Appears On "The Tonight Show" With Jay Leno
Excerpt: Former President George W. Bush discusses his refusal to criticize President Obama, his painting hobby, his work with wounded veterans and more on NBC's The Tonight Show with host Jay Leno. Former First Lady Laura Bush also makes an appearance.

US May Have Let 'Dozens' of Terrorists Into Country As Refugees
Excerpt: Several dozen suspected terrorist bombmakers, including some believed to have targeted American troops, may have mistakenly been allowed to move to the United States as war refugees, according to FBI agents investigating the remnants of roadside bombs recovered from Iraq and Afghanistan.

'Pleading' distress calls made from US consulate on night of Benghazi attack. By Catherine Herridge
Excerpt: State Department employees at the Benghazi compound knew they were in a death trap and made a series of radio distress calls to the CIA annex during the terror assault last year, according to congressional sources familiar with recent testimony on the attack from five CIA personnel. 

London Bankers abandon (carbon) trading — 70% of jobs gone: “it’s over” says Executive
Excerpt: At least someone once thought London was the home of carbon finance. Now, not so much. According to the Financial Times, JP Morgan has scaled down their carbon trading team, Morgan Stanley traders are now “part time”, Barclays sold theirs last year, Deutsche Bank closed the office, and UBS shut its climate change advisory panel. 

Excerpt: “If I don’t have sex every day, I get a headache,” John F. Kennedy would remark to anyone who would listen, from British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan to a lowly senatorial aide. Even in the pantheon of sexual narcissists drawn to politics, Kennedy’s obsessive conquesting remains the gold standard for bad behavior. Here, a gallery of some (but almost certainly not all) of his most notable trysts. (From the pics, he had better taste and success than Bill Clinton. ~Bob)

Excerpt: We’ve all been subjected to the incessant “97% of scientists agree …global warming…blah blah” meme, which is nothing more than another statistical fabrication by John Cook and his collection of “anything for the cause” zealots. As has been previously pointed out on WUWT, when you look at the methodology used to reach that number, the veracity of the result falls apart, badly. You see, it turns out that Cook simply employed his band of “Skeptical Science” (SkS) eco-zealots to rate papers, rather than letting the authors of the papers rate their own work. The result was that the “97% consensus” was a survey of the SkS raters’ beliefs and interpretations, rather than a survey of the authors opinions of their own science abstracts.

After Four Months, Black Supremacist Ayo Kimathi Still Employed by DHS
http://lastresistance.com/3736/four-months-black-supremacist-ayo-kimathi-still-employed-dhs/
Excerpt: About four months ago, the DHS found out that Ayo Kimathi, one of their employees, was an avowed black supremacist. Kimathi runs the website “War on the Horizon,” where he posts a bunch of hilariously inflammatory “pro-black” news and recommends the assassination of black-skinned traitors (Uncle Toms) and white people. For some reason, I can’t help but hear Mr. T’s voice narrating in my head as I read his articles.

North Texas Drivers Stopped at Roadblock Asked for Saliva, Blood
Excerpt: Some drivers along a busy Fort Worth street on Friday were stopped at a police roadblock and directed into a parking lot, where they were asked by federal contractors for samples of their breath, saliva and even blood.

President at the Bat?

Funny satire.

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