Friday, November 08, 2013

Thought for the month: Assault Weapons

Guest post by Woodsterman

Read this real slowly and think about it.
Then read it again to help it sink in...


Can’t beat fundamentally sound logic like this.


Hat tip: BB.

A Million People Take Shelter in the Philippines as Super-Typhoon Haiyan Makes Landfall

Say a prayer for those on the Philippine Islands.

Super storm Typhoon Haiyan today hit Philippines on Friday, forcing millions to flee to safer ground, cutting power lines and blowing away houses.

...The storm is being touted as the strongest this year and the most powerful ever during landfall.


...Haiyan is a category-5 super typhoon with 275 kph (170 mph) wind gusts and 5-6 metre (15-19 ft) waves.

And let me be the first to predict that Al Gore will emerge from a Golden Corral somewhere to tell us this storm is the result of Mr. and Mrs. Lester Miller's use of incandescent light-bulbs.


How To Make Money From Facebook In 3 Simple Steps

Guest post by Tyler Durden



Larwyn's Linx: The 10 Lessons of Obamacare

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Nation

The 10 Lessons of Obamacare: Robert Tracinski
That Was Not an Apology for Losing Health Care Insurance: Erick Erickson
Cruz: If you're really sorry, support a full repeal: GWP

And Now, The Airing of Grievances: Jonah Goldberg
Shot, Chaser, Hangover: Ed Driscoll
At a fundraiser, Obama makes a chilling admission about the courts: Twitchy

Virginia Has Turned Into Stronghold for Hyper-Violent MS-13: Wire
Obama Health Lie Freaking Out Democrats: Jonah Goldberg
ABC News: Obamacare Website Getting MORE Glitchy: Devin Dwyer

Economy

Democrats urge White House to attack health insurance companies: Hot Air
Oregon’s one weird trick to destroy Obamacare: David Freddoso
The ATM Ate Healthcare.gov: Erick Erickson

Detroit Mayoral Election: What difference, at this point, does it make?: Dewey
The Bitter Pill of Failed State Tax Incentives: Jeff Jacoby
One-Size-Fits-All Government Cannot Survive in the iPad Era: Scott Rasmussen

Scandal Central

IT Exec Fired By Obama Had Refused to Sign False Certification of Healthcare.gov Security: Ace
CMS, Tavener May Have Violated Rules in Falsely Certifying Healthcare.gov As "Secure": Ace
Triple-amputee Purple Heart recipient gets bill from VA after speaking out against Obama: Poor Richard

Media

The Top 20 Worst Chris Matthews Quotes Calling Obama Critics Racist: Geoffrey Dickens
“And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony” Revelation 12:11: MOTUS
On Our Way to Sodom: Act Well Your Part

World

Clinton White House ignored 9/11 warnings: JihadWatch
The American Iron Curtain: Daniel Greenfield
John Kerry Throws Freedom-Seeking Women Under the Bus: Michelle Malkin

Graham: Obama Told Me to 'Take a Hike' on Benghazi: Max
MEMRI's Behind-The-Scenes Role In Twitter's Shutdown Of Accounts Belonging To Designated Terrorists: MEMRI
China's NSA Foiled By Smog: ZH

Sci-Tech (courtesy BadBlue Tech News)

Apple Researching Low Power Bluetooth Hotspots for Devices Like the iWatch: MacRumors
The US Experimenting With Iron Man Suits: Insider
Solid Concepts produces the world’s first 3D printed metal 1911: FreeNC

Cornucopia

The official credit card of Obamacare: Looking Spoon
Someone who knew Barry Soetoro in Hawaii: Bob's Blog
"Hold the Flag High" student worksheet: Fox

Image: The US Experimenting With Iron Man Suits
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Check Out CONVENTION OF STATES

QOTD: "Over the past 30 years, as society has moved away from centralization, the political class has resisted. Government has grown ever more centralized. In fact, the federal government today directly controls a far larger chunk of the nation’s economy than it did just a generation or two ago.

That disconnect exists partly because politics and government always lag behind. It’s also partly because politicians are not thrilled with riding the new wave that disperses power away from the political class.

The disconnect cannot continue. Sooner or later, the politicians will concede and the government will catch up.

Simply put, a one-size-fits-all central government cannot survive in the iPad era." --Scott Rasmussen

Thursday, November 07, 2013

Isn't someone in charge of removing embarrassing lies from the White House website?

As iOwnTheWorld points out, the White House site still reads as follows:


Here's the closeup:


Oh, and I almost forgot.


They lied again. The White House admits the website won't be fixed by the end of November.

Oh, well. It only cost $1.1 billion to build a completely broken website.

And what's a few billion between Democrats?


TOP 10 LESSONS OF OBAMACARE

Robert Tranciski, writing at Real Clear Politics, offers his take on the top 10 lessons of Obamacare. It's worth reading in its entirety, but the Cliff Notes version is as follows:

1. There's no such thing as a free lunch.

You've heard all of the stories, which can be summarized by the real quote: "I was all for ObamaCare until I found out I was paying for it." Or other other real quote: "Of course, I want people to have health care. I just didn't realize I would be the one who was going to pay for it personally."

The entire middle-class welfare state, to which ObamaCare is the latest addition, is an attempt to make the middle class into a constituency for big government by promising them endless benefits, from free health care to a guaranteed income, with no costs, consequences, or trade-offs, and no strings attached. Everything is supposed to be paid for by "the rich," which means anyone who makes a dollar more than you.

Of course, it turns out that it's not "the rich" paying for everyone else. It's the productive being sucked dry by the leeches.

2. Regulation stifles production.

Speaking of productivity: when you pass 25,000 pages of regulations, you get people who are good at following regulations, not at producing goods or services of value. It turns out that all of the myriad regulations may not, in fact, be wholly compatible with reality. But reality is of no concern to the government.

3. The power to tax is the power to destroy.

Government's only power It is the power to tax, to confiscate, to ban, to jail, to kill -- but not to produce anything of value.

There are already indications that ObamaCare will lead to a shortage of doctors because it's paying them less to do more work... the essence of ObamaCare is summed up in the fact that millions of people are now being booted off of their existing health insurance plans--but the state and federal exchanges that are supposed to offer them new insurance aren't even functioning.

As for who destroyed our health care system?

SO VERY HELPFUL: Illinois Educates Convicts About All of the Benefits They're Due Under Obamacare

Guest post by Ben Yount

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — When you exit prison in Illinois you’ll get your street clothes, a notice of when to check-in with your parole officer and a pamphlet about Obamacare.

The state’s prisons and county jails are taking a proactive approach to enrolling people, mostly into Medicaid, through the Affordable Care Act. They’re starting the process while prisoners are locked up.

“When the person is in custody, they’re not eligible for enrollment,” McLean County Sheriff Mike Emery told Illinois Watchdog. “The stance we’re taking here in McLean County…is that we’re starting the process with inmates to get them enrolled for health care.”

Emery said his staff will fill out almost all of the paperwork for Obamacare so that once someone is released they can sign a few pages and be enrolled in Medicaid, or apply for private insurance. Most will go into Medicaid.

In Illinois’ prisons, inmates who are set to be released are told they could be covered by Medicaid well before their last day.

Establishment GOP vs Grassroots: Civil War or Growing Pains?

Guest post by Stephen Kruiser

Because I am a nice guy and don't want anyone to waste their time, here is a quick list of those who won't enjoy this post: 

1) People working for Mitch McConnell's reelection.

2) People who come from families that internalize everything rather than fight it out and get it over with. 

3) People who are Mitch McConnell. 

The last several weeks have brought to the fore some ugly realities that the establishment GOP was hoping it could deal with using its go-to conflict resolution strategy: put it off, hope the problem goes away and then perhaps a nap. 

1966 Republican PartyLed by a host of Republican senators whose most notable achievement is getting elected a lot, the old guard has been busy publicly admonishing the more Tea Party-minded additions to the fold that they don't know anything. 

Because they haven't been elected a lot. 

Now, I will concede that, yes, the establishment dinosaurs do have a knack for winning elections. However, the gaps in between those victories tend not to be filled with much to crow about unless you're a fan of things like the Department of Homeland Security, Medicare expansion or being part of a team that's only won the popular vote in a presidential election once in twenty five years. 

A school of thought is emerging amongst us extremists that it might be rather refreshing if they applied some of that ability to battle and prevail over Democrats in elections to the legislative process. 

So a schism is erupting that sees one side yelling, "Hey, we win elections and stuff!" and the other side responding, "Yeah, but you're kind of hosing us once you do!" 

The eruption, however, isn't from a new source of conflict. In fact, this is a decades-old ideological volcano in the GOP that has had spectacular consequences after blowing up in the past. 

This New York Times article almost deserves a sentence by sentence examination but let's just grab a couple of chunks and look at them. 

Larwyn's Linx: The Republican Party Owes Its Base Some Answers

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Nation

The Republican Party Owes Its Base Some Answers: Dan Riehl
Obama Voters Learn the Hard Way: Jon Gabriel
Panic Room: Senate Dems Freaking Out Over O'Care Debacle: Hot Air

Obama-Funded Fake Libertarian spoils Virginia governors race: Poor Richard
When VA Rubs The Lotion On Its Skin, The Victim Can Blame Itself: R.S. McCain
Is "Nullification" viable to stop the implementation of ObamaCare?: FW

Why we need a Capitol City Project today: Anne Sorock
Christie refused to help Cuccinelli, will assist Graham: Scoop
Christie Raking In The Cash From George Soros, Other Dem: LoneCon

The Bobby Jindal-RGA-Ken Cuccinelli Mess: HayRide
Obama to Donors:d I'm Fixin’ to Get GOP ‘Back in Functioning State’: PJM
The Betrayal of Ken Cuccinelli: ConHQ

Economy

Obama’s Second, and Continuing, Big Lie: PJM
Got A Pre-Existing Condition? Your Broke Or Dead: Pick: Karl Denninger
Obama Gives Back Door Pay-Off To Unions Angry Over Obamacare: WZ

Sebelius Says Up is Down: PJM
Republican Senator Tells Sebelius To Her Face: “Resign”: John Hawkins
Found In My Wallet: American Power

Scandal Central

Open Food Stamp Fraud On Craigslist: $750 Million Per Year: John Hawkins
A View from the Inside: Smallest Minority
FL illegal on welfare for 20 years shows others how to milk system: BPR

Media

Hilarious! BRAD PAISLEY and CARRIE UNDERWOOD Mock Obamacare at CMA : GWP
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, 'We're Not Mizled by the President': Ace
36 Times Obama Said You Can Keep Your Health Plan: WFB

World

Was British Soldier told to Stand Down in Benghazi?: Shoebat
The Textbook Putsch: Gates of Vienna
UK Politicians Collaborate with Muslim Brotherhood Islamists?: Gatestone

So, how many did Communism kill?: Robin Shepherd, Commentator
Proof Obama lied about Benghazi?: Shoebat
U.S.: Navy secrets bought with prostitutes, bribes: NavyTimes

Sci-Tech

Microsoft Adds Real-time Joint Editing to Office Web Apps: CIO
Think the PC market is generally scary these days? Wait until you see the UK’s figures: GigaOm
Chair can be worn like a backpack: Gizmodo

Cornucopia

Krauthammer: Obamacare a tool to intentionally destroy wealth and create Democratic voters: DC
To Tolerance of Intolerance, and Why Pointing That Out is a ‘Crime’: Hideout
Staunch Obama supporters lose health insurance because of Obamacare: Poor Richard

Image: Chair can be worn like a backpack
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Check Out CONVENTION OF STATES

QOTD: "NAPOLITANO: So the ’47 percent,’ which impaled Romney will go over 50 percent if this legislation succeeds in moving people below the poverty level and making them dependent on the government. And they vote.
KRAUTHAMMER: Which is part of the plan. However, if you were wealthier and you lose it and you end up on Medicaid, I don’t think you’ll vote Democratic.
STODDARD: I really don’t think the White House had a fantasy of this kind of a disaster. I just can’t imagine —
(CROSSTALK)
KRAUTHAMMER: You misunder — it’s a political disaster. But the geniuses, the economists — if you hear Ezekiel Emanuel say on the “Fox News Sunday” this was designed — you had to get people out of the individual insurance market, generally people of some means, you put them in the exchanges, they overpay and you use the subsidy. This was not an accident. What they never understood is how disastrous it would be politically. But economically, that’s the way they make it work.
BAIER: It is pretty incredible to try to get 5-7 million on the upside by March — the amount of money to try to get 7 million people in these exchanges.
NAPOLITANO: It would be less expensive if they just paid the premiums for the 7 million out of the federal treasury." --Fox News Special Report

Wednesday, November 06, 2013

BOOM: "Obamacare Shouldn't Have Been Managed Like a Campaign"

Great analysis by Megan McArdle of Bloomberg (the news service, not the idiot mayor) regarding the complete, Chernobyl-like meltdown of Obamacare.  The highlights are mine.
Another Sunday, another amazing reported piece on the rather amazing history of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's health insurance exchanges. You’ll have to read the whole thing, because summary won’t do it justice. But here are a few highlights:
  • David Cutler, one of the top health-care economists in the U.S., wrote a memo to Larry Summers in 2010 warning him that the team in charge of implementing Obamacare was not up to the job. The memo makes it clear, though not quite explicit, that Cutler was writing to Summers, rather than someone on the health-care policy team, because the team had ignored his concerns. The memo is eerily prophetic: The key people were analysts with no experience in project management, technology, startups or the insurance business; responsibility was too diffused; the staff didn’t understand either the magnitude or the urgency of what they had taken on; and neither the Department of Health and Human Services nor the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, to which most of the job had been delegated, had the personnel or technical experience to manage it well...
  • Parts of the implementation were hamstrung by the assumption that all the states would build their own exchanges, and because it was a draft bill that no one had expected to pass, it didn’t contain funding for federal exchanges or, apparently, for the policy wonks needed to put the law together. The Republicans, who continued to oppose the law to the apparent surprise of its architects and supporters, declined to provide funds on top of the nearly $1 trillion that had already been allocated...

  • But many of the bad decisions were designed to avoid Republican criticism. There was another reason that the exchanges' architects were tucked away inside CMS: to try to stay out of the public eye. Other such decisions followed. CMS carefully obscured the unwillingness of a large number of states to build exchanges -- despite the fact that this would greatly increase the complexity of the job -- lest Republicans seize on that fact. Then CMS kept extending the deadline to declare, in the hopes that some states would decide to build exchanges after the 2012 elections. The agency also refused to issue a bunch of regulations until after the election. But this is by far the most incredible:
According to two former officials, CMS staff members struggled at “multiple meetings” during the spring of 2011 to persuade White House officials for permission to publish diagrams known as “concepts of operation,” which they believed were necessary to show states what a federal exchange would look like. The two officials said the White House was reluctant because the diagrams were complex, and they feared that the Republicans might reprise a tactic from the 1990s of then-Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.), who mockingly brandished intricate charts created by a task force led by first lady Hillary Clinton.

In the end, one of the former officials said, the White House quashed the diagrams, telling CMS, instead, to praise early work on those state exchanges that matched the hidden federal thinking...
  • The White House was heavily focused on regulations, rather than exchange design, for the first two years... They didn’t even begin writing the specifications for the contracts until spring of 2011. Then they kept changing deadlines and requirements, seemingly oblivious of the havoc they were wreaking on an already impossibly late system...

  • Congressional Democrats were not given as much information as you’d expect, which is one reason that Max Baucus started worrying about a “train wreck”; apparently, they found out that the employer mandate was being delayed just a half-hour before the rest of us...
This has, rather predictably, triggered opposite reactions from left and right. The response from the right is somewhere between schadenfreude and slack-jawed amazement. The response from the left is, I think, summed up by Kevin Drum in “The Lesson of Obamacare: Sabotage Works”:
...No federal program that I can remember faced quite the implacable hostility during its implementation that Obamacare has faced. This excuses neither the Obama administration's poor decisions nor its timidity in the face of Republican attacks, but it certainly puts them in the proper perspective.
Andrew Sullivan echoes this interpretation. 
You will perhaps be unsurprised to hear me say that this response is overblown. Let’s remember what this “sabotage” consists of:
  1. Many states not building their own exchanges, as permitted under the law.
  2. Republicans did not join together with Democrats to pass extra funding for a law that was already spending nearly a trillion dollars over 10 years.
  3. Criticism.
...But Obamacare’s biggest problem, as I have written, was that the architects of the law demanded an enormously ambitious software project on an impossibly hubristic deadline. Whatever slim chance this had of working was ultimately doomed -- not by Republicans, but by the administration’s own paranoid and self-destructive decisions to manage a software project as if it were a top-secret campaign strategy rather than a mission-critical component of the most ambitious federal entitlement expansion in almost 50 years.
Remember that when Cutler wrote that devastating memo, Democrats still had control of both houses of Congress. The administration failed to rectify the shortcomings he identified because it did not understand that making a program happen is very different from writing out a description of it.
The administration did not refuse to issue key regulations and guidelines, or to announce the final number of states that would be building their own exchanges, because Republicans used secret mind-control rays or stole the notebooks they had used to write the draft memo. They delayed because they did not want Republicans to be able to tell the public about them before Barack Obama was safely re-elected to a second term.
In other words, most of the damage was done not by lack of funding, but because the administration was either incompetent or trying to insulate itself from the perfectly ordinary, natural, legitimate and, dare I say, patriotic function of an opposition party, which is to point out to the public when the party in charge is doing something that the public wouldn’t like. Reframing “criticism of the administration” as “sabotage” deserves an Oscar for outstanding lifetime achievement in the field of political spin.
...Unsurprisingly, the massive and unpopular transformation failed to attract any Republican votes. When Republicans had faced similar electoral math on Social Security reform -- an opposition party implacably opposed, and the electorate clearly against it -- they’d abandoned their efforts. That is what parties do when they reach such an impasse; it’s what Democrats did on Clintoncare. No program this large had ever passed on a party-line vote, because this was correctly viewed as political suicide. Nancy Pelosi managed to get it through the House anyway, which should go down as one of the most impressive political achievements in history, and Harry Reid shepherded another version through the Senate. When Republicans protested, they were rather smugly told that “elections have consequences.”
Then Ted Kennedy died. Massachusetts -- Massachusetts! -- elected Republican Scott Brown in an election that often seemed to revolve around the health-care bill. Democrats still pressed forward. Without the votes to overcome a Republican filibuster, they had the House pass a draft Senate bill that had never been meant to become law and used some procedural tap-dancing to push some fixes through the Senate. Such maneuvering wasn’t unprecedented, but it wasn’t popular, either. And the limitations of the method they used left the bill with all sorts of problems, many of which we are dealing with now...
Fukushima!


Hat tip: Mtntoppatriot

RUSH GOES BALLISTIC: Attacks on Cruz, North, West and Palin are Attacks on Me      

Rush has officially drawn a line in the sand and we Constitutional conservatives, Tea Party activists, and Reagan Democrats all need to join up to support him.

...over [my] 25 years, when anybody, any conservative, Ollie North, I don't care who it is, when they've come under assault, Clarence Thomas, I don't care, whether I knew 'em or not, I ran in there and I defended 'em to the hilt because of the cause, because I knew exactly why they were being targeted. Sarah Palin. I went in there and defended these people because I know that it's an effort to undermine everything I believe. They attacked Palin, they attacked Ollie, they attacked Clarence Thomas, they're attacking us, me.

Well, it's not enough just to come here and tell you, "Oh, look what they're saying about Palin. See ya, folks, have a great day." Then tomorrow, "Oh, look what they said about Newt. See ya, folks, have a great day." Why am I doing this? And the reason I wrote this [children's] book is to try to counter what's going on. Why would you write a book on how the left has corrupted education if you didn't have some desire to fight it? And this is what has frankly stunned me ever since Barack Obama's election. I understand there's a fear of the media, and I understand there's a fear of Obama's race, but it's time to get past that. The guy's president. He's destroying the foundations of this country, as founded. He's literally setting his sights on transforming this country into something it was never founded to be.

I don't think that should happen, and I've been under the impression that everybody else that's not part of the Democrat Party has been of the same mind-set, and that's where I've been wrong. So those of us who fight back upset the applecart, are those who just want to sit there and accept it and try to manage their lives and careers in the midst of this mess because we're upsetting the applecart. So we have to then be attacked as whatever.

That's why they're going after Cruz. What are they going after Ted Cruz for? What's he done to anybody? It's Obama they ought to be going after! Why are they going after Mike Lee? That's why we defend these guys. They're out there actually trying to beat this stuff back, and they're doing it because they love the country. They're doing it because they're shocked and saddened by what they're seeing happening here, and they don't think it's time to give up.

Look how rare that is! Sarah Palin, the same thing. Look at what happens to people that do that. I mean, even Republicans go after 'em. They went after Reagan, too. It's the same thing, but Reagan was able to overcome it. It's a sad thing that there's only been one of him, but that's because they've done everything they can to revise history from that era and make people think it was the exact opposite of what it was. But, folks, the whole point of this latest book has been to join people, 'cause I know there are a lot of you.

This is the thing I know. A lot of you are fighting back, the Tea Party is. A lot of you do want to arrest this stuff and stop it and reverse it. A lot of you do want get rid of the current liberal power structure that's destroying the fabric of the country, cultural, politically, societally, economically, you name it. It's a wrecking ball that's been unleashed each and every day, and I know all of you in the Tea Party and most of you in this audience are trying to stop it.

Rush has written a children's book -- "Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims: Time-Travel Adventures with Exceptional Americans" -- that makes a great gift for the holidays. It can be used to start fighting the insane collectivist rhetoric of the Far Left Democrat Party at a very young age.

Which, all things considered, could be one of the most important things we can do.


Fundamental Transformation or... a Coup d'état?

Writing at Accuracy In Media, historian James Simpson describes what could well be the precursors for the obliteration of the American economic system.

America is being fundamentally transformed, as Obama promised. This is one promise that he clearly intends to keep, no matter how many people lose their health insurance policies, their jobs, or their productive futures.

Even the liberal media have been forced to acknowledge President Obama’s lies regarding the Affordable Care Act, especially the whopper about being able to keep your own health insurance policy. 
Consider what we have learned so far as the lies are being exposed:
  • Despite repeatedly being told we could keep our healthcare plans and doctors, the White House estimated three years ago that 93 million people would lose their plans. Obama knew this and has been lying about it all along.
  • Rather than provide healthcare, the Obamacare website is being used to boost low-income Democrat voter registration. Election integrity activists have called it “The biggest voter registration fraud scheme in history.” The Soros-funded Demos has bragged that Obamacare exchanges will register “68 million people to vote.”
...For modern-day progressives, lying is not merely something one does to avoid getting caught, lying is tradecraft. Thus our President lies. But these are no ordinary lies; they are grand, sweeping, all-encompassing lies. He says exactly the opposite of truth, consistently, to confuse people, and tops it off by accusing his opponents of doing what he does...

...Prior to the latest debt limit agreement, Obama threatened to default on the federal debt—sending jitters through financial markets. It would have been the first default in history. Obama’s Treasury Department also issued a report titled, The Potential Macroeconomic Effect of Debt Ceiling Brinkmanship. But President Obama was the one engaged in “brinkmanship,” even while accusing Republicans of doing so.


To avoid default, the government needs only to pay interest, about $35 billion per month. The Treasury collects about $250 billion per month, more than enough. But Obama claimed he didn’t have the authority. 
To call him on it, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 807, the Full Faith and Credit Act, making the authority explicit, but Obama promised to veto it—implicitly admitting he could avoid default if he wanted. But Obama was willing to threaten a major financial collapse to achieve short-term political objectives. 
However, all we heard from the media was a non-stop barrage of angry “news” reports accusing Republicans of trying to destroy the economy...

[...Likewise, b]efore the Obamacare website rollout, the media mindlessly fawned over it. CNN’s new Crossfire co-host, former “Green Jobs Czar” Van Jones, heralded it “a huge breakthrough” for the uninsured. MSNBC’s Ed Schultz enthused that it was easy to navigate. Bloomberg’s Peter Gosselin equated it to shopping on Amazon. CBS’s Jill Schlesinger thought it was like Travelocity. ABC’s Rebecca Jarvis compared it to mall shopping.

...Considering the debacle it has become, the media should not only expose the glaring problems that continue to unfold, but also examine whether this is the result of incompetence or design. 
Following the shutdown/showdown debacle, Obama gratuitously accused Republicans of a “manufactured crisis.” It is interesting that Obama accused Republicans of such a plan, given the title of a viral 2008 article, “Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis.” There is such a strategy; Obama has known about it for decades and is using it now.

It was developed in the 1960s by Columbia University professors Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, who published an article in Nation magazine titled “The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty.” By packing welfare rolls with new beneficiaries, they hoped to bankrupt local governments and foment a blazing revolution when benefits dried up. It came to be known as the “Cloward Piven Strategy,” or simply “Crisis Strategy.”

The strategy helped explode welfare rolls in the 1960s and 1970s, and precipitated New York City’s near bankruptcy in 1975. Speaking of that crisis, New York Mayor Rudolf Giuliani accused the pair of economic sabotage.

Cloward and Piven created the organizations tasked with executing this strategy, most notably ACORN. Subsequently, the strategy was applied to: 1) Housing, where the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and similar groups colluded with the Clinton White House to foment the subprime mortgage crisis that led to the 2008 crash; 2) Voting, through enactment of the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, (aka Motor Voter), again with Clinton complicity; and 3) Illegal immigration.
Cloward and Piven were the authors of Motor Voter, which turns motor vehicle and other state offices into defacto low income voter registration drives. This law allowed the nationwide explosion of voter registration fraud conducted by ACORN, and is largely responsible for today’s 24 million bad registrations nationwide. Motor Voter also made Obamacare’s online voter registration possible.

Obama has connections to Cloward and Piven, ACORN and its voter registration arm, Project Vote, going back to the early 1990s. The Holder Justice Department has been caught colluding with Project Vote in Motor Voter lawsuits. Matthew Vadum, author of the ACORN exposé, Subversion Inc, reports that former ACORN leaders are still working with Obama.

One has to consider the distinct possibility that Obamacare is part of a deliberate strategy to overwhelm the American people with crisis upon crisis until they throw up their arms in despair and give up.

...In 1932, FDR used this same kind of strategy to deliver Democrat majorities in Congress for the next 60 years. Cloward and Piven explained
Although these [New Deal] measures were a response to the imperative of economic crisis, the types of measures enacted were designed to secure [a] new Democratic coalition. 
Today, close to 50 percent of Americans pay no taxes, and lower income groups can obtain government benefits that provide the equivalent of up to $50,000 per year, strongly encouraging welfare dependency. 
Democrats don’t care. It was Cloward and Piven’s explicit goal to create misery and strife sufficient to trigger a blazing revolution. As they reported in their “Weight of the Poor” article:
“Moreover, this kind of mass influence is cumulative because benefits are continuous. Once eligibility for basic food and rent grants is established, the drain on local resources persists indefinitely…”
The consequences of welfare state policies are evident everywhere. Consider the following statistics:
  • More people collect means-tested benefits today (108.6 million) than there are full-time workers (101.7 million)
  • 46.5 million Americans live in poverty. This is the first time the poverty rate has remained at or above 15% three years running since 1965.
Witness the burned out, abandoned buildings staining our cities, especially Detroit. Think of the entrenched crime, drugs, prostitution, and abandoned children that are the face of inner city ghettos, and reflect on Cloward and Piven’s enthusiasm that “the drain on local resources persists indefinitely…” In Detroit, the response of the Obama administration has been to pour more federal money, an estimated $300 million, into the city, in part to demolish public housing originally constructed with federal funds, and then to construct more.


Incredibly, Bill de Blasio, poised to become New York City’s new Democratic mayor on November 5, says, “The federal government must get back in the affordable housing business, and the federal government must get back in the mass transit business and infrastructure business.”

...On top of failure after failure, this Obama-backed Democrat wants more of the same. He might as well be a spokesman for the Democratic Party as a whole. Perhaps that will be his role in the years ahead. 

Obama and the Democrats are now feverishly working to inflate this roster of the needy by pushing through amnesty for illegal aliens, officially numbering 11 million, but probably more like 30 million people. Congress is currently debating this plan, with some Republicans, such as John McCain, willing to accommodate Obama’s scheme, in the name of “comprehensive immigration reform.”

...Government spending will continue to increase substantially in the coming years. This is a deliberate effort by Obama, who learned from Cloward and Piven how to collapse an economy. The strategy has moved from the local to the national. It will have global repercussions.
As they say on the real blogs, read the whole thing.

Scientific Diagram Illustrates How Obamacare is Working

From The Looking Spoon.


This phenomenon is exemplified by today's article at Weasel Zippers entitled "California Threatens To Sue Blue Cross For Canceling Policies As Mandated By Obamacare."

If liberals weren't in power, they'd be useful only as the inspiration for sitcoms.


Larwyn's Linx: Liberalism, the Decline of an Illusion

Send us tips! Bloggers: install a Larwyn's Linx widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Nation

Liberalism, the Decline of an Illusion: Roger L. Simon
No, Obamacare Might Not Cover Your Preexisting Condition: JWF
The Obama Polygraph Ad: HayRide

Virginia governor race a huge victory for the Tea Party: TPNN
Virginia House of Delegates goes 67-33 Republican super-majority: FAM
Tea Party Wins a Big One in Colorado: John Fund

Lying About Lies: Why Credibility Matters to Obama: Ron Fournier
Ratio of Health Plans Classified As “Substandard” by Obamacare? 98%: WZ
Obama + Media: 'A Mobius Loop of Bulls***': RSM

President Blame-Shifter Wants to ‘Pivot’ Away From ObamaCare Debacle: RSM
Reince Priebus Needs To Be Forced Out As Chairman Of The RNC: Marooned
Sigh: LoneCon

Economy

Federal Debt Jumped $409 Billion in October: CNS
Privatize Everything: John Stossel
Obama-Tied Firm Got $100k to Create Michelle’s “Let’s Move” Logo: JW

The Big Apple Turns Left: Jonah Goldberg
A Generation of Robots — What Godless Schools Create: Janine Turner
Working Families Party the big winner from a de Blasio victory: Bob McManus

Scandal Central

CBS Spotlights 'Multiple Security Issues' With ObamaCare Website: MRC
Big-time Obama bundler bankrolling Libertarian in Virginia gubernatorial race.: Moe Lane
Obama Phone Program Mired In Fraud: B. Christopher Agee

Media

What Bias? Breaking down today’s New York Times front page: Poor Richard
Guns & Ammo Editor Doesn't Understand the Second Amendment: Ace
Democrat Senator’s son loses his health insurance plan because of Obamacare: Poor Richard

NY Times’s Sudden Aversion to Calling the President a Liar: Seth Mandel, Commentary
Megyn Kelly and Marc Thiessen Rake Obama Over The Coals For His “Premeditated Lie.”: Nice Deb
Reporter to Carney: ‘Your mocking is entertaining,’ but how about the truth?: BPR

Even Mother Jones Recognizes that Democrat Terry McAuliffe is a Sleazebag: TPNN
Axelrod Hints At GOP Conspiracy Behind Obamacare Debacle: WZ
MSNBC assails White House for mocking reporters over Obamacare, says Obama lied last night: Scoop

Allen West: It’s time to put impeachment on the table for Obama: John Hawkins
Barack Obama’s Approval Hits New Low: John Hawkins
Obama’s Catastrophic Victory: Ed Driscoll

World

I Am Now a Dissident (and You Should Be, Too!): Joe Herring
GOP Declares War on Obamacare Conservatives: Streiff
Greenwald's Partner in Legal Bid Over UK Detention: ABC

Argument recap: A tense hour at the Court: Lyle Denniston, SCOTUSblog
Barnhardt: “Why can’t I keep my insurance?” Because you’re stupid, sweetie.: Western
Nazi-Seized Stash in Munich Includes Unknown Dix, Chagall: Bloomberg

Sci-Tech

Palm-Size Drones Buzz Over Battlefield: Erik Schechter
Hackers Take Limo Service Firm for a Ride: Krebs On Security
American Tactical’s $50 OMNI Hybrid AR-15 Lower: Steve Johnson, TFB

Cornucopia

Barack Obama Explains Obamacare woes in New Morlock Interview!: Morlock Revolt
8-Year Old Boy May Be Expelled for Drawing Ninjas With Swords, Knives, and Guns: Ace
Caption This: HyScience

Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: CONVENTION OF STATES

QOTD: "...... It’s amazing how the media cooperates in these administration propaganda campaigns: “Senior aides” tell reporters what the White House message strategy is and the reporters then help push the White House message. Then the media report the story of how successful the White House message strategy was — as if they were covering something other than their own coverage. It’s a Mobius loop of bulls***." --Robert Stacy McCain

Tuesday, November 05, 2013

THE TEA PARTY'S DEAD? 10-to-1 Spending Advantage Plus Obama-Funded Faux Libertarian Eke Out <1% Victory For McAuliffe

Congratulations, Virginia!

You just voted for Obamacare, gun control, illegal immigration, forced unionization, and massive tax hikes. Well done!

With all that said, Ken Cuccinelli just proved that the Tea Party, Constitutional Conservative, and Reagan Coalition is still alive and well. Consider what Cuccinelli very nearly accomplished:

He appears to be trailing Terry "Sign Here, Old Man" McAuliffe by less than one stinking percentage point despite:

• Being outspent by a 10-to-1 margin

• A fake "Libertarian" candidate funded by Obama donors

• Being blitzed with outrageous, lying robocalls

• And an RNC that spent next-to-nothing to help

The fake Libertarian drew nearly 7 percent of the vote. Had the story regarding this SOB's true backers broken a week ago (brilliant research job, media drones!), Cuccinelli would've won in a landslide despite the spending disadvantage and a RINO establishment that undermined his efforts from the get-go.

I'm greatly encouraged by these results.

RCP and all of the so-called experts predicted a 7-point margin for Terry "Fund My Green Energy Company" McAuliffe.

Despite all of the sleaze and criminality, Cuccinelli very nearly pulled off an immense upset.

The Tea Party ain't dead, but the RINO establishment may be.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Thanks to D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, First Amendment Still Hanging on By a Thread

Guest post by Investor's Business Daily

First Amendment: A federal court has ruled that the ObamaCare contraception mandate violates the guarantee of free exercise of religion and forces some to choose between their religious conscience and bankruptcy.

The Supreme Court's decision in June 2012 that ObamaCare was constitutional because its fines for not complying with its mandates made the law a tax within Congress' authority to impose did not end the constitutional or court challenges to this attempt at redistribution of health and wealth.

On Friday, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Gilardi v. HHS that ObamaCare's contraception mandate violates the constitutional rights of plaintiffs Francis and Philip Gilardi, two Catholic brothers who own Freshway Foods and Fresh Unlimited.

The two companies plus Freshway Logistics provide health insurance for their 400 employees through a third-party administrator. The court ruled that they face the choice of violating their religious beliefs in providing insurance to their employees or closing up shop.

Helpful ABC News Report Depicts Simulation of LAX Shooting, Complete With Non-Existent Grenade Launcher

Well, it was "Good Morning America" we're talking about, which explains this particular story that seems aimed at folks with an IQ somewhere south of a ball-peen hammer:

ABC’s Good Morning America took a great deal of liberty with reality this morning, creating a computer animation that equipped Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) shooting suspect Paul Ciancia not with the Smith & Wesson M&P15 modern sporting rifle that he actually used, but instead with a military M16 selective-fire assault rifle and m-203 40mm grenade laucher.

It’s nice to know that a major network still retains such great creative license as part of their news programming.

I suppose we should be thankful they didn't copy the shoulder-launched Stinger Anti-Aircraft missile from Call of Duty.


Hat tip: BadBlue Gun News.

THE BERNIE MADOFF OF POLITICS: Who Sabotaged Healthcare.gov?

The new meme circulating among the extreme, distant, off-the-horizon, far left Democrat and media (but I repeat myself) complex is that Republicans somehow "sabotaged" the rollout of Obamacare.

Never mind that the GOP was excluded from proposing even a single word, a single letter, to Obamacare's thousands of pages. Never mind that Republicans have had literally no involvement with its implementation (or lack of implementation, more properly). Republicans have had zero -- repeat, zero -- influence on HHS, Obamacare, CMS, or any of the other alphabet soup and witch's brew of agencies working on the law.

As James Taranto reveals, the Obama administration's naked fear and rank incompetence led to the ongoing clusterbungle no matter what the kooks on the left may try and claim.

The real deal?

The White House sabotaged Healthcare.gov itself through fear and incompetence:

First, the White House moved control of the project away from HHS.

In 2011, the Department of Health and Human Services moved "the on-the-ground work of carrying out" from Secretary Kathleen Sebelius's office to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, known as CMS. "The move had a political rationale," Goldstein and Eilperin report. "Tucked within a large bureaucracy, some administration officials believed, the new Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight would be better insulated from the efforts of House Republicans, who were looking for ways to undermine the law..."

...As a result, "the work of designing the federal health exchange--and of helping states that wanted to build their own--became fragmented." Nobody was in charge of directing the program.

Second, the White House insisted on utter secrecy for its planning efforts.

In the spring of 2011, CMS staffers "struggled . . . to persuade White House officials for permission to publish diagrams known as 'concepts of operation,' " which would have shown what a federal exchange would "look like." The White House balked for fear that "Republicans might reprise a tactic from the 1990s of then-Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.), who mockingly brandished intricate charts created by a task force led by first lady Hillary Clinton." Instead, the White House ordered CMS "to praise early work on those state exchanges that matched the hidden federal thinking."

Third, the White House intentionally delayed issuing controversial rules until after the 2012 election.

"Meanwhile, the White House also slowed down important regulations that had been drafted within CMS months earlier, appearing to wait until just after Obama's reelection," Goldstein and Eilperin report. Rules governing mandated benefits and calculations of premiums weren't proposed until Thanksgiving and didn't become final until February. A former Medicare chief actuary describes the delay as "a singularly bad decision" taken "for short-term political gain."

Taranto concludes with a rapier-like coup de grace:

The story Goldstein and Eilperin tell is one not of GOP sabotage but of Obama administration self-sabotage. The geniuses who were sure they were capable of running the entire medical industry were so unnerved by the prospect of political opposition that at every stage of the way they undermined the president's own signature "achievement."

This is in part a story of political incompetence and hubris. Obama and his allies in Congress were unable to win a single Republican vote--and it doesn't seem to have occurred to them that a monstrously complicated law enacted by a slender partisan minority might prove especially difficult to implement. As Obama himself admitted yesterday in a rare truthful statement: "Now, let's face it, a lot of us didn't realize that passing the law was the easy part."

...We should note that this entire discussion has dealt only with the incompetent technical execution of ObamaCare, what we call Phase 1 of the disaster. Phases 2 and 3, respectively, are the exposure that ObamaCare is a massive consumer fraud and the economic inviability of the entire scheme.

The exposure of ObamaCare as a massive consumer fraud--and of Obama as the Bernie Madoff of politics--is well under way.

I like that phrase. Obama really is the Bernie Madoff of politics.

And every day that passes makes that simple analogy more apt.


The Reviews Are Coming In...

...and they're pretty good!

<NakedPitch>

A little more than a month ago, I released my first novella (i.e., about half a novel in length).

It has absolutely nothing at all to do with politics. It's a crime novel called Hard-Boiled, based loosely upon the private detective genre popularized first by Raymond Chandler and more recently by Robert B. Parker.

It's available on Kindle for $0.99, which means you can read it online, on your PC, on your Kindle, or even on your phone with all of the various Kindle apps.

If you're into the crime novel genre, give it a shot. You can read the first couple of chapters for free online.

If you do choose to read it, any reviews (good, bad or indifferent) are appreciated.

</NakedPitch>

Larwyn's Linx: Congressionally Duped Americans

Send us tips! Bloggers: install a Larwyn's Linx widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Nation

Congressionally Duped Americans: Walter E. Williams
Report: 129 million will ‘not be able to keep’ their health care: Jamie Weinstein
Common Senselessness: Francis W. Porretto

"ObamaCare is a quagmire, and Democrats have no exit strategy": RSM
Mary Landrieu’s Obamacare Vote Has Cost 80,000 Their Insurance: HayRide
Obamacare Is Obama Unmasked: David Limbaugh

Attention Virginia Catholics: Terry McAuliffe's Anti-Catholic Campaign: ConHQ
GOP Establishment Undermining of Cuccinnelli in Virginia: Riehl
Levin: RINO’s, Rove, Push For McAuliffe Win: Jeffrey Lord

Economy

An Old 'New' Program: Thomas Sowell
Republican @ 20 .vs. Democrat @ 40: Karl Denninger
Common Core Feud Erupts Between Psychologist and Democrat Hacks: EAG

Obamacare to Hike Insurance Rates In States By Average Of 41%: SAB
Welfare Leeches Sell EBT Cards On Craigslist, Other Social Sites: WZ
Liberal Plan for the destruction of America: Duty With Honor

Scandal Central

Newly Obtained E-Mails Show Lerner Gave Tea Party Tax Info to FEC, Big Three Networks Censor: MRC
How Democrats are Waging Guerilla War Against Popular Voter ID Laws: PJM

Climate & Energy

Soviet Planner Behind California’s Pay-Per-Mile Scanner and Tax: Daniel Greenfield

Media

Of omelets, and eggs: Cold Fury
White House Bravely Takes on Elderly Cancer Patient: Ricochet
CNN: Cancer patient responds to Obama advisor about why she really lost her plan: Scoop

CBS: 'White House Had Years of Warnings' About ObamaCare Debacle: Matthew Balan
Press Secretary Jay Carney loses temper at ABC reporter questioning Obama’s promises: Poor Richard
Book: Huntsman campaign peddled Herman Cain rumors to press: Alex Pappas

CBS: Healthcare Adviser Warned White House Was Losing Control Three Years Ago: JWF
ABC: WH not telling truth about alternate ObamaCare application methods, either: Hot Air
Legendary comedian absolutely tears lying ‘maniac’ Obama to shreds: BPR

Obama approval rating drops to new low: Scoop
Aw?! ObamaCare “threatening” Democratic 2014 Elections: AIM
Sebelius Likens Tickle Me Elmo to “Affordable” Care Act Meltdown: STACLU

World

Divide and conquer: Obama's Israel strategy: Richard Baehr
Stabbing Israel in the Back: Alan Caruba
Documentary Highlights Dangers of Muslim Brotherhood in America: Creeping

Mohamed Elibiary: America is the One Islamic Country Where Non-Muslims Treated Equally: MagNote
Join the Twitter Campaign Today: #FreeElCritico, imprisoned dissident rapper in Cuba: Babalu
Obama Says He’s “Really Good At Killing People”: Tammy Bruce

Sci-Tech

We’re About to Lose Net Neutrality — And the Internet as We Know It: Marvin Ammori
Study: Data Of More Than 16 Million Americans Compromised By Breaches Last Year: Tim Wilson, Dark Reading
IE Gets Top Props for Thwarting Socially Engineered Malware: John P. Mello Jr., TNW

Cornucopia

Obamanomalies: the Relativity of Giant Sucking Black Holes: MOTUS
Obamacare Roll Out (Cartoon): Gary McCoy
The Lamborghini Veneno Roadster Will Hit 221 MPH: Michael Ballaban, Jalopnik

Image: Gunman Loose In New Jersey Mall; Shots Fired, Injuries Reported
Sponsor: VIRGINIA: McAuliffe and Bloomberg Are Coming For Your Guns! SUPPORT KEN CUCCINELLI.

QOTD: "The White House has violated the old political adage, "If you're explaining why cancer patients should lose their health insurance, you're losing."" --Jon Gabriel