Monday, November 04, 2013

IT BEGINS: Major Security Breaches Reported on Healthcare.gov

I've got good news and bad news for Healthcare.gov: the site works once in a while, but now I'm seeing someone else's personal health data.

WIS-TV in Columbia, South Carolina reports the details of a major security breach on the main Obamacare website:

About a month ago, attorney Tom Dougall logged on to healthcare.gov to browse for cheaper insurance for him and his wife.

On Friday, the last thing he expected to hear on his voicemail was a man from North Carolina who says he can access all of Tom's personal information... Dougall says he thought it was a scam until he realized his privacy had been breached.


"I believe somehow the ACA, the Healthcare website has sent me your information, is what it looks like," said Justin Hadley, a North Carolina resident who could access Tom's information on healthcare.gov. "I think there's a problem with the wrong information getting to the wrong people."

..."I tried to call healthcare.gov last night and they have no procedure whatsoever to handle security breaches," he said. "All they can do is try to sell you a policy."

Dougall has also contacted his congressmen. He says he's calling the Department of Health and Human Services directly on Monday.

"They're so concerned with trying to fix the problems they currently have that they refuse to acknowledge or won't acknowledge that there's been a major breach," Dougall said...

This should come as no surprise for a website that was basically broken from the get-go.

Moments ago, CBS News's brilliant investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson reported that "HealthCare.gov ducked final security requirements before launch":

The health care website went down again Monday for an hour and a half, and no one is sure why. It's being taken offline on purpose every night from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. for repairs. Millions are still having trouble buying insurance on it, and it turns out that even when the website works, it may not be secure enough to protect privacy.

As HealthCare.gov was being developed, crucial tests to ensure the security and privacy of customer information fell behind schedule.

CBS News analysis found that the deadline for final security plans slipped three times from May 6 to July 16. Security assessments to be finished June 7 slid to August 16 and then August 23. The final, required top-to-bottom security tests never got done.

...[In fact,] four days before the launch, the government took an unusual step. It granted itself a waiver to launch the website with "a level of uncertainty ... deemed as a high (security) risk.

Let me guess: the loathsome and freakish architect of Obamacare named Ezekiel Emanuel will now blame the users themselves for the data breaches, just as he blames insurance companies and the private sector for his catastrophic, stillborn brainchild.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

SMART POWER: China Openly Publishes Map of American Cities as Nuclear Targets While Russia Boldly Tests ICBMs

Guest post by Investor's Business Daily

Global Power: Moscow launches four ICBMs in a large-scale nuclear drill as Chinese state media, brandishing detailed maps, show how Beijing's nuclear submarines can attack U.S. cities. We press "reset," they press "launch."

In March 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with a red "reset button" to symbolize improved ties. The era of confrontation when American presidents demanded the tearing down of walls was over. From now on, we would make nice.

Fast-forward to 2012, when President Obama met with Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's then-president and now prime minister, at the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, South Korea.

That was when Obama assured Medvedev he'd have more leeway after his re-election to weaken missile defense. This would help him achieve his dream of U.S. disarmament and bring about, as he expressed in Prague in 2009, "a world without nuclear weapons."

Apparently the Russians and the Chinese do not share that dream. On Wednesday, Russian strategic forces carried out a large-scale surprise military drill that included the test launch of two land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles and two submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

So while Russia expands and tests its offensive and defensive missile capabilities, President Obama lets our missile capabilities wither and caves to Russian demands to halt previously planned expansion.

To placate Moscow, Obama has already betrayed our allies in Poland and the Czech Republic by abandoning plans to deploy ground-based interceptors and missile defense in those countries.

Our Chinese friends have also noticed that the famous "reset" button has been replaced with one marked "easy." China's military carried out on July 24 a third test of a long-range DF-31A road-mobile ballistic missile capable of hitting the U.S. with nuclear warheads.

According to a recently published report by the Air Force National Air and Space Intelligence Center, "China has the most active and diverse ballistic missile development program in the world."

Federal investigations cast huge shadow over Terry McAuliffe on Election Day

Guest post by Kenric Ward

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — As Virginians head to the polls Tuesday, a darkening cloud of federal investigations hangs over Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe.

The inspector general at the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission are conducting separate inquiries into actions involving McAuliffe’s GreenTech Automotive company and its use of a federal investor-visa program.

The investigations, which began last spring after Watchdog.org started digging into McAuliffe’s activities, target U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Alejandro Mayorkas and Gulf Coast Funds Management, GreenTech’s fundraising arm.

“Voters should be aware that the two investigations around GreenTech and Gulf Coast may well cripple a McAuliffe administration, as well as the commonwealth’s credibility and ability to move forward,” Virginia state Sen. Tom Garrett told Watchdog last week.

“Literally, from day one, a pall would hang over a McAuliffe administration and over Virginia’s executive branch. Simply put, it would be bad for business,” said Garrett, a Republican and former Louisa County prosecutor.

Larwyn's Linx: Ken Cuccinelli reminds us that Barack Obama and Terry McAuliffe are allies

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

Nation

Ken Cuccinelli reminds us that Obama and Terry McAuliffe are allies: Moe Lane
On ObamaCare, Obama Had A Choice: Honesty Or Deception: LUR
HealthCare.Gov to Be Shut Down DAILY For Maintenance: Pundit Press

Why So Shocked? You Were NEVER Meant To Keep Your Insurance: RS
How Ted Cruz Won the Shutdown Drama: Jonathon Moseley
The Silence of the Left: Clarice Feldman

Obama -- Destroyer-in-Chief: Alan Bergstein
Obsessed Much? Rallying for McAuliffe, Obama Tears Into Tea Party: JWF
Did NRSC’s Josh Holmes Just Cost McConnell His Primary?: Dan Riehl

Economy

Obamacare vs. Arithmetic: Arithmetic wins, every time: Charlie Martin
Great News: The Obamacare enrollment drive for prostitutes: Poor Richard
I had great cancer doctors and insurance. My plan was cancelled.: WSJ

Ted Cruz Owed an Apology: Kevin Jackson
Chutzpah: Obama Says It’s Time GOP Ended ‘Manufactured Crisis’: JWF
VW Plant Decision: Secret ballot or union card check?: Ellis Smith

Scandal Central

Questions They Won’t Answer: Benghazi isn’t going away.: WS
Voter Fraud and Obamacare…Synonymous?: Jackie Wellfonder
What if Obamacare Was Never About Our Health?: Diana West

Climate & Energy

IPCC has retreated from about a dozen alarmist claims on climate change: Commentator
How Smart Meters Are Extremist, Antiamerican Surveillance, In 4.5 Minutes: NoisyRm
Business owner unsettled about EPA, coal’s future: Wendy Holdren, Register-Herald

Media

So, the New York Post just called Obama an outright liar: Poor Richard
NYT: Obama 'Misspoke' When He Lied About Keeping Your Insurance: Ben Shapiro
O-Care stonewall: Media stymied: Patrick Mortiere and Bob Cusack, The Hill

Obama and the New York Times Decide Which Health Plans Are Worth Keeping: R.S. McCain
NRSC Staffer: Senate Conservatives Fund Like 'Drunk Who Tears Up Every Bar They Walk Into': TPM
A Tribute to “Wheel’s” Contestants: Pat Sajak

Mitch McConnell Embraces the Anti-Rush Limbaugh Playbook: Erick Erickson
The Week the Wheels Came off Obamacare: Stephen Green
NBC Hack David Gregory Accuses Romney, Not Obama, of Lying About Obamacare: TruthRevolt

Rahm Emanuel's brother goes crazy on national television to defend Obamacare.: TruthRevolt
SCUM: Ezekiel "Dr. Death" Emanuel blames insurance companies for his failures: GWP
Obama’s Senior Advisor: “If you like your plan and it hasn’t been cancelled…you can keep it”: Poor Richard

World

Russia Nuke Attack Drill As China Selects U.S. Targets: IBD
Fighting alone, Afghans said to hold Taliban back: Patrick Quinn, AP
Another Tough Day: Keith Koffler

Edward Snowden says calls for reforms prove his leaks are justified: RT
$1B in Nazi-looted art is found in Munich mansion: Fox
"France is Not a Cash Cow"; Riots Over Ecotax Continue; Is Anyone Happy?: Mish

Sci-Tech

3D Printed Gun Inventor Embarks on New Project: Dark Wallet: Jason Farrell
No Morsel Too Minuscule for All-Consuming N.S.A.: Scott Shane, NYT
Meet “badBIOS,” the mysterious Mac and PC malware that jumps airgaps: Dan Goodin, Ars Technica

Cornucopia

If you can vote in the Princeton, NJ Council election, vote for @Fausta: Moe Lane
Picture of the Day: WZ
Cirque du Soleil: Why Do You Think They Call It ‘The Wheel of Death,’ Anyway?: R.S. McCain

Sponsor: VIRGINIA: McAuliffe and Bloomberg Are Coming For Your Guns! SUPPORT KEN CUCCINELLI.

QOTD: "Why the lies? Mr. President, with all due respect, you lied to us. You sold us a bill of goods that puts many of us in a danger zone. Mr. President, you have promoted Obamacare for years. If it’s so great, why aren’t you on it? Why isn’t Congress on it? Why aren’t federal employees on it? Even simple Sebelius refused to go on the very program that you all think is so great for the rest of us. The website is not up and running. We can’t keep our health plans, and we cannot keep our doctors. The truth is, you have lost all credibility. No one believes you anymore." --Judge Jeanine Pirro

Sunday, November 03, 2013

Naturally: Virginia Democrat Wants to Force Doctors to Accept Medicare and Medicaid Patients

After, all health care is a "right", don't ya know?

Of course, when the government grants "rights", it must steal the labor of one individual to give to another. And, to do so, it must use compulsion and force.

In Virginia, the Democrat Party has moved from plain old socialized medicine to the next step on the path to tyranny: forcing doctors to see patients.

FYI last night at the Great Falls Grange debate, Democrat delegate candidate Kathleen Murphy said that since many doctors are not accepting medicaid and medicare patients, she advocates making it a legal requirement for those people to be accepted.

She did not recognize that the payments are inadequate to cover the doctors' costs. She also did not recognize there is a shortage of over 45,000 physicians now and that it is forecast to be 90,000 in a few years.

Democrats appear to want to make physicians slaves of the state, but Democrats don't admit they would just drive more doctors out of practice into retirement and other occupations. The Obamacare law and regulations are causing millions of people to lose their health insurance, drop many doctors and hospitals. The HHS internal forecast is 93 million Americans would lose their health insurance due to the Obamacare law and rules about adequacy of insurance.

...I hope physicians rise up and speak out for common sense, protecting quality medical care in the US and giving patients freedom to choose...

Next on the agenda: government will tell doctors where they can live and practice.

Guaranteed.

If you live in Virginia or know folks who do, make sure to support Ken Cuccinelli for Governor.

That is, if you believe in liberty.


Hat tip: Drudge Report.

The 9 Faces of Obamacare Architect Ezekiel Emanuel: Private Companies and Health Insurers Are to Blame for Failures

I'll save you from having to watch the profoundly disturbing Fox News Sunday panel discussion with Ezekiel "Dr. Death" Emanuel, one of the key architects of Obamacare.

In trying to defend his stillborn brainchild, Emanuel constantly interrupts the other panelist and host Chris Wallace, haranguing them for misunderstanding his genius.

Hell, instead of having to listen to him, just take a look at his facial expressions.


If you interpret these looks as condescension, haughtiness and delusions of grandeur, well, that was the interview.

That said, there were some interesting nuggets uncovered.

First, Emanuel admits that Obamacare will destroy the individual insurance market.

CAPRETTA: People who knew the law as it was being written knew the president wasn't telling the truth. The grandfather provision written in the law itself was too narrow and frankly they wrote a regulation intentionally trying to get people out of the individual market.

EMANUEL: Look --

CAPRETTA: They want the people to go into the exchanges because there's a lot of people in the individual market. The whole point of the exchanges is to close down the individual insurance market overtime.

EMANUEL: The insurance company, wait a second --

CAPRETTA: They wanted to move millions of people into the exchanges --

EMANUEL: The insurance companies don't like -- the insurance companies don't like the individual market as it's constructed. They see the future. That individual market is going away. They don't want to invest in it.

Second, Emanuel blames insurance companies for Obamacare's failures.

WALLACE: I have to ask you, does ObamaCare mandate that insurance companies change their plans to meet certain standards?

EMANUEL: Yes, it brings it up. But those -- look, we grandfathered in all of the pre-existing plans. If you want to change plans or you want to buy a new car, you have to meet safety standards. That was the rule and --

WALLACE: But wait, wait. Wait a minute. Your grandfathering is so narrow. For instance --

EMANUEL: It's not so narrow.

WALLACE: Let me give you an example. For instance, if an insurance company changes the co-pay by more than $5, over the course of three years since 2010, it's no longer grandfathered in.

EMANUEL: That's a 25 -- usually, a 25 percent change. That's a big change. You have to --

WALLACE: A $5 change in the co-pay, now, it's not grandfathered.

Third, Emanuel also blames private companies for the failures of his grand designs, the genius of which is simply misunderstood by we simple mortals.

WALLACE: Dr. Emanuel, it isn't just small business or the individuals -- forgive me, sir -- there are big companies, Time Warner, IBM, Sears, Wal-Mart -- or K-Mart, Walgreens, they're all saying they're going to take people off their coverage and put them into exchanges. None of them are going to be able -- of those people are going to be able to keep their current policies.

EMANUEL: Those are companies making decisions of how they want to insure people. Remember --

WALLACE: Because of the way ObamaCare works.

EMANUEL: Before ObamaCare, those companies could drop coverage at any time. Before ObamaCare, companies didn't have to offer insurance to their people and many didn't. As we know, we have 50 million uninsured people -- so, plenty of people -- and most of those are workers who didn't have coverage. Before Obama --

WALLACE: Simple question --

EMANUEL: Wait a second. Before ObamaCare, we were having lots of those people --

WALLACE: Simple question, are those going to be able to keep their coverage as the president?

EMANUEL: The president -- look, the law does not say Sears dropped coverage. Sears decides what's good for Sears. The law doesn't say to the insurance industry, you drop coverage. The insurance industry decides how it's going to make money.

When the private companies decide that they're going to drop people or put them in the exchange, you blame President Obama. He is not responsible for that.

In short, everyone else is to blame for the failures of Obamacare. The insurance companies aren't cooperating, the private sector is too greedy, the customers don't know what's best for them.

But it's not the mastermind's fault.

It never is.

The delusions of Emanuel are pretty much described in The 10 Commandments of Government as well as by every rational thinker since The Enlightenment.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Tribune Expose: 12 Horrifying Secrets of Chicago's Imminent Fiscal Collapse
 

The Chicago Tribune has published a special report (subscription required) that offers a stunning glimpse into the Second City's true financial situation -- peeling back the obfuscation and misdirection offered by the corrupt Democrat hacks who have run the city for the last century.

Its report is worth reading in its entirety, but 12 salient details summarize the imminent collapse of Chicago's finances:

• Chicago has more general obligation debt per capita than any of the 10 largest U.S. cities except New York

• Chicago even has more general obligation debt per capita than Detroit

• When the city does reveal its spending plans to the public, the information often turns out to be inaccurate or misleading


• 63 percent of all property taxes went to debt payments last year

• The dependence on bond money has created a massive debt burden even as the city wrestles with chronic deficits and a pension crisis. Chicago's outstanding debt on general obligation bonds has quadrupled during the past 18 years, reaching $7.2 billion last year. With interest, that amount nearly doubles.

• Most of Chicago's debt woes can be traced to the long reign of former Mayor Richard M. Daley, but the borrowing he relied on so heavily has continued under Rahm Emanuel.

• The billions in bonds issued under Daley allowed him to cut ribbons, plant trees and hand out large contracts — helping him become the longest-serving mayor in Chicago history.

• The Tribune provided former mayor Daley details on its analysis, but he declined repeated requests for interviews.

• Rahm Emanuel has done virtually nothing to address the situation since taking over as Mayor. Just like Daley, Emanuel has used bond money for short-term budget relief.

• Chicago leaders routinely use bond proceeds to make interest payments on the bonds themselves, borrowing more than $450 million since 2000 just to pay interest.

• Daley and Emanuel have used $1 billion in bond money to pay for legal judgments and settlements. The practice not only forces future generations to pay a huge price for the city's misdeeds but also is likely illegal under the tax code.

• For a series of bond issues, Rahm Emanuel's team had to pay higher interest rates than most of the bonds they replaced; they did so to push payments out to the year 2039 (an expert says "this suggests the noose is tightening"). It also means taxpayers in 2039 will be paying off bonds from 1993. Some of that original money went into public housing that was torn down more than a decade ago.

Ain't the infernal alliance of public sector unions and Democrat hack politicians great?

In the ongoing battle between mathematics and Democrats, math has extended its perfect record to about 75 bazillion to zero. But, hey, ain't you Chicagoans happy you voted to keep Sandra Fluke flush with contraceptives?


Hat tip: BadBlue 24x7 News Service.

NEW BOOK ON ROMNEY CAMPAIGN AND RUNNING MATE SELECTION: Chris Christie's Checkered Past "Littered With Land Mines"

A new book on the 2012 presidential campaign by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann will be released on Tuesday. In an excerpt published in Time, Romney strongly considered Chris Christie as a potential running mate. That is until the Romney team unearthed the New Jersey governor's questionable background.

In the nine months since Christie’s endorsement of Romney in October 2011, Boston had formed a mixed view of the governor who George W. Bush had once nicknamed Big Boy. Christopher James Christie, 51, was less than two years into his first term as governor of New Jersey, suave as sand­paper and morbidly obese. He was also one of the most intriguing figures in American politics. His voice was like an air horn, cutting through the clutter. There was no one better at making the referendum case against Obama, at nailing the President to the wall with ferocity and caustic humor. Christie’s temperament was ideally suited to the unfolding tenor of the race. “We’re in a street fight, and he’s a street fighter,” Romney’s chief strategist Stuart Stevens told Romney. “He’s the best street fighter—and he’s comfortable saying things that you’re not comfortable saying.”

He was also a fundraising dynamo, but he and his staff were overbearing and hard to work with, demanding in ways that would have been unthinkable from any other surrogate. Months earlier, Christie had banned Romney from raising money in New Jersey until Christie had given the O.K. to do so—a move Romney found galling, like something out of The Sopranos. Are you kidding me, Mitt thought. He’s going to do that? There were plenty of New Jersey donors who’d given money to Mitt in 2008; now Christie was trying to impose a gag order on talking to them? “He sounds like the biggest asshole in the world,” Stevens griped to his partner, Russ Shriefer. More recently, Trenton insisted on private jets, lavish spreads of food, space for a massive entourage. Romney ally Wayne Berman looked at the bubble around Christie and thought, He’s not the President of the United States, you know.

Chronically behind schedule, Christie made a habit of showing up late to Romney fundraising events. In May he was so tardy to a donor reception at the Grand Hyatt New York that Mitt wound up taking the stage to speak before Christie arrived. When the Jersey governor finally made his grand entrance, it was as if Mitt had been his warm-up act...

...The list of questions Myers and her team had for Christie was extensive and troubling. More than once, Myers reported back that Trenton’s response was, in effect, Why do we need to give you that piece of information? Myers told her team, We have to assume if they’re not answering, it’s because the answer is bad.

The vetters were stunned by the garish controversies lurking in the shadows of his record. There was a 2010 Department of Justice inspector general’s investigation of Christie’s spending patterns in his job prior to the governorship, which criticized him for being “the U.S. attorney who most often exceeded the government [travel expense] rate without adequate justification” and for offering “insufficient, inaccurate, or no justification” for stays at swank hotels like the Four Seasons. There was the fact that Christie worked as a lobbyist on behalf of the Securities Industry Association at a time when Bernie Madoff was a senior SIA official—and sought an exemption from New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act...

Larwyn's Linx: Sex, lies and – if you insist – let’s go to the videotape

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

Nation

Sex, lies and – if you insist – let’s go to the videotape: MOTUS
Obama told White House aides: I'm “really good at killing people”: Michael Kelley
HealthCare.gov Users Warn of Security Risk, Breach of Privacy: Foundry

Those damn teabaggers won’t just fold up and go home!: Protein Wisdom
Can Cuccinelli Pull Off the Upset?: Rick Moran
How the ObamaCare Meltdown Helps Hillary: Daniel Greenfield

‘Progressives’ firing up ‘racism’ charge to intimidate gun owners: David Codrea
Government Gorilla: Wayne Allen Root
Liberalism: FreeNC

Economy

Welfare Recipients See More Benefits than Permanently Disabled Vet: Kevin E. Lake
College Students In Colorado Call Obama Out On His Deceit: WZ
Sticker Shock Followed by Cancellation: Kelli Kennedy, AP

Alarming Stats Prove Medicaid Will Soon Be Our Single Payer System: Sara Noble
Obama Playing Golf: Keith Koffler
Sierra Bullets On The Shutdown Of The Herculaneum MO Lead Smelter: OG&M

Scandal Central

Benghazi Operators Will Testify Week of Nov. 11 in Classified Hearing: WFB
Top Obama Donor Gets Paid To Fix Obamacare Website After Blowing It Up: Tyler Durden
LAX shooter’s AR-15 rifle raises disturbing questions: Bob Owens

Climate & Energy

Obama takes control of climate change policy with executive order bypassing Congress: RWN
Bummer: Dull Leaves “Spectre Of Climate Change”: William Teach
Deepwater Horizon -- Paul Hseih and the Missing Drill Pipe: Bruce Thompson

Media

Even Yahoo News Is Figuring Out Obama Is Fraud: IM41
PR maven behind Moms Demand Action admits she wants to ban all guns: Bob Owens
Jim Angle shares disturbing experience with Obamacare 800 number: Twitchy

US Army Warrant Officer Schools Bette Midler: Yes, There Were WMDs In Iraq: WZ
Gasp! ‘Nerdgasm’ Spoiled by Discovery of Homophobia Behind ‘Ender’s Game’?: R.S. McCain
The Problem Solver: Happy Acres

Mark Levin: Obama’s FCC Is Going After Conservative Talk Radio: NoisyRm
Carney: WH Could Give Rough Estimate Of Obamacare Enrollees, But Not To The Public: WZ
Guns & Ammo Supports Gun Control: Robert Farago

World

Why Is the U.S. Helping China Militarize Space?: Gordon G. Chang
“Scandalous”: Israel Fuming About WH Leak Confirming Their Strike on Syria: Nice Deb
Russian Tu-160 Strategic Bombers Land in Venezuela: RIA

Obamacare victims and Israel: Caroline Glick
Oregon Voters Delay Law Giving Licenses to Illegals: Breitbart
West Point hosts first wedding between two men: ABC-7

Israeli Strike on Syrian Base Confirmed, Russian Missiles Targeted: Breitbart
Islamophobes: The Muslim Issue
Sweden: A New Hell for Women: Gates of Vienna

Sci-Tech

Marines may have revolutionized how shoes are tied: Blaze
BMW i3 Review: CarAdvice
MuleSoft's New RAML Tooled API Builder: Adrian Bridgwater, Dr. Dobbs

Cornucopia

Halloween 2013: The Occupation Continues – Terror Ensues: MOTUS
Trick or Treat!: SSI
Atlanta man shatters coast-to-coast 'Cannonball Run' speed record: Eliott C. McLaughlin, CNN

Image: iOwnTheWorld
Sponsor: VIRGINIA: Terry McAuliffe and Michael Bloomberg Are Coming For Your Guns.

QOTD: "When you think about what is happening with the Affordable Care Act, you know, we live in a Republic and once a law is passed, it’s supposed to be executed by the president. It’s not supposed to be amended, you’re not supposed to be granting waivers and exemptions. It’s just the same we see with the backdoor activities through which they’re trying to go with the United Nations- the gun control issue, the Arms Trade Treaty is a case in point. So we have to be very concerned because now we’re talking about a president, an executive branch, that can pick the winners and the losers based upon his cronies and his associates." --Allen West

Saturday, November 02, 2013

Lies, Damn Lies, and Obamacare

Guest post by Sean Hannity

It's one thing for Obamacare to fail, as many conservatives expect and we are currently witnessing. It's another to be lied to by Barack Obama, his administration and Democrats in Washington. This gap between what we were promised and reality will haunt Democrats in the 2014 election because the American people no longer feel the Democrats can be trusted.

Let's go through some of the lies we've been fed throughout the years related to healthcare.

“If you like your plan, you can keep it.”

This lie has been perpetrated for years and continues to be said by Obama and his administration to this day. They knew Americans would lose their current coverage, affecting millions of people, and yet they went forward nonetheless. This shows that they are not really serious about the effects on the American people but are driven by an ideological pursuit of big-government, socialized medicine.

Amazingly, the administration seems to have been caught flat-footed by deluge of stories showing how millions of people are losing coverage. It's as if they didn't believe it would actually happen or they believed the American people would just roll over and accept it, assuming the Obama-mania media would be reluctant to report on it. Well they assumed incorrectly. So now the administration has taken a two-prong approach: Use the bully pulpit to strong-arm insurance companies into hushing up and then blaming the insurance companies themselves.

Obama and Sebelius in recent days have made “substandard” insurance plans the boogie man, rather than the law that decides what coverage people need. Can't the American people decide for themselves what kind of coverage they need and what is “substandard” for their own family? As Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn said yesterday, some people drink out of red solo cups and some out of crystal stemware. Either way you are achieving the same result but how you do it is up to the individual and not the government.

“Obamacare will cut the cost of a typical family's premium by up to $2,500 a year."

The actual name of the law – the Affordable Care Act – is a joke.

At last, an Obamacare website that works: MyCancellation.com lets users post health care cancellation notices

Someone handed Kathleen Sebelius a copy of "Websites for Dummies" yesterday.


It turns out that someone has created a real Obamamcare website that functions properly.

That site is, of course, called "MyCancellation.com". It allows users to upload photos of health care cancellation notices and it's taken off like a rocket.


I hope the server running the site has a lot of storage capacity.

After all, the Obama administration predicted in 2010 that around 100 million Americans would have their insurance plans cancelled.


p.s., I wonder if any of the folks posting photos match up with the "We're Sorry" crew?

A Culture of Ignorance, Part One

Guest post by Jim Quinn

“Five percent of the people think;
ten percent of the people think they think;
and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think.”

- Thomas Edison

The kabuki theater that passes for governance in Washington D.C. reveals the profound level of ignorance shrouding this Empire of Debt in its prolonged death throes. Ignorance of facts; ignorance of math; ignorance of history; ignorance of reality; and ignorance of how ignorant we’ve become as a nation, have set us up for an epic fall. It’s almost as if we relish wallowing in our ignorance like a fat lazy sow in a mud hole. The lords of the manor are able to retain their power, control and huge ill-gotten riches because the government educated serfs are too ignorant to recognize the self-evident contradictions in the propaganda they are inundated with by state controlled media on a daily basis.

“Any formal attack on ignorance is bound to fail because the masses are always ready to defend their most precious possession – their ignorance.” - Hendrik Willem van Loon

The levels of ignorance are multi-dimensional and diverse, crossing all educational, income, and professional ranks. The stench of ignorance has settled like Chinese toxic smog over our country, as various constituents have chosen comforting ignorance over disconcerting knowledge. The highly educated members, who constitute the ruling class in this country, purposefully ignore facts and truth because the retention and enhancement of their wealth and power are dependent upon them not understanding what they clearly have the knowledge to understand. The underclass wallow in their ignorance as their life choices, absence of concern for marriage or parenting, lack of interest in educating themselves, and hiding behind the cross of victimhood and blaming others for their own failings. Everyone is born ignorant and the path to awareness and knowledge is found in reading books. Rich and poor alike are free to read and educate themselves. The government, union teachers, and a village are not necessary to attain knowledge. It requires hard work and clinging to your willful ignorance to remain stupid.

The youth of the country consume themselves in techno-narcissistic triviality, barely looking up from their iGadgets long enough to make eye contact with other human beings. The toxic combination of government delivered public education, dumbed down socially engineered curriculum, taught by uninspired intellectually average union controlled teachers, to distracted, unmotivated, latchkey kids, has produced a generation of young people ignorant about history, basic mathematical concepts, and the ability or interest to read and write. They have been taught to feel rather than think critically. They have been programmed to believe rather than question and explore. Slogans and memes have replaced knowledge and understanding. They have been lured into inescapable student loan debt serfdom by the very same government that is handing them a $200 trillion entitlement bill and an economy built upon low paying service jobs that don’t require a college education, because the most highly educated members of society realized that outsourcing the higher paying production jobs to slave labor factories in Asia was great for the bottom line, their stock options and bonus pools.

Instead of being outraged and lashing out against this injustice, the medicated, daycare reared youth passively lose themselves in the inconsequentiality and shallowness of social media, reality TV, and the internet, while living in their parents’ basement. They have chosen the ignorance inflicted upon their brains by thousands of hours spent twittering, texting, facebooking, seeking out adorable cat videos on the internet, viewing racist rap singer imbeciles rent out sports stadiums to propose to vacuous big breasted sluts on reality cable TV shows, and sitting zombie-like for days with a controller in hand blowing up cities, killing whores, and murdering policemen using their new PS4 on their 65 inch HDTV, rather than gaining a true understanding of the world by reading Steinbeck, Huxley, and Orwell. Technology has reduced our ability to think and increased our ignorance.

“During my eighty-seven years, I have witnessed a whole succession of technological revolutions. But none of them has done away with the need for character in the individual or the ability to think.” - Bernard M. Baruch

The youth have one thing going for them. They are still young and can awaken from their self-imposed stupor of ignorance. There are over 80 million millenials between the ages of 8 and 30 years old who need to start questioning the paradigm they are inheriting and critically examining the mendacious actions of their elders. The future of the country is in their hands, so I hope they put down those iGadgets and open their eyes before it is too late. We need many more patriots like Edward Snowden and far fewer twerking sluts like Miley Cyrus if we are to overcome the smog of apathy and ignorance blanketing our once sentient nation.

The 10 Commandments of Government

Submitted for your review:

I Generally speaking, government always grows -- it never shrinks -- whether times are good or bad.
II In each area it purports to "assist", government attempts to replace individual decision-making with central planning.
III In order to implement its grand central plans and solidify its power, government must take from one citizen to give to another; this is, in effect, lawful theft.
IV No matter how many times central planning fails, the self-appointed masterminds in government assert that "this time is different" and that with only a few tweaks and more money, their delusional plans will succeed.
V Because it uses funds confiscated from taxpayers, self-restraint is no obstacle to government's ambitions.
VI Its fundamental misunderstanding of human nature notwithstanding, government must claim to grant "rights", which require it steal the labors of one citizen to give to another (such as food, shelter, employment, and health care).
VII No matter how widespread the harm it causes, government will never provide an honest and historical accounting -- a report card -- of its failures.
VIII As more individuals and families are harmed by the failures of central planning, government must find suitable scapegoats, must lie to do so, and therefore must also repress dissent.
IX In order to build its network of redistribution and grow a culture of dependency on its services, government must inevitably undermine the family unit, religion, and the notion of God-given rights in order to cow, bribe, or intimidate its citizens.
X As government grows ever more powerful, it must also become increasingly oppressive through compulsion and force. To do otherwise would mean government must shrink, and this it cannot do.

Any of these characteristics recognizable?


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

CARTMAN HARDEST HIT: South Park Eviscerates Obamacare and Secretary of Fail Kathleen Sebelius

Guest post by Adam Tobias

“South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have made a living being equal opportunity offenders since their brazen and outspoken animated series premiered more than 16 years ago.

Their latest target?

The Obama administration and its botched rollout of Obamacare.

In Wednesday night’s episode, South Park Elementary School counselor Mr. Mackey has installed in the school a new “simple, integrated portal” known as Intellilink, which is supposed to streamline communications.

But every time Mackey or a student uses the program, various problems occur, such as window shades falling down, fire suppression sprinklers accidentally going off or songs like Lionel Richie’s “All Night Long” suddenly blaring in the background.

When forced to speak in front of his colleagues, Mackey is told by Principal Victoria the Intellilink system has cost the school $22,000, and so far it’s been “an unmitigated disaster.”

The problem is not everybody has signed onto it yet, Mackey claims.

The reason they haven’t signed onto it is because every time they try, they make the sprinklers go off, shop class teacher Richard Adler responds.

Larwyn's Linx: A Critical Insight into Obamacare's Failure

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

Nation

A Critical Insight into Obamacare's Failure: Michael Kennedy
Obamacare Is The Apotheosis of the Progressive Mindset: Ace
CNN: Senate Democrats Killed Your Insurance Policy: LI

Obamacare Boomerangs on Democrats Up For Reelection: Susan Brown
Why did Obama throw away his shutdown advantage over Obamacare?: Moe Lane
A split ruling on birth-control mandate: Lyle Denniston, SCOTUSblog

Mother Jones: 'Democratic Incumbents in Big Trouble': Noel Sheppard
Stopping Obamacare in Virginia: Ken Cuccinelli
Mark Levin endorses Dean Young, blasts U.S. Chamber of Commerce: AL

Economy

‘The Great Achievements of Liberalism’ a/k/a ‘The Ponzi Scheme’: McCarthy
Americans Keep Moving to States With Low Taxes and Housing Costs: Barone
U.S. Foodstamp Program Gets A 6% Haircut: What Happens Next?: ZH

The TEA Party Keeps TEAing Along: Matt Bruce
Low-info Obama voters shocked to find low-cost insurance is dead: WyBlog
Attention, Eric Holder: FNI

Scandal Central

Rep. Steve Stockman Calls for Select Committee to Investigate Obama: TPNN
Richard Nixon Resigned Over a Lie Nowhere Near as Big as Obamacare: EIB
SEALs ordered to remove ‘don’t tread on me’ Navy Jack from uniforms: DC

Media

This libertarian is voting Cuccinelli: LibertyZone
AP Editors Lament: Obama Relies On Staged Propaganda Photos: WZ
Why is Hillary Clinton's popularity sliding?: Jon Terbush, The Week

Politico's Todd S. Purdum: Obamacare "Sabotaged" by Republican "Conspiracy": Ace
Slimy Dishonest Scumbag Todd Purdum Compares ObamaCare to Brown v. Board: R.S. McCain
ROCK BOTTOM: Jimmy Carter Hammers Obama for Ineptness: Peter Wehner

World

Exposed: Names and identities of Muslim Brotherhood operatives in U.S.: Raymond Ibrahim
A-stan pullout logistics on track: Ace
Clinton Muslim Brotherhood Employee arrested in Egypt: Shoebat

Eleven Steps to the Downfall of the Republic: Sara Noble
Muslim Brotherhood on the Rise in USA: MB
D.C Court Of Appeals Strikes Down Contraception Mandate: William Teach

Sci-Tech

NSA FILES: What the revelations mean for you.: Guardian
FBI to Lavabit Founder: 'Lucky' You're Not Already Under Arrest: NMJ
'Controversial Dating Site' Is the Hottest New Business Model: Mashable

Cornucopia

Kathleen Sebelius gets embarrassing gift at Memphis event: BPR
Food hitting the shelves with Obama's pictures on it: iOTW
God, Lies, and Obama: Roger L. Simon

Image: What Conservative Victory Looks Like
Sponsor: VIRGINIANS: McAuliffe and Bloomberg Are Coming For Your Guns! SUPPORT KEN CUCCINELLI.

QOTD: "...there is a serious gap between the simplicity of the message that sold Obamacare and the complexity of the law’s outcomes. And the karmic consequences for the president and his party are considerable.

First, Obama’s credibility is undermined. “If you like your health-care plan,” he said, “you will be able to keep your health-care plan. Period.” It was the most emphatic, unqualified, high-profile public-policy promise since “Read my lips” — and its violation is at least as discrediting.

Second, Democrats have muddied their central political appeal of siding with the middle class... One self-employed pregnant woman who has recently lost coverage is quoted in the Los Angeles Times: “It doesn’t seem right to make the middle class pay so much more in order to give health insurance to everybody else.” Democrats will be forced to answer: It depends on what you mean by middle class.

Third, these challenges are beginning to divide the Democratic coalition. Many unions, already unhappy about Obamacare fees on group plans, are not rallying to defend the law. And many Democratic politicians will be tempted to distance themselves from Obamacare as dysfunction extends from weeks to months...

These last few weeks offer some hard lessons for Democrats: Those who pass a partisan health law own it. And those who believe in government are not necessarily capable of running one." --Michael Gerson

Friday, November 01, 2013

DEMOCRATS LOSE TO MATH, CHAPTER 6,039: Illinois Pensions Ratchet Up to Crazy-town Level

Guest post by Ted Dabrowski


Members of Illinois’ state-run pension systems claim they’ve paid their fair share into the pension funds.
 
To be sure, these workers have paid in what’s been required legally under mutually agreed upon contracts.
 
But the benefits politicians and union bosses have negotiated for retirees are pushing the state's pension systems to the brink of insolvency.
 
A look at the pension of Henry Bangser, the ex-superintendent of New Trier High School and the Teachers’ Retirement System’s highest pensioner, reveals just how out of sync worker contributions are with the benefits they receive.
 
Bangser will receive nearly $8 million in pension benefits during his retirement, which began at the age of 57.
 
Yet he contributed just $336,000 to the pension system over his 30-plus year career, an amount less than his final salary of $364,500 in 2007 and just 4.2% of his expected lifetime benefits.
That’s the problem with the current system: worker contributions are far too small relative to the pension benefits they’ll receive during their lifetimes. Not only that, but the state’s defined benefit pension plan forces young workers to contribute to a system that may collapse by the time they are ready to retire. Illinois’ pension systems are nearing insolvency and only have $0.40 of every dollar needed to make future payments.
 

OH, MY: The Associated Press demands editors stop printing Obama’s staged "propaganda” photos

Anyone in the White House ever heard of Leni Riefenstahl?

I thought not.

The Associated Press continues to express its utter disgust with the Obama White House. Which happens to be the first administration in American history to run its own news operation. Because **** you.

Editors of The Associated Press condemned the White House’s refusal to give photojournalists real access to President Obama, who prefers to circulate press release-style pictures taken by his own paid photographers.

These official photographs are little more than propaganda, according to AP director of photography Santiago Lyon.

The AP has only been permitted to photograph the president alone in the Oval Office on two occasions–both in his first term–and has never been allowed to photograph the president with his staff in the office...


...Previous administrations were less strict about photos, undermining Obama’s frequent claim that he strives to run “the most transparent administration” in history.

Lyon made his remarks at the AP Media Editors national conference in Indianapolis on Wednesday.

AP executive editor Kathleen Carroll echoed Lyon’s concerns.

...Carroll advised newspaper editors who were present to stop using the White House’s preferred photos in their own stories, according to Lail and other attendees.

I commend the AP, and CNN, and CBS News -- to name but a few -- that have finally decided to begin speaking truth to power.


Hat tips: Poor Richard and BadBlue News.

When Memes Collide

Actual quotes:


BUT


The President was so perturbed about getting to the bottom of the Obamacare debacle, and the slaughter of his diplomats in Benghazi, and his IRS targeting conservative, evangelical, and pro-Israel groups that he went golfing for the 148th time this week.


Hat tip: BadBlue News


San Francisco Will Confiscate High-Cap Magazines; Bloomberg and McAuliffe Plan Similar Gun-Grab in Virginia

And by "high-capacity", I mean normal capacity, but you regular Americans already knew that.

The radical Leftists running SF appear to have problems with reading comprehension at the third-grade level. After all, the nation's highest law reads, in part, "...the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

But that doesn't stop the would-be tyrants of the Golden State from urinating all over the Constitution:

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously approved an ordinance that places a confiscatory ban on magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammo on Oct. 29.


Those who are in possession of the high-capacity magazines or high-capacity ammunition feeding devices will have 90 days to turn them over to police, sell them out-of-state or render them permanently inoperable. Failure to do so will result in misdemeanor charges.

The NRA rightly protested, noting that these sorts of bans plainly conflict with the Second Amendment. In fact, the Supreme Court has already ruled that firearms and related accessories "in common use" are protected by the Constitution and cannot be banned.

And here's the lesson learned for my friends in Virginia. Michael Bloomberg has spent, by some estimates, over $2 million trying to elect radical leftists in Virginia like Terry McAuliffe. His aim is to extend his draconian gun-ban efforts into the Old Dominion, by hook or by crook.

So if you like your firearms, you won't be able to keep your firearms.

That's why I support Ken Cuccinelli for Governor of Virginia and I urge you to do the same.


Hat tip: BB.

Larwyn's Linx: Obamacare: So many layers of disaster, it’s like peeling an onion of fail

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

Nation

So many layers of disaster, it’s like peeling an onion of fail: Instapundit
Yes, the GOP saw the Obamacare crackup coming. : Moe Lane
Bombshell: Obamacare to cancel 93 million health care policies: Twitchy

Beware, Virginia: the Phony Libertarian Robert Sarvis: Moe Lane
Obama DOJ Claims International Treaties Trump Constitution: TPNN
The president who has done the most damage: Dennis Prager

Obama in 2010: Insurance Premiums Will Decrease By 3,000 Percent: Glob
Obamacare's Failed Promises: Sean Hannity
Second Federal Court Green-Lights Lawsuit Against Obamacare: CEI

Economy

Obama Has Presided Over 5 of 6 Largest Deficits in U.S. History: CNS
Nation’s top hospitals opting out of Obamacare: Scoop
Europe Stuns With "Surprising" Record High Unemployment Print: ZH

Why Unions Are Pouring Money Into Virginia & Why You Should Care: RS
House Is About To Cave On The Farm Bill: RS
Federal Spending by the Numbers, 2013: Heritage

Scandal Central

CBS: WH paying $1.1 BILLION to fix Obamacare websites: Poor Richard
REVEALED: US Commandos On Ground the Night Of Benghazi, Were Prevented From Aiding: RWN
Commandos Made it to Benghazi: Hot Air

Judicial Watch: Obama Henchwoman Lerner Illegally Gave Taxpayer Info to FEC: JWF
CIA officers who were on ground in Benghazi WILL TESTIFY before Congress: Scoop
Obama leadership style raises question of 'who is in control?': Michael O'Brien, NBC

Media

Your Opportunity is Being Transitioned: Daniel Greenfield
Barack Obama Approval Rating Sinks to New low in NBC/WSJ Poll … 42%: Scared Monkeys
PROPAGANDA: Obamacare “Success Story” a Democratic Pol, Pictured With Obama In '08: WZ

The Four Other Obamacare Disasters the Media Ignored: Foundry
IMF calls for the confiscation of household assets from those with a “positive net wealth”: Western Rifles
I Found a Unicorn: III Percent

World

Who’s the Liar, Lara Logan or Obama?: Shoebat
Obama Homeland Security advisor: “United States of America Is An Islamic Country": Atlas
Feds find drug tunnel linking San Diego, Tijuana: Fox

Sci-Tech

Apple working on innovative solar charging system: Ben Lovejoy, 9to5Mac
Windows Azure Compute cloud goes Belly Up Worldwide: Jack Clark, The Register
Has Microsoft just PROVED why you should upgrade from XP?: Paul Ducklin, Sophos

Cornucopia

Russian Bears, Chinese Lions and U.S. (Paper) Tigers. Oh My!!: MOTUS
Photo-of-the-Day: This Halloween Picture Truly Describes the Essence of George W. Bush: IJR
Riot Control: DHS Spends $500,000 on Fully Automatic Pepper Spray Launchers: FreeNC

Image: Western Rifles
Sponsor: VIRGINIANS: McAuliffe and Bloomberg Are Coming For Your Guns! SUPPORT KEN CUCCINELLI.

QOTD: "Insurers are hunting around for the captive audience of young, stupid and healthy twenty-somethings that Obama promised to turn over to them.

The other patients are going to end up in the network anyway. But they’re going to end up with doctors whose main priority is controlling costs. Again, it’s the WalMartization of medicine and ObamaCare is accelerating that trend. Profitable practices will either go private or they will focus on treating patients as little as possible while complying with every regulation.

That’s how national health care works everywhere." --Daniel Greenfield