SHE IS STILL DRINKING THE KOOL-AID

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi today called the Obamacare website malfunctions “incidental” in the big picture and predicted that they would have no effect on the mid-term elections next year.

“The glitches technologically are incidental to the value of what the Affordable Care Act represents,” she said. “We will get through them. The Affordable Care Act is a great thing for our country and I think it’s going to work just fine … We find the glitches unacceptable, we want to get over it, but it’s not going to have any impact on the election.”

Via: Boston Herald

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Montana: Blue Cross raising rates for thousands

HELENA — Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Montana, the state’s largest private health insurer, told thousands of customers this week it is raising premiums 3.5 percent in January because of “Obamacare” fees and taxes.

The notice, dated Thursday, went to nearly 3,000 holders of group policies, which insure tens of thousands of Montanans. Blue Cross said it didn’t have an exact count of how many people are covered by the affected plans.

Some of those policyholder signed year-long contracts earlier this year and are getting a mid-year increase, which Montana law generally forbids.

But the law has an exception that says an insurer can increase premiums in the middle of a contract year if costs are affected by a change in state or federal law.

Blue Cross linked the increase to fees taking effect Jan. 1 — although insurers have known for some time about the charges.

“We are following the law,” said John Doran, director of strategic marketing services for Blue Cross Montana. “We made that decision feeling it was in the best interest of our members. … We waited until the last available minute to assess these fees.”

Other major health insurers in Montana aren’t invoking the law, saying they already built any costs from the Affordable Care Act (ACA) — also known as Obamacare — into their current premiums.

“We’re honoring our current rates,” said Todd Lovshin of PacificSource, which insures about 19,000 people in Montana. “We’ve known about the (fees) for a long time and we knew they were going to be collected.”

The Blue Cross notice referenced two ACA charges effective Jan. 1: A flat-rate federal tax on all health insurers, to raise $8 billion nationwide to help pay costs of the overall act, and an annual “reinsurance fee” of $63 per person insured.

Via: Montana Standard

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Could Google have saved healthcare.gov?

For the sake of argument, let’s leave aside for the moment the many, serious problems with the actual implementation and execution of Obamacare and focus on the widely storied problems with the web site. Could it have worked out flawlessly – or at least with only modest roll-out problems common to any large launch – if it had been designed by someone competent? Clearly there’s only one person to ask, and as per Brian Fung at the wapo, that’s The Donald.

In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Donald Trump lashes out at HealthCare.gov and argues, somewhat trollishly, that a U.S. company such as Google would never have dropped the ball on such a project:

“I would have advised them to go to Google or one of our other great technological companies and get their act straightened out,” Trump told the Washington Examiner. “They should have done that before they did the roll out with a Canadian company with a bad track record.”

Since this is the Washington Post, they have to scoff at the idea immediately, but it’s an interesting question. I’m not saying they’d have done it for free as Trump suggests they might, but given a few years and a reasonable budget, could they have filled the bill? Fung brings up one of Google’s many, many tech initiatives over the years which I’d forgotten about. Back in 2007 they actually launched a product which aimed to do something very similar.

The initiative was called Google Health, and its vision was to produce a centralized database for electronic medical records. Users could log on, add their information — or get their insurer to do it for them — and wind up with one set of documents they could give to doctors and other health professionals. The service was up and running by 2008. But by 2011, Google had decided to shutter the service. Its audience was too limited, the company said in a blog post. The only people who used it were fitness nuts and geeky early adopters.

Why did Google Health fail, and could it have been adapted to serve HealthCare.gov’s purposes?

One big reason is that logistically, Google was hamstrung by some of the same forces that stymied CGI, the government’s lead contractor on HealthCare.gov.

Via: Hot Air
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Republicans Give Health Law Room to Stumble

WASHINGTON—Many House Republicans are replacing their push to delay or defund the 2010 federal health law with a new strategy: Hang back and see if problems with the rollout continue or get worse.

It is an abrupt reversal of the activist approach of just weeks ago, when Republicans demanded changes to the law in exchange for funding the government or raising the nation's borrowing limit. Now, they say putting the spotlight on technical flaws of the law's health-insurance exchange may be more effective than a direct attack.

"It's its own worst enemy, and to some degree it is collapsing under its own weight," said Rep. Michael Burgess (R., Texas), who sits on the committee that pressed Health and Human Services SecretaryKathleen Sebelius on Wednesday to explain what is going wrong.

Weeks ago, Democrats had been unified against GOP efforts to delay parts of the law, particularly the requirement that people carry insurance or pay a penalty. But now, as problems in the rollout of the law prompt some Democrats to call for a delay, it is Republicans who say they are giving up on changing anything.

The rocky rollout of the new health care law has deepened, with concern over insurance cancellations and personal privacy adding to the problems of the health care website. And how much is the new law to blame for Obama's record-low approval numbers?

"There are folks in my caucus who say just let the Americans face the pain," said Tim Huelskamp (R., Kan.), who voted recently to link government spending to a one-year delay of the health law. Now, he says the fate of the law is out of the hands of Congress. "At this point in time I don't think we can change anything," Mr. Huelskamp said.

Democrats see the approach, which focuses on oversight hearings, as a not-so-veiled attempt to undermine the Affordable Care Act. "They hate this law," Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) said of GOP lawmakers. "They want it to fail. They're praying for chaos to affirm their suspicions that it's the wrong thing for America. Now, when they criticize the rollout as not being smooth and not being fair to the American people, it rings hollow."

Via: WSJ

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Snowden tells Germans he’s proud of his role in revealing NSA spying

BERLIN — A German politician who’s been pushing his government for months to offer asylum or even witness protection to former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden said Friday that Snowden was willing “in principle” to assist any German investigation into NSA spying practices.

That offer would be accepted, the country’s interior minister later said, in another sign of the deep damage done to German-U.S. relations by news that the NSA had eavesdropped on a cellphone belonging to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“If the message is that Snowden wants to give us information, then we would gladly accept,” Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich said.

The offer from Snowden came through Hans-Christian Stroebele, a member of the opposition Green party who’s the longest-serving member of the Bundestag’s intelligence committee. Stroebele met with Snowden for almost three hours in Moscow on Thursday.

Stroebele, who said his trip to Moscow was specifically to ask Snowden whether he’d testify before the Bundestag about NSA activities in Germany, returned with a letter from Snowden in which the 30-year-old computer specialist defends his leaking of secret NSA documents.

Via: McClatchy

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Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/11/01/207251/snowden-tells-germans-hes-proud.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/11/01/207251/snowden-tells-germans-hes-proud.html#storylink=cpy

EXPOSED: NAMES AND IDENTITIES OF MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD OPERATIVES IN U.S.

El Watan, one of Egypt’s most widely circulated and read newspapers, has published a report discussing the Muslim Brotherhood’s influence over the United States, especially in the context of inciting pro-Brotherhood policies against Egypt’s popular June 30 Revolution, which resulted in the ousting of Muhammad Morsi and the Brotherhood from power.

Titled (in translation), “With Names, Identities, and Roadmap…  El Watan Exposes Brotherhood Cells in America,” it’s written by investigative journalist Ahmed al-Tahiri, who begins the report by saying:

In the context of El Watan’s ongoing investigation concerning the Brotherhood’s cells and lobby inside America that support the regime of the ousted [Morsi], and which intensified their activities to attack and defame the June 30 Revolution, informed sources have disclosed to El Watan newspaper the names and cell entities of the Brotherhood and their roadmap of activities all throughout the United States of America.

The sources said that these organizations, which are spread throughout the States, agitated for and were supportive of the decisions taken by Muhammad Morsi’s project to “Brotherhoodize” and consolidate power [in Egypt] and gave a favorable opinion to the general American public that Morsi’s decisions were welcomed by the public [in Egypt]. Following the June 30 Revolution, these groups  launched a malicious war in order to incite the American administration to take hostile decisions against Egypt, with the aim of bringing back the Brotherhood to the power.

Via: Human Events
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Welfare Nation by Bill O'Reilly

My parents were children during the Great Depression, and it scarred them, especially my father, who saw destitution in his Brooklyn, N.Y., neighborhood: adults standing in so-called "bread lines," children begging in the streets. My grandfather was a New York City cop, and so my dad did not suffer as others did. But he never forgot the brutal scenes and worked hard his whole life to build some financial independence.

Fast-forward to the severe recession of 2008, when millions of Americans lost jobs and equity in their homes. No bread lines, but much pain. The Obama administration responded by pouring trillions of dollars into stimulus and rescue programs, some of which succeeded in stabilizing tottering banks and auto companies. But along with that, the president and his acolytes openly encouraged Americans to use the welfare system. And now the entitlement culture has exploded.

According to the Census Bureau, more people in America today are on welfare than have full-time jobs. There is a culture of dependency being created that is truly shocking. A recent study by the Cato Institute concludes that welfare now pays more than minimum-wage work in 35 states. So why enter the workforce at the bottom if the government will give you the same compensation for sitting on your butt?

Some believe that the Democratic Party, which champions the entitlement culture, is doing so to assure future votes from those receiving benefits. And right now, about half of all American households are getting some kind of compensation from the feds. Some of that, such as Social Security and Medicare, has been earned. But nearly 50 million Americans are receiving food stamps, and 83 million are on Medicaid.

Via: TownHall

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Why Unions Are Pouring Money Into Virginia & Why You Should Care

Union bosses and other out-of-state liberals–from Hollywood to New York–are pouring millions into the Virginia governor’s race.

They are, without a doubt, hell-bent on defeating Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and putting long-timeDemocratic party boss and fund-raiser Terry McAuliffe into the governor’s seat.

More than that, however, the Left (just as they are targeting Texas and other Southern states) may be using the governor’s race to put the final nail in the coffin for Republicans in a state that has swung from reliably red to almost-but-not-quite blue.

While the polls in the seem to be tightening from a McAuliffe shoe-in to a too-close-to-call (were it not for the Libertarian candidate), according to the Washington Post, Democrat McAuliffe has collected $8 million more than Cuccinelli.

In addition to Democrat heavyweights like Bill Clinton ($100,000), Hollywood heavy hitters like the Weinstein Co. ($25,000) and noted author John Grisham ($75,000), Planned Parenthood donated over $1.5 million and many other liberal special interest groups have sent McAuliffe six-digit donations.

Given the amount of big out-of-state money and extraordinary efforts union bosses and their liberal cohorts are putting into the race, one must question how the Left will gain from a McAuliffe win.

Why are union bosses investing so heavily in Right-to-Work Virginia?

Via: Red State

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Maher Battles Wasserman-Schultz Over Obamacare: Obama Clearly Lied, His ‘No New Taxes’ Moment

Bill Maher has no qualms about saying that President Obama clearly lied about people being able to keep their health care plans if they liked them, and clashed with DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz over exactly how significant that lie was to the health care debate and whether Obamacare would have been passed in the first place without it.

Maher wondered if Obamacare had been passed in the first place if he was more honest about insurance plans. Wasserman-Schultz insisted “it was not a lie,” but Maher shot back, “Because of Obamacare, they are not able to keep [insurance plans]. To me, that is a lie.”

Rob Reiner jumped in to blame Republicans who are “refusing to make this better,” and Wasserman-Schultz reminded Maher that they hate Obamacare so much, they shut down the government.

Maher said this was Obama’s “no new taxes” moment, “a campaign pledge that didn’t hold up to the complexities of governing.” When Wasserman-Schultz stood firm, Maher told her that “the ship has sailed” on Obama’s credibility and taken a blow to his “sterling reputation for honesty.”

Watch the video below, via HBO:

Via: Mediaite.com

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[MUST READ] One Second After

Back in July, I wrote an article that examined the post-apocalyptic genre in fiction and in film. In that piece, I committed (at least) one sin in that I mentioned a book that I had not read. Having just corrected that failing, I'm here to tell you that everyone in America should read William R. Forstchen's novel One Second After.

Forstchen's novel takes place in post-9/11 America. And into that very real America, he introduces "the event" -- an electromagnetic pulse attack. EMP is not science fiction; it's been known about for decades. The Sun emits EMPs in solar flares, which have caused power blackouts.

An EMP attack involves detonating nuclear bombs high up in the atmosphere. With an EMP attack there is no radioactive fallout, nor bombed-out cities. But what a successful EMP attack would do is knock out our entire electric grid and fry all our electronic devices. An EMP attack would turn the lights out across America.

One Second After follows one community, the real town of Black Mountain, North Carolina, for one year after a devastating EMP attack. The town is left like all towns in America: utterly cut off from the outside. That's because an EMP attack would not only destroy the electrical grid and everything attached to it, the electrical systems of all vehicles built in the last few decades would also be destroyed. The only vehicles that would work would be antiques, such as Edsels and VW bugs. So the teeming millions in our cities would either be stuck, or have to walk out.

Via: American Thinker

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Historian: Americans Don’t Understand Meaning Behind Gettysburg Address

150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg 

Address this month

A historian said Friday that Americans often fail to recognize the meaning behind President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address ahead of the speech’s 150th anniversary this month.

Allen Guelzo, director of Civil War era studies at Gettysburg College and a renowned Lincoln scholar, said at the Heritage Foundation that Americans typically remember the address for its brevity orphrases like “four score and seven years ago” and “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

Lincoln delivered the remarks—comprising just 272 words in 10 sentences—on Nov. 19, 1863, four-and-a-half months after the pivotal battle of Gettysburg left more than 50,000 soldiers dead or wounded. Only a third of the expected bodies had been buried at the cemetery at the time.

Guelzo said Lincoln was “a man of no verbal wastage,” providing the thousands gathered at the dedication with a past, present, and future vision of America. The Founding Fathers “brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty” in 1776; the present crowd assembled to honor those “who here gave their lives that that nation might live”; and Lincoln urged the attendees to “highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.”

The last part, given the historical context of the speech, is the most important, Guelzo said.

“We do not see Lincoln’s subject, the survival of democracy, as Lincoln saw it,” he said. “For Lincoln, democracy was an isolated and beleaguered island in a world dominated by monarchies and tyrants.”

Lincoln studied the terror of the French Revolution and the military dictatorship of Napoleon, followed by the 19th century revolutions across Europe that were “crushed and subverted by nascent monarchies and romantic philosophers,” Guelzo said. Democratic government “lay discredited and disgraced,” he added.

Via: WFB

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Crist Files as Democrat to Run for Florida Governor

Former Florida Governor Charlie Crist, a Republican-turned Democrat, filed paperwork on Friday to run next year for his old job, according to the state's Division of Elections website.

Crist, who served as Florida's governor from 2007 to 2011, could not be immediately reached for comment. He has scheduled an event on Monday to announce his plans.

Florida Republican Governor Rick Scott will seek reelection in 2014 in what is expected to be one of the most expensive governor's races in the country.

With Republicans controlling every state house across the South, a Democratic gubernatorial win in Florida - the first in two decades - could significantly alter the political landscape in the run-up to the 2016 presidential race.

Crist, who abandoned the Republican Party after losing a U.S. Senate primary to Marco Rubio in 2010, has repeatedly criticized Scott, who opinion polls show ranks among the nation's most unpopular governors.

A Quinnipiac poll in June measuring a potential Scott-Crist match-up gave the newly minted Democrat a commanding lead over Scott, a wealthy former healthcare executive.

In recent weeks, Florida Republicans have kept up a daily drumbeat of Internet and media attacks on Crist, calling him untrustworthy and citing his change from a conservative Republican to a moderate Democrat.

On Friday, Florida Republican Party Chairman Lenny Curry criticized Crist, who after his first time as governor decided to make his Senate bid.

"Charlie Crist has now officially filed to run for the position he once abandoned," Curry said in a statement. "When Florida needed Charlie Crist the most during difficult economic times, he ran away. If he really wants to be governor now, why did he quit the first time?"

Via: Newsmax

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[VIDEO] 52 Felons Given 'Routine Unauthorized Access' to Navy Installations

(CNSNews.com) – A DoD official told the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Thursday that about 50 convicted felons were given access to Navy installations without the proper checks, and no one has been held accountable.

A Sept. 16, 2013 DoD inspector general’s report, which was released the same day as the Navy Yard shooting, found that the Navy Commercial Access Control System (NCACS) “did not effectively mitigate access control risks associated with contractor installation access” because Commander, Navy Installations Command (CNJC) officials tried to “reduce access control costs.”

“As a result, 52 convicted felons received routine, unauthorized installation access, placing military personnel, dependents, civilians, and installations at an increased security risk,” the report said.

The IG report found that the convicted felons received “routine, unauthorized access to Navy installations for 62 to 1,035 days since Eid Passport's initial public record checks did not identify the felony convictions. This placed military personnel, dependents, civilians, and installations at an increased security risk.”

Via: CNS News
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And Just Who are the Racists Again?

The Republican Party was founded to end slavery. The Democrat Party spent a century trying to maintain de facto, if not de jure, slavery

If an individual or a group was utterly consumed with concern about a race, and used race as the sole litmus test for evaluating anything, you’d say that such people were racists, wouldn’t you?

f a group was convinced that the only reason anyone could conceivably oppose Obama is the color of his skin, doesn’t that indicate an obsession with race?

If people are willing to ignore violence and bloodshed when one race perpetrates in against another, but only if the perpetrator of the violence is black, doesn’t that sort of indicates a racial preference that overwhelms rational thought.  That, too, sounds like the behavior and attitudes of a racist, wouldn’t you say?

The unfortunate election of Barack Obama has given the left yet another epithet to toss like a grenade into what they apparently consider “uncivil discourse”.  The phrase “we need to engage in more civil discourse” has, itself, become a leftist favorite to deflect any criticism of the president or any of his policies.  But as a bonus, the Obama presidency has provided the left with an opportunity to accuse those “guilty” of any disagreement, on any topic, by not only elected politicians but any citizen of the country, with being a racist.

Via: Canada Free Press

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EPIC FAIL: Now JIMMY CARTER is calling Obama an incompetent loser

It’s been a disastrous couple of weeks for President Barack Obama. His signature legislation, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, is a slow-motion train wreck. His poll numbers have tanked.

Now, things have gotten so bad for Obama that former president Jimmy Carter has called President Obama incompetent in the family-friendly pages of Parade magazine.

“He’s done the best he could under the circumstances,” Carter said of Obama in an interviewed published on Thursday. “His major accomplishment was Obamacare, and the implementation of it now is questionable at best.”

Carter presided over what was, until the current recession, the longest period of economic stagnation since the Great Depression. There was runaway inflation, high unemployment and an ongoing energy crisis. There was a hostage crisis in Iran involving the capture and imprisonment of 52 Americans for 444 days.

In the summer of 1979, Carter gave one of the least effective speeches any president in the history of the American presidency. The deeply unpopular “Crisis of Confidence” speech became widely known as Carter’s “malaise” speech.

Carter lost his 1980 reelection bid to Ronald Reagan by an electoral vote total of 489 to 49. He won only six states, along with the District of Columbia.

The 39th president’s Parade interview touched on several subjects in addition to Obamacare including his grandson’s role in a hidden camera video of Mitt Romney, the Middle East, the Trayvon Martin case and the recent  tribulations of fellow Georgian Paula Deen.

Carter’s wife Rosalynn was also present at the interview and contributed to it.

Via: Daily Caller

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