Saturday, November 30, 2013

LIFE IN THE ERA OF HOPE AND CHANGE or BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU!

LIFE IN THE ERA OF HOPE AND CHANGE or BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU!

Remember, when you enroll in ObamaCare all your data is also sent to one the fifty state ‘data banks, not connected to ObamaCare but to his political operation.  If they can do the following now think what they can do with every scap of your life at the touch of a keystroke.

“Ellen Richardson went to Pearson airport on Monday full of joy about flying to New York City and from there going on a 10-day Caribbean cruise for which she’d paid about $6,000.

But a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent with the Department of Homeland Security killed that dream when he denied her entry.

“I was turned away, I was told, because I had a hospitalization in the summer of 2012 for clinical depression,’’ said Richardson, who is a paraplegic and set up her cruise in collaboration with a March of Dimes group of about 12 others.

The Weston woman was told by the U.S. agent she would have to get “medical clearance’’ and be examined by one of only three doctors in Toronto whose assessments are accepted by Homeland Security. She was given their names and told a call to her psychiatrist “would not suffice.’’

At the time, Richardson said, she was so shocked and devastated by what was going on, she wasn’t thinking about how U.S. authorities could access her supposedly private medical information.”

Sad.Posted at 11:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds
Nov. 29 at Instapundit




WHICH OF THE ‘TRADITIONS’ DID YOU NOT DO ON THANKSGIVING?

WHICH OF THE ‘TRADITIONS’ DID YOU NOT DO ON THANKSGIVING?
The President Obama’s tweet linked to a photo of a young man sitting at a table with a turkey and a menorah. The accompanying text: “Celebrating Thanksgiving. Lighting the Hanukkah candles. Talking about health insurance. Gotta love dinners like these.”

Friday, November 29, 2013

The Discovery of Freedom

The Discovery of Freedom

The American who leaves Government to the politicians, permitting or urging the men of his party, when they are in office, to increase their power and use it upon other Americans for his benefit, and howling when men of the other party are in office increasing their power and squeezing him for the benefit of other Americans, is trying to evade his responsibility.
He will not evade it; he can not.  His natural liberty is responsibility.  He is born free; he controls his life and his affairs; he is responsible for them.  In trying to make any other person responsible for his welfare, he must try to transfer his control of himself to that other man, for control and responsibility can not be separated.
In demanding that men in Government be responsible for his welfare, a citizen is demanding control of his affairs by men whose only power is the use of force.
It’s a question that cuts to the heart of political matters: Why in the world does anyone suppose that people who specialize in and excel at winning political elections are also uniquely skilled to excel at running other people’s lives?  Or why in the world does anyone suppose that people who vote – people who specialize in their daily lives in jobs as diverse yet as narrow as baking, butchering, neurosurgering, massage therapying, teaching economics, writing newspaper columns, driving taxicabs, movie acting, managing department stores, and on and on and on – are, when in the voting booth, endowed with sufficient wisdom and detailed knowledge to have a productive say in how millions of strangers will live their lives?  Such suppositions are senseless.

From pages 193-194 of the 1993 re-issue of Rose Wilder Lane’s beautiful 1943 volume, The Discovery of Freedom (original emphasis).  

Thursday, November 28, 2013

“I don’t recall” 80 times- Why is this person IRS Chief Counsel - Liar or Idiot?

“I don’t recall” 80 times- Why is this person IRS Chief Counsel - Liar or Idiot?
IRS SCANDAL UPDATE: William Wilkins, IRS Chief Counsel, Testifies on Targeting of Tea-Party Groups.
Behind the scenes and nearly six months after the scandal first made headlines, the House Oversight Committee is quietly continuing its investigation of the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of tea-party groups. Since May, congressional investigators have interviewed over 30 witnesses and examined thousands of pages of documents.

The latest official called to testify before committee investigators is an important one: IRS chief counsel William Wilkins. Wilkins is one of just two political appointees at the IRS, a generous donor to Democratic candidates and causes, and once represented Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ. Evidence of his involvement in the targeting would spell trouble for the White House and bring renewed focus to a scandal that has largely receded from public consciousness.

The Oversight Committee has furnished none, to date, but it is expressing gross dissatisfaction with Wilkins’s testimony and, in a letter sent to him on Wednesday, offering him the opportunity to amend it. “In your testimony, you stated ‘I don’t recall’ a staggering 80 times in full or partial response to the Committee’s questions,” committee chairman Darrell Issa and Ohio representative Jim Jordan wrote. “Your failure to recollect important aspects of the Committee’s investigation suggests either a deliberate attempt to obfuscate your involvement in this matter or gross incompetence on your part.”

The most pertinent subject on which Wilkins’s memory failed him was the nature of his communications with Treasury Department officials: in particular, whether he discussed the applications of tea-party groups with anybody at the Treasury Department, whether he discussed with Treasury Department officials regulatory guidance for 501(c)(4) entities engaged in political activities, and whether he discussed with them the inspector general’s report that blew the lid off of the targeting scandal in mid May.

My prediction: Yes, yes, and oh, Hell yes.

4

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

OBAMA LIES & IRAN LAUGHS

OBAMA LIES & IRAN LAUGHS

Iran: White House Lying About Details of Nuke Deal
Iranian officials say White House fact sheet is ‘invalid’
 Whitehouse / Wikimedia CommonsWhite House / Wikimedia Commons
   
BY: Adam Kredo
November 26, 2013 4:25 pm

Iranian officials say that the White House is misleading the public about the details of an interim nuclear agreement reached over the weekend in Geneva.

Iran and Western nations including the United States came to an agreement on the framework for an interim deal late Saturday night in Geneva. The deal has yet to be implemented

The White House released a multi-page fact sheet containing details of the draft agreement shortly after the deal was announced.

However, Iranian foreign ministry official on Tuesday rejected the White House’s version of the deal as “invalid” and accused Washington of releasing a factually inaccurate primer that misleads the American public.

“What has been released by the website of the White House as a fact sheet is a one-sided interpretation of the agreed text in Geneva and some of the explanations and words in the sheet contradict the text of the Joint Plan of Action, and this fact sheet has unfortunately been translated and released in the name of the Geneva agreement by certain media, which is not true,” Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marziyeh Afkham told the Iranian press on Tuesday.

Afkham and officials said that the White House has “modified” key details of the deal and released their own version of the agreement in the fact sheet.

Iran’s right to enrich uranium, the key component in a nuclear weapon, is fully recognized under the draft released by Tehran.

OBAMA COLLAPSES IN OHIO

PREFERENCE CASCADE: Obama Approval Falls to 50 Percent in Home State, Collapses in Ohio.
In Ohio, a new Quinnipiac poll has Obama’s approval rating at 34 percent positive and 61 percent negative. Compare that to the president’s four-point win over Mitt Romney just a year ago. “This is a state considered to be a national bellwether,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the poll. “Now Obama is approved by 30 percent of men, 38 percent of women, 27 percent of white voters, and 83% of black voters.”

If this kind of collapse is seen in other key large states, expect Democrats returning to Washington from the holidays to begin talking about open mutiny against the White House over Obamacare.

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

HE HAS YOUR NAME & INTIMATE INFORMATION NOW

HE HAS YOUR NAME & INTIMATE INFORMATION NOW
DAVID STEINBERG: Rigging The Future: Obamacare Creates 50 New State Databases With No Function Beyond Gathering Potential Voter Information, Real or Fraudulent. “These new databases mail out voter registration forms automatically. You cannot refuse them. No worthwhile verification occurs before the forms are mailed. Apply for Medicaid and the form will be mailed to you, be you a verifiable citizen or Ayman al-Zawahiri on a computer in Pakistan. Further, these new databases are accessible by groups like Organizing For America, the reconstituted ACORN, and malevolent figures like Chris Tarango. And no reasonable purpose exists for creating the databases besides making them available to the aforementioned Democratic activists.”

OBAMA TO STUFF TURKEY WITH OBAMACARE- UGH!

OBAMA TO STUFF TURKEY WITH OBAMACARE- UGH!
Forget the turkey; stuff yourself with health care talk.

Dave Martin, AP)
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
The Obama administration thinks the holidays are the perfect time to gather round and discuss Obamacare.
Obama's Organizing for Action has launched a website with helpful tips about how to have 'the talk.'
This isn't the first time Team Obama's happily invaded realms previously viewed as non-political.

Loathe peaceful holidays? Detest the spirit of agreeableness and good will that tends to pervade during this time of year? Well, if you're longing for it to be 'tis the season of debates, irritations, and shouting matches, you're in luck: The Obama administration thinks the holidays are the perfect time to gather round and discuss … Obamacare.


Wary about the effect bringing up the most polarizing political topic among your relatives and friends who likely span the blue-purple-red spectrum will have? Don't be, because President Barack Obama's Organizing for Action has launched a website with helpful tips about how to have "the talk." (Here's my first tip: If any adolescents or preteens are present, you might want to use a different phrase than "the talk" when broaching the subject if you don't want an instant exodus.)

The tips including asking your family and guests coming over for the holiday to bring the information they'd need to sign up for Obamacare, because it's absolutely not awkward at all to tell someone you'd like him to bring wine and oh, his social security number and annual salary, too. You're advised to bring up Obamacare during "family time … downtime after meals or between holiday activities." Perfect: When your family is curled up in chairs in a turkey/stuffing/pumpkin pie-induced stupor, you can cut off the idle reminisces about bygone days and football and kids saying the cutest things, and launch that super festive health-care conversation that's sure to have everyone bursting into a rollicking round of kumbaya, despite that pesky little fact that poll after poll shows the country is sharply divided on this issue.

This isn't the first time Team Obama's happily invaded realms previously viewed as non-political. During the presidential election, Obama's campaign e-mailed supporters, asking, "Got a birthday, anniversary, or wedding coming up?" If so, "let your friends know how important this election is to you – register with Obama 2012, and ask for a donation in lieu of a gift."

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Fuzzy language con’t.

Fuzzy language con’t.

A murderer is “contained” by the police before being shot.
A child “allegedly shot” dies from his head wound.
An “initial interim step” has been reached in the nuclear agreement with Iran.
A book reviewer notes the writer’s “ivy-covered prose that crinkles with rectitude.”
Can’t anyone ANYONE speak with Lincolnesque clarity anymore?

Friday, November 22, 2013

ObaMeDontCare

ObaMeDontCare

What Obama never learned from Hayek:
“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”
–F.A. Hayek in The Fatal Conceit.
JARGON OVER REASON:
Don't forget, they're not Obamacare "taxes", they're "shared responsibility payments."

NYT's claim that Obama had made an "incorrect promise."
Funny how reality just doesn't appreciate the magic of 'good intentions'.

NY Times: "mistaken promise".

Orwell rules.  Democrats are trying to re-frame ObamaCare’s failed launch as an “incorrect promise” or a “mistaken promise.”  Democrats, however, have no lock on meaningless but addictive language. I heard an ad from Direct Buy that claimed to sell an “aspirational style of fashion-forward furniture.”  Nothing real here either, but surely appealing deception.  






Tuesday, November 19, 2013

ANSWER: NO, HELL NO!

ANSWER: NO, HELL NO!
OBAMA TO FAITHFUL ROBOTIC FOLLOWERS ON 11/18/13
A downbeat President Barack Obama repeatedly asked his worried supporters Monday night to help resurrect his spirits, following weeks of political disasters and personal humiliations caused by the cascading collapse of Obamacare. The distracted president railed against opponents and at one point appeared to forget the number of people in the Obamacare system during the rambling quarter-hour address.

“My main message is I’m going to need your help, your energy, your faith, your ability to reach out to neighbors, kids and friends [and] co-workers,” he told listeners to the Internet broadcast arranged by his grassroots group, Organizing for Action.

But his worried followers would also benefit from proselytizing for Obama and Obamacare, Obama suggested.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/11/19/morose-obama-asks-his-base-for-psychological-intervention/#ixzz2l6LTH3R8

Monday, November 18, 2013

President and his team just aren’t up to the job

 President and his team just aren’t up to the job
PETER INGEMI: You know when playing “follow the leader” with a political party is a problem? When that leader lies through his teeth and you mimic him.

ANOTHER UPDATE: National Journal: President Obama and His Gang That (Still) Isn’t Shooting Straight: Incompetence, deception and lack of accountability still hound White House and health reform. “Incompetence, deception and lack of accountability doomed the Obamacare rollout. That’s old news. What’s new? The nagging durability of the White House’s incompetence, deception and lack of accountability.”

THAT CLINT EASTWOOD EMPTY CHAIR SKETCH WAS SPOT-ON, WASN’T IT?

This was eyepopping. Obamacare is the single most important initiative of his presidency. The website rollout was, as the President himself has repeatedly stated, the most important element of the law’s debut. Domestically speaking there was no higher priority for the President and his staff than getting this right. And the President is telling the world that a week before the disaster he had no idea how that website was doing.

Reflect on that for a moment. The President of the United States is sitting in the Oval Office day after day. The West Wing is stuffed with high power aides. His political appointees sit atop federal bureaucracies, monitoring the work of the career staff around them. The President has told his core team, over and over, that the health care law and the website rollout are his number one domestic priorities.

And with all this, neither he nor, apparently, anyone in his close circle of aides and advisors knew that the website was a disaster. Vapid, blind, idly flapping their lips; they pushed paper, attended meetings and edited memos as the roof came crashing down. It is one thing to fail; it is much, much worse not to see failure coming. There is no way to construe this as anything but a world class flop.

And just one of many from this administration. Like I said, Clint was spot on. And much as I love Walter Russell Mead, I note that he voted for this guy, and blandly assumed that an Ivy League pedigree was some sort of assurance of competence. Not so much. And it’s not as if the signs weren’t there, for those able to see them.

Plus:
As more people reflect on the President’s extraordinary press conference, the public sense that the President and his team just aren’t up to the job will inevitably grow. It was a jaw dropping moment of naked self revelation, and the more one reflects on it the more striking it becomes. The President of the United States didn’t know that his major domestic priority wasn’t ready for prime time—and he thinks that sharing this news with us will somehow make it better. It is moments of this kind that give epithets like “Carteresque” their sting.

That’s unfair to Jimmy Carter, whose style ran more toward micromanagement than to obliviousness.

Sunday, November 17, 2013

opposed by all right-thinking people

I was going to only send this quote to Lauren as a follow-up to SKYPE conversation; but, I realized all should memorize it for whenever you have a discussion with a socialist, statist, Keynesian or liberal.

ROBERT HEINLEIN QUOTE:
“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty... This is known as “bad luck.”

Any European worth their salt would agree that the ‘extremely small minority’ should be ‘kept from creating’ and ‘driven out of society’.  Americans once put the emphasis on the first sentence (that poverty is the normal condition)  but under leaders like Obama,  more and more emphasis is being put on the European interpretation because liberals like Obama want to take from the producers and give to the ‘less fortunate’ to equalize outcomes.  And they never see the final outcome, ‘bad luck’.

Or as G.W.F. Hegal said “ the owl of Minerva spreads its wings only at the gathering of the dusk”; a rough modern translation ‘ he never saw the bus that hit him’.

Monday, November 11, 2013

OBAMACARE & YOU

OBAMACARE & YOU
Please share how ObamaCare has affected you, your kin and friends.
1. Has your current Health Insurance been canceled?
2. Have your work hours been cut to 29 hours or less?
3. Has your employer dropped Health Insurance coverage?
4. Have you tried getting insurance from the ObamaCare web site?
    If so, is it more or less expensive that your old insurance?
Give your story, family and friends.

I can report that one of my sons has had his Private Health Insurance canceled as of Jan. 1st.  At the same time his employer has cut a large portion of employees to 27 hr. or less.  And his trip through the ObamaCare website produced a resounding “ we don’t know” regarding what he needs to do.

Friday, November 08, 2013

TRUST OBAMA - HO, HO ,HO

ROGER SIMON: How can we possibly trust Obama on Iran?
Related: Under Obama, Iran Keeps Nukes While Americans Lose Health Insurance. Ouch.

JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: America’s Not-So-Great Recovery, in 1 chart. Well, make that 2 charts. The second chart doesn’t make it better. . . .
Related: Census on Obama’s 1st Term: Real Median Income Down $2,627; People in Poverty Up 6,667,000; Record 46,496,000 Now Poor.

TRUST OBAMA - HO, HO ,HO

ROGER SIMON: How can we possibly trust Obama on Iran?
Related: Under Obama, Iran Keeps Nukes While Americans Lose Health Insurance. Ouch.

JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: America’s Not-So-Great Recovery, in 1 chart. Well, make that 2 charts. The second chart doesn’t make it better. . . .
Related: Census on Obama’s 1st Term: Real Median Income Down $2,627; People in Poverty Up 6,667,000; Record 46,496,000 Now Poor.

Who can stand it?

News flashes for the day on local radio  include death to trans fats, bath salts and child porn and the birth of a full-time SWAT team? Who can stand it?  

Thursday, November 07, 2013

THE PRESS AS STOOGES FOR OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

THE PRESS AS STOOGES FOR OBAMA ADMINISTRATION
Pro-Obamacare team trains reporters on covering Obamacare website problems
BY JOEL GEHRKE | NOVEMBER 6, 2013 AT 5:44 PM
TOPICS: BELTWAY CONFIDENTIAL OBAMACARE MEDIA HEALTHCARE.GOV
Photo - Reporters with the Society of American Business Editors and Writers received "training" on how to cover Obamacare's rollout from a policy expert who works with a former Obama adviser. (Thinkstock)
Reporters with the Society of American Business Editors and Writers received "training" on how to...
Reporters with the Society of American Business Editors and Writers received "training" on how to cover Obamacare's rollout from a policy expert who works with President Obama's former health information technology adviser.

The Commonwealth Fund's Sara Collins claimed during the training that healthcare.gov's chronic dysfunctionality does not signify "deeper issues" with the law.

What is surprising is that an organization claiming to represent professional journalists would endorse "training" delivered by advocates for the program they are covering, which would violate SABEW's code of ethics.

That code encourages journalists to "avoid any practice that might compromise or appear to compromise objectivity or fairness."


QUESTION: What’s worse - the IRS or a Felon Navigator getting all your personal data?
WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Health care law allows hiring convicted felons as Obamacare navigators.

Sunday, November 03, 2013

OBAMA SAYS: SINGLE MEN MUST CARRY “MATERNITY

OBAMA SAYS: SINGLE MEN MUST CARRY “MATERNITY, LACTATION, MAMMOGRAM AND ABORTION” COVERAGE UNDER OBAMACARE
LARRY KUDLOW: Liberal entitlement-state dream is crumbling.
“As a 60-something male, relatively healthy person, I don’t want lactation and maternity services, abortion services, speech therapy, mammograms, fertility treatments or Viagra. I don’t want it. So why should I have to tear up my existing health-care plan, and then buy a plan with far more expensive premiums and deductibles, and with services I don’t need or want?”
Why? Because Team Obama says I have to. And that’s not much of a reason. It’s not freedom.

Will $36.00 a month make or break your budget?

Will $36.00 a month make or break your budget? Not if you have ½ a brain or even 1/4 of your grey cells  functioning. Yet, liberals claim that removing $36.00 of welfare money under SNAP will lead to lines at the food banks, perhaps even dire shortages.  Remember,  the $36 represents what was ADDED to payments and now is being taken away. $36.00 could have bought 12 boxes of Oatmeal or 12 bags of rice but they never will for the ‘poor.’. Once free money can buy ‘anything,’ the only thing that it will not buy is cheap, sensible,  nutritious and  reasonable selections of food.  Ground turkey at $2.00 a lb. could substitute for hamburger at $? a lb. ( I don’t know the cost  because I’ve hamburger not on discount special is too expensive for a common sense purchase).  Whatever! You get the point.  Taking $36.00 from the ‘poor’ should not be critical in a ‘poor’  family of 4's budget.  Get real!   Making a mountain out of mole hill of $36.00 -  is only possible in the unreal world of liberals and phoney poverty.

Yeah, Obama Lied, But He Had To Because You’re Stupid

NEW SPIN: Yeah, Obama Lied, But He Had To Because You’re Stupid. That should sell.

TWEET OF THE DAY: You can’t blame “politics” for the Obamacare website disaster when you lied to get it passed and then again during the entire 2012 campaign.

SULTAN KNISH: Government Is Magic:
“Our technocracy is detached from competence. It’s not the technocracy of engineers, but of “thinkers” who read Malcolm Gladwell and Thomas Friedman and watch TED talks and savor the flavor of competence, without ever imbibing its substance.

These are the people who love Freakonomics, who enjoy all sorts of mental puzzles, who like to see an idea turned on its head, but who couldn’t fix a toaster.

The ObamaCare website is the natural spawn of that technocracy who love the idea of using modernity to make things faster and easier, but have no idea what anything costs or how it works.

It’s hard to have a functioning technocracy without engineers. A technocracy made in Silicon Valley with its complete disregard for anything outside its own ego zone would be bad enough. But this is a Bloombergian technocracy of billionaires and activists, of people who think that “progress” makes things work, rather than things working leading to progress.

Healthcare.gov showed us that behind all the smoother and shinier designs was the same old clunky government where everything gets done because the right companies hire the right lobbyists and everything costs ten times what it should.

A government that can’t build a health care website isn’t likely to be very good at running health care for 330 million people. But the technocrats aren’t so concerned with being good as with being in charge.”

WAPO: How Political Calculation Won Out Over Technical Considerations with HealthCare.gov. “They were running the biggest start-up in the world, and they didn’t have anyone who had run a start-up, or even run a business.”

LARRY KUDLOW: Liberal entitlement-state dream is crumbling.
“As a 60-something male, relatively healthy person, I don’t want lactation and maternity services, abortion services, speech therapy, mammograms, fertility treatments or Viagra. I don’t want it. So why should I have to tear up my existing health-care plan, and then buy a plan with far more expensive premiums and deductibles, and with services I don’t need or want?”

Why? Because Team Obama says I have to. And that’s not much of a reason. It’s not freedom.

Fortunately, NBC News pulled the plug this past week on President Barack Obama’s promise that “if you like your own plan, you can keep it.” Ditto for keeping your own doctor. The plug was pulled because NBC learned that Team Obama knew—for three years—that stiff new regulations would prevent the grandfathering of existing health-care plans. And not just a few plans. But plans that could affect as many as 15 million individuals.

The day after that bombshell hit, the president tried to blame insurers rather than regulatory overkill for this Obamacare shortfall. Yet both the public and the mainstream media were having none of it. In what may turn out to be a landmark moment, Americans and the media at large have turned against the president and Obamacare.

MARK STEYN: A Phalanx of Lies: Remember that health insurance you could keep?
“Gloria Borger and CNN seem inclined to swallow the line that the president of the United States is not aware that he is president of the United States: For the media, just a spoonful of bovine manure makes the Obamacare medicine go down. It remains to be seen whether the American citizenry will be so genially indulgent. Hitherto, most of what the president claims to be unaware of, they are genuinely unaware of: Few people have plans to vacation in Benghazi, or shoot the breeze with Angela Merkel on her cell phone. But Obamacare is different: Whether or not the president is unaware of it, the more than 2 million Americans (at the time of writing) kicked off their current health-care plans are most certainly aware of it.”

BIG ‘OBAMACARE’ KNOWS ALL

WAIT UNTIL IT IS YOUR TURN TO CALL THE OBAMACARE 800 NUMBER
BIG ‘OBAMACARE’ KNOWS ALL
‘How did they know?’ Jim Angle shares disturbing experience with Obamacare 800 number
Posted at 9:42 am on November 2, 2013 by Twitchy Staff |
Jim Angle @JimAngleFox
I was calling from an unlisted number & gave personal cell as my phone. How did they know? I have no idea but he wouldn't answer questions.
Jim Angle @JimAngleFox
.@JimAngleFox called 800 number for Obamacare from unlisted number to ask questions and they REFUSED. They knew he was from the media. Wow.
6:14 PM - 1 Nov 2013
Well, that seems newsworthy. We’re sure MSNBC will be all over this one.
Fox News correspondent Jim Angle described what happened when he reached out to the Obamacare call center.
Jim Angle @JimAngleFox
I call the http://healthcare.gov  800 #, give my name & address, then put on hold. The guy comes back & says you appear to be in the media.
6:51 PM - 1 Nov 2013
I call the http://healthcare.gov  800 #, give my name & address, then put on hold. The guy comes back & says you appear to be in the media.
Jim Angle @JimAngleFox
He told me a "an advanced resolution specialist" would call me in 2-5 business days. That will be interesting.

Saturday, November 02, 2013

Obama is all sham, no wow!

Obama is all sham, no wow!
LOOK AT THE DATE FOLKS!  OBAMA’S MINIONS WERE PLOTTING AGAINST THE TEA PARTY 2 WEEKS AFTER HE WAS INAUGURATED IN 2009!
The Internal Revenue Service shared highly confidential tax information of several Tea Party groups in the IRS scandal with the Federal Election Commission, a clear violation of federal law, according to newly obtained emails.
The information, sent via email, to the FEC came in response to the organization’s questions about whether the IRS had granted tax-exempt status to the Tea Party groups. It is unclear how the information the IRS sent was going to help the FEC, since the IRS hadn’t determined the tax status of the groups yet.
The email chain began Feb. 3, 2009, when the FEC made it’s request to Lerner.
By Paul Bedard, The Washington Examiner

OBAMACARE LIED, HEALTHCARE DIED: John Hinderaker combs through the Federal Register for the history.

Posted at 7:20 am by Glenn Reynolds  
THE EMPEROR’S NEW PANTS ARE ON FIRE: Poll: 71% of Voters Believe Obama Knew Premiums Would Skyrocket For Some Americans.

IT’S COME TO THIS: ABC News: How Obama Measures Up Against Other TV Pitchmen. Plus a clip reel comparing him to his ShamWow-style competition.

But then, as Rand Simberg famously observed a while back, Obama is all sham, no wow.

IT’S COME TO THIS: Jimmy Carter Slams Obama’s Ineptitude. “It may be that Jimmy Carter has a right to sit in judgment of Barack Obama. Which is among the worst things that could be said about America’s 44th president.”

Friday, November 01, 2013

$285 BILLION GOVERNMENT PROGRAM = GREAT ‘FLUSHING’ SOUND

$285 BILLION GOVERNMENT PROGRAM = GREAT ‘FLUSHING’ SOUND
(Don Boudreaux)
The nearly $3 billion “Cash for Clunkers” program approved by Congress in 2009 did little to boost the environment and created few jobs, a new study released Wednesday found.
A Brookings Institution study found the $2.85 billion program “provided a short-term boost in vehicle sales, which were pulled forward from sales that would have occurred in subsequent months. There was a small increase in employment but the implied cost per job created ($1.4 million) was far higher than other fiscal stimulus programs.”
…. so starts this report in the Detroit News.
(HT Dan Polsby)
A question: How much criticism will Alan Blinder receive for his failed prediction that this program would create plenty of jobs?  Here’s about as perfect an example as reality will ever serve up of a government policy built on the absurd premise that prosperity can spring from destruction – a policy, of course, pushed on Keynesian grounds.  And yet people will continue, I’m sure, to promote such counter-productive destructive policies as creators of prosperity, and these people will continue to be hailed by legions of intellectuals as being “reality-based” and “scientific.”

6 A DAY DIVIDED INTO 315 MILLION AMERICANS - I CAN’T EVEN DO THE MATH!

TRUST GOVERNMENT - WHAT YOU THINK WE ARE IDIOTS!
6 A DAY DIVIDED IN 315 MILLION AMERICANS - I CAN’T EVEN DO THE MATH!
CBS NEWS: Only 6 People Enrolled In ObamaCare On First Day.
For 31 days now, the Obama administration has been telling us that Americans by the millions are visiting the new health insurance website, despite all its problems.

But no one in the administration has been willing to tell us how many policies have been purchased, and this may be the reason: CBS News has learned enrollments got off to an incredibly slow start.

Early enrollment figures are contained in notes from twice-a-day “war room” meetings convened within the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services after the website failed on Oct. 1. They were turned over in response to a document request from the House Oversight Committee.

The website launched on a Tuesday. Publicly, the government said there were 4.7 million unique visits in the first 24 hours. But at a meeting Wednesday morning, the war room notes say “six enrollments have occurred so far.”

They were with BlueCross BlueShield North Carolina and Kansas City, CareSource and Healthcare Service Corporation.

By Wednesday afternoon, enrollments were up to “approximately 100.” By the end of Wednesday, the notes reflect “248 enrollments” nationwide.

The health care exchanges need to average 39,000 enrollees a day to meet the goal of seven million by March 1. The war room notes give a glimpse into some of the reasons customers had problems:

“Direct enrollment (signing up directly on an insurer’s website) is not working for any issuers.”
“Experian” credit reporting agency is “creating confusion with credit check information.”
“Issuer phone numbers are not appearing correctly on the Pay Now page.”
The notes leave no doubt that some enrollment figures, which the administration has chosen to keep secret, are available.

“Statistics coming in,” said notes from the very first meeting the morning of Oct. 2. Contractor “QSSI has a daily dashboard created every night.”

But head of CMS Marilyn Tavenner would not disclose any figures when Rep. Dave Camp, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, asked earlier this week.

“Chairman Camp, we will have those numbers available in mid-November,” she said.

Health and Human Services told CBS News Thursday it’s in no position to confirm or discuss enrollment figures because it doesn’t have any.

I believe she was under oath when she said that, wasn’t she?