Saturday, June 6, 2015

H. Cartoon


Hawaii abandons troubled state ObamaCare exchange


The State Obama was born in drops ObamaCare Exchange, What the ##!!?

Hawaii is taking its troubled ObamaCare insurance exchange off life support, the governor’s office announced Friday, the latest addition to a growing number of state exchanges forced to close after operations became unsustainable.
The once-highly praised Hawaii Health Connector has been “unable to generate sufficient revenues to sustain operations,” Gov. David Ige’s office said in a statement. The federal Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) informed the exchange last week that federal funds were no longer available to support long-term operations.
“The state is working with the Connector and CMS to determine what functions can be transitioned to state oversight to ensure compliance with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) by the next Open Enrollment in November 2015,” Ige said.
Ige said that Hawaii will maintain a Supported State-based Marketplace in which the state would provide local customer support.
Grant funds had been restricted in March after the exchange told officials it was not in compliance with the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as ObamaCare, due to fiscal instability and tech issues.
The shutdown comes after federal taxpayers dropped more than $200 million into the exchange, which critics called a waste of taxpayer money.
"The $200 million was a complete waste of tax dollars that could have been used for much more productive efforts," Reg Baker, a well-known CPA in Hawaii who for many years was the chief financial officer for the health insurance plan, HMAA, told FoxNews.com last month.
While many of the state's Democrats praised the ObamaCare exchange when it launched in October 2013, it was riddled with trouble from the start. The web portal never worked properly despite the state spending $74 million on a contract with CGI to build and maintain it.
The exchange experienced tremendous staff turnover, with three executive directors appointed in two years. Enrollment reached just over 8,500 in the first year, and as a result, Hawaii was ranked the most costly exchange in the nation at more than $23,899 per person.
Enrollment never reached the 300,000 number then-Gov. Neil Abercrombie, a Democrat, enthusiastically predicted at the opening press conference launching the Connector. The enrollment number also never hit 70,000, the minimum needed to stay financially solvent. At its peak, enrollment reached 37,000, a fraction of the state's 1.4 million people. Hawaii's uninsured population, at 8 percent when the exchange opened, dropped just 2 percent.
“The state remains committed to offering health care coverage through the Prepaid Health Care Act as it has for the past 40 years,” Ige said Friday. “The state continues to provide millions of dollars to serve 300,000 Hawaii adults and children who receive health care coverage through Medicaid.”
Hawaii is not the only ObamaCare exchange to be plagued by troubles. Despite the government investing $4.5 billion into state-run exchanges, Oregon, Massachusetts, Maryland, Vermont, New Mexico and Nevada have also shut down their operations.



Bias Alert: NY Times under fire for ‘scoop’ on Rubio traffic citations


The New York Times was being accused of a hit-and-run Friday after swerving at Sen. Marco Rubio with a detailed exposé of sorts -- on his family's traffic violations. 
The nearly 700-word article, accompanied by 10 pages of court documents, detailed how the Republican presidential candidate and his wife have been cited 17 times for traffic infractions -- everything from speeding to careless driving.
"Senator Marco Rubio has been in a hurry to get to the top," the newspaper quipped. "... But politics is not the only area where Mr. Rubio, a Republican from Florida, has an affinity for the fast track."
Beneath the eye-catching headline and opening, however, the Times clarified that most of those tickets were for his wife Jeanette. The records dating back to 1997 showed Rubio himself only got four.
That's roughly one traffic ticket every five years.
What a scofflaw?
The Rubio campaign, however, quickly turned the story into a fundraising opportunity.
"If the press is going to park its attention on silly stories like this one, we have to pass them and talk directly to voters" said a statement from campaign headquarters that then offered a link to click on for donations "to help Marco get this message straight to voters."
The report was widely mocked by fellow Republicans on social media Friday, as the Rubio campaign offered a brief statement from his traffic attorney Alex Hanna in response.
"Senator Rubio's license has always been in good standing. This matter was resolved by the court system and at no point was the license suspended by the D.M.V.," Hanna said.
Meanwhile, The Washington Free Beacon reported that a Democratic opposition research firm's fingerprints appeared to be on the story. The Free Beacon reported the group American Bridge pulled the citations mentioned in the article in late May, according to Miami-Dade County court records.
The Times reporters' names did not show up on those docket records, according to the Free Beacon.
Politico, though, reported that The New York Times denied the claim, with the newspaper saying they "came across this on our own."
"We hired a document retrieval service in Florida and got copies of the paper records ourselves," Times Washington bureau chief Carolyn Ryan told Politico. A Times representative confirmed the statement to FoxNews.com.
The article itself provided a detailed history of the Rubios' traffic stops. "On four separate occasions they agreed to attend remedial driving school after a violation," the Times reported.
Rubio reportedly was cited for careless driving in 1997, and was ticketed for speeding in 2009. There were two other incidents, in 2011 and 2012.
Rubio's wife, meanwhile, reportedly was stopped in 2010 for driving 23 m.p.h. in a 15 m.ph. school zone -- and fined $185, for driving eight miles over the speed limit. Hanna apparently helped get some citations dismissed in recent years.
This rich history of the Rubios' driving troubles provided a springboard for an avalanche of snarky tweets and blogs Friday afternoon.
The Media Research Center's Tim Graham mocked the Times' "scoop," saying they made those four tickets sound "quite serious."
"So we've already reached the bottom of the oppo barrel, have we?" Republican strategist Rick Wilson tweeted.

'Dividing Americans': Potential GOP rivals assail Clinton over fiery voting law speech


Accusing her of "dividing Americans" and political pandering, several of Hillary Clinton's potential Republican rivals fired back Friday after the Democratic frontrunner accused them of trying to make it more difficult for Americans -- particularly minorities and young people -- to vote. 
Clinton spoke Thursday at Texas Southern University, an historically black institution in Houston. In one of her most partisan speeches as a White House candidate, she directly criticized Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry.
She described them as members of a GOP vanguard that has made it more difficult for students to vote, cut the numbers of days set aside for early voting and demanded voter ID provisions.
In perhaps her most pointed line, she said: "We have a responsibility to say clearly and directly what's really going on in our country -- because what is happening is a sweeping effort to disempower and disenfranchise people of color, poor people, and young people from one end of our country to the other."
Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Republican considering a presidential run, accused Clinton on Friday of "demagoguery."
"Don't be running around the country dividing Americans," he told Fox News.
Kasich's state is also on the other end of a related lawsuit filed in part by Clinton campaign lawyer Marc Elias.
That suit claims Ohio's voting restrictions are designed to suppress minority and young voters. It calls for halting a number of measures including laws that restrict the casting of absentee and provisional ballots and limit the times and locations for early voting -- such as abolishing an early voting period known as "Golden Week" in which voters could register and cast an in-person ballot the same day.
However, Ohio has an extensive early-voting period of nearly a month. And Kasich noted Clinton's state of New York doesn't even offer that kind of early-voting period.
"Don't come in and say we are trying to keep people from voting when her own state has less opportunity for voting," Kasich told Fox News. "And she is going to sue my state? That's just silly."
Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted also said Ohio is a "national leader in voter access," urging Clinton to "tell her attorneys" to drop the lawsuit.
The lawsuit is not officially connected to the Clinton campaign, though the candidate has since made voting laws a big issue in her run.
In Thursday's speech, she alleged, "Republicans are systematically and deliberately trying to stop millions of American citizens from voting." She also called for automatic voter registration for all Americans when they turn 18, unless they opt out, and for 20-day early voting in all states.
Directly challenging Republicans by name, which Clinton has largely avoided until now, she plunged into a partisan debate over voting rights that has roiled statehouses across the country. Democrats contend restricting voter access and registration purposely aims to suppress turnout among minority and low-income voters. Republicans say the voting changes are crucial to guard against voter fraud.
Under Walker, for example, Wisconsin requires proof of residency except for overseas and military voters. The state shortened the early voting period and increased residency requirements.
In a statement, Walker responded to the criticism leveled by the Democratic candidate: "Hillary Clinton's rejection of efforts to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat not only defies logic, but the will of the majority of Americans. Once again, Hillary Clinton's extreme views are far outside the mainstream."
Clinton said that in New Jersey, Christie had vetoed a bill to extend early voting. She said as Florida's governor, Bush had conducted a "deeply flawed" purge of eligible voters, by having the names of people who were mistakenly thought to be felons removed from voting rolls.
Perry, who announced his presidential campaign earlier Thursday, approved laws in Texas that discriminated against minority voters, Clinton said.
Christie, at a stop in New Hampshire Friday, said, "Secretary Clinton doesn't know the first thing about voting rights in New Jersey ... or in the other states that she attacked." He said she just wants "an opportunity to commit greater acts [of] voter fraud around the country."
Perry, speaking with Fox News on Friday morning, defended voter ID laws.
"When I got on the airline to come up here yesterday I had to show my photo ID. Now, Hillary Clinton may not have had to show a photo ID to get onto an airplane in a long time," he quipped. "The people of the state of Texas is who she's taking on. Because that was a law that was passed by the people of the state of Texas. She just went into my home state and dissed every person who supports having an identification to either get onto an airplane or to vote."
Perry declared his presidential campaign Thursday. Bush, Walker and Christie have not yet formally announced a 2016 bid, though Bush's announcement is set for June 15.

Death Plunge: ISIS throws gay men off buildings under guise of Sharia law


The Islamic State has released a series of horrifying photos showing blindfolded men tossed head-first off a building because, ISIS claimed, they were gay.
In photos obtained by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), ISIS militants are shown publicly executing the unidentified men for violating Sharia law.
A crowd of spectators, including children, was gathered below the 100-foot building in Mosul as the men were held by their ankles and then sent plunging to their deaths. The photos were believed to be recent.
The photos were released by ISIS on Wednesday via social media and in a report by the terror group entitled, “Implementation of the Punishment of Those Who Have Committed Acts of Homosexuality” on the jihadist online forum Shumoukh Al-Islam, according to the research group.
Warning: extremely graphic images
The terror group also recently has employed “flirt squads,” in which militants pose as homosexuals in an attempt to lure gay men out into the open for death by public execution.
“ISIS wants the Muslim world to know that it is executing gays because it displays their credentials as enforcers of Sharia law,” Ryan Mauro, a national security analyst for The Clarion Project told FoxNews.com. “There is widespread anti-homosexual sentiment in the Muslim world because of the belief that Sharia requires the execution of gays. Homosexuals are often not only seen as harming themselves but as dire threats to society as a whole.”
The extremist group’s hatred of gays has been widely known, with reports of public executions coming as early as last December.
In recent months, ISIS has publicly executed men accused of homosexuality in both Iraq and Syria by not only throwing them off tall buildings, but by burning them alive or stoning them to death. The accused are often shot if they happen to survive the brutal methods, according to MEMRI.
“You won't see a significant backlash to ISIS' crimes because there is no gay rights movement in the Muslim world and the gay rights advocates in the West are usually silent when it comes to persecution overseas,” Mauro said. “From ISIS' perspective, they only stand to gain from executing gays and telling the world about it.”
Horrified activists in Syria have said in recent reports that ISIS fighters have taken their intolerance to a new low. Photos on social media show the doomed, blindfolded men being hugged just before they are executed.
"ISIS has never forgiven one person," Abu Mohammed Hussam, of the activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently said to FoxNews.com in May. “They kill people and then say... God will forgive. They hug the men to show the people who are watching that ISIS is not at fault."
In addition to homosexuality, ISIS considers several so-called offenses punishable by execution including blasphemy and consorting with the enemy. The Islamic State also publicly stoned a woman to death after she was accused of adultery.

US considering harder stance on Russia, report says

Putin sees that Obama's words 'mean nothing.

The White House is reportedly considering new ways to discourage Russia from meddling in Europe, in what some officials are saying is an updated version to Cold War-era containment.
The Wall Street Journal reports the approach involves beefing up militaries of allies and potential partners and weeding out corrupt governments, which Russia could potentially exploit to gain more influence.
Administration officials also want to expand NATO’s reach to limit Moscow’s orbit. Although including Ukraine or Georgia in the organization remains off the table, the Pentagon would be open to consider the small Balkan country of Montenegro to solidify its ties with the West and to show that Russia does not have veto power over alliance expansion.
The latest policy talks comes as President Barack Obama meets with world powers in Germany, where he is expected to push the topic of more Russian sanctions as the tension in Ukraine escalates even further.
U.S. officials have acknowledged that the latest sanctions have not made President Vladimir Putin change his ways, and they have voiced concerns about escalating violence in Ukraine and the use of heavy artillery that was supposed to be restricted by the cease-fire deal.
“It’s clear the sanctions are working on the Russian economy, but what is not apparent is that that effect on his economy is deterring Putin from following the course that was evidenced in Crimea last year,” said Defense Secretary Ash Carter, noting that Russian aggression would be “an enduring challenge.”
Officials say the long-term measures being discussed stem from Moscow not backing down after its territorial grab in Ukraine last year. The measures would include increasing training for European allies to resist Russia’s training of surrogate forces and conducting surprise border exercises.
The Pentagon is also drafting plans for where to position different stocks of military equipment for use in a crisis or for an advance in training exercises, the newspaper reports. That would entail an increase presence of U.S. troops in the region. However, Washington is still opposed to rebuild troop formations in Europe.
U.S. officials have acknowledged that there are different views between Europe and NATO on how to approach Russia’s aggression. Gen. Martin Dempsey told The Wall Street Journal in an interview that Russia has a whole host of capabilities to threaten its neighbors.
Dempsey said the U.S. must work with its European allies to fend off Russia’s pressure.
Others within the Obama administration do not necessarily agree how powerful Russia is.
The Journal, citing current and former officials, reports Obama is more skeptical that Moscow represents a long-term challenge and is wary of making Putin a bigger enemy than it has to be.
Secretary of State John Kerry said after a meeting with Putin last month that the two sides will work on issues of common interest.
Officials within the Pentagon reportedly have begun using harsher military terms such as deterrence instead of reassurance, the newspaper reports.
Some officials believe the U.S. must counter Russian moves in Europe. Others believe the U.S. should weaken Russia’s ability to use economic leverage to gain influence in eastern and southern Euroep.
If the U.S. can strengthen democratic institutions, professionalize militaries and curb corruption in countries, The Kremlin will have fewer ways to extend its influence, officials say.
The latest U.S. approach to expanding the NATO alliance can demonstrate the U.S. has more allies and Moscow has few friends than it believes. Such approach puts Montenegro in the spotlight of such debate.
Montenegro defense minister Milica Pejanovic-Djurisic said in an interview in her country that it is ready to join NATO.
“In the face of all the instability that is appearing in the East of Europe, strengthening security in the Balkans is part of the solution for the overall situation we are all in right now,” she said.
Overall, the U.S. main goal is to help restore post-Cold War security in Europe.

CartoonsTrashyDemsRinos