Obama blames 'bad apple' insurers for canceled coverage

BOSTON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Wednesday that "bad apple" insurance companies, not his signature healthcare law, are to blame for hundreds of thousands of people losing their coverage in the past few weeks.
As administration officials scrambled to fix technical problems on an online insurance marketplace that is central to the success of the Affordable Care Act, Obama blamed private insurers for a separate problem that has critics questioning his honesty.
The president has repeatedly promised that people who are happy with their health plans would not have to change coverage because of the law, known as Obamacare.
But the termination of individual policies has given his Republican opponents additional ammunition to criticize the program they have tried to stop since its inception in Obama's first term.
Republicans' assertion that Obama had broken a major promise to the electorate is potentially more damaging than the glitch-ridden website rollout on October 1.
Obama's approval rating hit a new low in a NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll issued on Wednesday, a result the pollsters attributed to multiple setbacks including the Obamacare problems.
The law requires insurers to offer a higher level of minimum coverage that includes maternity care and mental health treatment, among other benefits. Individuals who do not have policies that meet the new standards may see their coverage canceled at the end of the year, or may find that the monthly payments are beyond what they can afford.
Speaking in Boston, Obama said those who are getting dropped will be able to find new options through the online insurance exchanges, or marketplaces, established under the 2010 law.
"Just shop around in the new marketplace," he said. "You're going to get a better deal."
He also stressed that the law allows Americans to keep bare-bones plans created before the law was signed, as long as insurers did not change or cancel them.
"Remember, before the Affordable Care Act, these bad-apple insurers had free rein every single year to limit the care that you received, or used minor pre-existing conditions to jack up your premiums, or bill you into bankruptcy," Obama said.
America's Health Insurance Plans, the national trade group for insurers, when asked for comment, pointed to its prior fact sheets about which plans are protected.
"Most policies in the individual market are not 'grandfathered' and therefore have to come into compliance with the ACA requirements starting on January 1, 2014 or when those policies renew throughout the year," one document said.

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U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius is sworn in to testify before a House  …

'A BROKEN HEALTHCARE SYSTEM'
The law is the most sweeping new social program since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s.
It is intended to move the United States closer to the goal of universal care by using market-based mechanisms to deliver affordable insurance to less affluent families that have been priced out by decades of rising healthcare costs.
Obama said he would not allow the country to return to the previous system, which gave insurers wide latitude to refuse coverage to consumers that they did not deem profitable.
"I don't think we should go back to the daily cruelties and indignities and constant insecurity of a broken healthcare system," he said.
Technical woes, however, have prevented millions of Americans from exploring those options through the government's HealthCare.gov portal since it was unveiled.
On Capitol Hill, Obama's top health official called the debut a "debacle" as she sought to assure skeptical lawmakers at a congressional hearing that the administration would eventually get the portal to work smoothly.
HealthCare.gov was down over the course of the four-hour hearing.
"Hold me accountable for the debacle," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee.
"I told the president that we were ready to go. Clearly I was wrong," she said.
The security of the site was at "high risk" because of a lack of testing before it opened for enrollment, according to a government memorandum reviewed by Reuters.
Sebelius said HHS is conducting weekly security tests to ensure visitors are protected.
She has drawn intense criticism from Republicans, who have called for her or other senior officials to resign. She seemed to survive the high-profile hearing without further damage. A White House spokesman said after the hearing that Obama has "complete confidence" in Sebelius.
Republicans have sought to derail the healthcare overhaul since Obama took office in 2009, culminating in a 16-day government shutdown this month that has cost the U.S. economy an estimated $24 billion, according to Standard & Poor's ratings agency. Republicans say the program is an unwarranted expansion of the federal government.

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U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is sworn in to testify before a Hou …

The website's woes and insurance plan terminations have given Republicans more ammunition.
"For those who lose the coverage they like, they may also be losing faith in their government," said Michigan Representative Fred Upton, the Republican who oversaw the hearing.
Several Republican senators introduced legislation that would allow insurers to sell more plans that are not compliant with Obamacare. "One of two things is true here - either President Obama was being dishonest or he was disengaged once again," Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said at a news conference.
Despite the drama, the public's assessment of Obamacare has shifted little over the past months. Gallup reported that 36 percent of Americans believe it will make healthcare in the United States better, while 44 percent think it will make things worse - essentially the same as surveys found in August and June.
But the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found Obama's rating fell to just 42 percent of Americans approving of his job performance, down 5 percentage points from earlier this month.
The pollsters attributed the decline to an accumulation of setbacks including allegations of spying by the National Security Agency, the recent government shutdown and the healthcare problems.
GROWING CONCERNS
The growing crisis surrounding Obama's signature legislative achievement could diminish his influence in Congress and threaten his other priorities like immigration reform signed into law in his remaining three years in office.
U.S. presidents have a limited time to enact their agenda in the second term before they start losing influence as lawmakers start worrying about re-election.
Obama spoke at Boston's historic Faneuil Hall, where in 2006 then-Governor Mitt Romney, a Republican, signed a state law that served as a model for Obama's health reforms.
Like Obamacare, that law had a rocky start - state officials delayed some aspects for several months, and the White House says only 123 people signed up in the first month it was available. By the end of the year-long enrollment period, 36,000 had signed up.
The Obama administration likewise expects "a very small number" of people to sign up initially for coverage, Sebelius said. Overall, U.S. officials hope 7 million people sign up in the first year.
The White House has declined to say how many Americans have enrolled so far. It also has asked states that run their own online healthcare exchanges to stop releasing their own data, according to Kevin Counihan, who runs Connecticut's health site.
"The White House is coordinating this stuff and trying to get states to report when they report — once a month," Counihan told reporters. "We'll do it every two weeks."

It's Alive

Exec at HealthCare.gov contractor went to school with first lady, donated to Obama campaign

As the problems pile up for HealthCare.gov, attention is now turning to the relationship between the Canadian company largely responsible for the website and the Obama administration.
Top officials at CGI Federal, a lead contractor tasked with developing the site, have a three-decade link to the Obamas. Toni Townes-Whitley, a senior vice president at CGI Federal, is also a Princeton University classmate of first lady Michelle Obama -- and a political donor.
Mike Caddell, a spokesman for Princeton University, confirmed to FoxNews.com that Townes-Whitley went to the school and graduated in 1985. According to a Princeton alumni publication in 1998, Townes-Whitley also volunteered for the Peace Corps and was stationed in West Africa. She raised six children before returning to work.
Both Townes-Whitley and Michelle Obama are members of the Association of Black Princeton Alumni.
According to Federal Election Commission Records, Townes-Whitley gave $500 in 2011 and 2012 to Obama's reelection campaign, and another $1,000 to the Obama Victory Fund.
Election records also show that Townes-Whitley's boss, George Schindler, the president for U.S. and Canada for CGI Federal's parent company CGI Group, became an Obama 2012 campaign donor after his company won the ObamaCare contract.
But according to OpenSecrets.org, which tracks campaign donations, CGI Group was fairly even-handed when doling out political contributions.
Reps. Frank Wolf of Virginia and Kay Granger of Texas were among the Republican politicians who received donations from the company during the 2012 election cycle.
CGI, a relatively unknown company to many in the U.S., gained national attention after problems with HealthCare.gov turned out to be much more than a short-term glitch. Since its debut on Oct. 1, the software code and basic infrastructure of the site's design have been sharply criticized.
According to a document obtained by the fiscal conservative group FreedomWorks, CGI Federal also was hired by New York housing officials in May to help distribute $1.7 billion in federal Superstorm Sandy relief money.
According to the document, the company, a U.S. subsidiary of the Canada-based CGI Group, states CGI Federal was paid $49,000 for a short-term deal and will get $4.3 million through 2016.

White House knew as early as 2010 millions would lose health plans under ObamaCare

Conservative commentator Marc Thiessen accused President Obama of a “bold-faced lie” Monday after Fox News confirmed the White House knew as early as 2010 that over 10 million people would lose their current doctor under ObamaCare.
Megyn Kelly reported Monday on “The Kelly File” that an IRS regulation pushed by the Department of Health and Human Services in 2010 estimated that millions would be unable to keep their health insurance plan under the Affordable Care Act.
Thiessen told Kelly he believes the Obama administration intended for people to lose their current health insurance, despite Obama’s repeated claims that “if you like your plan, you can keep it.”
“The smoking gun is there in your hand," he said, referring to Kelly’s copy of the IRS form. "Look, they knew."
He claimed the administration needs these Americans to move into the ObamaCare exchanges to subsidize the law for those who cannot afford health insurance.
However, Thiessen said the White House did not prepare for the issues with the law’s website, which are creating a situation where not only will Americans get dumped from their health insurance plan, they will be unable to buy a new one.
“What the unanticipated consequence of this they’re pushing all these millions of people out of the health care that they liked into ObamaCare, except the people can’t get into ObamaCare,” he said.

Smoother Rollout

Half of Americans Get Government Benefits

Newly released data from the U.S. Census Bureau show that in the fourth quarter of 2011, nearly half of all Americans — 49.1 percent — received benefits from one or more government programs.

Out of a population then estimated to be 306.8 million, 151 million received benefits from at least one government agency.

More than 82 million people lived in a household in which one or more people received Medicaid benefits, and 46.4 million people got Medicare benefits.

Nearly 50 million people received Social Security payments, 49 million got food stamps, 20.2 million got Supplemental Security Income, 13.4 million lived in public or subsidized rental housing, 5 million received unemployment compensation, and 3.1 million got veterans' compensation.

About 23.2 million people were in the Women, Infants, and Children program, and 5.8 million received benefits from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, according to the data released on Oct. 22.

Other funds paid out in the last three months of that year include those for Railroad Retirement benefits, workers' compensation, and veterans' educational assistance.

The figures for means-tested programs such as food stamps and Supplemental Security Income include anyone residing in a household in which one or more people received benefits from the program.

The Census Bureau also reported that out of 118.8 million U.S. households, 29.5 percent received Medicare benefits, 20 percent got Medicaid benefits, and 32 percent received Social Security or Railroad Retirement benefits.

Also, 15.4 million households, or 13 percent of the total, received food stamps.

When and if Obamacare is fully implemented next year, a new benefit program will begin — Americans earning up to 400 percent of the poverty level for their households will qualify for a federal subsidy to purchase health insurance.

Who is that girl? The mysterious face of Healthcare.gov

You can bet she is not out there seeking autographs!

SENATE MAJORITY LEADER

Harry Reid says that Republicans will have to agree to tax increases to have any hope of achieving a grand budget bargain, saying Americans, 'including the rich,' are willing to pay more.

Bailey Comment: Does the statement Americans willing to pay more include all of the non working leaches that are sucking us dry already?

New Unemployment Data Reveals a Depressing State of Affairs

After a two-week delay, thanks to the good old government shutdown, the September jobs report was released on Tuesday.
The big takeaway – at least, according to most mainstream media outlets like The Wall Street Journal – is that the unemployment rate dropped from 7.3% to 7.2%.
Keep in mind, only four years ago, the headline unemployment rate stood at a staggering 10%.
So the labor market is improving, right? Wrong!
The official government unemployment rate is nothing but a statistical deception.
With that in mind, it’s time to serve up a big dollop of truth with the help of a timely chart. Not only can you handle it, you deserve it!
The true unemployment situation holds profound investment implications.
Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics
The U.S. economy added 148,000 jobs in September.
Economists expected more (180,000). But the August number was revised up by 24,000 jobs.
So no one really panicked about the miss. Especially since the unemployment rate managed to tick a tenth of a percentage point lower.
Here’s the problem…
You’d think a downtick in the unemployment rate would mean that more people are employed.
However, there actually aren’t more people working. Not when we dissect the data based on the percentage of able-bodied Americans.
Turns out, the number of Americans 16 years or older who have decided not to participate in the nation’s labor force increased by another 136,000 in September.
All told, a record 90,609,000 Americans don’t have a job – and aren’t looking for one, either.
In turn, the labor force participation rate (the percentage of Americans who have a job or are looking for one) stands at a 34-year low.
A simple chart really drives home the depressing state of affairs.

As you can see, in previous post-recession periods, the precipitous drop in the unemployment rate was always accompanied by an increase in the labor force participation rate.
In other words, the economy was improving so much – and so many new jobs were being created – that it enticed people who previously stopped looking for work to dust off their resumes. And not only did they start looking for work again, they found it.
Not this time around.
The economy might be adding jobs, but it’s not adding enough to keep up with the growth in available workers. So the drop in the unemployment rate is a total fraud. It has materialized based on more and more people opting out of finding work, instead of actually finding it.
As James Pethokoukis from the American Enterprise Institute points out, if the labor participation rate was the same today as it was when the recession started, the unemployment rate would actually be 11.2% right now, not 7.2%.
How’s that for some truth?

Zombie.gov

Pinhead Jay Carney

Sebelius says she doesn't 'work for' those calling for her resignation

Bailey Comment: This one example of many just shows you how self-center all of these politicians are. 
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is rebuffing calls from Republicans for her to resign over the troubled launch of the ObamaCare sign-up website, saying those asking her to resign are “people I don’t work for.”
Sebelius gave the comments on a tour Thursday of an ObamaCare call center in Phoenix, which kicks off a multi-city tour by administration officials to promote the health care law amid the website's troubles.
Sebelius said “no one is getting fired” over the litches and that her main focus is to get the website up and running.
“The majority of people calling for me to resign I would say are people who I don't work for, and who do not want this program to work in the first place,” she said. “I have had frequent conversations with the president and I've committed to him that my role is to get the program up and running and we will do just that.”
Sebelius’ comments come after Rep. John Fleming, R-La., sent a letter to President Obama signed by 33 Republican members of Congress calling for Sebelius’ resignation over the troubled health care law roll out.
“It’s clear that Secretary Sebelius has mismanaged the ObamaCare roll out and is in over her head. Before the train wreck is allowed to continue… before more taxpayer dollars are spent trying to fix what’s already wrong… and before the Secretary continues on her damage control tour, it’s time for the president to admit that, despite three-and-a-half years to prepare, his HHS Secretary has dropped the ball on this and needs to step down,” the letter reads.
Also Thursday, the contractors who built the health care website defended their work at a hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and claimed the government failed to properly test the system before launch.
CGI Federal and the other contractors repeatedly claimed that overall "end-to-end" testing was the responsibility of an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, as was the decision to go live on Oct. 1. They suggested more time was needed to work out the kinks.
Sebelius came under fire after telling the House Energy and Commerce Committee she was not also available to testify Thursday due to a “scheduling conflict,” but then travelling to Phoenix.
Sebelius was already taking heat for snubbing the committee while planning to attend a health care gala in Boston on Wednesday night.
It's unclear whether Sebelius' "scheduling conflict" was the gala, the Phoenix event or neither.
The committee says Sebelius is now expected to testify next Wednesday on the health care law.

ObamaCare and America’s journey into the Third World

One need only compare the sense of dispatch at Federal Express with time endured to send a package via the U.S. Postal Service to recognize the federal government doesn’t do things quite as well as the private sector.
It doesn’t even function as well as state bureaucracies.
Now ObamaCare, which socializes an industry larger than the economies of France or Britain, is proving Health and Human Services can be more incompetent than many Third World governments.
These past few weeks, poor Mexico could sign up urban poor for health care with less mess than Washington did folks needing insurance in San Antonio.

ObamaCare, which socializes an industry larger than the economies of France or Britain, is proving Health and Human Services can be more incompetent than many Third World governments.

In Europe, national health care systems deliver coverage for everyone, at remarkably lower cost, and in countries with per capita income comparable to the United States, a lot better care. The United States spends 18 percent of GDP on health care; Germany and Holland spend about 12 with better results.
One only need look behind the rollout of the federal health insurance exchanges to see why.
President Obama sees every decision -- from the timing for sending his mother-in-law a birthday card to those required for the rollout of the exchange -- as a political calculation.
The bureaucrats at Health and Human Services ordered CGI, the private contractor primarily responsible for designing the exchanges, not to permit visitors to browse prices anonymously.
That would allow young people with decent jobs to compare the prices they must pay for insurance, or face harsh penalties, with the subsidized prices offered other young folks with lower wage jobs.
After all, those jarring differences might cause young voters, whose allegiance to President Obama has been weakened by an economic recovery that does not deliver decent prospects for their advancement, to vote for whatever Republican promises less government and dares to run against Hillary Clinton.
This political decision was made less than a month before the exchanges went live and threw a terrible wrench into the rollout.
Like the IRS decision to harass conservative non-profits and community activists, it is not clear how high up that decision was made -- was it made by the HHS division directly supervising CGI, Secretary Sebelius or the White House?
Fast forward to today, when Ms. Sebelius laments that the online marketplace should require five years to construct and a year of testing.
Yet California, whose economy is larger than most countries and problems as complex, managed to get the job done. Its exchange and those of other states, designed independent of federal incompetence, are running well despite initial glitches.
A basic problem Washington does not like to admit is that the federal civil service is a refuge for overpaid, politically-motivated and distracted-from-task statists, who are often cynical about the private sector and insensitive to citizens’ needs.
Like the Godfather’s henchmen, they look to what will please their political masters and act accordingly, even if it tramples civil liberties.
Consider the allegedly independent handiwork of the IRS bureaucrats on non-profits and citizens supporting conservative causes or Justice Department’s wholesale violation of privacy of AP communications.
American universities’ schools of business and engineering attract the best and the brightest -- not so schools of public policy, education and the softer social sciences that train foot soldiers that fill offices at HHS, Justice and the like.
Democrats in congress are now raising questions about HHS reliance on private contractors, but the truth is federal government simply does not have the resources to pull off something as large and complex as the health care exchange.
If the president wants ObamaCare and other federal initiatives to succeed, then he and his cabinet can’t make every decision a political calculation. And they need to recognize that the government civil service needs much more competent employees, not political activists masquerading as public servants.

Jon Stewart a Conservative Darling for Zinging Obamacare

Conservatives have found an unlikely hero in Jon Stewart after the host of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" continues to zing President Barack Obama, Secretary of Health Kathleen Sebelius, and the glitch-riddled HealthCare.gov rollout this week on his satirical news show.

The rocky introduction of HealthCare.gov has garnered some blunt criticism from Stewart, who again on Monday bashed the website where consumers can sign up for Obamacare.

So far, Stewart has compared Obama to "Gil," the unfortunate salesman from "The Simpsons," freaked out about the site's broken calculator ("The one thing that's been included in computers since 1972 — you couldn't make THAT work?"), and gone toe-to-toe with Sebelius.

"I'm going to try and download every movie ever made, and you're going to try to sign up for Obamacare, and we'll see which happens first," he challenged her last week.

Several conservative news outlets, including The Blaze and Fox Nation, have mentioned Stewart's segments, and Republican political action committee America Rising even highlighted his comments on Twitter this week.

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Urgent: Should Obamacare Be Repealed? Vote Here Now!

EXCLUSIVE: Key suspects in Benghazi attack include former courier, bodyguard for Al Qaeda, sources say

At least two of the key suspects in the Benghazi terror attack were at one point working with Al Qaeda senior leadership, sources familiar with the investigation tell Fox News.
The sources said one of the suspects was believed to be a courier for the Al Qaeda network, and the other a bodyguard in Afghanistan prior to the 2001 terror attacks.
The direct ties to the Al Qaeda senior leadership undercut early characterizations by the Obama administration that the attackers in Benghazi were isolated “extremists" -- not Al Qaeda terrorists -- with no organizational structure or affiliation. 
The head of the House Intelligence Committee, Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., who receives regular intelligence briefings and whose staffers continue to investigate the Benghazi terrorist attack, would not discuss specific suspects or their backgrounds.
But he said the ties to Al Qaeda senior leadership, also known as Al Qaeda core, are now established.
“It is accurate that of the group being targeted by the bureau, at this point, there’s strong Al Qaeda ties,”  Rogers told Fox News. "You can still be considered to have strong ties because you are in the ring of operations of Al Qaeda core. ... There are individuals that certainly fit that definition."
Counterterrorism expert Thomas Joscelyn, a senior fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News that investigators are finding "more and more ties -- not just to Al Qaeda's branch in North Africa ... but Al Qaeda senior leadership in Pakistan."
A year ago, Fox News' Bret Baier was first to report that a former Guantanamo detainee, Sufian bin Qumu, was suspected of training jihadists in eastern Libya for the attack.
Now, sources tell Fox News that Benghazi suspect Faraj al Chalabi, also a Libyan national whose ties to Usama bin Laden date back to 1998, is believed to be a former bodyguard who was with the Al Qaeda leadership in Afghanistan in 2001.
After the Benghazi attack, al Chalabi fled to Pakistan where reports suggest he was held, then later returned to Libyan custody and eventually released. He was first publicly identified as a suspected terrorist in 1998 by the regime of former Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi for his alleged role in the murder of a German intelligence official, Silvan Becker and his wife. An Interpol arrest warrant in March 1998 named al Chalabi, two other Libyans and bin Laden as the likely perpetrators.
“Our sources say al Chalabi is suspected of bringing materials from the compound to Benghazi to Al Qaeda senior leadership in Pakistan. It's not clear what those materials consisted of but he is known to have gone back to Pakistan immediately after the attack,” Joscelyn said.
Separately, and for the first time, Rogers laid out a timeline for the attack which suggests significant advance planning. According to the congressman, there was an “aspirational phase” several months out, where the idea of an attack was thrown around, followed by “weeks” of operational planning, and then the ramp up to the Sept. 11 assault which lasted up to several days. This assessment is in stark contrast to initial administration statements that the attack was “spontaneous” and achieved with little planning.
“I believe that they had an operational phase that lasted at least a couple of weeks, maybe even longer. And then an initiation phase that lasted a couple or three days prior to the event itself. And so this notion that they just showed up and decided this was a spontaneous act does not comport with the information at least with what we have seen in the intelligence community,” Rogers told Fox News.
Some counterterrorism analysts concur with Roger’s assessment, describing the mortars used to strike the CIA annex in the second wave of the attack as "smoking gun" evidence -- as mortars require skill to fire, and typically must be pre-positioned to ensure accuracy. On Sept. 11, two mortars struck the CIA annex, killing former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.
The opposing analysis is that the mortars were set in the early morning hours of Sept. 11, and that the terrorists did not bring equipment with them that suggests significant planning.
Fox News contacted the FBI which is in the lead on the Benghazi investigation, as well as the CIA and the National Counterterrorism Center, or NCTC. Both the NCTC and the CIA declined to comment. There was no immediate response from the FBI.

Day 1 The Launch

Rubio pushing bill to delay ObamaCare mandate over website meltdown

The widespread problems with the ObamaCare website are generating a new backlash in Congress, with Sen. Marco Rubio planning to introduce legislation that would delay the health law's individual mandate until the technical failures are addressed.
The Florida senator discussed the plan Tuesday morning in an interview with Fox News' "Fox & Friends." He said it would be "prudent" to delay the requirement on individuals to buy health insurance -- set to kick in early next year -- until users can consistently access the main website.
"How are you going to go after people next year ... if the thing you're forcing them to buy isn't available to buy?" he asked, saying the site is "not working."
Rubio's plan would delay the mandate until the Government Accountability Office certifies the system is "up and running and effectively working for six months, consecutive."
The plan comes as new reports detail the warning signs that may have been missed before the launch, and the massive undertaking that the tech team hired to fix the site is confronting.
The administration is now in a scramble to fix the problems that have prevented many from signing up for health insurance online. Officials announced Tuesday that former White House budget office chief Jeff Zients has been brought in as part of the team to address the site. President Obama on Monday directed the public to apply over the phone or by mail -- but at the same time, the White House did not rule out delaying the health law's 2014 requirement on individuals to buy insurance.
The New York Times, detailing the scope of the repair project, reported that while contractors have identified most the problems with the site, the administration is slow to issue orders. The Times quoted one specialist as saying 5 million lines of code may have to be rewritten.
The Washington Post reported Monday that a test of the website's capability to handle heavy traffic went wrong just days before the planned launch, when the site crashed after just a few hundred people tried to log on simultaneously.
The Post also reported that a group of 10 insurers invited to give advice and test the website urged federal officials not to do a nationwide launch due to the number of issues with the site. At late as a week before the launch date, the paper reported, no one had thought to test whether or not a user could complete the process of signing up for a health insurance plan through the site.
Meanwhile, a review of the site's technical specifications by The Associated Press found a mind-numbingly complex system put together by harried programmers who pushed out a final product that congressional investigators said was tested by the government and not private developers with more expertise.
Project developers who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity -- because they feared they would otherwise be fired -- said they raised doubts among themselves whether the website could be ready in time. They complained openly to each other about what they considered tight and unrealistic deadlines. One was nearly brought to tears over the stress of finishing on time, one developer said. Website builders saw red flags for months.
A review of internal architectural diagrams obtained by the AP revealed the system's complexity. Insurance applicants have a host of personal information verified, including income and immigration status. The system connects to other federal computer networks, including ones at the Social Security Administration, IRS, Veterans Administration, Office of Personnel Management and the Peace Corps.
President Barack Obama on Monday acknowledged technical problems that he described as "kinks in the system." He also promised a "tech surge" by leading technology talent to repair the painfully slow and often unresponsive website that has frustrated Americans trying to enroll online for insurance plans at the center of Obama's health care law.
But in remarks at a Rose Garden event, Obama offered no explanation for the failure except to note that high traffic to the website caused some of the slowdowns. He said it had been visited nearly 20 million times -- fewer monthly visits so far than many commercial websites, such as PayPal, AOL, Wikipedia or Pinterest.
"The problem has been that the website that's supposed to make it easy to apply for and purchase the insurance is not working the way it should for everybody," Obama said. "There's no sugarcoating it. The website has been too slow. People have been getting stuck during the application process. And I think it's fair to say that nobody is more frustrated by that than I am."
The online system was envisioned as a simple way for people without health insurance to comparison-shop among competing plans offered in their state, pick their preferred level of coverage and cost and sign up. For many, it's not worked out that way so far.
Just weeks before the launch of HealthCare.gov on Oct. 1, one programmer said, colleagues huddled in conference rooms trying to patch "bugs," or deficiencies in computer code. Unresolved problems led to visitors experiencing cryptic error messages or enduring long waits trying to sign up.
Congressional investigators have concluded that the government's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, not private software developers, tested the exchange's computer systems during the final weeks. That task, known as integration testing, is usually handled by software companies because it ferrets out problems before the public sees the final product.
The government spent at least $394 million in contracts to build the federal health care exchange and the data hub. Those contracts included major awards to Virginia-based CGI Federal Inc., Maryland-based Quality Software Services Inc. and Booz Allen Hamilton Inc.
CGI Federal said in a statement Monday it was working with the government and other contractors "around the clock" to improve the system, which it called "complex, ambitious and unprecedented."
The schematics from late 2012 show how officials designated a "data services hub" -- a traffic cop for managing information -- in lieu of a design that would have allowed state exchanges to connect directly to government servers when verifying an applicant's information. On Sunday, the Health and Human Services Department said the data hub was working but not meeting public expectations: "We are committed to doing better."
Administration officials so far have refused to say how many people actually have managed to enroll in insurance during the three weeks since the new marketplaces became available. Without enrollment numbers, it's impossible to know whether the program is on track to reach projections from the Congressional Budget Office that 7 million people would gain coverage during the first year the exchanges were available.
Instead, officials have selectively cited figures that put the insurance exchanges in a positive light. They say more than 19 million people have logged on to the federal website and nearly 500,000 have filled out applications for insurance through both the federal and state-run sites.
The flood of computer problems since the website went online has been deeply embarrassing for the White House. The snags have called into question whether the administration is capable of implementing the complex policy and why senior administration officials -- including the president -- appear to have been unaware of the scope of the problems when the exchange sites opened.
Even as the president spoke at the Rose Garden, more problems were coming to light. The administration acknowledged that a planned upgrade to the website had been postponed indefinitely and that online Spanish-language signups would remain unavailable, despite a promise to Hispanic groups that the capability would start this week. And the government tweaked the website's home page so visitors can now view phone numbers to apply the old-fashioned way or window-shop for insurance rates without registering first.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee was expected to conduct an oversight hearing Thursday, probably without Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testifying. She could testify on Capitol Hill on the subject as early as next week.
Uninsured Americans have until about mid-February to sign up for coverage if they are to meet the law's requirement that they be insured by the end of March. If they don't, they will face a penalty.

Growing the Debt: US resumes $1.6B in aid to Pakistan

As the national debt tops $17 trillion -- thanks to the newly sealed debt-ceiling agreement -- America's costly foreign aid tab is back in the crosshairs.
The federal government in fiscal 2012 spent about $21 billion on non-military foreign assistance and was on track to spend roughly the same in 2013, according to federal records. As Washington enters the new fiscal year, another huge chunk of aid is being released -- the Associated Press reported over the weekend that the U.S. is planning to free up more than $1.6 billion in aid to Pakistan following a lengthy hiatus.
Daniel Markey, a senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, suggested Monday that the aid decision was premature. He told FoxNews.com Live that the U.S. should at least be changing the way that money is used.
"We haven't gotten a lot out of Pakistan ... and we've spent billions and billions of dollars," Markey said Monday.
He said new leadership in Pakistan offers a reason to keep trying "but we should be very careful."
The aid had been on ice after a major breakdown in U.S.-Pakistan relations. Pakistan lashed out at the U.S. over the 2011 raid on Usama bin Laden's compound. U.S. lawmakers were similarly outraged after Pakistan imprisoned a doctor alleged to have helped the CIA in tracking bin Laden.
Ties continued to fray after the U.S. mistakenly fired on and killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers.
But after a long pause, and an election in Pakistan, both sides are trying to rebuild their relationship.
Newly elected Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif arrived in the U.S. on Sunday, for the first visit by a Pakistani head of state since 2008, and met with Secretary of State John Kerry. In a statement, the State Department said they "continued the robust dialogue on our shared goal of a stable, secure and prosperous Pakistan." The statement stressed the importance of "continued counterterrorism cooperation."
Aid to Pakistan over the years has been channeled to everything from health to education to economic development.
But it is Pakistan's role in counterterrorism operations that has made the U.S. so reluctant to cut ties with the country altogether. Despite suspicion running high between the two governments -- and concerns that some Pakistani officials are taking U.S. money with one hand and helping America's enemies with the other -- many in Washington see the partnership as one of necessity.
Markey, author of "No Exit from Pakistan: America's Tortured Relationship with Islamabad," said the U.S. still needs the supply lines in and out of Afghanistan as that war winds down. But he said the U.S. should be "skeptical."
The battle over how much to give to which countries has been escalating in Washington, and Republicans have made it a perennial target as they seek additional savings.
House Republicans proposed a nearly $6 billion cut to foreign aid in their fiscal 2014 budget proposal.
Congress has not yet passed a full-year budget -- the latest agreement to end the partial government shutdown resulted in a bill to fund the government for just three months. Lawmakers are now seeking a broader agreement to both fund the government and cut the deficit.
Amid the resumption of aid to Pakistan, the Obama administration recently decided to put some aid to Egypt on hold. The decision came after then-President Mohammed Morsi was overthrow.

White House won't rule out delay of ObamaCare individual mandate

The White House appeared to leave the door open Monday to delaying the so-called individual mandate in the federal health care law, as President Obama acknowledged the main website for enrollment is not working as it should.
Press Secretary Jay Carney addressed concerns over the mandate at a press briefing shortly after Obama, in the Rose Garden, personally acknowledged failures with the HealthCare.gov site and vowed that "these problems are getting fixed."
Carney was peppered with questions on whether the administration would be open to delaying the requirement on individuals to buy health insurance, if the website continues to lock out would-be customers. Echoing Obama, Carney said repeatedly that the country is just three weeks into a six-month enrollment process and suggested it's too early to make any decisions of that magnitude.
But he did not close the door on the option.
Asked if the administration is looking for flexibility in applying the mandate, Carney said: "Whatever conclusions you draw about the way the law is written, I think you can draw. The law is clear that if you do not have access to affordable health insurance, then you will not be asked to pay a penalty because you haven't purchased affordable health insurance."
He added that the administration is focused on providing that access.
Carney was vague on what the administration's next move would be, aside from bringing in tech experts from the private sector to try and repair the website. Without offering further explanation, he said the Department of Health and Human Services is "looking to align the policies with the disconnect between the open enrollment period and the individual responsibility time frames, which exist on the first year only."
Whether that signals the administration would consider even a short-term delay of the mandate is unclear.
Technically, Americans are supposed to obtain health insurance by the end of March 2014 to avoid a fine. But analysts have since calculated that, considering the time it takes to process all the relevant documents, most would have to seek coverage by mid-February. 
Republicans have used the website failures to fuel their case that the individual mandate should be delayed. They've been pushing for the delay ever since the administration announced earlier this year it would offer some employers a one-year reprieve from a separate mandate to extend insurance to workers.  
The president's remarks in the Rose Garden did little to quell their complaints.
"If the president is frustrated by the mounting failures of his health care law, it wasn't apparent today. Americans are looking for accountability, but what the president offered today was little more than self-congratulation," House Speaker John Boehner said in a statement. "Either the president doesn't grasp the scale of the law's failures or he doesn't believe Americans deserve straight answers." 
Republicans have blasted the administration for not offering up Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius for a House hearing scheduled for Thursday.
But the House Energy and Commerce Committee confirmed late Monday that Sebelius would testify before the committee Oct. 30.
"As the administration continues to withhold important details and enrollment figures, I hope Secretary Sebelius is ready to give answers and finally live up to the president's celebrated claims of transparency," Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., said in a statement.

Rubio downcast about immigration reform, casts blame on Obama

I'm Legal?
Sen. Marco Rubio gave a downcast assessment Sunday about Congress passing immigration reform, arguing that fellow Republicans are leery about dealing with President Obama on the issue since he would not negotiate fairly during the recent fiscal crisis.
“Immigration reform is going to be a lot harder to accomplish than it was three weeks ago,” Rubio, R-Fla., who helped pass the Senate legislation handed to the Republican-controlled House, told “Fox News Sunday.”
Rubio said he agreed with Idaho Republican Rep. Raul Labrador who last week said House Republican leadership would be “crazy” to negotiate with Obama if the president makes the same “good faith effort” on an immigration bill that he did on fiscal negotiations and that Obama is “trying to destroy” the Republican Party.
“That’s not to say” Obama might agree to a path to citizenship for some of the roughly 11 million illegal immigrants in the country and to enforcing immigration laws, only to cancel the enforcement component, Rubio said.
The issue returned to the spotlight hours after Congress agreed on a deal to temporarily end the partial government shutdown and increase the federal debt limit, when Obama called on Congress on Thursday to swiftly reach an immigration-reform agreement.
“If the House has ideas on how to improve the Senate bill, let’s hear them. Let’s start the negotiations,” the president said. “This can and should get done by the end of this year.”
Despite Rubio’s reservations about negotiating with the president, he was steadfast in his argument that the country needs to fix a broken immigration system.
“There’s no argument the immigration system has to be fixed,” he told Fox News.
Rubio also defended himself and the Senate legislation, which has been called an amnesty program.
He said the country is now operating under a “de facto” amnesty program and that he’s not concerned about his sagging poll numbers amid a potential 2016 presidential run.
“I continue to believe it’s an important issue for our nation to confront,” Rubio said.
His comments come amid concerns from conservatives who think House leaders might meet with Senate negotiators, which would result in the lower chamber’s step-by-step plan, which begins with securing U.S. borders, being “blended” with the upper chamber’s comprehensive plan.
Rubio also said the House deserves “time and space” to craft its own legislation that “might be even better.” 

476,000 ObamaCare applications filed out of estimated 19 million that visited HealthCare.gov

WASHINGTON –  Administration officials say about 476,000 health insurance applications have been filed through federal and state exchanges, the most detailed measure yet of the problem-plagued rollout of President Barack Obama's signature legislation.
However, the officials continue to refuse to say how many people have actually enrolled in the insurance markets. Without enrollment figures, it's unclear whether the program is on track to reach the 7 million people projecting by the Congressional Budget Office to gain coverage during the six-month sign-up period.
Obama's advisers say the president has been frustrated by the flawed rollout. During one of his daily health care briefings last week, he told advisers assembled in the Oval Office that the administration had to own up to the fact that there were no excuses for not having the website ready to operate as promised.
The president is expected to address the problems on Monday during a health care event at the White House. Cabinet members and other top administration officials will also be traveling around the country in the coming weeks to encourage sign-ups in areas with the highest population of uninsured people.
The first three weeks of sign-ups have been marred by a cascade of computer problems, which the administration says it is working around the clock to correct. The rough rollout has been a glaring embarrassment for Obama, who invested significant time and political capital in getting the law passed during his first term.
The officials said technology experts from inside and outside the government are set to work on the glitches, though they did not say how many workers were being added.
Officials did say staffing has been increased at call centers by about 50 percent. As problems persist on the federally run website, the administration is encouraging more people to sign up for insurance over the phone.
The officials did not want to be cited by name and would not discuss the health insurance rollout unless they were granted anonymity.
Despite the widespread problems, the Obama administration has yet to fully explain what went wrong with the online system consumers were supposed to use to sign up for coverage.
Initially, administration officials blamed a high volume of interest for the frozen screens that many people encountered. Since then, the administration has also acknowledged unspecified problems with software and some elements of the system's design.
Interest in the insurance markets appears to continue to be high. Officials said about 19 million people had visited HealthCare.gov as of Friday night.
People seeking insurance must fill out applications before selecting specific plans. The applications include personal information, including income figures that are used to calculate any subsidies the applicant may qualify for.
More than one person can be included on an application.
Of the 476,000 applications that have been started, just over half have been from the 36 states where the federal government is taking the lead in running the markets. (Nanny States) The rest of the applications have come from the 14 states running their own markets, along with Washington, D.C.
The White House says it plans to release the first enrollment totals from both the federal and state-run markets in mid-November.
An internal memo obtained by The Associated Press showed that the administration projected nearly a half-million people would enroll for the insurance markets during the first month.
Officials say they expect enrollments to be heavier toward the end of the six-month sign-up window.
In an ironic twist, the problems with the rollout were overshadowed by Republican efforts to get changes to the health care law in exchange for funding the government. That effort failed and the government reopened last week with the health care law intact.
Stung by that defeat, some Republicans are now calling for the resignation of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. The White House says it has complete confidence in her.
House Republicans have scheduled a hearing next week to look into the rollout problems. White House allies say they're confident the problems are being addressed.
"There's no question the marketplace website needs some improvement," said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., one of the architects of the law. "The administration needs to fix the computer bugs and I'm confident that they're working around the clock to fix the problems."

Back To Work

Chinese Rating Agency Cuts US Sovereign Credit Rating

Bailey Comment: It just shows you what America has sunk to when a frigging communist country like china can downgrade our credit rating. Everyone in America should be ashamed of themselves especially our government,  I know I am.  Read the article below

A Chinese ratings agency cut its credit rating for U.S. sovereign debt by one notch to A-minus from A on Thursday, saying a deal struck by Congress to raise the government's borrowing ceiling failed to solve the cause of its debt problem.

Dagong Global Credit Rating said that the temporary fix of the debt issue would not defuse the fundamental conundrum of the U.S. fiscal deficit or improve repayment ability in the long-term, but could trigger defaults at any time in the future.

"The deal means only an escape from a debt default for the time being, but hasn't changed the fact that the growth of government borrowing has largely outpaced overall economic growth and fiscal revenues," China's biggest home-grown ratings agency said in a statement.

Editor’s Note: Obama’s Budget Takes Aim at Retired Americans

The U.S. Congress on Wednesday approved an 11th-hour deal to end a partial government shutdown and pull the world's biggest economy back from the brink of a historic debt default that could have threatened financial calamity.

Dagong said the increase in the debt ceiling, for the fifth time since President Obama took office in 2009, provided further proof of the U.S. government's inability to make improvements to fiscal fundamentals that were needed to enhance its debt servicing capability.

It said it held a negative outlook for the United States, noting that the Federal Reserve continued to inject dollars into the market through quantitative easing policies, eroding the value of the outstanding debt and hurting creditors' interests.

The downgrade put the United States several notches below Dagong's top rating and on par with Brazil, Israel and Panama, among others.

Dagong's ratings are barely watched outside of China, and major international credit agencies classify most countries very differently from the Chinese agency.

Dagong estimated that the U.S.'s foreign creditors could have suffered an estimated loss of $628.5 billion between 2008 and 2012 due to a weakening of the U.S. dollar.

China, sitting on the largest stockpile of foreign exchange reserves in the world, is the biggest holder of U.S. treasuries.

Dagong's views do not necessarily represent the Chinese government's stance, however, its analysis often runs in tandem with remarks from government officials.

China's Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao had earlier urged the U.S. government to take "concrete steps" to resolve the fiscal cliff issue and meet its responsibility to uphold stability of international financial markets.

A commentary on the official Xinhua news agency on Thursday took the two main U.S. political parties to task for "brinkmanship".

"The saga in Washington is teaching America's creditors a lesson: U.S. politicians are ready to fight each other at the expense of debt-holders' interests and U.S. Treasury bonds may no longer be safe investment," the commentary said.

The commentary does not reflect official policy but is an insight into views held at the top levels.

Fitch Ratings said on Tuesday it had placed a negative outlook over its AAA rating for the United States due to the political brinkmanship. Moody's Investors Service rates the United States at Aaa, while Standard & Poor's rates it at AA-plus.

Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/Markets/China-Rating-Agency-Credit-Rating-United-States/2013/10/17/id/531546?ns_mail_uid=5689450&ns_mail_job=1542308_10182013&promo_code=1538F-1#ixzz2iD4yLfKL
Urgent: Should Obamacare Be Repealed? Vote Here Now!

Design a product that doesn't work, force everyone to buy it!

Furloughed government workers could be paid twice in Oregon

 Bailey Comment: The government is just a great big money pit! A small example is the article below.


Some federal workers who were furloughed in Oregon could be getting paid twice, with a state official confirming to Fox News that those workers who received state unemployment benefits during the partial government shutdown will not have to re-pay the money.
The spokesman for WorkSource Oregon Employment Department said the workers received at most a week’s worth of unemployment benefits. The spokesman said he did not know how many workers received the benefits.
He confirmed that furloughed federal workers in the state do not have to re-pay the state unemployment benefits.
The employees will receive double pay because the budget bill approved by Congress provides that all furloughed government workers will receive back pay for the days they did not work under the partial government shutdown.
Richard Hobble of the National Association of State Workforce Agencies told Fox News Oct. 11 that if federal employees receive double payment, the states should require them to re-pay the unemployment benefits once they received back pay.
“The states will be expected to collect back from the claimants who received those benefits when in fact they were compensated for those weeks,” he said.
During the partial shutdown, a third of the new unemployment claims filed in New Mexico came from federal workers. It was not clear if they would also be paid twice under the budget agreement provision if their claims were approved.
Washington D.C. and Maryland also both paid millions in unemployment benefits to about 24,000 furloughed workers during the budget crisis.

Vote breakdown: How lawmakers voted on the budget deal

SENATORS:
Voting yes were 52 Democrats, 27 Republicans and 2 independents.
Voting no were 0 Democrats and 18 Republicans.


HOUSE MEMBERS:
Voting yes were 198 Democrats and 87 Republicans. Voting no were 0 Democrats and 144 Republicans.

Todd Starnes: American taxpayers betrayed by chicken-hearted RINOs

American taxpayers have once again been trampled by establishment Republicans – a thundering herd of chicken-hearted Republicans in Name Only (RINOs) galloping to the Left.
The debt ceiling deal struck between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is a victory for President Obama and Democrats.
ObamaCare is still the law of the land. The government is still spending money it does not have. And thousands of government workers just got a two-week vacation courtesy of the taxpayers.
I’m sure we will hear establishment apologists calling the events of recent days a compromise. But seeing how the president refused to compromise, it’s more likely the Grand Old Party was the only one bending.
Establishment Republicans always talk about doing the right thing for the nation, no matter the price. But when push comes to shove, they always throw in the towel. And Wednesday, McConnell and his band of merry moderates heaved their towels in an epic demonstration of lily-livered cowardice.
But you’ve got to hand it to Sen. Ted Cruz for standing his ground. He held the line and ultimately paid the price. His good name was smeared by Democrats as well as McConnell’s band – most notably Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Bob Corker.
This band of bullies brushed aside Ronald Reagan’s 11th commandment – the one about not speaking ill of any fellow Republican. If only the moderates debated Democrats with the same ferocity reserved for conservatives.
“The nastier they get, the more it demonstrates how scared they are of the American people holding every elected official accountable,” Cruz told me in a telephone call Wednesday afternoon. “It’s not surprising the Washington establishment pushes back. We knew when we took on the Washington establishment that it would fight back.”
Sen. Cruz told me Wednesday was not a good day for America.
“Today’s deal is a classic example of the Washington establishment turning a blind eye to the American people,” he said.  “It does nothing for all of the young people coming out of college right now who can’t find jobs because of ObamaCare. It does nothing for all the single parents forced into part time work who can’t feed their kids on 29 hours a week.”
The gentleman from Texas had nothing but praise for the House of Representatives. He said they held the line. They stood strong for the American people. The Senate is another matter.
“The outcome of this fight would have been very, very different if only Senate Republicans had made the decision to stand and fight alongside House Republicans,” he said. “That didn’t happen. That was the critical piece.”
Rush Limbaugh told his millions of listeners that the GOP has been hoodwinked.
“I have never seen a major political party simply occupy placeholders, as the Republican Party is doing,” he said on his national radio program.
“There hasn't been any opposition, not any serious opposition.  There may have been votes against this or that, votes against ObamaCare. There may have been votes against the stimulus, but in terms of a package of policies, a package of principled beliefs, of opposition expressed daily by party leaders against what's happening in this country, there hasn't been.
Wednesday’s  epic surrender was much like King Arthur in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” hollering, “Run away, run away.”
I can imagine the minstrel strumming a lyre in the middle of the Rotunda, warbling, “Brave McConnell ran away. When Obama reared his liberal head, he bravely turned his tail and fled. Yes, Brave Sir McConnell turned about and valiantly, he chickened out.”
Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin took lawmakers from both political parties to task on her Facebook page.
“When life gives you lemons, at this point make margaritas,” she wrote in an essay titled, “Thanks a Lot for Caving, Politicians."
“Caving on debt could drive one to drink.”
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham still appears to be distressed that conservative lawmakers would actually follow through on their campaign promises and represent the interests of the people.
“This has been a very bad two weeks for the Republican brand,” he said.
What about the American brand, sir? Is anybody in Washington concerned about that?

Budget Cartoon

Activists resort to chaining themselves to buses, buildings to protest all deportations

Frustrated by a lack of progress in Congress on immigration legislation, activists are demanding President Obama stop deporting all illegal immigrants -- not just those who arrived here as children.
Only now, they're using new tactics, chaining themselves to buses, jails and federal buildings to persuade lawmakers to let them stay.
In Tucson, Ariz., on Friday, protesters chained themselves to three buses that were deporting illegal immigrants as part of Operation Streamline, a program that prosecutes or deports every illegal immigrant caught at the border. The program is meant to prevent the revolving door that encourages illegal immigrants to re-enter the U.S. hours or days after their initial arrest near the same location.
"No one really sees what happens once people are picked up and how families are separated," said a Phoenix protester. "This is something that happens every day, and it's our mission to keep up the pressure because we're already at too many deportations, and how much longer until the Obama administration does something about this immigration crisis?"
In Phoenix on Monday, 250 protesters also marched to the local Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters, though the office was closed due to Columbus Day.
Obama has said he doesn't favor a so-called "blanket amnesty" through executive action, but has instructed immigration control agencies not to break up families. Border Patrol sources tell Fox News it's no surprise, then, they're now seeing entire families -- not just young men -- busting the border in hopes of staying in the U.S.
Opponents say the administration is sending the wrong message.
"I say it isn't enough to deport them all," said Brandy Baron of Remember1986.com, which staged a counter-protest in Phoenix. "They knew when they came here illegally, they knew when they came here we have laws, and laws have consequences."
The Phoenix march was just one incident that underscores the growing frustration of Hispanics and immigration reform advocates over the last few months. Congress appeared ready to pass a bill before the budget and debt-ceiling impasse took hold in Washington. Since then, all other legislation has come to a virtual standstill.
On Monday at the Eloy Detention Center, one of the country's largest immigration jails, protesters chained themselves together in the entryway.
“I’m doing this to show my brother and all the other people inside that we support them and we will do what it takes to get them out," 16-year-old Sandy Estrada of Phoenix told Not One More Deportation.  "I want the president to know that everyone deserves to be with their families and that he can stop our pain.”
Last week, Tucson police pepper-sprayed a crowd that had surrounded a pair of Border Patrol agents who took two illegal immigrants into custody after a traffic stop.
"President Obama is approaching 2 million deportations. That's an all-time record," said Phoenix protestor James Lyall of the ACLU. "So in addition to all the other stuff going on, this is something that affects our communities on a day-to-day basis."
Immigration officials tell Fox News they are prepared to handle the disruptions and will make changes in handling deportations to avoid confrontations.

Are you kidding me again?

Ex-ACORN operatives helping roll out ObamaCare

A group formed from the ruins of ACORN is hard at work signing people up for ObamaCare, and may be collecting taxpayer cash for their work despite Congress' efforts to cut the organization and its affiliates off from government funding, a watchdog group charged.
The United Labor Unions Council Local 100, a New Orleans-based nonprofit, announced last month it would take part in a multi-state "navigator" drive to help people enroll in President Obama's health care plan. The labor council was established by ACORN founder Wade Rathke after his larger group was broken up amid scandal in 2009 and banned from receiving taxpayer funds.
“At a time when our government has ceased functioning due to an appropriations gap, it is ironic that America’s tax dollars are being doled out to an entity whose poor stewardship of our funds was well-established by Congress,” said Dan Epstein, executive director of Cause of Action, a nonpartisan watchdog group based in Washington.

Are you kidding me?

Crash-prone ObamaCare site also includes voter registration option

The federal website that enrolls Americans in ObamaCare also asks applicants if they want to register to vote, raising questions about why the Obama administration would further complicate an already crash-prone website.
Thirty six states are using the federal site – also called exchanges or market places -- to enroll customers in government-mandated health insurance.
At least four other states -- California, Connecticut, New York, Vermont and Wisconsin -- also are asking or intend to ask customers if they want to register to vote.
“The [website] launch has not gone well,” Nick Novak, a spokesman for the John K. MacIver Institute for Public Policy, which noticed the voter-registration question on the Wisconsin site, told FoxNews.com on Monday. “Why are they cluttering up the site?”
Novak, who has unsuccessfully tried numerous times over the past week to click through the site, also argues officials should have at least posed the question after customers sign up for insurance.
However, government officials have defended putting the question on the exchanges, citing federal law.
Brian Cook, a spokesman for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said in August the exchanges must include the question, under the 1993 National Voter Registration Act. The law requires states to offer voter registration at government offices that provide public assistance.
Brett Healy, president of the Wisconsin-based MacIver Institute, suggests that including the question could backfire on Democrats.
"The president should be careful what he wishes for,” he said. "While he counted on young people to win the presidency, many are now experiencing ObamaCare sticker shock."

Al Qaeda kingpin Abu Anas al-Libi belongs at Guantanamo, not in New York

U.S. Commandos scored a tactical victory against Al Qaeda by swooping into Libya and capturing Abu Anas al-Libi earlier this month, a former Bin Laden confidant and terror kingpin. Now President Obama must follow through with a strategic win.
That means extracting valuable intelligence from al-Libi, whose name literally means “the Libyan,” about his two decades of terror insider experience as an Al Qaeda computer expert and co-conspirator of plots against U.S. interests. Al-Libi is believed to have been involved in plots across Africa and the Middle East, including against our Kenya and Tanzania Embassies in 1998 which killed 224 people.
But getting that treasure trove of information depends on our strategy to pry it from a hardened warrior.
And so far, the Obama administration is failing us.
Here’s why:
Instead of whisking al-Libi to Guantanamo where he could be interrogated by the military and CIA for as long as it takes to get actionable intelligence – and then try him by military commission as an enemy combatant, Mr. Obama first decided to hold him aboard the amphibious transport ship USS San Antonio, and later try him in a New York federal courtroom.

Mr. Obama’s resistance is entirely based on politics, which he is putting above national security. Again.

First, let's look at the move to put him on the Navy ship.
While holding key terror suspects captured overseas on a Navy ship makes sense temporarily, therein lies the long term problem -- everybody knows it’s just a temporary landing place, including the detainee. Al-Libi has likely been inclined to bide his time and wait till he arrived in the United States to speak with a civilian lawyer.
Second, about justice.
Obama’s counter-terrorism strategy often resembles a hybrid of police work and war. Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, a leader of Somalia’s Al Qaeda ally, Al Shabaab was captured in 2011 and held aboard a Navy ship for two months.  But then Obama ordered his transfer to federal court in New York where he would be afforded a full range of Constitutional Rights.
Ironically, Obama champions a concept that gives foreign enemy combatants trying to kill Americans, with generous legal protections designed by our Founding Fathers to protect Americans. 
What would George Washington would say?
Third, on the interrogations.
Let’s face it, al-Libi’s time on a ship likely didn't require much toughness. Mr. Obama banned coercive interrogation techniques within 48 hours of his January 2009 inauguration. -- Al-Libi could face rougher treatment from police departments across the country for robbing a liquor store.
Sure, he may decide to cooperate with investigators over a hamburger and fries. Some FBI agents have the knack of getting guys to reveal meaningful information via polite conversations, but that strategy can take considerable time as the interrogator-detainee form a tight bond. While that’s great to help prosecutors secure convictions in court, it could take years, and won't stop imminent attacks.
So what’s wrong with sending al-Libi to Guantanamo?
Actually, nothing. 
Mr. Obama’s resistance is entirely based on politics, which he is putting above national security.
Again.
Let’s understand that although Gitmo had a rocky start in 2002, it remains in the crosshairs of history’s largest propaganda campaign.
Left-leaning defense lawyers, so-called human rights activists, key media and politicians, both in the U.S. and overseas, worked tirelessly to convince the world that Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists at Gitmo were actually the victims. 
They conveniently ignore the fact that detainees collectively killed countless thousands of civilians worldwide, including on Sept. 11, 2001, in the mass-casualty bombings at our East African Embassies, at a Bali nightclub, and the Jakarta Marriott, and during Afghanistan’s civil war.
And with the exception of isolated incidents impacting a grand total of 1% of the total detainee population, the rest have been treated with kid gloves.
Gitmo and military commissions have played a vital role in defending America as we remain at war.
Just as we held Nazis as enemy combatants in 1943, we should continue holding Al Qaeda terrorists and affiliates in the same status.
Al-Libi should join them at Gitmo -- starting today.
J.D. Gordon is a retired Navy Commander who served as a Pentagon spokesman in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 2005-09. He serves as senior adviser to several Washingtonbased think tanks.

 

Will this administration ever lose?

Will this administration ever lose?
History has several examples of political success that has occurred in different political environment, we know are fact.
The destruction of Russia by the advancement of the Society in the Red, White war—where the communist with abject brutality succeeded in killing more people at a greater rate than ever known in mankind’s history to dominate a nation. Then followed by the Communist destruction of China, where once again the barrel of a gun advanced the domination of a nation with abject destructive force.
Yet these are nothing to the success of the communist intrusion occurring in this nation—using guile and fraud—to advance this demented agenda to dominate this nation.
As an American observer, just one of the millions of citizens in this nation who are stunned what is occurring there is only one question that can be asked; why? Why is this nation surrendering to the dementia of communist, under the assault of the most incompetent individual ever elected to political office?
I’m not sure how many are sick and tired of watching ‘Boner aka Boehner’ hold a press conference, turn around, expose his backside, drop his draws, spread his cheeks and show us the latest dildo the Democrats have shoved up the cavity of the anatomy we identify as where the sun never shines. Is there ever a time he could possibly, just once, say we are standing on principle, and we are going to do whatever it takes—even if it means we shut this government down until this nation can have another election and replace this nihilist, even if it means three more years!
All we have to review is the latest catastrophe of the communist intrusion destroying American health care. Think of the reality. This absolute absurdity, advancing a concept that has never worked, can never work, and has no objective of providing health serving—only to give the government control of yet another segment of our economy…advancing the central planning agenda of communist domination…to government dictation. Often I can’t help but wonder if the government would have spent 1/10^th the effort on improving medical servicing, instead of advancing government communist central planning dictates, what we possibly could have today.
Why are those who should be in abject opposition to government domination, the Republican Party, acquiescent in accepting that communist medical servicing is inevitable? What irrational logic can possibly lead to such a conclusion? How demented in acknowledging reality that this concept has never worked, will never work, and is the most destructive ideology ever from the dementia of mental distortion ever known to man yet requires not modification, not application, not more time in application of this destruction; but the elimination of government having anything to do with being a player, or participant in the medical servicing of this nation’s health servicing!
How many examples are needed to realize that government intrusion into anything in society results in the only possible conclusion it can—abject failure. Using just this nation’s failures should be example enough. Look at the failures, we can list them: social security, never designed for anything security, and the farthest thing from social possible…but designed for one purpose and one purpose only…to reduce the communist infusion of money under Keynesian communist monetary policy—that did not work under Franklin Roosevelt any better than it is working under our current elected communist—to remove the same money being injected into the business environment, by a new tax—the tax of social security. Once again confirming that government intrusion into any segment of society, in any activity of that society, is doomed to the only result possible; abject failure.
Let’s take the next advancement of communist doctrine; the destruction of all wealth in the nation—replacing it with the dictates of government discretion of determining what the currency of the money in this nation is worth. Think of that little reality—the epitome of communism—done with absolute stealth, a nation so damn ignorant, they did not know it happened, understand what it meant, and are now subjects to economic domination of government that makes every communist nation on the face of this planet envious. This is the apex; the absolute domination of society, for government has usurped the power, to by their whim dictate the value of your life, your life’s effort and the accumulation of that effort over a lifetime. With this one action, the first three points of Marx’s ten point plan of communist domination was accomplished. So stealthy, without rejection, because of our nation’s citizen’s ignorance, they don’t even know it occurred.
Why is it that we as a nation, as the citizens don’t remember the communist actions that led to the beginning of the medical servicing insanity this nation is now experiencing? Who doesn’t remember the little beginning; the wage and price controls of communist intrusion in the Second World War. Where to circumvent the government dictates of wages, the concept of business provided health insurance was born. When the war was over, did the government then abstain from intrusion into health servicing, and allow the market system to work? No they did not. It is the curse of government that once its cancerous advancement occurs in any venue they choose—the society is condemned. Never, never in the history of man is there an example of government once intruding in anything ever backing off, unless forced to. And don’t use the prohibition as an example, for that was insanity at an unprecedented example.           
The result, not only did we continue the intrusion into medical servicing, they put it under the most devious form of government intervention ever conceived by man; the tax code. For if we use the tax code, by allowing the people, to reduce the tax burden by the expenses the people have—is that not the epitome of communist central planning? Of course it is. Sadly it occurs with the absolute stealth of society’s ignorance. Led like the sheep to the slaughter, never once stopping to think, to engage their collective mental processing to even acknowledge the domination of government over society.
The list goes on and on, finally reaching the absolute domination of the medical servicing itself. The goal the objective and the path our nation is currently on.
The Chinese general Sun Tzu said that there are two things one must know in order to survive. Simple really, know yourself, and know your enemy. IN this nation today we know neither of these. The citizens of this nation know not what type of government we have. Know nothing of the form of government, the concept we are a republic of laws, not the democracy of mob rule. Know nothing of the reality of man, that equal by definition can ever result in equality. That our nation, this wonder of the States united in America is so exceptional in concept there is no known comparative in the history of mankind. That the philosophical ideals of this nation are ‘the protection of the unalienable rights, those rights endowed by the laws of nature and nature’s God, to be protected and preserved by the actions—the dictates—of government. Not the domination of society as is presently occurring by the advancement of the dementia of the current communist intrusion.
We must know the enemy. Currently that enemy is the very government that is dictating to the people the domination of society, while destroying the very vestige of the wonder of this miracle of a nation.
Montesquieu the French philosopher identified long ago that society must have ‘mores, morals, and the religion of the people’ before civilization will flourish.
Today all of these foundations are under attack—some actually removed from our society—and we wonder why our society is more of a jungle than the society of man.
Our enemy is those who will destroy and dismantle this nation; they are communist. The longer this nation ignores that simple reality; the faster our acceleration to the darkness of the domination of government and the end of our society—this absolute wonder of a nation—based on such simplicity; liberty and the preservation of man’s freedom.         

Vets march on Washington, roll into WWII memorial, protest outside White House

Veterans marched on Sunday in Washington in protest of the partial government shutdown that has kept them and other Americans from visiting war memorials across the country, with support from several star conservatives.
“This is the people's memorial,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz told a crowd of several hundred gathered near the WWII Memorial on the closed National Mall, which has become a national symbol of the shutdown and the country’s response. “Simple question: Why is the federal government spending money to keep veterans out of the memorial? Why did they spend money to keep people out of Mount Vernon, Mount Rushmore? Our veterans should be above political games.”
Veterans, including many in wheelchairs, took down police barricades and entered the memorial at about midday as others took the protest to the edge of the White House South Lawn.
“Today somebody’s wife [or] husband is dead in Afghanistan. Is somebody going to pay her husband [or] his wife or their children?” one protester shouted at the White House, referring to the partial shutdown cutting off benefits for the survivors of military personnel.
Some of the metal barricades were carried the roughly half-mile walk from the memorial to the White House, where they were left near the fence in front of Pennsylvania Avenue.
A man was arrested at the event in connection with bringing at least one gun in a bag.
A witness named Jacob Reed told Fox News the man was standing in line to talk to Washington Republican Rep. David G. Reichert.
Reed said a police officer asked the man what he was doing, then asked him to take his bag off his back. The man complied and said the bag contained a bunch of firearms, at which point he was handcuffed and taken into custody.
Cruz was joined by 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, on a gray, rainy day in the nation’s capital.
“Veterans have proven they are not timid. And we will not be timid in calling out anybody that uses the military as pawns,” Palin told the crowd assembled at the Million Vet March on Memorials. “We can only be America, home of the free, if we are America, home of the brave.”
Protesters shouting “U.S.A.” and “Tear down these walls” put the blame squarely on President Obama and Democratic congressional leaders.

“In a mean-spirited fit of selfish anger, Barack Obama has shut down our nation’s war memorials,” march organizers said in a press release. “And he has declared open war on our honored veterans. The World War II memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial, Obama has shut them all down to force his will on the House of Representatives and, frankly, to get revenge on the American people who oppose ObamaCare and his other naked power grabs.”