Report: Hawaii ranks worst for ObamaCare signups

Hawaii has the lowest number in the nation of enrollments through its ObamaCare exchange, Hawaii Health Connector, according to a Feb. 12 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report.
“That’s horrible,” said state Rep. Bob McDermott.
Just 3,614 people enrolled in the state’s exchange, but the report does not disclose how many of those who registered also paid for their health care policies.
McDermott, who serves on the House Consumer Protection Committee, is one of several state lawmakers considering at least seven bills to “reform” the exchange, and launch a state government take over the nonprofit at a cost of $15 million a year.
The Puunui Republican said he sees are “dollar signs spinning in his head.”

County seeks Colo. couple's land through eminent domain to preserve open space

Bailey: " This can happen to anybody in the land of the free!"

The view from the deck of the small, century-old cabin was a dream come true for Andy and Ceil Barrie -- a sweeping panorama of 13,000 and 14,000-foot peaks towering above the forest of centuries-old bristlecone pines.
It convinced the couple to buy a 3-bedroom home in a subdivision below, where they could live year-round, and the 10-acre parcel surrounding the cabin in the midst the White River National Forest.
Now the county government, alarmed that the couple drives their ATV up a 1.2-mile old mining road to the cabin, wants to take the Barrie's land — and it's doing so by claiming eminent domain. Rather than using the practice of government seizure of private property to promote economic development, the county is using it to preserve open space.
The move shocked the Barries. They have allowed hikers to travel through their property, had no plans to develop the land and were negotiating with the county at the time it moved to condemn the property.
Open space "is all it's ever been," said Andy Barrie. "I feel like I can't trust my government."
Summit County Attorney Jeff Huntley said the county had to act after the Barries insisted on being able to use motorized transport to get to the cabin. "People in this community are very intent on preserving the back country," he said.
Experts in eminent domain say it's rare for governments to use that power to create parks or open space.
"It's not that you can't do it, but they don't do it much," said Dana Berliner, who was co-counsel in the 2005 U.S. Supreme Court case upholding the constitutionality of eminent domain. "There's typically other ways of doing open space than just taking land."
But in Colorado, where picturesque mountain towns are bursting with tourists and second-home-owners, and outdoor recreation is the state religion, there have been a few instances of cities deciding to confiscate land to preserve it.
The most significant was when Telluride in 2004 seized 572 acres that the owner wanted to develop along the San Miguel River and left it as open space. The state Supreme Court upheld the confiscation, saying that especially overcrowded mountain towns need to preserve their recreational and natural assets.
Breckenridge is the prototypical Colorado ski town that attracts hordes of ski bums, tourists and residents because of its position at the foot of the sweeping Tenmile range, swaddled in preserved land.
Among those it lured are the Barries, who run a firm that provides Christmas wreaths to nonprofits and have a residence in the Chicago suburbs.
The couple came to Colorado annually on golf trips with some of Andy's old high school pals.
On a 2011 journey, Ceil met friends in Breckenridge and found a restored cabin nestled in a woodsy subdivision just outside the town boundaries. It was a century-old property built on top of a creek that one could watch burble below through a transparent floor in the master bedroom. And it was for sale along with 10 acres just up the ridgeline.
The Barries stayed there that summer and hiked up the county open space trail on the old mining road behind the lower house, through the national forest, to the old cabin at tree line.
The view won them over. They decided to sell their second home on a Wisconsin lake and buy the lower and upper property in a package deal for $550,000. The transaction closed in late 2011 and came with a converted All-Terrain vehicle they could use to drive up the road in the winter.
That's when the trouble began.
The U S. Forest Service told the Barries they couldn't use a motorized vehicle on the road to access their 10 acres, which float like an island in the 2.1 million acres of the White River National Forest.
The Barries countered that they had a legal right to traverse the old road and prepared a court challenge. Summit County contacted the Barries and asked to buy the land. The Barries said it wasn't for sale.
The county commissioners voted to condemn the property on Oct. 25, endorsing a staff report that found that "public motorized access" to the property could damage the alpine tundra and streams, as well as habitat for the endangered lynx.
The county also discovered that the prior owner had illegally expanded the upper mining cabin by building its second story and deck. The Barries say they are pursuing legal action against the seller.
On a recent day, the Barries drove up the winding mining road to the cabin. Inside the compact, unheated structure was a set of bunk beds and a coffee table garnished with a copy of Cabin Life magazine, as well as a single light powered by a solar panel outside.
The Barries said they were frustrated. They would have happily demolished the cabin if needed -- they say they'd be happy to spend warm evenings up there in a yurt or tent -- and had been trying to give some of the land to conservation groups.
They spoke about how their children are now all in college and they hoped to relocate to Colorado as empty nesters.
"We just want the land," Ceil Barrie said forlornly.

College textbook paints Reagan as sexist, conservatives as pessimists

The authors of a textbook used at University of South Carolina earned an 'F' in Ronald Reagan 101, according to several conservative Gamecock students.
“Introduction to Social Work & Social Welfare: Critical Thinking Perspectives” portrays the 40th president as a sexist who was insensitive to minorities and whose main accomplishments were cutting taxes, jacking up defense spending and "slashing" social programs. The book states that conservatives like Reagan "take a pessimistic view of human nature.”
“I was absolutely shocked and was tempted to throw the book away,” Anna Chapman, 19, a sophomore majoring in political science, told FoxNews.com. “I would even write comments in the actual textbook next to some of the offensive things that I read. I didn’t know that this is what I had signed up for.”
The sexist comments are particular difficult to square with The Gipper's record. Although the book states that he "ascribed to woman ‘primarily domestic functions’ and failed to appoint many women to significant positions of power during his presidency,” history shows Reagan appointed the first woman, Sandra Day O'Connor, to the Supreme Court.
Reagan also appointed the first woman ambassador to the United Nations, Jeane Kirkpatrick. And among some 1,400 women Reagan appointed to policy-making positions during his two terms in office were Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth Dole, Secretary of Health and Human Services Margaret Heckler and Secretary of Labor Ann Dore McLaughlin. The textbook makes no mention of any of these appointments, Chapman noted in a post for education blog Campus Reform.

"This book goes out of its way to glorify liberalism and demonize conservatism”

- Anna Chapman, 19, University of South Carolina student

According to the book, Reagan "discounted the importance of racism and discrimination, and maintained that, if they tried, African-Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans could become just as successful as whites." But the policies he implemented, which were continued by President George H.W. Bush, increased homelessness and the number of people living in poverty, according to the book.
“The way it describes conservatives as viewing people as “lazy, corrupt, and incapable of true charity” is extremely offensive and beyond not true, granted the fact that conservatives believe that people are capable of succeeding without government interference,” added Chapman, who is secretary of the school's College Republicans. "I come from a middle class, conservative family, with extremely giving parents, so it really hit home for me.”
In the subsection of the text, titled “Conservatism,” the authors list three concepts as characterizing conservatives:

• As opposing change and prefer tradition due to the fact that, “They believe change usually produces more negative than positive consequence.”
• As usually having a pessimistic view of human nature.
• That they usually “conceive of people as perfectly capable of taking care of themselves.”

The textbook also goes after wealthy people, arguing that they “find that having a social class of poor people is useful.
Officials for the University of South Carolina did not immediately return a request for comment.
The book offers a much kinder assessment of President Clinton, saying whatever failures the two-term Democrat suffered were due to the GOP opposition.
"Liberals had high hopes for Bill Clinton, but he had a House and Senate dominated by Republicans as early as 1994, so most of his proposals were squelched," the book states.
"This book goes out of its way to glorify liberalism and demonize conservatism,” Chapman said. “I don’t think it can get much more in-your-face than that.”