Time to Ditch #ObamaCare and Move On

From Liz Peek, at Fiscal Times, "Time to Ditch Obamacare — a Plan to Rob Taxpayers":

Where do we go from here? With 57 percent of Americans now opposing the Affordable Care Act according to an ABC/Washington Post Poll, and with a steady drip of bad news likely to further undermine the president’s signature law – is it time for Obama and the Democrats to admit failure and throw the law out? Maybe.

If Republicans campaign on overturning Obamacare and win the Senate in 2014 – not an impossibility – it is conceivable that the bill could be jettisoned. It won’t be easy, since President Obama has promised to veto the measure. However, with the bill being hacked to bits by a White House frantic to salvage some vestige the deal, arguing its merits becomes even tougher, and tossing it overboard may become easier.

Continue reading.

Here Comes the Second Wave of #ObamaCare Cancellations

At Fox News, "Second Wave of Health Plan Cancellations Looms":

A new and independent analysis of ObamaCare warns of a ticking time bomb, predicting a second wave of 50 million to 100 million insurance policy cancellations next fall -- right before the mid-term elections.

The next round of cancellations and premium hikes is expected to hit employees, particularly of small businesses. While the administration has tried to downplay the cancellation notices hitting policyholders on the individual market by noting they represent a relatively small fraction of the population, the swath of people who will be affected by the shakeup in employer-sponsored coverage will be much broader.

An analysis by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, shows the administration anticipates half to two-thirds of small businesses would have policies canceled or be compelled to send workers onto the ObamaCare exchanges. They predict up to 100 million small and large business policies could be canceled next year.

"The impact I'm mostly worried about is on small young, entrepreneurial firms that will suddenly face much higher health insurance premiums if they want to offer health insurance to their employees," said AEI resident scholar Stan Veuger. "I think for a lot of other businesses ... they can just send their employees to the exchanges or offer them a fixed subsidy every month to buy health insurance themselves."

Under the health care law, businesses with fewer than 50 workers do not have to provide health coverage. But if they do, the policies will still have to meet the benefit standards set by ObamaCare.

As reported by AEI's Scott Gottlieb, some businesses got around this by renewing their policies before the end of 2013. But the relief is temporary, and they are expected to have to offer in-compliance plans for 2015. According to Gottlieb, that means beginning in October 2014 the cancellation notices will start to go out.

Then, businesses will have to either find a new plan -- which could be considerably more expensive -- or send workers onto the ObamaCare exchanges.

Following the links takes us to Forbes, "Thousands Of Small Businesses Will Also Start Losing Their Current Health Policies Under Obamacare. Here's Why."

Wham! #ObamaCare Creates 'Two-Tier' Health System as Insurers Restrict Choices to Cut Costs

And you know what, this isn't a bug. It's a feature.

All is proceeding just as the Democrats planned.

At the Washington Post, "Insurers restricting choice of doctors and hospitals to keep costs down":

As Americans have begun shopping for health plans on the insurance exchanges, they are discovering that insurers are restricting their choice of doctors and hospitals in order to keep costs low, and that many of the plans exclude top-rated hospitals.

The Obama administration made it a priority to keep down the cost of insurance on the exchanges, the online marketplaces that are central to the Affordable Care Act. But one way that insurers have been able to offer lower rates is by creating networks that are far smaller than what most Americans are accustomed to.

The decisions have provoked a backlash. In one closely watched case, Seattle Children’s Hospital has filed suit against Washington’s insurance commissioner after a number of insurers kept it out of their provider networks. “It is unprecedented in our market to have major insurance plans exclude Seattle Children’s,” said Sandy Melzer, senior vice president.

The result, some argue, is a two-tier system of health care: Many of the people who buy health plans on the exchanges have fewer hospitals and doctors to choose from than those with coverage through their employers.

A number of the nation’s top hospitals — including the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles and children’s hospitals in Seattle, Houston and St. Louis — are cut out of most plans sold on the exchange.

In most cases, the decision was about the cost of care.

Continue reading.

.@MSNBC Race-Baiter Michael Eric Dyson Attacks Matt Lewis for 'White Privilege'

The funny thing is Dyson really believes he's being treated like a "boy" rather than being called out, rightly, for his idiot race-baiting. Behold the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the radical left.

At NewsBusters, "WATCH: Conservative Writer Takes on Race-Obsessed MSNBC Contributor Michael Eric Dyson."

New Emails Show White House Knew #ObamaCare Could Crash on Launch

At Politico, "White House email chain shows launch fears":

Top White House and health officials feared that HealthCare.gov wouldn’t work correctly and would set off a wave of bad publicity, according to emails shortly before the disastrous rollout of the Obamacare enrollment website.

The emails, released Wednesday evening by House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa, included a picture of an error message that has become emblematic of the launch debacle. They were dated Sept. 25 — less than a week before the enrollment portal opened and immediately created a crisis for the White House.

“When Todd Park and Marilyn [Tavenner] was here yesterday one of the things Todd conveyed was this fear the WH has about hc.gov being unavailable,” Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Deputy Chief Information Officer Henry Chao wrote to a few dozen staff and contractors. He was referring to White House Chief Technology Officer Todd Park and CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner.

“Todd does have a good point and I think we should have a more comprehensive answer as to how we will ensure high availability,” Chao continued.

Later on in the email chain, Chae wrote to two colleagues: “… can you think about a better way to convey to the public when the site is not available? I am picturing in my mind all the major print and online publications taking screenshots of what is below and just ramping up the hyperbole about hc.gov not functional.” Attached is picture of an error message which says, “The System is down at the moment.”

Also at Fox News, "Email shows White House had 'fear' ObamaCare site wouldn't work before launch."

Some Afternoon Alice Goodwin #Rule5

I might be able to get a little blogging in tonight, so might was well start it out with a bang.

At Egotastic!, "Alice Goodwin Return to Barely There Lingerie Glory."

Oh My! Obama Dive-Bombs to 37 Percent Approval in Latest CBS News Poll

Yeah, because it's just a matter of time before the ObamaCare kinks are worked out, or something.

At CBS, "Obama approval sink to new lows":

President Obama's job approval rating has plunged to the lowest of his presidency, according to a new CBS News poll released Wednesday, and Americans' approval of the Affordable Care Act has dropped it's lowest since CBS News started polling on the law.

Thirty-seven percent now approve of the job Mr. Obama is doing as president, down from 46 percent in October -- a nine point drop in just a month. Mr. Obama's disapproval rating is 57 percent -- the highest level for this president in CBS News Polls.

Obamacare issues erasing Democrats' political advantage from gov't shutdown
A rocky beginning to the opening of the new health insurance exchanges has also taken its toll on how Americans perceive the Affordable Care Act. Now, approval of the law has dropped to 31 percent - the lowest number yet recorded in CBS News Polls, and a drop of 12 points since last month. Sixty-one percent disapprove (a high for this poll), including 46 percent who say they disapprove strongly.

Republicans are nearly unanimous in their disapproval of the law, and now more than two-thirds of independents agree. Almost six in ten Democrats continue to support the law, but their support has dropped 16 points from last month - from 74 percent in October to 58 percent today. Support has dropped 11 points among independents and five points among Republicans.

Via Memeorandum.

Greta Van Susteren Exposes Murderous Black Thug 'Knockout Game'

It's long past time for black leaders to speak out and denounce this vicious "game" that's popular with America's black thug youth.

At Greta Van Susteren's blog, "VIDEO: “Knockout Game” hits another victim in D.C."

From last night's show, "What did you think of my OFF THE RECORD commentary tonight?"

Also, "WATCH THIS VIDEO: WHERE IS THE MEDIA?? THIS SHOULD BE SPARKING OUTRAGE COAST TO COAST! WHY ISN’T EVERY NEWS OUTLET COVERING THIS? (CBS LOCAL IS!) THIS IS NOT A GAME AND IT IS NOT FUNNY – THIS IS MURDER."

When someone dies from this cruel KNOCK OUT game (and it is not funny nor a game), it is MURDER. If the victim does not die, it is assault with intent to kill. It is mean. It is cruel. It also is terrible for the many good people in a community trying to live their lives and raise their families. They are scared.

Unhinged Leftists Freak Over Big-Game Hunter Melissa Bachman — Again!

The hunt was completely legal --- and ethical.

From Katie Pavlich, at Townhall, "Ignorant Anti-Hunters Freak Out Over Woman Who Legally Killed a Lion."

Just read it all at the link.



Yeah, by now this is pretty routine, the damned leftist ghouls.

Remember previously, "Big-Game Hunter Melissa Bachman Cut From National Geographic's 'Ultimate Survivor Alaska' After Environmental Fascists Mount Boycott at Change.org."

Repeal of 1988 Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act Portends Danger for #ObamaCare

Look, when front-page coverage at the New York Times raises the specter of ObamaCare repeal, you know things are hitting rock-bottom on the left.

See, "Lesson Is Seen in Failure of Law on Medicare in 1989":

WASHINGTON — Angry Americans voice outrage at being asked to pay more for health coverage. Lawmakers and the White House say the public just doesn’t appreciate the benefits of the new health law. Opponents clamor for repeal before the program fully kicks in.

The year was 1989, and the law was the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act, which was supposed to protect older Americans from bankruptcy due to medical bills. Instead it became a catastrophe for Democratic and Republican lawmakers, who learned the hard way that many older Americans did not want to be helped in that particular way.

Seventeen months after President Ronald Reagan signed the measure with Rose Garden fanfare, a series of miscalculations and missteps in passing the law became painfully evident, and it was unceremoniously stricken from the books by lawmakers who could not see its demise come quickly enough.

The tortured history of the catastrophic-care law is a cautionary tale in the context of the struggle over the new health law, the Affordable Care Act. It illustrates the political and policy hazards of presenting sweeping health system changes to consumers who might not be prepared for them. And it provides a rare example of lawmakers who were willing to jettison a big piece of social policy legislation when the political risks became too grave.

“It has often been said that if you get an entitlement on the books, you can never get rid of it,” said Bill Archer, who pushed to repeal the 1988 law as a senior Republican, from Texas, on the House Ways and Means Committee. “That is an example of a time we did get rid of it.”

Backers of the Affordable Care Act say comparisons to the catastrophic-care debacle are flawed. They say that the new law fills a major health insurance void and that despite its current problems it will never meet the same fate as that undertaking in 1988.

“It is enormously different,” said Ron Pollack, the executive director of Families USA, a liberal consumer advocacy group, who supported both the new health law and the catastrophic-care program. “You had a benefit totally paid for by 40 percent of the Medicare beneficiaries, who overwhelmingly thought there was not a benefit there for them. It is understandable they were upset.”

Others involved with the passage and repeal of the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act see clear parallels with the current situation, in which a very vocal segment that views itself as harmed by the new law has joined with highly organized political operations to rally opposition to it.

“When I saw this massive thing, I said, ‘Boy, if this is anything like catastrophic, they are going to be in trouble,’ ” said Brian J. Donnelly, who led the 1989 repeal effort as a Massachusetts Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee. “It is a very good analogy.”

Continue reading.

And flashback to 1989, at NYT, "Retreat in Congress; The Catastrophic-Care Debacle - A special report.; How the New Medicare Law Fell on Hard Times in a Hurry":

Rarely has a Government program that promised so much to so many fallen apart so fast.

Yeah, well.

I guess people actually got a chance to see what was in it --- and they weren't happy.

PREVIOUSLY: "#ObamaCare's on Life Support."

@MSNBC's Disgusting Martin Bashir Apologizes to Sarah Palin

At Freedom Eden, "Martin Bashir Apology to Sarah Palin (Video)."

Also at Legal Insurrection, "Martin Bashir apologizes for disgusting attack on Sarah Palin."



And ICYMI, the background's at BCF, "Martin Bashir Suggests Someone Should Defecate in Palin's Mouth and Urinate in Her Eyes."

Philippines Survivors Begin Odyssey for Families

At the Wall Street Journal, "Typhoon Haiyan Survivors Begin Odyssey to Find Their Families":

CEBU CITY, Philippines—Just after nightfall, three men jostled with hundreds of other people for spots aboard a rust-stained ferry leaving this port for an island where they hoped to find loved ones alive—or prepare to bury them.

Typhoon Haiyan ripped across the Philippines a week earlier, focusing much of its wrath on Samar Island. A few hundred of those on the Cebu dock found their way aboard the Samar-bound 34-year-old ferry, the Blessed Stars.

The Blessed Stars' passengers—and thousands of others boarding ferries on the docks during a tropical downpour—were part of a mass migration of people from the Philippines and beyond who are converging on their devastated home islands.

As the engine kicked in and fumes mixed with the salty breeze, stars began to emerge. Passengers lighted cigarettes and, as the 15-hour journey began, told of the people they were traveling to find.

One was Angel Cillo, who boarded with his wife to find out whether his family in his hometown was alive, including his 75-year-old mother. He last spoke to them by phone just before the typhoon hit, and his brother had sounded nonchalant. Calls now always produced one response: "The person you are trying to call is out of the coverage area."

Another, Rayanaldo Casas, knew his 22-year-old son, an apprentice on a cement ship, died when the storm surge hit off the Samar coast.

His body was in a mass grave, Mr. Casas said. He wanted to return the remains to his home on another island.

"I will bring him home, but I don't know how," he said.

Passenger Eduard Amanigos, a worker in Kuwait, lost touch with his wife, son and daughter when the typhoon hit their home along the eastern Samar coast. The last thing his wife said before the phone went dead: "The water has risen to the ceiling in just five minutes."

He said he later saw her alive on television, but he didn't know much about her situation.

Continue reading.

What Castro Knew About Lee Harvey Oswald

From Mary Anastasia O'Grady, at WSJ, "The official narrative skips tantalizing signs of a Cuban connection":

In November 1963, Cuban intelligence officer Florentino Aspillaga was posted in a little hut near a Cuban beach where he operated listening equipment trained on Miami and CIA headquarters in Virginia. On the morning of Nov. 22, Mr. Aspillaga—who would defect to the U.S. in 1987—said that he was ordered "to stop all your CIA work, all your CIA work." He was instructed to "put all of my equipment to listen to any small detail from Texas. They told me Texas."

Did Castro know that Lee Harvey Oswald was about to assassinate President Kennedy? Brian Latell, a veteran CIA Cuba analyst who spent 15 hours interviewing Mr. Aspillaga for his newly revised "Castro's Secrets," (Palgrave MacMillan), makes a strong case that he did.

Mr. Latell takes readers through a half-century of Cuban espionage by interviewing a dozen high-ranking Cuban defectors and numerous former CIA officers. He calls Mr. Aspillaga "the most knowledgeable Cuban defector ever to change sides." He also pored over thousands of pages of declassified CIA documents and gained access to the unpublished memoir of Thomas Mann, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico in 1963, who had reason to suspect an Oswald-Cuba connection.

Mr. Latell set out to tell the story of Cuba's "intelligence machine," which outmaneuvered the U.S. for many years. In the process he uncovers startling details that suggest that Cuba fueled Oswald's maniacal desire to prove himself worthy of Castro's revolution during the American's visit to Mexico City in the fall of 1963. Mr. Latell also presents strong evidence that the Johnson administration and higher-ups in the FBI and the CIA ensured those details were kept from the Warren Commission.

The Kennedy administration was desperate to eliminate Castro. The 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion had failed and by August 1963, according to Edward Jay Epstein —a renowned expert on the killing of the president and author of the recently released book "The JFK Assassination Diary"— Richard Helms, though not yet CIA director, was "receiving almost daily phone calls from [Attorney General Robert Kennedy ] demanding to know what actions he was [taking] to remove Castro from power." The agency recruited Rolando Cubela, a revolutionary insider, to do the job.

But Cubela was a double agent. And on Sept. 7, just after Cubela agreed to help the Americans, Castro gave an interview to an AP reporter in which he put the U.S. on notice that "aiding terrorist plans to eliminate Cuban leaders" would mean that "they themselves will not be safe."

Castro didn't need to look far for a willing partner to back up those words. It is "known with near certainty," writes Mr. Latell, that Cuba had "opened a dossier" on Oswald in 1959, while he was stationed at the Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, in Southern California. Oswald was enamored of the Cuban Revolution, and he had made contact with the Cuban consulate in Los Angeles.

On Sept. 27, 1963, Oswald checked into the Hotel Comercio in Mexico City for a five-night stay. He tried to get a visa from the Cuban embassy to travel to Havana. He had a fling with an embassy employee and probably spent time with others who were intelligence agents. When his visa was not forthcoming, witnesses said he went on a rant at the embassy, slammed the door and stormed off.

According to Mr. Latell, during his Mexico City stay Oswald twice visited the Soviet consulate where he met with "an officer of the notorious Department 13, responsible for assassination and sabotage operations." The KGB was training Cuban intelligence at the time, and "it seems certain that [Oswald's] intelligence file in Havana was thickening."

Castro's claim about Oswald—in a speech 30 hours after Kennedy was shot—that "we never in our life heard of him" was a lie. Indeed, in a 1964 conversation with Jack Childs —an American communist who had secretly been working for the FBI—Castro let it slip that he knew of Oswald's outburst while at the embassy in Mexico City and said that the ex-Marine had threatened to kill the U.S. president.

Continue reading.

Ouch! Obama's Approval Tanks in New Poll at Washington Post!

Oh boy, Dems are going to have another rough day tomorrow.

At WaPo, "Obama’s ratings tumble after health care flaws":

The flawed rollout of the Affordable Care Act has pushed President Obama to the lowest point of his presidency, with dwindling faith in his competence and in many of the personal attributes that have buoyed him in the past, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Opposition to the new health-care law also hit a record high in the survey, with 57 percent saying they oppose the president’s most significant domestic initiative. Forty-six percent say they are strongly against it. Just a month ago, as the enrollment period was beginning, the public was almost evenly divided in its assessments of the law.

Disapproval of Obama’s handling of the health-care law’s rollout stands at 63 percent, with a majority saying they strongly disapprove. Last month, 53 percent disapproved.

The findings are the first since Obama’s news conference last week in which he repeatedly acknowledged his and the administration’s mistakes in handling the legislation. He also sought to assuage the anger among millions of Americans whose individual policies were canceled because they did not meet the new requirements.

The provision of the legislation that requires all individuals to obtain health insurance or pay a fine long has been controversial, and the survey highlights that anew. By almost 2 to 1, Americans oppose the individual mandate, with more than half saying they strongly oppose it. In contrast, almost six in 10 support the provision that requires companies with more than 50 employees to provide health insurance or face a financial penalty.

Because of the problems with HealthCare.Gov, the federal Web site designed to allow people to sign up for insurance, seven in 10 Americans say the administration should delay the individual mandate.

The public views the uproar over canceled policies, which has roiled the administration over the past month, as more than the normal start-up problems of a large enterprise. A majority say the trouble is a sign of mismanagement by those in charge of implementing the law.

Because of the cancellations, Obama has come under sharp criticism for having said repeatedly that people who liked their policies could keep them. The Post-ABC survey asked people whether they thought that he told the public what he believed to be true or that he intentionally misled. By 52 percent to 44 percent, Americans say they think he told people what he thought was correct at the time.

With all the controversy surrounding the implementation of the law, Americans are evenly divided on whether the Affordable Care Act can be fixed.

Responses to that question differ dramatically depending on party identification, with Democrats overwhelmingly confident that the legislation can be made to work and Republicans overwhelmingly pessimistic about its viability. A majority of independents say it cannot be made to work.

The health-care law has become a political burden for elected officials who support it. Almost four in 10 Americans say they are more likely to oppose a politician who backs the legislation, while just over a fifth say they would be more likely to support such a politician. That’s the biggest gap recorded in Post-ABC polling during the entire debate over the law.

Not good at all.

Continue reading.

More people have a negative view of Obama "personally" than they do of his positively, which is unlike any time during in in the past for this presidency.

More:

For the first time in Obama’s presidency, a bare majority of Americans, 52 percent, say they have an unfavorable impression of him, with 46 percent saying they view him favorably. Those ratings have declined from a net positive of 23 points at the time of his inauguration in January.

Like I said: It's gonna be a rough day for the Dems tomorrow. And boy do they deserve it.

IMAGE CREDIT: The Looking Spoon.

Doris Lessing, 1919-2013

From LAT's obituary, "Doris Lessing dies at 94; British novelist of the 'female experience'":

Lessing resisted being called a feminist, in fact frankly condemned the man-hating excesses of the early women's movement.

"I think they missed a great many opportunities," she said in a 2007 interview with The Times. "Just to oversimplify, they went political. From the moment they went political, inevitably they were going to fragment and bitch-bite and call each other names. They did some unspeakably bad things, like rubbish women who were bringing up children," she said.

"If I say the 1960s motto was 'women good, men bad,' I think I've summed it up," she said. "But things have changed. I think I have noticed that what young women are doing is looking for a husband, just as if there hadn't been any so-called feminist revolution.... Not saying they want to get married, necessarily. I also know a lot of women who don't want children, which I think is marvelous. What a liberation that is, in that nobody even blames them for it!"

RTWT.

And from Instapundit, "DORIS LESSING HAS DIED":

Let me again call attention to this column of hers on political correctness and communism, and this piece on why feminism should stop attacking men, which was linked back in the very earliest days of InstaPundit.

Click through and follow the links.

She was a fascinating woman. I had no idea --- and I'm supposed to be well-read, lol.

#ObamaCare's on Life Support

From Josh Kraushaar, at National Journal, "Why Obamacare Is On Life Support":

There's nothing that Democrats want more than to change the subject from Obamacare, despite DNC Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz's protestations otherwise. Congressional Democrats don't want to be dealing with a drip-drip of news about premiums going up, patients losing their doctors, and a broken health care website as they face angry voters in 2014. Hillary Clinton doesn't want this issue lingering past the midterms. She hitched her presidential prospects to President Obama's wagon and she's not about to let someone else's crisis damage her presidential ambitions yet again, Even Vice President Joe Biden, who called the health care law a "big f---ing deal," didn't mention it once at a fundraiser last week for North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan.

Unless the HealthCare.gov website miraculously gets fixed by next month, there's a growing likelihood that over time, enough Democrats may join Republicans to decide to start over and scrap the whole complex health care enterprise. That became clear when even Obama, to stop the political bleeding, offered an administrative fix that threatened the viability of the entire individual exchange market to forestall a House Democratic mutiny the next day. It was as clear sign as any that the president is pessimistic about the odds that the federal exchange website will be ready by the end of the month, as promised.

More than anything, politics is about self-preservation, and the last two weeks provided numerous examples of how public opinion has turned so hard against the law that even its most ardent supporters are running for the hills. It's not just red-state Democrats, like Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, distancing themselves from the law. It's blue-state senators like Oregon's Jeff Merkley and New Hampshire's Jeanne Shaheen -- and top blue-state recruits like Michigan's Gary Peters and Iowa's Bruce Braley, who voted for GOP legislation Friday that the White House said would "gut" the law. Nearly every House Democrat in a competitive district joined with Republicans to threaten the law. Without a quick fix, those ranks will grow.

This tsunami of blowback, which built in just the last month, is unsustainable for Democrats over the long haul. The president isn't just losing his skeptics from the chaotic Obamacare rollout but his allies who stood to gain from the law's benefits -- namely Hispanics, whose approval of the president has dropped more than any demographic subgroup since the problems began. The simplest solution -- if only to stop the bleeding -- is to get the website fixed. (When former DNC Chairman Howard Dean's proposal is to hire tens of thousands of young phone operators to sign people up for insurance -- straight out of a Jerry Lewis telethon -- as he suggested on "Morning Joe," it's clear the website problems are really bad.).

Continue reading (via Memeorandum).

An excellent analysis, Kraushaar suggests we're about this far from enough Democrat defection to favor repeal in the Congress. If not now, should Democrats lose the Senate in 2014, kiss the ACA goodbye.

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford Knocks Over Councilwoman

Via BCF, "Tim Hudak would support action to deal with Mayor Ford."



PREVIOUSLY: "Toronto Mayor Rob Ford Says He Won't Go Down Without a Fight."

From BFD to MIA: Vice President Joe Biden Missing from #ObamaCare Debacle

He's been pretty scarce lately.

Neil Munro has it, at the Daily Caller, "Joe Biden hides from Obamacare crisis."



The video's from Biden's comments two weeks ago, but it looks like he stuck his head out today, "Biden: 'God Willing' Obamacare Website Gets Fixed."

FLASHBACK: At Freedom Eden, "Biden: 'This is a Big F---ing Deal' (Video)."

Gallup: 55 Percent of Independents Say It's Not Federal Gov't's Responsibility for Health Coverage

Here's the report at Gallup, "Majority in U.S. Say Healthcare Not Gov't Responsibility."

Read it at the link (via Memeorandum).

What's particularly striking is the robust majority of independents against the federal government's role of provider of healthcare. We're hearing all this talk about the death of the "liberal" agenda (what I've called the death of radical progressivism under Obama), and this is just one more indicator of the harsh hit the left is taking amid this massive Democrat healthcare clusterf-k.

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford Says He Won't Go Down Without a Fight

At Canada's National Post, "Rob Ford vows not to go down without a fight after vote strips him of key powers."

But see Christie Blatchford, "Rob Ford’s downfall leaves sobering questions about Toronto police probe":

By this point in the shlock opera that is the Rob Ford story, it’s a given that the Toronto mayor is, to borrow from Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar on Wayne’s World, not worthy.

He is not worthy of defending. He is not worthy of the benefit of the doubt. He’s not worthy of another chance.

What Mr. Ford is is hard bloody work, and after months of duplicity, he has managed to squander the public trust. And with each new low he attains — the bar is now well below the ground — he exhausts even the residue of goodwill that remained for him even after the last of the trust had gone.

So don’t cry for him.

Continue reading.

More at BCF, "Is OCAP Trying To Setup Rob Ford?" And, "Rob Ford’s prominence in police investigation into two other men puzzling, experts say."

Philippines Typhoon Boosts Leftist 'Climate Justice' Meme

A big climate change "inequities" piece on the front-page of the New York Times yesterday. I almost started laughing.

Pirate's Cove has it, "NY Times: Say, That Climate Change Thing Sure Creates Inequities, Eh?"

Russia Plane Crash: 50 Dead as Boeing 737 Crashes on Landing in Kazan

At LAT, "Russian plane crashes in gusty weather, killing 50":

MOSCOW — A Boeing 737 being operated by a regional airline crashed in gusty weather Sunday evening while attempting to land at the airport in Kazan in central Russia, killing all 50 people on board, authorities said.

The Tatarstan Airlines flight from Moscow was carrying 44 passengers and six crew members when it crashed into the airport tarmac, caught fire and broke apart, according to Sergei Izvolsky, a spokesman for Rosaviatsia, a federal air transportation agency.

The cause was not immediately known. Vladimir Markin, spokesman for the national Investigative Committee, told the Interfax news agency that authorities would look at several possibilities, "including pilot error, technical fault and unfavorable weather conditions."

Russian television carried dramatic footage that showed flames engulfing the plane as it sat on the tarmac in the dark, firetrucks drenching it with water cannons. The crash occurred at 7:25 p.m.

Among those killed, according to the federal Emergency Situations Ministry, was Irek Minnikhanov, 24, the son of the president of Russia's Tatarstan republic, Rustam Minnikhanov. Also reported killed was Alexander Antonov, the regional head of the Federal Security Service, the main successor agency to the Soviet KGB.

Kazan is the capital of Tatarstan.

IDF Humanitarian Delegation to the Philippines

This is awesome:

Youth Pastor Daniel Diaz Shot to Death by Lone Gunman in Pomona

It's a pretty rough neighborhood out that way.

At LAT, "Pastor's slaying is latest in a year of violence for Pomona":

Eddie Reyes was just a 12-year-old in the school lunch line when Daniel Diaz shook his hand, introduced himself and asked Reyes about God.

Twenty years after the pair first met, Diaz was still reaching out to young people. His ability to connect with youths took the longtime friends to the corner of Park and Mayfair avenues in Pomona on Nov. 11, where police say Diaz was shot to death by a lone gunman on foot.

Diaz's killing — just hours after about 200 people gathered for an anti-violence rally at Ganesha High School in Pomona — was the latest in what police and community leaders are calling the worst year of violence in the city's recent history.

"I'm just kind of in disbelief," said Connie Jimenez, whose son Carlos was killed in a still-unsolved homicide in May 2011. "It's a cycle."

Diaz was shot about 12:45 a.m. Monday. He was a passenger in Reyes' car while the pair dropped off three boys who are a part of Diaz's youth ministry at New Beginnings Community Church in Baldwin Park. The group was celebrating Reyes' 32nd birthday and one of the boys' recent graduation from a youth program. Diaz had turned 33 a week earlier.

According to police, someone ran up to the passenger-side door and unloaded four shots into Diaz. No one else in the vehicle was hit, and police have no explanation for the killing. Friends and family say Diaz had no enemies.

"The individual that was out there that night was some lost young soul," Reyes said. Diaz's "entire purpose was to inspire them to not go in that direction."

Over the last two years, Pomona has seen a sharp increase in homicides, reversing years of decline in a city once known for its crime rate and gang wars. There have been at least 24 homicides in Pomona this year, according to the Times Homicide Report.

"There's no way to overlook the fact that we've had a significant increase in gun violence and homicides," said Pomona police Lt. Eddie Vazquez. "All of our other crimes, assaults, thefts, burglaries are all down … but homicides are up."

A majority of the victims of this year's violence have been documented gang members, Vazquez said.

Continue reading.

More at the Times Homicide Report.

USC Interim Coach Ed Orgeron Makes Loud Statement with Trojans' Dramatic 20-17 Win Over Stanford

It was something else.

Funny video too, of Lee Corso's prediction of a USC victory.

At LAT, "Ed Orgeron makes loud statement to stay as USC football coach":

The deep green Coliseum field turned cardinal and gold, swarmed by thousands of fans, enveloped in thousands of screams, a heart of Trojans nation beating together in dizzy disbelief.

In the middle stood one sweating man who was somehow bigger than all of it, his giant white-sleeved arms raised above his giant smile, his massive shoulders carrying this bear of a victory.

He was rocked, he was hugged, he was loved like no man has been loved here since the early days of Pete Carroll.

He is Coach Ed Orgeron, and he orchestrated and inspired USC's stunning 20-17 last-second victory over fifth-ranked Stanford on Saturday night in such a way that every question about his brief but dazzling tenure was answered but one.

Will he be allowed to keep his job?

After Andre Heidari kicked a 47-yard field goal with 19 seconds remaining to give the Trojans their biggest victory in several years, one more startling question dominated the postgame celebration.

If the Trojans win their final two games, against Colorado and UCLA, then win their bowl game, how can they let Coach O go?

As the pressure lifts from a USC team that has joyfully won five of six games since Orgeron replaced Lane Kiffin this fall, the pressure mounts on Athletic Director Pat Haden to remove Orgeron's interim tag and allow this crazy Trojans rebirth to continue.

Actually, if you listen to one of Saturday's defensive heroes, freshman Su'a Cravens, the pressure begins now.

“Coach O needs to be here next year … we want Coach O next year,” Cravens said after his fourth-quarter interception set up the game-winning drive. “Forget the hiring, forget all that. We got Coach O and that's all we need.”

Continue reading.

Also, "Andre Heidari's foot doesn't fail USC in 20-17 upset of No.5 Stanford."

Sunday #Rule5

Here's the long-awaited Rule 5 roundup I've been meaning to get posted (my last roundup is here).

I've been busy with semester grading, plus I'm going to be speaking on campus next week on the left's attacks on the Koch brothers' group, ALEC. So, I'm sadly behind on the lovely babe blogging.

Here's last week's entry at the Other McCain, to get things rolling, "Rule 5 Sunday: Double-Stuf Veterans Day Weekend Edition." (And click over there for updates.)

Now, over at Pirate's Cove, "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup," and "If All You See……is a wonderful wooden bench made to overlook a changing climate which changes because someone cut down a tree to make the evil bench, you might just be a Warmist."

And at Camp of the Saints, "Rule 5 News: 09 November 2013 A.D."

From Wirecutter, "Your (Belated) Good Morning Girl."

Also Daley Gator, "DaleyGator DaleyBabes: Stephanie Fantauzzi."

And In a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World has the "Friday Pinups."

EBL has, "Retro Halloween Advertisement Rule 5."

Now from Wine, Women, and Politics as well, "The Weekend Sweetie Pics."

From Blackmailers Don't Shoot, "Pretty Girls on a Thursday, Rima Fakih Edition."

And from the Regular Right Guy, "Shocker! Miley Cyrus Smokes Dope!!!"

Plus, from Drunken Stepfather, "Steplinks of the Day."

And at a View From the Beach, "Shockingly, Brazilian Model Admits to Horrible Taste in Men, Music."

At 90 Miles From Tyranny, "Morning Mistress," and "Girls With Guns."

And at Randy’s Roundtable, "Thursday Nite Tart - Nell McAndrew."

Postal Dogs, "Rule 5 Sunday: Ella, pt. 2."

Subject to Change, "Melons."

At Proof Positive, "SF 49er's Vs. New Orleans Saints," and "Best of the Web* Linkaround."

More at Reaganite Republican, "B-League Beauty Pageants: 'Miss Bikini Universe 2013'!"

Also at Odie's, "Shampoo ~OR~ Rule 5 Woodsterman Style."

First Street Journal has, "Rule 5 Blogging: Basic Combat Training at Fort Jackson."

At COED, "Happy Birthday to Gemma Atkinson! [PHOTOS]" (via Linkiest).

Good Stuff's has "Elly Tran Ha."

See also, the Hostages, "Big Boob Friday," and "Big Boob Eva Wants to Know if You’re In."

Plus, special guest star, Blazing Cat Fur, "Attention Agriculturists : German Farm Girls Calendar 2014 Is Here."

Drop your links in the comments of I've missed your Rule 5.

Until then...

Diamond-Studded Nancy Pelosi Lies Her Way Through 'Meet the Press' Interview on #ObamaCare

A bloody, bald-face liar who spews incoherent untruths without a hint of self-awareness or remorse.

She's absolutely infuriating, but the complete and utter meltdown of the Democrat Party is the gift that keeps on giving.

At Twitchy, "Bless her lying heart! Nancy Pelosi ‘stands tall’ for Obamacare lies; Throws Dems under the bus?"

@NancyPelosi on @MeetthePress in her huge diamond earrings talking about "affordable' health care.

— Dana French (@DanaBordeaux) November 17, 2013

More here, "Side-splitting ‘hoop-dee-do!’ Nancy Pelosi’s most idiotic Obamacare defense yet?"

And at Free Beacon, "Pelosi Gets Grilled Over False Obamacare Promises on ‘Meet the Press’."



More from Doug Powers, at Michelle's, "Nancy Pelosi tries to insist ‘if you like your plan you can keep it’ wasn’t untrue, fails miserably." And at Conservative Intelligence Briefing, "Pelosi’s painful, embarrassing re-write of her own promise on health care."

Yes, painful.

But the congressional painkiller elections are less than one year away. It's going to be a Democrat bloodbath.

#ObamaCare's Launch Debacle Could Haunt for Years to Come

From John Judis, at the New Republic, "If You Believe in Government, You Should Be Furious About Obamacare's Incompetent Rollout":

Since the country’s founding, Americans have always had an abiding distrust of the federal government. In the country’s first fifty years, that probably had a progressive effect by accelerating Westward economic expansion, but after the Civil War, business and banking leaders exploited this sentiment to block attempts to protect workers and consumers; later, the appeal to state’s rights was used to oppose civil rights laws.

It has taken panics, depressions, wars and social upheaval to get Congress to adopt social and economic reforms. At all other times, the publics’ distrust of government, as reinforced by business, has carried the day. Bill Clinton discovered that out in his first term when he tried to pass a national healthcare program. Obama succeeded in passing a health care bill in 2010 in the wake of the Great Recession. But if Obamacare doesn’t work as promised, then its failure will have reinforced for a generation the argument against any government initiatives. Reform will be dead – whether it’s to fix immigration, healthcare, or the growing gap between rich and poor.

There are already clear warning signs. In the Gallup surveys of public trust in government, Americans’ confidence in the federal government already hit an all-time low in September. Indications are that it has continued to fall.  This lack of confidence initially reflected disillusionment with Congress over the Republican shutdown, but the Obamacare’s current problems will deepen the public’s distrust of government. In 1828, perhaps, such distrust a rising farm economy that needed the kind of easy credit that a national bank was unwilling to provide. But in 2013, it will doom the country to inaction.

The Obama administration still has a chance to turn this situation around, but it doesn’t have long. George W. Bush eventually got the Federal Emergency Management Agency on the ground in the New Orleans after Katrina, but the damage to Bush’s political reputation lingered on. If there are still stories of snafus with the Affordable Care Act six months from now, the Democrats are going to suffer the consequences in November 2014. And the country could suffer for years to come.

I don't read Judis very often, but what's interesting about this is that he's sympathetic to big government while simultaneously sounding its obituary. It's a theme across the spectrum at this point, and after reading a number of pessimistic analyses, I don't hold out much hope that the fixes are going to work. Republicans can and should help reduce the pain of ObamaCare, but in the end, it's going to take GOP congressional majorities with the Republican in the White House to fix this mess once and for all.

Hat Tip: Instapundit.

Bwahaha!! White House Optimistic it Will Bounce Back From Healthcare 'Glitches'

This is hilarious!

At the Los Angeles Times, "Despite President Obama's sharp drop in the polls, staffers believe a fix to the failed online insurance marketplace will bring healing":

WASHINGTON — He's vented, attacked, apologized and adjusted. Now, President Obama has one move left in his attempt to salvage the rollout of his healthcare law: hope the website works soon.

The White House, knowing a functional website is needed to calm its panicky allies, has now entered the wait-and-see period of its triage after the turmoil that has followed the Oct. 1 rollout. With the latest fix to the law unveiled, a bruising House vote behind them and experts working feverishly on the broken website, administration officials believe they may have weathered the worst.

Although Obama's standing in polls and support within his party have dropped sharply, much like the downward trajectory of George W. Bush's second term, White House officials believe he can still recover.

That optimistic assessment depends almost entirely on the administration's ability to reboot healthcare.gov, the once-hyped online insurance marketplace now undergoing extensive repair. At stake are the future of the president's signature domestic achievement, his political standing and reelection prospects for vulnerable Democrats in Congress.

If the administration meets its goal of a mostly glitch-free site by the end of November, the last two months may be remembered as just another near-death experience for a healthcare overhaul that has had many. Even though many insurance executives and congressional Democrats are angry at Obama for his handling of the healthcare law, both groups have strong incentives to help the Affordable Care Act succeed.

But if the White House fails, the recent setbacks could become the beginning of years of trouble for Democrats in office, as well as those seeking to get there, officials concede.

Administration officials privately acknowledge that no argument defending Obamacare will connect with Americans until they begin to see the effects of the law at work. No work-around or temporary fix will reach enough people to build a critical mass of support. The website has to function, admit edgy aides who sometimes spit the word "website" with the contempt familiar to anyone who has ever called a tech help desk.

Obama revealed his own frustrations Thursday, saying at a White House news conference that he has an obligation to show Americans that the law has made health insurance more affordable and accessible — "if we can just get the darn website working and smooth this thing out."

Officials said Friday they were making progress on the site's many glitches and bugs. It now takes less than one second, on average, to load a page, down from eight seconds in the weeks after the launch, said Jeffrey Zients, a former top administration official who was brought back to oversee the repairs. The site can "comfortably" handle 20,000 to 25,000 consumers at the same time and more capacity is being added, he said.

Still, problems persist in the system that sends consumer information to insurers, and as experts have ticked off 200 software problems, more continue to pop up. Zients said the officials expect to make the Nov. 30 goal, but added: "Not all consumers going on the website will have a seamless experience."

While the tech team works, the president must convince his allies as well as his potential adversaries that, as he said Thursday, he's a clutch player who knows how to recover from a fumble.

That group includes insurance executives who were called to the White House on Friday to discuss Obama's answer to the millions of policy cancellation notices sent to surprised consumers. After announcing Thursday that he would allow insurers to rescind those cancellations and extend the policies for another year, the president sought to persuade the executives to take him up on the offer.

The group also includes Democrats on Capitol Hill, many of whom have gone from disgruntled to distrustful of the White House. On Friday, 39 House Democrats voted for the GOP alternative to Obama's extension fix.

That sizable number of largely swing-district lawmakers was only the most visible sign of broader dissatisfaction that makes Obama's current holding pattern a challenge. Even those who stuck with the White House on Friday's vote have expressed frustration. In the wake of Obama's announcement, lawmakers were left to figure out whether their state officials and insurers would go along with the plan. Skepticism was high.

"The message from the White House is, 'OK, you can be mad, it's frustrating. But be on the program,'" said one advisor to a House Democrat, who asked for anonymity while characterizing internal discussions. "But what program is that? The program where every five minutes there's a different plan?"

IMAGE CREDIT: The People's Cube.

Another One! Las-Vegas Review Journal Calls for Full-Blown #ObamaCare Repeal!

Here's the earlier editorial, "Whoa! Chicago Tribune Calls for Full-Blown #ObamaCare Repeal!"

And now from the LVRJ, "Obamacare Woes Beg for Repeal":

Congressional Democrats can’t run away from this mess fast enough, as evidenced by the number of partisans proposing or supporting legislation to let individuals keep their current plans — which led to the president’s Hail Mary on Thursday. At this point, however, it’s impossible to fix that broken promise. The insurance industry, which has spent all year entirely remodeling plans to become Obamacare compliant, can’t turn it all back around in just 45 days and is furious with being scapegoated into trying to do so. An industry insider told BuzzFeed.com, “This doesn’t change anything other than force insurers to be the political flak jackets for the administration.”

Said Karen Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans: “Changing the rules after health plans have already met the requirements of the law could destabilize the market and result in higher premiums for consumers.”

As the guys in those Guinness commercials would say, “Brilliant!” Obamacare policy premiums in many cases were already going to cost significantly more money; this “fix” could cause even bigger increases. The law is so deeply flawed, with so many components in direct conflict with one another, that tweaking just one part will accelerate its collapse.

The Obamacare debacle is just getting started — and it only gets worse from here. Repeal and replace.

Billionaire Socialist George Soros to Spend Millions on 2014 Democrat 'Big Data' Effort

Obviously, panic on the left is reaching defcon levels.

At the New York Times, "Groups Mobilize to Aid Democrats in ’14 Data Arms Race":

Liberal and Democratic-leaning groups, facing difficult midterm elections next year without the technological muscle of the Obama campaign behind them, are preparing a major effort to improve their data infrastructure.

George Soros, the retired hedge fund billionaire and longtime patron of liberal causes, will invest $2.5 million in the effort, officials involved with the plan said. His participation is a signal that some of the wealthy donors who arrived late to the Democrats’ “super PAC” efforts in 2012 are committing early for the next round.

The initiative opens a new front in the “big data” arms race between the left and the right, as the Republican Party and conservative outside groups pour money into political technology after a presidential campaign in which they were badly outmatched.

President Obama’s campaign spent tens of millions of dollars building a program to identify likely supporters and to motivate them with ads, social media efforts and get-out-the-vote messages. But the data experts and engineers who built Mr. Obama’s tech programs have largely moved into the private sector. And the president’s political organization faces an uncertain future: Reborn after Election Day as a tax-exempt advocacy group, it has struggled to translate Mr. Obama’s millions of supporters into an effective tool for advancing his agenda on issues like guns and immigration.

More important, some Democrats said, is that they are unsure how big a role Mr. Obama’s organization can — or will — play in 2014. Those involved with the new effort say they are not waiting to find out. The initiative, as yet unnamed, will be based at Catalist, a for-profit cooperative founded in 2006 by Harold Ickes, a former aide to Hillary Rodham Clinton, and others.

Details of the effort were presented this week at a Washington conference of the Democracy Alliance, a coalition of some of the country’s biggest liberal givers, which works to steer money and to coordinate political work among advocacy groups. Mr. Soros and other alliance donors were early investors in Catalist, and many of the groups funded by the alliance now buy data from it.

On Thursday, boldfaced names of the Democratic donor world mingled at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel with rising Democratic stars like Wendy Davis, a contender for the Texas governor’s race, and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who has been urged by some supporters to consider a presidential bid. Ms. Warren gave a speech touching on Republican efforts to filibuster Mr. Obama’s judicial nominees and the drive to bring intellectual diversity to the federal bench, attendees said, and was warmly received.

“She’s been a darling here since the first time she came,” said Rob McKay, the alliance’s chairman.

The conference will also feature the installation of Gara LaMarche, a veteran of liberal philanthropy, as the alliance’s new president. In an interview, Mr. LaMarche said the alliance hoped to expand its donor base and double its giving over the next several years, in part for a major new effort to expand the liberal political infrastructure at the state level, where conservatives and Republicans have won a series of political and policy victories.

“There is a lot of feeling in this room that the states are where the focus should be,” Mr. LaMarche said.

Improving Catalist was part of that drive, alliance officials said. The group serves as a kind of data hub for dozens of labor unions, liberal advocacy groups and super PACs, maintaining a shared national voter file that is continually updated with commercial and consumer data. Catalist was also involved in the governor’s election this month in Virginia and in the victorious mayoral campaign of Bill de Blasio in New York City.

But the company is also jockeying with other Democratic-oriented data ventures, including some with roots in the Obama campaign, in a rapidly expanding sector that consumes an ever-larger chunk of campaign spending.

Here's the piece on the Democracy Alliance at Discover the Networks, "A New Alliance of Democrats Spreads Funding: But Some in Party Bristle at Secrecy and Liberal Tilt."

Democracy Alliance is a front-group for the most radical organizations in the United States, groups that have been working for decades to destroy the basic fabric of American freedom, to leverage in the far-left socialist state. More on where that funding goes, "The Democracy Alliance's Grant Recipients."

And more on Catalyst at CNN, "George Soros reinvests in progressive-cause data company."

Whoa! Chicago Tribune Calls for Full-Blown #ObamaCare Repeal!

Points and Figures has it, "Hey, it looks like Senator Ted Cruz was right! Even the venerable Chicago Tribune is calling for outright repeal of Obamacare. It’s what happens when one party rams objectives down the throat of constituents."

And at the Tribune, "Stop digging. Start over":

As Friday dawns, here's what a health insurance crisis looks like to many millions of Americans: Barely six weeks shy of 2014, they do not know whether they will have medical coverage Jan. 1. Or which hospitals and doctors they might patronize. Or what they may pay to protect themselves and their families against the chance of medical and financial catastrophe. How much, that is, they may pay in order to satisfy the Democratic politicians and federal bureaucrats who are worsening a metastasizing health coverage fiasco.

For perhaps 5 million of those Americans thus far — estimates vary — the Washington-ordered cancellation of their policies is especially maddening. In the past these people took responsibility for their coverage and bought policies that balanced their needs, finances and personal choices. Congress and President Barack Obama, by enacting the Affordable Care Act, in effect ordered insurers to dismantle many of those individual plans — and cancel those policies.

The Americans manhandled by this exercise in government arrogance now find themselves divided into warring tribes: Those with chronic ailments who have found new plans on Obamacare exchanges and are pleased. Those who don't want or can't afford the replacement policies Obamacare offers them. Those whose new policies block them from using the health providers who have treated them for many years. The estimated 23 million to 41 million people whose employer-sponsored plans are the next to be imperiled. And on and on.

Most of these tribespeople only wish their big problem was a slipshod Obamacare website. On Thursday, their plight grew more frightful. With even Democratic members of Congress storming the White House over the cancellations, Obama declared — by what legal authority is unclear — that he would overrule the law he signed in 2010 and allow insurers to extend those canceled policies for a year.

If, that is, insurance regulators of the 50 states permit this potential distortion to risk pools inside and outside of Obamacare. The regulators, including those in Illinois, had better put protection ahead of politics: Within two hours of Obama's announcement, Mike Kreidler, insurance commissioner of Washington, a Democrat-leaning state, rejected the president's notion, citing "its potential impact on the overall stability of our health insurance market. ... We will not be allowing insurance companies to extend their policies."

Note that these are the same insurance companies that have done what Obamacare demanded of them, while they often were being vilified by politicians and bureaucrats who haven't done what Obamacare demanded of them: Create workable, economically sustainable, insurance markets. A spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans, an industry group, said Thursday that Obama's decree could further drive up prices: "Premiums were set based on assumptions about people transitioning to the (Obamacare) marketplaces," Robert Zirkelbach told The Washington Post. "Changing the rules in the middle of the game could dramatically change who actually signs up. If the exchanges become nothing more than a high-risk pool, that's going to result in massive premium increases for consumers"....

We understand why the president and leaders of his party want to rescue whatever they can of Obamacare. On their watch, official Washington has blown the launch of a new entitlement program ... under the schedule they alone set in early 2010.

What we don't understand is their reluctance to give that failure more than lip service. Many of the Americans who heard their president say Thursday that "we fumbled the rollout of this health care law" would have been pleased to hear him add: So we're admitting it. This law is a bust. We're starting over.

Remember, this is the president's hometown newspaper. Lots of hardcore Obama-cultists will be canceling their subscriptions at the audacity of dissing the dope!

Hat Tip: Instapundit.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz: 'Good Lord. She's Baghdad Bob...'

At Twitchy, "Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Remember, 500,000 have signed up for Obamacare."

She's also pushing the line that Democrats will run on ObamaCare in 2014. Bwahahaha!!

Rush Limbaugh Slams "#ObamaCare Fix" as Fairytale

It's unfixable, via Daily Rushbo.

#ObamaCare Debacle Sparks Debate Over Future of Big-Government

A great discussion with Eric Bolling and crew on Fox News this morning.

Michelle Fields is especially hot.

@EricBolling, Guilfoyle Battle Juan Williams Over How ‘Destructive’ Obama's Been http://t.co/Cbjp7j195C via @mediaite

— Michelle Fields (@MichelleFields) November 16, 2013

PREVIOUSLY: "#ObamaCare Implosion Signals Collapse of Radical Progressivism."

Obama on the Ropes

From Fred Barnes, at the Weekly Standard:

When in trouble, presidents have ways to escape the hubbub, deflect attention from what’s causing the problem, and wait for the whole thing to pass. In 1974, as Watergate was engulfing his presidency, President Nixon traveled to Egypt. A million people lined the roads to see him. Nixon aides quipped that “a million Egyptians can’t be wrong.” But they were wrong, and Nixon resigned a few weeks later.

In 1987, President Reagan was beset by the Iran-contra scandal. His advisers came up with a clever idea for him to emphasize in speeches, an “economic bill of rights.” Its acronym was EBOR, so it was half-jokingly referred to at the White House as “ebor.” Talking about it was preferable to addressing Iran-contra. But the press and public stayed focused on the scandal.

In the firestorm over Obamacare, President Obama has few of these tools of evasion at his disposal. His ability to change the subject from his embattled health insurance plan is limited. This is mostly his fault. Thus he was forced to yield last week to pressure to address the chorus of complaints generated by the cancellation of millions of individual policies....

Obama is in a bind. To save Democratic incumbents in the 2014 election, he’ll have to accept further changes that mollify critics while undercutting Obamacare’s fragile financing scheme. For Republicans, there’s a lesson here: Keep pressuring Obama to stop forcing people to buy more insurance coverage than they want or need, offer an attractive health plan of their own, and await the day a Republican president buries Obamacare once and for all.

That's what I'm talking about!

IMAGE CREDIT: The Looking Spoon, "Here's a couple of Obamacare "Got Insurance" liberals didn't create (but they should have)..."

Shock: Obama Didn't Consult With Insurers Before He Announced His 'Plan' to Rewrite the Law Yet Again

At AoSHQ, "Obama did consult the insurers after he made his announcement, which is the smart way to do it."

Emma Kuziara

I've been slacking on my babe blogging.

The ClusterCare news has been just overwhelming, lol.

Here's Emma K., via Twitter.

'Charles Krauthammer was surprised when President Barack Obama invited him to the White House last month...'

Heh.

At Politico, "Krauthammer on Krauthammer":

Since Obama took office, the columnist and Fox News contributor has been among the most forceful critics of the president’s policies. Krauthammer’s long been widely read among conservatives, but has recently raised his prominence with unrelenting and searing attacks on the president’s health care plan, proclaiming earlier this month that the “unraveling” of Obamacare, the administration, and the Democratic Senate majority could amount to nothing less than “the collapse of American liberalism.”

With Obama’s approval rating at an all-time low, and the Republican establishment at odds with the conservative base, Krauthammer had become more than “critic in chief.” Blending high-mindedness with strong conservative values, he has commanded respect on both the extreme and moderate sides of the spectrum, becoming the closest thing the factionalized GOP could have to a spokesperson, a de facto opposition leader for the thinking right.

But on that October day when a small group of conservative writers gathered for an off-the-record session with Obama, Krauthammer checked his criticism at the gates to the White House.

“I wouldn’t presume to be schooling the president of the United States in his own house on political philosophy,” Krauthammer told POLITICO in a recent interview. “I wouldn’t do it to a friend, let alone to a president who invites me to see him. The role of that encounter is for me as a journalist, as an observer, as an outsider and as a critic to try and get a sense of how his mind works, so I can more accurately understand him and what he does. So it’s not my role to go in there and say ‘You’re a romantic, sir.’”

Such diplomacy goes right to the heart of Krauthammer’s temperament. Despite bold statements and dire predictions, Krauthammer is revered by colleagues on the right and widely respected by those on the left. Fellow pundits call him one of the most important voices in conservatism. Top Republican lawmakers read his columns, as does the President of the United States.

He's a classy guy.

Continue reading.

And here's Krauthammer's book at Amazon, Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics.

Sarah Silverman Returns Ex-Boyfriend Jimmy Kimmel's Things During Interview - UPDATED!!

Poor guy.

Kimmel was with Sarah Silverman? And whatever moved him to invite her on the show? Magnanimity, I guess.

From Kathy Shaidle, "Not only was Silverman’s cleavage more charismatic than her ex Jimmy Kimmel but her bit about returning Kimmel’s belongings was the funniest thing we’ve seen all week. Take note, ladies — this is how you win a breakup."

ADDED: That link is to a blog Kathy tweeted ( nd she commented at the post). My bad. Here's her entry, at Five Feet of Fury, "Five years later, Sarah Silverman still pushing ‘Jimmy’s ex-girlfriend’ schtick."

UnitedHealth Group Purges Doctors Amid Massive #ObamaCare Funding Cuts

It's the country's largest private Medicare provider --- getting slammed by Barack Obama's monstrosity.

Remember, Democrats had to destroy the American healthcare system in order to save it.

These cuts will essentially mean healthcare rationing for the elderly, long wait-times and curtailed doctor visits. Because equality!

At the Wall Street Journal, "UnitedHealth Culls Doctors From Medicare Advantage Plans: Physicians in 10 States Notified; Insurer Cites 'Funding Pressure' From Federal Government":

Doctors in at least 10 states have received termination letters, some citing "significant changes and pressures in the health-care environment." The notices also tell doctors they can appeal within 30 days. That means many physicians and patients won't know for sure who is in or out of UnitedHealth's Medicare Advantage networks before the open-enrollment period to switch Medicare plans ends on Dec. 7.

UnitedHealth said its provider networks are always changing and that it expects its Medicare Advantage network "to be 85% to 90% of its current size by the end of 2014," although it declined to say how many doctors are being cut in individual states or what criteria it is using.

The company said it is managing its network, in part, to provide more value for members, particularly given Medicare's new five-star rating system that ties bonus payments for insurers to certain measures of cost and quality.

"That's what's driving our actions," said Austin Pittman, president of UnitedHealth's networks. He also said, "It's no secret that we are under substantial funding pressure from the federal government."

UnitedHealth Group reported a third-quarter profit of $1.57 billion last month, but Chief Executive Stephen J. Hemsley has issued cautious outlooks for 2014, citing expected cuts in Medicare payments tied to the Affordable Care Act.

Medicare Advantage, an alternative to traditional Medicare, combines hospital and doctor coverage and often includes prescription drugs and perks like gym memberships. Enrollment has more than doubled since 2004 to 13 million in 2012, which represents about 27% of Americans on Medicare.

The federal government pays private insurers a per-capita fee to manage the benefits. The rate is currently about 12% more than the average Medicare patient spends annually. The Obama administration plans to cut those extra payments to insurers by about $150 billion over the next 10 years to help pay for the health law. Some experts expect enrollment in Medicare Advantage plans to decline sharply if that occurs.

Other Medicare Advantage providers, including Humana Inc., Aetna Inc. and WellPoint Inc., said they are always evaluating their provider networks, but doctor groups say none appear to be shrinking them to the extent of UnitedHealth.

UnitedHealth is the biggest player, with nearly three million members in Advantage plans, many of them sold under the AARP brand. The company says it had over 350,000 doctors in its Advantage provider networks.

Among the practices UnitedHealth has dropped are Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., and the Yale Medical Group in New Haven, Conn., which includes 1,200 faculty physicians.

"Instead of a scalpel, United is using a chain saw," said Michael Saffir, a rehabilitation specialist and president of the Connecticut State Medical Society, which estimates the insurer has cut 2,200 doctors across the state.

Two Connecticut county medical groups filed suit against UnitedHealth in U.S. District Court, alleging that the terminations violated contract provisions.

Several state attorneys general are investigating. Congressional delegations have complained about the company's timing and tactics to Medicare administrator Marilyn Tavenner, as did 43 national medical associations and 40 state medical societies in a joint letter on Nov. 6.

A spokeswoman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said CMS is reviewing UnitedHealth's and other provider's networks "to ensure that beneficiaries have full, transparent and timely information and access to needed care."

"We recognize that change is hard," said Mr. Pittman. "This is about meeting the needs of patients in specific geographic areas, improving the quality and sustainability of our networks and deepening our relationships with providers over the long term." The company said it had no comment about the investigations.

AARP issued a statement saying it "has heard from a small number of our members regarding this decision" and was encouraging anyone with concerns to contact UnitedHealth directly.

Some terminated physicians predicted that UnitedHealth's patient satisfaction, a factor in Medicare quality ratings, would suffer with fewer doctors in the network.

"Fewer practitioners mean longer waits, longer drives, less convenience," said ophthalmologist Steven Thornquist of Trumbull, Conn., who said he is the only specialist in adult strabismus—which causes double vision—in a 20-mile radius.

"Patients battling cancer should be focused on their treatment, not on finding another doctor," said gynecological oncologist Johnathan Lancaster, one of more than 200 doctors dropped from UnitedHealth's network at Moffitt, which is a nationally recognized cancer center.

Dr. Lancaster said the cuts mean that about 2,500 current Moffitt patients will have to switch plans or find other cancer doctors—and that thousands more who come for consultations and second opinions can no longer use their UnitedHealth Medicare Advantage plans there.

IMAGE CREDIT: Michelle Malkin.

The Only 'Fix' Is to Scrap #ObamaCare

From Kim Strassel, at WSJ, "The President's ObamaCare Backpedal":

The White House "fix" was likely also groundwork to shift the blame for canceled policies to insurers and state regulators, trusting the public won't notice the difference between "can" and "may." It is highly unlikely that most insurers "can" rip up their business plans (rates, policies, eligibility, actuarial tables), get state regulator approval, reprogram their computers, send out notices and new explanations, give consumers time to think, and then re-sign people up in the one month that remains before the Dec. 15 deadline. But as Mr. Obama has now said they "may," and you can bet he'll blame the failure for this to happen on anyone but his administration.

The question is whether blame-shifting is even possible. The Obama announcement was designed to quell the cancellation furor, to push it beyond next year's midterms. But what's becoming clear to horrified Washington Democrats is just how successfully they re-engineered health care. ObamaCare's pieces are vastly complex, intricately linked, and built upon each other. For Democrats who want political cover, there are no "fixes" around the edges.

A great piece. Strassel's one of my very favorite political writers.

RTWT.

Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers on 'The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson'

She's weeks away from having another baby!

What a great lady.

The #ObamaCare Implosion is Real — And it's Spectacular!

From Director Blue, "HEADLINE O' THE DAY: ClusterCare":

The cover of today's New York Post, subtle as always. pic.twitter.com/peF0g6ejpL

— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) November 15, 2013

BONUS: From Johah Goldberg, "Obamacare Schadenfreudarama":

If you can’t take some joy, some modicum of relief and mirth, in the unprecedentedly spectacular beclowning of the president, his administration, its enablers, and, to no small degree, liberalism itself, then you need to ask yourself why you’re following politics in the first place. Because, frankly, this has been one of the most enjoyable political moments of my lifetime. I wake up in the morning and rush to find my just-delivered newspaper with a joyful expectation of worsening news so intense, I feel like Morgan Freeman should be narrating my trek to the front lawn. Indeed, not since Dan Rather handcuffed himself to a fraudulent typewriter, hurled it into the abyss, and saw his career plummet like Ted Kennedy was behind the wheel have I enjoyed a story more.

Jean-Claude Van Damme Epic Volvo 'Split' Ad

From Mary Katharine Ham, at Hot Air, "Video: Jean-Claude Van Dammmmmnnnn."

Socialist Kshama Sawant Wins Seattle City Council Seat

Well, it's Seattle.

I doubt this is a bellwether, especially considering how socialism's taking a beating at the national level.

At the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "Socialist Sawant wins City Council seat."

Seattle City Council candidate Kshama Sawant, a “Socialist Alternative” insurgent, has unseated four-term incumbent Richard Conlin, with the latest batch of mail-in ballots nearly tripling Sawant’s lead to 1,148 votes.

A year ago, Sawant was running against the Legislature’s most powerful Democrat, House Speaker Frank Chopp, charging that the “Democratic Party-majority government” had slashed billions from education programs while bestowing tax exemptions on “rich corporations.”

On Thursday evening, however, the victorious “working class activist” Sawant was headed for a 36th District Democratic fundraiser sponsored by State Sen. Jeanne Kohn-Welles. Sawant’s tireless journalist booster, Stranger news editor Dominic Holden, is appearing on a post-election panel at the event.

The Sawant victory comes exactly 97 years after Seattle voters put their first outspoken radical into office, Seattle School Board member Anna Louise Strong. Strong would write about the Wobblies, oppose U.S. entry into World War I and eventually end her days in China, where she was on friendly terms with Mao Zedong.

While the Occupy Seattle organizer is about to occupy an office in the council chambers, ballots are still being counted in several close races. One big ballot measure is still hanging, while other contests appear narrowly decided.

The $15-an-hour minimum wage proposal in SeaTac, already under legal challenge, leads by exactly 53 votes. The margin was cushioned by 12 votes in Thursday’s count.

The proposal for taxpayer-financed elections in Seattle, Proposition 1, has climbed in the late vote count. Unlike Sawant — who overcame a 6,193-vote election night deficit — Prop. 1 hasn’t quite climbed enough. The “No” side still has a lead of 2,656 votes.

So, an "Occupy Seattle" organizer wins a seat on the city council. Maybe she can personally clean the defecation off the city's police cars, the idiot.

And wouldn't you know it, but the folks at Democracy Now! are down with it, to say nothing of Katrina vandenHeuval at the Nation.

Again, thank goodness the left's socialist agenda is imploding at the national level. You'll always have the local communist kooks, but folks are finally waking up to the socialist nightmare that's darkly enveloped the country since at least 2008.

IMAGE CREDIT: Kshama Sawant on Twitter.