New York Cultural Elite 'Victimized' by Obama Health Plan They Supported

Pure schadenfreude.

At IBD, "ObamaCare Betrays New York's Liberal Elite":

Socialized Medicine: Members of New York's cultural elite who voted for President Obama are learning that their health insurance plans are being canceled because of ObamaCare. Forgive us for not puddling up.

The New York Times reports that thousands of Upper West Side writers, musicians, actors, photographers, artists, doctors and lawyers are starting to get the same cancellation letters that middle-class Americans across the country have received.

And like other victims of ObamaCare's unintended consequences, they're discovering they're going to have to pay more to get comparable coverage — if they can find it. Many can't locate their doctors and hospitals on the ObamaCare exchange.

These are the same liberal elite who supported Obama and his takeover of the private health-care sector. During the 2012 presidential race, they derided "cold-hearted" Romney voters critical of Obama's new big-government entitlements. Now they're paying for their own idealism, and they don't like it.

"I couldn't sleep because of it," said Manhattan lawyer Barbara Meinwald of her cancellation notice. Her group plan through the New York City Bar didn't meet the ObamaCare mandates. So now she whines she has to pay $5,000 more for a plan covering fewer doctors.

The biggest idiots --- and leftist a-holes, to the one. Couldn't happen to a more revolting bunch.

Continue reading.

And here's the piece at NYT, "With Affordable Care Act, Canceled Policies for New York Professionals."

Embrace the suck.

American Studies Association Issues Israel Boycott Talking Points

At Legal Insurrection, "ASA issues member talking points to counter university pushback over Israel boycott."

And speaking of the ASA, see Commentary, "Roger Waters’s Anti-Jewish Paranoia":

If you want to get supporters of boycotts against Israel into high dudgeon just try observing, as Larry Summers has, that such boycotts are “anti-Semitic in their effect if not necessarily in their intent.” Summers has called the most recent boycott effort at the American Studies Association “abhorrent” because at the same time that it singles out Israel for condemnation “among all the countries in the world that might be thought to have human rights abuses,” it ignores the “existential threat” Israel faces.

Nowadays, if you make such a charge you are likely to be greeted with the protest that the boycott movement’s “core principles include the opposition to every form of racism, including both state-sponsored racism and anti-Semitism” along with cries that you are trying to distract people from the main issue. Why then, is former Pink Floyd front man Roger Waters a hero of that movement?

*****

I don’t mean the mandatory comparison of Israel to Nazi Germany. While Waters may have shocked some people when he said that the “parallels [between Israel’s treatment of Palestinians] with what went on in the 30’s in Germany are so crushingly obvious,” this kind of vileness is par for the course in pro-boycott circles. I have this statement in mind:

The Jewish lobby is extraordinarily powerful here and particularly in the industry that I work in, the music industry and in rock’n roll as they say. I promise you, naming no names, I’ve spoken to people who are terrified…. They have said to me “aren’t you worried for your life?”

Waters has not been adequately coached. In the BDS movement, you are supposed to refer to your targets as “Zionists” (because it is all right to view people who support Israel’s national project as proto-Nazis) or as “pro-Israel.” With that one “Jewish lobby,” the mask slipped. One does not have to think that Roger Waters dislikes Jews to think that his general way of thinking, along with the way of thinking of many of his comrades in arms, is infected with anti-Semitic mythology. To repeat: Roger Waters thinks that there is a powerful Jewish lobby in the music industry that may just be out to kill him.

More at the link.

These are the most disgusting people on earth. Literally eliminationist.

'Stomach Churning' R. Kelly Sexual Assault Allegations: 'Kelly Likes Them Young...'

An utterly mind-boggling Village Voice interview with music journalist Jim DeRogatis.

Literally unreal. Extremely horrifying.

See, "Read the 'Stomach-Churning' Sexual Assault Accusations Against R. Kelly in Full":

Refresh our memories. How did this start for you?

Being a beat reporter, music critic at a Chicago daily, the Sun-Times, R. Kelly was a huge story for me, this guy who rose from not graduating from Kenwood Academy, singing at backyard barbecues and on the El, to suddenly selling millions of records. I interviewed him a number of times. Then TP2.com came out. I'd written a review that said the jarring thing about Kelly is that one moment he wants to be riding you and then next minute he's on his knees, crying and praying to his dead mother in Heaven for forgiveness for his unnamed sins. It's a little weird at times. It's just an observation. The next day at the Sun-Times, we got this anonymous fax -- we didn't know where it came from. It said: R. Kelly's been under investigation for two years by the sex-crimes unit of the Chicago police. And I threw it on the corner of my desk. I thought, "player-hater." Now, from the beginning, there were rumors that Kelly likes them young. And there'd been this Aaliyah thing -- Vibe printed, without much commentary and no reporting, the marriage certificate. Kelly or someone had falsified her age as 18. There was that. So all this is floating in the air. This fax arrives and I think, "Oh, this is somebody playing with this." But there was something that nagged at me as a reporter. There were specific names, specific dates, and those great, long Polish cop names. And you're not going to make that crap up. So I went to the city desk and I asked, "What do we do with this?" They said, Abdon Pallasch is the courts reporter, why don't you two look into it and see if there's anything there? And it turns out there had been lawsuits that had been filed that had never been reported. When you cover the courts in Chicago or any city, you go twice a day and you go through the bin of cases that have been filed and every once in a while Michael Jordan's been sued or someone went bankrupt and it's this sexy story and you pull it out. These suits had been filed at 4 p.m. on Christmas Eve. Ain't no reporter working at 4 p.m. on Christmas Eve, and they flew under the radar. So we had these lawsuits that were explosive and we didn't understand why nobody had reported them.

Explosive in what regard?

They were stomach-churning. The one young woman, who had been 14 or 15 when R. Kelly began a relationship with her, detailed in great length, in her affidavits, a sexual relationship that began at Kenwood Academy: He would go back in the early years of his success and go to Lina McLin's gospel choir class. She's a legend in Chicago, gospel royalty. He would go to her sophomore class and hook up with girls afterward and have sex with them. Sometimes buy them a pair of sneakers. Sometimes just letting them hang out in his presence in the recording studio. She detailed the sexual relationship that she was scarred by. It lasted about one and a half to two years, and then he dumped her and she slit her wrists, tried to kill herself. Other girls were involved. She recruited other girls. He picked up other girls and made them all have sex together. A level of specificity that was pretty disgusting.

Her lawsuit was hundreds of pages long, and Kelly countersued. The countersuit was, like, 10 pages long: "None of this is true!" We began our reporting. We knocked on a lot of doors. The lawsuits, the two that we had found initially, had been settled. Kelly had paid the women and their families money and the settlements were sealed by the court. But of course, the initial lawsuits remain part of the public record....

And there was a young woman who was pressured into an abortion?

That he paid for. There was a young woman that he picked up on the evening of her prom. The relationship lasted a year and a half or two years. Impregnated her, paid for her abortion, had his goons drive her. None of which she wanted. She sued him. The saddest fact I've learned is: Nobody matters less to our society than young black women. Nobody. They have any complaint about the way they are treated: they are "bitches, hos, and gold diggers," plain and simple. Kelly never misbehaved with a single white girl who sued him or that we know of. Mark Anthony Neal, the African-American scholar, makes this point : one white girl in Winnetka and the story would have been different.

No, it was young black girls and all of them settled. They settled because they felt they could get no justice whatsoever. They didn't have a chance.

Keep reading. (Via Memeorandum.)

All the legal filings are at the interview, if you're up for 'em.

And see the great post at BuzzFeed, with lots of Twitter commentary, "R. Kelly’s Alleged Sexual Assaults And Why No One’s Talking About It."

Former U.S. Embassy in Iran Turned Into Anti-American Museum

I watched this when it aired on CBS last week.

Via Atlas Shrugs.

Dana Loesch Destroys Leftist Race Hustler Richard Fowler

At Fire Andrea Mitchell.

That Fowler dude is one disgusting race-baiting twerp.

Democrats Send Oppo Tracker to Dig Dirt on Sen. Kelly Ayotte at Funeral Service in New Hampshire

Stay classy, Dems.

At BuzzFeed, "Democratic Group American Bridge Apologizes After Oppo Tracker Films Memorial Service":

The New Hampshire Republican party announced they would ban American Bridge from all party events after they “crashed” the service.

“It is disgusting that a Democrat-affiliated group like American Bridge would politicize a memorial service and use this non-partisan event to try and score cheap political points,” said NHGOP Chairman Jennifer Horn. “Clearly this classless liberal political organization has crossed the line, and as a result of its outrageous behavior, American Bridge trackers are immediately banned from all New Hampshire Republican State Committee sponsored events. Additionally, we will encourage all candidates, and local Republican committees to remove American Bridge staff from their events.”

Drunk Santas Brawl in New York

At first I thought this was an act or something.

Turns out it was a bunch of bums at a Santa Claus convention. Who knew?

Here's the headline at iOWNTHEWORLD, "It Isn’t Christmas Until Drunk Santas Are Punching it Out on the Street."

And at London's Daily Mail, "Brutal street brawl between six Santas caps off drunken SantaCon debauchery that has New Yorkers wishing St. Nick would stop visiting the Big Apple."

A Complete Fake

Via Theo Spark.

Marriage Equality: Federal Judge Strikes Down Polygamy Ban Based on Gay Rights

From Daniel Greenfield, at FrontPage Magazine:

And yes. Turning gay marriage into a thing paves the way for legalizing polygamy. As everyone with a brain predicted. Polygamy, unlike gay marriage, was actually a thing. It has thousands of years of history behind it. So this was bound to happen.

If we’re not going to have any standards for marriage except “People in a relationship of some kind” then there’s no reason not to recognize polygamy. Or any of the crazier stuff coming down the pike. And that was why the left pushed the gay marriage scam to begin with.

Can't say we didn't warn you.

Continue reading.

More at the Other McCain, "‘Emerging Awareness’ Update: Remember the Texas Polygamy Teen Sex Cult?"

Holiday Cheer to Marines All Over the World

Happy Holidays Marines! (Via Theo Spark.)

AP-GFK Poll: 76 Percent Say #ObamaCare Making U.S. Healthcare Worse

I don't see BooMan Tribune posting on this, although the idiot could be taking the day off. (He keeps blabbering about how much everybody's gonna love the ObamaCare clusterf-k once enrollment numbers pick up, blah blah.)

At Associated Press, "AP-GFK POLL: HEALTH LAW SEEN AS ERODING COVERAGE":

An Associated Press-GfK poll finds that health care remains politically charged going into next year's congressional elections. Keeping the refurbished HealthCare.gov website running smoothly is just one of Obama's challenges, maybe not the biggest.

The poll found a striking level of unease about the law among people who have health insurance and aren't looking for any more government help. Those are the 85 percent of Americans who the White House says don't have to be worried about the president's historic push to expand coverage for the uninsured.

In the survey, nearly half of those with job-based or other private coverage say their policies will be changing next year — mostly for the worse. Nearly 4 in 5 (77 percent) blame the changes on the Affordable Care Act, even though the trend toward leaner coverage predates the law's passage.

Sixty-nine percent say their premiums will be going up, while 59 percent say annual deductibles or copayments are increasing.

Only 21 percent of those with private coverage said their plan is expanding to cover more types of medical care, though coverage of preventive care at no charge to the patient has been required by the law for the past couple of years.

Fourteen percent said coverage for spouses is being restricted or eliminated, and 11 percent said their plan is being discontinued.

"Rightly or wrongly, people with private insurance looking at next year are really worried about what is going to happen," said Robert Blendon, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, who tracks public opinion on health care issues. "The website is not the whole story."

It's actually 76 percent who blame ObamaCare at the survey questionnaire, "THE AP-GfK POLL: December, 2013."

Sunday Cartoons

At Flopping Aces, "Sunday Funnies."



Also at Legal Insurrection, "Branco Cartoon – Self Stimulation," and Randy's Roundtable, "Picture of the Day."

More at Reaganite Republican, "Reaganite's SUNDAY FUNNIES."

CARTOON CREDIT: William Warren.

Rule 5 Sunday

Some lovely Jessica Davies below.

PREVIOUSLY: "Smokin' Sunday #Rule5," and "Jessika Jinx on Sunday."

And at Camp of the Saints, "Rule 5 Saturday: Karla James."

Pirate's Cove's blog is not loading, so I'm linking William Teach on Twitter if you wanna give him a heads up.

More at Knuckledraggin', "Your Good Morning Girl."

Also at Blackmailers Don't Shoot, "Pretty Girls on a Friday, Beach Volleyball Edition."

Subject to Change has "Why Am I Watching CSPAN?"

From Drunken Stepfather, "Steplinks of the Day."

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

EBL has "Seahawks at Giants Stadium."

And see Proof Positive, "Best of the Web* Linkaround," and "SF 49er's Vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers."

At the Chive, "I'm still bikini dreaming in December (50 Photos)" (via Linkiest).

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

Also at Egotastic!, "Lisa Opie and Anais Zanotti Bikini Catty Hotties on Miami Beach."

See also the Hostages, "Big Boob Friday."

A View from the Beach has, "The Mommy Warriors."

Daley Gator has a "Sunday Linkfest."

And over at Bro Bible, "Get Your Mind Right For Monday With 31 Photos of Hot Girls in Red Lipstick."

Soylent Refuge has "Ah, Breakfast."

Goodstuff's has, "Quality Over Quantity."

And over at Randy's Roundtable, "Thursday Nite Tart: Kelly Scem."

Don't miss Odie's, "Flight Attendants ~OR~ Rule 5 Woodsterman Style."

Now at Reaganite Republican, "'Miss Lithuania 2013' is Ruta Elzbieta Mazureviciute."

Still more from Dana Pico, "Rule 5 Blogging: The IDF again."

Finally, go to the Rule 5 blog-father's, the Other McCain, "FMJRA 2.0: Day Late & a Dollar Short."

And drop your links in the comments if I've missed you and I'll get you linked up at the next roundup!

Langston Patterson: L.A.'s Black Santa

This is great.

At LAT, "At South L.A. mall, a Claus with quite an effect":

Langston Patterson is the main attraction at Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza at Christmas: a rare black Santa in a sea of white ones.

He looks like a really nice Santa.

Here's your black Santa. And it's no big deal. pic.twitter.com/iFO6f0NBWc

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) December 14, 2013

And for the controversy, go to Althouse, "Megyn Kelly says lighten up."

#ObamaCare Has Lost the Uninsured

From Peter Suderman, at Reason:

Obamacare has lost the uninsured.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released this week asked uninsured individuals whether or not they thought the law was a good idea. Just 24 percent said they thought it was. In contrast, half the uninsured polled said they thought it was a bad idea. As the Journal points out, that represents an 11 point drop in support for the law amongst the uninsured since September. The same poll also finds that 56 percent of the uninsured believe the law will have a negative effect on the U.S. health care system.

Let that sink in: What that means is that regardless of how bad the old system—the system that for whatever reason left them uninsured—was, a majority of people without health coverage now think that Obamacare makes it worse.

Continue reading.

Denver Post Edits Out Arapahoe Shooter's Socialist Ideology

The shooter's political ideology is a key piece of information, since so much of the debate on guns and gun control points fingers at the evil right-wing NRA militia types.

So, the Denver Post has some "splainin" to do.

At Right Wing News, "Denver Post Omits That Arapahoe High Shooter Was a Socialist," and Gateway Pundit, "Denver Post Edits “Socialist” Out of Description of Arapahoe School Shooter."

Also at AoSQH, "The Tweetable Guide to Media Myths and Left-wing Violence."

Can you explain why you edited "a very opinionated socialist" into "very opinionated"? @denverpost

— SquatchPride69 (@AceofSpadesHQ) December 14, 2013

Do you routinely truncate interviewees' statements like this, or is this a sensitive case? @denverpost

— SquatchPride69 (@AceofSpadesHQ) December 14, 2013

Why did your paper truncate a source's description of the shooter from "a very opinionated socialist" to "very opinionated"? @DPLetters

— SquatchPride69 (@AceofSpadesHQ) December 14, 2013

China's Lunar Landing is No Big Deal

I yawned when I heard about it.

But see Telegraph UK, "Why America lacks lunar ambition":

Barack Obama split the US space community when he abandoned plans for American astronauts to return to the Moon and set new sights for Nasa.

While China celebrated its lunar landing, America’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration has no plans to return to the Moon.

Many Americans believed they had won the space race when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon in 1969 and Neil Armstrong set the first feet in the lunar surface, famously declaring: “This is one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Another 11 US astronauts walked on the Moon over the next three years. And nobody has been back since. A year after taking office, President Barack Obama controversially ditched the Constellation human space flight programme pursued by his predecessor George W Bush and with it plans for new lunar landings by 2020.

Instead, he set Nasa’s sights on further-flung targets, most ambitiously to tow an asteroid back to Earth and to launch a manned mission to Mars within the next 20 years. That left US space operations in what is known as near-Earth orbit to the private sector.

“Nasa is not going to the moon with a human as a primary project probably in my lifetime,” Charles Bolden, the agency’s administrator, told a panel this year.

Mr Obama’s decision to axe the Constellation programme and bypass the Moon has split the US space community. Buzz Aldrin, the second man to step on the lunar crust, agrees that returning there is a waste of limited American financial resources.

"Do not put Nasa astronauts on the moon,” he wrote in his book Mission to Mars: My Vision for Space Exploration. They have other places to go.”

And in the meantime, Nasa’s Mars Curiosity rover vehicle continues to send back intriguing evidence that the Red Planet may have once supported life.

But other space veterans and experts believe that the US is making a disastrous mistake. Former astronaut Harrison Schmitt, another Moon-walker, was scathing critical of the Obama space policy. "It's bad for the country," he said. "This administration really does not believe in American exceptionalism."

I'm with Aldrin on this one, and amazingly, with the president as well.

Arapahoe Shooter Karl Pierson Was 'Very Opinionated' Leftist, a 'Committed Socialist'

The kid obviously had issues. What a waste.

But let's just be clear on who this guy was. He wasn't the stereotypical "right-wing crazy" that the diabolical left always uses to demonize conservatives. In fact it's never a typical right-winger. Usually the gunman's a freakin' nutcase, but in the Arapahoe shooting, the suspect's friends described him as a committed, "very opinionated" leftist.

Weasel Zippers has it, "Colorado School Shooter a “Very Opinionated Socialist”…"

Also at Fire Andrea Mitchell, "Arapahoe High School shooter Karl Halverson Pierson – leftist strongly for gun control."

And at Astute Bloggers, "STATE-RUN MEDIA COVERING UP FOR THEIR FELLOW-TRAVELER, ARAPAHOE SHOOTER KARL PIERSON" (via Memeorandum).

#ObamaCare: One Punt After Another

At Politico:

Why do Republicans even bother trying to delay Obamacare? President Barack Obama’s doing it all by himself.

On Thursday, the Obama administration gave customers permission to pay their premiums as late as Dec. 31 for coverage that starts Jan. 1, and officially gave customers an extra week — until Dec. 23 — to sign up for January coverage.

The move was just the latest in a long list of extensions, delays and punts that have plagued the health care law.

Sure, Obama’s not doing the things Republicans have suggested — push off centerpieces like the individual mandate, or even put the entire law on hold for a year. But piece by piece, the Obama administration keeps giving itself extensions on smaller parts of the law, because there’s always some piece that isn’t quite ready.

It’s an attempt to put out fires — but it’s also a painful admission that, yes, there are fires.

The administration is also extending a critical program — the temporary high-risk pool for people with pre-existing conditions — through the end of January, to make sure none of them suddenly lose their health coverage because they can’t sign up for new Obamacare insurance by Jan. 1.

That’s after it postponed the employer coverage requirements for a year, delayed the online enrollment for the federal health insurance exchanges for small businesses, and told health insurers they can extend people’s coverage for an extra year — a last-minute attempt to un-cancel millions of canceled policies. It also delayed the Spanish-language website, even though Hispanics are a large proportion of the uninsured population. It even postponed next year’s enrollment period, pushing it conveniently past the November elections.

“This is the least shocking thing since the sun came up in the east. This is what they do,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin of the American Action Forum. “They’ve essentially established that there’s going to be a rolling start to this thing.”

Continue reading.

And don't miss this devastating editorial at the Wall Street Journal, "Backdating ObamaCare":

The White House says that ObamaCare is all fixed, but its conduct suggests otherwise. As it has realized that the government-created chaos is exposing patients to nasty and even deadly surprises, the government is now forcing the insurance industry to cover everyone retroactively and also to waive the contractual terms of that coverage—or else.

Late Thursday, the Health and Human Services Department suddenly released a new regulation that explains "there have been unforeseen barriers to enrollment on the exchanges." The passive voice is necessary because the barriers are all the result of politically driven delays, the botched website and the exchanges that transmit false information about enrollment to insurers.

So with a mere 11 business days to go before coverage is supposed to start on New Year's Day, HHS is trying to pre-empt patient uproar by unilaterally ordering plans to backdate all exchange applications. People can sign up for a plan on the exchange as late as Dec. 23. If an application winds up in some technology void, or it is passed to the insurer inaccurately or too late to process, that coverage nonetheless begins on Jan. 1.

Continue reading.

Google Hegemony

At the New York Times, "Google's Road Map to Global Domination":

Fifty-five miles and three days down the Colorado River from the put-in at Lee’s Ferry, near the Utah-Arizona border, the two rafts in our little flotilla suddenly encountered a storm. It sneaked up from behind, preceded by only a cool breeze. With the canyon walls squeezing the sky to a ribbon of blue, we didn’t see the thunderhead until it was nearly on top of us.

I was seated in the front of the lead raft. Pole position meant taking a dunk through the rapids, but it also put me next to Luc Vincent, the expedition’s leader. Vincent is the man responsible for all the imagery in Google’s online maps. He’s in charge of everything from choosing satellite pictures to deploying Google’s planes around the world to sending its camera-equipped cars down every road to even this, a float through the Grand Canyon. The raft trip was a mapping expedition that was also serving as a celebration: Google Maps had just introduced a major redesign, and the outing was a way of rewarding some of the team’s members.

Vincent wore a black T-shirt with the eagle-globe-and-anchor insignia of the United States Marine Corps on his chest and the slogan “Pain is weakness leaving the body” across his back. Though short in stature, he has the upper-body strength of an avid rock climber. He chose to get his Ph.D. in computer vision, he told me, because the lab happened to be close to Fontainebleau — the famous climbing spot in France. While completing his postdoc at the Harvard Robotics Lab, he led a successful expedition up Denali, the highest peak in North America.

A Frenchman who has lived half his 49 years in the United States, Vincent was never in the Marines. But he is a leader in a new great game: the Internet land grab, which can be reduced to three key battles over three key conceptual territories. What came first, conquered by Google’s superior search algorithms. Who was next, and Facebook was the victor. But where, arguably the biggest prize of all, has yet to be completely won.

Where-type questions — the kind that result in a little map popping up on the search-results page — account for some 20 percent of all Google queries done from the desktop. But ultimately more important by far is location-awareness, the sort of geographical information that our phones and other mobile devices already require in order to function. In the future, such location-awareness will be built into more than just phones. All of our stuff will know where it is — and that awareness will imbue the real world with some of the power of the virtual. Your house keys will tell you that they’re still on your desk at work. Your tools will remind you that they were lent to a friend. And your car will be able to drive itself on an errand to retrieve both your keys and your tools.

While no one can say exactly how we will get from the current moment to that Jetsonian future, one thing for sure can be said about location-awareness: maps are required. Tomorrow’s map, integrally connected to everything that moves (the keys, the tools, the car), will be so fundamental to their operation that the map will, in effect, be their operating system. A map is to location-awareness as Windows is to a P.C. And as the history of Microsoft makes clear, a company that controls the operating system controls just about everything. So the competition to make the best maps, the thinking goes, is more than a struggle over who dominates the trillion-dollar smartphone market; it’s a contest over the future itself.

Fascinating.

RTWT, at the link.

And ICYMI, the interview with Google's Sebastien Thrun, "'I think anybody who believes that we are in a period of decline or stagnation probably hasn’t been paying attention...'"

The #ObamaCare Panic Button

From Yuval Levin, at National Review, "Pressing the Panic Button?":

As usual, it’s hard to tell just what’s going on inside the administration regarding Obamacare, but I don’t think we can really take the steps announced by HHS yesterday as anything but a bright, red, flashing warning light about the internal expectations regarding January.

Some of what they announced is frankly bizarre and slightly crazy. Beside extending the high-risk pool program (which isn’t nuts, just a strong indication that they’re not ready for January at this very late stage), they are asking insurers to pay claims for consumers who haven’t paid their premiums, to treat out-of-network doctors and hospitals as though they were in-network, and to pay for prescription drugs not actually covered by the plans they offer.

The administration is trying to present this as a set of perfectly ordinary kind of transition measures that insurers normally make available to new customers, and some of the more reliable members of their amen chorus on Obamacare have echoed that. But that’s not what this looks like to me, and a few conversations today suggest it’s not what it looks like to the insurers...

Continue reading.

Black Critics Laud '12 Years a Slave' as Best Film of 2013

I'm heading out to go see this movie in a few minutes.

I'll report back on my experience later. Meanwhile, at the Los Angeles Times, "African American film critics name '12 Years a Slave' best film."



Also, "SAG Award nominations: '12 Years a Slave,' 'Butler' lead the way."

Some #Rule5 Kelly Brook to Mix it Up

Lovely.

And ICYMI, "Kelly Brook 2014 Calendar (PHOTOS)."

Hilarious Miley Cyrus Twerking Santa at Saberpoint

A classic Photoshop, "CHRISTMAS SING ALONG: 'I Saw Miley Twerking Santa Claus -- Underneath the Mistletoe Last Night'."

Baboon Seen Cruising Streets of Bryanston, Johannesburg — Not to Be Confused with Sign Interpreter at Mandela Memorial Service

The Memeorandum thread actually takes us to the story of Thamsanqa Jantjie, the bogus South African sign language interpreter at the Mandela funeral service, although here's the hilarious summary aggregated at the entry: "A baboon has been spotted on the streets of Bryanston in Johannesburg, appearing hungry and confident... watch the eyewitness video." 



Now here's the intended story at the thread, "EXCLUSIVE: Mandela deaf interpreter accused of murder": "Thamsanqa Jantjie, who is being treated for schizophrenia, has also faced rape (1994), theft (1995), house-breaking (1997), malicious damage to property (1998), murder, attempted murder and kidnapping (2003) charges."

A baboon and a criminal schizoid sign-language interpreter? I'm sure it's just an odd coincidence. And that's all I have to say about that, because RAAAAACISM!!

More at Memeorandum.

ADDED: From Robert Stacy McCain, "Schizophrenic Criminal Faker Making Meaningless Gestures? Hmmm …"

African Cape Buffalo Sends Stalking Lion Flying Through the Air

This is something else.

At London's Daily Mail, "Buffalo soldiers! Bull is saved by its friends while being EATEN by lions... which are sent flying through the air."

Rumsfeld's War and Its Consequences

And its consequences now!

From Mark Danner, at the New York Review, "More than a dozen years later we still live in the world that George W. Bush’s “war on terror” made":

A bare two weeks after the attacks of September 11, at the end of a long and emotional day at the White House, a sixty-nine-year-old politician and businessman—a midwesterner, born of modest means but grown wealthy and prominent and powerful—returned to his enormous suite of offices on the seventh floor of the flood-lit and wounded Pentagon and, as was his habit, scrawled out a memorandum on his calendar:

Interesting day—
NSC mtg. with President—
As [it] ended he asked to see me alone…
After the meeting ended I went to Oval Office—He was alone
He was at his desk—
He talked about the meet
Then he said I want you to develop a plan to invade Ir[aq]. Do it outside the normal channels. Do it creatively so we don’t have to take so much cover [?]

Then he said Dick [Cheney] told me about your son—I broke down and cried. I couldn’t speak—
said I love him so much
He said I can’t imagine the burden you are carrying for the country and your son—
He said much more.
Stood and hugged me
An amazing day—
He is a fine human being—
I am so grateful he is President.
I am proud to be working for him.
It is a touching and fateful scene, this trading of confidences between the recovering alcoholic president and the defense secretary whose son is struggling with drug addiction, and shows the intimacy that can be forged amid danger and turmoil and stress. Trust brings trust, confidence builds on confidence: the young inexperienced president, days before American bombs begin falling on Afghanistan, wants a “creative” plan to invade Iraq, developed “outside the normal channels”; the old veteran defense secretary, in a rare moment of weakness, craves human comfort and understanding.

Continue reading.

Megyn Kelly Shines on Fox

I missed the first week or two of Megyn Kelly's prime-time debut on Fox (I was watching the World Series), but I rarely miss it now. She's fantastic ---- and she's in my wheelhouse with her politics.

At the Washington Post, "Megyn Kelly, Fox News’s brightest star":

NEW YORK — The anchor who might beat Bill O’Reilly gets her eyelash extensions applied one at a time, with tweezers and dabs of glue, about 90 minutes before showtime, right after a motorized gun sprays foundation over her face, neck, shoulders, collarbone and sternum, wiping out a galaxy of light freckles that spreads across her —

Let me stop you right there.

Would you write this way about a man?

About O’Reilly himself?

At least that’s what Megyn Kelly might ask at this point. Kelly, 43, is the host of “The Kelly File,” a live TV program that airs weeknights at 9 p.m. on the Fox News Channel, where she interrupts and challenges guests whenever they resort to talking points or petty distractions. It debuted just over two months ago, and so far its ratings among 25-to-54-year-olds have exceeded those of “The O’Reilly Factor” six times. In November, her first full month in prime time after years in daytime, Kelly was second only to O’Reilly in the overall ratings, which means she’s the No. 2 person on cable news’s No. 1 channel.

“It’s like working on a supermodel every day — a brilliant supermodel,” says makeup artist Maureen Walsh, as she air-brushes Kelly’s skin from milky white to Technicolor...

Continue reading.

Well, Michael Savage made the crude remark sometime back that watching Megyn Kelly's show was like watching porn.

Wedding Party: More Than One Dozen Killed in U.S. Drone Strike in Yemen

I'll tell you, with this administration, it's hard to keep backing the war on terror!

At Fire Andrea Mitchell, "Obama kills 15 on way to wedding in Yemen with drone strike."

Also at Reuters, "Air strike kills 15 civilians in Yemen by mistake: officials."

And London's Daily Mail, "BREAKING NEWS: U.S. drone strike hits wedding party killing 15 people, Yemeni officials say."

Kim Jong Un Uncle Executed in North Korea

You have to think about this for awhile.

This is hardcore leftist ideology in action.

At the Los Angeles Times, "North Korea reportedly executes No. 2 official."

And at the Washington Post, "In North Korea, Kim Jong Un rises and advisers are shoved aside":

SEOUL — When Kim Jong Un became leader of North Korea two years ago, he was surrounded by advisers two, and in some cases, nearly three times his age. Most had decades of experience in the Workers’ Party or military. Two were members of Kim’s own family.

But rather than lean on that support team, Kim has instead sought to dismantle it, using a series of demotions and purges to grab power almost solely for himself. Friday North Korea announced the execution of the most prominent of Kim’s advisers, Jang Song Thaek, accusing him of opposing Kim’s rise and plotting an overthrow.Continue reading.

Mexican Leftists Irate Over Senate Vote on Opening Oil Industry to Foreign Investors

Anything that pisses off leftists is alright by me.

At LAT, "Mexican Senate OKs bill to open oil industry to foreign investors":

On Wednesday, members of the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, and other leftists closed off the lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, in Mexico City, chaining doors and blocking entrances with chairs in an effort to prevent lawmakers from considering the bill.

"They are selling the entire subsoil of the country to interests that are against Mexico," former PRD presidential candidate Cuauhtemoc Cardenas said in a TV interview. Leftist leaders hope they can stop the legislation by calling a national plebiscite, though it is unclear whether they will be able to pursue that avenue legally.

The poor dears!

Can Kay Hagan Survive?

At Politico, "North Carolina's choice":

LENOIR, N.C. — It would be tough to find another state where the political terrain has shifted as dramatically as it has here — from kindling hopes of a Democratic revival in the South just a few years ago, to becoming a conservative hotbed that banned gay marriage, tightened restrictions on abortion clinics and enacted a sweeping voter ID law.

In 2014, voters will have a chance to decide which of those two governing visions they prefer — Barack Obama’s Washington or one-party GOP rule in Raleigh ­ — in one of the most competitive, consequential Senate races in the country.

It will be a choice between Kay Hagan, a rookie Democratic senator who voted for Obamacare and says, however haltingly, that she would do so again, and a conservative challenger — perhaps the figure who shepherded that wish list through the Legislature, Thom Tillis, or other rivals like Mark Harris or Greg Brannon who would go even further.

The race underscores the larger challenges facing both parties nationally as they head into the midterms. Democrats are struggling to survive in conservative states as they try to combat Obama’s growing unpopularity and antipathy to the health care law they helped enact. But Republicans are at risk of overreaching with a sharply conservative agenda at a time when their elected leaders are shifting further to the right and independent voters are angry at both parties.

Hagan, who triumphed against longtime Republican Elizabeth Dole to win the seat in 2008, is clearly banking on the hope that voters will punish her opponents for the actions of the GOP-led Legislature and their own hard-right views, whether it’s Tillis’s unapologetic agenda, Harris’s views that being gay is a lifestyle choice or Brannon’s calls to repeal everything from the minimum wage to virtually every gun law.

“This race is not about the president,” Hagan said in an interview, twice refusing to say whether she approves of Obama’s job performance.

But Tillis, a 53-year-old former IBM executive who has the strong backing of the GOP establishment but is by no means the prohibitive front-runner, is betting that Southern Democrats who once thrived here are dying breeds because of the liberal policies coming out of Washington. He is defiant about North Carolina’s hard-right turn, calling it a “reform agenda unlike any other state in the United States.”

“I think for the most part, what I see from the folks who are opposing our agenda is whining coming from losers,” he said in an interview in his Raleigh office. “They lost, they don’t like it, and they are going to try to do everything they can to, I think, cast doubt on things that I think are wise and that the average citizen when they know what we’re doing, I think, like it.”

RTWT.

To Block or Not to Block, That is the Question

To block Twitter trolls, that is the question.

See, "Reverting the changes to block functionality."

More at Ars Technica, "Twitter immediately reverses course on changes to “block” behavior."

And at Tech Crunch, "Twitter Reverts Changes To Blocking Functionality After Strong Negative User Feedback."

#ObamaCare Disinformation Runs Deep

From Jonah Goldberg, at National Review, "The “keep your plan” lie just scratches the surface of the deception":

‘Obamacare was sold on a trinity of lies.”

That ornate phrase, more suitable for the Book of Revelations or perhaps the next installment of Game of Thrones, comes from my National Review colleague Rich Lowry. But I like it. Most people know the first deception in the triumvirate of deceit: “If you like your health insurance you can keep it, period.” The second leg in the tripod of deception was “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.”

But the third plank in the triad of disinformation hasn’t gotten much attention: Obamacare will save you, me, and the country a lot of money. This lie took several forms.

First, Obama promised on numerous occasions that the average family of four will save $2,500 a year in premiums. Where did that number come from? Three Harvard economists wrote a memo in 2007 in which they claimed that then-Senator Obama’s health-care plan would reduce national health-care spending by $200 billion. Then, according to the New York Times, the authors “divided [$200 billion] by the country’s population, multiplied for a family of four, and rounded down slightly to a number that was easy to grasp: $2,500.”

In September, the Obama administration’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services used far more rigorous methods to predict that Obamacare would increase national health-care spending by $621 billion. Using Obama’s own math, that would mean — according to Chris Conover, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute and Duke University — each family of four in America will spend an additional $7,450 thanks to Obamacare.

Of course, that methodology is still bogus. But it’s probably closer to the truth.

The president and his allies also insisted that all of Obamacare’s “free” preventative care would save the country vast amounts of money. As Obama put it in 2012: “As part of the health-care reform law that I signed last year, all insurance plans are required to cover preventive care at no cost. That means free check-ups, free mammograms, immunizations, and other basic services. We fought for this because it saves lives and it saves money — for families, for businesses, for government, for everybody.”

That’s not true either...

Continue reading.

Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rain Dance Maggie, Coachella 2013

I can dig it.



More, "'Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie'."

Nancy Pelosi's Broken #ObamaCare Promise

Fox News reports on AFP's attack on House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

And an interesting analysis from Frank Luntz. Watch it.



More from Matt Vespa, "AFP PUTS PELOSI IN THE CROSSHAIRS."

John Boehner Takes on Tea Party Conservatives

At LAT, "House Speaker Boehner lashes out at conservative groups":

WASHINGTON — In an uncharacteristically forceful tone, House Speaker John A. Boehner on Wednesday lambasted the conservative advocacy groups that helped bring his party to power, saying their opposition to a bipartisan budget proposal amounted to an effort to manipulate Republicans and the American people "for their own goals."

The rare outburst from the often poker-faced speaker, a reversal of his past approach toward influential conservative groups, underscored long-simmering tensions between them and mainstream Republicans, who appear to be moving to reestablish their control over the party's agenda.

The hard-line groups have bedeviled Boehner and his leadership team all year by opposing efforts to compromise with Democrats and influencing primary campaigns aimed at unseating establishment Republicans, whom they accuse of abandoning conservative ideals on controlling government spending.

Boehner's words also reflected his apparent confidence that the recently announced $85-billion budget deal will be approved by the House this week despite attacks by conservative groups like Club for Growth and Heritage Action. Even if as many as 100 Republicans vote against it, as some predicted, Boehner is counting on Democrats to make up the shortfall, something he has been loath to do in the past.

Only weeks ago, Boehner sidestepped questions about the influence of the outside groups, who promote limited government and are mostly funded by rich conservative donors and business leaders. When asked in late October how they were affecting his members, Boehner answered simply: "Pass."

Though tensions have been rising for the last two years, Republican leaders resisted airing the frustrations publicly. But on Wednesday, tensions boiled over. At a news conference on the budget plan, Boehner interrupted a question about the developing opposition from conservative groups to charge that they "opposed it before they ever saw it."

"They're using our members and they're using the American people for their own goals," Boehner said. "This is ridiculous. If you're for more deficit reduction, you're for this agreement."

The outburst was long in gestation, Republicans close to Boehner said, and stemmed in part from many of the groups' support for a strategy led by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) that triggered the government shutdown in October. Boehner and other GOP leaders believe, as polls show, that it damaged the party.

"Boehner had warned them, having gone through this before, that this was a route that would not reap the rewards that people thought," said David Winston, a Republican pollster who has advised the House GOP. "And he was correct."

Also, "Boehner criticizes GOP groups again, but also wants to move on."

And the GOP leadership is purging so-called traitors in the ranks.

See the Washington Post, "House GOP leader Steve Scalise fires top aide, Paul Teller, citing breach of trust." Apparently Teller was an inside source for outside conservative groups, who see his firing as a declaration of war. See the Heritage Foundation, "Conservative Leaders Voice Outrage at Firing of RSC Executive Director."

There's lots more at Memeorandum.

And at National Journal, "Why Boehner Can Thumb His Nose at the Right."

Obama's Orwellian Image Control

From Santiago Lyon, at the New York Times:

THE Internet has been abuzz over the spectacle of President Obama and the prime ministers of Britain and Denmark snapping a photo of themselves — a “selfie,” to use the mot du jour — with a smartphone at the memorial service for Nelson Mandela in South Africa on Tuesday.

Leaving aside whether it was appropriate, the moment captured the democratization of image making that is a hallmark of our gadget-filled, technologically rich era.

Manifestly undemocratic, in contrast, is the way Mr. Obama’s administration — in hypocritical defiance of the principles of openness and transparency he campaigned on — has systematically tried to bypass the media by releasing a sanitized visual record of his activities through official photographs and videos, at the expense of independent journalistic access.

The White House-based press corps was prohibited from photographing Mr. Obama on his first day at work in January 2009. Instead, a set of carefully vetted images was released. Since then the press has been allowed to photograph him alone in the Oval Office only twice: in 2009 and in 2010, both times when he was speaking on the phone. Pictures of him at work with his staff in the Oval Office — activities to which previous administrations routinely granted access — have never been allowed.

Instead, here’s how it’s done these days: An event involving the president discharging his official duties is arbitrarily labeled “private,” with media access prohibited. A little while later an official photo is released on the White House Flickr page, or via Twitter to millions of followers. Private? Hardly.

These so-called private events include meetings with world leaders and other visitors of major public interest — just the sorts of activities photojournalists should, and used to, have access to.

In response to these restrictions, 38 of the nation’s largest and most respected media organizations (including The New York Times) delivered a letter to the White House last month protesting photojournalists’ diminished access.

A deputy press secretary, Josh Earnest, responded by claiming that the White House had released more images of the president at work than any previous administration. It is serving the public perfectly well, he said, through a vibrant stream of behind-the-scenes photographs available on social media.

He missed the point entirely.

The official photographs the White House hands out are but visual news releases. Taken by government employees (mostly former photojournalists), they are well composed, compelling and even intimate glimpses of presidential life. They also show the president in the best possible light, as you’d expect from an administration highly conscious of the power of the image at a time of instant sharing of photos and videos.

By no stretch of the imagination are these images journalism. Rather, they propagate an idealized portrayal of events on Pennsylvania Avenue.

If you take this practice to its logical conclusion, why have news conferences? Why give reporters any access to the White House? It would be easier to just have a daily statement from the president (like his recorded weekly video address) and call it a day. Repressive governments do this all the time.

American presidents have often tried to control how they are depicted (think of the restrictions on portraying Franklin D. Roosevelt in his wheelchair). But presidents in recent decades recognized that allowing the press independent access to their activities was a necessary part of the social contract of trust and transparency that should exist between citizens and their leaders.

Social contract? Screw your social contract. It's all about the cult of Obama these days.

"We can choose a world defined not by our differences—but by our common hopes." —Obama at Mandela's memorial service: pic.twitter.com/GQdSdMLl8h

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) December 11, 2013

White House Delays #ObamaCare Premium Payments Until December 31st — Wants Insurers to 'Retroactively Cover' Consumers Who Miss Payments

And to think, leftists were all jazzed about that so-called enrollment surge.

I dare say this news might kill the buzz.

At the Hill, "HHS extends another ObamaCare deadline":

The Obama administration on Thursday pushed back the deadline for consumers to make their first payment for coverage under the healthcare law.

Rather than a deadline of Dec. 23, insurers will be required to accept premium payments through Dec. 31 for people who are seeking coverage that starts on Jan. 1.

In a conference call with reporters, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said insurers have the latitude to accept premiums even beyond Dec. 31, and that the administration was “strongly encouraging” them to retroactively cover consumers that submit late payments.

In addition to the one-week extension for premium payments, the administration on Thursday formalized its announcement that consumers have until Dec. 23, instead of Dec. 15, to sign-up for healthcare coverage that goes into affect Jan. 1.

Thursday’s announcement is the latest in a string of unilateral delays the administration has implemented to buy time after the disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov.

More epic fail at that top link.

The Left's Latest Lie: An #ObamaCare Enrollment 'Surge'

Greg Sargent, the Washington Post's far-left Obama shill, is the worst.

RT @sarahkliff: Breaking: HHS reports 1.2M Obamacare enrollments since October. 365K are in private insurance. http://t.co/Be6ixr2mgK

— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) December 11, 2013

HHS predicts admin will hit 7 million enrollment target by spring: http://t.co/s8Y4zrJo5r

— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) December 11, 2013

But see Mandy Nagy, at Legal Insurrection, "Health insurance enrollment numbers increase but still fall short of goals." Also from Jim Treacher, "Look out, wingnuts: Baghdad Kathy’s pushin’ back!"

And see WSJ especially, "Juking the ObamaCare Stats":

Most of Washington seems to have bought the White House claim that the 36 federal exchanges are finally working, and glory, glory, hallelujah. But if that's really true, then what explains the ongoing secrecy and evasion?

On Wednesday the Health and Human Services Department continued its Victorian-era strip tease and allowed a glimpse into the Affordable Care Act's "enrollment" for November. Out of respect for a free press, reporters ought to boycott these releases because they're so selective that they reveal little about real enrollment. But we'll try to parse the data as best we can without the White House high gloss.

A charitable reading suggests that ObamaCare's net enrollment stands at about negative four million. That's the estimated four million to five and a half million people who had their individual health plans liquidated as ObamaCare-noncompliant—offset by the 364,682 who have signed up for a plan on a state or federal exchange and the 803,077 who have been found eligible to receive Medicaid. HHS is boasting of enrollment for November that was four times as high as October, yet 62% of the total was in the state exchanges, some of which are marginally less prone to crashing than the federal version. Then again, 41 states posted sign-ups only in the three or four figures, including eight states that run their own exchanges. Oregon managed to scrape up 44 people. Among the 137,204 federal sign-ups, no state is reaching the critical mass necessary for stable insurance prices.

The larger problem is that none of these represent true enrollments. HHS is reporting how many people "selected" a plan on the exchange, not how many people have actually enrolled in a plan with an insurance company by paying the first month's premium, which is how the private insurance industry defines enrollment. HHS has made up its own standard....

In other nondisclosure news, the House Oversight Committee turned up letters Wednesday showing that HHS ordered the private contractors partly responsible for the Healthcare.gov fiasco not to cooperate with congressional investigations or hand over documents. For no pertinent reason, HHS reminds them that they signed contracts obligating them not to share information with "third parties."

HHS goes on to note that "If you receive a request for this information from Congress, CMS will respond directly to the requestor and will work with the requestor to address its interests in this information." Explaining how the government managed to waste hundreds of millions of dollars building a website in 2013 might be in the public interest, so what are they afraid the contractors will produce?

The reason for all this obstruction and statistical juking is so the White House can get the press corps and Democrats to believe that the worst is over and that ObamaCare is now rolling toward success. On that score they've succeeded. But it's impossible for an outsider to know what the truth really is because HHS and the White House continue to manipulate and bury the real statistics.

YouTube's Top Videos for 2013

At WaPo, "YouTube releases list of 2013’s top videos":

It turns out we’re all really interested in knowing what the fox says. According to YouTube’s annual list of top-trending videos, Norwegian comedy duo Ylvis had the hottest video of the year with “What Does the Fox Say?” The posting drew 276 million views since it was posted in September.

Actually, it was a good year for Norwegians: The Norwegian Army version of the Harlem Shake dance craze came in right behind Ylvis’s video as the most popular of the 1.7 million versions of the dance that got uploaded to the site, YouTube said Wednesday in announcing the statistics.

Overall, the Google-owned video site said that 1 billion users watch 6 billion hours of content on its site every month — the vast majority of those view come from outside of the United States.

Continue reading.

Pope Francis is Time's Person of the Year

I guess über-traitor Glenn Greenwald wasn't pleased, via Politico, "Greenwald mocks Time magazine":

Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who broke the story of Edward Snowden's National Security Agency leaks earlier this year, mocked Time magazine for picking Pope Francis over Snowden for their "Person of the Year."

In an e-mail to Talking Points Memo and on Twitter, Greenwald called Time magazine "meaningless" and "cowards of the decade" for not choosing Snowden, whose revelations have been and continue to be a major news story that has shaken the government surveillance industry.

"It's a meaningless award from a meaningless magazine, designed to achieve the impossible: to make TIME relevant and interesting for a few fleeting moments," Greenwald told TPM.

He's such a loser.

TIME Magazine: as edgy, bold, courageous and innovative as ever: http://t.co/L1tSbEbgeV - Edward Snowden "Runner-up" http://t.co/Hxq48AQZN9

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 11, 2013

Dana Loesch Moves to Texas!

To join Glenn Beck on the radio.

Congratulations Dana!

Behati Prinsloo at Victoria's Secret Fashion Show 2013

Via Twitter.

And at Theo Spark's, "Video Highlights from the 2013 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show."

Inequality: The Defining Lie of the Radical Left

From Roger Simon, at PJ Media, "‘Income Inequality’ — The Biggest Lie of All":

In the last few days Barack Obama has attempted to change the subject of public discourse from healthcare to income inequality,  which he has dubbed “the defining challenge of our time.”

Now he tells us!

Since POTUS hasn’t paid much attention to this problem for the first five plus years of his administration, even with African-American unemployment through the roof and the middle class disappearing from American economic life,  and with Rand Paul (of all people) the only one to come up with a concrete suggestion of how to elevate people out of poverty, as he has recently with Detroit, this should come as some surprise.

But it doesn’t.  The fight for “income inequality” is and has been for a long time the defining lie of modern liberalism.

This is not to say that income inequality does not exist.  Of course, it does.  But what liberalism does is pretend to do something about it, to whine and complain about it, in order to ensure the support of the poor, the semi-poor and minority groups, while doing nothing that changes the substance of their inequality in any permanent way.  Indeed, it often exacerbates it.

Consciously or unconsciously, these liberals may actually want the lower classes to remain the lower classes.  After all, if they bettered themselves, they might leave the Democratic fold.  That wouldn’t do.  So the system goes on.

Meanwhile, for all their pious progressive talk, George Soros gets to keep his palazzo in Katonah (among many others),  Jeff Katzenberg his beach shack in Malibu, and Obama the beach shack that some say awaits him on Oahu.  And we all know about Al Gore’s many eco-friendly homes.  (Oops, I think that one’s now Tipper’s house.)

So, on the surface, all this income inequality chatter is nothing more than hypocrisy, that “homage that vice pays to virtue,” as La Rochefoucauld put it.  But it’s really worse.  It’s cynical and mean because all these so-called liberal solutions to poverty, solutions that have been tried hundreds of times since the Great Society, and probably before, to no avail,  suck the energy from the room, befuddle the media and the body politic and make it impossible for other methods to be tried, as with the Rand Paul idea referenced above.

A great piece (keep reading).

Leftists don't care about the poor. They care about power, and they exploit to poor to gain power and to keep it.

And now that the president's pandered on the issue, in a pathetic attempt to distract from the ObamaCare debacle, idiot regressive leftists are all over it. See Alec MacGillis, at the New Republic, "Democrats Shouldn't Be Scared to Talk About Inequality." Also, from Thomas Edsall, at the New York Times, "Does Rising Inequality Make Us Hardhearted?" (No, it's a just a distraction from the left's epic policy failures.)

A Two-Term President and the Shoals of a Midterm Election

From John Harwood, at the New York Times:

WASHINGTON — History says President Obama should brace for another round of midterm election losses next year — and be grateful for the opportunity.

Unlike presidents who never got the same chance, Mr. Obama is in line to become only the fifth president since World War II to serve long enough for a second mid-term election, and the possibility that his party might hold or gain ground in Congress in his sixth year in office.

But the unhappy record of his two-term predecessors — none of whom gained control of either legislative chamber — offers scant comfort about his prospects.

Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1958 set the standard for sixth-year losses. With the nation reeling from economic recession and the Soviet Union’s launch of the Sputnik satellite, his fellow Republicans lost 13 seats in the Senate and 48 in the House, turning narrow Democratic majorities into overwhelming ones...

Continue reading.

The Dems are gonna get hammered. It's as simple as that.

Obama Disapproval Surges to All-Time High of 54 Percent in Latest WSJ/NBC News Poll

Great news.

At the Journal, "Poll: Health Law Hurts President Politically":

The federal health-care law is becoming a heavier political burden for President Barack Obama and his party, despite increased confidence in the economy and the public's own generally upbeat sense of well-being, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll suggests.

Disapproval of Mr. Obama's job performance hit an all-time high in the poll, at 54%, amid the flawed rollout of the health law. Half of those polled now consider the law a bad idea, also a record high.

The survey of 1,000 adults conducted between Dec. 4 and Dec. 8 found a sharp erosion since January in many of the attributes—honesty, leadership, ability to handle a crisis—that had kept Mr. Obama aloft through the economic and political turmoil of his first term.

In a clear parallel to sentiment toward President George W. Bush at the same point in his second term, just over half in the poll said events in recent months had dealt Mr. Obama a setback from which he wouldn't likely recover.

Asked what shaped their view of the president this year, almost 60% cited the 2010 health-care law, the Affordable Care Act, as a chief factor. The poll found faith in Mr. Obama had dropped noticeably in recent months among young voters and Hispanics, two groups that had been among his steadiest supporters.

"The president is being weighed down by one issue, his health-care law," said Democratic pollster Fred Yang, who helped direct the poll. "It's probably fair to say that as goes health care, so goes the Obama presidency for the next year."

Bill McInturff, a Republican pollster who worked on the poll alongside Mr. Yang, said the damage to the president's standing could linger. "When you dent a president on honesty and straightforwardness," he said, "you have done major damage that can be difficult and time-consuming to repair."

The poll illustrated a deepening distaste for all Washington institutions. More than half of those polled rated the current Congress as one of the worst ever, by far the most negative verdict going back to 1990.

Despite the angst over Washington dysfunction, the poll found participants surprisingly upbeat about their own lives. Nearly two-thirds expressed satisfaction with their financial situation. Eight in 10 said they were satisfied with their health care and insurance coverage, a higher number than had that view in 1994—and even in September, before the rocky rollout of the Affordable Care Act.

Those polled also were more optimistic about the economy, with 75% saying it would improve or stay the same next year, compared with 65% who had that view in late October. But disapproval of Mr. Obama's handling of the economy jumped to 58% from 52% in September.

In all, the health-care law came in for rough treatment more than two months after it became apparent that technical problems were bedeviling the online marketplaces for buying insurance policies. Millions of Americans received notices that their policies were being canceled because they didn't meet standards in the law, yet had trouble using government websites to buy new policies.

More at the link.

Interesting how folks are feeling better, more optimistic, but see President Clusterf-k damaging their opportunities and well-being.

Worst. President. Ever.

Gisele Bundchen Posts Breastfeeding Photo on Instagram

Well, more power to her, I say.

And see Fashionista, "Gisele Bundchen Is the Most Gorgeous (and Lucky) Breastfeeding Mom Ever."

And at USA Today, "Gisele Bundchen breastfeeding photo prompts buzz."

Castro-Coddling Obama Snaps Funeral Selfie at Mandela Service

At the New York Post, "Michelle not amused by Obama’s memorial selfie."

And at Twitchy, "‘HAHA!’ How did ‘headline crush’ NY Post blast President Funeral Selfie, FLOTUS? [pic]," and "Funeral selfies? Obama’s selfie face, FLOTUS’ furious face at #MandelaMemorial [pics]."

Plus, "Surprise! Guess what ‘subtext’ Oliver Willis sees in hilarious NY Post Obama-jabbing cover."



PREVIOUSLY: "President Obama Shakes Hands with Cuba's Communist Leader Raúl Castro."

Tenured Radicals Cannot Be Trusted with Our Academic Freedom

An outstanding entry, from William Jacobson, at Legal Insurrection:

Academic supporters of the Israel boycott should understand that what goes around comes around....

The anti-Israel Boycott Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement is a frequent focus here because it embodies so much of the pathology of the Leftist-Islamist anti-Israel coalition.

While disavowing anti-Semitism, BDS singles out and holds only Israel to standards not applied much less met by any other country in the Middle East or Muslim world. Israel, and Israel alone, is put under a microscope and each defect found turned into grossly exaggerated and often outright false claims of racism, Apartheid, colonialism and so on. Only Israeli academics and institutions are subjected to boycott even though by any objective standard non-Jews are far more free academically and otherwise in Israel than non-Muslims are in the Muslim world.

We also witness the bizarre self-parody of LGBT and Women’s rights groups siding with Islamists who hate LGBT and women’s rights, all in the cause of BDS. There is a sickness beyond reason behind BDS, as witnessed by the BDS claim that Israeli soldiers failing to rape Arab women is racist and open support for Hezbollah as part of the BDS campaign.

BDS and anti-Semitism go hand-in-hand, particularly in Europe. There is a thin line between organizing abusive disruptions of speeches, concerts and lectures by Israelis and throwing the punch or thrusting the knife. That thin line has been breached in Europe, as harsh demonization of everything Israeli stokes and promotes anti-Semitic violence by Muslims to the silence or tacit endorsement of the European Left.

The rhetoric emanating from BDS supporters in the U.S. also is so extreme that even some harsh left-wing critics of Israeli policies have dared call it was it is. It is no surprise that strong BDS supporters like Roger Waters of Pink Floyd conflate criticism of Israel and Jews, and BDS campus activists in South Africa sang “shoot the Jew.”

BDS, because of the facade of supporting Palestinian “civil society,” is in vogue in many corners of American academia. Those academics stand apart from the U.S. population, where support for Israel is at historic highs.

Continue reading.

Dashcam Video Shows Car Speeding Past Troopers, Followed by Fatal Crash

Via Twitter.



Also at WNWO, "OSHP releases video of fiery Thanksgiving double fatal [GRAPHIC VIDEO]."

President Obama Shakes Hands with Cuba's Communist Leader Raúl Castro

At the Nelson Mandela service in South Africa.

Don't let idiot leftists deceive you. It's a significant move, a gesture that bestows legitimacy on Cuba's Communist regime. Obama should have snubbed Castro.

At the New York Times, "Will Handshake With Castro Lead to Headache for Obama?," and "The Distraction of a Handshake in South Africa":

...the gesture was of special interest for Cuban exiles in the United States, and news organizations in Florida naturally took note. The Miami New Times curated a collection of reactions, while referring to a post on babalu, a Cuban exiles blog, that said Mr. Obama gave “credence and recognition to a vile and bloody dictatorial regime responsible for the murder of tens of thousands of innocent people.”

Yes, and compare Obama's shame to the dignity of Senator Ted Cruz, at Twitchy, "Sen. Ted Cruz walks out on Raúl Castro’s speech at Mandela memorial."

Vulgarity: The New Normal

From Lee Siegel, at WSJ, "From Elvis to Miley Cyrus to Lady Gaga: America the Vulgar":

"What's celebrity sex, Dad?" It was my 7-year-old son, who had been looking over my shoulder at my computer screen. He mispronounced "celebrity" but spoke the word "sex" as if he had been using it all his life. "Celebrity six," I said, abruptly closing my AOL screen. "It's a game famous people play in teams of three," I said, as I ushered him out of my office and downstairs into what I assumed was the safety of the living room.

No such luck. His 3-year-old sister had gotten her precocious little hands on my wife's iPhone as it was charging on a table next to the sofa. By randomly tapping icons on the screen, she had conjured up an image of Beyoncé barely clad in black leather, caught in a suggestive pose that I hoped would suggest nothing at all to her or her brother.

And so it went on this typical weekend. The eff-word popped out of TV programs we thought were friendly enough to have on while the children played in the next room. Ads depicting all but naked couples beckoned to them from the mainstream magazines scattered around the house. The kids peered over my shoulder as I perused my email inbox, their curiosity piqued by the endless stream of solicitations having to do with one aspect or another of sex, sex, sex!

When did the culture become so coarse? It's a question that quickly gets you branded as either an unsophisticated rube or some angry culture warrior. But I swear on my hard drive that I'm neither. My favorite movie is "Last Tango in Paris." I agree (on a theoretical level) with the notorious rake James Goldsmith, who said that when a man marries his mistress, he creates a job vacancy. I once thought of writing a book-length homage to the eff-word in American culture, the apotheosis of which was probably Sir Ben Kingsley pronouncing it with several syllables in an episode of "The Sopranos."

I'm cool, and I'm down with everything, you bet, but I miss a time when there were powerful imprecations instead of mere obscenity—or at least when sexual innuendo, because it was innuendo, served as a delicious release of tension between our private and public lives. Long before there was twerking, there were Elvis's gyrations, which shocked people because gyrating hips are more associated with women (thrusting his hips forward would have had a masculine connotation)...

Continue reading.

I've mentioned this trend numerous times. There's entertainment value in it, especially among young people. And so much nudity in popular culture. Sometimes folks push back. See Rashida Jones, at Glamour, "Why Is Everyone Getting Naked? Rashida Jones on the Pornification of Everything."