2010 IRS Bulletin Predicted Up to 67 Percent of Insurance Plans Would Terminate Under #ObamaCare

At Weasel Zippers, "Exclusive: IRS Bulletin That Shows Admin Knew You Couldn’t Keep Your Plan In 2010":

Obama Knew Millions Would Lose Their Health Insurance

Things are getting so bad for the administration that White House lies are being piled on top of shameless concessions to reality.

The question is, as always, how big a hit Democrats will take? Normally I wouldn't be optimistic, but when the nightly newscasts start sounding like the regular coverage on  Fox News, leftists should be worried.

At the Weekly Standard, "Obama Team Knew Many Would Not Be Able to Keep Their Health Care Plans."

And also at Lonely Con, "NBC News: Obama Admin Knew Millions Would Lose Their Health Insurance." (Via Memeorandum.)

#ObamaCare Lady Disappears!

At Twitchy, "Woman on front page of healthcare.gov disappears."

'Saturday Night Live' Rips #ObamaCare Website Fiasco

At Nice Deb, "Video: SNL Mocks Sebelius and ObamaCrash."

Lou Reed, 1942-2013

At the New York Times, "Lou Reed, Rock ’n’ Roll Pioneer, Dies at 71."

Rolling Stone posted the news earlier today, but the write up was really sloppy (at Memeorandum).

And from Bob Belvedere, "Lou Reed, Requiescat in pace – Sweet Jane (Live)."

Here's another version, recent and good quality:



And don't miss Matt Welch, at Reason, "How Lou Reed Inspired Anti-Communist Revolutionaries and the Rest of Us."

The New Health Insurance Marketplace Is Open!

An awesome cover at National Review.

And here's Mark Steyn, "Obamacare’s Magical Thinkers."

Obama's 'Entire Presidency' Riding on Healthcare.gov

Man, that Cornell Belcher dude's like a freakin' robot. And A.B. Stoddard nails it:

“It’s a fundamental, structural issue. They needed a great start. You could have had glitches later. You needed to get people pouring into the system, because the sick are pouring into the exchanges; for the first time they can get covered when they couldn’t before. Now you need young, healthy people to balance out the risks and to actually keep it affordable. Without those whose consumers, it’s not affordable anyway.”

Ross Douthat claims Obama's entire presidency is riding on the need for young people to sign up to this monstrosity. It ain't happening.

Leftist Media Mounts Coordinated Attack on Obama's Claim to 'Greater, More Competent Government'

Look, criticism of the administration's disastrous rollout of the ObamaCare monstrosity has been amazingly bipartisan. We've seen leftist media coverage piling on this clusterf-k, and Senate Democrats up for reelection next year are begging the White House for a delay of the law's implementation.

You do have diehard progressives, however, like Martin Longman at the idiot Boom Tribune, who remain deep in denial on the failure of this legislation, convinced that it's just a matter of time before the website's up and running and consumers start saving money with government-run insurance. Right. That's at the same time Californians are giving that Obamanation the big FU. Hey, must be fun in La La Land.

Meanwhile, the big-guns of the Obama-media are highlighting how the failed website launch is highlighting Obama's longstanding and outrageously bogus claims that progressivism would bring about better, more competent government.

From Dan Balz, for example, at the Washington Post, "HealthCare.gov doesn’t help Obama’s argument for greater government":

LOL! Martin Longman (@BooMan23) loves him some #ObamaCare #Fail! Yeah, dude, it's gonna "lower premiums." Bwahaha!!

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) October 27, 2013

Hey tweeps, Martin Longman, a.k.a. @BooMan23, is an #ObamaCare troofer, lol! "It's a temporary glitch, man." Bwahaha! http://t.co/Enw1ieBJKy

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) October 27, 2013

President Obama has faced a persistent challenge in office. The advocate of big, bold actions to address large and seemingly intractable problems, he has struggled to convince the public that government is equipped to carry out such transformational changes.

The rollout of the Affordable Care Act has highlighted that challenge, and the administration’s response has no doubt set the president back. He and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius were slow to acknowledge the scope of the problems with HealthCare.gov, and overall the administration has hardly lived up to its pledge to be the most transparent in history.

Administration officials insist that the health-care law is sound, even if the Web site has proved a nightmare to navigate. But the questions raised by the botched rollout go beyond whether the Web site Obama touted so positively is merely plagued with technological glitches or is flawed in more fundamental ways. The whole episode points to the broader debate that the president has yet to win about the role of government.

When he was reelected last November, Obama and his advisers took the results as a mandate to continue or even accelerate the kinds of changes he had started during his first term. Democrats looked at the coalition that gave Obama a second term and saw the makings of a new progressive era after decades of conservative ascendancy.

But exit polls underscored the degree to which he had lost ground on the core debate about the government’s role. After four years of Obama as president, voters showed a smaller appetite for government to do things than they had when he was first elected.

On Election Day 2012, just 43 percent of those who voted said they wanted government to do more to solve problems, while 51 percent said government was doing too many things that were better left to the private sector or individuals. Four years earlier, in November 2008, the exit polls showed just the opposite: 51 percent said they wanted government to do more, while 43 percent said it should do less.

More at the link.

And here comes the New York Times, "Health Site Woes Undermine Obama’s Vow on Government":

WASHINGTON — The implicit promise of Barack Obama’s presidency, delivered during the 2008 campaign and again repeatedly since then, was that government would not face a debacle like the recent malfunction of the technology behind the president’s new health care marketplaces.

In his biggest and most important speeches, the president often talks with passion about a “smarter, more effective government.” He has called on Congress to embrace and pay for a “21st century government that’s open and competent.” And he has vowed to work to “rebuild people’s faith in the institution of government.”

But in the pursuit of that lofty goal, Mr. Obama faces determined opposition from conservatives who view government as the problem, not the solution. And to succeed, he must win over an increasingly skeptical public whose trust in government has eroded over decades. A survey last week by the Pew Research Center found that just 19 percent of Americans trust government to do what is right just about always or most of the time.

The breakdown of the federal HealthCare.gov Web site could emerge as a test of Mr. Obama’s philosophy, with potentially serious implications for an agenda that relies heavily on the belief in a can-do bureaucracy. Michael Dimock, the Pew center’s director, said that the longer the problems persist, the more they could bolster what he called the “almost American value that government is inefficient.”

“There is a lingering kind of effect,” he said. “It matters not only because the public may have an inherent skepticism. It puts the ball on the tee for your critics and the late-night comics.”

Continue reading.

It's going to be a long, hard year for Democrats. Talk won't be about big new government initiatives, despite attempts by the White House to turn the page to immigration reform and who knows what else? Congressional Democrats are going to be playing the CYA reelection games, dodging ObamaCare right up to November 2014. And it's going to be an ugly bloodbath for the law's supporters.

Make the f-kers eat it.

Martin Longman too.

Lawsuits Could Unravel #ObamaCare

Awesome.

At LAT, "More legal trouble for Affordable Care Act":

WASHINGTON— If computer glitches are not enough of a problem, President Obama's healthcare law also has a legal glitch that critics say could cause it to unravel in more than half the nation.

The Affordable Care Act proposes to make health insurance affordable to millions of low-income Americans by offering them tax credits to help cover the cost. To receive the credit, the law twice says they must buy insurance "through an exchange established by the state."

But 36 states have decided against opening exchanges for now. Although the law permits the federal government to open exchanges instead, it does not say tax credits may be given to those who buy insurance through a federally run exchange.

Apparently no one noticed this when the long and complicated bill worked its way through the House and Senate. Last year, however, the Internal Revenue Service tried to remedy it by putting out a regulation that redefined "exchange" to include a "federally facilitated exchange." This is "consistent with the language, purpose and structure … of the act as a whole," the Treasury Department said.

But critics of the law have seized on the glitch. They have filed four lawsuits that urge judges to rule the Obama administration must abide by the strict wording of the law, even if doing so dismantles it in nearly two-thirds of the states. And the Obama administration has no hope of repairing the glitch by legislation as long as the Republicans control the House.

This week, U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman in Washington, a President Clinton appointee, refused the administration's request to dismiss the suit. Instead, he said the challengers had put forward a substantial claim, and he promised to issue a written ruling.

"This is a problem," said Timothy Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University. "This case could have legs," although "it was never the intent of Congress to establish federal exchanges that can't do anything. They were supposed to have exactly the same powers."

Michael Carvin, the Washington lawyer leading the challenge, says the wording of the law is what counts. "This is a question of whether you believe in the rule of law. And the language here is as clear as it could possibly be," he said.

This is excellent no matter what happens. Chances are good the ObamaCare monstrosity could wind back up at the Supreme Court --- and next time, perhaps John Roberts won't be in such a generous mood.

More at that top link.

BONUS: At the comments:

Do you really think Obama cares if what he does is legal? Let me clear this up for you, he does not give a damn! He wants what he wants, and if it means doing by means that are unconstitutional he will not hesitate to do so! He has so demonstrated over and over again! He sees himself as an entitled, king like entity! HOW DARE ANYONE QUESTION HIM OR ANY DIRECTIVE THAT COMES FROM HIM! In actuality he is a "despot"!!

Unhinged Democrat Wants Obama to 'Shoot Every Republican Dead...'

Man, they don't mask their intentions any more, do they?

At Director Blue, "PEACE, LOVE AND UNDERSTANDING: New York Times commenters urge Obama administration to kill Republican lawmakers."

Haim

At LAT, "It's home for Haim: The red-hot band is happy to hit L.A.'s memory lanes":

Their debut album entered the chart this month at No. 6. In England the record sold more copies than the latest by Justin Timberlake. Reviews have been nearly uniformly ecstatic, as has praise from fellow artists such as Katy Perry and Mumford & Sons.

To the uninitiated, Haim's success might resemble the overnight variety.

But the L.A. group — built around a trio of sisters — played its first show in 2007. Before that, the siblings performed in a band with their parents, doing Beatles and Prince covers at school functions and church fairs.

"It was fun to do," said bassist Este Haim, 27, "and it seemed normal to us."

PHOTOS: Haim brings 'Days Are Gone' to the Fonda Theatre in Hollywood

As a pop sensation, though, Haim is anything but the norm. The band — which also includes singer-guitarist Danielle, 24, and guitarist-keyboardist Alana, 21 — has an appealingly ungroomed look and a lived-in sound that forgoes the super-polished dance beats of Top 40 radio.

Sitting backstage at L.A.'s Fonda Theatre on a recent afternoon, the women were dressed in dark vintage clothes, their long hair hanging loose over their shoulders — more Joni Mitchell than Miley Cyrus. They were discussing their not-so-distant days growing up in the San Fernando Valley, including Este's job at the Sherman Oaks Galleria.

"Alana would be at the mall with her friends, and she'd come by and I'd give them free French fries and soup," said the bassist, who worked at the Cheesecake Factory in the shopping center. "Then her friends started coming separately — they cut out the middleman."

"They didn't need me anymore," Alana agreed with a laugh. "Way harsh."

If the sisters seemed nostalgic, perhaps it was because they were home for the first time in months. Haim — the name rhymes with "lime" — has been on the road in the United States and Europe for the better part of 2013. (The group is rounded out by an unrelated drummer, Dash Hutton.) Last week the band's tour stopped in L.A. for a sold-out concert at the Fonda that served as a kind of hometown celebration of its hit debut, "Days Are Gone."

More at the link.

Plus, "Live review: Haim at the Fonda Theatre."

Oops! Californians Sour on #ObamaCare — LOL!

Obama took California by nearly 60 percent in 2012, but his signature healthcare monstrosity's not going over too well --- especially as folks get a real look at the thing, not the theoretical "affordable care" that was promised.

At LAT:

Californians are discovering what Obamacare will cost them — and many don't like what they see http://t.co/4xHJBAUJKC
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) October 27, 2013

NSA Spying on Angela Merkel Since 2002

Look, friends spy on friends, although even Merkel's cell phone was bugged.

She's obviously not pleased, and just reelected to a third term, she's got some political capital, and she aims to spend some of that against President Dronekiller.

At the New York Times, "Amid New Storm in U.S.-Europe Relationship, a Call for Talks on Spying":

BERLIN — While President Obama has tried to soften the blow, this week’s disclosures about the extent of America’s spying on its European allies have added to a series of issues that have sharply eroded confidence in the United States’ leadership at a particularly difficult moment.

The sharp words from Germany, France and others this week are part of a broader set of frustrations over issues like the Syrian civil war, the danger posed to the global economy by Washington’s fiscal fights and the broader perception that President Obama himself — for all his promises to rebuild relations with allies after the presidency of George W. Bush — is an unreliable partner.

This American administration is “misreading and miscalculating the effects” of its deeds in a Europe that is less ready than it once was to heed the United States, said Annette Heuser, executive director of the Bertelsmann Foundation, a research organization in Washington.

Early on Friday, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President François Hollande of France emerged from a meeting of European leaders to call for talks with the United States on new rules for their intelligence relationship. A statement from the European leaders said a “lack of trust” could undermine trans-Atlantic intelligence cooperation.

Earlier in the week the European Parliament had acted to suspend an agreement with the United States that allows it to track the finances of terrorist groups, citing suspicions that the United States authorities were tapping European citizens’ personal financial data.

The disclosures contained in the documents leaked by the former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden have crystallized a growing sense in Europe that post-Sept. 11 America has lost some of the values of privacy and accountability that have been the source of the world’s admiration for its version of democracy.

So fierce was the anger in Berlin over suspicions that American intelligence had tapped into Ms. Merkel’s cellphone that Elmar Brok of Germany, the chairman of the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee and a pillar of trans-Atlantic exchanges since 1984, spoke Friday of America’s security establishment as a creepy “state within a state.”

Since Sept. 11, 2001, he said, “the balance between freedom and security has been lost.”

And at the Verge, "US has been monitoring German chancellor Angela Merkel's phone since 2002, report says."

And at London's Daily Mail, "German officials set to travel to the U.S. 'shortly' to discuss spying allegations and whether Angela Merkel's phone was monitored by the NSA," and "U.S. monitored German Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone since 2002."

"I’m just amused at how quickly after the implementation of #ObamaCare the whole 'death panel' thing was transformed from a paranoid fantasy of that yokel, Sarah Palin, to an obviously good idea that all thinking people support..."

Yeah, me too.

At Instapundit, "WALTER HUDSON: The Twisted Morality of “Death Panels:” Breaking down Slate’s rationalization for letting government pick who lives and who dies."

Katie Pavlich: #ObamaCare Website Could Top $1 Billion

She's one of the smartest commentators around.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen Letter Demanding Delay of #ObamaCare Enrollment Deadline

That sound you're hearing is the crackup of the Obama-Democrat electoral coalition.

This is the beginning of the end of the 2014 Democrats.

And 2016 is just around the corner.

Make these f-kers eat it.

From the homepage of New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen, "AS WEBSITE GLITCHES LINGER, SHAHEEN URGES WHITE HOUSE TO EXTEND OPEN ENROLLMENT FOR HEALTH EXCHANGES."

And boy, in no time did the Senate Democrat 2014 reelection caucus sign up to the plan, "SHAHEEN LEADS COALITION OF SENATORS TO CALL FOR OPEN ENROLLMENT EXTENSION":

As technical glitches persist, Senators urge HHS Secretary to push back health insurance exchange enrollment deadline

October 25, 2013

(Washington, DC) – As Americans continue to experience technical difficulties with federal and state health insurance enrollment, a coalition of U.S. Senators led by Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) is calling on Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to extend the open enrollment period to give Americans more time to obtain health insurance coverage.

“As long as these substantial technology glitches persist, we are losing valuable time to educate and enroll people in insurance plans,” read the letter signed by Shaheen along with U.S. Sens. Mark Begich (D-AK), Mark Pryor (D-AR), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Kay Hagan (D-NC), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Mark Udall (D-CO), Tom Udall (D-NM), Michael Bennet (D-CO), and Martin Heinrich (D-NM).  “Our constituents are frustrated, and we fear that the longer the website is not functional, opportunities for people to log on, learn about their insurance choices, and enroll will be lost.”

The letter sent today reiterates Shaheen’s earlier call to extend open enrollment if the technological glitches persist with healthcare.gov.  An extended open enrollment deadline “will give consumers critical time in which to become familiar with the website and choose a plan that is best for them,” the Senators said.

Continue reading (via Memeorandum).

Make these f-kers eat it.

More at Big Government, "REPORT: SENATE DEMS UP FOR RE-ELECTION IN 2014 TO BACK DELAY OF OBAMACARE ENROLLMENT DEADLINE."

Rats Jumping the Sinking #ObamaCare Ship

At Jammie Wearing Fools, "Politico: Democrats’ United Front Cracks":

The great Democratic unity of 2013 held for five-and-a-half days.

For weeks leading up to the shutdown — and over the 16 days it dragged on — President Barack Obama did the unthinkable: he held every Democrat in the House and Senate together. There weren’t any defectors. There wasn’t even anyone running to reporters to question his strategy. The man who’d disappointed them so many times was suddenly exciting them, with his newly apparent backbone and successful resistance to Republicans. They were rushing to do whatever they could to stand by him, next to him, with him.

Like any fad, that’s gone the way of trucker hats and the macarena.

The problems with the Obamacare website have transformed the president from a man who seemed to have gotten a sudden infusion of political capital to a man who’s been pushed back on his heels. He was firm, and he was setting the agenda. Now he’s back to trying to beating back the latest frame Republicans have forced on him, inadvertently providing evidence to support the doubts they’ve been trying to sow from the beginning. He spent last week against the backdrop of a shutdown that made people appreciate all the things government can do for them. Now he has a website which shows how little it can.

Nobody was appreciative of what government can do for them. In fact, most people got along just fine. Now everyone realizes the government is trying to do way too much and want no part of it. So, Democrats, please run on a platform of more government and defending ObamaCare. That bloodbath of 2010 will seem tame by comparison come next November.

Previously: "Democrats Run for #ObamaCare Cover."

Image Credit: Moira Fitzgerald.

#ObamaCare Forcing Hundreds of Thousands Millions to Lose Health Insurance Coverage

From Ed Morrissey, at Hot Air, "CBS: ObamaCare forcing millions to lose their insurance."



Via Memeorandum.

Democrats Run for #ObamaCare Cover

From Kim Strassel, at WSJ, "After weeks of vowing they wouldn't cave on the president's signature legislation, some Democrats are doing just that":

Jeanne Shaheen doesn't sound like a Democrat who just won a government-shutdown "victory." Ms. Shaheen sounds like a Democrat who thinks she's going to lose her job.

The New Hampshire senator fundamentally altered the health-care fight on Tuesday with a letter to the White House demanding it both extend the ObamaCare enrollment deadline and waive tax penalties for those unable to enroll. Within nanoseconds, Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor had endorsed her "common-sense idea." By Wednesday night, five Senate Democrats were on board, pushing for . . . what's that dirty GOP word? Oh, right. "Delay."

After 16 long days of vowing to Republicans that they would not cave in any way, shape or form on ObamaCare, Democrats spent their first post-shutdown week caving in every way, shape and form. With the GOP's antics now over, the only story now is the unrivaled disaster that is the president's health-care law.

Hundreds of thousands of health-insurance policies canceled. Companies dumping coverage and cutting employees' hours. Premiums skyrocketing. And a website that reprises the experience of a Commodore 64. As recently as May, Democratic consultants were advising members of Congress that their best ObamaCare strategy for 2014 was to "own" the law. Ms. Shaheen has now publicly advised the consultants where they can file that memo.

Continue reading (via Memeorandum).

Russell Brand for the Proletarian Revolution

Via R.S. McCain, "Celebrities Are the New Proletariat":

Russell Brand has international fame and a net worth of $15 million, and also used to bang Katy Perry. Nevertheless, in his own mind, he is one of the downtrodden toilers struggling to overthrow the greedy oppressive parasitical regime of bourgeois capitalism...

RTWT.