Obama Meets with Tech CEOs as NSA Backlash Builds

At NYT, "As Tech Industry Leaders Meet With Obama, N.S.A. Ruling Looms Large."

Notice at the video how Vice President Biden's sitting next to Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer. She should be careful: "‘Every HR department’s worst nightmare’: Photo of Joe Biden getting his grope on causes a stir," and "‘Watch his hands, Brooke’! Gropin’ Joe Biden creeps on CNN’s Brooke Baldwin [pic]."



And here's NYT on yesterday's big ruling, "Federal Judge Rules Against N.S.A. Phone Data Program."

But see Orin Kerr, at Volokh, "Preliminary Thoughts on Judge Leon’s Opinion." (Via Memeorandum.)

Leeches in U.K.'s House of Lords

This is interesting. Scandalous even.

At Mirror UK, "Lord Hanningfield expenses scandal: 'There are 50 other peers doing it that I could name'," and "Expenses cheat Lord Hanningfield shows that House of Lords must be reformed."

You have to read this dolt justify clocking in and out on the public's dime. At the links. (Via Louise Mensch.)

Millennials to Obama: You Suck, Mofo

At USA Today, "USA TODAY/Pew poll: Obama struggles with Millennials":

WASHINGTON — Millennials have provided invaluable political support to President Obama over the course of his presidency, voting for him by a roughly 2-to-1 margin in his two successful campaigns against Mitt Romney and John McCain.

But as Obama tries to climb out of a 2-month-long malaise that saw his popularity sink with the fumbled rollout of the federal health care exchange, the president appears to have nearly as much work to do with young people as he does with older Americans.

Forty-five percent of 18- to 29-year-old Americans say they approve of the way Obama is handling his job; 46% disapprove of his job performance, according to a year-end USA TODAY/Pew Research Center Poll. The president's approval rating with young Americans — which stood at 67% just ahead of his second inauguration less than a year ago — now mirrors the general population, according to the poll.

The USA TODAY/Pew sample is of only 229 young Americans -- a subset of 2,001 adults polled from Dec. 3-8 -- and has a margin of error of +/- 8 percentage points.

But the findings mirror other recent polling that suggests Obama has seen his approval rating slide with young Americans....

In the USA TODAY/Pew poll, just 41% approve of his signature health care policy, while 54% disapprove. Overall, 40% of Americans approve and 55% disapprove of his health care policy, according to the poll.

The tough polling numbers with young Americans offer a snapshot of the road ahead for the Obama administration in repairing damage caused by the troubled rollout of Obamacare, which has even worn on some of the president's most ardent supporters.

The administration has dedicated much of the president's time and political capital toward making implementation of Obamacare a success after battling with early problems -- the glitch-riddled online exchange and the outrage that ensued when millions of Americans on the individual insurance market received cancellation notices because their policies didn't meet minimum benefit requirements set by the law.

Key to making the Affordable Care Act a success is enrolling plenty of young, healthy people whose participation will offset some higher risk and older uninsured Americans who are expected to flock to the exchanges.

Kyle Olberding, 23, an Army veteran who now works at a candy shop, said that he admires Obama for ending the war in Iraq and winding down the war in Afghanistan and credits the president for pursuing a diplomatic solution with Iran over its nuclear program.

But Olberding, of Wichita, Kan., said he is unhappy with the president's efforts on the economy, reducing the federal budget deficit and implementing the health care law. Olberding, who said he works full time but doesn't make much money, said he remains uncertain about whether he can afford health insurance and resents being required to purchase it.

"At this current point in my life, I have other things that need to be paid for and the extra cost is just not something I can afford right now," said Olberding, who said he hasn't yet explored the website or looked into the level of subsidy he might qualify for.

So true.

And here's that killer Harvard poll from earlier this month, "Millennial Generation Abandons Obama."

With O getting trashed like this all the time, this next year is going to be fantastic! Embrace the suck, Dems!

George and Johnny Huynh, Up and Out

I love Twitter stories like this, at Twitchy, "Boston Globe reporter shares personal story of hope, the American dream, ‘what’s right’."

Here's a link to the article I wrote: http://t.co/mMwheRtTyi. And here's a link to the video @laurenfrohne made: http://t.co/lc9XQIfvMf

— Billy Baker (@billy_baker) December 16, 2013

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