Will Cain Blasts Media: They Turn Coverage of ‘Obama’s Failures into Something About Republicans’ | Mediaite

Will Cain Blasts Media: They Turn Coverage of ‘Obama’s Failures into Something About Republicans’ | Mediaite: "He was met with groans by both anchor and liberal guest when he accurately attacked Obama for attempting to convince the public that he has been a bystander in his own administration when it encounters failure but he is at the same time singularly responsible for his White House’s successes. “This is the apex,” Cain concluded. “The ultimate indictment of credibility.”

Judging by Banfield’s sign off, Cain’s searing indictment of both the president and the political press did not register with her. But his critique is increasingly resonating with the public. Banfield whistled past her industry’s graveyard with her utter dismissal of Cain’s rebuke. Perhaps the rest of her profession will not so casually dismiss his warnings."

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Mitt Romney Refuses to Let Obama Blame Him for Obamacare’s Slow Motion Collapse | Mediaite

Mitt Romney Refuses to Let Obama Blame Him for Obamacare’s Slow Motion Collapse | Mediaite: "Reminding the public that a Republican governor in a liberal state followed the advice put forward in a 1990s-era think tank memo is unlikely to overcome the general impression that Republicans oppose the ACA as presently constituted. The GOP has gone to incredible, even excessive, lengths in order to forestall or prevent the law’s implementation. In fact, the very party now attempting to link the GOP to the ACA’s failure equated them with terrorists, arsonists, and hostage takers for their efforts. But the Democrats have few options left to save political face as the ACA’s roll-out continues to underwhelm."

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Melissa Joan Hart Faced 'Unbelievable' Hatred for Endorsing Mitt Romney via Twitter

Melissa Joan Hart Faced 'Unbelievable' Hatred for Endorsing Mitt Romney via Twitter: "I got called every name in the book," Hart revealed. "[People wrote] that they hope I die, and that they hope my children are gay, which is somehow supposed to be some sort of punishment. [...] The hate was really unbelievable just from that simple tweet. Just by saying I was voting."

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Best of the Web Today: President Haze - WSJ.com

Best of the Web Today: President Haze - WSJ.com: "Surely this is the clearest example of a broken presidential promise since George H.W. Bush's "Read my lips: no new taxes." In Bush's defense it may be said that political exigencies--a Democratic Congress, a foreign-policy crisis--forced him to accede to a tax hike. Similarly, Obama in 2008 opposed the idea of an individual mandate to purchase health insurance, but agreed to it because his preferred options, the "public option" (in which the government would compete with private insurers) and "single payer" (in which the government would be the only insurer) were political nonstarters even with an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress."

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Daniel Henninger: Progressive Government Fails - WSJ.com

Daniel Henninger: Progressive Government Fails - WSJ.com: "A reader remarked last week that Barack Obama is running out of human shields. With the father of ObamaCare unavailable to explain the greatest fiasco of his presidency to Congress, the American people had to settle Wednesday for his surrogate, Kathleen Sebelius.

Let us try to understand clearly what is happening now with the Obama presidency. On display to everyone watching this week is not merely the failure of a federal website or a software program or Ms. Sebelius's management skills. This is the failure of the very idea of progressive government. Not liberal government. Progressive government."

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Obamacare Is the Worst-Case Scenario | National Review Online

Obamacare Is the Worst-Case Scenario | National Review Online: "Both Singapore and Switzerland have systems in which overall health-care spending is lower than it is in the United States but out-of-pocket health-care spending is higher. The shocking thing is this: So does practically every other country. A recent World Bank study finds that in the United States, only 20 percent of health-care spending comes in the form of out-of-pocket expenses paid by consumers. In Singapore, it is 88 percent and in Switzerland 72 percent. But even the single-payer systems of Canada and the United Kingdom feature more out-of-pocket spending by consumers, 49 percent and 53 percent respectively. How is it that in countries with “free” universal health care consumers pay more out of pocket than they do in the United States?"

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Dem congressman to Megyn Kelly on people getting dropped from insurance plans: It’s capitalism « Hot Air

Dem congressman to Megyn Kelly on people getting dropped from insurance plans: It’s capitalism « Hot Air: "As a Halloween treat, read this op-ed by a 34-year-old who’s just been pink-slipped by his insurance company as it’s surely scaring the shinola out of some Democratic press shops today. He earns slightly too much to be eligible for subsidies and his new ObamaCare-approved plan will cost him more each year out of pocket and in co-pays for individual visits — which, ironically, means he’s less inclined to seek treatment now except in emergencies. He understands the point of the new scheme — a wealth transfer from the middle class’s young and healthy to the old, sick, and poor — and he’s not happy about being placed once again on the hook for another demographic. Three percent of the population isn’t much, relatively, but it’s enough to swing close elections. Good luck, red-state Democrats."

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Breaking: FAA to allow most electronic devices during “all phases” of flights « Hot Air

Breaking: FAA to allow most electronic devices during “all phases” of flights « Hot Air: "It’s only a big deal because of the silliness of the ban on personal electronic devices (PEDs) during takeoffs and landings.  Pilots in commercial airline cockpits have been using tablets for a while now in both phases, yet passengers had to turn theirs off.  While cell phones and “my-fi” devices will have to remain turned off or in airplane mode, the FAA finally admitted that there is no safety issues with almost all PEDs at any stage of a commercial flight."

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Did HHS estimate that 93 million Americans will lose their insurance plans? « Hot Air

Did HHS estimate that 93 million Americans will lose their insurance plans? « Hot Air: "The HHS analysis of the markets and the impact of ObamaCare on plan offerings was not limited to just the individual markets.  When the employer mandate gets enforced for the 2015 enrollment, as many as 93 million Americans may find that their job-provided coverage will go the way of the individual plans this year."

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White House lobbying Senate against further sanctions on Iran in super-secret meeting « Hot Air

White House lobbying Senate against further sanctions on Iran in super-secret meeting « Hot Air: "I’m not convinced that the White House’s sanctions-timeout argument is going to fly, though; Iran has used negotiations to extract concessions and play for time in the past, and the idea that the threat of force and harsh penalties are the best method to discourage any Iranian retrenchment is enjoying a lot of bipartisan support."

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140,000 Minnesotans discover they can’t “keep your plan” « Hot Air

140,000 Minnesotans discover they can’t “keep your plan” « Hot Air: "Few states are as reliably Democratic in presidential elections than my state of Minnesota. We haven’t voted for a Republican since Richard Nixon in 1972, whose claim not to be a crook was a pre-eminent example of a presidential whopper until just recently.  Minnesota is the only state not to have voted for Ronald Reagan at least once.  The Land of 10,000 Frozen Lakes voted enthusiastically for Barack Obama in both elections, buoyed at least in part by his promise to reform the health-care system without creating any headaches for its consumers."

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CBS reveals: Contrary to chief’s testimony, CMS knew ObamaCare website had major problems before launch « Hot Air

CBS reveals: Contrary to chief’s testimony, CMS knew ObamaCare website had major problems before launch « Hot Air: "Alternate headline: “Blogger can’t believe we’re actually debating whether the government knew that it had a nonfunctioning website on its hands.”"

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Video: Democrats moving ObamaCare promise goalposts “literally off the field,” says … Piers Morgan « Hot Air

Video: Democrats moving ObamaCare promise goalposts “literally off the field,” says … Piers Morgan « Hot Air: "How many times can Pallone use the word “scam” in this debate and not have it refer to Obama’s promise? I’d guess a few times a day until next September, when the shoe drops on Americans who get their insurance through their employers. When that happens, Pallone’s constituents in NJ-06 will be demanding some answers over the ObamaCare “scam,” and with a D+6 district, Pallone may be looking for his own health insurance plan in 2015, too."

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Did Russia spy on G-20 by handing out free thumb drives? « Hot Air

Did Russia spy on G-20 by handing out free thumb drives? « Hot Air: "It can’t be this easy, can it? The espionage spotlight shifted abruptly from US surveillance on allies to Russian snooping on fellow G-20 members in St. Petersburg last month.  According to Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Russians handed out swag bags to the ministers at the conference that included teddy bears, diaries, thumb drives, and smartphone cables.  The latter two, however, were later found to have some intriguing modifications."

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Media begins to wonder who’s running the show in the White House « Hot Air

Media begins to wonder who’s running the show in the White House « Hot Air: "The White House thinks they can spin their way out of this.  Unfortunately, Obama and Democrats completely own ObamaCare, and not even using insurers as a scapegoat will get them off the hook for the skyrocketing premiums that Obama promised to cut by $2500 a year.  The incompetence and prevarications have caught up with and eclipsed Hope and Change, and now everyone’s noticing it."

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Biden: Hey, sorry that neither Obama or I are tech geeks « The Greenroom

Biden: Hey, sorry that neither Obama or I are tech geeks « The Greenroom: "No one expects a chief executive to be adept at coding.  We expect them to hire people who are adept at coding, rather than a company whose biggest previous project was a failed gun-registry system in Canada. We expect a chief executive to find managers and directors who can take $400 million and deliver an operational web portal on time, and to be aware of the real status of that project sometime before the executive begins to force millions of Americans into using it."

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Obamacare Navigator Hasn't Signed Up Anyone Because It's Too Expensive | The Weekly Standard

Obamacare Navigator Hasn't Signed Up Anyone Because It's Too Expensive | The Weekly Standard: ""So far, no one," says the Obamacare navigator. "Thus far everybody has taken a look at the rates and they've walked out the door. There's sticker shock. They just can't afford it.""

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Opinion: The Obamacare whiners - Rich Lowry - POLITICO.com

Opinion: The Obamacare whiners - Rich Lowry - POLITICO.com: "Waxman was picking up a common liberal theme: It’s not fair that Republicans continue to oppose the president’s eponymous health care law and pick at its failures, deceits and irrationalities. If only they were more reasonable, Obamacare could be tightened up around the edges with a few technocratic fixes and go on to its glorious destiny.

It’s a little late to get or expect any Republican buy-in, though. That would have required serious compromise back in 2009, when Democrats, at the high tide of their power in the Obama era, saw no reason to make any. They ignored the polls, they ignored Scott Brown’s shocking win in Massachusetts, and they ignored normal parliamentary practices to pass the single most partisan piece of major social legislation in a century."

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Rand Paul: We know government is inept, but ObamaCare is bringing it to a whole other level of incompetence « Hot Air

Rand Paul: We know government is inept, but ObamaCare is bringing it to a whole other level of incompetence « Hot Air: "I think government is inherently inept, but this brings it to a new level of incompetence. I can’t imagine how she could continue in her job, she should resign really from mere embarrassment. I’ve never seen anything this bad and here’s the thing when the president said you could keep your doctor and now we find out 2 million people are going to lose their doctor and lose their insurance, I just can’t imagine how they can be proud of what they’re doing and how he can’t say that’s going to hold someone responsible."

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Obama: Bad apple insurance companies are to blame for all this losing of plans you liked « Hot Air

Obama: Bad apple insurance companies are to blame for all this losing of plans you liked « Hot Air: "Five percent of the American public is 17 million people. And, if that’s such a negligible number about whom one shouldn’t fret, why did we upend the entire health care system to help them against their will? This is really just an extension of the “we know what’s good for you” argument championed by Josh Barro this week. Sure, I said you wouldn’t lose your insurance if you liked it, but you were busy liking the wrong stuff, America!"

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Coburn on Congress, NPS: It’s time to stop acquiring land and start taking care of it « Hot Air

Coburn on Congress, NPS: It’s time to stop acquiring land and start taking care of it « Hot Air: "The worst part of it is that, while environmentalists and bureaucrats are always eager to add land to the whimsical budgetary rolls of big government, there are other and much better options for conserving lands for public use. State parks and private-public partnerships have a much better record of both stewardship and fiscal responsibility, and private leasing especially often tends to act as a revenue-generator rather than the drain on government coffers. It doesn’t have to be this way."

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New Snowden bombshell: NSA secretly tapping Google’s, Yahoo’s data pipelines to harvest metadata — and content « Hot Air

New Snowden bombshell: NSA secretly tapping Google’s, Yahoo’s data pipelines to harvest metadata — and content « Hot Air: "The irony is, per the last paragraph of the excerpt above, this might further tie the NSA’s hands abroad, where nearly everyone agrees they should have a freer hand to operate because it’s easier to target foreigners exclusively there. They’re already back on their heels because of the uproar over them tapping Merkel’s phone; now, if there’s a new uproar over this, Congress may feel pressured to impose new restrictions on how the agency operates internationally to limit its ability to target U.S. citizens or corporations overseas. What a backfire, if it happens. Exit question: Why did they feel the need to tap Google’s and Yahoo’s data centers if they were already being handed information by the companies under PRISM? WaPo tries to explain but I’m not seeing it."

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Obama on insurance cancellations: “Just shop around in the new marketplace, that’s what it’s for” « Hot Air

Obama on insurance cancellations: “Just shop around in the new marketplace, that’s what it’s for” « Hot Air: "Fear not, you millions of Americans now receiving insurance policy cancellation notices in the mail: Your anger and bewilderment has not fallen upon deaf ears. In his speech in Boston this afternoon, President Obama munificently took the time to explain to any such Americans how it was not, in fact, his own now infamous promise that “If you like your plan, you can keep it” that misled people, because hey, insurance companies are still offering plans you can buy in their place! They might be more expensive, sure, but the good news is that they will no longer be “substandard.” According to The One, that is."

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Best of the Web Today: Another ObamaCare Victim - WSJ.com

Best of the Web Today: Another ObamaCare Victim - WSJ.com: "But the answer to Frum's first three rhetorical questions is that every Republican in the House, in both the 112th and 113th congresses, has voted repeatedly for full repeal of ObamaCare, as have a very small number of Democrats. As Washington Post "fact checker" Glenn Kessler noted in July, Democrats have actually been exaggerating the number of such votes.

Big deal, Frum could reasonably counter. A vote in one chamber of a bicameral legislature and a $5 appropriation will buy you a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Republicans held firm, but with no results.

Sometimes, however, it is worth holding firm even if it means sustaining a defeat. And here is where we find Frum's view in 2010 so wrongheaded as to make his difficulty with ObamaCare now an occasion for Schadenfreude."

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Obama’s Big Lie | National Review Online

Obama’s Big Lie | National Review Online: "At the 2008 Democratic National Convention, Obama talked at great length about the middle class and not once about the poor. His critics on the right said he was lying, that he was really more interested in income distribution. Such charges were dismissed as paranoid and even racist. But the critics were right. Obama was lying either to himself or to the rest of us — because he was playing the game to win."

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Healthcare.gov the “progressive equivalent of declaring ketchup a vegetable” « Hot Air

Healthcare.gov the “progressive equivalent of declaring ketchup a vegetable” « Hot Air: "It’s not just that Republicans and conservatives can toss out a rhetorical bomb occasionally to embarrass big-government advocates.  It’s that the American people are getting a ringside seat for the definitive demonstration of what happens when government takes over the private sector because it thinks it can make decisions better than the market does.  And that’s not limited to Healthcare.gov, which should have been easy to launch with $400 million and 42 months of lead time, but the whole structure of the forced-redistribution model."

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WaPo: “Obama’s inattention to detail” threatens to derail his legacy, or something « Hot Air

WaPo: “Obama’s inattention to detail” threatens to derail his legacy, or something « Hot Air: "Welcome to Euphemism Day, where the media gets to work on its weasel-word usage in a crisis.  At least it’s Euphemism Day at the Washington Post, where two stories work mightily hard to avoid calling Barack Obama a liar and an incompetent."

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Kessler: Four Pinocchios for “you can keep your plan” « Hot Air

Kessler: Four Pinocchios for “you can keep your plan” « Hot Air: "Don’t bet on it.  This week, they gave David Axelrod a “mostly true” for his statement that most Americans aren’t getting their health-insurance plans cancelled.  That’s only “mostly true” if one ignores the context of ObamaCare targeting the individual market.  HHS predicted more than three years ago that as many as 67% of the people in those markets would have their plans cancelled due to their regulatory intervention through the ACA.  It’s an absurd point of intellectual dishonesty to count employer-based plans in that consideration, especially since millions of Americans are starting to get those cancellations in their mailboxes."

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Kessler: Four Pinocchios for “you can keep your plan” « Hot Air

Kessler: Four Pinocchios for “you can keep your plan” « Hot Air: "In recent days, administration officials have argued that the plans that are going away are “substandard” and lacked essential protections — and that many people may qualify for tax credits to mitigate the higher premiums that may result from the new requirements. …

But such assertions do not really explain the president’s promise — or Jarrett’s tweet. There may be a certain percentage of people who were happy with their “substandard” plan, presumably because it cost relatively little. And while Jarrett claimed that “nothing” in the law is forcing people out of their plans “unless insurance companies change plans,” she is describing rules written by the president’s aides that were designed to make it difficult for plans to remain grandfathered for very long."

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Great news from Sebelius: “The website has never crashed” « Hot Air

Great news from Sebelius: “The website has never crashed” « Hot Air: "Via NRO, watch to the end or you’ll miss a cutaway on the split screen that made me laugh aloud. Can it really be true that a website that’s been inaccessible to most of the planet for most of the past month, which was so poorly designed that it ended up effectively DDOSing itself, has never technically “crashed”? Yup, says Sebelius, because it’s never been overloaded to the point where it’s been knocked completely offline. Direct quote: “It is functional, but at a very slow speed and very low reliability.” It’s functional, technically."

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CBS: Insurance co-ops scrambling away from individual market « Hot Air

CBS: Insurance co-ops scrambling away from individual market « Hot Air: "After a month of the ObamaCare fiasco, insurers find themselves staring into the abyss of the “death spiral” — the risk-pool meltdown of accepting too many high-maintenance consumers without enough low-maintenance consumers to spread the costs. CBS Evening News focused on one such insurer, a new co-op in Maryland that got its start from a $65 million federal loan and planned on marketing mainly within the ObamaCare exchange. After a few days of watching HHS flounder, the CEO threw out that business plan entirely."

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Open thread: Sebelius to testify in House over ObamaCare success* (live video embed) « Hot Air

Open thread: Sebelius to testify in House over ObamaCare success* (live video embed) « Hot Air: "Sebelius will need to approach this like her job is on the line, because it almost certainly is.  Expect to see Republicans laying perjury traps during their testimony, and expect to see some Democrats speechifying to slow things down.  Sebelius had better not count on that kind of support from all of the Democrats, though, because this administration has humiliated them to the point where their electoral survival will take precedence over protecting a Cabinet official whose expiration date arrived on October 2nd, whether she or Barack Obama know it or not."

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“High risk”: Document shows HHS launched ObamaCare website without end-to-end security testing « Hot Air

“High risk”: Document shows HHS launched ObamaCare website without end-to-end security testing « Hot Air: "“High risk,” but they launched it anyway. The result: A flaw in the password-reset part of the site that would have made it unusually easy for hackers to fool the site into letting them log on as other users. “This seems really sloppy,” said the IT specialist who uncovered it. The flaw was fixed on Monday night, but it is indeed a bad omen about the rest of the site’s security that something as basic as this went uncorrected for nearly a month. And things might get worse before they get better: Rogers’s point in the clip below isn’t merely that they rushed this thing out without a comprehensive security check, it’s that the ongoing repairs to the site’s functionality could be creating new security holes that they’re not even aware of yet."

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Video: White House intimidating insurers into staying quiet on the ObamaCare debacle? « Hot Air

Video: White House intimidating insurers into staying quiet on the ObamaCare debacle? « Hot Air: "“What is going on is, behind the scenes attempt by the White House to at least keep insurerers from publicly criticizing what is happening on this Affordable Care Act rollout. Basically, if you speak out, if you are quoted, you’re going to get a call from the White House, pressure to be quiet,” reports CNN."

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Did the US snoop on the Vatican before the conclave? « The Greenroom

Did the US snoop on the Vatican before the conclave? « The Greenroom: "“The National Security Agency wiretapped the pope,” the magazine said, accusing the United States of listening in to telephone calls to and from the Vatican, including the accommodation housing cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio before he was elected Pope Francis.

The allegations follow a report on surveillance website Cryptome which said the United States intercepted 46 million telephone calls in Italy in December 2012 and early January 2013."

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It’s Not a Broken Promise if You Never Meant to Keep it | Fox News

It’s Not a Broken Promise if You Never Meant to Keep it | Fox News: "Here’s the ObamaCare rollout in two sentences: Millions of Americans are losing their health insurance policies because of the law. And many of the soon to be uninsured can’t sign up for the new federal benefits because the Obama administration screwed up its Web site."

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Reagan, O'Neill, and Someone Named Chris | RealClearPolitics

Reagan, O'Neill, and Someone Named Chris | RealClearPolitics: "“Man of the House,” by the way, is a treasure-trove of Reagan bashing, despite the hollow plea of Matthews that the two men were really the best of friends.

Tip O’Neill said it was “sinful” that Reagan had been elected president. He said Reagan didn’t care about the poor, and that Reagan would have made a better “king” than a president -- and that, in any event, Reagan was the “worst” president of his lifetime; a period that encompassed Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon. There are dozens of other examples of Reagan-bashing, not excluding O’Neill’s ungentlemanly claim that Nancy Reagan was “the queen of Beverly Hills.”"

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CNN: White House Pressuring Insurance Companies To Not Criticize ObamaCare | NewsBusters

CNN: White House Pressuring Insurance Companies To Not Criticize ObamaCare | NewsBusters: "Anderson, what’s going on is behind the scenes attempt by the White House to at least keep insurers from publicly criticizing what is happening on this Affordable Care Act rollout. Basically, if you speak out, if you are quoted, you’re going to get a call from the White House, pressure to be quiet. Several sources tell me and my colleague Chris Frates that insurance executives are being told to keep quiet."

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‘Content of Their Character’: Obama Under Fire After Advisor Reveals His Favorite Bloggers Are All White | Mediaite

‘Content of Their Character’: Obama Under Fire After Advisor Reveals His Favorite Bloggers Are All White | Mediaite: "Maxwell apparently encountered criticism for insisting that she would prefer a world in which racial quotas are applied to virtually every aspect of existence. She was apparently shocked that her nakedly racial demand on society would encounter resistance."

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New York Times Aids and Abets Gawker in Creepy Effort to Out Fox’s Shep Smith | Mediaite

New York Times Aids and Abets Gawker in Creepy Effort to Out Fox’s Shep Smith | Mediaite: "It should be noted that the aforementioned Denton is gay, but he didn’t exactly jump out of the closet. Here’s how he justifies stalking Smith and Graziano: “You could argue that my own history and my experience of untold truths has made me impatient, but what I care about is lies and exposing them.”

Exposing lies? Who is lying, exactly? So on Denton’s planet, they decide who is gay and when they’re supposed to come out. It’s cyber-bullying and, quite frankly, douche-baggery in its lowest form."

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Stewart: Say, is Obama in any loops at all? « Hot Air

Stewart: Say, is Obama in any loops at all? « Hot Air: "Does he mean President Ida Know? Jon Stewart skewered Barack Obama personally last night for the White House’s threadbare refrain that the President has no knowledge of what happens in his own administration.  Stewart picks up on the obvious question about the surveillance of other world leaders, which is that we’re expected to believe that Obama never once asked, “Say, where did you get that intel?”"

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Video: Iowa navigators not aware they are? « Hot Air

Video: Iowa navigators not aware they are? « Hot Air: "By now, the story from Iowan Terry Jones is tragically familiar.  The 58-year-old diabetic had his existing plan cancelled, and now he can’t find a plan that will cover him at anywhere near the prices and deductibles he previously had.  However, the coverage from WHO-TV in Iowa adds another twist to the incompetence of HHS and the management of the ACA.  When Jones and WHO tried calling the support organizations listed for Iowans to help “navigate” the system, the organizations found out for the first time that they’re listed on the exchange websites."

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Video: CMS chief spends four minutes avoiding question of how many people have enrolled in ObamaCare « Hot Air

Video: CMS chief spends four minutes avoiding question of how many people have enrolled in ObamaCare « Hot Air: "Excruciating fun from this morning’s House hearing with CMS director Marilyn Tavenner, who apologized for the Healthcare.gov apocalypse and then claimed that “we have a system that’s working,” just not quite at the speed she’d hoped. I guess that’s true, technically. If 15 people are enrolling a day instead of the 15,000 they’d hoped for, the system is still kinda sorta working. Feel better?"

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Revealed: HHS was given “stark warnings” about ObamaCare website problems a month before launch « Hot Air

Revealed: HHS was given “stark warnings” about ObamaCare website problems a month before launch « Hot Air: "Did CGI lie to Sebelius down the stretch, convincing her that the site was more ready than it was, or did Sebelius press them to roll it out knowing that it wasn’t ready? That’s one source of suspense tomorrow — although it’s not all that suspenseful given that CGI really had no reason to lie to its client. Sebelius had a strong political motive in launching the site on time but CGI obviously had a strong business reason to favor delay, lest its name be attached to a notoriously inferior product. Which brings us to the other source of suspense: What’s Sebelius going to say when she’s asked why the White House didn’t delay the launch?"

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George Will: ObamaCare is pretty much “applied Bloombergism” « Hot Air

George Will: ObamaCare is pretty much “applied Bloombergism” « Hot Air: "An apt assessment by George Will from his new outpost on Fox News this evening, and a similar one to Krauthammer‘s last night; but the emergence of the new, obfuscatory defensive line that “insurers are responsible for canceling plans, not ObamaCare” — which evidently took less than 12 hours to become a bona fide progressive talking point — really helps to drive the point home. Trying to shift the blame onto insurers for the oh-so-heinous crimes of offering a wide variety of both comprehensive and non-comprehensive plans, and pricing them according to their actual associated costs and risks, in an individual market with a high rate of turnover is just another way for the Obama administration to yet again insist to both individuals and businesses they their arbitrary determinations of “fairness” are both wiser and nobler than anything that freely cooperative actors could ever come up with — which they use their executive fiat to override and ignore."

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Best of the Web Today: ObamaCare Apologetics - WSJ.com

Best of the Web Today: ObamaCare Apologetics - WSJ.com: "So the administration knew full well in 2010 that Obama's promise was a false one. Yet he was still making it in 2012. The White House website still declares: "If you like your plan you can keep it and you don't have to change a thing due to the health care law." Most astonishingly, Obama confidante Valerie Jarrett was still making it yesterday, when she tweeted: "FACT: Nothing in #Obamacare forces people out of their health plans. No change is required unless insurance companies change existing plans."

The latter sentence is true if you construe it with a Clintonian literalism. In every case in which "change is required," it is also true that "insurance companies change existing plans." But the former sentence is a brazen falsehood. Insurance companies are changing existing plans because ObamaCare forces them to."

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Why Won't The GOP Let Us Have a Normal Debate? Why!? | National Review Online

Why Won't The GOP Let Us Have a Normal Debate? Why!? | National Review Online: "Well, let’s see if we can lift the veil of mystery. For starters, Obama’s statements were not  ”narrowly untrue.”  They were broadly, knowingly and entirely untrue. He repeated them over and over again, often straight into the camera. It’s nice that Greg Sargent concedes now that the president “could have been clearer.” But “could have been clearer” implies that he was a little clear about how this would work and just didn’t clarify enough. The truth is the complete opposite. He wasn’t even deliberately unclear. He was clearly dishonest. Obama was stridently deceitful. Seriously, watch this video compilation of Obama’s repeated and vociferous statements about “keeping your plan” and tell me he was just failing to be sufficiently clear that millions of people wouldn’t be able to keep their plans."

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Steny Hoyer admits: We knew that not everyone would be able to keep their plan; Update: 13 more liars « Hot Air

Steny Hoyer admits: We knew that not everyone would be able to keep their plan; Update: 13 more liars « Hot Air: "Now that the country knows “if you like your plan” is a bald-faced lie repeated ad nauseam by Democrats for years, it’s time to shift the goalposts. Shift one: Yes, it’s true that some people will lose their plan and pay more next year, but they’re getting more comprehensive coverage in return and that kinda sorta justifies taking away their choice. By the same logic, I guess, it’d be okay to force people to sell their cars and buy new ones with better safety features because, after all, they’re getting a benefit from the extra expense, even if they can’t comfortably afford it."

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June 2010: HHS predicted “most” of 17 million people would have plans change « Hot Air

June 2010: HHS predicted “most” of 17 million people would have plans change « Hot Air: "“Likely gain all the new protections” means that their plans will change, and that the grandfathering won’t actually protect anyone. Grandfathering, as you’ll read later from an insurance broker, requires plans to remain static, both in coverage and in membership.  As Morgen noted, this didn’t just impact the “bare bones” plans, but nearly all of the plans in the individual market, as the HHS site predicted."

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Pitiful: Sebelius to blame contractors, not HHS, for Healthcare.gov problems in House testimony tomorrow « Hot Air

Pitiful: Sebelius to blame contractors, not HHS, for Healthcare.gov problems in House testimony tomorrow « Hot Air: "Not only is this an egregious understatement of her own culpability, it’s horrible politics. Everyone knows that when a political crisis strikes, the surest way to soothe public/media outrage is with a phony, half-hearted “the buck stops here” statement accepting responsibility."

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Chris Christie: The real problem with ObamaCare is that “people weren’t told the truth” « Hot Air

Chris Christie: The real problem with ObamaCare is that “people weren’t told the truth” « Hot Air: "What the federal government wanted us to do was to take on this burden ourselves, without telling us how much it would cost or what authority we’d actually have to run our exchanges. That’s why myself, and 33 other governors, both Republican and Democrat, said no to a state-run exchange. The real problem is that people weren’t told the truth. You can remember they were told that they would be able to keep their policies if they like them, and now you hear hundreds of thousands of people across the country being told they couldn’t. … So the White House needs to square that with what was told to the American people and told to Congress beforehand."

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Richard Cohen: A question of competence - The Washington Post

Richard Cohen: A question of competence - The Washington Post: "Where is Casey Stengel when we need him? In 1962, as the manager of the brand new and determinedly hapless New York Mets — 40 wins, 120 losses — he looked up and down his bench one dismal day and wondered, “Can’t anybody here play this game?” That phrase kept coming at me recently as I watched the impressively inept performance of the Obama administration in both foreign and domestic policy. On a given day, this administration makes the ’62 Mets look good."

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AP’s Dismal Outlook for GOP Masks Democratic Party’s Looming Catastrophes | Mediaite

AP’s Dismal Outlook for GOP Masks Democratic Party’s Looming Catastrophes | Mediaite: "The technical failures associated with the ACA mask its larger problems: too many who need coverage are signing up and those who do not need coverage are not contributing to the risk pool. This was always the law’s structural Achilles’ heel. Some observers believe that what more Democrats are calling for, a delay in either the individual mandate to purchase health insurance or the penalty phase should an individual fail to comply before next April, is functionally impossible. It would require the federal government consider bailing out the overextended insurers who have taken on a number of sick, elderly, and infirmed uninsured over the course of the open enrollment period. Populists on both the right and the left would revolt over the prospect of another federal bailout for a troubled industry."

'via Blog this'

Fire the Crackpots of Congress! (And Replace Them with New Crackpots!) - The Daily Beast

Fire the Crackpots of Congress! (And Replace Them with New Crackpots!) - The Daily Beast: "It is true that Williamson and various other independent candidates have arrived on the political scene with binders full of fresh ideas. But it's also true that they tend to be even dumber than what's currently oozing out of Congress’s two chambers."

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Fed govt: No, Nevada, you cannot have oil-and-gas prosperity « Hot Air

Fed govt: No, Nevada, you cannot have oil-and-gas prosperity « Hot Air: "President Obama is usually quite pleased to credit the upsurge in oil-and-gas production and the downswing in oil imports that has been happening throughout his presidency as the direct result of his administration’s policies, and they would prefer that you not investigate the matter too closely and just trust that his support of renewables and biofuels and what have you combined with his prudent, keen sense of know-how for creating just enough traditional energy jobs is the source of the economic growth supporting his otherwise stagnant economic recovery.

If you were to investigate more thoroughly, however, you would quickly notice that the types of energy booms resulting in jobs and prosperity that we’re seeing in North Dakota, Texas, and etcetera are largely due to the auspices of oil-and-gas companies operating on state and private lands."

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Valerie Jarrett: Obamacare doesn’t force you off your plan; your insurance company does, by complying with Obamacare! « Hot Air

Valerie Jarrett: Obamacare doesn’t force you off your plan; your insurance company does, by complying with Obamacare! « Hot Air: "Even the most reliably hacky Obamacare supporters have at least conceded that people are losing their old plans because of Obamacare. They spin it with the notion that these new plans are way better, so why would you have liked that dumb old plan anyway (which fit within your family’s budget and served you well)? But the act of spinning requires at least some reckoning with the truth.

What level of denial and/or mendacity is necessary to tweet this? What confidence that the media will be there to cover your lies? This is the mindset of the people surrounding President Obama, and because no one’s ever held accountable for screwing up, this is the mindset of those who are “fixing” Obamacare’s problems."

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“Saturday Night Live” confirms: Healthcare.gov now a national punchline « Hot Air

“Saturday Night Live” confirms: Healthcare.gov now a national punchline « Hot Air: "But as irresistible as a tale of Hopenchange technological hubris meeting its nemesis is, it’s less important politically than the realization that’s dawning on hundreds of thousands of people right now that ObamaCare is designed to make them pay more for health insurance. If you’re middle class and you’re healthy, your premium hike is a giveaway to insurers to help them pay for coverage of the sick. Long after the website is fixed and the “adverse selection” problem solved (or mitigated), that fact will persist. ObamaCare was, is, and always has been a type of health-care welfare program with insurance companies as the middle man — but of course, that’s not how it was sold."

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McCain: Except for that Benghazi thing, Hillary was an awesome SecState « Hot Air

McCain: Except for that Benghazi thing, Hillary was an awesome SecState « Hot Air: "Yeah — except for not guessing that al-Qaeda would strike at an American asset in the middle of the failed state of Libya on the anniversary of 9/11 and ignoring a stream of intelligence telling the State Department otherwise, Hillary Clinton has an “outstanding” record as Secretary of State.  For instance, Hillary, er, handed a reset button to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. A mistranslated reset button.  But don’t forget about all of those new treaties and trade agreements that originated within the Clinton tenure at State.  You know, like, er … and then there was, um …"

'via Blog this'

Question for Jay Carney: Didn’t Obama lie when he told people, “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan”? « Hot Air

Question for Jay Carney: Didn’t Obama lie when he told people, “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan”? « Hot Air: "Carney’s reply to this is, essentially, (a) a lot of people will be able to keep their plan if they like it, even if it’s not quite everyone, and (b) those who are getting dropped from their plans will get more comprehensive coverage on the exchanges. The latter point is like having the CEO of DirecTV tell customers that their monthly bill is about to double but they’ll now receive an extra hundred channels in return, maybe one or two of which people will actually watch. Comprehensive coverage is lovely, but if you’re on a budget basic coverage might be more cost-effective; why pay $1,000 extra a year for a new package that includes substance-abuse treatment, say, if you don’t drink or do drugs? Obama took the option of cheaper catastrophic care away from people because insurers wanted to squeeze healthy middle-class suckers for extra revenue by forcing coverage on them that they don’t need."

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McDonald's drops Heinz ketchup | Fox News

McDonald's drops Heinz ketchup | Fox News: "The fast-food giant said in a statement Friday that it is cutting ties with the condiment company after 40 years due to management changes there. A former Burger King CEO became head of Heinz in June after the company was bought by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital. 3G, a Brazilian investment firm, also controls Burger King."

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Best of the Web Today: You've Come a Long Way, Elska - WSJ.com

Best of the Web Today: You've Come a Long Way, Elska - WSJ.com: "The notion of "total gender equality" is a meaningless abstraction. To continue with the simple example, what would be the composition of a legislature with "total gender equality"? Half men, half women? Would it reflect the sex ratio of the population as a whole (which in most countries is more than 50% female), the sex ratio of the population old enough to be eligible for election (which would be tilted still further to the distaff side), or the sex ratio at birth (which is majority male almost everywhere)?

It's true that by any conceivable standard of "equality" the U.S. Congress, 18.3% female according to Gummow, would fall short. But the example is illustrative of the broader conceptual problem, which is that the sexes are intrinsically different, and any effort to impose "equality" by one measure is likely to reduce it by others."

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Obama: Hey, I didn’t know about spying on world leaders! « Hot Air

Obama: Hey, I didn’t know about spying on world leaders! « Hot Air: "The idea that Obama didn’t know about this program is absurd on its face.  That doesn’t mean it started with Obama, and it’s almost assured that it didn’t.  However, more than four years after taking office, Obama can’t seriously think that anyone will believe that he just found out about this NSA effort from the funny papers.

By the way, the revelation du jour from the Snowden files is that the NSA surveilled more than 60 million phone calls in Spain in a month.  The Spanish government has summoned the US ambassador over the report, which essentially confirms that the SIGINT agency conducts foreign SIGINT."

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Axelrod: “Most people” will be able to keep their plans « Hot Air

Axelrod: “Most people” will be able to keep their plans « Hot Air: "That depends on how one defines “most.” Most Americans get their insurance through employer group plans, and those are largely intact, although they’ll be more expensive now, thanks to the mandates insurers have to carry now.  But for those who bought their own insurance — which is the apples-to-apples comparison — half or more will find their old plans cancelled.  That estimate comes from a UCLA academic who supports the ACA, by the way.  That means around 7 million or more Americans will have lost their old insurance plans, and will have to pay higher premiums and clear higher deductibles from now on."

'via Blog this'

CBS: Obama administration knew all along that Benghazi was terror attack « Hot Air

CBS: Obama administration knew all along that Benghazi was terror attack « Hot Air: "CBS’ 60 Minutes revisited the Benghazi terror attack last night, laying out the evidence that the attack was orchestrated by al-Qaeda on the anniversary of 9/11.  It was “a planned, sophisticated attack” by AQ, and two security advisers have stepped forward to blow the whistle — as both repeatedly tried to do before the attack."

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Graham: I’ll block all WH appointments until we get answers on Benghazi « Hot Air

Graham: I’ll block all WH appointments until we get answers on Benghazi « Hot Air: "“I’m tired of hearing from people on TV, and reading about [Benghazi] in books,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Steve Doocey on Fox & Friends today.  Reacting to the big 60 Minutes scoop last night on CBS, Graham announced that he would block all appointments from the White House until the Obama administration makes the Benghazi survivors available for testimony before Congress."

'via Blog this'

Where was the media when “open secret” of ObamaCare problems arose? « Hot Air

Where was the media when “open secret” of ObamaCare problems arose? « Hot Air: "Where does one go to get some objective reporting on public policy? One unmentioned aspect of the “sticker shock” and “exchange collapse” stories, which the media now reports well, is that these problems were readily apparent before October 1, too — as the NYT admits in the second half of its Friday article."

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CBS: Millions of cancellations and skyrocketing costs the big problem of ObamaCare « Hot Air

CBS: Millions of cancellations and skyrocketing costs the big problem of ObamaCare « Hot Air: "Two points. First, her subsidies won’t come to $500 a month, which is about the difference between the two plans. Second, subsidies don’t come off of the Subsidy Tree Forest. Those funds come out of taxes, either directly on taxpayers or on health care providers and manufacturers — and those costs get passed onto consumers.

Just as we all predicted, the so-called Affordable Care Act didn’t bend the cost curve downward — it has twisted it sharply upward.  That will only become more apparent when the website issues are fixed, and it’s why the system will incentivize the young and healthy to stay out of the exchanges, which will only accelerate premium increases."

'via Blog this'

Dick Cheney not such an Enzi fan these days it seems « Hot Air

Dick Cheney not such an Enzi fan these days it seems « Hot Air: "I can see criticizing Mike Enzi on the fundraising thing. I mean, it’s not much to go on, but nobody has had much luck finding anything to throw at Enzi’s wall that’s sticking with Wyoming voters. But the fishing comment? That’s just hurtful, Dick. Is there nothing left which can cross political boundaries and bind us all together? As a lifetime fisherman, I’d hope it could at least be that. But alas… apparently not."

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Order yours now. The freaky deaky folding car. (Video) « Hot Air

Order yours now. The freaky deaky folding car. (Video) « Hot Air: "Out of curiosity, why is it that the trend towards really extreme, small cars has never caught on in the United States? Not just out in the country… I mean in the big cities. There have been really small cars available for some time now, particularly some Brit models, Smartcars and the like. And even up here I’ve seen them around town once in a great while. But they just don’t seem to show up in any numbers. I’m sure they’re horrible for cold weather, snow, ice and such, but in warmer cities down South, have they ever taken off?

I haven’t seen them. Maybe it’s just our traditional attraction to metal and muscle."

'via Blog this'

Virginia's Blood-Spattered Abortion Clinics And Onerous Hallway Widths

Virginia's Blood-Spattered Abortion Clinics And Onerous Hallway Widths: "Much of the Gosnell Grand Jury report was devoted to how state and local officials allowed the situation at Gosnell’s clinic to happen. “We discovered that Pennsylvania’s Department of Health has deliberately chosen not to enforce laws that should afford patients at abortion clinics the same safeguards and assurances of quality health care as patients of other medical service providers. Even nail salons in Pennsylvania are monitored more closely for client safety,” the report said."

'via Blog this'

Virginia's Blood-Spattered Abortion Clinics And Onerous Hallway Widths

Virginia's Blood-Spattered Abortion Clinics And Onerous Hallway Widths: "The same article talked about how the owner of the clinic who filed the lawsuit is a “woman of very strong faith” who called the judge’s decision “spiritually uplifting.”

What wasn’t mentioned in the cheery report about Falls Church Healthcare Center was what the Virginia Department of Health found when it made a planned and announced inspection of the clinic in August 2012.

As reported in a 65-page document, the facility was found to be blood-splattered and failing to comply with even basic sterilization procedures. Again, this was after being told when to expect a visit from health inspectors."

'via Blog this'

HuffPost Investigates Alan Grayson’s Claim: Is the Tea Party Just Like the KKK? | Mediaite

HuffPost Investigates Alan Grayson’s Claim: Is the Tea Party Just Like the KKK? | Mediaite: "Sometimes a slur made against conservatives as part of a fundraising pitch to partisan Democrats is just that. Unless, that is, you’re an investigative reporter with The Huffington Post. In that case, it might also be an honest query worthy of an extensive investigation. "

'via Blog this'

An Army of Newly Uninsured: A New GOP Coalition, If They Can Keep It | Mediaite

An Army of Newly Uninsured: A New GOP Coalition, If They Can Keep It | Mediaite: "The Republican Party is not especially good at mobilizing disaffected groups and organizing them into a coherent political force. Conservative tea party groups and organizations are, however, experienced mobilizers. If the Republicans can create a coalition out of this ready-made interest group, there is a powerful opportunity to change the trajectory of politics in Washington D.C."

'via Blog this'

An Army of Newly Uninsured: A New GOP Coalition, If They Can Keep It | Mediaite

An Army of Newly Uninsured: A New GOP Coalition, If They Can Keep It | Mediaite: "HealthCare.Gov does not work, but it will someday. Even if the site has to be deconstructed entirely and rebuilt from scratch, the website will eventually function. But supporters of the Affordable Care Act and its stated goal of expanding health insurance (not care) to millions of currently uninsured Americans might look back on this period as the heady days of promise — a time when they were sure that the new health care system could work. Evidence is rapidly mounting that resolving the website issues will lead to a host of new problems far more vexing than those that currently plague the federal health care exchanges portal. "

'via Blog this'

Shutdown Salvation: Democrats Save GOP from Themselves with Push for Obamacare Delays | Mediaite

Shutdown Salvation: Democrats Save GOP from Themselves with Push for Obamacare Delays | Mediaite: "“Let me get this straight,” voters are now asking themselves in quiet, contemplative moments. “I know the Republicans tried to prevent Obamacare from being implemented. They pushed so hard that it resulted in a government shutdown. Democrats fought that. I agreed with them. With the public behind them, they forced the Republicans into disgraceful surrender and retreat. And now, with that victory behind them, they are telling me that the Republicans were right all along?”"

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Stand Up, America: Racism for Ratings a Cottage Industry That Needs to be Stopped | Mediaite

Stand Up, America: Racism for Ratings a Cottage Industry That Needs to be Stopped | Mediaite: "Kudos to Roland Martin—an African American and a Democrat—for taking this passionate stand on his radio show Thursday afternoon after a caller defended Florida Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson—just a vomitous human being who represents everything deplorable with Washington today—and his decision to link the friggin’ KKK with the Tea Party in a fundraising email."

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Ask Matt Labash Rethink Religion of Peace and photo evidence | The Daily Caller

Ask Matt Labash Rethink Religion of Peace and photo evidence | The Daily Caller: "The National Counterterrorism Center’s 2011 numbers demonstrated that about 70 percent of the world’s 12,533 terrorist murders that year were committed by Sunni Muslim terrorists. There are about 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, and there are nearly 7 billion people in the world, proper. So sure, Muslims are punching above their weight, terrorism-wise (70 percent of terrorist acts are attributable to those murdering in the name of a religion subscribed to by 23 percent of the world). It’s enough to make us ecumenically-minded types wonder when Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists are going to get off their fat asses and pitch in a little. (Islamic cultures throughout the ages are already responsible for pioneering astronomy, algebra and filicidal honor killings — do they have to do everything around here?)"

'via Blog this'

Entertainment Website Names Ann Coulter One of 'TV’s Most Unintentionally Scary Characters' | NewsBusters

Entertainment Website Names Ann Coulter One of 'TV’s Most Unintentionally Scary Characters' | NewsBusters: "As for Coulter, I'm sure she'll get quite a kick out of this and say something to me like, "If they were going to devote print space to bashing little old me, at least they could have had the decency to plug my new book 'Never Trust a Liberal Over Three-Especially a Republican.'""

'via Blog this'

French president refuses to renege on new “supertax,” despite soccer teams’ protestations « Hot Air

French president refuses to renege on new “supertax,” despite soccer teams’ protestations « Hot Air: "The French government has also anounced that it will beef up the exit tax, a tax first implemented by Sarkozy in 2012 intended to slow the pace of people leaving the country for tax reasons. The exit penalty taxes capital gains at the rate of 19 percent and adds a 15.5 percent payroll-tax-like penalty. The tax isn’t paid as taxpayers exit the country, but they have to pay it if they sell their assets within eight years after their exit. Hollande that limitation to be expanded up to 15 years after the taxpayers leave the country."

'via Blog this'

Fort Hood soldiers say Army warned them off tea party, Christian groups - Washington Times

Fort Hood soldiers say Army warned them off tea party, Christian groups - Washington Times: "Don’t donate to the tea party or to evangelical Christian groups — that was the message soldiers at a pre-deployment briefing at Fort Hood said they received from a counter-intelligence agent who headed up the meeting.

If you do, you could face punishment — that was the other half of the message, as reported by Fox News."

'via Blog this'

Suggesting young women not binge drink is apparently the war on women « Hot Air

Suggesting young women not binge drink is apparently the war on women « Hot Air: "It apparently all started when an advice columnist at Slate (not exactly a bastion of whacko, right wing social conservatism) had the temerity to suggest that perhaps young girls headed off to college should be warned about the dangers of binge drinking when they first leave home, and the types of predators out there who would seek to prey on pretty young coeds in such compromised positions. These can be tough conversations for parents to have with their daughters before sending them out into the world of higher education, so you can imagine that – particularly coming from their own bullpen – left side, feminist audiences would be grateful for the helpful tips."

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Killing Obamacare | The Weekly Standard

Killing Obamacare | The Weekly Standard: "The experience of this First New Deal helped prove a point that economic conservatives know instinctively: Government does a bad job of managing the economy. The experts are not as knowledgeable as they think they are; it is impossible for them to anticipate all of the various ways their interference will affect society, for good and for ill. For instance, who in the Department of Agriculture could have predicted that the AAA would contribute to an urban crisis in Northern cities some 30 years later?"

'via Blog this'

Killing Obamacare | The Weekly Standard

Killing Obamacare | The Weekly Standard: "Obamacare is, of course, a liberal law, as all agree. But its place within liberalism is a peculiar one, and worth investigating in some detail. When we think about the modern American left, we often think of the provision of benefits, suggested by Franklin Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms”: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear. It is that third freedom that American liberals have focused on for generations, giving us Social Security, Medicare, aid to education, and so on. Four Freedoms liberalism has been decidedly rights-based. "

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A Shocking Number | National Review Online

A Shocking Number | National Review Online: "Black Americans did not leave the party of Lincoln for the party of Joe Biden; they left the party of Herbert Hoover for the party of Franklin Roosevelt. Or at least they thought they did. What they got instead was the party of sky-high crime, dangerous and dysfunctional schools, a joblessness rate for black men that is more than twice the rate for white men at 14 percent and rising. Twice the unemployment, twice the high-school dropouts, four times the abortions, four times the HIV, seven times the prison sentences, twelve times the babies born with congenital syphilis, fourteen times the murder victims, and nineteen times the gonorrhea.

All that and $4,955."

'via Blog this'

A Shocking Number | National Review Online

A Shocking Number | National Review Online: "The phrase “waving the bloody shirt” grew popular in the South as a description of Republicans’ alleged exaggeration of the crimes of the Ku Klux Klan, the paramilitary division of the Democratic party. It is an irony of history that waving the bloody shirt has in the Age of Obama become the Democrats’ primary mode of discourse. Oppose the Affordable Care Act? Racism. Like the Second Amendment? Racism. Black Barbie is on sale for half off, but white Barbie is full price? Racism. Black holes sucking the energy out of your quadrant? Why single out the black ones? Racism!"

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Stephen Hawking’s Warped Moral Calculus | National Review Online

Stephen Hawking’s Warped Moral Calculus | National Review Online: "The apartheid slur is damaging but utterly false. Israel is home to 1.6 million Arab citizens, about 20 percent of its population. There is no such thing as second-class citizenship. Arabs can participate fully in Israeli life. There are Israeli Arabs in the Knesset, on the Supreme Court, in the foreign service, in the media, in the police force, and even in the army. Do some have mixed feelings about their country? Sure. Does anyone in Stephen Hawking’s country? Of course. And by the way, how many Jews serve in prominent posts in Arab countries?"

'via Blog this'

Largest US companies paying no taxes? « Hot Air

Largest US companies paying no taxes? « Hot Air: "This is a topic which Ed and I have debated on these pages in years past, though it wasn’t that heated of an argument since we tend to agree on a number of relevant points. First of all, there is the question of whether or not some of these companies really pay no taxes. One of the first responses from the companies in question, frequently cited by conservative supporters, is that of course they pay taxes! And they provide documents proving they do. But what’s under discussion is the effective tax rate as measured against profits. If your profitable company sends in some tax payments, but later get refunds and adjustments equal or greater to the amount you paid in during final filing and revisions, you didn’t pay any taxes. It’s really that simple."

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Ted Cruz is a populist egghead: The Texas senator has elite credentials but claims to be a man of the people.

Ted Cruz is a populist egghead: The Texas senator has elite credentials but claims to be a man of the people.: "The most famous public conservative in this category was National Review editor William F. Buckley. Yale-educated and with an accent so erect it suggested high tea could break out at any moment, Buckley nevertheless fit within the post-New Deal conservative populist movement that gave rise to Ronald Reagan. "I would rather be ruled by the first 2,000 people in the Boston phone book than 2,000 members of the Harvard faculty," he famously said."

'via Blog this'

Ted Cruz is a populist egghead: The Texas senator has elite credentials but claims to be a man of the people.

Ted Cruz is a populist egghead: The Texas senator has elite credentials but claims to be a man of the people.: "Sen. Ted Cruz is a rare political species—a supposed man of the people who is attacked for his elite credentials and lack of common sense."

'via Blog this'

How Kirsten Gillibrand changed her political stripes « Hot Air

How Kirsten Gillibrand changed her political stripes « Hot Air: "She talked a good game in her house races, tough on supporting gun rights, tough on immigration and a number of other subjects. She even proudly joined the Blue Dog Coalition. But when Hillary was anointed to the State Department, NY’s Governor David Paterson (briefly filling in for Client Number Nine) appointed her to the Senate. Then the worm turned. Able to run as a full bore liberal in a statewide election, she quickly put on an entirely new face."

'via Blog this'

Open Thread – Anti-NSA Rally in DC « Hot Air

Open Thread – Anti-NSA Rally in DC « Hot Air: "See? It doesn’t matter if you agree with them on this “vital cause” or not. If you also happen to support gun rights, right to work laws, entitlement program reform or the free market in general, you’re not welcome here. You’re not our sort of people and we don’t want you ruining our party by making it look like we agree on something. You really can’t make this stuff up."

'via Blog this'

Obama orders review of spying as world leaders condemn US « Hot Air

Obama orders review of spying as world leaders condemn US « Hot Air: "I’m tempted to make reference to Obama’s promise to raise our standing with our allies after the supposedly arrogant Bush administration, but in this case that kind of criticism would be unfair. This kind of surveillance didn’t start under Obama, as we have seen with respect to trawling domestic communications, and the inclusion of world leaders in our surveillance wouldn’t have gotten out except for Edward Snowden.  In that sense, I’m more sympathetic to Cameron.  Snowden’s central conceit was that he was rescuing America from a surveillance state, but more of his revelations have damaged legitimate American intelligence abilities abroad and recklessly attacked our diplomatic standing at a time when Western unity is needed against the real threats of Islamist terrorism."

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NYT: Obama, WH rosy claims belied “open secret” of poor ObamaCare performance « Hot Air

NYT: Obama, WH rosy claims belied “open secret” of poor ObamaCare performance « Hot Air: "What did the President know about ObamaCare, and when did he know it? The New York Times raised that question yesterday, offering a video montage of pre-rollout claims about the Healthcare.gov exchange from White House officials, including Barack Obama himself at the Clinton Global Initiative one week before the launch.  However, behind those rosy predictions were big red flags being raised — and now the question is whether the White House didn’t see them, didn’t want to see them, or purposely ignored them."

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CNN: No, you can’t buy health insurance through ObamaCare 800 number « Hot Air

CNN: No, you can’t buy health insurance through ObamaCare 800 number « Hot Air: "Actually, the video below doesn’t do as good a job of telling this story as CNN’s written story does. On Monday, Barack Obama insisted that people could call the toll-free ObamaCare (1-800-F1UC-KYO) to buy insurance if the website wasn’t working for consumers. Danielle Dellorto tried testing that out and found a much different reality from the call center."

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Maryland ACA enrollments are 96% Medicaid « The Greenroom

Maryland ACA enrollments are 96% Medicaid « The Greenroom: "What does this tell us? The demand for Medicaid remains significant in a chronically-stagnating economy.  The demand for overpriced health insurance with high deductibles? Not so much, even though the government is forcing people to buy it."

'via Blog this'

Obama's Valerie Jarrett: Often Whispered about, But Never Challenged | National Review Online

Obama's Valerie Jarrett: Often Whispered about, But Never Challenged | National Review Online: "What apparently intensified the campaign to identify the “snarker” was a comment about Valerie Jarrett, the senior Obama adviser who has her own Secret Service detail and appears to exercise an inordinate amount of power behind the scenes. Joseph tweeted “I’m a fan of Obama, but his continuing reliance and dependence upon a vacuous cipher like Valerie Jarrett concerns me.”"

'via Blog this'

The Left’s Central Delusion | National Review Online

The Left’s Central Delusion | National Review Online: "The fundamental problem of the political Left seems to be that the real world does not fit their preconceptions. Therefore they see the real world as what is wrong, and what needs to be changed, since apparently their preconceptions cannot be wrong.

A never-ending source of grievances for the Left is the fact that some groups are “over-represented” in desirable occupations, institutions, and income brackets, while other groups are “under-represented.”"

'via Blog this'

An Insurance Death Spiral? | National Review Online

An Insurance Death Spiral? | National Review Online: "Some of these have to do expressly with the fact that people cannot readily obtain coverage. The idea of delaying the individual mandate, which not two weeks ago was dismissed by the Democrats as a right-wing fantasy, is now being advanced by some Democratic senators, since you can’t very well fine people for not being able to use a site that doesn’t work. We may (and should) soon be talking about “grandfathering” all 2013 insurance plans, too, as millions of people in the individual market have their coverage cancelled with nowhere to go."

'via Blog this'

How Washington's "Crucifixion" Of Ted Cruz Made Him A Tea Party Saint In Iowa

How Washington's "Crucifixion" Of Ted Cruz Made Him A Tea Party Saint In Iowa: "“Every time one of these guys attacks him, it’s good for him,” said one Iowa Republican operative. “He’s like a superhero. The more bullets that get shot at him, the bigger and stronger he gets.”"

'via Blog this'

Colin Quinn Says Hollywood 'Selectively Brazen ... Selectively Honest'

Colin Quinn Says Hollywood 'Selectively Brazen ... Selectively Honest': "During the interview Quinn lamented the death of a TV project he worked on regarding immigration. The entertainment industry, he says, didn't want to go near the material. That caught the interviewer off guard, saying he assumed Hollywood to be a "brazen" place.

Quinn begs to differ.

They’re selectively brazen and selectively honest. There’s a lot of very edited edginess ... we’re going to push the envelope, but only by what we think is acceptable. Everybody has their limits, even them."

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Playwright Finds Inspiration from Clinton, Weiner and Spitzer Scandals

Playwright Finds Inspiration from Clinton, Weiner and Spitzer Scandals: "[Weiner is] a moron because he could have overcome his problem so easily by saying: ‘I’m an idiot. Everyone tell me what an idiot I am. Everything I did was boneheaded, and I humbly asked your forgiveness’ — and said that all the way through,” Mr. Norris said. “Instead, he lied at first, and later basically said to people: You don’t have the right to judge me."

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Russell Brand Says a Socialist Revolution is Coming

Russell Brand Says a Socialist Revolution is Coming: "It probably could go without saying this his ideas are tired Marxist tropes. The immiseration of the proletariat will lead to an uprising and usher in the final stage of social evolution, a permanent socialist government.
It was tried. Millions died. Google it."

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Reporter: I Printed False Story But Fox News Made Me Do It | NewsBusters

Reporter: I Printed False Story But Fox News Made Me Do It | NewsBusters: "Even if all of Flamm’s suspicions are true, is what happened to him really all that different from what a group of President Obama’s top national security advisers did to a staffer who was printing things about the White House they didn’t like? According to the Washington Post, the Obama White House came up with a plan to concoct false rumors as a means to flush out the identity of a Twitter user named “NatSecWonk” who was posting all sorts of negative insider gossip."

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The American Spectator : Whoreoween

The American Spectator : Whoreoween: "This grown-up encroachment upon what is supposed to be a kids’ night is perfectly in keeping with the times. Parents, slaves to their own childish phobias, have put childhood on lockdown. Parentally-monitored indoor “play dates,” kids armored up for bicycle rides like Evel Knieval jumping the Grand Canyon, and medication for any kid who dares to act too much like a kid all exemplify the ways adults have party-crashed childhood. Do they have to ruin Halloween too?"

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GazetteXtra | Con: Renewable Fuel Standard subsidies unneeded as sales of cleaner vehicles surge

GazetteXtra | Con: Renewable Fuel Standard subsidies unneeded as sales of cleaner vehicles surge: "How did we reach the point where the government is promoting a dreadful fuel that gets worse fuel economy than gasoline or diesel, drives up food prices, damages car engines and has unintended environmental consequences?

The Renewable Fuel Standard has come to symbolize everything that is wrong with government-imposed mandates. It is causing more harm than good and should be scrapped."

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Businesses circling the White House to lobby for/against the Renewable Fuel Standard « Hot Air

Businesses circling the White House to lobby for/against the Renewable Fuel Standard « Hot Air: "The relief with which some industries welcomed the news that the Environmental Protection Agency is perhaps considering backing off somewhat from the onerous requirements of the Renewable Fuel Standard was only equaled by the dismay with which it was met from ethanol’s impressively well-organized and well-monied lobby. The EPA acknowledging the reality that even they and their expansive bureaucratic powers cannot interminably cudgel the energy sector unworkable mandates is a rarity indeed, and as they are still claiming that they have yet to make a final decision on the matter, it’s time for Come One, Come All over at the White House."

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Grayson dressed down for Tea Party-KKK comparison by…Martin Bashir? « Hot Air

Grayson dressed down for Tea Party-KKK comparison by…Martin Bashir? « Hot Air: "MSNBC’s Martin Bashir, a very liberal host who’s not known to be shy with his rhetoric, takes exception to Rep. Alan Grayson’s use of KKK imagery in his recent Tea-Party bashing fundraising e-mail. Bashir’s argument is something along the lines of, “Sure, they’re terrible racists, but they’re not murdering, terrible racists,” but credit for a member of the Rhetoric Police doing a tiny bit to enforce the standards for his own side in this ridiculous bit of blue-on-blue action between two ridiculous men of the left."

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Obamacare’s Doubtful Deficit Reduction | National Review Online

Obamacare’s Doubtful Deficit Reduction | National Review Online: "The history of Obamacare is a litany of broken promises and daft optimism: If you like your coverage, you can keep it. Your premiums will be lower. “Obamacare implementation’s going to be great and people will love it.” Some of those promises have fallen apart all at once, but a key one is slipping away bit by bit, like the child’s sand castle that constitutes a beloved triumph for 20 minutes before being abandoned to the tide: the promise that the Affordable Care Act will reduce the deficit."

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The Decline of Wikipedia: Even As More People Than Ever Rely on It, Fewer People Create It | MIT Technology Review

The Decline of Wikipedia: Even As More People Than Ever Rely on It, Fewer People Create It | MIT Technology Review: "The sixth most widely used website in the world is not run anything like the others in the top 10. It is not operated by a sophisticated corporation but by a leaderless collection of volunteers who generally work under pseudonyms and habitually bicker with each other. It rarely tries new things in the hope of luring visitors; in fact, it has changed little in a decade. And yet every month 10 billion pages are viewed on the English version of Wikipedia alone. When a major news event takes place, such as the Boston Marathon bombings, complex, widely sourced entries spring up within hours and evolve by the minute. Because there is no other free information source like it, many online services rely on Wikipedia. Look something up on Google or ask Siri a question on your iPhone, and you’ll often get back tidbits of information pulled from the encyclopedia and delivered as straight-up facts."

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Obama the Avatar | National Review Online

Obama the Avatar | National Review Online: "Ugly as they are to my eyes, such professions of concern, of omnipotence, and of expertise appear to sell. If you were on the Obama campaign’s mailing list, you will remember a set of creepy e-mails from the First Lady — e-mails in which she cast her husband as a veritable superhuman who, when he wasn’t being more interested in everything than you, was clearing the snow from the driveway with his bare hands and toiling into the night to the light of candles and the sound of despair. Mitt Romney’s stonewall refusal to advertise his many good deeds may have been politically frustrating in contrast, but it was almost certainly preferable to this crass spousal rodomontade."

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Believe it: Ted Cruz can beat Hillary in 2016, says … David Frum? « Hot Air

Believe it: Ted Cruz can beat Hillary in 2016, says … David Frum? « Hot Air: "It’s finally happened. David Frum, true conservative.

No no, kidding. This is, I think, something he pulled from his dream journal after waking up one night in a cold sweat, screaming. All it’ll take for a Cruz victory, he thinks, is an economic slowdown followed by an “event” on Wall Street that pushes America into recession followed by a months-long primary challenge by Elizabeth Warren to Hillary followed by an immigration brouhaha that unites conservatives behind Cruz followed by a Cruz/Christie fusion ticket eking out the narrowest of wins over Clinton in a very low-turnout election. Interestingly, the word “ObamaCare” appears just once in his post — in the context of liberals being grumpy that they didn’t get something more statist on health care from an Obama/Hillary cabinet. How likely is it that that’s the biggest impact O-Care has on Campaign 2016?"

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Liberal congressman suddenly discovers that he would really like an ObamaCare waiver for his Colorado district « Hot Air

Liberal congressman suddenly discovers that he would really like an ObamaCare waiver for his Colorado district « Hot Air: "My, my. Sounds like Rep. Polis may have been on the receiving end of some recent, irate phone calls from some of his similarly wealthy, progressive constituents (Roll Call pegs Polis’s net worth at around $68 million) fuming about sticker shock, but I have to wonder what it is that Polis — as an ObamaCare supporter — failed to grasp here. Although President Obama and his White House generally try to frame things a little more gently, plenty of Congressional Democrats are quite open about the fact that ObamaCare, at its simplest, is absolutely redistribution designed to force wealthier, healthier individuals to pay into the system in order to balance out the healthcare costs of sicker, less well-off individuals. This is not and never has been a secret. What exactly what he thinking?"

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GOP Sen. Ron Johnson to introduce the “If You Like Your Health Plan, You Can Keep It Act” « Hot Air

GOP Sen. Ron Johnson to introduce the “If You Like Your Health Plan, You Can Keep It Act” « Hot Air: "Like Rubio’s bill to delay the mandate, this is superb politics but I think it’s a nonstarter for Dems for the simple reason that it goes a lot further than extending the enrollment period, not a little. Slowly but surely, news about people’s coverage getting dropped is starting to compete with news about Glitchapalooza for public attention. If there’s any one talking point even casual observers took away from Obama’s 8,000 speeches on ObamaCare over the past three years, it’s the “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan” crapola. Because that idea is so prominent, and is being revealed day by day as a gigantic lie, O’s uniquely exposed on it; by extension, so are Senate Dems. For that reason, voting against Johnson’s bill to make Obama live up to his promises will be excruciating for them, and of course he knows it. Like I say, great politics."

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Best of the Web Today: Delaying From Behind - WSJ.com

Best of the Web Today: Delaying From Behind - WSJ.com: ""The White House was right" is the Times reporter's phrase, so it's possible Manley meant his comment as an explanation rather than a justification. In any case, there is no sense in which the White House could have been "right" to put on deceptive presentations. The understandable desire to undercut a political adversary's "narrative" does not relieve one of the moral obligation to be truthful. And even if you think it does--if you imagine the Republicans to be so evil that deception is morally justified in the service of defeating them--the deceptions here were bound to be quickly and embarrassingly revealed. They were self-defeating."

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