QUOTE

A California man who was behind an anti-Muslim film that spurred violent protests in the Middle East was sentenced on Wednesday to one year in prison for violating the terms of his probation stemming from a 2010 bank fraud conviction.

(Malcolm @ Nov. 09 2012,11:26)

QUOTE

Which is one of the major things burying them in my mind.

QUOTE

And overall Obama still lost white women. The president captured only 42 percent of the white women's vote, Romney captured 56 percent of it. So, white women actually were an area of strength for Romney.

QUOTE

If you were to list gender and racial/ethnic groups by their Democratic vote on Tuesday, the list would go like this: black women (96 percent), black men (87 percent), Hispanic women (76 percent), Hispanic men (65 percent), white women (42 percent) and white men (35 percent).

QUOTE

The "marriage gap" was also more important than gender in determining votes in 2012, according to the exit polls. Obama won voters who were not married by 20 percentage points. There was a gender gap here—Obama won 67 percent of unmarried women and 56 percent of unmarried men—but he won single women and men.

Romney won married voters of both genders. He won 53 percent of married women.

QUOTE

People didn't vote the facts, they voted in response to an organized propaganda campaign.  It was brilliance in its simplicity: Lie while simultaneously accuse the other side of lying.

QUOTE

It could be just my new, darker, more realist mindset, but no empire lasts forever, and the next lit fuse can always be the one that sets off the powder keg.

QUOTE

And now it is time to decline the Thanksgiving Dinner invitation on Facebook.  Sigh.

QUOTE

Now, everyone talks to the entire world 24 hours a day, and the pressure cooker is boiling harder than it was possible in the past.  I don't see any release valve.

(GORDON @ Nov. 09 2012,13:30)

QUOTE

On a better note, I now appreciate my friends more and I am tolerating their bullshit better than I was.  I am getting it, now.  I can see that the real assholes are the ones who pretend to be nice to you.

QUOTE

You had to give it to him: he had a plan. And it started to make sense, in a Tyler sort of way. No fear. No distractions. The ability to let that which does not matter truly slide.

QUOTE

I am 41 years old, and have a lot of gray hair.  I think it is because I always, ALWAYS swallow stress, and never let my real opinions of stupidity fly in the name of 'keeping the peace.'

QUOTE

The only difference is then the House gets the blame instead of the president.

QUOTE

I've never heard you say anything so stupid that I felt like I had to swallow a harsh criticism of your opinion in order to "be nice."

QUOTE

I've been thinking of ways to make the country burn itself up faster by promoting a liberal agenda.  I think Ohio needs to get some Saf Franciscan-style ballot measures going, such as...

QUOTE

I am serious about this.

QUOTE

I want to be young enough to be able to lift a rifle when it all goes up, so we got to get this candle lit, people!

QUOTE

Former Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich has joined a growing number of Republicans in criticizing Mitt Romney for saying he lost the election because President Obama gave "gifts" to minorities such as African-Americans and Latinos.

"I just think it's nuts," Gingrich told Martha Raddatz on Sunday on ABC's This Week. "I mean, first of all, it's insulting."

QUOTE

President Obama: Busting marijuana users in Washington, Colorado is not a federal ‘top priority’

QUOTE

I wonder how much the media and the liberal hatred of Republicans plays into the current Republican angst. It's almost as if Republicans are the new Jews of yesteryear where any vile dirty thing can be said about them with little blowback and less truth. The media blames Republicans for every ill that comes down the pike. A storm in the Northeast? Damn Republicans caused it. You aren't making the money you once did? A Republican did that to you. A violent young man kills 27? That Republican sitting next to you is somehow to blame. That's what the media wants people to believe and because people are eager for a scapegoat, many listen without critical thought.

I am always surprised at those people who consider themselves intelligent, well-meaning "empathetic" types who think nothing of tossing out some nasty crack about Republicans -whether at the holiday table, in the classroom or in line at the supermarket. It puts people on the opposite side of the political fence on the defense and makes for an antagonistic atmosphere, one that is growing more hostile by the day. I used to think that people should try to be "tolerant" and not get too upset by the jabs. I was wrong.
Here is my advice: rather than just take it and fill out a poll saying you are demoralized, fight back. Even if you feel uncomfortable, even if you might wreck the holiday party, and even if it means you might be open to hostility like you have never seen before, speak up. Or, if you don't want to talk politics, just say so and say that this type of talk makes you feel uncomfortable. If you are with friends or family and they don't understand this, how important can they be in your life? If your well-being is that unimportant to them, why bother? Perhaps next year, you need to spend the holidays in Barbados if you can or at least in the company of those who don't see your politics as evil.

QUOTE

The detention provisions of the Act have received critical attention by, among others, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, and some media sources which are concerned about the scope of the President's authority, including contentions that those whom they claim may be held indefinitely could include U.S. citizens arrested on American soil, including arrests by members of the Armed Forces.

QUOTE

Obama is a liberal only in the sense that Green Day is punk.

QUOTE

But to determine whether employees work enough hours on average to receive benefits, businesses must track schedules at least three months in advance of 2014...

QUOTE

John Nance Garner famously described the Vice-Presidency as being "not worth a bucket of warm piss."

QUOTE

Mr. Biden also hinted that the package of proposals would address the ability of the federal government to do research on gun violence, comparing the limits on federal data gathering to restrictions on the government’s ability to study traffic fatalities in the 1970s.

He said the government needed the ability to find out “what kind of weapons are used most to kill people” and “what kind of weapons are trafficked weapons.”

QUOTE

Mr. Obama stressed today that raising the debt ceiling would not authorize new spending.

QUOTE

"Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system."
...
"Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers."

QUOTE

"Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign."

QUOTE

"Nominate an ATF director."

QUOTE

"Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations."
...
"Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime."

QUOTE

I've had intelligent, educated people say exactly this: "I don't know what we should do exactly, but something has to change."

QUOTE

For the children, I guess.

(TPRJones @ Jan. 16 2013,18:13)

QUOTE

Meh.  More intelligent and less corrupt than the Congress we got now.  Not ideal, but still an improvement.

QUOTE

The White House called the ad “repugnant and cowardly” and criticized the organization for using the president’s children as “pawns in a political fight.”

QUOTE

There are over four million members in the NRA today. They've been successful in brainwashing some of their members through foolhardy rhetoric and propaganda. As a result, gun sales have exponentially soared throughout the nation.

QUOTE

The anthem has been specially written for this service, to coincide with President Obama’s second inauguration. It’s called ‘Learning to Dream Again.’

QUOTE

On the January 16th, it was reported that the administration were looking to set aside $10 million for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to “study the root causes of gun violence, including any relationship to video games and media images.”

QUOTE

“We are in the peak of [violence in entertainment]. Television program violence? Unbelievable. Video game violence? Unprecedented.”

QUOTE

All of that is what Obama wants to leave as his legacy. One path to achieving this passes through the Middle East. Someone has to pour cold water over this smoldering powder keg in an effort to create a more pragmatic, less volatile region.

QUOTE

Particularly vulnerable to the high rates are small businesses and people who do not have employer-provided insurance and must buy it on their own.

QUOTE

It’s already become painfully obvious that the law’s creators failed to think through its full implications.

QUOTE

"Violence is a big problem, too many children are dying, too many children. We must do something..."

QUOTE

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, decried violent video games and rejected the argument that they do not contribute to real-world gun violence.

QUOTE

James Johnson, chief of Baltimore County (Md.) Police Department, testified that law enforcement leaders back Obama's approach to reducing gun violence. "I'm here today to tell you we are long overdue in strengthening our nation's gun laws," he said. He called for background checks and said law enforcement groups support the assault weapons ban proposed Feinstein.

QUOTE

Exactly when did we give up on trying to save people and turn that over to government employees?

QUOTE

But more importantly, what happened to heroism?

QUOTE

"I'm saddened to see that students' well-being has to be held in a cost-benefit analysis,"

QUOTE

You can't legislate a limited resource into an unlimited resource.

QUOTE

Even if you had the federal government pay every doctor a salary of $10mil a year in order to get more doctors, it would take a long time to get enough.  And probably not even then, as few people have what it takes to be a good doctor; all you'd really do is make far more bad doctors.

QUOTE

Using the conditions laid out in the regulations, the IRS calculates that a family earning $120,000 per year that did not buy insurance would need to pay a "penalty" (a word the IRS still uses despite the Supreme Court ruling that it is in fact a "tax") of $2,400 in 2016.

QUOTE

Bronze will be the lowest tier health-insurance plan available under Obamacare--after Silver, Gold, and Platinum. Under the law, the penalty for not buying health insurance is supposed to be capped at either the annual average Bronze premium, 2.5 percent of taxable income, or $2,085.00 per family in 2016.

QUOTE

CBO said that this year's tax cuts have changed the incentives for businesses and made it less attractive to pay for insurance, meaning fewer will decide to do so. Instead, they'll choose to pay a penalty to the government, totaling $13 billion in higher fees over the next decade.

QUOTE

HeroBuilders has also created the Anthony Weiner doll, one of the “Rent  Is Too Damn High” candidate in New York, the Balloon Boy’s dad and the Bernie Madoff action figure.

QUOTE

The Nobel Peace Prize Committee should frame a copy of the DOJ assassination white paper and then hang it on its wall.

QUOTE

Nora needed to join an experimental treatment program at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). The family had initially received a bill for $575,000 for the treatment process -- and then was surprised to receive another $262,000 bill for follow-up costs for the next five years, according to the paper.

QUOTE

"As you no shame to take that kind of money ($ 837,224) from a sick child ... how can you be so cruel?!!? Shame on you!!!!!! N O R A!!!!!!!!!!!" Davor Marsal Androcec wrote.

QUOTE

After going through this, I will never say anything against our (Croatia's socialized) health system. What they have over there (in the United States) is just terrible.

QUOTE

The official explanation for the ammunition is preparation for the possibility of civil unrest during a national emergency, such as a natural disaster, a terrorist attack, or a complete economic collapse.
...
The agencies have purchased hollow point bullets which are designed to expand once they enter their target in order to do the most damage to the victim.

QUOTE

Back in March, Homeland Security purchased 450 million rounds of .40-caliber hollow point bullets that are designed to expand upon entry and cause maximum organ damage, prompting questions as to why the DHS needed such a large amount of powerful bullets merely for training purposes.

This was followed by another DHS solicitation asking for a further 750 million rounds of assorted bullets, including 357 mag rounds that are able to penetrate walls.

QUOTE

Take a close look at the M-14 rifles the Marines where carrying at Obama’s second inauguration. The bolts have been removed from the rifles rendering them unable to fire a round.

QUOTE

While Obama's order made no mention of merit for such a raise, HuffPost's Amanda Terkel reported on Friday that the 112th Congress is set to end the session as the most unproductive since the 1940s, with only 219 bills passed by the body becoming law.

QUOTE

Dan Shaviro of NYU published a study in 1999 showing marginal tax rates above 100% on the working poor; specifically, he illustrated that a single parent earning $10,000 would lose over $2,500, after taxes, by earning another $15,000, pushing her income to $25,000.

QUOTE

You might be thinking that losing a benefit is not a tax. That is an understandable sentiment, but Jane will not be comforted by it.

QUOTE

“Unfortunately, the State Department doesn’t have our own Grover Norquist pushing a pledge to protect it,” Kerry said at the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville. He added that State, unlike interest groups such as AARP, lacks millions of dues-paying members who unite to rally behind it.

QUOTE

As he made his case for the State Department on Wednesday, Kerry told students and faculty at U-Va. that “deploying diplomats today is much cheaper than deploying troops tomorrow; we need to remember that.”

QUOTE

“This is an unnecessary self-inflicted wound on the United States economy. Congress should come back to Washington to fix the problem,” said Rep. Rob Andrews (D-N.J.), whose district is home to several government contracting firms.

QUOTE

“The workers were stopping me — members of the United Auto Workers — were asking me, what’s going to happen with their jobs, and what are we doing about the sequester? And I was dumbfounded, because the House isn’t doing anything, we’re on vacation this week,” he said.

QUOTE

“Air-traffic controllers will be laid off. This again will have devastating affects on the economy,” she said. “Planes will be slowed down, fewer planes will be able to fly.”

QUOTE

Cutting $1 billion from the Transportation Department would affect dozens of programs, LaHood said. For instance, the vast majority of the FAA's nearly 47,000 employees will face furloughs, he said -- and the largest number of FAA employees are air traffic controllers.

QUOTE

With less than a week to go until a wide-ranging package of across-the-board budget cuts is set to kick in, President Obama today entreated the nation's governors to help him convince Congress to compromise on a deal to avert the so-called "sequestration," predicating his plea on the fact that as governors, "you know that compromise is essential to getting things done."

QUOTE

Roger J. Moncarz, an economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, said that employment in health care occupations was expected to grow by 29 percent, with the addition of 3.5 million new jobs from 2010 to 2020. Federal officials expect 712,000 new jobs for registered nurses — more than for any other occupation in the country — and a total of 1.3 million new jobs for home health and personal care aides, he said.

Edward S. Salsberg, the director of the National Center for Health Workforce Analysis at the Health and Human Services Department, said 57 million people were living in areas with shortages of primary care practitioners.

QUOTE

Asked why leaders did not negotiate more vigorously to get a deal before sequestration deadline day, Obama said that his ability to negotiate is limited by Congress's unwillingness.

"I'm not a dictator," he said. "I'm the president. So ultimately if Mitch McConnell or John Boehner say 'I need to go to catch a plane,' I can't have Secret Service block the doorway, right?"

QUOTE

...the shortage is not good ideas – it's minds capable of executing good ideas.
...
The problem is that bringing even one of his ideas to fruition takes years of effort. …and not just years of anyone's effort, but years of effort by one or more people with

   high intelligence
   high executive function
   strong self discipline

QUOTE

The Republicans want to bring back small towns and white-painted churches, because when those things were ascendant all was right in the world.

The Democrats want to bring big cities and big industry, because when those things were ascendant all was right in the world.

And so the Republicans shovel money at farmers, endorse prayer in school, and tell us to worship our heroes fighting for manifest destiny, and the Democrats shovel money at unionized teachers, endorse government run mass transit, and tell us to worship dense urban living.

QUOTE

But Napolitano said the problems were real.

"Look, people, I don't mean to scare, I mean to inform. If you're traveling, get to the airport earlier than you otherwise would," she said. "And please don't yell at the Customs officers or the TSA officers - they are not responsible for the sequester."

QUOTE

"We're not looking for war. We're ready to negotiate peacefully. But all options including military force are on the table," said Biden.
...
He further noted that it is "important that the world is with us if we have to act."

QUOTE

With a committee vote set for a closed session beginning at 2:30 p.m., senators will get access to all Justice Department legal opinions on the targeted killing of Americans, the committee’s Democratic chairwoman, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, said in a statement.

QUOTE

Christopher E. Anders, senior legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, called the promised disclosures “an important first baby step towards restoring the checks and balances between Congress and the president” but said they were not enough.

“Amazingly, the Obama administration continues to hide at least some of its legal opinions, even from the intelligence committees,” Mr. Anders said. He said all members of Congress should have access to the memos on targeted killings and that redacted copies should be made public.

QUOTE

The AP’s analysis also found that the government generally took longer to answer requests. Some agencies, such as the Health and Human Services Department, took less time than the previous year to turn over files. But at the State Department, for example, even urgent requests submitted under a fast-track system covering breaking news or events when a person’s life was at stake took an average two years to wait for files.

QUOTE

In a year of intense public interest over deadly U.S. drones, the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, terror threats and more, the government cited national security to withhold information at least 5,223 times — a jump over 4,243 such cases in 2011 and 3,805 cases in Obama’s first year in office.

QUOTE

Among a laundry list of claims that Coughlin will tell a House oversight committee Wednesday are that he was warned by a superior not to include data in his study that could have helped establish a link between so-called "burn pits" in Iraq and asthma and bronchitis among veterans.  Such a link could put the VA on the hook for costly medical treatments.

QUOTE

“The Donald Trump option is not an option — what we have to do is deal with the sequester,” Pfeiffer said on CNN on Tuesday.

QUOTE

“It doesn’t work that way; we can’t have private individuals paying the Secret Service — so that’s not how it works,” Pfeiffer said on CNN. “This is about a very tough budget cut that the Secret Service has to take because of the sequester. It’s why we should have avoided the sequester to begin with.”

QUOTE

The student, a reporter at Capital News Service, a news organization run by the university, took photos of Biden at a domestic violence event in Rockville, Maryland, while outside of the designated press area.

QUOTE

“How does the president justify lavish vacations and a golf trip to Florida at taxpayer expense and does he plan to cut back on his travel?” a reporter from Colorado asked after noting the high unemployment rate among minorities and the furloughs that federal employees face under sequester.

“I can tell you that this president is focused every day on policies that create economic growth and help advance job creation,” Carney replied. “We certainly do not need to embrace economic policies that shift the entire burden of deficit reduction on senior citizens, middle class families, and Medicare recipients.”

QUOTE

"Three months ago, a deranged man walked into Sandy Hook Elementary with a weapon of war," he said. "Let's get this straight. This is not about anybody's constitutional right to own a weapon. For all those who say we shouldn't and can't ban assault weapons - for all those who say the politics is too hard, how can they say that?... When you take a look at those 20 beautiful babies and what happened to them? And those six teachers and administrators?"

QUOTE

Who are they at war with?

QUOTE

Why is it called an "assault weapon" if I want one, but a "patrol rifle" when a cop wants one?

QUOTE

“Rising health care costs are killing the economy, and businesses are terrified,” Peel added. “Now, we’re all in this terrible situation where employers are desperate to get rid of workers who have costly health conditions, like obesity and diabetes.”
...
The company has dubbed the request “a health screening and wellness review so that colleagues know their key health metrics in order to take action to improve their numbers, if necessary.”

QUOTE

The video was made for a 2010 conference training IRS agents on finding tax evaders. Also produced for the conference was a skit parodying "Gilligan's Island." Both cost around $60,000 to produce.

QUOTE

...the reason the Democrats avoided a budget for four years is that when Americans see their spending priorities, it makes the politics tougher for vulnerable Democrats.

QUOTE

...they (the U.S. voters) do not want their Medicare or Social Security benefits touched. Despite the fact that mandatory spending is eating away at a larger and larger percent of the federal budget...

QUOTE

Under questioning, Principal Deputy Solicitor General Sri Srinivasan said he couldn't give the court an "algorithm" on when the Justice Department would decide not to defend a law.

QUOTE

"we refuse to control real criminals (that's the anarchy) so we control the innocent (that's the tyranny)."

QUOTE

Did you really think we want those laws observed? said Dr. Ferris. We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with. ('Atlas Shrugged' 1957)

QUOTE

We're after power and we mean it...

QUOTE

Further, we were told we’re only eligible for paid time off in case we’re sick or have other responsibilities if we work 1400 hours in one year. We did the math, and realized part-time workers reach that at 21 hours per week.

QUOTE

The truth, which no one wanted or wants to hear, is that communism is as American as apple pie. Communism is a form of American liberalism, or progressivism. It is not, as so many anti-communists liked to suggest, an exotic foreign import. When imported from exotic lands, it's because we exported it there in the first place. In America it may speak with a Russian accent; in Russia, it speaks with an American accent.

By the 1930s, communism with a strong Protestant flavor had become the dominant religion of American high society - the wealthiest and most fashionable Americans.

QUOTE

Some threatening letters simply contain ground castor beans, resulting in a positive field test for ricin without the concentrated poison. Results from full laboratory tests are expected in the next 24 to 48 hours.

QUOTE

Other senators were made aware of the Wicker letter during a briefing Tuesday evening on the bombing in Boston. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said that the person who sent Wicker the letter writes often to elected officials.

QUOTE

Rates of prescription drug abuse in the United States are alarmingly high, as are the number of accidental poisonings and overdoses due to these drugs.

QUOTE

White House spokesman Jay Carney says the Senate bill would level the playing field for small businesses and brick-and-mortar retailers that are undercut by online companies.

QUOTE

Carney says that governors and mayors have overwhelmingly told the White House the bill is needed. He says states are losing out on revenue that could go to education corruption, law enforcement kickbacks, infrastructure investments bribes and health care pork-barrel legislation.

QUOTE

As of July of last year the IRS was hiring 16k more auditors to cover Obamacare, but of course that was pre-sequester.

QUOTE

As I understand it, new tax bureaucracy would be setup to enforce this.

QUOTE

As recently as Friday, aides to Mr. Baucus indicated that he had no intention of retiring. He had amassed a $5 million campaign treasury and was in New York last week meeting with donors. His votes against gun legislation promoted by President Obama and against the Democratic leadership’s budget plan seemed calculated to appeal to conservative voters in his state.

But those votes isolated Mr. Baucus from other members of the Senate Democratic Caucus in ways reminiscent of 2001, when he infuriated Democrats by working with President George W. Bush to pass a 10-year, $1.35 trillion tax cut.

This week, over Mr. Baucus’s fierce opposition and without the Finance Committee’s imprimatur, Democratic leaders forced Internet sales tax legislation to the Senate floor. Montana is one of four states without a sales tax, and Mr. Baucus has tried to rally opposition to the Internet bill, which is championed by Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat.

QUOTE

There is concern in some quarters that the provision requiring lawmakers and staffers to join the exchanges, if it isn’t revised, could lead to a “brain drain” on Capitol Hill, as several sources close to the talks put it.

The problem stems from whether members and aides set to enter the exchanges would have their health insurance premiums subsidized by their employer — in this case, the federal government. If not, aides and lawmakers in both parties fear that staffers — especially low-paid junior aides — could be hit with thousands of dollars in new health care costs, prompting them to seek jobs elsewhere.

QUOTE

However, the idea of exempting lawmakers and aides from the exchanges has its detractors, including Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), a key Obamacare architect. Waxman thinks there is confusion about the content of the law. The Affordable Care Act, he said, mandates that the federal government will still subsidize and provide health plans obtained in the exchange. There will be no additional cost to lawmakers and Hill aides, he contends.

(Malcolm @ Apr. 24 2013,09:08)

QUOTE

Someone managed to get copies of the letters he sent and then tried to mimic the details.  That list of suspects ought to be short.

QUOTE

On Tuesday and Wednesday, federal agents searched Mr. Dutschke’s home and his former taekwondo school, Tupelo Takewondo Plus. James D. Moore, the prosecuting attorney for Lee County, said that evidence had been found but would not characterize its nature.

QUOTE

At another hearing she told how "we were incredibly disappointed that our requests for additional outreach and education resources were not made available," referring to a request for $949 million more to help set up the federal exchanges.

QUOTE

In any case, HHS managed to find the money, and more — $1.5 billion in total — by shifting money around and using some unspent implementation funds.

QUOTE

The episode illustrates the two sides of expectations for Mr. Wheeler, 67 years old, an Obama fundraiser who formerly represented cable and wireless companies in Washington.

QUOTE

news has emerged that defence contractor QinetiQ suffered a massive breach of classified data over three years which may have leaked advanced military secrets to the infamous PLA-linked hacking gang Comment Crew
...
QinetiQ was apparently first notified of an intrusion back in 2007, when an agent from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service warned that two employees working at the firm’s US HQ in McLean, Virginia, had their laptops compromised
...
Even when NASA warned the firm that it was being attacked by hackers from one of QinetiQ’s computers the firm apparently continued to treat incidents in isolation
...
It is claimed that QinetiQ didn’t operate a two-factor authentication system, which could have prevented the hackers logging on with the stolen passwords
...
Investigators also found in 2008 that QinetiQ’s corporate network could be accessed using unsecured Wi-Fi from a car park outside a facility in Waltham, Massachusetts, the report claimed
...
As if the persistent hacking incursions weren’t enough, investigators brought in to help apparently made matters worse by arguing with each other.  Then software installed by HBGary [technology security company] to monitor for malicious activity wouldn’t function properly and was deleted by many employees because it apparently used too much processing power.  The investigators even found evidence that Russian hackers had been stealing QinetiQ secrets for over two years through a compromised PC belonging to a secretary.

QUOTE

“Max said unless we implement this properly it’s going to be a train wreck, and I agree with him,” Reid said, echoing a warning delivered last month by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.).

QUOTE

Republicans bitch out HHS Department about lack of info for Obamacare.  Oh wait, I meant "Democratic Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus" instead of "Republicans."

QUOTE

“Here’s what we have now, we have the menu but we don’t have any way to get to the menu,” Reid said.

QUOTE

Many lawmakers were not familiar with its details when they voted on it, and then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) famously declared that Congress needed to pass the law to find out what was in it.

QUOTE

...he’s determined he’s going to take money from some of the other things that he feels are less important in the healthcare bill and put it on letting you and others know what’s in the bill...

QUOTE

...you want to divert a portion of what little you do have to pay for marketing this mess?

QUOTE

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor just tweeted: “It just keeps getting worse. I am scheduling a vote for next week on the full repeal of #Obamacare.”

QUOTE

FBI general counsel Andrew Weissmann, according to the New York Times, was quick to note in a statement that the updated policies would not "create any new legal surveillance authority."
...
An earlier proposal would have required companies that offer Internet-based communication to build a wiretapping capacity into their services, but a revised proposal would simply levy fines on companies that do not comply with wiretap orders, the Times reports.

QUOTE

n 1941, he graduated as class valedictorian of his tiny high school....Carter was admitted to Annapolis in 1943 and graduated in the top ten percent of his class in August 1946, just after the end of the war.

QUOTE

These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period...

QUOTE

I doubt if this is something that is specific to the Obama administration.

QUOTE

Important, Smart, Good People who come from good families and go to the right schools, and go on to Change The World.

QUOTE

Who doesn't know that the "MicroSoft Network" is owned by "MicroSoft?"

QUOTE

Who doesn't know that the "MicroSoft Network" is owned by "MicroSoft?"

QUOTE

...and warned that budget cuts could limit future efforts...

QUOTE

But priorities should change, she said, because "getting an education is as important if not more important than it was back when this university was founded."

QUOTE

The speech is a follow-up to Obama's State of the Union pledge to "continue to engage Congress to ensure not only that our targeting, detention and prosecution of terrorists remains consistent with our laws and system of checks and balances, but that our efforts are even more transparent to the American people and to the world."

QUOTE

The Justice Department inspector general said Monday that the former U.S. attorney in Phoenix retaliated against the main whistleblower in a botched federal gun operation by leaking information to a television producer that was meant to harm the whistleblower’s credibility.

QUOTE

Holder told the committee on May 15 that he was not involved in the potential prosecution of a reporter under the 1917 Espionage Act. Reports later surfaced that he had signed off on a search warrant and a subpoena for the records of Fox News reporter James Rosen.

QUOTE

"We cannot in good conscience provide taxpayer dollars that are used to abuse the rights of American citizens," Republican Ander Crenshaw of Florida said

QUOTE

I think we may see some SERIOUS opposition to it

QUOTE

Calling a newly disclosed phone data monitoring program a "critical tool," White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters aboard Air Force One on Thursday that President Barack Obama looks forward to a national debate about the balance between national security and individual privacy prompted by the revelations.

QUOTE

Guess there's no SERIOUS opposition to TSA.

QUOTE

Who's more foolish: the fool or the fool who follows?

QUOTE

The unauthorized disclosure of a top secret U.S. court document threatens potentially long-lasting and irreversible harm to our ability to identify and respond to the many threats facing our nation," Clapper said of the phone-tracking program.

QUOTE

I believe it is important for the American people to understand the limits of this targeted counterterrorism program and the principles that govern its use," Clapper said.

QUOTE

If people can’t trust not only the executive branch monarch but also don’t trust Congress the aristocracy, and don’t trust federal judges royal magistrates, to make sure that we’re abiding by the Constitution Divine Right of the Chosen with due process and rule of law, then we’re going to have some problems here.

QUOTE

“By the way, all of this is what the Republican Party has now voted 37 times to repeal, at least in the House of Representatives,” he said. “And my suggestion to them has been, let's stop re-fighting the old battles and start working with people like the leaders who are on stage here today to make this law work the way it's supposed to.”

QUOTE

For the first time since 2005, more Americans have a favorable view of former President George W. Bush than an unfavorable view.

According to a new Gallup poll released Tuesday, 49% have a positive opinion of the two-term Republican president, while 46% feel the opposite.

QUOTE

"Some people say, 'OK, see what a big mess it is? Stay out!' I think that's a big mistake," Mr Clinton said at a private event in New York...

QUOTE

"What the American people are saying when they tell you not to do these things, they're not telling you not to do these things," he said, but instead, they're urging caution. "They hire you to win ... to look around the corner and see down the road.

QUOTE

Post reporter Sari Horwitz, who covers the Justice Department, is married to William B. Schultz, who is Kathleen Sebelius’ top lawyer at the Department of Health and Human Services. Ben Sherwood, the president of ABC News, is brother to Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, “a top national security adviser to President Obama.” Another Obama national security aide, Ben Rhodes, is brother to David Rhodes, president of CBS News. One of CNN’s top D.C. hacks is married to Tom Nides, whose upward career trajectory has taken him from the office of Democratic congressional powerbroker Tony Coelho to, where else, Fannie Mae, Credit Suisse, and Morgan Stanley, as well as a two-year stint as an undersecretary of state for Hillary Clinton. Whose daughter is on contract with NBC.

White House spokesman Jay Carney, who worked for many years at Time magazine, is married to Claire Shipman, a correspondent for ABC News. The White House correspondent for NPR, Ari Shapiro, has been married to former White House counsel Michael Gottlieb since 2004. Longtime NPR personality Michele Norris went on leave in 2011, when her husband Broderick Johnson, a corporate lawyer who served in the Clinton White House, joined the Obama reelection campaign as a full-time adviser. Wall Street Journal political reporter Neil King is married to Shailagh Murray, who serves as communications director for Vice President Joe Biden, and who used to report on Congress for the Post. Savannah Guthrie of NBC recently became engaged to Mike Feldman, a former Gore aide who is now part of the Democratic Glover Park Group consultancy. Syndicated columnist Connie Schultz is married to Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio.

QUOTE

In response to Levin's statement, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Dave Camp said the inclusion of "progressives" on a BOLO list did not prove that liberal groups underwent the same extra scrutiny of conservative groups cited in the inspector general's report.

QUOTE

I can guarantee you that this will be a big fight -- many Republicans will deny science and claim that "those liberals" are making it up. But you, me, and 97 percent of scientists know better -- climate change is real and we have to act now before it's too late.

QUOTE

One of the reasons our health-care system is ailing is the fact that we habitually insulate decision makers from the consequences of their choices.

QUOTE

"I don't like anything Obama has done, but I could never vote for a republican so I got to vote for Obama again."

QUOTE

Republicans need to separate themselves from the church.

QUOTE

In the New 52, one of the titles that was relaunched was Aquaman who is a pop culture joke.

QUOTE

...but I think the Republicans are setting themselves up to be taken over entirely by libertarians.

QUOTE

The role of Congress is to ensure a balanced NLRB and the Obama Administration bypassed Congress in order to stack the NLRB in favor of Big Labor. Two different federal courts -- the D.C. Circuit and the Third Circuit -- have established that the NLRB is illegally constituted and has no authority to take action.

QUOTE

The crux of the suit here is whether the executive branch can function without any accountability.

QUOTE

France has apologised to Bolivia for refusing to allow President Evo Morales' jet into its airspace, blaming "conflicting information".

QUOTE

Under Obama’s proposal, presidents would have the ability to get up-or-down votes within 90 days in the House and Senate on legislation consolidating and reorganizing parts of the federal government.

That would bypass committees and limit individual lawmakers’ ability to kill provisions they don’t like or that hurt their districts.

QUOTE

Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, responded furiously to Mr Reid's decision to threaten to remove the filibuster for appointments, a move that has been called the “nuclear option” because it weakens a key check and balance to the power of the majority in the Senate.

QUOTE

The 'nuclear option’ has been threatened before in 2005 — this time when Republicans were angry with Democrat blocking George W Bush’s judicial nominees — but an eleventh-hour deal was brokered to pull both sides back from the brink.

QUOTE

"Despite a level of health expenditures that would have seemed unthinkable a generation ago, the health of the U.S. population has improved only gradually and has fallen behind the pace of progress in many other wealthy nations," Dr. Harvey Fineberg of the Institute of Medicine in Washington, D.C., wrote in an editorial published on Wednesday with the study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

QUOTE

The Obama administration announced Wednesday its first big push to help educate uninsured people about the health coverage they'll qualify for under Obamacare.

QUOTE

Liberty Hospital near Kansas City, Mo., has eliminated 120 jobs this year, closed its wound-care clinic, and stopped offering free rides to poor and elderly patients. The Cleveland Clinic is searching for ways to cut $250 million from its $6 billion budget in the next 16 months. It’s already closed expensive maternity wards in half the hospitals it operates. In northern New York, Adirondack Health may shutter its emergency room in Lake Placid and a dialysis center in Tupper Lake.

QUOTE

You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot, I said that this could have been my son.

QUOTE

In opposing an amendment being pushed by Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., Carney said that Obama welcomes a debate on surveillance, but opposes a "blunt approach" that could compromise national security.

QUOTE

When 40% of Americans fail to have coverage in time I really don't see the IRS putting them all in jail.

QUOTE

I expect most of them won't pay it.  Can't arrest them all.

QUOTE

...they can't just take their paychecks.

QUOTE

I expect a lot of people will just stop filing.

QUOTE

Such policies -- which encourage behavior subtly rather than outright require it -- have come to be known as "nudges," after an influential 2008 book titled "Nudge" by former Obama regulatory czar Cass Sunstein and Chicago Booth School of Business professor Richard Thaler popularized the term.

QUOTE

The Review Group on Intelligence Communications and Technologies (RGOICAT?) will be headed by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, aka the official who currently oversees the spying in question.

QUOTE

The May 2012 audit found 2,776 incidents of "unauthorized collection, storage, access to or distribution of legally protected communications" in the preceding 12 months, the Post reported in its story.

"Most were unintended. Many involved failures of due diligence or violations of standard operating procedure," said the Post article by reporter Barton Gellman. "The most serious incidents included a violation of a court order and unauthorized use of data about more than 3,000 Americans and green-card holders."

QUOTE

Before the vote, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus decried what he called the "obvious bias" of a network that would spotlight Clinton in this fashion.

"We're done putting up with this nonsense. There are plenty of other outlets. We'll still reach voters, maybe more voters. But CNN and NBC anchors will just have to watch on their competitors' networks," he said. "The media overplayed their hand this time."

QUOTE

Now those outlets won't have full stories and won't be able to pretend they aren't biased.

QUOTE

What's lost by treating them as hostile tabloids?

QUOTE

Can anyone honestly see any media outside of Fox News every reporting anything good about a republican, ever?

QUOTE

So many of President Obama's statements about NSA have been wrong. But he's too smart not to understand the truth.

QUOTE

This democracy thing...not so much. Maybe it's an idea whose time has come.

QUOTE

A higher education is the single best investment you can make in your future," Obama told students in Buffalo...

QUOTE

The average tuition cost at a four-year public college has increased by more than 250% over the past three decades, according to the White House. Meanwhile, incomes for typical families grew by 16%.

QUOTE

Colleges would receive bonus money for the number of Pell Grant students who graduate.

As for the ever-growing levels of student debt, the plan calls for expansion of a "Pay As You Earn" program that would cap loan repayments at 10% of income.

The plan also says that colleges should offer a greater range of "affordable, high-quality options" that will generate competition with other colleges and drive down prices.

(Malcolm @ Aug. 17 2013,12:07)

QUOTE

Not with the uncharismatic, blustery twonks they've currently got running things, no.

QUOTE

We were astonished when we heard the comments that state Sen. Vicki Marble, R-Fort Collins, made Wednesday during a legislative hearing on poverty. Marble decided to share her thoughts on nutrition.
...
Marble went on to say how Mexicans eat healthy until they come to the United States.

QUOTE

Obama noted that people have “legitimate concerns” that the technology is moving faster than legislation and privacy protections in place.

“Do some of these systems end up being like a loaded gun out there that somebody at some future point could abuse? Because there are no allegations, and I am very confident -- knowing the NSA and how they operate - that purposefully somebody is out there trying to abuse this program or listen in on people’s e-mail,” Obama said.

QUOTE

Because there are no allegations, and I am very confident -- knowing the NSA and how they operate - that purposefully somebody is out there trying to abuse this program or listen in on people’s e-mail,” Obama said.

QUOTE

But the prospect of 39 more months of the anti-president at the helm is daunting. No plans for anything except bus tours and college campus speeches, no idea how to invigorate a sputtering economy or trim a bloated budget.

QUOTE

I didn't think it was possible for an American president to be ranked below Jimmy Carter on the competence list.

QUOTE

the phrase stems from a meeting in about 1680 between the powerful French finance minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert and a group of French businessmen led by a certain M. Le Gendre. When the eager mercantilist minister asked how the French state could be of service to the merchants and help promote their commerce, Le Gendre replied simply "Laissez-nous faire" ("Leave us be", lit. "Let us do").

QUOTE

Certainly, a red line for us has been the use of chemicals against people. That has occurred. We need to obviously respond to that, but I don’t want us to change our overall policy.

QUOTE

They were able to launch the strikes after being given maps, satellite pictures and other intelligence by the U.S.

The Americans have always said that Iraq did not reveal that they would launch chemical strikes.

But documents released in the National Archives and interviews with former serviceman show that the U.S. acquiesced in the use of chemical weapons as they tried to help Saddam with the war.

QUOTE

“For every attack we experience, every threat we face, and every piece of intelligence we come across, we learn. We assess our preparations and capabilities. We make changes,” the former Arizona governor said.

QUOTE

Many of the proposals required congressional approval, but within months, the legislative machinery had stalled, leaving executive action as the administration's only recourse.

QUOTE

Jones, who has been the acting director of the ATF since 2011 as he awaited Senate confirmation, thanked Biden and the rest of the administration for the "privilege" of leading the bureau, promising to take the ATF's enforcement activities to "the next level" in his stead as director.

QUOTE

On Thursday, Biden said he and Mr. Obama remain "committed" to legislative action to reduce gun violence, promising, "If Congress won't act, we'll fight for a new Congress. It's that simple. But we're going to get this done."

QUOTE

President Barack Obama has said the credibility of the US, its Congress and the international community is on the line over their response to Syria's alleged use of chemical weapons.

QUOTE

How is it Obama got elected, in part, on a platform of not "attacking countries that never attacked us," but now it is totally cool to do so and we all need to support our President?

QUOTE

President Hassan Rowhani said Iran will do "everything to prevent" an attack on the Syrian regime, according to extracts from statements he made before the Assembly of Experts published in the media.

QUOTE

Speaking to his human rights council Wednesday, Putin said, "This was very unpleasant and surprising for me. We talk to them (the Americans), and we assume they are decent people, but he is lying and he knows that he is lying. This is sad."

QUOTE

Why would the government use gas on civilians in a war it's winning?

QUOTE

Russia's position seems strong...

QUOTE

To end it sooner.

QUOTE

How do they prove which group launched the chems?

QUOTE

Civies are easier targets.  Maybe they were providing assistance.  Maybe they just want to break any local public support for the rebels.  Maybe they just wanted to call the bluff of the international community.  They figure Egypt's getting away with shit, why not them?

QUOTE

US State Department says Australia, Albania, Canada, Denmark, France, Kosovo, Poland, Romania and Turkey are on board with attack on Syria

QUOTE

"I cannot remember a time when one faction of one party promises economic chaos if it can't get 100 percent of what it wants," Obama said Monday. "That's never happened before."

QUOTE

Obama reiterated his refusal to negotiate with Republicans over the debt ceiling. And he called on Congress to "pass a budget without drama."

QUOTE

UPDATE: John Sexton noticed that the quotes being pulled from an article published last week about Buffett and Obamacare came from a March 1 Politico story. It appears that Buffett was opposing ObamaCare before it was passed.

QUOTE

"They're focused on politics, they're focused on trying to mess with me," Obama told a crowd at a Ford plant in Kansas City. "They're not focused on you."

QUOTE

   [Twenty-five-year-old Steven] Binko is one of 2.7 million healthy 18- to 34-year-olds, dubbed the young invincibles, that the Obama administration has said are needed in the exchanges to offset the cost of providing care for millions of other uninsured people who are likely to be older and sicker. Without young adults, who pay for insurance yet rarely use it, premium costs in the exchanges may soar. . . .

   The challenge is how do you make young people see the value of having insurance at a time in their lives when they are least likely to use it and least capable of affording it.

QUOTE

The challenge is how do you make young people see the value of having insurance at a time in their lives when they are least likely to use it and least capable of affording it.

QUOTE

Tempers and rhetoric were heated on Friday as Democrats accused their Republican colleagues of playing with legislative fire.

"We are at one of the most dangerous points in our history right now -- every bit as dangerous as the break-up of the Union before the Civil War," said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa.

QUOTE

"I [Senator Dick "Head" Durbin] fully support that (debate), but let's sit down in a bipartisan and calm way, not with the prospect of shutting down the government or shutting down the economy," he said.

QUOTE

Durbin's campaign emphasized unemployment and financial difficulties facing farmers, and told voters that electing him would send "a message to Washington and to President Reagan that our economic policies are not working."

QUOTE

Q: Starting next year, everyone will be required to get health insurance or they will face a fine. How much is the penalty?

A: Starting in 2014, if you do not have health coverage, you will be penalized when you file your tax return the following year. For an individual, the fee is a minimum of $95, or 1 percent of adjusted income -- whichever is greater. For a family, the minimum penalty can't be more than $285 -- but it can go as high as 1 percent of adjusted family income.

Within two years, there's quite a jump. In 2016, the penalty is $695 for every adult, and the minimum penalty for a family is capped at $2,085. However, it can be as high as 2.5 percent of the family income -- whichever is greater.

QUOTE

"I've never seen a time-- can you remember a time in your lifetime when a major political party was just sitting around, begging for America to fail?"

QUOTE

After missing the midnight Eastern deadline to avert the shutdown, Republicans and Democrats in the House continued a bitter blame game, each side shifting responsibility to the other in efforts to redirect a possible public backlash.
...
A Reuters/Ipsos poll showed about one-quarter of Americans would blame Republicans for a shutdown, 14 percent would blame Obama and 5 percent would blame Democrats in Congress, while 44 percent said everyone would be to blame.

QUOTE

met with messages citing high traffic and advising, “Please wait here until we send you to the login page” or “The system is down at the moment.” A state-run exchange in Maryland also posted a message saying it was “experiencing connectivity issues” and asking visitors to try again later. Other states reported scattered problems.

QUOTE

Obama says that if the shutdown continues, it will make it more difficult to recruit talented people for government jobs.

QUOTE

The conservative debate over the individual mandate is one largely of semantics. It assumes that if the government mandates something, that it is overreaching its power and inching the country closer to socialism.

Many times when this same argument is invoked there is validity in it, but this time it’s different. That's because only other option as it currently stands is the abusive system that we have been dealing with — one of runaway insurance and medical costs, coupled with a growing sector of uninsured individuals.

As Whole Foods Founder John Mackey infamously commented to NPR in January, the reality of the law can actually be characterized as closer to fascism than socialism itself.

QUOTE

"It's time for Republicans to stop throwing one crazy idea after another at the wall in hopes that something will stick," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

QUOTE

a default on the national debt, which will arrive Oct. 17 unless Congress acts to authorize increased borrowing

QUOTE

On Capitol Hill, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said the shuttering of the government "seriously damages our ability to protect the safety and security of this nation and its citizens."

QUOTE

As the debate played out, it also threatened to overshadow the somewhat rocky implementation of health care exchanges under the Affordable Care Act.

QUOTE

In urging Boehner to call a vote on a bill without health care restrictions, Obama said the "one way out of this reckless and damaging Republican shutdown" is a spending plan "with no partisan strings attached."
...
Obama, who met with congressional leaders at the White House on Wednesday night, repeated his stance that he would not negotiate health care and budget issues until the government is reopened and the debt ceiling is raised.

QUOTE

mid all the attention, bugs, and work happening at Healthcare.gov in light of the Affordable Care Act, potential registrants talking to phone support today have been told that all user passwords are being reset to help address the site's login woes. And the tech supports behind Healthcare.gov will be asking more users to act in the name of fixing the site, too. According to registrants speaking with Ars, individuals whose logins never made it to the site's database will have to re-register using a different username, as their previously chosen names are now stuck in authentication limbo.

QUOTE

I miss Jimmy Carter. Yeah he was awful but at least you never got the sense he was out and out anti-American. I simply can't say the same about Obama and his minions.

QUOTE

“Of course, I want people to have health care,” Vinson said. “I just didn’t realize I would be the one who was going to pay for it personally.”

QUOTE

House Republicans are working to pass their own plan to reopen government and avert an impending Thursday default deadline instead of waiting for Senate leaders who are nearing agreement on a competing budget offer.

However, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, struck a cautious tone about how the House would proceed following a nearly two-hour meeting with GOP lawmakers. "There are a lot of opinions about what direction to go. There have been no decisions about what exactly we will do," he said.

QUOTE

"We need to give assurance to Kansans that as the reams of Obamacare regulations continue to roll down from Washington D.C., we will be working with our colleagues to find solutions that will help shield the people of Kansas from the worst aspects of this broad government overreach," she said in a statement.

QUOTE

This is who voted for Obama, and why the Republicans could give every $1000, cure cancer, kill all evil, and still lose.

QUOTE

There's always a third choice.  I can think of a couple:

1) not voting at all

QUOTE

There is no 3rd option.

QUOTE

if you give a crap about your country then maybe you should be that crazy 3rd party candidate yourself next time around

QUOTE

"Nobody's madder than me about the website not working as well as it should, which means it's going to get fixed," Obama said without specifying exactly what went wrong or who was to blame.

QUOTE

At the same time, he argued that the health insurance available through the 2010 Affordable Care Act provided Americans previously unable to get coverage with the security of knowing that an accident or illness wouldn't bankrupt them.

QUOTE

Initial difficulties have started to ease for logging on to the website for the new exchanges, some of which are run by states and others by the federal government. Now problems are occurring further along the process, with insurance industry sources having said they are getting some applications with missing information.

QUOTE

I dare any US artist to do this in DC.

QUOTE

Speaking of jobs. I just liberated myself from my most recent one.

I've spent the last 3 months taking phone calls from insurance agents/brokers who were attempting to navigate the miserable gauntlet that is registering on the Obamacare websites to be eligible to sell insurance on the Federally Facilitated Marketplaces. The poor tortured souls would spend hours on hold to get to one of us, who then informed them they had to "be patient" and "keep trying". Some of them were beyond frantic. If they couldn't complete the process, they were basically out of business.

I felt like a Catholic priest working at Planned Parenthood.

Or a PETA member working in a slaughterhouse.

Last Friday, I'd had enough. Walked out. Fin. Worst job I've ever had. And that list includes spending 8 hours a day in a hot factory with a hand-held pneumatic air-chisel (basically a small hand-held jackhammer) removing slag from welds on steel tractor frames.

QUOTE

TECH SURGE

To ensure that we make swift progress, and that the consumer experience continues to improve, our team has called in additional help to solve some of the more complex technical issues we are encountering.

Our team is bringing in some of the best and brightest from both inside and outside government to scrub in with the team and help improve HealthCare.gov.

QUOTE

It cost the federal government more than $300 million for outside contractors to set up the Obamacare website that has had so much trouble in its first three weeks of operation.
Most of that money has gone to six contractors that together have received more than $200 million in taxpayer funds, with the biggest single contractor receiving $88 million.
Overall, the government has spent $394 million setting up the website and the exchanges through which the public can buy health insurance, according to a report earlier this year from the General Accountability Office, a government watchdog. While not all the money went into the troubled websites, most of it did.

QUOTE

Most of that money has gone to six contractors...

QUOTE

Obama lauded Comey, a former Justice Department official during the Bush administration, amid mounting scrutiny of the federal government's far-reaching law enforcement practices, specifically to counter terror threats.

QUOTE

President Obama repeatedly assured Americans that after the Affordable Care Act became law, people who liked their health insurance would be able to keep it. But millions of Americans are getting or are about to get cancellation letters for their health insurance under Obamacare, say experts, and the Obama administration has known that for at least three years.

QUOTE

Obama never knew that the program targeted American allies, officials said, adding that he was aware of collection efforts aimed at leaders of “adversarial countries.”

(GORDON @ Oct. 29 2013,18:45)

QUOTE

He was only in Congress for 2 years, wasn't he?

QUOTE

Through the stroke of a pen, President Obama on Friday used his executive powers to elevate and take control of climate change policies in an attempt to streamline sustainability initiatives – and potentially skirt legislative oversight and push a federal agenda on states.

QUOTE

Tell them you would like to purchase health exchange coverage, specifically the Blue Value Platinum 500 for Chatham County, NC.

QUOTE

The California Endowment, a private foundation that is spending millions to promote President Barack Obama's signature law, recently provided a $500,000 grant to ensure TV writers and producers have information about the Affordable Care Act that can be stitched into plot lines watched by millions.

QUOTE

Attorney General Eric Holder said on Monday that accused September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four alleged co-conspirators would already have been convicted and set for execution if they had been tried in civilian courts as Holder wanted in 2009.

QUOTE

What had the justices up in arms was Verrilli's assertion that a federal law implementing the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1997 was used properly against 42-year-old Carol Anne Bond for an attack that burned the thumb of her husband's lover.

QUOTE

In defending their prosecution, federal officials cite a 1920 precedent, Missouri v. Holland, in which the Supreme Court ruled Congress could supersede state jurisdiction when implementing a treaty — in that case, a pact with Canada on the treatment of migratory birds.

QUOTE

Tony Trenkle is the chief information officer at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency that built the Affordable Care Act’s online portal. He is in charge of Henry Chao, a deputy chief information officer at Medicare whose name came up in congressional hearings as the source of key HealthCare.gov decisions.
...
“Our chief operating officer announced yesterday Tony has accepted a position in private sector,” Medicare spokeswoman Julie Bataille told reporters this afternoon.

QUOTE

RALEIGH, N.C. — "Women drivers, rain and Obama care" were causing problems on the beltline Wednesday afternoon, according to a traffic alert from the North Carolina Department of Transportation. "Stay home," the alert advised.

QUOTE

In other words, this bill would make it more expensive to hire workers and cheaper to buy the technology to replace them.

QUOTE

But even that single person has not paid, which means the enrollment is not complete.

QUOTE

Mr. Obama promised to keep providing "unprecedented support" to veterans -- improving veterans' health care, reducing claims backlogs and providing them with access to education -- "even as we make difficult fiscal choices as a nation."

QUOTE

President Obama announced Thursday an administrative change in one of the bedrock ideas of the new health-care law, allowing insurers to continue offering individual insurance plans for another year even if they do not comply with the law’s rules for minimum benefits.

QUOTE

And apparently is king since he's just willy nilly making changes to laws.

QUOTE

The United States is formally in an ongoing limited state of emergency declared by several Presidents for several reasons.

QUOTE

Our company president sent out a scathing letter to employees about Obamacare this week. It's 7 paragraphs about how incompetent this administration is, and how the company will not cave in to save a buck, and will continue to pay for our medical insurance.

QUOTE

I generally don't like politics coming from my workplace.

QUOTE

The prayers during company events are a bit awkward though.

QUOTE

Mr. Obama conceded to CBS News chief White House correspondent Major Garrett, "My expectation was that for 98 percent of the American people, either it genuinely wouldn't change at all or they'd be pleasantly surprised with the options in the marketplace and that the grandfather clause would cover the rest. That proved not to be the case. And that's on me. And the American people -- those who got cancellation notices do deserve and have received an apology from me."

QUOTE

Just lower your head and think about sports. It's what I do.

As Winston Zeddmore once said, "If there's a steady paycheck in it, I'll believe anything you say."

QUOTE

I don't know what the amount of cash is that you'd have to pay to silence the part of my brain that screams out during forced processes of ritualized belief, but I'm betting it's higher than any salary I'll ever command.

I would make it a point to annoy them during such things.  Like wearing a shirt covered with Egyptian hieroglyphs and imagery with the line, "Osiris, the original messiah that rose from the dead."

QUOTE

"When you pray, don't be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get.

(Malcolm @ Nov. 14 2013,12:29)

QUOTE

< Fucking wow >.

"Fuck you and fuck your faith in me."

QUOTE

Forgive the personal reference, but from the very beginning of Mr. Obama's astonishing rise, I felt that I was witnessing something old and familiar. My advantage owed nothing to any mastery of American political history. I was guided by my immersion in the political history of the Arab world and of a life studying Third World societies.

In 2008, seeing the Obama crowds in Portland, Denver and St. Louis spurred memories of the spectacles that had attended the rise and fall of Arab political pretenders. I had lived through the era of the Egyptian leader Gamal Abdul Nasser. He had emerged from a military cabal to become a demigod, immune to judgment. His followers clung to him even as he led the Arabs to a catastrophic military defeat in the Six Day War of 1967. He issued a kind of apology for his performance. But his reign was never about policies and performance. It was about political magic.

In trying to grapple with, and write about, the Obama phenomenon, I found guidance in a book of breathtaking erudition, "Crowds and Power" (1962) by the Nobel laureate Elias Canetti. Born in Bulgaria in 1905 and educated in Vienna and Britain, Canetti was unmatched in his understanding of the passions, and the delusions, of crowds. The crowd is a "mysterious and universal phenomenon," he writes. It forms where there was nothing before. There comes a moment when "all who belong to the crowd get rid of their difference and feel equal." Density gives the illusion of equality, a blessed moment when "no one is greater or better than another."

QUOTE

Fifty-two Senate Democrats and independents voted to weaken the power of the filibuster. The change reduces the threshold from 60 votes to 51 votes for Senate approval of executive and judicial nominees against unanimous GOP opposition.
...
"The American people believe Congress is broken. The American people believe the Senate is broken. And I believe they are right," Reid said Thursday on the Senate floor. "The need for change is so very, very obvious."

QUOTE

At what point do they stop being the whackos?

(Malcolm @ Nov. 21 2013,20:57)

QUOTE

The real revolution would need to take place at the polls.  Just start voting nothing but third parties until the two major ones excise all the psychos.  You'd think that'd be easier than open warfare.

QUOTE

If an actual reform candidate every had a chance in hell of winning, he'd get Huey Long'd.

QUOTE

As a white latino who is conservative and make no fuss about it, I have simply taken the easier path to avoid more discussions on the issue and "please" the Liberal-left:

In 2000 I voted against Al Gore because he was the Democrat candidate, and I am not a Democrat.

In 2004 I voted against John Kerry because he was the Democrat candidate, and I am not a Democrat.

In 2008 and 2012 I voted against Barak Obama because...oh yeah, Im racist.

That's that. See? Easy.

QUOTE

Hillary Clinton is set to receive an award on Tuesday evening from the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) for her “legacy of leadership” in combating HIV/AIDS.

That may bit a bit awkward, given that, as secretary of state, Clinton riled AIDS activists by slashing the State Department’s programs for AIDS prevention and treatment. One prominent activist lamented in April the “persistent shortchanging of PEPFAR,” the AIDS relief plan established by President George W. Bush in 2003, calling it one of the “more significant and perplexing trends in America’s global health policy.”

QUOTE

It is almost enough to make me believe in god, and that he has a sick sense of humor.

QUOTE

In the podcast last night (which will be available tomorrow), we talked a lot about the coming Crisis. We tried to figure out exactly what the hell was going to happen on January 1st, given that Obamacare kicked five million people off their insurance, and would certainly not manage to sign up that many by the deadline.

Especially given that payments must be made by mail.

And that premiums are now very high.

And that one-third of all 834's sent to insurers are riddled with errors.

And that the whole system is in chaos.

What will happen January 1 when thousands of people have car crashes or other need for insurance, but don't have it, due to Obama's incompetence and stubborness?

John Ekdahl suggested that Obama will just order hospitals and doctors to treat anyone who says he has insurance, whether he does or not. I believe Ekdahl's term was that Obama will order everyone to be "deemed" as covered by insurance.

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The administration said it has fixed more than 70 software glitches over the past several weeks related to 834 forms.

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On the bright side if the health care industry does completely collapse in this mess, that would probably be a good thing.

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Indeed, the pollsters even confess that they “expected” to find more racism among Republican voters. “We expected that in this comfortable setting or in their private written notes, some would make a racial reference or racist slur when talking about the African American President,” they confess. “None did.”

But this response by the voters they surveyed is viewed by Democracy Corps pollsters more as a clever evolutionary response to a history of predation. The Republican voter, the pollsters declare, harbors racial consciousness that is only masked by an effective camouflage