Archive for 2013
October 29, 2013
MESSAGING: Administration denies halting spying against American allies.
A senior administration official on Monday rejected Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Diane Feinstein’s claim that the U.S. has halted intelligence collection against its allies.
In a statement released earlier Monday, the California Democrat said that the White House “has informed me that collection on our allies will not continue.”
But the administration official called that statement “not accurate.”
“While we have made some individual changes, which I cannot detail, we have not made across the board changes in policy like, for example, terminating intelligence collection that might be aimed at all allies,” the administration official said.
After the administration’s statement, a spokesman for Feinstein clarified that the senator intended to say that the U.S. was ceasing “collection on foreign allied leaders.”
Apparently, they need some more time to get their stories straight.
NBC NEWS: Obama admin. knew millions could not keep their health insurance.
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.
Four sources deeply involved in the Affordable Care Act tell NBC NEWS that 50 to 75 percent of the 14 million consumers who buy their insurance individually can expect to receive a “cancellation” letter or the equivalent over the next year because their existing policies don’t meet the standards mandated by the new health care law. One expert predicts that number could reach as high as 80 percent. And all say that many of those forced to buy pricier new policies will experience “sticker shock.”
Advertise | AdChoicesNone of this should come as a shock to the Obama administration. The law states that policies in effect as of March 23, 2010 will be “grandfathered,” meaning consumers can keep those policies even though they don’t meet requirements of the new health care law. But the Department of Health and Human Services then wrote regulations that narrowed that provision, by saying that if any part of a policy was significantly changed since that date — the deductible, co-pay, or benefits, for example — the policy would not be grandfathered.
Buried in Obamacare regulations from July 2010 is an estimate that because of normal turnover in the individual insurance market, “40 to 67 percent” of customers will not be able to keep their policy. And because many policies will have been changed since the key date, “the percentage of individual market policies losing grandfather status in a given year exceeds the 40 to 67 percent range.”
That means the administration knew that more than 40 to 67 percent of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans, even if they liked them.
Yet President Obama, who had promised in 2009, “if you like your health plan, you will be able to keep your health plan,” was still saying in 2012, “If [you] already have health insurance, you will keep your health insurance.”
Yes, well, truthfulness is not his strong suit.
PETER FERRARA IN FORBES: The Obamacare Chaos I Warned About Calls For Obama To Apologize To Ted Cruz.
COMING OUT FROM THE FOLKS AT GARDEN & GUN: The Southerner’s Handbook: A Guide to Living the Good Life.
RICHARD VEDDER: Why Colleges Get An ‘F’ For Cost Control. “While sticker prices at universities now are growing at a slower rate than historically typical, they still are rising after inflation adjustment – annually about one percent (public schools) or two (private schools). The actual decline in enrollments last year (and possibly this year) has softened demand, but universities are very reluctant to slow their reliance on tuition revenues. That may be changing -a few schools have announced rare tuition reductions for next year. To really do that, though, schools are going to have to really cut costs – not merely reduce the rate of increase. The pressure to ax administrators, increase teaching loads, get rid of low enrollment majors, etc., is growing.”
In my new book, I suggest that U.S. News should reward colleges for lean administration by giving them more points the better the faculty/administrator ratio is. I also suggest that maybe administration should be outsourced to low-paid, benefitless contract workers, the way teaching already is. . . .
LAW AND LIBERTY: Angelo Codevilla: The War On Us. “Increasingly, the US government’s many police forces (often state and local ones as well) operate militarily and are trained to treat ordinary citizens as enemies. At the same time, the people from whom the government personnel take their cues routinely describe those who differ from them socially and politically as illegitimate, criminal, even terrorists. Though these developments have separate roots, the post-9/11 state of no-win war against anonymous enemies has given them momentum. The longer it goes on, the more they converge and set in motion a spiral of civil strife all too well known in history, a spiral ever more difficult to stop short of civil war. Even now ordinary Americans are liable to being disadvantaged, hurt or even killed by their government as never before. Government’s violent treatment of citizens has become generalized and unremarkable.”
WINNING FRIENDS: IRS: Bike Share Programs Are Not Tax-Free.
October 28, 2013
PEOPLE HAVE BECOME SO CYNICAL. A reader emails: “Glenn, I imagine any minute now the administration will be launching the proverbial cruise missile in order to distract the media from the Obamacare debacle. What do you think it will be?”
AT AMAZON, home renovation and decoration with the 2013 LookBook.
Also, Digital Deals Galore. Kindle books, music, and video.
LOOKING FOR WAR ON TERROR NEWS? Check out Fred Pruitt’s Rantburg. And if you like it, hit his tipjar. He’s earned it.
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Questions Rarely Asked, And Never Answered. “What is it about Detroit, Italy, or Greece that we do not understand?”
21ST CENTURY LAW ENFORCEMENT: Police smell meth, raid home, kill 80-year-old man, find no meth.
REMEMBERING Lou Reed’s Stand for Israel and against Anti-Semitism.
I agree with reader Dan Friedman that Reed’s best song was Sweet Jane, and I also agree that this Cowboy Junkies cover is great — though the best cover I ever heard, which as far as I know isn’t anywhere online, was by the Lonesome Coyotes.
NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Adding more chemical interactions to DNA nanotechnology.
BUSTING MARK STEYN for doom-mongering. I like Steyn, but more than most, he reminds me of why despair is a sin.
DISASTER PREP: The Lesson of Hurricane Sandy: Pay Now, Not Later.
There is a common assumption in Chicago that guns are the equivalent of free-roaming cobras, being lethal and unmanageable by any means except elimination. The more guns, in this view, the more murders and mayhem.
This belief persists even though nationally, the number of guns in private hands has grown steadily even as the crime rate has plunged. Guns in the hands of criminals are bound to lead to senseless bloodshed. But guns in the hands of upstanding citizens are no more likely to be abused than chainsaws or baseball bats.
Indeed.
RAMESH PONNURU AND RICH LOWRY: Against Despair. Nice essay, but why despair? Obamaism is in full collapse. And it would be even if the website launch had gone smoothly — it’s just happening a bit faster thanks to that debacle.
Related: Why The GOP Should Thank Ted Cruz.
WHAT DIFFERENCE, AT THIS POINT, DOES IT MAKE? George Will: Santorum Is Still Running.