We knew sooner or later someone in the media would pick up on this.  It appears Forbes is the first large media outlet to share what we have outlined for the past two weeks.  

The HHS website issues/flaws stem from the structural design to keep users from recognizing their cost. 

Forbes Magazine – A growing consensus of IT experts, outside and inside the government, have figured out a principal reason why the website for Obamacare’s federally-sponsored insurance exchange is crashing. Healthcare.gov forces you to create an account and enter detailed personal information before you can start shopping. This, in turn, creates a massive traffic bottleneck, as the government verifies your information and decides whether or not you’re eligible for subsidies. HHS bureaucrats knew this would make the website run more slowly. But they were more afraid that letting people see the underlying cost of Obamacare’s insurance plans would scare people away.

HHS didn’t want users to see Obamacare’s true costs – “Healthcare.gov was initially going to include an option to browse before registering,” report Christopher Weaver and Louise Radnofsky in the Wall Street Journal. (more…)

Two months ago with the Government shutdown a mere possibility, and the Debt Ceiling still far away from media discussions, we said the Obamacare tax waiver exemption -now being granted to businesses and not granted to individuals- would be added to the Continuing Resolution (CR) bill exempting unions from first year compliance.

It is now about to happen.

WASHINGTON DC – Labor unions are poised to score the delay of an ObamaCare tax in the bipartisan budget deal emerging in the Senate.
The bargain under negotiation would make small adjustments to the healthcare law, including delaying the law’s reinsurance fee for one year. The three-year tax is meant to generate revenue that will stabilize premiums on the individual market as sick patients enter the risk pool. (more…)

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.
For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †

The American Spectator has in its possession a construct of an e-mail sent by President Obama and DoD Secretary Hagle to all military members attacking Republican opposition to his agenda and the Government Shutdown.  A clear violation of the Hatch Act.

“Military and civilian employees of the federal government are absolutely prohibited from using government supplies, equipment, communication systems and facilities in any political activity.”   (DoD Memo)

The American Spectator has been provided with the text of a political message sent on Saturday evening, using Department of Defense communications systems, on behalf of President Obama and Secretary of Defense Hagel.
It is addressed to “all US government employees” and further specified by the DoD sender to go to “all subordinate commands,” in compliance with Hagel’s call for “the widest possible distribution.”
The message contains standard presidential lauding of public service, but goes on to attack the current government shutdown by specifically castigating the House of Representatives, saying that the House — which is unsubtle code for Republicans — should “follow the Senate’s lead…without trying to attach…partisan measures in the process.” (more…)

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed – and hence clamorous to be led to safety – by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”…..H.L. Mencken

What if you turned on the television and suddenly there were no more countdown clocks….no more talking heads discussing doomsday scenarios predicting a crippling government default?  How many of us can even remember looking forward to being entertained and informed when we sat down after a hard day’s work? 
I came to a sudden realization this past weekend as I watched countless numbers of veterans take back their monuments in D.C.   Veterans who stormed beaches, fought in jungles, and endured desert heat thought nothing of a few hastily erected “Barry-cades”.  Many of these veterans, most now in their nineties, weren’t going to be stopped by Obama any more than they were by countless other autocrats.   I’m going to take a lesson from them….and stop being told what I have to fear.

(more…)

The Democrats want to add removal of the “Sequester Cuts” into the budgetary maneuvers.  Essentially, last year the Dem’s made a strategic blunder;  thinking they had the Republicans backed into a corner with the following proposition:  ‘Either raise taxes *OR* watch horrible cuts to Defense spending”.  
What Dem’s didn’t realize at the time was the strength of the conservative pressure on the traditional GOP.   As a consequence the “Sequester” was not seen as unpalatable as Harry Reid thought, the common sense conservative electorate shrugged off the threat and said fine let the future military spending shrink – and retain tax rates. 
The outcome was Dem’s proclaiming the Sequester was the end of the world.  It didn’t end.  And so today….. 

(Baseline for discussion stems from Reuters Article Outline ) – Some U.S. senators said they were closing in on a deal Monday that would reopen the government and push back the deadline on the hard Debt Ceiling/Spending decisions for several months, though many hurdles remained as a Thursday 10/17 deadline drew near. (more…)

There are many similarities at work in the French electorate just like they are here.   The Front National Party (FN) is similar in view and position to the U.S. Tea Party.  However, the FN has an actual political structure.  Pay attention to this paragraph in the article (emphasis mine):

“The left and the mainstream right are blaming each other for what is happening, but the reality is they’ve both been knocked sideways,” said Nonna Mayer, the Research Director at the National Research Centre CNRS. “Neither of them know what to do.”

Sound familiar?

*Note* For those who don’t follow international politics closely Marine Le Pen is like a French version of Sarah Palin; albeit without the media attached misogyny.

FRANCE24 – France’s mainstream political parties were Monday scratching their heads over what to do about a surge by the Front National (FN) after a breakthrough by-election win for the far-right party.
The ruling Socialist party and the centre-right Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), the party of former president Nicolas Sarkozy, face humiliating reverses in municipal and European elections next year if the FN can sustain its current standing in the eyes of an electorate thoroughly fed-up with record unemployment, rising taxes and a perceived increase in crime and insecurity.
A poll published last week suggested the FN could emerge as the best-supported party in the European elections with 24 percent of those asked declaring themselves ready to back the party led by Marine Le Pen, the daughter of FN founder Jean-Marie Le Pen. (more…)

One person, that’s ONE PERSON, said:  “that be like stealin'”.   Like stealing?

“Springhill Police Chief Will Lynd confirms they were called in to help the employees at Wal-Mart because there were so many people clearing off the shelves. He says Wal-Mart was so packed, ‘it was worse than any black Friday’ that he’s ever seen”.

Louisiana – The Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) system allows recipients of government food stamps to purchase goods using a digital card with a set spending limit, but for a few hours over the weekend, that limit disappeared for many users visiting Walmart stores in Louisiana.

Walmart and local police in Springhill and Mansfield confirmed to CBS affiliate KSLA that officers were called into the stores to help maintain order Saturday as shoppers swept through the aisles at two stores and bought as much as they could carry.
Xerox, which hosts some of the infrastructure used by the EBT card system, told KSLA that a power outage during a routine maintenance test caused the temporary glitch.
Walmart workers phoned their corporate headquarters to ask how they should handle all the shoppers with unlimited, government-funded spending limits, and were told to keep the registers ringing. (more…)