Testimony Confirms Obamacare Lies

Posted on November 10, 2014November 10, 2014 by Denise Simon

As Jonathan Gruber will tell you, the MIT economist helped to write ObamaCare and remains one of its fiercest defenders. So it’s no surprise that on Friday the Web was full of chatter that Mr. Gruber had at least twice made public assertions that support the latest legal challenge to the health law.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week in Halbig v. Burwell that the plain language of ObamaCare says that subsidies for health insurance can only be delivered through state, not federal, exchanges. The Administration claims this ignores the clear intent of the law, but someone didn’t tell Mr. Gruber.

Now this case takes us to present day Congressional testimony where the esteemed MIT professor tells us they were able to sell Obamacare because of lack of transparency and mostly because America is stupid. Wait until the Supreme Court receives this testimony….or not.

We are stupid, we have been played and punked by the Obama administration on Obamacare and is thousands of cases it was a deadly position to be in.

Obamacare Architect: “Lack of Transparency” Helped Law Pass

The esteemed college professor who served as one of Obamacare’s key architects has admitted that a “lack of transparency” helped the administration pass the disastrous healthcare law, which is facing a number of legal challenges.

It’s a scandalous confession for an administration that has repeatedly vowed to be the most transparent in history. The information comes straight from Jonathan Gruber, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) economist who served as a technical consultant to the Obama administration during the Affordable Care Act’s (Obamacare) design. Gruber was recorded during a panel and the video recently surfaced and has been making the rounds on the internet.

“This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes,” Gruber says. “If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies. Okay, so it’s written to do that. In terms of risk rated subsidies, if you had a law which said that healthy people are going to pay in – you made explicit healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed… Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really really critical for the thing to pass…”

Gruber also makes clear that the individual mandate, upheld by the Supreme Court only because it’s considered a tax, was not actually a tax in the original law because it never would have passed. The Obamacare designer is essentially saying that the administration intentionally deceived the public to push its hostile takeover of the nation’s healthcare system. “Look, I wish Mark was right that we could make it all transparent, but I’d rather have this law than not,” Gruber says in the recorded presentation.

The Gruber tape marks the latest of many scandals involving Obamacare. Judicial Watch has been a frontrunner in exposing the healthcare law’s multiple boondoggles and has sued the administration on behalf of a South Florida orthodontist over the unlawful, one-year delay of the employer mandate. The mandate, which subjects certain large employers to tax penalties if they don’t offer “affordable, minimum essential” health insurance coverage to their employees, was postponed without the approval of Congress. It marked one of more than a dozen times that the administration unilaterally rewrote the healthcare law by executive fiat.

JW also sued the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to obtain records about controversial Obamacare navigators and their qualifications and background checks. Earlier this year JW obtained records from HHS illustrating the scope of the Obamacare rollout disaster, including the fact that on its first full day of operation the government site—Healthcare.gov—received only one enrollment. On the second day of Healthcare.gov operation, 48% of registrations failed, according to the records obtained by JW as a result of a lawsuit.

No Place Safe from CyberTerror

Posted on November 10, 2014November 10, 2014 by Denise Simon

Cant shop at Target. Cant use your plastic at restaurants. Cant use hotspots for internet access. Cant buy medical coverage from Obamacare. Now if you are an employee at many companies your information is compromised. Now, the United States Post Office has been hacked and signs continue to point to China while Russia is just as aggressive.

Postal Service reveals cyber breach

By Colby Hochmuth
Nov 10, 2014

The Postal Service suffered a cybersecurity breach of its information systems and has launched an investigation into the attack that potentially compromised employee and customer personal information, including addresses, Social Security numbers and emails.

The Nov. 10 announcement of the attack, which was discovered in September, comes little more than a week after the White House reported it too had been the victim of hacking.

As in the White House breach, suspicion immediately fell on China, where President Barack Obama is now attending an economic summit and visiting with President Xi Jinping.

“This intrusion was similar to attacks being reported by many other federal government entities and U.S. corporations,” David Partenheimer, manager of media relations at USPS, said in a statement. “We are not aware of any evidence that any of the potentially compromised customer or employee information has been used to engage in any malicious activity.”

12 other key federal breaches

But a private sector analyst suggested employees should be on the lookout, nonetheless.

“Unfortunately, this breach is just the latest in a series of incidents that have targeted the U.S. government,” said Dan Waddell, director of government affairs at (ISC)2. “It seems this particular incident revealed information on individuals that could lead to targeted spear-phishing attacks towards USPS employees.”

“All of us need to be aware of potential phishing schemes,” Waddell added, “but in this particular case, USPS employees should be on the lookout for any suspicious email that would serve as a mechanism to extract additional information such as USPS intellectual property, credit card information and other types of sensitive data.”

Call center data submitted to the Postal Service Customer Care Center by customers via email or phone between Jan. 1 and Aug. 16, 2014, is thought to be compromised; that includes names, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses and other information customers provided to the center. However, USPS officials said they do not believe customers who contacted the call center during that period need to take any action as a result of the incident.

USPS is working with the FBI, Justice Department and the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team to investigate the breach.

USPS is also tapping the private sector and bringing in specialists in forensic investigations and data systems “to assist with the investigation and remediation to ensure that we are approaching this event in a comprehensive way, understanding the full implications of the cyber intrusion and putting in place safeguards designed to strengthen our systems,” according to an agency statement.

According to an April 2014 USPS Inspector General audit on the security of USPS’s wireless networks, “the Postal Service has effective security policies and controls that detect unauthorized access to its wireless network.”

The audit also found that USPS has continuous monitoring technology and procedures to ensure security of the wireless network in place, and that larger USPS facilities have dedicated access points configured for wireless intrusion detection.

As for the security of USPS’s stored data, the OIG found several weak spots in a March 2014 report.

“The Data Management Services group did not manage the storage environment in accordance with Postal Service security requirements because its managers did not provide adequate oversight of the storage teams,” the report said.

In the first half of 2014, more than 500 million commercial records have been compromised by hackers, and “this represents another example of the aggressive nature of nation-state adversaries looking for personally identifiable information for potential phishing attacks and other types of fraud — an area where information can be easily monetized,” said Edward Ferrara, principal analyst at Forrester. “This could also be an attempt to further probe aspects of the United States government’s cyber defenses in the unclassified areas of government operations.”

USPS has implemented additional security measures to improve the security of its information systems, which attracted attention this weekend, as some of USPS’s systems went offline. According to USPS, these additional security measures include equipment and system upgrades, as well as changes in employee procedures and policies to be rolled out in the coming days and weeks.

“It is an unfortunate fact of life these days that every organization connected to the Internet is a constant target for cyber intrusion activity,” Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said in a statement. “The United States Postal Service is no different. Fortunately, we have seen no evidence of malicious use of the compromised data and we are taking steps to help our employees protect against any potential misuse of their data.”

About the Author:

Colby Hochmuth is a staff writer covering big data, cloud computing and the federal workforce. Connect with her on Twitter: @ColbyAnn.

Asia Pivot, Made in China

Posted on November 10, 2014November 10, 2014 by Denise Simon

The last visit Barack Obama made to China did not go well such that relations have soured on the diplomatic scale. The visit to China this week consumed huge resources to lay the groundwork in advance of the trip for the 2014 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation. Susan Rice spent the last weeks challenging the fact that China was so slighted during the 2009 extended trip that China has refused since to extend visas and temporary housing permits of Americans in China on business and with media.

First out of the gate, Obama delivered a most generous gift to China and that was to open a new front on visas for Chinese, from one year renewals to 5-10 years effective immediately claiming it will add to American jobs as it is touted that China infuses $80 billion yearly into the U.S economy. $80 billion is hardly a great sum or epic deal when in fact the Chinese hacking world costs the U.S. corporate industry billions and is a top concern of James Comey, Director of the FBI.

It should also be noted that Russia has been quite effective at cultivating a sustained relationship with China while China’s own economy has almost zero growth and their debt ratio to revenue ratio is stagnant cancelling out each other.

China has presented many issues that must be addressed prior to all the enhanced trade talks and global policy cooperation. China has been most aggressive towards yet other U.S. allies in Asia causing outrage and conflict in the S. China sea with regard to island and territory disputes. There is also censorship within the internet industry and continued human rights issues, both of which the White House and the State Department overlook for the sake of placing a happy face on Obama’s foreign policy strategy.

China does have issues when it comes to its own infrastructure including transportation, medical advancements, factories, power and use of energy sources like oil and gas. Each of those conditions facing China are being addressed in partnership with Russia.

Obama will also use his time in China to push for more attention and resources when it comes to Climate Change, an exclusively assigned mission given to John Podesta and investment treaties.

A topic that will likely not receive any time and attention is the Chinese relationship with North Korea and the associated human rights violations on the heels to two Americans being released from a DPRK prison allegedly managed by ODNI Director James Clapper this past weekend.

In summary, what is really behind Obama’s policy platform in China? Well with the beating he took in the midterms, his policy team has decided to focus on the economy. Obama wants Chinese money and he offered a visa pass to get their money. Going visa free in exchange for money is the common ‘go-to’ agenda of the Obama Administration. Question is, exactly who DOES benefit from the $80 billion of Chinese investment where winners and losers are predetermined by the White House.

Rich Chinese overwhelm U.S. visa program

Any foreigner willing to commit at least $500,000 and create 10 jobs in America can apply for an investor immigrant visa — also known as an EB-5.

The demand from mainland Chinese eager to move abroad has already led the U.S. government to warn the program could hit a wall as early as this summer.

Chinese nationals account for more than 80% of visas issued, compared to just 13% a decade ago, according to government data compiled by CNNMoney. That translates to nearly 6,900 visas for Chinese nationals last year, a massive bump up from 2004, when only 16 visas were granted to Chinese.

“The program has literally taken off to the point [that] in China, the minute anybody hears I’m an immigration lawyer, the first thing they say is, ‘Can we get an EB-5 visa?’ ” said Bernard Wolfsdorf, founder of the Wolfsdorf Immigration Law Group.

“There is a panic being created in China about the demand [getting] so big that there is going to be a visa waiting line,” he said.

Mauldin’s Cartoons for Veteran’s Day

Posted on November 10, 2014November 10, 2014 by Denise Simon

He meant so much to the millions of Americans who fought in World War II, and to those who had waited for them to come home. He was a kid cartoonist for Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper; Mauldin’s drawings of his muddy, exhausted, whisker-stubble infantrymen Willie and Joe were the voice of truth about what it was like on the front lines.

Mauldin was an enlisted man just like the soldiers for whom he drew; his gripes were their gripes, his laughs their laughs, his heartaches their heartaches. He was one of them. They loved him. He never held back. Sometimes, when his cartoons cut too close for comfort, superior officers tried to tone him down.

In one memorable incident, he enraged Gen. George S. Patton, who informed Mauldin he wanted the pointed cartoons celebrating the fighting men, lampooning the high-ranking officers to stop. Now! “I’m beginning to feel like a fugitive from the’ law of averages.” The news passed from soldier to soldier. How was Sgt. Bill Mauldin going to stand up to Gen. Patton? It seemed impossible. Not quite. Mauldin, it turned out, had an ardent fan: Five-star Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, SCAFE, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe. Ike put out the word: “Mauldin draws what Mauldin wants.” Mauldin won. Patton lost. If, in your line of work, you’ve ever considered yourself a young hotshot, or if you’ve ever known anyone who has felt that way about him or herself, the story of Mauldin’s young manhood will humble you. Here is what, by the time he was 23 years old, Mauldin had accomplished:+ “By the way, wot wuz them changes you wuz gonna make when you took over last month, sir?” He won the Pulitzer Prize & was on the cover of Time magazine. His book “Up Front” was the No. 1 best-seller in the United States. All of that at 23. Yet, when he returned to civilian life and grew older, he never lost that boyish Mauldin grin, never outgrew his excitement about doing his job, never big-shotted or high-hatted the people with whom he worked every day. I was lucky enough to be one of them.

Mauldin roamed the hallways of the Chicago Sun-Times in the late 1960s and early 1970s with no more officiousness or air of haughtiness than if he was a copyboy. That impish look on his face remained. He had achieved so much.

He won a second Pulitzer Prize, and he should have won a third for what may be the single greatest editorial cartoon in the history of the craft: his deadline rendering, on the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, of the statue at the Lincoln Memorial, slumped in grief, its head cradled in its hands. But he never acted as if he was better than the people he met. He was still Mauldin, the enlisted man. During the late summer of 2002, as Mauldin lay in that California nursing home, some of the old World War II infantry guys caught wind of it. They didn’t want Mauldin to go out that way. They thought he should know he was still their hero. “This is the’ town my pappy told me about.” Gordon Dillow, a columnist for the Orange County Register, put out the call in Southern California for people in the area to send their best wishes to Mauldin. I joined Dillow in the effort, helping to spread the appeal nationally, so Bill would not feel so alone. Soon, more than 10,000 cards and letters had arrived at Mauldin’s bedside. Better than that, old soldiers began to show up just to sit with Mauldin, to let him know that they were there for him, as he, so long ago, had been there for them. So many volunteered to visit Bill that there was a waiting list. Here is how Todd DePastino, in the first paragraph of his wonderful biography of Mauldin, described it: “Almost every day in the summer and fall of 2002, they came to Park Superior nursing home in Newport Beach, California, to honor Army Sergeant, Technician Third Grade, Bill Mauldin. They came bearing relics of their youth: medals, insignia, photographs, and carefully folded newspaper clippings. Some wore old garrison caps. Others arrived resplendent in uniforms over a half century old. Almost all of them wept as they filed down the corridor like pilgrims fulfilling some long-neglected obligation.” One of the veterans explained to me why it was so important: “You would have to be part of a combat infantry unit to appreciate what moments of relief Bill gave us. You had to be reading a soaking wet Stars and Stripes in a water-filled foxhole and then see one of his cartoons.” “Th’ hell this ain’t th’ most important hole in the world. I’m in it.” Mauldin is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Last month, the kid cartoonist made it onto a first-class postage stamp. It’s an honor that most generals and admirals never receive. What Mauldin would have loved most, I believe, is the sight of the two guys who keep him company on that stamp. Take a look at it. There’s Willie. There’s Joe. And there, to the side, drawing them and smiling that shy, quietly observant smile, is Mauldin himself. With his buddies, right where he belongs. Forever.

What a story, and a fitting tribute to a man and to a time that few of us can still remember. But I say to you youngsters, you must most seriously learn of, and remember with respect, the sufferings and sacrifices of your fathers, grandfathers and great grandfathers in times you cannot ever imagine today with all you have. But the only reason you are free to have it all is because of them.

With this stamp, the U.S. Postal Service honors Bill Mauldin, one of America’s favorite cartoonists. During World War II, military readers got a knowing laugh from Mauldin’s characters Willie and Joe, who gave their civilian audience an idea of what life was like for soldiers. After the war, Mauldin became a popular and influential editorial cartoonist.

U.S. Postal Service art director Terry McCaffrey chose to honor Mauldin through a combination of photography and an example of Mauldin’s art. The photo of Bill Mauldin is by John Phillips, a photographer for Life magazine; it was taken in Italy on December 31, 1943. Mauldin’s cartoon, showing his characters Willie and Joe, is used courtesy of the 45th Infantry Division Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Military People

Gorbachev Warning Cold War, Useful Idiots

Posted on November 9, 2014November 9, 2014 by Denise Simon

The phrase ‘useful idiots’, supposedly Lenin’s, refers to Westerners duped into saying good things about bad regimes.

Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin used the term “polyezniy idiot” or “useful idiot” to describe sympathizers in the West who blindly supported Communist leaders.

The adulation of left-wing dictators and strongmen by Western intellectuals, journalists, and celebrities didn’t begin with Stalin (in 1921 Duranty had hailed Lenin for his “cool, far-sighted, reasoned sense of realities”), and it certainly didn’t end with him. Mona Charen chronicled the phenomenon in her superb 2003 book “Useful Idiots,” which recalls example after jaw-dropping example of American liberals defending, flattering, and excusing the crimes of one Communist ruler and regime after another. Fidel Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Mao Zedong, the Khmer Rouge, Leonid Brezhnev, Kim Il Sung, the Sandinistas: Over and over the pattern was repeated, from the dawn of the Bolshevik Revolution to the collapse of the Iron Curtain — and beyond.

And so now we have a former Russia leader Gorbachev sounding the clarion call to the West, especially Europe that not only are you idiots but you are ‘irrelevant as a global power’, The matter did not begin with Lenin and Stalin and will not end with Putin until it goes far beyond Ukraine and into the Baltics, of which the KGB ‘useful idiot’ program for recruiting and indoctrination is already underway.

By Bettina Borgfeld

BERLIN (Reuters) – Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev warned in a speech in Berlin on Saturday that East-West tensions over the Ukraine crisis were threatening to push the world into a new Cold War, 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Gorbachev, who is credited with forging a rapprochement with the West that led to the demise of communist regimes across Eastern Europe, accused the West, and the United States in particular, of not fulfilling their promises after 1989.

“The world is on the brink of a new Cold War. Some say that it has already begun,” said Gorbachev, who is feted in Germany for his pivotal role in helping create the conditions for the Berlin Wall’s peaceful opening on Nov. 9, 1989, heralding the end of the Cold War.

“And yet, while the situation is dramatic, we do not see the main international body, the U.N. Security Council, playing any role or taking any concrete action.”

The conflict in eastern Ukraine has killed more than 4,000 people since the start of an uprising by pro-Russian separatists in mid-April.

Russia blames the crisis on Kiev and the West, but NATO says it has overwhelming evidence that Russia has aided the rebels militarily in the conflict.

Gorbachev, 83, also criticized Europe and said it was in danger of becoming irrelevant as a global power.

“Instead of becoming a leader of change in a global world, Europe has turned into an arena of political upheaval, of competition for spheres of influence and finally of military conflict,” he said.

“The consequence inevitably is Europe weakening at a time when other centers of power and influence are gaining momentum. If this continues, Europe will lose a strong voice in global affairs and gradually become irrelevant.”

Speaking at an event at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, Gorbachev said the West had exploited Russia’s weakness after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

“Euphoria and triumphalism went to the heads of Western leaders,” he said. “Taking advantage of Russia’s weakening and the lack of a counterweight, they claimed monopoly leadership and domination of the world, refusing to heed words of caution from many of those present here,” he said.

Gorbachev said the West had made mistakes that upset Russia with the enlargement of NATO, with its actions in the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya and Syria and with plans for a missile defense system.

“To put it metaphorically, a blister has now turned into a bloody, festering wound,” he said. “And who is suffering the most from what’s happening? I think the answer is more than clear: It is Europe.”

(Writing by Erik Kirschbaum; Editing by Rosalind Russell)

By Nicolas Miletitch

Donetsk (Ukraine) (AFP) – Armoured convoys headed to bolster rebel positions in east Ukraine Sunday as shelling rocked separatist stronghold Donetsk and fears mounted of a return to full-scale fighting.

Shelling rumbled on throughout the afternoon on the edge of Donetsk, where government forces regularly exchange heavy fire with insurgent fighters, but was less intense than overnight when mortar fire was heard close to the centre for around two hours, an AFP journalist reported.

It was among the fiercest combat in the city since the September 5 signing of a frequently-violated ceasefire that halted all-out confrontations across most of the conflict zone but failed to end constant bombardments at strategic hotspots.

An AFP crew saw a convoy of 20 military vehicles and 14 howitzer cannons without number plates or markings driving through the rebel town of Makiivka in the direction of the nearby frontline around Donetsk.

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) voiced concern Saturday after its monitors witnessed unmarked columns of tanks and troop carriers moving through east Ukraine in territory held by pro-Russia separatists.

The sightings of armoured columns came after Ukraine’s military said Friday a large convoy of tanks and other heavy weapons entered the country from Russia across a section of border that has fallen under the control of rebel fighters.

Russia denies being involved in the fighting in the east.

However, it openly gives the rebels political and humanitarian backing and it is not clear how the insurgents could themselves have access to so much sophisticated and well-maintained weaponry.

In March, Russian soldiers without identification markings took over the southern Ukrainian region of Crimea. Moscow annexed the peninsula shortly after.

The OSCE reports from the east came as fears mounted of a total breakdown in the two-month truce, with the war having already killed some 4,000 people, according to UN figures.

Ukraine’s military said Sunday that three servicemen were killed and thirteen injured as shelling hit government positions around the region.

Rebel leader Alexander Zakharchenko risked heavy fire Sunday morning as he toured the insurgents’ forward positions around the ruins of the Donetsk airport, where Ukrainian troops are battling fiercely to maintain a toe-hold, Russian outlet LifeNews reported.

“They continue to bombard our aiport, nothing is changing,” Zakharchenko was filmed as saying.

– Tanks, cannons, tankers –

Unidentified military columns have been seen increasingly by foreign journalists in the east in recent days, and Ukraine’s military on Sunday repeated allegations that Russia is covertly deploying troops to bolster rebels ahead of a fresh offensive.

The OSCE’s statement gives weight to concerns that the stuttering peace process could soon be ditched definitively.

“More than 40 trucks and tankers” were seen driving on a highway on the eastern outskirts of Makiivka, said the OSCE representatives, who are in Ukraine monitoring the ceasefire.

“Of these, 19 were large trucks –- Kamaz type, covered, and without markings or number plates –- each towing a 122mm howitzer and containing personnel in dark green uniforms without insignia. Fifteen were Kraz troop carriers,” the report said.

Separately, the OSCE monitors said they had seen “a convoy of nine tanks moving west, also unmarked” just southwest of Donetsk.

The OSCE said all these forces were on territory controlled by the separatists’ self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic.

The Swiss foreign minister and OSCE chairperson-in-office, Didier Burkhalter, said he was “very concerned about a resurgence of violence in the eastern regions of Ukraine”, and urged all sides to act responsibly.

– New Cold War? –

The conflict has sent relations between Western backers of Ukraine and Russia to their lowest level in decades.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is gearing up for a fraught week of diplomacy with visits to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Beijing and Group of 20 meeting in Brisbane, Australia, where he looks likely to face a hostile reception from Western leaders.

The last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, said the world “is on the brink of a new Cold War” sparked by Ukraine.

“Some are even saying that it has already begun,” Gorbachev said at an event Saturday marking the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Russia’s economy is suffering from European Union and US sanctions imposed in response to Moscow’s support for the separatists.

With Russia welcoming last week’s rebel elections, which were billed as boosting the separatists’ claim to independence, the sanctions look set to remain in place — and possibly be reinforced.