It’s Tuesday, October 22ndt, 2013…and here’s The Gouge!
First up, Best of the Web offers its usual insight into The Dear Misleader’s latest attempt to defend the indefensible:
“The Affordable Care Act is not just a website,” President Obama said at the Rose Garden today. “It’s much more.” It’s like a chamois, it’s like a towel, it’s like a sponge.
Another way of putting it is that ObamaCare isn’t just a technical failure. And it isn’t just an economically unsustainable scheme. Now it’s a rhetorical disaster too. Even by the standards of Obama speeches it was terrible. It was so bad, it was the ObamaCare website of political oratory.
Fine, blame us. After all, we called for an Obama speech. But remember that what we called for–it was right there in the subheadline–was an accounting. What he gave us was an infomercial…
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304402104579149643667592428.html?mod=djemBestOfTheWeb_h
John 8:44, baby, John 8:44: You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
In a related item, the Washington Examiner‘s Mark Tapscott asks is…
Obama running the ‘most control-freak’ administration ever?
“Transparency? Hey, what’s that over there?!? Another GOP terrorist!”
Former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie has issued a stunning verdict on President Obama’s record in delivering “the most transparent administration in history.” Downie told an audience at the New America Foundation yesterday that “the Obama administration’s aggressive war on leaks, and its determined efforts to control information that the news media needs to hold the government accountable for its actions, are without equal since the Nixon administration.” Those efforts, Downie said, are “in direct conflict with President Obama’s often-stated goal of making his administration the most transparent in American history.”
Downie’s assessment holds particular significance because he speaks not as a conservative political partisan, but rather as a veteran Washington journalist who was one of the Washington Post desk editors on the Watergate stories that led to the downfall of President Richard Nixon. Downie recently authored a devastating report on Obama and the news media that was published by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
But it’s not just the Obama White House’s efforts to track down leakers providing documents to national security reporters, according to Downie. “At the same time, journalists told me, designated administration spokesmen are often unresponsive or hostile to press inquiries, even when reporters have been sent to them by officials who won’t talk on their own.” In other words, Obama and his appointees in the federal government are systematically trying to minimize the ability of the independent news media to hold government accountable.
As New York Times correspondent David Sanger told Downie, “This is the most closed, control freak administration I’ve ever covered.” The CPJ report is a must-read for anybody who cares about freedom of the press and speech.
Ensuring transparency and accountability in government is among the few issues left on the national political agenda that generally unites liberals and conservatives. And yet, the traditional media outlets covering Obama continue to treat him with kid gloves. When will they realize they are being had?
“Had”?!? They aren’t being had; they’re willing participants!!!
For more on those who refuse to face facts, even when they’re the result of their own research, we turn to this report from James Taranto:
Pauline Kael Lives!
Pauline Kael: never off the island of Manhattan…except to travel to the Hamptons!
“A finding in a study on the relationship between science literacy and political ideology surprised the Yale professor behind it: Tea party members know more science than non-tea partiers,” Politico reports. Dan Kahan, who teaches law, “wrote that not only did the findings surprise him, they embarrassed him”:
“I’ve got to confess, though, I found this result surprising. As I pushed the button to run the analysis on my computer, I fully expected I’d be shown a modest negative correlation between identifying with the Tea Party and science comprehension,” Kahan wrote.
“But then again, I don’t know a single person who identifies with the tea party,” he continued. “All my impressions come from watching cable tv–& I don’t watch Fox News very often–and reading the ‘paper’ (New York Times daily, plus a variety of politics-focused Internet sites like Huffington Post [sic] and Politico). I’m a little embarrassed, but mainly, I’m just glad that I no longer hold this particular mistaken view.”
It’s reminiscent of Pauline Kael, The New Yorker’s film critic who confessed after the 1972 election that she knew only one person who voted for Nixon. Kahan added, in Politico’s words, that Kahan said “the results wouldn’t change his negative views of the tea party.” That in itself is an interesting datum in the study of cognitive bias among intellectuals.
And a damning indictment of Progressives’ absolute inability to recognize facts inconsistent with their preconceived emotion-based outcomes…no matter how obvious.
Since we’re on the subject of those unwilling to admit the glaringly obvious, as John McCormack notes in The Weekly Standard…
At a Thursday afternoon press conference, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi was asked by The Weekly Standard if Obamacare should be delayed in whole or in part if healthcare.gov still isn’t working in November or December. “No, no,” Pelosi replied. “It has nothing to do with the programmatic part. It’s about technology.”
But some experts have warned that if the technology isn’t working weeks or months from now, Obamacare’s federal insurance exchange could be thrown into a “death spiral.” To function, the exchange needs enough young and healthy people to sign up, and if the healthcare.gov website isn’t working, the people most likely to take the additional time and effort to sign up will be old and sick.
On Thursday, Pelosi dismissed concerns about the continued failure of healthcare.gov causing a health insurance “death spiral,” saying, “No, no, I don’t think so.”
It isn’t entirely clear how long the administration has to fix the website without causing serious problems. “For now, the failure [of healthcare.gov] has mostly been a PR nightmare for the administration. But it has the potential to cascade into a crisis for real people if challenges continue too long,” Politico reported Wednesday. “Some industry officials point to Nov. 1 as a potential test for the system. That’s the day when the federal exchange is due to transfer thousands of Medicaid applications to state agencies.”
House speaker John Boehner has cited the website’s failure as a reason to delay the individual mandate. Under Obamacare, Americans who don’t have health insurance will be fined $95 or 1 percent of their income, whichever is higher, if they don’t purchase it by February 15. “How can we tax people for not buying a product from a website that doesn’t work?” Boehner asked on October 9.
This from the dimwit who didn’t know what was in the bill in the first place.
Speaking of dimwits, here’s a headline from Joe the Plumber’s website expressing a sentiment with which we wholeheartedly agree:
Whenever a politician from either side of the aisle, a member of the media, or anyone speaking on any topic involving you, your opinion, or your vote in the matter talks about the subject – they must first run the “McCain Disclaimer;” praising your service to this country. Lest anyone be seen as insensitive or ungrateful after 40 years of hearing anything you say or do premised with how much you have given – Mr. McCain, let me now say what every conservative has been thinking for a long, long time…
…What have you done for me lately?
http://joeforamerica.com/2013/10/officially-revoking-respect-john-mccains-service-country/
Lest anyone be seen as insensitive or ungrateful after 40 years of hearing anything you say or do premised with how much you have given – Mr. McCain, let me now say what every conservative has been thinking for a long, long time:
Let me tell you what you have done to this country…
Read more at http://joeforamerica.com/2013/10/officially-revoking-respect-john-mccains-service-country/#UvMA7wcb5wpkkTOc.99
Had Arizonans elected Jane Fonda to the Senate, she couldn’t have damaged America any more than John McCain.
Next up, in the “Your Tax Dollars at Work” segment, Dimocrats once again try to prove there is such a thing as a free lunch:
Lunch is free for all students in some Florida schools, due to new federal program
Want a free lunch? Take a seat at your local school cafeteria. A new federal program is giving Florida’s public schools a way out of verifying whether students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. The solution: expand subsidized meals to include all students whether they can afford to pay or not.
Known as the Community Eligibility Option, schools and even entire districts can now receive free breakfast and lunch if 40 percent or more of students’ families are identified as low-income.
And in International News of Note, we learn…
That’s nothing; a clown’s been killing most of America…
…for the past five years!
On the Lighter Side…
Then there’s this rather pointed assessment of the Unaffordable Care Act’s relative popularity from G. Trevor:
And in yet another sordid story ripped from the pages of the Crime Blotter…
Man Arrested For Throwing Parrot In Face Of Pursuing Police Officer
While being chased by a cop, a Connecticut man allegedly threw a parrot at his uniformed pursuer, who was bit on the hand when trying to shield himself from the feathered projectile. Luis Santana, 32, was arrested Tuesday night on several charges, including assaulting a police officer, disorderly conduct, and animal cruelty.
A patrolman responding to a call about a fight encountered Santana on a Waterbury street around 10 PM. When Santana bolted, bird in hand, Officer Gary Kichar gave chase. While fleeing, Santana turned and threw the white parrot at Kichar’s head. When the cop raised his hand to protect himself, the bird bit his finger. Kichar was treated at the scene for the bird bite. The parrot was initially turned over to animal control officials.
“Rawwwkk! I can do 5 years standing on my head!”
…Following the bird tossing, investigators learned of a burglary Tuesday evening during which jewelry and a parrot were stolen. Santana is a suspect in that crime, according to Deputy Chief Chris Corbett of the Waterbury Police Department. Corbett added that the parrot was later reunited with its owner.
Finally, in a related item, one more reason we won’t be visiting the Windy City any time soon:
Arkansas man robbed, shot dead after asking for directions in Chicago
Police say an Arkansas man was shot dead in Chicago by a man he stopped to ask for directions. The shooting occurred early Thursday. The Cook County medical examiner identified the victim as 55-year-old Robert Franklin of Blytheville, Ark.
Police spokesman Officer Jose Estrada says the man Franklin asked for directions climbed in the backseat and robbed Franklin and a friend at gunpoint. Estrada says the suspect left the car and shot Franklin four times in the back. Franklin’s friend drove him to a hospital around 4 a.m. Franklin was pronounced dead minutes later.
Estrada says nobody’s in custody. Detectives are trying to determine where the shooting occurred.
Tell us again how guns are the problem?!? Their other glaring faults notwithstanding, at least real gangsters…
…never killed anyone asking for directions.
Magoo
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